LESSONS from HENRI and WOLFGANG

 What a week for those born under the sign of Aquarius (feel free to pause and hum or sing loudly one of the great songs, “Age of Aquarius”)…..January 24 was the birthday of Henri Nouwen,  January 27 is Mozart’s birthday and Saturday is Gandhi’s.  Of this listing, the one most unfamiliar, I’m guessing, is Henri Nouwen.  

Henri, a Dutch Catholic priest, gave us the notion of the wounded healer and encouraged honesty and realness about our wounds and hurts and to use those experiences in connection and healing. 

 

When I was a kid, one wore a band-aid with a sense of pride and if the cut required one of those larger bandage patches you provided evidence to your bad-ass-ness.  A popular disinfectant of my growing-up days was mercurochrome, when applied it burned, “that’s how you know it works” said my father while my mother applied and blew, applied and blew in an effort to take away the sting.  Mercurochrome left a pinkish orange stain on one’s skin providing another visible stamp of toughness. Of course, casts and crutches were the grand images of grit.  

As adults we hide our hurts and keep private our pain.  We don’t ask for help and if offered will quickly say “it’s OK, thanks.” Stereotypes and stigma draw us even further inside of ourselves. In my work with persons living with behavioral health concerns one of the best programs I led was the creation of a Human Library wherein persons participated in a training learning how to tell one’s personal story with passion, precision and purpose.  The individual stories were shared at community events, college classrooms and themed teach-ins. The project was two-fold ---- one, to encourage persons to share their stories and in doing unstick the label and smash the stereotype and, two, to educate the shared community and break the stigma. Storytellers connected and their willingness to share their personal journey provided a healing space.

Mozart was a genius, composing his first piece at the age of six. I don’t know about you, yet, at that age, I was mastering the wooden sticks and showing off my pink-tinted arm and my bandaged knee. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart said, “I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.” May we all be real, resilient and whole in our connections and building and living into shared community.

Unity….unity….unity…..that is the word and the focus of the moment; it was the centerpiece of President Biden’s inauguration address, his anchor point of his administration, and as synchronicity would have it, in the Christian faith tradition we are about to conclude the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which started January 18 and concludes January 25. Did you miss that one?  I’m not sure “Hallmark” has a line of cards for it, yet, perhaps. The suggested theme for this year’s observance is “abide in my love and you shall bear much fruit.” (John 15.1-17).  In my observation if anyone has strong evidence of a whole lot of unity in the country, the world and, yes, the church, then, with all due respect, me thinks one is bananas. 

We are so polarized we are unable to even agree on what unity looks like.  What are the rules for dialogue?  What does each side (…sigh…) agree to give up for the whole to come together?  How do we begin?

 

For example it’s been nearly fifty years (!!!) that the United Methodist Church has chosen sides, debated, defended and declared hostilities around how should the church respond to the inclusion, involvement and institutional standing of members of the LGBTQ community. 

 

In the WPA Annual Conference when I was president of the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) and the “central casting” representative of the liberal wing each yearly meeting grew more and more combative and contested. Both sides disagreed on everything ranging from how we understood scripture to where we gathered to socialize in the evening ---- the conservative wing went for ice cream and the liberal side headed to the local pub for a beer.  

 

The idea of a beer float for unity was never considered, yet, at one conference session during a heated debate, I stood at the microphone on the floor of the conference and suggested we form a dialogue team to study and discuss the issue. A representative from the conservative team arose, agreed and the Conference Dialogue Team on Homosexuality was formed.  Each side selected 6 members (we were going after that Biblical number 12 thing) and we agreed to hold monthly meetings, initially gathering at table, over a shared dinner.  

 

For our first gathering it was suggested that we share the stereotypes held and labels we attached to the “other side.” It was a bit surprising and unsettling to learn that persons thought liberals didn’t read or study scripture.  Perhaps they thought we preached form the poetry of Walt Whitman.  “I Sing of the Body Electric” sermon title posted on the church sign board would’ve caused quite a few raised eyebrows.   

We met monthly for nearly a year and created a video to share at the next conference.  I’d like to report that we established unity and understanding. Nope….this issue has, is and ultimately will fracture the church. 

For the discussion of unity, where our effort fell apart was the inability to hear, listen to and understand the hurt, pain, loss and anger of one another; to find the shared humanity in the “other.”  I admit, after another General Conference defeat and no recognition of the hurt it caused, I had enough and stopped attending the meetings and moved onto a more inclusive community of faith.  Alas, I cannot, nor do I want to move onto another nation.  We have to figure this one out and make the effort to move past all the hyperbole and hate.  Is that possible? How? Who? When?

 

FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS

To set the scene, the Jewish people are in exile and a nasty named Haman plots to kill them…all of them. The heroine of the story is Esther who saves her people.  It’s a great story!  Found in the Old Testament, after Nehemiah and before Job (it’s OK to use the table of contents to find a book in the Bible.  I never understood why more folks do not and instead will leaf through the book for minutes searching as if one’s place in heaven rests on knowing the order of the books of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures……) The book of Esther is short and is the narrative foundation for the Jewish Feast of Purim. In the fourth chapter, Mordecai, Esther’s cousin tells her that “perhaps she has become queen for such a time as this.” 

I’ve been involved in advocacy efforts where that verse, “for such a time as this” was our anchor point.  It’s very stirring and inspiring to think the moment in which we were present was our destiny and we were placed in position to meet it.  

 

The verse raises the question are we shaped by the times in which we live or are we divinely placed to influence and positively affect and impact the times in which our stories unfold?

Today, is Inauguration Day.  Always historic, yet, doubly so today as we will inaugurate Kamala Harris as the first woman Vice-President in our nation’s history. (Also, the first person of color and the first of South-Asian descent).  As a woman whose grandmother had birthed 10 children before she could exercise her right to vote and personally as one whose first time to vote pulled the lever for the first woman on a presidential ticket….this inauguration day is one to celebrate! 

 

What times we are in. As a nation we are scared, angry, divided, sick, broke and seemingly beside ourselves. Cue Joseph R. Biden, Jr.  He’s run for president two previous times and flamed out early in the process.  This time he won fair and there.

 

Joe Biden has known great loss and deep grief.  He’s the best person for these times in which we find ourselves, steel ourselves and make our way through. We need to name the loss, we need to grieve, we need to heal. Is he the president for “such a time as this” ----- personally, I don’t believe God gives two figs about our grand democratic experiment any more than the Divine is concerned about the government in New Zealand or Germany or Sierra Leone.  Yet, as an American, I believe his life experience and his decency are exactly what is needed now.