Roots

Because the “team that must not be named” won the Super Bowl, let’s talk about the commercials. If you’ve not seen any of them, check them out at “You Tube.”

The ad creating a lot of buzz is a celebration of the American farmer. It’s so well done that I had to Google to find out what the ad was promoting (Dodge Ram trucks, in case you’re interested).

The ad works because it’s nostalgic and the images used are diverse and moving in their simplicity. The ad works because in focusing on the farmer we in our fast-paced, you can buy it at “Whole Foods” culture, get teary-eyed and weak-kneed recalling a more innocent, slower, easier way of life. Call it our “Little House on the Prairie” longing.

I confess I’ve found myself watching the ad a few more times. It takes me back to my childhood when Ma and Pa Snyder had one of the grandest gardens in South Buffalo township and I remember slow-paced summers helping Dad to plant the corn and taking a break under the shade of a big maple tree and swigging cold water from a glass gallon jug.

I believe we are connected to the land from where we’re from and those roots need to be re-visited and re-claimed. Being too distant from where things are planted and tended and gathered and prepared strains the soul.

With every meaning of the word, we need to be grounded.

sj;

A day for advocates

Today, 4 February, is the birthday of two prominent advocates: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rosa Parks. Both are lights to follow in our individual and corporate callings to do what is just, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly. (Micah 6.8)

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran minister living in Germany during the dark days of Hitler. The questions he asked of disciples are timeless --- what does your discipleship cost you and how important is the building and maintaining of community?

The most still-stops-me-and-makes-me-think quality about Bonhoeffer was that he came to believe that Hitler must be stopped and plotted with others assassination. Did you catch that? A devoted, discipled clergyman actively engaged in efforts to kill Hitler. In fact, it was the failed assassination plot that resulted in Bonheoffer’s arrest, imprisonment, and execution.

Bonhoeffer makes me think. Bonhoeffer is a living paradox that cannot easily be labeled, boxed, and neatly categorized and easily dealt with; he troubles the waters.

We know the story of Rosa Parks and on what would have been her 100th birthday; the US Post Office issued the “Rosa Parks Stamp.” The clean and tidy story from our school days presents a Rosa as a meek and mild woman who after a long day of work was tired and just needed to sit down.

Think again.

Truth be told, she was a fiery, committed activist completely engaged in the cause of civil rights and she had been chosen and prepared for this action. When she would not be moved, she had no idea how the story was going to end nor what might happen. She did it anyway. Her courage inspires.

What’s the gift for us received in the life-stories of these two advocates?
It’s that they continue to stir us and, if we get stirred enough, move us to respond.

Is your faith neat and tidy and mostly lived out in a pew?

What have you risked?

Do you see, hear, and feel any cause that stirs you to action?

The answers are found in how we live.

sj;