Stumbling Stones of Remembrance

 

I have been reading a very thoughtful book, “Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil” by Susan Neiman. Neiman reflects on how Germans have sought to atone for the evil acts of their past and she contrasts that with how the United States has dealt with the racist evil of our own history. It was a fascinating read in light of the arguments about confederate symbols and monuments that are occurring in the United States right now. In Germany, there are no state-sanctioned symbols or monuments honoring the Nazis. This was a conscious decision: why would the perpetrators of one of the most heinous crimes against humanity be remembered and revered in public places?

In fact, in many cities across Europe, there are memorials to the victims of the holocaust, as a way to honor those who were tortured and murdered and to never forget the atrocities. In 1992, artist Gunter Demnig began a project that has become the largest decentralized memorial in the world: the Stoplerstiene, or, the Stumbling Stone project. These stumbling stones are small square metal plaques, placed in the last place a Nazi victim voluntarily lived or worked. The stones list the person’s name, dates of birth, deportation, and death, if known. At the end of 2019, more than 75,000 stones had been laid. And it is not only Jews who are remembered: ALL the victims of Nazi persecution are remembered: people of different ethnicities and nationalities, LGBT persons, people with disabilities, and religious and political resisters.

The stones have not been without controversy: some people argue that there is nothing that honors the memory of a holocaust victim by stepping over their nameplate. But as one of the artist’s assistant’s said, “I can’t think of a better form of remembrance. If you want to read the stone, you must bow before the victim.”

I wonder what we in the United States can learn from this? We are still arguing about the place of Robert E. Lee and confederate monuments and commemorative places. Why do we honor those who sought to break apart the Union because of their belief that it was okay to own another human being? How does this continue to embed racism in our nation’s soul?

What if we had plaques in communities, commemorating those who suffered under slavery? What if we had stumbling stones in places with black and brown skinned people were murdered? What if every community across the Mountain Sky Conference did the same research communities in German are doing:

“Stolpersteine remain a grassroots initiative. Local groups – often residents of a particular street, or schoolchildren working on a project – come together to research the biographies of local victims, and to raise the €120 it costs to install each stone.” (https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/18/stumbling-stones-a-different-vision-of-holocaust-remembrance)

Imagine our churches doing this research, discovering a hidden history of racism and oppression and atoning by marking the place where a person of color was wrongfully treated, dehumanized, or murdered. How would it change how we walk down those streets? How would it change how we look at people who don’t look like us? How would it change the world for everyone?

The Baton Has Been Passed...to US

 

I confess, my heart is heavy.

This has been an intense season of loss, both in our conference and in our country, with the passing of our spiritual and moral giants. Three civil rights leaders—Rev. Gil Caldwell, John Lewis, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg—have fallen. These elders poured out their lives in pursuit of justice, right relationship, and equality. And they didn’t stop as they aged or became infirmed. They kept writing and witnessing for a better world.

Their work inspired us, taught us, and motivated us to keep on keeping on. Their life stories showed us that the only thing that makes something impossible is the lack of imagination and will. They showed us how faith is an undergirding force that can carry us through opposition, injustice, and oppression and help us achieve a God-preferred future for humankind.

It is easy, in the midst of grieving such loss, to fall into a hopeless despair—there is a void where once stood inspired leaders. But our faith teaches us that death is not an ending. God is more powerful than death and will break it open so that new life can emerge.

We are the heirs to the wisdom, courage, and commitment of these beloved ones. We are the ones who have been give the baton they once carried. We now possess so many possibilities: will we simply cry our tears and shirk from the responsibilities they have handed to us? Or will we, while eyes still moist, rise up to continue the work they left unfinished? Can we allow ourselves to let the Spirit empower us to carry on the creation of God’s Beloved Community?

And if not us…if not you and me…then who?

Be well. Stay safe. Wear a mask.

With love,

Bishop Karen

 

 

We Are the Somebodies Who Were Once the Nobodies

 

Recently, my thoughts have been with one of the congregations I served in San Francisco, Bethany UMC. There was a memorial for Dan Johnson, one of the members who left a profound mark on the life of the congregation. I have been thinking often of the people in that church and the ministries we shared.

One my favorite stoles was given to me by the women of the church. They had made a quilt for all the men in the congregation who had died of AIDS, and the pattern of the stole was the border of the quilt.  Whenever I wear this stole, I remember the men who died, and also the women who commemorated them, all of whom have passed themselves.

To be a pastor in San Francisco in the early 90’s, at the very epicenter of the AIDS epidemic, was to be in constant crisis and funeral mode. Yet one more positive diagnosis, one more death. It was a heart breaking experience, holding the hands of young men who looked decades older than their years as they lay dying. Often, parents had abandoned their dying sons. Others chose not to tell their parents they were ill, for fear of rejection. The song that often ran through my head during that time was the spiritual:

            Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows my sorrow. 

The men diagnosed in those first couple of decades knew most intimately the anguish found in this song. In those days, contracting HIV made one a social outcast by mainstream culture. Folks did everything they could to hide the signs of the disease. People lost jobs, lost housing, lost their families, if their diagnosis was discovered.

            Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows my sorrow.

As a country, as a community of faith, we were guilty back then of being the nobodies. We were the nobodies who averted our eyes from a disease that was ravaging an entire group of people. We were the nobodies who refused to look deep into the sorrow of those who tested positive. We were the nobodies who failed to offer a compassionate response to the sick. We were the nobodies who neglected to offer care. We were the nobodies who allowed the government to turn its back and ignore a disease that would soon spill into other segments of the population.

            Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows my sorrow

            But as people of faith, we know that through the grace of God nobodies become somebodies. We are called to be somebody who has empathy with another’s experience. We are called to be somebody who seeks relationship with those who are suffering. We are called to be somebody who is moved to action. We are called to be somebody who is not content with the status quo. We are called to be somebody who challenges not just institutional responses to injustice and oppression, but somebody who challenges the individuals around us to reach out, to serve, to make a difference.  We are called to be somebody who is willing to take risks and make sacrifices.  We are called to be somebody who is committed to removing the stigma of discrimination.  We are called to be somebody who is not content until together we have created a just world.

We are the somebodies who were once nobodies. As followers of Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, we will no longer avert our eyes from the troubles, we will no longer ignore the sorrow of any sibling who suffer.

Take My Hand

My heart hurts.

Too many families are grieving this day as communities of color particularly suffer from the impact of illness and racism.

My heart hurts.

The ideological divide in our country has deepened to the point that the very actions that can keep communities healthy and thriving have been politicized and as a result, people are dying.

My heart hurts.

It feels as if the only news is bad news and I keep asking myself, “Is there any word from God?”

My heart hurts.

Social isolation is affecting mental health and recovery.

My heart hurts.

What is the state of your heart?

John Wesley, in his sermon, “Catholic Spirit”, wrote: "If your heart is as my heart, take my hand." 

We need to take each other’s hands. Connected to one another, through love, causes us to bear our siblings’ burdens. It opens us to the lives of others—their joys and their pain, the places where they hurt and the parts that are tender.

Just as God loves us with a love that will never let us go, when we hold each other’s hands we commit to staying connected even when we would rather turn away from the experiences of another. It causes us to stay in the conversation even when it is hard. It expands our view as we see through another’s eyes a world that may be so unlike our own. When we take each other’s hands, we agree to build a world together where suffering, injustice, pain and poverty are vanquished.

Whose hands do you hold? Whose lives are you willing to fight for?

I know my heart isn’t the only heart to hurt. Take my hand.

May we find comfort in the Psalms that promise us, “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” Together, we can push back on all the forces that denigrate, defile and deny the image of God that each person possesses.

Be well! Stay safe! Wear a mask!

Midwifery and Other Subversive Acts

This week’s lectionary is from Exodus: it is the story commonly referred to as “Moses in the Bulrushes”—how the baby Moses was sent down the river in a basket by his mother to escape death. As I read it, I have been looking at all the subversive acts done by the enslaved Hebrew women. Pharaoh, seeing the captive Hebrews increase in numbers, calls on Puah and Shiprah, two Hebrew midwives, to kill any male babies they help deliver. Being faithful to God and their people, they do not carry out the order and when asked by Pharaoh why there are so many male babies, the women said that the Hebrew women had a strength not found in Egyptian women and had their babies before the midwives could arrive. Pharaoh sees the increase in numbers of male babies and orders his people to throw any male Hebrew child in the Nile.

Moses’ mother could no longer hide the child, so wraps him up in a basket and sends him down the Nile…directly towards Pharaoh’s daughter! Moses’ sister Miriam was right there waiting, and seeing Pharaoh’s daughter totally smitten by the baby, steps in and asks if she needed someone to nurse the baby. Pharaoh’s daughter sent her off to find someone, and Miriam knew exactly who to get—her and Moses’ mother! 

Because of the actions of the midwives and Moses’ sister and mother, an enslaved people would be led to freedom.

Such subversive activity! 

I have been wondering about where I have accepted oppression, injustice, and death-inviting policies, with no thought to the harm done to myself or others. I wonder if I could have the strength and faith of the two midwives, who refuse to turn birth into a death sentence and instead lie so that others could live?

On Friday, author Debby Irving of “Waking Up White” helped us see how we have unquestioningly accepted policies and practices in our communities and in our country that have enslaved and oppressed siblings of color, how we have been provided a partial view of history that empowers whites and disempowers non-whites. 

I give thanks for those brave souls throughout history who responded with subversive actions to create spaces for liberation and life when injustice and death seemed to have the upper hand. It is because of their faithfulness that many of us have the opportunities we have now.

At this moment in history, you and I are being called to become midwives. In the face of unjust social rules that destroy the souls of others, we are being asked to do the subversive work of justice and dismantle oppressive structures that deny the image of God in others. Jesus himself—no stranger to subversive acts—calls us to love God and neighbor. In a world where love is seen as weak and where we are taught to be suspicious of strangers, love, indeed, becomes a very subversive thing, because it always leads to right relationships, deep connections, and justice.

Let the midwifery begin!

Be well! Stay safe! Wear a mask!

The Spiritual Practice of Stability

This summer, I have been spending a lot of time reading books by Benedictine nun Joan Chittister. In the midst of social distancing and sheltering at home, it seemed like a wise thing to spend time with a monastic! Currently, I am reading “Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today.” In this book, she breaks down the Rule of St. Benedict, which were a set of guidelines for monastic living, which included ordering the day into hours for prayer, study, work, fellowship, and attending to the needs and health of the community, to show how it can inform contemporary life.

I have been reflecting on her chapter “Stability: Revelation of the Many Faces of God”.

We are currently in the midst of a time of great social instability. It feels as if all that we once rested on—the good and the bad—are now up for grabs and the very institutions we found comfort in are in the midst of tremendous change. What does “stability” look like in our current climate? How is finding and committing to stability a spiritual practice for us?

Even before COVID-19, Chittister critiqued our engagement with stability: “The problem is that perseverance and persistence are aspects of stability which the present word counts little. If our children don’t learn, we blame the teachers rather than expect the students to study harder. If the book is difficult, we don’t read it even if the intellectual struggle would be worth it. If the show is too long, we leave early even if that wastes the price of the ticker. If the work is hard, we quit.”

Ouch. This hit close to home!

She goes on to explain why stability is necessary: “Stability, however, says that we have an obligation to see things through until we have done for them what can be done and, no less important, until they have done for us what can be done as well.” (p. 151). Stability, with its aspects of perseverance and persistence, impacts not only others, but ourselves as well: “We stay with a thing in order to grow, not in order not to grow…I will certainly fail to learn a great deal about myself if I leave a thing before it’s finished. I will fail to learn the strengths that give me quality. And I will fail to face the weaknesses that call for change. I will end up being less than I can be.”(p. 152-153)

In the Rule of Benedict, stability’s first task is remaining steadfast in our relationship with God. In this way, stability centers “us in something greater than ourselves so that nothing lesser than ourselves can possibly sweep us away…Stability says that where I am is where God is for me.”

Chittister turned my understanding of stability upside down: stability isn’t the place where everything stays the same. It is an engagement that invites sticking with something long enough to be changed by it. And for this reason, stability is a spiritual practice: by committing to stability, we are opening ourselves up to growth, change, and conversion.

How are you creating and maintaining stability in these days we are living? What are you learning about yourself? Where are you committing yourself to growth even when the going gets hard? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Get Out of the Boat!

 This week’s lectionary is the story of Jesus walking on water as he came to the disciples, whom he had sent off on a boat. You will recall that when the disciples first saw Jesus walking on the water, they assumed it was some sort of specter and were afraid. But then Jesus told them, “Fear not! It is I!” Peter responded, “If it is you, then, let me come to you.” Jesus beckoned for Peter to come. Peter jumped out of the boat and began to walk on the water! It was only when he took his eyes off Jesus and realized there was a storm around him that he began to flounder and sink. Jesus reaches for him and asks why he had so little faith and they return to the boat.

As I reflected on this scripture this week, I am seeing so much more than I did before (I love how God does that!). The first thing that nudged me, which I hadn’t caught before, was that Peter actually did walk on water at first! It was only when he took his eyes off Jesus that the divine power that flowed through him because he was connected to Jesus was broken, overcome by his fear. How often do I, do we, start to do great things but get overwhelmed because we stop keeping the main thing (God) the main thing? When we are one with God, we are empowered to do things beyond our wildest imaginations. What is Christ beckoning you to do, that defies all reason? How has your fear prevented you from moving forward?

The second thing that I learned has to do with a part of the church: the nave. That is what the part of the church where the congregation sits. Nave originates from the Latin word “navis” which means…(wait for it!) “ship”.

It got me thinking: Jesus told the disciples to get into the boat, but he also says, “Come out!” Faith is not meant to be lived just in the boat. In fact, it would be hard to do all the things God asks of us if we stayed in the boat! Likewise, we can’t be the hands of Christ in the world if we just stay in the nave.  Christ asks us to leave the safety of the nave for a world that is most unpredictable, sometimes violent and even frightening, yet in need of the hands and heart of Christ which we are called to bring into the world.

Right now, we’ve been pushed out of the boat.

COVID-19 has forced us to leave the safety of the boat (in fact, if we don’t follow very careful instructions, the church building itself is no longer safe even). Yet, isn’t this what is expected of disciples of Jesus? We are not called to live out our faith from the safety of the sanctuary. Comfort and ease is not promised to us when we agree to take up our cross and follow Jesus. There is much to fear. But when we keep ourselves focused on God, we can do great things. And right now, the world needs great and necessary things from us.

How is Christ calling you and your church to leave the boat? What is being asked of you? Remember, we can do the unimaginable when we remain faithful in our discipleship.

Step out and do the outrageous. There is a hurting world in need of what you can bring to it.