Author Archives: Gordon C. Stewart

Unknown's avatar

About Gordon C. Stewart

I've always liked quiet. And, like most people, I've experienced the world's madness. "Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness" (Wipf and Stock Publishers, Jan. 2017) distills 47 years of experiencing stillness and madness as a campus minister and Presbyterian pastor (IL, WI, NY, OH, and MN), poverty criminal law firm executive director, and social commentator. Our cat Lady Barclay reminds me to calm down and be much more still than I would be without her.

Our Lady of the Crusades Redux

Posted on by
6

 

Crusader Madonna and Child courtesy of Via Lucis Photography (Dennis Aubrey and P.J. McKey)

Crusader Madonna and Child courtesy of Via Lucis Photography (Dennis Aubrey and P.J. McKey)How differently people of different times view life is masterfully illustrated by Dennis Aubrey’s post . .Dennis Aubrey’s post .

Dennis Aubrey’s post The Throne of Wisdom demonstrates how peoples’ views of life are shaped by their times in history.

During the Crusades, Mary and the Jesus of the Gospels become the authorization for killing Muslims. The executed Jesus of Nazareth becomes the Knight Templar, angrily taking up the sword against the unbelievers. Mary, the iconic “Mother of God” of Catholic and Orthodox Christian veneration, is turned into the Mother of Christian Jihad.

Pictured below is an altogether different Madonna  (12th Century from Notre Dame de Vauclair, Église de Molompize, Molompize [Cantal] Photo by Dennis Aubrey) who seems to be looking with horror at what is happening.

Notre Dame de Vauclair, Église de Molompize, Molompize (Cantal) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

Notre Dame de Vauclair, Église de Molompize, Molompize (Cantal) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

There is a great struggle today over which Madonna to enthrone.  Our Lady of the Crusades is back. For example, click HERE for Sen. Tom Cotton, author of the letter to Iran signed by 47 U.S. Senators, interviewed by CBS host Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation.

Thanks to Dennis and P.J. for prompting this post. When we look carefully at where we come from, we sometimes see the darkness today in the clearer light.

 

 

Verse – John 3:16

Posted on by
Reply

Steve’s contribution today is on a well-known, often memorized verse of Christian Scripture.

John 3:16

John could have said God loved only
the Hebrews, or, like him, those who
were followers of Jesus. He,
instead, said, God loves not the few,
but the whole world–how can it be?*

(*This insight comes from the Rev. Jim Montgomery, Decatur, Illinois, who is in no way responsible for any errors in this poem.)

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 17, 2015

The Silencer Debate

Posted on by
Reply

“Minnesota lawmakers Tuesday weighed the perceived virtues and dangers of reversing the state’s ban on firearm silencers.“ – Star Tribune, March 13, 2015.

Increasingly we live in separate worlds of perception. We ask ourselves “What am I doing here?”

The committee room at the State Capitol was packed. The committee chair wore a camouflage sports jacket, a visual statement that requires little explanation. Or maybe it does. Hunters wear camouflage. So do soldiers. The firearms industry loves them equally – hunters and soldiers – because the former provides a market in the private sphere while the requirements of war-making guarantee a steady flow from the public trough.

Also before the committee was a proposal to permit guns on the grounds of the State Capitol without first registering with the MN State Department for permission.

It’s confusing why any of us – regardless of how one interprets the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution – would want people walking around the State Capitol building with guns. Can someone please explain why that’s a good idea?

On the silencer question proponents argued that silencers were in the interest of firearm users’ health. Silencers lower the decibels and thereby protect the shooter’s ears from the danger of hearing loss incurred by loud noises. Opponents argue that free access to gun silencers is a recipe for more killing, killing more quietly, and expanding the market of gun manufacturers.

The faith tradition – the view from the edge – from which I listen and watch finds all of this more than strange. Not abnormal, but very strange. I’m trying to hear the “still, small voice” translated anew as “a sound of sheer silence” heard by Elijah on Mr. Horeb?

He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” – I Kings 19:11-13 [New Revised Standard Version]

What are we  doing here?

 

Visual Poetry

Image

Reply

Steve flies kites all night when the weather is just right. Last night the kite was poetry in motion over the Illinois prairie. Photo by Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 16, 2015.

Visual poetry

Visual poetry

 

Climate change or just weather?

Posted on by
Reply

Cyclone PamReading  The Atlantic story – “A Cyclone that Destroyed a Nation” [March 15, 2015] – about the category 5 storm that has left most of Vanuatu’s population homeless, brought to mind our earlier post, Winston Churchill on Climate Departure.

New Zealand and Australia are coming to the rescue with massive aid. The question that hovers over every compassionate relieve and rescue attempt is how many rescues it will take before “we” – the human species – plan differently for habitable habitations that take climate change as inevitable.

“The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are now entering a period of consequences…. We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now…” – Winston Churchill

Click A Cyclone that Destroyed a Nation to read the story in The Atlantic. Then chime in on the topic of climate change, weather, and climate departure.

– Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, March 16, 2015

Verse – Me, Me, Me

Posted on by
Reply

Some reasons are easily told
Why I am always so bold
To speak out the loudest,
To simply be proudest,
And all the attention to hold:

For I am the oldest of four
And no one can come through the door
Who’s nearly as great
Since I’m six foot eight!
However, I must tell you more…

I know that pride is the worst sin.
It besets me day out and day in.
But how can I fight it,
Or try to deny it:
I’m tall, dark, and handsome–and thin!

But most think one eighth of a ton
Is NOT slim, and that I’ve begun
To prevaricate,
And exaggerate,
And really I’m tall, bald, and dumb…

Okay, I admit that I’m fat.
My head is too big for my hat.
I apologize
for all but my size–
My parents at birth gave me that.

[5 limericks for Lent]

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 14, 2015

The Shoemaker brothers

The Shoemaker brothers

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blank Verse: Singing the Old Hymns

Posted on by
4

When I was 15, Dave was 12,
and Joel was 8, and Jim just 4.
Our Baptist parents went to church
with us in tow four times a week:
for Sunday School and Church, of course,
but also service Sunday night,
impromptu, repetitious prayers
on Wednesdays, choir practice each week
on Thursday nights. We played with friends
from school when we walked home from class,
but church and school and play, repeat
repeat, was our whole life. We four
are almost all retired, and none
are Baptist now, but we still sing
the old-time Gospel hymns–if we
have had enough to drink…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 13, 2015

The Shoemaker brothers

The Shoemaker brothers

 

Barack Obama after the Presidency?

Quote

Posted on by
7

Ever wondered what President Barack Obama will do after he leaves office? 

The President’s 50th Anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” speech in Selma, Alabama is a masterpiece in the tradition of the Church of the Bridge (see earlier post “The Church as Bridge” on Views from the Edge). Think of the President as pastor-preacher in the prophetic preaching tradition that speaks truth to power, celebrates hope, honors courage, and preaches a gospel that calls us all to cross the Pettus Bridge toward the world for which our hearts yearn.  The President’s speech was, in fact, a sermon rooted in Hebrew and Christian Scripture, freely quoted from memory.

Click HERE to hear the President on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

Elizabeth and the Pipeline Patriot

Posted on by
5

Imagine your name is Elizabeth. You’re 64 years old. Your grandparents have left you and your sister an inheritance – farm land – in Storm Lake, Iowa. You and your sister grew up next door to Iowa in Nebraska and, though you now live in another state, you’ve looked on with pride as Nebraska put the screws to the Keystone XL pipeline.

You’re sitting at home. The phone rings. You answer. The voice on the other end represents an oil company from North Dakota.

After you finish talking with the man on the phone, you email your Nebraska high school girlfriends describing the conversation. It reads like this:

Another oil company – Dakota Access, LLC – is planning to run a pipeline from North Dakota through South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. They wanted to pay us $16,000 plus three years of crop damage for easement on our Iowa land.

I had a rather funny conversation with the young representative from Texas who was sitting in Storm Lake, Iowa contacting land owners and farmers. When I asked him if it was voluntary, he said, “We are told not to discuss that.” What? (I already knew it was, just wanted to see what he would say.)

So they are telling people that a pipeline is coming and not that they don’t have to do it. I asked him why landowners would want to do this and he said, “Well, for the compensation involved and…for the nation.” I laughed out loud.

Then we talked about the environment and Nebraska and the recent pipeline spill in western North Dakota, and how I thought our leaders better get it together or we were going to destroy the planet. At which time he said, “Maybe we should have a woman president.” He had me for a moment until he said, “21 days a month, my wife is the nicest person on earth.” Seriously. He is from Texas.

We ended the conversation with me suggesting a nice young man like himself should get into the windmill business and then give me a call back. He said he would take me OFF the list, with a note – don’t bother trying to talk to this lady again. Amen brother. (until it turns into eminent domain 😦

Happy Valentine’s day to all you women who used to be nice 21 days a month but now….skies the limit.

The conversation is real. It happened to Elizabeth while sitting at home in Princeton, New Jersey. Do I hear a vote for another Elizabeth for President?

– Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, March 12, 2015. Elizabeth’s email, sent originally to her dear friend Kay Stewart, is reprinted here with Elizabeth’s permission. The coloration of the text and the links have been added to the original.

Verse – After Wine

Posted on by
Reply

after wine 
aboard ship

is the
rolling
of my
walk
from
the wine
or from
the sea

is the
full moon
on the
waves
weaving
webs
of silver
water

is the
love
we found
when younger
bright as
moonlight
rich
as wine

– Steve Shoemaker, cruising the Caribbean, March 12, 2015