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.

Nothing

Posted on by
13

I have wrestled through the night after a packed church gave voice to highly charged emotions and views of guns in America. I’m asking how in the world we move forward…together…and confess: I don’t know. I just know that we have to try. But I’m weary this morning. I have no answers. This poem could not have arrived at a better time.

Nothing

I have nothing…

nada…zilch…zero…

no thoughts, no ideas,

no inspiration.

 

Worse, only clichés

crowd my mind:

stock images,

standard phrases,

or remembered words

wielded by real writers.

 

Feeling only frustration,

tempted by alliteration,

or worse, rhyme…

Theft?

Is it worse to plagiarize 

than to leave a blank page?

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL Feb. 6, 2013

It occurred to me that we’re not alone.

Ecce Homo - "Here is the Man" Albrecht Durer

“Ecce Homo” Albrecht Durer

Can we get along?

Posted on by
5

NOTE: This personal reflection was written yesterday (Tuesday, Feb. 5) in advance of last night’s public dialogue on “The Epidemic of Gun Violence in America” that drew 138 people. Even arranging the program was fraught with difficulty.

Tonight a series of public dialogues on the causes and remedies of gun violence begins at 7:00 PM at the church I am privileged to serve in Chaska.

How do we have this conversation? Can we talk? Can we all get along?

Every word, every phrase, is a powder keg. All speech is suspect. We listen not with open ears to hear a different point of view. We approach each other with suspicion, reacting defensively or aggressively to any hint that the conversation might be prejudiced against one’s own point of view. Even a title is a land mine.

I love the U.S. Constitution. I also don’t like guns. My only experiences with guns have been negative. The assassinations of President Abraham Lincoln in the Booth Theater and JFK in Dallas; Martin Luther King, Jr. supporting the striking sanitation workers in Memphis; presidential candidate Senator Robert Kennedy. A gun has only one purpose: to shoot something or someone. It has other use. Violence is often committed with one’s own fist. But capacity to hurt or destroy does not define a hand. A foot may kick, but that’s not why we have feet. A baseball bat picked up in a moment of rage is a lethal weapon, but it is not by definition a weapon; its purpose is to hit a baseball within the rules of baseball. A car can become a lethal weapon in the hands of a car bomber, but its purpose is transportation, to get us from here to there and back.

The human capacity for violence is deep and ineradicable. It’s in our DNA. The story of Cain’s slaying of his brother Abel is not about the beginning of human history; it is one of the defining facts of human nature itself. As my tradition puts it in a Prayer of Confession, “We are prone to evil and slothful in good.”

My tendency toward evil is often the conviction that I am right. I need to be reminded that my experience with guns is not the same as it is for those who grew up on a farm or a ranch where guns serve the purpose of killing a wolf or coyote or of putting down an injured horse out of mercy. The experience in rural America is altogether different from the small town outside a major city in which I was raised, and it is different from urban centers by reason of low population density. My ownership of a gun on the farm is not a threat to the person next door in a tenement or in the housing development of the suburb. Guns in rural America serve a different purpose. And, it seems to me, the split and the suspicion regarding guns and violence in America is to a great extent defined by these two very different social experiences, demographics, and cultures.

Having spent the last two weeks trying to organize a series of respectful conversations in the wake of Newtown has taught me how difficult it is to have conversation. Fear of the other is rampant. “I won’t appear on the same program with him. He’s an extremist.” Or, “I don’t think I’ll come. I don’t like trouble.” Or, “You bet I’ll be there. We’re going to pack the house.”

But the gospel of Jesus which is the center of Christian faith calls us to live by the Spirit of the Living God, not by fear or suspicion. Christ himself was the human “other” – the one on whom every side projected its hatred of the other side – and ultimately the representative of the “Wholly Other” who is other to us all.

“Whoever says, ‘I love God’ and hates his brother/sister,” is a liar; for whoever does not love his brother/sister whom he has seen,  cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that those who love God should love their brother also.” (First Letter of John 4:20-212).

I also find wisdom in the organizing principles of my religious tradition. The Preliminary Principles of Church Order (adopted in 1789) gives some advice for how to conduct ourselves when we strenuously disagree. They are called “preliminary” because they are the core principles for how we believe we are called to interact as the children of God. We believe

…” that there are truths and forms with respect to which people of good character and principles may differ. In all these it is the duty both of private Christians and societies to exercise mutual forbearance toward each other.”

– “Preliminary Principles of Church Order (1789 at the organizing of the Presbyterian Church USA).

I’m trying my best to do my duty. Can the Pastor with strong personal views also serve as the Moderator? Can I promote the duty to exercise mutual forbearance toward each other?  Can we talk? Tonight how will we answer Rodney King’s haunting question: “Can’t we all just get along?”  Lord, take my hand and lead us on to toward  the light.

The Second Amendment and Slavery

Posted on by
10

What is the “Militia” of the Second Amendment and how did “the right to bear arms” get there?  Thom Hartmann summarizes a different account of what we now know as the Second Amendment. Please chime in after you’ve read through the piece.

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery.

Posted on by
2

This thoughtful post arrived this morning. Well worth the read regardless of whether one is a photographer. Once again, thank you, Dennis and PJ for the beautiful photography and thoughtful commentary.

Dennis Aubrey's avatar

We get requests from many photographers, both experienced and novices, who want to understand what it takes to shoot at these churches. We have provided technical explanations already – we have discussed our camera gear, the lenses that we use and our procedures on a shooting trip.

We always stress the importance of preparation; to have an idea of what is important in a church; whether or not it will be crowded, the time of day you might be shooting, the time of year, and whether special permission will be required. It is also important to know something about what is unique or distinctive in the church. We once shot at the Cathédrale Saint Etienne in Cahors without realizing that the most remarkable feature of the church was the magnificent north portal in an alley on the opposite side of the main entrance. It was a good excuse to…

View original post 1,438 more words

Out of the Mouth of Woodbine Willie

Posted on by
4

“Woodbine Willie” is a strange name for an Anglican priest. The nickname was given to

G. A. Studdert Kennedy (18813 - 1929)

G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883 – 1929)

G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929) by the battered troops of the British forces to whom he ministered in World War I.

The name came from the “Woodbine” cigarettes he gave to the troops. Woodbine Willie grew up among the desperately poor. He had two great passions: the church and social reform. He never winced and, oh, how he was loved by what were then known as “the common people.” He was a fighter for social justice and human rights, but he also advocated civil conversation, what he called “a plane” upon which people of differing views and good conscience would come together to resolve a problem.  Think about the current national debate in the wake of the tragedy at Newtown.

“There is, and there must be, a plane upon which we can think and reason together upon questions arising out of our wider human relations, social questions, that is, apart from and above party prejudice and sectional interest. If it is not so, and there is no such plane, and we can not think of these big questions outside the prejudices and passions that arise in party strife, then it is safe to assert that there will never be any solution of the problems whatsoever. The idea that politics in the true sense – that is, the art of managing our human relationships on a large scale – must remain a separate department of life, distinct from morals and religion, is ultimately irrational and absurd, and is an idea with which no  responsible teacher ought to have anything to do. – Sermon, “The Church in Politics: a Defense”

Tomorrow night, Tuesday, Feb. 5, Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church in Chaska will do its best to provide “a plane” for reasonable discussion of the epidemic of gun violence in America. 7:00 – 8:30 PM. Hope and pray that it be an evening where we step back to discuss “the big questions outside the prejudices and passions that arise in party strife.”

Feeling blue

Posted on by
2

The blues struck this week. A sense of longing. You might even say a kind of fainting.

Psalm 84 leaped up for attention, quite by accident. It’s a psalm of enormous contrasts, almost bi-polar in its highs and lows.  Joy and longing sit right beside each other like first-born and second-born twins. No sooner is Praise born (“How lovely is Thy dwelling place!”) than faith’s twin, Longing, is born – the longing, the sense of estrangement that yearns to be united with the lovely dwelling place: “My soul longs, yea, faints for the courts of the LORD….”  It is this Psalm that inspired Johannes Brahms’ Requiem, sung here by a combined choir in a lovely place in Atlanta, Georgia. Bring the blues to the music of the Psalm and see what happens.

Public discussions of gun violence in America

Posted on by
Reply

Thanks to the editor of The Chaska Herald for this piece on the series on “Gun Violence in America” that begin next, Tuesday, Feb. 5 at Shepherd of the Hill Church in Chaska.

Click “Public discussions of gun violence begin” to read the article.

Protect Minnesota has agreed to be part of the Feb. 19 program.

The Worm

Posted on by
1

the worm

unknown insinuated itself in-

side the mind of the communicator,

insistently removing all the in-

formation that was thought to be secure.

…

the end

of facebook, youtube, ibm and e-

mail now is certain:  malware winning o-

ver anti-virus systems– the old e-

vil adam-lurking where there is no prayer.

…

[Chinese Hackers Infiltrate

New York Times Computers 

Jan. 31, 2013]

– Steve Shoemaker, Jan. 31, 2013

 

NOTE: Click HERE for the NYT story.

Stan Musial and the other Cardinal

Posted on by
Reply

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published this piece on the Roman Catholic Cardinal with the red cap and the late Stan Musial who wore the red cap of the St. Louis Cardinals. Click “One cardinal remembers another: Cardinal Timothy Dolan on Stan Musial” for an interesting read.

Out of the Mouth of William Stringfellow

Posted on by
4
Jacket of "My People Is the Enemy"

Jacket of “My People Is the Enemy”

“Let all religious people beware. Their earnest longing for God is predicated on the reservation on their part that it is necessary for them to do something to find God. The Word of God in the Bible, however, is that God does not await human initiative of any sort but seeks and finds [people] where they are, wherever it be.”

– William Stringfellow, Count It All Joy (Eerdman’s, 1967).

Inspired by Stringfellow’s writings, six students at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago gathered weekly at 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday mornings with Professor Bruce Rigdon to reflect together on our late-night (10: p.m. – 2:00 a.m.) “bar ministry” at Poor Richard’s, a “secular” place, in light of Stringfellow’s writings. God was already present everywhere; our privilege was to recognize it in the world.

Outside the fence at the seminary students from the Moody Bible Institute targeted McCormick people with tracts that threatened Hell for the liberal “sinners” who didn’t recognize the depth of human depravity. They wanted to save the “wretched” seminarians who scorned every hint of a shame and guilt as the starting point of the Christian faith. We believed that grace was amazing and that it was everywhere, but Amazing Grace‘s “saved a wretch like me” was the language of Moody, a wallowing in shame and guilt from which we were proud to have been freed.

It’s 1966 in Chicago’s Old Town entertainment district. Kay Zimmerman, a dear friend and classmate who lost her sight at the age of nine, and I walk into Poor Richards arm-in-arm. The bar is unusually full. A young man jumps up on a table with his guitar and starts to strum out  the hymn we seminary students ridiculed for it’s wretched theology of human wretchedness: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me…” and everyone rose to their feet to join . “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

Several years following ordination, the Chaplain of Milliken University (Decatur, IL) invited me to an evening with “Bill” Stringfellow. It was two weeks before Stringfellow was to undergo major exploratory surgery for a misdiagnosed illness that threatened his life. During an evening in Bill Bodamer’s home Stringfellow spoke in terms that captured my attention in a new way.

It was during that visit that I began to move theologically from the prevalent paradigm of good v. evil to what Stringfellow argued was the biblical paradigm of life v. death. Even yet today, I am still moving from under the spell of my own form of pietistic slavery to “goodness” into the freedom for which Christ has set me free.

Over the years that followed, Bill became a guest in our home during his visits to campus ministry programs at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Northern New York Campus Ministry (Canton, NY), and The College of Wooster (Wooster, OH). My children remember this frail man with the searching eyes, sensing perhaps that his physical frailty not only revealed a human frailty he never denied but a powerful faith in God’s great extravagance.

“The absolution from pietism is that there is no way at all to please God, no way to strike a bargain  with Him, no necessity to meet Him half-way,…no way in which His godliness can be diluted in dependency upon human enterprise. The futility of pietism, ending as it does in honoring death in the name of fidelity to God, is that God has triumphed over death already, in the here and now of this life. What is given to men, in that triumph, is not to add to God’s achievement, since it is decisive, and it is not to complete His work, since God is not negligent, and much less to ridicule God’s passion for this world by resort to moralistic legalism, mechanistic ritualism, doctrinaire meanness or any similar religious exercises.

…

“The vocation of men is to enjoy their emancipation from the power of death wrought by God’s vitality in this world. The crown of life is  the freedom to live now, for all the strife and ambiguity and travail, in the imminent transcendence of death, and all of death’s threats and temptation. This is the gift of God to all in Christ’s Resurrection.

…

“Men of this vocation count all trials as joys, for, though every trial be an assault of the power of death, in every trial is God’s defeat of death verified and manifested.”

– William Stringfellow,  conclusion of Count It All Joy

“Let all religious people beware.”