Joshi Daniel’s portraits often capture the joy we wish for others and ourselves. This portrait of a smiling man from Trivandrum brings a smile. Joshi and I knew each other years ago at The College of Wooster. So blessed by your wonderful work, Joshi. Thank you for the gift.
- Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, April 3, 2018
Parameshwaran | Trivandrum, Kerala, India
Pictured here is Parameshwaran. This was taken for the 28mm Portraits Project. To find out more about this Project, click here.
Creation – Day 5 (detail), mid-12th Century, Palermo, Italy,
Today is Easter Sunday and April Fools’ Day. Easter celebrates the victory of life over the power of death, or, as a Medieval hymn put it, “Now the green blade rises from the buried grain. April Fools Day dates back to the 1500s when the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar. Those who forgot that April 1 was no longer the beginning of a new year were called “April Fools”. They were fools because they were living in the past.
The threat and reign of death in the midst of time plunge us into death’s grip long before we die. Though the canonical Gospels’ descriptions of the resurrection vary in their details, all of them make it clear that a cruel state execution has met its match and more. The evidence is an empty death garment and armed guards who “quaked and became like dead men.” Those who issued the orders and followed them are made to look like fools. A new ordering of things had begun.
However one interprets the resurrection — physical or metaphorical — the Easter story is intrinsically theological and political in the most profound senses of both words. It proclaims of the victory of life over the moral power of death exercised by ill-informed institutional power and authority.
A participant in last week’s Lenten Series “Be Still To See More Clearly” asked the question you may be asking. “What’s theology got to do with politics?” I answered “Everything! Theology is intrinsically political and all politics is theological. What did Jesus preach? He pointed beyond himself to the Kingdom of God which is here in part but yet to come in fulness. A kingdom is a society. Societies are people. Jesus’ good news was the society that is not captive to the up-down world. Jesus was the model of non-exceptional ethics and morality. He was not a prisoner of the politics of death. He insisted that there is only ONE house with many rooms and called his disciples to live and die for the house that unites us all as the benefactors of creaturely interdependence.”
This Easter and April Fools’ Day a case of the shingles keeps me away from the hymns of glad rejoicing and publicly expressed hope for the world. This morning’s news from the Washington Post reminds me that the conflict between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world is as real as it was two days before Easter. On Easter morning tweets went out repeating the folly of Good Friday.
Trump says ‘no more’ to DACA deal, threatens to cancel NAFTA to force Mexico to secure the border.
President Trump said on Twitter that there would be no deal to legalize the status of millions of “dreamers,” undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, stating that the U.S. border with Mexico was “getting more dangerous” and directing congressional Republicans to pass tough new anti-immigration legislation.
Trump also lashed out on Twitter at Mexico and threatened to “stop” the North American Free Trade Agreement in retaliation for Mexican authorities not doing enough in the president’s estimation to secure its border with the United States. – Washington Post, April 1, 2018.
This Easter and April Fools’ Day many husbands will leave their golf clubs home to sing the hymns of love’s triumph over the moral power of death. One can always hope there will be one more. Stranger things have happened before at the 19th Hole.
“Now the green blade rises from the buried grain. Love is come again.” Christ is risen! Happy Easter. No joke!
Good Friday is not a happy day. It’s a day to stand at the abyss of hopelessness and to turn what Otis Moss III and his father Otis Moss, Jr. call “pathetic grief” into “prophetic grief” that lifts up others.
Good Friday is a day for heart-felt reflection. A day to stop talking. A day to listen carefully to the Gospel readings and the Requiems of Gabriel Fauré or Maurice Duruflé. A day to let the tears well up in us. A day to stop pretending. A day to experience afresh the pathetic grief that links us with all the world until is becomes the prophetic grief that turns the world right-side up.
I wish you a meaningful Good Friday.
Elijah’s smile resuscitates the child in Grandpa
“The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into [Grandpa] again, and [Grandpa] revived.” – First Kings 17:22, NRSV.
Elijah returning resuscitated child to his mother,Louis Hersent [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Steve Shoemaker
Steve Shoemaker rushed into mind today. I searched for what Steve had to say on Palm Sunday here on Views from the Edge. Little could Steve have known in 2012 that Palm Sunday in 2018 would be topped off by a “60 Minutes” interview with a porn star refuting claims of “fake news” coming from the man in the Oval Office.
The Donkey: a Kid’s Verse
The coats the folks are throwing down
sure make it hard for me to walk
especially carrying this clown
whose feet are almost to the ground.
“Hosannah King!” is all the talk,
but this guy seems to be as poor
as I am–no one could mistake
him for a Royal–he’s just a fake!
They wave palm branches, and they roar,
but my long ears can hear the real
parade across the city square:
the General, the Priests, the score
of war horses–the whole grand deal.
This pitiful parade will fail
to save a soul, and soon the yell
will change from “Hail!” to…”Kill!”
[Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 28, 2012]
Release of Barabbas – artwork by Wenceslas Coehergher
The donkey that carried “the clown” stands in deliberate contrast to Caesar’s war horses. All these years later, Jesus of the donkey and the donkey continue to speak truth to power. Today I lay my coat on the road for the humble king of kings.
Thank you, Steve. RIP.
Centuries after the original Palm Sunday parade, the silence has been broken again.
“Some [of the critics] said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’” – Jesus of Nazareth, Luke 19:39-41.
Yesterday, the students spoke. The NRA was silenced.
Yesterday’s conversation with the rheumatologist took an unexpected turn. “I need some positive energy,” he said. “The kids from Parkland are amazing. I’m going to the march to the State Capitol tomorrow.”
The weather forecast called for heavy snow in Saint Paul. “I don’t care,” he said. He was going. No matter what! He would be there at 9:00 a.m. and stay until the crowd disperses in the afternoon. (Click this link for CNN’s coverage of the March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C. and around the world.)
“I’m so tired. I want to do something positive,” said my doctor. “The younger generation will lead us. You stay home! It wouldn’t be good for you. I’ll do the marching for both of us.”
Leaving the doctor’s office, I felt better. My thoughts turned to Siyahamba, the marching song that helped end Apartheid in South Africa. This morning I found Siyahamba‘s hopeful sound in this children’s choir in Westminster, Maryland.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint. – Isaiah 40:28-31 [NRSV]
Thank you, Doctor. Thank you, Isaiah. Thank you, students from Parkland. Thank you, all who will march today in the light of God.
Siyahamba! March for our lives!
“Our democracy is in serious danger. …
“This is ‘code red‘. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office.” — Thomas Friedman,”Whatever Trump Is Hiding Is Hurting Us Now,” NYT.
Thomas Friedman is known for being careful with his information, fresh in his analysis, beholden to no one. Friedman does not play partisan ‘Chicken Little‘ to gain an audience. Friedman’s NYT column calling this American moment ‘Code Red’ and the following conversation with Larry O’Donnell took place a month before yesterday’s disturbing news that on April 9 John Bolton, a discredited right wing hawk, will replace H.R. McMaster as National Security Advisor.
I never thought I’d see this day in America. Just when I think it can’t get worse, it does. Unless Congress stops it, Dr. Strangelove will be the president’s right hand man in the White House Situation Room.
Sunday night ‘60 Minutes‘ is scheduled to air Anderson Cooper’s interview with Stormy Daniels. Stormy claims she’s telling the truth. It will be the irony of ironies in a democratic republic if it should come to pass that a truth-telling pornography star alerts Congress and the larger public to the threat to democracy in the White House?
Yesterday Elijah discovered himself in the mirror. He recognized the image as himself. He couldn’t be more delighted.
He shows no sense of shame. Or guilt. Or grief. He’s getting a kick out of himself. Meanwhile, Grandma is on the other side of the room recording the moment for posterity. When Elijah reaches a stage when shame, guilt, and grief threaten to sink his spirit, we’ll pull out the video to remind him of his lovable, adorable self.
Between now and that day which will surely come, we enjoy Grandma’s video, and pray the rest of us find our way to similar joy looking back at us from the mirror.
Elijah is toying around with a mirror. He sees himself as he is. But we don’t know whether he knows it’s his own reflection or wether he believes the image in the mirror is a magical friend. He can’t tell us. He doesn’t yet talk. Except with Grandpa on Views from the Edge.
Grandpa, look in my mirror! You’ll see me!
Wow, Elijah, that’s so cool that you can see yourself. But if I look in your mirror I won’t see you. I’ll see me.
Uh, uh! It’s MY mirror! I’m the only one who shows up in my mirror. I’ve never seen anyone else show up in my mirror.
I understand. Mirrors are like that. People who look in a mirror see only themselves.
Yeah, I’m adorable! Everybody says I’m cute!
You are, Elijah. You are. And we’re not making it up. We all think you’re adorable. You make people smile.
Yeah, I’m exceptional, Grandpa! Some people don’t make others smile. They make people sad. Or mad!
I know. But you’re not exceptional. Some people who think they’re exceptional start tweeting early in the morning before they look in the mirror. I think they’re not very happy and they make lots of other people unhappy, too.
Elijah and Grandpa talking about the mirror
Yeah, not like you and me, Grandpa!
Well, it’s not quite that simple, Elijah. Grandpa’s had days when he had a hard time looking in the mirror. I’ve cut myself shaving! I didn’t like what I saw after I’d made other people unhappy. Someday you’ll look in the mirror and be sorry for something you’ve done.
Uh uh! It’s MY mirror! I get to see me just the way I am. Yesterday Grandma said I could be president!
Views from the Edge 