Author Archives: Gordon C. Stewart

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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.

Elijah: “Grandpa, what’s love?”

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Elijah love

Photos of Elijah

Grandpa, everywhere I go people say they love me. What’s love?

If I were wise, I’d take a month to read up on it before answering a big question like that, but I’m not, and instant gratification is too slow for a seven-and-a-half month-old grandson, so I’ll give it a shot.

Thanks, Grandpa, gimme your best shot, but don’t hurt me!

Not that kind of shot, Elijah. It’s just one of those expressions.

Yeah, Mom expresses before I go to daycare.

No, not that kind of expression. “I’ll give it a shot” means “I’ll try.”

Okay, try to give it a shot. What’s love?

Well, Elijah, like Frank Sinatra said, love is a many splendored thing. Love means MANY things to many different people.

Grandpa, you’re not giving me your best shot. You’re using a shot gun. Take out your rifle and give it to me straight! What’s love?

Like I said, it’s one of those words that requires lots of thought. We throw it around to express all kinds of feelings but most of them aren’t really love. Like “I love ice Ben and Jerry’s ice cream” and “I love ‘How to Get Away with Murder'” and ‘I love ‘Sesame Street’ or “I love my ‘Huggies’.

Yeah, like I love Lammie!

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You do, Elijah. You do! You express great affection for Lammie. You have a thing between you. The way you feel about Lammie is the way we all feel about you. Everyone just wants to hold you. You make us feel like children again. Your smile makes us smile. Your laugh makes us laugh.

Yeah, like Barclay makes me laugh. I love Barclay. He’s even better than Lammie. He can give me his paw! I love that! “Sit, Barclay! Sit!” 

Yes, I know. Lammie is a stuffed animal. Barclay’s a real one. He’s a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. He loves you. But he doesn’t love you and you don’t love him because you can order him around, Elijah.

Barclay on chest

Barclay the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

Remember, no matter how much you love Lammie, now matter how much you love Barclay, and no matter how much I say I love you, I always love you more than that!

Thanks, Grandpa. That’s a many splendid answer. I’ll always love you, too. But I love Mom more! She expresses herself much more clearly than you do!

  • Grandpa Gordon, Chaska, MN, January 7, 2018.

 

 

Trump Cabinet invokes 25th Amendment

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25th_imageViews from the Edge published this tongue-in-cheek “news release” in January. It was a spoof. We were a little early, but can anyone suppose that the Trump administration author of the NYT op-ed doesn’t know the difference between a tactics and strategy? Published on the heels of Bob Woodward’s FEAR is a tactic that prepares the American public for what’s coming: the Trump cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office. Here’s the spoof we published in January at the time of the president’s medical exam.

NEWS RELEASE

The Dissociative Press
January 7, 2018

Today White House Chief of Staff John Kelly announced the decision of the Trump Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to remove President Donald J. Trump from office.

The decision to begin the process of removal from office follows the Cabinet members’ review of the report of the president’s medical examination by an Army physician at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, a report and decision that move the country closer to  a constitutional crisis.

While the Cabinet was acting on the Army physician’s conclusive medical findings of a personality disorder, rapidly progressing early dementia and other evidence of cognitive impairment, President Trump sent out a series of tweets calling the Walter Reed report a conspiracy by the military, the FBI, and the CIA, the equivalent of a military coup, and declaring he will not leave office under any circumstances.

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Mr. Trump immediately fired Chief of Staff John Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, the retired Generals at the center of what Mr. Trump called the military establishment, declaring that the Generals had ordered the Army physician to issue the faux report. Moments later Mr. Trump fired his lawyer and his entire Cabinet with the exception of Attorney General Jeff Session, who had abstained during the 25th Amendment vote, citing potential conflict of interest. Vice President Pence was out of the country for the week.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders quickly called a 10:00 A.M. news conference but was escorted off the White House grounds at 9:31 A.M. by members of the Secret Service. Loyal to the President, Ms. Sanders met White House correspondents on the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue beyond the gates to the White House property while the President continued to tweet from the White House living quarters to which he and the First Lady had retreated.

Ms. Sanders confirmed Mr. Trump’s assertion that the medical report is a hoax, arguing that the president had reluctantly yielded to General Kelly’s insistence that the medical examination be done at Walter Reed rather than by Mr. Trump’s long-time personal physician to avoid any public perception of a fraudulent report. Ms. Sanders drew the White House correspondents’ attention to Mr. Trump’s 9:47 A.M. re-tweet from his personal physician in New York declaring full confidence in Mr. Trump’s mental competence. “Donald Trump is the sanest man I’ve ever met,” he said. “He’s a genius, and a very stable one, at that.”

A further incoming tweet at 10:07 A.M. quoting First Lady Melania Trump interrupted Ms. Sander’s remarks, which Ms. Sanders read aloud to the press corps:

“I am a political prisoner. Politics is nothing but a cops and robbers game. I know dirty things. I saw dirty things. I am not going to stand for all those dirty tricks that go on. I am sick and tired of the whole operation.They threw me down on the bed, five men, and stuck a needle in my behind. A doctor stitched my fingers after the battle with five guards.”

martha_mitchellHearing Ms. Sanders read aloud the words alleged to have come from the First Lady, a member of the press whose White House coverage dates back to the Nixon Administration opined that the First Lady’s words sounded vaguely familiar before realizing the tweet was a verbatim quotation from Martha Mitchell, wife of the Nixon Administration Attorney General John Mitchell, claiming she had been kidnapped.

“It’s a hoax,” said the White House Correspondent. “Those aren’t the words of the Mrs. Trump. They are the words of Martha Mitchell during the Nixon Administration. The tweet is plagiarism!”

Ms. Sanders replied that she had no idea who Martha Mitchell was, that she wasn’t even born until eight years after Nixon resigned, and that the reporter was making stuff up to cover up the faux medical exam and the coup taking place inside the White House. She ended the conference by calling on President Trump’s supporters to take to the streets in defense of the Constitution and the greatest president ever to serve the country.

220px-Charlottesville_Unite_the_Right_Rally_(35780274914)Within minutes the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue was crowded with arm-to-arm Trump supporters carrying guns and signs with photos of the President’s personal physician, Dr. Strangeglove, and the confederate flag, calling for the resumption of the revolution to Make America Great Again that had been delayled in Charlottesville.

  • Gordon Stewart reporting for Dissociative Press, Jan. 7, 2018.

Living on the Edge

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An email from Joshi Daniel Photography arrived today, the first anniversary of the publication of 40,000 words. Searching back into the site’s archives, Joshi’s self-portrait “Living on the Edge” seemed to capture the sense of the 40,000 words of Be Still! in one photograph. Joshi and I share a heritage. We are both preacher’s kids who met at The College of Wooster where Joshi was a student. Joshi perched himself on the rock at arms length from my perch on the pulpit of McCaw Chapel. All these years later, Joshi’s still living on the edge with photographs worth a thousand words.

joshi daniel's avatarJoshi Daniel Photography

Self-portrait of joshi daniel sitting on the cliff by Bondi beach in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Self-portrait | Bondi beach, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

A GoProSelf-portrait taken on the cliff by Bondi beach in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

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Epiphany 2018

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One day in advance of Epiphany, we bring you a reading from an unauthorized revision of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Gospel according to Matthew 2:13-23, which some call the GCS Translation:

Now after the wise men from Iran had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to José in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Canada, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then José got up, took the child and his mother, Maria, by night, and went to Canada, and remained there until the impeachment of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Canada I have called my son.”

The Round-Up of the Infants

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men from Iran, he was infuriated, and he sent orders to round up all the children in and around Charlottesville who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

“A voice was heard in Ramah,
    wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
    she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

The Return from Canada

After Herod had been impeached, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to José in Canada and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go back to the U.S.A., for those who were seeking the child’s life are no more. Then José got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the U.S.A. 

But when José heard that Pence was ruling in place of Herod, he was afraid to go there.

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Statue of Liberty in Nazareth, Texas

And after being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the high plains of the Llano Estacado of Castro County in the State of Texas. There José made his home in a town called Nazareth (pop. 311), so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”

 — GCS, Chaska, MN, January 5 (the Eve of the Epiphany), 2018.

 

Elijah’s confusion about buttons

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Elijah is confused by the exchange of words about buttons. The following conversation ensued at Grandpa and Grandma’s.

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Big red buttons and little buttons

Grandpa, what’s a button?

Oh, that’s an easy one, Elijah, Every morning your Mom buttons the buttons, or snaps the snaps, on your clothing after she changes your diapers.

I still don’t know what a button is. Is it a verb or a noun? And what’s a ‘snap’?

Okay. Good point. That wasn’t very clear. You asked a simple question. You deserve a simple answer.

Yeah, simple like in “understandable” — not simple like in “stupid”, like we talked about before. Right?

Right. So . . . put your hand on your chest. You’ll feel several round things. They’re called ‘buttons’. Each one of those round things on your outfit is a button.

Okay! I get it. But bigger buttons are better than little buttons, right, Grandpa? My buttons are little. Yours are better.

No, buttons are just buttons. No matter how big or small they are, they’re equally important. They just do the same thing snaps do. Why?

There you go again, Grandpa! Now we’re back to snaps. Are you losing your mind like President You-Know-Who says Steve Bannon did?

No, Elijah, I’m sorry. Forget the snaps. Why are you asking about big buttons and small buttons?

47B5F7F500000578-5232539-President_Donald_Trump_hit_back_at_North_Korea_after_its_leader_-a-15_1515004349600‘Cause Rocketman and President You-Know-Who are talking like they’re the only ones in the whole world who have buttons and the president says his is bigger and more powerful than Rocketman’s, and that his works.  If all buttons are equal, Grandpa, that’s kind of weird, isn’t it?

It is, Elijah. We’re only four days into the new year and it’s already weirder than it was at the end of 2017. It just keeps getting weirder every day. But before we talk more about buttons I want you to be clear that we don’t insult the leader of another country by calling him ‘Rocketman’.

Yeah, it’s hard to be clear. I’m only seven-and-a-half months old! I’m confused ’cause you’re confusing. Give it to me straight. Is the president incontinent?

Where’d you get the idea the president’s incontinent, Elijah?

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Mika Bryzinsky

They said so on ‘Morning Joe’! Mika said President-You-Know-Who’s doctor could find him incontinent next week during his physical exam. Then they could get rid of him with the 25th Amendment and we wouldn’t have to worry any more.

Elijah, I think you’re confusing ‘incontinent’ with ‘incompetent’, although they seem closely related. A president can be removed from office if he’s declared incompetent to serve.

Anyway.  You asked about buttons. I was wrong about buttons. President You-Know-Who — we don’t call him ‘You-Know-Who’ to insult him; we just don’t want his name to be spoken any more than it already is, if we can help it — and Kim Jong un of North Korea have BIG buttons of a different kind. Each of them has a big RED button. Actually, they aren’t buttons but people call them that! If they push those buttons, they can blow up bombs and kill lots of people.

Why?!!! Why would they want to do that?

We’re all wondering that, Elijah. It seems it’s because the big red buttons make them feel powerful. That’s how it is with some really sick people. They like the idea of snapping their fingers and the world goes poof!

Why? I don’t get it! Why would you want to kill lots of people? That’s mean! Quick, Grandpa, get their mothers on Facebook and tell them they’re incontinent. I mean incompetent. Tell their Moms to change their diapers and then give them clothes with little yellow buttons like mine! Maybe President-You-Know-Who and Kim Jong un will feel better without those big red buttons.

Tell their Mom’s to be like Mom! My Mom’s the best!

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Elijah and his Mom

— Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 4, 2017.

 

 

 

Our Dwelling Place and the Wrath of God

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Six old friends have arrived from Indiana, Minnesota, and Illinois for New Year’s Eve in the Dempsey’s living room. A seventh unbidden visitor — pancreatic cancer managed by chemotherapy — makes us freshly aware of our mortality.

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We read aloud Psalm 90 (NRSV), pausing to reflect on each section.

Lord, you have been our dwelling place
    in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
    or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

The great theologian Paul Tillich called this dwelling place “Being-Itself” or “the Ground of Being.”

You turn us back to dust,
    and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
For a thousand years in your sight
    are like yesterday when it is past,
    or like a watch in the night.

We are increasingly aware that we are dust. We are mortals. Our yesterdays far outnumber any tomorrows. But the friend threatened by the cancer that almost always kills is quietly at peace with being turned back to dust. He has always known we are dust.

You sweep them away; they are like a dream,
    like grass that is renewed in the morning;
in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
    in the evening it fades and withers.

Like our late friend Steve, whose life ended with pancreatic cancer, his faith is in something greater than himself, not because he is certain of what will happen when he takes his last breath, but because he is thankful for the days he has been given and trusts that whatever his place may be now, or then, it lies within the Dwelling Place. It is as it should and will be.

For we are consumed by your anger;
    by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
You have set our iniquities before you,
    our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

For all our days pass away under your wrath;
    our years come to an end  like a sigh.

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We are unaccustomed to talk of the the wrath of God or the fear of it. We talk of the love of God. We are not of the religion right.

But California Governor Jerry Brown’s recent use of the word springs to the center of the conversation. After a year of a public cancer — lies, name-calling, climate change denial, Charlotteseville, the alt-Right, obscene wealth, greed, and narcissistic grandiosity of little boys with toys threatening nuclear holocaust while eating away the healthy institutional cells on which a democratic republic depends — we have a fresh sense of wrath.

“I don’t think President Trump has a fear of the Lord, the fear of the wrath of God, which leads one to more humility,” said Jerry Brown in a ’60 Minutes’ interview. “And this is such a reckless disregard for the truth and for the existential consequences that can be unleashed.”

The days of our life are seventy years,
    or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble;
    they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Who considers the power of your anger?
    Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.
So teach us to count our days
    that we may gain a wise heart.

We are students of aging, learning to count our days, aware of the dust to which we turned a blind eye in younger years while establishing ourselves as adults, raising children, and making names for ourselves. In our late 60s and mid-70s life is less a matter of the mind than it is of the heart. We are more aware of the Dwelling Place. Counting our days — and giving thanks for this one day — is the new arithmetic of the wisdom of the heart.

Turn, O Lord! How long?
    Have compassion on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us,
    and as many years as we have seen evil.
Let your work be manifest to your servants,
    and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
    and prosper for us the work of our hands—
    O prosper the work of our hands!

  • Gordon C. Stewart, January 1, 2018.

Elijah asks about New Year’s

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Elijah asks Grandpa about New Year’s and murder

Grandpa, what’s “murder”?

Oh, my, Elijah, why are you asking about murder on New Year’s Eve? What brought that up?

Marissa, my baby-sitter did. Okay, Grandpa, forget that. What’s a year?

Well, a year is 12 months.

So I’ll be a year older tomorrow?

No. You’re only seven-and-a-half months old.

But tomorrow’s a new year, so I’ll be a year older, right?

No. You can’t be a year older when you’re not yet one year old. You’ll be one year-old on your birthday in four-and-a-half months. Then, a year from your first birthday, you’ll be able to say you’re a year older.

Sometimes you’re really confusing Grandpa! I ask two simple questions and I’m more confused than before I asked you. So the New Year is only for old folks?

new-years-eve-2900120_1280No, it’s for everyone. It just doesn’t have anything to do with being a year older unless you’re already a year old and were born on January 1. But New Year’s isn’t about your birthday. You were born in May.

Okay. So what’s a “new year”? And what’s an old year? Is it like you and me?

It’s not like us, Elijah. It’s different. New Year’s is about hope. It happens every January first, the first day of the new year on the calendar, another 12 months, another 365 days like we’ve never known before. New Year’s is a fresh start! The old year is finished.

No it’s not, Grandpa. What about murder?

This is sounding like a circular argument, Elijah. Somehow you’ve brought us full circle to murder?

Yeah, ‘cause everything got murdered in 2017!

No it didn’t Elijah! You were born in 2017! That’s the opposite of murder. That’s new birth. That’s hope and joy. You’ve brought me joy and hope this last eight months and I hope we have lots of years to talk like this before Grandpa buys the farm.

You’re buying a farm? We already have a cabin. When are you buying the farm?

It’s just an expression, Elijah. “Buying the farm” is a way of talking about death. When you’ve bought the farm, you’re dead.

What’s dead, Grandpa?

It’s like all the stuff that got murdered in 2017 — things like truth — and there’ll be a lot more murders in 2018. But hope springs eternal.

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Yeah! I hope you and truth don’t buy a farm in 2018! Happy New Year, Grandpa!

  • Grandpa Gordon, Chaska, MN, December 31, 2017 (the year of murder)

MARTYR – I’M NOT AND YOU AREN’T EITHER

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Marilyn Armstrong’s SERENDIPITY piece on martyrs and not-martyrs brought smiles, a few chuckles, and nods of the head. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Marilyn Armstrong's avatarSerendipity - Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

I don’t know any martyrs. Historically, there are plenty to choose from, but in the context of “real life,” I don’t know any.

I’m not a martyr. Not even close. Whatever sacrifices I have made on behalf of my beliefs, they never came anywhere near martyrdom. Discomfort or disruption to your normal life does not make you a martyr. Taking care of your kids, working at jobs you don’t like, or struggling to survive? None of these make you a martyr.

This is one of those greatly overused words, along with “awesome,” “resonate,” and the ubiquitous “back in the day.”

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How many times have I read “I’m a martyr to housework.” Really? What strange belief system do you follow?

You are not a martyr, even if you are depressed and miserable. If merely being miserable were enough for martyrdom … well … who wouldn’t be one? These days, there…

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New Year’s Gift from the Lutherans

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The First Quarter 2018 Issue of Currents in Theology and Mission published today a review of Be Still!. Currents is the quarterly theological journal of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. Click Book Reviews for the review by Edward F. (Ted) Campbell, McCormick Theological Seminary Professor of Old Testament Emeritus.

ELCA-Logo-VerticalThanks to Currents in Theology and Mission editors Craig Nessan (Wartburg Theological Seminary) and Kathleen Billman (Lutheran Theological Seminary at Chicago), and “Book Reviews” editors Ralph Klein, Troy Troftgruben, and Craig Nessen for featuring Be Still! as the first among Currents‘ “Book Reviews” for the First Quarter 2018.

Prayers for grace, peace, stillness, and for small victories of “prophetic” madness over collective madness in 2018.

  • Gordon C. Stewart,  Chaska, MN, December 29, 2017.

 

To Initiate a Contemplative Mood

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Thom Hickey’s The Immortal Jukebox is like no other jukebox. Tune out the noise and turn up the volume. Enjoy this gift for the season from a blogger in Surrey, England. Click the link at the bottom for all the music of this lovely post.

And breathe! To initiate the contemplative mood I turn to the contemporary Estonian Composer, Arvo Part with his luminous, liminal setting of Mary’s eternal prayer, ‘The Magnificat’. Part has been labelled a Minimalist and a retro Medievalist. I prefer to think of him as having the gift to make time past, time present and time […]

via Contemplative Christmas 1 — The Immortal Jukebox