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 on the seven words

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Grandpa, what are the seven last words?

Oh, my, Elijah, that’s a strange question for this season.

Why? What’s a ‘season’?

A season is a period of days or weeks, a period of time. Right now we’re in the Advent season and Christmas season is almost here.

IMG_1889Okay, thanks. So . . .  why is a question about the seven words strange for this season?

Because the Seven Last Words are from Good Friday. This isn’t Holy Week; we’re getting ready for Christmas. 

That’s not what my baby-sitter says! She says the seven last words are diversity, fetus, transgender, vulnerable, entitlement, science-based, and evidence-based. We’re never ever supposed to use those words again. Are those curse words, Grandpa?

HHS_CDC_cmylogoNo, Elijah, they’re not curse words. But the ones who told the Center for Disease Control not to use seven words anymore are cursers. They’re substituting their seven words for Jesus’s seven last words.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reportedly received a list from the Trump administration on Dec. 14 consisting of seven words or phrases that will be banned in all official documents prepared for 2018’s budget. Many in the U.S., both those who work in public health and concerned citizens alike, are struggling to come to grips with the nature of the terms that are being censored.

The seven forbidden words or phrases are: “evidence-based,” “science-based,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” and “fetus.”– Futurism.com.

Grandpa, I was a fetus just seven months ago. Oops! I shouldn’t have used that word!

Yes, and you’re still very vulnerable. But, according to the You-Know-Who Administration, we’re not supposed to talk about that. 

So those are the ‘Seven Last Words’?

No, those are seven words that the CDC is not supposed to use anymore in its 2018 budget preparations, but the “Seven Last Words” are very different. We’re Christians, Elijah. We listen to the news with the Seven Last Words from the cross ringing in our ears.

So…we’re supposed to consider the ‘seven words’ of the You-Know-Who Administration in light of the ‘Seven Last Words’?

Yes, Elijah. Yes. And they’re very different.

So…was Jesus a scientist? What did he say from the cross, Grandpa, and what’s a cross?

No, Jesus wasn’t a scientist, but he loved the truth, just like real scientists do. A cross was the means of a state execution, Elijah. It was the way the Roman Empire killed people who got in the way of their agenda. Lots of people were executed during Jesus’s time. Jesus was executed. In our tradition, there are seven words he spoke from the cross.

Okay, I’m starting to get the picture. So what were the ‘Seven Last Words’?

Okay. Remember these and share them with Marissa tomorrow at day care.

  • Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
  • Today you will be with me in paradise.
  • Behold your son: behold your mother.
  • My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
  • I thirst.
  • It is finished.
  • Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
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James Tissot, What Jesus Saw from the Cross, Brooklyn Museum of Art

So does God forgive the You-Know-Who Administration because they don’t know what they’re doing?

Hmmm. Good question, Elijah. Sure looks to me like they know exactly what they’re doing, but even when we think we know what we’re doing, I guess we really don’t. And “Behold your son; behold your mother” was a ‘word’ spoken to Jesus’s vulnerable mother and his best friend, but, according to the You-Know-Who Administration we can’t say ‘vulnerable’ any more. All those words are ‘finished’.

Yeah! And that’s not right! I’m still little but I pay attention to the ‘Seven Last Words’. I’m going to  be like Jesus’s friend. I’m going to take care of my vulnerable mother, Grandpa. Mom and I are vulnerable. Who’s going to take care of us if the You-Know-Who Administration doesn’t?

Like Jesus said, “into your hands I commit my spirit.” Remember, Elijah, the cross doesn’t have the last word. No one expected Easter. We live in resistance to cruelty with hope in a better tomorrow. It’s also the season of Chanuka, the Festival of Lights when our Jewish friends — always remember, Elijah, that Jesus was a Jew — light a new candle of hope every day to remember how an occupying power like the You-Know-Who Administration in the second century BCE was brought down by the Maccabean revolt. Thus us a season for hope, Elijah.

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Child lighting candle of Chanukah menorah

  • Gordon C. Stewart (Grandpa Gordon), Chaska, MN, Dec. 19, 2017

Police recruitment in New Zealand

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Some places and some police departments have a refreshing sense of humor. Places like this New Zealand and a New Zealand police recruitment video. Enjoy.

Elijah asks Grandpa about race

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Grandpa, Grandma just called you a racist!

No, she didn’t, Elijah. She said I’m a Sadist. She was just kidding.

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What’s a sadist?

It’s a husband who doesn’t do his fair share of the housework.

Is that like a racist?

Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of it, Elijah, but now that you mention it, I suppose it is.

How’s that?

Well, a Sadist is mean. So is a racist. They both demean others they regard as less important than themselves.

So you’re both.

Both what?

A sadist and a racist.

Now that you mention it, I suppose I am, Elijah. I’m a descendant of the Mayflower.

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Voyage of the Mayflower

What’s a ‘Mayflower’, Grandpa? Is it the like the flowers you give Grandma?

No. What are you talking about? I only give flowers to Grandma on our anniversary.

Why? You may, if you want, and you should, Grandpa. But first you should help with the dishes and the housework. Otherwise you’ll be both a racist and a sadist. I feel bad for Grandma! You’re not only a sadist; you’re a misogynist!

Where’d you pick up that word?

I hear lots of stuff you don’t know about, Grandpa. I pick up a lot of words at Marissa’s house. She’s really mad at a bunch of guys. She watches lots of CNN and MSNBC — Harvey What’s-His-Name in Hollywood, Kevin Spacey, Roy Moore, and You Know Who. She really likes Rachel. She’s hoping that woman who got thrown out of the White House tells on the Chief Racist-Sadist-Mesogynist. Marissa says Omorosa could bring down You Know Who.

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I do know who Who is, Elijah, and Omorosa, and I love Marissa. But you need to be careful not to swallow everything other people says about others. You don’t want to be self-righteous, Elijah. None of us is righteous.

There you go again, Grandpa, slipping out of the noose. Excuses, excuses, excuses! You should be more righteous. Give Grandma some mayflowers, unload the dishwasher, and be a better husband around the house. Otherwise you’ll just be like You Know Who!

  • Grandpa Gordon, Chaska, MN, Dec. 16, 2017.

Elijah on the worst of the worst

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Elijah talking about his day with Marissa

Grandpa, Marissa threw her shoe at the television this morning.

Did she break the television?

No, actually, it was a slipper but she thew it hard.

Why’d she throw her slipper at the TV, Elijah?

She thew it at the President.

Why? What was he doing?

He was talking bad to the FBI! He said people like Marissa are “the worst of the worst,” Grandpa! Before I could understand what he’d said, her slipper sailed by my play pen and hit the TV!

Wow! That must have been scary!

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manual labor roofing a house for a roofer

Yeah, but what Marissa said he said was scarier. Marissa said the President’s either evil or ignorant and that he should come to Minnesota to see what her cousins do. He should meet some immigrants. They’re not the worst of the worst. Miguel works up on roofs in the hot sun 16 hours a day all summer long, Grandpa.

HOUSEKEEPER-BATHROOMHer other cousin, Maria, makes minimum wage cleaning toilets and making beds for a hotel. It’s not enough to live on. She works hard, Grandpa. So does Marissa. They’re not the worst of the worst. They work harder than you do!

So I have an idea, Grandpa.

Okay, Elijah. Let’s hear it. “Out of the mouths of babes….”

I’m not a baby anymore, Grandpa. I crawled today. I’m seven.

Well, you’re not seven. You’re seven-months. But it doesn’t matter. You’re very wise. Let’s hear it.

Okay, Grandpa, here’s my idea. Everyone elected to office in the United States should have to pass a six-week orientation re-roofing houses and cleaning toilets to qualify for taking the oath of office. That way people like the President will stop insulting good hard-working people like Marissa, Miguel, and Maria, like he did this morning, and Marissa won’t break here television. She can’t afford a new one.

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Freshman Class of 115th Congress, January 2017

What a great idea, Elijah! That’s a GREAT idea. Maybe an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requiring a six-month orientation working in minimum-wage jobs before the oath of office is administered as a hedge against evil, ignorance and the worst of the worst serving in office.

Yeah! Let’s amend the Constitution! What’s a Constitution?

Sometimes, Elijah, you make me smile, even on cruel days when I don’t feel like it.

  • Grandpa Gordon, Chaska, MN, Dec. 15, 2017.

 

 

 

Darwinian Creationism

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original-545728-1Irony is the word for this out-of-sorts time where the anti-Darwinian creationists are the proponents of the survival of the fittest. Think net neutrality. Think tax policy that favors the strongest. Think disregard for the weak, those less able to survive if left to the forces of a survival of the fittest free market. Think selective readings of the Bible.

Think rabbits and owls. Not the way we usually think of them, but the way I thought of them the other night after hearing what I thought was a child screaming. It was a blood-curdling cry from the sidewalk just outside our home.

Going outside to see what had happened, what did I see but a large bird (an owl) flying from the tree overhead, dropping the rabbit it had just attacked for dinner. The rabbit never had a  chance. Aside from its kin somewhere in a nearby briar patch and the “superior species” who heard the screams, the rabbit’s disappearance was without consequence. It’s nature doing its thing.

buboLike the economy of Darwinian creationists. There is a mindset beneath the surface of the socio-economic policies being enacted into law by Congress. Creation versus science when it comes to climate change. Creation versus compassion when it comes to the human equivalents of rabbits and owls, hawks and field mice, coyotes and puppies. The strongest will survive. The weak will not. And it’s all part of God’s plan. It must be. Or it wouldn’t be. And, as for the Hebrew prophets who say otherwise — Amos, who thundered divine judgment of the rich who slept of beds of ivory made from the tusks of slaughtered elephants while they trampled on the poor; Micah, who summarized good religion as doing justice, loving kindness/mercy, and walking humbly; and Jesus of Nazareth, who gathered 5,000 hungry people for a free lunch, lifted up the poor, reached out to the maimed, the sick, the leper, the foreigner, and declared “Woe to you are rich!”and ““Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” — their cries on behalf of the rabbits fall on the deaf ears of the Darwinian creationists.

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Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525–1569) – Greed

“Let those with ears hear,” said Jesus. Who among us has ears to hear and eyes to see?

“Pieter Bruegel Bruegel . . .  castigated  human weakness . . .  with avarice and greed as the main targets of his criticism that was ingeniously expressed in the engraving The Battle Between the Money Bags and Strong Boxes” (Encyclopedia Britannica).

The great irony of the theological creationist-economic Darwinians is that the human species has developed talons but lost our ears as the strong who are meant to have dominion over the weak and over nature itself.

 

So long as we avoid the faith issue here, the rabbit will lose. It fall to those of us who espouse the Judeo-Christian faith and biblical tradition, to do in our time what Pieter Bruegel the Elder did in his: engage the discussion with those within the same tradition whose hearing seems impaired.

Without that discussion, the rabbits in America and around the globe will be left to predators whose ironic Darwinian economics have nothing to do with informed biblical faith, the survival of anything worth saving, or reality itself. All will be left to the battle between empty money bags and rusted strong boxes.

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Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Battle of the Money Bags and the Strong Box

— Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, December 15, 2017.

 

 

 

 

The End of Neutrality

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Today’s FCC vote to end net neutrality is but the latest act in the tsunami of greed that is eliminating all things neutral.

Neutral in the case of the internet means non-favoring, as in protecting a fair playing field that does not favor large providers while dis-favoring others and looking out for the interests of the general public that uses the internet.

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But it’s not just in the internet debate that neutrality is in trouble in America. Our traditional allies in Canada, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia, among others scratch their heads and wonder what’s happened to America.

In Washington, D.C. the President and Congress are “reforming” the American tax code by lowering the taxes for corporations and America’s wealthiest individuals who are already reaping record profits on the pretext of lowering taxes on the middle class. The tax reform is anything but neutral. It’s greedy. It continues to widen the divide between the well-to-do and those who aren’t doing so well.

While a tax system that is anything but neutral moves forward, Congress and the President strategically malign the integrity of the independent counsel assigned the odious task of investigating foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. election. The attack on Robert Mueller’s neutrality is undertaken in the name of neutrality, portraying the former FBI Director most everyone once respected as part of a partisan Democrat plot to embarrass and unseat the President.

There is, of course, no such thing as neutrality. Never has been and never will be. But the attempt to be neutral, the attempt to put our biases and vested self-interests behind us for the sake of the greater good is a bedrock principal of a civil society and of a democratic republic.

In the American thesaurus, neutrality and fairness are kissing cousins. So are power and abuse. American history is being re-written as we speak.

jeffersonbible2Thomas Jefferson took a razor to the Bible and cut out texts from the New Testament that seemed unreasonable according to the canons of the Enlightenment — things like miracles. But he never cut the teachings of Jesus — the Beatitudes of Matthew and Luke — “Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers” — the Golden Rule  –“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — or “the first shall be last and the last shall be first,” or the commandment to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Today in America those in power are cutting these most sacred texts from the Jefferson Bible in the name of God and country. Any semblance of neutrality, fairness, or compassion are being erased. But one text from the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Job will yet have the last word beyond the scissors of greed that scorn even the slightest attempts toward neutrality.

If you have understanding, hear this;
    listen to what I say.
Shall one who hates justice govern?
    Will you condemn one who is righteous and mighty,
 who says to a king, ‘You scoundrel!’
    and to princes, ‘You wicked men!’;
 who shows no partiality to nobles,
    nor regards the rich more than the poor,
    for they are all the work of his hands?
  – Book of Job 34:16-19, NRSV.

 

May we all live to see the day.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Dec. 14, 2017.

Elijah brings mirth and laughter

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Before Elijah goes to bed, he likes to explore things. Sometimes he explores his hands. Sometimes he explores his feet. Sometimes he explores Barclay’s tail. Sometimes he explores Grandpa’s face.

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Elijah explores Grandpa’s face

Elijah is curious. Everything in life is new, even if it’s old to me. Maybe especially when it’s old to me. Things like an old gnarly face.

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Elijah is like a visitor in a children’s zoo or museum that allows him to touch whatever interests him. An old chin. A nose. A wrinkled neck. A light spot where the dermatologist has removed something suspicious. A mouth from which he brings words and laughter.

Elijah brings his own laughter. Especially when he doesn’t mean to. Joy is like that. “And a little child shall lead them.”

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  • Grandpa Gordon, Chaska, MN, December 14, 2017.

 

 

 

God and the gods in Alabama

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The Alabama Senate race was mostly about God and the gods. The election of Doug Jones over Roy Moore shows that, though God and the gods were often confused, Alabamians declared by a very slight margin that God may not be white.

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Some things die hard. In America, no core convictions die harder than 1) white supremacy, white superiority, white exceptionalism, and 2) male supremacy, male superiority, male exceptionalism.  It’s not just in Alabama. It’s not just in the mind of Roy Moore. It elected a president who, like Roy Moore, dismisses all claims of sexual harassment as a partisan media hoax, supported Moore’s candidacy, and issues a tweet that suggests Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has called for his resignation, is what misogynists see as the only alternative to the Virgin Mary.

Doug Jones beat Roy Moore yesterday by a hair. But, as a defiant Roy Moore rightly said, it’s not over. Nor will it be over if and when the President resigns or is successfully impeached and removed from office.

Core cultural convictions  — gods — don’t die so easily. They go underground, as they did during the eight years of the Obama Presidency, until they spy another opening to claim their turf.

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Through it all the choice is to reach up to the God who is above and beyond the dying gods of gender, racial, religious, cultural, and national exceptionalism, or remain their prey.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, December 13, 2017.

 

 

The beginning of the good news of …

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I need a bath. Wait! Wait! Stay with me!

“The good news according to Caesar, the Son of God” was the beginning of imperial announcements by Caesar throughout the Roman Empire.

Into this imperial world comes “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ” (Gospel of Mark 1:1). For the First Century hearers, the irony was clear. This was a counter-narrative to the narrative of empire — a rebuke of it, and a revolutionary alternative to it. But the announcement was also only the beginning of the good news.

Unlike the imperial messengers dressed in official garb, the announcer of this good news in Mark’s Gospel (in the time it was written the term “gospel” had not yet been used to describe a book such as we know today: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) wears no royal clothing. He wears camel hair and eats locusts and honey. He appears in the wilderness, far from the centers of religious authority in Jerusalem and policial-economic power in Rome. There is no advance warning of his appearance. He appears suddenly, without explanations, and without trumpets.

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John the Baptizer

“Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.”  John is one odd duck! Not the kind of figure one expects to win friends and influence people. Unless the people were ready for his message: the overthrow of the reign of Caesar, the “Son of God” according to the imperial cult.

Flash forward to 2017.

“It’s okay to say ‘Merry Christmas’ again, says the President of the United States, as if restoring Christianity as the established religion of the United States of America and everywhere else in the world that is part of Pax Americana. Strange how a gospel whose beginnings offered a counter-narrative to Caesar and the empire’s divine claims of national exceptionalism would be used to scorn the original beginning of the good news in Mark’s revolutionary Gospel.

“John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. … I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

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President Donald J. Trump and Senate candidate Roy Moore

In the First Century of the Common Era, a ritual bath represented a cleansing from sin and the act of repentance, embarking on a new way. Twenty centuries after the “beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” I’m baptized. So are the president and a senatorial candidate from Alabama. It’s confounding. I feel dirty all over.

I need a bath!

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Dec. 11, 2017.

 

 

 

The Stranger of the Jubilee

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December 6, 2017, Atlanta, Georgia.

I’m a stranger in Atlanta. I go to the ticket-vending machine to buy the $2.50 ticket for the MARTA, Atlanta’s metro subway system, that will take me to my early morning appointment for a recording session at Day1.org.

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Marta ticket machine

The MARTA machine is not accepting my credit card. “Enter zip code.” I enter the Minnesota zip code. “Credit card not accepted.” I try again. Same result.

A poorly dressed man in his mid-30s or early 40s — it’s hard to tell how old he is — asks if he can help. Strange things happen to strangers on public transportation platforms, but something about him leads me to believe I can trust him. He inserts my credit card with the same result. “Credit card not accepted.”

“Follow me,” he says. He walks over to the turnstiles that admit ticket-payers to the MARTA, goes through, and holds the turnstile open for the penniless stranger who’s been so rudely welcomed to Atlanta by a machine that doesn’t like Minnesotans. Maybe the machine recognized my Minnesota zip code and thinks I’m Senator Al Franken. Maybe if my zip code had been from Alabama where I could vote for Roy Moore, my credit card would have been accepted.

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MARTA turnstiles

I follow the rescuer through the turnstile. He extends his hand, introduces himself, and says he’s on his way to work at Goodwill. He learns where the stranger from Minnesota is going, identifies the right stop, and stays with me to tell me when to get off. The Goodwill where he works is one stop beyond mine.

On the platform, waiting for the MARTA train, I ask whether he grew up in Atlanta. Turns out he’s new here. He’s from Miami. I ask what brought him here. “I came to start a new life,” he says. “I’ve been here four months now. The Lord’s been good to me.” I ask no questions and make no assumptions about why he left Miami. “I woke up blind one day. I couldn’t see. Couldn’t see a thing. I prayed to get my sight back and it was given. I gave my life to the Lord to start over. That’s why I’m here.”

He was not evangelizing me. He showed no signs of the emotional manipulations that usually accompany such stories. There was no follow-up “Are you saved?” Just a sharing that seemed honest, if hard to believe or understand. People don’t just wake up blind. And they don’t all of a sudden get their sight back.

“Like the Damascus road,” I say, referring to the conversion of the Apostle Paul who was struck blind but received his sight back as a gift. “Yes,” he says. I ask whether he has a church. “O, yes! The Church of the Jubilee.”

“Ah, the Jubilee — when all wealth is redistributed,” I say, as he smiles a knowing Yes.

From what little I can tell, the man from Miami owns little to nothing in the way America defines wealth. He works at the Goodwill. But he is wealthy. He goes to a Bible study every Wednesday night, “another meeting” Friday nights, and worship on Sunday mornings. The day the machine failed, a man of good will struck blind in Miami became part of the Jubilee and welcomed another stranger whose credit card wasn’t worth a nickel.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, December 6, 2017.