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.

You will be like God

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“There is only one sin,” suggested Kosuke Koyama, “Exceptionalism.”

Looking again at the Genesis stories of creation and fall (Gen.1-4) through these eyes seems to go to the heart of the story of humanity and the rest of nature.

The Garden of Eden is a natural paradise. All the creatures are living in harmony within the limits of nature itself.

Then, without explanation, a pernicious idea intrudes. The serpent suggests to the humans that they can become the exception to creaturely existence. “You will be like God! You will be the exception to the rest of us. You will know what no creature can know. You will be like the Creator. You will know good and evil.”

There has been no thought of evil in the Genesis paradise before the sin of exceptionalism breaks the unity of all creatures under the reign of the glad Creator who had declared it all ‘good”.

Only two chapters later, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” [Gen. 6:5-6].

In a similar vein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atom bomb, declared, “There are no secrets about the world of nature. There are secrets about the thoughts and intentions of men.”

With a wisdom and passion akin to the Genesis writer, Oppenheimer opined after watching the first nuclear explosion, “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”

One can hope and pray that the wisdom of Genesis, Oppenheimer, and Koyama will turn those with their fingers on the buttons of nuclear arsenals away from the power of the serpent’s deception, and make a sad Creator glad again.

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

The Clampetts are off to Washington

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J.D. “Jed” Clampett and the Clampett family are leaving their Hollywood mansion for Washington, having taken offense at Meryl Streep recalling Jed’s ridicule of a disabled reporter at the Golden Globe Awards. Jed tweeted:

Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a…..

Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never “mocked” a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him…….

“groveling” when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!

Jed was a Beverly Hillbilly, but whenever he had something on his mind, he would sit on the curbstone of his Hollywood mansion and whittle, the way he used to do back in the swamp. When he came up with the answer, Jed would exclaim, “Welllllll, doggies!”

Jed had the wisdom to his time. He was honest. He never denied his actions. He didn’t make fun of people. Jed never tweeted.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 10, 2017

Meryl Streep@ Golden Globe Awards

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Last night Meryl Streep received the Golden Globe Lifetime Achievement Award with this unusual acceptance speech. The center of her speech was the ridicule of a disabled member of the press during the 2016 presidential campaign. By recalling that sobering moment, Meryl Streep brought common decency into what, God forbid, threatens to be “the new normal”.

Stop it!

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How one translates a language into another often poses challenges.

Take Psalm 46:10, for example. The original Hebrew text is usually translated into English as “Be still.”

But what does it mean to “be still”?

Stop moving? Stay put? Be calm? Get yourself together?

Hebrew Bible scholar Artur Weiser offered an altogether different translation” “Leave off!” — a command, like “STOP IT!” — spoken by the Holy One described in the preceding line as the God “who makes wars to cease to the end of the earth, who breaks the bow and shatters the spear, who burns the shields with fire” (Ps. 46:9).

“Leave off (i.e, quit your war-making), and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations. I am exalted in the earth!” – Artur Weiser, The Psalms: a Commentary,  originally published in German as Die Psalmen. The English translation by Herbert Hartwell was published by Westminster Press in 1962. So “leave off” is an English translation of a German translation of a Hebrew psalm. Parenthesis added to Hartwell’s translation of Weiser’s translation by GCS for purposes of emphasis and clarity.

Psalm 46 is called “the Refuge Psalm” because of how it begins – “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” – and ends – “the God of Jacob is our refuge.” But this God of refuge commands action, not quiescence, against militarism, violence, and war.

“Leave off! Stop it!”

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 9, 2017.

 

 

 

 

 

Hope for light on Epiphany

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Today is the Day of the Epiphany when western Christians celebrate the arrival of the Magi (the “Wise”) at the manger in Bethlehem.

In this dark time of anxiety we look again for the light of an epiphany – a new awakening, a dawning of the light through the shadows – that will help us to circumvent Herod’s cruel way.

Sometimes light comes from the blind, as it did from Fanny Crosby (1890-1920), a poet and hymn writer who lost her sight when she was six-weeks old. Ms. Crosby was educated at the New York Institution for the Blind. She went on to teach English grammar, rhetoric, and American history. She never learned to tweet, but she left us more than one worthy thought that seems apt for this Day of Epiphany when a meeting is taking place on gold-plated chairs in a New York City penthouse.

Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ!
Wealth that can never be told;
Riches exhaustless or mercy and grace,
Precious, more precious than gold!

May God grant to our blindness the wealth that can never be told – the wisdom and light seen by Fanny Crosby.

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

Be Still!

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Yesterday was a day to celebrate. The publisher of BE STILL! Departure from Collective Madness graciously agreed to used Vincent van Gogh‘s painting from the asylum of Saint-Rimy as the Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness’s cover.

van gogh prisoners exercising

“Prisoners Exercising (After Dore)” – Vincent van Gogh, 1890. Also called “The Prisoners’ Round”

Today Be Still! is going through the final steps before publication by Wipf and Stock Publishers in Eugene, Oregon.

It will take two to three weeks before Be Still! will appear on Amazon. You will find it sooner on the Wipf and Stock site at reduced price. Those in the Greater Twin Cities will be invited to a book launch and book signing party where Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness will be available at reduced cost.

Grace and Peace,

Gordon

 

 

 

Wrong swamp – trumpery

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“Drain the swamp” had a nice ring to it, until you realize that a swamp is an essential part of nature. Think Everglades. Think nature undisturbed. Think the spaces that have been drained and filled by real estate developers – pristine places we humans once regarded as wasteland waiting to be cultivated by a more civilized, more cultured species than tadpoles, frogs, alligators and crocodiles.

When Donald Trump promised to drain the swamp, some hearers believed he was talking about the human swamp of Wall Street and corrupted politicians.

Now we know he meant something else. His cabinet appointments are Wall Street billionaires and corporate executives with histories of destroying the natural swamp for the purposes of real estate development, fossil fuel industry profit, and profit.

The Oxford online dictionary defines “trumpery“as:

“Showy but worthless: ‘trumpery jewellery’
“1.1 Delusive or shallow:
“[as modifier] ‘that trumpery hope which lets us dupe ourselves’”

Before getting excited about draining the swamp, ask for clarification about which swamp will be drained, who is going to drain it, and for what purpose. Otherwise, it’s all trumpery, and we’ve been duped.

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

Heeding the dream in 2017

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Today is a day of searching for wisdom. This period between the November 2016 American election and January 20 presidential inauguration is what Carl Jung called a pause moment. An interruption of the normal to seek a deeper wisdom.

This year two calendars converge. It’s the first day of a new year on the secular calendar, which coincides this year with the First Sunday after Christmas on the Christian liturgical calendar.  This coalescence invites the kind of pause of which Jung spoke. Here’s an excerpt from the assigned Gospel reading for today from the Gospel of Matthew.

 

Now after [the Wise men] had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. – Matthew 2:13-16

Several things leaped out from the text this year:

  1. The wise men “tricked” Herod. The Greek word translated here as “tricked” derives from sports – the wise men sported, played, mocked, or made a fool of Herod. Whenever Herod sends out agents for the children, wise people find a way to play him.
  2. These “wise men” – magoi in the Greek text – are foreigners from the East. These foreign visitors with a different religious tradition (astrology) are outsiders to the myths of religious and national exceptionalism. They bring gifts for the Christ child before “returned to their own country by another way,” side-stepping Herod and his agenda.
  3. Joseph’s dream and flight into Egypt reverses every expectation. It was from Egypt that Moses and the Hebrew laborers had fled. Now it to Egypt that they flee from Herod, the puppet king of Roman occupation, who had made a mockery of Passover and Exodus. In this pause of 2017, perhaps the angels will forgive updating the text:”Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Canada (or) Mexico, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the children to deport them.”
  4. The Holy Family become refugees.

Interpreting biblical texts is a dangerous thing, and sometimes the interpretations go a bit to far! Though that be the case, this Gospel of Matthew text for the First Sunday after Christmas and January 1, 2017 offers an interesting opportunity to do what Carl Jung suggested. Engage the pause. Join the wise. Refuse cooperation with agendas that mock the good news. Take time out from the collective madness to be found again by what is holy and sane.

Grace, Peace, and a Blessed New Year,

Gordon

 

 

 

“Though the cause of evil prosper”

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During a moment bordering on lunacy, the group of narcissistic McCormick Theological Seminary friends who call ourselves “The Old Dogs” considered a letter to President Obama suggesting he consider whether he might be called to the pulpit at the end of his second term as President.

Barack Obama shares our theological-ethical tradition which understands Christian faith and practice as intrinsically related to the health of public life. Faith is not a private thing. It’s individual but never private. Every form of faith and practice has implications for the neighbor(s) — the wellbeing of the general public.

“Once to Every Man and Nation” is a hymn on which my seminary friends and I grew up. President Obama learned of it after Rev. Jeremiah Wright took him under his wing at Trinity United Church of Christ while the young Barack was working as a community organizer in Chicago’s impoverished south side.

On this New Year’s Eve, James Russell Lowell‘s hymn strikes me as the hymn of choice for facing 2017 and the post-Obama era in Washington, D.C.  Lowell published this poem — originally 90 line long — under the title “The Present Crisis” in the December 11, 1845 issue of The Boston Courier in protest of America’s War with Mexico. We share here one stanza of Lowell’s poem, adapted for the hymnal, in hopes it might bring some small measure of good cheer for folks who, like us Old Dogs, are concerned  about public life and the world itself of the Eve of 2017:

Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above His own.

Faith does not promise a rose garden. It calls us to behold the thrones of wrong and honor truth at all costs.

Grace and Peace to you this New Year’s Eve,

Gordon

 

 

 

Prayer for the New Year

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I invite you to consider lighting a candle and offer a prayer this New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day in the quiet style of the Friends (Quakers) or by using a format such as the one below, slightly adapted from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Prayer For The New Year

On New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, the household gathers at the table or at the Christmas tree or manger scene. Many people make New Year’s Day a day of prayer for peace.

Leader: Let us praise the Lord of days and seasons and years, saying:
Glory to God in the highest!
Response: And peace to his people on earth!

The leader may use these or similar words to introduce the blessing:

Our lives are made of days and nights, of seasons and years,
for we are part of a universe of suns and moons and planets.
We mark ends and we make beginnings and, in all, we
praise God for the grace and mercy that fill our days.

Then read the the Scripture from the Book of Genesis 1:14-19:

God said: “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky, to separate day from night. Let them mark the fixed times, the days and the years, and serve as luminaries in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth.” And so it happened: God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day, and the lesser one to govern the night; and he made the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw how good it was. Evening came, and morning followed—the fourth day.

(The family’s Bible may be used for an alternate reading such as Psalm 90:1-4.)

Reader: The Word of the Lord.
Response: Thanks be to God.

After a time of silence, members of the household offer prayers of thanksgiving for the past year, and of intercession for the year to come …. In conclusion, all join hands for the Lord’s Prayer.

Then the leader continues: “Let us now pray for God’s blessing in the new year.”

After a short silence, parents may place their hands on their children in blessing as the leader says:

Remember us, O God;
from age to age be our comforter.
You have given us the wonder of time,
blessings in days and nights, seasons and years.
Bless your children at the turning of the year
and fill the months ahead with the bright hope
that is ours in the coming of Christ.
You are our God, living and reigning, forever and ever.
R/. Amen.

Another prayer for peace may be said:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Response: Amen.

—Attributed to St. Francis of Assisi

Leader: Let us bless the Lord.

All respond: Thanks be to God.

The prayer may conclude with the singing of a Christmas carol.

Whether or not you choose to light a candle and no matter how you do it, if you do, my old friend Steve Shoemaker and his surviving Views from the Edge seminary friend wish you peace of heart and mind as we enter the storm tossed-sea of 2017.

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, December 30, 2016.