The front page of today’s Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette carries a feature article on Steve Shoemaker, as in Views from the Edge with Gordon and Steve. This photo of “Welcome the Stranger” includes a note from Steve’s daughter, one in which Steve’s friends heartily concur.
Steve Shoemaker: “Welcome the Stranger”
What would happen if the children wrote all the prayers? Children age 3 through 5th Grade at Trinity Episcopal wrote The Prayers of the People used in worship the last few weeks. Each prayer was followed by a brief reflective silence. One of the children led the prayers.
Let us pray for our neighbors and our neighborhood.
Let us pray for our families and friends: our mommies and daddies, our grandparents and great-grandparents.
Let us pray for the world and the universes.
Let us pray for our pets and the animals of the world: Millie, Cokie, puppies and cats.
Let us pray for those who have illnesses, our sick grandparents, heart disease, cancer, and memory loss.
Let us pray for those going through rough times, mentally and physically.
Let us pray for those who have died everywhere and those who have died that are close to us.
Let us pray for everyone.
[The Prayers of the People concluded with a prayer written by the priest who works with these little ones:]
Holy and gracious God, we are too often blinded by trivial matters. May our attention be diverted now from these things, and may we become as little children, trusting and seeking with love to cross bridges we have not crossed in the past.
Amen!
On November 17, the Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) issued the following letter from its top official following terrorist attacks in Paris, Beirut, Baghdad, and Egypt:
“We are a world grieving. We mourn the many deaths, not only in Paris, but also in Beirut, Baghdad, and Egypt. Any sense of security we have had is badly compromised by these horrific events; moreover, our fear of ISIS grows with every successful execution of its violent agenda.
“Much has been taken from us but we still hold the choice as to how we react in our grief and fear. Many politicians have rushed from grief to fearful judgment. More than half of the governors of our states have attempted to protect their citizens by issuing declarations denying entry of Syrian refugees into their states (as if all of the potential terrorists are Syrian). Some have gone so far as to call for denial of entry to all refugees at the present time, as if that will guarantee safety to the citizens of their state.
“As U.S. governors pledge to refuse Syrian refugees within their states and some presidential hopefuls promise to abandon the refugee program altogether, we the people have a choice to make. We can choose to follow those who would have us hide in fear or we can choose hope.
“Our nation, for decades, has chosen hope and welcome for those fleeing war and persecution. Since 1975, more than three million refugees have found safety and security within our nation’s borders. Right now 11 million Syrians cannot go to school, tend to their land, or raise their children in the place they know as home. They cannot do these things because they, themselves, have been terrorized for far too long by numerous factions, including their own government.
“Do we choose to abandon our plan to protect these Syrians because the people who have been threatening them are now threatening the West as well? ISIS has taken lives; they have taken our sense of security. Do we now hand over our hope and compassion to them?
“Obviously, we need to move forward with a disciplined response, expediting security checks such as those employed by the U.S. refugee admission program. To refuse certain persons who are fleeing terror and persecution because they are “Syrian” or of some other particular ethnic group is unjust and may be illegal under U.S. law. We can be disciplined and, at the same time, led to love beyond our own limited, fearful vision.
“After the crucifixion of Jesus, the disciples hid in fear. They locked the doors but God had another plan. Jesus appeared to them and said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jn. 20:21). We were not meant to hide. We were meant to walk out in hope and compassion. Author, poet, and peace activist Wendell Berry wrote, “Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation” (The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays, “The Body and the Earth,” p. 99). The way to end terror is to prove that those who demonize us are wrong. We are not a heartless secular culture. We must witness to the Gospel with generous hospitality. To hide in fear is a mistake. Fear is the ammunition of terror. Hope is the best defense.
Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk
Office of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (USA)
Louisville, KY
Paris was attacked one week ago today. Within minutes Nous sommes toute la France — We are all France –– went viral on FaceBook along with French flags.
Very quickly U.S. Congressmen and a majority of governors in the United States went before television cameras and microphones to declare that Syrian refugees would no longer be welcome here.
Meanwhile a strange thing happened in France. French President Francois Hollande, speaking to French mayors, declared the opposite. He re-iterated and increased his commitment to France’s “humanitarian duty” to refugees fleeing Syria and Afghanistan.
Click After Attacks, France Increases Its Commitment to Refugees to read the story.
While the French President and President Obama have maintained balanced concerns for national security and humanitarian duty, fear has been spreading. Fear of terror is as legitimate in the U.S. as it is in France. It’s what we do with fear that matters.
Fear is the enemy of reason, the great confuser of thoughtful action. Those who stoke the embers of fear confuse fire with courage, forgetting that is is cowardice to surrender one’s deep principles when under pressure or assault. The courageous refuse to let fear determine their course; no darkness can extinguish the light.
One week after the Paris attacks we face the question of how to live in the reality of throngs of refugees and the threat of terrorism. It’s not simple. We can say to the world, Nous ne sommes pas tous de France. Nous sommes des lâches au cœur dur” [We are not all France. We are hard-hearted cowards] – or we can say again with the courage of high resolve and principled compassion:
“Nous sommes toute la France!”
Before Beirut and Paris, 1,ooo+ Muslim clerics in India issued a Fatwa against ISIS declaring, “The acts of the Islamic State are inhuman and un-Islamic.” The Associated Press report was published September 9, 2015. Click the link above to read the story.
Also in September, NPR aired Prominent Muslim Sheikh Issues Fatwa Against ISIS Violence, re-aired yesterday. Posts like these deserve wider attention.
Meanwhile, a very small Christian church in the little town of Philo, Illinois, drew attention in the local paper for its consideration of hosting Muslim Syrian refugees.
News on Philo Presbyterian Church and Muslim Syrian refugees
News from Paris and Beirut reminds us of the history of Lac qui Parle, the Dakota Creation Song, that still speaks hope to a violent world. Thirty-eight Dakota men sang it in its original Dakota language – Wakantanka taku nitawu – before their executioners took them to the gallows in Mankato, MN in 1862. The threat of death did not deter them from affirming the goodness of creation.
“Many and great, O God, are Thy things, Maker of Earth and Sky; Thy hands have set the heavens with stars, Thy fingers spread the mountains and plains. Lo, at Thy word, the waters were formed; Deep seas obey Thy voice
“Grant unto us communion with Thee, Thou star-abiding One; Come unto us and dwell with us: With Thee are found the gifts of life. Bless us with life that has no end, Eternal life with Thee.
[Joseph R. Renville, Dakota, 1842; paraphrased translation, R. Philip Frazier, 1929 and 1953]
Christian Theological Seminary‘s “Statement on Attacks on Beirut and Paris” (11.16.15) is one for the ages.
“Friends,
“All the world – tout le monde – grieves and stands with France in the midst of these harrowing days. All the world – kl alealam – grieves and stands with Lebanon. As people of faith, our hearts can only break when God’s children turn against each other in the name of God. And the most elemental, effective way to counter such “turning against” is to reverse the gesture, turning toward one other in solidarity, compassion, and hope.
“On Friday night, I attended the student-organized vigil against racism, a gathering powerfully proclaiming that Black Lives Matter. CTS student body president Whittney Murphy spoke eloquently that we are like the candles we held that night: sometimes flickering in the wind, or even going out, but then rekindled by the lights of others. The shadows may fall and the winds threaten, but together we can walk in the promise that God is with us, and that God is a light the world’s shadows cannot and will not overcome.
“As we stood together in the vigil that night along Michigan Road, the attacks in Lebanon were only a day old, and the news was just beginning to come in about the attacks in Paris. On one level, these various events – the vigil and the attacks – seem separate and distinct. But on a deeper level, they are profoundly connected. The same dehumanizing act of dividing the world into “us” on the one hand and “our enemies” on the other is the root of both racism and religious intolerance. The peace and equality for which the vigil called here at home is the same peace and equality we need in France, Lebanon, and beyond. And what’s more (and more troubling), while France has received a public outpouring of support and solidarity from around the world, Lebanon has not. For many, this has understandably raised the question: When it comes to the world’s solidarity and concern, don’t Lebanese lives matter as much as French ones? If our hearts (or Facebook pages) now bear the French flag’s blue, white, and red, shouldn’t they also bear Lebanon’s red, white, and green?
“In the New Testament Gospels, Jesus’ signature move is to stand with outsiders, with the forgotten or marginalized, and to reach across religious and ethnic lines of hostility. Following Jesus as best we can, we can only heed the call to do the same. Jesus is in Lebanon. Jesus is standing along Michigan Road. Jesus is in France, and in so many other places around the world, mending the brokenhearted, calling for justice, calling for love. Wherever the shadows fall, there Jesus goes, the flickering, quickening light of the world.
“And so we give thanks for student leaders, their voices clear, their faces illuminated by candles of hope. We give thanks for all of those committed to helping to turn these horrifying attacks into renewed resolve to work toward reconciliation. For as we approach the coming Season of Advent, those four weeks of lament and prayer that lead to a once-forgotten backwater not far from Lebanon, we know our lives depend on the love that binds us together. So much depends on that love. All the world – tout le monde, kl alealam – depends on it.
“God’s shalom,
Matthew Myer Boulton
“Matthew Myer Boulton
President and Professor of Theology
Christian Theological Seminary
1000 W. 42nd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46208″
Suggested letter to come from the Board of the small Presbyterian Church of Philo, Illinois:
Dear Syrian refugee family,
Yes, we know you are Muslims, fleeing for your lives from a violent cult that claims they have all the truth & can harm anyone they want.
We are a small Presbyterian Christian Church in a small town, Philo, in Illinois.
Yes, our State’s Governor in Springfield says no Syrian refugees can come to our State. Fortunately, our Country separates Church from State, so we will welcome you here. Tell us where you are & we will send a car…
Members, Philo, Illinois, Presbyterian Church
Philo Presbyterian Church, Philo, Illinois
Eleven years ago tomorrow – November 14, 2004 – the sounds of Windy Downwind’s flute and AIM founders Clyde Bellecourt, Dennis Banks, and Bill Means’s Honor Song convened the respectful celebration of the life of Doug Hall in the St. Felix School Gymnasium in Wabasha, MN.
I often think of Doug and his life-partner Marian, but it was yesterday’s re-descovery of “The Book of Doug”, a gift from the Hall family following the celebration of Doug’s life, that led to this post.
Doug Hall at home in Wabasha
Verse – His Own True Self
He sits and smiles,
His dog Sparky
Resting against his leg,
His eyebrows hanging
Like willow branches.
The bell has tolled
For him, a tolling
Like a wind-song
From the North
Marking the end.
Stephanie Autumn and Clyde Bellecourt honoring Doug with Indian blanket
He sits and smiles,
Peaceful, thankful,
Accepting, connecting
With those he loves,
Caring for those he will leave
The earth, his home,
Calls him to itself,
Beyond eternal claims
Or expectations,
He sits at peace
Mortal flesh he knows
Cannot prolong itself,
Nor should it seek what it
Cannot attain
Beyond its measure.
No control of time
Which bears us all away,
No need now to storm
The barricades against
The end of time.
He sits and smiles
In gratitude and wonder
For sun and shadow,
For all creatures great and small,
For family love and friends.
For these he sits and smiles –
This self-disclaiming man
Who intended nothing
But his own true self
In whatever time was his.
[Gordon C. Stewart, 2004]
Windy’s flute and the Honor Song drumming echoed Doug’s spirit. Like Old Joe Hill, Doug’s voice still echoes down through the ages of time for all who seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly on this Earth.
Minnesota Law and Politics named Doug Hall to Minnesota’s Legal Hall of Fame. Scroll down to #38 to read the Law and Politics’ tribute to him.
– Gordon C. Stewart, November 14, 2015
A Kindergarten teacher observed the children drawing pictures in her classroom. As she walked around the room, one little girl was totally absorbed in her drawing when the teacher asked what she was drawing.
“I’m drawing God!”
“But no one knows what God looks like,” said the teacher.
The girl kept drawing. Without a hitch and without looking up, she replied, “They will in a minute.”
As part of their research, psychologists have asked children to draw pictures of God looking for correspondences between the children see their parents and how they imagine God.
“God the Father” of trinitarian Christian theology was of particular interest. The children’s drawings turn out to be vastly different, depending upon positive or negative experiences with their fathers. Some drew God as kind and loving; others drew God as fearful and violent.
Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and Ludwig Feuerbach would not be surprised. Each in his own way saw ‘God’ as a human projection, not a Divine reality. Yet there is something about even the most disbelieving of us that is still drawn to try to draw God.
Maybe the little girl in the kindergarten class had heard in church the line that “No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (I John 4:12). Maybe she was drawing Love.
Views from the Edge 