e. e. cummings
Tomorrow six old friends meet in Chicago for “the Gathering, 2013”. This is the 12th such gathering.
“2”
to
(y
ou
and
i)
ge
th
er
ne
ss– ss (steve shoemaker)
a tribute to e.e. cummings
Reply
Category Archives: Faith
Isn’t she lovely!
New grand daughter Ruby
Fetal position Ruby, born early, 5 lbs. 7 ounces
Apologies
The above letter appeared publicly online today, Saturday, May 25 2013.
Usually our sins are less egregious and are such that we never do anything to make right our wrong. Which is what prompts this post.
Apologies to my friend Steve, the author of the poem in the Views from the Edge’s most recent post (“Beyond Fundamentalism”) for misprinting the title of his poem. Strange how our eyes are conditioned to see what we expect to read. Knowing Steve’s background, I didn’t expect to see the word ‘conversion’, so my eyes read it as ‘conversATion’. Here it is again under the correct title. And, Steve, this is the last I want to hear about this! 🙂 What are friends for if not to forgive by the wider, deeper, more than fact truth that knocked the Apostle Paul off his horse?
CONVERSION AT SEMINARY
Four years Wheaton College tried
to make a fundamentalist
Christianity the first
and last thought on my searching mind.
Then a liberal McCormick
Dean Filson took a chance on me–
I learned Bible truth could be
much wider, deeper, than mere fact:
changing this world was our call!
From civil rights to stopping war,
social justice cried for more
of faithful love, that holy force
learned by the Apostle Paul
when Jesus knocked him off his horse.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 25, 2013
Beyond Fundamentalism
The influence of New Testament scholar Floyd Filson
Four years Wheaton College tried
to make a fundamentalist
Christianity the first
and last thought on my searching mind.
Then a liberal McCormick
Dean Filson took a chance on me–
I learned Bible truth could be
much wider, deeper, than mere fact:
changing this world was our call!
From civil rights to stopping war,
social justice cried for more
of faithful love, that holy force
learned by the Apostle Paul
when Jesus knocked him off his horse.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 25, 2013
Dean Floyd V. Filson was an internationally renowned New Testament scholar. A prolific writer, Filson published his own original New Testament commentaries and articles in scholarly journal, but he did not operate in a silo. He collaborated with co-authors and co-editors Oscar Cullman, G. Ernest Wright, and other world-class scholars. He also translated Rudolph Otto’s The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man, a book which, like Otto’s The Idea of the Holy represented a landmark shift in the understanding of God and of Jesus’s own consciousness. But more than a scholar, at least for the likes of Steve, was his unfailing kindness and belief in us. If he was aware of his stature in the world of academia, it was never apparent in the classroom or in his office. He was the definition of Christian humility. A ready smile, gentleness, respect for others, and a hearty “Good Morning!” were his signatures.
Monday six McCormick grads on whom Dean Filson took a chance will gather at the seminary for our annual Gathering. Steve and Don Dempsey were Class of ’68; Wayne Boulton, Harry Strong, Bob Young and I were the Class of ’67.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Pie Jesu” in a Child’s Voice
Akim Camara
“Pie Jesu” means “Merciful/kind Jesus”; in its context in the Latin Requiem Mass, it calls on “the Lamb of God” to show mercy to the suffering. Kindness and mercy are at the heart of spirituality.
The text has an interesting history. The “Pie Jesu” is an ancient motet based on the last couplet of the “Dies Irae” (“Day of Wrath”) that was part of the old Latin Requiem Mass. The Vatican II liturgical reforms removed the “Dies Irae” from the Mass in order to emphasize Christian hope. A number of composers, among them Andrew Lloyd Webber – influenced by Gabriel Faure’s “Pie Jesu” – gave new musical expression to the prayer: “Kind/merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest. Kind/merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest eternal.” BTW, Faure’s Requiem includes the “Dies Irae” which has become part of the Good Friday period of meditation at Shepherd of the Hill, not because God is wrathful, but because we so often have reason to cry out “Libera Me!” from the depths of terror and desolation.
The Prison Church of the Good Thief
The Church of the Good Thief, Clinton Correctional Facility, Dannemora, NY
Dannemora, New York, home of Clinton Correctional Facility
Within the forbiddingly high walls of the NY State Prison in the village of Dannemora stands a remarkable structure: The Church of St. Dismas (the Good Thief).
The prison is now known as “Clinton Correctional Facility,” but to the inmates across the state of New York it is known as “the Hell Hole” of the New York prison system – “New York’s Siberia” – because it is cold in the northeast corner of New York. The inmates of Attica think of Dannemora the way people outside the system think of Attica – the most dreaded place in the New York prison system.
The Church of St. Dismas was built by the prisoners between the years of 1939 and 1941 as a witness to God’s presence within the walls of the prison. Its name pays homage to the thief next to Jesus of Nazareth, the political criminal who was pardoned and promised Paradise.
On the Wednesday evenings between 1974 and 1977 I drove across the Adirondacks from our home in Canton, New York to Dennemora where a group of church members, college students, and university faculty put on programs and visited with prisoners. The times with the inmates confirmed what I had read in Kai Erickson’s incisive book Wayward Puritans: a Study in the Sociology of Deviance in which he argued that society creates and maintains deviance as a means to identifying itself as the opposite of “the other”.
Leaving Dannemora those Wednesday nights, the sound of the iron prison gates clanging shut marked the clear difference between inside and outside the walls. I drove back across the mountains, remembering the conversations with “Blue” and other men I’d just left inside. Like those who built the Church of St. Dismas with their own hands, I remembered the criminal crucified with Jesus, and drove home from the prison “yard” to the yards we mowed back home in Canton where the walls were invisible.
Later I learned the Taize Community (France) chanted prayer of “the penitent thief’ set to music: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom”.
April 16, 2012
For the Grieving Parents of Moore
In times of great tragedy and sorrow, I often turn to the “Pie Jesu” of Gabriel Faure’s Requiem. Our hearts are broken with you.
Prayers for the people of Moore, Oklahoma
Social reformers Frank Mason North in foreground, Walter Rauschenbusch behind.
But an old prayer for Passion Sunday from the Riverside Church in New York City came to mind. It was the prayer of The Rev’d Dr. Ernest (“Ernie”) Campbell for the workers most of us take for granted daily in good times. Today it applies to all the first responders who labor to care for the people of Moore.
Bless with Thy power and presence, gracious God, those who do the menial chores and thankless tasks behind our city’s bright façade:
those who rise early to bring fresh food and produce from the marketplace;
those who clean our halls and offices through the night;
those who work our switchboards and see that messages get through;
those who load and unload trucks;
those who stock the shelves and work the back rooms of our stores;
those who fire boilers and provide maintenance in the heat and noise of basements that we seldom visit;
those who clean our windows and mend our masonry and keep our flagpoles in repair;
those who set tables, bus dishes, and work in our many kitchens.In following our several callings, make us aware of what we owe to unnamed thousands whose work is indispensable to our well-being. And give them to know, O God, that in Thy sight, if not in ours, the least of the earth are very big indeed.
– Ernest Campbell (Click HERE for Ernest Campbell’s obituary.)
The hymn “Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life” (music by Ludwig von Beethoven; lyrics by Frank Mason North, pictured above) meant so much to him that he used it for the title of one of his three books. Below are the lyrics. Click HERE for an organist’s rendition of “Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life”.
Where cross the crowded ways of life,
Where sound the cries of race and clan
Above the noise of selfish strife,
We hear your voice, O Son of man.
In haunts of wretchedness and need,
On shadowed thresholds dark with fears,
From paths where hide the lures of greed,
We catch the vision of Your tears.
From tender childhood’s helplessness,
From woman’s grief, man’s burdened toil,
From famished souls, from sorrow’s stress,
Your heart has never known recoil.
The cup of water given for You,
Still holds the freshness of Your grace;
Yet long these multitudes to view
The sweet compassion of Your face.
O Master, from the mountainside
Make haste to heal these hearts of pain;
Among these restless throngs abide;
O tread the city’s streets again.
Till all the world shall learn Your love
And follow where Your feet have trod,
Till, glorious from Your Heaven above,
Shall come the city of our God!
What the Book of Revelation was REALLY about
No book has been more abused and abusive than the Book of Revelation.
Gunnison Memorial Chapel, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY
Martin Ramirez Sostre. inmate held in solitary confinement, later granted clemency by NY Gov. Carey..
Below are excerpts from a sermon preached at the Gunnison Memorial Chapel of St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY inspired by Martin Sostre and re-reading the Book of Revelation. The sermon was published by The Christian Century (March, 1974).
The first half of the “Worship and Resistance: The Exercise of Freedom” introduces the hearer/ reader to the case of Martin Sostre’s resistance as a political prisoner incarcerated in solitary confinement at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY, known as “New York’s Siberia” or, as the inmates refer to it, “the Hell Hole of the New York Prison system”.
It was during my weekly Wednesday evening program and visits with prisoners there that I learned about the case of Martin Sostre, held in solitary confinement in resistance to dehumanizing prison practices, and joined the campaign for his pardon.
Excerpts from “Worship and Resistance: The Exercise of Freedom:
“Incarcerated on the Aegean Island of Patmos, a penal settlement of the Roman Empire in the first century A.D., was a political prisoner named John. He wrote a political-religious manifesto declaring open resistance to the Roman Empire. The Revelation to John – the Apocalypse, the last book of the Bible – is the earliest extant Christian tract deliberately and openly directed against the pretensions of the world’s greatest power. In the Revelation to John, resistance to Roman power and authority is so inextricably bound together with worship of God that they constitute two sides of the same coin. Worship and resistance are the twin sides of faith’s freedom to celebrate God’s gift of life. The unity of resistance and worship is expressed with notable clarity in the passage where the fall of mighty Babylon occasions a celebration in heaven. The destruction of Babylon is joined to the salvation of the world itself and is the sign of God’s power and righteous rule over the nations. Only those who profit by Babylon’s wealth, power and injustice have reason to mourn her fall, while those who have ‘come out of her’ – who have disentangled themselves from her oppression, corruption and imperial claims – have cause to worship God and sing joyful hymns of praise.”
….
“Babylon is the state or nation in its presumption to be God. Babylon is any state, nation, or constellation of principalities and powers, which attempts to rule as final judge of persons and nations. Babylon is any such power – in any time or place – which makes its people subjects, calling them into idolatry of the nations, and any state or nation that persecutes its prophets of righteousness, peace and justice while rewarding the aggressive supporters and the silent ones who acquiesce. America is Babylon.”
….
“Envision once more a visit to Clinton Correctional Facility. Remember the disorienting sensation of having left everything familiar on the other side of the wall, the feeling of walking out of a real world into a nightmare, the shock induced by the size of the walls and the presence of the guards – strange and terrifying.
“But the closer one gets to the prison reality, the more one comes to realize that it is not so strange, that it is simply a more exaggerated and visible form of our own everyday reality in the face of death. Here on the outside, the walls are not visible, but they are much higher. Out here the guards do not stand poised with machine guns, but they are real and far more powerful – the guards our own fears provide.”
….
“Then I heard another voice from heaven ssying, ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins…’” (Rev. 18:4 RSV).
A commentary will follow soon on my experience of visiting Martin during the time he was transferred to the Federal Detention Center in NYC where he was held as a witness in someone else’s trial. Prior to that visit, none of us in Northern New York had been able to meet with Martin because of his refusal to see visitors on the principle that the rectal “searches” required before and after visits violated his human rights.
NY Governor Carey eventually issued a pardon.
Reading my own obituary!
It’s startling when you see your own name on the obituary page!
But there it is, right there, posted on the internet.
Published in the The Argus on 10 May 13
STEWART Gordon On 3rd May 2013, Gordon aged 86 years. Resident of Sussex Heights sadly missed by family and friends. Funeral Service at Hove Cemetery on Wednesday, 22nd May at 10.00 a.m. (Graveside service) Flowers or if desired donations for the Martlets Hospice may be sent to S.E Skinner and Sons, 145 Lewes Road, Brighton, BN2 3LG Tel. 01273 607446.
Condolences to the family of the older Gordon in Sussex Heights this Wednesday. Some day it will be this Gordon Stewart…with the middle initial ‘C’ on the obituary page, but I won’t be reading it. For Gordon’s family and for all who will eventually stands at the grave, this lovely graveside prayer from The Book of Common Prayer offers consolation and call us to live our days with meaning, thanksgiving, and hope:
O Lord, support us all the day long
until the shadows lengthen, and the busy world is hushed,
and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.Then, in Your mercy, grant us a safe lodging
and peace at the last.
Views from the Edge 