The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness by Gregory Boyle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book gets to the heart of the Jesus message which is not about piety but about radical mercy and compassion. This book is a collection of stories that are told or in my case read by the author in a light but powerful manner. I look forward to meeting Gregory Boyle when he comes to St. Bonaventure University later this year.
A story that needs telling
I’ve been reading The 1619 Project. It’s an enlightening book. The author describes plantations as work camps. I’ve never thought of Monticello, Mount Vernon and the like in the same light as Ravensbruck and Birkenau but they were. Enslaved African Americans were forced to work, brutally treated and in many cases killed to keep them towing the line. They were bred like livestock and treated the same or worse.
I learned in school that Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation but it took the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendment to codify that into United States law. A new era emerged after the Civil War until the the end of the Reconstruction era when federal troops were withdrawn from the southern states. Then all hell broke loose as vigilante rule took over and Blacks and other people of color were systematically subjugated. Voter suppression and intimidation was the norm. Four thousand blacks were lynched between 1880 and 1940. Teenage Emmet Till was brutally murdered in 1955 for smiling at a white woman. People of color really weren’t free until the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1965.
Native Americans were forced off their lands and put on reservations. Schools were created to forcibly destroy their culture and they the original owners of the Americas were not granted the right to vote in the United States until 1925. Following World War 2 white American servicemen and women qualified for the GI Bill which helped many including my father to attend college and pursue professional lives. The GI Bill was denied to soldiers of color. There is so much that is not understood by whites about people of color and how our society is not color blind at all. Our lives as white people is skewed to benefit us while disenfranchising our brothers and sisters who are darker.
I don’t like the term racist as there is no such thing as race. It is a social construct that was created to justify the repression of people of color. We are all the same race, the human race. Paradoxically we are all prejudiced. It is normal and natural to feel more at home with those that look like us.
I know I’m prejudiced. I don’t want to be prejudiced but I am. I work to overcome that on a daily basis. What’s most distressing in this country is that we have systemic prejudice that many fail to recognize and accept. Many of our presidents owned slaves. When our founding documents were written in the 18th century Black people were enslaved, Native Americans had their land stolen and were routinely murdered.
We have a lot of work ahead of us to truly become the United States of America.
Soft and Supple
Acceptance is the key to life. Those who cannot change cannot survive. Those who can wear masks and get vaccinated are likely to flourish in our new environment. As I sat watching a basketball game at St. Bonaventure University’s Reilly Center I was surrounded by people. Young and old alike. Some wore masks as requested by the university to keep us all safe while others were wearing chin straps or at least that’s what they looked like. Last week parents in Franklinville had an impromptu protest in front of the school that was anti-mask.
Everyday we read the news of angry folks decrying mask and vaccine requests and mandates. We read too of those whose inflexible reaction has cost them their health and in some cases their lives. Wearing a mask is annoying especially when one has hearing aids and glasses too. I’ve been contemplating a response and today I’m reminded of the wisdom of the Tao that was written twenty-five-hundred years ago.
The living are soft and supple;the dead are rigid and stiff.In life, plants are flexible and tender;in death, they are brittle and dry.Stiffness is thus a companion of death;flexibility a companion of life.An army that cannot yield will be defeated.A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind.The hard and stiff will be broken.The soft and supple will prevail.
Chapter 76 Tao te Ching
If you are wondering…
I first saw this quote from a framed poster at Mount Irenaeus over twenty years ago. It’s as meaningful now as it was then. In fact I find myself more and more attracted to solitude the older I get. Sitting in church or anywhere for that matter never really turned me on. I find God or if you will the higher power in the silence of the woods, the babbling of a brook, the gentle lapping of waves along a lake shore or anywhere that silence abounds.
If you are wondering what God may be,
Looking for a purpose in life,
Craving company, or seeking solitude,
Come to our Meeting for worship.
We shall not ask you to speak or sing,
We shall not ask you what you believe,
We shall simply offer you our friendship,
And a chance to sit quietly and think.
And perhaps somebody will speak,
And perhaps somebody might read,
And perhaps somebody might pray,
And perhaps you will find here
That what you are seeking.
We are not saints,
We are not cranks,
We are not different-
Except that we believe
That God’s light is in all persons,
Waiting to be discovered… Author Unknown
Who are they kidding?
I read today that a poll conducted recently that a majority of voters of both persuasions believe that the time has come for secession from the United States of America. Are these folks living in a vacuum? Who do they think provides the fuel for the economy that provides for the common defense and the common good? Forces of the extreme right wing of the Republican party who care nothing about the common good of the country and for that matter, the world are espousing this wrong headed approach to the body politic.
These separatists who decry socialism and advanced society fail to realize that the roads we drive on, the sewer and water systems that support our day to day lives and most of the infrastructure that supports our daily lives is paid for by tax dollars. Many of the so called red states are full of military installations which provide thousands of jobs and no doubt contribute mightily to the wealth of the communities that surround them. If they secede from the union then those jobs go to other states.
Nearly seven hundred twenty thousand Americans are dead from a deadly virus primarily because this same bunch of idiots are interfering with roll-out of the vaccine to mitigate the effects of the virus.
It’s October 1 and where I live the trees are still mostly green. That’s unusual. When I was a boy most of the trees were bright orange on the first day of October. It was common to have a ‘killing frost’ by mid-September. We have had one overnight when the temperature dipped to 38 degrees fahrenheit. The forecast for December this year is for warmer weather than normal. That’s all becasue the climate is changing. The gulf coast of our country has been ravaged by record breaking hurricanes which have left unheard of destruction in their wake.
We need thoughtful leadership from intelligent people. I encourage you not to listen to talking heads spreading lies and misinformation that put the lives of all the world at risk. Be a uniter not a divider.
Literally true?
I’m listening to a book by Neil deGrasse Tyson on astrophysics. It’s extremely interesting and mostly over my head. Last year I took a course on “The Bible and Science.” It was a Christian college and though the professor was very open minded many of my fellow students clung to the belief that the Bible is literally true.
I’m a long time fan of Ilia Delio’s writing too and she frequently writes about how we need new thinking in the church vis a vis the discoveries of quantum mechanics. Tyson’s book has confirmed for me that the Bible is mythologized history. It was written by ancient writers whose grasp of the cosmos was limited.
There are lots of solid principles in the Bible. Universal truths like treating others as we’d like to be treated. Giving gifts and being repaid many times over. I accept that as I’ve witnessed it in my own life. Our concept of a supreme being and it’s expression must be revised in light of what we now know.
Holding Afghanistan in the Light
More broadly, it is far past time for the United States to acknowledge that peace and real security can never be achieved through military force, and to therefore abandon the failed endless war paradigm completely.
— Read on www.fcnl.org/updates/2021-08/holding-afghanistan-light
The horrific attacks at Kabul Airport must not be used as a pretext for more war. The military industrial complex and its supporters have kept the United States in a wartime footing since 1939. The present war in Afghanistan has depleted our National treasure long enough and has done nothing to end terrorism nor advance the cause of world peace.
Vote to confirm Xavier
Yesterday I received an email from a sibling urging me to pray that Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services be defeated because he’s pro-choice. My correspondent wrote of course that he’s pro-abortion which is not true. I’m tired of these either/or evangelicals who are merely pro-birth and not truly pro-life. Life is both/and and much more complex than the binary choices these folks espouse. I pray everyday for an end to bigotry and hatred based on skin color, sexual orientation, religion or no religion at all. I hope Xavier Becerra is confirmed and that he leads us to better health and human services.
We have hope
Yesterday I drove one hundred forty miles east of my home to receive the first of two doses of the Moderna vaccine. I was so anxious that the night prior to that I slept very little. Last night I slept like a log. I’m hopeful and grateful today for the team of scientists who created this remedy to the Corona virus. I’m grateful for President Biden whose team has expedited these vaccines. I got my shot at a CVS. The folks at the store were very professional and put us at ease. I felt like I was surrounded by angels and indeed they were. I’ve had a lot of vaccines in my life but none so anticipated. My arm is not sore. It’s just a little tender around the injection site.
My wife got her vaccine the day before. She said that this was a Valentine to remember and indeed it was. We enjoyed our trip together to central New York State. We passed through the Finger Lakes region and enjoyed its beauty and bounty. Along the way we passed a motel that looked like the one in Schitts Creek. That gave us a chuckle. Later we passed a store front that reminded of Roland Schitt whose one of the characters in the series we’ve been enjoying lately.
Today I’m returning to my daily walk which I missed yesterday due to our travel. I’m grateful to be alive and grateful for the professionals at CVS and the leadership of the man who carries the Rosary and gives me hope. Peace.
Those who have eyes to see
I’ve come to believe that white supremacy is so embedded in Eurocentric American Christianity that most folks can’t believe that Jesus and the early church were not white. That they were in fact brown and/or black. Look at the statues and paintings in most churches and museums depicting Jesus, his followers and most of the early saints. It’s highly likely that St. Augustine was at least brown. He was from North Africa. The Desert Fathers and Mother’s came out of the Egyptian and Ethiopian deserts. It wasn’t until Christianity moved to Europe and the Americas that it became a religion of conquest and subjugation of indigenous people.