PARAKLETOS

On Saturday night we drove to
Birmingham and spent the night there.  We woke up on Sunday morning and went to 16^th Street Baptist Church.  On Sunday morning, September 16, 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the church killing four girls.  Addie Mae Collins (aged 14), Denise McNair (aged 11), Carole Robertson (aged 14), and Cynthia Wesley (aged 14) where all killed while they where in Sunday School.

The deaths of the children followed by the killing of President Kennedy two months later gave birth to a tide of grief and anger- a surge of emotional momentum that helped ensure the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

 

From there we had lunch down the street at Ms B’s., a great little local place to grab some of the best fried chicken, mac and cheese, greens, meat loaf, black eye peas and all kinds of good soul food.  We got your food to go and talked back to Kelly Ingram Park to eat lunch and view of the violence that took place in that park.  It was here, during the first week of May 1963, that Birmingham police and firemen, under orders from Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, confronted demonstrators, many of them children, first with mass arrests and then with police dogs and firehoses. Images from those confrontations, broadcast nationwide, spurred a public outcry which turned the nation’s attention to the struggle for racial equality. The demonstrations in Birmingham brought city leaders to agree to an end of public segregation. In addition, they helped ensure the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Civil Rights laws.

 

After spending some time in the park we went across the street to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institution.  It was filled with some much great info but my mind and heart where still back at the church and the park.  Walking in a place where such great violence had taken place messes with you.  I also was finding it hard at this time to be fully engaged with the content of the trip and still be the team leader with all those details.

 

Looking back now this day mostly leaves me with questions.  Questions like…

What makes a grown man turn a firehose on a child?

What makes a grown man plant a bomb to kill children while they are in Sunday school?

What makes people set off so many bombs that their city becomes known as bombingham?

What makes a “safety commissioner” drive around their town in a tank?

What kind of hate is in a person’s heart that they would tell a pastor they had better leave town or their family would end up like the 4 girls that where killed?

What kind of pathology leads a person to say that African-Americans who lived in Birmingham at that time where happy with the way things where?

 

Every time I go to Birmingham I ask some soul searching questions, questions that we have to ask if we are going to be a people who redeem our past and live a different future.  If we don’t ask these questions I believe that our past will continue to haunt us and negatively influence the way we live.

Sankofa day 1

 

We left
Bethel and drove straight through to Memphis.  That night on the bus was very interesting.  I tried sleeping in every position in my seat but none of them worked all that well.  I must have got a few hours of sleep but it felt like I didn’t get any.  The next morning I learned that some of the smart students just sleep on the floor and got a good nights rest.  That was the one position that I did not try.

 

When we got to Memphis we went to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel.  The Lorraine Motel was the place that Martin Luther King Jr. was killed.  The Museum was the first to record the full history of African- Americans in the United States.  The story began with 1619 and went to 1968 the year King was killed.

 

One of the things that always gets me at this museum is just how complex the story is.  There are so many names, dates, events, and places.  Some of them show great strength, courage, and wisdom, and others show the evilest parts of the human heart. 

 

The stories of W.E.D. Dubois, A Philip Randolph, Jim Peck, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, all make me proud to be called an American.  Their stories give me an imagination to try to live as they lived, full of courage.  Their wisdom is so rich I think that I will spend the rest of my life diving into its depth.

 

On the other hand in this museum I see and hear the story of how slavery evolved into a system that came to view African – Americans as not being human, but like animals.  I see them being treated worse then livestock.  I hear the story of how after the Civil war Slavery evolved into Segregation through court rulings like “Plessy  V Ferguson (1896).  This segregation led to a brutal, dehumanizing existence and continued to enslave African-Americans.

 

The other thing that gets to me is the death of Martin Luther King.  If he would have lived what kind of world would we be living in?  How could he have lead us into a better world, how could he have shown us what it means to live as one? 

 

James Earl Ray was convicted for the crime but I believe that he did not act alone.  For one he was connected internationally, which leads me to believe that he was not just your average criminal.  Also the Official committee said that he was not a racist that wanted to kill King, the committee said that his motivate was the promise of financial reward.  (Select Committee on Assassinations HSC Vol 13 page 242)  I wonder who promised him money?  By that time King was being followed daily by the FBI, he was talking about issues of poverty, and he was coming out against the war.  I believe that the US government had many reason to take him out.  If you read Howard Zinn’s Book “People’s History of the United States”, the idea of the US government taking out someone like King is very easy to believe.

 

After the museum we went to Neely’s and got some of the best soul food on the earth, and then headed to Birmingham.

so today we went to the National Civil Right Memorial, National Voting rights museum, Edmund Pettis Bridge,and Brown Chapel.  The edmund pettis bridge is where Jim Clark unleased the police, horses and dogs on the marchers, it turned out to be a major turning point in the civil rights movement.  Brown Chapel is the church where the marches would start.  It is a very powerful church for the christian faith.

A couple things we need to know more about are the current hate groups.  check out http://www.splcenter.org/ for more info.
the history of voting rights.  it is a crazy history of how starting in the 1900s we took away the right to vote from african americans.

today we also went through a reenactment of the slave trade.  I have a lot of feelings to work through so i will blog about that next week.

here are a few pictures of the day click here and here

So today we went to the Rosa Parks museum and then to the national center for the study of civil rights and african american culture at alabama state unversity.  At Alabama state we spent time with Rev Graetz (pictured below).  He moved to Motgomery 3 monthes before the bus boycott to pastor the church at Rosa Parks was a part of.  Rev. Graetz is one of the white heroes that we have got to meet, he worked with Dr. King, had his house bombed 3 times (with a young family), had the KKK come to his house and threaten him and yet he said that he stilled trusted God and would do it all over again.  He said that he did not expect to live as long as he has because he thought that the KKK would kill him.  Now that is the kind of faith that i am looking for.

the three things that he said we need to be fighting for today are:
against poverty
against religious foundamentalism
and for homosexual sex rights.

i have to go to supper see you later.

So we have been on the road for about 3 days.  We have went to the Civil rights musuem in memphis, 16th street baptist church (birmingham), the national civil rights institue, kelly imgram park, and the King distric in Atlanta.

I have seen so much that i can hardly believe it and take it all in and this is my second time on this trip.

Today we went to MoreHouse college in Atlanta , a all black school where King went.  They have one of the larges collection of Kings wrotes.  the orginals are there for research.  We where able to get into the room and look at some of kings orginal sermons that he gave at Dexter, and then some that he gave at Ebenezer around 1965.  It was a special and holly experience to see the works of such a world leader.

The more i study king the more i am amazed at what he did, how fast he did it and how much he is recognized by the world. 

Here are a few pictures of what we have done.  I will do some more reflecting later but i am too tired right now.

click here  and here

For some of you it might be easier to recieve this blog in your e-mail in box.  If that is the case just go to http://rssforward.net/rssfwd  first type in parakletos.blog.com click on submit and then type in your e-mail address and they every time we update the blog you will get it in your in box.

thanks,
Tanden

One of the thing that i think the world needs a lot more of is farmers.  I believe that one of the ways that we are going to create a world that is good for all of us is for all of us to start going much more of our own food.  The current food system that we have in place in this country is not working and will not last. Part of the solutions is for us to start taking what land is around us and growing food on it.  this summer we are going to once again farm the empty lot across the street and help a few neighbors a few blocks away do the same thing.

here are a few really good resources to understand why we are doing this.  the first is an article that was in the New York Times before the Nov election.  it was written to the new president telling them about how important food production is.  for that article click here

The next is an interview that Bill Moyers did with Micheal Polan (Micheal also wrote the above article) to here it click here http://www.archive.org/details/BillMoyersInterviewWithMichaelPollan

If you can seriously think about planting something is spring and trying to go just a little food, I think that you will find it to be easier then you thought and a lot of fun.

As we think about the cross of Christ,  I think what James Cone has to say is some really powerful stuff.  I first hear this speach by James Cone a year ago and as i have set on for a year i believe it to be very powerful for American Christians to think about the cross in light of our history of lynching.  If we are going to talk about the cross then we better be willing to talk about lynching because the cross was a 20th century lynching.  I would say that sad reality is that most christianity does not have the courage to talk about the cross this way.  We would rather talk about the cross in some abstract otherworldly terms but we could never talk about it way that Cones does.

To see the whole lecture of James Cone called “Strange Fruit: the Cross and the Lynching Tree” go to http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/events_online/ingersoll_2006.html

The question that is before us is, are we fearful or faithful?  Are we doing to live lives that are fearful towards the “other” or are we going to live lives that are faithful towards the “other”

 

John 6:16-24

 

Is this just another cute story of showing us that Jesus has some super human ability to walk on water?  Are we just watching a first century magic show?  Or is John telling us this story to fill us in on the details about how and where Jesus and the disciples traveled.  Or is there more happening in this story?  Often we read over these narratives in such a way that we just want to get to the “important stuff”.  And in our haste we have missed large and important parts of the scriptures.

 

I believe that there is a lot more happening with this story.

 

In the story that we read John refers to them crossing the “sea” but it is technically a freshwater lake.  He does this because he is tapping into the OT tradition of Noah’s ark, the red sea crossing, and the psalms references to the sea.  The Sea represented great turmoil, chaos, and the sea was the home of the great Laviathan, which is the embodiment of chaos.  It is the great Laviathan that rules the great expanse of the sea, and only God controls it. Those are the images that John is provoking at the very beginning of this narrative, “When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea…”

 

But most of all John talks about a sea because he is referencing the story of
Jonah. 

 

When we compare the Narrative of John and the Jonah story, we find:

         two stories about boat crossings

         two stories about going to the “other” Nineveh/ “other” side- Between the cities around the sea of Galilee there was great tension.

         two stories about the sea being calmed

         Jonah was sleeping while the storm was raging and Jesus was sleeping while the storm was waging- in Mark

         And most importantly two stories about the journeys not being stopped by the great storms or sea, but they where completed bringing to Jonah and the Ninevites and the disciples’ and the “other” side

 

Just as Jonah realized that God was serious about him going to Nineveh, after God went to the effort of having him eaten by a whale, the disciples have there fears calmed as Jesus walks on water, speaks to them and then enters the boat. And they arrive on the “other” side.  Even the crowds travel to the “other” side and find Jesus there.  This is not just a story of a select few making the dangerous journey this is about the crowds making the dangerous journey.

 

Now that reflection brings me to these sets of questions:

         What are the dangerous journeys that need to be undertaken in our world?

         What names should we give to the Leviathan and the sea of our time?

         What are the fears in my heart, in our hearts that keep us on the “other” side, that keep us separated from others?

         What is it going to take for us to hear the voice of Jesus say it is “I”, and give us courage to live faithful lives towards each other

 

It does not take a rocket scientist to look at the world and to realize that the Leviathan is causing great chaos, great chaos of division, but most of us in this country and in this social economic class are doing all that we can to avoid the chaos.  We are not much different then the ostrich that barriers her head in the sand.  Pause for a minute with me and ask, do you really think that we are being real with ourselves and others?  Or are we hiding?  Think deeply about that are you facing who you really are, are you facing what this world has really become?  Do you have the Courage to do that?

 

We as a nation have this collective fear of the “other”.  Why are we today building a wall between us and Mexico?  We are doing that to keep “them” out, because if they come then… And we start to list all of are fears.

 

This morning John is coming to us pulling our heads out of the sand and giving witness to us that with Jesus the chaos is calmed.  Our fears can be overcome and we can make it to the other side.

 

Now don’t get John wrong.  The chaos is not calmed with out us.  The disciples where in the boat rowing, Noah built the ark, the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, and Jonah preached in Nineveh.

 

So we can face all the many fears that we have of each other, from

         The jobs that they will take

         Of sharing resources

         Facing the greed in our hearts

         How do I ask forgiveness

         Fear of extending forgiveness

         What does it look like to pay reparations to someone that I have stolen from

 

Those journey’s will be traveled, those seas will be calmed do we have the faith to get into the boat?

 

 

 

I found this very powerful video on youtube and i wanted to share it with all of you.  Let me know what you think