Sic transeunt magnoliae.
But in a bright sunset, the blossoms shine one last time.
One last hurrah.
Click on photos to enlarge and see detail.
More magnolias: the last hurrah and the decline
The magnolia blossoms don't last long.
Sic transeunt magnoliae.
But in a bright sunset, the blossoms shine one last time.
One last hurrah.
Sic transeunt magnoliae.But in a bright sunset, the blossoms shine one last time.
One last hurrah.
Well, Isn't That Special?
I have to admit the ability of the Catholic Church to feel put-upon is a constant source of incredulity to me. From Pope Benedict and the Vatican itself, to New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the refrain seems to be the same: Damned liberal media.
Seriously, who'd these guys get to craft their defense, the Coasters?
Let me address this one very simply: If you claim to be the one true faith, the one true church, and then spend half a century systematically covering up child sexual abuse, it's a story. Too bad. The gap between ideals and performance is always going to sell papers, and you don't get to complain, since you like telling people how to live and even how to vote. As the eminent philospher says, "the greater the power, the greater the responsibility."
More substantively, Abp. Dolan links the Vatican statement denying that "a relationship exists between the application of ‘Crimen sollicitationis’ and the non-reporting of child abuse to civil authorities in this case. In fact, there is no such relationship. Indeed, contrary to some statements that have circulated in the press, neither ‘Crimen’ nor the Code of Canon Law ever prohibited the reporting of child abuse to law enforcement authorities."
This is interesting, because when in 2005, the Guardian reported on then-Cardinal Ratzinger's 2001 letter continuing Crimen Sollicitacionis, the Vatican declined to comment, saying "'This is not a public document, so we would not talk about it." (You can see my earlier post on the matter here; note that I used the Guardian's spelling; I'm now employing Abp. Dolan's. And abbreviating it as "CS").
Anyway, the back-and-forth on the document's impact is perhaps somewhat unclear, but the skeptics of the Church's view seem to me have pretty good corroboration that it was understood as requiring silence on the part of the victim. First, Cardinal Sean Brady of Ireland, who has acknowledged that when he was 36, he participated at an inquiry pursuant to CS at which "the boy and the girl [complainants] were required to sign affidavits swearing that they would not talk to anybody except priests given special permission by the tribunal hearings, known in church parlance as “ecclesiastical proceedings."
This reading of CS is further corroborated by the Dublin Report into the Irish Church's experience chaired by Judge Yvonne Murphy. Murphy's Commission reported that the Vatican refused to provide any documents or testimony to the inquiry, so the Vatican deprived tself of a chance to elucidate the issue. However, after much study, it issued an exhaustive report. The Times of London (linked above, two back) summarized the Commission's findings regarding the church's policy as follows:
At least the Coasters were amusing:
Seriously, who'd these guys get to craft their defense, the Coasters?
Let me address this one very simply: If you claim to be the one true faith, the one true church, and then spend half a century systematically covering up child sexual abuse, it's a story. Too bad. The gap between ideals and performance is always going to sell papers, and you don't get to complain, since you like telling people how to live and even how to vote. As the eminent philospher says, "the greater the power, the greater the responsibility."
More substantively, Abp. Dolan links the Vatican statement denying that "a relationship exists between the application of ‘Crimen sollicitationis’ and the non-reporting of child abuse to civil authorities in this case. In fact, there is no such relationship. Indeed, contrary to some statements that have circulated in the press, neither ‘Crimen’ nor the Code of Canon Law ever prohibited the reporting of child abuse to law enforcement authorities."
This is interesting, because when in 2005, the Guardian reported on then-Cardinal Ratzinger's 2001 letter continuing Crimen Sollicitacionis, the Vatican declined to comment, saying "'This is not a public document, so we would not talk about it." (You can see my earlier post on the matter here; note that I used the Guardian's spelling; I'm now employing Abp. Dolan's. And abbreviating it as "CS").
Anyway, the back-and-forth on the document's impact is perhaps somewhat unclear, but the skeptics of the Church's view seem to me have pretty good corroboration that it was understood as requiring silence on the part of the victim. First, Cardinal Sean Brady of Ireland, who has acknowledged that when he was 36, he participated at an inquiry pursuant to CS at which "the boy and the girl [complainants] were required to sign affidavits swearing that they would not talk to anybody except priests given special permission by the tribunal hearings, known in church parlance as “ecclesiastical proceedings."
This reading of CS is further corroborated by the Dublin Report into the Irish Church's experience chaired by Judge Yvonne Murphy. Murphy's Commission reported that the Vatican refused to provide any documents or testimony to the inquiry, so the Vatican deprived tself of a chance to elucidate the issue. However, after much study, it issued an exhaustive report. The Times of London (linked above, two back) summarized the Commission's findings regarding the church's policy as follows:
Regrettably, between the Vatican and the evidence falls the shadow.Ratzinger’s letter was relying on crimen sollicitationis, a set of procedural laws first issued in 1922 and updated in 1962. One of its requirements is that any person making a complaint of abuse against a priest is required to take an oath of secrecy.
Breach of the oath can be punished by excommunication. The document, exposed in a BBC Panorama documentary by clerical-abuse survivor Colm O’Gorman, deals with what it calls the “worst crime”, child sexual abuse. The main difference between the 1922 and 1962 versions is that the second one extended its remit to members of religious orders.
According to the Dublin report: “It appears that both documents were circulated only to bishops and under terms of secrecy. Each document stated that it was to be kept in the secret archive to which only the bishop had access. The commission has evidence that the 1922 document was known to senior figures in the archdiocese of Dublin, especially during the time of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, and that, in the words of one witness, it was a ‘well-thumbed’ document.”
The commission found that the document was used by McQuaid in the case of Fr Edmondus, who abused Marie Collins and other patients in Crumlin children’s hospital.
At least the Coasters were amusing:
What doesn't make the top of the news
I find it quite extraordinary that this item, which leads the BBC headlines, does not lead in the U.S. We are so distracted by our internal battles (which are, admittedly, nasty and getting nastier --and frightening) that we have not noticed this major step in foreign policy. Fifteen years ago this would have been major news.
I know. It's far from enough. But this administration is moving the previously frozen. I don't think most of us realize how significant this is.
All numbers are estimates because exact numbers are top secret.
Strategic nuclear warheads are designed to target cities, missile locations and military headquarters as part of a strategic plan.
Additional comments on map here.
I know. It's far from enough. But this administration is moving the previously frozen. I don't think most of us realize how significant this is.
All numbers are estimates because exact numbers are top secret.Strategic nuclear warheads are designed to target cities, missile locations and military headquarters as part of a strategic plan.
Additional comments on map here.
Stations of the Cross of Globalization
My friend Luiz Coelho has made his Stations of the Cross of Globalization available as a free download. You can find the download link here with some information. Or go directly here.
The Stations were just selected as runner-up in the Edinburgh 2010 media competition. As Holy Week approaches, you may want to consider them for your devotions if you are a Christian.
"Photos of a Prophet" - a Romero retrospective and tribute
Andy, in the comments to the previous post, recommended this wonderful pdf-format slide show. It's actually a book available in exhibit form available in slide show form. The wonders of technology!
These are archival photos of Monseñor Romero and his people, from Romero's childhood to the days after his death. Well worth a look.
The exhibit is currently at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. Information here.
Priests carry Archbishop Romero’s coffin out of the Metropolitam Cathedral of San Salvador, March 30, 1980. Photo: Private collection of the Photography Center of El Salvador
Oscar Arnulfo Romero, ¡Presente!
Today was the 30th anniversary of the martyrdom of Monseñor Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador.
I will post more when my teaching week is over, but for now, here are two links.
At this one, which is mostly in Spanish but has links to other languages, you will find a wealth of resources including a slide show in PowerPoint (click on "XXX Aniversario") with rich quotes by Romero and many other words and images to ponder.
This one is a biography in English by a U.S. poet and activist who has engaged in Central America solidarity work for many, many years and knows what she is talking about.
"A church that does not unite itself to the poor in order to denounce from the place of the poor the injustice committed against them is not truly the Church of Jesus Christ."*-San Oscar Romero de las Americas
¡Romero vive!
Blessed Oscar Romero, pray for us.
Updated. Another Irish Bishop has resigned. The Pope's apology to Irish Catholics missed the mark. His valid observation about the effects of secularism has been undermined by his inability to accept responsibility for his church.It occurs to me that the speedy boilerplate condemnation of Mary Glasspool's consent and the long silence after an attempt to assassinate or kidnap the Anglican bishop of El Salvador last week, along with the Pope's response to sexual abuse in his church, shows a kind of persistent decay of moral leadership at the highest levels of two major Christian traditions.
I guess when they are left to their own devices and the counsel of their advisers and lawyers, the Bishops of Rome and Canterbury will choose institutional peace over the victims of abuse and the outcasts of our church and society almost every time. Maybe that's unfair, but neither is it new or particularly surprising. It was not for nothing that Nicodemus came to visit Jesus at night. As one watches these leaders spin, you can just see their authority--and with it the dignity and message of the Church--just drain away.
We remember Oscar Romero, a Roman Catholic bishop who was killed by an assassins bullet while he celebrated a mass. That was 30 years ago today. We also remember the martyrs of El Salvador, the priests, nuns, and lay people who were murdered, raped, jailed, and who simply disappeared because they gave voice to the poor and ministered to them. They spoke out against the injustices that robbed ordinary people of food, shelter, land and the ability to make a decent living and basic human dignity. They spoke out against a government that favored the rich to the exclusion of the poor.
In the mid-1980's, I found myself studying with one of the surviving Maryknoll nuns served in El Salvador in that period. Four other women, Maryknoll nuns and a lay worker, were kidnapped, raped and murdered for their work with the poor. She described her experience to me and others in our group. It was hard to imagine how a 95 pound school teacher with gray hair and a bookish manner could be such a threat that they would send three or four goons to beat her up. Evidently, she was more dangerous than she appeared. I think she was the courageous person I have ever known. And the gentlest. She taught us where the real church lies: whenever the people serve the poorest of the poor, the lonely and the outcast in Jesus' name, there is the church.
On our own every day level, what we do in this parish and diocese may appear very mundane by comparison to standing up to a military junta. But being a friend and apprentice of Jesus among his people is still costly, a little scary, and very important. It may involve welcoming a mentally ill young man into your church who has walked through the rain from his group home into your congregation with open arms. It may mean choosing to welcome the homeless into your church when it gets too cold outside. It may mean driving around bringing meals to the homebound who would otherwise go hungry. It may mean standing up to the media no-nothings and pot-stirrers who tell us mean-spirited lies that Jesus had nothing to do with the poor--or at least gently but firmly correcting those who are taken by their harangue.
I am certain that Romero's own journey was not easy. He was not raised to be a radical. He was raised in privilege and was appointed to care for the church in his archdiocese in a rather conventional way. Appoint priests, oversee schools, manage the books...don't rock the boat. But he had a heart for faith, and was willing to go where Jesus led him. At first tentatively, and later boldly, he began to connect the dots. He believed that the job of the church was to care for the weakest of God's people. For Romero, this was a death sentence.
The thing about walking with the poor is that may feel like death. Maybe we won't get beat up by goons, or shot by an assassin. It might mean that we are not invited to few parties or considered a little crazy by our relatives. But we are going to the places where Jesus went, we are seeing the faces that Jesus sees, and we learning love from the people for whom Jesus died and rose again.
Almighty God, you called your servant Oscar Romero to be a voice for the voiceless poor, and to give his life as a seed of freedom and a sign of hope: Grant that, inspired by his sacrifice and the example of the martyrs of El Salvador, we may without fear or favor witness to your Word who abides, your Word who is Life, even Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be praise and glory now and for ever. Amen.For more on Oscar Romero, see Elizabeth Keaton's post on Telling Secrets.
See also this post on Episcopal Cafe, which describes the various observances and other stories arising out of Romero's life and the anniversary of his martyrdom.
Two more biographies: Garrison Keillor and Renny Golden.
A Catholic, an evangelical and a Mormon
This has the making of a good joke. A Catholic priest, an evangelical pastor, and a Mormon are all in a boat one day and they agree that Glenn Beck is out to lunch.
Fr. James Martin, SJ, went on Steven Colbert's show to answer some questions in response to Glenn Beck's recent attacks on Churches that are concerned for the poor and who work for social justice.
Okilee dokilee, that's the Catholic point of view. Surely evangelicals are lining up behind what Beck has said.
Oops. Maybe not.
Here is what one evangelical pastor had to say about Beck's recent pronouncement. The Rev. Charles M. Redfern, Jr., is a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and is ordained in a (ahem) "non-conformist" tradition (let the reader understand). This is not nearly as insulting as as it sounds. I've known Chuck (Mind if I call you "Chuck?" Thank you very much.) since high school when we both went to the same Baptist church and asked embarrassing questions about a certain passage in Matthew chapter 25. Chuck is the poster child for "non-conformist pastor."
So the Roman Catholic, the evangelical and the Mormon all agree that what Beck said is a joke, and could be laughed off if so many people did not hang on his every word. He has found success and fame by trading on the things which scare people most. Beck is not the buffoon we like to paint him as. He knows exactly what he is doing.
This whole flap when Beck referenced Father Charles Coughlin on his March 11, 2010 radio show as proof that the phrase "social justice" and fascism are intertwined. Beck knows he stands four-square in the same tradition of radio-and-tv demagoguery that Coughlin pioneered, and he would gladly throw his hero under the rhetorical bus to further his own ambitions. Coughlin, of course, turned the phrase "social justice" on it's head by making the phrase a platform for a kind of American facism, grounded in popular anger against both the government and the poor.
Beck is counting on most of his listeners having no idea who Coughlin is. The thing is that what Beck stands for today, a religious faith that is selfish and without compassion and a political life founded on fear and hatred, is the exactly what Coughlin stood for then.
Personally, I think Beck should do what a lot of Mormon 18 year olds do. He should give up everything for a year, go someplace far away and do mission work. A year of shutting up and listening while doing a little physical work in the service of others might be just the thing Beck needs to really embrace his new-found faith.
Fr. James Martin, SJ, went on Steven Colbert's show to answer some questions in response to Glenn Beck's recent attacks on Churches that are concerned for the poor and who work for social justice.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| ||||
Okilee dokilee, that's the Catholic point of view. Surely evangelicals are lining up behind what Beck has said.
Oops. Maybe not.
Here is what one evangelical pastor had to say about Beck's recent pronouncement. The Rev. Charles M. Redfern, Jr., is a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and is ordained in a (ahem) "non-conformist" tradition (let the reader understand). This is not nearly as insulting as as it sounds. I've known Chuck (Mind if I call you "Chuck?" Thank you very much.) since high school when we both went to the same Baptist church and asked embarrassing questions about a certain passage in Matthew chapter 25. Chuck is the poster child for "non-conformist pastor."
As Chuck points out, Beck is a Mormon. Converts can be pretty intense. Often they take it on themselves to learn more about their adopted tradition than those born into it. So in his intensive study of his new-found faith, has Beck found the heart of Mormonism? Apparently not, says Jana Riess on Beliefnet. He may need to go back to the old chalk board on this one.To: Glenn Beck
Dear Glenn (Mind if I call you “Glenn?” Thank you so much):
I confess. I’m guilty. As charged. ‘Cuff me. Throw me into the van. Cart me off and toss the key.
I always thought of myself as an evangelical Christian with a slightly liberal political bent: you know, one of those pro-life Democrats in the heritage of Tip O’Neill and Bob Casey. I’d love to high-five a Thomas Dewey/Teddy Roosevelt Republican, but they’re drowning their sorrows with former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and the ghost of Nelson Rockefeller.
But you set me straight. You recently told America that Christians should clear out of churches whose pastors advocate social justice. You said this: “I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words … If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop.” You held aloft cards with a hammer and a sickle in one hand and a swastika in the other, hinting that preachers like me are commies and Nazis.
Wow. And here I thought both World War 2 and the Cold War were over. Naïve little me.
I guess I fell asleep with the remote in my paw and missed the big news. You’re a Mormon. My seminary professors told me Mormonism was outside the pale of traditional Christianity and was grist for anti-cult literature. Now I wake up and I find many fellow evangelicals invoking you against Nazi-commies like me. Like, Rip Van Winkle and everything. I guess they’ve taken the scissors to Proverbs 29:11 (“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control”) and a knife to Proverbs 12:18 (“Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”).
Those professors quoted passages like Amos 5:11, where God rails against ancient Israel because “you trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine;” and verses 21-24: “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” They pointed me to Psalm 72, where the good Israelite king is marked with justice and defends the afflicted; and Daniel 4:27, where the command for kindness to the oppressed is extended to non-Israelite kings. And never mind Leviticus 25, which provides for the elimination of institutional, generational poverty.
So arrest King David, Amos, and Daniel along with me – and those seminary professors, who polluted my mind and curbed my spine. And lock up the great revivalists as well: John and Charles Wesley, Charles Finney, Phoebe Palmer, and William Booth of Salvation Army fame. Into the brig. And them Catholics: Thomas Aquinas, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Pope John Paul II. They all preached social justice, so they’re all commies and Nazis. And don’t forget the nasty, commie-Nazi Mennonites and Quakers — plus the early Pentecostals, who were pacifists. And Saint Francis. And Mother Teresa.
Oh, there have been debates galore over tactics since the fourth century: What role for government? Most agree it should have some role, what with the structure of things. Why, average Joe and Josephine Christian can be key players in pushing leaders away from inhumanity and toward mercy (hello, Clara Barton). Churches can have their soup kitchens and clothe individuals, but they cannot enact child labor laws, set up police forces, and enforce regulations so coal mines don’t cave in. Benevolent government is …
Nazism and communism.
Or so it seems in your world, Mr. Beck, the one who caws from your perch outside traditional Christianity: “Fly. Fly away. Fly away from those churches that are trying to apply the Bible in a pluralistic society. Fly away from preachers who are teaching what the church has taught for two thousand years.”
And arrest me — because I am one of those Nazi-commies who embraces social justice.
Dear Glenn Beck,
Have You Read the Book of Mormon Lately?
As you know, Glenn, during the last week, Christians of all stripes have debated your advice about exiting any churches that mentioned “social justice” or “economic justice” on their websites or preached it in their sermons. As you apparently hoped, you have dominated the airwaves. The good news for me is that, if you follow your own advice, you must soon be exiting The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which we are both members. And if that happens, I will dance a little jig.
You may have missed it, but social justice is a dominant feature of all four of our key sacred texts, including the Bible and the Book of Mormon. We could look at hundreds of relevant scriptures, since poverty was the thing Jesus preached about most often, but let me turn your attention to a scripture you might have missed: King Benjamin’s sermon in the Book of Mormon. A tweetable highlight:
And now... for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants. (Mosiah 4:26)See, Glenn? Not only are Mormons supposed to feed the hungry and all that, but we do this so we don’t lose our salvation. It’s not just a nice thing to do, or a civilized thing to do, or an optional thing to do. It’s a commandment of God. And if I were you reading this passage, I’d be quaking in my tailor-made Keds....
...It’s all wrapped up in that hymn we often sing: “Because I have been given much, I too must give.” Most Mormons could and should do more to live out the ideals of that song, and of our heritage. I know I ought to. But you most of all, Glenn. You most of all.
This whole flap when Beck referenced Father Charles Coughlin on his March 11, 2010 radio show as proof that the phrase "social justice" and fascism are intertwined. Beck knows he stands four-square in the same tradition of radio-and-tv demagoguery that Coughlin pioneered, and he would gladly throw his hero under the rhetorical bus to further his own ambitions. Coughlin, of course, turned the phrase "social justice" on it's head by making the phrase a platform for a kind of American facism, grounded in popular anger against both the government and the poor.
Beck is counting on most of his listeners having no idea who Coughlin is. The thing is that what Beck stands for today, a religious faith that is selfish and without compassion and a political life founded on fear and hatred, is the exactly what Coughlin stood for then.
Personally, I think Beck should do what a lot of Mormon 18 year olds do. He should give up everything for a year, go someplace far away and do mission work. A year of shutting up and listening while doing a little physical work in the service of others might be just the thing Beck needs to really embrace his new-found faith.
Magnolias!
This is spring in the South.
The campus popped into bloom this weekend while I was away. (Not away away, just home away, getting some quiet, getting some writing done, doing battle with the hydrangea bushes, and communing with the cat and yes, with the scriptures.) The flowering fruit trees, several kinds, and the magnolias are all ablossom.
Now, of course, it is overcast and about to rain. It poured buckets yesterday in the late afternoon and part of the night, but the beginning of the weekend was spectacular: sunny, dry, balmy, no humidity, and no mosquitoes yet. If it weren't still Lent I would say the A-word.
Click to enlarge, especially the big tree photos!
The campus popped into bloom this weekend while I was away. (Not away away, just home away, getting some quiet, getting some writing done, doing battle with the hydrangea bushes, and communing with the cat and yes, with the scriptures.) The flowering fruit trees, several kinds, and the magnolias are all ablossom.
Now, of course, it is overcast and about to rain. It poured buckets yesterday in the late afternoon and part of the night, but the beginning of the weekend was spectacular: sunny, dry, balmy, no humidity, and no mosquitoes yet. If it weren't still Lent I would say the A-word.
Meanwhile, in the mountains of Western North Carolina, three hours' drive from here, it is snowing.
Enough blabla. Here are some magnolias. These are all from the same tree in front of my office building. I took the first three in sunny weather this morning. I took the fourth in the early afternoon under overcast skies. [Correction: I think that fourth one is from a different tree.]
Enough blabla. Here are some magnolias. These are all from the same tree in front of my office building. I took the first three in sunny weather this morning. I took the fourth in the early afternoon under overcast skies. [Correction: I think that fourth one is from a different tree.]
Click to enlarge, especially the big tree photos!
Show what we have seen and heard
Updated. Here is the latest ad from same folks who gave us the Ninja video, just in time for Easter.
But, besides the fact that this is an Easter ad that manages to avoid talking about resurrection, here is why I won't be using it.
Can we try for a different kind of Easter ad?
Here are the rules: It has to be 15-30 seconds long. It has to hit on the above themes. It cannot be mean or abusive but I will certainly welcome edgy. Humor is a plus. If anyone actually does this, be it known that I am the final, arbitrary judge as what I post on my own blog. My main criteria is this: would I show this on behalf of my own parish or diocese on the public airwaves?
* = Full disclosure: I am chair of my diocesan evangelism commission, and we in the Diocese of Bethlehem are getting ready to cook up a second round of television ads for our diocese. Who knows? Your idea may come to fruition! So I am both trolling for ideas and trying to generate discussion.
In the "Holy Roseanne Roseannadanna!" department: I originally thought this ad came from TEC. I was wrong. My humblest apologies for my error.
But, besides the fact that this is an Easter ad that manages to avoid talking about resurrection, here is why I won't be using it.
1) The ad starts with the premise that most Christians are indeed those judgmental, hateful jerks that we see on the TV-machine. The ad focuses on what we are not instead of saying who we are. This is a tempting trap. Stop it. Except for saying that Jesus is against hate and in favor of love, so what? As Jesus said, even the gentiles believe such things.When we market the Episcopal Church, can we start with a different premise? I don't own a computer compatible video camera nor the right software, so I am asking for some help.*
1a) There is only one picture showing what we presume Jesus wants and that is none too clear. The only pictures of recognizable human beings in the ad are of people doing things we said Jesus said never to do. And was that a fist or was someone giving me...? ...never mind.
2) The ad makes no compelling case for belief in general or for the Episcopal Church specifically. After saying the Christians are hateful jerks, we say go ahead and go to the "church of your choice." Really? Even if it is a church full of hateful jerks? Besides, that phrase was used in PSAs when I was a kid! The ad is saying it would be nice if you went to some church, any church and maybe, possibly, if it isn't too much bother, an Episcopal Church.
Can we try for a different kind of Easter ad?
- What is it that makes following the risen Jesus a laudable and transformative thing?
- What is it about our common life in Christ that we Episcopalians would want to invite people into?
- What earthly good does our particular form of worship, community and action make in people's lives?
Here are the rules: It has to be 15-30 seconds long. It has to hit on the above themes. It cannot be mean or abusive but I will certainly welcome edgy. Humor is a plus. If anyone actually does this, be it known that I am the final, arbitrary judge as what I post on my own blog. My main criteria is this: would I show this on behalf of my own parish or diocese on the public airwaves?
* = Full disclosure: I am chair of my diocesan evangelism commission, and we in the Diocese of Bethlehem are getting ready to cook up a second round of television ads for our diocese. Who knows? Your idea may come to fruition! So I am both trolling for ideas and trying to generate discussion.
In the "Holy Roseanne Roseannadanna!" department: I originally thought this ad came from TEC. I was wrong. My humblest apologies for my error.
Yesterday's presidential speech to the Democrats - health insurance reform (a first step)
President Obama spoke at length to the Democratic Caucus yesterday. This is Part III. You can find Parts I and II when you get to YouTube via the link.
Or you can watch the White House video here.
G'wan. Call your Rep one more time.
All right, I'm pulling out all the stops. BO WANTS YOU TO CALL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS ONE MORE TIME. Seriously. Help the humans.
P.S. I say "a first step" because this plan is far from what many of us want, but politics, my purist friends, is the art of compromise, and we have to start somewhere. I'm with Rep. Dennis Kucinich on this.
Or you can watch the White House video here.
G'wan. Call your Rep one more time.
All right, I'm pulling out all the stops. BO WANTS YOU TO CALL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS ONE MORE TIME. Seriously. Help the humans.
P.S. I say "a first step" because this plan is far from what many of us want, but politics, my purist friends, is the art of compromise, and we have to start somewhere. I'm with Rep. Dennis Kucinich on this.
Ruth Olver, R.I.P.
Two years ago my parents' dear friend John Olver died. I only wrote the first of two posts I had planned to write on him. We had a visiting lecturer from Botswana at school on almost-last-minute notice and I never got to write more. But the first post is here and will tell you a bit about him. (There is a good link to a short bio.) John was a warm, witty, intelligent man who worked for UNDP, the United Nations Development Programme, for most of his life. I think of him when I hear news of Gaza because he was one of the few people who managed to get anything done there. In his case, it was bringing fresh water to Gaza. He wrote a book about it, but I think it was a self-publish and never got out there into the wide world. I once saw a used copy on Amazon, though. It was called Roadblocks and Mindblocks: Partnering with The PLO and Israel.
John died in March of 2008, a month full of deaths and with Holy Week in it besides.
Today John's wife Ruth Olver died. Ruth and my mother met at Hunter College in uptown Manhattan when they were in their late teens. They used to study at the library together, taking turns napping. Later, when they were both married, the two couples became close friends and my mother became godmother to Ruth's second child, a daughter. I used to get hand-me-down clothes from Amy; they would arrive in a package at our house in Paris, all the way from wherever the Olvers were at the time. For a while they lived in Geneva.
We received news of Ruth's passing from Ruth and John's son this evening. (Interesting note: both he and I entered the Episcopal Church in our middle age.) Ruth had been very ill for several years. She had Parkinson's and other ailments, and she had recently turned 92 years old.
Ruth Olver was an early civil rights activist, attempting to integrate public facilities in Washington, D.C. in the early 1940s (as did my mother's late brother, Don Rothenberg). Her son wrote, "A brilliant woman of her generation, after her marriage to the late John Olver in 1944 she devoted herself to rasing her children and supporting the UN career of our late father. However, she was always very active in organizing schools, supplies and other social support for children wherever he served, especially in Libya and later in the Palestinian Territories."
In her forties, back in the U.S., Ruth became a psychiatric social worker. In addition to an active clinical practice, she was a pioneer in campaigning against spousal and other domestic abuse in Westchester County. (For those of you who don't know, that's a suburban county north of New York City; part of it is fancy shmancy and it also has middle-class neighborhoods and towns and pockets of poverty; domestic abuse does not know class lines.) Ruth was a founder of the Women's Justice Council, which lobbies the police and courts for justice for victim-survivors of domestic abuse and and provides childcare and other support to them while they are pursuing their rights. (I'm paraphrasing Richard's letter here.)
Ruth was a founder of My Sister's Place, a Westchester County shelter for victims of abuse. The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to that shelter.
Please remember Ruth Olver and her children and grandchildren in your prayers. Remember also John, who preceded her in death two years ago and who like her worked for the good of humanity. Remember also my parents, who have yet again lost a dear friend of their generation.
John died in March of 2008, a month full of deaths and with Holy Week in it besides.
Today John's wife Ruth Olver died. Ruth and my mother met at Hunter College in uptown Manhattan when they were in their late teens. They used to study at the library together, taking turns napping. Later, when they were both married, the two couples became close friends and my mother became godmother to Ruth's second child, a daughter. I used to get hand-me-down clothes from Amy; they would arrive in a package at our house in Paris, all the way from wherever the Olvers were at the time. For a while they lived in Geneva.
We received news of Ruth's passing from Ruth and John's son this evening. (Interesting note: both he and I entered the Episcopal Church in our middle age.) Ruth had been very ill for several years. She had Parkinson's and other ailments, and she had recently turned 92 years old.
Ruth Olver was an early civil rights activist, attempting to integrate public facilities in Washington, D.C. in the early 1940s (as did my mother's late brother, Don Rothenberg). Her son wrote, "A brilliant woman of her generation, after her marriage to the late John Olver in 1944 she devoted herself to rasing her children and supporting the UN career of our late father. However, she was always very active in organizing schools, supplies and other social support for children wherever he served, especially in Libya and later in the Palestinian Territories."
In her forties, back in the U.S., Ruth became a psychiatric social worker. In addition to an active clinical practice, she was a pioneer in campaigning against spousal and other domestic abuse in Westchester County. (For those of you who don't know, that's a suburban county north of New York City; part of it is fancy shmancy and it also has middle-class neighborhoods and towns and pockets of poverty; domestic abuse does not know class lines.) Ruth was a founder of the Women's Justice Council, which lobbies the police and courts for justice for victim-survivors of domestic abuse and and provides childcare and other support to them while they are pursuing their rights. (I'm paraphrasing Richard's letter here.)
Ruth was a founder of My Sister's Place, a Westchester County shelter for victims of abuse. The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to that shelter.
Please remember Ruth Olver and her children and grandchildren in your prayers. Remember also John, who preceded her in death two years ago and who like her worked for the good of humanity. Remember also my parents, who have yet again lost a dear friend of their generation.
In front of the house, spring in bloom
Click to enlarge. (You can do that with the photos in the previous post, too.)
"I wish to exhort all of you"
I confess that the Pope's Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland took my breath away. Why? Because of the continued assumption on Benedict XVI's part of a personally undamaged innocence and lack of personal responsibility:
The Pope does not address his role in these matters; he rather states:
The Catholic Church is not just the hierarchy, and does much good work. And Benedict has been much more willing to confront this issue than his predecessor. Fairness compels that this be remembered. But this crisis is in part the result of a half century systemic and systematic failure of leadership for which not one of the leaders has taken responsibility. That bill is now due, and if Benedict dishonors it, as he has done to date, the Catholic Church's institutional credibility may be lost for generations to come.
Like yourselves, I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children and vulnerable young people by members of the Church in Ireland, particularly by priests and religious. I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way Church authorities in Ireland dealt with them.Is it churlish on my part to point out that the Pope, in his prior role of Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was the ultimate authority overseeing investigation of such allegations, and that his role as been described as obstructing the inquiry? Or that the earlier papal edict reaffirmed in Benedict's 2001 letter giving rise to the claim of obstruction was in fact applied by the Church in Ireland, notably by now-Cardinal Brady, as mandating secrecy from the secular authorities, leading to clergy extorting oaths of secrecy from children reporting molestation? Or that, in his own capacity as an archbishop in Germany, he handled sex abuse complaints in a manner indistinguishable from the bishops in Ireland he now reproves?
The Pope does not address his role in these matters; he rather states:
On several occasions since my election to the See of Peter, I have met with victims of sexual abuse, as indeed I am ready to do in the future. I have sat with them, I have listened to their stories, I have acknowledged their suffering, and I have prayed with them and for them. Earlier in my pontificate, in my concern to address this matter, I asked the bishops of Ireland, “to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected, and above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes” (Address to the Bishops of Ireland, 28 October 2006).The emphasis is in in the original. And that is the problem, here. We have an assumption of invincible innocence, essentially, on the Pope's part, that ruins all of his expressions of sorrow and empathy for victims, because it ignores his own responsibility, personal and institutional, for what he has done and left undone. His exhortation exempts himself. Indeed, his response and that of his defenders has been dismissed as "whining about a campaign against his person" by theologian Hans Kung. A harsh characterization, no doubt, but frankly, not inapt in view of the Vatican's resposes in the last weeks.
With this Letter, I wish to exhort all of you, as God’s people in Ireland, to reflect on the wounds inflicted on Christ’s body, the sometimes painful remedies needed to bind and heal them, and the need for unity, charity and mutual support in the long-term process of restoration and ecclesial renewal.
The Catholic Church is not just the hierarchy, and does much good work. And Benedict has been much more willing to confront this issue than his predecessor. Fairness compels that this be remembered. But this crisis is in part the result of a half century systemic and systematic failure of leadership for which not one of the leaders has taken responsibility. That bill is now due, and if Benedict dishonors it, as he has done to date, the Catholic Church's institutional credibility may be lost for generations to come.
Daffodil, morning sun.
Same flower, two different shots. Taken this late morning with my BlackBerry.
Going through the motions
Fulcrum has produced the expected mini-screed.
And maybe that the Primates meeting should proceed without the Archbishop of Uganda for failing to stop the Kill-the-Gays bill in Uganda and for the weak, this-is-really-about-culture, condemnation of the "kill" part. Actions have consequences, you know.
And we should have the meeting but dis-invite the Archbishop of Nigeria not only for supporting another imprison-the-gays-for-life bill that failed, but also for insufficiently repenting from encouraging violence against Muslims. Actions have consequences.
Let's have the Primates Meeting but dis-invite every one who has made a stand or choice of anyone who has made a questionable or objectionable decision. Because the Primates Meeting is not for actually meeting and discussion and working out the hard questions of humans living in Communion this side of heaven. And forget about actually doing mission. The point of these meetings is apparently a reward for good behavior.
You know, this sounds so 2000's, doesn't it?
Actually, compared to those heady days, the Fulcrum screed is really rather mild. It is really is "mini."
Come to think of it, the "official" response from Lambeth is not even posted on the internet yet. The various blog and news sources only had the little paragraph they got because they asked for it and it came via e-mail. No news conferences, no big pow-wows, no urgent essays.
The petition from the Communion Partner dudes says nothing particularly new (or clear) and just enough people signing it to fill a church van.
We have been reduced to going through the motions. Someone does something someone else doesn't like, and we barely have the energy to hit Control-P. No one wants to walk back their previous statements, but no one has any heart or energy to fight the battles, either.
Maybe the time for screeds is past? We beseech to hear us, Good Lord.
Fulcrum Response to Consents being given to the
Consecration of Mary Glasspool
Consecration of Mary Glasspool
This is a clear rejection of the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates' Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council.While we are at, I think that the Primates meeting should proceed without the Archbishop of Canterbury for allowing same-sex clergy couples in the first place let alone to allowing them to get equal pension rights or for allowing the House of Lords to let non-conformist churches bless civil unions. Clearly, The Church of England (and apparently England itself) has a problem with the ABC's authority. As they say, actions have consequences.We believe that it is vitally important for the Primates' Meeting planned for January 2011 to go ahead, and that for this to happen the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church should not be invited to attend. Actions have consequences.
And maybe that the Primates meeting should proceed without the Archbishop of Uganda for failing to stop the Kill-the-Gays bill in Uganda and for the weak, this-is-really-about-culture, condemnation of the "kill" part. Actions have consequences, you know.
And we should have the meeting but dis-invite the Archbishop of Nigeria not only for supporting another imprison-the-gays-for-life bill that failed, but also for insufficiently repenting from encouraging violence against Muslims. Actions have consequences.
Let's have the Primates Meeting but dis-invite every one who has made a stand or choice of anyone who has made a questionable or objectionable decision. Because the Primates Meeting is not for actually meeting and discussion and working out the hard questions of humans living in Communion this side of heaven. And forget about actually doing mission. The point of these meetings is apparently a reward for good behavior.
You know, this sounds so 2000's, doesn't it?
Actually, compared to those heady days, the Fulcrum screed is really rather mild. It is really is "mini."
Come to think of it, the "official" response from Lambeth is not even posted on the internet yet. The various blog and news sources only had the little paragraph they got because they asked for it and it came via e-mail. No news conferences, no big pow-wows, no urgent essays.
The petition from the Communion Partner dudes says nothing particularly new (or clear) and just enough people signing it to fill a church van.
We have been reduced to going through the motions. Someone does something someone else doesn't like, and we barely have the energy to hit Control-P. No one wants to walk back their previous statements, but no one has any heart or energy to fight the battles, either.
Maybe the time for screeds is past? We beseech to hear us, Good Lord.
This is Your Victory
The usual suspects are downcast (and vice-versa) at Rev. Canon Mary Glaspool's receiving the necessary consents to her election as suffragan bishop of Los Angeles. As I don't know the Bishop-elect, I can't really comment on her election, other than to say I've heard good things about her from people who do know her, and whose opinion I respect. Congratulations and prayers.
But I find I do have a word to say to the self-styled reasserter community, and to the communion conservatives joining them in deploring TEC's lack of "gracious restraint" in no longer honoring the Windsor Reports moratoria after six and a half years of compliance: Congratulations.
Seriously. In the years since the requests were made, TEC complied. In return, it was subjected to cross-boundary jurisdictional crossings, attempted property seizures, a farcical "listening process" and a never-ending wave of bile and venom. Additionally, our Presiding Bishop was insulted at the 2007 primates meeting, where seven Global South primates refused to take communion for fear of being polluted by her presence. And then of course there was the Lambeth Walk. And, finally, the ongoing effort to replace TEC as the North American Anglican entity. So, in view of all these, riddle me this, Batman:
What incentive did your side ever give the Episcopal Church to continue its adherence to the requested moratorium?
I mean, really. You go all out to tear her apart from within, demonize her and her leadership, replace her in the worldwide communion--and then you're surprised that she doesn't continue in a posture of "gracious restraint" which your "side" has been flouting for the same 6 1/2 years she's been complying. I mean, I know you have a low opinion of TEC, but what adverse consequence do you have in your arsenal that you haven't already launched at TEC? What benefit did TEC receive by holding off for 6 1/2 years? None, and none.
It's politics 101. The benefit to TEC in continued restraint was precisely nil. Since your "side" (how I hate these terms!) is hitting TEC with everything you've got already, the additional cost to TEC in ending the period of restraint is--why, precisely nil again. You forecast the result.
And, in 6 1/2 years of incessant demonization, attempted property-swiping and bloviating, you've managed to convince a majority of the decision-makers that the only "peace" you would accept is abject submission. You've convinced many of us that you don't love us as "even Christians"--quite the contrary!--and convinced many of us that being in communion with you is all pain, no gain.
Congratulations. Take a bow. This is your victory.
But I find I do have a word to say to the self-styled reasserter community, and to the communion conservatives joining them in deploring TEC's lack of "gracious restraint" in no longer honoring the Windsor Reports moratoria after six and a half years of compliance: Congratulations.
Seriously. In the years since the requests were made, TEC complied. In return, it was subjected to cross-boundary jurisdictional crossings, attempted property seizures, a farcical "listening process" and a never-ending wave of bile and venom. Additionally, our Presiding Bishop was insulted at the 2007 primates meeting, where seven Global South primates refused to take communion for fear of being polluted by her presence. And then of course there was the Lambeth Walk. And, finally, the ongoing effort to replace TEC as the North American Anglican entity. So, in view of all these, riddle me this, Batman:
What incentive did your side ever give the Episcopal Church to continue its adherence to the requested moratorium?
I mean, really. You go all out to tear her apart from within, demonize her and her leadership, replace her in the worldwide communion--and then you're surprised that she doesn't continue in a posture of "gracious restraint" which your "side" has been flouting for the same 6 1/2 years she's been complying. I mean, I know you have a low opinion of TEC, but what adverse consequence do you have in your arsenal that you haven't already launched at TEC? What benefit did TEC receive by holding off for 6 1/2 years? None, and none.
It's politics 101. The benefit to TEC in continued restraint was precisely nil. Since your "side" (how I hate these terms!) is hitting TEC with everything you've got already, the additional cost to TEC in ending the period of restraint is--why, precisely nil again. You forecast the result.
And, in 6 1/2 years of incessant demonization, attempted property-swiping and bloviating, you've managed to convince a majority of the decision-makers that the only "peace" you would accept is abject submission. You've convinced many of us that you don't love us as "even Christians"--quite the contrary!--and convinced many of us that being in communion with you is all pain, no gain.
Congratulations. Take a bow. This is your victory.
The Mystery of Mark Twain's Lioness (Part 1)
The recent publication (just yesterday, in fact), of Laura Skandera-Trombley's book,
Mark Twain's Other Woman is significant in that it presents a well-sourced, sympathetic account of Twain's relationship with Isabel Lyon who started out as his wife's social secretary, and subsequently became his personal secretary in a relationship that was both unconventional and intense--on both sides. The relationship ended with charges of embezzlement and more on Twain's part, and ferocious countercharges by Lyon's recently-acquired husband, Twain's business manager. Lyon, interstingly, never spoke out against the man she called "the King." After making the papers, and causing a social scandal, it was forgotten for 60 years after Mark Twain's death.
Trombley's book is well written, and her use of Lyon's voluminous papers adds details to a period in Twain's life that his too often been relegated to the unremitting darkness of myths of Hamlin Hill's overtly hostile biography God's Fool (1973) (which revived the Lyon story) or the equally unrealistic sunniness of Albert Bigelow Paine's important but hagiographical authorized biography, published in 1912. Trombley is, like Hill, a supporter of Lyon's, but, unlike Hill, has an abiding affection for Twain.
However, her overt championship of Lyon leads her to make all credibility calls in her favor, even though Lyon's own diaries (as Trombley notes) were heavily edited by her and her 1906 daily reminder, at least, exists in multiple, inconsistent forms, devised "with the intention of either misleading anyone who would read he reminder or as a backup in case the original was stolen." (p. xvi).
Additionally, Trombley is rather prone to disparage Twain's later writings in a way that denies their political influence on antiwar protestors as late as the Vietnam era. Where she disparages these works, such as "The War Prayer" and "King Leopold's Soliloquy" as "shrill" and marred by a "constant note of misanthropy" (pp. 64, 62), writers such as Maxwell Geismar found them bracing and inspirational enough to compile a book length anthology of them, which I have owned since I was a teenager, and which helped me form my own political outlook.
A more skeptical view of Lyon's account is taken by Karen Lystra in her 2004 book Dangerous Intimacy: The Untold Story of Mark Twain's Final Years. Lystra rebuts Hill's uncritical acceptance of Lyon's last version of events, and deploys the unpublished diaries and a manuscript by Twain's youngest daughter, Jean Clemens, whom she asserts Lyon banished from her father's house in order to maximize her chances of marrying him. Lystra's book is an important corrective to Trombley's championship of Lyon. In championing Jean, Lystra carefully examines the transactions between Twain, Lyon, and Twain's business manager Ralph Ashcroft (who married Lyon in 1909). Lystra is both more detailed and skeptical on these transactions than is Trombley; where Lystra asserts that Twain's notary who notarized his power of attorney in favor of Lyon routinely notarized documents without Twain's presence (an inappropriate, but not uncommon, practice even today), Trombley relies rather naively on the boilerplate statement used in all notarizations that the document was signed in the presence of the notary as conclusive.
Another questionable move on Trombley's part is her acceptance as if uncontroversial of Lyon's claim that Jean Clemens attacked on two occasions the family's long-time servant and friend Katy Leary. (82, 96-97) Lyon's account is questioned quite acutely by Lystra, who suggests that Lyon misinterpreted Jean's own statement of what happened, and embroidered it based on stereotypes of epileptics which were common in these years. Trombley simply treats Lyon's observations as self-evident, and suggests it indicates that Jean suffered from postictal psychosis. (82). Well, perhaps. If it happened--it is unhelpful that Trombley does not address Lystra's critique of Lyon's account, which is uncorroborated by Jean's papers, or Katy Leary's account of life with the Clemens family. It's not that Lyon cannot be right absent corroboration; however, the fact that she is a somewhat unreliable narrator and the unpleasant denoument of her relationship with Twain suggest that Lystra's critique deserves to be considered. It's Trombley's decision not to do this which is troubling, especially as she is certainly aware of it--she cites Lystra as a source at least twice in the footnotes, and in fact provided a blurb for the book's jacket in 2004.
While both Jean and Lyon have modern champions, the one voice which has not been heard in all of this is Mark Twain's. He left behind a 429 page manuscript, commonly known as the Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript," which has not been published to date. It is only known in snippets, when quoted by Hill, Lystra or Trombley. They have widely varying estimations of it; Hill cites it as evidence of senility, Trombley calls it "bizarre" (p. xiv), while Lystra defends Twain's accuracy and acuity in writing it, as well as depicting it as a great effort to come clean about his own guilt in banishing Jean for years while under the sway of Lyon. Until the manuscript is published, there is no way to know whose characterization is more apt; the great writer, one hundred years after his death is voiceless in this riveting drama. One thing I'd say about his mental capacities in his last months (assailed by Hill), however is this: Twain's last essay, The Death of Jean, written in the days after her death on Christmas Eve 1909, and a mere five months before his own death, is powerful, moving, and has all the hallmarks of Twain at his finest.
(edited and expanded)
Next: A Tentative View of L'Affaire Lyon
Mark Twain's Other Woman is significant in that it presents a well-sourced, sympathetic account of Twain's relationship with Isabel Lyon who started out as his wife's social secretary, and subsequently became his personal secretary in a relationship that was both unconventional and intense--on both sides. The relationship ended with charges of embezzlement and more on Twain's part, and ferocious countercharges by Lyon's recently-acquired husband, Twain's business manager. Lyon, interstingly, never spoke out against the man she called "the King." After making the papers, and causing a social scandal, it was forgotten for 60 years after Mark Twain's death.
Trombley's book is well written, and her use of Lyon's voluminous papers adds details to a period in Twain's life that his too often been relegated to the unremitting darkness of myths of Hamlin Hill's overtly hostile biography God's Fool (1973) (which revived the Lyon story) or the equally unrealistic sunniness of Albert Bigelow Paine's important but hagiographical authorized biography, published in 1912. Trombley is, like Hill, a supporter of Lyon's, but, unlike Hill, has an abiding affection for Twain.
However, her overt championship of Lyon leads her to make all credibility calls in her favor, even though Lyon's own diaries (as Trombley notes) were heavily edited by her and her 1906 daily reminder, at least, exists in multiple, inconsistent forms, devised "with the intention of either misleading anyone who would read he reminder or as a backup in case the original was stolen." (p. xvi).
Additionally, Trombley is rather prone to disparage Twain's later writings in a way that denies their political influence on antiwar protestors as late as the Vietnam era. Where she disparages these works, such as "The War Prayer" and "King Leopold's Soliloquy" as "shrill" and marred by a "constant note of misanthropy" (pp. 64, 62), writers such as Maxwell Geismar found them bracing and inspirational enough to compile a book length anthology of them, which I have owned since I was a teenager, and which helped me form my own political outlook.
A more skeptical view of Lyon's account is taken by Karen Lystra in her 2004 book Dangerous Intimacy: The Untold Story of Mark Twain's Final Years. Lystra rebuts Hill's uncritical acceptance of Lyon's last version of events, and deploys the unpublished diaries and a manuscript by Twain's youngest daughter, Jean Clemens, whom she asserts Lyon banished from her father's house in order to maximize her chances of marrying him. Lystra's book is an important corrective to Trombley's championship of Lyon. In championing Jean, Lystra carefully examines the transactions between Twain, Lyon, and Twain's business manager Ralph Ashcroft (who married Lyon in 1909). Lystra is both more detailed and skeptical on these transactions than is Trombley; where Lystra asserts that Twain's notary who notarized his power of attorney in favor of Lyon routinely notarized documents without Twain's presence (an inappropriate, but not uncommon, practice even today), Trombley relies rather naively on the boilerplate statement used in all notarizations that the document was signed in the presence of the notary as conclusive.
Another questionable move on Trombley's part is her acceptance as if uncontroversial of Lyon's claim that Jean Clemens attacked on two occasions the family's long-time servant and friend Katy Leary. (82, 96-97) Lyon's account is questioned quite acutely by Lystra, who suggests that Lyon misinterpreted Jean's own statement of what happened, and embroidered it based on stereotypes of epileptics which were common in these years. Trombley simply treats Lyon's observations as self-evident, and suggests it indicates that Jean suffered from postictal psychosis. (82). Well, perhaps. If it happened--it is unhelpful that Trombley does not address Lystra's critique of Lyon's account, which is uncorroborated by Jean's papers, or Katy Leary's account of life with the Clemens family. It's not that Lyon cannot be right absent corroboration; however, the fact that she is a somewhat unreliable narrator and the unpleasant denoument of her relationship with Twain suggest that Lystra's critique deserves to be considered. It's Trombley's decision not to do this which is troubling, especially as she is certainly aware of it--she cites Lystra as a source at least twice in the footnotes, and in fact provided a blurb for the book's jacket in 2004.
While both Jean and Lyon have modern champions, the one voice which has not been heard in all of this is Mark Twain's. He left behind a 429 page manuscript, commonly known as the Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript," which has not been published to date. It is only known in snippets, when quoted by Hill, Lystra or Trombley. They have widely varying estimations of it; Hill cites it as evidence of senility, Trombley calls it "bizarre" (p. xiv), while Lystra defends Twain's accuracy and acuity in writing it, as well as depicting it as a great effort to come clean about his own guilt in banishing Jean for years while under the sway of Lyon. Until the manuscript is published, there is no way to know whose characterization is more apt; the great writer, one hundred years after his death is voiceless in this riveting drama. One thing I'd say about his mental capacities in his last months (assailed by Hill), however is this: Twain's last essay, The Death of Jean, written in the days after her death on Christmas Eve 1909, and a mere five months before his own death, is powerful, moving, and has all the hallmarks of Twain at his finest.
(edited and expanded)
Next: A Tentative View of L'Affaire Lyon
Why Mexico City
Someone on Facebook asked why my parents got married in Mexico City.
Since it's too long an answer for Facebook, here goes.
My father got his master's degree at the Columbia University Journalism School. He was not yet 21 years old. He graduated at the top of his class (1939) and was one of three recipients of a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. This gave him the opportunity to travel and write for a year.
He headed for Europe in June. He knew by then that he wanted to be a foreign correspondent. He traveled through Western Europe, then Eastern Europe and the USSR and back to Western Europe. Well, if you remember your world history, you remember what started happening on September 1, 1939. World War II broke out.
My father had hoped to stay and find work as a war correspondent, but despite his letters of recommendation, he couldn't find a job, and he went home, not on a Cunard liner as he had on the way over, but on a freighter taking refugees back to the U.S. Among the passengers was my father's cabin-mate --not by choice-- who turned out to be, so he said and my father had no reason to doubt him, Prince Felix Yussupov. You may remember him as the man who killed Rasputin. My father notes in his memoir that he "had never before met anybody who had killed a man, let alone boasted about it. Sharing a cabin with him was fun on an otherwise tense voyage, but I didn't sleep too well thinking about my new friend, the murderer." (p.23)
FoAoH decided to finish up his fellowship in Mexico City, so off he went. There were many estadounidenses there at the time: Mexico was warm, welcoming, and inexpensive. It was also, as my father discovered, desperately poor, and the Mexico City metropolitan area was already crowded then with a population over five million. He started freelancing and stringing (working part-time) for several newspapers and news services.
After he'd been there for a while, MoAoH got sick of waiting up in Brooklyn. She'd finished college by then, so, as I like to tell it, she said to her parents "Bye-bye, I'm going to marry FoAoH!" Okay, it wasn't entirely like that. My parents had both turned 21 by then, it was now early 1940, and my father saw that they could live quite well on under $15 a week, so they decided that they would get married sooner rather than later. My father wrote a letter to my mother's father, as one did in those days, and promised he would take good care of her. They had known each other for years so my mother's parents knew my father was a trustworthy sort, and they knew my parents wanted to get married. People didn't "get engaged" in those days, at least in my parents' circles. It was the Depression and nobody was buying or showing off diamonds on their left ring fingers, and my mother's family was never terribly conventional anyway, though they certainly believed in marriage.
My parents met at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York. They didn't become sweethearts till college but were in the same group of friends in high school. Like many in their high school --mostly children and grandchildren of Jewish immigrants-- they attended public colleges: she went to Hunter College, which was all women at the time; he went to City College, which was all men. Both of those schools were way uptown in Manhattan, of course, and my family's version of "In my day we had to walk five miles to school in the snow, uphill in both directions!" was "It was the Depression, we lived at home, and we took the subway to school an hour and a half in each direction." Three hours of commuting a day to get an education. My mother is the one who talks about this.
My father was editor of the college newspaper and helped get a corrupt college president on the road to resignation, but that is another story and you can read it in FoAoH's memoir. He went on to a private university (Columbia) for professional journalism study. My brother also went there, years later, and I contemplated doing the same but didn't.
Back to the Mexico story. My mother took the bus down to Mexico City from New York. Yes, the bus. More like buses. I think her first stop was Indianapolis because she had an uncle there. Not sure whether or where she stopped after that, but it was a five-day trip. At any rate, she got to Mexico City safe and sound on a Friday, and the following Tuesday she and my father were married.
They married at the American Embassy because they were patriotic young people and wanted to be married on American soil. But the Ambassador wasn't empowered to officiate at weddings (unlike some other foreign diplomats) so they got a Mexican Justice of the Peace. Only civil marriages were valid in Mexico. A wedding at the JP's Registry office would cost two pesos, but they decided to splurge and go for the 32-peso wedding, which is what it cost to get married outside the Registry. 32 pesos in those days was about 8 dollars.
Foreign Service officers couldn't officiate at marriages but they could witness them (in the church that's the same thing, so I don't quite get the distinction, but there you have it) and issue a certificate of marriage so in addition to the Mexican wedding certificate, my parents got a U.S. certificate (for one dollar extra). I'm not sure whether the Consul General or the Ambassador signed the piece of paper, but they were both there. The Ambassador at the time was Josephus Daniels, a former Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson who was a former newsman -- how appropriate. I remembered he was a Southerner, but what I had forgotten and just re-read in the Mexico chapter of the memoir is that he was the founder-editor of the Raleigh News & Observer. That's Raleigh, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, my paternal grandparents had expressed the desire for my parents to have a Jewish wedding ceremony, so several days later PoAoH located a rabbi, which in Mexico City was not so easy, and he witnessed and officiated at a religious ceremony. It was in Spanish and Hebrew and they had a sheet or a tablecloth for a chuppah (the traditional wedding canopy) and my father didn't have a kippah (yarmulke) so he used a handkerchief tied at four corners. The part of this story I love is that the rabbi lived on Jesus Maria Street. Now there's a title for a novel: The Rabbi on Jesus Maria Street.
Parents of Acts of Hope did have a little reception with a wedding cake. The cake was the work of two Greek-American pastry cooks from Manhattan who after fighting in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (i.e. against Franco's forces) had settled in Mexico and opened a restaurant and bakery.
My father's memoir doesn't say and I haven't asked my parents, but it occurred to me a few years ago upon re-reading my father's description that these guys, Nick and Mike, were probably a couple. But maybe they weren't.
The cake had two white doves on top.
The big story in 1940 in Mexico was, of course, Trostsky's assassination, and my father, as a freshly minted journalist, got to cover it. There was a substantial cast of characters in the background shenanigans leading up to the assassination, including an American woman who had been one of Trotsky's aides. My father was stringing for the Jack Starr-Hunt News Service and among their clients was the N.Y. Daily News tabloid, which could care less about the politics of the story. Who cared if Stalin's arch-enemy had just been killed? The Daily News fired off to my father a cable that read "RUSH 1,500 WORDS GIRLIE ANGLE." Welcome to highfalutin foreign correspondent work.
After a few months in Mexico, with the fellowship year over, my parents returned to the U.S. and Brooklyn, where both their families lived. My father got a stop-gap editing job at the Brooklyn Academy of Music while hunting for a real job in journalism. At last, after six months, a real job materialized, and off my parents went to Herkimer, New York (for those of you who don't know, that's in the boonies, at least from a New York City perspective) where my father worked on the Evening Telegram newspaper for the magnificent sum of $35 per week.
The following year Pearl Harbor happened and my parents moved to Washington.
But that is another story.
Since it's too long an answer for Facebook, here goes.
My father got his master's degree at the Columbia University Journalism School. He was not yet 21 years old. He graduated at the top of his class (1939) and was one of three recipients of a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. This gave him the opportunity to travel and write for a year.
He headed for Europe in June. He knew by then that he wanted to be a foreign correspondent. He traveled through Western Europe, then Eastern Europe and the USSR and back to Western Europe. Well, if you remember your world history, you remember what started happening on September 1, 1939. World War II broke out.
My father had hoped to stay and find work as a war correspondent, but despite his letters of recommendation, he couldn't find a job, and he went home, not on a Cunard liner as he had on the way over, but on a freighter taking refugees back to the U.S. Among the passengers was my father's cabin-mate --not by choice-- who turned out to be, so he said and my father had no reason to doubt him, Prince Felix Yussupov. You may remember him as the man who killed Rasputin. My father notes in his memoir that he "had never before met anybody who had killed a man, let alone boasted about it. Sharing a cabin with him was fun on an otherwise tense voyage, but I didn't sleep too well thinking about my new friend, the murderer." (p.23)
FoAoH decided to finish up his fellowship in Mexico City, so off he went. There were many estadounidenses there at the time: Mexico was warm, welcoming, and inexpensive. It was also, as my father discovered, desperately poor, and the Mexico City metropolitan area was already crowded then with a population over five million. He started freelancing and stringing (working part-time) for several newspapers and news services.
After he'd been there for a while, MoAoH got sick of waiting up in Brooklyn. She'd finished college by then, so, as I like to tell it, she said to her parents "Bye-bye, I'm going to marry FoAoH!" Okay, it wasn't entirely like that. My parents had both turned 21 by then, it was now early 1940, and my father saw that they could live quite well on under $15 a week, so they decided that they would get married sooner rather than later. My father wrote a letter to my mother's father, as one did in those days, and promised he would take good care of her. They had known each other for years so my mother's parents knew my father was a trustworthy sort, and they knew my parents wanted to get married. People didn't "get engaged" in those days, at least in my parents' circles. It was the Depression and nobody was buying or showing off diamonds on their left ring fingers, and my mother's family was never terribly conventional anyway, though they certainly believed in marriage.
My parents met at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York. They didn't become sweethearts till college but were in the same group of friends in high school. Like many in their high school --mostly children and grandchildren of Jewish immigrants-- they attended public colleges: she went to Hunter College, which was all women at the time; he went to City College, which was all men. Both of those schools were way uptown in Manhattan, of course, and my family's version of "In my day we had to walk five miles to school in the snow, uphill in both directions!" was "It was the Depression, we lived at home, and we took the subway to school an hour and a half in each direction." Three hours of commuting a day to get an education. My mother is the one who talks about this.
My father was editor of the college newspaper and helped get a corrupt college president on the road to resignation, but that is another story and you can read it in FoAoH's memoir. He went on to a private university (Columbia) for professional journalism study. My brother also went there, years later, and I contemplated doing the same but didn't.
Back to the Mexico story. My mother took the bus down to Mexico City from New York. Yes, the bus. More like buses. I think her first stop was Indianapolis because she had an uncle there. Not sure whether or where she stopped after that, but it was a five-day trip. At any rate, she got to Mexico City safe and sound on a Friday, and the following Tuesday she and my father were married.
They married at the American Embassy because they were patriotic young people and wanted to be married on American soil. But the Ambassador wasn't empowered to officiate at weddings (unlike some other foreign diplomats) so they got a Mexican Justice of the Peace. Only civil marriages were valid in Mexico. A wedding at the JP's Registry office would cost two pesos, but they decided to splurge and go for the 32-peso wedding, which is what it cost to get married outside the Registry. 32 pesos in those days was about 8 dollars.
Foreign Service officers couldn't officiate at marriages but they could witness them (in the church that's the same thing, so I don't quite get the distinction, but there you have it) and issue a certificate of marriage so in addition to the Mexican wedding certificate, my parents got a U.S. certificate (for one dollar extra). I'm not sure whether the Consul General or the Ambassador signed the piece of paper, but they were both there. The Ambassador at the time was Josephus Daniels, a former Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson who was a former newsman -- how appropriate. I remembered he was a Southerner, but what I had forgotten and just re-read in the Mexico chapter of the memoir is that he was the founder-editor of the Raleigh News & Observer. That's Raleigh, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, my paternal grandparents had expressed the desire for my parents to have a Jewish wedding ceremony, so several days later PoAoH located a rabbi, which in Mexico City was not so easy, and he witnessed and officiated at a religious ceremony. It was in Spanish and Hebrew and they had a sheet or a tablecloth for a chuppah (the traditional wedding canopy) and my father didn't have a kippah (yarmulke) so he used a handkerchief tied at four corners. The part of this story I love is that the rabbi lived on Jesus Maria Street. Now there's a title for a novel: The Rabbi on Jesus Maria Street.
Parents of Acts of Hope did have a little reception with a wedding cake. The cake was the work of two Greek-American pastry cooks from Manhattan who after fighting in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (i.e. against Franco's forces) had settled in Mexico and opened a restaurant and bakery.
My father's memoir doesn't say and I haven't asked my parents, but it occurred to me a few years ago upon re-reading my father's description that these guys, Nick and Mike, were probably a couple. But maybe they weren't.
The cake had two white doves on top.
The big story in 1940 in Mexico was, of course, Trostsky's assassination, and my father, as a freshly minted journalist, got to cover it. There was a substantial cast of characters in the background shenanigans leading up to the assassination, including an American woman who had been one of Trotsky's aides. My father was stringing for the Jack Starr-Hunt News Service and among their clients was the N.Y. Daily News tabloid, which could care less about the politics of the story. Who cared if Stalin's arch-enemy had just been killed? The Daily News fired off to my father a cable that read "RUSH 1,500 WORDS GIRLIE ANGLE." Welcome to highfalutin foreign correspondent work.
After a few months in Mexico, with the fellowship year over, my parents returned to the U.S. and Brooklyn, where both their families lived. My father got a stop-gap editing job at the Brooklyn Academy of Music while hunting for a real job in journalism. At last, after six months, a real job materialized, and off my parents went to Herkimer, New York (for those of you who don't know, that's in the boonies, at least from a New York City perspective) where my father worked on the Evening Telegram newspaper for the magnificent sum of $35 per week.
The following year Pearl Harbor happened and my parents moved to Washington.
But that is another story.
And then there's this
Hard to believe we had snow ten days ago.
I have no idea what this tree is, but it's blooming.
More BlackBerry photos of new daffodils, this time in the sun
The photos are a bit fuzzy, but still nice. Yesterday's were taken under gloomy skies, today's under bright sun. Clouds showed up later in the day though, and we had more rain. Also, we are losing an hour tonight because of Daylight Alleged Savings. BOO!
Astounding
Thought at the end of the third week in Lent:
The amazing thing about being in parish ministry is that one is privileged to see all kinds of people in every stage and situation in life: from births to life's major milestones to death. This week I have witnessed grace happening in the most unexpected places and in the most unexpected ways at the most unexpected times. You'd think that after all this time, one might get used to it, but it always surprises.
The amazing thing about being in parish ministry is that one is privileged to see all kinds of people in every stage and situation in life: from births to life's major milestones to death. This week I have witnessed grace happening in the most unexpected places and in the most unexpected ways at the most unexpected times. You'd think that after all this time, one might get used to it, but it always surprises.
The Amazing Parents of Acts of Hope: 70 Years Today!
The Amazing Parents of Acts of Hope are still alive and kicking at 91, after a scare this winter when Mother of Acts of Hope had medical episode which put her in the hospital for a little under a week and sent me dashing up to Boston on four hours' notice back in January. It took a while for her to get better but she is up and about and we are grateful, because today is a big day. Seventy, yes, 70, count' em, 70 years ago, on March 12, 1940, Mother and Father of Acts of Hope were married in Mexico City. Why Mexico City? That is a tale for this weekend. What I can tell you now is that Mother of Acts of Hope, age 21 at the time, took the bus, or rather several buses, from Brooklyn, New York to Mexico, D.F., Mexico. Now there's determination. And love!
We children are not up in Boston but will be going there in a few weeks when everyone in several different countries can get schedules coordinated, and we are looking forward to it. For now we are using electronic means to communicate, and of course flowers.
I'm always hesitant to post family photos on the blog and never post photos of children anywhere on the Web, blog or Facebook or websites, but if you are on Facebook and are a FB friend of mine and go to my profile, you can see in one of ththe family album some photos of my parents which I put up a while back. Note: I am off Facebook on Fridays, Saturdays, and most of Sundays in Lent, and it's a good thing. I may do more of this after Lent is over.
It is spring break at Guilford and I have been sleeping long hours and working on the Big Tome as well as taking care of this and that (never enough time during term time to do the simplest things, like make phone calls to physicians about check-ups and clean the kitchen floor and find lost pieces of paper) so no special celebration on my end today, except for a little family-in-the-Spirit time locally. The Adorable Godson and his bff are coming here for lunch --we haven't had a meal together in too long -- and so I must go to the kitchen. Good thing the boys aren't coming till an hour from now.
In other news, the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Maya Pavlova, FBE, is lolling against the laptop, looking sweet and calm, but she has a serious case of spring fever and broke the glass in a picture frame two or three days ago in a morning mad dash about the house. Outdoors the daffodils are blooming under grey skies and the birds are out in full force. Over and out.
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