Why I Go to Christ in the Desert Monastery

Stacy L. Patty

So I did it again.  I left wife and job, packed basics and books, and headed up to the monastery for about two weeks.  When people learn that I am going, they always wonder why.  And for two weeks?  Here’s why:

The Location.  Christ in the Desert Monastery is described as “the most remote monastery in the Western Hemisphere.”  There are numerous monasteries in New Mexico, but none so far off the map, literally.  Drive an hour north of Santa Fe to Abiqui, then drive 14 more miles, past Ghost Ranch, to a turn-off, one-lane dirt and gravel road.  You have 13 more miles, so give yourself at least 45 minutes.  The road winds up the Chama River canyon, alternating between gentle curves and steep, hairpin turns among stunning mesa views with a kaleidoscope of colors.  The drive ends at the monastery, with guest rooms for 15 people.  The first thing one notices is the stark silence, only to be broken by a church bell marking the hours of prayer during the day.  And the deep blue sky.  And the midday clouds casting shadows on the cliffs all around.   And the afternoon shower, and the occasional rainbow.  The location makes it difficult to get to, but if you really want to have separation from the busyness and noise, there are likely few better places in the world.  If you just have to have a restaurant dinner, see that special ball game, or check up on the latest from Washington, you can certainly make the drive, but there’s that gnarly road and those lost three hours.  So settle in, and begin the adjustment to the life of the desert.

The Rhythm.  Before my first visit in 2011, a friend encouraged me to take the daily schedule seriously, and I am grateful to him.  These Benedictines follow the Opus Dei, the Divine Office, a series of seven “hours” of prayer appropriately placed throughout the day.  The prayers are largely chanting of the Psalms, punctuated with frequent doxologies, a simple hymn, and prayer.
On this visit, I did not arise for the first hour, Vigils, at 4:00 a.m.  I started at 5:00 with orange juice, two boiled eggs, and a slice of toast, followed by Lauds at 5:30.  By 6:15, I was back at my room, reading with the dawn, or walking.  At 8:45, Terce began, followed at 9:00 by work assignments (this year, I pulled weeds and oiled exterior doors).  Sext was at 1:00, followed by the main meal, with the monks serving a bounty of salad, beans, and white meat.  The meal began with hymns and prayers, and closed likewise.  The hour of None followed at 2:00, after which I enjoyed an afternoon of quiet, reading, writing, and walking.  At 5:45 I would go to Vespers, then share leftovers with the community at a light meal.  After more quiet time, Compline began at 7:30, followed by the Great Silence.  I usually sat at my door watching dusk and then dark arrive.  Over time, I find that my mind is more and more full of the day’s phrases – psalms, hymns, and prayers.

Often first-time guests come for only a couple of nights, which is sad.  It takes several days to adjust to the quiet, the stark beauty, and the day’s pattern.  But then comes something indescribable:  There is a kind of gentle inward peace and physical relaxation.  The rhythm of the hours, the walking to and from the chapel, the calls of the bell to prayer, the time to just “be,” invoke a certain kind of calm I rarely enjoy elsewhere.  I sense the presence of God, and it is as if nothing else matters – not the latest news, nor the work projects left unfinished, nor the bills still waiting to be paid, nor even rightful family concerns and responsibilities.  For now, in this sacred geography, I rest and renew.

The Limitations.  Until two years ago, the monastery did not have electricity or wi-fi.  Alas, both are available now, although the latter irregularly.  The rooms are quite simple, with concrete floors and an occasional spider web.  The climate can be cool at night and very hot in the afternoon; there are no air conditioners.   The food is basic, but given in generous supply.  Coffee is limited to instant mixes.  Adapting to these changes from normal life is at times a bit jarring but more so refreshing.  On my third day, I made the mistake of checking my email – a common computer in the breakfast room is provided for that purpose – only to find an alert about a supposedly very low bank account balance.  Immediately stress returned, until I found a way to actually verify the phish.  We typically live attached to our cell phones, going about our busyness among the noise and excess and exhaustion.  Experiencing limitations helps me to recover a sense of what matters and what does not.  It restores in me a desire to live more purposeful toward good living and being when I return from the monastery.

The Reading.  Rarely, and sadly, in the academic world do I focus on personal spiritual growth, and when not preparing for a lecture, I am drawn to contemporary issues in politics, science, and religion.  Somehow, the setting at the monastery seems not best suited for the mundane.  I brought enough theology and philosophy books to keep me going for a month, but I found myself drawn to Merton, Benedict, and the Desert Fathers instead.  How refreshing!

The Health.  At the monastery, one is not so quickly drawn to the kitchen for a late-night snack, or to the couch for an evening of numbing television.  You certainly can just sit and sleep, both of which are good and healthy.  But I found the desire to walk – at a good pace – each day.  I even went about five miles one morning.  And with only the ginger snaps made by Sharie to parcel out each day, I found the monastery fruit to actually taste good.  I only lost five pounds on this visit, but both mentally and physically I feel better.

The Encounters.  The monastery is supposed to be quiet.  One does not talk to a monk, nor do monks generally talk to each other.  All meals are eaten without conversation, though a reader does share from a designated book.  The guesthouse policy is silence, except for a common room.  But along the way, there are whispered hellos, after-meal exchanges, and short inquiries and answers.  And every time I have visited here, there have been unexpected but special meetings.  A young man appeared very unfriendly and sad until I realized he was there grieving the loss of his father in the previous week.  A woman knew Lubbock because she had played in an all-girl rock band at the air force base there in the early 1970s.  Once I ran into an old college friend there with his wife.  This time I paused to realize that a neighboring guest and I had once served on a spirituality and health committee in Lubbock.  And then there is Paul, a lanky, intelligent, octogenarian who works here each summer slathering shingle oil on exterior doors and exposed wood.  A Catholic theology teacher entering his 50^th year at a Philadelphia prep school, he invites me for coffee once or twice each year; I ask him about the rituals, and he updates me on the brothers (monasteries have their own drama).  This year, on a final day at None, Leander – the oldest monk -- shuffled over to me after prayers, leaned in, expressed hope that my visit had been a blessing, and added that he knew I had been a blessing to Paul.  These kind of moments of grace coming through chance encounters are serendipities that even this introvert treasures.

The Takeaway.  While I am learning to be simply grateful, I do come back home with a bit of guilt that I get this rare pleasure in the summers.  My hope is that I come back different – less stressed, more resolute toward kindness, renewed in spirit and body, less caring about the urgent, and more committed to developing and maintaining habits of attentiveness to the presence of God in all of life.  In time, I have learned, I do not succeed.  But with each visit and return, perhaps I become a little more consistent over the long haul.

So why not just become a monk?  Oh, goodness, no!  I like beef too much.  Seriously, I cannot imagine being distant from my wife and family, nor from the life of the university, nor the engagement with social justice in the public arena.  But I am grateful that there are monks in the desert, and I am thankful for the blessing they give.

 

               

 

On Christian Identity as a Trump Card Regarding Political Critique

On Christian Identity as a Trump Card Regarding Political Critique

Stacy Patty

Today a couple of friends questioned me on Facebook for two reasons.  I had posted a response letter from Senator John Cornyn regarding my very respectful email that he consider not voting to name Betsy Devos as Secretary of the Department of Education.  In my post I was a bit sarcastic, making the point that, as the senator implied, we should be happy to have someone who would do so much good for education in America.  To a reply, I posted a note that said essentially that I would be happy to see Sen. Cornyn after he was voted out of office.

One reply stated that we should give Sec. Devos a chance.  Another reply was aghast at my disrespect for such good Christians.  I have three replies, and considerations.

1.       Sarcasm is not a good Christian approach, if it means to cast personal disrespect on a person.  I did not mean that.  I meant that there are inconsistencies with the senator’s lofty endorsement of Sec. Devos and the history of her actions.  His letter seemed to me to be disingenuous and even condescending in tone.   But that is a “seem,” and Christians should be above sarcasm toward personal offense.  So I tried to edit that response of mine, and when I realized I could not do so, I pulled down the chain.  But the larger issue is that so many who quickly criticize fail to see their own inconsistencies.  I have failed at times to be equally and perfectly Christian when making a post.  Would that others see the same in their own lives.

2.       Those who are shocked that a Christian would challenge the political actions or statements of a Trump-designee or congressional leader who is a Christian so often seem to have been challengers of former president Obama, Sec. Clinton, and many others whose history of Christian faith and action is clear and rich.  Yes, they sinned.  No, they should not be so easily discredited or disrespected.  Please, realize that there is no monopoly of “good” Christians in any political party.

3.       To question one’s right or one’s choice to challenge a Christian civil servant or politician simply because she/he is a “good” Christian is a failure of logic by association.  Being a Christian is an important, even transformative matter.  But if I had heart trouble, I’d rather have an atheist heart surgeon with a medical degree than the best good Christian who has simply read some books on heart surgery, or to make a fairer analogy, a “good” Christian businessman who has donated billions to a private hospital.  To play the Christian Trump card with regard to political critique is irresponsible and dismissive of the complex realities of civic discourse and leadership in a world not so simply black and white.  Being a good Christian does not make one a good physician, diplomat, economist, soldier, governor, senator, or president.  Being a good Christian does not negate the need for careful and sustained preparation and practice within any specific field of professional action.

Nor does critiquing current government leaders mean that one is not “giving them a chance.”  It simply means that one is practicing a fundamental American right, the right to free speech with regard to commenting on  and questioning of one’s government leaders.

  

Avila, Spain: After One Month

9:45 p.m., Avila, Spain.  17 November 2016.

It is early evening here for many.  Dinner is over for most, and the night is yet still young.  Or so the standard narrative is.  There is no doubt about the day:  Expect to rise by 7:30 or 8:00, and put in a morning until 2:00 p.m.   Then there is lunch, and after, siesta.  Many businesses still close, and life slows down.  For a brief few hours, things start up again about 4:30, or 5:00.  But don’t expect to find a place to buy bottled water at 9:30 p.m.  I just tried.

Before coming to Spain, I am sorry to say I expected dry flat dirt and dusty towns.  Alas, I am a victim of human pre-conditioning.  My West Texas world and understanding of Latinos, with Mexico not too far south, gave me an impression – a wrong one for many West Texas and Mexican Latinos at that – of what I would expect.  I was so wrong.  Spain, in different but no doubt equally valuable ways, is so wonderful and interesting.

For the most part, Sharie and I have stayed in Avila, a relatively small town in southern Castille-Leon, historically an important region for a variety of reasons.  Even during the height of the Muslim Golden Age of tolerance and progressive civilization, this region was a kind of no-man’s land, with Christians coming from the north and Muslims coming from the south.  Avila had been a Roman outpost, and it is likely that indeed the apostle James sent Segundus, who is buried here, to Avila in the first century.  But until the late middle ages, Avila did not shine.  And then it did for both good and bad reasons.  It became a key north-central Christian outpost, and then important walled city, and progressively, the Jewish and Muslim populations were “inquisitioned out.”  The beauty of the walls and the churches hides the intolerance and politics of the late middle ages.  But this is also the city of Teresa, the founder of the reformed order of the Discalced Carmelite nuns, who sought to take spirituality and faith seriously, and of John of the Cross, from nearby, whose insights into mystical Christian union with God pass through a dark night of the soul.  And it is the region of Moses of Leon, who wrote the key Sefer Zohar, the central Jewish mystic Kabbalah texts.  And of Maria of Agreda, the Christian mystic who “bilocated” to West Texas to evangelize the Jumano Indians in the 16^th century.  The city and region are ripe with religious history and architecture.  Our daily walk to the university where we teach takes us through a part of the old medieval Jewish cemetery, restored in part after some of it was literally built over by the Christians in the 15^th century for the important Teresian monastery of the Incarnation.  Many key churches that remain show signs of prior “Roman” foundations, and likely Moorish/Muslim in between.

All history aside, this is a wonderful way to meet today’s Spain.  It is not modern, business busy Madrid, nor cutting edge international Barcelona.  Nor any number of nameless towns and cities in Spain.  But even here, in a town literally bathed with Teresian names and buildings, one finds some sense of beauty and peace. 

Our apartment sits in the south central area, with a marvelous simple 2d floor balcony looking southwest, with a relatively clear view, due to the demolition of an earlier building.  Below the balcony sit 6 bins – 2 for trash, 2 for plastics, 1 for paper, and 1 for glass.  It is really fun to watch people drop things off.  Often, there are bags left aside, or boxes placed on top.  Perhaps someone else can use these pants?  What about this food I did not like?  How about this broken briefcase?  So cool; within five minutes my briefcase was gone.

There are cars, indeed.  But people walk.  Really walk.  I think the one thing that has most surprised me, each day on the about 2-mile up and down the hills and steps trek to the university, is the number of canes I see.  Canes, as it walking canes, attached most often to people of age, as in old age.  It is cold here some days; no difference.  We walk.  It is 9:30 and dark in the evening.  What?  We walk.  We walk.  We just walk, and see others walking.  We walk.

But what if it is midday, or on the way in the morning or during siesta or in the early evening, and I am ready not to walk?  Well, we go to the bar.  But really, while there is beer, wine, and liquor there, we go for coffee.  We get a café con leche – milk, with a little dark stuff (well, my West Texas interpretation).  I have been utterly amazed at how few people in the ‘bar” are drinking anything except coffee.  Well, and eating tapas – usually breads, and variations of pork.

The Spanish here are not effusively friendly, but they are not rude.  One passes another.  Olah!  All is good.  Traffic moves on.  But wonderfully, no matter the time or the number of cars, a pedestrian approaches a crosswalk, and she is queen.  I have yet to find this custom not honored.

There is a kind of quiet here, a kind of lack of busy-ness, that I will miss when I leave soon.  There is a kind of generous hospitality, combined with caring respect for privacy, that is really rare.  Unemployment here is over 25%.  Life is not easy.  I see many men in the “bars” playing cards for long hours.  But there does seem to be a sense of community, of common shared decency together, that despite the realities of politics and life in the U.S., may be worth paying attention to.

I have been blessed to travel widely – to Western Europe, but also to India, Central America, and Turkey.  Rarely have I been as delightfully surprised as I have been with Spain. 

Perhaps it is Avila.  Come.  You will see.

Public Transportation as a Way to World Peace

"This is my first time to ride the Metro," the 30ish woman said as she sat down by me on the Yellow Franconia line at 5:55 p.m. on June 20th.  "I'm from Texas, and we ride in cars there.  I never see other people, but wow, here I see everyone!"  She was a bit nervous, I could tell, but with experienced D.C. friends, doing okay.  But her comment, voluntarily given, was really interesting.  She could have talked about being underground, about the heat, about the crowds, about the long, long escalators.  But she noticed the people, their diversity, their busyness, their joy, their exhaustion, their humanity.  And it really seemed a revelation to her, this Killeen, Texas woman who had gone from place to place in her own cocoon and had never noticed others unlike her own small world.

Perhaps she asked if she could sit by me because I had taken the "reserved for the disabled and elderly" seats.  I know I'm not elderly, but this is, after all, my 57th birthday, and I hardly qualify as young.  In truth, if the seats are open, and others are not, people take these seats, even blue-suited, white-haired aging men. So I did, and she joined, and we had a moment.  Killeen ... my guess is a military wife, transferred with her husband to a base or fort or air field near here, but who knows?  Killeen folk probably hate that stereotype, and I apologize.

It was a good birthday day in fact, quite productive.  From Crystal City Metro at 7:00 a.m. to Woodland Park Metro, about 30 minutes away, to look at a potential hotel site for an LCU reception, then down the Red line to Foggy Bottom to negotiate another possible hotel site, then up the Red line 40 minutes to Rockville for an internship site review, then down the red line 15 minutes to Bethesda and another site review, then down another 15 minutes to Dupont Circle for lunch with a Washington Center Internship executive for planning and review, then a 30 minute walk to another site review, followed by another walk back to the Metro, and a 20 minute ride to the Navy Yard Metro, via Metro Center and a switch to the Green line, for another hotel negotiation meeting, and then, after a time for coffee and some note-taking (while watching neighborhood moms and children playing in the park fountain), the 20 minute ride up the Green line to transfer to the Yellow line and on to my home for the week.  All without a car, all on foot and by Metro, a truly marvelous, modern miracle, where suits and soldiers, laborers and students, parents and children, tourists and seasoned civil servants -- from every race and every ethnicity, straight and gay, poor and much richer, young and old, deaf and hearing, healthy and compromised -- meet in a common quest, to get somewhere.  There is not much talking, there is not much eye contact, there is, to the inexperienced rider, a kind of coldness or impersonality.  But they are all trying to get somewhere.

And on the way, they learn to get along.

Peace!

To My Youngest Daughter, On Her 18th Birthday and Move to College

Written a few weeks ago for my daughter. She leaves for college tomorrow. The letter, while personal, speaks I hope to the longings and yearnings and angst of so many parents like Sharie and me. Our daughter gave permission to post this slightly edited version in hopes that others will find hope and grace.

To My Youngest Daughter on Her 18th Birthday

My Dear Daughter,

In the great stories of religions, there come on occasions, though never on schedule, those wonderful surprises of God – those often unexpected, never carefully planned for, and always accepted with wonder, great, transforming joys. Hindus call them avatars, Buddhists name them Bodhisattvas, Sufi Muslims see them in the fana of mysticism, Jews in the Hashem, or with Christians, prophets. To many, Jesus was that surprise. But whomever they are, and by whatever name, they come as serendipity, they come as judgement, and they come as love. They shower unexpected and unexplainable joys on their recipients, they obviously challenge neat, reasoned plans and goals, and they pour out selfless expressions of caring and sympathy and hope. (They bring deep blessings unexpected, they force their recipients to rethink current plans, and they give great love.) In short, they call their recipients to a new world, a better place, an unintended but always new adventure.

Dear Daughter, you are one of these very rare, and very precious, persons. You are God’s surprise to us, God’s “Yes” to all of our future, God’s confidence in all of our new projects, God’s demand that we not become complacent, God’s reminder that true love is never planned or calculated or targeted but always free and courageous and bold and determined, and real.

These eighteen years have been so unbelievable, and yet certain. You grew up very quickly, with sister and brothers so far ahead, mom and dad so busy and tired. You had to. Your mother provides such special memories of you: “Can I get on the computer to do my homework?” when you were barely five. “I need to have the phone to talk to my friend” when you were even younger. You were helping Mom teach Sunday school before you were in school. You were walking to school, on your own, very early. You were pushing the lawn mower with me when most of your school friends did not know what a mower was. You were climbing the ladder and handing me tools to build a new bedroom before you were even in school. You knew the local Aquatic Center, where all your siblings swam before you, so well that you could walk to the water’s edge blind-folded and stop just at the right spot before falling in. And, by middle school, you were so ahead of your mother and father on technology and television and contemporary life that we were, well, growing old.

You watched your oldest brother leave for college when you were six, and you cried. The next two left not many years later, and it seems that we all became so different. It’s like you experienced what all parents do when the “kids leave home,” but you were still the kid, and we knew it but we did not always handle it well. So you found other siblings, of sorts – friends and boyfriends, some wonderful, some dangerous, and we responded in a variety of ways. Your mother was ceaselessly committed to helping you, to encouraging you, to correcting you, to caressing you, to giving you her very soul. I was less focused, caught up in work and travel and backyard meditation, too often ignorant or oblivious to the hurt you so often felt and the confusion of home life you so often saw. My dear daughter, I am so sorry. I know that overall, I cared for you and the whole family, and I would always have given my life to protect you, but I also know that my own world has been too often too busy to see you well.

Indeed we have had ups and downs. I will never forget the occasional painful days of later senior high school, when we all struggled to help you find happiness. On those few nights you left, I walked for miles, and then drove, not sure what to do, but somehow aimlessly hoping to find you. And I wondered what I would say if you came home.  

And you always did. And we got by.

And, you’d be baking cupcakes for swimmers or classmates or workmates the next day. You often put off studies to get the baking done – yes, a nice diversion from study you didn’t want to do, but yes, so nice a good diversion rather than a whole lot of other things you could have done. I’m betting over the years you’ve baked 50 dozen cupcakes for others. And then we can talk about the cards, posters, and letters. You have been an encourager, a life-changer, and dear friend to oh so many. I’ll never forget your support for, and friendship with, the disabled swimmer Beth, for example.

Oh, dear Daughter, you are so much more dear and precious and beautiful and special and prophetic and kind than you may ever know. You have your faults, of course. (Perhaps you shop too much?) But you are dear. You are God’s special gift, God’s serendipity to Sharie and me, and the world. Your mother tells me, and I agree, that you have helped us to understand God’s Grace more than we ever could. I am so happy you are going to pursue a vocation that is about helping people. Your gifts of love and kindness will continue. You will be God’s grace-giver.

I know you probably had different expectations for an 18th birthday party. After all, you live in a secular, greedy society, and your friends and coworkers expect more.

But I also know that you, deep down inside, realize how very blessed you are to have a loving mother and father, and

how very blessed you are to have been called by God to be a special surprise, a dear serendipity, a rare chosen one, who will continue to be such a blessing to all you come to know, now and in the future. Daughter, you are a special chosen one. You have been prepared well, sometimes challenging, always with love. You will continue to be a blessing to all you know.

Go with God. Live well. Work hard. Love deeply. Laugh fully. Repent sincerely. Reflect with commitment. Rededicate intensely. Laugh more fully. Work with calling.

And love more deeply.

I love you, my dear daughter, as does your mother. We are so very proud of you.

Go with God.

Love, Dad

Martin Luther King as Christian, Even While Barack Obama is Inaugurated

So I am sad not to be watching the inauguration live, and sad to be working as well, but my institution chooses to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., with a special chapel.  Sometimes I am asked to present it.  Here's my words for the big day, which I will literally be reading as Pres. Obama is giving his speech.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:  Another Story

LCU Chapel, January 21, 2013

Popular theologian Stanley Hauerwas likes to remind Christians of what he calls the Tonto Principle.  When the Lone Ranger and Tonto once found themselves surrounded by 20,000 Sioux Indians, the Lone Ranger turned to Tonto and said, "This looks pretty tough; what do you think we ought to do?"  Tonto replied, "What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?"  Our tendency, Hauerwas says, is to view life through the assumptions and perceptions of the dominant American culture and to fail to see that "we" are not all alike, all sharing the same heritages and present realities and life goals. 

            Neither Hauerwas nor I mean to focus here on ethnic and cultural diversity but rather on Christian particularity.  What does it mean to say we are Americans, and to say we are Christian?  When we stress, for example, our "rights" to big cars and big homes, who is the "we" that we are talking about?  When we pray for our soldiers going off to war, who are our soldiers?  When we teach our children to grow up and be responsible citizens, what kind of citizenship are "we" implying?  When we focus on getting a good job after we finish college, what do "we" mean by "good"?  When we honor and celebrate  the heroes of our past, who are we, and who are they, and why are we continuing to honor them in such ways?

            The Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday provides us with an excellent example.  To virtually every American, Martin Luther King brings to mind certain fixed phrases and images.  We all know the phrases.  "I Have a Dream;"  "We Shall Overcome."  And if we Americans had to sum up his life with one descriptive line, it would likely be "Civil Rights Leader."  We've all seen the crowds, the marches, and even the monuments, and we have a fairly consistent and often repeated picture of him and of this day.  And on this particular day, we’ll see a more pronounced emphasis – President Obama will invoke both King and Abraham Lincoln, with themes of rights, justice, and freedom.

            But do we Christians realize that Martin Luther King, Jr. was first one of our own?  That at his very core, he was not really a civil rights leader or a political activist, but that he was a Christian, a disciple of Jesus Christ? 

Do we hear him, not quoting legal documents but the words of Jesus?  Do we even know that the driving force in his life was not a racial agenda, a political idealogy, or a personal lust for power but that it was Christian love?  Listen with me to his own words.

            What is the goal of life?   "The end of life is not to be happy nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may." 

What is the greatest good of life?  What is the summum bonum? I think I have found the answer, America. . . . The highest good is love.  This principle is at the center of the cosmos.  It is the great unifying force of life.  God is love.  He who loves has discovered the clue to the meaning of ultimate reality; he who hates stands in immediate candidacy for nonbeing.

And why should we love even our enemies?  He responds:  "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.  Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.  So when Jesus says "Love your enemies," he is setting forth an inescapable admonition.      Have we not come to such an impass in the modern world that we must love our enemies---or else?  The chain reaction of evil . . . must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

And why are we compelled to act for the hurting and oppressed of the world?  Because love is "the true meaning of the Christian faith and of the cross.  Calvary is a telescope through which we look into the long vista of eternity and see the love of God breaking into time.  Out of the hugeness of his generosity God allowed his only-begotten Son to die that we may live. By uniting yourselves with Christ and your brothers through love you will be able to matriculate in the university of eternal life.  In a world depending on force, coercive tyranny, and bloody violence, you are challenged to follow the way of love.  You will then discover that unarmed love is the most powerful force in the world."

 Not long after King's death, the young poet Carl Wendell Himes wrote,

            Now that he is safely dead

Let us praise him

            build monuments to his glory

            sing Hosannas to his name.

                        Dead men make

such convenient heroes:  They cannot rise to challenge the images

                        we would fashion from their lives.

            And besides,

it is easier to build monuments

            than to make a better world.

Himes, I think, was quite prophetic.  Fourty-five years later, the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday is honored by some Americans, largely ignored by most (“why are we out of school, today?”), and turned into partisan political spectacles by still others, and King himself is captured in only one or two repeated scenes from moments in past history. 

I wonder what might happen if on this day we heard more sermons and prayers of King and saw less film footage of crowds and marches.  I wonder what might develop if more churches and less political action groups would listen to him.  I wonder where we might be if we spent the day, in the manner of King, reflecting on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and its ethical implications for our lives, if we took Christian love as seriously as King did.

            Ah, but we're back to the Tonto principle again.  Who are the "we" that we are talking about?  My guess is that most of us see ourselves as Christians and Americans, as some kind of ChristoAmericans or AmericoChristians.  We pray to God and ask God to bless America, we value American goals of rights and freedoms as if they were God-given licenses to personal excess, we tend to see the world in terms of American Christian good and foreign religious evil.  But the two --- American and Christian --- are not the same, and it's Martin Luther King, Jr., who reminds us of this.

           

By 1965 King had already made a name for himself: ten years of work for civil rights, Time's "Man of the Year" in 1957, the march on Washington in 1963.  He had already been arrested and threatened many times, and in 1958 he narrowly escaped death when a black woman stabbed him.  He had already gained worldwide fame, receiving in 1964  the Nobel Peace Prize, at age 35.  So, by 1965, the world was his.  We are told that he had always wanted to get a university professorship, to have time to write and think and teach.  Now, it seemed, was the perfect time to retire from the public scene and to enjoy the good American life.

            But King did something really foolish, something very unwise.  He rented an apartment in a dangerous ghetto of Chicago and began to work against injustices there, and then he continued similar practices in other parts of the country.  And this man who could have claimed any number of privileges and exclusions, this Ph.D. in philosophical theology and world leader, went to Memphis in 1968 to help some garbage workers who weren't being treated fairly.  And we know the rest of the story.

            Two months before his death, King was preaching in Atlanta and reflecting on how he would like to be remembered after he was gone. 

            "Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize.  Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards – that’s not important.  Tell them not to mention where I went to school.”

"I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others. 

“I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to love somebody. 

“I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. 

“And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. 

“I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.

“I want you to say that day that I tried to love and serve humanity.

“Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice.  Say that I was a drum major for peace.  I was a drum major for righteousness.  And all of the other shallow things will not matter.

"I won't have any money to leave behind.  I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind.  But I just want to leave a committed life behind."

What kind of man has these goals?  What kind of person denies success and wealth and rights and safety and life itself for the sake of love? 

What kind of man?  A Christian. 

And it's high time we reclaimed him, and started listening to him, as one of our own.

Thank you.

-- Stacy Patty