The Last Kingdom

I am a huge fan of Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone series.  Over the years I am always started by not only the twists that take place, but also by the skilled way in which Berry weaves together the story in a plausible and compelling way.

First, let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed Berry’s latest offering in the Malone series: The Last Kingdom. Berry is always able to weave tidbits of historical facts in his fiction which makes the story.

The story centers around the enigmatic King Ludwig II of Bavaria, from the house of Wittelsbach, who because of eccentricity was deposed in 1886 and three days later was found mysteriously dead from drowning.  Despite his massive building campaigns; Neuschwanstein Castle, Linderhof Palace, and Herrenchiemsee and his devotion to the composer Richard Wagner, he is remembered for his desire to find a last kingdom. Hence the title and premise of the book.

I enjoyed following Cotton through the great castles that Ludwig built as he chases the secret of the Last Kingdom to find the deed before the bad guys do.  To read a book of this nature one must suspend some logical belief, but I have always enjoyed that Berry is able to keep that to a minimum.  For whatever reason, he seemed to push the envelope a bit farther this time and there were a couple of incidents where one just had to throw up their hands.

Overall it was a very satisfying book, but definitely not one of the best in the series.  I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction and mystery.

Opening One's Eyes

For the second Sunday since arriving in Tiberias, we attended St. Andrew’s Church, a part of the Church of Scotland in the Holy Land.  Last week, Rev. Muriel Pearson preached a wonderful sermon based on the woman at the well in John’s Gospel.  Fifteen or so, many visitors like us, were present to share in the worship and gather together around the table.  Today, the Rev. Dr. Steward Gillan preached and presided over the table.  Again, there may have been 15 of us in attendance.

What was special about today, is that Nancy, Sara and I were invited to share the Gospel reading.  It came from John’s Gospel, the entire 9th chapter.  It was the first time I participated in worship since retiring.  Rev. Gillan reminded us that we don’t all see the same way — and that sometimes when we think we see, we are really blind (see the end of the story).  I loved how he tied it all together.  The theme is something that I struggle with because most people prefer certainty (particularly their own understanding of certainty) to living in the gray.  The older I get, I have come to realize that none of us have it completely figured out.  And asking the questions is not anathema to faith, but instead is honoring God.

It also brought into clearer focus the difference between pilgrims and tourists.  Richard Rohr’s devotion the first week of March was all about pilgrimage.  As I prayed through those devotions, I found myself wanting to be an even better guide to those who are here on a pilgrimage.  Tourism is not a bad thing, and I will admit, that while in Israel I am often a tourist — but there is something powerful about seeking God in the moment that one finds oneself (and isn’t that what being a pilgrim is all about?)  I am seeking to listen more and talk less.  Hear where the spirit is moving in people’s lives and do my best to open them up to that opportunity.

I am thankful that Matt Landry opened me up to Richard Rohr years ago.  Rohr’s understanding of the universal christ (finding the christ in every thing) has been life changing for me.  It has helped me to be a better pilgrim for God’s love.

Happy birthday Dad

Today would have been my father’s 90th birthday.  Even to write that seems strange, for to me he will perpetually be a man in his 50’s or 60’s (which is weird because I am 62 and he was definitely older than me). Even as he declined rapidly the last couple years of his life, I would catch glimmers of the father that I knew and will always love.  He was, and always will be my hero.  

I am the man that I am today, because of his influence.  Even though my temperament is more like my mom, I followed the path that I followed, because of my dad.  Like so many others, I followed my father into the ministry.  And yes, I had a very personal call to go into ministry.  Yet, I often wonder if my father made me more likely to hear, and have the tools to respond to that call.

For most of my ministry, every Sunday afternoon, I would call and we would talk about church.  I sometimes ponder if that didn’t add to his longing to be young again and back in the trenches.  The hardest thing for me, in my last few years in active ministry was not to have him to talk to on a regular basis.

As I enter into my sunset years, I am forced to contemplate the what if’s of my life.  How different it would have been if things had happened differently.  I was on a dangerous path when we lived in Roselle, and was given a new chance when we moved to Glenview in 1972.  If that had not happened — I cannot even imagine where my life would have ended up.  What if my dad decided to risk everything and move to Florida like he really wanted?  What if the bishop had forced my dad to move to Court Street in Elgin in the mid 70’s while I would have been in High School?

When I look back, I see the wisdom that my father possessed in navigating the treacherous waters of the UMC.  Maybe that is why, when I decided to answer my call to ministry, he strongly encouraged me to leave the UMC and find a home in a different denomination.  Obviously I didn’t, but 40 years later, I can acknowledge his wisdom.

I went to Duke Divinity School because I wanted to reclaim my southern roots.  Instead I found a life partner in Nancy.

I miss my dad every day.  He was (is) my rock.  But one of the blessings that has happened since his death is how close I have become with my mother.  When I would call when my dad was alive, my mother and I had only brief conversations on the phone.  And when I would visit, my father enjoyed being the center of attention.  But now, my mom and I have really grown.  Nancy and I moved back to the Chicagoland area to be closer to her.  I try to visit every week, and we chat regularly.  And the biggest bonus has been getting to know her life story more closely.  My dad wrote out his story, and I am working on putting it into a shareable form for the family.  But my mom didn’t have the opportunity to share her story as much.  Now I am learning it.

Saturday, we drove out to Rockford to spend some time with her sister, my Aunt Doris.  On Sunday, February 19th she celebrated her 102!! Birthday.  She cannot get around much, but her mind is sharp and I love listening to my mom and her tell stories.  My cousin Jerry was also there with his wife Joan, and his son Josh and his wife Kelli.  It was so much fun.

Happy Birthday Doris and Fred

Africatown, a story that needs to be told

Wow, I am not even sure where to start.  Africatown is a well written, disturbing book that reminds us that we still have a long way to go.  The story of the shipmates and how they were captured in Africa and brought to Alabama despite the illegality of importing slaves is a sad chapter in our history.  I was reminded again and again that slavery, discrimination and bigotry did not end with the Civil War.  

While the story of their journey on the Clotilda was  heartbreaking, it was the resilience of the shipmates that is the real story.  Despite the continued marginalization of the residence of Plateau and Magazine, Alabama the story has remained to be told.  I think what struck me the most was the reluctance of the Reagan Administration (Particularly Secretary of the Interior James Watt) to recognize the importance of Africatown, and how this was not a unique story.

in 1972, the National Park Service gave a private group, the Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation, the funding to carry out a sweeping survey of these landmarks. An early ABC report made a stinging critique of the park system’s criteria for designating historic sites. “It is organized to cover American history from a white American’s perspective,” the group wrote in 1973. “There appears to be a marked reluctance on the part of NPS to openly deal with some of the less appealing aspects of American history, especially slavery … Although the past cannot be changed, it can be honestly faced, and the future can be made differently.”

It is not an easy, or light read, but I highly recommend Nick Taylor’s book Africatown, and as a result I am sure I will do more reading on the last slave ship that came to the USA.

My only complaint about this edition of the book (uncorrected digital copy) is the failure to link footnotes and the occasional need for editing.  I received this book for free for an unbiased review.

#Africatown

#NickTabor

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in which we remember and honor those that were murdered by the Nazis in the concentration camps.  This date was chosen because it is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.  I have not had the privilege of visiting any of the former concentration camp sites, but I have visited Yad Vashem in Jerusalem on multiple occasions.  This picture is one of my favorites that I took on one of the visits, it is taken of a train cattle-car that was used to haul innocent people to their deaths.  Most people see this from eye level, but I walked around and took this from below, it is appropriately called – train car to oblivion.

On this remembrance day, I hope you will take time to pause and remember.  But don’t stop there — look for ways that you can bring peace.  Peace to your family, peace to your community, peace to the world.

I am almost finished with one of the most disturbing books that I have read in a long time.  It is Assassins by Mike Bond.  My high school English teachers would have a field day with the writing style and syntax, but it was the themes that disturbed me the most.

The story begins in Afghanistan, as the US takes the decision to use the local Afghanis to bottle up the Soviet Union who had invaded the country.  The main protagonist is Jack, and the book tells snippets of his life story, as we learn he is a paramilitary commando hired by (I assume) the CIA. I found the beginning of the book fascinating.  As the story continues we move from the 1982 all the way to 2015 with “Jack” involved in all kinds of undercover operations from Iraq to Pakistan.  There were two things that I found disconcerting.  First, he touched on my deep and hidden Islamophobia.  Time and time again, he made my prejudices come to the surface.  Sometimes he challenged that phobia, other times he massaged it and made it more comfortable.  The second issue was with his take on the history of the period.  I found myself going back and forth, looking up claims that he made about the US government and its role in events from US funding of the Mujahedeen and Taliban, to the knowledge and role that Bush played in 9/11.  Did the US government know about the potential attack on the twin towers beforehand?  Did Bush know that there were no WMDs in Iraq?  Did we have opportunities to eliminate Osama Bin Laden earlier and intentionally let them pass?  All those and other perplexing questions are left for you to wrestle with.

In the second half of the book, the story gets lost in all of these questions, and at times I am not sure of the point he is trying to make.  But clearly the overall thrust is found when he quotes Longfellow about ⅔’s of the way through the book.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

In the end, I think Bond is trying to remind us that violence is a vicious circle and the more we use violence to quash our enemies, the more enemies we make.  His storytelling is okay, but it gets lost in his trying to outline what went wrong with US policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not sure I would read another one of his books.

Cancel Culture and Dr King

One of my traditions over the years was to preach on, or about Dr. Martin Luther King on his birthday weekend. One year, the weather was horrible and very few people came to church, so at the last minute we decided to invite random parishioners to read selections from King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.  It was one of the most powerful Sunday worship services that I have been a part of. If you have never read it, I highly suggest you take the time.  But be warned, it is a damning letter to those of us in the white Christian privileged community.  His words ring true today as much as they did when he wrote them in April of 1963.  Today at church, the pastor shared a sermon that was centered around Martin, and I appreciated being reminded of another great speech of his that is often forgotten: The Drum Major Instinct.  Martin invites us to ponder and ruminate over what we want to be remembered for.  He gave that sermon in February of 1968, we all know what happened just a few months later in Memphis.

Right now, we are on another one of our “cancel culture” silliness campaigns.  A while ago, it was reported in the media that gas stoves are dangerous and there might (and I emphasize that it is only a MIGHT) be a plan of banning gas stoves in the future.  OMG you would have thought the world was coming to an end for some people.  It brought out all those who screamed about a private company coming to the realization that their brand was racist (which it was) and they needed to change their image.  Can you imagine if they decided to try pass seat belt laws today??  Or stop cigarette ads?  We would all go crazy and lose our minds.  Or if they decided to ban regular gas because it was more harmful to the environment, oh wait, they did..  I love gas stoves, I prefer a gas stove, but recognizing that most houses do not have adequate ventilation (or we don’t use it) is a good thing to be reminded how potentially dangerous they can be.  I am thankful that there are people out there who are trying to make our lives safer (and also trying to save us from destroying our planet).

A number of times when I have preached about MLK I have quoted from his sermons.  When I quote from someone's material I try not to change it, although if I am honest, sometimes I do.  But this particular time I quoted Martin using the n-word.  For me, it seemed important to acknowledge that once upon a time it was a common word to use, and that we have moved beyond it.  But hearing that word, I think, in context, can help us understand better how powerfully negative it could be.  

Following the service, I got reamed out by a young person.  They were offended that I used that particular word.  I tried to explain that I didn’t use the word, but that Martin did and he was trying to show how disgusting it is.  It didn't matter, in their mind I needed to be canceled.  I took their concern seriously, and I don’t know what I would do in the future, but I certainly don’t want the word canceled from the historical record.  It is a reminder of how thoroughly we denigrate our brothers and sisters.

A lot has changed since 1968, but a lot has stayed the same.  We still tend to put people into boxes to identify them.  We still tend to try and better ourselves, at the expense of others.  I am grateful for Dr. Martin Luther King: he set a model for me to attempt to follow in my life.  One of the most humbling experiences  of my life happened after the floods that devastated Northwest Indiana in 2008.  At a North District United Methodist meeting, the district superintendent singled me out for my role in LARRI (you can learn about it here), the flood recovery group I was a part of from 2008-2011.  She called me the Martin Luther King of the area, because we were seeking justice for our neighbors who were devastated by the floods.  I am no MLK, but to be even mentioned in the same breath reminds me of my Drum Major Instinct.  My prayer is that Dr. King will continue to influence each of us to strive to become our best self.   Peace my friends.

Abraham, Martin & John by Dion 

This is a great version by Tom Clay

You Are Loved

On this Sunday in which we celebrate and remember the Baptism of Jesus, I wanted to take a moment and share some thoughts. It is fascinating experiencing church from the other side.  Having now had seven months to deprogram the way that I have always experienced church, I am beginning to see things with different eyes. One of the things that has come into clearer focus is the language that we use to describe our relationship with God.  How do we understand the relationship between us and God?  

Of course this can go a number of ways.  When we describe God — what are the words that we use?  Male pronouns, father, neutral terms, or even as mother?  Is God angry, vengeful, full of wrath, or compassionate and loving?  The funny thing that I have noticed is that often we describe God in multiple, often contradicting ways.  God is a God of love, but God also needs to have us confess our failures (to earn that love?).   It doesn't always make sense and it can cause mental whiplash, or at least some deft mental gymnastics.  My guess is that most of us don’t even notice because we have become accustomed to the verbal descriptions. 

But the biggest thing we often do (and I hope it is subconsciously and not intentionally) is use God to shame us.  Shame is an interesting thing, and from what I have heard, one of the biggest reasons young people don’t go to church.  They want to be challenged, but they don’t want (or need) to be shamed. And there is a huge difference in inviting someone to grow without telling them how bad they are.

I am sure that you can all point to times when I used shame — and for that I am extremely sorry.  It unfortunately, is such a big part of religion that at times we don’t even realize that we (me) are doing it. There has always been in the back of my head a saying my mother taught me: “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”  I am not sure why the church hasn’t understood that principle.

Too often our prayers are ones of shaming us about the things we are not doing, instead of encouraging the strides we are making.  No, I don’t think we should hide our failures, but instead of rubbing our noses in them, we need to use them to “fail forward.”  Richard Rohr has been influential in helping me to stop making everything transactional — to recognize that life isn’t about winning.  It's about relationship with God and each other, even when those relationships are not perfect.

If you have never read Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book Shameless, I recommend it to you.  I guarantee that she will make you feel uncomfortable, and challenge some closely held beliefs, but she also will help free you to see yourself (and the people around you) in a new way.

On this day of remembering the baptism of Jesus, let us also remember our own baptism.  Feel the waters that mark you as a follower of Jesus.  We are baptized not because we are evil or bad, but because we have chosen to follow the way of Jesus.  We are saved not from the fires of hell, but into a new way to see each other and all of God’s creation.  You are loved — a beloved child of God!