Ponderings

Last weekend I traveled with some Confirmation youth on our bi-annual Civil Rights Tour to Memphis, Tennessee. The purpose of the trip, beyond the value of the fellowship, was to witness the intersection of faith and the quest for justice. For us in the United Church of Christ, Memphis is a splendid place to do this.

We stayed at Pilgrim Hostel (with bathroom duty!) in First Congregational Church, a church started by the carpetbaggers. We toured LeMoyne Owen College and learned about the work of the American Missionary Association. We paid homage to MLK and learned about the UCC’s employment of one of King’s partners, the Rev. Andrew Young.

Each time we go (this was our sixth trip, and I have had the privilege of attending four) I learn something new, and this time was no exception. A new museum in Memphis, the Smithsonian’s Rock and Soul Museum, does a superb job of showing the intersection of music and the Civil Rights movement, Gospel and Soul music figuring prominently in this quest.

On the other spectrum of museums is Slave Haven, a rather dilapidated house museum. Though I’ve previously been moved this museum and the history of the underground railroad to which it bears witness, I hadn’t paid much attention to the history of it’s owner, Jacob Burkle. Burkle was a German immigrant who came to the United States and ultimately settled in Memphis. Although the details of his story seem to be lost, we know that he was in the midst of wave of German immigrants in the late 1800’s. Some were seeking religious freedom (they formed the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church), but others, fleeing the failed revolution and the ensuing draft (many of these were ‘Evangelicals’), were social progressives known to abhor slavery. It was an incredible teachable moment to see how our ancestors in the Congregational and Evangelical traditions may well have been working together on behalf of social change.

Reveling in the positive chapters of our church history and sharing it with another generation is indeed a joy. But it is also a challenge. I find myself wondering if our great grandchildren travel to St. Louis in search of our 21st century story, what will they find?

“And any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that cripple the souls—the economic conditions that stagnate the soul and the city governments that may damn the soul—is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion in need of new blood…”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Chicago, Illinois on 27 August, 1967

My grandmother didn’t care for Martin Luther King, Jr and was deeply resentful of the pressure to set aside a day to honor him.

In the last years of her life, she lived in Arizona where an MLK Day was late on the scene. We spent many hours talking about King, about justice, and about race in America. Her experience of King was in southern Michigan, her home for the first 70 of her 87 years. She remembered MLK coming to Michigan, crowds gathering, and disenfranchised people demanding change. While she had no tolerance for the Jim Crow segregation of the south, she pointed out that King’s speeches in Michigan weren’t limited to the (more obvious) issues of segregation. To be sure, my grandmother had ideas that would today be labeled racist, but she was remarkably open-minded for her time and harbored no malice.

She remembered that King’s speeches were delivered in churches and, cloaked with God talk, his sermons demanded a level of change that was frightening and that his visits were often followed by unrest and even violence. I can only assume that with her experience she expected that an MLK Day would be an uncomfortable day for those of us who have and do profit from the racist underpinnings of our society. In the least, she expected an MLK Day be a call to repentance and an invitation to consider the immense work still undone. She needn’t have worried.

Since my grandmother’s death, the MLK Holiday has become institutionalized. “A day on, not a day off” is the slogan and all but the crassest of racists at least acknowledges the day. Even in our little community, where the swimming pool and lunch counters closed rather than integrate, several of the local churches organize a march with dinner and a program to celebrate MLK. The picture used in publicity is the young King; the quotes are from his early “dream” days. Long gone are the biting words King used for the institutionalized racism inherent in our economy. Forgotten is his challenge to our war making. And our community march, held conveniently at the end of the workday, includes no mention of the ways in which our community pool is still closed to the poorer neighborhoods of our school district.

Instead, our MLK Day celebrations read more like one of Henry Ford’s “melting pot” celebrations than the defiant strength of bus boycott. We congratulate ourselves on our ability to celebrate King and have so domesticated the prophet that we have emasculated the message. I can’t help but think that if my grandmother had lived longer she too might have become accustomed to the tamed version of King that will be heralded in the coming days.

Although I miss my grandmother deeply, her undomesticated memory continues to shape my discomfort with this holiday. More importantly, her angst invites me to annually reach beyond the headlines and tap into the challenge anew. I am grateful for my grandmother’s memory of undomesticated Martin Luther King, Jr. We need him now more than ever.

It’s 11:00am on Friday, the sun is shining and the house is filled with teens. I started a thoughtful ponderings yesterday afternoon about the elusive balance of Taoism and legalism. Winnie declared the dismal. The legalist might pull up the article and try to fix it. Or might have gotten an earlier start on a new one? Given that the ‘action through inaction’ of Taoism is more my style, it’s now 11:00am and there is no ponderings.

Though I am without a respectable ponderings, the sounds of happy voices from the kitchen seem a fair trade off. Or at least one with which I am happy to settle on this sunny Friday morning.

Now, a sermon is a little more difficult to explain away. So I’ll bid you farewell and begin to tend to business.

It is all relative. I’m wearing turtlenecks and looking for space heaters. Given that I’m in that phase of my life where I’m typically shedding clothing, this burst of winter is almost a welcome reprieve. Once upon a time, I lived up north on the plains of Minnesota where plugs hanging from the front of the car grills is the norm. I can even recall a time when I watched spilt soda freeze almost instantaneously on the front of my coat. Having left the northern climes for the temperate mid-south, my internal thermostat has now shifted and even my hormonally charged body cannot accommodate the cold. Not to worry, Gary says, it’ll be up in the 60’s by next week.

Given the temperature outside, it was easy to enjoy an NPR “driveway moment” this afternoon. David Cay Johnston, author of “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill)”, was on Fresh Air today talking about TIF. TIF (tax increment financing) is money collected as taxes but given directly to the business collecting it to pay for capital expense.

TIF is the goldmine that enables large investors to buy up otherwise reasonably priced real estate, level the existing structures, and build new ones. In theory, TIF is to be used only in “blighted” areas, but it was TIF money that built the West County Mall in an area no one could truthfully call blighted. We should be familiar with TIF; TIF money built the new stadium in St. Louis and denying TIF money kept Mills from developing the Lockwood property to our northwest. TIF money is at the heart of the skirmish in Rock Hill between the alderman and Novus, with the latest proposed TIF winner being the developer that is building for Target. Although TIF certainly improves the curbside appeal of our neighborhoods, Johnston cautions that the real cost is obscenely high.

Johnston calmly but determinedly decried the loss of our free market economy with tools such as TIF. I was listening to Johnston wondering if he would identify as a liberal or conservative in today’s parlance. He is certainly no fan of the current administration, but hardly lobbying for liberal causes. The portion of the interview that I heard was a lament for the loss of market control of the economy. No longer is the debate between the socialists and the capitalists, I realized, but now between the capitalists and the scions of corporate welfare.

I’ve never considered myself much of a capitalist. My kids love to play Monopoly, but I loathe the game. I dread the inevitable monopolies that pile up on various sides of the board, my heart thumping as I toss the dice. When forced to play, my strategy is to buy one of each color and hang on as long as I can. Back in the days of the cold war I was called a “commie”, but now I don’t know. If my choices in this next election cycle are between corporate welfare and free markets, I might end up looking like a capitalist. Ron Paul is looking ever more appealing.

Finding myself championing the cause of the capitalist rhetoric, I wonder if I’ve betrayed my socialist roots. As I search for another fleece, I cannot help but note that - relatively speaking - Johnston’s lament for the market sounds downright revolutionary.