Hope and Courage for Dialogue

Even before I joined the United Church of Christ a few years ago, I admired Rev. Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson. When I heard her speech (or, better said, sermon) at the World Council of Churches Assembly last year, I was simply overwhelmed and immediately proud to be associated with both the World Council, of which she is a President, and the UCC, in which she is ordained.

This morning, as I read my daily scriptural passage emailed to me by Sojourner’s, I caught her name on a link. She gave a sermon a few nights ago on Romans 5. Whatever your political or religious leanings, I think you will find this sermon enlightening: http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/godspolitics/2007/03/bernice-powell-jackson-hope-does-not.html

One issue which continues to trouble me is a pervasive lack of commitment among religious persons, politicians, and global leaders to simply sit down and dialogue. Rev. Jackson’s sermon is about hope, particularly hope in the face of suffering and struggle. I don’t believe that violence can lead to peace. I don’t believe that freedom and democracy can ensue from military force. I know that many people disagree with, and that is OK. Actually, that is what freedom and democracy is about, isn’t it?

But what I do not understand is a lack of commitment to dialogue. If we are truly committed to our own beliefs… if we truly believe in them and honestly feel that those are the right, ethical, moral, and just positions to hold, then doesn’t it also stand to reason that those positions that we hold so dear would always reveal themselves as truth in an open and honest dialogue?
Toward the end of her sermon, Rev. Jackson said, “Hope, for Christians, can never just be a word – it must become an action… a public commitment to follow Jesus in the non-violent struggle for justice and peace.” For me, this action and public commitment must begin (without end) with open dialogue and discussion. This requires courage, indeed, to subject our ideas and beliefs to criticism and argument, but this courage finds its endless source rooted in hope. In the words of St. Paul:

“We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5, NRSV)

Fifteen Generations

Yesterday was a holiday here in the state of Karnataka. Most of the holidays here are based on the lunar cycle, like Easter and Passover, so yesterday was a new moon, the beginning of the new year, and there also happened to be a solar eclipse yesterday morning - an auspicious day indeed!

Among the traditions which mark the beginning of the new year, there is a tradition to clean everything - sort of like "Spring Cleaning" in the US. Also, some sweet food is prepared. Shyla made us rice keer (rice pudding). Shymala, the wife of my Sanskrit guru, Suresh, prepared sweet pongal, which is a little similar to rice pudding. I went for a sanskrit lesson yesterday and I asked him about the holiday as we ate lunch. He told me that I should eat the sweet pongal first as a symbol of hope that the new year would be sweet and a reminder that we should first be sweet to others.

Then he said that they would be celebrating the new year again in two weeks. He said that Tamil Nadu (the state just east & south of us) begins their new year on the full moon. He explained that although his family has lived in Karnataka for centuries, 15 generations back, they came from Tamil Nadu, so they celebrate the holidays from both states.

It wasn't until later when I shared that story with Elizabeth that she pointed out just how long 15 generations is. In the Bible, of course, a generation is 40 years long, so 15 generations would be 600 years. For us, I think it is more like 25 years, which is 375 years.

Elizabeth can trace her family roots back to the Mayflower and before that to Germany. My father's family has only been in the US for a few generations (I think I am 5th or so) and before that to Ireland. My mother's father (Crockett), traces back to pre-revolutionary times. My mother's mother's family, though, is Cherokee and Chocktaw. That means that 15 generations ago, my ancestors were born in roughly the same exact place that I was born in - in upstate South Carolina.

I admire Suresh and his family not only for knowing their family history so well, but for continuing to hold on to old traditions as a means to hold on to his ancestral roots. If anyone is out there reading, I hope you will write a comment and maybe even tell us where your family was 15 generations ago and what, if any, traditions you hold onto.

I leave you with this, my own small tribute to my ancestry, although a bit of an anachronistic one. Here is a recording of The Lord's Prayer in Cherokee:
http://www.cherokee.org/extras/Downloads/Language/mp3/lords_prayer.mp3

Emotional Response

This is a little embarrassing (and Elizabeth makes fun of me for it), but on three different occassions, as I was driving my motorcycle to school in the morning, I started to cry.

The first time, in fact, I almost had to pull over and stop driving. Just before I pulled over, though, I imagined the sight of a white man sitting on a motorcyle in the middle of a busy farmer's market in Bangalore crying... and that made me laugh... so I was able to keep going. What is interesting is that I have no way to explain what emotion I was having. I was not sad. I was not hurt. I was not happy. There isn't a word to describe the emotion. At the time, I was listening to the Democracy Now podcast on my iPod and they were playing a speech by Martin Luther King the night before he was killed (the famous and prophetic "I may not get there with you" speech). I became overwhelmed with a strange mixture of emotions... sadness, to be sure; awe; inspiration; urgency; frustration; anger; and even some joy, just to mention a few. My point is that language is simply inadequate to describe such emotions.

The second time, I was actually listening to a Norah Jones interview on the
NPR Shuffle podcast. She started telling the story of her time in the recording studio with Ray Charles when she was just 20 years old or something. For some reason, I started to cry again. What is interesting is that I was at exactly the same farmer's market as the last time (this was about a week later). Once again, I have no word to describe the emotion.

The third time, once again I was listening to an NPR podcast and driving through exactly the same farmer's market. This time it was a story about Barbaro, the racehorse who had just been euthanized. Again, I started to cry. The mixture of emotions this time certainly included sadness, but also frustration and many other emotions, which I may explore in another blog later. But my point here is that we, as human people, have so many countless emotions, and no real way to express those emotions in words. There is an ineffability to life; a mystery that we can never understand about what makes us who we are; what makes us vulnerable; what makes us, well, human.

So, for anyone out there who might read this blog, family or stranger, I invite you to respond (anonymously if you prefer), with descriptions of emotions that you might have experienced that we have no word to describe. In my last sermon in New Jersey, I shared a phrase by Rudolph Otto that happens to be my favorite and, I think, is fitting here. It is the Mysterium Tremendum... the Mystery of Experience which is at once tremendous and trembling... Terrible and Terrific. It is this mystery, I think, that makes us who we are.

To My Valentine...

You are the light that wakes me in the morning
And the lullaby that caresses me to sleep at night.
You are the arms that keep me safe and warm
And the song that makes my heart dance.
To say I love you is to make light
Of the joy that you bring to my world.
Yet, nevertheless, these words
Are the best I can offer
In an attempt to explain
How you've changed my world.

I love you, my darling husband,
Elizabeth

Long Lapses

It's just hit me how neglectful Brad and I have been of this blog and you, our loyal readers. There are quite a few reasons for this, which I won't get into as it'll just perpetuate the habit. Suffice to say, I'm going to try and get back into the swing of things. We have a lot happening in the next few months. I've changed gears a bit and I'm studying from home for another degree. Ali, a friend of mine from the physics program at Drew, is coming to visit in March for a few weeks. Brad finishes his first year in March also and then has a few months off before beginning again in June. He has a lot on his plate during that time, but we're hoping to meet up with our friends Josh and Megan as they begin their own South East Asia adventure. We'll hopefully see them in April or May. Then in August, they'll be coming through India and we'll have more adventures then.

We're only 15 months away from being back in the US! It's amazing how fast time flies when you stop paying attention! Let the blogging (re)begin!