Frederick Douglass in England

You may know the name of Frederick Douglass, a Black man born into slavery in the 19th century who became one of the great figures in the abolitionist movement, someone who was consulted by Abraham Lincoln, an eloquent orator who mesmerized audiences on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. This month which marked the 250th anniversary of American independence  is also the 180th anniversary of a series of lectures given by Douglass across England , including Manchester, a city central to the cotton trade that depended on enslaved people in the United States.

When Douglass arrived in Manchester at age 27 he was still legally a slave in the United States and a fugitive. A group of Quakers gathered funds to finance an abolitionist newspaper, The North Star, with Douglass as editor and to purchase his freedom for 150 pounds, a considerable amount of money. Some abolitionists protested his purchase because they felt that it legitimized a morally reprehensible trade in human beings but Douglass knew that without his legal freedom he risked arrest and re-enslavement when he returned to the United States.

 Douglass gave a speech a number of times with the title "What to the American Slave is your Fourth of July?"  Sadly, it seems as pertinent today as it did nearly 200 years ago because of the rise in racism and inequality in the US, including through the Christian Nationalist movement.  Here is a paragraph: 

 What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes that would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

I highly recommend the David Blight biography of Douglass if you are interested in learning about his remarkable life. 

                                               Inaugural Lecture in what will be an annual series 

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

   O LORD, you have searched me and known me.

   You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
          you discern my thoughts from far away.
  You search out my path and my lying down,
        and are acquainted with all my ways.
   Even before a word is on my tongue,
          O LORD, you know it completely.
   You hem me in, behind and before,
          and lay your hand upon me.
   Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
          it is so high that I cannot attain it.

   Where can I go from your spirit?
          Or where can I flee from your presence?
   If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
          if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
   If I take the wings of the morning
          and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
  even there your hand shall lead me,
          and your right hand shall hold me fast.
  If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
          and the light around me become night,”
  even the darkness is not dark to you;
          the night is as bright as the day,
          for darkness is as light to you.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

  Search me, O God, and know my heart;
          test me and know my thoughts.
  See if there is any wicked way in me,
          and lead me in the way everlasting.

                     Psalm 139:1-14, 23-24

I can be hit and miss with my daily scripture readings, using the common lectionary as my guide. Just the same, I often come upon passages that are not only quite familiar, they are akin to old friends and sources of comfort going back decades. Sometimes they evoke powerful memories. 

The past few days the Psalm selection, including today's, has been a portion of Psalm 139 which I used in many funerals, including one at the beginning of this year. I have largely left the "hatch, match, and dispatch" world of ministry but a sad circumstance with neighbours led me back into this role. A few days before Christmas the mother of the household found her unconscious son in his basement bedroom due to a drug overdoes. While the paramedics responded quickly the doctors soon ascertained that his brain function was gone. 

I offered to go to the hospital to support the family as they said farewell and organs were harvested. Then I led the service in a packed chapel, many of the people there young and likely searching for meaning. This passage seemed so appropriate. His mother summoned the courage to speak and did so with honesty and tenderness.

All of this came to mind vividly as I made my way through the verses.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Goldilocks and the Two Kayakers

                                                  Mist, not smoke, while paddling on the Moira River 

 I never had golden locks and now I have few locks at all, other than on my chin. Ruth did have long blonde hair but it is inclined to silver now.

Nonetheless we had something of a Goldilocks moment yesterday after a disturbing weather week. There was sweltering heat and humidity for a few days followed by an eerie sky and air quality warnings for a couple more due to wildfire smoke. On Thursday morning I checked the AQI and was puzzled that the scale of ten offered no clue about the current conditions. It turned out that the poor air quality was off the chart, although it came down to a still dangerous level during the day. I did a minimal amount of outdoor work with a mask on.

Friday was our Goldilocks opportunity -- not too hot nor too smokey -- before today's rain. After two days of delaying our outing we headed out early to paddle on the Moira River north of Belleville, a readily accessible spot. We were essentially alone for more than an hour, enjoying a reasonable summer temperature and clear skies. 

We have paddled this stretch many times and yesterday we travelled northeast a few kilometres to the rapids where there is an eagles' nest we have been watching for months. During a couple of recent visits we've made out the head of at least one eaglet on the nest with a parental bird close by, distinguished by a white head and black body. Yesterday there were two young ones by the nest and both flew to a bare branch nearby where they just hung out being eagles. 

This was a quiet thrill and we sat for at least ten minutes watching. The bonus was that we were in a little eddy just below the rapids, surrounded by the trees of a small island in the  midst of the rapids. As we sat there were swallows and waxwings chirping and flying close at hand, perhaps annoyed that humans had invaded their territory. And there was the music of the water flowing across the rocks. This short time was blissful. 

                                                      Tariff-free Wildfire Smoke in New York City

We don't want this to be the new reality, seeking out an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors amidst extreme circumstances we never experienced when we were young. We are resigned to checking apps to determine whether we can venture out and be safe. We have grandchildren who attend a wonderful day camp each summer, slathered in sunblock, but this past week they had days indoors because of the wildfire smoke. 

On the same day the President of the United States fatuously threatened Canada with tariffs if we didn't manage our forests better. Other Republican legislators chimed in with their bluster. No matter that there are plenty of wildfires in America, including one that leveled a portion of Los Angeles, and that Trump has claimed that the climate emergency is a "hoax." Who will awaken us from this ungodly nightmare?  

On our paddle back downstream we saw some of the "usual suspects" of our outings, blue herons and kingfishers and a green heron. I looked over at one point and saw that Ruth had her arms upraised in prayerful gratitude to the Creator. We do this often when we are outdoors, a brief intentional act of thanksgiving for Creation. I hope we have plenty more opportunities to do so. 

The Odyssey & the Golden Rule

 

What to do on an afternoon when going outside will sting your eyes and choke you on wildfire smoke? Go to a three-hour film, of course!

That's what we did yesterday, watching Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Oppenheimer is a hard act to follow and The Odyssey doesn't quite measure up but it is a powerful film. To be fair, how do you convey one of the great mythological stories of human history in just three hours. Nolan manages to fit in the big ticket moments including the Trojan Horse, The Cyclops, The Sirens, and a whole lot more. The encounter with the Cyclops is harrowing, as is Circe turning Odysseus' crew members into swine. 

What I wasn't expecting was that in the first few minutes King Odysseus, powerful leader and sojourner, speaks of xenia, the Law of Zeus, which is essentially described as "do to others as you would have them do to you". If this sounds familiar, it is a version of the Golden Rule expounded in most religions and taught by Jesus. 

After Odysseus returns from his epic journey after many years and reunites with his queen Penelope he muses again about this Law and concedes that he has failed to live up to it in many ways.

I really don't know if this is part of Homer's Odyssey or an addition by film-maker Nolan. Either way, it feels as though it is inserted into the narrative rather than enhancing it to any degree. And Odysseus does a fair amount of slaying after his epiphany. 

In the film Odysseus visits Hades and encounters those he has known and have died, including members of his crew. I wonder if Homer meets Jesus in the afterlife? It may not be the same Homer in the image below. 

We're glad we went to see The Odyssey, even though Ruth chose to close her eyes through some of the gore. I'll do some reflecting on it in the days ahead. It would have been spectacular in an Imax theatre.

Iranian Christians in Peril in the US

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 

Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem.  And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.  Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?  Parthians, Medes, Elamites...

                                                     Acts 2: 1-9a NRSVue

 A couple of days ago I wrote about the release of an imprisoned Chinese pastor and the plight of the millions of Christians in that country.

We should also be aware that there are Christians in peril in Iran, an Islamic state. Christians represent a  relatively small part of the population -- 300 thousand to half a million. There are records of Christians in Persia/Iran from the first century onward, as attested in the story of Pentecost,  The Parthians and Medes and Elamites were devout Jews from ancient Persia who converted to Christianity. The modern day Iranian Christians are a persecuted minority, especially those who have converted from Islam. 

We hear daily about the senseless war between the United States and Iran and the Trump administration rhetoric about setting the Iranian people free from what is an evil regime. Yet there are recent reports that the US is considering deporting Iranian Christian asylum seekers back to their country of origin.

According to the Washington Post: 

Iranian converts to Christianity and political dissidents from the Islamic Republic who sought asylum in the United States made detailed allegations in new court filings, claiming that U.S. immigration officials gave details of their asylum claims to Iran’s government in a bid to ease their deportation back to the country they fled.

At least six Iranians said they were visited in immigration detention facilities by Iranian officials based in the United States who knew details from their asylum cases and used the information to put pressure on them to agree to be returned to Iran, according to the allegations. The alleged disclosure of their asylum claims puts their lives in peril if they are returned home, the Iranian detainees stated.“

I have been identified to the very government I ran away from for my life by the U.S. government,” one asylum seeker wrote in a sworn declaration.

The American government denies this but if true, what kind of madness is this? It would seem that the xenophobic efforts to deport hundreds of thousands of people from the US sweeps away just about anyone. 

The Bayeaux Tapestry Invades Britain

 

Ten months ago I wrote a while ago about the plan to loan the Bayeux Tapestry, a 900-year-old embroidered cloth depicting the Battle of Hastings leading to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 to the British. It was created by nuns in Canterbury, England, but never displayed there and has its own museum in France. The survival of this 70-metre long work of art is something of a miracle. 

In anticipation of the public display beginning in September at the British Museum there was a cloak and dagger transfer across the English Channel this past week, an act of great secrecy to ensure its safety. Who would want to do harm to such a treasure? 

There is great public excitement and even though tickets are about 60 dollars Canadian the first release of 65,000 sold immediately. What will be unique about this exhibition is that the entire length will be displayed at once. 

Last October I mused about the nuns:

Within the cloister, in a time when accurate news was scarce anywhere, did they have much of a sense of the broader drama they were depicting? We see photos of the smitey bits of the tapestry, so what were they imagining as they worked on these scenes of battle? Did they whisper their speculation to one another, with needles in hand, and were these considered "signs and portents" of biblical significance? God bless those anonymous nuns for such a remarkable achievement. 

Because it's Creation Time in the liturgical calendar I'll add that the sisters also included a vast menagerie of creatures, real and imaginary, on the margins of the embroidery. All God's creatures got a place on the battlefield...

There are 762 beasts of various kinds.  

It has been suggested, rightly so I think, that the Bayeaux Tapestry should be celebrated as an accomplishment of considerable imagination by women artists. I am interested to discover that there is a woman artist. Mia Hansson, who has spent the past decade creating a full-scale replica of the Bayeaux Tapestry. Amazing. 

Chinese Pastor Freed

                                                                                      Pastor Ezra Jin 

There is welcome news that Ezra Jin, a prominent Chinese pastor who has been in prison has been released. Christianity is legal in China but only in government controlled churches. The Roman Catholic church permits the government to have a say in who will be appointed as bishops, walking a fine line in terms of censorship. Some significant churches have been closed and the buildings demolished

China is definitely not a Christian nation yet a few years ago the government said that there were 44 million believers in the country, more than the population of Canada. Other estimates say there are about 130 million Christians with many unregistered worshippers. They assemble in house churches, although the government has been cracking down on these gatherings. 

Jin was part of a sweeping crackdown on Christians last October but he was allowed to leave the country for the United States. Jin's family speaks of his release as a miracle and thank President Trump and his administration for their intervention. Trump raised the issue of detained Christians during his visit to China. While I am reluctant to say anything positive about the president, this is welcome news. 

                                                                                     Jimmy Lai

Canadians are aware of the incarceration of Hong Kong businessman and journalist Jimmy Lai who has family living in this country. Lai is 78 and in poor health but his Christian faith sustains him. 

We can't forget these sisters and brothers in faith and the cost for them of living the gospel, including persecution and death. We need to be mindful of the plight of Uighurs in China, thousands of whom are held in labour camps with reports of forced sterilization. While Uighurs were historically Buddhist they are predominantly Muslim today. 

While Canada and other countries are cozying up to the Chinese thanks to US trade isolationism and tariffs the human rights issues remain.