Black History & The Faith Dreams of a Free People

 It seems that every year I renew my resolve to read lots of books about Black History during the designated month of February. And as I get closer to the end of the month I feel somewhat guilty that I haven't done better in my reading and in my writing through this blog. 

I have books that I haven't yet delved into but one I read last summer while in outport Newfoundland is called Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People by Tiya Miles. The title alone captivated me but this creative biographical book was praised in reviews so I bought it and took it with us on vacation.

I was far from disappointed and there is an almost mystical quality to the way Miles explores the life of Tubman who came into this world as Araminta or "Minty" Ross. Miles maintains that 

Harriet Tubman is arguably the most famous Blackwoman ecologist in U.S. history, although she has not traditionally been viewed that way. She was a student of organisms(human and nonhuman), habitats, and inter-relationships. Her sources of strength were as much natural as they were "supernatural." And more than that, her "repeated journeys into slaveholding America" required "ecological confidence" in the words of Kimberly Ruffin. She studied the elements of nature around her, connecting with plants, trees, animals, and stars...

I could quote so much more but the confines of a blog entry limit me. What is astonishing is that while Harriet Tubman was illiterate she had a profound knowledge of scripture and a never-ending sense of God's presence with her, providing the courage to liberate herself from slavery and many others, journeying from the safety of Canada and the free states back into danger in order to do so. 

One reviewer desribes the book as brilliant and spectacular and I certainly agree. 

I have yet to read another acquistion about Tubman, the Pulitzer Prize winner titled Combee by Edda Fields Black.  Sooo many books, so little time...

Jesse Jackson: "I am Somebody!"

 

                                                     Jesse Jackson on Sesame Street 1972
I am...somebody! 

This was the beginning of a stirring "call and response" used in many settings, including Sesame Street, by Baptist preacher, Civil Rights activist, and presidential candidate Jesse Jackson. Jackson died earlier this week at the age of 84. He had faded from public view as he aged and dealt with Parkinson's Disease yet he was a significant figure in America for many years.

 From left, civil rights advocates Hosea Williams, Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 3, 1968, a day before King was assassinated. (Charles Kelly/AP)

Jackson was accused by critics of being a performer, of stretching the truth at times, and of personal moral failure, but he was at the front lines of change during the turbulent 1960s and beyond. Of course, similar accusations have been made against Civil Rights icon, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jesse grew up poor and Black in the South and found his was into the non-violent movement of Dr. King that often put him in danger. 

While Jackson's two attempts at securing the Democratic presidential nomination failed he arguably opened the way for President Barack Obama, even though they didn't always get along. 

I admired Jackson despite the criticisms and he deserves to be recognized for his oratorical prowess and ability to help the dispossessed believe that they mattered. That is so important to an authentic gospel message that is still needed today.

I heard Dr. Jackson when he came to Sudbury's Laurentian University in the early1990s as a guest of the lecture series. It wasn't long after he'd appeared on Saturday Night Live, the late night sketch comedy show. Theodore Geisel -- Dr. Seuss -- had recently died so Jackson read a portion of Green Eggs and Ham as part of the SNL news report. During the Q & A at Laurentian someone in the audience asked him to reprise that moment and actually had a copy of the book with him but Jackson graciously declined. 

Thank God for Jesse Jackson. 

A Board of Peace?

President Donald Trump and other world leaders attend the signing ceremony of the Peace Charter for Gaza at the 56th World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, 2026. Credit - Harun Ozalp—Anadolu/Getty Images

They have treated the wound of my people carelessly,

    saying, “Peace, peace,”
    when there is no peace.

            Jeremiah 6: 14 NRSVue 

We're all in favour of peace in our world, aren't we, including those of us who are followers of Jesus, the Christ, the Prince of Peace? We celebrate the end of conflicts and engage in peacemaking through international bodies.

So, shouldn't we be enthusiastic about the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace convened in the United States today. This is the "brain child" -- is this an oxymoron -- of President Trump who has decided that the United Nations Security Council which deliberates within a building in his country isn't up to the challenge of brokering peace in the world. This board will be the greatest ever, because that's the way he talks, and he will chair it and be the boss of everyone else. Those who choose to participate are expected to pony up billions of dollars to be part of the club.

The original notion was to develop and effect a reconstruction plan for devastated Gaza but since then it has careened all over the map, quite literally. Most European countries have declined invitations to take part, in some cases noting that their constitutions do not allow them to be part of a body with one nation calling the shots. Some will send observers. Canada was invited and then disinvited (pout, pout) a development I consider a badge of honour. 

Among the nations agreeing to get on board are Saudi Arabia and Turkey, hardly shining examples of peace and good government. Israel, the country which has destroyed Gaza will also be represented. Russia also received an invitation but there is the small issue of an international warrant for Putin's arrest as a war criminal. It seems that there will be a number of foxes in this henhouse. 

Scripture, both in the Older Testament and the New Testament, offers warnings about bogus

 claims of peace by false prophets. Hmm. While I suppose we can pray that some good comes from this meeting and the ones to follow, seeing is believing. 

Oh yes, the Vatican has declined the invitation to join the Board of Peace, to the annoyance of the White House. 

When Lent and Ramadan Coincide

 

You desire truth in the inward being;

    therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
    wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
    and blot out all my iniquities.

                   Psalm 51: 6-9 NRSVue

This is the first day of the Christian season of Lent, although the Trenton United Church Ash Wednesday service has been pre-emptively cancelled because of an impending snow storm. This is ironic given that the psalm for this solemn day includes the phrase "wash me, and I shall me whiter than snow." Perhaps an Ash Wednesday snowball skirmish would have been a refreshing change.

It was traditional during the 40 days of Lent to do some serious fasting as a form of repentance and contemplation.I recall chatting with a brother in a Cistercian monastery about the rigours of doing farm work during Lent and the blessed relief that came with breaking the fast at Easter.  In the United Church we've never been big on fasting and we'd probably be more inclined to hold a potluck dinner to earnestly discuss why it wouldn't be just to make some people abstain from food.

I see that this is also the beginning of the Islamic observance of Ramadan, 30 days of fasting which Muslims definitely take seriously. Can there be common ground between these two religious traditions? 

There is a little gem of an article in the latest issue of Broadview magazine by Samuel Dansokho called Fasting Toward Resurrection. Samuel grew up as a Christian in Senegal where 90 percent of the population is Muslim. He loves fasting in Lent as a time of vulnerability and awareness, his hunger and thirst as an offering rather than deprivation. I recall chatting with a Muslim teenager at our local mosque about his first Ramadan during which he fasted and how important this practice was for him. 

I don't imagine I'll take up fasting from food at my advanced age but i do respect those who do so in both Christianity and Islam. 

I would happily fast from snow removal but I better make sure the batteries for my electric snowblower are charged up and ready to go -- whiter than snow, whiter than snow...

The Apostle, Robert Duvall

None of the three contestants in this recent episode of the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament figured out the correct response to this Final but it was Boo Radley, the enigmnatic figure in the 1962 classic film, To Kill a Mockingbird. 

The actor was a young Robert Duvall (first film role) who has died at the age of 95. Duvall went on to be nominated for an Oscar a bunch of times and won for Tender Mercies. He was in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now and so many more roles where one says, "right, he was in that!" One headline described him as a chameleon because he could shift into just about any role in any genre.

He was also Academy Award nominated for playing the evangelical preacher Sonny Dewey in The Apostle. Duvall fincanced it, wrote the script, directed, and starred in the picture because he was fascinated by the theatricality and the flawed yet sincere faith of many of these preachers. Here is an excerpt from a 1998 article and interview:

What does Duvall think of southern Christianity and revivalist preachers in general? He has a fascination for them which began more than thirty years ago when he visited a Holiness church in the small town of Hughes, Arkansas. He says that he was intrigued by the cadence, rhythms and honest faith he witnessed in the songs and tent meetings there. For Duvall, these revivalist tent meetings are “an important part of American culture.” The preaching is “a distinct American artform.”

“The best preacher I ever met,” says Duvall, “was a 96 year-old black man from a little church in Hamilton, Virginia. He seemed to me more spiritual than the Dalai Lama or Mahatma Gandhi. This guy was great. He had a great cadence of preaching, a great honesty.”

Duvall invited a Jewish film-director friend and his Catholic wife to hear him preach. “It was terrific,” Duvall recounts. “The director told me a year and a half later that he could never get the preacher entirely out of his mind. He was that impressive. A lot of these preachers are phony, but a lot of them are not.”

The Candian talk show host, Dini Petty, did a great interview with Duvall back and he describes how some of the other preachers in the flim are the real deal. So here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXVCSCtzT_o

                                                                     Boo Radley and Scout 

Water at the Bon Echo Rock

                                               Ruth in Repose in Bon Echo Provincial Park (note the sign)

The LORD said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ 

                      Exodus 17: 5-6 NRSVue

Three days in a row last week we visited different Ontario Provincial Parks -- Presqu'ile, Bon Echo, and Sandbanks. The days were sunny and cold and we had a feeling that the weather would some become milder and our truly Winter opportunites might come to an end. 

At Bon Echo we cross-country skiied in to the narrows of Mazinaw Lake, a spot with a wonderful view of this large body of water with it's cinched waist. To the north is the majestic cliff rising 100 metres, a place considered sacred by Indigenous peoples for hundreds of years with pictographs along the base. In another time it was also the site of a lodge which catered to Christian clergy and artists, including members of the Group of Seven. 

                                                            Old Man and the Ski(s)

There was plenty of snow on our way through the pine woods to the lake and the surface was frozen after a prolonged cold spell. Still, we chose cautin and travelled along the shore to the narrows which were open. We've experienced this open water in other years, even when we were sufficiently confident to ski across to the cliff. 

The narrows can be incredibly busy during camping season with inexperienced paddlers doing their bumper car imitation. On Friday we sat in the silence with no one else around and savoured our "communion" picnic of sandwiches and tea. The sun reflecting off snow and ice and open water was stunning and we felt blessed. 

Today's psalm reading was from Psalm 78 and refers to Moses striking a rock in the wilderness to miraculously provide water to God's people. Even though our wintry moment was half a world away from the parched Negev Desert there was a sense of the miraculous in our experience. We make a point during our outdoor excursions to pause and acknowledge the Creator, taking nothing for granted. 

I assure you we did not drink from the icy waters of Mazinaw Lake, nor did we swim. I did take the plunge last October -- holy Moses! -- but I wasn't even slightly tempted on frosty Friday. 

                                                         Bon Echo -- AJ Casson, Group of Seven 

The Discipline of Walking in the Light

 

A scoundrel and a villain goes around with crooked speech,

 winking the eyes, shuffling the feet, pointing the fingers,
 with perverted mind devising evil, continually sowing discord;

on such a one calamity will descend suddenly, 

   in a moment, damage beyond repair.

 There are six things that the Lord hates,
    seven that are an abomination to him:
 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil,
 a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.

Proverbs 6:12-19 NRSVue

This passage from Proverbs was one of the daily readings this past week and for some reason a certain politician came to mind as I read about crooked speech and sowing discord, the latter phrase twice. Proverbs is not a book of the bible I'm inclined to visit but these verses were so powerful in this discordant, violent time we find ourselves in. 

I chatted about this with Ruth over our morning coffee (I'm a fun guy to start the day) and we touched on the phrase in the Prayer of Jesus, "deliver us from evil." We repeat it every Sunday morning to the point that it becomes rote but it is essential. 

It's hard not to be discouraged these days when it does seem that feet run toward evil yet the writer of Proverbs goes on to offer encouragement, Yes, we need to be clear-eyed about the threats we face but the values of our forebears and the presence of God will sustain us and guide us in our sleeping and our waking. 

Walking in the light is a discipline and our hope in Christ. 

20 My child, keep your father’s commandment,
    and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
21 Bind them upon your heart always;
    tie them around your neck.

22 When you walk, they  will lead you;
    when you lie down, they will watch over you;
    and when you awake, they will talk with you.

23 For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,
    and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,

              Proverbs 6:20-23 NRSVue