Growing Up Southern

Growing Up Southern

In

Black and White

I

Up the red dirt road

sat a small white church

at the settlement’s edge

where the woods met the clearing.

Sunday nights were hymn nights

and the harmonies would spill

from the open summer windows

as rich and golden as Tupelo honey,

as if God had reached

down each singer’s throat

and pulled the music from their souls. . .

songs of faith so deeply felt

drew me to the clearing’s edge. . .

no. . . compelled me to come. . .

and I would go,

silently sneaking from my bedroom loft

shinnying down the limbs of the cherry tree

and creeping softly through the woods

to sit transmuted in the darkness

just beyond the edge of light

with my knees against my chin

rocking to the tunes of

There is a Balm in Gilead,

Swing Low Sweet Chariot, or

Deep River. . .

wading in the waters

of baptized hope,

and God’s promise of a land unknown

to those who sang. . .

words speaking of the milk and honey

of justice. . .

freedom. . . and liberation.

Oh God, what “amazing grace” was this

from the cries of simple folk

unlike myself, or

I would have rushed to join them there

to be lifted on their wings of hope.

God. . . how I wished it. . .

but. . .

II

We sang the song in Sunday School,

“Red, and yellow, black and white,

all are precious in his sight,

Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

Yet, we were none but white.

Red, I watched on a nine inch Admiral,

black and white TV

with a porthole screen.

They rode painted ponies,

wore feathered war bonnets,

and fought the good cowboys.

Yellow, I was reminded, at supper

 were the starving children in China, so

“eat everything on your plate.”

Black were “nigras” who lived

up the dirt road. . .

across from our house.

“Red, and yellow, black and white”. . .

none but white in sight

at Sunday School.

III

           

Two black boys lurk behind the over-grown shrubs

hiding the courthouse granite foundations.

I watch them through the plate glass window

of my uncle’s plumbing shop on the square.

The bigger boy shoves the smaller one

and keeps pointing in the direction of the

water fountain. . .a downtown shrine. . .

made of cast iron and resembling a

Corinthian column with fluted bowl 

astride the top.

The fountain is a fixture that’s been

painted dark green so many times

with lead oil paint

that nothing shows besides the

chipped places.

The treadle is worn smooth by years of use.

It’s dull, weathered brass is the same

as the drinking spout at the top.

My mind wanders and I think of all the feet

that have pressed the pedal down. . .

brown and white, open-toed, spring highs heels of

a stylish lady, or the well shined black wingtips of

a Sunday church-goer, or work-a-day businessman. . .

high top Keds. . . penny loafers. . .

and even the countless bare feet of children

like me, or some poor, shoeless adults.

The smaller boy suddenly darts from the

bushes and in a split second jams his foot

on the treadle, takes a sip of water,

and runs as fast as he can

toward his side of town.

The other boy stares in amazement. . .

horror written on his face.

He furtively walks away

watching over his shoulder

trying to not be noticed,

as though nothing had happened.

But a sacred social norm had been broken.

No black would dare drink from the fountain.

There was no need for a sign that read “Whites Only.”

It was cultural “law” and a dangerous offense

that had been committed.

No one else seemed aware of this violation.

I wonder if this was an act of angry rebellion,

or a simple dare between two black boys. . .

a rite of passage to see who was the braver.

I believe it was the latter.

IV

           

First the teacher has to pray

for that is how we start our day,

and sometimes we sing Dixieland.

With hands on hearts respect demands

we pledge allegiance to the flag

and nation pure for which it stands.

The flag itself is old and gray

and shows the signs of aged decay

the stars still number forty-eight

the pledge itself is filled with weight

of what it means that we obey

and feel the pride the words convey.

“We pledge allegiance to the flag

of the United States of American. . .

and to the republic for which it stands. . .

with liberty and justice for all.”

For all?

There is no “under God,” just yet,

but with Congress there’s no bet

of when the words will soon prevail

that no true patriot dare assail

the power of God in stars and stripes

while buglers blow and fifers pipe.

The picture hangs there on the wall

the drummer’s bandages and all.

Our hearts are solemn, quiet, and still,

for we’ve been taught it is God’s will

America shall reign supreme

the envy of each nation’s dream.

But even then I wondered why

a flag should wave to testify

to some strange truth, bold and deep,

that men would pledge their lives to keep.

It troubled me both then and now

to commit to such a vow.

So as I age I ponder still

a pledge for which I bear no will.

I live my life with stern resolve

protesting wars I cannot solve.

The pledge rings empty in my head

while blood runs deep on lands we tread.

V

We rode the trackless trolley-

Martha and I-

to the Roxy Theater

in downtown Atlanta

for the Friday matinee showing

of South Pacific.

We skirted the protesters

lining the curb,

with our bag of M and M’s,

though one screamed at us,

“Shame on you!”

when they saw me at

the ticket booth.

We were just kids

and not supposed to watch a

movie about miscegenation

between Lieutenant Cable

and Bloody Mary’s

Polynesian daughter.

White and black. . .

black and white. . .

like many things in the South.

We were there for the music

of Rogers and Hammerstein,

the lush colors of

widescreen Cinemascope. . .

and to hold hands in the dark.

The lyrics of You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught

were not lost on either of us.

Two twelve year olds

growing up at the picture show

that summer afternoon.

We held hands in the daylight

riding home.

Selective Reading

Selective Reading

            Summer reading has long been a pastime for many of us. As a school boy I got a book list toward the end of May for keeping up my reading skills. Whether you still prefer hardcopy, or read from a Kindle or similar device, many of us are on the watch for this summer’s best “beach books.” Perhaps The Bible should be one of them.

It’s not new for Presbyterians to use scripture as a convenient way of reinforcing our personal and communal beliefs. We have a tendency to pick and choose selectively what we want to read. We also have a pre-disposition to hear what we want to hear. This is no startling observation since “birds of feather” tend to chirp together.

I attend a church that challenges my theological reasoning, but I also “like” what I hear the pastor preaching. I cast no blame at him for he is an excellent commentator on “the Word.” The problem of “selective hearing”, and biblical “selective reading” is my own. I read The Psalms very selectively, for example, but can wax poetic about The Gospel of John. There are other books of The Bible that I ignore completely, perhaps at my peril. Leviticus is one of them, but for that matter, it’s been years since I’ve read the prophecies of Jonah, or Daniel. Revelation bears little interest to me, but I don’t enjoy crossword puzzles either. I’m mostly a “red letter” Christian these days.

The question haunts me, however, of what service this does to the much debated wording “biblical authority?” That term has been thrown about continuously by Presbyterians through my lifetime as a means of justifying the sentiments that make us comfortable as Christians. In some ways we are little better than our fundamentalist cousins who get left off the invitation list for our family reunions. Granted, fundamentalism at its worst is a dangerous position for it truly does emotional and spiritual harm to those who obligingly follow it to its extremes. It’s bad theology in whatever form it aspires.

We seem as Presbyterians to possess our own style of “biblical authority.” History bears testimony to our eagerness to embrace a few texts of dubious meaning to comfort our reasoning that some races are inferior to others, women are lesser than men, war is justifiable, and that being gay or lesbian is a sin. Some are rejoicing and others weeping over the passage of Amendment 10-A. There is talk of “many” leaving the P.C.U.S.A., or at the least banding together into comfortable communions of like belief. It seems a peculiarity that we can justify any volatile topic with a very select choice of what are questionable texts to bolster a particular set of beliefs while ignoring a vast store on topics like Jesus’s many warnings about money and how it can twist one’s life into nothing short of greedy ambition, and placing self-interest above blindly not seeing others in the ditch. Priests and Levites are not labels most of us we want to wear.

Here where I live in Tennessee some are still trying to revive “The Scopes Monkey Trial” with good Christian folk wanting to promote creationism as part of our public school textbooks. I don’t question their motives since they fall prey to using “biblical authority” as their guide. I understand how they are misled and self-deceiving. But are we any better? Have we come so far as to complete our cycle of claiming every word of scripture as beyond dispute?

The examples of our biblical selectivity are so myriad and exaggeratingly embarrassing that this list could become a book. The problem with such an undertaking is would it be labeled as fiction or non-fiction?

So we continue our long tradition as members of the Reformed Tradition arguing among ourselves as to who is “right” and who is “wrong.” Presbyterians, in particular, have a checkered past of having developed our in-fighting to an art form. The hotter this summer gets the more some will get hotter under the collar and leave us behind for some other brand of religion that better reinforces their comfortable beliefs. That’s also part of our schismatic nature. “Big Tents” or not, we seek out the company of others who think, talk, and act like us. There’s still “a sucker born every minute” when it comes to “biblical authority.”

I don’t know about the rest of you who are choosing to stay with our Presbyterian “tribe,” but I think I’ll put The Bible on my summer reading list and try to be a bit less “selective” in what I choose as authoritative.

Phil Leftwich

Pastor- Honorably Retired

Still Alive and Didn't Get Raptured

Well . . . what happened? Or maybe I should rephrase that- didn't happen! I made it through Saturday night with Betty, my brother-in-law, Bill, and his wife Marcia who are good Methodists and we got "left behind." Maybe it was how much wine we drank getting ready for "the end." We even splurged a little and bought some really good fruit of the vine like the stuff Jesus produced at the wedding at Cana thinking that if we were going to disappear somewhere else that we might as well do it right. Sunday morning the sun came up as usual and my neighbor's dog, Elvis, was barking in the backyard next door. Jim my neighbor who is a pretty fundalemtalistic Christian was yelling at Elvis to shut up that it was too early to be barking. I opened my front door and there were kids on skateboards, but what the heck would they know about the end of the world anyway. There were no abandoned cars in the middle of my street, and from the traffic in Franklin, TN this afternoon as school let out I don't think anybody got raptured.

It's left me wondering- and probably you, too- why anybody buys into these dire predictions that supposedly are based on scripture. I've been around the Bible long enough not to be able to find anything that confirms the "end times." Even if I could find evidence there I don't believe I could predict the end if there is really going to be one. Excuse my heresy, but I'm neither sure, or worried, about either the end of the world, or my own demise. Frankly, there's not anything I can do about either.

I post this blog partly with tongue in cheek, but musing over the fact that we've already got a few folks saying that it's really next year that every thing is supposed to fall apart. I heard a good quote from Stephen King on NPR the other day. He had been asked some years ago what he did to create such fear in his novels and stories. His reply was that he didn't create fear. He says he creates "uncertainty." People have a hard time with uncertainty which can lead to fear. There's a lot of that going around these days. Maybe it would be a good idea for all of us to be as certain as we can about one thing that is supposed to push all fear aside: the unconditional love of God through Christ. 

Storms of Life

Storms of Life

Solemn suddenness scattered

as stones and sticks of brokenness

by storms that twist in knots

the fragile fabric

of life’s securities;

the safety of sheltering arms;

the walls of protective safety; to

fragments within moments

of terrifying destruction. . . by

winds that carry away

like brittle leaves

the hopes and dreams

of places and persons held dear-

gone into the arms of God

who only knows they live.

That life matters not for the surviving

and what remains of struggles

to sustain selves in a

world of shatteredness. . .

un-secured by ones held sacred.

Love bent and broken

by the sullen winds that shake

and break with violence. . . binding

the will to survive with cords of

hopeless desperation.

So the remaining walk stunned

among the debris of what remains

in piles of what was

and will be no more.

Storms prevail where no will

can resist such force,

but to protest in sadness

and with fists shaken against the

glowering sky the

damning winds that destroy

and demonize with dogged wrath

the never to be again.

Phil Leftwich

April 18, 2011

(Posted in memory of those who were lost, or who lost much of their lives as they have known them during the tornadoes that swept across the Southeast.)

Music for some change

I have a good friend who's a musician. He works a lot of part-time gigs, but can't make a living this way. He talks about a buddy in his men's support group though, who's a street busker. This guy works everyday from mid-morning to early evening on a street corner in downtown Nashville for whatever people toss in his open guitar case. He lives in one of those "quarantine" housing projects from the 1960's where "out of sight is out of mind" for most of us. Plenty of folks, including the cops, stay away from this area at night because of the guns, the gangs, and the dope. The police cruise the borders and come in only if there's gunfire which is just about every night.

This man's lifestyle woke me up in the middle of the night like a bad dream. It sent my mind on a trip into what life is like on a daily basis for men like him and thousands and thousands of others in our cities all across the country, We often refer to them as the "working poor." My friend has fnally broken the poverty cycle with a full-time job and benefits, but not as a musician. He's a building manager. He holds a college degree in music, however, which is his true gift and first love. There are more out of work musicians in Nashville in any given week though, than those who make a living in the "music business."

But, I digress. The songwriter in me found it's spot at my computer at about 3:17 AM. This is what I wrote.

Rice and Beans

Verse 1:

Got some dollars in my wallet

Got some quarters in my jeans

Gonna walk myself to WalMart

To buy some rice and beans

Gonna eat ‘em for my supper

Maybe lunch and breakfast, too

“Cause I got no more money

And the rent is overdue.

Chorus:

Oh, I’m eatin’ dirty rice and canned red beans

My life’s the biggest mess that I have ever seen

I wish the Lord would come on down and carry me home

I’d rather be with him than feel so damned alone.

 Verse 2:

I’m living in this project- public housing 101-

I wish I had the money to buy myself a gun

I’ll be munchin’ week old crackers

Til’ my foodstamps come next week

And hope to hell the days are warm

Cause I don’t got no heat.

Verse 3:

Yeah, they turned it off at Christmas

And said I’d have to pay

To have it turned back on again

But springtime’s on its way.

So I can’t watch no TV shows

Or read in bed at night

I hit the hay when it gets dark

and hope the moon is bright

Chorus:

Oh, I’m eatin’ dirty rice and canned red beans

My life’s the biggest mess that I have ever seen

I wish the Lord would come on down and carry me home

I’d rather be with him than feel so damned alone.

Verse 4:

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

When gunfire haunts my dreams

And hit the floor when windows break

It makes we want to weep

This ain’t much life I’m livin’

But it’s the best I’ve got

It beats the Union Mission

And sleepin’ on a cot.

 End:

Next week I’ll start it all again

And buy more rice and beans

With some dollars in my wallet

And some quarters in my jeans.

Yeah. . . some dollars in my wallet

And some quarters in my jeans.

Now, I know, Jesus told his disciples that they would always "have the poor" with them. I've never read that verse as a carte blanche that poverty is O.K., but only as a way of Christ telling his followers that his time among them wouldn't be much longer. I think a lot of people, including good church people, use these words as an excuse for permitting poverty to exist. So we "warehouse" the poor and ignore them if we can. You know, I'm damned glad I'm not one of them!

The authority of scripture

It strikes me as interesting that we of the Reformed tradition aren't any better than our fundalmentalist "cousins" we deride for believing that scripture is fully and innerantly authoritative. Like them, we tend to selectively proof text our beliefs for the sake of feeling safe by choosing verses of scripture that make us feel good about ourselves. This is selective authority at its worst. We selectively choose passages that support our beliefs and give us a sense of rightness. The gay and lesbian ordination issue is a great example. We depend on a passage from Paul's letters that is a dubious condemnation set within a particular context that is used to support a stand aginst this issue. Worse yet we pull out an obscure passage from the OT Book of Leviticus that leads to a deadend of selectively giving authority to a line among many that if treated authoritatively would lead us to a lot of Sunday morning stonings of disobedient teenagers. It reminds me of the Monty Python movie The Life of Brian. Maybe we should be selling stones on the church parking lot as a fund raiser for mission. There are probably more than  one of us who have raised teens to attest that we would be among the first to purchase a bag of rocks!

So how authoritative is scipture as our basis of understanding who we are as compassionate, caring, loving examples of those who seek to follow the example of Jesus? Can we even reduce our rpoblem with scripture to being "red ltter Christians?" Perhaps we need to depend less on what is written in the Bible, and more on what is implied. The "What would Jesus do?" wrist band question isn't a bad question at all. It forces the person intent on thinking and doing accordingly to make a decision based on Jesus' life, not simply the words recorded that he supposedly said. How can we be so sure that he really did say what he said exactly as it is written? As best I can tell he lived before the age of tape recording and video crews. I trust verbatim writing and oral memory to a point, but come on, let's get serious about who wrote most of scripture. "Inspired men" inspired by the Holy Ghost? We seem to give a lot of authority to God dictating and a secretary taking good notes.

That's a little more than I can personally ascribe to as a thnking adult who has been at the practice of ministry for about 45 years. God's "words" as recorded in our canon of literature that we call "the Bible" were written many years ago for people living in a particular context and a specific audience. I doubt if we added to the canon by writing new "biblical" literature that this comment would be any less accurate. Our writing and additions would reflect our own times and circumstances.

So what do we do with the matter of "Biblical authority?" We use it to support just about anything to support our biases and to bolster our right beliefs. Some of us are willing to admit that we as individual human beings created the church and that "doing theology" is a natural consequence of our thinking about what holy texts mean to us. But does that make us right?

How does our particular time and context in the movement of history affect our interpretation of "holy writ?" By the way, I would ask these same questions about any "sacred" writings that support the beliefs of any religion. This is the basis for why we fight among ourselves as Presbyterians, or go to war in the name of religion regardless of our brand name. It's enough isn't it to make a secular humanist out of any of us who are reasoning people?

Is God a Verb?

I have a friend with whom I meet most Friday afternoons. We're writing his life story together. It's about his journey from sexual abuse to healing and wholeness. Though he is anything but "churchy," and his language about holy things and a higher power are uniquely his, I'm no longer certain who's the learner and who's the teacher. We "do theology" together in a rare manner that stretches our spirituality beyond the confines of conventionality. For my friend the words "God" and "church" have become synonyms that not only bear the vestiges of part of his childhood abuse, but are too constraining. The God of fundamentalism on which he cut his religious teeth holds nothing but emptiness and negativity. For him his "God" is "Papa Being." When I write that they have regular conversations where God initiates many of the words that flow into his journals, I am understating the degree of depth in his relationship with the Divine. Sometimes he is the supplicant who pleads with "Papa Being" for help, but most of the time he is deeply listening to the still, small voice that comes to him in need.

Is this a form of prayer? It certainly sounds that way in the normal sense of what we mean by "prayer." The uniqueness of my friend's prayers, however, is that God begins to talk before he utters a word. To set the record straight, other than his recovery from various forms of sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse he is perfectly "normal," whatever normal is. There are no allusions of grandeur, or leaps into a schizophrenic world of detachment from the real world and others. He is as "normal" and "with it" as the rest of us (present company excluded).

In writing his story I've found a fascinating abbreviated way of his journaling with God. His shorthand is often simply "Papa Be." I asked him recently if he had ever considered that "Papa Be" might be both a request for God's presence, and perhaps a verb. He was puzzled by my question, but truly fascinated that maybe he had come up with a characteristic about "the wholly other" that he had never considered. I've spoken with him about Paul Tillich's phrasing that God is "the ground of our being." He fully understands and hangs onto this wording because of how it roots his relationship with a God of caring. That's what love is for my friend: caring. But ponder for a moment the action of "Papa Be." We tend to speak and write of God as though God were a noun. That's a passive form of describing reality, or attempting to explain the unexplainable. After all, who can fully define, or describe God.

What if God is a verb? That seems to turn our understanding of the "bigger than" on its head. Isn't it the actions of God that bring meaning to our feeble understanding? But what if. . . just what if. . . God is a verb - a verb of actual "being?" The possibilities seem limitless if we look in a direction we have not looked before and began to relate to a God of perpeptual motion. "To be" is action. To quote a bit from Shakespeare: "To be, or not to be. That is the question."

"Papa Be." I like that!