A CURIOUS MIX OF BRITISH FOLK MUSIC AND AMERICAN POLITICS
I want to write about faith,
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night,
faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.
But I have no faith myself
I refuse it even the smallest entry.
Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.
from Where Many Rivers Meet
© 1990 David Whyte
The Hobbledehoy is happy to share this piece written by Lutheran minister Shelley Bryan Wee. As our friend travel guru Rick Steves wrote on his blog, “Whether you consider yourself a person of faith or not, Shelley’s message will also bring a new dimension to your thinking as you prepare to vote.”
Dear Beloveds,
As the election season is here, I have been doing some reflecting on what it means to vote as a Lutheran Christian. Please know that I am not telling you who to vote for in this election. It is not for me to tell you who to vote for. I mean, after all, God is neither Republican or Democrat, or even American.
But in saying that, I am not abdicating the responsibility that we have as Lutheran Christians who live in a country where voting matters. As children of God, we are called to vote beyond our own self-interest or individuality. As people who follow Jesus, we are called towards God’s vision of a just and mercy-filled world. As people who have received grace upon grace, we are called to stand against injustice, and to remind everyone that, in God’s eyes, every single person is loved and beloved.
So, here are a few thoughts and questions:
1. Jesus is all about loving one’s neighbor. Even when it’s hard. When he’s asked, “Who is my neighbor,” Jesus expands his answer. In Jesus’ stories and actions he constantly goes to those who are on the outside, those marginalized, those without status, and shows how they are loved by God – how they are, in fact, his neighbor.
As you vote: Who is your neighbor?
2. Throughout scripture, hospitality to the stranger is embraced. In the Old Testament, the command to welcome strangers is repeated 37 times. In Matthew, Jesus says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
As you vote: Who is the stranger?
3. God’s will and God’s calling is towards equity and justice for those who have been silenced, oppressed, or harmed. As we hear in Isaiah, “Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow.”
As you vote: Who are the silenced, the oppressed, the harmed?
4. The eighth commandment declares that we are called to not bear false witness against our neighbor. This, of course, means not lying about another but seeking the truth. This means no name-calling or false accusations. But it goes beyond this. As Martin Luther tells us in his Small Catechism, we are to defend our neighbor, speak well of our neighbor, and explain everything in the kindest way.
As you vote: Who is speaking truth?
5. God created this beautiful earth and declared that we are both part of the creation and are also called to be stewards of it. As we read in the ELCA social statement called “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice,” we affirm that it is God’s intention for us to join in the healing and wholeness of creation.
As you vote: Who is caring for creation?
Dear Beloveds of God, there is so much more that could be written about the state of our country and what voting means. We could make this all complicated and intricate and difficult. But truly, it comes down to this: God’s love is unconditional and unending. Jesus came to this earth to show, to embody, to be God’s love for us and for all people. And so, knowing this, trusting this, believing this, we are called. We are called, as children of God, to show this love to the world. We are called to vote against hate. We are called to vote for God’s love. As we hear in 1 John, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear … We love because God first loved us.”
Bishop Shelley Bryan Wee | https://www.facebook.com/Lutherans
Ed Simon Searches for Milton’s Grave While Getting Blackout Drunk in Pubs
By Ed Simon
After aimlessly walking about Bloomsbury on an intermittently rainy afternoon, I unsuccessfully decided to search for the grave of John Milton while nursing a wicked hangover, or as is probably more likely, while still being drunk from the previous evening.
Only my second week in London, I was supported with a modest graduate stipend for my research at the British Library, mornings spent at that modernist building with the red-brick facade not far from the Victorian ostentation of King’s Cross Station, requesting four-and five-hundred year old books brought to me by pleasant librarians at concerningly efficient speed.
Obscure books such as the Puritan-minded Anglican divine William Crashaw’s A Sermon preached before the right honorable the Lord Lawarre, Lord Govoernour and Captaine Genrall of Virginea….Feb. 21, 1609 and the Scottish New World speculator William Alexander, the First Earl of Stirling’s 1614 epic poem Doomes-day. Every evening, however, since I’d arrived from Philadelphia, I’d started at the pubs while the sun was still out, because what else could be expected with the unnervingly late northern dusk?
Pint after pint of real ale at the Queen’s Head not far from the library; drams of Jameson’s at The Boot; Guinness at Miller’s across from the train station and, when feeling homesick and slightly patriotic, Sam Adams at the Old Red Lion Theatre Pub. As A. E. Housman wrote in that most English of poetic cycles, 1896’s A Shropshire Lad, “malt does more than Milton can / To justify God’s ways to man.”
Ostensibly here to transcribe sixteenth and seventeenth-century books that endowed geographical discoveries with apocalyptic significance, the majority of nights were either spent at the theater or getting horrendously shit-faced, blackout drunk. If I knew what pub my nights started at, I rarely remembered where they ended, though by the good graces of Something I was always able to stumble back mostly safely into the University of London dorm which I rented for an amazingly cheap price.
That summer, London suffered through an uncharacteristic heat wave, and the thin-blooded British hadn’t outfitted any of the dorms with air-conditioning, while all the windows were suicide-proof, making respite impossible and requiring several cold showers a day just to regulate body temperature. On top of that, my room looked directly into Joseph Grimaldi Park, named after the nineteenth-century master of pantomime who is entombed there. Hot, sweaty, drunk, and watched over by the spirit of a dead clown—July, 2013.
Over the past few months, my wife and I have been using our non-voluntary time staying at home to watch our way through performances of all Shakespeare’s dramatic works, using the BBC productions filmed between 1978 and 1985 (and available on Britbox). I posted about this project, and now we have completed the process, 37 out of 37. But who’s counting? (!). I am here offering some further thoughts, referring to the plays we have watched more recently. Most of these plays were certainly not new to me, but seeing them produced changes and sharpens perceptions.
I am absolutely not suggesting that these BBC plays were the best productions ever made, and a couple were frankly not that good, but some were cosmic. If there ever was a better Hamlet than Derek Jacobi’s, I don’t know it. Then there was the Richard II, starring, um, Derek Jacobi. I see a theme emerging here. Anyway, there were lots more fine non-Jacobite plays as well. Much of the appeal of the BBC series was that, for better or worse, they served as a time capsule of concepts of performing and visualizing Shakespeare as they existed in that long-dead geological era forty years back. And yes, 1981 probably was the last time you could do a major Othello production with a white actor in the lead, even if it was Anthony Hopkins.
Spiritual And/Or Religious?
Watching or reading Shakespeare, you get an unparalleled look into the values and assumptions of the Early Modern world, and that is so critical for teaching or researching on the era. That is doubly true in matters of religion and the spiritual, broadly defined.
Shakespeare’s own religious attitudes have been a matter of mystery and debate for centuries. Yes, you can certainly find biographical hints of Shakespeare’s Catholic ties, or make him an atheist, as you wish. But it’s the perpetual dilemma of deducing an author’s personal views from what s/he writes. Because they write something, does that mean that it reflects their personal beliefs or attitudes? Are we hearing the singer or just the song?