Thoughts about Loving Community

Okay, first to folks who read my blogs. Don't run away with this one! I am NOT going to evangelize or proselytize. Friday night I attended a program with Bishop Carlton Pearson, himself a figure who has been through a number of spiritual transformations in this life. I'll speak a bit about that, and my own experience as well. But the heart of my message here is about forming Loving Community. Through my experience of the evening, it touched the heart of something that's been stirring within me for a very long time.

So first, a bit about me, then I'll give some background on Rev. Pearson. I was raised a Methodist, but lived in a family where on my Mom's side there were evangelists and pastors galore in the Evangelical Pentecostal tradition of the Assemblies of God. My goodness at at the age of two my Uncle A.G. Calloway was carrying me in his arms preaching fire and salvation. The music was powerful and emotional as we surrendered our bodies to the beat of the music. Very similar to that found in the African American Pentecostal tradition. I had met Oral Roberts at the age of 5 and some years later Jimmy Swaggert before he became nationally known. I've drifted around a bit since those days. In the seventies a stint with UU. After getting sober, I became Catholic, finding the practice of confession useful for me. I also loved the Eucharist. One of those rituals that carries regardless of one's personal theology, at least for me.

Of course there was conflict with being gay and transgender so I wound up with MCC in Houston. It's a ministry that is inclusive, especially for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. It was my first insight into what community could be. We were a multi-racial congregation with people from all walks of life. We had different choirs finding something for many traditions while becoming one community together. I still treasure my time there. Later after coming to Minneapolis I wound up at First Universalist, a Unitarian Universalist congregation that is currently my spiritual home.

Note I have not spoken about my personal theology. Each one of us has our own system of beliefs, and one of the things I've often complained about is the tendency of groups to create dogmas to exclude others. Here I found common cause with Bishop Carlton Pearson.

His journey was equally filled with twists and turns. A part of the Evangelical circles of folks like Oral Roberts and the Bakers, he had a mega church in Tulsa. He's an amazing singer and preacher in his own right. Then in his own growing awareness, he came to realize that instead of coming together, we were finding ways to divide ourselves. It was rooted in fear of an angry God and at times an egotistical exercise in being saved while those other souls were certainly going to hell. In his talk, he spoke of religion which separates and divides us vs spirituality where we find our common humanity. He paid a huge price for coming out with his new found Universalist belief, free of hell and rooted in our common humanity. In place he found peace and contentment.

So here we were listening to his story and sharing song. It felt really good to me. I found immediate kinship to the music so close to that of my own childhood experience, and considerable delight that I knew the songs. We talked about spiritual search in thinking and spiritual search in feeling, an how they both had a place. Here we were in this sanctuary, singing praise and waving our arms and moving to the sound and thinking deeply, and people from different traditions laughing at ourselves, even as in this moment, we were one. He spoke of the experience back at the Tulsa UU group. A regular UU service (think NPR), a service with elements of the music and tradition more common in the tradition from which he came, and a third service for those humanists that would rather not hear any God talk at all. More important, how they went to different services, and how all of these disparate souls, gay and straight, all races, all traditions, coming together in common community. Looking around, I saw a microcosm of this in the sanctuary Friday night.

We've spent all our efforts for so many years to create separations that divide us from each other. But oh how beautiful it was to see us all under the same roof, united in our common humanity. I did not necessarily agree with all that Bishop Pearson said. I know very few people who have ever believed exactly as I do. But I felt our common humanity, a vision of what is possible in this world. Our difference, our diversity to me was a beautiful thing. For me, with my varied upbringing, I also found some of my own roots, and that was an added plus. I really do believe Beloved Community can be formed. It's a goal worth pursuing. For me, the evening was a special one. Special enough to share here.

Please Stop Taking Transgender Lives!

Today is February 6th, 2015. Not really different from this past year, or the year before ad nauseum. The ticking of the clock brings with us once again the growing number of transgender people having their lives snuffed out because of hate and fear. I will never really understand that level of hate or fear, but I've known first hand its reality. Here's where we are so far this year,watching with anger and frustration as our body count grows.

January 9th. "Goddess" Edwards. The name Goddess assigned since we have not learned her femme name to date. Indianapolis, Kentucky, She died from a gunshot wound.

January 17th. Lamie Beard. Norfolk, Virginia Shot to death. Media added insult to injury by mislabeling her gender in their coverage.

January 26th. Ty Underwood. Tyler, Texas, the town where I grew up. Died from three gunshots as she entered her car. Friends are certain it was due to hate.

January 31st. Yasmin Vash Payne. Van Nuys, California. Stabbed then burned.

February 1st. Taja Gabrielle De Jesus, San Francisco, California. Multiple stab wounds.

This story of hate and murder goes on unchecked year after year. Police often criminalize the victim in early pronouncements. Dehumanized before AND after death. It bears noting that of the people listed here, all five are to my knowledge people of color. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), 72% of all people killed in LGBTQ or HIV hate violence are Trans Women and 67% are Trans Women of Color.

Make no mistake about it. I take this extremely seriously. Two decades ago, a younger Jessica found herself while taking a walk, surrounded by a group of guys fully intent on making me a statistic. I managed to make a break and ran faster than I've ever run before the block and a half to the police substation on lower Westheimer in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston. Of course they were not apprehended. I remember with such clarity the fear in that moment. There but for grace I could have become one more statistic, one more trans life extinguished.

Here we are at an intersection of movements. Black Lives Matter. So do Transgender Lives. The majority of those lives lost are black and brown lives. I'm so grateful that Black Lives Matter In their public pronouncements include trans lives. We've reached a point where this constant assault on our lives, and the added insults to our memories when we are gone, SIMPLY MUST END!

Let me say this with clarity. I'm no damned target for your hate! I'm not the insult at your parlor parties. Yes, we even are at risk for fighting back. Look only to Cici McDonald here in Minneapolis who went to prison after she was attacked first by a woman white supremacist, then later her swastika bearing boyfriend. A bottle smashed in her face, then the boyfriend enters the fray. In the struggle, she stabbed the attacker (the guy) and Cici goes to prison. Self defense according to the law is not an option they are telling us.

We as a nation has a long history of oppression. The numbers of those oppressed are rising, and the numbers of the oppressors are decreasing. There is coming a historical "come to Jesus" moment. Either we deal peacefully to end these oppressive systems and bring true justice for us all, or we will rise up and overturn this system for one that does work. Take a glance out on the streets now. We see Black, Brown, and White, Trans, Gay, Bi, Straight and Queer folks marching arm in arm. Businesses are shut down, freeways closed, shopping hindered. Black Lives Matter and Trans Lives Matter, righteous anger is welling up, presently in peaceful non-violent but effective measures to send a message. Listen to that message carefully. Ignoring it will have a terrible price.

Beautiful people are dying. It is not acceptable and it must end. Hate must not win this time.

Owning My Heritage: Sins of the Father Part 2

In the last post, I spoke on my Mother's side of the family mostly, dating back to the 1600's and particularly the family in the following centuries. We were by no means innocent bystanders in those years where racism found the early beginnings to where we are today. For cheap labor and as a means to separate poor white and black people from each other, the stain of racism has been remarkably effective, then and now.

So let me turn to my father's side of the family. We know we were in Virginia before, but the earliest we can prove so far is James A Wicks (Weeks). He moved from Virginia with his wife to northern Alabama, then across the border into Fayetteville, Tennessee where he became a farmer, and we know he owned people as well. The old property is marked today by the Wicks Cemetery Road. He was well known apparently and in Alabama he had been a church leader we know. Then as now, we know that people and religion too often twist the bad and call it good. It's in my heart what I feel was happening here. Here's what I found in the Fayetteville Observer dated June 6, 1861, just two days before Tennessee would vote to secede from the union:

Just below that was this in the same paper:

I could not help but gasp at the audacity of that second part. They call on the people of Tennessee to choose freedom over slavery! Seriously? Freedom to you is fighting to protect your right to own human beings? What sort of moral, or perhaps immoral leap of faith can enable someone to speak these words and actually believe them? Aren't they the same sort of beliefs that allow white people today to say this was all in the past and we hold no special privilege as white people despite abundant evidence to the contrary? How are we less guilty today for our obstinate insistence upon living a lie as we were then?

In the same paper, my ancestor, James A. Wicks was named one of the representatives for the House Guards of Minute Men, appointed to help in common defense against the Yankees. Ready to stand strong in defense of his freedom to own human beings. Over time the family would spread, and my grandfather and grandmother lived in North East Texas. I remember Grandpa telling stories of the Night Riders. Not only black people were afraid of them. If they caught you out after dark and one of the members had a beef with you, you could easily disappear and never be heard from again. Still, there was clear privilege in being white. There's a story I like to tell that brings home that point.

My grandfather lost out on any inheritance, and was relegated to working as a sharecropper. White and black, they worked along side with long hours, back breaking work picking cotton, and always in debt to the boss man. One day the boss arbitrarily wanted the shack they were staying in so he could tear it down and grow on that land. So grandpa had to go look for other arrangements. Well about a week later, a wrecking crew shows up. They were supposed to have two weeks to get out, but they changed their mind. My Grandma, bless her soul, went into the house and came out with a shotgun in hand. She quietly aimed it at the crew chief and said they'd be out in another week, but if he made another move, he was a dead man. They left. So where's the privilege. They would be the first to tell you that if a black man or woman had done that, the night riders would show up soon after and the entire family would disappear. That was their reality.

My parents were a bit more progressive. Still they didn't really get the whole civil rights thing, and my Daddy talked about being a sharecropper and working as hard as they did, and after all, didn't he pull himself up by the bootstrap and become a civil engineer. Don't get me wrong. What he did was good. But in the real world, he had opportunities that others did not. I remember from my own childhood growing up in the Jim Crow East Texas, the poor shape of the schools, the lack of funding or support we took for granted. I remember sundown towns where a black person needed to be out of town by sunset. Or the separate entrances into one movie theater where black people could attend though separated from the rest of us. I have to look inside my own self. Why did it take me so long to see something was terribly wrong?

I do not think mine is a solitary journey. I am telling my own story of race, but there are others. Let the healing begin.

Owning My Heritage: Sins of the Fathers

Today we find ourselves in the midst of a new Civil Rights movement. My prayer is that we will at long last come to grips with our nation's disgraceful history around race, from Slavery to Jim Crow to Mass Incarceration. It also is abundantly clear that Four Hundred years of indoctrination stands as a massive barrier to moving forward. I think it is crucial that we people, especially we white people, face that history head on and own our past and our role in perpetuating that past. Only then can we really move forward to work towards healing. We too often are blind to our privilege and blind to the serious harm we are doing to so many others in our refusal to face this past. Here then is the first of several blog entries where I will face some of my own history.

Not all my family has been documented that well in early America, but one line has. My family on my mom's side has been faithfully documented ever since the Dedman's (Debnam's, Dudman's) arrived in Virginia as early as 1631. We see the first indications of owning slaves in the 1700's. In the will of Phillip Dedman Jr, we read in part from The Dedman Geneaology and Allied Families, Wanda Colvin, 1983:

"I give to my son Philip Dedman my Negroes, Will, Tom, and Mole, upon express condition the he suffer my wife to hold and enjoy the use of Tom during her natural life...and upon condition Mole be allowed to go and work upon my land"...(all to last until she passes.) He goes on to give to his son Samuel land purchased in Mecklenburg "my negroes named Diego, Jenny, Nanny, and Paul upon express condition that he suffer my wife to hold and enjoy the use of Nanny during her natural life." Then he proceeds to give his daughter Mary Dunn "one negro woman named Frank and two negro girls named Kabe and Edy, and Harry, a negro boy, upon express condition that my wife shall have the use of Kabe during her natural life." Daughter Susan also gets a girl named Phillis, Sarah and her child Mary, and Grace and her child Lawney.

So that's 16 human lives being passed off as property. What relationships were broken in this parceling out of human lives? Were they beaten? Are there some who never show up because they perished before the writing and probate of the will? We don't know those stories, but we know all of those things were possible. What follows in this genealogy is page after page of future generations, parceling out people like land. Later however they did not even bother itemizing the names of these souls, instead stating only "certain negroes."

So on it went. Many fought in the Civil War, defending a system of human enslavement. I found similar stories on my Father's side, though so far not so well documented. My family on Mom's side made lots of money in the lumber business, much on the backs of the hard labor of poor black and white men. I'll talk a bit more about my dad's side of the family in another post. I visited and even worked for a time in one of their sawmills. I heard the N word tossed about with such contempt.

I relate all of this, not out of any pride. No pride to be found there. Many of these people no doubt possessed good qualities. Very few are all good or all bad. But they by their action and I might by inaction as well, supported a system of inequality. They benefitted from it. Some were very well to do thanks to this system of inequality. It's hard truth by which each life must be judged.

So why drag out the dirty laundry? I think people like me have been conditioned to gloss over or relegate to the past a reality which still lives on. Look around all those who would see. Unequal education, policing and justice systems that preserve the advantages of whiteness. We cannot move forward until we own our participation in this injustice. We cannot continue to pretend the history most of us got in school is anywhere close to the truth. The truth will set you free. Only however if you face it. Our problem is NOT a black problem. It's not hoodies or naturals or any of that. Our problem is white people, and we as white people have to step forward and act. In the AIDS years of the early eighties, there was a saying. "Silence = Death." it's true here too. It's not South or North. It's right vs wrong. It's a white people thing. I've no power over what my ancestors did. I do however bear a responsibility, to make amends for the wrongs they did, but also for my own behavior as a human being in a society still structured around racist notions of inequality. Or as my church social justice arm says it, standing on the side of love. If we own it, perhaps eventually we can fix it.

Justice and Faith

Where Black Lives Matter and Faith Intersect: Some Thoughts

Tonight we met at church. Many who marched in St Paul on Reclaim MLK day. Others who were present at the Mall of America protest. Others committed to justice who for one reason or another could not attend. White voices and black voices joined in church community

We spoke honestly of where we individually are in the movement. We were asked to reflect on the role of faith community in all of this. So I had to ask myself, what exactly is the role of a faith community? Understand when I speak of faith, it does not require a particular belief, or even a Deity in the traditional sense although that may be a person’s experience. For me, the ideal of a faith community is one brought together by similar values centered in love and committed to community.

I love history. It’s a wonderful source for me to understand today by looking how people have handled it before me. This week we learned of the lifting of the convictions of the Friendship 9 in North Carolina. People so committed to liberty, they approached those lunch counters and were arrested and refused to bail out, working on the chain gang instead, giving witness to injustice and offering solutions rooted in non-violence and love. During the fifties and early sixties, people stepped forward, bravely standing non-violently in the face of dog attacks, water hoses, cattle prods, and active violence. Courageous white people came forward, like our James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo, offering their very lives as the price for justice. Think about it. Voices in all communities saying they were wrong, this was not the way to bring about change. But still there they were, in individual and organized acts of audacious faith.

What resonates for me also in those stories was the amazing role played by faith communities during that time. Facing fear is never easy, but much better faced in community together than alone. How in those days, the Black Churches especially, but some of our own Unitarian Universalist churches provided support, strength and succor in very difficult times. How our own John Cummins answered the call following the death of James Reeb to march along side so many others in Selma. Black and brown and white bodies, strengthened in their own faith and communities who supported them even as so many others hurled insults, rocks, spit, and hate their way.

So what is faith? It is not having all the answers? After all, the forces for the status quo will always provide all the doubts one could ask for to remain motionless and non-threatening. No, I think faith is a conviction for justice stepping out into the unknowing uncertainty AND fear, rooted in the principles of compassion shared by virtually every religious body and ethical society. Not knowing what will happen, but firmly rooted in what is right and just. Those people that came before us in Little Rock or North Carolina or Mississippi could not know what the outcome would be. Theirs was an act of love, faith, and hope rooted in compassion. The roots spring from the very best of what we can be as people. Singing the lyrics of We Shall Overcome, each step moving us forward in the void of not knowing.

As we sat together tonight, sharing our own strength and our own fears, I thought how empowering it was to have a community to share with such intimacy. Where we could air our own fears, doubts, along with our hopes. It occurred to me that when we speak of faith, a corollary of that faith is hope. Faith and hope firmly rooted in love. My mind went back to my childhood in East Texas. I would hear the older black men and women speak the most wonderful juxtaposition of words. If one were to say to the other “I’ll help you with that,” the words spoken would be “I’ll HOPE you with that.” To my ear, I heard the prayerful hope as implicit in their help with each other. It resonated within my soul. To me, it strikes at the heart of what faith and justice is all about. Yes, I have fear, and I have trepidation. I’ve also a community that will HOPE me with that as I step forward in faith trying to do the right thing.. Perhaps today through our actions, just as then, we shall overcome. But only if I HOPE it be so.

American Hypocrisy re: Israel and Palestine

Fighting has broken out between Israel and Palestine again. It's part of a war that has continued since even before partition in 1947. It's a complex history that many people today seem to be clueless about. My comments are not directed at who is right or wrong. This is NOT about choosing sides, and frankly like all things human, there is much good and bad for each. With certainty there are no innocents in this struggle.

If you talk to people in Israel or Palestine, there is a host of opinions.But when you come to America, people are taking sides and their eyes glaze over and the basis for their feelings are too often based on certain religious beliefs or a compulsory need to side with the underdog. Precious little is based upon the actual facts, including the history and realities for both peoples.

Furthermore, and this is what led to this post and where the hypocrisy lies. In defending Palestine, too often I hear the argument that since the Israelis have such overpowering superiority militarily, it's an unfair fight and therefore somehow wrong. Innocents are killed, most often on both sides. Had we not used geopolitical power chess in the region rather than seriously finding solutions after partition, this might have all been avoided. The same goes for many countries in the region. Look, war is wrong and EVERY war kills innocents (and innocence) and I believe war should be opposed for no other reason. But seriously, are we as Americans going to complain about a lop sided military advantage? After we were attacked in 9-11, we have had wars in two countries, and killed countless thousands more than we ever lost. One of the countries we went to war with wasn't in any way connected with 9-11, but that didn't stop us. Still today, drones attack and kill innocent men and women along with the guilty in Pakistan, Yemen, and in certain African nations. I just find it extremely hypocritical to blame somebody else for what we do all the time.

It's an arrogance born of power, and one of the inevitable results of privilege born of colonial power. We don't have colonies as much in the traditional sense, but we nevertheless control those many other people around the world through our wealth and might. Indeed the entire Middle East is made up of nation states informed not by the needs of the people who lived there, but for European and then American convenience. Some conflicts in the region today find their roots in the late 19th and early 20th century when we arbitrarily drew lines and ruled from afar. Troubles in Syria and in our dealings with Iraq and Iran stem from our arbitrary replacement of Sunni leadership with Shia under Bush.

I'd like to make another point here. Israel is not America. Yet we've elected officials who act as if American and Israeli issues are one and the same. In truth I would argue that the people of Israel are far more similar to the Palestinians than anybody else. But after fighting a struggle with each other going back to the 1940's, the rise of the Likud party who still dominates in the nation consensus party of today,we find an Israel that does not care to compromise. The Bible would and did refer to them as "a stiff necked people." The horrible conditions of the people in Palestine aided by the way by Arab nations including Trans Jordan who refused to allow the refugees in because of tribal differences ensuring the ghettos of today) and the uncompromising attitude of a defacto dominant Hamas (despite a ruling Fatah), ensures compromise is unlikely anytime soon. Both are trapped by their own intransigence.

I'm under no illusions. Our arrogance knows no bounds. But our leaders taking the role of cheerleaders for one side is not good foreign policy nor does it support American interests. Then we have the religious figures intent only on their really bizarre alliance with one side based on the idea that the great battle will take place there and Jesus will return and God will kill off all Jews who do not convert, oh please give me a break! We only provide fuel for the disputes to continue. Only yesterday I learned that the American boy who was so brutally beaten by Israel authorities the other day had to deal with his local Congresswoman siding with the Israeli police against her own constituent. On what planet does that make sense? If he was joining the other kids in harassing the authorities and that has not been established, it does not matter. When is it ever okay to handcuff an under age boy and then beat and kick him senseless? How can you side with a foreign nation against your own citizen and constituent? On the other side, I see thinly veiled anti-semitism in some of the opposition to Israel, as well as the threat of the accusation used by those on the other side. Historically both sides can lay claim to some pretty serious oppression and ignoring one for the other seems, well, oppressive.

So I as an American am pissed off at Palestine. I'm also pissed off at Israel. But most of all, I'm pissed off at America. Truly your hypocrisy is showing, once again. Let's work for peace and security for all people, rather than marching lock step to the drums of conflict. While we are at it, pretty good time to do some looking inward as well.

The Summer of '67

Rear left to right: Grady (my Dad), Uncle Franklin, Uncle Wilburn, Uncle Hilyard
Front row left to right: Uncle Jerry, Grandpa Jimmy, Uncle J.B.


So last night checking my Facebook, my cousin Melinda mentioned a show with Billy Crystal where he talks about his Dad and lessons learned over the years. His father died when he was 15. Her Dad, Mark, was 17 when his Dad (and my Uncle Wilburn) died. Instantly I was transported back in time, even more when I tuned into the show she mentioned.

There are times in our lives when it seems everything swirls out of control. It's like the universe is realigning, and that includes the person you are as well. My year of reckoning was '67. On July 9th, I celebrated my 20th birthday. That very next day we would get the call. There had been a terrible accident. My Uncle Wilburn had been killed, My cousin Mark was in Parkland Hospital with a closed injury, and the other family members were scattered about town in other hospitals.Immediately we left for Dallas. After the funeral, we returned to Tyler for a couple of days before me heading back out for Irving, spending as much time keeping an eye on Mark. He had a closed head injury, and any fall could be deadly.

Before going on with this story, I've an observation to make. amidst all the chaos, some of the most mundane details were stored in my old and often fading memory cells. What we talked about around Aunt Louise's kitchen table. My cousin Gary was released from the Marines and together we would talk into the wee hours waiting for our next shift at the hospital. The memories of this time are as if it all happened yesterday despite the fact almost 47 years has elapsed.

So this all went on until July 18th. Then Dad called. My Aunt Vi on Mom's side had a coronary and had died. I hopped a bus back to Tyler and we set out for Arkansas where her funeral was held. In a family filled with preachers her brother in law delivered the eulogy and she was laid to rest in a small country cemetery, then back to the old family homestead in the back woods. Wow, two family members so close together. Back to Tyler we went, where I spent a couple of days helping Dad build a corral.

I should say the corral from hell. Working in that hot East Texas sun, we pounded away putting it all together. Towards the end of that last day, both our tempers were worn thin. Daddy apparently asked me to hand him something and I didn't hear him and then he exploded. He was yelling and screaming and I was yelling and screaming back and both of us were so furious it's a miracle we didn't come to blows over it all.

Now I used to talk about how Daddy didn't know how to use the word "sorry." In fairness at that part of my life, neither did I. So we didn't talk that evening, and the next morning I headed out for Irving once again. I got into the routine of all night sojourns at the hospital, sitting in the kitchen at Aunt Louise's chatting and visiting. Daddy called once, but the conversation was strained. Oh how I wish I had not been so proud and stubborn.

On August 1st, 3 weeks since my Uncle had been killed, Mom called. She was in tears, sobbing and crying and it was hard to understand her. Daddy had been back out with an old War Buddy visiting to the farm and he'd done some more work on the corral. This morning, he seemed totally exhausted. He collapsed to the floor in front of Momma and my brother Marlowe where he died. She had called the doctor and he had rushed over to the house, but it was too late.

I gathered my clothes, and Gary drove me back to Tyler. We made the trip in record time, and immediately I was busy helping make the funeral arrangements, picking a casket etc. Life from this day forward would be very different.

I did not realize at the time yet how much that fight had affected me with Daddy. I drank a lot which numbed some of the pain. But somewhere in all this I had developed a nervous twitch in one hand and it was there for some years. Many years later, through a program of sobriety, I sat down and began talking to an empty chair, where sat my imagery of Daddy. I talked about that day. About all I had done wrong that day. Then I asked him to forgive me. From that day on, the hand never shook again.

The lessons from all that are pretty clear. We never know when a loved one or friend will go away. Take the time to tell them you love them, and don't let arguments have time to fester into resentments. Funny thing: One person I was pissed of with was Daddy for dying before we could make amends. Pretty lame eh? But my hunch is talking with others that it's not that uncommon. Oh and relish the moments you have with family. Most of my family doesn't communicate with me any more because of my "difference." A few do and I love each one of you so. Still I've got memories. A game of dominos, or five card draw, or Monopoly, mixed liberally with plans to save the world, laughter, arguments about what cards are wild, adventures in the great outdoors,telling our stories as only a family of storytellers can, each forming a memory mosaic that encircles the heart.