From the UMW, But for All of Us

Friends,

The following is not my writing, but a piece from the Women's Division at GBGM, written by Carol Barton. I have simply reprinted it here because I think it is worthy of as wide an audience as possible. Ken


A life dedicated to Shining for Racial Justice
by Carol Barton

As we prepare for the UMW Assembly in a few weeks, we are considering what it means to “Shine.” I am reminded of the song, “They will know we are Christians by our love." Paul describes this love eloquently in 1 Corinthians, but “shining” and showing God’s love in the world, a love that “rejoices with the truth,” is not always an easy or safe road to take, even though it brings great rewards.

This month we celebrate the life and mourn the death of a great Civil Rights activist, Anne Braden, who died in Louisville, Ken., on March 6 at the age of 81. Anne made a life-long commitment to the struggle for racial justice in our country, as a courageous white anti-racist woman. In 1954, she and her husband Carl became renowned for their decision to purchase and resell a home in a suburban white neighborhood to a Black couple, the Wades, who were their friends. This brought on the wrath of white supremacists who threatened both couples. The Wade’s home was the target of rocks, a cross burning, shots fired, and a dynamite blast. Braden and her husband were ostracized by many in the white community and received hate mail and threats. As public radicals during the McCarthy era they were called communists, and even indicted for sedition, or, in their case, disloyalty to the State of Kentucky. Carl spent seven months in jail.

Anne, a journalist with three young children at the time, wrote a book about the experience and began traveling to speak up about both civil rights and civil liberties. Braden and her husband joined the struggle for Black rights. In his famous “Letter from Birmingham,” Martin Luther King, Jr., thanked her for her actions. After her husband’s death in 1975, she continued her activism, including working for peace and equal rights for women. She was a delegate for Jesse Jackson at the 1998 Democratic National Convention. In the fall of 2005, at the age of 80, she traveled on the bus from Kentucky to Washington, D.C., to participate in a rally against the war in Iraq, and she continued to work for the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression until her death.

A lifelong Episcopalian, Braden reflected, “I grew up…in a totally racially segregated society. You just knew something was wrong. I mean there were the pictures on the Sunday School wall of the children of all colors. You know, sitting around Jesus? Brown, black, white. You'd look at that and that's not the way the Sunday School class looked, right? I mean you're bound to notice that.”[1]

In the last article Braden wrote, published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation in January 2006, she reflects, “I had to face the painful fact that this society that had nurtured me and been good to me was just plain wrong. And I was able to change sides in the racial divide…This very painful experience is not destructive, because once we have done it, we are free. We are not really free of the racism within us because we will always see the world through white eyes, but we are free to struggle consciously against it, so it no longer shapes our lives without even knowing it.”[2]

When white people “make a conscious decision and take concerted action to 'change sides' on the issue of race,” we join “the other America,” the one of resistance and struggle for a different world. Braden observed, “this is the genius of humankind, the thing that makes us half divine: the fact that some human beings can envision a world that has never existed…And living in the world that is working to make it happen lets us know our lives are worthwhile.” THAT is letting God’s love SHINE!

* Carol Barton is one of the executives for racial justice for the Women’s Division. This meditation is written to help United Methodist Women begin to prayerfully prepare themselves for the United Methodist Women’s Assembly, May 4-7 in Anaheim, Calif., and for the ensuing education, inspiration, and mission work of the organization.

[1] Excerpts from an Interview with Anne Braden, A Southern Childhood, The Veterans of Hope Project, Vincent Harding, http://www.veteransofhope.org/ (downloaded 3/17/06)
[2] Finding the Other America, Anne Braden, Fellowship, January/February 2006, http://www.forusa.org/fellowship/recent.html%20downloaded%203/17/06.

A New Light in Africa

In February, 2005, I had the honor of traveling to Liberia with a Greater New Jersey Conference delegation to participate in the Liberia Annual Conference, held at First UMC, Monrovia. That country was struggling to get back on their feet after years of bloody civil war, and with UN Peacekeepers present everywhere we looked, they were struggling to rebuild. Our host, Bishop John Innis, told us how Liberia was once called "the bright light of Africa." He and the people of his annual conference looked with hope to the new election that would be held in October of that year.

You've probably heard those elections raised Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, an active member of First UMC, Monrovia, to the office of President of Liberia. Last week she came to the United States to address Congress on March 15th. According to the news reports, she is "the fourth African head of state and the eighth woman to address a joint meeting of Congress. Invitations to address Congress are extended to international dignitaries only once or twice during a typical year," according to a report on AllAfrica.com.

On Tuesday of this week, she stopped by to see two other United Methodist who live in the area: George and Barbara Bush. Mrs. Bush traveled to Liberia in January to attend Sirleaf's inauguration, along with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

If the nation of Liberia is going to restore itself as the light, United Methodists all around the world will be able to take pride in the part our church has played. Bishop Innis, the episcopal leader of this wonderful conference, has been courageous beyond our imagining in his call for a leader who would put greed and self-interest aside and be a godly leader -- open and accountable. Without wavering he has shared his dream of a leader whose legacy for Liberia would be selflessness, who would see the children of Liberia as its greatest natural resource. We all pray Ms. Sirleaf will be the fulfillment of that dream.

The needs in Liberia, from what I saw first hand last year, are overwhelming. Imagine a major city whose infrastructure has disappeared, where utilities are no longer provided. Electricity is available only if you have a generator and only when you have the fuel to run the generator. Phone is service is gone, except for cell phones, which only work off pre-paid cards of minutes (there are no accounts, no way to deliver bills). Garbage is not picked up, but burned in the street, in the alleys, por by the side of the road. The list goes on and on.

So as Liberia struggles to get back on their feet, Ms. Sirleaf has come to ask the US to stand by their side, and help them rebuild their post-war nation. There is some indication our Congress will provide at least some of that aid. The truth is that the United Methodist Church has been at the side of Liberia through all struggles, and we will still be standing there when Liberia is once again the bright light of Africa.

Man, I Love This Church!

On Saturday evening, March 11th, I attended a a celebration of the Hispanic/Latino churches of the Greater New Jersey Conference. It was a wonderful service, with great music and inspiring preaching by our spiritual leader, Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar. Laypersons from each of the Hispanic churches were honored for their tireless work in making disciples for Jesus Christ (the picture above shows at least part of the group that was honored, gathered around our Bishop).

In the midst of this wonderful celebration, which encompassed just one portion of the ethnic diversity of our Greater New Jersey Conference, I came to a realization of the diversity in the midst of this diversity. Not just Bishop Devadhar, born in India, preaching in english (i have to keep reminding myself, his second language) being translated into spanish, but in the midst of this group of spanish speaking United Methodists they hailed from 22 different lands: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and others from Central and South America. On top of that, they were young and old, some relatively well off financially and some not so well off. A bouquet of 22 flags graced the altar, and a parament with a rainbow hung frm the pulpit. It was inspiring.

Is it difficult to live in a church that celebrates this kind of diversity? Sometimes. We have to anticipate each others needs (they provided me with a headset so I might hear translations of the part of the service that was in spanish). But isn't that what Jesus calls us to do anyway?

We have to work a little harder to understand the nuances of each others culture ("When we say we are starting at 5:00pm what does that really mean?"). Yet isn't that what most of us aspire to in regard to financial security -- we'd like to be wealthy enough that we could travel and experience other lands and other cultures? You don't have even have to leave New Jersey.

Want to taste some Korean culture? Head up to Fort Lee, or Wayne. Yearning for some Indian food, point your car towards Exit 131 off the Garden State Parkway. A little Brazillian food, how far are you from Harrison, Elizabeth or Long Branch?

Yet in the midst of all this, there is that cross, and the red flame alongside. One cross, one savior, one Holy Spirit. Diverse and yet united. I love this church.

To Russia With Love

(Bishop Hans Vaxby of Moscow accepts a stole and cap after being made a member of the Rural Chaplains Association at the 12th consultation of the United Methodist Russia Initiative. The Rural Chaplains help to organize rural congregations in the US to provide assistance to rural churches in Russia and other countries in the Eurasia Area of the denomination.)

One of the real blessings of this job is the opportunity I get on occasion to see first hand where our church is in mission.

In 2001, before I was even in my job full-time, I was privileged to travel to Smolensk, Russia to see the work that had been done through the participation of the Conference in the General Board of Global Ministries Russia Initiative (Smolensk is one of the mission sites we support, the second is in Kerch, Ukraine). We flew from JFK to Moscow, then took an overnight, 8 hour train trip from Moscow to Smolensk (on a train where no one spoke english and all we knew how to say was "spasiba" or thank you). We were met in Smolensk by families who had been touched by our ministry there, and they took us to their homes and treated us like we were Kings (or maybe Czars!).

In the 1990's when we first heard about the Russia Initiative there were 15 United Methodist Churches in Russia. By 2001 when I went for the first time, there were 88! Presently, the number of congregations is 104 and growing!

The Russia Initiative is not just about churches sending money to churches over there. It is about building bridges to reach people who were once the "evil empire." Since the inception of the Initiative, 6000 United Methodists have made the trip to meet face to face those who were once the most feared enemy. For those who are old enough to remember hiding under their desk in the 1960's in drills that were suppose to prepare us for a Russian attack, this is a humbling experience. When I shared those grade school memories with people my age in Smolensk, they laughed at the silliness that they were doing the same ridiculous drill in their schools as well.

Don't take my word for it, though. Make the trip yourself.

Their are groups that go from our conference every summer: some involve work teams, some involve teaching a summer school project, some involve youth, some are focused on witness and teaching in Bible study groups that have been formed there.

Check out general information about the Russia Initiative at: http://gbgm-umc.org/programs/missioninitiatives/russia/

To find out about the groups going to Smolensk this summer, visit http://www.gnjumc.org/MissionOpportunity2006.html

Let's Talk

The Blog is a little slow in getting started, and I am not making posts as often as I had hoped I would. However, folks are reading and beginning to make comments, and that does make the experience worthwhile!

Let me officially invite you to make this a place where we can share ideas and discuss things. The Blog provides you with an opportunity to do that without listing your name, as well putting your name on your comment if you want your opinions to be known. Either way, I think discussion can be healthy. The comments that have been made to date fall into that category, and for those I am grateful.

The hope and prayer I have is that we will feel free to be complementary or critical of what has been written, or what is happening in the church or conference, but that we will refrain from attacking people. We all are human, we sometimes do the wrong things with the right intentions, and it is helpful to have those actions critiqued in a way that doesn't strike at our personhood or intentions. I always thing it's best not to assume I know what is in someone else's heart.

So having said that, lets move some of the "parking lot conversations" here to the Blog where we all might be able to hear and discuss and maybe make some course corrections. Keep the conversations going!

Coming Together

It's hard to describe what its like when you get 450+ pastors in one church for the day. Well, there's the singing -- we do that really well. Then there is the eating -- unfortunately, we do that really well, too. Then there is the task of trying to get everyone in a seat and quiet: you may have guessed, we don't do that very well at all.

The preacher for the day was Rev. Vance Ross, presently serving as Associate General Secretary for the General Board of Discipleship in Nashville. Vance preached a powerful message during our opening service, about the importance of clergy coming together and keeping connected to one another. After the service concluded and the 10 minute break that looked like it would never end, Vance spoke a second time, this time expanding his message of coming together to encompass the whole church, and our commitment to being connectional.

I joke about the difficulty of getting these clergy in their seats and quiet, and the near impossible task of getting them back together after a break, but I do so half heartedly. The truth is, it was awesome to see people connecting with folks we don't see nearly as often as we should. To try and move people away from these important reunions to get them into a sanctuary to hear a message on coming together and maintaining their connections seemed, well, a little silly.

"It would be neat," I told someone that day, "if we could have one of these gatherings, and not have a speaker but simply have time for folks to come together and talk and renew their bonds of friendship with sisters and brothers in the covenant community of clergy." The problem, I will be the first to admit, is that many people wouldn't come. Everyone of us is so busy, everyone of us is so caught up in what we are trying to do for the Kingdom of God, that we just might not carve out the time to be with each other and be with God unloess we can convince ourselves that there will be a speaker there who will give us some new insight, hone some new skill, share with us some new secret that will make our work for Christ more productive.

Here is that gem that I brought away from yesterday's meeting: God saying to me, "I never called you to be in this alone. Come together. Get reconnected. Get recharged and renewed, and you will serve this kingdom much better."