Martyrs

November 7, 1995

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by one of his own countrymen adds another martyr to the roster of those who died for the cause of peace.

In Canterbury Cathedral is the Chapel of the Martyrs near the black slab which marks the spot where Thomas Becket was murdered. When I visited Canterbury some years ago, honored names and their stories and mementos included Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Dag Hammarskjold, Martin Luther King, [and] others were memorialized in the Chapel of the Martyrs. One day, I believe, the name and fame of Yitzhak Rabin will be another honored name and memory in The Chapel of the Martyrs.

I have been reading LENIN’S TOMB, THE LAST DAYS OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE, by David Remnick – a gripping account of the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. I hope that some day Andrei Sakharov will be recognized world-wide as a martyr for freedom, even though his death was not the result of an assassin’s bullet, but rather a man worn out in a struggle for human rights in a land where it was dangerous, fatal in millions of instances, not to kowtow to the Communist Party in its many-faceted corruptions and repressions.

Sakharov, once honored as a Hero of the Soviet Union because of his scientific genius in developing the H-bomb for his country, was later exiled to Novgorod (Gorky) because he not only renounced the use of atomic and nuclear weapons, but also took fearless and unpopular stands insisting – demanding – more freedom for the Russian peoples.

Even Gorbachev could not abide him, because Sakharov insisted that the Communist Party should no longer have the constitutional guarantee to be the only political party in the U.S.S.R. Without Sakharov, there could not have been a Yeltsin.

The years of exile had ruined his health; his constant advocacy of freedom had made Sakharov the object of persecution, derision, and scorn by ruling Communist Party.

In 1989, with reform movements gathering strength, sixty-eight-year-old Sakharov’s health was precarious. He had trouble walking up stairs; he had constant demands on his time because fear was lessening that being known to associate with this courageous man, who was the key figure in the Human Rights movement, was dangerous.

On December 14, 1989, his wife, Yelena Bonner found him dead when she went to wake him. A supporter, Korotich said later, “I’m only glad that before he died, Sakharov dealt the system a mortal blow. If God sent Jesus to pay for sins of humankind, then a Marxist God somewhere sent Andrei Sakharov to pay for the sins of our system.”

In HENRY VIII, Act IV, Scene 2, Griffith says to Katharine on Wolsey’s death,

“men’s evil manners live in brass;
their virtues
We write in water.”

Shakespeare was not always precisely correct, as Gorbachev found out to his dismay. At first, Gorbachev tried to squelch the country-wide shock and grief by stating there could be no national day of mourning for Sakharov, citing some Communist Party claptrap, “we have a procedure it seems for this: a General Secretary gets three days of mourning, a Politburo member one, and none for an academician.” But the people’s grief for Sakharov’s death, and their overwhelming feeling of obligation for the Human Rights Movement he sparked, could not be denied. Gorbachev had to yield and allow a public funeral.

The day of the funeral was bitterly cold, “so cold it hurt to breathe”, wrote David Remnick, who then noted, “the march went on for hours. No fewer than fifty thousand people had packed into a vast parking lot. And there was something more striking about the crowd than than its mere size. It was the first time that I got any sense that there could be a unified democratic movement in the Soviet Union. Until now, the miners, the Baltic independence groups, the Moscow and Leningrad intelligentsia had all seemed spread out, loosely knit at best. But I now saw Baltic flags, a Russian tricolor, banners supporting the independence movement in the Ukraine, miners from Vorkuta, students. There were placards with a huge ‘6’ crossed out – meaning that Article 6 of the Constitution which guaranteed the Party’s ‘leading role’ in society should be eliminated.”

Dmitri Likhachev (Remnick, p. 288) spoke, “We are gathered here to honor the memory of a very great man, a citizen not only of our country, but of the whole world... a man of the future. This is why many did not understand him in this century. He was a prophet in the ancient sense of the word. That is, he was a man who summoned his contemporaries to moral renewal for the sake of the future. And like every prophet, he was not understood.”

There were other elements in Sakharov’s character which were intriguing (at least to me). In his Nobel Prize in 1975 (his acceptance of the Nobel Prize was labeled as ‘international treason’) - “Other civilizations, perhaps more successful ones, may exist an infinite number of times on the preceding and following pages of the Book of the Universe. Yet we should not minimize our sacred endeavors in the world, where, like faint glimmers in the dark, we have emerged for a moment from the nothingness of unconsciousness into material existence. We must make good the demands of reason and create a life worthy of ourselves and of the goals we dimly perceive.” (p.165)

Could there be a more fitting epitaph for Andrei Sakharov than those words he wrote himself?

Policy Maker

October 26, 1995

A recent occurrence was a reminder that long ago I was the cause of a change of policy in the Everett School system. On my part, it certainly was not a deliberate intention.

As a young teen-ager in the gym at Parlin Junior High, I was involved with the rest of the (boys’) class in some sort of circle chase. I’ve forgotten the name of the gym teacher. Anyway, I was running around the outside of the circle in my new, leather (four dollar) Thom McAn shoes. The combination of the new leather soles and the polished gym floor propelled me air-borne; I landed hard and broke the bone in my left forearm.

I was taken to Whidden Hospital; the break was set; a plaster cast put on and I was brought home.

Because of my accident, the school set a policy that all students must wear “sneakers” (as we called them then) in the gym.

I cannot think of any other event in my life that resulted in so quick a change of policy. Another memory of that event was the devilish itch under the cast that could not be scratched. That was frustration!

This memory was dredged up when I took a fall on the walkway in the Jefferson Center grounds. The concrete slab was raised a bit, probably because of tree roots. I had my head in the clouds, or something, so I stumbled and went down hard. No lasting damage, although my rib cage and wrist were painfully sore for a few days.

Again, my fall changed things. The raised slabs are painted bright yellow and in some cases cemented to form a small ramp.

But I also remembered a sermon preached nearly a half-century ago by my old friend and colleague, Francis Rockwell. Contradicting Emerson’s “Hitch Your Wagon To A Star,” Frank proposed, “Hitch Your Wagon To A Horse,” emphasizing that ideals need practical efforts and ways. If my eyes had been toward the walk, I probably would not have gone down.

But if you choose to believe that I was a clumsy fellow at Parlin Junior High School and still am in Jefferson Center, I will not dispute you.

Moving Thoughts

August 15, 1995

Two weeks ago I moved to Jefferson Center. (I should note, I was moved. Because of my present physical limitations, all the labor was capably done by Sara, Bill Westman and Bill Walcheck. Bill Walcheck packed the van so skillfully that all space was used and there was not a single item of breakage. Bill Westman and Sara laboriously loaded and unloaded in hot Florida weather. They stayed it on to help arrange my “efficiency.” Bill stayed for several days to help in various settling details; and to fill the freezer with delicious meals.)

As nearly as I can figure, this is the twenty-ninth move in my almost 84 years of living. I have no memory of the first two moves when my parents moved from Boston (Roxbury) to Everett; first to the corner of Ferry and Union Streets, and a couple of years later to the house they bought at 32 Oliver Street, where I grew up.

The moving here and there in 7 States (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Ohio, New Jersey, and Florida) would seem overly frequent. I must have had an “itchy foot” as the old saying goes. Yet, as I reflect on the subject, there were always reasons and causes for each move. In retrospect, some were not the best of reasons and causes. However, we are not permitted to live retrospectively. To live is to experience immediacy. Monday morning quarterbacks do not have to make Saturday’s decisions or to nurse Sunday’s bruises and sprains.

I am settling in comfortably here in Jefferson Center. I’m not experiencing claustrophobia even though my efficiency has fewer square feet than any other place I have lived. I have frequently been wrong in predictions, but I am quite convinced that this is my last residence.

One of the privileges of living here is a TV cable that gives 13 channels. I have taken advantage of this to watch a few baseball games – including the Boston Red Sox. I am amazed and astonished that the Bosox, as of this morning, are leading the Eastern Division of the American League by TEN games!!! Is this the year that that there will be no August-September nosedive out of contention? Has “the curse of the Babe” been exorcised? Maybe, emphasize MAYBE!!!

One of the noticeable features of these 1995 Red Sox is that the team is so different. When I watched the Red Sox play the Detroit Tigers in spring training last year, or was it the year before, very few of the present team were on the roster. Mo Vaughn was coming along; Greenwell, Naehring, Clemens were there; Valentin was just making the team. The rest of the guys on this league-leading team have been acquired since. The Red Sox management has done some very smart trading as well as bringing along good players from the farm system.

Mickey Mantle’s death started me musing in another aspect of the game. I am not as close a follower as I was once, but where are the colorful nicknames for the great players: Babe Ruth, “The Sultan of Swat”; Walter Johnson, “The Big Train”; Ty Cobb, “The Georgia Peach”; Tris Speaker, “The Grey Eagle”; Joe DiMaggio, “The Yankee Clipper”; “Dizzy” and “Daffy” Dean; Ted Williams, when he was twenty, tall, and thin, “The Splendid Splinter”; Frankie Frisch, “The Fordham Flash.” Such sobriquets seem not to be created now. My surmise is that sports-writers dreamed up the nicknames.

Frankie Frisch, a Hall of Famer, and famous New York Giant infielder in the era of John MacGraw, later also managed. Frisch was always distressed when a pitcher lacked control. He was known for his deep moan and groan as he said, frequently, “Oh, those bases on balls.”

According to writer, Leonard Koppett (THE MAN IN THE DUGOUT), Frisch best expressed the frustration of the team manager when things go wrong – as usually happens to most of them. Frisch gave advice to Red Schoendienst when Red was named manager of the St. Louis Cardinals: “Don’t take a hotel room higher than the second floor because you might want to jump.”

I don’t know why the foregoing led me to look up a quote from Albert Camus, whose writings I read and re-read. Camus noted:

“There can be no attitude so free from error that men (sic) should give it their total allegiance. I’ve had enough of people who die for an idea. What interests me is to live and die because of what one loves.”

Disney World – History As It Was Not

June 13, 1995

In today’s “Business” section of the newspaper, there was an item referring to Walt Disney stock reaching a 52-week high in anticipation of great profits from the movie, “Pocahontas”, soon to be released. While admitting I’m a crabby curmudgeon, I’m predicting some historical events which WON’T be in the movie.

When Captain John Smith wrote his first report of his meeting with the great Indian chief, Powhatan, he made no mention whatsoever of being saved by Pocahontas. Many years later (when Pocahontas had become famous both in England and Virginia), Smith added the story that Pocahontas had saved him from having his brains clubbed out by taking him in her arms.

At the time of the alleged saving, Pocahontas was a young girl of 11 or 12 years old. Her name was Matoaka, but she was called Pocahontas – or “little wanton.” She was so called because when she came to Jamestown, as George Willison’s original source puts it, to the delight of all, would “get the boyes forth with her into the markett place and make them wheele, falling on their hands ... she would follow and wheele so naked as she was, all the fort over.”

Captured by Captain Argall of the ship “Treasurer” in a ransom plot to compel Powhatan to give the colonists large amounts of corn, Pocahontas had been influenced to renounce her “idolatry and openly confessed her Christian faith.” She was baptized and christened, “Rebecca.”

John Rolfe, a widower who had lost wife and child in a Bermuda shipwreck, was in Jamestown experimenting with tobacco-growing, seeking to improve its quality. He wrote a long letter describing his love for Pocahontas, not from (as he wrote) any “unbridled desire of carnall affection, but for the good of this Plantation, for the honour of our countrie, for the glory of God, for my owne salvation, and for the converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ an unbeleeving creature, Pokahuntas.” How was it that Rolfe did not know that Pocahontas was was already a baptized Christian, renamed Rebecca?

They were married. Pocahontas was willing even though she apparently already had a husband, married four years before to a brave named Kocoum.

In 1616, Rolfe and Pocahontas and their infant son, Thomas, sailed for England where Pocahontas was honored as royalty (daughter of the great chief Powhatan). “Lady Rebecca” had brought a retinue of Indian maids and her brother-in-law, Tomakin. She seemed to enjoy much the pomp and circumstance with which she was treated.

Just before her scheduled return to Virginia, she died, probably of pneumonia. Within four months, four of her Indian maids died similarly. Pocahontas was 22 years old. When John Rolfe discovered that the royal pension granted Pocahontas would not be granted to him, he abandoned his son, Thomas, in England, and never saw him again, [and he ignored] Thomas in his will.

My hope is that viewers of the movie (expected to contribute $700 million to Disney coffers, 85 cents a share) will enjoy the fictional romance, and not confuse the creative animation with historical events.

If you want to check out the crabby curmudgeon’s observations, I suggest BEHOLD VIRGINIA by George F. Willison, or “Pocahontas in Life and Legend” in the journal “American History,” July 1995 issue.

Gratitude (Inadequately expressed)

April 20, 1995

For years I have been somewhat persuaded “there is no ‘free lunch’ ” - always a price-tag that might arrive later, a point of view influenced by good drink and food, for every positive there is a negative, almost everyone has an “angle”, etc. I was wrong because I have experienced more than one “free lunch” lately (and many times in the past when I am candid with myself).

I learned that more fully in the six nights and days in Room 2014 in the Cardiac Intervention Unit at Lakeland Regional Hospital. Doctors Brown and Reddy were frank and plain-spoken, describing my condition in words I could understand. The nurses in CIU were skillful and competent. More than that, they were kind, prompt, caring, and gifted with that priceless quality, a sense of humor. They eased the long hours I was hooked up to more than one IV, a Foley catheter (ugh), an oxygen thing up my nose, and so on. So, to Andrea, Sandra, Lonny, Nan, Trish, Eddi, Candy, Jan, I quote Shakespeare, (Measure for Measure, Act III, Sc. 1) where the Duke says to Isabella,

“the hand that hath made you fair
hath made you good.”

Add to that the gracious, generous, unqualified support of best friends and family:

Sara immediately coming to drive me to the hospital when Dr. Michael Brown said I should not drive my own auto from Watson Clinic South; and her many cheerful acts of comfort, service, transportation.

Sons and daughters: John taking a whole week from his heavy responsibilities and very busy schedule to take care of me; cooking up a quantity of low-sodium meals; cleaning industriously, renting videos, and getting me on the track of necessary improvements and hiring a cleaning service and much more.

Janet on the phone every day from Oregon, talking with nurses, doctors, me. Then calling the others to report and interpret my condition.

Marj and Bill, very supportive and standing by to come and stay if needed (not at this time, I’m doing O.K.).

Anne Crosby, RN, with her cheerful home visits.

Good, helpful neighbors, Peggy and Ed Wheeler.

Bill Walcheck, helping to pick up my auto at the Clinic and bring it back here; and also Bill transporting John to and from the Airport.

Flowers from grandchildren brightening room 2014.

Other close friends visiting in hospital and keeping in touch.

So, I know there IS “free lunch” and it stimulates me not only to be grateful to those I’ve named; and others I’ve not named, but also to muse theologically.

Historian Daniel Boorstin, in his book of essays, CLEOPATRA’S NOSE, reviews the various cosmological theories: Steady-State, Big Bang, Eternally Inflating Big Bang. Then he quotes “Alan Guth’s unforgettable suggestion that ‘the Universe is the ultimate free lunch.’ ”

Voyager 2, launched in 1977, traveling at about 61,000 miles an hour, will reach within one light-year of Sirius, the Dog Star, in the year A.D. 359,000 (and this is only 1995).

And here we are, feeling, thinking, living amidst this vast mystery. Pogo was correct, “You’re lucky to be here in the first place.” Furthermore, to be here and functioning in my 9th decade because of the affection, skill and care of persons – not the Grace of God, because I don’t know if She exists, but rather the Grace of Persons who care. It doesn’t get any better than this, whatever lies ahead.

Zounds

March 9, 1995

My title is one of those words that expresses surprise, astonishment, amazement or disgust. In my lifetime, I have heard a variety of such words and expressions. For example:

“God Save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” An older man I knew used this frequently to voice his surprise or revulsion at some shocking news or event. I was a young man – he called me “younker.”

“Jumping Jeehosaphat” - similarly used by an older generation.

“Jeezus H. Christ”. I never understood the “H” but it was profanity to comment on something that seemed disgusting.

“Is there intelligent life on earth?” An expression of the Space Age when we were wondering if there was life on other planets. Some queer event or statement caused one to wonder that if an alien species from outer space would find any intelligence here on earth if they landed in their flying saucer (or teacup or soup bowl or frisbee).

All of these expressions almost failed me when when I read two items in the Lakeland Ledger, yesterday.

The first story concerned Newt Gingrich, who is in the news every day. He was quoted as saying that many newspaper editorial boards contained “socialists.” He hinted that business companies should be canceling their advertisements from papers that “oppose their views.”

Gingrich was quoted as defining a “socialist” as “someone who believes that raising and lowering taxes have no effect on economic conduct.”(!!!)

Editorial boards: They are at least middle-of-the-road, more likely conservative to smaller or larger degrees to the right. My criticism is that they give little or no space to liberal or left-wing opinions. The media are CONSERVATIVE, Newt. But unlike you, I do not believe in a boycott. I don’t know if the “Daily Worker” or the “Guardian” are still published, but I used to enjoy reading them now and then just to be in touch with what the far-left wing was pushing.

When the Speaker defines a Socialist as “someone who believes that raising and lowering taxes have no effect on economic conduct,” where’s he coming from? Look in your dictionary, you will not find that. If you are a student of economics, where would you locate Gingrich’s definition?

I am not a student of economics. But I have conversed with socialists, given and taken criticism many times. They would find that definition an indication of total ignorance of socialist theory.

I met the late Norman Thomas one time when he was a speaker in a church I served. He was the perennial candidate of the Socialist Party for President in the 1920s and 30s. One did not have to agree with his socialist theory and politics (I didn’t) but to argue theory with Norman Thomas, you had better be familiar with the writings Adam Smith, Ricardo, Hobbes, Mill, Marx and Engels – because he knew their theories. Furthermore, Thomas had a keen sympathy for deprived, poor, and exploited peoples that Speaker Gingrich might well seek to understand and emulate.

The second item in yesterday’s Lakeland Ledger that provoked Jumping Jeehosaphat was the Cal Thomas column. He is the strident voice of far-right wing fundamentalist Christian religion. former officer of the Moral (sic) Majority. Cal Thomas was bemoaning the switch from Democrat to Republican by Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (what a charming name). The columnist believes this is bad news for the Republican Party because Ben Nighthorse Campbell is pro-choice for women; he voted to lift the ban on funding for abortion for poor women; he supported the President on gays in the military.

The only reply Thomas deserves from Ben Nighthorse Campbell is to quote Shakespeare – Act I, Sc. 2 – where Coriolanus reproves the fickle crowd that had turned against him:

“He that depends
Upon your favors swims
with fins of lead
And hews down oaks with rushes.”

Zounds and Egad – if I were a Republican who was civic-minded rather than ideologically adamant, I would rejoice in the switch of parties. We would have less to fear from Republican insensitivity to human need if there were more in their ranks of the caliber of Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell.

Sermon

March 6, 1995

In the five years I have distributed my “Musings” I have resisted the temptation to include a sermon. But in sorting out files stuffed with papers, I came across “The Beacon of the Wise”, delivered in Akron in 1957. I might say things differently today, but I have not changed a word from the original.

I have broken my rule because what I said then still represents a foundation for my beliefs.

As my posterity now includes three succeeding generations, this statement of my belief basis may be of interest to somebody, some day or year.

The Beacon of the Wise

One of the more erroneous notions that many persons cherish is the belief that doubt is a negative virtue, if it is a virtue at all. Radio voices, sometimes ominously sepulchral, sometimes merely irritatingly “folksy”, have a habit of ringing the changes on the accepted idea that the doubter lives in anxiety and dies in uncertainty. If only the doubter would have “faith”, we are exhorted, not only would his future be assured, but also his digestion would improve because he would have the “power of positive thinking”, and “every-day in every way he would be getting better and better,”

In my opinion much of this “buck-up-old-boy” philosophy is either nonsense, or is the elevation of the trivial, even though it may be complacently called “faith”. Now while I do not deny that there is at least some value in positive suggestions, in this sermon I want to attempt to state the case for the proposition that doubt can function in a manner which will lead us to a more healthy life and a more satisfactory religion.

In Troilus and Cressida (Act II, scene 3), Shakespeare has Hector say,

“The wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure; but modest doubt is call’d
The beacon of the wise, the tent that
searches to the bottom of the worst.”

As he did so many times, Shakespeare demonstrated amazing insight into human character and the human condition when he called modest doubt the “beacon of the wise.”

As one travels the coastlines of our country, the winking beacons of the lighthouses are picturesque scenery to the land-traveler. To the men who go down to the sea in ships, these beacons are a necessity. In ancient days these beacons were signal fires. As men began to know more about optics and mechanics, great reflectors thrust light out to the deep waters so that mariners might be safely guided. We now live in an age where the beacons are carried by radio on invisible sound waves. Beacons, old and new, serve at least two important functions: First, a warning is given of ledges, shoals, and reefs. Second, the beacons and buoys flash the direction of where we should go – the deep waters which are the channel to the harbor and safety of the pier.

Doubt is a personal beacon. Doubt can indicate where not to go. Doubt also guides us in safer channels of living. It should be noted that “doubt” must be distinguished from a barren skepticism. There is a hackneyed, and quite unfair definition of a religious liberal which goes something like this: “a liberal is one who strongly disbelieves anything that anyone else believes, and has a strong, sustaining faith in he does not know quite what.” While Somerset Maugham may have thought this an accurate description of a liberal, it is the attitude of the dogmatic skeptic, rather than the questioning liberal, who, while entertaining doubts, at the same time wants to grow in understanding and to develop more profound and meaningful values.

The doubt that is “the beacon of the wise,” is the doubt that does not reject beliefs with hostility, merely because someone else believes them. The “beacon of the wise” is the “modest doubt” that clarifies understanding by questioning beliefs that have become dogmas in the mind of the majority. Doubt that seeks truth and understanding will cherish something of the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson (quoted by Phillips Russell, Jefferson, Champion of the Free Mind, p. 145):

“Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one, he must approve of the homage of reason rather than that of blindfolded fear... If it ends in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a god, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye and that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement.”

Tennyson, you will recall, said that “there is more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds.” Robert Ingersoll commented, in typical fashion something to the effect that there is more doubt in honest faith than is ever admitted in the ponderous certainties of professional theologians.

Victor Hugo, in Les Miserables, with literary genius, illustrates the positive power of doubt in two conversations with non-believers carried on by the good Bishop Myriel. First, he meets the Count. The Count scorned the God ideas, immortality and religious-ethical beliefs. To him these ideas were below the level of the philosopher-rulers of his great stature. He was quite willing that the great mass of persons should believe in God AND be deprived of the satisfaction of enough food, decent housing and cultural advantages. Religious beliefs would take the place of the bread and butter their stomachs craved. The kindly Bishop dismissed the arrogance of the Count with gentle, but penetrating irony. The Count personified the quality of snobbish shallowness which is quite deadly to the recovery of religious significance. Superciliousness is not only arrogant, but ignorant; not only destructive, but non-productive.

In contrast is the conversation between the good Bishop and the dying, agnostic revolutionist. The old radical had seen his dreams come true, only to see the bright hopes clouded over when the Reign of Terror prostituted the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity which had sparked the capture of the Bastille and the oath of the Tennis Courts. As his life ebbed away, the old agnostic could look back on an old age which had been punctuated by poverty, and worse yet, he had been rejected by his fellow-men for whom he had given his mind and strength. In spite of such blows, his reverence for life was so profound that, even though the agnostic revolutionist cannot honestly use the name of God, the good Bishop goes to his knees, asking for the blessing of one the church called “atheist.”

Why? There is a spirit of reverence in “modest doubt” which can be considerably more religious than enthusiastic recitation of creeds of ages long-gone.

The story told by Hugo is one of those universal stories, true in any age, warning us of the principal peril that any religion must encounter. There is always the danger that religion will be popular simply because it fails to penetrate the darkened crust of our selfishness. Religion always faces the horrible hazard of being nothing but a protective facade, disguising an inner corrosion; -- hiding the decay of things which are most vital.

Thus, it follows that if doubt is a vital religious process, it cannot function healthfully in a vacuum void of values. If doubt is to be a light of wisdom for us, we must have a place to stand. Otherwise we are like the men described by Henry Drummond, the great preacher of another day. He told of being on an ocean liner halted in the middle of the Atlantic because of failure of engines. Dr. Drummond said he became suddenly aware that if all the 500 able-bodied men on the ship clustered around the smokestack and pushed with all their might, -- the ship would get exactly nowhere – would still be controlled by the winds and currents.

We, too, need a place to stand. Otherwise we will be battered and destroyed by all the cross-currents and contradictions.

There is a foundation for modest doubt. Here are parts of such a foundation. (You might add other components.):

First, question, - even challenge, - any religious institution that separates morality from religious consciousness. The institution of religion is justified if it helps people to live more effectively; if it helps persons to achieve individual and group needs for love, freedom, and belonging to a great cause. When an institution frustrates those basic needs of persons, then modest, but courageous doubt must assert the priority of human values over decayed institutions.

Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” has become one of the grand expressions of historic Protestantism. Yet Luther developed hist strong and great faith by beginning with sincere doubt. When the ecclesiastical and political nobles were concluding the proceedings at Wurms, they witnessed Luther take his ultimate position on the basis or religious morality. “I can say nothing against conscience, God helping me, I can do no other. Here I stand.”

Furthermore, this stand on morality, rather than institutionalism, must be a person-centered morality. This is a value judgment. The religious institution is but a framework in which people attempt to meet the needs they label religious. This framework is not an end in itself. When the church (institution) becomes more important than the human needs which led to the birth of the church, then it is time to look with doubt on the structure and purpose of this institution. Henry Clay Lindgren cogently expresses this point of view in his recent book, Meaning, Antidote to Anxiety. He remarks, “organized religion can help mankind by providing the place and the opportunity for self-discovery and self-understanding.”

Jesus was a doubter. He doubted the value of institutions when they neglected a person centered morality. There is tremendous impact in Chapter 5 of Matthew. One could describe this chapter as a “person-centered approach to doubt.”

Jesus says, “You are the light of the world.” “You are the salt of the earth.” Starting with these essentials he goes on to list constructive, modest doubts, which can still be “beacons to the wise.” “You have heard it said by men of old, You shall not kill, whoever kills shall be liable to the judgment, But I say to you everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to the judgment. You have heard it said ... but I say unto you.” He goes on in the instances of adultery, divorce, false witness, revenge and hate to doubt that the old attitudes are still valid. Why? Because they are not person-centered.

Thus the foundation includes not only religious morality, but also morality that centers in on the needs of persons.

Furthermore, it can be suggested that the “beacon of the wise,” will include the attitude of readiness to face facts and make needed changes. Arnold Toynbee, the historian, said, “But how, I ask you, can one lift up one’s heart and apply one’s mind unless one does one’s best to find out the relevant facts and look them in the face.”

There is a positive value in change which the history of any science, any government, any religion, will supply ample testimony.

The distinguished English actress, Dame Sybil Thorndike is now appearing on Broadway. Recently she was interviewed by a writer for a religious magazine. She was asked if there was any conflict between religious faith and a theatrical career. She answered, “No, there’s no conflict. My acting is really, a confession. I’m a high Anglican, you know, but I quit going to confession. My priest agreed. I said to him, ‘It’s my confession when I’m acting. You have to search in every character for the part of yourself that’s in it. There but for the grace of god ... I might have done that ... You say you don’t like the miracle in the play, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is to be searching. YOU’RE NOT SURE, THEN YOU’RE ALIVE. That’s a negative way of putting it, but its right for our time.’”

The worth of persons and the positive value of change are the foundation of modest doubt. Our religious education series is known as the “Beacon” series. It is well-named in the sense we have been describing. It encourages us to look at people and their religions. The Beacon series asks us to consider ourselves, and our relation to the past and the present. It asks us to be ALIVE by searching.

We must maintain a vigilant attitude of wholesome values, we must search for unfolding truths in intellectual honesty, rather than prudent defensiveness. Changes we must accept, as we accept the changes of wisdom and stature in our individual minds and bodies. Browning said it well:

“Nothing can be as it has been before;
Better, so call it, only not the same.
To draw one beauty into our heart’s core;
And keep it changeless: such our claim;
So answered, never more.

“Simple? Why, this is the woe of the world:
Time, to whose rise and fall we live and die
Rise with it then. Rejoice that man is hurled
From change to change unceasingly.
His soul’s wings never furled.”

End Sermon

CJW Postscript:

3/6/95 – It occurred to me as I was typing from the original that either through ignorance or insensitivity I did not degenderize - “men”, “he”, etc. But in the ensuing 38 years I think I’ve learned.

Mariner

February 13, 1995

My Great-uncle Andrew is etched on my memories of by-gone days. He was a brother of my grandfather, John Wilson, who was the most unforgettable man of my experience. Some day I’ll write about my grandfather; but so far, each time I try, I put the pen down because I fear the result will be too maudlin.

Andrew Wilson was the kind of man about whom Robert Louis Stevenson could have written. Jack London would have found a way to make him a character in a story of the sea. The most picaresque image in my mind is that of Uncle Andrew walking up George Street from the Ferry Street streetcar with “Polly”, the parrot, perched on his forearm.

Polly became a fixture in the households of my mother, Aunt Florence, and Aunt Fanny. I don’t know whether Polly was shuffled from one house to another every few months because she was a privilege to be shared or a nuisance to be equally borne.

John Wilson was a year or two the elder of the brothers. Both were born in Sweden either in Örnsköldsvik or Härnösand. Both are port cities on the Gulf of Bothnia. The reason for the uncertainty is that my grandmother came from one of the cities and the brothers from the other, but I don’t know which was which. Both shipped out as as cabin boys somewhere between ten and twelve years of age. Both learned the ropes and ways of the sea. My grandfather married Annette Brock (“Anna” pronounced Ahnuh) in Sweden. They migrated to the United States, settling in Boston and raised five, possibly six, daughters: Anna, Elizabeth, Carrie, Florence, Fanny and ?.

Uncle Andrew and my grandfather did not look like brothers except in size. They were both about four inches over six feet tall, big boned, but not overweight. My grandfather had white thin hair, light skin, sharp nose and high cheek-bones – much like the Scandinavian stereotype. Uncle Andrew, however, had a full head of black hair even in his eighties. His skin was dark, almost swarthy, with a big nose and a piratical mustache – more like the facial appearance of a Greek or a Mediterranean type. My mother also had black hair and a darker skin than her sisters so there must have been something in the genes from somewhere. Uncle Andrew explained his black hair by saying that he always washed it with kerosene. My surmise is that this “shampoo” was not so much to preserve the blackness as to eliminate tiny creatures which I am sure must have been common aboard ship.

When I knew him, Uncle Andrew was more bent over than his straight-backed brother and walked with a little difficulty. Not surprising when one knew that in the course of sixty to seventy years at sea, he had more than once had broken arms, ribs, legs, hips – falling from masts and rigging. He was much resentful, when in his late seventies, he could no longer get a job on a freighter. He died at the age of 87; and his last years were spent at Sailors’ Snug Harbor on Staten Island, New York City, a seamen’s home with some sort of Masonic connection. Uncle Andrew was a Mason; Uncle John Granstrom a Shriner, which didn’t hurt when Uncle Andrew’s application to Sailors’ Snug Harbor was considered.

But most of all, I enjoyed his stories. Like many old Salts, one could not be sure that his “yarns” were precisely accurate in all details. At the forefront of my memories is Swedish Christmas Eve (about which I have written elsewhere). If Uncle Andrew was in port, he would be there with his stories about the Bible, the hospital in Havana and the “Big Finn”. If he started on “Seenyoreetas”, one of the aunts would stop him, “There are children at the table.” He had a peculiar patois – broken English, Swedish accent, with some Spanish mixed in, like dressing in a salad. For many years he had shipped on United Fruit vessels to Central America, Havana, and other Caribbean ports.

The Havana story has stayed in my mind-pictures. Later on, when I asked my mother or one of the aunts, “was he telling the truth?”, the answer was, “you don’t think Uncle Andrew would lie, do you?” Reflecting years later, I realized that my question was not precisely answered.

Anyway, Uncle Andrew described being hospitalized in Havana. He had been diagnosed with what he called “The Fever.” He noted one night that another patient in the ward was given “a big black pill.” In the morning, the man was dead. The same pattern occurred another evening “He got the big black pill and in the morning he was dead.” He went on, “The next night they gave me the big black pill, but I only pretended to take it. When the lights were out I got out of the window, down the fire-escape, went to the harbor and swam out to my ship.”

Hard to believe? Of course! But I believed it then and still do – of course my Uncle Andrew could have done that. Another memory is that to my childish eyes, his hands seemed as large as tennis rackets; and I felt their size and strength when he would pick me up.

Christmas Eve, when Uncle Andrew was there, usually took a turn that was biblical and theological. As I have thought back, there were no believing Christians there. My Uncle Frank Crimmins was Roman Catholic, but he and Aunt Fanny lived in New York City and did not often get to Boston. Those gathered at the Yule table were skeptics, but that interfered not a whit in their consumption of food and drink (particularly drink). The men went to the 5 a.m. Julotta service at a Swedish church. That still puzzles me a bit because as far as I know, that early Christmas service was the only religious service any of them attended all year.

Uncle Andrew was the only one familiar with the Bible. Through the years of voyaging he had read the Bible again and again. At the Christmas Eve feast he would expound. My phonetic spelling of his Christmas “theology” doesn’t capture his accent, but it’s the best I can do:

“Yeesus Christ was a goot fellow, but he wass a bastard – it says so in the Book. Joseph did not know Mary wass going to have a baby. But Joseph wass a goot fellow, too.”

Of course at that age I did not know enough to to understand what heresy, even blasphemy, that Uncle Andrew spoke. A few years later when I was becoming somewhat aware of the Bible and how it came to be; and then more years later in Theological School and more formal Bible studies, I marveled how Uncle Andrew with little formal education to speak of, had perceived the heart of the matter – that doctrinal or creedal beliefs about Jesus and his father, Joseph, weren’t nearly as vital as what they understood and how they acted in their dealings with other persons. In such perception, Uncle Andrew was a “goot fellow”, too.

So perhaps you can understand a bit how his brother, his nieces and their husbands, and the smaller fry always had a big warm welcome for this carpenter when he came home from the sea. I never see a parrot but what the image pops in my mind of Uncle Andrew walking up George Street with Polly perched on his arm.

Once Again, A Minority View

January 18, 1995

On Monday, January 17, in Union, South Carolina, Susan Smith’s prosecutor said in the courtroom that he had to seek the death penalty for her. Susan Smith confessed to the murder of her two young sons after initially alleging that a carjacker kidnapped the little boys. Added to the notoriety was her false statement that the kidnapper was a Black man.

The prosecuting attorney, Tommy Pope, was also quoted that he sought her death by electrocution to “assure that people remembered the two young sons she drowned were the victims and not her.”

For more than 67 years I have been opposed to capital punishment, no matter how vicious the crime. That makes me a member of another minority because there is no doubt that a vast majority of the people of this country support the death penalty. Why do I maintain this stance when I am so outnumbered?

Late on an August evening in 1927, a teen-age boy sat in the kitchen corner while a tinny, primitive radio reported a story that went around the world. Five miles away in an old, dismal, rat-infested prison, located near a clattering, ugly bridge spanning a large railroad switching yard, the electric lights dimmed and brightened several times. After a short period of time, the dimming and brightening re-occurred. The pattern of dimming signified the instants when thousands of volts of electricity were jolted into the bodies of two men, Sacco and Vanzetti. Sixty-seven years ago, I was that teen-ager who listened with awed and fearful fascination.

It was a night to remember. The radio reporter described the thousands of people congregated in the streets near Charlestown State Prison, muttering and surging as the two immigrants, one a shoe-worker, one a fish pedlar, were killed by decree of the State of Massachusetts. In the years that followed, I read everything I could find about the case, and came to believe that Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent of the crime for which they were executed. Because they were political anarchists and economic radicals they were the victims of an unjust verdict and a prejudiced judge.

The youthful experience of living near enough to the death house at Charlestown State Prison, so that, a few years later, almost daily I would drive by that institution of hopelessness, undoubtedly played a role in bringing me to a conviction that capital punishment is morally wrong, socially ineffective and personally harmful.

That experience branded me as far as capital punishment is concerned. I could muster the arguments against the death penalty, but I surmise that most of you are familiar with the details: that the death penalty does does not deter capital crimes or reform people; that feelings of revenge play a large part; that innocent persons have been executed; and that the law is not equally applied. (When is the last time you knew of a rich person being executed? In the present notorious O.J. case, the prosecutors announced before the trial begins that they will not seek the death penalty.)

I will concede as Charles Beals once pointed out that if a murderer is executed, that particular he/she will never kill another person. But, to me, that point is transcended by the persuasive case against the death penalty.

Furthermore, history teaches me that executions once thought legal and just, we would look on as both horrible and perversions of freedom, justice, and mercy. For example, Leonard Levy points out in his scholarly and illuminating study, BLASPHEMY:

In 13th century England, a deacon converted to Judaism when he fell in love with a Jewish woman. Found guilty of apostasy in an ecclesiastical court, presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the deacon was executed by being burned at the stake.

Adam Duff, in the 14th century, was burned alive in Dublin because he rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. That hits me where I live because I share Adam Duff’s anti-Trinitarianism.

Levy quotes a Catholic source who pointed out that in the last four years of (“Bloody”) Mary’s reign, something like 273 of her subjects were executed by burning because they obstinately adhered to beliefs that contradicted the teachings of the Roman Catholic church.

Protestants need not feel smug or self-righteous, because they were equally cruel. The Puritans in the the Massachusetts Bay Colony had 13 crimes subject to the death penalty by hanging: witchcraft, idolatry, blasphemy, homicide, rape, adultery, bestiality, sodomy, false witness with intent to kill, and a child 16 years or older who was “stubborn” or “rebellious”. All these laws, except rape, were taken from the first five books of the Old Testament. (If you are a believer in the complete inerrancy of the Bible, let me know so I can warn people). Source: ALBION’S SEED, David Hackett Fisher.

Thus, I still don’t hold with the death penalty. Shakespeare has Prospero say about those who tried to kill him and his child, and who are now in his power:

“Yet with my nobler reason gainst fury
Do I take my part:
The rarer action is in virtue
than in vengeance.” (THE TEMPEST, Act V, Sc. 1)

While I don’t particularly feel virtuous, like Prospero, I believe that any justification for the death penalty is far outweighed by its failure to solve social problems, except sating the itch for vengeance.

Thus, I hope that the jury and/or judge do not pronounce execution for Susan Smith even though dreadful was her crime.

I’m Not Easily Shocked, But:

January 3, 1995

John Salvi is the accused murderer of two persons and wounding five others at a Brookline, Massachusetts, medical clinic where abortion procedures are available. In yesterday’s Tampa Tribune, a friend of Salvi’s named Christo, defended Salvi and criticized the media for “portraying Salvi as a serial killer; instead of a nice guy.”

Christo added what I consider a most outrageous statement: “There's nothing wrong with John whatsoever other than he killed a couple of people.”

How many persons would Salvi have to kill to change Christos’ opinion that Salvi was a “nice guy?”

Mark Twain observed, “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”

I trust that there is no need to go on for pages to elaborate on the vicious and deadly distortion of human values represented by Salvi and his apologist friend, Christos.

What a bizarre contradiction that Christo is a variety of the name of the Christ.

In the social/political/religious framework, it is well to remember an observation by Lewis Lapham of HARPER’S: “The spirit of liberty is never far from anarchy.”

Introduction To Musings VI

December 1995

A Merry Yule and happy, healthy New Year is my wish for you all.

Not every one of you may know that I have a new address:

Apt. 814
930 N. Tamiami Trail
Sarasota, FL 34236

Since moving to Jefferson Center in August, I have adjusted well to a one-room “efficiency.” More simplified living is appropriate because for the first time in my eight-four years I have experienced serious health problems.

For many reasons, Sarasota is a desirable city in which to live and I am savoring its many attractions.

Bless you, everyone.

Little Lamb Who Made Thee

May, 1993
Brooksville

September, 1995
Lakeland

Re-write from 1982

Opening Words:

I am aware that I am speaking to many of you who are at least two generations following mine; I have grandchildren younger than some.

My purpose today is not to proclaim certainties when there are many doubts.

My intention is not to disturb your convictions, for if you have convictions, you can respond.

That which sustains me is not a metaphysical absolute or a religious creed, but the human values and human civility without which we could not gather in peace.

Here we have freedom to inquire into any and all the major and minor ideas and issues of the human enterprise. My purpose is not to impress you with my beliefs or my doubts, but to stimulate you to ask yourself, “what sustains me?”and attempt an answer. If that occurs, my time will have been usefully spent.

William Blake
THE LAMB

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

William Blake
THE TIGER

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

May Swenson
THE UNIVERSE
[not yet in public domain]

Phyllis McGinley
TIMES THREE
[not yet in public domain]

Sermon:

William Blake’s two questions, enclosed in his vivid, mystic images, emphasize the dilemma one finds when attempting to deal with the question of a Creator. Blake deals with the creator of the gentle lamb with the answer that the creator incarnated himself as a little child, God becomes child. But Blake with his image of the fearful, savage tiger, he does not answer – leaves only the question. The question: can a good creator who makes the gentle lamb also bring into being the fierce tiger? That poetic economy expresses the quandary, ever-present, when an effort is made to discover what God is, what God does, or even if God exists.

I trust my remarks will show a certain modesty. Although the libraries are abundantly shelved with books on the subject; and sermons from most pulpits, are replete with pronouncements pleadings and persuasions about God, talking about God reminds me of a sentence I once read defining “journalism”: “a profession whose business it is to explain to others what it personally does not understand.” The last line of Phyllis McGinley's poem applies, “God knows which God is the God God recognizes.”

[Crossed out: It is also a “given” in a Unitarian Universalist society that when the minister talks about God, there will be a mix of reactions – the bored (what's he talking about THAT dull stuff for?); the hurt (he’s attacking my cherished belief); the patriotic anger (“this country was founded on God, and he’s trying to shake the foundation”). It may or may not come as a surprise to you, but ministers receive many criticisms as well as some compliments. Which reminds me of a minister’s story about the time he was ordained: An old lady, a family friend, asked him, “Was it your own idea or were you poorly advised?”]

Let’s begin with definitions – “a good dictionary is one of the best lie detectors.”

An atheist denies the existence of any god or gods.

An agnostic holds that it is not possible to acquire with certainty knowledge of whether or not god(s) exist. As originally coined by Thomas Huxley, the word “agnostic” indicated a suspension of judgment about ultimate issues.

A Deist believes that there is a god who created the universe, analogically like a clockmaker who makes a clock, winds it up – and departs. Such a god is not the source of goodness, not a moral being, and has no communication with human beings. Many times referred to, as Jefferson did, the God of Nature.

A Theist usually believes that God is a personal both above and within the Universe and who has moral relations with persons.

A Humanist is even more difficult to define briefly. She/he may be theist, deist, agnostic, or atheist as far as the idea of God is concerned, but holds that the proper focus of religion should be fixed at human life on earth; life here and now. To repeat the familiar and classic definitions of humanism: “man is the measure of all things.” (Protagoras ) – “the proper study of mankind is man” (Pope). In another sense, the Humanist may believe that the only source of human knowledge is from human perception, individual and collective, natural only, never supernatural; that beliefs in god(s) are the product of human culture and heritage, individual and social; that religious beliefs are always relative, never absolute.

Usually, the questions about God can be roughly divided into those who have different answers to such questions, as, is God a human-like Creator dwelling in a supernatural realm? Or is God an impersonal force? Others answer in terms of verbal or artistic symbols which point to the mystery in growth, change, creation, destruction.

There seems to have been a history of change in the idea of God. Long before history was written, human worshiped the gods of the seasons. In autumn, vegetation and foliage withered, fruitfulness was ended. When spring came, the earth revived. The mysterious process of seedtime, growth, and harvest stirred deep religious feelings. The spirits of corn and wild were worshiped as gods, who, through will and whim, sustained humans. The Greeks called the mystery, Adonis; the Babylonians, Tammuz; the Celts and Scots, John Barleycorn – and such are only a few of the names of the dying-rising savior god of vegetation, who was a “hero with a thousand faces,” as Joseph Campbell described in his book of that name.

The belief that God created man in his image is a foundation of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Although most persons are relatively uninformed about the sacred writings of the Jewish and Christian traditions, nearly everyone would know that somewhere in the book of Genesis, there appears the statement that God made man in his (God’s) image. (1/26, “let us make man in our image after our likeness.”) The implications of the plural “our” seem not to bother believers, even though it is a contradiction of “one god.” I go along with those scholars who believe that ages ago, prehistoric, God was both male and female (androgynous); or that, in some cultures, two gods, one male, one female, shared the powers.

In the Western world, our roots are mainly in Indo-European stock of peoples, even though the origins of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are Semitic. Historically, God has been masculine, bearded, with European facial, skin, and hair characteristics, generally. That is what God is, because we are his image, or so it is widely believed. After all, that is the way Michelangelo painted God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Would there be the same picture if we were African, Polynesian, or American Indian, untouched by Western Christian culture? Of course not. More than 2500 years ago, Xenophanes, poet and philosopher of ancient Greece (540-500 BCE) observed the religious scene of his day. He noted that the gods and goddesses of his land were Greeks of beautiful body, possessing the qualities of strength, courage, and intellect which were valued and admired by Greek people. As Xenophanes, long ago, came to know Africans, he discovered that their gods were black of skin. The gods of Asians were cast in Asian mold. So Xenophanes, long ago, came to the conclusion that man creates his gods in man’s image. If our culture had been maternal instead of paternal, woman would have Created God in woman’s image.

As best as we can understand pre-historic peoples, the pressure of survival shaped their gods. The storm threatened, the drought would starve, the flood would drown. But a balance of sunshine and rain provided people with enough food to survive. Little wonder that the powers of nature stirred fear. The gods of sun, rain, thunder, vegetation, water were ritually worshiped with awe and wonder – and sacrifice.

Gods came to be worshiped because of other beginnings. Perhaps one person gave great and heroic service. Within a few generations because of impact and memory, the tribe promoted the hero to god-ship.

When one considers the ancient Hebrew legends and myths, Yahveh may have been a mountain god, originally, perhaps an active volcano. This may be the origin of the reference in the old scripture that the children of Israel were led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. This would describe with some accuracy an active volcano being used as a distant point of guidance.

Then, gradually, the image of God began to display new attitudes and concerns. From scanty evidence at first, we can trace the growth to an image of God concerned about the poor, the oppressed, the sinful. The ethical prophets, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Jeremiah Isaiah, proclaimed this image. The image becomes more and more inclusive and all peoples became included in God’s dominion. Everyone must answer for his conduct to this one eternal and universal Yahveh. One scholar (Welch – JEREMIAH) wrote, “the Old Testament prophets are terribly one-idea men. They all believe that Yahveh acts.” If the image of God in your mind is a uniting of creation and high morality, then you owe much of that image to the Jews. That image is their religion.

Centuries later, another Jew, Jesus, was emphatic in attributing additional form and qualities to the image. The image became like one’s father. Jesus lived in a social setting where the father of the family was the law-giver. But a good father was not only a firm ruler, he was also kind and just, who should be loved as well as obeyed. For Jesus the image became warm, strong, and affectionate, “Our Heavenly Father.” One wonders if Jesus had been reared in a maternal rather than a paternal culture he would have prayed to our “heavenly mother.”

Then the Christian church added to the image – rather, the theologians multiplied it. The Lord who was one became three, the Trinity. The person of Jesus as well as the Holy Ghost became part of a three-in-one image. In a cartoon strip which appeared in the Lakeland newspaper, a character referred to the Trinity as “three awesome dudes.”

Although most Christians still pray to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (or Spirit), the idea of God has changed. When tyrant kings were all-powerful, the image of God became that of the monarch. In the ferment of change when there were increasing constitutional liberties and in some countries increasing scientific knowledge of cosmology, biology and psychology, the image became the God “within”, the divine spark in the soul to which persons voluntarily could respond. God, for many, was no longer the arbitrary monarch, but rather, the pervasive Presence in all life.

Then in the late 19th century, theology was hit with a bombshell, with delayed fuses still igniting. Led by Freud and his successors, who analyzed human behavior, it was pointed out that we tend to make gods of our childish wishes that may have been unfulfilled and unforgotten, but repressed. The mixture of fear and love with which with which we reacted at depth to our fathers had been unconsciously projected onto the screen of religious faith – The “Fatherhood of God” strikes deeply within us and echoes those mixed feelings of fear, jealousy, love, and awe. The late Father Thomas Merton, the Cistercian monk who wrote such penetrating meditations, observed, “Our ideas about God tell us more about ourselves than they do about God.”

Then, too, the idea of a good loving God with concern for all his children has always been flush up against the wall of unmerited suffering. Not the evil that persons do to persons. The terrible tragedy in Waco cannot be blamed on any god – but on the madness some religions incite. But there is also the suffering that the forces of Nature inflict upon persons. Just recall the March 13th storm and less recent, but still fresh in our minds, Hurricane Andrew. [CJW note: Tornadoes annihilated 5000 Kobe, Japan, January; Okla. City] There are volcanic eruptions in the Philippines, recently, devastating green fertility to a dead, gray wasteland. How does one fit a good, caring God into such disasters which happen somewhere every month or so. One is reminded of Robert Ingersoll’s statement that if he had been God, he would have made health infectious instead of disease. Or as Shakespeare has Gloucester say to King Lear, “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.”

“Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night –
What immortal hand or eye dare
frame thy fearful symmetry.”

Or, as poet May Swenson inquired,
“and what if the universe
is NOT ABOUT us?
Then what?”

[CJW note: Hume quote]

It must also be said, however, if the constant presence of disastrous evils creates a trackless wilderness when seeking a good God, one must also account for goodness – not only the gifts of Nature which have provided a world where we can live, eat, love, mate, and find shelter, but also a world where in spite of evil men and oppressive movements, there are good people, kind women and men, persons who give of themselves so that others may live and grow. Then, too, why are we conscious of anything at all, particularly loving and nurturing?

In recent decades, theologians, philosophers, scientists have been asking, is there a God beyond the god of fertile crops who must be appeased by sacrifice? Beyond the warrior gods? Beyond the gods of our wish projections? Beyond the father in heaven? Beyond the god who manipulated the three-story universe in the age before Copernicus? Is there a God beyond the gods of human thought and imagining? There are attempts: Tillich wrote of God as the “ground of Being” - not A being, but being itself (if you can under-that) – A Tao, a Way from which all beings and things emanate – which cannot be known – has no form or attributes – is unconditioned when all we know is conditioned – is infinite where all we know and can know is finite?

The late Eustace Haydon, who taught history of religions at the University of Chicago, commented, “Scientific philosophers and theologians who cannot still believe in the robust god of Christianity have in the last generation offered us substitutes for Him. They include the Impersonal Absolute, The World Soul, the grand Etre, The Spiritual Nisus of an Evolving Universe, the Unknowable, the Totality of Life, the Life Force, the Common Will, the Determiner of Destiny, a Growing God, a Cosmic Mathematician, the Principle of Concretion, the Utterly Other, the Imagined Synthesis of Ideal Ends, and many more.

But it seems to me that inventing a name, however intriguing, does not demonstrate there is an objective entity behind the name.

Now it may seem rude, but to me all these substitutes for the fading old gods are simply contrived name tags on that which cannot be named; putting labels on mystery which cannot be fathomed; asserting knowledge which cannot be verified and is, thus, speculation.

Where all this strikes you, I cannot guess. But the older I get, in matters metaphysical, the less help I get from theologians, scientists, philosophers. The poets, composers, artists, musicians, dramatists do not inform me of proper theological discourse (I’m glad of that), but I resonate to some of their creative imagery. I will never know all I am, but I feel that in me and in you, are the forces of what we call the Cosmos – gravity, atomic structures, electro-magnetism, positive and negative discharges of electricity, chemical synthesis and re-synthesis, growth, change, creation, destructions. But naming such processes do not fully explain who I am, who you are, who we are.

Sometimes I feel the mood which grasped Francis Thompson, poet-mystic, when he created the “Hound of Heaven.” Do you remember these lines from that poem:

“I dimly guess
what Time in mist confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;
Those shaken mists awhile unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.”

What the poet described as “the trumpet sounds,” Abraham Maslow called peak experiences. When this happens we have broken through the crust of Self. The interpretations we give these moments differ, not only because of unlike heritage and different experiences of each of us, but also, words are inadequate, for me at least, and I attach no deity-name to the experience. Alfred North Whitehead was more eloquent than most of us when he wrote (quoted by Margaret Isherwood, FAITH WITHOUT DOGMA), “this creative principle is everywhere, in animate and so-called inanimate matter, in the ether, water, earth, human hearts. But the creation is a continuing process, and the process itself is the actuality, since no sooner do you arrive than you start on a fresh journey.”

May I make a personal witness? I have pondered the great mystery for many years. Yes, I am an agnostic. I do not know the answer or even the proper questions. But in my ninth decade on this earth, I am more and more a SEEKING agnostic. It is not fear of death, even though I have lived at least 9/10ths of my life. I do not know that when I die I will meet a totally blank wall or a door opening to some uncharted surprise. Meanwhile, I try to travel with an open mind and a seeking heart. That is the “Triptik” for my journey till the day I die, reminding myself occasionally of the saying by the medieval woman mystic, Julian of Norwich, “all will be well; all will be well; all manner of things will be well.”

The Beacon of the Wise

May 12, 1957
Akron

One of the more erroneous notions that many persons cherish is the belief that doubt is a negative virtue, if it is a virtue at all. Radio voices, sometimes ominously sepulchral, sometimes merely irritatingly “folksy”, have a habit of ringing the changes on the accepted idea that the doubter lives in anxiety and dies in uncertainty. If only the doubter would have “faith”, we are exhorted, not only would his future be assured, but also his digestion would improve because he would have the “power of positive thinking”, and “every-day in every way he would be getting better and better,”

In my opinion much of this “buck-up-old-boy” philosophy is either nonsense, or is the elevation of the trivial, even though it may be complacently called “faith”. Now while I do not deny that there is at least some value in positive suggestions, in this sermon I want to attempt to state the case for the proposition that doubt can function in a manner which will lead us to a more healthy life and a more satisfactory religion.

In Troilus and Cressida (Act II, scene 3), Shakespeare has Hector say, “

The wound of peace is surety,

Surety secure; but modest doubt is call’d

The beacon of the wise, the tent that

searches to the bottom of the worst.”

As he did so many times, Shakespeare demonstrated amazing insight into human character and the human condition when he called modest doubt the “beacon of the wise.”

As one travels the coastlines of our country, the winking beacons of the lighthouses are picturesque scenery to the land-traveler. To the men who go down to the sea in ships, these beacons are a necessity. In ancient days these beacons were signal fires. As men began to know more about optics and mechanics, great reflectors thrust light out to the deep waters so that mariners might be safely guided. We now live in an age where the beacons are carried by radio on invisible sound waves. Beacons, old and new, serve at least two important functions: First, a warning is given of ledges, shoals, and reefs. Second, the beacons and buoys flash the direction of where we should go – the deep waters which are the channel to the harbor and safety of the pier.

Doubt is a personal beacon. Doubt can indicate where not to go. Doubt also guides us in safer channels of living. It should be noted that “doubt” must be distinguished from a barren skepticism. There is a hackneyed, and quite unfair definition of a religious liberal which goes something like this: “a liberal is one who strongly disbelieves anything that anyone else believes, and has a strong, sustaining faith in he does not know quite what.” While Somerset Maugham may have thought this an accurate description of a liberal, it is the attitude of the dogmatic skeptic, rather than the questioning liberal, who, while entertaining doubts, at the same time wants to grow in understanding and to develop more profound and meaningful values.

The doubt that is “the beacon of the wise,” is the doubt that does not reject beliefs with hostility, merely because someone else believes them. The “beacon of the wise” is the “modest doubt” that clarifies understanding by questioning beliefs that have become dogmas in the mind of the majority. Doubt that seeks truth and understanding will cherish something of the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson (quoted by Phillips Russell, Jefferson, Champion of the Free Mind, p. 145):

“Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one, he must approve of the homage of reason rather than that of blindfolded fear... If it ends in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a god, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye and that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement.”

Tennyson, you will recall, said that “there is more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds.” Robert Ingersoll commented, in typical fashion something to the effect that there is more doubt in honest faith than is ever admitted in the ponderous certainties of professional theologians.

Victor Hugo, in Les Miserables, with literary genius, illustrates the positive power of doubt in two conversations with non-believers carried on by the good Bishop Myriel. First, he meets the Count. The Count scorned the God ideas, immortality and religious-ethical beliefs. To him these ideas were below the level of the philosopher-rulers of his great stature. He was quite willing that the great mass of persons should believe in God AND be deprived of the satisfaction of enough food, decent housing and cultural advantages. Religious beliefs would take the place of the bread and butter their stomachs craved. The kindly Bishop dismissed the arrogance of the Count with gentle, but penetrating irony. The Count personified the quality of snobbish shallowness which is quite deadly to the recovery of religious significance. Superciliousness is not only arrogant, but ignorant; not only destructive, but non-productive.

In contrast is the conversation between the good Bishop and the dying, agnostic revolutionist. The old radical had seen his dreams come true, only to see the bright hopes clouded over when the Reign of Terror prostituted the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity which had sparked the capture of the Bastille and the oath of the Tennis Courts. As his life ebbed away, the old agnostic could look back on an old age which had been punctuated by poverty, and worse yet, he had been rejected by his fellow-men for whom he had given his mind and strength. In spite of such blows, his reverence for life was so profound that, even though the agnostic revolutionist cannot honestly use the name of God, the good Bishop goes to his knees, asking for the blessing of one the church called “atheist.”

Why? There is a spirit of reverence in “modest doubt” which can be considerably more religious than enthusiastic recitation of creeds of ages long-gone.

The story told by Hugo is one of those universal stories, true in any age, warning us of the principal peril that any religion must encounter. There is always the danger that religion will be popular simply because it fails to penetrate the darkened crust of our selfishness. Religion always faces the horrible hazard of being nothing but a protective facade, disguising an inner corrosion; -- hiding the decay of things which are most vital.

Thus, it follows that if doubt is a vital religious process, it cannot function healthfully in a vacuum void of values. If doubt is to be a light of wisdom for us, we must have a place to stand. Otherwise we are like the men described by Henry Drummond, the great preacher of another day. He told of being on an ocean liner halted in the middle of the Atlantic because of failure of engines. Dr. Drummond said he became suddenly aware that if all the 500 able-bodied men on the ship clustered around the smokestack and pushed with all their might, -- the ship would get exactly nowhere – would still be controlled by the winds and currents.

We, too, need a place to stand. Otherwise we will be battered and destroyed by all the cross-currents and contradictions.

There is a foundation for modest doubt. Here are parts of such a foundation. (You might add other components.):

First, question, - even challenge, - any religious institution that separates morality from religious consciousness. The institution of religion is justified if it helps people to live more effectively; if it helps persons to achieve individual and group needs for love, freedom, and belonging to a great cause. When an institution frustrates those basic needs of persons, then modest, but courageous doubt must assert the priority of human values over decayed institutions.

Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” has become one of the grand expressions of historic Protestantism. Yet Luther developed his strong and great faith by beginning with sincere doubt. When the ecclesiastical and political nobles were concluding the proceedings at Wurms, they witnessed Luther take his ultimate position on the basis or religious morality. “I can say nothing against conscience, God helping me, I can do no other. Here I stand.”

Furthermore, this stand on morality, rather than institutionalism, must be a person-centered morality. This is a value judgment. The religious institution is but a framework in which people attempt to meet the needs they label religious. This framework is not an end in itself. When the church (institution) becomes more important than the human needs which led to the birth of the church, then it is time to look with doubt on the structure and purpose of this institution. Henry Clay Lindgren cogently expresses this point of view in his recent book, Meaning, Antidote to Anxiety. He remarks, “organized religion can help mankind by providing the place and the opportunity for self-discovery and self-understanding.”

Jesus was a doubter. He doubted the value of institutions when they neglected a person centered morality. There is tremendous impact in Chapter 5 of Matthew. One could describe this chapter as a “person-centered approach to doubt.”

Jesus says, “You are the light of the world.” “You are the salt of the earth.” Starting with these essentials he goes on to list constructive, modest doubts, which can still be “beacons to the wise.” “You have heard it said by men of old, You shall not kill, whoever kills shall be liable to the judgment, But I say to you everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to the judgment. You have heard it said ... but I say unto you.” He goes on in the instances of adultery, divorce, false witness, revenge and hate to doubt that the old attitudes are still valid. Why? Because they are not person-centered.

Thus the foundation includes not only religious morality, but also morality that centers in on the needs of persons.

Furthermore, it can be suggested that the “beacon of the wise,” will include the attitude of readiness to face facts and make needed changes. Arnold Toynbee, the historian, said, “But how, I ask you, can one lift up one’s heart and apply one’s mind unless one does one’s best to find out the relevant facts and look them in the face.”

There is a positive value in change which the history of any science, any government, any religion, will supply ample testimony.

The distinguished English actress, Dame Sybil Thorndike is now appearing on Broadway. Recently she was interviewed by a writer for a religious magazine. She was asked if there was any conflict between religious faith and a theatrical career. She answered, “No, there’s no conflict. My acting is really, a confession. I’m a high Anglican, you know, but I quit going to confession. My priest agreed. I said to him, ‘It’s my confession when I’m acting. You have to search in every character for the part of yourself that’s in it. There but for the grace of god ... I might have done that ... You say you don’t like the miracle in the play, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is to be searching. YOU’RE NOT SURE, THEN YOU’RE ALIVE. That’s a negative way of putting it, but its right for our time.’”

The worth of persons and the positive value of change are the foundation of modest doubt. Our religious education series is known as the “Beacon” series. It is well-named in the sense we have been describing. It encourages us to look at people and their religions. The Beacon series asks us to consider ourselves, and our relation to the past and the present. It asks us to be ALIVE by searching.

We must maintain a vigilant attitude of wholesome values, we must search for unfolding truths in intellectual honesty, rather than prudent defensiveness. Changes we must accept, as we accept the changes of wisdom and stature in our individual minds and bodies. Browning said it well:

“Nothing can be as it has been before;

Better, so call it, only not the same.

To draw one beauty into our heart’s core;

And keep it changeless: such our claim;

So answered, never more.

“Simple? Why, this is the woe of the world:

Time, to whose rise and fall we live and die

Rise with it then. Rejoice that man is hurled

From change to change unceasingly.

His soul’s wings never furled.”