forty years.

As most (both) readers will know, today is the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Two weeks after Good Friday, marking the violent death of another hero, who knew that if he kept going the way he was going, he was likely going to get killed. And he kept going anyway.

In the year or so before he was killed, Dr. King was being more and more public about his opposition to war and economic injustice. I think it's appropriate for me to post the lyrics to "Joe Hill", one of my favorite songs, in his honor today. In some ways, Joe Hill and Dr. King were in different struggles; in some ways not.

Here are the lyrics; the song is by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson. I'll sing it for you sometime if you don't know it.

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.

"In Salt Lake, Joe," says I to him,
him standing by my bed,
"They framed you on a murder charge,"
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead,"
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."

"The Copper Bosses killed you Joe,
they shot you Joe" says I.
"Takes more than guns to kill a man"
Says Joe "I didn't die"
Says Joe "I didn't die"

And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes.
Says Joe "What they can never kill
went on to organize,
went on to organize"

From San Diego up to Maine,
in every mine and mill,
where working-men defend their rights,
it's there you find Joe Hill,
it's there you find Joe Hill!

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.

why did Jesus die?

Listen to this: (from Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power by Rita Nakashima Brock)

"Jesus' death was tragic, but it neither had to happen nor was part of a divine plan for salvation... The brokenheartedness revealed in his death is created by the political systems of patriarchal society and was neither inevitable nor necessary. Such evidence of brokenheartedness does call us, however, to take heed and to understand.
Persons we love evoke our compassion, and to claim anyone's premature death is necessary leads us to thinking suffering is something we cannot protest. To make claims that any person's tragic, painful death is divinely willed or necessary for others to be saved mutes our ability to be angry about unnecessary suffering. Such claims dull the acuteness of our caring. We lose our rage at injustice and our passionate desire to eliminate the structures that produce brokenheartedness. We lose heart." (p.93-94)

That's interesting. However: does it ignore the lived experience of people in the pews, for whom there is power in the blood, for whom Jesus' death is a crucial event?

I don't know. We talked about it in class this morning.

Also: in this book, Brock talks a lot about Heart as a powerful, connective strength that subtly defeats more imperialistic kinds of power. I have to think of Captain Planet, and that totally makes the fifth ring all the better. Anybody know if there's a Captain Planet/ feminist theology link? The book is old enough that someone from the show could have conceivably read it...

Perhaps I'll post more good lines/paragraphs from class readings.

a word from claus

Last night, on the advice of my spiritual direction group (no kidding) rachael and i went on a date. We later figured out that it was the first time we went out to dinner (just the two of us) in over a year. Too long.

Anyway, first we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which was great. If you live in Chicago: it's free til November 14th, and after that you can get a pass from the Chicago Public Library. I suppose you could even pay, if you had to.

The thing I want to post is a quote from Claus Oldenberg, which was the body of one of the descriptive plates by a work of his in the museum.

Here goes:

"I am for an art that is political-erotic-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.
I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance to have a starting point of zero.
I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap & still comes out on top.
I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.
I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists, and extends, and accumulates, and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself."

So: swap "theology" for "art", and that's pretty much how I'm feeling these days.

Below: Rachael with my favorite Oldenberg piece. Oberlin, Ohio.

Lenten Discipline

As many of you know, Lent started on Wednesday. On Monday, I went to the hardware store and bought a sledgehammer. I've been thinking a lot lately about all the forces of colonialism, racism, sexism, etc, that seem to rule our world. It seems to me that most of them are due for a smashing. I'm not sure whether this smashing is best done with poetry or ideology, with sermons or with direct action- but clearly smashing is what's called for. I bought a hammer small enough to put in my backpack, so that I wouldn't scare folks on the bus. But it's also heavy enough to make me remember it's there, and to remember just why I'm going to seminary.

It feels like it's a naive kind of thing to do; carrying around a sledgehammer in the hopes that this will help me remember to smash systems of oppression. It's also a more violent metaphor than I've been using lately. But I've been reading folks like Albert Memmi and Frantz Fanon, who argue somewhat convincingly for the use of revolutionary violence. So, as I think about that, it's good to have something heavy to carry around.

Come Easter, we'll see.


ps- In Chapel on Wednesday, I set fire to NAFTA for ashes to smear on our foreheads. It's important to remember how I carry my privilege.