Part #3: Dragging the Whale Behind Us

Whether we like to admit it or not, we all still carry the results of our human past with us.

Consider this bizarre image:
All humans are each pulling a huge rotting carcass of an historic whale up the sand dunes.

But, we do in our consciousness, creativity, ethical sense of ought, and ability to act have the choice to change from the past, even if it is only very gradual.


#7 Think clearly about the past, the present, and the future. Then choose to make changes.

Charles E. Cobb, Black civil rights leader, former field secretary of the famous SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) wrote,

“Black people are not faced with anything like the violence that confronted those seeking voting rights five decades ago. Let’s end the excuses."

"The people of Ferguson have all the power they need to simply get rid of their unrepresentative government — vote them out. This does not take any great political computation.”

“...Only 6 percent of eligible black voters participated in the last municipal elections — this in a town that is more than two-thirds black. No wonder the six-person City Council only has one black member and the 53-person police force only has three black officers."

"Just two generations ago, black Southerners endured arrests and beatings in order to vote. And yet, it seems we’ve already forgotten the immense power of the ballot.”

“Leaders in the ’50s and ’60s were inspiring for their ordinariness."

"For instance, Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper, was no celebrity in 1962 when she attempted to register to vote in Sunflower County, Miss."

"When she returned home, the plantation owner was waiting for her. He demanded that she promise to make no further attempts to register to vote."

"Her reply: 'I didn’t go down there to register for you; I went down there to register for myself.'

He kicked her off the land. She became one of Mississippi’s great black leaders.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/18/black-people-had-the-power-to-fix-the-problems-in-ferguson-before-the-brown-shooting-they-failed/?utm_term=.ae9c81d25ff1
--

Consider Fannie Lou Hamer's very difficult background, her hard circumstance, the racism of the plantation owner.

Yet Hammer took that old whale carcass of her tragic and unjust past, and the difficult present, and overcame it.

"Hamer was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi, the youngest of her parents', Ella and James Lee Townsend's, 20 children."

"Her family moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi in 1919 to work on the plantation of W. D. Marlow as sharecroppers.

Hamer picked cotton with her family, starting at the age of 6."

"She attended school in a one-room schoolhouse on the plantation, from 1924-1930, at which time, she had to drop out. By the age of 13, Hamer could pick 200-300 pounds of cotton daily."

"In 1944, after the plantation owner discovered that she was literate, Hamer was selected to be the plantation's time and record keeper. In 1945 she married her husband, Perry "Pap" Hamer. They worked together on the plantation for the next 18 years."

"While having surgery to remove a tumor, in 1961 Hamer was also given a hysterectomy without her consent by a white doctor as a part of the state of Mississippi's plan to reduce the number of poor blacks in the state."

"The Hamers later raised two impoverished girls, who they later decided to adopt."
from Wikipedia

Nothing stopped this Black lady from reaching for what is right.

As mentioned above, (and in the previous section of this very long article), the past does impact us. However, Black leaders need to stop blaming the past, the police, the Whites, and, instead, start making a new future.

According to the book, Lay My Burden Down by Alvin F. Pussaint, M.D. and Amy Alexander,
"The historically low rate of suicide among African American youths increased 114% between 1980 and 1995. Because “persistent racism has resulted in a ‘posttraumatic slavery syndrome.’"

That is very poor, irrational thinking. No present reason exists why Black youths can't achieve, if they will choose to do so.

Many more Blacks have succeeded in their endeavors since the dramatic changes of the Civil Rights Movment brought about more opportunities."

Blacks have succeeded in business, in the media, in medicine, and so forth. A few have even made it to the Olympics and earned medals, set records!
There are Black entrepreneurs and business owners.

Then there is also Barack and Michelle Obama which set a new precedent:-)

What is keeping other Blacks from achieving isn't racism, but dysfunctional social behaviors with in the Black communities.

New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton:

“The reality of the Black Lives Matter movement is it is significantly focused, primarily focused on police and their efforts to portray police and the police profession in a very negative way..."

“There are no denying within the police profession, 800,000 of us, that we have racists. We have brutal people. We have criminals, cops who shouldn’t be here. But they do not represent the vast majority of American police.”

President Obama said, “First of all, any violence directed at police officers is a reprehensible crime and needs to be prosecuted. But even rhetorically, if we paint police in broad brush without recognizing that the vast majority of police officers are doing a really good job and are trying to protect people and do so fairly … then we’re going to lose allies in the reform cause.”
--

Simone Manuel wins gold in the women's 100m freestyle final at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Adam Pretty/Getty Images

No matter what race you are, what past you have come from, how difficult your circumstances, realize that today, you can choose to reach up.

Nobel Prize Speech of MLK:
"I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him."

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality."

"...what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up."
Martin Luther King Jr.





Go for the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #4: Women in Tragedy--Ruth

What does one do when all chaos breaks out, when everything collapses to hell, when all hope and joy is yanked low and hanged?

Where can Haitians in the midst of over 200,000 dead and a million homeless find hope and joy? Where can the wife who just lost her husband in a terrible wreck or to cancer ever find meaning and hope?

The Book of Ruth starts out in such deep tragedy. The story is set at the time of the judges (probably a better translation of that for contemporary understanding is "chieftains") when as Scripture says, everyone "did what was right in his own eyes." Judges 17:6 That phrase says so much of the evil that was in the land. When everyone lives by subjectivism, not transcendent values, but only by their own culture's mores or their own wants or ideas, look out.

Furthermore, "there was a famine in the land." Elimelech and Naomi leave their country for Moab--the despised enemy country across the river. And then it gets much worse for the couple, Elimelech dies--doesn't say how. And then Naomi's young sons die too.

The story-teller is setting us up for truth she wants to share. Notice (as I mentioned last week) that the author of the book has given allegorical/parabolic names to the characters and places. Her home where the famine comes is Bethelehem which in Hebrew means "house of bread." How ironic!

Naomi's two sons who die are Mahlon ("illness") and Chilion ("cessation").* Naomi means "sweetness," before the tragedies. When she returns home bereft and hopeless, she says call me "Mara" ("bitter"). So not only has she suffered greatly, but she is bitter about her lot in life. And she, like so many humans past and present, blames God.

In our own time countless famous American leaders have given God the credit for everything from war to disease to catastrophe, as do even insurance documents: This policy insures you except for acts of God--meaning flood, earthquake, etc. God is left holding the bag of wind, is caught opening Pandora's box, is the destroyer, the master puppeteer who majors in destruction. So the story goes, in the Book of Ruth and for countless religious people even to this day.

But that's the bad news.

What about the good news?

Enter Ruth and Orpah. They plan to return with Naomi/Mara to the House of Bread. But then Naomi/Mara tells them her life is over and that they should stay in Moab and make new lives for themselves. Both Orpah and Ruth genuinely care for Naomi/Mara, but finally Orpah goes back (her name literally means "back of the neck," meaning "back-turner."*

In contrast, Ruth clings to Naomi/Mara and refuses to leave.

Let's cut to the end quickly--ie give you the short version (what my wife's always asks of me when I start talking;-)

It is intriguing and refreshing that in the Jewish Bible, which usually focuses on men's exploits and faith journeys, that the book of Ruth was included: a story where at this point, no men are involved; they're dead. This instead is a story of women, about a woman's initiative, a woman's commitment, a woman's loyalty, a woman's humbleness, a woman's hard work , a woman's ingenuity, a woman's...well, you get the point. Too bad that Southern Baptists, Roman Catholics, and other religious groups which still deny women equality with men don't.

While there has been much questionable allegorizing of Scripture since St. Paul and Origen, the book of Ruth does appear to be an allegorical story.

Ruth represents the true follower of truth, the friend who sticks closer than a sister. Indeed, her name "Ruth" probably, etymologically, means "companion, friend." It's not that Orpah isn't a nice person; she isn't a dabbler or fair-weather friend; but when all goes to Hell, she is the one who finally leaves, looking for a better life.

In contrast, Ruth's commitment is to death, loyalty without end: "for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die..."

One point: in relationships with others, and, of course, ultimately in following God, we should give our whole heart and commit totally--no matter how terrible the circumstances.

In the Light,

Daniel

*Quoted again from Brettler