Category Archives: Community

A Church of New Light

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I was one of the many speakers at the 123rd anniversary celebration of New Light Missionary Baptist Church. My 10-minute reflection was a small part of the two and a half hour service filled with wisdom, exhortation, prayers, worship, history, dance, and music. I prepared these thoughts after prayer and reflecting upon my family’s experience here in Deer Park, Alabama. My words below are taken from a hard-to-hear audio recording. My reflection followed Deacon A. C. Bivens’ reflection, “My Attitude,” a remarkable talk explaining his positive attitude toward life.

“I don’t know if I’m too good with the microphone.” Everyone laughs encouragingly. “I’ll just, I’ll try here” (try speaking by the front pews without a microphone). “And I don’t know how to honor everyone here,” and Pastor Taylor and others assure me that that’s alright, “but I want to honor some other people.”

“Today, we’re celebrating 123 years. In doing so, we honor all the people who have been part of this church: people who farmed, people who washed clothes, people who fought fires, people who endured storms. We honor all the parents, grandparents, children, aunts, and uncles, who sacrificed a lot and suffered, but who lived well by faith, who hoped in a wondrous future, and who built this caring, welcoming community.

The Promise of the Mountaintop

The promise of the mountaintop is shining for us! We’ve never been closer! – Photograph by Nancy Heise of Raspberry Island, Alaska in July 2009.

“Pastor Taylor talks about difficult times. We live in difficult times. He calls difficult times ‘these last and – ’”

Pastor Taylor and many others join in saying: “’evil days!’”

“In these struggling times, my family needed to move, and about a year ago I remember coming up here and stopping at this church and I stopped a few doors down and a kind man directed me to Earl Wood Road. Soon my family met friends there: Douglas Woods and Edward Jackson. Deer Park is a wondrous place. We were really surprised to come here at the all-around tremendous welcome, even the animals welcomed us: the birds, frogs, deer, even a coyote.

“And we found this church, New Light, a church rich in compassionate love – reaching out to all! A church that’s very like a Scripture that’s dear to me, Luke chapter 1, verse 78, ‘In the compassionate love of God, the new light,’ just like the church’s name, ‘the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on us who dwell in darkness and who live in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace!’”

As I’m continuing to say all this, there’s plenty else being proclaimed by everybody too: “Amen!” “Yes!” “That’s right!” “Alright!” “Yes, Lord!” … sighs of agreement and laughter too.

“Each Sunday the deacons come out and pray a lot of prayers that have touched my family: ‘Thank you, Father, for getting me up this morning!’ ‘Thank you, Father, for getting us ready for this day!’ ‘Thank you, Father, for the plan that you have for us this day!’

“God answers these prayers with love all through our services. We hear the answer to these prayers in our pastor’s words and in his laughter, in caring smiles all around, and we enjoy God’s answers in the spirit-filled music, the singing, the drums, the dancing! What is God saying in all this, over and over, Sunday after Sunday? ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, even if no one else loves you, I love you!’

At this point, Chastity, our organist, starts playing the organ. She’s amazing in every service with the organ and her voice. There’s clapping too. Most people are probably thinking I’m done, but I keep going.

“For 123 years, this church has been on a journey to God’s mountaintop. We’ve never been closer to that top. There’s still sacrifices to be made, suffering ahead, much to overcome, but who is with us on this journey? Who? Who strengthens us? Who – ?” (I was going to continue, “Who is always with us?”)

Everyone answers: “… God … Jesus …!”

“Jesus who comes down from Heaven to us, Jesus who is in each of us, each sister and brother! When my family, when all of us are in this church, we feel God’s loving presence.

“God’s Chariot, God’s Sweet Chariot is swinging low for us, forgiving us – no matter what we’ve done, healing us – no matter what we’ve been through, and joining us together to find our way to God’s mountaintop! This mountaintop is a dream to be followed and it’s also a blessed assurance, something we can count on! It’s also an invitation! We’re all good people! We’ve all been invited! This, like any other day, is our day, and we can do it! Together, with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we can plant seeds, together we can share meals, together we can take care of the sick, together we can conceive new ideas, together we can work in the community, fix roofs, together can see that no one is cold during the winter! We won’t do it in a day, but we can do it!

“With the Holy Spirit and Jesus, they’re helping us to bear one another’s burdens, to forgive seventy times seventy, to comfort the sorrowful, to spread kindness wherever we go, to heal the old wounds, the old divisions, and to create a new world, a wondrous world of light, based on justice, generosity, and love! And this church, this church of New Light is being given all the grace it needs to shine its light so that people [and each of us], no matter what they’ve done, no matter what they’ve been through, can find their way to peace, and also that we can all hear deeply the healing words of God, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, even if no one else loves you, I love you!’

“Can we say it together?” Everyone proclaims in unison, “‘I love you, I love you, I love you, even if no one else loves you, I love you!’” and concludes with simultaneous and spontaneous praise and clapping, “…Thank you, God!…Amen!…Alright!…”

Here are some beautiful songs reflective of the love and singing at New Light Missionary Baptist Church:
I need you to Survive – Hezekiah Walker Trouble in My way, I have to Cry Sometimes – Dorothy Bloat
Jesus Is Love – Melvin Williams Praise Is What I Do – William Murphy

Notes:
Douglas Woods and Edward Jackson are our good neighbors on Earl Wood Road and fellow church members at New Light Missionary Baptist Church.

Related posts:

The Coyote and Our New Home
The Key Story – the first time I experienced “I love you, I love you, I love you, even if no one else loves you, I love you!”

Noah and the Ark Builders

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Birderwatchers at bee tree in the Indian Shell Mounds on Dauphin Island

Birdwatchers at bee tree in the Indian Shell Mounds on Dauphin Island

Black-throated blue warbler at Dauphin Island

Black-throated blue warbler at Dauphin Island

Volunteers Saving Dolphin

People saving dolphin stranded in ditch after Hurricane Rita

 On Dauphin Island, I was deeply impressed by the attitudes and actions of two groups: birdwatchers and hurricane watchers. When I wrap these two groups together, I get a glimpse of a very old, old friend who believed in the value of others.

Noah loved people, his family, animals, and the Earth. He enjoyed grass, trees, fresh air, rain, and the beauty of the skies. Noah was in the habit of observing, learning, providing for the needy, listening to others, and sharing fresh insights.

Noah’s epic courage, faith, and determination inspired him to prepare well for the Flood of all Floods. People laughed at Noah. But he remained so positive, that he rallied friends and family to help him build the Boat of all Boats. Noah so clearly worked for the benefit of all, that it was said that he walked with God and that he was God’s true messenger (see Bible and Qur’an).

“At the Shell Mounds, Noah and I saw 10 warbler species and a scarlet tanager was hopping right at our feet! Nice talking, got to run, someone saw a scissor-tailed flycatcher at Fort Gaines!”

The warnings are up – it’s a category 5 hurricane – little else matters! Like Noah, the islanders have let go of old spats. There are people to look after, everyone’s pets too, and time is of the essence! Community, family, survival – all is at risk!

Like in the days of Noah, our future is in doubt, but we are the Ark Builders! Inspired by the birdwatchers, we, each in our own way, can learn to gratefully take in the beauty of the Earth! Inspired by Noah, we, each in our own way, can learn to protect all Creation’s precious gifts! Inspired by islanders preparing for hurricanes, we, each in our own way, can learn to put away our squabbles and work together for the benefit of all! And when we do, patiently like Noah, wherever we’re at, country, cities, islands … we will be embracing a future filled with rainbows and promises beyond our imagination!

Butterfly at Dauphin Island

Butterfly at Dauphin Island

 
Birding and butterfly photos can be found at youtube video: Birds and Birders of Dauphin Island, Alabama
Dolphin photo above can be found at Wikimedia: U.S. Navy photo of volunteers

The Farbor’s Way

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Let’s take this journey together – a new world beckons.
A new world beckons – can we make the journey together? Photograph by Wikimedia user, Palosirkka, Denali National Park and Preserve, September 8, 2012.

“Love your neighbor as yourself!” But every rule has exceptions! Who is our neighbor anyway? Why must we, with all our good work, love the conservative who stands in the way of our progress? Or why must we, with all our good work, love the liberal who wants to tear down our values? Don’t forget the time when they lied about us and did us wrong! They don’t deserve our respect!

We’re usually not so blunt. We’re smooth talkers, like the lawyer who asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” But the lawyer’s heart was inflamed. He hoped to inflame his audience and maybe even the teacher too. The fiery storm in his heart sought “clarification” about neighbors and enemies.

Jesus could have fed the flames. He could have narrowed the call to love. Or he could have engaged the lawyer in a righteous argument. But Jesus was good at calming storms, and he calmed this one by trusting us with a story about a traveler who is mugged, robbed, and left for dead. Some respectable folks come along but they simply walk by. Finally, another traveler comes. He’s a farbor from another land and background, not a neighbor at all. In fact, he’s an enemy of the respectable folks who walked away. But this traveler sees the man’s needs, cares for him, and carries him to safety. “Now,” Jesus asks us, “which of these do you think was a neighbor to the man who was beaten and robbed?”

This stranger, this enemy, has become the neighbor, the hero! Inspired compassion has overcome the status quo of hatred.

Yes, we have diverse guiding visions, but these positive visions in all their diversity are united in urging us to develop and practice virtues and to avoid and eliminate vices.

Like the Good Samaritan, we can move beyond our divisions which have only enslaved us. Like this Good Traveler, we can think first of others and let ourselves become instruments of divine healing. Like this Good Farbor, we can embrace life in many beautiful ways:

  • I will strive today to SHARE THE GIFT OF CREATION with all living beings and people.
  • I will strive today to EXPERIENCE THE WONDER OF BEING A HUMAN BEING embracing the astonishing diversity of life, persons, cultures, and places on our wondrous Earth.
  • I will strive today to PUT INTO DEEDS MY GUIDING VISION.
  • I will strive today to SEEK THE GENIUS AND INSPIRATION IN OTHERS AND IN THEIR GUIDING VISIONS.
  • I will strive today to FULFILL MY DUTIES to my family, neighbors, friends, all others, and myself.
  • I will strive today to FIND JOY IN EVERY ASPECT OF MY LIFE, even in my sacrifices, trials, and persecutions.
  • I will strive today in every conflict to be attentive to all, seek understanding, forgive, heal, and MAKE PEACE.
  • I will strive today to MANAGE MY DESIRES HONORABLY AND TEMPERATELY so that I will maintain right relationships and will pursue ardently and effectively what is beneficial to myself and others.
  • I will strive today to DEDICATE MY TIME AND RESOURCES TOWARD OTHER’S NEEDS, particularly those who are suffering and have pressing needs.
  • I will strive today to WORK CREATIVELY, COOPERATIVELY, AND PRODUCTIVELY.
  • I will strive today to BE HUMBLE, HONEST, OBJECTIVE, AND KNOWLEDGEABLE.
  • I will strive today to FREE MY GUIDING VISION FROM ALL NARROWNESS AND FALSENESS that might diminish others, blind me to the needs of others, set me above others, or in any way hinder me from becoming closer to others.
  • I will strive today to HONOR ALL PERSONS AS MY FAMILY knowing that we are one human family.
  • I will strive today to ENLIGHTEN, EMPOWER, AND UNIFY.

I am Nahari

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Nahari talks with Gandhi taken from the 1982 movie, Gandhi

Nahari talks with Gandhi (from the 1982 movie, Gandhi)

There is an astonishing scene in the movie Gandhi where a Hindu man named Nahari commands Gandhi to “Eat!” The fasting Gandhi is starving, near death, but he refuses pressing for an end to violence. Nahari, overcome with emotion, cries out, “Eat! I am going to hell, but not with your death on my soul!”

Gandhi replies, “Only God decides who goes to hell.”

Nahari continues despairingly, “I . . . I killed a child . . . I smashed his head against a wall.”

“Why?” Gandhi asks.

Deeply distraught, Nahari replies, “They killed my son . . . my boy!” Nahari holds his hand out showing the height of his son. “The Muslims killed my son . . . they killed him.”

After an intense pause, Gandhi replies, “I know a way out of hell . . . Find a child . . . a child whose mother and father have been killed . . . A little boy . . . about this high . . . and raise him . . . as your own . . . Only be sure . . . that he is a Muslim. And that you raise him as one.”

Nahari almost leaves but then goes to his knees and breaks down sobbing. The divine seed within him is coming to life. Astonishingly, there is a way out of hell.

This story is not so much about Nahari, or about the faults of any people of the Indian subcontinent, or about the cruelty of Christian imperialism in India, or even about the violence or injustice or intolerance in today’s world. It is about me. How many times have I sought to get the better of a deal, killed the creativity in a child, scoffed at the wise thoughts of others, watched abhorrent videos, wasted the gifts of nature for my own convenience, discounted the needs of others, lashed out in anger, doubted the divine seed in others, failed to be generous, failed to forgive, placed myself above others, … In all these things, I have built up our insane violence, injustice, and politics.

But hell is not our only option. With God’s Infinite Gracious Mercy, we need add just a few ingredients: understanding, appreciation, justice, forgiveness, and love.

Similar to Nahari, we can raise our children and educate ourselves to understand and appreciate the ways of the Muslims, the ways of the Buddhists, the ways of the Hindus, the ways of the Christians, the ways of the Humanist, …

We can appreciate each person and each culture’s strengths and weaknesses, but we must not focus on the other’s weaknesses. It is by earnestly seeking solutions to own our faults, that we nourish the divine seed in others.

Nahari's Call and ChallengeWe all have needs. Justice for all is required. How we treat one person and how we neglect one person, is how we treat all humanity and how we neglect all humanity. Disrespect and injustice and violence, toward even the most despicable person, toward even the most unwanted person, toward the weak or the strong, toward our neighbor or stranger, … is intolerable.

I am guilty of these intolerable acts, yet I am forgiven and loved. There is hope, a way out of hell for everyone. Let us consider deeply and act today. Let us courageously hear the call to both a broader community and family.