The Women of Black History Month: Paging Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler

Good Wednesday morning, good pilgrims on the path of The Remains of The Epiphany Season. There's so much in the news that is deeply disturbing but none more than the fact that there's a serious outbreak of measles (MEASLES, for God's sake), in Texas, there are children who are seriously ill and in hospital, and the Head of Health and Human Services is a committed immunization conspiracy theorist with a dead worm in his head.

Somewhere in my growing up in Massachusetts, I remembered learning that the first Black woman to be a doctor lived and worked in my home state. I remembered her name was Rebecca but that's all I could remember. I finally found her, last night, and I thought today would be a perfect day to introduce her to you, if you've not already met.

Please meet Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, born in 1831 in Delaware, to Absolum Davis and Matilda Webber. Very little is known about her life. Indeed, I did not know of her Delaware roots.

An aunt in Pennsylvania, who spent much of her time caring for sick neighbors and may have influenced her career choice, raised her. Why? It could be any number of reasons but there were lots of lynchings in those days in Delaware. So were untreated diseases among people of poverty, especially poor Black farmers and sharecroppers.

In any event, life expectancy was not long if you were poor and Black.

By 1852 she had moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts.After attending the prestigious Massachusetts private school, West-Newton English and Classical School, she worked as a nurse for eight years (because the first formal school for nursing only opened in 1873, she was able to perform such work without any formal training).

In 1860, she was admitted to the New England Female Medical College. When she graduated in 1864, Crumpler was the first African American woman in the United States to earn an M.D. degree, and the only African American woman to graduate from the New England Female Medical College, which merged with Boston University School of Medicine in 1873.

In her Book of Medical Discourses in Two Parts, published in 1883 and one of the very first medical publications by an African American, she gives a brief summary of her career path:

"It may be well to state here that, having been reared by a kind aunt in Pennsylvania, whose usefulness with the sick was continually sought, I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others. Later in life I devoted my time, when best I could, to nursing as a business, serving under different doctors for a period of eight years (from 1852 to 1860); most of the time at my adopted home in Charlestown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. From these doctors I received letters commending me to the faculty of the New England Female Medical College, whence, four years afterward, I received the degree of doctress of medicine."

Dr. Crumpler practiced in Boston for a short while before moving to Richmond, Virginia, after the Civil War ended in 1865. Richmond, she felt, would be

"a proper field for real missionary work, and one that would present ample opportunities to become acquainted with the diseases of women and children. During my stay there nearly every hour was improved in that sphere of labor. The last quarter of the year 1866, I was enabled . . . to have access each day to a very large number of the indigent, and others of different classes, in a population of over 30,000 colored."

She joined other black physicians caring for freed slaves who would otherwise have had no access to medical care, working with the Freedmen's Bureau, and missionary and community groups, even though black physicians experienced intense racism working in the postwar South.

"At the close of my services in that city," she explained, "I returned to my former home, Boston, where I entered into the work with renewed vigor, practicing outside, and receiving children in the house for treatment; regardless, in a measure, of remuneration."

She lived on Joy Street on Beacon Hill, then a mostly black neighborhood. By 1880 she had moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and was no longer in active practice. Her 1883 book is based on journal notes she kept during her years of medical practice.

I am delighted to learn even this little bit about Dr. Crumpler and feel pleased to know of her Delaware and Massachusetts connections. I can't tell you how often I walked on Joy Street in Boston, having been the former home of the Diocesan Offices, which moved in 1988 after 100 years to Tremont Street, adjacent to the Cathedral. 

It feels a privilege to have walked the same neighborhood where Dr. Crumpler lived and tended to those who were sick and had no other means of care. Next time I'm in Boston, I plan to visit her former residence and say a prayer of thanksgiving for her life.

I pray today that her spirit hovers over and informs the other former resident of Massachusetts, that the decisions he makes for the millions of people in his care will be wise, founded on good science and ethics, and devoid of political influence.

Not a dream. It's actually what all of his predecessors have done.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

Black History Month: Dorothy I. Height

Good Tuesday morning, good pilgrims on the way of the remains of The Epiphany Season. Facebook continues to treat me like some heinous criminal. I have been placed in a solitary dungeon without light or heat, denied food or water. Apparently, I've been "scrubbed" from its pages - not just my FB page but all shared posts and even my comments on other people's pages.

Never mind. I have my trusty old blog and today I get some help to start my Substack Column. Stay tuned. I do miss reading your posts on your Facebook pages, but I continue to file 5 appeals per day on "report a problem" to Instagram (I just follow directions). Let's hope this is settled soon.

Meanwhile do NOT respond to any "friend" requests from me. Well done, then. Onward.

Today, I want to lift up and celebrate and call the name of one of the saints who now dwells in Light Eternal, having been a bright light for justice and equality while here on earth.

Dorothy Irene Height was born on March 24^th, 1912 in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of a building contractor and a nurse. She grew up in Rankin, Pennsylvania where she attended racially integrated schools. During and after college, she lived and worked in New York City.

She would grow to become a leader and an activist, hailed as "the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement," and one of the few women to have a seat on the speaker stage at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

An excellent student, Ms. Dorothy won a full scholarship to college. In 1929, she was admitted to Barnard College but was not allowed to attend because the school said it had "already met its quota" for African Americans. Instead, Height went on to graduate from New York University where she received a bachelor’s in education and master’s in psychology.

Her first job was as a social worker in Harlem, New York. She later joined the staff of the Harlem Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). In no time, Height became a leader in the local organization. She created diverse programs and pushed the organization to integrate YWCA facilities nationwide in 1946.

Those who are inspirations have often been inspired by others. And so it was that, during a chance encounter with renowned Black educator and consultant to President FD Roosevelt,  Mary McLeod Bethune, that she was inspired to begin working with the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW).

Through the NCNW, Height focused on ending the lynching of African Americans and restructuring the criminal justice system. In 1957, she became the fourth president of the NCNW. Under her leadership, the NCNW supported voter registration in the South. The NCNW also financially aided several civil rights activists throughout the country. Height was president of NCNW for 40 years.

Ms. Dorothy's oratory and organizational skills were legendary in the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, her advice and counse were sought after by Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson.

She was an integral part of the organizing team with Bayard Rustin to bring the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom from dream to reality, serving as one of "The Big Six" organizers. Anna Arnold Hedgeman of the National Council of Churches was the lone woman to serve on the event's administrative committee.

However, neither woman was invited to speak, despite Ms. Dorothy's skills as a speaker and a leader. In fact, originally no women were included on the program at all. Ms. Dorothy and Ms. Anna were persistent and, eventually, the men were persuaded to allow Myrlie Evers to speak during the program and present the other women to be honored during the “Tribute to Negro Women Fighters for Freedom.”

Ultimately, many other women were included on the speakers list, including actresses and activists Ruby Dee, Lena Horne, and Josephine Baker, along with Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates, NAACP chapter president and an advisor to the Little Rock Nine.

Thanks to Ms. Dorothy and Ms. Anna, the honored women included Parks, Bates, Evers, Diane Nash, Elvira Turner, widow of assassinated NAACP activist Herbert Lee; and Gloria Richardson, cofounder of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee.

Ironically and sadly, due to traffic delays en route from the airport, Ms. Evers missed her speaking slot and never made it to the stage.

The morning after The March, Ms. Dorothy assembled female leaders at a meeting called “After the March—What?” to discuss lessons learned from the event and plot their course forward. At the meeting, lawyer Pauli Murray delivered remarks criticizing the exclusion of women from the Lincoln Memorial program.

The group reached a consensus that future activism needed to focus on both gender and racial equality, heightening momentum for the women’s empowerment movement to come.

Ms. Dorothy later wrote that the March on Washington event had been an eye-opening experience for her. Her male counterparts "were happy to include women in the human family, but there was no question as to who headed the household," she wrote. Height joined in the fight for women's rights. In 1971, she helped found the National Women's Political Caucus with Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and Shirley Chisholm.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2004, President George W. Bush gave her the Congressional Gold Medal. She later befriended the first African American president of the United States, Barack Obama, who called her "the godmother of the civil rights movement."

Dorothy Height died in Washington, D.C., on April 20, 2010. She was 98 years old. Appropriately, her funeral was held at the Washington National Cathedral.

I confess that I did not know much of anything about Ms. Dorothy until I started doing my own research and investigation about some of the Bright Lights of women in the Black Community. That is not a reflection on the goodness or effectiveness of the work of Ms. Dorothy but the fact that, as one of my elementary teachers used to say, my "education has been sadly neglected."

I'm trying to change that, at least for myself. Black History Month is a wonderful opportunity to learn that Black History is American History which connects us to the many injustices that have been done to people of color and ethnicity, women and gender identity, sexual orientation, and class or economic status - and all in "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

As Ms. Dorothy Height was inspired by Ms. Mary McLeod Bethune, may we be inspirations for each other to bring an end to all prejudice and discrimination in any form, by anybody, anytime, anywhere.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

FaceBook Suspension

Good Monday morning, dear pilgrims of the remaining days of The Season of The Epiphany. It seems that while Facebook might be okay with celebrating every last beam of Light, they are not okay with celebrating Black History Month - especially those that lift up and honor Black Women and Drag Queens, after we've been explicitly told by The Commander In Chief that we're not supposed to do that.

We're not supposed to be "woke". It's much better for them when our eyes are closed or we're looking the other way. 

I suppose that if The Associated Press can get thrown out of the White House Press Corp because they refuse to play the silly game of calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America (where the heck did THAT come from?), and told that they are banned because they "publish misinformation" (which is a new level of irony, considering the source), then my little Facebook column celebrating Black Women for 28 days is bound to piss off Mr. Zuckerberger's new MAGA friends.

So my Facebook account has been "suspended". Supposedly, the offense is that I had the incorrect password on my linked Instagram account. Which is beyond odd.

I think that is an indication that I've been hacked.

I have 180 days (which is the way techies say "6 months") to appeal, but I must do it on my Instagram account. But there's no place I can find to do that. Well, not without my Facebook account. Which is supposed to provide a "document" that provides that information. Which I've downloaded but can't open because "there's a temporary technical problem."

I'm not buying any of it. I think I've been hacked.

Yes, I've changed all my passwords but it may be too late for that.

This is what happened after Zuck dismissed his Fact-Check department and, instead, allowed the MAGA Flying Monkeys to "self-monitor and report" offensive posts.

Personally? I think my post celebrating the one and only, the fabulous, Marsha P. Johnson, the drag queen hero of Stonewall, pushed them right over the edge. I can't remember how many times that post was shared but it was a lot.

The MAGA Flying Monkeys weren't having it.

That, and the fact that I have (had?) over 5,000 "friends" and over 2,000 "followers". That was just a few too many "woke" people on their corner of Social Media for them.

So, I don't know how long this "suspension" will last. Long enough for the MAGA Flying Monkeys to decide that I've learned my lesson and will be a good girl. Or, maybe they think I'll open up a new account and start all over again.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

I think this is a good time to get off my butt and start that Substack account I've been meaning to try and figure out how to put it all together. I've had this blog for a thousand years. Well, okay. That's an exaggeration, which I'm prone to, but MAGA calls it misinformation.

My first published post was June 9, 2006. Yikes! 19 years.

Anyway, as that Peter Allen song goes, "Everything old is new again."

Dancin' at church, Long Island jazzy parties
Waiter bring us some more Baccardi
We'll order now what they ordered then
'Cause everything old is new again.

So, back to blogging it is. And, the creation of a new version of the blog - the Substack. Which will be posted on BlueSky, which is the newer, kinder version of Twitter. (Sing it with me, "Everything old is new again." It just has a new name.)

You can find me over there as The Rev Dr. Elizabeth Kaeton @ekaeton.bsky.social

And, if I come off "time out"? Well, I'm not sure. I'll see how life is without Facebook. I suspect there will be some improvements - like my general mood. Enough to cause me to think long and hard about keeping my Facebook account just so I can check in on other folks and see what brilliance you all are up to.

We'll see.

I'm going to keep writing. I don't mean to sound harsh but I have never done it for you or for social media. I do it to keep my own sanity. I do it to give voice to my spirituality. What I post is always the result of my reading and meditating and prayer.

Maybe that shows through. Maybe that's why so many of you were friends or followers. Maybe you recognized the Epiphany Light of which I try to be a follower and a vehicle and wanted to follow and be a vehicle of it, as well.

And, the MAGA Flying Monkeys hate that. Really. Hate. That. They like it dark. And, chaotic. And, confusing. They hate "woke".

Not to worry. I'm not going to stop. I'll just find other ways of posting. The only downside I can see is that you'll have to leave your comments here and my responses won't always be in "real time".

And, if you wish, you can share my musings on your FB page for your friends and followers by sharing the link to this FB page. Or, Substack page when I get it (and get someone to help me set it up). Or share it on your BlueSky account from mine.

Of course, I won't be able to read your posts and musings on your FB page - not for a while, I suspect - but do post them on BlueSky. I'll read them. You can also post a link to your BlueSky postings here, in the comments.

There's more than one way to beat a MAGA Flying Monkey at their own silly, pathetic games.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

 

 

Epiphany XXII: Song in a weary throat

 (Image source: Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.)

Good Friday morning, good citizens of The Remains of The Epiphany Season. Today, in Black History Month, I want to lift up, celebrate, remember, and call the name of one of the saints of God and the Episcopal Church, Anna Pauline Murray, better known as the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray.

I remember the first time I heard her name. It was 1989 and I was helping out in the little church where she had last been Vicar, Church of the Holy Apostles, Baltimore, MD. She had died of pancreatic cancer in 1985 and the people there were still deeply grieving her loss.

It was after mass and I was hanging out in the sacristy with the Altar Guild. I've learned, over the years, that the "small talk" you make with the Holy Servants of the Altar can tell you big things about the church and Her people.

"She was a force of nature," one of the Altar Guild Ladies said, with unmistakable sadness as she filled a cruet with water at the sink. "A real force of nature. The Holy Spirit just hung around her bony shoulders like Superman's cape."

She began to rattle off her accomplishments. "Oh sure, you heard all about those lunch counter sit-ins that the NAACP organized? Huh! Well, Mother Pauli was doing that in DC years -Decades! - before it occurred to The Boys that it would be a good strategy for a non-violent demonstration."

She shook her head and sighed, "That was just the first of a lot of firsts. First Black woman law school graduate at Howard University, first Black person to earn a JSD (Doctor of the Science of Law) degree from Yale Law School, first Black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest."

She laughed, "You didn't want to say 'no' to Mother Pauli. Huh! She'd just find a way to do it anyway, even if she never got credit for it." She dried her hands and said, "I'll bet you didn't know that she wrote the legal argument for Thurgood Marshall's Brown v Topeka Kansas Supreme Court case that stopped segregation - well, made it illegal, anyway."

I later learned that Murray’s 746-page book, “States’ Laws on Race and Color,” written in 1948, was a definitive work used for decades by jurists and civil rights activists. Marshall called Murray’s book “the bible for civil rights lawyers.”

Her name was also listed as a co-author on the brief argued by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1971 in Reed v. Reed. Years later Ginsburg said, “We knew when we wrote that brief that we were standing on her shoulders.”

"You know," I said, "with all due respect, I went to a very progressive seminary in The Episcopal Church. I'm sorry - I apologize - but, I've never heard of this woman before."

"Hmph," she said, looking me right in the eye with steely brown eyes, like a mother about to teach her child an important lesson in life. She shifted her ample weight, tilted her head to one side, slung her cleaning cloth over her shoulder, and said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "I wonder why that is?"

I got it. Instantly. But, I didn't know just how deep that prejudice ran. It was one of the first times I was aware of the importance and the impact of "intersectionality" and the complexity of issues that make up our total identity.

"You gotta read her book, "Proud Shoes." More people need to. But they won't. Nobody cares. Well, none but Jesus."

"Look," she said, "up there on the shelves. See it? You can't have it - not even borrow it - but they have several copies at the Baltimore Public Library. Some of us made sure of that. And, right next to it is her other book. See? "Song in a Weary Throat". Get that one, too, when you're at the library."

As I looked at the shelf, not only were her two books there but also a few books of her poetry. There was also a three-ring binder of some of her sermons and a pamphlet she, Pauli, had put together which provided instructions on how a poor, inner-city congregation could make its own Afro-centric vestments out of sheets and pillowcases and napkins, trimmed with Kinte cloth.

As I remember, there were also handwritten notes of things Pauli felt were important to include, like the name and contact information of the woman in Baltimore who could get Kinte cloth for you inexpensively.

I realized that that bookshelf was a little shrine in memory of Mother Pauli. There were several books and religious symbols - mostly African-themed - that had probably been in her office and left by the family as keepsakes for the congregation.

She moved closer to me and, as she spoke, I felt her hand at my back. I knew that not only did this woman think that "Mother Pauli" was important enough for her to take the time out of her day to teach this newly ordained White girl something about this Giant of Justice, but she also thought I was worth it.

I got the clear sense that this woman was telling me parts of the story of Pauli Murray in the hopes that I might be inspired - or, at least curious - to know more. And maybe, just maybe, I would be able to tell people about her and the work she had done, so that Pauli would eventually earn her place in history.

I felt awash in gratitude but I also understood the responsibility I was being given. I've tried very hard, all these many years later, not to let her down. What I didn't know - couldn't know at the time - was the resistance I would get from people who would rather just let her name collect dust like the books on the shelves in the sacristy of that old, inner-city Episcopal church.

Back in the day, nobody said the word "lesbian". Even gay men and lesbian women had a hard time saying the actual "L-word". But, to be Black and female and lesbian? Well, that was all just a bit too much for some folks.

It wasn't until a sister priest who was also Black pulled me over and told me about her "gender confusion issues" that I got the full picture. "You mean, she was a dyke?" I said, using the only language I had at the time for masculine-looking women.

"Yeah, I guess that's what you'd call it," she said, deeply embarrassed. "I mean, it was more than that, you know? I don't know how to explain it. It was more than just being gay. I think . . . well, I don't know, but I think . . . well, let's just say that I think, sometimes, she got confused, being a woman in a man's world."

Years - decades - later, I would come to understand that Pauli Murray was what we would call today "non-binary" and "gender fluid." I came to understand that she suffered from the same sexism as writer Zora Neale Hurston, whose brilliant work was deeply controversial in her community because it was feared that her portrayal of Southern Black dialects and folkways out of context furthered racist stereotypes.

I also understood that the same homophobia that denied the brilliant strategic and organizational skills of Bayard Rustin, the principal architect of The March on Washington, and the brilliance of author and essayist James Baldwin also tried to deny Pauli Murray her well-deserved place in American history.

The truth will have out, and their brilliance is now embraced and their stories are being told. I believe that is due, at least in part, to the brilliant work of Black authors like Kelly Brown Douglas who, in her book, "Sexuality and the Black Church," suggests that issues such as homophobia and sexism in the Black church and community are clearly a response to the virulent and dominant White exploitation of Black sexuality.

Today, we have the "alphabet soup" of inclusion: LGBTQIA+++. Today, we continue to work on the racism and sexism that is in the very air we breathe. Today, we continue to work on the unrelenting prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

Today, movies and documentaries about James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin, and Pauli Murray are made and viewed widely. Today, Pauli Murray - the woman who celebrated her first Eucharist at the altar in the same chapel where her grandmother, then a slave, was baptized - is celebrated and remembered in the Lesser Feasts and Fasts on July 1. (Imagine!)

But, without the foundational, brilliant, courageous, persistent, tenacious, and resilient work of people like Pauli Murray, we would not be where we are today.

I saw a meme on BlueSky the other day that I think, if Pauli were alive today, she, herself, might have authored it. It said,

"You can not take the DEI out of Imgao Dei."

In these dark days when the new administration has declared war on DEI and has prohibited Federal agencies from observing Black History Month, I rejoice that we have bright lights of The Epiphany of Jesus like Pauli Murray to illumine our path.

"Hope is a song in a weary throat," wrote Pauli in one of the first poems of hers I ever read in that raggedy, broken-down old sacristy in that inner-city church in Baltimore, MD.

It's more important, now more than ever, to find our voices and sing out the hope we know in Jesus. And, I'll say to you what that wonderful Altar Guild Lady said to me at Holy Apostles Church, so many decades ago, "And, why do you think that is?"

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia. NB: I'm going to say this here, again, and I'll keep repeating it: Black History is American History. We need Black History not for Black people but for White people who have been seriously impoverished and do not know or have an appreciation for the contributions Black people have made to American History. We know even less of the Black women who have made enormous contributions at equally enormous cost. So, please, White people: read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest as much information as you can during Black History month, that it may inspire you to continue to learn all the rest of the months of the year and all the days of your life. Especially in these days of the attempted elimination of DEI.

 

Epiphany XXI: Martyrs

Good Thursday morning, good pilgrims of the Remains of The Epiphany. The Martyrs of Japan are on the calendar of the Lesser Feasts and Fasts today, providing us with yet another example of what happens when religion is perceived as a vehicle of Western imperialism.

The story goes that Jesuits brought Christianity to Japan as a byproduct of trade relations. The movement was led by Saint Francis Xavier, who introduced Christianity to Japan in 1549. Xavier was a founding member of the Society of Jesus.

Initially, many of the warring feudal lords embraced Christianity, viewing it as a way of undermining those in power. At its peak, Christianity in Japan boasted some 500,000 adherents, the majority of them clustered in Nagasaki.

“Oppressed peasants” were attracted to Christianity by the promise of salvation, while merchants and “trade-conscious daimyos” were more concerned with the economic opportunities afforded by the new religion.

However, powerful leaders and warlords in Japan grew skeptical of a belief system with such close ties to foreign powers, especially Portugal and Rome. Suspicions were raised about Western intentions of conquest, particularly on the part of the Spanish, with their nearby presence in the Philippines.

There was a strong reaction against the proliferation of all things "foreign" - people, their culture, their values, and their religion - on Japanese soil, especially by the warlords. Suspicion and mistrust of anything not native to their soil fed a strong movement of isolationism.

(History has so many lessons. Are we paying attention, here?)

In 1587 Christian missionaries were expelled, accused of committing “the illegal act of destroying the teachings of Buddha”—the dominant faith in Japan at the time.

A decade later, on February 5, 1597, the first victims were persecuted. They were twenty-six Christians: six European Franciscan missionaries, three Japanese Jesuits (including Paul Miki), and seventeen Japanese laity, three of whom were young boys. They were executed at Nagasaki in a form of crucifixion by being elevated on crosses and then pierced with spears.

They were martyred for their faith, yes, but that is only one part of the story. They were crucified because their religion was seen as a powerful vehicle of Western imperialism. It seems ever thus when Christianity becomes "the state religion".

The Roman Catholic Church remembers these martyrs on the day of their deaths. The Anglican and Episcopal Churches remember them today, February 6th, to keep remembrance of St. Agatha on the 5th.

Today in Black History Month, we remember one Ms. Audre Lorde a writer and poet known for her radical honesty and fight against racism and sexism. Lorde described herself as a "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet." She wrote about intersectionality long before The Academy recognized the powerful, dynamic interplay at the intersection of our various identities.

In the 1970s she worked as a poet-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi and began publishing poetry collections. Her works were informed by the intersections of race, class, and gender, and became increasingly more political.

In "Sister Outsider," she wrote,

“Your silence will not protect you," which became the foundation of the spirituality of People with AIDS, who realized that to save their lives and the lives of others, they needed to take the risk and be public about the privacy of their sexual orientation as well as their diagnosis. There followed incredible acts of bravery and courage that still make my eyes sweat and changed and transformed me."

The full context of that quote is even more powerful, especially for us today:

“What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language."

"Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end."

"And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

She also wrote:

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

Most powerfully, she wrote:

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.”

I think the juxtaposition of the Martyrs of Japan and the life and teachings of Audre Lorde provide an opportunity to reflect on the nature of personal and political, the cost of silence and the cost of speaking up/speaking out, and the martyrdom that happens at the intersection - the cross - of all of our various identities, especially when it behooves the power structure to keep them separate and in a hierarchy of importance to an order dictated by the dominant social and cultural and religious paradigm.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

Epiphany XX: And yet, she persisted

 

Good Wednesday morning, good citizens of the remains of The Epiphany Season. I have two bright Epiphany lights for you today - two uppity women, centuries apart, who "wouldn't do what the man say do," even if it meant injury, and in one case, torture.

The first is the woman on our Calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts, St. Agatha of Sicily, one of my grandmother's favorite saints. Agatha was born to rich and noble parents, around 231. She was beautiful, but from an early age decided that she would dedicate herself as a virgin to the service of Jesus.

That, however, did not stop the Sicilian men who are notorious for their ... pursuit ... of beautiful women. One of them, a man of high noble ranking named Quintianus, became obsessed with turning her away from her vow and forcing her to marry him.

Quintianus had her arrested and brought before a judge - him - where he sentenced her to imprisonment ... in a brothel. There, she successfully and gracefully spurned all of her...customers... and made her her vow to the most high.

Quintianus then had her imprisoned where she was tortured. She was stretched on a rack to be torn with iron hooks, burned with torches, and whipped. Yet, the story goes, she endured everything "with good cheer".

Enraged, Quintianus had her breast cut off and sent her back to prison with no medical attention and no food or water. And yet, still, she persisted. She is often portrayed holding a platter which displays her breasts.

She is believed to have passed into heaven around 251. St. Agatha is the patron saint of Sicily, bellfounders, breast cancer patients, Palermo, rape victims, and wet nurses. She is also considered to be a powerful intercessor when people suffer from fires.

The second Bright Epiphany Light is one, Ms. Annie Lee Wilkerson Cooper (June 2, 1910 – November 24, 2010), a member of the African Diaspora who was a Civil Rights Activist.

I first learned of Ms. Annie Lee when I worked in Newark, NJ. I was picking up one of Cooper Deli's almost world-famous hot pastrami sandwiches on the West Side. The Cooper family owned one of the best delis in town. Their son was married to one of the women who was a member of my church.

I don't think I ever paid full price for one of those sandwiches, which was enough for at least three hearty meals.

The Coopers were very proud of Ms. Annie Lee as "the woman who punched Dallas County, Alabama Sheriff Jim Clark in the face during the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches.

Now, I searched history books to find an account of this story, but - at least at that time - it was not an event any historian found worthy of print. However, I did find the story - told and recorded with great relish - at the offices of my local NAACP.

Apparently, this is how it went down, according to an article in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education: "On January 25, 1965, Cooper went to the former Dallas County Courthouse in Selma, Alabama to register to vote as part of the Selma to Montgomery marches. While in line, Cooper was prodded by local sheriff Jim Clark with a baton. Cooper turned around and hit Clark in the face, knocking him to the ground. Cooper proceeded to jump on Clark until she was pulled away by other sheriffs."

She was held in jail for 11 hours - singing spirituals at the top of her voice the whole, entire time - before the sheriff's deputies dropped the charges and released her.

Her incident, as well as Bloody Sunday, which occurred six weeks after Cooper's encounter with Clark, were critical steps in passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Though considered a key player in the voting rights movement, her efforts were often relegated to the background because of her gender. She was misrepresented in the media, especially in newspapers, which often presented her as an "aggressor." Some popular headlines in newspapers such as the Lodi News-Sentinel included: "Selma Sheriff Slugged by Hefty Negro Woman."

Ms. Annie Lee Cooper became a registered voter in Alabama.

In June, I am going to be part of the pilgrimage from Selma to Montgomery, led by Bishop Carlye J. Hughes. I am looking forward to learning more about Ms. Annie Lee, who died of natural causes at 100 years of age on November 24, 2010.

I thank God for the courage and persistence of these two "uppity, onery, willful, stubborn" women, who inspire the qualities I think we'll all need "for the living of these days" when the ancient demons of sexism, misogyny, and racism have returned full force.

God grant us the strength and courage to know when to endure and when to turn and slug someone right in the face, no matter the cost.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

Epiphany XIX: Manache, Cornelius and Dietrich

 

Good Tuesday morning, comrades of The Remains of the Epiphany. There are three bright lights on the calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts, one of whom also provides a lesson for us today during Black History Month.

That would be Manche Masemola, who shares the date with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Cornelius the Centurian. Today, I'm going to highlight the life of this South African woman described as a "Christian Martyr" who died at the hands of her parents for the persistence of her vocation.

Manche (1913–1928) was of the Pedi people, a Bantu ethnic group in South Africa who are known for their music, storytelling, and dance. She lived her short life to the northeast of modern Johannesburg, with her parents, two older brothers, a sister, and a cousin.

After tribal warfare, it was determined that the Pedi people were to be confined to reserved lands that were barren, and they worked hard to eke out a living there. A tiny Christian community had been formed, first by German and then British missionaries, which was widely viewed with anxiety and suspicion by those among the Pedi who adhered to the faith and customs of their forebears.

In 1919, Manche and her cousin Lucia began taking classes to prepare them for baptism at the Anglican Community of the Resurrection mission. They did so against the strenuous objection of Manche's parents, who feared the girls were being bewitched, that they would leave them, or worse, refuse to marry and continue the customs of the Pedi people.

What were good Pedi parents to do? Especially those who bore legitimate resentment and anger at the British colonists who had segregated them and feared (not without good cause) that the girls would leave their family and traditions and become "Westernized". They saw that the missionaries were the vehicles of colonialism, imperialism and empire, which they experienced as a poisonous triple cocktail to kill their culture.

The parents took Manche to a traditional South African healer, who prescribed a traditional remedy, which her parents made her consume by beating her. Indeed, she was beaten so badly that Manche remarked to her cousin Lucia and her priest that she feared she "would be baptized in her own blood." That turned out to be prophetic.

The mother hid the girl's clothes so she could not attend Christian instructional classes, to no avail. On February 4, 1928, her parents led the teenager to a lonely place, where they killed her, burying her by a granite rock on a remote hillside. She was thought to be about 15 years old.

I don't know about you but I hear multiple layers of tragedy in this story. I also hear echoes of the story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, except there was no dramatic, last minute divine intervention to spare the life of Manache.

A statue of Manche Masemola is one of the ten in the Modern Martyrs of the 20th Century collection adorning Westminster Abbey’s Great West Door. I suspect many see her as a martyr to the Christian faith, an example for all Christians to be steadfast and willing to die for the teachings of Christ.

When I visted the Abbey years ago and saw her statue, I was awash with the sense that Manache is not so much a Christian martyr as a martyr not to the teachings of Jesus but, rather, to the use of Christianity as a tool - a weapon - of colonialism, imperialism, empire and cultural genocide.

I find the juxtaposition of her story with that of the stories of Cornelius the Centurian, the first Gentile to be converted to Christianity, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was martyred by Christian Nationalists in Germany who used their religion as a tool of fascism and genocide, to be a testimony to the evil corruption of the original intent of evangelism.

The three, indivually and together, shine a bright light in which we can examine more closely our beliefs and faith in the True Light of Jesus, who is the vehicle of our ongoing epiphanies and revelations. This has become a spiritual task of critical importance for us in our day and time.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

NB: I wish to point out the obvious - that I am a woman who is Caucasian, Western, and a Christian liberation feminist, who comes from the strong Roman and Anglo Catholic roots of American immigrants who is retelling this story through those particular lenses. I have no doubt my perspective will differ from some Citizens of the Realm, as well as American Christians and even, perhaps, some South Africans. This is my epiphany, my revelation. I trust I have shared my reflection with respect. If your reflection differs, please share it with the same respectful intent. Thank you.

Epiphany XVIII: Blaise and Minnie

 

Monday, February 3rd 

Good Monday morning, citizens of the last few weeks of Epiphanytide. Okay, so many among you will argue that there's no such thing as The Epiphany Season much less Epiphanytide. You will want me to say that this is "Ordinary Time."

Nay, nay, say I. I think we must resist with every single last damn fiber in our being, slapping the label "ordinary" or "normal" on anything that is happening these days. I think we have to cling to the last rays of light in everything, everywhere, all at once.

The days are growing darker. The gathering storm clouds are more ominous. After attacking an Episcopal bishop who had the temerity to preach the gospel and plead for mercy for those who are afraid right now, the first public volley on a mainline Christian denomination has been made.

An ELCA a faith-based charity that has been providing social services to refugees has been accused of "corruption and waste" and is having its payments "rapidly shut down" by Elon Musk, who is not an elected official and was born in South Africa.

ELCA Bishop Elizabeth Eaton has responded to these accusations, speaking the words of the Good News of Jesus with calm clarity, intelligence, and eloquence.

Oh, there'll be hell to pay for that.

The POTUS ordered the secretary of the Treasury to provide Musk with unlimed access to the government's checkbook, so now Musk has access to Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, and payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk’s own companies, all of it.

I need to say this loud and clear: This is unconstitutional. As such, it is grounds for impeachment. I know. It's too soon to take action. We need to make sure our elected representatives understand that we understand this. Resistance and pushback and the general outcry from the citizenry are our most effective tools right now. Old King Donald hates to be unpopular.

The Tariff war has officially begun with the announced punitive tariffs of 25% to Canada and Argentina and 10% to China. The long-term strategy of tariffs on Canada is to weaken their economy so that he can make them the 51st State.

Guantanamo Bay is going to be reopened to be able to house 30,000 immigrants who have been waiting and hoping and dreaming to be granted asylum and begin the long process to obtain US Citizenship. They'll do this with the money they save from paying the ELCA and other religious organizations for their services.

I could go on but you'll understand, please, and forgive me for wanting to hold onto The Light, even if it offends the liturgical sensibilities of some of the more, shall we say, "stiff-necked" among us.

I'm warning you right now, don't even ask me what I'm giving up for Lent. You don't want to hear my response. It won't be pretty.

Today is the Feast of St. Blaise. I looked him up by date and name in the Lesser Feasts and Fasts of TEC and he does not appear there. Pity. He used to. He's been replaced by Anskar, or Oscar, who was the first Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, and patron saint of Scandinavia.

St. Blaise was a physician and bishop of Sebastea, Armenia in 316, who "worked hard for the spiritual and physical health of his people." Due to religious intolerance, Blaise was apparently forced to flee to the backcountry. There he lived as a hermit in solitude and prayer, but he made friends with the wild animals.

One day a group of hunters seeking wild animals for the amphitheater stumbled upon Blaise’s cave. They were first surprised and then frightened. The bishop was kneeling in prayer surrounded by patiently waiting wolves, lions, and bears.

The legend has it that as the hunters hauled Blaise off to prison, a mother came with her young son who had a fish bone lodged in his throat. At Blaise’s command, the child was able to cough up the bone. The Germans and Slavs hold him in special honor, and for decades many United States Catholics have sought the annual Saint Blaise blessing for their throats.

Indeed, one of the scariest memories of my childhood was being hauled off to mass by my grandmother once a year on February 3rd to have my throat blessed.

The priest had a Very Scary (well, to a young child) . . . thingy . . . which was made of metal and looked like a huge pair of scissors. At the end of each "arm" were two lit candles, crossed. Kneeling at the altar rail as if for communion, the priest would bring the apparatus close so that your throat was in the middle of the crossed, lit candles, say the blessing prayer, and VOILA! you were safe for another year from choking on fish bones, tonsillitis, sore throat, or strep throat.

Blaise is the patron saint of relief from Throat Ailments and, for whatever reason, English Wool Combers.

Today is the third day of Black History Month and I celebrate and call the name Minnie Riperton, a woman who used her voice to entertain millions. Born Minnie Julia Riperton Rudolph (1947-1979)

Mariah Carey is heralded for her whistle register, which is the highest the human voice is capable of reaching. But Riperton perfected the singing technique years before and was best known for her five-octave vocal range. The whistling can be heard on her biggest hit, “Lovin’ You.” The infectious ballad was originally created as a distraction for her daughter, Maya Rudolph (of Bridesmaids and Saturday Night Live fame).

In 1969 Riperton, along with the group The Rotary Connection, played in the first Catholic Rock Mass at the Liturgical Conference National Convention, Milwaukee Arena, Milwaukee, WI. Several of the songs were co-written by Richard Rudolph, who married Riperton in August 1970. Together, they had two children, Marc and Maya.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1976, but she did not initially disclose that she was terminally ill. In 1977, she became a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society. In 1978, she received the American Cancer Society's Courage Award, which was presented to her at the White House by President Jimmy Carter. Riperton died of breast cancer on July 12, 1979, at the age of 31.

I pray that we are able to take these two bright lights into the darkness of the day in these last few weeks of the Epiphantide.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.