Reconciling United Methodists in Nebraska and friends: (see reflection below by Lowen Kruse in honor of MLK birthday)
Our new theme for NE Statewide Reconciling Network is "Another Great Spiritual Awakening" along with "Reconciling on the Road" and "Believe OUT LOUD!" We hope to highlight other great spiritual awakenings in history as we seek new SPIRITUAL Awakenings in our own lives.
In light of the last week of horrifying events in Tucson, we have had -- Another GREAT Spiritual Awakening as a nation. We were not even counting on having a great spiritual awakening this week. It came "out of the blue" along with a call to look at ourselves, to find spiritual comfort and healing, to find ways to reach out to others and share, support do service, more caring actions and to seek spiritual partners! Our prayers went up and came down .... back to us each day.
Now with Rev Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday weekend coming before us, we hope we can find ways to go forward in our lives, in our faith groups, in our communities and work, volunteering with friends and neighbors as we send prayers to persons in Tucson! MLK's life and death have together been a huge spiritual awakening too as we dream the dream of a more whole world.
Our prayer is to OPEN OUR EYES to ways to reach out to neighbors and persons in our communties in love and service.
Start a reconciling support group and find ways you can support each other / reach out! Become an AIDS Ambassador this year for UM Global AIDS fund .. write us and we will help you get started mvetter@charter.net and wsmith28@gmail.com
Start a book group, make music, do service, meet some new people who are different from you.
Sing a NEW SONG event is opening Registration at www.RMNetwork.org and Horizons of faith Weekend with Bishop Spong in Omaha is opening registrations too: www.horizonsoffaith.com Read some Bishop Spong books.. he has twenty of them!
We are sharing what Rev Lowen Kruse sent today as his "Krusin the Capital" Reflection as another spiritual awakening!
Thanks Lowen as you didn't know you were going to be our spiritual awakening today! ----
Maureen Vetter and Wendy Smith, Email contacts for NE Statewide Reconciling Network an official reconciling community of www.RMNetwork.org See our NE group Facebook: Nebraska Statewide Reconciling Network or our new blog: www.Nebraskarum.
Become a Reconciling UM today by going to the main website for RMN to SIGN UP .. join the over 300 NE Reconciling folks who have signed on!
Upcoming dates: Immigration workshop at First UMC, Lincoln, Jan 16 from 1:30 on; Ecumenical Legislative Day, Feb 12, Christ UMC, Lincoln; A Greater Spectrum ART SHOW: African American Artists in NE 1912 - 2010, Museum of NE Art, Kearney downtown, Dec 4 - April 3, 2011, ground breaking art show; Horizons of Faith, Omaha First UMC, March 25 - 27, Tenth anniversary, www.horizonsoffaith.com with Bishop John Shelby Spong coming as Theologian for the 10th Annivesary!
He has 20 books out and a new one called ETERNAL LIFE.. good reading for Reconciling groups! SING A NEW SONG RMN Convocation coming! Go to the website for info: www.RMNetwork.org Other groups: Church Within A Church : www.cwac.us Human Rights Campaign: www.hrc.org Soulforce: www.soulforce.org and NE PLAG groups, omaha, Lincoln, Grand island, NE AIDS Project: www.nap.org UM global AIDS fund: www.umglobalaidsfund.org Feb
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----- Original Message -----
From: Lowen Kruse
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2011 10:48 AM
Subject: Krusing the Capitol, 2011, January
Protesters Rescued Me
by Lowen Kruse
Fifty years ago our country was in the midst of Civil Rights protests that shook our society. And changed us. “Freedom” for slaves was declared in 1863, but in 1963 descendents of slaves were not free to vote, or to ride any bus, or to eat at any lunch counter, or to stay at any hotel, or to attend any school or to walk on any sidewalk. We were a racist society and many of us saw little chance of change. Bold protesters showed us how to respond to mean.
A Black Christian leader, with a brilliant mind and instinctive insights in planning for true change, thought 1963 was the time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Bayard Rustin, a quiet hero of those gritty protesters, was the key mover of the March on Washington in 1963. He recruited fluent, respected leaders to summarize the case for reform. So many (of several races) had given so much in the mayhem of racial madness that it was not hard to recruit hardy souls to join others at a crowded national mall.
There Martin Luther King, Jr. declared “I have a dream” and summarized the longing of those who had fought in literal war zones. A secretary, who prompted King to use the dream sequence as he was going to the podium, is a symbol of the broad support base. A researcher who has thoroughly studied the people, places and politics of the movement, Charles Euchner states correctly that the familiar title was not the heart of what King had prepared. As dramatic as ‘dream’ was in unifying the various voices of the protest, King planned to recognize: “You have come here out of great tribulation …. Unearned suffering is redemptive. (Go back home knowing you are a people redeemed.)” They had watched loved ones killed, been beaten and jailed, and were isolated in their own towns. Yet redeemed.
One of the “ordinary heroes” was an older woman who said “Ain’t gonna let nobody
turn me around.” Euchner uses that in the title of his new book which gives a comprehensive look at the years of protest: “Nobody Turn Me Around…” He points out that Americans who did not have Black friends slowly came to understand the painful pleas of a decent people. There was no excuse to turn police dogs on them. It was un-American to ignore enforcement of bombings and murders. Yet protest was considered subversive by our government. The FBI was moving in on King as an enemy of the people, with plans to silence him. Few of us had been supportive of protesters, but we changed when we realized the cause was just and the barriers were not coming down by ordinary means.
The awakened nation turned a sharp corner. The following year came the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with follow-up action on the massive changes in the Act of 1965.
The protesters rescued me – rescued all of us – from living in a racist country. I am different, living among a people with a different attitude, a citizen in a nation with goals which would have been unthinkable then. I am a grateful recipient of a costly gift.
Also rescued in the process was King himself, by Bayard Rustin. When King’s church member, Rosa Parks, decided nobody was going to turn her around, he was fearful. He purchased and carried a pistol, to defend himself and protect his family. His trusted friend, Rustin, saw the potential of the moment and the foolishness of expecting to try to win by shooting it out with the Whites. He moved into King’s basement for two months, where they studied and prayed and developed a comprehensive non-violent protest to the awful circumstances of Black lives.
Not everyone liked being rescued. On the morning after King was killed, I walked the streets of our town, unable in my agony to sit down. We were the same age, 39. Brothers and pastors. I was not ready to hang it up, even for a worthy cause. Two of my members were digging a ditch to repair a water main. Perhaps they could be pastoral to me? They recognized my pain, but…. “Don’t you worry about this, Lowen. He was a trouble maker. We are better off without him.” He was a troublemaker – who rescued us against our will.
Euchner says it was ordinary heroes, not fluent speakers, who changed our country. Those “ordinary” protesters are the ones I am so grateful for. In some miraculous way, after 100 years of mean, they unanimously came to say nobody going to turn me around.
In the Civil Rights Acts we expressed a universal demand for public justice. However, after ’65 we strayed to the contentious tensions of “I want my piece of the pie. Now.”
We now have students who want to do the right thing, who volunteer for causes and give part of their time and energy for the benefit of hurting people. However, we live in a society where it is hard to do the right thing. The mean spirit of our times lacks the “redemptive acts of unselfish suffering.” Can we recover?
Are we swinging back? Perhaps. Many are now reacting to senseless violence. Repeal of “Don’t Ask” is simple justice. Critics of Blacks in the 50s blamed their rejection on “those people’s behavior.” Detractors of gays do the same now -- speak of behavior rather than differences of birth. The military has a long history of dealing with sexual behavior, so that is not the issue. Rejection is still by appearance. A majority in congress favored the Dream Act. Objectors say we must punish the parents. Simple justice looks at the child. Will we move from the mean?
King entered a process by which he rid himself of hatred for whites, to live Jesus’ teaching to “love your enemies.” He welcomed a new vision, a dream of what we can become. I am grateful for those who redefined who we are and demonstrated how to boldly respond to mean.
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