Spiritual Lessons: A Meditation on Columbus Day

 Writing time is short this morning, so let me run a Columbus Day post that I wrote some years ago. It's one of my favorite meditations on Columbus.

Today we celebrate Columbus Day: October 12 was the actual day of the first sighting of land after almost 2 months at sea. I’m always amazed at what those early explorers accomplished. At Charlestowne Landing (near Charleston, SC), I saw a boat that was a replica of the boat that some of the first English settlers used to get here. It was teeny-tiny. I can't imagine sailing up the coast to the next harbor in it, much less across the Atlantic. Maybe it would have been easier, back before everyone knew how big the Atlantic was.

In our spiritual lives, we may be feeling a bit like Columbus. Let’s ask some questions prompted by Columbus Day, questions that may lead us to some meaningful meditations.

Below, when I talk about our spiritual lives, I’m talking about our individual lives and expressions of spirituality, as well as our corporate spiritual lives, the lives we live in the company of fellow believers.

--In our spiritual lives, are we the explorer or are we the native populations of new continents? Or are we members of the Old World? In other words, are we always striking out for new lands? Or are we waiting to be discovered? Are we so tied to our traditions that we can’t even imagine how our lives could be different?

--As spiritual people, how long are we willing to be at sea? I’m part of a church tradition, mainstream Protestantism, that looks back longingly to the 1950’s, when it seemed that everybody made time for church. Many of us hope that we will soon return to a time when church returns to its central location. But we may have only started our time at sea, on a voyage of discovery. Can we trust God? Can we continue to hold onto our faith when we're in the middle of a vast ocean, with nothing but our instruments and the stars to guide us, with no sense of how far away the land for which we're searching might be?

--We may be certain we’re on a quest to find one kind of wealth. In the process, we may discover something completely different, something far more valuable? Will we recognize the value of what we find?

--The explorations in North and South America changed our cooking forever. Imagine a culinary life without corn, sweet peppers, tomatoes. Imagine life without chocolate. What ways can our spirituality enrich our cultures?

--Of course, if I was looking through the Native American lens, I might say, "Imagine life without smallpox." What are the possible negative impacts implicit in the collision between secular culture and sacred culture? Can we mitigate those? Should we mitigate those?

--These explorations wouldn’t have been possible without the patronage of the wealthiest of society members. In our current world, many of us are some of the wealthiest people on the planet. North Americans may not feel like it, but we’re the Isabella and Ferdinand of our time. What projects should we be funding? What spiritual projects will make the kind of lasting legacy of funding the voyage of Columbus?

A Banquet and Archived History

Yesterday I drove down to Columbia, SC to meet my parents so that we could all go to the James R. Crumley Archives banquet.  In years past, I've seen pictures of the event, and I've always been curious.  This year, schedules aligned, and we could go.

Each year, as far as I can tell, the banquet is held at a different place.  So far, the Archive has not had a permanent home.  That's about to change:  Newberry College has donated land for a building and now the capital campaign begins.  We heard a bit about that new development last night.

(l-r Don Poole, Ina Berkey, Jane Mitcham,Tom Berkey)

But most of last night's banquet was to celebrate the accomplishments of the honorees:  an individual, a church, and a synod of the ELCA.  It was enough of a program to justify the banquet, but not so overwhelming/long that people started leaving early.

(l-r Honoree Dorothy Jeffcoat, Don Poole, Ina Berkey)

Before the event, we had been invited to be part of a program that told the story of African American Lutherans in the southeast.  That program turned out to be a documentary that's available to all (go here to watch), along with some segments about Atlanta from a forthcoming documentary in the same series.

It was a lovely evening with good food, good stories/speeches, and even better, the chance to reconnect with others from the region.  I was happy to be reminded of all my connections:  to individuals, to various churches, to synods from the southeastern United States, to Newberry College, and to church camps.  But more than that, I was happy to hear the stories of all the good happening in the world, in small ways and in big ways.

The Feast Day of Hildegard of Bingen

 September 17 is the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen, mystic, herbalist, musical composer, naturalist, and Abbess. Her life was full of accomplishments, an amazing feat considering she lived in the twelfth century (she was born around 1098 and died in 1179).

Until recently, I had never thought of the twelfth century as a high water mark of feminism, but female monastics did amazing things during that time period. By studying them, I come away with a new appreciation for the medieval Church, where talented women found a cloistered kind of freedom. In many ways, the cloistered life was the only way for medieval women to have any kind of freedom. Cloistered life offered the only protection available to women who lived at the edges or outside the margins of society: widowed, artistic, not wanting to be married, weird in any way.

But Hildegard's life shows that freedom was constrained, since women monastics answered to men. For years, Hildegard wanted to move her group of nuns to Rupertsburg, but the Abbot who controlled them refused her request.

We all face constraints of various kinds, and the life of Hildegard shows what could be accomplished, even during a time where women did not have full rights and agency. She was an Abbess, and because being in charge of one cloistered community isn't enough, she founded another. She wrote music, and more of her music survives than almost any other medieval composer. She was an early naturalist, writing down her observations about the natural world and her theories about how the natural world heals us. She wrote to kings, emperors and popes to encourage them to pursue peace and justice. She wrote poems and a morality play and along the way, a multitude of theological meditations.

She did all of these things, in addition to keeping her community running smoothly. Yes, I'm thinking about Hildegard as an administrator, a woman who could be efficient and artistic at the same time. It’s no wonder that I find her inspiring.

It's interesting to think about the different types of groups who have claimed her as their own. Feminists claim her importance, even though she didn't openly advocate equality. Musicians note that more of her compositions survive than almost any other medieval composer. Her musical works go in different directions than many of the choral pieces of the day, with their soaring notes. New Age types love her views of the body and the healing properties of plants, animals, and even minerals. Though her theology seems distinctly medieval, and thus not as important to modern Christians, it's hard to dismiss her importance as a figure from church history.

I often say that it's odd I'm drawn to monasticism, as I'm a married, Lutheran female who has all sorts of worldly commitments, and thus cannot fully vow obedience. But as I think about church history, I'm struck time and time again by how often monasticism has offered a safe space to women that no other part of society did. I shouldn't be surprised that it's a tradition that speaks to me still.

It’s a tradition that speaks to many others too: have you listened to the Hildegard of Bingen channel on Pandora?  At one time, the channel was one of the most popular on that streaming service.

Maybe today is a good day to tune in that medieval music. We could listen while writing letters to those in charge, letters which demand more work towards social justice. Or we could focus on other writing projects, as Hildegard of Bingen did. We could plant a healing herb garden.

Today, on her feast day, let us say a prayer of thanks for Hildegard of Bingen and other medieval matriarchs of Christianity.

Alternate Apocalypse

Even though my friends tease me for my apocalyptic mindset, my ability to see dystopia lurking around every development, I am not always quick to see immediate, personal danger in world developments.  I remember a leadership team meeting in early February of 2020, when our college president mentioned this strange new sickness in China and maybe we should be thinking about how it might affect us.  I remember saying that it wouldn't be any worse than the flu (my first blog post about the disease is here, January 30, 2020).  I had been aware of various versions of flu and SARS viruses, and I understood worst case scenarios--in other words, I'm not a denier of any sort.  But still, I was the one downplaying the danger.

On September 11, I was getting ready to drive down to the University of Miami to teach my Brit Lit Survey class.  I was still at home, almost ready to walk out the door, with NPR on the radio, when I heard about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center.  I wondered what part of the navigation on the plane could have gone so terribly wrong, or could it be engine failure?  And then the second plane hit, and I thought, what are the odds of that?

As I drove to Miami, hearing more information and then the Pentagon plane, I kept scanning the skyline for mushroom clouds.  I had spent my life expecting a nuclear attack.  I did wonder if I should turn around and go home.  But not only did I not go home, I taught my first class to the distracted students who came.  By the time of my second class, U of Miami President Donna Shalala had canceled all classes for the day.

I am sure I have mentioned much of this story before, perhaps in different combinations.  I've been blogging since 2008, and that's a lot of anniversaries.  It's hard to believe it's been 25 years.  My onground students weren't born in 2001.

As I think about these 2 historic events, the COVID-19 pandemic and 9/11, the pandemic probably changed more lives of more people I know personally than 9/11.  People made dramatically different decisions once they had gone through that time of pandemic crisis.  If I had been in NYC, if I moved in military circles, perhaps I would have had different experiences.

Or perhaps it has to do with the passage of time.  I do remember always having a gas tank never below empty and always having a case of water in the car.  I remember asking if my school had an emergency plan, and I did take note of various control panels in the building.   Those developments, though, were later, because that school was AiFL, and I didn't start that job until 2002.  I asked about the emergency plan during the days when the federal government would issue color coded threat levels.  Those memories have faded, but pandemic memories are still fresh.

I have always looked for the exits, no matter where I am.  I am the one who says, "If something happens, and I'm in Spartanburg and you're in Arden, we'll meet in Arden."  I'm the one who knows which location is best for surviving various dystopias.

I have been listening to various programs that look back on that day and how it changed us (I particularly like this podcast from The Dispatch).  This blog post seems inadequate.  So let me post a poem.  It's not a 9/11 poem, but a pantoum about preparing for the wrong apocalypse.  I wrote it in 2002 or 2003.

And of course, we haven't prepared for the "wrong"  apocalypse.  Global warming has accelerated, and the world is less safe from nuclear weapons now than we ever were in the cold war years.  History should teach us that unexpected apocalypses are always lurking.

Alternate Apocalypse



We expected mushroom clouds and radiation.
Instead we changed the chemistry of the atmosphere.
Chunks of glaciers break for freedom and sail across the sea.
Ice caps melt, and the sea swallows islands.

Instead we changed the chemistry of the atmosphere,
yet we refuse to believe the evidence of global warming.
Ice caps melt, and the sea swallows islands,
but global warming is just an unproved theory.

Yet we refuse to believe the evidence of global warming.
Temperatures rise farther and earlier in the year,
but global warming is just an unproved theory.
Some years we have no winter.

Temperatures rise farther and earlier in the year.
Old people bake and die forgotten in their homes.
Some years we have no winter;
furious storms hurl themselves across the oceans.

Old people bake and die forgotten in their homes.
Lucky ones huddle together, hiding from the oppressive heat.
Furious storms hurl themselves across the oceans.
We see new diseases stalking continents.

Lucky ones huddle together, hiding from the oppressive heat.
We expected disasters to rain down on us, but not these.
We see new diseases stalking continents.
This was not the apocalypse we envisioned.

We expected disasters to rain down on us, but not these.
We feared nuclear winter, not this relentless warming.
This was not the apocalypse we envisioned.
We expected mushroom clouds and radiation.

Back to School, Back to Hiroshima

Yesterday was a delightful day.  Today will be delightful too, although it's a full day on campus, so it will be a different kind of delightful.  And I've been awake since 2, so I do worry about how tired I'll be by late afternoon.

My brain started churning at 2, churning with all sorts of worries and plans.  I need to sit down with a calendar and old syllabi and make some loose plans--or maybe weekly plans--at least that's what my brain was telling me when I couldn't go back to sleep.  My brain also jumped ahead to spring, and how I might teach the Intro to Lit class, and it's much too early to be plotting those classes.

Have I done the syllabus planning for this semester, since I was awake?  No, of course not.  I did some reading and ate some cranberry orange bread.  I did some fretting about muscle loss:  not my own, but my friend who had the catastrophic stroke a few years ago, and has lost so much muscle mass that she can't sit in the wheelchair very long.  I've wondered about other people in my life who aren't getting much exercise--but certainly more than my mostly bed-bound friend.

I am remembering 2 years ago, heading down to campus for a day that would have been even fuller, with a dinner for new faculty at the end.  I remember going to orientation sessions for new faculty and wondering how much would apply to me as a person with a one year position.  And I remember feeling so jealous of people who had the luxury of more permanence.

And now I am one of those people.

Of course, today is one of those days in history that reminds me that permanence is an illusion. Today is the day when the first atomic bomb used in warfare was detonated at Hiroshima, thus launching us into this brave new world where we find ourselves.  I think of those people headed to work when the bomb detonated, those burned into the concrete, and those further away, who would spend the rest of their lives being a walking specimen of what overexposure to radiation does to a human body before they died early.

The bombs used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki were small by today's standards--but what damage they did! The effects of that bomb obliterated much of Hiroshima--and vaporized some of it. There were reports of people fused into pavement and glass--or just vanished, with a trace remaining at the pavement. The reports of the survivors who walked miles in search of help or water are grim. And many of those survivors would die of the effects of radiation in the coming years.

Through the years, I've seen many a documentary about the rush to build nuclear weapons, about the uncertainty of what would happen with those first tests and explosions--would the very atmosphere around the planet dissolve? I have yet to see any footage of scientists who wondered what might happen to civilians on the ground when these bombs exploded.

I've lived long enough to see history being made to know that the choices can be fairly ghastly. In this case, far better to develop the weapons before the Germans. I know many people who believe that the use of these bombs helped avoid more years of grueling battles in the Pacific that would have left us with even more dead--one could argue that the sacrifice of the populations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were worth the avoidance of more years of war and that loss of life.

I've also done enough reading and thinking about pacifist approaches to wonder if there might not have been another way if we had acted much earlier.

I remember during our grad school years we went to a beautiful anti-nuclear vigil on August 6 in a city park.  I remember paper cranes and seeing some of our grad school professors there.  That would have been in 1988 or 1989.  I wonder if any groups mount anti-nuclear vigils in August anymore?

It's not that the world is any more of a peaceful place these days.  In fact, in recent years, it feels like we're sliding back to a world that's much more dangerous.  Sadly, the world still needs the blessings of the origami cranes.  They're not as easy to fold as they look--that, too, makes them an appropriate metaphor.  But they are worth the effort--and peace is worth the effort too.

The Feast Day of Mary Magdalene

Decades ago, many of us might not have heard of Mary Magdalene. When I went to undergraduate school, in the mid-80's, we didn't know about many women in the Bible outside of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Maybe we had a vague memory of a woman with demons that Jesus healed.

Now it's a different story. We've had decades of feminist theology that has opened our eyes and our theology to the presence of women. Now scholars are doing an even deeper dive into ancient texts. I'm thinking of Diana Butler Bass's sermon in the summer of 2022 which alerted us to the research of Elizabeth Schrader who is looking at manuscripts and trying to see if Mary Magdalene has been literally erased and written over to transform it to Martha.  Her scholarship also leads her (and others) to suggest that Mary might have been one of the pillars of the first church:  Mary the Tower and Peter the Rock.  But over the centuries, only Peter the Rock endures.

It's an interesting theory, and it seems like just one more example of how the ancient Church tried to minimize and hide the involvement of women in the life of the first group of believers. It's not that different from emphasizing the Mary Magdalene of demon possession and/or prostitution, not the Mary Magdalene as the first witness to the resurrection.  As I think of the Easter morning story, I wonder if we’re seeing a vestige of Mary Magdalene’s possessed personality. What drove her to the tomb? I understand the ancient customs surrounding the care of dead bodies, and I understand the laws regarding dead bodies and the Sabbath. But in one Gospel, it’s only Mary who is so deeply concerned about the body of Jesus. What drives her to the tomb?

In Mary’s reaction to the man she assumes is the gardener, I recognize my own demon of anxiety. I watch her ask a perfect stranger about the body of Jesus. I watch her throw all caution and decorum away, so desperate is she to complete this task, as if completing the task will restore the world to right order.

Many of us suffer in the grip of these demons of anxiety, these beliefs that somehow, through our manic quest for control, we can keep the world from spinning into chaos. We might argue for the benefits of medication, and indeed, if it’s a matter of brain chemicals that are out of balance, we would be right.

But all too often, something else is at the root of our modern possession. Maybe we haven’t stopped to grieve our losses, as Mary needs to do in the garden. Maybe it’s the fear of loss that is coming to all our lives. Maybe it’s that insistent hiss from both inside and out that says that we will never be enough: good enough, clean enough, accomplished enough, nice enough, attractive enough, loved enough.

The Easter message comes to cast out these demons again and again. Christ reminds us that he’s here, always waiting, always watching, always ready for us. Even if we don’t recognize him, Jesus will not cast us away. It is the voice of Jesus that can silence all of our demons and help us to be at peace. Christ’s voice calls us to what’s important in our lives.

Music Week Day 1: The Contrasts and the Contradictions

 The last 24 hours have been full of contrasts.  On the one hand, it was the first full day of  Music Week at Lutheridge:

--Monday began with a long walk with the S. Florida church friend who is staying with us for the week.  Up and down hills, but I didn't really notice them because the conversation was deep and meaningful.

--Morning worship was also deep and meaningful.  I LOVED this prayer of the day:  "On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, not revenge.  He offered bread to feed and to forgive.  On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took a basin of water to sooth [sic], liberate, and heal.  Help us, so washed and fed, to do the same."

--My inner English major was intrigued by the above spelling error, which made me think of soothsaying, which I continued to think about all day.

--My inner English major also was there for Bible study, which will take us to some villains in the Bible.  We began with one of the biggest, the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  One participant talked about the devil possessing the serpent, which sent me to the text, which reminded me that it's not in the text.  Ah, Milton, how your version has taken over everything we think we know about the story--which is what I said, in more non-English-major accessible form.

--One of our last questions for Bible study was "What does the serpent get out of this?"  I keep misspelling serpent, and this morning, I thought about serpent and repent, and now I want to write a poem, "The serpent repents."

--I was there for general choir rehearsal.  From the very beginning, this group can sing.  They sounded amazing, like they had been practicing for weeks, instead of just beginning together.

--The director has interesting ways of describing what he wants:  "You just sang the color dusty rose.  But it was the dusty rose of a piece of tuille or a curtain so faded you can see through it.  Now try it as a deeper rose color."  I immediately thought of a creative writing class idea, having students write a description and me bringing in different fabrics and colors and saying, "Now write it this way." 

--We had good meals together at our house.  The prep work was easy because I did most of it in advance.  It's becoming clear that I have prepared too much food--happily, much of it is freezable.

All of yesterday happened against a back drop of World Cup drama, both the games themselves, and the rumors of a phone call pressuring the officials to change a decision about red cards.  And then, this morning, the U.S. team lost anyway.

I got up this morning to news not only of that sports/political development/scandal, but also of the one in Maine.  If I left that sentence standing by itself, would future me remember which scandal I'm referring to?  In the interest of history, let me note that there are new rape charges against the Democratic candidate for Senate.  The charges that were already known (inappropriate sexting, inappropriate use of force against girlfriends) by the time of the primary would have been more than enough to disqualify him in the not-so-distant past.  Sigh.

I don't have a pithy way to end this post.  After all, if we're lucky, every given day is full of these contrasts if we just know to look:  deep friendship and deep spirituality and the farcical elements of modern life particularly the political bits and pieces, along with song and sustenance of all sorts.

Liberation Holidays: Juneteenth

Today we celebrate our newest federal holiday:  Juneteenth.  Of course, many populations have been celebrating Juneteenth since the news of freedom first came to the last enslaved people in Texas in 1865.  This is the first year that I've been in a workplace that recognized the holiday.  In 2021, I was working for a small school that was very stingy with holidays, so we didn't have that holiday or MLK day or Presidents Day.

In 2022, I was no longer working for that school.  I was driving back across several states, coming back to Florida from the onground intensive at Southern Seminary.  I was already a certified spiritual director through their program, but I went back to take advantage of the education, to have a reunion with my small group, and to see a friend graduate from the program.  Two weeks later I would turn around to drive back up to Arden to buy the house that I'm writing in this morning.  So far, I have never regretted that purchase, which is not usual for me when it comes to housing or moves or jobs.

Or maybe it is becoming usual.  I don't have regrets about the spiritual direction certificate or my MDiv.  My main regret about my job at SMC is that I didn't have it sooner.  I love this house in a way that I haven't loved any other house.  Maybe my lack of regret is a pleasant part of being in late midlife.

I am tempted to tie these ideas back to Juneteenth, but I don't want to trivialize the holiday or the history.  While regret can enslave us, it's a very different enslavement than other forces and humans that enslave.

Wat are the forces enslaving so many of us? We think of iron shackles, but there are other societal constructs that hold so many back: debt, geopolitical forces, violence, educational systems.  And let's not forget that literal slavery hasn't disappeared. 

So on this Juneteenth, let us think about the captives who need our help to be set free. Let us also think about all the captivity narratives that hold us enslaved. Let us embrace liberation narratives. Let us envision what life would look like if all were truly free.

Memorial Day 2026

Today is Memorial Day, and through the years, I've come to realize how many different things this holiday can mean to people.  I've met people who won't celebrate it because of its roots in memorializing the Civil War Union dead.  My dad was an Air Force officer in the Reserves until he retired, so Memorial Day was personal for him.  I don't think I know anyone who was killed while on active duty, but I do want to honor those who died.  Some people I've known seem to have no inkling that the holiday has anything to do with soldiers at all--for them, it's about getting a good deal on a holiday sale or opening up the vacation home or having a cook out.

I remember feeling desperate for Memorial Day, for a day off, but during my days of working as an administrator, I was always desperate for a day off, a day off that didn't require me to use up any of my paltry allotment of vacation time.  For the past several years, Memorial Day as a three day week-end was not top of my mind, since I've already had a few weeks of schedule easing in May.

I also know that many people don't get to have time off.  All of our grocery stores are open today, for example.  When I taught in community colleges in South Carolina, we didn't have Memorial Day off.  Our nursing students needed every scrap of time in the summer, so that holiday had to be sacrificed so that we stayed in compliance.  Or maybe it was because of the Civil War; I got different explanations. In past years, I've used the day off to catch up on grading for my online classes.  

This year, I'm thinking about past years, when war seemed far away.  And now, here we are, with war in Europe (Ukraine) and war with Iran, and lots of smaller scale wars across the globe.

But let me circle back to the intent of this holiday.  On this day which has become for so many of us just an excuse to have a barbecue, let us pause to reflect and remember. If we're safe right now, let us say a prayer of gratitude. Let us remember that we've still got lots of military people serving in dangerous places.

Let us remember how often the world zooms into war. Let us pray to be preserved from those horrors.

Here's a prayer I wrote for Memorial Day:

God of comfort, on this Memorial Day, we remember those souls whom we have lost to war. We pray for those who mourn. We pray for military members who have died and been forgotten. We pray for all those sites where human blood has soaked the soil. God of Peace, on this Memorial Day, please renew in us the determination to be peacemakers. On this Memorial Day, we offer a prayer of hope that military people across the world will find themselves with no warmaking jobs to do. We offer our pleading prayers that you would plant in our leaders the seeds that will sprout into saplings of peace.

The Feast Day of Saint Dunstan

On this day in 988, Archbishop Dunstan died.  In this blog post, medieval scholar Eleanor Parker calls him "one of the greatest saints of Anglo-Saxon England - statesman, archbishop of Canterbury, scholar, monk, musician, metal-worker, and noted tormenter of devils."

Well, there's a resume!

The blog post talks about the history of Dunstan's time, the tumultuous tenth century, tumultuous in England, at least.  It was a time of Viking raids--but not constant raids.  During the times of no raiding, could people relax or did they always know the raids would start again?

It was also a time of internal fighting, with battles between Scotland and northern England.  To read the timeline in this Wikipedia article exhausts me.  But I remind myself that medieval war wasn't relentless, the way our more modern wars could be.  I imagine that civilian populations might not have known much at all about those battles that are listed.

It was a time of monastic developments, with new orders founded and old monasteries and abbeys resurrected.  Was this renewed interest because of the constant state of war?

Despite my knowledge of English literature, I don't really know much about this time period.  My knowledge of English literature in any kind of deep way begins with Chaucer, who lived from 1343-1400.  Most of us think of the post-Roman, pre-Chaucer time period as the Dark Ages, but historians have often pointed out the limits of that term.  Saint Dunstan shows that the time was much more complex. 

The Feast Day of Oscar Romero

Oscar Romero is now officially a saint, and today is his feast day.  On this day in 1980, he was killed, a martyr for the faith.  When I made this collage card years ago, I couldn't believe that he'd ever be canonized:

Many scholars believe that he was chosen to be Archbishop precisely because he was expected not to make trouble. All that changed when one of his good friends, an activist Jesuit priest, was assassinated by one of the death squads roaming the country. Romero became increasingly political, increasingly concerned about the poor who were being oppressed by the tiny minority of rich people in the country. He called for reform. He called on the police and the soldiers to stop killing their brethren. And for his vision, he was killed as he consecrated the bread for Mass.

I was alive when he was martyred, but I didn't hear or read about it.  I remember reading about some of the more famous murders, particularly of the nuns, and wondering why people would murder nuns or missionaries who were there to help--I had yet to learn of the horrors of colonialism throughout history.

In my first year of college, I was asked to be part of a service that honored the martyrdom of Romero, and this event was likely how I heard of him first.  Or maybe it was earlier that semester when our campus pastor took a group of us to Jubilee Partners.

Jubilee Partners was a group formed by the same people that created Koinonia, the farm in Americus Georgia that most people know because they also created Habitat for Humanity--but they were so much more, in their witness of how Christian love could play out in real practice in one of the most segregated and poor parts of the U.S. south.  In the early years of Jubilee Partners, when I went there, the group helped people from Central America get to Canada, where they could get asylum in the 1980's, when they couldn't get asylum in the U.S.

My consciousness was formed by these encounters and by other encounters I had throughout the 80's.  I met many people in the country illegally, and I heard about the horrors that brought them here.  Then, as now, I couldn't imagine why we wouldn't let these people stay.

Many of us may think that those civil wars are over, but many countries in Central America are still being torn apart by violence.  The words of Romero decades ago are sadly still relevant today:  "Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. ...In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression."

But his teachings go beyond just a call for an end to killing.  His messages to the wider church are still powerful:  "A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — ​what gospel is that?"

And even those of us who are not part of a faith tradition can find wisdom in his teachings:  "Each time we look upon the poor, on the farmworkers who harvest the coffee, the sugarcane, or the cotton... remember, there is the face of Christ."

If we treated everyone we met as if that person was God incarnate, what a different world we would have!

But for those of us who are tired from the work of this weary world, here's a message of hope and a reminder of the long view.  This prayer, while not written by him (it was written by late Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, drafted for a homily by Cardinal John Dearden, and misattributed to Romero), is often called the Romero prayer:  "We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own." 

On this day that honors a man who was not always honored, let us take heart from his words and from his example.  Let us also remember that he was not always this force for good in the world; indeed, he was chosen to be Archbishop because the upper management of the church thought he would keep his nose stuck in a book and out of politics. 

In these days that feel increasingly more perilous, let us recommit ourselves to the type of love that Romero called us to show:  "Let us not tire of preaching love; it is the force that will overcome the world."

Revisiting Reformation History

I am taking a Lutheran Foundations class at United Lutheran Seminary.  Because I went to a Methodist seminary, my Candidacy Committee required that I take this class on my route to ordination.  I thought it was a course in Lutheran theology, but it's much more than that.  It's a class that addresses the question:  what does it mean to be a Lutheran?

In yesterday's class, we went over the history of the Reformation, which was more than just Luther nailing his theses to the Wittenberg door.  Much of it was familiar to me from Church History class, but we spent a lot more time focused on the German part of the Reformation.

My professor stressed how the people of Luther's time must have seen these developments as God/Holy Spirit involvement.  Here's Luther, in a distant outpost of the Holy Roman empire, in a small university, causing all this disruption, and living to tell the tale.  I tend to think of Luther, and it was good to remember that he was about as marginal as it was possible to be, without being a peasant.

My professor pointed out that if you're the pope, and you excommunicate someone, you no longer have power over them.  Similarly, if you're the Emperor, and you put a price on someone's head outlawing them, you've played your highest card.  If that person persists in their actions, you've got no leverage left.

We talked a bit about Calvin too, less about Henry VIII.  At the end of class, our professor showed us a map of Europe showing which parts were Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist.  It's amazing to think about how these developments happened in a century, and people were very aware that they were living in a time of great change (unlike, say, people living in the 14-16th century, who were probably not thinking of themselves as living in "The Renaissance").

It's no wonder that Luther's contemporaries thought of him as having supernatural powers.  I'm trying to decide whether to use these ideas in Sunday's sermon or in a Transfiguration Sunday sermon.

A Poem for the Feast Day of Saint Brigid

Today is the feast day of St. Brigid, one of the patron saints of Ireland.  She is one of the early Christians, living from roughly 451-525 (AD/CE) who stood at the intersection of Christianity, Druidism, and the other pagan religions of Ireland.  This time period was also a time of societal collapse--the Roman empire was in slow (albeit sometimes spectacular) decline/collapse, and if I'm remembering my history correctly, Ireland and England were attacked by various tribes from the northern parts of Europe.  It would have been a difficult time.

Brigid is one of those extraordinary women who did amazing things, despite the patriarchal culture in which she lived.  She founded founded some of the first Christian monasteries in Ireland, most famously the legendary one in Kildare.  She also founded a school of art that focuses on metal working and illumination.  The illustrated manuscript, the Book of Kildare, was created under her auspices.  Unfortunately, it's been lost since the Reformation, so we know it by its reputation only.

Monastic, administrator, artist--it's no wonder that her story calls to me from across the centuries.

I didn't really know much about Brigid until about 2011 or 2012, when I read several blog posts about her.  In 2013, I drove all the way to Mepkin Abbey on her feast day.  I thought about her life as I drove across cold landscapes.  I finally wrote a draft of the poem that appears below.

Years ago, I wrote this:  "I will try to imagine Saint Brigid through a more realistic lens.  I will write a poem where she tells me that she accomplished all sorts of things along the way, while all the time struggling to create her great illuminated work.  I will imagine something that she did that we know nothing of.  I will imagine that she will feel sad when she realizes that modern people don't even know of her great work, but instead of her institutions at Kildare and beyond.

I will think about a woman at midlife 1500 years from now, a woman who reads about my life.  What will amaze her?  How will she see the ways that I did, indeed, live an authentic life, even as I lost sight of that fact in the daily minutiae?  If she blogged about me, what would seem important enough to include?  How would she finish this sentence:  In the last half of her life, Berkey-Abbott accomplished ______________  ?"

I have yet to write about Brigid's lost work, but I did write the poem that imagines Brigid through a more realistic lens.  It was published in Adanna, and I'm happy to repost it here.  If you want additional background on Brigid, see this blog post.


The True Miracle of Saint Brigid


You know about the baskets
of butter, the buckets of beer,
the milk that flowed
to fill a lake.

You don’t know about the weeks
we prayed for the miracle
of multiplication but instead received
the discipline of division.

I managed the finances to keep us all fed.
By day, I rationed the food.
At night, I dreamed of a sculpture
manufactured of metal.

I didn’t have the metal
or the time, but in the minutes
had, I illuminated
any scrap of paper I could find.

Lost to the ashes:
The Book of Kildare, but also
my budget ledgers, flowers
and birds drawn around the numbers.

World AIDS Day 2025

Here we are, World AIDS Day, in yet another year of our no-longer-new pandemic (COVID 19), a disease that's much easier to contract than AIDS, a disease that like AIDS preys on the more vulnerable in our society.

Maybe all diseases target the more vulnerable.  And our epidemiologist friends would remind us that diseases don't have emotions or calculations.  Diseases infect where they can, and in vulnerable populations, diseases have more opportunity.

AIDS is still a fairly fierce disease, even though we have medications that can keep people alive for decades--that's still a lot of disease management, which isn't a cure.  According to a UN Fact Sheet, 1.3 million people worldwide contracted AIDS in 2024 alone--that's just one year.  Since the beginning of this epidemic, 91.4 million people have been infected, and 44.1 million have died of the disease.

At this moment in time, COVID-19 isn't killing as many of us.  But it is still a disease to be reckoned with, a disease that leaves lots of wreckage in its wake.  Like AIDS, many of us assume that COVID-19 has been tamed or disappeared.  But like AIDS, some of us are more protected than others.

Dec. 1 is also the anniversary of the day in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. This act is often given credit for launching the Civil Rights Movement, but what many forget is that various communities had begun planning for the launch, even before they could see or know what it would look like.

In fact, for generations, people had prepared for just such a moment. They had gotten training in nonviolent resistance. They had come together in community in a variety of ways. They were prepared.

Someone asked me once how I had come to be such an optimist. I've always had an optimistic streak, but frankly, my whole world view shifted when I watched Nelson Mandela walk out of prison. I fully expected him to be killed, but again, my worldview shifted when I watched South Africans stand in line for days (days!) to elect him president. And he was ready to be president because he had spent those decades in prison thinking about how he would run the country and making plans.

I have seen enormous social change happen in my lifetime--in the face of such evidence, I must agree with Dr. Martin Luther King, who said the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.  

Some years, that arc seems so long and the bending so difficult to discern.  Diseases show us where we need to bend that arc towards justice, where there's still opportunity for progress.

Those of us who work towards social justice and human dignity for all know how long the struggle might be. We are similar to those medieval builders of cathedrals: we may not be around to see the magnificent completion of our vision, but it's important to play our part. In the words of that old Gospel song, we keep our eyes on the prize, our hands on the plow, and hold on.

Armistice Day with Monastic Poem

It has been many years since I was teaching the second half of British Literature in a Fall semester when Armistice Day/Veterans Day happens.  This year, I am.  We've already covered the material, although now we're discussing Mrs. Dalloway, a book which may be the first depiction of World War I caused PTSD in a novel.

I think it's hard for most of us to conceive of how many people died in World War I.  Even when I have my students imagine all of their male classmates going off to fight and no one coming back, I think it's hard to get our heads around the total.  I wish we could all go to the WWI cemeteries in France.  It's a visual that's tough to capture in a picture; it does make a very different impact.

Years ago, I was at Mepkin Abbey on Armistice Day.  It also happened to be near All Saints Sunday, the first All Saints Day after Abbot Francis Kline had been cruelly taken early by leukemia, and the Sunday we were there was the day of the memorial service for him. Part of one of the services was out in the monks' cemetery, and all the retreatants were invited out with the monks. I was struck by the way that the simple crosses reminded me of the French World War I cemeteries:

I took the above picture later from the visitor side of the grounds, but it gives you a sense of the burial area. I turned all these images in my head and wrote a poem, "Armistice Day at the Abbey."



 Armistice Day at the Abbey



The monks bury their dead on this slight
rise that overlooks the river
that flows to the Atlantic, that site
where Africans first set foot on slavery’s soil.

These monks are bound
to a different master, enslaved
in a different system.
They chant the same Psalms, the same tones
used for centuries. Modern minds scoff,
but the monks, yoked together
into a process both mystical and practical,
do as they’ve been commanded.

Their graves, as unadorned as their robes,
stretch out in rows of white crosses, reminiscent
of a distant French field. We might ponder
the futility of belief in a new covenant,
when all around us old enemies clash,
or we might show up for prayer, light
a candle, and simply submit.

Peace in the Middle East?

It has been a week of Nobel awards; this morning, along with many others, I'm waiting to see who wins the Peace Prize.  It's been a week of grim anniversaries:  the 2 year anniversary of the war in Gaza is the primary one that consumed much of the news.  But it's also a week where there might be a chance for peace in the Middle East.

I've also been alive long enough to know how impossible it seems to have peace in the Middle East, and how fragile any progress can be.  I've seen deals rejected, deals that seemed like good ones to me.  I've seen people dig into paths that will lead to certain ruin.

There are people wiser than I am who have many more words than I do.  But it seems like we might be at a hinge point here, and I wanted to note it.  

I've been thinking of other intractable conflicts which suddenly were solved, most notably the one in Ireland.  When that was signed in the late 90's, I thought that it had a slim chance of success.  And here we are, decades later, and peace has held.

May it also be so now. 

The Feast Day of Hildegard of Bingen

September 17 is the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen, mystic, herbalist, musical composer, naturalist, and Abbess. Her life was full of accomplishments, an amazing feat considering she lived in the twelfth century.

Until recently, I had never thought of the twelfth century as a high water mark of feminism, but female monastics did amazing things during that time period. By studying them, I come away with a new appreciation for the medieval Church, where talented women found a cloistered kind of freedom. In many ways, the cloistered life was the only way for medieval women to have any kind of freedom. Cloistered life offered the only protection available to women who lived at the edges or outside the margins of society: widowed, artistic, not wanting to be married, weird in any way.

But Hildegard's life shows that freedom was constrained, since women monastics answered to men. For years, Hildegard wanted to move her group of nuns to Rupertsburg, but the Abbot who controlled them refused her request.

We all face constraints of various kinds, and the life of Hildegard shows what could be accomplished, even during a time where women did not have full rights and agency. She was an Abbess, and because being in charge of one cloistered community isn't enough, she founded another. She wrote music, and more of her music survives than almost any other medieval composer. She was an early naturalist, writing down her observations about the natural world and her theories about how the natural world heals us. She wrote to kings, emperors and popes to encourage them to pursue peace and justice. She wrote poems and a morality play and along the way, a multitude of theological meditations.

She did all of these things, in addition to keeping her community running smoothly. Yes, I'm thinking about Hildegard as an administrator, a woman who could be efficient and artistic at the same time. It’s no wonder that I find her inspiring.

It's interesting to think about the different types of groups who have claimed her as their own. Feminists claim her importance, even though she didn't openly advocate equality. Musicians note that more of her compositions survive than almost any other medieval composer. Her musical works go in different directions than many of the choral pieces of the day, with their soaring notes. New Age types love her views of the body and the healing properties of plants, animals, and even minerals. Though her theology seems distinctly medieval, and thus not as important to modern Christians, it's hard to dismiss her importance as a figure from church history.

I often say that it's odd I'm drawn to monasticism, as I'm a married, Lutheran female who has all sorts of worldly commitments, and thus cannot fully vow obedience. But as I think about church history, I'm struck time and time again by how often monasticism has offered a safe space to women that no other part of society did. I shouldn't be surprised that it's a tradition that speaks to me still.

It’s a tradition that speaks to many others too: have you listened to the Hildegard of Bingen channel on Pandora?

Maybe today is a good day to tune in that medieval music. We could listen while writing letters to those in charge, letters which demand more work towards social justice. Or we could focus on other writing projects, as Hildegard of Bingen did. We could plant a healing herb garden.

Today, on her feast day, let us say a prayer of thanks for Hildegard of Bingen and other medieval matriarchs of Christianity.

Osama's Sunflowers: A Poem for September 11

In the years since September 11, 2001, I have never not thought about that anniversary each year.  In 2017, it wasn't the first thing on my mind, since we had just had a hurricane, and we were trying to decide if it was safe to return home.  But eventually, I did realize what day it was.

In the years just after 2001, everyone remembered that anniversary each year when it arrived.  Now I have students who weren't born in 2001.  I think of my own reaction to my elders remembering the anniversary of the JFK shooting, which happened just a few years before I was born.  It seemed like such ancient history to me, while it was still very vivid for my elders.  I suspect the same is true of my students.

In 2001, we seemed to have shifted from the violence of assassinations to the violence of terrorist acts.  And now, we have a wide variety of types of violence, and I have no idea where the world is headed.

In 2011, I heard  this interview with Lawrence Wright, who wrote The Looming Tower.  I'm haunted by all the things we missed, all the pieces we didn't put together.  I'm haunted by the folks who say they tried to get a meeting with the President and key staff to go over all of this, but the scheduled meetings were cancelled again and again and again.

It makes me think about my life and all its facets.  What am I missing?  What should I focus upon?

Lawrence Wright told this nugget about Osama bin Laden, who flirted with both terrorism and agriculture, before committing to terrorism.  He loved his sunflowers.  

I understand how people become disaffected enough to leave their sunflowers behind and turn to dreams of destruction.  I'm grateful for my religious heritage that reminds me of the seductive qualities of evil, that warns me not to succumb to that glittery facade.

I continued to think about the terrorist that loved sunflowers, and not surprisingly, that nugget later led to a poem:

Osama’s Sunflowers


The terrorist sits in his armed
compound and watches videos
of himself. He counts
his weapons and yearns
for a nuclear bomb.

The terrorist dreams of hamburgers
and the joy of a cold beer
on a hot day.
The terrorist remembers the grill
he used to have, a container
of gas used to cook,
not to kill.

The terrorist tamps
down his longing
for the sunflowers he used to grow,
their bright smiles turned
towards blue skies.
He wonders about the different trajectory
had he chosen seeds and soil
instead of flame and ash.

Glory Days: 1995 and Now

Yesterday was the kind of teaching day that made me so grateful to have a chance to do some of this again, to do some of it for the first time.

I got to my office and sent an e-mail to my English Dep't colleagues to let them know that I had volunteered to be the faculty sponsor for the Poetry Club.  Lo and behold, another colleague had also volunteered, so we strategized about how to move forward.  We're both relatively new to Spartanburg Methodist College, so we're both grateful not to be going it alone.  Later, we talked to the student who is taking leadership too; she's in my Creative Writing class, and I like her energy.  As an added bonus, she's got visual art skills, so she'll be making the posters and flyers for the Involvement Fair on Monday.

I got grading done, so I'm caught up until Monday, and I've strategized my classes for next week.  The two classes that I teach on MWF went well.  In fact, after my Brit Lit survey class, one of my students said, "This is the only class where I wish it could go longer."  I think he was being sincere, not giving me empty flattery; he had been engaged for the whole class.

Yesterday we talked about Dorothy Wordsworth in all her Grasmere Journal glory.  She's now in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.  When I first started teaching her in the early 90's, I was bringing in handouts to augment the mostly male anthology.

As I drove home, I wasn't as interested in the NPR stations, so I listened to a station that was in the middle of a 90 minute "rock block"--and several songs in a row were from 1995, when I would have been driving back and forth from my home base near Charleston, SC, where I had a full-time teaching job at Trident Tech, to Columbia, SC, where my spouse was back in grad school.  As I listened to Seven Mary Three's "Cumbersome," I had that time wrinkle disconnect:  here I am in a tiny, fuel efficient car, driving on I-26, after having taught Dorothy Wordsworth to a group of students who were incredulous/aghast at the idea of Mary Hutchinson being willing to marry into the William-Dorothy dyad.

As I said, I am so grateful to be having a chance to relive some of my glory days, while at the same time wondering if I should be sad that my glory days don't involve something more transgressive (spoiler alert--I'm not sad).  Most people have glory days that revolve around ill-fated but glorious love affairs or some sort so sports/athletic achievement or some other advancement.  And mine revolves around a time when I was teaching literature I loved while writing poetry that amazed me.

We settled into our Friday night routine.  I bought the series Back to the Frontier only to find out that we would be getting it episode by episode, with each episode available early on Friday.  It's been another kind of time wrinkle, discovering that the whole series did not drop at once.  And I've enjoyed tuning in each week, just like we would have in 1995.

The show owes a HUGE debt to the PBS show Frontier House, which we watched in 2002, when it was on the air.  Three families see if they could live like Homestead Act settlers did in the late nineteenth century.  It's compelling, even as we realize that they are living a much safer variation:  no other humans attacking them and no animals attacking them and if the weather turned really ugly, they'd be rescued.

I discovered that we could watch Frontier House on YouTube, and so we watched about half of it last night.  It's not as compelling as when we first watched it, perhaps because we've had so many variations of reality TV since this early pioneer of reality TV aired.

My spouse and I always try to analyze how we'd do things differently.  We would not make for good reality TV--we would know what we signed up for and not whine constantly.  Of course, I'm not sure whining makes for good reality TV.

I do know that if I viewed my morning by way of some camera, this morning would make me long for such a life:  a good week teaching and pumpkin cinnamon rolls rising on the kitchen counter, my spouse sleeping while I'm writing.  Perhaps I have died and gone to Heaven, where I get to keep reliving these glory days.

Trinity Test Site, in History, Film, and Poetry

On this day in 1945, the United States exploded the first atomic bomb at the Trinity test site in New Mexico.

Robert Oppenheimer named the site, and when asked if he had named it as a name common to rivers and mountains in the west, he replied, "I did suggest it, but not on that ground... Why I chose the name is not clear, but I know what thoughts were in my mind. There is a poem of John Donne, written just before his death, which I know and love. From it a quotation: 'As West and East / In all flatt Maps—and I am one—are one, / So death doth touch the Resurrection.' That still does not make a Trinity, but in another, better known devotional poem Donne opens, 'Batter my heart, three person'd God;—.'"

I love a scientist who loves John Donne. Metaphysical poetry and atomic weapons: they do seem to go together in intriguing ways.

I think of Oppenheimer watching that explosion. In one book I read, the author states that these scientists were fairly sure what would happen, but not certain. There was some fear that they might somehow ignite the earth's atmosphere and destroy the planet. But they proceeded anyway.

Oppenheimer says that he watched the explosion and thought about The Bhagavad Gita: "I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds." Once we had a crew of guys come to cut down a tree. The leader with the shaved head took off his shirt and tattooed across his back was the same line; it was a big tattoo--I could read it from inside the house. On that same day, from the gay guys' apartment complex on the next street, I could hear disco music, The Village People and Donna Summer, in an endless loop, interrupted by the buzzing chain saws from the tree crew. Some day I'll use these details in a poem or a short story. Or maybe having recorded them in my blog, I won't feel the need to use the details elsewhere.

I thought with the film Oppenheimer, more people might know the history, but the significance of this day can get a bit lost.  I hadn't remembered until doing some digging this morning that the explosion was scheduled for this date because Truman had an important meeting with Allied leaders in Potsdam on July 17. Bomb as savior?

Oh, so many poetry possibilities! There's the desert aspect, the prophets that so often emerge from wilderness areas. There's the fact that this part of the country has become a detonation point for various immigration fights through the last four (or more) decades.

Those of you who have been reading this blog and/or my poems for awhile now will be saying, "Haven't you already explored this poetic terrain?"

Indeed, I have. Yet I think there may be more to do.

But for today, let's look back.

This poem was first published in The Ledge in the early part of this century:


Ash Wednesday at the Trinity Test Site


I didn’t develop a taste for locusts until later.
Instead I craved libraries, those crusted containers of all knowledge,
honey to fill the combs of my brain.

I didn’t see this university as a desert.
How could it be, with its cornucopia of classes,
colleagues who never tired of spirited conversations,
no point too arcane for hours of dissection.
I never foresaw that I might consume too many ideas,
that they might stick in the craw.

I never dreamed a day would come when I preferred
true deserts, far away from intellectual centers.
No young minds to be midwifed,
no hungry mouths draining my most vital juices,
no books with their reproachful, sad sighs, sitting
in the library, that daycare center of the intellect.

The desert doesn’t drown the voice
the way a city does. No drone
of machinery, no cacophony of crowing
scholars to consume my own creativity.
In the desert, the demand is to be still, to conserve
our strength for the trials that are to come.

Here, the earth, scorched by the fissile
testing of the greatest intellects of the last century, reminds
us of the ultimate futility of attempting to understand.
The desert dares us to drop our defenses.
In this place, scoured of all temptations, all distractions,
the sand demands we face our destiny.