What Keeps the Fire of Your Faith Burning?

 

Binghampton United Methodist Church

July 4, 2015 

Six weeks have passed since I was invited to answer this question, “What keeps the fire of your faith burning?” It is an invitation to share with you, the people of Binghampton United Methodist Church,  my testimony. That is how I see this opportunity, as a chance to give testimony to what keeps me from falling into despair. I grew up in a church where we had “Testimony Meeting” every Wednesday night. We sang choruses, raised our hands toward heaven and gave testimony, telling what God had done for us that week, what prayers had been answered and how our faith had been nourished. Those testimonies shaped our understanding and appreciation for each other. They shaped our understanding and appreciation for God. Those who have heard me tell stories about my childhood know that I am grateful to be free from the rigid legalism and the self-righteousness that was part of my childhood church. However, I am also aware that being raised in the church and in a family where faith was foremost, I have become a person of faith. It is as much a part of me as my eyes, my thoughts and my emotions. I cannot escape faith. It has been baked into my bones. And the faith that has been mine since childhood still gives my steps direction.

It has not been an easy assignment, discovering what it is that keeps the fire of my faith burning. First I reflected on how I know that I have faith. What is faith? It is certainly more than thoughts, memorized scripture verses or belief that God exists. Faith, for me, is a way of understanding life. I have faith that my life, as well as your life, means something. I am not here just to breathe, eat, sleep and move from birth to death. I am here to satisfy something deep within myself and to assist the Creator who brought me here. I believe my life means that I matter because the one who brought me here matters. And, if I pay attention to the presence of love in my life, I can help the Creator make creation what she first imagined when her work began. I am capable of helping to satisfy the Creator by becoming all that I was meant to be and by letting the light of love shine through me in such a way that creation moves toward fulfillment in the eyes of the original Creator. We are co-creators. I am a worker bee in the holy hive of life.  I have faith that we are all here to engage in divine work with the Creator.

I have concluded that there are three things that keep my faith alive: 1.) my imagination, 2.) the spiritual discipline of daily prayer and 3.) the steadfast love of my partner, Anna.

First: I imagine better days. I imagine a world where soil, water and air are treated with respect. I imagine a world where dogs and cats are not abandoned or mistreated. I imagine a world where everyone has enough tasty food to eat and regular opportunities to enjoy meals, music and dancing with friends and family. I imagine a world where diversity is a treasure to be valued and honored. I can see it up ahead. I feel it coming. And so I tell stories as a way to make it real even now—if not for all of us then for some of us. I listen to the stories that people want to tell, need to tell, as a way to let them hear for themselves how much meaning they experience in their lives, how much unique power they have to share. If not for all time then for some of the time. I imagine a better life for all of us. And I am deeply grateful for that capacity to imagine. It gives me hope and keeps me from falling into despair. I recognize that there is something childlike about the way I put my imagination to use. Some might perceive me as naïve or uninformed, too trusting for my own good, too simple to be taken seriously. There was a time when I thought I might be unintelligent, not smart enough to see how awful our circumstances are here on earth. But my faith informs me that I am surely smart enough to know that hope must be kept alive by those who are trusting, simple and imaginative. I carry a light that comes straight from the gift of my vivid imagination.

Prayer keeps the fire of my faith burning. I pray every morning, the first thing I do every day. I sit on the couch with my dog and my cat. I drink coffee, read scripture, look out into the back yard, journal and talk with God. I talk and I listen. I tell God what hurts and I share my confusion. I ask for what I want and apologize for wanting so much. I lift up the people I know who need a touch from the hand of God.  I feel heard, cared for and respected. I receive what prayer has to give me, the promise that I am not alone and that my day will not be pointless. Every day that includes a time for prayer is a day when I make spiritual progress. I trust that my entire day belongs to God but I am only able to focus on God when I sit down and devote a specific time for our relationship.

Prayer is a matter of discipline for me. I learned from my mother how to exercise and value self-discipline. I set goals for myself and work on building a new habit, whatever it is that I want to add to my daily life. Eventually the habit comes naturally and fades into my identity. I have become a person who prays every morning. That is how I see myself. It is not an effort that strains me. It is who I am. I value the discipline of daily prayer and recognize that it keeps the fire of my faith burning. I am not alone no matter what challenges face me.

And the third thing that I recognize as fuel for the fire of my faith is the steadfast love of my partner, Anna. The steadfast love of God is called “hesed.” It is a word that refers to the dependable, unchanging love of God. While God is good and being loved by God is amazing, I need to touch and be touched by love that lives in a human body. I need ears that listen to me with patience and respect.  I need to hear a voice that speaks kindly to me. I know there are cloistered saints and people of deep faith who are celibate. I am not one of them. I need to interact regularly, intimately and intensely with another human being. I need that kind of relationship in order to grow in my faith, to recognize where my own growth still needs to happen and to be reassured that I have not been abandoned. Anna is hesed personified. My faith in the goodness and abundance of God is made real for me in the love that I receive from Anna. I am grateful for my daughter’s love. Jennifer inspires me to love my own life because it is the life that gave life to her. I want her to have faith that she, too, comes from goodness and light. I value the love that I receive from so many friends. Those relationships teach me how to ask for what I need and to accept with grace the gifts that I am given.

I live in faith that we are all learning together. We have all been lost together and we have all been found in the love of God. Each of us moves back and forth between lostness and foundness. It is part of our imperfection and human weakness to waiver in our faith. We are not God. Knowing that, I trust that a better day is coming, something only God can imagine. I have faith that my prayers are all being answered and the prayers of all people are being heard even now.  And I believe that the mercy in God’s redemptive friendship with us is deeper and wider than anything we can possibly know.

This is what keeps the fire of my faith burning and I am very grateful to you for asking.

Amen

Becoming Convinced

Shady Grove Presbyterian Church

January 18, 2015

Preface to Worship:

I am becoming convinced that it is not nearly so important what we do or what we leave undone that matters most in this life. What matters most is that we are loved. No matter what we do or what we leave undone, we are loved deeply and steadfastly. Whether we are right or whether we are wrong; this is of no consequence to love. We were created because it pleased God to have us here—just as we are. Each one of us is an expression of God’s love. In fact I am becoming convinced that love is the only thing that really is. Everything else is an illusion we have created.

Sermon:

John 1: 43-51

Harriet Tubman was born a slave in Dorchester County, Maryland, in 1822. Historians are not certain about the year of her birth because accurate records of slave births are not always available. But it is certain that she grew weary of her life, trapped and abused by the whims and demands of a white slave-master. At the age of six she was given her first job. Her master rented her out to work for a poor white farmer, Mr. Brodess and his wife. She recalled one morning being beaten five times before breakfast.

In 1844, Harriet married John Tubman, a free African American. When she learned that she was to be set on the auction block and sold to slave dealers from Georgia, Harriet decided to run. She told her husband that she planned to escape and when he said, “It’s too dangerous to run for freedom,” Harriet replied, “There are two things I have a right to in this life: liberty and death. If I can’t have the first one then I’ll take the second.” She ran for liberty, risking everything, headed for Pennsylvania where slavery was against the law. 

“I felt like I was in heaven!” she said about her first deep breath of freedom. Lawmakers in Pennsylvania had made the state a good place to learn and work for runaway slaves. Harriet got work as a servant and a cook in private homes. She earned money and saved money. And she could have remained safe and free in her new life. But the taste of freedom lost its luster when she thought about her friends and family back home. 

Freedom wasn’t freedom unless she could share it with those she’d left behind. So Harriet Tubman went back where her life was not her own so that she could keep it—so that she could live it freely and abundantly, courageously leading group after group out of the awful grip of slavery and into the light of liberty. 

She first had to taste the sweet refreshment of freedom for herself, discover that she could find her way there, and then she discovered how much she had to offer to others.

She became convinced that she had particular gifts, strength and courage to be used for the good in the world she knew. She was convinced that love knew her, claimed her and called her to set others free.

In today’s scripture (John 1:43-51) Jesus finds Philip and says, “Follow me.” Apparently there is something adequate enough in what Philip sees and experiences of Jesus that he immediately becomes convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, the one he has been looking for, praying about and hoping to know. Then Philip finds Nathanael and tells him the good news. “We have found love and it came to us from Nazareth!” 

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

A good question. The question reveals more about Nathanael than it reveals about Nazareth. We can see the man’s opinions and prejudices. Love has to do an awful lot of hard work and stage multiple miracles to get through our set opinions and our deeply ingrained prejudices. Once we learn and become convinced that a place, a town, a neighborhood is bad news, we rarely change our minds about that. Once we learn and become convinced that people are not to be trusted, it takes a heap of miracles to undo the attitude. Once we become convinced that only the strong survive it takes something like an awful injury followed by a miraculous healing to make us consider the value of vulnerability and admitting our weaknesses. Once we learn and become convinced that people who look like us and live at the same level of economic security as we do are the only ones we care to know and befriend, it takes some kind of local disaster and a period of miraculous rebuilding for love to be revealed and recognized in the face of the different, the “other.”

Always there, always at work, love tries to break through the dense fog of our misconceptions and illusions to let some light in, to set us free. Because we’re never free and we can never really allow others around us to be free until we know ourselves as an absolute expression of love in this life. There’s so much useless baggage to shed, so much meaningless weight we carry around while we avoid or deny the light of love that comes from our very soul.

Jesus lets Nathanael know that he sees the light of love in Nathanael. Jesus sees and knows what’s real in Nathanael-- underneath the man’s opinions, prejudices, cultural training. Jesus is love and so he can see beneath the resistance and fears that defend Nathanael. Being known is miracle enough to turn Nathanael’s world upside down. He leaves his world and opens himself, following Jesus to see with new eyes, to hear with new ears, to taste with a new expectation, to touch and be touched with an openness to love in every fingertip, every hand shake and hug. Love knew him and he let go of his culturally influenced reality long enough to know love. His life became a life of love, devoted to loving himself and others, setting himself and others free. A true disciple.

Sometimes all we need is an open window, just a crack in our defenses, to see there’s so much more than what we had thought or believed, to be convinced that life has more to do with love than we had ever before imagined. 

“You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending …”

I went to see the film, “Selmer” this week. I highly recommend that you see to it too. The camera shows close up and fiercely the faces of people who have allowed their fears to harden into rigid, seething hate.  We all recognize ourselves in those faces. I mean, it requires that I be fearlessly honest to admit it. But I have been so hurt and so afraid of people or a person that I have hardened the love right out of my perception of them, made them into lifeless, loveless objects and given myself permission to hate the objectified frame. Maybe you have too. Maybe you know that experience and can admit how much damage it has done to your soul.

I have been known to close the door on anything other than hate, nurtured a thirst for revenge and a deep desire to erase the one I see as my “enemy.” I saw my own face in the face of Selma’s sheriff. I may not have participated in the same level of physical violence against the other as some participants in that story- but I have felt the hunger for violence that can be awakened in any of us. It is part of the illusion we live with in our world. 

Dr. King and his wife, Coretta lived with the constant threat of death’s reality in their home, at the table and in their bed and in their children’s beds. Dr. King’s nonviolent strategy was shining the light of love full blast into the faces of hate—inspiring absolute rage. While at the same time, the light of that love was inspiring tremendous courage and hope in the hearts and lives of Selma’s African American people. They were seen, recognized and called out by Dr. King as people of great worth, people with a proud history. They were people with so much to contribute to the world around them if only they were free to give, free to vote. 

So they got together with all that courage, strength, collected gifts. And other people were attracted to the light of love in Selma. People came from all over the world to join them. Love led the way in the march from Selma to Montgomery. 

Dr. King gave everything he had and all the light within him to set the people of Selma free—not just the African Americans but—more miraculously—the ones who had closed up and shut down their vision because of the opinions and prejudices that had blinded them to the best thing that life offers to any of us…love, love that lives deep within our souls.

Love brings us into this world and, for a time, that is all we know. But as life happens to us and we get hurt, we find ways to defend ourselves from love. We create barriers and defenses that distance us from our own soul and prevent us from recognizing, valuing and sharing our love with the soul of others. We find ways to trap and abuse ourselves in slavery to all kinds of illusions.

Until something happens, until some Savior comes into our town, until some relationship surprises us with its unexpected goodness, until some book or film or sermon awakens our hunger to return to what we once knew and trusted about love.

Then we start becoming convinced that love is the main thing. We recall that it is the real thing, the only reality, the thing that can set us free and give us the courage, strength and gifts to turn around, go back and set others free.

Amen.

"Your Children"

 A recording of the sermon preached at First Unitarian Church of the River in Memphis, TN on Sunday morning, October 19, 2014. An observance of Children's Sabbath. Hear a recording of Rev. Elaine Blanchard telling the story: "Luba, the Angel of Bergen Belsen" as told to Michelle McCann by Luba herself. A true story for people who are not afraid to consider truth.

 http://www.churchoftheriver.org/resources/sermoncast

Welcome Outside the Walls

Psalm 13

Matthew 10:40-42

Preached for Holy Trinity Community Church

June 29, 2014

Jesus is talking to his specially selected disciples in this short Gospel text from Matthew.  The entire tenth chapter records a speech Jesus gave to the gathered disciples. He gave them authority to cast out unclean spirits and the power to cure every disease. He sent his selected disciples out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Jesus refers to them as prophets, righteous ones and little ones. Those who welcome them, giving even a cup of cold water, will not lose their reward.

Although the disciples were given authority over unclean spirits and the power to cure any disease it is interesting to note that they were apparently not given the capacity to over-ride any lack of hospitality on the part of other people. The disciples would have to lean on the hope that somebody, anybody, whenever and wherever they carried the good news, would open their hearts and their homes to receive them graciously. And, as you can well imagine, some did and some did not receive those disciples graciously.

What is it about us as human creatures? What slams the door and closes us off from truly encountering one another?

We read the 13th Psalm and it is clear that fear and dread of our enemies is not a new thing. “How long, O Lord, shall my enemy be exalted over me?” I wouldn’t want to dismiss or minimize the reality that we live among people who are not worthy of our trust. There are good reasons for locking our doors and using good judgment about who we allow in the house.

Anna and I were in Washington DC this past week and we visited the Holocaust Museum. Cruelty is real and terrible. The level of cruelty inflicted on others at the hands of the Nazi regime was awful, painful and infuriating. Six million people died. It’s the agony they endured before their death and the terror that the survivors and the liberators witnessed…that leaves us wondering: What happens to us as human creatures? What slams the door and closes us off from truly encountering one another?

Rush Dozier, Jr. has written a book, Why We Hate, and he makes it clear that hate is born from fear and it is irrational when humans hate each other. The fear comes from a feeling that survival is threatened in some way. To combat irrational fear of the other person, Dozier suggests programs that mix people of diverse backgrounds in a positive setting where unique individual qualities can be seen and shared. I would suggest that storytelling circles are a very helpful tool for breaking down the fear that generates hate and dangerous prejudice.

In his book Dozier reminds us of the terrible dragging death of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas. The shocked citizens of that small Texas town, a population of only eight thousand, tried to follow some of Dozier’s strategies for righting what had obviously gone terribly wrong. Black and white people got together and went through an intense period of community soul-searching. While some worked on reconciliation, the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Panthers were also meeting in the town, calling for new members and more divisive action. Those groups were largely ignored. A series of vigils were held in memory of James Byrd. Crowds came to the lawn of the courthouse and people began to look at each other. They started listening to each other. They made it their business to know each other as neighbors and friends.

In January 18, 1999, the mayor of Jasper and a large committed crowd gathered in the city cemetery. They watched as workers tore down a long, rusty iron fence. For seventy-five years that fence had separated the graves of black people from the graves of white people. A barrier came down and people resolved to work on their relationships, their faith in one another and their trust that human life is valuable and dignified by the love of God within us. We are no longer a threat to each other when we realize how much each one of us has to offer the other. That kind of realization takes time, effort and the courage to change.

Jesus sent his disciples out to share what they had been given: the good news that God is love and all human life is dignified by the love of God within us. Jesus urged his disciples to go where people live, learn to know them where they met them and to be sure that, when they were welcomed, to realize this as a generous extension of God’s love and welcome, a gift, a joy, something worthy of reward.

What are we afraid of losing if we actually welcome the stranger in? Sitting here in this warm and welcoming church building among friends it is easy for us to imagine that we are the good guys, the ones who would open the door widely to learn something new. We would allow for a new relationship to be born. Because in this place and in this hour of worship we are feeling welcomed ourselves, grateful for a place to belong, a place where we are known and valued. Here we feel safe.

Anna, and I enjoy watching real estate programs on television. It’s good TV while we eat dinner. House Hunters are led from place to place by real estate agents. We watch couples search for a home that meets their list of requirements. Until I started watching all these HGTV shows I was unaware that double sinks in the master bathroom are a must-have.  I have discovered the concept of the “man-cave” by watching HGTV. And I am constantly amazed at all the twenty-somethings who get their first job, get married and seriously expect to move into a 5 bedroom home with an open floor plan, a three car garage and an outdoor kitchen for entertaining. All of these homes have guest rooms, fully furnished and nicely appointed. And even so—with all this space, all this focus on entertaining and a room that is designated for guests –we have become, as a society, more and more closed off to the other. It’s interesting. And it’s a hard pattern to shake and shift toward greater hospitality.

The church has not been helpful in breaking down the walls. As an institution, the church has done its share of contributing to the shut down and shut out of the other. Certainly from that day in the year 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 these on the front door of the parish church in Wittenberg, there has been a clear divide: them and us. They wait to be told by the priest what the Bible says and what it means.  But we read the Bible for ourselves and interpret it for ourselves. And so on and so on the divisions go. We construct reason after reason to build these walls of separation. And that’s the way we do church behind our walls of brick and mortar. We feel safe with our little family inside here.

Let's be clear...Jesus sent his disciples out to meet people, to spread good news. He didn't say, "Go forth and build brick buildings. Invest all your money in heating and cooling huge structures. Plan on spending large portions of your budget on upkeep."

I think it’s time for us to shake things up and shift our way of being together toward a more generous welcome, a ready hospitality. I think it’s time for the church to act less afraid of difference, change and the challenges of being human together under the roof of God’s love.

David Waters wrote an interesting column for yesterday’s Commercial Appeal. He informed us that Islam is now the second-largest religion in all the southern states except for South Carolina. Waters says, “What an astounding and outstanding development in Southern hospitality, although not everyone is feeling particularly hospitable about it.” Christians in Middle Tennessee had to be reminded by the U.S. Supreme Court to read the first amendment when Muslim neighbors started building a mosque in Murfreesboro.

Memphis has a friendlier story in terms of its hospitality. The seventh house of prayer here in Memphis has opened its doors at the corner of Bill Morris Parkway and Hacks Cross. Dr. Mohammed Assaf, a member of the Islamic Association of Greater Memphis, says, “We are blessed to have good neighbors. The interfaith community here is very strong. We know each other, like each other and trust each other.”

Part of that trust comes as a result of the Annual Ramadan Dinner hosted by the Islamic Association. People from all over town, all races from all walks of life and from all faiths sit down together and eat. I think there were 800 people at the feast last year. We share a table experience. We talk to each other, ask questions and learn about one another.  On July 13th we will gather again. For the eighth year, we will be welcomed to a feast provided by the Islamic Association.

Lately I have realized that one way we could chip away at racism’s fear and hate would be to rebel against the pattern of inviting only people of our own race over to dinner. Eating together breaks down barriers and shines light on the love that lives within us all. Racism remains a strong wall that divides us only as long as we do not eat together, for as long as we do not share our homes with each other and do not come to know the life stories of the other. Effective anti-racism efforts involve the intimacy of our own homes and our own tables. Public encounters are not nearly as effective as private encounters.

The real work of the church has left the building. We can claim to be a welcoming church but how welcoming is it when we insist that the other has to find us, get transportation and arrive at our door and walk inside the walls that we have constructed and claimed? We can stand at the doors of this worship space and smile as brightly as possible. We can shake hands and hug every person who comes to the door. We can give away excellent coffee and donuts on Sunday morning. But as long as it is just us coming in the door we are not growing…not personally and not in our faith.  Until we leave the building we are stagnating, withering and dying. I am looking forward to the day when the walls of the church, with all of its barriers, come tumbling down.

If that sounds  disastrous to you then I might remind you how we all come together in times of disaster. Differences disappear and we work side by side as one family when we experience disaster.

Outside the walls we stand--vulnerable and filled only with the promise and power of God’s love within us— we can meet the other face to face and share the good news that all of us are vulnerable and all of us need each other to become fully human. When barriers come down people can resolve to work on their relationships, their faith in one another and their trust that human life is valuable and dignified by the love of God within us.

Amen

Ring the Bells

Preached at Neshoba Unitarian Church

Cordova, TN

June 8, 2014

“Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.”

From “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen

I’ve said it so many times and I feel the need to say it again: It is challenging and often very difficult to be a human being.  I look at my cat, Alex, lying in a circle of sunlight on the floor and I know he isn’t concerned with climate change, violence against women and the problem of racism in our justice and corrections systems. Alex never worries about getting the oil changed in the car and he is totally unconcerned about his security when it comes to retirement. But we, as human beings, have all of these concerns on our minds and we tend to feel overwhelmed or indifferent. The flood of information is so much that we drown in it sometimes, even those of us with the highest educations and the best intentions. 

That’s why I keep telling stories. Because in the moments when I am telling a story, I am not struggling. I am not worried. I am not confused or frustrated. I am simply being myself and “ringing the bell that still can ring.” It may not be perfect. My stories are certainly not powerful enough to put an end to violence against women but the stories are the bell that I ring and it keeps me centered, motivated and hopeful.

In the five years that have gone by since I was the Religious Educator here at Neshoba Unitarian Church, I have spent much of my time in jail. I went to Shelby County’s jail for women to tell stories and to listen to the stories of women who are serving time there. I went to listen to them because I wanted to find a hungry place, a place where people thirst for a chance to be noticed, heard and valued.

I have been disrespected and dismissed in my life. I know that kind of pain and I went to the jail to listen to stories because I have learned how much healing happens when people listen to my stories. There is freedom in the experience of face to face respectful storytelling. Freedom. Even in jail, human beings can be liberated to be the best human being they can possibly be—when light comes in through the cracks. 

Each one of us has the power to liberate and to be liberated—to the extent that we do what we can with what we’ve been given to make the world a better place.

In 1961, Clarence Gideon, a poor man in Florida, petitioned the United States Supreme Court. Gideon was in jail in Raiford, Florida and serving time for breaking into a pool hall. He was poor and poorly educated, a drifter with a criminal record. He couldn’t afford an attorney.  Clarence Gideon thought that was unfair and he claimed it was unconstitutional for a man to be denied legal counsel because of his inability to pay. 

Until recently I would have guessed that the law in the United States of America has always provided legal counsel to the poor. But (to put it into context) I was nine years old at the time Gideon wrote his letter.  It is very recent in our nation’s history that legal counsel has been guaranteed to the poor among us.

The letter was written with a pencil and in big block letters. It was processed and given the respect it deserved. But Gideon was not the first person to claim the right to counsel regardless of inability to pay. Twenty years earlier (1942) in Betts vs Brady the Supreme Court had ruled that the constitution did not guarantee counsel in state criminal cases. 

“But the Supreme Court never speaks with absolute finality when it interprets the constitution. From time to time the high court overrules its own decisions. Clarence Gideon, from his jail cell in Florida, was asking the Supreme Court to change its mind.”

Anthony Lewis/ Gideon’s Trumpet

And they did. We now have public defenders, attorneys who focus on cases where indigent citizens are in need of counsel. The Shelby County Public Defenders are bright, dedicated, and good humored. They are overloaded with cases; and determined to do the best they can for every one of them.

Because Clarence Gideon rang his bell—doggedly determined to be noticed and heard—our public defenders are out there ringing their bells and letting light shine into so many otherwise dark places. The needs are enormous and the problems are complicated.

According to a recent feature story on CNN, there are about as many people behind bars in this nation as there are people in the city of Chicago. One in every 108 citizens is locked up and living under supervision. According to the NAACP, one in three black males born in the United States today is likely to spend time in prison at some point in his life. That’s compared with one in six Hispanic males or one in twenty-five white males.  More than two million of our neighbors are locked up right now in some prison cell and-- because we do very little to encourage and educate them while they are incarcerated-- far too many of them will return to jail within a few years after their release.

This kind of information is discouraging. It’s the kind of information that can leave us feeling overwhelmed and helpless. I want to point out that feeling overwhelmed and helpless is as much a trap, a prison cell, as any iron bars can be. To throw up our hands in despair is to trap ourselves, silence the bells and turn out the lights.

It costs on average $47,000 a year to keep an inmate in jail. But what would it cost us to help somebody in jail? What would we have to give up in order to liberate one human life? And what would we gain if we set ourselves free from the belief that there’s nothing I can do about the crisis of mass incarceration?

Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, is an excellent read and an eye-opener. In her last chapter she says, “It is this failure to care, really care across color lines that lies at the core of this system of control and at the core of every racial caste system that has existed in the United States or anywhere else in the world.” 

I know you care. I know this congregation well enough to know that I am preaching to the choir here. It is my hope that my words today might inspire one or some of you to go to jail and ring the bells that still can ring. Contact the volunteer coordinator and volunteer to be a literacy tutor. Help somebody earn their GED. Start a book group. Teach a craft or an art. Set up a series of lectures in which eight of you talk to the inmates about your own careers and how you got where you are, what matters to you in life. Give someone a chance to play a keyboard, to sing a song, to write a poem. Call the office of the Shelby County Public Defenders and ask one of them to give you a name for one of their clients, somebody who needs a friend, somebody who currently has nobody coming to jail on visiting day.  It’s not what you do that matters so much. It’s doing something that will make a difference.

Clarence Gideon was a poor man, poorly educated and incarcerated. He wrote a letter with a pencil and he mailed that simple communication to Washington DC. And because he did something—we now have public defenders for all of us in this country. 

I met Carolyn while she was serving time in our county jail. A short and round African American woman. Thirty-seven years old when I met her. Carolyn has spent most of her life around North Memphis. Sometimes she lived with her mother in an apartment or in the home of a friend or relative. Sometimes she lived on her own on the streets. She started prostituting at the age of thirteen. Dropped out of school. Fell in love with crack cocaine. No one urged her to stick with her formal education. She learned how to survive by the strength of her own body and spirit. 

She chose to join us in Prison Stories class. For four months she sat in the circle with me and eleven other women in the jail. Carolyn told stories about her life. Some of them were so funny we slapped our knees and laughed til we cried. Some of her stories were frightening, so frightening it made me see the world through different eyes when I left the jail and headed for home. Her stories opened windows on worlds I had never seen, places and people not far from my home but previously invisible to me. 

At the close of our time together and at the performance of the class stories, I called Carolyn up to the front and gave her the certificate of completion she had earned.  She turned to the gathered audience of incarcerated women, family members, jail staff and community guests. She held that certificate up high over her head and she announced, “I took this class because I wanted to tell my story to somebody. And somebody listened. Ms Elaine and my sisters listened to what I been through and I saw the truth. I used to think I was a bad girl, a fast girl. I used to think weren’t no hope for somebody like me. But now I told my story and I can see… I ain’t no bad girl. I ain’t no fast girl. I am a girl what had bad things done to me and I can get over that. I can be free.”

And so can we all. So can we all.

“There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.”

Amen