pull up a chair

one in a series of summertime esoterica, in which for no particular reason my attention is drawn to this, that, or the other thing…

deep in my summertime poking-around ways, a pursuit of reading akin to ambling barefoot through dew-sodden grass, i found myself the other day burrowing into a rabbit hole, following the trail of a late-19th-century theologian with radical ideas and gloriously poetic prayers. (i might just as effortlessly follow the trail of what to do with too much zucchini, or why banana-peel-steeped waters are so fine for my fledgling tomatoes…it’s a carousel of wonders here on curiosity row…)

the theologian of the week, here in rabbit-hole land, is one walter rauschenbusch, the late 19th-century clergyman and theologian who led the Social Gospel movement in the U.S., and whose work is said to have influenced a litany of great 20th-century social-justice warriors, among them martin luther king jr., desmond tutu, lucy randolph mason, reinhold niebuhr, and george mcgovern. his animating idea was that not just individuals but the whole of society needed to work toward what he termed “the kingdom of God” on earth, a place where justice and peace as well as equal rights and a democratic distribution of economic power were holy and necessary works, ones that demanded constant and unrelenting effort. 

rauschenbusch’s radical theology, it seems, was informed by eleven years working as a baptist pastor in NYC’s aptly-named Hell’s Kitchen, where he presided over the funerals of hundreds of children who died from the ravages of impoverishment—malnutrition, domestic violence spurred by overcrowded tenements, or any of the other ills born of economic destitution. 

rauschenbusch wrote: “I began to realize that God hates injustice and that I would be quenching God’s spirit within me if I kept silent with all of the social sin of the world around me.”

of the hundreds of children’s funerals over which rauschenbusch presided (many of them for children younger than five), he wrote:

“At each funeral I would find myself crying out to God, ‘Why do the children have to suffer in this manner?’ I recall on one occasion one of the church members, a single father who worked at a factory for 12 hours each day. His daughter was dying at home and calling out for her daddy. The employer refused to allow the father to go home to be with his daughter in her last hours.

“It was not uncommon to see grown men near our church just begging for work, just so they and their families could survive.

“It was in this context that I began to understand sin in a new and radical way. Baptists had always been known as railing and condemning the sins of alcoholism, smoking, gambling, and sexual promiscuity, such as were exemplified in the lives of the many prostitutes who lived and worked very close to our church. . . .

“The radical conclusion that I came to was this: all of these personal sins which were so obvious to everyone were somehow connected to the sin of structural injustice. So many people saw no hope, no way to extricate themselves from their living hell, their dead-end street. So many would resort to alcoholism. Women would feel compelled to become a prostitute so they could feed themselves and their families. Charles Dickens in his writings helped us see and somewhat feel the environment that could ensnare anyone who was trapped in a world of deprivation and desperation.

“The less obvious sins to most Baptists and other conservative leaders were those that were represented by the vast gulf between those who were extremely opulent, you might say ‘filthy rich,’ and the vast majority of people who were barely able (and oftentimes not able) to get by.”

finding wisdoms from the past for these arduous times is, perhaps, too futile a pursuit. but i believe in the endosperm of hope. and rauschenbusch’s prayers––and his theology––seem apt for a dusting off. and, besides, his prayers are beautifully wrought.

my eye was caught first by one of those prayers, the evening prayer (below) but as i kept reading it was the line above––“I began to realize that God hates injustice and that I would be quenching God’s spirit within me if I kept silent with all of the social sin of the world around me.”––and the children’s funerals that informed it, that clutched me at the gut and won’t let go.

here, as a place to begin, is but one of his prayers, with particular resonance for one who delights in all of creation, especially the trials and triumphs just beyond my own back door:

FOR OUR WORLD, OUR EARTH

O God, we thank You for this universe, our great home; for the vastness and richness of our cosmic environment; for the manifoldness of life on the planet of which we are a part.

We are thankful for the morning sun and the clouds and the constellations of stars.

We rejoice in the salt sea and the deep waters and green leaves of grass.

We thank You for our sense by which we experience earth’s splendor.

We would have souls open to all this joy, souls saved from being so weighted with care that we pass unseeing when the thornbush by the wayside is aflame with beauty.

Enlarge within us a sense of fellowship with all that lives and moves and has being in space and time, especially with all who share this earth as their common home with us.

Remembering with shame that in the past, we human beings have all too often exercised high dominion with ruthless cruelty, we admit that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to You in song, has been a groan of travail.

May we so live that our world may not be ravished by our greed nor spoiled by our ignorance.

May we hand on earth’s common heritage of life, undiminished in joy when our bodies return in peace to You, our Great Mother who has nourished them.

and here is the beginning of his evening prayer: 

LORD, we praise thee for our sister, the Night, who folds all the tired folk of the earth in her comfortable robe of darkness and gives them sleep. Release now the strained limbs of toil and smooth the brow of care. Grant us the refreshing draught of forgetfulness that we may rise in the morning with a smile on our face. Comfort and ease those who toss wakeful on a bed of pain, or whose aching nerves crave sleep and find it not. Save them from evil or despondent thoughts in the long darkness, and teach them so to lean on thy all-pervading life and love, that their souls may grow tranquil and their bodies, too, may rest. And now through thee we send Good Night to all our brothers and sisters near and far, and pray for peace upon all the earth.

if you’re interested, here’s a link to a PDF of rauschenbusch’s 1910 collection of prayers, For God and the People: Prayers of the Social Awakening.

in the book’s preface, rauschenbusch explained the collection’s genesis: “The language of prayer always clings to the antique for the sake of dignity, and plain reference to modern facts and contrivances jars the ear. So we are inclined to follow the broad avenues beaten by the feet of many generations when we approach God. We need to blaze new paths to God for the feet of modern [women and] men.”

amen, pastor rauschenbusch, amen.

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as long as we’re quoting old white men, i admit to being an admirer of the writings of that old-time radio humorist garrison keillor, who has mellowed beyond measure with age. in an ode to summer’s slow pace the other day, he wrote this about morning light, one of the blessings that comes with waking early, a habit i consider essential to the deep breathing of my soul:

It’s a revelation of delight, of our Creator’s delight in His creation, and though we’re brought up to be skeptical, wary of big hopes, prepared to deal with the injustices of life, still the dawn light argues with stoicism and you see the beauty of the ordinary. 

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what ordinary beauties or big ideas captured your imagination this week?

and here’s a harder question (to ponder in your own soul): what shall we do so as not to stay silent in the face of the social sin of the world?

and happy blessed blessed day to my beloved andrea, who makes me laugh hard and often, and whose goodness seems vaster than the circumference of this big blue globe. (A is one of the chair friends who reads dutifully nearly every week, and more often than not sends along a note that melts me or makes me laugh every time…)