October 16, 2018
I have spent a great amount of time over the last seven years pondering the nature of conversation. The focus of my doctoral work honed in on preaching as conversation, but in order to hone in I had to acquaint myself with the works of those who are thinking and writing about the nature of human conversation.
The theological philosopher David Tracy, in his book, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope, wrote, "there is no intellectual, cultural or religious tradition of interpretation that does not ultimately live by the quality of its conversation." What Tracy intends to say here is that what binds together thoughts, culture and religious tradition is the way those are communicated through and between its adherents. We cannot come together without communication and the quality of that communication, in part, determines the success of an enterprise -- such as a faith tradition, a congregation, a nation.
Oftentimes, the inherent biases that lurk in the shadows of our being, because decent society tends to place value on keeping such biases in reserve, so taint our conversations that we can barely converse with one another. So tainted are we that we deny humanity to people with whom we disagree. Our words, which carry the whole of our intentions and meanings, become derogatory and dismissive, sometimes even hateful and evil. We refer to people by stereotypes, assign a characteristic to a group as if all members of a group shared traits in common that are worth debasing. We no longer see the world nor speak to one another as the Us of the human race, but instead as Us and Them, choosing sides to our detriment. Once sides are chosen we assign to the Other the worst qualities we can imagine and frame them in such a way that Other becomes expendable. It's worse than war; it's dehumanization.
The words we use. The way in which we choose to use them. The people to whom we choose not to speak. These qualities speak to who are and what we believe at our core. For me, this is a spiritual illness. The prescription for recovery lies in conversations across the chasm that connect us to one another as God sees us; children of the one human family.
Local columnist and pastor, Paul Prather, wrote in a recent column, "I hope you won’t take me to be an alarmist. I try not to be one. But I’m concerned we’re hurtling headlong toward a permanent breach in our country. Perhaps even a blood bath. I’m not a professional historian. But since I was around 9 years old, I’ve been an avid reader of American history. And the more I listen to the rhetoric of our moment, particularly the bent it’s taken since the 2016 presidential election, the more it reminds me of the 1850s, the years preceding the terrible Civil War, which killed 700,000 Americans and nearly destroyed the nation. Today we’re not divided between North and South. We’re divided between right and left, rural and urban, white and dark, rich and poor, men and women."
Divided. Taking sides. Chasm. Schism. Civil unrest. Shouting at instead of listening to one another. And it isn't just in America. Think of Brexit; Russia; the Phillipines, South America, the African continent, eastern Europe. The trend since World War II has been to divide by ethnicity and origin, by color and gender, by nationality. It's one tribe against another because coalitions and alliances are on the decline as well.
Again, David Tracy -- "there is no intellectual, cultural or religious tradition of interpretation that does not ultimately live by the quality of its conversation."
So, I say, talk to a stranger today. Talk to someone who isn't like you. Ask them about their life and listen. Let someone speak to you and ask you about your life. Talk to people who disagree with you. Don't shout at them or let your implicit bias pre-judge them. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Most all of us are husbands, wives, children, parents, siblings. We have things in common about which we can converse without devolving into heated political rhetoric.
Talk with people. Listen. Seek to understand, then to be understood. And most of all, see every human being through the eyes of faith, as God does, a beloved child of our Creator.
Peace and Love,
Jerry
Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Identifying One's Self
October 9, 2018
I have been listening to "On Being," again. This week I have listened to a podcast featuring Robin Wall Kimmerer. She is a Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology at the State University of New York. She is a native of upstate New York and taught for a while at Transylvania University and Centre College. She is the author of, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003), and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants(2013).
At least as fascinating to me is the way she introduces herself as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation; of the Bear Clan, adopted into the Eagle. She identifies as a Native American, an indigenous person of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. How one identifies one's self has become an important question to me and my father, and Robin Wall Kimmerer's self-identification gives me pause and cause to think.
Who we are, and from where we came is a question that gets asked of us a lot over the course of a life. Especially, in these nationalistic times when ethnicity is under direct assault, the question of where does one belong, and who they belong to is important. Perhaps for reasons we might deem wrong, but, important nonetheless, those of Hispanic origin, Mexican, Honduran, Guatemalan are under intense scrutiny. Those from Arab nations, or who practice Islam; wear religious garb are considered suspicious by nature. Those from China are under consideration by the government to be denied student visas. In like fashion in the history of the United States, the Irish were once suspected of treachery, the Japanese were interred and the Native American population was subject to removal from their ancestral lands. African Americans were removed from their homes and enslaved on the shores of the New World.
Who we are and where are from, matters.How we identify ourselves, matters.
I can remember in Mrs. Crum's class in 4th grade when we were studying place and origin, and she asked us what our ancestry was. Some people said, Scottish. Others said, Irish. Many said they were Native American. Growing up in Oklahoma it was very common to identify as Native American. Oklahoma is the place to which many peoples were removed by Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830. When it came my turn to talk about family origin, I didn't have an answer. I didn't know.
Later, growing up around my Dad's side of the family, which was large, I came to understand we were Native American, at least in part, and that my ancestors had chosen, for reasons of wanting to fit in and not wanting to be labeled, to not identify themselves as Native American. My great grandfather was named Peter Choctaw Palmer. That has Native American written all over it. In my teen and adult years I identified as part Native American. It made sense, but it also became obvious to me that Native Americans are the only ones who have to prove their ethnicity in order to be recognized as such by the federal government. You have to be on the rolls. I didn't know whether my ancestors were or not, but my father was certain that at one time they had been.
Dad was terminated from his job past the age of 50 as the company, owned by a French multi-national conglomerate, sought to reorganize. He decided to start his own company with his brother. When he did he decided the time had come to reclaim his identity as a Native American so that he could qualify for minority business ownership. He wrote to Oklahoma City to get his birth certificate, which he had never seen. He talked to family.
That's when the earth shifted on its axis, and all we thought we knew came crashing down around us. I will make this part of the story short. The man whom my Dad thought was his father was not. His mother married when my Dad was two. No one in the family told him, and everyone but his siblings knew about it. They all died taking the secret to the grave with them.
Who was he? Every piece of information he thought he had to that point came under scrutiny. Turns out his mother was his mother, but all his siblings were half-siblings, and the stories of his identity and his place were lies. When the birth certificate arrived he saw the name of his biological father for the first time. He saw his birth name for the first time. But, the question remained, who was he, and for his children, who are we? Where did we come from? Who are our people? How do we identify?
Dad took the Ancestry DNA test. I did the 23andMe test. No Native American heritage showed up. Both of us showed 65% or above English and Irish. On my mother's side of the family a bit of genealogy has been done. We can trace our people back to Tennessee, and Mississippi. On my paternal grandmother's side, the Palmer side, we can wind our way back a bit to Arkansas, and perhaps to Tennessee and Kentucky. We are still working on that.
In Kentucky, particularly when I lived in Madison County, and now that I serve the church in Clark County, who you are and where you are from matters to people. Bloodlines for people are as important bloodlines for horses. People judge people on their character, yes, but it is often attached to family lineage. How does one find one's place in such a world when one's identity is clouded in falsehoods and the veil of death? And, of course, this is a curse for our family, yes, but so many people don't know who their family is -- and it's a curse for them as well.
Perhaps the DNA will lead us to our people and our place. We will see. I know this. It matters to me. Today I identify as mostly English/Irish and lots of unknown. It's the unknown that haunts my father, and troubles me.
Peace,
Jerry
I have been listening to "On Being," again. This week I have listened to a podcast featuring Robin Wall Kimmerer. She is a Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology at the State University of New York. She is a native of upstate New York and taught for a while at Transylvania University and Centre College. She is the author of, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003), and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants(2013).
 |
| Robin Wall Kimmerer |
At least as fascinating to me is the way she introduces herself as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation; of the Bear Clan, adopted into the Eagle. She identifies as a Native American, an indigenous person of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. How one identifies one's self has become an important question to me and my father, and Robin Wall Kimmerer's self-identification gives me pause and cause to think.
Who we are, and from where we came is a question that gets asked of us a lot over the course of a life. Especially, in these nationalistic times when ethnicity is under direct assault, the question of where does one belong, and who they belong to is important. Perhaps for reasons we might deem wrong, but, important nonetheless, those of Hispanic origin, Mexican, Honduran, Guatemalan are under intense scrutiny. Those from Arab nations, or who practice Islam; wear religious garb are considered suspicious by nature. Those from China are under consideration by the government to be denied student visas. In like fashion in the history of the United States, the Irish were once suspected of treachery, the Japanese were interred and the Native American population was subject to removal from their ancestral lands. African Americans were removed from their homes and enslaved on the shores of the New World.
Who we are and where are from, matters.How we identify ourselves, matters.
I can remember in Mrs. Crum's class in 4th grade when we were studying place and origin, and she asked us what our ancestry was. Some people said, Scottish. Others said, Irish. Many said they were Native American. Growing up in Oklahoma it was very common to identify as Native American. Oklahoma is the place to which many peoples were removed by Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830. When it came my turn to talk about family origin, I didn't have an answer. I didn't know.
Later, growing up around my Dad's side of the family, which was large, I came to understand we were Native American, at least in part, and that my ancestors had chosen, for reasons of wanting to fit in and not wanting to be labeled, to not identify themselves as Native American. My great grandfather was named Peter Choctaw Palmer. That has Native American written all over it. In my teen and adult years I identified as part Native American. It made sense, but it also became obvious to me that Native Americans are the only ones who have to prove their ethnicity in order to be recognized as such by the federal government. You have to be on the rolls. I didn't know whether my ancestors were or not, but my father was certain that at one time they had been.
Dad was terminated from his job past the age of 50 as the company, owned by a French multi-national conglomerate, sought to reorganize. He decided to start his own company with his brother. When he did he decided the time had come to reclaim his identity as a Native American so that he could qualify for minority business ownership. He wrote to Oklahoma City to get his birth certificate, which he had never seen. He talked to family.
That's when the earth shifted on its axis, and all we thought we knew came crashing down around us. I will make this part of the story short. The man whom my Dad thought was his father was not. His mother married when my Dad was two. No one in the family told him, and everyone but his siblings knew about it. They all died taking the secret to the grave with them.
Who was he? Every piece of information he thought he had to that point came under scrutiny. Turns out his mother was his mother, but all his siblings were half-siblings, and the stories of his identity and his place were lies. When the birth certificate arrived he saw the name of his biological father for the first time. He saw his birth name for the first time. But, the question remained, who was he, and for his children, who are we? Where did we come from? Who are our people? How do we identify?
Dad took the Ancestry DNA test. I did the 23andMe test. No Native American heritage showed up. Both of us showed 65% or above English and Irish. On my mother's side of the family a bit of genealogy has been done. We can trace our people back to Tennessee, and Mississippi. On my paternal grandmother's side, the Palmer side, we can wind our way back a bit to Arkansas, and perhaps to Tennessee and Kentucky. We are still working on that.
In Kentucky, particularly when I lived in Madison County, and now that I serve the church in Clark County, who you are and where you are from matters to people. Bloodlines for people are as important bloodlines for horses. People judge people on their character, yes, but it is often attached to family lineage. How does one find one's place in such a world when one's identity is clouded in falsehoods and the veil of death? And, of course, this is a curse for our family, yes, but so many people don't know who their family is -- and it's a curse for them as well.
Perhaps the DNA will lead us to our people and our place. We will see. I know this. It matters to me. Today I identify as mostly English/Irish and lots of unknown. It's the unknown that haunts my father, and troubles me.
Peace,
Jerry
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Which Translation of the Bible?
October 3
It's October 3 and a Wednesday so,.....
Silly, yes.
Now on to the topic of the day. Which Bible translation do I use, should you use, is the best? I am asked these questions often, so today I am going to offer an answer.
Which Bible translation do I use? Several.
My go-to Bible for sermon preparation is the New Revised Standard Version. The NRSV is a sound translation from the Greek to English. It was translated by a panel of scholars who took the Revised Standard Version, which itself was based on good scholarship and updated it. The biggest updates from RSV to NRSV are in relation to gender specific language. For example, let's take a brief look at the word "adelphoi." Translated literally from Greek to English it would be rendered, "brothers." However, the intent of the word is not male specific in every instance. Sometimes it means men and sometimes it means everyone. Where it is gender specific the NRSV renders it as "brothers," but where it means both male and female the NRSV renders it, "brothers and sisters."
The NRSV is not the most literal translation then, but it does get to the heart of the meaning. And it is very readable by all ages in Britain and the United States. I prefer to use the Harper-Collins Study Bible and the New Oxford Annotated Bible. At times I will refer to the Jewish Annotated New Testament written by Dr. Amy-Jill Levine.
When I am studying and I want the most literal Greek to English translation I use the New American Standard Bible or NASB. Sentence structure in Greek differs from English, but the NASB renders its translations as literally as possible. That means it does not always read smoothly. However, if literal is what you want, then the NASB delivers.
I may also use Eugene Peterson's The Message translation when preparing sermons. It is not literal from the Greek to the English. It's intent is to get to the modern, colloquial meaning of a text. Thus, it reads very well and sometimes it speaks to us in America in a common or friendly voice that can open up the meaning of a text.
Sometimes I may refer to the New International Version or NIV. It is the preferred translation of the Evangelical churches in America. It is reliably accurate in translation and readable too. Like the RSV and the NRSV, the NIV is a very good Bible from which to work.
I do NOT use the King James Version, Paraphrased Bibles, or Zondervan Study Bibles, or Chicken Soup Bibles, or the Men's Bible, etc. Specialty Bibles, in my eyes are just another way for publishers to separate you from your money.
Which translation should you use? I suggest the NRSV, the RSV or the NIV.
They are fairly easy to read and their translations are based on solid scholarship. If you are going to engage in serious study I would highly recommend the Harper-Collins or the New Oxford Annotated versions.Or, if you want a really modern and common language Bible I would suggest The Message or Today's English Version TEV. The Good News Bible, published by the American Bible Society is a really good Bible. It isn't meant for study. It doesn't adhere literally to the Greek, but it is understandable by every kind of English reader.
What is the Best Translation? The answers vary.
Want extremely literal -- NASB
Want close to Greek and readable -- RSV, NIV, NRSV
Want easy to understand -- The Message, Good News Version
Whatever version you purchase, make sure to open it and read it. Daily.
Peace and Love,
Jerry
It's October 3 and a Wednesday so,.....
 |
| On Wednesdays, we wear pink |
Now on to the topic of the day. Which Bible translation do I use, should you use, is the best? I am asked these questions often, so today I am going to offer an answer.
Which Bible translation do I use? Several.
My go-to Bible for sermon preparation is the New Revised Standard Version. The NRSV is a sound translation from the Greek to English. It was translated by a panel of scholars who took the Revised Standard Version, which itself was based on good scholarship and updated it. The biggest updates from RSV to NRSV are in relation to gender specific language. For example, let's take a brief look at the word "adelphoi." Translated literally from Greek to English it would be rendered, "brothers." However, the intent of the word is not male specific in every instance. Sometimes it means men and sometimes it means everyone. Where it is gender specific the NRSV renders it as "brothers," but where it means both male and female the NRSV renders it, "brothers and sisters."
The NRSV is not the most literal translation then, but it does get to the heart of the meaning. And it is very readable by all ages in Britain and the United States. I prefer to use the Harper-Collins Study Bible and the New Oxford Annotated Bible. At times I will refer to the Jewish Annotated New Testament written by Dr. Amy-Jill Levine.
When I am studying and I want the most literal Greek to English translation I use the New American Standard Bible or NASB. Sentence structure in Greek differs from English, but the NASB renders its translations as literally as possible. That means it does not always read smoothly. However, if literal is what you want, then the NASB delivers.
I may also use Eugene Peterson's The Message translation when preparing sermons. It is not literal from the Greek to the English. It's intent is to get to the modern, colloquial meaning of a text. Thus, it reads very well and sometimes it speaks to us in America in a common or friendly voice that can open up the meaning of a text.
Sometimes I may refer to the New International Version or NIV. It is the preferred translation of the Evangelical churches in America. It is reliably accurate in translation and readable too. Like the RSV and the NRSV, the NIV is a very good Bible from which to work.
I do NOT use the King James Version, Paraphrased Bibles, or Zondervan Study Bibles, or Chicken Soup Bibles, or the Men's Bible, etc. Specialty Bibles, in my eyes are just another way for publishers to separate you from your money.
Which translation should you use? I suggest the NRSV, the RSV or the NIV.
They are fairly easy to read and their translations are based on solid scholarship. If you are going to engage in serious study I would highly recommend the Harper-Collins or the New Oxford Annotated versions.Or, if you want a really modern and common language Bible I would suggest The Message or Today's English Version TEV. The Good News Bible, published by the American Bible Society is a really good Bible. It isn't meant for study. It doesn't adhere literally to the Greek, but it is understandable by every kind of English reader.
What is the Best Translation? The answers vary.
Want extremely literal -- NASB
Want close to Greek and readable -- RSV, NIV, NRSV
Want easy to understand -- The Message, Good News Version
Whatever version you purchase, make sure to open it and read it. Daily.
Peace and Love,
Jerry
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