Remembering Dean Smith

Breaking news this morning that Dean Smith passed last evening. Amid all the deserving accolades as a great basketball coach, more moving are the accolades for being a great man of principle and integrity. His former players speak of his role as mentor, father figure, someone who stayed involved in their lives long after their careers at UNC. And, his commitment to social justice.  This from the AP story:

Smith's church served as a base for his advocacy. He joined the Baptist congregation soon after arriving in Chapel Hill, helping build it from a 60-person gathering on campus to a full church with 600 parishioners. It was booted from the Southern Baptist Convention and the North Carolina Baptist State Convention in 1992 for licensing a gay man to minister.

"He was willing to take controversial stands on a number of things as a member of our church — being against the death penalty, affirming gays and lesbians, protesting nuclear proliferation," said Robert Seymour, the former pastor at Binkley Baptist Church. "He was one who has been willing to speak out on issues that many might hesitate to take a stand on."

I remember the day in the 1980s when David C and I went to Chapel Hill to meet him. He had agreed to tape a radio spot for the nuclear weapons freeze, playing off his strategy of a four-corners freeze offense in basketball. After the taping he graciously gave us a tour of the then-new Smith Center arena.

In an era where principle and integrity seem to be lost, it is worth pausing to remember a man who exemplified both. 

The heart of Pope Francis' mission

Two recent Washington Post op-ed columns on Pope Francis “apostolic exhortation,” The Joy of the Gospel, focus on his denunciation of unjust economic systems.

Eugene Robinson concludes that

The basic positions Francis takes on economic and social justice are not new; all recent popes have expressed a similar critique of modern capitalist society … But no recent pope has been so forceful in denouncing the “idolatry of money” and making the inexorable rise of inequality one of the church’s central concerns.

And E.J. Dionne seconds that judgement

He’s not the first pope to denounce our unjust economic system. … The difference is that a concern for the poor and a condemnation of economic injustice are at the very heart of Francis’s mission. 

The reaction to Michael Weiner's passing

Adam Kilgore ‏@AdamKilgoreWP1h

Michael Weiner was the rare man who reached the top of his world with pure intelligence, competence, integrity. He needed no politics.

Ian Desmond ‏@IanDesmond201h

Michael Weiner, we will miss you. Thoughts and prayers to his family, friends, and associates. #Love

Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal1h

I tweet links all the time, but this time I ask you to actually read. Michael was that special. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/michael-weiner-players-association-head-dead-at-51-remarkably-courageous-kind-112113 …

Mark Zuckerman ‏@ZuckermanCSN14m

Can't imagine anyone dealing with illness with more grace than Michael Weiner did. A remarkable man, mourned by all of baseball tonight.

Aaron Boone ‏@AaronBoone_ESPN2h

Baseball and the world lost a good man today. R.I.P. Michael Weiner

 Retweeted by adam dunn

Torii Hunter ‏@toriihunter482h

Thoughts and prayers go out to Micheal Weiner and his family. He was one of the most intelligent men I've ever known. #RIP #trueleader

andrew mccutchen ‏@TheCUTCH222h

Michael Weiner worked even thru his sickness. He didn't look at it as an excuse to quit. He never gave up on us even when at his worst...

andrew mccutchen ‏@TheCUTCH222h

... you truly will be missed. Prayers go out to his friends and family. An amazing person to us all

Jake Peavy ‏@JakePeavy_442h

Devastated on hearing the news of Michael Weiner's passing. A man of integrity & humility...Will be missed greatly but always remembered!

Albert Pujols ‏@PujolsFive2h

Sending prayers to Michael Weiner's family tonight. Words can't describe the kind of man he was. I will miss you, my friend.

Max Scherzer ‏@Max_Scherzer2h

My deepest condolences to the Weiner family tonight...He had a special and unique way to connect to everybody that never will be forgotten.

Michael Weiner

All of baseball mourns the passing of Player's Association head Michael  Weiner. "You hear these clichés all the time," said Dodgers pitcher Chris Capuano. "People say, 'This person is one of a kind,' or, 'They're extraordinary.' But to meet someone with that kind of prodigious intellect and mind who also has a warm heart and is a normal, down-to-earth person and so kind -- there aren't a lot of those people out there."

Too Many Books

Two books that caught my eye this week. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote The Bully Pulpit, on the relationship between Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and their joint relationship with the press. Reviewer Bill Keller writes:

If you find the grubby spectacle of today’s Washington cause for shame and despair — and, really, how could you not? — then I suggest you turn off the TV and board Doris Kearns Goodwin’s latest time machine. Let her transport you back to the turn of the 20th century, to a time when this country had politicians of stature and conscience, when the public believed that government could right great wrongs, when, before truncated attention spans, a 50,000-word exposé of corruption could sell out magazines and galvanize a reluctant Congress. The villains seemed bigger, too, or at least more brazen — industrial barons and political bosses who monopolized entire industries, strangled entire cities.

 And, in light of today’s strained relationship with Islam, a book on Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: Islam and the Founders. Reviewer Kirk Davis Swinehart writes that:

In “Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an,” her fascinating if somewhat meandering new book, Denise A. Spellberg traces the partial origins of American religious toleration to a single day in 1765 when Jefferson, then studying law at the College of William and Mary, acquired an English translation of Islam’s sacred text. He never claimed that the Quran shaped his political orientation. Yet Spellberg, an associate professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin, makes a persuasive case for its centrality. To oversimplify: What began as an academic interest in Islamic law and religion yielded a fascination with Islamic culture, which disposed him to include Muslims in his expansive vision of American citizenship. 

In both books, it seems there are lessons that would do us well today. 

The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

Thomas Friedman in today’s New York Times on a new book by Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit titled My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel. The book, he writes, has a way of thinking about Israel:

“that to understand Israel today requires keeping several truths in tension in your head at the same time.

 “First, that Israel, at its best, is one of the most amazing political experiments in modern history, so much better than its critics will ever acknowledge. Second, Israel at its worst, is devouring Palestinian farms and homes in the West Bank in ways that are ugly, brutal, selfish and deceitful, so much worse than its supporters will ever admit. Third, Israel lives in a dangerous region — surrounded by people who hate it not only for what it does but for what it is, a successful Jewish state — but its actions matter, too. It can ameliorate or exacerbate Arab  

Strikes me as being right on the mark. 

Too Many Books

There are too many books being published that I would love to read, but just don’t have the time. So, I rely on reading book reviews a way of keeping in touch with what’s being written. My favorite part of the Sunday New York Times is the Book Review. I also keep an eye on the Washington Post and a few others. Here are my picks from this week’s books.

Marie Colvin was a journalist who covered armed conflict. Last year she was killed by a rocket attack in Syria. Two books, On the Front Line, a collection of her reporting, and Under The Wire, an account of her final weeks. The reviewer wrote that these books “pay homage to this formidable woman, who tested the limits of an extreme profession.” As Colvin once wrote: “Simply: there’s no way to cover war properly without risk. Covering a war means going into places torn by chaos, destruction, death and pain, and trying to bear witness to that.”

As one who has always been fascinated by the law, the careers of two prominent lawyers of our time caught my eye. Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law is an autobiography by Alan Dershowitz, whose resume of “legal issues and controversies … is breathtaking.” And appeals court judge Richard A. Posner offers his Reflections on Judging after a distinguished 30 year career. The reviewer notes that Posner is one of those judges who, while not on the Supreme Court, has earned “by dint of relentless merit … legal authority akin to that wielded by the Nine.”

Finally, The Brothers looks at the careers of Allen and John Foster Dulles, and concludes that  “Anyone wanting to know why the United States is hated across much of the world need look no farther than this book. “The Brothers” is a riveting chronicle of government-sanctioned murder, casual elimination of “inconvenient” regimes, relentless prioritization of American corporate interests and cynical arrogance on the part of two men who were once among the most powerful in the world.”

Signs of Peace

This is one of those days when, amid the continuing horrors of wars around the world, there are also signs of peace.

• In Colombia, the government and FARC guerrillas announced a "fundamental agreement" on a role for the rebels in politics. This has been one of the contentious issues in ongoing peace talks.

 • In Myanmar/Burma, the UN says that the first peace talks in decades between the government and armed ethnic minority grouups are a "significant move" toward ending a long civil war.

On the other hand, some peace efforts are running into difficulties.

• Secretary of  State John Kerry is in the Mideast, trying to rescue the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

• The US and Russia failed to agree on a date for proposed peace talks on Syria.

We continue to pray for peace and pursue peace. 

The rule of love

My friend Pastor Ron Adams speaks the truth. I thank God for pastors with hearts like his.

Denominational guidelines exist regarding the conduct of pastors. Those guidelines include consequences for pastors who bless Jesus-followers whose partners are of the same sex. I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

But speaking as a pastor, if I am asked to choose between adhering to those guidelines and welcoming and blessing someone, anyone, seeking to follow Jesus, I will welcome and bless.

Chutzpah of the day

Reported this afternoon:

“Despite the Democrats’ refusal to work with the House to solve the problem, Republicans are working to protect the troops, prevent a shutdown and find solutions to the difficulties cause by Senate Democrats’ delays,” said [Sen. Mitch] McConnell spokesman Don Stewart.

Excuse me? How bout those who created the problem solving the problem.

Hagel's hearing

Chuck Hagel’s Senate hearing today featured one Republican Senator after another beating up on him for his views on just about everything.  But the BBC got it right that the process “has been used not to examine a candidate's fitness for high office, but to underline the rather obvious fact that the Obama administration does not share the world view of Republican senators, and they don't like their former colleague joining it.”

MSNBC fires Pat Buchanan

Andrew Sullivan decries MSNBC’s firing of Pat Buchanan.

He's a complicated man and I will not defend for a second his views on many things. But he is also a compassionate and decent man in private and an honest intellectual in public. It says everything about the polarization of our discourse and the evolution of cable news into rival sources of propaganda that this ornery figure, still churning out ideas and books while others his age are well in retirement, is now banished.

Blessed are those who mourn

I have gotten so used to stories of violence in the news every morning that I confess they don’t move me as much as they should, or used to. Today: Three straight days of killing in Karachi with 42 dead; Syrian tanks shelling the city of Hama, where more than 100 people have died since Sunday;  U.N. peacekeepers killed by a landmine in Sudan; daily deaths in Libya; bombings in Baghdad; and assassinations in Kandahar. It goes on and on.

But yesterday when I opened the New York Times, there was a front-page story on the unfolding famine in Somalia. A large photo of a starving child filled most of the top half of the page. As I looked at that small, emaciated body my eyes started to fill. When I turned to the inside continuation of the story, there was a hazy, almost surreal photo of a mother and child. I started to weep.

Weeping for a world where violence and death have become so commonplace. For a world where children are always the first to suffer. For a world where the vision of Isaiah of a new world where “No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days” seems more like a mockery than a promise.

In our monthly chapel service later that morning, the leader shared a reflection on the Beatitude “Blessed are those who mourn,” from Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Lament for a Son:

“Blessed are those who mourn.” What can it mean? One can understand
why Jesus hails those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
why he hails the merciful,
why he hails the pure in heart,
why he hails the peacemakers,
why he hails those who endure under persecution.

These are qualities of character which belong to the life of the kingdom. But why does he hail the mourners of the world? Why cheer tears?

It must be that mourning is also a quality of character that belongs to the life of his realm. Who then are the mourners? The mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of God’s new day, who ache with all their being for that day’s coming, and who break out into tears when confronted with its absence.  …  The mourners are aching visionaries.

I pray that I never lose the ability to be “filled with compassion,” as Jesus was at the signs of suffering. And that no matter how much it may ache, I never lose sight of the vision of the kingdom of God.

They, Too, Sing America

Charles Blow writes about the real America - the "honest people who do honest work — crack-the-bones work; lift-it, chop-it, empty-it, glide-it-in-smooth work; feel-the-flames-up-close work; crawl-down-in-there work... They do hard jobs and odd jobs — any work they can find to keep the lights on and the children fed."
 
Working people just trying to survive in a Gilded Era of the wealthy getting wealthier while the crumbs going to the bottom are fewer and fewer.

Bring it on!

A decade ago, after President George W. Bush’s tax cuts, William Sloane Coffin, in one of his memorable and pithy remarks, said:  “When the rich take from the poor, it’s called an economic plan.  When the poor take from the rich, it’s called class warfare.  It must be wonderful for President Bush to deplore class warfare while making sure his class wins.”

If Bill were still with us, he would substitute Paul Ryan, or Republicans in general, for “President Bush,” but make the same point.  The Republican reaction to the President’s press conference yesterday was a perfect example.  When the President proposed repealing tax cuts for corporate jet owners, hedge fund managers, and oil and gas companies, the cry of “class warfare” soon followed. 

Human Events wrote “he is still most comfortable when he is playing the class warfare card. “ Commentary chimed in “with the 2012 campaign season upon him, Obama is ratcheting up the rhetoric of class warfare.’  And a headline in the Dallas Morning News read “Texas Republicans say Obama playing class warfare with corporate jets.”

Yet when Republican governors and legislatures are outlawing collective bargaining by public sector employees and the GOP-led House of Representatives is passing a budget that cuts everything from Women, Infant and Children nutrition to Pell Grants; that’s not class warfare, that’s an economic plan.

All I have to say is, Bring it on, Mr. President.  It’s about time.