I Have a New Article on TheOoze

Some of you may remember the story about Sherri, one of God’s itinerant workers and how we met one day in Western Maryland. She’s the lady that has devoted her life to spreading the Gospel across this country on the back of a bike.  TheOoze has decided to publish this story and it comes out today; “The Apostle Sherri: Bicycle Disciple”. Please check it out on: http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=1818

If you’ve never visited that web site I think you’ll be pleased with what you find there.

Remembering an Unknown American Hero

I had never heard of this lady before.

From the Associated Press :

GLOUCESTER, Va. – Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, a black woman whose refusal to give up her bus seat to white passengers led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision more than a decade before Rosa Parks gained recognition for doing the same, has died at 90….

The Supreme Court held in June 1946 that Virginia law requiring the races to be separated on interstate buses — even making passengers change seats during their journey to maintain separation if the number of passengers changed — was an invalid interference in interstate commerce.

At the time, the case received little attention, and not all bus companies complied with the ruling at first, but it paved the way for civil rights victories to come, including Parks’ famous stand on a local bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955.

Kirkaldy also inspired the first Freedom Ride in 1947, when 16 civil rights activists rode buses and trains through the South to test the Supreme Court decision.

In 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal — the second highest civilian honor in the United States.

Asked where her courage came from that day, Kirkaldy said simply: “I can’t understand how anyone would have done otherwise.”

She was not part of any organized movement, unlike Parks, who was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People when she challenged segregation.

Kirkaldy, then a young mother, boarded the Greyhound bus in Hayes Store, Va., and took a seat toward the back for her ride home. She was recovering from surgery and had taken her two children to stay temporarily with her mother in Gloucester.

A few miles down the road, the driver told her to move because a white couple wanted to occupy her row.

“I said ‘Well, no,’” she recalled. “That was a seat I had paid for.”

Kirkaldy said she willingly paid a $100 fine for resisting arrest because she did kick the officer who tried to remove her from the bus.

“Sometimes, you are so enraged, you don’t have time to be afraid,” she remarked in 2000.

She lived out of the spotlight for decades after the case, earning a college degree in 1985 at age 68, and lived most of her life in New York state.

Read the entire article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070813/ap_on_re_us/obit_kirkaldy;_ylt=Ai884z6y_kaRRn2fegQowsdI2ocA

There is another interesting account on the Seventh Day Adventist e-magazine, the Adventist Review: http://www.adventistreview.org/2001-1505/story1.html

Is it Time to Reconsider Luther?

The following article was written by our friend and contributor, Abrosia De Milano:

Maybe protestants have followed the wrong Reformer. Was it truly Martin Luther whom God called out of the malaise of the Renaissance to correct His church and lead a new movement back to the true church? Can an argument be made that it was Erasmus, one who never left the Roman Catholic Church, who was the true torch-bearer of reform?

Erasmus can be called the Renaissance Man, par excellence. He embodied
the time in that he was at once scholar, humanist, monk; he was a humorist, linguist; a genius, if any ever existed, and an advocate of peace between people—even of peace towards his enemies.

Erasmus’ work The Complaint of Peace reminds the reader that Jesus had spoken the
imperative “Blessed are the Peacemakers.” He did not hide behind the excuse that the state had a right of self-defense, and that Christians ought to support war. Erasmus writes, “No greater enemy of goodness or of religion can be found.”

Humanism—not the secular humanism that rejects God—was the mark of Erasmus’ intellectual endeavors. It was not that man was the measure, but that God had endowed humanity with great gifts. These gifts had to be recognized, and drawn out to see the full glory of God that dwells in humanity. He followed the great tradition of the Dutch humanists. This led his work to be marked by an irenic spirit, one that seeks peace and reconciliation, in contrast with Luther’s fury.

It can be said that Erasmus would be one to whom Kant might say “Understanding is sublime, wit is beautiful” (From Kant’s Of the Beautiful and the Sublime). This could not be said of Luther.

Luther was seeking to overwhelm the perceived ignorance of his opponents with scalding critique. He sought to maintain enmity, rather than find common ground with which to carry on intellectual conversation. Calvinist scholar R. C. Sproul writes this of Luther, “The first key to Luther’s profile is found in his tempestuous outbursts of anger and his intemperate language. He was fond of calling his critics ‘dogs’. . . . his language was at times earthy, salted with scatological references” (The Holiness of God, p. 75).

Is this intemperate one, this man who used insult and invective to blast his intellectual and theological opponents, the Chosen One of the Reformation? Perhaps this title was given too easily to such a one as Luther. Maybe it is time Protestants (and Baptists, and other evangelicals) rethought Luther. Maybe it is time to transfer the reins of our faith to a man of peace, one of those opponents whom Luther engaged as one engages a hated enemy. Maybe it is time to consider Erasmus as the True Reformer—or to look elsewhere altogether—as to the one whom God truly called to speak out the abuses and sins of the established church of the 16th century.

The Apostle Sherri: Bicycle Disciple

This just happened to us and I have to share it with you;

It was Saturday afternoon, sunny, warm and breezy so Bev and I thought we would take an impromptu drive out to the mountains, maybe find a hotel and then get a nice dinner somewhere. My car was having battery problems so we decided to take her big van. Since that car has these great big head rests (six of them) that tend to block my rear vision, I decided to lay all the seats flat.

We packed a cooler with cold drinks and ice (something we never think to do) and hit the road. We got a later start than we would’ve liked but that’s pretty much SOP with the Beyers. By the time we got to the scenic mountain area of west-central Maryland it was already after 3:00 pm. My wife had said that we might have a hard time finding a hotel and she was right, everyone was booked up. The folly of our day was apparent to us and we ruefully headed on home.

We still had about an hour’s drive ahead of us when, rounding down a steep hill, we were surprised by a lone figure walking along the side of the road. It looked to be an older woman and she was pushing a bicycle. She was carrying at least four bags or duffels and had what seemed like a tattered shirt wrapped over the top of her ball cap, kind of like a scarf. Her appearance was everything one would expect of a homeless person and finding her in the middle of farm country was unexpected. As we drove by she began to jerk her thumb out as if she was hitch-hiking but since she couldn’t let go of the handle bar we almost missed the gesture.

“She’s hitch hiking.” Bev said. We continued on down the hill and I concentrated on keeping the big car on track through the S-curves.

“You’re kidding” I said.

“You think we should turn around?” said Bev

“Hmmm.” That’s all I said and we drove on. As it was, there were no turn-outs or side roads to be had. After a couple of miles I made a right onto a farm lane.

“We’re going back, aren’t we?” Bev asked.

“Yup”

I had been thinking of that scripture where Jesus said that when he was hungry someone fed him, when he was sick someone visited, when he was naked someone clothed him. I was imagining him saying to me; “When I was hitch hiking, pushing my bike and carrying a heavy load on a hot day, you didn’t stop to pick me up.”

“That was you, Jesus? I thought that was an old lady!”

When we got back to where we could see her trundling down the hill we pulled into a drive way and waited. There was no shoulder to the road. She must have recognized our car or figured out what we were about because when she saw us she began jogging down the road, her laden bags swinging and her bike wobbling back and forth.

She was a skinny little thing, wearing too-big athletic clothes; sweat pants, sneakers, socks, sweat shirt and ball cap. The sweat shirt said “Messiah College”. Her sun glasses were as big as scuba goggles and her skin was sun browned and leathery. In spite of the heat and her recent exertion she appeared dry and surprisingly clean. It turned out that she liked to be called Sherri and she had been riding her bike from Hagerstown, a good 20 miles behind us, when she got a flat tire. She’d been having a lot of flats lately and someone told her that there was a Wal-Mart 10 miles on up the road in Frederick, where she might get them to fix the bike (seeing as how she had bought it recently from another Wal-Mart). She said that she had been praying hard for someone to come and pick her up, blessing and thanking us both.

We stowed her bike easily in the back of the car, where there was plenty of room with the seats already down. She said the bike was new but it looked a little beat up. It was the same brand as my first bike, a Roadmaster, except hers was the girl’s version. The rear wheel looked bent. We opened up one of the middle seats for her and she was surprised and grateful as we handed her an ice cold Diet Coke Plus (with vitamins!) from the cooler. We cranked up the A/C and headed off to find Wal-Mart.

As we drove she told us, in a genteel southern draw, that she was originally from Richmond Virginia and had raised two daughters, both now in their thirties. She now had grandsons and granddaughters and they lived in different parts of the country. For the past eleven years Sherrie had been riding her bikes (she’s been through quite a few) across the country, from Florida to California and up into Canada, preaching God’s word. Raised a Methodist, she was now Pentecostal by choice and a speaker of tongues by election. Standing on street corners in small towns and big cities she preached a sermon of salvation from damnation through the acceptance of Christ’s love.

She rarely slept indoors and tried to coordinate her travels with the seasons, going south in wintertime. She asked about Baltimore and Washington where she said (amazingly!) that she felt a lot of concern for all the homeless people that she heard lived there. Many of the homeless that she met on her travels seemed to be so hopeless and that saddened her.

She was very interested in us, our faith and our family, but in a sensitive and generous way. She never pried or preached. She said that she might visit the church we attend outside of DC and asked when we held services. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see her some day.

We parked at Wal-Mart and helped with her bags as she chained up the bike. I asked her if she was OK with money, if she even had enough for a new bicycle inner tube. She hemmed and hawed a bit so before she could answer I asked if it was alright if we could contribute to her ministry. I gave her some cash and I could tell that she was genuinely grateful. She then surprised me by asking suddenly if this was something that I would like her to repay someday. Humbled, I told her that it was part of my tithe, since it was obvious that she took Jesus’ commission to heart.

As Bev and I drove on down the highway, we began to chuckle. God has a very dry sense of humor. How coincidental that, on the spur of the moment, we decided to take a day trip to western Maryland, in the big van, with the seats down, spare cash in our pockets and a cooler of cold drinks in back. How unfortunate for us that there were no hotel vacancies in the area (most probably because of our own chronic tardiness) which resulted in our having to drive down that one particular road, so far from home. How gallant, to grudgingly turn around and help someone more ‘unfortunate’ than us.

Somehow this older woman is able to travel across this huge land, cheerfully spreading the Good News, carrying everything she owns on her back. Eleven years of pedaling up mountains and through deserts, and she is as clean and bright as a new penny, sharp as a tack. It was obvious that God looks out for her and I bet she wasn’t the least bit surprised when we came back for her. We were just two more characters stepping on to her God-directed stage.

I can imagine her praying as she walked along the busy highway, “OK Lord, I wonder who you will be putting into my life now”, confident that she was safely in his hands.

And I can imagine God smiling down on her, “Hmm…Looks like Sherri is having a little trouble today. Who can I send…who can I send…..Oh! I know…the Beyers! I’ll bet they’re just wasting another Saturday. I’m sure they could benefit from a little time spent with Sherri.”

“Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

In her passion for God, neither does Sherri.

*Confessions Of An Ex-Fundamentalist

(September 4, 2006)

A few years ago, while in my early forties, I finally surrendered to Christ. I gotta say that I had put up a pretty good fight, throughout my Catholic childhood and then for the next 20 or so years outside of the church. The last person I would have identified with would have been Jesus. If anyone would have asked, I would have described myself as a politically conservative Republican, a pantheistic/agnostic nature worshipper and sometime Zen atheist. A rather muddy brew.

I let my guard drop just once and Jesus sucker punched me. Down on the mat for the first time, my life changed. As they say, I was ‘born again’, a new creation in Christ. Unfortunately this new creation hung on to quite a few of his old worldly ways.

I am not talking about what some people might refer to as my sinful nature. There is still that to deal with, of course. Every day I make choices that I am later ashamed of, an ongoing project for me and Jesus to work on together. What I am referring to here was the almost inevitable (for me) turning into what is commonly referred to as a religous fundamentalist (although these days I am not too comfortable with labels)

A new Christian, I was blown away by the lightness of spirit that I now enjoyed. I was exultant, exuberant, ecstatic and excited. ‘Witnessing’ to whoever would stand still long enough, I wanted the world to know about this awesome new experience. I stopped swearing overnight and my vocabulary took on new dimensions. My conversation was now peppered with words and phrases like ‘born again’, ‘redeemed’, ‘holy’, ‘righteous’ and ‘godly’. It seemed that every discussion I joined soon turned towards whether or not we felt someone, based upon his or her behavior, was ‘saved’ or ‘not saved’.

I plastered my car with fish and bumper stickers (the slogans of which were often a bit combative). Christian tee- shirts and ball caps became my preferred sartorial choice. I stopped listening to rock, blues and my beloved jazz (though most of my jazz albums had no lyrics at all, much less of the satanic sort). My CD collection became dominated by Christian artists, many of them quite good. Christian fiction tried to find a larger place in my library but I found little of it to be palatable. I socialized almost exclusively with fellow Christians [some wonderful people, a few becoming my closest friends]. Spending more time with my church family than I did with my own, I loved to tell everyone of how my little church had now become my life. My family and old friends now found themselves, as the Newsboys sing it, ‘on the outside looking in’.

To many people it looked as if I had become ‘born again’ primarily to be a bore, again.

Even worse than that, I had become a poor example to my family, friends and community of what a follower of Christ should look like. I began to identify sinners with their sin, promoting church exclusion and railing against those who failed to agree with my version of the Gospel. Other faiths became heretical sects and cults, including the faith of my family, Roman Catholicism. (Ironically I was extremely offended when I saw protestant fundamentalists listed in a book [written by a Catholic priest] on religious cults!.)

Thirsty for more, I read the Bible ‘religiously’, taking it as an owner’s manual for life and missing the story enveloped within. Listening to every evangelical radio preacher out there I consumed as many of their books as I could find. Some of what I learned from them was this: the Bible is the inerrant Word of God (and maybe a science book too) and should be taken literally whenever possible, people who did not agree with the prior statement were usually members of the ‘unsaved’ majority and we should pray for them, tolerance and acceptance were bad words, homosexuality was threatening our nation, tithing was not an option, we were living in the ‘End Times’ and if God wasn’t a Republican (like me!) he certainly was on their mailing list! (To be fair I did learn a lot of good stuff about God and the Bible as well) And I was fortunate to join a group of sober, mature Christian men who helped guide me through the rough waters of my young faith. I learned quite a bit about discernment from these guys, thank you Lord!

But some things were not quite right. More than a few of the religous credal statements did not settle well with me. There were some church doctrines that I attempted to take on faith, trying to sweep my objections under the intellectual rug, but like buried splinters they continued to prick at me. Why did women need to submit to men? Why were some of the Old Testament laws still followed so religiously when Christ had come to fulfill the law and set all mankind (not just the ‘saved’) free? Were some of Jesus’ commands more important than others? And most pressing to me, how could Jesus permit so many of his children to suffer eternal agony, perhaps their only crime being that of ignorance of the Gospel?

Fortunately, I became bored with the standard fare found on the shelves of evangelical bookstores and decided to check out the religious section of Barnes and Nobles. There, I was exposed to the more challenging material of writers like Francis Schaeffer, RC Sproul, John Piper and others. I found them to be interesting and they also tended to prop up my fundamentalist leanings. I felt,though, that they had a way of making the Scriptures seem even more arcane and convoluted. Then I stumbled across the paths of Messrs. Screwtape & Wormwood!

CS Lewis enabled me to see more clearly the mission and message of Jesus, helping me to find the answers to my questions, rather than telling me what I should believe (as the Evangelical authors and preachers would tend to do). Lewis led me to Chesterton, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (I never knew that these famous Russians wrote primarily of the Gospel!) I discovered modern writers like Brennan Manning, Henri Nouwen, Dallas Willard, Phil Yancey, Jim Wallis, Richard Foster, Tony Compolo and Brian McLaren. These men pointed me towards the spiritual and lyrical prose of Frederick Buechner, Donald Miller and the Annies Dillard and LaMott. (God bless their irreverence!) Returning to my Roman Catholic roots I learned of Christian mysticism along with the comfort and joy of contemplative prayer from Thomas Merton, Theresa of Avilla and Brother Lawrence. They all helped me to overcome my prejudices and allow Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi to show me what the Sermon on the Mount really looked like in action.

I began to realize that the transformation that took place at my conversion was merely the beginning, that God was not through changing me into what he wants. As Jim Wallis so simply explains, God is always calling us to conversion, to renewal and we need to be open enough to heed the call. Not only have I come to embrace a more liberal orthodoxy but in the process I’ve revisited old friendships, relationships and hang outs. I am listening ro my favorite musicians again, but now I hearing the Holy Spirit on percussion. (My family was only mildly happy at my return to the fold because in some of their eyes I had become a ‘crazy liberal’! Jesus will do that to you.)

It was kind of tough leaving my first church’s congregation, where I had come to know Jesus. I briefly considered trying to bring some of them along on my journey but thought better of it. Who was I, after all? Still, I wish they could see the great opportunities that lie outside of the church, to serve and enjoy the Kingdom, as it exists Here and Now on this planet. There is a whole world out there made up of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Evangelicals, Liberals, Conservatives, Catholics, Protestants, Pentacostalists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Wiccans, Pantheists, Agnostics and Atheists and yes, Fundamentalists. Because Jesus is The Way, he is speaking, sometimes whispering, to everyone on this planet, especially those that seem the least likely. Maybe some lambs will find it hard to hear the shepherd’s voice above all of our clamor.

I wonder where I’ll be next year.