Rector's Blog
April 26, 2010, History (23), In the News (Nation, World) (80), Reconciliation (23)
Posted by Wallace+
A Friday column by Henry Loius Gates, Jr. offers some valuable reflections on the moral complexities inherent in reckoning with the past. Gates begins:
"Thanks to an unlikely confluence of history and genetics — the fact
that he is African-American and president — Barack Obama has a unique
opportunity to reshape the debate over one of the most contentious
issues of America’s racial legacy: reparations, the idea that the
descendants of American slaves should receive compensation for their
ancestors’ unpaid labor and bondage.
There are many thorny issues
to resolve before we can arrive at a judicious (if symbolic) gesture to
match such a sustained, heinous crime. Perhaps the most vexing is how
to parcel out blame to those directly involved in the capture and sale
of human beings for immense economic gain."
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April 14, 2010, Christianity (85), City & Commonwealth (63), History (23), In the News (Richmond) (74)
From today's Word from Grace Street by Wallace+:
Memory: a golden bowl, or a basement without light.
--Mary Oliver, Poet
The light of consciousness is the light of the One.
--Eckhart Tolle, Mystic
+
I joked with a friend last week, while in South Carolina, that I was
getting used to being in Virginia and being embarrassed by South
Carolinians (my distant cousin Joe Wilson's "You lie!," the governor's
"hike on the AT," the lieutenant governor's comparison of the poor to
stray animals), but it was a new thing, for me, to be in South Carolina
and be embarrassed by something a Virginian did. But so it was a week
ago, with our governor's proclamation of April as Confederate History
Month.
A lot of commentary has gone under the bridge since then, as would be
expected. (I commend to you, by the way, yesterday's RTD op-ed by Charles
F. Bryan, Jr.; and M.P. Williams'
column, particularly as it quotes U of R's Ed Ayers.) Embarrassment
has been a common motif, as has sadness; and there has been talk of
blindness. Language like "shockingly amateurish" and "gaffe" has been
used. Apologizing for leaving African-Americans and slavery entirely out
of the proclamation, the governor explained that he had not been
"focused" on slavery.
The thing is, this was not merely about a misstep, or an inattentive
moment. This was not a gaffe. This was not about things being done in an
amateur fashion, versus professionally. To think or speak of it in
those terms is to trivialize the substance of the matter, is to miss
entirely what is important about the moment. Something much deeper and
much more significant was and is at play.
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June 03, 2009, Church (77), History (23)
In his latest issue of A Word from Grace Street, Wallace tells us a little more about the Tetragrammaton that hovers over our heads every Sunday:
"Tetragrammaton" is the Greek
for "[word of] four letters." "YHWH" are the four letters, standing for the
Hebrew "Yahweh," the name of God, as given at the Burning Bush; "Yahweh," in
turn, being the Hebrew for "I AM WHO I AM."
By ancient tradition the
name of God (YHWH) has in and of itself been considered very holy. (See the
Third Commandment.) By tradition most Jews do not even speak the name itself
(YHWH), but instead speak of the LORD ("Adonai," in
Hebrew).
While certainly respecting the Jewish tradition of not
speaking God's name, we Christians have not followed that particular custom,
feeling free to speak God's name, albeit always with reverence, presumably.
With all of this in the way of introduction, I must say, I never
expected anyone to use the words "YHWH" and "Miss America contest" in the same
sentence. And yet I did, week before last.
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