Black Battle, White Knight. Michael Battle
Читать онлайн книгу.
Indianapolis and Colorado and as a college chaplain. Yet he had never thought of this work as “spiritual direction.” In other words, he had not engaged a group of individuals in spiritual work over a sustained and lengthy period of time as a regular, ongoing enterprise.
At St. Augustine, he was sought by an Episcopal priest who had long been a member of an Anglican religious order. He asked: could Malcolm become his spiritual director? Although he felt untrained and perhaps inadequate, Malcolm said yes. He would give it a try. He and the priest/monk entered into what became a fifteen-year spiritual relationship. Malcolm says: “I had the finest on-the-job training in the world.” Soon several other men and women requested that Malcolm enter into a dialogical pattern of spiritual direction with them. Malcolm says his approach has always been improvisational rather than tightly scripted or adhering to a rigid mode. In a seemingly idle conversation, suddenly a nerve is struck; maybe a childhood experience comes to the fore in a startlingly relevant way; an “elephant in the room” stirs and is identified.
Now Malcolm acts as spiritual director for a dozen men and women. His range has included bishops, both younger and older persons, a Lutheran pastor, a Methodist pastor, gays and straights, mostly Episcopal clergy but also deeply committed lay people. Individual sessions can run to three hours. Malcolm’s approach is to be as open to his directees as they are to him. So the sessions are intimate rather than distanced, impersonal, or bureaucratic. Spiritual direction, as Malcolm practices it, is less a process of crisis management than it is a long, ongoing, patient process of discovery and self-discovery. It is marked by both simplicity and humor. Faith is not perceived as a museum piece but as a living and present force.
In a letter to someone seeking spiritual direction, Malcolm describes his own unusual style of doing spiritual direction. Malcolm writes one of his directees:
I honestly don’t know who would be a good spiritual director for you! My own approach is so out of the ordinary, not formal, built on relationship and dialogue. I’ve simply related to a number of individuals who asked me to “be” that role in their lives. However, I’m not a “member” of a “group of spiritual directors.” God knows who could “be” this for you. (God undoubtedly does, yet that doesn’t help us very much right now.) Take a deep breath, look around (and closely, and pray).
Someone is writing my biography! This is a strange, altogether new experience for me. Requires much emotional and mental digging into my past.
Mark is fine (and, of course, has a new book just out). Diocese of LA is chugging along well. The two new suffragan bishops are splendid. All blessings, Malcolm.14
Malcolm’s style of spiritual direction was indeed that of being—being present to the seeker of God. There was no pretense of technique or getting the words exactly right. As I asked my own narcissistic questions about prayer, God, justice, bad religion, and much more in front of Malcolm, narratives and wisdom flowed from Malcolm’s life experience. It was impossible to be self-absorbed while hearing Malcolm’s staccato laugh or to despair while listening to him read one of his provocative poems. After a year of being in spiritual direction had almost passed, I experienced an epiphany. “Malcolm, you need a biography,” I said. We both pondered the thought. A few days later Malcolm writes the following letter:
Dear Michael: Pursuant to our conversation re: a book you might write, I have some thoughts. I don’t “want” or “need” a biography, which seems pretentious and premature. Nobody (including myself) cares about all the intricate details of my life!
What has my life represented? Its “Rosebud”—its deepest significance—seems found in my somewhat unexplainable passion for justice which found basic expression in my participation in what we call civil rights. I’m also thinking along similar lines as a possible focus of your work and in line with both your skill and your image.
I’m thinking of a book title: “Black Struggle, White Knight.” Obviously this is a suggestion. My point is: I was not “unique” in this. There were many “white knights,” volunteer men and women who sacrificed in different ways to enable a movement. I am not an “exemplar” or “role model.” I was (and am) one of many. All of us, in our small and varied ways, paved the way for the phenomenon of Obama.
I remember often being told by blacks in the movement “Your job is with whites, not blacks.” I disagree because I see this as not being “either/or.” I have always seen it as “both/and.” I believe it is time for a prominent/skilled black figure to write about deep white involvement in the historic and ongoing movement. In beneficial ways this could open up a more meaningful racial dialogue.15
Biography cum Autobiography
In postmodern literature, we have learned that the genre of memoir or testimony is the best vehicle of truth telling because it provides the context of a particular perspective coinciding with multiple interpretations. Such a genre written in the first person creates art out of concrete experience. Malcolm’s art is in his articulation of the beauty of this strange brooding world that we live in. Like Malcolm’s own writing, this biography is an attempt to break new ground in how one learns about a significant life. I do not attempt to tell a chronological story. Nor do I want you as the reader to think that I am an innocent narrator. In some ways this is both autobiography and biography at the same time. Malcolm writes me a letter and puts it this way:
Dear Michael: After our highly beneficial meeting yesterday, a few thoughts.
I think what sets this book apart is that it’s NOT a biography per se, it’s a dialogue, and it stems from spiritual direction. It’s two people engaged in both life and discussion. Yesterday you seemed to feel chapter 1 might be on race, chapter 2 on gay. BUT I think chapter 1 MUST be on celebrity. It’s the driving force in a global dance with celebrity in the media age. Also we have my utterly unique engagement with celebrity: first with Mary Pickford, second with a best-selling book and resulting celebrity. This is NEW for a spiritual or religious kind of book. Race is no longer new, nor is gay. They are of central importance but, for an opening chapter, I think celebrity cries out to be the theme. (Can you manage this in terms of your plan for the book as a whole?)
If we set up celebrity at the outset, and pursue it, you have—and hold—wide reader interest. Celebrity is an enigma. It can be considered a curse, it can be considered a blessing. Certainly, it’s unfair! If you make chapter 1 on celebrity, then making chapter 2 race and chapter 3 gay follows logically. (Both are areas in which I have encountered, and worked with celebrity.) My life with celebrity has overlapped my life with both race and gay (and, indeed, contributed to it).
In this sequence, does “the anemic church with its institutional structures and lacking religion” follow logically? (Does it follow for you?) I want to avoid the pitfall of our ending up with “an Emerging Church experience” which I feel is a decoy or simply misleading. Do you remember a book called A Generation of Vipers? It was big when I was a kid. I remember it very well. It cut through all the bullshit. It just said, correctly, that we ARE “a generation of vipers.” It didn’t come up with a Disney ending. I feel this book can be honest with itself and end with the right questions instead of the wrong answers. In fact, “it is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”
Anyhow. Chapter 1 can be celebrity, 2 can be race, 3 can be gay, and 4 can be the well-meaning but out-of-touch institutional religion that is failing to connect with people caught in the crisis of living. Glory be, have we avoided a Polyanna ending offering palliatives? Frankly, I have no answers. I have questions. You don’t have answers either. You have questions.
Bishop John Robinson’s Honest to God touched many lives. So did my groundbreaking book of prayers Are You Running with Me, Jesus? There aren’t many books in this category. Let’s stay in this category. BUT this means ASKING THE QUESTIONS everybody has but no one is being listened to. This means opening up all the closet doors. This means dealing with reality. (And there is no more persistent reality in the world today than the reality of celebrity, warts and all.)
Does this give you your 4 chapters? Can you wrap yourself around these 4 related themes?