Be Still!

      Departure from Collective Madness

      Copyright © 2017 Gordon C. Stewart. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Wipf & Stock

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

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      paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-8292-5

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-8294-9

      ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-8293-2

      Manufactured in the USA. 01/16/17

      Thanks to MinnPost.com for copyright permission for use of previously published commentaries:

      “Reframing the gun conversation,” October 22, 2015.

      “Homeland militarization—tanks in Ferguson, Blackhawks in Minneapolis — must be stopped,” August 22, 2014.

      “They may squirm in hearings, but Wall Street oligarchs know who has the power,” April 29, 2010.

      “Gulf oil-spill crisis raises basic questions about how we think of ourselves,” June 4, 2010.

      “For faith and for politics, there is one over-riding question: Am I my brother’s keeper?” January 6, 2010.

      “How appeals to fear—and misuse of Scripture—dampened a chilidog celebration,” October 9, 2009.

      “Blackwater/Xe: How did it happen that the US came to rely on mercenaries?” July 3, 2009.

      “‘Sorrow floats’: The healthy-deregulated-capitalism myth just keeps resurfacing,” September 10, 2009.

      “In this era of incivility, messianic nationalism strides to the fore,” September 21, 2010.

      “Dealing with the prison of deregulated capitalism,” February 12, 2010.

      Thanks to Steven Shoemaker for copyright permission for use of all poems appearing in this collection.

      In memory of Kosuke (Ko) Koyama

      (1929–2009)

      Gentle and strong, as trees

      Bend gracefully in wind,

      You stand—and I bow.

      —Peggy Shriver, 2009

      If we keep going the way we’re going, we’re going to get where we’re going.

      —Navajo Wisdom

      America is living stormy Monday, but the pulpit is preaching happy Sunday.The world is experiencing the Blues, and pulpiteers are dispensing excessive doses of non-prescription prosaic sermons with several ecclesiastical and theological side-effects.The church is becoming a place where Christianity is nothing more than Capitalism in drag.

      —Otis Moss III, Blue Note Preaching in a Post-Soul World

      He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.

      “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.”

      —Psalm 46:9–10

      Foreword

      by Eric Ringham News Editor, Minnesota Public Radio

      In any newsroom, there’s a predictable pattern to the unfolding of a major story. First comes the initial, fragmentary report: a tsunami has struck, or there’s been a school shooting.

      Then there’s a ghastly little pause, when it’s clear that this story is indeed one of those awful ones, but there’s a frustrating lack of material to publish. It can be a special problem for commentary and op-ed editors. That essay on France’s burkini ban that we were planning to publish will seem aggressively off-point in the days after a terrorist attack.

      Fortunately for me, there’s been another dependable element of the pattern: the phone call from Gordon Stewart.

      I couldn’t begin to guess how many times I’ve heard his calm, deliberative voice on the line: “Hello, Eric? Gordon Stewart calling. I’ve sent something to your inbox.”

      That “something” would be an essay on exactly the topic of the hour—a nice, short (to an editor, “nice” and “short” are redundant) exploration of the moral aspect of the story. Sometimes he reaches into his personal history; sometimes he pointedly unpacks the fallacies that surround a public current event. The consistent characteristic of these essays is that he always addresses the moral or ethical element of an issue. If there is an angel in the room, he wrestles it.

      I don’t think I’ve ever told him how comforting his calls have been to me. Yes, he’s a writer calling to pitch a commentary, but by the time the call has ended, I feel like a hospital patient who’s just received a visit from the chaplain. In a word, I feel better.

      Gordon knows something about writing commentaries that many people of faith do not: that is, how to be inclusive in addressing an audience that may hold some other faith, or no faith at all. He writes from a Christian perspective, but not to a Christian perspective. He writes to everybody.

      I’m a different kind of editor now, and it’s been a few years since I’ve been directly involved in publishing Gordon’s work. I miss reading his commentaries, which is why this collection is such a pleasure.

      In Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness, Gordon demonstrates his ability to be both topical and versatile, both insightful and unconventional. He ponders the manatee’s knowledge of Disney World, the barbarity of beheadings (whether committed in the name of Allah or the Old Testament God), and the fate of a man just hours from his scheduled execution. He claims an affinity for John Lennon and admits his sympathy with Lennon’s song “Imagine.”

      And there is much more, besides: the evils of Hitler, the remorse of a World War II Marine, gun control, the deaths of black men at the hands of police, hearing loss, the pleasures of solitude, and the demands made by cell phones.

      He revisits his childhood and reflects on his own death. “Whatever lies on the other side of my years is beyond my mortal knowing,” he confesses. I imagine that on the day he reaches the other side, he’ll find a way to write about that, too.

      This gentle, thoughtful writer deserves a wider audience, and I’m glad you’ve found him.

      Eric Ringham

      September 5, 2016

      Preface

      I invite you to look at this collection as a kind of photo album. Each snapshot focuses on a singular moment in real time.

      Like the times on which these essays focus, the author’s lens is set in time. It developed from the experiences of faith and doubt, hope and despair, sanity and madness, solitude and loneliness, stillness and frenzy, companionship and forlornness. I alternate between the quiet calm of the psalmist—“Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps 46)—and deep disquiet over the madness that fills the news, and me.

      Throughout it all, my camera lens looks as much for what is left unsaid as for what’s said. Willem Zuurdeeg’s and Esther Swenson’s work in analytical philosophy of religion taught