Category Archives: This century (1937-2024)

Nelson Mandela — December 5

Bible connection

Therefore My people shall know My Name and what it means. Therefore in that day I am the One who is speaking, ‘Here I am.’”

How beautiful and delightful on the mountains
Are the feet of him who brings good news,
Who announces peace,
Who brings good news of good [things],
Who announces salvation,
Who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices,
Together they shout for joy;
For they will see face to face
The return of the Lord to Zion. Isaiah 52:6-8

Then-President Nelson Mandela revisits his South African prison cell on Robben Island, where he spent 18 of his 27 years in prison, in 1994.
Then-President Nelson Mandela revisits his South African prison cell on Robben Island, where he spent 18 of his 27 years in prison, in 1994.

All about Nelson Mandela  (1918-2013)

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country’s first black chief executive, and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid through tackling institutionalized racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Politically an African nationalist and democratic socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. Internationally, Mandela was Secretary General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999.

Mandela was not outspoken about his Christian faith. However, in his autobiography, he noted that he has always been and always will be a Christian and that his actions and conviction stem from his Christian faith. He kept his Christian beliefs discreet in favor of his great life’s work of reconciliation. “He was a deeply religious man; he believed sincerely in the existence of the Almighty,” said Bishop Don Dabula, who first met Mandela in 1962 and met to pray with him whenever he was at his home in Qunu

The former president had the last rites administered by a Methodist minister in his Houghton home as he was nearing death. Nearby, in a private room, long-time friend Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana said Mandela’s favorite blessing as he died. “I asked not to be in the room when he died,” said Mpumlwana, who had prayed at the family home regularly towards the end of Mandela’s life. He looked at the time midway during what he knew was Mandela’s favorite blessing and saw it was 8:49 p.m. He chanted the words that always made the elderly statesman’s face light up when he heard them: May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. “May the Lord look upon you with kindness, and give you peace. “I later realized that was when he died,” Mpumlwana said.

It is testament to Mandela’s universal appeal that he has been claimed to be everything from a communist to a true liberal by his many admirers. And the image of the father of South Africa’s secular democracy as being deeply religious may well sit uncomfortably with some. But Mandela’s relationship with religion was always significant, if muted.

He was raised and schooled as a Methodist, an experience he recalled fondly in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. Mandela was married to his third wife, Graça Machel, by the then head of the South African Methodist church, Bishop Mvume Dandala. At a religious conference in 1999, he said: “Without the church, without religious institutions, I would never have been here today…Religion was one of the motivating factors in everything we did.”

But Mandela held an aversion to speaking publicly about his own faith for fear of dividing or—even worse—using religion as a political tool, as the apartheid regime did. In his autobiography he wrote:

“The [apartheid] policy was supported by the Dutch Reformed Church, which furnished apartheid with its religious underpinnings by suggesting that Afrikaners were God’s chosen people and that blacks were a subservient species. In the Afrikaner’s world view, apartheid and the church went hand in hand.”

The head of the Methodist Church in South Africa, Bishop Zipho Siwa, agreed: “He is a leader whose role was to unite everybody.” Ultimately, his faith, like everything else about Mandela, played to the great theme of his life: reconciliation. This was illustrated in a 1994 speech to the Zion Christian Church Easter conference, in which he said: “The good news was borne by our risen Messiah, who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language,  who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind.”

More

More biography.

Nelson Mandela Day resources from the United Nations.

Nelson Mandela Foundation archives. 

Nobel Peace Prize (1993) pages.

The biggest criticism of Mandela might be “he cared too much about reconciliation.” [WAPO 2024]

Mandela and the church

Long Walk to Freedom trailer

What do we do with this?

Mandela spent years in prison waiting his opportunity to serve. He had no choice, and maybe you do not either. Will you be bitter when you receive your chance, or ready?

Who can you help reconcile today? Be sincere as you provide a way for people to love. They need your help.

Dorothy Day — November 29

Bible Connection

Read Psalm 42:1-4

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

All about Dorothy Day (1897-1980)

Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn Heights to stable, middle class, and marginally Christian parents. After her family experienced several major relocations, Day was raised mostly in San Francisco and Chicago. After two years of college, she dropped out of school in Illinois and moved back to New York City. During these younger years, Day’s interest in adventure grew to include alternative social organizations, particularly socialist anarchism. She began working with several socialist publications around 1916.

Although she had been baptized in the Episcopal Church as a child, at this point she identified as agnostic. The next few years were full of adventure and rocky relationships including heartbreak, abortion, a short marriage, and then an unexpected pregnancy and birth of her daughter, Tamar in 1926. She wished to baptize her child, which caused more tension in her relationship with Tamar’s father. A year later, Tamar was baptized and so was Dorothy, now part of the Catholic church.

In 1932 she met French immigrant Peter Maurin with whom a year later she would found the Catholic Worker movement. The publication of The Catholic Worker (almost named the Catholic Radical) began in 1933 and continues to be published. It’s goals were to promote Catholic social teaching in the depths of the Great Depression and to stake out a neutral, pacifist position in the war-torn 1930s.  The vision grew to include “establishing houses of hospitality to care for the destitute, establishing rural farming communities to teach city dwellers agrarianism and encourage a movement back to the land, and setting up roundtable discussions in community centers in order to clarify thought and initiate action.”

She became famous for saying

“I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.”

By 1941 over 30 independent yet affiliated Catholic Worker communities had formed in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. While the Catholic leaders told her to change the name of the publication because it did not represent the Church, they refused. By the 1960’s, Day became popular with Catholics, organizers, and counterculture leaders. While maintaining radical social ideas and practice, she opposed the sexual revolution of the decade, describing the ill effects she had suffered years before. She continued to be critical of transnational companies like United Fruit and violent governmental policies, and praised aspects of Communist movements in Russia, China, and Cuba.

Dorothy-Day-Lamont-UFW-1973.jpg
Dorothy Day before her last arrest at a farm workers picket line in Lamont, California, in 1973. Credit: http://rosemarieberger.com. All rights reserved.

Day was a prolific writer and joined movements for justice. At 75, she spent a week in jail helping Cesar Chavez working for justice for farm workers in California. Dorothy Day died on this day in 1980, three weeks after her 83rd birthday.

More

The Catholic Worker Movement homepage [link]

Writings  [link]

Day teaching on TV [link]

Nice, brief biography from Maryland Public TV 

Dorothy Day: A Rebel In Paradise [nice biography and teaching from community members]

NCEA webinar: Revolution of the Heart.

Lecture on The Long Loneliness and why it matters:

What do we do with this?

Dorothy Day’s radical views and uncompromising attitude caused her grief and trouble. But her long loneliness, as she called it, made her faith deep and her influence wide. What is it that you must do?

C.S. Lewis — November 22

Bible Connection

And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables. — Mark 4:11 (KJV)

All about C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1898. His mother, Flora, was the daughter of a Anglican priest (Church of Ireland). His father, Richard, immigrated from Wales and worked as a lawyer (solicitor). He and his brother Warren had a dog named Jacksie, who was killed by a car when Lewis was four years old. He decided that he would take the dog’s name in his mourning, eventually allowing his family to call him Jack—the name friends would refer to him by for the rest of his life.

He was privately tutored and sent to the notoriously abusive Wynyard School in England for two years with his brother after his mother died. He came back home to Belfast and attended Campbell College (for boys 11-18) only to drop out because of respiratory problems. He was sent to a health-resort town back in England where he attended preparatory school. It was there, while he was 15 that he decided he was an atheist. Later in life he would reflect that this decision was largely based on being mad at God for not existing.

His interest in mythology, beast fables, and legends developed—especially Norse, Greek, and Irish mythologies. In them, he sensed what he later named “joy.” He was bound for Oxford to study when he volunteered to fight for the British Army in the trenches of France during World War I. The trauma and horrors during the war confirmed his atheism. Lewis was injured during an accidental friendly fire explosion that killed two of his comrades. He had a pact with a close friend that if either died the survivor would take care of the other’s family, and after “Paddy” Moore died Lewis took care of Jane Moore until her death in the 1940s. The two had a close relationship, during both Lewis’ recovery and the period before Moore’s eventual death. Lewis often referred to her as his “mother.”

He resumed studies at Oxford in 1918. He excelled academically and began getting published. In 1929, largely because of the influence of friends and colleagues: J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, Lewis decided to “admit God was God,” kneel, pray, and admit he was a Theist. Two years later he had a conversion experience with the two friends playing a huge role in his shift to becoming a Christian. He would later recall in Surprised By Joy, “When we set out [on a motorcycle trip to the zoo] I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.”

Two years later, the three friends along with some others began a group they called “The Inklings” which would meet up once or twice per week for sixteen years. For most of 1941, Lewis published 31 weekly Screwtape Letters, donating the proceeds for them to charity. He began giving radio talks on the BBC that developed from “Right and Wrong” to a later series about “What Christians Believe” and then “Christian Behavior”—these later became his enduring classic Mere Christianity. He published The Great Divorce in weekly installments. In all, he wrote about 60 books, most of which are non-fiction, often apologetics of the faith. It was perhaps in his fiction, like the Space Trilogy, where he did his heaviest theological lifting.

In 1956, Lewis and his intellectual companion, Joy Davidman, entered into a civil marriage so she and her two sons could stay in the U.K. She was separated from her abusive husband. Later that year, after discovering her advanced-stage bone cancer, the two had a Christian marriage ceremony. Joy died in 1957 while on a family holiday. Jack raised her sons as his own. Four years later, Lewis had kidney issues that developed shortly into renal failure. He died on November 22, 1963 a week before he would have turned 65 (the same day as John F. Kennedy — book by Peter Kreeft).

Quotes

  • I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. — “Is Theology Poetry?”
  •  I have found a desire within myself that no experience in this world can satisfy; the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. — Mere Christianity
  • There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.’ — The Great Divorce
  • It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.– Mere Christianity
  • If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. – Mere Christianity
  • A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word “darkness” on the walls of his cell. — The Problem of Pain
  • Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained. — “God in the Dock”
  • God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. — Mere Christianity
  • Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. — The Joyful Christian
  • Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. — Mere Christianity
  • It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. — “The Weight of Glory”

More

Christian History biography

BBC biography

C.S Lewis’s surviving BBC radio address

C.S. Lewis – from atheism to theism

Mere Christianity — Internet Archive,  The Weight of Glory and Other AddressesInternet Archive

The Great Divorce — audio book on YouTubePDF online

Till We Have Faces — PDF online

The Silver Chair (BBC dramtization) — Episode 123456

Illustrations of Lewis’ books. Some by Lewis himself. [link]

The works of C.S. Lewis at C.C. Lewis.com [link]

The Most Reluctant Convert (Movie – 2022). Buy or rent on YouTube

What do we do with this?

C.S. Lewis was a brilliant apologist for Jesus in the mid-20th Century. Some of what he wrote is beginning to sound dated. Most of it is timeless. Some of it has been perverted by marketing and profit-taking. If you have never read one of his adult books, try one: Mere Christianity is a compilation of his radio productions. Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce are allegorical tales about life and death. Till We Have Faces is his last work that makes a Christian story out of a Greek tale.

Consider the time it takes to think deep thoughts. Lewis learned about Jesus before there was TV. After TV, our information started coming to us in ever-decreasing bites. Plan for a few hours to read, pray and think. Plan some time when there is no plan. Those are good times to be freed from your “silver chair.”

Christophe Munzihirwa — October 29

Bible connection

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this:

‘Blessed are the dead,
those who die in the Lord from this moment on!’”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “so they can rest from their hard work, because their deeds will follow them.” — Revelation 14:13

All about Christophe Munzihirwa (1926-1996)

Christophe Munzihirwa was born in Sud-Kivu Province, in the Belgian Congo.  In 1958 he was ordained as a priest. In 1968 he joined the Jesuit Order, from whom the first Catholic missionaries were sent to the Congo. He studied social science and economics in Belgium, but returned to his country in 1969, nine years after independence, to become the formation director for Jesuits in the Kinshasha province (now home to one of the largest and youngest cities in Africa)

Munzihirwa’s prophetic streak surfaced in 1971, when the government of CIA-backed dictator Mobutu Sese Seko responded to a youth protest movement by forcibly enrolling university-age persons, including seminarians, in the military for two years. Munzihirwa insisted on being enlisted alongside his novices, much to the embarrassment of the regime.

Munzihirwa became the Jesuit provincial superior for Central Africa in 1980. In 1986 he was made a coadjutor bishop in Kasongo, and in 1993 he became archbishop of Bukavu.

Munzihirwa earned fame for his refusal to accept patronage from Mobutu. That occasionally created obstacles for him, as in 1995 when a Catholic missionary and members of an international solidarity movement were arrested in Kasongo. When Munzihirwa demanded their release, military officials taunted him for not being a “friend” of Mobutu. Munzihirwa solved the problem by saying that until the group was let go, he would sleep outside their cell. They were freed that evening.

Munzihirwa was unafraid to denounce what he considered military misconduct. During a mid-1990s mass to install a new bishop in Kasongo, in a time in which Mobutu had ordered the city sacked because he believed it was harboring dissenters, Munzihirwa said: “Here before me I see these soldiers. I see the colonel. Stop troubling the people! I ask you, I order you: Stop it!” The commander wanted Munzihirwa taken into custody, and he replied: “I am ready. Arrest me.” Other bishops present, however, intervened and prevented the arrest.

That intervention notwithstanding, Munzihirwa’s criticisms of Mobutu often left him isolated within Zaire’s bishops’ conference. In 1995, a missionary asked him why the bishops were not more outspoken, and he replied: “Father, you can’t imagine. We are just a short distance removed from being part of the presidential mouvance,” a French term meaning “inner circle” or “movement.”

After the genocide began in Rwanda in 1994, Munzihirwa became an outspoken protector of the Hutu refugees who flooded his diocese. He recognized that a few had committed atrocities against Tutsis, but regarded most as innocent victims. He called for healing across ethnic boundaries.

In these days, when we continue to dig common graves, where misery and sickness appear along thousands of kilometers, on routes, along pathways and in fields … we are particularly challenged by the cry of Christ on the Cross: “Father, forgive them.”

Munzihirwa said in an August 1994 homily.

God’s mercy, which breaks the chain of vengeance, is hurtful to militants on every side. But in reality, that is the only thing that can definitively shatter the infernal circle of vengeance.

Final days

As Rwandan troops poured into the eastern part of what was then Zaire in the fall of 1996, Archbishop Christophe Munzihirwa issued a final, fervent plea for help. “We hope that God will not abandon us and that from some part of the world will rise for us a small flare of hope,” he said in his Oct. 28 message, broadcast to anyone, anywhere, who might have been listening. As it turned out, few were.

The civil and military leaders of the region, representing the last shreds of the crumbling autocratic regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, had fled weeks before, knowing that Mobutu was doomed and the Rwandans were unstoppable. Those Rwandans were largely members of the country’s Tutsi minority who blamed Mobutu for harboring Hutu militants, and as their armed bands moved east they were killing anyone who got in their way.

Munzihirwa, bishop of the diocese of Bukavu in eastern Zaire since 1993, was the only authority that stood between hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees and potential annihilation. He had long criticized all parties which were part of the region’s violence. His last hope, shared with the handful of missionaries and diocesan personnel who stayed behind with him to shelter the refugees, was for rapid intervention by the international community. It was not to be. Less than 24 hours later, in the afternoon of Oct. 29, death came for the archbishop.

Munzihirwa, a Jesuit who called himself a “sentinel of the people,” was shot and killed by a group of Rwandan soldiers, his body left to decay in the deserted streets of Bukavu. It was more than 24 hours before a small group of Xaverian seminarians was able to recover the body and prepare it for burial. Munzihirwa had surrendered himself in the hope that two companions might be able to get away in his car; however, they, too, were caught and executed. At his Nov. 29 funeral, someone recalled Munzihirwa’s favorite saying: “There are things that can be seen only with eyes that have cried.”

In Munzihirwa’s region of Africa millions of people have since died in a continental war, involving the armies of eight nations and an ever-shifting constellation of rebel groups. Other conflicts in the Sudan, in Algeria, in Angola, in Sierra Leone — in a bewildering series of trouble spots scattered across the continent — have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Inevitably, killing on such a vast scale creates martyrs, people of faith who lose their lives because they refuse to turn away from danger.

Archbishop Christophe Munzihirwa has become a symbol of hope and resistance in his country, now called the Democratic Republic of Congo. His martyrdom was not unexpected, at least not to him. Munzihirwa had written in an Easter meditation:

Despite anguish and suffering, the Christian who is persecuted for the cause of justice finds spiritual peace in total and profound assent to God, in accord with a vocation that can lead even to death.

More

Hutu/Tutsi conflict [3-minute video]

Long but great video on the Congo Conflict(s), conflict resolution and Munzihirwa

The music video below is in Swahili subtitled in French, but it still might be the most inspiring five minutes of your day. It is a tribute to Monsignor Christophe Munzihirwa the “elder of the council,” or “the wise one,” the one who provides advice to members of the community, sets the tone for what is acceptable behavior, and leads the community, especially the youth, by example.

What do we do with this?

See where Bukavu is on Google Maps.

Conflict resolution is sometimes a lost cause, especially if the church is not committed to it. Consider where the church is today — what are we doing to stay reconciled? What is the responsibility of Jesus followers when society breaks down?

Operation World’s prayers for the DRC.

Thomas Keating — October 25

Bible connection

Now when the Lamb opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. — Revelation 8:1 (NET)

All about Thomas Keating (1923–2018)

Thomas Keating, was an American, Roman Catholic monk and priest of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists). He was born into affluence and privilege in Manhattan, walked away from it all when he entered an austere monastic community in Rhode Island, and was rewarded with spiritual riches. As he told the story:

“At 5, I had a serious illness. I heard adults in the next room wondering whether I’d live. I took this very seriously, and at my first Mass bargained with God: ‘If you’ll let me live to 21, I’ll become a priest.’ After that, I’d skip out early in the morning before school and go to Mass. I knew my parents wouldn’t approve, so I never told them.”

Keating was known as one of the principal developers of a contemporary method of contemplative prayer called centering prayer that emerged from St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. Over the years, his thoughts crystallized into what friends said became one of his favorite sayings: “Silence is God’s first language. Everything else is a poor translation.”

Keating went to the Buckley School, a private school on the Upper East Side, and Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts before entering Yale. As he studied Christianity, he was drawn to the mystics and came to believe the Scriptures call people into a personal relationship with God. Eager to explore his spirituality, he transferred from Yale to an accelerated program at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in the Bronx. He graduated in 1943. He expected to be drafted in World War II but received a deferment to enter the seminary. In 1944, at the age of 20, he entered the strict Cistercian Monastery Our Lady of the Valley in Valley Falls, R.I. He was ordained a priest in 1949.

“I felt the more austere the life, the sooner I would achieve the contemplative life I sought,” he continued. “I spent the next five to six years observing almost total silence.” In 1950, while Father Keating was in Rhode Island, the monastery burned down and the monks moved to St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, in central Massachusetts. He left Spencer in 1958 to help start a new monastic community, St. Benedict’s, in Snowmass, Colo., not far from Aspen. In 1961 he was elected abbot at St. Joseph’s and returned to Massachusetts, where he served in that capacity for the next two decades.

In 1971, after the Second Vatican Council, at which Pope Paul VI encouraged priests and religious scholars to renew the Christian contemplative tradition, Father Keating was invited to Rome. This led him, along with William Meninger and Basil Pennington, to develop the practice of centering prayer.

But his enthusiasm for this approach led to tensions within the abbey, and a vote on whether he should remain as abbot was evenly split. He decided he did not want to remain in a house so divided and moved back to Snowmass. It was a liberating move for him. He began organizing conferences with representatives of other religions, including the Dalai Lama, imams and rabbis.

During this period he focused more on centering prayer, holding workshops and retreats to promote it to clergy and lay people. In 1984, He helped found Contemplative Outreach, a network of people who practice centering prayer, and was its president from 1985 to 1999. “Centering prayer is all about heartfulness, which is a little different from mindfulness,” the Rev. Carl Arico, a co-founder of Contemplative Outreach. “It goes to the relationship with God, who is already there. It’s not sitting in a void.”

Father Keating wrote more than 30 books and created various multimedia projects; one of his most popular is “Centering Prayer: A Training Course for Opening to the Presence of God,” which consists of a workbook, DVDs and audio CDs. One reviewer called it “a monastery in a box.”

More

“A Big Experiment“: A brief history of the beginnings of the Snowmass Conference and the Eight Points of Agreement that came out of the initial years of dialogue.

“Father Thomas Keating is a Rebel With a Cause,” March 2018.  A look back at the history and evolution of Thomas Keating.

Books by Thomas Keating, listing in Goodreads.

Video: Thomas Keating: from the mind to the heart.

Video: Thomas Keating: A rising tide of silence  Amazon • iTunes • Google • Vimeo

What do we do with this?

Check out the work of Thomas Keating preserved in the work of Contemplative Outreach. Here is a link to their guides for contemplative practice.

Prayer Keating’s “Welcoming Prayer:”

Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me today because I know it’s for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and God’s action within.
Amen.

Jackie Robinson — October 24

Robinson with Duke Snider and Pee Wee Reese on a TOPS card.

Bible connection


Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also….

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. — Matthew 5:38-9, 43-45 (KJV)

All about Jackie Robinson (1919-1972)

The movie 42 and celebrations of the centennial of Jackie Robinson’s birth allowed Americans to remember his great achievements on the baseball diamond — including helping the Dodgers win the 1955 World Series and having his number retired by every Major League Baseball team in 1997. But mostly it helped everyone focus on the impact he had on ending segregation and helping to spur the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s.

Robinson died of a heart attack in 1972 at the age of 53. His famous quote is etched on his tombstone at his Brooklyn gravesite: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

Robinson’s impact on others continues to this day. His .311 lifetime batting average and 1962 induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame rank him among the best ballplayers in history. But of even greater impact was his historic integration of the Great American Pastime. His courageous, faith-driven acceptance of this role made him the target of racist taunts from spectators and by many unwilling to accept that a Black man should play alongside white players.

While growing up in Pasadena, California, Robinson was influenced by a minister named Karl Everitt Downs, of Scott Methodist Church where Robinson’s mother, Mallie, attended. Mallie believed in God, and she instilled in the importance of faith in her son. She also taught him to be proud of his God-given blackness. When telling the Genesis creation story to her children, Mallie depicted Adam and Eve as black-skinned, explaining that their skin turned pale after they sinned. “Karl was the father that Jack didn’t have,” Rachel Robinson (Jackie’s wife) said. “Jack was so close to him. He kept saying that Karl changed his life.” We know that Robinson’s passionate sense of justice had gotten him into trouble earlier in life. But the patient mentoring of Karl Downs convinced him that Christ’s command to “resist not evil” wasn’t a cowardly way out but a profoundly heroic stance. Those relationships led him to Christ and made him a believer.

Historians and academics have pointed out how pop culture, sports journalism and Hollywood have often left Robinson’s religion out of his life story. For example, the movie 42 spends very little time exploring it. A four-hour Robinson documentary directed by Ken Burns barely mentions faith. Here’s the main mention in 42:

The Brooklyn Dodgers owner, Branch Rickey, was a “Bible-thumping Methodist” who refused to attend games on Sunday. Robinson was also a Methodist. They both on faith to overcome threats when they decided to end racial segregation in baseball. Rickey sincerely believed it was God’s will that he integrate baseball and saw it as an opportunity to intervene in the moral history of the nation, as Lincoln had done. A deep-rooted bond formed between the men. Robinson and Rickey were genuine Christians, muscular Christians certainly, but fully Christian in their concern for their fellow human beings. It was no act when Rickey read the passage from Giovanni Papini’s The Life of Christ to a skeptical Robinson at their historic first meeting in Brooklyn on August 28, 1945 (see today’s Bible reading).

“When I came to believe that God was working with and guiding Mr. Rickey,” Robinson wrote, “I began to also believe that he was guiding me.” And Rickey chose Robinson because of the young man’s faith and moral character. There were numerous other Negro Leagues players to consider, but Rickey knew integrating the racist world of professional sports would take more than athletic ability. The attacks would be ugly, and the press would fuel the fire. If the player chosen were goaded into retaliating, the grand experiment would be set back a decade or more.

Following his retirement, Robinson became more public about his faith. In 1962, during a speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Robinson said, “As the first Negro in the majors, I needed the support and backing of my own people. I’ll never forget what ministers like you who lead [the] SCLC did for me.”  There’s little doubt that faith played a significant role in this success.

More

Michael G. Long’s and Chris Lamb’s Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography

Ed Henry’s 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

The Jackie Robinson Story featuring Jackie Robinson  (and Ruby Dee!) from 1950.

Prophetic interview shortly before he died:

What do we do with this?

Jackie Robinson had a habit of kneeling for nightly prayers. The self-discipline he maintained changed the world in significant ways. Check your own.

Robinson grew up with a personal moral code taught by most white and black Protestants in the early 20th century—no smoking, no drinking, no premarital sex. But he was also shaped by the social witness distinct to the black church, believing that Christians had a responsibility to combat racism in American society, that anti-racism was a mark of true Christianity, and that many white Christians were failing to practice what they preached. How do you relate to those elements of his faith?

Rosa Parks — October 24

Parks, Rosa | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
Bob Fitch photography archive (1970), © Stanford University Libraries

Bible connection

Read Exodus 9:13-35

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me, or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. You still set yourself against my people and will not let them go. Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now.

All about Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

Civil rights activist Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. She died on October 24, 2005, at the age of 92 in Detroit, Michigan. Her death was marked by several memorial services, among them lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., where an estimated 50,000 people viewed her casket.

Most people know the story of the seamstress who helped ignite the civil-rights movement, but many people don’t know that Rosa Parks was a devout Christian, and that it was her faith that gave her the strength to do what she did that day in 1955.

In her book, Quiet Strength, Parks says her belief in God developed early in life. “Every day before supper and before we went to services on Sundays,” Parks says, “my grandmother would read the Bible to me, and my grandfather would pray. We even had devotions before going to pick cotton in the fields. Prayer and the Bible became a part of my everyday thoughts and beliefs. I learned to put my trust in God and to seek Him as my strength.”

Parks’ husband, Raymond, had been an early activist in the fight for civil rights, and Rosa joined him in his work. But she says she never planned to be arrested for breaking a racist law. On December 1, 1955, Parks was sitting on a bus in the front row of the section reserved for blacks. But when a white man got on, there were no more seats in the white section, so the bus driver told Parks to move back.

Parks was convinced that to move would be wrong—and she refused to get up. “Since I have always been a strong believer in God,” she says, “I knew that He was with me, and only He could get me through that next step.”

Parks was not the first black person to refuse to move to the back of the bus. Earlier that year, a woman had been carried off the bus clawing and kicking. Another woman had used profanity during her arrest. But the local NAACP declined to rally behind these women.

Parks’ behavior throughout her arrest was above reproach. Because of this, and because of her well-known exemplary character, Alabama civil-rights leaders thought Park’s arrest signaled the right time to act. They launched the famous year-long Montgomery bus boycott, and the rest is history.

Rosa Parks is another example of how faith in Jesus played a major role in the civil-rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. turned the other cheek in the face of violence. Jackie Robinson’s Christian faith was what led Branch Rickey—another devout Christian—to choose him as the man to break the color barrier in baseball.

Although she had become a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks suffered hardship in the months following her arrest in Montgomery and the subsequent boycott. She lost her department store job and her husband was fired after his boss forbade him to talk about his wife or their legal case. Unable to find work, they eventually left Montgomery and moved to Detroit, Michigan. There, Rosa made a new life for herself, working as a secretary and receptionist in U.S. Representative John Conyer’s congressional office. She also served on the board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

In 1987, with longtime friend Elaine Eason Steele, Rosa founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. The organization runs “Pathways to Freedom” bus tours, introducing young people to important civil rights and Underground Railroad sites throughout the country.

In 1992, Rosa published Rosa Parks: My Story, an autobiography recounting her life in the segregated South. In 1995, she published Quiet Strength which includes her memoirs and focuses on the role that religious faith played throughout her life.

“From my upbringing and the Bible,” Parks wrote, “I learned people should stand up for rights just as the children of Israel stood up to the Pharaoh.”

Despite all she endured at the hands of some whites, Rosa Parks never fell to judging the whole race by the behavior of a few of its members, however appalling. In later years she would tell of the kindness of an old woman near her grandparents farm who used to take her bass fishing with crawfish tails as bait—an old white woman who treated her grandparents as equals. Even as a girl she appreciated that it was northern white industrialists with names like Carnegie, Huntington, and Rockefeller who were responsible for financing many of the Tuskegee Institute’s exquisite redbrick buildings. And she never forgot the white World War I Yankee doughboy who came to town and patted her kindly on the head in passing, an unheard-of gesture in the South. Her Christian faith only made her feel sorry for the white tormentors who called her “nigger” or threw rocks at her as she walked to school. Reading Psalms 23 and 27 early on had given Rosa McCauley the strength to love her enemy.

Rosa Parks received many accolades during her lifetime, including the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest award, and the prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Award. On September 9, 1996, President Bill Clinton awarded Parks the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given by the United States’ executive branch. The following year, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award given by the U.S. legislative branch. In 1999, TIME magazine named Rosa Parks on its list of “The 20 most influential People of the 20th Century.”

More

Interview from 1995.

Angela Basset plays Rose Parks in the 2002 movie. 

What do we do with this?

There is always a new Pharaoh clawing for dominance, isn’t there? Consider the oppressors of today and how Jesus might be calling you, or us, to respond.

Pray, in particular, for all the people simply saying, “black lives matter.” In a world so deformed by racism this obvious truth is still a rallying cry and a hope, a way to oppose the powers that be.

Simon Kimbangu — October 12

Bible connection

Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 

He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” — Exodus 3:7-12

All about Simon Kimbangu  (1887–1951)

The Portuguese explorer, Diogo Cao, was looking for a route to India when he sailed into the Congo River in 1482. Catholic missionaries arrived a decade later. They baptized kings and chieftains who imposed Christianity on their people, but their success was superficial. The gods of ancient ancestors continued to reign supreme. When Protestant missionaries began to arrive in the 1870s, they found a popular pagan piety lightly embellished with Christian touches, including a belief that crosses conveyed magical powers.

British Baptists came to Africa to save souls but are also known for their paternalistic and patronizing attitude toward the native people, viewing them as depraved children who needed the white man’s correctives. Simon Kimbangu  was an infant when he received a blessing from a Baptist missionary. His aunt sent him to a school run by the Baptists when his parents died. He stayed for many years. He and his wife were baptized there in 1915. He became a lay preacher and evangelist there in 1918. It was at the mission that he began experiencing the visions that would change his life.

He was nearly 30 when he heard a call from God: “I am Christ. My servants are unfaithful. I have chosen you to bear witness before your brethren and to convert them. Tend my flock.” Like Moses, he argued, “I am not trained.” And like Jonah he fled his village to work in distant oil fields.

But the call hounded him. He finally returned home from the oil fields to preach the Word. The results were striking. Kimbangu became one of the African Apostles of the early 1900’s. Women gave up their pagan fetishes. Men gave up all but one of their wives. Then in 1921 the healings began. A sick woman got out of her bed and walked. A dead child was reportedly raised to life. And a blind man named Ngoma regained his sight after the prophet daubed his eyes with paste made of soil and saliva.

Soon thousands of people left their jobs and flocked to N’Kamba in Central Africa to see the Holy Spirit’s power and hear the prophet. Although his fame frightened white religious leaders and colonial government officials who suspected unorthodox theology, and feared competition, economic disruption and rebellion, Kimbangu’s message was generally both orthodox and apolitical. None of his sermons survive, but followers described him as a humble and sober man who taught submission to authorities and racial reconciliation.

Nevertheless, European missionaries resisted his efforts. One charged the prophet with unforgivable sins against Caucasian Christianity: “Kimbangu wants to found a religion which is in accord with the mentality of the African.”

Government officials acted on their fears. The first attempt to capture Kimbangu came on June 6, 1921, but the prophet escaped in a way his followers described as a miracle. Three months later, however, he voluntarily gave himself up. Charged with sedition and hostility to whites, he was sentenced to death. They punished the prophet with 120 lashes and packed him off to a solitary cell in a far-off prison, 1200 miles away in what is now Lubumbashi. They hoped that would take care of the “crackbrained” Simon Kimbangu and the gullible fanatics who followed him. But they were mistaken.  Concerned Protestants had the sentence reduced to life in prison, and Kimbangu languished in the Elizabethville prison for decades, where he died.

 Papa Salomon Dialungana Kiangani_Jesus-Christ 100 years.jccesk.com
Papa Salomon Dialungana Kiangani (1916-2001)

Solomon Dialungana, one of his three sons, said, “Just as the work of Jesus was carried on by the apostles after His death, the same was true of the prophet Simon Kimbangu.” His sons guided their father’s movement through heretical schisms and government persecution.

Officials clamped down on Kimbangu’s rapidly expanding following. They forbade them from holding public meetings, deported as many as 100,000 to distant areas of Africa, and killed as many as 150,000. “We have been forsaken by both Catholics and Protestants,” said one distraught follower. But the Kimbanguist movement kept growing. The forced deportations only spread the movement throughout the continent.

Persecuted followers poured their sorrow into hymns that were collected by the Belgian authorities: “Jesus was a prisoner,/ Jesus was smitten./ They are smiting us, too./ We, the blacks, are prisoners./ The whites are free.” Another hymn describing the armor of God was misinterpreted by colonial officials as a call for armed rebellion: “We who are carrying on our cause/ Let us be clothed and armed!/ Jesus will protect us./ Let us clothe and arm ourselves!”

Diangienda describes his father’s role in the booklet “The Beloved City”:

“Our fathers cried for a ‘chief,’ a saviour, but no saviour came, until they said in resignation that God did not know us black people. He only knew the whites. . . . The people hid from the missionaries and remained in the grasp of fetishism, of witchcraft, and of other evil practices. Then on 6 April 1921, the first miracle occurred. . . .

“Through Simon Kimbangu, who was obedient to God, the promises of Jesus have been fulfilled and the Name of the Father and the Son has been glorified. Through him the Congolese realized that God and Jesus had turned to us in mercy. The sorrow and suffering of our fathers had been heard by God the Father, and our tears were wiped away.”

Eventually, on Christmas Eve 1959, the Kimbanguist Church was recognized by the Belgian government, as equal to Catholic and Protestant  and could then could conduct themselves freely.  In 1969 Eglise de Jésus Christ sur la Terre par Son Envoyé Spécial Simon Kimbangu was included in the World Council of Churches.

More

The People’s Prophet by Christian History Institute

Simon Kimbangu’s 1921 Prophecy

The story of Kimbangu and the succession from a Zambian pastor in 2022.

Bethel U. page on African Churches.

A 2008 French news article on Kimbanguist worship:

Article: Is the Holy Spirit living in Africa? — BBC News.

MCC has a long relationship with partners in the Congo.

What do we do with this?

The followers of Simon Kimbangu learned that black lives matter in the middle of one of the most repressive colonial regime ever perpetrated on a people.  He challenges us to have a voice.

In a pluralistic society like the United States, how do we work together all sorts of expressions into an indigenous whole? How do you unite instead of divide?

Pray for the Congo. The legacy of racism, slavery and colonialism have a long half-life.

Henri Nouwen — September 21

Bible connection

Read Colossians 3:1-3

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

All about Henri Nouwen (1932-1996)

On this day in 1996, Father Henri Nouwen died at age 64. Born in the Netherlands, he taught in universities in Europe and at Yale, Harvard and Notre Dame in the U.S. The last decade of his life, he spent in the L’Arche community of Toronto, sharing his life with community members with severe disabilities. Henri’s transparency, intelligence and faith brought him many readers. He has led many of us to deeply value solitude and contemplative practices.

In this excerpt from The Way of the Heart Henri reflects on the call to solitude that led the Desert Fathers and Mothers (and us, still today) to understand their gifts by fleeing the shipwreck of the society of their day:

Our society is not a community radiant with the love of Christ, but a dangerous network of domination and manipulation in which we can easily get entangled and lose our soul. The basic question is whether we ministers of Jesus Christ have not already been so deeply molded by the seductive powers of our dark world that we have become blind to our own and other people’s fatal state and have lost the power and motivation to swim for our lives.

Other Nouwen quotes:

“As soon as we are alone…inner chaos opens up in us. This chaos can be so disturbing and so confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again. Entering a private room and shutting the door, therefore, does not mean that we immediately shut out all our inner doubts, anxieties, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distraction, we often find that our inner distraction manifest themselves to us in full force. We often use the outer distractions to shield ourselves from the interior noises. This makes the discipline of solitude all the more important.” ― Henri J.M. NouwenMaking All Things New and Other Classics

“Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: ‘May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.’ But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.” ― Henri J.M. NouwenLife of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

“Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.” ― Henri J.M. NouwenReaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life

“For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.” ― Henri J.M. NouwenThe Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

More

The Henri Nouwen Society can tell you everything: [link]

On Nouwen’s struggles with celibacy and orientation: [link]

What do we do with this?

Nouwen is famous for encouraging self-reliant and denial-ridden Christians to accept their neediness and self-delusion. He taught that healers are wounded, like Jesus.

Are you avoiding solitude because your outer distractions are helping you avoid your inner turmoil and the struggle of spiritual development? Probably. We hope your church is  devoted to going deep with God. If so, they’ll be dealing with many people who are determined to stay shallow. Let God pull you under. Be receptive to being loved. Don’t get stuck avoiding the dreadful thought that you don’t love enough or are not loved well enough.

Johnny Cash — September 12

Johnny Cash Pondering — Michelle Dick

Bible connection

The Spirit of God came on Azariah son of Oded. He went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach and without the law. But in their distress they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought him, and he was found by them. In those days it was not safe to travel about, for all the inhabitants of the lands were in great turmoil. One nation was being crushed by another and one city by another, because God was troubling them with every kind of distress. But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.” — 2 Chronicles 15:1-7

All about Johnny Cash (1932-2003)

John R. “Johnny” Cash born February 26, 1932. He is widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century and is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. Although primarily remembered as a country music icon, his genre-spanning songs and sound embraced rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of multiple inductions in the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame.

Cash was known for his deep, calm bass-baritone voice, a rebelliousness coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor, free prison concerts, and his trademark attire, which earned him the nickname “The Man in Black.” He traditionally began his concerts with the simple “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” followed by his signature Folsom Prison Blues.

Much of Cash’s music echoed themes of sorrow, moral tribulation and redemption, especially in later life. During the last stage of his career, Cash covered songs by several late 20th century rock artists, most notably Hurt by Nine Inch Nails (video below).

Cash was raised by his parents as a Southern Baptist. He was baptized in 1944 in the Tyronza River as a member of the Central Baptist Church of Dyess, Arkansas.

A troubled but devout Christian, Cash has been characterized as a “lens through which to view American contradictions and challenges.” He wrote a Christian novel, Man in Whitewhich showcases his theological studies. It is is a portrait of six pivotal years in the life of the apostle, Paul. In the introduction Cash writes about a reporter who, once tried to paint him into a corner, baiting him to acknowledge a single denominational persuasion at the center of his heart. Finally, Cash laid down the law: “I—as a believer that Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew, the Christ of the Greeks, was the Anointed One of God (born of the seed of David, upon faith as Abraham has faith, and it was accounted to him for righteousness)—am grafted onto the true vine, and am one of the heirs of God’s covenant with Israel….I’m a Christian. Don’t put me in another box.”

He made a spoken word recording of the entire New King James Version of the New Testament. Cash declared he was “the biggest sinner of them all”, and viewed himself overall as a complicated and contradictory man. Accordingly, Cash is said to have “contained multitudes,” and has been deemed “the philosopher-prince of American country music.”

Cash’s daughter, singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, once pointed out that “My father was raised a Baptist, but he has the soul of a mystic. He’s a profoundly spiritual man, but he readily admits to a continual attraction for all seven deadly sins.”

“There’s nothing hypocritical about it,” Johnny Cash told Rolling Stone author Anthony DeCurtis. “There is a spiritual side to me that goes real deep, but I confess right up front that I’m the biggest sinner of them all.” To Cash, even his near deadly bout with drug addiction contained a crucial spiritual element. “I used drugs to escape, and they worked pretty well when I was younger. But they devastated me physically and emotionally—and spiritually … [they put me] in such a low state that I couldn’t communicate with God. There’s no lonelier place to be. I was separated from God, and I wasn’t even trying to call on him. I knew that there was no line of communication. But he came back. And I came back.”

“Being a Christian isn’t for sissies,” Cash said once. “It takes a real man to live for God—a lot more man than to live for the devil, you know? If you really want to live right these days, you gotta be tough.”

What’s more, he was intimately aware of the hard truths about living God’s way: “If you’re going to be a Christian, you’re going to change. You’re going to lose some old friends, not because you want to, but because you need to.”

”I’m thrilled to death with life,” he told Larry King during an interview. “Life is—the way God has given it to me—was just a platter. A golden platter of life laid out there for me. It’s been beautiful.”

“I don’t give up … and it’s not out of frustration and desperation that I say ‘I don’t give up.’ I don’t give up because I don’t give up. I don’t believe in it.”

What do we do with this?

Johnny Cash was a celebrity, which usually equals trouble. He had plenty of trouble. But he also had plenty of conviction that lasted his whole life. In many ways he is an “everyman” who stubbornly tried to do his best, often standing with the downtrodden. Notably, he risked his career early on to speak out on behalf of Native Americans. He used his capabilities and his notoriety for more than his own pleasure and profit.

Cash sang these words in one of his last songs, “Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down,” recorded in 2003 in the final months of his life and released posthumously in 2010: “When I hear that trumpet sound, I’m gonna rise right out of the ground. Ain’t no grave can hold my body down. … Well, meet me, Jesus, meet me. Meet me in the middle of the air. And if these wings don’t fail me, I will meet You anywhere.”

Can you sing that?

If you can’t be held down, what can you do?