Episcopal Migration Ministries excerpt

A Michigan Episcopalian Takes a Stance Against Dehumanizing Rhetoric

EMM recently heard from Rob Burgess, an Episcopalian who lives in Lincoln Township, just south of Benton Harbor, Michigan. Now retired, Rob remains active as a volunteer with many local organizations, including Southwest Michigan Interfaith Action, a local soup kitchen, and Emergency Shelter Services of Benton Harbor. Rob also serves as Treasurer on the Vestry at St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Benton Harbor. Rob’s background, life experiences, and community engagement have made him especially sensitive to the vulnerabilities of people forced to flee their homes who seek safety and a new life in the U.S.

In response to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has ramped up in this election season, Rob felt compelled to write an opinion piece for his local newspaper, The Herald-Palladium. Since the piece remains behind a paywall, Rob shared it with EMM, giving us permission to share his perspective along with further context on how he came to take this stance. 

Rob’s interactions and relationships with people who have come to the U.S. in search of safety and a better life have been important to his journey. Rob points, for example, to his friend, “Doña Teresa,” using the Spanish title of respect for a woman. Originally from Nicaragua, Doña Teresa came to the U.S. years ago fleeing domestic abuse, with two young children in tow. Offered refuge as a survivor of violence against women, Doña Teresa worked hard, made a new life for herself and her children, applied for legal permanent residency, and eventually became a social worker. Rob met her when he was serving as a volunteer for the United Way of Southwest Michigan, helping local residents fill out their income tax returns. The two became friends, and Doña Teresa eventually invited Rob to attend the ceremony when she became a U.S. citizen. “It was one of the most beautiful ceremonies I have ever attended,” Rob recalled. “New citizens from all continents (except of course Antarctica) were sworn in that day.”

Rob has also found inspiration in his involvement in the Episcopal Church, which has included service on the board of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship as well as his local parish. Rob was raised a Catholic, but after “drifting” for a while as a young man, eventually found his way to the Episcopal Church. As he tells the story, “I was a young CPA and auditor just out of college. My second client, straight out of school, was St Mark's Episcopal in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The bookkeeper at the time was Alida Densem.” Mrs. Densem had been serving in that role for a long time, and her skills made a big impression on young Rob Burgess. 

"In those days before personal computers, her books were all handwritten on a big black ledger. She kept the books, marriage, baptism, and other church records. Her handwritten records were meticulous. The importance of the dignity of all human work cannot be belittled. Alida clearly made an impact on that church, even if behind the scenes."

Rob was also impressed with the fact that the Episcopal Church was starting to ordain women. An organization that upheld the dignity of all people and recognized that gender did not in and of itself limit one’s gifts was one that appealed to Rob Burgess. And so he joined.

Rob’s belief in the inherent value of all human beings and the value of welcoming newcomers is also shaped by his family history and experiences he had while serving in the U.S. Navy, from 1974 to 1980. Rob explains these influences in his opinion piece, which we share here, under the title given by the Herald-Palladium editor:

We must not dehumanize refugees

(See a prior post for that Op-Ed)

Scottish Reaction to Book of Common Prayer

 If the Wikipedia history is correct, the first Book of Common Prayer was in 1549.  

I am just grateful that we don't have events (as per Wikipedia) like this when reading from it in church:  

 "Following the accession of King James VI of Scotland to the throne of England his son, King Charles I, with the assistance of Archbishop Laud, sought to impose the prayer book on Scotland.[70] The 1637 prayer book was not, however, the 1559 book but one much closer to that of 1549, the first book of Edward VI. First used in 1637, it was never accepted, having been violently rejected by the Scots. During one reading of the book at the Holy Communion in St Giles' Cathedral, the Bishop of Brechin was forced to protect himself while reading from the book by pointing loaded pistols at the congregation."   

Of course, King Charles I and Archbishop Laud were beheaded.

My musing in Fans of John Shelby Spong

Had the pleasure of meeting Rev Gene Robinson before the pandemic.  For maybe a year and a couple meetings during that time, I served on the board of a Peace Fellowship and Gene was our chaplain. I had not known him before that.  Unless he had me fooled, I found him to be a very spiritual and relatable human being.

That being said, one of his quotes I found online is:  "I think people often come to the synagogue, mosque, the church looking for God, and what we give them is religion."

The Episcopal Church's services are quite prescribed.  So much so that we are given a "script" to follow along with and participate with.  For instance, the priest will say "The Lord be with you" and the folks in the pews respond.  You know what it is.

What if someone instead said "Thanks, buddy" or "Right back at ya".

Lately, I have been often noticing that we are all reading and responding from the script.  We are not looking at the priest.  We are not looking at or  engaging with each other.  We are reading the script.  

Even when the Bible verses are being read, most are reading along in the printed out version we are handed (which includes the psalm of the day and a collect).  A few of us are simply looking at the reader.

It is as if one goes to a play to see, let's say, Superstar, and instead of enjoying the actors the audience is sitting reading the script while sometimes participating by reading out loud.

Over the years I have learned that many love the service.  So please understand, I am not  intending here to besmirch the service.  Forgive me if I offended.  I am not suggesting changing the service.  I have no idea of what it would be changed to.

And of course we do interact when we exchange the "peace".

But I am wondering out loud if Bishop Robinson was right.  

Folks come "seeking God and what we give them is religion".

Tired this evening: The Final Op_Ed

 

Don't Tell Me

"And if you want the wind of change 

to blow about you 

and you're the only other person to know, don't tell me

I'm just a singer in a rock and roll band."

- The Moody Blues

How does one comprehend

the scenes of flooding,

washed out roads,

devastated homes,

tears in tired eyes.

While far away in distance,

such a disaster cannot be

far away from one's heart.

Even in the farthest reaches

of my imagination,

I cannot begin to fathom

the pain of those affected.

These thoughts

don't tell me.

Neither can my words explain

or ever know.

First Draft of My October 9 Opinion Maker Piece

 In late April 1975, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong armies overran Saigon.  The U.S. Embassy was hastily abandoned.  Thousands of South Vietnamese refugees fled the country.  At the time, I was a sailor serving on the USS Parsons with the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet.  It was the USS Midway, our sister ship the USS Worden, and other Navy vessels which rescued refugees from Saigon.  I certainly remember TV images of American helicopters arriving with refugees from Vietnam and after landing refugees disembarking helicopters which were pushed overboard to make room for more incoming  helicopters.

 

The Parsons remained near Japan.  We were told our duty was to protect Japan in case the North Koreans, Soviets, or Chinese took advantage of the fleet being occupied with Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of South Vietnam.

 

A few weeks later, the Parsons arrived in Guam on a cruise to Sydney, Australia for joint exercises with our Australian and New Zealand allies.  Thousands of refugees from South Vietnam had been transported to Guam.  The island was largely a tent city.  The young, the old, men and women were sheltered there.  I remember one young Vietnamese woman in particular.

 

Riding in a Navy pickup truck, a young officer and I went to get movies and videos to entertain the crew on the ship’s closed circuit TV station.  As we drove through the refugee camp, a twenty-something woman dressed in a traditional Vietnamese white dress and conical hat stopped us.  A young child was near her.  I assumed it was her child.  She held up a picture to the officer and asked us if we knew the American serviceman in the picture.  I presumed that it was her significant other and likely the father of the nearby child.

 

In the chaos of the evacuation of Saigon, she had apparently been separated from her serviceman.  She was now a refugee on a remote island hundreds of miles from her home.  Her future was very uncertain.  Over the decades, I have frequently thought about that young woman and the child and wondered if she ever found her serviceman.  I hope their later life was better than the life of refugees living in a tent at the end of the war.

 

Today, in many parts of the world, refugees are fleeing war, famine, extreme poverty, and violence.  Tens of thousands, maybe millions, are living in refugee camps.  Unlike the Vietnamese refugee camp on Guam in 1975, many of these camps do not have adequate food, shelter, or sanitation to accommodate refugees.  Some have been in their refugee camp for months, others years.  Some arrive in the United States seeking asylum or temporary protected status having escaped the turbulence of their homelands. 

 

I presume that the Vietnamese woman we encountered on Guam in spring 1975 resides to this day somewhere in the continental United States.  I wonder if she has empathy for the refugees who have arrived in the United States after fleeing violence, famine, war, or poverty in their home countries.  I wonder what she would think about politicians who are critical of refugees, calling them names, implying that they are criminals or somehow subhuman.  I wonder if she ever thinks about her childhood home in Vietnam.  I suspect that refugees here now long for a time when they felt safe in their home country.

 

My maternal grandfather died before I was born.  He left a small village in Moravia in what is now the Czech Republic to come to America in 1906.  His wife, my grandmother and an uncle, arrived six years later in 1912.  I assume it was poverty in their small, farming village which brought them to America. It may also have been the turmoil of the soon to collapse Austrian Empire.   Grandfather farmed for six years in Michigan to save enough funds for my grandmother’s and uncle’s passage to America.  My mother was their first child who survived birth in America.  Grandmother died when I was a toddler.  I am told she barely spoke English at the time of her death.  I sometimes wonder what my grandparents’ small village was like in their day and what it is like to this day.

 

I believe that most refugees just want to live in peace and have enough resources to safely raise their families just like the rest of us.  Please, can we not debate immigration policy respectfully without denigrating those who have been forced to flee troubled homelands? 

 

Sample traditional Viet dress and hat:

 

Faith without works is ...

 As if, my sermon for last Sunday:

Several years ago, maybe 18, I felt the need to attend a Bible study men's group.  While I was at St Paul's at the time, they offered no such group.  Living in Lincoln Township, I found one even closer.  The former St Luke's Lutheran ELCA had an early morning men's breakfast gathering.  It was perfect for me as I was at the time still working and thought myself a morning person. 

The gentlemen at St Luke's were kind enough to welcome me to their coffees and breakfasts.  Our discussions often strayed from the Bible passages of that week.  Still, they were very cordial and helped me set a positive mood before I went to work in my job as Chief Financial Officer at Lakeshore.

I do remember one morning session which was a little more intense. Of all the Bible passages to chat over Lutherans with, the passage that week was probably the most famous one from James:

"Faith without works is dead "

Many years before that as a younger man 

still, I was first introduced to the writing of Martin Luther, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Plato, and others in an philosophy/religion grad course at Marymount University in Northern Virginia.

Martin Luther lived at a different time that we may find difficult to comprehend.  There was no separation of church and state.  Indeed, the Catholic Church was deeply entwined in the kingdoms and fiefdoms of Europe.  The church if nothing else was good at frightening the pants off the commoners.  You know, you are going to burn in the eternal flames of hell or at least be tortured almost mercilessly in purgatory if you don't do this.

To the church, the this became indulgences.  Essentially, the more you gave to the church the less you would suffer in the afterlife.  Give a lot and it was kind of like a Monopoly get out of jail card.  Instead it was better .  It was a get out of hell card.  

Certain church men were famous for traveling the Church empire in Europe and berating and cajoling the poor souls who feared for their immortal existence.

Luther by nailing his 95 thesis on the church doors certainly set off changes in the church.  Thankfully indulgences are mostly a thing of the past.  I say mostly because some churches still sadly threaten fire and brimstone from the pulpit.

Luther went on to write extensively on grace and his notion that grace alone, not indulgences, were necessary for salvation.

Me?  Me, I like James.  He's my favorite book in the Bible.  His concept that "faith without works is dead" appeals to me. 

It is not because I am concerned about what may happen to me in the afterlife.  Do I have enough faith as Luther suggests?  Or did I do enough works to make up for my at times difficult wrestling with faith?

I honestly don't think it matters.  What happens to me after I die, unless I am able to put some details in my will, is quite out of my control.

So, to me James is not about the afterlife.  James is about what it is we can do in the here and now to make a small piece of heaven come in this life for the less fortunate, the poor, the indigent, the immigrant, the outcast, and others. 

The Jesus Seminar scholars debated all of the sayings in the gospels and even in certain apocrypha whether or not Jesus actually said words like "Blessed are the poor".   I don't honestly know.  Those scholars are more steeped in theology than I am.

But I like to think Jesus said "Blessed are the poor".  I like to think Jesus cared deeply for the poor, the immigrant, the indigent, the outcaste.

I think James did too.  Jesus may or may not have been preaching about the afterlife when he said , "Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of  heaven". 

I just think James spinned it differently.  I think James wanted to bring a little of the kingdom of heaven to the here and now for those who needed hope in the here and now.

Is faith without works really dead? You can dance on a pinhead debating that all you want.  Our brothers and sisters who are Lutheran may have a different notion than our Catholic brothers and sisters.

What I and we have control over is the here and now.  We have our talents, our generosity, our love for our brothers and sisters to give.  That is what we have that works to make the lives of some who are less fortunate than we and allowing them to see our faith. 

It is in our love for each other.

Amen.

Vietnamese Refugees on Guam at War's End

 My short reflection for a Villanova on-line course on immigrants and immigration:

In late April 1975, Saigon was overrun by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops.  Thousands of South Vietnamese fled apparently fearing the revenge of their former enemies.  Some Vietnamese on the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon managed to obtain helicopter rides out to the U.S. 7th Fleet in the nearby Pacific.  Eventually, so many helicopters landed on vessels that some helicopters were pushed overboard into the ocean to make landing room for more arriving.

 

My ship, the USS Parsons, was the only one in the 7th Fleet, based in Japan, that did not steam to the South Pacific to participate in the evacuation.  We were told that we needed to stay close to Japan in case the Soviets or others took advantage of the chaos that was Vietnam.  About a month after the fall of Saigon, we went on what I like to call a “pleasure cruise”, a voyage to Sydney, Australia. It was early June when we refueled in Guam.

 

Guam had become a chaotic tent city resided by thousands of Vietnamese.   Two of us from Parsons drove a Navy pickup through the refugee camp.  A young Vietnamese woman in a traditional dress and hat stopped us.  Nearby was a young child.  She showed us a picture of an American serviceman and asked if we knew him.  I assumed he may have been her partner and the father of the nearby child.  Over the decades since, I have often wondered if she ever found the serviceman in her picture.

Untitled

Death, you bastard.

Why you didn't 

take me

instead of my child

is a cruelty 

I will never forgive of you.

On and until my death bed,

I curse you.

Again, again, and again.

Convenience Store Clerk

Something like embarrassed that I forgot

to buy milk at the supermarket 

just an hour or so earlier,

I headed to the convenience store 

for my purchase.

In the parking lot,

I park next to a lone, rusty Toyota Corolla 

which must be 25 or 30 years old.

Retrieving a milk gallon from the cooler,

I wait patiently at the counter

as the clerk is busily cleaning 

one of those hot dog roller machines

ubiquitous in such stores.

The clerk calls out

"I'll be right there."

"Take your time, 

I can see your busy."

Eventually I pay for the milk.

She thanks me for my purchase

and I wish her a Happy Labor Day.

Back in the parking lot,

I realize the rusty, old Corolla is the clerk's.

And I wonder to myself,

what would be for her a fair wage?