History Matters - Now More than Ever

    I snapped up a copy of David McCullough’s new History Matters the day it was published. He’s always been reliable to reward his readers with hours of being absorbed in some moment in history, and you feel you know and have befriended people who matter: Harry Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, John Adams – the list goes on and on.

   McCullough died 3 years ago, and so his daughter lovingly gathered various unpublished essays and has gifted us with them. The title is pitch perfect. History Matters. I’d add Now more than Ever. In our vapid anti-intellectual day, when history increasingly is ignored or revisioned beyond recognition, history really matters – and McCullough shows us why (and it’s not so you can score and win on Jeopardy). Listen to McCullough with me:

   “History shows us how to behave. History teaches us what we stand for. Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant. It’s rude. It’s a form of ingratitude. I hope that we will become a people who are about the past because we care about the future. I hope that we will become a people who are less self-centered, self-conscious, and selfish.” That’s one small window into the treasure of these essays, and you can’t read those words without noticing why History Matters, and we’d best pay attention before it is too late for us, and we’re doing nothing more than writing a new chapter of history that will be a dark, embarrassing chapter in some future chronicle of history.

   There’s humor, a McCullough trademark. When asked why he had a horseshoe nailed about the door to his office for good luck, the great physicist Neils Bohr replied, “I’m told it works even if you don’t believe it.” McCullough finds some little marvelous detail which tells you everything about a person and a moment in history. Harry Truman got a call urging him to come to the White House. Not knowing Franklin Roosevelt had died, he ran (not “walked” but “ran”) there – stopping first by his office to get his hat (what McCullough calls “a nice period touch”).

   Truman matters, as does George Washington, and McCullough’s essays on these two should be read by every American today before we carry on as a people. This pair of essays exposes not just the best of these two remarkable men, but also the best in all of us, the ideals for which we might strive. Of Washington, McCullough draws our attention to the painting in the Capitol Rotunda of him handing over the command to Congress after the Revolutionary War. “This man who wouldn’t give up, who wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t give up no matter what, gives up the most important thing – power. He’s turning over command. No conquering general had ever done that. And when King George III heard this was going to happen, he said ‘If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.’ And he did. And he was.”

   And then Truman. He pushed through an unheard of (in those days – 1948!) a Civil Rights program – while he was running for President. His advisors told him he would lose if he did something that troubling to so many. Truman responded that, if he lost for that, he would have lost for a good cause. And there’s much more in McCullough’s short essay. Brilliant – and hugely important for us.

   I could say Read History Matters! I’d better say, since we’ve forgotten how to behave or what we really stand for, History does matter, so read history. It’s rude and ungrateful not to.

My Wager on Carbon

 After reading some glowing reviews, I snapped up a copy of author and environmentalist Paul Hawken’s new Carbon: The Book of Life, which eloquently demonstrates what we should already know: carbon feels nowadays like a problem (“carbon emissions,” “carbon footprint,” etc.), but carbon is the stuff that animates all of life, mine as I type, yours as you read, the world’s.

While praising carbon, and while dazzling us with the marvel that carbon is, Hawken is like a vigilant, protective parent as he frets over what humanity has done and persists in doing to this carbon-enlivened world we delight in. I am sure a high percentage of the American population will rush to politicize and thus dismiss his concerns. But count me in the camp of those in my neighborhood whose yard-signs say “Science is real.” And I am glad that there are scientists who knows things and are way smarter than I am.

Let me share a few of Hawken’s thoughts – and ask (even if you think worrying about the environment is only for the politically naïve) if we might be wise to take seriously and heed all the warning flares. A wager (the wager, really): Supposing all the educated scientists are wrong about the impending peril. If we conserve, if we protect this beautiful earth, no harm will be done – and wouldn’t we rather risk believing climate change will be catastrophic, doing something, and turning out to be wrong? than dismissing climate change as a fake problem, doing nothing (or adding to the problem), but turning out to be wrong? What moves so many people to bet the future of the world on science being a hoax?

Okay. Some of Hawken’s warnings: “If human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed, civilization will be.” “The current lifestyle of the world is maintained at the cost of a terrifying future.” “Commerce is eliminating life on earth to pay shareholder dividends.” Ouch. “We are trying to design life on our own terms even while we are killing life on its terms.” “There is a tacit assumption that the current fossil fuel-based energy system can be swapped out for renewables and the privileged can continue to live the way they do; this is magical thinking.”

As a Christian theologian, I can only say that the Bible quite clearly implies we are to be careful stewards of the beautiful earth God has entrusted to us. St. Francis of Assisi is something of the patron saint of conservation - and rightly so. He wasn’t scared of a future, though. He was so enraptured by the glories God crafted that he did not wish for a single voice in that great chorus to be silenced. Creation isn’t ours for the taking. It is God’s, and ours is to glorify, and cherish.

At the end (don’t be anxious about a spoiler alert!), Hawken underestimates things by saying “The cascade of troubling information about the future is staggering and dispiriting.” Then he wisely reminds us that “Without fail, meaningful change begins with one person, one idea, one aspiration, one audacious dream. Uniqueness is your birthright… Plant it and see what happens. Pessimism and gloom are cobwebs; brush them aside.” Indeed, “You can’t be both cautious and courageous, we must choose…Where you are is where you are most effective. The power to act does not lie elsewhere. Everyone on Earth comes first; there is no second.”

Cruelty and Compassion: "I am like you. This troubles me."

  On Wednesday I had a great conversation with friend, author and inspiring merchant of love and hope Julie Wood. You can watch! Her book, Changing the Message, narrates the cruelty inflicted on her beautiful son Ben – in the church, his happy, safe place – which sent him into a downward spiral, eventually taking his own life. A youth pastor, spewing vile condemnation at a vulnerable kid for being – although still too young to have had a romantic relationship – gay.

   I admire Julie’s courage and resilience, and her determination to save even one life, or one more person being treated as any less than a lovely child of God, when she sits in front of people and bares her soul, her deep woundedness. And yet she has a vast heart overflowing with love – even daring to understand mean people. No small feat, this daring to understand.

   In our conversation, I read some lyrics from Craig Hella Johnson’s moving, mind-boggling “Considering Matthew Shepard,” a profound setting to music of the story of the young man brutally murdered for being gay in Wyoming. The most poignant moment comes when gays and lesbians reflect on Matthew’s killers:

   “When I think of you, and honestly I don’t like to think about you. But sometimes I do. I am so angry and confused. Late one night I had a glimpse of something, I don’t even like to say this out loud, it isn’t even all that true, but I wondered for a moment, am I like you in any way? I pray the answer is no. I bet you once had hopes and dreams too. Some things we love get lost along the way. That’s just like me. I am like you, I get confused, I’m afraid, I’ve been reckless, unthinking, intoxicated, I’ve come unhinged and made mistakes and hurt people very much. I am like you; this troubles me.”

   Julie resonated to this thought, pondering how we are all broken, and how if we hurl rage toward those who seem so evil, we become like them. She asks What happened, what trauma happened to the youth minister who scathingly condemned Ben to hell that twisted his created goodness into monstrous meanness?

   Mind you, there’s forgiveness and there’s forgiveness. Finding a space of understanding, and letting go of understandable, natural recoiling against someone who did something horrible to you and yours never can imply that it was all right. We demand this never happen on earth, ever again, and then meander toward a place of compassion, even for the one who is so terribly wrong, and hope.

   In our agonizingly divided world, with so much toxic rancor, I wonder if Julie might be showing us a way forward. We get confused. We’ve made mistakes and hurt others, including ourselves. I am like you. This can be, albeit with the conviction that the standard for Christians, and for all people of goodwill (and this isn’t optional) is that we resist as zealously as we can any who do harm. We stand with those who are adversely impacted by what’s going on. That’s not partisan. That’s not even exclusively Christian. That’s just human.

Holy Land Pilgrimage, 2026!

   Come with me to Israel to explore the places where Jesus walked and so many Bible stories happened! From the Sea of Galilee to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, from Bethlehem to Magdala and Caesarea: moving, transformative places we will see together. More details are forthcoming - but for now mark your calendar for April 28-May 9. I've led two dozen pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and showing it to others is one of my great joys in life. Tentative cost will be around $4,750, which includes flights, accommodations, and on the ground travel. Reach out to me at james@mpumc.org with any questions or to express interest!