Monday Morning Music Ministry

8-5-24

Back in time. I recall Martin Luther’s brave defiance of a hostile court of the Holy Roman Empire and the Vatican, where his death sentence seemed certain. Indeed, he had written his will and testament the previous night in his cell (the original is on display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC).

He was summoned to defend – no: in fact to deny and recant – things he had written and said that challenged doctrine and corruption in the Catholic Church. A priest himself, knowing that for a century other reform-minded clergymen had been martyred, he said, “Even if the Emperor calls… in order to kill me, or to declare me an enemy of the Empire, I shall offer to come. With Christ helping me, I shall not run away, nor shall I abandon God’s Word in this struggle.”

Political princes as well as princes of the church gathered at this momentous trial. Responding to direct demands and threats, Luther declared,

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason – for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves – I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me.

Here I stand. I can do no other.

This moment was a nexus in the history of Western civilization. Luther was spared the murderous intentions of the Vatican as he was kidnapped and hidden by rebellious German princes. He translated the Bible into German – one of his other imputed offenses; the public was increasingly literate but could not read Latin, and was forbidden to read Scripture in any version – and his spirit in large measure sparked democratic reforms in all spheres of life.

The Reformation is commemorated around All Saints’ Day, and that is not my specific focus here. (Besides, the “protests” of the “Protestants” have so reverted today to the relativism and Works Doctrine that motivated Luther in the first place to… oh, another day, another time…)

What I do want to ask is How many Luthers are there among us today?

Here I stand. I can do no other.

How many Believers – let me for the moment say, believers in anything – willingly compromise their beliefs these days? Or just stay silent? Or adopt alternate standards? And I don’t mean issues like turning neighbors over to the state police (although we have read of many people who otherwise look and act like us have done such things…) but seizing, rather, on euphemisms and phony values to ease their consciences.

Do you let you kids get away with things you know are harmful or immoral out of fear of offending them? Do you stay in a church with which you disagree, because friends attend, or it is in your tradition? Do you vote a certain way – or, worse, tell people you don’t vote a certain way – to avoid arguments? These days we hear a lot of “Thanksgiving Dinner disputes” over issues – do you take a stand and defend it, and try to convince people you love, or do you… pass the gravy?

These mostly are matters less weighty than those facing Luther. For the moment, anyway (things are growing more intense these days). So, consider one of (sadly) scores of more consequential issues these days:

If you believe that abortion is murder, do you speak and act against it? Or are you one of many who choose not to “hurt the feelings” of “pro-choice” people? Do you consider the “feelings” of the murdered baby? Do you discuss the “choice” the baby had? Whether in a family circle, or among neighbors, or in councils, if you have strong personal beliefs about murder… why keep them personal? Or would you say,

Here I stand. I can do no other.

In a larger but not any more abstract sense, Jesus Christ challenges us every day of our lives. To make choices. To be His representatives to the world. To… take a stand.

I have a PowerPoint lecture where I show photos I have taken around the world of brilliant, colorful skies with the sun at horizon over oceans, forests, and deserts. Showing no other landmarks, I challenge audiences to identify the images as sunrises or sunsets. It is impossible to tell. Unless… you know where you stand.

The Bible tell us to “stand on the solid rock” which is Jesus, but humans often stray and trust to their own feelings. The Medieval castle of Dunluce on the Northern Irish coast in County Antrim was a magnificent structure overlooking the wild North Atlantic Ocean. Secure and impregnable… until half of it collapsed down the cliffs into the ocean centuries ago. Now, magnificent ruins.

Here I stand? Be careful!

“Life ain’t nohow permanent,” if I may quote Pogo Possum. And it is the case, except for the eternal life we have in Christ Jesus. What is anything worth, outside the things of God, what He offers, and what He promises?

“Life is real; life is earnest” – this time I quote my favorite Longfellow poem, which ends: “Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate.”

Let us be encouraged to stand. To stand for something. To stand for Jesus.

+ + +

Click: Stand Up

9-2-13

An excuse to combine a spiritual message, or so I hope, and to pay tribute to a hero this week. It is 100 years since Walt Kelly was born. Presumably, as a baby, and his Philadelphia home having no particular bearing on the situation, he came into the world crying, but maybe for the last time. Soon and ever thereafter, the world responded to Walt by laughing. And thinking. Loving. Sometimes misty-eyed. Often angry – sometimes at him, but usually with him.

Walt was the cartoonist who created the “Pogo” comic strip. It was almost the perfect comic strip – gags, continuity, literary allusions, puns, slapstick, parody and satire, irony, poetry. And Walt might have been the perfect cartoonist. Trained as a Disney animator, he then drew comic books, and political cartoons, and a newspaper strip, and book illustrations, and children’s books, and magazine covers. There were dozens of volumes that collected his work.

I met Kelly as a child (me, not him). It is not a knock to say that I regret never to have seen him sober. He managed quite well, I suppose, but I always wondered whether I communicated the fervor of my admiration. I collected “Pogo” strips as a child; my father knew the automatic presents and rewards I coveted as a boy were “Pogo” and “Peanuts” books – footballs and erector sets meant nothing to me. I am grateful to have autographed sketches and original strips from Kelly. Just after he died in 1973, I became comics editor of the syndicate that handled his strip, which limped on by other hands for a while.

One great afternoon in Los Angeles, Walt’s daughter Carolyn drove me around to spots associated with Walt during his Disney days, including the church where he first married. Walt had, I believe, three wives (serially) and five children, one of whom became prominent in the pro-life movement. Kelly himself never evinced hostility to religion, as far as I know, but his philosophy, while humanitarian, was not sectarian.

Yet he did fight the “good fight,” in fact many good fights. A committed liberal, his most resonant commentary was, however, on broader themes – like his advocacy of the environmental movement. For the first Earth Day, in 1971, he drew the iconic poster that showed a downtrodden Pogo in a littered Okefenokee Swamp with the caption, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” I once owned the original artwork of this.

I am not going to claim that Walt Kelly had a subliminal biblical message in this; he didn’t. Yet, very often in life, perceptive and creative people mirror the messages of scripture. After all, God’s truths OUGHT to be plain as day!

We ARE our own worst enemies – Satan leads us astray, and tempts us, but he does not drag us; we choose to sin. This message is all through the Bible… especially in Christ’s admonition to Nicodemus, that we must all be born again (John 3:3). Shakespeare had Cassius speak another version of the truth: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings” (Julius Caesar: I, ii, 140-141).

Walt Kelly did more than argue against littering. As “Pogo” was, all things considered, a commentary on human nature – in the best tradition of that first anthropomorphist, Aesop – Kelly’s famous catchword is a clever way to remind us about personal responsibility, whether to the environment or for our own souls.

In text, Walt Kelly expanded his thesis: “Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle. There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.”

+ + +

One of the few songs Roger Miller recorded that he did not write himself is this week’s music vid. He must have liked it a lot; I do; I think Walt Kelly would have. I hope you like Scott Avett’s version.

Click: Where Have All the Average People Gone?

+ + +