A Friendly Letter

Pauli Murray – A Saint For Our Time (And My Neighborhood)

And who is Pauli Murray, a few of you may ask?
She was — and is — many things. One of them is my neighborhood saint.
Yes, she spent most of her childhood just a couple blocks from my place, in a house we’ll see in a moment.
But neighborhood bragging rights are only a small part of it. A major exhibit about her is up at a nearby place called The Scrap Exchange (a very interesting and unique project itself; but that’s another story), and yesterday I re-visited it, with some folks from my Carolina posse.

Scrap-Exchange-sign
The Scrap Exchange: google it and come visit!
We were all completely smitten by her, yet again. So let’s get a few facts out there:
Pauli Murray was born in 1910, in Baltimore, but soon afterward orphaned, she came to Durham NC and was raised by aunts and grandparents.
Thereafter, in her life she was, among other things (hang on to your hats!) —
— a pioneering civil rights crusader, who had a big hand in the behind the scenes work on the landmark 1954 Brown Supreme Court desegregation decision;

— a pioneering modern American feminist, even if many feminist-identified folks never heard of her (tsk tsk if you haven’t); she was even a founder of the National Organization of Women;

— a pioneering women’s lawyer, who helped put gender equality in the great 1964 Civil Rights Act;

Imp-Dude-Crusader-Cropped
“Imp”; ‘Dude”; “Crusader”; how was Pauli Murray to fit these identities together?

— a pioneer in bending and busting the boundaries of gender; kind of a lesbian, kind of not, kind of trans, kind of not, all and none of the above;

–and a pioneer in religion, the first black American woman ordained a priest in the Episcopal church; and

— yes, as of the summer of 2012, eighteen years after her death in 1985, she was declared a saint by the Episcopal church (her gender nonconformity notwithstanding).

That’s for starters. (Sorry if I said “pioneering” so many times, but that’s just what Pauli was for most of her life.)

Why Expel A Gay-Friendly Oregon Meeting? Here Are 8 Answers.

Part of Rosedale’s letter was what was now becoming boilerplate: “While no process involving human effort can ever be perfect (especially when the results create pain for some) we affirm the Board of Elders’ process and their conclusion to uphold current Faith and Practice resulting in West Hills Friends Church removal from fellowship.” They get an extra point for saying “removal” instead of “release.”

Rosedale-EFC-LogoMore revealing was a set of four questions, with answers, attached to their letter, summarizing their view of the authority relationships involved:

Questions concerning West Hill’s actions:

1. Are all members and local churches required to accept the Faith and Practice as prescriptive? Yes.

2. Does the F&P allow a local church to create or form doctrine?
No. The only body given authority to change doctrine is the Faith and Practice committee of the yearly meeting.

3. Does the F&P give Elders authority to oversee doctrinal disputes and to discontinue churches? Yes.

4. Does the F&P require the Elders to follow a particular procedure in declaring the issue is shattering to the Yearly Meeting, or in discontinuing a church, other than what is mentioned in [two sections of F&P]? No.

Note here that questions are only asked about West Hills actions; the Elders aren’t subject to interrogation. Further, the relationship described here is strictly top-down.

And from a liberal Friend’s perspective, it is remarkable how completely absent from this formulation is any notion of continuing revelation coming from anywhere except the top. However, this arrangement, and the theology underlying it, is consistent with the evangelical view of the church.

George-Washington & His Slaves: Some Mercy For them? Any Mercy for Him?

As I read southern history, ownership of that many slaves would make Washington and his family among the very wealthiest in their society. My understanding is that only a few “super-rich” families owned more than 200 slaves. (Jefferson Davis, later president of the Confederacy, owned only about one hundred on his Mississippi landholdings; genealogists report that they found only one man in 1860 census and property records as owning more than one thousand; the next ten largest moved quickly down toward 500.)
This suggests that Washington’s family was very wealthy in enslaved “human capital.”

So would this mean that, by the logic explored in the previous post, it’s time to consider renaming the city that makes up the District of Columbia, popularly described as “the nation’s capital”? And what about the state of Washington, a continent away, anchored by the very progressive city of Seattle in the corner of the Pacific Northwest?
Washington as a younger slaveowner.So would this mean that, by the logic explored in the previous blog post, it’s time to reconsider renaming both the city that makes up the District of Columbia, popularly described as “the nation’s capital”? And what about the state of Washington, a continent away, anchored by the very progressive city of Seattle in the corner of the Pacific Northwest?
That’s the initial reaction.
But when I reviewed some of the material gathered by the foundation that now owns Mount Vernon (MV) about Washington’s life there, some challenging data turned up.

A Call to Quakers: Change That Name– Now!

This idea of removing the names of slaveholders from major public spaces has spread nationwide, and as I reflected on it today, took on a distinctly Quaker flavor.
If The Stars & bars is now relegated to museums & history books; if Mississippi’s state banner is being redesigned & scrubbed; if even Calhoun College has to go (tho the buildings get to stay) — then it’s time, and past time, to rename Quakerism’s greatest (or at least inarguably its largest) public monument.
I refer, Friends, to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, whose founder was, of course, William Penn.
Did I mention that William Penn was a shameless slaveholder? He bought slaves & sold them, and used them at his manor house, Pennsbury, north of Philadelphia. [And unlike some others, he never “repented” of this.]
BTW this is no secret, no shocking exposé.
Shameless slaveholder? A ground view of the William Penn statue that now stands atop Philadelphia City Hall.
Despite it, I readily admit to having admired Penn for much of his legacy; but this part doesn’t fit. And given the temper of the times, it will not do to make a string of excuses.
So Pennsylvania has to go.
But what could be its replacement?

Ambushed & Sandbagged At North Carolina Yearly Meeting

Wait — a section that was deleted from the Faith and Practice 48 years ago was to be magically reinserted on the spot?

Yeah. That would, among other things, get around the clear policy statement in the F&P that

“Such changes should be made cautiously and with an ample opportunity for prayerful deliberation.”

The F&P goes on to detail an elaborate, five-step process for considering proposed changes, which would take close to a year even in the best of times.

But not that Saturday. More details about that bit of, um, legerdemain will come in future posts. It only lasted half an hour or so. It certainly made hash of the F&P itself and that ever-romantic phrase, “Quaker process”; when the Clerk asked for approval, the shouts were loud, and the several vocal dissents were disregarded.

Done.

Soon I staggered out and headed home, pondering that the meeting I attend, and a few others, have suddenly had the targets hung on our backs again, maybe bigger than ever. Besides the damning text in the handout-now-policy, we were verbally referred to, more than once, as the few “stumbling blocks,” the main obstacles between NCYM and “peace and stability.”

(Oh. Is THAT what the sermon and hymn were about?)

Well, maybe I am an old fool. But the morning’s ice water splash cleaned my glasses, and I’m pretty sure I can now read the handwriting on the wall.