Finally, an older woman with a gentle but firm spirit spoke and restored civility to the room. She reminded us that the behavior being exhibited was not in keeping with our Christian values and that we all needed to take a moment and remember why we were there. She also brought us back to a point of order about the issue that was being discussed.

This was a meeting where members of several different churches convene quarterly to work as a governing board.  The meetings are run by a board president using procedures outlined in Robert’s Rules of Order and usually proceed without much fanfare. But last night was different and that still troubles me.  

I don’t know what led one person to try to use parliamentary law to hammer home  her questions and to position motions on a couple of issues from a fellow table mate. I do believe though that the spirit of  God prompted the other person to rise and speak,  reminding us of God’s order and that no matter how much we disagree with each other we should  never disrespect each other.  Of those in the room, she seemed a perfect choice to get everyone’s attention.

 Robert’s Rules of Order, the parliamentarian’s handbook on how meetings are conducted, provides useful guidance for moving a meeting along efficiently and productively. But, I’ve also seen the strict, unforgiving adherence to the rules derail meetings and destroy relationships.  With and without the procedures, many a church meeting has left members with wounded feelings and even caused some to leave a church.

 I’m sure that’s not what Henry Martyn Robert, an army engineering officer, had in mind when he studied parliamentary law and wrote the book on meeting procedures. Based on his own inexperience and failed efforts at running a meeting, he wanted to “bring order out of chaos.”

What I observed last night was that if we Christians are not careful with our use of procedural rules we can wring all of God’s love out of our meetings.   The result would be chaos instead of order. 

A friend passsed along her copy of Robert’s Rules to me when I became an officer in  the church-related group  a few months ago. I’ve been studying it as I prepare for meetings. More than ever, though, at my next meeting I’m opting to let God’s love be the operating force that guides parliamentary procedures.

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It’s supposed to hold her  at all times so as to give the illusion that no obstacle is too big, no hurdle too high and no stairs too steep to ascend. That’s the sales pitch. But that’s all it is, because the reality is it’s broken and of no use until the repairman can fit taking a look at it into his overloaded schedule next week . 

I hate when things break. Especially me. I need to hold it all together at all times, not just for me but for the generations who preceded me and withstood far more hardship than I’ve known. And for the generations following who seem to cower under the slightest weight and discomfort. They need to see how I can hold up under real strain.

Also for the congregants I serve who secretly wonder at times if God is real. For those millions of nameless women whose backs are bent under the strain of trying to house, feed, educate and clothe an entire family for under $2.50 a day.  For the women whose bodies were violently entered and whose minds and hearts were raped of the hope that anybody cared.

And for the little children who can’t afford for the grownups to break. Especially for my 5-year-old great niece who believes I am invincible. I can’t break, because if I do who will lift all those folks?

Yeah, right. All those fine noble reasons aside, I don’t want to break because breaking hurts. And I hate that. But I also fear the fact that broken things aren’t of much use. They get put up on a shelf for later fiddling. They get wheeled in front of a TV until the next meal. They get left behind. They get swept up and thrown away. And even if they are glued back together, one wrong move or a bit of close scrutiny will reveal their cracks. Don’t believe the hype. Everything is not necessarily stronger in the broken places.

Truth be told, I have been broken, am breaking now, and most assuredly will endure breaks in the future. I’m publicly whole and privately fragile. I could never live up to always being the strong, independent woman I was raised to be, who refuses to crack under pressure, no matter how forceful. While I may still resist it, I no longer believe breaking – excruciatingly painful as it is – is the worst thing. It demands new ways of seeing the same old situation and it rejects the need for me to hold on to the got-it-all-together facade.

It’s the prequisite to Resurrection. And if what rises after the break is less heroic, less prideful, more authentic, more Christ-like and less self-centered than who I am now, then by all means, I will take the break. Bring it on.

Each Friday during Lent, the Rev. Dr. Cynthia T. Turner, pastor of the Dayspring Community Church in Lanham, MD, will write about the “Righteous Mind” on the Soul Rhythms blog. Click here to read other pieces by Rev. Turner.

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2. Righteous Mind with Rev. Cynthia T. Turner

Since January, people in various corners of the world have been buffeted by a season of storms and natural disasters– hurricanes, tsunamis, blizzards, flooding and mudslides. This has been one faith-fortifying winter for lots of people who have had to call on their inner resources to survive hardship and, in far too many cases, the deaths of loved ones.

 More than a dozen hurricanes of increasing intensity have caused more than 250,000 deaths and destroyed countless homes and other property in the first two months of this year. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12 in poverty-ridden Haiti is said to account for about 230,000 of those deaths.

It is taking me a while to wrap my thoughts around the latest massive earthquake that sent vibrations of concern throughout the world. The 8.8 earthquake that struck in Chile early Saturday morning was so powerful that it moved the earth on its axis and shortened the day by microseconds. It was the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history and it unleashed far-reaching and devastating tsunamis, whose towering waves destroyed what the quake spared in several of Chile’s beach towns.

Fortunately, the quake didn’t strike in as heavily populated area as it did in Haiti, and fewer people died in Chile, nearly 800 at last count. Chile had a much stronger infrastructure with better built buildings than Haiti, the results of lessons learned from an earlier deadly quake in 1960. ( We all should learn from our past disasters.)

One family from Haiti survived the devastation there and fled to sanctuary with a relative in Chile, only to find themselves confronted by another, more forceful quake. They are safe but rattled to their core.

When Luigene Philomene, who is in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, heard that his college-age  daughter had been in the Chile earthquake, he thought of a Haitian saying that loosely translates as “we saved her from the river and she ended up in the sea.”  Now he feels she has divine protection, he told the Associated Press.

“God is looking for out for us,” he said. “Our family didn’t die in Haiti so they aren’t going to die in Chile either.”

What, if anything, is this season of unsettling disasters trying to tell us?

Just think about it — earthquakes in the U.S. in California, Central Oklahoma and Arkansas and Illinois, on far-away Solomon Islands, in Central America’s Guatemala and El Salvador, then in Japan, Russia, Haiti and Chile.  Blizzards blanketing and reblanketing the Northeast and snow covering the usually snowless South. Record amounts of snow fell throughout the country in January and February, so much so that on Feb. 12  49 of the 50 states had snow on the ground.

In  a news report from NBC’s Ann Curry,  a Chilean women stood in her living room and surveyed the damage from the quake and ensuring tsunami. “Too many people get  caught up in material things,” said the woman, “and we should value more than those things.”  Curry said the disaster in Chile moved people to find their inner strength.

With a resilient spirit, the woman said her family will survive with “the force of love from caring for your  family, from God.”

In a couple of weeks, winter officially will morph into spring where I’m certain new weather wonders await us. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy the sunshine and the rain, and make the best of any other weather that comes my way. I’ll take courage, remembering the examples of the millions of people who with resilience and faith withstood this winter’s elements with every bit of strength they could muster.

 “Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy—your work becomes a dance with light and weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.”  –Annie Leibovitz

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The institutional black church, which historically stood as a place of power and refuge in our communties, may be losing relevance among many African Americans for several reasons, said author, Eddie Glaude Jr., currently the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and chair of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University.

The quick version of the reasons are: the black church remains very conservative in its theology;  more African Americans are attending integrated and multi-racial churches;  a number of churches cling more to past deeds and historical significance than to tackling present problems. To that last point, Glaude says such a church loses it power.

“Memory becomes its currency. Its soul withers from neglect. The result is all too often church services and liturgies that entertain, but lack a spirit that transforms, and preachers who deign for followers instead of fellow travelers in God.”

I can relate to much of what Glaude says in his article, though I am not ready to throw out the baby with the bath water so to speak.  In my volunteer work with a Washington area Baptist group that represents more than 100 churches, I see many black churches that are doing great work in their communities and remain vibrant forces of social and religious change.  Some are addressing the urgent needs of people in their communities and are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, attending the sick and showing compassion to the incarcerated.  They are reaching out to those suffering in their communities and even in mission fields abroad. They are giving voice to the voiceless.

They are indeed, as Glaude put it, “witnesses to the ongoing revelation of God’s love in the here and now.”

But it couldn’t hurt to stop and assess where the venerable black church stands today in a society that continues to change so rapidly and where there are so many more church choices now available to our own diverse community. As Glaude writes, “The death of black church as we have known it occasions an opportunity to breathe new life into what means to be black and Christian.”

Read the article and let me know what you think? Do you attend a traditionally black church? How is it involved in addressing the concerns and needs of its community?

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We settled at the kitchen table and over cups of hot tea, we caught up. It had been a while since I had seen Leah, a former work colleague who looked pretty much the same as the last time I saw her. As we talked, though, I learned about the physical difficulties that Leah has endured and how through all the pain and uncertainty, her faith has grown deeper, stronger. She gave me a spiritual meal that has strengthenedy faith. I hope Leah’s testimony will do the same for you. 

Here is an updated version of an article Leah Y. Latimer wrote in 2008 for  Vision Magazine, a publication of the First Baptist Church of Glenarden, where she is a member.

 For the past few years I have learned what it means to dwell in a season of adversity. Looking back on what has happened so far, I can see how God continues to walk me through it, how He shows me things, how He he’s teaching me. He has stayed close even during those times when I am angry at Him for not healing me (according to my plan, not His).

 I have been struggling with various illnesses for years, so now my vocabulary has expanded to include scary words such as meningitis, colectomy, hyponatremia, and metastatic.

 In a one-year period in 2007-2008, I underwent four procedures. God must have a sense of humor, preparing me for all of this pain 21 years ago by letting me deliver a 10-pound baby before my epidural kicked in!

During that period, I also had three MRI’s, a CT scan, skull x-rays and other procedures too invasive to mention. In the most surreal week, I had a breast biopsy on Tuesday and a spinal tap that Thursday. On my way out after the biopsy, the receptionist offered me a nervous smile and a bunch of fresh tulips. In the neurologist’s follow-up appointment, I was delighted to hear I didn’t need brain surgery right away.  Since then, professionals at Johns Hopkins who put the MRI on the light screen have said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

 On July 7, 2008, I woke up strangely well. My hands and feet still felt like they would crumble into dust, but there were no more flashing lights in my head and I could see straight. Then, a week later, I forgot to take the heavy medications I’ve been taking four times a day going on three years now. I skipped more doses and in four weeks I realized I didn’t need them. To quote the psalmist, “…Morning by morning new mercies I see.” 

 Since then, it has been up and down.  For most of 2009, I could not focus well enough to drive or to read more than a few lines at a time. Despite a surgery in September, the crushing, burning and electric-shock-like pain seems worse. Not being able to complete a sentence, looking off into space, slurring, well, all that varies from month to month. But after hospitalizations this fall and Christmas week, I again awoke strangely well, “lucid and alert,” one morning in January. 

 Meanwhile, doctors at Johns Hopkins have abandoned some awful diagnoses that threatened to make my prognosis even worse.  

 But God is good. My season of adversity has been a gift of time and solitude. I have more time to study scripture, more time to think and pray, more time to develop my relationship with My Lord and Savior.  

 What can I do but praise God for trials that bring me even closer to Him?

 So I will continue to work on patience and endurance. I will be quiet and listen to the Holy Spirit. I’ll trust and wait on the Lord. I’ll cast my cares on Him because He cares for me. As it is written in James 1:2, I’ll count it all joy.

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As we exited through the glass double doors, we noticed a little girl several steps behind approaching the doors. We both stopped our stride and our conversation to hold the door for her. She walked through both sets as if it were our duty, never even acknowledging our presence, never saying those two words that would have made our gesture worthwhile.

So I said it, as if to teach the little ingrate a lesson. “You’re welcome.” There, now we made eye contact. She walked ahead and I uttered other words I won’t risk including here given my title as clergy. Those are the same words, for the record, which my workout partner would not co-sign. With curt kindness, she brought me back to where I should be, something I both love and dislike about her.  

We parted. But that was not the end for me. I went through the day recounting the episode to a few other people. “Children today have no manners,” I said. “Her Momma should have taught her better than that. No wonder we’re as bad off as we are.” I blamed my feelings and my response on a 10-year-old who should have known better, and I justified my terse words based on her bad manners.

While it’s convenient to make the child take the blame for my uneasiness, the truth is it’s more about me than it is about her. Yes, she should have said thank you. But to allow her to change my mood grants her too much power in my life.

Even more importantly, had I known up front that she was not going to say it, would my actions have changed? I’d like to think not. I still would have held the door, still would have done what I know is the right thing to do, and still would have behaved as if my Momma taught me manners. My heart’s actions ought not be driven by the need for validation, gratitude, or reciprocity. And when they are, it says more about something lacking in me than it does about a little girl whose mind may have been lost somewhere else.

I will keep holding doors, letting people in front of me on the highway, and giving a person with one or two items a place ahead of me in the line at the grocery store. And if they acknowledge my kindness, good. If not, good.  

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Each Friday during Lent, the Rev. Dr. Cynthia T. Turner, pastor of the Dayspring Community Church in Lanham, MD, will write about the “Righteous Mind” on the Soul Rhythms blog. Click here to read other pieces by Rev. Turner.

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My heart rallied for Rochette as I watched the Canadian skater glide and twirl over the ice Tuesday night, two days after her mother died of a heart attack. Therese Rochette, just 55, had been her daughter’s biggest booster and her inspiration as an ice skater. She and her husband had come from their home in Montreal to cheer on their only daughter, the reigning world silver medalist and six-time Canadian national champion.

Rochette skated through her grief under the Olympic glare of millions of empathic eyes. It was an emotionally wrenching and elegant performance during the Ladies Short Program Figure Skating. Her father applauded his daughter for each flawless move, the Lutz-double toe combination, trip flip and double Axle. She tried to smile triumphantly after skating for what must have been a most difficult two minutes and 50 seconds, but her smile quickly dissolved into the swell of emotions inside of her. She bent over and sobbed.

Later when asked about her emotions, the 24-year-old who was living her dream replied: “Words cannot describe them.”

                 AP photos

Grief is a powerful force. It affects each of us differently. Sometimes it falls on us like the steady drip of a summer shower, washing over us, cleansing us; other times it strikes us like a devastating hurricane, uprooting us temporarily, sometimes forever.

Some of us are paralyzed by it; others of us are propelled to do, to keep the momentum of our lives moving. At least  for now. It’s almost like we have to contain the grief before we can release the grief, to tame it so it doesn’t consume us until we are ready to make space for it.

Joannie Rochette’s public skating resonated with me. Sometimes, I’ve have skated through my own grief, doing what needed to be done  in the moment  to honor my mother, my father, my brother and my friend. Sometimes, it was all I could do. But after the public reprieve, the private work of grief does come; it’s hard to stop it. At least for me.

How do you cope with your grief?

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This Psalm speaks to the truth and beauty of God’s word and encourages us to cling to His word no matter how crazy or horrible the world around us becomes.  It provides the instruction I need to deepen my faith and to live a full and authentic life. I didn’t plan it this way but the timing of this study was perfect and  laid a strong foundation for my 40-day fast.

 Psalm 119 became my comfort when my grief over my friend’s death last month unexpectedly bubbled to the surface.   As I wondered what I could do to help a relative through a difficult situation, I found  hope and guidance in my daily reading. When I allowed news events about partisan politics, hate-filled speeches, natural disasters and brutal homicides to trouble my heart, the words of Psalm 119:89-91 brought relief.  

I’ve read lots of self-help books during the course of my life, and some of them have been helpful. But the more I read and understand the Bible, the more I know it to be the best instruction book for living there is. We grow in our knowledge of God’s word not just to help ourselves  but to also lend a hand to someone else.

 These are a few of the verses from Psalms 119 that I know will continue to sustain and strengthen me. I hope they’ll do the same for you.

²⁴ Your statutes are my delight;
       they are my counselors.

  45 I will walk about in freedom,
       for I have sought out your precepts.

⁷⁶ May your unfailing love be my comfort,
       according to your promise to your servant.

If your law had not been my delight,
       I would have perished in my affliction.

¹⁰⁵ Your word is a lamp to my feet
       and a light for my path.

 25-32 I’m feeling terrible—I couldn’t feel worse!
      Get me on my feet again. You promised, remember?  Message Bible

114 You’re my place of quiet retreat;
      I wait for your Word to renew me. Message Bible

 

 

 

 

 

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And it’s true. What we believe determines what we do. Believing you can’t means you won’t. Believing it’s impossible means it is, at least to you. Believing the marriage cannot be salvaged, or the child is incorrigible, or the student is unteachable, or the job is unworkable is already a confession and admission of defeat.

But it does not have to be that way. Nothing can so get us through a crisis and set us on the path toward triumph better than a fresh perspective based on truth and righteousness. Like the time when Gail Devers determined in 1990, despite bad medical diagnoses, that she would run again. Less than 17 months after the doctors had considered amputating her feet, she went on to win her first gold medal in the 100-meter dash at the Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992, and was named the fastest woman in the world. She later said: “But I wasn’t going to give up. The word ‘quit’ has never been a part of my vocabulary. With lots of hard work, determination, perseverance and faith in God, I was able to resume training and regain my health.”

Each crisis brings with it a call to new understandings. It requires that we protest and dig deeper, way past the easy answers we publicly accept to unearth deep-set truths that lets us know that what looks like the end does not necessarily have to be.

A righteous mind does not mean we have all the answers; it means we recognize that these lives we live are wholly unintelligible without a belief that sees life through the lens of a Savior who came, lived, died and rose again to show us that that every ending has the potential for new beginning.

_______________________________________

Each Friday during Lent, the Rev. Dr. Cynthia T. Turner, pastor of the Dayspring Community Church in Lanham, MD, will write about the “Righteous Mind” on the Soul Rhythms blog. Click here to read other pieces by Rev. Turner.

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“In times like these, you need a Savior
In times like these you need an anchor
Be very sure, be very sure
Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock”

I don’t sing well, can’t carry a tune in a bucket; anyone standing near me in church or at my kitchen sink will tell you that.  But I love to sing and sometimes a song will just bubble up.  Just last night, my brother George, who came over for dinner and Scrabble while he was in town for a meeting, cracked: “You sang like your mama, and she couldn’t sing either.”

My dad could sing, though. He enjoyed crooning in the choir at Thankful Baptist Church, where he was a deacon for most of my childhood, and at Solomon Temple Church of God in Christ, the church my mother and most of my siblings attended and ythat he joined when I left home to go to college.

After his death about 18 years ago, I discovered a sheaf of sheet music that he treasured, all hymns of the church, including music penned by Thomas A. Dorsey. I now have it tucked away somewhere, and the recent news that Chicago will soon get a long-planned-for gospel museum brought it back to mind.

Dorsey, who is known as the father of gospel music, will be among the gospel icons honored in the town where he penned most of his music – gospel and blues.  A new museum dedicated to gospel music is slated to open later this year in Chicago, which calls itself the birthplace of gospel music.

It has been a difficult stretch for Rev. Stanley Keeble, who tried for years to honor the gospel heritage of the Windy City, but the Chicago Gospel Music Heritage Museum finally has found a home in the former parsonage of the Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church on South King Drive.

Marian Anderson, Mahalia Jackson and the Roberta Martin Singers performed in the church, which has been rooted in the African American community since 1889. Poet Gwendolyn Brooks and journalist Ida B. Wells attended the church, which was designated a Chicago Landmark in 2007.

“It’s enormously important to have a museum like this in Chicago. Gospel music is part of the faith history of African Americans, as is how they shared that music with all people,” said the Rev. Leon D. Finney, pastor of Metropolitan Church, seen in front of the parsonage in this Chicago Sun-Times photo.

Other cities also have museums that honor gospel music, including Detroit, which has the virtual International Gospel Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

I enjoyed my trips to Chicago in the past. I’ll be sure to put the gospel museum on my itinerary the next time I go.

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