How Will You Observe May Day?

The title of this post may seem rather senseless to most of you, for in all likelihood you have no plans to observe May Day at all. But there are people in countries around the world who will be observing May Day with great earnestness. 

In the U.S., May Day in the past was often observed with May Day baskets of flowers hung on the doorknobs of family/friends and with dances around a Maypole—but I won’t be writing any more about that. (If you want to reflect on that type of May Day observance, click here.)

Observing May Day in 1967

On May 1, 1967, I had lived in Japan exactly eight months. Even though it was a Monday, since it was an unofficial holiday in Japan, June and I had the day off from language school where we were students. That gave me the chance to see May Day observed as I had never seen it observed before.

The mission house into which my family and I moved in September 1966 was 20-minutes by foot from the Yoyogi National Stadium that was part of the venue for the 1964—and the 2020—Olympics. On that May Day, I decided to walk over there and see what was going on.

Before reaching the Stadium, I encountered masses of people—largely blue-color laborers—holding rallies and protesting what they considered injustices in Japanese, and world, society.

While the rallies were mostly related to domestic labor issues, there were also protests against the Vietnam War and against the presence of U.S. bases in Okinawa which were supporting that war. There were also appeals / demands that Okinawa be returned to Japan.

I don’t think I saw one other gaijin (foreigner) at those May Day rallies, and I was later told by gaijin friends that I was foolish for going there as I might have been accosted/injured. But it was a most interesting experience, and I am still glad that I learned some about that type of May Day then.

International May Day 2022

Although I didn’t know it then, in many countries around the world May Day is also known as International Workers' Day or Labour Day. The reason for May 1 being chosen as a day of advocacy for workers of the world goes back to 1886.

Two years earlier, a convention held by the organization of labor unions that later took the name American Federation of Labor (AFL) unanimously set May 1, 1886, as the date by which an eight-hour workday would become standard.

On that fateful Saturday, thousands of workers went on a general strike in support of the eight-hour workday, and rallies were held throughout the United States. The strike in Chicago led to the deadly Haymarket Riot on May 4.

Because of those events in Chicago, a few years later in Europe, advocates for laborers there and across the world chose May 1 as International Workers' Day. It is now a public holiday in some 80 countries around the world.

Here is a link to a 4½-minute video showing how six countries (beginning, interestingly, with Ukraine and including Russia and France) observed International May Day in 2017.  

And here is a link to a 2-minute video titled “Join the 2022 International May Day Online Rally this May 1!” It is by David North, an American Marxist theoretician who serves as the national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in the United States.

SEP opposes both “the ruthless imperialist ambitions of NATO,” and “rejects the national chauvinism with which the Putin regime defends its desperate invasion of Ukraine.” The online May Day rally will also be advocating for greater equality for the workers of the world.

Despite strong opposition to socialism by many USAmericans, why shouldn’t we, especially those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, be more concerned about the suffering and even exploited workers of the world?

Let’s observe May Day this year by at least giving some thoughtful consideration to how we might help working people struggling because of low-paying jobs that are inadequate for meeting their basic needs.

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** For a closely related viewpoint, I encourage you to read Celebrating Labor Rights, on May Day and Beyond, an article by Adam Russell Taylor in the May 2022 issue of Sojourners magazine. 

What about Self-reliance? Learning from Emerson

 My previous blog post was about a notable Dutch woman who was born in April 1892. Now I am writing about the core emphasis of a notable American man who died ten years before that, in April 1882. That man was the essayist, lecturer, and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

In this post, I am giving little biographical information about Emerson, other than to say that he was born in Boston in 1803 and died in nearby Concord four weeks before his 79^th birthday. Other facts about Emerson’s life can be found (here) on Wikipedia.**

The Background of Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”

Emerson’s best-known essay is “Self-Reliance,” first published in 1841 when he was still in his late 30s. Lying behind the public issue of that 30-page essay was the philosophy of transcendentalism.

In 1836, Emerson and some of his friends formed the Transcendental Club. Their core emphasis was derived from German philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose book Critique of Pure Reason (1781) propounded what became known as transcendental idealism.

That idealism held that there is an innate moral law within people that forms their interpretation of life experiences. Emphasizing what Kant called "intuitions of the mind,” transcendentalism was a reaction against the extreme rationalism of the Enlightenment.

Such rationalism had encroached upon Harvard, where Emerson had studied in the 1820s. In 1838, he was invited to address the graduating class at Harvard Divinity School. That talk was highly praised by some, and strongly criticized by others. (He was not invited to speak at Harvard again until 1869!)

Emerson charged the Harvard graduates to turn from the dead dogmas of the past and to seek the immediacy of Truth by mystical contact with God in the present. He declared, “It is the office of the true teacher [or preacher] to show us that God is, not was.”

The Core Ideas of Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”

As is apparently true of many others, I was long under the mistaken idea that Emerson’s concept of self-reliance meant living/acting independently without reliance on other people. But that was not his main point.

Rather, Emerson stressed the importance of trusting one’s own intuition for contact with God rather than relying on that which had been believed and written in the past.

Although he was ordained as a (Unitarian) minister and was a pastor for a couple of years at Boston’s historic Second Church, he left that post in 1832 and never served as a pastor again. Rather, he became a critic of “organized religion,” as evidenced by his 1838 address at Harvard Divinity School.

Although the expression was likely not used back then, Emerson was definitely an early example of a person who was “spiritual but not religious.’ He saw religion as reliance upon a dead past, but he reveled in the presence of God he saw in the present, largely through nature.

Theology has in recent decades been called “faith seeking understanding”—and Emerson likely would not have been averse to that description. His objection was to “theology seeking faith,” that is, reliance on ideas of the past rather than upon one’s direct contact with God in the present.

While there is much in Emerson’s thought with which I disagree, I am in basic agreement with his emphasis on self-reliance.

A Selection of Emerson’s Words

I am ending this post about Emerson with some of my favorite statements he made through the years. The first are oft-quoted words from “Self-Reliance”: 

I have been unable to find the source, but these words about the reality (or danger?) of new ideas are often attributed to Emerson, although they are sometimes said to be from Oliver Wendell Holmes (who was six years younger than Emerson): 

The gist of the following quote is from a letter Emerson wrote his daughter Ellen in 1854: 

There is also no documentation for this quote, but I close with these significant words that are certainly Emersonian, if not directly from Emerson himself: 

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** I also enjoyed reading and recommend Self-Reliance: The Story of Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010), a delightful 140-page book Peggy Caravantes authored for junior high school students. 

** For a deeper understanding of Emerson, I also recommend Emerson: The Ideal in America, an informative 2007 video available (here) on YouTube.

Remembering the Inspiring Corrie ten Boom

In September 1977, June and I went to see (on a big screen in downtown Fukuoka, Japan) The Hiding Place, a movie about Corrie ten Boom. Last month we watched that film again (on DVD on our home TV). Corrie was certainly an inspiring woman worth remembering. 

Introducing the ten Boom Family

Cornelia (Corrie) ten Boom was a Dutch woman of great faith and compassion who was born 130 years ago on April 15, 1892. After living in California for a few years, she died there in 1983 on her 91^st birthday.

Corrie was born in Haarlem, the capital of the province of North Holland. Her father, Casper, was a watchmaker who raised his family in a large storefront house. That was Corrie’s home from the time of her birth until it was raided by Nazis and she was arrested and incarcerated on February 28, 1944.

(In May 2007, on our 50^th wedding anniversary trip to Europe, when the train we were on arrived in Amsterdam, June and I hurriedly put our bags in a locker and took a local train to Haarlem. We had a delightful visit at the ten Boom’s house/shop and the large St. Bavo Church they attended.)

Father Casper, who was 84, and Betsie, Corrie’s older sister (b. 1885) were also incarcerated on that fateful February day. Casper died a few days later (on March 9), and then on December 16 that year, Betsie died in the Ravensbrück, Germany, concentration camp for women.

Twelve days later, Corrie was released from that same camp through a clerical error, which Corrie believed was miraculous.

Introducing “The Hiding Place”

The “crime” of the ten Boom family was their helping Jews and resisters escape the Nazis during the Holocaust of World War II. They constructed a literal hiding place in their oddly built house, and it is said that by that and other means they saved the lives of some 800 Jews.

A Christian writer named Elizabeth Sherrill met Corrie in Germany in 1968. Then she and her husband John went to Haarlem to learn more about the ten Boom family and Corrie.

Subsequently, the Sherrills co-authored with Corrie The Hiding Place, a book that was published in 1971 and became a bestseller. In 1975 the movie with the same name was issued, and Corrie became known by Christians, and others, around the world.

I wrote in my diary/journal that we felt depressed after seeing the movie in 1977, but after watching it again last month, I was deeply moved and inspired by Corrie’s deep faith and compassion for suffering people.

Introducing the “Righteous Gentiles”

The Yad Vashem Remembrance Authority in Israel honored Corrie by naming her Righteous Among the Nations in December 1967. That term is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who for altruistic reasons risked their lives to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.

While her efforts were not as extensive as those of Oskar Schindler (1908~94) or Irena Sendler (1910~2008), the two most famous “rescuers” listed on the Jewish Virtual Library website, Corrie certainly deserved that honor bestowed upon her.

Through the centuries there has, sadly, been serious mistreatment of Jewish people by Christians. But there have also been numerous Christians who out of compassion have risked their own lives to help persecuted Jews escape death.

Casper ten Boom and his daughters Betsie and Corrie were Christians and members of St. Bevo Dutch Reformed Church, just a few minutes’ walk from their home. But despite their devout evangelical faith—or perhaps it is more accurate to say, because of that faith—they, indeed, were “righteous Gentiles.”

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** Here are two links for learning more about Corrie ten Boom and the hiding place in her Haarlem home:

Link to a virtual tour of the ten Boom home in Haarlem.

YouTube link to A Faith Undefeated (2013), a 58-minute documentary film of Corrie; much of it is narrated by Pamela Rosewell Moore, who was Corrie’s “servant” from 1976 until her (Corrie’s) death in 1983.

“The Garden of Impending Bloom”: Hope in the Face of Apocalyptic Doom

In my April 9 blog post, I wrote about embracing comfort and hope from George F. Händel’s Messiah, first performed publicly 280 years ago on April 13, 1742. This post is about the hope of theologian Catherine Keller as seen in her book Facing Apocalypse—and also about a much greater hope. 

Keller’s Book

Catherine Keller is Professor of Constructive Theology at Drew University, and Facing Apocalypse: Climate, Democracy and Other Last Chances (Orbis Books, 2021) is the first of her several books I have read—and it was a delightful, and somewhat difficult, read. 

Catherine Keller (b. 1953)

While the content of Keller’s book is deeply theological/philosophical, the written style is more that of a contemporary novel than that of most academic works. 

Although the book is primarily a general exposition of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, Keller repeatedly alludes to the political and economic situation of the world in the last few years.

She concludes her book with “PostScroll” (pp. 195~205)—and ends that conclusion with the words she had recently seen on a hand-painted sign: “The Garden of Impending Bloom.”

Keller’s Hope

Keller’s earlier work, Apocalypse Now and Then (1996), was written with the fear of nuclear holocaust in the background. But she said, by the time that book was finished, “the nuclear threat had dissipated” (p. ix).

(But now in 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, some have again begun to fear that same threat again—and the terrible prospect of MAD, mutual assured destruction.)

Keller correctly points out that the 2021 “nightmares” were, “for instance, a climate-forced collapse of civilization within not many years, escalating mass migration and starvation, white supremacism, degrees of fascism, elite escapes, population decimation, and possibly worse” (p. xiv).

She realizes that many who understand the plight of the present have sunk “into a savvy nihilism.” Such people “see hope as delusional, and surrender to the spiral of our species’ self-destruction” (p. 2).

It is against that background that she attractively articulates the auspicious content of the biblical Book of Revelation. And by her erudite exposition we glimpse her underlying hope. This is especially seen on pages 132~6 where she referred to Händel’s Messiah (as mentioned in my previous blog post).

A Greater Hope

While Keller does briefly mention “the prophetic dream of a collective resurrection” (p. 135), she sees seven possible scenarios ahead, ranging from “exhumanity” (“the extinction of our species”) to “the age of enlivenment,” the optimum human response to the present ecological crisis.

In harmony with her worldly hope, Keller closes her book with the dream of a garden of impending bloom. It is an appealing dream, but since it depends on humans doing the right things, I don’t share her optimism. Impending doom seems more realistic.

So, I have been drawn back to the writings of German scientist/theologian Karl Heim (1874~1958). The last section of his book The World: Its Creation and Consummation is “The Future of the World in the Light of the Gospel of the Resurrection,” and indeed, he presents a much greater hope than Keller.

Keller mentioned the “savvy nihilism” of the present, but savvy or not, Heim wrote about nihilism in the 1950s. He contended that we humans are faced with two possibilities: “The first is the radical hopelessness of nihilism, . . . The second possibility is the universal faith of Easter” (p. 149).

The stupendous meaning of Easter is not the resuscitation of the physical body of a crucified Jewish man. Rather, it is a divine act with cosmic dimensions. It is the beginning of what will eventually become “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1).

I certainly don’t know how, or when, that will take place, but it is the living hope to which I cling.

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** The second edition of Heim’s book Weltschöpfung und Weltende (1953) was published in 1958 and the English translation of the latter was published in 1962 with an additional subtitle The End of the Present Age and the Future of the World in the Light of the Resurrection. It was probably the next year (59 years ago!) when I first read, and was invigorated by, that book as a graduate student. (I wrote a bit about Heim in my April 15, 2021, blog post).

Händel’s “Messiah”: Words of Comfort and Hope

George Frideric Händel’s Messiah oratorio is said to be “the most famous piece of sacred music in the English language.” The world premiere of that masterpiece was 280 years ago, on April 13, 1742, at a concert hall in Dublin, Ireland.  

A Bit about Händel

The man whom Beethoven claimed was “the greatest composer that ever lived” was born in Halle, a major city in what is now Germany, on February 23, 1685. (I remember his birthday every year because my dear granddaughter Naomi was born on Feb. 23.)

Despite his father’s objection, Händel became a musician and even though he was fairly successful in what is now Germany and Italy, in the 1710s he settled permanently in Great Britain, becoming a naturalized citizen there in 1727.

In October that year, he provided four anthems for the coronation of George II. The year before King George’s death, Händel died on April 14, 1759, and was buried in Westminster Cathedral.

A Bit about “Hallelujah Chorus”

By far, the best-known part of Messiah, Händel’s superlative oratorio, is the “Hallelujah Chorus.” It comes at the end of Part Two, the 44^th of the 53 movements. The lyrics of Messiah are all directly from the King James Bible, and the words of the Chorus come from Revelation 19:6, 11:15, and 19:16

During the London performance of Messiah in 1743, King George is said to have stood up during the “Hallelujah Chorus.” And when the king stands, everyone in his presence must stand! And so, for more than 275 years now, the audience rises to their feet when the “Hallelujah Chorus” is sung.

In her book Facing Apocalypse (2021), theologian Catherine Keller tells of hearing the entire Messiah performed live in Carnegie Hall—and that takes time. The complete oratorio is about two hours and 20 min. long, but with applause and two brief intermissions, it is closer to two hours and 45 min.

Keller said she was caught off guard when the “secular, cosmopolitan, diverse” audience, including some Jewish friends she was with, “sprang to its feet for the whole of the Hallelujah Chorus” (p. 134).

Comfort and Hope in Messiah

Although performances of Händel’s Messiah are common in December (before Christmas), they are also numerous on the days before Easter. There are many scheduled across the country for tomorrow, Palm Sunday.

For example, First Presbyterian Church in Wichita Falls, Texas, will perform Messiah on Sunday afternoon—and it will be their 75^th year in a row to do that.

While Messiah is primarily about Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection, it begins with words of prophecy from the Old Testament.

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.

These words from Isaiah 40:1-2 are, indeed, words expressing comfort and hope, words that were greatly encouraging when they were first written—or sung at the first public performance of Messiah in 1742. And how we need words of comfort and encouragement in this present day!

Part Three of Messiah (movements 45~53) is about resurrection—and thus the basis for public performances at Eastertime. The very next movement after the Hallelujah Chorus begins with words from Job 19:25-26 and I Corinthians 15:20:

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. For now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep.

During these troublesome days in which we now live, may the events we celebrate at Easter (whether we fully comprehend them or not), aided by the words and music of Händel’s marvelous Messiah, help each of us embrace the comfort and hope we so badly need.

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** Here is the link to a YouTube recording of Part Three of Messiah (with the lyrics shown instead of the singers.) And this link shows the score with the words as they are being sung. 

The Long Shadow of War

It has now been 40 days since Russia invaded Ukraine—and who knows when or how that tragic war will end. From the beginning, the Ukrainian people have struggled bravely to defend their country—and have suffered great losses. But the shadow of that war is a long one. 

The Local Effects of the War

It is hard to comprehend the horrors of the death and destruction in Ukraine since February 24. According to the latest figures I could find yesterday (Apr. 4), some 24,000 people have already been killed, and the Ukrainian government claims that around 7,000 non-combatants have lost their lives.

In addition, more than 10,000,000 Ukrainians have left their homes with more than 40% of them having become refugees in other countries, primarily Poland. Twenty-three of the U.S. states have a population smaller than the number of current Ukrainian refugees (approx. 4,200,000).

Further, there is the wanton destruction of houses, factories, infrastructure, farmland, and much more. A sad, sad situation in Ukraine indeed!**

The Global Effects of the War

The shadow of the war in Ukraine is a long one, affecting many millions of people around the world. Consider just two major detrimental global effects:

** Hunger/Starvation

        “War in Ukraine could plunge world into food shortages.” This is a March 25 headline of a National Geographic article.

According to that piece, “Over the past decade, Ukraine, long known as the breadbasket of Europe, has become an agricultural powerhouse for much of the developing world.” Ukraine is “a country of 40 million people, but they produce food for 400 million.”

But sadly, Ukraine will most likely not be able to do that this year because of the war.

A March 21 post by Religion News Service warns, “Ukraine may leave millions hungry.” That was the assessment of Eugene Cho, president and CEO of Bread for the World.

It is too soon to know how intense/detrimental the long shadow of the war in Ukraine will be, but the prospect of increased world hunger/starvation is distressing.

** Poverty

In this country, the most direct effect of the war in eastern Europe is inflation, particularly seen in the dramatic rise in the price of gasoline and diesel fuel. While price increases are a source of widespread complaint, it is a dire problem for those already living in or near poverty.

In the U.S., even in 2020 there were more than 37,000,000 residents who were living in poverty.

A headline on a March 29 post on Business Insider advises, “Americans should budget an extra $5,200 this year to cover rising prices.” But how can that possibly be done by households with a yearly income of less than $26,500 (the poverty level line for 2021)?

And how many more will fall into poverty because of the war?

Then there are the hundreds of millions around the world who are considerably worse off.

The future looks much darker now for nearly all of these people because of the long shadow of the war in Ukraine.

The Personal Effects of the War

If the war in Ukraine doesn’t escalate into a nuclear war—and I remain grateful that Pres. Biden has persistently and consistently sought to guard against that possibility—we who live in North America don’t have to worry about being directly affected by what happens in Eastern Europe.

Most of us Americans, though, will be affected indirectly, mostly by higher prices and perhaps shortages of some commodities. Even that will be no big problem for those of us who are able to bear the extra cost.

But the coming months are going to be a time when many people in this country, mainly those living below the poverty line, and vastly more in the poorer countries of the world, are going to need additional help to buy food and other necessities of life.

Can we—and will we—in the middle class (or above) do more to help the multitudes who are already suffering and who will be suffering more in the long shadow of the war in Ukraine? And will we also support the federal government in providing greater assistance? If not, why not?

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** On Sunday (4/3) the news media made public news and images about the atrocities committed against the Ukrainians in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv. See, for example, this CNN article (with a video).