Handle with Care

Carolyn Houts, the Seat cousin closest to me in age, was a Baptist missionary to Ghana from 1977 until her retirement in 2010. One year when she was on furlough (aka stateside assignment), she gave June and me a wood carving that we have displayed and enjoyed through the years. 

The Ghanaian wood carving is of a hand holding an egg. It is a deeply symbolic piece rooted in the Asante (or Ashanti) cultural tradition. During many of the years she was in Ghana, Cousin Carolyn (1942~2019) lived in Kumasi, the capital of the Asante region, and spoke Twi, the local language.**  

On his website (see here), a Ghanaian artist says he carves the hand holding an egg sculptures with a powerful African proverb in mind. That proverb is about the delicate nature of leadership and authority in Ghanaian culture. Here is the English translation of that proverb:

To be a ruler is like holding an egg in the hand; if it is pressed too hard it breaks; but if not held tightly enough it may slip and smash on the ground.

The metaphor shown in the hand-holding-egg carving stresses that authority is not absolute or unbreakable, that leadership must be firm enough to maintain control and effectiveness yet gentle enough not to destroy trust, and that true leadership requires restraint and careful judgment.

The symbolism of the wood carving is applicable to various relationships in addition to those of people in places of leadership and authority. For example, it reminds supervisors and mentors to manage their relationships with those “under” them in ways that inspire rather than intimidate.

The carving also speaks to the relationship between friends, speaking of how to offer support and when to step back as well as how to be present without being intrusive.

In romantic relationships, the image of a hand holding an egg portrays the delicate balance between intimacy and independence, between caring deeply and avoiding possessiveness.

The egg metaphor also depicts the challenge of parenting. As I have done previously, I asked Claude, my AI “friend,” if the egg-in-hand carving could be related to the challenge of being a good parent. Here is the first paragraph of the answer I received:

The egg metaphor captures the essential challenge of parenting: how to provide guidance, protection, and structure while allowing space for growth and independence. Parents who grip too tightly may crush their children's spirit, confidence, or natural development. Those who hold too loosely risk their children falling into harm or lacking the security they need.

I thought that was an excellent statement, and I soon began to think about my own parents and their parenting practices of 75 years ago, which I still remember with appreciation.

My parents never went to college, and I am quite sure they didn’t read any books about child psychology or self-help books about how to be good parents. But in thinking back to the summer in 1950 when I turned 12 until I started college in the fall of 1955, I think they were exceptionally good parents.

As we lived on a farm, probably already by 1950 my parents had given me baby livestock, which I raised and then sold their offspring. As I wrote in my book subtitled The Story My Life, my father “was wise in getting me started at a young age in making money on the farm.”

On the following page, I wrote that my parents “were skillful in helping me gain a sense of independence from a very early age—and I have always appreciated that.”

Long before they had seen the wood carving that my father’s niece gave June and me, to an exemplary degree they put into practice holding the “egg” with care, not too tightly or too loosely.

I think June and I also did that in rearing our four children, the youngest of whom is now 53—but I guess you’d have to ask them if they think we did, in fact, handle the egg with proper care.

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** Soon after Carolyn returned to the U.S. in 2010, I posted a blog article titled “In Praise of Cousin Carolyn” (you can access it here). She also lived for many years in Accra, the capital and largest city of Ghana. Kumasi is about 160 miles (by car) northwest of Accra.

In Admiration of Stanley Hauerwas

On May 10, I posted a blog article titled ”In Admiration of John Wesley and Methodism.” This post expresses my admiration for Stanley Hauerwas, a contemporary Methodist scholar who is celebrating his 85^th birthday next week. 

(Hauerwas in 2022)

Stanley Martin Hauerwas was born in Dallas on July 24, 1940. He grew up in a working-class household located in a suburban area of that Texas city. His father was a bricklayer, and Stanley worked summers with his father from the age of nine.

Upon finishing high school, Stanley enrolled in Southwestern University in Texas, the first in his family to attend college. Then he went to Yale, where he earned his B.D. (M.Div.) degree in 1965 and completed his Ph.D. in theology and ethics in 1968.*

Even though he became a theology and ethics scholar, he retained much of the blue-collar culture of his boyhood. His “salty” language was criticized by some people who thought a university professor shouldn’t use “unacceptable” language.

Hauerwas married in 1962, the year he finished college, and six years later, his only child, a boy, was born. His wife struggled with mental illness, though, and they divorced after 25 years of marriage. In 1989 he married Paula Gilbert, a theologian and an ordained United Methodist minister.

I first learned about Hauerwas by reading Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (1989), a book co-written with William Willimon. That was a rich read for me, and it influenced how many Christians perceived their role in society.  

When I recently looked at the notes I took when I read Resident Aliens again back in 2008, I wrote, “Thirty-six years ago, the authors contended, ‘The times are too challenging to be wasting time pressing one another into boxes called liberal or conservative. The choice is between truth and lies’ (p. 160).”

And then in the concluding sub-section of the last chapter, they aver that

the challenge facing today’s Christians is not the necessity to translate Christian convictions into a modern idiom, but rather to form a community, a colony of resident aliens which is so shaped by our convictions that no one even has to ask what we mean by confessing belief in God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Hauerwas’s newest book is Jesus Changes Everything, a small volume edited by Charles Moore and released by Plough Publishing House in March 2025.** Much in that book is a reaffirmation of what he and Willimon emphasized in Resident Aliens.  

In his ten-page introduction of the author, Moore says that “Hauerwas eludes categorization. He is neither conservative enough for the conservatives nor liberal enough for liberals” (p. xxiv).

In the concluding paragraph of that introduction, Moore states,

Stanley Hauerwas and his writings were a large reason why 30 years ago I left a professorship at a seminary and moved 2000 miles with my wife to join the Bruderhof, a Christian community that shares possessions in common in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount.

Then, in an article published by the Bruderhof in March 2025, Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren writes that she “became a pacifist because of Hauerwas” and that she has “friends who went to seminary to study theology because of Hauerwas’s work. His words change people.”

Hauerwas is a Mennonite theologian/ethicist, as well as being a lifelong Methodist and active in an Episcopal church. Unlike Warren, I became a pacifist long before I knew about Stanley Hauerwas, but I was delighted when I learned that he became a devotee of Mennonite scholar John Howard Yoder.

Unfortunately, Yoder (1927~97), who was arguably the most significant Anabaptist scholar of the twentieth century, badly tarnished his reputation because of his “abusive behavior toward women,” which became public in the 2010s. But his influence on Hauerwas was long before that.

In The Politics of Jesus (1972), Yoder argued forcefully that the life, death, and resurrection of Christ necessitates a nonviolent discipleship as the definitive Christian ethic. Hauerwas adopted and extended that conviction: nonviolence is not optional but obligatory for loyal followers of Jesus.

Authentic Christians are “disciples” of Jesus rather than mere “admirers,” and the primary task of the church is to be the church, a faithful community of Jesus-followers, rather than an organization trying to do things for the benefit of society. Yes, indeed!

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  * I feel considerable affinity with Hauerwas. Born just two years earlier, I am the son of a (working-class) farmer and the first male in the direct-line Seat family to attend college, finishing with a B.A. degree in 1959, graduating from seminary with a B.D. in 1962, and then finishing work for my Ph.D. in 1966. When it comes to nationwide influence, books written, and scholarly articles published, though, there is absolutely no comparison.

** Moore is a contributing editor and author for Plough, the publishing arm of the Bruderhof community, introduced in my 12/5/20 blog post. Moore is also the editor of Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard (1999), a valuable, easy-to-read book, as well as the compiler and editor of Called to Community (2016; 2^nd ed., 2024). Hauerwas wrote the Foreword to the latter.  

The Importance of the Magna Carta Then and Now

What does, or should, an 800-year-old document have to do with the present civil rights of U.S. citizens, asylum seekers, and others seeking to live safely in this country? 

Painting of King John signing the Magna Carta

The Magna Carta was first signed in June 1215, although the final version was not issued until 1225, ten years after it was first granted, under pressure, by King John, who reigned as King of England from 1199 to 1216.

According to Britannica, “By declaring the sovereign to be subject to the rule of law and documenting the liberties held by ‘free men,’ the Magna Carta provided the foundation for individual rights in Anglo-American jurisprudence.”

I was surprised to learn, though, that the opening clause of the Magna Carta states that “the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unharmed.” I asked Claude (my AI “buddy”) if that is related to the principle of the separation of church and state.

Claude stated that “while the Magna Carta's church clause wasn't the ‘basis’ for American church-state separation, it was part of a long constitutional tradition about limiting government overreach that ultimately influenced American thinking about religious liberty.”

The Magna Carta was revolutionary in many ways, though, because it established the principle that even the king was subject to law. In addition, key provisions included protections against arbitrary imprisonment, limits on taxation without consent, and guarantees of due process.

Last week, the U.S. celebrated Independence Day, and it is noteworthy that the American colonists invoked the Magna Carta against British rule, and concepts embodied in the Magna Carta were included in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Several years before July 4, 1776, there was strong opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765, an act of the British Parliament that imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America. Remembering the Magna Carta, the colonists strongly rejected “taxation without representation.”*

The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was also based on the core idea of the Magna Carta, stating that the king could not impose taxes without the "general consent of the realm." The colonists viewed the Tea Act of 1773 as a violation of that ancient English right.**

While there may not have been explicit references to the Magna Carta by the British colonists who initiated the Revolutionary War, it is quite certain that their grievances against King George III and the British governance of the Thirteen Colonies were based on key ideas incorporated in the Magna Carta.

What about the current U.S. government and the Magna Carta? It seems quite clear to most top U.S. politicians (and their supporters) who are not MAGA adherents that the 47^th President is saying and doing things that stand in opposition to the Magna Carta—and the U.S. Constitution.

Once again, Claude came through with a list of “several areas where President Trump’s 2025 actions have raised concerns that relate to principles found in the Magna Carta,” a list that seems completely accurate to me. It includes:

 1) Due Process Violations. Legal experts say that the manner in which Trump is targeting some law firms runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment guarantee of due process. These violations are even more evident in Trump’s aggressive deportation of immigrants.

  2) Arbitrary Executive Action. Directly related to the above is Trump’s executive order using a wartime authority for law enforcement purposes, targeting people for arrest based solely on their ethnicity/nationality. This is the sort of arbitrary action that the Magna Carta sought to prevent.

  3) Targeting of Legal Professionals: The actions against “enemy” law firms, restricting access to federal buildings, and terminating government contracts due to their association with former special counsel Robert Mueller resemble the kind of arbitrary punishment that the Magna Carta was designed to prevent.

  4) Immigration Enforcement Changes: Trump ended the policy from 2011, which prohibited immigration arrests in sensitive areas such as courthouses, schools, churches, and hospitals. Currently, my church is considering how to respond if ICE agents show up seeking “illegals” during a worship service.

In summary, Claude states, “The Magna Carta’s core principle was limiting arbitrary royal power and ensuring legal protections.” However, some of Trump's 2025 executive actions “echo the kind of unchecked executive power the Magna Carta was designed to constrain.” That, sadly, seems to be the case, indeed.

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  * If you need to review what the Stamp Act was, as I did, Wikipedia, as usual, provides a helpful explanation (click here).

** For additional information about the Boston Tea Party, see my December 15, 2013, blog post (here).