"Don't Worry, Be Happy"

Although I remember well his best-known song, I hadn’t remembered that Bobby McFerrin was the one who sang “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” That song topped the Billboard Hot 100 charts on Sept. 24 and Oct. 1 in 1988, twenty-five years ago now. It was the first a cappella song to ever reach number one. Then in February 1989 it also garnered the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

The lyrics for McFerrin’s lilting song seem to have been inspired by Meher Baba, whose picture with the words “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” appeared on numerous posters and inspirational cards. Baba, whose birth name was Merwan S. Irani, was a “spiritual master” from India, who claimed to be an Avatar, God in human form.

So with his hit song McFerrin made Baba’s simple words known around the world. People greatly enjoyed both the music and the appeal of the lyrics. George H. W. Bush even used McFerrin’s popular song in his 1988 U.S. presidential campaign—until he had to stop doing so because of McFerrin’s objection.

Bobby McFerrin (b. 1950)

One of my good friends always includes the words “Be well and feel good” before his name at the end of his email messages. That is a nice wish, but we don’t always have control over whether or not we are well, nor completely over how we feel. But I assume my friend David also likes the words “Don’t worry, be happy.” And we can have considerable control over worry and some over whether or not we are happy.

Long ago I heard it said that we humans worry about two things: things we can change and things we can’t change. If we can change something we don’t like, we should get busy and do it rather than just worrying about it. And if we can’t do anything about it, there is no use to worry.

And then I remember these words attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Just last week I saw an article on “The Habits of Supremely Happy People.” The author of that piece cited psychologist Martin Seligman, who stresses that at least 40% of our happiness is up to us.

So perhaps to a large degree, we can be happy and not worry, if we so choose.

I became interested in learning more about McFerrin when his paraphrase of Psalm 23 was sung by the choir in the church June and I attend. The lyrics of that song begin,

                 The Lord is my Shepherd,

                 I have all I need,      

                 She makes me lie down in green meadows,

                 Beside the still waters, She will lead.

                 She restores my soul, She rights my wrongs,

                 She leads me in a path of good things,

                 And fills my heart with songs.

McFerrin wrote those lyrics as a tribute to his mother, but it is a good reminder that God can (and probably should) be pictured as Mother as well as Father. There are several YouTube videos of McFerrin’s “Psalm 23,” and I particularly enjoyed this one (click here), which includes a tribute to famous women throughout history.

Earlier this year McFerrin released a new album, “spirityouall,” and he talks about it in an interesting interview on the May 24 Religion & Ethics Newsweekly program (found here).

Perhaps McFerrin can sing about being happy and not worrying because of his deep faith, such as he expressed in “Psalm 23” and in his new album.

The Levellers

This article is being posted on the 370^th anniversary of a battle you may never have heard of as an excuse to write about a group you may never have heard of. But there is some value in knowing about First Battle of Newbury (fought on Sept. 20, 1643) and especially about the group known as the Levellers.
 

(The group I am writing about, though, is not to be confused with the English rock band founded in 1988 and named the Levellers.)

While most USAmericans know quite a bit about the Civil War in the U.S., most of us don’t know much about the English Civil War, which was fought in the 1640s. One of the major battles of that war was fought at Newbury, about 60 miles west of London.

That First Battle of Newbury was led by King Charles I, who ended up losing his head (literally, in Jan. 1649) in the civil war. He was the leader of the Royalist forces, but the Parliamentarian forces won the battle.

Thomas Prince was on the side of the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War, and he was badly wounded at the Battle of Newbury. In the late 1640s, Prince, along with John Lilburne and Richard Overton, became a leader of a political movement that came to be known the Levellers.

If you have read “A Thicker Jesus: Incarnational Discipleship in a Secular Age,” Glen Harold Stassen’s 2012 book, you know something about these matters, for he narrates how Overton and the other Levellers were “pioneers of democracy.”

Stassen also explains that the Levellers group was one of the “free-church sects,” along with the Anabaptists, Baptists and Quakers, which had considerable influence on the development of democracy in England and then in New England and the other Colonies.

While there is some confusion about the origin of their name, it is clear that the Levellers believed all people should be equal before the law; that is, the law should equally protect the poor and the wealthy. They were also advocates of the complete freedom of religion.

Overton (1599-1664) was a Baptist during the “contentious days” of the English Civil War. According to Stassen, “He strongly advocated the human right of religious liberty on the biblical basis of following Jesus” (67-68). In 1647 Overton published the first comprehensive doctrine of human rights.

Overton first made a confession of faith and was baptized at the Waterlander Mennonite Church in Holland in 1615. (The Waterlanders had broken off from the main Mennonite branch in 1555, and by 1615 they were comprised of about 1,000 baptized believers in Amsterdam.)

But back in England he became a Baptist, and also became friends with Roger Williams, it seems. Williams left England for Boston in 1630 and founded the first Baptist church in North America later that decade. In the 1640s he was writing the same sort of thing about religious liberty in New England that Overton and the other Levelers were writing in England during that same decade.

Stassen links the central emphases of Overton to the American Pledge of Allegiance, saying that the words about “liberty and justice for all” were central in Overton’s writings. (It is estimated that Overton wrote about fifty pamphlets arguing for political and religious liberty.)

Thinking about the Levellers and their emphasis on equality and justice reminded me of this cartoon, which you may have seen on Facebook where I found it.

Or maybe there is not much difference between equality and justice, if you are talking about eye level rather than where one’s feet are.

In Memory of Addie, Cynthia, Carole, and Denise

You may not have recognized their names, but you doubtlessly remember something about the four girls who were tragically killed 50 years ago today in an act of racial violence.

It was 10:22 on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, when a bomb exploded at the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., taking the lives of Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair, and injuring 22 others.

As I wrote on his birthday anniversary eight months ago today, not long after Martin Luther King’s powerful “I Have a Dream” oration (on August 28), there was an escalation of violent racism in the nation, and King himself talked about his dream turning into a nightmare.

On that fateful 9/15 Sunday morning, four “beautiful, unoffending, innocent Negro girls were murdered” (King’s words) in an act of racially motivated terrorism as they were going to their church basement assembly room to hear a sermon entitled “The Love that Forgives.”

At the funeral service for three of the young women on Sept. 18, King referred to them as “the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity.” And so they were.

As you see in the picture, at the top of Addie Collins’s gravestone are the words, “Civil Rights Martyr,” and the inscription at the bottom says, “She died so freedom might live.”

And the tragic deaths of Addie and her friends did help spur Congress to pass the Civil Rights act less than nine months later and then the Voting Rights Act in 1965. (The latter was inexplicably gutted by the Supreme Court earlier this year.)

The martyrdom of Addie, Carole, Denise, and Cynthia (and others) also paved the way for great achievements of other Black girls. In her mother’s womb at the time of the tragedy, a little African-American baby was born just over four months later and named Michelle Robinson. She is now the First Lady of the United States of America.

Extensive commemorative activities have been taking place in Birmingham over the past few days, and this morning the 16^th Street Baptist Church is observing the “50^th Year Commemoration of the Church Bombing” with Sunday School at 9:30 and the worship service at 10:45.

The Sunday School lesson is “A Love that Forgives,” and the guest preacher at the worship service is Dr. Julius Scruggs, president of the National Baptist Convention.

This past Tuesday, the Congressional Gold Medals were bestowed posthumously upon those four girls. If they had not been killed, one would now be 61 and the other three 64 years old.

The Congressional Gold Medal has been used to honor world leaders, military heroes, scientists, actors, artists, and others. It was first awarded to George Washington in 1776 and was most recently awarded in 2011 to those who died in the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The “4 little girls” martyred on 9/15/63 are worthy recipients of Congressional Gold Medal, which with the Presidential Medal of Freedom are the highest civilian awards in the United States.

Note: On Friday, Religion and Ethics Newsweekly had a very find segment about the 50^th anniversary of the 9/15/63 bombing [click here]. Some images from that 1963 explosion are found on here on YouTube. A song called “4 Little Girls” and some other pictures can be accessed here. And “4 Little Girls” is also the title of a 1997 documentary film directed by Spike Lee; I finished watching it yesterday, and it is well worth seeing.

Note added on Feb. 6, 2019: A few days ago I finished reading While the World Watched (2011) by Carolyn Maull McKinstry, who was a close personal friend of Addie, Cynthia, Carole and Denise--and who had talked with them just minutes before the fatal bomb explosion. I highly recommend this book for gaining a better understanding of that bombing and about the segregation suffered by African-Americans in Birmingham during the 1960s.

When Will It End?

Tomorrow is September 11, and for twelve years now just hearing “9/11” has evoked horrifying memories of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. Those dastardly attacks triggered the War on Terror by the U.S., a “war” that continues to this day.

President Bush first used the words “war on terror” on Sept. 20, 2001, and that war officially began 17 days later, on Oct. 7, with the invasion of Afghanistan. Now called “Operation Enduring Freedom,” the war in Afghanistan continues and is now the longest war in U.S. history.

In his State of the Union address in February of this year, President Obama declared that “by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over.” While that plan seems to have strong support in the citizenry and pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan will likely take place as scheduled, that won’t mean an end to the War on Terror.

The burning question is: when will it end?

After seeing the movie “Dirty Wars” this summer, I had the sick feeling that there would most likely not be an end to the War on Terror during my lifetime (which I am expecting to be at least another 15 years).

Back in May, the President declared that the War on Terror “must end.” But several Republican Senators, as well as a majority of U.S. citizens, disagreed with him.

Sen. John McCain, for example, blasted the President’s declaration that the war on terror must end as premature and foolhardy, saying that a desire to bring the war “to a compete closure contradicts the reality of the facts on the ground” and declaring that “al Qaeda will be with us for a long time.”

June has often said to me that the military actions of the U.S. in Afghanistan in 2001, in Iraq in 2003, and then in many small-scale actions, such as drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen, have been like hitting hornets’ nests. Retaliatory strikes have stirred up more and more hatred toward the U.S. (This is depicted well in this recent cartoon in The Economist.)

 And now there is Syria. Even though point it does not seem to be a part of the war on terror as such, President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are urging military action against Syria mainly because of its alleged use of chemical weapons.

A recent Pew Research Center poll, though, indicated that only 29% of the American adults surveyed favor a U.S. airstrike on Syria and 48% oppose such a strike. (The others were undecided.)

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of those polled think that U.S. airstrikes would likely create a backlash (stir up more hornets) against the United States and its allies in the region.

Nevertheless, last week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, by a 10-7 vote, passed a resolution approving a military strike against Syria. It also set a 60-day deadline for the use of force in Syria, with an option for an additional 30 days.

This week the President is making strong appeals to Congress and to the American people, encouraging support for military force against the Assad regime in Syria.

But even if approved by Congress (which may not happen), or even if a strike is launched without congressional approval (which might happen), would such military action end within 90 days? Perhaps, but quite possibly not.

Let us pray that some good alternative to a missile strike, which now seems somewhat possible, will be implemented.

Remembering Albert Schweitzer

One of the outstanding persons of the twentieth century died 48 years ago yesterday. That was Albert Schweitzer, who passed away at the age of 90.

Schweitzer was born in 1875 in a town that had been part of France until the region was annexed by Germany four years earlier. By 1900 he had become a noted organist, had completed his doctor of philosophy degree, and was a Lutheran minister and seminary professor.

In 1904, though, Schweitzer felt God’s call to become a missionary to Africa. But he decided that in order to serve best in the jungles of Africa he should become a doctor, so he entered medical school. Upon completion of his medical training, but before leaving Europe, he then had to raise money to equip a clinic.

Finally, on Good Friday in 1913, Dr. Albert and his wife Helene, a nurse, set sail for Africa. They immediately began their medical work in Lambaréné, a small outpost in what was then known as French Equatorial Africa and now as the country Gabon. They soon were overwhelmed with patients.

It was not long, though, before World War I began. Since the Schweitzers were German citizens, they were seen as enemies of the French, who ruled the country to which they had gone. So they were placed under house arrest, and then in 1917 were moved to an internment camp in France.

By the time the war ended in 1918, their mission in Lambaréné had been destroyed and they were heavily in debt for medicines and supplies ordered for an African hospital that no longer existed.

During his first years in Africa, Schweitzer began to emphasize “reverence for life,” which became one of his “trademarks.” That emphasis is similar to a central idea in Buddhism, and there is even a Buddhist temple in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, that bears Schweitzer’s name. June and I enjoyed visiting there several years ago.

In 1924 Schweitzer journeyed back to Africa and started from scratch once again. This time his work flourished—and gradually became known around the world. Dr. Albert became so well known and his emphasis on reverence for life so admired that in 1952 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Worldwide attention and acclaim led some to look for flaws in Schweitzer, and, indeed, there did seem to be some. In the 1950s he was accused, perhaps rightfully, of being paternalistic, colonialistic and even racist in his attitude towards Africans.

Still, those who leveled such criticisms had not labored or suffered anything close to the extent that Schweitzer had. And they certainly had not done nearly as much to help so many people in physical need.

Once when asked how he had accomplished so much, the old doctor responded by repeating what he had earlier told some of his students: “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”

Those are certainly words well worth considering as we remember with appreciation the long and productive life of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who died on September 4, 1965.

Note – Recently read/viewed and recommended: “Albert Schweitzer: Serving a Higher Calling,” chapter 15 in Ace Collins, Stories behind Men of Faith (2009) and “Albert Schweitzer: Called to Africa” (2006 film).