Memorial Day. 30 May 2016.
On the morning of June 9, 1981, engaging in a pious practice
long ago recommended by Ignatius of Loyola and many other spiritual guides, I
opened the Bible at random to find a passage that could focus my morning
prayer. The passage that lay before me
was the story of Jacob in flight from his brother, resting his head on a stone,
dreaming of the ladder that stretched from earth to heaven. And I read further into the story, being made
brand-new to my mind, following the adventures of one of the most disreputable
heroes in the Old Testament -- from his creative responses to matrimonial
betrayal, to his even more creative measures to ensure that, even while working
in an indentured servant’s capacity, he would become economically independent
of his uncle, Laban. The part of the story that especially captured me was the
story of Jacob wrestling with the “stranger” during the dark, solitary hours
while Jacob prepared to attempt reconciliation with Esau, his brother.
That afternoon, on the campus of Marquette University, I was
to profess my final vows in the Society of Jesus, before a congregation of more
than 300 Jesuit priests, brothers, and guests – including my mother and my
sister Arlayne. Just before we processed into the church, the coordinator of
the afternoon liturgy (the “master of ceremonies”) said to me, “The other two
men pronouncing their vows don’t want to say anything during the Mass. I
suppose you don’t want to speak, either.” “Oh,” I said, “I think that this
occasion is far too important to pass without a comment. Yes, I will say
something.”
The music started. And that was the last of it, until after
the rather complicated ceremony of professing vows (some in public, before the
altar; others in a semi-private setting in the sacristy). After we had settled
into our chairs after Communion, the provincial superior of the Wisconsin
Province leaned over to me and said, “Don’t look now, but you are being
introduced.” So I went to the pulpit and looked at sixteen years of my own
wrestling match with dozens and dozens of men, leading to periods of deep
depression; extreme traumatic stress; thoughts of walking away from all aspects
of religious ministry and communal responsibilities. I looked at my history.
And theirs.
And I said, aloud, how grateful I was to have read the story
of Jacob in Genesis (chapters 28 – 32). I made an interpretive choice that has
served, for more than 35 years, as the foundational interpretive tool that I
have used to build my theories of cross-cultural criticism. I saw Jacob as
representative of the men of the Society of Jesus with whom I struggled –
struggled to be seen, to be heard, to be accepted, to be confirmed in my
several identities. And that necessarily led me to identify myself, in that
wrestling match, with the “stranger,” the angel-messenger of God. “We have wrestled with each other, these
last 16 years,” I said, “and we have not ‘prevailed against’ each other. But we
have sought to learn, and have sometimes wounded each other; and I now see
myself as one who can give you your
true name.”
Returning to New Haven, I kept both my comments and the
Jacob story clearly in my mind. The next summer, I went to Toronto in order to
write my Afro-American Studies M. A. thesis.
Fr Robert Doran handed me a copy of Joseph
and His Brothers, by Thomas Mann. I
consumed all four sections of this monumental work, which begins far before the
birth of Jacob and creates a world that is compelling and breath-taking. Jacob
wrestling with the angel appeared in my thesis. But the most radical epiphany I
experienced while digesting this narrative was to go back to the place Jacob named,
“Bethel,” after he has his dream about the angel-messengers traveling from
heaven to earth, and back.
The song that made everything new and old and simultaneous
was “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” If
I could see African Americans as the ones who identify themselves as the
angel-messengers, then I would have to develop a strong understanding of mysticism as a foundation post of Black
Theology. And if mysticism can be seen as an essential strategy in the
performance of theology in the Africana world, then I had found a cultural
justification of seeing Black believers describing themselves as the voices of
authority in the world of religion and culture. It turned the world of received
theology upside-down.
Which eventually would lead me to my simple declaration that
we must begin all our intellectual work with the simple question, “Who defines
the terms by which we live?” Sometimes I
joke that if a person stood in a large airport or train station and shouted
that question, who knows how many people would respond with “Yeah! I took that
class too!” But now there is something
more to consider, in order to re-shape what I have known all along.
The question must be doubled. “Who defines the terms by
which we live? Who defines the terms by
which we die?”
The motive for this remembrance is a day to “remember our
fallen soldiers.” The difficulty of bringing the names of certain of my heroes
is this: the three who are especially remembered here would strongly resist any
identification with any aspect of military involvement; resist any deed that
would lead to the death of any one of God’s children. The only comfort for
bringing forth the names of these recently deceased priests is that the song I
am singing refers to “soldiers of the cross.”
And one of the basic understandings of “soldier” is “one who serves
under any cause.”
So let us now praise these glorious angels of the Lord, three
men who served to wrestle with every institution of privilege and oppression
and violence until their very lives, their words, their life-witness would at
the very least wound the complacent who are cloaked in denial and fear.
Once again, we let James Baldwin teach us, as he taught
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. And Bayard Rustin and, eventually all who
came under his gaze.
Perhaps the whole root of our
trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our
lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices,
steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of
death, which is the only fact we have.
It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death – ought to
decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum
of life. One is responsible to life: It
is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which
we shall return. One must negotiate this
passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us. [from “Down at the Cross”, in The Fire Next Time]
“For the sake of those who are coming after us.” This is the wisdom to apply to the life and
testimony of Rev. Daniel Berrigan, SJ
(1921 – 2016). One “ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s
death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.” This is the life witness of Rev.
Anthony Clark, SVD (1944 – 2016). And the life of the great and
humble and fiercely clear servant-priest, Rev.
Al McKnight, C. S. Sp. (1927 – 2016),
carries this truth, as he continues to bring us the blessing word of God, from
beyond the grave: “One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that
terrifying darkness. . ..”
Praise them.
Listen for them.
They will continue to visit us, healing our dreams,
nourishing our faith, and calling us to be faithful to the vision of what must
be, as we make our way at the cross(roads) of our lives.
