Pentecost--Then and Now

When I read Pentecost story of the birth of the church there were no stained glass disciples. There were no great throngs singing something like the Hallelujah Chorus. No. Maybe that Pentecost birth was much like ours. Like mine maybe. Coming into the world in a four-room house to parents who barely finished the eighth grade and lived from small paycheck to paycheck.  Folks like us—weak-kneed disciples who on and off again tended that little fire that began that first day with the rushing wind.

Nobody knew where it would go or what would mean. And nobody would know back then that even though there would be whoredoms and Laodiceas and sermons and terrible actions that would smudge his name. Through the years pilgrims of all ages keep shuffling in to confess and cry and have lumps in their throats and whisper: "Help me! Help me!" They and we leave over and over with a hope strong and sometimes weak—but still hanging on that kindly light despite the ever flickering gloom. Nothing that the world could throw at them or us would stick.

And from that day only God knew that stubborn spirit would endure and sometimes be as wonderful as that fiery day when it all began. Crosses everywhere. Prayers even in funerals and weddings and dull-grey days. And rosaries and  shame and fury. And it came to all. All flesh the book called it. And languages from all over the world. And the wind would blow and still blows and nothing could stop it' power.

Looking back we marvel at the courage and love and commitment that kept them going. So in these strange days Pentecost is still celebrated. Because even with all the unfairness and the hatred  and injustice that Promised Spirit still comes. And it isn’t because of anything we do—but like rain on a parched-dry field it comes and all is touched. No wonder Jesus said: “I will not be here but I will send my Spirit." And we look back on that first day and look now on our difficult days and we will be glad because it is far from over. For that Spirit is hard to understand but it still comes. Even here…especially here.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them up to the Lord.

--Roger Lovette/ rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Rod Davis - A Memory and a Eulogy

 

(I was asked to give the Eulogy at the Memorial Service for Rod Davis in Birmingham, May 14 but I could not go. There was no other place I would ever be. So I wrote out this Eulogy and it was to be read at the Service today at the Baptist Church of the Covenant, Birmingham.)

Rod Davis - A Memory

May 14, 2023

Marhy Oliver writes: 

“Someone I loved once gave me 

a box full of darkness

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.”

And here we are family, friends, colleagues, and more—much more.

And today crowded into this room are so, so many holders of our boxes full of darkness. 

Rod was 86 when he died. And his last four years were hard, hard indeed. This brilliant friend left us much too soon. And today we come to remember not that sad leave taking—but the gift, the amazing gift that we all find in our own box full of darkness.

Not darkness, really. Even in our own hard grief. But more. Light. Incredible light that streamed through the days of Rod Davis. I met him first at Howard College in 1954. He was one year behind me. I have tried to remember how it all started. I do remember he invited me up to his house in Horton, Alabama. I remember sitting in his bedroom and he asked , “Do you know the poet, T.S. Eliot?” I didn’t. He said, “Let me read you something that comes his ‘Choruses from the Rock.’” These words were written in 1930.

“Remember the faith that took men from home

At the call of a wandering preacher. 

Our ages an age of moderate virtue

And of moderate vice

When men will not lay down the Cross

 because they will never assume it.

Yet nothing is impossible, nothing

To men of faith and conviction.

Let us therefore make perfect our will.

O God, help us.”

And so I was hooked. He opened so many doors. Which led to more doors, and more doors. Martin Luther King’s, Stride Toward Freedom. Bonhoeffer’s, The Cost of Discipleship, Frederick Buechner—whom I had never heard of. Thomas Wolfe’s, You Can’t Go Home Again. And so many more. Thank you Rod for opening that magical door that has never closed.

And what he did for me he has done for so many. His brothers, Phil and Gayron and his nieces and nephews. Eric, dear Eric and so very many others in this crowded room and beyond. We have all sloshed through the darkness of many things but Rod, Dr. Davis, Dean Davis helped us so many of us see the light which no darkness can ever put out. 

I went to Seminary in Louisville but he went North. Yale and Ridgefield and Boston and New York and then back, years later to Birmingham. Dr. Hull called one day and asked: “What would you think of Roderick Davis as Dean here at Samford?" And I said, “Oh, that would be great if you could get him.” And so he came bringing with him a breath of fresh air and the students and faculty loved him. Yes, in time, he did become a legend. And on his retirement in 2001 his colleagues honored him with the J. Roderick Davis Lecture series which has brought scholars and public intellectuals from all over to the campus.

When I was considering coming to this church as Pastor, he called  and said, “If you come I will join your church.” And he did and like so many other things, Rod made a difference here. And he was a strong supporter of every Pastor. 

I could talk all day about this friend mine. And if you had the chance so, so many of you could stand and tell your own Rod Davis story for we all have them.

I want to tell you story which may seem like a diversion but bear with me.  One of my mentors was Carlyle Marney, a great Baptist preacher. He served for years at the First Baptist of Austin Texas. And once a week he would meet with a group of minister-colleagues for breakfast. And one day he left that church to serve as Minister of the Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte. And one morning in Austin at breakfast one of the waitresses asked that group. “I have not seen Dr. Marney down here for a long time. Is he still down at the church?” Those gathered around the table looked at each other and one preacher spoke up and said, “Oh, yes Dr. Marney is still down at the church.”

And as I think of Rod I would say he’s still here. In the hearts of his family. In the hearts of all those from place to place where he worked and taught. And at this University and others. And he is still at this church. And person after person here could say: Yes, he is still here.”

Let us, we grievers, lift up not only our prayers of thanksgiving for Rod. But let us also lift up his family and what a gift he must have been to you and Lynn and to us all. In the first sermon Jesus ever gave he said, “I have come to heal the brokenhearted.” And he also said, “Blessed are those that mourn for they shall be comforted.”This box of darkness is only part of this story. But we remember Rod Davis and light…incredible light.

I want to close with a Benediction that comes from Dostoyevsky’s, The Brothers Karamazof:

 “What keeps me going is that I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that in the world’s finale something  so great will come to pass that it is going to suffice for all our hearts, for the comforting of all our sorrows, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity. And I want to be there when suddenly everyone understands what it is all been for.”

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Mother's Day--My Favorite Memory

(This picture takes me back to my favorite Mama story. This piece has been published in several                newspapers and has appeared on my blog. Every time I see this photograph I remember so many things 

    about my Mother. As you read I hope your own memories of your Mother come back again.)

One of he pictures in my study is a photograph of two red Gerbera daisies. One is in full bloom and the other is just beginning to open. The photograph looks like it must have been a sunshiny day. The flower’s foliage is lush and green. Occasionally someone will pick up the picture and ask, “Why do you have a picture of these two flowers on your desk?” And I answer with a story.

The memory goes back more than twenty five years. Coming home from a two-week trip I began to catch up on the news with my wife. She had traveled south while I studied up north. On her way home she had stopped by my Mother’s house in Georgia and learned she was in the hospital. In her eighties, Mother’s trips to the hospital were coming closer together.

“Oh, by the way,” my wife said, “your Mother sent you some flowers. Gerber daisies, she called them. Her favorite.  Just before she got sick she said that she found two plants at a good price. She instructed me to go by her house when I left the hospital, get the daisies, be very careful with them and bring them home to you.” We were moving soon and she told my wife, “Don’t plant them now. Take the daisies with you to Memphis and plant them in your new yard.”

When I talked to my mother on the telephone she wanted to know about the daisies. “Give them plenty of water. Keep them out of full sun until you plant them and take them with you to Memphis. Now don’t put them in that moving van—you put them in your car.” That was our last conversation. She died less than a week later.

Weeks later we moved to Tennessee. One of the last things I did as we closed up our house was to put the daisies in my car. On a Sunday morning I planted the green daisy plants in the Tennessee soil in our new side yard. It was a painful planting. Grief came surging back. As I mulched the flowers I remember praying, “Dear God, let them live. Let them live.”  It was late August.

My birthday fell on a Saturday in October that year. As I went to get the newspaper I was dumb founded by what I saw. One of the daisies had the prettiest red bloom and another bud was barely opening. I don’t know much about this flower except October is very late for a Gerbera daisy to bloom. I charged into the house and told my wife, “You won’t believe what’s outside. One of my mother’s daisies is blooming on my birthday!”

It was her final gift of so many others she had given me through the years. Even after her death, the long arm of her love touches me still. That photograph reminds me of that birthday morning.

Frost came early that year. The flowers wilted. I hoped the daisies would live through the winter—but Gerbera daisies don’t usually survive the winter cold. The next spring the flowers never came up. But this I know: that daisy bloomed on my birthday. The flowers did their work in a hard time. And even after all these years, on this Mother’s Day I look at that picture and smile. Grace, stubborn grace, comes in the strangest of ways. I told my friend this was why I keep this picture of that red daisy on my desk.

                   (My son drew this picture of his grandmother years ago. As I look at it--I remember Mama.)

--Roger Lovette / rogrlovette.blogspot.com

Remembering Rod--He Was a Friend of Mine

                                                         Rod Davis and my wife, Gayle in Five Points

Bob Dylan sings plaintively: “

He was a friend of mine 

He was a friend of mine

Every time I think about him now

Lord I just can’t keep from crying

Cause he was a friend of mine.”

Rod Davis, who left us much too soon was a friend of a whole lot of us. And though there is enormous sadness in many of our hearts, even in our sorrow, 

there wells up a gratitude because he touched us, he made us feel better about ourselves and loved so, so much.

My friendship with Rod dates all the way back to 1955. We were in college at what was Howard College in Birmingham. I remember sitting in his bedroom in Horton, Alabama while he told me about T.S. Eliot whom I did not know He read passages from “Choruses from the Rock.” 

The desert is not remote in southern tropics,

The desert is not only around the corner,

The desert is in a tube-train next to you,

The desert is in the heart of your brother.”

So he opened a door to a world of books that I did not know. But there was so much more. Even from those early green days I found him kind, quiet, never making a splash—but there, making a difference in all sorts of ways. 

He was quite a spiffy dresser back there. And he had this grey wool suit with time aqua stripes running through it. And with it he wore this aqua and grey tie. And I kept talking about that tie and he kept saying, “There is nothing wrong with this tie.” But I kept talking about that tie. Years later when I was about to get married, he sent me this same tie and said he thought it would dignity to the occasion. 

Years later when he got married I sent the same tie back to him with some kind of a crazy message. I know you still would like to wear this tie at your wedding. No response.

But in the beginning of my first church—way down on Highway Alternate 54 in Kentucky—this are tie came in the mail. Saying he thought it might just add some class as I began my work. And he would send me books back then like Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship with the inscription:”To Roger who knows the truth of this title.” He sent me a book by an author I did not know, The Magnificent Defeat by Frederick Buechner. Rod, at Yale Divinity School opened the door back then to this friend preaching in Philpot,  Kentucky. I think I have read about everything Mr. Buechner wrote, shaping my life in many ways. This came from Rod Davis.

In the sixties, he and his wife spent a night with us in Virginia on their way to teach at a black college, Miles College in Birmingham. Later he went on to teach at John Jay College in New York and in his generosity invited me and some friends to stay in his apartment. Later he invited our family to spend a week there while he was gone. I am not sure he taught at John Jay College. He was a member of the Riverside Church and served on the Search Committee after Bill Coffin resigned from the church. 

Much, much later Dr. Bill Hull, the Chancellor at Howard-Samford, my alma mater  called me and said, “We’re considering Rod Davis for Dean of the College here—what do you think.” I told him if we could get Rod to come he would do wonderful things for the students and the college. So he came back home to Birmingham and students said that he was a legend in his own time. He brought such a rich legacy to the school, during his tenure.  

I was considering  taking a church in Birmingham and he told me, “If you come I will join your church.” And he did. And he helped us immensely.

While he was still at Samford he established the Davis Lectures And through the years he brought great people to the campus. Taylor Branch, Eugene Robinson, Walter Isaacson, Marilynne Robinson and so many others.

He retired from Samford and I was asked to speak at his retirement dinner. And I told the story about a knitted aqua and gray tie that we kept exchanging. 

After we left the church Rod stayed in Birmingham surrounded by many friends and colleagues. He was great asset to the larger Birmingham community. For years he has raised his voice for social justice, and so many issues that touched Birmingham and Alabama and beyond.

About three years ago he started having some serious problems and slowly drifted away. Until a year or so we still talked on the telephone. 

His Memorial Service will be held at the church he loved, The Baptist Church of the Covenant, Birmingham on Saturday, May 13th.

When you lose someone who has been a strong friend the grief is palpable and hard. Yet I remember so very much that friendship meant to me. I hope these words have helped to try to capture the life of a very great man. Many, many others could tell their own Rod stories.

                               Rod Davis, Roger Lovette, Lizette Van Gelder (our teacher), Edward Gibbons

Benediction

“Into paradise may the angels lead dear Rod; at his

coming may the martyrs take him up into eternal rest, 

and may the chorus of angels lead him to that 

holy city, and the place of perpetual light.”

—The Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Easter--Something Happened Here

I've had this picture in my office for years and years. I look at it when I need hope. Maybe it will help you too.

A little boy stood with his parents at the Grand Canyon. He looked out at the vistas, the colors, the vastness and whispered, “Something happened here.” And when it comes to Easter I feel the same way. 

Years ago my friend, Temp Sparkman lost his little girl to leukemia. I first read his words in the Crescent Hill Baptist Church newsletter where he was on the staff. I have printed his poem as a handout for many grief groups. This is my gift to us all this Easter:

Was the Grass Ever Green

“Was the grass ever green

Were the sounds of birds really clearly heard

And did we picnic in the park only six months ago

Here in midwinter they seem so far away

The naked trees, the laden skies seem always to have been

And seem out ahead for all time

Were things really ever green

And will spring come back again?

Yes, the spring will return

The gray, dull days of cold will pass

The routine now imprisoning us will be broken up

A new excitement will be awakened by new possibilities

The despair which now engulfs us will subside

A word of hope will come to us

Our presumption that all is lost 

   will be replaced by a new expectancy

Future will become a possibility again

The crush of demands will not dominate us forever

Out of liberation we will learn to choose 

And in our choices to be secure.

The sadness now weighing upon us will be lifted

Joy will speak her acknowledgment of grief

   and will sound her call to us

The cause of sadness will not have vanished

But joy will come in spite of it

We will laugh again

We will sing and dance

We will celebrate the life now given to us.

The conflicts now engaging our energy

   will be worked though

No wind will sweep them from us

And we will survive

Redemption will come of our transactions

Relationships will be rescued and restored 

And where breaks are too deep to be one, 

Healing will come in time, though apart

The tensions tearing at our being will be resolved

We will not be destroyed.

Were things really ever green

And will the spring come back again

Yes, yes as sure as e’re it were here

Yes, yes as sure as God is 

The spring will return 

And it will be green again.”

A Holy Saturday World

 

If we live long enough we will find ourselves here. The morning after death. Quiet. Somber. Everything moves in slow motion. Some of the saddest words were those that said: “We had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel.” 

The rainy season was winding down. The streams were swollen and everything seemed damp. Better days were surely ahead—or at least we thought. But on dark Saturday we have little hope. We have known it—or will. Jesus had said “It is finished” just before he breathed his last. But this Saturday what is finished? The crucifixions? The grief? The utter unfairness of it all. Then and now. We had hoped.

So with enormous sadness they took his broken body down. They pulled out the nails, wiped the blood away, put a linen cloth over his naked body. They hd no place to bury him until Joseph of Arimathea came and offered his tomb. Close to the Garden where he had prayed where the soldiers dragged him away. And they rolled a huge stone to seal his tomb.

All this took place on that Holy Saturday . Everything ran together. Mary holding her son close. Rain—the awful rain. And Judas dead. And the other disciples whispering hoarsely: “We had hoped.” 

It’s still that way. Take any country or village or town then and now. It seems like the end of all the goodness and grace and mercy. Just death. And like those then we know it too. The TV blares, the newspapers cannot write enough of all the out there, social media gone crazy. We had hoped.

But this is where we are—even though this is not the end. The long night will finally be over and the morning light will come. And the birds will sing and the trees will once again be green and somehow, like Noah we will find a dove that will come with an olive branch in her beak and the land will be dry again.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com