History, Politics & John Adams

After the big Downton Abbey finale aired I will admit, I have been forclempt to find anything good on TV. I’ve been following politics on and off…but I yearn for some British or historical piece that will hold my attention. I confessed to my husband that I was addict of soap operas as a teen and between Downton ending and the current political atmosphere we were at a loss to find that “thing” we could watch together. Because my husband is Australian, he doesn’t particularly like American TV especially sitcoms and frankly who could blame the poor bloke….

My 5th grader invited us to a special presentation that his class had been working on for the week about the American Revolution. He was so excited to have a line in the Enchanted Theater’s performance, especially because he got to use the word “damn” and use it without getting in trouble. He also rocked the cardboard musket like nobodies business. His class reenactment of some key events in the American Revolution including the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Boston Massacre. During their theater performance, it got me thinking about how I learned history as a child, which mainly came from having to read boring textbooks and doodle through lecture style classes even at the elementary grade level. I don’t ever remember doing an integrational arts program with theater, music and visual arts. Education has come a long way even if we have a tendency to be it’s worst skeptical critics. The result is that one thing is for certain is that these 5th grade kids probably understand much of history at their age than I ever did. They knew who King George was because my little friend Vivi played the BEST King George.

We were so impressed with how these kids took in and displayed these historical events we decided to rewatch for a second time the HBO miniseries John Adams based on John McCullough’s book. They had shown the 5th graders several clips of the series and ignited once again my son’s enthusiastic desire to learn about history. We decided to venture again to the miniseries because of the volatile political climate we have found ourselves experiencing. Over the last several weeks we’ve observed the events of the American Revolution and it is uncanny what you can learn viewing something for a second time around and I would venture to say which in my humble opinion, that the role of John Adams is the creme de la creme that John Giamatti has ever done. Some observations that I took away with me personally from this series I feel are relevant to today’s political circus, and I would recommend anyone and everyone to partake in the incredible story of John Adams who was a patriot and a founding father to our modern nation.

The vote for Independence was not unanimous.

The vote for Independance weighed heavily on every representative in the Continental Congress so much so, there was one patriot that refused to sign on the dotted line. A vote for independence was also a vote for war against Britain and the King, yet their mere conspiring independance from the crown would be counted as high treason punishable by death. The moderates debated whether war with Britain outweighed the real benefits colonists enjoyed as subjects of the king. John Dickinson, Quaker and representative of Pennsylvania was such patriot that he refused to sign the Declaration of Independance.

Up against a rock and a hard place.

The birth of our country was fraught with war, and rumors of wars. The American Revolution was a real war, people died including children in this war and the war of 1812, also known as the “second” war of Independance. The the French Revolution (a period of history that I love) was co occuring as the American Revolution and should understand that France had a lot to do with our success of throwing off the shackles of Britain. We should note: no nation wins independence on their own. At one point the American government considered tossing out FRENCH “nationals” for fear of their lack of loyalty to the new nation when the French tried to drag us into another war with Britain. Such murky times but we share a lot of history with France and Britain.

The difference of opinion and ideologies.

The political ideologies and philosophy of government of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and other patriots held a wide spectrum of doctrines and some of them were more inspired by the Age of Reason and Enlightenment than actual Judeo/Christian doctrines, yet they were still heavily influenced by Biblical truths and ideas. Deism to which Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin subscribed to is a far cry from Christian principles that we know today, yet if the context of history is not explored we run the risk of ever knowing the founding father’s intentions when they wrote the Constitution. We do err on the wrong side of history not to do our “work” of understanding what historical context actually is and how it affects our worldview. Most of the founding fathers of our nation agreed to disagree and united to succeed in the writing of our Constitution. Quakers, Catholics, Anabaptists, Congregationalists, Reformed Protestants, Deists…they all have intrinsic differences of spiritual doctrines however they managed to unify the nation. We should learn from this and not tar and feather the other side for simply disagreeing nor subscribing to a fringe spiritual doctrine.

They didn’t know for certain what they were doing.

The Congress really sort of “felt” things out as they felt George Washington held too much power and was also influenced by military leaders. They debated the role and powers of the President. We have glamorized and moralized our founding fathers when in reality they were all pretty much vying for power and top dog. The values of the different states…were inherently just that….different. We should understand this more and not allow our state histories to divide our country, we in turn should accept even the demons of our fractured history and not gloss over them for the sake of “progress”. We must come to terms with things like the Trail of Tears (thank you Andrew Jackson) and slavery in our country that was the major means of labor in this new land was also the means to which the British colonized this land. Many abolitionists wanted slaves to be given their freedom, but they also wanted to ship them back to Africa. John Adams did not hold any slaves, but Thomas Jefferson did as did many of our founding fathers.

“Half fed slaves building our Capital, what good can come of this?”- said Abigail Adams.

When was America ever “Great”?

Politics were always dirty and filled with personal attacks. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, though compatriots were also embittered against each other in a nasty run for the Presidency. We also did not have political parties, super PACs and I really wonder what John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would make of today’s political process. When we spend hours discussing a Trump tweet sent out in the middle of the night maybe ponder this.

If Thomas Jefferson had Twitter it might look like this:

“John Adams is a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”@Southernvalues1776

And if Adams likewise would respond:

“Vice President Jefferson is a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” @purebredWhiteYankee

Not exactly following the anti bullying and micro aggression rules now are they?

Money and Trade have always influenced our nation’s politics.

Risky speculation on Wall Street. Not a new thing. John Adams son dabbled in it and lost. Just a thought… you can’t tax people’s bad decisions can you? The price of a free country is also free trade and a capitalist society. The whole idea is with the idea that you get to “capitalize” on the natural resources and products that it’s people produce and our country can and should be allowed to import and export openly. If you don’t produce much…you don’t really have much to trade. Everyone should familiarize themselves with the Stamp Act and the regulations Britain imposed on its colonies and understand a history of how trade, war debt from the French/Indian War and regulation of trade imposed on the colonies the like had a tremendous influential aspect to the political climate leading up to the American Revolution. Trade and economics might not seem like a big issue, but they are foundational to understanding how the world works and our place in western civilization.

Nothing blooms without blood, toil and tears.

John Adams spent a whole hell of a lot of time away from home and his beloved country to which he fought for and advocated for in Europe. He hated the French courts and the same country he fought against he spent much of his time as an Ambassador to Britain.There were consequences relationally and physically with his family which was hinted at the direction of the fact that the Adams left their children quite young to be Ambassadors to Britain. I wonder if he thought it worth the while with what our country has become today.

“Oh posterity, you will never know how much it cost us to preserve your freedom. I hope that you will make a good use of it, for if you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.”- John Adams

Since I live in Massachusetts it’s easy to forget that history is all around me. It’s also easy for us as a nation to not do due diligence in teaching the next generation the core principles, ideas and historical context of history as it’s story is told and retold. Believe it or not, I even have great hope and faith that regardless of who is the next President that the American people have great resolve if they will acknowledge the messy parts of our nation’s beginning and not just try to “rewrite” history in our own words.

 

Church Doors Open (a reflection on the martyrs of Charleston)

Open Door

I can’t get my mind off of Charleston.

It’s not that it’s another tragedy or even act of violence, racism, terrorism or whatever you want to call it. I think we have been so desensitized with what has been on the news of late it’s time to take a step back perhaps and look at the big picture. I know for me it’s hard to sort through the onslaught of the day’s headlines. I have wanted to post something but honestly didn’t know exactly what to say.  It all came to me this morning, however as I sat with my husband at our annual “release the wolves” breakfast (aka the last day of school when our 3 little wolves add daily chaos to our days at home). My attention was drawn to the stark contrast of my husband’s white shirt, white hair and white skin in stark contrast to the juiciest black baby boy sitting behind him with a wide eyed cheeky face that was trying to get his attention. I had to break our conversation and said…”look at him and give him some attention!” just simply because he’s just THAT cute. Once he had it man, he wasn’t going to give it up and we spent about 5 minutes just telling him how cute he was. My mind and heart drawn to the reality of Charleston and that there are still so many haters in our world.

I grew up in a predominately all white town in Pennsylvania. We had no diversity outside of Chi Chi’s mexican restaurant and the local Chinese restaurant perhaps the token Indian whose father was a doctor or professor at one of the university’s downtown. In fact if you get lost near the West Virginia/Maryland line you start seeing confederate flags and the most active KKK chapters are actually above the Mason Dixon line. When I went off to college in New York City, my culture shock started by living in the melting pot of America. My roommate was a short tough Philly girl who was african american (all I have in street knowledge comes from Wanda), across the hall a jewish girl from Jersey and my first guy friend was a gay Sri Lankan who I brought home for Thanksgiving my first semester. I’ve been known to bring interesting guests to Thanksgiving dinner….but I digress. While living in NYC, I soaked my cross cultural experiences like I was gazing through the stained glass in a cathedral so it wasn’t unintentional that most of my life in NYC was spent living in Harlem. My brother now lives there so I’m glad something rubbed off as his older sister.

It is because of my utter enjoyment of living in a melting pot, open to the culture of others that I still value a diverse population over living in towns, states etc with the lowest taxes, the best weather, and perhaps the most efficiently governed town. I would be lying to you if I didn’t say I knew people who were racist growing up. They might not be outspoken about it, but the subtle conversations were centered around an “us and them” attitude. I mean the KKK is forming neighborhood watches…who are they keeping out? If I adopted a child from Africa would I be on their short list? Yet, this is our reality in much of our country and we can’t stick our heads in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist. These people were having a Bible study and in walks a person with an agenda. Honestly as many of you know, I love studying the Bible and love to spend time in prayer. These people were doing the thing I love doing most when their life came to an ubrupt end. This is not the first church that a racist or person with a gun has entered and killed people. As much as we want to make it about color or gun laws and that might be somewhat the issue it is incomplete to stop at there. I am not going to start packin’ heat at my Bible studies or when I teach Sunday school nor am I going to stay home on a Sunday. These blessed martyrs were active people of faith and focused on the restoration and salvation of all people through one “cause” which is Christ crucified. All other rhetoric is distracting from that singular fact and that’s why they are called martyrs. Overcomers in the truest sense of the word. As we delve into just what kind of people they were we see and honor their unity in prayer and the study of scripture. They were not just Sunday attendees of church.

The black community have been an inspiration for me on in their passionate expression of their love and devotion for Jesus. It’s true that our country has gaping wounds but so does the greater culture of our country, because Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week. I think this incident serves to remind us of that fact. Having faith in Christ certainly isn’t safe, but living out His Word is downright dangerous because God confronts all of our preferences and pretenses in the process. The doors of our churches are alway open here in America and the saints will speak out to keep them that way. His door is always open, even for the haters and persecutors of His own. There’s no club fees or bouncers at the doors in the church. Safety in the Church is actually our own downfall. We are too safe if we aren’t willing to risk our lives even a little bit going to a Bible study. After 9/11 I remember the church doors swung wide open for people to come, pray, grieve and be prayed for. I pray for a return back to the basics of allowing the ministry of reconciliation to happen within the Church not just between race but between mortal enemies. There is no reconciliation without Christ. These martyrs actually believed what the Bible says to be true and that’s why they were prayer warriors on their knees in righteous indignation.

When I lived in Harlem, Sundays were my favorite. You could walk down any street and there would be hot passionate worship and praise of Jesus going on. Fans waving in the summer as the Spirit moved between the pews of crowded gatherings. Sometimes my husband who was not a believer at that time would stop in and as a very white Australian man living in Harlem he would get lots of attention and an occasional prophecy spoken over him. I kept warning him if he kept going to those kind of churches he would get born again and slain in the Spirit. The AME Churches, the Abyssinian Church the Pentecostals in Harlem well…if you have never entered the doors of those kind of churches maybe the singular thing you could do to understand who these 9 martyrs were is to go and visit for yourself. Persecution grew the black church because Jesus was their one and ONLY hope against slavery. This country exploited other human beings in the building of this nation. While we can march in the streets at the injustice of racism, poverty and cultural injustices in our country the truth is many of the abolitionists who were white in this country were hot blooded Gospel believers who fought on their knees foremostly with nonviolence and prayer.

I don’t want to give the criminal too much attention in this piece but may we be reminded that Saul of tarsus once stared down believers with such hatred as this person did. Hate is indiscriminate. You can be a black hater, a white hater, a man hater, a woman hater, a gay hater, and even a child hater. There is no greater hate than Satan’s hate for life. He’s not choosey. Only God could think of a plan to turn death into Life. We often don’t get it while in grief but these faithful witness of Christ have gained the crown of glory, which is the crown of Life. This is why I call them brothers and sisters in Christ and to honor them by lifting up Christ in the midst rather than subversive political rants. Dr. King preached nonviolence but it was nonviolence because of his deep sense of Christ’s own nonviolence against those who hated him. The mercy haters, the weak haters, the grace haters, the God haters. This world has a lot to learn that we persecute each other because we hate God and his creation. He created all men equal. That was God’s idea not good ol’ Abe’s nor Thomas Jefferson’s (he liked to cut out pieces of the Bible by the way) or even the abolitionist. The truth is Christ died a violent death at the hands of those who He created, mankind. This is the paradox of the Christian story.

I keep going over in my mind if it had been me conducting a Bible study, having a stranger walk in to announce my last breath would be that moment. What would be my last words? What would I want to be remembered for?When we think we want to perhaps amend or edit an idea that God had – that God created us in His image, all from ONE man not “men from different skin colors” or that we simply evolved from an androgynous primordial goo to something “better” or “more advanced”.

The church is not black or white, brown, yellow, but red bought by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps we can ponder that indiscriminate truth that should shine through all the other conversations out there that seek to distract us from being like those that died in Charleston, devoted to the study of scripture, in prayer and keeping the doors of the church ….wide open.