Along one branch of my family tree I am a 3rd generation US-born citizen. My great grandparents on my Mom’s side emigrated from Prussia to Wisconsin. Green Lake, Fond du Lac, Milwaukee, and Ripon were among the Wisconsin places I remember hearing about growing up. I am writing this article at the end of my spiritual renewal leave, an annual leave available to pastors.
This year we were in Wisconsin Dells at a resort we have visited in the past. Beverly and I, and our youngest daughter and her husband had the weekend together and I stayed the rest of the week. On Saturday, we toured Taliesin (“shining brow” in Welsh), the home and estate of Frank Lloyd Wright near Spring Green, Wisconsin. I bought the book, Frank Lloyd Wright and His Manner of Thought by Jerome Klinkowitz, and Wright became an unexpected companion with me on this year’s leave.
One of the most powerful stories is about his designing The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and how it survived two earthquakes. Louis Sullivan, one of Wright’s earliest employers in Chicago, commented on his work, “This man…began his solution with the fixed fact of earthquakes as a basis and made an emotional study of their nature and movements.” Sullivan continued “The second move was…to devise a system of construction such as should absorb and dispose of the powerful shocks, waves and violent tremors, and yet maintain its integrity as a fabricated structure.”
Klinkowitz summarizes, “The Imperial survives not because it is stronger than an earthquake but because the earthquake’s nature is built into its design.”
I am returning in time for Election Day, Tuesday, November 5. Earthquakes, shocks, waves, and violent tremors are apt descriptions of the political campaigning we have endured these last several months. The vile, racist, and menacing rhetoric about immigrants that has incited threats and violence against immigrant communities is one example of the tremors that are designed to divide us and reverberate throughout our shared political life. These threats and effects seem to be built into the design of our political system and clearly harm the integrity of our community relationships.
But you know what else is built into our design? Being created in the image of God. We have clear and intimate access to God’s love and justice in Jesus Christ.
You know what else we can claim? The divine energy affirmed in our baptism vows to “renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world” and “resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.”
We are this very human-divine creation full of grace and sin; blessed and burdened with loving God, our neighbors, and ourselves. We are preparing to celebrate Christ’s birth again this year. An affirmation of faith that God joins this human-divine life with us in person to show us the ways that make for peace. And his mother Mary reminds us of the tremors that come to those who seek to consolidate power and control the lives of citizens and neighbors:
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty (Luke 1:52-53).
I don’t know what the coming months will hold for us as a nation, community, or Church. But I know that renewing the built-in features of our humanity that God provides will give us the strength we need to keep building a loving community for people to experience God’s redeeming love.