Stan Musial and the Coming of Spring

[The] player I liked best was Stan Musial, the lithe slugger of the Cardinals, just back from the war, who always seemed to be smiling as he went about his business of smiting terror in Brooklyn. Stan the Man, as we had named him, seemed to represent all the daily goodness of his sport – the workaday regularity, the possibilities, the joy. – George Vecsey in Stan Musial: An American Life (Ballentine Books, 2012)

Sometimes it is the mind that rescues us, the imagination of a grown man with a boy’s heart that soothes a beaten and tired soul. Another arctic freeze brought ice storms and power outages to the Philadelphia suburbs at the start of February, forcing Andrea and I into temporary exile as we fled our dark and heatless home. How I long for relief from winter’s grip. The lingering cold has cast a cruel glare upon the fragile and traumatized life in its path. More snow arrived this week, adding to record accumulations. And yet, there is hope, a glimpse of sunshine in the awakened slumber of the American South.

Pitchers and catchers reported to work on Wednesday, marking the beginnings, in Florida and Arizona at least, of the annual rite of spring. From aging veterans and newly-signed free agents to aspiring rookies and hopeful minor leaguers, players stretch and toss and run wind sprints in an effort to get ready for opening day, when everyone believes in miracles. The 32 baseball teams that form the elite version of the American pastime have gathered to prepare for another season.

I willed the start of spring earlier than usual this year, buying a copy of the annual Sporting News Baseball Preview at a local newsstand in the tunnels of Suburban Station on my daily commute home. Glancing at the pages of this year’s issue warms my spirit if not my body as I peruse the projected rosters for each team, the predicted winners and losers, and last season’s statistics. Looking from my window at the snow-covered ground below, I glance at this year’s preview and am energized by photographs of Yadier Molina squatting behind home plate in the glare of the summer sun; of Matt Carpenter finishing his swing as he accelerates from the batter’s box; of Adam Wainwright in an extended leg kick as he releases his curve ball, the momentum of his body thrusting forward so that he can almost touch where the pitcher’s mound meets the infield grass. 

This is the time of year when I once again dream of a glorious season. When the youthful endeavors of grown men playing a boy’s game allow for memories of childhood; for the smell of grass and dirt and a leather glove, and of spikes and sweat and the cool scent of spring. 

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Although he left us a year ago, I made it a point recently to learn more about one of the most underrated and underappreciated players of all time, the late great Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals. I was only four years old when Musial retired at the end of the 1963 season, not yet awakened to my love of baseball or of the Cardinals. Within a few years, I would be forever hooked as a loyal and dedicated member of Cardinal Nation, a devoted follower of Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Orlando Cepeda, and every player lucky enough to don the red-and-white birds-on-the-bat. I would hear good things about Stan the Man, always good things – that he was a kind and generous human being, one of the greatest hitters of all time, the face of the franchise for nearly 22 seasons. But he was a face of the past, an old timer, an irrelevancy to the life and passions of an eight year-old boy who fell in love with baseball as it was then being played. Like most young boys, I failed to appreciate the people and events of yesteryear, which continue a long line of history and tradition that contributes to the greatness that is baseball.

Last week, I finished Stan Musial: An American Life by George Vecsey, the talented and long-tenured sports columnist for The New York Times. An uplifting biography, as much a tribute to the man as the ballplayer, I feel at long last connected to Musial’s life and career in ways that have eluded me all these years. A lifetime .331 hitter, Musial was a twenty time all-star and three-time MVP. He led the National League in batting seven times and today remains fourth on the all-time hit list (3,630) despite missing the entire 1945 season to serve his country during the Second World War. At the height of his career, he held more than 50 National League and Major League hitting records. He led the league eight times in doubles, five times in triples and, in 12,717 plate appearances, struck out only 696 times. He was a natural, a real life Roy Hobbs without the drama.

“He could have hit .300 with a fountain pen,” said his former teammate and baseball announcer Joe Garagiola. “There is only one way to pitch to Musial,” said Leo Durocher, the fiery manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, “under the plate.” Preacher Roe, a four-time all-star pitcher, developed a different strategy: “I throw him four wide ones, then try to pick him off first base.” Carl Erskine, who won twenty games for the Dodgers in 1953, said he always had “pretty good success” with Musial “by throwing him my best pitch and backing up third.”

Life is easier for some people than for others. One can almost sense God smiling, puffing his heavenly cigar and taking a break from the world’s pain and daily struggles whenever Musial stepped to the plate. For Musial, baseball was a simple game, hitting a simple pleasure. “You wait for a strike,” he said, “then you knock the shit out of it.” The type of pitch didn’t much matter to him. “When a pitcher’s throwing a spitball, don’t worry and don’t complain, just hit the dry side like I do.”

Musial was not a flashy man. A working-class kid from Donora, Pennsylvania, he grew up in steel country during the Great Depression. His father, a Polish immigrant who labored in a mill outside of Pittsburgh, drank heavily and was, by most accounts, a distant father and unsupportive husband. It was a hard life, but Musial never showed it and never talked much about it. He instead developed a positive, optimistic air, a genuine humility that, even after years of stardom and celebrity, never left him.

Unlike the ballplayers of today, Musial almost never turned away an autograph seeker, sometimes standing around long after a game ended to sign every scrap of paper put before him.  He played in America’s heartland, outside of the New York and Boston media spotlights. He didn’t marry Marilyn Monroe or carry an attitude. He married his high school sweetheart and remained in love with her for the rest of his life. He never got tossed from a game and didn’t stand at home plate after hitting a home run to admire his work – he never tried to show up anyone. When Jackie Robinson and other African American players arrived to the major leagues amid racism and prejudice, Musial was recognized for his decent and respectful nature. He treated everyone the same.

Mickey Mantle once said that he had more natural ability than Musial; Mantle was more powerful and could run faster. If not for injuries, hard drinking and hard living, Mantle may have been the best ballplayer to ever live. But late in his life, Mantle let it be known that he maintained a special respect for Musial, for the ballplayer and for the man. “Stan was a better player,” Mantle said, “because he’s a better man than me. Because he got everything out of life and his ability that he could. And he’ll never have to live with all the regret that I have to live with.”

“All Musial represents,” said sportscaster Bob Costas, “is more than two decades of sustained excellence and complete decency as a human being.” He was, wrote the Los Angeles Times following Musial’s death in January 2013, “incredibly good for an incredibly long time and an unbelievably nice guy.”

In hindsight, it is not difficult to see why Musial was such a happy, content human being. He was a humble man who loved life, remained devoted to his family, and appreciated the gifts he had. He understood just how lucky he was to have the opportunity to do what he loved the most, to play the greatest game on earth, a young boy’s game in a man’s world. “I love to play this game of baseball,” Musial told Sport Magazine in 1963. “I love putting on this uniform.” For Musial, it was that simple.

If heaven exists, you can bet Musial is there now, wearing his familiar number six and kneeling in the on-deck circle, waiting patiently for his turn at bat. He may not have a lot of company up there – many of his fellow ballplayers may not have made the Great League in the Sky – but Musial undoubtedly dons his uniform and grips the handle of his favorite wooden bat. He is surely keeping God company, playing his harmonica every now and then, and graciously wishing the best for all of us.

Walking Through Winter

I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future - the timelessness of the rocks and the hills - all the people who have existed there. I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show. – Andrew Wyeth 

Winter arrived early this year and, six weeks in, refuses to yield. Lately it has brought sub-freezing temperatures and arctic winds to the northern suburbs of Philadelphia. Snow has been a constant companion since late November, testing our spirits and the durability of my plastic blue, discount-drug-store snow shovel. When I step outside each morning, the cold dry winds burn my face and frozen air penetrates my bones. Patches of ice crack under my shoes with every step. Never have I so longed for the warmth of summer. 

On certain days, when the sky is ocean blue and the sun shines brightly on the earth below, my thoughts revert to spring; to walks in the park, day baseball, and a quiet book under a shaded tree. And yet, writes poet Edith Sitwell, “[w]inter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” I encounter a sense of calm when I look out the window of my house on a snow-filled morning, a cup of hot coffee resting between my palms, the warmth of the ceramic comforting my fingers. Winter brings us together and forces us to reflect on what is essential.

Winter snow lands perfectly on the untarnished earth. I stare from my window and admire the simplicity, brightness, and beauty of it all. It will not be long before snowplows and shovels scrape away its purity, before footsteps and squirrels in search of hidden acorns violate the virginal look of untouched whiteness. Then a cold wind blows in from the north and the snow-covered bushes bristle. The bare limbs of the sycamores, which line the streets of Jenkintown Manor, stand at attention as snow descends from their branches onto the passing cars and icy pavement below. 

*    *    *    *

When Hannah returned home from college on the first day of winter, I cherished her added company. At night, we occasionally sat by the fire and admired the soft glow of the Christmas tree in the corner as we talked of college life, her coursework and future plans. When older daughter Jen joined us for a week in North Carolina to visit my parents, the closeness of family added the dimension of relaxed comfort rarely mastered in one’s adult years. Walking beside Andrea and my daughters, we explored the quaint shops of Hendersonville and artist-inspired nooks of Asheville, allowing for rare moments of relaxed togetherness that so eludes our everyday lives. When we dropped Jen off in Washington, DC, at the end of December, I was forced to acknowledge that here now is where her home lies. It is a difficult truth for a parent to embrace, but like the harsh winds of winter, necessary to accept.

Our return to Jenkintown allowed for two more weeks with Hannah. Despite the challenges of cooking a lactose- and gluten-free (Andrea) pescatarian (Hannah) meal that remains edible (if one of us decides to become kosher vegan we may give up food entirely), we gathered in the kitchen and talked about the day, current events, or whatever was on our minds. On some mornings, Hannah and I walked through the tree-lined, bird-filled sanctuary of Alverthorpe Park, fleeting moments that can never be relived in their exact perfection again. But Hannah would return soon to college, her absence felt more with each passing day. 

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant,” wrote English poet Anne Bradstreet. “If we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” I am less able these days to impart mind-opening words of wisdom to my children. I listen and offer instead only a sense of perspective when Hannah’s self-confidence wanes and she expresses worry over her upcoming semester, or when Jen relays the stresses of work and office politics and the things that make life complicated and messy. I am blessed to have two children who are kind, loving, compassionate and bright. But as a father, it is a burden knowing I do not possess the equivalent of Dumbledore’s wand; that I cannot easily, with words, advice or magical potions, make things safe and perfect. 

Life and time, like the seasons, quickly pass us by. I take less for granted each passing day and cherish more the moments with my children. I appreciate the gift of life bestowed still upon my parents and to Andrea’s parents; the majestic glory of their collective memories and historical insights valued relics of a rich existence. Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote in The Little Prince: “To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.” Time is ever in short supply these days. The darkness of winter forces one to appreciate the inner light within us all. 

“Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well,” wrote author George R.R. Martin. Is the reverse true in winter? The rawness of a dark, cold winter awakens us to life’s harder edges, to the struggles confronted by most people to keep warm and safe, sheltered and healthy. A homeless man at 18th and Market Streets sells copies of One Step Away to help support his kids and someday regain his financial independence. His is an inspired tale of redemption and second chances. I worry on mornings he is not there and I miss the yellow safety vest he proudly displays to passers-by, most of whom ignore him or evade his friendly glance. Lately, he has been absent, no doubt escaping the frigid conditions of his unsheltered street corner. 

But winter, too, will pass. The ice will melt as the spring thaw arrives and we gradually shed our heavy jackets, wool scarves, and knit hats. When I was a young boy, I looked forward to snow, the playful delight of sliding and sledding and molding snow into perfectly shaped balls that I tossed against fences and tree trunks. I learned to make the best of each season’s offerings. But always I longed for spring, for the warm glow of the sun, the liberating capacity of the sky and grass, the fullness of the trees, and the fresh scent of blooming flowers. 

The changing seasons and fluctuating weather conditions teach us to make the best of what life grants us, and to understand that some things are not controllable. Winter is a time to take stock, to appreciate home and family and the simple pleasures of hot chocolate by the fireplace. In the end, my children, like me, will continue to grow and learn and make mistakes. The sun will continue to shine, the rain and snow will fall, the seasons will change, and the grass will appear. Winter will end soon enough, and life will go on.

Angelic Troublemaker: The Quiet Legacy of Bayard Rustin

When I say I love [Sen. James] Eastland, it sounds preposterous – a man who brutalizes people. But you love him or you wouldn’t be here. You’re going to Mississippi to create social change – and you love Eastland in your desire to create conditions which will redeem his children. Loving your enemy is manifest in putting your arms not around the man but around the social situation, to take power from those who misuse it – at which point they can become human too.” – Bayard Rustin

History, like memory, is elusive; what we choose to remember and document but a collage of selective images and stories. What seems important one day is lost on another, set aside in a vacant warehouse filled with old history books and dusty memoirs. As the years progress, we remember less and immortalize but a small sampling of men and women who over their lifetimes influenced the course of human events.

“Never doubt,” wrote Margaret Mead, “that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” The life and times of Bayard Rustin brings truth to that sentiment. A Black man in a predominantly white society; a gay man in a homophobic society; a pacifist in a militaristic society; an activist in a passive and apathetic society, he was a man of courage, grace, and action. The history books have largely overlooked this quietly courageous and visionary man, but his life demands attention.

To examine the life of Bayard Rustin first requires mention of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., to whom we pay tribute on this day. King became the face of the civil rights movement in 1955, when as a 26 year-old preacher he was called upon to lead a boycott of the public bus system in Montgomery, Alabama. Employing the tactics of nonviolent protest similar to that utilized by Mahatma Gandhi in India twenty years before, King would go on to lead a movement aimed at ending segregation in the Jim Crow South. Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to yield her seat on a public bus to a white man, the Montgomery bus boycott awakened the American conscience to the injustices of racism and segregation. By the time King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington seven years later, he had become the leading voice in support of racial equality; the moral conscience of the United States in the fight for civil rights and social justice. 

I was not yet nine years old when King was assassinated in 1968. Too young to fully comprehend the historic impact of his loss, I knew even then that the United States would never be the same again. I mourn still for America.

Often overlooked in this history, however, is Bayard Rustin, who introduced King to the principles of Gandhian non-violence, helped instrumentally in the bus boycott, and almost single-handedly orchestrated the March on Washington. Positive change, said Rustin, often requires “social dislocation and creative trouble."

Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, just 40 miles from my home in Jenkintown, and raised in the Quaker tradition by his grandmother, Rustin was a committed pacifist. Although he never finished college, he was a genuine intellectual, a life-long student of poetry, literature, history, and religion. As a high school football star, he recited poetry while helping opposing players to their feet. Brilliant and passionate, he became dedicated at a young age to challenging injustice. 

Rustin’s activism began in the 1930s when he joined the Young Communist League, a branch of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Not yet the bogeyman it would become after the Second World War, the CPUSA was then full of idealistic, committed Americans fighting racism, inequality, and injustice. This was before McCarthyism and the Cold War, when Communism provided an idealistic, if misguided “utopian” alternative to the perceived failures of capitalism during the Great Depression. As the only political party at that time advocating complete racial equality, the CPUSA attracted Black intellectuals and artists, along with Jewish and other left-leaning activists who opposed Hitler and fascism in Europe. Although Rustin quit the party after a few years and was avowedly anti-Communist the remainder of his life, this past association would forever haunt him. 

In the early 1940s, Rustin was hired to do field work for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a Christian pacifist organization co-founded by the Rev. A.J. Muste, Rustin’s life-long mentor. Muste taught Rustin that resistance to war was part of a larger Christian commitment to a life of love and nonviolence. He studied the tactics of Mahatma Gandhi in India and believed nonviolence a way of life that required one “to express love at every moment and in every relationship, to be channels of this quiet, unobtrusive, persistent force which is always there.” Rustin applied these principles to buses and lunch counters throughout the South, often at great peril to his physical safety and well-being. Repeatedly beaten and jailed, it was courageous and dangerous work that occurred out of the media spotlight and with little notice up North.

Following America’s entry into World War II, Rustin’s pacifism and Quaker beliefs counseled him to become a conscientious objector, an unpopular stance during a popular war for which he served 27 months in prison. “Americans wanted peace, but not pacifism,” wrote John D’Emilio in Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin (University of Chicago Press, 2003).  Even in prison, Rustin was deemed a troublemaker for protesting segregated facilities and the unequal treatment of minorities. His incarceration was at times harsh and brutal.

Following his release, in 1947 Rustin participated in the first Freedom Rides in U.S. history. Fourteen years before the better known Freedom Rides of the early 1960s, the Journey of Reconciliation constituted sixteen brave souls from FOR, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). In April, they began a two week journey to test a Supreme Court decision prohibiting segregation in interstate bus travel. Many of the riders, including Rustin, were beaten and arrested in North Carolina and sentenced to 30 days on a chain gang.

Members of the Journey of Reconciliation, 1947.

Rustin is in the middle, wearing a bow tie. 

                                        

Over the next several years, Rustin organized hundreds of nonviolent acts of civil disobedience throughout the South. “We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers,” he said. Rustin’s courage in the face of physical violence was impenetrable. “Basic social change involves a vast deal of physical violence,” he wrote. “The pacifist is not a man who is afraid of violence nor in a sense opposed to it because often social change cannot be made except under situations where violence is to a degree inevitable. The pacifist is opposed to using violence, but he must be prepared to accept it as a part of social change.” 

An energetic and articulate speaker, Rustin led workshops on racism and nonviolent civil disobedience throughout the United States and around the world. Charismatic, funny, and engaging, he inspired and energized people. But because of his sexual orientation and the times in which he lived, he was an outsider, forced to spend much of his life in the shadows. When in 1953 he was arrested on a morals charge in Pasadena, California, the FOR fired him and much of the civil rights community shunned him.

But Rustin’s skills and experiences were too valuable to ignore. First introduced to King in February 1956, he soon became a valued advisor to the movement’s most important leader. King asked for Rustin’s behind-the-scenes help with the Montgomery bus boycott, teaching non-violent tactics and maintaining morale. King realized that Rustin brought with him not only years of experience with nonviolent protest, but also, as described in Lost Prophet, “years of serious meditation about how the philosophy, strategy, and tactics of nonviolence were of a piece and how together they might fashion a transformative revolutionary movement. . . . From the start, Rustin communicated to King not only the efficacy and moral value of nonviolence, but the special responsibility of leaders to model it fully.”

In the years to come, Rustin’s counsel helped King emerge as a national leader. Rustin introduced King to labor leaders and financial supporters; he drafted speeches and articles for King and edited King’s own writing. He linked King with other social justice organizations, such as CORE and the AFSC. He and King together formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). And although King is rightly credited with putting nonviolent civil disobedience on the map, it was Rustin who helped mold King into a principled believer and proponent of the tactics employed by Gandhi.

In 1963, when the leaders of various civil rights organizations agreed to stage a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, they turned to Rustin to put it all together. Although marches on Washington have since become fairly commonplace, carefully scripted events with few surprises, this was not so in 1963. Then the idea was untested and full of risk. In just eight short weeks, Rustin built the organization out of nothing. As described by D’Emilio in Lost Prophet:

He had to assemble a staff and shape them into a team able to perform under intense pressure. He had to craft a coalition that would hang together despite organizational competition, personal animosities, and often antagonistic politics. He had to maneuver through the mine field of an opposition that ranged from liberals who were counseling moderation to segregationists out to sabotage the event.

The Kennedy administration quietly pressured Rustin and others to cancel the march, fearing riots and embarrassment. Two weeks before the scheduled march, Senator Strom Thurmond, the staunchly conservative segregationist from South Carolina, from the Senate floor publicly labelled Rustin a Communist and a “sexual pervert” and entered the police file of Rustin’s 1953 morals charge into the Congressional Record, all in an attempt to discredit the march and the movement. 

In the end, the March on Washington was a peaceful, orderly day of speeches, songs, and demonstrations. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech stands as one of the greatest pieces of oratory in American history, and the march influenced the eventual passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, the two most important pieces of civil rights legislation ever enacted.

Rustin’s influence on King remained fairly consistent over the years. Although there were periods of estrangement due to concerns over Rustin’s sexuality, Rustin encouraged King to think beyond the demise of Jim Crow toward a more expansive movement that linked justice for Black Americans to economic and social justice for all Americans. By 1965, Rustin had embraced coalition building and the political process as the most effective means to advance the causes of economic justice and human rights. After all, what good are voting rights if you have no one to vote for? What good is your right to sit at an integrated lunch counter if you cannot afford to buy a meal?

In later years, Rustin’s pacifism would be challenged by a growing chorus of more militant Blacks, who chanted “Black Power” and advocated racial separatism. But Rustin never wavered in his commitment to non-violence and integration. He stood his ground in public debates with Malcolm X in the early 1960s and later, Stokely Carmichael, when Carmichael disavowed nonviolence as an effective tool of social protest.

Rustin’s commitment to human rights was universal. Strongly allied with the Jewish community, he fought anti-Semitism with the same intensity as he fought racism. He was a strong advocate for Israel and the plight of Soviet Jewry. In his later years, he publicly advocated the rights of gays and lesbians. “[P]rejudice is of a single bit,” he said. “There are great numbers of people who will accept all kinds of people: Blacks, Hispanics, and Jews, but who won’t accept [gays]. That is what makes the homosexual central to the whole political apparatus as to how far we can go in human rights.”

I was a 28 year-old lawyer when Bayard Rustin died in 1987. Looking back, I am saddened that I knew so little about Rustin during his lifetime. His is a uniquely American story that deserves a special mention in the history books. His life exemplifies Margaret Mead’s belief that committed and passionate human beings can indeed change the world.

Rustin’s legacy is quiet now, but not entirely forgotten. His spirit lives on whenever America progresses towards racial equality, economic justice, gay rights, and the quest for peace. During his lifetime, Rustin often said to those who would listen that God does not require us to “achieve any of the good tasks that humanity must pursue. What God requires of us is that we not stop trying.” We could still use a little of Bayard Rustin’s energy and passion today. 

Bringing It All Back Home: Pope Francis and a Return to Compassion

It has been less than a year since Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina became the Bishop of Rome, but already Pope Francis has transformed the Catholic Church, embracing its mission as a church of service and healing to a troubled world. He leads by example, living simply and acting compassionately. By his words and deeds, he reminds us of the good religion can achieve when its focus is on justice, peace, and service to the poor. He has helped bring Catholicism back to the teachings of Jesus, a radical movement for economic and social justice, love, and understanding. It is an anti-materialistic, counter-cultural message that the global community desperately needs.

As a non-Catholic, I am impressed by this new Pope, a man of humble beginnings named after Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of the poor. He is a pastor to the people who considers strict adherence to doctrine an unnecessary distraction from the true mission of the Church. “Who am I to judge?” as he replied when asked about gays in the priesthood, is a sign that this is a Pope who “gets it.” It remains to be seen whether he will reform the Catholic Church in areas of sexual ethics and inclusiveness, but in other areas of life and faith, by extending open arms to the broad brush of humanity, he has re-engaged the flock and reminded Catholics and non-Catholics alike of what is, or should be, the essence of the Christian faith. “I prefer a Church,” writes Francis, “which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.” He desires not just talk and prayer, but societal transformation.

There really is nothing new in the Pope’s emphasis on love and justice; it was the essence of my faith and teachings for as long as I can remember. But it is, unfortunately, a message that has far too often been overlooked or ignored by more rigid, misguided expressions of Christianity that have so dominated our culture for the past thirty years or more.

I was born in 1959, when liberal Protestantism still held some influence over many of our nation’s institutions. The son of a Lutheran minister, I was taught that the inner life of faith should reflect, not define, how one encounters the world. I came of age in the 1970’s, when my father was Bishop of the New Jersey Lutheran Synod and most of my friends were Catholics and Jews. I witnessed first-hand the struggle of the Lutheran Church, and of all the major religions, to stay relevant in a time of cultural and political upheaval amid the increasing secularization of American society. It was often in church or my teen youth group where I debated and discussed Vietnam, Watergate, the sexual revolution, civil rights, and women’s rights. How were we as Christians, as Lutherans, to address the many issues confronting a divided and torn world? The answers were not always clear, as a fast-changing standard of morality and ethics affected every institution in America, including the Lutheran Church.

As the decade progressed and I went off to college, I shared my father’s increasing concern over the rising tide of Christian fundamentalism, which combined biblical literalism with an aggressively conservative political activism. It was a form of Christianity greatly at odds with the more compassionate religion of my upbringing -- a theology publicly articulated by progressive theologians like Martin Luther King, Jr., William Sloane Coffin, and other liberal preachers who spoke prophetically against racism, injustice, and war. Unlike their conservative counterparts, these ministers believed that true faith was not confined to the inner life of the soul but required a commitment to justice on earth. “A religion true to its nature must also be concerned about man's social conditions,” said King. “Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion.” Like King, I believed that churches and synagogues could remain relevant only if they opposed poverty, inequality, and injustice. But as the years went by, the country seemed less interested in the prophetic voices of my youth.

The religious right gained even more prominence in the 1980’s with the election of Ronald Reagan, who articulated a vision of America that emphasized individualism, self-interest, unfettered capitalism, and a narrow view of morality. As the decade progressed, the voices of religious compassion were outflanked and outshouted by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other conservative preachers who wanted a Christianity limited to their own notions of personal salvation, sexual morality, and a repentance from a sinful society. They seemed to want nothing to do with the iterant rabbi of two millennia ago, that Jesus of Nazareth fellow.

But then, in 1986, as a young attorney in Washington, D.C., my parents encouraged me to attend Luther Place Memorial Church, which was then led by the Reverend John Steinbruck, a charismatic and engaging preacher. Steinbruck had played handball with my father 25 years earlier when they were both young Lutheran ministers at neighboring churches near the borders of northeastern Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey. When Steinbruck moved to the nation's capital in 1970, he took the reins of a declining church at 14th and N Streets and turned it into an oasis of hospitality, serving the homeless, treating the sick and sheltering refugees. He quoted from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who taught that the  "task of the human being is to represent the Divine, to be a reminder of the presence of God." From the pulpit of Luther Place, Steinbruck helped me to understand the essence of faith lived in the messy reality of life on earth:  

We are on this planet to exemplify that light, that bread, that living water, those metaphors that Jesus used, to live out the truth in a non-violent way, simply to do justice, live justly, try, in the space over which you're responsible . . . to create an oasis . . . to which the stranger can come and find refuge.

Steinbruck believed Christian witness was most needed in urban churches, which reflected the suffering and afflictions of their surroundings -- poverty, crime, decaying neighborhoods. At Luther Place he emphasized the religious duty to welcome the stranger, shelter the homeless, and care for the sick. With the help of others, the congregation began a collection of shelters and clinics, called the N Street Village, which continues to this day to serve the city’s poorest citizens. "You don't need five years of seminary,” Steinbruck later said, “to realize that, when someone knocks on the door, you should open it."

Steinbruck and my father, along with many of the clergy I have most admired over the years, have long since retired, or passed away. With the decline of liberal Protestantism, my faith often a mix of doubt and ambiguity, I have drifted away from orthodox Christianity for several years now. But watching the new Pope in action, I sense a man with a familiar sense of faith and justice, who believes the duty of Christians is to help mend and heal a broken world. To Francis, poverty is not merely about charity, but justice. “How can it be,” asks Pope Francis, “that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

Francis wants the Church to look outward and bear witness to the larger world. He understands that “our culture has lost a sense of God’s tangible presence and activity in our world.” To be a person of faith, he says, is to “take a stand.” But the emphasis should be on love and compassion, understanding and the search for peace. Doctrinal certitude properly takes a backseat to these higher callings. His only “dogmatic certainty” is that “God is in every person’s life,” even lives destroyed by drugs and other vices. He recognizes that life is complex, and that it is not always irrational or irreverent to walk away from religion and the church. "Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open,” he said, “let us try also to be a church that finds new roads, that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent."

Pope Francis has emphasized the dignity of the struggling servant and the moral dubiousness of the economic status quo. He has spoken critically of a profit-driven capitalism that renders human welfare an irrelevant annoyance. The continued belief in trickle-down economic theories, he says, “expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system." The Church and society, he says, must together work “to eliminate the structural causes of poverty.” The Pope is outspoken in his expressions of concern for the oppressed and marginalized. He is leading by example, a true pastor to the people, a stark reminder of the political and social dynamic of the early Christians. “If you want to find Jesus,” Steinbruck told me several years ago, “go to where the outcasts are -- the sick, the homeless, the poor." 

In many ways, Pope Francis is bringing it all back home for me, a long-needed reminder of what the Christian church can and should represent, but too often does not – a warm and accepting place of refuge for the stranger; an institution that embodies hope and provides a model for peace; and an oasis of love, understanding, and compassion, where all are welcome.  I like this new Pope.