Memory, music, method in our... Methodists?
Musings on a memorial 🇺🇸 day
Holiday greetings for this tribute to memory itself, a potent mix of precious and poignant.
On the third birthday of newShrink this weekend, even a cursory look at lead newscasts and headlines makes clear the supply of material is ever-growing and plentiful.
The core mission of tracking the “battle for the American psyche or soul” could hardly seem more relevant than in two vastly different versions of the national holiday under way across the land.
Here’s a snapshot view of each, by way of preface for today’s edition.
…tale of two holidays
At one extreme in my greater-Charlotte Metro region of North Carolina, reporting from the Donald Trump campaign indicates he plans to appear at NASCAR’s enormous annual Memorial Day-week tradition. Its longest and only day-into-nighttime Coca Cola 600 stock-car race is tonight.
The speedway in nearby Concord doesn’t publish attendance figures, but has reported this year’s mega-event as a sellout. Capacity at the speedway is 79,000, with an additional 16,000 possible in standing room and infield. Democrat election-year visibility via messaging, down-ballot campaigning and surrogates is reportedly expected, too.
But it most surely will be MAGA-level loud. There will be drama and stories. Then there is also an auto race.
By contrast, President Joe Biden has issued a proclamation in the spirit of the holiday’s stated purpose by law. That’s Memorial Day as reflection, tribute to all fallen American service members past and current, and prayers for creating and sustaining peace. Here it bears noting that the word holiday shares reverential roots with holy days of all kinds and cultural contexts.
For me this latter tone — and a timelessly profound historic perspective most needed and welcome this year— came across regional news here. It was via a quietly riveting little story, reported on Friday-night TV news and in some limited holiday-weekend, small-outlet local coverage. The subject was a World War II POW from the region, captured when Japanese forces invaded the Philippines in 1942. After enduring the 65-mile Bataan Death March to become a prisoner of war, the 20-year-old died on July 28, 1942. He was buried in a common grave in the Philippines with other American prisoners.
As is the case with countless such lost soldiers every year, recent years’ Veterans’ Affairs analysis of DNA and dental records just last week identified the soldier and home community. His remains at some point will be returned for local burial, with details and any surviving-family information still unreported.
Both of these glimpses, however wildly disparate, are Memorial Day America, and Memorial Day Americans, in 2024.
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Looking further at this memory-holiday (pictured in center column):
#1. Memorial Day history
Here are a few things you may not know about Memorial Day from Time Magazine and Memorial Day facts (from history.com.)
The holiday began in May 1868 as Decoration Day to remember those who died fighting for the Union in the Civil War.
Southern States honored Confederate dead on separate days until after World War I, when the holiday came to be called Memorial Day and began to honor those killed in all U.S. wars.
Even today some Southern states still have legally designated Confederate Decoration Days on their books.
A federal law calls for a formal national moment of remembrance to be held at 3 p.m. each Memorial Day. Some records show the practice began with one of the earliest Memorial Day commemorations that was organized by a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, SC, less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865.”
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As noted and valued by many giants of literature and psychology such as Nabokov and Jung (above at center), ritual around memory and profound regard for the history it contains date back to the ancient Greeks. Reflecting this, their goddess Mnemosyne/Memory held top ranking as one of the Titans, those of first generation and most important of the pantheon.
(A reminder: In depth-psychology terms, such gods, goddesses and other mythical/archetypal figures in literature, drama and sacred texts are useful illustrations to engage with for understanding how parts of our individual and collective psyche operate and affect our feelings, behavior and lives. As with characters in Shakespeare et. al, these are not worshiped as deities.)
Further from this archetypal realm of depth psychology perspective…
#2. Mnemosyne: Titan goddess of memory and remembrance, inventor of language and words.
(From Greek mythology source Theoi.com)
As a Titan daughter of Ouranos (Uranus, Heaven), Mnemosyne was also a goddess of time. She represented the memorization required to preserve the stories of history and the sagas of myth before the introduction of writing. In this role she was the mother of the Muses who were originally patron goddesses of poets of the oral tradition.
And Mnemosyne was a minor oracle-goddess like her Titan sisters.
Mnemosyne was sometimes named as one of three Elder Muses, who preceded the nine daughters of Zeus as goddesses of music.
Which brings us to another title-theme.
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I was glad to hear from so many of you who enjoyed last week’s (musical pictorial pause,“Heroica!”) Chopin Polonaise and quirky way it surfaced with the week’s topics. Some who don’t use Spotify reported finding it for listening in other venues. But a few were blocked out or experienced glitches; one even got later Chopin pieces, then this played by different pianists when clicking the link!
These shouldn’t be issues with YouTube, so I’m linking below another try at hearing it here, for those interested.
Meanwhile my dear friend Robert Hale, a gifted classical pianist both by conservatory background and passionate play, sent a wealth of material brand-new for me about this pianist Martha Argerich. He said it showed up synchronistically timed with my post. (Robert also happens to be the spouse-life-partner of dear friend, psychotherapist, former professor and author Dr. Cynthia Hale, whom you have met in previous newShrinks. Most recently Cynthia’s authored the Bean and Bubbles illustrated book about trauma and resilience for children and grownups.)
Last week’s sole musical element was the piece itself, Chopin’s Polonaise No. 6 l’heroique, in several ways personally significant, and significantly timed. (I had randomly chosen the first Spotify selection; as yet I knew nothing about amazing pianist Argerich.)
Exploring her after Robert, I learned lots. Also about Chopin, I recalled that his music, particularly the Polonaises, has been associated with wartimes and national fervor for Polish people in several periods since the late 1800s.
During World War II, in fact, Adolf Hitler is said to have banned the playing of Chopin Polonaises in Nazi-occupied Poland, because of the music’s profoundly arousing effects on resistance by the Polish people.
That sounded like the best possible reason for a replay of the piece, this week as soundtrack perhaps apt for Memorial Day….
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# 3. “play it, Chopin…”
In the above video it’s a much younger Argerich playing the Chopin piece. (Today she’s nearly 83, still playing internationally at concerts with enormous orchestras — all from memory. At age 24 back in 1965, around the time of this video, Argentina-native Argerich won first prize in the 7th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. She was then the first, today reportedly still the only, South American to win the prize. Born in Buenos Aires in 1941, Argerich was from toddlerhood a child prodigy and played professionally starting at 8 years old. She is also a language polyglot, conducting interviews with ease in a multitude of languages. She doesn’t perform in the U.S. Her 2024 scheduled tour dates are in Ljubjana, Slovenia; Toulouse, France; Geneva, Switzerland, and Frieburg, Germany.
Below are links to gems, with gratitude to Robert Hale…
The excerpted interview pictured below is among other charming ones also browsable on YouTube, titled Moments we love about Martha Argerich.”
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Moving now to the Methodists of today’s title, since history-making news from the national denomination conference early this month, I’d reserved my own thoughts and weigh-in (for more needed pondering awhile).
At top-right column in the lede illustration, that’s the Rev. James Howell, senior pastor of Charlotte’s Myers Park Methodist Church since around 2003. Pictured below James is a bronze bust of Englishman John Wesley, 1700s founder of Methodism. At bottom right, Bishop Tracy S. Malone speaks at a press conference on May 3 at the conclusion of the General Conference in Charlotte. Malone celebrated elimination of prohibitive language that marginalizes LGBTQ people, but also acknowledged continued mixed reaction among United Methodists.
#4. UMC news as reported
United Methodists overwhelmingly vote to repeal longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy (CBS News)
United Methodist delegates repealed their church's longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy with no debate on Wednesday, removing a rule forbidding "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" from being ordained or appointed as ministers.
Delegates voted 692-51 at their 11-day General Conference meeting, in Charlotte, NC— the first such legislative gathering in five years. General Conference is the only governing body that speaks for the entire denomination. That overwhelming margin contrasts sharply with the decades of controversy around the issue. Past General Conferences of the United Methodist Church had steadily reinforced the ban and related penalties amid debate and protests, but many of the conservatives who had previously upheld the ban have left the denomination in recent years, and this General Conference has moved in a solidly progressive direction…
The Charlotte gathering was the first since more than 7,600 mostly conservative congregations left the United Methodist Church between 2019 and 2023 because the denomination essentially stopped enforcing its bans on same-sex marriage and having "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" serving as clergy and bishops….
Here is the well-researched, exhaustively thorough official report from the United Methodist News Service:
Historic assembly sets United Methodists on new path
General Conference brought big changes, particularly the removal of constraints on ministry with and by LGBTQ people. Now the challenge is to remain a big-tent..
This upbeat, at-long-last interview is with the Rev. James Howell.
United Methodist Church delegates vote to end anti-LGBTQ policies after decades (The Charlotte Observer)
One local minister was happy that the United Methodist Church ended a longtime prohibition on same-sex marriages, and a pastor who grew up in Charlotte said she was glad the vote happened in her hometown.
Methodists had intense debates over the issue at past conferences. But after a split in the church, in which conservative parishes largely left the denomination, delegates at the 11-day conference in uptown Charlotte voted 692-51 to repeal the church’s ban on LGBTQ clergy and officiating of same-sex weddings.
There was no debate.
“It’s something I’ve been working for for most of my adult life within the United Methodist Church, so I’m certainly happy,” said the Rev. James Howell, senior pastor at Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte and a delegate at the conference. “We want to keep our arms around everybody. We’re better together. God wants all people to be together in church”…
Painfully ironic in this difficult, literal 50-year struggle around this issue, 1972 — when the UMC put IN these exclusions — was when American Psychological Association and other diagnostic and treatment authorities began removing homosexuality/LGBTQ descriptors from diagnostic classification as mental health disorders in the DSM.
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As backstory, the enormous UMC — long among the world’s largest Protestant denominations — has a long, in many ways laudable history. Today’s alliterative title is part word-play, but contains historically true factual elements.
The word-play originated with Act 2, Scene 2 of Hamlet from Shakespeare, whose character Polonius put it this way:
# 5. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”
And as it turns out, the emphasis on intentional method is quite defining of the Protestant denomination, dating back to the days of founder John Wesley:
Methodism has its roots in eighteenth century Anglicanism. Its founder was a Church of England minister, John Wesley (1703-1791), who sought to challenge the religious assumptions of the day. During a period of time in Oxford, he and others met regularly for Bible study and prayer, to receive communion and do acts of charity. They became known as 'The Holy Club' or 'Methodists' because of the methodical way in which they carried out their Christian faith. John Wesley later used the term Methodist himself to mean the methodical pursuit of biblical holiness. From Heart and Soul: The Story of Methodism (BBC.co.uk)
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The UMC’s half-century long discord over LGBTQ personhood in the church has been in stark contrast to other Protestant denominations from Episcopalians, Presbyterian Church USA, United Church of Christ… and even indepdendent social-justice-focused Baptists.
It’s also been quite different from United Methodists’ long leading, at times pivotal roles in the 19th Century movement to abolish slavery.
# 6. …on different sides of history
From Origins of the abolitionist movement (BBC.com)
The abolitionist campaign’s Christian view of slavery
In the late 18th Century, abolitionists led by William Wilberforce campaigned to end the slavery. There was opposition to their movement from those who wanted the slave trade to continue.
Christian emancipators (people who wanted enslaved people to be set free) feared the anger of God over the sin of slavery. They saw slavery as unjust and evil and campaigned to have it abolished.
Focus on the slave trade
At the end of the 18th century, public opinion began to turn against the slave trade.
Christian groups opposed to slavery quite early, beginning with Quakers in 1727, the Catholic Church under Pope Benedict XIV in 1741, and Methodists in 1774:
“John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, denounced slavery as “the sum of all villainies” and detailed its abuses in a pamphlet published in 1774.”
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Along with my final celebratory-though-bittersweet response to these developments here is some personal-front disclosure that informs it, and may provide helpful context.
#7. “don’t ask, don’t tell,” in the ‘90’s-2000s church…
In simplest, in-a-nutshell terms: The sheer passage of time, whole adult lifetimes, is simply staggering. So much, so long, for so many, on hold: Vocational careers, relationships, hopes and dreams for authentic fully lived adult lives.
For much of the ‘90s through early 2000s at Davidson United Methodist Church in our Lake Norman community, James Howell was my family’s senior pastor, and a good friend with whom I at times worked closely and hard on this and other such efforts. I can attest first-hand to his belief, sincerity and energy — and that of many others — on this. Demands and limitations of working within denominational authority also were constant factors
Like many others, my volunteer community-service work reflected my corporate profession of the time. So I did an array of communications, media messaging, editing and long-range strategic planning roles at DUMC as with my other community charity board commitments. Progressive, highly effective diversity and inclusion work — involving all marginalized including LGBTQ — had became a necessary priority and job skill in my employer’s fast-growing bank-merger expansion into new cultural markets. Among close friends and extended-family inlaws LGBTQ people dear to us grappled with creating and sustaining their adult family lives. All of this while at DUMC our “APACT” group formed with mission of becoming a “reconciling church” for LGBTQ people within the denomination.
With James’ and other pastoral staff leadership, the church hosted an enormous, packed-sanctuary evening “debate” featuring a nationally known married evangelist couple, one of them “pro,” the other vehemently “anti-” on all such matters of sexuality, orientation and identity. All of this involvement on my part was nearly 30 years ago. James, and key others, moved on from DUMC a half-century ago.
Over the years since, particularly Pacifica graduate study, Jungian community and in my 15-year psychotherapy practice these issues and concerns are integrally part of working deeply with people navigating the human experience. It is jarring to read and hear how little even the basic dialogue on these matters has developed or deepened, at all, for the benefit of anyone.
Also coloring my perceptions, for a significant period in psychotherapy practice, I was one of the therapists serving the Davidson Clergy Center/Center for the Professions. This partnership with Duke University’s Integrative Medicine and Divinity School provided mid-career renewal, self-exploration and awareness, coaching, counseling, spiritual direction and leadership development services. Our client-participants were church pastors and chaplains in U.S. and Canadian military, universities and hospital systems.
While actively working intimately with these clients, about six or seven years ago, perhaps longer, I was by then long just exhausted by United Methodists’ both-sides-against-the-middle actions on these issues. (Proximity and lifelong friend and family ties make the progressive mainline Presbyterians a viable alternative.) Then I happened to read a newspaper op-ed in support of an embattled longtime UMC pastor, with a beloved gay child, who was under denominational fire facing career ruin for his support of same-sex unions. The piece was written and signed by several — nearly a dozen as I recall — United Methodist bishops… who were retired, or would be, following that summer’s annual conference.
So very high-minded of them, and brave.
For now I’ll wind this segment up, for I don’t have solutions, am far from even my own preliminary conclusions. However overdue and long it’s been in coming. And while I can’t quite join that oh-so-Methodist, kumbaya “Love Train” dance of the recent UMC conference delegates, I do so celebrate and applaud this moment with them. The things I love in the Methodist Church, I really love. I am glad to be able to recall what some of them are.
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Whew! Perhaps some needed
news relief
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apropos of absolutely nothing…
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On this third-birthday edition of newShrink, my special thanks to you charter-readers who from early-conception phases encouraged, supported and stayed … and to all who have since continued to read, share ideas and expand the newShrink community through your “joins, shares, and invites.”
And, that is all I have! Talk to you soon.
🦋💙 tish
… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”
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