Fannie Lou Hamer was the 20th child of a family of black sharecroppers in Mississippi.  Mostly self-educated, she became a champion for civil rights and decided in the latter half of her life to use her God-given gifts and abilities to bring justice to Ruleville and other parts of the South.

In 1962, at the age of 45, she heard a sermon that changed her life.  She was told that she was a citizen and could vote. She tried to register but failed the literacy test which was then required. She vowed she’d be back the next month to try again — and again — and again — until she passed.   The landlord came and told her that if she persisted, she’d lose the little bit of farming equipment she had and the land she and her husband were sharecropping.  She persisted and was evicted. One of the voter registration groups heard of her courage and asked her to work for them, which she did.  In her travels, she was arrested for going into the “whites only” part of a bus station, hauled off to jail and badly beaten. After some pressure from the U.S. Justice Department, she was released. Surprisingly, the bitterness that might have been there wasn’t. As she put it, “It wouldn’t solve any problem for me to hate people just because they hate me.”

Fanny Lou Hamer died of cancer in 1977.  And on her grave in Ruleville, Mississippi, there grows a cactus, one that flowers ever so often. On her tombstone are carved the words she lived by: I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.  Both the cactus and the epitaph bear witness to the life of a woman who stood fast and strong against injustice and persecution but never allowed circumstances to make her bitter, instead she allowed them to make her bold.

Martin Luther once said, “Christians do not believe that we have an answer to the tragedies of life.  Rather what we have is a God who, in Jesus Christ, enters tragedy, stands with us and makes a way through.”  The cross of Christ, the greatest of the world’s tragedies, is a sign. Not an answer or a reason for the hurt that happens in life – it is something even better. The cross is a sign that God is with us, particularly in the dark times. The cross says, wherever there is tragedy, injustice, pain, there is God.

They question for us is will we allow life to make us bitter or will we allow it to make us bold?

 

Cantus firmus means ‘fixed song’.  It is a term that applies to musical compositions, often liturgical masses, in which every section is composed using the same pre-existing melody.  This “fixed line” or “enduring melody” serves as a unifying force in the movements of the composition while still allowing a large amount of harmonic individuality.  

 

Lent invites us all to reconsider our cantus firmus, the fixed line upon which we base our beliefs and build our lives.  Consider the following fixed lines:

 

“God was in Christ reconciling the world.” 

 

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

 

“Come to me when you are weary or burdened down and find rest.”

 

“I will be with you always.”

 

“Nothing in life or death can ever separate us from the love of God.”

 

What is the basic story, the prevailing narrative that gives meaning to your life?

 

What are the enduring principles that guide you and sustain you? 

 

What is your enduring melody?

 

 

Alice laughed. 

“There’s no use trying,” she said.  

“One can’t believe impossible things.”

 “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen.  

“When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  

Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” 

Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland was a strange story before it was made into a movie. But seeing it played out on the big screen, in 3D no less, in an adaptation by Tim Burton, was an amazing experience.  Alice is thirteen years older now and accidently returns to Underworld, though she has no memory of her previous visit as a child.  She meets again, but to her for the first time, the strange cast of characters whom she encountered in her previous visit – the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, March Hare and the Dormouse   She finds herself in the middle of a war between the Red Queen and the White Queen and is told that she is the only one who can recover the Volpor Sword and slay the Jabberwockey dragon.

As she prepares to battle the Jabberwockey, she remembers a conversation she had with the white queen when she was a much younger girl, when the queen shared with her things she found hard to believe (especially that she was as old as she was).  The White Queen told Alice that in her youth she could believe “six impossible things before breakfast” and advised Alice to practice the same.  Alice began going through her list of impossible things she believed and the final one on the list was that she could defeat the Jabberwockey.  And she did.

We all at times struggle to believe.  We all at times face seemingly insurmountable obstacles or apparently undefeatable opponents.  Some of us fear the future will always remain uncertain or doubt that we will ever be truly known for who we are.  But there is wisdom to be found in the advice of the White Queen.   We must cultivate the practice of believing in the impossible.  We all need a list of at least six impossible things to believe before breakfast. 

Some may think it crazy to practice believing the impossible, and to a certain degree it is, but, as Alice told the Mad Hatter when he asked her if he had gone mad, 

“I’m afraid so, you’re entirely bonkers. 

But, I’ll tell you a secret.

All the best people are!”

What are the Jaberwockeys in your life? 

What six things make up your list?

I have found that most people can be separated into two broad categories – those who make lists and those who form stacks.  I am a stack person.  I stack things, on my desk, in my closet, on my shelves.  There are stacks of papers on my desk, stacks of books on my shelves, stacks of clothes in my closet.    It may appear to some that I am unorganized, however, I can usually locate most anything fairly quickly, because I remember its general location in one of the many stacks that surround me on a regular basis.   And by process of elimination, eventually, I will find it. 

I am not, by nature, a list maker.  I just do not think that way.  I am a scribbler.  I will write something down on whatever is handy at the time, a piece of paper, a napkin, an old envelope or a note pad.   That has its challenges, as I have become painfully aware.  The only place I almost always require a list is the grocery store.  I will inevitably forget something every time I go to the store without a list. There are so many temptations and distractions that I always leave with something I had not planned to purchase and without something I had gone there to get. 

Consider the layout of a typical grocery store.  You walk in the door and immediately you are met with fresh flowers, the smell of bread baking, brightly colored fruits and vegetables all places strategically to capture your attention.  You have to walk all the way through the store to the very back to get milk, bread and meat, the staple items people regularly shop for most.    And then you must walk through the entire store again to check out, only to face the tempting tabloids with the latest sensationalized scenario to be splashed across the front pages,  as well as the candy bars, bubble gum, breath mints, nail clippers and lip balm no self-respecting person would ever be caught without.   Often, by the time you leave the store, the cart is stacked full of things that tickle the tongue, but do little to feed the body.  It is a clearly a conspiracy to capure well meaning folks in a web of temptations and distractions.

I can’t tell you how many times I have walked into the store without a list intending to get a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a piece of meat, or some other staple item, and a few other items to go along with it, only to leave with something I did not intend to buy and having forgotten something important I really needed.   I have learned the importance of making a list.  It helps me remember what is essential.

The spiritual journey of getting to that which can care for and feed our souls is similar to a journey through a grocery store.  In order to get to what is really important,  that which is essential for a healthy spiritual life, we must be willing to navigate the temptations and distractions that can keep us from ever getting to the essential, life-giving and spirit sustaining staples such as meditation and prayer, community and communion, word and worship.  We must feed our souls with real, spiritual food to  be healthy and whole. 

How is it with your soul?  What are you feeding on these days?  What temptations are you facing?  What tantalizing sights, sounds and smells are luring you away from what is essential, life-giving and spirit sustaining?   What are you carrying in your cart that ought to be put back on the shelf.   What have you forgotten along the way? 

Have you considered making a list?