Kathy Ewing

I’m going to cheat today and crib from Dr. King, as a suitable way to begin Black History Month. This passage from his Christmas Sermon (as it’s known), delivered in 1967 at Ebenezer Baptist Church, was included in a sermon last night at my church.  Read King’s whole sermon here when you get a chance. In the meantime, enjoy the excerpt below.

King begins this section by offering different definitions of love. There’s romantic, or sexual love, which he calls “some of the most beautiful love in all the world.”  Then there’s philia, or love among friends, or among brothers and sisters. This kind usually comes easily, because you usually also like the person you love in this way. What we ought to strive for, King says, is agape. This is the love King and the Civil Rights Movement employed to change the hearts of the people with dogs and fire hoses. And also the hearts of complacent Northerners. I love his expression “redemptive good will.”

Then the Greek language has another word for love, and that is the word “agape.” Agape is more than romantic love, it is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive good will toward all men. Agape is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. When you rise to love on this level, you love all men not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, but you love them because God loves them. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Love your enemies.” And I’m happy that he didn’t say, “Like your enemies,” because there are some people that I find it pretty difficult to like. Liking is an affectionate emotion, and I can’t like anybody who would bomb my home. I can’t like anybody who would exploit me. I can’t like anybody who would trample over me with injustices. I can’t like them. I can’t like anybody who threatens to kill me day in and day out. But Jesus reminds us that love is greater than liking. Love is understanding, creative, redemptive good will toward all men. And I think this is where we are, as a people, in our struggle for racial justice. We can’t ever give up. We must work passionately and unrelentingly for first-class citizenship. We must never let up in our determination to remove every vestige of segregation and discrimination from our nation, but we shall not in the process relinquish our privilege to love.

I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many sheriffs, too many white citizens’ councilors, and too many Klansmen of the South to want to hate, myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents and say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country, and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, and we’ll still love you. But be assured that we’ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.

I’m always reminded, when going back to the source, that Dr. King’s non-violence was not passivity. It wasn’t doing nothing. It was employing an active force of love. King believed, on principle, that he had to love the demons who were threatening his children, for example, and that love could change those demons. Love is redemptive. It takes a long time, but in the long, long view, it works.

You remember when the first President Bush seemed flummoxed by the scanner at the grocery-store checkout? You can Google “Bush scanner” and read all about it. (Turns out it’s an urban legend, but it made a good story at the time.) Shopping with my husband reminds me of this purported incident. He is stuck, shopping-wise, in about 1962, when his mother used to take him to the 30th Street Plaza in Canton, Ohio. Add his anachronistic attitudes to his personality quirks, especially a terminal indecisiveness, and you have yourself an interesting shopping trip.

“That’s a pretty sweater.”

John spends about 97% of his waking life in movie theaters. This leaves little time for shopping. Hence, he is always amazed by the bounty. In the grocery store, he says, “Look at all the olives! Why don’t you ever buy olives?’ Then we walk down another aisle. “Look! They have Oreos with pink stuffing! Why don’t you ever buy those?” In every aisle, John will find A. something to marvel at, and, B. something to reproach me for.

His childlike wonder would be endearing, except that he’s in his seventh decade of life.

Same thing at the mall. In the department store, he says, “So many clothes. Look at how many clothes they have.” This remark has infinite permutations. “So many nice shirts. I like these shirts.” Then he’ll finger a white shirt with dark stripes and tell me how much he likes it. I believe that he likes this particular shirt, because he owns about ten white shirts with dark stripes. If I point this out, he’ll say, yes, but the stripes aren’t this shade. He’s distinguishing, for example, these pewter gray stripes from those gun-metal gray stripes at home.

John owns over sixty shirts. I just counted them. Today at Richmond Mall he bought three more. How many shirts do other men have? I don’t know. I’ve never been married before. My dad had hardly any shirts, and I had no brothers. John’s supply seems excessive.

Same  with sweaters. At Macy’s he’ll say, “That’s a pretty sweater.” I don’t buy him sweaters any more because he has nearly as many sweaters as shirts. He has to get rid of some before I will buy him any more. When I tell him this, he always says, “I could get rid of some sweaters.” He says this to torment me.

So, today he spent hours at the mall picking out a couple of shirts and sweaters. They’re on sale, of course, in January. “Everything’s so cheap!” he exclaims. “They should delay Christmas for about a month to take advantage of these sales!”

Once we have made a purchase, John worries about walking into another store carrying his bag. What will the Macy’s people say about his bringing a Penney’s bag into the store? I try for the umpteenth time to explain the meaning of “mall” to him. Does he imagine that the merchants expect him to trek to his car every time he buys something, a la the 30th Street Plaza, 1962? What would be the point of all these stores gathered under one roof, I ask, if you have to leave to stow your packages all the time?

He seems not to be listening, and on our next visit, about twelve months hence, he’ll exhibit the same awe, admiration, and questions. Are other men like this? I really want to know.

Rita as Gilda

This weekend, after a holiday hiatus, is so chockful of good programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, I’ll hardly be able to see all I want to see and am going to recommend a bunch to you. You already may have missed a good one: Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, a remarkable documentary shown at the new Museum of Contemporary Art last night, the first movie ever shown there. See it somewhere else if you can.

It’s a Beatles weekend at the art museum. Scott Freiman is in town to deliver his obsessive, fascinating, enlightening lecture/music/video/ presentations on the Fab Four. Tonight (Friday) at 6:30 he’s “Deconstructing the Early Beatles”—tracing their early history and first singles. Saturday afternoon (1:30), he concentrates on one of my favorite albums, “Revolver,” and on Sunday (also 1:30), he takes a “Trip through Strawberry Fields,” with an in-depth look at that song and also “A Day in the Life.” Last year, I saw Freiman’s program on Sgt. Pepper and was fascinated and amazed. See ticket information here.

The Cinematheque offers more music with Searching for Sugar Man, a crazily intriguing account of an American ‘70s folk/rock singer named Rodriguez who abruptly disappeared from view and was thought dead. In South Africa, however, his music has become anthemic. Some investigators decide to hunt him down, and the result is amazing and inspiring. This is a must-see movie, showing on Saturday at 9:40 and Sunday at 6:30. Don’t read too much about it before you see it!

Then there’s the classic Gilda, with the  iconic Rita Hayworth. This begins “Noir Town,” a series of films noirs at the Cinematheque. I’ve never seen this classic and hope to make it on Saturday at 5:15 or Sunday at 8:15. See her put the blame on Mame.

Also, tonight you have another chance to see The Well-Digger’s Daughter at 9:40 pm, which I didn’t recommend the last time John showed it. Those who saw it, however, loved it, and prevailed upon John to bring it back. It shows again on Sunday at 7:25.

Happy viewing. And New Year!