From Holy Week to Spring Break:

Transcription

1 From Holy Week to Spring Break: The Changing Character of American Public Life Prepared for Downtown Kiwanis, Portland, Oregon April 16, 2014 By Keith Watkins During my childhood and early adult years, two religious observances were widely held in communities all across America. Easter vacation was a four-day event, beginning with Good Friday and concluding on the following Monday. Schools were closed on those two days, and business and many retail establishments were closed on that Friday afternoon. This meant that families could count on a four-day holiday. Since going to their own church on Easter Sunday was still a major practice, most families ended up staying close to home despite the relaxation of their school and business schedules. Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday and concluding with Easter, was also widely recognized. Many churches used these days as times of special religious activities, which frequently included services of worship at noon or evening that were widely attended by people despite the fact that they were at work on those days. During the years of my active adulthood, however, these religiously defined rituals of public life have been replaced. Holy Week and the Easter Vacation have morphed into Spring Break. It was easy enough for this change to occur because Holy Week-Easter vacation and spring break-spring fling have two things in common: In our part of the world they happen during the riotous rebirth of the natural world; and they provide a strongly anticipated break from the pattern of ordinary life. One reason for the change from the religion-based festival to the nature-based celebration is technical. Schools need consistency in scheduling and they try to plan breaks to come at times in the year that are beneficial to the patterns of academic activity. Because the dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar and the vernal equinox, it fluctuates from year to year, falling anytime from March 22 to April 25. With that kind of variation, it is difficult to plan academic calendars. This was true even in the Christian seminary where I taught for much of my career, and we were sympathetic to the religious events that these holy days commemorated. Keith Watkins writes on history, theology, and bicycling. He lives in Vancouver, Washington, just north of the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. hkwatkins@mac.com Copyright 2014 Keith Watkins

2 From Holy Week to Spring Break 2 A second reason for the fading away of the religious aspects of the springtime festival is that American public life is changing significantly. The de facto Protestant Christian underpinnings of how Americans ordered time are increasingly out of synchronization with how the people of our nation understand themselves. The proportion of church-going people to the population as a whole is diminishing. Furthermore, other religious traditions, including Judaism and Asian religions, are now well represented in our communities. These groupings of people also have their religious festivals and rightly believe that their ritual life should be honored as much as those of the Protestant old timers. One way to respond to this demand is to reduce the recognition of Protestant holy days and seasons, which is what has happened with respect to Easter Vacation and Holy Week. The result is Spring Break, which emphasizes freedom and fun rather than the deeper experiences of life whether they be basic values for living, religious traditions, or the honoring of America s political and cultural traditions. My experience as a child growing up in Portland and as a parent of children growing up in Indianapolis is essentially pre-spring break. Neither I nor my children enjoyed the enthusiasms I hear described on news broadcasts these days. Therefore, I can only comment on what I hear in the public discussion about the current festival. The oft-used alternative title, spring fling, conveys a sense of the exuberant behavior, with many constraints set aside for a few days, that typifies this festival of springtime. Spring break provides the occasion for people to move away from normal patterns of activity and from many of the social norms that keep ordinary life flowing smoothly. Unfortunately, this breaking through the norms sometimes leads to behavior that is hard for even the most generous of mind and spirit to accept as being within reasonable norms of mature behavior. For many people, the festivals of spring come at a time when we need a few days away from convention in order to led the buds of life that have been dormant through the winter burst into bloom again. I too enjoy time away, especially if it is in a warm place where I can spend a lot of time on my bicycle. Should we worry about the fact that the older religion-based festivals honored selfgiving love, the readiness to endure hardship for the sake of other people, and the strengthening of the institutions that bind us together while spring break celebrates the setting aside of these very qualities? I think that the answer is yes. Hedonistic selfindulgence that spurns long-standing community values may be OK in small amounts on infrequent occasions; they help us maintain equilibrium in a world that is filled with pressures that can in time break us down. Nevertheless, the harder values of mutuality and service that the older ceremonies commemorated and transmitted are crucial to the well being of our society. Of one thing we can be sure: the spring fling aspect of spring break will stay with us. The task before us is to find a way to recover the solidarity of life together that in ear-

3 From Holy Week to Spring Break 3 lier generations was remembered and renewed during Holy Week and Easter Vacation. But how are we to do this? The following points are suggestions for us to consider. First, public rituals that celebrate a community s values are essential to the well being of the community. Some of these rituals continue from past generations, although with modifications to suit the changing times. In Portland, the Rose Festival is a good example. Other public commemorations honor more recent aspects of the higher traditions by which we live, with holidays honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement as good examples. Second, religious rituals continue to part of the tapestry that preserves and transmits values for the society as a whole. This leads me to make two observations: that we should work hard to maintain a place in public life for religious observation to take place; and that we should acknowledge that American life is multi-cultural and multireligious in a way that we could scarcely imagine when I was a student years ago at Lincoln High School. Organizations such as this Kiwanis Club are broadening their scope by encouraging people of various faiths, and of no faith, to participate. You are setting an example that is healthful for the society as a whole. Third, it is important to encourage people of faith to participate in the public discussion about issues facing our communities and the nation. It is especially important that we stay focused during this time when public debate is so polarized and antagonistic. Some people are determined to mix religious and political systems so that political power is used to enforce religiously defined patterns of life. Examples are rife in current debates about sexuality and public policy. One of the most important aspects of the American political system is our freedom both to live the way a self-chosen religion teaches or to choose a way of life that does not include religiously defined patterns. This freedom needs to continue. Yet, it is important that perspectives of faith be encouraged as part of the on-going discussion. Here, I am helped by ideas from an essay by Robert D. Cornwall who is a pastor near Detroit and a frequent op-ed writer in local newspapers. Drawing upon other writers in this field, Cornwall distinguishes between three spheres in which all of us live: the private, the public, and the political. It is important to remember, Cornwall writes, that the public sphere is larger than the political, which is focused on the exercise of power. The public arena is that place where the stranger is present and welcome. It is that sphere where we meet others for education, conversation, work, politics, the sharing of culture and religious life. It is the place where civic life occurs, and it is in this place that we discern that we re in this together. Later in his essay, Cornwall writes that what I believe and why I believe is a matter of great personal concern, but if my faith is meaningful then surely it must have something to say to the way I live in the public square. He insists that we must keep private, public, and political aspects of life distinct from one another, although in steady, vigorous contact. As I think about where we are right now in American culture, with the fading away of the explicitly faith-based rituals, the question is how should we move forward with

4 From Holy Week to Spring Break 4 renewing a pattern that preserves and transmits values on which the society depends. Here, I have two thoughts to propose. The first is suggested by the current remembrance of last year s Boston Marathon Bombing, and also by the news reports occasioned by the landslide north of Seattle. In both instances, the reports celebrate the first responders, both private individuals and others acting in professional roles. We continue to honor self-giving for the sake of people in need, even when these actions are risk-laden and sometimes lead to injury or death. Both the spontaneous and carefully planned memorials affirm values for our society that we really do want to continue forward into the future. The continuing remembrance of these events provides the opportunity for our communities to develop new public rituals that honor and preserve the values on which we depend. A few days ago (April 12, 2014), one of my daughters, Sharon Watkins, published an op-ed column in her local newspaper, The Indianapolis Star. The headline conveys her theme: A year after Boston bombing, let s stand together. Sharon writes: In the days that followed [the bombing] we became undivided by our differences and citizens of one world community. Later in the column she refers to a document by Muslim scholars that was published a few years ago [October 13, 2007], entitled A Common Word Between Us. This document proposes a common basis for building a world at peace. That common basis? Love of God and love of neighbor both of which are central to the Jewish and Christian faiths as well. How do we go about loving God and neighbor? According to the biblical witness we all share, it is by facing hard times together with a generous spirit: by reaching out toward each other rather than turning our backs on each other. Sharon concludes her essay by highlighting activities in her own city that are consistent with the values she has been describing. A similar task is appropriate for people here in our city, which is to emphasize and encourage festivals that bind all people together so that our shared life will be strong and good for everyone. This leads me to my second consideration, which is more difficult to express. My thoughts are shaped by two monographs thati read around Thanksgiving time this past year. One is an essay by Jacob K. Olupona, the son of a Nigerian Anglican priest and professor of African religious traditions at Harvard Divinity School. He describes the way that Christian and Muslim segments of Nigerian society manage to get along because they share an even earlier civil religion that undergirds nearly all aspects of Nigerian life. In a footnote, Olupona cites American scholar Robert Bellah who describes civil religion as the sacred principle and central ethic that unites a people and without which societies cannot function. The second monograph that has influenced my recent thought is book by Stephen Mansfield entitled Lincoln s Battle with God: A President s Struggle with Faith and What it Meant for America. Mansfield traces Lincoln s movement from being a religious scoffer to a person who was strongly committed to a moral vision that is strongly rooted in the Bible but cannot be contained within any of the nation s institutionalized religions. Increasingly, it was this vision that directed Lincoln during the darkest days of our na-

5 From Holy Week to Spring Break 5 tion s history. Mansfield points to Lincoln s Second Inaugural Address as the mature expression of this vision. This is too complex a topic to discuss here in this setting, but it points the way for all of us who want to continue the life of this nation in a way that is strong and good. We are rooted in a moral vision of the nature of our relationship, and one of the major tasks for the religious and civic organizations to which we belong is to affirm and foster this vision for the generation now coming to take our place. In one of his books on Portland, Carl Abbott, long-time professor of history at Portland State, has discussed the unique character of this part of the world. Our underlying attitude toward the world combines two qualities that do not live together easily. On the one hand, we value personal freedom, which means that our social systems allow people to be pretty much what they want to be regardless of what others think. On the other hand, the Portland way is committed to maintaining a society that emphasizes the common good. The idea seems to be that this kind of a society is what makes it possible for people to live in ways that are individualistic and free. Spring break expresses one side of this pattern. A vibrant system of community rituals, including those of our religious communities, expresses the other side. We need them both in order to live a good life and to be good citizens of this wonderful part of the world. Bonds, Boundaries, and Bondage of Faith, by Jacob K. Olupona. Divinity School Bulletin (Summer/Autumn 2013). A Common Word Between Us [October 13, 2007] Faith in the Public Square, by Robert D. Cornwall (Gonzales, FL: Energion, 2012). Lincoln s Battle with God: A President s Struggle with Faith and What it Meant for America, Struggle with Faith and What it Meant for America, by Stephen Mansfield (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012). Portland in Three Centuries: The Place and the People, by Carl Abbott (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2011).