Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

MLK jr and Displacement

Posted by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn | Jan 17, 2011 | An Unbidden Life, Uncategorized |

We just got back from making retreat at Conception Abbey. Retreatants read and discussed Henri Nouwen’s chapter called “Displacement” in his older book, Compassion. I am reminded again that none of us ever change violently or drastically – all at once. We may want to change the world (I realize not everyone expects to change the world, but for those who do…) but we do not change the world quickly. We do not change quick. We change slowly. It took me 15 years to begin giving away significant income, and then mostly because I was forced to by church-planting. Displacement doesn’t happen all at once. To be a change-agent is to feel displaced in one’s own society – and then take some small incremental step. I don’t think Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. just suddenly work up one summer day and decided to begin a boycott of the Montgomery transit buses. No, he didn’t jump from A to say H – instead he progressed in smaller steps of risk and chance, A to B to C… so forth. I suppose one of his first steps was reading the words of Jesus – Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. – Mt. 10 If King was like...

Poem: Brother Louis Versus Tom Turkey

Posted by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn | Dec 20, 2010 | An Unbidden Life, Uncategorized |

Brother Louis Versus Tom Turkey Ho! There Tom Turkey, lurky, perky, smirky Hiding in the thicket, hedged in by your picket. Still I spy your secret. I hide behind a tree. I will creep a little closer, and still you cannot see Noser, Imposer; fetch closer I’ll be. Smelled you in the delly, welly telly smelly Steppin’ and a snap it, trodden foot a-crack it. You can spy all you want Louis, you old smeller, Because I’m sly like a wight, a private sort of feller A bright, aright, a sprite forest dweller. So say you clucky, lucky ducky, clucky Barking like a hound with a fox you’d found. I heard you from afar Tom, rasping to the ladies. Thought I’d keep you on your toes, you and your mateys. Suppose I arose to keep your souls from Hades. If I aholt ya, note ya, groped ya, poked ya So to pin your claws back, held your beak that gnaws at, That’d teach you a fine lesson In the art of stealthy. I’d do you no great damage, but turn you wiser, wealthy. For man is to manage his Man-Age Self be. Louis, let me free be, me be, flee me, freely I don’t trust one iota, tricksy since I known ya. You’d ring my neck And pluck my plume My tasty meat for you to eat, and...

Prose: Sowing Tears

Posted by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn | Dec 9, 2010 | Uncategorized |

Sowing Tears Silence! Be Silent! The silent rustling of the cold winter stalks Left trussed upon the frozen clods. Whispering their memories of bygone summer days Rain, dark storms, morning dew, heat Blue and green, brown and black “Yellow Face to gladden my veins!” say they. all for nothing Where is the joy of the harvest? Who comes with sheaves abounding And a song on their lips? The corn stalks stand as totems to an Earlier promised prosperity But we stole it, sold it, abused those Precious gifts: land and soil, The fertile rows of humanity – children, men and women. And I, O Lord, yes I, myself ignore them like a Lazarus And threw them away in the inner city, Speaking to myself: ‘why won’t the government do something?’ Warm bed, plenty of food, shelter and laughter. But those still white stalks stand rustling their memories, a lament, “What has become of our basket of fruit?” by Brother Dancha 2010 (Amos...

The Patron Saint of Pawnbrokers and the Shanghai Tower

Posted by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn | Dec 6, 2010 | Uncategorized |

One of my three or four favorite holy days of the year: This is St. Nicholas’ Day. Nicholas is the patron saint of pawnbrokers because Nicholas is the patron saint of the poor. How strange that pawnbrokers, who “service” the poor by making leveraged loans usually for desperate situations. This is how we take advantage of the poor. Here’s another one: Ol’ St. Nick is the patron saint of sailors – uh, er, rather pirates! “Sailors” stole his remains from the Holy Lands about one thousand years ago and carried them off to Italy. I’ve always thought the shopping mall Santa should have been a pirate… you know, complete with scraggly beard, dirty horizontal black and white striped shirt, peg-leg, eyepatch, parrot, saber – “ArrR! Little girl, comes to Santy and make known ye wishes if ye may, er I’ll run me blade clean through yer scurvy hide, I will! Har Har Har!” That’s more accurate, yes, I think so. That’d make the kids think twice about naughty and nice. The real Bishop Nicholas one night secretly slipped three bags of gold in to three destitute girl’s stockings as they hung out to dry. These were probably young women, no dowry, so they could not be married, and so they were destined for prostitution in the 4th century – bound for the sex trade. Nicholas rescued them. (BTW The...

Totem and the Unrealized Brilliance of Fred Phelps

Posted by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn | Nov 25, 2010 | An Unbidden Life, Uncategorized |

We are using the wrong strategy to put down Fred Phelps. This morning in The Kansas City Star newspaper the lead article was about fallen United States Army Cpl. Jacob R. Carver who was killed in Afghanistan, and an estimated two to three thousand citizens, patriots and neighbors who lined the funeral route attempting to push Rev. Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kansas) far away from the soldier’s family funeral at Harrisonville, Missouri’s Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church (refer to “A Human Buffer Against Hate” The Kansas City Star Wednesday November 24, 2010, page A1). Phelps believes God is punishing America for the sin of condoning homosexuality, thus the death of Cpl. Carver. If someone wants to challenge and change a culture they must interfere with the culture’s totem. This what Phelps is doing. That is what Jesus did 2,000 years ago, and Jesus changed the world. Totem is a culture’s common ancestry, its rootedness, which is so important to a hodgepodge melting pot people like America. Totem is an “idol” of the culture. I don’t mean an idol like a fake god, some object carved out of wood or soapstone. I refer to the ritual use of metaphors, symbols and idols as a culture’s totem. These idols embody the unspeakable consensus and conscience of a culture. Totem allows a culture to make sense of...