Next week, we in the Episcopal Church will celebrate the feast day of Jonathon Myrick Daniels. Born in Keene, New Hampshire, in 1939, he was shot and killed by an unemployed highway worker in Haynesville, Alabama in August of 1965. From High School in New Hampshire to his studies at VMI and Harvard, Jonathon Daniels wrestled with the meaning of life and death and vocation. Attracted to medicine and law as well as ministry, he eventually entered Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In March of 1965 the televised appeal of Martin Luther King, Jr. to come to Selma to secure for all citizens the right to vote drew Jonathon to a time and place where the nation’s racism and the Episcopal Church’s share in that inheritance were exposed. Jailed on August 14 for joining a picket line, Jonathon and his companions were unexpectedly released. Aware that they were in danger, four of them walked to a small store. As sixteen year-old Ruby Sales reached the top step of the entrance a man with a gun appeared, cursing her. Jonathon pulled her to one side to shield her from the unexpected threats. He was killed by a blast from the 12-gauge shotgun. Jonathon’s letters and papers bear eloquent witness to the gifts he possessed, and to the cross he chose to bear as he discovered these gifts, renewing his mind and being transformed in the process. He writes;
“The doctrine of the creeds, the enacted faith of the sacraments were the essential preconditions of the experience itself. The faith with which I went to Selma has not changed: it has grown…I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection…with them, the black men and white men, with all life, in him whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout…We are indelibly and unspeakably one.”
Before he entered seminary Jonathan Daniels earned his undergraduate degree from the Virginia Military Institute where he was the valedictorian of the Class of 1961. The school honors his service and sacrifice to the civil rights movement to this day. Photo: Virginia Military Institute
From Paul’s letter to the Romans, I found myself drawn again and again to his eloquent words: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds…” These words seem so deeply important to what follows. Paul reminds us, wisely, that we each have gifts that differ according to the grace given us. I was reminded of the wonderful poem by Czeslaw Milosz, entitled “Encounter”:
We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.
And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.
That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive.
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.
O my love, where are they, where are they going
the flash of hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.
It is precisely this sense of wonder about our lives and the sojourn each of us is on that I want to emphasize here. My brothers and sisters in Christ, we may not share the particular cross Jonathon Daniels chose to bear, the most radical form of what Deitrich Bonhoeffer called “the cost of discipleship” but we do share his journey, by virtue of our shared Baptism. He chose not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of his mind as he participated in the Paschal mystery of Baptism, and so can we all. When Paul appeals to us to present ourselves as living sacrifices, he is asking that we live as if our lives are gifts to be used, here and now, in community. This begins with asking in wonder, and measuring in grace and faith our gifts. And let us remember that transformation is primarily about becoming a “whole” person, integrating all aspects of who we are, including our shadow selves, into a person of integrity and compassion. This is the way of Christ, who taught us how. And so I ask, with the poet Milosz, when we allow ourselves to be caught up in the Pentecostal winds of the Holy Spirit: where are we now, where are we going?
Jonathan Daniels’ funeral was held at St. James Episcopal Church, the parish that was sponsoring him for ordination, in his hometown of Keene, New Hampshire. Photo: The Archives of The Episcopal Church
Here’s a lovely villanelle on vocation, by Theodore Roethke:
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Indeed, we learn by going where we have to go. Let’s covenant, shall we, to pay attention to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, calling us to be share our gifts and graces in service, in community, with love.
Here’s more on the life of Daniels from the Episcopal News Service: Remembering Jonathan Daniels 50 years after his martyrdom – Episcopal News Service
Blessings, and I’ll catch you later on down the trail, and I hope to see you in church!
PS – Friends, along with three dear colleagues from our days at Vanderbilt Divinity School, I am working on a book for Vanderbilt University Press, and we will be in Colorado from August 14th-21st as we endeavor to complete this project. So the Trail Notes will take a summer break for a couple of weeks, and resume the week of August 21st. Perhaps I’ll have something to report based on this time off the grid in the Northern Rockies. Blessings, and Godspeed to each of you. I am so very grateful for this time as your interim priest in charge!