Been thinking about bandwagons, and the temptation to jump on them. Ever since the circus clown Dan Rice used a bandwagon to give Zachary Taylor much needed publicity in the 1848 American Presidential elections, jumping on the bandwagon has been popular as an easy approach to decision-making. If lots of other people are doing it, thinking it, buying it, it must be good so I'll do likewise. Nowadays being told you're "jumping on the bandwagon" has become a dismissive put-down, criticising the lack of independence of mind, ridiculing the crowd-following instinct, suggesting a lazy or too impressionable mind lacking individuality, initative and personal preference.
Now sometimes jumping on the bandwagon is the result of all or some of these. But supposing the bandwagon is going somewhere important? What if those on the bandwagon are indeed better informed, or have found a more interesting place to go, or are just a lot better company than I've so far found, eh? So I'm going to jump on a bandwagon currently on the make though still modestly proportioned, and already rolling. The William Stringfellow bandwagon. I first came across the name years ago in several contexts including the work of civil rights activists and early Sojourners writing. Never followed it up. Then a few weeks ago the name started to appear in blog conversations, including the ubiquitous Ben Myers at Faith and Theology. Before then Stuart had started to mention him in conversation and now features Stringfellow at Word at the Barricades.
Sunday past's Revised Common Lectionary Readings included the famous Ecclesiastes passage about time.
under heaven:
3:2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what
is planted;
3:3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
3:4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
3:5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to
embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
3:6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
3:7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
3:8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.
3:9 What gain have the workers from their toil?
3:10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.
3:11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past
and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning
to the end.
3:12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves
as long as they live;
3:13 moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all
their toil.
So if there's a time for every matter under heaven, there's surely a time for learning insights from unusual directions. I haven't read the work of William Stringfellow. Yet. But someone who writes in the areas of political spirituality and lived faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and someone who believed his theology is best understood when visibly embodied in the story of his life – well that's someone whose bandwagon I want to jump on for a while.
A Keeper of the Word, is a reader which includes a broad selection of Stringfellow's published work. Don't know if this bandwagon will gather momentum and size, but whether or not, I want to go along for a while, for this part of my own journey, just to see.
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