PREFACE: View from an Adirondack
Marks the spot where I wrestled with God
So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
Genesis 32: 24-30
This volume is meant to reflect events and people in my life as relived during my three-week hospital stay in March of 2020. It is part of my Purim journey of study and reflection on the wanderings from Purim to Passover, to Easter, to Resurrection, and new life. It has been a unique sojourn for me as I have begun to understand who I am.
I begin in Part 1 with a description of the cognitive processes we use to understand and interpret the world around us. Purim to Passover to Easter provides the biblical journey that is for me the outline for this manuscript. This provides a vital foundational framework to understand what follows. I continue with some autobiographical background in the hope that it provides the reader with an idea of who the author is. As the Danish theologian and philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard reminds us: “Life must be lived forward but can only be understood backwards.” Hopefully, it matters to the reader, how who I am relates to what and how I became who I am, and the way in which my thinking has been formed. Throughout this text I have illustrated my line of reasoning with an abundance of events on a national and global stage, as well as personal stories. I have chosen to include them because stories are a primary form of communication. It is my hope that by including them I might provide the reader with the opportunity to identify themselves in the story and thereby share the journey.
Clearly this work can be read as a series of independent articles and yet when brought together they tell a complete and more compelling story of my Lenten Journey. As my friend Rabbi Michael Knoff, in his book, “Thirty Days of Liberation: Pathways for Personal and Social Transformation Inspired by the Book of Exodus,” suggest the time between Purim and Passover is a time of study, reflection, and preparation. It is my hope that this volume will speak to a reflective journey, not merely confined to a stay in ICU but a lifetime of experiences that might serve as preparation for the liberation of Passover, followed by renewal and resurrection, life in its fullest as intended by God, with an infusion of resilience into a lifestyle of hope.
I am indebted to Rev. Angelo Chatmon who early on encouraged me to go back to school and get my doctorate degree, so that I might be in a better position to teach and write, that I might pass on to others all the incredible experiences and people who have shaped my ministerial journey.
As I was recovering in the ICU and other events simultaneously began to capture the historical nature of 2020, these events are too significant to ignore and somehow needed to be included in this text. It was at this point a good friend, Rev. Warren Lesane, stopped by for a visit. As we were talking, he paused and asked me “Barton, when are you going to start writing.” I responded with I was going to start after I retired in 2018; in case you haven’t noticed I have been just a little busy. I had retired in August of 2018, and seven months later my bride of twenty-five years suddenly passed away, a year to the day later I found myself in the hospital with a 50/50 chance of survival.
As I was convalescing the world outside turned upside down with COVID 19, a time of fear and anxiety, of social distancing, and self-quarantining. The economy was shut down to address the spread of this highly contagious and deadly virus causing additional stress and anxiety about the future. A time when “fake news” masqueraded unchecked as if it were undisputed fact. A massive welter swept across the world leaving in its wake a 21st century neurasthenia.
Like living in a Barry Levinson movie remake of “Man of the Year” only this time there was a different ending, and the part of Tom Dobbs was played by a reality star. It was a year without proms, without graduations, a year of separation and isolation. A year where the nation witnessed the greatest racial tensions since the 1960’s with massive protest across the nation calling for more equity in treatment by law enforcement in light of several killings of Black men and women at the hands of police.
Our nation groaned with the pain of the civil rights struggle to seek a more perfect union from Black Panthers to Black Lives Matter the continued attempts to defer the dream of millions for equality. Added to the violence was a significant increase in mass shootings to 614 resulting in 446 deaths and 3,061 victims A time of extreme political controversy and division with a celebrity president, poster child for Robin Diangelo’s “White Fragility.”
It was as if the tower of babel collapsed fragmenting society into extreme partisan divisions unseen since the years leading up to the Civil War. All this was taking place amid the extremely partisan context of a presidential election. It has been like waking from an Orwellian nightmare to find yourself in a Charles Dickens’ village paralyzed by a global pandemic:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way“Tale of Two Cities”
As I sit here reflecting on this journey I realize, I love Adirondack chairs, just sitting back and watching the world go by. Actually, they are quite comfortable, until you try to stand up. That is when the challenges begin.
This is my faith journey, upset at times by perplexing questions. These chapters are a partial account of these musings, I hope they provide the reader with the same curiosity as they have for me.
Jonathan Barton
March 2020
