Making Do, Making New – Love is the Way
In Chapter Three of his Book, Love is the Way, Bishop Michael Curry speaks of his grandmother, and how when she was cooking or baking or prepping she told them stories. She was African American, the daughter of share-croppers, the grand-daughter of former slaves. She had grown up in a difficult world, where everyday was a struggle. She went to high school and later taught children in the old country segregated schools. She worked as a domestic, cleaning homes while rearing children and a family. She never went to college, but she did everything in her power to make sure that her children did. She buried some of her own children, including Michael Curry’s own mother. She buried a husband and lost loved ones fighting in the 2nd world war in segregated units.
He writes: Times were hard and sometimes dangerous, but they always made do with what they had and what life threw at them. He says that was the phrase that she would always use: “We made do”.
And one expression of making do, was his grandmother’s ability to cook with whatever she had in her pantry. He says she could take the grits and make them gourmet. With all sorts of scraps and bits and pieces, she could create a meal for her family that tastes like love feels. A meal so delicious that you could forget your troubles, at least while you were at the table.
It had been how she had learned to cook from her parents and grandparents who had been slaves. As slaves they weren’t given a lot. They were often given what was not wanted, scraps otherwise thrown away. Part of the genius of cooking with scraps was that folk learned how to ‘make it stretch’. They took the proverbial two pieces of fish and five loaves of bread and fed a multitude. He says: My ancestors took a little and made a lot.
I get the sense that this would have been true for a lot of people living in Ireland a few generations ago. Making do. That was true of my grandmother, my mom’s mom. My grandfather was a brick layer and an alcoholic. Not many of his wages actually made it home. My grandmother had to learn to make do.
Bishop Curry writes that making do is not the same as giving up. It’s a way of figuring out how to both survive and thrive. Making do is about taking the scraps of life that might be in front of one and making something new and miraculous out of it. Taking an old reality and creating a new possibility.
He writes that in the New Testament there is a passage in which the Apostle Paul reflects on the logic of love: Let Love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold onto what is good. The passage concludes with the words: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
He says this is the methodology, the way, the logic of love. Overcome evil with good. Take their garbage and serve it back gourmet. That is the way of love that Jesus was teaching, and living out in his own life. Making do!
Michael Curry suggests a recipe for making do:
The first ingredient for making do is tradition: And by tradition, Michael Curry is referring to tapping into the wisdom of the past. The reason that his grandmother was able to make do, to continuously make the most out of difficult circumstances is that she had learn to do so from her ancestors, her parents and grandparents.
When we need guidance on how to live a life grounded in love and guided by love, making lemon juice when life throws lemons at you, we don’t have to start from scratch. There already exists a wisdom from people of faith who have struggled and yet made do.
Religion at it’s worst tries to tell us the way something should be done, because it has always been done this way. That is religion at it’s worst. Dogmatic, authoritarian, unable to bend or change or adapt to new circumstances. But Michael Curry suggests that religion at it’s best should be a treasure chest of wisdom gleaned from the faith journeys of people who have gone before. Like his mother who learned to cook from scraps and bits and pieces that others would have thrown away, so religion at it’s best should provide skill’s for living and loving when life seems to present to us the scraps. Learning to make the most in the midst of difficult circumstances. Helping us to keep our eyes focussed on the light when it feels like darkness has descended.
The Second Ingredient for Making do he suggests is Imagination.
Imagination is crucial if you are going to take life’s scraps and turn them into something gourmet as his grandmother did, and he points us to Michelangelo. Michelangelo, one of the great artists of the renaissance, when asked how he was able to produce such amazing sculptures would say that the sculpture already existed in the block of granite. It was simply his job to discover it. That, says Michael Curry is imagination.
Michael Curry goes on to quote the anonymous saying that problems are solutions in disguise. In the language of psychology, he says it is called reframing. Seeing a situation in a new light and in doing so finding new inspiration to move forward.
The importance of imagination can be found in many of stories of the Bible, like the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. He notes that Professor Walter Breuggemann once observed that the moment of liberation for the Hebrew slaves in Egypt did not begin when Moses told Pharoah: “Let my people go!” Likewise it did not begin when the plagues brought their Egyptian slave masters to their knees. Neither did it begin when the waters of the Red Sea were parted allowing slaves to pass through to freedom on the other side. Michael Curry writes that the freedom movement led by Moses begins at the burning bush, when God invites Moses to imagine a world without slavery. It begins in the imagination. That’s where any movement begins that seeks to help us humans become more humane. And so Michael Curry writes that making do begins when someone dares to imagine another possibility, one that is greater than what appears to be the reality.
In Matthew 18:3 Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
It was the late Urban Terry Holmes who believed that what Jesus may have been referring to was that wonderful children’s characteristic of imagination. And like wise, Bishop Curry says, if we are to behold the reign of God, that perfect reign of God’s peace, God’s shalom, God’s salaam, what he call’s the dream of God, then we need to become like little children and use our imaginations to imagine a new future, to dream a new dream for humanity.
The last ingredient for making do says Michael Curry, is God.
Bishop Curry writes that he grew up in a community where God was a given. He acknowledges in the book that not everyone grows up in that way. But within his community, the givenness of God gave people like his grandmother the strength to believe that life could be different and the constant assurance that whatever struggles or battles they were facing there was always a possibility that their current circumstances could be disrupted by a power greater than themselves. It gave them the ability to look at life with the eyes of hope. That out of sadness, joy could still come. That out of despair there was always the potential for new possibilities. I think even people who don’t have a traditional faith have discovered that when they have acted on a moment of inspiration and embarked upon something that seemed bigger than themselves it seemed like the universe had begun to conspire with them in bringing a new possibility into being, as though there were hidden forces at work aiding and assisting them. For Michael Curry and the community he grew up in, the language that they used to describe such experiences was the language of God. To believe in God for them, was to believe in the possibility of the impossible, that they could tap into a strength beyond their own when life was at it’s most difficult. And so Michael Curry writes that that’s why prayer matters. Prayer matters he says because when God (or some conception of a Higher Power) is brought into the equation of life, something changes. New possibilities emerge. Making do, requires a little bit of faith… a faith that new possibilities are possible even when it may seem impossible.
Bishop Curry ends the chapter by referring to Howard Thurman a theologian who made a big impact on Martin Luther King Jnr. Howard Thurman spoke of his own grandmother who had been a former slave. She had told of how the slaves would have two church services every Sunday. The first service was arranged by the master, and the authorised preacher would preach a sermon whose essential purpose was to instruct them on how God would want them to be better slaves.
But after the formal service, the slaves would then hold their own worship service and the slave preacher would preach another sermon, one that would always have ended with the words: “You are not slaves, you are the children of God”. It was an act of spiritual defiance and spiritual resistance.
In those words, the old preacher ripped off the givens of reality and offered a new possibility. “You are not slaves, you are the children of God”.
Bishop Curry writes: No matter what the world and life may say, or how it may make you feel, you are the children of God. And that essential identity of being children of God gives us the energy to make do, to find strength in a power greater than our small selves, to take whatever it is that life throws at us and to make do, and not just to make do, but, indeed, to make new. Amen.
In Chapter Three of his Book, Love is the Way, Bishop Michael Curry speaks of his grandmother, and how when she was cooking or baking or prepping she told them stories. She was African American, the daughter of share-croppers, the grand-daughter of former slaves. She had grown up in a difficult world, where everyday was a struggle. She went to high school and later taught children in the old country segregated schools. She worked as a domestic, cleaning homes while rearing children and a family. She never went to college, but she did everything in her power to make sure that her children did. She buried some of her own children, including Michael Curry’s own mother. She buried a husband and lost loved ones fighting in the 2nd world war in segregated units.
He writes: Times were hard and sometimes dangerous, but they always made do with what they had and what life threw at them. He says that was the phrase that she would always use: “We made do”.
And one expression of making do, was his grandmother’s ability to cook with whatever she had in her pantry. He says she could take the grits and make them gourmet. With all sorts of scraps and bits and pieces, she could create a meal for her family that tastes like love feels. A meal so delicious that you could forget your troubles, at least while you were at the table.
It had been how she had learned to cook from her parents and grandparents who had been slaves. As slaves they weren’t given a lot. They were often given what was not wanted, scraps otherwise thrown away. Part of the genius of cooking with scraps was that folk learned how to ‘make it stretch’. They took the proverbial two pieces of fish and five loaves of bread and fed a multitude. He says: My ancestors took a little and made a lot.
I get the sense that this would have been true for a lot of people living in Ireland a few generations ago. Making do. That was true of my grandmother, my mom’s mom. My grandfather was a brick layer and an alcoholic. Not many of his wages actually made it home. My grandmother had to learn to make do.
Bishop Curry writes that making do is not the same as giving up. It’s a way of figuring out how to both survive and thrive. Making do is about taking the scraps of life that might be in front of one and making something new and miraculous out of it. Taking an old reality and creating a new possibility.
He writes that in the New Testament there is a passage in which the Apostle Paul reflects on the logic of love: Let Love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold onto what is good. The passage concludes with the words: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
He says this is the methodology, the way, the logic of love. Overcome evil with good. Take their garbage and serve it back gourmet. That is the way of love that Jesus was teaching, and living out in his own life. Making do!
Michael Curry suggests a recipe for making do:
The first ingredient for making do is tradition: And by tradition, Michael Curry is referring to tapping into the wisdom of the past. The reason that his grandmother was able to make do, to continuously make the most out of difficult circumstances is that she had learn to do so from her ancestors, her parents and grandparents.
When we need guidance on how to live a life grounded in love and guided by love, making lemon juice when life throws lemons at you, we don’t have to start from scratch. There already exists a wisdom from people of faith who have struggled and yet made do.
Religion at it’s worst tries to tell us the way something should be done, because it has always been done this way. That is religion at it’s worst. Dogmatic, authoritarian, unable to bend or change or adapt to new circumstances. But Michael Curry suggests that religion at it’s best should be a treasure chest of wisdom gleaned from the faith journeys of people who have gone before. Like his mother who learned to cook from scraps and bits and pieces that others would have thrown away, so religion at it’s best should provide skill’s for living and loving when life seems to present to us the scraps. Learning to make the most in the midst of difficult circumstances. Helping us to keep our eyes focussed on the light when it feels like darkness has descended.
The Second Ingredient for Making do he suggests is Imagination.
Imagination is crucial if you are going to take life’s scraps and turn them into something gourmet as his grandmother did, and he points us to Michelangelo. Michelangelo, one of the great artists of the renaissance, when asked how he was able to produce such amazing sculptures would say that the sculpture already existed in the block of granite. It was simply his job to discover it. That, says Michael Curry is imagination.
Michael Curry goes on to quote the anonymous saying that problems are solutions in disguise. In the language of psychology, he says it is called reframing. Seeing a situation in a new light and in doing so finding new inspiration to move forward.
The importance of imagination can be found in many of stories of the Bible, like the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. He notes that Professor Walter Breuggemann once observed that the moment of liberation for the Hebrew slaves in Egypt did not begin when Moses told Pharoah: “Let my people go!” Likewise it did not begin when the plagues brought their Egyptian slave masters to their knees. Neither did it begin when the waters of the Red Sea were parted allowing slaves to pass through to freedom on the other side. Michael Curry writes that the freedom movement led by Moses begins at the burning bush, when God invites Moses to imagine a world without slavery. It begins in the imagination. That’s where any movement begins that seeks to help us humans become more humane. And so Michael Curry writes that making do begins when someone dares to imagine another possibility, one that is greater than what appears to be the reality.
In Matthew 18:3 Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
It was the late Urban Terry Holmes who believed that what Jesus may have been referring to was that wonderful children’s characteristic of imagination. And like wise, Bishop Curry says, if we are to behold the reign of God, that perfect reign of God’s peace, God’s shalom, God’s salaam, what he call’s the dream of God, then we need to become like little children and use our imaginations to imagine a new future, to dream a new dream for humanity.
The last ingredient for making do says Michael Curry, is God.
Bishop Curry writes that he grew up in a community where God was a given. He acknowledges in the book that not everyone grows up in that way. But within his community, the givenness of God gave people like his grandmother the strength to believe that life could be different and the constant assurance that whatever struggles or battles they were facing there was always a possibility that their current circumstances could be disrupted by a power greater than themselves. It gave them the ability to look at life with the eyes of hope. That out of sadness, joy could still come. That out of despair there was always the potential for new possibilities. I think even people who don’t have a traditional faith have discovered that when they have acted on a moment of inspiration and embarked upon something that seemed bigger than themselves it seemed like the universe had begun to conspire with them in bringing a new possibility into being, as though there were hidden forces at work aiding and assisting them. For Michael Curry and the community he grew up in, the language that they used to describe such experiences was the language of God. To believe in God for them, was to believe in the possibility of the impossible, that they could tap into a strength beyond their own when life was at it’s most difficult. And so Michael Curry writes that that’s why prayer matters. Prayer matters he says because when God (or some conception of a Higher Power) is brought into the equation of life, something changes. New possibilities emerge. Making do, requires a little bit of faith… a faith that new possibilities are possible even when it may seem impossible.
Bishop Curry ends the chapter by referring to Howard Thurman a theologian who made a big impact on Martin Luther King Jnr. Howard Thurman spoke of his own grandmother who had been a former slave. She had told of how the slaves would have two church services every Sunday. The first service was arranged by the master, and the authorised preacher would preach a sermon whose essential purpose was to instruct them on how God would want them to be better slaves.
But after the formal service, the slaves would then hold their own worship service and the slave preacher would preach another sermon, one that would always have ended with the words: “You are not slaves, you are the children of God”. It was an act of spiritual defiance and spiritual resistance.
In those words, the old preacher ripped off the givens of reality and offered a new possibility. “You are not slaves, you are the children of God”.
Bishop Curry writes: No matter what the world and life may say, or how it may make you feel, you are the children of God. And that essential identity of being children of God gives us the energy to make do, to find strength in a power greater than our small selves, to take whatever it is that life throws at us and to make do, and not just to make do, but, indeed, to make new. Amen.
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