St. Patrick and the Underground Railroad

There is a deep and unexpected resonance between visiting the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, OH last Friday and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day this Friday.

At the Freedom Center we bore witness to the stories of Black women, men, and children who were kidnapped, enslaved, and violated or born into the system of oppression. In preparing for St. Patrick’s Day, Henlee and I wrestled with the reality of Patrick’s own enslavement.

In both settings I was speechless in the wake of the horror.

But I was equally scandalized and rebuked by their hope.

The Underground Railroad Testifies Life Is Worth Living

The Underground Railroad is a testament to connected resilience, rooted power, and a daring resolution that life is worth living. The testimonies of the people who survived enslavement and reached liberation through the network and knowhow of their own minds and their comrades’ sharpened my orientation toward Wisdom’s work as she builds her house (Proverbs 9).

Liberation, life, and giving rest and wisdom to the weary is what God has always been up to.

The voices of the Underground Railroad’s Passengers and Engineers stirred me out of complacency, because how could we despair, give up, or squander the living of our lives in light of their costly/knowing/risked proclamation of the worthiness of life and freedom?

Despite all the terrors the powers and principalities of the world hurled at them, constructed around them, and imprinted upon their souls, the Passengers on the Underground Railroad refused to abandon hope.

They found a way in forests and through rivers by prayer and candles set in the window. They found a way with their guts and their smarts, through messages sent eye-to-eye and even through the mail. They found a way together not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9).

And they showed us that our connectedness — to one another and life itself — can mean the difference between life and death for someone else.

“But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be destroyed with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.
“Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and destroyed and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.”

— 2 Peter 3:8-13

Only Love Can Do That

Encountering the stories in the Freedom Center on one Friday and keeping the feast of St. Patrick the next Friday cast a new light on Patrick’s enslavement, escape, and eventual mission to actually preach the gospel of Christ to his once-tormentors and oppressors.

Victims owe nothing to their oppressors. But Patrick didn’t move according to earthly accounting.

Only Love itself can hope that none should perish. This is where I see Jesus shine in his life. Love called Patrick beyond the bondage of terror, enslavement, oppression, and even retribution. Christ gave him a vision of Home where all belong, and everything will be set to rights.

This is beyond me.

Only Love can keep daring to build a world where righteousness is at home.

The Passengers on the Underground Railroad and St. Patrick of Ireland had a Presence known to them. That Presence impressed upon them the hope of a way forward; they believed that their personal freedom was worth it and that freedom doesn’t come alone.

What Sort of Persons Ought We to Be

So after the leprechaun marshmallow treats and donning our green, I am left wondering today about where a white, Irish-American Christian woman from the South can might dare connect to this dogged hope and divine help.

There are fathoms from which I need to escape by the grace of Jesus Christ and there are a millions of ways I must repent (turn from destruction to life). In some ways I move in liberation and in other ways I still cannot perceive the chains that drag in my wake. Jesus has made himself known to me, and yet I miss his gaze everyday.

How do I lead a life of holiness and godliness as I wait — hope — on the Lord and his great righteous reckoning?

I think I listen. I think I build my house and meet my neighbors. I think I occupy this place of middleness.

The middle is muddy and utterly unmarketable. It is unclassifiable in zeros and ones. But that is where life is. That is where we are — human life has always grown from the Ground.

The women, men, children of the Underground Railroad, and St. Patrick himself call us to heed the Presence therein.

And they ask us to be at home.

Keeping the Feast

Our St. Patrick’s celebrations this week included collected rainbow/green/Irish/saints/garden stories, green smoothies, radio theatre, braids, and leprechaun marshmallow treats after corned beef with our neighbors.