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July 14
John Keble, Woody Guthrie, Bastille Day, and International Non-Binary People's Day
David Barnhart
July 14, 2025
Bastille Day in Nantes, France, 2022. Own photo.
Today in 1789, French insurgents, fed up with abuses of royal power, stormed the Bastille, a prison and armory. Although there were only 7 prisoners inside, freeing them marked the beginning of the French Revolution, widely interpreted as a class war between the rich and poor.
Today in 1849, a white supremacist mob surrounded Calvary Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, incensed that the church had been teaching and educating enslaved people and blaming them for the Charleston Workhouse Rebellion (which I wrote about yesterday). The mayor intervened and the church was not burned, but the event is a reminder that white supremacy approves only of passive religion that does little tangible good.
Today also marks the feast day of John Keble in the Church of England. Keble was a priest, poet, and leader of the Oxford Movement in the early 1800’s, which sought closer kinship with the Roman Catholic church. He wrote a book of poems that followed the Liturgical Calendar called The Christian Year which became a best-seller during the Victorian era.
Today is also International Non-Binary People’s Day, established in 2012.
Reflection:
John Keble wrote:
“The deeds we do, the words we say,—
Into still air they seem to fleet,
We count them ever past;
But they shall last,
In the dread judgment they
And we shall meet!”
and
“When you find yourself, as I daresay you sometimes do, overpowered as it were by melancholy, the best way is to go out, and do something kind to somebody or other.”
and
“Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without Thee I cannot live:
Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without Thee I dare not die.”
Woody Guthrie wrote these lyrics, which are appropriate for facing our own homegrown fascist regime:
“I walked up on a mountain in the middle of the sky
Could see every farm and every town
I could see all the people in this whole wide world
That's the union that'll tear the fascists down, down, down
That's the union that'll tear the fascists down”
Prayer: Liberator of All Prisoners and Destroyer of Prisons, may all places of captivity, slavery, and punishment be destroyed. Harrow them as you harrowed hell. Shame the captors and vindicate the incarcerated. Amen.