May 4

Today is the feast day of Saint Monica, Augustine’s mother, whose patience and prayers for her son were written down in his Confessions. 

Today in 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull (decree) that essentially divided the New World between Portugal and Spain in an attempt to mediate conflict between the two emerging empires. It is an example of how the church became complicit in colonization and land theft. 

Today also marks the anniversary of the Haymarket Incident in Chicago in 1886, a conflict between organized labor groups and police and strike-breakers. Several people died in the conflict. 

Today also marks the death of Carl von Ossietzky, a journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, in 1938. He sounded the alarm that Germany was preparing for war. He was arrested by the Nazis, tortured and sent to a concentration camp. In addition to criticizing anti-semitism and the fascist government, he alerted the world to a looming danger.  

Today is the birthday of Abdullah Ansari, a sufi mystic, poet, and saint, in the year 1006. 

Today is also National Bird Day, first celebrated in 1894. Due to habitat loss, insect loss, and climate change, North America has lost nearly 30% of its birds. 

Reflection:

Abdullah Ansari wrote: 

Regarding the Haymarket Incident, I do not remember learning about the history of organized labor in high school. I learned about it and multiple other stories of class conflict when I read Lies My Teacher Told Me and A People’s History of the United States, and connected the dots in my seminary education with Methodist history. Samuel Fielden was a Methodist pastor who spoke at the Haymarket rally. He was tried and convicted of being part of an anarchist conspiracy, but later pardoned. 

In the last century, mainline churches and organized labor worked to ban child labor, create worker protections, and establish many things we take for granted—like a “weekend.” The movement that led up to the Haymarket Incident was about limiting the work day to eight hours. The slogan was “eight hours for work; eight hours for sleep; eight hours for what you will.” Some Christians who supported the movement recognized that the Biblical idea of a sabbath was about protecting the right to rest. Today, billionaires and their bribed congresspersons threaten to exploit all of us once again. 

We must demand a sabbath not only for human beings, but for the planet as well. I am mindful that the Torah claims that the land will have its rest from human beings; either voluntarily or by destruction and exile (Leviticus 26:43). Perhaps then the birds will recover. 

Prayer: Creator God, we have allowed both your people and your planet to be abused. Give us the strength to resist exploitation and the wisdom to know effectively how to do it. Amen.