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2018/03/21

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Top book for both learning about King and learning about leadership
ByAvid Readerson October 26, 2015
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Phillips has written a few leadership books - and does a masterful job in each - yet especially here.

For this book, he weaves through with a leadership lesson in each chapter - and generally places the lesson tied directly to something King did - trying to stay close to chronological order. He also supplies us with key quotes from King at the beginning and end of each chapter - for a quick summary and overview.

Phillips sets the context in which King operated. This is huge! I don't believe you can't fully understand without immersing in the history, the mindset, the goings on of the time. Phillips doesn't assume the reader is familiar with King. He doesn't assume the reader knows the circumstances of King's time. Phillips pulls the reader in; explaining the leadership trait King embodied; he explains what in King's past helped him to get here. He explains the historical context of what the culture was like, what current events caused the situation, what players were involved and a little on their mindset and background. He points out how even a great man like King made mistakes, how we evaluated his successes and failures, and how he grew and improved throughout.

King's life was short and was lived mainly before I was born - he died at age 39 - and had learned more and accomplished more than many that lived to be twice his age. Being a student of leadership, but someone who knew very little about King, I chose this book to learn about both. It inspired me to read more about King. I am amazed at how he put his principles before even fear of criticism, family threats, and even death. I think the reader will learn a lot about King, his struggles, his faith, his life, his goals, and especially his leadership style. Yet, for burgeoning leaders, it is very insightful. It will make someone think about whether they truly want to be a leader and what sacrifices they are willing to make.

Phillips makes this an easy read - but notan easy one to just race through without reflection.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Good Read
ByAmazon Customeron October 9, 2016
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I'm so grateful that I waited until now to read this book, and didn't read it years prior when I would have lacked the mental maturity to recognize the true power of nonviolent resistance! I'm forever grateful to Dr. King for his many contributions, and great sacrifice.

"True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to evil power, as Niebuhr contends. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflictor of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart." - "The Autobiography Of Martin Luther King, Jr." Edited by Clayborne Carson, Pg. 26
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5.0 out of 5 stars The man behind the mythical Martin Luther King, Jr.
Bygork57on February 16, 2015
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I bought this book for my wife to go along with the movie 'Selma', which she and I had recently seen at the theater. It's a great film, but I wanted us both to know more about Martin Luther King, Jr. than his great speeches and the events the media reports on during the MLK holiday. The information in this book provides the truth behind the myth that King has become in the years since his untimely death.

While King did not actually write this book himself (we should remember he was only 39 years old when he was assassinated in 1968), it's so well researched and edited that you believe it came from his own pen. The book goes deep into King's background, and explains how he came to the philosophy that lead him to take the actions that changed American history.

King really believed what he did was for the good of all Americans, not just those of African ancestry. If you read this book, you will find his legacy is exactly that. America is indeed a better place because of his ultimate sacrifice.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone who wants to understand America should read this book ...
ByLouis Thaddaeuson January 13, 2018
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It was unfortunate that Martin Luther King Jr. did not get a chance to write his own autobiography, but Clayborne Carson does a wonderful job piecing together Martin's life struggles, highlights and main ideas. Martin's honesty and quest for justice rings throughout. There were a few sections that were duplicative, but overall I thought it was an excellent, absorbing read. To me, the book really delivered toward the end. Discussions on the concepts of power and love and nonviolence and violence were exceptional. I also really appreciated Martin's digging down to the root cause of black thought in relation to America - why, for example, many young black people leaned toward violence as a method to gain freedom and respect. Finally, there were a number of passages that could have been written today - so many points Martin made are as fresh as ever. Martin's revelations are timeless. Everyone who wants to understand America should read this book.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Eye-opening, and insightful. What an amazing story.
ByGrant Marshallon September 11, 2013
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I bought this book for a number of reasons. Firstly, I knew precious little about the man who stands as a giant of history. I also knew little about the kind of Christianity he professed, and had heard some people scandalously say that King was in no real way a Christian (i.e. Christopher Hitchens). All I can say after reading this book is WOW - what an amazing story. I heard King's voice speaking every word of every chapter. It was like he was sitting next to you telling you the story of his life.

King was most certainly a Christian. He grew up in a Christian home, he went to Seminary, he became a minister and pastored a Church. He spoke of a personal relationship with Jesus. He depended on God for strength during difficult times, he prayed to Jesus, he worshiped Jesus, he preached about Jesus, and led a congregation of Jesus followers. If that's not Christian nothing is. Yet his theology was decidedly liberal. He was embarrassed by his fundamentalist upbringing, especially those who would check their minds in at the door of Church and stomp their feet during the service. He spoke candidly about denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and embracing the liberal view of man. However he was an honest man, who at times questioned his presuppositions. I was impressed how he preached a Gospel that led to action in the present world. Not just a gospel of Sunday pieties.

In story after story King recounted how he was committed to nonviolence because this was the way of Jesus (and Gandhi whom he was later influenced by). He didn't preach hatred of white people, but reconciliation, with an aim to a fully integrated society. If anyone had reason to hate it was King. His home was bombed, his friends homes were bombed, he and his family were verbally abused and threatened, he was stabbed, he was arrested more times than I can count, and was often the victim of gross injustice. Yet in all that he showed the world that he served another Lord, and preached a different Gospel. Violence, only begets more violence. My heart broke for those who suffered during the era of segregation. At times I was almost reduced to tears, reading about the horrors of what mankind has done to each other. Not only that but I finally came to understand a little of what it was like to grow up as a Black Man in a climate of racism, to suffer under such terrible injustice, disrespect and disenfranchisement. Blessed are the peacemakers like Dr King, for they will be called the children of God.

Yet there were times I felt that King's liberalism got the better of him. I felt that King's idea of heaven on earth was simply an integrated society where everyone had equal opportunity to all state services, good jobs, and so on. Yet this idea doesn't go far enough. What about personal repentance and transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit? Can non-violent action really bring this about? Does it treat the symptoms rather than the root cause of the issue? What God's kingdom coming to earth, and us anticipating it in the present, but recognizing it is a future reality? He condemned violent protest, and distanced himself from people like Malcolm X but didn't call on those who had been violent to repent and follow Jesus. Many times he simply rationalized their violence as the understandable reaction of those who had suffered for too long. He often saw the suffering of the negro community as redemptive. But that is to give the community too much power, and a job that only Jesus can truly accomplish. If King meant that through their suffering and weakness, they embodied Jesus' suffering, and pointed people more fully towards Christ, then I have no issues. King's views on poverty and military action were a little naive. Giving away surplus food from the western world to store it in the empty bellies of hungry Indian Children, is a noble thought, but nothing more than a short term solution to a systemic problem. Giving away food like that can drive down the prices of local produce and cause more harm for the local economy than good.

Yet those quibbles aside, this is still a fantastic book. Towards the end it gets a little dry and repetitive, but is very readable. If you only read one book on the Civil rights movement and it's pivotal leader, read this one.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Make America Great Again
ByOmar Luqmaan-harrison March 20, 2016
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One one level I an deeply ashamed that I am just reading this comprehensive, compelling, and courageous book taken from the writings and speeches of the man himself and on another level I am happy I am reading this in 2016 as the issues of racism, poverty, and war (King's self-described 3 evils) are still very much alive. This is the example of a leader as Servant - a powerful man who dedicated his power not to the creation of personal wealth but to improving the conditions for millions of people. As a black man who has directly benefited from the Civil Rights Movement I feel a personal responsibility to advance the work of Dr. King. I plan to return to this tome often for inspiration. We shall Overcome!
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5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read
ByElizabeth Echavarriaon March 23, 2015
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An inspirational well written autobiography that recreates the times and struggle of the civil rights movement as well as, impressively captures the essence and feelings of Dr. King through its narrative and speeches. Every year we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday but I question if many of us from this generation really understand who is Dr. King and the significant contribution he made to civil rights through his nonviolent movement for change for the downtrotten poor, from the Black and White communities and then around the world. Dr King is a wonderful orator who personally moves the heart and mind with his passionate, sincere speeches aimed at uplifting and empowering his followers moving them away from victimization and into the realm of action, dignity, and self-respect. Being a religious civil rights leader, many of his speeches refer back to the Christian bible;nevertheless, they do not loose their magic to inspire even the person without religion due to the relevance and logic behind his observations and ideas. I highly recommend this book.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightened Democracy!
ByO. Halabiehon September 28, 2013
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Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:

1- "We cannot have an enlightened democracy with one great group living in ignorance. We cannot have a healthy nation with one-tenth of the people ill-nourished, sick, harboring germs of disease which recognize no color lines--obey no Jim Crow laws. We cannot have a nation orderly and sound with one group so ground down and thwarted that it is almost forced into unsocial attitudes and crime. We cannot be truly Christian people so long as we flout the central teachings of Jesus: brotherly love and the Golden Rule. We cannot come to full prosperity with one great group so ill-delayed that it cannot.t buy goods. So as we gird ourselves to defend democracy from foreign attack, let us see to it that increasingly at home we give fair play and free opportunity for all people."

2- "Above all, I see the preaching ministry as a dual process. On the one hand I must attempt to change the soul of individuals so that their societies may be changed. On the other I must attempt to change the societies so that the individual soul will have a change. Therefore, must be concerned about unemployment, slums, and economic insecurity. I am a profound advocate of the social gospel."

3- "Admittedly, nonviolence in the truest sense is not a strategy that one uses simply because it is expedient at the moment; nonviolence is ultimately a way of life that men live by because of the sheer morality of its claim. But even granting this, the willingness to use nonviolence as a technique is a step forward. For he who goes this far is more likely to adopt nonviolence later as a way of life."

4- "Ghana has something to say to us. It says to us first that the oppressor never voluntarily gives freedom to the oppressed. You have to work for it. Freedom is never given to anybody. Privileged classes never give up their privileges without strong resistance."

5- "I am often reminded of the statement made by Nkrumah: "I prefer self-government with danger to servitude with tranquility." I think that's a great statement. They were willing to face the dangers and difficulties, but I thought that Ghana would be able to profit by the mistakes of other nations that had existed over so many years and develop into a great nation."

6- "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was 'well timed'' in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ''Wait!'' It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied.""

7- "Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas: an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically. economically, and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful."

8- "The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everybody blind. Somebody must have sense and somebody must have religion."

9- "Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good."

10- "We were all involved in the death of John Kennedy. We tolerated hate; we tolerated the sick simulation of violence in all walks of life; and we tolerated the differential application of law, which said that a man's life was sacred only if we agreed with his views. This may explain the cascading grief that flooded the country in late November. We mourned a man who had become the pride of the nation, but we grieved as well for ourselves because we knew we were sick."

11- "I think there is a lesson that we can all learn from this: that violence is impractical and that now, more than ever before, we must pursue the course of nonviolence to achieve a reign of justice and a rule of love in our society, and that hatred and violence must be cast into the unending limbo if we are to survive."

12- "We also come here today to affirm that we will no longer sit idly by in agonizing deprivation and wait on others to provide "our freedom We will be sadly mistaken if we think freedom is some lavish dish that the federal government and the white man will pass out on a silver platter while the Negro merely furnishes the appetite. Freedom is never voluntarily granted by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed."

13- "Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, or economic changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice. One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love."

14- "Ultimately, a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. If every Negro in the United States turns to violence, 1 will choose to be that one lone voice preaching that this is the wrong way...I cannot make myself believe that God wanted me to hate. I'm tired of violence, I've seen too much of it. I've seen such hate on the faces of too many sheriffs in the South. And I'm not going to let my oppressor dictate to me what method I must use. Our oppressors have used violence. Our oppressors have used hatred. Our oppressors have used rifles and guns. I'm not going to stoop down to their level. I want to rise to a higher level. We have a power that can't be found in Molotov cocktails."
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3.0 out of 5 stars The Autobiography of MLK, Jr.
ByAnne Bradleyon February 12, 2011
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This book was written by someone other than Martin Luther King, Jr., in the first person. In my opinion, there is no bad book of MLK - just like the saying "a bad day at fishing is better than a good day at work".

For me, it was not a fast-read like Malcom X's autobiography, despite my deeper admiration for MLK than Malcom X, who came from a very broken home, subjected to much violence directly and indirectly - having a mindset that life was a war literally most of his life.

Yet Malcom X's book was truer; it had me engaged because I felt like he was talking to me.

Though Hon. Colin Powell is a completely different persona than Malcom X, his autobiography, too, had me engaged. It came from him.

Though all autobiographies, for the most part, have ghost writers, they receive the "stamp of approval" from the very one it is written on, for one thing. Yet in MLK's situation, he was not here to stamp it.

For instance, I do not believe that his family was weakening as far as their relationships went. Rather, I believe his wife Coretta was by his side in spirit constantly, cherishing the time they had together, which was quality time. Yet this writer indicated, as if MLK would say it, that his marriage was falling apart. That troubled me, for I have not believed others - even African Americans - who have told me that MLK cheated on his wife.

I don't think the author was reflecting this-type of behavior, yet I just felt that this book would have been easier read if he had just written it from his own heart, rather than what he may have imagined from MLK, particularly since he was just a little boy when MLK passed.

I learned new facts about MLK's life. I found this very useful.

Schools should place more emphasis on Martin Luther King, Jr. His love for our country and expectation for us all to turn toward eachother reflected a love which does pass understanding, as one who represented his oppressed, tortured, and murdered people. There were many arising in his day who joined with MLK.

If I gave this book a rating by stars, I would give it a "three", only because I think there are more worthwhile books out there on MLK which have more realism.
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5.0 out of 5 stars It is a great read. He makes a great case for doing ...
ByMaryAnn Murphyon September 11, 2017
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It is a great read. He makes a great case for doing things in God's way. Although i was a white teenager and later a young adult growing up in the western United States during the 50s and 60s, I never really understood, for many years, what Dr. King was about. It was many years later as I was studying another topic entirely that I realized how necessary the Civil Rights movement was for us as a nation, for all of us as a people; and how vital it was that it be an energetic but nonviolent movement! He was a wise and dedicated soldier for truth. I have learned to respect and admire him, his wife, and his dedicated followers.

“제주 함덕 모래밭에 제 무덤 파라 하더니…총으로 펑펑” : 네이버 뉴스

“제주 함덕 모래밭에 제 무덤 파라 하더니…총으로 펑펑” : 네이버 뉴스

“제주 함덕 모래밭에 제 무덤 파라 하더니…총으로 펑펑”
기사입력 2018-03-18 09:20 최종수정 2018-03-18 12:00 기사원문 스크랩
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[한겨레] [토요판] 르포

오사카 재일동포 1세대들의 ‘4·3 70년’

▶올해는 제주도 4·3사건 70주년이 되는 해입니다. 4·3사건 이후 많은 제주도민이 학살과 경제적 궁핍을 피해서 일본 오사카로 떠났습니다. 재일동포 1세대들은 그때의 참혹했던 기억은 아직도 잊히지 않는다고 했습니다.

10일 일본 오사카 이쿠노구 코리아타운 가게 앞에 돌하르방이 보인다. 오사카는 제주도 출신 동포들이 많이 사는 곳이며, 특히 이쿠노구 쓰루하시역 주변에 많이 모여 산다. 이쿠노구 코리아타운은 원래 ‘조센이치바’(조선시장)로 불리던 곳으로 길이 500m 거리에 한국 관련 상점들이 줄지어 있다.“17~18살 때쯤이었던 것 같아. 육지에서 2연대인가 군대가 오고 섬을 에워쌌어. 전신주에 죽은 사람 머리를 매달아 놓았던 게 기억이 나. 남자도 있었고 여자도 있었는데, 여자는 머리카락이 길잖아. 마치 유령 같았어.”

지난 9일 일본 오사카 이쿠노구에 있는 재일동포 고령자 돌봄 시설 ‘사랑방’에서 만난 송복기(87) 할머니는 제주4·3사건을 직접 경험한 1세대다. 서귀포 출신의 송 할머니는 지금도 제주도에 가면 고향 마을에 들르는 일은 거의 없다고 말했다. 제주도에 들르더라도 4·3사건을 입에 올리는 일은 별로 없다. “말해봐도 어찌할 수도 없는 일”이기 때문이란다. 군인들은 전신주에 걸어놓은 주검의 머리 입과 코에 담배를 꽂기도 했다고 그는 말했다. “담배에 불을 붙여서 입에 꽂곤 했어. 반쯤은 재미로 그랬던 것 같아.”

9일 일본 오사카 이쿠노구에 있는 재일동포 고령자 돌봄 시설 ‘사랑방’에서 재일동포 1세대 송복기 할머니가 4·3사건 당시 기억을 이야기하고 있다.

제주4·3사건은 좌우 이념 대립과 일제시대 경찰들이 광복 뒤에도 미군정 경찰로 활동하는 등 한반도의 모순이 중첩되어 일어난 참극이었다. 4·3사건이란 명칭은 광복 3년 뒤인 1948년 4월3일 새벽 2시 350명의 무장대가 12개 지서와 우익단체들을 공격하면서 무장봉기가 시작된 데서 유래하지만, 시기적으로는 1947년 3월1일 도민과 기마경찰 충돌 사건에서부터 1954년 한라산 금족(禁足) 지역이 전면 개방되기까지 7년에 이르는 시간대에 일어난 일련의 사건을 일컫는다. 한국전쟁 다음으로 인명피해가 극심했다고 알려져 있으나, 출생신고도 되지 않은 아기들까지 희생된 사례도 있어 정확한 인명피해 상황을 파악하기란 거의 불가능하다. 4·3사건에 대한 송 할머니의 기억은 70년이 지난 오늘까지도 섬을 감시하기 위해 낮게 날던 비행기와 불타버린 집들과 불탄 집터에 생긴 공터, 사람들이 죽어나가는 모습과 같은 참혹한 모습들로 얼룩져 있다.

“아침 8시와 저녁 5시에는 군대 소속인지 뭔지는 모르겠지만 작은 비행기가 섬을 감시했어. 머리 바로 위를 지나간다고 느낄 만큼 낮게 날았는데, 3명이 탄 비행기였어. 기관총을 빈 땅에다 갈기고는 했는데, 위협 용도였던 것 같아. 산에서 내려오던 사람들이 그걸 보고 산 위로 다시 도망가곤 했어.”

김옥광 할머니는 오사카에서 태어났으나 ‘태평양전쟁’이 끝나고 어머니의 고향인 제주도 함덕으로 이사갔다가 4·3 현장을 몸소 체험했다.

당시 4~5살가량이던 조카는 군인들이 몰던 트럭에 치여 숨졌다. “여자아이였는데 뭘 주우려고 뛰어가던 중에 치였어. 그때는 섬 여기저기를 군인들 트럭이 질주하고 다녔거든. 트럭에서 내린 사람이 흰 천 하나 덮어주고 갔어. 그걸로 끝이었지. 지금 생각하면 용서할 수 없는 일이야.” 산에 들어갔던 사람들 중에는 송씨 성을 쓰는 친척들도 있었는데 그중 한명은 부인과 함께 바다에 내던져졌다고 했다. “물고기 밥이 됐겠지.” 송 할머니는 탄식하듯 짧게 내뱉었다.

“폭도 집안” 낙인에 사람 피해 지내기도

송 할머니는 1950년 한국전쟁이 일어나기 몇달 전 밀항선에 몸을 싣고 일본으로 건너갔다. 4·3사건으로 인해 참혹한 모습으로 변한 고향이 싫었고 일본에는 언니 2명이 살고 있었기 때문이기도 했다. 10명쯤 탄 작은 배는 파도가 치면 곧 뒤집어질 듯 위태로웠다. 원래는 잠깐 일본에 머물다가 고향에 다시 돌아갈 생각이었지만 일본에 건너온 지 얼마 안 돼 터진 한국전쟁이 그의 인생을 바꾸어놓았다. 결국 일본 오사카에 정착해 새 삶을 시작했다. 일제 때 다닌 국민학교에서 일본어로만 교육을 받았기에 일본에서 언어 장벽은 그리 높지 않았다. 송 할머니는 한국어도 거의 잊어버렸다며 일본어로 인터뷰를 했다. 인터뷰 내내 “혼마야”(정말로) 같은 오사카 사투리가 자연스럽게 튀어나왔다.

오사카시 이쿠노구 코리아타운에 있는 장승의 모습.

오사카에 머무는 재일동포 고령자 가운데는 송 할머니 외에도 4·3을 몸소 체험한 사람이 많다. 사랑방에서 만난 김옥광(80) 할머니도 그런 경우다. 김 할머니는 오사카에서 태어났으나 “‘대동아전쟁’(태평양전쟁)이 끝나고 어머니 친정이 있는 제주도 함덕으로 돌아갔다”고 회상했다. 4·3사건으로 인명피해가 가장 극심했을 1948~49년에 그는 10~11살이었다. 어머니는 낮에는 국군의 밥을 해주고 밤에는 허벅(제주도 여인들이 물을 긷는 데 사용하는 물동이)을 지고 산에 올라갔다. 어머니의 동생들이 산에 들어갔기 때문이다. 작은외삼촌이 군인들에게 붙잡혀 온 모습도 또렷하게 기억했다. “다리미 같은 걸로 팔을 지진 흔적이 보였어. 마을 사람들을 모아놓고 (군인들이) 우리 말을 잘 들어야 한다. 안 들으면 죽을 수 있다고 말했지.” 사람들이 죽임을 당하는 모습은 아직도 기억에 선명하다. “남자 여자 가릴 것 없이 20명을 붙잡아놓고, 함덕 모래밭에서 자기 무덤 구덩이를 파라고 시켰어. 담배 한가락씩 피우라고 하더니 그다음에 총으로 펑펑 했지. 죽기 전에 ‘아이고 어멍아’라고 외치는 사람도 있었고 ‘대한 독립 만세’라고 소리친 사람도 있었어.” 마을 사람들이 죽은 사람들을 묻어줬다. 김 할머니의 아버지는 4·3사건을 피해서 일본으로 갔다. 3살 위인 오빠는 아버지의 행방을 묻는 군인들에게 뺨을 맞은 뒤, 고모를 따라서 일본으로 갔다. 김 할머니도 39살 때 일본으로 옮겨왔다.

10일 오사카시립대 우메다 새털라이트 캠퍼스 홀에서 열린 4·3사건 70주년 기념 심포지엄에서 오광현 재일본 제주4·3희생자 유족회 회장(맨 왼쪽)이 발언하고 있다.

오사카 이쿠노구에서 ‘오코노미야키’ 가게를 운영하는 고춘자(77) 할머니는 “우리는 폭도의 가족이었으니까요”라는 말로 4·3을 기억했다. 4·3사건 70년이 지난 지금도 고 할머니 입에서는 “폭도”라는 말이 자주 나왔다. 고 할머니의 가족은 태평양전쟁 막바지였던 1945년에 제주도로 돌아왔다. 일본 패전 직전 연합국의 공습이 심했기 때문에 공습을 피해 고향에 돌아온 것. 하지만 조국이 해방되고 3년 뒤인 1948년 가족의 비극이 시작됐다. 당시 8살이었던 고 할머니는 어머니의 고향인 삼양1동에 살았다. 1948년의 불안한 공기를 할머니는 아직 기억한다. “어느날 밤에 횃불이 보였어요. 여기도 보이고 저기도 보이니까 어머니가 벌벌 떠면서 숨으라고 했어요. 얼마 지나지 않아서 다시 횃불이 보이고 마을의 집들이 타는 게 보였어요. 돼지우리가 불탔는지 돼지가 죽어가는 소리도 들렸어요.” 4월3일 고 할머니의 어머니는 딸을 업고 12살이던 오빠의 손을 잡고 동네 빨래터에 숨었다. 빨래터에는 다른 사람들도 숨어 있었고, 어디선가에서 발소리가 들렸다. 고 할머니의 어머니는 남매를 껴안고 떨었다. 고 할머니의 어머니는 집에 돌아갈 수 없다고 생각하고, 삼양과 신촌 사이 바닷가 절벽 근처에 고 할머니와 오빠를 피신시켰다. 어머니가 가끔 마을에 가서 고구마 같은 먹을 것을 가지고 왔다. 그렇게 며칠을 피난살이했다. 며칠 뒤 집에 돌아가보니 이 집 저 집에서 사람들이 붙잡혀 갔다는 소리가 들렸다. 고 할머니 어머니의 남동생 2명은 산에 올라간 상태였다. 할머니네 집은 “폭도 집안”이 됐고, 고 할머니의 어머니는 마을 사람들 시선을 피해 다녔다.

학살과 가난 탓에 오사카 정착한
재일동포 1세대들의 4·3 증언
70년 지난 오늘에도 기억 또렷

“시체 입과 코에 담뱃불 꽂아놓고
4살 조카는 군대 트럭에 치여 숨져”
“횃불 보이더니 돼지 죽어가는 소리
어머니는 조국행을 너무도 후회했다”

“어느날 큰외삼촌이 붙잡혀서 어머니가 불려갔어요. 큰외삼촌은 어머니에게 할머니를 잘 부탁한다고 말했는데, 어머니는 ‘응응’ 울기만 하고 대답도 못했어요. 큰외삼촌은 육지로 끌려갔고 그날 만난 게 마지막이었어요.” 큰외삼촌과 만난 지 얼마 안 돼 작은외삼촌도 죽었다는 연락이 왔다. 어머니가 제주시에 가보니 주검이 널려 있었는데, 훼손이 심해서 누가 누군지 구별이 어려웠다. 어머니는 고 할머니에게 “작은외삼촌이 (산에 있는 동안) 야위어서 허리띠를 돌로 잘라서 사용했는데, 허리띠 잘린 모습을 보고 작은외삼촌 주검을 찾아왔다”고 말했다고 한다. 고 할머니의 어머니는 동생들을 일본에서 데려온 것을 크게 후회했다고 한다. 고 할머니의 어머니는 큰외삼촌이 부탁한 외할머니도 지킬 수 없었다. 당시 60대였던 외할머니는 아들 둘이 좌익활동에 가담했다는 이유로 한동안 아는 사람들 집에 숨어 지냈다. ‘폭도 가족’을 숨겨준 사람도 처벌을 받을 수 있었기 때문에 외할머니는 나중에는 바닷가로 도망갔다. 그러나 경찰에 협력하는 청년단에 붙잡혀 경찰서로 끌려갔다. “어머니는 외할머니가 지서에 끌려간 것을 먼발치에 봤다고 해요. 외할머니는 지서에서 총에 맞아 돌아가셨어요.” 고 할머니의 어머니는 경찰서에서 자신의 어머니의 주검을 눈물을 참으며 수습했다고 한다. 이웃들이 할머니네 가족을 보는 시선이 곱지 않았기에 숨죽이며 살 수밖에 없었다. 따가운 시선이 그나마 옅어진 것은 한국전쟁 혼란기 즈음부터였다고 고 할머니는 회상했다.

고춘자 할머니가 보여준 젊은 시절 자신의 어머니 사진. 사진이 실린 책은 재일코리안청년연합이 만든 책 <재일코리안의 역사를 걷다>.

끝까지 경찰 경력 숨긴 아버지

4·3사건의 상처와 궁핍한 경제 여건을 벗어나기 위해서 많은 제주도민이 일본, 특히 오사카에 건너와 정착했다. 일제강점기였던 1922년부터 1945년까지 제주도와 오사카 사이엔 ‘기미가요마루’(君が代丸)라는 이름의 배가 운항했다. 1924년 기준으로 오사카에 사는 조선인의 60%가 제주도 출신이었다는 조사가 있을 정도로, 오사카에는 제주도인이 많았다. 이후 4·3사건을 피해 일본에 간 제주도민은 5천~1만명 정도로 추정되는데, 상당수가 제주도인 커뮤니티가 이미 형성되어 있는 오사카에 정착했다. 해방 뒤 미군정은 한반도 출신자의 일본 도항을 엄격히 금지했기 때문에 제주도 사람들 상당수는 밀항으로 일본에 갈 수밖에 없었다. 김 할머니와 고 할머니처럼 4·3사건이 나고 한참 뒤 결국 생계 때문에 일본에 건너온 경우도 많다. 조경희 성공회대 교수는 10일 오사카 우메다에서 열린 ‘제주도 4·3사건 70주년 기념 심포지엄’에서 “해방 직후부터 1950년대 전반까지의 밀항자들 중에는 4·3항쟁과 한국전쟁 과정에서 생존을 위해 일본으로 피난을 간 사람들이 많이 포함되어 있는데, 이런 이동 패턴은 기본적으로 1970년대까지 지속되었다”며 “근현대를 관통하는 조선인들의 밀항의 역사는 미완의 탈식민화와 동아시아 냉전질서가 중첩되는 중요한 지점들을 보여준다”고 말했다. 4·3사건 70주년 오사카 심포지엄은 10~11일 이틀에 걸쳐 열렸는데, 오사카와 도쿄의 재일동포 그리고 한국 제주도 4·3 연구자와 활동가, 대만의 활동가까지 한자리에 모였다.

오사카 이쿠노구 코리아타운의 모습.

4·3사건은 재일동포들에게도 오랫동안 입에 올려서는 안 되는 금기어였다. 재일동포 2세이며 4·3사건 기념사업을 20년 넘게 진행해온 오광현(61) 재일본 제주4·3희생자 유족회 회장은 10일 열린 오사카 심포지엄에서 고등학생 때 재일동포 작가 김석범의 소설 <까마귀의 죽음>을 읽고 처음 4·3에 대해 알게 됐다고 말했다. 제주도 중문 출신 아버지에게 4·3사건에 대해 묻자 아버지는 “누가 알려줬냐”고 화를 내며 오씨를 때렸다고 한다. 오씨는 1982년 제주도에 가서 4·3사건 때 친척 중에도 희생자가 있다는 사실을 알게 됐다. 오사카에서 만난 55살 재일동포 2세 남성은 “2000년대 초반 아버지가 돌아가시고 나서 친척들에게 아버지가 제주도에서 경찰이었다는 사실을 들었다. 4·3사건 전 분위기가 좋지 않다는 것을 알고 일본에 건너오셨는데 생전에는 제주에서의 경찰 경력을 이야기하신 적이 한번도 없었다. 4·3사건은 양쪽 모두에게 큰 상처였다”고 말했다. 재일동포들이 4·3사건 기념사업을 본격적으로 전개하기 시작한 시기는 1980년대 후반 한국 사회에 민주화 바람이 분 이후의 일이다.

9일 일본 오사카 이쿠노구에 있는 오코노미야키 가게에서 고춘자 할머니가 4·3사건 당시 기억을 이야기하고 있다. 고 할머니는 자신이 체험한 내용을 야간중학교 재학 시절에 작문으로 제출한 적이 있다. 앞에 놓인 책에 그의 글이 실려 있다.

“4·3은 법적으로 국가범죄”

1948년 4·3사건 발생 뒤 70년이 지났음에도 4·3은 한국 사회에 아직도 ‘과제’로 남아 있다. 4·3사건의 진상을 규명하고 이 사건과 관련된 희생자와 그 유족들의 명예 회복을 목적으로 4·3 특별법이 2000년 공포되었지만, ‘사건’이라는 명칭에서 알 수 있듯이 4·3을 어떤 성격으로 규정하느냐는 아직 논쟁 중이다.

오사카 심포지엄에 참석한 건국대 법학전문대학원 이재승 교수는 “(4·3사건은) 법적으로 국가범죄”에 해당한다며 “(피해자와 유족에게) 보상이 필요하다”고 지적했다. 이 교수는 “미군정의 점령 정책이 민족자결권을 침해한 게 4·3사건의 원인”이라며 “4·3사건은 민족자결권 침해에 대한 저항운동이다. 진압작전은 인도에 반하는 범죄로 국가범죄였다”고 강조했다. 이 교수는 최근 4·3사건 당시 좌익운동 주도자와, 좌익운동과 상관이 없는데도 희생된 도민을 구별하려는 최근의 움직임에 대해 지나친 반공주의라는 견해를 드러냈다. “한국전쟁 이후에 (한국 정부의 정책으로) 확립된 반공주의를 좌우 모두 의견을 낼 수 있었던 해방 직후 시간대까지 소급해 적용하는 것은 무리다.”

오사카/글·사진 조기원 특파원 garden@hani.co.kr

2018/03/20

How To Decolonize The Permaculture Movement | HuffPost

How To Decolonize The Permaculture Movement | HuffPost

THE BLOG
01/31/2017 02:04 pm ET Updated Jan 31, 2018

How To Decolonize The Permaculture Movement

By Tobias Roberts

About a year ago, I posted an article in the Huffington Post detailing some of the reasons why I thought permaculture had become a “gringo” movement irrelevant to the majority of small farmers around the world.

There were a number of reactions, both positive and negative, but I was frustrated that very few people actually offered some sort of solution or proposal for how to “un-gringo” a movement and ideology that we find hope in.

After a good deal of reflection, I want to focus now on how to rescue the permaculture movement; how to save it from some of its most disturbing and troubling tendencies. I believe that permaculture does have a lot to offer to peasant and agrarian communities around the world, so I humbly offer these ideas and suggestions not as a judgement; but rather in the hopes that permaculture can become relevant and practically applicable to the majority of small farmers around the world.

Stop Buying Land in Shangri-La Areas Around the World

We need to understand the effects of our privilege. As a foreigner (most likely white and male, because that is the predominant demographic of the permaculture movement) we are inevitably going to change the dynamics of small, rural communities where we take up residence.

While there can be positive effects through bringing new knowledge and ideas into a community, there can (and often are) unseen and ignored negative effects. When wealthy foreigners buy up land in rural, agrarian areas, this inevitably leads to gentrification. The spike in land prices forces young people off of the land and causes migration.

I don´t excuse myself from this reality. As a white, North American male, my family and I bought a farm in the mountains of El Salvador that was the inheritance of a young man who was no longer interested in farming. With the money we paid him, he paid a human trafficker to try and make it to the United States and has failed twice. If he tries to go again, he´ll have to deal with a ridiculous wall, increased border militarization, and a racist president.

My only excuse is that I fell in love with a Salvadoran woman who invited me to be a part of her reality. If you do end up purchasing land in some hidden, agrarian community, make an effort to truly belong there. If you´re just buying a piece of land to have it as a vacation home and a place to host a couple permaculture workshops during the year, you´re probably causing much more harm than good.

Also, if you are interested in permaculture and are looking for land to create a vision of your own, why not look at land in rural Kentucky instead of Costa Rica? Not only is land in many rural areas of the U.S. cheaper, but there is also an urgent need to repopulate rural areas and increase the “eyes-to-acre” ratio that is necessary for proper land management and ecological care.

Don’t Make Permaculture Courses Your Primary Source of Income

I understand that a number of people in the developed world have the extra income to spend on a $2,000-dollar permaculture course. If they’ve got the money, why shouldn´t they pay?

The problem is that if you derive the majority of your income from offering permaculture courses, you´re automatically divorcing yourself from the reality of your neighbors who make their living from the land. You can´t claim to offer a viable economic alternative (no matter how ecological it may be) to your under privileged neighbors who see that your income comes from hosting wealthy North Americans.

What if we were to use that money to re-distribute economic opportunities to our neighbors? We need to be honest and admit that establishing an economically viable permaculture system takes time and money. I´m not saying that we should stop offering courses all together, but rather reconsider how to invest that money into the dreams and visions of neighbor farmers who don’t have the same economic potential as do we.

After all, isn´t that what the third ethic of permaculture is all about: redistributing surplus so that others can enjoy the long-term abundance that comes from ecological design?

Stop Appropriating Knowledge

There is nothing that angers me more than watching permaculture videos on YouTube where some permaculture expert claims to have “developed” or “invented” some revolutionary technique to help preserve soil, store water, or save the environment.

For example, recently I watched a video of a permaculture farmer who claims to have developed a technique to slow erosion through making banana leaf boomerang barriers on the slope beneath where he planted some fruit trees. The idea is no doubt a good one; but it´s far from a unique development. I personally have seen dozens of small farmers throughout Central America do the exact same thing. Of course, they don’t have access to a camera and the internet to show the world their invention.

To put it bluntly, this is appropriation of knowledge, and it´s the same thing that mega- pharmaceutical companies and agricultural corporations have been doing for years through the patenting of medicines and seeds that have been stolen from the shared ecological wisdom of indigenous and peasant cultures throughout the world.

Be humble, and recognize that while permaculture may very well have a number of unique skills to offer, many of these skills and techniques have been around for hundreds of years.

Stop Demonizing Small Peasants

There are a number of very serious problems with how many small farmers in Central America and other parts of the world farm their lands. The effects of the Green Revolution on small farmers around the world have led to an almost complete loss of traditional farming knowledge in some rural communities

The excessive use of pesticides and herbicides, burning crop residues, tilling hillsides, and other examples of ecologically damaging farming practices are obviously unsustainable, unhealthy, and damaging to the environment. The solution, however, is not to criticize these farmers, but rather to humbly seek to understand their situation.

If you had an acre of land and 6 children to feed, would you prioritize permaculture farming solutions that might offer abundance a decade from now or would you continue to follow the well-trodden path that while unsustainable, does offer subsistence and income?

Instead of criticizing small farmers who adopt unsustainable farming practices, it would be much more valuable to look at the sociological and systemic factors that lead to this adoption. Permaculture has not had much of a voice for advocacy, but it would be heartening to see permaculture “experts” around the world offer their voices to fight against unfair distribution of land instead of simply blaming small farmers for their “ignorance.”

Start Farming Grains

I understand that annual grain farming does come with a number of difficulties. The annual tillage of the land and the monocultures of one crop obviously present an ecological challenge. But you know what, agrarian communities around the world subsist on the farming of annual grains and that is not going to change. Even if you stoutly believe in developing a “food forest” or “stacked polycultures” of tree and perennial crops, dedicate at least a portion of your land to developing more ecological solutions for annual grain crops.

It takes years for a perennial food system to develop enough to offer any sort of subsistence or income, and almost no small farmer around the world has enough savings or alternative sources of income to wait around for their system to develop into the marvelous and awe-inspiring productive systems that you see on a 20-year-old permaculture farm

I´m not saying that we should throw out the idea of food forests or perennial crops, but avoid the tendency to offer those systems as the “only” way to grow food in an ecological and sustainable manner. When you show off your acres and acres of food forest to a small farmer in Central America, chances are that he or she might find it interesting but have little incentive to try and reproduce what you have created.

If, however, you had a diversified landscape with an acre of food forest, an acre of pasture, and an acre of annual crops, there is a far better chance that your neighbors will find interest in what you´re developing.

Despite the challenges, it is possible to grow grains in a sustainable, ecological fashion. Susana Lein of Salamander Springs Farm in rural Kentucky lived and worked in Guatemala for close to a decade. When she moved to her own farm in Kentucky, she started a no-till Fukuoka method of annual grain production that was adapted to the traditional corn and bean diet of Central American farmers. If she can do that in Kentucky, why aren´t more permaculturists doing the same in Central America, or experimenting with no-till rice harvests in Asia.

Be Aware of Alternative Epistemologies

The bread and butter of the permaculture movement is the PDC, or permaculture design course. The two-week curriculum has been offered by thousands of teachers in every part of the world and has been adapted to the specific and particular contexts of small farmers everywhere.

Many of the folks who critiqued my first article argued that they offered free PDC´s to their neighbor farmers. While I find that commendable, I think it´s also important to recognize that many rural, peasant and indigenous communities don’t learn the same us westerners do.

The pedagogy of a course with Power Point presentations, lectures and “visits” to the field might actually be so foreign to a small Guatemalan farmer that he or she might get nothing out of it. The Brazilian professor Boaventura Sousa Santos talks of the idea of epistemicide, the elimination of alternative forms of knowing through the colonization that comes through western academia and forms of learning.

An NGO that I worked with in Guatemala found that the best way to “teach” small Guatemalan farmers had nothing to do with courses, workshops, agricultural schools, or the like. Rather, they simply brought small farmers from neighboring communities together to tour the farms and lands that each one worked.

While one corn field may appear just like every other corn field to the untrained eye, these visits allowed for small farmers to learn of small variations in growing techniques, in seed saving, in the combination of companion plants, in soil preservation that many “experts” might never have noticed. At the same time, it allowed for small farmers to take pride in what they were doing which is so often criticized or ignored

Perhaps the famous PDC needs to be laid to rest and other, more appropriate pedagogies developed if permaculture is going to find relevance with small farmers around the world

Conclusion

I truly hope that this article doesn’t come across as a futile and derisive attack on permaculture practitioners around the world. I do honestly believe (and hope) that permaculture has a lot to offer the world. We need to recognize, however, that what´s most important isn´t the content or subject in itself, but rather how it is presented with respect for the local autonomy of the placed agrarian communities around the world.

Tobias Roberts
International Development Worker

The World Is Changing. This Trappist Abbey Isn’t. Can It Last? - The New York Times

The World Is Changing. This Trappist Abbey Isn’t. Can It Last? - The New York Times

The World Is Changing. This Trappist Abbey Isn’t. Can It Last?

Meet the monks of Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery in South Carolina, who are trying to maintain age-old religious traditions in a rapidly evolving world.
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Brother Joseph Swedo, 90, a monk at Mepkin Abbey.CreditStephen Hiltner/The New York Times

By Stephen HiltnerMarch 17, 2018

MONCKS CORNER, S.C. — “A year and a half ago, I could do anything — run the chain saw, cut up trees, use a backhoe.”

Brother Joseph Swedo was bent forward in his chair, his rugged hands folded delicately in his lap. As a monk at Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery in South Carolina, he maintains that Roman Catholic order’s code of prayer, work, seclusion, poverty and chastity. And for the last 73 years — since he joined the order at age 17, answering a call from God, he said — physical labor has been an integral part of his daily routine.

Lately, though, Brother Joseph’s health has taken a turn for the worse, narrowing the scope of his monastic life. He is no longer strong enough, he said, to regularly attend the first or last of Mepkin’s seven daily prayer services — vigils at 3:20 a.m., and compline at 7:35 p.m. Nor can he fully participate during the roughly five hours set aside each day for agricultural work and the upkeep of the monastery’s grounds.

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“Right now, it’s a bleak situation,” he said. “We’re all getting old.”

Mepkin Abbey — part of a global network of Trappist monasteries that for nearly 1,000 years have provided their communities with reliable sources of prayer, learning and hospitality — is edging toward a potential crisis. In keeping with broader declines in the ranks of priests, nuns and brothers, Mepkin’s monastic community is dwindling. Only 13 monks remain, down from a peak of 55 in the mid-1950s. Over the same period, the monks’ average age has steadily risen by nearly 50 years — up to 77, from around 30. The abbey is struggling to attract and retain younger novices.
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Mepkin’s monks, led by the abbot, Father Stan Gumula, process from the church to the refectory.CreditStephen Hiltner/The New York Times

Another Trappist community facing similar challenges — the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity, in Huntsville, Utah — celebrated its final Mass last August, then shuttered its monastery. Its eight remaining monks took up residence in a nursing home in Salt Lake City.

Across all orders, the number of Catholic brothers in the United States has declined by more than two-thirds since 1965, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. But Trappist communities may be particularly vulnerable, since their traditions are more isolating and, in many ways, more resistant to modernization.

While members of other Catholic orders — Dominicans and Jesuits, for example — focus partly on outreach, Trappists, who are formally known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, do not. And because Trappists see their lifestyle as a vocation, or a call from Jesus, they don’t actively recruit new members.

Their digital presence is also extremely limited. So far, Mepkin has shunned all forms of social media — both individually and institutionally. (Other religious organizations, like Hillsong Church, for example, have used Instagram and other platforms to reach and engage with younger generations.) And although they were quick to adopt a website, the monks have limited internet access and, with few exceptions, don’t use cellphones.

The economics of monastic life can also present challenges. “We don’t have a big financial reserve,” said Father Stan Gumula, Mepkin’s abbot, adding that an endowment, which the monastery does not have, “goes against what Trappists are for.” Even the profit margins on the monks’ agricultural business — which helps sustain the monastery and, by their accounts, is quite profitable — is limited by their daily prayer schedule, which severely restricts the number of hours available each day for work.

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These tensions pose a thorny question: To what degree can — and should — age-old religious traditions adapt to survive in a rapidly evolving world?
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The Cooper River runs alongside Mepkin Abbey’s 3,132-acre property.CreditStephen Hiltner/The New York Times

To be sure, many of the Trappist traditions at Mepkin are helping to sustain the monastery. Hospitality is central to the monks’ lives, and the beauty of the grounds at Mepkin is a major draw both for day visitors and for people who stay overnight at the abbey’s retreat center — which is often fully booked months in advance.

Monks at Mepkin also adhere to a strict vegetarian diet and maintain a largely silent atmosphere — “although it’s not as if we don’t speak,” Father Stan explained.

“For us, the silence is second nature,” he said, adding that visitors often find it conducive to a transformative experience.

The monastery itself, which comprises a church, the monks’ refectory (dining hall) and living quarters, administrative offices, and a library, is nestled within a landscape dominated by large oak trees draped in Spanish moss.

“In everything we do here, we try to respect the land, the ecology and the environment,” Father Stan said. “The main architecture is the trees. All the buildings have been built around the trees.”

The community sees itself as a steward of the monastery’s grounds, and as a leader in the local environmental movement. Founded by monks from the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky in 1949, after a 3,132-acre plot was donated to the Catholic Diocese of Charleston by Henry and Clare Boothe Luce, Mepkin was placed under a conservation easement in 2006, in concert with several neighboring properties.

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Work is another central pillar of life for the Trappists at Mepkin — as a means of supporting the community, providing solidarity with workers, and promoting a healthy mind and body.
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Father Gerard-Jonas Palmares inside one of the locations where mushrooms are grown at Mepkin Abbey.CreditStephen Hiltner/The New York Times

For decades, the monastery relied on an egg farm that produced as many as 30,000 eggs per day. But in 2007, in the aftermath of an immensely disruptive PETA investigation, the abbey announced plans to phase out its egg operation. Eventually the monks settled on growing mushrooms.

“We wanted a good product, a healthy product,” Father Stan explained. “And it’s not backbreaking work, because we’re an older community.”

(In the 1950s, when their numbers were higher and the average age was much lower, the monks’ working life was more varied and physically intense; they ran a lumber mill, raised cattle and had a large-scale bakery.)
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Photographs from Mepkin during the early 1950s capture a wide variety of work.CreditMepkin Abbey

The monastery now produces around 1,400 pounds of mushrooms each week — half oyster mushrooms, half shiitake. Most of the crop is sold fresh to local restaurants and markets in Charleston.

The monastery also generates income from the store at its visitors’ center, which sells dried mushrooms and a slew of other products, many of which are produced at other Trappist monasteries; its retreat center, which hosts both individual and group visitors; timber that is harvested by outside contractors; and a new nondenominational columbarium, which offers a place for funeral urns to be stored on Mepkin’s grounds.

While many monks at Mepkin are concerned about the monastery’s future, they also see this moment as an opportunity to pioneer a new form of monasticism. In recent months, the abbey, in response to its aging population and its lack of young novices, formed a committee for its future development and drew up a set of programs aimed at attracting a younger and more spiritually diverse group of people.

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Left, the church at Mepkin Abbey, and Father Stan Gumula, the abbot of Mepkin.CreditStephen Hiltner/The New York Times

The abbey’s new affiliate program will offer two new short-term monastic options for people of any, or no, faith traditions: a monthlong monastic institute, open to men and women, and a yearlong residency. And in a departure from its otherwise passive approach, Mepkin created an ad campaign — albeit a small and highly targeted one — to publicize the program. (It featured copy that read: “BE A MONK. FOR A MONTH. FOR A YEAR.”)

“We’re at such a — you might say desperate — point,” said Father Guerric Heckel, “that we’re being forced to try something new and innovative.”

Many young people of the Roman Catholic tradition, Father Guerric added, will simply not be attracted to forms of monasticism that require celibacy and a lifetime commitment. But there’s a growing belief among Mepkin’s brothers that certain elements of the Trappist tradition — its cultivation of mindfulness, stillness and inward exploration — are increasingly relevant to today’s youth. And the abbey, they say, is a repository of wisdom about the benefits of contemplative living.

“What young people keep telling us,” said Father Joe Tedesco, the chair of the committee for Mepkin’s future development, “is that they’re interested in the spiritual life journey, but not in institutional religion. So let’s give them an experience of the place without a commitment, and see what happens.”
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A Bible at the conclusion of vigils, the first of seven daily prayer services at Mepkin Abbey. It begins at 3:20 a.m.CreditStephen Hiltner/The New York Times

Mepkin’s interest in cultivating what they call “interspiritual” experiences — via the longstanding programs at their retreat center and with its proposed affiliate program — is evidence, Father Stan said, of the abbey’s welcoming and accepting nature. “We’re a very nonjudgmental and nonexclusive community,” he said.

That sense of acceptance was affirmed by Rob Hagan, who spent 30 years as a monk at Mepkin before leaving the monastery in 2007. (While there, he used the first name Aelred.)

Mr. Hagan, who is gay, said that he renounced his monastic vows to explore life as an openly gay man, free from the Trappist rules of chastity and seclusion. “I just felt like I had to acknowledge that part of who I am,” he said.

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“The brothers knew,” Mr. Hagan said. “I was very honest with them.”

“And they were just so,” he said, breaking into tears. “They were just so loving.”

“It took a lot of strength to leave,” Mr. Hagan said, noting that his fellow monks at Mepkin would have welcomed him to stay if he’d so chosen — in spite of the Catholic church’s official, if conflicted, position on homosexuality in the clergy. “And, for me, that kind of strength could only have come from having lived the monastic life in that community.”

“That sense of welcomeness and hospitality,” he added, “is just a wonderful aspect of the place. It really is the grace of Mepkin.”
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Brother John Corrigan during Mass.CreditStephen Hiltner/The New York Times

Despite their hope for the future, the monks at Mepkin are cleareyed about the likelihood that their new initiatives — which will probably attract young, interfaith and short-term visitors — will fail to attract Roman Catholics who are interested in a long-term commitment with the core monastic community.

Trappist monasteries in the United States are likely to consolidate, Father Stan said. And there’s a chance, too, that American monasteries will be forced to rely on the arrival of more monks from overseas. (Several Trappist monasteries in Africa and Asia, for example, haven’t been plagued by the same decline in vocations — and some, at least partly because of the stability of monastic life and the unfamiliarity of the message, Father Stan said, are brimming with young monks.) Some aging monasteries, including Mepkin, have had to rely on greater numbers of paid employees and volunteers, which has helped avert a shortage of labor.

Still, Mepkin’s future is anything but certain. “I don’t want to spend my remaining years simply hanging on,” Father Stan said. “I’d rather be in a community that has a vital energy and a good community life. And if that means closing Mepkin, that means closing Mepkin.”

“I believe there’s going to be a turnaround,” he added. “Is it going to be a turnaround that’s quick enough for Mepkin? I don’t know. But I have great hope in the future.”

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Father Columba Caffrey, the newest member of Mepkin’s monastic community who, at the age of 60, is also one of its youngest monks, was also cautiously optimistic. “If you’re waiting for a whole lot of people to come to the traditional monastery — well, that won’t happen,” he said. “But maybe a smaller number will. And maybe, by some creativity, looking to the future, they can help to hold on to, and spread, this tradition.”
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Father Stan prepares for the commencement of vespers, another of the seven daily prayer services, with holy water.CreditStephen Hiltner/The New York Times

The overarching sense here is that Mepkin has so much to offer to the world’s spiritual searchers — irrespective of their ties to any formal religion.

“There’s tons of young people who are interested in spirituality,” Father Joe said. “Maybe they’re not ready or able in this culture to make a lifetime commitment. But they’re interested in prayer, and they’re interested in finding ways to connect with their center.”

The Trappists, he added, have been around for a thousand years. “And we expect to be here for another thousand years,” he said. “But it’s going to look different.”

“And Mepkin Abbey, these monks present here — we want to be part of shaping what the future will look like.”

Stephen Hiltner is a reporter and visual journalist for the Surfacing column. A graduate of the University of Oxford and the University of Virginia, he joined The Times as a staff editor in 2016 after editing for six years at The Paris Review. @sahiltner Facebook

2018/03/18

The Existential Jesus: John Carroll Amazon.com: Books

The Existential Jesus: John Carroll

Susette Ann Monk
4.0 out of 5 stars The Existential JesusDecember 3, 2012
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase

I found this book put into words many of my unspoken beliefs and opened a new way of seeing Jesus Christ. Well worth reading, but could be disturbing for some. Not everyone would agree with the doctrines espoused
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BRANDON KNOX
3.0 out of 5 stars Challenging interpretation of the Gospel of MarkAugust 30, 2012
Format: Paperback

To say that "The Existential Jesus" offers an unconventional interpretation of the gospels is an understatement. Carroll's thesis is that Jesus did not preach about an afterlife, or even about salvation in a broader sense, or even about ethical teaching (p. 9). Instead, he "is the archetypal stranger. He appears from nowhere, shrouded in mystery, but is soon gone...He is the existential hero - solitary, uprooted from family and home, restless, always on the move and, until the mid-point in his mission, blind to where he is going" (p. 1).

Carroll challenges the reader to look at Mark's gospel through a completely new lens. I found his interpretation of sin and the holy spirit intriguing. For the author the former is really a misnomer, positing instead that the original Greek meant something akin to "missing the mark" or a character flaw. Jesus's teaches was therefore not concerned with what we currently conceptualize "sin" to mean (i.e., doing something against the wishes or commands of God).

For me the most innovative and rewarding interpretation in the book was that of Legion - who he was, what he represented, and ultimately how he ties into later parts of Mark's narrative. Although the author uses Mark as the basis of his analysis, he also contrasts this gospel with that of John, showing how the two complement each other, with Mark showing an "existential" Jesus not concerned with the afterlife and John showing a "divine" Jesus.

While I found Carroll's underlying thesis challenging and thought-provoking, I feel he has skirted around some very fundamental questions. For example, he argues that the true meaning of sin (hamartia) and the holy spirit (pneuma hagion) were distorted over time, that Jesus used these terms very differently than we think of them today. This basic premise is itself on shaky ground. The gospels was written decades after Jesus's death, in a language (Greek) that he did not speak, addressed to a community of Gentiles (whereas Jesus preached among the Jews). To argue that Jesus's teachings were later twisted by the institutionalized church requires one to believe that the gospels themselves captured Jesus's teachings accurately, and that what he preached in Aramaic, with all of its supposed linguistic subtleties, was captured in koine Greek.

A similar critique could be made of Carroll's interpretation of the concept of the "holy spirit". He argues that "pneuma hagion" should be viewed as "the charged wind, the cosmic breath, the driving spectral force. It is also the directing power that drives the stranger [Jesus] into the wilderness" (p. 25). Such an interpretation puts the orthdox conception of the holy spirit on its head. However I struggle to believe that this is what the author of Mark had in mind when he wrote his gospel. Paul used the same term in his writings, which were penned roughly 20 years before Mark. I would be interested in knowing whether and how this Greek term had been used previously as well. Was it a term that appeared in Greek writings only with the emergence of the Jesus movement? I would need to see more than simply the author's critique to discard the orthodox meaning of the holy spirit.

Despite my disagreements with some of the fundamental arguments made by Carroll, I still found this to be a fascinating book. I found it an excellent critique of Mark's literary structure, as he explains the arch of the story, but I find his theological arguments much less convincing.
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Stuart Schulz
5.0 out of 5 stars Stretch MarkApril 30, 2011
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase

As the other reviewers attest, this is a powerful book. John Carroll is a wonderful writer, in the crazed literary critic mode, not that of the pedantic theolgian, digging deep for new connections, unafraid of over-stretching the simple truths of Mark. Which he does, often. He has discovered themes, parallels, motives, metaphors and allegories that never would have occurred to me upon five readings of Mark. And while I buy only half of them, this still represents a treasure of new insights presented in oftentimes aggressive, staccato sentences that practically poke you in the chest, and dare you to disbelieve. In fact, he at times almost sounds like the so-called primitive Mark himself. I recommend a slow read. Dont rush this book, for the wisdom of many of his ideas become apparent with several readings and consultation of the Notes in back.
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Sky Light Mine
5.0 out of 5 stars SurprisedOctober 30, 2009
Format: Paperback

This book really caught me off guard. I am not a fan of existentialism, and at first picked up the book expecting to be annoyed. I am glad I still am able to be pleasantly surprised.

This book takes a deep look at who Jesus is in the Gospel of Mark, a Gospel that, in many ways, is bare bones. This bare bones, however, as the author shows, betrays a masterful portrait of the mysterious humanity of Jesus. This he highlights with comparisons to John's Gospel, which he sees as being in many ways the antithesis and perfect, masterful compliment to Mark. I really enjoyed the different perspective this author takes, and one can tell he has really striven and wrestled with the text, whether he is a "believer" or not. I am a Christian, and yet find his, perhaps unconventional, insights most welcome and engaging. I think you will too, even if you do not agree with all he says.
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Dubious Disciple
5.0 out of 5 stars A Dubious Disciple Book ReviewJanuary 22, 2011
Format: Paperback

Ex-is-ten-tial -adjective: of or relating to existence, especially human existence.

This is Jesus, the way you've never read about him before. John Carroll draws primarily on the Gospel of Mark, a Gospel which rather quickly fell into disuse among early Christians as they favored the more majestic stories told by Matthew and the others.

Mark's Jesus is far more human. He sometimes questions, sometimes fails. He is ridiculed by his family. Carroll portrays Jesus as a lonely, mysterious stranger with an obscure mission. By the end of his journey, he has lost all of his followers. "His life reaches its consummation in tragedy--a godless and profane one--and a great death scream from the cross, questioning the sense of it all."

Mark's story then closes with a mystery. An empty tomb, and three women fleeing in terror, told to tell no one of what they saw--or didn't see. (Carroll is correct; the ending we have now in the book of Mark, describing the resurrection of Jesus, did not exist in the earliest manuscripts.)

Mark's Gospel is, of course, one of four. Over time, the Jesus story grew in splendor, and by the time the fourth Gospel was written, Jesus had become God Himself. When I complete my book about John's Gospel (yet a couple years away from publication), I am going to wander through every local bookstore and move my book next to Carroll's, where the two extremes can sit side-by-side.

The Existential Jesus - Book Reviews - Books - Entertainment - theage.com.au

The Existential Jesus
Gary D. Bouma, Reviewer
March 30, 2007
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A fresh encounter with Mark's Gospel impresses with its unbiased approach.

JOHN CARROLL AND A group of colleagues have met regularly for years to read the Bible. No, this is not a Bible study group carefully applying given notes to unfamiliar text. The Existential Jesus has emerged from a deep and fresh encounter with the story of Jesus as told by Mark. Mark's Gospel is the least elaborate - no birth, only an empty tomb and the most roughly hewn - no softening of this at times raging, furious character.

Author John Carroll

Genre Spirituality/Religion

PublisherScribeRRP$35.0

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While some may be challenged by what Carroll meets in this encounter, his aim is not to deconstruct or confront. He appears to have no agenda other than retelling Mark's story as he has encountered and understood it. The book has no audience, no desire to convert, just to recount an authentic encounter with Mark's story of the Jesus who said "I am" and demanded of others, "Who am I?"

Carroll says he has never been a practising Christian but considers the Bible to be so formative of Western civilisation that, like Shakespeare, it rewards close study. He brings a well-grounded appreciation of textual interpretation using his version of the analytical technique "midrash" - a Jewish term that means "to draw out meaning" - and the expanding knowledge of the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth.

He does not bring the biases and learned habits of churchly biblical interpretation. This leaves him free to encounter freshly the power of Mark's story of Jesus. Mark's Jesus is in a sense the most pre-Christian of the gospels, least shaped by the agendas of the emerging church.

Rather than a text-by-text or chapter-by-chapter approach, Carroll discerns the gospel's themes and how its characters represent them in the unfolding drama. The disciples don't get the message. Only a few - the demoniac Mary Magdalene, the woman at the well - see Jesus for who he is. Judas sees and rejects.

Carroll retells the story and then presents Mark's picture of key characters - Mary Magdalene, Peter, Judas and Pilate. Each has their own elemental response to Jesus' "I am".

Carroll, I think rightly, sees Mark's Jesus as profoundly anti-institutional. Jesus rages against the temple cult, a huge religious industry linking religion and state in a profit-seeking, order-enforcing and grace-denying institution. Jesus takes the man with a withered hand out of the synagogue to heal him, the blind man is healed in private, and the temple needs cleansing. Such an attack would make him a target. The attack is as fresh now as ever.

A withering and declining institution is no more Christlike than a flourishing one. Those who sacrifice others on the altars of human institutions are still with us, as are those who take a critically reflective view of these institutions sensing the total otherness of the one to whom Jesus pointed and referred to as Father.

The complex interactions between Jesus' emerging clarity about who he is, his relationships with disciples, family and the small but critically revealing cast of characters in this story are teased out by Carroll using his own responses, those of artists, and contemporary commentaries. I found new insights into some usually less well known characters.

The existential Jesus is a person whose very being is such that an encounter with him clarifies the existence and flaws in the being of those engaged. Jesus is not a moraliser; he's a teacher and a healer of being. There is no Gnosticism here. The encounter is with pure being, not with esoteric teaching or purifying knowledge.

Carroll's clarity of Jesus' diagnosis of the evils of human institution is not balanced by the good they do or a consideration of the impossible contradiction of the human condition - doomed to create organisations for good, which have in them the seeds of their own undoing and evil.

While in Carroll's hand Mark's Jesus is complex, evolving and immensely engaging, he seems more ready to point the finger than to wrestle with embedded contradiction. To seek such nuancing is to have two feet planted on the slippery slope to the church's establishment.

Carroll's Jesus is rabidly anti-church and uses Peter - the disciple who builds churches - as his whipping boy. For a gospel written about AD70, this is a reach; there would have been raging arguments about the nature of this new movement within Judaism - was it a Jewish sect or a new, separate movement? How should it be structured? This gospel may have been written into this conflict to call people away from forms and structures. While this is a voice that is needed in every age, each age answers with, "yes, but".

The Gospels, like the great stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, recount the experiences of humans interacting with the creative source of all that is. Few who encounter them are untouched.

I was struck by the freshness of this encounter, the willingness to pursue what was found using the tools of textual analysis to unlock the themes, the courage to let the text speak and then, having unpacked it, to just let it be. Like Mark, Carroll leaves unanswered Jesus' question, "Who am I?"

An extract from Existential Jesus will run in A2 next Saturday.

Gary D. Bouma is professor of sociology at Monash University and author of Australian Soul: Religion and Spirituality in the 21st Century, published by Cambridge University Press at $39.95.

Bookshelf: John Carroll, "The Existential Jesus"

Bookshelf: John Carroll, "The Existential Jesus"

Bookshelf: John Carroll, “The Existential Jesus”
DECEMBER 25, 2008

Jeff Giles

Jeff Giles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Popdose and Dadnabbit, as well as an entertainment writer whose work can be seen at Rotten Tomatoes and a number of other sites. Hey, why not follow him at Twitter while you're at it?

John Carroll – The Existential Jesus (2009, Counterpoint)
purchase this book (Amazon)

You can’t claim to offer an interpretation of the Gospel of Mark that claims to offer up hitherto unseen angles — or title the result The Existential Jesus — without stirring up a few hornet’s nests, and that’s exactly what John Carroll has been doing in his native Australia since this slim 274-page volume was released in the fall. This is all well and good for Carroll, who made his bones on iconoclastic works such as Humanism: The Rebirth and Wreck of Western Culture, but will it help the casual armchair theologian come to a deeper understanding of the West’s most famous woodworking philosopher?

Yes and no. Carroll’s work isn’t the fumbling embarrassment that his detractors claim it is — but it is a scattered, conflicted book, one that attempts to shatter theoretical framework even as it relies upon it to make crucial arguments, and one that’s just as likely to draw upon established dogma (i.e. Judas as cartoon villain) as it is to try and break new ground (the whole “existential Jesus” thing, which really isn’t all that new, but let’s not quibble). To top it all off, Carroll’s writing style is always very dry and occasionally overly analytical; chunks of The Existential Jesus can be a bit of a slog.

It’s also difficult to put down. This is probably due more to the source material — Mark is the shortest Gospel, and for a book in the Bible, moves along at a pretty good clip — than anything Carroll does with it, but it still has the effect of turning The Existential Jesus into something of a page-turner. Hardcore theologians may take issue with Carroll’s interpretation of the book’s central figure; some reviewers have suggested that his Jesus is defined more by his doubt and self-absorption than his mission. But for open-minded religious readers — and anyone interested in gaining a bit of insight into what I’ll call, for lack of a better term, the “historical” Jesus — the book has a fair amount of wheat to go with its chaff. Carroll’s Jesus isn’t the beatific, divinely removed figure you remember from Sunday school, but he is about as bummed out and conflicted as you’d expect a young man with the literal weight of the world on his shoulders to be. It’s undeniably compelling stuff.

Where Carroll really stumbles is on his many interpretive dances — he engages in a recurring, and distractingly tenuous, examination of the psyche and motives of Simon Peter that finds Carroll reaching back to the apostle’s family history to suggest some sort of generational disconnect between heart and spirit. It comes to an undeniably gripping conclusion when Peter is confronted by a servant girl in the courtyard outside Jesus’ trial, but again, that’s the source material talking; although Carroll isn’t without insight, it’s hard not to feel like he could have done a better job of reaching some of his conclusions.

Ultimately, although The Existential Jesus isn’t the paradigm-busting work of genius it hopes to be (like, say, Jack Miles’ God: A Biography), it isn’t without its merits, and anyone with an interest in revisionist theology can safely part with the $12 Amazon’s asking for Counterpoint’s paperback edition to read it for themselves. As a truly existential Jesus might argue, it’s interesting both in spite of and because of its flaws.

Telling Stories About Jesus: A Conversation with John Carroll - Keith Tester, 2010

Telling Stories About Jesus: A Conversation with John Carroll - Keith Tester, 2010

Telling Stories About Jesus: A Conversation with John Carroll

Keith TesterFirst Published November 18, 2010 Research Article

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Article information

Abstract

Since the 1980s the Australian sociologist John Carroll has been engaged in a unique project. Over the course of a number of books he has sought to investigate the fate of authority, values and vocation in the tradition of Western culture. His books are characterised by a deep knowledge of the Western tradition of high culture, especially its art and texts; they are marked by historical sweep and seriousness of purpose. For Carroll, culture is the retelling of archetypal stories which take us beyond the ego and towards the work of soul-building. In 2007 he published the book The Existential Jesuswhich seeks to tell of the meaning of Jesus for contemporar y culture. This conversation uses the publication of the Jesus book as an opportunity to ask Carroll to reflect on his work. Consequently the article is also an invitation for the wider academic community to begin to engage with Carroll’s profound and challenging inquiry into the state of Western culture.
Keywords Archetypes, being, Christianity, Humanism, Jesus, Mark’s Gospel, meaning, mythos

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The Existential Jesus

The Existential Jesus

The Existential Jesus By John Carroll Scribe, 288pp, $35

MATTHEW LAMB
TheAustralian
March 10, 2007

NICK Cave has said he first read Mark because, of all the Gospels, it was the shortest. John Carroll in The Existential Jesus makes a case for the Gospel of Mark to be not only the biggest of the Gospels but perhaps also one of the biggest books of Western civilisation. This is a bold claim, but Carroll is not shy in making bold claims.

His first claim is this: "The Christian churches have comprehensively failed in their one central task: to retell their foundation story in a way that might speak to their times." This Jesus, Carroll argues, has been reduced to an abstract figure, an illustration of various hollow doctrines and laws. The result is that he is irrelevant to the everyday lives of people.

Carroll's second claim, in response to the first, is this: "Jesus is the core of Western Dreaming. His presence is vital to our civilisation and its individuals. He is known by his story." Against the abstract figure of Jesus, Carroll argues that it is through paying attention to the narrative structure of the Gospel of Mark, and to its underlying mythic substratum, that the importance of Jesus as an individual is to be found. His importance to us as individuals quickly follows.

Carroll's Jesus is therefore a figure for a post-church, secular society. This Jesus is "individual-centred and anti-tribal", outside of family and community, a figure in which "group traits and attachments have been stripped away". He is, as Carroll argues, an existential Jesus.

This retelling of the Jesus story is certainly compelling. Carroll offers us his own translation of the Gospel of Mark, accompanied by his always interesting commentary. But it also contains ambiguous claims that detract from its core concerns.

To reclaim Mark's Gospel from the churches, Carroll removes the story from its Judeo-Christian tradition and inserts it into the Greek tradition. From the opening verses of the Gospel, "Jewish history is made obsolete". And by its concluding verses, it presents an "anti-Christian ending", an anathema to traditional Christian churches. Yet Carroll constantly relies on the Jewish concept of midrash to justify his retelling of the Jesus story. But this concept refers only to reinterpreting such stories from within the limits of the same church teaching and scholarship Carroll rejects. Moreover, he relies heavily on the Christian notion of evil, which sets up a dualistic narrative structure, repeated in other parts of his story (insiders and outsiders, for example). But such dualism is very much a Judeo-Christian framework, absent in the Greek tradition (they preferred hubris).

Despite this, Carroll's commentary of Mark proceeds by linking most of the Jesus story to various Greek sources and ideas. He does this to elevate the importance of mythos in the narrative. His interpretations are convincing here, but this raises other problems: the more Mark is shown to be derivative of Greek sources, the less original this figure of Jesus appears to be. This is compounded by Carroll's retrospective reading of Renaissance and romantic conceptions of individuality back on to the Gospel, and his use of Freudian and Jungian concepts to justify pushing interpretations of the Gospel to suit his own ends.

A more ambiguous claim is Carroll's conception of an existential Jesus because the mythical figure presented is not existential at all but is, by Carroll's own repeated admissions, essential. It is by holding up this "Jesus essence" that Carroll bases his claim for the originality of Mark's Gospel.

The whole book is framed around a question of the "enigma of being". Carroll cites Martin Heidegger as leading the turn of philosophy back to being in the 20th century, but it is likelier Jean-Paul Sartre is Carroll's influence here. Yet the appellation of existential can apply to an individual only if their existence can be said to precede their essence. Carroll argues, however, that not only is the essence of Jesus his main focus, this focus is also based on the argument that Jesus is, indeed, the essence that precedes all our individual existences. Moreover, Heidegger famously criticised Sartre for dabbling in questions of existence and essence (regardless of which comes first), because such metaphysics (and, by extension, Carroll's theoretical framework) is still residing within the "oblivion of the truth of being".

Indeed, each of these ambiguous claims is associated with the theoretical framework Carroll calls on to justify his translation and interpretation of Mark.

But they detract from his core concern, which is to elevate the story itself, as a "self-contained numinous object", above such theoretical ballast. After all, it was the traditional churches' reliance on such hollow doctrines and laws that, Carroll claims, reduced Jesus to an abstract figure in the first place.

I happen to agree with Carroll's core concern and it is in this spirit that I offer these criticisms, not to dismiss his book but the better to focus on what is most interesting in it. And this is the concern with revitalising individuality in the contemporary world and doing so through the virtues of storytelling, as opposed to empty doctrine. It is interesting because it broadens the debate about Jesus beyond the restrictive framework of traditional church teachings and reminds us non-Christians that these stories are at the heart of our culture, too.

Most of all, Carroll's book is a rarity in Australian publishing in that despite its ambiguities, or perhaps because of them, it requires its readers to think. The Existential Jesus may not be the greatest story told but it is certainly one worth hearing.

Matthew Lamb is based in Dubai, where he is working on a PhD on Albert Camus.