Martin Marty
Award-winning author and professor emeritus, University of Chicago

Martin Marty

Historian, author, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he taught religious history, chiefly in the Divinity School, for 35 years.

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Dying Strangers Lifted Me Up

In the autumn of 1947, when I knew I wanted to write, but was giving Christian ministry as a vocational choice a chance, I was sent to do "field work" at an old-style tuberculosis sanitarium in St Louis.

A group of us were sent there to converse and pray with utterly poor, family-less, friendless African-American women, abandoned to die alone.

Almost without exception, they ministered to us out of resources they'd gotten in the black churches or from their own reading and soul.

Six or seven of us headed out there in a bus, envious of classmates who golfed or swam on Friday afternoon, while we sullen few were supposed to experience dread.

Instead, we were lifted up, sang our way home, and usually celebrated with an almost-sacramental beer, ready for next week's encounter with God in an experience that gave us direction and hope.

By Martin Marty  |  January 4, 2007; 11:00 AM ET
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I must say this self-serving pap makes me sick. There are really important human injustices occuring which pass unnoticed, uncommented upon, while we discuss this sort of pious jibberish and call it the awakening of religious awareness.

Oy vey.

Posted by: Bob | January 5, 2007 9:16 PM
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mr martin- short sweet and powerful-
you affirm and reaffirm the beauty of the human soul in service and sir although i am muslim your simplicity and selflessness speak across all divisions-

really i am happyto see you here sir and will read all your responses now past and future

peace and peace and respect

Posted by: victoria | January 5, 2007 7:19 AM
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Mr. Marty, I feel Blessed to be introduced to the reality of your generousity of soul. God Bless you, and I feel unworthy in your forum. Please allow me to confess a trinity of sins that occured long ago, before my reformation, but remain within my essense none-the-less. The details of all three abortions I will not go into, for the lives of others still drawing breath would be violated beyond all reason. I will only say, that the first was innocent on my part, and I pray forgiveness from the mother to be for she took my sins in addition to her own in my ignorance. So painful an experience for such a young soul. The second, I should have known better, but the mother to be was cavalier also out of ignorance and I failed for I should have been strong enough for the both of us. Of all that is the most painful memory to me...the one that still haunts me today some one score eight years later. The LAST, I could not bear to go through again, and offered life insurance to the mother to be as the only future I could offer and thus my descent, for I am still here. Do not be under the false illusion that the mother's decision affects only her...for that is no more true than to say it is all on you, young man. It is shared, and whatever the decision, your soul is a barred spiral galaxy ...naked to the world are you, the same as the day you came in. I do not beg forgiveness from strangers who might jump to judge for God has since told me that by His design, I am harder on myself than He Might decide to be. Some call me the Gypsy Man, so little do they know. Some call me the Gypsy Man, we all reap what we sow. Some from which much more is expected reap many, many times more than might otherwise be rejected. Some believe that the soul enters and exits the vessel upon the first and last breath. In this sense, I have not taken a soul, but rather I have delayed a souls arrival. In that sense, it is on par with the early dispatch of a soul, but it is NOT final and should not be considered such. We shall continue with this debate for I see storks gather, and should we stay true to the Word of God to the fullest extent possible [sometimes we must choose between the lesser of two evils] the miracle of God inspired medicine shall put this soul wrenching issue to rest. Until then, I say and pray that if you are against abortion, do not have one, but be warned that it is a shared moral responsibility between those two joined in the developing vessel regardless of your decision. God Bless you Sir, as He has blessed me through your shared experience. In God's infinite Wisdom, I believe that I have learned many lessons [finally] that affect the souls of men and women today. WAR Anthology, the entire Disc One 1970-1974 One that stands out in my mind? "The World is a Ghetto." for we are all prisoners of our decisions, and sometimes quite unfairly, the decisions of others, until the resulting lessons are well learned. I do not question God, I shut my mouth and listen. [yes I do that on occasion.] Any other stones? Anyone? Thank you Sir for in your presence I felt safe enough to clear the air. Again I feel Blessed as I ask for God's Blessings towards you.

Posted by: Frozen1 | January 5, 2007 1:24 AM
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It is said that we reap what we sow. May you reap 10 fold the Love and Peace you have selflessly sown, Sir. God has blessed me through your shared experience. God Bless you and keep you and yours Always.

Posted by: Frozen1 | January 4, 2007 8:01 PM
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Thank you for sharing a little of your uplifting experience of working with dying people. I can't help but wonder if we all were involved with people near the end of their lives, we would value our living more.

Posted by: J. Rhinehart | January 4, 2007 7:51 PM
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Will you not take a step to put away your differences of perception, filled with regret and doubt, too?

Posted by: John | January 4, 2007 4:28 PM
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Maybe there's a bit more to your experience, but it sounds extremely ego-bound and pathetically patrichial.

"Us nice whitefolk, wantin' to be havin' a fun time instead, gotta go meet these poor black females - FEMALES....and whatyaKNOW! We was ENTERTAINED and ASTONISHED at their "religion"..."

ick and pathetic.

Posted by: mommadona | January 4, 2007 3:30 PM
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We have come to understand the impact of poverty on children: not only their brains had starved of nutrients to develop for learning, but also their lungs become incubators for breeding communal diseases. Their mortal lives are limited to a relative age of regional comparisons. Already handicapped by mental abilities and physical ailments, their lot is further disadvantaged by injustice in global decisions such as trade and exchange. Multi-corporations have effectively patented the lives of the poor by its monopoly on the means of sustaining and controlling diseases. WTO and IMF programmes further extract values away from these folks. What can Christians do in their own local governments to eliminate this terror?

Posted by: Simon | January 4, 2007 2:05 PM
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Martin,

I am positive that your presence there was equally as meaningful to them. God bless you.

Posted by: John | January 4, 2007 2:01 PM
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If I am to take what I see here literally then Pat Robertson's conversation with Devil probably predict the future with better than average accuracy. Planet earth is on a collision course with disaster. It can't happen any sooner than 2007 so we can now discard all the predictions about the year 2000.

In case you don't see what I am seeing then think emotionally disturbed human race. Feeling spirits, hallucinating, speaking to supernatural beings, all summable uppable as faith. It's not do you faith but rather which faith is it.

Posted by: BGone | January 4, 2007 1:22 PM
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