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As we approach our Erev Thanksgiving celebration during our anniversary year, we continue to reflect on our origins, on what made establishing Genesis feel so important and urgent 50 years ago, as well as what continues to make Genesis relevant today.
Genesis VP Jim Downward and his spouse Judie, who were deeply involved in the process of forming Genesis, recently uncovered this Rector's Message that Doug Evett wrote in June 1974 for the St. Clarian, which speaks volumes about his motivations. Jim remarked:
Doug here gives voice to what so many of us at that time thought. His answers to the question: “Why Genesis?” speak just as loudly to me today as they did then. They define why I am so dedicated to making Genesis work well for everyone.
This is going down on paper just as Debbie and I get ready for a much-needed jaunt to Mexico… I hope I will return rested and refreshed. The long winter and Lenten pull, plus the added excitement and controversy over our relationship with Temple Beth Emeth has made some kind of R&R a near necessity.
Of course, my mind is preoccupied with the Temple. It is causing nearly all of us to ask some truly serious questions about the nature of our lives together. Questions which are often asked in an intellectual sense, but not very often in a truly "gut" kind of way. Such as, "What is the Church? A building, a community, a gathering place of the spirit of God." Or, "Who is my brother?" Or, "What do these symbols really mean?" Or, "What really separates and/or what really unites the Jew and the Christian?" Or, "Why does this make me so nervous?"
One thing is sure about St. Clare's—we feel deeply. Our question is, do we feel so deeply that it is hard for us to be rational? Another thing that is true about us is that we don’t like to talk about money, even when (for once) we might well be on the receiving rather than the giving end. Another thing that is true about us is that we deeply want the best for our church, but we do not all see that best in the same light. What we know is that we are truly paradoxical, both united and fragmented, both lovers and antagonists, both (to use the old language) redeemed and in need of salvation. I suspect what lots of us need to do is to pray about this, ask God what He would have us do and be, and become.
Obviously, I am in favor of the merger. [My children] have never known a world in which hatred and prejudice have not flourished…They have witnessed enough hate and violence and fear in each of their short lives to have warped and twisted them into something ugly and horrible. And I am sick almost to death with it. Because I know in my heart that almost all of that horror is due to the reality that we have been unwilling to get to know each other… Because we have permitted the hate and fear mongers to have their way with us.
Obviously, I am in favor of the merger. I’ve thought about it for months, and part of the idea is mine. But my reasons for that position are varied. Partly, it simply has to do with my thoughts of our last two annual meetings. I heard true cries of anger and pain that St Clare's could not or would not designate more of its income to work outside the church, and on Christian Education, and on better salaries. I believe joining our lives with Temple Beth Emeth will release about $10,000 annually to these various purposes. That sounds remarkable to me, very hopeful and positive. Partly, it has to do with the whole opportunity to share our lives with another religious community—a people who want the very best things I want, but who see the way to that in a different light.
But mostly I desire this for my children. They have never known a world in which hatred and prejudice have not flourished. They have begun to mature in a world in which they may be obliterated in an instant. They have nothing to say about that. Since my eldest son was born, his nation has fought one protracted war, and Israel and the Arab nations have fought two wars, and there have been countless smaller battles. The cities of this nation have been bombed and burned by their own people: Black has fought white, white has fought Black. Red men and Brown men have fought Black, and White, and each other. Christians have fought Jews and Jews have fought Christians. And so, it goes on and on and on. They have witnessed enough hate and violence and fear in each of their short lives to have warped and twisted them into something ugly and horrible.
And I am sick almost to death with it. Because I know in my heart that almost all of that horror is due to the reality that we have been unwilling to get to know each other, to be anything other than selfish and self-centered with what we think is ours. Because we have permitted the hate and fear mongers to have their way with us.
I can do little or nothing about that greater world except vote and be a good citizen. But here and now, right at my home, I have a chance to learn how to live with someone uniquely different. To offer to my kids an example of how it can be pulled off. To say to the community in which they are growing up that we can get along and in saying, to make clear that if we can do it here, we can do it anywhere. One small beacon of hope in a very dark night.
So I'm for it. But what in the end I'm finally for is the discussion and the questions and the passion and the prayers, because it is out of that we come to discover what God would have us do.
— Douglas P. Evett, Rector's Message in the St. Clarian, June 1974 (lightly edited)
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