Incarnation

Christian Century, Dec 24, 1997 by Martin E. Marty

How Silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is giv'n! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heav'n." We sing that at this time of year, reflecting with Phillips Brooks about the events believers recognize as divine incarnation. Our minds are free to wander as we wonder, to see what comes with the blessings of God's heav'n. We may think of the effects of the divine generosity in the human world, of how some creatures imitate it. Here are two examples, both of whom I first learned of on Thanksgiving weekend.

On Thanksgiving eve I was lolling in the tub, reading the African Benefactor, sent to me by David Krause of Dallas. The editors calculated which Americans had donated the most money to interests and causes. Many names were familiar: Annenberg, Mellon, Soros and Hewlett. They rank with names like Rockefeller, Carnegie and Vanderbilt. But also listed was Charles F. Feeney, age 66.

Feeney made his money from duty-free shops such as those seen at international airports. He gives to schools, colleges, hospitals and youth programs in the U. S. and Ireland. Maureen Dowd wrote more about him in the New York Times (November 26). Feeney gives anonymously, she reports. His family happily watches him give most of their inheritance away. He gives not aristocratically but in the conviction that we should keep only what we need. He owns no house or car; he flies economy and wears a $15 watch. "He was thrilled to be dropped from Forbes's list of the richest Americans this year because he had given so much money away."

The other newcomer to my consciousness in whom I am even more convinced that the incarnation lives on by extension is named Wilhelmina "Minnie" Vautrin. She is written up in the Disciple (December). She belongs to that rank maligned by people who have no credentials to malign but malign anyhow: those who see Christian missionaries as chaplains to the military and tools of the imperialists. I see her as one through whom God imparts to human hearts the blessings of God's heav'n.

The Illinois-born educator was a missionary school administrator for the Disciples of Christ in 1937 at Nanking. A witness to the Japanese invasion, when "soldiers raped and/or murdered 300,000 Nanking citizens" Some Chinese survived because Vautrin opened the doors of Ginling College to victims and closed them to would-be attackers. She made room for 10,000 at her college built for 200 girls.

Two Chinese children played near the school. "Foreign devil," cursed one. "That's no foreign devil. That's Miss Vautrin," said the other. Enough said. She allowed no prayer of hatred of Japan, "no petition for victory in battle." She stayed in Nanking when others left. She paid for her valor and witness with a nervous breakdown. "I am about at the end of my energy," she recorded in her diary in 1940. Shipped home, the broken woman tried to jump overboard. Electric shock treatment back home did not help. In 1941 she turned on the gas and died at age 54.

She lives, and human hear-ts who never knew of her are better for her having done so. "Had I ten perfect lives, I would give them all to China." Or whatever place had a need for courage, love and blessings.