Societas Homiletica – day four – Pauli Murray!

Dr Donyelle McCray, Yale Divinity School

Monday. This is the day with different excursions in the afternoon. I am not going to write about them. I will focus on this morning’s Keynote Address:

Pauli Murray In and Out of the Pulpit.

The speaker was Dr Donyelle McCray, Assistant Professor of Homiletics at Yale Divinity School. She was brilliant. And the story about Pauli Murray was so interesting.

First of all I have to confess that I had not heard of her. But now I have. She was an activist before the civil rights movement really took off. She was also a lawyer and a poet. Rather late she was also ordained in the Episcopal Church. As the first Afro American Woman Priest.

Already as a young person she described herself as inwardly male and outwardly female. She liked to dress in male clothes and carry out traditionally male duties.

Dr McCray painted a lively portrait of Pauli Murray. And she also introduced three of her most important inspirations.

Cornelia Smith Fitzgerald (Her grandmother).

Langston Hughes (A famous Harlem renaissance poet).

James Cone (one of the most renowned proponents of Black Theology in the US, who died April 28 this year).

Her grandmother was a preacher, but not in church. She held sermons to her neighbors and that inspired young Pauli. From Hughes she learnt about poetry. Murray meant that sermon and poetry are overlapping genres. I could not agree more. This is partly what I said in my own presentation. I am aware that I only am in the beginning myself.

Hughes also stressed how important it is to use one’s voice in more than one way. On this note I remember how we spoke about the grunting of preachers in Africa. A connection to the traditional praise singer, in isiZulu called ‘ibongi’. Either Hughes or Pauli Murray had said that

Language conceals the human voice

This means that a preacher should use other sounds. Even weeping as a way of expressing deep emotions. (This is far from our western preaching style, but in southern Africa we experienced this a lot).

When the address dwelled on Cone much was said about the role of anger in sermons. Anger as something that should not be feared but something that is informative.

The address was long but very inspiring. I want to learn more about this remarkable woman. I have found a website but I cannot see that much about her sermons is being mentioned. The link comes here.

Pauli Murray was ordained in 1977 and died in 1985. At the General Convention of the Episcopal Church 2012 her name was added to the Calendar of Commemorations of The Episcopal Church, and thus to Holy Women.

Something that especially spoke to me was her love for dogs. She liked to pray with her dog at her side. This I have done a lot myself, especially early mornings in South Africa.