Grandpa Meets Father Divine

On the web, I recently found a letter from my grandfather to Father Divine. Even more interestingly, there was also a letter back to him from the preacher.

I never really knew much about my grandfather. My late father’s father, he died when I was young – I don’t recall my age or even the announcement of his death, but when I saw him on a 8-mm home movie several years ago, a sudden shock of recognition (“I know him!”) shot through me. Curiously, that same feeling has not reoccurred on subsequent viewings (the film has been transferred to videotape, and I should probably get it into digital medium soon before that technology goes the way of 8 mm).

My parents did not talk about him much. My mother dismisses him as “a dirty, leacherous old man,” and leaves it at that without welcoming any more inquiry. It has been hinted that sometime during the '40s or '50s, he divorced my grandmother to marry a black woman, a scandalous act for that not-exactly-desegregated time.

Most of what I know about him is from his books. I have a small collection of his books, handed down, somewhat reluctantly, from father to son, including a 1942 edition of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1933 decision lifting the ban on the book as a preface, and a 1936 translation of “Capital” by Marx and Engels. The presence of these two books alone suggests a free-thinking liberal, possibly ahead of his time, who was something of an embarrassment to my parents.

There are other biographical hints about him in the books. There’s a 1906 collection of Leigh Richmond Miner photographs and poems by Paul Lawrence Dunbar called “Joggin’ Erlong,” written in a black dialect that now reads like minstrelry of the worst sort (“De da’kest hour, dey allus say, is des’ befo’ de dawn”). In good condition, the book sells for $400 on line. Written on the inside cover is “Gift of Mama, Xmas, 1906,” and a sticker identifies the book as being from his Jacksonville, Florida personal library.

The letter to Father Divine was written on October 23, 1939. The letterhead suggests that he was working at that time for the New York Department of State, Division of Licenses, and that he was living at 80 Center Street in New York City. MapQuest shows 80 Center Street as being somewhere in the middle of Staten Island.

So, based on about all that I know, he lived in Jacksonville near the turn of the century and had an interest in what we now call “black studies,” and later moved to Staten Island to work as a bureaucrat in the Division of Licenses, where his interests expanded to include avant-garde literature, socialism and Father Divine.

In the spring of 2001, while en route to Myrtle Beach for a weekend of golf, my father visited with me in Atlanta for a few days, and was fairly amused to discover me involved in Zen Buddhism. “Your grandfather was into that, too,” he said, which was news to me. I had heard once or twice that Grandfather had an interest in Father Divine, but this was the first that I had heard that his spiritual interests were eclectic enough to include Buddhism, too.

The letter begins:

My Dear Father Divine:

Permit me for my family and myself to express our profound thanks to you for the five days of exquisite peace, rest and sweet content obtained while visiting (our first time) your Extensions in Ulster County the past month. While we made the Artists Colony at Milton our headquarters, we journeyed to as many of the blessed Missions, or Peace Havens, if you will indulge me the privilege of so terming them, as time afforded, to banquet and converse with the brothers and sisters of the Missions. There were Miss Noah and Miss Sincere Heart at Krum Elbow, Miss Satisfied and Miss Merriness at Kingston, Miss Sweet Angel at High Falls and Miss Rebecca Well, the inimitable and gracious hostess at Samsonville, or Divine Lodge, the “cup in the Mountains,” verily a retreat of the angels. The moment a stranger crosses its thresholds he instinctively feels that "God's in His heaven; All's right with the world."

The letter is rather lengthy and I won’t reprint the entire content here; the interested reader, however, can find the full text here. However, he goes on to say:

I once heard a well known Senator from one of the southern states of this nation, in referring to the darker citizens of the United States, declare that the N was a race of tip takers and would always be such. Even Buddha said 560 years before Christ that all blood is of one hue.

I don’t recall the Buddha actually ever having said quite that, although it is in accord with the buddhadharma, but am impressed that Grandfather quotes the Buddha. More biographic detail, as well as insight into Grandfather’s political and moral stance, is provided in a later paragraph:

As a member of the legal profession for the past twenty-four years, having been admitted to practice in this State and in several other states and one foreign country, I am keenly interested in YOUR platform of Righteous Government as promulgated in 1936. . . Laws seem to be made to be broken and circumvented by the rich and the privileged, and to act as a noose and trap for the poor who cannot PAY for justice. The people of the State of New York pay too much for Justice when they do receive it. Justice is a power, indeed, and if it cannot create it will destroy! The question, then, is to see that Justice, and not a facsimile of it, is rendered to ALL MEN regardless of RACE, CREED OR COLOR; that it is administered by men of character and integrity and not by political hacks and incompetents of major political parties, who, indeed, must render mock justice as the leaders of those dominant political parties with slimy hands and fat pocketbooks, dictate. Justice without righteousness is destructive. It then becomes the rule of the stronger, and liberty the law which the stronger allow.

In response, Father Divine wrote:

Your letter of the 23rd is before ME and I AM writing to express MY appreciation for your unreserved communication of thanks and tribute to MY Work and Mission among men, and to say that I AM indeed glad that you and yours found personal comfort and Peace during your stay in the Promised Land.

Had you not possessed within your heart a profound conviction of Right and the sincerity of seeing Righteousness in effect, the understanding and praise you so kindly extended would have been un-conceded, as it is by those whom you referred, deprecate the Truth through their preconceived prejudices and stony hearts. . .

. . . In following out these Precepts of Righteousness, Justice and Truth, MY Spirit and MY Mind will guide you in your daily activities, that you might substantiate Righteousness in the legal courts of law, for the Kingdom of Righteousness must be legalized even as I AM establishing it scientifically and economically in the affairs of men, that all men might become to be as this leaves ME, for I AM Well, Healthy, Joyful, Peaceful, Lively, Loving, Successful, Prosperous and Happy in Spirit, Body and Mind and in every organ, muscle, sinew, joint, limb, vein and bone and even in every atom, fiber and cell of MY Bodily Form.

Respectfully and Sincere I AM

REV. M. J. DIVINE
Better known as FATHER DIVINE)