Bev's blog

Why have Civil Authority?

2010-05-25T07:19:00.004-05:00

"One fierce opponent of civil rights legislation, William F. Buckley Jr., admitted... “I once believed we could evolve our way up from Jim Crow,” Mr. Buckley said in 2004. “I was wrong: federal intervention was necessary.” quote from "Rand Paul and the Perils of Textbook Libertarianism," New York Times, May 21

The extent of the right wing Christian posturing against the government leaves me a little chagrinned. Civil authority was developed in part to stop evil doers and to protect weak. Jesus said he came, among other things, to free the oppressed.

Darkness, dawn, and dustbunnies

2010-04-18T06:54:00.006-05:00

Sunday morning. Dawn. The sun will rise in about twenty minutes. At the horizon stripes of night, light, and purple dawn rest over the water. I am away from home, about to spend a few days with strangers at a business meeting. I won’t be taking communion in person with an assembly of Christians, so I will celebrate in cyberspace.

We spend a little bit of every day in this mixture of darkness and light that comes before dawn. Nights may be restful, may be nightmarish. Daytime may surround us with comforts and blessings but night may let monsters lurk under beds, specters float overhead, intruders press at our doors. For those in war-torn, natural disaster stricken, crime ridden places—those threats are real. For some of us, those monsters, specters, and intruders are wrought by our real and perceived failures, by thoughtless and costly omissions, by the daunting nature of what’s before us.

For those of us living in peaceful, affluent North America, the rising of the sun, the coming of light, often reduces the monsters to dust bunnies, the ghosts to creaky ceiling fans, and the intruders to the ice makers dumping ice. In the light, the perceived and even most egregious real failures and omissions, the daunting nature of our tasks, don’t disappear, but they lack the superpowers they gain in the night.

For the believer, the light of Christ shines out of the darkness. He lets us see life and ourselves as we are—a mixture of success and failure, of purity and murk, of good and evil. He beacons us to follow the best of our nature and graciously forgives us for the failures. When in a community of believers, he surrounds with fellows who are willing to forgive, for they are acutely aware of the amount they have been forgiven. He listens to our anxieties and cares for us. He promises us wisdom, strength, and power for the tasks ahead of us. His provides a palpable presence in our hearts and bodies as we walk and work through our days.

In communion we remember the death of Christ, his resurrection, and we proclaim that we believe he will come again. This celebration brings together the darkest of nights, the most brilliant of mornings, and the most colorful vision of future life. Though it reminds us of the real scope and reach of our failures, the commemoration reminds us to repent, to make restoration, to move forward with courage and boldness, as a people filled with great hope.

The sun is up. The light calls.

The vicissitudes of pollen and Prague

2010-04-13T20:40:00.006-05:00

The vicissitudes of pollen and Prague was written shortly after spring break, 2005.

My hairstylist's appointment book won't budge until after the big dinner. Twenty essays demand grading. Driving to school, my hair at the miserable can't do a thing-with-it-until-its-cut stage; I glance down noting the floor mats need vacuuming. The brake fluid light shines red and the low coolant light beams yellow. Yellow pollen covers the car. The windshield wipers, sans fluid, turn the dust into yellow granular slimes. As I pull out a quick glance at my mailbox garden reminds me that the mulching is undone and the snapdragons await planting.

Thoughts turn to home and five loads of laundry awaiting sorting, suds, drying, and worst yet--putting away. Thankfully the Christmas tree is down and put away, but weeks after Easter the fancy eggs from Prague still need nestling in their storage box. Problem is, getting that storage box out would mean opening the pantry which would remind me of the need for grocery shopping and restocking. Restocking the pantry will remind me again, that my husband and son are vegetarians and that I just don't have a good rhythm for meal planning yet. So, it's been three years. My pre-vegetarian meal planning rhythm wasn't all that great either.

Thinking of the stack of unread news, home decorating, and church leadership magazines irks me momentarily until I refocus on the irksomeness of the driver in front of me who seems to think blinkers are for ordinary people. I hope that a few minutes of NPR will help me focus on something more than the cruel vicissitudes of appointment books, pollen, and unread articles. Just my luck. It's pledge drive week.

How much more could go wrong?

Now it's nighttime. I stop working on my classes about 10:30 p.m. and contemplate a couple of pictures my husband Ken and I took on our recent trip to the Czech Republic.

First, Wenceslas Square. Home of the Prague Spring, 1968. Few folks can forget the thrill of seeing thousands of Czechs gathering there expressing their desire for freedom. Few can forget when Soviet tanks and troops crushed the nascent democratic movement.

I see the picture we took of a little wrought iron plant holder mounted on a tile on a building close to the square. I asked Ken to take the picture because I thought the plants were cheery and the wrought iron holder clever. Stepping closer, I saw some writing on the tile. Our friend, Eddie White, read the Czech inscription explaining that it is a memorial to a 50 year-old woman who was shot and killed at that spot in 1968.

Someone, perhaps her grandchildren, placed the color plants.

What luxury--no, what grace--to experience appointment books, pollen, unread magazines, and ungraded essays as the vicissitudes of life.

Posted by Beverly Choate Dowdy at Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Reading for Revival Week Seven-Continually Questioning

2010-02-20T08:30:00.005-05:00

I am a person of faith. But faith is just that--it implies confidence in the unseen. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is part of my heart, my mind, probably my DNA in a way, because I have walked in that way of faith all of my life--but it is still the unseen.

Yaweh, scripture says, is the Creator of heaven and earth with authority to ask for committment from his creatures. How does that claim reconcile with what we do see-the natural world as observed by modern science?

Francis Collins, the leader of the international Human Genome Project worked for over ten years to uncover the DNA sequence, all of the DNA of our species—the hereditary code of life. In his book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, he writes about his discovery of the human genome in tandem with a discussion of his coming to faith in God. This book is a great read for someone in an earnest quest for faith wrestling with questions relating to science and faith. I appreciate this statement from his book,

“To examine the complexity of life and our own origins on this planet, we must dig deep into the fascinating revelations about the nature of living things wrought by the current revolution in paleontology, molecular biology, and genomics. A believer need not fear that this investigation will dethrone the divine; if God is truly Almighty, He will hardly be threatened by our puny efforts to understand the workings of His natural world. And as seekers, we may well discover from science many interesting answers to the question “How does life work?” What we cannot discover, through science alone, are the answers to the questions, “Why is there life anyway?” and “Why am I here?”

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, by Francis S. Collins, Free Press, New York, 2006
Sell your shirt and buy it.

Reading for Revival Week Six: Awesome, Irksome Exodus

2010-02-14T22:52:00.022-05:00

A 21st Century American suburbanite examines ancient mayhem and majesty...

If this is the first time you have checked this blog lately--let me explain what I am doing. I am reading through the Bible this year using the plan posted on the upper right hand of the blog. Once a week I am posting a set of reactions to at least one section of reading.

This week, I have concentrated my writing on Exodus.

Chapter 18
Jethro, father-in-law to Moses, an ancient Peter Drucker or Stephen Covey, gives leadership advice to Moses, who empowers his appointees to handle disputes, bringing only the most difficult to him. Moses, receives recognition for listening to his father-in-law.

Chapter 19

The Lord wants the Israelites, the house of Jacob, to recognize how he has borne them “on eagle’s wings” to himself. God considers all of the earth his possession, but he treasures the idea that the Israelites will be a priestly kingdom. He wasn’t singling out the people of Israel for their own benefit, though he was pleased to give them blessings—but he was doing all of this to make them bridge the gap between men and God. It was once explained to me like this—in a world rife with violence and worship of many types, God intended through Israel to shape a nation that would bring Christ. These creatures of God, newly redeemed from slavery were given the law to create out of the ethical chaos of the ancient world a community to bring light to the world.

Chapter 20

I told my son, Chris, our family ethicist and theologian, that I can see much of the law given on Sinai as wonderful.

The Big Ten

First of all, the same force that brought these thousands of slaves freedom from the most powerful empire on the earth, demands unrivaled devotion from the people.

Secondly, for all the treeness of Genesis and the emphasis on the giving of the land, this God makes it very clear that there would be no veneration of things earthy or animal-like. I read a thoughtful discussion of this perspective in Christopher J.H. Wright’s Walking the Ways of the LORD. There is not a kind of New Age, Jungian kind of attachment to the earth, or the veneration of trees, animals, moon, sun, stars, or other objects called upon by some religions. For the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the land is the place upon which the LORD does his acts of grace and love. It is the God himself, the Creator of all things who demands worship. He delivered the children of Israel in order to prepare a nation to be priestly to the entire world. He gave them a land, upon which they could become a nation, acting out his will. He gives them sun by day, the moon by night for sustenance and guidance. He is giving them this law to help shape a community that can model what a just God would want from his people. So to make an object of veneration offends this God who loves his creatures, delivers them, and provides for them.

Third,, the LORD is personal and relational, and finds it offensive to ignore or misuse him in anyway—so the language and life lived before him should in no way mock or make light of his godness, his creative power, his redemptive actions, his provision and care. Perhaps because there were so many objects of worship in the world at the time, the LORD wants to be clearly understood, and he wants his name to be known precisely for what he truly is—creator, sustainer, redeemer, protector, and not anything less than the most powerful force in the universe. For this name is to be honored—not trivialized or trifled with—by poor conduct or any kind of scornful talk.

Next, the Sabbath, with its guarantee of rest for all—wives, children, servants, animals, even resident aliens—according to Wright, is much more than simply a way to catch up on rest and to worship. Because it is a command to be applied across all of society, it is a significant factor in establishing social justice and protection for all. This could inspire even the peripatetic citizens of modern Atlanta. There are few among us who take an entire day to devote to worship, family, and respecting the needs of all. I would also like to note that for all of the anti-alien sentiment around, we probably should take note that in the most basic moral code given by the God most modern Atlantans call God, he demands equal protection for aliens. Further, the reading of Exodus demands that the people of Israel always care for the alien remembering that they themselves were once aliens and strangers in a strange land—and God took care of them.

Fifth, having children give honor—care, respect, protection—to their parents—thus preserving the life of the elderly and modeling this for the next generation would certainly lead to long life for people in such a society. I do not think this command means you have to do every little thing your parents ever want you to do, no matter what your age. It is a construct to give to families permanence and protection for each generation.

The first few of the Ten Commandments are not difficult to understand. The next few—you shall not murder, steal, bear false witness, commit adultery, or covet can clearly be comprehended by our 2010 minds. There is certainly much to consider about these commandments, but let’s skip them for now and go past them to the next level of laws given by Moses.

A cursory look at the conditions of slavery mentioned in the laws given after the Big Ten make all of the so-called Biblical justifications of the slavery sounded a century or so earlier by Americans a sham. At least in Exodus it was more like indentured servant hood with protections for the slave and eventual freedom.

Many of the laws given—the what to do if someone does such and such to you—have been explained to me in a helpful way—they were given to LIMIT retribution for wrongs done by one to another. In other words, if someone gouges out your eye—you don’t get to KILL them—your retribution is limited to a consequence commiserate to loss you have sustained. Not a pretty consequence—but in a lawless society—a limit to violence.

On the other hand

I told my son, Chris, our family ethicist and theologian, that I can see much of the law given on Sinai as downright disturbing.

For a middle class American woman in the 21st Century, some of the commands given after the Decalogue seem brutal.

For example, although dealing with a recalcitrant child can be frustrating, the idea that a child who curses his parents should be killed is frightening. There a few times when I was growing up that my mom did refer to this practice. She suggested I should feel lucky to have the limited consequences I experienced when being a bit sassy.

Joking aside, the idea of a parent killing a rebellious child is barbaric.

On the other hand, I knew a family with a minor child so violent that he made their life a curse. The parents would literally lock their bedroom doors at night, and sometimes take turns staying awake, in fear of the child. The child did things like vivisect animals. In our society we might call the police to protect us from such a nightmare. Was this command a civil response to the violent, dangerous child—perhaps even an adult child?

Reading through these laws shows some that seem to have a reasonable, perhaps contemporary equivalent and others that seem beyond the pale. I wonder what I should make of these.There is a theme in the scripture that the Law is "holy, just, and good." Some of these does not seem so good if applied to my world.

I ask--can we love, obey, or understand this God by simply reading this text?

Chris to the rescue

Chris, family ethicist and theologian, helped with this crisis of consideration by reminding me that in the practice of Judaism, through the ages, discussions about the meanings of these laws are documented by volumes of points, counter-points, arguments, applications, arguments, and counterpoints. Great rabbinical conversations have pursued these topics and have often left exactly what a contemporary should do with certain laws open to disagreement. It is only in the last few hundred years or so that people have been persuaded that each thing must be examined scientifically and either proven or disproven for veracity and possible application. He got me to thinking that is okay to be quizzical about many points of the law.

Christopher J.H. Wright has also given me some help in reckoning these laws to my life in God today. He gives the idea that we might look for the broad principles of justice built into these laws as a paradigm for our conduct today. A good example is the Sabbath—we may or may not be compelled as modern Christians to observe the Sabbath in the exact way of the Israelites, but we may indeed understand and act upon that significant reality that all in society need time to rest, to worship, to devote to their family. As we exercise influence or power in our world, we would make such provisions for all—regardless of their status in society--to workers, to aliens, and even to animals. Sounds very contemporary. Even challenging.

The Rest of the Story

Much can be said about the rest of the book--including the tabernacle story. I summarize Exodus like this: Exodus exposes his covenant family, the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in a world of violence, political confusion, and human uncertainty.Exodus details the sentinel story of the rescue, redemption of the people of Israel--the escape from slavery in Egypt, the passage across the Red Sea on dry land, the destruction of the Egyptian Army and the journey the promised land. Exodus shows the LORD providing basic needs, giving guidance, structure, and a place of beauty for worship.

Here's a Bev paraphrase of several of the laws in Exodus:

When you buy a slave—set him free after six years with no debt.
If a slave comes married; the slave leaves married.

If the master gives him a wife; he goes and the wife and children stay. If he wants to stay with his family—he can become a slave for life.

When you marry off your daughter--If the man takes a second wife—he must still give the first wife food, clothing, and sex. If he does not—she can leave him debt free.

If you kill someone by striking them—you may be put to death. If the death is not premediated, God will provide a sanctuary. Premeditation is the factor that gets the death penalty.

Whomever strikes mother or father—will be put to death.

If one strikes someone and the person recovers—the assailant must pay for time lost and for medical care.

If some strikes a pregnant woman and she miscarries—the assailant must pay what the husband requires—an amount approved by a judge.

Other losses are to be recompensed in a manner limited in direct relation to the loss—eye for eye; tooth for tooth.

Maiming a slave in any way demands the slave be set free with no debt.

Ox gores should not be repeated upon pain of death for the ox and the owner.

Pits devouring others animals will result in a lawsuit.

Repeated ox gores are trouble for the owner of the ox.

You can’t kill an intruder in the daylight without being guilty for their blood. Breaking and entering is NOT a capital crime.

Arsonists shall make full restitution.

You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

If you lend to the poor, you should not charge them interest.

You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in Egypt.

A significant part of your wealth over the years should be managed so that the poor may share in it. You should manage your fields so that the wild animals will be able eat as well.

An important part of the Sabbath is the opportunity not just for you to rest, but for your servants and animals to rest. Included in this day of rest are the resident aliens who need to be refreshed as well.

Reading for Revival Week Five-Proverbs

2010-02-06T10:33:00.012-05:00

Paraphrase of Proverbs 3...
If you want to know the divine,
if you want to see God,
if you long to understand this world and your own life,
shout it.

Shout it the way you may shout curses when frustrated. You may at times call out for God to condemn whatever you hate or find frustrating-from the trivial to the catastrophic. You say oh my God in response to the trivial and the catastrophic. Why don’t you cry out--oh my God--reveal real meaning in life to me. Give me insight! Help me understand nature, understand others, understand myself. Help me understand why live goes the way it goes.

Say it aloud, the way you may usually wage your curses and complaints.

You work day and night to possess houses and cars and clothes and status. Put that type of effort into the pursuit of God. You may examine consumer guides, search the internet, interview friends and strangers looking for the best of everything from toasters, to colleges, to doctors, to car deals. You seek these treasures with intelligence and passion. Seek for understanding of God and the life he desires for us with that kind of passion and intellectual commitment and you will find yourself holding unimaginable, indestructible possessions.

Give to the LORD before you do anything else with your money. Those who are thoughtful in this way with their money—who purpose and plan and are generous to others—will often be observed to have plenty.

Being shaped by good principles; understanding the consequences of good and bad behavior makes you into a person of strength in character. This is the nature of God’s discipline—not punishment and vengeance against your weaknesses, but a kind of loving teaching—the way a good parent teaches a child. A parent doesn’t fail to correct and lead a child deeply loved, but will provide the child with guidance and boundaries—yielding a wise and productive life for the child and joy to the parent.

Wisdom is better than wealth. It may not seem that way, but you know you may possess great wealth but lack happiness and peace.

The LORD’s wisdom—intelligence, creativity, power, and order— expresses itself in creation—in the skies, in the rain, in the sea, in the morning dew. Don’t fail to see this—this insight will emanate from within, will be displayed as fine jewelry around your neck; it will give confidence to your steps, and keep you from tripping up on the road of life.

What may happen in your life if you pursue the wisdom that comes for the LORD? When you are in a quiet place sitting, sans TV, IPod, and conversation of others—you will not be anxious but can calmly reflect. When you are in bed—you will sleep with the sweetness that you are in good stead with others and with God—because your actions and words have been laced with wisdom. You may not feel the same kind of panic others feel when things go wrong, because your heart and mind have been at one accord with the Creator and with ethical and spiritual guidance he affords.

How might this accumulation of wisdom be played out in your conduct? Do not fail to pay back those who have loaned money to you when you are capable of paying. Be certain to give to others promptly when you have the means to provide something they need. Honor the trust of your neighbors; never knowingly harm them in any way. Don’t pick fights with others—especially when someone has done no harm to you. Don’t wistfully look at thugs, gang members, or others who use violence to gain power and do not imitate them on any level—in spite of the wealth they accumulate. Remember the use of violence, quarrelsomeness, and greed in any form is a perversion of God’s great desire for his people. When you walk in fiscal responsibility, in honesty, in peace, doing kindness to your neighbors, you walk in the ways of LORD and will sense that he is speaking his wise insight into your life.

In the big picture of life, where wickedness abides so does the curse of the LORD and where there is this kind of upright living—the blessings of the LORD become part of daily existence.

If you are in the frame of mind in which you scorn the LORD—you may experience the negativity, cynicism, and cruelty often born of scorn. He favors humility over sarcasm and cynicism. Stubborn, foolish ways—that ignore his presence in nature and ignore his ethical path may find its followers experiencing disgrace. Building your life in recognition of the LORD’s ways establishes a kind wealth that outlasts calamity and allows you to pass on the true wealth of an honorable life to the next generation.

Reading for Revival Weak

2010-02-03T00:39:00.007-05:00

Reading for Revival Week Five

How about weak five? The last several days find me weak from frustrations unrelated to reading. There is the temptation to let this slip—which I will not do. I will not do it because some friends and my very sweet mom are keeping up with the readings. Accountability helps.

It reminds me of when I ran with Jo Kite in the mornings in York, Nebraska. I told her I would be out there to run at 6:00 AM at 25 degrees. I could not skip out.

When it comes to reading the Bible—I have long thought it is not that we have the obligation or rule that we should read regularly—to fail to read and study is living below our privilege.

I take it for granted that I have the faculties to read and study. I take it for granted that I have many copies and versions of the text at my fingertips. I take it for granted that I have the freedom of religion. I take for granted the awesome nature of the kingdom of God.

From The Message, Matthew 13

Why Tell Stories?

The disciples came up and asked, "Why do you tell stories?"

He replied, "You've been given insight into God's kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn't been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That's why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they're blue in the face and not get it. I don't want Isaiah's forecast repeated all over again:

Your ears are open but you don't hear a thing.
Your eyes are awake but you don't see a thing.
The people are blockheads!
They stick their fingers in their ears
so they won't have to listen;
They screw their eyes shut
so they won't have to look,
so they won't have to deal with me face-to-face
and let me heal them.

"But you have God-blessed eyes—eyes that see! And God-blessed ears—ears that hear! A lot of people, prophets and humble believers among them, would have given anything to see what you are seeing, to hear what you are hearing, but never had the chance. Matthew 13:11-17

I want to embrace my chance.

Peter said in his first letter:

The prophets who told us this was coming asked a lot of questions about this gift of life God was preparing. The Messiah's Spirit let them in on some of it—that the Messiah would experience suffering, followed by glory. They clamored to know who and when. All they were told was that they were serving you, you who by orders from heaven have now heard for yourselves—through the Holy Spirit—the Message of those prophecies fulfilled. Do you realize how fortunate you are? Angels would have given anything to be in on this.”
I Peter 1:10-11

Psalm 20

2010-01-28T18:06:00.006-05:00

Plans, pleas, and victory

May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble! The name of the God of Jacob, protect you! May he send you help from the sanctuary, and give you support from Zion...May he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans.

May we shout for joy over your victory, and in the name of God set up our banners...Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the LORD our God. They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand upright.

Give victory to the king, O LORD; answer us when we call."
From Psalm 20

In the beginning of Exodus, God repeatedly says he heard the groaning of his people and remembered the covenant he made with them. He begins to put Moses into action to take the people to the land he promised them.

My mom, Emma Jo Choate, prayer warrior extraordinaire, tells a story of a woman who called into a phone line at Van Dyke Church of Christ years ago. The woman asked for the church to pray over a concern and then said, "I will call back with the victory."

Since then, mom frequently says when there is a prayer request, “I will pray. You call back with the victory.”

Sodom Still Simmering

2010-01-27T16:06:00.016-05:00

Another thought provoking response on the Sodom and Gomorrah blog. A friend from Mississippi writes:

Your comments on the Sodom narrative in Genesis reminds me of the words of the prophet Ezekiel:

"Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy." (16:49)

It amazes me when I look around at our society and see that we, too, are so self-oriented that it is acceptable to seek one's own personal satisfaction instead of being called to uphold and respect the basic human dignity of others who were created in just as much of the image of God as we were. There really is no limit to what we will allow ourselves to do for personal pleasure and satisfaction.

The more I study, the more firmly convinced I become that the sin of Sodom was that they were able to look at their fellow man (and woman) and see them as objects, not brothers and sisters. It makes me wonder, how far off are we?

The outpouring to Haiti has been touching. We can be so generous when we get the picture of the extent of suffering. We can be calloused to suffering of others closer to us--the day to day struggles of the working poor, for example.The comment by a South Carolina politician recently about children who get free and reduced lunch stung because the tone of the remark reduced them to less than human. Metaphors matter when leaders speak and teach. If he had spoken in a kind tone regarding the challenges of cultivating dependency, the offense would not have been so great. Contempt for the poor violates the Spirit of Scripture.

Reading for Revival Week Four--The Process

2010-01-24T14:07:00.002-05:00

For my friends who have been corresponding with me—I did find a printable listing of the scriptures for each day on a website: www.OneYearBibleBlog.com

So, Week Four will find us in beginning in Exodus, and continuing in Matthew, Psalms, and Proverbs.

I glanced at the website which has lots of material each day. I have not yet even determined who puts it together, but I will be examining it from time to time for inspiration. Keeping up with the reading and finding some outside reflections on these subjects keeps me pretty busy. How about you?

I think it is good for me to stick to reading all week and posting on the weekend. I think short posts may be more readable than one long one.

I have been thinking so much about Genesis, although I have been doing the other readings, I haven’t had time to comment much on Matthew, Psalms, and Proverbs. If you are doing the readings and have something to share—questions, comments, even prayers, let me know. I’ll post your observations, too.

Themes I have been conscious of—you may have noted—are gender issues and general interpretative questions. As I read this week, I am looking out for ways God showed love and grace to the rascally people in these stories. I am also going to be doing some outside reading on the covenant to Abraham and want to write a bit more about that—because I think the love of God and the covenants made with man are the underlying messages to you and me.

Lessons for Little Ones?

2010-01-23T13:07:00.015-05:00

Why are these stories in here? Are they for me to follow? Are they for me to formulate moral positions? Are they there to explain how things work in the world?

Are these early stories really lessons for little ones?

Jacob and Rebekah could be stars in a soap opera. A modern re-do of their story could rival Destiny, that lawyer series starring Glen Close.

Jacob stole from his brother; his brother did not kill him; he was blessed.
Jacob wrestled with God; God did not kill him; he was blessed.
Afterwards, Jacob was generous to his brother; his brother did not kill him; he was blessed.

He was one of the least deserving guys to receive such blessings.

That might be a lesson for us. We may wrestle with God. We may wrong others. We may, in spite of ourselves, be blessed.

Joseph’s saga shows that there are no new sins under the sun. Partiality and extreme sibling rivalry. Child trafficking and slavery. Neglectful, vengeful, and exploitative family members and dens of thugs. Rich urban women—like Potiphar's wife—can take their turn at being exploitative and deceitful—not just leaving it to hunting and gathering nomadic types like Eve and Rebekah.

Yet, Joseph inspires with the possibility that even the exploited, and the neglected, by the grace of God, can rise above circumstances and shine like stars in dark places.

That is a powerful story for children.

Some general reflections...

If you simply start reading Genesis, with no preconceived notions—nearly impossible—but if you try—you don’t see any descriptions of God that we give to him based on later passages of Scripture. You do not see the terms omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. Theologians, though I find them very helpful, can sometimes function outside the narrative of scripture in assigning God traits. Many works of popular devotional literature call God these things, creatng systems for interpreting his actions that are certainly not laid out in Genesis. I am thinking in particular of the view of God's sovereignty that says he is completely unchanging, controls all actions of men, and that every particular thing that happens is His specific will.

These stories hold some problems for that view, I think.

The God of Genesis seems to be so far, a God creating, relating, contemplating, urging, bargaining, recompensing, and revealing himself to humanity.

If I understand Christopher JH Wright, the main take-away from these stories should be the actions of God in granting grace. Creating a beautiful Garden in which to live, with no initial effort for man. Granting Abraham wealth and promise, based not on his actions, but on his belief. His continued blessings on this flawed, but fascinating family, including Jacob and his sons. A study human nature and interacting with the divine. Agree?

Sodom and Gomorrah

2010-01-23T12:49:00.007-05:00

In the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative, homosexuality is undeniably part of the story.

Were pervasive same-sex relations the reason for the destruction of the cities? Pardon my frankness, but this is what I am wondering—is the willingness to rape the visitors the outcome of homosexuality or is the homosexual rape part of a culture of all kinds of lust and brute violence? I am thinking of prison rape. Is it a function of homosexuality or is it a function of brute violence and lust?

I am asking because this story is used to condemn homosexuality today. Is that what this story is about? Is this an admonition to those who claim same-sex attraction and love?

Are the other stories in these chapters admonitions about personal moral conduct? How is this to interpreted in the context of all the other goings on?

God, Grace, and Faith

2010-01-23T12:48:00.007-05:00

God made a promise to Abraham. Then, Abraham moved his family around. He offered his wife to rulers for as a concubine. He slept with his wife’s servant. He generously shared property and wealth with his nephew. He acquired enormous wealth. He routed tribes in short wars. He participated in bloody sacrificial rituals. He bargained with God. He nearly killed his own son. He gave a tithe to a mysterious, to me, priest, Melchezidek.

Abraham heard the voice of God and moved in the direction God asked of him. Abraham, sensitive to a number of divine directives, was deemed as right before God not for the sum of his deeds, but for his faith.

God’s promises to him seemed improbable if not impossible, and he certainly did not see in his life the totality of their fulfillment. The part he did see—the birth and life of Isaac—had to produce an increase of faith. I wonder how he processed all this in the middle of the night when he woke up and thought about Sarah, Isaac, Hagar, Ishmael, and the promise?

The fact that he was father two sons from whom came great nations fascinates me. The father of Islam; the father of the Israel; and we who are Christians are adopted as his offspring.

Reading for Revival Week Three-The God Gene?

2010-01-23T12:45:00.007-05:00

God creates, relates, reveals...
How was Cain supposed to know God would reject his sacrifice?

In the flood narrative—it says that the people were evil. I wonder if they knew they were evil?

How did people know God?
How did they know, after the fall, what he expected of them?

The text doesn't reveal moral law being laid out for them.

Romans says that creation itself speaks of God.

Romans 2:14-15 states,

When Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.

Is this a function of the God gene? Is it the evidence of God?

Reading for Revival Week Three-Selections

2010-01-21T20:13:00.001-05:00

January 17
Genesis 35:1-36:43
Matthew 12:1-21
Psalm 15:1-5
Proverbs 3:21-26

January 18
Genesis 37:1-38:30
Matthew 12:22-45
Psalm 16:1-11
Proverbs 3:27-32

January 19
Genesis 39:1-41:16
Matthew 12:46-13:23
Psalm 17:1-15
Proverbs 3:33-35

January 20
Genesis 41:17-42:17
Matthew 13:24-46
Psalm 18:1-15
Proverbs 4:1-6

January 21
Genesis 42:18-43:34
Matthew 13:47-14:12
Psalm 18:16-36
Proverbs 4:7-10

January 22
Genesis 44:1-45:28
Matthew 14:13-36
Psalm 18:37-50
Proverbs 4:11-13

January 23
Genesis 46:1-47:31
Matthew 15:1-28
Psalm 19:1-14
Proverbs 4:14-19

Isaac, Abraham--tell me why

2010-01-16T14:41:00.013-05:00

I cannot think of a more troubling story told to me in my youth, with as little explanation or meaning, as the sacrifice---near sacrifice--of Isaac. Finally, I read an argument that one of the functions of this drama was to convey to Yaweh’s people that Yaweh would never require a child sacrifice, as was common in the era.

In the conclusion of this narrative, as you recall, God provided the ram.

In our narrative as Christians, God alone provides the child sacrifice, the Jesus, the lamb.

A little sweeter possibility to pass on to explain to our little lambs as bedtime story.

Years ago, my very good friends, Janie and Jimmie Lawson, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, introduced me to a book, An Eye for an Eye: The Place of Old Testament Ethics Today, by Christopher JHWright. No book ever gave me more delight in my understanding of the Bible. I cannot find my copy of that book right now, but I do have another one by him, Walking in the Ways of the LORD, The Ethical Authority of the Old Testament. I find them a little difficult, since I am not a formal theology student, but they have given me some theological background that helps me form a more coherent story in scripture.

It’s easier to read the Old Testament with some guidance. Christopher JH Wright is a protegee of the John RW Stott, the venerated Anglican leader.

Revival Reading Rated R

2010-01-16T14:38:00.012-05:00

The Flood-Under 17 not admitted--sexuality, violence, some nudity
This sounds more like a Greek or Roman story of divine beings and humans interacting than I remembered reading. It makes me wonder about divine and human connections, about the realm of invisible spiritual warfare. Check out this from Genesis 6

1 When the people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that they were fair, and they took wives for themselves of all they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days will be a hundred and twenty years."
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. They were the heroes of that were of old, warriors of renown.”

So picture, the Nephilim, reportedly a population of giants from this primeval period, cavorting with the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of the earth, these warriors of renown. Whatever this is about, obviously God was not very happy with the carrying on and as a consequence put an end the era of five, six, seven hundred year-old people.

Imagine the market for plastic surgery in those days.

Eventually, semi-divine hanky panky combined with the total depraved conduct of the population of the fallen world, provoked God to plan destruction upon them all.

When I was a child I don’t remember really liking the flood story much, but I don’t remember being terrified by it. I think because there was a lot more emphasis on how cool the ark was with the gopher wood, pitch, and all the animals. I did not like the idea of the folks drowning, but I think I pictured it like folks were knocking on the door wanting in and getting turned away. I never thought of the wrenching fear and utter destruction of this event. I don’t think I ever reflected on in meaningful way until the tsunami of 2004 and the destruction of the shore Bande Aceh, Indonesia.

I cannot really imagine what they found on the earth when the waters receded. Horrible thought.

The pervasive nature of the flood narrative throughout many cultures actually helps me have more faith. It doesn't necessarily make me like it much, however--not that it matters.

Further, the rather unflattering story of naked Noah and his sons makes me think the writers were more interested in conveying a story of the nature of man and God then in trying to create heroes for hearers to worship.

Any insights out there on the Nephilim and the warriors of renown?

Childbirth--Curse or Climax?

2010-01-16T14:20:00.013-05:00

To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in you will bring forth children.”

The New Oxford Annotated Bible gives a helpful comment on the above found within Genesis 3:16-19,

“Though this is often understood as a “curse” of the woman to pain in childbirth, the word “curse” is not used in these verses. Others have suggested that this text sentences the woman to endless “toil” (not pain) of reproduction, much as man is condemned in v.17-19 to endless toil in food production. The man’s rule over the woman here is a tragic reflection of the original connectedness between them.

This tops some interpretations coming down through the eons around about woman and childbirth and God. Some folks used to have a creepy view that women should not even take Lamaze classes for fear of relieving the pain God assigned to women. My sister, Deborah, gave me The Joy of Natural Childbirth, when I was expecting my firstborn. This little volume begins telling the story of a couple who, while expecting their first child, went to their pastor for some biblical insight into childbirth.

The author, the late Helen Wessel, used this vehicle to dispel the teaching of the curse of pain and espouse the view of childbirth as toil—labor. If I recall correctly—it’s been nearly 29 years since I read it—she equates the birth of child as tantamount to the ultimate, euphoric sexual climax. Hmmm. Wessel may have overstated it, but she makes a vibrant case for women, childbirth, and the grace of God in Christ.

I recommend it.

Wow, Woe, Whoa

2010-01-16T14:18:00.016-05:00

Adam saw Eve and proclaimed, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” I heard this could be interpreted as saying, "Wow!" Maybe so.

Not long after that, he might have cried, "Woe." The fall troubles Adam, the rest of humanity, of course, and depending on whom you listen, the woman’s culpability, creates degrees of trouble for the wow sex. A reader on this blog said, “But I still feel that the curse of Eve is emblazoned on all women to wear as a scarlet letter to be forever ruled by men.” That response gave me pause. It may be because the tradition in which I grew up doesn’t really teach a doctrine of original sin in the either the Catholic or Calvinist tradition, I have never been inclined to reflect much on the curse of Eve in such an intense way.

I did once hear a highly regarded minister say that it just means that women are more inclined to sin than men. I pause. I say, "Whoa."

"As an atheist, I truly believe Africa Needs God."

2010-01-16T14:18:00.012-05:00

In case you missed the following article last year, I wanted to post it as an observation of some of the good done by the Christians in Africa. Times writer, Matthew Parris, winner of 2005 Orwell Prize for Journalism, spent much of his youth in what is now Malawi. In December of 2008, he wrote

But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

Read the whole article.

Does religion cause the violation of women's rights?

2010-01-13T16:03:00.019-05:00

As I read through the Bible this year I am taking note of the story of men, women, and God as it unfolds. I have already noted that though men are definitely the power brokers, at least the women were not circumcised in Genesis. Okay, so a virgin daughter or two are offered to crowds of men in lieu of offering male house guests—virtual strangers for—sex. Okay, so Abraham gives his wife with benefits to several men to avoid being killed.

Observe, I still, even after reading more than twenty chapters in Genesis, hold out hope for a good story to unfold for women.

Also note, I made a decision when I was about 24 years old to keep my mouth shut about woman’s role in the church. I convinced myself that I would not have any credibility in the Church of Christ unless I could prove that I could be a good wife and mother. I would have to hold my tongue on my the view that women are marginalized in church practice due to a misappropriation of a few select verses written by the good bachelor Apostle Paul—until I was 50.

Well, I would not approach the issue with such reasoning today—now that I am well over 50. Certainly titles, offices, and power are not what Jesus sought. He did, however, come to “preach good tidings to the poor...proclaim the release of the captives...to set at liberty them that are bruised.” Throughout the world, women fall into these categories day in and day out.

Juxtapose the above proclamation of Jesus with a comment I heard many times through the years in women’s Bible studies in Churches of Christ, "Remember, in Christ, we have no rights.”

Did you ever hear this? How would you have responded? Sometimes people would say it in response to the hymn in Phillipians 2 in which Jesus did not claim his equality with God, but made himself a servant. However, how damaging is it to re-write this and tell women they should not claim rights?

New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, in his January 9 piece entitled, "Religion and Women" challenges leaders in world religions, those who devote their lives to their faith, to take steps to stop the oppression of women. He says, “Today, when religious institutions exclude women from their hierarchies and rituals, the inevitable implication is that females are inferior.”

I have a thought, and I wonder if you agree. Many leaders in Churches of Christ agree that women can speak in the regular assembly—as they do in Sunday school classes, small groups, and after the “closing prayer,” but they do not make it a practice in their churches for fear of offending some—in particular, the more conservative women. When will those male leaders in our churches stand up for the women of the church whose gifts are stymied and marginalized while they enjoy using their talents in full employ?

I think most of the church leader fellows I know are nice guys thinking they do not want to rock the boat for the more conservative members of their congregation. I wonder if they ever consider that they may be part of a very big global problem?

What do you think?

Reading for Revival Week Two Selections

2010-01-10T22:55:00.003-05:00

from the One Year Bible: The Entire New International Version Arranged in 365 Daily Readings, Tyndale House Publishers, 1986

January 10
Genesis 23:1-24:51
Matthew 8:1-17
Psalm 9:13-20
Proverbs 3:1-6

January 11
Genesis 24:52-26:16
Matthew 8:18-34
Psalm 10:1-15
Proverbs 3:7-8

January 12
Genesis 26:17-27:46
Matthew 9:1-17
Psalm 10:16-18
Proverbs 3:9-10

January 13
Genesis 28:1-29:35
Matthew 9:18-38
Psalm 11:1-7
Proverbs 3:11-12

January 14
Genesis 30:1-31:16
Matthew 10:1-25
Psalm 12:1-8
Proverbs 3:13-25

January 15
Genesis 31:17-32:12
Matthew 10:26-11:6
Psalm 13:1-6
Proverbs 3:16-18

January 16
Genesis 32:12-34:31
Matthew 11:7-30
Psalm 14:1-7
Proverbs 3:19-20

Reading for Revival Week One

2010-01-09T21:16:00.032-05:00

Creation Comments

Recently,a young adult friend of mine posted this as his Facebook update, "Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people."

Among the thirty or so ensuing comments was his unconfession of faith and a passionate series of irrational comments about evolution and seven days of creation. This week as I read through the creation narrative a few things came to me.

Genesis 1:1-:2:3 pulsates with powerful images. A dark watery void. Chaos. Then comes the wind of God blowing over the deep, speaking order out the chaos, calling for light, crafting the sky, dividing oceans with dry land. Wind speaks trees into existence. Seed bearing plants appear. Sun, moon, stars, planets fly into motion. God speaks birds and fish into their elements. He gives voice and vegetation comes forth. Then out of the earth, the creation of humankind—male and female.

If I were to write something for my children to help them understand their origins, I could write about how Ken and I loved each other and how it took an eternity for us to decide to marry. I could tell them about the days around their birth and what it meant to us. There would be hyperbole, some figurative language. Nonetheless, a story of our family could add to their sense of identity, of their place in the universe. Now, if they need help determining their genetic make up to plan some medical treatment, my love narrative would not suffice. My story predates much of the latest genetic research.

When I hear some of the comments made about creation and science, arguments over the literal, figurative, or “scientific” nature of Genesis, I know why, in part, my young friend begins to find religious folks irrational. Besides, a literal interpretation is interrupted in the next section, Genesis 2:4b-25, as this second creation narrative differs in the order of events.

A venerable brother at a church I used to attend, a PhD in one of the sciences, makes an ornate argument for a literal--what is called “young earth” interpretation--of Genesis. When I listen to his various observations in support of a literal seven day creation, I find it fascinating, but fantastical. However, I deeply appreciate the disclaimer he gives at the beginning of his presentations on the topic. He explains that he thinks the discussion of these things is important because it is in the Bible, but there were no eyewitnesses to creation, so we remain limited in our knowledge in that way. We are left to examine, to consider. When it comes to salvation, however, we rely completely on Christ, for whom we have eyewitness testimony. This creation narrative matters--but the interpretation of it cannot be where we place our hope.

I think Genesis is a place to wrest a sense of identity—we are created with a spiritual likeness. There is love, power, and passion connected to our being. But what this story does not do, in my understanding, is put forth scientific proofs or assertions. It’s a story of beauty, love, and identity, but not a scientific treatise. The creation narrative predates science. It is not science. If we need science, we can go to science.

Come to think of it, this part of Genesis also predates history.

My children learning scientific details, even more historically accurate details, of the narrative of our early years and their birth, would not make my story a lie. It remains a true love story.

I don't think we should wage cultural war over this passage of scripture. We should wage confidence, courage, and wonder as creatures of a great and mighty God.

Nakedness and Trees

On the way home from work this week, I heard what I thought was an odd story on NPR about author Diana Wells, and her recent release, Lives of the Trees: An Uncommon History. She presents over 100 trees and stories about how these trees derived their names and how certain people have interfaced with these trees. She asserts that trees are very much bound to our lives and are, of course, important to our planet. She spoke of the Japanese Cedar and the practice of “forest bathing.” She says, "You go into the forest and soak yourself in the trees," she says. "I live where there are woods and I will [do that] quite often and let the trees feel as if I'm part of the forest. It's very, very soothing — it's beautiful." I am pretty sure she said this soaking takes place sans clothes. My gut reaction was “whack job.” More reflective second reaction was “pagan.”

Then, I went home and worked on my new commitment to read through the Bible in a year, and started reading the Garden of Eden narrative. Very naked. Very tree oriented. Not so pagan, really. I mean it is in the Bible. I have become fascinated by the life giving, wisdom giving nature of the tree stories in Genesis. Then, today we sent to see Avatar. Very naked. Very tree oriented. I started to think about Lord of the Rings. Not necessarily naked, but very tree oriented.

I was intrigued by the provision of God for men and animals of green plants and fruit bearing trees for food. First few chapters—pretty vegan. Seems like Able actually had better cred with God over the fruit of earth type sacrifice and that for some reason, the animal sacrifices didn’t cut it. I found it remarkable that it was only after the flood that the narrative included, “The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea; into your hands they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you, and just as I gave your green plant, I give you everything.”

Revival ala Julie & Julie

2010-01-05T22:26:00.020-05:00

This life in Christ. I’ve been at it hard for most of my life. I and a cadre of Christian friends experienced theologically a sort of Vactican II, Age of Aquarius meets Alexander Campbell, with a nod to Pat Boone’s A New Song, upbringing. I am a boomer with a veneer of postmodern bred of an Eastside of Detroit public education sent South to a Christian college.

Growing in a veritable Church of Christ ghetto in suburban Detroit, my childhood was blessed by parents in love with each other, kinfolk who cared deeply for us, and kindly neighbors. Good memories abound.

Yet, in my young world, the Catholic kids I went to school with were all taught that I was going to hell for not being a Catholic. The Church of Christ I attended taught that the Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, were sadly, all lost. I learned that we Church of Christ kids, we were Neither Catholic, Protestant, nor Jew. I read it on a little tract on a rack in my church foyer.

I credit the genesis of my ecumenical spirit to a moment at Michigan Christian Youth Camp when a college aged Bible teacher read aloud from a little volume called Voices of Concern, a collection of letters from earnest Church of Christ folks who just couldn’t take the sectarianism, called “Church of Christism,” anymore, and went denominational. I was in the eighth grade. Reading The Chosen, by Chaim Potok further influenced on my approach to orthodoxy. I was just over forty. I won't say how old I am now, but I was born the same year Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England--the current Elizabeth.

My mom posted a sticker with a verse from the King James Version of the New Testament, Philippians 4:11b, on my bedroom door when I was child. It read, “I have learned therefore, in whatsoever state I am in, therein to be content.” It made an impression on me because post high school, I found a way to be content living in Michigan, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nebraska, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and Tennessee.

I have embraced and have been embraced by, loving congregations in all of these places. No two people have been treated more kindly than my husband, Ken Dowdy, and I, through our 35 years in these communities. We are deeply grateful for the grace, mercy, and love we have experienced.

Most of these churches only faintly echoed the harshest teachings of my youth. In with all the sweetness, I often chafe at the latent judgment, sectarianism, and sexism in the culture of this movement. These elements seem to be derived in part from theology, and partly from regional and socio-economic factors.

Of late, the church experience notwithstanding, it has been my own personal failings and the vicissitudes of life that most challenge my walk of faith. Sometimes I fear I may have become “as one of the ones who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word and it yields nothing.”

In addition, several young people with whom I am acquainted, and whom I love well, have left the faith of Christ. This grieves me so deeply that sometimes I fade into thinking that if I just didn’t believe so intensely, their leaving the faith would not cause such a wound to my heart.

I need a personal revival to finish the course, to keep the faith. I need to renew relationships to help me finish the course, to keep the faith.

In my childhood, I was taught “five steps of salvation.” The first step was that one must HEAR—“for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” Reflecting on this "step" and inspired by Julie of Julie & Julia, I thought of a plan to revive my faith by reading the Bible through this year and blogging my experience. I intend to read through the One Year Bible, The New International Version arranged in 365 Daily Readings. I confess to a complete lack of diligence in my reading over the past few years.

I will read daily and post weekly. I thought that a few of my friends might join me and share questions and revelations. Read just Old Testament; read just the New Testament; read just the Psalms; or read just the Proverbs. Just read and share. I am already playing catch up because this all just came to me on January 4.

January 1
Genesis 1:1-2:25
Matthew 1:1-2:12
Psalm 1:1-6
Proverbs 1:1-6

January 2
Genesis 3:1-4:26
Matthew 2:13-3:6
Psalm 2:1-12
Proverbs 1:7-9

January 3
Genesis 5:1-7:24
Matthew 3:7-4:11
Psalm 3:1-8
Proverbs 1:10-19

January 4
Genesis 8:1-10:32
Matthew 4:12-25
Psalm 4:1-8
Proverbs 1:20-23

January 5
Genesis 11:1-13:4
Matthew 5:1-26
Psalm 5:1-12
Proverbs 1:24-28

January 6
Genesis 13:5-15:21
Matthew 5:27-48
Psalm 6:1-10
Proverbs 1:29-33

January 7
Genesis 16:1-18:19
Matthew 6:1-24
Psalm 7:1-17
Proverbs 2:1-5

January 8
Genesis 18:20-19:38
Matthew 6:25-7:14
Psalm 8:1-9
Proverbs 2:6-15

January 9
Genesis 20:1-22:24
Matthew 7:15-29
Psalm:1-12
Proverbs 2:6-15

Say so long to Sarah, please

2009-07-12T12:57:00.009-05:00

Peggy Noonan, noted conservative, a speech writer for Ronald Reagan, pleads with Republicans in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial to let Sarah Palin's resignation allow a "Farewell to Harms."

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity.

Noonan challenges arguments for Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin's lack of knowledge and the inability to articulate well what she does know, are seen as easily remedied. Fans claim she is a great symbol of a working class gal. Citing that she is the daughter of a middle class school teacher, Noonan seeks to dispel this saying, "What she is, is a seemingly very nice middle-class girl with ambition, appetite and no sense of personal limits." In response to the idea that she can spend the next few years pondering and studying up to meet the needs of the presidency, Noonan asserts, " But she is a ponder-free zone. "

Noonan outlines the world we live in,

Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.

She says, "This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think."

To my conservative friends who just get such a kick out of Sarah Palin, look for a new voice--find a new leader--but please do not visit her upon us as a serious contender for leader for the free world.

No one's laughing at God

2009-07-03T14:03:00.004-05:00

Mike Cope and subsequently Josh Thames brought this video featuring Regina Spektor and her video "Laughing With" to my attention. Lately when I think of my own weaknesses woven with the outrageous public displays of Mark Sanford and others so quick to identify themselves with Christ, I can understand why some find ways to mock God and his followers.

All the while, the God of grace, mercy, and faithfulness speaks to us with such love and conveys his fierce desire for justice, mercy, and humility from us. Reading around the web shows that our follies put a stumbling block before those he so earnestly wants to bless.

May we confess our sins wisely to those who share our confession of Christ--and to whom we are willing to be held in account.

May we walk humbly with God, so others can see his steadfast kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. May we be known for doing justice and loving mercy.

Thank God for his faithfulness--even when we are unfaithful and for his presence in those most challenging moments of life.

Barack and the Bend Towards Justice

2009-01-19T21:05:00.042-05:00

When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

"Let us realize that William Cullen Bryant is right: "Truth crushed to earth will rise again." Let us go out realizing that the Bible is right: "Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." This is our hope for the future, and with this faith we will be able to sing in some not too distant tomorrow with a cosmic past tense, "We have overcome, we have overcome, deep in my heart, I did believe we would overcome.

The remarks above from a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. given at the Tenth Anniversary Convention of the S.C.L.C. in Atlanta on August 16, 1967. Picture by Susan Walsh of the Associated Press from today's The Clarion-Ledger.

My take:

In 1619 the first blacks came to Virginia. Though they were not slaves, black slavery took root in the Piedmont and the gross injustice of the system has reverberated through our society ever since. The inauguration of Barack Obama creates a moment of redemption, a bending toward justice.

The tears that come unprompted every few minutes as I listen to the music and see the pageantry and activity surrounding the inauguration come not from naiveté, but rather from history. Growing up Native American and female gave me a perspective on history that limited the exaltation of all things in America as just and right in the present or the past. Coming of age seeing the smoky haze of the Detroit sky during the 1967 riots, absorbing the news of Martin Luther King’s assassination in spring 1968, followed by Bobby Kennedy’s violent death, clouded my vision of the future.

Two strains of thought vivified my hope. First, the ideals of our founding documents—the equality of all created ones, the purpose to create a more perfect union and to establish justice, and the myriad of ways, in spite of failures, these had been fulfilled.

Next, the prophetic voice of scripture. After all the sadness and cultural upheaval of the 60s, a study of the prophets of the Old Testament created in me a belief that there is a spiritual kingdom—a ruling of God in the hearts of men and women that demands just treatment and moves toward peace. Subjects of that spiritual kingdom must work to do justice on this earth as long as they live. They should be peacemakers of the most dangerous sort.

Barack Obama speaks with a prophetic voice. His life of the mind, his spiritual journey, and his character have drawn many to follow him.

A week or so ago, I saw on PBS a biography of Franklin Roosevelt. The tumult of his presidency, the failures and false starts, the horror of what transpired in the world at the time, made me think of how hard the Obama presidency will be. Yet, greatness prevailed in spite of all the setbacks.

The inauguration of Barack Obama marks a historic point in the arc of the moral universe.

May God bless Barack Obama with wisdom and strength to govern justly, to be a peacemaker in these tumultuous times.

May God grant that we, the people of the United States, carry out the great ideals and purpose of this country.

May God grant that we, the subjects of the kingdom of God, transcend all national identity and follow the arc of moral universe set by Him by doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God.

A Vote for Change; A Vote to End the Religous Right's Reign of Sadness

2008-11-04T03:40:00.009-05:00

Election Day 2008. In three hours, I am going to officially get up and go vote.
I plan to be there at 6:30 a.m. to vote for change.

I hope before I go to bed tonight to know that Barack Obama won the Presidency by large margins---popular and electoral votes.

For my undecided friends, who might only read a line or two, I’ll say two endorsements should lower the fear factor that has been so intensely pushed by the McCain campaign: Warren Buffet and Colin Powell. For the ones of you buying into the “Barack Obama is a socialist” argument—consider that fact that America’s number one investor, one who’s latest biography is named Buffet: The Making of an American Capitalist, is endorsing and advising Obama. For those who fear Barack Obama will be weak on national defense, consider the endorsement of the general in America who has proved he can win wars—Colin Powell.

In 2004 when Barack Obama made his speech to the Democratic Convention, I knew right then that I wanted this to be the voice of America. "We are not just a red America or a blue America---we are the United States of America." After 8 years of leadership that says all we need is 51%, I am hoping that we have a president who will be president of all the people.

Back in the late seventies and early eighties, when I first became of aware of the emerging religious right, I was saddened.

I thought when people who loved Jesus got interested in politics, it would mark a day when there would be concern for the poor—not mocking of the poor. I thought it would mark a day when there was increased enthusiasm for racial inclusion and for leveling the playing field—especially for African-Americans—not resentment towards affirmative action. I thought when Christians got into civic affairs, they would be advocating for a living wage for all workers—not for fighting against the minimum wage and for limiting unions. I thought when Christians gained influence in politics; it would be a day when immigrants would feel the welcoming hand of a rich country ready to share its bounty—not exploitation and backlash. When I thought of committed spiritual folk in public life, I just knew there would be a passion for making sure everyone could have access to high quality healthcare—not of government cutting programs for child healthcare. I thought Christians in government would look for active ways to be good stewards of the earth. I thought Christians in government would be peacemakers.

Sadly, what I thought was not what the emergent Religious Right thought.

The Bush administration has been the culmination of the Religious Right's reign of sadness.

The words of Barack Obama in 2004 reflected the values I have wanted in governmental leadership. There is a role for government in unifying the country, in establishing justice, and working for the general welfare of the people.

Most ethical and social issues cannot be resolved by government, but we can choose a government informed by spiritual and ethical values. Some of the values I have believed Christians can espouse--welcoming the stranger and alien, caring for the sick and the poor, giving the worker his due, punishing evil doers, and peacemaking--are those Barack Obama embraces.

Of the many ethical issues at stake, not all are answered equally well by public policy. There are not simple solutions to all issues and there are only two major parties. Some very important issues, including abortion, stand as difficulties for many people. They are a matter of conscience. That being said, there are many issues at stake and neither of two parties can answer them all.

On the majority of issues amenable to policy, I go for the Obama and Democratic party side.

Barack Obama is the leader we need to inspire the hard work of democracy.
Barack Obama is the leader we need to inspire the hard and dangerous work of peacemaking.

Barack Obama is the leader we need to do justice.
I am going to vote for change.

"Pants on Fire Wrong"

2008-10-13T05:15:00.004-05:00

A PolitiFact.com's "Truth-O-Meter" characterizes the idea that Senator Obama ran a radical educational foundation, as not simply false, but malicious. Given the way this subject has raised fear among people, I wish some folks would read the whole piece.

At a time like this, with so much at stake, a run on theTruth-O-Meter seems urgent.

"In short, this was a mainstream foundation funded by a mainstream, Republican business leader and led by an overwhelmingly mainstream, civic-minded group of individuals. Ayers' involvement in its inception and on an advisory committee do not make it radical – nor does the funding of programs involving the United Nations and African-American studies.

This attack is false, but it's more than that – it's malicious. It unfairly tars not just Obama, but all the other prominent, well-respected Chicagoans who also volunteered their time to the foundation. They came from all walks of life and all political backgrounds, and there's ample evidence their mission was nothing more than improving ailing public schools in Chicago. Yet in the heat of a political campaign they have been accused of financing radicalism. That's Pants on Fire wrong."

Ferocity, Fraud,and Fear

2008-10-11T21:08:00.004-05:00

John McCain,

You delude yourself when you act shocked at the offense taken by John Lewis at the tactics being used by you and your campaign.

Why is that man at your rally afraid for Barack Obama to be president?

Why are my former student and my colleague at school afraid of a potential Obama presidency?

You said it yourself--he is not a man to fear.

You are not debating policy--you are conducting a campaign of fear.

Sarah Palin says Barack Obama pals around with terrorists. You know that isn’t true.

Your approve an ad asserting Barack Obama would give comprehensive sex education to five year-olds. You know that isn’t true.

You let your wife communicate her blood-chilling reaction to Barack Obama's vote on a war funding bill for the troops because there was no timeline for withdrawal, but she excuses your vote against a funding bill because it did include a timeline. You know that is a false rage.

You say we don’t know Barack Obama? You presume we know Sarah Palin in a few weeks, yet we don’t know this man who has revealed his thinking and his life in two books and over two years of interviews and press conferences?

You create a campaign of character assassination--not a policy debate--and then tell your raging crowd that you want a respectful campaign. Ferocious, but respectful?

You feign respect while you fan contempt.

The Fear Factor

2008-10-08T20:15:00.001-05:00

One of my former students commented:

I think that McCain and Obama are both scary candidates for different reasons, McCain is less scary to me;therefore I have to vote for John McCain.

Gentle student, what do you fear?

An economic meltdown?
An attack on our country?
A wreckless move into an unnecessary war?
An administration that would ignore habeas corpus?

Oh.

________________________________________________

Who do you want whispering in the President's ear?

2008-10-05T16:31:00.004-05:00

Documentarian, Ken Burns, expresses his views of the McCain campaign:

"Even the most ardent true-believers among us must be privately shaking in their boots contemplating a heart-beat-away Palin presidency during these difficult times. When Putin acts up, who do you want whispering in your President's ear: Joe Biden or Sarah Palin?

McCain is a man who once championed openness and fairness in government, who now wants to continue the failed policies of the current administration and who increasingly wants to make the crucial decisions of our democracy behind closed doors with the same cronies who got us into this mess in the first place. And he has shown a profound indifference to and often startling ignorance of economic affairs just as our country inches toward depression.
That threatens to make him the next Herbert Hoover if he should win."

Abortion, Obama, Our conscience

2008-10-05T08:17:00.010-05:00

Obama's stance on abortion poses a persistent problem for many of my friends.

Abortion rights stand as a significant issue for many people of faith and conscience--so much so that many feel the Democratic Party platform prohibits them from voting for any candidate of that party. I maintain that there are multiple moral issues at stake in this and other presidential races--issues of justice, of life and death--so that one issue alone does not determine my vote. Further, in a legal and political sense, pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. To me it means--in a world of some very ugly realities--we should not criminalize this procedure.

In this regard, more than one prominent Catholic anti-abortion scholar has come out for Obama. The Boston Globe's Articles of Faith column, " Another Anti-Abortion Scholar Endorses Obama." brings to light the stance of Nicholas P. Cafardi:

"Obama's support for abortion rights has led some to the conclusion that no Catholic can vote for him. That's a mistake. While I have never swayed in my conviction that abortion is an unspeakable evil…A vote for Sen. John McCain does not guarantee the end of abortion in America. Not even close....Every faithful Catholic agrees that abortion is an unspeakable evil that must be minimized, if not eliminated. I can help to achieve that without endorsing Republicans' immoral baggage. Overturning Roe v. Wade is not the only way to end abortion, and a vote for Obama is not somehow un-Catholic."

He could have said, “a vote for Obama is not un-Christian.”

The article mentions the position of Pepperdine Professor of Constitutional Law, Douglas W. Kmiec which might be of interest on this topic as well.

Today, Krista Tippet's discussion with Amy Sullivan about "Faith: The life of the Party" discussed the left and it's stance this and other issues.

The McCain campaign is going negative as a strategy. I have no doubt that they will be using this issue in a manner that smears Obama by slogan and by distortion. His position alone, without the distortion, is arguable. Taking pro-choice view has its moral challenges, I agree.

But war, torture, immigration, healthcare, poverty, equal justice, taxation, and stewardship of the the economy and the earth present persistent moral problems for the party and the candidacy of John McCain.

Biden argues; Palin speaks and winks

2008-10-02T19:59:00.016-05:00

9:00 p.m. Time for the VP Debate to begin.
Okay, I am really nervous. Will she be as full of nonsense as she was with Katie Couric? I know she won't because she's been at debate camp and she's good on stage. I would love to be at Washington University in St. Louis tonight. I think I'll just enter the debater’s remarks as they stand out to me. See my reactions in italics...

Palin: Can I call you Joe?

Palin: Let's go to a kid's soccer game and ask the parents how they feel. Fear is what we will hear.

Palin: John McCain has been for reform. Oh yeah, I remember--he was for reform when he wanted to avenge his 2000 loss to W in South Carolina. I think this man may have some issues with revenge, but I'm not too sure about country first reform. Maybe country club first reform?

Ifill: How would you shrink the partisan divide?
Biden: Follow Mike Mansfield's advice: Don't judge motives. The temperament of Joe Biden as a senator--in actual governance--conveys a good bit about what Obama stands for. Compare this man's stature in foreign policy, in temperament, in bi-partisanship with McCain's choice in Governor Palin.

Ifill: Who was at fault in the subprime meltdown?
Palin: Darn right--it's the greedy lenders.
I hear a cheer: Joe Six Pack; Hockey Moms across the Nation UNITE! UNITE for OVERSIGHT!

Palin: Obama voted 94 times for tax increases
Barack Obama raised taxes on people making $42,000.00
Aren't these distortions? Governor Palin is relying on the ignorance of average Americans about how votes are taken on resolutions in the legislative process. Yes, distortions are us.

Biden: Fairness--- no one making less than $250,000 will get a tax increase

Palin: Patriotic is saying no to government?
I think some conservative Republicans have adopted "government that governs best governs NOT. Review: Katrina; subprime mortgage meltdown ghenna; the Gonzales Justice Department; and the invasion and occupation of Iraq

Palin: on McCain's healthcare plan...I think I heard her say I'd don't think I want to talk about necessarily what the moderator wants to talk about. I don't think I hear the moderator with any pushback on that. Hmmmm.

Yes, tax credits--what every middle class person needs to pay for healthcare. The people who think tax breaks help average income folks come up with the cash to pay for healthcare are not people who have average incomes. McCain’s plan means you are on your own. McCain’s plan means you can choose not to buy any plan, because you are not going to be able to afford it. Having $5,000 available to pay healthcare plans that cost a minimum of $12,000 doesn’t sound too encouraging to healthy people. God forbid that you have any health problems.

Joe Biden's best line so far---McCain's healthcare plan is a bridge to nowhere.

After the debate update: I judged high school policy cross-examination debates for years--often judging novice rounds and junior varsity rounds. This reminded me of having a varsity debater in a round with a junior varsity debater. The varsity debater has to throw out all of their usual high powered argumentation to be fair in the debate. The judge sometimes suspends some of the pickiness, so as to let there be an educational experience for all. The junior varsity debater-Sarah Palin, in my view might win the speaker points--for eye contact-with a minor subtraction for winking.

Joe Biden, on my flow sheet, won the argumentation in the line by line.

Posted by Beverly Choate Dowdy at Thursday, October 02, 2008 0

Observing Oxford

2008-09-26T20:13:00.005-05:00

In response to this:

Bev said...
I think your next blog should address the no-debate logic. It's crazy out there.

I say this: Not everyone has a BFF with the same first name! But I do. And I will say this Bev Blair--the no debate brouhaha was drama to distract. About the time his campaign manager's enormous retainer from Freddie Mac hit the fan, it was time to fake a "suspension of the campaign."

A sidebar-every once in awhile I think, maybe Barack should have asked Hillary to be his running mate. I think Bill Clinton's comments this week demonstrate why Barack could not ask her and risk the baggage of Bill lurking around the campaign.

How about the WSJ's online version running an ad claiming victory for McCain before he declared that he would debate after all?

9:17 p.m. Friday, September 26, 2008

McCain and Obama are facing off in the debate in Oxford. The moderator asks the two men to look at each other and talk. They are not looking . I don't think they like each other much.

Jim Leherer is trying again to get them to look at each other, but they won't. Maybe it's because debaters are trained to look at the judges and these folks have been practicing for a long time to NOT look at each other.

10:30 p.m.
I don't think I managed the live blogger thing very well. Maybe I could have twittered.

What I know for sure is: McCain didn't manage to ever look at Obama.

What's up with that?

What does that say about McCain?

Palin makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero

2008-09-26T05:13:00.002-05:00

Conservative blogger Rod Dreher's observation on Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric says it well. "Palin makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero."

She needs to withdraw.

George Will Asserts Temperment Trumps Years in Office

2008-09-23T00:41:00.003-05:00

George Will continues his analysis of John McCain's response to the economic crisis in terms of leadership, in particular, temperment. Will is no liberal. Will is not overwhelmed with Obama's resume, but he sees a contrast in temperment as a measure to consider. In today's Washington Post Will asserts, "McCain Loses His Head."

"Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"

Temperment, talking points, and trouble-McCain's very bad week

2008-09-21T14:21:00.006-05:00

During Barack Obama’s convention speech he said, "If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.”

A look and listen to John McCain this week gives us all insight into his temperament and judgment.

Check out these observations of highly regarded conservative observer, George Will, ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopolis,”

"I suppose the McCain campaign's hope is that when there's a big crisis, people will go for age and experience," said Will. "The question is, who in this crisis looked more presidential, calm and un-flustered? It wasn't John McCain who, as usual, substituting vehemence for coherence, said 'let's fire somebody.' And picked one of the most experienced and conservative people in the administration, Chris Cox, and for no apparent reason... It was un-presidential behavior by a presidential candidate."

"John McCain showed his personality this week," said the writer and pundit, "and made some of us fearful."

John McPain's Healthcare Solutions

2008-09-20T06:54:00.004-05:00

Recently John Goodman, the person purported to be most influential in McCain's healthcare plan suggested that the category of "uninsured" be removed from the census because after all, these folks use the emergency room.

Paul Krugman's column today brings to light an article published for the American Academy of Actuaries by John McCain. Here's the paragraph Krugman highlights:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

It is a dreadful thing what McCain would like to with healthcare because he wants to take away one of the few things that works for middle class people, the tax advantage of paying for healthcare premiums.

It’s not correct to say that healthcare would be provided by the government. Do you know any federal employees? Why not have the structure they have for healthcare? They don’t go to government clinics, believe me.

When the last attempt at a major healthcare reform went down, the critics railed against losing their choices in healthcare to the government. I don’t know about you, but my healthcare choices have limited a great deal since the 1990s by the insurance companies. The Obama plan does not have the government provide healthcare. It makes goverment a visible hand in providing a basic human need--where the invisible hand sometimes fails to deliver.

If there is regulation, at least it should be done by entities designed to work in the public interest.

How about electing an honest, accountable government that understands the concept of public interest?

The government that governs well may be much better than the governement the governs least.

A Conservative for Obama

2008-09-19T05:00:00.004-05:00

“It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.” from "A Conservative for Obama," by Will Allison , Editor of D, and a former publisher of the National Review.

To my bright thoughtful and truly concerned conservative friends, I say give a look to this essay

Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.

Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.
Read more of A Conservative for Obama

________________________________________________________

Hatred sickens NRO commentator

I find it ironic.
As a liberal among conservatives, I have found hatred of Hillary Clinton irrational. As a liberal Christian among conservative Christians, I have found Hillary Clinton hatred disturbing.

In Jay Nordlinger’s blog “Something about Sarah,” he recounts a sick feeling over the hatefulness of a friend towards Sarah Palin.

Nordlinger, a conservative in New York, says, “And I never, ever bring up politics (with pretty much anyone — not worth the trouble) (and, of course, I do it professionally).”

Over the years I have considered it prudent to avoid political conversations with most people in my day to day activities-work and church-because of the hateful tone that some take.

He considers Sarah Palin hatred sick. I consider Hillary hating* sick.

Strangely, some people think it's rational to hate the person they hate and sick for others to hate those whom they support.

Maybe hatred sickens because it’s sin.

_________________________________________________________
*An example of Hillary hating.
In 1998, a dear friend of mine was awaiting test results for a form of cancer. I sat in the waiting room with her preacher. It seemed the wait for results was taking too many days. It was a holiday weekend. I remarked, "I'll bet if this was Hillary Clinton, they would get the results right away."
"If it was Hillary Clinton," the preacher said, "I wouldn't care."

Like being a yankee--only worse

2008-09-17T05:58:00.005-05:00

"Mom, Bev is a yankee."
"Why son, I wouldn't say that about anybody." 1972, when I first visited Huntsville, Alabama.

From Tuesday, September 16, the National Journal Online

As well organized and impressive as the Denver convention was, it's pretty clear that viewers knew little more about Obama on the Friday after the convention than they did on the Monday morning before it began. The ball was not advanced.

The choice of Palin capped the summer of McCain's resurgence, effectively turning the race from change versus the status quo to two competing visions of change, a necessity if McCain is to win.

Conservatives who have never been enthusiastic about McCain might get energized over Palin. Suddenly, McCain was back on top and Republicans had a bit of a spring in their steps.

Someone please explain to me what is meant by this statement “viewers knew little more about Obama.” This expression used by Charlie Cook in the National Journal reminds me of Pat Buchanan’s mantra about Barack Obama this summer—Americans are saying “We don’t know this guy, Barack Obama.”

We don’t know him, so we can’t be expected to support him, right?

Yet Sarah Palin walks on the stage and all of the sudden, we have someone we know?

This is about race.

It is about the other.

It’s like the family who lived in a New England town for 2 generations, but they are still outsiders. It’s about the Yankee or the Westerner who marries a Southerner and decades later is still not quite one of us.

Only worse.

Vote Choate Dowdy

2008-09-14T23:56:00.012-05:00

I think I should have run for President.

My friends from way back know of my executive experience beginning with a term as President of the Lincoln Elementary Student Council in 6th Grade.

I am pretty sure the speech I made in 5th grade on November 22, 1963, put me in running. The title was, “Why Totalitarianism is Inferior to Democracy.” It was my first major foreign policy address, given in Miss Worley’s 5th grade.

The papers didn’t cover it, but if they did, they would have noted that I was wearing a green and white checked dress with an emerald rhinestone circle pin.

My fellow students were allowed to ask follow up questions and a discussion ensued about the nature of democracy and communism. Shortly afterwards, we read our Weekly Reader which highlighted the election of the new German Chancellor, Ludwig Erhard.

If the above isn’t enough to show my foreign policy credentials, let me add that I lived less than twenty miles from the Canadian border and remind the reader that the French had settled Detroit in colonial times.

After lunch, on the day of my now famous address, we heard the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated. We worried briefly that the totalitarian Russian Communists might have been behind it.

By the time the next student council presidential election came up, the speech had propelled me on a path to victory.

In my tenure as president, I oversaw a great Lincoln Day Celebration in which I won the essay contest. I was also the emcee of the program. My leadership credentials were honed as I made frequent announcements on the public address system.

Upon arrival at Lincoln Junior High, I began eyeing the presidency of the junior high student council. I researched the path of the sitting president. She had been a 7th grade class representative, served as secretary in 8th grade, and then was elected president in 9th grade. I followed her strategy.

It was a tight race between me, a greaser, and a jock. In my speech, I touted experience as the key to a great student council presidency. My female greaser opponent played a very interesting gender card. I remember she strutted up to the microphone and said in a very sexy voice, “Some people say the student council president should be a guy, but I say ‘hey, what’s wrong with girls?’” This brought howls from the boys on the football team who should have been cheering on their teammate who wore his letter sweater for his speech.

My faculty sponsor said the greaser girl would probably be "going down with troops tonight." I didn't know what she meant, but thought it probably wasn't a very nice thing to say.

The press didn’t report this, but if they had, they would have noted that I wore an orange sleeveless shift with a large yellow and orange metallic sunburst broach.

The dress was classic Aunt Sadie Arbuckle.

I prevailed in a close election and served as student council president in the volatile 67-68 school year.

That year my essay, on the rising tide of Stokely Charmicheal and violence in the civil rights movement, was presented weeks before the assassination of the Martin Luther King, Jr.

Okay, so maybe I didn’t make editor of the Harvard Law Review or have a best seller, but I know for sure that the teachers passed it around the teacher’s lounge.

In 1968, I got my first passport and headed to Europe, hitting Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, and England on tour with the Metropolitan Detroit Youth Chorus.

While I was there Joan Baez led an anti-war rally against the US involvement in the Vietnam War interrupting our choir’s activities in Frankfurt Germany.

I would have visited the troops there, but I didn’t want to be seen as too political.

Space will not allow me to list all the achievements of that year, but suffice it to say, I said thanks but not thanks continuing to that expensive trip to Edgewater Amusement Park in spring and replaced it with a field day on campus.

These two terms as a student council president gave me an executive resume, foreign policy panache, and a fire in my bones for politics.

So what happened after this mercurial rise? Well let’s just say that the politics of personal destruction were a bit much for me. I moved to another school and found out that sometimes people can just be real, real, ugly to you and it—well-it just hurt my feelings.

So, I have taken a brief 40 year hiatus from politics, but as I examine the current state of the election, I now say--write me in.

I am ready.

An American for Barney Smith not Smith Barney

2008-08-28T20:48:00.009-05:00

Did you hear Barney Smith?

This is what is all about. We need a government that thinks of working people.
We need an America that is for Barney Smith not just Smith Barney.

I went to Lincoln Elementary School, Lincoln Junior High, and for one semester to Lincoln High School in Warren, Michigan. Our mascot? The "Abes." From the time I was in kindergarten, I loved what Abraham Lincoln stood for-freeing the slaves and saving the union. I loved the Gettysburg address. By third grade, I was ready to ask what I could do my for my country--thrilling at the speeches of President Kennedy.

It wasn't until I heard Barack Obama's 2004 at the Democratic Convention that I was that inspired again.

Tonight, is a big night for America.

Tonight is a big night for the Barney Smiths of America.

Ohio take note--McCain and cronies lobby against you

2008-08-07T23:44:00.005-05:00

As McCain passes out tire gauges to mock Obama, his lobbyist laden cadre of advisors hope Ohioans don't gauge the pressure their policies have put on their prosperity. Republicans would offer that workers should just continually be retraining and moving to new parts of the country. Don't bother about government officials about actions they take that send American jobs overseas.

RealClear Politics covers a McCain townhall.

“Government is too big, he wants to grow it. Taxes are to high, he wants to raise them," McCain said. "Congress spends too much and he proposes more. We need more energy and he's against producing it. We're finally winning in Iraq, and he wants to forfeit."

McCain's criticism came before he was to travel to Wilmington to discuss possible job losses, as many as 8,000, from the proposed closure of a DHL shipping site, the result of a corporate merger aided by his campaign manager during his work as a lobbyist.

In 2003, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis lobbied Congress to accept a proposal by German-owned DHL to buy Airborne Express, which kept its domestic hub in Wilmington in southwest Ohio.

In announcing a restructuring plan in May, DHL said it planned to hire United Parcel Service to move some of its air packages, sending them through an airport in Louisville, Ky., and putting the Wilmington Air Park out of business.

Davis took a leave of absence from his lobbying practice to work for McCain, a self-styled reformer who asked his campaign staff to disclose all previous lobbying ties and make certain they were no longer registered as lobbyists or foreign agents.
The economy and job losses are important issues in Ohio, a critical swing state that gave President Bush the electoral votes needed for re-election in 2004.

McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said Wednesday that Davis had not worked with DHL since 2005, long before DHL announced plans to move its work out of Wilmington. The companies merged in 2003.

At the time of the merger, no one anticipated an impact on jobs in Wilmington," Rogers said.

No one? Really?

Ever been around for a merger? Ever known anyone who didn’t know that jobs would be impacted by the merger.

Pay special attention the next part.

McCain, as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, had a role in the deal, too. He urged then-Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens to abandon proposed legislation that would have prohibited foreign-owned carriers from flying U.S. military equipment or troops, which Airborne Express said was aimed at torpedoing its merger with DHL.

Rogers said McCain opposed the bill because it could have hurt the military's airlift capabilities in a time of war.

The DHL-Airborne deal ultimately went through, despite opposition from competitors UPS and FedEx, which argued that it would violate a ban on foreign control of domestic airlines. DHL is the U.S.-based shipping unit of German postal service Deutsche Post AG.

And McCain is going to try to make Obama look like a threat to American jobs?

If civility and competence bring celebrity--bring it on

2008-08-02T11:31:00.012-05:00

Ann said in a comment today

Here's my problem - feel free to laugh if you want:I just don't love either candidate and see faults and problems with both sides. I suppose you could say I'm a concerned apathetic voter. Tell me in simplistic terms why Obama is the best choice...I want to believe! ;-) If McCain uses the internet "once a week,"I'm concerned. If Obama naively steps into Middle East issues, I'm concerned. If we keep going like we are now in America, I'm concerned.

I say, casting Obama as naïve is something his opponents like to say, but it hardly describes the way he approaches foreign policy. Naïve might be applied to the neo-conservatives who said the Iraq War would be a “cakewalk,” that we would be greeted as liberators, and that oil revenues would foot the bill.

Here’s a couple of links with some information that might flesh out your perceptions of him and his approach to foreign policy;

"The Obama Doctrine," The American Prospect, March 2008

“A cast of 300 advises Obama on foreign policy” From The New York Times, July 18, 2008

Obama’s inexperience may concern people, but I think what David Brooks, highly regarded conservative political analys rings true in his New York Times Op-Ed piece, "Calling Dr. Doom," on June 29, 2008,

But Obama is far from a lightweight, as Republicans will learn if he agrees to
do joint town meetings with McCain. McCain’s jabs that Obama is naïve will
backfire. In this climate, a candidate can’t define the other guy, only himself.
When McCain attacks Obama for being naïve, all voters see is McCain being sour
and negative.

More fundamentally, McCain’s problem is that his party is unfit to govern. As research from the Republican pollster David Winston has shown, any policy becomes less popular when people learn that Republicans are supporting it. If the G.O.P. sponsored the sunrise, voters would prefer gloom. Many Republicans are under the illusion that they are in trouble because they’ve betrayed their core principles. The sad truth is that if they’d been more conservative, they’d be even further behind.

Of course, Obama chose not to meet the McCain demand to follow him around to do townhalls, but the point is the same—the GOP has shown it is not fit to govern.

Obama will bring a team in that will look at government as a servant to civil society.

Look at what the Republicans have wrought under their watch in the EPA, the Justice Department, the CDC, the FDA, FEMA, just for starters. Obama, or whatever Democratic nominee they would have chosen will be better than allowing another Republican administration.
I am ready for change. What has convinced me is reading Obama’s books, listening to his speeches, and reading about his actual policy positions.

Read about his campaign and the way he runs it. Sounds like a leader to me.

I’ll write more when I have more time, but this is a start.

It's civility; it's competence. If these two bring celebrity--so be it!

_________________________________________________________
Who's dealing?
Who gives currency to the "Obama played the race card" with the comment about a face on the dollar bill?

________________________________________________________
Progressive fun
Least I fall prey to the accusation of being a humorless liberal, I would like to note that my current favorite commercial is the one for Progressive Insurance where the fellow buys RV, motorcyle, and boat insurance much to his wife's "SURPRISE." I see it everyday and everyday, it leaves me laughing.

Furthermore, I want to put MSNBC on notice that if they broadcast the commercial about catheters one more time, I will not watch another minute of their news programming. So there.

Heaven forbid labor gets a new foothold

2008-08-01T07:46:00.005-05:00

WalMart warns employees that if the Democrats win it may be easier for unions to organize and we all know how bad a union would for the largest group of employees in America.

Of all the things that has bothered me most over the past many years of Republican dominated government is the climate in which labor is treated as a liability. Employees of WalMart and other workers need to realize that the leadership of this country has created a tax climate in which the industrialization of America has gone to China, India, Mexico and other places. There is no commitment on the part of this genre of leadership that truly is concerned about the American worker. Contempt for unions and for working people is standard.

Not long ago I was in the home of a political conservative. At the dinner table he said it's too bad that the unions drove all of the good jobs overseas. Is it really the unions?

He said it's too bad the unions in America have ruined the US auto industry. Really? The unions?

Contextual, Pragmatic, Presumptuous? Presidential

2008-07-30T09:12:00.011-05:00

Today’s New York Times piece, “Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Apart” pieces together a narrative of his time at the University of Chicago School of Law.

But the liberal students did not necessarily find reassurance. “For people who thought they were getting a doctrinal, rah-rah experience, it wasn’t that kind of class,” said D. Daniel Sokol, a former student who now teaches law at the University of Florida at Gainesville. For one thing, Mr. Obama’s courses chronicled the failure of liberal policies and court-led efforts at social change: the Reconstruction-era amendments that were rendered meaningless by a century of resistance, the way the triumph of Brown gave way to fights over busing, the voting rights laws that crowded blacks into as few districts as possible. He was wary of noble theories, students say; instead, they call Mr. Obama a contextualist, willing to look past legal niceties to get results.

After so many years of a partisan leadership so bent on its own ideology that it eviscerates the civil service of our country, leads us to pre-emptive war costing trillions of dollars, damages our leadership in the world by using torture, and wreaks havoc on our economy by empowering a reckless banking system, I am in the tank for a candidate willing to use erudition to pull together policy.

Just as he sees the nuances of the racial issues and the limit of government to address such, he sees healthcare for what it is—a social, ethical, and economic problem needing sweeping reform to make it work for all people and all businesses—large and small.
Imagine, the leader of the free world—curious, intellectual, and in pursuit of racial, social, and economic justice.

Bev Dowdy—in the tank.

________________________________________________________
McCain inexplicable and despicable

In response to the McCain attacks of the last few days---please tell me American voters, will not fall for the unsubstantiated accusations regarding the visit to the soldiers in Germany.

Noah Oppenheimer, co-author of the Intellectual Devotional and television producer, in weaving how this plays into political strategy said, "the facts don't matter in this." He explained that it's just a good thing to put into the anti-Obama narrative.

The facts don't matter?

I have many friends who support McCain. My friends, does this interpretation apply--the facts don't matter--just get a story to use against Obama.?

If the facts don't matter, it is explicable and despicable.

_______________________________________________________
Presumptous presumptive Obama?

I take issue with Dana Millbanks characterization of Obama's presumptiousness. So Obama has a transition team--does McCain? Don't most candidates appoint teams to prepare them to win? What if he were to win and then have a chaotic transition as did Bill Clinton?

Is it arrogance to say to folks that you want to support you by donating enormous sums of money to your campaign that the odds are in your favor to win—but it will be difficult?

Let’s make a football analogy. Wouldn’t any good coach make a remark like that the booster club?

Nonetheless, there's a fine line here to walk, Barack.

____________________________________________________

Bev in the tank

On our trip to Michigan this summer, our school aged cousin came up with a charades type guessing game. Can you guess what I am? Yes, in the tank for Obama. It is time to get back to work and think about something beside the election.

Brooks Channels Niebuhr?

2008-07-26T06:58:00.004-05:00

David Brooks assessment of Obama's Berlin speech included these two statements:

Last year, he spoke about his affinity for Reinhold Niebuhr, and their shared awareness that history is tragic and ironic and every political choice is tainted in some way.

His Berlin Victory Column treacle would have made Niebuhr sick to his stomach.

I am disappointed in the David Brooks column.

Do you, Christian scholars, students of Niebuhr, agree with Brooks?

Of scholarship and sloth

2008-07-05T01:55:00.041-05:00

I am not a scholar, but I went to the Christian scholars conference anyway.

"The Christian Faith, Life of the Mind, and the Public Square," theme for 2008 Christian Scholars Conference hosted by David Lipscomb University, started with a discussion of Richard T. Hughes's premise in How Christian Faith Can Sustain the Life of the Mind. Asserting that Christians can be engaged in a vital “life of the mind,” if they learn to think theologically and beyond the particulcarities of their own traditions, Hughes and his panel grappled with the idea of understanding our own “finitude” while exploring truth.

Senator Bill Frist spoke on his faith and politics.

Among the luminaries presenting were Christian progressives, Shaun Casey, a Visiting Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, and Jim Wallis, the founder and editor of Sojourners magazine.

I enjoyed hearing a presentations by Candice Ortbals-Wiser from Pepperdine and Angela Bratton, Augusta State University on gender issues. It was fun seeing James Wiser too!

Hearing the progressives almost prompted a Michelle Obamaesque remark from me, like—for the first time in my adult life I am proud to be a Campbellite. I am glad I refrained. What I was clearly thinking about was that I’m proud of how Church of Christ people engaged in political discussion at the conference.

I have been very blessed in many of my experiences in the movement; yet, it has not been too much fun to be a political progressive at church since I have been a grown up.

Christopher Dowdy, PhD student in Christians Ethics at Southern Methodist University, and my firstborn child, was on a panel with Dr. Fred Aquino, his mentor from ACU, and Mark Wieber, his dear friend and PhD student in Theology at SMU. The trio presented papers on "regulative epistomology." Chris's presentation involved unpacking the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr.

I listened hard with my layperson's ear and heard that not only does it matter how we justify our beliefs, it matters what we are and what we do in response to those beliefs.

When it comes to politics, justice requires risking action with unforeseen, possibly unwanted consequences. One must approach situations with concurrent courage and humility. Courage, Neibuhr asserts, is firmness, confidence in belief, which in excess can become pride. Its counterpart, humility, a willingness to change for good reason, in excess may become sloth.

Chris spoke of Martin Luther King, Jr. in illustrating a risk taker combining both courage and humility.

I pondered King's fearless resistance to segregation, poverty, and to the Vietnam war.

This lead me to some self-inventory.

An unabashed young liberal, I often ventured my beliefs. By the mid-1970s I had been asked more than once how I could possibly be a Christian and be for the Equal Rights Amendment, be pro-labor union, be a Democrat, or vote for Jimmy Carter. By the nineties, it seemed to me important not to be called a Democrat, thanks primarily to the climate in which the Republican Party was the righteous party and Democrats were, in Anne Coulter’s words, Godless.

I made it a practice to refrain from discussing politics in most social settings, especially with fellow church members. As a high school teacher of politics, I taught that political parties were about winning elections in order to govern. I taught with certainty that no political party represented Christ. I did not espouse my own views or votes on many subjects, though was sure I could make cogent arguments for my positions.

I always held out the possibility that I could be wrong.

In particular, I did not speak my objections in the run up to the war in Iraq. In this case, I was afraid of the criticism I would receive from the Christians who associated the Republicans and Bush with Christianity. In retrospect, it seems shocking that opposing war would be called partisan and sad that I did not take a stand on my view or at least give clear voice to the view of scores of Christian leaders who spoke out against the invasion of Iraq as an unjustified war.

I justified myself because I was a teacher and could argue that teachers should be objective, but really, I was so afraid I might be wrong, I did not even own a strong argument.

The Christian Scholars Conference and my self-inventory left me with two conclusions.

I am not a scholar.

I may actually be a sloth.

I justify reticence on speaking out about issues as a kind of Niebuhrian humility---a tipping of my hat to my own "finitude"-- when in reality, it is sometimes fear. I may be wrong; the others may be right, I say to myself--so why discuss differences?

I used to tell my students that is possible for a whole community of religious people to be wrong about a social issue.

Sometimes there should be a debate.

Engaging requires courage and humility.

Dobson's Dubious Posturing

2008-06-24T21:05:00.002-05:00

Today's address by James Dobson cynically strikes at Obama. Since Dr. Dobson says he cannot support McCain he can't. So, his way of keeping his word, but still hoping to help McCain is by attacking Obama. If you haven't already done so, check out website created in response to Dobson's diatribe.

The AP reported today that a "The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Methodist pastor from Texas and longtime supporter of President Bush who has endorsed Obama, said Tuesday he belongs to a group of religious leaders who, working independently of Obama's campaign, launched a Web site to counter Dobson at http://www.jamesdobsondoesntspeakforme.com. The site highlights statements from Obama and Dobson and asks visitors to compare them."

James Dobson doesn't speak for me either.

Outraising and outthinking

2008-05-21T09:09:00.004-05:00

A couple of campaign questions

I realize that she is making the argument that in spite of being outspent, she has racked up many votes in states where she has campaigned relentlessly. What I am curious about is why does Hillary Clinton perpetually sound like she accusing Barack Obama of outspending them? Didn’t he raise the money from an amazing broad base of donors? She never says, my opponent has outspent me because he has outraised me.

Today’s New York Post ran an accusatory article, “Obama to A'jad: Atomic Assist; Stiffs UN in Nuke Negotiations.”

"Talking without preconditions" would require America to ignore three unanimous Security Council resolutions. Before starting his unconditional talks, would Obama present a new resolution at the Security Council to cancel the three that Ahmadinejad doesn't like? Or would the new US president act in defiance of the United Nations - further weakening the Security Council's authority?”

My question is, would this same writer have been a supporter of Bush’s invasion of Iraq? Since when did the supporters of the invasion become so concerned about the authority of the UN? Isn’t talking in the face of UN Security Council resistance a bit better than invading a country in a preemptive strike without direct talks?

Hope rising, whispering, screaming

2008-03-29T07:37:00.026-05:00

"When it seems that hopefulness is the least appropriate response in this situation, let it rise up even more. Whisper your hope when you lie down at night; scream your hope when you wake in the morning. Live your hope as if it is the one and only thing that sustains you in this ravaged world. You will not be disappointed."
Words of the late Mark Palmer -lifted from Kevin Rain's blog, The Kedge.

My sister Kim told me that our cousin Jody Nixon's husband, David, had a new blog, Sustainable Faith. I thought, I could use some of that. If you think you do, check it out. David and his long time associate in ministry, Kevin Rains, facilitate spiritual renewal and formational experiences for pastors and others.

David and Kevin work in Norwood, Ohio at Vineyard Central, a community of home churches.

Cousin Jody and David live on the third floor of the "the whitehouse" at Vineyard Central, a very cool convent meets Ikea retreat house.

We adore Jody and David Nixon and admire the life and family they have built. We see them possessing a sustained faith and offering hope--hope rising, whispering, screaming through the vicissitudes of life.

Historic, Heroic, Healing

2008-03-18T18:38:00.006-05:00

He did it.
Barack Obama today gave one of the greatest speeches of our time.
He did what leaders need to do.

Speak truth about race without rancor.

He drew a big picture and put us all in it. He told a big story and made us part of the plot.

He transcended the black rhetoric that has emerged in the last couple of election cycles that makes it sound as if NO real progress has been in race relations.

He gave legitimacy to white frustrations with some affirmative action programs and entitlements.

Yet he stood by the reality that problems in the black community remain as a legacy of slavery and segregation.

He exposed societal ills but balanced them with his oft repeated theme for embracing personal responsibility.

He acknowledged publically what happens privately. People speak differently about race when with folks of their own race.

He asked us to relate to the reality that there are people in our lives whom we love deeply, but whose beliefs and expressions of beliefs we must reject.

He stated clearly that we have a choice about how we deal with race in the presidential race--and as the human race.

Speak, Barack, Speak

2008-03-01T11:56:00.015-05:00

I don’t often get weepy listening to political commentary. Actually, I haven’t cried watching TV or a movie since Dances with Wolves. Imagine my shock when I began to weep this morning when my husband played a segment of “Morning Joe” talking with noted conservative and Wall Street Journal columnist, Peggy Noonan.

Discussing the tone of civil conversation and the depths to which it has fallen, Noonan cast a vision. If Obama can maintain his demeanor, there stands the possibility for a new day in civil discourse.

Noonan’s remarks are reminiscent of the David Brooks New York Times column last spring, “Run, Barack, Run” in which Brooks asserted, “The next Democratic nominee should either be Barack Obama or should have the stature that would come from defeating Barack Obama.” Brooks continued, “This style is surely the antidote to the politics of the past several years.”

Noonan said she thinks the manner of our public conversation came about during the Vietnam War and took deep root during the busing and abortion clashes of the 70s. I agree. I would add, the arrival of the 80s, the end of the fairness doctrine and the emergence of talk radio cemented divisive, mean-spirited, small political talk. Thus, the span of my adult life.

Noonan sees the rhetoric of the Republicans and the Democrats on par with the "Jets and the Sharks. Both sides killing each other, not to make things better, but to gain power."

Can't we all rise above the swiftboating, above the lapel pin harangue?

Admit it--no grown up believes that discourse alone will keep us secure, prosperous, and just.

Yet, on the way to security, prosperity, and justice-keep your cool, Barack Obama. Stay above the fray. Fight the real battles. Parry the silly.

Keep raising the level of discourse.

Make a path for peace.

I've been waiting for this for a long, long time.

"The wisdom that comes from God is first utterly pure, then peace-loving, gentle, approachable, full of tolerant thoughts and kindly actions, with no breath of favouritism or hint of hypocrisy. And the wise are peace-makers who go on quietly sowing for a harvest of righteousness - in other people and in themselves." James 3:17-18
J B PHILLIPS Translation of the NEW TESTAMENT

Dad in Dakar-Mom at Meadowcreek

2008-01-27T23:04:00.000-05:00

In case there might be a single soul lurking about this blog, here's an update on the Dowdys. Ken will land in Dakar, Senegal about the time I get up to head for Meadowcreek High School in Norcross, Georgia.

By the time I am in second period he will be in Johannesburg, South Africa. As a Church Advisor for World Vision, he accompanies church leaders on this Pastor's Vision Trip. In the next next few days they will visit villages in Swaziland where World Vision's website reports WV "currently has more than 12 projects in the country including ones that focus on child development, agricultural improvement, clean water, food aid, microenterprise development, and HIV/AIDS prevention and care."

He took the photo above on his trip in August to Malawi. The girl in the purple skirt carries her sister on her back. Their mother had died from AIDS weeks earlier.

Someone asked how I felt about Ken being gone for so long on these trips.

I wish I was with him, but I am so happy for him to able to participate in a work so close to the heart of God.

His travels are exotic, but then, so are mine. When I wind my way into halls of Meadowcreek, I meet students from Mexico, Honduras, Ghana, Egypt, Ghana, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Bosnia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and middle Georgia. He sometimes wishes he was with me.

Ducks, Cards, and Carnage

2007-05-17T08:34:00.000-05:00

Lauren Mitchell Dowdy and Chris in Boston with glasses.

Beige, with orange letters and graphics, the 4 x 6 card featured a little orange mother duck followed by two tiny ducklings underscored by letters in an arial font about 11 pt. wishing me "happy mother's day."

Chris wrote, "Only a son of yours would send you a mother's day card with the word 'carnage' in it."

In his own special hand he penciled the Mother's Day Proclamation written in 1870 by Julia Ward Howe.

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

I cannot say I like the word carnage, but I loved the cardage.

The passing of Jerry Falwell

2007-05-15T17:14:00.000-05:00

May the passing of Jerry Falwell be accompanied by much peace for his family and loved ones who will surely miss him. May his good works and his good teaching remain as a lasting legacy for his spiritual family.

Meanwhile, for the public, may there be fewer partisan remarks from pulpits.

May the next election avoid the offensive rhetoric of the Republican Party and Christianity in partnership.

As we move farther from the Falwell-Reagan era, may the language of genuine compassion ring through the public policy talk of disciples of Christ.

May the passing of Jerry Falwell be accompanied by a season of action for those who love Christ and reject right wing politics as the path to peace and justice.

When ills befall our neighbors may we be less like Job's friends and more like Jesus who acknowledged that God makes his sun to shine on the good and the bad alike.

May be we remember and speak the language of John.

"For God so LOVED the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him."

John speaks of the light of Jesus exposing evil deeds and a reckoning for disbelief, but not because of our judgement--but because of His love.

May those who don't share our faith only be able to criticize us for the good we do in society and not for judgmentalism and war-mongering.

May the invisible power of love, the increased establishment of justice, and peace on earth be the benchmarks of Christians in politics.

from Blacksburg to Baghdad

2007-04-25T17:07:00.000-05:00

Aching from seeing the reports from Blacksburg, Virginia, I tried momentarily to imagine being part of the community. Such unspeakable sadness, I could hardly fathom. Grief blanketed our nation last week. My husband Ken and I saw flags flying at half-mast from the Mississippi Delta all the way to Abilene, Texas over the weekend. Each wind blown emblem spoke of the heartache and horror of Virginia Tech.

How appropriate, how fitting, to mourn as a nation.

I couldn’t help thinking at the same time I have yet to hear even one conversation about the horrific events experienced by the university community in Iraq this winter and spring.

I remember hearing an NPR report one day in which an Iraqi leader said the university system is in near collapse due to the violence.

Enter, a good friend here in Memphis, my favorite Egyptologist, Lionel Jacob Shock. While enjoying coffee last night with Jacob and his beautiful wife, Lola, we commiserated on the sad situation in Iraq. Jacob sent the report below to me today.

Keep in mind how sickened and saddened we, a country of over 300 million have been by this gross attack on innocent college students.

Now, imagine the pain experienced in Iraq, population around 27 million.

One of my students said the other day in reference to the suffering of the citizens in Iraq, “Well, what did they expect since they attacked us? It’s war you know.”

Maybe we need to mourn a bit for the universities in Iraq.

from UN's Human Right's Report for Iraq, January-March 2007

Education sector and the targeting of academic professionals
20. Conditions in the education sector continued to deteriorate due to threats to lecturers and students, deadly attacks on educational institutions, and the individual targeting of teaching professionals. … Officials of the Ministryof Higher Education told UNAMI that 200 academics have been killed ... The apparently sectarian-motivated assassinations, kidnappings and threats to academics and teachers continued at an alarming level throughout the three months. UNAMI recorded at least seven assassinations of academic professionals, and a number of attacks on or in the vicinity of academic institutions, causing substantial casualties among the student population … Violence continued to severely undermine the right of Iraqi children and youths to adequate education and intellectual development.

22. In one incident … 150 staff and visitors, including post-graduate students … were seized en masse by unknown gunmen and taken to an undisclosed location … the fate of an estimated fifty-six [of these] Ministry of Higher Education employees, all allegedly Sunni Muslims, remained unknown. … some of those abducted and subsequently released alleged that the operation was carried out with the knowledge of personnel manning at least one Ministry of Interior check point.

23. Two attacks on al-Mustansiriya University in January and February … The first attack on 16 January involved two coordinated car bombs detonated in the vicinity of the main building of the University. Over 70 people, mostly students, were reportedly killed and some 140 others wounded in the attack. The second, a large-scale suicide attack targeting the University’s College of Economics and Administration on 25 February, killed 41 students.

26. Other academics and teachers did not escape their assassins … an Iraqi professor at Mosul University’s Faculty of Law, was shot dead by unknown gunmen on his way home at the al-Kafa’at quarter on 11 January … deputy head of the Association of Salahuddin Scholars … was gunned down at his home in Samarra’ on 13 January … a professor at Baghdad University, was shot dead in Baghdad’s al-Amiriyya district on 17 January… a professor at al-Mustansiriya University’s Faculty of Economy and Administration, was gunned down in the al-A’dhamiya district of Baghdad on 23 January … acting dean of al-Nahrain University’s Law College
survived an assassination attempt.

27. …three professors from al-Nahrain … were abducted … A law student … was also abducted in the same incident, … Several hours later, their bodies were brought to the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad by police from al-Shu’la police station. … Several days later, the dean of al-Nahrain University’s Law Faculty resigned in protest at the Iraqi authorities’ failure to provide adequate protection to university professors.

Justin, Sarah, and Celebration

2007-04-16T19:37:00.000-05:00

A blessing for Sarah Reider and Justin Banker engaged to be married on June 2, 2007.

“For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the Church.” Ephesians 6:11

how does God, the Creator of the universe convey his love
to our hearts and minds?

it’s a mystery

to help us grasp His love for us

to bring us into his saving grace
he came and walked among us

he lived
he loved

he experienced the bounds of family life and friendship
from motherly love to betrayal and death

in an act of overwhelming historic consequence,
he died once and for all and then was raised from the dead

to help us remember this love and to participate in it,
he told us to partake of the bread and the wine

when Sarah and Justin partake of the Lord’s Supper
they celebrate his love,
partake in his grace,
and say to the world they believe in him and hope for his return

how does God, the Creator of the universe convey to our hearts and minds the nature of his love?

it’s a mystery

He says when a man and woman marry
become one flesh
they radiate the love
the hope
the desire for community
that he longs to have with his church

they live
they love
from profound joy to unspeakable pain
they experience the bounds of family life and friendship

when Sarah and Justin marry
they celebrate his love,
partake in his grace,
and say to world they believe in him and hope for his return

O, LORD we pray that each remembrance of Sarah and Justin’s wedding day will spark again not only their love for one another, but an even deeper grasp of your love for them and for your bride, the Church.

Baking, not blogging

2007-03-10T15:53:00.000-05:00

Back in 1992 Hillary Clinton said, “ I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life.”

Oh, that got her into a heap of hot political water.

She seemed to be elitist, feminist, and condescending.

Or not.

Hilllary may have been pleading for understanding.

Maybe Hillary lacked role-models

Martha Stewart, the stock-broker who traded securities all day, scooped up fresh fish, veggies, and flowers at the market on the way home, arranged the flowers, cooked a meal, and stitched hems on the cloth napkins while the paint dried on the dining room wall, was still emerging as an icon.

Martha must not have hit Hillary's radar.

Hillary may have been so busy in law school that she missed the W-O-M-A-N belted out in the 70s by the great female vocalist. Maria Muldaur,

“Before you can count from one to nine
I can scoop up a great big dipper
Full of lard from the drippin's can
Throw it in the skillet, go out and do my
Shopping and be back before it melts in the pan.”

Hillary did not have as models today's mavens of multi-tasking, those who work, cook, garden, volunteer, take graduate classes, and post on their blogs daily.

Neither did the public she ticked off so much by her remark.

I, however, am blessed by the vision of the slightly besmirched Stewart, Muldaur, and millenial mavens.

Yet, sadly, I learned, since Thanksgiving, of my inability to teach AP US history and government, volunteer, clean house-even a little, bake layer cakes, fix company dinners, and blog.

I suppose since 2004 I could have stayed home baked and had company for dinner, but I chose to follow my inclination to blog.

That statement is not elitist, feminist, or condescending. It’s the truth.

I am NOT a W-O-M-A-N. I cannot bake and blog.

I think I may keep up the company dinners, but if I am going to blog, I don’t think I can bake. Can you?

GOOD NEWS AND GHANA

2007-02-08T16:32:00.000-05:00

Pictured right: Pam Cope and some of the children recently rescued in Ghana play "dogpile" at the Village of Hope.
Photo from http://www.touchalifekids.org/

TODAY, Friday, February 9, The Oprah Winfrey Show features the story of seven children rescued from slavery in Ghana. These children, blessed by the efforts of Touch A Life Ministry founders Randy and Pam Cope, now have a home in the loving Christian community, Village of Hope. Randy and Pam Cope are the brother and sister-in-law of the much loved preacher, Mike Cope.

The Village of Hope, its director Fred Asare and worker, Tommy Drinnen, derive support, love, and fellowship from the Church of Christ at White Station and Harding Academy, the places in Memphis where I am privileged to worship and work.

Between Iraq, Memphis, and several of my friends, good news seems overshadowed of late.

The writhing of Bagdhad and the morass of national politics often dominate my thoughts and drain my joy. The sadness is redoubled for me when some of my fellow Christians defend this unjust invasion, argue in favor of torture, and dismiss the suffering of Iraqis as the price of defending our freedoms.

The writhing of this city, Memphis, with poverty, crime, and corruption often dominates my thoughts and drains my joy. The frustration is increased as indifference and many of our public policies minimize the plight of the poor and uninsured.

The writhing of hearts and bodies of friends fighting cancer, surviving death and divorce often dominates my thoughts and drains my joy. The sadness is increased when I think of the calloused cruelty of the surgeon's knife, the chemical drip, and their ex-spouse's scorn.

Thank God and bless you, Randy and Pam Cope, for going before us, not allowing the cruelty of nature or of man to contort your life. You strengthen us all by acting in love, with vision and purpose.

Thank God and bless you, Fred Asare and Tommy Drinnen, for using your sharp minds, big hearts, willing hands, and beautiful feet to serve the Village of Hope.

From writhing to healing, from darkness to light, Jesus empowers redemption.

Today is the day for Good News to dominate thoughts.

TODAY may His Kingdom continue to come as we witness His will done on earth as it is heaven.

Jesus said,

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me;
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of the sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

RACHEL WEEPING

2006-11-27T08:25:00.000-05:00

As Baghdad braces for more violence, pockets of Sunnis and Shiites plan the slaughter of each other while others risk death to protect their neighbors and friends.

Almighty God
Hear the cries of Rachel weeping for her children because they are no more.

O LORD as blood runs the rivers of Baghdad; violence shakes Gaza; murderous rape dominates Sudan; and civil unrest threatens around the globe; bring to the table of nations leaders committed to and capable of peacemaking.

As the father through whom all families and generations find their origin--bring peacemakers to the dinner tables of the world, inoculating those who imbibe from hate filled hearts, vitriolic tongues, and violent hands.

Quench the passion for the revenge by the exercise of justice.

Make us into a people in whom love overpowers hatred and hope overwhelms despair.

TIMES THAT TRY MEN'S STRAW

2006-11-24T13:24:00.000-05:00

Once in the early 90s I heard Ralph Reed explain to the National Press Club that the Christian Right did not have a narrow agenda--the press only covered gay rights and abortion. In his recent dialogue with Jim Wallis he calls the narrow agenda observation a "straw man."

The claim that religious conservatives focus on one or two issues or somehow believe that other issues lack a moral component is a straw man. Conservative people of faith have worked on a broad agenda, including anti-poverty measures and minority home ownership. Nearly 2 million minority families have purchased their first home under President Bush's home ownership initiative.

Yet, again and again, in spite of Ralph Reed's assertion and perhaps his vision, his legacy is political posturing on two issues: abortion and gay rights. The Straw Man of the Year Award may go to The Christian Coaltion, receiving the resignation of their newest leader, even before his term began,

President-elect of Christian Coalition resigns
Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. - The Reverend elected to take over as president of the Christian Coalition of America said he will not assume the role because of differences in philosophy.

The Rev. Joel Hunter, of Longwood's Northland, A Church Distributed, said Wednesday that the national group would not let him expand the organization's agenda beyond opposing abortion and gay marriage.

This is the latest setback for the group founded in 1989 by religious broadcaster the Rev. Pat Robertson. Four states - Georgia, Alabama, Iowa and Ohio - have decided to split from the group over concerns it's changing direction on issues like the minimum wage, the environment and Internet law instead of core issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.

Hunter, who was scheduled to take over the socially conservative political group Jan. 1, said he had hoped to focus on issues such as poverty and the environment.

"These are issues that Jesus would want us to care about," Hunter said.

He resigned Tuesday during an organization board meeting. Hunter said he was not asked to leave.

"They pretty much said, 'These issues are fine, but they're not our issues, that's not our base,'" Hunter said.

A cousin to this straw man--the Bush admininstration's faith based initiatives.

HAIRCUTS, HOLES, AND THE HOLY

2006-11-19T15:57:00.000-05:00

He came to church last Sunday. On the way he apologized that he had not had a haircut for a while. His white hair made him look older than his 57 years. His forgetfulness, brought on by a stroke, embarrassed him. As we sat in church, he took his jacket off. During one part of the service, he picked his jacket up and folded it. As he did, his finger rubbed over a hole the size of a pencil eraser. He startled just a little, folded over the hole, and grasped his jacket tightly.

He never put it back on.

During the song service, a tear rolled down his cheek as the congregation sang in rounds “Love One Another.” He came back again this week.

It was colder, but he didn’t wear a jacket.

O Lord, we long to be more like Christ. May those who suffer from illness or poverty never feel ashamed when in the presence of the Body.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE REDNECKS GONE?

2006-11-18T18:57:00.001-05:00

Gone to churches everyone?

My favorite Malibu librarian, James Wiser, posted this article from The Hotline, a blog of the National Journal Group, an organization committed to providing non-partisan publications and services.

November 16, 2006
Putnam Wants To Know: Where Were The Rednecks?

“White rednecks” who “didn’t show up to vote for us” partly cost GOPers their cong. majorities, Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL) told fellow Republicans today. And Putnam, seeking the post of GOP conference chair, chided ex-Chair J.C. Watts (R-OK) for ruining the conference’s ability to serve its members.

Three Republicans in the room independently confirmed to the Hotline the substance and context of Putnam’s remarks. But Putnam’s chief of staff insists that the remarks were taken out of context.

Examining the 2006 midterms, Putnam blamed the GOP defeat on “the independent vote, the women vote, the suburban vote.” He said that “heck, even the white rednecks who go to church on Sunday didn't come out to vote for us.”

Putnam’s chief of staff, John Hambel, said his boss has used the word “redneck” only in the context of sharing polling data from last week’s elections. Hambel said Putnam was listing off different constituencies and ended with saying: “Heck, we even had rednecks who go to church who didn't come out to vote.”

...Putnam, the current chair of the Republican Policy Committee, is the House’s second-youngest member and an Episcopalian.

According to the Almanac of American Politics, Putnam represents a district that’s mostly urban and 72% white. His voting record is reliably conservative. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Southern Democratic budget hawks like Phil Gramm casually referred to themselves as the “Redneck Caucus.”

Though some Southerners take “redneck” as term of endearment, it is not a word that Republicans generally use to describe part of their base.

Church going=rednecks? Ouch.

The Pew Research Center gave the centrists credit for the Democrats win, and unlike Putnam, concluded the church-goers were pretty much faithful. The Pew Research group, by the way, did not refer to religious conservatives as rednecks.

...there are few signs that the Republican base deserted the party. Christian conservatives, and conservatives generally, voted as Republican as they did in '02. Nor did white evangelical Protestants defect to the Democrats in any substantial number, as a number of post-election news stories have suggested. True, somewhat fewer white evangelical Protestants voted for Republican Congressional candidates than in 2004, when Bush was at the top of the ticket, but white evangelical protestant backing of G.O.P. candidates was just as great in 2006 as it was four years ago, when the Republicans won the popular vote by a sizable margin.

The real religion story of this election is that the least religious Americans -- voters who attend church rarely or never -- made the biggest difference to the outcome of the election. This group gave Democrats an even greater share of their vote -- 67%, up from 55% in 2002.

The Republican Party didn’t lose the support of religious conservatives. So, I think church going folks should take a bit of offense. They did show up and got called rednecks anyway.

Since the independents may decide the next one, it will be very interesting to see what the Repbublicans will use to keep the Christian conservatives in their camp. It will be hard to forget Jerry Falwell saying that Christians had to vote for George Bush and support the Republican Party while they served up Guiliani and Scwharzenegger at the convention. There will be a lot more of that fare to come.

Looks like John Kerry isn’t the only politician out there making condescending remarks.

I wonder if George Bush will call on Putnam to eat his words?

HERALD TO HAROLD

2006-11-13T02:13:00.000-05:00

Picture taken at Memphis Harding Academy last fall when Harold Ford, Jr., came to speak.

Dear Congressman Ford:

The number one reason for my writing you today is to repeat my plea for you to use your influence to encourage a dramatic, UN led response to the situation in Darfur. The killings there besmirch us all. As Nicolas Kristof so aptly wrote this weekend,

“After more than three years of such brutality, it seems incredibly inadequate for the international community simply to hand out bandages when old women are roasted in their huts and young men have their eyes gouged out. What we need isn’t more bandages, but the will to stand up to genocide.”

Secondarily, I wanted to write my response to your concession speech.

Last year your presence at Harding Academy, your demeanor, your focus on each student’s questions, and your serious and articulate response captured the student body’s attention.

I believe that your presence in the school gave these students a chance to see you, as you are, not as a caricature created by political opposition. In a classroom poll, on Election Day, you won by large margin.

Your concession speech left many of them speechless. Your quotation from Ephesians reflecting the reality of the battle faced today-not a battle of flesh and blood, but one against authorities, rulers, principalities and powers of darkness got their attention. Such talk kindles a spirit in children of deep faith and biblical training.

I have observed, over the years, tapping into the sensitivity of the devout, from segrationists of the 50s and 60s to David Gerson’s rhetoric in Bush’s speeches, can be like darkness disguising itself as an angel of light.

I encourage my government students to understand themselves as the objects of political consultants. I tell my students about how Christianity Today in 2000 described the day that George W. Bush decided to run for president. CT reported that within hours of his decision Bush called Ralph Reed to ask how he could capture the evangelical vote.

Obviously, Bush captured that vote. Figures released by Pew Research after last week’s election show evangelicals solidly in the Republican camp. This was no surprise to me based on my experience in Georgia. For ten years, I lived in Newt Gingrich’s district and taught near the neighborhoods of John Linder, Bob Barr, and Ralph Reed. Along with Saxby Chambliss, all of these were guest speakers at our school. I experienced first hand the influence of the Republican Party and the religious fervor with which it was embraced.

I see tremendous darkness in this loyalty in the face of the Bush administration’s willingness to justify torture, dissemble on the nature of the Iraq war, inflame backlash against immigration, and make a pretense compassionate conservatism as public policy.

So why am I writing to you? Because of your concession speech.

Because I listened to Paul Begala and James Carville’s book on Democratic strategy and know that religious folks are the object of political consultants.

Because we need leaders who will establish social justice, peace, and an orderly society in which evildoers are restrained by a just, merciful legal system. We need leaders like Daniel and Joseph—like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., -- whose faith shaped their leadership and justice guided their policies.

Because you asked people to pray.

Here’s my prayer:

I pray for you to find a clear, unequivocal voice on controversial social issues that fall into areas of deep religious reflection.

Because I believe passionately that poverty, healthcare, immigration, prisons, and peace are moral issues, I pray for you to be a prophetic voice on these issues. I pray for the formulation of public policies that will address these issues effectively.

Though these prayers actually invite danger, it seems better to wage life as a God-fearing, justice driven, peacemaking leader than to settle for less.

I pray you can be strong, resilient, and forgiving in the ugliness of the fray.

I pray for the days ahead to be productive and high profile.

I believe, as you stated, there is a pitched battle not of flesh and blood, but one against authorities, rulers, principalities and powers of darkness. I don’t believe that one party or another intrinsically holds the key to this, but a civil authority exercising power justly, matters. From Darfur, to Baghdad, to Memphis, violence and exploitation must be and replaced by peace and justice.

I am glad that you took the time to come to Harding Academy last year. It was a pleasure to meet you and to introduce you. Although I won't be introducing you as Senator Ford his year, I expect that this, or another auspicious title, to be yours in the future.

With best regards,

Beverly Choate Dowdy

Other articles by Bev on politics and religion:
"When Red and Blue Meet in the Pew" published in New Wineskins magazine.

Bush-An Example to the World?

Rush Limbaugh and Silent Saints

Prayers without Borders

Injustice Anywhere

Don't DeLay, Morality is on its Way

Single Issue Senselessness

THE ELLIOTT'S ARGGG

2006-10-01T20:48:00.000-05:00

Lightning struck the home of Julia and Don Elliott Thursday, September 28 burning it, and all of its contents, to the ground.
If you don't know her, let this picture introduce you to Julia Elliott. She's on the back row, on the far right. On the back row, center, find Paige Elliott, her oldest child. Next to Paige, stands JoJo, Julia's youngest child. Jeremy was away at school at the time, and Don--well, he just wouldn't be in a photo like this. The other five mates are the Schwieps, Julia's sister's family whose names I don't know in proper order.

The oversized kitchen window at the Elliott's house extended a foot on each side of the double kitchen sink, and on the sill dozens of frames displayed Julia’s children, nieces, sisters, and the children of her friends. No ordinary run of the mill pictures framed that window. A talented amateur photographer, Julia Elliott displayed shots of events like this one when Julia, her girls, and the Schwiepes dressed up like pirates for a day and went around Miami saying, “Arggg.”

A look over the pictures and out the window of their home provided a vista of trees, cars, and homes from one of the highest points in Georgia’s East Cobb County.

One could often see visitors coming up the driveway.

After a steep drive up to the Elliott’s contemporary style multi-level house, a guest could count on seeing a few of Don’s cars and at least one cat. If you went into the garage, you would see Julia’s shiny purple VW bug with a flower in the vase, another of Don’s cars, tons of auto parts and paraphernalia, and maybe one of Julia’s projects, such as the nesting of earthworms headed for the garden.

I don’t think Julia really liked for guests to step into the garage. I will always consider it an honor that she showed me her earthworms.

A step inside the entry hall and a walk up a steep staircase would bring you to the great room-a combination dining and living room--with a piano at one end and a fireplace at the other. A wall of windows and sliding glass doors on each side kept the sense of being in the woods sans Georgia’s heat, humidity, and mosquitoes.

Golden oak tables, curio cabinets, and leather chairs invited you into the room. If I recall correctly, Don’s collection of matchbook cars and some assorted antique and collectible pieces filled a curio or two. Framed artwork, except the original painting of a rural home over the fireplace, consisted mostly of old sepia-toned family photos and much more recent shots of Julia’s family taken by her famous 35 millimeter camera.

Placed prominently on the coffee tables and other occasional tables, Julia’s neatly assembled albums chronicled much of our East Cobb Church of Christ family life. Besides hundreds of pictures of camping trips Julia led us on, there were albums full of mission trips, including a yearly trip to St. Vincent.

Julia leads a team to Awia, St.Vincent each summer to put on a vacation bible school.

I think she may have nearly as many pictures of my children as I have. Most of the portraits on this blog are credited to Julia.

What house might be most likely for a gathering of the entire youth group? What family would be most likely to make a home for the church youth group’s summer interns? Who cooked spaghetti nearly every Sunday for her family and guests?

The Elliott’s house, warm and inviting, housed multitudes of memories for dozens of families.

Even as teenagers, it seemed like the Elliott kids possessed a sense of community and playfulness rare in our world of electronic entertainment. Never pretentious, always open, the Elliott family comforted, celebrated and entertained us in their house in the woods.

Paige, the eldest, now lives in Athens; Jeremy and his wife, work on their masters degrees at Florida State; JoJo studies at Harding University. Over the past two years, Julia had hardwood floors installed and updated a bathroom, sprucing up the empty nest. Taking some time to enjoy the fall in Colorado, Don and Julia were vacationing last week. Late Thursday night Laurie Kalet, Julia's closest friend, wrote to me, “The house is pretty much gone, as well as everything in it and all of the cars except the Corolla. We are all just in shock and don't even know what to do. I've talked to Julia several times and I think she is unable to even process what has happened. I don't even know what we should pray for, but please pray.

P.S. all of her photos and the negatives are gone.”

Laurie loss in this includes the deck on the side of the house where she and Keith exchanged their wedding vows.

I have known friends to experience fires—all awful and disruptive. But the total destruction of a contemporary house, in town, is a first. When I called Laurie to talk to her, I could hardly speak.

Everyone, I am sure, including Don and Julia, is grateful that no one sustained injuries. Knowing Don and his financial prudence, I am sure they have insurance to cover losses and they will be able to build another house.

But, the shock and the sadness over losing so much--especially the many pictures in a place filled with such sweet memory--remains so intense for me, I can't quite imagine how they feel.

To Don and Julia, Paige, Jeremy, and Jo Jo-thank you for making that house such a grand home. With all of the mini-mansions erected in East Cobb, possessing opulence and grandeur, there was not a structure more grand or richer than your house to your friends.

I wish Ken, my mom, and I were there to weep with you this weekend. I wish we were there to pick up some pieces and to give you something purple.

Yet, we are confident that your faith and hope in Christ will comfort you and direct your energies.

We know your home will remain strong no matter what happens to your house.

SUMMER VACATION-ABRIDGED

2006-09-02T11:41:00.000-05:00

After a summer traveling from to Tallequah, Atlanta, Abilene, back to Memphis and then to Boston; after adventures in Cherokee geneology, preparation to teach AP United States, loving listening Trevor's music at ACU, an indepth look at the Holocaust with Facing History and Ourselves, and an apartment hunting trip with Chris and Lauren in advance of his studies at Harvard, I am back teaching at Harding Academy.

No government textbooks arrived so I delved into a more detailed unit on the Middle East than usual using materials from the Southern Center for International Studies.

Since August 1, Ken and I have examined books picked up from a lecture by a Messianic Jew, dined with a Christian medical ethicist recently returned from Israel having observed medical services for Palestinians, dined with Muslim Palestinians from Jordan, watched the news, and read periodicals.

Today I pray with more heart than ever the Lord's prayer:

Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done
On earth as it is heaven.

walking paths
thinking a journey
trudging through words
chopping back rhetoric

desperate to discover
passionate to purvey
hope for justice
a vision for peace
a path to shalom

in a world bent on violence
in the name of God

BUSH-AN EXAMPLE TO THE WORLD?

2006-08-05T19:08:00.000-05:00

"The United States should be an example to the world, sir," Maj. Gen. Scott C. Black, judge advocate general of the Army, told Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. "Reciprocity is something that weighs heavily in all of the discussions that we are undertaking as we develop the process and rules for the commissions, and that's the exact reason, sir. The treatment of soldiers who will be captured on future battlefields is of paramount concern."

This quote from yesterday's Washington Post article leads me to wonder how Americans, in particular Christians, can stand by as the administration asserts its position on the treatment of detainees? This is our values candidate? This is our security man?

The lack of listening, the low moral ground on this issue, and the persistence in the face of highly credible opposition increases my deep disappointment with our President and his appointees.

In today’s Commercial Appeal Paul Krugman points out something I have been berating myself about for the last several years. He says, "Those who cling to the belief that polictics can be conducted in terms of people rather than parties are kidding themselves." My ill cast vote for the self proclaimed "uniter," George Bush, in 2000 helped put in place a divider--the "Decider--" and thus a regime finding no grounds for healthy compromise or debate. I prided myself on thoughtful nonpartisanship for many years, but I am see clearly that in today’s politics, there is no effective place for the moderate non-partisan with type of leadership that has evolved.

What was it my momma said? "You didn't just vote that man, you voted for all of the people he'll bring in with him."

And what Bush hath brought.

The Bush regime thumbing its nose at the international community in the run up to war in Iraq, now determines to do ANYTHING it chooses regardless of the voice of the Congress. It declares its intention to enforce only parts of laws it wants and we the people stand for it.

This administration ignores the values, the advice, and the very men who wear the uniform of our country, to perpetrate their agenda.

It is not unpatriotic, it is not partisan, to question an administration that has compromised all of us by its violation of human rights.

Today the leaders of our military legal system object to the nature of the administration's approach to detainees because it besmirches our international stature and endangers our soldiers.

It strikes me as ironic that Christians who claim to follow immutable laws of justice would buy into the "9-11 changes everything" mentality.

Mr. Bush: “We should be an example to the world, sir.”

WW III GETTING YOU DOWN?

2006-07-27T08:53:00.000-05:00

Summer time and living’s easy? No? Not for you? Are the vicissitudes of family life and work draining your joy?

Are you aching after adding up the number dead this week in Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and Darfur?

Are you unsettled by the specter of missiles shooting from North Korea and a burgeoning war in Somalia?

Are you disquieted by today’s Washington Post report that Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, now sees "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us."? I mean everyone knows Al-Qaida would attack anywhere, but isn't it just like the liberal press to create a Debbie Downer moment and publish the quote?

If all the reporting of all these negative events depresses you, lap up this good news!

Shell Oil Company’s second-quarter profits are up 40 %, because, thankfully, prices at the pump have been able to compensate for production problems in Nigeria and the Gulf of Mexico. Here’s the really great part, “Net profit rose to $7.32 billion from $5.24 billion a year earlier. Sales rose less than 1 percent to $83.1 billion from $82.6 billion.” So without even significantly increasing sales they have been able to increase profits because of pump prices. I think it’s just precious really that we can all be a little part of the success of this company.

“Exxon Mobil’s Second Quarter Profits increase 36%” The Washington Post reports, “Exxon Mobil Corp. said Thursday it earned $10.36 billion in the second quarter, the second largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company.”

Exxon gives us another pause in days of such dark news across the world.

So in a world characterized by Newt Gingrich as in the throes of World War III, when we had all believed we were actually of the last throes of the insurgency in Iraq, in a world torn by violence, in a world in which our own personal woes may be getting us down, we can be pumped by the way we have all pitched in and contributed to the rousing success of the oil companies this quarter!

GIGANTIC

2006-06-19T00:18:00.000-05:00

My dad was gigantic.

He could skip rope so fast that I could hardly see the rope. He got good at that during the war. He boxed while in the navy.

My dad’s biceps were so big and bulgy you could walk on them and it wouldn’t hurt him.

By dinner time black and scratchy whiskers grew out his coppery skin. I was in 4th or 5th grade when he traded his blue-collar shirts with Herb appliquéd over the pocket for a white shirt and tie. He left the union to supervise a team of machinists who repaired BIG machines. Every minute those units were off the assembly line cost the company a fortune. Daddy’s team saved millions of dollars for GM cause they would study the problem and fix ‘em fast. My dad was a genius.

Daddy drove a red Chevy Caprice to the Chevrolet Gear and Axle Plant in Hamtramck Michigan. He talked about how fast he could get to the plant with new Chrysler Freeway open between our home in Warren. That car had a 396-cubit inch engine and an air-conditioner. We could ride all the way to Arkansas and Oklahoma during summer vacation to see our relatives and no crayons would melt in our car. We were rich.

Daddy’s mother, Grandma Choate, was a full-blood Chippewa from Minnesota and his dad was a Cherokee from Oklahoma. While out one night during Daddy’s stint in the navy, a guy called him “chief”. Dad socked the guy.

When he I heard that story, I said, “Daddy, why did you hit him for calling you chief? He probably didn’t mean anything by it.”

Daddy said, “Oh yes, he did.”

I looked up at Daddy and thought, wow that man must have been very dumb to say something mean to my Daddy because he’s so big and strong.

I remember Daddy had a binder entitled, The English Language and the Command of Words. filled with lessons that came each week in the mail. The lessons urged speakers to articulate avoiding lazy tongued talk like “Marzeat dotes and dozeeat dotes and liddle lambs eat divy. A kiddleat divy too, wouldn’t chou?”

A neighbor swearing loudly prompted Daddy to observe, “There are many words available to express strong emotions. That man suffers from a lack of vocabulary.”

In 8th grade my teacher, a man, shocked Linda Greene, my Baptist friend, and me by swearing in the classroom when he became angry. Apparently noticing our expressions, he proceeded to write, “damn” and “hell” on the board and said, “Don’t tell me you don’t hear your parents say these words all of the time.” After class I told my teacher that I had never heard my Daddy swear. My teacher did not believe me.

When I was in the 8th grade, my sister was in college and her friends came over. We joked back and forth with put-downs. It was before the song “Dueling Banjoes” hit the airwaves; else we might have named these fests “Dueling Putdowns.” My Daddy called me aside and commented that I was particularly good and fast at the putdowns. I tingled with pride for a second or two when he added, “You are so good, in fact, and that it concerns me. Sharp words can be weapons. If you hone your skills at this, I shudder to think what you will be able to say when you are angry. Maybe you should stop.”

In 10th grade I came home telling what we called “Polack” jokes. He stopped that cold. No ethnic slur was acceptable to him. I told him the Polish kids told them too. He did not care.

In 11th grade I repeated some expression I heard at school that, unbeknownst to me, alluded to some sexual act, and he sent me away from the table. My mom told him that she was sure I didn’t know what I was saying. He argued that I was way too smart not to know that. Although he was in the navy, he didn’t want a daughter of his talking like a sailor.

My dad was a linguist.

Daddy reasoned that if Jesus had been living in 1970, he would be able to converse with anyone from the drunk on skid row to with President of the United States. He saw education as a way of sharpening one’s witness. Once I picked up the Detroit Free Press finding the sports section on top, obscuring my beloved front-page news. I announced, “I NEVER read the sports page.”

Daddy suggested that along with studying biology, English, and math for Him, I should start reading the sports page for Jesus.

Daddy was a disciple.

In the fall of my senior year listening to me speculate on career possibilities, he repeated his mantra on life priorities. “Honey, I am sure you will be US senator or President, just keep God first, your family second, and your education and career third.

Daddy was a feminist.

On November 7, 1970 Daddy suddenly and unexpectedly died of a heart attack.

Today is Fathers Day, June 18, 2006.

A couple of weeks ago, my sisters and I were doing some research on Daddy’s family tree at the Cherokee Nation Heritage Center in Tahlequah. We discovered in Daddy's ancestry chiefs who stood before King George II, grandparents educated in law and theology, and a cousin who developed the Cherokee alphabet. Debi, Kim, and I talked about these revelations. We talked about our perceptions of Daddy. The conversation shifted to physical stature.

Mother said Daddy stood just a little over 5’8”. I was astounded.

How could I be 53 years old and not know that my dad might have been considered a relatively short fellow?

Because, my Daddy was gigantic.

WHY NOT IN AMERICA?

2006-06-14T23:09:00.000-05:00

"If it's perfectly legal and there's nothing going wrong there - well, why don't they have it in America ... ?"

- Harriet Harman, U.K. constitutional affairs minister, advocating the Guantanamo Bay prison be put under U.S. court supervision or closed. Source: BBC

POMP AND KLEENEX

2006-05-25T20:26:00.000-05:00

Right now at Greater Atlanta Christian School the sun is setting on the Class of 2006. Parents, friends, family, and faculty are seated in the quadrangle looking up to the second floor of the Zenobia Tye Lyles Media Center watching robes of red walk on the candlelit balcony.

David Fincher just gave his eight minute speech telling one joke, the names of the colleges and universities the ‘06ers will be attending, and the millions of dollars worth of the scholarships these high achieving kids have earned. He gave a few tidbits of sage advice and in one of the great traditions of GACS, begun by Jesse Long, ceased his thoughtful address to allow the focus to be on the students.

A few moments before Dr. Fincher waxed eloquently, Sandy Spiceland, wearing a black suit and a red wrist corsage, spoke into the microphone loudly and clearly reading the dozens of achievements of Allison Turner.

Now I am starting to cry.

I always knew Allison would be valedictorian. I looked forward to listening to her speech and telling her to speak VERY slowly after all of the years in debate encouraging her to speak SO quickly.

Knowing Allison, I imagine every word well spoken and meaningful.

I believe Judge Turner would allow no objections to my testimony on this.

I miss seeing a turning point in a life lived with such curiosity, intensity, and competence. I miss the seeing the turning point in a life so reflective on things spiritual and ethical. I miss seeing the turning point in a girl so willing to work, to love and to laugh.

I miss Allison Turner and Lisa Warren the dozens of others students like them who have blessed me. It's such a joy to see such wonderful kids, growing, sharing, serving and learning together.

I miss Jenny Runkel and Melaney Cost and all the senior sponsors making graduation activities come together. I miss handing out honor cords and shawls.

I miss setting up the candles and roses on the balcony with Donna Strickland and thinking of nice ways to keep folks from saving seats too early. After all, even Jesse and Marilyn Long don’t save seats early.

I miss hearing the majestic sound of the music filling the sky through Mike Garner's amazing system.

Truthfully, I could get weepy over the dollars of scholarships in the speech.

Now it's dark, the candles are glowing and the caps are flying in the air.

A small civilization is ending.

Someone in the class through whom the light of Christ has shown is offering a benediction.

So I’ll offer mine.
In the words of Paul
“May the God of peace make you holy through and through. May you be kept in soul and mind and body in spotless integrity until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is utterly faithful and he will finish what you have set out to do.”

DIXIE CHICKS RECANT RECANT; BUSH JUST CAN'T

2006-05-25T16:05:00.000-05:00

The rage shown by Dennis Hastert and Nancy Pelosi may seem overblown to some. Today’s Washington Post editorial says as much. Disturbed enough by the unprecedented seizing of records from the office of Representative William Jefferson to do something jointly, the two have gotten the attention of President Bush. According to the Associated Press, the President has ordered that documents seized from the congressman’ s office be sealed for 45 days in an attempt to calm the tempest.

The President acknowledges the concerns of the House leaders, but has certainly not admitted that any mistakes or missteps were made by the administration.

The Post reasoned that a search warrant and subsequent seizing of records was all done appropriately.

After all, items seized had been subpoenaed months ago.

Isn’t this an odd bunch to be hard on folks who are slow about handing over evidence to investigators?

And isn’t it mind-boggling that this administration now bearing intense criticism from James Dobson, 11 retired generals who served in Iraq, 40 Nobel Laureates, and David Frum of the National Review, has even provoked Nancy Pelosi and Dennis Hastert to cooperate?

I heard today that the Dixie Chicks have recanted their apology offered to President Bush for disrespecting the Office of the President.

I wonder how many the Chicks would roil if they said today what they said in 2003?

OVER or NOT?

2006-05-16T12:44:00.000-05:00

"FBI checking reporters' phone records"

According today's Christian Science Monitor, the FBI "acknowledged that it was seeking reporters' phone records to investigate leaks about secret prisons in Europe and warrantless wiretapping."

Up until today, I believed that the President's warrantless wiretapping activities would not work against them in the eyes of many average Americans. The response among my students, middle to upper middle class white Christian conservatives for the most part, reflect the I am not doing anything wrong, therefore I am not concerned about privacy; the President is keeping us safe by surveillance, so I don't mind.

There seems to be a belief among people I meet that the President and his men can be trusted to work for our security and are not violating rights.

This story today may tip the balance. Not that a large white middle class Christian minority will be overly bothered at first. Many seem to think having secret prisons in Europe to torture U.S. prisoners is necessary to our national security and telling on the government for doing this was wrong.

However, the freedom of the press to tell what the government is doing in an open democratic society is a basic right.

This may a turning point.

If the mainstream American press becomes convinced that this administration will violate all known standards to press its agenda to and prosecute members of the press, the administration may have to fight an uphill battle from the cub reporter to the evening anchor. It may be the Walter Cronkite moment.

I think this, and then I rethink. In the days that Cronkite turned against the war in Vietnam and the support of ordinary Americans turned away from the war, there was no Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. There was no powerful alternative to the networks or mainstream press.

It may be now that conservative talk radio has such a strong hold on the thinking of many Americans, a wholesale rejection of this administration--this regime--by the mainstream press would lack the ability to influence the supporters of the administration.

So, we will see. We will hear.

MISSISSIPPI, JUSTICE, AND JOY

2006-05-05T17:00:00.000-05:00

Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi and former chairman of the National Republican Party, stands to distinguish himself as “the first governor in U.S. history to refuse to pardon a man he has publicly proclaimed as innocent." I could hardly believe my eyes as I read this tonight on The New York Times website. The report quotes Barbour’s spokesman, 'The governor hasn't pardoned anyone, whether they be alive or deceased.''

Trumped-up charges of selling $25.00 worth of stolen chicken feed landed Clyde Kennard in jail for seven years. The NYT story explained the only witness against Kennard in the chicken feed case recanted his testimony.

What lies beneath the chicken feed is the story of Clyde Kennard’s offense of trying to enter the University of Southern Mississippi in the late 50s.

So what lies beneath Haley Barbour’s thinking in this case?

The Governor of Mississippi, of all places, must be responsive to the calls of justice.

My experience on Wednesday, May 3 at the University of Memphis intensifies my concern for this matter. Jerry Mitchell, reporter for the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi, spoke of his experiences in uncovering evidence leading to 20 convictions of Klansmen and others involved in civil rights era murders. I left inspired not simply because of the justice done in these cases, but in Mitchell’s unequivocal witness to the power, grace, and redemption of God in these affairs.

In government class today at the private Christian school where I teach in Memphis, I challenged my students to see themselves as able to work for justice and to be witness to the grace of God in any number of fields. I told them about Jerry Mitchell the journalist.

Two weeks ago we listened to voice of John Kamm who, while president of the Hong Kong Chamber of Congress, began speaking truth to power in China regarding oppression of religious persons. NPR reports that scores of political prisoners have been released.

Thursday we read about the Governor of Montana, Brian Schwietzer ending the “silence—and for some families, the shame” connected to the convictions of their parents and grandparents on charges of sedition during War War. He posthumously pardoned 75 men and women this week.

A journalist, a businessman, and a governor. All in secular jobs. All acting in the spirit of the prophets and of Christ.

I baited my students, “Why should politicians and others bother with these acts? Why not let the dead be dead?”

One 17 year-old boy suggested it would increase the legitimacy of the government if leaders took steps to right wrongs. Another young man said it could change generations of those families who might always be sad, silent, or cynical.

I mentioned hearing Jerry Mitchell’s voice on a Memphis radio interview Wednesday quoting Solomon, “When justice is done, it is a joy.”

From the mouth of babes-Justice creates legitimacy for the generations.
Justice, says the sage, fosters joy.

Barbour's distinction among America's governors and his alliance with Mississippi's governors-none of whom have given a posthumous pardon-begs the insight of children, the wisdom of Solomon.

CULTIVATING COURAGE, SIMPLICITY, DISCIPLESHIP

2006-04-12T15:38:00.000-05:00

I read this today on Sojourner’s website:

"My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions - or bury the results."

- Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, former director of operations at the Pentagon's military joint staff, writing in Time magazine. Newbold resigned four months before the invasion of Iraq, but has only now gone public with his criticism of the war.
www.sojo.net

This quote reminds me of how I felt before the US attacked Iraq. I believed that idea that it would be a “cakewalk” smacked of arrogance and ignorance of the complexities of the Muslim world in general and Iraq specifically. I believed that Saddam was already contained and that further cooperation with the international community would be advantageous to us.

I was afraid to say what I thought.

If I am to write, I must cultivate courage.

I must also get settled in my new home.

We have sold and bought houses. We have been forced to think think think about money. What's a good price? What's a good offer? What's the wisest move? What if we lose? We sold our house with four bedrooms and a green room. The green room, our spare room, served at various times, as an office, a bedroom, and a sitting room.

We bought a house with two bedrooms and have kilzed a 1950s wood paneled room in our new-to-us-home into a green room. With all the tossing and paring I thought I did all summer, we bulge from the insides at this new address.

If I am to make a home, I must cultivate simplicity.

Today I was honored by Nick Michael, a senior graduating from our school. He asked me to be seated by him in chapel as a representative of our congregation who has had a positive spiritual influence. His invitation touched me and made me feel that I may still be a shadow of myself. We became acquainted when I taught the high school Sunday school class this winter. I am thankful that God made something good from that rough offering of the winter. After spending months sifting through stuff, thinking of houses, and meeting new folks, I find myself starving for quiet, for imbibing deeply in the Spirit of God, and being strengthened by his spirit within me.

If I am to be fully alive, I must renew discipleship.

STILLS, BEETLES, AND BREATHLESSNESS

2006-02-14T16:41:00.000-05:00

We all know that people aren’t made to be lonely
They’re made to be trusted and loved by one only
That one special who’ll just let it be
And remember that Jesus gave love away for free

lyrics by Stephen Stills

Rolling along through the Ohio Valley into the hills of Western Pennsylvania in our yellow circa 1972 Volkswagen Beetle, Stephen Stills and his band, Manassas, wailed these lyrics from the 8-track player through the vents of the 2-55 air conditioner. (2-55 AC stands for two windows down while driving 55 mph.)

When Ken Dowdy, my groom of two weeks, taught me how to drive that VW, he never fussed or sighed when I ground the gears or rolled backwards for a few feet trying to get into first. He just taught me what was happening when I pushed down on the clutch and engaged the gears.

I found the environs of Carlisle Pennsylvania, our first home, breathtakingly beautiful.

I found the springtime of 1972 at Harding University, which followed our first Valentine’s Day, abloom with azaleas, dogwoods, and cherry blossoms, breathtakingly beautiful.

At the end of our freshman year of college when Ken took me to the hills of Huntsville, Alabama, where his family lived, the beauty there left me breathless too.

Or maybe it was just Ken.

We’ve shared 32 Valentine Days. We don't always give each other very good Valentine cards or gifts. We sold the VW a long time ago.

But

He still gives me the center of the cinnamon roll.
He still gives me the last bite of his Snickers.
He still makes me laugh at wadded up napkins expanding at the table.
He still holds me and says prayers over me when I am anxious.

He shows the same kindness and patience with our children as he showed me when we drove around hills of Carlisle.

He still plays good rocking music in when we are on the road.

He still sings “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” better than Elvis.

We still use a Realistic receiver with an 8-track player.

And he still leaves me breathless.

2006-01-08T17:47:00.000-05:00

THE SECTARIAN STAGE
SCREEN MEMORIES OF A CAMPBELLITE DREAMER II

Basement cinderblock walls painted light blue boasted a sink with a plain white base cabinet. Cold, damp air cloaked the children seated around the plywood table top mounted on pipes with black rubber casters. Roger, David, Diane, Bev and I sat, happy to have moved up from the ladies’ bathroom with the knotty pine décor. Singing "This Little Christian Light of Mine" and "Jesus Loves Me" we marked workbook pages in a series called Gospel Treasures with Mrs. Waldrep, our teacher. With dark wavy hair and glasses she seemed about as old as my grandmother--about 150 years old.

I couldn’t wait to be four, because my neighbor, whom I called Aunt Betty--Mrs. Betty Whitlock, would be our next teacher. My heart beat a little faster when she opened her purse at church. She always found a piece of Juicy Fruit gum to share, something my mother never did. (I have forgiven my mom for this failure on her part.)

Mrs.Waldrep taught us that God’s church was not made with human hands. God’s church was made of his people. It was not a building. Somehow all of this confused me.

I imagined huge hands moving appartion-like shaping the people within the brick building-somewhat like the Invisible Man on TV. There were grease marks on the giant ghost-like hands as was common among the men who worked in the shops. Our dads, uncles, and neighbors all worked in shops. The ghostlike digits hovered over about half of the church's 300 seat auditorium. I believe we used theater seats because pews would be sort of denominational. Theater seats, I guess were not really spiritual, but I got the impression it was better to be like a movie theater than worship like another denomination of so-called Christians.

Sometimes I would sit in a grown-up’s lap and play a finger game: Here is the church; here is the steeple; open the church and see all the people

I couldn’t understand the game really because my Bible class teacher said the church was the people, and given our movement’s commitment to austere buildings in the 1950s, I thought only denominations had steeples.

One day the only preacher I had ever known, Brother Connie Wyatt announced his resignation. He intended to go preach at a Church of Christ in Kirksey, Kentucky. I got a chokey feeling and my eyes stung with tears. I recall one sermon by Brother Wyatt. He spoke of folks who followed God, but in ways not in accord with scripture. In the judgment, those folks would come up short and they would say, “But, ye, I thought.” Sadly, they thought wrongly, and found themselves in torment. Brother Wyatt said, "Ye, I thought" in a very kind, but sad southern voice about one million times.

The first grown up songbook song I remember was called “Trust and Obey.”

Trust and obey
For there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus
But to trust and obey.

A tract in the back of the building with a sepia-toned bride on the cover was entitled, I Married a Catholic. Mom explained the problem was if one married a Catholic the church required a vow on the part of the non-Catholic to rear any children in the Catholic Church. Mom didn’t say this, but I had the clear impression that all Catholics were bound for hell, including the children of that sepia-toned bride.

I made a note to self--don’t marry a Catholic.

It saddened me to think of all the Catholics going to hell, because everyone at my school was Catholic except me; Suzie Smiley, a Lutheran; Linda Greene, a Baptist; and Sherry Hill, a Jehovah’s Witness. Sadder yet was thinking those other three were hell-bound as well. Linda Green’s church, the Van Dyke Baptist Church, even had a cross-shaped neon sign that read, “Jesus Saves.” Ouch! They didn’t realize they were just saying, “Lord, Lord” and not doing what God had commanded. They thought Jesus saved them before they were immersed, so whoever put up that sign must have been “sent a delusion and believed a lie.”

The Jehovah’s Witness part saddened me, but I thought at the time hell couldn’t be a lot worse than life on earth with no birthdays, Easter bunnies, or Santa Claus. At least Catholics had birthdays, Easter, Christmas, and First Holy Communion. First Holy Communion was particularly cool due to the white dresses, veils, and gifts of money.

My dad’s mother was a Methodist. After he became a member of the Church of Christ, once my Dad tried to convert his mother from the Wesleyan way to the Campbellite way. She thrilled at the way folks flipped through scriptures at our worship services, but was saddened that after all her years of following Jesus, praying to him, and trusting Him, Dad would suggest she be re-baptized. She told my Dad on the Chippewa reservation Epicopalian and Methodist missionaries baptized them every summer. She believed God accepted least one of those baptisms.

I used to have bad dreams about my Grandmother Choate being in a coffin and wishing so much that such a wonderful woman was going to heaven. In the dreams there was only darkness and a light brown pine coffin and me wondering why this was so.

By the time I was in the fifth grade, I was safely baptized, properly, of course, by the interpretation of our tribe. Yet, since I was still just a child, I found myself in a scary little mind game I began after I heard a sermon about the “unpardonable sin.” This was the game: if Dad drives past that light pole, that means I have committed the unpardonable sin.

Dad drove by the light pole.

So, I was condemned. But then, so was everyone else I knew except the people at my church. I anguished over my lost state. I bargained with God. If I would become a missionary and baptize hundreds and hundreds of people would he then forgive the unpardonable sin?

Finally, I heard a sermon on adding to God’s word. Adding to God’s word was a sin. So, saying that driving by a light pole was adding to God’s word. Nowhere in God’s word does it say if your Daddy drives by the light pole at Van Dyke and Nine Mile will you go to hell for committing the unpardonable sin. The unpardonable sin after all was blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Whew. I thought, at lease someone in the Church of Christ can receive forgiveness for adding to God’s word if they repent and ask forgiveness.

I finally disclosed to my mother this entanglement of sin and guilt. She seemed shocked because I think she thought I was smarter and more well adjusted than all that. She assured me if I were blaspheming the Holy Spirit, I wouldn’t really care if I was saved or lost anyway.

When I was a young teen, Arkansan Jimmy Allen, a fiery preacher and author of What is Hell Like? preached to thousands in Detroit's Cobo Arena. Over 300 people were baptized. It might have only been 10% of the harvest of Pentecost, but it was a dramatic experience for the Motor City congregations.

My freshman year at Harding University at the College Church of Christ in Searcy, Arkansas the same fiery orator, Jimmy Allen, preached, from Romans, a sermon on the grace of God.

For the first time in my life I heard that perfect knowledge and perfect obedience elude us all, but God's grace saves us through faith in Christ.

My Campellite life took a turn for the better that day, because though I had enjoyed many good memories on this spiritual walk, few of which I have recounted in this essay, I had never truly, to core of my being, experienced the gospel as good news until that night.

After studying Romans, Galatians, and the Bible in general, my sense of the gospel, grace, and salvation matured into a much sounder, much more joyful theology. Jesus did not come to judge but to save. He healed. He challenged sinners. He proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God. Sharing the yoke of teaching and serving is a much lighter burden that taking on the mantle of judgement that even Jesus reserved for God.

Trust and obey
For there’s no other way
To happy be happy in Jesus
But to trust and obey

2005-12-28T15:41:00.000-05:00

“CANCER GENES TENDER SECRETS”; FRIENDS, FAMILY SHARE JOY

Beverly Birdwell Blair, diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia Labor Day weekend 1999, searched fruitlessly for a bone marrow donor for weeks afterward. Various drug therapies failed her and by November, after suffering through a course of Interferon, she despaired of life itself.

Her husband Bob, always thoughtful, but disheartened as well, set up a five-foot somewhat straggly spruce for a Christmas tree that year. The two-story atrium in their living room dwarfed the tree.

Despite the obstacles, through prayers and tears Beverly determined that she wanted to live. She asked Bob to get another tree.

Bob delivered with 10-foot tall silk tree.

As the weeks went on, Bev, empowered by the love of her family, by the prayers of hundreds, and her desire to live, followed every possible lead for an effective treatment. She discovered Dr. Charles Schiffer’s study of the drug Gleevec going on at Karmonos Cancer Center in Detroit. Persisting until granted an opportunity to try the drug, Bev’s hopes soared.

Since beginning this drug in 2000, every test for cancerous cells has been negative including molecular level screenings. She emailed me a link to today’s New York Times piece, “Slowly Cancer Genes Tender Their Secrets” describing the development of cancer treatments based, “not on blasting cancer cells with harsh chemotherapy or radiation but instead of using a sort of molecular razor to cut them out.”

Becoming relentless fund-raisers for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Bev’s brother Barry Birdwell and his wife Michele, train themselves and mentor more that seventy others though the Leukemia Team in Training program. Their goal this year is to run the Musical Marathon Series which includes four marathons. Barry serves on the Central Florida board of the society.

Beverly, my best-friend since childhood, thrives this Christmas of 2005. When she entertained the faculty from Warren, Michigan’s Lincoln High School, where Bob serves as principal, someone commented that Bev's tree was the most beautiful tree they had ever seen.

Under that ten-foot tree Bev celebrated the holidays with family including Bob’s sister Dr. Rhonda Blair, a drama teacher at SMU; her oldest son Jesse, a teacher and coach at David Lipscomb High School in Nashville, completing an MBA; her second born son, Zachary, a missionary in Guatemala this year and a likely law school student next year; her youngest son, Alex, an undergrad at Harding University; her brother Barry and his wife Michele working and running in Melbourne,Florida; and her mother Lois, living close by loving Bev and the boys.

From the age two until our twenties and marriage took us away, we spent every Christmas of our lives together. When I read the headline today, “Cancer Genes Tender Secrets…” I thought of the secrets tendered by best friends over the years. A flood of love and memories overwhelmed me and I had to pause to say thanks to God for the grace of friendship and for each day of life he has afforded us.

I know for Beverly Birdwell Blair thankfulness to God for his grace and Gleevec dwarf chronic myelogenous leukemia.

FESTIVAL OF CHEAP COOKIES

2005-12-14T16:18:00.000-05:00

Iced oatmeal, brand-X vanilla crème sandwich, and very small, very round, very hard sugar cookies-this fare along with gallons and gallons of Kroger lemonade set the stage for a celebration at Greater Atlanta Christian each December of my last ten years.

At the yearly Festival of Cheap Cookies, entertainment consisted of a video primarily written, produced, and directed by Balloon Calves Productions featuring timeless characters like The Finch, Spartan Boy, GAC Man, and the Men’s Drill Team. Along with actions films, dramas occasionally emblazoned the festival screen. Dramas like the David and Angie Fann wedding drama.

Matt Elliott, Mr. Balloon Calves himself, part chaplain and part comic, extraordinary at both, launched the careers of a diversity of dancers and actors including Christopher Dowdy, Aaron Paul, Jared Thomas, Wade Roberts, Jimmy Chupp, Dana Davis, David Fincher, and Donna Strickland.

In between exams, for a short forty minutes, the GAC senior high gathered for bad cookies, weak lemonade, and riotous laughter.

Other traditions at GAC exuded more dignity, but the Festival of Cheap Cookies possessed a certain store-bought baked goods charm that I am missing right now.

Actually I miss a great deal about GAC. Not because there is anything wrong with Memphis Harding Academy, but because I feel like I never really got to say good-bye to my friends and to the students I love so much.

The other day I was in an assembly at church or school singing a song Matt taught us our first year at GAC. I felt myself a little short of breath. Not the short of breath one experiences from exercise, but more like the what I think folks may experience in a panic attack.

One moment I was in GAC chapel singing “Day by Day” while Chris, Afro and all, sang with the freshman a few rows back. A fifth grader, Trevor, just yards away, was singing praises too while wading through Alpha-psi-whatever and collecting pogs.

In dream-like time ten years passed. Now Chris, 24, and Trevor, turning 21, make their life music miles away and I too have left GAC.

The years in that moment enrich my life with memories of teaching politics, history, and high school psychology in a double wide trailer with Dr. Alan Henderson in the room next door leading minds to ponder Jeus and world religions.

Recollections of praise songs, debate trips, Rock for___ Concerts, presidential elections, Dana Davis Eagle conferences, faculty singing, construction projects, trips to the Czech Republic, senior trips to Orlando, valedictory speeches, and graduation ceremonies rush through my consciousness.

I cry when I remember saying goodbye to Doc Love.
I cry when I remember the class of ’99 and the loss of Melissa Davis.

I sense the sweetness of victories and the sting of disappointments and failures that dot the landscape of those years.

I embrace the precious moments in which I worked at GAC alongside my sister Kim and her husband Ted with all of our children here together. Sometimes my mom, JoJo answered the phones and we enjoyed what I think are God greatest blessings-family, community, meaningful work, and spiritual passion.

In those days, I would have worked at GAC for free. Every day was a delight.

I see Atlanta from Stone Mountain and relive the senior class devotional we shared the same week Lincoln Hamilton was baptized. I can almost feel the cold water in the Gulf of Mexico, a lake in Covington, Georgia, and a swimming pool in Birmingham, as I recall the baptisms of dozens of GAC students.

I hear Trevor telling me, "The guys in 8th grade guys are really happy I am going out for spring football. Mom, they are as excited as when I was baptized."

I count ways Matt Elliott, Clif Jones, Brad Kinser, Uncle Ted Thames and others inspired, loved, and encouraged my boys, but time constrains me.

My friends' faces appear in frames. I imagine them animated like the HP printer ads and wish they were here with me.

I recount the gifts from the faculty Christmas luncheons, although admit I still startle when the little reading lamp from last year starts to open.

I take some pleasure that in all that transpired, I escaped without ever receiving a gift from Brad Kinser and Thom Jacquet at Christmas.

I thank God for grace shown to me by this dynamic community of believers, full of lovers of God and doers of his Word.
I cherish the committment to quality education in a Christian environment.

I smile when I think of Matt Elliott and Balloon Calves Production moving to Buford, going from 0 to 3 in a few short years. But what a legacy, Matt--The Festival of Cheap Cookies.

So, today, in honor of a grand tradition, I eat iced oatmeals here in Memphis as I run off my final exams and raise a plastic cup of weak lemonade to my friends at GAC.

2005-12-10T16:44:00.000-05:00

RUSH LIMBAUGH AND SILENT SAINTS

After imbibing chili with church members we gathered in the den to chat. As one of the fellow guests got up to leave I saw black letters from his orange t-shirt glaring “Club Gitmo.”

I asked him where he got his shirt. Smiling, assuming I was admiring it, he said, “Rush Limbaugh’s website.”

It was one of those moments.

It’s been said if someone is saying or doing something evil, and you don’t respond you are implying agreement.

I pondered.
Can Christians really make light of Gitmo?
Can Christians really advertise for Rush?
Should I disrupt the Christian chili-klatsch with what might be considered “liberal hand-wringing”?
Am I exchanging social grace for complicity?

Ryan Bieler, a web editor for Sojourners, links readers to Rush Limbaugh's recent remarks in response to the capture of four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams:

“…part of me that likes this. And some of you might say, "Rush, that's horrible. Peace activists taken hostage." Well, here's why I like it. I like any time a bunch of leftist feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality. So here we have these peace activists over there. I don't care if they're Christian or not. They're over there, and as peace activists, they've got one purpose. They're over there trying to stop the violence.”

Bieler comments, “His (Limbaugh’s) reference to reality is intriguing, coming in support of an administration now widely regarded as out of touch with the reality in Iraq. Promises that we would be greeted as liberators, that Iraq would pay for its own invasion with oil revenue, that we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were, that only a few troops would be needed - all evaporated in the face of a reality that the likes of Limbaugh can only imagine, while the men and women of the armed forces, CPT members, and the people of Iraq experience its horror on a daily basis.”

Frequently conservatives decry an appalling lack of outrage on the part of Muslims throughout the world to attacks on civilians. Beiler’s essay emphasizes that Muslim politicians and clerics have called for the release of these hostages.

As the Bush administration sends Bush confidante Karen Hughes to listen to the Muslim world to help the US mission to win hearts and minds, they recognize that military force and buying the Iraqi press isn’t going to be enough to make things right.

Is it possible that courageous Christians actively pursuing peace through non-violence might speak to the Muslim world?

Undoubtedly, lovers of Jesus concerned about genuine threats to America’s security from Muslim extremists have opposing views of how to deal with these vital concerns.

Yet regardless of how you think about policy, how can Christians embrace the commentator Rush Limbaugh who says he “likes it just a little when he sees them blindfolded with guns pointed to their heads”?

I have to wonder what it will take for Christians to distance themselves from this man and his form of entertainment. How can some Christians have the energy to fuss and fume over the president’s greeting cards saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” and yet not be screaming that Rush Limbaugh is a little gleeful over this kidnapping?

Several gatherings remain on the holiday horizon. Otherwise sweet church-going folks sporting or spewing Rush-isms may abound.

Is silence at a party complicity?

"It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

2005-11-11T19:11:00.000-05:00

Veteran’s Day

She survived the Warsaw uprising, Auchschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen.

Less than five feet tall, Mrs. Diament’s size belies her strength. Well over 80, she drives daily from the suburbs of Memphis to her office downtown where she owns a paper company. She shared her story today at a World War II remembrance day at Memphis Harding Academy,

Asked if there were any good moments--any kindnesses shown to her by the Germans in the camps, Mrs. Diament said no. Whatever you have heard about the camps, she said, the reality was worse. Hungry for five years, she weighed 60 pounds when the Allies liberated Bergen Belsen.

Months after liberation, her husband came to the door of her sister’s home in Belgium. She had not seen him for three years.

Having no desire to live in Europe, they found their way to Memphis. For years, busy with work and family she did not dwell on the terrors of the camps. Now, her husband deceased and her children grown, she is often alone.

Memories haunt her loneliness.

When asked what message she would give to children today she seemed to wave the question way. She is pessimistic. She laments the way the “we must never forget” talk languished as cruelty raged through Cambodia, Bosnia, and Sudan.

She wanted to live at least one day longer than Hitler. Now, sixty years after the end of the war, she finished the interview, and briskly refused assistance as she walked off the stage.

Her strength sings.
Her pessimism stings.

2005-10-13T20:00:00.000-05:00

EMBRACING THE SHATTERED

Gunfire shattered Tina Obsey’s apartment window Monday night.

Tina Osbey left New Orleans when told by officials to evacuate in anticipation of Katrina’s landfall. She and her three sisters, Crystal, Shasta, and Desiree, found their way to one the shelters offered by Christians in East Memphis. When the Osbey sisters and their families walked into the shelter, all seventeen of them opened their arms and hugged us all.

That embrace characterizes most of our experience together.

The children ranging from primary grades to seniors in high school enrolled in school and the sisters began their trek through the maze of assistance ostensibly available to evacuees. One queue after another followed by one snafu after another left them frustrated daily. I would be at school teaching all day and would drop by many evenings to see how things were going.

Weeks went by.
What did you find out from the city of Memphis?
What will the Red Cross do for you?
Did you find out what FEMA will do?

Day after day, line after line, frustration mounted.

One day when Desiree finally got to the front of the line, the two FEMA reps couldn’t agree on what would work.

As the weeks went by, one of the sisters, Crystal, left with her two children. She heard FEMA had their act together in Houston. She left one weekend in mid- September and moved into an apartment by the next Thursday.

The same weekend Crystal left, Ken and I went to Atlanta to put our home there on the market. On the following Tuesday, the same day the virtual tour of my suburban Atlanta house went online, Tina found an aerial view of her New Orleans home submerged near Lake Ponchatrain.

As I looked over her shoulder at the computer screen, I felt I was living through a Tale of Two Cities.

After weeks of wrangling, finally the Osbeys experienced a ‘yes.’ They received FEMA vouchers. They found some apartments close by the shelter. The children would be close to their schools. The sisters loved the quiet neighborhood. They paid their deposits.

The Osbeys waited three weeks until the anticipated vacancies come about. Last week as they sat at the table ready to sign leases, the word came from “corporate” that they didn’t want to lease their apartments to the evacuees.

“Corporate” would not accept the FEMA money.

Wonder why? Because these new residents were black? Because they were poor? The lease was paid for a year.

Quickly arrangements were made for them to move to another complex—miles from the shelter and from the children’s schools--miles from the quiet of the East Memphis neighborhood that had welcomed them so warmly.

Last Friday night I went with Tina to the apartment complex that accepted the FEMA vouchers. As they moved the few belongings they have accumulated while at the shelter, gangs of young men walked around everywhere, staring.

When we dropped by on Saturday, dozens of groups of younger kids roamed around staring at the Osbey family.

The apartments, I was told by a sister from church, is known for being full of gangs. She lives only blocks away.

Last week’s celebration going on over “the evacuees finally getting their own place” belied Tina’s sadness. Protective of her boys, longing for them to experience a calm neighborhood and good schools, she ached at the prospects of living in this place.

Sunday afternoon as the Osbeys tried to walk down the stairs of the apartment, a large group of young men sat on the steps forcing the family to walk over them.

Monday night Tina called. “Beverly,” she said, “someone just shot a gun through my window. My window’s busted out. The bullets went right by face.”

An assailant in a black hood shot numerous times at a fellow running by Tina’s apartment. Along with the bullets shattering her apartment window several other gunshots marked the hallway outside her apartment.

Scattered shells surrounded Tina’s car out in the parking lot.

The sister from church who lives in the neighborhood went over to check on the family. A bunch of young kids milling around the yard outside Tina’s place filled the sister in on the details and were about to describe the assailant’s car when the police finally arrived. Suddenly the children knew nothing.

The police seemed indifferent. The apartment management didn’t board the windows. Tina and the boys spent the night in Desiree’s apartment worried that the few belongings accumulated since Katrina would be stolen.

Tina told me the apartment was broken into overnight although apparently nothing physical was stolen.

According to Tina, the day manager seemed indifferent to reports of violence and the break-in.

The Osbey sisters, though strong and charming stand in the column of those battered by more than Katrina. When the youngest, Desiree was six years old, their father shot and killed their mother while eleven year old Shasta looked on.

Since the Osbeys came to the shelter, those of us working together to offer a theme a temporary home and some comfort, along with learning to love and laugh with them, have learned in bits of pieces a little of what its like to grow up black, in poverty, and in poor health.

We pray the embrace experienced at the temporary shelter will continue to encircle the Osbeys and the other evacuees who have captured the hearts of scores of Memphis Christians eager to offer to comfort and assistance.

We see the vast needs created by Katrina, exacerbated by issues of poverty and race, demand the combined efforts of Christ’s church, the business community, and the government.

Meanwhile Ken and I believe the pulling of the plug by “corporate” bears investigation.

We feel deeply that FEMA and all levels of government nearly breached the social contract in the wake of this disaster.

Monday night’s gunshot speaks of things shattered beyond the glass of Tina’s apartment window.

2005-10-05T17:05:00.000-05:00

DARK ROOMS AND BEAUTIFUL FEET

“Dark rooms. There are some very dark rooms.” Shirley Dowdy Plunket, eyes closed, uttered these words under the influence of medications given after a surgeon amputated both of her legs last week.

What she saw in that altered state of consciousness reflected the reality of her journey over the last two years.

Many of you know Shirley Dowdy Plunket, the mother of my husband Ken, Jim Dowdy Jr., and Dorlea Dowdy Rikard. Through her marriage in her seventies to the late Lamar Plunket, she is the proud stepmother of Trudie Plunkett, Bonnie Plunket Barnett, Rodney Plunket, and Joe Plunket.

Reaching the status of octogenarian on September 23, friends and family members alike will quickly agree with Rodney’s wife, Margaret, that in spite of the fact that she is eighty; Shirley is simply not OLD. Her grandchildren, the Dowdy’s, the Rikards, the Plunkets, and Barnets, don’t think of her as old. Her grandchildren call her on their cell phones. The grandkids call, not under duress, but because they genuinely like talking to her.

Young people have always loved to talk to Shirley.

She’s not old, but in her eighty years the collection of folks for whom she has been a nurturer, a listening ear, a hostess, a bearer of gifts, an encourager, and a comforter may be akin to the descendants of Abraham—as hard to count as the stars in the sky.

After coming of age in the mountains around Denver, marrying her World War II GI sweetheart Jim Dowdy, and settling in Huntsville, Alabama, Shirley walked through life remembering what it meant to be a stranger. She turned that reality into a home renowned for hospitality. Scented by her cooking and baking and infused with her love for special occasions, every room in the Dowdy home sparkled with holiday décor and glowed with the warmth of her welcome.

The Christmas before Ken and I married she welcomed not only me to her home, but my mother and sister from Michigan, and my sister, her husband, and infant son from Atlanta.

Photos displayed in the hallway of her home included young men who had lived with them at various times mixed right in with the photos of Jim Jr., Ken, and Dorlea.

If there were pictures of all the weddings, showers, teas, and parties hosted by Shirley, the hall could not hold them all.

As bright as the rooms in the family’s home in Huntsville were, they could not keep Shirley from walking through the valley of the shadow of death. After over forty years of marriage, she lost Jim to cancer. Within a few years of that loss, she walked to the gravesides of both of her two surviving brothers.

Shirley turned that path into a ministry of grief recovery blessing scores of others surviving the loss of loved ones.

The brightly painted rooms in the home she eventually built in Florence, Alabama provide a light backdrop to picturesque displays celebrating her various affections—children and grandchildren, the Southwest, crystal, cookbooks, a plethora of cool gadgety items, and her years with Lamar.

Taken from her active church and social life, the joy of travel, and her usual paths of service by a devastating staph infection, for the last two years Shirley brightened rooms of hospitals and nursing homes by her spiritual response to the intense suffering she endured. Last Thursday she submitted to a double amputation of her legs due to the unrelenting infection in her knees.

Resolute and understandably a bit fearful, Shirley helped me and others around her cope with her condition. As time for surgery approached, it was gut wrenching to me to think of her losing her pedicured feet. I cried when I saw her closet and remembered how much she always loved shoes.

But as family members sat nearby and listened to her positive assessment of the situation and her faith in the Lord, I thought of the passage in Romans extolling the beautiful feet of those who carry the good news.

When she muttered about the dark rooms, I thought--Shirley Dowdy Plunkett, you have passed through some dark rooms, but no infection, no surgery, no power on this earth, can take away your beautiful feet.

She would love to hear from you.
Shirley Dowdy Plunkett
Mitchell-Hollingsworth Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
805 Flagg Circle
Florence, AL 35631

photo by Julia Elliot
Pictured standing on left-Rachel Formby Dowdy, Kiley Rikard
Seated-Shirley Dowdy Plunket, Dorlea Dowdy Rikard, Beverly Choate Dowdy
Standing right-Meagan Rikard Haney

2005-09-07T18:30:00.000-05:00

I PROMISED THEM YOU WOULD PRAY

A year, maybe more, seemed to have passed between Thursday, September 1 and Monday, September 5.

My husband Ken’s new role as administrative minister at the White Station Church of Christ in Memphis put us in the middle of starting a congregational response to the Katrina. Once a team of folks got together and identified some needs, they decided to open a shelter on Friday night. So, dozens of brothers and sisters, all committed and competent folks, have been praying, planning, praying, scheduling, crying, recruiting, purchasing, donating, folding, organizing, crying and praying.

Sunday afternoon members of the Osbey family of New Orleans, including four sisters, one finace, and twelve children came to stay at the shelter. They told us that their first cousin Cherlyn Nettles left New Orleans with three children when the evacuation order came and went to Baton Rouge to stay with a relative. Her husband Terrell stayed behind with their 10 year-old child who had a handicap. When the flood waters came Terrell tried to keep the child elevated, but his ankle broke and he lost the child to the floodwaters. He was rescued and taken to a shelter in Arkansas.

Sunday evening, the Osbey sisters got word that the couple had found each other. Monday they received confirmation that the child’s body had been identified. Terrell is taking a bus this week to Louisiana to make arrangements for the child, and Cherlyn, Terrell, and their surviving children may come to the shelter on Quince Road in Memphis.

I told them that my friends at church and other places around would pray for them every day this week as they go through this ordeal. We are saving a place for them so they can stay with their cousins if that works out for them.

So, please write down their names: Cherlyn and Terrell Nettles and call them aloud to our Father. Please pray for their cousins, the Osbey sisters. Pray the Osbey children as they start school.

God have mercy on all the survivors.
May God have mercy on us all.

By the way, this makes the stress of selling our house in Atlanta and purchasing one here seem--how shall I say it?

Minimal.

2005-08-31T14:31:00.000-05:00

AFFIRMATION, REPUDIATION, and EDIFICATION
Happy Valentines Day! On February 14, 2006 Harding will be hosting Jose Maria Anzar, President of Spain from 1996 to 2004, instead of Ann Coulter. In an act affirming the highest ethic of Christians--love--and repudiating Ann Coulter's vitriol, though of course, not her conservatism, Harding selected a known statesman.

Now, I will write Dr. Burks a letter saying thanks for listening.

RUMINATION, EDUCATION, AND VITUPERATION

2005-08-22T10:27:00.000-05:00

In the dark hours just before dawn, distressing thoughts sometimes persist. Often I pray them away. Just this morning I battled some darkness of spirit.

About 3:45 am today I awakened. For some reason, Ann Coulter’s image entered my mind. I recall thinking Ann Coulter’s popularity among my Christian friends represents a pernicious feature of religion and right-wing politics.
Ann Coulter spews vitriol poisoning political debate with contempt for political opponents.

For some blessed reason, the Lord let the moment of dark reflection pass. I went back to sleep, awakened at a good time, got ready for work and enjoyed teaching my government classes.

I taught about the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

During the course of the day, I observed that there is a time for war and the courage it demands. I added there is a time for peace, the pursuit of which demands tremendous courage as well.

Peacemaking is not for cowards, I urged.

We listed some peacemakers: Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin, Martin Luther King, Jr. Gandhi, and Jesus.

We could have added another peacemaker--Brother Roger who began the Taize reconciliation movement in France after World War II. This week he suffered a fatal stabbing.

Peacemaking remains a dangerous, but apparently rewarding business. Doesn't it say somewhere that peacemakers will be called sons of God?

As I am getting ready to retire for the night, I read online that Ann Coulter has been asked to speak at the Christian university of which I am alum. While an undergrad there I often winced at the assumptions made there that conservatism in politics was the only way. It was often conveyed that it was the only way in much the same way it was conveyed that Christ was the only way. I winced, but still engaged with enthusiasm in political dialogue, social activities, and spiritual enrichment during my days there.

In the years following, I have taught government and economics for many years. In all of those years, it has been my aim to challenge my students to think deeply, read widely, and speak with civility. I pray they will fulfill the Lord's requirements “to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with their God.”

Many of my students have gone on to attend my alma mater, Harding University. I often speak highly of the potential for an excellent undergrad education. I aver the kind spirit at the university. I have done this often in the presence of their classmates who exude skepticism about Harding University. Some assume a small liberal arts college in Arkansas could not be anything but provincial and arcane. I try to disabuse the skeptics.

Tonight, as I contemplate early morning ruminations, hours of teaching, and the news of the evening, I am chagrined. Bewildered. Disappointed. Saddened.

So as Harding University announced with fanfare the name of Ann Coulter as a speaker in their American Studies program, she becomes part of the heritage and intellectual life of HU students as have other conservative luminaries like Moshe Dyan, Colin Powell, and Barbara Bush. Ann Coulter will join that roll call with others as well. Like Spiro Agnew.

Long ago, I accepted the fact that the university embraces a conservative ideology.

Ideology is one thing.

Hatefulness, spitefulness, and contempt for others is another.

Even a brief perusal of her website shows, that Anne Coulter has earned her review from the Washington Post Book World, as “a fluent polemicist with a gift for Menckenesque invective”.

During my years at Harding, I kept these words from J.B. Phillips translation of James on my bulletin board

3:17-18 - The wisdom that comes from God is first utterly pure, then peace-loving, gentle, approachable, full of tolerant thoughts and kindly actions, with no breath of favoritism or hint of hypocrisy. And the wise are peace-makers who go on quietly sowing for a harvest of righteousness - in other people and in themselves.

I believed that then; I believe it now.

I think I'll write a letter to the president of the university. My husband and I are not big donors. Our objections to this announcement may not carry much weight. Ken is a minister. I am a teacher. Although I have never embraced the political ideology of the institution, I would like to think that we exemplify the core values of our university.

But featuring Ann Coulter makes me think, Harding does not value us.

2005-08-17T00:35:00.000-05:00

Moving Rocks

After a little over ten years in the same house and at the same job, I am moving from Roswell, Georgia to Memphis, Tennessee.

If it “takes a heap of living to make a house home,” what does it take to move?

It depends on what you have to sort through, on what you have to pack, and what you have to unpack.

My friends know we have had a garage that no cars can fit in, because we’ve a good bit of our past with us.

For example, I have a box of rocks.

I have been moving some of these rocks for at least thirty years. Fossils appear in this box from my husband’s childhood collection. The fossils weren’t formed during his childhood. We’re pretty sure they were already solidified by 1952. In high school he displayed them in his room in some fishnet hung from the ceiling over his antiqued avocado green dresser drawers.

A red rock with some sparkling qualities dominates the box. This rock hales from a park in Colorado. The Civilian Conservation Corp constructed the fences and pavilions at that park. Ken’s dad, Jim, proposed to Ken’s mom, Shirley, at that park during World War II.

Once the boys, exultant in discovery, uncovered shards of broken Coke bottles, rusted AW Root Beer caps, and some pieces of broken concrete. When someone disparaged their finds, one of them defended with, “One’s person trash can be another’s treasure.” A concrete treasure stays in the box of rocks.

I’ll admit, my box of rocks, my portfolios of Trevor and Chris’s artwork, the CD jewel cases, the boxes with the school certificates, medals, trophies, and immunization records needed some thinning out.

Paper, scissors, rocks.

When you move what do you keep? What do you cut? What’s solid and sustaining?

It’s not really the things I see that make moving so hard.

Well, okay. Stuff does make moving hard.

Cleaning stuff out that garage reminded me of a weird little film called Housekeeping in which an eccentric woman dealt with her obsessive keeping of stuff by torching her abode. Okay, so a few thoughts of arson have passed through my mind. Figuring it would be hard to set a fire that would selectively preserve some of the priceless papers has repressed the impulse.

My rocks might have survived a garage fire.

After ten years of boys, of teens, of laughter and tears
of work, of play
of faith and fear

After ten years
I am saving and sorting the things of life
our boys’ childhood
the seasoning of our marriage
the weaving and unweaving of friendships and careers

I have resisted torching stuff
I have sorted, straightened, sifted, and tossed

Now, so much is gone
Yet, so much goes

I have packed
much joy
some sorrow
failure and success

I have packed some fear
and bundled up some doubt

I have packed prayer
and a confidence hard won by sharing the yoke of life
with a loving empowering God of grace

I cannot pack Trevor or Chris and Lauren

I cannot pack my sister, Kim, her husband Ted,
or their children Katy and Josh

I cannot pack my many precious friends

I can take my life with Ken
my mom, Jo, along with the heritage of love we bring from all of our parents
the continuing treasure of parenthood

and my box of rocks

I can make the unpacking a work of art
a labor of love

Unpacking can reveal
gifts received
the grace for which my weaknesses continue to beg
the antcipation of joy, friends, and ministry

Moving hurts
Moving exhilarates
Moving rocks

.

2005-07-18T01:17:00.000-05:00

MOTTO SHOPPING

While shopping at Nordstrom Rack last weekend my two sisters began a campaign to find a motto. Not for a business. Just for them. Since it wasn’t for any real enterprise they figured it could be co-opted from a legitimate source and employed for reckless and meaningless self-promotion. The first potential slogan catching their eye was for Nike socks, “appealing exterior-inner strength”.

What kind of family produces sisters who seek mottos?

It became clear to me when we were all together the same weekend to celebrate the wedding of Deborah’s daughter, Emilie Shepherd, to Dale Rohrbach. The minister, Mark Frost said, "Someday Emilie will be raising little Rohrbachs. And someday Dale will be raising little eccentrics."

I think eccentric families seek mottos.

While having breakfast yesterday at Panera Bread Company, Kim discovered the coffee flavors there provided two phrases, either of which might be a fitting motto. She saw potential in “bright and balanced” as well as “dark and vibrant.”

It’s agreed that that “fair and balanced” cannot be a motto. It has already been co-opted.

What kind of sisters do I have that would continue the motto search?

Kim’s a sister that yesterday stopped all of her activities to call and tell me she saw a bumper sticker that read SOMEONE ELSE FOR PRESIDENT. Then, she laughed really hard when I repeated jokes I heard on a Prairie Home Companion rerun. Jokes like, “Hey, John Kerry—what’s with the long face?” Next, she told me all about her Sunday school class in which a graduate theology student from Emory student explained why the ten commandments should not be co-opted by politicians and made out to be a mere public historical document, because the commandments are by their very nature sacred.

Kim’s a person who works hard all of the time to care for her family, to do a good job in her career as a librarian, and to serve the poor. For a couple of years now she has coordinated the COW, Clothes on Wheels, Northlake Church of Christ's clothing ministry serving poor Atlantans.

Deb’s a sister who would find a piece of Victorian crazy quilt embroidered and assembled by our full-blood Chippewa grandmother, have it framed, and then wrap it up and give it to me for Christmas.

Deb’s a person who works hard all of the time to care for her family, to do a good job in her career as a librarian, and to serve the poor. For a dozen years now she has coordinated S.O.S., South Oakland Shelter, Troy Church of Christ's annual one week immersion in homeless ministry serving Oakland County, Michigan. This year's SOS week at Troy Church of Christ began on the Sunday following Emilie's wedding. Never a dull moment for Deb.

Along with hundreds of other books, Kim and Deb read Tolkein, Lewis, and Rowling and tons of the King Arthur stories from the Mists of Avalon to the Crystal Cave.

They embrace the power of story and joyfully believe, as Lewis did, that there is one great Story that is the True Story.They attempt to live out the Story from day to day with grace, guts and passion.

In my life they shine like the son, radiating hope, and inspiring faith.

I don’t think there’s motto adequate to capture their essence, but just for today, it’s a toss up between "dark and vibrant" and "bright and balanced."

2005-06-30T15:59:00.000-05:00

PRAYERS WITHOUT BORDERS

To: bevchoatedowdy@yahoo.com
From: Chris and Lauren
Date: Monday, June 27, 2005

“I just wanted you to know that we went to church with the president yesterday morning.”

My son Chris and his wife Lauren attended worship at St.John’s Episcopal Church Sunday morning. They said they sat about five feet away from the President. They experienced a strong sense of his warmth, charm, humility, and sincerity.

Their sense of this confirms everything I have ever heard of and seen of President George W. Bush. I see him as sincere about his faith and humble in the realization of his place before God. I understand him to be one who comes before God to seek wisdom and strength.

The fact that I challenge his administration’s policies doesn’t fly in the face of that perception.

Thinking of the president at worship reminds me of how sad it is that there is such a climate of animosity in politics today. It’s a bit of irony of to me that at the point when Bible believing Christians have gained a good bit of influence, there is a marked abundance of mean spiritedness.

I am not sure how you analyze it, but it seems to me that the mean spiritedness has not come as a single handed swing from the secular liberals. If I didn’t spend a tremendous amount of time with church going political conservatives, I might be able to blame it on the secular types, but the tone of many among the religious right towards their political opposition often drips with mocking and the assumption of moral and intellectual superiority. I think my Bible believing church going friends and the media, to which they exclusively attend, contribute greatly to the climate of animosity.

Sadly, some folks who regularly pray publicly for President Bush never did so for President Clinton. When President Bush was elected, at one assembly a fellow got up and said, “Thank God we have a Christian president.”

Another fellow in the same assembly turned to his wife and said, “So what is Clinton? Buddhist?”

Whatever you may think about Clinton’s politics and personal life, he privately and publicly acknowledges his reliance on the grace of God.[1] I’m not suggesting you vote him or for his wife. I am suggesting that it’s a little scary to hear condemnations and recriminations of any believer asking for forgiveness.

During the Clinton adminstration, a good friend of mine was undergoing tests for a serious illness. She was told she would probably have to wait four days for the results.I remember remarking "I bet Hilary Clinton wouldn't have to wait for four days."

My friend's minister said, "Well if it was Hilary Clinton, I wouldn't care."

When it comes to political ideology, there are very significant debates to be had, but drawing the borders of the kingdom around views about public policy and politicians may show us to be more the objects of the marketing of political consultants than the disciples of Jesus.

He sees way beyond our ideological, theological, political, ethnic, and national borders and loves the whole world.

This leads me to one of my passionate complaints about church assemblies of late. Since the run up to the invasion of Iraq I have sat in worship assembly after worship assembly made up of fairly conservative folks. Conservative in politics. Conservative in biblical interpretation. One glaring inconsistency to me centers around what seems to be an implicit interpretation of I Timothy.

In these assemblies of worship, the women are excluded from public speaking. This is based on the leaders’ interpretation of the somewhat complicated advice on women in the second chapter of I Timothy. Yet, when I hear prayers led--by the men only--they ignore a direct, simple to interpret, command coming from the first part of the same chapter.

“First of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all those in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all.”

For years now I have heard prayers for our president and for our troops and for our success in war. I am trying to think of a public prayer I have heard in which we prayed for everyone--for all of those in high positions. I rarely, if never, hear a prayer for peace. I rarely, if ever, hear a prayer for our enemies or for the peoples or soldiers of the other lands embroiled in conflict.

Praying for our troops, our president, and our national security reflects our concerns and our anxieties, but I don’t think that limiting our prayers to these reflects the will of God.

He sees way beyond our ideological, theological, political, ethnic, and national borders and loves the whole world.

We could think of it as living below our privilege. We could be praying for all of the leaders of all nations. We could be praying for all humankind everywhere.

How lonely for our president to go to the table of leaders all covered in prayer meeting folks for whom we have NOT prayed.

What a blessing that we can join together to pray for peace for all nations.

When one looks down on earth from the reaches of space, the multi-colored political maps we usually visualize become the artificial. What’s real is the wide expanse of earth with no political lines.

How precious that Chris and Lauren got to worship with President George W. Bush. How precious for them to gain a sense of his warmth, charm, humility, and sincerity.

We can love and appreciate our president. We can love and appreciate our nation. We can ask for safety and security for our loved ones in uniform. We can debate our ideologies. But we must remember His transcendency. God loves all men everywhere. It's time for us to utter prayers without borders.
[1]
* McDonald, Gordon, ”Body Politics, Amid political tensions, when is a pastor to speak out and when to refrain?” Leadership, Fall 2004 p. 107-108

2005-06-28T17:45:00.000-05:00

"Injustice Anywhere"

Ken and I, along with our son Chris and his wife Lauren, walked through the visitors’ center at the Martin Luther King Center last week.

As I thought about the irony of reports of torture perpetrated by US operatives while we work to establish democracy in Iraq and protect our national interest, MLK’s words, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere,” kept echoing in my mind.

Exhibit after exhibit reminded me:

It’s possible for an entire generation and an entire culture to be wrong about important issues.

It’s possible for Christians be on the frontlines of a social and political issue and be wrong.

It’s possible for an individual to speak truth to power, but it may be very costly.

Seeing the response to Martin Luther King’s criticism of the Vietnam War reminded me:

The government will prosecute failed policies in war if they seem politically expedient.

The government will intimidate and smear its critics in war time and seem justified.

Tonight the president will attempt to rev up support for the War in Iraq. Certainly our soldiers fighting there need our prayers and command our respect.

Meanwhile, we should be unafraid to hold leaders responsible for their policies and their rhetoric. We must be unafraid to exercise the freedom to hold a debate over these issues.

Going to the King Center reminded me that while war making is dangerous business, MLK, Gandhi, and Jesus demonstrate that peacemaking is also deadly work.

2005-06-27T14:14:00.000-05:00

Jenny and Hal Runkel
Braves Stadium April 2004

The limits of lilting

“Hello, Mrs. Runkel. This is Dr. _____’ s office.” The lilting voice on the other end left the picture of a woman caller in her early twenties smiling as she continued, “The x-ray taken yesterday shows a mass on your lung so the doctor scheduled a CT scan at 2:30 today.”

From listening to Jenny ‘s account of this, the caller might have been letting her know that reprints from the family vacation photos were finished and could be picked up in the afternoon.

I don’t know if there is any good way to let someone know about a life changing challenge, but it seems to me that there might be a better way.

Perhaps doctors need to review their staff’s approach to calling about results. Just because you tell a staff person once how to make a difficult phone call, doesn’t mean they get it down and remember always. Also, patients probably need to tell the doctor when they experience unnecessary unpleasantness, else the doctor will never know.

So many of you have emailed and expressed concern for Jenny and her family. She has set up a website with regular updates so you can wish her well and let her know of your love and prayers. Go to www.jennyrunkel.com

Tomorrow’s post:
“Injustice Anywhere”
Prompted by a recent visit to the King Center

2005-06-19T20:15:00.000-05:00

“Not exactly the summer I had in mind.” Jenny Runkel

Jenny Runkel, my blond thirty something friend possesses a figure taut from tennis and sun kissed skin. She’s just bronze enough to show off her pearly whites with out the tanning bed look. It’s a very healthy I-have-been-on-the-tennis-court-wearing-sunscreen type of bronze combined with the potential to model for one of those dentists that specialize in whitened teeth.

Her blue eyes dance and laugh and disarm.

Jenny is conversant on a wide range of topics from the dramatic and important to the spicy and obscure. So in a given day we can chat about Shakespeare, Jesus, and Tabasco Sauce. Her mind sharpened by great literature, a smart--slightly smart aleck husband, and brilliant senior high students, generates the kind of humor that produces in me those deep down in the gut kind of laughs.

When I am with her, for a few minutes, I forget to take myself so seriously.

After an exhilarating and often exhausting year of teaching high school juniors and seniors, Jenny Runkel planned to enjoy her kids, her husband’s growing writing career, and some time to write a bit herself. She planned a trip to Houston, a vacation in the tropics, and plenty of tennis. Meanwhile, lymphoma has forced itself into her body, into her consciousness, and now challenges all of her plans.

Thankfully, Jenny is not just conversant about Jesus, she’s conversant with Jesus. Besides the fact that we have both lived in south Louisiana and both teach high school, we have the Jesus thing in common.

For now, since lymphoma has reared its hatefulness, I am admitting to having a few angry and sad conversations with Jesus about all this. After being thankful for Jenny’s friendship and registering my unhappiness at this turn of events, I am asking for few things. Immediate healing will do just fine. If He chooses the chemotherapy route to heal her, then I want Him to give her an overwhelming sense of his peace and joy in the process. I am asking Him to equip her with everything she needs to enjoy her kids, her husband's growing writing career, and write a bit herself.

As she requested, I am praying for Hal and Hannah and Brandon to feel the love and support of God and of the many others who love them so.

As she temporarily lets go of the blond, I am asking that she be able to keep up her tennis game and bit of bronze. I am asking Jesus to keep shining through her dancing blues eyes and her brilliant smile. And I am asking Jesus to provide to her, in increasing measure, pressed down and running over what she has given to me, the sense of being loved and respected, and an inability to take myself too seriously.

JoJo--Yours, Mine and Ours

2005-06-15T18:59:00.000-05:00

This is my one year anniversary of blogging. I wrote one entry on June 3rd 2004, but the first one I really loved writing was on June 7, 2004 called "Prince Albert Goes to War" and it is still one of my favorites. If you read this blog and have never read that post, I would love for you to do so because it's a sweet story about my mom's brother, Bill, who died this time last year.

One startling reality of that passing is that my mom is the last living member of a large "yours, mine, and ours" family. You wouldn't know by her demeanor that she's shouldered the loss of not just her mate and both of her parents, but also all of her sisters, brothers, their wives, and her niece, who was like a sister.

Her demeanor may be to a great extent influenced by her birth order.

First, her natural birth. Do you know any toddlers whose siblings are all teenagers? You know how little ones like that are often doted on by everyone? You know the little one that everyone picks up and loves? Well, I think my mom, Emma Jo Evans Choate, was a much loved little one. This could have produced an overindulged unpleasant type of person. But, not in this case. This "yours, mine, and ours" baby matured into JoJo.

JoJo opens her arms. She picks us up. She loves us. All of us. The whole family. The whole church. The kids at school. The whole staff at Kroger's.

She loves you and you love her.

But don't be fooled into thinking that her cheerfulness precludes a deep seated grief over the stinging losses she sustains. A demeanor like hers can hardly be sustained simply by a natural birth order. It is her second birth, her life in Christ, her spiritual self that keeps the twinkle in her eye, the song in her heart, and openness of her spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that gives birth to an irrepressible spirit of love and hope.

God loves her. She loves us. We love her.

Because God is her father and Jesus is her brother she has embraced the promise of brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers Jesus promised those willing to give it all up for him.

JoJo and Jesus. Yours, mine, and ours.

We are all freshman; we are all seniors

2005-05-18T22:34:00.000-05:00

At the piano-Kieran Patrick Dowdy of

Huntsville, Alabama on the occasion

of his senior piano recital, Sunday, April 18, 2005

In the foreground, his parents, Jim and Rachel Dowdy

The cloudless morning of September 11th brought the class of 2005 into high school and into a new era of life in America. We all became freshman again, treading nervously a new terrain.

We who teach have walked with them on a kind of balance beam seeking a point of equilibrium that may exist at some point out of our range of sight, perhaps out of our dimension. On the morning of September of 11, 2001 my government students opined that their current event assignment was SO boring. The headlines consisted of an education initiative (always exciting to teens) and a couple of shark attacks. The shark attacks were disturbing, no doubt, but hardly brought about any sense of personal threat to our suburban land locked teens.

What followed the World Trade Center attack was the end of our insulation. Shocked into awareness of threats that had existed for a long time, they saw headlines transformed from tedium to terror. From random shark attacks to beheadings.

Then we went to war in Iraq. As Jimmy Carter accepted his Nobel Peace Prize bombs went off in Bagdhad. The political fallout went from the smashing of Dixie Chix CD's, to french fries, to elections in Iraq.

In our examination of public policy, I often felt that we had to balance the possibilities for solutions to world problems with the gravity of the threats. Because even while living with the fog of war--kids still need to be kids.

In those days before September 11, this class charmed us through their toddlerhood, amused us with missing and disproportionately big incisors, entertained us with their voice changes, and startled us with physiques taking adult shapes, overnight, or so it seems.

We assumed this Class of 2005 would have a world like our’s in which to mature. We assumed that we could prepare them for the ups and downs, and to a great extent we have.

But even as we walk under a cloudless sky, we are a country at war.

This week, graduation ceremonies begin, tassels will be turning, taking these kids away from us. The subject of the photo on my blog today rates as my favorite among the class of 2005. He can be favored because he doesn’t go to the school where I teach, and because he is our nephew, Kieran Patrick Dowdy, the child of Jim Dowdy, my husband’s brother, and his wife, Mary Rachel Formby Dowdy. Graduating from Huntsville High in Huntsville, Alabama Thursday night of this week, he will be noted as a summa cum laude scholar. Along with his stellar academic achievements, he has the added charm of being an accomplished pianist.

As we sat at Kieran’s senior piano recital, mesmerized by his rendition of a Rachmaninoff piece, my heart jumped in my throat when my camera captured Jim and Rachel in the foreground with Kieran performing in between them. For a moment I saw them representing all of us who have launched our children. Sitting, watching, and absorbing the artistry of life. Feeling at once the joy and the pain of being a family. Contemplating what love has wrought. Hearing the music, cheering the achievement, anticipating what's next.

We watch this class of 2005 on one hand confident we have equipped them for the trek ahead. We watch this class of 2005 with an unraveling sense that they are walking a path that we have never walked. Both sensibilities are true.

We are all seniors. We are all freshman.

2005-04-20T19:51:00.000-05:00

The vicissitudes of pollen and Prague

My hairstylist's appointment book won't budge until after the big dinner. Twenty essays demand grading. Driving to school, my hair at the miserable can't do a thing-with-it-until-its-cut stage; I glance down noting the floor mats need vacuuming. The brake fluid light shines red and the low coolant light beams yellow. Yellow pollen covers the car. The windshield wipers, sans fluid, turn the dust into yellow granular slimes. As I pull out a quick glance at the mailbox reminds me that the mulching is undone and the snapdragons await planting.

Thoughts turn to home and five loads of laundry awaiting sorting, suds, drying, and worst yet--putting away. Thankfully the Christmas tree is down and put away, but weeks after Easter the fancy eggs from Prague still need nestling in their storage box. Problem is, getting that storage box out would mean opening the pantry which would remind me of the need for grocery shopping and restocking. Restocking the pantry will remind me again, that my husband and son are vegetarians and that I just don't have a good rhythm for meal planning yet. So, it's been three years. My pre-vegetarian meal planning rhythm wasn't all that great either.

Thinking of the stack of unread news, home decorating, and church leadership magazines irks me momentarily until I refocus on the irksomeness of the driver in front of me who seems to think blinkers are for ordinary people. I hope that a few minutes of NPR will help me focus on something more than the cruel vicissitudes of appointment books, pollen, and unread articles. Just my luck. It's pledge drive week.

How much more could go wrong?

Now it's nighttime. I stop working on my classes about 10:30 p.m. and contemplate a couple of pictures my husband Ken and I took on our recent trip to the Czech Republic.

First, Wenceslas Square. Home of the Prague Spring. Few folks alive can forget the thrill of seeing thousands of Czechs gathering there expressing their desire for freedom. Few can forget the spring of 1968 when Soviet tanks and troops crushed the nascent democratic movement.

I see the picture we took of a little wrought iron plant holder mounted on a tile on a building close to the square. I asked Ken to take the picture because I thought the plants were cheery and the wrought iron holder clever.Stepping closer, I saw an inscription on the tile. Our friend, Eddie White, read the Czech inscription explaining that it is a memorial to a 50 year-old woman who was shot and killed at that spot in 1968.

Someone, perhaps her grandchildren, placed the color plants.

What luxury--no, what grace---to experience appointment books, pollen, unread magazines, and ungraded essays as the vicissitudes of life.

2005-04-19T20:38:00.000-05:00

Wenseclas Square

2005-04-04T08:38:00.000-05:00

Hi friends.
This week Ken and I are in Brno, Czech Republic with 23 other folks with the GACS Czech Mission Team. We have enjoyed cloudless blue skies and the company of members of the Brno Church of Christ as well as the students at the Brno Gymnazium Videnske--a secondary school. If you are interested in our trip journal Czech us out at www.gacsczechtrip.blogspot.com

Grace and peace to you.

Here's a view from the train station...

2005-03-26T22:34:00.000-05:00

One night at the cinema and a week of TV news

Hotel Rwanda
Red Lake Reservation
Fulton County Superior Court
Woodside Hospice
Guantanamo Bay

A tiny kitchen in a small apartment in Duluth

Matters of life and death
Matters of morality
Matters of politics

As we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead
Do it again God
Do a mighty work

Let your angel roll away stones
stones of
unbelief
hatred
racism
violence
oppression
war

Let your people find their broken selves
quickened by
faith
love
brotherhood
gentleness
service
peace

at our kitchen tables
may we speak truth and love and purpose
in the face of hopelessness and threat
may we copy the courage of Paul Rusesabagina
and be students of Ashley Smith

in the halls of power
may we speak truth and love and purpose
in the face of hopelessness and threat
may we copy the courage of the prophets
and be the imitation of Christ