Sunday, January 31, 2010
Memories of a fun snowy day past in Country Park Greensboro - http://ping.fm/MZxS7
Friday, January 22, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Time to Finish the Job with the Confederate Flag
Ever since the Confederate Flag was removed from the top of the SC State House back in the year 2000 I had had it in my mind that it had been placed somewhere on the west side of the State House grounds. Last year on a visit to Columbia I was strolling around the university area and downtown and I walked up the stairs of the State House. I've always liked sitting up there.
It's hard for me not to envision that horrific photo taken from the same spot in 1865 looking out on the city burned and destroyed. I try to picture in my mind that horrible day and week, and I give thanks that the cause of so many of my great great grandfathers (and one great grandfather) did not in the end prevail.
It's perhaps part of the uniqueness of southern culture and identity that I have always had a tendency to consider myself first a southerner and South Carolinian, and then an American. I exaggerate somewhat but the association with my home state and region is deep.
And I always thought it a profound offense to the people of my home state to have the Confederate battle flag flying on top of our State House. I say that as a son of the Confederacy many times over.
What surprised me last summer sitting up top of the State House steps was finding the Confederate flag in such a prominent position on the grounds. Looking FROM the State House steps toward downtown it is the Confederate flag one mainly sees. Approaching the State House from Main Street the flag is perhaps even more prominent now than when it was on top of the dome. I had just been unaware of this the last ten years, and was quite taken back.
I wanted to write about it then but a SC friend suggested it would not be appreciated and might close doors for me as to work in my state. It's pretty sensitive stuff apparently.
Southern secession, the Civil War and the Confederate Flag are an unexcisable part of the history and heritage of South Carolina and many other states. I'm not sure these things should be celebrated, but they should be remembered, and there is a place for monuments and flags and exhibits in their memory. Just not in front of the State House. It its current position and prominence the Confederate flag's presence feels more like a celebration, or if not that a direct statement as to a current identification with the Confederate cause.
The Confederate flag is also, quite understandably and rightfully, a cause of profound offense to a very large part of South Carolina's population. Try as many do (in needful revisions to revisionist history) to disconnect slavery causally from the Civil War, well, it is just not credible. In fact the inordinate political turmoil and sectional politics of the latter first half of the 19th century was due largely to the slavery question and rooted deeply in and around the institution of slavery. There is a direct organic line of causality between the very first importation of African people's here as slaves and what eventually became our darkest hour as a nation. There is no way to disassociate the Confederate flag from the unspeakable inhumanity of the enslavement of millions of human beings by other human beings. I know the hundred objections that may follow. I also know that not one of them holds water.
The Confederate flag in its current placement and position is morally, socially, and spiritually oppressive. It is an unkindness of gargantuan proportions. It's time to finish the job and move the flag - again.
The Memorial honoring the Confederate dead is appropriate and quite prominent enough. One might like to see a Memorial honoring the enslaved dead given as much prominence. And I can see a Confederate flag placed on the west side of the Grounds perhaps, accompanied by a sober and non celebratory Memorial, one that honors the profound deep historical significance and human/cultural/economic cost of the War Between the States.
In the end the Confederate cause is one not worthy of celebration. The untold human stories of bravery and kindness in the midst of the conflict may well be worth celebrating, but not the cause itself.
To this day when I read books about the Civil War, and about battles where the Confederate side lost, I feel a kind of aching sadness. I cannot watch the Ken Burns documentary without coming to tears over and over again. At some visceral level I identify with the South even in her very worst moments. But waking up from pulling again for the military underdog (when I wish that we had taken Little Round Top and wished Lee had not sent Picket up that hill) I give thanks for defeat, and feel a deep sorrow for the centuries of oppression and enslavement that ultimately led to those two great armies clashing in the fields and woods and hills of Gettysburg.
And now, today, we need to stop poking our African American neighbors in the eye, or maybe more accurately, in the heart. The flag needs to move. Let's finish what we started in 2000. Love demands it.
It's hard for me not to envision that horrific photo taken from the same spot in 1865 looking out on the city burned and destroyed. I try to picture in my mind that horrible day and week, and I give thanks that the cause of so many of my great great grandfathers (and one great grandfather) did not in the end prevail.
It's perhaps part of the uniqueness of southern culture and identity that I have always had a tendency to consider myself first a southerner and South Carolinian, and then an American. I exaggerate somewhat but the association with my home state and region is deep.
And I always thought it a profound offense to the people of my home state to have the Confederate battle flag flying on top of our State House. I say that as a son of the Confederacy many times over.
What surprised me last summer sitting up top of the State House steps was finding the Confederate flag in such a prominent position on the grounds. Looking FROM the State House steps toward downtown it is the Confederate flag one mainly sees. Approaching the State House from Main Street the flag is perhaps even more prominent now than when it was on top of the dome. I had just been unaware of this the last ten years, and was quite taken back.
I wanted to write about it then but a SC friend suggested it would not be appreciated and might close doors for me as to work in my state. It's pretty sensitive stuff apparently.
Southern secession, the Civil War and the Confederate Flag are an unexcisable part of the history and heritage of South Carolina and many other states. I'm not sure these things should be celebrated, but they should be remembered, and there is a place for monuments and flags and exhibits in their memory. Just not in front of the State House. It its current position and prominence the Confederate flag's presence feels more like a celebration, or if not that a direct statement as to a current identification with the Confederate cause.
The Confederate flag is also, quite understandably and rightfully, a cause of profound offense to a very large part of South Carolina's population. Try as many do (in needful revisions to revisionist history) to disconnect slavery causally from the Civil War, well, it is just not credible. In fact the inordinate political turmoil and sectional politics of the latter first half of the 19th century was due largely to the slavery question and rooted deeply in and around the institution of slavery. There is a direct organic line of causality between the very first importation of African people's here as slaves and what eventually became our darkest hour as a nation. There is no way to disassociate the Confederate flag from the unspeakable inhumanity of the enslavement of millions of human beings by other human beings. I know the hundred objections that may follow. I also know that not one of them holds water.
The Confederate flag in its current placement and position is morally, socially, and spiritually oppressive. It is an unkindness of gargantuan proportions. It's time to finish the job and move the flag - again.
The Memorial honoring the Confederate dead is appropriate and quite prominent enough. One might like to see a Memorial honoring the enslaved dead given as much prominence. And I can see a Confederate flag placed on the west side of the Grounds perhaps, accompanied by a sober and non celebratory Memorial, one that honors the profound deep historical significance and human/cultural/economic cost of the War Between the States.
In the end the Confederate cause is one not worthy of celebration. The untold human stories of bravery and kindness in the midst of the conflict may well be worth celebrating, but not the cause itself.
To this day when I read books about the Civil War, and about battles where the Confederate side lost, I feel a kind of aching sadness. I cannot watch the Ken Burns documentary without coming to tears over and over again. At some visceral level I identify with the South even in her very worst moments. But waking up from pulling again for the military underdog (when I wish that we had taken Little Round Top and wished Lee had not sent Picket up that hill) I give thanks for defeat, and feel a deep sorrow for the centuries of oppression and enslavement that ultimately led to those two great armies clashing in the fields and woods and hills of Gettysburg.
And now, today, we need to stop poking our African American neighbors in the eye, or maybe more accurately, in the heart. The flag needs to move. Let's finish what we started in 2000. Love demands it.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Pat Robertson needs to shut up. He cannot read Providence. His hubris sickens. His tactlessness is childish. http://ping.fm/NA525
Friday, January 08, 2010
Monday, December 28, 2009
An excellent article about how NT Wright has ruined Jesus movies AND Christmas - http://ping.fm/QfMRS
Remembering Rennie
I am not sure when I first met Rennie Perrone. My first clear memory of him is fixed however. After his dear wife passed away he moved up to Greensboro from Florida. One day he came to church with Charlie and Terry. As with many people and Rennie, it was friendship at first site.
Rennie was always the best dressed guy in the room. He had suits of every color of the rainbow, with matching kerchiefs. He liked to look good.
I started hanging out with Rennie as did many others, mainly going with him to lunch. We usually ate Italian food – and Vito’s Italian was our favorite hangout. Dennis Frohlich more often than not joined us. Rennie liked the food at Vito's, and he liked talking Italian with the owners. He always insisted on paying. He was a very generous man.
Rennie always had a glass of wine for lunch and usually no water. He would situate his cloth napkin just so, with half of it under the plate and the other half hanging down in his lap. Usually we both ordered Eggplant Parmesan. Well, I always did, and he often did.
It was fun to shoot the breeze with Rennie. I liked it that he would occasionally cuss. Nobody likes to cuss around a pastor and I’m glad Rennie felt free to do so. He always made me laugh.
Usually our conversation at some point would bring to his mind his wife or the business he owned or his time in the army. Rennie was Italian and was very free with his emotions. Thoughts of his wife always brought Rennie to tears. He missed her terribly. He liked to tell stories about his children too – Paul and Terry. I heard the story of Rennie meeting Terry’s future husband Charlie many times.
Rennie looked at me to some degree as one does a priest, and our conversations were often much like a confessional. Rennie was Catholic by culture and upbringing. He was faithful in attending Catholic mass on Saturday evenings. He was of that generation that did not speak easily about matters of faith, and he was also of a generation of nominal Catholicism. He didn’t buy a lot of it, yet he could never walk away from it either.
I think that Rennie had a real and legitimate faith in Christ. Despite his natural generational reticence we talk many many times about faith and belief and about life and death.
I loved sitting by or near Rennie in church. He had a really nice voice and very good song memory, singing not only the hymns but the more syncopated modern choruses very well. He liked my preaching too. “Good speech,” He would say to me. Rennie liked to grab your hands when he talked to you. There was no talking in passing with Rennie. It was hold each other’s hands and talk closely or not at all. As his eyesight failed him, touch became ever more important.
Rennie was a gentleman, and he was at his very best in the presence of ladies, whether five or ninety years old. He was so very kind to my daughters. He always sent birthday cards, and always asked me how each individual child was doing. They had the privilege of knowing and visiting him often along with Susan.
It is not the norm anymore to bring an elderly parent in one’s house to live out his or her days in familiar surroundings, and that is what Charlie and Terry did, thus giving Rennie the stability and the dignity of a home. They lived out in a very real and personal way the commandment to honor your mother and your father.
Rennie’s real name was Arazio, or something close to that. I think the “z” had a “dz” sound. I liked calling him Arazio. I think he liked it too.
Rennie was an army veteran. He served in the European theater in WWII, not as an infantryman but as a cook. He often told the story of how one day his camp, close to the front lines, came under mortar attack. He had been standing in front of the big metal coffee pot making coffee for the guys, and for some reason unknown to him had just moved a few feet to one side and then Bam!, a mortar shell exploded outside of the tent and a big fragment sliced right through the coffee pot. Rennie liked to say how God had given him a chance at more life that day, and he was always very grateful.
Rennie had taught himself to play a Liberace type piano over the years, and Charlie and Terry had set up a very nice digital piano for him in the den. I loved to listen to Rennie play. Sometimes when no one else was around I would play a little with him or sing along. We were a good team.
I had not seen Rennie much in the last six months but so many many times spent with him are etched into my mind and heart. I count it one my greatest honors in life to have been Rennie Perone’s friend. I will cherish his memory all my life, and await with joy holding his hands and talking in the New Heaven and New Earth.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Trees in Winter
There was a time in my life during the season between the end of daylight savings time and the winter solstice, when I think I was prone to a mild case of seasonal affective disorder, or maybe just the early sundown blues. Thankfully that time is long past. I’m too busy now for one thing. And the other thing is that I have fallen in love with the woods in winter. I look forward to winter woods like some people look forward to spring flowers. More than anything, it is the trees. I love trees in winter.
For the sake of modesty and warmth people need to put on clothes. But clothes hide what people “really” look like (though I’ll just take the clothed look, thank you). As for trees, all those leaves, as beautiful and green as they are, hide the unique and often magnificent personality of the tree beneath. The uniqueness of each and every tree is more evident in its nakedness.
There is a White Oak out my side window. It is almost completely leafless now, with only a few red hanger-on leaves dangling here and there. I see its twisted and gnarly branches more clearly than ever. They reveal its story. This White Oak grew up in its early years with some good competition, but then, that competition diminished. About thirty feet up some very stout limbs grow straight out from the trunk. I am guessing, by the size and age of the tree, that the “competition” was cleared for the building of the houses around, and the builders decided to spare that White Oak. It’s a grand old tree, though it’s a little sick, and I worry for it.
It’s easy to notice tree bark in winter. I am one of those odd fellows who thinks that tree bark is very beautiful and quite cool. The sun likes to highlight the bark of a leafless tree, especially the higher-up bark. Winter is time for the bark to shine. Some bark literally does shine. Sycamore trees peel off huge plates revealing a bright chalky white underbark. Take a walk through Latham Park and you will see plenty of that.
Lots of stuff hangs from trees in winter letting you know about the tree. Tulip Poplar balls like to hang around for a while bouncing in the wind. Plus the last Spring flower cups are very visible reaching to the sky at the end of the high stems. Locust Tree bean pods like to flutter in the breeze throughout the winter rattling like old bones. There’s always the stubborn Sweet Gum balls that won’t let go, just waiting to drop in early Spring when your are just first walking out in your bare feet! Gotcha!
Many trees keep their berries throughout the winter. You’d think for example that the birds would eat up all the dogwood berries right away, but the berries often dry out a little and provide food for the birds all winter long. Same for Red Cedar berries, those lovely little gray-blue balls that often cover a Cedar tree. Same for Black Gum. Same for American Holly. I know our Holly bush is not a Holly tree, but it brings joy all winter watching the Mockingbirds eat berries from our Holly bush. It’s like they know how to ration the supply. Interesting.
You may need to be a bit of a tree geek for this one, but tree buds and tree stems are fascinating in the winter. By looking at a bare tree stem you can tell how much it grew the last growing season. It’s really easy. You can also tell a lot about the leaves, even when there aren’t any. You can tell if they come off the stem opposite to each other or whether they come of the stem in whorls. You can also tell how many main tree “veins” feed each leaf. From this, more or less, you can often guess if the leaves are compound or not. You can know a lot about what kind of tree it is by how the buds are arranged. Is there one big bud at the end of the stem? Is there a cluster of buds at the end of the stem? Is the bud really at the end or sort of off to the side toward the end? In fact, you can key a tree, that is determine what it is, in winter, without the leaves at all.
The future fate of life on earth is nestled in those little buds. That is just barely an exaggeration. What is it that protects the life inside that bud (and hence next year's growth, and next year's ability to feed flower and seed) from the cold of winter? It is those scales around the bud. Different trees have different kinds of scales. Some bud scales are like two plates meeting in the middle. Some are like fish scales. You can tell a lot about a tree from those scales.
Winter is the time for Pine trees to make their presence known. They kind of pop out and say "We're here" in winter. Hey, I am a South Carolina boy. I was raised on climbing Pine trees to the top, looking up to the deep blue sky through the black branches and green needles of Pine trees, spending half an afternoon trying to get Pine sap off my favorite jeans, engaged for hours in Pine cone wars with the enemy across the wall next door, and nursing skinned up legs from shimmying up and down Pine trunks. In Greensboro there are a few places where I like to go just to breathe in the Pine tree air, peel off some plates of Pine tree bark, fiddle with Pine tree cones, and just generally feel at home.
It’s nice to walk the woods in winter. You can see farther for one thing. You can tell more easily what has been the history of the land you're walking for another. I like trying to figure that out by the ages of the trees, the kinds of trees, the ways that the terrain has been changed by man, how or where a fire may have swept through fifty or so years ago. It’s a kind of sleuthing that I enjoy.
Maybe my favorite thing to do, especially on a cold winter day, is to find a nice stout tree that I can sit against, one with the sun shining full force right on the bottom of the trunk, and just take a seat. Oh how I love the sun on my face in winter. And there I sit. No bugs. Quiet. As quiet as I can be. If the winds are right, and if I'm still enough, the animals will soon not notice me. Many times right here in Greensboro deer have walked near, hawks have flown and perched close by, even squirrels have nervously scampered quite close to my feet. I cannot measure the joy of such times.
Such joy gives me strength to go back and re-enter the world of people. Trees are not fickle and moody and complicated and proud like people, like me. They just "are." How I love them so.
(edited from a post first written November 17, 2006)
For the sake of modesty and warmth people need to put on clothes. But clothes hide what people “really” look like (though I’ll just take the clothed look, thank you). As for trees, all those leaves, as beautiful and green as they are, hide the unique and often magnificent personality of the tree beneath. The uniqueness of each and every tree is more evident in its nakedness.
There is a White Oak out my side window. It is almost completely leafless now, with only a few red hanger-on leaves dangling here and there. I see its twisted and gnarly branches more clearly than ever. They reveal its story. This White Oak grew up in its early years with some good competition, but then, that competition diminished. About thirty feet up some very stout limbs grow straight out from the trunk. I am guessing, by the size and age of the tree, that the “competition” was cleared for the building of the houses around, and the builders decided to spare that White Oak. It’s a grand old tree, though it’s a little sick, and I worry for it.
It’s easy to notice tree bark in winter. I am one of those odd fellows who thinks that tree bark is very beautiful and quite cool. The sun likes to highlight the bark of a leafless tree, especially the higher-up bark. Winter is time for the bark to shine. Some bark literally does shine. Sycamore trees peel off huge plates revealing a bright chalky white underbark. Take a walk through Latham Park and you will see plenty of that.
Lots of stuff hangs from trees in winter letting you know about the tree. Tulip Poplar balls like to hang around for a while bouncing in the wind. Plus the last Spring flower cups are very visible reaching to the sky at the end of the high stems. Locust Tree bean pods like to flutter in the breeze throughout the winter rattling like old bones. There’s always the stubborn Sweet Gum balls that won’t let go, just waiting to drop in early Spring when your are just first walking out in your bare feet! Gotcha!
Many trees keep their berries throughout the winter. You’d think for example that the birds would eat up all the dogwood berries right away, but the berries often dry out a little and provide food for the birds all winter long. Same for Red Cedar berries, those lovely little gray-blue balls that often cover a Cedar tree. Same for Black Gum. Same for American Holly. I know our Holly bush is not a Holly tree, but it brings joy all winter watching the Mockingbirds eat berries from our Holly bush. It’s like they know how to ration the supply. Interesting.
You may need to be a bit of a tree geek for this one, but tree buds and tree stems are fascinating in the winter. By looking at a bare tree stem you can tell how much it grew the last growing season. It’s really easy. You can also tell a lot about the leaves, even when there aren’t any. You can tell if they come off the stem opposite to each other or whether they come of the stem in whorls. You can also tell how many main tree “veins” feed each leaf. From this, more or less, you can often guess if the leaves are compound or not. You can know a lot about what kind of tree it is by how the buds are arranged. Is there one big bud at the end of the stem? Is there a cluster of buds at the end of the stem? Is the bud really at the end or sort of off to the side toward the end? In fact, you can key a tree, that is determine what it is, in winter, without the leaves at all.
The future fate of life on earth is nestled in those little buds. That is just barely an exaggeration. What is it that protects the life inside that bud (and hence next year's growth, and next year's ability to feed flower and seed) from the cold of winter? It is those scales around the bud. Different trees have different kinds of scales. Some bud scales are like two plates meeting in the middle. Some are like fish scales. You can tell a lot about a tree from those scales.
Winter is the time for Pine trees to make their presence known. They kind of pop out and say "We're here" in winter. Hey, I am a South Carolina boy. I was raised on climbing Pine trees to the top, looking up to the deep blue sky through the black branches and green needles of Pine trees, spending half an afternoon trying to get Pine sap off my favorite jeans, engaged for hours in Pine cone wars with the enemy across the wall next door, and nursing skinned up legs from shimmying up and down Pine trunks. In Greensboro there are a few places where I like to go just to breathe in the Pine tree air, peel off some plates of Pine tree bark, fiddle with Pine tree cones, and just generally feel at home.
It’s nice to walk the woods in winter. You can see farther for one thing. You can tell more easily what has been the history of the land you're walking for another. I like trying to figure that out by the ages of the trees, the kinds of trees, the ways that the terrain has been changed by man, how or where a fire may have swept through fifty or so years ago. It’s a kind of sleuthing that I enjoy.
Maybe my favorite thing to do, especially on a cold winter day, is to find a nice stout tree that I can sit against, one with the sun shining full force right on the bottom of the trunk, and just take a seat. Oh how I love the sun on my face in winter. And there I sit. No bugs. Quiet. As quiet as I can be. If the winds are right, and if I'm still enough, the animals will soon not notice me. Many times right here in Greensboro deer have walked near, hawks have flown and perched close by, even squirrels have nervously scampered quite close to my feet. I cannot measure the joy of such times.
Such joy gives me strength to go back and re-enter the world of people. Trees are not fickle and moody and complicated and proud like people, like me. They just "are." How I love them so.
(edited from a post first written November 17, 2006)
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