Christmas 2012

The end did not come after all.  Four days ago, the end of the world was part of at least four conversations I had with my children, thanks in part to the publicity numerous outlets gave the "event." And yet, we are still here.  I am grateful but in a different kind of way.  Christmas is an annual reminder that God has not given up on creation.  Though we will open presents in a few hours and the chaos of the day will whirl us around.  In the quiet of this moment, I am grateful that God has not given up hope.  Merry Christmas.

Mary's Prayer

This morning, as I sit in my comfortable house surrounded by my comfortable things, I am thinking about Mary's prayer found in Luke.  She has rushed away from her hometown because the pregnancy will cause a stir, if it hasn't already, and retreats to her cousin's home.  In our rush to meet Jesus, we often miss the scandal of his arrival.  Since his birth is miraculous, it appears that we wave a magic wand and say, God is his father.  The problem is that Luke recognized the scandal.  Not only would the Roman empire have been ready for the proclamation, Son of God, most of its citizens knew who wore the title and it would not be attached to a boy born of a woman of low status. In our backward glance with its twenty-twenty vision, everything is tidy and fully understood, But the scandal was that God would choose a young woman of no status to usher in his kingdom.  Her prayer emphasizes Luke's larger point that the good news is for everyone, period.  Hear the world turning up side down in her words:

And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord, 
   and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, 
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
   and holy is his name. 
His mercy is for those who fear him
   from generation to generation. 
He has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly; 
he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty. 
He has helped his servant Israel,
   in remembrance of his mercy, 
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
   to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

The proud are shut out, the high will no longer remain in power, and the poor will sing God's redemptive praises.

I am struck this year by my comfort.  What if I am the proud, the powerful, and the wealthy?  Since the focus of the prayer is often on its simplicity and beauty, the condemnation appears lost on us.  What if the prayer no longer includes us?  I think I have focused on this passage differently this week because of the events that surround this Advent season.  In the week since a present day murder of the innocents, we have continued to see men in high places speak for God to explain the tragedy.  Perhaps they would be wise to follow the ancient Hebrew tradition of sitting quietly with those who mourn, rather than talking.  

When asked to point to a Biblical text that supported the political position of gun rights, Richard Land, head of the public policy agency for the Southern Baptist Convention, used "due undo others."  And the head of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, called for the armed guards to stand at school entrances to make sure the tragic episode never happened again.  Shouldn't Mary's prayer cause us some hesitation with our posturing?  Mary claims that fear will no longer dominate a world that feeds off it.  The mighty want the masses to live in fear because it means they can continue to control the terms of living.  

Mary's "magnificat" explodes that idea.  The masses, in Luke it would be everyone not in power, live in faith that God rectifies the world and governs with mercy.  My sense of this week is that Mary has wept over all of us.  Children die every day---the city of Oakland, CA averages twenty deaths per year around its schools and across the nation we hear very little of that loss of innocents---and yet we continue to hold on the status quo because we are comfortable.  The kingdom of God is near when a mother cries when she loses a child and a father stands against injustice.  The arc of God's justice bends toward them.  My hope this Advent season, and throughout the years, is that we remember that God chooses strange places "to be with us" so we need to be still and know that God is God, and we are not God.

Advent Saddness

The AP wire app on my phone sent the first signal that yesterday would be different.  A quick two line message that said "Reported shooting at school: Newtown, CT."  I cleared the message and went on with grading finals.  While doing some exercises later in the morning, I received more notices with more details, sometimes conflicting with details posted earlier that morning.  In the afternoon, the messages started including death tolls and then the horror of the day: children among the dead.  I paused, thought about my children at school, and said a short prayer for families that could not count on that sense of security.  The routine returned but the day was different.

And then Facebook blew up.  First, posts related to information about the shootings started appearing.  Second, concern for gun violence flared.  Third, posts clarifying misinformation. Fourth, posts that noted an absence of prayer/God in schools caused this profound evil.  By that evening, posts had counter-posts and the great gun debate returned.  I have two observations from the day.

The power of an open and transparent media helps us make sense of the world around us, but news that unfolds before our eyes, generally without filters, causes knee-jerk reactions.  The spread of social media allows us to receive information almost too fast.  I am as guilty of this need for information as anyone else, as my AP app shows.  The corrections for the AP wire are an example of this pressure to produce information at breakneck speed.  As the shootings' toll became clear, two  Facebook newsfeed posts appeared next to each other that stated the information wasn't coming fast enough and that the information needed to slow down with some filters.  My fear in all of this is that we'll spend an enormous amount of unproductive time arguing over gun laws and forget to ask serious questions about ourselves and our need for sensational news.  Children die too frequently from gunshot wounds around this nation and we barely raise our heads from the television/phone/computer.  But yesterday was different; the facade of control came off and we did not like it.  Whether guns kill people or people kill people cliche represents our bumper-sticker culture, minimizing a serious moral quandary to an either/or option.  Yesterday and today, I could care less.   Last night, parents who purchased their children's Christmas gifts will not have those children on Christmas day to open the gifts.  Last night, grandparents cried because they cannot take away their children's grief.  Each one of those numbers has a unique story, including the young man who caused the mayhem.  All of these families grieve the lost of someone precious, and they will likely never have sufficient answers to comfort them.  We shared in their worst moment and made judgements about our nation.  Their grief required so much more from us.

I am grateful that God's presence in this day is beyond our control.  Mike Huckabee, God bless him, became the Jerry Falwell of our time.  I am not in the business of understanding the presence of evil in our world.  I have some theological opinions, but generally keep those to myself to help me understand the chaos that sometimes enters my life.  But Rev. Huckabee decided yesterday was a good time to remind Americans that the removal of God from schools "caused" this tragedy.  Shut up, sir!  The presumption that all those children and adults did not bring God into the classroom with them is stupid.  May their last prayers, said in shear terror, cover the sins of those who make political judgements out of tragedy.  God was there yesterday, just like God is there every day, in the mundane roll taking and simple coloring/spelling exercises and in the heart-wrenching loss of life.  I am sorry that a minister of the gospel forgot yesterday that the God we worship is present in the suffering not the moral platitudes of punditry.  Yesterday, he failed to be a minister.  Forgive us, God, for invoking you in the midst of our own agendas.  So, I am grateful that God was there yesterday in ways that I will never fully understand.  Since I am inclined to fuss like Job, I may even feel the need to ask God tough questions, but that means God is listening, even as he judges.  Hopefully for Rev. Huckabee, God will be gracious to all of us.

As I return to my routine, all of those families who were affected yesterday do not get to go back to their routine.  Their new normal will play out in front of millions and will become the fodder for political rhetoric.  My hope this morning is that God's spirit will be present to them in the kindness of strangers who will become a part of their lives and that they may one day find Advent peace.

Advent thoughts: Ethan

Proud of my son, Ethan, who wrote this in his fifteenth year for our church's Advent devotional series.

Advent Meditation Friday, 7 December 2012 Christian Houses This passage makes me think that all Christians live in God’s house, so therefore, the houses of those who believe in him are the same, and all Christians should be able to enter and exit as they please. It makes me wonder about what happened to that idea in today’s era. Maybe it was the thieves. I think we should still be able to do that, and in a way, we do. Most of our friends are Christian, and we visit and hang out with our friends on a little under than half of the days of the year. What the passage means is more than that, I suppose. In today’s society, one does not simply allow a stranger in their house, Christian or not. It’s dangerous, and not many people these days are not as trustworthy as we’d like to believe. However, the passage may mean even more than that. It resurfaces many times throughout the Bible, and is probably known and ignored by many of us, including me. It’s giving what we have willingly for those who don’t have our resources. Many times, someone has come to me and asked for money, but I didn’t give it. It’s our place, I think, as Christians, to give what we have, and I believe Jesus was testing “The Big Twelve” by telling them to go to houses and live as long as they needed, and they were testing those who owned the houses to let the disciples in and house and feed and clothe them. It’s a challenge that has been issued to us as a society. Devotional by Ethan Thompson Luke 9:1-6 The Mission of the Twelve 1 Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. 3 He said to them, ‘Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money – not even an extra tunic. 4 Whatever house you enter, stay there, and leave from there. 5 Wherever they do not welcome you, as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.’ 6 They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere. Merry Christmas! First Baptist Church of Christ 511 High Place, Macon, GA 31201 fbcxmacon.org

Birthdays

Baby Woodruff, the sign said at the foot of the crib.  A friend, and mentor, sent a birthday message yesterday and wished happy tidings to Baby Woodruff.  I smiled.  Rarely do I remember that I have had two names: one assigned in the hospital before my adoption was finalized and one given to me by my parents.  Since I lived with the first "name" for only ten days, I think I can be forgiven for not remembering it.  But in a minor milestone year (turning 45), it felt right to remember that brief beginning.

I am grateful for all that my parents have done for me.  They often told me the story of my arrival in the early evening of June 1 and their dashing to the hospital to see me but only briefly because the ward was closing to visitors.  First thing the next morning, they were back but they were not allowed to hold me, so they stared through the glass and the nurses moved my crib as close to the glass as possible.  They also told me that the nurses held me more than the other babies, but my guess is that they were just saying that because they were proud parents.  I have not celebrated a birthday with my birth name, which is probably a good thing since "Baby" might have gotten me beat up somewhere along the way.  As I have reflected on the day, however, it appears right in mid-journey to pass by that touchstone for two reasons.  I am grateful that my parents loved me, even when I was not their own.  It is a model of parenting I have returned to over the years, particularly in the past two.  And I am grateful for a "mother" who loved me enough to give me to a loving family.  Two and a half decades ago, a scared, brave young teenager brought me into this world and the nurses carried me out of the room to the outstretched arms of adoring parents who could not yet touch me.  I was blessed on both ends of that short journey from one room to the next.

Thank you, Mike Cass, for reminding me of my name(s) and helping me to re-member the enormous amount of love that brought me into this world and has sustained me ever since.

Too Young

It has been a week of complex emotions and wild swings in one direction and then another.  Ten days ago we gave the go ahead to begin work on a major renovation to our home.  My dad is coming to live in the house with us and we are adding a full-bathroom to a bonus room that will be his space.  Nine days ago my oldest son began receiving texts from a friend that a mutual friend had a bad allergic reaction to cookies that contained peanuts.  Over the course of the next two days we learned that a bright, energetic fifteen-year-old was dead.  He was too young to die and my children were too young to have to deal with the reality of this fragile thing we call life.  They have lost a grandmother and a great-grandmother, but both of those loses, painful in other ways, were expected.  Our teenager learned last week about mortality, the swiftness of that moment when life is gone.

On Monday we attended the funeral service for the young man.  Our sons sat properly and respectively for the almost two hour service.  The young man's soccer teammates spoke eloquently, and the preachers spoke formulaically.  I know there is a victory in Jesus in some distant time and place, but I still want to know why this child and why now?  In the end, I must be satisfied that the family found comfort in the service, and we got to hug our children that night.

On Monday, immediately after the funeral, we attended our oldest son's "cross-over" ceremony as he completes eighth grade.  We are very proud of him.  He won an award for outstanding writing score in the state writing assessment.  He seems too young to enter high school.  I know intellectually that he is not too young, but this child we brought into the world fourteen years ago still wants his mother to scratch his back at night before bed, still hugs us when we say good-bye in public places, and still holds onto the power of the faith of the little children.  In the chaos of the ceremony, I could not help but think about how odd the day was --- the juxtaposition of the funeral to the celebration of achievement --- and how odd the past week has been --- changes in our house and family that keep us always looking forward to some future date and the reality that the present is all we are guaranteed.  Perhaps we are all too young for these reality checks but they happen anyway.  Perhaps this fragility reminds us that none of us are ever too young.

Dad's Moving

For the second time in nearly five years, my dad has moved to be closer to us.  I am grateful for my father's many gifts.   The most notable (and I am sorry to report that I do not have this talent) was his ability to see something and then recreate it without any plans.  His mechanical and design skills kept us in houses and cars without a lot of "expert" labor.  In this irony we call life, my dad's eyesight failed him six years ago last month.  He had lost vision in his left eye at age twelve, and though he lacked self-confidence, his accomplishments were impressive (he designed and built a house for my mother).  Almost to the day one year before my mother's death, my father woke up one morning to great pain in his right eye and little vision.  Numerous surgeries later, the sight in his right eye had failed.  The same virus that causes shingles attacked his optic nerve and then the retina.  This afternoon, as we settled him into his new quarters, my dad knelt on the floor and reconstructed his kitchen table with the "sight" of his hands.  I know that he stuggles to understand why he lost his sight, and I join him in that struggle when I think about what more my children could have learned from him.  But he is closer once again, and the children are older, so maybe this time we'll all learn to cope with dad's loss of sight, and learn from the many gifts he still has to teach us.

Adoption

Today we became five and moved forward on a journey my parents started almost forty-five years ago.  We adopted a young girl who has lived with us for almost two years.  We did not take her in thinking about adoption, but we willingly moved in that direction when it was apparent that the house she was removed from would never get better.  We had two children already and really believed that we were a temporary solution until the birth mother got on her feet again.  The boys embraced our decision and then struggled with what it meant to "share" us.  The younger son had the hardest time, but he is slowly taking on the big brother role and adapting well.

One would think we spent long hours talking about what needed to be done and how to do it, but honesty the conversation lasted for less than two minutes, and Kerri had to be reminded to let me know that we would picking her that first evening.  I knew from a young age that I wanted to adopt a child since my parents had opened their home to me, but also figured out pretty early that not all people feel the same way.  During our first extended conversation, Kerri and I discussed adoption and she shared that she had had a similar desire.  As I noted to a group at our church, the discussion the night before the young girl entered our home and our lives was simply turning the page on a discussion we began almost twenty years earlier.

I am not a proponent of the pay it forward idea since every day is filled with grace that we rarely notice so special events should not necessarily cause people to do good works.  Today is remarkable because of its ordinariness.  We woke up this morning to start the day because the dogs woke up at 6:30.  We got ready for work and other activities, and until 3:00 p.m. this afternoon, our lives looked like every other day since her arrival.  I am happy to say that we celebrated with a dinner and cupcakes, but then went back to the routine of our lives.  Some part of our family is made up of DNA and some part of our family is sealed by law, but all of our family are wrapped in love binds us beyond DNA and the law.  That might be the greatest gift my parents gave to me, and hopefully, we have passed on to the boys: the ordinariness of bringing someone into our home and our family.

Southerners All

In her post at the Washington Post yesterday, Kathleen Parker noted that southerners deserve better than what they get.  She was, however, more specific than that: poor white southerners deserve better.  The gist of her complaint was that the Republican hopefuls (mostly Mitt Romney) needed to stop playing to stereotypes about poor whites in the American South (cheesy grits anyone?).  Since it is one of many posts Parker has made in recent months for Romney to act more like himself, we can probably chalk up her effort to a familiar trope: I live in the South and I'm not like that stereotype.  Funny how one uses a rhetorical move to deflect a different rhetorical move.  Yes, media types play to common denominators, but that is nothing new.  Educated southerners, both black and white, have for the better part of the past two centuries tried to suggest that the South was somehow different from the backwoods-types.  But sad to say, sometimes we need those stereotypes.

H.L. Mencken

For historical context, no media type before or after H.L. Mencken has done more to dirty the water with regard to southern stereotypes of poor whites.  In his letters to family and folks at the Baltimore Sun during the infamous Scopes trial, Mencken noted how erudite his doctor host was.  He commented on how well read the leaders of the town of Cleveland, Tennessee, were.  His daily columns to the Sun, however, told a different, more devastating, story.  The power of evolutionary science and rational thought could not overcome the chasm caused by a religious simpleness.  Mencken knew the difference between fundamentalists (although that term would not be fully defined for another two decades) and "holy rollers," but that did not make a good story so he conflated the characters to highlight the backwardness of poor religious folk.  Except, like media today, Mencken is not solely responsible for the image.  Since the leaders in Cleveland, Tennessee, wanted to create a buzz about their little town and the economic opportunities of tourism, the trial could boost publicity.  Boosterism has often made strange bedfellows with all kinds of suitors.  In Scopes's case, it was strange indeed.  William Jennings Bryan looked feeble and Clarence Darrow buried him long before his actual death shortly after the trial.  Though Scopes was found in violation of the Tennessee law, Tennessee, and by extension the rest of the South, lost the public relation war over backwardness.  We have often invited the  stereotype.  "Holy rollers" make everybody nervous except other pentecostal types, which is why if a hand starts waving in a good white Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian church in the South everybody gets uneasy.  Mencken knew the power of the image.

Returning to Parker for a moment, it appears she needs Romney to win to validate her common-sense, transplanted southern conservatism.  Both Gingrich and Santorum have taken the deep South states from Mitt.  If he gets the nomination, Romney has to explain to these same people who rejected him the first time to vote for him.  The problem is that the Republican base in the South looks a lot more like the image Parker finds so objectionable.  Is it all of us?  Not a chance, but that does not matter because the image projected is the one the Republican base holds on to.  In a remarkably odd moment in southern history, these folks would willingly vote for a wealthy Catholic than mark a ballot for a wealthy Mormon.  In a region where both groups have been hated, Santorum's rhetoric looks more familiar, probably because it is as cafeteria catholic as these people are cafeteria protestants.  If Santorum adhered to the social justice (including labor and capital punishment) end of the Conference of Bishops teachings, these folks would have been caught in a pickle as my grandmother use to say.  And that is the rub for me.  Parker, and the Republican presidential candidates, are not looking out for poor whites.  If they were, they would know that grits are a product of the hard-scrabbled life of farm folk who grow what the earth will give them (funny how no one mentions "greens").  In this way, poor southerners, black and white, have far more in common with each other than with any of the candidates.

Yes, Ms. Parker, southerners, regardless of skin tone, do deserve better.  But the big shame in the past week is not that Romney said cheesy grits or hi y'all, it is that white middle-class southerners, transplant or otherwise, think they understand poor whites and can speak for them, co-opting their images in the process.  Wonder how many poor whites made it to any candidate's rally?  My guess is the answer is zero given that gas costs almost $4.00/gallon in these parts; unless we are counting Mr. Foxworthy and then he was one of many wealthy white men and women making money off of image of poor whites.

Automobile culture

GA 17 south of Thomson

I have spent the better part of six years thinking through a scholarly project about automobiles.  An historian by training, I have been interested in the way car culture shapes the larger culture.  As an historian of the American South, I have begun to think about the ways the automobile alter the southern landscape in ways that even southerners did not notice.  It is, however, only in the past year that I have begun to frame the work beyond my original thoughts.

 As a fan of NASCAR and a scholar of religion, I tried to find ways to think about how the sport uses religion (it is the only national televised sporting event that carries an invocation and the National Anthem live before each of its national series telecasts).  Part of the problem in the preceding six years is that I kept finding the traps in this kind of project.  I tend to find sports as religion arguments strained at best.  Anyone who wants to think of NASCAR as a religion can live in the infield at Talladega during a race weekend and notice that folks enjoy themselves without much in the way of ritual self-reflection. Last year, however, I was given advice to think more broadly about the automobile in culture.  With some administrative duties disappearing at the end of June, I have started thinking and researching more concretely about the subject.

GA 57 south of Gordon

Here is the working premise: if southerners emphasize "place," as John Shelton Reed has noted, then what happens when they adopt a technology designed to overcome place.  Mobility, as the car culture historians call it, means that we are no longer bound to our location.  Since few if any historians have looked at the way the automobile altered the South except in the way that Pete Daniel focuses on racing, I am looking at how the car became so vital for southerners.