Hilton Head, South Carolina, 2011

For Alexander there was no Far East,
because he thought the Asian continent
ended with India.
Free Cathay at least
did not contribute to his discontent.

But Newton, who had grasped all space, was more serene.
To him it seemed that he’d but played
With a few shells and pebbles on the shore
Of that profundity he had not made.

- Richard Wilbur

(My video of JoAnne speaking to our group in 2009)

In 2009, I took a group of students to the American South as we traveled the path of the civil rights movement.  We worshipped at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (home church of Martin Luther King), visited the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Alabama and ended our trip visiting The Lorraine Motel and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.  Along the way on this memorable road trip, we made an unforgettable stop in Selma, Alabama, a small town that was historically important to the story of America. 

When I stepped out of the van, just outside of the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma, I was greeted by JoAnne Bland: “You must be Travis.  Get over here and give me a hug; that’s how we do it in the South.”  JoAnne then welcomed our group and led us on an inspirational walking tour of the town she calls home. 

Selma, Alabama was the site of what is known as “Bloody Sunday”. On March 7, 1965, state troopers brutally attacked 500 to 600 civil rights demonstrators.  The televised images were horrific. Men and women, young and old, were beaten back with tear gas, billy clubs and dogs.  JoAnne Bland was there at that time, an eyewitness to history, an active participant in America’s struggle to right its wrongs and redeem its past.  Only eleven years old at the time, she has the distinction of being the youngest person arrested and jailed during the civil rights demonstrations. 

One of the more memorable moments on our visit occurred when JoAnne took our group to a piece of pavement behind a Head Start building.  The place was non-descript, uninteresting to the uninformed. She ordered us all to pick up a rock and place the rock in our open palm.  We did.  She then began to look at each of our rocks and tell us stories.  “Let me see your rock…..that rock in your hand is Bob Mants….”   “Now let me see your rock, that one is Lynda Lowery, She was 14 years old on that bridge on March 7th.  14. She received wounds that required 26 stitches and then, still, three weeks later walked every step of the way from Selma to Montgomery.”

She went on to tell us, “I saved that cement so you could hold that history.” And then she proceeded to tell us why that cement pavement was so important.  It marked out the place where the demonstrators gathered to begin their march. She then urged us to take back our little rock or pebble to Missouri and remember the fight and the struggle, telling us:

“When you see injustice committed against anyone, no matter who they are, and you feel like you can’t do anything, go pick up that rock and take from it the strength that ordinary people stood on that rock, ordinary people just like yourself, stood on that rock and walked right up to that bridge and made history that not only changed Selma, but this entire nation. And get up off your behinds, and do something.  Can you do that?”

On Monday night, January 16th and the occasion of Martin Luther King Day, JoAnne Bland will be our guest at William Woods University and will tell stories of America’s struggle for justice and equality.  As part of the President’s Concert & Lecture series, JoAnne’s talk will connect us to the past that paved a way for the future.  The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Cutlip Auditorium and begins at 7 pm.

The painter Harlan Hubbard said
that he was painting Heaven when
the places he painted merely were
the Campbell or the Trimble County
banks of the Ohio, or farms
and hills where he had worked or roamed:
a house’s gable and roofline
rising from a fold in the hills,
trees bearing snow, two shanty boats
at dawn, immortal light upon
the flowing river in its bends.
And these were Heavenly because
he never saw them clear enough
to satisfy his love, his need
to see them all again, again.

Wendell Berry, Leavings

Sept. 8: GEORGIA
Sept. 22: at South Carolina
Oct. 6: VANDERBILT
Oct. 13: ALABAMA
Oct. 27: KENTUCKY
Nov. 3: at Florida
Nov. 10: at Tennessee
Nov. 24: at Texas A&M

This might initially seem like a strange thing to say as the conductor was seen by thousands of people every day. But only in instrumental terms, only as the extension of a function he performed. In this brief conversation with my friend, he felt he had actually been seen as a unique individual, and that was a gift to him.

This is what love does. It does not make itself visible, but, like light, makes other visible to us. In a very precise sense, then, love’s presence cannot be described as existing, but rather is that which calls others into existence; for to exist literally means to stand forth from the background, to be brought forth. As we have mentioned, love does not stand forth, and vie for our attention but rather brings other forth. When we love, our beloved is brought out of the vast, undulating sea of others. Just as the Torah speaks of God calling forth beings from the formless ferment of being, so love calls our beloved out from the endless ocean of undifferentiated objects.”

Peter Rollins, Insurrection

Yesterday was Elizabeth’s birthday.  In her honor, last night I reread some of Shel Silverstein’s poems, including a couple of Elly’s favorites.  Here are a couple of ones we especially like.  The first is “Whatif” from A Light in the Attic and the second is “Spaghetti” from Where the Sidewalk Ends.

Whatif

Last night while I lay thinking here,
Some whatifs crawled inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old whatif song:
Whatif I’m dumb in school?
Whatif they’ve closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there’s poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don’t grow taller?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won’t bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don’t grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems swell, and then
The nighttime whatifs strike again!

Spaghetti

Spaghetti, spaghetti, all over the place,
Up to my elbows—up to my face,
Over the carpet and under the chairs,
Into the hammock and wound round the stairs,
Filling the bathtub and covering the desk,
Making the sofa a mad mushy mess.
The party is ruined, I’m terribly worried,
The guests have all left (unless they’re all buried).
I told them, “Bring presents.” I said, “Throw confetti.”
I guess they heard wrong
‘Cause they all threw spaghetti!

Wage Peace with your breath.

Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists
and breathe out sleeping children and fresh mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.

Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.

Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.

Play music, memorize the words for thank you in 3 languages.

Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief
as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.

Wage peace.

Never has the word seemed so fresh and precious:

Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Celebrate today.

- Annie Farnsworth

I see you again and again
tumbling out of the sky,
in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt.
At first I thought you were debris
from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall
or fuselage but then I realized
that people were leaping.
I know who you are, I know
there’s more to you than just this image
on the news, this ragdoll plummeting—
I know you were someone’s lover, husband,
daddy. Last night you read stories
to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep
next to your wife. Perhaps there was small
sleepy talk of the future. Then,
before your morning coffee had cooled
you’d come to this; a choice between fire
or falling.
How feeble these words, billowing
in this aftermath, how ineffectual
this utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly
it’s hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths
—but we can’t help ourselves—how I wish
we could trade them for something
that could really have caught you.