Just Some Good Livin'

Oh So Sad

You've got to see this.

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Unused Hatred

It's been a while, I know. I've had a lot on my plate of late and it seems like it won't wane for a couple more months.

I'll take a moment now to enter a few thoughts on a subject that is riddling our media discussions.

Living in the South, I'm constantly reminded of moments from the past that haunt our land. On any given day I drive by acres upon acres of cotton fields that were once teeming with emaciated slaves working feverishishly on sweltering days for the blessed King Cotton, as James Henry Hammond and David Christy once proclaimed. Behind my own home is a field that was once used for cotton crops and I can't help but wonder whether I daily stand on a spot where an African slave was beaten for slow productivity or, even worse, for no reason at all.

The decades that followed those horrid nineteenth century years found a struggle that barely proved an ameliorated state for the supposedly freed slaves. Yes, they were freed from the obligation to work as property, but their hell had only just begun.

Segregation, anger at the outcome of the war, the foreign cotton market, the New South's rush to rebuild a broken land, and the eventual onset of the twentieth century's racist modus operandi found African-Americans in such a position of submission that their plight could hardly be called progress.

I won't belabor the point in arriving at the present when such great men as Colin Powell and Barack Obama are on our screens and in positions of great power and prestige. No, I don't think the African-American fight for equality is over, but where they are is only a wonderful foreshadowing of where they will be.

But, what of unused hatred?

This weekend in Tuscumbia, Alabama, the second of the Shoals' two KKK meetings in the last year took place on the courthouse lawn. White cone-shaped masks, black and red maltese cross patches, Hitleresque gestures, and hate speech, all sprawled on the deadening, drought-ridden grass to preach yet another hate sermon to the gathered crowd. But, this time, the focus was much different from what was heard circa 1950 (give or take forty years). The verbiage was the same, but the noun had changed. This time they began their hate parade on immigrants.

To those who are positioning themselves against the influx of world citizens to America, think on this: your stance aligns you with the Ku Klux Klan. It's sad to think of the progress America has accomplished in creating a land of opportunity and then couple it with the modern day, supposedly kosher, form of the KKK: the Minutemen. Entire presidential campaigns are run on the spun term "border security." Tall Irishmen with a few dollars and a syndicated show on terror-fed news channels are bickering like nineteenth century imbeciles on national television over the thought that immigration on driving under the influence are somehow connected. It's sad. All the way to tears.

The most discouraging scenes are those that contain people who find their soul in some form of religion yet are a party to this horrid line of reasoning. Pulpits of evangelical communities are poisoned by preachers who are jeopardizing their congregations' tax status (and rightly so) by delivering hate-filled homilies in an attempt to persuade their weak-minded parishioners. It's almost as if they've performed surgery on their Bibles; the same Bibles that teach that we are children of God well before we are citizens. These preachers forget that socialism is the way of Jesus, and, depending on your view of Jesus, the way of the Christian God.

It's as if the hatred from the nineteenth century is unused. It's as if people have some sort of innate need to hate. I posit that the anti-"illegal" position is merely sanctioned hatred.

Solution:

We are humans. We are all humans. Before we are Christians, before we are citizens, before we are even members of families, we are human. To use a popular maxim from the world of homiletics, "we should make every attempt to view the world through the eyes of the Creator." The Creator sees all of its creation as-is. All concotions of human-kind are merely illusions of divisions, supposed methods of peace. The Creator sees no time, no nationality, no citizenship, no club, no affiliation. The Creator sees only the created. I applaud those ministers who are using their God-given position to further that position; to call those who declare Biblical affiliation to provide safe-haven for humans. It is not illegal to be a human.

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I just re-read this post. It's broken, emotional, and far from cohesive. However, I'm going to post it as-is. I'm not going to correct errors. I'm not even going to continue the thought. If I have more points, I'll write them later in a new post. For now, please evaluate your position to be sure that you're not feeding a position of sanctioned hatred. Learn to view each human through the eyes of the Creator. Try to envision the circumstances of each world citizen you encounter. Their story could be missing link between their place in life and your perception.

EWTN

I've been watching a lot of EWTN lately. I've learned so much from the friars and the prayers. I thank God for Mother Angelica and her station.

I'm amazed at how many people shut Catholicism out in the cold because they think it's some kind of devilish demon. You know what I like about it? The solidarity. I'm getting so tired of a thousand answers to one question. Being a Lit' man, it can boggle my mind to approach all of the critical angles available. That's what I've found every other day in Protestant and protestant-spawn churches, too. It seems like there's a different idea for every church out there! Some only use a KJV, some want to handle snakes, some want to make their women wear long dress and horrible hairstyles, and some want to clap. Each of the preceding take issue with their particular hang-up and each of them use the same Bible to support their confusion. But, there's only one God, one church, one baptism, one, one, one! I don't feel like I hear that on EWTN. I absolutely love to hear the confidence and unity in the responses and homilies of those on that channel.

I know, I know. Someone is saying that the confusion is the same with members of the Catholic church. Yes. I understand that, but the answers seem to be the same at the core with those who are the leaders and are devout.

No. Don't worry. I'm not going to convert. I wouldn't even know where to buy a Rosary! However, I wish more people would give more consideration to their teachings. They go back farther in history than any other religion, and for well over a thousand years, they were all that was available.

Oh, well. I know this is not a very literary or pensive post, but I've had our Catholic brothers and sisters on my mind for quite a while now and I thought I would share that with you.

Estonia

Perfect. All was right. Sublime. Actual, ancient order, Sublime (with the capital "S," just as Kant would have wanted it).

Standing on the sand of that Baltic cove, I was on holy ground. The sandbox of a young god. Rubbing hallowed grains between my toes. The sun sank silently while the waves sang a hymn of sweet surrender, and I sang, too. I sang because mine was the only part I'd ever known and everywhere I'd gone, someone was already singing my notes. But, there on the banks of the Bay of Finland, every note in the song was present--every note but mine. I was meant to be there. To stand among elements like mine. And sing.

So, I sang.

I closed my eyes and let the notes take me in high tide, overwhelm me and immerse me in the song I'd been meant to sing all my life. It was like I'd spent each moment learning how to react to that day. My day.

I could have jumped into the waves, head first, eyes and mouth wide open, ready to float away to every port to which the current carried my newly sacred corpus.

I want another day like that. Perfect. sublime. Sublime. When the stars sing a chorus to the gods and they, out of ecstasy and clumsiness, respond favorably, opening, for only a moment, all the colors, sounds, smells, and art with which they entertain themselves. All for us. For me.

occasio perfectus, occasio sublimis, unus sanctum sanctorum

Housekeeping

Yes, it's been a while, but I've had a good reason. My wife and I have successfully caught up on Lost from its beginnings. If you're not watching it, it must surely be because you've just not gotten around to it. It is by far one of the two best television shows in the history of the boob tube (along, of course, with 24).

No, I've not posted the book list yet. I suppose I could just post the titles and let you sift it out. Had I gone through the list in December when there was more time . . . but alas! the lamenting restores nothing but faith in the fact that I'm talking about it. So, here are the titles, in no pre-determined order:

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Blue Like Jazz – Donald Miller*
Through Painted Deserts – Donald Miller
The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown*
The Gospel of Mary of Magdala – Karen L. King
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Engendering God – Carl and Susan Raschke
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
Climbing Mt. Cheaha – Various
Facing the Music – Larry Brown*
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger*
Dispatches from the Edge – Anderson Cooper*
The Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
Hannah Fowler – Janice Holt Giles
Shane – Jack Schaefer
Sackett’s Land – Louis L’Amour
Slow Learner – Thomas Pynchon*
Billy Ray’s Farm – Larry Brown
An Hour Before Daylight – Jimmy Carter
When God Was a Woman – Merlin Stone*
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
Ulysses (in progress) – James Joyce
Father and Son (in progress) - Larry Brown
Fantomina – Eliza Haywood
My Ántonia – Willa Cather
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God – Eric Metaxes
Sundance Choice: Short Stories of the American South - Various
Big Bad Love (in progress) – Larry Brown
The Study of American Folklore – Harold Brunvand
The Pursuit of History – John Tosh
Heritage and Challenge: The History and Theory of History – Paul Conkin and Roland Stromberg
Proverbs
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings

* - Get your tail off the internet and to the nearest bookstore to read this one! It's been waiting on you.

Maybe I'll comment later on a few of them. For now, I'm hungry and I want some breakfast.

The '06 Book List

It's been far too long since I've posted, I know.

This is just a quick note to inform you of the upcoming '06 book list. I've got a couple I plan to finish before the new year begins. Either way, there are almost 30 books I read in 2006, and you'll be able to get a quick review here on Negatives very soon.

If you haven't yet read last year's list click here to peruse the reviews posted back in January.

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