This past Sunday was quite the day.  It began in it’s usual, hectic Sunday morning way but with a twist: the hot water pipes in the kitchen were frozen.  After a few days of single digit temperatures, they finally couldn’t take it any more.  Did you know that pipes located inside your house, underneath your own kitchen sink have the ability to freeze?  I did not know that.  I bet that you also didn’t know that they can be unfrozen with the help of your wife’s (or husband’s) hairdryer.

But we were still going to be on time for our 9:00 am Sunday School class.  That is, until we were out the door and driving on a flat tire.  CURSE YOU COLD WEATHER & SCREWS THAT HAD BEEN PLACED IN OUR DRIVEWAY BY SABATOUR NINJAS!!

But all is well now.  The tire is patched and I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in the 2 foot space between the cemented Mother Earth and the underside of my floor installing a heating cord to the hot water pipe.  Imagine the opening scenes of Indiana Jones & The Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana and his colleagues are trying to get to the idol.  Remember the spiders on the guy’s back?  That’s me in my basement, minus the half-dressed Aborigines with blowguns.  Indiana’s effort to secure the idol, however, was similar to my adventure.

For the record, I did not put a heating cord on the cold water pipe because the Hardware Guy said that cold water pipes don’t freeze as often as hot water pipes.  That makes no sense at all.

I’m hoping that this story will make it in one of Kevin Miller’s Public Speaking classes.

A few thoughts from our Sunday School reading for the week from Growing Kids God’s Way:

Why did God establish marriage?  Because through their marriage, partners may serve one another, and through their lives they may serve others.  Thus, the crowing achievement of creation was the holy union of man and woman… Children do not complete a marriage, they expand it.

Hope and I have long thought this idea to be true: 1.) We will accomplish more for God together than apart and; 2.) We can accomplish even more through our children.

The primary relationship in our family is between Hope and I but it is amazing to consider what our children will accomplish.  We are blessed to have four wonderful children, each different and each with a tremendous capacity to impact the world.  Even in their young ages, they have made a difference.

This entry is made with the sound of my washer and dryer in the background.  That’s right, we finally entered into the 21st century by getting wireless DSL in our house.  Can I get a witness?

Again, listen to Home Tonight by Chris Rice.  My iTunes are available.

This is Chris Rice’s Home Tonight.  I purchased it about 10 minutes ago because the 30 second clip on iTunes brought tears to my eyes.

I’ve come to my senses
How did I get so far from home
The lies dissipating
Revealing I’m so alone
And I remember now how strong love can be
And I wonder how did I ever leave

Burn your fire on the altar
Leave a candle on the porch
I’m still too far away to see it
But I’m aching for its warmth
And I’m so tired and cold and dark and lonesome
But still I hear your song inside
So sing it louder if you want me home tonight
Sing it loud now, ‘cause I’m comin’ home tonight

This isn’t the first time
I’ve wandered away from home before
You’d have every reason
To slam and dead-bolt the door
But I remember now how strong your love can be
And I wonder how you might welcome me

Burn your fire on the altar
Leave a candle on the porch
I’m still too far away to see it
But I’m aching for its warmth
And I’m so tired and cold and dark and lonesome
But still I hear your song inside
So sing it louder if you want me home tonight
Sing it loud now, ‘cause I’m comin’ home tonight

Into your arms, to my back yard
Where I used to play
How I miss the days…

So burn your fire on the altar
Leave a candle on the porch
I’m still too far away to see it
But I’m aching for its warmth
And I’m so tired and cold and dark and lonesome
But still I hear your song inside
So sing it louder if you want me home tonight
Sing it loud now, ‘cause I’m comin’ home tonight

If you haven’t read the post from Friday, please do so.  It is very lengthy but insightful.

 

Here are some New Testament passages where the phrase “one another” is used.  There are some interesting themes that he uses that I will attempt to crystallize at the end.

 

·         Romans 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.

·         Romans 14:13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.

·         Romans 15:7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

·         Romans 15:14 I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.

·         Ephesians 4:2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

·         Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

·         Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

·         Hebrews 3:13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

·         Hebrews 10:24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

·         1 Peter 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.

·         1 John 3:11 This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

·         1 John 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

·         1 John 4:11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

 

Love one another.  Stop passing judgment on one another.  Accept one another.  Instruct one another.  Bear with one another.  Be kind and compassionate to one another.  Admonish one another with wisdom.  Encourage one another.  Spur one another on towards love and good deeds.  Love on another deeply.  Love one another.  Love one another.  Love one another.

 

1.        Loving one another involves striving.  Being patient, forgiving, spurring each other on, loving deeply, instructing one another, and encouraging all take energy and endurance.

2.        We are supposed to teach and learn from one another. 

3.        We love because God loves us.  If God loves us, who am I not to love my neighbor?

What does it mean to be White?  Check out #46.

Here are a few thoughts from Peggy McIntosh’s article, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack written in 1990 (http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.
3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
7. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.
11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person’s voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.
12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
13.  Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
16. I can be pretty sure that my children’s teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others’ attitudes toward their race.
17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the “person in charge”, I will be facing a person of my race.
25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.
26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.
27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.
28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.
29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting, even if my colleagues disagree with me.
30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn’t a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.
32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.
33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.
34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.
36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.
37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.
38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.
39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.
40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.
43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.
44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.
45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.
46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.
47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.
48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.
49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.
50. I will feel welcomed and “normal” in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.

Any others?

In first grade, Lavelle Barnes was my friend and the first person that I remember interacting with daily who was black.  We were friends because we were the fastest boys in the first grade (I think that we were friends because I greatly admired him).  Lavelle was faster than I was because his legs were much longer than mine but it didn’t bother me.  I couldn’t do anything about my skinny, tooth-pick legs or that I wasn’t as fast as Lavelle. 

Two kids each named Jason were fast but we were even faster.  One of the Jasons was convinced that if you quoted the cartoon character Speedy Gonzalez, you would run faster.  I found that hypothesis to be false.  The four of us would race all of the time but Lavelle would always win.  I was more interested in beating the Jasons.

One Friday, Lavelle was supposed to spend the night at my house.  For some reason, it didn’t work out. 

I have no idea what happened to Lavelle after the first grade.

When was the first time you noticed racial diversity?

Why is diversity so important? 

 

The other day I had the opportunity to assist in giving a presentation to a local service organization about the importance of diversity in Huntington County.  Honestly, this made me feel a bit sheepish.  I felt (and looked) very young and number of years calling Huntington my home.  Am I still considered an “outsider” and not given the right to be telling community business persons something that they have probably been told of for their entire lives?  Coming from the University can also bring baggage with it.  Some folks probably think that an idealistic concept like diversity is great on a university campus but out at Wal-Mart, Crestview Middle School or Taco Bell, diversity is nonsensical and unncessary. 

 

But I also felt sheepish because I don’t feel that I understand the necessity of diversity enough to be considered a champion for its implementation.  I’m a good participant but not leader.  Believe me… I would like to be a champion, to stick my neck out, to do my best to convince others of why we need to have persons who are different from us speaking into our lives but I am often aware of my own confusion about diversity and, worse, my own racist attitudes.  I know all of the “right answers” about diversity but I’m not sure how internalized they are.  Moreover, I’m afraid that what I can communicate about diversity will only generate responses like, “That’s nice, dear” or “Bless your heart” or “Diversity is only a good idea on paper” or “I used to think that way but now I know better”.

 

Primarily, I want to understand the necessity of diversity so that I would act and think rightly but I also wish that I could compel others to live and think rightly as well.  It would be nice to make people mad once in a while, to challenge people to examine their thoughts and behaviors that are unjust.  I want to move beyond participant to leader, from discussion-leader to practitioner. 

ATLANTA – Dora McDonald (center in photo above), secretary for Martin Luther King Jr., died just days before the national holiday that honors her former boss. She was 81.

 

McDonald died Saturday of complications from cancer at Emory Crawford Long Hospital, hospital spokesman Lance Skelly said Sunday.

 

King entrusted his family to McDonald’s care when he was in jail or traveling, and it was McDonald who told Coretta Scott King that her husband had been assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tenn.

 

McDonald started working for the civil rights leader in 1960 and quickly became his confidant and adviser.

 

In a 1989 interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, McDonald described her role as King’s secretary at Ebenezer Baptist Church and later at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as “a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job.”

 

“But there was never a time — and I can say this in all truthfulness, from the time I went to work for him until his death — that I regretted what I was doing or where I was at that moment,” she said.

 

McDonald never married or had children, and has no immediate survivors.

 

Several students and I had the opportunity to meet Miss McDonald last January on our Civil Rights trip.  She had some amazing stories to tell about her relationship with Dr. King.  I was hoping to bring her to campus to speak.