Category Archives: Uncategorized

Eight hours in a car can be brutal.  I have learned how to make the trek from Oxford, MS to Dillard, GA a little less taxing with audio books, pod casts and a voice recorder, but at some point along every Georgia journey I start thinking about selling the cabin. “How long can I keepContinue reading “Spring Break”

I started this blog during the dark days of 2020. I was isolated at home and watching the death rate climb and include George Floyd’s murder by the police in his hometown. These epic events collided in my mind and writing seemed my only outlet for expression. By the time I reached my last postContinue reading “Relaunch of Musings”

Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lieAbove thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go byYet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting lightThe hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. The week began with the shortest, the darkest day of the year, the WinterContinue reading “Ode to Advent in the Midst of a Pandemic”

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb…….they are before the throne of God”. Revelation 7:9 and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. ‘Never againContinue reading “Begin Again: Faith and Justice in a Divided Country”

“in the early decades of the century, white southerners had stolen reconstruction from the Negro and given him Jesus instead”   Charles Marsh From 1877 until 1965 Blacks and whites in the South lived in a segregated society kept in place by Jim Crow laws, cultural norms, and fear.  Blacks and Whites read the same BibleContinue reading “Faith and Justice, Part One”

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Woodmere Art Museum “I lift up my eyes to the hills.    From where does my help come?2 My help comes from the Lord,    who made heaven and earth? Psalm 121:1-2 I have lifted up my eyes unto the hills every morning of my retreat in the North Georgia mountains. The natural world has always been my place of contemplation andContinue reading “Faith and Justice: Introduction”

Do you rulers indeed speak justly?    Do you judge people with equity?2 No, in your heart you devise injustice,    and your hands mete out violence on the earth. 3 Even from birth the wicked go astray;    from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies.4 Their venom is like the venom of a snake,    like that of a cobra that has stopped itsContinue reading “A Lament”

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”   Maya Angelou “They are going to kill me……….I can’t breathe……please.”  George Floyd “How long can Black people love this country when it doesn’t love us back”.   Doc Rivers, Buck’s coach The historical inquiry about my country and my familyContinue reading “TIME OUT FOR REFLECTION”

The lives of Frederick Douglass and Andrew Johnson tell the story of Reconstruction.Two conflicting visions of America confront us, then and now. Our ancestors planted the seeds of those conflicts when the first slave ships docked, but they bloomed in Reconstruction, How does one person become a Black abolitionist and one person become a whiteContinue reading “No Friend of Our Race”

The back porch has become my spiritual and intellectual home during these days of isolation. On the intellectual side I am writing a comparison of two figures of the Civil War/Reconstruction era that I believe represent the conflicting images of what America is and what it should be. I want to understand fully the livesContinue reading “Remembering why I am doing this”