Gone With the Wind – Part One

I’m rather embarrassed to admit this, but, when I was a teen, Gone With the Wind was my favorite book. Since the deacon and I are traveling through GWTW country this week, I’m christening this vacation as the Gone With the Wind Vacation. There are two reasons we are in this part of the country at this time of the year:

1. Our son was in Atlanta last weekend, performing with a musical group.
2. The deacon had to attend business meetings in the city for two days.

If you’re familiar with the story of Gone With the Wind, you’ll know that most of the action takes place in Atlanta. While the deacon was locked up in meetings, I spent time downtown seeing things that Scarlett O’Hara never would have imagined. I began, not far from Five Points (which is mentioned frequently in the book), at Centennial Olympic Park.

As you can see, this set of fountains is fashioned after the five interlocking Olympic rings. When it gets hot, children love to cool down in the water.

In addition to the fountains, the park houses a couple of playgrounds and a series of small waterfalls. All in all, it’s a great place to relax.

After hanging around the park, I went over to the Georgia Aquarium. I took this photo especially for my eldest son, who absolutely detests alligators and crocodiles. Truth be told, I’m not crazy about them either.

I was also impressed by the rich colors of the starfish, urchins and whatnot.

The colorful Lionfish is not native to the Atlantic seaboard. Since it’s natural predators are not in these waters, it’s been causing ecological havoc up and down the east coast.

In contrast to the unpleasant story of the Lionfish, I have the heartening story of the Robust Redhorse Sucker, which was believe to have gone extinct in the late 19th century. It was rediscovered in southern US lakes in the early 1990s, and efforts are being made to stabilize the population, as they are still a fairly rare species in danger of extinction.

I have no idea what this one is, but I love the bright colors, so here it is.

Jellyfish are always interesting too.

I’ll conclude the photos with some Whalesharks and a Beluga Whale.

In addition to business and sightseeing, the deacon and I have enjoyed some fine dining experiences. One night, we joined a number of his business colleagues for dinner at Twelve, where we both enjoyed very nice beef dinners. On another evening, we joined a handful of his colleagues for dinner at Canoe. The deacon ate his rabbit with relish, and I feasted on pheasant.

Thus concludes my account of the first half of our Gone With the Wind vacation. Part Two will be coming soon.

– the chaplain

 

Down South

The deacon and I are down south for a week. I know, I know – who goes south in July?! It’s a long story. Anyway, I should be back in a few days. Feel free to hang out in the chapel, but, please refrain from scribbling in the hymnals.

 

Prejudices Past and Present

Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., an eminent African American scholar at Harvard University, was arrested last week on charges of disorderly conduct and racial harassment. Yes, you read that list bit correctly – Prof. Gates was charged with racially harassing the man who thought he was breaking into his own home. And the disorderly conduct? He got angry and yelled at the police officer who thought he was breaking into his own home.

The comedy of errors began when Prof. Gates had difficulty opening his jammed front door. Consequently, Gates “opened his back door with his key and tried unsuccessfully from inside his home to open the front door. Eventually, Gates and his driver forced the door open from the outside….” A white woman passing by observed this activity and called the police to report a possible break-in. Up to this point, the story isn’t too bad: a woman sees activity that looks suspicious and reports it to the police.

I have to wonder, though, what made her suspicious? Was it the fact that Prof. Gates was a black man trying to enter a home in a neighborhood that – I’ll take a wild guess here – is not predominantly populated by black people? Would she have responded the same way to a white man trying to unjam that same door? I’ll never know the answers to those questions, but they’re questions that every white person in the USA should consider soberly.

Moving on, the suspicion of unlawful activity was reported, and the police dispatched an officer to the scene to investigate the claim. Unfortunately, the officer they sent appears to have attended Charm School with Genghis Khan. The long and short of it is that Gates and the officer had words, and the officer over-reacted by arresting the professor. The Cambridge police made the right call and dropped the charges yesterday. Still, it was an ugly chain of events, and one can’t help thinking that race played no small part in the ugliness.

President Obama commented on the incident this evening:

What’s been reported though is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house. There was a report called in to the police station that there might be a burglary taking place. So far, so good, right? I mean, if I was trying to jigger into — well, I guess this is my house now, so… it probably wouldn’t happen. But let’s say my old house in Chicago. Here, I’d get shot.

But so far, so good. They’re — they’re reporting. The police are doing what they should. There’s a call. They go investigate what happens.

My understanding is, at that point, Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in. I’m sure there’s some exchange of words. But my understanding is, is that Professor Gates then shows his I.D. to show that this is his house and, at that point, he gets arrested for disorderly conduct, charges which are later dropped.

Now, I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.

… [W]hen I was in the state legislature in Illinois, we worked on a racial profiling bill because there was indisputable evidence that blacks and Hispanics were being stopped disproportionately. And that is a sign, an example of how, you know, race remains a factor in the society.

That doesn’t lessen the incredible progress that has been made. I am standing here as testimony to the progress that’s been made. And yet the fact of the matter is, is that, you know, this still haunts us.

And even when there are honest misunderstandings, the fact that blacks and Hispanics are picked up more frequently and often time for no cause casts suspicion even when there is good cause.

And that’s why I think the more that we’re working with local law enforcement to improve policing techniques so that we’re eliminating potential bias, the safer everybody is going to be.

It’s been less than a year since the American presidential election campaign was marred by racism. To bring the matter closer to home, I hear people of several ethnic backgrounds express a variety of ethnic, racial, religious, gender and other prejudices every day. I hope I don’t express any such things myself, but, to be honest – I probably do sometimes. I’m still trying to unlearn a lot of what my culture has taught me about race, gender, religion, etc. It will be a lifelong battle that will require me to constantly measure myself as I am against the self that I want to be, and to keep striving to reach that ideal. If Americans are serious about living up to our national ideals, we all must wage similar battles – individually and corporately – to remove both past and present prejudices from our lives and society.

– the chaplain

 

Evangelical Strings

Dominic Mapstone, a Catholic social worker, wrote a post I want to highlight. Here are some excerpts:

When you order a meal you expect to be asked some junk like “do you want fries with that?” But what if you are homeless and you line up for a feed and someone starts trying to tell you about what church they go to or what God they worship?

…

If you don’t know how running a homeless service and running a church could possibly relate to each other – you have not been homeless. Street life and homelessness involves putting up with evangelization. There is no way for ‘the great unwashed’ to avoid it.

It makes me question the true agenda of some Christian service providers.

I wonder if some of these services are just a disguise and the principal agenda has nothing to do with what homeless people want, but what the religious group wants.

Are service providers that allow or even encourage evangelization to the homeless chasing sexy souls? Are they abusing the significant position of power they have? I’d say yes to both, and think it’s a disgusting abuse of power.

…

Those with power often believe their world view is right and should be shared by those without power. Institutional and structural power has long been abused in this way. Credit to those with the humility to know better.

…

Today, homeless people in many countries are evangelized to, treated as ignorant sinners who if only they turn to God ‘x’ and attend church ‘y’ then all would be OK. Some are pressured or even forced to attend church services if they want welfare assistance. This is wrong and should not be tolerated.

…

If you are a Christian like me and aren’t sure how you feel about this post, think for a minute if an Islamic service provider was given the same funding and license to provide services to homeless people and evangelize to them that many Christian service providers are given? What about a Church of Scientology service provider? Would that be an abuse of power? Is it okay for your vulnerable countryman to be taken advantage of and pushed around by any religious group?

Point is it’s not about the religion we belong to or don’t… or the church you or I go to or don’t. When service providers use their position of power to recruit people to their religion it’s an abuse of power and not right….

The first thing I want to say about Mr. Mapstone’s post is that there’s quite a lot more to it than I’ve excerpted here – I encourage you to go over and read the entire post (after you’ve read mine, of course). The second thing I want to say is, I heartily applaud Mr. Mapstone for having the courage to call out his co-religionists on this issue. The third thing I want to say is that I hope Christians will take his message to heart. He’s not speaking as a non-believer, one who has obvious reasons for not wanting to listen to anyone’s gospel – he’s speaking as a believer who is sensitive to power dynamics, a believer who is humble (a characterization based on this one post, I admit), and a believer who recognizes that a charitable organization’s mission should be to meet needs that people identify as theirs, not needs that would-be helpers assign to them.

In contrast to Mr. Mapstone’s gracious attitude toward the needy, I present another Christian’s response (July 20 entry) to Mr. Mapstone:

My friend fired me an article that slams homeless evangelism…. It basically argues that Christians attach strings to their service…..

My quick defence is that when you go to play softball your team-mate doesn’t think she wants to hear the gospel (though deep down everyone wants peace and fulfilment only found through the gospel, so they DO WANT the gospel…). And yet you give it to her. When you go to the restaurant your waiter doesn’t think he wants to hear the gospel. And yet you give it to him. And so on…

Compartmentalisation as suggested in the article apparently doesn’t recognise that salvos want to evangelise anything that moves, in season and out, appropriate and inappropriate, dignified and undignified, friends and strangers, including teammates, waiters, doctors, and homeless people.

The article’s argument makes sense in a conventional paradigm. For those of us fighting in a revolutionary paradigm (read: salvos, amongst others) it seems irrelevant.

Ugh and Double Ugh! Whereas Mr. Mapstone’s post makes me want to give Mr. Mapstone a hug and a big, sloppy kiss, the second post makes me want to slap the author upside the head a few dozen times. What utter arrogance! He’s sure that, no matter what the need, his gospel is the solution. Moreover, his disrespect for those he would “win for Christ” is infuriating. He doesn’t care whether people want to hear his message (he assumes that they do, but they’re just too lost in sin to realize it), he just wants to go ahead and “evangelise anything that moves” in any manner possible, at any time possible. And people think atheists are militant! If Mr. Aggressive Evangelist had his way, non-Christians would have to don Kevlar vests and arm themselves with Uzis just to stand their ground against his full-on assault!

The full extent of Mr. Aggressive Evangelist’s delusion of grandeur is revealed in his final sentence. Mr. Aggressive Evangelist is “fighting in a revolutionary paradigm.” Oh, sure – that makes it okay, then. He’s free to ignore words of caution from other Christians, because those hopeless saps are living in the wrong paradigm. Their paradigm, a conventional one, is irrelevant. The only paradigm that matters is the revolutionary one that Mr. Aggressive Evangelist has erected in his mind. Excuse me while I roll on the floor and laugh out loud.

If I met Mr. Mapstone on the street, I’d probably take him to Starbucks and pass an enjoyable hour or three chatting with him. If I met Mr. Aggressive Evangelist on the street, basic human decency and compassion would compel me to counter-evangelize him with some choice bits from The God Delusion. What could possibly be more appropriate for the occasion?

– the chaplain

 

Ballgame Absurdity Case Settled

I just learned, via Ed Brayton’s blog, that the Yankees have settled the ridiculous God Bless America lawsuit.

The monetary settlement was cheap: the Yankees paid $10,001.00 to the plaintiff, plus $12,000.00 to cover his attorney’s fees. The more significant outcome of the case is that the Yankees no longer restrict movement around the stadium during the sacred God Bless America moment.

Sometimes, things turn out the way they should.

– the chaplain