Tag Archives: Ann Gaylia O’Barr

Hunkering Down

Growing up in Middle Tennessee, I remember huddling under the covers of my bed when one of those powerful summer thunderstorms rolled through the area at night, loud flashes and crackling booms waking me from sleep.

My parents, in their bedroom down the hall, seemingly never stirred, but I was terrified of those storms, sure lightening was going to strike the house, immolating us in our beds.
None ever did, but I breathed a sigh of relief when high summer was replaced by a cooler, drier late summer, followed by the welcome colors of autumn.

For a period during that time, stories terrified me of other horrors: nuclear warfare and the possibility that whole continents would be devastated. I remember the silence of the audience as we left “On the Beach,” a movie about the world as a fictional nuclear war destroyed all life except in the far south, Australia and New Zealand, even as radiation slowly made its way there.
Then the Soviet Union vanished. Some nuclear warheads were dismantled. Was it possible that we had dodged the bullet of nuclear annihilation?

But now I again feel at the mercy of forces I have no control over: forces that kill little children in their beds in the Middle East, exploding drones and bombs, shifting safe places that disappear. Alliances and the possibility of peace talks change from day to day. Those in high government offices attend meetings, but fighting goes on.

The South African leader against apartheid, Desmond Tutu, was quoted as saying he was a prisoner of hope. Well to remember, even as white South Africans today are welcomed as immigrants to this country, and darker skinned intending immigrants are turned away.
What gives us hope in this mixed up fun house we now inhabit?

We always have a choice to hope and continue to work, even if we may not see the end of things in our lifetime. We make choices according to our principles. Things have changed and can change again.

Perfection Never Arrives; Better to Look for Wisdom

Waiting for perfection is like the dilemma pictured in Waiting for Godot. Perfection never arrives, like the never–arriving title character in the play.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said, “The insistence on absolutes . . . is a prescription of inaction.”

Waiting for a perfect time to act may mean we miss the best time to act, a time which may never come again. Instead of perfection, better to look for wisdom. Wise leaders who know history can better lead in those imperfect times. Yet, Kissinger complained, we tend to prefer “charismatic leaders over crafty statesmen.”

To prefer charismatic leaders encourages politicians to choose a Hitler, as happened in Germany during the 1930’s. Blaming problems on the threat to a mythical “Aryan” race and espousing a desire for a kind of golden age, led to concentration camps for Jews, confessing Christians, the handicapped, and others considered enemies of this new order.

A perfect leader is a myth. Instead, choose the wisest imperfect leader.

Do I Really Want to Grow Old?

“Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”
–Robert Browning
“Rabbi Ben Ezra”

As one now experiencing growing old, I reread the Browning poem. Should I look forward to old age as he appeared to do? What kind of old age am I likely to have?

My mother’s side of the family exemplified the optimism expressed by the poet. They often lived into their 90’s, typically in good physical and mental health, and also, because of real estate investments in a growing California, with adequate income. My mother spent some of her teen years with them, but returned to Nashville to her birth family to finish high school, eventually marrying my father. She died in her mid nineties, in generally good mental and physical health.

My father’s family members tended to die at younger ages, more often belonging to the working poor, with less access to medical services. My father died suddenly at age 53 of heart problems.

Perhaps I have been the inheritor of my mother’s optimism and my father’s health. No, thankfully, I don’t, so far, have heart problems. I have, however, been given to understand that I can’t be guaranteed that my mental health will be like hers. Indeed, so recent tests indicate, I already am experiencing present memory problems.

Obviously, this discovery is not good news. What do I do with it?

Thankfully, I am, so far, still able to enjoy the activities I’ve always enjoyed: reading, writing stories, walking, church activities, family meals.

I’m a Jesus follower, so I check with how He might lead in a situation like this. He died young, so I don’t have examples of how His actually living in old age would be.

Somebody once asked Jesus what the greatest commandment is. His answer: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-40.)

How do I do that? Perhaps I begin with developing that inner spiritual life: private time with God, public worship and study with others who seek to grow in His ways.

Then? Serving others? To answer that, I come back to doing what I have done since I made up stories as a three-year-old. Writing stories for others, as much as I’m given time and ability to do this.

Perhaps that will do as a beginning. We’ll see where God leads while I’m able to serve.

Palestinian Christians: The Other Side of the Wall

Munther Isaac is a member of a Christian group that we American evangelical Christians have sometimes ignored. He’s a Palestinian Christian. I’ve recently read his book The Other Side of the Wall, A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope.

When I was a teenager, I was enamored, as were many of my Christian friends, with the movie Exodus. Stars included Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, and Sal Mineo. Included in the plot is the story of the founding of the modern state of Israel, which included many survivors of the Nazi Holocaust attempt to destroy the Jewish race.

That a nation with many Christians allowed the Nazi regime to come to power should warn us of how insidious is sin—including the power of sin to tempt us to categorize any group as “bad” or “good,” instead of taking care to see individuals and avoid the trap of labeling.

I think I came away from that movie, and my later reading of the novel, however, with no nuance about the actual inhabitants of Israel. I didn’t realize that Palestine includes Christian descendants of churches going back to the early days of Christianity, as well as practicing Muslims.

Some Arab extremist groups have committed atrocities against their Jewish neighbors but we commit a further sin if we label all Arabs as members of these groups. Arabs have suffered from Jewish extremists as well. And Arab Christian churches have a long history of perseverance and endurance over many centuries.

The Jewish prophet Jonah had to learn a bitter lesson before he understand that God cared for Nineveh just as much as he cared for Israel.

I invite you to read The Other Side of the Wall, by Munther Isaac. He has also made appearances on various interview shows.

Getting What We Deserve

We tend to subscribe to the idea of good things going to those who deserve them. People who earn high salaries should earn them. People who receive charity should be the “deserving poor,” in need only because of a bit of bad luck. Politicians who win elections should be the best qualified.

We know, of course, that it doesn’t always work that way, but we want the rules to favor the deserving as much as we can make them do so.

Many of us, however, did not earn a good many of our blessings.

I did not choose my parents, who loved each other as well as their children, and worked hard to buy and maintain a home for us. That home, wonderful for the love in it, also eventually provided, when it was sold, the financial help my brother and I needed to start toward home ownership ourselves. Even more important, of course, were the good habits instilled by our parents in terms of managing money.

The idea of “no free lunch” has merit in that we should earn our own way, not be dependent on handouts we didn’t work for. However, should little children, having no part of their parents’ lifestyle choices, not have enough to eat or a safe home because of choices they had no part of?

I don’t suppose I have a definite answer to the question of how financial blessings should follow at least some baseline rules, yet that all those who cannot take care of themselves be taken care of.

However, we could ensure that no powerless person is unable to meet basic needs, be they children, adults with physical or mental conditions they had no part in causing, or those struck by momentous events they did not cause.

Jesus Christ did not seem concerned about how deserving were the people he ministered to. Jesus once called a man back to life simply in pity for the man’s bereft mother, a widow. He also healed a Roman centurion’s beloved servant, even though the Romans were overlords of Jesus’ people. Once, on the way to heal a religious official’s little daughter, he stopped to assure healing to a sick woman accidentally placed in his way.

And, as another example, our public school systems are ones we generally desire, without thinking about it, to benefit all children, those of the undeserving as well as the deserving.
The idea is not to sanction public money ripped off by the undeserving. It is, as much as possible, to see that a country as blessed as is this one, will provide all with certain minimum care and possibilities.

And we can all support private groups, including our religious communities, known for providing hope and care to “the less fortunate.”

Rootless Times

According to an article in The Economist (“Gen Z has faith,” March 1st 2025, p. 22) “a long decline in the number of Christians has levelled off.” The article says the slight increase in Christians is found among Gen Z’ers, now entering or into their twenties.

Perhaps the Covid-19 epidemic contributed to the modest change, although Covid-19 is more likely to carry off older people than younger ones. Just the fact of a greater chance of dying, however, might be more unsettling to the young than to the old, who may be more likely to have accepted their ultimate mortality.

Perhaps the unsettled political times have contributed. Aging American presidents may give younger voters less faith in our political systems. Political alignments also are shifting all over the world. The United States is no longer as popular and perhaps doesn’t appear to be as firmly committed to political freedom for all as in the past.

Also threatened are the possibility of change through education and a job market seemingly made for bright young people, now becoming chaotic. Elections sometimes lead to power for unelected titans. Elon Musk appears to be a very powerful person, despite holding no elected office.

Perhaps the fact that more people, including younger ones, lack committed family ties is taking a toll. The drug epidemic surely is harder to avoid when one has fewer emotional supporters.

The Christian faith has gone through multiple lows, especially following periods of prosperity and geographical change. Yet, it has usually not only survived, but found new ways of ministering, finding in its namesake such values as purpose, meaning, and care for others.

The teachings of a genuine moral leader who not only lived but died for his teachings, summed up in “love God with all your being and your neighbor as yourself,” perhaps is simple enough to inspire in an age betrayed by the worship of technical toys.

Early and Late Bloomers

In the play 1776 (later made into a movie), John Adams and Ben Franklin visit Thomas Jefferson, who is struggling to compose a declaration of independence for the proposed new nation. Adams and Franklin inspect the writing.

“This is awful, Tom,” one of them says. He reads a part of it. It sounds like something a grade school child might compose. Eventually, after Jefferson spends time with his wife, whom he has missed terribly in Philadelphia, he writes the Declaration of Independence that we know today.

Sometimes my writing reads like this fictional Jefferson’s first efforts with the Declaration. Really awful. About as able to move the reader as a nursery rhyme. No, a nursery rhyme is better.

I hate the first writing of a novel. It’s forced, and I don’t know what I’m doing.

I love editing and rewriting. That when I experience the high of writing that moves me. I begin to know what it’s about.

This understanding applies to other parts of our lives as well, and not only for writers. Some of us run well right out of the gate. Others of us have to prod ourselves to keep going until, finally, we find our pace and our joy.

Hints Followed by Guesses

“. . .These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.”

(From T.S. Eliot, “The Dry Salvages”

It seems several of earth’s lifetimes must have happened between 1990, the year I joined the U.S. Foreign Service, and today. The early 1990’s were an exciting watershed. The Soviet Union fell apart, and it seemed the old Cold War had ended without the devastating world war all feared. East and West Germany unified. The Berlin Wall between East and West Germany was destroyed, and tourists grabbed pieces to take home. The Baltic countries declared their independence.
Iraq invaded Kuwait, but the invasion would lead to the Gulf War the next year, with the U.S. and its allies sending troops to defeat Iraq.
In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
China was coming out of the destruction following the Tiananmen Square protests.
Democratic values, it seemed, had triumphed world wide.
In the technical world, though, technical advances would soon overturn our ordinary lives. The internet was on the horizon.
What happened as tech and the rest of the country overcame those bright beginnings?
Even as the world appeared militarily safer in the decades following, it seemed that in the U.S., people and their government became more and more divided between political parties and beliefs, leading to a deeply divided country.
Politically, we seem now to have found our way to chaos. Government agencies mandated by Congress fall at the drop of a hat—especially Elon Musk’s hat.
In these pessimistic days, it seems impossible that any sort of spiritual discipline could break out. Indeed, religious disciplines seem abandoned by more and more Americans, only a few practicing active religion these days.
But could those “dry salvages” or cargoes surprise? Is this salvage, a name for something preserved, waiting somewhere to be discovered?

Too Rich to Care?

Maybe we grew too rich to care. That is, enough of us became too rich to care. That is, to care for the less well off—in our town, in our country, in our world. Anybody walking down an urban American street may understand that plenty of people need help.

Our drug addicts need help. Who desires to be addicted to drugs or see their loved ones become addicted? Yet, in one of the richest countries in the world, we were unable to overcome the forces that decreased the ability to stay off drugs. We’ve heard a lot about stopping drugs from coming in—but if more of us had a purpose in life that involved contributing to society, we might never consider something like drugs, including alcohol.

When we gave the rich more ways to opt out of paying income taxes, we had less money to fund social security or deal with our ever increasing national debt. Or indeed, to fund programs to help addicts kick drug habits.

We also desire both less immigrants and less children. While our birth rate drops, we build walls to keep out migrants who could help make up for our decreasing births. That means, of course, less taxpayers for our increasingly elderly population—or to fund our military or programs to help recovering addicts.

We have increasingly seen our government as set up to help those who already have plenty to grab more. Eventually, though, those who don’t have, will outnumber those who do.

After the Second World War, our country was blessed with a flood of immigrants from countries devastated by that war. They worked in our factories—and also consumed the goods from those factories, contributing to a rising standard of living.

Immigration needs to be controlled, removed from the hands of traffickers, but immigration itself is an asset. It means growth, not only physically, but in new ideas and art as well as new workers and consumers. If we close off immigration entirely and see it as a curse to be overcome, we will die from a lack of growth in ideas as well as people.

We Need Immigrants

The United States, like many developed nations today, is facing population decline within its native born population. Fortunately, lots of people would like to immigrate here. Many of them have skills we need, such as nursing skills for an aging population and agricultural workers for our farms. Some have computer and other skills for higher level jobs.

Meanwhile, paths for legal immigration are narrow. The desire to immigrate, with no meaningful legal line to join for many, feeds irregular migration, leading to its control by gangs and sometimes drug dealers.

“States that focus on border restrictions, mass deportations, or the abrogation of legal protections for asylum seekers will fail to solve the problem. They will simply redirect it while creating a new host of problems that will, in the long term, feed the problem rather than solve it. They will empower criminal networks and black markets while leaving their own economies worse off. The system will continue to decay.” (“Migration Can Work for All; A plan for Replacing a Broken Global System,” Amy Pope, Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2025.)

Our current system feeds irregular migration, as family members migrate irregularly to stay with those already in the U.S. “That so many migrants who are undocumented find jobs in the informal markets of their destination countries signals an imbalance between legal immigration pathways and economic need . . .”

The author suggests one approach is for countries with labor shortages, such as the United States, to set up programs within the refugee sending countries to train would be immigrants for jobs needed in the receiving country. This would include preparing them for legal migration.

If reasonable pathways to migration are in place, countries will have more justification for shutting down the illegal ones. The idea is not to stop migration but to channel it, then work to shut down illegal migration traffic.

Migration from places with less possibility for improving one’s life to ones of greater possibility has been the norm since civilization began. Better to work with it for good.

Never Taking Free and Fair Elections for Granted

My mother was born in 1900 in Nashville, Tennessee. At that time, neither her mother, nor any other woman, could vote in national elections. Women gained that right when the Nineteenth Amendment to the constitution went into effect in August, 1920. Earlier that year, Tennessee had cast the 36th vote for its passage, the number needed for ratification. Overnight, the number of voters increased dramatically, by about eight million, as women took advantage of their new privilege.

As far as I know, my mother regularly cast a vote in every election for which she was eligible from that time on. That included voting all four times for Franklin Roosevelt. My father did also, but they split on the Eisenhower/Stevenson election. (Mom went for Stevenson, Dad for Eisenhower.) They peacefully accepted their political differences. I remember political discussions in our household as interesting exchanges of ideas, including ones about local elections. That is probably why I’ve voted in every election for which I’ve been eligible, including several times when I lived in non-democratic countries, by absentee ballot.

Tennessee, a “border” state, could certainly produce some interesting elections, such as the one in which Lamar Alexander defeated Ray Blanton. Blanton is remembered as the one who began releasing felons from prison, for cash, just before he was due to leave the governor’s office. As I remember, both Democrats and Republicans cooperated in an early, unannounced swearing in of Alexander, effectively preventing Blanton from releasing more felons. I stood on the steps of the Tennessee capitol with a huge crowd as Alexander later took the public oath of office.

Recently, serious allegations about the influence of unelected advisors on President Trump are causing controversy. Practices once considered sacrosanct, such as birthright citizenship, also are being questioned. Migrants, our positions on Israel/Palestine, and our support for Ukraine against Russia are other areas of contention.

“A republic if you can keep it” is the legendary answer Benjamin Franklin gave to one who asked “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” following the 1787 constitutional convention, setting up the beginning government for the American states.

Democracy is a blessing but never cheap or easy or guaranteed.

Why Me, Lord? (Kris Kristofferson)

Sometimes when the world seems to have reached a new level of desperation, I’m comforted by certain remembrances of my childhood. (I realize I’m fortunate in having those memories.)

When I was a small child, country music (maybe you call it folk music or something else) was a part of my life. I lived in a working class eastern suburb of Nashville, Tennessee. At the time, this kind of music was mostly followed by that same American kind of working class. The Grand Ole Opry was in Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on Saturday nights in downtown Nashville, a long time before its modern version in the Opryland amusement park. I attended this older version a few times, often to take visiting kinfolk, hungry for the South they had left for jobs on the West Coast.

A few of the stars on the Opry lived in our modest neighborhood, at least one within walking distance of our house. We thought of country music as a part of our ordinary culture.

So when the world’s and this nation’s troubles seem to overwhelm, I can sometimes find comfort in listening to that country music, either in older or newer versions.

Take Kris Kristofferson’s Why Me, Lord? One version is copied below. (Apologies if it’s preceded by an advertisement I couldn’t take out.) (Also that you may need earphones.

 

In a Time of Political Change

My Oxford English Dictionary defines hubris as “excessive pride or self-confidence.”
Pride in one’s nationhood is patriotic; excess pride can lead to harm for that nation as well as others. Nations as well as individuals can be tempted by hubris. Even as we begin new political terms for the presidency and members of Congress, we might consider the history of other countries when they reached new heights of power.

In the waning days of the 19th century, Britain indeed stood at the height of world power, her empire one on which the sun never set. In a few decades, however, the world would suffer two world wars as well as the rise of new political movements, bringing great changes to former world powers. Kipling’s poem would caution any world power, including the United States, to consider responsible uses of that power while they are able to do so.

Recessional

By Rudyard Kipling
1897

God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

Recent Batting Average for the Church in America

I find myself with sympathy for any new American member to our current group of Christian believers. One can only say that it surely is the attraction of Jesus that overcomes our sometimes less than loving presentation of the good news he brought and lived for us.

For a sober view of the Christian church in the United States in the last few years, listen to The New York Times columnist David Brooks:

“We religious people talk about virtue so much you’d think we’d behave better than nonreligious people. But that’s not been my experience. Over the past decade, especially in the American church, I’ve seen religious people behaving more dishonestly, and in some ways being more tolerant of sexual abuse. I sometimes joke that entering the church in 2013 was like investing in the stock market in 1929. My timing could have been better.” (David Brooks, “The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I thought It Would Be,” The New York Times, December 19, 2004.)

Of course, our failings are not new. People calling themselves Christians have at times fought wars against each other, cast each other out of the church, and even tortured and burned fellow Christians at the stake because their theology was different from that of other Christians with political power.

Perhaps it’s helpful to remember, however, that plenty of Christians have indeed followed the Jesus way and ministered to the hungry, thirsty, lonely, imprisoned, unclothed, and those in need of good news. (Matthew 25)

I don’t think any civilization has, despite failings of Christians, come as far as nations when the gospel has been accepted by enough people practicing its teachings. We have what I would call an influential faith. I don’t think there is any such thing as a “Christian” nation. Worshiping political power is setting up a god other than Jesus. We can, however, manage to influence in ways that overcome the normal self-seeking ways of most earthly politics.

It is, after all, a call to earthly service, not to earthly power.

So, yes, there’s always room for one more sinner saved by grace.

What Is It About Money?

Obviously, we all need money to survive in the world we live in—money to pay the rent/mortgage, buy groceries and clothes, compensate our computer services provider, perhaps contribute to charity, and so on.

Some manage well on what their salaries/pensions/inheritance/savings allow them. Many others get by. Some suffer hardship, sometimes of circumstances not of their own making, like illness or physical loss. Others make unwise lifestyle choices that land them in poverty.

Although a few may live in religious or other communities where all is shared, most of us must take care of financial matters for ourselves and family members.

Almost all adults in the western world must deal with these matters, but some with more than adequate means seem to obsess with getting more. Or to using more than adequate means to gain power over the political process in order to encourage laws that favor their amassing even more wealth.

What is it about money that is so enticing to those who already have plenty of it?

Some very wealthy individuals do indeed share their wealth to fund programs for the less well-off. Some give huge amounts and others give less but nevertheless, the amount of charitable contributions is certainly meaningful. Those funds have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, provided rent assistance and low income housing, and set up college scholarships, among other worthy causes.

Wealth, it seems is not the culprit, but rather our attachment or lack of attachment to it.
Interesting, of course, because as Jesus pointed out, all of us leave it behind at death.
Regardless of which, if any, religious community you adhere to, you must leave any wealth behind. Beyond that is where faith takes us.

Fire-Bombed Voting Box

A few weeks ago, my husband and I cast votes in the November 5, 2024 elections. We had received our ballots by mail, discussed the candidates, then filled out our ballots. We walked a few blocks to the secured metal voting box across from our small town city hall and deposited them there.

The next day I read about an attempt to set fire to voting booths in another part of the state. One fire destroyed only three ballots; the other was more serious. The call went out for anyone using those boxes to see if they might need to replace a destroyed ballot. In addition, more boxes were being equipped with safety measures to make it difficult to set them on fire.

A camera had recorded the probable car driven by the vote destroyer.

I wondered: why would someone want to threaten the right to vote? To make our constitutional privilege more difficult?

Some might call for a return of the old-fashioned voting booth. That’s a valid position. Apparently, however, more people vote when done by a simple trip to a voting box, and such voting may be easier for those with busy schedules.

Regardless, what is so threatening about citizens casting ballots for their leaders?

To Make a Better Life

Sometime back before the American Revolution, my ancestors, probably including those of both English and Irish nationalities, immigrated to what would become the United States.

They were part of the great migration of European peoples to the Americas. Native Americans would suffer greatly, pushed further and further into less fertile areas, forced to give up sovereignty and lands.

Slaves and their descendants suffered also, shackled by prejudice that denied them the American dream.

For people like my ancestors, however, the new lands allowed them to flourish as they probably never would have in Europe. Like other immigrant families, some of my ancestors did better than others. A few became well-off, others became small farmers, others eventually landed in urban areas, becoming workers and small business owners, surviving both depression and times of war.

My own parents kept their home during the Great Depression of the thirties, saved by one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s new deal programs. Later, they managed to send my brother and me to college. We both enjoyed middle class American lives.

Not surprisingly, I have sympathy for immigrants. I think one of the greatest gifts the country has been granted is renewal brought about by managed immigration. Indeed, the castoffs of Nazi Germany, given sanctuary in the United States, helped power the defeat of that same regime.

Some of my beliefs, I freely admit, come from my Christian faith, a belief that those who are blessed are obligated to bless others. We the blessed, are called to share those blessings.

This country has allowed some to amass great wealth. I don’t believe that being rich is in itself a sin. I do believe it is a great responsibility. The responsibility is to choose between the path of the rich man in Jesus’ parable who ignored the poor seeking crumbs from his table, or that of the one known as the Good Samaritan, who chose to help the needy one he happened to meet.

But If Not

In one of the battles of World War II, the commander of a besieged British force radioed to his headquarters: “but if not.”

These words are found in the Christian Old Testament, in the third chapter of the book of Daniel. Three young Jewish men taken captive by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, refused to bow down to a statue of Nebuchadnezzar, set up for the people to worship. When Nebuchadnezzar heard of it, he ordered the men to be burned alive in a fiery furnace.

The men refused. They answered the king: “. . . our God . . . is able to deliver us . . . But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou has set up.”

According to the Biblical passage, the men were miraculously rescued. However, the phrase “but if not” became a symbol for the British people in their great struggle with Hitler’s Nazism. They would stand against the might of his armies, even if Britain seemed close to being vanquished as a nation.

The origin of those words would not be recognized by many English speaking people today. We have lost much of our shared heritage.

Nevertheless, the words remain a symbol for those who struggle against the greed and selfishness and perverted power of this age, in what sometimes seems a losing struggle.

Bible Reading in Public Schools

I grew up a long time ago in Nashville, Tennessee. In my public schools in those days, a teacher often began the day with a reading from the Bible.

It was about as exciting as watching paint dry. I associated it with tasks like learning the multiplication tables.

Where Christ’s teachings did become alive was in many of my church child and youth groups. Teachers there loved both God and youth and believed in us. Some of them got creative with flannel board presentations or games. We shared in Sunday night gatherings, along with food, always a popular draw. (Food also appeared to be a popular draw with some of Jesus’ teachings. He appeared to enjoy feasts and celebrations.)

I think one practice to make Christianity disappear or at least lose its importance in society is to make its teachings compulsory–in the public schools and elsewhere.

Never associate it with fun or games or freedom to ask questions or to share hurts and vulnerabilities in voluntary gatherings. Don’t let it grow the way it did in early Christianity, from person to person, from what was not compulsory but from what was lived.

Make it appear as though the United States of America is a nation of one particular religion, instead of a nation of fallible human beings, where no religion is favored above another, where all are free to seek the truth as they wish. Where the founders understood the awful cost of religious wars in the old world.

Make sure people of other faiths feel that their faith is discriminated against—like the way I used to feel in other countries where another faith was favored. If we can discriminate, so can other nations.

 

Reading the Comics

Every Sunday morning a half hour or so before my husband and I leave for church, I wander down our walkway to the newspaper box next to the street. I grab the paper and begin scanning the headlines on the way back to the house. Later in the afternoon after church, I enjoy a leisurely newspaper read, including, of course, the comic strips.

During the week, I read a couple of newspapers on the web. I prefer traditional newspapers because I trust them more. It’s easier to sue newspapers for libel than some incognito writer of a wild story on the internet.

No doubt my majoring in print journalism many years ago in college contributes to my favoritism for traditional newspapers. One of two print newspapers in my city at the time actually hired me as a summer reporter (the Nashville Banner.) I began on the “obit” circuit: calling funeral homes to check on which Nashvillians had died during the week, whose passing should be noted in print. After a while, I graduated to interviewing citizens for human interest stories. My final summer on the paper, the editor let me cover a religious convention convening in the city.

Alas, I never became the journalist I had intended. However, I credit my newspaper experience with the regard for the truth pushed by that rough city editor under whom I worked.

What will the internet do for truthful reporting? I don’t know. However, we adjusted (sometimes after harming innocent groups, it will be admitted) to the rise of newspapers. They performed valuable service to the rough democracies rising in the western world. Mobs and political machines learned to fear the written word.

The trick today is sorting the wheat from the chaff, finding reputable news sources. Print newspapers are a good place to start.