I Wish, I'd Said That

"Maybe uninsured American children who can’t get adequate health care could masquerade as cotton plants or cornstalks. Then the farm bill would shower them with money and care."


New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

Gordon Brown: A New, Fresh, Leader for the World

It appears that we have a leader who leads and does not just say the popular and the expected. In his first few weeks in office and the leadership, he has shown around the terrorist attack that came just days after he took office, the domestic crisis of flooding, another outbreak of foot and mouth disease among cattle, and his first visit to the United States since becoming the British prime minister. Brown was affirming the U.K. /U.S. relationship for the long term while keeping the President Bush at arms length.

In his speech at the U.N., Brown helped to make some real breakthroughs on both Darfur and global poverty. The British newspaper The Guardian reported his description of the situation in Darfur as the "greatest humanitarian disaster" the world faces today, and his announcement that the U.K., France, and the U.S. would submit a resolution to the Security Council mandating a peacekeeping force. The resolution passed later that same day.

The heart of his speech was global poverty and the challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals. Brown said that after seven years "it is already clear that our pace is too slow; our direction too uncertain; our vision at risk. ... We cannot allow our promises that became pledges to descend into just aspirations, and then wishful thinking, and then only words that symbolize broken promises."

He then challenged his audience:

And so my argument is simple: The greatest of evils that touches the deepest places of conscience demands the greatest of endeavor. The greatest of challenges now demands the boldest of initiatives. To address the worst of poverty we urgently need to summon up the best efforts of humanity.

I want to summon into existence the greatest coalition of conscience in pursuit of the greatest of causes. And I firmly believe that if we can discover common purpose there is no failing in today's world that cannot be addressed by mobilizing our strengths, no individual struggle that drags people down that cannot benefit from a renewed public purpose that can lift people up.

To find that common purpose, he said:

Our objectives cannot be achieved by governments alone, however well-intentioned; or private sector alone, however generous; or NGOs (non-governmental organizations) or faith groups alone, however well-meaning or determined—it can only be achieved in a genuine partnership together.

After addressing governments and businesses, the prime minister went on to say

Let me say to faith groups and NGOs—your moral outrage at avoidable poverty has led you to work for the greatest of causes, the highest of ideals, and become the leaders of the campaign to make poverty history. Imagine what more you can accomplish if the energy to oppose and expose harnessed to the energy to propose and inspire is given more support by the rest of us—businesses, citizens, and governments.

A leader to inspire, don’t you think!

Is there a candidate for President who is this inspiring? There are very few, if any!

Shakespeare Taught Much About Insulting

While surfing the other day. I ran across some quotations from Shakespeare's plays that have the ability to put an advisary in his place. Some are quite straightforward in language. Just remember they are apart of the literature of our language.

Allow me to list a few for your consideration:

Thou cockered whoreson moldwarp!
Thou weedy hell-hated wagtail!
Thou whoreson impudent embossed rascal!
All from: Henry IV, part I

And from: As You Like It
Thou dankish dizzy-eyed varlot!
[Thou art] like the toad, ugly and venomous.

Hamlet gives us these:
Thou odiferous common-kissing mumble-news!
[Thou] appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

My favorite is from the Merchant of Venice:
[You] speak an infinite deal of nothing.

Before I am accusted of saying "an infinite deal of nothing" I best sign off.

Just remember that we do not have to curse to be creative in our insults.

LET’S CREATE A BELOVED COMMUNITY

A chairos moment is one of those moments in our life that everything comes together, just as the experience of the Apostle Paul. Few of use have such an experience, an experience that molds our future actions, our future beliefs, and our countenance, etc. The times we are fueled by our faith, stretched to think bigger and bolder than our shriveled-up minds could fathom, and yes, the times when there was a threat, an external challenge to overcome, were indeed the times when we had little experiences of chairos the beloved community.

The Montgomery bus boycott was the catalytic experience, a chairos moment that crystallized Dr. Martin L. King’s thinking. He became convinced that love, love that transforms, was the key to moving in to that beloved community. “We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization,” he said in calling for a boycott of the buses. He went on explaining that the boycott was but a means to an end. “But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community.” In the face of the hatred and violence, he said, “We’ve got to love people no matter what …love the unlovable. Love the hell out of them.”

What a world it would be, if we could take this as our new/old motto and approach the so-called enemies and bad guys in the world with the energy to "Love the hell out of them" ... it would take a boldness and confidence to try, a chairos moment. Nevertheless, what do we have to lose? The path we are currently on as a nation is deadly, dead-ended, creates more enemies every day, and makes us an unloved nation. Where can we choose to make changes in out world and our nation? Does anyone want to join the new offensive to "Love the hell out of them."

Doug Marlette

A True Champion of Freedom of the Press.

I met Doug during the first Alamance Reads program. I first watched his presentation in Burlington to a packed house. Later he was at a more intiment venue in Mebane. I boldly walked up to him and introduced myself. He found out that I had served as Mayor of Mebane and he responded, "And you still go out in public?" That evening he autographed every thing that I could put my hands on. Among them was a copy of The Bridge, for every member of my family.

Doug Marlette was afraid of no man. He tackled the top and the bottom of society. Doug was a Southern Rebel Rosier at heart and could laugh at any thing or any body.

We often wonder about God's will in the loss of someone as talented as Doug. However, it must remain one of those mysteries that only God understands. We are confident that the heavenly host are having a good laugh with Doug'scaricature of Satin and his crowd.

Artist, political observer, novelist, and a great guy are adjectives to descrip Doug Marlette. He always had the ability to poke fun at the most sacred and respected.

Thanks, Doug, for your treasures that you have given us.

TAKE A LOOK AT THE SOUTH

My wife and I just returned from a trip to visit my brother, Wayne, in Georgia. Our next stop was Natchez, Mississippi. We passed through sights in Alabama that brought back remembrances of the Civil Rights movement of Montgomery and Birmingham. In Mississippi saw signs honoring Medger Evers. Sometimes some of us grow to believe that those places in the Deep South are still the same. It doesn’t take much observation to notice that there are changes. Just as it is here, maybe not enough, but there is progress. Need we remember the Governor George Wallace who fought to keep Alabama schools segregated only later to become a more responsive governor, who appointed minorities to positions of great responsibility and saw that integration was accomplished. In Natchez, the place of antebellum homes along the Mississippi River, mixed race neighborhoods are being seen. We understand that these are very real signs of progress in solving racial differences in the South.

The South is a very special region of the USA and a very diverse region! Some of the most talented writers of American fiction and non-fiction had their roots in the South. Maybe this has happened because we are a people who love our region and our land. We welcome those who move here with open arms when we are confident that we are no longer the butt of their jokes and that we have much to offer them. Yes, our climate is not always the most preferred. Here in the ‘Ole North State’ complain about the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter. We know that our weather will change if we stand here long enough.

Even with modest changes in racial tensions. The South is a changed place. There are still farms and an agrarian society in parts of the South. However, our urban areas are large and sprawling. Population is in an obvious increase. The instances of automobiles are difficult to imagine. Take a ride of the beltway around Atlanta during the rush periods of the day. This stretch of freeway become a parking long very quickly and is practically impassable. Our cities are cities of distinction that offer a quality of life that is unsurpassed in the country. Theatre, opera, the visual arts are ever-present. Our writers are still churning out there work. James Lee Burke, John Grissham, Fanny Flagg, Lee Smith, Pat Conroy, are some of our finest.

I might suggest to us native-born Southerners that we get out and look at our South again and that you who have moved in look at our personable, picturesque region.

Ruth Graham

Ruth Bell Graham has left this place better just because she was among us for 87 years. She once said,

I saw a sign on a strip of
highway once that I would like
to have copied on my gravestone,
It said "end of construction.
Thank you for you patience."

Perhaps the only real way to see the life of Ruth Graham is to read her poetry. She was an accomplished writer and poet, in addition to being a wife and mother.

There is noway that I can describe a great marriage than to see the example of Billy and Ruth Graham. Their undying committed devotion to each other kept them both humble and proud. Billy Graham is one of the world's greatest religious leaders and undoubtedly the example of the verse in Micah that goes something like this: "Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God." Billy Graham is what he has become because he chose Ruth as his wife.

Ruth Graham's life is going to be an example for all people of faith for years to come. Perhaps as much as her husband's.

Thank you, God, for giving us Ruth Bell Graham.