You cannot fight a battle you don't think exists." -John Eldridge Most of us live in peaceful neighborhoods, where gunshots don't awaken us in the night, but just because we don't hear the gunshots, doesn't mean they are not being fired. As I was driving north on College Avenue on Saturday, I was stopped by a line of cars following a hearse. The funeral procession was incredibly long. After seven or eight minutes, I swung into another lane and turned hoping to find a clear path home, but the procession had turned as well and once again, I was stopped. Literally hundreds of cars went by. I called out to someone stalled in the procession nearby and they held up a flyer with the name Albert Germany in large type. I offered a quick word of condolence as they drove off. Albert Germany, Jr. was killed on June 12, around 5:30 pm. Police have arrested Dallas M. Jones and charged him with murder. I doubt I would ever have heard the victim's n...
I never let my schooling get in the way of getting an education." -Mark Twain Graduation day is looming for many of our children—a time when we take a nostalgic look back wondering what they've learned, hoping they've learned enough. But in fact most of what they learn is not taught in the classroom, it is learned by example and by the words we speak to our kids over time. Rick Rigsby's 2017 graduation speech at the Maritime Academy at California State University makes that case. He spoke on the subject of his book "Lessons From A 3rd Grade Drop Out," about his father, who left school to work on the family farm at 8 years of age. It has been viewed on YouTube more than 9.6 million times. Rigsby's father had little, but taught himself to read and write. And read he did. He would quote Michael Angelo to his boys saying "I won't have a problem with you if you aim high and miss, but I'll have a big problem with you if you aim low and hit....
If you're only going to look for your keys under the street light, you're never going to find your keys."-AnonymousScientists and others refer to this as the "Streetlight effect" which represents a form of bias in searching for answers. It comes from a joke that was published in a Massachusetts newspaper in 1924 that goes like this:"A policeman is helping a drunk man search for his keys under a streetlight. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost the keys there. The drunk replies, "No, I lost them in the park, but I'll never find them there, this is where the light is".We all seek answers in our personal and professional lives, but we often look for the truth where the process of seeking is easy rather than where the truth actually lies. The problem is the keys are not there, and the answers to our most pressing problems cannot be known unless we are willing to get a little lost in the darkness of the issues to find...
When our thoughts are filled with hate against anyone, negro or white, we exist in a living hell that is as real as hell will every be."-George Washington CarverFor all of us who need reminding, George Washington Carver was born a slave in Missouri about 1860 and rose to brilliance and world-wide celebrity during the next 70 years. As slavery was abolished in Missouri, he and his brother James were adopted by his white former slave owners Moses and Susan Carver. "Aunt Susan" became both mother and teacher to the boys since the local school only accepted whites. Seeing a spark of brilliance in George, she encouraged him to continue his education beyond what she could provide.As a young adult, Carver homesteaded to raise money for school only to be turned away from the first college to which he was accepted when they saw that he was black. Undeterred, he entered racially integrated Simpson College in Iowa, eventually receiving a masters d...
My wife and I were happy for 20 years, then we met each other." -Rodney Dangerfield The late Rodney Dangerfield was a comedian whose career spanned the 60s, 70s, and 80s. He was a regular on The Tonight Show and had his own New York night club. For a man who built his entire persona on being a guy who "gets no respect," he was very successful. One of his jokes: "I once took my wife to the dog show. She won." Dangerfield was married three times. Abandoned by his father at an early age, he probably had no idea what a healthy marriage looked like. But whatever the cause of his marital problems, by the 80s, he was living in an apartment with his poodle. Most of us understand that a successful joke requires a seed of truth to be funny. His jokes about his wife were filled with those bitter seeds. No wonder behind the laughter there were real problems. The scriptures are filled with mandates for us to honor and respect each other. But mo...
How long will it take?I come to say that however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long because no lie can live forever."-Martin Luther King Jr., at the Alabama capitol in Montgomery, March 25, 1965Watch Clarence Moore, Northside New Era Baptist Church recounting King's speech at St. Lukes United Methodist Church, January 20, 2019That day in March of 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. was speaking before a group of supporters in Montgomery, Alabama, having just finished a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, at the head of a group of thousands of nonviolent demonstrators.King told the assembled crowd: "There never was a moment in American history more honorable and more inspiring than the pilgrimage of clergymen and laymen of every race and faith pouring into Selma to face danger at the side of its embattled Negroes."He asks, how long will it take? in an eloquent treatise on the inevitable victory of truth. In ma...
God bless us, everyone!"-Tiny Tim, in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" In 1843, Charles Dickens whose last three books had been flops, now had a wife, pregnant with child number five, and a publisher who was threatening to substantially reduce his income. He had to produce another book—and quickly.The first chapter came to him speedily, but was roundly criticized due to the Christmas theme. He was told Christmas was a minor holiday, and even more problematic was that it was already October. How could he write a book and get it published before December 25th?But this story was coming from the very marrow of the writer. Brought up as a member of the burgeoning English middle class—all was taken away from him at age 12 when his spend-thrift father plunged the family into bankruptcy and was sent with his wife to debtor's prison. Charles was taken out of school and put to work in a rat-infested shoe blacking factory, instilling in him a ...
To ignore the facts does not change the facts."-Andy Rooneyancy quoted some startling statistics about fatherless homes during one of our published Round Table discussions. Today 50 percent of children are born into fatherless homes across the country, and the number is 75 percent in some minority communities. She pointed out the importance of a partnership in raising children and the model of a father in the home.One of the pastors on the panel responded that this was "evangelical churchianity" and that the single mothers were better than his own had been. He told Nancy she should not have quoted those statistics.To him and to many it is politically incorrect to say that fathers are important. It is politically incorrect to point out that too many young men and women are growing up without the important example of a father who goes to work to support his wife and children, who protects and nurtures them, who enforces family standards w...
A place where Jews are not safe is a place where no one is safe."-Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-BurrowsEpiscopal Diocese of IndianapolisThe people streamed in. Traffic on Meridian Street was at a standstill at 5:30 Monday night. Standing room only was augmented by another great room where the proceedings were televised for all to see. It was The Greater Indianapolis Community Memorial Gathering To Honor Jews Killed in Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue where an attacker murdered 11 people and wounded six in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.Held at the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation, it seemed like half the city was there and certainly there were clergy from every faith and politicians of every stripe.But closing statements by Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows said it all best. If all of us do not stand together, if we do not fight hatred at every turn, then every one of us is at risk. We cannot allow ourselves to be divid...
The only white people that thank Jesus are Republicans and ex-crackheads."-Michael Che at the EmmysThe 70th Primetime Emmy Awards program opened a few days ago from Los Angeles with a slew of political jokes and jabs as expected, but one remark from comedian Michael Che left many viewers wondering why they had tuned in.You saw the quote: He said, "The only white people that thank Jesus are Republicans and ex-crackheads." Really? Has the name of the Son of God become so devalued in mainstream America that it is now cheap fodder for primetime comics? Pretty obviously the answer is yes.This is where we are today. It might have gotten laughs from Hollywood elites, but it is no joke. It was divisive and patently incorrect. This is a barometer of the sad state of a nation that no longer honors the powerful name of the One who saved us, a nation that continues to chip away at its own foundation like a dog chewing on its leg.A pastor I was talk...
