Guest commentary by Heath Rada Reality time! I am a Virginian, born and bred. Whereas I have adopted North Carolina as my home (and I love North Carolina), I cannot deny my Virginia heritage. On my mother’s side of the family, our roots in Virginia go deep. On the wall of our sunroom hangs a needlepoint sampler that my Virginia-born daughter made for me, and which hints at the arrogance we Virginians feel. It reads: “To be a Virginian, either by birth, marriage, adoption, or even on one’s mother’s side is an introduction to any state in the Union, a passport to any foreign country, and a benediction from Almighty God.” A Virginian’s pride is different from the so-called pride held by people from other states. It’s not as flashy as a Texan’s —with their two-step dancing, cowboy boots, blue bonnets and rodeos. Nor is it similar to the pride of the Midwesterners —smugly affirming their self-sufficiency and their hard-nosed attitude that they are invulnerable to the weather. … [Read more...]
I don’t think y’all can ever stop doing this: A reflection on the blackface scandal in Virginia
Guest commentary by Charles Holmes The conjoined twins of racism and politics, connected via several points along their central nervous systems, have become the focus of our attention again. This poor misshapen conflicted creature exists only to cause pain and promote animus and irreparable damage to every facet of humanity. Not hyperbole. This time the twins have chosen a familiar form: blackface. I will not provide y’all with background information about the aberrant practice because I don’t want to, I don’t have to and if this is a brand-new subject for you then you are new to the planet. Please, allow me to escort you to our leader. But first I think I need to assay the line of accession for both federal and state governments. It shouldn’t take long. It is not possible for me as a marked minority to endure the twins and their pernicious impact on my life for long spans of time without experiencing noxious anger and hate for the white people who consciously and … [Read more...]
Remembering James Hutchinson Smylie
Guest commentary by Dean K. Thompson It is a privilege to be in the grateful company of many who are celebrating the fruitful ministry of James Hutchinson Smylie (1925-2019), teacher and scholar for the church in the field of church history. Specializing in American church history and American Presbyterianism, James Smylie served God by serving ministerial students, pastors, congregations, his denomination and his academic guild with remarkable effectiveness and energy. As I matriculated at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, in 1965, he soon became a loving and demanding mentor who abided with me from my early adulthood into my older adulthood. He liked to joke that we were providentially bonded by geography. He had been born in the manse of Second Presbyterian Church in Huntington, West Virginia, my hometown; I had gone under care for the ministry at a presbytery meeting held in his father’s old church. The home of Elizabeth and Jim Smylie was a place of … [Read more...]
Bendiciónes: Reflections on praying at the border
Guest commentary by Aric Clark I raised two fingers as I prepared to offer what would be one of the most sacred benedictions of my ministry career. I was going to mangle the Spanish, spontaneous translation that was well outside my skill level, but hopefully I would make up for it with sincerity. The couple standing in front of me in sweatshirts and jeans had recently walked over 3,000 miles from El Salvador to the U.S.-Mexico border and were preparing to climb into a van that would take them into detention. Though they’d been a family for 13 years, married in the eyes of their village, they lacked any paperwork that might prove to Customs and Border Patrol that they should remain united. Fearing separation, they asked me at the last moment to marry them there on the sidewalk beside the iron fence that separates this chunk of land from that one. A lawyer stood nearby hastily filling out civil marriage paperwork while I made my way, scrolling on my phone, through a Spanish-language … [Read more...]
Remembering
Where I left the car keys, the remote for the TV, that letter from the lawyer, my spectacles and pills. I must have left my gloves somewhere. And as for that umbrella that the kids gave me last Christmas… Lost objects occupy these latter days like an invading host, demand their dreary ransom of the hours spent in searching – pockets, drawers, desks, and sofas – to locate whatever’s missing. Might there be, somewhere, an eternal Lost and Found, a place where folk and missing things are reunited, where a sympathetic clerk roams miles of shelves and cubby holes until he finds just what it is you’re looking for and sets it on the counter with a smile? And if such a place existed, what would I ask for first? – J. Barrie Shepherd … [Read more...]
Drift
For the 2018 graduating class of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Three hundred fifty million years ago an urge so deep no tongue may shape its name congregated continents together — Pangaea, as we call it — and the land was one, and rivers ran and mountains rose, caressed the sky, and sang the songs of home. Two hundred twenty million years ago Pangaea broke apart, or so they say. The great rift valleys tore the lands asunder; they drifted to the corners of the wind, and came to rest in distant far-flung places, sang other songs, were known by other names. And soon enough the time will come for leaving. New continents will know you by new names, new waters shape new waves upon your shores. These moments we believe to be eternal are but songs we’re given for a while; they drift away, and other songs begin. But pause, and recollect what brought you here — an urge that even now you cannot name, that gathered you together in this place and gave you … [Read more...]
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