Covering our Buts

The inability to hear my own discriminatory language
comes automatically with white privilege.

I've been blessed
by my parents, teachers, friends, and aquaintances
who have taken the time to
call me on my own racist speech
across my lifetime.

I've internalized what they've told me,
and now I try to prescreen
what comes out of my mouth.

Too often there is still
a cognitive step
between the garbage I think
and what I actually say.

While I've lost most of my fear
of the potential of living with dementia
in my later years,
I'm aware that one of my lingering fears
of cognitive decline
comes in the fear
that I will lose that cognitive step,
that inner filter,
and say things that spring forth
from the racial tensions
and biases I've soaked in
my whole life
from the culture around me.

I'm struggling this week
with my responsibility
to address, not just the racism I say,
but the racism I hear
and don't address.

I've often failed to say anything
when people I love say things
that trouble me.
Because I love them,
because I know they are struggling
to be better than the culture around them,
because I know in certain regions
I call home
everyone talks like that.
And, let's face it,
because I don't want to stir up trouble,
or cause them to love me less.

But we need to start
holding one another accountable
to hear the things we say
that represent our inherited biases.

We need to continue to work
on our language,
and hope our hearts change as well.

So, a couple thoughts on
covering our buts.

If a sentence begins
with the phrase
"I don't want to sound racist, but..."
then the horse has already left the barn,
the chicken has already flown the coop.
Pretty much any sentence that begins with
"I don't want to sound racist, but....,"
well, that sentence already sounds racist.

And we wouldn't use that phrase if
somewhere in our hearts
we didn't think so, too.

So we need to listen for that phrase
and eliminate it.
And we need to think
about what we are saying after it,
and whether it needs to be said.
Why does it sound racist?
Maybe because it is?

The second place we can cover our buts:
Any sentence that includes
a positive description of someone
and the word "but."

She's black, but she's a good nurse.
He's gay, but he's a good neighbor.
 She's Mexican, but she's really smart.

Ouch. 

We need to keep that "but"
unspoken,
and hear instead
the lesson that
people of all races, ethnicities, and persuasions
have gifts and challenges.

Noticing our language
gives us an opportunity
to hear the biases we've learned
whether we wanted to or not.

And so, I ask you,
even if we don't have the kind
of relationship where
we have a covenant
of mutual accountability,
even if we are barely
polite acquaintances,
tell me when my butt shows.
Tell me when I say things
that I don't even hear.
Tell me in love,
and help me battle
my own blindness and deafness
of privilege and bias.

On Guns in Church

Few things have caused me as much inner turmoil
and reflection on society, prejudice, violence,
and my role in all of the above
as the recent murders of nine people
who had gathered for Bible study.

I've had time to reflect on the pervasive
and ongoing racism of our culture
and within my own worldview and being.
But that is another important ongoing conversation.

This morning I'm thinking about the well publicized
response of one member of the NRA,
who indicated that the deaths
were in part the fault of the pastor
for opposing guns in his church.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/19/an-nra-board-member-blamed-a-murdered-pastor-for-the-deaths-in-charleston-yes-really/

I wish all the people in that Bible Study were still living.
I wish their families were not faced with the grief of their loss
this morning and every morning to come.

But I don't wish that one of them had been carrying a gun,
I don't wish that one of them would have shot back.

I continue to wonder at the fact that
it was a florist with a phone
who led to the shooter's arrest.

I continue to hear echoing in my ears
the words of both loss and forgiveness that
grieving and devastated family members
shared at the shooter's bond hearing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/19/hate-wont-win-the-powerful-words-delivered-to-dylann-roof-by-victims-relatives/

I think about the fact that the shooter
almost abandoned his plan,
telling police later that he
"almost didn't go through with it
because everyone was so nice to him."

I think about hearing ethicist Stanley Hauerwas
sharing his response a few years ago
when asked if he wouldn't abandon his
pacifist ways if someone threatened the lives of his children.
He responded,
"I want my children to know
that there are
more important things in life
than not dying."

I have strong opinions about gun laws,
but this is not a blog about that.

Many years ago
a youth in my church
expressed shock to hear
that I lived in Miami, FL
and did not own a gun.
He asked me about defending myself,
and I explained that you couldn't
use a gun like Wonder Woman's bracelets
to deflect bullets.
You could only use it to shoot someone else,
and I had chosen to not do that.

I do believe we
as a culture and a society
are called to shoot back.
We are to shoot back at pervasive racism,
by self awareness, brutal honesty, and social changes.
 We are called to battle,
to fight economic injustice,
voter suppression,
the undermining of public education.
We are called to fight back
against our own willful naivete
about the history and current practices
of overt and subtle racism in our country.

Our country needs redemptive action,
but not redemptive violence.

Our country has heard
the echo of the gunshots,
but have we heard the quiet power
of the love, the faith, and the grace
of the nine and their families?

Leaving the Interstate

Traveling through South Carolina yesterday
we got off of I-85
and traveled instead along SC 11,
the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway.
There were many State Parks and waterfalls to choose between.

Following the WATERFALLS signs
another ten or eleven miles
off our main route,
we paid the $2 per car
admission fee to one of the state parks.

I am a fan of interstates.
They get you from place to place quickly.
But sometimes the best journeys
involve exploring the backroads,
taking the time to find
the treasures along the way.

Lichens, large and small.

I brought home a stick covered in lichens
during a walk around the block last week.
I was interested in the variety
and wanting to take a closer look.

I discovered that by using a handheld 5x magnifying glass
and my iPod Touch camera zoomed in a bit
I could get some amazing close up detail on the lichens.

Who knew they were so hairy?
Now I've got the magnifying bug.
Am looking forward to looking at more things
with low tech enhancement.

Why look,
it even has me blogging again.

April Blues

 

Each year by the back door, mixed in with the grass, clover and dandelions,

two or three tiny stalks of blue flowers pop up. 

 They don't look like much from a distance, but up close the bluebells are lovely.

 

There are also ribbons of small bluish purple flowers 

all over the lawn (pictured below).  

Picked, they smell minty.  

Magnified, they look like irises, 

with a palette of color and texture.

I looked them up in the wildflower book.  They're not native. 

 Like many of our plants they came over from Europe.

Ground Ivy, Gill-over-the-ground, Creeping Charlie.

Considered a weed due to the enthusiastic spread,

but causing no problems at my house.

Used in the old country to flavor beer.

More on Ground Ivy 

Glassy Mountain Views

In the warmth of the day
on Sunday afternoon
we hiked up to Glassy Mountain,
one of the trails at the Carl Sandburg house.

It was a nice, easy trail,
with lots of friendly people
and their dogs.

At the top of the trail
was the payoff,
a nice rocky bald
with lovely views of early evening.

This would be a good trail
for visiting Floridians or other flatlanders.
Easy hike, nice picnic area at the end.
Also...lovely park benches at regular intervals.
Love that.

The Sixth Day of Christmas

On the sixth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
a hawk in the dogwood tree.

My camera was nestled
all firm in it's bag,
without a memory card
and the batteries all dead.

I'm mixing my Christmas songs
and poems,
but you get the picture.

After a brief scramble,
I found the hawk quite patient to my hurried preparations,
willing to wait for me to get my act together
so I could take pictures to my heart's content.

And then the hawk turned and launched
to fly away.
Fly away indeed, friend hawk.
Don't eat my chickens.

July 2012 Garden report

While I don't blog often these days,
it occurs to me that the blog makes a wonderful garden journal.
So an update on the garden...

While the rest of the nation experiences drought,
we've had good steady rain this year.
We've got some of the best looking corn in the country.

We've let the chicken's half
of the original garden
go to tall weeds this summer,
giving lots of shade
and shelter from hawks.
The two younger hens still lay
a steady supply of summer eggs.
Ethel is still perking along,
not moving as well as she used to,
but seeming to take pleasure in her old age.

At the Maple Tree Watering Hole

There's a hollow in the maple tree out front,
where an old branch died
and dropped off.

When it rains,
the hollow fills with water,
and all the neighborhood birds
come to partake.

Fun to watch them
tilting to drink
right outside the dining room window.

Growing Up with Tarzan

On weekends in my childhood,
we would sometimes visit my mother's parents
who lived on a farm in rural north Florida.

I can remember spending Saturday mornings
watching old Tarzan movies
with my grandfather
on their little black and white TV.

I didn't know at the time
that many of those movies
were filmed at Silver Springs,
not an hour away from where we sat.

Was it the black and white
or just my ability to believe
that kept me from recognizing the jungles
of my own home state?

(These pictures come from Leesburg, FL, taken last February at a camp counselor reunion.)
 

Value Added

I'm trying to cut back
on watching TV,
surfing the internet,
even reading books.


When I am doing one of those things,
I am perhaps staying out from under foot
and not causing trouble,
but neither am I contributing to the world around me.

I'm trying to figure out
more ways each day
to add beauty,
kindness,
creativity
and something interesting
to a world full of noise and clutter and meanness.

Even if it just means sharing
a picture in the woods
celebrating that spring does come
whether we watch for it or not.

I will ask, not for guilt or pressure,
but simply as a reminder
and some focus:
as my presence here added anything worthwhile
to the world today?

Public Spaces

 

Sick days at home often stimulate blogging.
I know this from spending much of yesterday
breathing through my mouth
and reading through blog entries
going back six years.

Another thing I realized
was how many of the pictures
I treasure and share
come from
places we own together.

State parks, national parks,
public land and forests.
Even the privately owned places,
like the Shaker Village in Kentucky,
are held in trust
so that the public can visit, learn and enjoy.

It turns out that together,
we share an incredible wealth
of views, hiking trails,
winding roads and places of beauty.
How rich we are, my friends!
How very rich!

Craggy Gardens Hike, May 2011

This has been
one of the most beautiful falls
in recent memory.
Which, of course,
leads me to post
lovely pictures from spring.

I was very excited when I took these shots
at the prospect of sharing
this vivid green
on the blog.

It took me a while to get around to posting.
But the spring green is worth the wait.

And perhaps,
as we drift towards winter,
this green is just what the doctor ordered.

A Well Rounded Blog

According to a recent
New Yorker cartoon*
most blogs consist of

"1/3 stories about crap
somebody cooked, knitted or sewed;
1/3 self-promotion
and 1/3 conspiracy theories."

The cartoon awakened me to a basic fact.
I am way behind on my
share of conspiracy theories.

I just happened to come up with one
on my way to church this morning,
which I will now share with
a public in need of some
new paranoia.

In North Carolina there is a roundish
brown, garden eating mammal
called a groundhog.
(Click here for pictures)
We did not have them in Florida.
Apparently they are
NC's answer to armadillos.

You'll see them as you drive around town
perched on the side of the road,
facing traffic
making little chewing motions with their mouths
but always right there on the very curb
with their nose practically under the cars.

I couldn't figure why an animal,
much less an entire breed of animals
would perch so precariously
with cars whooshing by
and threatening their fuzzy existance.

Finally I realized:
they are not mammals at all.
They are electronic devices set there
to monitor us in our cars,
disguised as mild mannered
fuzzy brown garden destroyers.

I know some ground hogs are real
and a real pain in the patooty
if you are growing your own veggies.

But those omnipresent roadside hogs...
they are machines,
put there by The Man
keeping us under
his controlling eye.

Beware of both kinds.

*September 26, 2011, The New Yorker, page 90, "Blog Breakdown" cartoon.

Ode to Spanish Moss

One of the ways
I know am near my original stomping grounds
in the heart of north Florida
is to look to the trees
for the gentle drapery of Spanish Moss.

These pictures almost seem
like black and white photography,
but they are color shots on a cloudy day.

The gray of the plant
covers a green interior,
life within something that looks
not quite so living.

Gentle breezes add a certain
living movement,
but one beyond the plant's control.

While I love my home in North Carolina,
I have to visit the land of moss
(or more accurately, the land of angiosperm)
on occasion to set things right with my soul.

(Photos from the Warren W. Willis camp in Leesburg, FL, taken last February).

More on Spanish Moss