Leading a Horse to Water

As I've mentioned before, I grew up in the heart of East Texas. My homeland has a simplicity of life that escapes the city slicker. There is a neighborliness that seems inherent in this type of life and which seems elusive to those who live in the more concentrated population centers. The extended family seems more important.  A closeness to your aunts, uncles and cousins seems a given there. Lest I paint a picture that country living is all goodness and virtue, I must also state that there are ugly things, too. Some are very ugly.

Simplicity of living often coexists with willful ignorance. Come to think of it, living in general usually coexists with willful ignorance, whether in the city or the country. Some of these country folks never question what they were taught as they were growing up. This can lead to wrong thinking and erroneous beliefs, all rooted in the ignorant notion that things are the way they are and that they don't get better and won't change.
 
The Ku Klux Klan had a foothold in the community I lived in--perhaps a tenuous foothold, but a foothold nonetheless. The KKK preys on ignorance because around this type of ignorance, racism flourishes like Johnson grass on an East Texas roadside. I grew up among some racists, and I'm sure there were people I knew who were secretly involved with the KKK, but it remained a secret, outside the knowledge of myself or many others in the community. It's not the kind of thing you would be proud of, like a new grandbaby. There would be few who would want talk about it.

I remember a time in the early 70s when the KKK approached our school to do some recruiting. They entered a meeting of Young Homemakers on the high school campus one evening, scaring those ladies nearly to death.

When I was in high school, I remember seeing signs promoting a Klan rally in the area. Not too many days after this rally, I remember seeing photos in a regional newspaper that had been taken at the rally. Amongst those photographed were two boys that went to our school. They were wearing their hoods like good little Kluxers, and were carrying guns, too. I remember how hateful and mean these boys were in their everyday lives. I remember wondering if their hatred came from being aligned with the Klan or if it was a more general hatred that drove them to the Klan.

I remember some people I knew had a card labeled a "Ni**er Hunting License". They would flash the card, thinking it funny. I remember how wrong it felt just to read that card.

I think we all carry around a touch of racism. There's certainly a meanness in us all.  Most of us are able to outgrow it with maturity, sort of like we overcome the unpleasantness of bed wetting. I also don't think that whites are necessarily the only ones guilty of race-focused hatred. It can come from both sides of the tracks.

There are times when I go home to visit family and I hear the people from this community say things that I now find shocking. Names are called, epithets hurled. You hear the wrongness, not as much in the words themselves, but in the tones used to communicate the words. They are tones that communicate dislike, distaste, and on occasion, simple hatred. The ignorance that fuels the Klan is the same ignorance that fuels this kind of latent racism, too, though perhaps to a lesser degree.

It's one of the things about my heritage that I despise. It's one of the things I'm ashamed of, not because of what I've done, but because of the dark stain that has been left on my heritage by racial hatred.  I don't feel that I'm necessarily better than those folks I grew up amongst and around. I know the same darkness lurks in me, too. My mind can still conjure up the darkest of thoughts, the vilest of feelings and emotions. My heart is not immune to hate. I just have it under my control most of the time.

I remain thankful that the curse can be broken--that there is a power greater than the power that can decompose a person's soul with hatred. May I always give that greater power the rule of my life.

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ~I John 3:18-20

Believe It or Not

One of the weird stories I remember from my youth was the story of the Saratoga Light.

Saratoga is a town not far from where I grew up, in the heart of East Texas, the Piney Woods and the Big Thicket. The Big Thicket can be a spooky place all on its own. It is a sparsely populated, thickly wooded area. On an unmooned night, the roads can be as black as a killer's heart. Add to this a good ghost story and a supposed apparition and it can be even spookier.

Just north of Saratoga is Bragg Road. Bragg Road is what we used to call a tram road. A tram road is a road built along what was once a rail bed. These railways were mostly used for logistical purposes of some type of industry (oil or timber), and when their usefulness evaporated, the rail bed could easily be converted to a road. The tram roads that I remember were usually only dirt roads, some more traveled than others. Some of the more heavily traveled roads were county maintained, which meant that the county had cut in ditches and would occasionally resurface the dirt road with a maintainer. In the case of Bragg Road, it had been used to supply the oil industry in the area in the early 1900s and was abandoned in 1934. The rails were later pulled up and it became a regularly traveled road, eventually maintained by Hardin County. 

A phenomenon is said to occur on Bragg Road on occasion:  the Saratoga Light. A mysterious light would appear, often at a distance on the road. At times, attempts to approach or follow the light would be unsuccessful. Other reports have stated that the light would approach vehicles, and on occasion would enter vehicles. The light has been photographed and even appeared in National Geographic's October 1974 article about the Big Thicket. Here is a copy of the image, a 20-minute exposure taken by Blair Pittman (you can see the trail left by a star captured in the photograph over the exposure time).

There are many explanations given for the Saratoga Light. The more practical is that it is swamp gas, a car's light or the reflection of a car's light. The explanations I remember hearing tended toward being more fanciful. Among them are:

1. It was the ghost of a railway worker who had been decapitated by a train. The light was from the lantern he used to look for his missing head.
   
2. It was the ghosts of Spanish men, returning to the area to look for lost gold.
3. It was the ghost of a man, shot by Confederate soldiers.

I remember hearing these stories from my pre-teen years through my high school years. I remember hearing wild tales of personal encounters, most likely complete fabrications based on third-party recollections of things that happened on Bragg Road. I remember poorly laid plans made with friends or cousins to go to Bragg Road to see the light for ourselves, plans that would never materialize.

Do I believe the light exists? Yes. There are many reputable accounts from those who have seen the light--more reputable than any who can claim to have seen Bigfoot. Do I believe it is caused by numbers 1, 2 or 3 above? No. There is some good explanation for the phenomenon that doesn't dip into the realm of the supernatural. But I think these wild explanations are sort of like Santa Claus. Knowing that there is no such thing as Santa doesn't mean its not fun believing in him anyway.

Messiah

I don't remember the first time I attended a performance of Handel's Messiah. I'm going to guess that it was in the neighborhood of 20 years ago. I don't know how many times I've seen the performance since then, but it's been a few.

Messiah is a classic amongst Christian audiences. They love it for many reasons. The libretto (the words that are sung) is simply scripture, taken straight from the Bible. The music is breathtaking. There are awe-inspiring choruses that can bring tears to all but the most jaded of eyes. It speaks of a Savior and his role in history--past, present and future. It is a musical masterpiece; few would question that it is the crowning achievement of George Frideric Handel, its composer:  his magnum opus. Beethoven was an admirer of Handel's, having reportedly once said: "Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived." (These images show a transcription Beethoven did of Messiah in order to study Handel's style.)

Handel composed Messiah during the summer of 1741. Having received the libretto from a friend, Charles Jennens, he set to work on it at the feverish pace he was known for, often working from sunup until sundown, often forgetting to stop and eat. At this pace, he finished it in 24 days, quite a feat when you consider the orchestration and its inherent complexity. It is said that Handel's household staff reported him overcome with emotion several times during the composition, once saying in his broken English, "I did think I did see all heaven before me and the great God himself!"

Messiah's first performance was April 13, 1742 at the Music Hall in Dublin. Handel himself led the performance from the harpsichord and the orchestra was conducted by Matthew Dubourg. Handel repeatedly revised Messiah himself, the most familiar version coming to be in 1754, when it was performed in a benefit for the Foundling Hospital in London, a favorite charitable cause of Handel's.

Handel conducted Messiah himself on many occasions. He was known to alter the composition to suit the performers, either the vocalists or the orchestra. This variety of versions leads to the conclusion that there is no true official version of Messiah, nor one which can be authoritatively considered "most authentic."

In 1742, Jonathan Swift was Dean at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. At that time, the theater in general and Handel's music in particular were viewed as "profane and subversive" by many ministers of the day, Swift included. Many choir members from St. Patrick were singing in the chorus in the first performance of Messiah. Swift almost derailed the performance by forbidding the choir from performing, yet he finally gave in and allowed it to take place. This all took place many years after Swift had penned Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal (1726 and 1729 respectively), and just a few years before his death in 1745.

The Hallelujah Chorus can easily be regarded as the most ubiquitous movement from Messiah. It has been used in ways that would have shamed Handel (commercials, movie soundtracks, etc.), yet to those who love Messiah, it is almost always the high point of any performance. There is a lot of legend surrounding the chorus; whether rooted in truth or totally spurious, no one can know. One story tells that, during the London premier of Messiah in 1743, King George II rose to his feet during the Hallelujah Chorus and remained standing until its end. Of course, when the king rises, everyone else does, too, so this would be the birth of the tradition which has endured until this day. I had heard another legend referenced, yet tracing it down was a bit more difficult. I'll quote the passage complete so I won't ruining it with my paraphrasing.

During the week of her coronation, when Victoria was still a young lady, she was sitting in the Royal Lodge while Handel's "Messiah" was being performed. The lady-in-waiting came to her and said, "Everybody in the room with the exception of the Queen will rise and will remain standing for the duration of the music. It is royal etiquette that the Queen should remain seated." The music continued, sweeter and fuller, it seemed to be sweet enough for heaven. When the "Hallelujah Chorus" began, the people rose and stood with their heads bowed. It was obvious that the Queen was deeply moved. Her lips trembled and her eyes filled with tears, her body shook until the melody sounded, “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” In spite of the royal etiquette the young Queen rose and remained standing with her head bowed till the music ended. 

In the original version (from my memory), I recall a specific detail telling of how the queen also removed her crown during the chorus. As much as I would like to believe this, it is most likely fiction, made up by someone along the timeline for whom the truth wasn't meaty enough.

My family went to see a performance of Messiah the other night by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and the Southwestern Seminary Master Chorale. It was amazing. Simply amazing. Though Messiah is not specifically about the advent in such a way as to be a Christmas specialty, it has traditionally been performed during the Christmas season. Messiah is one of the few things that can actually make me look forward to this season.

Go see Messiah if you can this year. If you cannot, then do what I did one year when I could not attend:  I bought it on CD.

Sources: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_%28Handel%29
http://www.gfhandel.org/messiah.htm
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Glorious-History-of-Handels-Messiah.html
http://www.christianhistorytimeline.com/DAILYF/2001/04/daily-04-13-2001.shtml
http://www.oratoriosocietyofny.org/notesDecember.htm
http://www.cai.org/bible-studies/queen-victoria

Briar and Burley on a Cool Winter's Eve

I have been a pipe smoker, off and on, for the better part of the last decade. In the early part of that 10-year  period, I had a pipe in my hand most every evening. I spent many hours online, chatting with other pipe smokers, burning bowl after bowl of different blends, steeping myself in the culture of the briar.

There's an interesting congruity between pipe smoking and the computer. I always enjoyed puffing and clicking, having the monitor occasionally obscured by smoke, letting go of the mouse on occasions when I needed to tamp. Around '02 or '03, I was active on #alt.smokers.pipes, an IRC (chat) channel on the Undernet, even serving as an operator for a little while. Wasted a lot of hours online and met a lot of interesting pipe smokers there. Pipe smokers are generally good people. In the normal course of life and all its comings and goings, you just don't run into many pipe smokers anymore. They're still out there. You just have to go and find them.

On the recommendation of some friends on ASP, I once tried a blend I'd heard great things about: Haddo's Delight. I ordered a tin and fired it up that first evening after it arrived. Fifteen minutes into what would normally be a 30-minute burn, the room started spinning. I thought, Surely this will pass. It didn't. (The room did stop spinning, but it was about 20 minutes after my pipe was cool.) I had never experienced that with any other pipe tobacco I had smoked, and haven't since then either. I ended up sending it to one of the guys on ASP that liked it and moved on to other, less intense, tobacco experiences.

My pipe smoking has tapered off quite a bit in recent years. I usually experience a resurgence in the winter months, especially when there is a firm chill in the air. Pipe smoking seems a perfect fit on a wintry eve with a fire in the fireplace and a chill in the air.

I haven't bought a new pipe in quite some time. I've only recently bought some new blends, but they seem to last me forever, given my diminished consumption. The biggest challenge now is keeping it hydrated and smokable. When I started buying tobacco in bulk, I bought some jars--the glass kind with the rubber seal around the glass lid. They keep the tobacco moist, especially if you put a slice of apple in there. One of the jars I've labeled "Kitchen Sink". Kitchen Sink is where I dump my small amounts of tobacco, what's left at the bottom of a tin after most is gone. Kitchen Sink is an ever-changing blend that would be totally impossible to recreate, even with a lot of well-funded scientific research. There were a few young fellows that used to come over and smoke a pipe with me. They all liked Kitchen Sink. It's a nice, mild blend with a decent, mysterious taste. There is also an appeal in its transient nature. Each bowl you smoke could be the last one just like that, because next time it might be different.

Right now, I'm puffing on some Kitchen Sink in my Peterson (shown here). It's my favorite pipe. Welcome back, Old Man Winter.

Weblogging: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

 

The advent of weblogging (which I still refuse to call "blogging") and the rise to its present ubiquitous state has been quite a mixed blessing. In the old days, before self-publication in the print realm became so easy, books that were self-published earned the moniker "vanity press". The idea was that when a writer who couldn't find a publisher to buy his book went ahead and paid himself to have it published/printed, then these were the actions of a vain person. Vanity press books were usually poorly written, poorly edited and poorly published. What did the publisher/printer care? They were getting paid anyway, and up front, too. In other words, self-publication once carried a negative connotation.

Fast forward to the new millennium, where printing is cheap and online diaries are free. The general quality of the written word has risen exponentially. Did I say "risen"? Sorry. I meant FALLEN!! Sure, there are good writers out there, many of whom still make a good living selling their wares. In spite of a small vein of quality which still endures, we find ourselves in the midst of a constant deluge of bad writing, punctuated by bad grammar and spelling, and it seems no one cares.

  Take xanga, for instance.  Never mind that. I'll refrain from biting the hand that feeds me, as I am still a freeloader and have been for the last 1,577 days (according to the nag bot). Peruse the pages of our fine city and you'll see profanity. You'll see frank discussions on the most intimate sexual matters (Don't tell me you haven't  been lured to this page by those stealth Plugz?!?!). If I weren't of stronger stock, it would cause me to despair. I suppose when people can speak freely, some will tend to speak freely about indecent things. Some will speak without restraint. Some will say things that should have remained unsaid because...well, it's generally considered good not to say stupid things.

I recall a line from A & E's "Horatio Hornblower" series. In this particular episode, Hornblower is being taken somewhere in a longboat, no doubt to engage in some derring-do. As they move along, the coxswain attempts to make small talk with Hornblower. Horatio finally interrupts him to say, "Wolfe: why must you speak when you have nothing to say?" Amen, brother.

People will continue to post the indecent and inane, and free weblogging doesn't create a market-driven product, so the quality will only get worse. On more than one occasion--perhaps many more--I have clicked "Save Changes" when I should have clicked "Delete", so I'm guilty. We're all guilty of thinking someone wants to read the random detritus that rolls around in our gray matter. Our production line continues to churn out product. The QC man retired and he wasn't replaced, yet on occasion, something good comes off the line, and on other rarer occasions, something really good, so I keep on reading.

I believe weblogging carries the DNA of the medium that spawned it. We all know that there are good things out there on the web. You just usually have to shovel through a lot of doo-doo to find them. So let's do our part to improve things. Let's write well. Let's provide a good product for our neighbors, whether we're telling about our weekend or the end of the world as we know it. Let's raise the standard!

The Common Touch

There was a change that took place in me when I went to college. I became a bit of a snob. I would go back home and behold the ways of the people that I grew up among and I would marvel at just how much better than them I had become.

Of course, I was really the same person. I had been exposed to some things they most likely hadn't experienced, but in the grand scheme, I was still the same person. So why, I ask, did I consider myself better than them? Well, the answer isn't that complicated.

We can all fall victim to this temptation--to elevate ourselves above those around us for one reason or another. Anything we have, anything we know, anything we are that differentiates us from someone else can be twisted by pride to make us think ourselves better than them. Social status or money can do it. Knowledge can also corrupt attitudes as powerfully as money. Give someone a book on systematic theology and you may have created a monster. Study philosophy for a year or two and you just might well find yourself in a state of arrogance from which you can't recover. All of these things must be tempered with humility. Looking at our greatest accomplishments, we will always find ourselves in the shadow of someone even greater who has accomplished more and has done better. And the greatest of men in the light of his highest accomplishments still stands in the shadow of a God who is not impressed.

Perspective. We need perspective. John Bradford, the great English reformer and martyr, was known to have said, "There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford." So what is it that really separates us from this person to whom we consider ourselves superior? We usually think it is something we have done--something we have accomplished. Well, if it indeed was us that has accomplished this thing, we might well indeed be superior to this person in that exact way. But don't be fooled. You did nothing on your own.

So I strive to maintain the common touch. I tell myself that we are, under God, all the same. I have limited success in this struggle because I still battle a voice which tells me I'm better than some people. I'd rather be listening to another voice. That voice told me: "As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

The Ebenezer

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer,  saying, "Thus far has the LORD helped us." (I Samuel 7:12)

One of my boys and I spent a lot of time today attempting to place a new stone atop our Ebenezer. It is the largest  stone yet in the construction, I'm guessing approaching 1,000 pounds. Here's the rest of the story:

There was a time when things weren't as good for my family as they are now. I had worked for the same company for over 6 years when they sold to a competitor, putting me out of work. For the next few years, I found myself underemployed in a major way. I worked as a carpenter. I worked as an assistant director of a non-profit, faith-based ministry. I worked again as a carpenter. We were never unfed. We never were without a roof over our head. However, it wasn't easy to persevere. We were subjected to the humility of going to the food pantry at our church. We were often unable to pay bills when they were due. This often puts you in the unenviable position of having to apologize and ask for the forbearance of your creditors. It was a dark time, often lonely, as our friends were unaware of what we were really going through. The ones that were aware were often unable to respond in meaningful ways. This was usually because they had been protected from such times in their own lives and they secretly assumed that it was something I had done, or more likely something I wasn't doing, that had caused our circumstances.

After traveling this unlit corridor for too many years, I eventually rounded a corner and saw light creeping from under a door. I can now look back on these years, remembering the times as bittersweet--unpleasant, yet not without benefit.

Trials and tribulations teach us what we cannot learn otherwise. There are at least two major lessons I learned in the Dark Times. One is the importance of contentment. Being satisfied where we are and with what we have is an underrated, under-practiced discipline. Not having a choice in your circumstances distills the general notion of contentment into real contentment. You are either content or your are unhappy all the time. The second lesson I learned was true thankfulness. Being thankful for the small things isn't hard either when those small things aren't so small. Giving thanks in all things, including those difficult efforts at being thankful for the hard times, is another thing that Christians talk about yet don't often fully understand.

During this time, I prayed that when we exited that dark hallway, we would be mindful of our friends in like circumstances and would offer whatever assistance we could, without judgment or criticism. I've not been able to do this on the level I'd hoped, but we continue to do what we can for our friends in their own dark times. I also feel it is an obligation that I primarily owe to our friends and family. This is the network of support that God created for such times. If you aren't there to meet these needs in those closest to you, who will?

After our exit, I built an Ebenezer behind our house. What is an Ebenezer, you ask? In this case, it is a pile of large stones I gathered from my property and organized in a conspicuous place. When you look out the back door, there it is--you can't miss it.  It is to serve as a reminder to myself primarily, and to my family also, that God's faithful hand has brought us to where we are. I wanted to remember His faithfulness and I wanted the opportunity to point to that monument and tell others of His goodness. I don't do it as often as I should, but that speaks poorly of my faithfulness, not His.

Give thanks, my friends, because God is good, all the time.