Saturday Haiku: Summer Feast

when blossoms wither

the goldfinch will be feasting

on nature's bounty

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Photo by Charles Kinnaird

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Friday Funnies: Everybody Get Vaxed

Seen on Twitter: 

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Hummingbird Face-Off

I didn't realize what I had in this picture until after the shot. The hummer turned to look up and I snapped the photo, later to see that another hummer had flown by. I just barely captured the eye and beak of the second hummer, both looking face-to-face. You can also see the blur of its wing. - CK

Monday Music: Trickle, Trickle (The Manhattan Transfer)

The Manhattan Transfer has made a name for itself by mastering and celebrating a variety of musical genres from jazz to gospel to pop to American standard. "Trickle, Trickle" is one of their forrays into late 1950s doo-wop.

 

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Saturday Haiku: Cicada

 

cicada pathway
 from the silent underground
to singing in trees

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Photo: abandoned exoskeleton of a cicada after having emerged from the ground 

Credit: Charles Kinnaird

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Friday Funnies: The Bull & Kid

 

Goldfinch Watch

Some video shots from my backyard: A male goldfinch is busy harvesting seeds from some blanket flowers while his mate is more interested in the sunflower.

 

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Monday Music: Rickover's Dream (Michael Hedges)

 

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The Long Shadow of Jim Crow - One Year after John Lewis's Death

Note: it was shortly after John Lewis died that I began my series about growing up in the Jim Crow South (Southern Apartheid). This was my introductory essay. You can follow the links to other essays if you wish. -- CK

   The body of Rep. John Lewis crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. via horse-drawn carriage (photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

I grew up in small-town and rural Alabama. In 1978, I left the South to attend seminary in Mill Valley, California. One afternoon, in a casual conversation with a few classmates (we must have been going out to eat somewhere), I mentioned nostalgically that when I was a kid, our maid made the best cornbread – it was better than my mother’s recipe. One of my classmates who hailed from Arizona was astounded by my comment.

“Is your family rich?” he asked.

“Far from it,” I said. I then tried to explain to him how it was common in the South for even low-income families to hire maids from the Black community to help with housework. At that point, I realized that I was speaking of an era that had passed and I was trying to explain it to a person whose life experience gave him no frame of reference for what I was talking about.

The Long Shadow of Jim Crow

The Jim Crow South, in reaction to the Post-Civil War Reconstruction, set the legal stage for racial segregation and continued oppression of Blacks in a post-slavery society. When I was born in 1954 in Montgomery, Alabama, Jim Crow laws had been firmly established by the state’s 1901 Constitution and by local laws and ordinances throughout the state. Society was every bit as separated as South Africa’s apartheid government*.

My father was a pastor, and my mother a school teacher. Because of my father’s vocation, we moved about every five years, so my childhood was spent in Wedowee, Jackson’s Gap, and Dadeville. Since there were four of us kids and with my mother working as a high school English teacher, my parents often employed a maid to help with the cleaning and cooking. It was the expectation that respectable white women were able to find help as they managed the household. “Help,” of course, was the term used for maid service, always a woman from the Black community. The Black community was referred to in those days  as  “the colored quarters,” or simply, “the quarters.” Looking back, I am sure that term, quarters, harked back to the days of slave quarters on the plantation.

Often the maid would have to be picked up from her house and returned at the end of her workday. My father was usually the one to pick up the maid. Sometimes he would ask if I wanted to ride with him to take the maid home, which I always did if asked. It was the same as, "Do you want to ride with me while I run to the store?" (or to the post office, etc.). Those trips to take the maid home were a part of my social education. I witnessed the difference in living conditions. Some roads were unpaved, houses were unpainted shacks. The poverty was apparent. Children were often barefoot and in torn clothing. Dogs ran loose and were often thin and hungry-looking (I remember feeling sorry for the children and the dogs). 

As children, we would naturally ask why these people lived the way they did. Usually, the answer would be something along the lines of, “They are poor, uneducated, they don’t know how to do any better.” Sometimes there would be the implication that we were helping them out by offering them employment.

Unease about the Future

There is one thing I remember about those trips into the quarters, and I remember it in my gut – it was the uncomfortable feeling that when I grew up, it would be my job to go into the Black community to pick up the maid. As a child, I envisioned that life would go on as is, and I was not sure how I would manage that particular adult role. I tried not to think about it too much and I would return to my childhood activities once we came back home. Growing up would come another day.

As our nation mourns the loss of Congressman John Lewis who did so much to remove those Jim Crow laws that kept Blacks oppressed, I am taking some time on my blog to recall what those days were like in Alabama before this son of sharecroppers from Troy, Alabama helped to bring about a new era.

                                                                                                         Part 2: What's in a Name?>

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* (Apartheid: an Afrikaans term meaning "apartness") South Africa’s apartheid government was established in 1948 and was brought to an end in 1993. For a brief article by Morgan Winsor comparing Apartheid & Jim Crow, go here.

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Saturday Haiku: Ancient Ways

ancient ways
of the grasshopper ~
new each spring

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Image: Young grasshopper on squash leaf
Photo by Elaine Farley Kinnaird



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Friday Funnies: Back in the Game

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Cartoon by Matt Prichett, The Telegraph

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Bumblebees - for a Likely Tomorrow

       Grateful for sister bee

       who pollinates field and flower

       making the next season likely

       and giving hope for tomorrow.

 

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Videography by Charles Kinnaird

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Monday Music: The Cape (Guy Clark)

Here's one that one of my friends recommended. Lot's of good stuff in Guy Clark's song catalog.

 

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Saturday Haiku: Tree Time

 in the sturdy oak

surrounded by springtime green
the squirrel pauses

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Photo by Charles Kinnaird

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"Tethered," a New Art Exhibit

“Tethered” is an exciting art installation currently at Ground Floor Contemporary art gallery, 111 Richard Arrington Jr Blvd South in Birmingham, Alabama. The work of three artists – Elaine Farley Kinnaird,  Anita Gómez-Ronderos, and Miriam Norris Omura – will be on exhibit, July 1-18. Gallery hours are Sundays 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. There will be an artist talk via Zoom Sunday, July 11 at 2:00 p.m., Central Daylight Time (check the gallery website for Zoom link and details).

 

 

My daughter, Elaine Kinnaird, is one of the artists featured. With her photographs, she offers us a peek at her exhibit and also a look into the process of creating art.

 

 

“I grow my cotton, pick, gin, spin and dye it,” she states on her Instagram post about the exhibit. “This piece is stained with turmeric. I like feeling like I'm really a part of the material process.”

 

So once she grew and harvested the cotton and after she hand spun it into yarn, she stained it to get the hues she wanted.

 

When she had the concept for her piece, she had to carefully plan how to execute it. Eye hooks were placed in one wall, measured and spaced with precision.

 

A hook on the adjoining wall anchors a metal ring that holds all the strands of yarn which then span out to the eye hooks on the other wall. 

The doors are open on Sundays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Come see this and other works of art at Ground Floor Contemporary. If you can’t make it in person, log in to the Zoom Artist Talk on July 11 at 2:00 p.m.

To see more work by Elaine Kinnaird, check out her website at https://efkinnaird.wixsite.com/elainefarleykinnaird

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Monday Music: Ringo Starr's Birthday WIsh

Ringo Starr will be celebrating his 81st birthday this week, and he’s inviting everyone to “spread peace and love” on the landmark date. Here's a nice track off of Ringo's 2019 album, What's My Name. The song is called "Send Love, Spread Peace." I posted it on my blog soon after the album was released and thought it would be good to repeat it as part of his long-standing birthday wish. He will be 81 on Wednesday, July 7.

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An Independence Day Reflection

[The following essay was first posted on July 4, 2017]

Photo from Max Pixel

Today on our nation’s birthday, I will spend some time in gratitude for the wonderful country that is the United States. I will not, however, spend any time conflating God and country. The one is a natural human response that anyone might have for his or her homeland while the other is a dangerous move toward the idolatry of nationalism. That danger of conflating faith and patriotism came home to me last Sunday when we sang the soul-stirring "America the Beautiful" in church.

Brian McLaren had a brief discussion on his blog regarding the difference between nationalism and patriotism. He also shared some thoughts with Patheos publishers on the meaning of Christian identity as it related to patriotism in a YouTube video.

God and Country?

My own conflict came to light for me many years ago when I was a Baptist seminary student. I was in school in Mill Valley, just north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge – a beautiful environment for learning. While in school, I was involved in youth ministry in a nice suburban church in Novato, California, which is further up U.S. Highway 101 in northern Marin County. 

One Sunday, right before the choral anthem, the pastor (a fine man who had given me some excellent guidance and advice) called for us all to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (it was on the Sunday that fell just before Independence Day). One of my best friends even went up to hold the U.S. flag. In all fairness, my friend was in the military reserves and several in the congregation were military as well. I am sure that they, like many other of my Baptist colleagues, saw no conflict. I, on the other hand, felt like I had been delivered an unexpected side-blow.

During that time of worship which I saw as a time for contemplation and the turning of one’s attention toward God, I was suddenly called upon to stand in allegiance to my country. Of course, I was proud of my country – and patriotic – but to me, in that setting, in that sacred space, the worship of God took precedence above all else. 

I had first begun to parse out the difference between love of God and love of country when I was a freshman in college. I learned in my Western Civilization class about how St. Augustine saw the necessity of reassuring the faithful that their faith need not be devastated by the fact that the Roman Empire was falling apart. He set it all out in his written work, The City of God. It occurred to me that just like those earlier times when Rome and the Church were seen as inseparable, we American Christians too often were conflating God and country. 

The way I framed it for myself then, trying to follow Augustine’s lead, was that if I did not fully separate my faith in God from my love of country, then my faith might not hold up if my country were to fail. More important, I might not properly distinguish the demands of faith vs. the demands of citizenship.

Taking it to the Classroom

It just so happened that in seminary that semester I was taking a field supervision class which met every week to examine issues we were experiencing in church ministry. I brought my dilemma to the group – of having faced the inner conflict of having to say the Pledge of Allegiance in the context of Christian worship. 

In the discussion that ensued, some were surprised that I would have such a conflict. One person said that he saw patriotism as a Christian duty. "What about Vacation Bible School?" someone else countered, "we always lead the children in the Pledge of Allegiance there, in church, while teaching kids the Bible." Another said that I was sounding more like a Jehovah’s Witness than a Baptist (Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in saluting the flag or pledging allegiance to the United States since their duty and allegiance should be to the Kingdom of God). 

Later in the week, one of my classmates stopped me to offer a word of encouragement and expressing admiration that I “put myself out there on the line” in the group discussion. I had not seen anything “heroic” in my questions, I was simply bringing forth my own honest discomfort and conflict that had occurred during a time of worship.

A Young Country and an Old Faith

Since those days, I have parted from my Southern Baptist heritage for many reasons. Nevertheless, it remains ironic to me that a group that has made the separation of church and state one of its hallmarks should have conflated God and Country so that the line between patriotism and faith is practically indistinguishable. Our great country is, after all, not even 250 years old while the Christian faith is over 2,000 years old. 

Though I have not been in a position of having to say the Pledge of Allegiance during worship in the intervening years, I still witness the unexamined conflation of God and country, as in the case I mentioned earlier with using "America the Beautiful" as a closing hymn in church. During that service last Sunday, I closed my hymnal and remained silent throughout the hymn. I listened, wondering if perhaps I could make that a prayer for country rather than an exaltation of nationalism in the context of worship. I decided, no, that would be a stretch.  It is a beautiful song that I prefer even over the National Anthem, but for me it does not belong in church.

Love for Country and Peace among Nations

(The following is from a previous Monday Music post on this blog)

The tune "Finlandia" was composed by Jean Sebelius and has been used for other hymns ("Be Still My Soul" is one example). "This Is My Song," by Lloyd Stone, was written when the poet was 22 years old. It was after WWI and the song is a beautiful example of having love for one's country while recognizing the need for peace among the nations. The song is performed here by Indigo Girls.

                    This is my song, O God of all the nations,
                    a song of peace for lands afar and mine;
                    this is my home, the country where my heart is;
                    here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine:
                    but other hearts in other lands are beating
                    with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

                    My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
                    and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
                    but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
                    and skies are everywhere as blue as mine:
                    O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
                    a song of peace for their land and for mine.

                                                                       ~ Lloyd Stone



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Saturday Haiku: Hope

Giorgio Viera/AFP/Getty Images

seeking signs of life
hope, the last thing that is lost,
strengthens those who search

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Photo from CNN: Search and Rescue teams look for possible survivors in the partially collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Florida.

On CNN's June 26 coverage of the collapsed condominium, correspondent Nick Valencia said, "If hope is the last thing that is lost, there is plenty of it here outside the Surfside community center." There are "poetry prompts" and then there are poetic attempts to speak to tragedy. The CNN reporter's phrase could lend itself to a number of poetic responses. 

A quick google search revealed that the phrase is from an Italian proverb, "Hope is the last thing ever lost." This week's haiku was written in response to the news.

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Friday Funnies: Finding the Time...

“You see, when two people are in love, in bed,
and caught up on all their shows . . .”

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Cartoon by Benjamin Schwartz from The New Yorker

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