Category: Reviews

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Notes on my reading during the past month


Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter 

(Boston, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015), 183 pages. 

This young adult novel is about Joseph. A teenage father, he’s sent to a foster family who own a farm in rural Maine.

The family has one other boy, Jack. After getting off to a shaky start, the two become like brothers, watching out for the other. The story centers around what happened to Joseph in his past. When he was 13, he fell in love with Madeline. While Joseph was from a broken family that economically lived on the margin, Madeline’s family was well off. When she became pregnant, they sent her away where she gave birth to a daughter she named “Jupiter.” The planet plays a prominent role in the story as Joseph had pointed it out to Madeline and he often looks for it in the sky. The story’s conclusion occurs around Joseph attempt to find his daughter.

Upon Joseph’s release from Stone Mountain, a juvenile detention center, he find himself with chores to do on a farm. He works beside Jack and makes friends with Dahalia, one of the orneriest cows in the barn. Thereafter, he’s the one who milks her. At school, he struggles with some teachers who think he shouldn’t be in school, but others see promise in him. Joseph is exceptionally strong in math and a prospect for the track team. The story occurs in winter. Schmidt captures the the cold of Maine. When milking, the boys lean in on the cows to capture their warmth.The frozen landscape makes the river dangerous, but also creates an opportunity to ice skate on the family’s pond.

Christmas is especially meaningful for Joseph as he attends church with the family and learns about Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father. He also learns of Mary’s early age. While Schmidt doesn’t mention it, it’s traditionally assumed the Virgin Mary was 14 when she gave birth. This is Madeline’s age when she gives birth to Jupiter. I won’t spoil the ending. However, this book is sad, and I found tears in my eyes. Yet, there’s hope in the child, Jupiter. 

Alyce McKenzie, Novel Preaching: Tips from Top Writers on Crafting Creative Sermons

(Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010), 180 pages. 

As a “working preacher” who has also taught homiletics on a graduate level, I try to read at least one book a year on the craft, along with another book on writing. This year I chose this book, written by a professor of homiletics at Perkins School of Theology, a Methodist seminary in Texas. 

Writer’s Conference

This book is divided into three parts. The first two deal with the practice of preaching, where the author attempts to provide the information in a creative manner. In the first part (which is what I thought the book was about from its title), she images being at the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference. Taking her readers along with her, we go from conversation to conversation with fiction authors. As we overhear their discussions, we gain insight into how preachers might us some of the tools of authors to engage his or her congregations in their sermons. We learn about noticing and being aware of what’s important in the text and in our sermons. McKenzie draws from a number of authors including Annie Dillard, Natalie Goldberg, Frederick Buechner, Stephen King, Isabelle Allende, Toni Morris. We gain insight into character, plot, and shape along with picking up ideas of how to journal and to capture such insights into the human condition. 

A Cooking Show

The second part of the book involves a cooking show. Here, she draws from well-known (and some not so well known, at least not for me) professors and writers of homiletics.  Each one teaches how they approach a sermon, and the reader gets to pick up a recipe card at the end of their presentation. By the time I got to this part of the book, I was a little over with the cuteness of McKenzie’s writings. The writer’s conference wasn’t quite as overblown as this imaginary journey through some kind of convention with all kinds of “chefs,” a few of whom I’ve met, many of whom I’ve read and heard lecture. Those I knew before reading this book include Charles Rice, Fred Craddock, Tom Long, David Buttrick, Richard Eslinger, Henry Mitchell, Paul Scott Wilson, Nora Tubbs Tisdale, Justo Gonzalez, Eugene Lowry and Mike Graves. To her credit, McKenzie draws from across Western Cultures including African American, Korean American, men and women, Protestants and one Catholic example. 

Best part of the book–Sermons

I found myself wondering about those not included: Tex Sample (who focuses on the language of the working class), Cornelius Plantinga, Jr (who has written about preaching and literature long before this book’s release), Robert Smith, Jr (an African American who has strong grasp of doctrinal preaching), and Haddon Robinson. The latter really surprised me as his Biblical Preaching may be one of the most popular books on preaching and is the “bible” of expository preaching.  

The final section of the book was my favorite. The section consists of a number of creative sermons written by McKenzie. Who’d ever think of angels as UPS workers (after all, angels deliver messages from God which ties into the packages delivered by a UPS driver. I’ll come back to these sermons, I’m sure. McKenzie is able to touch on her audiences fear and concerns and offer a helpful word of reassurance from scripture. I would have preferred to have read more sermons and less of her “tidbits” of information from authors and homiletic professors. 

Caroline Christmas: Archibald Rutledge’s Enduring Holiday Stories

edited by Jim Casada (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2010), 225 pages. 

Archibald Rutledge was the poet laureate of South Carolina for decades. He was a well-known poet and author writing about nature and hunting during the first half of the 20th Century. Having read several of his works beforehand, I waited till a week before Christmas to read his collection of “Christmas stories.” This book was a gift from my staff in Georgia. 

While the book is filled with Rutledge stories, Jim Casada selected the stories included within the collection. Casada also provides insight into when the selection was written, the circumstances around the story, and where it had previously been published. Many of these stories have been published multiple times. First, in magazines (especially Field and Stream, Outlook, and Outdoor Life), and later in collections published by Rutledge. 

The book is divided up into six parts. The first section all deals with Christmas stories at Hampton Plantation. Rutledge spent thirty years teaching at Middlebury Academy in Pennsylvania. During these decades, he would always come home for Christmas. In one story, he writes about catching a train during a blizzard up north and arriving on the Atlantic Coast Line early the next morning in the sunny South. His brother meets him at the train station in Charleston and two hours later they’re hunting. Such descriptions brought back memories of me, as a young seminary student, catching a train from Pittsburgh during a snowstorm, heading south to visit my sister the week before Christmas in Florida. When the train arrived in Savannah early in the morning, wearing shorts, I went for a walk along the platform. 

A Natural Christmas

The second part of the book, titled “A Natural Christmas,” has selections where Rutledge describes walking in the forest and fields of coastal South Carolina during the Christmas break. Known as a hunter, we are provided a glimpse of Rutledge’s vast knowledge of wildlife, especially birds. While most of these stories are about watching birds, he mentions dove hunting. During such a hunt, in 1896, he shot a bird twice the size of the others. It turned out to be a passenger pigeon. Before Rutledge’s time, these birds flew in vast numbers that would darken the sky. But even by the time Rutledge came along, they were rarely seen. This story was published in 1911. That was just three years before the last of passenger pigeon died in a Cincinnati zoo. I find it interesting the world Rutledge describes had not yet been impacted by chemicals like DDT. Such chemicals have been destructive to birdlife. Reading his prose is to be taken back to a more primeval world. 

Deer Hunting

Deer hunting is the focus of the third part of the book. Such hunting on the coastal plain is done with shotguns. In telling the dangers of using rifles in such flat terrain, he draws on a familiar form of transportation of his day. “Express bulletins don’t make no local stops,” he humorously notes. Around Hamilton, deer hunting was also done with dogs who would chase the deer out of the bays and swamps. While I never hunted with dogs, I did go a few times with my father. I was not yet old enough to carry a gun. We were stationed along a remote road. We froze while waiting and listening for the dogs to drive the deer out way. While my dad did shoot several deer, he never did when he had my brother and me in tow. Again, these stories are filled with wisdom and insight into hunting. My favorite of his deer hunting stories was the last. In this story, he prepared to take his son hunting when he returned from Europe after World War Two. 

Other Game

There is a small section of stories about hunting other wild game, especially turkey and quail. He mentions squirrel, rabbit, duck, and ‘coon hunting, but his stories are mainly limited to deer, quail and turkey. There is also a very short selection of seasonal poems. Casada feels his poetry hasn’t “aged” as well as his prose. One of the three poems, “Christmas Eve on the Rapidan (1863)” was set om the Civil War. Rutledge’s father was one of the youngest colonel’s in the Confederate army. The last section of the book has a number of recipes. 

Rutledge is a master at describing the land in which he’s hunting and the “chase” of the deer. His stories often contain humor, and the hunter doesn’t always come away with dinner. On one occasion he notes that after a week, they were still eating pork. In another story, he writes about a turkey hunter who followed a bird into a tree. Moving closer on Christmas Eve, as the light drained from the sky, he saw two dark figures in a tree. Not able to determine which was the bird and which was a clump of mistletoe, he fired and guessed wrong. The bird flew as a chunk of mistletoe fell to the ground. He picked it up to carry home for decoration. I also remember shooting mistletoe from a tree. It was an easy way to harvest the seasonal green, however the white berries often don’t survive the fall.

Rutledge and African Americans

 These stories are dated by Rutledge use of the term Negro for African Americans. While they were no longer slaves, they were still bound to the land and held a subservient role. During deer hunts, white hunters were stationed around a swamp or bay, while African American men led the chase. Using dogs, they’d go into the swamps to flush out the deer. One has to remember that Rutledge is writing from another age. While he often speaks highly of African Americans as a race, especially his childhood friend Prince, there is a separation. He lived in the big house and they lived in the shacks around the plantation. These stories were all written in the first half of the last century. At the time, long before the Civil Rights Movement, Rutledge saw no problems with such relationship. Anyone reading this book today needs to understand time has changed and realize Rutledge was blind to such injustices. 

Aaron McAlexander, The Last One to Leave Mayberry

(Stonebridge Press, 2011), 219 pages, a few b&w photos.  

McAlexander’s family is from Mayberry even though he grew up in Meadows of Dan, which is located three miles north of Mayberry. In this book, he along with others from his family tell of their ancestor’s moving to this hardscrabble mountain terrain.

Today, there’s not much in Mayberry. There’s the church and there’s the store. Even in the good old days, there wasn’t much to Mayberry. The store also had a Post Office, but that closed in the 30s. There was a tannery and a number of diaries along with a school. Although the community is sparse, it created many good memories that McAlexander mines to create this collection of short stories. 

If you read this book, you’ll learn about trout fishing, the first telephone in the community, and the depression (that Mayberry seemed to experience long before the rest of the country). There are stories about men going off to World War 2 and a training flight over the mountains that crashed in the dark hours of morning in 1945. You’ll learn about a “suck-egg dog” (beside being a nasty term for one’s enemies). You’ll learn of the influence of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which divided farms, and about a blacksmith who became a Presbyterian preacher, who occupied the pulpit I currently attempt to fill. You’ll learn of mysteries that still remain mysterious. You’ll read about people who make a break for the West, only to come back home. McAlexander himself headed off as a physics professor, but upon retirement maintains a cottage in the community in which so many of his relatives reside (many of whom are below ground).  This is a delightful book with good stories. 

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What I’ve been reading lately: 3 Reviews

Billy Beasley, The Girl in the River: The Grief of a Widower, The Hope of a Child (Abbeville, SC: Moonshine Publishing, 2020), 226 pages.  

Billy Beasley tells a great story. Several of the characters in his first novel, set in the late 1960s, reappear here. We learn what happens to them fifty years later, as they play a supporting role to Clint Hurley, the protagonist of this book. A simple man, Clint finds himself wooed by Allie, a younger woman. They marry, have a family, and a near perfect relationship. Then Allie dies. Clint, who always assumed he’d be the first to go, finds himself alone except for his dog. He moves to a cabin on the Northeast Cape Fear River where, on the first Christmas after Allie’s death, he and his dog rescue a girl who’d fallen out of her kayak into the river. The girl had run away from her foster parents. As the cliché goes, no good deed goes unpunished. Soon Clint finds himself charged with child abuse and his dog, Josie, fights for her life. But everything works out. The closing epilogue, written thirteen years later by Jasmin, the girl who rescued from the river, tells of Clint and his dog’s death. They are both old and die together.

Evaluation

In a way, the story fits into the old ars moriendi (art of dying) genre. Clint shows his family and friends (and readers) how to have a “good death.” In another fashion, the story reads like a Hallmark Christmas movie.  We have a log cabin, snow, special Christmas memories, and fires in the hearth and firepits out back. Christmas is an important theme as it is on Christmas that Allie dies. A year later, on Christmas, Jasmin floats into Clint’s life and saves him. For those who love dog stories, this book is also for you. The book also deals with race relations, another topic that Billy addressed in his first novel. 

This book is a fast read. Billy writes about things he loves. Sports (especially Duke basketball), dogs (especially Australian Cattle Dogs), the Bible, and church. The book shows the possibility of love and reconciliation, something the world needs desperately these days.  

Personal Connection to Author

Billy often puts into his stories people he knows. The doctor, who treated Clint’s heart attack, was Nicky Pipkin. This doctor shares a name with a friend of both of us, Nicky was a heart surgeon. In 2018, I officiate at Nicky’s funeral, just a few days before Christmas. I met Billy and Nicky at the beginning of the fourth grade at Bradley Creek Elementary School, shortly after my family moved to the Wilmington area. 

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M. Craig Barnes, Diary of a Pastor’s Soul: The Holy Moments in a Life of Ministry (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2020), 235.

Written as a weekly diary, the novel begins in July as the pastor decides to retire the following June. While fictionalized, there is little doubt that many of these stories came from Barnes life and the lives of other pastors. In this book, one gets to see into a soul of a pastor. You see how much of ministry is mundane. However, there are also those special times when parishioners invite ministers into special times of their lives.

In this book you will see: 

  • The pastor’s struggle within his own family as well as confessions of things that didn’t work out as planned.
  • Wrestling with what to tell to a congregation, including informing them on his prostate cancer.
  • The difficult decisions about staff and how sometimes the pastor finds themselves in a no-win situation. 
  • The hurt felt by betrayal of members of a congregation who move elsewhere, often give false reasons for the move. 
  • The pain pastors feel over the death of parishioners.
  • How parishioners attempt to pull pastors into awkward situations, such as attempting to use the pastor to encourage a son to go to a particular college. 

At the end of the year, it’s over. There is a retirement party and its time to move on. Not everything wraps up neatly. 

Evaluation

This is a very honest novel. I recommend it for anyone wanting to know what it is like to be in ministry. I have read most of Barnes book and have enjoyed them all. His book, When God Interrupts, is my favorite. I have probably handed out numerous copies of this book to those battling cancer over the years. When God Interrupts was written shortly after Barnes survived a bout with cancer. All his books contain significant theological and pastoral insights. 

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Aaron McAlexander, Shine on Mayberry Moon (Columbia, SC: Stonebridge Press, 2018), 221 pages. 

McAlexander grew up in Mayberry. While he found his way off the mountain and into the halls of academia (spending his working years as a physics professor), he always considered Mayberry his home. In addition to some physics texts, he has written many books set in this area, several of which have gone through multiple printings. 

Shine on Mayberry Moon is about moonshine. There used to be a lot of moonshine made in this area (there was even legal distilleries in the area before prohibition). McAlexander provides the reader with a history of moonshine, along with many humorous stories. We learn about all kinds of things that might go into the mash. Of course, corn is essential (especially sprouted corn to help the fermentation). But if you want to speed up the fermentation, you add sugar which in times (like during the Second World War) could be hard to get. Sometimes moonshiners, who tended to be practical folk, found other means to make their mash. Cow, hog, and chicken feed were often added to the mix.  And you can also use things like apples, which are abundant in the fall of the year. 

In these stories we see how people reacted to the manufacture and (limited) trade in illegal spirits. Some looked the other way, while others were teetotalers who despised the practice. While this area has often been poor, there are times it has experienced an economic boon, such as during the Depression with two government projects: a dam for Danville, VA and the Blue Ridge Parkway. With many workers moving into the area, the local entrepreneurs found ways to satisfy needs. One story tells about a wife discovered there is a house of ill repute operating near the dam construction site. Taking matters into her own hands, she gathers up some dry brush and set the building ablaze. Customers and working women in various stage of dress flee.

McAlexander has a chapter on running moonshine. This wasn’t done much from Mayberry as the ‘shine distilled for local consumption. Sheriffs and revenuers didn’t mess as much with small-scale operators as long as they weren’t marketing it to a large area and made a product that didn’t cause anyone to get sick.  He suggests that some of the legend of running moonshine, which was supposedly a training ground for stock car drivers, was probably just a legend. Of course, some illegal liquors were transported out of the area. It was that most wasn’t hauled in fast cars. McAlexander comments on “Thunder Road,” the movie which helped promote this legend.” While I’ve not seen the movie, the directors undoubtedly didn’t think enough of the audience’s wisdom. They kept changing the year of the car used in the chase scenes. While he suggests it’s not a good movie, I’m curious about it. However, I don’t think I could tell the difference between a 1950 and a 51 or 52 Ford. 

The author suggests there are few if any stills burning in these hills today. Why would someone take the legal risk when you buy cheap liquor for less than it would cost you to make. 

Evaluation

This book will give the reader some insight into mountain life in the early and mid-20th Century. The stories are entertaining and often humorous. I recommend it. When I move into an area, I always try to read and learn as much as I can about the local community and culture. It’s for that reason I picked up this book, written by one of the members of the Mayberry Church which I serve as a pastor. 

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Reading as Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope

Esau McCaulley, Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope (Downer’s Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2020), 198 pages including a discussion guide, bibliography, scriptural index and index.

McCaulley provides an interesting insight into the struggles facing African American theologians today. Coming from an evangelical tradition, he quickly notes the failure of evangelicalism for those of his race. He acknowledges that most black churches accept the four pillars of evangelicalism (a born-again experience, missionary efforts, high regard for Scripture, and emphasis on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus). But, he notes, there are two unwritten pillars among most evangelicals. One is to downplay injustices of the American past. The other is to remain silent on issues of racism and systemic injustice. (10-11)

He also has a problem with progressive Christianity. He sees this movement “weaponizing” African American theologians to support their own positions. Both sides, he believes, “tokenize” Black theologians. He criticizes the evangelical movement use of black evangelical theologians to attack black progressives. While disingenuous, it keeps the evangelical movement from being labeled as racist.

McCaulley argues for an authentic African American theological voice that takes Scripture seriously while addressing the need of community. Citing examples, he notes how slaves first heard the gospel tempered and misused. They were encouraged to be happy with their lot in life. But instead, the Bible’s overarching story of a God who frees people couldn’t be tempered. From this background, African Americans developed their own churches and theological traditions.

McCaulley focuses on the teachings of Paul. Some may suggest that Paul never challenged the slave culture that existed in his time. However, McCaulley cites many places where Paul does challenge the culture even though he (or the early church) was in no position to change it. McCaulley also draws heavily on the Old Testament, especially laws concerning slavery, and the Exodus.

Five of the chapters of the book lay out ideas for a more comprehensive African American theology. One is a theology of policing. McCaulley admits the need for policing but also for it to be done in a manner that supports and not destroy the community. He tells his own story of being stopped by police in high school. He and his friends were forced out of his car and searched for no reason. Such experience is truer for those in his community than in mine. In this chapter, especially as he deals with Romans 13, he balances the way his community and the police need to deal with the fear they both feel for the other.

In another chapter, he looks at how the New Testament supports the need for protests. Blacks are not just to be submissive. They need to work for a vision that is set in the Exodus and Prophetic traditions of the Old Testament and taught by Jesus (and Paul). This is followed up with a chapter on justice.

In a chapter that critiques of many in the African American community who have abandon Christianity (seeing it as a white/European religion), McCaulley makes the case for an African American witness in Scripture. Such tradition continued in the early church which found a stronghold on the African continent. Then, in a final chapter focusing on the need of his community, he explores rage and what should be done with it.

McCaulley finds solace in Scripture. Like his ancestors, he senses that God is on the side of the oppressed. God’s desire is for freedom (real slavery as well as bondage to sin). This is the hope his community needs to move forward. It is the author’s hope that other members of his community will step up as they offer their witness to hope of the gospel. Such a witness doesn’t have to depend on white interpretations but can draw from Scripture and the experiences of his race.

This is a book that needs to be read. I image it will be helpful for those within the African American community. However, even those of us who are of others races should read it to better understand the rage felt by African Americans. Perhaps we can catch a part of their vision of a theology that encompasses all of us.
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Servants of Satan

Joseph Klaits, Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunts (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985). 212 pages including an index, notes, bibliography, and a few woodcut plates. 

We often think of witch hunting as something done in a pre-modern world. However, most of the witch trials and executions took place in a relatively short period of time as Europe was quickly becoming more modern.

The Age of the Witch Hunt

The witch frenzy began in the second half of the 16th Century and petered out in the middle of the 17th Century. This was not the Dark Ages. It was a time of enlightenment. The world was quickly advancing in philosophy and science. Of course, there had been occasional charges of witchcraft earlier in history. What made this period notable were the number of accusations and executions.

Prior to the 1550-1660 era, witchcraft prosecutions were fairly equally divided between men and women. In the late 16thCentury, most of the prosecution was against women (80% or more). While earlier witchcraft charges were against using black magic, witches were now seen as engaging in satanic worship and having sex with Satan.  Klaits, in this academic work, sets out to understand what caused the rise in witchcraft cases and then the sudden departure. 

The witchcraft craze followed the Reformation. Klaits is correct in noting that all churches in Western Europe were reforming during this period. The Protestant Reformation was well on its way, having started earlier in the century. The Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation was just beginning in the mid-16th century. Churches, as well as society in general, were moving from the medieval world. It was a stress-filled enviroment, brought on by religious fervor along with the political and economic changes. Klaits suggests that witch trials provided relief to an unsettled world by giving them someone to blame for the problems. 

Klaits traces the shift in thinking about witchcraft from the medieval era into the 16th and early 17th Century. He explores how women became the focus (most of the women charged were elderly and single or a widow). He looks at the shifted as charges of witchcraft moved from the use of magic for evil, to satanic orgies.

The author explores a number of threads that played into this shift. One theme is how the urban and upper classes looked down on the popular folk magic of the more rural areas. This also played a role in the decline of witchcraft. The trials ended once charges began to be brought against those in the upper classes. Attitudes against women also played a role. Furthermore, the church, which had been the support system for the poor in society, stopped playing such a function after the Reformation. This led to many women living in poverty. 

In a chapter on the politics of torture, Klaits discussed the role torture played. In all criminal investigations, torture was commonly used in this era. The use of torture seems to enflame the situation so that an individual charge led to multiple charges and mass hysteria. The author noted modern examples of how, with torture, stress, and the power of suggestion, people confessed to that which they did not do. In some cases, those were innocent and confessed actually believe they are guilty.

Without torture, witchcraft trials tended to be a singular event. Such was the case in England which prohibited torture in most cases. Torture often led to the victim implicating others. This fueled the hysteria and led to more trials and executions. 

By the time the hysteria abated in the late 17th Century, Klaits maintains it wasn’t that people stopped believing that witchcraft. People were tired of the madness.

Most scholars, until recently, viewed witchcraft trials as a result of superstitions. Yet the trials came about during a time of great learning. Even modern people look for a scapegoat. such was the case in Nazi Germany. When we need someone to blame, we can easily fall prey to the fear of the “other.” I found myself nodding my head in agreement as I read this book with our current political climate playing in the background, with groups denigrating those who are different as the problem. This seems to happen against those who act differently, as well as minorities or those on different sides of the political spectrum.

My thoughts:

I found myself questioning some of the assumptions that Klaits made, especially of Calvin and the Swiss Reformation. while he noted that while there were fewer witch trials in Geneva than in Germany, he tends to lump both groups togethera. Having read a significant amount of Luther and Calvin, it is evident that the latter (Calvin) spent very little time focusing on the work of Satan. While Luther often felt under attack of the devil. Calvin, however, doesn’t mention witchcraft in his massive Institutes of the Christian Religion. He only occasionally mentioned Satan or the devil (23 and 9 times in over 1700 pages).

The witchcraft craze actually began after the death of the early Protestant Reformers and close to the death of Calvin. This was the “scholastic era in Protestant history (within Lutheran and Reformed/Calvinistic Churches). I am now curious on what role the scholastic’s more rigid view on theology may played in the witchcraft craze.  

While this is not a book for everyone, I would recommend it on those interested in the history of this era. 

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The Great Influenza

 

John M. Barry, The Great Influenza:  The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History (2004, Penguin Books, New York, 2018), 548 pages, some photos, index and notes.

 

This is an impressive book that does more than just provide a history of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Barry provides a history of medicine especially in the United States, of the science around disease’s transmission, and of how all this came to play in the pandemic that struck the world at the end of World War I. He even suggests that the disease may have shortened the war and may have led to its disaster the followed in which set the stage for the Second World War. The war ended after German’s last great offensive was unable to be continued because too many German troops were ill and unable to sustain German’s advance. In the negotiations afterwards, it appears that many (including Woodrow Wilson) may have battle with influenza (which may have played a role in his stoke). Wilson’s absence and lack of focus toward the end of the negotiations certainly hindered his ability to keep the French imposing punitive measures on Germany.

In an addition to providing background history to the medical profession and the science of disease (which sometimes became confusing to me as a layperson in this area), Barry also describe the transmission of the disease from birds to humans and other animals (especially swine).  One it’s in the body, he describes our natural immune response. Interesting (and frightening) is that this strain was so dangerous in younger patients whose immune systems often overreacted and caused a faster death. He also pointed out that most of the deaths weren’t directly from the flu, but because the flu opened up pathways for other infections, especially pneumonia. (This is something that is enlightening in the current COVID-19 debate, as there are some who say that only those who died of COVID only should be counted as a COVID death. Most influenza deaths were not from the flu but from pneumonia).

No one knows for sure where the pandemic began. Although it became known as the Spanish flu, it is certain that the flu didn’t begin there. Spain was relatively late in being attacked by the flu, however since Spain wasn’t at war (unlike the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy), there was no censorship of the press in Spain, so people often associate the flu with the country reporting the flu. The other countries in war censored the information about the flu to keep information from their enemies even though all armies (and countries) were battling it at the same time.

One theory is that the flu began in Kansas, which had a similar illness in pigs. As those from the area were drafted into the army, they brought the illness into induction centers. Early on, the army was battling the flu. The army, as it began to mobilize after the United States entered the war, began to move personnel around the United States and to Europe. Interestingly, all medical personnel with the military knew the danger of illness being spread by armies (and early on sought to minimize the danger of measles).  The disease also travelled in waves, starting in the spring of 1918. The peak was in the fall of 1918, but it kept moving and slightly changing. There were people who caught it more than once, although most who survived an early attack had protection against later attacks. It is also thought that the virus became less lethal in each wave.

Another reason this outbreak was so deadly is that the army sucked up the best doctors and nurses in the country, which left older and ineffective physicians treating civilian populations. The military (and others) passed the disease off as “just influenza” and wasn’t willing to stop the movement of personnel as a way to prevent the disease spread. However, late in the war, they did postpone drafts because the military was having a harder time trying to care for their own ill and were incapable of processing new recruits.

Just as in the current COVID crisis, many places in which influenza was rampant shut down gathering places, including restaurants, bars, churches, and theaters.  The lack of knowledge was especially daunting (caused by censorship that kept anything that might slow the war effort down). This led to panic and in many places, people refused to help those in need out of fear of catching the disease. The deaths numbers in some places (especially parts of the world without much natural immunity to influenza viruses) were horrific. Fifty million and perhaps as many as a 100 million worldwide died at a time when the world’s population was 1/3 of what it is today.

I recommend this book, especially now, when we are dealing with another pandemic. The parallels are frightening, and this book could help clear up a lot of the misinformation that abounds today.

 

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Would You Wear a Yellow Tux?

Jesse Cole, Find Your Yellow Tux: How to be Successful by Standing Out (Lioncrest Publishing, 2018), 303 pages, some photos.

The Back Story:  One of the most amazing things I’ve seen while living in the Savannah area is the development of a summer league baseball team for college players, the Savannah Bananas. Before the Bananas arrived, there had been a Single-A minor league team, the Savannah Sand Gnats. I went to one of their games the first full summer I was here with my staff. We pretty much had a whole section of the stands to ourselves. It is hard to think that I cheered for any Sand Gnat. As is often said around here, that nasty bug and the humidity are what keeps house prices affordable along the Georgia Coast. The Sand Gnats tried to get the city to build them a new stadium (Grayson Stadium is old but classic—even Babe Ruth played there). Failing to blackmail the community into a new stadium, they moved to Columbia, South Carolina, but sadly left the gnats behind. It wasn’t looking good for baseball in Savannah until this young man from Gastonia, NC comes along with some crazy ideas. He creates a ball team of college players and tops it all off with entertainment and fifteen buck tickets that include all you can eat burgers and hotdogs. It’s a great deal and fun. The first summer, about forty people from our church attended a game. I took a photo of a dude wearing a yellow tux and posted it to Facebook, asking what would happen if I wore a yellow tux in the pulpit. One of my elders responded (jokingly, I think) that they might have to establish a new Pastor Nominating Committee. I still think it would have been a fun idea.

Jesse Cole at a ballgame in 2016

My review:  The dude I saw in at that baseball game back in 2016 was the author of this book in which he lays out his ideas about business and life. It’s all about having fun and doing what you can to stand out in the world. Cole’s idea is to do crazy things to draw attention and to build a fan following. It works. While the Sand Gnats never sold out, the Savannah Bananas sold out the stadium their first three years. This book is part business manual and part memoir. We learn about Cole’s life, which is almost like a novel (I know of several novels where someone hoped to play professional ball and throws their arm out in college). Cole finds a way to stay with the game, first in Gastonia, N.C. and now in Savannah. The book draws on many others who gave Cole inspiration: Walt Disney, P. T. Barnum, Mike Veeck, Richard Branson, the movie “Jerry Maguire” among others. Cole is not only an avid reader; he is able to put what he learns into action. He also encourages those who work with him to read and to produce ideas.  Some of his ideas are a new spin on an old idea. Cole uses an old fashion “idea box.” But what he does with those ideas are unique. “Brainstorming” is called Ideapaloozas. Cole points out the lack of excitement with “professionalism” and encourages everyone to be crazy, doing the opposite of normal. He insists that their only focus is on their fans. While Cole never mentions investments, his idea of doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing sounds like the contrarian investment strategy (See Dreman, Contrarian Investment Strategies). His goal is to be successful while having fun and putting his fans first (Fans First Entertainment is the name of Cole’s business).

When I started reading this book, I thought it should be read by everyone in leadership at Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church. By the time I was done with it, I thought it should be read by everyone. I recommend you read it and start having fun while you find success by helping others.

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The Years of Lyndon Johnson (Volume 4)

Things have been busy at my house as we are now showing it and trying to begin packing for our move to Virginia… But the busyness hasn’t kept me from sailing, as I crewed a boat up to Hilton Head on Friday and then on Saturday, we raced back to Skidaway (I’ll have to do a post on the long race with little wind, because we too first place in our class). I finished this book when in Virginia a few weeks ago.

Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2012), 712 pages including notes and sources and 32 inserted pages of black and white photos.

 

This is the fourth volume in Caro’s massive study on Lyndon Johnson, and the third I’ve read. In this book, Caro begins with the run up to the 1960 Democrat Convention. It was assumed that 1960 would be the year Johnson would run for the President. With his leadership in the Senate, Johnson was a powerful man. But he kept giving off mixed signals as to his intentions to run and once he stepped into the race, he bet that no candidate could achieve a majority of the votes during the first round at the convention. In that case, many would switch to Johnson and he could capture the nomination.  Johnson was too late for Kennedy had wrapped up a majority of delegates.  As Caro has done in the other volumes, he provides mini-biographies of key players in the story including both John and Robert Kennedy.  After Kennedy was selected as the candidate, he chose Johnson as his Vice President candidate. Even this wasn’t without drama as there was a question whether or not Johnson would accept the position, as he’d be leaving the second most powerful position in the country with his leadership of the Senate. But Johnson, who wanted to be President since his childhood, accepts the position realizing he’s only a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. Caro, through extensive work, debunks the theory (that has been popularized by Robert Kennedy and his friends), that Kennedy’s invitation to Johnson was just a nice gesture and one that they assumed Johnson would decline. Robert Kennedy and LBJ would continue to have a running feud the rest of their lives. Caro makes a convincing case that without Johnson, who wasn’t as well liked in more liberal areas in the north, Kennedy would have never been able to win the presidency in 1960.

After the election, Johnson found himself sidelined. His feud with Robert Kennedy continued to grow. His advice on how to handle legislation in the Senate (something he understood) was ignored. As a result, Kennedy wasn’t able to achieve most of his agenda. Johnson, who was more hawkish, was even kept out of key meetings such as with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Compounding Johnson’s problems was the investigation into some of his supporters, especially Bobby Baker. This had the ability to cripple Johnson and perhaps even keep him off the ticket in 1964. Interestingly, Caro tells the story in a suspenseful manner as the hearings on Bobby Baker was running in Washington DC as the motorcade in which Kennedy was shot was driving through Dallas.

Upon the death of Kennedy, Johnson changed. He quickly assumed power. He knew what needed to be done to send the right signals to the rest of the world in to halt any mischief that the Soviets or the Cubans might stir up. Caro, who in previous volumes have been critical of Johnson and points out his flaws, has high praise of how he conducted himself through the end of 1963 and into 1964. Johnson was able to achieve Kennedy’s goal of a tax cut along with Civil Rights legislation. His handling of the segregationist Harry Byrd was masterful, as he presented a lean budget to win Byrd while working to keep him from blocking civil rights legislation. He was able to keep most of Kennedy’s staff and win their loyalty. While Johnson is often remembered for being mired down in Vietnam, Caro praises his ability to guide the country through this difficult time.  He also put his own stamp on the Presidency by showing foreign leaders a good time at his ranch in Texas.  In the spring of 1964, Johnson had the highest Presidential poll rating of any President.

Like Caro’s other books, The Passage of Power is a masterful volume that captures the complexity of the first President that I remember. I hope Caro will soon come out with his 5th volume, that looks at Johnson’s 1964 victory against Barry Goldwater and how his Presidency collapsed with the failures in Vietnam, leading up to his refusal to run for a second term in 1968. If you’re interested in history or in the complexity of powerful leaders, I recommend this book.

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Three Collections of Poems

  David Lee, Mine Tailings (Boulder, UT: Five Sisters Press, 2019), 79 pages.

David Lee was formerly the poet laurate of Utah and has been affectionally referred to as “the Pig Poet.” About the time I was leaving Utah, Lee retired as head of the English Department for Southern Utah University. Ever since I left Utah, I have hauled around a large collection of his poetry that came out in 1999, The Legacy of Shadows: Selected Poems. When rereading some of those poems recently, I decided to see if he was still publishing and learned about this volume. It appears that for part of the time, Lee hung out in Silver City, Nevada, a town on the south end of the Comstock Lode (I lived in Virginia City, on the north end of the lode, in 1988-89). Curious, I had the Book Lady Bookstore in Savannah find me a copy of the book for my pandemic reading.

Mine Tailings is divided into three sections: Silver City, the Shaft, and The Ore. In the very first poem of the book, “Silver City Dawn Poem,” Lee touched on many of my favorite memories of the Comstock: pinon fires, the wind, the morning sun, the sage, wild cats and rattlesnakes. As a reader proceeds further into this collection (and especially in the second section, appropriately named “The Shaft”), one comes upon many harsh poems that leaves little doubt as to what Lee thinks about President Trump. Some of the poems, like “On a Political Facebook Posting from a Former Colleague and Friend that Upset Jan,” are discombobulated and fragmented, similar to the President’s tweets. Lee often borrows snippets of Trump’s own words to turn around and challenge him through a poem.  The last section of poems contains many poems that are what I considered typical David Lee poems. These contain narrative and dialogue, tell a story and are often quite humorous. One such poem is “Globe Mallow” which is about a flower that Lee and his wife stopped to photograph while driving through a Native American reservation. When a rubbernecking tourist stops and asks what he’s seeing, the man confuses Globe Mellow with marshmallow. The photographer plays along, creating a tall tale about these plants producing marshmallow fruit in the fall. The man drives off, telling his family what he’s learned. The reader is left to humorously image his disappointment when he drives back into the valley in the fall intent on poaching marshmallows from Indian land.

It was good to read some fresh poems from David Lee. I am still pondering the role of the quail (which you had in the Nevada desert, but at least when I was there not to the extent that they show up in Lee’s poems) in these poems. In a sense, the bird is a thread that flies through the various poems.

Gary Synder, Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2009).

I have often heard of Gary Synder and have read a few individual poems and essays of his, but never a full collection. After reading Michael Cohen’s Granite and Grace, a book about Yosemite, I decided I needed to read more of his poetry. The Riprap poems were mostly written in the mid-1950s, about the time when Cohen first visited Yosemite and a year of so before my birth. Synder, as a young man, worked on trail building crews in the park. The title of these poems is appropriate as one often must riprap the side of the trail with rock to prevent erosion. These poems capture the places Synder worked, along with the people with whom he lived and worked. I enjoyed his descriptions of some familiar landscape. The second half of the book is his translations of a seventh century Japanese poet, Han-shan, writings. These poems were also interesting.

Nancy Bevilaqua, Gospel of the Throwaway Daughter: Poems (Kindle, 2004)

While drawing loosely on stories in the New Testament and other “non-canonical” writings of the first centuries of the Christian era and blending in the setting of the Biblical world, Bevilaqua has written a collection of poetry that area are alive with possibilities. These poems are steeped with a sense of place and often are linked to Mary Magdalene. One can feel the sunrise or the night sky, the parched earth under the midday sun, or the brilliance of stars at night, and the dusty feet from traveling along dirt paths. All these images draw the reader into this world.  I appreciated Bevilaqua’s ability to make the reader feel they are present in the first century even though I found myself (against the author’s advice not to read these poems from a religious perspective) wondering about their theological significance. There are certainly poems in here drawn on events of Jesus’ passion. In some ways, these poems attempt to recreate a piece of a lost world, reminded me Alice Hoffman’s novel, The Dovekeepers. In telling the story of the end of the Jewish rebellion against Rome in the first century, Hoffman draws from the experience of four women at Masada. Bevilaqua even has one poem placed at the Battle of Taricheae, an earlier defeat of the Jewish army in their revolt against Rome. Both authors, a poet and a novelist, create a wonderful sense of place at a particular time in history and should be appreciated. I read this collection on my Kindle.

A sapphire dawn, and silver palms. Venus
near the earth
still charred and yet I smell a coming
storm. He is sleeping
on the roof. I am too much awake.
-the opening lines of “Dawn, Migdal”

 

 

 

 

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The Cross and the Lynching Tree (with a personal note)

James H. Cone,   (Marynoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 202 pages including notes and an index.

 

The late James Cone (1938-2018) tackled a tough topic, linking together the most powerful symbol for Christians, the cross, and the most shameful symbol of white supremacy, the lynching tree.  The shame of the latter has been with me since the fourth or fifth grade. We had just moved back to North Carolina and in our state history book, there was a photo of lynching in Moore County that occurred in the late 19th Century. The main thing I remember was all the people, many young, were smiling around a dangling lifeless body. It was as if they were having a party. I was born in Moore County. I quickly did the math and realized that some of my great-grandparents (several of whom were still alive) could have been in that photo. I was horrified and didn’t want anyone to know that I’d come from that county. Of course, lynching wasn’t limited to Moore County. There were more lynchings (and ex-judicial killings) in other counties within the state and even more in other Southern states. Lynching wasn’t even limited to the South. Lynchings occurred all over the country. While some victims were white; in the West, Chinese and Mexican were thrown into the mix. But most of the victims were African American. Lynching was a way to keep the race terrified and, having been freed from slavery, under the control of their former white masters.

Cone set out to ask, “Can the cross redeem the lynching tree?” and “Can the lynching tree liberate the cross and make it real in American history?” (161)  There is a danger to our theology when we spiritualize the cross. There is a danger to our humanity when we ignore the lynching tree and deny the sin of white supremacy and the horrible treatment that African-Americans have experienced since first being brought in chains to American shores in 1619.

Cone begins his study with a detailed look at the cross. As a religious symbol, the cross is a paradox. Like the lynching tree, the Romans used the cross to terrify and keep at bay those who might threaten the Empire. Death on the cross was horrible. Yet, the church adopted this horrific symbol, claiming that God’s power is greater than the worse evil humans can inflict on others. For the human mind, as the Apostle Paul points out, the cross is a contradiction. But God can redeem this symbol and today the cross instead of being the horrific symbol of the empire’s power, is a sign of freedom and hope. As Cone explores as the beginning of his book, the cross is a common theme in both Black and White churches, but because of the experience of the two races, the cross is experienced differently. In White Churches, its more about the other world. That’s true in Black Churches, too, but there the cross is also a powerful symbol of hope for a people who have been oppressed.

Cone explores the theology of the cross of Reinhold Niebuhr. Perhaps the greatest American theologian of the 20th Century, Niebuhr had a lot to say about the cross. (Cone suggests Reinhold Niebuhr may be the greatest American theologian ever, but I would argue that point. However, Niebuhr was a major theologian and a scholar in the public realm during the 20th Century.)  Much of Niebuhr’s early writings (1920s-1940s) was done at a time when lynching was at its height. And while Niebuhr spoke out against white supremacy, Cone finds it strange that he never linked together the cross and the lynching tree. The second theologian Cone explores is Martin Luther King. While King, coming from the African-American tradition, focuses on the cross, also avoids linking it with the lynching tree. However, the poets and musicians from the Black tradition, do make the link as Cone explains:

They ignored white theology, which did not affirm their humanity, and went straight to the stories of the Bible, interpreting them as stories of God siding with little people just like them. They identified God’s liberation of the poor as a central message of the Bible, and they communicated this message in their songs and sermons. (118)

Cone’s fourth chapter focuses on the women’s voice from the Black community. While some women were lynched (warning: there are horrific details of lynchings in this book), most victims of lynching were men. Women spoke out for the men who, in the face of the lynching tree remained quiet and tried not to be seen. However, the lynching tree, like the cross is stripped of its gender and made an experience of all who encountered it, whether as a victim or as a witness. Perhaps the best-known woman’s voice to raise the issue of lynching was Billie Holiday. In 1939, she began singing the song “Strange Fruit.” No publisher wanted to record this song, so she sang it in nightclubs. No one could doubt the meaning of the lyrics: “Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar tree.”

This book may be difficult for white middle-class Christians to read, but we can’t deny that these things happened. If we want to get into the experience of how others understand their faith, we must listen to their voices. We must acknowledge their pain. In this book, Cone forces us to see the horrible treatment of a race and how it contradicts the Christian message. We need to lift up the lynching tree, in confession, realizing the sin it represents and live in the hope of a God who has the power to free us from such a past and shape us into a new people who might live in sister and brotherhood with those of a different hue.

This is the second book I’ve read by Cone. In the late 1980s, while in seminary, I read A Black Theology of Liberation. As a seminarian, I also studied under Ronald Stone, whose writings and conversations helped Cone shape his interpretation of Reinhold Niebuhr’s views of the cross. While the subject matter is often difficult, Cone is an engaging writer. In a time when American seems to be coming apart at the seams, this book should be read by those of us in the majority culture so that we can “walk a mile” in the shoes of those who are of a different color and whose experience as an American is different that ours.

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Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy

David Zucchino, Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020), 426 pages including notes, bibliography, and index along with 12 additional pages of prints.

On November 10, 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina erupted into violence. It began with an armed mob of white men burning the building which housed the Daily Record, an African American newspaper. Supposedly, this was because of an editorial that had been published months earlier that challenged the idea that lynching was necessary to keep black men away from white women.  After the fire, the mob terrified the African American community while white community leaders set out to exile leaders within the African American community along with members of the City Council and the Police Chief. Backing up these groups were reserve soldiers and sailors who had just recently returned home after having been deployed during the Spanish American War. By the end of the day, Zucchino estimates that there were 60 dead and that most of the black community had fled into the swamps. Some would leave right away; others would leave over the next few months and their absence would change the community forever.

After the terror created within the African American community, the leaders of this coup, turned to the elected and appointed leaders within the city government, who were mostly Republicans who had been elected with the help of the black vote. The election two days earlier had been a landslide for the Democrats (who at this time in history were the conservatives and had made the election about white supremacy). But with the mayor and aldermen not up for re-election, the leaders of the coup used the violence of the day as a reason to march on city hall and to demand the resignation of the city’s leaders. Then they placed their own people in power. The story reads like a who’s who of Wilmington’s leading families who were involved in the coup, along with clergy and members of the Jewish community.

David Zucchino, a reporter by trade, is not the first to tell this story. But Zucchino, with engaging prose, offers new insight into the events leading up to 1898 as well as what happened afterwards.  While much of what had been said about 1898 throughout history had been a lie, but the book could have also been called “Wilmington’s Secret.” This is not the kind of story a community speaks about publicly and, until the 100th anniversary of the event approached, most people knew little about what happened in 1898. I lived in the Wilmington area from age 9 to 24 and only knew rumors about 1898. I even played baseball at Hugh McRae Park (which recently has been renamed), unaware that the park was given to the country to only be used by whites. Even in the late 60s, I don’t remember seeing any blacks in the park. McRae was one of the leaders of the white supremacy movement in Wilmington. It wasn’t until the late 1990s, when I was home visiting my parents and picked up Philip Gerard’s novel, Cape Fear Rising, that I began to fully understand what happened. Since then, I have read four other books about this episode in history.

Zucchino begins his story with the fall of Wilmington to Union forces in the final months of the Civil War. In short chapters that focus on an event or a point in time, which reads like a newspaper column, Zucchino paints a broad picture of what was happening in Wilmington prior to 1898.  Wilmington was a place of opportunity for African Americans and many moved to Wilmington seeking a better life. At this time, most African Americans in North Carolina still had the right to vote and many did, which led to the 1898 election in which the black population was discouraged to exercise their rights. In the aftermath of 1898, the state would establish laws that would essentially disenfranchise black voters. Zucchinno shows that the event of November 10 was carefully planned. It was the ultimate example of playing the “race card.” The white leaders within the city excited fear of a black uprising among the white population, but they kept the white citizens from acting until after the elections. They even stopped earlier attempts to get Manly and his newspaper (which had published the supposedly offensive editorial months before the November events). By waiting till after the elections, they were able to intimidate the black population from voting while keeping the federal government from becoming involved. Even on November 10th, they were careful not to avoid endangering federal government property and employees (such as the head of the Customs for the Port of Wilmington, who was African American) because of a fear of the federal government becoming involved.

Zucchino doesn’t end his story in 1898. He looks at the impact on what happened in Wilmington on the rest of the country and tells what happened to the leadership on both sides in the decades following the coup. As he points out, even in 1998, at the 100th anniversary of the event, there was tension as to how the story would be told.

While there are many books about the 1898 coup, Zucchino’s book is professionally written and brings the events to light in a clear manner. This is a worthwhile addition to the growing library on both this horrific event and the rise of the Jim Crow South, as well of an example how fear, hatred, and misinformation can be used to incite evil.

My review of We Have Taken a City, another book about this event, click here.