I never watch her on TV - but her comments in this venue are worth a listen.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Stupid Criminal Tricks
Is it me? Or is everyone just getting MORE crazy?
Woman Arrested in Fudge Robbery After Assault Claim
By Joe Holley Washington Post Staff WriterFriday, August 3, 2007; 3:58 PM
A sweet tooth proved to be the undoing of a Greenbelt woman visiting Annapolis this week.
Shortly after midnight, Thursday morning, the Annapolis Police Department received a call from a clerk at the downtown Maryland House Hotel, who reported that a woman had come into the lobby and said she had been the victim of a sexual assault.
Officers met with Greenbelt resident Catherine Anne Delgado, 35, and determined that her assault claim was unfounded. During the course of their conversation in the lobby, the officers noticed that Delgado, wearing slacks and a sleeveless white blouse, had large slabs of fudge bulging out of her pockets.
"Smudges of fudge showed up very well on her hands and white blouse," Officer Hal Dalton said. "You don't see something like that every day."
On a hunch, an officer walked over to the nearby Fudge Kitchen on Main Street and found that the front door was unsecured. The Fudge Kitchen owner told police that since closing time a large amount of fudge had disappeared from the store's window display. He did not know why the door was unlocked.
Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Delgado had used the restroom during her interview with police. When a female officer checked the facility, she found that Delgado had tried to flush a large amount of fudge down the toilet, so much, in fact, that the candy clogged the toilet.
Delgado was arrested and charged with burglary. She was being held on $100,000 bond.
Woman Arrested in Fudge Robbery After Assault Claim
By Joe Holley Washington Post Staff WriterFriday, August 3, 2007; 3:58 PM
A sweet tooth proved to be the undoing of a Greenbelt woman visiting Annapolis this week.
Shortly after midnight, Thursday morning, the Annapolis Police Department received a call from a clerk at the downtown Maryland House Hotel, who reported that a woman had come into the lobby and said she had been the victim of a sexual assault.
Officers met with Greenbelt resident Catherine Anne Delgado, 35, and determined that her assault claim was unfounded. During the course of their conversation in the lobby, the officers noticed that Delgado, wearing slacks and a sleeveless white blouse, had large slabs of fudge bulging out of her pockets.
"Smudges of fudge showed up very well on her hands and white blouse," Officer Hal Dalton said. "You don't see something like that every day."
On a hunch, an officer walked over to the nearby Fudge Kitchen on Main Street and found that the front door was unsecured. The Fudge Kitchen owner told police that since closing time a large amount of fudge had disappeared from the store's window display. He did not know why the door was unlocked.
Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Delgado had used the restroom during her interview with police. When a female officer checked the facility, she found that Delgado had tried to flush a large amount of fudge down the toilet, so much, in fact, that the candy clogged the toilet.
Delgado was arrested and charged with burglary. She was being held on $100,000 bond.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Images of Africa
These are just a few of the images I captured on my recent trip to Tanzania. I'm still thinking about the slideshow - and what should go in and out...and about what I'm going to say behind it. However, in the meantime, as I go thru the shots - I'll post a few here and there. This first one is "two girls on the road to ngorongoro".
"What are those crazy Americans up to now?"
African Animals
Here are just a few of the images I captured of the local wildlife.
The zebra at the Ngorongoro Crater
"I LOVE YOU MOM"
(really, it was more like, "Yum, whatcha eatin mom?")
Who's watching who here?
Random African Images
These flowers are everywhere in the area we were staying. Our nearest town was USA River. Now, thats not U.S.A River (as we first thought when we saw the sign years ago) It's pronounced ooooosah.
How long did I have to watch this flower before the bee came along? Please - don't ask.
The children are fabulous - all you have to do is say "Chekka" - (smile) and a big grin usually breaks out.
You know this bird KNOWS how beautiful he is.
Snippets of Africa
"I'm too sexy for this roof"
"Please don't hate me cuz I'm beautiful"
"Hey! What the hell is going on around here?"
More of my fabulous Tanzanian friends.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Our kids
I know it looks like a bunch of mugshots - however, this was the day that we took ID pictures for our kids. This is the first group of selected children. The kids were scared, there was a lot of buzzing going on around them and I'm sure a few of them didn't really have a clue as to why all the fuss was going on. No matter what I said, I got bupkis in terms of a real response from them. No matter, we love 'em anyway.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Back from The Motherland
(Havilah Village's first residents move in)
Finally back from our trip to Tanzania. Havilah is open! The dedication went off swimmingly. After much praying, prepping, painting, shopping, tweaking, sewing, sweeping, planting, planning - the house was finally ready. There's a lot I want to talk about in regards to this trip, but also a lot I'm not sure I should put in this blog. I'm still debating which parts to out and which parts to keep.
But on the which part to "out" - It was a big day for all those who have worked so hard to see this project from dirt to destiny. Having been a part of the thing since the dirt days 3 years ago, to see the house setup so beautifully was very moving. These kids will live in a standard far from what they've ever known. I'm just praying that we don't end up raising a bunch of selfish brats - as is known to be human nature.
As I watch this project, I see a kind of grand experiment. Nothing like this has ever been done before. What happens when you give children who have so little, so much? How do you guide them into the realization of their blessings and the obligation that because they have these blessings they MUST grow to serve their community with honor and dignity. They must give back. It's not optional. How do you teach that? I watch parents in America struggle with the communication of those values every day. So, I wonder what the plan will be to communicate that big picture message to these kids as they grow. It's a deep thought - and I welcome comments on it. How do you make sure that you raise great Tanzanians - and not American wannabes?
Now on to dedication......
Dedication day began cloudy and cool, but because of much prayer ended up sunny and even hot! There was a stellar lineup of speakers..... African church leaders, the village chief (we love Loti!), the leadership of Global Vessels, and of course, the local African dignitaries.
First and foremost, we began by asking God's blessings on the homes and all who work and dwell there.Then came the lineup of speeches.
As you can imagine, there was a lot of talking. There were the dedication speeches,
(here's Bob Wallace with the dedication to his mother).And the dedication of the second house by Pastor Gene Donaldson of the Capitol Hill SDA Church in Washington, DC to Gilda Allen's mother.
Our Pastor, Marcellus Robinson gave congratulatory remarks on behalf of the Emmanuel SDA Church in Ashton, Maryland.
The Chief of the village of Ngongongare- Loti Nnko - made his remarks as well.
My personal favorite bunch of fellow musicians helped us praise the Lord with music.
"Unity Singers" from the University of Arusha
And Rebecca Trotter, the new housemom (Mama T, as she will be known) was introduced to the village.
After all the praying, speechmaking and praising....the ribbon was cut. Havilah Orphange Village is declared open by Virginia and Frazier Mathis.
Then came the food and the tour. EVERYONE in attendance (more than 300 people), sampled what had been provided, and then toured the facility. It was truly a day of celebration for all!
HAVILAH ORPHANGE (House No 1.)
Here are a few pictures of the
house interior spaces...furnished and ready to go.
This beautiful artwork is set in the tile at the entrance to the house
Here's our new dining room. This one's fit for a king.
Bunk beds anyone? The girls get Dora the Explorer.
This ones for the boys..
There's a room for Mama T (Rebecca Trotter, our housemother)
And here is a "themed activity room"- all about reading
Thursday, July 05, 2007
For the Fourth of July
Frederick Douglass gives one of his greatest speeches. . .
July 5
Frederick Douglass
*On this date in 1852, Frederick Douglass gave the speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro".
The abolitionist was invited to address an audience in Rochester, New York at Corinthian Hall. That day Douglass delivered the following indictment of a nation celebrating freedom and independence, while keeping slaves.
“Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too; great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory....
Fellow citizens pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? Would to God, both for your sakes and ours that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man.
In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as a hart." But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me.
This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can today take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."
Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.
My subject, then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America. is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, "It is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, an denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look today, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.
What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can may; I cannot. The time for such argument is passed.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from "the Declaration of Independence," the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.
The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. 'Ethiopia, shall, stretch out her hand unto God."
Reference: The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass,
Volume II, Pre-Civil War Decade 1850-1860
Philip S. Foner, International Publishers Co., Inc.,
New York, 1950
July 5
Frederick Douglass
*On this date in 1852, Frederick Douglass gave the speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro".
The abolitionist was invited to address an audience in Rochester, New York at Corinthian Hall. That day Douglass delivered the following indictment of a nation celebrating freedom and independence, while keeping slaves.
“Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too; great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory....
Fellow citizens pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? Would to God, both for your sakes and ours that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man.
In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as a hart." But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me.
This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can today take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."
Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.
My subject, then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America. is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, "It is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, an denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look today, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.
What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can may; I cannot. The time for such argument is passed.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from "the Declaration of Independence," the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.
The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. 'Ethiopia, shall, stretch out her hand unto God."
Reference: The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass,
Volume II, Pre-Civil War Decade 1850-1860
Philip S. Foner, International Publishers Co., Inc.,
New York, 1950
Africa - AGAIN
Yes, yes, I am preparing to go to Tanzania for the third year in a row. Believe me, I'm not sure how this happened. All I can say is that it must be God's will. On the steps of a clinic in usa (pronounced oooosah) river last year - I asked the team Dr. if she'd miss me. She pretended to be "appalled" and began to inform me that since I've been infected by the service bug - I would never be the same, nor be able to quit doing it. Apparently, she's right. This year, I had no money and decided that I would hand my entire participation in this project to God. I asked him to provide the funds if he wanted me to go. I indicated that it was all on him this time. He provided more than I could have hoped for - and not a cent came out of my pocket (not that I had it anyway). I have experienced generosity and my faith in the individual (mind you, not in society) has been restored. Good people want to do good things. I'm proud that I have good people around me.
We leave on July 10th. If I can, I'll update this blog from there. If not, pray for us. It's the grand opening of Havilah and we have a lot planned. There will be approximately 60 people on this trip to Tanzania - all going to lend a hand in the continuing building project of this great orphanage project. This time, there are 3 houses completed. We'll be working on the administration building and meeting the new kids that will be moving (or have already moved) into the house. If you've been a part of this project - stay tuned, great things to come.
For Global Vessels and Me - I say, Assante Sana to you all.
We leave on July 10th. If I can, I'll update this blog from there. If not, pray for us. It's the grand opening of Havilah and we have a lot planned. There will be approximately 60 people on this trip to Tanzania - all going to lend a hand in the continuing building project of this great orphanage project. This time, there are 3 houses completed. We'll be working on the administration building and meeting the new kids that will be moving (or have already moved) into the house. If you've been a part of this project - stay tuned, great things to come.
For Global Vessels and Me - I say, Assante Sana to you all.
It's all about Jesus
It’s All About Jesus
by John Fischer
“When I came to you … I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-2 NIV)
The Gospel message has gotten a little foggy these days with all the attention being paid to politics, family values, and culture wars, and a lot of folks have lost track of the fact that it’s all about Jesus. Ask the man on the street what a Christian is today and you’re likely to ask a long time until you hear anything about Jesus or the cross. Our message, from beginning to end, is Jesus – who he was, what he said, and what he did.
The last recognized revival in this country was a movement primarily among baby boom youth in the early 1970s that was quickly dubbed the Jesus movement. It got that name because everything was focused around Jesus. When you think about it, Jesus was the ultimate hippie – he wore long hair, sandals, and he was against the establishment – and a generation of ideological kids embraced Christ, even while they rejected religion and the institutional church. Jesus was the central figure in all of this. What is now called Christian music was originally called Jesus music. Christians were called Jesus freaks. Now I’m not suggesting we all go back to tie-dyed T-shirts, bell-bottom pants, and Jesus rock, but I am suggesting we could learn something from this emphasis that transcended politics and religion.
Our message is all about a person, and our mission is to share that person with the world. God made us to belong to him; we wandered away; Jesus is the way back. A whole generation of young people found that out 30 years ago and nothing’s really changed about the heart of the message. It’s a personal message. It’s non-threatening. It’s all about a meaningful relationship with God that comes to someone by way of a meaningful relationship with them. There’s not a lot of baggage here. Our main concern is to introduce ourselves to people and in doing so, to introduce them to Jesus, because, as far as we’re concerned, that’s who it’s all about.
Jesus came to save us, unite us, and teach us to love one another. We’ve added a lot of other stuff to this and I’m not so sure it’s helping us do what we’re supposed to be doing. If it makes you more loving to your neighbor, then it’s probably a good thing. If it makes you your neighbor’s enemy, then it’s probably not. If it’s all about Jesus, then it’s definitely “right on!”
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Imus and the ensuing madness
I read this essay in the Washingtonpost today. I'm with the quote from the Rutgers Team Captain.
"What is revealed by a crack in the Good Person Facade"
....from the Washingtonpost.Com essay.
It's wrong when we co-sign (with our money and time and interest - or dance moves in the club) our people denigrating each other...and it's wrong when folks of other ethnic backgrounds do it as well. However, all we can do as individuals use the power of the dollar to cast our votes - and most importantly, teach our children the values that would help them cast the right vote as well. If we and our children don't stand firm for something - then as part of the larger society, we will continue to fall for anything.
I can be upset with Imus - just as upset as I am with everyone that denigrates not just African Americans, but all other societal groups as well. I can turn the channel on my radio, I can refuse to watch BET, MTV, VH1 or any other channel that routinely promotes misogyny, sexism, racism, or extremisim in any form. I can definately refuse to purchase anything that is created by the parties that contribute to these philosophical ideas, and I can be some kind of standard in my sphere of influence by not allowing jokes, comments or verbal insults of these kind in my presence. I don't have to be nasty about it, but I can refuse to be party to it. So I speak out.
I speak out especially because of the context that Imus spoke in. What he said was personal. He directed his comments not in the name of "ART" (as they do in the music industry to the general and wide population). He directed his comments to a specific group of young women. Most of us won't fight when someone says that "black people are _______(fill in the blank) - cuz you think and know that the comment does not apply to you specifically - and might just roll your eyes and walk away knowing how ignorant the comment is. You might blow it off because you don't feel like justifying it with a response. But you will definately fight if someone says, "You (your kids, your family is ___________". That's what makes this even more inflammatory. It's personal...
..and it's why I think Imus should be FIRED.
"What is revealed by a crack in the Good Person Facade"
....from the Washingtonpost.Com essay.
Some have pointed out that young women are routinely and unfortunately called "hos" in some rap lyrics. "That doesn't make it any more right for anyone to say it, it doesn't matter if you are African American, Caucasian, Asian, it really doesn't matter," said Rutgers team captain Essence Carson at a news conference yesterday. "All that matters is it's wrong."
It's wrong when we co-sign (with our money and time and interest - or dance moves in the club) our people denigrating each other...and it's wrong when folks of other ethnic backgrounds do it as well. However, all we can do as individuals use the power of the dollar to cast our votes - and most importantly, teach our children the values that would help them cast the right vote as well. If we and our children don't stand firm for something - then as part of the larger society, we will continue to fall for anything.
I can be upset with Imus - just as upset as I am with everyone that denigrates not just African Americans, but all other societal groups as well. I can turn the channel on my radio, I can refuse to watch BET, MTV, VH1 or any other channel that routinely promotes misogyny, sexism, racism, or extremisim in any form. I can definately refuse to purchase anything that is created by the parties that contribute to these philosophical ideas, and I can be some kind of standard in my sphere of influence by not allowing jokes, comments or verbal insults of these kind in my presence. I don't have to be nasty about it, but I can refuse to be party to it. So I speak out.
I speak out especially because of the context that Imus spoke in. What he said was personal. He directed his comments not in the name of "ART" (as they do in the music industry to the general and wide population). He directed his comments to a specific group of young women. Most of us won't fight when someone says that "black people are _______(fill in the blank) - cuz you think and know that the comment does not apply to you specifically - and might just roll your eyes and walk away knowing how ignorant the comment is. You might blow it off because you don't feel like justifying it with a response. But you will definately fight if someone says, "You (your kids, your family is ___________". That's what makes this even more inflammatory. It's personal...
..and it's why I think Imus should be FIRED.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Another Amen for Religious Liberty
I regularly "check-in to the WashingtonPost.Com's discussion pages on faith. This struck me as something I should share. Ignorance is not really bliss, is it?
(Posted by Stephen Prothero on March 19, 2007 11:31 AM to the WashingtonPost.Com's "On Faith" Section)
The United States may be one of the most religious nations on earth but Americans know woefully little about their own religions, or the religions of others.
Religion was a purely private matter, this sad situation would matter only to religious people—to Catholics trying to raise up the next generation of priests and nuns or to evangelicals or Jews hoping to raise up their children in church or synagogue. But religion is unrelentingly public—a fixture of both American publics and international affairs, one of U.S. and world history's prime movers. So religious ignorance is a civic problem.
At home, U.S. presidents quote routinely from the Bible, and the Congressional Record is replete with references to the Good Samaritan, the Golden Rule, and Armageddon. Abroad, religion continues to move people to wage both war and peace. Neither Iran nor Iraq, India or Sri Lanka can be understood if we are blind to the effects (for good and for ill) of religion. Therefore, to choose to ignore religion (as many public school districts and colleges currently do) is to choose to ignore the real world.
In a religion quiz I give my Boston University students every year, I am told that Paul bound Isaac and Abraham was blinded on the Road to Damascus. Catholic students are unable to name even one of the Seven Sacraments of their faith. Protestant students think "God helps those who help themselves" is a Bible quote (sorry, it's Ben Franklin). And Hindu students cannot tell me even one Hindu scripture. This ignorance absents millions of Americans from religiously inflected political debates (about abortion, capital punishment, the environment), imperiling our public life.
As I argue in my new book on Religious Literacy, we need both public school courses on the Bible and the world religions and college courses in religious studies. We need both because we need to reverse the fall into religious ignorance that has led us to produce entire generations of Americans lacking in the most elemental religious literacy. We need high school courses because to say that high school students who can't name the four Gospels are educated is to tell a dangerous lie. We need college courses because to certify BA recipients who don't know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites is a scandal.
Those who have a vested interest in perpetuating the culture wars will fuss and fume when it comes to education about religion. Those on the crazy right will say that only their religion can be taught in the public schools. Those on the crazy left will say that no religion is too much. But there is a vast middle in American life, and those of us who occupy it are weary of the culture wars.
Academic instruction about religion is a project about which all reasonable Americans, however atheistic or evangelical, can and should agree.
(Posted by Stephen Prothero on March 19, 2007 11:31 AM to the WashingtonPost.Com's "On Faith" Section)
Monday, March 19, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
The Lion Chasers Manifesto
Read it. Live it.
Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Grab life by the mane. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilies. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshipping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don't try to be who you're not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away.
Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Grab life by the mane. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilies. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshipping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don't try to be who you're not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away.
Chase the lion.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Today's Thought
Not alone
by John Fischer
There is hardly any human need stronger than the need to belong. We were created this way. Every one of us came out of a womb screaming for warmth, companionship, and someone else’s heartbeat. We were rudely ripped out of that idyllic existence and thrust into a cold, impersonal, and lonely world. No wonder babies cry. And the rest of our lives are spent trying to find that intimacy again. Everyone knows what this was because everyone had the same experience once – being so close to another that a heartbeat was a constant companion – and everyone knows that reuniting with others is a part of our common purpose in life. No man is an island.
Jesus prayed, “My prayer for all of them [his disciples and us] is that they will be one, just as you and I are one, Father – that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me.” (John 17:21)
We were made to be together. We often think only in terms of our own spiritual lives and forget the fact that God is saving a people to come together for his glory. Salvation is not just an individual matter; it’s a group effort. It is when the Church functions as a whole that we give evidence to who we really are – the Body of Christ. That’s the Body of Christ, not the individual of Christ. No one can reflect, alone, who God made us to be. His will is expressed in all of us together. Together we are the Bride of Christ. (My grammar checker doesn’t like that last sentence because this concept challenges even our language. Since when is “bride” plural?) I am not the Bride; you are not the Bride. We are only the Bride in completion with all other believers in history and in the world. This is all part of God’s plan to bring us back together where we can hear each other’s heartbeat and experience the oneness that Jesus has with the Father.
So what does this mean for you and me today? It means we are not alone. We know where we belong. We need to give priority to our relationships with other believers because who we are depends on it. There is no such thing as individual spiritual growth. Check your calendar; arrange some lunches, and invite some neighbors over. Time put into people is time committed to God and his purposes.
Monday, December 25, 2006
The First Leon
The kids did a fabulous job last Sabbath evening on their Christmas Program (for the benefit of the Angel Tree Families). Here are pics from the evening, along with pictures of our Angel Tree Kids.
Christmas Truce
SILENT NIGHT, HOLY NIGHT"
During World War I, in the winter of 1914, on the battlefields of Flanders, one of the most unusual events in all of human history took place. The Germans had been in a fierce battle with the British and French. Both sides were dug in, safe in muddy, man-made trenches six to eight feet deep that seemed to stretch forever.
All of a sudden, German troops began to put small Christmas trees, lit with candles, outside of their trenches. Then, they began to sing songs. Across the way, in the "no man's land" between them, came songs from the British and French troops. Incredibly, many of the Germans, who had worked in England before the war, were able to speak good enough English to propose a "Christmas" truce.
The British and French troops, all along the miles of trenches, accepted. In a few places, allied troops fired at the Germans as they climbed out of their trenches. But the Germans were persistent and Christmas would be celebrated even under the threat of impending death.
According to Stanley Weintraub, who wrote about this event in his book, Silent Night, "signboards arose up and down the trenches in a variety of shapes. They were usually in English, or - from the Germans - in fractured English. Rightly, the Germans assumed that the other side could not read traditional gothic lettering, and that few English understood spoken German. 'YOU NO FIGHT, WE NO FIGHT' was the most frequently employed German message. Some British units improvised 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' banners and waited for a response. More placards on both sides popped up."
A spontaneous truce resulted. Soldiers left their trenches, meeting in the middle to shake hands. The first order of business was to bury the dead who had been previously unreachable because of the conflict. Then, they exchanged gifts. Chocolate cake, cognac, postcards, newspapers, tobacco. In a few places, along the trenches, soldiers exchanged rifles for soccer balls and began to play games.
It didn't last forever. In fact, some of the generals didn't like it at all and commanded their troops to resume shooting at each other. After all, they were in a war. Soldiers eventually did resume shooting at each other. But only after, in a number of cases, a few days of wasting rounds of ammunition shooting at stars in the sky instead of soldiers in the opposing army across the field.
For a few precious moments there was peace on earth good will toward men. All because the focus was on Christmas. Happens every time. There's something about Christmas that changes people. It happened over 2000 years ago in a little town called Bethlehem. It's been happening over and over again down through the years of time.
This week, Lord willing, it will happen again.
Origins: Of the British and German soldiers who faced each other across the muddy fields of Flanders on Christmas Eve in 1914, even those who no
longer believed the optimistic predictions of a short war would have been shocked to learn that it would drag on for another four years — and that it would ultimately see the staggering totals of 8½ million dead and 21 million wounded. Nonetheless, by December 1914 the European War — being fought by men who were weary, frustrated, and dispirited, bogged down in the glue-like muck, waterlogged trenches, and barbed-wire entanglements of Belgium, with little sense of national purpose other than to defeat the enemy — had already claimed hundreds of thousands of casualties since the beginning of hostilities in early August.
Despite the constant machine gun fire and artillery bombardments of the western front, and even though in some places front-line troops were a mere 60 yards away from the enemy's lines, soldiers on both sides received gift boxes containing food and tobacco prepared by their governments that Christmas. The Germans, who had a direct land link to their home country (British soldiers in Belgium were separated from London by sixty miles and the English Channel), also managed to send small Christmas trees and candles to troops at the front. And, notwithstanding the fact that a Christmas cease-fire proposed by Pope Benedict XV had already been rejected by both sides as "impossible," on Christmas Eve the "law of unanticipated consequences went to work," as Stanley Weintraub, author of Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce, described it:
. . . the Germans set trees on trench parapets and lit the candles. Then, they began singing carols, and though their language was unfamiliar to their enemies, the tunes were not. After a few trees were shot at, the British became more curious than belligerent and crawled forward to watch and listen. And after a while, they began to sing.
By Christmas morning, the "no man's land" between the trenches was filled with fraternizing soldiers, sharing rations and gifts, singing and (more solemnly) burying their dead between the lines. Soon they were even playing soccer, mostly with improvised balls.
According to the official war diary of the 133rd Saxon Regiment, "Tommy and Fritz" kicked about a real football supplied by a Scot. "This developed into a regulation football match with caps casually laid out as goals. The frozen ground was no great matter . . . The game ended 3-2 for Fritz."
The spontaneous truce (which included French and Belgian troops in some sectors) was largely over by New Year's Day, however. Commanders on both sides ordered their troops to restart hostilities under penalty of court martial, and German and British soldiers reluctantly parted, in the words of Pvt. Percy Jones of the Westminster Brigade, "with much hand-shaking and mutual goodwill." The Great War stretched on through another three Christmases and beyond, but all subsequent attempts to organize similiar truces failed, and millions more died before the armistice of 11 November 1918 finally ended the shooting for good.
As Stanley Weintraub noted at the close of his book on the 1914 Christmas truce:
However much the momentary peace of 1914 evidenced the desire of the combatants to live in amity with one another, it was doomed from the start by the realities beyond the trenches. As the English rock band The Farm, decades later, summed up the results after the enemies "joined together and decided not to fight," but failed, there was "nothing learned and nothing gained."
A celebration of the human spirit, the Christmas Truce remains a moving manifestation of the absurdities of war. A very minor Scottish poet of Great War vintage, Frederick Niven, may have got it right in his "A Carol from Flanders," which closed,
O ye who read this truthful rime
From Flanders, kneel and say:
God speed the time when every day
Shall be as Christmas Day.
Although the Christmas Truce of 1914 may seem like a distant myth to those now at arms in parts of the world where vast cultural differences between combatants make such an occurrence impossible, it remains a symbol of hope to those who believe that a recognition of our common humanity may someday reverse the maxim that "Peace is harder to make than war."
During World War I, in the winter of 1914, on the battlefields of Flanders, one of the most unusual events in all of human history took place. The Germans had been in a fierce battle with the British and French. Both sides were dug in, safe in muddy, man-made trenches six to eight feet deep that seemed to stretch forever.
All of a sudden, German troops began to put small Christmas trees, lit with candles, outside of their trenches. Then, they began to sing songs. Across the way, in the "no man's land" between them, came songs from the British and French troops. Incredibly, many of the Germans, who had worked in England before the war, were able to speak good enough English to propose a "Christmas" truce.
The British and French troops, all along the miles of trenches, accepted. In a few places, allied troops fired at the Germans as they climbed out of their trenches. But the Germans were persistent and Christmas would be celebrated even under the threat of impending death.
According to Stanley Weintraub, who wrote about this event in his book, Silent Night, "signboards arose up and down the trenches in a variety of shapes. They were usually in English, or - from the Germans - in fractured English. Rightly, the Germans assumed that the other side could not read traditional gothic lettering, and that few English understood spoken German. 'YOU NO FIGHT, WE NO FIGHT' was the most frequently employed German message. Some British units improvised 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' banners and waited for a response. More placards on both sides popped up."
A spontaneous truce resulted. Soldiers left their trenches, meeting in the middle to shake hands. The first order of business was to bury the dead who had been previously unreachable because of the conflict. Then, they exchanged gifts. Chocolate cake, cognac, postcards, newspapers, tobacco. In a few places, along the trenches, soldiers exchanged rifles for soccer balls and began to play games.
It didn't last forever. In fact, some of the generals didn't like it at all and commanded their troops to resume shooting at each other. After all, they were in a war. Soldiers eventually did resume shooting at each other. But only after, in a number of cases, a few days of wasting rounds of ammunition shooting at stars in the sky instead of soldiers in the opposing army across the field.
For a few precious moments there was peace on earth good will toward men. All because the focus was on Christmas. Happens every time. There's something about Christmas that changes people. It happened over 2000 years ago in a little town called Bethlehem. It's been happening over and over again down through the years of time.
This week, Lord willing, it will happen again.
Origins: Of the British and German soldiers who faced each other across the muddy fields of Flanders on Christmas Eve in 1914, even those who no
longer believed the optimistic predictions of a short war would have been shocked to learn that it would drag on for another four years — and that it would ultimately see the staggering totals of 8½ million dead and 21 million wounded. Nonetheless, by December 1914 the European War — being fought by men who were weary, frustrated, and dispirited, bogged down in the glue-like muck, waterlogged trenches, and barbed-wire entanglements of Belgium, with little sense of national purpose other than to defeat the enemy — had already claimed hundreds of thousands of casualties since the beginning of hostilities in early August.
Despite the constant machine gun fire and artillery bombardments of the western front, and even though in some places front-line troops were a mere 60 yards away from the enemy's lines, soldiers on both sides received gift boxes containing food and tobacco prepared by their governments that Christmas. The Germans, who had a direct land link to their home country (British soldiers in Belgium were separated from London by sixty miles and the English Channel), also managed to send small Christmas trees and candles to troops at the front. And, notwithstanding the fact that a Christmas cease-fire proposed by Pope Benedict XV had already been rejected by both sides as "impossible," on Christmas Eve the "law of unanticipated consequences went to work," as Stanley Weintraub, author of Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce, described it:
. . . the Germans set trees on trench parapets and lit the candles. Then, they began singing carols, and though their language was unfamiliar to their enemies, the tunes were not. After a few trees were shot at, the British became more curious than belligerent and crawled forward to watch and listen. And after a while, they began to sing.
By Christmas morning, the "no man's land" between the trenches was filled with fraternizing soldiers, sharing rations and gifts, singing and (more solemnly) burying their dead between the lines. Soon they were even playing soccer, mostly with improvised balls.
According to the official war diary of the 133rd Saxon Regiment, "Tommy and Fritz" kicked about a real football supplied by a Scot. "This developed into a regulation football match with caps casually laid out as goals. The frozen ground was no great matter . . . The game ended 3-2 for Fritz."
The spontaneous truce (which included French and Belgian troops in some sectors) was largely over by New Year's Day, however. Commanders on both sides ordered their troops to restart hostilities under penalty of court martial, and German and British soldiers reluctantly parted, in the words of Pvt. Percy Jones of the Westminster Brigade, "with much hand-shaking and mutual goodwill." The Great War stretched on through another three Christmases and beyond, but all subsequent attempts to organize similiar truces failed, and millions more died before the armistice of 11 November 1918 finally ended the shooting for good.
As Stanley Weintraub noted at the close of his book on the 1914 Christmas truce:
However much the momentary peace of 1914 evidenced the desire of the combatants to live in amity with one another, it was doomed from the start by the realities beyond the trenches. As the English rock band The Farm, decades later, summed up the results after the enemies "joined together and decided not to fight," but failed, there was "nothing learned and nothing gained."
A celebration of the human spirit, the Christmas Truce remains a moving manifestation of the absurdities of war. A very minor Scottish poet of Great War vintage, Frederick Niven, may have got it right in his "A Carol from Flanders," which closed,
O ye who read this truthful rime
From Flanders, kneel and say:
God speed the time when every day
Shall be as Christmas Day.
Although the Christmas Truce of 1914 may seem like a distant myth to those now at arms in parts of the world where vast cultural differences between combatants make such an occurrence impossible, it remains a symbol of hope to those who believe that a recognition of our common humanity may someday reverse the maxim that "Peace is harder to make than war."
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