The Word says God don’t give us credit for lovin the folks we want to love anyway. No, He gives us credit for loving the unlovable. The perfect love of God don’t come with no conditions. – Denver Moore
Just finished this true story co-authored by two men who’s lives could not have started out more differently. Spoiler alert…they find a common bond of faith and hope when an exceptional woman touches both of their lives, and the lives of many others.
The book shifts authors in quick chapters between Denver Moore, a black man who lived a pitifully poor and oppressed life in modern day southern United States to Ron Hall a college educated white man who blythely finds a beautiful devoted wife and stumbles into a wildly successful career as an art dealer.
Deborah Hall is the woman who has faith in her unfaithful husband, and exceptional faith in finding hope and promise at Union Gosel Mission in Fort Worth Texas. There, Miss Debbie sees potential for change when Ron and most others see despair and just a place to volunteer and maybe score points to get into heaven.
The story inspired and challenged without being dramatic or saccharine. It rings true and truth is a beautiful thing to share.
Years ago, my mother requested me to write down 7 things I learned from her. Apparently the Ladies Guild at her church in upstate New York were inspired by the pastor to take on this project. I thought about it for weeks, jotting down ideas in an old grammar school composition book. And then it slowly evolved into a poem. I share this with you for several reasons. It not only brought a lot of joy to my mother but it synthesized thoughts and emotions that otherwise were muddled and lost in one’s mind. I believe writing is complimentary therapy to reading and talking. It helps organize thoughts and experiences, establishes cause and effects, resolves lingering issues and heals old wounds. I encourage you to try it. Even if your mother has passed away, it still is a lovely way to cherish her life. Happy Mother’s Day!
7 Things I Learned From My MomWhen I was just five, you kept me alive.
I lied still in an old cedar chest,
And I learned that I was blessed.
I needed you then- you were always my friend!
When I was just seventeen, it was a very sad year.
You showed me the way to shed a good tear.
You see, my father had died, I wanted to hide.
You showed me the way to find some good cheer.
When I was still very young, I acted the fool.
Yet, you guided me through school.
You lent me your strength to be a good man,
when your dear mom had passed away in my hand.
You taught me how to love my dear spouse,
And fill with love our own blessed house.
Now my wife was my life,
You loved us as one, as a mom loves a son.When I was 31, we had a girl and a son.
I learned to be glad just to be a good dad.
It was a joyous good time.
It was a joyous good time.
When I was 35, I wasn’t quite alive.
There was a big void- I didn’t know why.
I still needed one friend until the very end.
You showed me the Word with your love for The Lord.And now that I’m old, life isn’t so cold.
I find in your heart the warmth of a hearth.
When they lay me to rest in an old cedar chest,
I’ll know I was blessed with your love to the end.
You were always my friend! You were always my friend!
L.G. Emerson
18 February 2006
This is the first night of Passover 2020. My recollections of Catholic school education on the Old Testament are surprisingly vivid. I have to think St. Louise de Marillac School invested heavily in Old Testament film strips, because that was a favorite of teachers and students alike.
I was fascinated and terrified by the Bible verses depicting the struggles of the Israelites against their Egyptian slave masters. Plagues. Ten of them! They were included on quizzes. Name the ten plagues God beset on the Egyptians – in order! Hang on while I search the web, cause I’m only recalling locusts, hail, frogs and the lamb’s blood on the door. Thank you Wikipedia.
All these years later, I am not surprised that this graphic Biblical content stuck with me and may have overshadowed the gentler parables and even major miracles I would learn about later.
But this year, this Passover, I think about people like me, people all over the globe, huddled in their homes. We’ve learned of a great, powerful threat to our health, our safety, our families, our very future and we sit and wait and pray for it to pass us over.
We didn’t learn of the Seder meal in all those years at St. Louise, and that is a pity, since it is the prayerful, holy ritual that I’d rather focus on. So tonight, though we can’t all gather, we can remember that there was a threat to an ancient people, a Passover and an Exodus.
COURAGE Courage is armor A blind man wears; That calloused scar Of outlived despairs; Courage is Fear That has said its prayers.
Karle Wilson Baker
(Mrs.) Karle Wilson Baker (1878–1960) was an American poet and author, born in Little Rock, Ark. to Kate Florence Montgomery Wilson and William Thomas Murphey Wilson. Educated at the University of Chicago, she studied under poet William Vaughn Moody and novelist Robert Herrick, and later went on to write her own poems and novels. Wikipedia: Karle Wilson Baker
Poetry Foundation October 1921, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, “Three Small Poems”
I can’t imagine life without music. My brother is the musician, I like to think I can occasionally “put on a harmony” ala Joni M. The women who are Mamuse found me on a dark day of despair and never fail to “let myself be lifted”. Sing, hum or tap along!
Musings on this Ash Wednesday. Why would anyone willingly deny themselves something they enjoy when there a plenty of things they want and don’t have?
I’m not going to proselytize or preach. I only know that after finding out that Lent can be more than Ash Wednesday and fish on Fridays, (which, by the way, the entire State of Wisconsin lives in perpetual Lenten observance), I get it. I give up – a little or a lot. Doesn’t matter. True, some things are harder than others. I’ll keep you posted. Please share your thoughts, support and insight.
Ever since I retired people ask the same question in various ways.
“How do you like retirement?” Generally equivalent to “How are you?”
“Are you bored?” These folks can’t imagine not working.
“What do you do all day?” The direct challenge approach.
“Are you happy?” Here’s the one that gave me pause.
I don’t recall people asking “Are you happy?” directly at other times in my life. It must be something about the transition from work to retirement that prompts this question and I didn’t know how to answer it right away. Then the word ‘content’ started popping into my head.
Is there a difference between happiness and contentment? Of course there is. I’m sure you can be found in the dictionary. But what do the two states of being FEEL like? What do you think? I welcome your thoughts on this.
Giving it my best shot, I’d say contentment is truly a state of being. It is not necessarily dependent on someone or something. Happiness, while it can be considered a state, and not to be knocked, is more a reaction and that said, has the characteristic of being wonderfully fleeting. It’s the difference between ‘Cheers!’ & ‘Namaste’. I’m going for both in equal measure.
“To those children all over the world who have no access to education, to those teachers who bravely continue teaching, and to anyone who has fought for their basic human rights and education.”
Malala Yousafzai
Pakistani school girl Malala Yousafzai’s story of her refusal to abide by the Taliban’s orders forbidding girls to attend school and her bravery in speaking out for the right to do so. This Young Reader’s Edition* was co-authored with Patricia McCormick and is based on the New York Times Bestseller.
Part One: Before the Taliban describes Malala’s desires to attend the school her father founded, to excel in her studies, socialize with her friends, quarrel with her brothers, and be a good daughter in a loving, modern Pakistani family. Malala was raised in Mingora, the largest city in the famously beautiful Swat Valley. Malala’s father, Ziauddin and mother Toor Pekai valued literacy for their children as a sacred right. Her father founded a school three years before Malala was born and by the time she was eight years old the school had over 800 students and three campuses.
In Part Two: A Shadow over Our Valley the insidious presence of Radio Mullah and the escalation of Taliban rule unfolds into daily life until Malala and the people of her region learn ‘What Terrorism Feels Like‘.
After an earthquake in 2005 devastated the region, conservative religious groups stepped in before the government could respond and many volunteers were from organizations with ties to militant groups. Their leaders began to preach that God would punish the people if they did not change their ways and adopt Sharia, Islamic law. Sharia outlaws music, dancing, smoking, and watching television. These, and other forbidden things are known as ‘haram’. Within two years of the earthquake, Radio Mullah proclaimed that schools for girls were haram.
Part Three: Finding My Voice recounts how her family’s belief that education is a universal human right which propels the Yousafzai household into brighter and brighter political and media spotlights.
Malala started working with the BBC and wrote a diary about life under the Taliban, using a pseudonym, Gul Makai. She began giving interviews and appearing on television and she did not hide her face. “Fazlullah’s men wear masks, because they are criminals. But I have nothing to hide and have done nothing wrong.” She began gaining international notoriety and won humanitarian peace prizes.
The Taliban directly threatened Malala’s father and the school itself. Malala, her father and some of her fellow students began speaking out against the Taliban. Schools were being targeted and bombed regularly. In December 2008, Radio Mullah decreed that “After the fifteenth of January, no girl, whether big or little shall go to school. Otherwise, you know what we can do.”
Part Four: Targeted brings the reader right up to the moment most know from the beginning will come. Death threats began in early 2012. On October 9, 2012 a gunman climbed into the back of fifteen year old Malala’s school bus and shouted, “Who is Malala?” before shooting her point blank along with two classmates.
Part Five: A New Life, Far From Home: After the shooting, Malala ultimately received medical treatment in Birmingham, England. Her classmates both survived the attack as well. On her sixteenth birthday she was invited to address the United Nations and in 2014, at age seventeen was the youngest recipient of the Noble Prize for Peace.
The spirituality in her story comes through time and time again. Malala is a person of faith and she writes of her prayers as conversations with God. She gives praise joyfully and freely, from the heart of a grateful child.
How great God is! He has given us eyes to see the beauty of the world, hands to touch it, a nose to experience all its fragrance, and a heart to appreciate it all. But we don’t realize how miraculous our senses are until we lose one. The return of my hearing was just one miracle. A Talib had fired three shots at point-blank range at three girls in a school bus—and none of us were killed. One person had tried to silence me. And millions spoke out. Those were miracles, too.
Malala Yousafzai
The story is enriched by a Glossary and Time Line of Important Events as well as ‘A Note on the Malala Fund’. and my personal favorite, a map of Swat and insert showing Mingora and Malala’s ancestral home in Shangla.
To all the girls who have faced injustice and been silenced. Together we will be heard.
Malala Yousafzai
*oops! Did not notice I had checked out the Young Readers Edition – the “Regular” edition will undoubtedly go into more political and personal detail.