Spring is my favorite season. Forsythias are blooming, trees are budding, and hyacinths are waking up the flowerbeds. These signs also signal the approach of Easter, a time when Christians reflect on Christ’s death and celebrate his resurrection. These two events and what they mean to Christians then and now never cease to amaze me. On one hand, it is incredibly humbling to know that Christ loves everyone -the good, the bad, and the in-between – so much that he assumed our sins and transgressions and took them to the cross. But, on the other hand, he expects me to love everyone too.
Life in the Wiregrass
Flannery O’Connor once said that her stories were about finding grace in places held by the devil. The same could be said about many Southern authors. Their stories pit the best of Southern culture (love, faith, grace) against the worst (hate, murder, sex abuse, alcoholism).
Some Southern authors use humor to temper their imaginary battles between good and evil. Harper Lee did it in To Kill A Mockingbird, and Margaret Mitchell did it in Gone With the Wind. Even Mark Twain and Fannie Flagg used laughter as well as tears to tell their stories.
Grace and Faith at Work: The Easter Women
Other than my family, there have been three women mentors who have had a profound influence on my early development as a Christian. The first was an older neighbor I called “E” (short for Edith). She had the best climbing trees in the world, and she let me use them at will. She also helped my Mom and Dad when needed by giving me rides to church, Sunday school, and Girls Auxiliary meetings whenever I needed them. All I had to do was ask “E would you?” and she would get her car keys and off we’d go. Sometimes she waited for me and other times she’d come back to pick me up. It sounds like a small thing, but it wasn’t. Engagement with the community of believers only happens if you’re there and she made sure I was.
Child Abuse: Who is the Victim?
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. It is almost unbelievable to think that our society needs to be reminded to protect the innocent and most vulnerable among us, but we do. If anything we should be reminded to do it daily. Predatory, disturbed, and damaged people have preyed on children (emotionally, physically, and sexually) since the dawn of time. One major difference today is that television and social media allow us to see into the dark, sinister world of these serial child abusers, pedophiles, and human traffickers in graphic detail.
The Wiregrass, Fort Rucker, and Southern Culture
All I have to do is hear the heavy thumping sound of a helicopter and childhood memories come flooding back from 1969 and the hot-as-Hell Wiregrass region of the Deep South. The Vietnam War is raging, and the demand for helicopter pilots and crews is at an all time high. Fort Rucker, the Aviation Training Center for the United States Army, is a beehive of activity day and night as hundreds of soldiers arrive, train intensively, and depart in rapid succession.
Grace, Faith, and Dancing with the Devil
Having been raised by a mother who was steeped in the faith and grace traditions of the Southern Wiregrass and a father who’s Virginia roots included a minister, believing was an assumption of daily living in our house. Unfortunately, despite our best intentions faith, grace, and believing were not always reflected in how we lived our lives, then and now.
Most folks, including me and mine, know the difference between good and bad and right and wrong, but sometimes when life is pushing in, and people are piling on we choose the easy way out. We choose to dance with the devil, to say and do things that we know we should not and would not want said or done to us.