Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to July

adult learning, art, Children, Declaration of Independence, Family, Foundational Documents, Habits, holidays, Independence Day, inspiration, instagram, Painting, purpose, rabbits, risk, sleep, summer vacation, Virginia Bill of Rights, vision

Are we the United States of America or the Un-Tied States of America? One of the apocryphal sayings misattributed to the great Benjamin Franklin is “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Many are the words of wisdom from those who can’t speak up for themselves anymore, but especially numerous are the aphorisms of those we hold in high esteem, the founders of our nation.

As a young rabbit, my summers were often spent in the game of “School,” as the days lengthened beyond the end of actual school. My mother rabbit, a school teacher in real life, would find me underneath the shade tree in our backyard where I’d be instructing my younger neighbor rabbits sitting in neat rows. Since old school teachers never lose their calling to teach, the upcoming anniversary of the birth of our nation is an opportunity for all of us to remember our national struggle for independence and liberty was a cause both difficult and hard won.

I’ll take one of each flavor, thank you!

As we rabbits pull out our flags, bunting, firecrackers, and ice cream churns, we might want to take a moment to remember the danger and risk our ancestors took to become an independent nation, rather than colonies subservient to the English crown. For many great reasons we can thank our ancestors for their refusal to endure the insults of taxation without representation and the indignities of having all their judicial decisions subject to revision by a foreign party. Indeed, the colonists lived as second class citizens, a fact which grated upon their very souls. Many were their entreaties to the King of England for redress of these wrongs, but to no avail.

Redress is the righting of a wrong. Some wrongs are more wrong than others, to be sure. As a young rabbit in the first year of junior high school, I discovered all my classmates had later bedtimes than I did. In fact, I was still turning in at 7 pm along with my baby brother, who was a mere 8 years old. I made an extensive survey of my different class groups and discovered the average bedtime was 8 pm. I knew my old fashioned rabbit parents would never let me stay up until 10 pm at my tender age.

My daddy was always saying, “Young rabbits need their sleep to grow up big, strong, healthy, smart, and good looking.” I never had a good argument against these reasons, so I’d go to bed, even if I might sneak a flashlight and read a book under the covers. I did get permission to stay up to the late hour of 8 pm, however. Perhaps rebellion is part of the American DNA.

Birthing the American Union wasn’t easy. The collection of individual colonies operated separately and had their own interests. Joining them together into one whole wasn’t an easy task, for each would have to put the common good ahead of their own individual needs and desires. Benjamin Franklin proposed The Albany Plan In July 21, 1754, for a union of the American provinces, which he proposed to a conference of provincial delegates at Albany, New York, to better battle the French and their Indian allies. We remember this era as the French and Indian Wars.

Benjamin Franklin. Plan of Proposed Union (Albany Plan), 1754. Manuscript. Hazard Papers in the Peter Force Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (2.00.02)

The Albany Plan called for proportional representation in a national legislature and a president general appointed by the King of Great Britain. It served as a model for Franklin’s revolutionary Plan of Confederation in 1775. His original idea germinated in people’s minds, along with other writings which Franklin “lay upon the table.” Not everyone was ready to approve these proposals, but his proposed Draft Articles of Confederation helped the committee when they finally began to focus their action in July, 1775 to write what became our constitution.

In November, 1755, Governor Morris of Pennsylvania pressed for a Militia Act in order to recruit persons for defense of the area from Indian and French attacks. The military units contemplated were purely voluntary and the officers, though commissioned by the governor, were to be elected from below, not appointed from above. The most important difference was that in 1747 the Association was a completely extra-legal body created by the volunteers themselves, while in 1755 the military units were, for the first time in Pennsylvania history, to be established by formal legislative act. And during the eleven months before news of its disallowance by the King reached the colony, the act did serve, in spite of its limitations, as a basis for raising reserve forces for provincial defense.

The Virginia delegates to the Philadelphia convention of 1774 went with this charge in hand:

“It cannot admit of a Doubt but that British Subjects in America are entitled to the same Rights and Privileges as their Fellow Subjects possess in Britain; and therefore, that the Power assumed by the British Parliament to bind America by their Statutes, in all Cases whatsoever, is unconstitutional, and the Source of these unhappy Differences.”

The crown had placed an embargo on the colonists and had forbidden them to import any manufactured goods, books, and while they might trade with other parts of the realm, those countries didn’t have to reciprocate. Economic sanctions were used for political purposes even in the 18th century.

Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a Resolution of Independence on June 7, 1776.

Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense, published in January 1776, was sold by the thousands. By the middle of May 1776, eight colonies had decided that they would support independence. When the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia Hall on June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia read his resolution beginning: “Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

After 21 years of planning, priming, and planting of the seeds for the fragile fruit of a New Democratic nation, it would finally come to life in the July 1776 Declaration of Independence and the 1789 Constitution of the United States of America. Yet not everyone was on board, not everyone wanted to leave the established relationship, even if it wasn’t the best situation.

Thomas Jefferson: Rough Draft of Declaration of Independence

Jefferson modeled the Declaration of Independence on the Virginia Bill of Rights, which became the basis for the Bill of Rights of the new Constitution of the United States of America. Notice the sections on 3: Governance by the Majority, 5: Separation of Governmental Powers, with Executive and Legislative members returned to private service, 12: Freedom of the Press, and 13: Armed State Militias.

“That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”

Virginia Declaration of Rights, one of several pages

Section 13 of the Virginia Bill of Rights is one of the founding documents of our nation. Many today talk about “what the founders wanted.” One way we can know in part is to look at the historic records, although they are few and far between. We can find these in the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and at the Smithsonian Museum, among others. We don’t have to be mind readers or seek some medium to channel the spirits of their ancestral vision. We’re fortunate they and their descendants recognized their importance to history. Today we throw away records at a fast pace, not knowing what will be important for the future.

While today nearly every young rabbit instagrams their lunch or their night out with a comment, which lasts in perpetuity on the internet, sometimes to a more mature rabbit’s shame and embarrassment, people nearly 250 years ago had to sit down, collect their thoughts, sharpen a quill pen, dip it frequently into the ink well, and write on precious sheets of paper.

Scholars think the Declaration of Independence was not signed by any of the delegates of the Continental Congress on July 4. The huge canvas painting by John Trumbull hanging in the grand Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol depicting the signing of the Declaration is a work of imagination. In his biography of John Adams, historian David McCullough wrote: “No such scene, with all the delegates present, ever occurred at Philadelphia.” We do have Jefferson’s draft copy as well as several printed copies that are “originals,” plus the clean, handwritten copy we treasure as a founding document.

John Trumbull, American, 1756–1843
The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
1786–1820, Oil on canvas,
Yale University Art Gallery,
New Haven, Connecticut

If we had been members of the Second Continental Congress in 1776, we would have been rebels and considered traitors by the King. He would have posted a reward for the capture of each of us, since we were the most prominent rebel leaders. Soon enough the largest British armada ever assembled would anchor just outside New York harbor. By affixing our names to the document,we pledged our life,our fortune, and our sacred honor to the cause of freedom. Perhaps this would causes us today to pause. Then again, we might dip the quill into the ink well and take our first breath as a free American. We’d sign our name with pride. We would be part of history now.

As we prepare our menus for our backyard barbecues and make our plans for block parties, let’s remember in most urban areas firecrackers and explosive devices are banned, except for professional light and sound experiences. Be safe in large crowds, especially at night and in entertainment districts. Be safe, be smart, keep hot food hot and cold food cold.

Jello Pudding Icebox Cake with Graham Cracker Layers and Fresh Fruit Flag Design

Joy, peace, and history,

Cornelia

Choose your preferred font and “sign the Declaration of Independence”
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/join-the-signers

Jefferson’s Rough Draft of Declaration of Independence. [Digital ID# us0002_2]//www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-the-united-states/DeclarationofIndependence/RevolutionoftheMind/Assets/us0002_2_725.Jpeg

Is July 2 America’s true Independence Day? John Adams thought so. – The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/07/01/is-july-2-the-true-independence-day-john-adams-thought-so/

Silk Declaration of Independence Scarf, Full size, supports the US National Archive
https://www.nationalarchivesstore.org/products/declaration-of-independence-silk-scarf

Militia Act, [25 November 1755]
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0116

One Week in my Spiritual Journey

Academy for Spiritual Formation, adult learning, art, Christmas, Creativity, Faith, Holy Spirit, Independence Day, Love, Meditation, Painting, photography, purpose, Reflection, renewal, sleep, The Lord of The Rings, United Methodist Church, United Methodist Foundation of Arkansas, vision

My spiritual journey always has a late start, but I suppose my lateness is irrelevant in the realm of the God whose time is eternal and everlasting. God’s time is always kairos time, or the time when conditions are right for the accomplishment of a crucial action. God always works at the opportune and decisive moment, never before or after. As Gandalf says in The Lord of the Rings, “A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.”

I don’t claim to be a wizard, and I’d never accuse God of being a mere wizard, but I didn’t get the appellation, “the usually late, but sometimes great” Cornelia DeLee for nothing. Am I time challenged as well as directionally challenged? Or do I take on too many tasks, as well as push some of these too close together as I near the starting line for my journeys? Maybe some of both. At one time before the pandemic, I could get a car care appointment in Little Rock in two days, but now it takes three. There goes my Friday. Saturday night I spoke for three hours with my oldest granddaughter and turned into bed early in the morning after taking my medicine.

*Young Corn*, by Grant Wood, 1931, oil on composition board, 24 x 29⅞ inches, Cedar Rapids Community School District, Iowa; on loan to the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa

On Sunday, I was packing in zombie mode at ultra slow speed and was on the road by 3:30 pm. My intentions had been to leave by 10 am and arrive at 4 pm. At best, I now would arrive by 8 pm, but with my need for pit stops, I knew my arrival would be later still. I got to see the sunset change the light on the rolling Grant Wood hills of north Louisiana and later I watched the land turn lavender as the early evening turned to dusk. As I drove further south, the road itself became a dark blue-violet velvet ribbon, until the last rays of light left the sky and only shades of grays and blacks remained.

Fireworks on Riverfront at Natchitoches Christmas Festival

As I made my way past Natchitoches, Louisiana, the colorful lights of this historic city reminded me of the Christmases of my childhood and the many times my family traveled to the waterfront to see their seasonal lights and fireworks display. As I recall, my family was big on loud explosions of color at holiday times, for we also visited our riverfront’s Fourth of July festivities in the summertime. My dad believed fireworks were best left to the professionals, for he never wanted his own children to lose a precious digit or an eye in an accident with gunpowder.

I arrived safely at my destination, even though I drove in the dark. I usually malign Mapquest for its errant choices, but this time, it didn’t send me by the scenic route. While I’ve discovered many unusual places because of Mapquest, this was one trip in which I made a point to point journey. I missed the whole first day, even though I’d planned to get there by 4 pm at the latest. I’ve never met a Plan A I couldn’t transform into a Plan B. This excursion was no exception.

In the darkness at the retreat center, I met a young man who directed me to the office. I thought I said, “Thank you, honey,” but he heard me say, “Thank you, sonny.” I guess I’ve crossed into old lady land, or my trip aged me. It didn’t help I tried to drive over the concrete curbing, which I thought was where the shortcut to the central building should have been. They didn’t consult me when they first laid out the streets here, or they would have included a logical road at this place. There’s a wisdom in not pouring the walks or streets until folks make the way, since commuters will find the shortest distance from place to place.

Monday was a good day in that I started well, but I missed the afternoon teaching session due to napping. I did have the best intentions, but forgot to return my phone’s ringer to loud. The small chirping sound didn’t arouse me from my much needed slumber. I noticed the crepe myrtles along the pathways to the conference room have shed their outer bark. These scraps have settled in the crooks of the trees, as if the crepe myrtles were loath to give them up. Only mature crepe myrtles lose their bark by peeling, not the immature trees. As I thought about this, the image of the circumcised heart from Deuteronomy 10:16-18 came to my mind:

“Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.”

The bark peels off a mature crepe myrtle, just as the false façade falls off a spiritually mature person.

When the crepe myrtles mature, they’re able to reveal the beauty of their trunks only if they shed their bark. If we humans would take a lesson from these trees, we’d shed our false fronts and show off our inner beauty to the world around us. Instead, we hide behind our “protective barks” or “facades of competence, strength, or knows it all,” so we can show our false selves to other people’s false selves. Then we wonder why we’re all so immature and fake.

Sometimes we gardeners try to “treat the bark shedding” as a problem by fumigation or poisoning the unseen fungus causing the bark drop. We don’t realize this is a natural state of this tree, rather than a disease to cure. “Too old to care what you think anymore,” is the mature crepe myrtle’s motto, just as the old lady wears purple with a red hat and doesn’t care what you think about that! The world wants us to keep our bark on, to stay spiritually immature, but if we’re to grow in grace, the bark has to come off.

When the bark comes off the mature crepe myrtles, we can see the many colors of their trunks. They’re a delight to behold, and even more beautiful when the rain brings out their subtle coloration. Most of us think our inner selves need to be always hidden, for “if people only knew who we really were, they might not like us.” We also try to hide from God, even though Jesus reminds us in Luke 8:17—

“For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor is anything secret that will not become known and come to light.”

This is because of God’s nature, as described in Sirach 42:18—

“He searches out the abyss and the human heart;
he understands their innermost secrets.
For the Most High knows all that may be known;
he sees from of old the things that are to come.”

Once we realize God knows our hidden nature or our inner truth, we want to hide our nakedness with clothes made of sticky fig leaves. The ancient story tellers had a sense of humor, for this choice of clothing was only one step above a garment made of poison ivy. No one ever said our ancestors or their progeny were smart. But we have a gracious God, who gave humanity clothes made of skins to wear when they were sent out from their first home.

Ever since the garden, humanity has tried to hide their true selves from an all knowing God. As my daddy used to say, “Darling, I don’t think you’re getting smarter with age. You’re supposed to learn from your mistakes and not repeat them.” Some of us mature slower than others, but the race isn’t to the swift. It’s to the ones who persist, for God has a time for each of us. We will always arrive at the crux of time when God’s time for us is prepared, just as it was for Queen Esther in Esther 4:14—

“For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

Like the wizards of old, God is preparing each of us to be in the right place at the right time. Our only question is, Are we willing to answer God’s call to act for the good of God’s people when that time comes? As Gandalf reminds us in The Lord of the Rings, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

I was attending a 5 day academy for spiritual formation last week, sponsored by the Upper Room of the United Methodist Church. We were blessed to have support from the Arkansas United Methodist Foundation. Our leadership group had Methodists from Arkansas and Louisiana, as well as Cooperative Baptists from Mississippi. Ours was an inclusive group of young, old, black, and white Christian folks who share a love for God and neighbor. It’s very interesting, for the Cooperative Baptists split from their more conservative crowd to give women in ministry a voice as the Holy Spirit called them.

Today, we Methodists are approaching a split because some conservatives want to leave. I won’t be leaving because I did my dropping out when I was younger. I rejected everything and everyone that was the establishment. I came back because God had faith in me, even when I’d lost faith in God. If God was willing to be steadfast in love for me, who was I, the prodigal daughter, to say no to God? And so this is the opportune time, this present moment, when we learn God is always with us, God will always be with us , and God will be with us until the end of the age.

That is some beautiful meringue on top of the chocolate pie!

I’m back home now, full of Lea’s pie from LeCompte, Louisiana, and happy to continue the meditations and insights I learned from our speakers. If we listen more, speak less, and spend more time in God’s holy silence, we might discover the gifts of communication and compassion. The traits of winning at all costs as we take no prisoners is very warlike, and not the way of peace. Of course, this is the way of our media personalities, not our saints. We ought to be forming our personalities after Christ and the saints, rather than media personalities, but now I’ve gone to meddling again.

Perhaps I should have a bite of the delightful yam loaf I brought back from Lea’s Pie Place. That might sweeten me up!

Joy, peace, and pie,

Cornelia

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to September

911, adult learning, art, autumnal equinox, Faith, Forgiveness, Healing, Imagination, Independence Day, Love, New Year, vaccinations

Welcome to September, my rabbit friends! For most all of the bunny world, this means books, pens, pencils, and papers are now our daily tools of the trade instead of our preferred recreational plaything. Even the bunny parents are on the education time table. As I was exiting a lane in the store, I almost crashed my grocery cart into a lady who was racing to finish so she could pick up her darlings when school closed for the day.

Indeed, except for a brief break for Labor Day on Monday, September 6, we’re now living in what we working bunnies call “normal time.” The chronologists may have standard and daylight savings time, the meteorologists their seasonal times, but old school teacher rabbits know the only true time which counts is classroom time. Of course, the best teachers recognize teaching happens all the time, for the best classrooms have no walls and no fixed time for learning. Once rabbits quit learning, they begin to die.

I’ve always pitied the poor rabbit students who thought they could learn everything they needed to know to get them through the rest of their lives after they left the classroom. “Do you think the world is going to stand still just for your benefit?” Often they’d try to argue they didn’t need to know more because they could get a job right of school. They never think about the possibility their jobs might be phased out due to automation or irrelevance.

Then again, perhaps I value education more than the average rabbit. My grandfather worked for fifty years on the railroad, beginning at the tender age of fifteen. Why did he begin so early? His father had abandoned the family, so he worked to help his mother raise the baby rabbits left at home. When his own bunny sons were growing up, he made sure they got an excellent education. They both became doctors. My mother was a teacher and one of my several careers was art teacher.

We live in a time when history is being made daily, but no one seems to remember yesterday because the news media obsess over the latest hot button story. The next day they might have a new focus to fill the hours of coverage and keep our rabbit eyes fixated on the glowing screen. We don’t have to do this, for every tv has a remote to switch the channel and an off button. As a back to school exercise, I thought we might travel back in time when we colonists were in rebellion against the King of England in our War for Independence. So buckle your seatbelts, bunnies, we’re throwing the wayback machine into full reverse. Next stop, 1776 and the War for American Independence.

Most people know our Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, but after that, our historical memories are iffy. In fact, the British had been fighting the colonists since 1775 in various skirmishes, and continued with greater frequency in 1776-1777, with neither side gaining much headway.

In our first war, our fledgling army had lost 6,800 men in battles and another 17,000 to disease. It wasn’t a good time for health care or sanitation. The British captured our young nation’s capital of Philadelphia in September, 1776, but the army and the state militias kept on fighting. The British moved their war efforts to the southern half of their colonies, thinking they’d find loyal supporters there, but none were found.

Washington crossed the Delaware River, December, 1776

By December 19, 1777, Washington had decamped to Valley Forge with what was left of his ragtag army. From there, he wrote letters to every state except Georgia to plead for supplies and reinforcements, for without these, he was certain the war would be lost.

General Washington and the Army winter over at Valley Forge

This was the first large, prolonged winter encampment the Continental Army endured—nine thousand men were quartered at Valley Forge for a six-month period. During that time, some two thousand American soldiers died from cold, hunger, and disease. About 22% didn’t survive that terrible winter. Perhaps we’re fortunate we didn’t have a 24 hour news cycle to keep a body count, or we’d remember this event as a catastrophe, instead of a “heroic perseverance and endurance under harsh conditions, which only made the survivors stronger.”

It was during this hard time of close confinement, the future president of our country had all the Continental Regular Troops inoculated against the smallpox virus. At the time, 90% of the war casualties were due to disease, so Washington took the bold move to vaccinate the troops. The British troops were already safe from this contagion, and this leveled the playing field.

In 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown after a siege of three weeks, during which the town took heavy bombardment from American and French troops. After six years, both sides were tired of fighting, plus the British had another war back on the continent to deal with. Two years of negotiations later, the United States of America had its recognition among the governments of the world.

“Jungkook As Bunnies” Is the only Easy Winner of the Internet any day.

If any rabbit tells you winning is easy, and anyone can do it, they aren’t paying attention to history. Yet, we overcame many obstacles, adjusted our courses of action, somehow survived, and became a nation. It’s significant that our nation was founded by people with the historical tradition of a parliamentary form of government. In 1215, King John agreed to Magna Carta, which stated the right of the barons to consult with and advise the king in his Great Council. That’s a full 500 years of shared representation, from which our government takes its form of checks and balances.

The World Trade Center Memorial seen from space

Our heroic image was bruised and bloodied over two centuries after the War for Independence when the twin towers fell on 9/11, and the Pentagon was hit by a falling airplane. The only reason we didn’t also lose the White House is because the ordinary passengers of an everyday airline flight suddenly reached down deep and found the hero who lives inside each and every one of us. Some say rabbits are meek and weak, but they don’t know the true heart of the one who will give up his or her life for the sake of another.

We rabbits like our chaos neatly packaged and tied up neatly with a bow. The beginning of every school year has its own chaos, for suddenly rabbit families have to once again be on time, have all their paperwork together, and make sure they don’t leave their brains at home as they rush out the door. After a long lazy summer, we rabbits aren’t in the mood to be reminded of how fragile life can be.

Afghan child safely sleeping under American Air Force jacket during Evacuation efforts.

When we watch the scenes unfolding in Afghanistan as people try to emigrate to the United States, we share the collective trauma along with the ones who actually experience it. Add that to our own stress about the unknowns of our current pandemic, our griefs for the losses of those who died, the fears we have for our loved ones, and the extra burdens of cleaning, masking, washing, and scheduling this Covid world now requires, and well, (breathe) it gets a bit much.

But we rabbits have risen to the occasion from time immemorial: we pull together as one, for the good of all. If we live in families, and live in neighborhoods, and live in communities, we find we need to lend a helping hand to others from time to time. Likewise, we band together to protect the vulnerable, whether those are our children, our elderly, or our less abled friends. This is what we call our civic duty, or our moral obligation to do unto others as we’d have them to do for us, or the “golden rule.”

Sometimes we don’t want to work for the common good, but work for our own interests only. We like to win, because it suits our belief about our invincible self. Most of us have been taught a “heroic myth” about our founding fathers, so we aren’t aware of the struggles they endured to wrest our independence from the British. They didn’t do it alone, but together. If the French had not entered the war for independence on our behalf, we might still be singing “Hail to the Queen.” If we’re going through a rough patch now, we have to get our act together and work to make life better for all.

Positive thinking brings about positive results.

In my bunny life, when I taught art, I soon learned the beginning of school was the time I would lose my car keys, and I wouldn’t be organized enough to cook dinner. Once I raced out of the house without putting underpants on my little girl. Young mother bunnies don’t have access to their entire brain in the first week of school, but at least the kindergarten had a change of clothes for her. By the second week, I usually found the other half of my brain, and life went much smoother. Life is always a roller coaster, so when ever we make a big change, we need to give ourselves some grace until we get adjusted to that ride.

“This too shall pass,” an apocryphal phrase from the mid 1800’s, seems applicable to this era also, for we’re now on the cusp of autumn. That heat stress driving us to crank up our air conditioning has turned some leaves on our lakefront trees to yellow, so they gleam like lemons against the bright green canopy. The Autumn Equinox will occur on Wednesday, September 22, 2021, at 2:21 pm CDT. Of course, my late rabbit mother would have me retire all my light colored summer clothes by Labor Day, for “no self respecting child of mine should wear white in the fall.” Autumn in the South is just another word for summer. My fall clothes were still light weight cotton, but in darker shades.

No time like the present to wipe the slate clean and begin a new year.

Rosh Hashanah on September 6, beginning at sunset, is the celebration of the Jewish New Year, and the creation of the world. It’s one of the holiest days of the Jewish year. Ten days later is “Yom Kippur” or the “Day of Atonement.” This is a day set aside to atone for sins, with prayer, fasting, and attending the synagogue. No work is done on this day, which is one of the most important days in the Jewish calendar. During Yom Kippur, people seek forgiveness from God, and seek to give and receive forgiveness and reconciliation with others.

September 21 is the Chinese Moon Festival, a harvest celebration which dates from about 1000 BCE. The early emperors offered sacrifices to the moon, believing this would result in good harvests the following year. During the Tang Dynasty four centuries later, the noble classes and wealthy merchants imitated the emperor, while the citizens prayed to the moon. Beginning around 1000 CE, the festival took on general acceptance.

Moon cakes arrived in the 14th C, and have retained their popularity. This is not only a family celebration, but a community ritual for connection of relationships. While the cakes themselves aren’t costly, the packaging makes the gift impressive. People can say more by the wrapping’s elegance than by the contents. Moon cakes aren’t for individual consumption, but are meant to be shared, much like life’s joys and sorrows.

The fourth Saturday in this month is International Rabbit Day. Rabbits are the third most popular family pets, after dogs and cats. The care and feeding of a small animal requires attention, patience, and affection, not to mention consistency. How we treat our pets tells the world how we treat humanity. As Mother Teresa once said:

“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove
than the hunger for bread.”

The deep love of God overflows through our hearts into the world.

I recommend for your September reading homework The Universal Christ, by the Franciscan priest Richard Rohr. Drawing on scripture, history, and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God’s constant, unfolding work in the world. “God loves things by becoming them,” he writes, and Jesus’s life was meant to declare that humanity has never been separate from God—except by its own negative choice.

When we recover this fundamental truth, faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator’s presence all around us, and in everyone we meet. Until October, my bunny friends, I wish each of you may find in the present moment God’s

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

September, 2021 – 2022 Daily Holidays Calendar, Month and Day. Bizarre, World, National, Special Days.
By Holiday Insights.
http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/september.htm

Timeline of the American Revolutionary War
https://www.ushistory.org/declaration/revwartimeline.html

Read and see George Washington’s original letter at the link below:
George Washington from Valley Forge on the urgent need for men and supplies, 1777
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/george-washington-valley-forge-urgent-need-men-and

George Washington and the First Mass Military Inoculation (John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress)
Amy Lynn Filsinger, Georgetown University &
Raymond Dwek, FRS, Kluge Chair of Technology and Society.
Dr. Dwek is Professor of Glycobiology on leave from Oxford University.
https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/GW&smallpoxinoculation.html

American Revolution Facts: Deaths in War for Independence
American Battlefield Trust
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/american-revolution-faqs

TIMELINE OF AFGHAN WAR

9/11/2001—Attack on The World Trade Towers and The Pentagon

10/7/2001—“Operation Enduring Freedom”—Beginning of Afghan War with attacks against terrorist groups in Afghanistan

5/2003—Donald Rumsfeld announces the end of major military operations. The USA and NATO begin nation building and restoration of the poor country, which had gone through two wars and a foreign occupation.

Although there were early successes, such as women’s access to education and entry to politics and jobs, corruption was a way of life, so the money never flowed through the government out into the cities and countryside to help the people.

5/2011—Osama Ben Laden killed in Pakistan by Navy SEAL team

12/31/2014—President Obama decides to end major military action in favor of training the local Afghan army

2/2020—Trump administration negotiates a deal with the Taliban in which they promised to cut ties with terrorist groups, reduce violence, and negotiate with the current government. Unfortunately, there were no sanctions to enforce it.

9/2021—Today—The best laid plans of Mice and Rabbits usually end up in chaos

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to July!

art, cognitive decline, Creativity, Faith, holidays, Holy Spirit, Independence Day, john wesley, Love, Ministry, Painting, poverty, purpose, rabbits, Racism, Spirituality, trees, vision, Work

Here in this Common Era of 2021, we Americans are now 245 years into this project we call democracy, having declared our independence from the British crown on July 4, 1776. We didn’t effectively become an organized, constitutional nation until June 21, 1788, when nine out of the thirteen existing states ratified the United States Constitution, thus officially establishing the country’s independence and a new form of government. Based on the date of our constitution, which is still in place, the United States is the oldest continuous democracy in the world.

I realize some of y’all rabbits might disagree with my description of the USA as “organized,” but I may have a higher tolerance for disorder than some of you. Then again, I taught art in kindergarten, so that probably explains a lot. When we make a mess in art class, we always clean it up. That’s just part of the lesson plan. Art, as in life, isn’t always neat, but the end product is worthwhile. In art we learn from our failures as often as from our successes. This takes courage and resilience, two life skills any rabbit can use in this fast changing world.

Antique German Rabbit Candy Container with Uncle Sam Rider, c. 1910

The preamble of the Declaration boldly states:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.”

In our modern era, this is the section of the Declaration of Independence which we rabbits so dearly cherish, for it suits our individualism to a T. The next statement which follows complicates life, as King George discovered in 1776:

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Way back in the 18th century, the practice of slavery still allowed others to profit off the the lives of human beings as if they were livestock, women couldn’t vote or own property, and states often excluded from the voting rolls certain classes of men for religious reasons or lack of property. The American Revolution changed the landscape of voting rights to some degree. Once the constitution was enacted on September 17, 1787, it created a new, federal layer of government, in which there was absolute freedom of religion—and no religious test that might prevent a Jew from serving in Congress or even as president—without removing the religious tests that existed in many individual states.

Rabbit Power of the Vote recognized by Uncle Sam

The Freedom to Vote came by Stages

Most of the states wrote new state constitutions in the 1770s, and some softened or removed their existing religious tests, but some did not. The real work of abolishing religious tests for suffrage was done at the state level, largely in the half-century after the American Revolution. Not until 1870, when Congress passed the the 15th and last of the three of the so-called Reconstruction Amendments, which stated that voting rights could not be “denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” did African Americans get the right to vote, if their local communities did not make it impossible due to Jim Crow laws.

Doctrine of Original Meaning

Today, voting rights are under attack once again, not against religious minorities, but against racial and economic minorities. It makes this old rabbit wonder why the “doctrine of original meaning” by the founders has any worth when our 21st century world of today is so drastically different from the 18th century times of yore. Also, if “original meaning” is seen only through the eyes of our white founders, how can we be a nation for all people “created equal(ly)… endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness?”

Scholars agree the original framers actually were more intent on the Declaration’s first paragraph, for only the Declaration of Independence officially proclaims the new American nation’s assumption of a “separate and equal station “among the “powers of the earth:”

“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature
and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare
the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Medieval Manuscript: Rabbits Rebelling Against Humanity

As we rabbits know, if we plan to start a tussle, good manners suggest we tell why we’re fixing to throw the first punch. If there’s no honor among thieves, at least we rebellious rabbits have the good form to stand up in the pure light of day and list our grievances before we overthrow a bad king. Only the uncouth sucker punch the unwitting. The reason this American Democratic experiment has persisted for nearly two and a half centuries is the vast majority of us have freely chosen to change our leaders through the ballot box, rather than revolution.

Only the past unpleasantness of the Civil War in the 1860’s has marked this unbroken transfer of power by the vote, until the assault on the US Capitol and the Houses of Congress on January 6, 2021, by a motley crew of domestic terrorists, QAnon supporters, and admirers of the former President. Because they violently assaulted the police guarding the building and public servants inside, and interfered with the duties of duly elected government officials attempting to exercise their public duty to certify the electoral college vote, the Department of Justice has charged them and they’ll have their day in court. You can read all their names and cases at the link below. Maybe you’ll find a friend or neighbor there. As Mother rabbit always warned Peter Rabbit, “Don’t go into the garden; Farmer McGregor will get you!”

What exactly did the signers of the Declaration of Independence mean when when they wrote “all men are free and equal?” Abraham Lincoln said, “The men who signed the Declaration did not mean to say that men were “equal in all respects. They did not mean to say,” he said, that “all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal.”‘ Men were equal in having “‘certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ This they said, and this [they] meant.”

This quote comes from Lincoln’s 1857 argument on the Dred Scott case before the Supreme Court, which decided against him, with Head Justice Roger Taney, who became best known for writing the final majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which said “all people of African descent, free or enslaved, were not United States citizens” and therefore “had no right to sue in federal court.” In addition he wrote, “the Fifth Amendment protected slave owner rights because enslaved workers were their legal property.” Taney’s reputation was vilified for this decision during his lifetime, for it contributed to the growing divisions between the north and the south. The U. S. House of Representatives voted in 2021, to remove Taney’s statue and replace it with a statue in honor of the first African American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall.

The big holiday in July is Independence Day. While we rabbits lounge about the waterside or in our backyards, eating our favored picnic and cookout foods at the nation’s birthday party, not many of us will be thinking on a biblical text. Instead, we’ll be eyeing our paper plates and hoping they’re substantial enough to make it to the table before they collapse from the excess helpings of foods we’ve piled on them. A special bunny secret: you can go back for seconds, and laugh at everyone when you say, “I just want to make sure all you little piggies get your fill—oink, oink!” Don’t let them bother you, since you made sure everyone who came late would have something to eat by not taking it all at once.

In 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, Paul writes:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces,
seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror,
are being transformed into the same image
from one degree of glory to another;
for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

In Essentials, Unity; In Non-Essentials, Liberty; In All Things, Love

Have you ever wondered why some groups are so strictly homogeneous, while others are a kaleidoscope of differences? Some rabbits feel safer when everyone is more like them and differences are kept to a minimum. Other rabbits seem to thrive in the creative intermixing of unusual and unique personalities. I know when I entered the ministry, my parents’ friends were amazed I went into the faith I’d been birthed into, rather than some new age, air fluff religion. Oddly enough, I related more to the historic beliefs of Wesleyan Methodism better than my contemporary generation. In that sense, I had faith in a “different religion” than my friends. Yet we all saw ourselves as “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”

This marked a freedom of thought, but it required an understanding we were all on the same journey and were progressing toward the same end. I admit I have the type of mind that wants the idea to lead to the behavior and then the consequences. In art class I called it Attitude, Behavior, and Consequences. If the first attitude was positive, the rest followed suit, but if a student had a bad attitude, they weren’t going to work, and then they had the negative outcomes of poor efforts, sad projects, and little improvement. While in life we’re saved by faith, in art we’re saved by works, for work will bring rewards.

One way for all good rabbits to be free is to have no regrets, or worries about what might have been. As my mother often said, “That’s water under the bridge.” The River of life has moved on and the choices we’ve made have gone downstream also. She believed in living in the now. The third Saturday in July recognizes Toss Away the “Could Haves” and “Should Haves” Day. In short, don’t go through life with regrets.

Created by author and motivational speaker Martha J. Ross-Rodgers, this day is intended for us rabbits to let go of our past and live for the present. The first step to participating in this day is to find a pen and paper. Then write down our “could haves” and “should haves” on the paper.

Finally, throw away the list and make the following resolution:
“From this day forward, I choose not to live in the past. The past is history that I can not change. I can do something about the present; therefore, I choose to live in the present.”

As I’m going through boxes in my storage unit, I’m coming across souvenirs from my high school and college years. Some of us are sentimentally attached to the memories imbued within these objects, but they’re merely memories, not the actual people. My parents and grandparents saved things, for they experienced hard times. I make new art every week, so if a painting doesn’t hold up to my critique after six months, it goes into a pile to get destroyed and remade.

DeLee: The Springtimes of My Life: Memories of Yesterday and Today

Now, take care of yourself and your health by living for now. Do your best and make the best of each and every day! Strike a power pose and smile when you do this. You’d be surprised how much energy flows through your body, I kid you not.

A final word for all rabbits who want to live in truth and freedom: we have only one God given life, so let’s live with joy and peace. We aren’t promised tomorrow, but only today. Now is the time to care for the broken, to right the wrongs of the world, and to make a difference, no matter how small.

Charles Derber, in Welcome to the Revolution: Universalizing Resistance for Social Justice and Democracy in Perilous Time, says: “Resistance can be symbolic, but at its core it must also be empowering and even shocking, in the sense of awakening the people to the evils of the system and the terrifying end-result if we allow business as usual to continue. Resistance is rage at injustice and at the insanity of institutions that kill and exploit for money and power. Melding that rage with love is the art of activism.”

Now that I walk more slowly in this world, this old rabbit has found I notice people whom everyone else hurries past, even if these folks are standing in the middle of a store entryway and are obviously lost. I stopped today at Sam’s to ask if this older woman needed help. Right away I realized she had trouble processing words, so she might have memory problems. I asked where her people were, but she didn’t know. We went over to customer service, since I knew they could use the announcement system to call for them to come get her. At least she knew her name. I was sad they had hurried off without her, especially in her condition, but I prayed with her before I left. The service staff got her a chair and made sure she was safely seated.

I hope as the holiday approaches, you don’t find yourselves so busy getting your celebration together that you overlook the ones in need who are right in front of you. Once we cared for one another in communities, but now we look after only ourselves. We wouldn’t have become a nation 245 years ago if every man had tried to take on the king’s men alone.

Be the spark that starts the fire of love and joy,

Cornie

10 Oldest Democracies in The World (Updated 2021) | Oldest.org
https://www.oldest.org/politics/democracies/

Could Jews Vote in Early America?
https://momentmag.com/could-jews-vote-in-early-america/

French Declaration of the Rights of Man—1789
http://www.columbia.edu/~iw6/docs/decright.html

Capitol Breach Cases | USAO-DC | Department of Justice
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases

Pauline Maier, The Strange History of “All Men Are Created Equal”, 56 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 873 (1999), https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol56/iss3/8

https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1547&context=wlulr

Maier quotes The Dred Scott Decision: Speech at Springfield, Illinois (June 26, 1857), in ABRAHAM Lincoln: His SPEECHES AND writings 352,360 (Roy P. Basler ed., 1946). 68. Id. at360-61.

Dred Scott Case – Decision, Definition & Impact – HISTORY
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/dred-scott-case

Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to July

art, Faith, Family, Holy Spirit, Independence Day, Lost Cause, Martin Luther Ling, Prayer, rabbits, Racism, Reflection, righteousness, Spirituality, St. Francis of Asissi, vision

F stands for Flag: Alphabet Book Illustration

July celebrations kickoff with the Independence Day holiday. In this Age of Coronavirus and social distancing, we rabbits might not be at a company or church sponsored picnic, and we might not seek out a crowded beach for a vacation since Florida and Texas are currently experiencing peaks from this new disease. I’m still hanging close to home, choosing to enjoy a variety of foods, and starting some sewing projects in addition to my art and writing interests. Due to a past brush with heat exhaustion, I don’t tempt these hot temperatures with my presence. “Stay cool and stay hydrated” is my motto for the next few months. Rabbits and humans both have the same need for water, fresh fruits and veggies, plus lots of shade in this heat. An ice bottle might be a treat for them on a hot day too. I find myself craving frozen fruit for a snack.

While I staycation, which is what I actually do all year long, except for my occasional road trips to visit museums or the grandchildren, I’ve had time to reflect on my past life and the events of today. I began writing this in June, near Fathers Day and after the weeks of protests over the deaths of black men at the hands of the police. One of my family members mentioned, “Your daddy would be rolling over in his grave at all of this mess.” I answered, “If he’s with God, God has cleansed him of all his old prejudices and now he’s rejoicing people are asking for justice and equality.” We got into it after a bit, so we had to take a break for a while. Arguing might not change people’s minds, but I don’t have to affirm antebellum thinking. There’s a reason it’s called a “Lost Cause.” Denying the equality of human beings in the sight of God is to deny God’s love for all God’s people. Not being able to walk in another’s shoes is to deny injustice persists for many people.

The life in God is based in change. If we aren’t able to change our attitudes, we can’t change our behaviors. If we can’t see we were wrong, we can’t turn toward the right. If we turn from God, we also have to be able to return to God. Our love may fail, but God’s love never fails. Some folks think people never change, perhaps because they have no intention of changing. Change is difficult, but necessary. We’re changing from the moment we’re conceived to the moment we leave this world.

We call change in the spiritual life sanctification, or holiness. It’s a process, which is led by the spirit and made evident by good works. We can’t do good works to earn sanctification, but our faith is deepened both by the spirit and by our experience in doing the works. If we’re still imperfect when we pass from this world, God’s mercy completes the work of sanctification to make us fit for life in God’s presence. If God is abounding in love for all and we love because God first loved us, God will refine us into the same love for all to fit us for the eternal life with God.

In my state, some folks called the Black Lives Matter events a riot, while others called them a demonstration. I imagine the British of 1773 had an alternative view of the events of the Boston Tea Party from those who tossed the imported monopoly tea into the harbor. Two hundred and fifty years later, the Encyclopedia Britannica’s entry reads about the same as the History Channel’s entry on the internet. I call this event to mind so we Americans don’t forget our country was born in demonstrations, riots, and rebellion, not in picnics and parades.

The years of dusty history tend to cloud our memories and we weave a narrative to suit our own modern purposes. Pull up a glass of iced tea and find some shade. We have a whole pandemic ahead of us to get reacquainted with the moldering moments of our nation’s nascence.

Even before the Boston Tea Party, a violent incident escalated out of hand on March 5, 1770. Private Hugh White, a British soldier, heightened a verbal altercation to a physical one. White used his bayonet against a patriot at the Custom House on King Street. Then the angry mob countered with a volley of snowballs, rocks, oyster shells, and ice. Bells rang signaling a disturbance, and loyalists and patriots entered the street to see the commotion. As the riot ensued, the British fired their muskets, killing five colonists in what is today known as the Boston Massacre. Today we’d call this “police brutality.” The representatives of the Crown claimed a right to defend the King’s treasury.

The British soldiers, brought to trial and defended by Samuel Adams, had been in jail for seven months. The captain of the guard was found not guilty, six soldiers were also not guilty, and two were guilty of manslaughter. These last individuals escaped punishment by claiming “benefit of the clergy,” a holdover from early English law. This provision held secular courts had no jurisdiction over clergymen and had become a loop-hole for first-time offenders. After “praying the clergy,” the soldiers were branded on the right hand where the thumb meets the palm with the letter “M” for manslaughter. This insured they could only receive the commutation once, and the mark would be clearly visible during a handshake or while raising their palm on any future oath. This was the 18th century’s “get out of jail free card.”

Undue force is always unjust. Escalating a verbal situation into a brawl and then to a massacre is the worst sort of police brutality. Unfortunately, bringing bayonets and rifles to the location was their first mistake. But “hind sight is always 20/20,” as my daddy used to say. “I hope you learn from this experience, young lady.” I’ve always found the school of hard knocks to be an expensive degree.

When the Tea Act was passed in 1773, it required the colonists to purchase only British East India Tea Company products, whereas they preferred to buy from Holland, since it wouldn’t profit the King. When their smuggling routes shut down, the Americans produced their own herbal teas, rather than purchase the Crown Tea. By December, the colonists were fed up with paying taxes without representation in parliament. They gathered in costume, armed with hatchets, and boarded the boats loaded with British Tea. Tossing it all into the sea, with a whoop and a holler, they had to jump down into the water to hack up the bales so they would sink. Our forefathers forgot to check the tides. At low tide they could waded out to the ships.

Most likely the British of the era thought the colonists engaged in a destructive riot, whereas the patriotic participants were hailed as heroes at home. Things bubbled and simmered along for three more years until the writing of the Declaration of Independence. The top portion of the original draft document was written by Thomas Jefferson, with additions and deletions by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson presented the finished Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, July 4, 1776, at which time the Declaration was signed. Then copies of the text were transported to key cities, such as New York and Boston, to be read aloud.
The initial sentence speaks to the heart of every freedom loving person:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Declaration of Independence contains noble and aspirational thoughts. Yet these words were written by a group of men, all white, all free, and all educated as far as their privilege and status had brought them to that day. Women weren’t included in this equality and neither were the slaves the signers owned, since they were mere “property.” In this case “All” didn’t mean ALL PERSONS.

Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence. The delegates gathered at Philadelphia in the spring and early summer of 1776 debated its inclusion with fervor. Jefferson’s passage on slavery was the most important section removed from the final document. It was replaced with a more ambiguous passage about King George’s incitement of “domestic insurrections among us.” His original language is below:

Jefferson’s Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence

“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.”

Not until 1870 and the passage of the 15th Amendment did African Americans get the right to vote. Women got the right to vote in 1920, Asian Americans got citizenship and voting rights in 1952, and even though Native Americans have had citizenship and voting rights since 1924, many states still disenfranchise them. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to remove the barriers keeping persons of color from exercising their tight to vote, yet disenfranchisement still happens in subtle and not so subtle ways.

Buzz Aldrin salutes the flag on the moon, July 20, 1969.

The Voting Rights Act came 189 years after the grand words of “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first two people to walk on the surface of the moon They set an American flag on the surface in recognition of our country’s achievement. While we might be amazed we as a nation could come together in this great challenge, nevertheless we might wonder why the majority population has yet to fully appreciate the minority as an equal partner in this land.

Perhaps it’s as Frederick Douglas once said, “There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution.” (From the speech, “The Race Problem In America, 1890.”)

When we search for images of Patriotism or Independence Day, almost all of these are white, for America has been to date a majority white nation. After 2045, however, non-Hispanic whites will likely make up less than half of all Americans. Already whites under age 18 are in the minority. Among all the young people now in the U.S., there are more minority young people than there are white young people. This is a sea change. The attitudes of our youth are different from our older generations.

“Lift Up Thy Voice and Sing” by William H. Johnson

Among old people age 65 and over, whites are still in the majority. Indeed white old people, compared to minority old people, will continue to be in the majority until some years after 2060. What does this mean for our country, for our world, and for our future? How can we as a people live up to the aspirations of “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness?”

First we need to agree “Truths can be self-evident.” Not just my truth is true, and your opposite truth is also true for you, so whatever works is cool, as some would say, but certain known absolute true facts are real and sure. For the 18th century mind, truth could be known, and a new and better truth could be discovered in time to replace it through wisdom and knowledge, but “alternative facts” or “fantasy figments of our delusions” aren’t truth, but lies we tell ourselves. (As an aside, if the love of your life ever asks, “Honey, does this outfit make me look fat?” your answer should be “No.” and kiss her before she can ask anymore questions. Life will be happier for you.)

Back in the stone ages, “all men” was read as an all inclusive group, but I questioned that understanding back in the 1960’s in high school.

“Why don’t we just say ALL or EVERYONE instead?”
“That’s not how people wrote back then,” my teacher would reply.

“Maybe because they thought it meant ALL MEN and not EVERYBODY?”

Then I would get the LOOK from my teacher, by which I knew I’d pushed the limit and it was time to ask no more questions, even though I had more.

After the Civil War, Northern Reconstructionists attempted to educate whites and blacks equally, but ran into resistance from the Lost Cause proponents. When school institutes were formed to continue teacher education, the summer school term was twenty days long until 1906 when one of the Baton Rouge schools started a thirty-six-day summer school program. In 1909, the length of the summer school program was lengthened to fifty-four days for white teachers and thirty-six days for Negro teachers. Someone with two years at the State Normal teacher’s school could teach in the black schools, but to teach in a white school required a four year degree. This is an example of systemic injustice in the educational community.

What does it mean to be created EQUAL, but not be given equal access to an equal education, housing, food, or medical care? Where I grew up, the white schools got new textbooks. When these were worn out, they were passed down to the black schools. It wasn’t right, but this was the way it was. My state had a practice of historic and systemic racism.

My high school was integrated in 1965 with one young black person. He ate his lunch alone the entire year. He struggled because his schools weren’t on the same level as ours, but he persisted. Equal access is all he wanted. Arthur Burton is a hero in my hometown and my high school now has a scholarship named in his honor.

This lack of equal access was far reaching. Restaurants back in the day wouldn’t serve nonwhite diners, but required them to pick up food at a to go window out back. There were two water fountains, two waiting rooms, and two of everything, just so the races never mixed. I never saw the sense of it, but it was a strict rule my parents carried forth from the past generation. As they often reminded me, “As long as you live under our roof, you abide by our rules.”

Marchers in Selma, Alabama, 1960’s civil rights demonstrations.

This was probably why they wanted me to live at home and go to college in town, but I wanted to go up north. They weren’t having that, so we compromised on a fine girls’ school in Georgia. At least it was below the Mason-Dixon Line. There I participated in marches for peace and justice, or as my parents called it, “Mixing with a bad crowd that was up to no good, just a bunch of hippies and commies, every last one of them.”

One thing about our family, we say what’s on our mind. At least my education was doing me some good, for my friends and I chose not to be on the front lines in case the police or the marchers began to get angry. The middle of the crowd was safer, especially after the 1968 assassination of Dr. King and angry demonstrations which broke out in some cities. Curfews and the termination of liquor sales finally dampened everyone’s energy, but the same cause for equal access still remains today.

Dr. King has been dead over fifty years, but his dream hasn’t yet died. He spoke in Washington D.C. of the Declaration of Independence as the “signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Unfortunately, as Dr. King went on to say, the founders wrote a check they couldn’t cash for all people, and certainly not for persons of color.

Charly Palmer: Good American, giclee print on paper, 38×28 inches, 2016.

King then offered hope, for God is the author of hope to the hopeless, the lifeline to the drowning, food for the hungry, and the defender of the weak:

“But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

While this document is yet imperfectly fulfilled today, we are called to work toward perfecting it, so we also may truly say with Dr. King:

“And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…(and)

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.”

So with St. Francis of Assisi I offer this prayer for each of us at this half way point of 2020:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in self-forgetting that we find;
And it is in dying to ourselves that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

Text of the Declaration of Independence
https://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/revolution/decindep.htm

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Boston Massacre” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1870.
Boston Tea Party
https://coffeeordie.com/boston-tea-party-history/

Dudley L. Poston, Jr., Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University:
https://theconversation.com/3-big-ways-that-the-us-will-change-over-the-next-decade-126908

Fredrick Douglas: The Race Problem
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai2/politics/text2/douglass.pdf

Martin Luther King, Dream Speech
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Lynn, Louis August andrew, “A History of Teachers’ Institutes of Louisiana: 1870-1921.” (1961). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 676., P. 107.
https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/676

Documents That Changed the World
https://www.washington.edu/news/2016/02/25/documents-that-changed-the-world-the-declaration-of-independences-deleted-passage-on-slavery-1776/

Jefferson’s Deleted Passage
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/declaration-independence-and-debate-over-slavery/

Original notes and diaries from Trials of the Boston Massacre Participants
https://www.masshist.org/features/massacre/trials

Trial of the British Soldiers from the Boston Massacre
http://www.famous-trials.com/massacre/196-home

Charly Palmer: “Good American,” giclee print on paper, 38×28 inches, 2016. A limited edition work of art depicting a an African American solider walking with his wife as the celebrate the United States of American on July 4th. The print is meant to convey the message that African Americans have helped build this country, are a part of this country and celebrate this country like any other Good American citizen . We are America!

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