The Founding Fathers confirmed the Bible is the leading source of morality in Western Civilization by promoting law and order and forbidding murder, adultery, the stealing and coveting of personal property. Our community is no different; we have a history of corporately praying for Almighty GOD in times of adversity.” – Reverend El Akuchie
Rev. El Akuchie is a dynamic man of God who has a vision to see the Kingdom of God expand, not only in his home Community of Mansfield, OH, but also throughout the world. Called into the apostolic ministry in 1971, he has ministered all over United States, Central America, Caribbean Islands and Africa; setting the captives free through the Name of Jesus. The ministry of GodsField Missionary Church is impacting people with the TRUTH of Jesus Christ! He has special anointing for evangelism, casting out demons, healing the sick and intercessory prayer. He is the Co-founder of Richland Community Prayer Network and Richland Community Family Coalition.
We would like to submit the real story behind our state’s nickname “Hoosier”. There are a number of theories from when the early settlers asked “who’s there” to bar fights on the frontier when they would look to see “who’s ear” had been mauled. The real story is one of courage, honor and the fame of one – Harry Hoosier. A black preacher from the Great Awakening Era who fought slavery and injustice. Booker T. Washington said Harry, “was the first black American Methodist preacher in the United States.. He traveled extensively through the New England and Southern States and shared the pulpits of the white ministers whom he accompanied. But he seems to have excelled them all in popularity as a preacher”.Francis Asbury and Harry Hoosier baptized so many people that Asbury wrote in his journal that on any given day Asbury and Hoosier would baptize more people than a typical parish minister back in England would baptize during his entire ministry. (read more)
A week ago, I was crossing the Ohio River at Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. The town is home to the American Bridge Corporation, which in my youth was responsible for many of the country’s great spans. Here follows the story of one of their most amazing projects that is somewhat lost in history because at the time it was proposed it was not without controversy. Here is Rachel Delphia’s very interesting story about the brilliant designer who made it all work.
One of the most visible landmarks in Queens, New York, is the towering Unisphere, the thematic centerpiece and grand remnant of the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair. As the public nostalgically celebrates the icon’s fiftieth birthday, it can be difficult to recall the widespread ridicule that shrouded the project prior to its realization. It is also challenging to uncover the exact origins of a structure that was chronicled primarily by the corporate sponsor and the fair organizers for promotional purposes. The role of Peter Muller-MunkAssociates was almost lost to history because Muller-Munk shrewdly distanced his firm from the controversy surrounding the Unisphere’s design and, as result, from recognition of their work on it. (read more)
The natural universe reveals God's power, majesty, wisdom, and creative genius. The human conscience reveals God's justice and man's need for redemption. Finally, Jesus Christ is the ultimate revelation of God's love for us.
It’s a small village in the Bavarian Alps, but it has a testimony of Divine protection that has inspired the world. Oberammergau in 1633 was a place inhabited by a mere 600 souls when soldiers returning from the Thirty Years’s War brought with them the black death. Small isolated Oberammergau initially was able to protect itself from the plague by sealing itself off from the world – that is until a newly married villager, unable to find work, slipped past the guards. He returned with the bubonic plague. 84 people in the village died of it. That’s 14% of the population.
Gathering in front of the parish church, the villagers prayed for deliverance – and they made the Divine a promise. Standing in front of the church’s crucifix, which still hangs there today, they vowed that if God would stop the plague they would reenact the last week of Jesus’s life once every decade as a thank offering. From that day on, no one in the village died from the plague. In 1634 the first Oberammergau Passion Play was performed in an open meadow near the village. In 1680 they began to hold it at the beginning of each decade. That’s a promise they have kept for 388 years!
Though Pandemic travel restrictions forced the 2020 performance to be postponed, the cast is preparing for the rescheduled Passion play in 2022. It is a fitting reminder that our own times are not quite as unprecedented as they seem and that Divine help is still to be sought. When it comes we should be equally ready to carry on the testimony for the generations that follow us.
And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying, Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, And command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night. Then Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man: And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel: That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever. And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the Lord spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there. And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood: and they are there unto this day.” – JOSHUA 4:1-9
Volume XX, Issue XXVII: The Imagination, The Chosen
For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition.” -- C. S. Lewis
The series: The Chosen [click to watch] is a television drama based on the life of Jesus Christ, created, directed and co-written by American filmmaker Dallas Jenkins. It is the first multi-season series about the life of Christ, and season one was the highest crowd-funded TV series or film project of all time. The series' creators stated that they had hoped to distinguish the new series from previous portrayals of Jesus by crafting a multi-season, episode-based story. The series portrays Jesus “through the eyes of those who met him”. In addition to VidAngel and its own app, the series airs on several streaming services.
The Chosen is based on The Shepherd, a short film Jenkins made for a Christmas Eve service at Harvest Bible Chapel in Elgin, Illinois, U.S., filming it on a friend's farm in Marengo. The film got the attention of the faith-based filtering service VidAngel, which was seeking original content to distribute. VidAngel suggested putting the short film on Facebook as a concept pilot to generate interest for Jenkins' idea of a multi-season series. The short film received over 15 million views around the world. To create The Chosen, Jenkins partnered with video marketing strategist Derral Eves, with Eves as executive producer. VidAngel, along with Eves and Jenkins, turned to crowdfunding to raise money to produce the first season, utilizing a provision of the JOBS Act of 2016 which allows companies to use equity crowdfunding to offer a share of ownership and profits from the company to online investors, rather than the arbitrary "perks" offered by regular crowdfunding. At the end of the first fundraising round in January 2019, the project had raised over $10.2 million from over 16,000 investors, surpassing Mystery Science Theater 3000 as the top crowdfunded filmed project. Each investor received equity in the show and is regulated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). (Wikipedia)
Reconstructing Redemption
ByBob Kirchman
Many years ago I went to a workshop in Williamsburg, Virginia. There I learned about the process of restoration of historic buildings – and reconstruction. You see, the Governor’s Palace and other important buildings were no more. They would be painstakingly recreated from small sketches by the likes of Thomas Jefferson and descriptions in diaries. There was no way of seeing fully how these buildings looked. Imagination and creative interpretation were necessary. But to leave these buildings out would have told less than the whole story of Williamsburg. In the introductory film, Williamsburg, The Sort of a Patriot, we follow the story of an imaginary member of the House of Burgesses, John Fry, through the very real dilemma faced by our eighteenth century founding fathers. It is an effective means of telling the story.
Over the years, the interpretation has been reexamined. In my youth, the Governor’s Palace was furnished quite opulently and was very colorful. The last time I visited, it was furnished far more simply. Even a governor could only have had so many imported goods. Still, the idea that England’s ruler over the colonials was more amply provided stands. It’s just when you read accounts of Governor Spotswood’s home such as “the room was ablaze with light, there were seven candles burning!” you get the idea.
And so, Dallas Jenkins has undertaken a similarly large project. If you are familiar to the Gospels, you will indeed see the preservation of the original text – quite lovingly (as in restoration). You will also see what I like to call ‘Reconstruction of Redemption.’ That each of Jesus’ followers would have a story of redemption goes without saying. But because the Gospel account does not go into great detail, here is where the imaginative story comes into play. Jenkins’ screenplay follows in the noble footsteps of works like Ben Hur and The Robe – Adding color and texture to the true story. No doubt, some of the color and texture will be like the furnishings in the Governor’s Mansion – being reevaluated in time – but the story, and its imaginative retelling, will continue to underscore its truth.
The End of THYME, New Beginning!
THYME is coming to an end. This will be the last ‘regular’ issue in a string stretching back to 2009. It’s ‘THYME.’ You see, we’ve enjoyed sharing our thoughts and visions with you for these twelve years. But the landscape of digital media has changed – become less friendly to what they consider ‘alternative’ ideas. If you engage in true free speech you risk being ‘deplatformed’ or at best marginalized – “preaching to the choir.” I’m looking forward to participating in a Christian ministry in our community – Love in the Name of Christ – and some new opportunities utilizing some older forms of media.
Most of you will remember how Rush Limbaugh took the ‘dying’ medium of AM radio and – well – the rest is history. As the ‘legacy’ media ignored a great body of Conservative thought, Rush brought us the ideas of William F. Buckley Jr. and others. And so today you might lament: “The truth has been silenced.”
The Truth Cannot Be Deplatformed
Big Tech Jacobins are working overtime. Orwellian Ministries of Truth have been canceling accounts and deplatforming apps. Our minders claim to be protecting us from the “misinformation” and “potentially harmful” speech.” – First Things, A Publication of the Institute on Religion and Public Life. No, this is not the ranting of some obscure ‘alt right’ voice in the wilderness. First Things is a serious publication – and they encourage you to subscribe to their magazine – printed on paper! I believe paper magazines will be the next big thing! The Epoch Times actually prints a multi-section paper newspaper every week. It’s worth far more than I’m paying for it. They just launched American Essence, Inspiration and Hope. It is a magazine for anyone who loves America. It celebrates America’s contribution to humanity.
There is a certain satisfaction to reading a real paper publication. Also, the VERITAS conferred by real print cannot be denied. It carries far more weight than your anonymous ‘fact checker’ ever will. Also, you’ll decrease your ‘screen time’ Also, a fine publication containing Thomas Jefferson’s Rules for Life is likely to inspire reading more than once (as it did me). Publications like these inspire rumination more than reaction. In pages such as these, you’ll meet the great thinkers of Faith and Freedom. I cannot think of a more worthy use of one’s time.
Sneak Preview: American Essence
Here’s a new publication that I am really excited about. “American Essence is a monthly magazine with stories about the people, places, and influences that embody the ideals and virtues that formed America. It celebrates America’s contributions to humanity. America has been the flagship of the free world. It has gone through difficult times—many times—but it has been prosperous because it is blessed. It is a land like no other for those seeking freedom of belief, staying true to the motto “in God we Trust.” It is this enduring belief and its core ideals that have carried America through and kept it strong. This, and much more, is what serves as the nation’s great legacy.” Check out the sneak preview of the First Issue [click to read] and Subscribe Here [click to learn more].
Volume XIX, Issue XIXa: “Elites and Intellectuals,” C. S. Lewis
The Vacuum at the Top
There was a time when the "elite" truly seemed to be better than most people. For example, Leonardo da Vinci was an architect, cartographer, engineer, painter, sculptor, writer and legendary inventor among other things. Socrates was a superb stonecutter, soldier, politician and philosopher. Galileo studied medicine, mathematics, physics and has been referred to as "the father of modern science." For much of human history even the lesser "elites" from noble families had a tremendous advantage over the average man in a time when an education was hard to come by and their wealth and position in society provided them with opportunities to acquire skills that the general populace couldn't." writes John Hawkins. In an article entitled: Elites Are No Longer Elite [click to read], Hawkins explores the reason this is so. Essentially, Hawkins says that there are no more Renaissance men and women, as people tend to become highly proficient in one area of expertise while remaining woefully ignorant of the world outside of their area of expertise. That was not always so.
There was a time when brilliant people like Claudius Crozet and Isambard Kingdom Brunel needed to know a broader range of knowledge in order to do the works they were able to accomplish. They needed to know more than engineering tables. They needed to understand commerce and markets. These men built railroads, but their work ultimately built communities as they provided avenues of commerce and prosperity. Crozet and Brunel seem far closer in stature to da Vinci than their modern counterparts. Hawkins continues: "Today, in a world where there is a nearly infinite supply of news sources, there are far fewer shared activities than there used to be; college educations are commonplace and people can become extraordinarily wealthy based on a terribly narrow skillset." Indeed, my own experience often included such exercises as drawing for architects who couldn't draw and sometimes in the presentation process, creating design for designers who couldn't. Indeed, I was sometimes amazed that by simply stepping back and taking in a larger picture, the resulting contribution to a work would be better than imagined.
On a far larger scale, Hawkins observes that our leaders often emerge having shown little or no expertise beyond their small sphere. Virginia boasts an 'elite' Senator who's 'expertise' consists of making a fortune by buying cell phone licenses. His good fortune in acquiring wealth is his credential. He does not know what it is like to struggle for years, paying your employee but not yourself to build a business. That might not be such an issue but for his stated derision of those who do: ""you’re going to see a coalition that has just about completely taken over the Republican Party in this state and if they have their way, it’s going to take over state government. It’s made up of the Christian Coalition, it’s made up of the right to lifers, it’s made up of the NRA, it’s made up of the homeschoolers, it’s made up of a whole coalition of people that have all sorts of different views that I think most of us in this room would find threatening to what it means to be an American." -- Mark Warner[1.]
There was a time when Beauty, Truth, Virtue and Nobleness were seen to spring from a Divine origin. The problem with Senator Warner's statement is that he summarily dismisses a whole group of people who embrace that. The Right to Life springs from the concept of IMAGO DEI, that belief that mankind is created in the Image of G-d. The Second Amendment acknowledges the belief that government serves the people and that power remains with the people. The ability to engage in self-defense is simply an expression of that greater principle. Homeschoolers simply acknowledge that the parent is the first one responsible for training up a child. They extend that responsibility in providing instruction in a broader body of knowledge than early language. Here Hawkins swerves into a greater truth. Modern relativism has rendered obsolete the concept that there is an ultimate source of Wisdom and Truth. The Academy, believing this, no longer teaches it.
Until recent times the Divine underpinning was foundational to learning. By its very nature it invited exploration of a broader world. Design had its inspiration in nature. Flawed human nature was continually challenged by a Divine benchmark. Relativism states that "all truths are equally valid," resulting in a diminished sense of the need to pursue absolute truth. Indeed, there is NO need to pursue absolute truth, for it doesn't exist in their thinking. This immediately serves to narrow one's experience. The celebration of 'Diversity' does NOT serve to broaden because it rails against the notion that there is an absolute. One steps up to the human experience like a consumer of a buffet, sampling interesting dishes but learning nothing about the creation of a meal! Indeed, Hawkins notes that one phenomenon inherent in this mindset is that now we have people who are famous simply for being famous. They need not present a resume of accomplishment. Hawkins cites the example of our 44th President, who was elected despite the conspicuous absence of a resume of accomplishment.
As his election was sealed and his inauguration began, news anchors remarked: "We know VERY LITTLE about him!" A colleague of mine lamented the general lack of investigative journalism in our day, remarking that they must not have the resources for it. NO!, all you needed to do was READ HIS BOOK and you would come away with a strong sense of his Anticolonialist Socialist sentiments. But such is the Modern Age, that we can style the blank canvas of a Presidential candidate to be whatever we want him to be. Because many in our day are unfamiliar with true accomplishment, we fail to look for it!
That is why this publication has recently presented a series of stories of great accomplishment. Neil Armstrong and President Kennedy show us something of it. They showed us how to lift our eyes to the horizon. Kennedy, though a flawed man like most of us, did heroic things in the Pacific War and wrote a book called Profiles in Courage. I read it in Middle School... not as an assignment, mind you, but because it sat on Dad's voluminous bookshelves. Those people assigned to find counterfeit money do not spend a lot of time studying counterfeit money. Instead, they study real money in GREAT DETAIL. By doing so they develop a sense for what the true currency looks like. Even when presented with a very skillful counterfeit they can "feel" it. That is why THYME Magazine has become, if you will, Profiles in Faith! Indeed, there is a real vacuum of true stories of accomplishment that, if we knew them, would inspire us to set our vision higher.
Da Vinci was in fact the illegitimate son of a peasant woman. Nobles in Eighteenth Century England were often useless "idle rich," yet there is a greater nobility that is recurring in the human experience. The First Earl of Mansfield, William Murray, might never have understood fully the depravity of slavery without the presence of his great-niece, Dido Elizabeth Belle in his life! She was an illegitimate child of a slave but because of her father's love, she was accorded the status of a noblewoman. Like Esther of old, she became in a way a representative for the humanity of her people. George Gist was derided by his neighbors, but he created a language for his people. Such is the true nobility that a free society is able to nurture in its people. America has been such an incubator for human brilliance for over two centuries! Those who would cast her aside in the pursuit of their Socialist solutions would do well to reconsider!
The Magician's Twin C. S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism
C. S. Lewis explores the modern tendency to elevate science to the status of religion.
Dance, Quilt, Act, Compose Music, Write Stories,
Decorate Cookies, and participate in the Arts
byMark Altrogge
When I was little my aunt said she loved how I sang all the time. In grade school my teachers let me spend extra time in the library drawing. My parents got me my first oil painting lesson when I was 12. And when I was 14 the Beatles invaded America and I had to get a guitar and get in a band. In college I majored in art ed and got a Masters in painting.
But when Jesus saved me in my early 20s, I began to wonder if art was a waste of time. I could be evangelizing or praying or doing something spiritual instead of dabbing oil paint on a canvas. And besides that, everything is going to burn up anyway at the end, so what’s the use of creating things? Or if I do paint a painting does it have to be a Christian theme? Does it have to have a cross in it or be a scene from the Gospels?
Here are a few reasons why Christians should play banjo and decorate cakes, knit sweaters and make movies, do photography and write poems: (read more)
The America I Love
Claudius Crozet's 4237 foot long Blue Ridge Tunnel was the longest in the world when it was completed in 1858.
The cornerstone of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge across Main Street and the Tiber River in Ellicott City. This is not the cornerstone of the railroad, which was laid by the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll, on July 4, 1828. That historic cornerstone resides in the Baltimore and Ohio Museum in Baltimore.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad station in Ellicott City, Maryland.
In the late Nineteenth Century, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ran as far as Lexington, Virginia over this fine stone bridge.
Simply travelling around our city one sees fine buildings reflecting the Faith of those who built them. From Irish railroad workers to world leaders and educators, our community has nurtured Faith as an essential component of our culture. Here is an address by Justice Clarence Thomas at the dedication of Hillsdale College’s new chapel that underscores that very fact. (read more)
This TRIPLE ISSUE gives you several weeks’ reading as I step back from weekly publication to devote myself to several important projects. I hope you enjoy it.(read more)
Today’s TRIPLE ISSUE gives you several weeks’ reading as I step back from weekly publication to devote myself to several important projects. I hope you enjoy it.
The Smartest Horse that Ever Lived
A True Story
More than simply the biography of an unusual sideshow act, Beautiful Jim Key by Mim Eichler Rivas takes a thorough look at American history from before the Civil War to the mid-20th century, examining race relations, World’s Fair and exposition history, and the development of the humane movement. The story centers around the “Arabian-Hambletonian educated horse”Beautiful Jim Key, his breeder William Key, who was a business-savvy former slave, and their promoter, Albert Rogers, a privileged young New Yorker who aspired to being a philanthropist. (read more)
Jesus, Horses, Healing
Risen Ridge Ministry
Dezi,SocksandMaplegraze at Risen Ridge Ministry. This Spring they will begin providing ministry sessions. Photo by Jen Beck.
Horses have an amazing way of communicating. They are honest, gentle, and encouraging. In a horse ministry, people who are seeking healing through the love of Jesus will come and find it through a relationship with a horse and a facilitator. They will learn what it is like to care for another's well being, and what it feels like to have an honest relationship based on love. Horses don't care about your past or what you look like. Over and over, the horse will see you for who you really are, whom God created you to be. The experiences will demonstrate that God's love never fails, can bring restoration, and how we all have value. (read more)
I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, declares the Lord.” - Jeremiah 30:17
Beautiful Jim Key and Kindness
Sitting in the Richmond shoe store, I made a friend. After a wonderful morning teaching art to our middle school and high school students, I had rushed back home so we could drive a friend to the Richmond airport for a flight to Nashville. My wife and I needed a date night so we planned on going to dinner in Richmond. “I just have to exchange some shoes” she said so after a fairly quick trip to the departure entrance we made our way to Willow Lawn Shopping Center. I grabbed a comfortable chair in the shoe store while my wife spent about an hour finding what she needed. I wished I had thought to bring a book – I’m reading a really good one by a Japanese runner who’s a novelist – Haruki Murakami, and his creative process is a lot like mine. Alas, I had forgotten to bring it.
There were two comfortable chairs in the store at the front and I soon moved our coats and stuff for a young lady to sit down. She was accompanying her mother on a shoe buying expedition and I offered that I would give up my seat when mom needed it. And so began another interesting conversation between two people from very different backgrounds and ethnicities. It was great! I discovered that this young lady, accompanying her mother on a shopping expedition, worked multiple jobs and was studying nursing. “Have you ever heard of this amazing horse?” I asked and we watched the story of BeautifulJim Key on my phone. The essence of the story is the power of true kindness and this young woman was the picture of kindness. The story takes place in the aftermath of the Civil War – a time when society and mob thought was at its worst and yet the story of Jim Key(the horse) and Bill Key(who trained him) shines like a lighthouse in that troubled time. Kindness, manifested in individual behavior, was a powerful force in the life of Bill Key. Born a slave, he had the good fortune to have a master who treated him with all the kindness one would afford to a son. In return, Bill had accompanied his master’s two sons, who he thought of as brothers, into battle. He not only protects his brothers, but he helps many slaves out of the South.
After the war is over, Bill and his two brothers come home only to find that their father has lost their home. Bill, who was quite a card player, had amassed a considerable amount of money after he had been taken prisoner by the Union. He had been captured and was apparently spared execution because his captors found that he was an excellent cook. He won many a U. S. Dollar at cards and used the money to buy back the home he had once served in. He did this so the man who had been a father to him would have a place to live out his days. And so the story of the amazing horse, Jim Key, is really a story of how true kindness, individually practiced, can work great changes in the world we live in.
And so here we were, sharing the wonder of kindness in our own messed up time. I learned about all the good places to eat around Willow Lawn, but we both admitted we loved Chick Fil A. Richmond’s original Chick Fil A is in Willow Lawn and as my wife finished her shopping and apologized for taking so long, I suggested we go there. I know she had been thinking of some local health food type place near their, but she graciously agreed to a quicker and simpler dinner, enjoying her cobb salad very much! Chick Fil A has made a place for itself by the simple attribute of actually finding and expressing pleasure in serving. Coming in to Willow Lawn, we couldn’t find the shoe store. “Let’s ask him,” my wife said as she pointed out a young man at the crosswalk. He pointed out the direction. I thanked him. Se said “My Pleasure!” and I said to my wife “I know where HE works!” Human Kindness! It is a way of truly saying to another person “You Belong Here!” It is a virtue who’s practice truly brings not only great good, but real satisfaction.
Have you seen the latest Joker movie? I wasn't sure I wanted to go. There's the money - about $18 a ticket here in Fairbanks -- but Brad convinced me to go since it isn't yet cold enough to worry about needing to warm our car mid-movie. (Yes, Alaska - a very challenging place). Brad knows me, though. I love to analyze films, to figure out what they're trying to say to their viewers. So Friday night date, movie. And while in the line to buy tickets, we ran into our son and his girlfriend who were going to see the same movie.
The reviewers of the movie all seemed to cite it as “dangerous,” fearing it might inspire insurrection groups to identify the character as a hero and imitate him. Others condemned the film’s “willful unpleasantness” and “rare, numbing emptiness” (we call that nihilism). Still others draw a connection between Joaquin Phoenix’s depiction of the character and the validation of “white male resentment” seen on the political right.
As an observer of social psychology, however, I saw Joker's commentary on the phenomenon of collectivism(what another commentator called "de-individuation.") The film's true evil (the Big Bad, if you will) is a broken, frustrated society that latches onto random, almost purposeless acts of violence, imbues them with deeper meaning, and uses them as justification for mass violence and brutality. On the way to the car, Brad asked me "What was the political message?" and I didn't find Joker to be a political movie. It's a psychological one, showing the dangers of group action and the power of group narratives. Our son's girlfriend was so impressed with my answer that the young folk asked the old folk to hang out and discuss it. This is a synopsis of about three hours of drinking coffee and three thinkers and a construction worker psycho-analyzing a fictional character.
In Joker, Gotham City is broken, but no one class or group shoulders the blame for the dysfunction. Arthur Fleck is failed by every level of society - mugged and beaten by a street gang, brutalized by rich young bankers, abandoned amid the de-funding of the public mental health care system, and permanently scarred by his own family. Lots of blame to go around. And yet, every class in Joker seeks to shift the blame for society’s woes. The rich denigrate the working class and the working class dehumanize the wealthy. A TV host (played by, ironically, Robert DeNiro) mercilessly teases Arthur, and all classes share the same glee at his televised failures.
In their desperate need to find someone else to blame, the masses of Gotham condemn "them" (I think they were "the one percent"). Society then elevates Arthur's purposeless act of murder into kind of social rebellion. The populace knows zero significant details about the killing -- no motive, circumstances or even the identity of the perpetrator -- but imbues it with shared meaning. They've already constructed their narrative and will fit a random event to match it, and thus declare Joker a hero.
When Arthur's identity is revealed in the movie’s climax, hordes of protesters are already ready to revolt. Another purposeless murder by Arthur sparks riots. On the brink of public suicide (akin to suicide by cop in mass shootings, perhaps), Arthur issues a rambling rant where he blames the elites for the state of Gotham, claims credit for the earlier killing, and decides to enjoy one last bit of senseless violence.
From a psychological perspective, Joker is an incredibly realistic and damning depiction of group dynamics. Unlike previous versions of the Joker by Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson, Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker has no plans, no real motives, and no overarching point to make. He's a victim of both circumstances and his own impotent rage. He doesn’t manipulate or use other people to achieve his ends, probably because he has no actual ends to achieve. In this version of Gotham, everyone is awful to everyone, and it is society that makes Joker what he is, not by their treatment of him, but through their mythologizing and romanticizing of his purposeless actions.
De-individuation is a phenomenon where crowds assume a collective identity and become willing to commit even the most heinous acts, as seen in the Stanford Prison Experiment, but also Nazi Germany, Communist China, the old Soviet Bloc states, and Southern slave plantations. De-individuation is seen when crowds assume a collective identity, diffuse individual responsibility among themselves, and become willing to commit mass riots and lynch mobs because they come to believe that simple numbers equate to moral action. The collective identities of de-individuated groups result in biased recollections and interpretations of events that devolve into horrifying violence.
This is exactly what happens in Joker. All Arthur Fleck does is commit relatively aimless murders and issue a relatively incoherent angry rant on television. The true villain of the movie is the broader society that latches onto these actions and words and imbues them with nonexistent meaning to justify their own crimes.
As a novelist, I recognize that fiction reflects reality. In the search for meaning amid an increasingly polarized and hostile political climate, groups come together and lionize monsters. While the mass murderers Che Guevara and Mao Zedong are praised by many on the political left, their self-aggrandizing brutality ignored in favor of the mythologized virtues of socialism and communism, the nationalist ideologies responsible for mass tragedy in the past are lauded by those on the political right. Feelings of disenfranchisement and resentment produce violent mobs on both ends of the political spectrum, hence Antifa and the Proud Boys.
Brad walked away from the film with a deep sense of discomfort. Call him "Everyman". Like most American moviegoers, he prefers simple, somewhat cartoonish evil villains who he can assume are "the other" because they don't prompt any self-reflection. None of us want to identify with the villain. We prefer to see a message against our ideological opponents rather than our own potential for immoral behavior. Brad served as our "normal" control as Keirnan, his girlfriend and I analyzed the movie at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant afterward.
We agreed that like the hordes of Gotham, we seek to villainize those who disagree with us while excusing the behavior of our in-groups. Such circumstances make instances of mass violence and de-individuation all the more likely.
Joker is not about Trump and the alt-right any more than it is about Antifa and the radical left. It is about the apolitical dangers of group de-individuation. We need such examples outside the psychology classroom because otherwise, the examples will be on the news. We've already seen it in the Antifa riotsand Charlottesville. We need uncomfortable films like Joker to show us the dangers of grouping up and allowing apolitical psychological forces dictate our interactions with our fellow humans and, heaven forbid, our government policies. (read more)
Stefan Kanfer on the Decline of Cultural Knowledge
Last week, newspaper city rooms were alive with the sound of schadenfreude, and Twitterers tweeted about the latest display of ignorance in TIME. To watchers of newspapers and newsmagazines, the incident came as no surprise. During the still-young millennium, ad dollars have fled from traditional periodicals to television and the Internet. Result: Shrinking readership, diminished staffs, and outsourced research. In TIME’s case, the publication relied on a data-compiling site, the Open Syllabus Project, for a list of the most-read female writers in college classes. Number 97 was Evelyn Waugh. The trouble is, Waugh was a male. (read more)
My students are know-nothings. They are exceedingly nice, pleasant, trustworthy, mostly honest, well-intentioned, and utterly decent. But their brains are largely empty, devoid of any substantial knowledge that might be the fruits of an education in an inheritance and a gift of a previous generation. They are the culmination of western civilization, a civilization that has forgotten nearly everything about itself, and as a result, has achieved near-perfect indifference to its own culture.” – Patrick Deneen, Notre Dame Professor
The 21st-century church is experiencing a crisis of young people rejecting the godly foundation upon which they were raised. Through this edition, best-selling author and apologist, Lee Strobel, will address this generation's lack of biblical heritage. He looks at why so many millennials are skeptical about faith and how the church can educate young people to defend their beliefs. (read more)
Volume XVII, Issue XX:
A Repeat of One of Our Favorite Issues
Thanksgiving is Good for You
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” -- Psalm 100:4-5 NIV
The 'other'Weekly News Magazine [click to read] once featured the story: "Why ANXIETY is Good for You." We at THYME see this one a bit differently. In the Bible, Philippians 4:6 exhorts us NOT to be anxious. Rather we are to view our needs in light of our relationship to a loving G-d. Indeed, our requests are presented in light of the gratitude we feel as we consider the goodness and provision to be found in the Divine.
Not be anxious? In today's world? That is precisely the direction given the believer. We live in a stress-filled world and we are not commanded to shut ourselves away but rather to interact with it... becoming a conduit for G-d's Love to reach it. Indeed History shows us people of Faith fighting plagues, caring for the helpless and generally DOING things, often navigating the best course we can in unclear situations. We are NOT helpless, though we often seem to labor in insufficient light.
Fitting thoughts as we celebrate the feast of Thanksgiving. These are indeed anxious times, and it is easy to become overwhelmed by the general angst of the period we live in. History tells us of Divine promise and fulfillment. The Patriarchs piled up stones to remind them of G-d's faithfulness in the past and to keep them faithful as they waited to see His faithfulness in their present lives.
And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister: And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law, when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, a land that floweth with milk and honey; as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee." -- Deuteronomy 27:2-3
Indeed, one must recount the stories of how G-d met needs in times past. One must also tell of the promises of G-d. Faith needs fuel, and Gratitude is the substance that makes our faith burn bright, even in the darkest of times.
Standing on the promises of Christ my King, through eternal ages let his praises ring; glory in the highest, I will shout and sing, standing on the promises of G-d. Refrain: Standing, standing, standing on the promises of Christ my Savior; standing, standing, I'm standing on the promises of G-d.
Standing on the promises that cannot fail, when the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, by the living Word of G-d I shall prevail, standing on the promises of G-d. (Refrain)
3. Standing on the promises of Christ the Lord, bound to him eternally by love's strong cord, overcoming daily with the Spirit's sword, standing on the promises of G-d. (Refrain)
4. Standing on the promises I cannot fall, listening every moment to the Spirit's call, resting in my Savior as my all in all, standing on the promises of G-d. (Refrain)
The staff of THYME wish you a most blessed Thanksgiving!
Sunset on the Sound, Outer Banks. Photo by Karley Spralin.
The 'Common Course and Condition' America's First Experiment with Socialism
When the Pilgrims first set up their economic system in Plymouth they opted for a system where all the results of their labor were held in common. All of the colonists then drew from the common store what they lived on. The Common Course and Condition, as this system was called, resulted in some bad feelings on the part of those who produced effectively and some lack of initiative on the part of those who were happy to have the food without the work.
The system produced constant shortages and a man who rose early and worked diligently came quite naturally to resent his neighbor who slept in and contributed less effort. Friction was high among the colonists and in 1623 Governor William Bradford declared the common course a failure.
The colonists were next assigned plots by families. Larger families were given larger plots. Everyone was responsible for the production of his own land and growing food for his own family. The results were notable. Far more crops were planted and tended. There was plenty instead of shortage and all in response to this new sense of ownership.
Church Found where Pocahontas was Married
Her eyes meet yours as you enter the Virginia Executive Mansion. A young girl from days long ago, yet her presence in the foyer immediately captured my attention. There are two portraits of Pocahontas in the room, one in English clothing (below) and the more familiar rendering seen above.
Pocahontas's formal names were Matoaka (or Matoika) and Amonute. Pocahontas is a childhood name that perhaps referred to her playful nature. After her marriage to John Rolfe, she was known as Rebecca Rolfe.
Archeologists say that they have Discovered the Church [click to read] where Pocahontas married Jamestown planter John Rolfe.
Harvest Hymn Written in 1844 by Henry Alford
“Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” is a harvest hymn written in 1844 by
Henry Alford. It is often sung to the tune “St. George's Windsor” by
George Job Elvey. So I created this in light of Thanksgiving to remind
us of what we should really be thankful for. Two of my photos are
overlayed with the text of the hymn added." -- Kristina Elaine Greer Photo Graphic by Kristina Elaine Greer
It wasn't a grand feast, but rather a time of giving thanks! on December 4, 1619, almost 2 years before the pilgrims held the feast with their Native American benefactors, Captain John Woodlief came ashore near the present site of the Berkeley Plantation. He had sailed from Bristol, England in the Good Ship Margaret with 35 men. They had survived a harrowing storm on November 29th and felt great gratitude for their deliverance. Here is Their Story [click to read].
Lessons from Squanto for Today
The Man Who Taught the Pilgrims Offers Wisdom
In this 1911 illustration, Tisquantum teaches the settlers how to plant maize.
Here is an interesting ebook: Squanto's Garden [click to read] from Off the Grid News. Most of us know some snippets of Squanto's story... how he taught the settlers how to successfully cultivate the soil of their new home, but Bill Heid actually shares some practical gardening tips and garden layouts that Squanto might have shared with the Pilgrims. He also fills out Tisquantum's story, giving us insight into a man who's unusual life uniquely equipped him to teach others.
The Sun burns through a morning mist on Thanksgiving Eve.
A Native American's Amazing Story
" ... a special instrument sent by God for their good beyond their expectations ..." -- William Bradford
Today millions of Americans will dine on turkey and celebrate Thanksgiving. Most people will realize that it has some connection to the Pilgrims in Massachussetts, but the story of G-d's provision and the reason for the celebration seem to have faded in our collective memories.
The Pilgrims came to the New World for their kids. They were a Christian group who sought to live for G-d rather than be seduced by the culture around them. They lived in Holland for a while but they saw their children falling away from the faith.
So they moved. They sought passage on a ship bound for Virginia. The ship went off course and they landed in Massachussetts instead. They had a rough time of it their first winter and almost half of them died. Still, when offered the chance to return to Europe, they declined. Then one of the indigenous people walked into camp and spoke to them in English!
The man's name was Samoset, and he introduced the Pilgrims to Squanto, who taught the Pilgrims many things to help them survive in the new world. Squanto spoke even better English than Samoset. His story is amazing.
Squanto had first met Europeans around 1605 when Captain John Smith made his famous voyage. He travelled to England with him but when he returned to America he was captured into slavery and returned to Europe. Spanish monks bought his freedom and sent him to England where he found passage back to America. Sadly, his village was now gone, the people wiped out by disease. He found people nearby to live with but one day heard that a new group of people were living where his old village had stood. What's more, they spoke that funny new language that he had learned.
Samoset made the introduction and the rest, you might say, is history. Thanks to Squanto the Pilgrims survived and began to do quite well in the new world. Their relations with the Native people were quite good and their Thanksgiving was for the amazing provision they found in Squanto, of whom it was said:
" ... He desired honor, which he loved as his life and preferred before his peace ..."
Volume XVII, Issue XXI:
A Repeat of One of Our Favorite Issues
The Forgotten Season
The turkey leftovers were still cooling when the much media hyped 'Black Friday' events began. In a Long Island Wal Mart, a young associate was trampled to death as bargain hunters literally broke down the doors. A young man had to die because twenty dollars could be saved on flatscreens. Managers closed the store and someone actually was irate that he couldn't get in. Come on, if a colleague has died, its 'Game Over' on the shopping frenzy. Close the store and try to help the poor man's significant others. To hell with reopening for the remainder of the day! Management reopened the store at one o'clock that afternoon. Satirical publication 'The Onion' came out with a story where thousands were 'reported' to have died in Black Friday shopping. I did not find it funny. One death to satisfy the greed gods is too many. Our prayers go out to the family and friends of this young man. May they find comfort.
Lost in the madness of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and yes, even Small Business Saturday is the wonderful celebration of Advent. The high churches still celebrate it. It is a time of waiting and preparation for the miracle to come. It is so un-modern! It ties us to history. The traditions of Judaism are full of waiting. Abraham and Sarah saw the child of promise when they were way past the age of child bearing. I sometimes think of one-hundred year old Sarah as a preschool parent and join her in her laughter! Then there was Joseph and his imprisonment, followed by hundreds of years of exile in Egypt. We often think about the Promised Land, but we forget that all Promised Lands seem to require a prep!
In fact, there came a time when people forgot the lessons of the brick kilns and lost the Promised Land to the Babylonians and the Persians. The Temple, center of worship, was destroyed. But it was in this time of living as expats that the community of the Synagogue strengthened the people anew. Ezra and Nehemiah presided over a return to the land of promise. Again, the promise required a prep. As the exiles built the prosperity of Persia, they prepared themselves for the time when they would build their own.
A second Temple was built. The exiles returned. Then came the great empires of the Greeks and the Romans. The Temple was rebuilt, but the heavy hand of Roman rule presided over a time of trouble. Many looked to the future Messiah to put things aright. Indeed, there were many who claimed to BE Messiah. They came and went. But in a time when Heaven seemed so distant, there came another child of promise... to a couple way past child bearing. John the Baptist, a "Voice crying in the wilderness," came saying: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." At the same season of history, his mother Elizabeth's cousin Mary came to visit.
Mary had been visited by an angel and told that she, a virgin, would bear the child of promise. Though this was an incredible blessing, she faced the prospect of unwed motherhood... in a culture that stoned you for it. Her betrothed, however, had also been given a message from Heaven, that he should take her for his wife. What incredible faith and love! When I chose my Confirmation name, as a boy, I took the name Joseph. It was not that I ever thought I could match such selfless love, but that I so admired it! Even to this day, some of the people I admire the most are those men who have stepped into the lives of children they did not physically father, and yet have earned the name Dad nonetheless! These men live as both an example and a challenge to me. Some of them are my juniors in years, but they far surpass in their maturity!
Such are the lessons we miss if we merely content ourselves with instant gratification. There is an old saying: "Rome wasn't built in a day." Indeed our own nation cast off from its sure position as an English colony to pursue an uncertain future. In 1812 England returned to burn the young country's capital. The White House is so called because its sandstone outer walls had to be painted after the burning left them permanently blackened. By the middle of the Nineteenth Century, however, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was building great ships to strengthen Bristol's trade with America. A hundred years after barely surviving her revolution, the nation we know had taken her place as a world power.
Advent is a celebration of the incarnation. It is perhaps the greatest of Christian mysteries, that the Creator G-d would voluntarily and willfully become Man. The Infinite would clothe Himself in the finite. G-d would love us to such a degree that He would become one of us, G-d with Us, Emmanuel." -- Manuel Luz
We do well to celebrate Advent, though it is largely forgotten in the popular narrative, because it causes us to pause and prepare. In a world where preparation is limited to four years it does us good to remember the lessons of centuries. Advent allows us to step back from our busy lives and ponder timeless truths... like the man that the Bethlehem baby grew to be. He too died, some say on a Friday, but his death was not just his own. Did He indeed carry the sins of the world? The account of His Resurrection causes us to ponder mysteries far greater than ourselves and our puny wants. We should indeed consider the life of this man.
Art is incarnational by nature. Art is the incarnation of concepts and ideas and emotions onto a canvas or a page or a stage or a screen. The act of art is to take these ideas and flesh them out in our artistic mediums—the visual arts, the literary arts, dance and movement, cinema and videography, music, theater. In the same way, our Artist G-d takes His love for us and fleshes it out by entering into the universe by becoming human. Jesus, “through Him all things were made,” becomes man." -- Manuel Luz
Autumn Evening. Photo by Bob Kirchman.
Jules Verne’s ‘Lost’ Novel Imagine a World without Art
ByBob Kirchman
Jean Verne is the great-grandson of the famous author and futurist Jules Verne. In 1989 Jean was getting ready to sell a family home and made an amazing discovery. There was a huge bronze safe that the keys to had long since been lost. Although it was believed to be empty, the young Verne opened it with a blowtorch anyway. There in the safe was a manuscript. It was a novel called ‘Paris in the Twentieth Century,’ which Verne had submitted to his publisher Jules Hetzel right after the success of his first novel: Five Weeks in a Balloon.’ Hetzel had rejected it in 1863 saying “It’s a hundred feet below ‘Five Weeks in a Balloon.’ Hetzel went on to say “No one today will believe your prophecy!”
Jules Verne predicts most damningly our society’s modern intoxication with ugliness. Go to any modern art school or venue and you find more of a cold mechanical sort of art aimed more at ‘expression.’Roger Scruton has written on this phenomenon and how the great works of the past have been pushed aside. [2.] Scruton opines: “The current habit of desecrating beauty suggests that people are as aware as they ever were of the presence of sacred things. Desecration is a kind of defense against the sacred, an attempt to destroy its claims. In the presence of sacred things, our lives are judged, and to escape that judgment, we destroy the thing that seems to accuse us.”
Early industrialization did not of itself produce bad art. The Brooklyn Bridge, the Eiffel Tower and classicized ironfront buildings all carried forward a certain sense of beauty and proportion. The revolt against the traditions of the past was more intentional as in 1917 when Marcel Duchamp sought to parody traditional art’s over-concern with technique. He signed a plumbing fixture ‘R. Mutt’ and entered it in an exhibition. What he meant as a paradoxical statement, however, the art intelligentsia took for a serious movement. Ever since Duchamp’s urinal the world of art has itself destroyed the place of beauty.
For its part, industrialization has had a mixed effect. The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair’s ‘Hall of Science’ is as beautiful as the Eiffel Tower. It is in its own right quite a contrast to Frank Gehry’s ‘Experience Music Project.’ The 1964 New York World’s Fair was the ‘great cathedral’ of modern progress. In fact, it featured a ‘Carousel of Progress’ which had its own hymn: “Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.” Men were headed to the moon. Technology was indeed going to end want and darkness.
But this new world, secured by ‘mutually assured destruction,’ created questions of its own. Technology created pollution. The promise faded into disillusionment and forced upon us a new conundrum. We had discarded ‘antiquated’ notions such as EX NIHILO creation – science was still our new god – but now science informed us that technology was a source of evil. Thus the Twentieth Century inherited a new Cosmology and has found it wanting!
The problem is that we have discarded the Wisdom of Centuries, even as we lean unapologetically on ‘modern’ science to inform us. We seek naturalistic answers or philosophical ones. We shun the truly transcendent ones. Indeed, Paris in the Twentieth Century looks at our present time and asks the hard questions.
Counting on Katherine
How the Brilliant Mathematician Saved Apollo 13
Helaine Becker's children's book tells more of the Katherine Johnsonstory.
The Woman with the ‘Right Stuff’
[click to read] Katherine Johnson Plotted the Way
BySteven J. Niven Get the girl to check the numbers.” These words came from astronaut John Glenn in February 1962 as he prepared to become the first American to orbit the Earth. The trajectory of his orbit had been calculated by NASA’s new state-of-the-art computers, but Glenn did not trust the machines. Mercury 7 astronauts had always relied on “computers in skirts,” women who were mathematicians at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., for such flight data. So before he made his historic voyage into space, Glenn called on Katherine Johnson to recheck the computer’s analysis, knowing that she had provided similar calculations for Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Johnson, one of the few African-American women then working for NASA, calculated and confirmed the data for Glenn’s orbit. The launch went ahead and Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, 10 months after the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin was the first human being to make that journey. Johnson’s role was little recognized at the time, but she would go on to play a significant—though, again, largely hidden—role in the first moon landing and in U.S. space exploration in the 1970s and 1980s. She did so by doing what she had always loved: math. (read more)
Truth Behind Moon Landings
Debunking the Conspiracy Theorists
Simple explanations for the most common conspiracy explanations.
The Beauty of Quiet Statements
Like many people this week, I was saddened to learn that my favorite restaurant was stepping back from supporting family affirming charities such as the Salvation Army. I understand the dynamics behind this decision and while I don’t agree with the reasoning (or the timing) of this, I still love Chick Fil A – especially the local operator’s two stores that employ many young people I know. I am saddened because the corporate office has announced that they intend “instead” to focus on charities that “help the disadvantaged in their communities.” If that is what you want, I cannot think of an organization that does more for their communities than the Salvation Army. Moreover, I loved that Chick Fil A stood for a lot of us small businesses, such as cake makers and photographers, who were being singled out for following our beliefs in our business.
I repeat, I still love Chick Fil A, but I on my own intend to make a chicken sandwich at home next week and I will put the seven dollars I would have spent on a Chick Fil A lunch in the first available red kettle. I am NOT creating or advocating a boycott mind you, rather I am making a decision to go direct with my support to a good organization. I’ll still enjoy my favorite restaurant, but I will make a conscious effort to direct my own giving. That means I’ll give up a meal out every now and then.
Growing up in parochial schools, one of the nobler things I respected was the call to personal denial and sacrifice for the noble cause. To that I offer the suggestion that all of us think more on this level. Quietly make a difference that no one will know about. It might just develop into a lovely habit!
Icy Fence in Virginia
Photo byKaren Brookshire
Ice on barbed wire after last year's ice storm in Virginia.
Philippians 4:19
Photo byBob Kirchman
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:19
The America I Love, A Photo Journey
Photos byBob Kirchman
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington, Virginia.
Wright Brothers Memorial
Wright Brothers Memorial, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
America the Beautiful Words byKatharine Lee Bates, Melody bySamuel Ward
Obeautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!
Obeautiful for pilgrim feet Whose stern impassioned stress A thoroughfare of freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!
Obeautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife. Who more than self their country loved And mercy more than life! America! America! May God thy gold refine Till all success be nobleness And every gain divine!
Obeautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!
Obeautiful for halcyon skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the enameled plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee Till souls wax fair as earth and air And music-hearted sea!
O beautiful for pilgrims feet, Whose stem impassioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God shed his grace on thee Till paths be wrought through wilds of thought By pilgrim foot and knee!
Obeautiful for glory-tale Of liberating strife When once and twice, for man's avail Men lavished precious life! America! America! God shed his grace on thee Till selfish gain no longer stain The banner of the free!
Obeautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed his grace on thee Till nobler men keep once again Thy whiter jubilee!
The Cherokee Nation
New Echota, in present day Georgia, was the capital of the Cherokee Nation.
Mohomony, The Natural Bridge of Virginia
The Monacan People knew Virginia's Natural Bridge as Mohomony, the Bridge of God.
Sherando Lake, Jefferson National Forest
Ice covers Sherando Lake in Augusta County, Virginia.
America's Early Railroads
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Bridge South of Staunton, Virginia.
Arches of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Bridge South of Staunton, Virginia.
Cornerstone of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Bridge, Ellicott City, Maryland.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Station, Ellicott City, Maryland. The station actually had an engine house behind the large door.
High Water Marks, Railroad Bridge in Ellicott City, Maryland.
The Patapsco Hotel, Ellicott City, Maryland. It is built of native granite.
Dolls in a Shop Window, Ellicott City, Maryland.
McCormick's Mill
It was here that Cyrus McCormick invented the reaper and revolutionized world agriculture. Steele's Tavern, Virginia.
Mount Airy Farm
Before she became famous as a folk painter, Grandma Moses lived at Mount Airy in Augusta County just North of Staunton, Virginia.
Historical Mural, Crozet, Virginia
This mural celebrating the history of the Crozet area was painted by John Pembroke, Bob Kirchmanand Western Albemarle High School Art Students. Restoration in 20112 was done by Kristina Elaine Greer, Meg Westand Western Albemarle High School Art Students. The mural highlights the Monacan settlement here, the Big Survey settlement and the coming of the railroad built by Claudius Crozet, for whom the town is named.
Virginia State Capital Building
Thomas Jeffersondesigned the Virginia State Capital Building in Richmond, Virginia.
Poplar Forest
Thomas Jefferson's Octagonal House near Forest, Virginia.
University of Virginia
The Lawn, as designed byThomas Jefferson, originally opened out to the rolling hills of Albemarle County, Virginia. In this reconstruction by Bob Kirchman it is seen open once again.
Sitka, Alaska
The Russian Bishop's House in Sitka, Alaska.
Abandoned Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska.
Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
Mary's Rock Tunnel on Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia.
White Rock Falls, Virginia
White Rock Falls is along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia.
For decades, much of academia, the liberal activist class, and the public school system have operated on the premise that America is fundamentally racist. The latest manifestation of this outlook is the 1619 Project, rolled out last month by the New York Times. Claiming that “anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country,” it “aims to reframe the country’s history” by making 1619—the year slavery was first introduced by the British to Virginia—the year of “our true founding.” This narrative is akin to the Jacobins’ alteration of the calendar to make their revolution the decisive turning point in human history. Just as they would save France from the monarchy, so, too, will the Times save America from white supremacy. The Times encourages public schools to adopt an accompanying curriculum that spreads the 1619 Project’s message to young Americans. Its goal is to brand our founding documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—as immoral and thus unworthy of our allegiance. To make America’s Founding contemptible, one must hide, ignore, and distort the Founders’ writings and thoughts. Irresponsibly omitted from this narrative is the fact that not a single major Founder endorsed slavery. On the contrary, the Founders unambiguously saw slavery as evil. George Washington said, “there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it,” and Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence calls the slave trade an “execrable commerce” and an affront “against human nature itself.”Gouverneur Morris called slavery a “nefarious institution” and “the curse of heaven,” and John Jay said, “It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. . . . To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.”(read more)
The Man Who Moved a Mountain
Bob Childress, The Pastor Who Tamed Buffalo Mountain
Pastor Bob Childress.
A Milestone Monday Feature
Today we think of gang violence downtown and forget that once there was gunfire in the small communities of Southwestern Virginia. Bob Childress was a hard-drinking, hard fighting resident of that region where the poverty of subsistence living was made more bearable, it was thought, by escaping to alcohol. Bob's parents drank heavily and fought constantly.
Following in his parent's footsteps, Childress missed a lot of school as a youth. One day he witnessed a massacre at the local courthouse and was moved to quit drinking and pursue a career in law enforcement. This was a noteworthy change in itself. Childress settled down, married and had four children; but G-d had plans for his life that would change the lives of people around him in a way he couldn't imagine.
Childress went to a revival meeting and found something more powerful than the spirits in a bottle. He found G-d and felt called to the ministry. At the age of thirty he returned to school, finishing high school in the same one-room schoolhouse attended by his six year old son.
He sought to bring the Spirit of the Lord to his hurting community. Though his education was pretty basic, he managed to go to Union Seminary in Richmond and struggled through. He became a much sought after speaker and was offered a very comfortable position with a large church... and he turned it down. Buffalo Mountain was his calling from G-d and he returned to his community and started a number of churches. His Sunday was a marathon as he made the journey to preach at each congregation.
Bob faced the daunting task of bringing the message of G-d's love to a community steeped in fatalistic despair. The churches he founded are testimony of what can be accomplished by a life lived for a greater purpose. Childress continued his ministry while caring for his daughter Hattie,
who was severely disabled. When Bob's wife died, he took on such tasks
as boiling the wash water for diapers. In the 1950's he was preaching in fourteen different churches every week. He died in 1956 at the age of 66.
Richard C. Davids tells his story in The Man Who Moved a Mountain[click to read], a stirring book. Lives like that of Bob Childress should challenge all of us. “Only eternity will tell the tremendous good accomplished in this unusual diocese.” -- The Synod of Virginia.
Remembering a Great Mentor
There was a Man who Convinced Me I Could Do This
Reconstructing my model of Ellicot's Mills for the B and;O Railroad Museum.
A Milestone Monday Feature
In Chapter 14 of Chuck Balsamo's book Make Me a Legend Pastor Balsamo talks about the importance of finding a good mentor. He brought back some important memories as I recalled the influence of a man named Reggie. Reggie served in the Navy during World War II and achieved the rank of Aviation Machinist's Mate, Second Class. He was a first class mentor.
I met this amazing man because I went to school with his daughter. He was a Chevrolet mechanic and an avid outdoorsman. He introduced me to the wonders of Coastal New Jersey as I happily paddled for hours through marshes and creeks. At about 50 years old, Reggie became an instructor at the vocational technology school. There he discovered his true gifts and passions.
At an age where most men are thinking about taking it easy, Reggie enrolled in Rutgers University and pursued a degree in administration. Education and young people had become his true calling and he graduated from college the same time one of his daughters did.
Days at Reggies place where full ones. He lived in a little postwar bungalo and when his children and their assembled friends were descending on the place around ten in the evening, he'd put on a pot of coffee. It came as no surprise that Reggie enjoyed lively conversation and sometimes these talk sessions would end in the wee hours of the morning. Good coffee, however, always made up for sleep deprivation.
Reggie went on to become a high school principal, but I have to believe that the best classes he ever taught were at his own kitchen table. He noticed that I was a hands-on guy struggling with an academic world. He found information on architectural model making and shared it with me. "You'd be good at this, Bob." Years later I was literally living off of this compliment. My little studio built models for architects, including one famous one. I worked on several models for resort projects in Japan, though I'm not sure how a man who served in the Pacific Theater would feel about that.
No doubt, this man has influenced many young lives in a similar manor. I am priviledged to have known him.
Education's Misplaced Priorities
ByKasey Norton
FromWalking Redeemed [click to read]
Is it possible we’re educating our children right OUT of salvation?
It’s a scary and extremely counter-cultural thought but I believe there’s something to it. And if there’s any chance that even a grain of truth lies within that question, it’s something we’d better look at long and hard.
Because society over the past 200 years has evolved where we now worship at the altar of education. We serve the gods that feed us with information, curriculum, diplomas and degrees.
Which, in turn, causes us to remain bowed down before gods that feed us money.
More money.
All the money.
We stress education so much that our children grow up thinking it’s the link to true success. And that, my friends, is a lie that may just hinge them to a life of ruin.
Because success is NOT any worldly attainment. A man in a big house with a fancy car is NOT more successful than a man in a small house with a clunker. Not if the man in the small house knows and serves Jesus while the man in the big house doesn’t.
Society lies. Our culture lies. The devil lies. And we, innocently or not, perpetuate those lies.
If we push our children to read by 3, and speak multiple languages, and write poetry as poetically as Longfellow, but they don’t have the love of God that seeps into their being and transforms them from the inside out, they literally have nothing. Our work is in vain.
If we train them, through hours of repetition, to calculate with the speed and efficiency of a computer, or to solve complicated problems using high order algebraic function, but they don’t know the love of God that saves them from themselves, they have nothing to share with others. Their lives will be lived in vain.
If we spend hours and weeks and years filling the minds of our children with historical facts, and geographical landmarks, and the periodic table of elements, they’ll be very smart in many ways. If we serve them up a side of church and religion and we talk occasionally of faith and prayer, they’ll even have a bit of head knowledge about God. But if we haven’t CONNECTED them to God and shown them His character and taught them of His sacrifice and pointed them to His victory on OUR behalf, we’ve given them nothing.
We’ll have raised brilliant infidels who may even change the world ... they just won’t be changing it for Jesus.
Education isn’t what we’ve made it. Or more accurately, we’ve corrupted education until it’s been depleted of much of its value. Because we’re educating our children to assume their rightful place in a society of dream seekers and money makers.
But very few are educating these children to be God chasers.
I, myself, have done it wrong. I’ve not taken my lessons from the schools of the prophets and, as such, I’ve allowed the world to paint my view without even realizing it. And I see the world tugging HARD on the hearts of my young people.
And let me tell you, it’s very difficult to convince a person of something with your words when your actions have told them otherwise.
God is the author of redemption, however. He points out our mistakes so we can repent of them. He shows us a better way so we can tell others of it. And He promises to do all He can, within the parameters of the human will, to restore what the locusts have eaten.
If you’ve done it wrong and this culture has snagged your beloved children and is holding them within its grip, all is not lost. Repent of your wrong course and accept the forgiveness He offers. And then go out there and love them with all the love that God loves us with because it’s His love that wins us.
It’s not a setting aside of principle or a winking at sin or a compromise of conviction that wins our kids back. It’s the sweet love of Jesus filling us to overflowing that will ultimately infect them. He handles the details and He gives us the words and actions that will be most effective in reaching them.
And if your children are still young, choose the narrow way. Focus 99% of your time on showing them the face of Christ and 1% on facts that simply help them pass tests our societal rules demand. Because if they’re looking for evidences of God in nature, and storing up the treasure of Scripture in their memories, and studying the history of the great gospel commission and how it’s transformed hearts and saved lives, and learning how to spend the money they have to reach souls with the good news that so few truly grasp, you will be transferring the absolute and very best education possible to your precious children.
And God will add to them knowledge and understanding and wisdom according as they need it.
True education is miraculous and it’s also what’s going to set this world on fire when people grab ahold of it.
I’m picking up my torch, even if it’s not trendy. And I plan to get to work lighting theirs!
Just because everything in your life is running smoothly right now doesn’t mean that that’s going to last. (read more)
Proverbs 11:24-25
There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.”
— Proverbs 11:24-25
Fields near Swope, Virginia. Photo by Bob Kirchman.
Betsy Bell and Mary Gray Staunton's Twin Mountains Recall Two Young Ladies
Flowers and leaves on Betsy Bell Mountain.
Memorialized in a historic ballad, Betsy and Mary were daughters of two Perthshire gentlemen who went into isolation in the country to avoid a plague. The year was 1666 and a young man who was in love with both of them came to supply them regularly with food. The man eventually came down with the plague himself, passing it along to the two girls. The young man and both girls died of the plague.
The first settlers of the area named the mountains because they reminded them of two similarly named mountains in the old country. The City of Staunton's history records the following:
The original 50-acre park was donated to the City in 1941 by Charles Catlett, who specified that "The City of Staunton shall as far as is reasonably practicable and in its considered opinion advisable, and for the common benefit of its citizens and inhabitants, keep and maintain the crest of the mountain as a perpetual memorial..." of events in the past life of the community and in memory of its citizens who have given their lives in protecting the nation. Catlett further specified that the site be maintained in its natural state, that a "cross" cut out of the woods along the crest be maintained, and that City Council visit the crest of Betsy Bell once each Spring in remembrance of the gift. These requirements have been honored since the bequest. An additional 20 acres was acquired by the City through a donation from CSC Associates in 1995."
The two mountains are one of my favorite places to hike. They provide a wonderful bit of wilderness right in the city of Staunton.
You forget that you are in the city as you walk up Mary Gray Mountain.
The Cross cut out of the forest on Betsy Bell Mountain. It is there as a memorial to those who have given their lives in defense of this Nation.
Looking West from Bear Den Mountain, Mary Gray and Betsy Bell show you where Staunton is.
The trail up the mountain was alive with color when I visited it in Autumn.
The Place of Faith in Education
A Unique Perspective on the Issue from CIVITAS
Iris.
Education is only adequate and worthy when it is itself religious… There is no possibility of neutrality… To be neutral concerning G-d is the same thing as to ignore Him… If children are brought up to have an understanding of life in which, in fact, there is no reference to G-d, you cannot correct the effect of that by speaking about G-d for a certain period of the day. Therefore our ideal for the children of our country is the ideal for truly religious education." -- William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1942.
Here is a very interesting report from CIVITAS [1.], on The Place of Faith in Schools [click to read] byProfessor David Conway. It adds a new dimension to the debate now raging in America between those who would impose a strictly secular criteria and those who consider Faith an essential component of learning.
[A] nation which draws into itself continuously, and not merely in its first beginnings, the inspiration of a religious faith and a religious purpose will increase its own vitality… Our own nation… has been inspired by a not ignoble notion of national duty to aid the oppressed – the persecuted Vaudois, the suffering slave, the oppressed nationality – and it has been most... characteristically national when it has most felt such inspiration…
We offend against the essence of the [English] nation if we emphasise its secularity, or regard it as merely an earthly unit for earthly purposes. Its tradition began its life at the breast of Christianity; and its development in time, through the centuries… has not been utterly way from its nursing mother… [I]n England our national tradition has been opposed to the idea of a merely secular society for secular purposes standing over against a separate religious society for religious purposes. Our practice has been in the main that of the single society, which if national is also religious, making public profession of Christianity in its solemn acts, and recognising religious instruction as part of its scheme of education." -- Ernest Barker, Cambridge Philosopher
Professor Conway Concludes: "All would stand to benefit from such committed forms of religious education in the country’s state-funded schools, not simply because it would be likely to improve the educational performance, behaviour and well-being of the nation’s schoolchildren. They would also all benefit because, I believe, only by continuing to provide it can this country be assured of remaining the independent and united liberal polity that it has for so long been and from whose continuing to be such all its diverse inhabitants would derive benefit, even those who do not share that faith or any other."
