September 2017 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

8/11/16, Spong: The Unlikely Honored Guest at the Democratic National Convention
by Ellie Stock via OE 01 Aug '18

01 Aug '18

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He was surrounded in that reserved and exclusive seating area by the power-elite of the Democratic Party: A former President, the sitting Vice-President and the “second lady,” the spouses and children of the nominees, as well as those especially invited guests, who were uniquely and politically related to the convention’s eventual nominee. This unlikely guest was in his own way quite unique. He was a Republican, one who had been elected to a state-wide office as a candidate of the opposition party. He served as the governor of Virginia from 1970 – 1974 and was the first Republican governor of Virginia since 1869 in the last days of reconstruction. Later he sought his party’s nomination to the Senate of the United States, losing to another Republican, John Warner, who served with distinction from 1979 until he retired in 2008. The name of this mystery quest is Abner Linwood Holton. He is now, and has been since the day I first met him, an extraordinary man. People, unaware of the history of the Democratic Party in Virginia, find it strange that the man I regarded as the best governor of Virginia during the years I lived in that state would be a Republican. Let me tell you his story.</p> <p>Linwood Holton was born in 1923 in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, a town deep in the heart of Appalachia. He was a Republican from the moment of his birth. He was also bright and ambitious. Being a Republican in Virginia in those days was to be part of a distinct minority, perhaps even an endangered one! The Democrats of Virginia were the only cohesive political force in the state. This majority party was run by Virginia’s senior United States Senator, Harry Flood Byrd, who after serving a term as governor from 1926 to 1930, effectively ran the state until he died in 1966. It was said of Harry Byrd that he and a few of his closest political advisors would sit on the porch at his home in Berryville, Virginia, and pick the candidates for every political vacancy in Virginia from governor on down. The electorate was deliberately kept small by poll taxes, which effectively discouraged both blacks and poor whites from voting. A Byrd loyalist was in every county seat in Virginia to run the party. Racism was deep and “States Rights” was a holy slogan designed to make racism seem socially acceptable. Virginia was a one party state. Frequently the Republicans would not even nominate candidates and, even when they did, no one paid much attention to them because whoever won the Democratic primary seldom even campaigned in the general election, since Republicans simply did not win in this state! Linwood Holton made it his life’s ambition to establish two-party politics in Virginia.</p> <p>He graduated from Washington and Lee in Lexington, Virginia, and then entered the law school at Harvard University. Along the way he married a Roanoke girl, named Virginia Rogers, who went by the name of Jinks. She was the daughter of Frank Rogers, an upright, but ultra-conservative, successful and well-connected Roanoke citizen, who was the grandson of the first Episcopal Bishop in Southwestern Virginia. In his mind, the two greatest virtues were to be a conservative Episcopalian and a loyal Byrd Democrat. Jinks, the more rebellious of Rogers’ two daughters, chose to marry a Republican and a Presbyterian! Supported by this remarkable woman, Linwood began his life’s task of strengthening Virginia’s Republican Party. This party’s base, such as it was, had always been in the mountains of the western part of Virginia. As a force in opposition to Byrd Democrats, the Virginia Republican party tilted slightly leftward. There was no room to the right of the Byrd machine. The Virginia Republicans were known for their party’s efforts to improve education statewide and to develop better state mental health facilities. Linwood’s organizational efforts were so successful that in 1965 he was the Republican nominee for governor opposing the Southside, Virginia, Byrd Democrat, Mills Godwin, who had emerged as the new leader of the Democratic Party. The sickness, retirement and subsequently the death of Senator Byrd meant that the torch of party leadership had to be passed to the next generation. It is interesting that Harry Byrd, Jr., always known as “Little Harry,” who was appointed to succeed his father in the Senate, did not succeed him in the leadership of the statewide Democratic Party. Holton was defeated in that first run for the governor’s office, but he garnered a respectable total of votes and succeeded in introducing himself to the state. The day after the defeat, he began planning for his second run in 1969. The governorship in Virginia, we need to note, is limited by the Constitution to a single term.</p> <p>National issues soon began to erode the Byrd majorities. Poll taxes were declared unconstitutional in 1964. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 opened the ballot to people of color. The feminist movement began to galvanize women into an effective political force. A national- thinking Virginia Democrat, named Henry Howell, began to build a liberal political base made up of labor unions, blacks, women and young people. His challenge to the Byrd machine resulted ultimately in his election as Lt. Governor in 1971, but he could go no farther. He remained anathema to Byrd Democrats. In the Democratic Primary of 1969, the Byrd candidate, William Battle, the son of former Governor John Battle, defeated Henry Howell in a bitter contest. The party could not heal this division, so in the General Election, Linwood Holton, supported by many of Howell’s still angry voters, rode to victory with a 65,000 vote majority.</p> <p>In his inaugural address, Holton called for an end to Virginia’s pattern of racial discrimination and its racist politics. No Virginia Governor had ever uttered such words before. Words, however, were not enough. People looked for actions. They would follow soon.</p> <p>In the most dramatic step imaginable, the new governor and his wife made the decision not to put their children in the church-related or independent private schools of Richmond, where all governors’ children had previously attended, but to enroll them in Richmond’s public schools which were at that time about 80% black. It was such a startling action for a Virginia politician that the New York Times covered it with a front page story and a picture of Virginia’s Governor Holton escorting one of his daughters into a school surrounded by a host of black faces smiling broadly. In a state where the official response of the ruling Democratic machine to “Brown vs. the Board of Education,” had been to call for “massive resistance to the law of the land,” a state in which some counties chose to close their public schools rather than to integrate them, here was the highest elected official in the state escorting his children into the majority black public schools of Richmond, Virginia. No action could have announced better that a new day was dawning in what had once been the capital of the Confederacy. One of those Holton children entering those public schools on that day was their oldest daughter, Anne.</p> <p>The white population of Virginia was shocked. They believed and stated that their new governor was sacrificing his children on the “altar of integration.” Many suggested that the “inferior education” that his children would receive in those heavily black schools would cripple them for life. It was a strange argument that gave the lie to the previous white claim that all of its racially segregated schools were “separate, <em>but equal</em>.” Anne, in her early teens, would be an exemplary student. She received a fine education and upon graduation from high school would be admitted to Princeton University, from which she graduated <em>magna cum laude</em>. She seemed not to have been penalized at all in her educational achievements. After Princeton she was accepted into the class of 1983 at the Harvard Law School, from which she now holds a doctor of Jurisprudence degree. From there she went into a legal career that in time would include being a domestic relations judge and Virginia’s Education Secretary.</p> <p>While at Harvard she met, fell in love with and married a fellow law student, who was born in Minnesota and educated at the University of Missouri. His name was Tim Kaine. She lured him back to Richmond, where his earlier life experiences, including his Jesuit high school education, his year as a volunteer missionary to Honduras and his mastery of the Spanish language, prepared him to begin his Richmond law practice as a civil rights attorney. Then responding to an expressed community need, he entered politics at the most local of levels, running for a seat on Richmond’s nine-member City Council. In a majority black city, Tim not only won that seat, but was also later elected by that majority-black city council to be Richmond’s Mayor. Two years later, in 2001 he moved to the state level, being elected Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor. In 2005, he won the governor’s office. His wife, Anne Holton, became the first person to be at one time living in the governor’s mansion as the child of a Republican governor and then a second time as the state’s first lady and wife of a Democratic governor. In 2012, Tim Kaine won a seat in the United States Senate. In 2016, with two years remaining in his first term as senator, he was chosen by the presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, to be her vice-presidential running mate. Anne Holton was there with him, waving to the crowd on the final night. As Hillary Clinton raised Tim Kaine’s hand high, former president Bill Clinton was at her side and Anne Holton was at Tim Kaine’s side. The crowd roared with approval.</p> <p>In the VIP section of that vast Philadelphia arena sat the former Republican Governor Linwood Holton, now 92 years old, with his wife Jinks, both still vibrant and attractive, watching their daughter being introduced to the nation. There is sometimes a reward for integrity. Linwood and Jinks Holton, who would not allow their lives to be twisted by the prejudice of racism, challenged the distorting and debilitating social structures of his generation in Richmond, Virginia. Doing what is right sometimes carries with it intimations of transcendence and even immortality. To this day he remains one of my heroes.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong</p> <p>Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">here</a>.</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">Alberto Mejia Aguilera from Mexico writes via the internet:</span></p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"> Question:</h4> <p>I am from Mexico and I would like to know your opinion about Liberation Theology. Do you think that this theology is still an inspiration for the struggle against the social injustice?</p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear Alberto,</p> <p>Liberation theology was, I believe, was born in Latin America, so you should be especially proud of it. I associate the name of Leonardo Boff, primarily, with it, but there were others like the murdered Bishop Oscar Romero. It was born in an attempt to apply the principles of the gospel not just to individuals, but also to the structures of our society, which so often drive the masses into poverty. It identifies God with the poor. For those reasons it tended to be resisted in ecclesiastical circles, especially by the leaders of the Roman Catholic during the years of Popes John Paul II and Benedict, both of whom were so politically conservative that they saw it as another manifestation of Communism. I think they were both wrong in this judgment. Liberation theology, I believe, constituted a call to Christianity to see that its alliance with power, both in Europe and the new world, had corrupted the essential justice that Christianity requires.</p> <p>Christianity was born among the poor and the outcasts. It rose to dominate society and so became the religion of kings. Liberation Theology was a necessary correction.</p> <p>I wish you well.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Read and Share Online Here</a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…"><img align="none" height="262" style="width: 350px;height: 262px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="350" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/e67ac6a0-334…"></a></div> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:26px"><span style="color:#000000">Bishop Spong at the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan September 10th & 11th</span></span></h2> <strong>Schedule:</strong> Saturday, September 10, 2016 1:00 pm at the Reynolds Recital Hall, Northern Michigan University 7:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Marquette Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:00 pm at the Memorial Union Building , Michigan Technological University At each location, there will be an opportunity for Q&A and book signing.</div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="top"> </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="aolmail_canspamBarWrapper" style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:1px solid #E5E5E5;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top" style="padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_1c149769-41d3-4c3b-8300-eaccdde19ae7 td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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Remembering Fred
by Nancy Lanphear via OE 01 Nov '17

01 Nov '17

Dear Ones, Today, September 9th, is the 7th anniversary of Fred’s death. After spending much time on the deck of my house this summer, I realize my gratitude for not only Fred’s life, but each of yours. Many of us have gathered on this same deck over the years, sharing stories and our lives. When Fred dictated the blog entry below, just days before his death, he was sitting on the deck, looking out over the raised beds and his community. I received the photo below from our son Bruce. he was looking through photos and discovered this one. Our family was on one of our memorable vacations together. He titled it, " Celebrating BIKER Fred". Dad received a (fake) tattoo in Libby, Montana and he was acting like a biker; you were obviously his biker chick (that's me, Nancy) Thought you might laugh with us. Shared with love and beautiful memories, Nancy

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Re: [Oe List ...] pater noster
by Margaret Aiseayew via OE 04 Oct '17

04 Oct '17

I am sorry to say that even though I appreciate your secular pater noster, I am still concerned with asking the cosmos for forgiveness for all the times I have stepped heavily on the earth. It seems that admitting our culpability is essential to moving forward. I could go on and on. I am not trying to say that guilt is necessary, but it seems like co-creation requires a trust based in honesty. Margaret From: OE [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Ken Fisher via OE Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 9:24 AM To: George Holcombe; Order Ecumenical Community Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] conversation on white trash racism Friends, Both through recent experiences and 'our daily Rohr', I’d like to share with you my wording of a current secular ‘pater noster'. Compassionate cosmos... In which we live, and with whom we find our meaning, Grace us with your presence. Support our freedom to be love as we are loved. Trusting in your never-ending hospitality, So be it. And, as I have already shared, I love this poem by Hafiz. The sun never says to the earth, “You owe me. Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky. Feeling the warmth of the sun (the immediate sustainer of our habitat) and wanting to ‘be sun too’, Ken

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A TED talk
by Mary Kurian D'Souza via OE 01 Oct '17

01 Oct '17

> > Dear colleagues, > I just listened to this.https://go.ted.com/CXpd. Please Le t me know what you think. Mary

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Re: [Oe List ...] Have you been watching the Vietnam series on PBS?
by Sherwood Shankland 01 Oct '17

01 Oct '17

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Re: [Oe List ...] Have you been watching the Vietnam series on PBS?
by Margaret Aiseayew 30 Sep '17

30 Sep '17

All sides were presented. I concluded that all sides were wrong. Margaret From: OE [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Herman Greene via OE Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2017 9:24 PM To: Order Ecumenical Community Cc: Herman Greene Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Have you been watching the Vietnam series on PBS? Tonight was the final session. All that the US fought for was lost. But what we fought for was an abstraction at the leadership level and at the level of noncombatant citizens, right and left, as well. On the one hand we fought to defeat Communism and keep our promises to our allies, on the other we fought for a mistake. The lives of the people involved in the war on all sides, perpetrators and victims, were forgotten. Never has the story of this war or perhaps any war been told like it was in this series. All sides were presented. Every side was right and every side was wrong and so much, so much, so much carnage, suffering and tragedy. The armaments, the bombing, the artillery, oh my. Bullets flying by the millions. I feel anger for our the perfidy of our national leaders and for the war crimes committed on all sides. And I, like the protester at the end of the series, feel sorry at my own simplification of the issues, for my righteous, blind resistance. Three of my high school classmates died in the war. Now I want to go to the wall and touch their names. Herman On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 12:25 PM, McGuire, Jann & Fred via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: I'm profoundly grateful for this amazing 21st Century Art piece. Last night reminded me of a couple of Vietnam veterans: my cousin J.Mac Cates, a career army officer, who died young of leukemia, probably caused by agent orange exposure, as well as Israel Reyna, a teaching colleague. I appreciate this ongoing art form conversation. It has mostly been on the Reflective level. Can't wait for Interpretive and Decisional. Here's an Objective observation, though not an exact quote. An interviewee last night said that the student protests and veteran counter protests caused a divide in the country that has never healed. I was struck by young John Kerry's speech. I felt emotional when the veterans threw their medals at Nixon's White House barriers. Thank you all, Jann _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net -- __________________________________________________ Herman F. Greene 2516 Winningham Road Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-942-4358 (ph & fax) hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com

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"Journey Reflection" Blog Posts Summary (Sept. 2017)
by John C 30 Sep '17

30 Sep '17

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Re: [Oe List ...] Have you been watching the Vietnam series on PBS?
by laurelcg＠aol.com 30 Sep '17

30 Sep '17

I'm profoundly grateful for this amazing 21st Century Art piece. Last night reminded me of a couple of Vietnam veterans: my cousin J.Mac Cates, a career army officer, who died young of leukemia, probably caused by agent orange exposure, as well as Israel Reyna, a teaching colleague. I appreciate this ongoing art form conversation. It has mostly been on the Reflective level. Can't wait for Interpretive and Decisional. Here's an Objective observation, though not an exact quote. An interviewee last night said that the student protests and veteran counter protests caused a divide in the country that has never healed. I was struck by young John Kerry's speech. I felt emotional when the veterans threw their medals at Nixon's White House barriers. Thank you all, Jann

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Link to Mark Twain's War Prayer
by laurelcg＠aol.com 29 Sep '17

29 Sep '17

This was written by Mark Twain at the time of the war for the Philippines. Watching the Vietnam war images last night, I was struck by how pitiful the North Vietnamese looked. They were probably not eating much better than their prisoners of war. http://www.progressivewritersbloc.com/DC/WarPrayer.htm

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Re: [Oe List ...] Have you been watching the Vietnam series on PBS?
by laurelcg＠aol.com 29 Sep '17

29 Sep '17

Here is a song by Betsy Rose written for the Vietnamese Boat People. Listen and weep. Let us give thanks for the gift the ones who made it to our shores have been. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0ythaGbGZo And let us pray for today's refugees and the alleviation of terrible suffering today in Libya, south Sudan, Nigeria, the Congo, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Myanmar, Venezuela, Mexico. Love and blessings, Jann -----Original Message----- From: Herman Greene via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Cc: Herman Greene <hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com> Sent: Fri, Sep 29, 2017 8:00 am Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Have you been watching the Vietnam series on PBS? Thanks so much David. My wife, Sandi, and I just sat silently for a long time after the end of the series. Herman On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 12:12 AM, David Dunn via OE <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: Colleagues. Burna and I have been glued to "The Vietnam War” for all ten episodes. Tonight, for lots of reasons, the last hour of the last episode of the documentary broke my heart wide open. I cried a lot. David Footnotes. 1. Apropos "the upheaval of all that has been"—The Introduction to a little book of poems, Poema dla Russki Druzye (Poems for Russian Friends), 19 August 1992 A two-week visit in Moscow at the time of the abortive coup of August 19, 1991 and the reflection that followed during the next few months, is the occasion for an observation. A force is at work in the world with which historians, politicians, and sociologists have not yet reckoned—the powerful attraction between people once separated by ideology and ignorance. Even ten years ago, who could have imagined that on such a global scale the familiar, the prudent, the expected would all be set aside by life demanding to be reunited with life. Tourists, citizen diplomats, and entrepreneurs alike will be captured, broken open, and transformed by a passion for connection that arises in spite of all attempts to hold i back These poems are a way of saying thank you to may people who have become new friends on this journey of transformation. I know that the upheaval of all that has been is first and last an assault on the heart. I hope that you find courage to build what must be built. 2. Apropos the Viet Nam War veterans from both countries who were drawn together in Viet Nam to meet, remember, forgive, and serve: a poem from Poems for Russian Friends. Electric Arms You and I have been imprisoned by years of lies, held hostage by terrorists of heart and mind, afraid of letting either of us know the other. We strain at the bars keeping us apart with desperate longing to find the truth and courage to embrace it. Charged souls so long apart must feel somewhere deep within, so great a need to be united, they will do foolish things to find each other’s electric arms. 3. Apropos expanding one’s context through long term international, cross-cultural friendship—Burna’s and my friends, Alexey and Liuba Kuzmin in Moscow Alexey and I met in August 1991 at a Russian-American Family Camp (Virginia Satir model) in Moscow. Our families have spent time together in both Moscow and the US. Alexey and I check in with each other more or less weekly over Skype. He’s teaching about Program Evaluation in Turin, Italy this week. 4. Apropos the image of Russia and America as two exhausted prize fighters locked in a sweaty clinch—another poem from Poems for Russian Friends Mirrors We live in a world of mirrors, each nation reflected in another. Only other eyes see what we avoid; only other hearts forgive what we reject. On Sep 28, 2017, at 8:24 PM, Herman Greene wrote: On the one hand we fought to defeat Communism and keep our promises to our allies, on the other we fought for a mistake. The lives of the people involved in the war on all sides, perpetrators and victims, were forgotten. — David Dunn 740 S Alton Way 9B Denver, CO 80247 720-314-5991 dmdunn1(a)gmail.com _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net -- __________________________________________________ Herman F. Greene 2516 Winningham Road Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-942-4358 (ph & fax) hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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