FOR WHAT CAN WE BE THANKFUL?

FOR WHAT CAN WE BE THANKFUL?

I am thankful that our Lutheran church took a group to the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro NC--just an hour down the road--on Saturday July 18.  We know that the museum arose to document the civil disobedience of four black NC A&T students who refused to vacate a Whites Only lunch counter.  These freshmen, maybe 18 or 19 years old--teenagers--declined to be bound by Jim Crow laws that pretended that black people were "less than."  They knew what the Constitution offered and held our state to its promise.  They could have despaired of the country ever righting itself, but they did not.  Nor did they accept what they knew to be wrong. Those of us my age know this history as it unfolded.  It was a pivotal moment in the history of Civil Rights.  Black churches offered support to the students and served as the backbone of the civil rights movement and the change to come.  Too many white churches initially remained silent fearing loss of membership and financial contributions.  I suppose we could consider this trip a small act of resistance, honoring the truthful history of a shameful past.   

Our Durham County Bar held educational meetings at the Museum over the years.  I can be thankful as well to live and worship in a city as diverse as Durham NC where human rights and civil rights overlap with all the religions represented here.  

I can be thankful that our church sponsors an inter-denominational Grief Group where people of all faiths or none can find a community in which to navigate their grief over losses.  Many years ago my father and I were regular members of its predecessor group and found solace there.  Some might be grieving for a family member in jail, or a death caused by depression.  Never was there judgment.  Now our church members can also attend a monthly Sunday School class addressing the grief that many feel about the direction of our country under this regime.  We discuss politics and religion--democracy, Christian Nationalism, leadership, sin, activism, the gamut.  Never is there judgment.  I am thankful for this class as I believe all who attend are.  It is a safe place to grieve and speak out, for anyone.  

I am also be thankful that our church is hosting "Good Trouble Lives On:  Organize to promote fair and safe elections" on this Saturday, August 1 between 1-4 EDT.  When so many say that politics doesn't belong in church, hosting this event makes me proud.  It is a coalition of Engaged Defenders of Democracy, League of Women Voters and unions, training people to do voter education, registration and mobilization.  It is exactly what the SAVE America act is designed to prevent--voter education and participation.  Good Trouble, as we know, is the phrase used to remember the sainted John Lewis (1940-2020), who in 1965 led more than 600 protesters across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama to demonstrate the need for voting rights.  They--again, as we know--were met by violence.  

It is important to give thanks where we can.  From our monthly Sunday School class it is clear that ordinary Christians in ordinary towns like Durham--a combination blue collar/college town--are weighed down by this government.  Christian principles are seen by many as under siege.  Not so-called "Christian" Nationalism, but Simple principles, like "love your neighbor as yourself,"  or "Do Unto Others. . . ."  We can be thankful when our churches live by these principles.  

We can be thankful that this summer while rain falls and flowers bloom, while children play and elders guard their health, while we vacation or stay home, while many struggle to make ends meet and some do not, while others are escaping fire and flood zones, that we have our faith to guide us, one another to sustain us, and a sure answer to right vs wrong; for those of us who are Christian, in the Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule and almost any verse in our Bible that we care to open to. For other faiths in their sacred scriptures or Holy Books.  Not only do these resources help us know what we should do, they give the strength and power to do it.  

Thanks be to my God and yours, 

Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OH SUMMER!

Pine Knoll Shores, NC

 Nothing brings back memories like summer.  We all have them, those recollections of childhood freedom when we burst out of our schools at semester's end.  Ahh. . . . Now I can go barefoot, hang with my friends, sleep late, eat frozen Zero bars without a care (does anyone else will remember these?). With my friends and my brother, I lived in a middle-class neighborhood of mostly one-sometimes-two-car families, two working parents and dogs that ran free.  

I'm hoping that our grandchildren's fondest memories will include time at the beach with us riding the waves, fishing off piers, DQing and playing board games.  After all, we all live in North Carolina just 3 hours down Hwy 70 to the Atlantic Ocean.  

But my childhood was in the Midwest suburbs of St. Louis.  Seaside bonfires and cotton sweaters were not us.  Trips to Bermuda or London or Paris was not us.  We might wild-swim in the Missouri Ozarks, float down a river in an inner-tube (phased out by the 70's), and spend long afternoons in our neighborhood public pool.  But when writers recall summers in The Hampton's or upper New York resorts like the one in "Dirty Dancing" (a classic I know by heart--and was in fact filmed in North Carolina near Chimney Rock), it's foreign to me.  Our parents, my brother's and mine, were professionals--teacher and librarian--so we weren't poor.  But we were, it seems, often broke.  My husband and I the same when he was a pastor in a country parish and I a stay-at-home mom/grad student.  

Like Chicago, New York, L.A., and many big cities, St. Louis in those days was a fine place for a stay-cation, which was promoted by our parents for my brother and me as just as good as anything we might have envisioned as a "real" trip.   So we would spend a day at the St. Louis Art Museum (we return there often on our road trips back to St. Louis); catch a few Cardinal games; seek out the gorilla at the St. Louis Zoo; swelter in the Forest Park Jewel Box Greenhouse; spend an afternoon at Shaw's Botanical Garden; visit the Jefferson (Jeff) Memorial, and more.  By high school my brother and I knew our city backwards and forwards.  We knew its history (site of the 1904 World's Fair) and the history of the environs:  Hannibal, Missouri where Mark Twain set Tom Sawyer , the caves where Tom and Becky were lost, and the Mississippi River where Huck and Jim adventured.  We were Missouri born and bred.  

Now, in North Carolina, summer comes a different way.  In retirement, the rhythms of the school year are long gone, even for my husband who taught at Duke University.  The seasons flow into one another.  All of a sudden our pool is warm enough for a swim.  I count the strokes, one, two, three...changing strokes, crawl, back float, scissors-kick.  Swimming is a Flow State.  No other thought but holding my breath, moving, watching for the wall, noticing my body--in the small 70's concrete pool right outside my door, lovely poolside shower in the open air. 

At my age we don't so much build memories.  We live each day, doing what our bodies allow us to do.  Mine is kind to me, allowing gardening, cooking, collaging, some walking, swimming and all those mental things we love:  reading, writing, keeping friends and family close.  Except for the limitations of age, it's almost (almost) like being a kid again.  We can head off to the beach for weeks at a time and share our house there with other family members as well.   

Actually, there's nothing much better than a good memory, is there?  Of course, we have bad events in our pasts.  Who doesn't?  But remembering the good builds confidence.  I was this child who is now this adult, and I have survived and flourished.   Summers were welcomed and formed us into people who have friends, make good times for others, and care for ourselves.  

As I keep my outdoor plants alive with water and loving care--red and white salvia and purple sage, geraniums and impatiens--cook summertime meals and watch nighttime series or movies (no longer with kids to tuck in), I am grateful for another season.  Do you ever feel you can't possibly deserve all your blessings?  This long, hot summer I am feeling like that.  

With love, Nina Naomi