West Virginia again...

Back on August 3 I wrote a post about a candidate for sheriff in Berkeley County, WV, who was arrested for heroine possession when he was found unresponsive in his home with a needle in his arm.

Well, another West Virginia law officer twist. A police officer in Wierton, the other side of the state from Berkeley County, has been fired for, get this, NOT shooting a man who had an unloaded gun!

The officer, Steven Mader, came to the home of R.J. Williams, who was waving a handgun and telling Officer Mader, "kill me, now!"

Mader deduced, rightly, Williams wanted 'suicide by cop' and was talking him down when another officer arrived and killed Williams with a shot to the head. Williams' gun was unloaded. Mader was right.

And now he--a trained Marine--has been fired for "endangering the life of another officer". If the gun wasn't loaded, no one was endangered.

Cops get blamed, rightly so, for using too much force.

Apparently, in Weirton,WV, they get fired for not using enough force.....

Go figure....

9/11 sermon

9/11/16 Sermon (St. Andrew’s, Northford)

 

   

        Fifteen years ago today, I was brushing my teeth, listening to Imus in the Morning on my clock radio. (I know, I know…I’m not an Imus kind of guy…I’m a Public Radio kind of guy…but he was, from time to time, dreadfully amusing--accent on 'dreadful'!)

        Imus said something about a plane flying into the World Trade Center, so I went to our TV room, upstairs, and turned it on.

        Bern had left early for a dental appointment, so I was alone when the second plane hit the second tower. I had my toothbrush in my mouth and couldn’t comprehend what was happening. Suddenly I heard Bern’s pickup truck skid into the driveway outside in a way I’d never heard before. I listened to her tear open the front door and run up the steps calling my name as I watched, stunned and numb, as two skyscrapers burned.

        Bern ran into the TV room and said, horrified and breathless: “The kids…the kids!!!)

        Suddenly it occurred to me that both our children lived in Brooklyn, just across the river from the World Trade Center and I should be worried and terrified, not stunned and numb.

        It took a couple of hours to reach both Josh and Mimi. Mimi came up out of a subway near 890 Broadway and saw smoke in the sky. It was her first day of work at the American Ballet Theatre. We would talk with her as she walked back to Brooklyn.

        Josh was a law student living with a classmate who is now our daughter in law and mother of three of our granddaughters. He could see the twin towers from the street where they lived. Cathy Chen, his love, had taken a subway to Manhattan just a half-hour before. He was frantic. He couldn’t call her on her cell phone. Her train would have stopped at the World Trade Center exit.

        Josh stayed outside most of the day. Cathy got in touch as she walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and Josh called us. Mimi and Tim, her boyfriend and now husband and parents of our fourth granddaughter, found each other walking home over the Williamsburg Bridge.

        They were all safe. Praise God. But thousands weren’t.

        I went to St. John’s in Waterbury because I expected people might want to talk to someone about all this that was happening. Harriet and Sue, our office folks, and I were watching the news on Harriet’s computer—still total confusion and terror. We watched the buildings fall.

        My assistant at the time wasn’t watching with us. She was doing busy work and calling people about other things. I asked if she would come and watch with us.

        She told me this: “it’s just the chickens coming home to roost.”

        I let out a gasp and said, “you can’t say that Right Now. Maybe, years from now you can connect what our nation has done to this. But not now, not for years. Thousands are dead and dying. You can’t say that!”

        She ignored me and left a short time after. Our friendship and working relationship was over. She left St. John’s a few months later.

 

        But losing a friend and a colleague is nothing at all compared to the sons/daughters, wives/husbands/lovers, fathers/mothers, sisters/brothers lost that awful day. Nothing at all to that pain. Nothing at all.

 

        The pain of 9/11 is beyond calculation. It continues still, 15 years later. And it will never be healed. It may be ‘moved beyond’, but never ‘healed’. Never. Not ever.

 

        But we must not forget this: the lost sheep, the lost coin in today's gospel. We must not lose them.

        A great deal of irrational hatred was spawned by 9/11—hatred of good people, good Muslims, good Americans.

        In 2001, there was a mosque that met in the parish hall of St. John’s in Waterbury. We had shared much with them. We knew them well. We stood by them—they were the lost sheep, isolated by the hatred around them. They were the lost coin, branded because some, claiming to be of their faith, had created terror.

       

        Here is what I believe (and this is ‘just me talkin’) this painful anniversary calls upon you and me to do. We must love, not hate. We must embrace the stranger, not reject them. We must know the value of the ‘lost’ in our midst. We must never let pain turn to hate, fear turn to anger.

        All Americans were attacked that day, not just some of us.

        That is how we give honor to those who died, by refusing to be divided and set against each other.

        We must seek out and save those ‘lost’ because of irrational hatred. We must sweep the floor of those who would polarize and divide us.

        We must remember that we all arrived on these shores lost and rejected and celebrate how diverse we are as a people: racially, ethnically, culturally and spiritually.

        To truly move on from that awful day 15 years ago, we must embrace the diversity that truly makes us strong…that truly makes us One.

        To do less than that is to dishonor those who died that tragic day.

Amen.

Colin Kaepernick has the First Amendment on his side

It all started with Colin Kaepernick (I had to google his name's spelling and my spell check has underlined it!) but it has spread. Athletes and others are finding ways to make political statements during the playing of The National Anthem.

I've never once put my hand over my heart for the National Anthem though I'm sure I did in grade school when saying the Pledge of Allegiance. It just never occurred to me that a hand over the heart was necessary. But, of course, I stand. I stand out of respect for a country and a flag that has, more often than not, delivered on it's promises to me.

I've never missed a meal except on purpose. I've always felt safe, wherever I was. I've always had everything I've needed and some things I didn't need but 'wanted'. I've never been spoken harshly to by a police officer (well, there was that peace protest or two...but that was part of the reason we were protesting, to be spoken harshly to and, if really lucky, to be arrested!) I walk through 'my' American Life like a kid through a field of 4 leaf clovers. I can, from time to time, resent the super-rich Americans...but who doesn't!

I've blogged again and again about how 'blessed' I am in many more ways than I could ever deserve. Just the facts, Ma'am.

But the First Amendment's promise of 'free speech' and free expression means that if I have not lived the life the Constitution and Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence has promised me, I can speak out about that--literally or symbolically.

And believe you me, I know I'm one of the 'chosen' in all this. I know minorities--racial, cultural, religious minorities--aren't always treated like me and this country hasn't delivered on the American Dream for them.

So, Colin Kaepernick and all the other minority folks who are finding a way to make a statement about the Star Spangled Banner not waving for their people (though for the professional athletes involved, the American Dream is theirs...but not for all their people, not by a long shot.

My pondering is 'should I join them' since 'their people' are 'my people' too--Americans. We are, in all our diversity and perhaps, just perhaps because of our diversity, ONE. Maybe, just maybe, those of us who have been 'blessed' need to identify with and support and 'be One' with those the Dream has left behind and forgot.

Maybe, just maybe, until all of us are truly equal, none of us are 'blessed'.

I'm going to ponder that. You're welcome to ponder it as well.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Colin Kaepernick and his supporters, are pointing a way forward for us ALL.

I'll ponder that greatly and deeply.

a steel cage match might work...

Honestly, the way Clinton and Trump are going after each other I'm beginning to think a steel cage match might work better than debates!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Vice Presidential candidates were supposed to be 'attack dogs' for the head of the ticket. That's the way it's seemed in the past. But not time time. Pence and Kaine are the adults in the room. I almost wish we could flip the tickets and the two of them would be the candidates for the White House.

I can see Pence and Kaine having a real, college level 'debate'. But watching 4 between Clinton and Trump may be more carnage than any of us can stomach.

My primary problem with the way the two of them are railing about each other is that is just making the electorate more and more polarized--and I don't remember us ever being the polarized since Goldwater and Johnson.

The 'moderates' usually decide elections. However, in this campaign it's hard to imagine who those folks might be.

Could we start over and have Biden run on the re-run and have the Republicans figure out how to stop Trump this time around?

Really! I'm a yellow dog Democrat but the curs all seem to be at the top of the tickets....

Brooklyn and back

Going to see Ellie and Mimi and Tim is always an adventure. We went on the train from New Haven to Grand Central and Bern wanted to do an Uber car to Brooklyn. OK, in my mind, Uber officially sucks!

She had our location on her smart phone--42nd and Vanderbilt, on the other side of 42nd from the station and Uber said they'd be there in 9 minutes, then 5, then 3, then 9 again, then 5, then 9 again...on and on for an hour in the heat and humidity of Manhattan. Three cabbies said they didn't go to Brooklyn though they're all supposed to. In near despair we took the 4/5 train to Atlantic Avenue and Tim met us for the 5 minute walk to South Elliot Place.

We had two children and three other granddaughters, so we are not without experience. But to my knowledge, I've never seen a baby like Ellie. She nurses, sleeps and looks around. She seems almost Zen-like in her calmness. Since the day she was born--when she was in a lot of distress--I haven't heard her cry. She gets fussy and Mimi nurses her and she sleeps and then looks around, very interested in sights and sounds. Mimi put her on her stomach on a wonderful cloth with lots of stuff she'll be interested in later, and she turned over onto her back! I've never seen a month old baby who could turn over!

Well, enough. I could go on and on....how Zen-like Mimi and Tim are with her, how lovely she is, how smart and talented she's going to be...grandparent b.s.

The trip home was good. Subway from Atlantic Ave to Grand Central, train to New Haven, home before dark. I let Bern out to go deal with the neglected Puli and went to get a pizza (white pizza with sliced tomatoes and lots of garlic and fresh basil--wonderful) and wine.

I ate a grilled cheese sandwich Mimi made me all day, until the pizza. Bern only ate a banana all day until the pizza. But Ellie is worth half-starving yourself.

She truly is. I kid you not....

But I'm getting too old to go to Brooklyn and back in one day. I truly am. I'm worn out. To bed though it's not 10 p.m. yet....

Going to see Ellie tomorrow

This time we're taking the train to Grand Central and the subway to Brooklyn to spend several hours with Mimi, Tim and Ellie.

For 14 years now, I've referred to "Mimi and Tim", so it is new to include little Ellie--one month old--in the same sentence.

Yet, there they are, waiting for us in Brooklyn tomorrow, their little family--our beloved trio.

What a jarring difference a baby, a granddaughter, makes.

Numbers are expanded. Thoughts are altered. Life changes.

Bern bought Mimi and Tim a red snapper, frozen, that will take along with other food and gifts.

Every year for the past seven, Tim and Mimi have gone to Oak Island with Bern and me and John Anderson and Sherrie Ellis. We usually go this week--Labor Day week. But because of Ellie's pending birth, we put it off to September 17-24, hoping they could come. They don't feel they want to travel--and I don't blame them--so we'll go without them.

Everyone of us are readers and eaters so what we normally do is read and eat. And on the Friday before we leave, Mimi and Tim go to Southport, to where the fishing boats dock, and buy Red Snapper for our last dinner of vacation. Since they won't be there, we'll take the fish to them.

Oak Island is where we went on vacation for about 20 years--before either Josh or Mimi were born until they didn't want to go, even bringing a friend.

Then 8 years ago or so, Mimi called and asked where Oak Island was and we told her. She and Tim went and when they got back they called and said they were going every year and we'd go with them! So, that's what we've done.

Since we go after school starts Josh and Cathy and the girls have never come, but John and Sherrie come (and next year, Sherrie's husband, Jack who is retiring this year). And next year, as well, our new little trio of Mimi, Tim and Ellie. Ellie obviously won't be a reader and she'll distract us joyously from our books. But it will be heaven.

We rent these huge and wonderful houses, right on the ocean and walk and look for shells and read and eat and do nothing much. Just the kind of vacation I'm about....

Humbled, again....

My cousin, Gayle Pugh Keller, sent me a check today that was part of our Aunt Elsie's bequests to her many nieces and nephews. I never dreamt of such generosity or thoughtfulness on the part of my last aunt/uncle to depart this mortal coil.

My Grandmother, on my mother's (and Gayle's) side of the family was Lina Manona Sadler who married Eli Jones. They had 5 children who lived to adulthood and 2 that didn't.

My Grandmother, on my father's side was a McCormick who married a Bradley. They had five children.

Here's the humbling truth--all my twenty aunts and uncles were decent, hard-working, honest, loving people. Everyone in both sides of my family was. All my myriad first cousins were.

Not a 'bad apple' on either tree.

I had an idyllic childhood in a part of the world most people couldn't imagine as being idyllic!

Places like Conklintown, Jenkinjones, Pageton, Anawalt, Princeton, Waiteville--all tucked in the mountains of southern West Virginia, were places where it was safe and nurturing and wondrous to grow up.

That check from Gayle, who was distributing Aunt Elsie's largess to her kin, made me literally weep.

I am often struck by how lucky (or in theological terms: "blessed") I have been. What loving, gentle people raised me.

From beyond the grave, Aunt Elsie's generosity to me--to all the cousins--gives me pause to give thanks for the life I have lived and the people who lived it with me....