Thank you for mentioning this. Many of my fellow Americans need to learn that such civilization is possible. I experienced it in Africa, New Zealand, and, even occasionally, here.
I am so impressed at Colonel Grant's generosity and generosity of spirit to say yes and make it happen, aftter 5 hard-fought years. What an inspiring story to hear on this Easter morning, a part of history I did not know or remember. Thank you so much, Professor.
I remember learning about Grant’s generosity (particularly about “forty acres and a mule”) as a child, but the impact now is much stronger. How sad that the party of Lincoln (and Grant) has stooped so low. To call it “conservative” does a terrible disservice to the word. The Republican Party is currently radical at best, borderline criminal might be more accurate.
I wonder if you remember what 40acres and a mule means to Indigenous Peoples whose land was stolen by the US Govt in dishonest treaties so that white people could have 40 acres and a mule?
If cruelty were criminal...wait! sometimes it is. Can't say I really want us monitored by "morality police". However, it would be a wonderful Easter miracle if the cruel indifference of so many current Republicans could be transformed into compassion.
Sorry to disagree on this April morning, but civility, decency and tolerance for others’ opinions exist every day in these United States (although as I write that last I question whether I am as tolerant of some other views as I should be.). You see it walking down the street, in stores and in factories, in churches p, mosques and synagogues. I’ll bet you see it in your neighbors and co-workers and, I hope, among your friends. It is the secret to democracy, to the United States.
Demo racy rests on opposing sides to agree to disagree peacably by non violent vote counting means, and work bipartisanly where possible. Jon is right though in there being a massive social climate to preserve and promote safety opportunity and mutual service.
Yes. Many regressives are empowered to have very loud mouths and are receiving an out-sized representation in the media, so the US looks worse than it is on a finely granular level. Most Americans are still civil most of the time.
Here in Houston Tx, I am preparing to attend a community of faith that is extremely diverse across race, gender, background. Our cities are diverse and tend toward progressive. Texas, like USA, is currently dominated by the rural and exurban voters whose representatives have been able to establish the rules. But, I have faith.
I'm pretty sure that the majority of people are inclined to be relatively decent to others. There is a minority of true sociopaths. However, we have -- largely through inattention -- bought into a sociopathic system of exchange, which makes functional sociopaths of all of us, whether we want to be, or not. And that system of exchange is called capitalism.
Lan Long ago I experienced years of ‘civilization’ in Egypt, Chile, and the United States. Today I can’t speak for the first two countries, but ‘civilization’ in the United States is definitely an endangered species.
Darwin would be surprised by this reversal of evolution.
Just like kids go through periods of disorganization as they move from one phase of development to another, so do societies. It may look like devolution when we're in it, but I predict that society's response to the MAGAs (and now de Satanists), will result in a much more compassionate, equitable, tolerant society once all the dust settles.
Stephen I was born during the Great Depression. My mother was British so, for us, WW II began in September, 1939. Hope commenced late in 1942 and the sun began to shine for me somewhat later.
I share your faith in hope--witness Abraham Lincoln. Jon Meacham's THE SOUL OF AMERICA records the ups-downs-then ups of our country. So far we have had more ups than downs. My hope is for the country that I wish for my grand kids.
And over 150 years later, it's still the working men and women of America that must win the everlasting battle with wealth and privilege. The 1% and their seditionist and racist allies must still fool the rural poor into supporting them in their battle to own, and dominate the country.
Pope wrote that 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast, man NEVER IS but always TO BE blest.' We must not heed the second part of that rhymed couplet, which perpetually postpones the blessing. (Think of a blessing as a gift, deserved or not, from the Creator.) Pope then continued his thought with these words, 'The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home, rests and expatiates in a life to come,' which seem to suggest religious belief as a way for that hope to be realized. Be that as it may, 'the working men and women of America,' when they cease being duped, can make that hope into a reality.
I have to say that after surviving these last few years, even if I were in the Trump camp or an avowed "I'm above politics" independent, at this point I would be at least curious as to what is actually going on. And I would, like Grant, put on my dirty coat, do my duty as a citizen, AND FIND OUT! The facts have been exposed and proven, it is all right there for anyone who cares to make the effort to see. So American citizens who are still hiding behind their "ignorance" no longer have an excuse. Easter is all about hope and rebirth so today I'm celebrating with hope that those Americans will finally do the work and do the right thing!
My thoughts exactly. This is lesson for today. And yes, it is an everlasting battle because so many with wealth think that somehow that makes them more deserving of what ever is on offer. Last night we were discussing "Justice" Thomas and his dear wealthy friend, a collector of Nazi memorabilia with statues of dictators outside. My neighbor observed that but he was worth billions and I say, he is still a wing nut fascist. And i do wonder if his money is the result of hard work or opportunism and crooked dealings.
According to what I’ve read, Harlan Crow inherited his wealth. No brow sweating for him. His father, Trammel Crow, built an enormous real estate company in Dallas, TX that was once our country’s largest landlord. Harlan took over the company in 1988.
So many champions of hard work and bootstrap-lifting are actually members of the Lucky Sperm Club. Even if they did not inherit great wealth, most were born to circumstances that made success a likely outcome. As the saying goes, "born on third base and think they hit a triple." Except for Donald Trump, who was born on third base and thinks he built the stadium. And invented baseball as well.
Good ole white boy in the early 1900s buys cheap land stolen from Indigenous Peoples from his good ole white boy buddies and accumulates wealth that no other persons other than good ole white boys can. Son take the intergenerational wealth and with the help of his good ole white boy buddies builds an empire of wealth off of the poor and middle class. And those categories have exponentially increased in number for the past 70yrs making this good ole white boy a billionaire which he covets for himself and other 1% ers. Intergenerational avarice, mysogyny, bigotry and hubris on full display.
Although I would not recognize Vaisakhi if I fell over him, the thought of celebration and rebirth is a welcome one. Thank you for sharing Michael. We do ALL need to recognize and embrace each other's cultural roots.
The small Red state Bible Belt town where I now live has a live - & - let - live attitude re Sexual orientation, religious differences, diversity & whatnot, but I suspect that it's largely a facade that the Evangelical conservatives would take GREAT GLEE in tearing to shreds.
Jesus washed his disciples feet, the lowly task of a servant in biblical times. He told them to do as he did and show LOVE to others, that people would know they were his disciples because of the loving ways they acted. I don't see many evangelicals displaying love, which is extending one's self for the wellbeing of another.
I doubt Lee would have been as generous to Grant in surrender as Grant was to him.
People choose the version of a religion that resonates with their psychology. So, those who choose the "vengeful god" version tell us a lot about their unconscious wishes and fears. They then feel free to unleash them on others.
Thank goodness we never had to find out. Yet somehow, the US Army and Congress chose subsequently to venerate the names of Confederate Generals in names of our country's famous military bases like Hood, and AP Hill. Part of the worship of the "Lost Cause" so popular in the 1920s.
SW Some of America’s top West Pointers before the Civil War were southerners. Ditto with the army before WW II. This contributed to the naming of many army bases for Confederate generals.
In retrospect, this seems bizarre—rather like honoring Aron Burr in Alexander Hamilton’s residence.
Only later did I realize the irony of doing Basic Training at a place (Ft. Bragg) that had been named for a man who, a little more than a century before, would have been determined to kill me for wearing a US Army uniform.
I read some historical account of why these bases were named for Confederate Generals. Congress thought it would help Southerners get over their rancor in losing the Civil War. It was thought to be a harmless peace offering.
I suspect that many of these folks have Bibles, coated with THICK layers of dust, cobwebs, dust bunnies, mouse droppings, & other schmutz because they don't read it, & they rely on their pastor for his often erroneous take on the thing.
Oh, they carry it around on Sunday and Wednesday evening, but read it, Never. We even have complaints that Episcopalians, Lutherans, and others that read every Sunday from the common lectionary are not really reading from Scripture because it not from their King James Translation.
They do in fact listen to their pastor in all things political.
My Lutheran pastor of the past never pushed an agenda of any kind, they have a list of things that they dislike / distrust that would stretch from Earth to Saturn & back again, though.
I saw a mixed - race couple a few days ago. & my homecare person's son - African - American - married a girl from Germany. I wonder how they're received here..... & an acquaintance of mine is marrying his partner.
My "son-in-law" is Canadian. I happen to be visiting his (and my daughter's) patch. I am pretty familiar with Vancouver, an excitingly diverse city. Not without it's problems I gather, but I sense a healthy energy there.
I like that sentiment a lot. I remember reading about Albert Einstein saying that he believed in the God of Spinoza. Poor Baruch caught flak for his " heretical " beliefs. But they have value !
Just got off the phone with our son and his family in Waterloo, Ontario. He is a computer science professor at the University of Waterloo. All 4 now have dual US and Canadian citizenship. The youngest grandchild was born there and she is a very proud Canadian, age 14 and the grandson starts at Trinity College at the University of Toronto next fall. Covid push all to complete their efforts to gain Canadian citizenship so they could be sure to be able to return home after visiting family here in the US. Now Waterloo is a University Town but over the years I have been very impressed with how accepting of everyone they are. Like the US they have a terrible history with First Nation folks (Native Americans) but they are working on these issues. Very positive place to live.
Good to hear of your positive experience. I too celebrate spring - by getting my hands into the Earth - planting peas and lettuce today.
But I find Heather's story today to be less than inspiring. I agree that Grant was the class act despite his tattered appearance. The irony is one for the history books. And it was right to feed the Confederate troops.
I highly recommend Ron Chernow's "Grant". The man who gave us "Hamilton" offers a fascinating study of this very flawed but heroic general/president.
My other thought - something that bothers me a lot: Lee was forgiven. Grant set the tone for what I call "the big mistake". Confederate traitors were pardoned and then in a national insult, President Ford signed a bill reinstating Lee's citizenship. Why?
Lee and his band should have spent years in prison. They perpetrated a horrific war against their own country. They were treated too well. Grant was too nice.
Shouldn't there be a severe punishment for treason and murder? Combine this with Nixon's pardon and Gerald Ford comes across to me as a dangerous fool who set the tone for the tolerance of the intolerable acts of national betrayal. No consequences? And look where we are today. A former President who doesn't see a proper precedent of punishment for impunity and treason. A continuing culture of "Confederate worship".
The Civil War was worse than being invaded by an aggressor nation. It was an unforgivable betrayal.
And those who betrayed the Union were mostly forgiven in an effort to negate their secession and officially preserve the Union. Bill is correct in calling the flawed Reconstruction a 'big mistake' in that it allowed the seceding States to return to their antebellum position, with only three Constitutional Amendments standing in their way, obstacles that State governments might find ways to attack.. They're still doing that in Tennessee and elsewhere. In resolving this challenge, we cannot go back 150 years and undo what was done. We must do so by going forward.
I agree. There should have been severe punishment for treason. Confederate senators were allowed back in the Senate post Civil War! It perpetuated the Confederate worship and This IMO set the course for never ridding your country from racism.
Hello Michael! You and yours there in BC are part of what being "Human" truly means and I celebrate all of that which the people of Canada have accomplished.
Tell us more about your joys there. I relish this!
Sandra - After over 4 years of purgatory, we could ALL use more joy, less discord, hatred, unreasoning anger. Unfortunately the Right Wing loves anger & discord, negativity in general.
I still like "when they go low . . ., but also like it when we all work like dogs to do everything everywhere all at once to make sure we get our folks to the polls. It takes a Village and then some!
" To die is nothing, but to live in defeat & without glory is to die daily " - Napoleon.
Will we live in defeat, to be dominated by domestic terrorists & their adrenaline - fueled actions ? We need to act to be rid of the STAIN of right wing zealotry & corruption.
I invoke Napoleon in these moments, even though he was exiled.
Yes, and Vancouver is where great trauma and addiction work has been done because of Gabor Mate and others and where Dr. Vanessa Andreotti is Dean of Ed -- I'm reading her book for the third time, "Hospicing Modernity" -- such important work shifting how we view change and power and environmental realities in a world that's more about metabolisms than it is about hierarchies!
Recent is "The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture", which he wrote with his son. He's effective and causing some hopeful changes.
…and come to New York City folks; The Big Apple 🍎🍏 We are a gorgeous mix of people, neighborhoods, libraries, theaters, museums, music, dance... ALIVE and full of We The People Love!
The conservatives hate unity, multiculturalism, etc. like Dracula hates sunlight, garlic, holy water & crosses. They're not much for reason or rationality, either.
Phil, please bear in mind that it's Not just southern racists; the radical extremists are indeed a multi-faction coalition funded by wanna' be autocrats in the commerce/business community. It's the leadership arms that are the brains and money that should be the bullseye of the target; less so the followers who are misled. Civil war was like that too for the most part.
Yes, D4N, I agree. But let's remember that racism is not only in the south of the U.S., but all over our country. And that's not just the U.S. It's all over the world.
Wholeheartedly agree Richard. I'm on record in this space and others, stating bias in all it's forms, ethnic, gender, etc., pick one, are widespread across our country and world. I've also recently made the statement here and elsewhere that 'most' folks don't know, aren't aware, and have never considered the concept of "inherent bias" - what it is, much less considered self honestly what inherent bias' they might hold themselves.
Indeed. The Confederates of Robert E. Lee carry on across the South, stripping the Emancipated every chance they get, and professors of Civil War history and Reformation failure consistently ignore the exquisite agony of the slave children bought and sold on the Slave Block in towns across the South as they feature the migraine of a drinker after whom a scotch is named and the fancy clothing of a white racist who pulverized his people and others to defend our nation’s original sin.
It was a bad day for a man with a hangover. It was a bad century for the people neither general cared about - and their lives were ignored in the wake of the so-called Reformation by slave lords and white rapists whose legacy persist in DeSantis, Hawkey, Graham and Trump to the delight of Nashville racist whites and their descendants to this day ..
But let’s focus on the clothing of Lee and Grant, not the national sin of slavery and the continuing sin of fascism buried, hidden in our callings in FOX News and white nationalist politics that sicken white American campuses, the House and Senate and States’ governments red and black - as voter suppression and libraries stripped and endowment funds are devoted to protecting our prejudiced rights and freedoms while ignoring and abusing the non-white community across America.
S B Lewis--I hear you. But I cringe at what I perceive to be a disparagement of Professor Richardson for her description and telling of this significant moment in our history. You are a good writer, but I strongly disagree with your implication that HCR is one of the professors who “consistently ignore the exquisite agony of the slave children bought and sold on the Slave Block in towns across the South as they feature the migraine of a drinker after whom a scotch is named and the fancy clothing of a white racist who pulverized his people and others to defend our nation’s original sin.”
We learn--anything we learn--in manageable parts. This letter does that for me in a way that lets me see the picture bigger. What you say is ignored, she attends other days. I didn’t have her for my history teacher when I was young, but I am grateful to have her now.
I liked this Community so much better when I didn't have to see Sandy's daily misogynistic and repetitive comments about the author of the Letter. Regardless of the Letters content, he always was disparaging about Heather. Sandy why don't you just start your own Substack . You can write everyday about how much you don't like Heather, Boston College, Exeter School and your other constant talking points.
Sandy is part of the soul of this substack. Life has vitriol as well as poetry here. His is the jab in the butt that reminds us we have a long long long way to go. You and I Linda will not live to see it happen. Heather understands and so should we.
Pat I would have to disagree. I have been in this Community since pretty much the beginning. Never did I see fit to personally degrade Heather. I never saw it proper to state without substance what Heather does with her money. I would never associate what Boston College does as policy to Heather. Nor would I ever degrade her Education or professional standing.
He can go on and on about what he thinks makes the world go round.
The line in the sand is drawn when he personally degrades Heather for attention. I won't have it.
'The line in the sand...I won't have it.' I felt aggression in your words, Linda. It appeared to me a reflection of the hatred that is storming us. Knowing of the centuries of exploitation, oppression and murder of innocent people by the US and personally witnessing such sins against humanity effects us all. Balance is sometimes very difficult to achieve, particularly when you draw a line in the sand with someone you find fault with.
I did not realize that this was that Sandy Lewis who changed his name. Actually, I had always thought that that Sandy was female and bitter because of the successes of Heather.
Part of the problem, part of the solution: which are you :: which is HCR? Racism is ubiquitous. Fight it with everything you’ve got, or cave in. Boston College is clearly part of something that will NOT solve the problem: Dear Heather is Boston College professor of history. She’s not Professor Tim Snyder. Cannot speak from the same pulpit. Knows dates and dogma. Ignores what matters. As do ALL university presidents today. Fascism is quiet till the blood flows, till the lynching begins... Intolerance is SOP in admissions offices everywhere. And all know that.
SB Lewis, what is your real beef? Is it simply that because she teaches at Boston College or is it that she hasn’t Tim Snyder’s background in horror (Russian prison camps, etc.)? I have followed Professor Snyder since 2010 and learning American history since 1940. Both historians have their style, but I find not
Virginia My response to SB Lewis is PSHAW. Some of his posts I find interesting. However, his elitist disparaging of Heather I find disgraceful. Perhaps I have the elitist credentials that SB glorifies: Yale, Penn, MIT and a book that garnered the prime review in The Economist.
Heather’s scholarship is marvelous, as evidenced in her LIAA and her highly regarded books. That she is a professor at Boston College I find irrelevant.
My dear friend David McCullough won two Pulitzers and only taught a single course for a semester. [He was a classmate of mine at Yale.]
I discovered Professor Snyder in 2011 when I read BLOODLANDS. It was magnificent and obliged me to recast my teaching of the Holocaust (I was a history professor 1992-2013). Since then I have followed him on NY Review of Books, his book on tyranny, and his Substack blog.
I place Heather and Snyder in my Pantheon of Great Historians. I would also include James Fallows, another must read Substacker. I first discovered Fallows at The Washington Monthly about 1969. I neither know nor care about his ‘elitist’ pedigree. His books have been excellent.
SB Lewis can not hold an historical candle to Richardson, Snyder, or Fallows.
You made me smile. Spent half my life in academia, know the ruffling feathers, one-point-of-view crowd. “Bloodlands” was also my introduction to Timothy Snyder, whose appearance at the Chicago Humanities Festival was a continuation. I cherish him and HCR for different reasons, but their devotion to democracy is the same and both are proving it in these turbulent times.
True historians are never part of a problem or part of a solution. True historians do not take sides. it is not the right of a historian to take a side. It is the duty of a historian to give an honest account of moments in history for future generations to determine actions to take.
You make good points about the reality of yesterday and today. But as you are a regular reader of HCR, your attack on this one weekend produced letter seems odd at best. You know where the Professor comes from, what she teaches, what she writes books about and the positions she takes in all these letters.
Perhaps you could write your own letters almost every day, teach history courses, and write acclaimed books. Be sure to include all the horrors of the nation in each letter. We'll be anxious to read them.
Our "teacher" took the time on a Saturday night to make a simple ironic observation. I don't understand your mission here.
What a comedown! What a bucket of water over what HCR wrote above about Grant. You manage to miss the positive, the lesson, you are so sunk in the negative, the sour mood of now. Grant was an extraordinary leader who knew that feeding the starving Southern troops would help to bring them, hopefully the South, around, and might change their hearts. This was the next battle- one fought by Grant's example of good will after defeat. After all this was a battle for the soul of the nation, not for the North. This is still the battle. Republicans have yet to be defeated and to surrender. I don't even know if they know what they are fighting for, or as the hoisted MTG says, a divorce. We are still in a civil war battle with the remnants.Typing at home doesn't do it. This foul sentiment and this woeful response is well dispersed enough to keep fissures and wounds bleed bright red in these channels. Some healing gestures might work. Biden at least is trying.And the rest? It's "us and them" and complaints furthering that and that's what sells and gets "likes". There is a time to lay down arms to at least wish for healing, something better, at least for a moment!
If you have read all of Dr. Richardson’s Letters, you know that all these issues get addressed, in a daily topic with a narrow focus. If you have not read the rest of these Letters, please go back and read them all. I expect you will begin to feel as grateful as many of us do, for her erudition and dedication to this project, which has grown far beyond what she expected. That said, I know people (cowboys, mainly, all male) who say I was born 150 years too late. That was a bad century for almost everyone.
Those who choose the sword must surely realize that a step back upon occasion is both welcome and necessary. Thank you Sandy for your pain. As I have been stabbed multiple times I came to realize the best swordsmen know when to leave their blade sheathed. And when to brandish.
'I have never been a big fan of hope. It’s a demanding emotion that insists on changing you. Hope pulls you out of yourself and into the world, forcing you to believe more is possible. Hate is a much less insistent master; it asks you only to loathe. It is quite happy to have you to itself and doesn’t ask you to go anywhere.'
'Growing up poor provided me with plenty of opportunities to wallow in that much less complex feeling. I hated drug dealers because I had addicts in my family. I knew they could afford Air Jordans, and I could not because my father visited the dealers on payday before he came home to us. When we wound up on government assistance, I detested the people I heard on talk radio who spoke about families like mine as the epitome of what was wrong with America. I abhorred the pastors I saw on television telling broke Black folks like me that a blessing was on the way if we just sent in $99.95. They treated faith like a spiritual lottery, and the chances of winning were about as likely as hitting the million-dollar jackpot. I was a person of few years and many resentments.'
'But it wasn’t just the ugly things that I rejected; I despised beautiful ones as well. At school when teachers tried to help us with inspirational speeches about the power of our minds and our potential to be more than athletes or criminals, we often mocked them. How dare they interrupt our despair with hope?'
'This tendency to reject beautiful things might explain why I have always felt sympathy for Judas. As a teenager, during Bible study class when other people spoke glowingly about mighty David or Moses, I pondered the tragedy of Judas. Known to history as the paradigmatic betrayer, Judas was the disciple who, for 30 pieces of silver, sold out Jesus by leading soldiers to where he was the night before he was crucified.'
'But what if Judas grew up on the rough-and-tumble side of Judea, where boots of Roman soldiers marching through his neighborhood filled him with rage and fear? What if he experienced the violent anti-Judaism the occupying force consistently inflicted upon his people? As a child of the South, from Northwest Huntsville, Ala., I know ways in which constant oppression can make pragmatism and self-preservation seem like the only realistic options.'
'For someone like Judas, Jesus offered the dangerous kind of hope that might have challenged him to relinquish his hostilities and reawaken that thing he had long since given up, the belief in the possibility that things might be different. That could explain why he agreed to betray Jesus. Betrayal was his chance to return to the safety and dependability of hopelessness.'
'Among the many times I rejected beauty in my teenage years, one day sticks out. My friends and I were sitting in a class with one of the instructors who didn’t transfer out of our district when things got hard and violence surged. That day we were in rare form, cracking more than the usual amount of jokes about her, interrupting her lecture. We also began a particularly intense game of trash can basketball with paper balls flying from all over the classroom. The more she tried to ignore us and continue, the more we wanted to break her.'
'After class, I saw her out in the hall, visibly troubled, steadying herself for the next group of kids. I remember walking away with my classmates, pretending to celebrate our victory — but a part of me knew that we had lost much more than we had gained. We had risked driving away someone whose only flaw was to care.'
'Isn’t it easier to believe that everyone who loves us has some secret agenda? That racism will forever block the creation of what Martin Luther King Jr. called the beloved community? That the gun lobby will always overwhelm every attempt at reform? That poverty is a fact of human existence? Despair allows us to give up our resistance and rest awhile.'
'The tragedy of Judas’s story is that his despair never let him go. The gospel accounts tell us that after betraying Jesus, he killed himself. I do not know many people who have committed suicide, but lots of people from my neighborhood quit on life. Convinced by our shared traumas that their story was over, they let drugs or the streets take them. I have never thought of myself as better than them. I simply was lucky that the vices I turned to in my wandering years did not ruin me.'
'In the gospel stories, Jesus overflows with forgiveness. On the cross, one of the last things he said was a plea that God forgive those who crucified him. After the resurrection, he forgives Peter and the other disciples.'
'His generosity has been a great cheer to all of us misfits who have faltered in our time of testing. The only better story of redemption I can imagine would have been the reconciliation of Judas the Betrayer and Jesus. I am confident Jesus would have forgiven Judas. But in the narrative Judas dies before Jesus rises from the dead. If only Judas had lived a little longer to find that the beautiful thing he tried to destroy was not so easily vanquished.'
'That indestructibility of hope might be the central and most radical claim of Easter — that three days after Jesus was killed, he returned to his disciples physically and that made all the difference. Easter, then, is a not metaphor for new beginnings; it is about encountering the person who, despite every disappointment we experience with ourselves and with the world, gives us a reason to carry on.'
'So this Easter I will make my way with my family to the South Side of Chicago, to that congregation that serves as our church home. I will do my best to join in the songs of celebration, not because I no longer feel the darkness that has marked so much of my journey, but because sometimes I still do.' (NYTimes, OPINION by Esau McCaulley.
'He is a contributing Opinion writer and an associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. He is theologian in residence at Progressive Baptist Church, a historically Black congregation in Chicago and author of the forthcoming memoir “How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South.”
Thank you, Fern, for sharing Esau McCaulley's poignant and powerful treasure with us tonight . . . "Despair allows us to give up our resistance and rest awhile." Evocative of Langston Hughes,' 1922 poem, "Mother to Son": This is not the time to give in to despair--not the time to quit climbing. "Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Wonderful reminder, Daniel. Even after the tremendous losses of the Civil War, for some it still rages on. As you shared the truest and saddest line, Langston Hughes tells us “America never was America to me….” Is that what the courageous protesters In Nashville are fighting to change? In 2023?
Luv ya right back, Al, Kathy, and all of my fellow travelers with HCR.
As one who sometimes lets my fingers trip too long over the light fantastic of the keyboard in this space, I truly ppreciate the conversations and the community.
Fortunately, and without intention, I just began reading his, 'On Hope, Hate and the Most Radical Claim of the Easter Season'. I am not Christian, so it was simply curiosity that led me to him. Your words, Joanne, echo my feelings. Mr. McCaulley's message took me where I needed to go.
Being secular, I would not have been drawn to an Easter essay either, and only began it because I respect and learn so much from your posts. So thank you for letting us benefit from your curiosity. I have copied this, will read again, and share with my Granddaughter.
Fern and Joanne, thank you for your poetry and story. Metaphors can be instructive and subtle or occasionally hit us over the head, as Emily Dickinson wrote. And then about Hope. We want to Hope. But it is fleeting, yet stubborn enough to stay with us when we need it most.
Christ shows more, infinitely more than how we should be. He shows us the ultimate, the innermost truth of what, beyond countless layers of all that we are not, WE ARE.
Hi Fern. It’s with trepidation that My question is put to you. You know I am a Denison of the barn so light my lantern (enlighten me). It is my understanding that Christianity was born in the heart of Judaism. No?
Greetings, Pat. I feel trepidation as well when it comes to speaking in depth about religion. Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish preacher and religious leader. It is sensible for me to stop here. There are differences of opinion between denominations in both Judaism and Christianity. 'The most important distinction is Christian acceptance and Jewish non-acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah prophesized in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition.'
Wish I could be more informative, but it is a tangled web from my point of view, and there are a several momentous challenges, including Climate Change and the survival of Democracy that we are in the middle of.
Thank you, Fern, for sharing this message of hope. When my friends suggest giving up because racism continues, I point out that there were a precious few white people marching in Selma and contrast that picture with the ones marching for George Floyd.
Thank you so much for this, Fern. How I love your posts on HCR's and the others we follow together. They always make me reach out farther in understanding. So many lovely, important things I have not read. You have pointed me in many directions of discovery. Peaceful blessings and gratitude.
Excellent insight into not only the problems of today's society, but also the socioeconomic factors that might have played a part in our Lord's Passion and the catalysts involved in His death and Resurrection!!
Thanks Fern. Mr. McCaulley is, of coarse, right. Hope does require us to participate in the world as it is, while also seeing beyond it, sometimes all the way to a blessed community. It requires effort and gritty realism, and it can transform us into beings able to do things far beyond our normal capabilities.
Despair, though requiring much less effort, is much more expensive. It says simultaneously "nothing can be done, and you dare not look". Despair locks us in place, shrinks us into beings unable even to see the simple beauty of those around us. Isolated and alone, we lose our connections one by one, until it seems like the world really is a dismal, awful place that can be bought and sold for 30 pieces of silver. This is a lie. Judas believed it, was shrunken into suicide, unable to see he had already been forgiven. Easter has never been about the crucifixion, it has always been about the resurrection. Happy Easter.
Steve Abbott, you spark a thought in my mind right now. Judas, as Mr. MacCaulley describes, may hold a very powerful message for us as we push ourselves to stay politically active, engaged, and hopeful in these horribly disorienting Mindf*ck times. Perhaps Judas couldn’t imagine things ending well. He had clear, pragmatic reasons for thinking that. But the greatest truth that Judas -as well as we - often forget is : It’s not about us. Truth, Justice, Civility, Love are greater than us. We can work in its rhythms and find meaning and blessings but we will never possess it.
Steve, you touch my heart as does Esau McCaulley. I have been struggling for a while to recover hope, and there have been sparks to light the embers. Mr. McCaulley's call went all the way to my soul. So good to see you, Steve. Peace and love to you and your family.
Powerful, powerful piece. Thank you so much for sharing, Fern, especially on Easter. I'm visiting my 96 yr old father (retired minister) and haven't had a chance to read the NYT the last few days. I'll share this with him. Speaks to the basis of faith and hope we know. The thing I always admired about my Dad and his preacher friends is that they have always had a context of reality, and rooted in faith and hope. There was something very special about this group that I have always treasured. Thank you again.
Greetings, Melinda. Mr. McCaulley's essay was in yesterday's paper. In the future, there are three ways that I am aware of to check; one way would be to Google the writer's name, another would be to check on the paper's Opinion listing and a third way would be to enter his name and or the title of the Opinion on the paper's 'Search' option. The link to McCaulley's essay is below. I do not have the gifting option until the 17th of the month. If you subscribe to The New Times, this link will work.
As a Civil War nerd, I sincerely appreciate your distillation of 4 years of war and death and devastation into the critical difference between the two sides - people who worked for themselves vs. people who owned people to work for them. Thank you.
It’s ironic but historically southern white folk still revere Lee and hate Grant. I spent many years in Virginia politics and served as the most liberal member of the Virginia legislature and there is no doubt that those imaginary allegiances are still observed. What we see today in Tennessee probably would not happen in Virginia but certainly overt racism is part of the Republican playbook everywhere in the South as their strategists know how to get their votes. It is all coming to a major showdown and Biden will act forcefully as he should but add this dichotomy to abortion, assault weapons and fair elections as the critical issues to save our democracy in November 24! It’s all on the line then folks so open your checkbook, register GenZ nonpartisan with Harvard students’ help at www.turnup.us and volunteer to turn out the biggest vote in America’s history! No going back! No sitting still! No complacency! It’s on US to get it done!
LBJ once said “ If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
If you feel that everyone is pitying you and you can convince yourself that someone is lower, then you may do everything in your power to keep him lower.
Ira Lechner: Absolutely! And we can use the same Ashford and Simpson tune that inspired us to "Get Up and Do Something" in 1978! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft-fs1TKsSA
Thanks, Ira, for your interest! Here are my two current title:
"A VICTORY FOR MIRIAM: The Little Jewish Girl Who Defied the Nazis"
"WOMEN OF VALOR: Polish Jewish Resisters to the Third Reich." I hope you find either/both to be of value. Please don't hesitate to contact with comments or questions.
Consider the contrast between how Lincoln, Grant, and the North in general treated the South and how vanquished traitors in other countries have been treated throughout history. Rather than acknowledge their great fortune at not being the target of wholesale retribution, the South continued (and continues to this day) to do whatever it could to sabotage the American experiment.
South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and sadly, my state of North Carolina. These were the states that made up the CSA.
My apologies. I was mistakenly thinking of Texas as a Western state and including the Border State Missouri (a slave state that did not secede from the Union.)
Perhaps lin is referring to Arizona (which is considered a southwestern state):
“The Arizona Territory voted to join the Confederacy in March 1861, but it wasn’t until 1862 that the territorial government got around to officially proclaiming it part of the Confederate States of America.
“Several battles took place within the territory, and in 1863, Confederate forces were vanquished from the Arizona Territory, which was claimed as Union and then split into two territories, the second being the New Mexico Territory.”
Thanks for this. I wasn’t aware of this twist. For some reason I thought there were still too many Native tribes to worry about without taking on Union forces.
Let's not forget the Southern Baptist Church, which broke away from the Baptist Churches in order to be a force for advocating slavery.
As the saying goes, the apple never falls to far from the tree:
I quote from Wikipedia, "On May 22, 2022, Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the SBC's executive committee, released a report detailing that SBC leaders had stonewalled and disparaged clergy sex abuse survivors for nearly two decades.[15] The report alleged that nearly all efforts at reform had met with criticism and dismissal from other organization leaders." Ah yes - the Southern Baptist Church is the largest church in the world...
Hardly, compared to the Catholic Church, which has its own problems with sexual predators. The problem is that Christianity is threatened by the divine feminine.
Yeah, but the "whore" was a wealthy woman, Mary of Magdala, who was one of several women who funded Jesus ministry - she could have been Jesus' wife or partner. It was Pope Gregory in the 590s, who proclaimed her a whore, probably to belittle her, whose name appears more times than any of the disciples. Such interesting ways the church belittled women as soon as they got the opportunity. We'll never know, but there is a beautiful church in France which, according to the church, holds her relics. I was there several years ago. Maybe one of you knows where it is. If it interests anyone, the Gnostic Gospels are worth reading.
When my husband received his law degree from University of Texas, we moved to Houston. There is a mega baptist church there that we would call ¨the church that annexed Houston¨. And now I see what was once that stadium for the Rockets and ice shows has become a circus space for a PT Barnum.
TX has threatened to secede repeatedly. If they ( & some other red states ) did so, the next natural disaster, they'd likely come to demand help that they didn't deserve nor earn.
My young Dutch cousin spent a semester in Richmond and was incredulous at the array of Confederate statues back then. He remarked at the comparative absence of Nazi statues in Germany and the effectiveess of denazification there. Tne union lost interest in its postwar project while the lost cause rose again. Reminds me to get Heather's bok on this topic. Yes there are seditionists everywhere but where would that movement br without the South?
Thanks Professor. Just what we needed to end this week, a great history lesson to remind us that every tomorrow we get up and get to work. Happy Easter to all.
I truly do believe we will win this battle, I really do. Getting up every morning, putting on my old sweat pants and telling myself that today is a new day in which to excel! We can do this! Onward!
We hard working common folk need to take a day off from work and get rid of the lying politicians who steal from us, send our kids to war (George W. Bush), make profits off of killing our kids, deny us our votes, force women into unwanted or unhealthy pregnancies, and spread hate and their hypocritical values. Now!
Why wouldn't they? The Union (a.k.a. UpSouth) welcomed the 1861 insurrectionists with open arms. The Confederates have yet to be held accountable for their insurrection.
I actually figured it out Jeri. If you have it coming, take it. If the perpetrator is a predator, bombs away. What is this silly cheek crap. I mean what do you think would happen if you slapped a 250 lb. Cretin? I mean if violence is so bad then don’t violate me. Easy Peasey.
Echoes have rippled through time and land on this era’s shores. Clearly it was more than 25,000 mouths to feed but all those of the heirs of the Confederate ancestors who are now mostly poor and still hungry. This is timely, and The Democrats and Biden Administration should be planning provisions for The Southerners and them of theirs flung abroad in red rivulets (Idaho, pockets of California), Wyoming etc.... because it is their soul hunger, the hungry ghosts of hate built on fear that needs to be sated lest they swell into the new state militias in the works....
Tina, "The Democrats and Biden Administration should be planning provisions for The Southerners and them of theirs flung abroad in red rivulets"
They (Democrats and Biden) have been doing exactly as you state in their administration thus far. In fact, Biden and McConnel met at a bridge that now exists because of the infrastructure spending in Kentucky.
The problem is not that Biden and the Democrats have not passed one bill after another to help America.
It is that Fox News, OAN, and other propaganda outlets funded by far right fascists never report on those achievements so the acolytes of hate (folks in the south) never learn about them mostly because....
Mike S, well-articulated. Along this line of the story about the weary Union soldiers (or their general Grant) unhesitatingly sharing rations for the 10s of thousands of Confederate troops who had the day before been trying to kill them I wonder at the parallel with the vast majority of red states which currently bring home vastly more federal dollars than they contribute while simultaneously decrying "socialism" or "the welfare state" and doing all they can to disrupt and destroy the very hand which has been feeding them. Perhaps repeated reminders of the extent of their "feeding" by Biden's terrible "socialist" government might make some headway toward accepting that we are all truly in this together.
I wholly concur with our colleague in HCRdom Joanne Gilbert, in lauding your lovely and insightful turn of phrase, "..the hungry ghosts of hate built on fear that needs to be sated lest they swell into the new state militias in the works.."
The fear of the different, the fear of the new, the fear of the odd, the fear of the few.
Or as James Baldwin famously said,
"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense,
once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain"
Within a few years of the end of the terrible Civil War of which Heather wrote tonight, a prominent Union general under Grant whose scorched earth tactics in the Shenendoah Valley constituted a major factor in bringing Lee to Wilmer McLean's farm in Appomattox, was assigned (because even then, one war seems to bleed into another) to the Great Plains to "pacify" the Indians. In so doing, he was attributed to have stated the phrase, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian". If he did in fact say that, Phil Sheridan uttered that phrase not too far from traditional Shoshone territory.
I do not know enough about him to opine fully, but I do not think it unfair to assume that as a West Point graduate, General Sheridan was educated enough to know of the overwhelming contributions of a young Shoshone woman to the amazing expansion of the American Republic, from Atlantic coastal to North American continental. It is no exaggeration to say that the saga of Sacagawea is in many ways indispensable to the saga of America herself. Without her fierce love and unfettered courage, Lewis and Clark, the intrepid explorers assigned by the Sage of Monticello himself to basically FIGURE OUT EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT WHOLE WESTERN HALF OF THE CONTINENT THAT WE JUST BOUGHT CHEAP FROM THAT SHORT CORSICAN DUDE, would have been lost to history.
Yet half a century after she led white men on the continent for the first time to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, American generals are laying waste to Indigenous People's lands, resources and lives.
I agree with billboards. Targeted well, such as in MTG’s area etc. If people do not feel a lightening of their load (which less face it is mostly financial- except for the rabid anti-abortion religious nutjobs) and also not have it connected directly in easy to understand language who brought this to them and how, it wont work.
Thanks for this trip back to another April, in another time, where there was similar conflict. I'm also glad you took an early evening two nights in a row.
Happy Easter! Thanks for the reminder of where we been, and where we seem to be heading. I take a bit of hope that our country has been divided before & the union held. May we all remember the important lessons we have learned so painfully & find a common humanity that we can begin to heal the rifts.
Thank you for sharing the reality of war. All the death, dying and destruction and still the South needed the North to feed their hungry soldiers. And they did without question. Some states are still in the mental state of battle. Blue and Red. Democrats and republicans. Justice and injustice. Ask the people in Tennessee if they approve of the Tennessee Three, Democrats, voted in by the people, two Black men, expelled and a third a white Woman, not expelled, by House vote, missing expulsion by one vote. Protesting for pro-gun control reform on the House floor, after six people including three children were murdered in a school shooting at a Christian School in Nashville. Vice President Harris made a surprise trip to Nashville and said, “it wasn’t about these three leaders- it was about what they were representing, …It’s about whose voices they were channeling. Is that not what a Democracy allows?” And wasn’t it also about racism and skin color? Still fighting the Civil War.
Inspiring and revealing history. Thank you.
On another note, I write from Vancouver, BC. It’s where people and cultures from around world exist in peace and are celebrated.
It’s halftime at a soccer match and Indian women are dancing on the field to recognize Vaisakhi, the start of Spring. Everyone is cheering.
Thank you for mentioning this. Many of my fellow Americans need to learn that such civilization is possible. I experienced it in Africa, New Zealand, and, even occasionally, here.
I am so impressed at Colonel Grant's generosity and generosity of spirit to say yes and make it happen, aftter 5 hard-fought years. What an inspiring story to hear on this Easter morning, a part of history I did not know or remember. Thank you so much, Professor.
Let's let Lieutenant General Grant have his well-earned rank.
Can't imagine trying to fight a battle while having a migraine!
I remember learning about Grant’s generosity (particularly about “forty acres and a mule”) as a child, but the impact now is much stronger. How sad that the party of Lincoln (and Grant) has stooped so low. To call it “conservative” does a terrible disservice to the word. The Republican Party is currently radical at best, borderline criminal might be more accurate.
I wonder if you remember what 40acres and a mule means to Indigenous Peoples whose land was stolen by the US Govt in dishonest treaties so that white people could have 40 acres and a mule?
If cruelty were criminal...wait! sometimes it is. Can't say I really want us monitored by "morality police". However, it would be a wonderful Easter miracle if the cruel indifference of so many current Republicans could be transformed into compassion.
I remember this story dearly. It’s one of HCR’s favorite! 🙏🏽
It was absolutely the uplifting story we needed to hear again; very moving.
Here ? I thought that civility, reason, polite dissent / discourse, etc. had been put on the endangered species list, at least in the States.
Sorry to disagree on this April morning, but civility, decency and tolerance for others’ opinions exist every day in these United States (although as I write that last I question whether I am as tolerant of some other views as I should be.). You see it walking down the street, in stores and in factories, in churches p, mosques and synagogues. I’ll bet you see it in your neighbors and co-workers and, I hope, among your friends. It is the secret to democracy, to the United States.
Demo racy rests on opposing sides to agree to disagree peacably by non violent vote counting means, and work bipartisanly where possible. Jon is right though in there being a massive social climate to preserve and promote safety opportunity and mutual service.
Yes. Many regressives are empowered to have very loud mouths and are receiving an out-sized representation in the media, so the US looks worse than it is on a finely granular level. Most Americans are still civil most of the time.
In Texas, sadly
Here in Houston Tx, I am preparing to attend a community of faith that is extremely diverse across race, gender, background. Our cities are diverse and tend toward progressive. Texas, like USA, is currently dominated by the rural and exurban voters whose representatives have been able to establish the rules. But, I have faith.
Same here.
Oy.
I'm pretty sure that the majority of people are inclined to be relatively decent to others. There is a minority of true sociopaths. However, we have -- largely through inattention -- bought into a sociopathic system of exchange, which makes functional sociopaths of all of us, whether we want to be, or not. And that system of exchange is called capitalism.
Here's an interesting example of someone who's been fighting the good fight in Wisconsin, realizing that he also needs to rethink how he advocates for social equity - Kirk Bangstad, Minocqua Brewing Company: https://minocquabrewingcompany.com/blogs/news/hate-is-too-great-a-burden-to-bear
I really enjoyed reading this thank you for sharing.
Not everywhere, though we seem to be fighting a rearguard action. A small ray of hope and optimism: https://downeast.com/travel-outdoors/what-every-would-be-mainer-must-know/
WWWCD ? What Would Winston Churchill Do ?
Lan Long ago I experienced years of ‘civilization’ in Egypt, Chile, and the United States. Today I can’t speak for the first two countries, but ‘civilization’ in the United States is definitely an endangered species.
Darwin would be surprised by this reversal of evolution.
Just like kids go through periods of disorganization as they move from one phase of development to another, so do societies. It may look like devolution when we're in it, but I predict that society's response to the MAGAs (and now de Satanists), will result in a much more compassionate, equitable, tolerant society once all the dust settles.
Stephen I was born during the Great Depression. My mother was British so, for us, WW II began in September, 1939. Hope commenced late in 1942 and the sun began to shine for me somewhat later.
I share your faith in hope--witness Abraham Lincoln. Jon Meacham's THE SOUL OF AMERICA records the ups-downs-then ups of our country. So far we have had more ups than downs. My hope is for the country that I wish for my grand kids.
And over 150 years later, it's still the working men and women of America that must win the everlasting battle with wealth and privilege. The 1% and their seditionist and racist allies must still fool the rural poor into supporting them in their battle to own, and dominate the country.
Yet, as Alexander Pope would write; "Hope Springs Eternal". Happy Easter!
Pope wrote that 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast, man NEVER IS but always TO BE blest.' We must not heed the second part of that rhymed couplet, which perpetually postpones the blessing. (Think of a blessing as a gift, deserved or not, from the Creator.) Pope then continued his thought with these words, 'The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home, rests and expatiates in a life to come,' which seem to suggest religious belief as a way for that hope to be realized. Be that as it may, 'the working men and women of America,' when they cease being duped, can make that hope into a reality.
When they cease being duped...
I have to say that after surviving these last few years, even if I were in the Trump camp or an avowed "I'm above politics" independent, at this point I would be at least curious as to what is actually going on. And I would, like Grant, put on my dirty coat, do my duty as a citizen, AND FIND OUT! The facts have been exposed and proven, it is all right there for anyone who cares to make the effort to see. So American citizens who are still hiding behind their "ignorance" no longer have an excuse. Easter is all about hope and rebirth so today I'm celebrating with hope that those Americans will finally do the work and do the right thing!
My thoughts exactly. This is lesson for today. And yes, it is an everlasting battle because so many with wealth think that somehow that makes them more deserving of what ever is on offer. Last night we were discussing "Justice" Thomas and his dear wealthy friend, a collector of Nazi memorabilia with statues of dictators outside. My neighbor observed that but he was worth billions and I say, he is still a wing nut fascist. And i do wonder if his money is the result of hard work or opportunism and crooked dealings.
According to what I’ve read, Harlan Crow inherited his wealth. No brow sweating for him. His father, Trammel Crow, built an enormous real estate company in Dallas, TX that was once our country’s largest landlord. Harlan took over the company in 1988.
So many champions of hard work and bootstrap-lifting are actually members of the Lucky Sperm Club. Even if they did not inherit great wealth, most were born to circumstances that made success a likely outcome. As the saying goes, "born on third base and think they hit a triple." Except for Donald Trump, who was born on third base and thinks he built the stadium. And invented baseball as well.
Good ole white boy in the early 1900s buys cheap land stolen from Indigenous Peoples from his good ole white boy buddies and accumulates wealth that no other persons other than good ole white boys can. Son take the intergenerational wealth and with the help of his good ole white boy buddies builds an empire of wealth off of the poor and middle class. And those categories have exponentially increased in number for the past 70yrs making this good ole white boy a billionaire which he covets for himself and other 1% ers. Intergenerational avarice, mysogyny, bigotry and hubris on full display.
I wondered if he had inherited it.
Thank you, TMD. Real estate tycoons loom large in the US currently.
Ugh!
Powerful comment there, Craig!
Excellent observation!
Although I would not recognize Vaisakhi if I fell over him, the thought of celebration and rebirth is a welcome one. Thank you for sharing Michael. We do ALL need to recognize and embrace each other's cultural roots.
The small Red state Bible Belt town where I now live has a live - & - let - live attitude re Sexual orientation, religious differences, diversity & whatnot, but I suspect that it's largely a facade that the Evangelical conservatives would take GREAT GLEE in tearing to shreds.
I suspect there's a chasm between the teachings of Jesus and the leanings of your local evangelical leaders, if pressed.
Jesus washed his disciples feet, the lowly task of a servant in biblical times. He told them to do as he did and show LOVE to others, that people would know they were his disciples because of the loving ways they acted. I don't see many evangelicals displaying love, which is extending one's self for the wellbeing of another.
I doubt Lee would have been as generous to Grant in surrender as Grant was to him.
People choose the version of a religion that resonates with their psychology. So, those who choose the "vengeful god" version tell us a lot about their unconscious wishes and fears. They then feel free to unleash them on others.
Thank goodness we never had to find out. Yet somehow, the US Army and Congress chose subsequently to venerate the names of Confederate Generals in names of our country's famous military bases like Hood, and AP Hill. Part of the worship of the "Lost Cause" so popular in the 1920s.
SW Some of America’s top West Pointers before the Civil War were southerners. Ditto with the army before WW II. This contributed to the naming of many army bases for Confederate generals.
In retrospect, this seems bizarre—rather like honoring Aron Burr in Alexander Hamilton’s residence.
Only later did I realize the irony of doing Basic Training at a place (Ft. Bragg) that had been named for a man who, a little more than a century before, would have been determined to kill me for wearing a US Army uniform.
I read some historical account of why these bases were named for Confederate Generals. Congress thought it would help Southerners get over their rancor in losing the Civil War. It was thought to be a harmless peace offering.
Refer to the influence, popularity, and acceptance of the KKK then prevalent.
I suspect that many of these folks have Bibles, coated with THICK layers of dust, cobwebs, dust bunnies, mouse droppings, & other schmutz because they don't read it, & they rely on their pastor for his often erroneous take on the thing.
Oh, they carry it around on Sunday and Wednesday evening, but read it, Never. We even have complaints that Episcopalians, Lutherans, and others that read every Sunday from the common lectionary are not really reading from Scripture because it not from their King James Translation.
They do in fact listen to their pastor in all things political.
My Lutheran pastor of the past never pushed an agenda of any kind, they have a list of things that they dislike / distrust that would stretch from Earth to Saturn & back again, though.
Far too many evangelical leaders are disciples of Jeepers.
More like disciples of Mammon. Serving 2 masters = NO BUENO.
As wide and as deep as the Grand Canyon.
Lets hope that they do not get their desires for your community granted. I for one know some really good people who quietly thrive in red areas.
But they are outnumbered in places with which I am familiar
Yes out numbered but never "Out souled!"
I saw a mixed - race couple a few days ago. & my homecare person's son - African - American - married a girl from Germany. I wonder how they're received here..... & an acquaintance of mine is marrying his partner.
Besides, it’s simply joyful!
Vaisajki is what I’m talking about here.
My "son-in-law" is Canadian. I happen to be visiting his (and my daughter's) patch. I am pretty familiar with Vancouver, an excitingly diverse city. Not without it's problems I gather, but I sense a healthy energy there.
We could take LESSONS from them in the Disunited States of America.
Hope springs eternal Daniel as it surely must!
AMEN TO THAT, Al - from an extremely - lapsed S. Baptist / Episcopalian / Lutheran !
I have tried most of them and found joy with much of religion in general only as it pertains to people of today whom I met along that path.
Joy is the secret no matter how you are introduced to it.
I like that sentiment a lot. I remember reading about Albert Einstein saying that he believed in the God of Spinoza. Poor Baruch caught flak for his " heretical " beliefs. But they have value !
Just got off the phone with our son and his family in Waterloo, Ontario. He is a computer science professor at the University of Waterloo. All 4 now have dual US and Canadian citizenship. The youngest grandchild was born there and she is a very proud Canadian, age 14 and the grandson starts at Trinity College at the University of Toronto next fall. Covid push all to complete their efforts to gain Canadian citizenship so they could be sure to be able to return home after visiting family here in the US. Now Waterloo is a University Town but over the years I have been very impressed with how accepting of everyone they are. Like the US they have a terrible history with First Nation folks (Native Americans) but they are working on these issues. Very positive place to live.
Good to hear of your positive experience. I too celebrate spring - by getting my hands into the Earth - planting peas and lettuce today.
But I find Heather's story today to be less than inspiring. I agree that Grant was the class act despite his tattered appearance. The irony is one for the history books. And it was right to feed the Confederate troops.
I highly recommend Ron Chernow's "Grant". The man who gave us "Hamilton" offers a fascinating study of this very flawed but heroic general/president.
My other thought - something that bothers me a lot: Lee was forgiven. Grant set the tone for what I call "the big mistake". Confederate traitors were pardoned and then in a national insult, President Ford signed a bill reinstating Lee's citizenship. Why?
Lee and his band should have spent years in prison. They perpetrated a horrific war against their own country. They were treated too well. Grant was too nice.
Shouldn't there be a severe punishment for treason and murder? Combine this with Nixon's pardon and Gerald Ford comes across to me as a dangerous fool who set the tone for the tolerance of the intolerable acts of national betrayal. No consequences? And look where we are today. A former President who doesn't see a proper precedent of punishment for impunity and treason. A continuing culture of "Confederate worship".
The Civil War was worse than being invaded by an aggressor nation. It was an unforgivable betrayal.
And those who betrayed the Union were mostly forgiven in an effort to negate their secession and officially preserve the Union. Bill is correct in calling the flawed Reconstruction a 'big mistake' in that it allowed the seceding States to return to their antebellum position, with only three Constitutional Amendments standing in their way, obstacles that State governments might find ways to attack.. They're still doing that in Tennessee and elsewhere. In resolving this challenge, we cannot go back 150 years and undo what was done. We must do so by going forward.
I agree. There should have been severe punishment for treason. Confederate senators were allowed back in the Senate post Civil War! It perpetuated the Confederate worship and This IMO set the course for never ridding your country from racism.
Hello Michael! You and yours there in BC are part of what being "Human" truly means and I celebrate all of that which the people of Canada have accomplished.
Tell us more about your joys there. I relish this!
Love the word "relish" so much, filled with joy!
Sandra - After over 4 years of purgatory, we could ALL use more joy, less discord, hatred, unreasoning anger. Unfortunately the Right Wing loves anger & discord, negativity in general.
I still like "when they go low . . ., but also like it when we all work like dogs to do everything everywhere all at once to make sure we get our folks to the polls. It takes a Village and then some!
" To die is nothing, but to live in defeat & without glory is to die daily " - Napoleon.
Will we live in defeat, to be dominated by domestic terrorists & their adrenaline - fueled actions ? We need to act to be rid of the STAIN of right wing zealotry & corruption.
I invoke Napoleon in these moments, even though he was exiled.
Yes, and Vancouver is where great trauma and addiction work has been done because of Gabor Mate and others and where Dr. Vanessa Andreotti is Dean of Ed -- I'm reading her book for the third time, "Hospicing Modernity" -- such important work shifting how we view change and power and environmental realities in a world that's more about metabolisms than it is about hierarchies!
Thank you Joan - I am not familiar with this author but this will be the next book I’ll read.
Loved Dr. Mate’s book, “In The Realm of Friendly Ghosts,” he gave me hope.
Recent is "The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture", which he wrote with his son. He's effective and causing some hopeful changes.
Thank you so much. I love this.
…and come to New York City folks; The Big Apple 🍎🍏 We are a gorgeous mix of people, neighborhoods, libraries, theaters, museums, music, dance... ALIVE and full of We The People Love!
NY NY! My kind of town! My sister has lived in Manhattan for 40 years. We must get together whenever I go back, Fern.
Yes.
The conservatives hate unity, multiculturalism, etc. like Dracula hates sunlight, garlic, holy water & crosses. They're not much for reason or rationality, either.
I miss it a lot.
Over my 76 years, I have lived in a number of diverse, peaceful and intelligent places in the United States. I call these places... pockets of sanity.
Yes. Diversity is not a threat, if only those fearful people would give it a try.
If only the confederates would consider surrendering again to cure our collective headache.
Phil, please bear in mind that it's Not just southern racists; the radical extremists are indeed a multi-faction coalition funded by wanna' be autocrats in the commerce/business community. It's the leadership arms that are the brains and money that should be the bullseye of the target; less so the followers who are misled. Civil war was like that too for the most part.
Of course. I didn't specify the South. There are seditionists everywhere.
Yes, D4N, I agree. But let's remember that racism is not only in the south of the U.S., but all over our country. And that's not just the U.S. It's all over the world.
Wholeheartedly agree Richard. I'm on record in this space and others, stating bias in all it's forms, ethnic, gender, etc., pick one, are widespread across our country and world. I've also recently made the statement here and elsewhere that 'most' folks don't know, aren't aware, and have never considered the concept of "inherent bias" - what it is, much less considered self honestly what inherent bias' they might hold themselves.
It's all over the world, like Putin invading the Ukraine & threaten other nations, like threaten to bomb Stonehenge. He's BS INSANE.
Indeed. The Confederates of Robert E. Lee carry on across the South, stripping the Emancipated every chance they get, and professors of Civil War history and Reformation failure consistently ignore the exquisite agony of the slave children bought and sold on the Slave Block in towns across the South as they feature the migraine of a drinker after whom a scotch is named and the fancy clothing of a white racist who pulverized his people and others to defend our nation’s original sin.
It was a bad day for a man with a hangover. It was a bad century for the people neither general cared about - and their lives were ignored in the wake of the so-called Reformation by slave lords and white rapists whose legacy persist in DeSantis, Hawkey, Graham and Trump to the delight of Nashville racist whites and their descendants to this day ..
But let’s focus on the clothing of Lee and Grant, not the national sin of slavery and the continuing sin of fascism buried, hidden in our callings in FOX News and white nationalist politics that sicken white American campuses, the House and Senate and States’ governments red and black - as voter suppression and libraries stripped and endowment funds are devoted to protecting our prejudiced rights and freedoms while ignoring and abusing the non-white community across America.
S B Lewis--I hear you. But I cringe at what I perceive to be a disparagement of Professor Richardson for her description and telling of this significant moment in our history. You are a good writer, but I strongly disagree with your implication that HCR is one of the professors who “consistently ignore the exquisite agony of the slave children bought and sold on the Slave Block in towns across the South as they feature the migraine of a drinker after whom a scotch is named and the fancy clothing of a white racist who pulverized his people and others to defend our nation’s original sin.”
We learn--anything we learn--in manageable parts. This letter does that for me in a way that lets me see the picture bigger. What you say is ignored, she attends other days. I didn’t have her for my history teacher when I was young, but I am grateful to have her now.
I liked this Community so much better when I didn't have to see Sandy's daily misogynistic and repetitive comments about the author of the Letter. Regardless of the Letters content, he always was disparaging about Heather. Sandy why don't you just start your own Substack . You can write everyday about how much you don't like Heather, Boston College, Exeter School and your other constant talking points.
Sandy is part of the soul of this substack. Life has vitriol as well as poetry here. His is the jab in the butt that reminds us we have a long long long way to go. You and I Linda will not live to see it happen. Heather understands and so should we.
Pat I would have to disagree. I have been in this Community since pretty much the beginning. Never did I see fit to personally degrade Heather. I never saw it proper to state without substance what Heather does with her money. I would never associate what Boston College does as policy to Heather. Nor would I ever degrade her Education or professional standing.
He can go on and on about what he thinks makes the world go round.
The line in the sand is drawn when he personally degrades Heather for attention. I won't have it.
Comprende
'The line in the sand...I won't have it.' I felt aggression in your words, Linda. It appeared to me a reflection of the hatred that is storming us. Knowing of the centuries of exploitation, oppression and murder of innocent people by the US and personally witnessing such sins against humanity effects us all. Balance is sometimes very difficult to achieve, particularly when you draw a line in the sand with someone you find fault with.
I did not realize that this was that Sandy Lewis who changed his name. Actually, I had always thought that that Sandy was female and bitter because of the successes of Heather.
Dear Linda, my sympathies. Sandy
Cringe? You’re not affected by the issue.
I cringe, here.
Sorry. ...I find both historians useful, each in a different way.
Part of the problem, part of the solution: which are you :: which is HCR? Racism is ubiquitous. Fight it with everything you’ve got, or cave in. Boston College is clearly part of something that will NOT solve the problem: Dear Heather is Boston College professor of history. She’s not Professor Tim Snyder. Cannot speak from the same pulpit. Knows dates and dogma. Ignores what matters. As do ALL university presidents today. Fascism is quiet till the blood flows, till the lynching begins... Intolerance is SOP in admissions offices everywhere. And all know that.
SB Lewis, what is your real beef? Is it simply that because she teaches at Boston College or is it that she hasn’t Tim Snyder’s background in horror (Russian prison camps, etc.)? I have followed Professor Snyder since 2010 and learning American history since 1940. Both historians have their style, but I find not
Virginia My response to SB Lewis is PSHAW. Some of his posts I find interesting. However, his elitist disparaging of Heather I find disgraceful. Perhaps I have the elitist credentials that SB glorifies: Yale, Penn, MIT and a book that garnered the prime review in The Economist.
Heather’s scholarship is marvelous, as evidenced in her LIAA and her highly regarded books. That she is a professor at Boston College I find irrelevant.
My dear friend David McCullough won two Pulitzers and only taught a single course for a semester. [He was a classmate of mine at Yale.]
I discovered Professor Snyder in 2011 when I read BLOODLANDS. It was magnificent and obliged me to recast my teaching of the Holocaust (I was a history professor 1992-2013). Since then I have followed him on NY Review of Books, his book on tyranny, and his Substack blog.
I place Heather and Snyder in my Pantheon of Great Historians. I would also include James Fallows, another must read Substacker. I first discovered Fallows at The Washington Monthly about 1969. I neither know nor care about his ‘elitist’ pedigree. His books have been excellent.
SB Lewis can not hold an historical candle to Richardson, Snyder, or Fallows.
Again PSHAW.
You made me smile. Spent half my life in academia, know the ruffling feathers, one-point-of-view crowd. “Bloodlands” was also my introduction to Timothy Snyder, whose appearance at the Chicago Humanities Festival was a continuation. I cherish him and HCR for different reasons, but their devotion to democracy is the same and both are proving it in these turbulent times.
Thank you for PSHAW!
True historians are never part of a problem or part of a solution. True historians do not take sides. it is not the right of a historian to take a side. It is the duty of a historian to give an honest account of moments in history for future generations to determine actions to take.
SB,
You make good points about the reality of yesterday and today. But as you are a regular reader of HCR, your attack on this one weekend produced letter seems odd at best. You know where the Professor comes from, what she teaches, what she writes books about and the positions she takes in all these letters.
Perhaps you could write your own letters almost every day, teach history courses, and write acclaimed books. Be sure to include all the horrors of the nation in each letter. We'll be anxious to read them.
Our "teacher" took the time on a Saturday night to make a simple ironic observation. I don't understand your mission here.
'Lighten up, just enjoy life, smile more, laugh more, and don't get so worked up about things.'
Kenneth Branagh
Nice quote, Fern!
Wake up, walk the dog, grab a coffee. Read, get worked up. Vent a bit. Feel better after joining the national conversation and blowing off some steam.
Then I have a wonderful day, Just about every day. Hope you do, as well.
Sometimes a rebuke prolongs the sour taste. Cheers, Bill!
What a comedown! What a bucket of water over what HCR wrote above about Grant. You manage to miss the positive, the lesson, you are so sunk in the negative, the sour mood of now. Grant was an extraordinary leader who knew that feeding the starving Southern troops would help to bring them, hopefully the South, around, and might change their hearts. This was the next battle- one fought by Grant's example of good will after defeat. After all this was a battle for the soul of the nation, not for the North. This is still the battle. Republicans have yet to be defeated and to surrender. I don't even know if they know what they are fighting for, or as the hoisted MTG says, a divorce. We are still in a civil war battle with the remnants.Typing at home doesn't do it. This foul sentiment and this woeful response is well dispersed enough to keep fissures and wounds bleed bright red in these channels. Some healing gestures might work. Biden at least is trying.And the rest? It's "us and them" and complaints furthering that and that's what sells and gets "likes". There is a time to lay down arms to at least wish for healing, something better, at least for a moment!
If you have read all of Dr. Richardson’s Letters, you know that all these issues get addressed, in a daily topic with a narrow focus. If you have not read the rest of these Letters, please go back and read them all. I expect you will begin to feel as grateful as many of us do, for her erudition and dedication to this project, which has grown far beyond what she expected. That said, I know people (cowboys, mainly, all male) who say I was born 150 years too late. That was a bad century for almost everyone.
Those who choose the sword must surely realize that a step back upon occasion is both welcome and necessary. Thank you Sandy for your pain. As I have been stabbed multiple times I came to realize the best swordsmen know when to leave their blade sheathed. And when to brandish.
Spot on.
Have you read a biography of Grant or his autobiography, or are you simply a teetotaling reformer bent on insuring that all people live a dry life?
Your writing has changed from the stream of consciousness style. I appreciate it.
Or at least remember history as it was, not as it is easier for them to believe it was.
Amen!
'I have never been a big fan of hope. It’s a demanding emotion that insists on changing you. Hope pulls you out of yourself and into the world, forcing you to believe more is possible. Hate is a much less insistent master; it asks you only to loathe. It is quite happy to have you to itself and doesn’t ask you to go anywhere.'
'Growing up poor provided me with plenty of opportunities to wallow in that much less complex feeling. I hated drug dealers because I had addicts in my family. I knew they could afford Air Jordans, and I could not because my father visited the dealers on payday before he came home to us. When we wound up on government assistance, I detested the people I heard on talk radio who spoke about families like mine as the epitome of what was wrong with America. I abhorred the pastors I saw on television telling broke Black folks like me that a blessing was on the way if we just sent in $99.95. They treated faith like a spiritual lottery, and the chances of winning were about as likely as hitting the million-dollar jackpot. I was a person of few years and many resentments.'
'But it wasn’t just the ugly things that I rejected; I despised beautiful ones as well. At school when teachers tried to help us with inspirational speeches about the power of our minds and our potential to be more than athletes or criminals, we often mocked them. How dare they interrupt our despair with hope?'
'This tendency to reject beautiful things might explain why I have always felt sympathy for Judas. As a teenager, during Bible study class when other people spoke glowingly about mighty David or Moses, I pondered the tragedy of Judas. Known to history as the paradigmatic betrayer, Judas was the disciple who, for 30 pieces of silver, sold out Jesus by leading soldiers to where he was the night before he was crucified.'
'But what if Judas grew up on the rough-and-tumble side of Judea, where boots of Roman soldiers marching through his neighborhood filled him with rage and fear? What if he experienced the violent anti-Judaism the occupying force consistently inflicted upon his people? As a child of the South, from Northwest Huntsville, Ala., I know ways in which constant oppression can make pragmatism and self-preservation seem like the only realistic options.'
'For someone like Judas, Jesus offered the dangerous kind of hope that might have challenged him to relinquish his hostilities and reawaken that thing he had long since given up, the belief in the possibility that things might be different. That could explain why he agreed to betray Jesus. Betrayal was his chance to return to the safety and dependability of hopelessness.'
'Among the many times I rejected beauty in my teenage years, one day sticks out. My friends and I were sitting in a class with one of the instructors who didn’t transfer out of our district when things got hard and violence surged. That day we were in rare form, cracking more than the usual amount of jokes about her, interrupting her lecture. We also began a particularly intense game of trash can basketball with paper balls flying from all over the classroom. The more she tried to ignore us and continue, the more we wanted to break her.'
'After class, I saw her out in the hall, visibly troubled, steadying herself for the next group of kids. I remember walking away with my classmates, pretending to celebrate our victory — but a part of me knew that we had lost much more than we had gained. We had risked driving away someone whose only flaw was to care.'
'Isn’t it easier to believe that everyone who loves us has some secret agenda? That racism will forever block the creation of what Martin Luther King Jr. called the beloved community? That the gun lobby will always overwhelm every attempt at reform? That poverty is a fact of human existence? Despair allows us to give up our resistance and rest awhile.'
'The tragedy of Judas’s story is that his despair never let him go. The gospel accounts tell us that after betraying Jesus, he killed himself. I do not know many people who have committed suicide, but lots of people from my neighborhood quit on life. Convinced by our shared traumas that their story was over, they let drugs or the streets take them. I have never thought of myself as better than them. I simply was lucky that the vices I turned to in my wandering years did not ruin me.'
'In the gospel stories, Jesus overflows with forgiveness. On the cross, one of the last things he said was a plea that God forgive those who crucified him. After the resurrection, he forgives Peter and the other disciples.'
'His generosity has been a great cheer to all of us misfits who have faltered in our time of testing. The only better story of redemption I can imagine would have been the reconciliation of Judas the Betrayer and Jesus. I am confident Jesus would have forgiven Judas. But in the narrative Judas dies before Jesus rises from the dead. If only Judas had lived a little longer to find that the beautiful thing he tried to destroy was not so easily vanquished.'
'That indestructibility of hope might be the central and most radical claim of Easter — that three days after Jesus was killed, he returned to his disciples physically and that made all the difference. Easter, then, is a not metaphor for new beginnings; it is about encountering the person who, despite every disappointment we experience with ourselves and with the world, gives us a reason to carry on.'
'So this Easter I will make my way with my family to the South Side of Chicago, to that congregation that serves as our church home. I will do my best to join in the songs of celebration, not because I no longer feel the darkness that has marked so much of my journey, but because sometimes I still do.' (NYTimes, OPINION by Esau McCaulley.
'He is a contributing Opinion writer and an associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. He is theologian in residence at Progressive Baptist Church, a historically Black congregation in Chicago and author of the forthcoming memoir “How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South.”
Thank you, Fern, for sharing Esau McCaulley's poignant and powerful treasure with us tonight . . . "Despair allows us to give up our resistance and rest awhile." Evocative of Langston Hughes,' 1922 poem, "Mother to Son": This is not the time to give in to despair--not the time to quit climbing. "Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair."
Lovely, Joanne!
One of the greatest poetic stanzas in our history belongs to the turbulently talented soul of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes--
"O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!"
Wonderful reminder, Daniel. Even after the tremendous losses of the Civil War, for some it still rages on. As you shared the truest and saddest line, Langston Hughes tells us “America never was America to me….” Is that what the courageous protesters In Nashville are fighting to change? In 2023?
I think so, Irenie. Thank you for your thoughts, and Happy Easter/Pesach/Eid/Spring!!
These writers all is exactly why I love Substack and will not leave all the while I depart Meta and Twitter.
The thoughts are beautiful here and though I do not always agree I love all who write here!
Thank you
Luv ya right back, Al, Kathy, and all of my fellow travelers with HCR.
As one who sometimes lets my fingers trip too long over the light fantastic of the keyboard in this space, I truly ppreciate the conversations and the community.
Happy Easter to All!
DANNY
Me too.
🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
Fortunately, and without intention, I just began reading his, 'On Hope, Hate and the Most Radical Claim of the Easter Season'. I am not Christian, so it was simply curiosity that led me to him. Your words, Joanne, echo my feelings. Mr. McCaulley's message took me where I needed to go.
Being secular, I would not have been drawn to an Easter essay either, and only began it because I respect and learn so much from your posts. So thank you for letting us benefit from your curiosity. I have copied this, will read again, and share with my Granddaughter.
Fern and Joanne, thank you for your poetry and story. Metaphors can be instructive and subtle or occasionally hit us over the head, as Emily Dickinson wrote. And then about Hope. We want to Hope. But it is fleeting, yet stubborn enough to stay with us when we need it most.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
BY EMILY DICKINSON
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.”
Christ shows more, infinitely more than how we should be. He shows us the ultimate, the innermost truth of what, beyond countless layers of all that we are not, WE ARE.
Hi Fern. It’s with trepidation that My question is put to you. You know I am a Denison of the barn so light my lantern (enlighten me). It is my understanding that Christianity was born in the heart of Judaism. No?
Greetings, Pat. I feel trepidation as well when it comes to speaking in depth about religion. Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish preacher and religious leader. It is sensible for me to stop here. There are differences of opinion between denominations in both Judaism and Christianity. 'The most important distinction is Christian acceptance and Jewish non-acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah prophesized in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition.'
Wish I could be more informative, but it is a tangled web from my point of view, and there are a several momentous challenges, including Climate Change and the survival of Democracy that we are in the middle of.
Happy Easter, friend.
Thank you. I really liked the short version. E. Pluribus Unum
Thank you, Fern, for sharing this message of hope. When my friends suggest giving up because racism continues, I point out that there were a precious few white people marching in Selma and contrast that picture with the ones marching for George Floyd.
Yes! The message of truth and justice has grown in spite of the hate and darkness .
Thank you so much for this, Fern. How I love your posts on HCR's and the others we follow together. They always make me reach out farther in understanding. So many lovely, important things I have not read. You have pointed me in many directions of discovery. Peaceful blessings and gratitude.
Dear Tamera, your encouragement brightens our days. Peaceful blessings and gratitude to you and your loved ones.
Excellent insight into not only the problems of today's society, but also the socioeconomic factors that might have played a part in our Lord's Passion and the catalysts involved in His death and Resurrection!!
Thanks for sharing 👍
Thanks Fern. Mr. McCaulley is, of coarse, right. Hope does require us to participate in the world as it is, while also seeing beyond it, sometimes all the way to a blessed community. It requires effort and gritty realism, and it can transform us into beings able to do things far beyond our normal capabilities.
Despair, though requiring much less effort, is much more expensive. It says simultaneously "nothing can be done, and you dare not look". Despair locks us in place, shrinks us into beings unable even to see the simple beauty of those around us. Isolated and alone, we lose our connections one by one, until it seems like the world really is a dismal, awful place that can be bought and sold for 30 pieces of silver. This is a lie. Judas believed it, was shrunken into suicide, unable to see he had already been forgiven. Easter has never been about the crucifixion, it has always been about the resurrection. Happy Easter.
Steve Abbott, you spark a thought in my mind right now. Judas, as Mr. MacCaulley describes, may hold a very powerful message for us as we push ourselves to stay politically active, engaged, and hopeful in these horribly disorienting Mindf*ck times. Perhaps Judas couldn’t imagine things ending well. He had clear, pragmatic reasons for thinking that. But the greatest truth that Judas -as well as we - often forget is : It’s not about us. Truth, Justice, Civility, Love are greater than us. We can work in its rhythms and find meaning and blessings but we will never possess it.
Steve, you touch my heart as does Esau McCaulley. I have been struggling for a while to recover hope, and there have been sparks to light the embers. Mr. McCaulley's call went all the way to my soul. So good to see you, Steve. Peace and love to you and your family.
Powerful, powerful piece. Thank you so much for sharing, Fern, especially on Easter. I'm visiting my 96 yr old father (retired minister) and haven't had a chance to read the NYT the last few days. I'll share this with him. Speaks to the basis of faith and hope we know. The thing I always admired about my Dad and his preacher friends is that they have always had a context of reality, and rooted in faith and hope. There was something very special about this group that I have always treasured. Thank you again.
Thank you, Fern, for sharing this.
Fern, I can't find the McCaulley essay in the NYTimes. At least not today. Is it from an earlier time? Thank you for posting it here.
Greetings, Melinda. Mr. McCaulley's essay was in yesterday's paper. In the future, there are three ways that I am aware of to check; one way would be to Google the writer's name, another would be to check on the paper's Opinion listing and a third way would be to enter his name and or the title of the Opinion on the paper's 'Search' option. The link to McCaulley's essay is below. I do not have the gifting option until the 17th of the month. If you subscribe to The New Times, this link will work.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/opinion/easter-jesus-judas-hope.html
FERN MCBRIDE (NYC) "If you subscribe to The New Times, this link will work."
If you don't subscribe:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/opinion/easter-jesus-judas-hope.html?unlocked_article_code=tAGMDXGM1ewqj48VZgxliqAIuO8qKUGuFsNO5JNNOfz6D-7LcmtYOT9QWBWP2oOYW5dN7-GevN874r0NBu-n3RuCZ5LMoq2zvJyWGpDLJcZABJPv8D9EylJs_mwBonOjs7n90SNG9-wtl7VaqzfIHtcd8564hTyMPRnb37bSC-rBaei6pyzyAAoTlcwM92qTKY-LCCOR7mX0CdBfoxn6bkzpGrEPka5Jd266wNeAWnNIEbsl10igN0xWiWMhhF8xHjfIChiOWE6M9ax727A-foCgKA-lHJoBPYL7Qi_jsuidwdqrhrUX88e7lz_R2gOfZFAiZvpimCCx4W1vwiL-seo&smid=url-share
Bless you, brother. 💓🌿
Appreciate it, Ron.
Thank you. I tried those ways to find McCaulley's essay and couldn't, for some reason. No problem now. I do subscribe to the NYT.
As a Civil War nerd, I sincerely appreciate your distillation of 4 years of war and death and devastation into the critical difference between the two sides - people who worked for themselves vs. people who owned people to work for them. Thank you.
And too many would have that two tiered society back again.
Sad but very true.
Unfortunately I find that I must agree.
It’s ironic but historically southern white folk still revere Lee and hate Grant. I spent many years in Virginia politics and served as the most liberal member of the Virginia legislature and there is no doubt that those imaginary allegiances are still observed. What we see today in Tennessee probably would not happen in Virginia but certainly overt racism is part of the Republican playbook everywhere in the South as their strategists know how to get their votes. It is all coming to a major showdown and Biden will act forcefully as he should but add this dichotomy to abortion, assault weapons and fair elections as the critical issues to save our democracy in November 24! It’s all on the line then folks so open your checkbook, register GenZ nonpartisan with Harvard students’ help at www.turnup.us and volunteer to turn out the biggest vote in America’s history! No going back! No sitting still! No complacency! It’s on US to get it done!
LBJ once said “ If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
If you feel that everyone is pitying you and you can convince yourself that someone is lower, then you may do everything in your power to keep him lower.
Love this quote, LBJ knew of what he spoke
My mother said this very same thing just in different words. That was about 55 years ago.
"Caste"
True!
And never forget that Lyndon Johnson started out as a poor schoolteacher in poor school in (south?) Texas.
Ira Lechner: Absolutely! And we can use the same Ashford and Simpson tune that inspired us to "Get Up and Do Something" in 1978! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft-fs1TKsSA
Still got to remember to order your book “The Little Jewish Girl Who Defied the Nazis”
Thanks, Ira, for your interest! Here are my two current title:
"A VICTORY FOR MIRIAM: The Little Jewish Girl Who Defied the Nazis"
"WOMEN OF VALOR: Polish Jewish Resisters to the Third Reich." I hope you find either/both to be of value. Please don't hesitate to contact with comments or questions.
Consider the contrast between how Lincoln, Grant, and the North in general treated the South and how vanquished traitors in other countries have been treated throughout history. Rather than acknowledge their great fortune at not being the target of wholesale retribution, the South continued (and continues to this day) to do whatever it could to sabotage the American experiment.
Not all Confederate states were in the South.
South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and sadly, my state of North Carolina. These were the states that made up the CSA.
My apologies. I was mistakenly thinking of Texas as a Western state and including the Border State Missouri (a slave state that did not secede from the Union.)
Really? Which states aren’t in the south?
Perhaps lin is referring to Arizona (which is considered a southwestern state):
“The Arizona Territory voted to join the Confederacy in March 1861, but it wasn’t until 1862 that the territorial government got around to officially proclaiming it part of the Confederate States of America.
“Several battles took place within the territory, and in 1863, Confederate forces were vanquished from the Arizona Territory, which was claimed as Union and then split into two territories, the second being the New Mexico Territory.”
https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/confederate-states-of-america#
Thanks for this. I wasn’t aware of this twist. For some reason I thought there were still too many Native tribes to worry about without taking on Union forces.
Let's not forget the Southern Baptist Church, which broke away from the Baptist Churches in order to be a force for advocating slavery.
As the saying goes, the apple never falls to far from the tree:
I quote from Wikipedia, "On May 22, 2022, Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the SBC's executive committee, released a report detailing that SBC leaders had stonewalled and disparaged clergy sex abuse survivors for nearly two decades.[15] The report alleged that nearly all efforts at reform had met with criticism and dismissal from other organization leaders." Ah yes - the Southern Baptist Church is the largest church in the world...
Hardly, compared to the Catholic Church, which has its own problems with sexual predators. The problem is that Christianity is threatened by the divine feminine.
Two Marys. One a virgin. One a whore.
Yeah, but the "whore" was a wealthy woman, Mary of Magdala, who was one of several women who funded Jesus ministry - she could have been Jesus' wife or partner. It was Pope Gregory in the 590s, who proclaimed her a whore, probably to belittle her, whose name appears more times than any of the disciples. Such interesting ways the church belittled women as soon as they got the opportunity. We'll never know, but there is a beautiful church in France which, according to the church, holds her relics. I was there several years ago. Maybe one of you knows where it is. If it interests anyone, the Gnostic Gospels are worth reading.
When my husband received his law degree from University of Texas, we moved to Houston. There is a mega baptist church there that we would call ¨the church that annexed Houston¨. And now I see what was once that stadium for the Rockets and ice shows has become a circus space for a PT Barnum.
As an ex-Houstonian, I am sickened by the Pharisees who blather prosperity ministry. Just another word for greedy bastards.
And those who so willfully believe them and in them.
TX has threatened to secede repeatedly. If they ( & some other red states ) did so, the next natural disaster, they'd likely come to demand help that they didn't deserve nor earn.
My young Dutch cousin spent a semester in Richmond and was incredulous at the array of Confederate statues back then. He remarked at the comparative absence of Nazi statues in Germany and the effectiveess of denazification there. Tne union lost interest in its postwar project while the lost cause rose again. Reminds me to get Heather's bok on this topic. Yes there are seditionists everywhere but where would that movement br without the South?
I was in the Air Force in 1964 in Biloxi, Ms and they were still fighting the civil war.
The South call the Civil War “The War of Northern Aggression. p”
Thanks Professor. Just what we needed to end this week, a great history lesson to remind us that every tomorrow we get up and get to work. Happy Easter to all.
I truly do believe we will win this battle, I really do. Getting up every morning, putting on my old sweat pants and telling myself that today is a new day in which to excel! We can do this! Onward!
🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
We hard working common folk need to take a day off from work and get rid of the lying politicians who steal from us, send our kids to war (George W. Bush), make profits off of killing our kids, deny us our votes, force women into unwanted or unhealthy pregnancies, and spread hate and their hypocritical values. Now!
Not much has changed. The Confederates are still bragging about how much better they are than the rest of us while picking our pockets.
And they still like to wear flashy uniforms.
Why wouldn't they? The Union (a.k.a. UpSouth) welcomed the 1861 insurrectionists with open arms. The Confederates have yet to be held accountable for their insurrection.
Dems are still refusing to make evil pay. Turn the other cheek is killing us…
I actually figured it out Jeri. If you have it coming, take it. If the perpetrator is a predator, bombs away. What is this silly cheek crap. I mean what do you think would happen if you slapped a 250 lb. Cretin? I mean if violence is so bad then don’t violate me. Easy Peasey.
Haw!
What a great history lesson. Thank you!
And also a great life lesson as well.
Echoes have rippled through time and land on this era’s shores. Clearly it was more than 25,000 mouths to feed but all those of the heirs of the Confederate ancestors who are now mostly poor and still hungry. This is timely, and The Democrats and Biden Administration should be planning provisions for The Southerners and them of theirs flung abroad in red rivulets (Idaho, pockets of California), Wyoming etc.... because it is their soul hunger, the hungry ghosts of hate built on fear that needs to be sated lest they swell into the new state militias in the works....
Tina, "The Democrats and Biden Administration should be planning provisions for The Southerners and them of theirs flung abroad in red rivulets"
They (Democrats and Biden) have been doing exactly as you state in their administration thus far. In fact, Biden and McConnel met at a bridge that now exists because of the infrastructure spending in Kentucky.
The problem is not that Biden and the Democrats have not passed one bill after another to help America.
It is that Fox News, OAN, and other propaganda outlets funded by far right fascists never report on those achievements so the acolytes of hate (folks in the south) never learn about them mostly because....
those folks are not trying to learn the truth.
Mike S, well-articulated. Along this line of the story about the weary Union soldiers (or their general Grant) unhesitatingly sharing rations for the 10s of thousands of Confederate troops who had the day before been trying to kill them I wonder at the parallel with the vast majority of red states which currently bring home vastly more federal dollars than they contribute while simultaneously decrying "socialism" or "the welfare state" and doing all they can to disrupt and destroy the very hand which has been feeding them. Perhaps repeated reminders of the extent of their "feeding" by Biden's terrible "socialist" government might make some headway toward accepting that we are all truly in this together.
Good point, John!!
They are trying NOT to learn the truth
Excellent, Tina!
I wholly concur with our colleague in HCRdom Joanne Gilbert, in lauding your lovely and insightful turn of phrase, "..the hungry ghosts of hate built on fear that needs to be sated lest they swell into the new state militias in the works.."
The fear of the different, the fear of the new, the fear of the odd, the fear of the few.
Or as James Baldwin famously said,
"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense,
once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain"
Within a few years of the end of the terrible Civil War of which Heather wrote tonight, a prominent Union general under Grant whose scorched earth tactics in the Shenendoah Valley constituted a major factor in bringing Lee to Wilmer McLean's farm in Appomattox, was assigned (because even then, one war seems to bleed into another) to the Great Plains to "pacify" the Indians. In so doing, he was attributed to have stated the phrase, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian". If he did in fact say that, Phil Sheridan uttered that phrase not too far from traditional Shoshone territory.
I do not know enough about him to opine fully, but I do not think it unfair to assume that as a West Point graduate, General Sheridan was educated enough to know of the overwhelming contributions of a young Shoshone woman to the amazing expansion of the American Republic, from Atlantic coastal to North American continental. It is no exaggeration to say that the saga of Sacagawea is in many ways indispensable to the saga of America herself. Without her fierce love and unfettered courage, Lewis and Clark, the intrepid explorers assigned by the Sage of Monticello himself to basically FIGURE OUT EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT WHOLE WESTERN HALF OF THE CONTINENT THAT WE JUST BOUGHT CHEAP FROM THAT SHORT CORSICAN DUDE, would have been lost to history.
Yet half a century after she led white men on the continent for the first time to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, American generals are laying waste to Indigenous People's lands, resources and lives.
Hungry ghosts of hate, dealing with pain,.....
And so it goes.
Tina: So beautifully conceived and written. ". . . soul hunger, the hungry ghosts of hate built on fear that needs to be sated . . ."
Hungry ghosts of hate
Their fear needs to be sated
Tragedy for all
Indeed a tragedy for all
Beautifully said. It seems to me he is trying mighty but getting no acknowledgement of it in those places. I wonder what it takes to break through?
Does anyone else remember the billboards during the construction of the interstate highway system constructed under LBJ? "90 percent federal funds?"
I agree with billboards. Targeted well, such as in MTG’s area etc. If people do not feel a lightening of their load (which less face it is mostly financial- except for the rabid anti-abortion religious nutjobs) and also not have it connected directly in easy to understand language who brought this to them and how, it wont work.
Thanks for this trip back to another April, in another time, where there was similar conflict. I'm also glad you took an early evening two nights in a row.
ditto
Happy Easter! Thanks for the reminder of where we been, and where we seem to be heading. I take a bit of hope that our country has been divided before & the union held. May we all remember the important lessons we have learned so painfully & find a common humanity that we can begin to heal the rifts.
and teach them to our children and grandchildren who must then teach them. Stories have been lost along the history highway.
Thank you for sharing the reality of war. All the death, dying and destruction and still the South needed the North to feed their hungry soldiers. And they did without question. Some states are still in the mental state of battle. Blue and Red. Democrats and republicans. Justice and injustice. Ask the people in Tennessee if they approve of the Tennessee Three, Democrats, voted in by the people, two Black men, expelled and a third a white Woman, not expelled, by House vote, missing expulsion by one vote. Protesting for pro-gun control reform on the House floor, after six people including three children were murdered in a school shooting at a Christian School in Nashville. Vice President Harris made a surprise trip to Nashville and said, “it wasn’t about these three leaders- it was about what they were representing, …It’s about whose voices they were channeling. Is that not what a Democracy allows?” And wasn’t it also about racism and skin color? Still fighting the Civil War.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/04/07/tennessee-house-expulsion-kamala-harris-meet-ousted-members/11621736002/
Thank you for this study in contrast
and being generous in victory!