Sat 1 Oct 2005
Sat 1 Oct 2005
The second essay is by Donald Davidson, entitled, A Mirror for Artist, I found several quotes from this piece convicting. He races out of the starting gate with a sadly confimed prediction
of the industrialization of the arts through an “United States Chamber of Art or a National Arts Council, with a distinguished board of directors…”
I had to read that paragraph several times to see if he was decrying the already established “council” or predicting its future birth. He was prophesying.
Mr Davidson then goes on to talk of the true idea of leisure as found among the southern ideal. Not a “muddle of activities,” but a leisure of mind that allows one to think and absorb. He talks about the industrial ideal that separates work and leisure, very much like Christians separate the sacred and secular.
Listen to this:
“The leisure thus offered is really no leisure at all; either it is pure sloth, under which the arts take on the character of mere entertainment, purchased in boredom and enjoyed in utter passivity…”
And to think my next post was to be on the movie Just Like Heaven and my current addiction to 24 (year 3).
Later in the chapter Davidson takes on the public library system. What could possibly be wrong with that institution? In one short paragraph Davidson convinced me.
“Likewise public libraries, which tend ever to become more immense and numerous, pervert public taste as much as they encourage it. For patrons are discourage from getting their own books and keeping them at home. Their notion is that the state …will take care of their taste for them.”
This final quote was the real kicker fo me. I am guilty as charged by Davidson:
“But the works of realists which ought-if science has merit in art- to disclose the beauty that is truth, more often reveal the truth that is ugliness or injured beauty. The realist turns out to be a historian rather than an artist, and, at that, a historian of calamities.”
I am just thinking out loud here, but as we see our nation deteriorate I wonder if the agrarian way would not be to constantly point to the calamities (the Bush administration, the war in Iraq, homosexuality in the church, feminism etc) but instead exalt the truly truthful and worthy ( a mother reading aloud to her children, fixing meals for her husband, creating a beautiful enviroment, graciously living). Right away several names come to mind of people who are/have succeeded with that sort of ideal: Edith Schaeffer, Rick Saenz’s blog, Miz Booshay.
It also comes to my mind that what took place in NOLA was a result of looking for human calamities instead of heroism.
Next essay: The Irrepressible Conflict by Frank Lawrence Owsley
Mon 3 Oct 2005
“But the works of realists which ought-if science has merit in art- to disclose the beauty that is truth, more often reveal the truth that is ugliness or injured beauty. The realist turns out to be a historian rather than an artist, and, at that, a historian of calamities.”
I wanted to amend my last post a bit, especially in regard to the above quote.
I mentioned in the comments that I fear my own reaction to calamities is rolling my eyes and cursing (not literally).
DHM brought up that it really isn’t biblical to only speak of good things and Carmon said her postmillenial views helped her look on the bright side while still reporting calamities.
I thought they both made good points. It made me think of 2 other things.
1. My children love fairytales. We read Andrew Lang’s “color” books frequently and the children read them on their own, even the teenagers. Andrew Lang’s fairytale are not watered down modern versions but direct retellings of the old legends. Sometimes they are quite scary and yet somehow fun. On the Ambleside list, about once a month, a young mother will write about how shocked she is that the advisory has picked these fairytale books. Of course, the books aren’t for everyone but imho fairytales are not only good for children but neccessary. In a way they mix truth and calamity with beauty so that a child can learn some hard lessons in a tender, even lovely, way.
2. Christian suffering is a calamity and yet it is truthful and beautiful and should never be swept under the carpet. We should be directly engaged in the suffering around us. We should not see the suffering Christian as some sort of failure but as someone Christ has set above us. There is a direct clash between materialism and suffering. Most of us want to avoid suffering so terribly we would rather blame someone who is suffering than believe we could suffer also. You will especially see this principle at work when a group begins to turn from orthodoxy to cult status. So if you are in a group that ostracizes calamities and the familes who face them you may want to ask yourself some hard questions about orthodoxy.
Mon 3 Oct 2005
Tue 4 Oct 2005
Did you know that it snows in Alabama? The very first day I drove into Alabama in November the sides of the road were covered in snow. We can even walk out of our front door now and pick up a few snowballs by the side of the road. It very rarely snows in Alabama in the winter but in the autumn Alabama is covered in white fields and roadsides. You can hardly get into your car without ending up behind huge trucks full of the white stuff.
Alabama is a cotton state.
Tim’s parents grew up in Savannah, Ga and both sets of his grandparents were sharecroppers. His parents grew up picking cotton. His mom remembers how horrible the cotton balls felt on dry, chapped hands. Sometimes the bolls would cut her fingers.
As always, Lois Lenski has captured the life of the southern cotton pickers in her classic Cotton in my Sack. Unfortunately, her books can sometimes be hard to find. Never pass up a Lenski.
Wed 5 Oct 2005
Essay #3 The Irrepressible Conflict by Frank Lawrence Owsley.
Folks, I have been delaying writing this installment because frankly it takes us into deep waters. It has become almost impossible to speak about the Civil War in a non-political way without inflaming fires. I have no desire to stir the pot and I feel dismally inadequate to offer a southern apologetic. All I can do is speak to you from personal experience and hope you understand where I am coming from. I am not a racist or even a kinist, but from a very young age I began to sympathize with the southern view, in spite of the fact that my dear parents did not.
It wasn’t very long ago that people could discuss the Civil War and the southern position was widely understood. That is why for one hundred years the south was allowed her heroes and her flags. Now history is being rewritten and most people interpret the past by the present which is a surefire way to get it all wrong.
I began reading this chapter in the Nashville airport. As our plane took off I looked out over the beautiful, beautiful landscape of Tennessee. Truly God has blessed the South above all places. The landscape has drawn from men those who love hearth and home, who have simple values and desire simple lives. Yes, I am prejudiced, though it has nothing to do with race.
When I was a little girl we moved from Cincinnati to Volusia County, Fl, the heart of cracker country. Those were the days when the words cracker and redneck had nothing to do with racism. My first day of school I was asked a question by almost everyone, black and white. Was I a Yankee or a Rebel? Since I was only 6 years old I didn’t have a clue. I have blogged about this episode before but it has taken me almost my whole life to understand why those children were asking that question 100 + years after the conflict.
My answer: It has very little to do with the actual war. The southern gentlemen marched off to a gentleman’s war and if they lost they could still hold their heads high. But the southern people had nothing in their worldview to reconcile them to US Grant’s total war, Sherman’s march to the sea, burning and pillaging the south, or the terrible, terrible time called reconstruction.
Reconstruction changed the south in a way the war never would have. In Tennessee, the recontruction governor told blacks, scalawags and carpetbaggers that if they killed white southern planters they would be given their land. Things got so bad in Tennessee that the US government had to step in to control their own reconstruction mess. Would it offend you terribly, dear reader, if tomorrow I told the real story of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a man who even the North considered a hero until perhaps the last 10 years?
Mr Owsley does a very good job of explaining why State’s Rights was a legitimate southern issue and how the southern states really viewed slavery. If you would like to understand these things better may I suggest a few books in addition to I’ll Take My Stand?
The Real Lincoln by Thomas Dilorenzo
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
Penhally by Caroline Gordon
Up From Slavery by Booker T Washington
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it :embarrassed_ee:
Thu 6 Oct 2005
I am in the midst of writing my post on Nathan Bedford Forrest, but I want to get a few facts straight before I publish it.
In the meantime I thought I would share a few odds and ends of things going right around here.
1. I have a new form of discipline for my older boys. It is working out wonderfully. I am not oppposed to using the “s” word on the boys but this is a much better punishment. It works especially well for the subtle forms of rebellion like talking back, reacting slowly etc. They actually began this on their own and I am not too sure they were happy I grabbed the idea. It is just this, “drop and do 20,” or 10 or whatever. If they argue the number increases. It establishes authority and works out aggression. I was telling the father of a little baby boy about this the other day and now he can hardly wait for his son to grow up. BTW, the number refers to push-ups but you could change the exercise accordingly.
2. My dh, Tim, as many of you know, works long hours. This was wrecking havoc on our evening devotions. Finally Tim asked the 3 older boys to rotate giving the devotions for a while. That way he doesn’t just wing it or skip it. James, Nathaniel and Christopher have done such a wonderful job of preparing and presenting, we wonder why we didn’t think of this sooner. The Holy Spirit has used their words to convict and encourage Tim and I in several key areas.
Thu 6 Oct 2005
Tennesse and Alabama have statues of him. There is a Tennesse state park named for him. Childhood of Famous Americans has a biography for children about him. He was a courageous general for the Confederacy during the Civil War. He won the bloodiest battle in Alabama fighting in my little town for control of a supply train. After the war he continued to have many friends in Washington. He was looked on as a hero of the stature of Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson. To some military statiticians he was the greatest cavalryman ever. Yet today he is the personification of evil.
Why?
Sadly, Bedford Forrest has become known as the father of the KKK. Need I say more. This is a terrible charge worthy of the anger it stirs up. This essay is in no way a defense of the KKK, an institution my dh and I despise, but a defense of the man who in no way started what has become today’s KKK.
When Bedford Forrest returned from the war, he returned financially ruined. He also returned to find that most of his slaves had decided to continue their loyalties to him. He graciously assumed financial responsibility for these families. But in 1866 the Governor of Tennessee began to make things in that state worse than any other state around. He encouraged anarchy and murder as ways of stealing land from the landowners. The southern men returning from the war began to fear for their families’ safety. In that environment of fear some of them began to meet to form a society in which sober men, not given to violence, could protect their families. “Not given to violence or drunkeness,” being one of the original requirements. This society lasted until Bedford Forrest was able to get promises of protection using his Washington connections. By 1869, the southern gentlemen felt there was no longer an imminent threat against their families and Bedford Forrest asked them to dissolve the society, which they did. Forrest stated at various times that he had no desire to kill black men but would take up arms against any carpetbagger or scalawag who threatened his family. Many of his former slaves joined him in this.
The KKK of our times was started in 1915; it was a perversion of the original intent of those early Tennesseans. I can still remember the fear I felt as a young person when the KKK marched in our town. I don’t remember ever hearing one good word about them.
When we moved to NJ, a strange event happened. My husband and I were talking to a man who was teaching us about raising chickens. As usual, Tim started talking about his love of Georgia and his frustration that when a person from the south leaves the south to live/work in the north many southerners reject him as southern. While contemplating the sad state we were in (pardon the pun), he told the man, “Well, I guess I can give up my southern heritage to feed my family,” to which the man replied, “Son don’t ever give up your southern heritage. Not very far from your house are men with more southern heritage than you’d ever want to give up.” The hair on both our necks bristled. I was terrified. What in the world would Tim say to this creep. Tim looked him right back in the eye and said with conviction “I don’t agree with everything the south stands for.” I was so proud of him.
I am sorry there is an organization known as the KKK and I am very, very sorry that a man like Nathan Beford Forrest has become associated with it. It is hard to judge history without knowing the whole story and many times we are not able to get the whole story.
I don’t believe in slavery. I don’t believe you can justify it under the NT command to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But I do believe that God calls black men and white men to protect their families.
Whew, thankfully the next installment is on education!!!
Fri 7 Oct 2005
* Timothy is bubbling over, he checked off his ship permanantly this morning. He will be home for a few days then he is on his way to BUDS in Coronado.
*Nicholas passed his first exam with flying colors. (Whew!)
* The Braves won last night. I just love watching their team this year. Every time McCann or Langerhans or Francoeur or LaRoche get a hit it’s like watching a dream come true.
*John Smoltz is a class act. If you need help in learning to deflect praise watch John.
*Our nature walks are becoming more frequent as our daytime temperatures drop into the 80’s.
* Emily is about to finish knitting her first washcloth. Nice work, Emily. Thank-you for teaching her Granny. It’s almost enough to make me take up knitting.
* Andrew is at the read-every-word-he-sees stage. As we drive by signs he quickly sounds out the words.
*Alex can remember the first 9 phonograms no matter how many days apart I review them. In a couple years my life we be totally different than the last 20 years.
*Donna at Quiet Life linked to this hilarious commercial.
*Deputy Headmistress had a great post on her answer to the question: what do you wish you had known?
Sat 8 Oct 2005