Vicksburg

After breakfast at the Blue & White restaurant in Tunica, we made about the best decision of our trip--to head south on Highway 61 instead of getting back on I-55 and driving straight to New Orleans. I'd always wanted to visit Vicksburg and this seemed like a good time. Our bellies full and smelling vaguely of fresh baked biscuits, bacon and gravy, we set out on a picture-perfect morning.

I remember hearing someone say once that the only thing central Illinois was good for was landing airplanes on; meaning it's flat and boring. Well, I don't think Illinois flat can begin to compare to Mississippi Delta flat. Tunica was once described by Jesse Jackson as "America's Ethiopia" because of its poverty; now thanks to the miracle of casino gambling, they have really nice roads and new schools.

We drove south on Highway 61, past unplanted cotton fields and shotgun shacks and old collapsed barns. The town of Clarksdale, site of the famous crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to become a better musician, is about 40 miles south of Tunica. Clarksdale, already poverty-stricken, was ravaged further when crack cocaine became popular in the 80's and early 90's. There's now a delta blues museum there, and Morgan Freeman owns a juke joint nearby.

Just before hitting Vicksburg we turned onto "old" Highway 61, the business route that went directly into town. A few minutes later, I saw this ahead to my right:



It was big, and it was colorful, and we were just barely able to make out some bible quotes as we drove past. I pulled over and turned the car around so we could get a closer look:

We had arrived at the Home of the Double-Headed Eagle! We got out and started to read some of the signs, which seemed full of love and openness. "God don't have no white church, and he don't have no black church" and "bless us all" were some of the first ones we noticed. I didn't see anything on there about hell, or punishment. Just message after message of God's love, and calls to worship and praise.

I noticed an older lady walk out of the front a few moments after we arrived, and I walked over to ask her if it was ok for us to look around. She had come out to get her mail, which was in a rural delivery box on the other side of 61; I got her mail for her and we started talking. It turns out we were lucky enough to meet Margaret R. Dennis, whose former grocery store had been converted into this theological roadside attraction. Her husband, the Rev. H.D. Dennis, created this over a period of several years. The Rev. Dennis was out at the moment, but we were lucky to get to talk to Margaret for quite a while.

She'd recently turned 93 years old, and loves meeting people who stop to look around. She told us about the Reverend, and about the church she attends down the hill behind her house. MizBubs and the girls went inside with her while I took some more pictures outside.

The inside of the old grocery store is jam-packed with religious items, quotes, artwork, found objects, newspaper and magazine clippings and decorations. We chatted a while longer, promised to write when we got home, and then said goodbye.



We all felt so uplifted and good when we left there. It's hard to explain just what a good experience it was stopping and meeting Mrs. Dennis.

_____________________

We drove through downtown Vicksburg, which was pretty charming, and made our way east of town to Vicksburg National Military Park. I wanted to just stop by the visitor center and maybe drive around a little. I don't know much about the battle of Vicksburg, and in the national memory it tends to be overshadowed by the battle of Gettysburg (Gettysburg was fought on the first three days of July 1863, and Vicksburg fell to union troops on July 4th). Vicksburg was under siege for nearly 2 months, and by the end of the campaign it was a barren and battered place:



Soldiers on both sides dug extensive networks of trenches and dugouts, and many civilians ended up essentially living in dugout shelters themselves to avoid artillery fire. Now the park is one of the greenest places I've seen in a while, and it was good to see families and joggers out strolling the grounds.

While at first it was our intention to drive through, I thought it would be a good idea to get out and walk a little. I have a thing about battlefields. I step onto the ground of a battlefield and I start feeling the ghosts almost immediately. I tend to choke up easily in these places. We found a series of trenches that were occupied by soldiers from Illinois, and we got out there.

Before the campaign turned into a siege, Grant tried to overcome the Confederates in a series of direct assaults on their fortifications. It did not go well. In one case, Union troops made it through withering fire, right to the base of the Confederate fortification, only to find out that the ladders they'd been given were not tall enough to scale the walls.

To me it's a powerful feeling to stand in a place, looking out across those trenches and redoubts, and then just close my eyes for a while. I am awed by the bravery of anyone who goes to war. I am still powerfully moved and humbled by reading accounts of men stepping up out of their safe shelters and then marching or running headlong toward men who wanted to kill them.



After the park was dedicated, individual states were authorized to come in with historians and set up monuments in the areas their soldiers fought and fell. The overall effect of the park at Vicksburg is that of a beautifully rolling, green and pastoral cemetery.

Speaking of monuments, I have something here for my readers in Wisconsin. This is the Wisconsin monument:

Wisconsin soldiers fought bravely at Vicksburg. Wisconsin readers will note with pride that this monument does not bear any mention of the rampant necrophilia, alcohol abuse or ren-faire related violence that has since become so common in the Badger State.

Finally, we stopped by the USS Cairo, an ironclad gunboat that was salvaged from the Yazoo river and is now on display at the park. I never pictured ironclads as being that big. The Cairo was the first ship ever to be sunk by an electrically-fired torpedo.

We finally left the park, got back on the interstate, and continued to head south to New Orleans.

The Second Coming

In the comments to the last post Lulu mentioned the differences between the actions of the people who disrupted the prayer in the Senate, and her understanding of Christianity as a youngster. Beth pointed out the fact that people like that seem to overlook some of the central teachings of Jesus.

Both excellent points.

Here's a snippet from the Operation Save America press release that illustrates what we're talking about perfectly:

"...They stood on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! There were three in the audience with the courage to stand and proclaim, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ "

According to this story from Reuters, the protestors used the word "abomination" repeatedly. Now, here's what gets me. All this talk about "abomination" and the "Thou shalt have no other gods" bit is all Old Testament. Angry, fire and brimstone vengeful God stuff. It kills me when self-proclaimed "Christians" repeatedly cite the most bloodthirsty, angry parts of the Old Testament, while ignoring some of the most basic tenets of Christianity. Here's a version of the Beatitudes, the opening of Jesus' sermon on the Mount:

-Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
-Blessed are the meek: for they shall posses the land.
-Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted.
-Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.
-Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
-Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.
-Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
-Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Get a load of that--not an abomination to be seen. Go to Matthew Chapter 7, and read the rest of it. Here's the two that really jump out at me:

Matthew 7:1. "Judge not, that you may not be judged."

Matthew 7:12. "All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them. For this is the law and the prophets." Recognize this one? It's commonly referred to as the Golden Rule; you know, "do unto others as you'd have others do unto you?"

So what part of all this don't these Kristians get? What am I missing? How frustrating, to the point of infuriating, is it for people of faith to constantly be identified with the worst and most intolerant of their fundamentalists? How sad that the kindest, most loving and moderate voices of faith are repeatedly shouted down.

When I was reading the comments to the last post I was reminded of a couple of lines from the Yeats poem "The Second Coming." I find myself, especially in the past few years, reading and re-reading this poem. I've highlighted the phrase I was reminded of:

The Second Coming

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-W.B. Yeats

Whew

So, yesterday (Sunday) I had the day off work, which was good--it was the day of the church picnic, but more important it was the farewell to our pastor and his wife (also a minister.) Two lovely, decent people.

We belong to a small church, an American Baptist congregation, and Rev. Jack has been the pastor for 16 years. Our eldest daughter went to Montessori kindergarten in a space rented by the church, and one day while I was working Miz Bubs took the kids there, back in 93 or 94. She came back and suggested I might like the place. I did, and we've been members of the church since then.

I've struggled with my faith for years, and my sense of worth as a moral human being. Rev Jack and Rev Lynn helped me more than I've ever told them. They move away later this month, and I'm working on a thank you letter. I decided a while ago that, when I have something good to say about someone, I'm going to damn well try and tell them. I'm still working on that.

It was important to be at church Sunday. But, life doesn't hold still for any one person's special moment: Hannah had a birthday party to attend Saturday night, ending at noon Sunday. I had my work hours changed on short notice and worked until 2am Saturday night. Nora had her boyfriend's high school graduation at noon. Miz Bubs had to work at the library at 1pm. SO...Miz Bubs, Nora, Nora's friend and I went to church at 10:30am. At noon, Nora left just as the service was ending to be picked up by her boyfriend's folks. I went and picked up Hannah. Hannah needed to freshen up (God forbid she go straight from a sleepover to a picnic without changing clothes, and she insisted that we never told her about the picnic, which is nonsense) so I got to drive her home and then back to church. I got to wolf down some food and briefly say hi to Miz Bubs before she left for work. Whew.

As it turns out, I wasn't the only one who got all teary during the service. Miz Bubs used to babysit the minister's daughter, for a few years, since she was just a year older than Hannah. They were like sisters, but then they had a falling out a few years ago and don't speak now. Well, when Miz talked to her after church, she started crying (the girl, not Miz...yet) and both my daughters were too choked up to say "goodbye" to Jack or Lynn. I ran into the girls former piano teacher, who moved back to Wisconsin to care for two parents with terminal cancer. I had at least 5 conversations with other parents who all remarked how much all our children had grown. Rev Lynn always did a children's time during the service, and this was the last one--seeing all those kids up there, and all the changes that they represented, and seeing Jack and Lynn leaving, was too much for all of us.

We had fallen away from regular church attendance a few years ago, and had just been making an effort to attend during the past year. We were in the process of reconnecting with our church, and I've been experiencing some kind of reawakening of my own faith that began with my trip to New Orleans during the aftermath of Katrina. I know something in me has changed, profoundly, but I'm not sure what it is yet or where it will push me. My daughters, who had both fallen away from church attendance, were also coming around. The ministry of Jack and Lynn was a big part of those positive changes, and we all feel...I don't know...so sad, that just as we were coming back, they're leaving. One thing I noticed though, was all the people at the picnic talking, and people reaching out to each other, our ties to one another becoming tangibly stronger even as we stood around clutching our paper plates and cups. I think Jack and Lynn should be very, very proud of their work in building our faith community.

Nora summed up her experience of the day when I picked her up later that afternoon. She said that, between the departure of Jack and Lynn, who've known her for 13 years, and the graduation of her boyfriend, her childhood is over.

Later that afternoon, after we all got home, we went to visit Miz Bubs' niece (they're more like cousins, they're only a few years apart) and husband. When we got their, my bride's oldest brother was there too, which was a wonderful surprise. I talk to my brothers a couple times a week, and to my mom nearly every day, so I take communication for granted. Miz Bubs comes from a family that is, to put it mildly, challenged in the ability to stay in contact with each other. Not that they don't like each other, they love each other deeply, and on a level that needs no words. Which is a good thing, because they don't talk to each other. They can go months without so much as a phone call. But I sense now that even that is changing. It seems like even Miz Bubs' family is reaching out and wanting to make that vital connection to each other.

We finally got home around 9:30, exhausted. We talked about church and life and growing up all the way home in the car.

There is so much coming down the road. I know most of it's good, and even the stuff that's hard will be good in the long run. But it feels really odd, almost to the point of light-headedness, to contemplate all the changes that are in store for us, and all those changes that have already passed.