A Friendly Letter

My Recurring Quaker Nightmare — Every January 27th

Yes, January 27 is Mozart’s birthday. He would have been (and IS, in a real way) 250-plus years old today, give or take.

And the nightmare scenario just recounted haunts me because it brings home how drastically poorer my own life would be, had the musician by some miscarriage undergone the kind of conversion it imagines.

How much difference has it made? There was an underground comic strip back in the Sixties about several disreputable characters called the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. These fellows had a saying, that “Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.”

For me, tho I enjoyed the Brothers in their time, a truer motto would be, MOZART will get you through times of no money better than MONEY will get you through times of no Mozart!”

And let the church say, “AMEN!”

Northwest YM Leaders Kick The LGBT Expulsion Can Down the Road

Here is the message that has been sent out by Northwest Yearly Meeting leaders on January 22, 2016; it does not seem to have been made widely public yet:

“Regretfully, we are not able to come to unity to overturn or affirm the elders’ decision to release West Hills. Therefore, we’ve postponed the effective date of West Hills’ release at least until yearly meeting sessions.

At that time, the Board of Elders will report to the Yearly Meeting its summary of the state of the church, allowing time for prayerful consideration of issues raised by the report and by any attached judgments or interpretations offered by the Board of Elders.”

I’m Sorry, Dr. King. I’m So Sorry.

I was going to review Ari Berman’s book, “Give Us The Ballot” for this Dr. King Day.

But I can’t. I can’t bear to. It’s too awful. I’m Sorry, Ari. I’m sorry, Dr. King.

But wait — I don’t mean “Give Us The Ballot” is an awful book. It’s up for some awards, and probably deserves them. And the part I read was well-written, and its clear ‘s researched the hell out of the subject.

But that’s the thing. I only read one chapter: the last. It’s called “After Shelby.” As a writer, I have no complaints with Berman’s work. In fact, it’s a fitting counterpart to my book, Selma 1965: The March that Changed The South. He even cites mine a couple times.

But I could just barely get through that one chapter, “After Shelby,” even though I’m in it (not named, but still). My book shows how the Voting Rights act of 1965 was made possible. Berman’s book tells how the Voting Rights Act was destroyed.

“Shelby” is the June 2013 Supreme Court decision that cut the heart out of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Berman shows in careful detail how this decision came about. (I didn’t read those parts, but I know they’re there.)

The last chapter is about good ole NC and the NAACP’s Rev. William Barber and the Moral Monday protests in 2013. I was one of nearly a thousand who got arrested in that classically nonviolent “uprising,” and weren’t those the Good Old Days??

Well, yeah, but not good enough, if you know what I mean.

Santa Comes Back to Earth (Sigh)

In many respects, this post, “Santa Comes Back to Earth (Sigh),” is a postscript to an earlier one: “Yes, There Is A Santa Claus Archetype: I’ve Seen Him, Been Him. ”

It’s a reminder of the truth of the old Latin adage, “sic city transit gloria mundi,” or “Thus quickly passes worldly glory.”

And sure enough: Christmas is past. And Santa is “off the radar” for another year, has landed, and gone back to obscurity, resuming his incognito status.
But there’s one important footnote. This, er, de-transformation (aka disguise) was achieved by the masterful fingers of that Michael Jordan of the scissors, Mr. Bryan Brandon of Platinum Cuts, in Durham NC. Take a bow, Bryan . . .

It’s Time (Again) for Doug Gwyn’s Book, “Words In Time”

Doug said about “Words In Time,” when it was first published:
This book is a collection of short pieces, most of which have appeared in print elsewhere. They cover a nine-year period, 1988-97. I chose the title “Words in Time” because several of the pieces were written for particular occasions, and address specific dilemmas facing Friends at the time. As such, these keynotes and essays are somewhat time-bound and situation-specific. For example, “The Covenant of Light” addressed Friends United Meeting shortly before the “Realignment” controversy erupted at the end of 1990. But problems of alienation and mutual exclusion within the wider Quaker family continue; the message of reconciliation still needs to be heard.

[Thee Can Say THAT Again! Okay, he will: “But problems of alienation and mutual exclusion within the wider Quaker family continue; the message of reconciliation still needs to be heard.”]