A Time to Laugh

If the 20th-century culture wars were as real as we were taught — and how many times did I leave Whirlybirds convinced that the world would collapse before I woke in the morning? — and if Bob Jones University really is the West Point of Christian Fundamentalism, then I think I finally understand this song. A little.

I was so gung-ho to lay down my whole life for a constructed fight for a pristine good and against a clear evil. . . . we all were. And when you’re fighting — especially when that fight is more about resurrecting a “good war” than anything else — it doesn’t even matter who is wrong and who is right. The fight is everything. That’s how complete the training is.

And we lost in Vietnam too.

Isaac came home talking about Martin Luther King, Jr. this week. He learned about him in school, of course — the first one in our immediate tribe to hear about him as a fact and not a threat:

See this picture, Mommy? He’s waving hello. And he’s saying, “White people, you be nice to black people. And black people, you be nice to white people.”

That about covers it.

Being the public address nerd that I am, I said, “Let’s watch his speech, Isaac!” And more motivated by the snuggling than the learning, he settled into my lap for a viewing.

“He said Stone Mountain, Georgia! I know where that is. That’s where the presidents heads are carved — George Washington, George Bush, and Abraham Lincoln.”

Oh, so close. So, so close and so very, very far. “You’re thinking of Mount Rushmore. But we’ve been to Stone Mountain, remember? There are presidents carved into stone there, but presidents of the Confederacy.”

“What’s the Confederacy?”

Sigh. . . . Where to begin. I did my best. The differences between the North’s industry and South’s agriculture. The labor-intensity of cotton. And slavery. I hate talking about slavery.

I ended up at Abraham Lincoln’s conclusion that the South’s leaving the Union was no option at all. And the Blue Coats and the Grey Coats.

We listened some more and jumped ahead a hundred years to the Civil Rights Movement. I told him that right here in Greenville, people couldn’t eat lunch in a restaurant simply because they were black. Or drink from the same water fountain or use the same bathroom.

I finally sighed through saying, “And you know what, Isaac? Mommy has just discovered one of the most hateful sources of this racism. Right here in Greenville. That’s Mommy’s job right now — working with God as He makes that crooked path straight.”

While I was stuck in my little Public Speaking 121 lecture, I listened to this greatest speech of the 20th-century again. For the first time in a long time. King’s talking about the same thing I read during Advent. It sounds different now than it did in my previous life.

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together:

No wonder King was such a threat. Shalom is a threat. A threat to habits, isolation, pride, greed. And King was just preaching Shalom. No, I think he was singing it.

We read:

• Revelation 5:1-14
• Matthew 2:1-11
• Luther’s Christmas Day Sermon
• Luther’s Second Christmas Day Sermon

We remember:

• John 1
• Cross

We read:

• Luke 2:1-20
• Micah 5:1-5
• Luther’s Christmas Eve Sermon

We remember:

• Luke 2
• Manger

We read:

• John 10:11-18
• I Peter 2:25

We remember:

• Matthew 2
• Star

We read:

• Luke 7:36-50
• Colossians 3:12-17

We remember:

• Luke 1:26-38
• White Lily

We read:

• 2 Corinthians 1:2-5
• Ephesians 3:14-19

We remember:

• Luke 3
• Dove

We read:

• I Timothy 6:12-16
• I John 1-15
• Luther’s Advent Sermon

We read:

• Revelation 21:1-7
• 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

We remember:

• Nehemiah 1, 6, 13
• City Wall

We read:

• Revelation 22
• John 7:37-42

We remember:

• Habakkuk 1-3
• Stone Watchtower