A Moment of Remembrance

 Today we remember the events of 9/11 twenty-five years ago and pray for the victims, their families and friends, and our country.  All of us have been impacted in some way by the events of that day. I remember being home with my two small children when my mother-in-law called and told me to turn on the television.  I couldn't comprehend whether what we were watching as the second plane struck the tower was real or not.  My husband was active duty Navy, but was on shore duty. At the time, he was considering separating from the military after his obligation was finished, but the events of that day inspired a new sense of purpose and duty.  His role didn't immediately change, but the years following brought more deployments, more responsibility, increased security, and a changed military.  It is with sorrow but also with honor that we remember that day and those lost, but also the unity and shared sense of purpose we all felt in response. 

Mourning Wendell Berry

It's been a sad week with the passing of several well-known figures, but the most sorrowful to me is the loss of Wendell Berry. His death is not a surprise since he was 92, but the news caused me real grief.  I heard about it from a text message from my cousin whose mother, my aunt, introduced me and our family to the work of Berry some thirty years ago. She met and interviewed him a few times, I think originally at a reading and book signing in a small Kentucky book shop, and she wrote about him for Crisis magazine and The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry. 

Many people have said many eloquent things about Wendell Berry since the news of his passing became public.  He is remembered with respect, admiration and affection.  Well-known but not a celebrity, Berry feels familiar to his readers, like a wise uncle or beloved grandfather.  He wasn't just admired; he was loved.  Long before I started reading his books in college, he was defending agrarian communities and promoting sustainable land use and writing fiction about Port William and beautiful poems about the beauty and complexity of marriage.  At one point, I thought I would write my dissertation about his work, something along the lines of marriage as a metaphor for our relationship to the land, and I once wrote a paper about fidelity to words and place in his poetry and Standing by Words and another about his thoughts on home economics and the impact of stories on family economies. While writing both papers, I remember feeling overwhelmed - Berry's ideas are deeper and more insightful than my attempts to summarize them. 

I am also I sorry that I never wrote the letter I thought about writing to thank him for his work, for the beauty of it and the insights in it and the difficulty of it. Berry's work haunts people. It makes me feel guilty at times for our itinerant military life. I've long struggled to reconcile the way we live with the way I'd like to live after reading Wendell Berry. His vision of life is tantalizing, and some people critique it for being idealistic and for failing to acknowledge the dark parts of country life - lack of access to health care and education, drug abuse, loneliness.  There are plenty of writers who draw attention to the darkness; Berry offers hope.  He doesn't deny the problems - in fact, like a good physician, he diagnoses them and offers the cure: a vision of small towns, family farms, and rooted people caring for one another and the land to prevent the fracturing of lives lived in isolation, whether neighbors are near or far. 

Whenever I find myself struggling to align Berry's vision with my own life - unsettled, urban, a part of the military industrial complex - I remember a quote from Mother Teresa, I think, about doves being needed in the halls of war.  Not that my husband had any input on the foreign policies, but he could be a servant leader for his troops, someone who cared for his people and cared for the land belonging to the military. His building projects and base maintenance plans made space for nesting plovers and breeding fairy shrimp. And as a military spouse, I tried to offer hospitality and community to fellow spouses and neighbors. A good friend was a role model of this to me - and those bonds of community, while not rooted in place, are rooted deeply in spirit. We still are connecting with those friends. The care and connection offered by the milspouse community seems to me to mirror what Berry saw in small farming communities - people who bring you a meal when you are sick, stay with your babies when you go to the hospital to deliver another, who share recommendations for schools and salons, who help you clean your bathrooms before you move again.  I sometimes fear these friendships aren't as strong in the new military as more people turn to their phones for friendship instead of being willing to join a club or go on an outing with current strangers/future friends, but I'm sure it's still happening.  To circle back, I think we could answer Berry's call to be faithful and rooted to a place by being rooted in our community and family - our roots spread wide, but also deep in our hearts.  To know and love a place takes time and attention - something we didn't always have when we moved after two years - but we did try to approach each new place with wonder and curiosity and a willingness to explore and observe what made this place beloved by its people. 

Like fellow mourners, I have been returning to Berry's poetry and essays. I shared some with my classes - starting with the On Being video of "The Peace of Wild Things," but I also love the trailer for "Look and See," which so vividly makes clear the contrast between the technocratic paradigm Berry stands against and the natural beauty he stands for.  I also will always come back to "The Country of Marriage."  When researching last spring for the Marce Catlett paper, I reread some of his older stories - "Andy Catlett: Early Education" being a happy return.  

My prayer is that the love and attention poured out for Berry in remembrance over this week will spread his vision to others and inspire new readers to discover the Port William he created in fiction and the vision of agrarian life he remembered and re-envisioned and hoped to see realized. 

I also heard there may still be a book of new essays issued that was in production. I pray that his family is able to find comfort in Berry's honored memory and to preserve the integrity of his work while continuing to broaden its audience. 

Some links: 

The Wild Rose

 

Sometimes hidden from me

in daily custom and in trust,

so that I live by you unaware

as by the beating of my heart,

 

suddenly you flare in my sight,

a wild rose blooming at the edge

of thicket, grace and light

where yesterday was only a shade,

 

and once more I am blessed, choosing

again what I chose before.

 

Copyright © 1999 by Wendell Berry from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Reprinted with permission of Counterpoint Press. https://www.matthewjolson.com/the-wild-rose

The Country of Marriage is one of my favorite of Berry's poems. It was put to music by Malcolm Daglish and the Oolites, a group from Bloomington, IN, at some point in time in the 90s, but I can't find a recording of it online - my mother had their CD....  Here are a couple stanzas that stay in my memory:

IV.
How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was,
for to approach you I have given up the light
and all directions. I come to you
lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.

V.
Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don't know what its limits are--
that puts us in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen time and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.

VI.
What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.

Gathering together - reunion weekend

 I can't believe August is almost over. I meant to do so much more planning work this summer for classes, and while I did plan in my brain, it didn't transfer fully to paper and practice.  Now I'm playing catch-up - but also want to record some summer highlights.

While the summer had its moments of rest, it was fairly full. The last couple of weeks flew by in between trips to see family and visits from friends.  I know I wrote earlier in the summer about my quandary over attending the family reunion the last weekend of July or going to Ireland for a Yeats conference with my husband. Although I still would like to return to Ireland someday, it turns out I chose wisely because my husband ended up being unable to go to Ireland, and instead had to go to Rome. Poor guy.  It was a short trip for him and miserably hot in Europe at the time, so it wasn't his favorite trip to Rome ever, although it was apparently a productive trip. 

Meanwhile, the family reunion was the source of much reminiscing and meditating on family roots. I was able to reconnect with cousins I hadn't seen in years, and although the weather was rainy and muggy, we spent so much time talking, poor weather wasn't an issue. My aunt and cousin had pulled out lots of old photos and memorabilia from family events, and my mom and uncle shared their thoughts on family legacies. Reviewing the photos I took, I wish I had taken more to capture everyone in closer range, instead of just a few group shots, because we so enjoyed studying our younger selves in old photos and watching old videos my cousin had transferred to digital formats. But the reason I didn't was because I was too busy talking and not on my phone.

Although my husband and 3 kids on the coasts couldn't come, the kids near home came - our 3 youngest and our oldest and his family. I wish the others could have attended just as another reminder of their rootedness in a family larger than what they sometimes recall, but our San Diego vacation used up their travel time and funds. Meanwhile, one of my local cousins and his family didn't attend, which I think made my aunt really sad. I halfway expected this, but I promised myself that even if I sacrificed a trip to Europe, I wasn't going to begrudge any one who didn't come. And I didn't - I was thankful not to be leaving my kids behind and getting on a plane, and I loved seeing my parents and siblings, nieces and nephews, and aunt and uncle and cousins. I hope the cousin who planned most of the weekend was happy with the outcome of her efforts, although if we ever do this again, I'll volunteer to help with the food. My aunt did a lovely job with the Saturday midday meal, which was a pitch=in with a theme of family meals from the past (think layered salad, Jello salad, and "Next Best Thing to Robert Redford" for dessert), but my cousin probably could have used more help with the menu for the Friday night dinner. My sister who lives closer to her and hosted the Friday night dinner, had just had her knee replaced, so she couldn't do much cooking.  I end up running to the store to get salad ingredients and good bread to go with the spaghetti and meat sauce my cousin made.

Out of time for the evening - hoping to reminisce some more about exploring our town with our guest student from France. 

Car shopping

 Perhaps my least favorite type of shopping in the world is car shopping. Especially used car shopping. It's so complicated. Or do I make it unnecessarily complicated?  If it were up to me, I wouldn't own a car. I'd go back to horse and buggy days or vastly improve public transportation to make it easy and affordable everywhere - not just in big cities. 

Part of the problem is that used cars have doubled in price in the last 10 years. Ten years ago, you could get a decent used car under $10,000. Then Covid hit, and the price of decent used cars skyrocketed. I thought used car prices might come down now that the covid shortages have ended, but you can no longer buy a new car under $20K, and most used cars are upwards of $15K. $10 thousand dollars will only buy you a 15 year old 150000 mile clunker. Which could be fine, but we're buying a car for our daughter because she is getting a full ride scholarship next year, and well, we can spend more to buy a more reliable vehicle. 

We couldn't do this for our other kids, although we helped some out with college cars - I think our oldest's first car was about $3000, and he paid for part of it. It only lasted 3 or 4 years, but that was long enough. Then our next two kids didn't need cars because they live in Boston. But our oldest daughter inherited our old car when she finished college in 3 years and moved out on her own in San Diego. She was looking to buy in 2022, when it was cheaper to buy a new car than a newer used car.  That's when we decided we might as well buy a new car for me and give her our old car, which is still running at 13 years old and 150,000+ miles. 

I like my little Subaru Impreza - it is a base base model, but Subaru base models include a number of extra features.. I wish we had held out for the Crosstrek, but the dealer had none on the lot, we needed a car, and my husband didn't want to wait weeks.  At the time, I just wanted something to get me around town efficiently and effectively and safely for a good price. I was more interested in efficiency than style. And this little car has been reliable and fairly efficient - although not as great as a hybrid. I would be happy to give her my car and buy myself a new car, but will hold off on new for a little longer.

Now we're looking at 3 cars for her - a Kia Seltos, a Volkswagen Taos, and a Chevy Trax, all of which will get you from place to place just fine, but each has pluses and minuses. She wanted an old Audi but the need for premium gas and expensive gas has me moving away from that car. The Taos is the cheapest, but the model in our price range is from the first year of production and doesn't have great reviews. The Seltos feels a little lightweight and because of Kia's popularity, may be overvalued (which is also the reason we aren't looking at Toyotas or Hondas). The Trax is in great shape and almost new, but only has a 3 cylinder engine. 

***

I started writing this post last week, and even though it is pretty dull, I'm going to go ahead and press publish because I spent way too much time looking online for cars coming up for sale and researching reviews and visiting car dealerships to test drive. I wrote this to help with my decision process. My husband and daughter would have purchased the first car we test drove - which was a Kia Niro, a hybrid that happened to be a great price. But because I didn't know anything about it and because I still thought we could find something for $15K that was under 10 years old, we didn't commit, and it sold the day before I decided it was a decent car for a fair price.  So for weeks I kept looking for something similar. I'm not sure why it was so hard for me to commit. Cars don't last forever, and they are not my priority in life, but I let car shopping overwhelm my attention for a few weeks - Hours I can't reclaim. This is a frustration I have struggled with for years. As my husband often reminds me, time is money and sometimes I need to give up looking for the deal and move on because I can't buy back this time. Soon our daughter will be grown and gone like her siblings. 

We finally decided on the Trax. The price and condition were basically what we were looking for.  I hope it proves safe and reliable. She'll be driving off in a few weeks for her junior year of college. The car may drive her farther from us, but I'm also hoping it also will carry her home more often, where I will be waiting for her with open arms!

Reading rambles

After a slow reading month in May, I've been devouring books. Several are worth recommending - in fact, many of the books that I have read this summer have been worth recommending. 

First, I finished a couple of books that were written by people I know or know of. The first was written by a deacon from our former parish in Coronado, All Things New by Bobby Ehnow. Bobby is a great guy. You'd never guess that he spent 3 years in prison when you meet him, especially now that he's a deacon and works for the Archdiocese of San Diego. He served jail time for white collar crimes that he inadvertently got drawn into while working as a government contractor. This book is the story of his redemption, as well as an argument for restorative justice, which is the field in which he works now for the diocese, after getting a PhD in leadership studies. His book describes problems in the justice system, but it also explains how his prison experience was transformative.  While I particularly enjoyed this book because I recognized many familiar names and places, the book is worth reading as a reminder of the need for ministry to prisons and prisoners and for alternative ways to restore justice. 

The other local book I read also focused on a tragedy, but this time it was the story by a friend of a friend, Stephanie Meeker, called When the Unthinkable Happens. This book centers around the tragic death of the author's best friend, who was murdered by her angry ex-husband. The author takes in the four children of her friend, first as a temporary solution, then as a foster parent, and later as an adoptive parent. The book describes challenges in the court system, as well as difficulties at home with the kids, who struggle with their mother's death.  One of the children does not want to be adopted and runs away at one point. Because the case has to be tried in both criminal and civil court, the investigation and court appearances go on for years.  The father is in and out of jail during this time before his final sentencing. In the midst of all of these difficulties, the author describes how faith gave her and her husband strength to face both the big and small challenges. While the book is written in a way that sometimes simplifies or avoids revealing too many details because of the sensitive nature of sharing a story about children, the virtues displayed by the people in the story - the perseverance of the Stephanie and her husband, the support of the community, and the resilience of the children - inspire readers to do more for others. Nonetheless, it is clear how superhuman grace is needed to carry on and to love when exhausted.

Another book I finished recently also described acting with generosity and love towards others iout of a missionary spirit. For book club, I finished Christy by Catherine Marshall. This book is so familiar to me - I either read the book or watched the movie sometime in the past. Or maybe I just saw the cover at the book store or my grandparent's house. At any rate, I knew the premise  - a young, naive woman, Christy, leaves home in Asheville, NC, to be a missionary and teach school in the mountains of North Carolina. She devotes herself to helping the children learn and to befriending the women of the hills and teaching them as well. Christy seems preternaturally optimistic, but she faces challenges and learns from her mistakes as the story develops. Part of what I liked most about this book were the descriptions of the hills and mountains which seemed somewhat familiar from our recent trip to the Smokies. I also liked reading about Christy's teaching methods in the one room school and the solid advice from her mentor, Miss Alice Henderson, the Quaker missionary who was a single mother and teacher herself. She has some of the best lines of the book, and her unflappable and charitable demeanor are admirable in the face of hostility, illness, poverty, and physical exhaustion. 

While those three books are not necessary exemplars of literary artistry, Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair do offer more in terms of style and content, although both are rather bleak tales that capture the darkness of the human heart and the need for redemption.  The End of the Affair was a Well Read Mom book club pick, but I missed the meeting for the discussion. When I read these books back in my late teens - I can't remember now if I was still in high school or early college, I was enamored by Greene's slow reveal of how a skeptical character's encounter with faith caused them to revisit their previous misconceptions. The End of the Affair has a much more hopeful and almost mystical ending, while The Heart of the Matter ends with a character's suicide because he believes he is beyond redemption.  The characters are all rather self-absorbed and pitiable, and reading them again later in life is not as stunning. I am less sympathetic to the characters. But I appreciate Greene's perspective on the seriousness of faith. It is something that should be taken as seriously as these characters treat it.  I was sorry to miss the discussion about Bendrix because at the end of the novel we learn a little more about acts of kindness he performs that aren't evident from his narration.  The novel leaves open whether he follows in the path to conversion that his lover Sarah began. 

Two other books that I finished were bestsellers. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi and The Correspondent by Virginia Evans have been making people's lists for their favorite books of the last two years. I think they both came out in 2025. My sister-in-law recommended them because her book club read them. I am sometimes skeptical of bestsellers because they can lack the literary merit of books that require more thought. Nonetheless, I enjoyed both of these, particularly The Correspondent.  You know when you feel like praying for a character in a book at Mass that the character is particularly vivid. I started this book at my in-laws' house and could barely put it down, even on the way to church. And then I sat there frustrated with the main character, Sybil, wishing *** spoiler alert **** she had gone where she said she was going to go and that she would make up with her daughter.  I think it took about 6 hours to read. Told through the letters of law clerk Sybil to her best friend, to the young son of a lawyer friend, to her children, and other characters with whom she has relationships, the novel conveys the develop of a character already aged, but still learning and forming new relationships and repairing old ones. I appreciated the subtle development of the story line - not a thrilling plot, but a slow development of character that proves satisfying, even if not surprising. 

Theo of Golden was also a bit predictable, although the final couple chapters tied some loose ends together in a way I didn't quite expect. I expected unexpected coincidences, though. The story follows a strange visitor to the small town of Golden who begins to make friends by buying portraits at the local coffee shop and giving them to the person in the picture. People open up to Theo and tell them about their hopes and struggles. He seems to see through their masks and to recognize their worth, which he shares with them. In return they grow in confidence and become attached to Theo.  While the story is a little saccharine, it touches a chord. The town of Golden seems charmed, and full of people who just need a friend to open up their hearts to, someone who will give them the love and encouragement they have been craving.  In the end the book won me over despite my skepticism. I see why everyone is recommending it. 

Two books I finished had theological themes: Bright Evening Star by Madeleine L'Engle is a memoir of her charmed childhood with her journalist/artistic parents who often went to the theater or parties, leaving her at home presumably with a nannie. Because she was frequently alone she developed an active imagination, but she also developed a love for Christ and faith in him. This is a short book, but an interesting and inspiring description of how and why she is a faithful Christian.  In Lore Wilbert's Understory, we also meet Christian theology combined with memoir and natural history text with an ecopoetic lyric added in. It was informative, descriptive and meditative. It made me want to head to the woods for a long time.

Part of the reason I didn't read much in May is because I spent a long time trying to finish The Way We Live Now a long Victorian novel by Anthony Trollope. Less caricature than Dickens, but more urban than Austen, Trollope's novels often feature both marriage plots and political maneuvering. This story features a newly rich family who come to London and soon feature prominently in the social scene despite everyone's snobbery. Meanwhile, the rich young lads seem to be dissipated and unreliable, and the marriageable young women want both reliability and romance and can't seem to find them both in the same young man. At nearly 800 pages, Trollope's book carries this on a long time. 

I've also read a few journals - a couple issues of Plough and Notre Magazine and the movie and film reviews of one of the CSC priests here, who shares his thoughts on the cultural offerings of the last six months. His public, spiral bound journals predate blogs. In between that, I've started reading up on film for my course and finishing the Life and Times of Wendall Berry. After that flurry of reading activity, I have to turn my mind to course planning. How to manage a 105 minute class of seniors? Time to get serious with planning my literature of redemption class. It will be a busy fall. 

Small Failures

I'm waiting this morning for the clock to turn to 9am so I can call the camp office where my daughter is supposed to spend next week, arriving on Sunday. Except I forgot to sign up for the bus, and the bus is full - and the camp is in Texas. She is flying there at the end of the week and staying with a friend - who will get on the bus and go to camp.  My options? Find someone else who didn't sign up in time for the bus and beg for a carpool or drive to Texas, an 18 hour trip.  Or fly in and rent a car to drive her to camp and head home. I'm feeling a bit like a failure this morning.

I also failed to sign her up for tennis camp on time. 

And I failed to notice she was watching Disney shows when she was supposed to be doing her math homework.

I failed my other daughter because I couldn't commit to the used car she wanted, and it sold the day before I decided it was a good deal. I hate shopping cars, especially used cars. We found a hybrid Kia she liked, but I wanted to do a little research before committing. It turns out it was a good deal, but someone else swooped in and got it. 

We had a minor tragedy last weekend because I failed to put the chickens back in the coop one evening when we had friends over for dessert. Unfortunately, I already felt awful because I failed to remember that my friend is gluten free when I made a cherry cobbler, which I overcooked anyway. At least I had fruit from breakfast and whipped cream, and she brought a lovely lemon meringue pie, which was gluten-free and delicious.

While we were visiting, I failed to notice that the chickens were raided by a night creature.  They had flown over the fence, and three of them were in the front yard when our friends left. The fourth we failed to find. But I did find feathers this morning in the neighbor's yard. The cycle of life in action. 

Despite those failures, I fell asleep quickly last night, but I woke up at 3 am and failed to go back to sleep. I finally went downstairs for a melatonin and read for awhile, but it was a book about Wendell Berry, which always makes me feel unrooted. I love his vision for community and caring for place, but it does stir up a longing for land and a reminder that I have failed to enact his ideas.

I also failed to submit an abstract for a paper about this book before the deadline for a conference that I really wanted to attend, but I simply forgot - May and June I was focused on other things. And I probably would have failed to finish it anyway because I failed to say no to some new commitments and have a busy fall.

I lay awake at 3 am, worrying about all the kids, about our parents, thinking about ways I have failed as a mother, a daughter, a wife, a teacher, and a friend - so many! I could go with this list of failures. I felt like Judith Viorst's Alexander on his no good, very bad day.  

It was only when I jerked myself back to thinking about the good things in our life that I could finally fall back to sleep. I may have many failures and shortcomings, but by grace, we do have many blessings. It is easy to get bogged down in the regrets and mistakes and forget how fortunate we are, how wonderful it is to be alive, despite these failings, which I write down here as an act of expiation in atonement for my self-pity. Sometimes it is easier to feel sorry for one's self than to feel grateful. This morning I am grateful for some rain, for the repairmen who fixed our a/c, for my garden, for the remaining chicks, for the new friends we have made, and the old friends who remain so dear, for our meaningful work, for the beauty around us, for our parish and community, and for the health and well being of my family and my loving husband and for the Giver of all these good things and more.  

Several friends and acquaintances have suffered some really tragic losses this week, which make my failures seem the petty things they are.  Life is a gift. 

(**PS: I started this the other morning. And today I found out LK got a seat on the bus after all. Amen.)

Travel South

I started this while sitting at the Montgomery airport, awaiting a slightly late flight, catching up on some reading on and off line. I've just been in Auburn, AL, with my husband for a conference on university architecture for university architects. It's his conference, but they have a guest program that was wonderful. It's a week long conference, but I am leaving two days early because I was anxious about being gone so long with a home improvement project just beginning (new windows, roof, and railing for the sunroom) and the kids at home, but part of me wishes I stayed until Saturday with my husband ... except they have a tropical storm rolling in from the Gulf, so weather delays could extend his trip. 

Auburn has a beautiful campus, which has grown exponentially in the last decade or two.  We have some friends who are Auburn alumni, and they drove a few hours south to join us for dinner last night. They pointed how much has changed since they were students in the 90's. Like everything built recently, it's bigger, shinier, sleeker. The new architecture blends well with the old, sometimes complementing, sometimes copying. There are some older structures from the 70s-90s that look dated and tired because they were built quickly to look new without reference to the historic references, but those are being renovated or torn down to make way for newer buildings that follow a master plan with more consistent design guidelines, as well as more requirements to support sustainability. 

Our trip included began with a rerouted flight to Atlanta because of bad weather (instead of the originally scheduled Montgomery). Since I had never really visited the city except for the airport, we decided to spend Sunday morning there instead of heading straight to Auburn. After a late night/early morning arrival, we slept in. We ended up going to Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes, which is the oldest church serving the Black Catholic Community in Atlanta.  Needless to say, the Gospel music was incredible, and the Mass was full of vitality. 

Just blocks away from the church is the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Park, which includes a visitor center with artifacts from his life and from other civil rights figures including his wife Coretta, whose influence is underappreciated. His birth place is just down the street, but it was closed to visitors, as was the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he was pastor.  We spent some time at the reflecting pool and tomb where he and his wife Coretta are interred. It was moving monument, but in need of some repair and full of potential to be something more educational and transformative. 

Burial monument for Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

MLK's suits and tie tacks and cufflinks. A miraculous medal is among the accessories in the jewelry box 

 

MLK's birthplace. He was born at home here.

 

The Ebenezer Baptist Church

 

Scenes from the Auburn campus:

Samford Hall, one of the early buildings and most iconic on campus

 

This was at one time the university president's home

The stadium holds 87000 people. About 35K students attend Auburn.

Met this baby screech owl at the Auburn Raptor Center, a rehabilitation center as well as home to the war eagle.

 

Retired War Eagle #7 Nova

On our third day in Alabama, the guest program participants were treated to a tour of murals - but rain made this a bus tour instead of a walking tour, which would have been lovely. The tour ended up in the neighboring town of Opelika, where we also drove up and down some blocks of beautiful Southern homes representing various architectural styles. I'm sure this town has been featured in Southern Living Magazine.  The gardens were gorgeous, and many of the homes had deep front porches featured blue ceilings, comfortable furnishings, and big, flourishing baskets of ferns and other plants. 

We lunched at a place called Botanic that was a restaurant and a nursery and greenhouse. A dining and plant experience. 

A magnolia mural in Auburn

An original 1907 vintage Coca-cola mural in an old hardware store in Opelika

 

Scenes from Botanic

  

On Wednesday the guests at the conference visited the Equal Justice Initiative's Legacy museums in Montgomery Alabama. Our first stop was the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. This was a much larger and impactful experience than the MLK, Jr. National Park. The Legacy museum features three locations: the monument, a sculpture park, and a museum. I missed the museum because I had to head to the airport. At the Memorial, metal coffin-sized rectangular prisms recorded the names and dates of men and women who were lynched across the United States. Other areas included narratives describing the victims' stories. It was a somber reminder of the darkness and ignorance that can cloud the human heart and be perpetuated across time and place. Fortunately, goodness and justice can also be spread across time and place, as memorials such as this seek to do.

 

 

  

 

The second part of the tour to the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park is reached by river ferry down the Alabama river following part of the path that the slave trade followed to a small island. We got caught in a torrential downpour and the sculpture park does not allow photos except at the very end and very beginning, so I didn't take many photos of this part of our tour. The website includes a few, but many were exceptionally beautiful and moving. The island is dedicated to the story of slavery in the south. There were incredible statues and reproductions of slave train cars and relocated slave quarters.  Stone plinths included poetry and slave narratives. The experience was more moving than I can describe here. I wish I remembered some of the sculpture artists' names to share their work. 

The entry to the Freedom Monument 

This wall contains the family names of over 100000 freed slaves. Like the names of many who were lynched, many slave names remain undocumented. 

While this part of the trip was somber, it was also inspiring. Suffering causes deep and lasting wounds, but resilience and the beauty that comes from survival testify to the capacity of the heart to rise and to continue to love.  Many of the stories at the Freedom Monument recounted the strong familial bonds that persisted even when families were forcibly separated and sold apart. 

I am so grateful I decided to attend this conference. I was a bit reluctant to commit back in the spring, and now I partly wish I had continued with the experience. The kids - meaning my 22, 20 and 12 year old - were fine and kept busy at home working and attending Totus Tuus (the 12 year old helped with the younger kids in the morning and attended the middle school session in the afternoon, so she was worn out by the end of the day.) But life moves on, and we have a full summer ahead. 

 Again I am reminded that every region has natural beauty, historical significance, and wonderful people. One of the many pleasures of travel. 

Another is the peace that settles in your bones when you return home, ready to rest and reconnect.