In the beginning, God created skies and earth.
Thanks for coming back here. I will refrain from writing about theology so I can write about Mrs. Smith. My Passport mission group finished chopping down weeds, removing stumps, cutting grass, and scraping old paint off of the wood siding around her house. Well, to be honest, we did not finish the highest part of the house. Next week's mission group will finish that and then paint her house.
Mrs. Smith was not with us today. She went to Texas to see her grandson graduate from college there. She is very proud of that. I suspect Mrs. Smith, judging from the pride with which she tells us all that her son is graduating from college, would herself have graduated if she had the opportunity. Unfortunately, she lived in a different America.
In her America, she had to walk to school. After four miles, she reached a lovely red brick high school. It was big for its day, built upon a sprawling green grass lawn.
Mrs. Smith could not enter there. Her government did not want her there. The principal, teachers, and students would have forced her to exit were she to stop in just for a drink of water. As far as she knew, she would never be allowed to walk its halls, attend its classes, and eat in the cafeteria.
On a hill, further away, set an old rugged school, an emblem of segregation and shame. It appears to be abandoned now. In its day,I reckon it was about as nice as the good taxpayers of Danville would allow for Mrs. Smith and her classmates.
As you drive by the school, it seems far away from the main road. It appears to be built with lots of windows and no bricks.
I don't know why Mrs. Smith's school remains standing. Many abandoned buildings in Danville, warehouse sized ghosts of a brighter, local economy, can be seen during a drive around the area.
Maybe Danville did not need two schools after integration. Maybe they keep it there until they decide what to do with it.
Maybe Danville is using it. School systems use abandoned schools to house administrative personnel.
When Mrs. Smith went to school, the government allowed God in the schools. Students prayed in both schools. They had God's word in the public schools. Students read the Bible in class. Maybe Danville allowed Bible courses.
Students of both schools were Americans who pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and said, "under God" and "indivisible" in schools divided by race. They also said, "With liberty and justice for all." Students stood up, covered their hearts with their hands, and spoke those words full of wonder, sacrifice, and the last best hope of humanity.
In both schools they believed that everything happened in the Bible really happened. Plants were created before suns. Water covered the entire earth during Noah's flood. Even though he had the weight and mass of a man, Jesus walked on water. He really did see all the kingdoms of the world after Satan him took him up on a great height.
Mrs. Smith and all the other students would have said Jesus died for their sins. Most certainly, students in both schools would have believed the Bible told the gospel truth where it said, "God is love."
In both schools they loved Jesus with all their hearts. I know Mrs. Smith did. She still loves Jesus with all her heart today. Because of that, she is my family, back then and now and forever, because she is a Christian.
That is all I need to see when I look at her. Indeed, families are supposed to love each other, protect each other, and do what they can so kin folk get as square a deal as everybody else.
Eventually, the schools integrated by law. If Pat Conroy told the truth in his fascinating autobiography, The Water is Wide, and I have every reason to believe he did, then on the day Dr. King died many of the African-American students who had integrated with the white students wept here in Danville that day.
Many of the white students cheered.
I imagine the white students taunted, gloated, and celebrated the death of our brother Martin, a truly wonderful man whom we need to be alive today. The black students may have asked their principal to fly the flag at half mast just as the black students who attended the integrated high school where Conroy taught asked their white principal to fly the flag at half mast. He refused. You should read what happened next.
I have no idea if the principal of Danville's integrated school received from African-American students requests to fly the flag at half mast. It is certainly not outside the realm of possibility to imagine that they made the request and he ignored them. I really do not know for sure. I never asked Mrs. Smith about this.
Here at Passport, we gather in our home church groups every night. It is the last thing we do before going to bed. We share a high point and a low point from the day. My low point yesterday had to do with the weather.
There was an eighty percent chance for rain and thunderstorms yesterday so we did not visit Mrs. Sykes. We worked inside at the Salvation Army painting the bathrooms, playing games with the kids, and cleaning the kitchen.
It rained not a drop all day. Later, the clouds parted. Sunshine poured into the humidity. The ground was as dry as coffee in a can. A day was lost to weather that never happened. That was my low point yesterday.
Today, my high point will also be about the weather. The sky was dark, windy, and overcast with low clouds. All of us wondered where the Passport staff would send us today.
I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of Mrs. Smith." What was even better, another mission group came with us. We had two groups of campers to work on that house. We completed two days of work in one.
Compare the God Talk spoken today with the God Talk spoken during Mrs. Smith high school years. Which spoke God truly?
The irony is this: today's God talk is the most ancient. Jesus spoke it. It is the language God uses to communicate since the first person received God's word. That God Talk going around when Mrs. Smith walked to school expressed a god who was as close to being like the God whom Jesus loved as I am close to being like the Boston Marathon Bomber.
Could it be we are finally listening now? Well, are we? I'm just asking because the God Talk I've been hearing all week is truly worthy of God.
I appreciate your visit. I look forward to being here with you again...blessings.
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