THYME Magazine: Mr. Scott Goes to Washington

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VIII, Issue XXIIa

Mr. Scott Goes to Washington

Like Jimmy Stewart's Mister Smith [click to view], Tim Scott was originally appointed to his seat by South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, the first ever Indian-American female governor. But in the 2014 election he went on to win the seat as he stood for reelection. The first African-American Senator elected from the South since Reconstruction, Scott has already made history. What most of the media will miss, however, is the fact that like Jefferson Smith in the Frank Capra movie; Scott has a vision for the youth of America!

We caught an Interview [click to listen] that Scott did with Jim Daley of Focus on the Family, and learned that Tim spent the first part of his life growing up on Air Force Bases and was raised by his single mother when his father left. Mom worked a double shift as a nurse and struggled to provide for her family. Young Tim struggled in school, failing at many of his subjects. He might have never risen past his beginnings but he found a friend. He got a job working at Chick-fil-A and the store's operator took young Tim under his wing. John Moniz was the man's name. Scott remembers: "He started teaching me that if you don't like where you are, don't blame your father, if he's not around. Don't blame your mom, because she's working so hard. Look in the mirror and blame yourself. And he started teaching me this notion of individual responsibility at a very core level. He didn't pound it into my head. He simply on a consistent and continuous basis showed me what it meant to be responsible and second, encouraged me that the best was yet to come."

Moniz died at 38 when Scott was only 19, but the seed he had planted took root. Scott went on to apply himself to his studies with renewed purpose. He served in the United States Congress before he was appointed Senator. He now has a vision to bring about an even greater sense of E pluribus unum. He says: "I'm working with Cory Booker, who is a Democrat senator, much more liberal than I am, probably as liberal as I am conservative. We found solid ground on apprenticeship programs. We're going to work together on, I believe, charter schools and educational remedies that will provide solutions. We're looking for ways to look at the justice system and create a better path, help people avoid it." Here is the bipartisanship many long for. Scott and Booker have found common ground in an issue close to Scott's heart, the next generation!

Scott has a unique approach to what it means to him to represent his constituents: "See what the need is. I did something called "The Undercover Senator" for the last several months. I worked at the Goodwill side by side, not as a senator. I put on some jeans and some clothes and just went and worked. I worked at a burrito restaurant. I bagged groceries, so I would have the experience of talking to folks. I rode the public transportation system undercover, so that I could ask the question. "What do you need? What are you lookin' for? What are you expecting out of your life?" Hunger for opportunity, devastating educational experiences. So, too often and I would say 8 out of 10 times, the person barely finished high school or did not. This is a major component to solving poverty from my role in government. It's not how much more can we give. It's how do you prepare the foundation? The foundation besides faith and family is education."

Scott encourages all who will listen: "It you find the root, the tap root to prosperity, you can solve poverty. Fight poverty doesn't seem to work. Creating a path to prosperity I believe will help us solve the problem of poverty."

The friendship extended to him by John Moniz inspires Tim Scott's deepest longing for more people to become mentors, stepping out of their isolation and into their larger communities: "I think we need to "intracountry" mission work. That would be one of the challenges I would submit that would be a life-changing experience for folks. We went around. So, first thing you would do in my opinion is go visit those areas that you're not accustomed to visiting. [1.]

Photos Around Staunton


Good Shepherd Church was designed in the style of a simple country church. Photo by Bob Kirchman


The firm of T. J. Collins incorporated some Celtic elements in the design. Photo by Bob Kirchman


Detail of the original altar carving. Photo by Bob Kirchman

The Forgotten Season
(continued)

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

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: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. -- Isaiah 40:3-5

Isaiah the Prophet writes with great expectation of the coming Messiah. Our December 17th issue will explore the wonder more as we look at the wonder of both nature and her Creator... and His wonderful love for us, His creation.
(to be continued)

THYME Magazine American Renewal Issue VI

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue XXVI
 
Pursuit of Virtue
Cover: The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino

"Properly understood, therefore, when John Locke, Samuel Johnson, and Thomas Jefferson wrote of 'the pursuit of happiness,' they were invoking the Greek and Roman philosophical tradition in which happiness is bound up with the civic virtues of courage, moderation, and justice. Because they are civic virtues, not just personal attributes, they implicate the social aspect of eudaimonia. The pursuit of happiness, therefore, is not merely a matter of achieving individual pleasure." -- Carol V. Hamilton, Ph.d.

The 'other' weekly news magazine a while ago considered The Pursuit of Happiness [click to read]. Quoting the philosophers who say we're "wired for happiness," they then delve into the conundrum of why we are so unhappy. THYME once again ventures in where angels fear to tread... to consider the truth intended by the original writers.

Consider These Advertisements [click to read] for Colorado's Health Insurance Marketplace. While they are an insult to the fine young people I actually know and work with, they nonetheless represent the popular narrative's description of "Pursuit of Happiness." Really?, "Kegstands" and "shotsies?" Again, I have to wonder if ageing advertising executives are being allowed to define young people they really need to go out and talk to. One surprise in Virginia's recent gubernatorial election was that the Conservative candidate actually won a strong percentage of the so-called 'Millenial' vote. The 18-24 demographic broke strongly for the Conservative [1.] begging the question: "Is the self-actualization message of the popular culture deconstructing under its own weight as young people open their eyes and see the true cost?" 

Those who seek to write the narrative about modern Americans err because they've replaced the institutions of virtue and protection with the multiplex cinema and the mall as center of the settlement. Consider the first Jamestown settlement, where the church, the storehouse and the armory were at the center. Personal happiness, in the packaging of self-actualization demands we redefine marriage and reduce consequences for pleasurable behaviours. Society must now provide outcome instead of opportunity, even if that outcome is tepid compared to the results of mankind unchained to pursue loftier goals that are out of the direct pervue of government.

Thus, many are lauding the Supreme Court's latest "Dred Scott"  [2.] moment as an American triumph, overturning a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act and striking down the restoration of California's popularly ratified Proposition Eight. The portion of DOMA actually overturned has to do with an inheritance case and is NOT at all like Roe vs Wade, which nullified state abortion laws in a sweeping motion. The media rushes to herald it, but it does not really create what qualifies as a landmark decision. In fact it is but one more strike against traditional thinking which includes the government forcing Catholic Charities in Massachussetts to place children with same-sex couples (they folded rather than compromise their beliefs), the suit against a photographer who, on faith grounds, declined to photograph a same-sex ceremony and the Methodist group in New Jersey who were denied tax-exempt status because they would not allow a same-sex ceremony to be performed in their facility [3.]

Marriage Wins in the Big Picture [click to read]

In each of these cases, there were other options open to the couples and they were in no way forbidden from creating their covenant relationship. At issue, in each case, was the religious freedom of those who hold that G-d alone may define what is marriage. Beyond the religious freedom considerations, a strong body of research suggests that children are best raised by a father and a mother [4.] While the thought may nor be politically correct, the evidence is well-documented. State law is still able to support traditional marriage and may well strengthen the virtues epitomized in eudaimonia by doing so. Courage, moderation and justice would ask: "what is best for our children?"

The First Amendment of the Constitution both prohibits government establishment of a 'state' church and protects citizens in the free exercise of their faith. While it is a good thing to restrict the government's direction of the distribution of an estate (property being an important right), it also follows that the government has no business redefining what for many is a matter of faith (freedom of belief being one of the fundamental rights). Providing protection for a person's directives concerning shared property and hospital visitation priviledges is in keeping with the virtues of courage, moderation and justice. Creating a 'right' for someone to overwrite the tenets of faith with fines and sanctions is the antithesis of them.

Much of the so-called 'Affordable Care Act's' controversy surrounds the law's establishment of access to contraceptives and abortion as 'fundamental rights' in defiance of those institutions and traditions who's purpose is to instill virtue. Requiring Faith-based institutions to provide coverage for things they don't believe in violates the true spirit of "pursuit of Virtue." Mandating that Christian businessmen like David Green [click to read] provide them is equally intrusive on true personal liberty.

Indeed it would seem that the time has come to offer a clear alternative to the tired old cliche's that would reduce significant personal choices to the level of a Superbowl beer commercial. I am not a recognized expert on youth, but I have worked closely with enough young people to know that they can indeed wrap their fingers around noble purposes. History tells us that young people of old took up the task before them to survey great lands and build great works. They were not shipped off to "professionals" to be trained, but rather, received mentoring from older people, often in a highly individualized fashion. Older people were not always 'retired' from service in a mandatory fashion. In an era when few lived past the age of 62 they were a cherished resource. That changed when leaders like Prussia's Otto Von Bismark discovered that their most effective opposition was from people over the age of 65 [5.]. In the days before penicillin it was a safe bet to pension the relatively few Germans who did live past that age.

As one who is two years into his sixth decade, I can tell you that it is a great joy to freely share the things you have learned with a bright young apprentice! Sadly, this does not happen in a world where people enter productive life late and leave too early. There is more of a competitive than collaborative mindset in a workforce that excludes experience and enthusiasm found at the ends of the age spectrum. We need to return to a world where we train our own replacements, cherishing the creation of a legacy more than the accumulation of one's own accomplishment. We do not create a legacy for ourselves, rather we pass the baton and cheer. Virtue WANTS the next generation to run faster, farther and surer!

What better place for this to be reborn than in our churches. A couple of Sundays ago I heard a most inspiring message of intentional care for the younger generation. We were encouraged to pray for each child in our congregation... creating intentional relationships for mentoring, support and discipleship. All of the clever programs in the world cannot surpass the strength of such intentional relationships.

In Colossians 1:9-12 we read: "For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of G-d; Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness; Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:" What would it look like to pray/model that for our young people? The results would certainly be changed young lives...and changed young lives would make an impact on their world! What if our young people were to be brought up in the narrative that they are for us a cherished investment?... Masterpieces of IMAGO DEI entrusted to our care?

Remembering a Great Mentor

There was a Man who Convinced Me I Could Do This


Reconstructing my model of Ellicott's Mills for the B&O Railroad Museum.

A Milestone Monday Feature

In Chapter 14 of Chuck Balsamo's new book Make Me a Legend Pastor Balsamo talks about the importance of finding a good mentor. He brought back some important memories as I recalled the influence of a man named Reggie. Reggie served in the Navy during World War II and achieved the rank of Aviation Machinist's Mate, Second Class. He was a first class mentor.

I met this amazing man because I went to school with his daughter. He was a Chevrolet mechanic and an avid outdoorsman. He introduced me to the wonders of Coastal New Jersey as I happily paddled for hours through marshes and creeks. At about 50 years old, Reggie became an instructor at the vocational technology school. There he discovered his true gifts and passions.

At an age where most men are thinking about taking it easy, Reggie enrolled in Rutgers University and pursued a degree in administration. Education and young people had become his true calling and he graduated from college the same time one of his daughters did.

Days at Reggie's place where full ones. He lived in a little postwar bungalo and when his children and their assembled friends were descending on the place around ten in the evening, he'd put on a pot of coffee. It came as no surprise that Reggie enjoyed lively conversation and sometimes these talk sessions would end in the wee hours of the morning. Good coffee, however, always made up for sleep deprivation.

Reggie went on to become a high school principal, but I have to believe that the best classes he ever taught were at his own kitchen table. He noticed that I was a hands-on guy struggling with an academic world. He found information on architectural model making and shared it with me. "You'd be good at this, Bob." Years later I was literally living off of this compliment. My little studio built models for architects, including one famous one. I worked on several models for resort projects in Japan, though I'm not sure how a man who served in the Pacific Theatre would feel about that.

No doubt, this man has influenced many young lives in a similar manner. I am priviledged to have known him.

This week the 'other' weekly news magazine presents its list of 100 'most influential' people. THYME maintains that the most influential people are unsung and unknown.How many people know the name of Edward Kimball? [1.] Kimball led a shoe salesman to Faith in Christ. The shoe salesman happened to be Dwight L. Moody. Here in Volume V, Issue XIX, THYME celebrates the lives of those who truly influence others!

Thoughts on True Greatness [click to read] by Rabbi Yonason Goldson in Jewish World Review.