THYME Magazine

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue VIII

China Conundrum Confounds Capitalists

A 'Best of THYMEs' Feature...

It is time for America to come to terms with China. No sooner than we reported on the dissapearance of Liu Xia [1.], the 'other' weekly news magazine is reporting on China's bubble. We need to, as Herman Cain says: "outgrow China." Surely the world benefits from a robust economy in China, but we dare not neglect the dangers of turning over to her the role of world superpower. China is a land of many complex and contradictory realities. Persecution of people of faith and creative individuals is a dark problem wherever it occurs and China has long been known to suppress. In 1989 tanks rolled over peaceful demonstrators in Bejing's Tianamen Square. That event marked a dark time for freedom loving people in China.

Asian Megacities as Political Theatre


What Le Corbusier would have wrought in Paris has become the new reality of Bejing and Shanghai.

Le Corbusier once wrote of his Plan Voisin for Paris: “Since 1922 [for the past 42 years] I have continued to work, in general and in detail, on the problem of Paris. Everything has been made public. The City Council has never contacted me. It calls me ‘Barbarian’!” -- Le Corbusier’s writings, p. 207.

Fast forward to the Twenty-first Century and Shanghai [Le Corbusier on steroids]. It all seems like the realization of the fictional Coruscant from Star Wars... a completely urban environment that stretches as far as the eye can see. The entire planet of Coruscant is one continual city.

Guy Sorman discusses the rise of Asian 'Super Megagopolises' [click to read] in City Journal. Looking at the Mega-model of Shanghai, one could begin to wonder: "can Coruscant be that far off." Sorman points out, however, that Shanghai is largely a political creation...designed to create the impression that China is ready for business with the world. [1.]

Every day the city teems with life and every night the workers necessary to make it function vacate the pristine city. It is like Disney World, where the 'cast members' descend into 'Utilidor,' remove their costumes, and disappear to homes elsewhere.

For Shanhai workers, 'homes elsewhere' often means crowded andsubstandard. Just as China's factories are seldom seen by Westerners,those who maintain the stage for world commerce live in a vastlydifferent world than the one they 'portray' in their 'day jobs.'

Or perhaps, the Death Star in Star Wars is a better analogy. Its scale is way beyond human. It is intended to convey a sense of awe. Might we be looking at the work of some latter day Nimrod, seeking to elevate himself to the heavens?

Sorman points out how the mad rush into the 21st Century has obliterated the traditional spaces of Shanghai and Bejing, which were much more human in size and scate. Again Star Wars comes to mind. Green beautiful planets like Naboo and Alderon risk elimination as the Empire expands its grasp.


This scale model of Shanghai dwarfs the people in the room...


...and calls to mind the fictional city of Coruscant.

In the 'Sixties America sought to 'remake' her major cities. Le Corbusier style housing blocks were constructed to elevate the urban poor. Many of these 'projects' have since been torn down. While we were building them Moscow was building similar blocks of apartments. Today in Moscow, urban youths flock to the rooftops. [2.] Called 'Roofers,' these young people seek the rooftops simply for the openness and the view.

How to Return to the Village
Returning Government to the People in the 'Audience'

Nineteenth Century America was a nation of villages. Great centers of commerce existed, but they were fed by a vibrant countryside. When Thomas Jefferson created his ideal 'Academic Village' to house the University of Virginia he purposefully left one side open to the surrounding agricultural land. From the steps of the Rotunda one could look upon the rolling hills of Albemarle County.

Architect Stanford White convinced the University to fill the void with Old Cabell Hall a long time ago. The recently completed South Lawn attempts to recreate a space leading off into the trees of Charlottesville. The challenge of getting back to the garden is ever before us.

Rooftop Gardens [click to read] offer one method of getting people and open spaces together. Reclaiming existing environments is another. Aging strip malls could be recycled into village centers for the surrounding suburban homes, offering a place residents could walk or bicycle to. Vacant lots and neglected riverfronts can become parks and gardens.


Proposed Renewal of the Crozet Shopping Center.

Suburb bashing has always been a fashionable intellectual pastime.That is one reason I like Robert A. M. Stern. He sees the reasons people seek out single family dwellings of a traditional form. I have a friend who lives on the upper West side and his penthouse with a view of the Hudson is very nice but give me my gardens.People put up with the wretched infrastructure overload and strip centers because the village is still appealing. The residential areas become landscaped oasis for their residents. Kids play outside the house in view of the kitchen window. People visit at the back fence.Moreover the suburbs are seen by their dwellers as affirming opportunity and safety. If people had no emotion for their homes they would be fine with Le Courbusier type high rises but that is simply not the case.The problem is really one of infrastructure and public space [or lack therof]. Strip malls and box stores create a sterile wasteland but they may become the village centers of the future.

Time magazine once featured a piece called 'Repurposing Suburbs' which shows some fine examples of recreating this type of public space. This Crozet project turns a tired strip mall into a village center. One cannot wait for Crozet's redesigner to get his creative hands on some of the new "Town Center" projects which are now just collections of big box stores. Some time ago I drew a concept where the CSX tracks between Staunton and Charlottesville became a light rail line connecting Staunton, Fishersville, Waynesboro, Crozet, Ivy, The University of Virginia Medical Center and Downtown Charlottesville. The result would be a series of village centers and a better utilization of existing infrastructure.

City Journal's writers draw conflicting conclusions. Houston is touted as encouraging its middle class while Gotham offers limited options. Dense urban areas do tend to create energy efficiency. The trick is to see opportunities to improve the communities we have already created.That would certainly involve offering condominiums and a pedestrian friendly center to suburban communities and reclaiming all those wonderful old low density neighborhoods of our cities.

There is more to solving this problem than finding architectural solutions. Redemption too, must begin on a human scale. In a future post I will explore the role of 'New Monasticism' and activists like Star Parker in this aspect of redemptive work in our culture.

Next: Counterpoint to Coruscant [click to read].

Our Future Should be Built on Our Past Success


The Valley Railroad was once a branch of the B&O that ran all the way to Rockbridge County.


Agriculture was revolutionized by Cyrus McCormick, who built his first reaper at his Father's mill in Augusta County. The operation moved to Chicago to become the International Harvester Corporation.Fishersille Mike shares this piece: Hard Choices All Around [click to read]. The bottom line is that it is time to start making things again. He references This Article by William Gross [click to read].

"The global economy is suffering from a lack of aggregate demand. With insufficient demand, nations compete furiously for their share of the diminishing growth pie.

In the U.S. and Euroland, many policies only temporarily bolster consumption while failing to address the fundamental problem of developed economies: Job growth is moving inexorably to developing economies because they are more competitive.

Unless developed economies learn to compete the old-fashioned way – by making more goods and making them better – the smart money will continue to move offshore to Asia, Brazil and their developing economy counterparts, both in asset and in currency space."Drive past the once flourishing DuPont plant in Waynesboro and this will soon start to sink in. Once this complex employed thousands. Today a few hundred workers make Lycra. To qoute Billy Joel: "We're all in Allentown now."

Well we’re living here in Allentown
And they’re closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they’re killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line
Well our fathers fought the Second World War
Spent their weekends on the Jersey Shore
Met our mothers at the USO
Asked them to dance
Danced with them slow

And we're living here in Allentown.
But the restlessness was handed down
And it's getting very hard to stay.

Well we're waiting here in Allentown
For the Pennsylvania we never found
For the promises our teachers gave
If we worked hard
If we behaved.

So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real
Iron or coke,
Chromium steel.

– Billy Joel, 1982But 'living in Allentown' is not an option. The decline of the American economy cannot support our large urbanized population.

"The constructive way is to stop making paper and start making things. Replace subprimes, and yes, Treasury bonds with American cars, steel, iPads, airplanes, corn – whatever the world wants that we can make better and/or cheaper. Learn how to compete again. Investments in infrastructure and 21st century education and research, as opposed to 20th century education are mandatory, as is a withdrawal from resource-draining foreign wars. It will be a tough way back, but it can be done with sacrifice and appropriate public policies that encourage innovation, education and national reconstruction, as opposed to Wall Street finance and Main Street consumption."Some of the developments that make American plants less competitive are not bad. American mills in the Nineteenth Century employed children, often in dangerous environments. A system that has made life better for the workers is not a bad thing. High corporate tax rates, unsustainable pension plans and redundant Federal oversight that discourages production are very bad things.

We needn't reclaim all manufacturing. We need to find opportunities to excell as new technologies develop and master their development. New processes and craftmanship should fill our vacant plants and find market share enriching customers around the world.

Producing our own energy is essential. Increased nuclear capacity must be developed along with our own oil, gas and coal resources. Controlling energy costs is essential to our future productivity.

Localized production, small and home businesses and artisan farms are part of the answer too. Less centalization of such things as food production is good and renders us less susceptable to worldwide economic chaos.

The 1904 Saint Louis World's Fair and American Superiority

This Article by Guy Sorman in City Journal caught my eye. In 1904 the robust American economy was recognized as a world leader, but Sorman quotes a study showing the American economy coming into its own by 1820! He goes on to point out how egalitarian American ideals actually created the first mass market. Joseph Schumpeter's “creative destruction” is also mentioned as a reason for economic prosperity as the new constantly replaces the old and the market reallocates resources accordingly.

That translates into new innovative technology and methods. Eventually we'll be driving hydrogen cars and seeing advances in healthcare delivery. Government mandates won't accomplish this, changing economies, innovation and market demand will.

I once did a reconstruction of the Nineteenth Century town of Ellicott's Mills, first terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad outside of Baltimore. The Ellicott Brothers had migrated from Bucks County, Pennsylvania and settled on the banks of the Patapsco River. There they convinced Charles Carroll [the signer of the Declaration of Independence] to diversify his plantation agriculture. They intruduced wheat, flour mills, limestone mining and many other innovations and that is a model of what happened throughout the young Republic.

Our real cultural diversity as a 'Nation of Nations' fuels discovery and innovation. In spite of the professed loathing of so many world rulers for our Nation, the best and brightest still want to come here.


Ellicott's Mills is typical of many American communities in the Nineteenth Century. Model by Mr. Kirchman.Sorman points out that the U.S. economy and its spirit of enterprise still set the pace for the rest of the world. We must not invoke change that diminishes that.

The First Terminus of the B&O Railroad


B&O Station.


Patapsco Hotel.


Arch of the old railroad bridge.


Floods of the Twentieth Century.


Cornerstone of the railroad bridge...


...still carrying Chessie System trains today.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

Is it Rational to Believe in God?

ht/Jonathan Greer

Edward Hicks, Painter, Preacher

Sign Painter Who Visualized Peaceable Kingdom

A Milestone Monday Feature:


Edward Hicks' 1834 painting of the 'Peaceable Kingdom.'

By John Braostoski
Friends Journal
February 2000

Many people would recognize the work of Edward Hicks (1780-1849) in his Peaceable Kingdom paintings. But it would be a rare person who would know much more about his life and beliefs, which were totally connected with them. Some think of him as a colonial folk artist, untrained and self-taught, simple, sweet, or naive. That view is partially true, but also misleading. Although Hicks was self-taught, he developed sophisticated technical ability and had an educated and penetrating intellect.

His career started as a decorator of carriages and maker of signs. Some of the signs were patriotic, such as views of Washington crossing the Delaware with the moon penetrating storm clouds, like the cosmic eye of G-d, observing and approving of the events. Another was a wooden placard adorned with the face of Benjamin Franklin. The most curious sign to us might be the one of a joyful jumble of hats for a hatter named Jacob Christ, who surprisingly came from Nazareth, albeit Pennsylvania.

At first his fellow Quakers looked a bit askance at his profession, and because of this, at one time he gave It up to be a farmer. He was unsuccessful at farming, however, and returned to his brushes. It was honest work, so fellow members of his meeting eventually forgave him, especially since he was becoming a strong preacher, traveling among many meetings. He did agree with them about certain vanities in art and refused to paint portraits, which were too ego-centered.

He worked at the time when both the United States and modern American Quakerism were young. His spiritual beliefs came from Barclay and 18th-century quietism, which espoused simplicity, self-discipline, and contact with the Inner Light. FIias Hicks, his second cousin, was a central figure in a religious storm. Edward Hicks was a spokesman, in word and in image, for those who became known as the Hicksites. It broke his heart to see Quakers becoming worldly, with excessive material goods and inflated pride, and leaning towards the creation of a spiritual elite. He felt this corrosion also in the authoritarian control of elders, as mere men, and not as followers of the Inner Spirit of Christ. He had a genuine feeling for the Scriptures, along with hope for a continuing sense of insight open to all. Some of the divisions between urban and rural Quakers have been laid at the feet of visiting Quakers from England, justly or unjustly. In his travels, Hicks spoke much of this.

He also spoke of something else: his own education included ancient concepts of animal symbolism with its references to aspects of human personality. These symbols came into his paintings. The lion was quick-tempered and willful. The wolf was full of melancholy and reserved. The bear was sluggish and greedy. The leopard, buoyant. In his paintings, these were both animal qualities with potential violence as well as the aforementioned rage, egoism, greed, etc. personified.

His "signature" subject of the peaceable kingdom slowly evolved. His symbols of the animals were joined to a quotation of Isaiah's prophecy in the Bible (Isa. 11:6):

"The wolf shall also dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."
Isaiah's words were lettered on the borders, or false frames, around the paintings of the Peaceable Kingdom. Often he paraphrased Isaiah but always centrally included the child. At first he painted a very simple image, with a mixture of wild and domestic animals together. Later he introduced a dividing embankment, which developed into a ravine. On the left side, smaller figures indicated the founders of American Quakerism, William Penn being the most noticeable, concluding a treaty with the Indians. Beyond them was a brilliant sky and sometimes an arriving ship. On the right, the child was surrounded by the well-known duster of unlikely animal companions. The bull and lion were the most pronounced. The lion was offered hay to eat. These were powerful and intense images.

The Peaceable Kingdom paintings portray a delicate balance of difficult and unresolved issues. The lion-ego poses the greatest threat. The wild animals are seemingly domesticated and brought into line with loving kindness. However, their expression of pop-eyed puzzlement is not lost on any viewer. For the moment, they are behaving themselves, eating bovine food and not the little lambs. Hicks's paintings over the years show an increasingly subtle rendering of these animals and children clustered together. His concern is revealed through a tree that appears as if struck by lightning, splitting it. These are not mere decorations added for the naturalistic setting. The divided tree remains a major element in his paintings. As with the animal symbolism, other figures could represent concepts like "justice" or "purity." Originally a sign painter, Hicks continued to make "signs," except that now we have to call them symbols.

The little child had appeared in earlier paintings representing liberty and freedom from autocratic oppression. Politically, that meant kings and princes for' Hicks. But spiritual freedom also has to be obtained. There is a struggle against a foe, not British Quakers or material riches, but the weakness and characteristics of a willful self. The true foe was a self-willed, egotistical, greedy, lustful, or slanderously poisonous self Hicks rejected the authority of the self-aggrandized. He sought the authority of a purer self, washed by the Inner Light, which could reveal religious understandings, even if possibly at odds with established views.

This search was not his alone, and there was resistance to it. A face-off came, with dire results culminating in a division amongst Quakers. For Friends there were many words, not necessarily all polite. Hicks laid the blame upon the inherent human propensities that when uncontrolled turn wild. He felt that a peaceable kingdom was possible, that the child would lead them, that the lamb would lie down with the wolf, etc. Across the ravine was seen an example of William Penn demonstrating how it could be done. There might be other groups of Quakers, with Elias Hicks among them, representing what the artist felt were the better aspects of humankind, wrapped in long ribbons, with messages such as "Mind the Inner Light." Deeper in the paintings, in colorful satu- rations of light, might be seen a hilltop with a figure and twelve followers, indicating something even loftier, but with no written labels.

With the passage of time, the Peaceable Kingdom paintings became more skillful in technique but saturated with both hope and dashed hopes. The figures became more dispersed. The child plays a lesser role, the animals begin to snarl and raise their claws to strike, divisions become more blatant, the tree more shattered. Hicks became extremely worried about a Quaker reconciliation. The animals become visibly older: white whiskers and sad, sunken eyes. The docility is from fatigue rather than from a peaceful blessing. But this is a fatigue of pride, ego, lust, and greed--perhaps not so bad. All those symbols recede. The sense of light in the gorgeously rendered creatures, trees, and air becomes the subject. How is that? Hicks believed in the Inner Light and its power; he felt it, therefore he saw it. Most importantly, he saw it in others, including the lion and the bear. The world was all light to him, that special Light. He depicted it again in his last painting of David Leedom's farm, where half the painting is luminous sky. The immaculately rendered bulls, sheep, pigs, fences, barns, and people (living or deceased) are saturated in it. No, they are giving it off, being fall of that spirituality, in abundance. It is as if the world is made of diamonds. No, it is made of one diamond.

Edward Hicks allows us to see the Light coming out of all living beings and the world, speaking to that which shines within every one of us.

THYME Magazine

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue VII

A 'Best of THYMEs' Feature...

THYME's 'Esther of the Year'

 Irena Sendler Has Died at 98 [click to read]

This week the 'other' weekly news magazine presents: The Childfree Life [click to read]. Children, you see, get in the way when you want to "have it all!" THYME this week goes back in history to examine the life of a woman who truly knew the value of children. Her story proves it.

The 'other' weekly news magazine has its 'Person of the Year.' WORLD Magazine has its 'Daniel of the Year,' so this year THYME will have its Esther. Esther, you may recall was the young girl who saved the Jewish people from extermination by the wicked Haman in the Persian Empire of Xerxes. The feast of Purim joyfully celebrates the deliverance.

A Twentieth Century Esther might have gone unnoticed but for the work of four students at Uniontown High School, in Kansas, who discovered her story. The Play: Life in a Jar is the result of their research. Elizabeth Cambers, Megan Stewart, Sabrina Coons and Janice Underwood, four high school girls, are responsible for bringing this woman's amazing life to light.

Irena Sendler was born in 1910 in Otwock, Poland, fifteen miles outside of Warsaw. Her Father was a doctor and most of his patients were poor Jews. Undoubtedly Ms. Sendler was influenced by her Father's compassion for his patients. When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Irena was a Senior Administrator in the Warsaw Social Welfare Department, which provided meals, financial aid, and other services for orphans, the elderly, the poor and the destitute of the City. She enrolled Jewish families under fictitious names and often used quarantine for such infectious diseases as typhus and tuberculosis to keep nosy officials at bay.

In 1942, however, the Nazis walled off sixteen blocks of Warsaw, herded Jewish families in, and created the horrific Warsaw Ghetto.

Horrified by this new development, Sendler joined Zegota, the Council for Aid to Jews, organized by the Polish underground resistance movement, and recruited ten of her friends to help her. In order to get into the Ghetto, she obtained a pass from Warsaws Epidemic Control Department and posed as a health worker. Sanitation and basic services were lacking. The Nazis saw little need to provide these things, but were concerned about the possibility of disease epidemics that might escape the Ghetto.

Irena was deeply moved by the plight of the babies and children. Initially she and her fellow workers smuggled in food, clothing and medicine as they performed their work as sanitation workers, but knowing that 5000 people a month were dying in the Ghetto, Irena was compelled to do far more. She and her 'fellow employees' smuggled babies in their tool boxes, older children in sacks and boxes on their trucks. They often sedated the children so they would be quiet but she is said to have used a dog on one of her trucks who would bark menacingly whan soldiers would approach to inspect it. The soldiers had no desire to get close to the dog and left the interior of the truck unsearched.

Sendler, a young Mother herself, had to convince other Mothers to hand her their babies and children. One Mother asked her: "Can you guarantee my child will live?" Her answer was the harsh truth that if the child stayed, he would surely die. "In my dreams," she once said, "I still hear the cries when they left their parents."
"Irena Sendler accomplished her incredible deeds with the active assistance of the church. "I sent most of the children to religious establishments," she recalled. "I knew I could count on the Sisters." Irena also had a remarkable record of cooperation when placing the youngsters: "No one ever refused to take a child from me," -- Jewish Virtual Library

Most of the children who left with Sendler's group were taken into Roman Catholic convents, orphanages and homes and given non-Jewish aliases. Sendler kept the only record of their true identities in the hope that one day she could restore them to their families. The names of 2500 rescued children were placed in jars which Sendler buried under a neighbor's apple tree.

On October 20, 1943, the Gestapo, who were becoming increasingly aware of her activities, arrested Irena Sendler. Even under torture -- they broke her legs and feet [1.] -- she refused to give up those names. She was sentenced to be executed but her friends bribed officials and she was able to escape.

After the war Irena dug up the jars and worked to reunite children with their families. Sadly many had no family to go to anymore. The woman they had known only as 'Jolanta' was sad that she could have not done more for them.

Honored by international Jewish organizations - in 1965 she was accorded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem organization in Jerusalem. In 1991 she was made an honorary citizen of Israel.

Irena Sendler was awarded Poland's highest distinction, the Order of White Eagle. She died at the age of 98 on May 12, 2008.
Source: The Telegraph [click to read] and Jewish Virtual Library [click to read].


Irena Sendler with her children, Janka and Adam.

The Ignoble Nobel

It is reported that Irena Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Although nominees names are kept from publication there is good reason to believe she was recently passed up in the process. The prize went to Albert Arnold Gore for a slide show on 'Global Warming.' In an era where world leaders routinely deny that the Holocaust happened, and portray the most speculative 'science' as proven truth this should not come as a great surprise.

We should never allow the popular narrative to erase the truth and heroism of women like Irena Sendler and the message their stories hold for us.

Holocaust Can't Happen Again [click to read], can it? Thoughts from Arnold Ahlert in Jewish World Review.

THYME's 2012 'Esther of the Year'

"...and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" -- Esther 4:14

Last Year THYME's 'Esther of the Year' was Irena Sendler [click to read]. This amazing woman saved the lives of many children during the holocaust. This year, with great sadness, we remember another woman's saving of children. She was not a great public figure, she did not seek fame. Her Mother said of her: "She was not somebody that ever wanted to be famous or wanted her picture in the paper."

So we will simply remember her deeds. 2012 'Esther of the Year' [click to read].

Two Visions of Heaven

Envisioning the Unseen World that Awaits Us


Mural at Staunton Alliance Church depicting the New Heaven and the New Earth as described in Isaiah 60 and Revelation. 
Mural by Kristina Elaine Riley and Bob Kirchman

A Messianic Jewish Woman's Vision

"The flowers... they are enormous!" upon meeting a woman who'd had dreams of Heaven, I asked her to describe what she saw there."What did Heaven look like?" I wanted to hear her story. "Heaven is a lot like Earth... only BETTER. There are brilliant colors. The little children... they are closest to Jesus!

Her eyes twinkled like those of a child on Christmas morning as she proceeded to describe a world full of wonder! I just happened to meet her in our morning worship and we soon found ourselves deep in a discussion of our true Country!

Close to Jesus there are indescribable wonders. How poor the modern world is for its neglect of the wonders that await us in the hereafter.

A Little Boy's Vision

Later that evening, I caught up with some old friends who are missionaries to Nepal. Two years ago, the woman had traveled to a very poor village by the river. The only industry in the village was making gravel from river stones by hammering them. What she saw there broke her heart. Sitting on his front porch was a boy who's spine was so twisted that he was severely crippled, legs twisting into a useless position. His head was bent to the floor and was only able to breath with great effort. My missionary friend so wanted to reach out to him that she returned with another lady to share stories of Jesus with him.

Feeling she should share the joy of Heaven with the boy, she showed him large picture cards and described Heaven. Soon a group of children assembled. The boy's father was away working and his mother agreed to let them keep meeting there. As they returned week after week, their audience grew to about eighty children. Their families were Hindu, but their interest kept them returning.

Last year the little boy became very sick. He asked if the missionary lady would come and pray for him. He was struggling ever harder to breathe but he refused to go to the hospital until the lady came. As he was prayed for, he passed out from exhaustion. The doctors at the local hospital examined him and said there was nothing they could do for him. Perhaps a more advanced hospital might be able to help.

The boy insisted that he did not want to go to another hospital. He just wanted: "to go to Heaven with Jesus."

The next morning, in spite of the doctors' best efforts at both hospitals, the little boy did step into eternity with Jesus. His father, a Hindu, asked that the boy be given a Christian burial as he said that his son had indeed become a believer in Jesus. His friends and their families continue to meet in the village to hear stories of Jesus, but the group has outgrown the little porch. The boy's friends all joyfully proclaim that he is in Heaven.  The boy's sister recently asked: "Can I go to Heaven too?"  
[retold from 'The Most High G-d, Journeys of Triumph with Nanda & Lisa Giri in Nepal'].

The Year of Jubilee

The Fisk University Jubilee Singers


Early photograph of the Jubilee Singers.

A Milestone Monday Feature:

Out of the ashes of the American Civil War there arose institutions such as Fisk University in Nashville Tennessee. The outcome of the war had freed the slaves but many people realized that education was key in truely liberating these citizens. Fisk University's mission was to provide opportunities in higher education to African Americans, many of whom were newly freed slaves. As a young institution without established alumni, the school faced a continual challenge in funding its programs. Five years into its mission the school was facing bankruptcy and the possibility of closing her doors.

George L. White, the school's treasurer and music director, organized a nine member chorus of students with the hope that they might increase awareness of the school and its mission, On October 6, 1871 the initial group, two quartets and a pianist, made their first United States tour.

They began their concert tour in Cincinnati Ohio. When the students heard of the Great Chicago Fire that same month they promptly sent the entire profits from their Cincinnati concert offering. “We had thirty dollars and sent every penny to Chicago and didn’t have anything for ourselves” according to soprano Maggie Porter, who also remembered the gratitude expressed by the people of Chicago.

From Cincinnati the group travelled on to Columbus, where they suffered from a lack of funds enough to provide for even basic accomodations. The Columbus newspapers proved to be less than kind in their coverage and audiences did not take them seriously. The singers were serious musicians and as such did not fit many peoples' stereotype of the 'minstrel' genre.

Tired and discouraged, the group and their pastor, Henry Bennett, prayed about whether or not to continue the tour. The offerings were poor and the audiences sometimes hostile. Surely it was time to pack up and go home.

White, a former missionary, went off by himself to pray about the matter and then reached the conclusion that a new name for the group was in order. The next morning he told the students that henceforth they would be known as "The Jubilee Singers," a reference to Leviticus 25 in the Bible, the passage that talks of the Year of Jubilee, the time in the Kingdom when all debts were to be forgiven and all slaves were to be set free. Indeed, the new name resonated with the experience of many of the students, who had been born in slavery.

They toured on! The first United States tour eventually raised $40,000 for Fisk University. In 1872 they were invided to perform for President Ulysses S. Grant at the White House. In 1873 they toured Europe and sang for Queen Victoria in England. A second European tour raised $150,000 for the university and allowed the construction of the school's first permenant building, aptly named Jubilee Hall.

In 1878 the original group was disbanded. Ella Sheppard, one of the original students in the group says: “our strength was failing under the ill treatment at hotels, on railroads, poorly attended concerts, and ridicule.” Maggie Porter says of this: “There were many times,when we didn’t have place to sleep or anything to eat. Mr. White went out and brought us some sandwiches and tried to find some place to put us up.” Other times while the singers would wait in the railway station White “and some other man of the troupe waded through sleet or snow or rain from hotel to hotel seeking shelter for us.”

A new choir was organized by White in 1879 The group continues to this day. In addition to the usual choral numbers the Jubilee Singers introduced many of the old spirituals they had grown up with to an international audience. [1.]


Jubilee Hall at Fisk University was built with proceeds from the Jubilee Singers' second European tour.

Erskine College, Due West, SC

The Erskine Building, Oldest Building on Campus

Erskine College, Due West, SC

Inscriptions on the Library Wall

THYME Magazine

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue VI

A 'Best of THYMEs' Feature...

Cover: Ellicott's Mills in miniature as created by Bob Kirchman in 1971/1972 at age 20. It was refurbished and corrected to reflect current research for the B and O Museum's 'Roads to Rails' exhibit two years ago.

Remembering our Roots

The 'other' Weekly News Magazine [click to read] once presented: "The History of the American Dream." If the American Dream is merely about home ownership and material security, we're down for the count. In the late seventies the government sought to make home ownership available to all. In 2007 we got the bill for it.

But if we see the American dream as something more... those desires that drove people to our shores in the first place, we're ready for a renaissance.

The Pilgrims, the Anabaptists and Moravians were drawn to this land by the promise of freedom to worship and live without interference from hostile government interference. Indeed they preferred the risk and hardship it entailed to the relative safety of servitude.

By 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville observed an amazing young nation taking shape and wrote:

"I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests--and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning--and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution--and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!"

Though many would seek to obfuscate this heritage, a serious study of history shows that our nation perservered and grew, often against impossible odds, as her founders labored and prayed, trusting in Divine Providence.

The Free Market Did NOT Cause the Great Depression



Great Myths of the Great Depression [Click to Read] by Lawrence W. Reed

"President Herbert Hoover is mistakenly presented in standard history texts as a laissez-faire president, but he signed into law so many costly and foolish bills that one of Franklin Roosevelt’s top aides later said that “practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started.”

"Americans voted for Franlin Roosevelt in 1932, expecting him to adhere to the Democratic Party platform, which called for less government spending and regulation." -- Lawrence W. Reed

The really frightening thing about history is how it repeats itself.

Required Reading:



In light of the President's assertion that 'America is not a Christian Nation' I would like to offer Alvin Schmidt's book Under the Influence, How Christianity Changed the World. There are many legitimate arguments to be made about how Faith and Government should function together but a look at the principles that our Nation was founded upon will show a clear Judeo-Christian influence.

"If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the Christlike work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last 35 years for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian." -- Booker T. Washington in 'Up from Slavery' (1901)


AEolus sails down the Baltimore and Ohio tracks. The B andO experimented with wind power but soon moved on to more dependable steam locomotives. [1.] From the Collections of the B and O Railroad Museum, used with permission.

The American Dream and Ellicott's Mills

The little model featured on this week's cover was built to show the extent to which Ellicott's Mills had developed by the middle of the Nineteenth century! It was founded in 1772 by John, Joseph and Andrew Ellicott, who convinced Charles Carroll [the one who signed the Declaration of Independence] to move away from single crop agriculture on his estate of Carrollton. Tobacco was the big cash crop and that was all Carroll grew in the beginning. The brothers built a flour mill and promoted a more diverse agriculture. That kept the region from experiencing the soil depletion that occured in many plantation areas.

Carroll planted wheat and other crops and the Ellicotts milled the wheat. They also partnered with Charles Carroll to build a turnpike which was later incorporated into the great National Road The Ellicotts operated a sawmill and another mill for crushing limestone. This was usd to enrich the fields. They also operated an iron rolling mill. Joseph Scott's "Geographical Description of the States of Maryland and Delaware," published in 1807, tells of the economic diversity Ellicott's Mills had achieved at this early date. "Several kinds of mechanical trades are carried on here; such as coopers, blacksmiths, tanners, shoemakers, saddlers."

In 1830 the town became the first terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The first rail cars were horse-drawn and a sail-powered car was even tried on the new iron road. Steam was to prevail as the motive power of choice and the legendary race between the steam engine Tom Thumb and a horse-drawn car was run at Relay, a point on the tracks between Ellicott's Mills and Baltimore. The old station, shown here with some later Nineteenth Century modifications, was built of granite blocks. Locally quarried granite was used to construct most of the buildings in the town. Today the old station is designated as a National Historic Landmark.

When the three Ellicotts migrated to the banks of the Patapsco from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, they found a 'picturesque wilderness.' By the turn of the Century they had established a thriving community. Then came railroads and romanticism. 'Castle Angelo,'  [2.] on a cliff above the Patapsco River, is one great example of American Romantic Architecture. When Mr. Kirchman photographed it, it had been covered in aluminum siding! The siding was applied vertically on the turrets and was 'most unusual to behold.'

Although the Ellicotts, who hailed from Pennsylvania, were Quakers, their adopted home was predominantly Catholic. The Catholic church tower [3.] had an Italianate feeling rendered in the native stone and a few gothic doorways thrown in for good measure. The Friends' Meeting House where the Ellicotts worshipped was far simpler in construction.

 
B&O Station.


Patapsco Hotel.


Arch of the old railroad bridge.


Floods of the Twentieth Century.


Cornerstone of the railroad bridge...


...still carrying Chessie System trains today.

'The Apprentice'

Benjamin Banneker's Amazing Accomplishments


Benjamin Banneker was a renaissance man.

"You're Fired"

A Milestone Monday Feature:

The story of Benjamin Banneker is forever intertwined with the planning of our nation's capital city. In 1791 Banneker was in the employment of Andrew Ellicott, who was charged with the task of laying out the monumental city plan concieved by French architect Pierre Charles de L'Enfant, who had been hired to design a capital suitable for the new republic.

L'Enfant based his design on the best traditions of Baroque landscape design and his creation resembled the hunting gardens of Louis XIV's massive palace at Versailles. L'Enfant proved to be very difficult to work with... America's first 'rock star' architect, you might say. George Washington fired him.

Here the traditional story says that L'Enfant rolled up his drawings and left the young country in a huff, taking his designs with him. Ellicott turned to Banneker, who had prepared the actual surveys, and Banneker is said to have redrawn the plans from memory!

Though many modern historians doubt that Banneker recreated the plans from memory, the man's documented accomplishments would be in keeping with those of a man capable of such a feat.


The hunting gardens of Versailles...


...inspiration for our nation's capital?

A simple farmer most of his life, Banneker had the good fortune to know the Quaker settlers of Ellicott's Mills in Maryland. The Society of Friends believed in providing basic education to all people and young Banneker certainly received a solid basic education.

Banneker became a student of astronomy and published an almanac. He corresponded with President Thomas Jefferson on the issue of the status of his fellow African Americans. His letter to Jefferson is well crafted, invoking reason as well as compassion. It appears that Banneker took up the craft of surveying in his fifties, looking to a time when he might be physically too old to farm.

Banneker is said to have observed the workings of a clock and then carved his own working clock mechanism from scrap wood. He published his almanac until 1802.

"Banneker lived for four years after his almanacs discontinued. He published a treatise on bees, did a mathematical study on the cycle of the seventeen-year locust, and became a pamphleteer for the anti-slavery movement. He continued scientific studies by night and walked his land by day. He also continued to keep his garden. He hosted many distinguished scientists and artists of his day, and his visitors commented on his intelligence and on his knowledge of everything of importance that was happening in the country. As always, he remained precise and reflective in his conversations with others. His last walk (with a friend) came on October 9, 1806, he complained of being ill and went home to rest on his couch. He died later that day." [1.]


Banneker's Almanac.


The Ellicott/Banneker map of Washington.


The city today.

THYME Magazine

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue V

This week the 'other' weekly news magazine features a cover picture of an empty 'hoodie' and the headline After Trayvon [click to read]. THYME wants to look youth violence square in the face, hence we invite you with our cover to see Imago Dei, the 'Image of G-d.' For every publicized youth death, there are hundreds more that happen in our nation's big cities. John Donne is right to remind us:

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

The sentiment expressed by Donne should move us when we learn of any young person dead before their time. The young man who died, any young man who died, might have become instead the next Vivien Thomas [click to read], who developed surgical techniques that saved thousands of lives. Vivien Thomas was the victim of discrimination, not even allowed to be on the payroll of John's Hopkins as anything but a housekeeper, but Johns Hopkins was able to grow into the institution it is today, where Dr. Benjamin Carson could become Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery and Co-Director of The Johns Hopkins Craniofacial Center. Prejudice can and should be overcome. Our young people need to see examples to follow; examples of action, not anger.

But how can we inspire the youth of our communities with the vision that they are essential participants in humanity? Here is One Example [click to read] of how positive role models can become involved in the lives of youth. A church can become the catalyst for creating relationships with kids and gifted people for them to emulate. We need to offer young people our best mentors and principles if they are to succeed.

Staunton's Office on Youth did just that in creating Terrific Tuesdays. Middle school and elementary school students got to participate in a variety of art and craft projects, including painting a mural on the wall of their community center [1.] Pastor Tony Evans works to create partnerships of suburban churches and inner city churches to provide resources and tutoring for young people. His Urban Alternative [click to read] offers hope Activist Star Parker, who went from welfare mother to creator of an urban affairs magazine, watched her office go up in flames during the Watts riots. She persisted in her mission and now is the director of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education [click to read].

These are the leaders America needs right now. Back in the 1970's a friend of mine traveled to Northern Ireland to do a paper on the situation there. He met people on both sides of the issue with deep-seated resentment, the victims of an ongoing bloody battle. He even interviewed Bernadette Devlin. What stuck with me from his research was how there were indeed people in Northern Ireland who were, in spite of the injustice and bloodshed they had experienced, seeking to heal their country.

Guided by Christian ideals of forgiveness and love for one's enemies, these unique individuals sought to bring about a reconciliation in their land. Reading the vicious 'tweets' and stories of racially motivated beatings after the Zimmerman verdict, one can only hope for such noble people to lead us now. Eric Holder's assertion that 'white people haven't suffered enough' needs to be weighed against real history. Many of us are in America because our ancestors fled oppression of all sorts. My Bavarian ancestors came to escape Bismark's exploitation. If we studied more real history we might all end up as friends. I have heard Egyptian Christians who have sought asylum in our country tell their stories.

As a child in Baltimore, some of my school teachers had escaped oppression in Eastern Europe. Baltimore's immigrant citizens came in waves, all having stories of fleeing famine, war and pestilence. The media had already convicted Zimmerman. 'Reasonable doubt' had not been put to rest. In this case, justice worked. It isn't about Zimmerman's morality or lack thereof, it is about proof. A media truly concerned about truth would tell us so. Leaders concerned for the youth of their cities would seek to lead us in healing, not hatred. Our concern should be directed toward redemption, not revenge. Every young person who dies or is not encouraged to flourish in our community diminishes us all. John Donne is right!

An Invention We Depend Upon Every Day

Specifically, the white line.


The story of this simple innovation may surprise you.

 A Milestone Monday Feature:

Who besides myself has ever wondered "who was the 'guy' who invented pavement markings?" Without them modern highways could not function so their origin must have been forged by necessity. Some historians like to point to Roman street crossing stones as the forerunner of modern 'zebra walks' and that is certainly good history but the actual sorting of traffic by lanes requires a visit to more recent times.

As the automobile came into common use in the United States, the U.S. Numbered Highway System came into being and the various states embarked on a mission to pave cross-country highways. In their gravel and dirt condition the danger of head-on collisions was not so life threatening as the speeds were not that great. As the great highways became paved, however, the speed of vehicles increased to the point that dangerous collisions did occur. U.S. 99 in Indio, California was a particularly dangerous stretch of road and in 1917 necessity would soon become the 'mother of invention.'

Dr. June Hill Robertson McCarroll was born in New York's Adirondack Mountains and went on to study medicine in Chicago during an era when few women completed professional studies at all. When her first husband John Robertson developed tuberculosis, she moved with him to Southern California hoping the desert climate would help his recovery. She took a job as a nurse with the Southern Pacific Railroad. Mr. Robertson died in 1914 and Dr. June later married Frank McCarroll, the local station master. She continued in her medical practice and at one time was the only physician serving the desert area between Palm Springs and the Salton Sea. She began to see victims of automobile accidents on an increasingly regular basis.

Driving in her model T Ford, along what was to become U.S. 99 in Indio, the good doctor was run off the road by a large truck roaring toward her in the center of the pavement. In her own words: "My Model T Ford and I found ourselves face to face with a truck on the paved highway. It did not take me long to choose between a sandy berth [sic] to the right and a ten-ton truck to the left! Then I had my idea of a white line painted down the center of the highways of the country as a safety measure."

Dr. McCarroll approached the Riverside County Supervisors and the Chamber of Commerce who listened politely to her idea and politely shelved it. Frustrated, but far from defeated, she finally engaged in a bit of guerrilla road improvement, hand painting a four-inch white line down the center of a mile-long stretch of U.S. 99 to create two distinct lanes. Aided by the Indio Women's Club, she began a statewide letter writing campaign and finally, in 1924 the state highway commission adopted her proposal. Initially 3500 miles of road were striped at a cost of $163,000. Soon pavement markings were in use around the world.


Dr. June Hill Robertson McCarroll

THYME Magazine

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue IV

What to Feed Your Soul

A 'Best of THYMEs' Feature...

The 'other' weekly news magazine once featured, just in time for Thanksgiving reading, What to Eat Now [click to read]. While not disparaging the discussion of good nutrition, THYME explores the satisfaction of a different sort of hunger.

This week, the 'other' weekly news magazine looks at the precarious situation in Egypt. The World's Best Protesters/The World's Worst Democrats [click to read]. Indeed, nations can be carried away on a precarious course. How best can concerned citizens chart their way when the critical mass of leadership (or lack thereof) in the land they love is hurtling out of control.

On November 7th, 2012; many of us awoke to a gnawing inside that would not be satisfied by any meal. We saw ourselves losing our beloved country. It was an emptiness that could not be explained away. Steve Elliott of Grassfire offered this bit of wisdom from Jeremiah 29: 

Build! Plant! Bless! And Pray!





"Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders which were carried away captives, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon;
 
(After that Jeconiah the king, and the queen, and the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the carpenters, and the smiths, were departed from Jerusalem;)

By the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent unto Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon) saying,

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon;

Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them;

Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.

For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith the Lord.

For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

And I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive." -- Jeremiah 29:1-14

Did you know that: "Jews make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions." -- David Brooks

I found an interesting article by Rabbi Nathan Lopez Cardozo in Jewish World Review. The Greatest Chess Game on Earth [click to read] shows how the people who followed Jeremiah's advice learned how, not only to survive, but to thrive in exile. After the destruction of the Temple, the development of small fellowships in Synagogues fed the spiritual hunger of those who had been carried away. Central to this community were the Holy Scriptures. Rabbi Lopez gives us a unique perspective on the Scripture. We should not see the constraints of Faith as restrictive. Rather, they are the structural rules which allow us to pursue great works, and in the process bless those around us.

The game of Chess, Cardozo writes, has strict rules. Yet, within these rules there are an unlimited amount of possibilities:

"He who knows all the rules is not automatically a good player. What makes him a great player is his ability to use these rules to unleash an outburst of creativity, which resides deep within him and emerges only because of the "unbearable" limitations. He then strikes! One small move forces everything to shift around, creating total upheaval and causing the opponent to panic as he never did before. And all this without ever violating one chess rule. This is mental torture. But it is also the height of beauty. It is the poetry of the game, like a melody is to music. Like one gentle brushstroke of Rembrandt on a colorful canvas, making everything look radically different, or like the genius musician playing her Stradivarius, re-creating the whole of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5. It transports the chess player to heaven. His body must be in top form because his playing ability deteriorates when his body does. Body and mind are inseparable. An entire world of feelings, images, ideas, emotions and passions come to the forefront." -- Rabbi Cardozo

Rabbi Cardozo offers deep nourishment for the journey ahead, as well as unique insight into how to live in the light of Holy Scripture. I LOVE the implications of his final thoughts:

" Surely chess is just a game, while Halacha, if properly understood and lived, deals with real life, deep religiosity, moral dilemmas, emotions and intuitions far more significant in man's life than a chess game.

But the man who plays chess in real life as suggested by Halacha will realize that if he "plays" well he is on the track to drawing closer and closer to the King, until he is checkmated and, unlike in a chess game, falls into the arms of the King." -- Rabbi Cardozo


The woods I played in as a boy...


...still offer endless adventures.

Life Lesson from Some of G-d's Creatures

The Family that Plays Together and Stays Together


Sea otters hold hands while they are sleeping so that they don't drift apart.

Congratulations to my favorite otters on their engagement yesterday! 

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
-- George Bernard Shaw ht/Chuck Balsamo and Laney Riley.