"WHAT A WEEK!"

 “WHAT A WEEK!”

This week of May 12-19 has always been an important one in my life, even before I knew it.  On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” was the law of the land.  This ruling firmly and legally established “neo-slavery” that would be king of the USA for almost 60 years. It filled the atmosphere of my boyhood with the authority of white supremacy and racism that so captured my perceptual apparatus.  

    Catherine Meeks and I went to talk with the children of Morgan Oliver School last week about Ida B. Wells and about the racism that pervaded both of our lives growing up in rural and small town Arkansas.  I described myself as having grown up in the “belly of the beast.” Many of the kids were intrigued by that metaphor and wanted to know if I still lived in the belly of that beast.  I indicated that some courageous mentors and prophets had helped to pull me out, but that I still had residues of slime on me and in me from my time in the beast.  

    Yet, while I was not aware of it because I was only 7 years old, on May 17, 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, SCOTUS reversed the Plessy decision and ruled unanimously that legal segregation was no longer lawful because it established inequality as the law of the land.  I don’t remember knowing about that decision until I was somewhere in my college years, but that decision had set off the beginning of a revolution in regard to the legality of white supremacy, declaring that it was no longer the law of the land.  This year will mark the 70th anniversary of that landmark decision.  Unfortunately, we have not decided as a nation which decision we want to affirm – the “neo-slavery” Plessy of 1896 or the “created equal” Brown decision of 1954.

    Most important to me, however, about this week is that it marks the 50th wedding anniversary for Caroline and me.  We were married in Ed Loring’s backyard on May 18, 1974,  with Ed and Sandy Winter officiating – Sandy had been a long-time mentor of Caroline’s.  Caroline was a campus minister at Georgia Tech at that time, having been ordained as a minister in 1973 (the 21st woman to be ordained in the former southern Presbyterian Church).  I was in my final year at Columbia Seminary, having transferred there from Vanderbilt Divinity School, with a two year hiatus in between while I performed as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.  We had met at the wedding of Robin and Linda Williams in Nashville, Caroline having accompanied her friend Murphy Davis, who was Robin’s cousin.

    While our 50th anniversary is May 18, we are postponing any official celebration until June 22 because our granddaughter Zoe is graduating from high school in Michigan on May 25, so we will be up there for that great occasion.  If you haven’t received an invitation to our 50th on June 22 in Decatur, please let me know, and we’ll get one to you – the mail has been kind of crazy lately!  

    It has been quite an adventure, with many milestones along the way.  Even before I graduated from Columbia, we had received a call from St. Columba Presbyterian Church in Norfolk VA, to be the co-pastors at a small church there, which also served as the base for a developing community ministry in a 5000 resident low-income housing complex.  We cut our teeth on urban ministry there, and we were fortunate enough to receive the Women of the Church Birthday Offering in 1978.  That great gift established St. Columba Ministries, which does ministry with those who are poor and especially those who are homeless.  It is still doing ministry today.  

       After our son David was born in Norfolk in 1980, we wanted to get closer to our families in Chattanooga and Arkansas, so we moved to Nashville where I worked on the staff of the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons.  I also served as part-time supply pastor at Second Presbyterian while they looked for a fulltime pastor.  Our daughter Susan was born in Nashville on a Sunday morning in 1982.  My time at Second Church convinced me that I wanted to return to the pastorate full time, and in February, 1983, I gladly accepted the call to become the full-time pastor at Oakhurst Presbyterian in Decatur.  Since Susan was still an infant, Caroline stayed home for another year.  She came on staff at Oakhurst in September, 1984, and we shared ministry there until we both retired – Caroline in 2012, and me in 2017.  Whew!  Quite a journey – you’ll hear more one of these days.  We are just beginning work on a book about our pioneering and partnering ministry.  If you have any stories or insights, please share them with us.  In the meantime, raise a glass to us this Saturday!