I have thought about the year just passed and the year that is opening before us. I think about the newspaper I own and edit and what it means to me. I think about my writings on music and culture and what I hope it means to others. But I also think about life and community in a larger framework. I have friends and influences of many political streams and religious currents and, yes, even musical tastes.

One of my wisest friends in the world is a Turkish man named Zeki and likes to quote the poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī or as is better known, simply, Rumi. Rumi was a theologian, scholar, poet and mystic who lived in Persia (b. 1207 – d. 1273). He wrote in Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Greek.

When you read aloud his poems—or hear them read aloud—the sound is intoxicating. It is said that he chose the language based upon the sound of the words, much like the Psalms of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament often did. Onomatopoeia (the word sounds like the thing it describes) is a wonderful thing.

My friend Zeki has recently passed along two of Rumi’s passages and I cannot escape the thought of them. Rumi’s words are often simple but there is an incredible depth to his thinking.

One such passage was “I have learned that every mortal will taste death but only some will taste life.” One commentator, Imam Shaf’i, added, “Some people have passed away but their character has kept them alive. Others are alive but their character has killed them.”

I have met people—now gone—who remain alive because, indeed, their character allowed them to taste life and has kept their memories alive in the hearts of others. My beloved aunt and uncle were the dearest people on Earth to me. They tasted life well and shared it with everyone around them. Life with them was a feast of love and understanding.

And they are well-remembered. Their lives go on in the hearts and minds of others. My uncle lived to be almost 101 years old. My aunt had died about 12 years before. One day he was asked what was the most surprising thing about living to be one hundred.

His answer, “I didn’t know how hard it would be to live so long without my girlfriend.”

Yet, he lived on and shared life with everyone around him. He would go to the mall almost every day to walk and get his exercise. At the mall, he would meet up with other senior gentlemen and get their rounds in.

One day, his son went to pick him up and went inside to find him. What he found was a huge birthday party in the middle of the mall in my uncle’s honor. But it wasn’t just the other seniors who were in attendance. Oh, no. There were many young women who worked in the mall who were there with him. The old charmer.

But that was him and that was the life he and my aunt created together and shared with others.

Which brings me to the second Rumi quote from my friend Zeki. “Come, whoever you are…come. Our caravan is not a caravan of despair…Come, come again.”

This is the richness of life. To travel together in life and peace and understanding is the caravan in which I want to journey. The interesting thing about caravans—or wagon trains—is that not everyone begins at the same place and ends at the same place. Some people join along the way or drop off along the way. Everyone has their own journey and—for a time—we may travel together.

To those who join with us at whatever point, “Come, whoever you are…come. Our caravan is not a caravan of despair…Come, come again.”

Thank you, Zeki.

This week witnessed the tearing down of the Indianhead Community building which took place in Owen where I now have my offices. It had been a retail store in 1902, a mercantile and gas station, a grocery store and, finally, a resale shop. The surrounding community has reacted with a mixture of sadness and fondness for the old place.

It made me remember those places that I loved as a child and have now lost. I have heard several people talking about their memories of this ice cream, this or that person who owned it or worked there, Scott and Linda (you know who you are) kissing at the end of the check-out line.

I had just such a place when I lived in Miller Beach, Indiana, when I was eight years old. It was called Tuttle & Sons Grocery. I passed it on my way home every day from school when I was in 2nd grade. Mr. Tuttle was a very kind man who ran his store with great care for the community and great affection for the children.

In fact, Mr. Tuttle gave me my first “job” when I was eight. On Saturdays, I would give a “demonstration” on how to peel oranges in one piece. My grandfather, you see, was the owner and manager of orange groves in central Florida. Papa had told me “it takes a man to peel an orange in one long strand.” I learned the skill, after much practice, by the time I was five.
So, at the age of eight, I was in Indiana where “Hoosiers” had no such “expertise.” I found that such noble skills could fetch attention and payment that was worth far more than simple money.

One of my 2nd grade school chums was Jerry Kennedy. He was a bright kid that was happy and smarter than the average bear. I went to his house one Saturday morning to pick him up for baseball that we played every Saturday in the park. Jerry—and all my friends—lived in a government housing project. For all practical purposes, so did I by actually lived in an apartment in the back of a church across the street from the project.

When I knocked on the Kennedy’s door, Mr. Kennedy answered. He was a tall, good-looking, African-American man of noble features and manners. He greeted me warmly and told me that Jerry would be ready in a moment and he invited me inside. He offered me something to drink and I told him that I was not thirsty. He opened the refrigerator door which—beautifully, wondrously—was lined with ice-cold Dr. Pepper.

I changed my mind. He served up the nectar of the gods but apologized for having “no Moon Pies.” It was an old joke, maybe insult, that African-Americans loved “Dr. Pepper and a Moon Pie.” He made a joke to me at his own expense to which I replied, “Umm, I don’t really like Moon Pies, anyway.” He smiled at me and said, “No? Neither do I.” A joke made a bond of understanding between this young white boy and this wise man of color. I understood, even at eight, that universal descriptors are almost always wrong.

He asked me about life in Florida and the oranges that my grandfather grew until Jerry came downstairs and off we went for our Saturday baseball game.

The next week, I stopped into Mr. Tuttle’s grocery store where Mr. Kennedy worked as the produce manager. He showed me the fresh bags of oranges that had arrived and asked me if I knew how to peel an orange. Did I know? I was an EXPERT. I told him that “it takes a real man to peel an orange in one strand.” He gave me a knife and said, “Show me.” Sure enough, I peeled that Valencia orange in one strand. He told me to wait there. I sat on a table with my legs swinging.

In just a minute or two, Mr. Kennedy brought Mr. Tuttle, the owner, back to where I was sitting. Mr. Kennedy had me retell my story to Mr. Tuttle, who then handed me the knife and an orange (I was happy to oblige because I got to eat both oranges).

I peeled the orange and Mr. Tuttle looked at Mr. Kennedy and said, “Well. I guess we’re not real men, after all.” I told them how to make a juice cup from an orange by peeling half of the orange, cutting a drinking hole in the top, squeezing the orange just right to bring the juice to the surface of the hole and drinking it out of the orange itself.

Mr. Tuttle crowed, “By God, boy! I want you to show that to our customers!” It was my first job. Mr. Tuttle got the consent of the parents and I would give “demonstrations” in his store every Saturday for that month.

The next Saturday, I got to the store by 11 a.m. to show Tuttle’s customers how to make the juice cup and how to peel the orange without lifting the knife. They put a green apron on me and stood me on a crate. I was a star.

At noon, we took lunch in the back room and I got to have free Dr. Pepper with a sandwich. In fact, Mr. Tuttle said that he couldn’t outright pay me but I could come by the store every Friday after school for a free Dr. Pepper and a Twinkie. Are you kidding me??? Who needs money when your life’s desire is offered in exchange for peeling oranges?

For several weeks, Mr. Tuttle and Mr. Kennedy would keep trying to peel the oranges, usually with them concluding "I guess I'll never be a real man."

The month ended and the oranges were gone. There was no need to stop by Mr. Tuttle’s on Friday afternoon, I thought. But one day, Mr. Tuttle saw me walking by and asked why I wasn’t coming by for the soda and snack anymore. The demonstrations were over, I told him. He had already paid me. “No, no,” he said. “I told you to come by every Friday. Navel orange season is coming soon and we can do it again. A deal is a deal. Keep coming for your pay.”

He explained to me that what he paid me was really worth about 12 cents. But every week he was selling out of those big bags of oranges. He said that I was a big part of those sales. “If by paying you 12 cents per week I can increase my orange sales by $20 per week, don’t you think that is worth it to me?”

One day, on my way home from school, I stopped by and Mr. Kennedy saw me said, "Hey, Travis! I'm a man today!" It gathered strange looks from unknowing customers but laughs from those who were there for the demonstrations.

I loved my Saturdays at Tuttle & Sons Grocery.

When we moved away from Miller Beach, I stopped by to say farewell to Mr. Tuttle and Mr. Kennedy. These two kind and generous gentlemen got "wet around the eyes" and Mr. Tuttle said, "Well, I guess you will never see me become a man."

When I heard about the Indianhead building being torn down and heard people’s stories of it, I went to Google Earth and looked for Mr. Tuttle’s grocery store. Because of the “street view” available from Google Earth, I could virtually walk from my old front door, turn east on 4th Street and head to the corner on Lake Avenue where the store had stood. It was gone.

While we celebrate anniversary of the end of World War II next week, this week marks the 70th anniversary of one of humanity’s most heinous acts. Maybe it is the very worst.

After three and one-half years of fighting alongside Britain in World War II, Nazi Germany was already defeated and Imperial Japan was tottering. Most of the islands of the Pacific Theater of Operations had been retaken from Japan. Even Okinawa, one of Japan’s southernmost populated islands had fallen to American amphibious assault. All that was left was an invasion of the Japanese home islands.

The military estimated that it might cost as many as five hundred thousand to one million lives to accomplish such a feat. MacArthur was ready to plan the invasion but the political authorities were not so sure. President Harry Truman was persuaded to use the newly-tested atomic bomb—two of them—on Japan.

The belief was that it would be such a horrifying sight that it would force Japan out of the war. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was enough to do it. The Imperial cabinet met quickly and began drafting a peace settlement. From the US point of view, however, a statement needed to be made, so they dropped a second bomb on Negasaki.

The statement was not intended for the Japanese; it was aimed at the Soviets as a warning to halt their aggression in Europe and to take their sights off of Japan. It was a statement that cost 70,000 additional lives.

On August 6, 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was on a business trip to Hiroshima. He was a designer of oil tankers for the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Company. He was on his way home but before getting to the train station, he realized that he had forgotten his travel papers at the Hiroshima office. So he went back to retrieve them.

When he stepped off the trolley, he heard the roar of a warplane’s engines overhead. It was 8:15 a.m. He look up to see if it was a Japanese warplane but it was not. It was the Enola Gay. He saw two parachutes released but could not see the bomb attached.

“There was a great flash in the sky and I was blown over,” Yamaguchi later recalled. He was a little over 1.5 miles from the bomb—a 13 kiloton uranium atomic bomb—when it detonated overhead. When a thermonuclear device explodes, first comes the flash and the shockwave followed by the fireball.

Yamaguchi was temporarily blinded by the flash and the shockwave blew him off his feet. Then came the fireball. He was burned on his left side. The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was seeing the mushroom cloud.

"When the noise and the blast had subsided I saw a huge mushroom-shaped pillar of fire rising up high into the sky,” he told the London Daily Telegraph in 2010. “It was like a tornado, although it didn't move, but it rose and spread out horizontally at the top. There was prismatic light, which was changing in a complicated rhythm, like the patterns of a kaleidoscope. The first thing I did was to check that I still had my legs and whether I could move them. I thought, 'If I stay here, I'll die'."

He made his way to the air-raid shelter and discovered that he was severely burned. He was bandaged and decided to make his way home to be with his wife and son. The rail bridge was destroyed by the blast and he had to cross the river to get to another train.

In an interview with NHK in 2007, Yamaguchi related that he had to swim past burned and bloated bodies in the river to make it to the other side. He spoke of the walking dead in Hiroshima. Eventually, he made it to the other side and boarded a train for home.

His home was Negasaki.

With bandages and all, he reported for work on August 9. His supervisor had asked him about the burns and the bandages and Yamaguchi told his story. He told how he had seen metal melted and twisted. The supervisor told him that there was no way that a single bomb could do such damage to Hiroshima.

“You’re an engineer. Calculate it. How could one bomb destroy a whole city?” his supervisor questioned.

At that moment—at that very moment—at 11:02 a.m., Negasaki was rocked by the second atomic bomb. Because of the distance from the bomb and the lead shielding in the building where he worked, Yamaguchi was saved again.

He made his way home to find his wife and baby son still alive. The home was ruined and they spent the next week in an air-raid shelter. On August 15, 1945, he would learn that Japan had surrendered.

Yamaguchi and his family suffered from radiation sickness for the rest of their lives. Even his as-yet-unborn daughter would be affected by the radiation.

Yamaguchi would spent his post-war years speaking out against nuclear proliferation and war. He never blamed the United States. The true criminal, he would say, is war itself.

“It was my destiny that I experienced this twice and I am still alive to convey what happened.”

To the United Nations, he said, “It is my responsibility to pass on the truth to the people of the world.”

In 2009, Yamaguchi was called eniijuu hibakusha (the double bomb survivor) by the Japanese government. The year before, his wife died from liver and kidney cancer caused by the American-made Negasaki bomb. His son had, in 2005, died from cancer caused by the bomb.  His daughter suffered by blood-related illnesses all of her life and she still worries for her health. In 2010, Yamaguchi himself would die from leukemia, the result of one or the other blasts he temporarily survived.

In an interview with the Independent in 2009, he said, “I can't understand why the world cannot understand the agony of nuclear bombs. How can they keep developing these weapons?”

In August of 1945, there was only one nuclear nation. Today we have the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea… But, so far, only one nation has been barbaric enough to use them.

 

Take down that God-forsaken flag!

After the horrifying events of last Wednesday night, June 17, in Charleston, SC and all the hate embodied in the Confederate flag and all the rallying symbolism of that flag for white supremacists and racists throughout the United States, it far past the time when all traces of the flag of the Confederacy should be taken down and should also be removed from states’ flags, as well.

Yes, there were brilliant generals and brave soldiers fighting for the Confederacy. I don’t care.

Maybe there was a time when that flag meant something—anything—that sounded like valor or honor. So what.

Did you know that the swastika was once a Tibetan good luck symbol? Not anymore. Symbols change and the symbol of the Confederate flag is rancid with racism and ignorance.

In the United States, we are forever talking about the flag and what it symbolizes. We talk about the freedoms represented in the American flag and the valor and heroism of those who died to defend what it symbolizes. Symbolism is alive and well in the Confederate flag also.

That Confederate flag is an unnerving but enduring symbol of all that is wrong with America now as much as then: the division, the animosity, the separatism and …wait for it…the racism that still pervades our society. And it is found in so very many of the state flags of the southern states.

South Carolina may not have the Confederate flag in their state flag but that because they fly the real thing! Other states, however, keep the flag alive within the stitching of their particular state flags.

Look at the Tennessee state flag with its red field and the circle of stars. Perhaps it is not as blatant as some states’ flags in the obvious connection with the flags of the Confederacy, but it is there.

This past week saw one of the events I have anticipated from Pope Francis for several months now—the publication of his encyclical. But this is not the burning religious or social issue that has consumed me for the past several days. What has captured my horrified attention are the events of Charleston, SC.

Last Wednesday, June 17, 2015, a young man walked into Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church on Calhoun Street. He sat among the worshipers, seemed to pray with them and, after almost an hour, stood in their midst and murdered nine of them.

Mother Emanuel is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church in the South. It has been a hotbed of the civil rights movement. It has been the target of racist hatred, even in the mid-1800s. But it was always a sanctuary, a sacred place, a place to come together in unity of worship and uniformity of purpose.

It has been violated.

In my own life, the church was not a place of safety for me. The church was not a place to feel protected. But I want that for other people. I want believers to have a place where they can go for sanctuary and solace. Now an evil young man has tried to rob that from these dear people.

Is he mentally ill? What he did is not a sane act…unless he has chosen to accept that absurd racist dogma as the truth. It is not enough to call him “troubled,” or “misguided” or even “insane.” Those phrases do not come near the problem at hand.

He is a thief in a society of thieves. In a house dedicated to the one who came to give life, a thief entered who came to “kill and steal and destroy.” Surely, he killed the nine worshipers and ministers. He attempted to steal their hope and their security. He wants to destroy the legacy of a people who are part and parcel of American History.

Understand. American History is Black History. Twenty Africans were sold into slavery at the Jamestown Colony in Virginia in 1619—only 12 years after the founding of Jamestown.

Africans were here before the Pilgrims were. Whereas the Pilgrims came willingly aboard the Mayflower, the African slaves were brought by force aboard a Dutch warship.

The entire African and African-American experience in North America has been one of terror. Dr. Cornell West pointed out that 9/11 was nothing new to the African-American. They had been brought to the New World in terror. They had lived under slavery in terror, then under Jim Crow in terror. Four little girls were burned to death in a church in Birmingham in 1963. Nothing but terror.

And every day of their lives, our African-American friends in South Carolina (and other places in the South) are forced to look at that flag of ignorance and hatred. When they go to the courthouse, to school or any place else, they must be reminded that they are under the lidless eye of racism.

Don’t tell me that the Confederate flag is a simple of heritage. It is a symbol of segregation and the only heritage it represents is a heritage of hatred. I was born and raised in the South. Those who flew that hateful rag were always of the same ilk.

There were no “glory days” of southern culture. They preached from the Bible from a slanted and sick interpretation used to force slaves into submission to their “masters.” There is nothing from that culture that we should bring forward into the present.

The President is correct—“That flag belongs in a museum.”

And now a white supremacist walks into a church and murders nine people in a Bible study. Some people might call him a Christian Extremist, even.

You may notice that I do not call the murderer by name. Some people do not deserve to be remembered and he is one of them. He is not a soldier of a lost cause. He is a terrorist and a perpetrator of hatred.

But before I allow myself to get swallowed up the unadulterated despite I feel for him and his racism—and I may be past that already—let me speak of the Grace of a people who have been too often and too heinously wounded.

Nine people wo gathered together to worship as they chose: the Rev. Clementa Pinckney; Tywanza Sanders; Cynthia Hurd; the Rev. DePayne Middleton Doctor; Sharonda Coleman-Singleton; Ethel Lance; Susie Jackson; the Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr.; and Myra Thompson.

I have asked the question before and I will probably be asking the same question for many years to come; How do they not just burn everything down? Certainly there were race riots in Detroit and Watts and other places. But how is it that our African-American brothers and sisters time and again reject the path of despair and hatred and choose the way of patience and understanding? How is it?

How is it that they bury child after child and man after man and still return to the sanctuary of decency and nobility? How is it?

Is it because they can lean on their faith and belief and find strength? Is it because they know what community really means? When in times of heartache and grief, loss and destruction, they know that they are there for each other?

The families have shown incredible grace and love. They have smiled and hugged and loved all who gather near them.

“Emanuel” itself means “God with us.” The nine worshipers gathered in Mother Emanuel AME Church to learn more and live fuller and love deeper. A hateful young racist walked to kill, steal and destroy and he did kill but… he did not steal their hope and he did not destroy their legacy. In the end, he only enhanced it.

This past week saw one of the events I have anticipated from Pope Francis for several months now—the publication of his encyclical. But this is not the burning religious or social issue that has consumed me for the past several days. What has captured my horrified attention are the events of Charleston, SC.

Last Wednesday, June 17, 2015, a young man walked into Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church on Calhoun Street. He sat among the worshippers, seemed to pray with them and, after almost an hour, stood in their midst and murdered nine of them.

Mother Emanuel is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church in the South. It has been a hotbed of the civil rights movement. It has been the target of racist hatred, even in the mid-1800s. But it was always a sanctuary, a sacred place, a place to come together in unity of worship and uniformity of purpose.

It has been violated.

In my own life, the church was not a place of safety for me. The church was not a place to feel protected. But I want that for other people. I want believers to have a place where they can go for sanctuary and solace. Now an evil young man has tried to rob that from these dear people.

Is he mentally ill? What he did is not a sane act…unless he has chosen to accept that absurd racist dogma as the truth. It is not enough to call him “troubled,” or “misguided” or even “insane.” Those phrases do not come near the problem at hand.

He is a thief in a society of thieves. In a house dedicated to the one who came to give life, a thief entered who came to “kill and steal and destroy.” Surely, he killed the nine worshippers and ministers. He attempted to steal their hope and their security. He wants to destroy the legacy of a people who are part and parcel of American History.

Understand. American History is Black History. Twenty Africans were sold into slavery at the Jamestown Colony in Virginia in 1619—only 12 years after the founding of Jamestown.

Africans were here before the Pilgrims were. Whereas the Pilgrims came willingly aboard the Mayflower, the African slaves were brought by force aboard a Dutch warship.

The entire African and African-American experience in North America has been one of terror. Dr. Cornell West pointed out that 9/11 was nothing new to the African-American. They had been brought to the New World in terror. They had lived under slavery in terror, then under Jim Crow in terror. Four little girls were burned to death in a church in Birmingham in 1963. Nothing but terror.

And every day of their lives, our African-American friends in South Carolina (and other places in the South) are forced to look at that flag of ignorance and hatred. When they go to the courthouse, to school or any place else, they must be reminded that they are under the lidless eye of racism.

Don’t tell me that the Confederate flag is a simple of heritage. It is a symbol of segregation and the only heritage it represents is a heritage of hatred. I was born and raised in the South. Those who flew that hateful rag were always of the same ilk.

There were no “glory days” of southern culture. They preached from the Bible from a slanted and sick interpretation used to force slaves into submission to their “masters.” There is nothing from that culture that we should bring forward into the present.

The President is correct—“That flag belongs in a museum.”

And now a white supremacist walks into a church and murders nine people in a Bible study. Some people might call him a Christian Extremist, even.

You may notice that I do not call the murderer by name. Some people do not deserve to be remembered and he is one of them. He is not a soldier of a lost cause. He is a terrorist and a perpetrator of hatred.

But before I allow myself to get swallowed up the unadulterated despite I feel for him and his racism—and I may be past that already—let me speak of the Grace of a people who have been too often and too heinously wounded.

Nine people wo gathered together to worship as they chose: the Rev. Clementa Pinckney; Tywanza Sanders; Cynthia Hurd; the Rev. DePayne Middleton Doctor; Sharonda Coleman-Singleton; Ethel Lance; Susie Jackson; the Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr.; and Myra Thompson.

I have asked the question before and I will probably be asking the same question for many years to come; How do they not just burn everything down? Certainly there were race riots in Detroit and Watts and other places. But how is it that our African-American brothers and sisters time and again reject the path of despair and hatred and choose the way of patience and understanding? How is it?

How is it that they bury child after child and man after man and still return to the sanctuary of decency and nobility? How is it?

Is it because they can lean on their faith and belief and find strength? Is it because they know what community really means? When in times of heartache and grief, loss and destruction, they know that they are there for each other?

The families have shown incredible grace and love. They have smiled and hugged and lovedall who gather near them.

“Emanuel” itself means “God with us.” The nine worshippers gathered in Mother Emanuel AME Church to learn more and live fuller and love deeper. A hateful young racist walked to kill, steal and destroy and he did kill but… he did not steal their hope and he did not destroy their legacy. In the end, he only enhanced it.