Religious racism?

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Looks like I'm on a roll with the newspaper thing. Didn't intend it that way.

Today it's the Tribune's turn. I wish I could direct you to the articles itself on their web site, but as far as I know, they still don't have an active one. www.tribunemedia.net is empty.

Anyway ... today's Religion Section sports an article by Petura Burrows which in essence is about racism in religion here. And it's obvious that the background premise came out of one corner only: that there are - somewhere in the Bahamas - white churches who exclude ... or simply don't have ... black members. Never mind the wealth of unintegrated black churches.

Why would someone start out with such a misconception in the first place? Is this the Bahamas - with an 85/15 black/white split? Or the US? Can't we tell the difference between media coverage of "reality" Stateside vs. life here in the Bahamas?

Where I worship, my experience is that black and white have always shared values, the same communion loaf and the same communion cup. Since forever. At least as long as I can remember. Black and white all minister, participate, sing and pray together.

The point is not that it's perfect. It's not. I'm not saying it always was or is as it should be. The culture at large - and it's shifting emphases and acceptabilities - has always played a part in how people get along. Once upon a time in Bahamian churches, ladies sat on one side, and men on the other.

It's been a looooong time since there were any exclusively white churches in the Bahamas. Maybe never in living memory. And yet we still waste ink and paper writing about phantom concepts borrowed from someplace else - some other time. And "yuck up people wexation" over nothing.

On the other hand, it would never occur to anyone - would it? - that any of the vast majority of Bahamian churches which have no whites in attendance are "racist".

How balanced - how thoughtful - is that?

"Guardian" of Goof ... ooops - Good ... Grammar ?

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I don't know who the headline writer is over at the Nassau Guardian, but every now and then there's a confusing-slash-hilarious twist to some of them.

Today's paper had two marvels:

1) The front page of the business section screams out "Chickens come home" in, like, 42-point type.

Well ... the story ain't about chickens or coops. Nor my first reaction: bird flu. It's something about some companies which used to be based here but owned by Canadians and run from Canada. I guess their [ex] CEO or someone is wanted for assault in Canada. What???!!??

2) Even better ... "Officers fight to be scrutinised" has to be one of the most confusing headlines ever when one reads the opening paragraph: "Two female officers caught in fight [sic] at the East Bay police station could face disciplinary action."

And here I thought they just really, really, REALLY wanted to be looked at closely !!

But it didn't stop there ...

3) This is just bad grammar ... in the Lifestyles section, about the book "Boy Crazy!", the headline "Boy-crazy girls? If your [sic] a parent, you need help". Yup ... Mr./Ms. Headline-writer, "your" in need of a different spell-checker.

4) And in an article on the passing of Oleg Cassini he apparently underwent a sex-change operation in the first two paragraphs - being referred to several times as "she" - but I guess the operation was reversed for the rest of the piece! Apparently he did die a "he".

Merry Monday everybody ... check your spelling! Peruse your proclamations!

Oceans Digital from Cable Bahamas (click for more info.)

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I read an article in one of the newspapers earlier this week about Cable Bahamas' new digital service. I couldn't tell by the end of it whether they had found three people who didn't like it, or just "spun" what their interviewees said to make it sound like criticism. In either case, it seems like scraping the bottom of the barrel to me.

For anyone reading this overseas, understand we have one local television channel ... the unfortunately named ZNS-13. Miami VHF stations can be pulled off over-the-air with a huge deep-fringe aerial antenna and super-booster ... but only on good days, when the wind is blowing west to east! UHF stations are even harder, and since High Definition/digital services are carried on that band, there's not a lot of hope for direct transmission. Enter Cable Bahamas.

I for one appreciate what they have done for in-home entertainment in the Bahamas. Others may have done as well, but what continues to please is that they do try and stay "cutting edge".

Back to their digital offering ...

It's good stuff. A great selection of channels. Top quality picture overall. Price in-line with satellite and many stateside providers.

But a few "observations":

1) TV sound in a modern home is as important as the picture. Too many channels don't re-transmit the sound correctly. Some carry only the left stereo channel, some the right, some don't seem to be tuned in properly at all.

2) It's disconcerting to try watching some channels where it seems they're pulling in the picture from one satellite/service and the sound from another. I've seen PBS-NY out of phase by at least two seconds on occasion. Weird.

3) Drop-outs. Picture-freezes. 2-5 second interruptions. I know in the digital world you either have a signal or you don't. There's no such thing as fade. But I've heard enough people comment about this that maybe it should be looked in to. I've watched digital TV for hours stateside with nary a ripple, so it's not inherent in the transmission system.

And now in April we have High Definition to look forward to. I'll sign up if I'm convinced that it won't be that in name only. We'll have to receive at least a 720p resolution (when available) and the sound has to be fixed.

Keep up the good work guys ... and I'll start saving for my super-flat widescreen.

Hey ... before I invest too much, will Oceans Digital ever retransmit 1080p?

Gilead

Marilynne Robinson's fantastic little Pulitzer Prizewinning book retelling a 76 year old Iowa country reverend's written legacy to his six year old son of his second marriage, is riveting.

It's a whole ton of other things too.

I guess I picked it up in part because, being married to an Iowan, I love the State. The rolling [NOT flat, despite popular misconception], bucolic farmland, charming small towns and civilized "big cities" are so unlike what Hollywood and TV portrays of the US that it's mind boggling. In part it's my knowledge of Iowa that made "Gilead" such a surprise. Or should I say it's what I thought I knew of Iowa.

But - of course - Gilead may be in Iowa, but it's not about Iowa at all.

This book breaks misconceptions of many different kinds ... Iowa wasn't always a bastion of "conservative" political values; a female author can't adequately or believably voice the feelings and concerns of caring fatherhood; that theology can't be fascinating and motivating; that people don't change, just to name a very few.

At the turn of every page the encounters with unexpected life insights make one sit up, find a scratch pad and pencil and write things down.

At this particular point in my life, I found this paragraph particularly deep:

"So my advice is this - don't look for proofs. Don't bother with them at all. They are never sufficient to the question, and they're always a little impertinent, I think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp. And they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them. That is very unsettling over the long term. 'Let your works so shine before men,' etc. It was Coleridge who said Christianity is a life, not a doctrine, words to that effect. I'm not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I'm saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment." p. 179, emphasis mine

I know too many people who are "fashionably agnostic"; whose politics is class or race related rather than rational or considered. For whom peer pressure trumps good sense.

What I find so absolutely wonderful about Gilead is that a 76 year old man, whose first impulse is conservative, judgemental and fearful faces his demons, his past and pre-conceptions and passes on to his son a remarkable record of growth and positive advice.

So I guess there's hope for me ... there's another 20-odd years to go ... LOL!

Ethereal Evenings

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It's only fair to balance the morning sunshine with some evening moonshine, don'tcha think?

Here's a shot taken tonight as the moon rose over the same scene looking east from the balcony. The little light on the horizon is a passing yacht.

Sooooo peaceful.

Morning Matters

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One of the net positives of the unexpected blessings of the home by the sea that we found ourselves in three years ago is that we get up and get going a lot earlier than we used to in Blair.


The motive? To avoid the incredible mess of traffic along Eastern Rd. which doesn't clear up until nearly 9 AM ... a subject for another time, I guess. But the "commute" which used to take 5 mins. and should take about 10 mins. often extends to 45 if one doesn't pull out early enough.

So we get to see the sun rise.

Besides the two occasions we've seen dolphins swimming east (the last was about a week ago ... and they were no more than 200 feet out ... indeed the dogs next door were barking at them) we often want to just sit and drink in the beauty of the early morning over the sea. Every day it's different - stormy, calm, turquoise, orange, rose - never the same two days in a row.

This is the time of year when the sunrises are the most spectacular for some reason ... I guess it's about halfway through the winter to summer arc travelled by old sol.

Here are three samples of the view looking east ... click on them for full size images ... well worth the effort.

Enjoy!

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Why take the whole box when you can just pick and choose?

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What follows is a post I couldn't help but make over on Bahamapundit. It's a bit out of context here, so go take a look at the full post, which is more than interesting. Click the title to go straight to it.

QUOTE:

This is all fascinating, especially when tied to Nicolette Bethel's recent Guardian article asking whether "Wendy's" is "a part a we cultcha". (Is spaghetti Italian? Or Chinese?)

Much of the present discussion seems coloured by contemporary fashion which does not smile on anyone in the "intelligentsia" speaking positively of Christianity - or colonialism. There can be nothing positive in either, can there?

Both the pessimistic "any time in the past was better than the present" and the incredibly arrogant "we are living in the most enlightened times in history" are patently wrong. The latter seems to be what drives much of the condemnatory comments in this discussion. The former is behind a lot of the rebuttal.

One of the main reasons Christianity was so successful in the first century C.E. [trying hard to be PC here!] was that it blasted through the social restrictions on slaves and women among other things (just to narrow the range down a bit) which were a huge part of the Greco/Roman civilization of the day.

And there is soooo much more to consider before casting our views in concrete ...

Can we really equate "judeo-christian" culture with "Christianity"?

Does "colonialism" really equal Christianity?

What part did William Wilberforce play in the abolition of slavery? What absolutely DROVE him to his position? Was there anything "colonial" about what he did ... how he worked out his convictions?

What about Shusako Endo's take on on Christianity in Japan? Read "Silence" and "Deep River" (among others) by Japan's leading modern (Christian!) novelist.

Why are various branches of Christianity growing so quickly in parts of Africa, Korea, China, Latin America? What do they offer that their new adherents crave? Is it simply neo-colonial or something much deeper?

To be intellectually honest we must consider the other side of the question where one can find historical sociologist Rodney Stark's very accessible body of work. He began his career from a decidedly agnostic position on religion (though I don't know if that's where he's at today - he teaches at Baylor FWIW). Some of his books include "THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY"(quite old), the fascinatingly titled "FOR THE GLORY OF GOD: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery" (can anyone say "even-handed"?) and "THE VICTORY OF REASON: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism & Western Success" (which kind of flies in the face of some of the back and forth in this discussion).

As to cultures which have been transformed by [non-culturally specific] Christianity, I would prefer to leave judgement in the hands of that culture itself as to whether it is a net positive or negative. We might well lament the passing of certain elements of an imagined idyllic existence in the Amazon rain forest ... but if you've lost your husband/wife, child, mother, father, etc. to inter-tribal warfare, you might have a different take on things!

And don't let's start on why most indigenous Latin Americans so quickly fed at the "colonial" trough! Suffice it to say it wasn't the size of the invading armies.

Bottom line: If what one wants is an amorphous entity on which to attach all the evils of society as well as the personal suffering and discontent of one's own life and that of everyone else, Christianity is a great target! It doesn't fight back nowadays, and it's not fashionable to defend it. So is "Colonialism". These are wonderful wellsprings for the nihilistically inclined.

On the other hand, none of it explains the ills, attitudes or mores of contemporary Bahamian society - which as Mr. Allen makes clear, is NOT a monolith by any means.

If we remain ignorant of history ... the WHOLE story ... we are indeed condemned to re-live it.

UNQUOTE

Counting Potcakes instead of Mittens!

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Christine Aylen was reading to her son from a British counting book. "What are those she asked?", pointing to some mittens.

"Hands", says he.

So ... "My First Bahamian Counting Book" was born. And now our kids can count things they're familiar with.

Neat book.

Ironically, the picture of Christine signing her book at Logos Bookstore on Saturday March 4th is taken with a refugee [tourist] from Minnesota! Wonder what her kids (she's got 5 of them) will make of the coconut palms?