Confederate History Month

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Confederate History Month is not an ancient tradition.  The practice of declaring April, the month of surrender at Appomattox, to be a month set aside to remember this sorry war appears to have caught on only in the 1990s.  Why would such a thing take off as recently as it did?

I think that the answer lies in the way I learned a lot about the Old South.  His name was MacMullen, and by the time he settled into a lawn chair in front of the Perrine Ace Hardware store nearly every day he was a very old man.  It was the early 1970s, and old MacMullen had seen a lot of changes take place.  He eagerly told to a young white boy who was willing to listen to what he had to say.

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Three Years On

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Today is the third anniversary of Barataria.  I have written at least three times a week, MWF, without a single miss, and with a few extras have over 500 posts.  This is as good of a time as any to stop and mark what we’ve accomplished over the last year and answer the eternal question:  What is this blog about?  Please allow me a little indulgence as I look back at the last few years to find some coherence.

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Elián

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One month before Christmas at the dawn of the millennium, a child came to us.  Having come from an atheistic nation, his baptism probably came in the salt water on that day when his mother gave her life trying to raise her son in a free land.  That child was Elián González, and ten years ago this week he was returned to live with his father in Cuba.  It seems so simple at a glance.  The convolutions of his story may not make any sense to most people, but that winds up being the point of it after all.
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Multiple Intelligences

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Today the kids have to be roused early and move themselves through the morning with purpose because Spring Break is over.  It cuts many ways.  The weight of routine is lightened for them by a sunny green day with a crisp snap to it, as lively as we can expect in early April – but they’ll have to spend the day inside.    They’ll get to see their friends again and tell stories about what they’ve been up to, but there will also be work.  For all the different seasons mixing in their heads and around them what it always comes down to is that they really like to learn, they really like their school.

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Good Friday

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Holy Week.  As our lives become more secular and separated, the name doesn’t seem to have as much meaning as it once did.  Not long ago all of Saint Paul shut down on Good Friday to celebrate the holiday that is central to Christian faith.  The passing of this holiday into another optional day off for those who can afford it may be disturbing to people who value the old ways, but a little perspective shows that the time itself was always defined by others even before we learned how important it is to get along in a diverse world.

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