Next week we’ll begin our “Silent Sundays (see Weekly Schedule page).” To help begin the feel for next week, here’s the first of our RDC Photos of the Week.
If you feel you have a photo that highlights the Red Dirt culture of middle America, showcases the State of Oklahoma in some way or puts a face to who we are, please submit your entries to: reddirtchronicles@gmail.com
If you see your submission show up the following week, then that means you win! What do you win? The smiles of our readers when they pull up the screen on Silent Sundays. We are convinced there is no better reward.
Shouting out to the NY Times “20 Somethings” article this past week, our back-to-school season, our penchant for travel and the geographical region of Norman, OK – here is our first Photo of the Week. Enjoy!
20-somethings Peggy White and Rachel Roberts enjoy a moment under a 1950s "Turbinator Hair Drier" during summer 2010 vacation in New York City. Peggy is a free-lance artist and Rachel is a Photography major at the University of Oklahoma.
It’s a Saturday. The nine-to-fivers are reveling in the covers that hide the dawn’s glare this A.M.
Purple Martins found a home out here at the ranch just one week after it was built.
But not us. My husband and I begin our weekdays before some people go to bed, and the weekend is no different. Like every household, we have things to do. OUR problem is that usually we have each created our own lists (hidden in our own minds) and have divided the chores out between us without telling the other about the plans. It could be a problem if we let it. We don’t.
I stopped picking the last of the tomatoes to watch Greg lower the Purple Martin house to get it ready for the winter and ultimately next spring. He joined me in the melon patch to check on our first watermelons. We are both amazed at how much fruit our only two melon plants have produced. I made a mental note to put the tomato cages up for next season. He set up the sprinklers to water the yard. I fed the kittens. He fed the cats. I carried my coffee across the pasture to give the horses some carrots. They knew it was not my usual time with them, and they seemed grateful.
Turning the corner on fence painting.
There is always so much to do out here, but neither of us seem to mind. We have stopped to sit on the backporch to have some coffee. Greg remembered that the front gate doesn’t latch. We have got to fix that. It’s added to the list. Before noon we will have added as many chores as we have completed this morning. Maybe he’s right next to me; maybe he is across the pasture. Either way, we are content to divide and conquer our chores for today, so we can spend the evening……together.
I am a white-skinned father with a black-skinned son.
A little over a year ago, my wife, Amy, and I adopted our son, Silas, from Ethiopia.
Silas turned two in December.
Today our conversations tend to revolve around our favorite snacks – yogurt and lemon pound cake at Starbucks – and favorite TV characters and movies – Elmo and Ratatouille. We also squabble very little these days. Sometimes Silas will take a swing at me when I take away the Wii joystick. And other times he’ll treat the cheese sandwich I made him for dinner like a Frisbee.
One day, though, Silas will want to talk about other things. Like the color of his skin. And my skin. And his mother’s skin. And pictures and events and people and dates he finds in his history textbook.
There are some historical dates I don’t want to broach with Silas then. August 12th, 1955, for example. That’s the day Emmett Till, a 14 year old boy, was brutally lynched in Mississippi by white, southern, “Christian” men.
Then there is September 15th, 1963. That’s the day when four little girls were killed by a white supremacist bomb at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
Or April 4th, 1968. That’s the fateful day Dr. King had his hope-filled voice silenced by a sniper’s gun.
But then there are days in America’s history I can’t wait to explain to Silas.
Days like December 1st, 1955, for example. The day when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. That small, defiant “no” reverberated out into a large, defiant “no more.”
There are other days, too. Like August 28th, 1963. The day Dr. King delivered his famous message, “I Have a Dream.” It was a day unlike any other day. It was a day of dreaming of another kind of America.
And then there was November 4th, 2008. Obama’s presidential victory. And then there was January 20th, 2009. Obama’s inauguration.
These are dates I look forward to telling Silas about – not as a student of history, but as a participator in making history.
Baby Silas
And I will tell Silas this: whether one voted for Obama or not, one could not argue that it was a significant symbolic moment. And a storied moment with deep biblical resonances. From hundreds of years wandering in the wilderness of prejudice and oppression. To now the new days of exploring the “milk and honey” land of equality and opportunity.
Undoubtedly, MLK glimpsed the Promised Land from a distance. Like Moses. Like a dream just beyond his grasp. But Silas, you, and others of your skin color will experience this land as a blessed reality. Like Joshua. And the nation of Israel.
I can only pray that this new land for you will shimmer with the topsoil of fresh possibility, and contain in its seedbed the promise of renewed dignity. But, Silas, there are still weeds trying to choke out these verdant seeds. For though the “color line” W.B. Dubois spoke of has been broken in America’s political establishment, it still exists in America’s religious establishment. 95% of the evangelical church, for example, still remains divided along the color line. Unfortunately, Martin Luther King Jr.’s truism stills rings true today: 11 am on Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour in America. Perhaps, though, Silas, by the time you come of age, that small, subversive 5% of the American church will have grown and spread through the body of Christ like a lush vine.
Voting though won’t bring this change.
Only Spirit-led repentance will.
I can only pray that you discover these seeds pods of repentance bursting within my heart. And your mom’s heart. And your grandparents’ hearts. And in the hearts of all of those who you know that call themselves Christ followers.
I am reminded of observing MLK Day last year. You, your mom, and I celebrated Dr. King’s legacy with our adoption community at the Queen of Sheba, a local Ethiopian restaurant. On that special day, our dear friends, Eric and Tara, received their referral picture from Ethiopia of their soon-to-be-adopted baby boy, Malak. That night we laughed and cried over Malak’s picture, ooing and awing at his large black eyes and his luminous smile.
Later that night as I lay awake in bed and reflected on that festive evening, I couldn’t help but wonder if in fact Dr. King were alive today, would he approve of couples like us and the Silvestres adopting black children. I also thought about how far we have come, from an age of colonialism, where Africans were our slaves, to this new post colonial age, where Africans are now our sons. And I wondered if Dr. King could have even dreamed of such a day when such transformation was possible. Who knows really? But it makes me wonder if at the Queen of Sheba, if just for a fleeting moment, with our bellies full of freshly baked bread, and sweet Ethiopian wine on our tongues, and with you in our arms, and Malak’s picture in front of our faces, if we did not glimpse even if for a moment, the future community of God, the eschatological days when the old age of hatred and racial division will be truly over, and a new age of love and racial harmony will have begun.
As I closed my eyes to sleep, I suddenly recalled Dr. King’s words spoken days before he was assassinated.
“The end is reconciliation;
the end is redemption;
the end is the creation of the beloved community.”
And remembering these words, Silas, I thought to myself, Perhaps the end has already begun.
-Josh Bottomly
Editor’s Note – this article is reprinted from Relevant,an online magazine. It was published as a Martin Luther King Day feature dated Monday, January 19, 2009. Josh is the Director of College Counseling at Casady High School in Oklahoma City. He coaches basketball, is a husband and now a father of TWO children from Ethiopia.Silas has a little sister. She joined the family in June of this year.
There is something special about girls from Oklahoma. We are…different.
I realized this after browsing through a real estate magazine at a local restaurant and noticing a photo of a girl who went to my high school back in the late 70’s. She was currently a local real estate agent living about thirty miles from me. If you’re looking for oceanfront condos for sale Myrtle Beach SC, hiring a real estate agent may help you find the best deals.
We had not been good friends in high school and didn’t have a junior high slumber party memory to share, but somehow I knew that when I called her, she would remember me. She did.
Shortly after contacting her, my husband and I were invited to her home for a Sunday lunch. We had a fabulous time and I have since seen her on several other occasions. I even stayed overnight at her house (not exactly a slumber party, but it will do) when a two-day workshop took me to her city. We had dinner and talked about growing up in Chickasha, Oklahoma.
There are many other Oklahoma women who continue to touch my world: an OSU sorority sister bumped into me in the middle of Reading Station in Philadelphia, a classmate stopped by to have a quick dinner while traveling I-40 to a new chapter in her life, a lady at the convenience store wearing an Eskimo Joe’s T-shirt held my place in line, and my former principal, who is hoping to find her way back to Oklahoma, molded me into the writing teacher I am today. My former principal is also expecting her fifth grandchild, a girl named Preslee, who no doubt will reap the benefits of being raised as an “Okie.”
So here’s to Preslee, who has no idea how lucky she is about to get, and all the other women who qualify. You know who you are.
An Oklahoma Girl From Head to Toe
Sun-bleached or shiny black locks like a horse’s mane
Lake-blue eyes, or as dark as night on a rural road
When it comes to character, Oklahoma girls reign
With inner and outer strength, they will always carry their load
Lips that whisper a song just when you think you’ve forgotten the tune
Shoulders that can bear the weight of her worries and yours
Beads of sweat on her back from the Oklahoma heat in June
A loving heart beating strong and fast like an eagle soars
Legs that can carry her to her destiny, however long
Feet barefoot or not, walking toward a horizon of blue
Are you looking in the mirror? Do you see someone beautiful and strong?
By birth or at heart, you may be an Oklahoma Girl too
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Showcasing Red Dirt culture ~ authored and managed by contributors with connections to the great state of Oklahoma.