Faith, Folklore, and Friends

Matthew called him notorious. John referred to his as a bandit. Mark and Luke called him a rioter. Barabbas was an insurrectionary, a terrorist, a murderer, and an all-around nasty fellow. Barabbas, vile, smelly, the riff-raff mothers shielded their children from in public, was what my Grandma would call just low-down, dog mean. It is likely his mother rubbed his soft hair as she suckled him, his smooth skin against her breast, and dreamed about what kind of man he would become. Would her heart leap with happiness as she watched him becoming a young man? Would he give her grandchildren? Would he care for her, providing food and shelter when she was old? Like almost every mother, she would do the best she could with him. It probably never entered her mind that he would be the first person Jesus would die for. There was a Jewish custom that when prisoners were sentenced, Pilate would release one, giving a pardon from death. Maybe someone who the crowd thought was innocent, or one who ...

Every year, American homeowners spend millions attempting to get rid of the dandelions growing on their perfect lawns. Why? Dandelions have culinary and medicinal uses..the roots, blossoms, and leaves all be used to help humankind. Who decided they were a bad thing? O DANDELION, rich and haughty, King of village flowers! Each day is coronation time, You have no humble hours. I like to see you bring a troop To beat the blue-grass spears, To scorn the lawn-mower that would be Like fate’s triumphant shears, Your yellow heads are cut away, It seems your reign is o’er. By noon you raise a sea of stars More golden than before. - Vachel Lindsay Give it up. As long as there is wind and children to blow the feathery puff ball seeds around, the dandelion will win. And God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing see...

This first day of school after spring break may be a bumpy one. The weather forecasters are predicting damaging winds, isolated tornadoes, heavy storms that are supposed to arrive by mid-afternoon. Already, our neighbors to the west in Texas and Arkansas are dealing with the powerful system headed our way--a clash between a mean cold front and warm, wet air dancing off the Gulf of Mexico. On a similar April day in the early sixties, when I was in the fourth grade, we had a major storm in Hardin County, Tennessee. It was the first time I had seen my teacher scared of anything. There was no weather channel or no Internet to give minute by minute movement of the storm. My teacher just had his eyes and those of other teachers that day, and you could see the fear in them as they looked southwest at the thunderheads blackening the noonday sky. The storm passed over us, dumping heavy rain between the lightning flashes, but no tornado touched down in our little community. It made a mile-lon...

I love music, all real music. From Bach to Bruce, Wagner to Wayland, Crawford to Campbell...they are all my favorites. My list does not include those 'musicians' who substitute volume and fireworks for talent, but that's a blog for another day. Several weeks ago, weary from winter, I was surfing the net, looking for something exciting to do during spring break. And there it was...Don Williams at the Georgia State Fairgrounds in Hiawassee! I ordered tickets the next minute. Don Williams has been a favorite since the first time I heard him. I wore out several cassette tapes of his poetry set to music. When he was in concert nearby, we were just never able to go. After being a fan for thirty-plus years, I finally got to see him in concert. He didn't disappoint. "Good Ole Boys Like Me" stirs my soul and I was so thankful when he opened with it, after a lengthy standing ovation when he walked out on the stage. It was followed by many of his well know...