I can’t say I knew Lina Waldrip, a homeless woman who died sometime during the cold, cold night that started as Christmas Eve. But she was my age and from my hometown of Marianna, so I went to look for her in my yearbook. I found a girl who was a year behind me in school who looked like a younger version of Lina but went by a different name. I tried to remember something – anything – about her, but I couldn’t. And I regretted that I couldn’t.
Lina struggled with alcohol abuse and officials say she got drunk and fell asleep near her tent in the woods of Fayetteville. She never woke up. Was it the bone-chilling cold or some other ailment? We might never know.
The tragedy of it all struck me and has stayed with me for several weeks. And recently something else hit me: It was a rough year for my old hometown.
In addition to Lina’s death, consider:
Maurice Clemmons, 37, born in Marianna was shot and killed in Seattle by police who suspected him in the killings of four police officers.
Curtis Lavelle Vance, 29, was convicted capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft, in the 2008 death of Little Rock TV news anchor Anne Pressly.
Marianna Fire Chief Charles Boone was shot and killed Dec. 30, 2007, after he was found in bed with the estranged wife of Stephen Amos, a classmate of mine at Lee High School. Amos was acquitted of capital murder charges during a trial in 2009.
Finally, 1st Lt. Tyler E. Parten, 24, died Sept. 10 in Afghanistan. His mother, Lona, also was in my class at Lee High School and was a friend.
I don’t know what to make of all this. It seems an unusually high per-capita tragedy count. Some stems from the poverty of that area. Some is just “stuff” that happens. That’s the world we live in, at least for now. And it’s why we need redemption.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Monday, January 04, 2010
Right Isn't Fruit
The thought woke me in the middle of the night: Being right isn't a Fruit of the Spirit.
If you know your New Testament, then you already knew that. I knew it, too; I just didn't live it. So the reality hit me in a fresh way, as in a lesson learned over the years that's finally beginning to soak in. Maybe if I know it in this new way I might live it more faithfully. Maybe.
I don't know that it's ever wrong to be right, but there's an art to the expression of "rightness" ... including our decisions to remain silent about it. It's one of life's most challenging balancing acts, at least for me.
It's certainly hard to admit when we're wrong, but no easier to see when we should stay quiet about being right -- when we should say nothing at all or state our case simply and then back off if others disagree or when to continue the debate but for how long.
Being right feels like a "right." When we're right, everyone should agree and that should be that. But they don't comply, partly because we're not always right about being right. Even when we are right, however, the "rightness" isn't a fruit in the same way as, say, kindness. Being right, in other words, isn't a byproduct of being connected to God. It's not His gift to us because of our fellowship with Him.
The Fruits of the Spirit, however, offer a guide when it comes to how we deal with being right about one thing or the other. When we aren't producing that fruit in they way we express our rightness, then we've lost our way. We're stumbling in that balancing act. We've lost the touch of the artist. That makes us no less right. But if our fruit is rotten, what good is it being right?
If you know your New Testament, then you already knew that. I knew it, too; I just didn't live it. So the reality hit me in a fresh way, as in a lesson learned over the years that's finally beginning to soak in. Maybe if I know it in this new way I might live it more faithfully. Maybe.
I don't know that it's ever wrong to be right, but there's an art to the expression of "rightness" ... including our decisions to remain silent about it. It's one of life's most challenging balancing acts, at least for me.
It's certainly hard to admit when we're wrong, but no easier to see when we should stay quiet about being right -- when we should say nothing at all or state our case simply and then back off if others disagree or when to continue the debate but for how long.
Being right feels like a "right." When we're right, everyone should agree and that should be that. But they don't comply, partly because we're not always right about being right. Even when we are right, however, the "rightness" isn't a fruit in the same way as, say, kindness. Being right, in other words, isn't a byproduct of being connected to God. It's not His gift to us because of our fellowship with Him.
The Fruits of the Spirit, however, offer a guide when it comes to how we deal with being right about one thing or the other. When we aren't producing that fruit in they way we express our rightness, then we've lost our way. We're stumbling in that balancing act. We've lost the touch of the artist. That makes us no less right. But if our fruit is rotten, what good is it being right?
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