Author Archives: dcreamer

By Roger Barbee

            In May 1968 I graduated from college with a degree in English. I went home that summer to work in Cannon Mills, Plant 1, but as soon as August came, and Uncle Grant sold me that two-toned green rambler, I headed to what I viewed as the “promised land” of the North, which for me was Washington, D.C. I remember on the long drive to my apartment in Maryland seeing a “Wallace for President” sign somewhere in N.C., and thinking, “No more of that.”

            During my college years I became good friends with William MacPherson, who had grown up in Arlington, Va. I visited his home and thus, D.C., over the four years of gaining an education. I came to think of the area as the “land of milk and honey” for such a fired-up, young radical as I. The time of my graduation was the time of George Wallace and “Clean” Gene, who were candidates for President. It was also the time of Dr. King, Jr.’s assassination and the subsequent riots. It was the time of protests. It was the time of Howard Zinn and nightly newscasts of battles in Vietnam, complete with the day’s body count. It was an exciting time to be twenty-one years old and beginning a teaching career in a rural county of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

            Or so I thought until I recently ran across a reference to a man named Clarence Jordon. Jordon was a strong believer in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the fall of 1941 when he met a gentle missionary named Martin England who believed as he, they began dreaming of establishing Koinonia Farm as a way of countering the plight of farmers.  Life on Koinonia Farm would follow Scripture, especially the Sermon on the Mount. In 1942 they purchased a run-down farm southwest of Americus, Georgia, and the work to establish a community of all people began. But, the local population objected to the Koinonians eating together because some were white and some black, and just wages were paid to black workers which went against the rules of Jim Crow. Violence was not long in coming and until his death of a heart attack in 1969, Jordon peacefully followed the tenets of the Sermon on the Mount as angry whites burned down buildings of the farm, stole from it, destroyed its equipment, shot at its members, and local merchants refused to sell seeds and fertilizer to the farm. In describing the personalities warped by hate that tried to kill the farm, Jordon said, “We have too many enemies to leave them without hope.” I am indebted to Joyce Hollyday for some of this information.

Since reading the reference to Jordon and the Koinonia Farm, I have read his Cotton Patch Version of Luke and Acts, a brief sketch of his life by Joyce Hollyday, and have begun his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. I am captured by his faith, adherence to Scripture, and his legacy of Koinonia Farm. And I can’t help but go back to my years of college in the 1960’s and my mistaken belief that everything I desired was in a large, northern city.

A son of the South, I highly anticipated the time I could move to a world more suited to my beliefs—equality for men and women, peace, honest work, learning, in brief, everyone coming together to make the world better. I saw my dream in D.C. and went there. But, now, all these years later in 2018, I “discover” a man and a place that had everything I desired. Now, I am not fool enough to think that, going back these fifty years, everything would be peachy. Perhaps Jordon would not have appreciated me or my ways; maybe I not his. So be that. Yet, I am intrigued by my not seeing what was almost right in front of me and held all that my radical heart desired in 1968.   

By Roger Barbee

            At this time of the year, I cringe a great deal. I cringe at the Christmas cards consisting of too many family photographs. I cringe again because few of these carry any personal note or signature, just the implied message: “Look at how great and happy we are.” After that cringing, I suffer through the overflow of articles and newscasts looking back at the past year (name all who have died the past year) and the insufferable resolutions and advice for the coming new year ranging from a new diet to books that will change everything to ways of gaining a happier life. But while glancing at the New Year’s Day Charlotte Observer’s coverage of another local, random shooting in which an innocent, thirteen-year-old was murdered,  I saw a quarter-page advertisement for a jewelry store. I cringed. Not at the ad, but at the irony of its location. I also took a cell-phone photo of it and sent it to many contacts in my cell phone.

             The ad begins “resolve This Year” and then it lists 29, by my count, suggestions for all of us to do in 2020. And I think the list impressive, not necessarily because of the type of suggestions it makes, but by its language in making them. Strong verbs are used to state the imperatives we need to follow. An example such as  “Deserve confidence” places all the responsibility on the person desiring the confidence of another person . Those two words tell us, in order to have the confidence of others, we must act and do in such a way that another person will be confident about us. That is, we will be trusted because we have demonstrated trust.  

            Another suggestion that resonates is “Forgo a grudge.” I so admire the use of that somewhat archaic word “forgo.” As any poet knows, the perfect word is, well, just right.  I offer that to “forgo” is the perfect command for any of us living with a grudge.  Find “forgo” in your dictionary or cell phone. Learn it, and see for yourself why it is the perfect way to deal with a heavy emotion.

            Now, we are all busy in our world of convenience. Ask someone to support a good cause with a check and it likely will be given. Ask for an afternoon of labor for the same cause, and you likely will be given excuses of “I don’t have the time,” or “I’m  too busy.” Our time, even with all of it that we have, is guarded. Yet, here is the suggestion, “Find the time.” No explanations of what to find the time for, just find it. Oh, the needs are only limited by my excuses. But “Find the time” for a child, your house of worship, the local library, a soup kitchen, the local center for seniors, or so many other needs. Don’t wait for the time to appear, go out and find it. Once again, the ad gives a command. No wishing or moaning, but active verbs that will give results.

            “ Go to church.” Now, there it is said. Do not attend or visit or some other lesser verb. Go! Your mother may have said that to you long ago. That is strong advice but needed always and especially in our culture. You may easily substitute another word such as temple or mosque or synagogue for church. But, Go. You will feel better, and your world will be better.

            In the current climate, passive verbs relieve the speaker or writer of responsibility. As a teacher for forty years, I heard too many times a whine such as, “She (a teacher) doesn’t like me”, or “That coach likes only certain athletes”, or more and more. Parents, too, spoke in the passive voice to remove any responsibility from their child or even themselves. But this ad uses the active voice and that places all the responsibility on the one doing. Examine the suggestion, “Flount envy.” Once again, the perfect verb, but not one that I would want my students to commit regarding rules. But envy? Exactly. Grow up and be responsible for yourself.

            I wrote earlier that the placement of the ad is ironic. It is because the page it is on has an article about the murder of an innocent thirteen-year-old girl. She was killed by a stray bullet fired by an eighteen-year-old who was angry with someone he had argued with, and he did  not heed the first suggestion: “To mend a quarrel.” Instead of mending, he used a gun to rip at something trivial. Lives torn, including his.

            It is an ad unlike any I have ever read. But it is one I will read each day and follow its words. Strong words to help a weak world.