A Blessing for All the Gadflies

I've written before about how our local board of education hired a woefully unprepared man with a slim resume to run our public schools in a borough with a high poverty rate and plenty of economic disparity. This has been a rough school year in town. I am grateful to live in a place where scores of people care so much about what is going on in the public schools and understand the principles of democracy so well that they are willing to spend evenings attending board meetings and speaking up. Most do not relish this role. 

An Unexpected Christmas Gift

A religious acquaintance of mine recently told a friend of mine he didn't think I should waste my time trying to alter the direction of our local public schools because even if this latest problem were solved, another problem would crop up.

The thing is, God calls us to do His work of justice and mercy, to places outside church doors. Sometimes, the work we do unexpectedly helps to draw those we encounter back to Christ. That's God's doing, not ours. This was today's Christmas miracle at the 11 a.m. Mass for me.

This Moment: Monroe County Courthouse, Monroeville, Alabama

Last week I attended a teachers' workshop in Monroeville, Alabama, Harper Lee's hometown, on how to teach her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. That book has found its way deep into my heart. Lee based her fictional town, Maycomb, on Monroeville, the town where she grew up next door to writer Truman Capote, after whom she modeled the character Dill Harris.

Much of Monroeville has changed since Lee and Capote were children. Both their homes are gone; her family's lot now houses Mel's Dairy Dream; the site of his summer home now is just the stone foundation. The jail on the courthouse square has been remodeled beyond recognition and now houses the Monroe County Human Resources department.

But the courthouse is unchanged. Universal Studios came to Monroeville when it was filming the Academy-Award winning movie based on Lee's book. They recreated every last detail on a Hollywood set. I've watched the movie nearly as often as I have read the book - perhaps a dozen times. As readers of the book know, the dramatic height of the novel is the trial of a black man falsely accused - and convicted - of raping a white woman.

So you understand why, when I walked into the courtroom, I nearly burst into tears. Tears of joy that a writer could create such a world from the confines of her imagination. Tears of joy that the world she invented a half century ago  still makes its readers laugh, and cry, and rail for justice that still eludes us.

Linking with Amanda.

Missing Treyvon Martin and Rallying for Civil Rights in Birmingham, Alabama

In downtown Birmingham today, I had hoped to visit the Civil Rights Institute, which documents the struggles of the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. I discovered it is closed on Mondays, as is the Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church, which the Ku Klux Klan bombed 50 years ago this September 15, killing four young girls.

So instead, I walked through Kelly Ingram Park, across from the institute and encountered some modern-day civil rights activists and had the privilege of talking to a woman who lived in the city when the church was bombed.

At the End of A Difficult Day, Love Endures

 

I had a tumultuous traveling day, flying from Newark to Birmingham, Alabama, with a layover in Detroit. I forgot some important items at home, which will make my travels difficult. Tonight I find myself visiting with old parish friends before I tour civil-rights sites in Alabama and attend a teachers' conference in author Harper Lee's hometown. How ironic to find myself here, in a state that has endured so much violence and racial strife, on the day a Florida jury found an unarmed black teen's killer guilty of absolutely nothing. It can be so discouraging, this search for justice.

A Good Heart and a Cell Phone in a Broken World

Our 13-year-old son put his cell phone in his sweatshirt pocket Saturday afternoon as he headed to the high school track for a run. About halfway to the high school, he realized the phone was missing. He backtracked. Four times. He came home distressed. This was his very first cell phone. He has had it a little more than a month. I told him to go do his run and I called t-mobile to deactivate the phone. Then, something extraordinary happened.

"Cape Fear": How Far Would You Go To Protect Your Loved Ones?

Because I teach "To Kill A Mockingbird" and show my students the Oscar-winning film, I ended up buying a six-DVD box of Gregory Peck movies. Among the box's treasures is "Cape Fear," a film that came out in 1961, the year before "To Kill a Mockingbird" and stars a very different Peck from the sedate, level-headed Atticus Finch.

My husband and I settled in to watch "Cape Fear" this weekend. It's a psychological thriller that takes place in Georgia. The action is set into motion when Max Cady, a convicted rapist, played by Robert Mitchum, finishes his prison term and tracks down lawyer Sam Bowden, the key witness against him. Peck portrays Bowden.

"To Kill A Mockingbird:" Longing for Justice

I wiped tears from my eyes and stifled the lump in my throat this morning as I read to my small class of students  Chapter 20 of Harper Lee's masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird.

My students, most of them recent immigrants, sat beside me as I read defense lawyer Atticus Finch's closing arguments to the all-white all-male jury who we know from the novel's start will convict Tom Robinson, a black man, of raping a white neighbor. It's a crime that never even happened and we know nevertheless that at the trial's end, Tom Robinson will be sentenced to death. Every time I read this book or watch the movie, I hope somehow, this time, the jury will set Tom Robinson free. I long for a world in which justice is fair and where the cruelty humans inflict on one another has disappeared.

As I read, I wondered if Lee's writing was traveling across time and circumstance and culture and into my students' hearts. "

That was strong," said one student when I finished. "Powerful," said another. And then we all were quiet for a minute or so.

Please read this out loud to yourself.

At the Supermarket: Encountering a Old Friend Soon To Be A Prisoner

This afternoon in the tea aisle at an HMart, I spotted an old colleague from behind, wearing his yarmulke. I called him by name "Isaac?" (not his real name) He turned around and we smiled at one another and chatted for several minutes. He said he was looking for a certain kind of tea, but he only knew its name in Korean. I found a Korean-speaking employee for him and we figured out it was barley tea he was looking for.

I hadn't seen Isaac, a married father of three, in months. We stopped working together years ago. In March, he was charged with sexually assaulting two teenaged girls.

Pay It Forward: Shannon, the Jail Chaplain

The first murder I covered as a newspaper reporter was in 1990. By happenstance, (or maybe not)  I had interviewed the charming 17-year-old boy, Charles Hardison (shown above), just a few days ago before he was found shot to death in his mother's basement.

The long feature article I was working on about his success as a tennis player and student leader had not yet even been published. After his murder, I was able to visit his home and sit with his mother as she told me more about her son's short life. I never will forget the sound of Adlene Hardison's voice, the sad look in her eyes and the tidiness of her bedroom, where her Bible lay on her nightside table.

Because Boys Need Heros: "Green Lantern"

I grew up in a family with three girls and one boy and the atmosphere was weighted toward the feminine: my sisters and I played with Madame Alexander dolls, hosted singing "concerts" in our basement, wore Lanz of Salzburg nightgowns and, when we girls were teenagers, experimented with dozens of brands of shampoo.

Now, I'm raising two sons. The experience is filling out my understanding of childhood. Consider this. A friend of our sons comes over for a sleepover with bare feet and empty hands. "Where's your bag, honey?" "Bag?" he answers. He puts his toothbrush on the radiator. "I just brought this."

And so it is I found myself yesterday afternoon driving to a local shopping mall with three 11-year-old boys, including one of my own, to buy tickets to see the superhero-action-adventure movie "Green Lantern." As I played my Duke Ellington CD in the front seat, I listened in on the boys' conversation in the back. They talked about two things: cars and their fathers.

Looking for Justice From TV Shows

I’m a crime-show addict. You name it, I’ll watch it: Criminal Minds, Law and Order, NCIS, Bones, CSI Miami, The Closer, The Killing, Without a Trace, In Plain Sight. What is it about my heart makes me seek out such creepiness?  I think it has to do with a longing for justice.