A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
Saturday I attended the William Walker Memorial Shape Note Singing at Wofford College in Spartanburg. This was a special occasion, marking the bicentennial of Walker’s birth. An entire weekend of events had been planned for the event. In addition to the singing, there would be an evening showing of the documentary Awake My Soul, and … Read More “William Walker Memorial Singing 2009” »
Last week I mentioned about my chance encounter with a book in the South Carolina Room of the Greenville County Library. I had picked up a random book off the shelf entitled “Life Sketches and Sermons” by “Reverend N. J. Holmes and wife” and had opened it to a random page to find my grandmother’s … Read More “Life Sketches and Sermons” »
I had written several weeks ago about this being the earliest Easter any of us were ever going to see. With temperatures dropping into the 30’s at night and flowers just now opening, it does seem like Easter is too soon. Regardless, we decided that early must be the theme, so we went to the … Read More “Early Easter at Fourth” »
I’ve completed a Lenten quest. I’ve listened to the entire King James version of the Bible as read by Alexander Scourby. I wasn’t sure if I could do it all within the time constraints of Lent, but I made it with room to spare, finishing up Revelations during Holy Week. I accomplished this by downloading … Read More “66 Books in 40 Days” »
On my way back from one of my schools this morning I spotted this sign… My first thought was, “Oh boy, yet another pastor who is ignorant of church history, and who buys into that ‘War on Christmas’ junk.” About.com gives a nice concise description of how the phrase “Xmas” came to be. It is … Read More “Xmas and Rebel Flags” »
Today is the first Sunday of Advent. For those of us who refuse to live by the commercial calendar, it’s the start of the Christmas season. Well, not really that even, but the preparation for the Christmas season. I’ve mentioned before that one church where I worked, the minister would not allow any Christmas music … Read More “Gloria” »
This afternoon several of us attended the funeral of the father of one of our colleagues. One of the songs that the choir sang was “I Bowed On My Knees and Cried Holy.” The song contain the following lyric… I saw Abraham, Jacob and Isaac, Oh with Mark and Timothy. Oh but I said, “I … Read More “The Paparazzi of Heaven” »
I was scanning radio channels on my short wave radio the other day and came across an interesting right-wing rant against environmentalism. First, the comentator refered to environmentalists as "greenies", "..that’s what we call them..," he stated. The pamphlet he was promoting on air tries to show that the concept of global warming is actually … Read More “Environmental Religion” »
CAUTION: Overly broad generalizations ahead. Today I caught myself using a double-standard. As we were having lunch today, a family came into the restaurant wearing clothing that marked them as being of some evangelical brand of Christianity. If the ultraconservative ankle-length dresses and lime-green sport coat weren’t enough, then the large leather thumpable Bible was … Read More “Worldlier Than Thou” »
The Tibetan Monks are at Furman this week, promoting awareness of their country and the Free Tibet movement. Part of their activities included the creation of an elaborate sand mandala – part worship, and part prayer. The mandala is build up grain by grain with colored sand in a meticulous process. The final product has … Read More “Sand Prayer” »