I imagine that every Laredoan in my Address Book will know Elizabeth Nye Sorrell. She has lived in San Antonio for the last 5-6 years and she is positively captured in this article as the kind of energetic, productive person she has always been. The last time I saw her was at my Class' (1951) 50th reunion. I think you will appreciate seeing this. She has been invited to every one of our reunions and she did make an appearance, except for our 55th reunion, back last May.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/salife/stories/MYSA010907.1P.elizabeth.1c377e7.html
Blessings!! Bill
President Bush did make a bad mistake
in the war on terrorism. But the BIG mistake was not his decision to go to
war in
Back then, they had just come out of a vicious depression. The country was
steeled by the hardship of that depression, but they still believed
fervently in this country. They knew that the people had elected their
leaders, so it was the people's duty to back those leaders.
Therefore, when the war broke out the people came together, rallied
behind, and stuck with their leaders, whether they had voted for them or
not or whether the war was going badly or not. And war was just as
distasteful and the anguish just as great then as it is today. Often there
were more casualties in one day in WWII than we have had in the entire
Everyone from every strata of society,
from young to old pitched in. Small children pulled little wagons around
to gather scrap metal for the war effort. Grade school saved their
pennies to buy stamps for war bonds to help the effort.
Men who were too old or medically 4F lied about their age or condition
trying their best to join the military. Women doubled their work to keep
things going at home. Harsh rationing of everything from gasoline to soap,
to butter was imposed, yet there was very little complaining.
You never heard prominent people on the radio belittling the President.
Interestingly enough in those days there were no fat cat actors and
entertainers who ran off to visit and fawn over dictators of hostile
countries and complain to them about our President. Instead, they made
upbeat films and entertained our troops to help the troops' morale. And a
bunch even enlisted.
And
imagine this: Teachers in schools actually started the day off with
a Pledge of Allegiance, and with prayers for our country and our troops!
Back then, no newspaper would have
dared point out certain weak spots in our cities where bombs could be set
off to cause the maximum damage. No newspaper would have dared complain
about what we were doing to catch spies.
A newspaper would have been laughed out of existence if it had complained
that German or Japanese soldiers were being 'tortured' by being forced to
wear women's underwear, or subjected to interrogation by a woman, or being
scared by a dog or did not have air conditioning.
There were a lot of things different back then. We were not subjected to a
constant bombardment of pornography, perversion and promiscuity in movies
or on radio. We did not have legions of crack-heads, dope pushers and
armed gangs roaming our streets.
No, President Bush did not make a mistake in his handling of terrorism. He
made the mistake of believing that we still had the courage and fortitude
of our fathers. He believed that this was still the country that our
fathers fought so dearly to preserve.
It is not the same country. It is now a cross between
We are in great danger. The terrorists are fanatic Muslims. They believe
that it is okay, even their duty, to kill anyone who will not convert to
Islam. It has been estimated that about one-third or over three hundred
million Muslims are sympathetic to the terrorists cause...Hitler and Tojo
combined did not have nearly that many potential recruits.
So...we either win it - or lose it - and you ain't gonna like losing.
(Nicole Frugé/Express-News) Elizabeth Nye Sorrell is still working on deadline, turning out profiles of three Laredoans. The retired English teacher moved to San Antonio from her native Laredo a few years ago.
Melissa Fletcher StoeltjeShe's about to turn 98 and she's still working on deadline.
Meet the remarkable Elizabeth Nye Sorrell, a woman who defies notions about what it means to grow old, a former longtime teacher and newspaper columnist who has touched the lives of legions of South Texans — and continues to do so with her voracious curiosity and lust for life.
She would be embarrassed by such accolades, no doubt. Charming and self-effacing, Sorrell insists she's only ordinary. But what ordinary 97-year-old would still be hard at work on three different stories for a small publication in her native Laredo, profiles of three Laredoans she will tap out on the typewriter at the Meadows Retirement Community on Babcock Road, her home for the last four years?
When she's not writing stories, she's firing off letters to the editor of the newspaper, which she devours every day.
Former students are forever visiting her and sending her correspondence, still entranced by the mentor who shaped their attitudes toward literature. Such was the man who recently stopped by to give Sorrell a copy of the book he'd just published.
"To the greatest English teacher in the universe," he wrote inside the cover.
"Whether it's in terms of her knowledge of politics or culture or her vital interest in the world, she's a role model for everybody," says the poet Naomi Shihab Nye, whose husband is a distant cousin to Sorrell. "She's a real activist and always has been."
Nye had never met Sorrell before, didn't even know they were distantly related. Then one day an "amazing, beautifully eloquent" letter, written in gorgeous longhand, landed in Nye's mailbox. It was Sorrell's impassioned support for an editorial Nye had recently published in the Express-News critical of the Iraq war, which at that time was ramping up. Nye knew she had to meet her fan.
"We sat there in the lobby (of the Meadows) discussing politics," she recalls. "It was so fantastic to meet someone so outspoken and so willing to put her views and feelings on the table."
On a recent morning Sorrell took a break from traveling around the Meadows with her walker to talk about her long and storied life, which began on an onion farm in Laredo on Feb. 4, 1909. Incredibly healthy — the heart and blood pressure medicines she takes are merely preventive — she is also articulate and funny, if a tad hard of hearing. She has pillowy white hair and wears a purple brocade dress and wire-frame glasses. At one point in the conversation she launches into a recitation from memory of the witch's poem from "Macbeth."
"You know the talk about 'fair is foul and foul is fair' is the theme of 'Macbeth,'" she says, slipping into English teacher mode. "It's about the conflict between good and evil."
Sorrell's story has burnished roots. Her ancestors came over on the ship directly after the Mayflower. Her great-grandfather traveled from Massachusetts to Matagorda and then perished in a hurricane. His son, Thomas C. Nye — Sorrell's beloved grandfather — fought for the Confederacy and was captured in the Civil War. He escaped and went on to become the "Onion King of the Rio Grande," being the first to plant that crop in the irrigated Laredo soil.
It was on her grandfather's lap that Sorrell acquired her love of learning and reading.
"I first learned the word 'book' from him," she says.
Her own father was a prosperous onion farmer, too, until she turned 3 and they moved into the big city of Laredo. Her father died when she was young, and ultimately the land had to be sold. But Sorrell inherited the strong work ethic of her ancestors and began working for the local newspaper when she was in high school, covering football games for 10 cents a published column inch.
After graduating from high school in 1927, Sorrell attended Rice University in Houston, living with an aunt and uncle and working the switchboard at Methodist Hospital to help pay for her education. (Her mother, an invalid, died while she was in college.)
After graduating from Rice in 1931, she returned home to Laredo and began teaching math at the local high school until an opening arose in the English department, her real love. She married and had one child, Sterling Sorrell Jr., now 68, and a lawyer in Colorado. Her husband, Sterling Norman Sorrell, who worked in a tax office, died of a heart attack when she was just 33. Sorrell never remarried.
Her life has been full, however. In addition to teaching, Sorrell turned her home into the equivalent of a literary salon, where students would come to read poetry, sing and have intellectual discussions. She later earned a master's in English from the University of Texas at Austin.
Sheila Glassford, 72, is a former student in Laredo and an old friend of Sorrell who talks to her by phone every week. She recalls how her old mentor would turn an everyday class on Shakespeare into something special.
"She would read 'MacBeth' to us, and we would all sit with bated breath until she reached the line, 'Out, out damn spot!'" says Glassford. "Oh, my gosh, she had such a tremendous voice, so theatrical. It's like she could have been onstage."
In addition to teaching, Sorrell for decades wrote a well-loved social column, first for the South Texas Citizen and later for the Laredo Morning Times. She also wrote observational columns. People far and wide knew who she was and avidly followed her writing. In her Meadows apartment, on a wall lined with plaques and teaching awards, there is a government proclamation honoring "Lines from Liz," the name of her column.
She retired from teaching at age 70; she kept up with the newspaper writing until she turned 85. Sorrell says the three profiles she's currently working on for LareDos (for no pay; two of them are on former students) will be her last. "I've had enough," she says. "They want people from Laredo, and I've run out of people."
Sorrell, who has two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, moved to San Antonio from Laredo at age 94, first to live with a granddaughter and then to move into her present abode. She is saddened by the state of things in her old hometown — the drug cartels, the violence. No, she never goes back. And she is not at all averse to stating her opinion about the current occupant of the White House.
"I don't like Bush at all. I think he's awful," she says. "He told lies about Iraq, and I don't think we should have gone in there at all. I don't believe in spilling American blood on things like that. I don't think the world has ever looked as bad as it does now."
But mostly her days are filled with peace and light. She loves venturing around the complex with her walker, admiring the squirrels and the birds. At her suggestion, the retirement community instituted its own reading series, where people recite poems and prose. Sorrell can see both the "sunrise and the moonrise" from her fourth-story apartment, and there's plenty of "star shine" as well. She knows the full names of all her peers at the complex and — like a true journalist — she knows all their life stories.
Her doctor has told her he thinks she's going to live to see 100.
"I don't have the secret to living so long," she responds, when asked. "I'm just thankful that I'm here. But I don't mind the idea of death, either. I am resigned to the fact that we all have to go."
But what a life it's been.
When the nurse asked if she knew me, is when the nurse thought she should call me. She indicated that Mrs. Sorrell was being transferred last night, under hospice care, to Morningside Manor.
OCT 8 2006
Email to Doc Riojas;
The Texas-Oklahoma game, yesterday, brought out many folks; one was Barry Switzer, former coach of OU, who was one of the most successful OU coaches in the school's history, right up there with the legandary Bud Wilkinson. This SPIRITUAL PRESCRIPTION, below, was my contribution to the Baptist Hospital System's monthly news magazine's section of the same name, written, in the early 80s, while Switzer was still the OU coach.
************************************************************************************
On the day after Christmas, the sports section of a local newspaper carried an article about one of the most successful and controversial college coaches in the country: Barry Switzer, coach of the Oklahoma Sooners' football team. The article quoted Switzer as having grown up feeling insecure, inferior and paranoid. When he was 21 years old, his ailing mother went out on the porch of her home and shot herself to death. Young Switzer ran out to the porch and carried her inside. He still feels guilty over the fact that he had not kissed her that day.
Because of his father's reputation, Barry was a social outcast, unsuitable to date, when he was growing up. When Barry was 34 years old, his bootlegging father died under mysterious circumstances and to this day the case remains unsolved.
This article helped me to appreciate Barry Switzer more than I have. It has also helped me to realize that there are many Barry Switzers walking around; folks who are carrying so much unnecessary emotional baggage that has been heaped upon them by circumstances over which they have absolutely no control.
None of us is responsible for the reputation of our ancestry. Our responsibility is how we choose to allow the reputation of our ancestry affect our present lives. Eleanor Roosevelt made the statement, "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission." Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst, put it another way when he suggested to the religious community that one of the most important exercises in which one can participate is to learn to become the recipient of one's own mercy.
I am convinced that God never intended for His children to go through life with a defeated, walked-on feeling, for He made the necessary provision for us to deal with negative, as well as positive, feelings about ourselves. In I John 1:9, we read, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." "Our sins" can be actual or imagined.
In that act of forgiveness, God offers us the potential power to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and be at peace with what we see, morally, spiritually, and ethically. In that act of forgiveness, God has let us in on His grace and mercy. Years ago, someone shared with me the difference between these two attributes of God. He said that GRACE is God giving us something that we do not deserve. MERCY is God not giving us something that we really do deserve.
It is my hope for each member of the hospital family, as each of us enters a brand new year, that we follow the admonition of St. Paul, as recorded in his letter to the Philippian church, "...but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching for those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
Erasmo,
I draw on my files, once again, to resurrect one of my SPIRITUAL PRESCRIPTIONS that appeared in the Hospital's Newsmagazine some 15 years ago. This particular piece has a relationship to the cartoon that appears below it. Blessings! Bill *********************************************************************************Disillusionment for me has been a part of the aging process. Throughout the years I have become disillusioned with some people, places, and institutions simply because they are not the way they used to be through the eyes of my youth.
Being somewhat of an athlete in my youth, I have become disillusioned with what there is left of amateur sports. College football, for example, was a good example of an amateur sport when I was young. Today, college football teams have become nothing more than big business farm clubs for the professional ranks where some players receive more salary in one year than I will have received in the 50 years I will have been in the labor force at the time I retire.
Because of the ever increasing emphasis on professionalism in sports over the years, the greatest "put-down" of an athlete is to tell him, "You're playing like an amateur!" Today, to be an amateur means to be less than adequate for the task; it means to be less than skilled. It carries with it a very negative connotation - being less than competent.
John Claypool, an Episcopal priest in Birmingham, Alabama, published a sermon several years ago entitled, "God is an Amateur." He pointed out that the meaning of the word "amateur" has, as have other words in our vocabulary, strayed from its roots. The word "amateur" comes from the Latin root amore which mean "to love," and originally stood for persons who did something for the love of it. They were not paid to do it in any coercive way; they did it for no other reason than they wanted to do it and found great pleasure and joy in doing it.
God is indeed an amateur, for what He does, in your life and in mine, He does for the love of it. The favorite, John 3:16, "for God so loved the world...," is simply the overflow of His nature. I John 4:8 says, "...God is love."
In relating this idea to those of us laboring in health care, we find ourselves faced with the necessity to be the best professionals we can be in our various fields. But if we are professionals only, then there could be that tendency to see our patients as objects or things to manipulate: "the gallbladder in 201," or "the tonsillectomy in 150," etc.
Now, we can do an excellent job if we are professionals only; but, our over-all healing effectiveness in the lives of hurting persons could have a profound impact if we approach them with the honed skills of a professional and with the loving heart of an amateur. We ply our skills because there is that love we have for people.
Remember, God is an amateur, and He always will be!
This came about an hour or so ago, from one of the Gang, and it says what I've been thinking over the last few years, but most especially, this past year in anticipation of my Class of 1956's 50th reunion at the Naval Academy, in November. I have a feeling that some of you, like me, have been overwhelmed by what the unknown author of this piece is saying. God bless you all, and have a great 2007!!
From: Bill Simpson,
To: Erasmo "Doc" Riojas
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 5:59 AM
Subject: National Hispanic Sports Hall of Fame
I thought some of you Laredoans, who have not seen this, would appreciate the great recognition Richard Ochoa will receive, formally, tomorrow night. One of the "Good Guys" on the MHS campus!!!
Bill Simpson MHS
TIGER
****************************************************
NATIONAL HISPANIC SPORTS HALL OF FAME
Induction ceremony: Omni Hotel, 6 p.m. Saturday, March 24, 2007
Lifetime achievement awards: Former Express-News sportswriter John Hines, and Robert Romo, community relations director for Wal-Mart in San Antonio
2007 Inductees
Richard Ochoa, Texas, football: Leading rusher on 1952 UT team that won SWC and beat Tennessee in Cotton Bowl. Lettered in 1950, 1951 and 1952. Graduated from Laredo Martin High School.
Inocencio Cantu, Texas, cross country: First UT cross country All-American. Won Southwest Conference title as senior in 1954. Graduated from El Campo High School.
Rodemiro Gonzales, TCU, football and baseball: Starting safety as senior in 1959 when Horned Frogs were SWC co-champions and finished 8-3. Also lettered as pitcher on baseball team in 1956, 1957 and 1958. Graduated from Hebbronville High School.
From: Bill Simpson
***********************************************************************************
( The following, written by Anthony Towne, is a
satirical comment on 'the God is Dead' movement,
in vogue in the '60's. Those described as God's physicians were actually
theologians who were sympathetic with the 'God is dead' movement. This
shortened version of an "obituary," written in the style of The
New York Times, was excerpted from a longer article that appeared in the
February, 1966, Motive, a Methodist student publications, Nashville,
Tenn.)
AN 'OBITUARY' FOR GOD
Eminent Deity Succumbs During Surgery -
Succession in Doubt As All Creation Groans
LBJ ORDERS FLAGS AT HALF STAFF
ATLANTA, Ga. - Nov. 9 --God, creator of the
universe, principal deity of the world's Jews, ultimate reality of Christians,
and most eminent of all divinities, died late yesterday during major
surgery undertaken to correct a massive diminishing influence. His exact
age is not known, but close friends estimate that it greatly exceeded that of
all other extant beings.
The cause of death could not be immediately determined, but
the deity's surgeon, Thomas J. J. Altizer, 35, of Emory University in Atlanta,
indicated possible cardiac insufficiency. Assisting Dr. Altizer in the
unsuccessful surgery were Dr. Paul van Buren of Temple University, Philadelphia;
Dr. William Hamilton of Colgate-Rochester, Rochester, N. Y., and Dr. Gabriel
Vahanian of Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y.
Word of the death, long rumored, was officially disclosed to
reporters at five minutes before midnight after a full day of mounting anxiety
and the comings and goings of ecclesiastical dignitaries.
In Johnson City, Tex., President Johnson was described by
aides as "profoundly upset." He at once directed that all flags
should be at half-staff until after the funeral. The First Lady and the
two Presidential daughters, Luci and Lynda, were understood to have wept openly.
Both houses of Congress met in Washington at noon today and promptly adjourned
after passing a joint resolution expressing "grief and great respect for
the departed spiritual leader." Senator Wayne Morris of Oregon,
objected on the grounds that the resolutions violated the principle of
separation of church and state, but was overruled by Vice President Hubert
Humphrey, who remarked that "this is not a time for partisan
politics."
Plans for the deity's funeral are incomplete. Reliable
sources suggested that extensive negotiations may be necessary in order to
select a church for the services and an appropriate liturgy. Dr. Wilheim
Pauck, theologian of Union Seminary in New York City, proposed this morning that
it would be "fitting and seemly" to inter the remains in the ultimate
ground of all being. Funerals for divinities, common in ancient times,
have been exceedingly rare in recent centuries.
Reaction from the world's great and from the man on the
street was uniformly incredulous. "At least he's out of his misery,"
commented one housewife in an Elmira, N. Y. supermarket. "I can't
believe it," said the Right Rev. Horace W. B. Donegan, Protestant Episcopal
Bishop of New York. In Paris, President de Gaulle in a 30-second
appearance on national television, proclaimed "God is dead! Long live the
republic! Long live France!" News of the death was included in a
one-sentence statement, without comment, on the 3rd page of Izvestia, official
organ of the Soviet Government. The passing of God has not been disclosed
to the 800 million Chinese who live behind the bamboo curtain.
Public reaction in this country was perhaps summed up by an
elderly retired streetcar conductor
in Passaic, N. J., who said, "I never met him, of course. Never even
saw him. But from what I heard I guess he was a real nice fellow.
Tops." From Independence, Mo., former President Harry S. Truman, who
received the news in his Kansas City barbershop, said: "I'm always sorry to
hear somebody is dead. It's a damn shame." In Gettysburg, Pa., former
President Dwight D. Eisenhower released through a military aide the following
statement: "Mrs. Eisenhower joins me in heartfelt sympathy to the family
and many friends of the late God. He was, I always felt, a force of moral
good in the universe. Those of us who were privileged to know him admired
the probity of his character, the breadth of his compassion, the depth of his
intellect. Generous almost to a fault, his many acts of kindness to
America will never be forgotten. It is a very great loss indeed. He will
be missed."
From Basel, Switzerland, came word that Dr. Karl Barth,
venerable Protestant theologian, informed of the death of God, declared: "I
don't know who died in Atlanta, but whoever he was, he's an impostor."
Dr. Altizer, God's surgeon, in an exclusive interview with The
Times, stated this morning that the death was "not unexpected."
"He had been ailing for some time," Dr; Altizer said, "and lived
much longer than most of us thought possible." He noted that the
death of God had, in fact, been prematurely announced in the last century by the
famed German surgeon, Nietzsche. Nietzsche, who was insane the last 10
years of his life, may have confused "certain symptoms of morbidity in the
aged patient with actual death, a mistake any busy surgeon will occasionally
make." Dr. Altizer suggested, "God, was an excellent patient,
compliant, cheerful, alert. Every comfort modern science could provide was
made available to him. He did not suffer - he just, as it were, slipped
out of our grasp."
From: Bill Simpson 56
To: Erasmo Riojas
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: May 4th 2007 ( Salt Water Fuel )
Erasmo, Enjoy your time with your buddies at the UDT-SEAL reunion at Little Creek Va. We had a great time at Anapolis at my Naval Academy class reunion last year 2006.
My last ship, the USS DASH (MSO-428) was stationed at the Amphib Base, Little Creek. About 3-4 blocks West from the Base, on Little Creek Drive(or Blvd), is the Azelia Baptist Church, where I made my commitment to ministry and to leave the Navy, in December, 1960.
I can't believe that it has been close to 50 years since that event. Estoy muy viejo!!
Blessings!
Bill
**********************************************
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm
email the webmaster: Erasmo "Doc" Riojas el_ticitl @ yahoo.com
Class: DASH CLASS MINESWEEPER
Laid down July 2, 2951 at Astoria Marine Construction Co.,
Astoria, Oregon
Launched September 20, 1952 and Commissioned USS Dash (AM-428) August 14, 1953
Reclassified MSO-428 February 7, 1955
Decommissioned October 2, 1982 Stricken (?)
Sold for scrapping January 1984 to Wayne Hobbs, Huntington, CA for $22,229
| 07/16/2007 |
| Elizabeth Nye Sorrell, Laredo icon dead at 98 |
| By MARK WEBBER , LAREDO MORNING TIMES |
| Elizabeth
Nye Sorrell, a Laredo icon who taught thousands of students as a teacher
at Martin High School and covered thousands more during her years as a
society columnist, died Sunday afternoon after a short illness.She was
98.
Sorrell had been in hospice care at Morningside Manor in San Antonio since February, family and friends said. She died about 4:30 p.m. Sunday, according to Rev. Paul Frey, pastor of Christ Church Episcopal. Funeral arrangements are pending. Sorrell was Christ Church Episcopal's oldest living parishioner. Even though she moved to San Antonio several years ago, she continued to make an annual pledge and counted Christ Church Episcopal as her home church. Sorrell began teaching in the early 1930s, and retired when she was 70. She first taught math, but soon moved on to English, a long time love, and was sponsor of school publications at Martin High. Sorrell was first sponsor of La Pitaya yearbook, later filling the same post for the now-defunct Journal newspaper. She wrote a society column for the South Texas Citizen and then for the Laredo Morning Times, keeping that up until her late 80s. More recently, she wrote stories and profiles for LareDOS. Sorrell, with her booming, deep voice, was known for asking those she met at society events, "Who are you?" as a way of getting information for her columns. Sorrell lived for many years at the family home on Farragut Street, later taking up residence in a brownstone house in the 1800 block of Victoria Street. The house, now demolished, and the brownstone are in the St. Peter's Historical District. After a lifetime in Laredo, she moved to San Antonio at 94 to live with a granddaughter. Sorrell then moved into The Meadows, where she enjoyed visiting with friends and former students, plainspoken and direct as ever. "Her mind was sharp and she kept up with many things," recalled retired Laredo Morning Times Editor Odie Arambula on Sunday night. "In my opinion she will forever be a legend in this town because she taught thousands and thousands of students over the years. She was better known than anybody else." He stayed in communication with Sorrell after she left Laredo. "I was so impressed that after she moved to Helotes and then the rest home she maintained contact with the paper. She used to write notes to me and would always talk to (LMT office manager) Clara (Moreno)." One of many highlights in her long life was a scholarship established in 1994 in her name for communication students at the Vidal M. Treviño School of Communications and Fine Arts. Seed money for the awards were provided by the Laredo Morning Times and Hearst Corporation in 1994, and 42 students have received money for college in her name. |
While in Seminary, in the early 60s, Gerry and I traveled, from Ft. Worth to a very small church in Oklahoma, each weekend for a year. It was a 400 mile round trip, before freeways in that part of the world. About 30 minutes after one morning service, I asked Gerry what she thought of my sermon, and she couldn't remember it. We've laughed about that ever since. SO, there is something to be said about this cartoon. Bill Simpson
Aug 07, 2007
These bumper stickers (bill emailed me a bunch of them)have been around. This one is from one of the Gang. Why, the older I get, the funnier they become, eh???? The last one reminds me that my high school dating car was my Mom's '36 Studebaker. Quite a car!!!!
My Mom's Studebaker was a "Commander" or "Commodore" - can't recall exactly. It had tires mounted in two front fender wells. It was tan in color. A great car! The car in this picture does not have front fender wells.
Dig the SpareTire, one on each side !
Email from Bill Simpson:
Erasmo, It has been over 50 years since I read Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship. It still resonates within my spirit, especially his concept of "Cheap Grace". If you read this book, it will cause you to look around you at what seems to be smiling people simply "playing church". I recommend this book to you!! It is heavy stuff!!!!
Bill
************************************************************************* Bonhoeffer versus John Shelby Spong
by Scott Stephens
Faith and Theology
September 4. 2007
When it comes to theological brand-names, they don't come any sexier, or more marketable, than Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The inherent nobility of his short life, his blistering intelligence, and his martyrdom at the hands of the Nazis places Bonhoeffer among the unassailable luminaries of our time. Even Christopher Hitchens - who savaged Mother Theresa in a vicious polemic entitled The Missionary Position - can't find anything bad to say about him: "Religion spoke its last intelligible or noble or inspiring words a long time ago: either that or it mutated into an admirable but nebulous humanism, as did, say, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a brave Lutheran pastor hanged by Nazis for his refusal to collude with them."
Because of his near universal appeal, it was inevitable that Bonhoeffer's demanding body of work would be made more available for popular consumption and reduced to an "Everyday-with-Dietrich" style anthology of sayings, sermons and other morsels of spiritual advice. But every now and then, one comes across an appropriation of Bonhoeffer that is so perverse that one is compelled to put one's foot down and say, "Enough is enough."
Anyone who has read John Shelby Spong - whose books I've always found very easy to put down, and almost impossible to pick back up again - will by now be familiar with his pretentious appeal to Bonhoeffer's "non-religious Christianity." His strategy, of course, is to position himself as the heir to Bonhoeffer's legacy, the realization of his dream. But nothing could be further from the truth. Not only is it outrageous to pass off the bilious swill that Spong mass produces as being in the same league as Bonhoeffer, but Spong effectively destroys his own intellectual credibility by failing to recognize that he is implicated in Bonhoeffer's critique of religion. Let me explain.
An important touchstone in any consideration of Bonhoeffer's attack on religion is his remarkable book, Discipleship, whose manuscript was completed exactly 70 years ago this week. Unlike Bonhoeffer's earlier books, written effortlessly in the unmolested surroundings of the University of Berlin, Discipleship reflects a deep sense of urgency, as though it was demanded by the reality of an escalating crisis.
There had been, in Bonhoeffer's reckoning, a chronic malfunction in the church's life which all but neutralized any effective witness it might have to the world. Somehow "grace" had ceased being the power which binds us to Christ, which elicits the repetition of the drama of death and resurrection in the lives of members of the church. It had instead been cheapened, and re-tooled so as to consecrate indiscriminately all the banality, idolatry and godlessness of culture.
When the church peddles a form of "grace" aimed at making people "feel more secure in their godless lives," it frankly ceases being the church, insisted Bonhoeffer. Having forsaken its duty to be "salt and light," the church whored itself to the state, offering its wares in exchange for financial security and the benefit of a quiet and peaceful existence. It was thereby reduced to the status of a mere service-provider, the state-sanctioned dispenser of sentimentality and meaningless assurance. He writes: "We gave away preaching and sacraments cheaply; we performed baptisms and confirmations; we absolved an entire people, unquestioned and unconditionally.... When was the world ever Christianized more dreadfully and wickedly than here?"
This instrumentalization lies at the heart of what Bonhoeffer calls the "religion-concept" (Religionsbegriff). In so far as "religion" represents a mere expression of the human longing for transcendence and meaning, it can be employed by a culture as a pagan affirmation of the people's inherent divinity. For Bonhoeffer, the shared category of "religion" was the means by which the church had been absorbed into the bloodstream of German culture, and thereby rendered complicit, impotent, idolatrous.
Bonhoeffer's call for "non-religious Christianity" (Nicht-religiöse Christentum) had nothing to do with abandoning rigid dogma and other forms of traditional Christianity in favour of a more spontaneous communion with the Ground of Being. Instead, it stands for the church having the courage to be the church, to follow Jesus in his uncompromising concreteness, and not to seek refuge in the shadows of pseudo-theological, liturgical or ethical obscurantism. The irony, of course, is that the mishmash of pop-existentialism and flaccid pluralism that Spong urges upon the disaffected faithful is precisely the kind of cancerous religiosity to which Bonhoeffer was opposed. The following passage from Spong's A New Christianity for a New World speaks for itself:
"God is the Ground of Being who is worshiped when we have the courage to be. Jesus is a God-presence, a doorway, an open channel.... These are the claims that will be part of the Christianity of tomorrow. I am hopeful that such a Christianity can be born and that with it an invitation can be offered to all people to step into their own humanity so deeply that they will find it a doorway into God."
While Spong famously predicted that "traditional faith is dying," Bonhoeffer would have pronounced this brand of "new Christianity" dead on arrival, a carcass from which the breath of the Spirit and the pulse of Jesus' mission have long since disappeared.
END
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Erasmo,
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SPIRITUAL
PRESCRIPTION
January,
1995
by
Chaplain Bill Simpson - NBH
What's
wrong here? Each man was measuring
his actions by what he thought was a standard when, in reality, neither had a
standard.
A
standard in life is most important for the living of a meaningful, peaceful, and
contented life. A standard defines
what is right and what is wrong for society and individuals who make up society.
A standard is normally very narrow, and this is what makes a standard a
standard.
In
the mid 60's Joseph Fletcher wrote a book, SITUATION
ETHICS, The New Morality.
The gist of his book was that any acts; lying, premarital sex,
abortion, adultery, theft, and even murder, could be right
- depending
on the situation. Fletcher
further stipulated that whatever is the most loving thing in the situation is
the right and good thing. It is not
excusably evil, it is positively good. If
one is motivated by love
then he can be completely justified in participating in the activities noted
above.
Using
this kind of reasoning, we could possibly see this happen:
A football field is 100 yards long and a little over 53 yards wide.
The regulations say that two teams can play to their heart's content
within these boundaries. Should
the ball
carrier step out of bounds, the referee
blows his whistle and the play stops.
Suppose Emmitt Smith, the star running back of the Dallas Cowboys,
decides he wants to play three feet out of bounds.
After all, he's been the league's top ground gainer for two years in a
row, 1992 and 1993. Imagine the
whistle blowing to stop the play and the
officials meet to discuss Smith's desire to play three feet out of bounds.
Agreeing that he is a great star, they decide that because Smith really loves
the game of football, he will be allowed to play three feet out of bounds.
How
ridiculous!! The successful
execution of any football game is governed by a very narrow standard that is
able to determine the difference between what is right or wrong on the playing
field, regardless of how much a player loves
the game or how great a star he is.
In
the Old Testament, whenever a wall was constructed, a plumb line was used.
A plumb line is a cord with a weight(usually metal or stone) attached to
one end. The plumb line would be
dangled beside a wall during its construction to assure vertical accuracy.
The plumb line was the standard for the building of a straight,
perpendicular wall. Consequently,
the plumb line became an analogy for uprightness and righteousness in the lives
of the people of God.
God
gave the nation of Israel ten laws, or commandments, as a standard.
These ten basic laws simply did two things:
they gave the people of God instructions on how to relate to Him and how
to relate to other human beings. What
more could anyone of us desire than to know how to relate to God, who made us,
and how to relate to other human beings, in a well-meaning, respectful,
positive, constructive way?
The
last half of the laws deal with the horizontal relationships between humans.
You remember them: Honor
parents(assuming that parents are honorable people); don't murder; don't commit
adultery; don't steal; don't give false testimony against anyone; don't covet
anything belonging to another person.
Do
you need a plumb line in your life? Since
it appears that society is constantly changing the goal posts of life, morally
and ethically, wouldn't it be great to have some kind of a standard to help you
determine just how well you are
doing in the living of your life?
Let
me suggest that you read these ten laws for yourself.
They are found in the Old Testament book of Exodus, chapter 20:1-17.
God gave these laws to us, not because He is a celestial kill-joy, but
because they are very, very good for us.
Think
on these things!!
This morning, our Pastor and wife were away, so the Music Minister and two Deacons led the worship service. I will mention only Deacon Robert, who, with his family, has been a member longer than the 31 years Gerry and I have been members.
The family happens to be Black. Back in the 60s Robert was in the Army and was seriously injured in an accident which burned much of his body. It left his right arm crooked and part of his right hand missing. He shakes hands with his left hand, always with a smile on his face. Also, his right leg was permanently crippled, so he walks with a noticeable limp.
For
the 22 years I was Chaplain at the Northeast Baptist Hospital, I would leave
home about 5:30 am, and invariably, I would see Robert, with reflective tape on
his clothing to reflect headlights, riding his bike down the same street I used,
doing his early morning exercise. He did that until he fell one morning; he then
took to doing a fast jog on his crippled leg. His determination has been
remarkable!!
This morning, Robert put himself into a role which I had never seen. He shed his
coat and began to quote the poem by Black poet, James Weldon Johnson, THE
PRODIGAL SON. As he walked slowly back and forth, pulling this poem out of his
own heart and mind, he spoke with the eloquence, cadence, and inflection of a
Black Preacher. I was moved by it, as was the entire congregation.
When we got home, I found the poem via Google.com. I share it with you.
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|
The Prodigal Son by James Weldon Johnson |
|
Young man— A certain man had two sons. Jesus didn't give this man a name, But his name is God Almighty. And Jesus didn't call these sons by name, But ev'ry young man, Ev'rywhere, Is one of these two sons. And the younger son said to his fathe r,He said: Father, divide up the property, And give me my portion now. And the father with tears in his eyes 'said: Son, Don't leave your father's house. But the boy was stubborn in his head, And haughty in his heart, And he took his share of his father's goods, And went into a far-off country. There comes a time, And the young man journeyed on his way, Young man— That leads to hell and destruction. Down grade all the way, The farther you travel, the faster you go. No need to trudge and sweat and toil, Just slip and slide and slip and slide Till you bang up against hell's iron gate. And the younger son kept travelling along, Young man— You can never be alone in Babylon, And the young man went with his new-found friend, Got in his nostrils and went to his head, And he wasted his substance in riotous living, In the evening, in the black and dark of night, With the sweet-sinning women of Babylon. And they stripped him of his money, And they stripped him of his clothes, And they left him broke and ragged In the streets of Babylon. Then the young man joined another crowd— Then the young man came to himself— Oh-o-oh, sinner, Young man, come away from Babylon, |
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