I'm Against Walls

 The America I have known, the Constitution that I gave oath to support is not about building walls of any kind, but about climbing over them or breaking them down wherever and whenever  they discriminate, produce hate, fear or ignorance; wherever and whenever such walls block freedom of thought or speech, justice, harmony and peace among peoples.  When we, as Americans, even think of building “great, great walls,” we have become what we have always been against!

I oppose the “great, great wall” on the southern border. I’m against building walls to separate white people from brown people and vice versa.  I’m against building walls to keep people in poverty.  I’m against building walls that intimidate, whether built of concrete, steel, attitudes, law, fear, prejudice, bigotry, lies,  religion or lifestyles.  I’m against walls built to keep people in and against walls built to keep people out.  I’m against walls of any kind.

For thousands of years, a wall of sorts has often been erected by secular and religious authorities to suppress views perceived as threatening.  This wall is the  banning and/or the burning of books.  Even though the First Amendment protects secular and religious books as “free speech” in America, churches and school boards have often ignored this important freedom.

Many books deemed to be damaging to faith and morals were banned by the Catholic Church in its Index of Prohibited Books (abolished in 1966).  All churches have done something similar. The Bible is banned in North Korea, and many parts of central Asia, not because it is a book of violence and “raunchy sex scenes,” but because it is deemed a threat to “national security.”  In May 1933, the first year of the Nazi government, there were book burnings (“Bambi” was banned).  In 2022, in Tennessee, Virginia and other places in America, books are again being burned and banned.  It is a wall.  I’m opposed to all walls!

"It's A Bust"

 D. Elton Trueblood’s Memorial service was held at Stout Meeting House in Richmond, Indiana in January 1995.  I was there to mourn and to celebrate the life of my beloved mentor and friend of nearly a quarter of a century.  Someone said at the service, “The first time I went to see him, I asked him ‘Who is Elton Trueblood?’  and with a twinkle in his eye he answered back, ‘Your friend.’”  Elton was that to me, “a friend,”and so much more.  

After the service I went to Teague Library (Elton’s study) across from the Earlham School of Religion which he had helped found in 1960. There on a bookshelf was a bronze sculpture of Elton, created by Jimilu Mason (1930-2019).  I was familiar with Jimilu through The Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C. and with her sculptures of “The Servant of Christ” and “The Parable.”

When “The Servant Christ” (Christ offering to wash the feet of the people who pass by) was installed at Christ House (a medical facility for homeless men) many people questioned why Mason would want to have the piece displayed outside “where it would surely be abused”.  She responded, “there is very little they could do to him that hasn’t already been done.”  “The Parable” sculpture at The Festival Center shows a man seated on a large cinder block and at his feet is a carpenter’s square.  Dressed only in a shirt and pants, his shirt sleeves rolled up above his elbows and his collar open.  His face wears a beard and mustache and his feet are shoe-less.  His arms reach out in front of him, and he looks as if in conversation.  Mason said, the sculpture “represents a Christ…teaching that there is more than brick and mortar to building a city.  The leaders must be good servants.”

I knew Jimilu through those works of art, but she was most famous for her “busts” of Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Sam Rayburn, and other notable personalities—including Elton Trueblood.  As I looked at the bronze bust, someone behind me said, “That should be at the Yokefellow Center.”  I agreed.

I carried the sculpture home in a carry-on bag.  It was heavy.  At the airport check-in, I was asked “what on earth do you have in the bag—a bowling ball?”  “No,” I replied, “It’s a bust.”  I’m not sure the fellow knew what kind of “bust” I was talking about.

Elton’s “bust” had a home at the Yokefellow Center for 17 years.  Then, it was placed in a box and stored away in the garage.  A week or so ago, I decided that Jimilu’s art and my beloved mentor and friend’s bust should not be hidden away.  After all it isn’t a bowling ball, it’s a work of art, it’s a memorial, it’s a bust!

My Namesake

 The definition of "namesake" is a person named after someone.  I was named after my Uncle Harold B. Owens, born August 22, 1922.  He died in 1941 at the age of 19, just a year or so before I was born in 1943. I have a few pictures of my namesake, a birth certificate, his 1941 high school diploma, and some old postcards from his neighbors and teachers.  In my study I have a framed picture that hung in what was once his bedroom that we (nieces and nephews) remember from our earliest years when spending an overnight with our grandparents.

That’s it!  That’s all I know.  That’s all that has been left.  My grandparents never talked about their  loss and grief, nor did my father talk much about his brother.  And I, like so many of us, never inquired.  Apparently he died of heart complications (whatever that meant back then).  Uncle Harold never experienced these autumnal years that I now live.

My name might have been Ronald, Edward, or Samuel were it not for Uncle Harold’s untimely death.  Funny, I’ve never thought about that much until now.

As  I sort through the “stuff of my life,” trying to decide what to toss and what to save, I find myself thinking about what little I know about my namesake and what little I know about “those who came before me.”  What I do know, and feel most keenly, is that each person in that “family” contributed to my life in some way.  My namesake gave me a name!