Seeking the truth

I watched a beautiful documentary film a couple of nights back here in Augusta. "BamaGirl" follows a young lady named Jessica Thomas as she seeks to become Homecoming Queen at the University of Alabama. Jessica is black. Despite a well-orchestrated and hard-fought campaign, she does not win the title (although she earns a spot on the homecoming court). The winner is supported by the "Machine," a loose conglomeration of all-white fraternities and sororities. One walks away from the movie impressed by Jessica, and by her willingness to take on an entrenched system.

As a former newspaper guy, I was especially struck by "BamaGirl's" journalistic honesty. Director Rachel Goslins did what good reporters do: she followed her reporting wherever it led her. She talked to a lot of people and uncovered as much information as humanly possible -- and then she allowed what she had learned to give shape to the story.

After the screening, she spoke about the project. She's a west-coast lady, a UCLA grad who had rather well-defined (and not always complimentary) notions about southerners when she started the project. Along the way, she lost a few of her west coast biases. By the time she had finished, she had talked to enough southerners to realize that we are not all knuckle-dragging Neanderthals yearning for the old days of slavery. She walked away from the project liking us for the most part, I think -- although she's inclined to challenge some of the societal structures that remain in place.

Goslins and her movie stand in sharp contrast to a project like Bill Maher's "Religulous." Each is well-crafted, but they take very different storytelling approaches. Like Goslins, Maher does a fairly thorough job of reporting his story. Unlike Goslins, Maher does not follow his reporting. Rather, he shoe-horns his reporting in around the edges of his thesis: that organized religion is an essentially destructive force that is more about controlling people than it is about God.

Maher formed his thesis from life experience and (therefore) from personal bias. Unlike Goslins, who describes tweaking her message in response to what she learned while reporting the story, Maher sticks to his thesis like a bulldog. He loses nuance that way. He also loses any claim that he is seeking to discern the actual truth about God or about the often-faulty structures that human beings have created on God's behalf.

Goslins is like a pastor who starts with a piece of scripture -- studies it -- prays over it -- and then shares on Sunday morning what God is communicating through scripture. Maher is like a preacher who decides that he wants to talk about sin -- that he wants to make certain points about sin -- and then goes looking for scripture to support what he wants to say.

One is communicating an honestly discovered truth. The other is communicating an opinion, supported (not always fairly) by available source materials.

Rainy day in North Augusta

A gentle rain has fallen all morning -- and this is a good thing.

It'll knock down some of the pollen. Each of the past couple of mornings, the powdery stuff has been so thick that I've turned on my car's windshield wipers to clear it away.

Also, of course, the rain is good for all the growth that is starting to happen. Spring has sprung outside the window of my home office. The backyard is positively verdant.

Resurrection is happening. Life is good.

Red dogwood blossoms

Last October, my church gave me a red dogwood tree. It was a beautiful gift -- just amazingly thoughtful, commemorating my first year as pastor. Yet anyone who truly knows me will appreciate the irony.

I grew up on a farm, and I spent much time as a young man tilling the soil and helping to make things grow. As soon as I was able -- and not one second later -- I escaped to college so that I would never have to do such things ever again. Those early memories of tilling the soil on my father's farm are not my fondest.

I had vowed to never even own a shovel. Yet last October, my church gave me a red dogwood. So, I trekked to Home Depot and picked up a fine shovel with a sharp point -- better for piercing the soil. And I took it home, planning to dig a dogwood-sized hole about 10 feet off my driveway in the front yard.

Honestly, I thought at first that I'd hit a subterranean rock structure. That little bit of North Augusta subdivision has some of the hardest soil in the world. But I persisted -- and the nose of the shovel didn't break. After awhile, my hole was big enough to accommodate the roots.

I watered the little tree religiously for the first several months. Every day, treated it to a dribbling of water. And I talked to it. Occasionally, somewhat to my surprise, I prayed over it.

Winter came. And it braved the cold, along with all the older and sturdier trees. Throughout the cool months, it stood in the front yard -- all brown and naked. And waiting.

Then came spring, and I noticed that white blossoms were blooming on my neighbor's dogwood trees. My neighbor's trees are large for dogwoods, and it seemed almost as though they were celebrating the change in season. But as for my little tree -- nothing. It just stood there, naked and brown. And waiting.

I mourned. I thought my little tree had failed to survive the winter -- that all the watering and the prayers had had no effect. These past couple of weeks, my neighbors -- if they were watching closely -- might have spotted me occasionally standing in my front yard near the little tree. Talking to it. Praying over it a bit. Gazing over at my neighbor's trees, as they swayed in the wind, waving their branches in the air as though praising God.

A couple of mornings ago, I noticed a change -- a startling change. I saw that buds had begun to open. The beginnings of little red flowers were popping up all over my little tree

My little red dogwood tree is a late bloomer -- just like me.