misc quotes I

I'm going to add some additional texts here that may or may not be interesting or useful to the project, but I thought it'd be good for them to be available in one central place. Here's something that I thought may be useful in thinking about Clement and the embedding of ideas of exile into the Christian journey:

They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Hebrews 11: 13-16

principles of uncertainty

I'm so glad you and jess got something from the maira kalman. Here's a link to the most recent book of hers, which I love a lot... (I think she is currently working on a book about American democracy of which the jefferson essay is one section: if you look on the times website there are links to others in that series...)

Dyson: Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster (2006)

• the Deltaic Plain and the Chenier Plain are two wetlands fed by the Mississippi River that are undergoing profound shrinking and deterioration, which makes hurricanes more substantially more dangerous and destructive (p.84)

The perils and possibilities of exile and migration are painfully familiar moments in the collective memory of black America. (p. 116)

Black folk have been a pilgrim people, a wayfaring group, a folk who are rarely ever really at home, unsettled, always uprooted, forever migrating from place to place, exiles in their own country, their movements spurred as much by tragedy as opportunity. (p. 198)

On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that the men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. MLK, Riverside Church, "A Time to Break SIlence" A Testament of Hope, p. 241

Charity is no substitute for justice. (p. 152)

Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public. (p. 203)

• Nas, the hiphop guy with his father Olu Dara: a song called Bridging the Gap.

• Wade in the Water: the spiritual that talks about "trouble the waters"

• MLK quoting Amos: "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Robert P. Moses and Charles E. Cobb, Jr. Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project

Lost tapes!

And this is what I wrote on 9 February, 2009, about the loss of Steve's tapes:

Steve has now spoken to his mother about the cassettes and I'm afraid it's not good news. She had them all until her own mother became ill a couple of years ago and went into residential care, at which point they had to clear a lot of stuff out and the tapes were thrown away. It's strange - I keep fretting about it as if it was something of mine that had gone into the trash!

I'm not sure what I think about it really. I'm quite intrigued by the idea of a lost archive. I mean, the truth of it is that people often do look for reminders of the past only to find that they were thrown away at a time when no one thought they could possibly be of any interest. (I've thrown away letters that I now wish I'd kept!) And I've been wondering if it might be possible to involve some of the family in reflecting on the messages they sent each other and, especially on the way the tapes became the focus of family meetings - sort of create a new text by asking them to talk about old ones.

I don't know what you think about this? As I say, the *truth* of it appeals to me - moving out from ourselves and accepting what there actually is (or isn't). On the other hand, it could result in quite heterogeneous material.

I've also asked my own parents whether they have recordings of themselves and my dad has promised to have a look. I'm optimistic that there will be something, although I'm not sure what they will be like. I'm going to see them, not this weekend but the one after, so it might be possible to listen to some of it then.