Augustine Memory, Memorials and Gaffney, S.C.
I've been posting at my hometown Facebook Group blog and this morning woke up about 6 am thinking about Memory and people who passed away this year. In the room was a May 17, 2011 Christian Century with a eulogy for Harvard Chaplain Peter Gomes.
I met Gomes once at Furman Pastors School in early 90's. It was an honor. He sermon had an anecdote about Montgomery, Alabama and the art of generous receiving based on the text of the woman, Mary Magdalene who gave Jesus ointment and washed his feet with her hair.
May 17 is a day shy of me and Pope John's birthday
I will add more to this blog in a few days so if you see it early, come back to it.
From Stephanie Paulsell and the Century:
The great African theologian Augustine of Hippo spent a lot of time pondering the mysteries of memory--the way some memories stick and others don't, the way some disappear and then return, the way others are lost irrevocably. He felt frustrated that some memories remained forever inaccessible to him, lost in the "vast and boundless subterranean shrine" that he imagined memory to be, "I dive down deep as I can," he wrote in his Confessions, "and I can find no end, nor can I myself grasp all that I am". Only in you, he says to God, can I recover the memories that I have lost.
We cannot know ourselves fully, Augustine says, because we cannot remember every moment of our lives, no one can. Only God remembers everything that has happendd to us, all that we have thought and felt and done. If we are to know ourselves, Augustine insists, we have to search for ourselves in God.
End Quote
It was a sermon of Gomes I read one time that Hebrews 11:13 fully registered with me. I committed the verse to Memory
Some folks with whom I was acquainted in varying degrees who passed in 2011
From Gaffney
Pete Wright, about a year older than me who went to my Dad's church in Gaffney, Bethany. Pete had jet black hair like Elvis Pressley and Sang O Holy Night as a 7th grader Christmas about 65 or so. He went with a bunch of kids between ages 8-14 bout the second year we were in Gaffney back to the Truett Camp in N.C. I think he jammed some with Toy Caldwell of the Marshall Tucker band. My Father preached his Dad's funeral and now Pete is gone, raised in the community of McCarthurville where a man later to be President of the American Manufacturer's Inst came in 56 or so to start a mission of the First Baptist Church
Ramona Ross
My High school chorus teacher. In the third year of full integration of Gaffney High School, Ms Ross took our Ensemble, about 40 of us, the Columbia to sing for Gov McNair, who just three years earlier had been embroiled in the Orangeburg Massacre
Jack Crocker. Was one of my classmates, Died inOctober after bout with cancer. Our paths kind separated after jr high, but I remember him being around; drove a bus, solid citizen, active in his Baptist church, raised good children
Nearby Spartanburg late December of 2010, Roger Milliken; a force in the Republican South, and nationally. Gave more money to Nixon in 72 than any other man in America. His Son Roger Jr and I were good friends the summer of 1970
From Furman: T.C. Smith, in November. I talked to him on phone five days before he died and blogged about it here on this site.
From the same religion department, with T.C. the last of an era. RobertW.Crapps. With David Smith and Jack Flanders wrote People of the Covenant which caused Paul Pressler much distress. I saw his sons in November at Furman Homecoming. Chic Fil A to be CEO Dan Cathy sat near me in Dr. Crapps Religion class fall of 1971 at Furman
From Harvard. Peter Gomes. I met him once at Furman. Google several tributes to this great mind and American force post ML King.
David Currie's Mother. David Came to Collinsville Feb 24 2002 with several other CBF friends to challenge my Mother's home church to a better way. So far they have taken a pass. Curries grandfather was WA Criswell's mother's brother.
Collinsville. Ronny Brown. Good fellow a year or two younger than me. Friendly family, outgoing family never boring. Active in his Baptist church,loving husband and father
Mike Mattox, Collinsville Mayor in early 80's. Had two sons and a daughter, one of which,Casey, now works for the conservative Church state group in D.C. The Allied Defense Fund. Mike was a gracious fellow. I talked to him near Thanksgiving last year before he passed early this one
I met Gomes once at Furman Pastors School in early 90's. It was an honor. He sermon had an anecdote about Montgomery, Alabama and the art of generous receiving based on the text of the woman, Mary Magdalene who gave Jesus ointment and washed his feet with her hair.
May 17 is a day shy of me and Pope John's birthday
I will add more to this blog in a few days so if you see it early, come back to it.
From Stephanie Paulsell and the Century:
The great African theologian Augustine of Hippo spent a lot of time pondering the mysteries of memory--the way some memories stick and others don't, the way some disappear and then return, the way others are lost irrevocably. He felt frustrated that some memories remained forever inaccessible to him, lost in the "vast and boundless subterranean shrine" that he imagined memory to be, "I dive down deep as I can," he wrote in his Confessions, "and I can find no end, nor can I myself grasp all that I am". Only in you, he says to God, can I recover the memories that I have lost.
We cannot know ourselves fully, Augustine says, because we cannot remember every moment of our lives, no one can. Only God remembers everything that has happendd to us, all that we have thought and felt and done. If we are to know ourselves, Augustine insists, we have to search for ourselves in God.
End Quote
It was a sermon of Gomes I read one time that Hebrews 11:13 fully registered with me. I committed the verse to Memory
Some folks with whom I was acquainted in varying degrees who passed in 2011
From Gaffney
Pete Wright, about a year older than me who went to my Dad's church in Gaffney, Bethany. Pete had jet black hair like Elvis Pressley and Sang O Holy Night as a 7th grader Christmas about 65 or so. He went with a bunch of kids between ages 8-14 bout the second year we were in Gaffney back to the Truett Camp in N.C. I think he jammed some with Toy Caldwell of the Marshall Tucker band. My Father preached his Dad's funeral and now Pete is gone, raised in the community of McCarthurville where a man later to be President of the American Manufacturer's Inst came in 56 or so to start a mission of the First Baptist Church
Ramona Ross
My High school chorus teacher. In the third year of full integration of Gaffney High School, Ms Ross took our Ensemble, about 40 of us, the Columbia to sing for Gov McNair, who just three years earlier had been embroiled in the Orangeburg Massacre
Jack Crocker. Was one of my classmates, Died inOctober after bout with cancer. Our paths kind separated after jr high, but I remember him being around; drove a bus, solid citizen, active in his Baptist church, raised good children
Nearby Spartanburg late December of 2010, Roger Milliken; a force in the Republican South, and nationally. Gave more money to Nixon in 72 than any other man in America. His Son Roger Jr and I were good friends the summer of 1970
From Furman: T.C. Smith, in November. I talked to him on phone five days before he died and blogged about it here on this site.
From the same religion department, with T.C. the last of an era. RobertW.Crapps. With David Smith and Jack Flanders wrote People of the Covenant which caused Paul Pressler much distress. I saw his sons in November at Furman Homecoming. Chic Fil A to be CEO Dan Cathy sat near me in Dr. Crapps Religion class fall of 1971 at Furman
From Harvard. Peter Gomes. I met him once at Furman. Google several tributes to this great mind and American force post ML King.
David Currie's Mother. David Came to Collinsville Feb 24 2002 with several other CBF friends to challenge my Mother's home church to a better way. So far they have taken a pass. Curries grandfather was WA Criswell's mother's brother.
Collinsville. Ronny Brown. Good fellow a year or two younger than me. Friendly family, outgoing family never boring. Active in his Baptist church,loving husband and father
Mike Mattox, Collinsville Mayor in early 80's. Had two sons and a daughter, one of which,Casey, now works for the conservative Church state group in D.C. The Allied Defense Fund. Mike was a gracious fellow. I talked to him near Thanksgiving last year before he passed early this one
posted by foxofbama | 7:48 AM
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