A Name

Although I had the idea for this blog some time ago, I couldn't find the right title. Until my mom found a small book in an antique store entitled Meditations for Women, ed. by Jean Abernathy, 1947. On the title page the owner of the book had written in cursive: "vigorous faith, love, and steadfastness."

The book has an entry for every day of the year and today, August 20, Josephine W. Johnson wrote:

'AND A TIME TO CAST AWAY

And religion can also be an ugly thing. More depraved in some of its middle-class respectable aspects than in the unprintable rantings of fundamentalists in London parks, or the hysterical leapings of revivals.

I sat in the office of a prominent minister in the city while he spoke over the phone about buying a Negro church building. The matter concerned crossing that invisible line between white and Negro districts. And the minister became apoplectic with rage... "You can't do this thing! We can't afford to have these values go down!"

And so the real-estate values of the church were firmly mortared...

In spite of the magnificent and backbreaking efforts of some, it has been said with terrible truth, "The church is the largest Jim-Crow organization in the United States." '

Her thoughts are eye-opening, even radical for 1947. Wisdom shows Herself any time, any place. More on Wisdom tomorrow...