The power of identity
Ta-Nehisi Coates and Bryan Stevenson are two of the more important voices today speaking about race in America.
Author: DJB
Observations from Home (The It Is Still the Christmas Season Edition)
If it is the Christmas season, it means that the Browns are likely to have a new family photo taken by our friend John Thorne. (Blog interruption: For those who may be wondering about the use of Christmas language after New Year’s Day, just think of the 12 Days of Christmas. That’s how we celebrate at the Brown home.) I’ve written before about the fact that we wouldn’t have family photos if not for John. Thankfully, he showed up at church on December 20th and asked if we would like a family picture. All four of us were there, and it was also Andrew and Claire’s 23rd birthday. A perfect day to capture the family for 2015! John used two settings, with two different cameras. At the top you see us in the church yard, while the photo below shows the Washington National Cathedral in the background. What a wonderful gift for the Christmas season. Thank you John! Speaking of getting the family together: I’ve been hinting over the past couple of months that I’d …
Farewell 2015, Hello 2016
Once again, the New Year puts me in a reflective and optimistic mood. As in the past, I’m taking to More to Come… to reflect on the year just past, account for my resolutions, and look ahead to 2016. 2015 was the year that both our children graduated from college, my father turned 90-years-old, and Candice and I had blessings too numerous to count. While our family has been blessed on many fronts, the same isn’t true for so many of our fellow citizens of the world. The news we hear on a daily basis seems overwhelming in the nature and scope of the issues we face as a planet. As an example, my recent reading (the subject of an upcoming post) has focused on our country’s seeming inability to come to grips with our terrible history of racial divide and hatred. But I could just as easily be reading on income inequality, climate change, fake news, our increasingly broken political system, increases in poverty, or other similar challenges we face in this country and …
Favorite roots music albums of 2015
I’m not going to pretend that this is a “best of” list for roots music in 2015. With so many things thrown on my plate this year, I haven’t had the time to sample as widely as I would like. (Come to think of it, the last time I felt comfortable enough to publish a “best of list” was 2013!) But I’m very comfortable with a favorites list that just says, “Hey, I like these and I hope you will too.” So with that caveat, let’s see what’s made the cut. The Steeldrivers: The Muscle Shoals Recordings – I’ve loved this Nashville-based bluegrass band for years, even as they have moved through personnel changes that included their lead singer and main songwriter. (More on that later.) The Muscle Shoals Recordings is really the first album where Gary Nichols stepped out on his own as the lead voice for The Steeldrivers – no longer in Chris Stapelton’s shadow. Singer-songwriter Peter Cooper describes it this way: “Right there, at two minutes and ten seconds into the first …
Observations from the road: (The family, friends, community edition)
This is a tale of family gathering to grieve in the best way possible – by telling stories. It is a tale of being part of a community. It includes guitars. (Always guitars.) And it includes a haircut in a mini-United Nations. Hang with me. I’ll try to be brief. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I received a call early in the morning from my sister Debbie. She called to tell me that our brother-in-law Raouf – husband of my younger sister Carol – had passed away suddenly as a result of a heart attack. Their two boys had come home from college the day before and the family had shared a meal together on Tuesday night. By mid-day Wednesday, their lives had changed forever. My older brother Steve and I spoke. We were not able to get to the funeral, but quickly agreed to find a mutual time to travel to Tennessee to see Carol and the rest of the family. Our father – he of the recent 90th birthday – had just moved into …
A Republic, If You Can Keep It
When asked, following the Constitutional Convention, what kind of government had been created, Benjamin Franklin made a now famous reply. “A republic, if you can keep it.” Those words have been on my mind a great deal in recent weeks. I wonder why? Could it be the calls from those who want us to seal the borders, shut off all immigration into the U.S., and deport 11 million individuals? Could it be presidential candidates saying – when a decision is made that recognizes that we are a secular nation and not based on religious law – that we have “criminalized Christianity?” Could it be the calls to register Muslims and to reopen the internment camps of WWII? When I hear these speeches, I’m reminded of the late great Molly Ivins’ quip about Patrick Buchanan’s famously combative “culture wars” speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention: It probably sounded better in the original German. But that’s not why I sat down to write. I’ve read three books over the past couple of months that all bring …
Our year in photos – 2015
2015 featured college graduations, a celebration of Daddy at 90, and a birthday run-in with an ambulance.
Hearing the Voice of God
My friend, the writer Janet Hulstrand, lives in France, where she makes observations on literature and life. On November 11th, she wrote a wonderful blog post entitled, In France, It’s Still Called Armistice Day. Janet begins her post as follows: “The war memorial in our little village in Champagne is much like the war memorials found in every little village in France I’ve ever been in: on three sides of the base are carved the names of those who gave their lives “pour la France” during World War I. And on the fourth side, the names of those lost in World War II. The German invasion of France in 1940, just 22 years after the end of World War I, was achieved with stunning speed. And forever after the French have endured shallow, frivolous jokes about that defeat, which was of course anything but funny.“ Those who make jokes about French resistance (or lack thereof) are usually right-wing blowhards who generally did everything in their power to avoid military service. But as Janet notes, the massive …
For the Mets, Halloween is extended by a day
KC closes out the 2015 World Series as only KC can.
Setting the record straight (Or when “True but not always factual” won’t do)
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about a visit I’d had with my dad. When it comes to writing about family, I tend to follow the dictum that I first used in It’s a Wonderful Life (For Tom Brown on His 90th Birthday) back in July. In that post, I listed 90 things about the wonderful life of my father and included the caveat that these were “all true, even if they are not all factual.” Well, I guess that wasn’t good enough for my father! As an engineer, he likes things precise. So earlier this week I received an email from my dad entitled, “More to Come, editing.” I had recounted a story I’ve heard many times before. My parents were part of the post-war (WWII) marriage boom that begat the well-documented baby boom. Both were from the small town of Franklin, located about 20 miles from Nashville. My father had just graduated from Vanderbilt and he and my mom were married in the First Baptist Church in Franklin. Before beginning his …
MORE TO COME... 