Life and Death

Slipped in among a few dozen headlines on the front page of most nationwide news sites this morning is the simple sentence “S.D. carries out first execution in 60 years.” It would have been easy to miss or even ignore this piece, with so many other articles vying for my mouse click, such as the passing of Lady Bird Johnson, the discovery of a frozen baby mammoth, and a woman who nearly died from a bikini wax. (Diabetics be warned!) However, I’d been following this story ever since my husband and I fell in love with the Black Hills last month and I ran across it while daydreaming about returning to the Coyote State.

I don’t normally post about political things or current events and rarely even watch the news. I figure if it gets bad enough, someone will let me know. But this story haunted me, and I found myself reading more about it, including opinion columns as well as blogs from both friends of the accused and the deceased. In March of 2000, a trio of teenagers decided it would be fun to rob their “friend” of a Chevy Blazer and other miscellaneous items. Influenced by drugs and alcohol, at some point they feared the theft victim would rat them out, so the decision was made to kill him. They apparently had no set method of carrying out their sentence, so, while Chester Allan Poage (19) begged for his life, they hauled him to a gulch, forced him into a near-frozen stream, and proceeded to beat, stab, stone, kick, and torture him for several hours until he finally succumbed. Ironic, since the state’s governor stayed this execution last August so the legislature could deliberate the most humane method of killing one of Poage’s killers, Elijah Page (pictured).

I am not ecstatic that Elijah Page, who was 18 at the time of Poage’s attack, has joined his victim in death. Although I do believe his crime is an appropriate chapter to reopen South Dakota’s capital punishment book, which has lain dormant for six decades. Page expressed remorse for his actions, requested to die, and ceased all appeals. One of Page’s accomplices waits on death row and the third has received a sentence of life without parole. I’m not opposed to the death penalty, but to me, this entire situation is just very sad due to the ages of those involved.

Why did this story haunt me? I’m not sure. But perhaps it’s because I’m the mother of both an 18- and a 19-year-old.

Memorial Day–History of Taps

Thanks to my friend Fran, for sending me the following story. After spending nine years in the Marine Corps, this song means much to me. It was interesting to hear about its roots.

The 24-note melancholy bugle call known as “taps” is thought to be a revision of a French bugle signal, called “tattoo,” that notified soldiers to cease an evening’s drinking and return to their garrisons. It was sounded an hour before the final bugle call to end the day by extinguishing fires and lights. The last five measures of the tattoo resemble taps.

The word “taps” is an alteration of the obsolete word “taptoo,” derived from the Dutch “taptoe.” Taptoe was the command – “Tap toe!” – to shut (“toe to”) the “tap” of a keg.

The revision that gave us present-day taps was made during America’s Civil War by Union Gen. Daniel Adams Butterfield, heading a brigade camped at Harrison Landing, Va., near Richmond. Up to that time, the U.S. Army’s infantry call to end the day was the French final call, “L’Extinction des feux.” Gen. Butterfield decided the “lights out” music was too formal to signal the day’s end. One day in July 1862 he recalled the tattoo music and hummed a version of it to an aide, who wrote it down in music. Butterfield then asked the brigade bugler, Oliver W. Norton, to play the notes and, after listening, lengthened and shortened them while keeping his original melody.

He ordered Norton to play this new call at the end of each day thereafter, instead of the regulation call. The music was heard and appreciated by other brigades, who asked for copies and adopted this bugle call. It was even adopted by Confederate buglers.

This music was made the official Army bugle call after the war, but not given the name “taps” until 1874.

The first time taps was played at a military funeral may also have been in Virginia soon after Butterfield composed it. Union Capt. John Tidball, head of an artillery battery, ordered it played for the burial of a cannoneer killed in action. Not wanting to reveal the battery’s position in the woods to the enemy nearby, Tidball substituted taps for the traditional three rifle volleys fired over the grave. Taps was played at the funeral of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson 10 months after it was composed. Army infantry regulations by 1891 required taps to be played at military funeral ceremonies.

Taps now is played by the military at burial and memorial services, to accompany the lowering of the flag and to signal the “lights out” command at day’s end.

As soon as “Taps” was first sounded in July 1862, words were put with the music. The first were, “Go To Sleep, Go to Sleep.” Over the years, other versions have been created. There are no official words to the music but here are some of the more popular verses:

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the hills, from the lake,
From the skies.
All is well, safely rest,
God is nigh.

Go to sleep, peaceful sleep,
May the soldier or sailor,
God keep.
On the land or the deep,
Safe in sleep.

Love, good night, Must thou go,
When the day, And the night
Need thee so?
All is well. Speedeth all
To their rest.

Fades the light; And afar
Goeth day, And the stars
Shineth bright,
Fare thee well; Day has gone,
Night is on.

Thanks and praise, For our days,
‘Neath the sun, Neath the stars,
‘Neath the sky,
As we go, This we know,
God is nigh.

Around the House, Around the Town

Around the House

We have another graduate in the family. My son Val, (pictured at left with his friend Lyndal), received an Honor Diploma last night at our local high school graduation. He has grown into a fine young man. He plans to attend Harding University, my alma mater, and major in Bible with an emphasis in Missions. He also plans to use his elective hours to fulfill the prerequisites for optometry school. Once he becomes an optometrist, he hopes to work 10 or 11 months per year and spend 1-2 months each year doing mission work. Yeah, I’m VERY proud of him!

Around the Town

Look at the picture to your right. See the girl right in the middle? The one with a charcoal-colored headband? Her name is Shekinna Stricklen. You’ll likely hear it again, if you’re a basketball fan. She just finished her junior year at our local high school and has already made All-State three years in a row. This year, she was named a Parade All-American, and in many recruiting polls, is the top recruit for high school girls, class of 2008.

The big news this week is that Shekinna has been invited to the USA Women’s Basketball Olympic Team trials in Colorado Springs next month. The school hosted a fund-raiser yesterday with hopes of covering the costs for Shekinna and her parents to fly to Colorado Springs, their motel expenses, and a rental car. The community really came through for this cause, raising over twice the goal amount. We’re all very proud of Shekinna and the entire Morrilton Lady Devil Dog basketball team (2006 State Champions–pictured above; 2007 State Runners-Up).

Oh, and yes, my daughter, “Miss I’m a Big College Girl Now,” is in that pic, too–just a little to the right and down from Shekinna. (You can see her star shining!)

And, as if we didn’t have enough things to worry about…

I bumped into an article this week that said many blogs are judged by the (since I forgot the writer’s exact word, I’ll paraphrase) “coolness” of their RSS Feed Icon. Blogs are apparently judged by numerous criteria: Technorati rankings; Platform (WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, etc.); theme or template; Google placement; how geeky the blogger is; and…I’m sure the list goes on. Well, not to be outdone by the blogsperts out there, I inserted a new feed icon into my blog this week. I even went into the code file and changed the color to match. (Pretty geeky of me, huh?)

I’ve been wondering about blogs lately. I mean, does anyone really read them? We all have blogrolls, but who reads all those blogs? There are probably millions of them out there, swarming around cyberspace.

It’s kind of like Amway. Does anyone use the soap? If you’ve never been suckered into joining a multi-level marketing organization, it works like this: The company manufactures a product. Some supposed-millionaire buys the product and sells it to their “downline,” which is, in actuality, your “upline” (unless, of course, you’re the supposed-millionaire). Okay, so the box of soap makes its way through the ranks–backwards, mind you. After all the uplines sell the box to their respective downlines, the soap box finally reaches your home, and what do you do? You sell it to your downline. And so, I ask again, does anyone ever use the soap?

Until next time…

Update: I found yet another template I like better, so gone is my fancy RSS feed icon. Such is life!

Salute to a Soldier

My “little” brother Randall just graduated from special forces school. He celebrated his 39th birthday in the midst of the training, making him nearly twice as old as some of the others. Most don’t make it through this grueling school, and we’re all very proud of Randall.

He has served our country for nearly a decade and a half, spending two years in Korea and one in Iraq. After passing a special mental test, he was accepted into the linguistics area of the special forces. He studied Greek in college and Russian and Korean on his own. He will soon receive orders to his next duty station, probably in Colorado or Germany.

Why We Relay…

Tonight will be our county’s annual Relay for Life. I want to pause for a moment and consider why we relay.

Here are my reasons:

• Larry Nixon–my father, who is a prostate cancer survivor.
• Elwood Nixon–my uncle, who passed away after a battle with colon cancer.
• Roberta Wolfe Collins–my aunt, who survived colon cancer for several years, but died recently from complications following a stroke.
• Lettie Bennie Wolfe–my grandmother, who died from skin cancer.
• Alden “Tom” Fulkerson–my father-in-law, who died earlier this year from complications due to a brain tumor. (You can read my tribute to him by clicking HERE.)
• Avanell Fulkerson–my mother-in-law, who is doing well with her battle against chronic lymphocytic leukemeia
• Betty Newman–my friend and fellow singer, who is fighting an intensive battle against liver cancer.
• Lisa Arey–our high school drama teacher and my friend, who lives trapped in a high-level coma due to an attack on her brain by West Nile Virus, which struck her while her immune system was weakened following chemotherapy for breast cancer. She has been pronounced cancer-free and is in a rehabilitation unit at Baylor University.
• Bernice Bates–my friend who, praise the LORD, was recently pronounced in total remission after an intensive battle with Multiple Myeloma.
• Cindi Burleson, Marie Hill, Lou Ann Carter, Emily Oates, and I’m sure I’ve left many off this list of my friends who have battled breast cancer and are shining their lights by mentoring others who are fighting the disease.

Why do YOU relay?

First Thursday in May

According to traditional holidays and observances of the United States, today, the first Thursday in May, is the National Day of Prayer.

I doubt that any Christian feels their prayer life is adequate. The Bible says to “pray without ceasing,” and it’s hard for me to be in prayer at a basketball game when I feel as though the referees need a seeing eye dog to guide them across the court. Or in traffic when a car cuts in front of me, nearly taking off the front two feet of my three-foot long car!

In Chapter Ten “No Longer Worthy” of my book, The Prodigal Daughter, I discuss how I revived my comatose prayer life on my homeward journey. One thing that helped me more than anything as I struggled to return was keeping a prayer journal. I sought out scriptures about prayer, wrote out my prayers, dated each entry and annoted answered prayers. As soon as I received an answer, I offered a prayer of thanksgiving. This prayer journal strengthened my faith more than any one thing I did along the path toward home.

I think I should begin a prayer journal again.

Take Me Out to the…Movies

What are you doing May 19? Personally, I plan to attend my daughter’s high school graduation. But I may go to the movies on the 20th.

You’ve probably heard about the upcoming major motion film: "The Da Vinci Code." The media is full of buzz about it, along with another Christ-bashing film, "The Beast," coming to theaters on June 6, 2006 (6/6/06–very cute).

So why would I want to go to the movies on the opening weekend of such a slam to Christianity?

Below is an excerpt from an recent email that originated with Janet Batchler that Christians are circulating about the weekend of May 19. I found it on James Watkin’s blog:

"What can we as Christians do in response to the release of this movie? I’m going to offer you the usual choices — and a new one.

Here are the usual suspects:

We can ignore the movie

The problem with this option: The box office is a ballot box. The only people whose votes are counted are those who buy tickets. And the ballot box closes on the Sunday of opening weekend. If you stay home, you have lost your chance to make your vote heard. You have thrown your vote away, and from Hollywood’s point of view, you don’t count. By staying home, you do nothing to shape the decision-making process regarding what movies will make it to the big screen.

We can protest

The problem with this option: It doesn’t work. Any publicity is good publicity. Protests not only fuel the box office, they make all Christians look like idiots. And again, protests and boycotts do nothing to help shape the decisions being made right now about what movies Hollywood will make in the next few years. (Or they convince Hollywood to make *more* movies that will provoke Christians to protest, which will drive the box office up.)

We can discuss the movie

We can be rational and be ready with study guides and workshops and point-by-point refutations of the lies promulgated by the movie.

The problem with this option: No one’s listening. They think they know what we’re going to say already. We’ll lose most of these discussions anyway, no matter how prepared we are, because the power of story always trumps the power of facts (why do you think Jesus taught in parables?!). And once again: rational discussion of history does nothing to affect Hollywood’s choices regarding what movies to make.

But there’s a fourth choice

On May 19th, you should go to the movies. Just go to another movie.

Save the date now. May 19th, or May 20th. No later than Sunday, May 21st — that’s the day the ballot box closes. You’ll get a vote, the only vote Hollywood recognizes: The power of cold hard cash laid down on a box office window on opening weekend.

Use your vote. Don’t throw it away. Vote for a movie other than DVC. If enough people do it, the powers that be will notice. They won’t have a choice…

Let’s rock the box office in a way no one expects — without protests, without boycotts, without arguments, without rancor. Let’s show up at the box office ballot box and cast our votes. And buy some popcorn, too.

May 19th. Mark your calendars now…"

I checked out the Coming Soon web site and frankly, there aren’t a lot of movies coming out against "The Da Vinci Code." Personally, I’m hoping "Goal: The Dream Begins" from Touchstone will still be in theaters that weekend. It sounds like a good story. It opens May 12.

Pass along the news. And take someone out to the movies.

Bound and Gagged

Never in my life have I seen so many willing to help. And never in my life have I been so frustrated.

Monday—Labor Day—while many teens spent the day at leisure, some Boy Scouts, supplemented by youth groups from several churches, prepared a local church camp for the arrival of Katrina’s refugees. Nestled in the Arkansas Ozarks, the camp can house 140 and has a full-service dining facility, newly renovated playground, and a view to die for. Another area camp, atop Petit Jean Mountain—showcase of Arkansas’ natural beauty—made similar preparations.

By the end of the day, donated supplies filled the director’s cabin from top to bottom (enough to handle 100 people for over two months), all buildings and grounds sparkled, and volunteers organized schedules for weeks of cooks and cleanup crews. A hospital even furnished freshly bleached and starched bedding.

Yesterday, I spoke with the president of the camp’s board of directors. “When are they coming?” I was anxious for the children trapped in Fort Chaffee, built to house 4,000 but currently packed well beyond four times that number, to be able to stretch their little legs and breathe the fresh Arkansas air.

“Well, they might not,” he replied, frustration evident in his voice.

Apparently, the two camps, which are located in rural areas, are “too far from adequate medical facilities.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but a lot of folks in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama live in rural communities. And it’s not like these facilities are located in the Outback. The camp at Petit Jean Mountain lies 18 miles from the nearest hospital. The other camp, probably not much farther. And furthermore, I was told that government relief agencies required “new” bedding for qualified shelters. So one camp spent over $1,000 to bring the beds up to standards. I was angry.

Just as my blood pressure resumed to its normal rate, someone stopped by my office to rant. The Extension Homemakers clubs (i.e., the best cooks in the county) organized an effort to do what they do best to help those stuck in a shelter in a neighboring county: Cook. But their food was refused by relief workers because “homemade dishes might make someone sick.” Just days ago these refugees were wading through waters infested with goodness knows what and FEMA is concerned about casseroles? Oh, and they were also informed that all donated clothing should be new in the package. No hand-me-downs. Pu-leeze! These people have NOTHING! What is FEMA thinking?

I’ve limited my news watching lately. I just can’t take it, really. But I caught a glimpse last night of a 3-mile-long caravan of cars in Phoenix. Where were they headed? To give donations for hurricane victims. I’m hoping after spending hours in line, burning their $3/gallon gasoline, they won’t be turned away for offering good, but slightly used items.

(And what about the two Navy helicopter pilots who were “unofficially” reprimanded for taking the scenic route on their mission in order to pluck more than a hundred people from rooftops before reporting to their base? I won’t even go there! You don’t want to get me started.)

How can we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless when the “relief” agencies won’t let us? When the citizens of New Orleans cried, “America, where are you?” We answered. But they couldn’t hear us through the bureaucratic barrier. We want to help. We’re trying to help. But so far, we’ve been bound and gagged by red tape. Meanwhile, more people are dying.

Relief Roundup

Here is a link to a blog site where you can see various places to donate for victims of Hurricane Katrina:

http://instapundit.com/archives/025235.php

Church to Help Katrina’s Refugees

Those Superdome refugees will soon be pouring into Houston. Many are those who didn’t have the means to evacuate New Orleans. Most have lost everything.

An inner-city Houston church is coordinating an effort with the Red Cross and several area shelters/missions to gather funds and supplies for those relocating to the Astrodome. Money is, of course, needed most. However, if you wish to donate items, here is a list of things they have requested:

Diapers (infant, toddler, adult); syringes; baby formula; blankets; towels; pillows; Wal-mart cards; toiletries (soap, toothpaste, tooth brushes, feminine products, etc.); nonperishable food items (make sure no can opener is needed); batteries; underwear; baby powder; laundry soap; and toilet paper.

You may send donations (money or items) to:

Katrina Relief
c/o Impact Church of Christ
1704 Weber
Houston, TX  77007