Remembering Askew Marable

Remembering Askew Marable

Our dear friend died just the other day.

It was August Fourteen

On a Sunday when we did pray

For him, not knowing what later we would glean.

I remember our first meeting

At Saint Peter’s on a Thursday morn

When Askew came to me with his welcoming greeting,

A new friendship quickly born.

To know me he asked a few questions

And introduced me to other men.

First to Rector John, then others at the session,

We listened to British Pastor Graham Tomlin.

Betty, his bride of 64 years,

Was introduced to Askew

By a friend mutually dear.

George “Goober” Lindsey it was, who provided that glue.

Betty and Askew stalwarts at Church,

He ushered and she greeted,

For they the friendly faces strangers on Sunday searched.

Each welcomed newcomers and helped them to be seated.

Askew and I had our kind of joking.

Our first names at times misleading.

My name of “value” provoking,

His of “nobility” and fine breeding.

But one might view him obliquely

At an angle so askew,

 Failing to recognize discreetly

An honorable man, not one to casually eschew.

One Sunday morning while di-vesting,

With young Deacon Andrew at my side,

I asked usher Askew something interesting,

A question I knew Askew would abide.

Making sure Andrew’s attention grew,

I turned and asked Mr. Marable,

“There’s something I want to ask you, Askew.”

Andrew’s laughter became unbearable.

An honor to know Askew Marable,

A faithful servant of Our Lord,

Lay he today in casket coronal

He and his Savior now in one accord.

© Worth Earlwood Norman Jr

Birmingham, Alabama

August 19, 2016

Askew Marable obituary

June Norman Black

June Norman Black

Cousin Cathy called just the other day,

To tell me Aunt June had passed away.

I could have received her news in stride,

After all, she was ninety-five.

But no, I had a different reaction

Because June was quite an attraction

Not only to me

But a positive person for all to see.

In her youth she was physically beautiful,

With her family and work she so dutiful

In taking care of her own

With never a groan.

During my boyhood she changed my comfort zone

By placing me in a Sears fashion show.

Wearing white bucks and gray herringbone

She made me a male model. I know!

June, a local Norfolk television star,

Started lawn mowers by hand in commercial breaks.

In years later I challenged whether the mowers were

Warmed up for the ratings stakes.

“No,” June insisted,” the mowers were cold.”

So I am to believe that a 100-pound young lady,

When asked decades later to me so bold

Would not admit to something perhaps a little shady.

I remember June as our family so dear,

On Mother’s Day and Thanksgiving

In her home we gathered every year.

Those were good times for living.

June’s siblings were large in number,

Hazel, Bonnie, Pat, and Jean;

‘Doc’ [Worth], my dad, and Harry, and ‘Toots’ him I don’t remember,

Perhaps ‘Doc’ the family’s dean.

It is difficult to lose a person so dear,

Even when meeting eye-to-eye infrequent.

On hearing this news I shed more than one tear,

Through her life, I know what love meant.

June Norman Black obituary

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The Heresy of Ham

Signs of the Total Secular State

Signs of the Total Secular State

Or

The Total Absence of God

I

Gradually the loss of human dignity

Is no belief in the sanctity of life.

Filled with ambiguity,

The new secular order rife

With its version of people value

Creates a culture for each individual,

A dignity seemingly better than biblical.

II

The politics of covenant is gone,

A collective responsibility forsaken

For the common good previously undertaken.

Deep roots has a relationship of covenant,

A willing sacrifice for the sake of others.

Secular citizens begin caring less

About any such political fundament

And more about their private living.

Society dissolves into a series of pressure groups, chilling.

No deep, stable structure

Lives in the secular ever-variable.

The steady religious tenet they puncture

With lies never tenable.

The secular floats on the surfaces,

On tides and waves uncertain,

No meaning and no purposes,

The real life behind their curtain.

III

Morality also a loss,

Though citizens not necessarily immoral.

Words losing force and original meanings now dross.

Duty, obligation, honor, integrity, loyalty and trust,

In secularism, all a loss.

IV

Relationships no longer consecrated,

Marriage becomes a mistress.

New forms of friendship reconfigure and break

Relationships with no emotional distress.

The idea of marriage as commitment,

A loyalty at the depths of our being,

Easy to discard and unsustainable,

Bring personal resentment.

Fewer people marry,

More divorces ensue,

Parents with no connection to their children,

Bonds across generations subdued.

V

The possibility of life meaningful,

Not a personal project

As offered by secular culture,

But from the outside bedecked

As a call, a mission, a vocation.

From the outside means a Transcendence,

Perhaps the final religious functioning in your presence

To teach, heal, and fight all forms of injustice.

The total secular order

Has no space for transcendence, vocation, or the life meaningful.

Conclusion

When life floats on the surfaces

It is a purposeless and self-centered fantasia.

Life becomes meaningless and disposable

In the form of abortion and euthanasia.

This is a versed adaptation/interpretation taken from the writings of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’

The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning.

Schocken Books/Random House, New York, 2011, pp. 103-4.

Oh Really, O’Reilly?

Oh Really, O’Reilly?

There is this commentator O’Reilly

An expert on all things entirely.

If you don’t think it so

Just let him know

How his thoughts not always regarded highly.

It was just the other day

When Christian forgiveness came into play

Felt he necessary to correct a viewer

That repentence, required from a wrongdoer,

Releases forgiveness held at bay.

Reconciliation, though, can start with either side

But one may be obstinate with personal pride.

So the process begins

Regardless of who sins,

The high road therein attempted and tried.

God is in this high road action

Where repentance gains traction

With the two persons aggrieved.

Repentance and forgiveness now agreed,

Meet full reconciliation, not a fraction.

Rafael

Rafael

‘God has healed’ is Rafael,

But he seemed so far afield

When principles are held

As a protective shield.

Not meant here

To be a comparison,

But principle’s tier

Should learn from some.

The nine of Mother Emanuel

Lost life’s breath

Suddenly, not gradual

But instant death.

Then Mother Emanuel’s faithful

Shocked the nation;

A congregation not ungrateful

For the gift of reconciliation.

Though not of the same magnitude

Rafael’s bride was wronged

And her spouse went on to brood

In front of a mighty throng.

This principled angel earlier attracted

Evangelical hearts, their admiration

He extracted

His principles, though, his fixation.

Why did he persist with vengeance?

Why not cross that political isthmus

With spiritual transcendence

To heal with God’s forgiveness?

Rafael, O Rafael

You should have lived up to your name.

Your principles so dearly held,

Withholding Godly healing became shame.