EU labels ISIS persecution of Christians as genocide [but not Obama]

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EU labels ISIS persecution of Christians as genocide

Politics in the United States of America 2016

Politics in the United States of America

After a while one gets sick, very sick of political campaigning. Unfortunately, there is no way around this seemingly endless phenomenon of political rancor – dirty tricks, calling opponents liars, bamboozling the electorate. I gotta tell ya, I’m sick of it.

Yet we, the electorate, must be vigilant about what is going on around us and to us. We have to endure this latest cycle of presidential electoral politics. For the past seven years we have seen, actually felt, what a negative presidency can do not only to the United States as a whole, but to persons, individuals who have either lost their jobs or have been reduced to seeking part-time employment.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for any one of us to know what a presidential candidate actually believes until he or she is elected. The current American president was a virtual unknown to the voting public in 2007, but because he promised much and spoke a traditional line, most Americans voted him into office. It did not take long after gaining office that we saw how destructive a sitting president can be to his own nation and to its citizens.

Electing a president is inherently risky. It matters whom we elect. Unfortunately, we must await the unfolding of his or her presidential policies – regardless of what was promised during the campaign season – before we really know. We then will be either pleasantly surprised or sorely disappointed. Eight, even four years, of negative policies can ruin peoples’ lives for years to come. Significant economic impacts on a person’s ability to earn an income over four to eight years make it even more difficult in future years to recover those losses assuming a new president promotes better economic policies.

What could be worse? What is worse is a certain kind of structural change and governmental change? The tendency of Progressive government is socialism. The natural “progression” of socialism is totalitarianism. When a candidate-become-president states that he will “fundamentally transform” America, he is stating his belief that something is/was wrong with America and it needs to be radically changed. That president has almost succeeded. The current “overt” socialist presidential candidate has garnered a huge following among the young. The risk here, if successfully played out, is even higher. What could possibly happen?

Political Failure in Europe

Over the years the nations collectively known as Europe have ceded their religious and cultural heritage to secularism. Secularism thrives in a socialistic, progressive environment. Living the good life means that the government pays for your necessities, and perhaps pays for your luxuries. Enjoying life in such a government-controlled environment also meant, historically, having fewer children. Having fewer children meant a future workforce smaller in numbers than their living seniors. With the willing jettisoning of its heritage and its willingness to produce fewer offspring, Europe has made itself open to “fundamental transformation” through immigration, not overt or combative revolution. 

Europe is now overrun and will never recover.Their historical contributions to the arts, sciences, and religion will be erased from history by the immigrated conquering religion-government, and will never be heard  of in another 25 to 50 years. European socialism has not succeeded and is in the process of being replaced by a totally different form of life, government, and religion (replacing secularism). The same could happen to the United States of America.

One should now see where I am going with this. Show me a nation where socialism has been successful. Such a nation does not exist. Eventually some kind of revolution, not necessarily a "gentle transformation," will occur. Socialism lulls. Europeans, by way of example, were not animated by its secularism, therefore, Europe is now being overrun from the outside.

Vigilance of the American Electorate

Pay attention to these current 2016 presidential candidates. Although the process is itself sickening, the history, speeches, and actions of the candidates need to be examined by each one of us. Do not take word-for-word account of what media outlets tell us. Of course, we have to read those media accounts, but we must use our own senses and logic to figure out as best we can who our next president should be. Reduce our national risk by understanding who these people are. And do not be lulled by grandiose promises.

A wrong presidential choice in November, 2016 can ruin our lives for the next four years making for 12 years of continuous employment, economic, and governmental degradation. Examine, think, act, vote.

African American Studies catalogue from McFarland & Co., Inc. Publishers

Download the catalogue

African American Studies catalogue from McFarland

My biography of James Solomon Russell in on page 24.

BLACK HISTORY month in Virginia and Alabama

In 2012 McFarland and Company, Inc. published my biography of James Solomon Russell. A former slave, Russell founded Saint Paul's College in Lawrenceville, Virginia. As an Episcopal priest in the newly-formed Diocese of Southern Virginia in the late 1890s and early 1900s, Russell planted 31 churches.

In 2014 Archdeacon Books published my book Alabama Timelines: African American Entrepreneurs. This book is helpful for finding historical black entrepreneurs in the State of Alabama before, during, and after the Civil War.

Both books can be purchased through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books-a-Million online bookstores.

103rd Archbishop of Canterbury in Birmingham, AL at Beeson Divinity School

George Carey, 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury

The Living Church Magazine article for February 1, 2016

Sarai by the Sea

Sarai by the Sea

She strolls the sands

A pace so slow

Noticing not how the ocean expands

Its ebb and flow.

The ocean’s creative energy bound in two:

Its massive diastolic reach

Engulfs the old, makes new

The systolic remnant folding from the beach.

The surf’s repetition

Is what most see,

The grandeur of the waves’ disposition,

Both a danger and beauty, most will agree.

Is there a secret

Hidden in the sea?

Does it request

From everyday life to flee?

Sarai stares into the ocean blue

Searching for an anchor,

For any answer, in lieu

Of the source of her internal rancor.

The ocean can settle

From its pacific smile,

Its stormy waves, her mettle.

But now only confuse and beguile.

Sarai’s life not as she thought.

In search of her true roots,

A flicker of hope she bought,

Revealed but as rotten fruit.

Day after day,

Year after year,

Sarai searched for someone to say

That she is some father’s little dear.

Not from the shoreline, the outer banks,

The majestic great lakes fronts.

It was at the southern sunshine beaches and ranks,

She ceased her daughter-hunts.

Always at water’s edge

She looked for the concrete.

It was as if Sarai could not dredge

From the sea’s bed a stable seat.

Seemingly an orphan of the sea,

Disappointment and rejection

Guided her to flee

From her closest affections.

Simply looking to the ocean

Is not a lasting retreat,

But of symbol and notion

How life can be complete.

New life and new birth

Also symbolic of the sea,

Point to One of higher worth,

The One Who hung on a tree.

Sarai was never abandoned,

While lorning for her truth.

Her Father, His hand on

Her heart from childhood and youth.

Now time

To be drenched by the sea.

A different clime,

Baptizing Sarah's new me.

© 2016 WENjr

Readers Respond to Book by Archdeacon Books's author J.N. Sullivan

Readers Respond to From My Father’s House by J.N. Sullivan

·        Ruth Jean's voice is so true, so evocative of that time in the South that it is mesmerizing. I'm over halfway through, and I had to put it aside for a while because I didn't want it to be over.  That feeling has happened before with some other books, but not often.  Something very special.

·        It’s a wonderful story. I was born in Vass, NC, near Pinehurst, and spent a great deal of time at my grandmother and great-grandmother’s homes.  I had not thought of “slop buckets” in forever, but the memory is back.  Also shelling beans on the back porch and so many other small moments in small Southern towns in another time.  The words of so many hymns sung in the Methodist Church we regularly attended….the melodies came back to me.  And BVD’s.  In some ways I was reminded of Laura Ingalls Wilder, a good story line, the evocation of another time in very clear, simple prose.

·        I bought and read the book right after I learned about it. I loved it!  I am going to put it in the church library.

·        I read this wonderful book over Christmas vacation. It was a sweet and inspiring story, and beautifully written.

·        I've been kicking around in my head how to express the deep impression it made on me. Let me only say that I was absolutely transported into the world rendered; "disbelief" was willingly--and as completely as I believe it's possible to be--"suspended," and I was deeply moved by the tale from many different angles.  It has earned its place in the Southern "canon"!

·        I loved this novel. The style is simple and elegant and flows easily. The story puts us right into the 1920’s in a small town in Virginia as it is seen by the young narrator, Ruth Jean. Along with her, readers will enjoy the humor and warmth of family and community life even as we confront the difficulties and moral issues that arise along the way.

·        Great reading! This novel excels at qualities I value most.  It offers characters in a way that makes the reader know and care about them. Its details let the reader learn about a world of experience distant from his or her own. It is built from vivid episodes, especially those filled with difficulty and danger. I imagined how interesting it would be, as a teacher, to explore this book with a group of readers the same age as its heroine, Ruth Jean. Would they understand her? Would they be able to compare her growth to their lives? What values would they learn from her?

·        J. N. Sullivan's book takes readers to another time. Depending on the age of the reader, the details bring forth memories. Each chapter provides an insightful story, and the chapters are skillfully linked to create a heartfelt remembrance by the narrator. Readers will react to the array of characters and to recognized situations of today which are made more difficult by the social restrictions of the past.

5.0 out of 5 starsI loved this book

·        I loved this book. I just could not put it down –a lovely journey of a little girl learning what it means to take personal responsibility for your life! 

Purchase "From My Father's House"