On the South Side

(The following is an excerpt from an Iraqi Blogger.) The hall was busy and everyone was chatting and laughing loud. They had Al-Jazeera on (something I never managed to convince them to stop doing). Then suddenly Mr. Bremer appeared on TV reading his last speech before he left Iraq. I approached the TV to listen carefully to the speech, as I expected it to be difficult in the midst of all that noise. To my surprise everyone stopped what they were doing and started watching as attentively as I was. The speech was impressive and you could hear the sound of a needle if one had dropped it at that time. The most sensational moment was the end of the speech when Mr. Bremer used a famous Arab emotional poem. The poem was for a famous Arab poet who said it while leaving Baghdad. Al-Jazeera had put an interpreter who tried to translate even the Arabic poem which Mr. Bremer was telling in a fair Arabic! “Let this damned interpreter shut up. We want to hear what the man is saying” One of my co...

History will judge us as liberators.  

These big sycamore trees here in Carondelet and Holly Hills are getting old and one by one they're all dying. It's a turning of the page for the South Side. The trees were planted along with the neighborhood in the 1920's and '30's. I started thinking about this when the big wind storms blew through here last month and took a whole lot of Sycamore limbs with them. In some case, whole trees came out of the ground and some just snapped off above the ground. And, now I think about it every night as we walk the neighborhood and I glance around from tree to tree. Some of them are still in good shape, some of them are gigantic. Will this neighborhood survive for 50, 60, or even 100 years? What do I mean by "survive?" I don't know. It's so nice right now. We sat on the porch tonight, 11:00 pm or so, and it was so quiet. We feel safe walking late at night. Do I want my daughter to settle here to raise a family? I don't know.

It somehow seems fitting that I just noticed that there were two entries called Thursday Night on my Blog. They're both basically the same entry; I tried to publish it late on Thursday night, but the Blogger server was down or slow and I didn't think it got published. I printed out what I'd written and went down early Friday morning to publish it and changed the date/time to show Thursday night. Like a time warp it was. Well, obviously, it did get published along with the second one. Oh, well. And, to wrap up Science Camp: It's the next Tuesday night now, and I'm at home at the computer. It's past midnight as ususal and Annette and I just got back from our 2 mile walk/run. (Yes, we're running a little now too.) For me, this was one of the best Camps ever. Mostly because I'm not depressed to be back. I'm ususally fighting depression and grief after I get back. This year, as I mentioned in one of the entries from last week, I knew that I had to r...

I'm very tired but I just had to come back down to get some writing done. I can't believe it's already Friday tomorrow, or today actually now that it's past midnight. We went back to the observatory tonight. It was a fruitless night astronomically speaking, but the kids had a good time hanging out with each other under the stars. The middle of Missouri is really very beautiful. Robert Heilein wrote a story called the Green Hills of Earth. He was speaking of this part of the country and the old man in the story is him. We're here at Central Methodist University with about 50 or so "Local Pastors." These are folks young and old, girl and boy, from the Midwest US who want to be pastors in the Methodist Church. We'd left one of our boards up with notes and discussion points from one of Lee's lectures. This one was on Genesis and Creation. One of the questions asked something like "Did God create a 'grown-up' universe?" This was al...

I'm very tired but I just had to come back down to get some writing done. I can't believe it's already Friday tomorrow, or today actually now that it's past midnight. We went back to the observatory tonight. It was a fruitless night astronomically speaking, but the kids had a good time hanging out with each other under the starts. The middle of Missouri is really very beautiful. Robert Heinlein wrote a story called the Green Hills of Earth. He was speaking of this part of the country and the old man in the story was him. We're here at Central Methodist University with about 50 or so "Local Pastors." These are folks young and old, girl and boy, from the Midwest US who want to become pastors in the Methodist Church. We'd left one of our boards up with notes and discussion points from the day, today being Genesis and Creation. One of the questions asked "Did God create a 'Grown Up' Universe?" This was along side some other notes about...

Well, it's late as usual and the mornings come pretty quick. Today was a great day. It always happens around this time of the week the kids start loosening up and you really feel close to them. You kind of feel like their your own kids. You know you're going to miss them when we all go home. This morning we went on our fossil dig. I must tell you, I love the drive out there more than the dig. We take the school van out of Fayette down to Lisbon on the Missouri River. The country side is just beautiful. Rolling green hills, corn growing too fast because of all the rain. Tobacco plants growing like they have been in this part of Missouri for 150 years. And, amber waves of grain...really! These kids are just remarkable. The whole week before I left I promised God that I would set myself aside and give to the kids. I would forget my needs and desires and just give everything I have to them. And what happens? They give to me. That's the way it works. Be sure to check ...

Tonight, we went to the observatory. I never get tired of visiting this place. The dome opens with the rumbling sound of gears from another time, and you see the night sky through the slit that's cranked open by hand and then you see the giant refractor pulled effortlessly with one hand into position; it's a boy's dream come true. Yes, I was the young boy who gaped awestruck at the night sky. So many stars, galaxies and who knows what else. Deep sky objects like clusters and nebulae, I knew where they all were. I could tell you all about them, what they were and how they were formed. I could tell you their fate; where'd they be in a billion years or so. This was all before my interests shifted to people over things in this universe. Now I so desperately want to see a young person stare likewise at the open skies. I want them to ask me what it all means, did God create all of this? Is infinity the same as eternity? tonight, I stand in awe and endless gratitude...

It was a great day at Science Camp. Some of us sat and watched the movie "Contact" tonight. It's from the Carl Sagan book by the same name. That's a pretty good movie. I think someone should make the same movie except from the Preacher's point of view. Today we had our chemistry lab with Professor Tiger Gordon. I was able to get some pictures up on the Science Camp Website . Take a look. The kids are great this year. They're really getting into the Physics Olympics. Their first project is building a catapult and they're all basically done with them. Looking forward to going to the Observatory tomorrow night. I'll write more then.

Greetings from lovely Fayette, Missouri; population 2,700. I'm sitting in the computer lab at Central Methodist University tonight after a good start to Science Camp. This year we've got six girls and three boys. All of them are either 14 or 15 years old, except one boy. He's 18 now and he's been here every year (this is our fifth year) and he just loves it. He knows he can't come back next year. About three of the girls are back for a second year but other than that, it's a fresh bunch. My room is smaller than the bathroom that I share with Lee and Andria. It's really small. And, there's too much furniture in it. Last year we were spoiled I guess. On my little desk is my Bible, Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time," and my notes on the Darwin Lecture I'm giving on Friday. I'm in Heaven, I tell you, Heaven. Annette, Emily...keep the faith. If you want to email me go ahead and use rich@southcityfirst.com. I can read ...

Very proud parents. (Don't forget, you'll have to read this picture story backwards. So start at the bottom picture to see the action chronologically.)

The group that came Down to the River to Pray.

Emily goes first. 

The two girls about to be baptized in living water.

Reborn! 

Dying to sin. Dying to your old life. 

I finally got out of work today (Friday). I didn't leave until 6:00 pm and then I had to go back because of some technical problems. I reassured myself that I had done what I could and then went home. Then, at 10:30 my phone rings; one of the depots can't bring up their web page. "I know I checked them all," I say. "I don't know," replies Jerome, "I'm just tellin' you what he said. Why don't you call him?" So I call him. "Tell me what you're looking at," I say. "Well, the little thing is usually a different color," says the warehouse manager. Then before I could reply he says, "Oh, here it comes." "That's great," I sigh. I think I'm done for week. I tell him I'm gone all next week and he says, "That's great, so am I." Well, Emily gets baptized in the morning. I feel kinda bad, we're all in such a hurry. It's going to be pretty quick. But, some fo...

I've been reading up on physics, cosmology etc. getting primed for Science Camp. I was re-reading Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and came across something interesting. And that is: how 1,600 years ago, a Christian Philospher grasped something about the nature of time that Albert Einstein finally proved. Here is Hawking talking about how other philosophers and scientists really weren't getting it even in Newton's time. That time is a construct of the universe: "This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. When asked: 'What did God do before he created the universe?' Augustine didn’t reply: 'He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions.' Instead, he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe." Pretty good for 400 AD. Here's a link to a discussion on " City of God " by Augustine. And here's a l...

I know, I know, I haven't written anything it quite some time. Well, Annette and I have been walking every night and that's sort of been taking up the time that I would otherwise be writing in. The walking has been great though. I feel a lot better and it's a scheduled time to spend with her so we get all the day's stuff out of the way. We call it debriefing. Also, what time I have at the computer, I've been preparing for Science Camp because it starts this Sunday. I always bone up on the subjects I'll be presenting, so I've been reading and writing and rehearsing. Some family news for you; Emily will be baptized this Saturday at 10:00 am. It'll be a small gathering at a state park outside of St. Louis off the Meremac River. I'm very glad she's choosing to follow Christ. I know it will make a big difference in her life and the older she gets the more she'll appreciate it. She's already light years ahead of me when I was that age. S...

A rough draft 

I watched "Ike" last night. It's an A & E production starring Tom Selleck as Ike. He did a good job. It was presented more like stage play, no big scenes, no special effects. Well, I guess you could call the cigarettes a special effect. Tom Selleck smoked the non-filtered Camels throughout the entire show. I thought it did a good job of highlighting Ike's subtle manner and strong sense of focus. Selleck didn't even try for the smile and I don't blame him for that, it would've seemed forced. But, for those who know the story and can follow the dialogue, it was very good.

My Aunt Beth and Uncle Ken are buried right underneath Jesus at Mt. Olive. They're probably all talking about me.

An old, broken tombstone.

This is the old section of Mount Olive. This is where all the Hudsons are buried. Some going back to the early 1800's.

I don't know who she was; she sat and cried quietly. This was in a new section of the cemetary, so you know it was within the last year.

Jefferson Barracks on Memorial Day. The day before the Boy Scouts plant the flags at each of the 150,000 gravestones.