Majesty Building - Update

Over the years, I've written a couple of times about my personal frustration with the Majesty Building on I-4 in Altamonte Springs, Florida.  Started well over a decade ago, it looms over everything.  It's the tallest building between Orlando and Daytona Beach.  I see it everywhere I turn.

 It bugs me. Why? Because it's dark and lonely.  It's nick names are "The Mistake on the Lake" and "I-4 Eyesore."

When my grandson, Ken, was a young teenager, he and his friend sneaked up to the top of the empty Majesty Building and dangled their feet over the side.  Scary to think about.  Since then, Ken has:

• Graduated from middle school
• Graduated from high school
• Graduated from college
• Found a great job
• Been promoted
• Bought a house
• Had a couple of serious love affairs

But the Majesty Building is still unfinished.

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Is the World Getting Better or Is the World Getting Worse?

Professor Patrick Allitt

On Wednesday night we went to the annual Emory University Alumni gathering here in Florida.   It is always an exciting evening.  As you know, we kinda go under false pretenses.  (I used to be married to an Emory graduate.)

The event, this time, was held at the new Alfond Inn in Winter Park.  It's a beautiful new hotel full of great modern art.  Dave and I hang out there from time to time.

Emory provides their very best representatives to speak at these events.  This time it was Patrick Allitt.  Who?  I never heard of him so looked him up and he seemed to be a big time academic and a history professor to boot, so I didn't have my hopes set very high.

He was fantastic!  He was funny.  He was optimistic!

He started by saying we Americans love disasters and we love making dire predictions.

1950s - The Atom Bomb is going to kill us!
1960s - Pollution  is going to kill us!
1970s - Cancer is going to kill us!
1980s - Population is going to kill us!

So far, we're still here.  He gave a funny example in saying that, in the 1800s, scientists predicted that cities and towns across America would never get bigger - because - horses were our means of transportation and if we kept growing we would all be knee deep in horse manure.  And then chest deep in horse manure!

According to Professor Allitt, we're great problem solvers.  I agree.  He also said this:  "Resources are not finite.  They are infinite."  I agree.

I sincerely believe that, even with all of our world wide problems, planet earth is the best, most  hospitable place it's been since it was a paradise in the Garden of Eden.


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Does Struggling Change Us?

Struggle brings us to crossover points in life after which we become new people, sometimes worse, often better, but always different.   - Joan Chittister


On Wednesday we finished our study, "Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope."  We had such a great group of folks.  The discussion was rich.

The writer states that "Struggle changes us.  It grows us up."  I agree that struggle changes us.  But many of us are done in by it.  We lose everything, sometimes even our lives.

I clearly remember a couple of struggling times in my life that could have gone either way.  I had to consciously make a choice to care for myself rather than be consumed by other people's needs. It seemed selfish at the time but, looking back, I don't think I would have survived otherwise.

I have lived a long, hard, wonderful, and sometimes scary life and I have the emotional and physical scars to prove it.  But I'm here and I'm transformed.

And, as my African American preacher friend likes to say:

Easter is A Comin.'


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All the Way With LBJ

Lyndon Baines Johnson, our 36th president, has been in the news recently.  First, Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston is staring on Broadway portraying LBJ in the new play All the Way.

And now President Obama is heading to Austin, Texas today to honor President Johnson and the Civil Rights Act he signed 50 years ago.

President Johnson was a complex man serving as president in a complex time.  He was physically unattractive, rude and crude.  He took office several hours  after a beloved, handsome, charming President Kennedy was shot in the head.  President Johnson was sworn in with Jacqueline Kennedy standing beside him with her husband's blood all over her pink suit.

During Johnson's time as president some of my friends thought he was wonderful.  Some of my friends thought he was evil.  I think he was a complex man, with an almost impossible task.

But he did get the Civil Rights Act passed.  He knew how to horse trade with congress, something that might be impossible in this day.  

In 1966 when my husband, Ken was in theology school at Emory University and we were extraordinarily poor, living in a country parsonage with two babies, we, in kind of a magical way, received an invitation to the President's Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C.

I remember having to almost move heaven and earth to get our children cared for and get plane tickets.  But we did it.  It was a great experience and we met a number of exciting people with whom we stayed in touch when we eventually returned to Florida.

The invite here is for Ken only.  Because the prayer breakfast, at that time was segregated by sex.  He had breakfast with LBJ.  I had breakfast with Lady Bird.

Resting in Washington D.C., 1966

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Indiana Jones and the Dead Sea Scrolls

In the '80s I went to Jerusalem and saw the dead sea scrolls.  Big whoop, right?  It's a bunch (around 900 or so) bits and pieces of Hebrew writing on animal skins found in caves between the '40s and '50s.

As it turns out, it's the greatest theological find of the last several centuries.  But it may take several more centuries to know fully what they're all about.  These theological/antiquities folks are slow and boring.  We want instant.

But something, dead sea scrolls wise, exciting happened on Friday. We had this young Hebrew scholar from the University of Central Florida come to our Speaker Series.

By the way, he's not Hebrew.  He's a red headed Swede.

He reminded us of how a Bedouin sheep herder wondered into a cave and found five scrolls in two clay jars.  He thought about the same thing you and I would.  Big whoop!

Dr. Ken Hanson

The story, as told by Ken Hanson, about how the scrolls went from one sheep herder to another until somebody figured out that they were written in Hebrew - and others found out they were worth millions of dollars, was totally mesmerizing.

Hanson did all the parts:  Part Indiana Jones, part Bedouin sheep herder, part Jewish scholar - all in costume.  And he never stopped moving.

I hope that, in my life time, the average Judao Christian person will come to understand the power and importance of the dead sea scrolls.


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Where Shopping Is a Pleasure

I love Publix Supermarkets.  I especially love my local store, Publix at Palm Springs Crossing.  This store has seen me through many phases of my life.  Once, when I was going through a particularly hard time,  this older stock guy always came out from the back to talk with me - and even chased me down the isle a couple of times to make sure I was ok that day.  He was my Publix therapist.

I'm proud that Publix has an excellent reputation for taking care of its employees and its customers and has an exemplary record of public service.

 But Publix has had one continuing problem here in Florida that I can't get my head around.  For years they have refused to deal with the  plight of Florida tomato pickers.  These folks work for sub poverty wages under miserable conditions.  They've been beaten, sexually and physically abused and have even lost their lives.

Coalition of Immokelee Workers, an advocacy group for tomato pickers,  would like Publix to be part of a fair food program.  Publix has extensive influence over suppliers.  Currently, the request is an extra penny a pound for tomatoes.

Other retail food providers like Burger King, Walmart (Walmart?) Trader Joe's, Subway and McDonalds have signed on.  Publix refuses.  I don't get it.  It makes me sad.

Many folks, when they are at their Publix checkout, leave a penny and a note to encourage Publix to do the right thing.  At my Publix customer care counter they now have a penny jar so customers can make their point easily without holding up the line.

I'm working on filling that jar!


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I Love My Camry

As you may remember, I drive a 2000 Camry LE.  It's a sweet ride.

In 2001 I was thinking I might need a car.  We had two older cars but my husband, Ken, was no longer driving so I, essentially, had a car and a spare.  We've always driven cars until they died because cars are terrible investments.

But then my son, Scott, who buys and sells all sorts of commercial real estate, bought a small used car lot on Orange Avenue, the main street going north and south in downtown Orlando.

I saw this as a sign from God.  Also, a short window of opportunity.

So I bought my little Camry with matching leather seats and sun roof.  It's now 14 years old so I hesitate spending any more big money on repairs.    So when the door handle broke in half the other day I was depressed.  We took it to the body shop guy who said the repair would be $213.00.

What to do?

Dave came home, got on the computer and found the exact matching door handle.  It arrived yesterday.  The cost was $8.95.  The body shop guy will install it on Monday at a greatly reduced price.


Sweet!


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