The Artist's Statement Project; Part 2

This kind of Artist statement represents a collection of artworks, rather than just one. Seniors and Independent-Study Art students should do this if they are preparing a portfolio to submit to art colleges or university Art departments.

People who like an artist’s work generally want to know more about the artist. Artist statements are effective marketing tools. It helps make a connection between the artist and their audience. In putting your art into words you might also find that some of your ideas which didn’t entirely make sense to you become more concrete. Your writing might even open new paths in your thinking and take you in new artistic directions.

This definitely worked for me.

Artist’s Statement for a Body of Work

CIVICS; Faces in History

INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW

When I began teaching 8th grade Civics in 2011, I wanted to decorate my classroom in a way that would be patriotic and engaging. I also wanted to reassure students that it was okay that an Art teacher was teaching a Social Studies class (I have a double-major in K-12 Art and 7-12 Social Studies). Over the last two decades of teaching, I’ve frequently drawn on presidents and other historic figures for drawings and paintings. I simply gathered them up and hung them up. That first year I even had students try to name as many of the people featured in the paintings on a worksheet for extra credit!

THEME & CONCEPT

Benjamin Franklin has an amazing line in the Broadway musical 1776. John Adams, fighting to keep a statement opposing slavery from being removed from a draft of the Declaration of Independence warns Franklin that if they don’t address issue of slavery from the onset, posterity will never forgive them. In an effort to get Adams to compromise with delegates from the South, Franklin tells him, “That's probably true, but we won't hear a thing, we'll be long gone. Besides, what would posterity think we were? Demi-gods? We're men, no more no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed.”

A basic premise of democracy is that leaders are servants of the people who elect them. The promise of America has always been that any kid could grow up to be President. What fascinates me about great men as a Civics teacher, as an artist, and as a citizen, is that they’re just men. Perhaps of great ability, power and experience, but never the less just men. Full of faults, imperfections, vulnerabilities and personalities. My hope is always to portray the faces of Presidents and protest leaders as human faces. Faces that could be your cousin or uncle or neighbor or friend. I hope whether its Truman or Gandhi or Lincoln, that viewers can see that there is a real person behind the face.

HIGHLIGHTS & PROMINENT PIECES

The Two Cowboys Two paintings which I tend to hang next to each other are an 8”x 8” oil on panel of Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater and a 14”x18” gouache on canvas of Texas Democrat, President Lyndon Johnson. The paintings contrast each other not only in size and format but also in mood and style. Goldwater is more detailed and has more angles. He’s also more comfortable and confident. Whereas Johnson has more swooping curves and seems almost unfinished. Meanwhile his face seems more weary and jaded. These two paintings in many ways reflect many of the differences and tensions in our country.

BULLY! One of my all time favorite works is a 9”x12” tempera on matte board, monochromatic, orange,  impressionistic interpretation of Progressive/Republican President Teddy Roosevelt. This was painted quickly based on a photograph of the president laughing heartily. I think it captures the exuberant personality that Roosevelt was known for. Since we share a first name, I’ve always had a special affinity to him and with this painting.

KING This acrylic on paper in teals and black started a long relationship for me with Martin Luther King. I’ve always been an admirer of the activist and have tried several times over the years to paint him. Two or three oil pastel paintings haven’t made me as happy as this earlier work. A couple of years ago, I managed a larger, more detailed and developed piece which I gave as a wedding present to a friend who lives in Washington D.C. This early painting is more close-up, more intimate and probably better reveals the worry, sacrifice, deep intelligence and seriousness of his cause. Like the Teddy Roosevelt painting, this is one that has become an old friend. I think I’d like to have it hanging in whatever office, studio or classroom I occupy as long as I’m teaching, writing or painting.

STYLE & AESTHETICS

I never realized that I even had a style of my own until I hung several of my paintings together on the wall of my Art classroom this Fall. Looking at nineteen years of paintings I’d done with classes or as examples for classes, it finally manifest itself to me. It may may just be my own Attention Deficit Disorder, messiness or stubbornness- but my work seems to be very passionate, expressive and maybe just a little rough-hewn. I’d like to think that  I’m a shaggy lummox like a bison or a bear. Unkempt yet majestic. Simultaneously humble yet proud. Inglorious with dignity. In other words, quintessentially American.

INFLUENCES

Art History students and aficionados can probably recognize the influence of the neoexpressionism of the 1970’s and 80’s. I’m not sure if this is because that was the era in which I grew up or if its because of the strong German expressionist influence on my professors at Concordia College in Seward, Nebraska.

If I had to name my favorite painters, I’d probably rattle off names of pop artists like Wayne Thiebaud and Jasper Johns; the venerable regionalist Grant Wood, and Native American master John Nieto. But my work doesn’t really seem to look like any of theirs. Frankly I think my paintings remind me more of Jules Feiffer, Johnny Hart and Bill Mauldin. That’s probably because from ages 12-38 it was my dream to someday make it as a professional cartoonist.

Years ago a student told me that I teach History classes like their Art classes and my Art classes like they were Social Studies. So maybe I get my wired crossed a lot because I can definitely see how my cartoons are influenced by Grant Wood and Wayne Thiebaud and my paintings are more like Bill Mauldin or maybe even Charles Schultz or Matt Groening.

PROCESS TECHNIQUE & RATIONALE

Students who watch me painting often say something like “how do you DO that?!!”

Inevitably the teacher in me wants to either painstakingly explain to them the process of observing, analyzing, comparing and contrasting visual-spatial placement and proportions and then recording those observations and analysis. But I  know it would bore them to death.

That same teacher in me also wants to point out every single flaw in my painting, hypercritically explaining how their awe is misplaced because of how weak my technique is or how inaccurate the features are compared to the photograph I’m using. But I hate to devalue their experience, even if I don’t think I deserve whatever admiration they’ve just given me.

So I encourage them by offering that “you can do it too, you just have to keep practicing and listen to what I try to teach you,” yet not bother revealing all of my magician’s secrets.

Ultimately it is a sort of alchemy. Certainly there’s the trained artist’s way of perceiving and translating those perceptions into visual language, but there’s also a great deal of responding to and expressing about the subject matter. What they mean to me and how I feel about them. What I admire or disdain.

Too be sure, its not just about the artist and the subject. The painting itself makes its own decisions too, just like our children do. Or in this case maybe a better analogy would be to say that sometimes politicians break party-ranks and vote their own conscience (something I admire about Teddy Roosevelt).

Finally, you the viewer, bring your own experience to every painting too. Eighth graders who have no idea who Goldwater, Johnson or Roosevelt were often have vastly different reactions to my paintings than adults.

So there are four of us collaborating on each painting; artist, subject, painting, and viewer- each lobbying for our own interests. Hopefully we all make compromise and meet somewhere other than where our preconceptions would’ve taken us alone. That’s in the nature of democracy too, isn’t it? Together, whether in tension or harmony, we’re something very different than any of us would be left to our own devices. E Pluribus Unum, from many- one. Long may it be so.

Poem for Memorial Day; How?

How can anyone read the Gettysburg Address on Memorial Day and not cry?
How can anyone read the Gettysburg Address and still support nullification and secession?
How can anyone read the Gettysburg Address and be so angry and hateful toward the Federal govt. which is supposedly "of the people, by the people, and for the people?"
How can anyone read the Gettysburg Address and want to deny rights and benefits to public workers like firemen, police officers, teachers, and bureaucrats who are" the people" in the government by/of/for the people?
How can anyone read the Gettysburg Address and come away thinking that the "cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion" is merely patriotism or nationalism and not the principles of participatory democracy and equality?
How can anyone read the Gettysburg Address and come away thinking that the "cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion" is merely patriotism or nationalism and not the freedom of religion, expression, association, and the right to petition for redress of grievences?
How can anyone read the Gettysburg Address on Memorial Day and not cry?

Happy President's Day

Two Tragic Anniversaries

Two Tragic Anniversaries

Page 3 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader- Thursday, September 7, 2006

As I write this column, the airwaves are saturated with documentaries and analysis of last year's hurricane Katrina. When you receive your copy of this paper, next Tuesday will be the fifth annual observation of "Patriot's Day."

Katrina left at least 1,605 fatalities, directly effected 5 states, and cost something in the neighborhood of $75 billion in damage.

Military, law enforcement and medical workers agree that there were about 30,000 evacuees at the New Orleans Superdome and somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 at the city's Convention Center.

America hasn't seen a natural disaster of such scale. When the levees broke, flood waters poured into the soup-bowl of a city- much of which is ten feet below sea level. Disease, starvation and exposure probably wreaked as much havoc as the storm itself.

It revealed much about America, both our strengths and our sin. Thousands of volunteers left the comfort of their homes all over the country to help. The city of Houston Texas, much to its credit stepped-up to offer refuge, shelter, and jobs to displaced Gulf citizens.

Katrina spurred some of the greatest demonstrations of love, compassion and sacrifice America has ever seen. There are still volunteers scooping trash and black mold out of houses and helping rebuild.

Needless to say, Katrina also revealed some huge faults in our country. Negligence and failure of leadership to plan and to act decisively and effectively were exposed on city, state, and Federal levels.

According to one report on National Public Radio, to date, 17,000 households from Biloxi Mississippi have applied for help in rebuilding, but a year later, the state of Mississippi have issued only 41 checks.

Like it or not, it did reveal our tacit, institutional racism. We wanted to believe that it hasn't been a problem since the 1960's, but while it may not be hot, angry and overt, it is still very real and very hurtful. Had those tens of thousands at the Superdome and Convention Center been middle class whites instead of poor blacks, there would've been busses, helicopters, doctors, fresh water and everything they needed.

But instead, lets face it, we middle class, comfortable, complacent, supposedly "compassionate-conservatives" look at Katrina as a form of welfare reform and urban renewal. The lower 9th Ward won't be rebuilt, but condos, resorts, and casinos are already being built. If you can't see Katrina as shedding light on racism, you can't escape that is tore the facade off of our indifference toward and aversion to poor people.

It would be too easy to level blame on agencies or administrations. When we lost our apartment in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, we had nothing but good experience with FEMA. Many have speculated that their problems came when they were placed under the auspices of Homeland Security or from incompetent political appointees.

I for one think that the City of New Orleans, Louisiana and Mississippi, and the Bush administration could all learn from what FDR did to help us out of the Great Depression, in the middle of major drought. Three simple steps; Relief, Recovery, and Reform.

FDR's New Deal took courage and risks, but it did so with intelligence and pragmatism. What worked kept working, what didn't was scrapped and replaced by something else. Either way, at least SOMETHING was being tried.

An estimated 3,000 people were killed in the World Trade Center attacks. If Katrina kicked America in our soft underbelly, 9/11 was like a surprise blow to the back of the head.
On that sapphire blue sky day in September, the world was shocked with us, grieved for us and wanted to come to our aid. Five years later, we have never been so feared, resented or loathed.

Maybe that's because, like a school kid who wants to get even on the playground, we lashed out spastically, indiscriminately, and frantically. Instead of carefully, patiently, and systematically.

Best case scenario, our leaders had the best intentions of "taking the war on terror to the terrorists," but their efforts were poorly planned and severely mismanaged. Worst case scenario, the tragedy of 9/11 was cynically exploited to advance some other agenda. Either way both Republicans and Democrats are frustrated with the results.

Worst of all, we are divided against ourselves as we haven't been since Vietnam. Rather than standing united as we did on September 12, 2001, our anger and partisanship and fear have begun to tear us apart.

We need to remember that patriotism is not when we say, "My Country, right or wrong, love it or leave it." True patriotism is when if we see our country and believe that it is wrong, we dare to speak up and help to make it right again.

Some think we should listen to the pleas of the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 and make the reforms called for in the 9/11 Commission's Report. Others believe nothing is so important as supporting our troops in Iraq, still others believe the best thing to do is to bring them home. Somehow we need to listen to each other even when we disagree.

As Lincoln once said, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

If we don't the terrorists win.

Dedicated to Freedom and Equality

Just this past Monday we all enjoyed the red white and blue, the picnics and parades, the patriotic music and of course fireworks.

One of the best things about the 4th is that you get to here the Gettysburg Address recited. I must have read these words hundreds of times, yet they never fail to make tears well up in my eyes and my throat clench up.

Nov. 19, 1863, the incredibly unpopular and decidedly divisive Abraham Lincoln traveled to a town in Pennsylvania to participate in the dedication ceremony of a new cemetery.
This is what Lincoln said:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Liberty is another word for freedom, it means having the right to make choices, to make decisions that effect your life. The Declaration of Independence stated that ALL men were created equal. Of course, to Congress at the time, that probably meant male, white, registered as church members, who owned their own land.

The point that Lincoln was trying to make was that black, African-Americans, including slaves were equal too and entitled to the same liberties as the rest of us. I contend that every human being is endowed by our creator with the same certain inalienable rights, not just men, not just Americans, but all of us were meant to be free.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

Remember, at Lincoln’s time the U.S. was less than a 100 years old, the rest of the world was keeping their eye on us- we were an experiment in democracy and since we’d fallen into civil war, it looked like the experiment was about to fail. Just think about how people today watched the elections in Lebanon, Iraq, and most recently in Iran.

We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who died here that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have hallowed it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

To say something is Holy, consecrated, or sacred simply means to set it aside for God’s use, to dedicate it for His special purposes, if you will.

It didn’t matter if the President of the United States or all the important dignitaries you could drag out conducted any kind of a ceremony at all. What made that place special was the blood of all the servicemen that was spilled there. Their deaths and sacrifice made that plot of ground forever important and unique. Lincoln pointed out that the people who didn’t die there had something else that they needed to be doing:

It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion-

We too, should constantly be re-dedicating ourselves to what those veterans were dedicated to. This is why it’s so important to support our troops, even when, like me, you don’t support the politicians and their misguided policies.

Sure, there’s been wars we shouldn’t have gotten into. Maybe some of them were motivated by interests that weren’t as well examined or scrutinized as they should have been.

Since America IS her people, and people are fundamentally flawed and sinful, America has made, does make, and is bound to make mistakes. But as long as American soldiers served to protect freedom and fought to establish and maintain justice, no American soldier ever died in vain.

Lincoln urges us from 1863 to be dedicated to preserving liberty and promoting equality. When we fail to, then it’s like letting them die in vain.

Each of us can do this in our own way. For some, it is by serving in the armed forces, for others it is by standing up and speaking out. We do it by exercising our liberties and by treating each other fairly and justly, as equal human beings, worthy of dignity and compassion. We do it by volunteering and participating in our communities.

Perhaps the simplest, easiest and most important way each of us does it, is when we vote.

that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Once someone asked the age-old philosophical question, “why are we here?” And someone else answered, with both sarcasm and wisdom; “God put us here for each other.”

229 years later, (142 since the Gettysburg Address) this experiment in democracy still struggles, but it’s endured. So, let’s be dedicated to the motto on Iowa’s state flag, let’s prize our liberties and maintain our rights, otherwise what is there worth fighting for?

One nation, handcuffed together

Here's a great editorial from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

One nation, handcuffed together

Deborah Ellsworth
November 6, 2004

So the old "Moral Majority" rose up again and swamped the boat this election. With war, global terrorism, unemployment, an elitist health-care system and other serious issues dominating this election, who saw this coming? Who saw this leviathan lurking beneath the surface?

The day after the election, vacuuming furiously while tears of despair ran down my face, I began thinking about the war in Iraq. Clearly this is an unjust war. But what is a just war?
Of course, World War II is always the first one mentioned. Then the next one that seems to come up is our Civil War. Surely, Abraham Lincoln had to fight the war to hold our country together. This has been ingrained in us since our elementary school days.

That's when it struck me: What if Lincoln had just let the South go? What if we now had a country on our southern border made up of the states that formed the Confederacy?
Hundreds of thousands of people wouldn't have died.

OK, the slaves wouldn't have been freed as soon. The Confederacy probably would have been the last holdout country with slaves, but at some point, it would have had to bow to world pressure and give up slavery. In the meantime, perhaps creative Abolitionists in the North would have found ways to make daring raids into the Confederacy, and the underground railroad would have still operated, and ... well, who knows what other methods for freeing the slaves might have arisen?

But think about it. If the South were its own country, then all those people who so desire it could have a Christian theocracy. They could have a country where the Bible is read in schools; where Creationism is taught in science class and evolution is not; where homosexuality would be against the law; where the Internet and Hollywood movies and rap music could be banned by law.

There would be trade relations between the Union of the United States and the Confederacy, and travel arrangements.

Also, evangelical Christians from the U. of the U.S. who desired to live in a Christian theocracy could emigrate to the Confederacy. Likewise, progressive-minded citizens from the South, as well as gays and others who would be persecuted, could immigrate here.
And then, maybe in the 2004 U. of U.S. election, these moral values would have prevailed: tolerance and respect for others; peace and justice; care for our needy citizens; scientific research to advance humankind; and care for the beautiful planet that God gave us.

Yes, I said the God word. I, too, am a Christian: a liberal, progressive Christian who believes that the moral values I just listed would be endorsed by Jesus Christ. And Buddha. And Mohammed. And of course, those dreaded secular humanists, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

Yup, maybe Lincoln should have let the South go. As I understand it, many Southerners consider Yankees foreigners anyway.

Deborah Ellsworth, a teacher, lives in St. Louis Park.

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
~ABRAHAM LINCOLN, November 12,1864

Mallory

Happy Presidential Birth Month

We’ve made it to February. The almanacs are telling us that this month will bring us some of the worst weather of the winter. The national media have been telling us that the 2004 Presidential election race has already begun. Since our Iowa Caucuses are slated for Jan. 19 of next year, we’re already being visited by a bevy of baby-kissers.

This may be jumping the gun a little, so I thought I’d jump the gun too. President’s day may be a couple of weeks away, but I thought this was as good a time as any to spend some time thinking about Presidents.

Of course President’s Day is a combination holiday commemorating two of our greatest leaders George Washington, born February 22, 1731 and Abraham Lincoln February 12,1809. Congress made third Monday in February became President’s day in 1968. In 1972, President Nixon proclaimed that it was it recognition of all past Presidents. Personally, I think Lincoln and Washington deserve a holiday, but Nixon doesn’t. Whoever you are, whether Republican or Democrat, can you imagine Bill Clinton getting his own holiday?

That’s not to say that George and Abe were saints. Lincoln was prone to bouts of depression, not that you could blame him. Lets face it, if TV were around in 1860 there’s no way Americans would have given this guy a chance. Some historians are suspicious that one of Washington’s lady friends may have been more than just a friend and some people who met him thought he was very aloof, even snobby. We honor them not for everything that was wrong with them, but for the legacies they left us.

They were human and if they were around today they’d each be the first to admit that. One of the legacies that Washington left us was leaving office after two terms. He knew he was human and that no human should have too much power for too long. Wise man.

Did you know that February is also the birth-month of two other Presidents? The ninth President, William Henry Harrison was born Feb. 9, 1773

He was the first president to die during his term of office, which lasted exactly one month. Seems he gave a two hour inauguration address in the rain and developed pneumonia. He was a hero from the Indian Wars. Turns out that when Harrison was elected President in 1840, the Indian leader Tecumseh placed a curse on him, saying that every president elected in a year that ends with a zero will die while in office.

Harrison died while in office, as did Lincoln, elected in 1860, Garfield, elected in 1880, Mckinley, elected in 1900, Harding, elected in 1920, Roosevelt, elected in 1940, and John F. Kennedy, elected in 1960. Reagan, elected in 1980, broke the curse, but was almost assassinated while in office. Ronald Reagan was born on February 6, 1911.

Henry A. Wallace was born October 7, 1888. He was President Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President from 1941-1945 but the Democratic Party ditched him for Harry Truman, which is too bad. I think he would’ve made a pretty good President and he was from Iowa. But we’ll never know. Maybe the actual week of President’s day I’ll devote a column to people who coulda-woulda-shoulda been president.

Bess Truman was born in February. February 13, 1938. Come to find out that her maiden name was Wallace, but was no relation.

Neither John Adams or John Quincy Adams were born in February, but Henry Adams was, Feb. 16, 1838, but he decided to become a teacher and writer instead of going into politics. Smart move, politics has a way of becoming fatal.

Teddy Kennedy was born on Feb. 22, 1932. Needless to say, he ran for president a few times but never even won his party’s nomination. I wonder sometimes what America would’ve been like if either of his brothers hadn’t been assassinated, but you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to hear about that.

Maybe Michael Jordan should run for President. He’d get Chicago’s vote. He was born February 17, 1963, but again, that could be a whole other column.

I sometimes wonder what it would’ve been like if Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles had ran as the Republican’s candidate against John Kennedy in 1960 instead of Nixon. He had an airport named after him until they renamed it after President Reagan. Dulles was born on February 25th, 1888. I graduated in 1988 and my birthday is on the 25th, but I’d rather be a teacher and writer than go into politics. I’m sure you’re all relieved

Attitude of Gratitude

This time of year, the former U.S. History teacher in me can’t help but come out. Since the first seven years of my teaching career were at a parochial school, I had the opportunity to teach about how important faith was in the lives of many of our country’s great leaders.

Abraham Lincoln is one of my all time favorite examples. In July or 1863, not long after the battle of Gettysburg had turned the civil war in the Union’s favor, Lincoln called for a national day of Thanksgiving, Praise and Prayer;

"I invite the people of the United States to assemble on that occasion in their customary places of worship, and in the forms approved by their own consciences, render homage due the Divine Majesty, for the wonderful things He has done in the Nation’s behalf,

and invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger, which has produced, and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion, to change the hearts of the insurgents,

to guide the counsels of the Government with wisdom adequate to so great a national emergency,

and to visit with tender care and consolation throughout the length and breadth of our land all those who, through vicissitudes of marches, voyages, battles and sieges, have been brought to suffer in mind, body and estate,

and finally to lead the whole nation, through the paths of repentance and submission to the Divine Will, back to the perfect enjoyment of Union and fraternal peace."

Lincoln was the President who made Thanksgiving an National Holiday. He didn’t ask us to watch a parade, eat ourselves silly, fall asleep during a football game and the next day shop-till-we-drop. He asked us to pray.

First to thank God for all we had. Especially during tough times, we can thank God for all He’s given us. A bumper crop, good neighbors, decent school, freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from fear and freedom from want. Loving family and cherished friends.

Then that God would work in the hearts of our enemies. Why do people think that the only way to get anything accomplished is with a suicide bomber’s terrorist attack? I can’t understand why terrorists don’t use non-violent means to accomplish their goals. It worked wonders for Ghandi and Martin Luther King, these men changed the world. Perhaps it’s not change or disagreement that motivates them, maybe it’s just evil, anger and hatred. All the more reason for us to pray for them, that there might be peace on earth.

Lincoln wanted Americans in the North to pray that the Holy Spirit would turn the hearts of the Southern rebells. We can pray for all our rivals and adversaries, not just Muslim terrorists. The acquaintance who irritates you, the bully at work or school, your ex. Pray that God would soften their hearts and make them more loving, more patient, more kind.

Then Lincoln asked Americans to pray for their government, for their leaders.

Next he wanted Americans to pray for those who have lost family members and property during the Civil War. We were full of prayers for the victims and families of 911 for the first several weeks afterward, but how long has it been since we prayed for their peace and recovery? It’s easy to forget when we get on with our own lives. What about families who have lost their jobs, homes, or farms in the recent recession? What about the family of the mother and child killed on 141 outside of Mapleton this month, or for the families of the immigrants trapped in the railroad car discovered in Denison this fall?

Finally Lincoln asked Americans to pray that God would direct us all as a Nation, to repent of our sin and selfishness and to follow His will, so that we would be able to know real peace and real prosperity serving Him.

In October of 1863 Lincoln issued another proclamation, for a Thanksgiving holiday the last Thursday in November. Thanksgiving came about because Lincoln believed that we should give thanks even in the midst of war and suffering. This is some of what he said in that proclamation;

"The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God."

To which I say, "Amen"

September 11- one year later

My daily commute has to be one of the biggest perks to living back here instead of LA. In LA, we’d get on the freeway and plug along through traffic till we merged with another freeway and get off in time to sit through several traffic lights before we finally got to school. The colors we saw concrete gray and smog beige. Now, when I take L-51 South to Dunlap at sunrise, the colors are different every day. If I encounter any traffic it’s farm equipment or deer. Plenty of time to think and prepare for the day.

This morning (9/11) as I drove in I listened to live coverage of the memorial services at the sight of the World Trade Center on National Public Radio. New York Governor George Pataki recited the Gettysburg Address. He reminded people at the memorial that Lincoln was at the dedication ceremony of battlefield that was to become a war memorial. Pataki noted that he had the same responsibility 139 years later.

Consider Lincoln’s words with new emphasis:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

I was crying. As I passed Dunahm’s barn and headed for the railroad tracks, I was crying. That place that used to be the capital of the financial world is now a holy place, a resting place, and a memorial. No matter what they build there, a statue, new offices, a park. It will always be "Ground Zero."

It is for us the living to be dedicated to the task before us. How long until unity, service to others, volunteerism and patriotism go out of fashion again? So many returned to Church at this time last year, but how many have continued to attend? We’re resolved as a nation to not be pushed around, to not be attacked again, but how has our foreign policy changed? Have we taken up the mantle of responsibility that only the most affluent society, the only remaining super power can take up? Have we changed? Every Christmas there’s a cliché about living every day as if it were Christmas. Will we make every day ‘Patriots’ Day?’

The weekend before you read this, I traveled to Phoenix for the baptism of my brother’s first baby. I have to admit that for the first time in my entire life I’m nervous about flying in an airplane. I hope that that’s not the only kind of change we experience. I hope that we’ll take our freedom less for granted. I hope we’ll make an effort to get to know the people who live around us. I hope we’ll be more likely to give and less likely to make demands on others. I hope that we’ll not only show more appreciation for policemen and firemen but for postal employees and pilots too. I hope we’ll volunteer more. I hope we’ll try to find solutions together, rather than sticking to party lines. I hope we’ll pray more.

Looking at books of photos of 911 in Wal-Mart one is struck by how much Ground Zero resembled a volcano for weeks after the attack. The landscape was irrevocably changed