Sitting here this evening, both fans going, the porch seems as far from reality as I can get. Most of what I share tonight is opinion, my opinion. What’s neat about that is I am not bound my facts although I might every now and then throw a few in to to   enhance the quality of this effort. The only difference between my opinion and the main stream media is I don’t have an agenda. First thing this is a fact… Oxford Dictionary…to think about (something) carefully, especially before making a decision or reaching a conclusion. An added advantage to Pondering is the freedom it gives to the ponderer. There are at least eight words that can be used to mean ponder…the well educated call them synonyms. Here is another fact about this action, the Bible uses the ponder in this way…

In Proverbs 21:2 and 24:12, “weigh” is substituted for “ponder.” The one New Testament passage is Luke 2:19; here the Revised Version (British and American) has “pondering” where the King James Version has “and pondered.” (biblestudytools.com ) 

Still there are no real rules implied, the freedom to ponder is only governed by the severity of the headache you get with such in depth thinking and length of the ponder. We might ask ourselves why is pondering important? The more we engage in pondering we become better, more self-aware of ourselves because we develop a better understanding of how to best think and learn.

‘Ponder’ means to consider, to examine the pros and cons before reaching a decision but when you think’  it could lead to making a snap decision. Here is another great point about pondering…you are under no obligation to make a decision one way or the other. Now I could really stretch this out but that might require me to think how far is enough? The point to be made here is that for folks like me is that it elevates me to as close as I will ever be to being considered an intellectual. It also does one other important thing…It allows us to thank God for the well educated among us.

jk 

The Pew has visited here before but spent time in Chapter 15: 35-58. Today we kind of flip things about, so to speak…and consider that the first 34 verses might just be the rest of the story. I have always considered this chapter to be the resurrection chapter, and with a sense of relief I know I am not the only one to refer to it as such. Before we get to far into this I want to follow a short path off here…I won’t walk you into a rabbit hole. There are many excellent commentaries and study materials that cover this subject well. One of my favorite is the Daily Bible Study series by William Barclay, which I will be referring to for this blog.(Letters To The Corinthians, Pages 141 through 161) I did not wish to give the impression that I had suddenly obtained a degree in Theology.

In the first eleven verses Paul spends some time repeating the main elements of the good news. The good news was the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul felt that the good news was something the people had received…we might say in this day, you can’t make this stuff up and I will latter explain that statement. People didn’t just invent this event, in reality they most likely never thought about it. It was something which they had to receive. Here lies the first point. The church was and will always be a bringer of Good News, received and shared among the fellowship to be shared with the world. Good news is a stabilizer, it lifts us up and gives us hope and determination, we who walk in The Way call it faith. Barclay points out that the Greek word used here is in the present tense. Simply put that it is now, not having been but now…right now. You are being saved right now…salvation is an ongoing thing. God’s grace and forgiveness can never be exhausted. I have always believed that life is what it is…but God has through his Son Jesus Christ and the Cross has given us the the tools we need to overcome adversity as long as we hold on tightly to our God and our faith. Salvation is not an item or condition of connivence. We must examine our direction in life, why we believe the things we do and most of all think…I will keep it simple…What would Jesus Do? 

Remember I said you can’t make this stuff up? There were many appearances of Jesus after the resurrection that have been written about or told about by people of that day. There was the appearance to Peter, one of the earliest and is recorded in two books of the New Testament…  the messenger in the empty tomb…‘Go, tell his disciples’. There is the appearance to James who is the brother of Jesus. There were times that even our Lord’s family stood against him, thinking him to not be of right mind. Barclay points out that Jesus brought love forgiveness and renewal to the lives of these two men…men who had in some ways hurt Him. We are well removed from those days but over all the centuries passed many have died as martyrs to the faith…and continue to, you can’t make that up. Our writer, Paul was a man of humility, confident in his mission and ability to get it done. He was a man of fellowship preaching the good news with the other apostles in the fellowship of the believers.

Paul also had a habit of asking questions that challenged the status quo. These next verses 15:12-19 do just that. If CHRIST IS NOT RESURRECTED…what are we doing? Without the resurrection and the empty tomb our proclamation of Faith has no meaning. Our lives, mine and yours are suddenly without standing. Paul’s opponents in Corinth took the position that “Dead men don’t rise again.’ Paul’s answer to that was …if Jesus Christ did not raise from the dead then our whole Christian faith is a wreck. I am sure a man of lesser faith might have said quietly… ‘what am I doing, what are any of us thinking or doing.’ But have heart. There are some facts that that do make a difference to the church and our fellowship of faith. Jesus proved through the resurrection that truth is stronger than any falsehood. What is comes down to is that Jesus came among us armed with the truth. There were those who stood against him, plotted his death from the very start of His ministry. They plotted against Him because they did not want their false views to be discredited. It was once said, I don’t know by whom, that the victor gets to write history…The triumph of the resurrection and the strength of our Christian faith, give us the pen and ink to put it on paper, It being the strength of the gospel truth. The resurrection is proof that good is stronger than evil, love is stronger than hatred and as one final point… life is stronger than death. It is at this point that Paul speaks with great purpose and faith. He in effect is saying if you take away the resurrection of Jesus, leaving the impression that the Christian message is based on a lie…a lie that many have died for, insinuating they died trusting in a delusion, then you leave us without its greatest value, salvation and life ever after. You have destroyed the very foundation of the Christian Faith. These last verses in this first section we are covering vv.20-34 led us into the better known part of this chapter… The Resurrection of the body which picks up in verse 35.

These can be broken down as follows. 15:20-28 speaks of the  first fruits of those who have died. Paul often used terms that would be easily recognized by all Jews. It expected that the first fruits of the harvest be brought before God and until that was done the new barley couldn’t be sold in the shops or used to make bread from. These first fruits were a sign of the harvest to come…transition this into Pauls thinking that the resurrection of Jesus was a sign of the resurrection of all believers which was to come. The next thing to note is that Paul in verses 24-28  Paul clearly places the Son subordinate to the Father. God gave his Son a task to complete and when done to return home to the Father and in a kind of pictorial way takes His rightful place. Having done the Father’s will Jesus hands back a redeemed world…there will be nothing in heaven or in earth outside God’s love and power. Paul’s last point in the remaining verses of our study vv. 29-34 deal with an instruction from Paul. Paul advises the Corinthians not associate with those who say that there is no resurrection, they must not provide a platform that marginalizes the truth and gives false information to those of the faith. 

With that being said I encourage each of you to take the time to read the entire 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians. Rejoice on the foundational promise of our God through Jesus Christ…Stand on the promise.

Life is Good

jk

I don’t know about you but this current heat wave requires a late evening visit to the back porch. Even that don’t help that much, where the heat ends the humidity takes over, also factor in older folks and it is not the best environment for some of the ailments we encounter as we age. My goal a while back was to build this porch as a poor man’s sanctuary, as a means of coming to it to clear my mind of the days events. No TV, phone and most of the time just me and the cat. I tried to quit watching the news, any news to ease my lack of discipline of not being the sole arbitrator of the worlds problems, a heavy responsible for someone who sometimes has to be reminded to zip up their pants. Well, this has turned out to be one of those porch nights that for some reason I could not let go of an issue that is and will began to show up in future years and is already showing up in our every day lives more and more each day.

Most of us from all parts of society understand the value of investments, from monetary to working to ensure a sound investment, labour or sometimes referred to as sweat equity. The simple truth that seems to be slipping from recognition in the world today is the fact that, you get back what you put into something. I have been watching an investment that we all have a stake in but are squandering because we have let it become a matter of political expediency. What is that investment?…our children, which as of now are referred to by an overused cliché …Our Future. I want you to know it took more than one evening on the porch to clear my mind of this thought. Using figures from the NCES for school years covering 2020 through the fall of 2021-22 there were 49.4 million students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools. Breaking that down farther looks like this…1.4 million attended prekindergarten;

• 32.6 million attended kindergarten to grade 8; and
• 15.4 million attended grades 9 to 12. (NECS)

I was put back a few steps when I started to look for things that supported my opinion. The numbers are staggering and it was at this point I turned off Google. I come out to the porch to clear my mind and instead I was overwhelmed by things that were beyond my pay grade…as they say. The simple fact is when we moved from the front porch to the back porch we lost sight of the big picture. The comparison that works well for me in this situation is that we have moved the parents, the creators of this investment out of the school onto the playground. They can’t see what’s going on for the slides, swings and monkey bars. We have allowed our teachers, another valuable asset to become the foot soldiers of the unions, school boards, special agenda needs, social warriors and political protocols… these kids, this investment in the future are regulated to Pawns in a struggle for power and influence in the coming years. It hurts to admit it but we are going to have to be out front, even if it is just a small stoop so we can see what’s going on. Our children are being used…while we swing and barbecue on the back porch. I was going to name names, groups and such but that changes nothing…they are still there…we need to let them know…we are too. 

Our kids need an example to look up to not a list of empty slogans. There is no yellow brick road… they need to build there own road, maybe even a highway.

Come back next week, sit a spell…

jk 

It is State Fair time and the place we gather is Lebanon Tn. One of my morning devotionals is Our Daily Bread and this morning’s subject was a devotion which was right on time. I have been struggling to pick a topic for this weeks blog and there it was. Some day I will share with you the process I go through to gather a subject for each week. First a quick trip encyclopedia.com 

“Fairs have existed for centuries and can even be dated back to ancient Mesopotamia in 3000 B.C. Modern American fairs grew out of an 1807 idea by Elkanah Watson, a banker and farmer in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He decided that the best way to convince other farmers to raise sheep was to show them his own animals.By the 1990s state fairs have come to represent a nostalgic, “old-fashioned” form of family entertainment that emphasizes state and national pride, agricultural roots, and good times.” (encyclopedia.com)

After attending some large events in the UK and US, researcher Daniel Yudkin and fellow researchers found that these large festivals do have an impact on our moral views and in most cases increase our willingness to share time and resources with others. In ancient times you might say Festivals were their fairs but they were a part of a means of communing with God. People experienced that connection to God when they gathered in Jerusalem for their sacred festivals throughout the year. There were three festivals and Jews traveled from far and wide with no convince of our modern transportation systems to be there for each one of them. These sacred festivals also attracted people from all walks of life and beliefs. The festivals were as follows…

“the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles”, more about those in a moment. 

16:16 NIV16 Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles.^u No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed:

“These gatherings were times of solemn remembrance, worship, and rejoicing “before the Lord” with family, servants, foreigners, and others” (Kirsten Holmberg) We should also take note all of verse 11, which gives us insight as to others that were drawn to the festivals…

 And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows living among you (Deuteronomy 16:11)

Now about those festivals…I have taken the liberty to insert information on each and have listed their source for you to continue more study if you wish.

 Festival of Unleavened Bread is a celebration of the liberation of the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt.This feast lasts seven days, beginning with Passover. (christianity.com)

Festival of Weeks… Shavuot, or Shvu’es in some Ashkenazi usage, commonly known in English as the Feast of Weeks, is a major Jewish holiday, one of the three pilgrimage festivals, that occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan. In the Bible, Shavuot marked the wheat harvest in the Land of Israel. Wikipedia

Festival of Tabernacles…The Feast of Tabernacles, also known as the Feast of Booths and Sukkot, is the seventh and last feast that the Lord commanded Israel to observe and one of the three feasts that Jews were to observe each year by going to “appear before the Lord your God in the place which He shall choose” (Deuteronomy 16:16). The importance of the Feast of Tabernacles can be seen in how many places it is mentioned in Scripture. In the Bible we see many important events that took place at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. For one thing, it was at this time that Solomon’s Temple was dedicated to the Lord (1 Kings 8:2). (gotquestions.com)

Back in the day there were tent meetings and revivals where the faithful would gather to commune with God…often referred to as a time to get right with God. Things have changed and now we look to church conferences, youth conferences, denominational meetings and such to get us on the right path again. Yes it is State Fair time in Tennessee and we will come together to celebrate “old-fashioned” form of family entertainment that emphasizes state and national pride, agricultural roots, and good times.” As a foot note: According to fair officials, 776,195 visitors attended the state fair this year which is 295,000 more attendees than last year and 186,966 more people than a previous record that was met in 2013. (These numbers are for 2022)

829 words or so to simply say…We need to have more Festivals to remind us of what our God has done for us.

Life is Good

jk

Seems like when I come out here this porch becomes a time machine. Please excuse us old folks, we tend to remember the “good ole days” a bit to much I guess. Where I used to live the back porch had a view of a small valley rising gently to a ridge that separated us from Dalton Pike and just for logistics south of me at the far end of Blue Springs Rd was Red Clay State Park, where the Cherokee held their council meetings back in the day. If you went over that ridge on a clear day you could see Big Frog Mountain…at the entrance of The Cherokee National Forest…well that is another story to be remembered and told some other evening here on the back porch. There is always somethings comforting about the past, might be we been there and it can’t hold any surprises for us. The past is sorta like an old winter coat, worn and frayed but always filimilar and warm. So here we go again…

One of my favorite comedians James Gregory has had some hard times lately, health wise but I can understand that. James is about 77 years old and I slide in at 80…Age is a gift and at my age seeing as how God has my time listed in the book of life…I thank Him for this longevity, it wasn’t anything I did. One of James Gregory’s thoughts about life is always on my mind when I come out here on the back porch. What happened to the Front Porch? It is Mr. Gregory’s theory that the world changed not for the good…ever since we moved to that Deck…a Deck on the back of the house. It is his contention that you can’t see nothing from that deck…nothing at all. You know he is right! Also for us old folks the memories of the front porch can give some comfort in these days. Now my grandmother, whom I will from this point on refer to as Nonie, may she forgive me but I am not sure that is the right spelling but I am going with it because in the interest of space it is shorter than the other. Nonie and Pop lived in Chattanooga, Glenwood to be exact. They had one of those uptown front porches, the kind that had these fancy double glass doors that opened off the living room to the porch. The porch was screened in and on the end of the house, with the driveway running beside it to the garage. Stay with me now…believe me all this is important. Nonie and Pop’s house was right where Derby Circle and 4th street came together. This is important because one of the main roads into downtown Chattanooga was Third street and it sat exactly dead center of the best seat on the porch, even though it was a good three blocks away but the view was unobstructed. Also right there is where the bus stop was. How long ago was this? Here is a hint…every morning M-F about 8:30 all the maids, well most of them would get of the bus and head to their respective houses. Now Nonie if she were on that porch would count those maids and that would follow with a comment, one way or the other…somebody is short a maid, or somebody got a new maid! Just like James said…”you can’t see nothing from that deck”. When I started to write this I wanted to be as accurate as possible. This would have been in the early fifties and segregation was a big thing in the south. Pop would sit on that front porch and watch every person who walked by in any direction. If he didn’t recognize them, he would give them that long stare. But here is the difference. If that person was black…let me make that brutally clear…a negro, well Pop would stand up, raise his voice a little and say “what are they doing here…they don’t belong here!” Some things about the good ole days weren’t all that good. Some of you will remember those porch swings, not the one that hung from the ceiling but those metal slatted ones that rocked and if the sun got to them when you sat down they could leave a mark. The swing was for Nonie and Aunt Mattie when she was there…Pop got the sway back metal slat chair. If you had company you brought some chairs out from the kitchen. It would have been a mortal sin to bring one from the dinning room…those were the fancy ones for special dinners and such. We kids, well we sat or reclined on the floor which could be tile or painted concrete. Nonie’s house was on the lower end of Glenwood, it had concrete.

Well I could write a lot more but it is getting late. I’ll go in and get to bed but leave you with this thought. One wonderful memory of those evenings on the front porch… the Katydids as the night began to set in and another late summer day wound down they would began their rhythmic song. I always thought of it as my song of the south.

May God Bless Us All

Kurt 

Last week we examined how the Law, God’s Law, impacted our lives as Christians. This week we deal with the Suffocation of Faith by of all things Doctrine. The best way to proceed would be to understand what is doctrine?  

Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief system. The etymological Greek analogue is “catechism”. Wikipedia

Applied to our faith and in simple terms…a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a Church. (Oxford Dictionary) What is the meaning of doctrine in the Bible? The basic meaning of the term doctrine is “teaching.” Christian doctrine, accordingly, is the attempt to state in intellectually responsible terms the message of the gospel and the content of the faith it elicits.The doctrine, therefore encompasses both the substance of what is taught and the act of setting that substance forth. (Britannica) What is the meaning of doctrine in church? Those would be the  Definitions of church doctrine which can differ from one denomination to another and are the written body of teachings of a religious group that are generally accepted by that group. synonyms: creed, gospel, religious doctrine. Confused.. Somewhere along the way faith has been smothered by doctrine. Why you might ask is my focus so tepid in regard to Doctrine? Simple answer is Christian Doctrine can be divisive. To many Christians it is not a popular word or procedure and many believe it should be avoided. The main thought being that it does create divisions and Jesus spoke about this in…

John 17:21  that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Paul knew that there would be differences and he addresses those in 2 Timothy 4:3

3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

Most Christian doctrines will include, what you must believe, what you must not reject and of course what you should believe. Christian Faith is heavily guided by doctrine. The most important being the deity of Christ, Christ on the cross, the resurrection and salvation by grace through faith. For most Christians these doctrines are not expendable.To remove anyone of these would leave us with a faith which is empty and void of any meaning. There is also the Trinity, also the importance of scripture to inspire and teach us and to make us aware of the eternal promise that God has made to us. Paul felt that if any of these things were causing divisions among us it was not  good… Paul believed If Christian doctrine is causing division on any of these points, so be it, as those who deny these doctrines need to be separated from us. I guess we can from this, tag these doctrines to be crucial to the body as a whole. When I decided to write this I was not prepared for the depth and width of the meaningful part that doctrine was to the core foundations of our faith. I wanted to stay away from lists but my research made that impossible. There are others, for example… the timing of the rapture, the more charismatic approach to worship and faith programs of an inclusitivioty manner but we must remember Christian doctrines are important and every Christian doctrine carries some importance. Here is the hard part…not every one of these doctrines should be a reason for division within the Christian faith. As hard as it may be, it would be better if we sometimes went elsewhere and not become a reason for division within one particular body.

So is there an answer to the problem? The way I see it the problem is as Pogo once said…”we have searched for the enemy and have found them…and “they is us!”  It has been my experience that the first four of The Doctrine, the deity of Christ, Christ on the cross, the resurrection and salvation by grace through faith are pretty much universally accepted. So…if we could just accept the Christian doctrines the Bible teaches, division would not be a problem. These core doctrines are worth dividing for. We all are sinners… Romans 3:23 (ESV) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…Bottom line…Not understanding and submitting to Christian doctrine is the main driver of the divisions we become entangled in, it is not the doctrine in itself. The harsh truth is this…Christian doctrine, in reality, is the only way to true, full, and biblical unity within the Body of Christ.(gotquestions.org) All of this is driven by FAITH.

Life is Good

jk

Welcome to porch… Which by the way has been cooler than my house. Our air conditioner has gone home, wherever that is. We were lucky to get a new one installed in about two days.  The heat and the humidity was absolute misery… I recall when I was growing up you were up-town if you had a window fan and if you owned any kind of an air conditioner, you most likely owned the town. Progress is great and we certainty have come a long way in making life comfortable for ourselves but at what cost. We have become a nation of whiners, moaners and groaners. We worship convenience and comfort at any price. My generation…yes I am going to go there, we  took what life gave us and made the best of it. The weather was just a source of conversation in my day and believe it are not it always started and ended with these words… why, I remember when… In the world we live in today it is the agenda of Government Committee Hearings and a source of enrichment for those who are experts of Global Warming or Climate Change. Here I go…when it got really hot my grandmother would pull the curtains back, raise the shades if you had them, open the window and you would sleep in your underwear on top of the sheet. Oh yes a note about that window screen. By mid August there would be a few balls of cotton  stuck in the holes to keep the varmints out. That was one way we coped with climate change.

While I am writing this it occurred to me that having come as far as we have, there is one amazing commonality among us. We are better off now than we were but we are also weaker than before. We can no longer tolerate adversity very well and we are always looking for who or what we can blame for it. I have reason to believe that the storm Sunday am caused a power surge that caused the compressor in the unit to weld the contacts together. I add this not because it is important, Just thought you might like to know that. The insurance company didn’t agree. I might call Al Gore and see if it is possible it could have been climate change.

Thanks for coming by and hope to see you on the porch next time.

Kurt

The Pew will spend the next two weeks looking at each of the above. This week we will examine The Law… how much of a burden is it on the believers. Of course here in the Pew we are discussing God’s Law. So we understand the difference between civil law and God’s Law. To keep it brief civil law would be a collection of standards or behavior we as a society find as a whole to be acceptable and hold others accountable to it. God’s law is a gift of grace. God’s law does not produce sin; it only names it for what it is. (Sheila Alewine) 

Galatians 3:24 – “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.”

In many ways the law teaches us God’s will in our daily lives. It is a mirror of the character of God. In the simplest of terms it is what God requires of us and expects of us in respect to words, attitude and behavior. The law is intended too expose sin and turn us away from it. The law has always been a source of debate among God’s people. The Law and Grace may in some instances be polarizing points but both are a major part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many tend to place the Law in a box…the Old Testament, safely tucked away, a thing of the past. We could spend some time exploring this theory but Jesus in his own words saved us the time…NKJV “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill”. God through all the Bible and long before Moses and the Ten Commandments spoke to his people most of the time through instructions and at times precise instructions. In Genesis we find what is most likely the very first law or if you prefer a direct instruction… 

Genesis 2:16-17

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;

17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

I suppose we can best sum this up by the following…Faith…We must not allow our faith In Jesus Christ to be burdened by the Law. There is that gift of Grace…We who place our faith in Jesus Christ are freed of our sins, not to be judged by the Law. The sanctifying blood Jesus shed on the cross allows us to be presented blameless before our God. In the old Testament it is written that a Jew shall keep the word of God close to his heart and ever foremost in his head. The forgiving Grace of God through the  blood of Jesus on the Cross is a gift we cannot earn…

NLT

13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

As Christians we are not to accept the Law as a burden but rather use it to expose those things that dishonor and displeases God.  May you grow every day in Faith through the Grace of God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Life is Good

jk

Welcome back…been so hot and the humidity so bad I was waiting for it to cool off a bit. This evening is perfect back porch  pondering weather… 81 degrees and a cool breeze. I have been trying to clear my head some but one thought won’t go away. We all are aware of this gender uproar, which by the way I am now trying to just ignore. I like to attribute by attitude not to politeness but to that old John Wayne axiom, “Man gotta do what a man gotta do” and in this case that goes for the ladies also. Even this way of thinking does not relieve me of the questions…why does a middle age man desire to dress like a woman and to make it harder to understand…Why seek to expose young children to their chosen …whatever it is? What this gender mess leads me to believe is that a lot of folks are not happy with who they are and of course nobody thought to ask God about this mess, after all God created you as you are. That is another thing to ponder here on the back porch and that leads me to this…The things we do to destroy anything that doesn’t fit the narrative.

I don’t know how you folks feel about this Woke stuff but I want to go on record as saying it ain’t anything new. The damage it has done to history and the preserving of the great cultural heritage’s that have shaped our nation is a terrible tragedy. Two things I want to share with you this evening. Back to the fifties, I was still in high school when I was first introduced to these two treasures.  

Song of the South is a 1946 American live-action/animated  drama film directed by Harve Foster and Wilfred Jackson; produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is based on the Uncle Remus stories as adapted by Joel Chandler Harris, and stars James Baskett as Uncle Remus in his final film role. Johnny befriends Uncle Remus, an elderly worker on the plantation, and takes joy in hearing his tales about the adventures of Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Fox, and Br’er Bear. Johnny learns from the stories how to cope with the challenges he is experiencing while living on the plantation.

(Wikipedia) 

This film should be a national treasure, the music score and the the absolute brilliance of the performance of James Baskett, the talent of Walt Disney and his people leaves us with some lessons of life that are priceless. This is an early example of woke and the destruction it leaves in its path, when reason is kidnaped by social justice warriors to further their agendas. 

This is a tough one… Every afternoon I would rush home from school to see this show. It was and still is one of my favorite TV shows of the early days. This is a piece from  https://en.wikipedia.org. Amos ’n” Andy is an American radio sitcom about black characters, initially set in Chicago and later in the Harlem section of New York City. In 1951 CBS launched the Amos ‘n’ Andy television series, with African American actors Alvin Childress and Spencer Williams, Jr., playing Amos and Andy, respectively. The show was the first TV series to feature an all-black cast.

It is tough because the tensions of the time do lend some reality to the action taken.That said, the price we paid was not being able to laugh at these people…but being denied the chance to laugh with them. Such a rich culture and perseverance they had to make the best out of every day life. The acting and the writing were superb and I never felt like they were being belittled or being made fun of…this show made my day better every time I watched it. It is a shame that we can no longer laugh together…that is what we should Wake up to! 

See you on the back porch next time, you are always welcome

jk