Definition of a Gentleman

Today the Vatican announced the canonization of Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) whose great mind left a goodly body of written work and whose leadership helped shape the Oxford Movement.  Since college days, there are few pieces of writing which I have returned to so often , usually to assess my own failings! -- as his Definition of a Gentleman taken from a lecture series on The Idea of a University.  In case you don't know the work,  here it is, and with no further comment from me.

"Hence it is that it is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature; like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and animal heat without them. The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast --- all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to make every one at his ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favors while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort; he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets everything for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp saying for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny.

If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of better, perhaps, but less educated minds; who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive their adversary, and leave the question more involved than they find it. He may be right or wrong in his opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust; he is as simple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is decisive. Nowhere shall we find greater candor, consideration, indulgence: he throws himself into the minds of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. He knows the weakness of human reason as well as its strength, its province and its limits.

If he be an unbeliever, he will be too profound and large-minded to ridicule religion or to act against it; he is too wise to be a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity. He respects piety and devotion; he even supports institutions as venerable, beautiful, or useful, to which he does not assent; he honors the ministers of religion, and it contents him to decline its mysteries without assailing or denouncing them. He is a friend of religious toleration, and that, not only because his philosophy has taught him to look on all forms of faith with an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling, which is the attendant on civilization."

In case you've seen the Popeyes vs Chick-FIl-A thing on FB

Service at Popeyes is somewhere between McDonald's and a three-toed sloth (actually there is not much difference between service at McDonald's and a three-toed sloth so that is a narrow margin); the chicken is okay but you have a 50-50 chance of getting the correct order on a good day. My dad loves Popeyes so I have to wrestle food from the staff there (Olive Branch - Goodman Road)  all too often. This versus the dual line, thank you-please-yes sir,no m'am, right the first  time and every time, God Bless America serving of excellent food at Chick-fil-A.  So your choice can be politics or food. Do what you want but I'm hungry!

And it's only Monday

Facebook (or other social media) is a platform to share, catch up, rejoice, and have fun.

Facebook is should NOT be a platform to demean, picks fights, and condemn. If you want to know my views on immigration, gun control-rights, prolife-prochoice, political agendas, gender & marriage, and more, you will need to ask me... offline. If you want to debate any of them, I'll be happy to accommodate ...but only in person, not online. Online "debate" quickly devolves into a playground for bullies and cowards.

Clearly, I am about a decade behind in my views on social media, but I'll stick with the idea that basic civility is always to be desired in any epoch or age. I can dream, can't I?

Eras of Service

To say 2018 has not been a good year for me is an understatement, but one on which I do not need to dwell.  Instead, it is best to find some good. A recent Commercial Appeal article on my friend Julie Allen, stills volunteering at 93, is exactly that. President Bush’s funeral was a testament to the good in civic and personal service that can me done long after leaving office. Former Mayor Bill Morris’ maxim that service does not end when a job does is one that he has lived out and one that all of us need to embrace. My time of leadership may be past, but I still find ways to serve and hopefully to lend a hand to younger people in their endeavors. It is important for me to find the balance in giving too much advice and being available when needed; sometimes I miss the mark on finding that balance and I apologize to my patient young friends who put up with me! Memphis is on the brink of great things and at the same time suffers from some debilitating problems…an observation that you can cut, paste, and repeat since 1819. To look at all that needs to be changed is daunting, to look at the bits & pieces that you and I can do to make our town better or a day better for one person, that is do-able and in fact, is vital.

On Albert Herring at U of M

On November 16 & 18  the opera department of the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music at the University of Memphis mounted a production of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring.  The work is billed as a comic opera.  Please get any notions of P.D. Wodehouse or Gilbert & Sullivan out of your head straightaway. The opera might be comic if compared to Britten’s Billy Budd since there is no hanging in it.  Dark nature of the libretto aside, the real focus of the piece must be the music.

This production boasted an orchestra of 12 players including strings, woodwinds, a piano, a harp, and a single French horn.  If these few, these brave few did not feel as though they had won the battle of Agincourt at the end of three hours, it would only be because they were too exhausted to feel anything at all.  The score is simply the most difficult I have ever heard performed, and  kudos to the ensemble who did a masterful job. Under the direction of new musical director Hyery Hwang, the players were kept busy page after page with some melodies and a great many trills and run, now in dissonance, now in consonance, now behind a The dynamics were mainly appropriate and only occasionally did the orchestral volume overpower the singers.  Hwang’s focused conducting held beautifully together sections which could very easily have gone off track.

singer who may or may not have the same rhythm or melodic line, now apart.

The opera, set in 1900 in East Suffolk,  is in English and while the singing what clear, the supertitles were helpful.  The voices were strong and good. Maria Fasciano as Lady Billows had the necessary voice and presence  to dominate the stage. Showing a particularly excellent coloration of tone was  Alexandra Colaizzi as Nancy.  Notable also were the supposed stumbles of the town’s children organized a rudimentary, village choral group; all of the supporting roles were very well acted as well as sung.   

No where was the singing more integral to the plot than in act two, scene two when we finally see the protagonist Albert as played by Vernon DiCarlo sing more than one or two lines as he had been so confined in the first act. In this scene, his character comes to his own in both life choices and in voice. And a fine voice Di Carlo displayed.

Throughout the opera, the cast did an admirable, even extraordinary job, in bring vocal precision and strength to phrases which had no corresponding orchestral support other than possibly chords and sometime even dissonant chords at that.  This is no Verdi or Puccini work with a swelling orchestra setting up the singer for a bring-it-to-the-balcony aria. You will not leave the theater humming any familiar tune because there isn’t any. Debuting in 1947 Britten’s work is a platform for the performers to reach deep and find the notes; our cast as University of Memphis did so with confidence and beauty.

Albert Herring will probably not be a work that you will want to see again and again. It is absolutely one by which you can see the naked talent (or lack thereof) of both musicians and singers. It is a litmus test and when passed, a thing of wonder and admiration.

The Other Statues

I was asked to recount how I became involved with Zion Cemetery for a history being compiled by the cemetery board. Zion Christian Cemetery was founded in 1876 on what is now South Parkway as a burial site for African-Americans. The 17-acre parcel of land was purchased by a group calling themselves the Sons of Zion, and between the founding date and the mid-1960s somewhere between 22,000 and 30,000 African-Americans were buried there. It was abandoned in the 60s when heirs to the original Sons died off. The cemetery quickly went back to nature, swallowed in vines, tall grasses, large thorn bushes,  and scrub brush; even small tree grew covering some graves. Vandalism and crime prevailed. In the 1980s a descendant of a Son deeded the cemetery to the CME denomination which is headquartered in Memphis. Some studies were made, a fence was built, but restoration efforts stalled. My chapter begins in the late 1990s and runs for about a decade. I still support the cemetery but no longer lead volunteer clean us as the site is now -- I am happy to say - almost entirely uncovered.  Here is the story I submitted to the board:

A Renewed Effort for Zion

by Ken Hall

In 1997 or 1988 Ken Moody, then head of the Mayor’s Citizens Service Center, called Hands on

Memphis ask for volunteers to help clean up Zion Christian Cemetery. His office had been contacted by neighbors of the cemetery complaining about the trash and extreme overgrown nature of the site. We visited it together and found debris of all kinds among the acres of tall – in some cases four to six feet tall – weeds.  By virtue of blocking the view from the street, the weeds, massive thorn bushes, scrub brush, and sampling trees served as a convenient screen for criminal activities; neighbors told of “chop shop” operations to strip stolen cars, drug deals, sexual assaults, and more. Clearing the cemetery was deemed a matter of safety. Vandalism, too, was rampant as headstones had been taken or broken. Over the years as volunteers pushed back the brush line yard by yard, a strange array of items was discovered – car parts, shingles,  a pay telephone,  bicycle parts, parts of appliances, as well as a seemingly unending supply of cans and bottles.

Hands on Memphis was a nonprofit founded in 1993 to serve as a connecter for people wishing to volunteer wish charitable organizations in need of volunteers.  On average 20 to 30 projects were scheduled each month for a team of volunteers, usually 5 to10 people. Volunteers team would clean toys at LeBonheur, hold a reading session at Ronald McDonald House, build wheelchairs ramps with MIFA, and much more under the guidance of a representative from the agency.  Aside from the monthly projects, Hands on Memphis held an annual Servathon Day which engaged as many as 700-1,000 volunteer working at 40-60 sites.

I served as executive director of Hands on Memphis from 1997 to 2003, and had worked on a number of project with Ken Moody prior to receiving the call about Zion.  His call came shortly before the annual Servathon so that we were able to field a team of volunteers. We connected with Rev. Bill Smith  who met us on the site and gave an overview of the cemetery history. That first day was daunting as we were armed with a few rakes, hoes, and shovels. A good deal of progress was made around the area of the gates.

We again visited the project for the next year’s Servathon and were disappoint to see that no further efforts had followed up our work from the previous year; in fact, every inch that we had cleared was grown over as if no work had been done.  This was clear note in line with our normal model of engaging with a nonprofit organization for ongoing work. There was discussion about abandoning the annual effort as futile.  I decided to try to find away to create an ongoing monthly project and would take on the responsibility myself of serving as team leader. Having grown up on a farm, I was familiar with brush clearing and tools such as swing blades, ditch or Kaiser blades, axes, and machetes. Through Rev. Smith, I was able to learn about the role of the CME denomination and contact Rev. Tyrone Davis.  I served as leader of a monthly project at the cemetery well beyond my tenure at Hands on Memphis, probably a decade in total before entirely handing off the reins to younger, abler folks.  Rev. Davis and I were together at almost every monthly (plus the additional group project dates) for several years and became good friends.

During this time, the Hands on Memphis calendar listed a Zion clean up day one Saturday each

month; some Saturdays there would be 15 volunteers and some Saturdays only two or three. We worked year around cutting and dragging out brush in 30 degree weather and 100 degree weather.  Periodically, larger groups would contact me –  college students alternative spring  break or summer mission trip from other states,  local high school groups, church groups, etc. – so that some month there might be two or three clean up days bringing in anywhere from 20 to 150 volunteers. The bigger clean up days meant huge pile of brush bring dragged out of the cemetery and onto the curb; this meant coordination with the City of Memphis Solid Waste Department which sometimes went smoothly and sometimes not. Memphis City Beautiful was a helpful partner in later years as a go between.

Early Hands on Memphis in this endeavor began building an inventory of swing blades and machetes though clearly , unlike paint rollers and trays which we might use at a dozen agencies,  these tools were only useful at Zion.  I wrote a grant proposal specifically for Zion which obtained support from FedEx to pass through to create the beginning of a tool inventory. With this we purchased a massive self-propelled brush cutter which can cut a swatch three feet wide through the most impenetrable brush. Also we obtained heavy duty, metal bladed weedeaters as well as more hand tools. A second grant resulted in a 5’x 10’ trailer which became out mobile tool shed.  In 2004 the new executive director of Hands on Memphis moved the organizations offices to as smaller space with much less room for tool storage. For a couple of years the Zion tool trailer was stored in my back yard – making my appearance at the regular cemetery

clean up dates a command performance! – until it was eventually relocated to Rhodes College.  Dr. Milton Moreland who came to the project a couple of years after I did and eventually took over the monthly leadership role, was instrumental in finding the new home for the trailer. Milton, Tyrone, and I became a very effective trio in recruiting, organizing, and managing volunteer groups of all sizes.

 In 2006 Hands on Memphis ceased to exist as a separate entity, merging into Volunteer Mid-South.

That organization was more inclined to listing projects and promoting best practices than actually organizing projects .  I continued to work on the cemetery for a couple more years bringingvolunteers when they were available and meeting groups that inquired. Job changes and health issues sidelined me from regular participation in the field work though I would help out as called upon with anything from briefing traveling volunteers groups to writing press releases.

The cemetery board has done a remarkable job in the past few years

by bringing in some hired workers, and a a result the cemetery is in a remarkable state, far better than we could ever have done with periodic volunteers alone.

The role that Hands on Memphis played was to connect the cemetery project to a larger community during a time of transition and by continual activity create awareness in the eyes of the general public.  We were able to introduce hundreds of individual volunteers as well as corporate, congregational, and organizational volunteers to the cemetery. Between the planning done in the 1980s by Ron Walter, Ritchie Smith, and other to the nearly pristine state today, Hands on Memphis bridged

a gap.

I would be remiss if I did not mention some of these –

• ·         Idlewild Presbyterian Church who housed volunteers from Kent State for bi-annual work weeks in the cemetery.
• Dr. Christine McVay of Kent State who brought students down for a week of hard work, twice a year for several years.
• ·         Fellowship Bible Church which adopted an acre for a year.
• ·         John Carroll, first with Fellowship and then with Choose901, who brought dozens of college groups from all over the US to Zion.
• ·         Rhodes College which has helped with everything from student volunteers to a web site to hosting the annual dinner.
• ·         George Davis, a committed young man from the neighborhood who was a faithful volunteer until his untimely death.
• ·         Gus Mealor who brought his fellow medical school out of a regular basis until he residency transfer took him out of Memphis.
• ·         Memphis City Beautiful, FedEx, BellSouth (now AT&T), Carnival Memphis, MUS, BridgeBuilders,  and many , many more.

The most important lesson of Zion to me is how a problem, in this case blight, can bring diverse people together in common cause.

The Slide from Incivility to Cowardly

A few years back I made a social media post which rankled one of my FB friends (who I had known in person long before FB),  and rather than approach me about it, she went to my boss who she knew. I was completely blindsided.  I was (and remain) supremely angry with her.

The internet has evolved…but not for the better.  A year or so ago, some other FB friend made some horrible remarks.  As a result some random person from Canada decided to make a post on my FB page. That’s pretty intrusive. I unfriended her not because of him (I blocked him) but because of her.  

Today, someone irate over another person’s social media post spent time  trolling the poster’s friends and leading a serious, threatening attack on an innocent person.  This crosses a line. You can argue , debate, even name call  (if you were raised that way), but making threats against a person, friends, family, livelihood is cowardly and thuggish.

The first lesson is one for all of us: we have too many friends on FB (and other platforms) that we just don’t really know. It is okay to say “no thanks” and not accept every request. I think LinkedIn is the world’s center of all spam now and some distorted people consider it a dating site. Social media is not a fun, little game anymore.

Second lesson, there is no right side of history if you cross the line from argument to threats; at that point you are neither progressive nor conservative, but simply a cretin.

Third, be careful about hero worshiping the activist du jour ordained by the media/social media; this one dimensional portrait will hide a sea of flaws and possibly malicious intent.

The world is full of opinions. You may or may not be proved right in the long run.  Try not to damage yourself or others in the proving. Some words and actions cannot be undone, and you may want to live in the same town for a few more years.