THE YEAR OF THE HORSE WAS JODY'S YEAR 1930-2014

JAN 31, 2014
Enter the year of the Blue Horse

For centuries the Chinese have had a yearly cycle designated with a creature or an animal’s name. From today on, until January 2015, the Chinese symbol for the year is the horse.

The spirit of the horse is one that makes great efforts to improve themselves. The Ancients liked to designate an able person as “Qian Li Ma,” a horse that covers a thousand li a day. (“Li” is a Chinese mile, or thereabouts.)

Unfortunately all of us can’t be born in the Year of the Horse. I am one of those born at the tail end of the Year of the Snake. In polite society it is known as the Year of the Small Dragon.

I must agree with the records that say one born the Year of Horse is energetic, bright, warm-hearted, intelligent and able.
Why do I agree? Because, my lovely wife of nearly 64 years, Nelda JoAnn Long Towery, known to one and all as Jody, was born in the Year of the Horse, 1930. She is all of that and more.

Jody has the communicating techniques so evidently needed in the art of teaching. She began as an elementary teacher at Alice Carlson Elementary School, next to the campus of Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas.

Then in the beautiful desert in San Manuel, Arizona; teaching English and Bible in Pingtung, Taiwan. She kept at it with vigor in Hong Kong: Pui Ching Middle School and Hong Kong Baptist University in Kowloon, and Hong Kong International School on south side of Hong Kong Island.
The Ancients go on to say Year of the Horse people are cheerful, perceptive, talented. Earthy but stubborn. I am sure of one “stubborn” moment only. That was when she fell in love with West Texas and wanted to move to San Angelo. I’m glad she knew we should move here. These 12 years have been some of the best and we have lived in lots of places.

Now I should confess that the Ancients also listed a number of weaknesses. Those I do not think apply to Jody, so no reason to list them here.
Thanks to the Internet information sites we know that other outstanding people are Year of the Horse people: Chopin, Davy Crockett, Rembrandt, Teddy Roosevelt, Sir Isaac Newton, Harrison Ford, Jerry Seinfeld, Oprah Winfrey, Paul McCartney, the Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Yongzhen of China’s last dynasty, the Qing, and finally old Genghis Khan himself. What a crowd!

According to the Moscow Times, many Russians love to honor the animal that symbolizes the coming year, based on the Chinese astrological calendar, believing — half-jokingly but many would insist – that it brings them luck for the next 12 months.

The Moscow Times advises its readers: “The year of the wooden horse is supposed to be a temperamental one, so if you feel like horsing around during the upcoming festivities, that may be particularly fitting this year. Just be careful with the fireworks: Setting something on fire or upsetting a police officer would be backing the wrong horse.”

To be precise, the color blue in the Year of the Blue Wooden Horse, is suppose to be a lucky color to wear. Green also ranks as a lucky color to many Asian peoples as well as the Irish.

Russians and some others speak of the Blue Horse, while in the Chinese tradition the Horse is green. In fact, both blue and green are possible, as are emerald and turquoise. Green is the color associated with wood, nature and harmony. Blue is the color for Water, the element that nourishes the Wood.

(Personal Word: Last Christmas night Jody had a stroke from which she is coping at this time. She always read these columns to help me do s better job of writing. I shall be very glad if and when she can do so again,)

ON FEB. 8 JODY PASSED FROM THIS WORLD TO A GREATER ONE. SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN 84 MARCH 4.

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WHENCE COMETH THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION???

Feb. 28 Towery column

Whence cometh the U.S. Constitution?

DeLay says God wrote our constitution. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay made the news again last week when he announced that God wrote the U.S. Constitution.

James Madison, the lead author of the United States Constitution, and later the fourth president of the United States could not be reached for comment. (Records show Madison died in 1836.)

DeLay was voicing his concern that the American government is becoming secular, and leaving its spiritual roots. In the interview Delay said, “we stopped realizing that God created this nation, that he wrote the Constitution, that it’s based on biblical principles.”

To rise to the occasion DeLay’s supporters tell us that DeLay meant that God guided those who physically wrote the Constitution. DeLay was speaking metaphorically.

This is politics for the 21st century? Apparently it is as America’s ultra-right wing of the Christian religion continues to insist that the United States began as a Christian nation. The only way for America to become great again is in a religious awakening. Their thinking is in a Christian revival, not in connection with other faiths. The Christian faith alone is included in the phrase, “freedom of religion.”

Tom DeLay, who was convicted of money laundering and conspiracy charges until the Texas appeals court overturned the judgment, continues in the interview that he has been trying to lead members of the House to Bible study. He assured Matthew Hagee, son of John, pastor of the San Antonio Cornerstone Church that Americans “stopped realizing that God created this nation, that he wrote the Constitution.”

This sounds a lot like the revelations in Jeff Sharlet’s 2008 book “The Family” that was about the frat house for Jesus on C Street in Washington, D.C. The congressmen, lobbyist and Republican and Democratic supporters lived in an eighteenth-century brick row house on C Street. Bible study and prayer meetings (in their view) would restore fundamentalist faith to America’s political agenda.

C Street was the old political power grab with an evangelistic approach. The homosexual problems in Uganda today grew from these men’s opposition to anything related to gay rights. Congressmen even went to Uganda urging the government to make anything gay illegal.

Religions of the world generally have good relationships with one another until one of them claims to worship the one and only true God. The trouble is between monotheists. Monotheists believe in one God. The greatest of these are the Christians, the Jews, and the Muslims.

These three, following the ancient texts, each claims to have a lock on God. Living by the letter of their own religious texts, puts them at odds with each other and other religions.

That is why a fanatic Muslim becomes a human bomb, refuses to eat pork and abstains from alcoholic drinks, goes to his heaven in the process. Not every Muslim, just the fanatic taking his book literally.

Throughout the Jewish scriptures are rules for fasting, warring, loving, cooking, and activities to be done or avoided on the Sabbath. They too, like their Arab brothers, have a dislike for pork products. (But Hebrew Nation makes a wonderful all beef weenie.)

A full embrace of scripture is simply to believe it, act on it, make it as a means of pleasing God. That is why we have fundamentalist, conservative and liberal religious believers. Each in his or her own way is seeking to grow closer to God and Truth through their own understanding and faith.

As time evolved religious man or woman sought to be more religious than their neighbors. As religions developed, divided and grew more common, humans felt their god was much better than the god across the pasture.

So what is so different today when a politician or a preacher says his god is the true God, sewing discontent. They were not there when God, after writing the Ten Commandments, wrote us a constitution.

What does it mean? Simple answer: No one knows. I was not there “In the beginning…”

--30--

Feb. 21 Towery newspaper column ---- A classic book is born in jail

There was a Baptist preacher who was known more for being thrown in jail than making converts. In the year 1678, this middle class man of fifty years wrote a book.

The father of the preacher-writer was the son of a rural tinker who mended utensils, pots and pans. The boy traveled with his father, learning the trade and meeting a variety of people.

Later in this preacher’s life he would talk much about his poor upbringing, when actually he did not grow up in poverty nor did he lack an education.

At the age of 16 he joined the Parliamentary army and fought in the English Civil War. He married a young woman he described as “amiable and religious.” Her dowry was simple: a Bible and two other religious books.

The man was John Bunyan and his book became the renowned “The Pilgrim’s Progress.”

In his 1666 autobiography, Grace Abounding, Bunyan wrote about his youth, describing himself as did the Apostle Paul as the "chief of sinners." The sins he listed were profanity, dancing, and bell-ringing.

John Bunyan’s conversion to Christianity was with a nonconformist sect. A nonconformist was a believer who did not conform to the teachings and worship of the Church of England. Numbers of nonconformist left for the British colonies in America.

One thing this sect did not do was preach or worship in public. They were real “house churches.” Not authorized to worship as they pleased. John Bunyan began preaching in public places and he was thrown in jail.

The story goes that the judge asked Bunyan to give up preaching, but he refused. Next the judge asked Bunyan to just stop preaching even in private groups. What the king feared was such private gathers were forming plots against him.

Bunyan refused the judge on that count as well and he stayed in prison for 12 years. When released he went right back to preaching the Gospel but was jailed again for six months.

To support his family while in jail he made thousands of shoelaces. But this work did not meet the need he felt about the Christian life and he began to write “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” (A “denn” was another word for jail.)

He begins his book: "As I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a Denn; And I laid me down in that place to sleep: And as I slept I dreamed a Dream." (A “Denn” was another word for jail.)

Many are the lessons in this powerful allegory. Many of the phrases are a part of the English language. It follows its main character, Christian, on a journey from the City of Destruction (earth) to the Celestial City (heaven).

Along the way Christian faces many difficulties as is common to all of us. Places like the Valley of Humiliation, Slough of Despond, Doubting Castle and Hill Difficulty.

He meets interesting bunch of characters along his journey, each with a lesson for him: Mr. Worldly Wiseman, Old Honest, Mr. By-Ends, and Talkative.

The book was a best seller from the first day. It has been translated numerous times into many languages. (In our first year of studying Chinese, we were required to read portions in Mandarin.)

With all the trials of Christian readers are reminded there is no “free lunch,” or “bed of roses” without leaving the impression of being “persecuted.” It is just the way life is.

This classic would not be such a treasure had the nonconformists been stamped out by the government. It was a tremendous step toward freedom of religion.

--30--

George Volsky -- White Russian Refugee

Feb. 7 Towery column

George Volsky, A White Russian’s Story (693 words)

It was winter, the year 1969, when I met face to face with a White Russian. It was in a small hotel in the Tsimshatsui District of Kowloon, the mainland side of the British colony of Hong Kong. One of those hotels reached by a long narrow and steep staircase. There were many of these establishments serving as a rest stop for travelers coming and going in this unique China border and British port city.

The term ‘White Russian’ had nothing to do with race. It was a term for ethnic Russians who opposed the Bolsheviks in the 1917 Russian Revolution. Many Russians were forced to leave their homeland with the Soviet’s communist takeover of the government.

Many Russian refugees settled in China. Harbin, on the border with Mongolia and Russia, had 100,000 Russians by the 1930s. Portions of the city are still distinctly Russian with Eastern Orthodox churches and Russian language and culture still quite noticeable. Shanghai became one of the best-known artistic centers in the Far East due to the presence of exiled first-class opera singers, ballerinas and musical comedy stars from Russia.

The lot of the White Russian was never good anywhere. A White Russian woman in Shanghai wanted a passport more than any treasure. They were stateless with no country and no ability to go anywhere. So any single American or European man became easy prey.

For the White Russian males it was even more desperate. The stigma of statelessness hung around their necks like an albatross. He had little hope of marrying even a girl of his own race. Because he was a foreigner and poor, it was out of the question to marry a Chinese girl
Their plight became even more hazardous when the Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Any foreigner or person with any foreign connections was suspect as an enemy of the people. The Communist began to force the White Russians to leave. Hong Kong was the most convenient exit port.

George Volsky was the first White Russian I met. He spoke enough English for me to understand his story. Fellow-Russians had helped him from the Lowu border train station (now Shenzhen) and found him this room. Several of them were in the room as we talked.
He was born in China and had lived in Shanghai since 1934. He was a secretary for a British Reality Company before the Communist took over in 1948. After that there was no work for a foreigner.

He had a Russian passport that he received during the Japanese years in Shanghai. It was not one of the new Soviet passports, but they half-heartedly honored it. He had to report in person to the Soviet Consulate once a week.

The passport helped with the amount of rations the Communist provided from time to time. Through a black market.
In his broken, yet precise English, he said, “If you wish to know from the beginning, it was 1962. I am having a dinner at half-past eight. It is Russian New Year. Friday, January 12, I have a friend there and one Chinese lady. I’m a bachelor and natural have girl friend.”
George Voskey’s dinner friend, Mr. Kostoniony, excused himself after dinner and George walked him to the door and out to the gate of the compound. George said was “a sort of a half-lawyer or something.”

At the gate he saw a strange sight. Crowds of people were in the street. “Of course,” he continues, “I always have a feeling I will be arrested. One by one every foreigner has been arrested and my time must be coming.”

George Voskey was repatriated to Australia the year after we talked. He never said what happened to Mr. Kostoniony.
Do we really appreciate the honor and privilege we have to live where there is the fear of being arrested? America is still free or we would not be talking about NSA spying on us, and other stuff that may not be ideal, but as long as it can stay in the public press or news we need not fear the taking away of our rights.

--30--

Aug. 9, 2013 ---- Britt Towery column “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” The cartoon showed two bored office workers, idly gazing out the window, when one of them said, “Let’s go to California and start a new religion.” Fair or not, California has been a starting place for many religious-minded (and otherwise) folk to break out new ways to find and share the religion of their choice. More than three in four of Americans say religion is losing its influence in the United States, writes Dan Merica of CNN. It is evident that many Americans do not think this is a good thing. According to a Gallup survey 75 percent of Americans said the country would be better off if it were more religious. There may be some answers to why church attendance is slipping ever so slightly, and bored office or blue collar workers are looking for something more challenging. The last fifteen years books dealing with the history and reality of Christianity have become best sellers such as: Charles Kimball’s “When Religion Becomes Evil.” John D. Caputo’s “What Would Jesus Deconstruct?” “Water Into Wine” by Tom Harpur and Neale Donald Walsch’s three books on “Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue.” Historian and scholar, Reza Asian, has just published a new biography of Jesus, “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth,” Professor Asian was born in Iran and grew up in America. He accepted Jesus as his savior in his teens. (Later he returned to the faith of his fathers.) The book relates the author’s spiritual journey while understanding the peasants, priests, soldiers and their daily lives of Jesus’ Palestine. This biography seeks to separate the man from deity. I found the book an interesting read. It shares the epoch-making story through the writings of men who were there before, during and after Jesus. He says he wrote the book “in order to spread the good news of the Jesus of history with the same fervor that I once applied to spreading the story of the Christ.” “Ironically,” Asian writes, “the more I learned about the life of the historical Jesus, the turbulent world in which he lived, and brutality of the Roman occupation that he defied, the more I was drawn to him.” Reading this book and a couple of Tom Harpur’s books filled in a lot of gaps in my faith, hope and understanding of religion in general. These books increased my faith because of the honesty and enlightenment they brought. Harpur is a former columnist for the Toronto Star, an Anglican priest and a Rhodes scholar. Twenty-first century believers and unbelievers are questioning about Jesus, the Son of Man, just as they were from the beginning of his ministry. The first 300 years were filled with what we might call “denominations” today. Those with the historical-literalist approach won the battle of “views” and have been with us to this day. That could be one reason people are seeing little relevance in “church going” and want more than set-in-concrete, unquestioning blind observance in their faith: traditions, rituals, rites, demands, regulations, ceremonies and even “know-it-all” sermonizers. I began with a joke about guys starting a new religion. There is no reason to start a new religion, nor a new denomination. The world has more than enough of both. There are many reasons to grow up in our faith and know what we believe and why. Church-goers will find in spiritual growth the dimension that may be lacking. --30--

“Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” The cartoon showed two bored office workers, idly gazing out the window, when one of them said, “Let’s go to California and start a new religion.” Fair or not, California has been a starting place for many religious-minded (and otherwise) folk to break out new ways to find and share the religion of their choice. More than three in four of Americans say religion is losing its influence in the United States, writes Dan Merica of CNN. It is evident that many Americans do not think this is a good thing. According to a Gallup survey 75 percent of Americans said the country would be better off if it were more religious. There may be some answers to why church attendance is slipping ever so slightly, and bored office or blue collar workers are looking for something more challenging. The last fifteen years books dealing with the history and reality of Christianity have become best sellers such as: Charles Kimball’s “When Religion Becomes Evil.” John D. Caputo’s “What Would Jesus Deconstruct?” “Water Into Wine” by Tom Harpur and Neale Donald Walsch’s three books on “Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue.” Historian and scholar, Reza Asian, has just published a new biography of Jesus, “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth,” Professor Asian was born in Iran and grew up in America. He accepted Jesus as his savior in his teens. The book relates the author’s spiritual journey while understanding the peasants, priests, soldiers and their daily lives of Jesus’ Palestine. This biography seeks to separate the man from deity. I found the book an interesting read. It shares the epoch-making story through the writings of men who were there before, during and after Jesus. He says he wrote the book “in order to spread the good news of the Jesus of history with the same fervor that I once applied to spreading the story of the Christ.” “Ironically,” Asian writes, “the more I learned about the life of the historical Jesus, the turbulent world in which he lived, and brutality of the Roman occupation that he defied, the more I was drawn to him.” Reading this book and a couple of Tom Harpur’s books filled in a lot of gaps in my faith, hope and understanding of religion in general. These books increased my faith because of the honesty and enlightenment they brought. Harpur is a former columnist for the Toronto Star, an Anglican priest and a Rhodes scholar. Twenty-first century believers and unbelievers are questioning about Jesus, the Son of Man, just as they were from the beginning of his ministry. The first 300 years were filled with what we might call “denominations” today. Those with the historical-literalist approach won the battle of “views” and have been with us to this day. That could be one reason people are seeing little relevance in “church going” and want more than set-in-concrete, unquestioning blind observance in their faith: traditions, rituals, rites, demands, regulations, ceremonies and even “know-it-all” sermonizers. I began with a joke about guys starting a new religion. There is no reason to start a new religion, nor a new denomination. The world has more than enough of both. There are many reasons to grow up in our faith and know what we believe and why. Church-goers will find in spiritual growth the dimension that may be lacking. --30--

Are religious women still second-class? It has been, from time to time, a now and then concern of mine for the nuns, sometimes called sisters, of the Roman Catholic Church, whose headquarters in the Vatican, a suburb of Rome, Italy, do some of the finest work of any religion. All women in ministry in this devout organization continue to be second-class employees according to their own superiors. These women lovingly care for the sick, teach the young, and have never been accused of any form of child abuse. Last year the Vatican appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest group of Catholic nuns, saying that the sisters “had serious doctrinal problems.” (Laurie Goodstein, New York Times.) The nuns were reprimanded for publicly disagreeing with the American bishops – the Roman Church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals. Being “a man of the cloth” once upon a time, all the religious doctrines, dogmas or traditional values, for me, have always been trumped by common sense. Common sense, which is anything but common, is seldom in the mix for religious leaders in Protestant and Catholic churches. This could be one of the reasons that religion is not making much of an impact on the present scene. Much of the good work the nuns do goes unnoticed, until long after they leave their “earth suit” for glories above, when they might be proclaimed a “Saint.” (But only if there are enough “miracles” credited to her ministry.) Women have been getting the blame for everything wrong since Adam, the coward, pointed to Eve and said: “The woman gave the forbidden fruit to me!” (The Roberts-Fisher song “Put The Blame on Mame, Boys” would be a good title for a book about the eternal plight of the so-called “weaker sex.”) Tis’ strange the Roman Catholics look askance at nuns while making much prayer to Mary, the mother of the historical Jesus. They cannot perform Mass. They take orders from priests, monsignors, bishops, archbishops, cardinals and papa, all of whom are men. On the web site CatholicEducation.org, Matthew Pinto writes: “Although the early Church allowed married clergy, the Church later came to see celibacy as a better example of the norm and model of Jesus’ priesthood.” (One thing Jesus never claimed was being a priest.) This Catholic website goes on to say: “Celibacy surely gains the Catholic clergy a hidden respect from many people.” The priesthood has been one of the most unfortunate inventions of the last 1000 years. They stand in for God; confession is to them; power grows as they “lead the flock.” In 306 A.D., the Council of Elvria decreed: “Bishops and other in ministry are to abstain completely from sexual intercourse with their wives. If anyone disobeys, he shall be removed from the clerical office.” The subject was violently debated for over 800 years until at the Second Lateran Council in the year 1139 sex and marriage was out for priests of the Roman Church. It was still a problem until 1322 when Pope John XXII decreed married men were forbidden from the priesthood. (Read the newspapers of the last 20 years for the results of such Middle Ages ignorance.) Sex has always been a “shameful” thing to Puritans and the Catholic male-dominated hierarchy. Why such fear? Who knows, possibly because a woman is involved? Which brings me back to why women in Roman Catholic society and culture are unworthy to lead? I thought I might have an answer to women being classified as lower than men, when most of them I have met remind me more of angels. Sometimes I think I can solve riddles, or problems, such as the saying: “Save America from Atheists (they are taking-over?); or “God Bless America” (why not the whole world?); or where did President Barack Obama find so many inept advisors? C.S. Lewis said in his book The Great Divorce: “A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and work it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.” --30--