Category: Ethics

Art, Books, Children, Competition, Culture, Ethics, humanity, Immigration, Justice, Movie Reviews, Race, REVIEWS--Books, Movies, Music5 Comments

To Kill A Mockingbird…50 years later

Gary Furr

Here in Alabama, To Kill a Mockingbird is one of our great treasures.  You can still go to Monroeville, Alabama and see a live re-enactment of the story every year by the local citizenry.  You start out in the yard, then move inside the courthouse, and it is eerily reminiscent of the movie because Hollywood built a replica of it for the film.  When I went with friends a few years back, I felt a flash of shame and pain when the n-word was uttered while African American locals up in the balcony were in our presence.  I was embarrassed.  So we’ve made some progress, I guess.  As a child in North Carolina the word was uttered around me thoughtlessly, as a part of an unquestioned culture of resentment and vulnerable entitlement. Continue reading “To Kill A Mockingbird…50 years later”

Citizenship, Ethics, Justice, Leadership, Love, Race2 Comments

The Two Cases of Trayvon Martin

Gary Furr

When it comes to the painful problem of race, it’s never about one thing…it’s about everything.  By Gary Furr The explosion that has occurred in recent days over the shooting of a Florida  teenager has reignited one of our oldest and most enduring debates.  The case of Trayvon Martin has caused outbursts between journalists, demonstrations and a weary “Will we ever be able to move past this?” cloud to hover again over us.  The gulf between the races is painfully obvious.  It sounds as though we are talking about two different cases.  And we are. In the late 1980s, I … Continue reading The Two Cases of Trayvon Martin

Christianity, Citizenship, Ethics, Taxes1 Comment

Tax Help for the Creatively Impaired

Gary Furr

It’s Spring Break.  The Church people with the means and the houses are skiing and walking on the beach.  I’m working and doing taxes in my spare time.  Tax time is like judgment day.  All the whinin’ in the world ain’t going to make it anything other than what it was.  So, get to it, son.  But the mind can’t help excusing.  So, here are some of my inside thoughts, just for you, in case you need them at the audit or while working on your tax program or separating receipts. You see what you’ve done with all your time … Continue reading Tax Help for the Creatively Impaired

Christianity, Creativity, Culture, Ethics, Leadership, Love, Politics

The State of the Union–of Love and Truth

Gary Furr
Gary Furr

Love and truth belong together.  So why is it that they are so often found separated?  Moral life arises from the recognition of eternal truth, the acceptance of the reality of others in that same truth, and the sensitivity to feel the connection between them.  Puritan preacher Richard Baxter said love for one’s neighbor is akin to hunger and food connecting.  It makes possible a new and different conversation.

Truth and love cannot live divorced from one another.  Otherwise we are, in the former case, driven to principles rendered only as power, devoid of kindness and the graces and kindnesses of feeling for the other. Continue reading “The State of the Union–of Love and Truth”

Art, Creativity, Culture, Spirituality, Writing1 Comment

Finding Your Voice

Gary Furr
Gary Furr

It’s become a cliche only because it is so powerful and pervasive.  Your “voice,” I once heard songwriter Pat Terry say, is what makes people say, “That’s a Gary Furr song” or “that’s a (your name here) story.’  I have thought about this for thirty years, focused when I once, during a five day solitary retreat started to say a short prayer I had been using to center myself and blurted out, “Father, help me to be myself.”

If that sounds so very self-centered in our culture already so “you-can-be-whatever-you-want-to-be,” permit me to observe that despite our coaching of selves and self-focus I sure meet a lot of broken ones out there in life.  People wounded and held back by a voice in their head:  “you’ll never amount to anything,” and somettimes not even traumatic voices–just ones we imbibe from our world.  “So many people are better than you.  What do you have to offer?  What’s the point?” Continue reading “Finding Your Voice”