THE NECESSARY AGONY OF YOUNGSTERS IN CHURCH SERVICES

As parents of two daughters, Anne and I were blessed...Debbie and Cindy were shy by nature and rarely said a peep in public. They were especially quiet when attending public gatherings like concerts or church services and in all honesty, I don't recall ever having lectured them on the subject of behaviour outside of the home.

Lucky us, I guess! Unfortunately, not all parents are that lucky

In my capacity as a lay preacher, I am particularly sensitive to kids' behaviour in church these days and die a thousand deaths with now all-too-few committed and commendable young parents who have to contend with squirming, vocal, two and three-year-olds who have no other outlet for their emotions or discomfort with present circumstances other than to let it hang out for all to hear, regardless of the time or place.

Just this past Sunday I had competition from two crying tiny-tot brothers (about a year apart) who had grown weary of the church thing during prayer time and I paused long enough for mom to remove them from the source of their agony.

Lord knows, in order for church to survive in this day and age, we need a generation of children in the pews. The future depends on it!

At the same time we know too well that it is easy for young families to find excuses to stay home on Sundays, but even on the most stressful mornings it is important that Christian parents bring their families to church, even if they feel like they are going through the motions. Children see what parents do and the regular struggle to attend worship reinforces to our children that church is a priority.

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6.

Whether you interpret Proverbs 22:6 as a promise for raising your kids “in the Lord” or a warning about not doing so, there’s one thing we know: what you do as a parent matters and it will lead to results. Our children are going to become adults, whether we want them to grow up or not!

I recently learned of an excellent study of the book of Ephesians by J.D. Greear. In the study, he talks about how God uses common relationships – marriage, family, work – as “laboratories” to make us more like Himself. A study participant described one of these laboratories as the family, where children learn to obey God by obeying their parents. “When we are young, our parents represent the authority of God to us. In a way, they stand in for God for a time. We first learn to obey and submit to God by obeying and submitting to our parents,” he explained.

Greear describes this relationship like training wheels. “When you’re learning to ride a bike, training wheels are critical. But the training wheels were never the point. Riding the bike was. In our relationship to our parents, the goal isn’t mere obedience. It’s a healthy and honoring family relationship—and, more importantly, a trajectory toward God.”

The years our children are in our homes are critical. These are the formative years when they are developing their entire worldview. The majority of adult Christians became Christians before turning 18. Actually, many follow Christ between the ages of 4-14. On the other hand, we’ve all seen the troubling numbers of young people (the “nones”) who are much more likely to lack any religion at all. Belief systems tend to form early, and while they can – and do sometimes change – it’s critical for parents to have an active role in a child’s spiritual development early on.

It’s not likely that Proverbs 22:6 is a guarantee of success for committed, Christ-following parents. But, it is important to recognize the truth the verse contains. God has given us an incredible responsibility by placing children in our care. The family is a primary mechanism God uses to grow His kingdom and grow His people. As a result, it’s our duty to teach our children about God. We are in an influential position, and what we do today will matter in our kids’ lives tomorrow.

"If we wait until we have perfectly well-behaved children to bring them to church, it is likely Jesus will have already returned," commented one mother consulted for this post. "Looking back, things only got more difficult for my parents as my sister and I got older. I have distinct memories of my dad sitting in the station wagon idling in the driveway while my mom herded us out the door."

"Once I could drive we would often take three cars to get four people to church because nobody could get out the door on time to suit my father. But we followed his lead," she added. "Going to church wasn’t debatable, and nobody had to tell us that. It was this habit that pulled me through as I doubted my faith in my adolescence."

It should be recognized that salvation is not dependent on behavior, so we should not make church attendance behavior-dependent, either. Our children need grace, and so do we. Regardless of how the children are acting during worship, if worship involves entering the presence of God, then what better time than with screaming children to experience such a grace.

So dear parent, rest easy. While Sunday morning might feel more like a wrestling match, a battle of wills, or a circus, your time, efforts, and distracted worship are worth it. Even the messiest and most frustrating days are not wasted. Thank God for his grace—and keep on bringing your kids to church...We need them!

In a way, they need us too.

It takes a village...and always a church or two!

A funny thing happened to me on the way to church this morning (Sunday).

As I was passing through the Village of Chatsworth, just southeast of Owen Sound, I spotted a church sign which read "Worship with us...Coffeehouse Service with Dick Wright".

"I've got a good 30 minutes to spare," I rationalized.  "Maybe I'll drop in and have a coffee with this guy. Maybe even listen a bit to what he has to say."

As I entered the front door to the church and was warmly greeted by several parishioners, I finally clued in...Low and behold, that guy "Dick Wright" was me. Good thing that I prepared for the service!

Traditionally, in this lively and vibrant rural community Presbyterian Church, the first Sunday in September marks the end of summer vacations and a return to the regular routines of life. The coffee house service was a casual one, held in the basement of the church. The congregation sat at tables where everyone could relax and enjoy a cup of coffee and cookies before the service, and a re-fill during a break halfway through it.

It was the first time that I had conducted a worship service at St. Andrew's in Chathsworth and it was an excellent opportunity to get to know people under less formal conditions than normally is the case when leading worship in the sanctuary proper of a church.

My message on this particular Sunday was simple: "It is faith that bridges the gap between promise and reality."

Here is an abbreviated version of some of the thoughts I conveyed to the congregation.

Like Abraham who faced many challenges in his old age, we too face obstacles that stand between us and the fulfillment of God's promises. We may think our sin is too great for us to be saved. We may also think nothing ever seems to change and this old, sinful world will just keep on getting worse. We may think the promise of a new and better life in a new and better body on a new and better earth will never happen.

Like Abraham, our response is (or should be) to be faithful. Not for faith in ourselves. Not for faith in our deeds. Not faith in humanity. Not faith in some inner force or power. But faith in God and Christ.

Faith bridges the gap between promise and reality because faith looks entirely to God and Christ. And in Him we find a righteousness that is not our own but is credited to us.

One reality of life is waiting; waiting for someone to show up, for something to happen, for things to change. Another reality of life is that most of us do not like waiting. We look for the shortest line at the grocery store. We become impatient, even angry, waiting for the doctor or the restaurant waiter who is slow or inattentive. We hate being held up in traffic. The list is endless.

Sometimes it seems like life is nothing more than a waiting game. As children we wait for Christmas, summer vacation, and to grow up. As adults we wait for just the right job, that special someone who will make our life complete, a promotion, retirement.

Some people wait for the diagnosis, others for a cure. Some wait for the day the pain will stop and the grief will end. Others wait for the answer to their prayers. Many of us wait for that day when we have enough time, enough money, enough freedom, and the day we will live happy ever after.

At some level, waiting takes place every day. Each of us could name the things or people for which we wait. Sometimes we live with the overwhelming feeling of waiting but with no clear idea of what we are waiting for.

And more often than not, we do not wait in the present. We move into the future. The great tragedy is that in doing so we lose the present moment. That’s part of what makes waiting so painful and difficult.

Waiting in the future most often brings fear and anxiety about what will happen. We are haunted by the unknown and lack of control.

On the other hand, waiting in the past brings sadness, anger, or guilt about things that have happened, or the things done and left undone. As difficult as our present circumstances may be, that’s the only place where we can ever be fully alive. It is the only place we can truly experience God.

When we move out of the present and into the past or the future – we not only postpone life; we deny life. We deny our resurrection. We desecrate the sacrament of the present moment. We have refused the gift of God’s kingdom.

Everyone, everywhere, in every age waits...and Jesus did not eliminate waiting either. If anything, it sounds like just the opposite. He tells the crowd, “Be like those waiting for their master to return.”

Today’s gospel is not, however, simply about passing time in a waiting mode. It is about presence and being present. Jesus sees waiting as an act of faithfulness; the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen...

Having faith is what it is all about...we call it Christian faith.

So we are mistaken if we think we are talking about an absent God, a God who left some time ago, for whom we wait. We are equally mistaken if we think we are waiting for a God who lives out in the future.

Jesus is teaching us how and where to wait. He’s inviting us to be present to the One who is always already present. He’s inviting us to listen for the knock, to watch, and to be alert. He’s inviting us to be present to the reality of God in each other, in the world, and in ourselves. This is the God who is present in the ordinary circumstances of our lives, even in our waiting.

We might then be tempted to ask, “So where is God in all our waiting?” But maybe the better question is, “Where are we?”

I once heard of a chaplain who served at a summer camp for a whole bunch of 11 and 12-year-old campers. He said that one night before the kids went to sleep, they had some devotional time in their cabins. One of the counselors asked her campers, “Where did you see Jesus today?” A very surprised and excited young lad cried out, “You mean He was here today?!”

Jesus responds to questions like that by saying, “Yes, yes, yes. I was here. I am here. And I will be here.”

And he adds, “Be dressed for action. Something is going on right now. Right here. And I want you to be a part of it. Come participate. For it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. This is for you.”

“Have your lamps lit,” he says. “There is something to see. Move out of the darkness. Come into the light. See what is right in front of you, what is all around you, and what is in within you. For the Father wants you to have the kingdom.”

“Be alert,” he commands. But this isn’t a threat of punishment. It’s an invitation to be blessed. “Blessed are those whom he finds alert.”

Jesus is not just inviting us to be awake, to be ready, and to be watchful. He is calling us to be fully alive and to remain alive. Blessing and life are synonymous in God’s kingdom. It is as if Jesus is saying to us, “Be alert, be blessed, and I will come and serve you. I will feed you the bread of life. I will serve you the cup of salvation.”

All of this, Jesus says, happens at an unexpected hour. Like a thief in the night, the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

So when is the unexpected hour? When will all this happen? Well, my guess is that for most of us, maybe all of us, the most unexpected hour is today, right here, right now.

The most unexpected hour can also be the one spent in the hospital waiting room; the hour sitting next to the phone waiting for news of a loved one; the hour praying for a miracle; the hour in which we wait for clarity and a way forward; the hour waiting for the grief to end and life to return to normal; the hour in which it seems as if nothing is happening, when we are lost or lonely -- and it seems that there is nowhere to go.

As we draw to the conclusion of our worship this morning, you might still ask: “You mean He was actually here this morning during this coffee house time of worship?!” 

Yeah........right here in the most unexpected hour of your life. 

No more waiting!

Feel his presence...Embrace him...Take him home with you as you go forth today...Never let him go!

HOPE + TRUST = FAITH

YOU JUST NEVER KNOW...
When someone might care

Travis Tritt pretty much gets it right when he sings convincingly: "Here's a quarter, call someone who cares..."

I've been thinking a lot about the expression "who cares?" in recent days. Why do I write some of things that appear on this blog and elsewhere? Why do I assume so much? Who cares?

Why do I get so exercised at times -- angry, discouraged, inspired, excited, intense, emotional, sympathetic, nostalgic? Why do I expose myself and my vulnerabilities, often as a means to an end? Why do I search for rationale and reasoning?

I mean, really...Who cares? Why bother? After all, who am I?

I came across a poem not long ago written by a 12-year-old boy by the name of Rae. My first impulse was to think, this kid was me 70 years ago, in fact he is pretty much me as I am today. Then I got to his last two lines and I realized that he had snuck one in on me. To be sure, a lesson that I was not expecting. See what you think.

YOU JUST DON'T KNOW...
Get up, get dressed
Wash your face
Think you're a disgrace
Go to school, bite your lip
Say to yourself, "I'm OK",
But you know you feel the same
Low down. Hurt. Confused.

Waiting for answers, day after day,
Not knowing what I'll say.
Am I going home or am I staying?
What are they saying?
Time's ticking, you just don't know.

Months pass, things are said
Tears are shed
But you don't give up
There still might be luck.
-- Rae, 12

Out of the mouth of a babe! "You don't give up." You keep coming back because of a natural, in-bred trust in hope. There is always the possibility of good fortune, or a blessing of some sort, just around the next corner.

Tomorrow there just might be someone who cares. Someone who can relate. Someone who accepts you. And you know what? More often than not, someone does. That's why I do what I do...And why I keep on doing it!

Thanks for reminding me of that, Rae.

SUNDAY STORIES FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL

SUNDAY STORIES FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL

Jesus went about doing good,

or did he do good "in a boat"?

I included the above scan of two antique Sunday School cards in my Perry Family web site a number of years ago.

At the time I used the cards as the subject of a Children's Story presentation during a church service that I was conducting. Truth be known, I have always had reservations about Children's Story time as part of an adult worship service....Nine times out of 10 the minister's best efforts go right over the children's heads, so why bore the kids any more than necessary and let them escape to their Sunday School classes where teachers have lessons and exercises prepared for them.

Anyway, I thought the first two verses of the "Mother Telling Sunday Stories" card on the right might just grab the children's attention on this particular Sunday because it speaks of a time that was so different from today.

God made the day of rest
The holy Sabbath day,
For us to think and talk of Him,
And not for work or play.

I'll put away my toys
Safely the night before,
And Sundays I'll be very still,
Till Monday comes once more...
I drew a parallel for the kids, explaining that "the Sabbath" as a day of rest was no doubt the way it was for their grandparents when they grew up but that things have changed today. Rules about our activities on Sundays have been relaxed considerably, perhaps to a point where there are no rules. I stressed, however, that one thing that has not changed is that "we come to Sunday School to learn about the Bible and how we might copy the good things that Jesus did for the world."

I left my spell-bound (?) young listeners with a little story about my four-year-old cousin Curtis and his first exposure to Sunday School. Naturally, it was a completely new world for Curtis and he tried very hard to listen to everything the teacher said.

When Sunday School was over his anxious mother Norma was waiting outside for him. "What did you learn in Sunday School? she asked. "Oh, about Jesus in a boat," was young Curt's surprise answer.

"Jesus in a boat? Are you sure? his mother questioned further. "Yeah," he said, handing his Sunday School card of the day over to his mom. "See, Jesus in a boat doing good."

Curtis couldn't read of course and it sure sounded to him like the teacher said "Jesus in a boat..." His mother waited until they got home to explain that the teacher had actually said: "Jesus went about doing good," just as it said on the card and in the Bible..

I reasoned to the sober, wide-eyed faces starring up at me that it really did not matter if Jesus "went about" or if he was "in a boat". The message was the thing..."doing good!" After all, Jesus walked on water and he instructed the fishermen to re-cast their nets, so why wouldn't he minister from a boat?

In retrospect, I kind of like Curtis' interpretation better.

My concluding prayer with the children went something like this:

"Thank you Lord for loving us and giving us Jesus.
Thank you also for giving us Sunday School.
Bless our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles
who look after us and make us feel safe.
We pray in the name of Jesus who 'went in a boat doing good'. Amen."

TEEN DANCER'S DREAM-INSPIRED REGALIA FILLED WITH SYMBOLIC MEANING

Eighteen-year-old First Nations dancer Maegan Mandawoub. 

The colours of Maegan Mandawoub’s regalia worn at Saugeen First Nation’s 48th annual powwow recently came to her in a dream. In her dream, she was helping her aunt get to a powwow, and they had to cross a creek. She turned to look down at the creek and saw a frozen lake. That ice is represented by her white regalia top. And there was a sunrise with purples and blues, oranges, reds and yellows, all of which are included in the 18-year-old’s traditional dress. She wore it as a proud member of Saugeen First Nation where she spent many of her youngest years. The two-day powwow was a spectacle of colourful regalia and native dancing and drumming, Indigenous food and crafts. The best of the best dancers turn out for prizes in several competitive categories every year.

Maegan Mandawoub is a high school student who now lives in Kitchener. She was this year’s head youth female dancer at the powwow.

As she explains it, two weeks after her dream, which was more than two years ago now, she learned her sick aunt wasn’t going to live long.

“I took that as a sign because, at that time, I was making my regalia, but I was just really undecided about how to make it and what colours to use. And then I had that dream.”

Her regalia is symbolic in other respects – her flowing fringes represent water, and women in her culture are water carriers. Orange bear paws declare she’s a proud member of the bear clan.

A butterfly on the back of her V-shaped yoke has a story itself to do with her unexplainable sight of white butterflies in winter. Her beaded headpiece and earrings made by an aunt look like what Maegan had in mind before telling her story.

She carries her mother’s feathered fan, which she said was a gift from inmates when her mom was a teen. (Her mother visited jails and sang for the prisoners).

The larger than life teen said she looks for signs and symbols as guideposts in her life. Some things others consider coincidences, she believes have significance.

“A lot of people in our community are also like that. We’ve seen too many things to know it’s not a coincidence.”

She respects and embraces the unseen and unknown as an article of faith.

She smudges her regalia – bathing it in the smoke of burning sweet grass to purge any negativity she may harbour, and then dances “for the people that need it.” She smudges her regalia at day’s end to “send those prayers back to the Creator.”

Interestingly, Maegan organized the first powwow in the Waterloo Region District school board two years ago at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium and she’s also a capable speaker with an expressed concern for the world around her.

She referred to the anti-Hispanic sentiment many believe is being stoked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s own inflammatory words. She pointed to what authorities have called white supremacist mass shootings, such as the one several weeks ago in El Paso, Texas, where 22 people were killed in a Walmart shopping centre.

Hispanic and Indigenous people who live in the southern United States are actually native to those areas, different than people and tribes farther south in Mexico, she said.

And she sees similar hardness in Ontario, calling out by name Ontario Premier Doug Ford and cuts to post-secondary education funding.

“He’s doing some very bad damage to our First Nations communities. All the funding cuts for our personal funds as well, like education and stuff. Like I’m scared to go to school because I’m scared I can’t afford it.”

So she “grasps” onto her Indigenous culture because it comforts her in these “intense” times.

“And I find dancing comfortable," she adds. "I find being at powwows comfortable. And just seeing all the things that are happening to young people today -- kids in camps, and the children who have been orphaned, you know I feel for them.

“So when I dance today, when I carry my tobacco, that’s what I’m putting my tobacco in for. Because those kids, they need all the prayers that they can get at this moment.”

Amen, Maegan!  Those kids need role models like you too!!!

*Note: Tobacco was considered a gift from the Creator in many Native North American cultures; according to some of them, tobacco smoke is a means of carrying the smoker's prayers to God.

JIMMY GARDINER, A CANADIAN STATESMAN AND "WRITER"

Saskatchewan Premier Jimmy Gardiner, a headline maker and farmers' friend

I venture to say that very few of my readers know of, or remember, Canadian politician James (Jimmy) G. Gardiner

Gardiner had an exceptionally long career in public life. In fact, he had two careers of almost equal length, from 1914 to 1935 in provincial politics, and from 1935 to 1958 in federal. In Saskatchewan he sat as a back-bencher, cabinet minister, premier, and leader of the opposition. In Ottawa he served as minister of Agriculture, minister of National War Service, and a leading member of the opposition. 

What has impressed me most about the Ontario born (Hibbert Twp., Huron County, 1883) Gardiner, however, was the fact that he was a prolific writer. He wrote long detailed letters to both supporters and critics, explaining his policies with painstaking care. He put down his own longhand and texts of countless cabinet memoranda and speeches, and unlike most of his cabinet colleagues, rarely gave speeches drafted by others.

When Gardiner visited the United Kingdom during the Battle of Britain, he reported his impressions in a long vivid memoir. He also collected the details of his son Edwin's death at Dieppe and produced a private chronicle that is both touching and admirable. He wrote three books that have been a well-kept secret publicly.

Ontario Historical Plaque honors the life of James G. Gardiner.

One of the books, None of it Came Easy, was published in 1955 as the work of Nathaniel Benson, who did in fact prepare the final manuscript for publication after it became apparent that B.T. Richardson, the initial choice of author, would be unable to complete the work because of other commitments. The first draft of lengthy sections of that book, used as basic material by Benson, exist in Gardiner's own handwriting in his personal papers in the Saskatchewan archives.

Most fascinating for me, however, is book Number One. Before their careers have actually begun, unlike Gardiner, few politicians have ever set down so clearly their ideals and aspirations, enshrined in an autobiographical novel. 

The Politician: or, The Treason of Democracy, was written while 27-year-old Gardiner was an undergraduate student at Manitoba Teacher's College in 1910, four years before he contested the first of his 15 successful elections. It was edited by Norman Ward and eventually published posthumously in 1975 (13 years after his death). Many years earlier the book had been rejected as a novel by a publisher who did not understand its historical significance

While autobiographical, the work is typical of its time in emphasis on morality, on how virtue is rewarded and evil overthrown. But more importantly, it is Gardiner's own assessment of himself on the threshold of his long, record-setting career in politics. It is a unique document, extraordinarily revealing of a sensitive young man's view of himself and his world at a critical time in Canadian history.

As a key figure in the Liberal party at both levels of government, Gardiner's influence permeated the country's politics for nearly half a century. He was present at the founding of the Province of Saskatchewan in 1905, and participated in the exuberant period of western settlement before the First World War. His public policies helped to ease the ravages of regional drought and depression some 20 year later.

He held public office during two world wars, both of which witnessed strong campaigns for conscription which he passionately opposed. The nativist revolt in Saskatchewan in the 1920s led by the Ku Klux Klan, which he likewise condemned, contributed to his only election defeat.

Gardiner was a principled politician and that understandably, won him friends and enemies. First and foremost he was a party man, who believed that only through unremitting attention to the details of organization and administration could responsible government be assured

Throughout his lifetime he was a strong church and family man. He pioneered in the movement which culminated in the formation of the United Church of Canada in 1925; his home church at Lemberg, Sask., where he taught Sunday School for many years, was a union church by 1919. He married his cousin Etta in 1912, but she passed away five years later. He then married Violet McEwan, who had come to Lemberg to teach school and to play the church organ (the union resulting in four children). Son Wilfred would go on to become a Saskatchewan cabinet member.

On his deathbed, Gardiner was interviewed for several hours by Una MacLean, then of the Glenbow Foundation, Calgary. In those final days (he lapsed into a coma before interviews were completed) he was still talking enthusiastically about seeking another nomination.

Jimmy Gardiner died nine years before I came to Saskatchewan as Managing Editor of the Prince Albert Daily Herald. I regret never having met him, but his name was still household in those days, just not with my Nineth Street next door neighbor -- a man by the name of John George Diefenbaker.

The Gardiner Dam, Saskatchewan’s largest piece of infrastructure, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2017. Located 25 kilometres north of Elbow, the dam was built between 1958 and 1967. Sixty-four metres tall and 5,000 metres long, the dam was officially opened in July of 1967 as part of Canada’s centennial celebrations, along with the Qu’Appelle River Dam.

Together, the dams created Lake Diefenbaker, a 225-kilometre long reservoir. The lake serves a multitude of purposes, including power generation, irrigation, recreation, wildlife habitat, and flood control. Because the dam supports renewable energy, the province also touts it as a means of helping to reduce SaskPower’s greenhouse gas emissions. Some 60 per cent of the population depends on the South Saskatchewan River and Lake Diefenbaker for water.

Its namesake, former premier James Gardiner fought a long time for construction of a dam on the South Saskatchewan River. But it wasn’t until after his political defeat in the 1958 general election that the project broke ground. A cost-sharing agreement was signed by then-prime minister John Diefenbaker, Gardiner’s arch-opponent, and the then-new premier Tommy Douglas in 1958. The dam opened in 1967. Fifty years later, the Gardiner Dam remains one of the largest earth-filled dams in the world. If built today, it would cost more than $1 billion. 

DUTCH RESISTANCE HEROINE TRIO DID WHAT THEY HAD TO DO

Hannie Schaft (left) and Truus Oversteegen dressed in disguise.

Obituaries published in major newspapers naturally receive more attention than any other form of public notice, and almost a year ago one such obituary in The Washington Post exploded, drawing almost 700 comments and a firestorm on social media: "Freddie Oversteegen, Dutch Resistance fighter who killed Nazis through seduction, dies at 92." 

There’s an incredibly controversial story here of three teenage Dutch Resistance fighters who did what they did “because it had to be done.” Remarkably, Dutch lecturer and author, Sophie Poldermans personally knew sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen for more than 20 years and worked with them as a board member of the National Hannie Schaft Foundation. Poldermans tells their harrowing story and that of Hannie Schaft’s in her new book, Seducing and Killing Nazis - Hannie, Truus, and Freddie: Dutch Resistance Heroines of WWII [SWW Press, August 2019].

Poldermans explains, “They were young girls who faced the question: ‘Do we adapt or resist?’ They believed it was necessary to take up arms against the enemy because this was the only way to honor a livable world and fight injustice, while trying to remain human at all times. The girls decided to resist. They learned to shoot, to seduce and liquidate targeted Nazis and their collaborators, to attack and bomb railways and other strategic places, to gather information, to help Jews and children find safe places to hide, and to steal identification papers for them.”

It is a fascinating story that has prompted me to dig a little further for the information that follows.

She was 14 when she joined the Dutch resistance, though with her long, dark hair in braids she looked at least two years younger.

When she rode her bicycle down the streets of Haarlem in North Holland, firearms hidden in a basket, Nazi officials rarely stopped to question her. When she walked through the woods, serving as a lookout or seductively leading her SS target to a secluded place, there was little indication that she carried a handgun and was preparing an execution.

The Dutch resistance was widely believed to be a man’s effort in a man’s war. If women were involved, the thinking went, they were likely doing little more than handing out anti-German pamphlets or newspapers.

Yet Freddie Oversteegen and her sister Truus, two years her senior, were rare exceptions — a pair of teenage women who took up arms against Nazi occupiers and Dutch “traitors” on the outskirts of Amsterdam. With Hannie Schaft, a onetime law student with fiery red hair, they sabotaged bridges and rail lines with dynamite, shot Nazis while riding their bikes, and donned disguises to smuggle Jewish children across the country and sometimes out of concentration camps.

In perhaps their most daring act, they seduced their targets in taverns or bars, asked if they wanted to “go for a stroll” in the forest — and “liquidated” them, as Ms. Oversteegen put it, with a pull of the trigger.

“We had to do it,” she told one interviewer. “It was a necessary evil, killing those who betrayed the good people.” When asked how many people she had killed or helped kill, she demurred: “One should not ask a soldier any of that.”

Freddie (left) and sister Truus in later life.

Freddie Oversteegen, the last remaining member of the Netherlands’ most famous female resistance cell, died Sept. 5, one day before her 93rd birthday. She was living in a nursing home in Driehuis, five miles from Haarlem, and had suffered several heart attacks in recent years, said Jeroen Pliester, chairman of the National Hannie Schaft Foundation.

The organization was founded by Ms. Oversteegen’s sister in 1996 to promote the legacy of Schaft, who was captured and executed by the Nazis weeks before the end of World War II. “Schaft became the national icon of female resistance,” Pliester said, a martyr whose story was taught to schoolchildren across the Netherlands and memorialized in a 1981 movie, “The Girl With the Red Hair,” which took its title from her nickname.

Ms. Oversteegen served as a board member in her sister’s organization. But she “decided to be a little bit out of the limelight,” Pliester said, and was sometimes overshadowed by Schaft and Truus, the group’s leader.

“I have always been a little jealous of her because she got so much attention after the war,” Ms. Oversteegen told Vice Netherlands in 2016, referring to her sister. “But then I’d just think, ‘I was in the resistance as well.’ ”

It was, she said, a source of pride and of pain — a five-year experience that she never regretted, but that came to haunt her in peacetime. Late at night, unable to fall asleep, she sometimes recalled the words of an old battle song that served as an anthem for her and her sister: “We have carried the best to their graves/ torn and fired at, beaten till the blood ran/ surrounded by the executioners on the scaffold and jail/ but the raging of the enemy doesn’t frighten us.”

Freddie Nanda Oversteegen was born in the village of Schoten, now part of Haarlem, on Sept. 6, 1925. Her parents divorced when she was a child, and Freddie and Truus were raised primarily by their mother, a communist who instilled a sense of social responsibility in the young girls; she eventually remarried and had a son.

In interviews with anthropologist Ellis Jonker, collected in the 2014 book “Under Fire: Women and World War II,” Freddie Oversteegen recalled that their mother encouraged them to make dolls for children suffering in the Spanish Civil War, and beginning in the early 1930s volunteered with International Red Aid, a kind of communist Red Cross for political prisoners around the world.

Although living in poverty, sleeping on makeshift mattresses stuffed with straw, the family harbored refugees from Germany and Amsterdam, including a Jewish couple and a mother and son who lived in their attic. After German forces invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, the couples were moved to another location; Jewish community leaders feared a potential raid, because of the family’s well-known political leanings.

“They were all deported and murdered,” Ms. Oversteegen told Jonker. “We never heard from them again. It still moves me dreadfully, whenever I talk about it.”

Ms. Oversteegen and her sister began their resistance careers by distributing pamphlets (“The Netherlands have to be free!”) and hanging anti-Nazi posters (“For every Dutch man working in Germany, a German man will go to the front!”). Their efforts apparently attracted the attention of Frans van der Wiel, commander of the underground Haarlem Council of Resistance, who invited them to join his team — with their mother’s permission.

“Only later did he tell us what we’d actually have to do: sabotage bridges and railway lines,” Truus Oversteegen said, according to Jonker. “We told him we’d like to do that. ‘And learn to shoot, to shoot Nazis,’ he added. I remember my sister saying, ‘Well, that’s something I’ve never done before!’ ”
By Truus’s account, it was Freddie Oversteegen who became the first to shoot and kill someone. “It was tragic and very difficult and we cried about it afterwards,” Truus said. “We did not feel it suited us — it never suits anybody, unless they are real criminals. . . . One loses everything. It poisons the beautiful things in life.”

The Oversteegen sisters were officially part of a seven-person resistance cell, which grew to include an eighth member, Schaft, after she joined in 1943. But the three girls worked primarily as a stand-alone unit, Pliester said, acting on instructions from the Council of Resistance.

After the war ended in 1945, Truus worked as an artist, making paintings and sculptures inspired by her years with the resistance, and wrote a popular memoir, “Not Then, Not Now, Not Ever.” She died in 2016, two years after Prime Minister Mark Rutte awarded the sisters the Mobilization War Cross, a military honor for service in World War II.

For her part, Freddie Oversteegen said that she coped with the traumas of the war “by getting married and having babies.” She married Jan Dekker, taking the name Freddie Dekker-Oversteegen, and raised three children. They survive her, as do her half brother and four grandchildren. Her husband, who worked at the steel company Hoogovens, is deceased.

In interviews, Ms. Oversteegen often spoke of the physics of killing — not the feel of the trigger or kick of the gun, but the inevitable collapse that followed, her victims’ fall to the ground.

“Yes,” she told one interviewer, according to the Dutch newspaper IJmuider Courant , “I’ve shot a gun myself and I’ve seen them fall. And what is inside us at such a moment? You want to help them get up.”

MY THOUGHT FOR AUGUST

Happy August, everyone!

Give yourself a big gold star if you’ve made it to this point of the Summer with even just a little bit of your sanity intact! 

Summer in general is a busy time of year for most of us with so many places to go and people to see, doing the things you waited all winter to do. Personal and household chores to catch up on. Not enough hours in the day. This Summer has been a doozy on the world front too...compounded by political haranguing with elections on the horizon, human destruction en mass and environmental disasters dominating the news almost daily.

And, know what? The only thing you need to free yourself from all of this is you, and the choice to not let the chaos of the world bring you down. When YOU make that choice, you liberate yourself and you are empowered to become your own change-maker. 

Now the key to finding the freedom we all seek is realizing that most of the stress we feel is self-made. 

Funny thing, but have you ever noticed that you worry about something that hasn't even happened?...It may happen. It may not happen. And most of the time, it doesn't happen. In other words, we fear the worst.

If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment friends, just take a few seconds to count the many blessings in your life. Smell the roses. And enjoy that absolutely perfect August weather God has been giving us in the best country in the world at the best time of year.

It is really not such a bad world after all!

Just slow down a bit and enjoy it!!!

Let the warm sun engulf you and the gentle breezes of August combine to sooth your soul.

BUSS ALDRIN CELEBRATED COMMUNION AFTER MOON LANDING

The Apollo 11 crew, from left: Commander Neil A. Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. On July 20th 1969 at 4:18 PM, EDT the Lunar Module "Eagle" landed in a region of the moon called the Mare Tranquillitatis, also known as the Sea of Tranquility.

Rev. David Shearman is a retired United Church Minister living in Owen Sound. He writes frequently in the Grey-Bruce This Week newspaper. In his most recent column, "Faith accompanied Apollo 11 to the moon" he made some interesting revelations that sent me off on a fact-finding mission that completely collaborated his fascinating story which I felt was too good not to give wings on Wrights Lane.

It hardly seems possible but it was 50 years ago that Apollo 11 landed on the moon, prompting Neil Armstrong's famous words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

It is not common knowledge that there was also a faith connection to that particular space mission.

It has been since disclosed that Buzz Aldrin, the other moon-landing astronaut, had received permission to celebrate the Christian sacrament of holy communion on the moon by NASA, "as long as he kept quiet about it."  Apparently NASA had been sued previously because the Apollo 8 astronauts had read from the Book of Genesis during their mission on Christmas Eve, 1968. While the law suit was dismissed, NASA was a bit apprehensive.

There were theological and logistical hurdles to Aldrin's request. An ordained Presbyterian elder, he sought and received permission to celebrate communion from the Presbyterian Church (USA). His pastor obtained a small silver chalice and Aldrin packed it, along with a few communion wafers and a small amount of wine in his personal flight kit.

Shortly after Eagle lunar touched down on the moon July 29, 1969, Aldrin pulled out the chalice, wine and bread, then spoke into the radio. "This is the LM pilot," he said, referring to the lunar module. "I would like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way."

Aldrin then took a few moments to read silently from John 15:5, which he had scrawled on a three-by-five card: "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me."

He proceeded to perform the Christian ritual alone (Armstrong did not partake), making him the first person to celebrate a religious rite on heavenly body other than Earth.

"I poured the win into the chalice our church had given me," Aldrin recalled in a 1970 article in the Guidepost magazine. "In the one-sixth gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup. It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements."

Aldrin's congregation, Webster Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas, still celebrates Lunar Communion Sunday every year on the Sunday closest to the July 20 anniversary of the moon landing. And what about that small silver chalice Aldrin used?...It is safe in a Houston bank vault ad a replica is exhibited at Webster Presbyterian Church on special occasions.

The Bible did eventually get to the moon thanks to The Apollo Prayer Fellowship formed several years earlier by NASA's then chaplain (a scientist and Presbyterian minister) John Maxwell Stout and his wife Helen, in the wake of the Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts. The initiative was in response to one of the felled astronauts, Ed White 11, who wanted to put a Bible on the moon. It took a few tries, but on the Apollo 14 mission, 100 micro-filmed Bibles were carried to and returned from the moon by astronaut Edgar Mitchell.

As Rev. Shearman stated in his newspaper column: "Faith has always been a companion to human exploration...Even our first steps into the heavens."

HERE'S TO GOOD ENERGY FOR THE BALANCE OF THE SUMMER

I have found it fascinating recently to follow the Astrologist in me and I am convinced that there is definitely something to it...certainly in the form of positive confirmations and useful hints about what might come my way in the weeks ahead and how I might prepare for them.

Well, with that said, it’s time to say farewell to July, and this week we can have many transits to help us do so.

It’s impossible to believe that we are officially at the halfway point of the laziest Summer months of the year already, so here's hoping that you have been having a safe, happy, and spiritually healthy Summer.

The Universe has certainly been sending us some zingers to challenge us and test us emotionally, however. July was a month ripe with change potential. As I understand it, the month opened up with a New Moon in Cancer and a solar eclipse, and the halfway point of the month completed some emotional deals with some of us with the Full Moon in Capricorn and a lunar eclipse.

Eclipse energy is all about change. And eclipse changes are generally large and broad-sweeping changes in our lives. The changes may not happen when the eclipse occurs, as much of the information we need to create change is eclipsed from the picture.

It’s important to note that both of the zodiac signs that the eclipses were in are Cardinal signs. And that means that many of the changes that happen in our lives, whether they are eclipse changes or not, will be led and managed individually. We are the ones to initiate the change.

Also happening under this eclipse cycle during the month of July was Mercury retrograde. Mercury retrograde took almost the entire month, but Mercury retrograde never lasts more than a few weeks. Come August, Mercury retrograde will be a thing of the past. As August opens up, Mercury retrograde energy is leaving the picture.

Goodbye, July! Goodbye, Mercury retrograde! And hello, August!

Other than that, there are few things in the forecast to think about, I'm happy to discover. Just enjoy those lazy, hazy days of Summer along with me. and we'll deal with Fall and Winter when they get here.

Enjoy this week, friends!

THE GRASS WASN'T GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE, BUT IT NEEDED MOWING

Photo showing a portion of my neighbour's large front lawn.

TYPICAL ME: My next door neighbour has been laid up for the past couple of weeks recovering from prostrate sugery and an aftermath bout of infection. His massive front lawn has been getting quite long and I've been meaning to offer to cut it for him. 

Last evening as I finished up cutting my own lawn I noticed a young fellow starting to cut the neighbouring grass using the owner's electric mower and walking at a snail's pace behind it. I thought he may be the neighbour's son from Toronto and decided to chip in and help him get the large expanse cut before dark. (At the rate he was going, he would never have made it.)

After a good 45 minutes of cutting and without speaking, we met in the middle for the last two rows. Shutting off his mower, the young fellow reached out to shake my hand. "Thanks a lot," he said. "That was a big help!"

The scene now switches to this afternoon and the neighbour's wife was out picking some lettuce from her table top garden as I approached her from the driveway. "Incidentally," she said, "thanks for helping cut the lawn last night."

"No problem," I responded. "I thought Art's son (second marriage) needed some assistance. "He seemed to be labouring a bit in the heat," I added, putting it mildly.

"That wasn't Art's son," she announced to my surprise. "He is the grandson of a friend...and he was being PAID! Art's kids are older than that. But thanks again!"

As is so often the case, the joke was on me. But surely I get merit points along with a chuckle of embarrasment for a double good deed.

Then again, maybe I should just learn to mind my own business. I've been told that more than once.

THE WIDE-SPREAD HURT OF ONLINE CHARACTER ASSASINATI0NS AIMED AT OUR PUBLIC FIGURES

Freedom of speech is one of our core liberties. This freedom has traditionally included expression through print, speech and even conduct. However, technological advancements, coupled with a substantial increase in access to the Internet, have created an unprecedented medium of expression with virtually no limits on the dissemination of ideas.

I have had difficulty in expressing my opposition to online satire, critiques and other devised attacks (manipulated news) that demean the character of public figures. There seems to be something destructive in the North American nature these days...Downright do not like an individual, their personality, their qualifications, their politics, their record of action, so I will verbally disrespect them in the public domain, sort of thing.

There are a lot of inferiority complexes out there today just waiting to attack anything representing authority or establishment, under the guise of free speech. Politics have become a minefield in this regard with hatred for the opposition increasingly prevalent. It is a desease that is catching and harmful to the health of all of us.

In its early stages, the Internet provided users with limited functions like access to email, messaging with friends and chat room dialogues, but this landscape has changed dramatically with the introduction of thread messaging, blogging and social networking sites. Virtually every person with a computer has the opportunity to engage in some form of online discourse -- whether it be reconnecting with friends, making social commentary or engaging in politically volatile debates.

The Internet gives citizens inexpensive access to a medium of mass communication and therefore transforms every citizen into a potential ‘publisher’ of information for any number of purposes -- some quite entertaining, fun and informative. It is the hurtful, satiracle, unfair, venomous (dare I say unChristianlike) information, out-of-context presentations and scathing opinion pieces that are the bone of contention for me.

Worst of all, when originality fails and there is a lack of something bad enough to say, the readily available ability to regurgitate (share/cut and paste) and give legs to the warped and biased creations of special interest individuals, is all too common. It's called 'letting someone chop our wood for us' in an innocent, non-ownership sort of way.

While the option of online anonymity encourages the speaker or organized groups to distribute ideas and agendas freely, it is also dangerous as it widens the potential for cognizable legal harm to individuals in the form of online defamation. We all have our shortcomings (mentally, physically, even morally). We live in glass houses. We should be careful when throwing stones.

Personal web sites, blog sites, Facebook timelines and Twitter accounts are all excellent platforms on which to vent our spleens but for the life of me I cannot understand the overwhelming tendancy to hurt, defame and destroy the lives of individuals duly appointed to represent our best interests.

The worst part of taking sides is the depth to which we stoop when we become losers.

Heaven help us...We are becoming a spiteful, distrusting nation!

And there are those who would drag me and my penchant for reasoning and pontification along with them.

THE NEW WORLD OF INFORGRAPHICS:

Infographics have been around for many years and recently the increase of a number of easy-to-use, free tools have made the creation of infographics available to a large segment of the population. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have also allowed for individual infographics to be spread among many people around the world. Infographics are widely used in the age of short attention span. In newspapers, infographics are commonly used to show the weather, as well as maps, site plans, and graphs for summaries of data. Some books are almost entirely made up of information graphics, such as David Macaulay's The Way Things Work. The Snapshots in USA Today are also an example of simple infographics used to convey news and current events. Modern maps, especially route maps for transit systems, also use infographic techniques to integrate a variety of information. The question is: Can infographis be trusted in the hands of individuals who are intent on promoting questionable agendas?

I'm seeing more and more graphs these days in print media and online communications to illustrate, or support, points of view or contentions raised in so-called news stories. Truthfully, I rarely see one that I can fully wrap my mind around, more or less trusting that the graphic illustration accurately portrays the truth of the subject matter. 

Today, anyone with a computer or smartphone can create infographics, line charts, maps, diagrams, and various other graphics that appear authoritative, whether true or not. And social media has made them ubiquitous, with no editorial gatekeepers in sight. In his new book HOW CHARTS LIE GETTING SMARTER ABOUT VISUAL INFORMATION (W. W. Norton & Company; October 15, 2019), University professor Alberto Cairo offers a powerful and much-needed tool for cutting through the post-truth in infographics.

Cairo outlines what we need to look for when reading a chart, just how high the stakes are, and what kind of tricks politicians, advertisers, social media influencers, journalists, governments and plain-old liars can use to deceive us. He also explains how to become better chart readers and how to use them to our advantage.

In a pre-publication question-and-answer interview the professor was asked why he felt the need to write a book for the general public about charts and other methods of data visualization? The short answer was that charts are quickly becoming widespread, so we all need to become better chart readers.

"I've been designing charts—graphs, maps, infographics—and teaching how to make them for more than two decades. In the past few years they've become much more common in the news and in social media," he explained "Just think about the barrage of graphs and maps that are thrown at us whenever there's an election or a public discussion about a relevant topic. Charts can illuminate complex problems and reveal trends and patterns in data. They can make us smarter."

"However, charts can also obfuscate and mislead. Many people believe that charts are like illustrations or pictures—in the sense that they can be understood just by quickly looking at them—and that "a picture is worth a thousand words". Most of the time, that's not the case."

Social media platforms are great to disseminate both good and bad information; both kinds have exploded, so we readers should learn how to separate wheat from chaff. Because they are so attractive and clear, charts have become popular with good actors—statisticians, scientists, educators, journalists— but also with bad ones.

The latter are aware that charts can be very persuasive but that, at the same time, a substantial portion of the public isn't well equipped to deal with them. Therefore, they use charts to push agendas and spread deceptive messages.

The good news, though, is that following a few easy-to-understand principles explained in 'How Charts Lie', we can all become better readers, taking advantage of charts that are well designed, ignoring or denouncing those created to deceive us, and identifying those that, even if they aren't intentionally deceptive, still mislead us because we don't read them correctly.

Why do people trust infographics more than they should? Cairo said that because many of us have internalized that "a picture is worth a thousand words", that charts are intuitive and fun, and that you're supposed to understand them in the blink of an eye, without thinking much about them. These myths are dangerous. Charts can indeed be worth a thousand words, intuitive, fun, and quickly understandable—but only if you are a good chart reader already! That's a pre-condition.

What kind of cognitive biases and traits do we bring to reading visual data? Sometimes a chart will mislead us not because it's badly designed, but because we're all prone to lying to ourselves. Psychologists often talk about phenomena such as 'motivated reasoning' and 'the confirmation bias', which mean that we all prefer information that confirms what we already believe, and that we tend to project our beliefs onto whatever we hear or see, including charts.

"Imagine that I design a line chart showing that in the past fifty years obesity rates—the percentage of people who are obese—and life expectancy have increased in most countries at a similar pace. If you're overweight you may be inclined to read that chart as 'proof' that one of those variables is causing the other, that more obesity leads to higher life expectancies."

"But that may not be true at all! It may be that the negative consequences that higher obesity rates may have (shorter lives because of more diabetes or heart disease) are balanced out by other factors: longer lives because of declining poverty rates, medical science making tons of progress, and health care improving many places," he added.

"This is similar to many examples that appear in 'How Charts Lie' which I use to explain a few key principles of chart readership: first, that a chart shows only what it shows, and nothing else. In this example, my chart shows that both obesity and life expectancy have increased, period. Everything else we may see in the chart, such as possible causal links between obesity and life expectancy, is not in the chart at all; it happens inside our brain."

"Second, that we should try not to read too much into any single chart; a chart alone rarely 'proves' anything. If we want to learn about how obesity and life expectancy relate to each other, my imaginary chart is not enough at all. We need more evidence."


The professor was asked for a recent example of a misleading chart doing real-world damage? "I've seen people in the anti-vaccine movement use charts that show that there has been an increase in autism prevalence that is parallel to an increase in vaccination rates and to the introduction of new vaccines. This is yet another example of a correlation or covariation that shouldn't lead us to establish a causal connection.

"The prevalence of autism has certainly increased everywhere, but scientists explain that it's due to reasons that have nothing to do with vaccines. For instance, the public is much more aware of autism today than it was decades ago, so we may be better prepared to detect it. Second, we have children later in life, on average, and having older parents is a risk factor. Third, the technical definition of what constitutes autism has broaden throughout the years, which necessarily leads to an increase in diagnosed cases. Fourth, diagnoses have become more accurate: in the past, people with autism were often misdiagnosed. Finally, genetic factors likely play a key role."

Also, charts that are related to highly charged partisan topics, such as gun policy, abortion, or immigration, are nowadays thrown around in debates to 'prove' this or that point. As previously explained, a chart rarely 'proves', anything on its own. It can be a powerful instrument in any discussion, but it can't be the only element in that discussion.

What are some traits of a chart that should set off alarm bells in a reader? Cairo said that the main one is if a chart is presented devoid of proper context, or if it doesn't mention the source of the data it displays. If you can't verify whether the source of a chart is trustworthy, whether the numbers themselves are reliable, and whether those numbers are really measuring what the chart says they are measuring, distrust the chart.

What's the best tip you can offer when reading graphs? He stressed: "Pay attention!" It all begins with that. "Whenever encountering a chart, don't just look at it quickly and move on. If you do so, you'll likely misinterpret it. Rather, stop for a minute and try to understand what the chart depicts; check where the numbers represented in it come from, and what they are supposed to measure; pay attention to the patterns or trends the chart reveals. And don't read too much into any chart. Remember that we all tend to project what we already believe—or what we want to believe—onto the charts we see every day."

ANOTHER YOUNG POET WHO HAS IMPRESSED ME

Several Wrights Lane posts ago I wrote about Ocean Vuong, a 30-year-old Vietnamese-born poet who impressed me with his take on "the lexicon of destruction" in the English language today. Now I have discovered another amazing young man who is making a name for himself as a "spoken word" poet.  Here is his story and a recent coincidental video on the thought-provoking subject of "Re-Purposing Your Weapon."

Rudy Francisco is one of the most recognizable names in Spoken Word Poetry. He was born, raised and still resides in San Diego, California. At the age of 21, Rudy completed his B.A in Psychology and decided to continue his education by pursuing a M.A in Organizational Studies. As an artist, Rudy Francisco is an amalgamation of social critique, introspection, honesty and humor. He uses personal narratives to discuss the politics of race, class, gender and religion while simultaneously pinpointing and reinforcing the interconnected nature of human existence.

Rudy seeks to create work that promotes healthy dialogue, discourse and social change. Furthermore, Rudy has made conscious efforts to cultivate young poets and expose the youth to the genre of Spoken Word Poetry via coaching, workshops and performances at preparatory schools and community centers. Rudy has also received admiration from institutions of higher education and has conducted guest lectures and performances at countless colleges and universities across the nation.

He has shared stages with prominent artists such as Gladys Knight, Jordin Sparks, Musiq Soul Child, and Jill Scott. He is also the co-host of the largest poetry venue in San Diego, competes in domestic and international poetry slam competitions and had the honor of being nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Ultimately, Rudy's goal is to continue to assist others in harnessing their creativity while cultivating his own. He is also the 2009 National Underground Poetry Slam Champion, 2010 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion and appeared on TV One’s “Verses and Flow” as well as a recent engagement on the Jimmy Fallon Late Night Show.