RIPPLES ON THE RIVER

 

I hope you'll remember James Garfield when you celebrate Presidents Day this month.

General Garfield was the first Disciple elected U.S. President--and the only minister of any church to head our country.  (Do you remember who are the two other Presidents with Disciples connections?)

The only thing many Americans might remember about President Garfield is that he was the second President who was assassinated--only 16 years after Lincoln.

I've been reading a new history of Garfield that Ruth gave me for Christmas:  Destiny of the Republic:  A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard.

I knew that Garfield was a Union General in the Civil War and that he was a Disciples preacher from Ohio and president of Hiram College.  But I'm learning more about this fascinating national leader shaped by the values of the Stone-Campbell movement--who lived the Disciples commitment to education and anti-racism.

James Garfield's father died when he was only 2 years old, but his mother kept their frontier farm going with the help of his 11 year old brother.  The family was so poor that Garfield did not have shoes until he was 4 years old.  But poverty did not kill his mother's dreams for her children's education--she donated land from the farm for a schoolhouse.

Garfield ended up at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute--a Disciples school that became Hiram College.  He worked as a janitor to pay for his education--working and studying from 5 am to almost midnight.  Garfield was so successful in his studies that in his second year they made him an assistant professor.

Garfield was an early abolitionist and as a young man helped a runaway slave on his escape.  In his Inaugural Address as President, he committed himself to support of full civil rights for African Americans who were former slaves.

Who knows what Garfield might have accomplished if he hadn't been shot just 4 months after his Inauguration?  His Christian witness lives on as we continue our Disciples commitment to education and civil rights. 

In Christ, Ron

 

Books I have been reading :

Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men:  Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.

Kenneth C. Davis, A Nation Rising:  Untold Tales of Flawed Founders, and Forgotten Fighters from America's Hidden History.

Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full.

Laura Bell, Claiming Ground.

Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years:  How I Learned to Live a Better Story.

Lee Sandin, Wicked River:  The Mississippi River When It Last Ran Wild.

Bill Bryson, At Home:  A Short History of Private Life.

Gary V. Nelson, Borderland Churches:  A Congregational Introduction to Missional Living.

Gary V. Nelson, Gordon W. King, Terry G. Smith; Going Global:  A Congregation's Introduction to Mission Beyond Our Borders.

What are you reading this winter?  I'd love to hear about it!