Wonderful Advent Resource

I was privileged to spend 3 days this week at Clergy Conference for the Diocese of Texas. Among time well spent with wonderful people, and thought-provoking continuing education opportunities, I was particularly excited by the offerings from the new Diocesan Bishop, The Rt. Rev. Andy Doyle. The teaching portion of his bishop-duties are particularly important to him. For example, one offering is an amazing Bible Study he has created in the form of a blog. While he has done others, this one speaks to the lectionary texts for this Advent drawn from the Gospel of Luke. It includes links to pieces of art inspired by the Gospel of Luke as well as other textual resources. So as he has graciously share, I'm excited to pass it along to all of you. Enjoy!

virginia

Meet Virginia

She doesn't own a dress

Her hair is always a mess,

If you catch her stealin' she won't confess

She's Beautiful.

Smokes a pack a day, wait,

That's me, but anyway

She doesn't care a thing

About that hey,

She thinks I'm beautiful

Meet Virginia

She never comprimises,

Loves babies and surprises,

wears high heels when

she exercises

Ain't that beautuiful

Meet Virginia

Well she wants to be the Queen

Then she thinks about her scene

Pulls her hair back as she screams

"I don't really wanna be the Queen"

Daddy wrestles alligators

Mama works on carborators

Her brother is a fine mediator

For the president

And here she is again on the phone

just like me hates to be alone

we just like to sit home

and rip on the President

Meet Virginia, Mmmm...

Well she wants to live her life

Then she thinks about her life

Pulls her hair back as she screams

"I don't really wanna live this life"

She only drinks coffee at midnight

When the moment is not right

Her timing is quite, unusual

You see her confidence is tragic, but her

Intuition magic And the shape of her body?

Unusual

Meet Virgina I can't wait to

Meet Virginia, yeah eh yeah hey hey hey

Well she wants to be the queen

then she thinks about her scene

Well she wants to live her life

then she thinks about her life

Pulls her hair back as she screams

"I don't really wanna be the queen"

I, I don't really wanna be the queen

I, I don't really wanna be the queen

I, I don't really wanna live this

-Train

Texan Adventures

Pictured above is one of the many authentic Texas landmarks between Austin and Navasota, Texas where I travel once a month for a retreat. On the way home today, I could resist any longer and stopped to check it out. I was admittedly more intrigued by the "trash" aspect than the "treasure" component. But, it turns out the owner of the shop makes art out of pieces of scrap metal that would otherwise be trash. It was great fun to examine what pieces of junk used to once be while looking at the finished product. If you're ever in Carmine, Texas, I certainly recommend stopping by.

Quite the Example

Today we were fortunate to host the funeral for Judge William Wayne Justice. I did not know him personally, nor know of him until recently. But I was struck by his landmark achievements. More so, I was touched by the turnout of fellow politicians and members of the Texas Court system from all over the state. It was clear that beyond legal rulings, he touched many lives through his own example. Just to give you an idea, his obituary is below. Hopefully, you too will be inspired!

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October 16, 2009

William Wayne Justice, Judge Who Remade Texas, Dies at 89

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

William Wayne Justice, a federal district judge who ruled on ground-breaking class-action suits that compelled Texas to integrate schools, reform prisons, educate illegal immigrants and revamp many other policies, died Tuesday in Austin. He was 89.

Luz Probus, his judicial assistant, confirmed the death.

Judge Justice had presided over cases in Austin until shortly before his death, having taken senior status there in 1998.

Judge Justice was a small-town lawyer active in Democratic Party politics when President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the federal bench of the Eastern District of Texas in 1968. Sitting in Tyler, Tex., he came to be called the most powerful man in Texas by those who agreed with his largely liberal decisions and the most hated by those who differed.

In a 1998 column in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Molly Ivins made what she called the “painfully obvious point” that Judge Justice had lived up to his name, saying he “brought the United States Constitution to Texas.”

The same year, Lino Graglia, a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News, “He has wreaked more havoc and misery and injury to the people of Texas than any man in the last 25 years.”

If Judge Justice seemed high-handed, it was partly because he believed that the founding fathers had wanted judges to seize and command the higher ground. Perhaps not surprising, people reacted with hate mail, death threats, ostracism and bumper stickers demanding his impeachment.

“The plain fact of the matter is that the majority is sometimes wrong,” Judge Justice declared in an interview with The New York Times in 1982.

Frank R. Kemerer, who wrote “William Wayne Justice: A Judicial Biography” (1991), said in an interview on Wednesday, “He had a transcendent value, which was to advance human dignity and provide a measure of basic fairness.”

In many cases Judge Justice challenged official intransigence by applying the known law of the land, as he did in 1971 when he told school districts in East Texas to obey the law by integrating. Even 17 years after the United States Supreme Court ordered schools to be integrated, it was not unusual for students in all-black schools to have outhouses rather than indoor restrooms.

Other cases lacked precedent. In 1978, Judge Justice struck down a Texas law that let public school districts charge tuition for the children of illegal immigrants. When the ruling was upheld 5 to 4 by the Supreme Court in 1982, millions of children had the right to a free education.

“There was absolutely no case law on it,” Judge Justice said in an interview with The Star-Telegram in 1998. “I found no case, no statute that covered the point of law that I had to decide. So I guess I made my own little contribution.”

To many, Judge Justice defined the concept of activist judge. In the early 1970s, he had his law clerks — many of them from top law schools like Harvard and Stanford — sift through hundreds of inmate letters complaining of cruel and unusual punishment in Texas prisons. He pulled out eight and consolidated them into a single action, then appointed a lawyer from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., William Bennett Turner, to handle the case. He asked thefederal Justice Department to join with the inmates as a friend of the court.

The state defended a prison system with two doctors for every 17,000 prisoners, where 2,000 inmates slept on the floor and where inmate trustees, known as building tenders, essentially ran the cell blocks through coercion. It contended that Texas had, in fact, the best penal system in the nation.

In 1980, after a trial that lasted nearly a year, Judge Justice ordered major changes in the state’s prison system. In 1987, he held the state in contempt because the promised progress had been so meager.

In 2002, after Texas had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build and improve prisons, Judge Justice released the Texas penal system from federal oversight.

Lawyers interested in assembling class-action suits sought out Judge Justice’s court. In 1973, he made a far-reaching decision to require Texas to repair “truly shocking conditions” in its juvenile detention system. Other important rulings included enforcing laws on integrating public housing and enforcing laws on bilingual education.

William Wayne Justice was born in Athens, Tex., on Feb. 25, 1920. When he was 7, his father, Will, a flamboyant lawyer, made him a partner; he even changed the nameplate above his office door to “W. D. Justice and Son.”

Judge Justice had a series of illnesses as a child, including chronic whooping cough. He later suggested that the experience might have made him more compassionate toward the unfortunate. He was also moved by the hungry, jobless men he saw hanging from boxcars during the Depression, he said in an interview with The Washington Post in 1987.

He graduated from the University of Texas and its law school, served in the Army for four years in Asia during World War II and then went into private law practice with his father.

His father was a good friend of Ralph Yarborough, who became a United States senator from Texas. Mr. Yarborough persuaded President John F. Kennedy to appoint Judge Justice a United States attorney in 1962, then did the same with President Johnson to help him become a federal judge.

“I had a pretty good idea what I was getting into,” Judge Justice told Texas Monthly in 2006.

It is unclear whether his expectations included his wife’s being refused service by beauticians and carpenters refusing to work on his house in Tyler once they realized who owned it.

Judge Justice is survived by his wife, the former Sue Rowan; his daughter, Ellen Justice; and a granddaughter.

After threats arising from the epic school desegregation battle at the beginning of his career, Judge Justice did not ask for armed guards. Instead, he took up taekwondo, the Korean martial art that resembles karate.

“It was a great way to take out my frustrations,” he told The Times. “You build up a lot of hostilities sitting on the bench all day.”

Monday's Soundtrack

Today seems like a good day to share some of the lesser known "classic" songs about Jesus. Check them out!

Jesus the Mexican boy

by Iron & Wine

Jesus the Mexican boy

born in a truck on the fourth of July

gave me a card with a lady naked on the back

Barefoot at night on the road

Fireworks blooming above in the sky

I never knew I was given the best one from the deck

He never wanted nothing I remember

Maybe a broken bottle if I had two

Hanging behind his holy even temper

Hiding the more unholy things I do

Jesus the Mexican boy

Gave me a ride on the back of his bike

Out to the fair though I welched on a $5 bet

Drunk on Calliope songs

We met a home-wrecking carnival girl

He's never asked for a favor or the money yet

Jesus the Mexican boy

Born in a truck on the 4th of July

I fell in love with his sister unrepentantly

Fearing he wouldn't approve

We made a lie that was feeble at best

Boarded a train bound for Vegas and married secretly

I never gave him nothing I remember

Maybe a broken bottle if I had two

Hanging behind his holy even temper

Hiding the more unholy things I do

Jesus the Mexican boy

Wearing a long desert trip on his tie

Lo and behold he was standing under the welcome sign

Naked the Judas in me

Fell by the tracks but he lifted me high

Kissing my head like a brother and never asking why

Jesus.... the missing years

By John Prine

It was raining. it was cold

West bethlehem was no place for a twelve year old

So he packed his bags and he headed out

To find out what the worlds about

He went to france. he went to spain

He found love. he found pain.

He found stores so he started to shop

But he had no money so he got in trouble with a cop

Kids in trouble with the cops

From israel didnt have no home

So he cut his hair and moved to rome

It was there he met his irish bride

And they rented a flat on the lower east side of rome...

Italy that is

Music publishers, book binders, Bible belters, money changers,

Spoon benders and lots of pretty italian chicks.

Charley bought some popcorn

Billy bought a car

Someone almost bought the farm

But they didnt go that far

Things shut down at midnight

At least around here they do

Cause we all reside down the block

Inside at ....23 skidoo.

Wine was flowing so were beers

So jesus found his missing years

So he went to a dance and said this dont move me

He hiked up his pants and he went to a movie

On his thirteenth birthday he saw rebel without a cause

He went straight on home and invented santa claus

Who gave him a gift and he responded in kind

He gave the gift of love and went out of his mind

You see him and the wife wasnt getting along

So he took out his guitar and he wrote a song

Called the dove of love fell off the perch

But he couldnt get divorced in the catholic church

At least not back then anyhow

Jesus was a good guy he didnt need this shit

So he took a pill with a bag of peanuts and

A coca-cola and he swallowed it.

He discovered the beatles

And he recorded with the stones

Once he even opened up a three-way package

In southern california for old george jones

The years went by like sweet little days

With babies crying pork chops and beaujolais

When he woke up he was seventeen

The world was angry. the world was mean.

Why the man down the street and the kid on the stoop

All agreed that life stank. all the world smelled like poop

Baby poop that is ..the worst kind

So he grew his hair long and thew away his comb

And headed back to jerusalem to find mom, dad and home

But when he got there the cupboard was bare

Except for an old black man with a fishing rod

He said whatcha gonna be when you grow up?

Jesus said god

Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into?

Im a human corkscrew and all my wine is blood

Theyre gonna kill me mama. they dont like me bud.

So jesus went to heaven and he went there awful quick

All them people killed him and he wasnt even sick

So come and gather around me my contemporary peers

And Ill tell you all the story of

Jesus...the missing years

We all reside down the block

Inside at ....23 skidoo.