Sundays, Mad Men, Those Fabulous Fifties, and the Wounds of Christ

There is something
endearing about the fifties.

Other than the fact that many of the

COOLEST peeps were born during that decade.

Once in a Tampa coffee house 

a friend of mine answered/balanced/refuted an acquaintance's statement,

"Things were so easy, they were black and white back then"

with the retort,

"yeah, and there were drinking fountains that said 'white' and 'colored' too..."

Snap.
Here is a painting by harry anderson for

Good Housekeeping- note (or remember)

 the fabulous construction of fashion.

(click pic to enlarge.)

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would soon ask Christians to
Stop drinking Milk like Babies and Step Up-- what would it mean to follow the actual Christian teaching in a world with, e.g.,  2 drinking fountains, for 2 "categories" of people?
 i've always enjoyed studying how King nudged, provoked, logically forced American Christians to get strong, to Choose at the fork in the road;
Step up or stop calling yourself a Christian. Love, Gentleness, nonviolence, no hate, simplicity, Content of Character. The effect of King's promptings on Americans -- Blacks and Whites, Christian or nonChristian-- Varied, like everything, from person to person, but came out of King's Christian faith and his ability to make other asleep or lukewarm Christians to wake.
H. Anderson paintings i stumbled upon- click to enlarge.

Wounds in the Hands of Christ

Christ Healing

Jesus with Children  Harry Anderson

harry anderson painting poster  Jesus with Children

here is a Harry Anderson Bio: http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/anderson.htm

Martin Luther King, Jr.

watch in entirety here (from the Speech:)

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and

all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!