 |
| John Green, meme from Facebook |
Warnie C. Hay, D.D. was my pastor in Winston-Salem, NC.
He was a huge mountain of a man. No matter how tall I got, he never seemed small (or short to me). I heard prior to his then current life, he'd been a truck driver and could "drink a fifth of liquor straight." [My father was the source of that quote.]
He, like a lot of leaders that actually shepherded their flocks, was keenly interested in my education, since as recently as the 60s, he and a lot of other pastors in the vein of Dr. King fought for our access to it, and our equal treatment regarding it.
"How are you doing in school, son?" We were all either "son" or "daughter" to him.
"Well...I'm studying evolution in biology with Mrs. Brake."
"OK, son. Do good!"
[...] That was it. I told him my grade on the exam later: B+. He smiled.
He was also pleased at my interest in amateur astronomy. He didn't lecture me when a mishap chemistry experiment resulted in a spectacular explosion in my room (don't worry: my parents did!). The only reservation he communicated was after the Challenger Disaster (I was in the Air Force, home on a visit): he preferred I not become an astronaut, though I never promised him I wouldn't.
I miss that simple encouragement, and the divorce from what is now political implications and spiritual litmus tests that have frozen critical thinking into ice age glaciers. There was no falsified "debate" on evolution vs. creationism; 6,000 years estimates from the Gregorian calendar vs. 14.6 billion years as estimated by measured light reaching us from the farthest stars. Science unimpeded by such machinations brings benefits to society like finding cures for diseases and advancing technologies that supply water, food, clean air, but I'd be the first to say an astronomer et al could not lead a "March on Washington." Different skill sets are required for such an endeavor.
Dr. Hay had contacts with congressional leaders. He could have gotten me an appointment at one of the service academies. I declined, and stated I wanted to go to college close to home. He respected my wishes, and I did that. He invited me to bring some of my classmates and discuss majoring in engineering and science at his "Super Saturday" career day, which he did every year...at church. Yet, I don't ever recall his ever needing to 'correct my thinking,' challenge what I'd learned...or that he seemed threatened at all by my interest in science as some seem to be today. Galileo and Copernicus would have appreciated him, and our youth less confused by this boondoggle.
Note this excerpt:
"Science has been responsible for roughly half of all US economic growth since World War II, and it lies at the core of most major unsolved policy challenges.
"In an age when most major public policy challenges revolve around science, less than 2 percent of congresspersons have professional backgrounds in it. The membership of the 112th Congress, which ran from January 2011 to January 2013, included one physicist, one chemist, six engineers, and one microbiologist.
"In contrast, how many representatives and senators do you suppose have law degrees - and whom many suspect avoided college science classes like the plague? Two hundred twenty-two. It's little wonder we have more rhetoric than fact in our national policy making..."
Shawn Lawrence Otto, Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault of Science in America, Rodale Books, October, 2011.
He passed two months before my own father in the same year, 1999. It was a pretty sad summer for me, to say the least. Neither man quite made it to the next century, born and expired in the 20th. They are buried, as now is my mother (2009), in Piedmont Memorial Gardens. These were people who worked hard, got passed over unfairly for promotions, experienced their own "sequester" in the form of where we all could live: care of Jim Crow. Knowledge was precious and appreciated, as my father used to say to me (numerous times): "once you get it in your head, no one can take that from you." My mother would tell me: "you can do anything you want to, once you put your mind to it, and trust God: you can do it!" I miss my cheering Valkyrie.
I miss this generation, and their encouragement to improve and advance, appreciative of the sacrifices of past giants, without guile, obfuscations, machinations or agenda, encouraged to simply:
"Do good."
Comments