January 17, 2006
Markers
I don’t recollect ever hearing of a redoubt until moving to our town. Being in the south and all, we’ve got cast-iron markers all around town remembering where the Yankees clobbered us a hundred and forty years ago at some redoubt. Or then there’s also the sign over in Holy Trinity Church’s front yard that points out how our visitors stabled horses in the nave.
There’s a certain amount of moss and magnolia pride in these markers even though they don’t bring up one’s finest moment. On the other hand, being where we are in this land, we’ve also some more recent and more prideful notices of where the sit-ins took place a century or so later. It’s a strange feeling to read history in cast irony that took place well into one’s own lifetime.
MLK’s memory being invoked this month brings a lot of that back. On the day after his death, we celebrated his life here with an inter-religion liturgy at the downtown RC parish that their bishop, the editor of the local paper, and I crafted on a long distance conference call the night before. Later that night, we mimeographed the service outline over where I was rector, but we didn’t tell the vestry. Redoubt, you know, means “secret place.”