Some of this discussion (including the occasional hastily-hurled accusation) reminds me of what Alabama novelist, journalist and lecturer, William Bradford Huie, toward the end of his long life, used to tell his audiences at writer's conferences where he spoke(please forgive my inexcusable paraphrase; maybe you can find the real quote somewhere): "my grandmother taught me to find a few things to love and a few things to hate and to love and to hate them with all of my might, and so that's how I've lived, loving and hating."

We lifelong Southerners have an inexplainable love of our 'native soil' that persists in everything we do and in everything we believe and perceive. I 'know' the incredible problems in the AL/GA border area where I now live but it's my home. I 'own' part of it and I invest it these crazy climes every day. It will never be nivana but it will always be home.

Racism is a way of futilely trying to make order in a disordered world. And so is compassion. I prefer compassion. May we all trust Christ to judge the self-righteous for in time He surely will.

Steve Sedberry
Newell, Alabama