You in the Deep South now, boy

I saw one of those clickbait maps the other day about Canadian tourist destinations in the US and the Deep South had a big X through it and text saying “Do Not Go There.” That pretty much summed up my attitude about the South that I’d held for the great majority of my life. But in the past year I’ve been to Atlanta, the Mississippi delta, Jackson, and a little bit of Louisiana across the river, New Orleans and now Birmingham and some surrounding countryside. “You in the Deep South now, boy.” It’s a dramatic sentence. I’m a long way from figuring out what it means.

Of course I could do research, but at this point I just want to experience it without a lot of prior knowledge. I’m developing a loose m.o. for these trips. Ideally, I put the bike on the trailer and find a campground close to a city. Then I can check out the city, and the small towns and countryside depending on what I feel like doing on any particular day. I go to state history museums if possible to see how they portray the Civil War, slavery, reconstruction and civil rights. Unfortunately, the Alabama state history museum isn’t in Birmingham. One of these days I’ll have to go to Montgomery, but not this trip. Some days I just go hiking or do off-road motorcycle riding. I rarely have any plan. I just go out and see what I see.

What I saw in Birmingham was a lot of friendly, happy people, or at least people acting friendly and having a good time in the moment. As a photographer, I was kind of wired to find poverty and misery in this world in order to show the more comfortable people the desperate and ugly lives others are leading. Or how civilization is decaying all around us. But it seems like my wiring has started to short circuit, at least from time to time, and I find myself photographing things that I just find interesting for whatever reason or none at all. And If I see positive and happy things, so be it. It’s not that I don’t think it’s important to document poverty and misery, it’s just that so many other people are doing it so well. I don’t think there’s really much I can add to the conversation at this point.

That said, I wasn’t seeing anything that jumped out at me as being all that interesting on Saturday afternoon in Birmingham. But I did start to notice that there were quite a few happy looking people, and a lot of them were taking selfies, or they and their friends were photographing each other. I wasn’t seeing any photographs I wanted to take, but I realized that maybe I was seeing photos that I wanted to give. I could do something to make people a little happier by giving them a nice photo, something a little better than they were getting with their phone. So I did that for awhile and met a few people and had a few nice chats.

Another thing I do when I go to cities is visit the local Botanic garden, not for any photo reason, but because I like Botanic gardens. Birmingham has an excellent one, and it’s free. That day I must have had some kind of vibes left over from the people I was photographing downtown. The young lady above was taking selfies with her daughter and asked me if I could help out. She said I looked like a professional photographer. I said sure, took a few photos with her phone and left it at that. I wasn’t at the garden to take photographs, not of people anyway, so I didn’t offer to take a nice photo with my big camera. But I felt a little guilty about it and when I ran into her again in the Japanese garden I offered to take a nice photo for her. It took awhile to set up and I had trouble with the flash and I tried to wait out the people on the bridge in the background, but when one couple left they were quickly replaced by another. You could see a lot of beautiful Koi under that bridge, so I get it, but still. Anyway, we had time to chat and I was reminded of what it was like to be the parent of an only child. It was obvious that kid got every bit of her mother’s attention and that so many of the parent’s hopes and dreams were tied up in the child’s happiness. When I have that realization it always makes me sad as too many kids won’t grow up to be happy. Hopefully young Wisdom is happy and successful and makes her mother happy as well, for the rest of her days.

On Sunday I was riding around the Alabama countryside and checking out the small towns. In Talladega, I pulled up to a stop sign at the courthouse square. A guy who looked like a local businessman and a cop were standing on the corner chatting and the guy yelled out that he liked my bike. They both smiled and waved. I thought maybe I was in some kind of Reece Witherspoon movie. I rode around town for awhile and when I came back to the square they were still standing there, so I parked and went up to chat. Turned out the guy was a greeter at a storefront church. He invited me in, so I said, sure.

I’d been thinking that I should add going to local churches to my list of stuff I normally do on these little getaways. I’m not at all religious and I have a special dislike for organized religion, but I consider religion interesting intellectually and consider going to church akin to going on an anthropological expedition to a primitive tribe, so I do it from time to time. But although I don’t have much respect for organized religion intellectually, I find I do often have a lot of respect for the people I meet when I go to church. A lot of them are nice and mean well. Just have to remember that a lot of people who seem that way are just “church nice.”

Anyway, I went in and sat down. Storefront church in Alabama. I was stoked. First off, I was surprised that there was a black preacher with a multi-racial congregation. It was probably about 75 percent white, 25 percent black, and there were a couple others that I’d guess were Marshall Islanders, but could have been from a lot of places. The sermon was all about listening to God and doing what God tells you and how if you do that you will be rewarded, probably with earthly riches, but definitely with something, even if you don’t recognize it. The part about being punished if you don’t do what God wants was mentioned, but only in passing, and definitely not emphasized. There was very little about Jesus. Earthly rewards. Amen.

There are worse messages you hear at church. And despite the positive vibes, this little church was problematic. It turns out that the little storefront church in Talladega is a satellite of Victory Church, a megachurch located not far away. According to the website, the Christianity isn’t so much about following any rules laid down by Christ, but rather the love people have for one another, and the practice of radical kindness. It appears that not much is asked of the congregation, though I’m sure at some point they get around to asking for money. They only made a token ask for money at the service and didn’t even pass around a plate, which is similar to what I’ve noticed at other megachurches. It’s more of a long con, apparently.

But although their basic message was harmless and in some ways probably good, there were issues in the fine print.

Due to the importance of marriage in the biblical witness and our belief that man is made in God’s image, Victory Christian Center adopts the following:

Victory Christian Center facilities, or properties may not be used by any individual, group, or organization that advocates, endorses, or promotes homosexuality or transgender life as an alternative or acceptable lifestyle.

This policy applies to events including but not limited to: Birthday parties, Classes, Reunions, Anniversaries, Baby Showers, Weddings, and Renewal of Vows services held at the school facilities or camps or other school supervised activities.

All employees and volunteers of Victory Christian Center represent, by example to their congregants, the outworking of Christ’s mandate to follow in His steps.

Therefore, all employees and volunteers must agree to abide by this Condensed Statement of Faith and not advocate, endorse, or promote homosexuality or transgender life as an alternative or acceptable lifestyle.

Scripture is cited, and interpreted:

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Genesis 1:27

This means that man and woman are two distinct genders willed by God, their Creator, in their respective beings, which reflect the image and nature of God. ‘Being man’ or ‘being woman’ is a reality that is good and willed by God. Therefore, to reject one’s biological gender is to reject the work of the Creator and imply that God made a mistake. God does not make mistakes.

That’s where they go off the rails, not just this church, but all of the conservative churches. If you believe there is a God that does not make mistakes, then how can you not look at the reality that a certain percentage of humans are homosexual and that gender is not so limited and realize that it is you who are making the mistake? The logical thing to believe is that God doesn’t make mistakes, but humans do, particularly primitive humans like the ones who wrote those words in Genesis over 4000 years ago. And those primitive humans living now who pretend to know better than their God - yea, they make a lot of mistakes.

One surprising thing I’ve noticed on my trips to the Deep South is how few Confederate flags I see, which is pretty much none. Same for Trump signs. I’ve seen a total of one in all my travels in rural Mississippi and Alabama. Here in southern Indiana they are all over the place. On any ride in the country I’ll see dozens of Trump signs and at least a few Confederate flags. People from out of state don’t realize what a toxic hellhole Indiana is. About the best thing you can say about it is that Kentucky is worse. Much worse. I mean, what kind of state has a State Park dedicated to the legacy of Jefferson fucking Davis? And Davis was just born in Kentucky and only lived there for a few months before the family moved south. And he visited once or twice and said a few kind words. That’s it. I think it’s something else he’s getting a state monument for, but that is left unsaid.

In the museum you learn that Jefferson Davis was a great man and a patriot who had many great ideas, strong values, and an unwavering commitment to his cause, a man who never gave up the fight until he did, and went on to write several influential books. What exactly were those values, commitment, causes and later influences isn’t much mentioned.

I know there’s a lot in the South going on under the surface that I don’t see on my little jaunts, and I’ll get to that, but there is something to be said for at least keeping up appearances, which they certainly didn’t bother with not all that long ago. So yay South. But fuck the Midwest and Kentucky with a sharp stick. Way too many people around here no longer bother.