Work In Progress:  Battle Creek

We travel across the USA on a rainy day
We reach Battle Creek on the third of May.
Students on a journey to learn
About race and prejudice in our city streets.
Richmond, Virginia is where we plan to meet.
(Shhh! Keep it to yourself. Just call it Urban Studies instead.)

In Battle Creek we find Uncle John’s Pancake House
On Michigan 94 and we find out that
It’s rainy in Battle Creek and we are soaked.|
A day to dream and maybe, just maybe,
To find out what Max Weber really knew.

We sit, syrup raised to battle stations,
And wage our pogrom against stacks
Of buttermilk pancakes,
Unaware that corn flakes were born here.

Bellies full and caffeinated, too,
We find out that the Road to Find Out
Is a vast and endless venture of signs,
True and tall tales, and the story of Kellogg corn flakes.

Searching deeper we find Potawatomi and Ottawa
People gathered on the Coguagiack prairie.
Mending wounds from earlier attacks in 1774
To form a village in peace around the lake. 

Here on this Road to Find Out,
the US army saw a chance to gain ground
For eastern settlers to claim the fertile soil.
Holding up food supplies from the tribes,
A theft caused a serious wound and the Potawatomi
Lost their land.  Life is cruel to some;
Trust intruders and find out who’s the fool.

Then came the sawmill and a small log cabin school.
Then a factory to make bricks. 
See how progress comes when the victor knows the tricks.

Freed from slavery Sojourner Truth made her home here
On the Road to Find Out; Battle Creek became a stop,
The underground railroad’s secret, safe spot for slaves
Fleeing to Canada in the north.

Ellen White's Adventists found here a place to convene in 1863:
William Miller had the Christ Return set for 1844,
But had the wrong country as the place to be
As Shiraz was the place he really should have longed for.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg blended health, eugenics
And the betterment of race;
As long as it upheld a separate but equal face.
A twist to keep races apart with his social calisthenics
Roads to Find Out often took ugly turns and strange ones too.

His hapless brother, W.K., wandered on The Road to Find Out.
He sold brooms in Oklahoma boom towns,
But they were not a place for him to be.
Still a loser, W.K. returned on the Road to Find Out
To assist his brother’s sanitarium. There he chanced to spill
Liquefied cornmeal on a heating device and gave a shout.
He added milk and fed it to residents: corn flakes were born!
“Cereal City” had a destiny selling corn.

On the Road to Find Out we find out that race hate follows
Some white folks wherever they go
Like the time boxing Champ Jack Johnson
Was arrested here for marrying a white woman
And carrying her across state lines. The times didn’t seem to change
On the Road to Find Out.

Thousands of dough boys passed through
For training in WWI and WWII for army life
And prepare for their first taste of combat strife.
Later hundreds of wounded arrived in the second world war
Amputations, Neurosurgery, and plastic artificial eyes and surgeries galore.
Battle Creek was the first American city to install
Wheelchair ramps on sidewalks, ya’all
For the wounded to enjoy downtown life.
Every general knows that war has its rewards.
Train the troops and inter German Prisoners of War.

Wear black skin and the law could stop and frisk. 
That’s the risk one took to enjoy a walk to the store
Or to a park or going home from work. 
Dr. King came and spoke here, as did Muhammad Ali.
The Black Recondos made schools hire black teachers,
Officials too, or every black child would leave the school.
Black bodies filled seats that brought federal funds
And the school board would find what federal money was all about.

We’re on the Road to Find Out.We were on the Road to Find Out.
(At that time, we did not know the history around us
The stories of Battle Creek like layers of fallen leaves
In the rain-soaked ground that surrounded us.)

We sat, syrup raised to battle stations
And waged our pogrom against stacks
Of buttermilk pancakes at Uncle John’s Pancake House
On Michigan 94 still looking for the betterment of race.
Naïve about who wins and who finishes in last place.

C. S. Cholas, May 3, 1974, Battle Creek, Michigan

 

Street Preacher on Leigh Street

Inside city jails, inside city hall
Make wages at the bus line
Haul on to the Silver Coach for lunch.
Taste the honey suckle scent
  As it drifts through the humid afternoons.

MLK Jr. watches
From a large poster on the living room wall.
Packing books now; a new approach and call
For a family man of four
Whose wife is seriously a clown;
   A professional clown.

Ease the nerves, humor the tired eyes,
Give to children a joyful surprise
Make some funny sense out of Richmond
Clown face to deflect the social lies.

The street preacher studies in Virginia Union halls
His heart firm with God and his mind justly wise
In a city split by segregated walls
His voice a fiery call for the just to arise.

Street preacher’s firm face a godly fire for Truth.
Sweet teacher’s Clown face a godsend in smiles.

                                                C. S. Cholas
                                                May 13, 1974, Richmond, Virginia
                                                Remembering Rev. Linwood and Mary Corbett

 Rev. Linwood "Bishop Benjamin Israel" Corbett Sr.

 

 

 

 

 Slim’s Lake Kegonsa Campsite

With his head band and ragged beard, Slim looked the wild man,

A wild, bandit guerilla stooped

Over the Lake Kegonsa campfire, pouring coffee into a mug,

Pouring out his thoughts into the night air;

About work, race and social change. He swatted at a bug

And slumped into his folding chair.

Some would have thought him mad by his looks

As he voiced views found in skeptics’ books;

Max Weber, Baldwin, Alinsky and Studs Terkel too.

Our mentor sociologist shared thoughts new to us

As we kept the fire going, log by log; and we put-up tents.

Above all, cynic, or advocate, we laughed

As we fried food, talked, and laughed with Slim

At Lake Kegonsa.

The night, splattered with stars and sausage grease,

Promised a good night’s sleep for this college tour

On its way east and south to Richmond to explore

Why prejudice churns and burns more and more.

Slim knew something he chose not to convey to the naïve.

Those of us used to this secure, white world we enjoyed.

He preferred we learn by being there, our crested status laid bare.

Where our white-fused views would be tried with truth

Would we fight or flee, turn angry, tearful or fearful,

Or sad in our struggle with it?

As ashes rose from the fire, silence settled over its roar.

Slim grinned a grin as one in combat might let slip,

Acting brave while staring upon an open grave

C. S. Cholas, May 6, 1974.

Lake Kegonsa Campground, Wisconsin

 

Trip to Turnabe: September, 17 2003

  A wonderful highlight of our time in Tela, Honduras was going to Turnabe to visit Armando Guzman and his family.  This family is very distinctive and left a deep impact on us. They are in charge of the village phone office, so have an easy means to stay in touch with everyone in the village.  Armando told us that he felt having the phone office in his home was a blessing from Bahá’u’lláh to help him teach the Faith.  During our short afternoon visit with them we learned that the family had been Bahá’ís since the 1980’s.  Armando knew Counsellor Dr. Ahmadiyyeh and named many other early believers who worked in Central America.  Armando has been active in recruiting villagers to attend Ruhi institutes in the nearby Institute facility in El Peru.  He has organized youth and junior youth groups who meet regularly.  Armando, his mother, Norma, his sister, Anna are very proud of the CD that they have produced along with other active Garifuna musicians of the Hidden Words sung with Garifuna melody and translation.  He was kind to share a copy with us.  Armando also expressed much emotion about his experience visiting the World Centre during the dedication of the terraces. We were impressed by their dedication to the Faith and their single-minded focus on the elements of the Five Year Plan.  Theirs seems to be a stronghold for the Faith in that area thanks to their efforts.

          A wonderful highlight of our time in Tela, Honduras was going to Turnabe to visit Armando Guzman and his family.  This family is very distinctive and left a deep impact on us. They are in charge of the village phone office, so have an easy means to stay in touch with everyone in the village.  Armando told us that he felt having the phone office in his home was a blessing from Bahá’u’lláh to help him teach the Faith.  During our short afternoon visit with them we learned that the family had been Bahá’ís since the 1980’s.  Armando knew Counsellor Dr. Ahmadiyyeh and named many other early believers who worked in Central America.  Armando has been active in recruiting villagers to attend Ruhi institutes in the nearby Institute facility in El Peru.  He has organized youth and junior youth groups who meet regularly.  Armando, his mother, Norma, his sister, Anna are very proud of the CD that they have produced along with other active Garifuna musicians of the Hidden Words sung with Garifuna melody and translation.  He was kind to share a copy with us.  Armando also expressed much emotion about his experience visiting the World Centre during the dedication of the terraces. We were impressed by their dedication to the Faith and their single-minded focus on the elements of the Five Year Plan.  Theirs seems to be a stronghold for the Faith in that area thanks to their efforts.

 

Visit with Quentin Farrand during travel teaching in El Salvador, June 1995

June 12, 1995 Lago de Coatepeque… visit with Quentin Farrand, long time pioneer with his wife to El Salvador from Detroit, Michigan.

Quentin (Tim) Farrand worked in a military hospital in Denver in 1955.  President Dwight Eisenhauer was a patient the hospital following a heart attack.  Tim had the job of staying with the President for hours every day talking, doing crossword puzzles, and keeping the President from talking about politics.

Tim contacted the National Spiritual Assembly to see if it would be appropriate for him to mention Bahá’i to the President, especially to thank him for his cable to the Shah in 1955 in defense of the Baha’is.  The National Spiritual Assembly okayed it.

Tim told President Eisenhauer he was a Bahá’i and wanted to thank the President for intervening on behalf of the Baha’is in Iran.  The President asked about the Faith.  Tim told him the history of Bahá’u’lláh; mentioned prominent people who had expressed respect for the Faith, such as Tolstoy; and shared the principles.  Eisenhauer especially like the principles.  He told Tim that if the Baha’is in Iran were ever attacked again that he would do anything in his power to defend them. 

Thirty years later while in the states, Tim had an opportunity to visit with Hand of the Cause of God Zikrullah Khadem.  Mr. Khadem told Tim that later in 1955 the Mullahs in Iran had decided to incite mobs to burn the homes of prominent Baha’is and to kill the Baha’is if they tried to escape.  Somehow the US Embassy found out about the devious plan and contacted President Eisenhauer who contacted the Shah with the warning the if anything happened to the Bahá’ís, US aid to Iran would be cut off!  The Shah ordered soldiers to protect the Bahá’i homes.  Tim said that he found this out thirty years later.  The President had kept his promise. 

 

Tim also shared about how his mother hosted Louis Gregory for three months when Tim was twelve years old.  Louis Gregory made a big impression on Tim’s life.  Also, David and Joy Earl, an interracial couple in Detroit who suffered through much racial hatred directed toward them.  Joy had a miscarriage due largely to the stress of prejudice she received from her white neighbors who “didn’t want a n____ baby in their neighborhood.  Joy was a mentor to Tim. 

 

11 June 1995: Visit with Counsellor Artemus Lamb during the International Youth Conference for Central America held at Lago de Coatepeque, El Salvador.

Bienshirni and I traveled to the conference by bus from Texas with stops to visit Baha’is in Veracruz and in Guatemala.

Last night we visited with Artemus Lamb, now ninety years old and almost deaf.  He said that when he looked back on his life as a Bahá’i he could see how the Guardian was guiding him through letters and telegrams.  At the time, he said, he did not realize it, but looking back he could see that as long as he followed whatever the Guardian suggested he do, everything worked out. 

The Guardian told Artemus that his services in Latin America were more valuable than anywhere else in the world.  Artemus said that before he became a Bahá’i in 1939 at the age of thirty-four he was an atheist.  Thinking that having science, he did not need God. His sister (Valerie Nichols) and mother became Baha’is and as he faced more and more difficulties in his life, he began to look into the Faith.

In 1944 he went to Chile to the southernmost point in the Americas in response to Shoghi Effendi. Another Bahá’i had gone to the northernmost point in Alaska, who Artemus had never met.  When they met at the first World Congress in London for the first time, they were asked to shake hands as a symbolic gesture of the north and south points meeting.  Artemus said that an electric current ran through their hands.  Artemus told me his strange journey to Punta Arenas in response to the Guardian’s call for a pioneer to go there.  In route the ship had a port call in Acapulco.  He went a shore only to witness his ship burning out in the bay taking all of his possessions and money with it.  He only had a few traveler’s cheques left.  Being at all man, when he went into a local shop to buy another set of clothes, he could only find pants that came up to his knees like knickerbockers.  See more in the account below.

Artemus met the Guardian in Haifa in 1953. He witnessed how the immense workload of Shoghi Effendi was “wearing him out.”  “He was worn out.”

12 June 1995: Lago de Coatepeque, El Salvador

Visiting with Artemus Lamb—When I was a Counsellor, I used to advise pioneers to buy property and a house where they settled.  Then, even if they had to leave, they have an investment.  But I never followed my own advice and since Doña Dee’s death (Artemus’s wife) I have moved from place to place.  I had no money.  Someone told me to apply for Social Security for Doña Dee after she died, because she qualified for it.  I filled out all the papers and sent them in, but they turned me down and gave no reason.  I accepted the decision figuring it wasn’t meant to be.  Then, months later I received a letter from Social Security telling me that they had changed their decision and had approved my application.  They gave me a check for $8,000! Suddenly I had eight thousand dollars, which had helped me a lot.  Bahá’u’lláh must have helped out!

A brief  and amazing introduction to his life by Quentin Farrand can be found at https://bahai-library.com/farrand_artemus_lamb

The brief bio shares the strange story of Artemus’s boat journey to Punta Arenas, Chile:  While preparing to leave, another letter from the NSA explained that there were urgent problems in Ecuador and they wished him to go there first, and then, perhaps, to Punta Arenas. Artemus was overcome. He had promised to go to Punta Arenas to fulfill a special request of the Guardian and felt that he was destined to go there. For several days he prayed for guidance and finally decided that for confirmation he should obey the National Assembly and leave everything in the hands of God. The war was still on and air travel from the U.S. was impossible. By chance (1) he saw in the Salt Lake City newspaper the announcement of the last trip' of the Argentinian steamship "Mar de Plata" up the Pacific coast, to Los Angeles and then back to Buenos Aires. He rushed to Los Angeles, got passage and in a few weeks embarked - ostensibly for Ecuador.

On the second or third day the boat stopped in Acapulco, Mexico~ and all the passengers went ashore. Some time later walking back along the beach toward the ship. he noticed that the shore was lined with people and there was lots of smoke. He then saw the steamship was immersed in flames and had to be towed out and sunk. Everything he had was on that boat: passport, money, clothes, everything but what he had on and in his pocket.

He found himself in a strange land, with no possessions but a few travelers cheques. His first reaction was that Bahá’u’lláh did not consider him worthy of the mission and that he should return home. He then realized that this was a test of his determination and that by whatever means he should continue the journey. The steamship company finally got them to Mexico City, returned the passage money and left them on their own. The U.S. Embassy replaced his passport and offered him travel to any point in South America. He cabled the Interamerican Committee in Wilmette recommending that he take advantage of the offer and fly to Santiago. Chile. by-passing Ecuador. They approved and air· flights lasting five days and four nights he arrived in Santiago, and later went to Punta Arenas.

 

 

Serenity

My mind swirls in scenes of the past--:
Serene motion, Diné horsemen on pinto ponies
Garifuna drums and Punta dancing, Hawaiian papaya,
And the smell of jasmine near Hilo.

Hotel room in Ixmiquilpan, land of the Otomi, 1982
Sipping atole in the chilly air of the morning sun on the street
Walk by fields of cilantro under the crisp blue December sky
The sense of souls all around 

Haifa clouds, during pilgrimage, close to God;
We walk on stone paths to the Shrine in Bahji
Praying to be cleansed from stained deeds,
Like soiled laundry, renewed peace free of blame
Of others and me.  The need to live in “we” not in “me,
And better yet from “we” to “He””

Wonder and Contentment: other mystic valleys too.
To be on top of the world, not under it (a mental attitude)
Sharing love without expectation of reward.

Minestrone soup with toast before bed and evening prayer.

 CS Cholas, 11 pm. October 23, 1994