On Thursday I had the honor and privilege to join a group led by our Mayor, Robert Reichert, for a trip to Atlanta's High Museum.
The two exhibits that we were there to see: "Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956–1968" and "After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy" moved me in a way that I find difficult to describe.
The hollow I saw in the eyes of the parents of Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins - 4 little girls whose lives were taken when the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed. A photograph of the drivers seat of Viola Liuzzo's car, stained with her blood . . . and I could still see her shoes - lying in the floorboard. These images, all of the images, made me acutely conscious of how far hatred can go . . . how toxic it can become.
Hatred. It starts as a whisper, spread among "friends" until it becomes acceptable to humiliate an "outsider" in the open, over a beer, as if it were a comedy routine. And before you know it - it's okay to diminish your own neighbors, at the nicest restaurant in town, at the top of your lungs.
The Toast, this week, goes to those who find even the whispers to be unacceptable, far from okay, and undeserving of tolerance . . . The Champagne Toast, goes to Mr. & Mrs. John Matthew Fennell!
Bebe Sanders was married to Matthew Fennell at Christ Church on Saturday at six thirty . . . and there was LOVE!!!
I cannot name two people for you, who are more lovely, more welcoming, more kind, more considerate and more caring . . . than Bebe and Matthew. If it seems that I am exaggerating - I promise you that I'm not. And their wedding was no exception.
On that note - a Toast to Sanders Calloway Hatcher (Cal), the precocious ring bearer who was cute enough to gobble up like Wedding Cake.
The reception was held at the ethereally candle lit Blacksmith Shop, catered by Natalia's and attended by an intimate group of friends and family. The night was as beautiful as the couple that it honored!
As superstition would have it (or so says Kathryn Strickland) you should sleep with a piece of wedding cake under your pillow and you will dream about your own wedding. As luck would have it . . . one of the bartenders set aside a bottle of the "good wine" especially for me. So I slept soundly enough to have nary a recollection of such a dream.
But I do have a dream, and it's very simple. My dream is for love to grow stronger than hate, each and every day, by leaps and bounds.
aS
Hot This Week! (Ooh Girl It Is Soooo . . . )
FRESHMARKET! I have been waiting for this since I followed my mom around in Piggly Wiggly pushing a tiny plastic shopping buggy.
August 6 – Cox Capitol Theatre presents Dinner and a Classic: “Seven Days in May”
Nominate someone for Macon Arts' Annual Cultural Awards.
Step Right Up, Get Your Tickets Before They Sell Out . . .
Puccini's Madama Butterfly . . . Toast of the Townie, Laura Peacock will be in the chorus as a Geisha(!) and Fantasies of the Opera Ball.
Wicked - I saw it in New York, from dead center on the third row, and can say - without hesitation - that a Broadway Musical can change the way that you see the world! It's coming to Atlanta so don't miss it.
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