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"Dr. Lamar Hardwick on Disability, Inclusion, and the Fear of Being Human" Transcript
[00:00:00] Lamar Hardwick: And here's the thing, you mentioned COVID and I'll say this: when accessibility became an everybody issue, we saw the church get really creative didn't we? We saw it come up with money to do all sorts of things, right. And I tweeted about that. Like the disability community is watching. What you're saying is it could have been done all along.
[The song "Citizens" by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: "I need to know there is justice/That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home." The song fades out.]
Suzie Lahoud: Welcome to Shake the Dust, leaving colonized faith for the Kingdom of God, a podcast of KTF Press. I'm Suzie Lahoud here with Jonathan Walton and Sy Hoekstra.
Sy Hoekstra: Everyone, I am so excited. Today we have an interview with Dr. Lamar Hardwick. He is a graduate of Candler School of Theology and has a DMin from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the lead pastor at Tri-Cities Church in East Point, Georgia, and is the author of a few books, most [00:01:00] recently, Disability and the Church: A Vision for Diversity and Inclusion.
Now Dr. Hardwick also has autism spectrum disorder and is known online as the autism pastor. He provides workshops, seminars, and consultations for local churches and faith-based organizations on how to create welcoming environments for people with autism. He also provides mentoring services to teenagers and young people on the spectrum.
We talk to him today about his book, Disability and the Church; his personal story of living as an autistic pastor; what our fear of disabilities teaches us about ourselves and our faith; his theology of diversity; God's disabilities- you heard that correctly- and so much more.
Jonathan Walton: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to our podcast today. Don't forget to subscribe to our blog at www.ktfpress.com to support the show, receive our weekly newsletter and resources to help you leave colonized faith for the Kingdom of God, and get access to bonus episodes of the show and writing from the three of us. This also helps us support other projects we're working [00:02:00] on like future books for wonderful authors that are worthy of your attention.
If you aren't in a position to do that, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app. You could also follow us on social media @KTFPress on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And tell your friends about us, rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you so much for your support!
Suzie Lahoud: Without further ado, here's our interview with Dr. Lamar Hardwick…
["Citizens" by Jon Guerra fades in briefly, then fades out.]
[00:00:00] Sy Hoekstra: Pastor Lamar Hardwick, thank you so much for joining us on Shake the Dust today!
Lamar Hardwick: Well, thanks for having me. It's an honor.
Sy Hoekstra: It's an honor for us to have you here, and I also know that you're going through a lot at the moment. You've been sort of public about you're going through chemotherapy, there was a tornado came through your neighborhood recently… I know there's just a whole lot and that's just the public stuff that we know about. So we really appreciate you taking the time to be here right now. And I know this book tour is also probably busy, so just thank you, first of all, from the bottom of our hearts for being here.
So, you know, we've talked a little about you and your book already in the intro, but I just wanted to start off by saying, or by getting a bit of your story to the listeners. So you were diagnosed at age 36 with what we would now call autism spectrum disorder- I think it was Asperger's when you were diagnosed. And can you just talk to us a little bit about [00:01:00] why that diagnosis came so late in life, why it happened when it did, and what that was like for you?
Lamar Hardwick: Sure. So I think one of the ways I explain it best over the years when people ask that question is, you know, one, I was born in '78, so right around the age of, you know, 18 months to two years- would have been, you know, '79/ '80- there really wasn't a lot of education as far as what we know now about autism. And then, you know, in those days there was still very much the stigma of, "Oh, boys develop slower than girls," you know, those types of things. And so a lot of that, attribute to that.
Also, and I think I talk about this in the book, I was raised in a military family. So we moved just about [00:02:00] every three years. So, you know, in reflecting with the therapist, the psychologist, that diagnosed me, you know, no one really expected me to adjust well, especially socially, because we're always moving. And so part of that time, especially in my younger years, was spent actually living overseas. We lived in Germany and so different language, different culture, you know, different country.
And so people really didn't expect me to adjust well, they just sort of did the best they could with me. And so she believes a lot of that masked what were obvious signs, but because of the circumstances of our family traveling all the time and some of the lack of education and many people, you know, like me have all experienced that too that's around my age or older where we just didn't know. And then, you know, I was verbal, although my mom's said that there were times where I [00:03:00] would not talk. And I don't know if it's because I couldn't or I wouldn't- that part of my developmental history is a little bit of a mystery. Like no one can actually pinpoint when I started talking, they just knew that I didn't talk a lot.
And my mom also recorded, you know, not actually, having to quit working because she couldn't leave me with anyone. I would cry for six, seven hours at a time. And so that's one of the reasons why she couldn't work.
Sy Hoekstra: Gosh.
Lamar Hardwick: So yeah, there were a lot of things that probably, in this sort of modern era of understanding of autism, would have gotten me diagnosed in a proper time.
Honestly, some of it has to do with what continues to be diagnostic disparities between white children and African-American and Latino children. There's still African-Americans getting diagnosed sometimes two years later than average. Some of that [00:04:00] has changed, but I can imagine, you know, back in the late seventies/ early eighties, it was probably even more of an issue with, um… So there were many factors for that that, you know, I could talk about at another time, but I also suspect that had a lot to do with it is that it just wasn't something that was commonly talked about in the African-American community. So there wasn't access to resources and the knowledge to know what to look for, and, you know, when you should be seeking some type of assistance in getting your child diagnosed.
So it was kind of a perfect storm of things that I think stopped me from being diagnosed at an age that most children would have been diagnosed at.
Sy Hoekstra: What was it like for you then receiving that diagnosis?
Lamar Hardwick: Yeah, so, I mean, I was 36 at the time. So it's almost been seven years. So the beginning of it was a relief actually. [00:05:00] I, for the first time, felt human, because I had been told my whole life about the way that I should behave and the ways I should conform and the things that I should do, and not really being able to ever achieve those behaviors that I was told I should display. So you grow up like that. You feel very strange. A lot of times I tell people how the best way I can describe my experience is it felt like the world was an inside joke that I didn't get. And it didn't matter how hard I tried, I just didn't understand a lot of things that people did. I did fake a lot of things and I pretended to understand a lot of things and I mimicked a lot of behavior that I saw other people do just because I didn't know what to do to fit in, but I knew what not to do to, to stand out. And so I just pretended to [00:06:00] be like all the other kids that I saw around me.
But being diagnosed helped me to feel a lot more human; that I wasn't weird or weak- all the things that I had been characterized. It also made me feel more human because I understood for the first time that all the things that people had problems about with me was about my neurology and not my character. And so, you know, when you grow up as a child, usually the first thing that is said is that you're defiant, you're a bad child.
Sy Hoekstra: You're misbehaving.
Lamar Hardwick: Misbehaving, yeah. And so for the first time I realized like, no, I'm not. I don't have serious character flaws that people are making me out to be. It's just neurologically I see the world differently.
So it was a relief, but then there's the other part of it where there actually was a little bit of grief just because it was like meeting myself for the first time and the person that I thought I was, was not [00:07:00] really the person that everybody else was experiencing, which was okay. But, you know, you got 36 years of struggling trying to make people like you, and you realize that the things, the way that people have perceived you is not the way that you thought that they perceived you. So there was a little bit of grief there I had to wrestle through. You know, blaming myself for relationships that ended that I had no idea why they ended, for jobs that I wasn't able to hold, those types of things. But thankfully, both my wife and I stayed with the clinical psychologist that diagnosed me. I actually stayed with her for almost two years to sort of help me unravel those complicated parts of my life so that I didn't have to carry that burden of grief because the reality is none of that was my fault. I just had to get to a place where I was okay with what happened in the past and I was ready to move forward.
Sy Hoekstra: That's, it's interesting to me because I'm, [00:08:00] because I'm blind I don't, I did not have the experience of not… [chuckles] blindness is something you can diagnose pretty quickly. [Lamar chuckles] So I did not have the experience of missing that diagnosis, but I do understand the part about having to like go to a therapist to deal with grief because I did for a long time, even though I obviously knew what was going on, I just wasn't dealing with the emotional aspect of it. I wasn't dealing with the, you know, the kind of social rejection and like a lot of those things that you're talking about. I was trying to pretend that I could see and do everything that other sighted kids could do, and like not ever having to go back and say like, no, okay, this, you know, rejection and the ways that society isn't built for me, like actually made me sad and I need to deal with that, like preferably with a professional, was something that took me a long time to get to. So that part I understand.
Lamar Hardwick: Yeah.
Jonathan Walton: Dr. Hardwick, something that you [00:09:00] mentioned, I would, I wonder if you could talk more about like the intersectionality of disability and Blackness. Like I'm not part of the disabled community, but I am part of the Black community and in reflecting on like how we as Black folks treat people who are quote unquote different- that's how my church would describe it in the South, you know, Southern Virginia Church of 50 people- there were some different kinds of people, right.
Jonathan Walton: And so, could you share about coming out to us?
Lamar Hardwick: Sure. Yeah, I mean, a lot of my work is based on that. I touch on it a little bit in the book and I probably am looking to do some further work and maybe write another book specifically about that, you know, the Black church experience, the African-American experience with disability.
So what I'll say about that is there's a huge, [00:10:00] huge context of history of, one of mistrust of medical systems, mental health systems. Rightfully so because, you know, we know now from history, there was plenty of things that were done to enslaved Africans and even after slavery ended that just created this huge mistrust.
So a large part of it, especially my research in the Black community, is difficult in dealing with some of those things, is that, you know, enslaved Africans were brought here to produce and so they needed bodies that could produce. And so a lot of the enslaved Africans when they had children that had some form of disability would lie about having the child, would hide the child, because it was a way of protecting that child.
And so some of that mindset has [00:11:00] continued throughout the community because, you know, we understood very well that Black bodies were born to produce. And if there was some reason that they were not able to produce, then they needed to be protected by the community at all costs because it is very well documented that slave owners would beat the children, sometimes even kill the children, drown the children.
So some of that shame and stigma is a direct result of slavery and racism, to be honest. And so we're, as a community, always fighting against that because what it has done is it has made us suspicious for a reason, but also has put us behind the curve as far as being able to access the resources that are needed. And then some of those resources, honestly, don't, are not easily accessible to communities of color. And so I've talked to many people across the country where they would go somewhere, but it's not anywhere close to where [00:12:00] they live. There's no access to those resources.
And then the last thing I'll say about that is that there's a great sermon from Dr. King called "The Guidelines for a Constructive Church." And he talks about in that sermon that, and I'm paraphrasing, that one of the things that the church is also responsible and on the forefront of doing is helping to get rid of the bias that slavery created. And so it's not just in freeing enslaved Africans, it's freeing people from the bias that it created. So a good example of that would be CDC, I think last year, released new statistics on autism. And they did say in that report that the diagnostic disparities between white children and African-Americans and Latinos has been reduced. As fact, they're saying that, that they are being diagnosed at the same [00:13:00] rates.
But what's interesting in that report is that for those who don't have a co-occurrence of an intellectual disability, like myself, those rates are still, there's still a huge gap. A co-occurrence of intellectual disability with autism does not define autism. So therefore, in theory, all the behaviors that should get you diagnosed should be the same, right? This is just science. And having an intellectual disability does not actually make the autism more pronounced.
So what that suggests is if those behaviors should be all the same, then why is it that when it comes to African-Americans and Latinos who do not have an intellectual disability along with autism are still not being diagnosed at the same rate? What I've shared in some conferences is that's because behaviors from Black and brown bodies are always interpreted as something different. And so you [00:14:00] get these gaps. But we don't even need that. That's just one example. We don't even need to see that, we can see it in society, right, with how behaviors and mannerisms and the way that their bodies move are oftentimes interpreted as something other than, and so what it's done is just, it continues to create diagnostic disparities.
And I think that that's one of the things that Dr. King was talking about in his sermon about not just freeing enslaved Africans, but freeing, particularly this country, from the bias that slavery created. So it's unfortunate that that's part of the legacy of this country, but it has done a disservice to the African-American community. So that's why you see a lot of not being able to handle, as you said, Jonathan, the different people in our congregations, right. Some of that is because of protection for those persons who would otherwise be [00:15:00] demonized by the greater society.
Suzie Lahoud: Dr. Hardwick, thank you so much for sharing with us both your personal story and also your expertise as an advocate and as an author who's written on this. And just to ask you now as a pastor, after you received your diagnosis, how did you change the way that you approached pastoring and how did your church respond? What were the changes that they made?
Lamar Hardwick: Yeah, great question. So, you know, once I was diagnosed and I had time to process it, I realized a couple of things. One, I realized a lot of the barriers that I had faced in trying to be a pastor, in bouncing from church to church because I didn't fit- I realized what those barriers were for the first time. I didn't understand it before I had a diagnosis and people didn't know either, [00:16:00] but it is very instinctual for people to sort of push away anyone who's different because I don't fit the stereotypical mold of what most people think a pastor should be like or act like. And so I realized, on a larger scale, me understanding it now I'm understanding some of the ableism, even though it probably wasn't intentional because no one knew, but I really started to understand the barriers that I had to fight through and why it was so difficult for me.
What that did for me is I now realize I'm a part of the autism community, but I'm also part of the disability community at large. And wow, if I've had these experiences now that I have a label to be able to, or a language, rather, to be able to explain them, how much more difficult has it been for other people?
So it [00:17:00] really opened my eyes. Like I didn't have as much experience or knowledge about how people with disabilities were impacted by a society and a culture that's not necessarily built for them. I just knew I had problems on my way, you know, trying to become what I felt I was called to be. So that, it made me pastor differently because now I realize that I have my foot in both worlds. And, you know, as someone who has been a leader, is blessed to have been a leader of a church, I felt the necessity to say, okay, now that I understand this better, now that I get it, I should leverage the platform and any privilege that I have to make it better for persons like myself, because I understand it now. I understand what those problems were. I understand it a little bit deeper. So it made me more empathetic, but it also empowered me to [00:18:00] say, okay, I can do church differently because I'm blessed to be able to be the one who could change things because I happen to be the pastor.
But then also it felt more like a calling from God to say, okay, not just your church, but what if you start to speak out and try to help all churches to understand this important issue? So it made me, it totally made me pastor out of my personal experience with being a part of the disability community and say, okay, here's the stuff that doesn't work for me. I don't like it. It's been a barrier for me my whole life. It's been the reason why I struggled with church. We're not doing that anymore. And if, you know, if y'all, don't like it, I hate to tell you, but, you know, this is how it's gonna, we're going to have to do it this way because there's many people like me who are not coming to our churches for these reasons.
So it gave me, it gave me a reason to do things differently. And the [00:19:00] church responded, I think. You know, at least the church I was previously at that I pastored and I helped set up ministry there, and the church I'm at now, that I've only been at two years, but when I came in to interview, I told them up front, "Look, if you're going to bring me in, you have to know these things you have to know about me,"-which they already knew all about me- "and you have to know that we're going to have to do things a certain way if we're going to be more inclusive of people with disabilities." And thankfully, they have risen to the occasion because I think they're understanding the necessity of what we've been trying to do.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, and building off of that, I'm wondering, how did your theology change? In the book, you talk about the fear of being human as it relates to the Garden of Eden and the fall and disability. So could you just, you know, for people who haven't read the book or are just diving into it, cause it's meaty, like it needs time, you know? But if you [00:20:00] were going to just give a quick overview of like, what are you getting at with the fear of being human and what do people who read the book look forward to getting when they engage?
Lamar Hardwick: Yeah. Good, good question. One of the things I realize about myself is I've always had these perspectives and these views of scripture that I'm now realizing that a lot of it is attributed to my neurology. Like I've just always, I say all the time, if I'm in a room with nine other people and there's ten of us, I'm almost always the person who's going to see things differently, almost always. And so that's always put me on the outside, but so a lot of those verses that and scriptures that I unpack were things I had preached about for years before I even knew that I was on the spectrum, but that's just the way I see things.
So there's a whole thing about the fear of being human is that we have, you know, none of us like limits. [00:21:00] And you see this more as our society progresses, right? Especially with technology. Like we don't like to be limited. And so, you know, we're the type of people who will leave something early so we can get to something late. Cause we want to be everywhere, all the time, you know, and be connected all the time.
And that's an internal struggle that we have because we don't like limits. We want to be more than what we are. We'd like to do more than what we are capable of doing. It's caused us to be burned out, has caused us to chase after things and be unhealthy. Like we're the culture that brags about how much rest we don't get, right. Because we just, we're just obsessed with the grind and the hustle.
Well, for me, like I have sensory processing issues, social anxiety. There's a lot of things, a lot of ways that I'm limited. And so when I said when I got diagnosed that for the first time I felt human it's because I realized I'm not supposed to be able to do all those things. I'm not supposed to be able to be all these things, right. And that's sort of the [00:22:00] story of the Garden. The way that I've always seen it is God tells Adam and Eve look, you know, he's put them in this perfect situation, right? This ideal situation. And just asks for simple trust because you're not, you're not built to bear the burden and the weight of this knowledge of good and evil, right? We're just not built for that. And one of the things that the serpent does is he appeals to our need to be more than human. So he says, "If you, if you eat this, you'll be just like God."
Well, I say this in the book, that that was never really God's plan to be like him. It was to be with him, right. We already bear his image. Like what, what are we, what more do we want? And so it just speaks to our need to constantly try to be more than human. We don't like pain. We don't like suffering. We don't like disability. We don't like, you know, [00:23:00] all the things that make us feel limited. And so I think at the core, we really have to wrestle with that. Like, why do we have this aversion to suffering or disability or limitations when God designed us to be human, right? And to enjoy that experience. We're not supposed to be more than that. And you even think about that with time. Like I tell people all the time, you know, I do certain things. I know when I'm the strongest. I know how much time I have to use. But I've learned to just not try to be more than what I am.
Paul talks about that too. Like, you know, embracing that, that thorn that he has and understanding that, you know what? I'm human and I don't have to try to be more than what God created me to be. I can be happy with what God created me to be. And so I, you know, I think that's something that we gotta wrestle with and come to terms with and know that God was happy with how he created us. And the more and more that becomes less about what we desire is to [00:24:00] just be with God and not try to be like God and try to be God, the less capable we are of having what I believe is, is the best version of ourselves and the best relationship we can have with God.
Sy Hoekstra: That's such a pastoral word of grace, I feel like, to so many people. Cause I, like when I read that in your book, I mean, this is just from my own experience, I immediately jumped to a story where a coworker of mine whose mother was going blind as a result of a medical condition had told the coworker that when she went blind she was going to commit suicide. Like she just straight up said that to her own daughter. And it's like I- which is obviously horrible for the daughter, for the woman herself I feel terrible, like that's an awful thought to have- but me hearing that story is like, you know, someone saying I'd rather be dead than you.
It's not just people with disabilities. There's so many different people who, to whom society in various ways [00:25:00] says that, like gives that message.
Lamar Hardwick: Right. Yeah.
Sy Hoekstra: So to say this just isn't, this is like, it's baked into us, but God is with us anyway. Like it's right there at the beginning of what we believe. It's a fundamental thing, this fear of being human, it's part of who we are, but God has made provision for that and has worked to remedy that is, I don't know, it's just, it's a really powerful message.
Lamar Hardwick: Yeah. And to not be ashamed, right? Like they, they cover themselves. It's just like before you ate that fruit, like you were perfectly happy with the bodies you were given, with the situation you were in. All of a sudden now you feel the need to cover yourself, right. To be ashamed of the bodies that God has given us. And for me, I think that's a huge issue we got to wrestle with and try to progress past.
Unfortunately, progress has made it harder to do that because it keeps promising us the ability to get rid of all of our [00:26:00] limitations. And, you know, when we do run into the fact that we know we have a limitation, we try to cover it. We try to hide. We try to pretend that we're not human.
Sy Hoekstra: So I think this probably goes well into another bit of theology that you talk about. You draw on the work of Nancy Eiesland, who is a theologian from Candler seminary- the late Nancy Eiesland- and her book, The Disabled God. And you talk about the fact that, I think probably a lot of people have not thought about, that God has disabilities. And can you explain what you mean by that and kind of what that means for disabled people and the church?
Lamar Hardwick: Yeah, so Nancy Eiesland, the late Nancy Eiesland, was great. I actually went to Candler, and so she's a big influence, but I pick up on her work where she talks about, primarily about the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. So I think one of the [00:27:00] things that I've noticed is that we tend to preach and teach a Sunday school sanitized version of that experience, right. But when you look at the fact that Jesus comes back in his resurrection still bearing the marks of his disabled, uh, disable and torture, right.
So I sort of break it down, like actually what a Roman crucifixion would have been like. A lot of the visual depictions that we show is not actually how the Romans did it. But when you, when you study that you realize if those things weren't healed, because you remember, he goes back and Thomas asked to see those wounds, right. And he's fully back, but he still carries with him those marks. And he actually leverages those marks of impairment as a way of identifying himself, right.
So the nine-inch spikes would have gone through his wrists. I can't [00:28:00] recall exactly, but I did medical research on that and the number of tendons that that would have severed. Okay, so those are not healed. The way that the Romans would have crucified you, they would have turned the legs to the side and driven a spike somewhere around the Achilles tendon. And I talk about that in the book. I've torn an Achilles tendon. And to come back without that being healed, like it took me a year to learn how to use my body again. So, you know, for that to not have been healed meant that those marks would have been disabling. That's just God's honest truth.
And then if you, even if you flip over to Revelation and it gives the image that, you know, we believe is an image of Christ, and it says the Lamb that was mortally wounded yet standing. And so there's like this tension between these disabling marks that should have killed him and did- it's mortally wounded, but still functioning- it's sort of a nod to the [00:29:00] fact that he carries with him back into, you know, the heavenly realm, this body that was brutally disabled through the torture.
So that stuff doesn't go away, right. And I think because we, again, we have such an aversion to suffering that we sort of believe that those things went away, right. And one of the things that I talk about is that, okay, we've got to wrestle with that. We have to wrestle with that, and we have to wrestle with the fact that Jesus uses those marks as a major identifier of who he is after he's resurrected. And so that's just picking up on the work of Nancy Eiesland and some of my own thoughts about, okay, you know, if Jesus is God then we have to, we have to wrestle with the fact that he carries with him these marks of impairment that would've been brutally disabling and doesn't get rid of them. And, you know, [00:30:00] from his resurrection to his Ascension, to all the way to Revelation, those things still remain as a part of who he is to the extent that they're used to identify him.
So I think a lot of the things that we believe is because we just want to believe it. We want to believe that those things are gone, but if they're not, what does that say about God? What does that say about his ability to identify with the disability community and everybody in between? What does that say about what we believe? And what does it say about our idea of sacred spaces, right? I talk about that in the book that if that's true, we've got to really wrestle with why is it that when we have this ideal sacred space, it never includes disabled bodies?
Sy Hoekstra: You actually ask at one point in the book, whether or not people who are disabled will continue to have disabilities in heaven. Which I think again, some people will probably think is a pretty radical [00:31:00] question to ask. And you don't necessarily give a definitive answer, but you do say that it's an important question for the church to ask. And it affects specifically how we think about inclusion in the church. Can you talk about why that is?
Lamar Hardwick: Yeah, because, you know, so I talk about where a lot of that, or at least a couple of sections where that new body belief comes from. So I researched them cause I want to know where do we get that from? I know a lot of it is because, again, we have an aversion to suffering. And so like we view heaven as this great escape plan, right. To escape the things that we don't necessarily like about ourselves, or the limits that are placed on us because we're human. But the two places, or a couple of places, rather, where we get that from is from some of Paul's writing. But when I researched it, it didn't feel like that's what he was saying at all.
[00:32:00] And so that then led me to believe that, you know what? We've got to step back here, because for Christians the ideal is heaven, right. That's our ideal sacred space. But I'd ask myself, when we, when we think about our ideal sacred space, do we think if it includes disabled bodies? So the connection I'm trying to make is that whatever our ideal sacred space is, we try to recreate those moments in our churches and that's historical. I didn't go into it a lot in the book, but it's historical. Even if you look at, you know, how the Tabernacle was built, how the Temple was built, like there were ideals there about what a sacred space looked like.
So I think, you know, like I said, I didn't, like you said, I didn't come to an answer, but I think it's a [00:33:00] question that nobody asks, or at least a lot of people are not asking. Why is this so difficult for us? Well, we have this ideal.
Suzie Lahoud: Another really powerful point that you make in the book is rooting your argument that the church should actively include disabled people in a broader theology of diversity. And could you also share why you believe that the church is called by God to seek out diversity?
Lamar Hardwick: Yeah, so I talk about it in a couple of places. You know, one, that Jesus, when he tells Peter that "I'm gonna…" you know, after Peter says, "You are the Christ," and he says, "I'm going to build my church." After that he says, "I'm going to give to the church- you all- the keys to the Kingdom."
So one of the jobs of the church has always been to give people access. And so by nature, even if you look at Jesus in the, what we know as the Great Commission, he says, "Go out, [00:34:00] and make disciples. Give people access," right? Teach them about this kingdom, this new way of living, and do it among all ethnic groups.
And then you go over to what I call the opening day of the church in the Book of Acts when Peter's preaching, and they're like, you know, "You guys are drunk." Which I think is so funny. And he says, "Look," he says, "it's only nine in the morning. The liquor store is not even open yet," right? It's like, we're not drunk like that. But then he says, "This is what the prophet, Joel prophesied." And in that message from Joel- Joel, I think it's chapter two, verse 28- he says, you know, it's going to be all genders- men and women, all generations. So he eventually says all genders, all generations, all cultures, all conditions, right?
And so this outpouring of the Holy Spirit begins to help the early church understand that diversity [00:35:00] is actually at the forefront of what it means to build a church until you establish God's Kingdom. And that includes all genders, all generations, all conditions, all cultures that are now being made into one people group. So it's important for the church to understand that that's, that's been our job is to pursue diversity, is to bring in different kinds of people from different backgrounds.
The connection to the disability community is that, you know, our culture has been pushing a lot for diversity and inclusion, as it should, because we're realizing that much of what we have believed to be right and true has come from primarily one set of voices. So now we're saying we need more minority voices at the table because everything from education, to faith communities, to employment has been shaped primarily by one set of voices. We need other minorities to weigh in, to have a seat at the table.
The connection is that the disability community is actually the largest minority group in the world- about [00:36:00] 20%. So for me, as the church is trying to catch up to the culture and saying, okay, we want diverse churches. What I'm saying is that we've all got to back up and say, I appreciate the ethnic and racial diversity, but we're missing an entire population of minorities that is actually the largest minority group in the world. And that's persons with disabilities. And I tell people that the disability community is the only minority group that you can join, and you can join at any time, for any reason.
Sy Hoekstra: At any time.
Lamar Hardwick: And if you live long enough, you'll become part of it.
Sy Hoekstra: Yep. [chuckles]
Jonathan Walton: [chuckling] When I read that, I was like, "Wow, he's so right. This is true."
Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. I was just going to say, that's also just so, so profound because that just relates back to this concept of, it's really about the human condition. This is all of us. And we just need to realize that [00:37:00] and embrace that as the church. Yeah, so thank you for sharing those insights.
Jonathan Walton: I realize like I am, I am exceptionally limited, and COVID has revealed our corporate limitations, right. And our just, inability and unwillingness to learn across difference, and then the radical dismissal that happens when people are no longer able to produce, no longer able to do the thing that we were quote unquote expected or agreed to do. And so I'm just marinating in, in my own stuff as you're speaking.
So I, that's why I was pausing, I was like, I don't, I don't know what I wanna ask… But you talk about, like, the return on investment that happens when we make space, and ministries make space, when churches make space. So could you explain how you advise church administrations to think about the return on [00:38:00] investment in that context?
Lamar Hardwick: Yeah. So, one of the things that I often hear, and I guess it's a good question. I can say that from a pastor's standpoint, but from a theological and spiritual standpoint it's not a great question. And usually that question is, you know, how much is this going to cost? Like, how do we fit this in our budget? Because there are some real practical things that need to be done, you know, if you're going to make your church more inclusive. A lot of it really starts with building the culture, having the right attitude. You know, really just being obedient to the teachings of Jesus, which, you know, is a novel idea. [All chuckle] But, one of the things that I challenge churches to do, and I say in the book, is that we've got to get a better understanding of value versus cost, right.
So in the Parable of the Banquet, Jesus says, you know, to go out and invite the lame, the blind, the cripple, and the poor. And he admonishes them then, don't [00:39:00] invite people who can repay you, right. Because that becomes your only reward. So in a simple way, Jesus is saying, well, you're getting what you invested in. Like the reason why they're not there is because you've never actually invested in them. And, as it stands, the way that you've built your table, and the way that you've built your banquet, that's your only reward. You get to hang around people who are just like you. But he says, when you invite the disability community and the poor and the marginalized, those who society has pushed away, he says something interesting. He says, "Then, at the resurrection of the righteous, God will repay you."
So it's almost like he's saying that there's a level of blessing that comes from making this initial investment. Because even though you're trying to figure out how do we get able-bodied people in our churches, because they're working, they're going to be able to pay tithes, they're going to be able to pay for this building. Let's just be honest, that's a lot of the thought process. But Jesus says, "Okay, but you think your church is great?" And I say this to people- we think our churches are great, but they're only as half as good as they could be, right. [00:40:00] Because Jesus says that God is then responsible for the repayment. And there's a level of blessing on your organization that does not exist when you build it backwards. So as great as you think your church is, if you've built it backwards by not reaching this community first, then it's at best, only half as good as it could be. And so, but a lot of that is we've got to get out of this mindset, again, about who can produce and who can pay for what we're trying to do. That's a way of building the church totally backwards.
And you read Luke 14 and Jesus will have none of it, right. He's like, "No, that's not how we're gonna do this thing." And he's, you know, and if you choose to do it, just know that you have received your only reward. And God's not the one who's giving it to you. It's the people that you've invited.
So I think we've got to have a conversation about value versus cost. Just because it may [00:41:00] cost something doesn't mean these people are not valuable. Because actually it just, it brings a whole level of blessing that you can't conjure up. You cannot kinda manufacturer God's blessing on your church, your organization, and the way that, if you actually do it, the way that he says to do it.
So, and then there's practical things too. Like I tell people, Jesus is very clear in the New Testament- heart follows treasure, right. And so if you want to have value for it, if you want your heart to be in serving this community, you've got to put some money into it.
The church that I, I pastored for nine years before I went to my new church, when I left I tied up nearly two years' worth of funds for disability ministry and designated it so they could do nothing for two years with that money but disability ministry.
Jonathan Walton: [Sy laughing in the background] That's awesome.
Lamar Hardwick: [chuckling] I said, "You could do whatever you want with the new pastor." Cause someone asked me, [00:42:00] "How do you know they're going to continue the work after you leave?" I said, "Well, I've set up a couple of things. We have elders and, you know, staff members who are personally impacted by it- a few staff members that had disabilities. So we had people who it was personal to. But then the reality is is that heart follows treasure. If you want your heart to stay with this mission, put some money in it." And I actually allocated that money and designated it. And that's the only thing they can do with that money for almost two years. So it's like, after that, you can do whatever you want. But, you know, this is where we're going to place our value, and make sure our heart stays in serving that community.
So, and here's the thing- you mentioned COVID. And I'll say this: when accessibility became an everybody issue, we saw the church get really creative didn't we? We saw it come up with money to do all sorts of things, right? And I tweeted about that. Like the disability community is watching. What you're saying is it could have been done all along. That it's not a money [00:43:00] issue. It's just been a willingness issue. Some of it's just been ignorance, but it's a shame that it took for accessibility to become an everybody issue for the church to get creative and start financing ways to give everybody access to its programming and to the things that it's doing.
So I'm hoping that, you know, the people who weren't able to access their church buildings, for some of us a year now not accessing the programs, will understand what it's been like… I tweeted this, that the distance that COVID created between pastors and parishioners is analogous to the distance that has always existed between the church and the disability community. So now that you feel it, do something about it.
Sy Hoekstra: And one practical step might be, you know, so many churches now have figured out a way to do so many of that, so much of their ministry remotely, right. And so there is a way actually, in which like, especially people who can't leave their homes for the past year have had access to stuff that they've never [00:44:00] had. Like a breadth of access to ministry that has never been available before. So maybe keep that.
Lamar Hardwick: Keep it. I talked about this in a conference that I did recently where I said, I likened it to the pool of Bethesda, right? All the people gathered there because they believed that there was a place where they could experience God and, you know, because they felt like, you know, the legend that the angel would trouble the water.
What I said is I feel like God is troubling the water and not to heal disabled bodies, but to heal the disability community's faith in the church, because now they've seen what we can do. And I'm hoping that we will, we will take this as an opportunity to bring some healing to their faith in the institution that has let them down.
Sy Hoekstra: So just going off of that, Pastor Hardwick, you have actually a lot of faith in, and you describe yourself as an apologist for the local church, [00:45:00] despite the fact that it has been so exclusionary of you and me and you know, everybody like us. Why? Why are you such an apologist? What keeps you going, you know, advocating for an institution that has been so exclusionary?
Lamar Hardwick: Simple answer: because Jesus didn't leave us with a plan B. [chuckles] He said, "I'm going to build my church." He meant it. And he said, "I'm going to give the keys to you all." And there's no plan B. Like he put all his eggs in that basket, you know. So the keys to the Kingdom don't belong to the government, or to Hollywood, or the school system. He only gave those keys to the church. So it's always been on us. But also the church has, most people don't realize this, a rich history of doing this work. Somehow or another we've moved away from it.
And I talk a little bit about in the book where Paul writes in [00:46:00] Galatians that because of his, he calls it physical brokenness, that he landed in the province of Galatia, which by the way, is an early letter. So you get Paul's most unfiltered experience with the church after his conversion, right. And he says, he says, you know, I didn't choose to land here. My body chose this for me. Which is often the life of somebody with a disability. Your body makes choices that you wouldn't necessarily choose. But Paul says, "When I, when I landed here, you guys were good to me. You didn't consider me a burden. Some of you," he says, "were even so kind to me, you would have given me your eyes, if you could." Which is a nod to just maybe what he was dealing with as far as going blind, amongst other things he had that were, that we believe were disabilities, but he says, then something changed.
So if you look at the rich history of the church between the first and third century, the church was always on the forefront of it. A lot of medical innovation and ethics and the way that people were cared for, the way that the [00:47:00] disabled were cared for, a lot of those ideas and ethics came from the Christian faith and like Paul, he says, "You started off good. And then something happened."
So I continue to have faith because I know the history. I know what the church is capable of, I know how it started off. And I also know that there's no plan B. There's nowhere else that is going to be able to swing the doors wide open to get access to God's Kingdom and the type of loving-kindness and gentleness and the affirming of all human life. That, that's the church's job.
So I, I'm almost forced to kind of, to have hope because Jesus didn't give me another option. He says, "You guys are it." So either you're going to do it right, or people are just not going to experience what God has always designed them to experience. So I have hope because we're it.
Jonathan Walton: Lord have mercy. He's right. [all laugh]
Sy Hoekstra: Lord have mercy is a good reaction. [00:48:00] That's as good as any of, of a note to end on I think.
You know, again, for everybody, the book is Disability and the Church. Cannot recommend it enough and Pastor Lamar Hardwick, thank you so much for being with us today. This was a fantastic conversation.
Lamar Hardwick: Thanks for having me.
Suzie Lahoud: Thanks for listening. You can follow Dr. Hardwick @autismpastor on social media, and remember to pick up a copy of Disability and the Church. You can subscribe to our blog [00:51:00] at www.ktfpress.com. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @KTFPress, and please remember to subscribe, rate and review wherever you're listening.
Our theme music is "Citizens" by Jon Guerra and our podcast art is by Jacqueline Tam.
We'll see you next week!
["Citizens" by Jon Guerra fades back in. Lyrics: "Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home." Song fades out.]
Jonathan Walton: I pop my knuckles all the time directly next to the mic, and you never hear it.
Sy Hoekstra: No, I do hear it. I edit that out. [Suzie gasps]
Jonathan Walton: Oh, you do? Oh, that's funny. Sorry…
Sy Hoekstra: You don't hear it.
Suzie Lahoud: Truth comes out…
Jonathan Walton: Whelp, nevermind then. I'm sorry.
Suzie Lahoud: [laughing] That's actually so funny! Jonathan's like, "And you never hear it." And Sy's there like scrubbing the… [all laughing]
Jonathan Walton: [00:52:00] Sy's hearing like, crack, crack, crack, crack! I'm sorry. I didn't know. I apologize.
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text:
Lonnie's Jukebox
In no particular order, Baseball, Politics and Rock 'n' Roll.
Lonnie's Jukebox (the original)
Hot Stove League – Inaugural Post
Hot Stove #30 – Who's on First?
December 5, 2016 April 26, 2019 ~ Lonnie Shalton
Just after Thanksgiving last year, Hot Stove #1 was posted. Rita and I were getting ready to leave for Mexico with our friends Larry and Diana Brewer – same story this year, leaving Wednesday, but with Cabo as the destination rather than Puerto Vallarta. The lead story in that inaugural post covered the selection of an all-time outfield with my grandson Ian (now 11). At Thanksgiving dinner this year, we selected our first baseman (story below). One negative change since that first post: I can no longer refer to the Royals as the reigning World Champions.
The subscriber list to Hot Stove has grown to a good number as readers have continued to add friends. Of course, some subscribers are friends who are not really that deep into baseball, but they want to make me feel good. I suspect that they may not finish some of the pieces (especially, in Rita's words, when I get into the weeds). My favorite example of the sometimes reader is Barbara Reres, a good friend who currently resides in Virginia. Rita was talking with Barbara on the phone one day when I walked in and overheard Barbara asking when the new "Burnt Locker " would be posted. When you think about it, locker is more of a baseball term than stove. In contrast, Hot Stove reader Ron Bodinson sent me an award ribbon for sports writing – his 1954 YMCA Hot Stove ribbon that his mother had put into a scrapbook. Cool.
Best All-Time Players – Who's on First?: To date, grandson Ian and I have selected these positions in our all-time lineup: Left Field – Ted Williams with a special nod to Stan Musial; Center Field – Willie Mays; Right Field – Hank Aaron (Ian) and Babe Ruth (me); Third Base – George Brett (but we acknowledge a hometown bias and recognize Mike Schmidt as a worthy alternative); Shortstop – Honus Wagner; and Second Base – Rogers Hornsby (me) and Jackie Robinson (Ian – kid has a keen sense of history; also looks good in his fall league uniform; the dirty pant leg was caused by a skillful slide at home plate).
First Base? Who else? Lou Gehrig! Ian and I agree that this is one of the easiest choices in picking an all-time lineup.
Gehrig has the numbers, personality and class that make this a no-brainer choice. He has a career WAR of 112.4, best among all first basemen even though his career was cut short by ALS. As a member of the "Murderers' Row" Yankees of 1927, possibly the best team of all time, he was the American League MVP, beating out Babe Ruth who hit his then record 60 homers. He continued with big years through most of the 30's, including knocking in 184 runs in 1931, still an AL record. One of the primary legacies of the "Iron Horse" is Gehrig's 2,130 consecutive game streak that was finally surpassed by Cal Ripken in 1995.
There were many great sluggers in the 30's, and Bill James has written about the cluster of talent at first base. Hal Trosky drove in 142 runs in 1934 and 162 in 1936, but he was the fourth-best first baseman in the AL. He was competing head to head with Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Hank Greenberg. These three are considered by many to be among the top five first baseman of all time and are in this photo of 1937 all-stars (Gehrig, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Gheringer, Foxx and a very tall Greenberg – all seven are in the Hall of Fame):
The player who will likely become the consensus second best all-time first baseman is Albert Pujols of the Cardinals and Angels. With a career WAR to date of 101.1, he has a chance of catching Gehrig in that stat. Pujols has been MVP three times and placed second four other times, twice behind the "new and improved" older Barry Bonds. If the steroid years for Bonds are discounted (as they have been so far by the Hall of Fame), Pujols would have at least five MVP awards. Other than Bonds, no player has won more than three. The good news is that you can still watch this first ballot Hall of Famer at the K when the Angels come to town next season (and as a bonus, you will see another likely first ballot guy, Mike Trout).
Any talk of first base should also include Buck Leonard, the player known as the "black Lou Gehrig" and the first baseman on the Field of Legends at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. After Satchel Paige was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1971, the next two from the Negro Leagues were Buck Leonard and Josh Gibson (the "black Babe Ruth) who together led the Homestead Grays to nine Negro League pennants. Leonard and Gibson were approached in 1943 by Clark Griffith of the Washington Senators about breaking the color line in the major leagues. They said they were interested, but Griffith never called back. Buck O'Neil in his autobiography said of Leonard, "We share the same nickname, and I only wish I'd had half his talent." He says that Leonard could hit like Gehrig and was a better fielder. O'Neil also tells the story of how Leonard turned down Bill Veeck's offer to play in the majors. Leonard, then well past his prime, said he declined because the fans would not see the real Buck Leonard. [Trivia: in some circles, Ruth was the "white Josh Gibson" and Gehrig was the "white Buck Leonard"]
Lou Gehrig in Kansas City, New York and the Hall of Fame: As reported in Hot Stove #21, Lou Gehrig played the last game of his career in an exhibition against the Yankee's farm team, the Kansas City Blues. Gehrig had ended his 2,130-game streak by taking himself out of the Yankee lineup on May 2, 1939. Although he continued to suit up, he never played another major league game. He came to Kansas City for a June 12 exhibition and played three innings. I recently received more details on Gehrig's KC game from Hot Stove reader Paul Donnelly. Paul has been researching Kansas City newspaper archives for a book he is writing, and he kindly diverted his attention to Gehrig to come up with several clippings for me on that Yankees/Blues game. At the time, there were three daily papers: The jointly owned Kansas City Times (morning) and Kansas City Star (evening) plus the Kansas City Journal which folded in 1942.
On June 11, the day before the game with the Blues, the Yankees swept a double-header from the St. Louis Browns. The Star, with a St. Louis byline, reported that Gehrig had disclosed that he would be going to the Mayo Clinic after the exhibition game in Kansas City – "Gehrig looked thin and drawn as he announced his decision…but insisted that he expected to return to his position during the summer." The Journal printed the likely starting lineups for the KC game, and Babe Dahlgren was listed as the first baseman. With the exception of Dahlgren and Charlie Keller, the lineup was the same as the one that swept the Cubs in the 1938 World Series.
The 1939 Blues team was considered one of the best minor league teams in history. The double play combination of Phil Rizzuto and Gerry Priddy were touted to be the successors to Frankie Crosetti and Joe Gordon of the Yankees. Joe DiMaggio's older brother Vince was in center field and at the time of the Yankee game was leading all leagues, major and minor, in home runs.
The Star's evening edition of June 12 reported on the pre-game activities. The overflow crowd "occupied every vantage spot in the park, with fans perching on tops of park refreshment stands and jamming the top concrete ramp and the several acres of ground north of the left field stands. Policemen formed a cordon around the boxes to keep eager fans off the field and away from the Yankee dugout…One by one the Yankees were introduced to the fans, to deafening cheers…Hours before…Crowds gathered in front of the Hotel President, blocking traffic and impeding progress of the Yanks on the way to the ball park."
The full game was reported the next morning by the Times. The front page story colorfully discussed the record crowd of 23,864 fans, "but at least 8,000 so-called spectators…spent two hours looking at the backs of the necks, the headgear and the flaring ears of taller Americans, hollering now and then 'Hey, what's happened now'…One little fellow said bitterly he never knew they had rounded up all the jumping centers in basketball and given them proxy to the best standing room…Other thousands of the general admittance patrons, most of them seeking to avoid such ailments as bunions and falling arches, had scurried to the outlying , seatless zones on the right field bank and the left field foul line." The photo below was in Hot Stove #21, but it's worth repeating:
That crowd got something special. Lou Gehrig started at first base. He went hitless in one at bat and got four put outs at first in the three innings he played. The Times reported that he "left the contest when he was unable to field a ground ball toward his first base position." Babe Dahlgren replaced Gehrig and had three hits and knocked in two runs in the Yankees 4-1 victory. The box score from the Times:
Rather than traveling with the team after the game, Gehrig took a train from Union Station to the Mayo Clinic. It was determined that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), now commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Three weeks after he played the game in Kansas City, he appeared in Yankee Stadium on July 4 to deliver his echoing farewell in what is described as baseball's Gettysburg Address: "Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." The video here.
In August, he gave a radio interview on the condition that they not question him about his illness. He commented on night baseball (just a "show" that was "strictly advantageous to the owners' pocketbook"), the top 3 ball players in history (Ruth, Cobb, Wagner), upcoming star (Ted Williams, a rookie in 1939) and the possibility of a players union (he thought not), (click here, 7:14). [Union Trivia: Gehrig's peak salary was $39,000 in 1938. Adjusted for inflation, that would have been $668,612 in 2016. The minimum salary in MLB in 2016 was $520,000. Albert Pujols pulled down $25,000,000.]
On December 7, 1939, the Hall of Fame held a special election and retroactively inducted Lou Gehrig as part of the class of 1939. He died in 1941 at the age of 37.
Who's on First? – Abbott and Costello: Now we move from all-time best first baseman to all-time funniest baseball comedy routine. Abbott and Costello did various versions of the skit in the movies and on radio and television. They performed it several times for President Franklin Roosevelt. Here is the version from the 1945 movie The Naughty Nineties: (click here, 6:14).
For the record (and to fill out your scorecard): 1B – Who; 2B – What; 3B – I Don't Know; SS – I Don't Care (sometimes I Don't Give a Darn); LF – Why; CF – Because; RF – I would like to say "I don't know," but he's the third baseman. Abbott and Costello did not identify the right fielder); P – Tomorrow; C – Today.
In 2007, the Dodgers called up shortstop Chin-Lung Hu. When he got his first major league hit, a single, Dodgers announcer Vin Scully proclaimed "Shades of Abbott and Costello, I can finally say Hu is on first base." (click here, 0:15).
In 2012, Jimmy Fallon (Abbott), Billy Crystal (Who) and Jerry Seinfeld (I Don't Know) teamed up to do a version of the classic routine and wore the uniforms of Bud Abbott's St. Louis Wolves: (click here, 2:58).
Mitt (Abbott) and Newt (Costello) gave us this gem in the 2012 primary: (click here, 0:49).
Vin Scully, the NBA and Some Presidents: President Obama recently named Vin Scully as a recipient of a Presidential Medal of Freedom. When Scully joined other recipients at the White House, this wonderful photo was taken:
Joe Posnanski wrote about this and filled in the names of the men in the photo: Bruce Springsteen, President Grant, Michael, Vin, Kareem and President Tyler. Click here. Scully was informed of the award by White House Press Secretary and Kansas City native Josh Earnest who was just as excited about the award as Scully: (click here, 1:03).
As you know, I never pass up a chance for an anecdote about Hamilton (no, not the tiff between Donald Trump and the Hamilton cast). This clever parody of the opening song of Hamilton features actors portraying LeBron James and other NBA stars to tell the story of the rise of LeBron, (click here, 4:38).
James (of the Cleveland Cavaliers) and Dwayne Wade (of the Chicago Bulls) made a friendly wager on the outcome of the recent World Series. As we know, the Chicago Cubs came back from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the Cleveland Indians, just as James' Cavaliers had done with the Warriors in the 2016 NBA finals. James paid off his bet last week by wearing a Cubs uniform during the pre-game at the Cavaliers/Bulls game in Chicago.
Movies and Music: In Hot Stove #24, I gave our reviews of movies we saw at the Telluride Film Festival. Many are now coming out and several are getting Oscar buzz. As a reminder, these included Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight, Arrival, La La Land and Bleed for This. Although The Eagle Huntress was at Telluride, we missed it there, but caught it at Tivoli last week – superb documentary. Not at Telluride, but looking forward to: Loving, Hidden Figures, Fences, Lion and Jackie. Two new albums were released last Friday. For those who have memorized the Hamilton cast album, there is a fun change of pace in the Hamilton Mixtape. And for those who thought the Rolling Stones were just an all-time great cover band for a younger version of themselves, their new album is a splendid set of covers of Chicago bluesmen who influenced the Stones music (Howlin' Wolf, Little, Willie Dixon and others) – Blue and Lonesome. In 1963, the Stones toured with and opened for another major influence, Little Richard, who turned 84 today. I still have my 45 rpm vinyl copy of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti."
Hot Stove Coming Attractions: With our trip to Cabo coming up, and then the holidays, the next Hot Stove may not surface until the start of 2017. In the meantime, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
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Hot Stove #152 – Martin Luther King Jr. Day (2021) – Buck O'Neil on the Mountaintop
Hot Stove #151 – Uniform Number 15 (Mahomes/Merrifield/Allen); Remembering Dick Allen and Phil Niekro; New Year's Eve Traditions
Hot Stove #150 – Hidden Figures – Negro (Major) Leagues Statistics

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The free public performances in the "A Little Lunch Music" series will take place each week until Dec. 15. Oct. 27, the Fountain City Ensemble will perform. The spring season will begin in January.
Series coordinator Patrick McCurry says that the combination of classical music performances, fine art and gourmet food at the museum café create a unique atmosphere. "I keep hearing from visitors that coming to the museum for these performances is like entering a completely different cultural place," said McCurry.
Donors can contribute any amount to support the series or can sponsor a single performance. Sponsorships start at $100 for a student recital with other sponsorship levels available for professionals and larger groups. For more information, contact Brett Evans, the museum's Director of Development, at (334) 844-7945.
For information about the Museum Café and exhibitions, go to http://jcsm.auburn.edu/index.php.


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College football Week 12: Five games match ranked teams
The jockeying for position in the College Football Playoff race and among New Year's Six bowl contenders is heating up with significant games in the SEC, Big 12 and Big Ten.
Coach Matt Rhule's undefeated Baylor Bears will host Oklahoma on Saturday night.Read moreEric Gay / AP
by Joe Juliano
Week 12 has the most games, five, matching ranked teams this season. The scramble to stay alive in the College Football Playoff race is hot, as is the competition for a New Year's Six bowl.
While there are no glamour games to speak of compared to last week, competition will be everywhere.
Georgia (No. 4 College Football Playoff/No. 5 Associated Press) at Auburn (No. 12 CFP/No. 13 AP), 3:30 p.m., CBS3
The Tigers have two losses, which likely leave them on the fringes of playoff contention, but they can certainly help themselves and impact the ranking with wins at home both Saturday and in two weeks against Alabama.
Meanwhile, the Bulldogs are this week's surprise participant in the top four of the CFP rankings. They have won three straight and posted shutouts in two of those victories. They have yet to allow a rushing touchdown this season.
Coupled with its defense, Georgia would appear to have the advantage at quarterback with junior Jake Fromm, who has completed 67% of his passes for 1,859 yards and 13 touchdowns with three interceptions, going against Tigers freshman Bo Nix (56.5%, 1,798 yards, 12 touchdowns, six interceptions).
But Nix has passed for 675 yards in his last two home games, against Mississippi State and Mississippi, and Auburn's pass rush might test a Bulldogs offensive line that has allowed just five sacks.
Oklahoma (No. 10 CFP/AP) at Baylor (No. 13 CFP/No. 12 AP), 7:30 p.m., 6ABC
The Big 12 has provided more than its share of tightly contested football games. One-half of conference games have been decided by eight points or fewer. Six Big 12 teams own a win against a top 25 opponent from the league.
But that competition is making it difficult for one team to emerge as a playoff contender. The Sooners seemed to have the best chance, but they blew a big lead last week and had to stop a two-point conversion try by Iowa State to win, 42-41. They dropped from ninth to 10th in the CFP.
Meanwhile, Baylor, coached by former Temple head man Matt Rhule, has the lowest CFP ranking of any undefeated team. The Bears have been called lucky — two overtime wins, two other wins by three points or fewer — but it doesn't hurt to have a little luck sometimes.
They'll need some Saturday. The Bears are 3-24 all-time against Oklahoma, and have lost the last four.
Minnesota (No. 8 CFP/No. 7 AP) at Iowa (No. 20 CFP/No. 23 AP), 4 p.m., Fox29
P.J. Fleck and his undefeated Golden Gophers row the boat into Kinnick Stadium, where they haven't won since 1999, a run of eight straight losses. They might see more resistance from the Hawkeyes defense, which has allowed just 12 touchdowns, third fewest in FBS, than that of Penn State.
In going 18-for-20 last week for 339 yards, Minnesota's Tanner Morgan became only the second FBS quarterback in the last 20 years to have two games with a 90% completion rate in the same season, matching Florida State's Jameis Winston in 2013.
Louisiana State (No. 1 CFP/AP) at Mississippi, 7 p.m., ESPN
The big question is whether the Tigers' monumental win last week over Alabama has lingered into this rivalry game known as the Magnolia Bowl. They know, however, there is a lot at stake — remaining atop the SEC West, landing a berth in the conference championship game and, of course, grabbing one of the four playoff berths.
LSU quarterback Joe Burrow, the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy, has thrown for 3,198 yards and is 149 yards from the single-season program record for passing yardage.
Alabama (No. 5 CFP/No. 4 AP) at Mississippi State, noon, ESPN
What, oh what would the lords of college football do if the Crimson Tide had to sit out the College Football Playoff for a year?
Alabama has made the field in each of the playoff's five seasons, winning two national championships. However, at No. 5 and with an unimpressive list of victories, that streak is in jeopardy.
Against the Bulldogs, the Tide hope to avoid their first two-game losing streak since 2013. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who played against LSU on a gimpy ankle, will be a game-time decision.
Wake Forest at Clemson (No. 3 CFP/AP), 3:30 p.m., 6ABC
The Tigers, fifth in the CFP last week, swapped places with Alabama to move into the first four. The bad news is that the Demon Deacons got clobbered last week by Virginia Tech and fell out of the rankings, meaning Clemson has not defeated a single team that is currently ranked (Texas A&M was No. 12 when they played the Tigers in September but now is 6-3 and unranked). They will be tested, however, by quarterback Jamie Newman, who leads the ACC's top passing attack.
What else is happening?
— A streak likely will end Saturday when Notre Dame (No. 16 CFP/AP) takes on Navy (No. 23 CFP/No. 21 AP). The Fighting Irish's athletic department said this game will not sell out, snapping the program's streak of 273 sellouts dating to the final game of the 1973 season. This is the first time since 1978 that both teams are ranked in the AP top 25 on the day of their game.
— The AP cites "several gambling organizations" as saying the 51-point spread for Ohio State (No. 2 CFP/AP) at Rutgers is the largest for a Big Ten game. It should just be a brisk workout for the Buckeyes in advance of next week's showdown against Penn State, and will provide some entertaining viewing for defensive end Chase Young as he sits out the final game of his two-game suspension. The Scarlet Knights have lost their last 18 Big Ten games.
— Oregon (No. 6 CFP/AP) can clinch the Pac-12 North and earn a berth in the conference title game by defeating Arizona on Saturday night. Ducks quarterback Justin Herbert has 24 touchdown passes, tying him for ninth in FBS. The Wildcats average nearly 496 yards of total offense, but the Oregon defense has allowed just 54 points in five games at home this season.
Expatriate of the week
Christian Barmore, who was an All-Catholic League defensive lineman at Neumann Goretti, has become part of the rotation at nose guard for Alabama.
A 6-foot-5, 310-pound redshirt freshman, Barmore made his college football debut Sept. 7 against New Mexico State and contributed three tackles. In eight games, he has 12 total tackles, with 3 ½ tackles for loss, 1 ½ sacks and three quarterback hurries.
Joe Juliano
My favorite sports beats? Penn St. football in fall, Nova hoops in winter, golf in summer and Penn Relays in April.


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The Blues With Lee Hay
LX: Music Notes
King Records
StoryCorps in Cincinnati
Local Exposure
Rosemary Clooney: Big Band Singer
By Lee Hay • May 1, 2013
Rosemary Clooney: Big Band Singer - Hour 1
Update: Rosemary Clooney: Big Band Singer will be re-broadcast on Saturday, August 3rd at 10pm.
This two-hour special, in honor of her 85th birthday on May 23rd, focuses on the big band career of local favorite Rosemary Clooney. Beginning with her performances with the Tony Pastor Band, the special highlights other big bands she worked with including Duke Ellington, Nelson Riddle, Woody Herman, and Count Basie. You'll enjoy songs from Rosemary Clooney's 1956 show, plus, interviews with some of her family and friends, including her brother Nick; friend and host of Song Travels on WVXU, Michael Feinstein; jazz vocalist Amy London; drummer Jeff Hamilton; and Cincinnati Pops violinist Stacy Woolley. Hosted by Bill Cartwright and produced by Lee Hay.
1. "Straighten Up and Fly Right" from her Concord album "Girl Singer." This introduction is from the Clooney Sisters' March 1945 audition tape. WVXU restored this audio from a virtually inaudible piece of acetate.
2. "Sisters" from the "Mother & Daughters" Concord album with Paul Weston and His Orchestra. Betty and Rosemary recorded this on June 23, 1954.
3. "Bargain Day" was originally released in 1949 with the Tony Pastor Orchestra. This recording is from her double-cd "Songs from the Girl Singer."
4. "Peach Tree Street" was recorded with Frank Sinatra, and the orchestra was directed by George Siravo. Released in 1950, and from Ms.Clooney's cd set, "Songs from the Girl Singer."
5. "Tenderly" is the opening theme of her television show featuring the Hi-Lo's and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. From "Songs from the Classic Television Show" on Concord. By 1956, Rosemary Clooney was at the peak of her fame.
6. "I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me" is also from her television show. Note: Michael Feinstein wrote the liner notes to the cd, "Songs from the Classic Television Show," a cd which he also produced.
7. "How Will I Remember You" was dedicated to Nelson Riddle for reasons both personal and professional. This song may be found on her album, "Demi-Centennial" released on Concord in 1995.
8. "Someone to Watch Over Me" was recorded with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra in 1961. She was 32 years old and in love with Nelson Riddle, but there were complications since both were married to others at the time. From the album "Love" on Reprise.
9. "Mood Indigo" was recorded with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra for Columbia on the album, "Blue Rose" in 1956.
10. "Ya Got Class," from the cd set "Songs from the Girl Singer," was a radio performance for the Bob Hope Show and broadcast in 1954.
11. "On a Slow Boat to China" with Bing Crosby, arranged and conducted by Billy May, was released in 1958. This song may also be found on the cd set, "Songs from the Girl Singer."
12. "You're in Kentucky" features the original arrangements of Nelson Riddle from the mid-50's. From her Concord album, "Dedicated to Nelson" which was recorded in 1995.
Rosemary Clooney "Fascinating Rhythm" From the Album Sings the Lyrics of Ira Gershwin
Rosemary Clooney "Just You, Just Me" From the Album Songs from the Classic Television Show
Rosemary Clooney "I'm the Big Band Singer" From the Album Sentimental Journey
Rosemary Clooney "I'll Be Around" From the Album Sophisticated Lady
Michael Feinstein "Isn't It a Pity" From the Album Pure Gershwin
Rosemary Clooney "Strike Up the Band" From the Album Sings the Lyrics of Ira Gershwin
Rosemary Clooney "The Glory of Love" From the Album My Buddy
Rosemary Clooney "How Deep is the Ocean" From the Album Still on the Road
Rosemary Clooney "Ol' Man River" From the Album Still on the Road
Rosemary Clooney "It Just Happened to Happen to Me" From the Album At Long Last
Nick Clooney
Jeff Hamilton
Amy London
Mike Martini
Stacey Wooley
local singer


Lots of Mexican political ads are bizarre and pointless, but a new video from a conservative congressional candidate could best be described as bizarre and pointy.
Diego Leyva, of the right-of-center National Action Party (PAN), makes no campaign pledges in his ad. He doesn't even criticize his political opponents.
Instead, he just dances around in a pair of "Mexican pointy boots" to Tribal music —an up-and-coming genre that mixes pre-Hispanic and African sounds with electronic cumbia.
Leyva is running—or dancing, more accurately— for office in the central state of Guanajuato. His political ad is heavily inspired by the pointy boots fashion popularized by Tribal artists.
But Mexicans are not that happy with Leyva's dance routine.
"Diego Leyva is a campaign clown who believes voters are children he has to entertain with buffoonery."
"Diego Leyva is mocking the intelligence of Mexicans. Guanajuato, for God's sake, do not give a single vote to that man, have mercy."
"There is favorable and bad criticism. But I think Diego Leyva is achieving his objective and positioning his campaign."


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Need to update your kitchen doors and benchtops call our Caroline Springs Trusted Tradies today.


text:
Gondola (rail)
Get Gondola Rail essential facts below. View Videos or join the Gondola Rail discussion. Add Gondola Rail to your PopFlock.com topic list for future reference or share this resource on social media.
Gondola Rail
Open-top railroad freight car used for carrying loose bulk materials
A railroad gondola seen at Rochelle, Illinois
In US railroad terminology, a gondola is an open-topped rail vehicle used for transporting loose bulk materials. Because of their low side walls, gondolas are also suitable for the carriage of such high-density cargos as steel plates or coils, or of bulky items such as prefabricated sections of rail track.
Before the opening of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), considerable amounts of coal were carried via the Potomac River. Since timber was an abundant resource, flat boats, called "gondolas" (a spoof on Venetian rowing boats), were constructed to navigate the "black diamonds" downriver to markets around Washington, DC. There, both the boat and cargo were sold and the boatmen returned home by foot. The railroad cars first employed in the haulage of coal were thus named after these shallow-draft boats called "gondola cars".
Early gondola cars typically had low sides. Their contents had to be shoveled out by hand, and they took a long time to unload. In 1905, the Ralston Steel Car Company patented a flat-bottom gondola with lever-operated chutes that allowed the gondola to be unloaded automatically from the bottom. The chutes would direct the contents of the gondola to the sides. This coincided with the switch from wood to steel freight cars, as the pulling force of locomotives tended to crush the older wood cars.[]
Specialized car types
Gondolas as open observation cars
Open observation car #415 in Silverton, October 2012
Open observation gondolas are gondolas changed into open observation cars
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (November 2020)
"Bathtub" gondolas
A bathtub gondola passing through Rochelle, Illinois, in 2005
In the second half of the 20th century, coal haulage shifted from open hopper cars to high-sided gondolas. Using a gondola, the railroads are able to haul a larger amount of coal per car since gondolas do not include the equipment needed for unloading. However, since these cars do not have hatches for unloading the products shipped in them, railroads must use rotary car dumpers (mechanisms that hold a car against a short section of track as the car and track are slowly rotated upside down to empty the car) or other means to empty them. The term "bathtub" refers to the shape of the car.
The "Double Rotary" coal gondola is required in this consist. The "Double Rotary" referring to this car that has rotary couplers on both ends instead of one end.
There are different types of "bathtub" coal gondolas. Those with one single symmetrical tub (i.e. Berwick Bathtubs & ACF Coalveyors) & Those with two symmetrical tubs (i.e. BethGon Coalporters).
Track ballast gondolas
A side-dump gondola on display at the US National Railroad Museum
Track ballast gondolas carry ballast. These gondolas are side tipping.
Lorry or mine car
A 30 cu ft (0.85 m3) mine car, drawing from the United States Bureau of Mines
An open railroad car (gondola) with a tipping trough, often found in mines. Known in the UK as a tippler or chaldron wagon[1] and in the US as a mine car.[2]
Chaldrons
Replica of a chaldron wagon
The first railway bulk-cargo gondolas, the first freight wagons, were the chaldron cars of the early coal-carrying plateways. These were relatively short in length and tall in proportion, with a tapered body that widened upwards, above the wheels. Once locomotive haulage began, the unstable and top-heavy nature of this design became a problem with increasing speeds and later wagons became lower and longer. The chaldron shape survived in a few cases, such as low-speed working around a large factory sites including steelworks.
Double Stack Intermodal Cars-Freight [3]
Origins of name in railroad use [4]
In Australia these wagons are called open wagons.
CargoBeamer
Corf
Gravity wagon
Hopper car
Minecart
Mineral wagon
Mine railway
Modalohr
Quarry tub
Railgon Company
Railroad car
Rotary car dumper
Side-tipping wagon
Well car
^ Chaldron wagon[dead link] Archived 2008-12-08 at the Wayback Machine
^ 30-Cu. Ft. Mine car[dead link]
^ doublestackinter[dead link] Archived May 18, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
^ Origin of name[dead link] Archived October 7, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway #72312 - photos and short history of an example of a typical steel, four-axle, solid bottom, fixed end, mill gondola.
Guide to Rail Cars
Rail car manufacturing
Flexiwaggon
Flexiwaggon, corporate website
Gondola_(rail)


A completely new financial system architecture is being built. At the same time, stock markets are creating another "bubble" that may provoke another financial crisis.
At the same time, we need to support our enterprises in developing a wide range of consumer goods and promote the so-called "simple things economy".
First of all, we need to ensure the development of areas of the "future economy" such as alternative energy, new materials, biomedicine, big data, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, block chain, etc.
At the same time, we need to gradually transit from the "infrastructure-people" model to the "people-infrastructure" model.
Special attention should be paid to the creation of a "barrier-free environment" for people with disabilities.
We need to give these programmes "a new lease of life".
"Quality" should become a new lifestyle of civil servants, and personal growth – their main principle.
The Public Administration Academy together with the Nazarbayev University needs to develop a "Brand-new Leader" programme and special retraining courses when appointing to senior positions.
Third, we need to spread the capital's experience in implementing the anti-corruption strategy as part of "Corruption-free Regions" projects.
This will be facilitated by the launch of a special project "Auyl – Yel Bessigi" ("Village is the cradle of the nation").
We should restore mass school tourism in the regions of the country within the new "Discover Your Land" initiative.
As we say, "A rich country is the country where people live in harmony".
There is nothing greater than this noble goal!Dear Kazakh citizens!


text:
Q: Prevent tampering with client-side geocoding results We are building a service that uses location-based pricing. The user can input an address and see prices in his area as determined by various server-side algorithms. It is then possible to order items based on these prices.
I'm trying to figure out if there is a way we can use client-side geocoding in this scenario (to avoid hitting Google Maps API usage limits), e.g. the user enters his address and the browser fetches the geocode result using the JS library and includes it in the form submission. The problem is that the user could tamper with the form submission and potentially place orders to his address for prices that apply to a different set of coordinates.
I'd like to hear your suggestions about how I can secure this. For example, it would be amazing if the geocode result could be signed somehow to verify that it hasn't been tampered with?

A: Never trust data created clientside. Anything you can do client side, they can.

A: If you want the client machine to do the request, you are going to be a bit limited in the security aspect of this, as it would all be javascript, and a malicious user could inspect the script and see what you are doing.  Therefore even attempts at "securing" it would be limited in success.
My only recommendation would be to do a "final validation" serverside just as the user is submitting their results.  This should reduce the API hits on your server side, but will keep the security 100% valid.

A: If the data's stored on the users' machine, they can do what they want with it. You might be able to encrypt it or something, or maybe store an ID to a table of geodata (like a zip code, but make up your own similar system) or a hash of the geodata or something, but whatever's stored on their machine is theirs.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Petrol stations in the area are reporting shortages. Energy companies predict that one to three million homes and businesses may lose power.
The relationship between climate change and hurricanes is complex.
Warmer seas power hurricanes. So, as the temperature of ocean water goes up, we might expect the intensity of hurricanes to increase in future.


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British non-fiction writers •
Irish non-fiction writers •
Writers from Northern Ireland •
Non-fiction literature from Northern Ireland
Non-fiction writers from Northern Ireland
Essayists from Northern Ireland •
Historians from Northern Ireland •
Journalists from Northern Ireland
Essayists from Northern Ireland
Essayists from Northern Ireland - Wikipedia
Historians from Northern Ireland
Ian Adamson
Cllr Ian Adamson OBE (born 1944) is a former Lord Mayor of Belfast. He is a member of the Ulster Unionist Party and is a retired medical doctor.A councillor on Belfast City Council from 1989 until 201...
Paul Bew
Paul Anthony Elliott Bew, Baron Bew (born 22 January 1950,) is a Northern Irish historian. He has worked at Queen's University Belfast since 1979, and is currently Professor of Irish Politics, a posit...
James Burke (science historian)
James Burke (born 22 December 1936) is a British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer, who is known, among other things, for his documentary television series Connections (1...
James Burke (science historian) - Wikipedia
Joseph Devlin
Joseph Devlin, also known as Joe Devlin, (13 February 1871 – 18 January 1934) was an Irish journalist and influential nationalist politician. He was a member of parliament (MP) for the Irish Parliame...
Joseph Devlin - Wikipedia
Thomas Hamilton (university administrator)
Thomas Hamilton PC (Ire) (28 August 1842 – 18 May 1926) was a Northern Ireland clergyman and academician who served as president of Queen's College, Belfast and subsequently President and Vice-C...
Thomas Hamilton (university administrator) - Wikipedia
J. C. Beckett
James Camlin Beckett (1912 – 12 February 1996) was an Northern Irish historian.Beckett was a native of Belfast, where he received his education at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and Queen's ...
Leo McKinstry (born 1962) is a British journalist and author.Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, McKinstry graduated from Cambridge University. He writes regularly for several newspapers in the United ...
Marianne Elliott
Dame Marianne Elliott (born 25 May 1948, Raholp, County Down, Northern Ireland) is a British historian and Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE).She was brought up in Belfast...
Gary Lightbody
Gary Lightbody (born 15 June 1976) is a Northern Irish, double Grammy nominee and Ivor Novello Award winning multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter best known as the lead vocalist and rhythm gui...
Gary Lightbody - Wikipedia
Robert Wilson Lynd
Robert Wilson Lynd (Irish: Roibéard Ó Floinn, 20 April 1879 – 6 October 1949) was an Irish writer, an urbane literary essayist and strong Irish nationalist.
He was born in Belfast and educated at ...
Conor O'Clery
Conor O'Clery is an Irish journalist and writer. He was born in Belfast and educated at Queen's University Belfast. He worked for The Irish Times for over 30 years in various positions, including news...
George Benn
George Benn (1 January 1801-8 January 1882) was an Irish historian of Belfast.
Benn was born on 1 January 1801, at Tanderagee, County Armagh. His grandfather, Jonn Benn, came from Cumberland about...
Martin Dillon
Martin Dillon (born 1949) is an author and journalist from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He worked for eighteen years at the BBC and has written plays and novels, but is best known for his non-fiction bo...
James Brown (Northern Ireland politician)
James Brown (born 1897, date of death unknown) was a Unionist politician and journalist in Northern Ireland.Brown stood as an independent Farmers and New Industries candidate in South Down at the Nort...
David N. Hempton
Roy Garland
Roy Garland is a newspaper columnist for the nationalist Irish News and a member of the Ulster Unionist Party.
In the 1960s, Garland became convinced that the Northern Ireland civil rights movemen...
Thomas Moles
Thomas Moles (November 1871 – 3 February 1937) was an Ulster Unionist politician. Born in Belfast, Ireland in 1871, he was educated at the Collegiate School, Ballymena.Moles was MP for Belfast O...
Seamus Justin Heaney, (/ˈʃeɪməs ˈhiːni/; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer, and the recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. In the e...
Seamus Heaney - Wikipedia
Science writers from Northern Ireland
Walter Ellis
David Beers Quinn
David Beers Quinn (born April 24, 1909 at Dublin, Ireland-died March 19, 2002 at Liverpool, England) was an Irish historian who wrote extensively on the voyages of discovery and colonisation of Americ...
John Hutchinson (academic)
John Hutchinson (born 1949) is a British academic. He is a Reader in Nationalism in the Department of Government at the British London School of Economics (LSE), located in London, England.
Born ...
R. B. McDowell
Robert Brendan McDowell (14 September 1913 – 29 August 2011) MA, PhD, Litt.D, LLD, MRIA, FTCD, was an Irish historian. He was a Fellow Emeritus and a former Associate Professor of History at Tri...
Laurence McKeown
Laurence McKeown (born 1956) is an Irish author, playwright, screenwriter, and former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
McKeow...
Jane Morrice
Jane Morrice (born 11 May 1954) is a former politician in Northern Ireland. She was a prominent member of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition until the NIWC ceased to exist in 2006 due to an ongoi...
Eamonn McCann
Eamonn McCann (born 1943 in Derry, Northern Ireland) is an Irish journalist, author and political activist.
McCann was born and has lived most of his life in Derry. He was educated at St. Columb's...
Eamonn McCann - Wikipedia
Norma Dawson


text:
Q: Google Voice is not accepting Skype SMS verification messages for Caller ID, anyone got a workaround? I am unable to set my caller id number in Skype to my Google Voice number.  Skype's caller id verification process requires a SMS message to be sent to the requested number.  The text messages aren't getting through.
A post on the Skype forum indicates that Google Voice does not support SMS messages except directly from mobile phones. Has anyone figured out a workaround to set your Google Voice number as your Skype caller id number?

A: You could dial from Google voice and have it ring your skype phone.
First you will have to add you skype number to Google voice.
From Google voice hit call, enter the number you want to call, select your skype number from the drop down list and hit connect
Google voice will call your skype number and connect you with the number you called, they will see your Google voice number on their caller ID

A: Gizmo was acquired by Google Voice, it will be very soon that you can use the 2 technologies together for 'free' domestic calls in the US.  If you already have a Google Voice account and Gizmo account, you can connect the 2 right now and start calling, for free.


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