I was looking at a family Facebook page of my grandmother’s Baxley family. Ludie Bell Baxley Greene….. in some ways I am very much like how I remember her….. loving the Lord and family and accepting of the Lord’s will and at some times when I laugh, I hear her laughter in my ears and brain and it makes me smile.
A relative had posted some pics and listed names of the surviving siblings at this point in the past at a family reunion at Antioch Primitive Baptist Church in Barbour Co, AL. I saw her name, surprised by what was listed, most likely, an auto- correct misspelling that wasn’t caught.
Luddite Belle…… It,, too, makes me smile. Maybe she and I are more alike than I had realized…
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Definition of Luddite:
a person opposed to new technology or ways of working, small minded, resisting progress
a member of any of the bands of English workers who destroyed machinery, especially in cotton and woolen mills, that they believed was threatening their jobs (1811–16)
Yep, having realized what a hapless and hopeless throw-back I am technologically without Bill, I think I resemble that name……Luddite Belle.
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I certainly have resisted modernization of some things in my life and have even taken a metaphorical axe or two to some things I have believed were harmful to the way of life I cherish….
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My maternal grandmother is third from the left in the grey skirt. She died about 23 years ago The photo names as listed by a distant cousin:
#7 Ester, Herbert, Luddite Belle, Earline, Perry, Haywood, Irene, Corbitt Baxley………Hope I have all the names correct and I hope y’all enjoy them.
(Actually, I’m pretty sure that the implied meaning of Luddite Belle is exactly the image a handful of liberal theology- trained enlightened progressive women had of me and at least one other sister that caused them to work so heartily to keep the two of us out of ordained ministry in The UMC. We both overcame the institutional rejection and have continued happily in ministry serving the Lord, as called! We both proved how irrelevant institutional religious ordination is when God has already equiiped one for his purpose among his people.)
