On March 25, 1942 iconic musician Aretha Franklin was born in this home in Memphis, TN. Franklin went on to become the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2008 she won her 18th Grammy Award, making her one of the most honored artists in Grammy history. She passed away earlier this year.
The Franklin house is located near the south Memphis neighborhood called Soulsville, a once prominent, working-class African-American neighborhood where numerous legendary soul music artists lived and worked from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Soulsville is now home to some of the most impoverished zip codes in the U.S. In 2012 the city deemed the 1,100 foot Franklin home a nuisance. It was slated for demolition in 2016 because of disrepair.
It’s a sad reminder of what happens when a home isn’t given the nurture and care needed. When it comes to a structure like a house, you can’t just construct it and then leave it. Without ongoing attention, without constant effort applied to its upkeep, the house will fall apart.
The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us of this truth when he writes this: “Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.” (Eccl. 10:18 ESV) There’s a word, the writer notes, for that tendency we humans have for not providing a structure like a home to ongoing upkeep and care it requires. That word is sloth. Sloth isn’t merely laziness. Sloth is anything that keeps us from attending to the nurture and care of something that requires constant upkeep, like a home.Read More »Uproot: The Sin of Sloth Chris Altrock – 9/16/18
