Barbara Dunn Jackson appreciated words and the nuances of their meaning. The walls of her home office were lined with many books on etymology.
Barbara wrote a column called “A Last Word” for Synergy, which went to women in ministry. In a 1996 column, she examined a very specific word.
Fred Anderson
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“‘In the beginning was the Word,’ wrote the apostle John. He was referring to more than mere speech. The Greek logos, or word, is one of those rich words that serve a multitude of purposes and carry many meanings and nuances. It is not just a word but one that embodies a concept, an idea. It is a speech or discourse, a teaching or doctrine, a tale or narrative. Further, it is a reason itself, a cause, a reckoning, an analogy. But even more pointedly, logos is the essential power and wisdom of God, the instrument by which God’s creative activity is exerted upon the world. It is God’s spirit.”
She quoted an essayist, Lewis Thomas, who reflected that “Logos combined the meaning of reason, thought, discourse, all the events in the human mind that are set in action by language, the source of world order and comprehensibility. In the Gospel of John, Logos was the thought and wish of God, a member of the Trinity. The word was holy.”
“Of course,” wrote Barbara, “Christians know that. The everlastingness of God is etched in our memory bank. We sing the words of Isaac Watts, who based his immortal hymn on Psalm 90: ‘Before the mountains were brought forth or you formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God … For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.
Barbara Jackson |
“The hymn captures the idea of God the eternal, the everlasting, the Word that was from the beginning and will be — long after individuals and nations have given way to new generations and new nations.”
Barbara understood thousands of words in their various meanings yet she also sought to understand, as best as any mortal, what the Word meant. A native of Bladenboro, N.C., she was carefully taught in a little Baptist church and in a loving family. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a master of divinity degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
“I married right out of seminary,” Barbara once reflected, “became a pastor’s wife with all that entails and was never on a church staff. Later I was a correspondent for the [Foreign] mission board, advising young people on their career plans and education and what they should do to become a missionary — and during that time was a volunteer in my church and mother and homemaker.
“Later, I took up computers and learned how to do newsletters and other communication pieces, undertook [the Synergy] newsletter for Virginia Baptist Women in Ministry and several other organizations, including CBF of Virginia. Now I design books and booklets for the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage & Studies through my home-based editorial business.
“I have jokingly said that when in seminary I never dreamed I would be doing this. I thought I might be a campus minister (BSU worker as it was called then). But when I look back to elementary school and my innate interest then in writing and words, I see I am doing exactly what I dreamed of many years ago. I pray for that sense of satisfaction for everyone.
“The word for young women in ministry is that your first job may not be where you’ll end up. God is working with you to mold you. Prepare yourself with the tools of scholarship, the understandings of theology, and a vision of the world’s needs —and God will help you find the next step.
“Being in God’s will is important. For that to happen it is imperative to be true to yourself, to cultivate your best self and uphold your own integrity. And to pray for self-understanding.”
Barbara served many roles. She was a helpmeet to her husband of 53 years, Lloyd Jackson; and she was beside him in his work at Camp Piankatank or in some project of Baptist Men which he headed for so long. She kept the light on when he was away speaking and preaching. She encouraged him to answer every disaster preparedness response even after his retirement.
She cared as the older generation in her family slipped away. She once wrote about her only sibling, Sadye: “As the older child, I felt I had a mentoring role with my little sister when we were growing up, to help her understand things, to be her advocate. Yet today when she is a grown-up professional woman with responsibilities, a leader and recipient of recognitions, our respective roles with each other are not so clear. She could mentor me. We joke about ‘role reversal.’”
She was a mother to her grown children, Frank, Susan and Tommy. She was a grandmother who kept abreast of all that was going on in each child’s life. When the young ones came, she even helped them make little abodes for imaginary fairies.
She was active at River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond where she was a long-time choir member and keeper of the memories as chair of the history committee. She was a gardener and her front yard was a mass of bulbs and flowering plants. She created a little sanctuary on the side of her house with a bench and sculpture but spent too little time there.
Much of her time was spent in her home office where she processed those thousands of words that were published into numerous books.
She emailed on Saturday, Sept. 8 that she had finished the layout of the latest publication, a history of partnership work among Virginia Baptists which is to be released at the Baptist General Association of Virginia’s annual meeting in November. Early on Sunday morning, Sept. 9, the call came that she had died in the night. She was a wordsmith to the end.
Fred Anderson ([email protected]) is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies.