David Jacks, son of Nicholas Jacks and Jane was born 27 October 1795 in Surry County, North Carolina. He married Rachel Johnson, daughter of William Johnson and Mary Parks, 16 June 1821. In 1827, David and Rachel, their son Thomas Mastin Jacks, and daughters Alzena and Jane Jacks, moved with other members of the Jacks clan to Jackson County, Alabama. David and Jane had six more sons in Alabama, namely: William Parks, Simeon Romulus, Jonathan Haynes, Nicholas, Hiram S., and Jerome C.H. Includes descendants to the fifth generation in Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Maryland, Florida, New Mexico, and elsewhere. Includes Jacks ancestry to ca. 1684 in Maryland.

"Over the years, I've heard some wonderful sermons," writes G. Robert Jacks. "I've also heard some duds. Some have been so extemporaneous they sounded as if the preacher hadn't prepared anything. Some have been such wondrously crafted literary pieces they sounded as if the preacher wanted to sound wondrously crafted and literary. Some have sounded as though the preacher were giving a lecture or reading a term paper. That's because the preacher had written a lecture or term paper. And some have captured the attention and the imagination and set the spark to ignite faith in the hearer. That's because they were written to be listened to, and to appeal to the sense-world of the hearers." Drawing on nearly thirty years of experience in critiquing sermon delivery, Jacks here offers a practical, hands-on approach to writing sermons that consider listeners first. Jacks gives samples and examples of writing that effectively captures and holds an audience's attention, and he offers practical tips and suggestions intended to help each of us find a preaching style and voice of our own. He also shows how to translate the jargon of theological textbooks into everyday language, suggests methods for rewriting sermons to avoid some of the pomposity of sermonic proclamation, and demonstrates ways to retell biblical narratives in fresh and imaginative ways. Just Say the Word! Writing for the Ear is a valuable resource that will help pastors and lay leaders communicate as effectively as possible the faith that is ours to share.

Outside of Merigold, Mississippi, off an unmarked dirt road, stands Po’ Monkey’s, perhaps the most famous house in Mississippi and the last rural juke joint in the state, now closed to the public. Before the death of the lounge’s owner, Willie Seaberry, in 2016, it was a mandatory stop on the constant blues pilgrimage that flows through the Delta. Seaberry ran Po’ Monkey’s Lounge for more than fifty years, opening his juke joint in the 1960s. A hand-built tenant home located on the plantation where Seaberry worked, Po’ Monkey’s was a place to listen to music and drink beer—a place to relax where everyone was welcomed by Seaberry’s infectious charm. In Po’ Monkey’s: Portrait of a Juke Joint, photographer Will Jacks captures the juke joint he spent a decade patronizing. The more than seventy black-and-white photographs featured in this volume reflect ten years of weekly visits to the lounge as a regular—a journal of Jacks’s encounters with other customers, tourists, and Willie Seaberry himself. An essay by award-winning writer Boyce Upholt on the cultural significance of the lounge accompanies the images. This volume explores the difficulties of preservation, historical context, community relations, and cultural tourism. Now that Seaberry is gone, the uncertainty of the future of his juke joint highlights the need for a historical record.

In 1975, author Elizabeth Jacks Scott was a young matron from New York with a husband and two small children and the new owner of an old sail loft building in Tenants Harbor, Maine. It had been in her family for years, and it was filled with memories and history, six generations of them, a jumble of contradictory, conflictual, tragic, and happy memories. JOURNEY TO SAFE HARBOR covers three generations of a family where the personal and emotional sacrifices made in the name of mission, commitment and duty, aiming ‘to do good in the world’, ended with unintended tragic consequences for their children. It is about a professional family, educated, religious and idealistic, but did they understand love? Scott shares a narrative of her collected records, her experiences, and her journey. It narrates the saga of the origins of her family’s trauma in Tenants Harbor, how it played out in India and on the south side of Chicago. She toggles between Tenants Harbor, India and Chicago to show the interweaving of three eras and how they resulted in the family’s fragmentation and great tragedy. The memoir chronicles the journey of healing through the ups and down of life resulting in Scott, family and the community reconnecting. Elizabeth Jacks Scott taught American and World history for five years, practiced psychotherapy and family therapy in New York City for more than two decades, ran grief groups at St. Bartholomew’s Church for seven years, and cofounded Hudson Valley Weddings at The Hill. She is an ordained interfaith minister and a clinical social worker. Scott lives with her husband in New York City, the Hudson Valley, and the coast of Maine. Combined with her husband, they have four children and eight grandchildren.

The author is Richard Jacks and he presently resides in Hammond, Louisiana. Jacks has been writing all of his life, but did not understand its purpose. That is probably why he did not take it seriously, he would write down whatever came to mind. Over the years, the purpose of Jacks¿ writing became clearer to him, and I he understood that it was a talent. As Jacks has gone on in life, he has worked as a waiter in his younger years. He then moved on to working at a bank. He gained more experience in the work field, and became a steel worker. He was also in the union and a union leader. Once he retired from there, he took his writing very seriously, and this book was born.