The Circus Comes To Town

We are two weeks away from our midterm elections, and here in Kansas for the first time in anyone's living memory a Democrat has a chance to win an election for Senate.  He's a popular megachurch pastor from the suburbs of Kansas City, a former Republican (aren't we all) who is charismatic and seems to be saying all the right things.  His opponent, a doctor who has made a name for extorting and suing (and jailing, it seems) his former patients because of unpaid medical bills, is riding the coattails of a deeply unpopular president.  

So we were all excited to hear last week that the president was coming to town for the first time in 10 years.  Yep, spending somewhere under six hours in an American state once every decade shows how much he cares about Kansas.  He came here to ostensibly campaign for the embattled Republican senator and the other GOP candidates who wish to cozy up to him; of course, flying all over the country these past few weeks he's gotten to hear cheers from the 32% that continue to support him.  Likely the affirmation and worship is what he really wants.  

It's interesting, though, that as he came to Sedgwick County he chose for the arena not Koch Arena on the campus of WSU (named after the Koch family, who is as conservative as they come), nor Intrust Bank arena in downtown Wichita, which is the standard all-purpose modern arena for big events in Kansas.  Instead, he decided to go to a small arena on the northern end of the county.  I've been there once or twice over the years...it's basically a barn with a bunch of seating around a bowl.  Maybe he couldn't get the first two due to other scheduling conflicts...but it strikes me as hilarious that here in Deep Red Kansas, a place where many people continue to revere him, they were worried enough about the crowd size that they chose a smaller venue for his standup act.  

I had no desire to go, either as somebody who would have to endure hours of warmup acts (included: washed up rocker Ted Nugent!) before he showed up an hour late for the lovefest, or as a protestor who would likely get beaten by his thuggish worshippers.  Instead I made a nice lasagna soup that my wife had been asking for, and enjoyed an evening home watching some TV and talking to my son on the phone.  I never did see Air Force One, though I drive my bus near the airbase in which he landed; I stayed out of the city and the traffic jam that his motorcade would have caused; I refused to watch any of the local coverage in the moment.  Not for me, thanks.  

The only surprising thing that might have happened (beyond the moron in the town one over from us who posted on multiple social media sites that he was gonna cap the president; yeah, he's going to jail) was that Trump announced $8 billion dollars for a 'Harvest Fuel Relief Program', something dreamed up in part by our desperate senator.  So let me get this straight...we engage in a pointless war of choice that has spiked fuel prices, we watch farmers (many supporters of the president) go belly up because they can't afford to run their equipment, and then we cheer on a plan that is essentially a bribe to keep the farmers on his side?  The same people who scream about how the left is racing into socialism races to bail out with massive spending the farmers who are suffering because of Trump's own policies?  Surely people are not so stupid as to fall for this again?   I mean, all those DOGE checks, tariff checks, 'vote Republican and get $5000' checks, and now farmaid checks?  None of these things actually exist, of course...but how many people teetering on the fence in the Senate election are going to now vote for our Florida-based incumbent who has enabled all these problems?  

Maybe it's a pipe dream to think that we can ever get rid of these morons.  But the fact that they are spending tens of millions on ads (many going straight from my mailbox to the recycling bin) here rather than elsewhere shows what kind of mess these people have created for themselves.  It should be an interesting next two weeks.

Thinning the Herd

My last Sunday to preach is December 27th.  Maybe not the LAST last, as I believe that I will always be called to serve God's people, and after at least a six months sabbatical ("no preaching, no teaching, no leadership, but yes I'll do a funeral") someday I'll get back up on that horse.  But my time as the preaching minister for our church is coming to an end, and the church is already making plans to move on without me.  

So I've started looking around my office to figure out what to take.  21 years of books, sermons, memories, plus whatever I brought here from the 10 years before that.  Since I'm not moving to another office somewhere, most anything I take will probably have to fit in the basement or maybe one of the kids' rooms.  Having had a few months to think about it, though, I think most of it's not going to the house.  I've already taken three boxes of books to our local library for their booksale (mostly books about sports, humor, and history); probably 90% of the rest of a lifetime's library will stay here.  I need to call some preacher friends to come and have a look through, because what preacher can keep from getting more books?  I know that for most of my career I couldn't.  Whatever doesn't get taken will stay on the shelves for whoever ends up replacing me.  

On this rainy morning I spent some time going through some boxes that have sat mostly untouched.  In them were my old class notes from two stints in grad school, plus some journals that were part of my postgraduate academic phase when I thought it necessary to try and keep reading what was new and trendy in ministry or Biblical studies.  The journals ended up being taken upstairs into our church library where they will likely sit for another 25 years, but I agonized a little bit more about my old classroom notes.  Surely I could use these again?  Or some wide-eyed student preacher might appreciate my insights and term papers from John Mark Hicks' class on hermeneutics?  In the end, I was ruthless, and took two big boxes out to the dumpster.  

I've still got a long ways to go.  Pictures of the wife and kids, a Ron Swanson bobblehead still in its packaging, a cricket ball from my trip to Sydney before I was married...those will all go home to the Me Museum.  But much of the rest of this?  Soon to be gone or abandoned.  

It's always easy at this point to hear again the words of our Lord from the Sermon on the Mount: 'Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal...'  Yet I wonder, if Jesus had come in our day and age, would he have had a library?  Pictures and cartoons on his wall?  A first draft of the SOTM laying on the corner of his desk?  And before he was crucified, would he have brought the Twelve into his office and start giving stuff away?  

Perhaps all this kind of stuff is what makes us so stagnant as we get older.  When we're young, we can toss everything into the back seat of a car and just go.  But decades later, we struggle to let go to anything. Maybe cutting ties with so much stuff will be a blessing for me, and get me back to remembering what's important again.  

In the meantime, anybody want some books???

Can't Unsee That

Walking into my local Casey's that is now advertising fuel for $4.19/gallon (Thanks Mr President!), I was planning to get a fountain drink on this very hot day.  As I was walking in, a lady pulled up in her gigantic pickup; I could see that there were a few kids with her.  She jumped out and I noticed she was wearing a football T-shirt from a nearby town; likely she and the kids were in our town for a youth football game.  As I opened the door for her I looked down and noticed on her legs there were two tattoos.  On her right leg was the word F*CK (not asterisked out); on the other leg was the word BIDEN.  Well then.  Classy comes to our little c-store; glad she will pay be paying taxes here on her beer and vapes rather than elsewhere.  

I'm always fascinated by the people who thought that "Let's Go Brandon" was clever.  I say this fully understanding why some people didn't care much for his presidency; he was, after all, painfully mediocre.  While future historians will probably rate him higher than he is now because of the way he kept us from collapsing (for awhile) after Trump 45, there wasn't much more to look at and get excited at.  He was a solid C-.  

Yet my guess is that for this classy lady it wasn't so much that she hated Biden, but that she couldn't stand that her lord and savior was deprived of the presidency for four years.  Not that DJT lost it...that was unthinkable!  Rather, that his rightful place was STOLEN from him.  And Joe Biden, who so unfairly took his place, became the criminal whom she couldn't mention without throwing a vulgar word in front of his name.  

As this woman and her kids continue this ongoing parent-child relationship over the next few years, I wonder how that's gonna go.  Sometimes I have seen a child nuzzle up to a parent and trace the outline of a tattoo with their hand; did this woman's elementary school child learn the word F*CK (again, not asterisked out!) through the tattoo on mommy's leg?  When she goes to her school for a teacher conference, and she's sitting across from her child's teacher who may or may not be some kind of raging liberal, does she feel proud that this teacher will know how much hatred is in her heart?  When she is sitting in church as she does on Easter morning, will she feel a need to modestly cover her legs not to distract men (not that any but the most desperate of men would be attracted to her IMO), but to keep God from striking her down for her vulgarity?  And when she gets old and increasingly infirm, what's going to happen when this woman has a home health aide from a foreign country taking care her of her most personal needs and seeing those words every single day? 

But hey, our classy lady has this tattoo to scream at the world for the next half-century.  I'm guessing that someday another Democrat will join Mediocre Joe on her left leg.  We should all be so proud.  

Abishag the Shunammite, 3000 years later (pt. 2)

Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. And the time that David reigned over Israel was forty years. He reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem. So Solomon sat on the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was firmly established. Then Adonijah the son of Haggith came to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon. And she said, "Do you come peacefully?" He said, "Peacefully." Then he said, "I have something to say to you." She said, "Speak." He said, "You know that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel fully expected me to reign. However, the kingdom has turned about and become my brother's, for it was his from the LORD. And now I have one request to make of you; do not refuse me." She said to him, "Speak." And he said, "Please ask King Solomon--he will not refuse you--to give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife." Bathsheba said, "Very well; I will speak for you to the king." So Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. And the king rose to meet her and bowed down to her. Then he sat on his throne and had a seat brought for the king's mother, and she sat on his right. Then she said, "I have one small request to make of you; do not refuse me." And the king said to her, "Make your request, my mother, for I will not refuse you." She said, "Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother as his wife." King Solomon answered his mother, "And why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also, for he is my older brother, and on his side are Abiathar the priest and Joab the son of Zeruiah." Then King Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, "God do so to me and more also if this word does not cost Adonijah his life! Now therefore as the LORD lives, who has established me and placed me on the throne of David my father, and who has made me a house, as he promised, Adonijah shall be put to death today." So King Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he struck him down, and he died. -1 Kings 2:10-25 ESV

Abishag the Shunammite found herself at a crossroads.  Having seen out the end of her great lord the King, she wondered where the rest of her life might go.  Once upon a time she had found herself in the place of power, fully in control of the world of her lord the King.  All news of the kingdom would be filtered through her, as her role as the Copier meant that his fragile heart would never have to hear about how many of his subjects prayed for his downfall.  Once, he had been a great hero to many; a reality TV star, actor, slumlord, and man about town.  "Perfect and majestic king, you will surely live forever!  Dance with your arms alone, and make the world turn!"  Now, however, his foolishness and incompetence, pushed on by his abject corruption, had turned his people against him.  Sending troops to fight foolish and endless wars based on fantasies he had derived in his head, renaming bodies of water simply to troll his former allies, pilfering his citizens in financial schemes in which he alone made money...his people had had enough.  And so upon his death, some of his people mourned his royal greatness, but most celebrated in the streets drinking strong ales and shooting off fireworks.  

Abishag the Shunammite found herself alone.  How would she provide for herself?  Her once legendary beauty was starting to fade.  The possibility that she would marry the son of the old King had been extinguished when that son foolishly had claimed power for himself and found himself on the wrong end of a sharp sabre upon the command of his younger brother Solomon, known to his pals as the Barron.   She had thrown herself at the new upstart of a king, but sadly he preferred skanky young college girls who were willing to pay exorbitant money for well-named energy drinks.  

Perhaps, Abishag the Shunammite thought, she could make her way much as her old lord had done.  "O lord, your ability to bleed money from others makes me smile."  A friend told her about something called a stablecoal...a perfectly worthless scheme in which she told her friends to buy, buy, buy a lump of coal engraved with a picture on it, and then charged a fee based upon everytime somebody else sold that coal to someone else.  Most of her fellow Israelites realized it was all a scam, even as it had been for the old lord.  But surely there were still gullible people out there.  All she had to do was look for the people still holding onto the past, wearing red turbans that screamed 'Make Israel Great Again!'  You could usually identify those people by seeing chariots propped up on wooden logs in front of their rundown huts, unable to actually go anywhere.  Many of them sat on barren patches of ground and screamed insults against their fellow Israelites...surely, they still believed the old lies.  These fools and their money should be easy pickings.  

But there had to be more, Abishag the Shunammite thought.  Even though she had no discernible skills beyond the ability to fawn over old men, Abishag the Shunammite would make her way.  Perhaps she needed to expand her view even further outward.  Surely there were old kings and tyrants amongst the nations who needed a woman like herself to fawn over them as well!  Even though her looks were fading, her skills at telling shallow men the lies that they wanted to hear were as strong as ever.  "Vladimir, I was a fool for not coming to you for so long.  Your shirtless rides on stallions have brought me ecstatic joy.  I will now serve you forever.   There's nobody like you, my beautiful lord!"  

Oh, the skills of Abishag the Shunammite, so ready to serve her own interests above all else!  May she be praised!  

Abishag the Shunammite, 3000 years later (pt. 1)

Now King David was old and advanced in years. And although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. Therefore his servants said to him, "Let a young woman be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king and be in his service. Let her lie in your arms, that my lord the king may be warm." So they sought for a beautiful young woman throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The young woman was very beautiful, and she was of service to the king and attended to him, but the king knew her not. - 1 Kings 1:1-4 ESV

And Abishag the Shunammite found herself wandering the halls of power.  Once she had been just another bubbly blonde on the local cable TV channel, until the day in which she found herself discovered by the king.  "Oh, I love the King!  He makes my life worth living.  I will follow him all of my days!" was the nightly cry of Abishag the Shunammite.  The king soon hired her away and put her into his service.  Paid a small ransom each month, most of her money went towards making herself attractive to her lord.  "You are my everything" she would write to him in small notes each day.  "You are the greatest king of all time, and will be greater than anybody else that will come, though I cannot imagine the universe continuing without you!"

Day by day Abishag the Shunammite continued to wedge herself into the old king's life.  Her need to be so close to him meant that she would run behind his golf chariot in high heels, and though she was told that there was no room in the limocart taking him back to Mara Slago, she crawled into the trunk to ensure that she could stay near.  "My life was incomplete until I met the King.  Even if I have no other life now, I at least can devote myself to him."  

Her influence continued to increase.  One day while fawning at her lord, she smelled something distasteful.  The old king has pooped his pants right before a important meeting with the Egyptian pharaoh; his constant diet of fried chicken and diet Coke had finally corrupted his digestive system.  How embarrassing, everybody might think.  But Abishag the Shunammite knew that one day this would happen.  In the suitcase she carried around like a sherpa was another wardrobe for the old king.  She quickly pulled him into the bathroom and quickly took off his stained garments.  She wiped the waste from his body, sprayed his body down with Fabreze, and diapered him back up in a matter of moments.  She then dressed him in an identical blue robe with a matching red turban, and got him back to his meeting on time.  "What would the world be without the brilliance of my lord?  I am his willing and faithful slave."

Oh, the goodness of Abishag the Shunammite, so ready to serve the interests of the king!  May she be praised!