Disclosure Day, A Few Thoughts

We all want to believe that in this universe we are not alone...even as Christians, why else would God have created this entire universe?  

And we all want to believe that Steven Spielberg will make a great movie about our place as not alone people in this universe.  After all, he gave us Close Encounters, ET, and so many other great movies.  

But full disclosure...Disclosure Day wasn't good.  My normal rating system feels violated in having to give 'ol Steve a 5.  For me, 7 means 'good'.  10 is Schindler's List.  A 5 means it's slightly worse than just OK.  Not bad (that's a 4).  But not good enough for a the average mediocrity of a 6.  Five.  

Oh my.  How do we explain the problems of a movie that good editing might have made into the first episode of a decent Apple TV series?  A few things...

First, the cliches.

-This ain't just a Spielberg problem, but can we call a moratorium on the whole 'anywhere we ever need them, there's always a small army of black-clothed government agents ready to break up the good works of the good guys' trope?  I know we live in a world of ICE goons and FBI agents being re-tasked to do bad things...but the same guys who sixty years ago were Star Trek Red Shirts are now Sucky World Black Shirts?  That explains a lot about our world.  

-Second, can we please for the love of all that is good ditch the very modern technique of shows and movies spending half their time with characters talking on the phone to each other?  A subset of this rant is the ubiquitous burner phone which gets broken each time, because smart phones are always so trackable to the point that at least once somebody breaks/runs over/throws them into the river so as to get some privacy.

-A third tiresome cliche is how multiple times the end of an action scene we see our heroes getting away from trouble carless/cashless/phoneless.  There they are, alone in this world...and in the next scene they are two states away, checked into a small town motel?  Maybe that's the boring part of the script that got left on the editing room floor, the scene where they meet a helpful and kind stranger that fills our heart with hope.  That would make the movie too long, but sometimes reality is important to explain.

OK.  Now we can get to the particulars of this story (big spoiler alert).  

-First we come to the premise of the movie.  We aren't alone, and we haven't been for at least 79 years.  Aliens have appeared (always, it seems, within the continental United States).  Many, many people saw spaceships and lights in the sky and the bug eyed green little men.  Yet the conspiracy is that this has all been covered up. Until now!  And one of our heroes (the man) has somehow compiled all the hundreds of random videos of our contacts on a whole bunch of 23rd century-looking flash drives that have to be uploaded at a TV studio in Kansas City one by one.  Our masculine hero was contacted by the aliens in a very intensive way back when he was 10 years old or so, but he and he alone was given the ability to speak to them in the language of the universe, Math.  He's let this ability lapse for some 30 years or so as he did his ketamine years in college and then deflowered an aspiring nun, but now it's been reawakened in him as he safeguards the 23rd century flash drives that hold onto the truth.  

-But then there's the other hero (the woman), who is a rather pleasant but unstable morning weather lady from the Kansas City TV station.  I gotta say, her NBC affiliate (channel 4, KCXE, not real, as the real NBC affiliate in KC is channel 41 KSHB, but many years ago NBC in KC used to be channel 4 WDAF, which became a Fox station when they got the NFL.  Whatever.) must be truly splashing the cash to look at the studio and production values they are able to put out each morning for that mid-market show.  She, too, was contacted when she was 10 years old, and likewise forgot about everything until a cardinal flew flew through her window yesterday and reawakened the Calling within her.  That morning her weather report turns into an alien message to the world, which in fact was only understood by the male hero as everyone else thought she had had a seizure or something.  This hero, unlike the male, has been given the gift of ultimate empathy, able to look into the eyes of anybody and know exactly what they need to hear at that moment in whatever language they happen to speak...a really good trick to walk into any dangerous situation and out of any problem! Carol, we just want to help! (Pluribus shout-out)

-Yet her performance inspired the ever-ready and ever-vigilant Bad Government agents who want to destroy her and the message, even as they are also tracking down the hundreds of 23rd century flash drives.  The chief bad guy, who tries to silence it all because We Can't Handle The Truth, also has a magical alien artifact power to mind meld with anybody and everybody in the world as long as he can look at their face on a screen and know kinda-sorta where they are.  He's susceptible, however, to a pretty face and really only does what he does because his wife died and he broke down and went all government secrety on everybody, turning half of his staff against him so as to make them Good Guys.  

-Side note...there's a Secondary Bad Guy whose motivation is undeveloped but he has both the smirk and the muscle.  He's serious about following orders, and will even try to kill the good people, even pushing their car into the path of an oncoming train.  At the end of the story, he's so mad that chief bad guy won't do Whatever Is Necessary To Stop This that he...storms out of the room, followed by other like-minded black-clothed henchmen.  

-Alongisde our male and female heroes is the former (top scientist? high-level administrator? waterboy?) who turned against him five years ago.  His kind-hearted search for truth prompts him to build a house replica of the female hero's childhood so that she can, somehow, reconnect to what it was like to be contacted as a 10 year old?  I get how the bad guys always have an endless stream of money and resources to silence the truth.  But how did this GS-14 build such a war peace chest of presumably millions in order that truth can be told?  And does his wife and kids know where he's been off to all this time?

-Yet this isn't the best trick of GS-14.  No, at the end of the Good Morning Kansas City chatfest, out of nowhere, he's also shown to be the caretaker of an old, frail alien!  Where said alien had been living for the past 79 years is not known.  Nixon and his big name Hollywood buddy had gloated over the corpses of dead aliens in '73, but this one somehow got away and has (perhaps) been living in a cottage at a Florida retirement community all this time?  And now that he/she/it/they needs to be seen, 'ol bug eye decides to get wheelchaired from the back of a u-haul to the TV studio to make a grand appearance?  I don't know...Apple TV would at least have waited til the 3rd or 4th episode of the season to throw this plot twist in.  

-And so finally The Truth is disclosed, free to everyone who wants to hear.  "Listen!" says the female hero to a worldwide TV audience at the last scene...and...CUT, roll credits.  I guess it's time to start planning for the sequel, Disclosure Day Two, in which even more disclosures are disclosed?  What on earth is going to happen???

-Needless to say, throughout all this the world has been falling apart.  We're at DEFCON 2, war seems imminent.  But then our crazy weather lady starts speaking alien math language on the local TV station and now the poop really hits the fan...even small town convenience stores are being cleaned out.  But once The Truth is being announced, everybody is ready to Listen...by just looking at their phones?  Even Russian troops getting ready to go to battle?  To me, this seems the hardest part of everything to believe in a movie with a hundred jumps of disbelief.  I mean, it's 2026.  Can we anymore believe that we can all be united in an alien message of love and harmony when in fact 38% of people still believe that Donald Trump is doing a good job?  Yeah, I don't buy it.  As quick as the female hero starts to tell people about The Truth, you just know that Newsmax is cutting to commercial for boner pills, that Sean Hannity starts to scream about this being some liberal plot, that the movie version of Donnie Dimwit complains again about elections being stolen.  People WILL be watching their phones...but there's no longer any universal truth that some people believe in.  And inevitably, somebody in this world on verge of war will look at this as an opportunity to fire the missiles.  Maybe that's why the credits rolled when they did, 'cuz we're all dead.  Kumbayah, no.  

-One final thing...the animals (deer, fox, cardinal, raccoon) just wanna stare into your eyes and talk.  Ain't that sweet. Where is Dr. Doolittle when you need him?  

A Response to 'Salt & Light Resistance'

Recently I became aware of an open letter in our movement of Churches of Christ from a group calling themselves 'Salt & Light Resistance'.  I read the letter and then co-signed what they were saying.  A few days later, I got an email back from them asking why I signed, as this letter had been recognized in our 'national newspaper of record', the Christian Chronicle.  I've spent some time thinking about why I have signed to this letter, yet remained publicly quiet on so many other things, even as I (rarely) voice my frustrations, screaming into the universe, in this blog setting.  So here was my response.  

I co-signed the open letter from Salt & Light Resistance recently, not as a Democrat or Republican, not as a political liberal or conservative, but first and foremost as a citizen of the Kingdom of God.  While not perfect, I believe that the letter does a good job in promoting the values of this Kingdom in opposition to the many things in our nation today that are the very antithesis of the Kingdom.  

I feel compelled to mention, however, that the warnings given in the letter might well not be as strong as they could have been.  One of the most discouraging aspects of the past decade has been found in a consistent 82% of so-called 'evangelical' Christians voting and resolutely supporting President Trump and his MAGA minions.  I would suspect that the numerical percentage of those within Churches of Christ are similar; in other words, about 4 out of 5 of those of us in Churches of Christ who proclaim on Sundays that Jesus is Lord, that we are called to live faithfully before God in all ways, look at President Trump and his actions and believe that they are good and even godly.  To me, this is the sign that we have become a Biblically illiterate people, and that our moral foundations are not only shaken but have withered to the point that they are almost non-existent.

Recently, as part of a political stunt in which the Bible is being read at the White House in honor of our 250th anniversary, President Trump read a passage from 2 Chronicles 7:11-22.  It's a passage of Scripture that speaks to a people who might one day in the future think of themselves as God's people but have in fact lost their way.  In it, the Lord appears to Solomon and speaks of the need for his people to 'humble themselves', to 'pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways'.  I was struck by the gall and arrogance of this president reading such words with a straight face.  Can we ever think of our president, whose intention to build ballrooms for his wealthy benefactors and erect arches to celebrate his 'triumphs' (I use that word laughingly) and imprint his image on statues and passports and monuments and even currency, as being a man who humbles himself?  Can we ever think of our president, who seems to relish rounding up and expelling 'the Other' and blaming them for all of our ills, seeking out the face of the Lord?  Can we ever think of our president, who glories in enriching himself through scams such as cryptocurrency and 'Trump Phone' and quid pro quo arrangements with foreign governments, as ever turning from wicked ways?  

It should not be surprising that we live with such wickedness in the Oval Office; we would do well to re-consider David Lipscomb's warnings about civil government and the way they turn us away from God's Kingdom.  Evil has existed in the highest reaches of political power in every era.  But what has been most painful to me has been watching how so many Christians nod in approval at so many things he has done, or at least want to join in his red-hat cult of personality.  Can we not see that in following his evil we are going down much the same road as our Israelite ancestors?  I have heard many fellow Christians loudly proclaim that they believe God has sent President Trump our way to bless us.  But could it be that God has in fact sent him to curse us and bring destruction upon us?  Romans 1:18-32 reminds us three times that a people who engage in wickedness are given over to their sin; if we are a people who are upset about sexual immorality, why are we supporting a twice-divorced man who has engaged in numerous illicit affairs and has been accused by more than two dozen woman of sexual assault and (perhaps) even dipped his toes into the waters of pedophilia?  If we are a people who want to end malice and deceit, why are we supporting a man who recklessly lies about basic facts and spends several nights each week taking to social media to denounce anybody who will not lick his boots?  If we are a people who get upset about the world's haughtiness and boastfulness, why are we supporting a man who posts pictures of himself as Jesus and demands prizes and honors from anybody and everybody?  In President Trump, it seems to me that God may well have given given American over to the worst of her sins.  

Each week as I plan sermons and classes I try and remember the words of a mentor in my earliest days when I was asked to preach for one of the first times.  His words to me were simple: "Preach the Word!"  I have sought to take to heart those words in the thousands of times I have stood before God's people since.  But in recent years I have found such a disparity between what I read about in God's Word, versus the actions of those people who claim a kind of godliness but deny the very fundamentals of what a life as a Christ-follower looks like, that I am terrified for our nation's future, not to mention the future of the church.  Will we wake up and realize the peril that we are in?  

In closing, I need to say that this summer I am finishing up 31 years of full-time ministry in Churches of Christ.  I have been blessed to work with churches over those years who are made up of people from different walks of life, different political ideologies, and different cultural backgrounds, and I have been blessed that I have never had to endure an open split or even a loud rupture in the local church.  God's people are more resilient than we give them credit for.  But maybe it's now time for me to start becoming more vocal about naming evil for what it is.  To proclaim the Kingdom now also means that we must name those things in every era that stand against it.  

Karma Will Come

The Trump Sh*tshow continues to roll on; after last week's trainwreck of pissing off whatever allies we have left in his aborted play to get Greenland (rationalized by the thought that 'we have to take it over to prevent bad people from taking it over'), this week his hot garbage has been centered in Minnesota.  Yep, those nice people of Minneapolis have risen up in fierce resistance against ICE and border patrol agents who have used gestapo tactics in trying to 'save' white people from their Somali neighbors.  Multiple American citizens doing little more than driving their cars or taking cell phone videos have been murdered by federal agents.  And sure, the Faux News crowd (mostly the same 38% who continually, insanely, continues to support Trump) thinks that it's all paid agitators or radical leftists causing the problems.  But anybody who looks at this through any form of moral lens can see the evil that the government is doing.  Civil War may be on the horizon, as people openly resist and reject the federal government.  

My prayer is that somehow, someway this ends peacefully.  Recently I've become aware of the Latin phrase 'sic semper tyrannis' which basically means 'thus always to tyrants', which is a prayer that what they have put upon others will come back upon them.  Again, I hope this happens peacefully...if we have elections in the fall (a big if), perhaps the Democrats will finally stand up and do something competently, and any Republicans who haven't fully sold their soul to MAGA will finally wake up and reject what has been happening.  Those that for years hung from the back of their pickups giant yellow flags screaming 'Don't Tread on Me!' will finally see the reality that the people doing the treading are themselves.  

And so what will happen to ICE?  If funding for DEI policies and climate (and other) sciences and aid for the poor and so many other programs can be ended, so one day ICE will be dissolved as well.  The day is coming, hopefully sooner rather than later, that all these former Proud Boys who now have legal shielding from their atrocities will be the streets.  And so what will they do?  Some, I hope, will face their crimes in the court system.  A few high profile scapegoats will likely go to jail, as well as a few lower level agents who have done the actual murdering.  But for the rest, my advice would be to hide this job from any resume or job applications, because likely nobody with any sense of conscience will ever hire them again.  Sure, I bet they can get some private army mercenary gig in a third world country...but were I an employer I'd higher a drug-addled layabout before I'd hire an ICE agent.  Yep, the people who brought misery to so many will themselves be subject to misery.  Sic semper tyrannis.  

Diary of The Angry Bus Driver, #36

Tonight I'm doing my late run route, dropping off a few middle school boys of color in a very congested area.  As I stop and open the door, which puts out my stop arm and activates my giant red flashing lights, I see a car coming around the corner driven by a middle-aged white woman.  She has 5, 6, 7 seconds to stop.  She doesn't, and blows through my stop arm.  

Funny thing is, I look behind me and there's a white Sedgwick County deputy sitting in his patrol car.  It's still plenty light out, and I can see him clearly.  He's looking directly at the car which has gone through.  Surely, I think, somebody will finally get pulled over! A hundred cars have run through my stop arm this year at various points of my routes, and I've never once seen a cop when I needed him. And here he is, witnessing the whole thing.  Surely, I think, justice will be served.  

Nope.  He watches the car go through, looks away, and then looks back down at his lap.  Probably his phone.  Maybe his paperwork.  And the criminal drives away.  

Thanks, Mr. Deputy, you shaved off again a slice of the trust I have in law enforcement.  If the driver had been black maybe he would have been right on it, regardless of the traffic violation.  If she were Hispanic, I'm sure an ICE agent would have busted in her window and dragged her off to El Salvador.  But a white woman?  Bah, who cares?

Why I Choose Not To Run

I am far more interested in politics than I ought to be; the Kingdom of God should be enough.  Theologically I am convinced that there's a lot more God-directed movement when it comes to leaders than we acknowledge in our secular world; this comes in that sometimes God moves for our good, but also he allows us to go our own way when we are doing evil.  In this day and age, I think the second is far more likely to be what's going on...we want a society of evil (even as we call it good), and God grants us our wish by giving us evil leaders (who far too many people want to call great). 

Every once in awhile I think about running for some kind of office.  But in truth, I know for certain that I could never, ever be elected.  Why?  

-I have the looks of a brute and the charisma of a rock.  

-I come from a religious background that has basically denied the equality of women in practice if not in theory.  While some from Churches of Christ have held office, I gotta think this would be a problem, even if I have become increasingly convinced that we are wrong (at least in part).  

-As a Christian who believes in the word of God and the love he shows for all creation, I also am certain that many people I would be wanting to vote for me are likely doomed to hell.  That might be a problem.

-My anger with many 'evangelical Christians' when it comes to the fact that 4 out of 5 still continue to support Trump will alienate me from those people who should be my base.  Preaching Biblical morality and righteousness ought to be a slam dunk; unfortunately, many of these evangelical Christians wouldn't recognize Biblical morality and righteousness if it hit them with a body slam.  

-I despise most country music.  There goes 30% of the vote.  

-I think that many social programs are likely counterproductive and cause as much harm as good.  I also think that there's not a single social program ever created that can fix lazy and stupid, and there are more lazy and stupid people in this country each day.  Saying that might offend a few people.

-I believe that the environmental crisis facing this country (and planet) might be existential.  As such, that might be a primary aim of any kind of action I might want to take.  Considering that a. many think this is a hoax and b. true and effective action will likely cause short-term economic pain and discomfort (even if it ensures long-term survival), likely I would alienate a lot of people, even as I will be shown to be a hypocrite in my actual life. 

-You'd think that after 30 years in ministry I would be good at handling people and making them feel important.  You'd think wrong.  This is the same reason being a hospital chaplain is likely never in my future either.  

-I would piss off every donor and supporter and voter that comes within earshot of me within 10 minutes.  Telling people what they want to hear has become harder for me as I approach late middle age.  

-Israel and the Palestineans can keep destroying themselves for all I care. We should stop sending aid, both military and humanitarian to these places. Christian supporters of Israel who keep misrepresenting Scripture to fund Israeli atrocities cannot be taken seriously. 

-I am both pro-choice and think that abortion ought to be rare.  Likewise I also believe that LGBTQ people have the right to live as they choose, but that their 'rights' are also sinful.  I'm guessing that both of my positions would make nobody happy.  

-Most immigrants to this country are better at being Americans than native-born Americans.  

-MAGA is an atrocity.  The Democrats aren't much better.  

-I don't think I'd be a very good representative of the people.  I'd like to be thought of as more a spokesman for the truth.  That will come across as arrogant.  

-Basic health care in this country ought to be guaranteed and the system to pay for it should be overseen by the government.  Also, fatties and druggies and people who live inherently unhealthy lives should have to pay more for their livestyles. 

I could go on, but you get the drift.  It may be that I'm putting this out into the Internets so that should I ever be dumb enough to decide to run for anything, the oppo research by my opponent will be so, so easy.  But here I stand, I can go no other way.