What Do We Remember?

Today is the 18th anniversary of 9/11, and so as one might expect Facebook is full of all the 'Never Forget' memes and the 'I remember where I was..." stories.  All of us old enough to remember this terrible day have our own stories, of course...but when I keep hearing people say how they will remember, I wonder what it is we are supposed to remember?  For some, it's the story of Muslim Radicalism.  For others it's the story of American Strength.  For still others it's the story of how we began an Endless War On Terrorism.

But I wonder if maybe we aren't remembering the wrong things.  As a Christian who reads his Bible, I am often struck by how much of the Biblical metanarrative is wrapped up in God trying to get our attention.  He has blessed his people, who slowly but surely turn away from him when they prosper, and so God seeks to call people back to him.  And in order to do this, he sometimes has to punish us to remind us where our true loyalties rest. 

I don't know if 9/11 was God trying to rebuke America.  But I do know that our response was anything but Godly.  Sure, a few people started thinking about faith in the weeks to follow, but this was quickly followed by a call to spend money that they didn't have to keep the economy running, a suspicion of people of color with strange names, and eventually speculative wars that continue to do this day and seem to have no resolution.  America's faith in itself grew over the next year, but in the 18 years since can we say that we are truly a more Godly nation?  I seriously doubt it.  Our dependence upon stuff, our self-pride and arrogance as a nation has exploded, and to this point it's culminated in electing a President who's a complete and utter numskull that daily gives more aid and comfort to the enemy than anything the terrorists could ever have done. 

When will we wake up?  I hope that today will be a humbling experience for us as a nation; I would even hope that we would ask the hard question of 'why do some cultures hate us so much' without most people stupidly answering 'Because they hate freedom!'  But I know that neither of these things will happen.  I will choose to remember 9/11 by trying to do what is right and good...maybe I'm delusional and self-righteous in thinking this, but Kingdom of God people always are to remember where our first loyalty rests. 

Marketing Fail! or a Failure in Marketing?

So my birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and today in my mailbox I got this little flyar from a shoe store.  I'm in one of those rewards programs and so occasionally (like on my birthday) they send coupons saying that I can get $5 off or something like that.  Fine.

But look at this picture for a moment, sent as one side of an advertisement for shoes, sent to a straight man.  Is this picture supposed to make me rejoice?  Will it give me a thrill that my relationships will be as exciting as this?  Do I dream everyday of about having 'my day to sparkle'?  Did (national seller of shoes here) actually commission this picture of two middle-age lunatics thinking that their ecstasy at buying a pair of shoes would translate to me?

Yes, it's marketing.  They want me to come and buy shoes.  But this reminds me that for all the analytics and algorithims that now go in to marketing, this company failed miserably when it came to knowing their audience, ME.  We complain all the time that companies are selling our private personal data (that we have given them willingly, BTW) and that no longer can we make choices on our own.  Surely, we think, this is the end of the world.

But as long as actual marketing campaigns are run by people stupid enough to think that this picture will appeal to a straight middle-aged white male, maybe we shouldn't be so worried that we are losing our souls.  Because this picture almost makes me NOT want to buy from this company, just as the guy selling cars from the local Ford dealer who screams into the camera makes me NOT want to buy Fords.

Of course, I do like a new pair of kicks.  And I do like money off...that should have been their message.  As it is, I've got to hold onto this picture of these orgasmic morons until I finally get around to getting my new shoes.

I pledge allegiance to...the confederacy?

This past weekend we had our annual little small town festival.  Having lived in a number of small towns in my adulthood I see that they are mostly the same...a few carnival rides, a craft show and a car show, bands in the park, a beer garden.  The names may change the reason behind the show may change (though almost always there is some nod to the historical background of the town), but they are almost always the same. 

My kids, who have lived in the same town their entire lives, really enjoy our festival.  I don't care for it much, but then again I'm an introvert and so don't enjoy all that much which involves huge crowds of people.  But I do always walk through it for awhile, mixing among deplorables and hippies alike that seem to populate these things.  I'm always fascinated and a little bit disgusted at my fellow humans, such as the huge guy in the tank top with an arm tattoo that said 'Hello Bitch!' in large letters, or the guy wearing the t-shirt saying 'If I die delete my browser history'.  99.9% of the people at these shows are my fellow caucasians, and it makes me realize even more so the stupidity of racism.  I mean, if this is the best white people have to offer, then surely we need some more DNA in the gene pool, right? 

One thing that I notice in the craft shows is the marketing of the confederate battle flag almost as much as the American flag.  T-shirts, wooden decorations, coffee mugs...while I don't live in a former confederate state, I find a lot of people here in Kansas are still fighting the lost cause.  They will fly their confederate flags proudly from the back of pickup trucks or wear it on their favorite t-shirt.  I'd like to think they are honoring some kind of southern heritage of family values...but more than likely, a lot of those who wear these things really do think that fighting to preserve slavery was really a pretty good idea.  Yes "I have black friends" they will say...but really, the confederacy was about slavery at its core, and such a way of life would be perfectly acceptable to many people in Trump's America. 

Because here's the thing: I find it interesting that many of the people who proudly wear the stars and bars at the same time are likely also Trump supporters who get enraged that Mexicans want to come to this country and hold onto some of their Mexican heritage.  Even as they drive around with a confederate flag in the window, they have no qualms about disrespecting the Mexican flag on the car of another.  Even as they tell other people that this is America, love it or leave it, they are still more firmly rooted in an entirely different nation, the confederacy.  What a weird kind of patriotic fervor.

"Beware Those Who Deal Falsely"

One of our little Church of Christ papers that gets sent here each month (not because we asked, but because we have a lot of Paper Popes in the church) had an article that caught my attention.  It began like this:
"Something has gone terribly, undeniably wrong.  When those in lofty positions of authority speak lies, deceptions, and pseudo-clever half-truths, rejecting the clear path of truth for carefully parsed, semantic mazes, something is just not right.  And it should disturb us all.  Doesn't it bother you to hear untruths presented, promoted, and then defended as true?  Doesn't it fuel your fires of righteous indignatino to stand by and witness this constant, relentless campaign of calculated subterfuge?  It seems every day--day after day--truth is forced take a backseat to outright lies, being spun and spun and then spun some more until little is left but the crums of what once was." 

Wow.  Somebody in Churches of Christ is going to come out and talk about Trump!  I'm sure that many who read these words thought much the same thing. 

Unfortunately, the author wussed out.  Nope...it's about false religion.  Everybody but us (and some of us, in fact) are the ones he gets angry about.  Our various interpretations on certain issues, important are not, are held up as sacrosanct, and everybody who disagrees with us is a liar.  He finishes with the oft-used Scripture from 2 Timothy 4:2-4 about 'itching ears' people have that keep them from truth. 

Sigh.  I know, it's a religious paper.  And I know that there is a lot of false religious teaching out there. 

But when much of Mr. Trump's support comes from people of faith, who digest his lies and spew them back out as being true...when they call anything they don't like (itching ears, anybody) as 'fake news'...when they continue supporting a man whose immorality and hatred and self-indulgence as 'God's man'...aren't they doing things just as bad, if not worse, than false teachers in the church? 

The Problem of Gun Control

This weekend, in two separate incidents, troubled and terrorist white men went and killed 29 people in mass shootings.  We grieve and mourn and proclaim 'thoughts and prayers'.  And everytime this happens we seek to change hearts.  We continue to wonder whether we are next.  We hope that something, anything, will change. 

One of the things that is screamed anytime this happens is a demand for more gun control legislation. The blood is on the hands of the NRA and the conservatives who continue to resist these things, it is claimed.  Occasionally there will be some slight reform in background checks and waiting periods and in the particular types of weapons that can be purchased.  But it's still easier to get a gun in this country than it is to get many medications or health care. 

I don't know all the answers, because there are at least three main obstacles to real change.  First, it is estimated that 300 million guns already exist in this country, enough for every man, woman, and child to have one.  Outlawing the sales of guns tomorrow will not change the fact that these guns are already out there...and since they are made of metal they are not biodegradable.  The poison is already in the system.  We should have done something about this a half century ago when that guy went up and started shooting from the tower at UT-Austin.  But we didn't, and now we are reaping the fruit of our inaction.

Second, many of these 300 million guns are owned by people who love them more than life itself and will fight to keep them from being taken away.  For decades now part of the fear-mongering of the gun lobby is that 'the government will only take these guns from our cold, dead hands', and I fear that there would be dozens, if not hundreds of shootouts if law enforcement comes to seize guns.  It makes me think of our country almost two centuries ago...the 'peculiar institution' slavery was a cultural way of life for many to the point that an entire civil war was fought to defend it, and over half a million people died.  And even if we fought that war to take the guns away from the diehards, do we really think that we would get them all?  Because these guns have mostly not been registered and traced over the years, how many tens of millions would be hidden away in the meantime? 

Finally, extreme gun control denies the fact that some think that they genuinely need protection.  This may be a rural thing, in that many do not have effective law enforcement nearby in case of trouble...but even within the city, some hold onto guns not to kill but to protect their families.  I feel for those who live their lives in fear to the point that they arm themselves, and while I feel that many of the fears are unfounded (and arming oneself only exacerbates the problem, not solves it), people do what they feel is right to defend their property and family.  I can respect that. 

So, what do we do?  I do think that legislation banning most future gun sales is a better option than doing nothing.  I believe that we need to work on the hearts of the people who have been told for decades that violence is the best response to threat.  And I believe that we need to find ways to register and make traceable the many guns that are out there and make gun owners liable for their weapons, much as in the OT law people were liable for the violent behavior of their animals (Exodus 21:29). 

But one action that I think would be effective but I've never heard mentioned to me is the simplest of all solutions:  ban and/or severely restrict and legislate the sale of ammunition.  Guns don't kill people...ammunition kills people!  Yes, there are certainly billions of pieces of ammunition out there now, and any future ammunition must be easily traceable by law enforcement, again making it easier to catch future violent offenders. 

Let's go further:  Even if there are billions of rounds out there, why do we keep adding to the stockpiles?  Want to go and shoot off your guns at a range because you have the need to express yourself that way?  Every bullet you shoot is accounted for, and every bullet is heavily taxed with the proceeds going towards gun violence.  Police and military bullets?  Again, heavily regulated, with soldiers and police having to account for all their weaponry and severe consequences abound when they go missing. 

Perhaps someday all the stored up ammunition would be used up, and those who decide commit murder will have to return to the old fashioned weapons of stone and knives.  People will always still be killed, because violence is inherent in fallen humanity; but perhaps there will be a lot less killed if they can't shoot off 60 rounds in a minute because they couldn't find ammunition to purchase. 

Why does this have to be so hard?  Nothing we do will change things overnight...but we can at least start now so that 50 years from we don't keep having this problem. 

Duck and Cover and Die Anyway

My wife, who is a preschool teacher, spent her entire Saturday morning in a preparedness training session concerning gun violence.  She went through a variety of scenarios about parents holding children hostage or enraged gunmen storming her daycare.

My children regularly in their school have 'lockdown' drills.  Our high school this year will have new, stricter entry policies to reduce the possibility that gunmen or other undesirables are able to gain access to the interior of the building.

Every month at our bus driver monthly safety meetings we go over the many terrible possibilities that could happen on our buses.  We have lifesaving training that includes gunshot wound packing, violence de-escalation techniques, and other types of scenarios that hopefully we will never have to use.

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In the 1950s school kids across America were taught the technique of 'Duck and Cover'.  In the case of a nuclear detonation, it was thought that such outcomes might save a few lives, and in fact there is some evidence that having even the slightest shield from the radiation might well reduce the exposure and save a life.  Such techniques are today widely ridiculed, with the idea that 'if a nuclear explosion happens, what's the point of getting under a desk'?  Indeed, it seems quite ridiculous...better to not have a nuclear explosion.  Somewhere along the way as a nation things de-escalated to the point that I don't know that kids have to worry about nuclear annihilation.

But today, since the time that they were very small, my kids have been well aware that it's possible some nutjob with an automatic weapon could come in and start blasting away killing them or their teachers or classmates.  They live with this possibility just as much as I grew up doing tornado drills in Oklahoma.

It's a sad statement on our world that these realities are so possible today.  We live in a world of such horrific and sustained violence even as there is such an unwillingness to get to the causes of violence.  We'd rather have drill after drill to prepare us for their eventuality, and many believe that the best defense is a good offense.  Surely, it is thought, that teachers and citizens packing heat will deter the violence.  Give everybody a gun, they say, and we'll all be safer.

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Today a guy walked into a WalMart in El Paso, Texas and killed at least 20 people.

A Philosophy of Church Work

Have you ever had to move a heavy and tall dresser across a room, moving it from one wall to the opposite wall, spinning it around as you go?  And there's nobody else around to help?  As you move it you have many factors to keep in mind: move it at the wrong angle and it might gouge the wall...get in the wrong position and pull it towards you and it might fall on you and crush you...and you'll probably be sore for a few days afterwards. 

But there are two other major issues to consider in doing this.  1)You can never move it quickly with one big shove. Rather, even as you put your full weight behind it at just the right angles, the best you can do it give it a hundred little nudges here and there.  Sometimes you have to pull it when it's close to the wall; sometimes you have to slide it in a direction to move it around a bed; sometimes you get in a good position and move it a whole six inches at a time.  But it's a long, slow, laborious process.  Nothing moves quickly. 

2)Then, of course, there is the question as to why you are doing this by yourself in the first place?  Why not call a friend or a spouse and have them help?  Unfortunately, they're not around, and you are arrogant enough to think you can do it all yourself.  And besides, you've moved lots of furniture before, and you know what happens when you get more people involved: people say they like things the way they were, or they will complain that it's too much work, or they might even actively work against you to keep you from getting things done.  So, sometimes it's easier to just get stuff done yourself. 

This, I think, is a pretty good metaphor for working in full-time ministry in a small church. 

The un-American

One of the reason I write this blog is to purge thoughts out of my head so that they don't keep rattling around.  I have other more important things to do, and to be able to express ideas of varying quality in this way helps to put them somewhere else.  It's like my own personal pensive, so that later I can go back and examine my thoughts and determine whether they were good or not. 

So in writing about Mr. Trump's racist thoughts yesterday, I was hoping to clear my head of such thoughts to get on to better Kingdom of God things.  Yet I still continue to think about what he said, and I find that I am not happy with what I wrote.  Because ultimately, what this debate has been about has been all the wrong things: should we slap a label of 'racist' on his thoughts?  That's easy, actually.  When discourse is watered down, the simplest thing to do is create a perjorative label (racist, liberal, retarded, etc.) and then judge everything by what you believe that label to mean. 

But to actually speak in depth about a topic is much more difficult, yet helpful.  Are Trump's words racist?  Sure, and I still struggle how his supporters keep on defending the indefensible.  But there's more than just that.  His tweets, as I see them, were based not so much on blatant racism as they were his thin-skinned insecurity for which he is so famous.  What he's saying is that people are not 'real Americans' if they are criticizing him.  To be patriotic in Trump's America is to line up behind him, accept whatever he says, and continue to call him great (despite all evidence to the contrary). 

While racism may have a part in what he says, this kind of mindset is far more about shutting down freedom of speech and thought.  Trump has always admired dictators and strongmen who are able to suppress dissent; and now he is expressing this openly about how he wishes people (especially women of color) would just stay silent and do whatever he wants. 

Not to create another label, but this is simply 'unAmerican'.  Part of the beauty of this country is being able to express your disagreement with what is being done.  To say that people, any people, don't have the right to speak up is simply wrong.  This is what leads to police states, dictators, and repression.  I may think that the four Democratic congresswomen are wrong about many of their policies or ideas...but in this country they have the right to speak as they choose about Trump, America, or even me. 

This is America, Mr. Trump.  Don't like freedom of speech?  Then go back to Russia where your true home (or luxury hotel) really is. 

A racist? Not a racist?

Once again in recent days our President has said something moronic.  Telling some ethnically-inclined Congresswomen to go back to where they came from, not good.  Call it conservative, call it Republican, call it wrong...but certainly don't call it Christian. 

Of course, liberal America is going crazy about this...and what seems to be the story as we continue on into this increasingly terrible news cycle is the demand that Republicans call this 'racist'.  Given Trump's history of comments, this is just another in a long line of comments that ought to have been buried long ago (and in fact, buried him).  This isn't how we behave as Americans, and the need that many have to put a label on this is for some the tactic they keep trying to pursue in order marginalize and eventually remove Trump. 

Of course, I'm not entirely sure he is a racist.  I heard my grandfather, who otherwise was a kind and compassionate and educated and even enlightened man for his era say many worse things about 'the coloreds'.  Trump is still a product of his age; even growing up in the north he likely inherited many of the implicit biases of his white privileged background. Is he truly a racist?  Likely he would point to black friends or employees to say 'See?  I have black friends too!'  In truth, none of us really know what is in his heart...all we can know is what his public comments indicate...and on that basis, yes, he's probably a racist, albeit a mild one.  Read much about our American history, and see what flaming 1950's Dixiecrat racists said, and Trump's comments pale by comparison. 

Thing is, I think Trump knows exactly what he is doing.  As he continues to try and maintain his rock-solid 38% support (of which many more vote than the rest of America), he continues to use these kind of dog-whistle comments knowing that he a)is is distracting everybody from more important failings b)is getting under the skin of his opponents, to his supporters' delight and c)is telling those supporters exactly what they want to hear.  Most of us look at these things in disgust, but there's still a sizable minority of people who hear these things and nod, albeit silently.  They don't really want this to be a multi-ethnic country.  When they say they want to 'take our country back', they mean back to the days when white people ran everything.  Much like the President, they will point to black friends and co-workers to say, 'See, I'm not racist!' but they are horrified at the thought of their children marrying somebody of a different race or not thinking that they are the ones in charge. 

So maybe the tactic of Democrats ought to not be demanding that Republicans denounce this kind of racism.  Expecting that one day Trump will learn his lessons and start taking the high road is a failing tactic, because he is what he is.  He knows his base, and will continue to pander to their biases, no matter how bad or immoral it is.  Instead, Christians who seek out the Kingdom of God need to simply be speaking of this in terms of the will of God.  Is this how a Christian behaves?  Do we really want a President on his third marriage who has had many affairs and (likely) at least a a few sexual assaults?  Do we want to be a nation in which aliens and strangers will 'shake the dust off their feet'?  Do we want to be a nation in which we glorify the wealthy and shame the poor? 

It always comes down to the gospel and the Kingdom of God.  Are we really putting our hearts in the right place?  Or are we just going to point fingers while the President gleefully soaks up the pressure? 

Yesterday

Last weekend we went and saw Yesterday, a movie that asks the question, 'What if the Beatles (and ciagarettes and Coca-Cola and Harry Potter) had never existed, except in the minds of a few people'?  It wasn't a great movie, and my IMDB rating of 8 is probably inflated by the fact that I simply love the Beatles and will pump up anything that has their music in it.  And Lily James is quite nice to look at for two hours. 

One would think that the world would impoverished today had not John Lennon and Paul McCartney and George Harrison not had that first gig in the basement of the church building long ago.  But the world of this movie acted as if nothing of real importance had still been lost.  Ed Sheerin could still write songs; music really wasn't too much different (but Oasis never existed, whatever); people lived their lives just as we would today.  We wouldn't be teaching our kids about Sgt Peppers, or the sadness of John Lennon being shot (would Forrest Gump exist, then?), or Paul McCartney asking us whether or not it's OK to like Silly Love Songs.  This, likely, was the great weakness of the movie.

Watching this movie, though, posed two great questions for me as a Christian who really struggles with our post-Christian world...first, if Christ had not been born, what difference would it make?  All of history hinges upon him.  Many evil things have been done in his name, of course, but the genius of all civilization really rests on his bringing Life to people.  There have been books written about this topic, of course...but I daresay that books as they now exist would not have been available without him. 

But there's a second question that keeps coming to mind: if everybody woke up tomorrow and only a half-dozen people remembered Jesus and what he means, would that make a difference in the lives of many people?  Or let me ask it this way: does Jesus really make a difference in the lives of many people?  Would him not being real make a difference in the lives of 10% of Americans?  Or would people keep going on as they always do? 

We live in a country that claims to follow after Jesus...but how do we sync this up with the fact that most Americans claim to think that a wicked and vulgar man like Donald Trump is a great president, God's own man in the White House?  I struggle with this question everyday.  Am I one of the few people on this earth who remember who Jesus really was?  And what this means for how we live?  Or am I just deluding myself, and everybody is else is right on him and I'm just prejudiced?  Am I just going crazy worrying about things that don't really matter? 

I'd like to think that I'd be singing his praises even if nobody else on earth knows who he really was.  And maybe there are others who would do the same, even as they have that look on their faces of confusion at just what on earth is going on with everybody else.  But I don't know...and I'm glad that Jesus really does exist!  May he be praised. 

Hot Summer Presidential Dreams

I have very little hope for our upcoming presidential election.  While surely America is not going to vote for the current dimwit again, I'm not all that thrilled with the slate of the Dems who are running.  Most of them either are running so far to the far left as to be unelectable (not to mention the insanity of the policies), but they are also playing right into the Far Right's hands whereby their own insanity is still insane, but comparable. 

So I have been having this heated fantasy popping into my head while mowing the yard or driving the bus or playing video game, and it's to my blog that I turn when I have stupid ideas that needs to be disposed of. 

Here's how it goes:  the presidential election debates of 2020 get opened up to a third person on stage.  A random American, somebody with no desire for public office but who is drawn by lottery to stand on the stage with Trump and Sanders/Warren/Booker/Biden whoever.  Who knows how it happens?  Maybe a network decides to spice things up, maybe Trump demands a third person be on the ballots to draw off votes from his opponents.  And someday, next September, I get a call saying, "Sir, we need you to come to Columbus next week.  You have been drafted to be in the Presidential debate."

I feel so contradictory about being in the limelight.  I am a preacher, after all...and so I stand before audiences several times a week and hope to impress for the sake of the gospel.  I've never been fully comfortable before others, but I've done it long enough now that I can do this, and I'm arrogant enough to think that I'm smarter than most everybody else.  But at the same time being up in front of a stage, becoming famous, horrifies me, because I know that a)I'm not charismatic or telegenic, at all b)I would stumble over my words and become the new meme generator for the 20s, and c)I really, really don't want the responsibility of representing the half of the American population who is sick of both sides. 

Yet I'm drafted into this fantasy.  And there I am, standing before Chuck Todd and Megan Kelly to give my answers at the great debates of the presidency.  I picture myself on the one hand being respectful of the Democrats while at the same time pointing out their message is not being accepted because it is, well, impractical.  Cancelling college debt for 17th century French literature majors?  Providing 'free' health care for the morbidly obese?  Seriously.  I know you have good intentions...but do you have any idea how dumb and unrealistic these ideas are? 

But my bigger anger turns towards Trump.   I imagine myself looking over at the big orange blob known as Mr. President and blasting away.  'Sir, you're a disgrace, an embarassment, a serial adulterer and perhaps a serial rapist...please, for the love of all that's good, resign.  I promise, I'll ensure that somebody comes over to you and kisses your butt everyday, since that's what you want.  Just go away, and nobody else gets hurt.'  And on and on it goes. 

Overall, I do my best, dodge the particulars of policy, and I collapse at the end of the night, glad that it's over.  But of course my words have sparked a scandal.  How dare he!  Who does he think he is?  Learn to be respectful!  You're a preacher of the gospel, and this is God's chosen man?  The whole establishment, both left and right, are infuriated (or secretly delighted). 

And then three days later the polls come out:  Trump, 38% (because he's got 38% of Americans who will never leave him, I'm convinced, until the next paragraph's turn of events).  Sanders/Warren/Booker/Biden, 36%.  Me, 22%.  Other, 4%.  People go crazy.  Wait, is there a third alternative?  Can we get out of the stupidity of this two party system that is destroying America?  Yes!  Ballot initiatives to get me on the ballots are begun out of nowhere by grassroots people who are equally as frustrated and I find myself on the presidential ballot in 46 states.  My high school friend Derek agrees to be my VP running mate, 'cuz he's smart and business-like and he has lived in Iowa long enough to pull those votes.   I don't really do anything, except being featured in the Atlantic and occasionally being talked about on late night talk shows.  But I've hit a nerve. 

And then late September rolls around:  the stock market crashes.  Sean Hannity breaks down on air.  Trump's two oldest sons are indicted for paying millions to the Russians to purchase a tape of their father in a Russian hotel room doing unmentionable things.  Mike Pence is overheard on a video saying that the last four years have been a disaster.  Trump's support vanishes overnight, and people wake up long enough to recognize that he's the moron that he has always been.  Sanders/Warren/Booker/Biden has no plan to get us through this except Spend and Hold Hands. 

On a random Thursday evening I finish my bus route and eat dinner with my family and then appear on Wolf Blitzer's show and state the obvious, that the bill has come due for our profligate spending, and we have to suck it up and ride out the next four years, and hey, I'll do my best and then leave, whatever.  Immedately people find that I'm the least of three evils, and I'm now polling in late October at 53%.  The media swarms my little town, talks to people at church and the kids on my bus route, and I'm suddenly the frontrunner.  America's sweetheart, perhaps.

And then suddenly every bad thing I've ever done or thought of doing is now featured in Breitbert News and then picked up on Fox News.  Once I underpaid my state income taxes by $200 (honest mistake).  I have taken a housing allowance and not paid into social security.  In college I once broke up with a girl because I said I was 'bored'.  I worked at a pawn shop.  I watched I Dream of Jeannie when I was younger because Barbara Eden was HOT.  I once posted on a message board about the how Americans are in love too much with a flag and not enough with righteousness, and another time I posted on my blog about how many Americans are just fat and stupid. 

All true, I finally announce, three days before the election.  At my press conference I have a large bruise and bandage on my forehead where I scraped my bald head on the kitchen cabinet door and look like a complete dork. I get asked a few questions that trap me into saying that too many Americans are privileged and that we haven't been a Christian nation recently, if ever, and that we pay far too much attention to our 'brave men and women in uniform' and not enough to the garbage collectors and custodians and fast-food workers who really make this country run.

And here the fantasy ends. 

On the Sunday evening before the election Trump launches some missiles into Iran and North Korea and the Patriotic Defense Rationalization kicks in to give him the votes.  Sanders/Warren/Booker/Biden's tour bus crashes somewhere in the Appalachins, and suddenly it's over.  Trump wins again, puts me in jail for dissent and unAmerican behavior, and three months later nuclear missiles are detonated under the ice caps and 90% of humanity dies within a week. 

I never did figure out how the story would end differently. 

The Black Salesman

Today I was home for lunch and a door-to-door salesman knocked on my door selling pest control.  I suppose it is because of the location of our house on the edge of the neighborhood, but it seems like we get door-to-door salespeople all the time: siding, windows, trees, lawn care, magazines, newspapers, JWs...I could go on and on. 

What was different, however, was that this salesman was black.  Living in a town that is almost 100% white, one doesn't see around here a lot of people of different races.  James Loewen lists my hometown as a possible 'sundown town', and I believe it...having talked to people around here for the past fourteen years, I find that there is a lot of residual racism.  Nothing too blatant, but it's not surprising to see a Confederate battle flag flying on the back of a truck or off a shanty once in awhile. 

Fast forward a few hours...I'm mindlessly scrolling through Facebook (why?) and I come across a post to the local 'news' page in which a woman reports her fear that a door-to-door salesman was in town.  The general tone was of it was "HIDE THE KIDS!  DANGEROUS PEOPLE ARE LURKING!"  Now, I could be wrong here, but I'm guessing that one of my neighbors saw a black man walking up her driveway and immediately assumed that he was on his way to rape her.  In fact, he was a very pleasant and friendly young man who left rather quickly after I said no (as I say to all such salesmen).  But for some, seeing a man of a different race knock on her door gave her the 21st century version of a fainting spell. 

It's disappointing, really.  I like our little town and most of the people are nice.  We have chosen to raise our children here and though there are far too many Trump apologists, it's a nice place to live and work.  But every once in awhile I see and hear things that remind us that there are people who are out of their minds with fear...whether it's illegal aliens, homosexuals, or black men trying to sell them pest control, it's too much for the people who live their lives watching Fox News to meet somebody that is different than they are.  It makes me sad, and it makes me think of that Scripture in which Jesus tells his disciples to shake the dust off their feet against those who reject them as a witness against them.  I wonder if the salesman today left our community having gotten some ugly stares or a few rude comments and shook the dust off his feet against us, not because he didn't sell a lot, but because he saw hatred in the eyes of my neighbors?  Will God judge our community for this?  Is a history of our community a witness against us in the Kingdom of God?  I fear it may be so. 

Taking A Break

In recent years I have become more interested in the concept of Sabbath.  There was something holy about stepping away from work for a day, not letting yourself be consumed by creating something else but enjoying what you already had.  I haven't always done this very well in my life, as it often seems like I am working seven days a week.

But I do find different ways of Sabbath-keeping to be helpful as well.  Taking a vacation in which I don't cook and we sleep at a hotel and we just enjoy being together as a family.  Having periods where I repeat old sermon series or classes, so that I am not consumed with having to continually write more and more, instead reading and studying for no discernable end but just the joy and imagination it leads to in regards to faith. 

And so with this in mind, on this last day of May, it's time to take a little break from this blog.  It's been good for my creative juices to seek to write every day, and I will pick this back up again in a few weeks.  But lately I feel as if I have been writing for the sake of writing.  True writers say that this is important, that it's something you have to do.  But I'm not a true writer.  I don't write for a living, it's not what defines me, and seeking to do this at times has kept me from doing other things that are likely more important for me. 

I know that nobody actually reads this, which is a good thing...it gives me the room to speak about things that I have to purge from my mind.  Nobody is here to judge me unless I let them in.  But I think I've just about accomplished what I set out to do when I started, and so why keep on going just to do it?   

So, I'll see you in a few weeks.  Adios. 

Vote For Summer

"See, with me, it will be summer all year long.  Vote for Summer!"  

Summer is now here. The kids have been out of school for a week, we've already had a nice mini-vacation, and any day that it doesn't get into the 80s now seems like a day that is wasted.  We're quite excited to be here, you know...having 21 inches of rain this month (the same length as my daughter when she was born) is now making us appreciate these blue skies and heat.

Of course, summer also will soon mean HOT.  And we've already determined that our air conditioner probably isn't going to make it through another summer, so we are already getting ready to have a new air conditioner here in the midwest.  There's another $5000 bucks down the drain.  Not long and we'll be tired of the sun, praying for more rain, sick of the mosquitos and the sunburn and the joys of going from the icebox to the over.

But let's be thankful, everybody.  Summer isn't my favorite, season, that would be fall.  But I'm excited to not drive my bus regularly for a few months, I'm glad that the kids can relax, and I am fired up for some other little short trips (no big ones this year after buying a new bed, windows, and a/c).  Yep, I'm glad that summer is here.  Vote for summer!   

Everything She Wants, annotated

For some reason I have not been able to get this song out of my mind in recent weeks.  It's not a great song, and as we will soon see the video is hilarious.  But kind of like Last Christmas, it's so poppy and fun that I love it.  

0:07:  Never a good sign when people are trying to actively leave the video 7 seconds into it...

0:17:  Oh no.  It's the 'We're gonna make this a concert video, but use the studio recording, and just overdub some crowd noise' method of video production.  I think we shoulda known that this group wasn't going last much longer.  

0:22:  WHEEEE!!!  It's one of those money cyclone things!  I love those things, though I've never seen them.  They bring out both greed AND human dexterity issues, all in one hateful machine.  

0:31:  Just once when it came to Wham! I would have loved to have seen Andrew Ridgely be the center of attention.  But he's the Tubbs to George Michael's Crockett, I guess.

0:35:  Oh.  I guess that's why the above is true...

0:58:  "She".  That witch over there.  Yep, that's the money grubbing golddigger I'm talking about.  

1:27:  Gotta give mad props to his hair in this video.  That is some serious body that I never had.  

1:33:  Andrew Ridgely, everyone!  

1:48:  "Don't look at the eclipse!  Don't look at the...DOH!"

1:53:  I mean, what is he looking at here?  Is he also the lighting tech for this tour?  Is this why Wham! didn't last, because they were needing better management?  All for the want of a good production crew...

2:03:  Round and round and round and round and round and round and

2:06:  I can do it too!!!!

2:14:  Air punch!  Hi-keeba!  

2:22:  OK, we gotta talk here about something real...this is a serious diss track, and in the middle of this sidekick Andrew starts laughing and pointing and I DON'T THINK YOU GET THE SERIOUS NATURE OF THE SITUATION, ANDREW.  

2:31:  Well, at least they were married in their screwed up situation.  Gotta give them credit for that.

2:55:  Wait, did Andrew just forget the words to 'oh, oh'?  No wonder George ditched him.

3:16:  Money shot for the ladies...

3:31:  FIGHT THE POWER!  FIGHT THE POWER!

3:40:  Um, George, can you speed up the dance?  Let's try that again...

4:20:  DANG.  Them Brits know how to high jump!  Maybe they didn't break up because Andrew was holding him back...maybe Andrew quit because he wanted to join the 1984 Olympic team!

4:47:  Knees up!  Knees up!  You're not gonna make the Olympic team if you can't run, Andrew!

4:56:  Can I admit that I haven't ever gotten this far in the song, that I've changed it by this strange part at the end?  

6:02:  I got nothing else.  I think I've seen these same shots of Andrew forgetting words and a random concert crowd shot and a camera flashing and a woman's hand reaching for money and people jumping around about 300 times now...I'm outta here.  

Aladdin, the Movie

My family and in-laws and niece bought tickets to go see the new Aladdin movie today.  I had no desire to see this movie, but because here in the city on holidays you have to buy tickets to movies early, we bought one for my sister-in-law, who at the last moment decided she couldn't go because she had nobody to watch her two youngest kids.  I volunteered to watch the kids and let her go but that was not acceptable, so we had an extra ticket.  So I decided to go.  It was at one of those newer theater that have reclining heated seats but we were near the front, and about the only way to watch it was on your back. 

Solid 6, I think. Costumes were great, and at least I didn't fall asleep.  But Will Smith as the geanie?  Ugh . I would have preferred the corpse of Robin Williams being revived for this movie.  And, as in most mega-budget Hollywood movies, the story just spun out of control in the second act.  Why is it that they no longer can create a viable ending without fourteen twists, eleven improbable escapes, and at least two musical numbers and a magical creature?  I really wish I had chased my nieces around Wal-Mart for an hour with a few thousand dollars in damages to account for. 

I suppose that there's a reason I don't really like movies anymore.  They're just not that interesting.  Movies think they have to resolve a whole world-creating plot within two hours.  TV can take years to finish the story, and even then sometimes it's not enough.  Maybe next time they can sell my ticket and I can wander around Home Depot instead. 

Visitors

Growing up Church of Christ I was taught that the 'five acts of worship' were the Lord's Supper, the Offering, Prayers, Scripture reading, and Singing.  I capitalize them because it was thought that these were five almost sacred acts, much like the 7 sacraments or the 5 steps of salvation.  In reality, however, it was more likely that Churches of Christ were known for a symbolic interpretation of the Lord's Supper, baptism in a baptistry, preaching, topical sermons with lots and lots of Scriptures, singing without instruments and with song books and a song leader, and overt masculinity in the public worship and leadership of the church.

I mention all this because years later most Churches of Christ are still like this.  But not all.  Being on vacation today we went to the late service of a larger suburban Church of Christ.  I knew that they advertised this service as being 'instrumental' and I wanted my kids to experience a slightly different experience than what they were used to.  As such, then, it was a bit hard for me as I am firmly in middle age.  I'm also one of those analytical/deconstructive people who look to pick out differences from what I know, much like those kids' puzzles where they ask 'what are the 10 differences between the two pictures of the bear on the log flue?'  I really want to worship and praise God and learn from the lesson, but part of me was thinking too much about what was happening. 

I am not speaking about these things in terms of judgment.  I've come to believe that there are different varieties of worship that are valid, even if not everything is good.  Many of our debates in the church have been more about style than they are about Scriptural truths.  But I do have preferences, especially when so many of the things we have done are Good, and often when we try to change things we get out of our lane.  It's like taking somebody who is excellent in making cinnamon rolls and asking them to become a barbeque master.  Generally speaking, my experience is that we are terrific usually when we are singing together out of a songbook as a congregation.  But we aren't as good with guitars, with powerpoints that have words on the screen, with singing the same praise 'new' praise chorus a dozen times that the worship leader just learned the week before and the congregation has no idea about the melody.  It's not that we have to be bad at these things...but it's that we struggle to be good. 

So this congregation today had a few guitarists warming up as we came in, and they soon began singing a more familiar worship song.  It wasn't anything unexpected, except that the leader of the band and singers was a woman.  I would guess that it is easy for many of us traditionalists to accept a band than it is a woman leading that band.  Throughout the service she would occasionally read Scripture or encourage people to sing or once (strangely) chide the congregation for drawing on the green envelopes. 

Communion wasn't all that different than normal, though there were women who came front to pass trays down the aisles.  Not sure that's a problem Biblically, because isn't passing trays an act of service, and hasn't our hypermasculinity told us that women are there to serve?  But then for some that would be a problem still, because women (according to many men and women) are meant to be not seen nor heard.  A woman also led the prayer for the offering tray.  But a man preached the sermon, a topical sermon about the Holy Spirit that was solid and filled with a lot of Scriptures, and a man made the announcements and a man (presumably one of the elders) spoke of prayer concerns and led the final prayer. 

My son enjoyed the service; in particular he liked the songs and the fact that the communion wafer was already pre-cut.  My niece, who, rarely goes to church, noted that the songs were OK but whoever was running the powerpoint projector wasn't keeping up and many of the words on the screen never matched whatever it was were supposed to be singing.  That's often a problem I have noticed in churches that have gone away from songbooks...if you don't know the songs (about half were unknown to me), you'd better at least know the words, and if the words on the screen are wrong, you're kinda left in limbo.  Of course, it's a holiday weekend so perhaps the normal people in charge were not there...but it's still not the most singer-friendly way for those of us there who want to praise God.  My wife, who's likely far more conservative about these things than I am not based so much on Scripture but based on how she is used to things, wasn't the biggest fan.  In particular, as music played during the communion, she leaned over to me and said that it felt like she was at a wedding and we were there to be entertained. 

In the end, the reality of whether this was a Good service was whether it a)honored and glorified God and b)edified thoes who were there.  The first, I think, was done...God was at the center of the sermon, the songs that we sang, and the attitude of those who led.  I don't know that there was anything that unBiblical, though some would find things they don't like based on their understandings.  The second was likely true as well for most, but weak people like myself were likely thinking too much through the service for our own good.  Are we edified if we are thinking about whether everything is proper according to our traditional perspective of how things ought to be? 

More and more in the future we will likely see churches adopting new styles like this.  It gets us away from the traditions that we fought for as vitally important all those years.  But that's not always a bad thing...sometimes we need the Spirit moving us forward from where we have always been.  Yet for late adapters like many of us in Churches of Christ, that comes with a lot of growing pains.  It will be interesting to see what happens in the future. 

A Royal Day

Today is the first day of our mini-vacation for Memorial Day weekend. We came to Kansas City, decided that the risk of the weather was worth it, and got tickets for the family to see the Royals today.  We spent more money here for food than the tickets had cost on the secondary market, but one rule of bringing kids to a baseball game is feed them whatever they want.  Baseball for kids is boring...I walked around much of the upper deck with my son because God bless him, he tried, but just didn't really care that much and said that his bony rear end was hurting from the uncomfortable seats.  My daughter pays more attention to the people around her, and does more to try and enjoy the game, but tomorrow night's soccer game will be much more enjoyable for them than seeing a baseball game. 

The Royals lost, of course, 7-3.  They really are not very good at all.  Their starting pitching is getting lit up, they have several guys who are regularly in the lineup who probably could not hit me if I was pitching, and their good young talent is still really young in a game in which experience counts as much as any sport.   So it's gonna be a long year. 

But I still enjoy going.  I will always have a special place in my heart for baseball, though I have been influenced by our culture that wants everything to happen a lot more quickly.  And the Royals will always continue to be my favorite team, even though it's like that they have another 26 years before they win the Series again (or even make the playoffs).  You gotta stay loyal to your team, not be like these little turds who throw on their Yankees gear because they liked that the Yankees won back in the 90s. 

The Royals are losing again tonight.  They will be lucky to avoid 100 wins again, but maybe they will get some new leadership and these young players will get experience. 

The annoyance of the day and the fun days to come

Today, for the second time in the last three weeks, my basement started to leak again.  The torrential rainfall, coming down hard upon the already-saturated ground, meant that there was nowhere else in the backyard for the rain to go, so it ended up in my basement.  It's not much really...after I mopped it up and wrung it out it was only a few inches in the bucket.  And it's mostly stopped now, and I don't think it's supposed to rain anymore tonight.  But it's still annoying, and it makes me nervous about bad things that won't happen, like the entire basement wall caving in. 

Of course, things like this are a reminder of how blessed (and lucky) I really am.  We've had, what, 15 inches of rain in the past three weeks?  Out on my bus route (school's over now BTW) there's people I would pick up that are mostly stranded in their houses because water is over the roads.  There are other people in my town who are lower in elevation or who have bad grading or for whatever reason have inches of water pouring into their basement, not just a few drops.  Our house sits relatively high and out of trouble, and for that I am thankful.

And then tomorrow we are planning to go to Kansas City for a fun few days.  See a soccer game, go to Worlds of Fun (maybe), see the Royals play (maybe), and swim and hang out at grammy and papa's house.  Might a little bit more water get into the basement?  Perhaps...but in the end, there's not much I can really do about it at this point to stop it.  So why not go and have fun with the wife and the kids?  Why worry about the unstoppable force of nature?  A hundred years from now this house will be long gone, replaced by a futuristic Wal-Mart or buried under a glacier or a barren wasteland of toxie waste.  Nobody will remember that once there was a slight annoyance of some rain in my house. 

Think Local

It doesn't matter which brand of news one turns to, each of them obsesses about news that is far away from here.  Whiny democrats, a president who obfuscates the truth, troubles with other countries, natural disasters around the world.  Things far away from us, and we get in a big tizzy everywhere we go.

Around here the flood waters continue to rise, wiping out crops and even a few homes.  Our city streets continue to crumble because of lack of maintenance, and families continue to split apart due to divorce and abuse.  Few of these things make any kind of Big News coverage of course, until people start dying or homes get swept away live on a helicopter shot. 

But these things are far more important to our daily lives than whatever Dimwit Donnie and the clowns around him continue to do.  Why don't we think more about these things?  Why don't we see the broken nearby and heal where we can?  Why don't we ensure that our families are loved?  Why don't we sandbag here and now to keep the flood waters out? 

Years ago I started having to wear contacts to see things far away, but in recent years I have had trouble seeing things up close due to an astygmatism (I think that's how it's spelled).  Take the contacts out, and I see just fine up close, but I'd rather keep wearing my contacts and then struggle with seeing things nearby.  Isn't this how our vision for the world around us is?  We'd rather take the trouble to see far off than see things nearby. 

The Grossest With The Mostest

Today was the last day of school, and this means that after our routes today and again tomorrow we get to clean the interior of our buses.  Yea.  9 months of stinky, dirty, sloppy kids on the buses, and with the exception of sweeping out buses a few times a week, we don't do much to really clean the inside of the buses.  Honestly, they are kinda gross.  I do more than most drivers, windexing the inside of the windows 2-3 times a year, but the moment they get fogged up, combined with all the dusty we raise up, and then dirty fingers drawing pictures of penises and screaming 'HELP ME', they are just as nasty as they had been before. 

This is the third year in which I have done this job, and so my first job each year is to clean the space between the seat and the wall.  This doesn't sound so bad until you realize that many of these children are used to stuffing their trash down into the cracks of their couches, and this is little different.  So for almost an hour, you scrub out the candy, the wrappers, the pens, the occasional coins (18c today!), and almost anything else.  And your hands are just covered with a black goop by the time you are done, it's so nasty. 

After taking a well-deserved hygiene break, you then get down on your hands and knees and with a small broom sweep out the cracks and nooks of the floor to get all the dust off; eventually, you sweep everyhing towards the front of the bus, pick up the large pieces of debris, and then eventually sweet the dust and hair and other unknown into the wind.  This ought to be an EPA violation, but somehow it's fallen through the cracks. 

Then there's the wiping down every interior surface for germs...ceiling, seats, ledges, wheel wells, etc.  There's cleaning each window. There's the fun exercise of hanging on for dear life while trying to get all the bug goop off the front of the bus.  There's taking the shop vac to the area around the drivers' seat.  There's getting wet wipes out to clean the various cables, knobs, dashboards, and anything else up front.  There's opening up all the undercarriages and spraying 9 months worth of south-central Kansas county road dust.  And then, after yet another sweeping, there's a mopping of the floor. 

It's all really kinda sickening, but bus driving has never been the most glamorous of jobs.  I don't know that I've ever heard of any prestige bus drivers, who have a whole cleaning crew up to take care of any spills and messes.  If there were, maybe I'd be a bit more proud, though, and so my God givesi me the job of cleaning up the stink of our town's best and brightest. 

Thinking about a nap

Sunday afternoon, wife and kids have cleared out to go to a movie, I'm home alone for a few hours by myself.  It's been another long week doing church work and driving a school bus and yesterday I took an hours nap and today might do the same.  I never did much in the way of naps until a few years ago, and now they are some of my favorite things on earth. 

I am starting to appreciate the idea of getting older physically.  There will come a day in which people will look at me in my decrepitness and say, oh, he's old, he can't do as much.  And part of me will be offended, and part of me will be glad that they decide to lift up that box instead of thinking that I will do it.  I've always said that I want to keep working as long as I can, because I would be bored otherwise...but sitting around and falling asleep as I watch crap cable news holds a certain kind of appeal.

As does being arrogantly set in my ways!  Yep, I'm also looking forward to that time when I think I've seen it all and done it all and will grumble about 'these kids' and 'liberals' and 'dadgum gadgets' that I can't easily use.  I'll still think Angry Birds was the best app ever created and Arbys makes the best sandwiches and America is the Greatest Place On Earth, and nothing will be able to tell me otherwise. 

Yep, I think it's about time for a nap today.  Many more to come.

Johnny Cash and 'What Is Truth?'

Tonight I came across a fascinating little hour on Netflix about when Johnny Cash went and played at the Nixon White House in 1970.  Johnny Cash was a man of his time and was likely very conservative in temperament, but he'd been through enough experiences to help him see that there were many people out there who were suffering, and that the 'silent majority' was not nearly as noble as they wanted to think themselves to be.  So while he was there he sang a little song that I am ashamed that I had never heard before called 'What Is Truth?' 

It's not a loud and angry anthem that protesters rallied around like 'Blowin' in the Wind' and so this is why it's mostly forgotten.  But it very carefully challenges those who think themselves righteous to consider why there are genuine protests, and that unless one truly lives the truth, then we shouldn't be surprised when everything goes off the rails. 

I'd still like to consider myself conservative.  I don't think that many of the 'liberal' or progressive answers will fix the problem.  But I do believe that conservatism needs to be challenged.  If, as our current president claims, we need to be 'making America great again', what does that mean?  Does it mean that we simply toss around our power and authority?  Or does it mean that we seek to be good and righteous?  If America is truly to be great, it ought to be able to stand up to pointed criticisms of what it has become...it ought to live up to the promises of its divine origins (if indeed that is what it is) by seeking to be a blessing to all people, not just the few. 

Johnny Cash wasn't the first to ask the question 'what is truth?' of course.  Pontius Pilate asked this question of Jesus when our Lord came to be a witness to the truth.  And as one who lived truth, he lived as a blessing to others, to preach good news to the poor, to live up the downcast.  Can we say that our country's conservative element has any concern to do this?  I don't think so. 

Listening to music at 48

I don't listen to music when I am trying to do some serious thinking, like when I am studying for or writing sermons or even writing on this piddly little blog.  I suppose I'm a bit too old to fully multi-task like my kids: my son plays Fortnite while watching YouTube videos, my daughter does homework (not all that well) while watching music videos or 24 hours in the lives of annoyingly charming families in Utah.  Perhaps I had this kind of gift or ability at one time, but most of my music listening at this point usually happens when I am doing routine tasks at the office or at home, like cooking, cleaning, administrative work, or such. 

For that reason I don't buy a whole lot of music these days; when do I really listen to it?  There's not very often I will buy anything new...occasionally a Steven Curtis Chapman or TobyMac album, or I will see a digital sale on Google Music of some album that I loved back in my high school and college days.  Even then, I rarely pay for it...I use my Google Reward points and buy when I have enough saved up or I decide to not rent a movie that my wife wants to watch. 

But I do listen occasionally, and as I get older my music tastes are not much different than when I was younger.  I'm one of these old farts now who listens to what young people like (being around my daughter and her friends, or the kids who ride my bus) and I immediately think that is crap...back in my day we had real music.  90% of us become our parents when it comes to listening to music some day.  My mom used to talk about listening to Doris Day, who died this week in her 90s.  I talk to my kids about listening to music and half of the people I followed (the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Tom Petty) are dead.  We don't replace the dead people we liked...we just double down on how good they were before and pretend that music doesn't and shouldn't change. 

Growing up Church of Christ, I see also how we fall into the same patterns.  Many of us who grew up in the church for generations sang the same kinds of songs...whether or not theose songs were really good was not the point.  Many of them were, filtered as they were through the quality guage of time (how many of Fanny Crosby's songs do we sing now?  I'm guessing most of them were not so good), but we sang them because at one point we identified with them as our music (even if in fact it was really our grandparents' music or our great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents' music). 

And so at one point in our church history the trailblazers of music came along and decided that hey, why can't we sing these other things?  Why can't we sing the same chorus 30 times in a row]?  Even some of the milder changes like praise teams seemed just as threatening to us traditionalists as those who were more radical and brought in the drum kits and guitars.  All along, we mumbled to ourselves (or screamed at others), this is crap...back in my day we had real music. 

Personally I am a big fan of singing without instruments in music and don't care much for praise teams...I think it engages more people instead of turning the service into a performance (which most of the other acts does, like praying or preaching).  And I believe time has enabled most bad songs (musically or lyrically) to be filtered out and discarded, while much of the modern music in worship has not had time yet to be though of as timeless.  But when I'm at my best, I'm long past thinking that everything else is crap, and only my music is 'worthy'.  Maybe I could be more tolerant towards my kids' music as well (though a lot of it is crap, to be honest).  But having patience with other kinds of music is perhaps one of those goals I need to set for myself in coming years.

Salvation, not Affirmation

There's been a thought running through my head recently that I think speaks to the current mission of the church in 2019: we need to stop preaching a gospel of affirmation and start preaching again the gospel of salvation. 

Somewhere along the way we started thinking that as people our need was to be affirmed in everything we do...and so whether it was about sex, drugs, careers, the pursuit of wealth, or 'following your heart' we decided that we are basically OK people, that we needed to be supported in doing what we wanted to do and that anybody who didn't affirm our desire was not really loving.  Of course this speaks to the world we live in today.  People can't bear to have somebody say that they are doing wrong, using against others the tired old expression 'don't judge me!' 

The problem with affirmation is that it often affirms sin.  I think that at one time this was mostly a 'liberal' issue, but I think conservatives have been affected as well.  We have a president who continually thinks of himself as a persecuted victim, because the mainstream media won't simply accept him at his word.  Taxes, collusion, obstruction...'nobody's ever had more problems than me!' he proclaims.  More than anything else, this said little man wants to be affirmed, and to not receive it akes him feel like a victim. 

The gospel of salvation, however, is far different.  It does not begin from the perspective that 'everybody's OK, they just need to feel good about themselves and don't feel guilty'.  Rather, it begins with the truth that everybody is NOT OK, that sin is the great problem, and that we can't fix this ourselves, no matter how much we think ourselves to be in the right.  Only Jesus Christ can affirm us, and he chooses to save us from oursleves.  Only in him can we really be righteous. 

I am starting to wonder whether the absolute need that many have to be feel affirmed is not one of the great problems of the modern age.  Scrdipture speaks of the need at times of rebuke and correction (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16-17), but how do you do this if you have to continually affirm them? 

As a child of my age I certainly don't want to be rebuked, and I do think that going back to the old manner of condemnation for just about everything 'different' was harsh and not in keeping with the gospel.  But the pendulum has swung too far, and I don't know that it's coming back anytime soon. 

Shadow Dancing, annotated

I know it's not cool to like disco...especially some of its most cheezy forms.  But I have always had a strong appreciation for the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, et al.  And then there is lost Bee Gee, Andy Gibb.  What would it have been like to be coming of age as your older siblings are destroying the musical world with Saturday Night Fever?  What would it have been like to have Victoria Principal throwing herself at you?  What would it have been like having everything in your life set up for success, but then not being able to resist cocaine?  That was the Andy Gibb experience.

He died far too young, and he could have been something amazing.  But at least we have Shadow Dancing.

0:08:  What was the stage designer thinking with these pillars?
0:12:  Leg twitch alert!  Elvis had only been dead weeks, and yet here comes somebody shakin' it all about.
0:18:  I would have have especially appreciated in one of his hand mic tosses if he had missed.  'Cuz I know it's all lip synced and everything, but I would have loved watching him try to recover.
0:28:  Evidence A that this is lip syncing...the mic is about 28 inches from his mouth, flying around, and the 1970s audio is perfect.  Sure.
0:49:  Poll: Which is bleached more white, his teeth or his sweater?  I go with the sweater, but it's gotta be close.
0:53:  Barry!  Robin!  Maurice!  When you have the Bee Gees as your backing group, that's gold.
1:12:  Uh huh!  Andy Gibb may have been a terrific performer, but singing all four parts on this show was probably not the best thing he could have done to convince us that this was his song, not Barry's.
1:28:  Take me to the bridge!
1:37:  The studio audience goes wild!!!
2:01:  Um, Mike, you might want to track Andy's head?  Keep it in the inset picture rather than cut off most of his face?  Mike?  You there?
2:14:  Odds are 600:1 at this point that the rest of the Bee Gees are in this studio.
2:36:  1970s feathered hair for both men and women.  Gotta say, I kinda dig that look, even though I'm bald.  Maybe my kids will do this someday for their Donnie & Marie tribute band?
2:43:  Soul alert!
3:13:  This performance gets less sexy as it goes on.  Incredible since it started on the sexy meter at .04.
3:25:  Finishing it out at this point even as the cocaine is calling from the green room is the sign of total professionalism, if you ask me.

When you're in the zone, the dangers await...

Tonight when I was preaching on the idea of 'praying that you don't fall into temptation' from Luke 22, I drifted into a state of consciousness that athletes know as 'the zone'.  It's really kind of hard to explain and I don't want to sound like that I'm extra holy or bragging or anything like that.  But it's like this...often when we preach, we preach what we have been studying on, we seek to connect with audiences, and we tell the truth the best that we can.  But sometimes, guided and prompted by the Spirit, we go somewhat further to this state of almost epiphany, where we just simply KNOW that this is true, there's nothing we can do to deny this; it's as real to us as our own existence and nothing can convince us otherwise.

Tonight I felt like this, though this can be dangerous.  When I preaching about temptation and the regrets that we feel when we fall into temptation, I felt almost a little bit too honest about all my failures, and after a moment I had to remind myself that preaching was not all about my own experience, but God working within all of us.  We might well confess far too much in a time like this, and people may look at us as the wicked people we really are (perhaps this would be better than putting us on a pedestal, however?), and it comes back to bite us in the end.  But when truth is flowing, where do you hold it back?

Curtains

Did you ever wonder how the old expression, "It's curtains for you!" came to be?  Usually it's an expression found in old gangster type movies that signify that somebody is about to be killed or done away with. 

It's really a silly expression when you think about it.  Figures of speech don't always make sense, but unless the bad guy is planning to wrap up his victim in curtains, or bash him over the head with a curtain rod, or take the drawstring and choke him out, what really is the threat here? 

I mean, who doesn't like nice curtains?  They block out the light, keep people from seeing in, make the rooms look a lot nicer?  Where's the danger?  Did the first person who said something like this have some traumatic childhood experience that made him think that bad stuff = curtains?  Did he have a long period of history where he worked in a curtain factory and he suffered its brutalities?  Where on earth did this come from?

I suppose there is a good reason that this expression has mostly disappeared from the vernacular.  "I'll kick your ___" is much more threatening, and "You're dead!" naturally has a sense of dread attached to it.  Language doesn't always change for the better, but this might be one good change.  I don't suppose that I'll be bringing this expression back with my kids anytime soon when they get in trouble or don't do well in school.  They'd only laugh at me if I did.

On a completely unrelated note, I have been putting up new curtains and curtain rods all day today after spending most of last night shopping for them. 

New Windows

We have lived in our little house for 13 and a half years, and in this 60-year old house we have lived with the original windows which would never open.  My wife hated it. 

And so, with our very sizable (for us) tax refund this year (it's about Obamacare subsidies, not Trump's tiny tax cut), she finally put her foot down and said that she wanted new windows.  I was fine with the idea...but she had to do the legwork of getting it done.  So she got four bids, settled on the one she liked, and a month after the windows were ordered today they came to install them.  While they still have to do some of the finishing work on the outside of the house, the new windows are now in. 

Once it gets warmer (today it only got up to 45 degrees...nice job, spring!) we can finally open our windows.  But tonight we are recognizing that we forgot one thing...we have no curtains!  We decided to ditch the old mini-blinds that we had over each of them, but we didn't get far enough in figuring out what we wanted to do before today. So tonight we sit here with wide-open views to the same world that can look at us.  No sex tonight, I guess...

But I'm really proud of my wife for getting this done.  I am usually the one who has to get these kinds of things done, but she has done a great job (with the exception of the curtains!) on this.  She, too, owns this house, and now she has put her stamp on it in a strong way. 

If Obamacare survives another year, I want a kitchen remodel.  Hopefully that will be our 2020 project.  By the time all is said and done our old house will be almost as good as new. 

The Rain

Over the past few weeks it has rained a lot.  And over the past two days it has rained to the point that flooding is becoming a problem.  I just looked at an image of the radar and it looks like a giant line of storms will be hitting us sometime during the middle of the night.  I suppose we are all thankful for the rain, but there is at least one part of my bus route that is underwater and there may be a few more tomorrow that I cannot reach. 

Years ago there was an old I Dream of Jeannie episode in which people started to believe that Major Nelson was able to control the weather.  A work colleague asked that he do something about his family farm somewhere in the south, and so Jeannie made it rain.  Unfortunately, at some point she forgot to turn off the rain and everything flooded.

It seems like this is how we sometimes think about rain and how we ask for it from God.  Here in the plains we can go weeks, even months, with nary a drop of rain, but we continue to pray for how it will quench the fields, the ponds, the streams.  And then amazingly God makes it rain...and rain...and rain.  We get caught up in a cycle of non-stop storms (especially in the spring) and we often end up with floods or hail or tornadoes that do more damage than the drought. 

I used to live on the Oregon coast, and there were two season: wet and dry.  Around the middle of October it would start raining, and in the middle of April it would stop.  I know it was more complicated than that, but I remember it raining parts of 21 days straight in the middle of winter one time, and how I thought I was going to lose my mind. 

As I sit here tonight the thunder keeps rolling around the skies, and the light rain that is falling makes it noises on the window.  I enjoy it, but I'm ready for it to be over...there's only so much we really can take, so hopefully they are right and it ends for awhile tomorrow.  But hopefully tomorrow won't be the last of it through the summer. 

The Unbearable Advancement of Tech

Tonight at our dinner table my 11-year-old son and I got into an interesting discussion about the growth and change of consumer technology.  Actually, we were talking about gaming consoles I had as a kid, from a simple 'pong' setup to the Atari 2600 and eventually into my adulthood with the original XBox and then the XBox One.  For most of my life gaming has meant computer gaming, whether on my friend Chris' Apple IIc or whatever desktops or laptops I have used over the years. 

I guess it got started somehow with a discussion about how YouTube is this version's generation of the VCR.  I remember our first Betamax, how my mother would approach it with all the caution of a police bomb squad coming upon an unmarked suitcase.  Generally I would have to program it for her when she wanted to watch a show (which was almost never); I told my son that there will come a day in which there is technology in my life that I look at in much the same way.  At this point in my life most technology for me is something that I have to learn, while he is still at the age where it simply comes naturally.  As kids we seem to be able to pick up almost anything and within five minutes figure something out; as we get older we have to think through the processes a little bit more. 

This conversation moved on to talking about computers, where I told him the horrors of having to boot up DOS with a floppy disc, and how I would then have to turn discs over and then change them based on whatever program I decided to run.  He seemed more horrified by the idea of having to flip the discs than anything, and so I told him that his most precious piece of current technology, his Switch, would within 10 years seem like something that was so lame and cheap.  Someday kids will grow up playing games within their fingers and eyes with little to no exteranl equipment, I believe...and so to have to handle an actual joy-con on his switch or have to wait a whole minute to boot up a game on the XBox will seem so primitive to his kids.  The world of Ready Player One will be as real as reality for future generations. 

I don't know that there's anything inherently good or bad about the power of this technology...it just is.  The moral question, of course, is how we use it.  Do we continue to let these things take over our lives?  Do we recognize that having them simply become a part of who we are as a person will be considered what humanity is all about?  I don't know where it will stop, and I laugh at futurists who try to tell us exactly what these things will look like...we have no idea.  Who would have thought a few years ago that we could carry around cheap, almost disposable tablets with access to almost any kind of entertainment? 

I'm curious about what the future holds.  I don't think that it's necessarily dystopian nor a new age of enlightenment.  It just will be what it is. 

Old Age Awaiteth

This weekend my sister-in-law came to visit with her two younger daughters, age 3 and 1.  I love my sister-in-law and my nieces; but wow, the big takeaway from this weekend is that I AM OLD.  Upon arriving last night the two rugrats were all over the place, and we were chasing and chasing and chasing and by the time it was bedtime last night, I was exhausted. 

Today I did not spend that much time with them, as I made excuses to do the relatively easy work of cleaning out gutters and mowing the yard.  But the time I did have with them, they continued to run me and the rest of the adults and my own children ragged.  I made sure to point out to my teenage daughter (who loves children and is very good with them, BTW), that kids are hard work.  I probably should have pressed a little bit further with this and gone into the and that's why you must not have any at this time.  

I am going to be hitting my half-century in just over a year.  And while I have been struggling with back problems and that may be one reason why I'm not at full speed when it comes to keeping up with the rugrats, I'm starting to realize that there's a reason why I can't keep up with these kids anymore.  They are too much for me because quite simply they are too much.  We are not designed to be raising kids (or grandkids) into our 50s.  I don't want to be going to my child's preschool program having to be led in with a walker; kids need parents who are mature enough to be adults, but not so mature as to be old. 

They are gone now; my sister-in-law was going to stay another night before realizing that it was too crazy to stay here.  Our house is not child-proofed by any means and she was ready to get home and stay in her own bed with her own defenses against the kids.  I don't envy her at all.  I love kids, but I know that it's a good thing (knock on wood) to make sure that I don't have any more of them. 

My Baseball Post for 2019.

So...the Royals suck again.  A bit over a month into the season, they are now at 11-20, and that's with Alex Gordon having a late-career resurgence, Alberto Mondesi being the next big thing, and Hunter Dozier having one of the best OPSs in baseball.  Even the starting pitching has not been terrible, as they've put together a number of quality starts, and Ian Kennedy looking like his transition to the bullpen was a great idea. 

Yet they still suck, and this has been against mostly bad teams.  And people aren't coming out to watch...yesterday they had a doubleheader against the the Rays in which something like 500 people showed up (announced attendance, 11K). 

I guess this is the karmic price for the Royals winning the World Series in 2019...once in a generation we do something amazing, but most of the rest of the time we are consigned to misery.  Is this a good thing?  I suppose it's better to be the best once and really bad the rest of the time than it is to be good much of the time but never the best?  Which is best for my sports fandom? 

I still have the MLB app on my phone with the Royals set to my favorite team, and that will never change.  Who really wants to jump on a Dodgers bandwagon at this point?  Ugh.  But I guess we are stuck with the curse of suck until I am well into my retirement years. 

We'll always have 2015, though. 

Things That Annoy Me #57: Resentful People

Let me start by saying that by simply pointing this out I am something that annoys myself:  I resent people who live their lives resentful of others.  I get it.  I'm a hypocrite. 

But one of the things I've tried doing in recent years it letting go.  Frozen taught me that, I guess?  I don't have time to be continually angry about Trump, or about North Korean religious oppression, or the sex trade.  I hate them all, and if I were dictator I'd do away with them all in a week.  But moment-by-moment anger, holding onto stuff that I can't do much about?  I've got too many other productive things I need to be doing, like raising my kids or loving my wife or preaching the gospel or ensuring the kids on my route get home safely. 

Through the years in ministry I have occasionally come across people who live their lives as a series of resentments that they seek to frame as righteous outrage.  Years ago there was a man in our church who continually brought up the poor and the outcast that we needed to be seeking out, and all the failures of the church and its people, and how nobody was nearly as passionate as he was, and why were we not outraged?  'The church doesn't...' or 'The government ought to...' or 'You don't...' was the beginning of every one of his conversations.  In many ways I agreed with what he said, but his sense of Elijah complex ("They've killed all the prophets, and I'm the only one left!") caused me to tune him out after awhile, because a)either he did nothing about those things or b)anything he did do was so poorly thought out or self-righteous in its promotion that if anything it was counter-productive.  Eventually this man disappeared from my radar, and it was of him that I said, "When you burn bridges, don't be surprised when there's nobody left to help you across the river." 

Recently I have had somebody new in my life who has filled this role.  Maybe it's just that they try to find a place in small churches, or maybe I am more tolerant of listening to them than some (but, oh, Lord, forgive me for my thoughts and my occasional acidic responses).  But sometimes people seem drawn to me as if I really want to hear their various resentments.  For this person it's Trump, the Church of Christ of their youth, a preacher that was a creep, racism in general, and a half dozen other things (with something new everytime)...and they go back and forth in such a non-rational manner that after five minutes you've completely lost track of the rant.  All the while, as you hold your tongue and wonder how you can extricate yourself, you recognize that this person isn't really talking with you, as most normal people do, but they talk AT you, as if you are the punching bag they have stumbled across at this moment with which they can take out their aggression. 

My son regularly makes fun of Frozen, especially since they are having a money-grab sequel coming out later this year.  I guess that's what 11-year-old boys do.  But the message of let it go is something that so many people need.  Hold something so tight to you and eventually you will crush it.  It's not just enough to talk out your resentment at whoever is patient (or stupid) enough to let it continue on and on and on.  Eventually, you have to make some progress with it, and choose to no longer hold it so tightly to your chest. 

Want to hold onto a statement that somebody made in passing (and with no ill will) 25 years previously?  I'm sorry, what good does that do you?  We all screw up in the things that we say.  But if we only remember the worst of what somebody said to us, then eventually we will be alone, screaming at the dark and empty void.  That's no way to live life...God gave us one another to enjoy, not so that we could rage upon each other.  Let it go. 

Two more, that's it.

I am in day 11 of my back issues.  Most everyday it gets a little bit better, to the point that I can't complain...some have far worse issues.  But there's two lessons worth mentioning. 

First, it's informative to see how people who have their own occasional back issues react very differently than those without.  If somebody has back problems, they look at me with a sense of concern and empathy.  "Oh, yeah, I know...awful...what can I do to help."  If somebody has not had back problems, the concern usually is (like my wife's), "You bent over?  And your back seized up?  I don't get it."  Exactly...you don't get it.  And their advice of 'go to a chiropractor!' or 'take a muscle relaxer' doesn't do much for me.

The second lesson, though, is more real.  Since this began, whether I was in my agony state or now just in my irritated state (and the painful and sore states in between), most every movement I take requires intentionality.  Will it hurt if I lean over this way?  How much will it hurt if I pick up that box?  Is it worth it to do this?   Will taking that step on my bus cause me a back spasm? 

How much I am paying attention to my actions is important, because in many other actions I think nothing at all.  Will this activity take time from my kids or my wife?  Will it lead me into sin?  Is this something that glorifies God?  In so many aspects of life we don't take time to really think about what our regular, routine actions are going to do.  And that can't really be good, can it?  Spiritual health is not just sinning and repenting; it is also about living the best kind of life, an intentional kind of existence in almost everything we do.  I should know this, after all...but so easily I forget, but I am thankful for the reminder (though I wish it wasn't so painful!)

An Apology

I stand corrected.  Trump IS the Cyrus that was to come.  Pardon me, I really didn't know what I was talking about.  You were right.  He is the man anointed by God lead us back into his righteous glory.  All praise Trump. 

I mean, how could I have not seen it?  I guess I was deluded by all those liberal media reports that told me that he is on his third wife, that he had all those mistresses that he gave money to in order to keep quiet (I mean, if they were real they would have asked for more than a few hundred grand out of his self-made billions, right?), that he used to go on Howard Stern and brag about his conquests or he would talk about entering contestants' locker rooms at his beauty pageants.  I mean, he wasn't leering at these young women or anything...he just wanted to let them know that he valued their femininity, that he wanted to empower women by encouraging them to express their talents. 

I'm glad that found that T-shirt recently that said loudly and proudly (with an eagle and a flag to boot!), "If Trump is not your president, then this is not your country!"  I mean, that settles it, right?  He won the election, and the libtards just can't stop crying about it.  Never mind that he lost the popular vote by millions...it was all them illegals that screwed things up, not the Russians who knew what was best for us.  The only thing I am disappointed in is that we still need to lock Hillary up because, emails! 

Yep, I've seen the light.  When I see all those Facebook pictures of Jesus surrounding Trump in the oval office, putting his loving hand upon his signature, I know it's right!  I know that my Lord and Savior salutes the flag as much as he loves the cross.  I know that he supports all our brave men and women in uniform, that he wants to destroy all of our enemies because we are surely God's people...it says it right there on our money, "in God We Trust"! 

What would Jesus do?  Little better than Trump if he was President!  I mean, letting loose the energy industry again, letting hard-working millionaires pay no taxes, completely de-regulating so many industries...that's all in the Bible when it talks about being Free!  I mean, the invisible hand of the economy is surely God's, isn't it?  Government should just get out of the way and let us all aspire to our best life now, a life in service of ourselves. 

I'm so grateful that we have a president who surely knows right from wrong.  Just like Jesus talking about Pharisees, Trump talks serious smack about anybody who isn't as America-first as he is!  When he made fun of that disabled lady, I really thought that maybe he'd crossed the line, but then I found out she was a reporter.  When he told his supporters to beat up people who booed him, he showed what being a True American is all about!  And heck, when he has college athletes in his office, the primest of prime specimens, he feeds the most American of foods:  fast!  I love his style. 

Such a good man, and I was so wrong.  Sorry, Mr. President.