Pre-Grieving

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." - Matthew 6:34 ESV

At the end of this calendar year I will re-purpose (OK, retire) away from full-time preaching.  In less than three weeks my youngest child will be heading off to college.  I fully expect a call in the next few months that one of my aged, increasingly frail parents will have fallen or have had some kind of medical emergency or have even passed away in their sleep.  And I am increasingly convinced that this year, the 250 year anniversary of the Grand Republic, may be one of its last.  

I've still got a few months to preach.  I am trying to enjoy my son before he abandons us to become a College Man.  I am grateful my parents are still living, and maybe I'm completely wrong about our nation's future, that Dimwit Donnie is just a blip in our nation's history before we finally wake up and realize the damage he and his minions are doing.  

But this year has been one that, if somebody someday decides to write my autobiography, will be titled 'The Year of Pre-Grieving'.  Even as our Lord has told us to not be anxious about what is coming, that each day has enough garbage in it, I'm already starting to deal with the struggles that I know will be coming soon.  

The classic five stages of grief are usually defined by denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. And so given that this summer has found me a bit sad quite often, I wonder if I've already been jumping the gun on the grieving that I will be doing for all of these things.  I've been truly angry about where our country is going.  Part of me is in a kind of self-denial that come the end of December I won't be standing before a captive audience several times a week.  Have I bargained a little bit about my son leaving, questioning whether he really wants to major in what he has said or wondering whether or not he'll really like it there and transfer back to somewhere closer within a year?  Am I even accepting that my parents will die having lived a good old age, since I have seen so many others do much the same thing through my years of working with elderly people?  

I suppose that my purpose in writing this today is to deal with some of the depression I've been facing.  I don't know that it's clinical, and I know that it's not debilitating.  Throughout life I've found certain little coping mechanisms; as a younger man I had a punching bag and a pair of gloves that allowed me to take out my frustrations; in recent years I have rediscovered video games, mostly driving and puzzle games that I can pop into for 20-30 minutes at a time.  But in recent weeks I've found how much I love an early morning walk where I get to clear my head and get ready for the day.  Most mornings I walk around 45 minutes through the streets of our town.  I see some of my neighbors doing much the same; do they struggle with their own sense of the future?  

Perhaps starting to cope with the things that are going to come will be of benefit to me.  Like checking in to an appointment or a flight the day before, pre-grieving has this way of watering down the annoyances of grief that are to come.  I've never been much of a procrastinator, as I try to get stuff done ahead of time...and maybe that's what I'm doing with the future griefs that are certain to come.  Who knows whether or not this is a good idea, but it's what I do.  

You CAN Fight City Hall (and their quasi-official subcontractors)

I accept that there are expenses of living in this modern life.  A toll on a turnpike that means it stays maintained?  OK.  A tax levy in our school district to make sure the buildings are secure?  Fine.  

And so I wasn't all that bothered when we were in downtown Kansas City the other night for a soccer game and saw that we would be paying a parking fee.  It was at 16th & Main, right along the tramway that would take us (for free) to the game.  I got a spot right in front of a payment kiosk; $9.25 to get us through the evening on a Friday night?  Whatever.  It's a tenth of the cost of the same spot in New York City.  

So we come back from the game and there's a ticket on the car.  I get back to my in-laws and look up the information (the ticket is nothing more than a 9-digit number and a QR code) and find that the ticket was issued at 5:48pm...6 MINUTES after I had parked the car.  Yep, there's a photo of our license plate and the spot in the broad daylight where I had parked.  Luckily I had saved the text that served as a copy of my reciept, so I emailed the information (kiosk number, tag number, time, etc.).  What followed Saturday morning was a series of emails between me and an AI server.  First, they couldn't find the information of our payment.  Second, they couldn't read the screenshots I had sent them proving we had paid.  After about a half-dozen back and forths I gave up, deciding to wait until Monday when real live human beings might be back on duty.  

So today was that Monday, and I once again started up and got what might have been a real person who continued to say that nothing had been paid.  Eventually, after a few more emails, it started to become clear that the kiosk that was three feet from my car was not actually the kiosk for that lot, which was a private lot.  Rather, it was the kiosk for anybody foolish enough to park on the street (and so be in danger of getting hit by the streetcars or other traffic).  On some level the agent for the private company I was dealing with that handles tickets on this lot saw the problem, and he/she/it bumped us down from $79.25 to $31.25.  That was something, I guess, but I am the angry consumer, and I decided to keep going.  

I went onto Google maps and found a street view shot of exactly where I'd been.  In that photo there was a white Toyota truck, and three feet away, a kiosk that had in huge letters PAY HERE.  I finally had the smoking gun. "Do you see where the white toyota truck is in this image from google maps?  That's where I parked.  And see the brown parking meter right in front of the truck?  That's where I paid."  Evidently they realized just how unjust this was, and email #19 finally came back and said that they were dismissing this ticket.  I fought the law (private company edition) and actually won!  In this life there are little victories we have to celebrate, and though I likely spent more than $79 of my time on this inconvenience, I'll take it.  I closed by thanking the nameless person who helped and then gave the advice that they really needed to look into this problem, because I'm not the first person on Google reviews who has had this problem.  

Maybe it's not the most inspirational story (my son wasn't as enthused as I was), but in these days in which Trump makes everything turn to garbage, it's nice having some good news.  

Waiting for a Star to Fall, annotated.

June, 1988.  I was finishing high school and getting ready to go to college.  Looking back, I'm guessing that like most middle-aged people, this time of transition was my musical apex, and part of that glory involved this ever-wholesome pop duo called 'Boy Meets Girl'.  They were a married couple during this time, and after having written a few songs for Whitney Houston and others they decided to sing this themselves.  Maybe it doesn't get the radio play it did almost four decades ago, but the earbug quality of this song and having come across it recently on YouTube means that I am compelled to write a reaction to the video.  Let's go.  

0:01 A sepia-toned giant bubble flying through the air?  Heck yeah. 

0:21 After running through the ocean waves, you'd think you'd be refreshed, but no.  Shannon throws a bucket of water on George, because maybe he's dehydrated?  

0:27 Now Shannon's pushing George into the ocean.  Now we got something here...is twice in less than ten seconds we see how much she really wants him to drink that water. Or maybe something more sinister...

0:32 True fact, the little blonde girl was their daughter.  

0:36 "I hear your name whispered on the wind, it's a sound that makes me cry."  Not sure where this is going, but two attempted drownings, maybe that's the reason he's crying when he thinks of her name.  Does betterhelp do couples therapy?  

0:46 "I hear a song blow again and again through my mind, and I don't know why."  Yeah, that's the earbug of this song.  Not sure why it's come back to me after 38 years, either.

1:03 "Trying to catch your heart is like trying to catch a star."  This is a fun, happy, perky little pop song with some lyrics that make us think George and Shannon really didn't quite get each other.  Couples really do struggle to have that connection, even when they sit around the piano and sing.  

1:10 "So many people love you, baby...that must be what you are."  Wait, is she having an affair????

1:19 Is it just me or does he look kinda like Michael Bolton back when he had hair?  And she's got a real Amy Grant vibe about her (but far more awkward when she's trying to dance).  

1:39 I remember when I was maybe 9 I asked for a Polaroid camera for my birthday...I loved that thing, and the package came with a cartridge of 10 pictures.  I took them all within a week...I remember a picture of my grandpa Church walking through the hallway of our old house, and another picture of my other grandparents sitting on a sofa.  There's another incredible picture somewhere of me in a yellow shirt in front of a birthday cake, as well as one of the few times I ever saw my parents kiss each other.  Good times.  Anyway, I used the whole cartridge and then asked for another and found out that a cartridge cost TEN DOLLARS.  This was almost a half-century ago, and I was 9.  Where on earth was I going to get TEN DOLLARS in 1979?  I probably only used that camera a couple more times over the years before it disapperared forever.  Polaroid was truly ahead of their times when it comes to tech...sell a good product, and then basically charge an outrageous subscription fee in order to keep using the product.  

1:44 "I've learned to feel what I cannot see but with you I lose that vision.  I don't know how to dream your dream so I'm all caught up in a superstition."  Man, this dude is really questioning his relationship.  Get these people help, stat!  

1:59 "I want to reach out and pull you to me; who says that I should let a wild horse go free?"  Yep.  This song is about her having an affair.  

2:47 After watching half a minute of a home video set in happier days, we come to the bridge.  Nothing says a late 80s song like a bridge.  

2:55 The bridge about waiting really does speak of love that's difficult...he'll continue to wait for her to come back, no matter long long it is.  I was reading from the book of Hosea recently where the prophet is told to go and woo back his wife Gomer after a time in which she had a been a prostitute.  It's a statement of God's love for his people that, no matter how long it takes, he'll be there to take us back.  Maybe this is a Christian song?  

3:09 Mark #2 of a late 80s song is a really strong and loud sax solo.  Love it.

3:17 If their little girl had ridden a bike in a house, mom would have been so ticked.  But since mom's got all the power in this relationship, no problem then? 

3:24 I guess George is trying to drown himself now?  

3:29 So, I guess it was worth it to literally air the dirty laundry about a dysfunctional relationship if they made it to  #5 on the pop charts.

4:05 One more time with the water.  He's in trouble.  

4:10 "I don't know, officer.  Several times it seems like she was trying to drown me, and then this morning I woke up on the beach as the tide was rushing in.  I thought maybe she had left me here to die, but then I remembered I could get up and run, and so I outran the tide.  Unfortunately, I made it to shore and she was standing there, looking at me."  

I really do love this song.  But it's a lot darker than I remember.   

An End, A Beginning

At the beginning of the month I announced to our little congregation that I would be 'repurposing' by the end of the year.  After 21 years of full-time ministry, I've decided to step away.  I don't like the term resigning at all, nor is this retirement.  I will keep on driving my school bus and will also find something else to do within the school district.  But as for being 'the preacher', my days of finding much of identity as that are coming to an end.  

When I first began 31 years ago as a campus minister, I was filled with ideas and knowledge and energy.  I still have the first two, but perhaps energy has been replaced by a much more humble spirit.  I learned a long time ago that ministry is hard, because it's a calling.  Not everybody can do it.  I liken it to trying to move a large piece of furniture across a room without breaking it or damaging the surroudings or hurting yourself.  Even in a small, relatively unified and loving church where I've been for the past 21 years, it's not at all been easy to try to keep together a group of people on the same page.  We've lost some people along the way who disagreed with my understandings on things or disliked me or disliked what we were trying to do or saw a shiny new church the next town over.  I'd like to think that I've been faithful in my ministry, though as I look back I see a lot of things that I've not been good at.  Maybe this is why it's time to leave...in 2026, I'm not sure I have the proper kind of giftedness for doing ministry.  Can I still preach?  Yes.  Do I still believe in the truth of the gospel?  Absolutely.  But being 'the preacher'?  I'm stepping away from being the preacher because I'm increasingly convinced that this is no longer what I'm called to do. 

I remember at the beginning of my ministry encountering older ministers (ie, guys who then were the same age I am now) and often seeing within many of them a spirit where they might well have been trying, but maybe more seeing what they did as a job than a calling.  I always thought it kinda sad to see this.  Maybe it's burnout after years of pushing the boulder up a hill only to watch it go back down.  Maybe it's fear of not knowing what else to do.  Maybe it's even a heart that has grown cold and has little more than a desire to hang on to a steady paycheck until retirement comes.  I had told myself back in those good-hearted days that if I ever got like that in ministry, I'd do something else.  

And then over the course of several months, about a year ago, I realized that I had become that old minister.  I still love our people, and I believe that my preaching is still truthful and (at times) powerful, convciting, and of the Spirit.  But I found myself wondering, is this what I'm called to do?  I sat with this feeling for almost a year.  I talked with my wife, my parents, and a few trusted friends.  

Finally I decided it was time.  But it's not been easy...when's the right time to tell people you love that you are leaving?  But when I did, people have continued to love me and support me and my family.  One of the greatest blessings I have experienced is that that genuine and practiced love has been shown from the church all the years I have been here.  I know so many preachers and ministers who quit because they or their families were abused by churches.  I've never felt like that.  And after I announced what I did, the love continued.  People have told me they understand because they recognize doing anything for 31 years is a long time.  Or they are sad, because I may be the only preacher they have known or liked, or the only church leader who didn't judge them or bully them.  A few may even wonder whether I will starve...can that guy do anything besides make speeches a few times a week or chat with the old ladies or hum hymns by the copier machine all day?  But nobody has begged me to stay, either.  I think most people instinctively know that it was time, maybe even before I did.  

Of course, the question now gets asked...what's next for the church?  We've started having some meetings about what we need to be doing.  I gave a list of options in the first meeting from hiring a new preacher to reprogramming our schedule to selling the building to even planning for our demise.  But while I have some ideas, the church will have to start making these decisions I've been making almost exclusively for the last two decades. I will be excited to what happens.  I told them the other night that this might be a very uncomfortable time of disruption, and we have to consider whether we are just going to talk about what to do or instead whether we will start marshalling our energy to actually do some of these things.  

A few rocky meetings may well come.  One issue is how much women can lead in this process in the future.  Our congregation has traditionally been male-led, but more than a few women have started challenging this.  I hold a middling principle that leadership is generally about 'male-headship BUT Spirit-led', but more important than what we decide is whether we will act in love and charity to those who don't feel as if we do.  I fear a few people may leave if they don't get their way on this.  This, and many issues, may well cause some stumbles along the way.  

I began by saying that I believe that my change of life is about 're-purposing'.  While this applies to me in particular, I suppose it now applies to everyone who sets foot in our building.  We all have a purpose, but sometimes those purposes in life change as God pushes and prods us by his Spirit to do his will.  I feel as if God called me for the purpose of being a preacher and church leader for the past three decades...but now maybe he's got something else in mind.  I'm excited to see what this beginning will be.  

Reflecting Pool Time Machine

Every single day we see new stupidities from the Executive Branch of the United States.  Maybe it's the fact that Trump's peace deal with Iran is now being shown to leave us in a much weaker position than we were before a war that should never have been.  Maybe it's the continued corruption in cryptocurrencies with his kids, or the way we have alienated almost every former ally, or Trump's big beautiful bloodsport UFC fights on the White House lawn, or a thousand other things that we've already forgotten with the flooding of the zone of stupidity.  The Trump trainwreck continues leave death and devastation in its wake.

One of the current stupidities involves Donald J Trump, Builder Genius.  Because he's decided Washington DC might well be a sh*thole city, he's taken it upon himself to clean it up and recreate it in his own image: giant arches, tearing down the East Wing of the White House to build himself a ballroom, spending millions in no-bid contracts with his buddies to re-do the reflecting pool which turns into a beautiful algae green three days after it opens.  In some ways these things on the surface don't actually bug me that much...DC probably did needed to be cleaned up, and run down places like the East Wing probably needed to be replaced.  It's just that the way he does everything, without any sense of that he's not the owner, just a current resident of the city, makes it terrible.  The next president is going to spend the next four years trying to undo so many of the tacky gold-plated monstrosities that he is building that the things that are actually important as President might be neglected.  

As much as I despise Trump, however, part of me still thinks that the Democrats share at least a minority share of the blame.  Even now the approval rating for the Democratic party is STILL worse than Trump's; this is not just a mark that a. people are stupid for still supporting Trump, but b. people really, really, REALLY hate the Democrats.  Why did it have to be this way?  

There are times when I dream of going back in time to early 2023 and seeing a different history being written.  Let me set the scene: A fading Joe Biden calls in the (literal) old guard of the Demoratic party into the Oval Office: Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, Bernie Sanders, and a dozen others who have been holding onto to Congressional control for the last two decades.  "Listen", Joe says.  "I'm done.  It's been an honor and a privilege to be President, but it's time for me to go.  And it's time for all of you to go as well.  We need to turn over the party to the next generation.  Stay in Congress if you want, seek to be influential and mentor a new generation, but we make a rule that none of us will be committee chairmen or will run for president.  Maybe we can convince our Republican colleagues to do the same, and so we won't have to ever see Donald Trump again."

That night, President Biden, surrounded by a bunch of these same leaders, goes on national TV and does his best Lyndon Johnson impersonation.  The American people realize that, hey, finally we can move on from the past few years: COVID, January 6, and most of all Trump.  A new generation of Democratic leaders is empowered to step up, the Democrats win against a visibly diminished Trump, the Republican party begins its road back to repentance and sanity, and nothing of the past 17 months actually becomes history.  

Heck, maybe the reflecting pool fix would have been worth it were it a time machine.  I'd brave wading through all that algae if I could change the past year and a half.  But movies ain't real, even as the current dystopia is.  

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.  

Funeral Plans

Yesterday we saw the sad murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, likely at the hands of his disturbed son.  Another terrible tragedy, to go with the killings of over a dozen people celebrating Hannukah on Bondi beach in Australia or the murders at Brown or the wars around the globe.  

Of course, President Trump had to make this about himself.  

One of these days Donald Trump is going to choke on a chicken bone or fall down the steps leading to Air Force One or have a massive coronary event.  And when that day comes, there aren't enough fireworks in this world for all the block parties and spontaneous celebrations that will break out in the United States and all around the world.  

The Way of the Whigs

Trump's 38% support rating is far too high (it's been around that for now almost 10 years), but it enables him to be elected and maintain power because on top of that number there's a certain group of people who can't stand Trump, but hate the Democrats even more.  In his 38% there are the people who genuinely like his policies or are simply part of his cult of personality; but it's in that excess segment that we find the numbers that give him power to drag our nation through the mud.  

Earlier this year, even through all the Trump scandals, there was some reporting about approval of the Democrats being something like 20%.  I'm too lazy to go find the exact figures, but that's about right.  Many people are like my friend Glenn, who knows Trump for what he is and while he likes some of his policies, knows that he's terrible.  Yet he hates the Democrats even more, and so is, in some ways, enabling Trump.

As a casual student of history my mind is taken back to a few decades before the civil war, when the two main political entities in our fair country were the Whigs and the Democrats.  As the nation ramped up into the terrible conflict that would soon come, the Whigs faded while a new political party, the Republicans, came onto the scene.  A gap in my knowledge is the question of WHY the Whigs went away within a decade, never to return.  There was a realignment that was taking place during this time, with people changing loyalties and positions...but regardless, after a period of turmoil what once had been was no more and replaced by something new and transformative, leading the nation into finally ending slavery.  

I think about that history when I think about the Democrats.  We live in a time of changing political loyalties: the formerly blue-collar Democrat has now aligned himself with MAGA.  White-collar educated voters who were once Reagan Republicans are now firmly against Trumpism.  Both groups (and many more) have their reasons for change, but while the Republicans seem to have opened their doors to the influx of people whose sole thought is an attraction to Trump (itself a fascinating study in how far downhill our country has gone), I (and many others) have no interest in becoming Democrats.  But unlike the people who abandoned the Whigs and formed something anew, there's really nothing on the horizon for us today to turn to.  So we shake our fists, march in No Kings rallies, and yet nothing really changes.

In my lifetime there have been fringe movements like the Greens or the Constitution party, groups who likely were far too extremist to attract many people.  There was the Reformed party of Ross Perot, which claimed a few governors and a small following but eventually faded; and in the past few years there's been a group going around called 'No Labels' whose very identity is based on the idea that their openness means that they really don't represent anything of importance.  But where is our 1850s Republican party?  Where is a group of people whose ideas are so strong and principle-based that they capture the imagination of the nation?  

Of course it's easy to say, what am I doing about this?  I suppose it's not enough anymore to simply be an independent; maybe it's time to start creating something anew.  Yet maybe that's the problem...we are now a culture so stagnant, so glued to social media, so increasingly stupid that a new movement is no longer possible.  And for that, we should grieve.

Another Grand Week in the Republic

I knew it was coming...it was time to start shopping again for the healthcare marketplace plan for my wife and kids.  I had heard that rates were going up because some of the COVID era subsidies were about to expire.  But I wasn't expecting that they would go up from $376/month to $825/month, more than a doubling.  In some ways I suppose I am lucky, as it might be that the rates have gone up in part because my daughter is working full-time while she's going to school, and my son is working regularly part-time while in high school.  That extra income likely cut my subsidy, but the Big Beautiful Bill this summer that ended the extra subsidies was probably the main reason.  

It's a good thing that my second job offers health care.  For me it's almost nothing, less than a hundred dollars a month, but to add the family is going to jack it up to around $800 a month.  When you add me in, it's still less than what I am doing through the marketplace, but this will likely take out about half of my check.  Again, I am still blessed...we've always tried to think of this extra money as just that, extra.  But likely this will mean that some of the fun things we do with the extra money won't be there.  

I waited at first to go ahead and sign up for the job health plan, because along the way there was an ever-so-slight chance that perhaps the subsidies would be extended.  After all, the Democrats in Congress were refusing to vote YES on a continuing resolution to fund the government, and so said government was shut down for almost 6 weeks as the wanna-be heroes were fighting to return the subsidies to the plans.  Things were looking up for the Dems...last week they won all the hotly contested off-year elections, Trumpy's approval ratings magically slipped below 38% in some cases, and maybe, just maybe, the Republicans would give in.  Nope.  This weekend it came out that 8 of the Democrats finally gave in, giving MAGA the 60 votes they needed to fund the government.  Once again, the Democrats were running the touchdown into the end zone and instead fumbled it back to the Empire.  

Because of the shutdown 42 million Americans who depend on food stamps no longer had access to them.  And while I'm a bit skeptical that many are truly going hungry (my goodness, look at the obesity rates in this country), the gleefulness with which the GOP were ensuring that that extra money wasn't going to poor people was painful to watch.  All along as the shutdown continued, the demolition of the East Wing of the White House also ramped up so that the Trump Ballroom could be built (alongside the renovations of the bathrooms in the Trump living quarters).  Trump wasn't there much of course, because he was having a Great Gatsby-themed party at Mar-a-Lago for his rich cronies.  I mean, the same people who think of themselves as pro-life are perfectly content to watch the living suffer, but were we expecting anything different?  It's like they think of that book as aspirational rather than a cautionary tale.  

I suppose if there's one good thing coming out of the re-opening of government is that an Arizona Democratic congresswoman has now been sworn in, and she becomes the last person on the petition necessary to start releasing some of the Epstein files.  And sure enough, today they are starting to pour out.  While what's in there is going to be hard to read except for those who like that kind of stuff, at least light is finally going to be shed on just how good Trump and Epstein have gotten along over the years, and how Trump will once again have to face the revelation that he's a horrible, evil person.  

Of course for his supporters, it won't matter.  The 38% will soon come back roaring to his defense and soon we will move on to ignored scandal #852 (#2611 if you include Trump 45).  Yes, it's more Greatness than you can ever imagine in our fine nation.  

The Charlie Kirk Non-Obituary

I used to faithfully listen to paleoMAGA talk show host Rush Limbaugh; while I began as somebody who bought into a lot of what he was saying, over time I eventually became to realize how unChristian and ignorant much of his commentary was.  When he eventually died, I struggled to figure out how I ought to think about him and other people who I thought were destructive to society, even as they were loved by many people.  I eventually come up with the sentiment that goes something like, 'We do not dance on the graves of evil people, but neither do we silently wash over the wickedness that they produced.'  I've tried keeping to this mantra in my thinking ever since.

Yesterday right-wing advocate Charlie Kirk was assassinated on a college campus in Utah.  I confess that I haven't really ever read much from him, but he was a very popular speaker and debater in the current Trump/MAGA echo chamber.  I have seen several tributes on Facebook from people whom I otherwise respect and who almost never post political material (if they did, I would unfollow them).  Even some kids on my school bus this morning were talking about this, how their parents were crying that Kirk was dead.  

Were I to ever read much of his material or listen to his speeches, I might have liked some of the things he was saying, even as I probably would have found distasteful many other parts because it seems that often the only thing that appeals to many in MAGAland is hateful denunciations of wokeness or demands to get rid of aliens and strangers or angry screeds about liberals.  And so I don't feel entitled to really say anything terrible or praiseworthy about him.  He was a husband and a father and a son.  Lots of people loved this man, much as they loved Limbaugh.  We should respect their grief.  

But there's one quote that I keep seeing, which boils down to Kirk saying that the death of some due to gun violence is absolutely necessary in order for us to be a free country.  This has been posted by many of his opponents who are dancing on his grave this morning.  Karma, they will tell us.  A man who fought gun control on college campuses was killed by a gun on a college campus.  Will yesterday change any thinking on this?  I keep wondering how much longer the earnest question of 'Don't we surround ourselves with guns and threaten violence so as to keep in check the tyranny of the wicked'? will continue to be spewed out.    

Nevertheless, Charlie Kirk will become a modern-day martyr for the MAGA crowd.  But let's not turn him into a hero.  People like Charlie Kirk have helped create a world in which political violence is now the norm.  Conservatives will whine and moan about the violent rhetoric of the left, but they are just as much a part of the problem as those they decry, led by a President who seems to take seriously his role as Insulter-In-Chief.  Even as we condemn yesterday's violence, we cannot wash over the wickedness that evil people produce, regardless of ideology.  Whether or not he was wicked or righteous is in the hands of God now, but we can see the fruits of hateful ideology all around us, even if it is wrongly supported by many people who call themselves Christian.

I do find it interesting that in the wake of yesterday's violence, there were many liberal stalwarts who posted nearly identical 'thoughts and prayers' comments on social media.  I don't think they were trolling, but rather they really meant this...but when this is all we have rather than intentions to make this world a better place, it really does seem like satire.  

The Entitled Age

The school district for which I drive is a state football power, one of the largest schools with historically one of the best teams in the state.  Last year I drove the team to a road game against a school in a lower classification and watched my school win something like 45-6.  Over the course of the year I probably watched them play 3-4 other times, usually smashing other schools, and it quickly became apparent to me just how expected this was...at one game I was listening to fans, parents or maybe alumni, gripe about mistakes they were making even as they were up by 40 points.  When we would score, there was no joy; when the other team might get a first down, there was frustration, almost anger.  At another game we were up again by 30 points or so, and I was sitting behind the student section.  Most of the game they weren't paying attention, but at another point a chant started up.  "This is boring! (clap clap clap clap clap).  This is boring!  (clap clap clap clap clap)"  Ultimately they lost in the state semifinals.  People were not happy.

I mention this because last night in the home opener our school lost 22-21 to the same team they had beaten 45-6 last season on the road.  I'm guessing that people around here are gonna be ticked off today.  I'm sure over the next few weeks I will be overhearing conversations about how bad the coach is or the players or lazy or whatever...but it strikes me that the great problem is simply that people feel entitled.  When there is continued success, people think that somehow they deserve it and have every right to bitch and moan when they no longer get it.  

We are entitled in this generation in so many ways.  The lady sitting in the Wal-Mart parking lot waiting for a low-paid worker to load up her car from her online order, moaning about how long it takes.  The 65 year old man I know who got evicted from his apartment but won't get a job in order to pay for a new one as he awaits another woman to come into his life and take care of him.  The parents who expect their kids to eat both breakfast and lunch at school for free even as they drive around in a $75K SUV.  

In many ways we have been blessed for so long, and in so many ways, that we won't know how handle a little bit of adversity as it comes upon us.  As our idiot president continues to tank the economy and alienate us from all of our allies, things are gonna start getting much worse in the coming months.  People are going to really be in a world of hurt if they think they can keep eating out all the time, spending hundreds of dollars on sports tickets, and drive around gas-guzzlers that are far more vehicle than they need.  I'll be curious to see how people will adapt...but my instinct is that things are not going to go well.  

The Anti-Trump algorithim

Because I believe that Donald Trump is a terrible president and an even worse human being, several times a week I will ragegoogle something like 'Trump is a moron' or 'MAGA is code for Nazi'.  I say these things not because I have great confidence in the Democrats or that I am a liberal...but in the end the various algorithms out there regularly put things into my news feed that likely they think I want to hear.  If I was a climate change denier, they would fill my box with opinions that rising seas are good for real estate along the seashore ("It's a seller's market if there's a shrinking amount of oceanview property!")  If I lived my life thinking that all people are stupid and I'd rather hang out with horses, I'd get ads for T-shirts that have majestic horses on them.  But because my online profile is likely as filled with English soccer, 70s yacht rock backstories, technology gadgets and anti-Trump sentiment, I get offered a lot of anti-Trump news.  Lately I've noticed there are three primary avenues.

1)The "Here's how Trump is destroying America and the World!" stories.  I actually agree with many of these stories, even if not everything is as bad as they say.  Not everything depends upon Trump, but it's important to know how he and his minions are destroying efforts for clean energy, equality, and Ameica's place in the world, among a thousand other evil things he is doing.  

2)The "Trump's support is collapsing in the polls!" stories.  These bug me a bit more, because almost always the 38% floor for Trump never seems to get crashed through.  But continually we are told about polls that show that Trump's supporters are finally waking up (nope), that the GOP will lose Congress (not likely), that the Democrats are rallying around ___ (laughable).  Nothing is changing for his acolytes, even as Trump's stupidity is on daily display for anybody paying attention.  

3)In recent weeks I've started to see a handful of "Trump is dying!" stories.  Like the polling numbers, I think that this is mostly wishful thinking, because I don't really think that Trump will die within the next few years.  No matter how obese, frail, or demented he seems, he will receive the best care available within the medical world.  This weekend one of the things that popped up was a wondering header that said, "Trump has no public appearances this weekend!  Could he be receiving a life-saving treatment?"  Doubtful...likely he's playing golf or plotting with advisors about taking away rights from somebody or planning some grift for his sons to take advantage of.  I don't really buy that the bruises on his hands or his swollen ankles or his slurred speech really mean that death is immanent; such things are simply the way of life for many senior Americans who live for years like this.  Modern medicine (something that costs the government a LOT of money!) means that people will live a long time with all sorts of ailments.  Most seniors will spend the last decade of their life going from doctor to doctor as they seek to manage conditions that are products of genetics or age or lifestyle; the only difference with Trump is that he is in a position to have the best practitioners come to him.  Maybe we might get lucky and he'll do more listening to quacks like RFK Jr ("Hey Mr. President, drink this raw milk and don't pay attention to doctors!"), but I doubt it.  If anybody is going to hang on, it's him.  

Maybe I need to change what I google for so that I will have a more balanced newsfeed.  But maybe I'll be like most people today, blissfully believing whatever appears in front of me.  

Labor Day weekend

This weekend is the unofficial end of summer, a weekend in which we honor American labor for their hard work by making the first Monday of September a national holiday.  Sure, many of the people who actually do hard work are still going to be working that day (think restaurant workers, first responders, nurses in hospitals) while the people who already have so much get the day off.  It would make sense to me that we could make Labor Day something like the old British Boxing Day, where the servants are waited upon by their lords and masters for one day.  Maybe have the doctors go and clean out bedpans on Monday?  Executives of Yum! trying to fry up the chicken or make burritos?  Maybe not...our world would likely explode if a lot of the stuffed shirts actually had to sweat a little bit.  

Sepaking of restaurants, this past week we saw the Stupidest Story of the Year that didn't involve our Dear Leader, at least directly.  Cracker Barrel, that old mainstay of countryfied food and a shop with stuff that people who think 'merica! is loved by voting for an old corrupt billionaire who likes to hump the flag occasionally, decided to change their logo.  It...wasn't good.  Basically they took the mustard and brown color from before and watered it down to something even less sexy than it had been.  Likely this was the result of paying some high-dollar PR people some money hoping that they would get young, hip audiences into the story so they might buy rocking chairs or cornhole games after dining on some fried chicken and catfish.  Needless to say, this rebranding made some people who have too little to do in their lives really mad.  

Where the story goes from amusing to downright stupid, however, was that the right-wing mediasphere decided that Cracker Barrel did all these things because they are 'woke'.  Getting rid of the barrel on the old sign, as well as the old dude (his name is Uncle Herschel, we all learned this week) sitting next to it, showed that they are somehow, someway, betraying all that is good about America.  Of course complaints of 'wokeism' have replaced 'politically correct' and charges of liberals of being 'snowflakes' as the great whine of the 38%.  Liberal calls to be 'woke', that is, to wake up and recognize that there are systemic problems of racism and inequality in this country', have been twisted to the point where being 'woke' is now code for 'anything that makes we True Americans upset'.  That is, of course, pure snowflakeism.  Thus a company hiring a black man when a white man applied for the job is now greetied with cries of wokeism.  Pointing out that climate change is real and that we are harming the planet, wokeism.  Any government policies that recognize the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion are now suspiciously woke.  And now a company with a wrong-headed idea about how they should rebrand their company is rooted in a desire to be woke and thereby must be boycotted until obese people wanting to kill themselves with satured fat and bankrupt their savings by buying wooden tic tac toe games get their way, of eating at a restaurant with the right kind of conservative logo.  

Maybe it was a good thing that on this Saturday of Labor Day weekend I didn't venture outside the house except to get two pieces of junk mail from the mailbox.  Catching up on some shows, watching soccer, taking a nap, and having some smoked salmon and wild rice with my wife tonight, was enough for me.  

A few rambling thoughts about my school bus and Dimwit Donnie

This week I began year number ten of driving a school bus.  What began as a side gig a few years ago to make a few bucks has become something I genuinely love to do, and something I will try to continue doing long after I retire from church work.  My middle school kids are usually hilarious, sometimes horrifying...but I am grateful for each one.  My bus may be one of the most culturally and racially diverse groups of people you'll ever find.  About half of my kids are white, while the other half is equally divided into kids of Hispanic, Black, and Asian descent.  There are times whether I wonder whether all of them are 'legal', and I think about the coming day in which some masked ICE thug decides he wants to drag one of them off my bus for the crime of being brought to America, land of the free and home of the brave.  I've come to the realization that I will offer myself up for arrest in their place, not as some moral hero but simply because I'd want somebody else to do for the same for one of my children.  

Tonight I was mowing the yard and I was thinking a lot about how well our Dear Leader might do driving a school bus.  Can you imagine that whiny and thin-skinned dope and how he'd deal with 60 unruly middle schoolers?  They would tear him apart.  10 minutes on a bus with those kids and Trump would be screaming about how he is going to sue them or deport them.  I doubt he could finish a route without them making such fun of him that he runs off the bus crying and saying how unfair everything is.  

Kids can be cruel and mean sometimes...that's what they are, just as that's what we were at that age.  We found the tiniest little thing to get under an authority figure's skin and we just picked and burrowed and poked and prodded until some of them broke.  Many of them, who were not so concerned with letting a 12-year-old determine their self worth, let us run ourselves out, loving us the whole time while slowly teaching us the important lessons of life.  Those who couldn't do these things didn't stay as teachers or youth ministers or anybody who dealt with kids for very long, usually running away screaming after a year or two.  The rest stuck around, grew a pair, and realized that God had put them in this thankless job and so they might as well try to find the humor in it all.

Occasionally I might meet somebody new and when they ask me what I do I tell them that I'm a minister for a small church and a bus driver.  They almost never want to acknowledge the first, but the second thing will usually provoke a response of 'Oh, I could never do that!'.  Yeah, they're right.  They couldn't.  But I would love to see the world's worst egotistical blowhard try.  In his mind he'd be better at it than everybody.  But his failure would be worth almost any price to watch.  

I Am Your Retribution

Recently in my daily Bible reading I read from Psalm 109 I came across these words: 

6 Appoint a wicked man against him; let an accuser stand at his right hand. When he is tried, let him come forth guilty; let his prayer be counted as sin! May his days be few; may another take his office! May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow!  May his children wander about and beg, seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit!  May the creditor seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil!  Let there be none to extend kindness to him, nor any to pity his fatherless children!  May his posterity be cut off; may his name be blotted out in the second generation!  May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out!  Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth!  For he did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted, to put them to death.  He loved to curse; let curses come upon him! He did not delight in blessing; may it be far from him!  He clothed himself with cursing as his coat; may it soak into his body like water, like oil into his bones!

This hit home for me, because in my mind in recent weeks I have often thought about something like this for our current president and his adminitration.  The evil of Trump and his basket of deplorables has rarely been matched in the near 250 years of our nation.  It's not simply any one thing...but the cruelty to immigrants, the financial grift, the harm he has done to anything good our nation was doing, the appointment of like-minded depraved individuals...after awhile I cry out, as many do, 'How long, O Lord?  Why do you allow this to happen?'  Shouldn't we as people be taking up arms and removing these people, by force if we have to?  

Yet there's something about the Trump administration that gives me pause...could it be that God has sent him here to bring punishment upon our nation?  Throughout Scripture we find that when God decides to punish people, he often does one of two things.  The first is what we often think about: direct punishment.  Think Sodom and Gomorrah.  Think Herod being struck down and his body eaten by worms.  Think Israel being overrun by their enemies.  Each of these goes back to God directly bringing wrath upon individuals or nations.  

But a second way in which God comes after people is by allowing them to destroy themselves.  I think particularly of the words from Romans 1:18 and following:  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. 

Three times in this passage, following various forms of sin within humanity, God says in effect, 'OK, that's what you want?  I'll give you up to those things.'  In effect, God is allowing people to suffer the consequences of their choices, and such things might well destroy them.  This is not God's desire, of course, but the hope is always that people will repent, call out to God, and turn away from sin.  Only then will God relent from his wrath.  

So...could it be that with the chaos of the past six months we are bearing the fallout of our unrepentant sin?  Think about some things that have defined the United States in recent years: gross materialism, sexual immorality, and self-absorption, to name just three things.  How have we been given over to these things to our destruction?  

We are, by almost any measure, the most powerful economy in human history, all designed to meet any and every human desire.  We dispose of things so quickly because we have so many more (newer! shinier!) things to take their place.  We crave stuff rather than the God who has blessed us in so many ways; this is sometimes called idolatry.  So how might God let us be punished?  Who is the epitome in our nation of wealth?  Could it be a man who loves a gold-plated toilet seat and has gilded the Oval Office?  Could it be a man whose family is grafting milllions of dollars from foreign investors (golf courses, casinos, hotels) by making his own interests more important than the nation's?  Could it be a man whose recent attachment to crypto has caused those trying to get his ears to fill the coffers of his family?  Has not God given us over to the ideal of what we crave by showing us the depravity of its worst excesses?  

We are a nation that has become obsessed with sexuality.  Sure, there are some who gnash their teeth about LGBTQ or various forms of sexual immorality, but look a bit closer and they are no different than anybody else, only seeking to take away the rights that they themselves have.  People define themselves in our modern era by their sexuality, and believe that nobody (not even God) has any right to tell them to temper their desires to any more than what God has authorized.  So how might God let us be punished?  Perhaps by electing a man (with 82 % support of 'evangelical' Christians) who has more divorces in his life than all other presidents combined?  Perhaps by putting into power somebody who has routinely bragged through history of his sexual conquests?  Perhaps by making into the emperor one who is an adjudicated rapist and likely child molester?  Has not Donald Trump become the person that embodies our sexual depravity?  

We are a people who are fully and completely self-absorbed.  While there may be some benefits of the  therapeutic process, the adoption of the navel-gazing mindset in our nation is complete.  Life is about how much I am to be happy.  Get in my way, and I'll destroy you.  I am the center of my own universe.  Rather than think about how we are called to serve our neighbors and love those who aren't quite like us, even many Christians today live with a mindset that is as anti-other and unChristian as those who know nothing about the love of God.  So how might God let us be punished?  Maybe it's by putting in charge of this country the most self-absorbed person of the 21st century, a man-child whose every waking thought is 'how can I gratify every desire I have today?'  Perceived enemies are to be destroyed.  Aliens and strangers are cast out without due process.  The 'other' means nothing to us.  They're 'not like us'.  

Maybe you think I'm going way off the deep end here...maybe we really do need to rise up and destroy these wicked people who do wicked things.  But I think back to just over a year ago when Trump was campaigning, and one thing that he said over and over again to his supporters:  "I am your justice.  I am your retribution."  Could it be that he didn't really know what he was saying, that God was warning us through these words about might well happen if we don't turn from our evil ways?  Could Trump be the retribution upon our nation, the instrument of his divine wrath?  

However you choose to see Trump, his ascension to power for me is a call for our nation to repent...and that's not something I am seeing happening.  His supporters are glorifying him and his wickedness, while his opponents are just infuriated and want to see his downfall.  Few people seem to be seeing this time in history from a spiritual perspective.  Our de-Christianization may well be finding its nadir in the reign of Donald Trump.  

Weddings, funerals, and a changing religious landscape

I guess my wife and I were something of trailblazers.  When we decided to get married over 20 years ago, we had two ideas: I wanted a small wedding, and she wanted to get married on the beach.  So we decided to go to Myrtle Beach and invited only her parents and mine; my brother, who lives a few hours from there, decided to invite himself as well.  We had a nice simple wedding on the beach done by an old guy we found online, went out as a family for dinner, and started our honeymoon.  

When I first began in ministry over 30 years ago, most people still got married at a church.  Part of my job was occasionally meeting people that had no connection to the churches at which I ministered and finding time to do a brief bit of premarital counseling before walking them through the sanctuary and fellowship hall and letting them plan their big to-do.  Often times I would never hear from them again after the wedding, but I wished them well and hoped that in at least some tiny way the need for Christ and the church would have rubbed off on them.  

I got to thinking about this recently, as the daughter of a cousin of mine got married last weekend at a venue not far from here.  Even as these were people who were raised in church, I don't get the impression that getting married at a church building crossed their mind.  Instead, they chose one of the many venues that are found in the city and countryside these days...often a barn with a pretty view, a banquet hall with plenty of room for a dance floor, perhaps even an old church building that has been repurposed for weddings.  When was the last time I went to an actual church wedding?  It's gotta be over a decade, I think.  

In some ways I don't feel too bad about this...administration and wedding plans have always been the two things I have enjoyed the least about ministry.  Starting about 10 years ago, I made the conscious decision to try and avoid doing weddings for anybody I didn't know...but now it's been years since I've even been asked.  Many of the times I officiated at weddings I always felt I had the same value in the eyes of the couple as a color scheme or the right kind of flowers in the reception hall.  

Yet watching the change over these years has also brought me some sorrow, this idea that people in our country have bypassed churches, even God, in their weddings.  While I am glad that people are still deciding to get married (as long as I don't have to do it!) rather than simply live together, this diminishing of religion in one of the most sacred moments of a person's life speaks volumes about the real place of Christianity in America.  There's a line in the wedding vows in which a person makes a commitment to their spouse 'before God and before these witnesses' that now is no longer necessary, at least in part.  

As much as I have never cared to do weddings, I have always felt more at home in funerals.  Funerals actually allowed me to do my job of ministry, serving and blessing families in some of the most painful moments of their existence.  It's a terrible time, but I actually feel useful, and over the years I think that I've been able to bring some real healing for people.  While I never say that I 'want' to do a funeral, I always feel honored to do so.  

But the cultural landscape on this, too, is changing.  While I still get called to do funerals occasionally, more and more I have noticed that for many people, even Christians, these are being replaced by a 'celebration of life'.  My experience in these things is that, while at times they are still being held in funeral homes or even churches, God and his eternal promises are rarely in view.  Rather, we sit and random people (almost never ministers) talk about what a good person ____ happened to be.  Maybe they went to a church, probably not, but that's not what defined the deceased.  Instead of the goal of life being a desire to be with the Lord forever in eternity, it's enough that such people live on in the hearts of others.  

This year I have pondered a lot about the change in my country...it's easy to point out the apostasy with which many Christians have paraded about in their Christian nationalism or worship of their orange god.  But it may be that when the history (and decline) of Christianity in the United States in the 21 century is written, the change we have made in funerals and weddings may have been the canary in the coal mine.  If religious faith, even a shallow kind of religiosity, is removed from two of the most important elements of a culture's ritual identity, what does that say about how important it is in our daily lives?  A lot, I think.