Turn, Turn, Turn

All this I observed as I tried my best to understand all that's going on in this world.

As long as men and women have the power to hurt each other, this is the way it is.

-Ecclesiastes 8:9 (The Message)

We all learned, somewhere back in primary school, that the thing that "caused" the first World War (naively called the war to end all wars) was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in the Serbian city of Sarajevo. It was taught, as I remember, in that sort of blase oversimplified fashion that is indicative of grade school history classes.  You're not supposed to think too much about it, just accept it.  What started WWI? The assassination of Franz Ferdinand.  You don't need to know anything about who he was or why his death would be so important, and certainly not why he was assassinated. But if you would like to know, here's a Wikipedia entry that pretty well sums it up.

That was a long time ago, and the world was a very different place, but then again, there really is not much new under the sun.  There are still lots of people in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor that really don't get along all that well.  Remember Kosovo?  A lot of people my age who were in the military in their 20's certainly do. It would seem though that we have a peculiar forgetfulness about the past, and it seems to me that it might be getting dangerous as the circles of violence start to loop around on each other.

Why is it important that a Russian Ambassador just got gunned down in Ankara?  A lot of Americans don't even know where Ankara is and we've got other things about Russians on our mind right now. The web of socio-political entanglements is jiggling and the spider is getting hungry.  I know what you think, I'm about to make a case for Vlad Putin being the spider, and that is tempting, but I'm actually not going there. The spider in this analogy is actually the spirit of violence that feeds on our wars and conflagrations.

Putin and Erdogan (Turkey's current pseudo-despot) are actually some of the more predictable players on the stage right now.  We know what they want: power, we know when they want it: as soon as possible and we know how much they want: all of it.  Once you have someone's motivations sussed out that completely they're not really as dangerous as they seem.

What is more dangerous in this arena is the unknown, particularly that part of the unknown that we think we know, but in which our understanding has proven, time and time again to be demonstrably flawed. We have made the mistake of assuming things to be basically "Western," we have failed to account for the actual role that Islam plays, and we have broadly generalized far too often.  The world of the Middle East is far more complicated than our post colonial visions with neat borders and clear alliances generally account for. We have been assuming far too much about some of the other pieces on the board.

The United States and the Soviets have been playing this game for a long time and I don't think it's wrong to say that we're still at it, even though the Soviet Union is no more.  Vlad Putin was, is and always will be a man formed by the Soviet bloc.  His ideas and ideals all have in mind Russian hegemony over their part of the world.  He will tolerate other governments until they become a stumbling block.  The Central Asian Republics in the former Soviet Union are impoverished and backwards and he is probably more than satisfied to be shuck of them.  Ukraine, Belarus, and suchlike though... well, he probably wants them back.  Turkey would be a jewel in the crown of some sort of Russian sphere of influence (another good old Cold War idea).

Syria becomes a useful tool in bringing Turkey into the fold.  Putin and Erdogan have been at odds in the past about Assad and Syria, but recently they have been growing closer, as it has become clearer that there really isn't a better option for the stability of the region than Assad's Alawite regime, brutal though it may be.  The US is a bit shell shocked when it comes to toppling dictators, our recent past is not so shiny.  But if Russia and Turkey agree on Syria, there's not a lot anyone else can do about it.

However, if the X-factors can get the those two tenuous allies back at each other, who knows?

I'm not saying that someone actually planned to assassinate the Russian Ambassador for that reason, but it wouldn't be a bad plan if you're trying to keep the whole mess floating on a sea of chaos.

In the wake of the shooting, John Kerry sent the ubiquitous American "thoughts and prayers," to the people injured and the families of the deceased.  I kind of hope for a change that we just keep it at that, because the spider is hungry.

Hateful

I hope by now you know what Aleppo was, a city in Syria, an ancient city, at one time a bustling and beautiful city.  It's not that any more, now it's a pile of rubble and the site of an on-going failure of our common humanity.  Not a war, not a rebellion, a travesty against our dignity as a species.  I hate what is happening in Aleppo right now.  As I grow older I am trying to reserve the word hate for very special occasions.  I used to hate a lot of things.  I used to hate certain kinds of food, and lots of kinds of music, none of that really deserved my hate. What is going on in Aleppo right now is worthy of hate.
I hate that the situation has seemed so inevitable and unsolvable.  I hate that the only thing anyone living in our comfortable, stable world can think to do is to throw some money at the problem.  If you can, you should give somewhere, some how, but that doesn't get us off the hook.  By us, I mean all of humanity.  We should be capable of doing better than this.  The failure of our potential is what I really hate.  This kind of thing doesn't happen because of the madness of individuals, we have lived with comic book villains and Darth Vader a little too long.  This is not about Bashar al Assad, or Vlad Putin or a violent mastermind, this happens because we, collectively, allow it to happen.  We feel powerless, we feel like it's just too big of a problem, we feel like we don't understand well enough what causes catastrophes like Syria to erupt into horror.
But we do, we absolutely know.  There are only a few things in the world that cause all of this sort of vileness.  It is the vicious, self-maintaining cycle of money, power and violence that is at the heart of all of our problems, everything else is secondary or tertiary.  Greed leads some to take more than their share, and leave others without enough.  Hunger, poverty and insecurity ensue and those who suffer eventually threaten, with the power of numbers and desperation, to rise up and demand something more.  Power then becomes necessary to "defend" those who have become accustomed to their privilege and comfort.  Power uses violence to accomplish its ends.  If the violence can be simply through some combination of political ideology, religious conditioning, suppression of dissent, or the maintenance of some sort of detente based on the threat of physical violence, maybe you can have some sort of peace.  Eventually though, the threats must be shown to be real, or the hungry bellies will rise up and demand a reckoning.  Then the demons come out to play, as they have been in Syria and Iraq.
Don't pretend you don't know what causes this.  Also, don't pretend you don't know the antivenom. We have lived with the prescription for this problem for so long, it's absolutely staring us in the face.  It is the foundation of the Law, the Prophets and the Gospel, it is the antidote for the toxic cycle of greed, power and violence.  You know what the Lord requires: "Do justice, Love Mercy and walk humbly with your God," that's how the Hebrew Prophet Micah says it.  Jesus says: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."  Paul, building on Jesus' foundation says he will show us "a more excellent way:" Faith, Hope and Love (the greatest is love).  Love that counteracts the greed and pushes us towards kindness and charity (an expansive and gracious spirit, not just gifts of pity) to others, hope that shows us what real power really is and faith that will help us refrain from reacting violently when we feel threatened.
I'm not suggesting that the solution is for everyone to become Christians (or any other religion for that matter), that won't solve it.  This stuff happens among those who profess faith of some sort as much, if not more, than among the godless. I'm suggesting that we know the solution to the problem, we just have decided not to pay it any mind.  That's what I really hate.  It's like we have the directions neatly tucked away in our pocket as we rage and ruin what we would be able to build if we just followed the plan.
I'm tired of the hand wringing and the futile lamentation that always follows such catastrophes.  We have been told how to solve the problem, but for a myriad of reasons, which we delude ourselves into believing are beyond our ability, we keep running on the hamster wheel of power, violence and greed, and we keep repeating the same tragic mistakes over and over again.
So go ahead, give to the charity, put the bandaids on the wounds, mourn the tragedy, and then go right back into the stupid, blind and hateful cycles of all those things that we tell ourselves can't be changed.  As long as we keep telling ourselves how unavoidable it all is, we are pretty much guaranteed that it will never end.

The Cat's In the Cradle

A child arrived just the other day, 

Came into the world in the usual way,

-Harry Chapin, The Cat's in the Cradle

Thirteen years ago this week, Michele and I were waiting for an arrival.  In the most realistic re-enactment of Advent ever.  We were expecting our first child, a boy, to be named Jackson.  We had decided that Michele's former last name would make a pretty good first name, and we did not yet realize that Jackson or Jaxson was going to be one of the more trendy names for celebrities and regular people alike for the next few years.

The waiting seemed endless, probably more so for Michele than it was for me, but it was excruciating for me, all other information is speculation.  The first child is a mixture of hope, expectation and abject terror.  You prepare, you wait, you try to talk yourself into the idea that you are somehow grown-up enough to be a parent, and mostly you don't succeed. Then, all of the sudden, you have this little pink thing that cries a lot and needs you for everything. Life takes a hold and you start working your way through the milestones: walking, talking, potty training, going off to school.  Everything seems to absorb big chunks of your life.

Older, wiser people, like to sort of laugh at you and tell you to treasure the time you have because it goes by awfully fast.  You're not quite sure what they're talking about, until you blink and that little baby is about to turn into a teenager, complete with an often frustrating mind of his own and a voice that is probably about to drop an octave just about any day.  You realize that you're only five years away from sending an 18 year old out into the world of college and proto-adulthood.  He will be starting to drive in a mere three years, and that is both existentially and emotionally terrifying.

How did this happen?  How were all those "it's going to fly by" people so cussedly correct?  What business do I have trying to parent a teenager?  I seriously feel like I was just a teenager myself not terribly long ago.

If you can put away that sort of hand wringing for a minute, you notice that these little babies you used to know everything about are becoming actual people, and that's not a bad thing.  They have the ability to surprise you and frustrate you and make you awfully proud sometimes.  You worry more about them than you probably ever worried about yourself, and you sort of like the idea that they are going to go on into the future and live out this cycle for themselves.

Kahlil Gibran says this in The Prophet:

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."

And he said: "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.  They come through you, but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love, but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies, but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite and He bends you with His might that his arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness; for even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

I'm about to have a teenager.  I would really like to be a stable bow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Comfort of Being Sad

Warning: If you want Christmas to be super-happy-fun-time, do not bother reading this blog.
If you have trouble Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree however, you might want to keep going.

If you look at the historical reasons why we celebrate Christmas at the end of December, you will probably notice that it actually has a lot to do with the true genius of Christendom: the ability to absorb the practices and rituals of pagans.  As Christian faith moved out of the warm, soft light of the Mediterranean basin and into the harder, colder lands of northern Europe, it encountered a midwinter ritual, complete with feasts, evergreens and the exchange of gifts.  It was a way to stave off the gloom that comes with the long hours of darkness and the cold that afflicts northern latitudes in December.  The tone of these midwinter feasts and festivals matched the tone of the Gospel stories of Jesus' birth quite well.  The birth of Christ lends itself to hope that holds on in the dark and threatening times. The prophecies that were applied to "prepare the way," are well suited to people facing the austerity of northern winters. The silence of winter gives us time to think on the passing of time, the nature of mortality, and makes us perhaps more receptive to a message of hope in new life, resurrection even.
The reason why I think so many people engage, year after year, in grumpy rages about some sort of "war on Christmas," or getting outraged by people saying, "Happy Holidays," or whatever Starbucks has done with their coffee cups this holiday, is that our corporate celebration of this holiday has lost its foundation.  And I'm actually going to posit that this is bigger than just people forgetting about the whole Jesus being born aspect of the equation.  That's important for Christians to be sure, but I think the secularization of this holiday has become so radical that it's not even about "keeping Christ in Christmas."
It has become so commercial that I think even agnostic observances have lost their solemn dignity and their ability to brace the soul with a celebration of dormancy and rest. Christmas carols have always tended to point us in the direction of poor theology and perhaps even incoherence, but peppy Christmas songs are an abomination. They are the soundtrack of trivializing a moment in the yearly cycle of human existence that ought to be hallowed by pagan and Christian alike.
Those who grieve during the holidays see this rather painfully.  The first Christmas after a death of someone you loved is a particular sort of torture, as may be many holidays to come, depending on the circumstances of your bereavement.  The worst thing for someone who is in the grip of sadness and loss is to be constantly reminded of how happy they're supposed to be.
The peculiar thing about the Gospel narratives of Jesus' birth, is that they are absolutely laced with moments of sadness and have a decidedly precarious feeling. Mary is found to be pregnant out of wedlock, Joseph plans to "put her aside quietly," Herod rages against the possibility that a king might have been born and children are killed, Mary has a lot to "ponder in her heart," both hopeful and tragic.  These are not all happy stories.  Winter is not always a happy time.  There are good things that come with it, but there will always be those who do not make it through, there is a suspense to it.
If you are happy at Christmas, I warned you not to read this, you can forget this and go sing Jingle Bells to your heart's content, but I know that a lot of you out there can't exactly feel the Christmas joy the way you think you should, and so this is permission for some different kinds of feelings.  Know that if you are solemn and aware of the preciousness and the temporary nature of life, if you are aware of the passing of things and seasons, if you sense that all is not right with the world as it is now, you are perhaps more in the "true spirit" of Christmas than you realize.

A Reed Shaken by The Wind

You will not be able to stay home brother.

You will not be able to tune in, turn on and cop out.

Because the revolution will not be televised.

-Gil Scott Heron, The Revolution will not be Televised.

Probably my favorite part of Advent is getting to spend at least a week with John the Baptist, in year A of the Revised Common Lectionary, we get two gospel readings from Matthew relating to the wild man in the wilderness, except this week he's in prison, and he sends word to Jesus, asking if Jesus is the one for whom he and all of the world is waiting.  I've got a whole sermon ready to go about that, but as is sometimes the case, there's more than I can probably fit into a reasonable sermon, and it's pageant week so only about 20 people are going to hear it at our small early service.  But it's an important moment, and, for me at least, a powerful and freeing moment.
See, I have felt very much imprisoned lately, (you may have noticed if you've been reading this blog) trapped by the angst of our world, all the nasty things that have polluted our common discourse, all the things I would rather not explain to my children about the Herods and Caesars who run this world.  I want Jesus to make it all better, preferably in some big-bang-flash moment of apocalyptic glory.  I want to go back to the days in the wilderness, sometimes that means the Camino, the clarity and the simplicity of simply putting one foot in front of the other.  But other times the wilderness is more of a frame of mind, a place where I can shout with certainty that the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near and tell people to repent.  I would very much like to be that Prophet, standing waist deep in the Jordan crick and calling the wealthy, powerful and influential, a brood of vipers.
But lately I feel like I'm in prison, now I feel powerless.  I do not feel empowered to hope in the kingdom of the world any longer, it has been handed over to the destroyers and ravagers of the earth and those who will rip and tear at the flesh of the poor.  And I want Jesus to give me some assurance that the solution to it all is right around the corner.  But he doesn't.  I'm not going to get out of this jail anytime soon, because that's not how this works.
"From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force." (Matt. 11: 12 NRSV)
The thing is, nothing has really changed.  That was true before, that is true now. Honestly, my hope in the grand solution of worldly power was misplaced.  Herod has always been in control, the principalities and powers are always going to run the show, and the Kingdom of Heaven is going to draw near to us despite all of that.
I never really noticed the despair of the Baptist in prison before, but this year it has grabbed me by the neck. Oddly enough, it sort of makes me feel better.  Why?  Maybe it's sort of like the blues, just knowing that someone else is in prison with me.  Maybe it's because I know the Kingdom of Heaven can't be stopped by Donald Trump's Tweets or Hillary Clinton's emails or fake news or confirmation bias or white nationalism.  Maybe it's because I know that the Kingdom is not far off just waiting for the right time to happen, but it's every day right in front of us, among us and coming to be through us.  Not through the great and the powerful, not through Herod or Caesar or the brood of vipers, but through us.
Sometimes your false hopes need beheaded and crucified before you can see how exactly the Kingdom of Heaven is coming, not a pleasant process to be sure, but maybe something has turned. I'm tired of being worried about whatever is going on with the Empire. It's all vanity and chasing after the wind.
I'm going to watch the world with open eyes. I'm going to look for the signs of the Kingdom: hope, peace, joy and love. You have to look hard, because the news doesn't cover them, not good enough ratings.  If the media is biased, it's not against right or left, it's against the signs of grace breaking into the world. What's happening in Herod's palace seems more important. the latest edict from Caesar on his throne will get all of our attention.
That's why the church, all people of faith really, need to be the witnesses, to tell what we see and hear, to give hope to the ones who are being put away and imprisoned. We are still the Prophets who see and testify to the coming of the Kingdom. People who were blind to the grace of God in the world seeing the Kingdom drawing near that's worth watching for.  People who were deaf to the word of the Lord hearing, that's worth listening to.  Those who were lame, unclean, broken, poor and outcast being made whole, forgiven and welcomed into the good news of the Kingdom... Let anyone with eyes see, and anyone with ears listen.

Hunting

Synchronicity is not just a Police album, it is Psychologist Carl Jung's notion that things in the universe are connected.  More to the point it is the observation of the human psychic phenomenon which allows us to see connections in the universe.  Things that happen randomly fit into patterns, some might call it fate or destiny, still others the will of God. Personally, I feel God's involvement is akin to that of an artist, rather than an engineer, there is a skill to creative use of synchronicity that is beyond technical superiority.  Thus, this morning, as I was conducting my daily, and increasingly gut wrenching perusal of the news of the day, a friend shared Wendell Berry's The Peace of Wild Things on Facebook.  I took a break from stories about the pipeline and politics to listen to that crusty old curmudgeon tell me something that was already on my heart, as poets are wont to do.
See, Friday I went hunting for the first time since I was about 15 or so.  The last time I went deer hunting was with my Grand-dad in the Poconos.  I wore the blaze orange Woolrich hunting coat that he gave me, remarkably it still fit.

I have spent a lot of time outdoors in the past 20 years, most of it unarmed. But on Friday, I had a gun, and purpose.  The first half hour I spent in the woods was a bit strange, I was very aware of the gun, its deadly potential, and the odd feeling of invulnerability that carrying it gives.  If I had any real thirst for the killing part of the hunt, it was probably then.  But there was nothing to kill, just some little birds and a lot of quiet.
Then the woods started to do their work. Normally I walk through them with the intention of getting from one place to another, hiking or walking the dog, I can breathe in the forest and experience the grace and peace of nature, but I don't really have to pay attention.  Hunting slows you down.  You slow to be quiet, you slow to look for little signs of the passing of your prey, tracks, bedding areas, rubs on the trees, even spoor. You sit still in a spot for a good long while, listening as the forest forgets you're there.
Since I live in Southern Maryland now, the rivers are always near.  The scenery is a different kid of beautiful from what I was used to in the mountains, but it will distract you from your quest pretty easily.

These are what I actually caught. I saw a Bald Eagle and a Red Tail Hawk, hunting along with me from the skies, but no Deer. I saw the evidence of their woodland routine though, I marked their tracks and saw the places where they lay down in the tall grass.  If I wanted to, I know where they go and when to wait for them there, but I don't actually need to follow through on that for the "hunt" to be a success.  

I was out there for about 5 hours,  I walked maybe 2 miles, which is not really much of a pace, but I got somewhere that I really needed to go.

A Prayer

Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;

Do not fret over those who prosper in their way, 

Over those who carry out evil devices.

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath. Do not fret - it leads only to evil.

-Psalm 37: 7-8 (NRSV)

Lord, I am just so tired of being angry.  I can't watch the news or read the newspaper without this crushing sense of frustration. I've got too much fear, it's killing me inside.  I need to let it go and think about other things.  What can I do about any of it?  If fascists take control, or if chaos reigns, what can I do?

See Above.

Yeah, I get that, but it seems like there should be something to do, something to say, some vote to make or maybe a petition to sign.  It can't always just be about letting the rich get richer and the poor get trampled under foot.  Aren't you always talking about justice rolling down and stuff like that?

Justice is my job.

But we're supposed to help right?  I mean, incarnation, the Body of Christ in the world and all that.

Crucifixion is part of that job description.

Okay, I get it, take up your cross and all, but what about the vulnerable people we're supposed to take care of? The widows, the orphans, the oppressed, you know, the least of these?

How is worrying and being angry going to help them?

Prophetic anger Lord, Prophetic anger! Isn't that in the Scriptures too?  Head smashing, smiting, great vengeance and furious anger?

I think that was Pulp Fiction, but I can see how you might get confused.

Okay, now you're just being snarky, righteous violence is in there, I know it.  How is wiping out almost the whole human race in a flood not at least a little bit, you know, angry? 

I did regret that pretty hard, that's what you're supposed to learn from that episode.

But there were the Egyptians, and the Canaanites, and what about the Hittites?

You're such a preacher, nobody ever brings up the Hittites anymore.

I'm just worried, you know, because I'm pretty fond of this empire I live in right now, it's got good stuff, like freedom, iPhones and cheesesteaks. I don't want it to crumble into oblivion.

Why do nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

Now you're just proof texting.

You started it, "what about the Hittites?"

I'm trying to pray serious here.

You're not doing a very good job.

I feel like you're not listening or taking me seriously.

I know how that feels.

Ouch.

Yep.

Okay then, Amen.

Good talk, see you later.

Yeah, I guess.

What I Learned at Thanksgiving

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.

It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

-Mark Twain

Leading up to Thanksgiving there was a palpable zeitgeist of anxiety about the discussions that would probably take place over the holiday.  There were articles, there were little proclamations by radio DJs about how we all should just not get super agitated with one another.  It seemed as though everyone was afraid that there would all out fist fights at the dinner table on Thursday.  That anxiety was hard to shrug off, especially since I knew I was going to be surrounded most of the time by Trump voters.  There are people who I know to be Trump supporters, enthusiasts and zealots of various sorts, I was planning to avoid conversations about politics with them.  But there were more of a second category, people who simply voted for him because they couldn't stomach Hillary, or because, all things being equal, they buy the conservative party line and he is, for better or worse, the Republican nominee.  There were people who took a sort of bizarre leap of faith that perhaps he really is going to "drain the swamp," their frustration is more with the general state of politics in general than with any particular party ideology.
If I got the chance, I expressed how disappointed I was with the current state of affairs, but I had to (mostly) leave it at that, because I have become aware that there are simply too many conflicting narratives at work in our world to really have a constructive dialogue about politics right now.  You can have good arguments, if you enjoy that sort of thing (I admit, I do under the proper circumstances), but you cannot really expect to "win" a debate.
Why? Because we can't actually agree on the facts, and maybe even deeper than that, we really don't want to see truth if it conflicts with our opinion.
I spent most of this past year learning to sort through my sources.  I learned that Mother Jones and Occupy Democrats probably aren't going to give me the straight story, no matter how much I like their version.  I learned that TV News is about worthless when it comes to anything but weather and finding out who won the football game.  I fell back on what I feel is our last, best hope of serious journalism: newspapers.  I subscribed to the Washington Post and began sifting just about everything I put any stock in on the basis of whether or not it appeared in a credible major newspaper: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal etc. If I saw an article that exhibited "Truthiness," and I didn't recognize the legitimate paper of record for say Portland Oregon, I would check into that source.  And I spent a lot of time with the fact checking sites.
I kept in mind what Neil Postman told us in Amusing Ourselves to Death: "You cannot do political philosophy on television. Its form works against the content." I kept going back to that, throughout the campaign.  Trump is such a master of television, he understands the impermanence and the lack of depth so well, he kept making Hillary seem shrill and wooden, despite the fact that she repeatedly ran circles around him in debates, and whenever "facts" or "policy" was on the floor.
As it turns out, none of the traditional tools in the political arsenal actually mattered. The fact that his policy proposals were vague, the fact that he kept having moments and gaffes that would have been catastrophic to anyone else. Trump was crafting a narrative that would resonate with the alienated majority. His vulgarity was somehow endearing to many, his lack of detail made for hard targets to shoot at.
He wasn't starting from scratch either.  He had eight years of Obama-hating, liberal-blaming, angst building up a head of steam.  He has had twenty years of right wing propaganda vilifying the "liberal media." His biggest weakness seemed to be the fact that his own party wasn't truly behind him, but he had a cure for that too: they have been visibly obstructing everything good, bad and indifferent for the past six years to the point where Mitch McConnell is probably not much more popular than Nancy Pelosi in most of Middle America. In the end, he sold his story to enough people in strategically located places, and sold the narrative that he was just the guy to break down the walls. It worked well enough.
I felt like I was finding all of this out through a sort of forensic investigation, sifting through the rubble of an explosion.  Because my own narrative, the one that has been being told inside the Democratic bubble, is that having a grown-up for a President has been pretty good. I'm going to miss Obama, with his mediocre successes, his balanced, reasonable tone, his steady presence, and his Dad Jokes.  Of course I wish things could have been better, but inside the bubble it doesn't seem like that was our fault.  Hillary seemed like a logical progression: first black president, first woman president, it's just the direction we're headed.
My bubble didn't exactly blind me to her flaws, I knew she was forever and always saddled with the legacy of her husband.  I knew that she has been in politics way too long not to be covered in mud.  I knew she had a major likability issue, I just thought that the obvious, unrepentant and outlandish behavior of Trump was going to make all of that a moot point. I was resigned, after a brief moment of hope during the Bernie insurgency, to voting for another shuffling, shucking politico.  But I was only probably a few solid hours of Fox News away from feeling the same way many of the Trump voters felt.  I found that I could not really defend the Clinton machine with any sort of conviction.  I was doing the same thing with her past as Trumpers were doing with his.  Sure, I told myself that it was not the same thing, but that logic doesn't really hold, when you're trying to argue with someone who believes that her defense and loyalty to Bill Clinton during his various immoral and reprehensible sexual escapades is the same as or worse than Trump's conversation with Bill Bush.  The primary difference is in the narrative that you're following.
Now I'm kind of angry with myself and the Democratic party in general for not diagnosing the situation correctly.  That's what this past weekend has taught me: that there are some very different approaches to reality floating around out there, and the rise of the internet, the nature of visual media and the decline of print journalism have left us ill-equipped to accurately parse out what is actually true.  Confirmation bias, our tendency to believe things more readily if they jive with our pre-existing opinions, is one serious hurdle to our commonweal. I honestly don't know how we're going to get around this fix we're in.
We are at the mercy of salesmen, liars and cheats. Perhaps this is how our Empire will fall: ill formed opinions, misinformation, fake news and slanted facts. Once upon a time, there were people called journalists whose job it was to save us from these things.  We fired them a while ago. Bad ratings.

Requiem for Leonard

Then clenching your fist, for the ones like us,

Who are oppressed by figures of beauty,

You fixed yourself, and said, "Well never mind,

We are ugly but we have the music."

-Leonard Cohen, Chelsea Hotel #2

I was able to jump on here and mourn for David Bowie and Prince within a few hours of learning of their passing.  Both were important to me, I felt like I connected with their art at different places in my life and so I mourned for their absence.  But now Leonard Cohen has gone as well, the latest casualty of a year that I am not finding particularly enjoyable.  I couldn't really deal with Leonard's passing as quickly, I had to sort of sit with it for a while, like the tradition of Leonard's own Hebrew people, I needed to sit quietly in grief before I could come up with what to say.

I like a lot of music, different kinds, different eras, different styles, but there are three songwriters, who are transcendent in my musical pantheon (pretty much in this order): Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits.  If you know who they are you are probably aware that none of them are famous for their amazing vocal talents, it is their words that put them on a different level, above and beyond even dear artists like Bowie, Cobain, Cornell, Vedder, the Stones, the Beatles and such like.  These men are poets and miners of the deep veins of human experience.  Dylan has just won the Nobel Prize for Literature, despite not being a traditional author, because his songs are cultural milestones.  Dylan is far more visible and his songs trace the arc of history, personal, political and human.  But Leonard Cohen does something a little different, a bit less accessible to the masses, and frankly sublime.

Discovering Leonard Cohen is like learning to appreciate coffee or whiskey, he's a grown up taste.  If Bowie is a pair of shiny dance club shoes, and Prince is a pair of high heeled boots, Cohen is a pair of well worn but classy brogans that you could wear with jeans, or with a suit, that you could wear to church or for a walk in the woods.  His lyrics can run deep, even when they seem fairly simple on the surface, and his songs have the ability to hit you on a time delay.  I have lyrics of his songs floating through my head pretty much all the time.  His voice went from deep and smooth as a young man to gravelly and rumbling as an old man, but the content of his words was always the thing.

As a person Cohen seemed honest and forthright, where Dylan can be cagey and even a bit resentful of people probing him about his work, Leonard would answer questions about the depth of his soul fairly readily. It usually seemed like he was quite willing to go deeper than the questioner really intended.  I remember this example from somewhere, and I can't dig up an exact source, so I'm going to take a stab at remembering.  He was asked about the song quoted above: Chelsea Hotel #2, which had long been rumored to be about his relationship with Janice Joplin, and the aftermath of her death.  He reluctantly confirmed that it was, but the interviewer sensed his reticence, and asked him if he thought she would be embarrassed or resent him for writing that song. "No," he said, "she wouldn't mind at all, I'm thinking about how disappointed my Mother would be with me, Gentlemen don't talk about such things."

That was Leonard to the core, a sensitive and gentle man, self deprecating and aware of how odd it was for people to spread their souls out for all to see, let alone have other people admire you for doing it.  I would call him a prophet as well as a poet.  In the end of it all, his words speak more beautifully than I could, so here is a collection of some of my favorite Leonard Cohen snippets, I encourage you to find him for yourself if you don't already know.

There is a crack, a crack, in everything, that's how the light gets in.

Even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free.

You who build these altars now, to sacrifice these children, you must not do it any more.

A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tested, by an angel or a god.

I lift my glass to the awful truth, which you can't reveal to the ears of youth,

except to say it isn't worth a dime.

Hold us near, and bind us tight, all your children here, in their rags of light,

In our rags of light, all dressed to kill, and end this night,

If it be your will.

Everybody knows the dice are loaded, everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

Everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost.

You got away, didn't you babe, you just turned your back on the crowd, 

You got away, I never once heard you say, "I need you, I don't need you."

What can I tell you, my brother, my killer, what can I possibly say,

I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you,

I'm glad you stood in my way.

If it be your will, that I speak no more,

That my voice be still, as it was before,

I will speak no more, I shall abide until

I am spoken for, if it be your will.

From this broken hill, all your praises they shall ring,

If it be your will, to let me sing.

Shalom Eliezer

Clear and Present Danger

I'm on shock and outrage overload these days, so I'm prioritizing what I really want to talk about.  Racism and xenophobia are high on my list, but they get beat for the number one spot by one thing: Climate change.  Human dignity and things like equality and freedom aren't going to mean much if we destroy our air, water and shove the carrying capacity of our planet towards the bad. I am a believer that a diversity of opinions is generally a good thing.  For instance, I'm not so certain of my own position on say the economic virtues of socialism as opposed to free marked capitalism that I would seek to squash a conversation about the relative merits in the public sphere, or to simply dismiss those who hold to the capitalist perspective as fools, they're not, and I'm not an economist, it's a pretty big question.
However, when it comes to climate change, and more particularly the reality of human agency in causing climate change, the evidence has piled up too high for reasonable people to argue about it.  If 90 plus percent of any scientific discipline agrees to some degree on anything, we layman and those in other disciplines would do well to heed that consensus.  Over 90 percent of those who study the climate of our planet agree that global temperatures are on the rise and that the rate of rise and its correlative Carbon Dioxide levels in the atmosphere are passing dangerous levels as we speak.  Whatever percentage of climate scientists disagree probably work for an oil company.
Simple majority opinion was not always a good indicator of scientific truth, just as Galileo, but these days the scientific method and the scientific mindset are well developed and rigorously adhered to by the community of actual scientists, even if the public at large is still prone to go off after fantastic and whimsical speculation.  In the "real" sciences, people know to hold their horses until a study, a paper or any finding has been peer reviewed and/or the data is proven to be repeatable and observable.  It took a while for climate change to reach this milestone, and we probably wasted some valuable time in the waiting, but it is there now, and we do not have an excuse any longer.
Beyond the raw science of the issue, there is also the issue of human motivations, which is more up my alley these days.  What motivations drive things like the Paris Accords? The desire for the long term health of our environment. Mitigation of climate driven disasters like floods, hurricanes, the fear that tropical diseases like malaria, yellow fever and even Ebola will become common and spread out further.  A case can be made that even things like the crisis in Syria essentially began with a drought that began the refugee crisis and sent people scrambling for someone who could help them survive a harsher, drier and more barren existence.  When people start watching their children starve they tend to get violent.  Climate change disproportionately effects the poor and the most vulnerable populations, it is most certainly a justice issue.
What drives the resistance to regulation and mitigation of CO2 emissions? Money. There is no other reason to deny what a shockingly dominant plurality of the scientific community is telling you.  Why else would you resist the data as you increasingly look more and more foolish?  Because Exxon-Mobile or Koch is, in some way, shape or form, paying you off.
Having lived in natural gas country for ten years, I am aware that this is not all about lobbyists buying off politicians.  This is also about the people, many of whom I care very much about, who make their living digging coal out of the ground, drilling for natural gas and working in coal burning power plants.  I have faces to go with the people that are directly effected by CO2 mitigation and I know there are difficult challenges to face along that path.  I know that a lot of them probably voted for Trump, and I can't really say I blame them. He promises them that they will be able to continue doing what they do and putting food on the table, and he sells them the lie they want to believe: all these negative things about climate change, those sappy ads about polar bears having a rough time, that's all just liberal propaganda and a Chinese hoax.
The fact of the matter is, those jobs aren't going to last forever, and we need to get real about that.  We need to get real about it because, if we don't our inaction is going to cause widespread suffering.  Our politicians have not done enough fast enough, because Shell and BP can put enough cash in their coffers to cover up any concern they may have for world they are leaving to their children and grandchildren.
Unfortunately, this is a problem that cannot be solved by some small group of people doing the right thing.  Those people who drive a Prius or choose to walk to work are not going to really make a dent in the global problem.  My compost heap or my decision to drive a more fuel efficient car is not going to stave off an environmental catastrophe.  We need our governments to get on the job, which is why I thought the Paris Accords were such a great step, especially when the US, China, India and most of the developed world all signed on.  Trump would scrap all of that progress (there's a hope that it's too late and he actually can't, but who knows). That is foolishness of the highest order, even if you're slightly skeptical of Waterworld or Mad Max type scenarios playing out.  It is like the reverse of that old mom argument: If everyone jumped off a bridge would you.  It is actually: Everyone (at least in the developed world) has decided not to jump off of this particular bridge, why do we still insist on doing it?

Rusty Cage

You wired me awake and hit me with a hand of broken nails,

You tied my lead and pulled my chain

to watch my blood begin to boil.

But I'm gonna break, I'm gonna break my,

I'm gonna break my rusty cage and run.

-Soundgarden, Rusty Cage

One of my summer jobs in college was working on a production line in a soda bottling plant.  It was mostly the generic brands of soda and so the packing equipment was, shall we say, not top of the line.  Most of the machines and the factory itself were a bit antiquated and there were nearly as many mechanics as there were machine operators.  For over a month, I worked on the night shift, which was where I met John, John was a stout, bald black man, probably in his 50's, and he had worked in the factory, or in some kind of factory for a long time.  He and his partner Al, a deep voiced white guy with really old weathered tattoos all over his forearms were like some sort of sitcom duo, a loud black guy who wasn't shy with his opinions and a slow laconic white guy from the old school working class.  They worked right on the other side of a doorway from me, and I could hang out in the archway and watch my machine while I listened to John rant and rave his way through an evening and with Al occasionally firing back or telling him to simply shut up. It passed the time.

John was a lover of chaos, whenever something would go wrong, like the power going out, or the time a forklift driver took out a thirty foot stack of soda can pallets, or the time a pressure tank went haywire, John would laugh, really really loud, like you could hear him over the din of the factory, and even more so in the silence and darkness of a power outage. The chaos of unforeseen trouble, or antagonism of his own making was what kept him sane, through the long hours of watching machines do their thing, and through a lifetime of the sort of job that reminded me viscerally why I needed to stay in college.

His blase attitude about things was pretty contagious to a college kid who was pre-disposed to like thunderstorms and mosh pits.  Then I was at home with chaos, because I had very little responsibility and very little to lose. Now I am not in that sort of place, I have a job, a house, two kids in school and quite a bit that I would like to protect.  Now chaos doesn't seem like fun to me.

But I was trying to tap into that last week as I dealt with the reality that Donald J Trump is going to be the next President. The exit polls told us that the desire for change was the primary motivation behind the rust belt and the working class going for Trump.  It is honestly not possible to frame Hillary as anything other than the paradigm of a Washington Political Insider.  She is about as hawkish as you can get, I had no doubt that she was probably going to get us into some kind of new war or re-ignite an old one.  She is beholden to big money and old school politics.  She essentially would be very much at home if her name was followed by an R instead of a D.

I was trying to comfort myself by telling myself that at least Trump might shake things up a bit, and I thoroughly believe that things could use some shaking.  Then of course the racist stuff started to happen, and that worries me, and that makes me angry for sure, but who knows, maybe that will calm down soon, maybe they will even listen to Trump as he so eloquently told them on 60 Minutes: "just stop it."  Don't make me come back there.

Then Trump selected his first two peeps, and my heart sank lower.  Reince Priebus, as White House Chief of Staff, okay, how is that a bold, outside the box pick?  How is that going to drain the swamp? Priebus has spent the better part of his career waist deep in the political muck. Look up "Status Quo" in the dictionary and there is Priebus' picture next to it.  You might argue that Trump picked someone from the inside to guide him as he sought to deconstruct the system, but this doesn't look like that.  Priebus' prior claim to fame was as the chair of the RNC that essentially lost control of the primary process and trotted out 16 stooges, of whom Trump ended up being Moe.

The next was Stephen Bannon, of the Alt Right and previously of Breitbart.  Bannon has been appointed as some sort of adviser to Trump.  Bannon has a track record to being accused of racist and anti-semitic propaganda (nothing concrete to be fair, but in the current atmosphere any inkling is probably too much).  Trump needs to be distancing himself from the racist, sexist and xenophobic tone of his election campaign if he stands any chance of being an effective leader in nation where he lost the popular vote.

Either candidate was going to have some work to do to gain some sort of unity and consensus in this country after what went down in the election.  Inviting a character like Bannon to be the devil on your shoulder doesn't exactly alleviate the fear of all those who are terrified of living in Trump's America.

At any rate it does not appear, at least in the early going, that Trump really intends on doing any of this world shaking that he promised during his campaign. His advisers and nominations look to be coming from the most usual of suspects. I suspect that his ascension is going to be marked by some of the same futility that has marked Obama's administration, and that is really going to twist some jockey shorts.  I wonder how all those people who threw their votes to Trump because they felt ignored and unheard by the establishment are going to feel when he ignores them for the next four years.

Backwash

Dear Lord, I thought it was bad before the election; poor naive little me, thinking that, one way or another some of the rancor would die once we dropped the cell door on the head of this election (if you don't get the Return of the Jedi reference, the big monster under Jabba the Hutt's throne room is called a Rancor, Luke kills it by dropping a big spiked door on its head, I'm scraping for levity here).
I honestly don't know where to begin, there's just so much angst out there. So I'm just going to put a few things down here that I think are important facts and considerations for us to sit with at this moment in time:

1. We don't really know if everything is going to be fine, so stop insisting that it is.  I talked yesterday about how God can make dry bones live, but it would be naive to imagine that bones in that vision got there by happy circumstances.  I have hope that a lot of things might make this whole thing not quite the disaster I fear it could be.  I'm reciting the Bene-Gessaret creed over and over in my head: "I must not fear, fear is the mind killer, fear is the little death that leads to total annihilation.  I will face my fear, I will allow to pass over me and through me and when it has gone, only I will remain."  I have hope that perhaps Trump is not the mad demagogue he appeared to be in the election.  I don't put it past him to put on an act to appeal to our discontent and dissatisfaction in order to win what may have been simply the biggest game he ever played.  If that is not the case, I have hope that our system of checks and balances will do some good, and the frustrating political machinery will grind him the same as it did Obama.  It is, however, not fair for me, a white, educated, middle class male, a member of the clergy, a person in a more secure position than most, to say to black, brown, LGBTQ, undocumented, female, unemployed, poor, uninsured, chronically ill, disabled people that they shouldn't be afraid of what might happen to them in Trump's America.  Honestly, I will probably be fine in Trump's America, but that doesn't mean that more vulnerable people will be, and that reality troubles me.  That is where I am looking for things to do and actions to take to ensure that these groups are not left worse off than they have been in the not so glorious past.
2. Our system is not perfect, but it is pretty good, and it worked the way it is supposed to work.  Twice in my lifetime, the popular vote has gone for a Democrat while the electoral college went for the Republican.  I have known this is how it worked since I was 12 years old. I'm honestly okay with it. It is a safeguard designed and instituted because our founding fathers were essentially elitists who did not trust the largely illiterate and under-educated masses to be able to sift out complicated political issues.  It generally works in favor of the Democratic Party, which dominates the geographically smaller but demographically greater regions along the coasts, except in 2000 and this year, when it didn't because Trump managed to peel away the rust belt that largely went for Obama in 2008 and 2012.  Sour grapes is not the way to go right now, and a strict popular system still does have very real hazards.
3. I do have questions about the people who voted for Trump, but it is not fair for me to call them racist, or sexist, or homophobic.  From what I can tell in the most honest and fair analysis, they are just frustrated and feeling rather neglected by the "establishment." Hey, yeah, me too, that was why I was so freaking high on Bernie Sanders dust, and why I was so "meh" about Hillary.  I have questions about how they are willing to look past his rather outlandish and uncouth behavior, and why they honestly think that he is telling them the truth about his intentions or his abilities, but I absolutely get why they didn't want four more years of the Clinton machine. I'm not entirely sure a Trump bull in the DC china shop is entirely a bad scenario.  I have doubts that he will be that agent for change, or if he even honestly wants to be.  I just don't sense the same genuine honesty from Trump that his supporters seem to, but I can't say beyond reasonable doubt that they're wrong.
4. Speaking of discontent, if you're really dissatisfied with the way the government works, it might behoove you to get involved more than once every four years.  Realize that who you elect as your local sheriff probably has more to do with your quality of life than who occupies the White House.  Want to balance the budget and get things moving in congress?  Want to fix the messed up tax system or the Affordable Care Act (and I don't mean repeal, that will hurt too many people, but it absolutely needs some fixing)?  You know who needs to do that?  It's not the Chief Executive, it should be the Congress, all those Representatives and Senators that you may not even be able to name, they are the ones who are supposed to design and pass legislation (that's why they call them legislators), and you get to vote for them too.  In fact, you get to vote for some of them even in non President-electing years, which most of you don't even bother to do.  I get it, watching C-SPAN is not for everyone, and even reading those nitty-gritty political articles can get a little snooze inducing, but hanging the entire function of our democracy on the President is just a little misinformed... okay it's downright stupid.
5. Last one for today: I'm worried about the venom that is getting spit all over the place by both sides right now. I'm not going to ooze out, "why can't we all just get along," (see item #1) But I believe we can survive, and maybe even thrive with President Trump (Lord that still gives me bad shivers) if we hold together on the ideals of our democratic republic.  I believe that we can live up to a higher standard than we ever have managed before if we engage the real problems we face instead of just trumping (no pun intended) up arguments against those with whom we disagree. It ain't gonna be easy, but it is possible, right America?

Well, Can They?

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord 
and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.  
He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, 
and they were very dry.  

He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?"  

I answered, "O Lord God, you know."

-Ezekiel 37: 1-3

The other night we decided to try and figure out our kids Myers-Briggs personality types.  As it turns out Jack is very much like me, an INTJ (though I am pretty neutral between judging and perceiving so sometimes I come out as an INTP, I probably was a super J though when I was just about to turn 13).  I read my son the characteristics of an INTJ, and something kept making him laugh: the fact that we hate to be wrong.  We would rather be right than nice, we would rather hold to the truth than protect people's feelings.  This has been real growing edge for me as I try to be a pastor, because in so much of what I do handling feelings and treating people with decency is a prerequisite for representing the truth of God's love for humankind.

I woke up this morning having to deal with the reality that I have been really wrong.  I assumed that Hillary Clinton was going to win this election, because Trump was just too bizarre for the American people.  I was incorrect in that assumption, now we all have to live with it.  I now actually find myself hoping (and praying even) that I am wrong about him.  I hope that he is not the proto-fascist that I have seen in his strong-man campaigning.  I hope he is not the bigot that the KKK apparently thinks he is, or the sexist that his "locker room talk" would make him out to be.

Four years from now, I would very much like to look back on the sour stomach and gloomy feelings of this rainy Wednesday and find that my anxiety about President Trump was unfounded.  I don't much care about the mechanisms of that relief, if it is four years of foundering and chaos, where he Forrest Gumps his way through, so be it.  If he actually does manage to "make America great," (I refuse to say again), all the better.

I have the feeling that I will be spending quite a bit of time in Ezekiel and the prophets in the near future.  I need to be reminded that God is with us, even in exile, no matter who the king is.  That's what I told my children this morning as we waited for the bus, I told them that the Bible is full of stories where God works despite of, and in direct opposition to the principalities and powers.  I have known this for quite some time, but I was holding on to a perhaps vain hope that maybe I would not live to see such days.

But here we are, and from my perspective the bones look very dry, but I must trust and know that they can live. I must also be aware of the reality that, if they do, it will probably be in surprising and unexpected ways. I have to put my selfish desire for vindication away.  I do not want the Trump presidency to be a disaster, even though it would prove that I was right.

So, now that the deed is done, and the vote is cast, I will pray for the shalom of the nation in which we live.  If Daniel can live under Nebuchadnezzar, if Elijah can survive Ahab and Jezebel, if Ezekiel can see the Lord of Hosts beside the rivers of Babylon, I can find God at work here in this time, in this place.

A Prayer for an Anxious Day

Wrong was easy, gravity helped it,

Right is difficult and long.

-Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir

For every matter has its time and way, although the troubles of mortals lie heavy upon them.

Indeed, they do not know what is to be, for who can tell them how it will be?

No one has the power to restrain the wind, or power over the day of death; 

There is no discharge from the battle, nor does wickedness deliver those who practice it.

All this I observed, applying my mind to all that is done under the sun,

While one person exercises authority over another to the other's hurt.

-Ecclesiastes 8: 6-9

Holy God, calm our souls that rage within us.

As we turn the wheels of democracy, this new and audacious idea.

Make us thankful for the place in which we stand,

For all the masses of humanity for whom self-determination is a dream they can scarcely imagine.

For those for whom, by accident of birth, it remains beyond hope.

We pray this day for those who are moved to this sacred duty by anger.

We pray for those who approach the voting booth with disdain, fear, or a sense of hopelessness.

We pray for those who have forsaken their voice in apathy.

We pray for those who have not counted the cost or moved beyond the dog whistle summons.

We pray for those who think this day is going to solve the difficult problems we face.

Encourage those who have been moved to action.

Let this day be the beginning of their involvement,

Not the End.

Remind us that you have chosen to side with the least and the last

That your kingdom is not of this world.

Cause us to remember the old stories of your justice

Which overwhelmed kings and gods alike.

We pray for the welfare of the cities, states and our nation,

We pray for leaders who will act wisely,

With a heart for all of those under their authority.

We pray for a return to cooperation instead of bitter division;

We pray for a open conversation instead of shouting and acrimony;

We pray for mercy to once again be a virtue,

We pray that justice would reign in our land,

We pray that we would live up to our own high ideals,

We pray that your hand would guide us and keep us,

Calm us and let us move forward in hope and faith.

In the name of Jesus Christ, in whom we live, and breathe and have our being, Amen.

Just a Few More Steps

I am so ready for tomorrow. I'm ready for this debacle to be over.  No matter who wins or what happens, this election has left us all with less dignity.  There is widespread evidence of voter suppression in the South, there are zany ploys to try and get the Amish to vote in the North.  The Klu Klux Klan is somehow in the news on a daily basis. I'm just done.
The Amish thing is peculiar to me, because I have lived in proximity to the Amish for a good part of my life.  I grew up in Chester County Pennsylvania, near Lancaster, where the movie Witness, starring Harrison Ford was set. Then I lived for ten years in Indiana County Pennsylvania in the middle of a pretty sizable Amish Community.  We had buggies go by our house on a daily basis.  Even down here in Southern Maryland, I can pop down the street to the Charlotte Hall library and go to the Amish produce stands through the summer months.
I am by no means an expert on all things Amish, but through simple contact and observation I have learned a few things about them.  First off is that they are probably what you would consider conservative in a lot of ways, however there are some key points of variation.  The most obvious would be pacifism, and this they take pretty seriously.  They do not serve in the military or believe in the practice of "an eye for an eye." They take Jesus whole "turn the other cheek," teaching as absolutely binding.
Because our government, Democrat or Republican led, is pretty much constantly engaged in waging wars and inflaming violence around the world, the Amish more or less wash their hands of the whole scenario.  Voting is not forbidden, but it is highly discouraged, on the grounds that no earthly government is actually going to truly represent or even be amenable to the values of the Kingdom of Heaven (a lesson that is being hard learned by many other Christians).
Another point of variation, which you might glaze over because it seems so quaint among the Amish, is that they are essentially communist, in what I consider to be the absolute best way.  They share the burdens of the community, they rely on one another to overcome difficulties.  They are also pretty shrewd businessmen, and their work ethic is more or less above and beyond wonderful. As much as the free market capitalist idolatry of the modern GOP would like to claim the Amish as paragons of virtues for the fact that they shun government assistance, even Social Security.  That adoption does not hold water if you consider the complexity of what it means to live the Amish way.
In as much as they resonate with the traditional "family values" that the GOP has tried to claim, it's hard to believe that they would see those values reflected in Donald J. Trump, even if they don't have Twitter accounts or television.
The one fact that might actually motivate the Plain Folk to actually vote for Trump is one that is not terribly flattering or idealistic: Hillary is a woman.  Amish society is highly patriarchal, even if it is egalitarian in many respects, women have defined roles, and leadership of the community is not one of them. Honestly I wonder if this isn't the only reason she isn't cruising to an absolute crushing victory among the general population, but that's the cynic in me oozing out again. I'm trying to keep him on a leash for about 48 more hours.
All the same, if you're excited about volunteering to drive the Amish to vote tomorrow, prepare to be underwhelmed.  They will usually gladly take a ride to Wal-Mart though, I mean if  you really want to help.

A Season of Faith's Perfection

The Chicago Cubs won the World Series.  I'm not a Cubs fan, or even a particularly enthusiastic baseball person.  I mostly just tune in for parts of the World Series and often fall asleep during what games I decide to watch.  I like to go out to the ball park for games if someone throws free tickets at me. I get slightly more amped when the Phillies decide to show up about every twenty years or so, but I'll tell you what watching into the wee hours of the morning to see the Cubbies finally close out their first championship since 1908 (yes you heard that right, 1908) felt awfully profound.
The Chicago Cubs have been the "lovable losers" since before my grandfather was born.  The last time this happened nobody knew what a World War was, the Nuclear Age was science fiction, heck electricity was still new to a lot of towns and horses were still the main mode of transportation. 108 years of futility and mediocrity came to an end last night, the Goat, the Black Cat and the Bartman incident, all history.
Then there's this:

If that doesn't give you the feels, check your pulse.
The thing that sports do for us these days is bring us together.  Whether you're a fan of the team or not there's something about watching a group of humans rise together against the very hand of fate itself that lifts us all.  It was a little sad that they did it at the expense of the Cleveland Indians, another forlorn franchise that finally got to the big show.  It would be possible to actually write a very similar article had the Tribe prevailed, but Cleveland has Lebron and the Cavaliers to soften that blow this year.
The Cubs did this the hard way.  They came into the playoffs as the consensus "best team in baseball."  An unusual place for them and it showed.  They fell to a 3-1 series deficit to the Tribe, including two losses at Wrigley, they went back to Cleveland with doom hanging over their head, but they didn't die.  They pushed it to a game 7, because of course they did.  They took a 6-2 lead into the 8th inning and, as soon as their second starting pitcher put a man on, they brought in their fire-throwing closer, Aroldis Chapman.
Chapman has been close to un-hittable this season with the Yankees and the Cubs, he throws 105mph plus, he is a prototype closer.  But he has been working a lot more innings and throwing a lot more pitches than a closer probably should.  He was gassed. He gave up the lead in the 8th and somehow, someway held on to the tie score in the bottom of the 9th.  It was a gutsy performance, but one he probably should have never been called on to make.  Joe Maddon was desperate though, his staff was worn out, his hitters were being anything but reliable, and he was so close to breaking "the Curse," that he could taste it.
I felt as bad for Chapman as I could possibly muster for a dude who started the season suspended for domestic violence issues, and I was suitably impressed with how he stuck it out and pulled through.
The game went to extra innings, and had a rain delay between the 9th and 10th, because of course it did.  Fate was obviously messing with Chicago Cubs and their fans.
You could see it on their faces.  Old men whose father's had never seen a Cubs title were wondering if this year was going to be another bitter pill to swallow, if it was going to be 109 years, another close but no cigar.  They had no right to believe, but they still did.
Lo and behold, the 10th saw the Cubs pull back ahead, two runs even. They needed them both as it turns out, but they managed to hold on to an 8-7 victory, and grown men everywhere wept tears of joy. I didn't shed tears, but I was duly impressed at seeing a sight that has not been seen on earth for a very long time: The World Champion Chicago Cubs.

All Saints

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,

let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, 

and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us...

-Hebrews 12: 1

I have known a lot of Saints.

None of them have had churches named after them or gotten special days.  Some of them were cranky and drank too much.  Some of them had not been in a church for a long time. Others were drug addicts and mentally ill. If you looked at them with human eyes you never would have known.

Saints can be sneaky.

Luckily it's not up to us to figure out who they are.  So we just focus on the relatively few who have shown us their true faces, and been recognized. Some of them have cool stories too, many of them did really amazing things. But there is a challenge set before us by Jesus, and that is to recognize the Saints that don't look like Saints, the ones he calls "the least of these, my brothers," and "these little ones."

The "cloud of witnesses," isn't just that dear old lady that taught you in Sunday School, it also includes the coworker who bugs you on a daily basis.  It isn't just the kind and Godly man who sits faithfully in the church pew every week, it is also the crazy lady in the supermarket holding up the line with a wad of crinkled coupons.

Some Saints are here to show you what you could be.

Other Saints are here to teach you how to love, and make you practice.

All the famous Saints know a secret: they're not that good, really.

Each one of them knows how much they were forgiven, they may have even kept a careful record of all their sins.  They sometimes did what they did out of guilt, weighed down by the mistakes they made and all the people they hurt.  Like Augustine, who thought so much and so well about God that most of us don't even realize that everything we think we know about God probably came from something he said or wrote.  But Augustine had a mistress, and he never did right by her, he's still a Saint, with all the honors.

Should we silence his voice because we know what he did?

God does no such thing.

What about Abraham, the Father of us all by blood or faith?  

He sent one of his servants and the child they had together off into the wilderness to die.

How about David, the Great King and the singer of Psalms? 

He was an adulterer and a murderous one at that.

You know the stories of these people we call Saints.

Peter denied Jesus.

Paul breathed threats and murder against the church.

They were redeemed, forgiven, and loved.

The stories ought to tell us that God loves a fixer upper.

The stories ought to tell us that no-one is beyond that sort of grace.

We ought to see that we are the Saints, all of us.

This day, and every day.

Not because we're good, but because God is Love.

-All Saints Day - 2016

Standing on a Rock

There have been times, over the last few months, when I have wanted to just leave the internet altogether (except for you Amazon, I'll always love you).  Social media has been giving me fits and I have to keep telling myself about one of my cardinal rules: don't argue with people on Facebook or Twitter, it's just never going to make anything good happen.  There is just so much nonsense out there, so much untruth, half-truth and willful obfuscation.  It provokes nausea.

But there are times when the Interweb lives up to it's promise, and one of those times is when the powerful look to flex their muscles against those who would refuse to be oppressed. It has been a core of the protest against police misconduct: the recording and sharing of pictures and videos that make the truth of otherwise confused and chaotic encounters more available and reliable (not perfect still, but better).

Right now, you can hear the voices and see the faces of the group of people protesting at Standing Rock North Dakota.  Their cause has risen into public awareness thanks largely to social media, because very little has been said or written about on the network news programs or newspapers.  You can see pictures of police and security forces in riot gear and with military vehicles looming over lines of protesters in flannel shirts and with traditional native garb.  Tanks versus horses, dogs and guns versus unarmed protesters. The United Nations and Amnesty International are watching how our nation responds to this.

The issue is essentially oil money versus the people of the Standing Rock Reservation.  Their reasons for protest are many, deep rooted in the history of this nation of ours.  To the Lakota people, the Dakota Access Pipeline is just another in a long list of offensive invasions against their place and their identity.  I don't want to engage in doe-eyed idealism of the Native peoples as harmonious stewards of the land.  While there may be some truth in the notion that their sense of connection to the land leads them to a more responsible stewardship of their environment, it is not a purely environmental cause at the heart of the crisis in Standing Rock.

Sure, pipelines are environmentally suspicious, they can leak and pollute the water.  As conduits of fossil fuels they inherently contribute to our dependency on non-renewable and pollution causing sources of energy.  There certainly are valid ecological reasons to oppose the pipeline, but to me the more compelling argument is the human rights and human dignity of this protest.

Imagine if you will, that someone wants to build a pipeline through your church, or your favorite park, or the place where you had your fondest childhood memories.  Even if they could promise that the pipeline would be leak free, even if they promised that they would try to mitigate as many of the "side effects" as they could, would you trust it?  Now imagine that the same people who were making these promises had broken promises to generations and generations of your ancestors, could you trust it?

That is where the Lakota people are standing now. It is about the water, it is about the land, but it is also about the history.  In this history, Europeans, Americans, White People, corporations and the US government cannot pretend to be the good guys. We are being faced yet again with what we pledge our allegiance to: is it money? Is it oil? Is it the "free market?" Or is it human dignity?  What's it going to be? Where are we going to stand?

Almost...

I could go vote today, and get it over with.  I'm not sure I want to though, it would be like opening a Christmas present early, it feels good at the time, but then... a letdown.
What am I saying, this whole election is a letdown.  It's an extremely important letdown, but most of us feel like we're not going to get what we want, I think, including the candidates. I can't imagine that anyone is going to come out of this experience feeling better about themselves. It's like eating at Taco Bell, you went because you were hungry, lazy and poor, and because some little voice in your head said, "don't worry, this time it will be better."
The past few months have proven that our nation has a fragile ego, is easily distracted and seduced and can't seem to keep our eye on the actual problems at hand.  I know, the election isn't over yet.  It really doesn't matter, even if the Trumpocalypse is averted, we're still going to get four more years of status quo politics, while the Democrats behave exactly like Republicans used to, and the Republicans try to convince themselves that Trump really isn't who they are.
I have a bit of the indigestion already.
The thing is, smarter people than me have noticed that the discontent that fuels Trump is not terribly different than the discontent that fuels me and the others who were feeling the Bern.  We all have this sense that the system is rigged to benefit people like Hillary and Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.  The clever trick that the Donald has pulled is convincing the proletarians that he was one of them.  He's not, and he has pulled down whatever integrity and gravitas the working class might have had with his orange-ish crassness and unhinged rhetoric.
If you haven't watched this already, I'm just going to leave this here:

The way that Tom Hanks quite artfully illustrates the fact that the driving force behind many Trump supporters resonates with the sort of distrust of government, angst at the system, and general disenchantment with how things work is actually oddly touching. I have been trying to develop some sort of empathy for people who are willing to support such a racist and sexist embarrassment.  I am hoping and trying to believe that not all the people with Trump signs in their yard are "deplorable," but bedfellows like the KKK and Alt-right definitely cast doubt on that hope.

The "indigestion" of this election is going to be the difficult process of learning to trust one another again.  It very well might be a severe case of botulism though.  I'm not sure that we are going to be able to reverse the trend of polarized thinking that has become the hallmark of this election.

Best case scenario: November 9 is like waking up from some sort of fever dream and we all get to put it behind us. We move forward with Hillary, and she manages to be a bit more upright than Bill and bit more effective than Barack.  We forget all this nastiness and tom-foolery and work at becoming a more perfect union.

Worst case scenario: The next President of these United States: Donald J. Trump.

Somewhere in between: First woman President gets pretty much the same obstructionist environment that our first black President was given. Four more years of barely avoiding budget catastrophes and not fixing the problems we all face together.  Four years (at least) of Clinton-ism, where politics (some would argue dirty politics) is the par we're shooting with very few moves in a truly positive direction.

I'm hoping for the best, bracing for the worst, and probably going to get some variety of the middle, just like Taco Bell, maybe the cramps won't be that bad this time.

Aim Higher

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, 

"You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, 

and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me." 

When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

-Mark 10: 21-22

The other night we watched the launch of an Antares rocket from Wallops Island in Virginia.  From our vantage point here in Southern Maryland the rocket was a smallish orange ball of fire rising into the night sky.  We had the video feed from the launch site playing on my phone, the video showed the control room, and the launch pad, it had the voice communications of all the control crew, reporting the status of various systems.  "Such and such a complicated sounding system is Nominal," "another complicated thing is green."  Caitlyn, in her un-self-conscious eleven year old wisdom, said, "Those are a bunch of smart people," referring to the people in the control room and the voices on the comm.

"Yes, they are," I said, and for some reason I had this sort of sad feeling that's taken me about a day and half to sort out.

Don't get me wrong, sad feelings are pretty normal for me, I'm sort of wired that way, but the thing is this was out of place, it was a nice night and we were doing a neat thing with the kids.  The kids were not in the state of tween ennui that has become pretty standard in our house these days.  They were stoked, hanging on the count down, pointing at the admittedly un-spectacular orange blob in the sky.  They had a sense of the rather remarkable feat of human endeavor that is our space program.

I think the sadness came from the reality that even the imagination sparking adventure of space exploration has been hamstrung by dollar signs. We launch un-manned satellites and rockets mostly these days.  The space shuttles are museum pieces, we haven't been back to the moon in nearly 50 years, the occasional probe launch to the side, most of what we do is dull and pragmatic, even if it is still technologically impressive.

That rocket NASA launched on Monday night, was a supply capsule for the space station.  On the interesting side: we have a space station, but every few years someone has to decide whether that is even worth the bills that it runs up, and that is sort of what's disappointing on an existential level.  If space stuff can make us a buck, it will happen faster than you can say Apollo, if it's just about the drive to get "out there," well, it's proving to take a bit longer.

In the Star Trek imagination, one of the prerequisites for true space exploration was the motivation to move beyond money.  In the movie First Contact, that fundamental change is precipitated by contact with the Vulcan people, finally proving to a troubled human race that we are not alone in the universe.  In one of the episodes of The Next Generation, there is a conversation between Counselor Troi and a time traveling Mark Twain.  Troi explains to Mr. Clemens that humanity has moved beyond the need for money, and he just can't get a handle on how anything would get done.

That's a problem that I think most of us have: even imagining that there might be an alternative to money.  If you didn't get paid, would you still do your job?  If you didn't need to get paid, if all of your needs and most of your wants were provided for what would you do?  The optimistic vision of Star Trek, is that it would free you up to do what you are really called to do.  An oddly more realistic vision may actually be what happens in the movie Wall-E where humanity adapts to having all of their work done by robots by essentially losing the ability to do anything for themselves, evolving into morbidly obese slugs that float around an enormous intergalactic carnival cruise liner in hover pods.

It occurs to me that the difference between the two visions is simply one of purpose.  In Star Trek, people were given a different option: "explore of strange new worlds, seeking out new life, new civilizations, boldly going where no one has gone before."  In Wall-E, they were not, they were just essentially allowed to atrophy, having all their needs and wants met by machines.  The question before all of us, if we are ever going to move beyond money, is what vision are we pursuing?

When Jesus asks the rich young man to sell everything he owns, he is advocating more than just a sacrifice for the sake of charity to the poor.  He is offering the young man a choice of coming with him on an adventure of discipleship, or staying put in his comfortable relationship with Mammon.  The sadness comes because the young man is not able to choose the path of discipleship.  He wants to follow Jesus, but he is too enmeshed in his relationship to money.

I'll be honest with you, I want us to aim higher, I want to aim higher than just money, but I also come to these moments where I grieve because I have many possessions.

Bill Clinton's famous line "It's the economy stupid," makes me involuntarily grind my teeth, because it is so inescapably true.  It is statement of our idolatry, proof of the master we serve.

Thankfully we're still shooting these little pods of stuff off of the face of earth, we're still sending our robot surrogates to Mars and Pluto and beyond. I guess I'm just longing for a little more discovery and little less accounting.