Sick Day

Jack got hit on Saturday, Michele went down Sunday, we managed to skip over Monday (apparently the balance of the universe was satisfied with pouring rain and generally Mondayishness).  Today,  woke up feeling fine, took Cate to a doctor appointment, everything was going well, until I dropped her off at school.  Somewhere between her school and the church, I started to feel a little off, and as much as I tried to deny it, I could tell the fast-moving ick had come for me.
As is usually the case, this sort of thing happened on a day when I had big plans, but providentially, nothing that wouldn't survive and go forward without me.  I came home and went to bed, sleep is apparently the thing this particular brand of sick requires, it let's you rest, in fact, it seems to demand that you do so.  That puts it in the category of a "nice" sickness.
When I woke up, I ate some toast and felt a little better, so I watched a movie: The Dallas Buyers Club, which I knew was about a disease that is not nice at all, HIV.  The movie tells the story of a self-absorbed, bigoted redneck who contracts AIDS in the mid 1980s, when it was still thought of as a disease that only hit homosexual men.  The story follows his quest to stay alive and also consequently become a better person.  He has to fight himself, he has to fight the medical/pharmaceutical industry, he has to fight the regulatory powers of the government.
To tell you the truth, the whole thing leaves you feeling a bit disgusted with the way we were, and also reminds you of the flaws in the way we still are.  The world of medical research continues to be the source of some of our greatest miracles and some of our greatest dysfunction.  When you hear about the processes that have to take place before we can do something so crucial as say, create an Ebola vaccine, you start to get a decidedly sinking feeling as the death toll rises.
Despite what movies sometimes indicate, science usually rides to the rescue very slowly.  There are things that slow progress at every turn, not the least of which is the economic reality of the pharma business.  Drugs that  are lucrative will get out there a lot faster than drugs that are going to basically have to be given away because, let's face it, the people dying of Ebola in West Africa aren't exactly the Botox set.
If you need a drug to help you look younger or give you an erection or help you pee less often, or poop more often, we're all good, but if you're dying of AIDS or Ebola, well we need to make sure anything you take is FDA approved, and getting FDA approval can take years, because, you know, we need to make sure we're safe... from lawsuits.
It's actually kind of sickening, and not in the way that can be solved by taking a nap, which I did again after watching DBC.  I know that the story was told with a bit of a lean towards the quixotic hero, I know the FDA is a necessary thing, but as I study the gospels week in and week out, I see pharisaic insistence on the rules over the needs and suffering of God's children as a devil that still haunts our shrubbery.
This fits sort of hand in hand with my snag from yesterday; do you think we can ever get over ourselves and really do the things we are so obviously capable of doing?  Do you think we can ever move past the need for massive bureaucracies and the slavery of economic "realism?"  Can we get over it?  Maybe after a good nap.

Snagged

Sometimes when you're fishing you get snagged on something under the water, and you usually try to free your hook and often end up breaking your line.  One time when I was fly fishing, I had my line sort of trailing behind me down stream, contemplating the next cast up into a rather promising looking pocket of water at the base of a large boulder.  When I started to gather my line in to start casting, I was hooked on something.  As I began to curse and do my usual "letsgetunsnagged" routine (that's trademarked by the way), I realized that the thing I was snagged on was an actual fish, which turned out to be one of the nicer trout I caught that day (actually it was the only trout, but it sounds better if  you think I caught fish not by accident too).
I got snagged yesterday during my sermon, in a similar way, by something I thought was kind of off the course and maybe could even derail the whole mess.  I said I would talk about it some other time, and I think I certainly will, but I want to hash it out here before I forget.  It may even be the actual trout I was fishing trying to catch in the first place.  The parable was about the talents and what the slaves did with the talents.  I was talking about economics and how our idea of economics was different from the ideas that first century Jews would have had.  As I was winding my way along, the thought-snag occurred to me: what if, at some point in the future, we actually get to the point where we realize, with some urgency, that we all need to get along a lot better than we do.  What if we realize that a world where everyone has enough and greed does not rule our economy, is actually a beautiful idea that is worth working for every bit as much as personal acquisition.
I know the idea could be described utopian, naive, marxist, and all sorts of other pejorative words, and I know that sin is a thing, but what if we ever get to the point where we, on a primal level, realize that our connections are stronger than our differences?  What if indeed.
I'm snagged on that idea.  I'm snagged on the idea because my daughter, with intuitive grace, asked the question that sort of unlocked the sermon for me at least: "why don't people realize that they can't be happy unless they give to others?"
Why do we buy the disgusting myth thing must always remain broken?
Why do we accept the logic of the various and sundry proponents of the status quo, who say, "That will never change"?
On our visit to Mount Vernon, I was thinking a lot about antebellum slavery.  From the moment we pulled up, I couldn't help thinking about how the remarkable and heroic George Washington was a slave owner, and about how all the remarkable features of the Mount Vernon estate were founded on the backs of slaves.  Down in the corner of the property, below the Washington family crypt is the slaves graveyard and monument.  Hundreds of nameless people buried in unmarked graves, and very lately memorialized.  I thought about the fact that G-Wash had emancipated the slaves at Mount Vernon upon his death, but also about how he held on to a practice that he must have somehow recognized as un-just, as long as it benefited him in some way.
I thought about the myth of just and benevolent slave owners.  I though about the fact that many of the slaves probably actually did live with more dignity and probably in more comfort at places like Mount Vernon than some of the freedmen experienced in the cities of the north.  I thought about, for a moment, the fact that the system seemed utterly ironclad to the likes of Washington and Jefferson, but would be gone, declared illegal and immoral, in less than 100 years.
I wondered if my own feeling of helplessness at an income inequality, systemic injustice, persistent poverty, and a culture so acquisitive and consumptive that it cannot possibly be called moral.  I wonder if some day those things that crush us, will seem as far away, and unfortunate as slavery (at least in its antebellum form) seems to us these days.
Moreover, I wonder, and I hope that God is working us towards that point.  That hope is the snag that I think is turning out to be what I was fishing for all along.
Something inside me tells me that, from a human perspective, it's impossible, but then again, where do I of all people, get off looking at things from a purely human perspective?  I guess I need to keep a better look out for what God is doing.

The Least I Can Do

This is the week where our Church hosts the local homeless shelter program called Safe-nights.  Our local community action group spends the cold months of the year moving a group of 30 or so homeless folk around to different churches and community centers in the county.  They have cots and blankets and the host churches provide dinner and breakfast.  It's a really huge effort, which over the course of a winter can host upwards of four hundred people.  Four hundred homeless people, some of whom are children, just in this county.
If I think about it too long, it just makes me steaming mad.  When I look at these little faces that come with their bowls for some ice cream after dinner, I think two things:

1. I am so glad to be able to give them something.
2. I wish I knew some way to fix this.

I saw a little internet video done by comedian Russell Brand (who is showing up as the voice of conscience and reason rather more often than would expect from a man who makes his living telling dirty jokes).  He gave a rather alarming comparison: we could end homelessness in this country with the money that we, as a nation, spend on Christmas decorations.  I inherently distrust these sorts of comparisons, because I wonder how exactly this sort of thing is extrapolated on both ends (how much do we actually spend and how much would it actually cost to end homelessness, and is it a purely financial phenomenon).  But I do have to think that there are ways we could do better than we are for less than the cost of one of our more trivial expenditures.
I mean, if we're really going to celebrate Jesus birth, especially with the story that most of us have adopted about the circumstances of his birth, we ought to be working a little harder to make sure there is room in the inn.
This homelessness thing is a societal problem, it is a result of our capitalist economic system, which is good in many ways, except when it must deal with matters where profit is difficult or impossible.  Our church must invest a moderate amount of time, energy and money into participating in this network, but it's the least we can do, if we wish to care for the least of these.
Even these little ones though are not the least, because they can pass muster with the system, they can play by the rules long enough to get a warm place to sleep and a few good meals. There are some who are too mentally ill, or too addicted to drugs, or just too anti-social to be able to host in this program.
Some of the people that are with us now seem like they may be a little on the edge of acceptability, and one wonders if they would or could ever learn to "play the game" well enough to make it out of homelessness forever.  I suspect that some people might always choose to live on the margins of society.
It is a fairly common move to start to consider the most extreme cases rather than the ones closest to the path.  Indeed, in those sorts of shocking cases, it's tempting to feel like you're just enabling some really destructive life choices.
You can't let that stop you, do what you can.
As I wrote about last week, with the example of the people arrested for feeding the homeless, sometimes we don't actually see how selfish we're being.
Tonight is my third night of sleeping on a cot in my office, for the sake of this little project.
Every time I'm tempted to feel like a martyr because I'm not home in my own bed, I come back to this realization: I am so blessed.
When I look at my kids, taking their beds and their food for granted, I'm not mad at them, I 'm so glad that I can give them what they need.
At the same time I want us all to look for ways to fix the system, it's the least we can do.

Thank You

Today is the day that we celebrate the service of those who have been a part of our nation's armed services: Veteran's Day.  There is an awful lot of baggage that comes with our country's military activity over the past 50 years or so, but I have been and I remain thankful for the individuals who serve and for the system that trains and equips them.  Our armed forces are truly remarkable on many levels, and regularly engage in work that is absolutely beneficial and often humanitarian in some of the most difficult places in the world.
As someone who has very little martial inclination, I especially appreciate the fact that there are men and women, fellow Americans, who are willing and able to do the sorts of things that are necessary for peace and security in an unstable world.  Because I don't really want to handle that stuff on my own.
I hold in my heart a persistent tension: as much as I despise war, I truly appreciate soldiers.
In fact, my opinions on war are largely informed by my relationship with people who have been soldiers.  I have had the privilege of knowing a good number of soldiers, sailors and Marines: my grandfather, my uncle, several dozen church members over the years.  On the occasions when I have spoken to them about war and fighting and such their perspectives have struck me as being remarkably circumspect.  Much more so than the macho posturing that one often encounters among militaristic sycophants.
None of them seem to hold their valor with any amount of pride, and most of them would rather tell you about their scars than their medals.  It has been extremely interesting to me that, in real life, men who have been to war are often more compassionate than those who it seems dream about it.  It is my experience of the actual veterans that I have known, rather than some idealized version, which informs my thinking on this list of things we owe our soldiers:

1. Mission: they should be given a purpose, and that purpose should be as crystal clear as possible.  We should never have to describe the places we send our soldiers as a quagmire.  I can guarantee you, in those times when our Armed forces found themselves in such a mess, it was not their own ineptitude that created it.
2. Honor: We should give them a change to be honorable, and we should honor their service, even and especially when we disagree with the job they have been given by our leaders, who we have elected.
3. Gratitude: And I'm not just talking about saying thanks on Veteran's Day, I'm talking about doing the things that need done to help them live the life that they fought for.   Whether it's physical and medical care or psychological healing, we need to make sure we're caring for ALL the wounds they might carry as s result of what we have asked of them.
4. Peace: Every soldier I have known dreamed of being home when they were away.  None of the ones who saw war up close and personal thought it was something to celebrate.  The best way we can thank our soldiers is to create a world where fighting is not necessary.
5. Grace: Realize that they are not superheroes, they are simply men and women who have a particular job, and that job benefits us all.  Understand that, even though they may be willing to lose their lives for our sake, we should do everything possible to make sure that they can enjoy a long and plentiful helping of the very things they fought for.

Those are the things I pledge to give our soldiers in any way that is within my power, I will do it with my votes and my prayers, with my words and my actions,  I will try to remember to say thank you whenever I can, until we study war no more.

The Mind Killer

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

-Frank Herbert, Dune

The Litany Against Fear of the Bene Gesserit

I have to admit, for a made up religion in a science fiction novel, that's pretty good stuff.  Almost, I dare say, worth committing to memory.  You will notice below on what I like to call the Wheel O' Feelings, that fear or feeling scared is a primary emotion, from which spring all sorts of other emotions.

*this is the most common version of the Wheel of Feelings..

All fairly negative emotions.  In fact, out of the three negative core feelings: mad, sad and scared, fear is the least constructive.  We all know that anger can be an engine and a source of strength, and anyone who has ever read poetry or listened to music knows that sadness has it's own creative juice, but fear... not so much.  If fear doesn't get transmuted into something else (hopefully a positive emotion, but failing that at least into constructive anger or reflective sadness) it just leads us into the muck.

And thus everyone, from guidance counselors to Jedi Masters will tell you that avoidance is probably not the best way to deal with your fear.  What Herbert uses as the core of his Bene Gesserit Litany against fear is the idea that your fear is a useful indicator of sorts, something like the tracer dye that they use to diagnose certain types of cancer, it marks the places where you are weak, and shows you where you need to grow or heal.

Fear can often limit our ability to experience the positive things of the world, and thus fear is often the greatest culprit that keeps us from living as our true selves.  Fear of what other people will think, fear of rejection, fear of failure, and ultimately fear of death, are some pretty universal human emotions, and generally speaking, do they lead anywhere?

Only if you manage to move past them.

It troubles me that so many people seem to be religious because they're afraid of something.  In a lot of cases, people seem to be afraid of God.  To which some will say, "well, that's because, 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."  But actually, blind fear and the willful ignorance it engenders, do not lead to any such thing.  Only fear in the sense of reverence or perhaps some good old fashioned awe and wonder will really lead to more wisdom.

We cannot actually help being afraid.  People who have done immense acts of courage will tell you, if they're being honest, that they were terrified the whole time.  That's actually why they're brave, not because they didn't feel the fear, but because they pushed through it, or rather, to use Herbert's words they let it pass through them.

When you analyze your fear in retrospect, you can often see how truly brave you were, and that's where learning and truth can come in.

The Christian journey of faith is, in large part, a journey of letting the fear of God become something different than just feeling scared of God.  Let it become Awe, let it become reverence, but never forget that God loves you.

Outrage Du Jour

Have you heard about Fort Lauderdale arresting a couple of pastors and an absolutely adorable 90 year old man for feeding homeless people?
Of course you have, because the interweb locks on anything that outrageous like a patriot missile.  And I have to admit, it gives me a good case of the same kind of sinking feeling that Ian Mckellan's narrative in The Lord of the Rings does, you know, when he says "the strength of men failed."  Because it's a cultural failure of empathy, this sort of thing, and it's not just happening in dead-red places like Florida either.  How can we call ourselves decent people, let alone Christians, if we make rules that say you can't share food with people who are hungry?  How can we arrest pastors and little old men who just want to do something nice for people who are down and out?  What are we becoming?
These are all good and valid questions, but as Bob Dylan says, "Take the rag away from your face, now ain't the time for your tears."
See, somewhere in the kerfuffulous outrage of all this, someone missed a detail.  Fort Lauderdale, as is the case with many medium to large cities, actually has a fairly well developed social services system to deal with the needs of the homeless.  They work towards feeding, clothing and sheltering the homeless.  As with most government bureaucracies, they probably don't do it perfectly, and there are probably folk that fall through the cracks.  They may not have enough resources and their provisions may be uninspiring (I have personally seen homeless people throw away sandwiches given out by the shelters, because, in their own words, "I can find better food in a dumpster.")  But they are there, and they are doing something that most private do-gooders are not, namely trying to get people to not be homeless in the first place.
Now, this doesn't soothe the outrage away entirely.  Fort Lauderdale is still a corporate jerk wad for arresting little old men who feed people in the park, but as with most situations where red flags are being waved to arouse all sorts of righteous indignation, things are more complicated.
Here's a thumbnail sketch of the reasons why some cities are choosing to make feeding the homeless illegal:
First of all, it's not illegal per se, it just must be regulated.  Fort Lauderdale, being in Florida is a good test case of this need, because like most of Florida, it has the climate of an armpit, meaning warm and humid almost all of the time, and safely serving food in said armpit-like conditions can be tricky.  If you buy a taco from a lunch truck, hopefully you will see a department of health license somewhere within said vehicle, if  you don't, get your taco someplace else.
Second, and this is perhaps less morally tasty, feeding people good food, for which they are not required to do anything, does nothing to remedy the condition of homelessness.  Although it does keep them from starving to death, so from a personal compassion point of view it's good, but from a societal perspective, especially in places like Florida (see flip side of armpit coin) where you're not going to freeze to death on an average February day, if you can get fed and don't mind the minor inconvenience of living the outdoor lifestyle, why would you bother with a job or being a responsible member of society?  I know, it's a bit thin, but it does bear a little truth.
I wondered this morning, as I was stewing about this whole mess, whether this was a problem for Jesus.  Did he ever heal a leper and then have that person decide that begging for alms was just easier than participating in actual life, and so pretend to still have leprosy?  And what about the demoniacs?  Because if you're going to deal with the mental illness aspect of homelessness you should look at those.  Does the Gerasene Demoniac, who was living among the tombs, once he is cured and in his right mind, go get a job?  How well was his community going to accept him, even if he "seems fine now?"  His wild years are always going to be a stigma.
Unfortunately, with the exception of Mary Magdalene, we don't have any long term accountability studies of people that Jesus healed, we don't know if he really did them any favors by his wanton acts of charity.  I'm only being a little sarcastic here, because the grain of truth in what is otherwise a morally reprehensible act of un-charity, is a perpetual burr under the saddle of anyone who really wants to help impoverished people.
Where is the line between helping and enabling?
Because that's an important line, and not one that most kind-hearted folk want to think much about.
I get phone calls all the time from people who want the church to help them with this or that.  They all have hard luck stories, and they all seem to only need a little boost.  These people have learned that most churches have benevolence funds that can dish out $100 or so with little or no accountability required.  The local community action group can do the same thing, but there are going to be hoops and requirements, and they really just need a little help, not to be "in the system."
I try not to harden my heart, but I don't have that much to give out on a yearly basis, and there at least a few times a year where someone we actually know and have a relationship with, needs those funds in a real, unrepeatable sort of way.
I like to consider myself a compassionate person, but I have, mostly through random chance, like the experience with the homeless men despising their "shelter sandwiches," and also in those Philly days, offering to buy several pan-handlers an actual meal rather than give them cash (and then being refused), learned that hunger is much more of a problem for people behind closed doors than it is for the ones who have taken to the streets.
Food pantries and soup kitchens serve people who are not always homeless, but may be hungry.  Food stamp programs likewise, but you have to sign up, you have to do some legwork, you have to take responsibility.
And that's where the grain of truth really rubs a little, because there is help for people who are willing to go and get it, and so it may be the case that these lone rangers who are trying to follow Christ's mandate to feed the hungry are just enabling people to stay in the margins rather than re-entering the mainstream.
I still don't think there should be a law against it.

Post-mortem

Well, many people woke up this morning to some surprises for sure.  Republicans have taken over in some places where you thought they would never get a hold, like here in Maryland, where a Republican basically ousted the Lieutenant Governor who was now running for Governor.  In a state that's as blue as this one, that's basically like beating an incumbent.  You kind of expected Kentucky to stick with the Turtle Man, and Arkansas going Republican is no big surprise, but Illinois and some other Democratic strongholds also flipped.
Now the GOP controls both houses of Congress and the Democrats look dazed and confused.  Even some of the Republican analysts seem a little befuddled about exactly how this happened,  I think I have a grip on the dynamic at work here, and I don't think it's good, but not because I tend to lean to the left.  I think it's bad news for all of us, including the new wave of GOP folk who just took power.
What is happening is that people are sick and tired of the status quo, and this is a trend that goes beyond the current election cycle.  Republicans figured out that the best way to win back the power is to point out how ineffective and dysfunctional the government actually is, while trying to spin thing in such a way that people didn't notice that they had a big hand in making it that way.
Obama has won his two terms by promising change during the electioneering and playing it pretty safe during the actual Presidency part of his life.  The pretty much sure fire way to win an election in an era where there's so much that's obviously broken is to say that you can fix it.  People want to hear it, and they'll give you the benefit of the doubt, until you prove that you're just the same as all the rest.
Only if things are good, i.e. Clinton's second term, can you run on the, "hey let's just keep rolling" platform.  Things are not good, the economy is sputtering, even if the catastrophe has passed, wages are low, taxes and cost of living are high, we are always on the brink of some war or other catastrophe, and most of us just want things to change.
The Maryland Gubernatorial race was a perfect example.  Anthony Brown was the Lieutenant Governor of two term Governor Martin O'Malley.  O'Malley has the record of a "typical" Democrat, tax and spend, fix things by throwing other people's money at the problem.  People were pretty fed up with O'Malley, during my time in Maryland, I have heard very few people, even dyed in the wool Dems, say anything good about him.  Brown did not really distinguish himself from O'Malley, and the Republican challenger, Larry Hogan, seized on that fact.  Hogan labeled Brown's candidacy "a third term for O'Malley."  Hogan carefully avoided talk of social issues, and according to one commentator, didn't so much run against Brown as he did against O'Malley.  It worked.
This should not be a shock to anyone, people can be very easily pulled into reactionary thinking, especially when things get tough.
The Republican party, though this may be wishful thinking on my part, has peeled away from the Tea Party mentality and leaned back towards the center.  They have gauged the winds and found out that people maybe aren't as afraid of gay marriage as they used to be.  They may have even learned that people, even Republicans, actually like having health insurance.  This allowed them to present themselves as a new creation, with new being the operative part of that phrase.
The reality of the political situation in this country is that both parties have sort of stopped generating any new ideas.  They have divided ideologically and pragmatically into separate camps and have essentially painted themselves into political corners.  The thing is their corners are not really that different from one another, and the sense among average people, myself included, is that it really matters very little which group runs the show.
That is probably true, I don't think the Republicans are going to fix what's broken, all their motivation to change evaporated the second those ballots were cast.  Ask the Democrats, inertia doesn't get you anywhere nearly as far as it used to.
The dominant political motif of this era is frustration.  You hear it from Republicans and Democrats alike.  Some have said that this might be a formula for revolution, if we weren't so engaged with our bread and circuses.  Sometimes I wonder though if the charade of politics isn't just another diversion.  Sometimes I wonder if our allegiance to a political ideology and/or the party that represents it, is even as deep as our rooting for our favorite football team.
Even if I'm puzzled, I'm not particularly shocked or concerned about yesterday's results, we just changed the color of our tie, the suit still fits as badly as it did on Monday.