Gettin' ready for camp

Well, it's T-minus 5 days and counting before our summer camp season gets underway. Camp always leaves me with divided emotions.

I'm a fairly strong Myers-Briggs introvert (which means I get my energy, "re-charge my batteries", from alone time. As the director of Senior High, the assistant to the director for Junior High and registrar for Sleep Away (which is the same week as Jr High) I don't get a lot of alone time. It's long days, busy days and days filled with young people with seemingly boundless energy (except for Morning Prayer). It is,in a word, exhausting.

On the other hand I get a chance to hang out with the youth. I love being with the youth. I love the energy and the silliness and the amazing bursts of profound understanding. And the fact that they accept me for what I am. A looney. I love teaching and talking and praying with them. I have a blast at camp.

Then I collapse. LOL.


This is me at camp. And yes I really do get that blurry!

This year our camps will be teaching on the theme of "Be Transformed" (Romans 12:1-2). I'm excited about the possibilities.



Peace

25 years and counting

25 years ago on a rather hot and humid day a very special lady said yes to me. She did it in front of witnesses and priest so it's pretty official.

25 years ago today I got married.

To be honest I have virtually no memories of the service. I remember the following:

Peeking into the sanctuary wondering who was the guy in the Air Force uniform sitting with some of my family (It was my cousin Jimmy. Never seen him in uniform before. Or since now that I think of it)

Walking out to take my place with my "best men" (Jon, Steve, and Tom. You'd be hard pressed to find better friends then or now) and turning around to face the congregation.

Being unable to look at my lady because I was sure that I'd start giggling. I was very nervous.

Walking down the aisle, then running through the parish hall with my...Oh my God...WIFE!

That's it. No other memories. I know the giggling part came during the exchange of vows so apparently I said them. Can't prove it by me.

Since that day we've struggled with her chronic illness, raised us one spectacular young woman daughter, lost several jobs, changed several more jobs, lived in 8 different houses or apartments, owned about a dozen cars, been owned by 3 cats, visited two countries as a family and four in various configurations, found a church home and generally had a good time (overall).

We've been a couple for about 30 years (there was some start and stop at the beginning because her boyfriend was an idiot. She's mostly cured me of that)

My great joy has been traveling our lives together.
My great mystery is why on earth she chose me.
My great challenge is not being an idiot.
My great regret is that I can't give her the stuff I want for her. (She insists this is me being an idiot again)

After the reception we hopped into a VW Beetle and headed off to Williamsburg VA for our honeymoon. There were a few adventures along the way. But that's another story.

To my lady love, I love you now and forever. I hope you never come to your senses.

Peace

Monday morning blues

Can I be honest?

Right now I'm not much interested in what's happening in everyone else's life. It's not that there's much exciting happening in my life I'm just feeling selfish. I want it to be about me for awhile.

These moods come and go. I'm perfectly aware that this would be a very bad place for me to stay for any length of time. It can't be about me all the time. Being about me all the time would be bad for my relationship with my wife, my daughter, my brothers, my friends and for my job/ministry. Oh yeah, and it would be bad for me too.

Yet the reality is that we all find ourselves in this place some times. We also need to acknowledge that sometimes we NEED to have it be all about us for a little while. Sometimes we just need to do what we want to do. Once we get a little me time though we need to remember to get back out there dealing with everyone else.

On Wednesdays I'm usually off. On those days I play a little golf. I stink but it's some me time. I usually play by myself even. And that's just fine. It's just me and the green golf course and a little white ball that never goes where I want it to.

So the next time you feel like everybody's all up in your face and nobody is looking after you remember this: You owe yourself some me time. It's OK to take your me time. But it can't be me time all the time.

No idea why I felt that was important to share, but there you go.

Peace

I've been banned!

This is so cool! I've been banned by Mad Priest, one of the coolest, crankiest, iconoclastic and ascerbic Anglican sites on the web. If you're easily offended or can't abide liberal Christians who don't snivel and grovel then don't go visit. I think he's funny. Here's the official edict:




"DaYouthGuy (pictured above) is hereby cast into the outer darkness of the Blogosphere for extreme acts of animal cruelty. See his comment under the HEADLINE GOOGLE post. Vegetarians, lesbian and vegetarian lesbians are advised "not to look, Ethel.""

I had described "cow tipping" to him and he appears to have assumed I've done this. (I haven't, it's a bad thing and you shouldn't do it either. Here ends the lesson) I've entered an appeal but since it's already past dinner time in jolly olde I don't know when I'll be forgiven. He almost always forgives.

On a more serious note, I had a phone conversation with a rep from a major youth "event" company. You'd know them instantly but I don't want to make them the issue. It was something the very nice if rather nervous young lady said. She was quoting the stats that say most folks make a commitment to the Lord by age 20. She then went on to say that after that our chance of getting them to make a commitment drops to almost zero.

And I thought

"Is that right?"

And then I thought

"What the hell are we doing wrong then?"

If memory serves Jesus did most of his ministry with people past the age of 20. He converted them, called them, blessed them and they came. Apparently we are incapable of doing the same. I'm thinking we need to think about that (if it's true) and figure out how to change. If we are ONLY capable of reaching people when they are young and impressionable then I'd say we're sad and pitiful.

In reality it's harder sure, but then maybe it should be harder. We're asking for a serious decision. And if it's not true then first we should stop saying it. Then we should take a serious look at our attitudes toward our own faith.

That I shall deal with in another post.
Meanwhile it's sack cloth and ashes.
This is so cool!
Peace

The big day is coming

This is my column for the June edition of our diocesan newspaper "ChurchActs"

If you're a senior in high school it's almost here. The day you have been looking forward to for the last several years. The big day. THE BIG DAY.
Yes, the day when all the routines of your life for the last twelve years end. When more is going to be expected of you. The day when you are not only going to have to start making most of your own decisions but you're going to have to live with them. For better or worse. From that day on the concept of a job is no longer just a part time concept but rapidly becomes your full time life. Oh yeah, and that whole “summer vacation” thing? Pretty much ends on that day too.
Sure you thought that graduation day was going to be major party time. “No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks” forever and ever amen time, right? Off to college, or out into the world to get a job. Not a kid anymore. On your own, making your own rules, living large.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: The easy part of your life is now over.

I get the feeling I'm not exactly making your day at the moment. That's OK it gets better from here.
Life does get more complicated from this point on. Beyond the college or not question you'll get into questions about marriage and mortgages, cars and kids, promotions and pension plans. Makes you long for the days when the biggest complication in your life was realizing you forgot to do a term paper. So you need to know that you don't have to go it alone. God has provided a graduation present for you. It's an easy one to forget to pack and take with you. It's your life in faith.
When I hit graduation day I was in a big hurry to leave most of my old life behind. There's an old joke that goes “When I went to college my father was dumber than a box of rocks. Four years later it was amazing how much that old man had learned!” As I've grown older not only did I discover how much my parents still had to offer me but also how my church still had to offer.
When times were hard my faith family has been there. I left my graduation present behind for a good number of years. I spent a fair while going it alone, away from my faith. I survived, even had a few successes. Those were easy to handle by myself. It was when things went wrong that it was toughest.
Let me be clear. I'm NOT saying you have to keep doing your faith life the way you did it as a kid. I AM saying that you need to keep doing your faith life. When times are bad it is a great comfort. In times of happiness it increases the joy.
The big day is almost here. Life starts getting more complicated. If you remember to take all your graduation presents you can face those complications with greater strength, greater joy, greater support. There's a complicate, exciting, scary, wonderful world waiting for you on the other side of that day. Let your faith help you to find the way into that amazing future.

Congratulations on graduation.

Peace

Just a quick note

Haven't had the time to add anything too profound. These short weeks always mess me up.

I'm back doing some cycling. I got started back in high school when a couple of my friends were pretty serious cyclists. I enjoyed it and it was a great advantage when I went off to college without wheels. For the warm weather months I could zip around pretty quickly.

I got back into it a couple years ago when some of the guys at church started cycling. Fr. Eric has become a pretty serious cyclist and a group of three or four of us try to bike together once a week. I've added some more biking to try and save on gas. If I can bike in we can save one round trip a week and that's not bad these days.

Haven't put a lot of mileage up yet but it's been pretty easy getting back into it. This morning I had a little excitement when some clown in a hurry passed me with less than a foot between me and his sheet metal. There was really no need for it but cyclists like motorcycles get very short shrift on the road. A fair percentage of four wheel vehicle drivers are ACTIVELY hostile to two wheelies out there. Don't ask me why but every biker of any description will swear it's true.

So I got startled but nothing else which is cool. Put another 15 miles or so on the chart for the summer. Hopefully I can:
1: Get in better shape,
2: Save some money
3: Do a little for the environment
4: Have some safe fun.

So be nice to that poor slob you see struggling along on the road. He might be me.

Peace

It was 30 years ago today...

Thanks to my buddy I.F. Eastman for finding this video clip:


This is the original promo video you would have seen in the movie theaters. And yes, it's AWFUL!!!! But that's the way it was back in the day.

20th Century Fox was very worried about this movie going in. It was like nothing ever done before. Plus it was attached to a big marketing campaign with all kinds of related merchandise. Problem was they had tried this with the original Dr. Doolittle movie. The merchandise was a flop and they had warehouses FULL of leftover junk. This was even worse, outrageous effects, budget problems, minimal support from the studio brass, Lucas was starting the story in the FOURTH chapter for the love of D.W. Griffith! Prior to the first audiences seeing it most folks including critics figured it to be anywhere from an OK money maker to a colossal flop.

It received 10 Academy Awards and won 6. It's earned around 20 Billion dollars between all of it's films and other "junk".

And, for better and worse, it changed the movies we watch.

Happy Birthday Star Wars. May the Force be with you.

Peace

Words Along the Way - Prayer (Part 2)

Last time I talked about prayer. After I'd posted I realized I'd done something dumb. It's the kind of thing adults do with youth all the time and the kind of thing church people do to non-church people.

I'd talked about the "How" of prayer before I'd talked about the "Why". If you don't have any reason why to do it why would you care how to do it?

The real problem is that for those of us who already are working on it the why usually boils down to "Well, because you have to/are supposed to/that's the way we've always done/stop pestering me with these questions!" It's simply such a part of who we are we don't think about it much any more.

But that's no excuse and not much help to you if you're not sure about this whole prayer thing. I've got to admit from the outside the whole "I'm talking to God" thing seems a lot like the character in the movie "Harvey" who talks with a six foot tall invisible rabbit. It certainly looks like someone needs their screws tightened.

So why pray?

Hmm, theological answers first. Because God has been pretty clear he wants us to and Jesus did. If it was good enough for the Big JC it's good enough for me.

Not good enough for you? OK.

Because it helps us look a little deeper, to think things out, to take burdens that just feel too damn big to carry and hand them over for a little while. When I'm praying (and you'll recall from last time that my prayer style is, shall we say, casual)I'm placing my thoughts into a holy place. I'm amazed at how much different they often look in the light of that place. Don't worry if you're not sure you've got the "holy place" stuff down perfect. It isn't necessary. God will work with you wherever you are. As with any conversation it's very important to listen. As much to yourself as for God (for the record I've never had God speak in words to me. But I have gotten some very clear communications from the Big Fella. I'm not sure how to explain what that means. It's one of those you'll know it when you get there things. No special effects, flashes of lightning. Just knowing.) Some of my best prayer moments is when God just kind of reruns what I just said and I go "Umm, wow. That was really stupid. Let me keep working on that one"

Why do I pray? Because it comforts me. It teaches me. It consoles me. It gave me courage one night driving through a blizzard all by myself out in the middle of nowhere. It's given me strength at times when I was pretty sure I was empty. Prayer has been a time to vent, to just really give God a piece of my mind. And that kept me from turning that on someone who couldn't handle it or didn't deserve it.

I pray because it makes me feel closer to God.

You'll need to find your own personal "why". You may want to experiment with someone else's "why" but don't let anyone force you into one particular "why" or another. Find the one that works for you.

God will be happy to hear from you, no matter what.

Peace

Send Your kids to camp

(This is my May column from our diocesan newspaper ChurchActs)

Let me be clear right up front. This month's column is intended for the adults. The parents, the youth leaders, the adult friends and relatives. Some of the young people don't want you to read this.

Summer time is almost here. There are a thousand things to be planned. Vacation schedules to coordinate, summer activities, family events, summer jobs and more. In the midst of all of that I want you to think about sending your kids to camp.

Not “send them to camp” as in “Oh, that's something you might want to think about this summer”. No, I mean send them to camp. Even if they don't think they want to. Even if they think they have other things they'd rather be doing. Her first year my daughter didn't want to go to camp. We made her. We sent her to camp. I'm here to make the case that sending your kids to camp is one of the best things you can do for them.

A couple years ago a friend sent me an audio file of a sermon preached by Father Jay Mills at St. Paul's Episcopal church in Kingsport Tennessee. It had to do with young people in the church and my friend thought it would interest me. It certainly did. Father Mills said several things that struck me so profoundly that I “rewound” the audio file and played them again so I could copy them down. One of them is a great argument in favor of sending youth to camp. Here's what I copied down (my apologies to Fr. Mills if I got this wrong. Any errors are mine)

“This is the only place on earth, and it is the grace of God, that if a kid doesn't show up they're not gonna be benched. The next time they come they're welcomed. It's the only place that happens”

Think about what most of our young people face daily. All the routine grades, the standardized tests, the team sports, virtually every step of the way they are being tested, graded, held up for comparison. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against testing or competition. Rather what worries me is that they may never get a break from it. I worry about the effect on their lives, especially their spiritual lives. That's what camp can be. It is the chance to step away, for just a little while, from the rigors of regular life. Camp is a place where there are no grades, there is no judging process going on. Instead it is a place of where they can explore their own faith. They can spend time with friends, old and new, in a lower intensity environment. That may be the greatest gift we can give them at this time in their lives.

Sure some of them are going to be grumpy about it. It wasn't what they had planned on doing this summer. Fr. Mills made another point that is worth repeating here. He pointed out that we need to make sure that they know:

“...that they will not lack what they need although they may not have what they want...”

Make sure that your youth, your children have what they need. A time to rest. A time to think. A time away. Send them to camp.

Peace

Distrubing sounds from the Youth Ministry office...

I can only imagine that folks might be a little concerned to hear the strong baritone of the youth minister pounding out Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young".

"They say there's a heaven for those who will wait
Some say it's better but I say it ain't
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
the Sinners are much more fun..."

Ummm, hmm, maybe ought to check what ELSE is available on my ipod.

Peace

Another quiz, I'm interested that Holiness/Wesleyan came in such a strong second. I don't know much about that but have usually felt that I WASN'T particularly pointed that way. Of course the short fall of these quizzes are the answers that I wish there was a different answer. So take this with a fairly large grain of salt. I do feel some strong connection with the Emergent movement and a strong affinity to the old forms. I keep wondering if there isn't a way to do both.

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well(They got this bit completely wrong). No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 79% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 71% Roman Catholic 68% Classical Liberal 57% Neo orthodox 57% Modern Liberal 46% Charismatic/Pentecostal 32% Reformed Evangelical 29% Fundamentalist 7% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

Ok time for some silly stuff. Blame Eric Travis for the first one:

Jay Phillippi -- [adjective]: Visually addictive 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

It's just so true!

And the second is entirely the fault of Alexandra Connors:

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

And this one is just scary accurate!

Peace

Words Along the Way - Prayer

I find it interesting that very often we Episcopalians have trouble when we're asked to pray off the top of our heads. I've heard lots of reasons but I think there are two that cover most of the problem.

First, we are children of the BOOK (the Book of Common Prayer that is). While the BCP is one of our greatest resources and additions to the larger church I think it's made us think that prayer is always a formal, planned activity that only uses a certain kind of language. This is quite simply wrong. Yes the BCP gives us a wonderful collection of beautifully written prayers for virtually any situation. (As examples, just skimming quickly I found prayers for your school, rain, young people, our enemies, for VACATION!!!,two for birthdays and no less than five graces for meal time) The problem is that with such a great wealth of ready to use prayers we don't get much practice just making them up as we go.

Which brings me to the second point. I'm not sure we get enough practice away from church time and the BCP. Because of this mindset that prayer needs to be formal and in the "right" form we haven't ever explored anything else. You just need more practice.

So don't worry about the words. They aren't important. In fact we recognize at least one form of prayer that doesn't require words at all. (Did you know that the catechism in the BCP lists 7 principal kinds of prayer?)

An exercise I use to help "loosen" people up about prayer is called the "Hey God". A lot of young folks will greet one another with the word "Hey". So start your prayers the same way you'd start a conversation with a friend. Then just keep on rolling. Yeah, prayer is a form of just talking with God. As time goes on you may find you'd like to use some of the more formal versions too. Great.

So just relax and find your own way to talk with God. He'll be good with it, no matter what. You should see how some people have spoken to him in the Bible!

So let us pray.

Hey, God. There's a lotta folks down here who feel kind of uneasy about starting the conversation with you. Please help ease their way into those first couple with you. Bring them the peace and joy that our conversations bring to me. And later on, I've got a couple other things I need to talk with you about. Ok? Cool. Amen.

Till the next time,

Peace (and keep prayin')

Thanks to tim schmoyer for creating this and Marko for pointing it out

Yeah, some days that about sums it up!

Peace

The Goldberg revelation

I offer this with the utmost in charity and love. A prophet is someone who speaks for God. A prophet called today.

I'm in my office, desperately fighting off the desire to take a nap when the phone rings. Since I'm the only one in the office I answer it.

"Are you the priest?", say a female voice.

"No Ma'am"

"Are you one of the prayers?"

This throws me for a moment.

"Well,uh, I can arrange to have someone prayed for if you'd like..."

"No, no I have a story that has to be told", her voice begins to speed up, "I prayed for 8 hours a day for 8 months. I prayed that single moms would be able to see their children every day, that the homeless would have homes, that everyone would be attractive, that all marriages would be happy".

I must confess. My eyes may have rolled, just a tiny little bit. The faintest hint of a smirk might, might mind you, have flickered across my face. Words like "nutter" and "crackers" peeked into the central room of my mind wondering if they needed to step in.

But there was something in her voice, that high almost girlish voice that stopped me. She told me that after praying for all that time God spoke to her. The Divine gave her a message for all the Christians of the world.

Let's say her name was Mrs. Goldberg and leave it at that. She told me stories of anti-semitism against her and her family as she grew up. She talked of her many friendships over the years with Christians. She told me what the message was. It's quite simple really. Mrs. Goldberg knows how much we want Jesus back. We want him back so much "...you'd dye your hair purple...". God told Mrs. Goldberg that we need to love the Jews. As soon as we do, as soon as we eliminate anti-semitism Jesus will be right back with us. There will be no war, no judgement day.

The conversation went on for many minutes. Her words spoken quickly but without any sound of anger or judgement. It was important and wonderful and she needed to get her story told. Did I have contact with any Catholics? I told her that I had a little. She told me that the Pope and all the bishops needed to be told that it was time for the priests and nuns to give up celibacy, to marry one another and go to Africa to care and raise the AIDS orphans.

How can I describe the calmness, the sanity of her voice in my ear? The peacefulness as she poured out her story and entrusted it to me. The assurance as she told me that there was so much more for her to say but that I didn't have time to hear it today.

In the end she finally thanked me and said goodbye. I sat in my office and thought about the revelation given to me. She's right of course. Jesus gave us a new commandment, that we should love one another. I don't know if actually getting that right will hurry Jesus along in his return but it strikes me that it's not a bad idea under any circumstances. Jew, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist. Mono-theist, poly-theist, atheist and agnostic. Every part of his creation. We need to care for them all. We need to treat them well.

Maybe we need to dye our hair purple.

Thank you Mrs. Goldberg. I hope God keeps talking to you.

And then maybe you'll talk to me again.

Peace

Movie Time!

Finally some movies I really enjoyed!

Cars - Pixar does another great job with CGI animations. Great story, wonderful look, fun for the whole family. Another one my teenaged daughter told me I had to see (she knows I'm a fan of auto racing). Good Stuff. I think we're showing this at our Junior High camp this summer.

Harvey - I love classic movies along with the new ones. Somehow I had never seen this Jimmy Steward classic. Great story about a man whose best friend is a 6 foot 3 inch tall rabbit that only he can see. Is he nuts or not? And if it's a delusion where's the harm? Really enjoyed it. Also a great movie for the family. The DVD comes with an audio introduction done by Stewart not too long before his death talking about the movie.

We Married Margot - Another movie I caught on IFC. Based on a true story of two guys who marry and divorce the same woman. They wrote the script and play themselves in this low budget indie film. Which is an absolute scream! Not available on DVD sadly so you'll have to try and catch it some else. This movie is just...bizarre and funny and touching. The outtakes at the end are hysterical, especially on why they didn't cast the real Margot as herself (and she was ticked off about it!)

Pushing Tin Saw this in the theater the first time when it came out. I really like John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton (although I have to fess that I don't understand the big fuss over Angelina Jolie. Good actress but I don't get the rest. Now Cate Blanchett? Whole 'nother thing) Typical quirky script that these actors are always attracted to about air traffic controllers. You either like these kinds of movies or you don't. Count me in.

Oh and one mention of some LIVE theater. Went to see Spamalot up in the big city. Again, you either "get" Monty Python or you don't. If you do, this is pee your pants funny. It is NOT for the faint of heart or those who don't like profanity. While not overloaded with it, when they decide to use it they go completely over the top. To the point that it begins to lose it's shock value and just become funny. The "Taunting scene" at the French castle is vulgar beyond belief and one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Fetchez le Vache!

Peace

Words Along the Way - Church

Time for another pause along our journey. Think of it as a time to sit and rest and talk a bit.

Last time I promised to explain why I think church is important. Let's make sure we're clear on what we're talking about. "Church" to me is the gathering of fellow believers, usually to worship but also including times of study or even just hanging out together. When we are gathered together (check Matthew 18:20) Jesus is with us and we are the church. So on Sunday mornings we're the church, at vestry meetings or conventions we're the church. We're even the church when we get together to tell each other that we're wrong and apostate and heretics. I'm not so sure that Jesus is happy with his church at those moments but that's another issue.

Notice that there's no mention of the buildings or institutions. No mention of the committees or whatever BEING the church. That stuff, including what we do on Sundays, is merely how we express what it means to be the church. The buildings can all fall down, every BCP can disappear, even every copy of the Bible could disappear and if we gathered together in faith we would still be the church.

The problem that a lot of us (including me many days) have with "church" is dealing with those other issues. Who's the boss, which service should we use, which Bible translation, which traditions or what kind of music? None of that is THE CHURCH. Getting hung up on it keeps us from focusing on the important stuff. You know, Love God, Love One Another, et cetera.

The church, the real, important church, is about people. People worshiping together, caring for one another, teaching one another, learning from one another. That other stuff is merely the manner which we have chosen to travel the way, the journey. How we do it is much less important than that we are doing it. If we choose to emphasize the real church then we will not, we can not choose a bad manner to travel.

So is church still boring sometimes? Yes. Find your way through. Like any journey some parts are easier and more interesting than others. Sermon not speaking to you? Fine, take a look at the scriptures and see what it does say to you. Take the time for some quiet conversation of your own with God. Get to know the other folks who are travelling along with you. Let them help you find your own method of travel. You may also discover that you can help them too.

I said in the last one of these that it takes time to make important decisions. The church offers you a history of how other people did it. Do you really WANT to make the same mistakes others made? Wouldn't it be nice to have someone point out a short cut to you? That to me is the church working at it's best. Remember that folks who chose a different means of travel are still members of the church. Treat them with respect. Hopefully they'll do the same but a lot of travellers will defend "their way" as the only way. Wish them well and keep moving. When someone asks you answer them gently and explain that this is the way you've chosen and why (that answer may change as time goes on, but that's cool).

Then point them towards the church to help them continue their journey.

We'll talk again.

Peace

Words Along the Way

After some additional thought I've decided to change the name of my "Letters to the younger brothers and sisters" to Words along the Way. What I'm writing is way too casual for the image in my head of a letters series and I don't want to go into "advice" mode. Other than serving as a "bad" example I'm not sure that I have any positive advice that's worth even this poor price.

Instead I'll continue to offer just some thoughts especially for the younger sojourners along the way of faith. My thoughts on various subjects that I don't feel we (the church) have done a particularly good job of talking about. The next installment should arrive later this week.

Peace

Busy Weekend!

I got a real workout as a Lutherpalian this weekend. In case you weren't aware the Southwestern Conference of the Upstate NY Synod of ELCA hired me just over a year ago to do basically the same thing that I do for the diocese. It is a "part time-part time job" but it helps fill in the gap while my position is still 80% of full time.

I started with a concert by Captive Free (Captive Free is a music ministry of young people through Youth Encounter. They give up a year of their lives to tour and play and minister. This is the group that I met this weekend, and This is a group that has a young friend of mine - Brice - touring with them. I've met both bands and their great young people!) and then followed that up with an overnight.

Honesty time - overnights are my LEAST favorite part of youth ministry. You can mess with just about any part of my routine and I can deal. Except my sleep routine.

The youth were very cool and I got about 5 hours sleep. On the whole I had a good time.

On Sunday I went back to Bethel to lead a class on Choice with their confirmation class and then worshiped with the congregation. Managed not to embarrass myself this time (don't ask).

Then it was off to Hamburg for the Core Workshop with Mark Ostreicher from Youth Specialties. I've come to be very impressed with Marko from reading his blog He just struck me as my kinda guy. He lived up to that at Core.

I will note that I expected him to be taller. Don't ask me why, but that was my thought when I saw him. In fact Marko was virtually the first person to speak to me at Core. He noticed my YS messenger bag as I was signing in. No, I was not trying to suck up. It's my day to day briefcase. The other thing that struck me about Marko (other than his intelligence and wit....OK that was a suck up)was that there's a certain Jerry Garcia quality to him. Sort of 21st Century indie rock kind of Jerry Garcia. Don't know why, just kind of struck me.

Felt sorry for him as the workshop went along. The Sabres playoff game was on TV and they were showing it on the TVs scattered around the youth center we were using. Well as the game headed into overtime there was shall we say a certain reluctance to head back in to the sessions. In the end the workshop worked out better than the game did (we lost 2-1 in double OT). We take our sports very seriously here in WNY.

At least it was fairly warm (yes Marko mid-50's is fairly warm for days in April round here) for his visit. Snow would not have been out of the question.

Kinda glad the weekend is over however.

Peace

Complexity

This is my April column for our diocesan newspaper


It feels strange after six years of talking about how we're all seriously over scheduled to find myself about to advocate increasing the complexity of our lives. Recently I was listening to a radio interview that got me thinking desirable, even necessary complexity. I came to the realization that we may be working far too hard to simplify our lives.
Now I've totally confused you, right?
Here's what I mean by bad simplification versus good complexity. As I look around at all the modern wonders of our lives I realize they all have one thing in common. They allow us to shut one another out. On several of the online forums I visit they have a function that allows you to “ignore” people you don't like. Just tell the computer to ignore this poster and YOU NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN! You can do the same thing with instant messaging (IM). Even on the forums where you don't have an ignore function you can just skip over people you don't like. They never even have to know. Our computer and video games are under our control. Don't like the way the game is going? Simply put it on pause. Or just delete that session. Problem gone. If I don't want e-mail from you I just tell my spam filter that your e-mail address is spam and POOF! I never have to read one of your e-mails again. On my cell phone if you call, I see your number and I don't answer it. With the right service on your home phone you can do the same thing.
It's all so simple. I only have to deal with who and what I want.
You see the problem is that people are complicated. They all have their own needs and their own wants and their own problems. Other people are great at causing complications in your life, wanting you to change your plans, putting new questions and choices in front of you. It's irritating and frustrating, and just plain angry making! We ALL wish that we had an “ignore” option or a “pause” button in real life. But we don't. As people of faith we are in fact called to face up to that complexity, to try and help people find the answers and deal with their issues.
Does that mean you should never be able to get away from these complicating people? Of course not. Jesus gives us a great model to follow. When all the complications around him got too much he would go away with just a few of his friends. And when even they got too much he would go away by himself. It's a model that we should use every day of our life. Remember that after some time to himself Jesus ALWAYS went back out to take on the complications.
Our lives are too busy. At the same time we need to make sure that our lives are appropriately complicated. We need one another complications and all. That pause or ignore option is awfully tempting at times. Using it too much robs us of the richness around us, it steals from us and from the people in our lives.
It's time to walk away from all the simplicity in our lives and grab a little complexity.

Peace

I'm so weird

The title will hardly come as a surprise to many of you. I got tagged last week by another meme, this one is the "Six Weird Things". I'm supposed to list six weird things then tag six more people. I always hate the last bit.

I got tagged by my friend pseudopiskie

Here goes:

1: I can not abide uncovered dark windows. If it's dark outside the drapes MUST be drawn. My mother had a thing for sheers which I do not count as drapes. I don't want you (or the aliens) looking in my windows at night. During the day I have every drape open.

2: I can not remember my daughter's phone number or her dorm room # (among MANY other things) but my brain is an absolute sponge for trivia. It is the absolute bane of my daughter's life. I think my lady wife has simply learned to tolerate it. If it is pointless, useless knowledge I probably know it. My nick name is the "Fount of Useless Information".

3: I love words and word play. Do not make the mistake of thinking that I am some Oscar Wilde wit. Oh no, I love obscure wordplay and obscure words. Often I'm the only one who can track back how I made the connection. But there's always a connection. I also love phrases from other languages and countries. I'm trying to find a circumstance to work in the word "gobsmacked" (been watching a lot of BBC America)

4: I'm very good, in fact rather amazing, at recognizing people by their voices. Your face may or may not mean anything to me and your name probably fled my memory moments after we met. But if we've been around each other for very long I'll recognize your voice. I do this all the time on TV shows. Doesn't matter how much they change their looks, I'll catch the voice.

5: I don't particularly like cleaning the house. But if my wife goes away on a trip or to visit I will inevitably clean the house. Wash down the kitchen, vacuum, dust, do the laundry, clean the bathroom, whatever. I feel no urge to clean when she's around.

6: I am prone to silliness. Despite being a middle aged person with a responsible job I am known to wander around the house doing things like quacking like a duck. No reason, it just amuses me. Sometimes I quack like a Swedish duck. (You really don't want to know). I'll burst into nonsense songs, or do a silly walk or just walk around with a crazed look in my eye looking for mischief to get into. I may decide to wear the laundry hamper as a hat. As I said, it amuses me.

Well now you're all quite sure that I'm quite crackers. I have no idea who may see this or if they've done it before so perhaps I'll tag Gman, Mindi, Revref, and anyone else who so chooses. Drop me a line if you do.

Peace

Movie update

I continue to check out the wonders delivered to my door by Netflix!

"Little Miss Sunshine" - I would LOVE to use this as a youth group movie, but the language is just too much. This is a wonderful story about a very weird family dealing with some very real family problems. I'm not saying their solutions are optimal but the results work. Primarily they start actually paying attention to one another. Bizarrely it happens mostly through the agency of their foul mouthed, drug using grandfather. Through his completely inappropriate suggestions and example he gets the family where it needs to be. Caring for one another and putting aside some really stupid preconceptions. I really enjoyed this movie.

Then there's "The Weather Man" which proves that a good director and a fine cast can't save a wretched script. It's just a dumb movie. It's "solutions" to the family problems in this one are stupid and simplistic. The language issue in this one is different. The movie rolls along without much objectionable language and then it's as if the scriptwriter thought "Oh, I need more obscenity". At which point he dumps a whole scene of pointless and unnecessary swearing in. For no apparent reason. This is the second movie I got because Nick Cage was in it and the second that was just dreadful. Don't waste your time.

Finally, on my daughter's recommendation we watched "Memento" Wow. What an amazing movie. It's the story of a man who suffered a brain injury and can no longer make new memories. Stuff from before the injury is fine but after a relatively short period of time (we're talking 15-20 minutes max) everything fades away and he has to start all over again. They do a great job of leading you through the challenges of the injury and the hero's rather innovative way of dealing with it. The story telling technique is in bursts, moving backward. So if you're looking for an easy, no thinking movie, this ISN'T it. Plus it's the kind of movie that leaves you plenty to discuss at the end. Really liked this. Good call by the kid!

Peace

Paul got Punk'd

I was sitting at a youth service this week listening to the story of Saul on the road to Damascus when the thought hit me.

Jesus punk'd Paul.

In case you're not familiar with the concept it comes from a TV show on MTV called "Punk'd". Basically it was just a practical joke show. The victim was some reasonably well known pop personality who is led to believe that something is going on (usually something bad), drawn deeply into the situation and then given the old "April Fools!" routine. For this generation that's now referred to as getting punk'd.

And that's basically what happens to Saul/Paul. Saul is sure he knows what's going on. These terrible people (Christians) are running around causing upset, spreading heresy and they need some serious smack down. And Saul is the smack down artist supreme. He's got official permission to start seeking out and laying some whoop a$$ on not only folks where he lives but can even start branching out. Like the victims of the show he is full sail into the middle of it all. Just like those folks this is not going to turn out the way he expected.

Saul is so certain he's right, so certain that he's got it down, so certain that he is the living image of a godly man. So Jesus takes it all away from him. Being blind back in that time was a very bad thing. So he's kind of stuck, folks don't want to be around him much.

Then, SURPRISE!!! All those bad people? That's Jesus. Ooopsy. All that stuff you were SO certain about? Yeah, got that wrong too. In fact the first thing we're going to do is have one of "those" people to bring you back and make you right.

In the TV show the victims usually set themselves up a bit. Paul set himself up big time. The big difference is that the goal of the TV show is to make people look stupid. God's goal is to make see. Like the scales that fell away God in our own lives should allow us to see the world a little more clearly, with a little more love and caring. Those first couple days with the disciples in Damascus must have been pretty humbling for Paul. Really understanding what our lives should look like can be pretty humbling for us all.

Paul got punk'd.

Peace

Letter to the Younger Brothers and Sisters pt 2

I started this year intending to continue this sort of long correspondence with my younger brothers and sisters in faith. It got derailed for a couple reasons, none of which are important or really significant.

If this were intended to be Profound Theology then maybe the concerns would be worth noting. Think of this rather as words of advice from someone you met along the way who has been walking for a while. It'll be worth every penny you pay for it.

Having just finished reading Tony Campolo's book "Letters to a Young Evangelical" I suppose I feel a little derivative too. I can only offer that my inspiration were Paul's letters, not Tony's. So I guess I'm derivative either way. I recommend both sets of letters for your consideration.

So what's this letter going to be about? How about not being too quick to jump on board the latest passing faith train? There's one thing I've noticed about young people (both now and back in the day). That's the tendency to be hyper focused on the "now". Right now. This instant. Down the road, the future? To be honest when you're young you don't think much about it. Seems like it'll probably take care of itself. What matters is what's happening RIGHT NOW!

The problem is that we tend to make quick decisions under those circumstances. We don't want to miss the chance so there's a tendency to grab at what's right in front of us. History shows the track record for that kind of decision making is pretty poor. It's amazing how often the slick, snazzy looking offer turns out to be really low grade crap in the long run. And that can be shattering in your faith life.

So here's advice from the traveler at the side of the road (Hmmm, maybe that'll be the new title. Won't feel so derivative) Take a deep breath. Take some time to live with it for a while. Be suspicious of folks who press for instant commitment. What are they trying to keep you from seeing? Be suspicious of folks who have secrets. Things that they'll share with you only if you commit first. What are they trying to keep the world from seeing? A decision on what to have for dinner tonight can be made in minutes. The decision on who you are and what path God has laid before you should take years. In fact I'm a firm believer that you never get AN answer to that question. The answer is an ongoing process that stretches from this moment RIGHT NOW into the undetermined future.

What should you do while you're making that decision? Keep going to church. Keep praying. In my next pauses along the way I'll tell you why I think that is important. Quite simply you need to stay involved in the process of making the decision. Take a look at where you are and what you believe. It astounds me at the number of people who never think about what they "believe". Ask questions. Don't be put off by folks who don't want to answer. How they choose to answer will tell you a lot about them. Maybe more than their answers themselves.

But take your time. There's still a lot of road ahead of you.
I'll see you along the way.

Peace

Quick Movie and reading update

I've seen three movies recently and enjoyed them all in their own ways.


A Mighty Wind This is from the folks who brought you "Spinal Tap", "Best in Show" and "Waiting for Guffman". As someone who grew up listening to folk music this felt like meeting old friends. It's a wonderful, gentle send up of the folk music scene and some of its pretensions and peculiarities. I know some folks rap it because it is such a gentle even loving view of it's subjects. I really enjoyed it.

X-men 3 The Last Stand - Yeah sometimes I just wanna watch escapist silliness. This certainly fills the bill. There are the usual plot holes you could fly the X-jet through but who cares. This isn't about plot, it's barely about character, it's mostly about spectacle. Hearing Kelsey Grammar's oh so sophisticated tones emerging from the big furry blue face of the Beast is just fun. The violence level is strictly comic book as are the sexy bits. Plus for those of more perverse points of view you can have fun watching Star Trek's Capt. Picard (Patrick Stewart who places Dr. X) get blown into tiny little motes of dust (or is he?). Strictly check your brains at the door fun.

And now for something Completely Different:

No, not Monty Python.

Life Tastes Good I caught this on IFC and was just sucked in by it. How to describe it? It borders on film noir actually. There are dream like bits, and erotic tensions and ambiguity and strange which are four of the classic elements of noir (the fifth is cruelty and an argument can even be made for that). It's also strangely touching and rather funny in several places. The cast is entirely Asian Americans and the film budget was obviously very small (the killer uses his index finger. Why or how it works - he just sticks you in the chest with it - is never really explained. The director notes that he couldn't afford stage guns and so he improvised. Gotta love it!) It's a crime story, a story of family, several love stories, a murder mystery and more. It involves lemons, police detectives who still wear hats (Don't ask me, I have no clue) and a hand held tape recorder full of dreams or memories. I heartily recommend it.

I just finished reading (finally) Tony Campolo's book "Letters to a Young Evangelical". It took me a while to read even though it's a very short book, only 280 pages, but I stopped several times to think about what I'd read. It's a great book for non-evangelical Christians because it can give you a whole different view of that branch of our faith family. Campolo notes that "evangelical" and "religious right" have become synonymous for most people. He argues very clearly why that shouldn't be so, now or in the future. Campolo is persona non grata in some evangelical circles because he's not a member of the religious right and he's not a literalist. Yet he remains true to the core of historic evangelicalism. I don't think his point of view about mainline denominations (like mine) is always right but he draws those conclusions from a solid basis. And he does make some very accurate criticisms of the mainlines. This is an easy read and a wonderful thought starter for anyone of faith, even those of us neither young nor evangelical.

Peace

Kurt Vonnegut, R.I.P.

One of the great authors of the last 50 years died yesterday. Kurt Vonnegut was 84. His work has had an important influence on writing and culture. Among all his work my two favorites were shorter pieces. "Who Am I This Time" and "The Manned Missiles" are both from "Welcome to the Monkey House". Each have special places in my heart.

I got to meet Vonnegut once when he spoke at Chautauqua Institution here in western New York. I was on the announcing staff at a local radio station and no one from the news department was particularly jazzed about covering him. With a well deserved reputation as a book addict they asked if I wanted to go do the coverage. I think I was out the door before they finished asking the question. Vonnegut spoke at the outdoor Amphitheater then went to the house where he was staying for the press conference. By the time I got there the only space available was kneeling right next to his chair. I crouched there with tape recorder in hand listening to the conversation. Finally it was my turn to ask a question. He had spoken of the resistance by the older generation of authors to his generations new style and approach to literature. So I asked him, now that he was one of the older generation, his thoughts on the new generation of "young turks". Vonnegut took a look at me as if surprised that I'd actually listened to the lecture and said:

"That's a good question."

That pretty much made my day. I had managed to ask a question that had, in some small way, managed to impress "the great man". His answer was that he didn't see it as his place to pass judgement. So the question turned out to be better than the answer.

I assume that some portion of the press conference ran on the news that day. There's no memory of that at all. I do remember crouching next to an author I greatly respected and asking a question that he thought was pretty good.

And now he's gone.

So it goes.

Peace

Final thought on Imus

Well it appears that my prediction that his career might not be salvaegable looks prescient. A sad final note to his career.

Equally sad is his ongoing attempt to "explain" this all away. Two things struck me. A comment by Imus saying he wants to explain the "context" of the statement. I'm still working on the context where this kind of comment would be acceptable for someone in Imus's position. The second is saying that the racist term was originated in African American culture. There is an old saw in comedy about always being able to rip on your own. Meaning that as a white middle aged American I'm pretty much free to take as many shots at white middle aged American guys as I like (and let's face it, that is a rich vein for humor). Don Imus of course is NOT an African American female college athlete so that doesn't qualify here. Beyond that a growing number of leaders in the African American community are pointing out that they don't much care for that term coming from anyone's lips.

Don, a word from a former admirer. Shut up. Take your lumps. Admit to terminal stupidity without out any mitigating circumstances. Wear your sack cloth and ash. You might just survive. Otherwise, mount up and ride off into the sunset on the ranch.

Peace

And more of the same

It's interesting that the Don Imus thing has blown up just days after my last post.

First I need to be honest about something. I was a radio DJ for 19.5 years. If you ask me who were my professional heroes I would have listed Jack Bogut, long time morning man at KDKA Pittsburgh, Dr. Johnny Fever, fictional morning man at the equally fictional WKRP in Cincinnati, and Don Imus, then morning man at W-ENNNNNNNNN-BC in New York. I appreciated the irreverence, and take no prisoners attitude towards the famous and powerful. He could often be rude (which was not my personal style) but he consistently punctured pretension.

Today I need to distance myself from my former hero. His statements (which I will not repeat here. The image of way too many middle aged white announcers repeating those words while they "report" the story is making me ill) are despicable. What is worse to my ear is Imus's repeated reference to this as a "mistake". Don Imus has been on the air in big time radio for over 30 years. At his level you don't get to make "mistakes" like this. This is the kind of open- mouth-insert-foot stupidity that a rookie makes, not a long time veteran of center stage. "Mistake" is an excuse. Imus needs to come out and say "I thought I was being clever, and funny. My brain simply stopped working for that instant. I have no excuse. I was wrong. It's indefensible." He still may lose his job because the sponsors may want to dump him. That's what happens. I'm not sure there's anyway he can redeem himself professionally.

Following my last post I received several nice notes, both on and off the blog, and I thank everyone for them. This event ties in with what Dr. Dyson is talking about with the deeply ingrained racism of our culture and institutions. When a reasonably intelligent man(and he is, you don't sustain the level of success he's had for decades and be an idiot) can look at a group of college women and use racist and misogynistic terms for them and even think it's funny there's something deeply wrong here. Someone on ESPN pointed out that female college athletes are very different as a rule from their male counterparts. There's no illusion that they can jump off to the "pros" after a year or two. Mike Wilbon said this on PTI, that as a rule the women tend to be more articulate and better students. BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO BE! So we discover an even bigger disconnect from the reality of the basketball team and Imus's "mistake".

It's too easy when you're a member of the ruling elite (unruffle your feathers. If you don't believe that white men still make up the ruling elite then you are not paying attention) it's far too easy to say "Well, come on. Look how far we've come, it's much better than it was". Absolutely true. And equally absolutely irrelevant. The racism is still there, buried deeply in us all. As people of faith we can not, we must not, ever accept it. This is truly a case where good enough isn't good enough.

I wish I had an answer for how we achieve this. There's part of me that thinks maybe it's not possible to completely erase it but we still need to try. I'm a big believer in the "talking solution". We need to talk openly and honestly about ourselves and each other. We need to hear each other openly and honestly about ourselves and each other. We need to acknowledge what has failed in the past and look for what will work in the future.

We need to think before we speak. If only Imus had.

Peace

I laughed while he told me I'm a racist

I have made an uncomfortable discovery about myself.

I'm a racist.

Please know I'm not at all happy about that revelation. As a political and theological liberal racism is anathema to me. I thought that I had shed it like an unwanted skin as I grew up (even while I knew that some small taint of it lingered. I assumed that it had no more bearing on how I dealt with the world than a hang nail or an appendix).

Driving to pick up my daughter for Easter break from college I was listening to the radio. I was in the mood for some interesting discussion but it was too early for the local NPR station, they were still in music. I tried sports talk but the uber cool, intellect free zone of the host and the sycophant sheeple of his audience weren't offering the cerebral nurture I wanted.

Then I found Michael Eric Dyson. Dyson is a Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a brilliant speaker, ranging between a wide variety of character's voices, white and black, rich and poor. I found myself being challenged, and amused (some of his stuff was laugh-so-hard-I-may-wreck-the-damn-car funny). How good is Dyson? This is what Ann Coulter has to say about him: As always, Dyson is fiercely honest, controversial, engaging, funny, and brimming with arguments and ideas. The speech was presented before the Commonwealth Club of California and it was talking about the subject of his latest book Debating Race with Michael Eric Dyson. It's one of the best speeches I've ever heard, ever, by anybody on any subject. He spoke passionately and with great compassion. There was also an unyielding light shown upon all of us, white and black, when it came to the subject at hand.

I found myself, good liberal that I am, nodding along with each point. Yes, there is still much institutional racism. Yes, yes, yes, all those OTHER bad people should really get their butts into the racism free zone, where alla God's children hold hands and strive together for a better world. I should have known that when I start getting that feeling I'm setting myself up for a fall. Then Dyson took me out.

He was talking about Michael Jordan as part of a larger point about the world being a better place when people are accepted because of their skills. In part he talked about Jordan as the greatest player the game has ever seen and how (this is my phrasing of what I heard not a quote) a world of Larry Birds and Bob Cousys is just fine but the world with Michael Jordan is so much better.

And I'm ashamed to admit that my first thought was "Whoa, wait a minute there are a lot of fine white players and why are we just going to shunt them to the side?" My second thought was "Man, did he just make his point or what?". I'm not a huge hoops fan, in fact let's be honest, I am NOT a basketball fan at all. In our society today it's hard not to know a little something about the game however. And the clear consensus is that MJ stands at the pinnacle of the sport, all time. Others may be argued to be on a par, but none above him. And my objection to Dyson's statement was based entirely upon race. I couldn't just say "This is the greatest player of all time". In my head it had been "This is the greatest BLACK player of all time right up there with some white guy". This is something about which I care damn little. This is something that can be measured quantifiably pretty well. This is something that intellectually I agree should fall into the celebration of human excellence.

Is it a small point in the world of racism? Yes. The fact that the point still exists, that a white middle aged guy like me finds it so easy to fall back into that mode of thought makes my skin crawl. Like so many movie situations I find myself looking at someone I thought I knew and now know they have deep, ugly secrets.

But the institutional racism had pushed itself pretty deeply into my psyche. It's there and it needs to be confronted. At the very end the host asked Dr. Dyson for a 15 second response to two one word questions. Solutions? Hope? Dyson laughed, and said there was no way to answer them in only 15 seconds and that we should listen to the speech and read the books. And so I will. Because by the end of the speech what I wanted to hear is that there is something I can do to fight this in myself and in the society around me. It seems obvious that the first thing is to shed the liberal, middle class complacency that has over taken me. The fight is not over, at home or in the world. In this case at least I bear the stain of the sins of the fathers passed along to the sons.

I'm going to go look for his books, I'll go back and listen to that speech again. I will not accept where I am or where we are as a society.

There's still a lot of work to do.

Peace

What to talk about?

I've got several ideas I want to develop a little more deeply in the works. So I've been thinking about several little things:

Movies I've bee watching:

Calender Girls - cute funny movie. We enjoyed it a lot. There's a lot of "near nakedness" in this one, all of middle aged and older women. If you don't know the story a group of English ladies decided to raise money for their local hospital by doing a cheesecake calender. They're nude but with carefully place items in the frame so you can't really see anything. Based on a true story. Wonderful statement on beauty at all ages.

Lord of War - I'm a big Nick Cage fan and was looking forward to this one. The DVD glitched about 45 minutes into the movie and I was perfectly happy to turn it off. Probably won't get a new copy to finish it. Incredibly slow.

Waking Ned Devine - This one's an Irish film about a village that tries to claim a winning lottery ticket after it's owner dies (from the shock of winning!) There's a really cheesy bit right at the end that resolves the only hurdle to them pulling it off that's borderline terrible. Otherwise a funny warm film.

Been reading lots of things. Among those I've liked (I'll spare you the ones that I didn't like):

Green Shadows and White Whale by Ray Bradbury. A Bradbury that I'd never heard of, written about his time in Ireland working on a Moby Dick script with director John Huston. Huston doesn't come off very well (to no surprise if you know anything about him) but Ireland gets an absolute love poem written to it. Not bad, but very Bradbury.

Letters to a Young Evangelical by Tony Campolo Not finished with this yet but I'm liking it. Campolo has made me think, even when I don't agree with him. First one of his books I've ever read.

Interesting article in the new Rolling Stone about the JFK murder. Supposedly Nixon era White House "plumber" E. Howard Hunt spilled the beans on his death bed to his son. Don't know if I believe it or not (LBJ was behind it all, sez he). What Hunt did teach me back in the day when I was just becoming politically aware is not to trust anything he says. Hunt was a con man and perfectly comfortable making up whatever he felt was "best". Makes interesting reading. So does the story on Pink Floyd. More ego driven dysfunctional rockers.

Other than that it's been quiet here. Which is good during Holy week. Take some time to pray this week. Attend a Holy week service either at your own church or somewhere else. I find the Maundy Thursday service particularly compelling.

Peace

And we're back, again

I've been on vacation for the last week, and promised myself no job/ministry related stuff at all. If I'm TOTALLY honest I was about 98% good. I did check e-mail just to make sure nothing vital got skipped. Sorry if you e-mailed me and it didn't make it to the vital level. But I needed this break. Oh, boy did I need this break! I feel much better now.

Here's something to chew on from Marko's blog. It's a great reminder of why I love working with young people.

Peace

And there was much rejoicing!

Penguins to stay for 30 years

I don't often tout my sports allegiances but they're currently the best pro sports team in my home town. It would have been a crime to lose them.

Let's go Pens!

Spamming God

(This is my column for the March issue of our diocesan newspaper)

I hate spam. I mean the useless junk e-mail, I actually love the meat in a can. Every day I get tons of it(e-mail spam) for things I don't want, don't need and usually don't want to think about. But it keeps rolling in. Over the years I've found ways to help slow down the spam and to filter it out quickly so I can find the stuff that's really important.

I'm not quite sure how that led me to think about God but it did. I began to think about all the things that people pray for, some good, some bad. And I wondered if God ever thought of it as spam? Are we wasting the divine bandwidth with a lot of nonsense, a lot of selfish stuff? Is His inbox just overflowing with offers, requests, deals, and demands that He's just NOT interested in?

The more I thought about it the more my thoughts began to change on the subject. My first thought was “Yes, we all spam God with junk and we ought to stop”. I know in my own case some of what I pray for is pretty “poor, poor pitiful me” kinds of whining. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. But the longer I thought about it the more I thought “Are you really going to write a column telling people to pray less, to censor their talks with God? Do you really think WE should be deciding what is or isn't a waste of HIS time?”

So upon further reflection I've decided that God has the bandwidth to handle whatever we decide to send his way. His inbox has no upper limit on his storage space. There is no spam in the prayer life that exists between us and God. That's not to say that some of what we send out isn't whiny and selfish and not what is best for us. I keep remembering a line from the 1970's movie “Oh God” where the character of God is asked if he answers every prayer. He answers “Yes, and sometimes the answer is no.” God reads every e-mail we send him, spam or not. He considers our needs, our real needs, not just what we think our needs are. And every e-mail gets an answer. In real life the experts tell us not to respond to spam because you'll just insure that you get more spam. You let the other person know that there really is someone there and they'll keep sending you more and more and more.

I think that's just fine with God. Every request, no matter how important or trivial is a place for you and God to continue to talk. I think that's the goal. Just keep the lines of communication open, knowing that sometimes the answer will be no.

So keep on spamming.

Peace

So what's new with you?

Been a busy week around here. So just some random thoughts:

I have a new office. It's at the other end of the hall from my OLD office but it's lots bigger. It's also a major league mess right now since I haven't found the places for everything just yet. But it looks a little better with each passing day. I'll be helping people move into my old office in the next week. Then help folks move into THEIR old office shortly after that. Beyond that there may be some more moving but it's a bit unclear at the moment.

Latest movie updates - Watched "Thank You for Smoking" which we liked. I thought the actor playing the main character did a nice job bringing some dimension to a character that would have been REAL easy to play as a cardboard cut out. Great place to talk about the choices and compromises we sometimes make in our lives. It is rated R so keep that in mind (language and some sexual content)

Also saw two older movies - Phenomenon and Fried Green Tomatoes and we liked both of them too.

I'm thinking I'll use Phenomenon at Senior High this year since we're discussing "Be Transformed". John Travolta's character goes through a rather amazing transformation and that transforms the people around him. I've seen bits and pieces of this movie on TV over the years but this was the first time I'd seen it all. Good stuff.

Fried Green Tomatoes is one of those movies I can't believe I've never seen. Yes, you can mark it off as one of the top three "Ultimate Chick Flicks" but you'd be missing a GREAT movie. This is an amazing cast of ladies and it's a neat story.

These two are PG-13 and PG respectively.

Also been watching a wonderful Canadian TV show called "Slings and Arrows". Be warned the language can be raw and there's some TV sex scenes. As someone who loves the theater it's like old home week for me. Just hysterically funny stuff. Think WKRP for the theater.

Watched the tail end of the "Jesus' tomb" special and a good chunk of the discussion afterwards on Discovery. You are free to believe what you will but color me unimpressed (honestly I think it's rubbish). I'm seeing people starting right away with the "Christians are rejecting anything that challenges the established belief system". I think that's rubbish. It's fairly clear that the SCIENCE holding up this theory is very flimsy. The movie makers (or are they journalists? They flip flopped on that a lot last night)are drawing conclusions that might be true but it's not very likely. There is nothing here that passes for good science or good research. A huge number of people who worked on the project at one time or another have pulled back from the conclusions drawn. Thanks to Revref for the link to this post that takes a more in depth look at some of the claims. Make up your own mind.

Well, the weather is absolutely howling outside my new windows. Even making the storm windows rattle. Such fun.

Peace

Thoughts about...A process?

My office has serious mood swings.

Not me mind you but the office itself.

I go from reasonably orderly to disaster then back again. (Of course it does all this without any input from me naturally!) There are two primary problems for me when things get a total disaster. First I find it very depressing to try and get any work done. Second I know that I can't find everything that I have. In fact I'll be lucky if I remember everything I have because I haven't seen it in so long!

All of this comes up this time because the office is a disaster and I'm looking at being moved to a different office. Which means I have to pack and move. And I don't want to have to pack and move things that as I unpack them I'll think "This is junk, why did I keep this?". So I've been trying to bring some order.

Along the way I came across a piece I wrote at a seminar of some kind in the last year or so. I remember vaguely being asked to describe the process of my work. As I re-read it I realize that I haven't made much in the way of changes from then. It still rings true to me. And perhaps to you as well. So I'm sharing it here:

What is the process? More importantly am I looking for THE process or A process? In my heart I believe that it is A process, specifically MY process. My mind keeps casting for a definitive process, the surefire, can't miss way that will allow me to produce from moment one. Of course the ongoing search allows me to delay the beginning of any project. The question arises that if I allow myself to delay past the point of no return (defined as the point when I am no longer capable of beginning) can I live with the "what-ifs"? It strikes me that I begin too many things without finishing them, fiddle with too many things without discovering if I could master them. My life is already dominated by too many projects that didn't so much end as they just stopped. Too many ideas never explored. Too many opportunities never pursued.

So I think the question answers itself. I must begin a process, some process, perhaps even ANY process. Beyond that I think I need to focus that process on projects that already exist. There the process can be fine tuned on ideas that already have some form. This can help me succeed, grow confident and prepare me for the totally new future projects. The siren's song calling me to newer, more alluring concepts must be resisted. It is one thing to take notes in preparation for the "next" but it cannot seduce my attention away from the "now"."

I have projects that I began six years ago that aren't finished yet. I have projects sitting on my desk that need to be done now that languished while I wrote this post. I have notes from meetings going back several years that have ideas I wanted to remember lying in a pile of torn pages.

The work day is almost over. I have two more days this week to be constructive.

What is my process?

The day after I wrote this I found myself spending a fair bit of time on "new projects". I pulled up short, went back to my to do list (which is part of my process) and worked on some things that had been sitting there for a while. Those meeting notes? Sorted sifted and consolidated into usable form! Three items completely finished on the list and two more with serious dents in them! Hallelujah! Whoops, it's lent I'm not supposed to say that, lol.

Peace

Thoughts on Ash Wednesday

I'm walking around with whatever is left of my Ash Wednesday smudge. I went to the 12:05 service here at the church. I like the Ash Wednesday service because it's a good start for Lent for me. Gets my brain headed in the right direction.

But as I sat in the pew listening to the reading from Matthew I started to think about the smudge. There's a discussion in some circles about whether we should let our ash mark stay on our foreheads after we leave the service. Traditionally you leave it there till it washes (or wears) off. In fact it's considered rather bad form in some places to even accidentally erase it before the day is over.

On the other hand Jesus tells us NOT to make a show of our prayer and alms giving (Mother Susan pointed out the interesting "dispute" between the Gospel reading and the reading in Joel which call on us to sound the horn and make a public display of our fasting). Let's face it you stand out in a crowd these days if you have a smudge on your forehead, people notice. Then you have to explain. My favorites are the people who feel the need to clean it off for you. Hands to yourself, please.

So upon further consideration of the Gospel I've decided to keep my smudge and let it go it's own road. I haven't looked but in the two hours since the service it may already be gone. I'm keeping it as an intentional sign of this specific day. My goal is to always wear my faith invisibly. Not because I'm ashamed of it but in line with Christ's teaching in today's Gospel. If I'm living my life right my faith should be evident to those who know what to look for. I don't believe that a life in faith (or patriotism for that matter) require big showy demonstrations. If I carry the cross in my heart why do I need it on my lapel? I don't need to carry my smudge with me all the time. Today however is a special day. A day that deserves, in my opinion, a slightly different attitude.

Today I'll carry my outward and visible sign. Not because I want everyone to know how pious I am, or what a good Christian I am. I'll carry it to remind myself of the challenges I still face, the brokenness I still live with and the grace that is offered to me.

I hope you have a blessed Lent.

Peace

All right if I don't blog soon I'll never catch up

It's been a busy couple of weeks here and I'm very much behind. So let me bring a quick update version of what's been going on:

Snow Lots and lots. Not in the same league as the folks in Oswego NY (where they are well past the 100 inch mark over the last, oh three weeks or so. Yes, 100 inches. And most of it inside a week's time. That's SNOW, baby!). We've had a lot of snow, as in several feet of the bothersome white stuff. As in I've run out of places for my snowblower to blow it. Eventually the piles get so high it just hits the side and then slithers back down into the drive way. Add the fact that my snow blower had its fuel line freeze and decided to throw a drive belt. Over and over and over. Temps are finally warming up and we should see some meltage soon.

Electrical problems We live in an all electric house. So when a baseboard heater in the kitchen and the water heater go within hours of one another it's a problem. Through various obstacles it took something like 9 days to get the electrician in to fix it all. No hot water while you're going through an exceptionally cold spell is no fun at all. I showered at the YMCA. But all is well now.

My birthday I turned 49. I got bifocals. Need I say more?

Add in several visits for youth ministry (oh yeah, THAT stuff) a trip to see the daughter in a one act play (had to drive back through white outs. What is it with the weather and her shows?!?!?!?), oh and just plain old life (my lady wife whacked the sideview mirror on her car and left it hanging by its cable. Thank God for our wonderful mechanic) it's been busy.

My office is at my home parish, rather than at D House and they've decided it's time to do some juggling of office space. I will take whatever they choose to give me because this congregation has been a wonderful support system for my ministry. In the end I'll have to accept...a LARGER office! I'll have a sometime roomie but as she's one of my favorite deacons in the whole wide world (I even liked her BEFORE she ascended to the diaconate!) that's not a real hard pill to swallow. Plus she's virtually NEVER in the office. Perfect roommate. When everyone else got what they needed the last office left is at the other end of my hall and is easily twice the size of this one. How small is my office? My rector refers to it as "Jay's closet". I can certainly use the space. It will feel weird to be somewhere else after 6+ years.

So there you go. I'm caught up. Time to go eat some Pancakes on this Mardi Gras!

Peace

Ok it's utterly pathetic that I would be gone this long and come back with this as my first post. Let me say that it's been a very busy time with lots of things I want to share but I'm completely overloaded and I saw this on Marko's blog. I've always liked Spidey so I'm cool with this. I also liked Green Lantern so even my #2 is cool. Yes I was a fairly major comics geek growing up. Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Batman, Iron Man and the like.

I promise more posts soon.
Peace


Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 75% Green Lantern 65% Iron Man 65% Superman 65% Supergirl 51% Hulk 50% Robin 48% The Flash 45% Catwoman 35% Wonder Woman 31% Batman 30%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Follow up

I went back this morning and looked at those comments again.

Dungy doesn't say that he and Smith were the "first" but it is said in context with comments about them being African American head coaches. They are the first two black head coaches to reach this level.

(edit : Here's the quote in full for clarity's sake: "I'm proud to be the first African-American coach to win this," Dungy said during the trophy ceremony. "But again, more than anything, Lovie Smith and I are not only African-American but also Christian coaches, showing you can do it the Lord's way. We're more proud of that."

But even without the use of the word first what is Dungy saying when he says that they showed that "...you can do it the Lord's way"? I think the implication is clear that this is something new for the Super Bowl, that no previous coach had done it the "Lord's way".

That smacks of a peculiar kind of arrogance. The arrogance of knowing the hearts of EVERY other head coach, nearly 80 men. The arrogance of saying that the Lord didn't bless any other way of coaching. God made Vince Lombardi. Who are we to say that Vince (a devout Catholic if memory serves) was not coaching as God intended him to coach? Would he not then be doing it the "Lord's way"?

I've never met Coach Dungy. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING I've heard about him speaks to his class, his humbleness and intelligence. So the assumption should probably be that the way I heard it was NOT the way he intended it.

Yet I feel the need to keep writing about it. Why? Because it bothers me that there is growing in our faith a need, it seems nearly to be an imperative, to flag wave our faith in everyone's face. Despite the fact that we are warned specifically AGAINST doing just that in the Gospels. Tony and Lovie's faith is well known. It's effect on their coaching styles (these two are pretty much the anti-Lombardis in coaching style) is also well known. Shouldn't that be enough? Live your life in faith, show the world how a person of faith lives, let them marvel at the peace and justice and mercy and love that characterize your life. Know that your reward is coming from God.

Pointing out your faith, making comparisons of your faith to others smacks of spiritual jersey popping. By your fruits shall they know you. Make sure your actions speak loudly enough that it doesn't require words.

Peace

Now back to real life...

Well it's over for another year.

The Super Bowl that is. Colts win. Peyton Manning can finally tell his critics to shut up.

I didn't really care which team won. So I could be happy either way.

Then the post game show rolled around. And Tony Dungy spoke. Tony, the former Pittsburgh Steeler. The quiet, classy, intelligent head coach of the Indianapolis Colts.

Did I really hear him say that he and Lovie Smith the Bear head coach were the first Christian head coaches at the Super Bowl?

Please tell me I heard him wrong. None of the previous coaches were Christians? Really?

Please tell me I heard him wrong.

This kind of thing always amazes me. Right along with the folks who are positive that God has favorites in sporting events. I believe that God gave as much support to the Bears as the Colts. Same for every other team in the league. He gave all those athletes and coaches talents and then expects them to use them. As long as they do the best they can with their talents I believe God is pleased.

I don't think God gives a hot patootie over who wins. Never has. Never will.

All too often we seem to miss the point of what God wants from us and what he wants to give us.

A theology that says God loves winners, God chooses winners, God blesses winners more than anyone else is one that is in direct contradiction of the Gospels. Jesus turned away the rich and powerful and raised up the poor and powerless. Not that He doesn't love the rich and powerful just that he expects more of them. And very often that doesn't match their plans.

Peace

Stupidity as a lifestyle

"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son." - Animal House 1978

It may be the greatest line from one of the ultimate American icon films. And yet no one seems to give it the tiniest bit of thought.

Fact is that here in these Yew-nited States we have made stupidity a lifestyle choice. Before you bury me in an avalanche of e-mails claiming that I don't love America please understand what I'm saying.

I am NOT saying that all or even most Americans are stupid, act stupid, think stupidly or have chosen to be stupid as a lifestyle.

We are however choosing to allow stupidity to become an accepted and acceptable way of going through life. Yes, we live in a free country and I will defend to my death the right for someone to choose to be stupid within the normal boundaries of our society.

I just don't see why we don't call being stupid, being stupid.

So what brings this to mind? Two items. One trivial the other serious.

First the trivial - Media day at the Super Bowl. This event now draws something around 5,000 "media" folks to interview the players, coaches and anyone else related to the Super Bowl teams. The vast majority of those folks are regular sports and culture reporters who are covering what is one of the central cultural events of our nation. Then there's the idiot who would ask the players if they knew the show "American Idol" and would they sing a song for him. This is part of who new range of "entertainers" who specialize in being stupid for a living. The only thing I find more disturbing than the existence of people who want to do this kind of stuff is the undeniable FACT that there are people who find this amusing.

If this is you think about this:

You like to laugh at stupid people. This is a form of entertainment for you.

Nice, very nice.

The second item is more serious.

Turner Broadcastings Cartoon Network put the entire city of Boston on edge yesterday by a really STUPID publicity stunt. (Story)

Quite simply they created 10 boxes,described as "...encased in dark plastic, consisted of blinking lights wired to an electronic circuit board..." and then left them on bridges and other public places.

To the surprise of only the idiots at Cartoon Network apparently, these set off traffic shutdowns and police mobilizations since people assumed they were bombs. Commuter trains were stopped, the Coast Guard shut down the Charles River, and the bomb squad had to be called in.

I want you to imagine the meeting where this was proposed and everyone there nodding their heads in agreement. "Great idea, we should do it". Black boxes with blinking lights left near medical centers, bridges and other public places.

Post 9/11.
During a war where IEDs, Improvised Explosive Devices, are a prominent feature. Boxes left on bridges and roadways or near buildings.

Stupid. No. STUPID.

Stupid is on the rise because we've come to believe that we're not responsible for the end result if that's not what we intended to happen. It doesn't matter how stupid we act or what stupidity rolls out of our mouths, as long as we were "just having fun". "I didn't mean to", "it was just a joke" "oh lighten up".

Sorry stupid is stupid. It shouldn't be encouraged. It should never have any appearance of acceptability. You ARE responsible for what you say and do. You are responsible for any reasonably expected outcome of those words or actions. You have every right to be stupid. I have every right to point that out and refuse to accept your stupidity.

Stupidity. Just say no.

Peace