Thoughts and Musings on Faith, Music, Family, Life

Sliding down the slippery slope

Okay, some 30% of America, I get it: you don't approve of our president.  You don't like his policies, his stances, his philosophies, his politics.  Presumably you did not cast your vote for him last November, you weren't one of the tens of millions who watched his inauguration worldwide.  And since that cold January afternoon you probably have not been a fan of his administration's actions, from the future closing of Guantanamo to the most recent maelstrom over health care reform.  You've been upset and frustrated and it's only been nine short months.

I get it - really, I do.  For two reasons.  One, because I truly value your place in our country at this moment and time.  I'm serious.  While I'm personally more upbeat about the current administration, I know that one side of the story does not have all the answers.  Our country's government was built on the importance of balance and the presence of a "counter-voice" to even things out.  So I truly appreciate your presence and your voice.  Thank you.

I also know how you feel because I have walked in your shoes; a walk that took eight years out of my life.  See, I used to be part of that "counter-voice" myself.  I cringed when the ones who used to be in charge encouraged torture as an acceptable practice in dealing with prisoners of war; I lamented when they lowered the tax rate for the wealthy, in affect asking those with less to pay more.  I sat on edge when they tried to privatize social security, and I mourned when a pre-emptive war was launched against a nation that did not possess the threat we were told they had.  Believe me - I know what it feels like to be in the minority; to have little faith in the folks calling the shots, to wait with much longing for the next election cycle to come around.

But - and you knew there was a "but" coming, didn't you - there's a very fine line between respectful dissent in the voice of government and poisonous malice that sabotages the process.  And just nine months into this particular season I feel we have crossed it.  For it is one thing to vocally disagree with our administration; to call into question its practices and policies and work for a better way - which I believe to be not only a good thing but a necessary thing.  But it's another thing entirely to cast that aside for the perils of mudslinging and, at its worst, outright demonization.  I admit - at my weakest moments I was known to refer to our former president as an "idiot" when my righteous indignation got the best of me.  But it was outside my realm of thinking to do something as hateful as drawing a Hitler mustache on his face or referring to him as the "antichrist."  

Let me reiterate again - I know how you feel.  I really do!  But there are much more productive ways to express dissent.  The beauty of our democracy is the existence of a 2/3/4-party system where each brings their side's agenda to the table.  I am not one who believes that our current administration - or any administration - has all the right answers.  I am convinced that the best solution to our country's ills is to find the compromise that lies somewhere in between; something that incorporates the good all sides have to offer.  The problem we're experiencing at the moment, though, is that we're allowing fear-mongering and outright malice to get a grip on us, thereby killing the process before it even begins.  And once we start down that slippery slope it is incredibly hard to get back up.

I think we're seeing this with some of the hubbub surrounding our president's "school speech" airing tomorrow.  Forget for the moment that both previous presidents in our country's history who did this came from the other side of the aisle.  Forget that common sense would dictate that a commander-in-chief would never use such a platform to push any particular agenda (the political repercussions of which would be devastating).  What, pray tell, is wrong with any president - Republican or Democrat - speaking directly to our young people, encouraging them to be the best students they can be and make a contribution to this world?

The speech, of course, is now online; so anyone can see that it is nowhere near what some have made it out to be.  And absolutely, any parent should be allowed to make a request that their child not be allowed to view it.  But that hasn't stopped the silliness from going beyond silly.   All last week, the talk was that the speech was going to push a "socialist agenda" - a huge assumption; as the text for the speech had not yet been released.  That's the kind of stuff that happens when we're sliding down the slope.

Dissent is the foundation of our great country, it is the essence of who we are as Americans, it is the reason we enjoy the freedoms we have.  We need it to thrive; we need the checks and balances that our multi-faceted government provides to keep the ship on track.  We need people to disagree with our current president and call into question some of his actions, just as we needed it the eight years prior.

But we must use every fiber of our being to resist going down that slippery slope of malice, hate, anger, and ill will; which does absolutely no good.  Fear has no place in our politics or (as I've said in a previous blog) in our religion.  Honest, respectful, sincere dialogue must prevail.

Because if it doesn't, we do crazy things like bashing the leader of the free world for urging our young people to be the best they can be.  And that is something I don't get.

Pennies from Heaven and the value of human health

Last Thursday I made a quick trip to Montreat to surprise our youth group, who was attending the last week of the Summer Youth Conference.  I pulled out of the driveway around 5:30am in the new/used Prius and got there at 8.  It was great seeing them; and even though I only stayed for five hours, it's like I always say: five hours at Montreat is better than not being there at all. Or something like that.

An added bonus was getting to see a friend, Kelly Wiant-Thralls, give the conference keynote.  She did a great job, and one of the stories she shared really stuck with me.  It was about a jogging partner who years ago started collecting the pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters he found on the sidewalks and streets during his long jogs.  She began doing the same.  But instead of doing what pretty much everyone else does with the change - keep it - Kelly and her friend decided to set the coins aside and donate them to a favorite charity every year.  They called their jogging change "Pennies from Heaven."

I liked this idea - a lot.  Less than an hour later I found a penny on the sidewalk that runs beside Lake Susan, and it quickly found its way in the Cents-A-Bility cup I keep in my car.  Last spring our church started taking up this special offering once a month to benefit the hungry in our community and around the world.  In fact, let me encourage you (especially you First Pres. Mount Airy folks) to join me in this practice: add to your monthly Cents-A-Bility offering any spare change you find on the street, sidewalk, wherever.  Or set it aside in a special jar and start making an annual donation to the charity of your choice.  Sounds like a plan to me.

On the two-and-a half hour drive back home I was really rolling this "Pennies from Heaven" thing around in my head.  And what intrigued me the most was that something as simple as putting aside that penny/nickel/dime/quarter we find on the sidewalk becomes the radical idea it apparently is: so much so that a keynoter would fashion it into a story for her wonderful message, that I would devote lots of thought to it on the car trip home, that a Facebook group would be created in its honor (which you should join, by the way).  Why is this a big deal, honestly?  Somewhere between Valdese and Hickory it occurred to me that maybe it has something to do with the very heart of our Western mindset about money and ownership.  We like to own things, especially when it's money we're talking about.  We feel particularly strong about this when it's money we "earn" via a salary or allowance - we put it in bank accounts under our name where it remains "ours."  All of which seems perfectly reasonable.  But it's saying something entirely different - and I'm not sure this is necessarily a good thing - when we make the mental jump that some spare change we happen upon along the way suddenly belongs to us too. 

Something else I got to thinking about was the little value our society places on "change" like this.  I mean, what can you buy with a penny these days, anyway?  I imagine that's part of the reason we see no problem claiming the spare change on the ground as our own.  If it was a $100 bill we might be more inclined to find its owner - maybe.  But no one, we rationalize, is going to miss a penny or dime.

I think it's time for us to call both assumptions into question.  Maybe, just maybe, we need to have a less possessive attitude with our money.  And maybe, just maybe, chump change really is worth something.  I may be making a huge leap here, but both points seem to come into play with the hot topic issue of the day: health care reform.  Unless you've been living on a deserted island the past few months you know that our government is currently wrestling with how to revise and improve our nation's health care.  Sadly, it has quickly evolved into a very politically-charged issue; so much so that folks are forgetting what's at stake - the lives and well-being of our neighbors and friends; people we know well and people we don't know at all.  

No matter what side of the aisle you're on, so to speak, it's hard to deny that something needs to be done about our current system.  Pick your study, but pretty much all of them have indicated that roughly 20-25% of Americans are underinsured, while another 15-16% lack health care of any kind.  At the very least this is a health crisis waiting to happen.  Public health, after all, is not individually autonomous.  If the kid in my son's class at school doesn't get the needed meds to ward off his sick bug because his family can't afford them, there's a good possibility that his problem will become my son's problem too.  It's hard to admit in our proudly individualistic society, but we really are much more intertwined with each other than we realize.

At worst, the issue of fair health care for all is a morality test which we as a country are failing miserably.  According to this article, of the 39 industrialized nations in the world, ours is the only one that does not provide universal health care for its citizens.  The only one.  What this means is that the single difference between good health care and insufficient or non-existent health care is an economic one - in other words, it boils down to money.  Those who can afford it are set.  Those who cannot - and the numbers are growing rapidly - are in trouble.  Something like public health shouldn't depend on how much money one has.  Health has to be more than simply a capitalistic enterprise.

Now I don't presume to know what the solution is.  I don't know that our president and his administration have all the right answers, either.  But I'll give them this - at least they're moving on it.  At least they're willing to wade through the murky waters of a hot-button issue, initiating a conversation that our country has desperately needed for some time.  I can respect that.  What I can't respect are those who are not only politicizing the health care debate but seem hell-bent on disrupting any kind of meaningful conversation about it.  I'm talking about stuff like memos from certain organizations calling constituents to harass their elected officials, even going so far as to be confrontational in town hall meetings.  I'm particularly dumbfounded by one directive: (make every effort to) not have an intelligent debate.  Seriously??  How can standing in the way of honest, thoughtful dialogue about such an important issue be something anyone would actually want to happen?

There may be some legitimate reasons people don't want our health care system changed, but the one I least understand is the one that says it's "not fair" for some to pay for the health care of others.  I respectfully disagree.  The "I-got-mine-you-get-yours" mentality is fine and dandy when we're talking about cable TV or the latest edition of Rock Band, but when it comes to things like basic education or public health, we're all in this together, folks.  Which brings me back to the "Pennies from Heaven" thing.  When we choose to see the world this way; when we find that penny on the sidewalk and immediately realize it is not ours, we've made some headway in not only how we understand "ownership" in general, but how we perceive our responsibility to our fellow human being.  When we realize how all of us are connected to each other, perhaps our defenses won't go up so quickly when it comes to adopting a new health care system that will be fair to all people - especially the poorest among us, who need it the most.  And the thing is, we're not talking about huge sums of money out of each of our pockets.  We're talking about "spare change" that really does have value; that really can make a world of difference.

Logically this makes sense.  From a faith perspective it's down-right embarrassing that we're not already on board.  There are biblical injunctions throughout scripture that speak to our obligation to care for the "widows, elderly and orphans" - not because there's anything special about these three kinds of people, but because in ancient times they represented the most vulnerable of society.  The practice of "gleaning" in the Bible involved farmers refraining from harvesting the edges of their fields, leaving it for the poor (a wonderful group called the Society of St. Andrew has brought this practice back into the 21st century).  And then there's Leviticus 25, which calls for Jubilee to be celebrated every 50 years, where all debts are forgiven (Bono was big on this a few years back with third-world debt).  In other words, the faith that I pledge allegiance to - along with roughly 2.1 billion others worldwide - has at is core the notion of sharing a portion of what you "possess" for the benefit of all concerned.

In a great article aptly titled How Would Jesus Handle Health Care?, author Drew Smith says this:

The test of faithfulness to Jesus is always in how we treat the vulnerable of society.  If we are to bear authentic witness to Jesus as the healer, and to God as the giver of life, then we must embrace the value and dignity of all human beings, but especially the vulnerable of our world.  In our American society, perhaps, there is no greater population that is more vulnerable than those who do not have access to good and affordable health care.

So I hope over the course of the next month some real dialogue will take place at town hall meetings across the country, and that the disruptors will take their angry rants and go home.  I hope our president and congress will come back in September and put aside partisan politics to come up with a balanced plan for universal health care that really will make a difference.  And I hope that all of us will adopt a "Pennies from Heaven" mentality - because when you get right down to it, everything we have is a gift, and it's only right to return the favor.

All of this from a five-hour trip to Montreat.  Remind me to get back there more often ;-)

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Two other blogs you really should read on health care reform from a faith perspective:

Jim Wallis, "Truth-Telling and Responsibility in Health Care"

Brian McLaren, "An Open Letter To Conservative Christians In The U.S. On Health Care"

Remembering Tiananmen

It took an email from my mom the other day to remind me that yesterday - June 3rd - was the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing, China.  I don't know what you were up to that day - when tens of thousand Chinese soldiers, under order from the communist government, descended on Tiananmen Square and brutally murdered thousands of college students, a horrific end to weeks of peaceful protests.  But I remember quite vividly - because I was there.

It was the summer of 1989.  I was a rising senior at Wake Forest University and needed a few more credits to put me on track to graduate the following spring.  What better way than a three-week school trip to the Orient?  One week in Japan, two in China.  Sweet.  The 25 or so of us, along with two professors, left soon after spring classes let out.  Japan was awesome and would be the first of four trips I'd make there (I actually lived in Hiroshima for four months teaching English a few years later). 

But during our time in Japan, the second leg of our trip in China was constantly in doubt.  For a number of weeks, thousands of Chinese college students had situated themselves in Tiananmen Square - the heart and soul of Chinese culture and government - protesting for basic human rights and freedoms denied them by the hard line communist government.  Every evening our group would huddle by the TVs in our hotel rooms and, as much as we could (since none of us knew Japanese), try to gather what was happening in Beijing.  We received daily briefings from our professors who were in constant contact with the university and US government officials.  A "Plan B" trip to Korea was discussed. On our last night in Japan, though, we received the go-ahead to proceed to China as planned.

When we arrived in China the next day, the first thing we noticed was how much we were not hearing.  Silly us - we figured that being in the country where the hubbub was would cause us to know more about it.  Not so, as the government kept a tight grip on all news and press.  This gave us a false sense of security that things were calming down - when, in fact, they were actually getting worse.  Still, we followed our itinerary: Guangzhou, Guilin, Xian.  We didn't receive quite the rock star treatment that greeted us everywhere in Japan - these people were not as enamored with Westerners who could travel as they pleased (makes sense now).  But we saw some amazing sights, all culminating in our visit to the Great Wall.  In one word: unbelievable (almost as unbelievable as the shorts I was wearing).

Unfortunately, our trip to the Great Wall would not wind up being the highlight (or lowlight) of our trip.

It was the evening of Saturday, June 3, 1989, our last full day in China.  We'd been to the Wall earlier that day and had just gotten out of a Chinese Acrobat show in Beijing.  As we made our way to our tour bus, a slew of military helicopters screamed overhead, heading in the general direction of the Square.  Looking at the Chinese people we could sense their fear as they gazed skyward.  Apparently this was not the norm. Later that evening around 11ish our group walked outside our hotel, which was situated on a major road that led straight to the Square some ten minutes away.  We were overwhelmed by the hundreds and hundreds of Chinese college and university students who were walking or bicycling toward the Square wearing black armbands and headbands.  Word was that, earlier in the day (around the time we were coming back from the Wall), the military had teargassed the thousands of students there and things were getting worse.  Some of the students, recognizing we were Americans, stopped and spoke briefly to us in broken English.  They told us they were going to fight for their freedoms and that they didn't know if they'd make it back.  When I returned to our hotel room later and turned on the TV expecting some kind of news, all I found were Chinese sitcoms and some program about crop returns for the year.  We were totally in the dark, and we were scheduled to catch our flight out of Beijing the next day.

After a night of fitful sleep I woke to the news that our tour bus was no longer available - seems some students had hijacked it and set it ablaze outside the Square entrance in an attempt to stop the further advance of Chinese tanks.  Our only source of transportation to the airport - a 45-minute drive away - was literally in flames.  Worse yet, apparently the violence that had taken place in the Square was spilling out in pockets all over the city - nowhere was safe. 

Somehow our professors and tour guide scrounged up four taxis to shuttle us (no telling what they paid for them).  They first took all the women in the group.  If the situation hadn't been so serious we probably would've laughed at the whole "women & children first" thing.  We guys waited quite anxiously in the hotel lobby for a good 3-4 hours.  Keep in mind that this was long before Blackberrys and pocket cell phones - so we had no idea if the girls had made it to the airport.  Likewise, they didn't know anything about our status.  After the longest few hours of my 21 years, the taxis came back.  Never been so glad to see a taxi.

I wound up sitting in the passenger seat of one of the taxis, a mini-van; and we headed out.  Probably out of nervousness I snapped some pictures along the way.  Here are a few:

LOTS of people congregated, trying to find out whatever they could.  Bicycles were everywhere (this was back when cars were a huge luxury for the average Chinese)

The bus and truck, like our tour bus, had been burned and used as some barricade the night before.  It was still smoldering.

The military presence was everywhere.  Even when you didn't see them you could feel them.

You get an idea of what was going on - all along the way there were signs of struggles and fighting the night before.  A pool of blood on the sidewalk here, a burned vehicle there.  At one point when our van was at a standstill (which happened a lot), someone outside forced open the side door of our minivan.  It was a young Chinese man who recognized us as Westerners and told us in English: Don't forget this!  Tell the world!  Tell the world what you have seen, so they will know!  He shut the door and ran away.  That, umm, kind of shook us up.

We finally arrived at the airport a few hours before our flight and briefly enjoyed a heartfelt reunion with the rest of the group; then it was a quick and anxious trip through customs.  It appeared that we were getting special treatment by the powers-that-be at the airport - they wanted us out before things got worse.  Last thing they apparently needed was the bad P.R. that would come with a group of American college students trapped inside a city falling apart.  We made our flight in time and lifted off, heading for Hong Kong (which at the time was a British colony).  I've never been so thrilled to experience the sensation of plane wheels no longer touching terra firma.

Once in Hong Kong we were briefed in full on all that had happened: the previous night, around the time we were arriving back to the hotel after the acrobat show, the Chinese military was systematically murdering tens of thousands of peaceful protesters in the Square.  What's more, while we were watching crop reports on Chinese TV, on the other side of the world Tom Brokaw and the rest of the pre-24 hour news cycle gang were breaking into Saturday morning cartoons and reporting the carnage.  Everyone else around the globe was aware of the depth and horror of it all - we were ten minutes from it and hardly had a clue.  This led each of us to find the nearest phone and call home, much to the relief of lots of Moms and Dads.  My Dad had actually been contacted by a local news station which somehow caught whiff that I was over there with the group - later the reporter and camera crew wound up in my living room where a much relieved interviewee recounted a phone conversation with his son, safely out of harm's way.  That same news crew was there at the Raleigh airport when I walked off the plane and into my parents' embrace.

The Beijing Airport, by the way, closed a mere hour after we left, and didn't open for a week.  We literally got out of there by the skin of our teeth.

People process experiences like this in different ways.  My way was to talk to various groups about it.  In the days before Powerpoints I had slides made of the pictures I took and walked people through those harrowing hours.  I spoke about the tragic irony that these fellow college student had been willing to put their lives on the line to stand up for simple, basic human rights that we in America took for granted.  I talked about how our country, despite all our flaws, should be thankful for the freedoms and rights we have and work to make sure everyone everywhere has the same too.  And I pleaded with them to do what that student asked us to do when he opened our van door - to never, ever forget. 

I still haven't.  Okay, so Mom's email reminded me that it was twenty years ago this past Wednesday.  But I haven't forgotten, if you know what I mean.  It's changed who I am, unequivocally.  I'd like to think that I have a more sympathetic ear to the oppressed and marginalized who suffer injustice - not just in far-off places, but right here at home too.  Anywhere where people are not allowed to fulfill their God-given potential; experience their basic human rights.

There are lots of images from Tiananmen that will forever remain seared in my brain.  Some are those I saw with my own two eyes.  But there's one particular image that bears deep meaning for me, even though I didn't get to actually see it:

I have a picture of this in my office, cut out from an old Time magazine; and in the bottom right corner I've added the following:

Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses,
But our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.
They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand upright.
Psalm 20: 7-8

More importantly than remembering Tiananmen, my hope is that we can remember the hope that comes from people who stand up for what is right, no matter what's in front of them.  If we do that, then the lives of those thousands of Chinese students who were gunned down on June 3 will live on forever.

Getting back in the Game (in a good way)

I'm really digging this YouTube clip:

I like it because, although not to this degree, I've been in that poor vicar's shoes before, and misery loves company.  I also like it because it shows in pretty stark fashion the complexity of the collision between faith and culture.  And I think the British accents are cool.

The church, as this video quite effectively demonstrates, has never had all the answers - although many times it's tried to pretend that it did.  What the church has always had is a definitive calling to speak up and make a difference in the world.  Unfortunately, it hasn't always done that.  Hmm.  Talk about getting your jobs mixed up.

I was reminded of the latter when I read a great syndicated column by Leonard Pitts this past week.  You can read it here, and I really hope you do before you read the rest of this blog, as what I say from here on will make a lot more sense.

The beauty of this article is that Pitts approaches things not just a journalist but as a person of faith, and one who is lamenting the response - or lack thereof - of the church on a number of issues.  Eighty years ago it was the Holocaust, fifty years ago it was civil rights, thirty years ago it was the AIDS epidemic.  There are others, of course - poverty and hunger, the environmental crisis - and most of the time it seems as if the church is the last to respond, if at all. This is especially true with the issue Pitts hones in on, that being torture. 

Now - let me clarify two things.  First, I have every ounce of respect for the women and men in our military who defend this country.  I'm grateful for their devotion and mourn when they make the ultimate sacrifice.  Second, I'm not approaching this topic from a political standpoint.  I feel the need to clarify this because the morning the article came out I posted the link on my Facebook page and got a wave of comments from folks, many who assumed I was getting political.  I'm not.  In fact, Pitts himself doesn't bring politics into it - and if you've read any of his other stuff you know he's not opposed to doing that in the least.

What I am doing is recognizing the fact - as many others have - that something has gone seriously awry when the world's superpower chooses to ignore the very rules it helped to create and institutes tactics that have not only been proven to be ineffective but actually incite those in opposition even further.  It would be sad enough if only our government bought into this, but the real tragedy is that many in religious circles are falling in line too.  The fact that, according to the study cited in Pitts' article, a majority of American Christians (evangelical Protestants specifically) express support of torture is terribly ironic, given the fact that the man they pledge their allegiance to was a victim of the worst kind of torture himself.  The cross was Rome's masterpiece in its vast torture arsenal, and the streets of Jerusalem were literally lined with them (and their victims) for all to see.  It was a horrific reminder by the powers-that-be of who was in charge and what would happen to those who forgot.  And yet the Christian faith was born out of those who stood against that kind of power; a counter-measure proclaiming a very different way of life, with Jesus-the-torture-victim at the center of it all.

How did we get here?  That was the question author Diana Butler-Bass posed as a comment on my Facebook link.  How did the church become complacent on issues that really matter?  I imagine it's a complex problem that none of us will ever fully understand.  But if I had to take a guess, I'd say something similar to what I mentioned in a previous blog post about welcoming a post-Christian America.  Every time the church and the imperial power of its day joined forces, the church has lost its soul.  Its priorities change from proclaiming the kingdom of God to supporting the power structure, from loving unconditionally to drawing lines of who is in and out, from speaking the truth in love to speaking the agenda through power. 

So we wind up with a bizarre situation: the church on the sidelines while others forge ahead.  It's an odd twilight-zone-ish scene where, as Pitts' article point outs, comedian Jon Stewart becomes a spokesperson on the torture issue (as was evidenced in his Daily Show interview with Cliff May in April, which you can watch here).  It's both enlightening and kind of embarrassing that a late-night comedian - and not the faith community - is leading the charge.  Only in America.

Is there then any hope?  You bet!  In fact, in a blog post of her own, Butler-Bass makes the case that mainline Protestants are beginning to evolve into our country's new moral conscience.  My hope is that us "Prods" will latch onto this as our new collective identity while joining forces with other followers of Christ, other faiths, and even those of no faith at all.  Perhaps the church will then be leading the way in a good way - not to achieve power or receive "kickbacks" from an unholy marriage with the culture, but as a beacon shining light on the stark differences between right and wrong, between hope and fear, between fair and unjust.

So I'm tired of being on the sidelines. I'm ready for the church to get back into the game; back to being more relevant and speaking out on issues that really matter in our world.  Maybe if we begin doing that, just maybe, we'll stop being awkward - like that poor dude in the YouTube clip.  Man, I feel his pain.

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UPDATE: Pitts' article has really gotten in my head this week and has come into play with my sermon this Sunday.  Feel free to check it out if you want.

A Different Kind of Confession Booth (or, what happens when Christians come out of the closet)

It's Thursday morning and I'm in my second office - a local coffee house with wireless internet.  Getting ready to hit the road, actually, for a big Acoustic Blend show in Lexington at the Civic Center there (pictures and YouTube clips hopefully forthcoming).

But I've been thinking a lot over the past few days about my last blog and both the challenges and opportunities of a post-Christian America.  The opportunity, in my opinion, is for the church to reclaim it's original mission of serving people rather than striving to be a cultural tour de force.  The challenge, though, is that doing this requires a huge shift in thinking and behavior that, sadly, is not all that natural for us anymore.

 That's why I feel the following story is pure genius.  It's an excerpt from Don Miller's book Blue Like Jazz, which was all the rage a few years ago and still offers a unique perspective on Christianity that is refreshing and a tad disconcerting.  Don was involved in a small campus ministry at Reed College, a liberal arts college in Portland Oregon with a reputation of not being terribly welcoming of organized religion. Please give it a read - you won't be disappointed.

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Each year at Reed they have a festival called Ren Fayre.  They shut down the campus so students can party.  Security keeps the authorities away, and everybody gets pretty drunk and high, and some people get naked.  The school brings in White Bird, a medical unit that specializes in treating bad drug trips.  The students create special lounges with black lights and television screens to enhance kids' mushroom trips.

Some of the Christian students in our little group decided this was a pretty good place to come out of the closet, letting everybody know there were a few Christians on campus.  Tony the Beat Poet and I were sitting around in my room one afternoon talking about what to do, how to explain who we were to a group of students who, in the past, had expressed hostility toward Christians.  Like our friends, we felt like Ren Fayre was the time to do this.  I said we should build a confession booth in the middle of campus and paint a sign on it that said, CONFESS YOUR SINS.  I said this because I knew a lot of people would be sinning, and Christian spiritually begins by confessing our sins and repenting.  I also said it as a joke.

But Tony thought it was brilliant.  He sat there on my couch with his mind in the clouds, and he was scaring me because, for a second, then for a minute, I actually believed he wanted to do it.

“We are not going to do this,” I told him. 

“Oh, we are, Don.  We certainly are.  We are going to build a confession booth!”

We met in Commons – Penny, Nadine, Mitch, Iven, Tony and myself.  Tony said I had an idea.  They looked at me.  I told them I had a stupid idea that we couldn't do without getting attacked.  They leaned in.  I told them that we should build a confession booth in the middle of campus and paint a sign on it that said, CONFESS YOUR SINS.  Penny put her hands over her mouth.  Iven laughed.  Nadine smiled.  “They may very well burn it down,” she said.

“Okay you guys.”  Tony gathered everybody's attention.  “Here's the catch.”  He leaned in a little and collected his thoughts.  “We are not actually going to accept confessions.”  We all looked at him in confusion.  He continued.  “We are going to confess to them.  We are going to confess that, as followers of Jesus, we have not been very loving; we have been bitter, and for that we are sorry.  We will apologize for the Crusades, we will apologize for those televangelists who steal people's money, we will apologize for neglecting the poor and the lonely, we will ask them to forgive us, and we will tell them that in our selfishness we have misrepresented Jesus on this campus.  We will tell people who come into the booth that Jesus loves them.”

All of us sat there in silence because it was obvious that something beautiful and true had hit the table with a thud.  We all thought it was a great idea, and we could see it in each other's eyes.  It would feel so good to apologize, to apologize for the Crusades, for Columbus and the genocide he committed in the Bahamas in the name of God, apologize for the missionaries who landed in Mexico and came up through the West slaughtering Indians in the name of Christ.  I wanted so desperately to say that none of this was Jesus, and I wanted to desperately to apologize for the many ways I had misrepresented the Lord.  I could feel that I had betrayed the Lord by judging, by not being willing to love the people He had loved and only giving lip service to issues of human rights.

So we set to work on the confession booth throughout the beginning of Ren Fayre, and people looked at us over the first couple of days with both curiosity and amusement.  The further along we got on the booth, though, the more I began to wonder if our idea was such a hot one.  As we began to put the finishing touches on it, I was in the process of telling Tony that I didn't want to do this.  And then someone opened up the curtain and walked in, saying they were our first customer.

“What's up, man?”  Duder sat himself on the chair with a smile on his face.  He said his name was Jake.  I shook his hand because I didn't know what to do, really.

“So, what is this?  I'm supposed to tell you all of the juicy gossip I've done at Ren Fayre, right?”

“No.”

“Okay, then what?  What's the game?”  he asked.

“Not really a game.  More of a confession thing.”

“You want me to confess my sins, right?”

“No, that's not what we're doing, really.”

“What's the deal, man?”

“Well, we are a group of Christians here on campus, you know.”

“I see.  Strange place for Christians, but I am listening.”

“Thanks,” I told him.  He was being very patient and gracious.  “Anyway, there is this group of us, just a few of us who were thinking about the way Christians have sort of wronged people over time.  You know, the Crusades, all that stuff....”

“Well, I doubt you personally were involved in any of that.”

“No, I wasn't,” I told him.  “But the thing is, we are followers of Jesus.  And we believe he represented certain ideas that we have not done a good job at representing.  He has asked us to represent Him well, and we've failed him in that.”

“I see,” Jake said.

“So there is this group of us on campus who wanted to confess to you.”

“You are confessing to me!”  Jake said with a laugh.

“Yeah.  We are confessing to you.  I mean, I am confessing to you.”

“You're serious.”  His laugh turned to something of a straight face.

I told him I was.  He looked at me and told me I didn't have to.  I told him I did, and I felt very strongly in that moment that I was supposed to tell Jake that I was sorry for everything.

“What are you confessing?”  he asked.

“Well, there's a lot.  I will keep it short.  Jesus said to feed the poor and to heal the sick.  I have never done very much about that.  Jesus said to love those who persecute me.  I tend to lash out, especially if I feel threatened.  Jesus did not mix His spirituality with politics.  I grew up doing that.  I know all of this was wrong, and I know that a lot of people will not listen to the words of Christ because people like me, who know Him, carry our own agendas into the conversation rather than just relaying the message Christ wanted to get across.  So I've not been a good follower of Jesus.  There's a lot more, you know.”

“It's all right, man,” Jake said, very tenderly.  His eyes were starting to water.

“Well,” I said, clearing my throat, “I am sorry for all of that.”

“I forgive you,” Jake said.  And he meant it.

“Thanks,” I told him.

He sat there and looked at the floor, then into the fire of a candle.  “It's really cool what you guys are doing,” he said.  “A lot of people need to hear this.”

“I don't know whether to thank you for that or not,” I laughed.  “I have to sit here and confess all my crap.”

He looked at me very seriously.  “It's worth it,” he said.  He shook my hand, and when he left the booth there was somebody else ready to get in.  It went like that for a couple of hours.  I talked to about thirty people, and Tony took confessions on a picnic table outside the booth.  Many people wanted to hug me when we were done. 

All of the people who visited the booth were grateful and gracious.  I was being changed through the process.  And I think those who came into the booth were being changed too.

*******************

See, I told you it was cool.

This story speaks to me in many ways, but three in particular.  First, I'm struck by how this campus ministry was the minority at Reed - I love that he describes their actions at Ren Fayre as "coming out of the closet!"  Truth is, this isn't all that different from what those first Christians experienced back in ancient Palestine as they were dwarfed by the Roman empire - same thing.  Throughout history the church has thrived when it's been countercultural.  My hunch is that, in a post-Christian America, we will know more and more what it feels like to be that campus ministry group at Reed.  And I think this is a good thing.

Miller's story also shows me that Christians do their best work when they assume the role of the servant, when they take on a stance of humility and grace that feels entitled to nothing, when they meet people where they are rather than demanding others come to them on their own terms.  In a post-Christian America the church simply can't afford to try and do things they way they used to.  That's like sticking a confession booth in the middle of a wild college party and asking everyone to come inside and confess their sins.  That's been done plenty of times, and it's not working anymore. I truly believe that when we approach people where they are out of humility, seeking genuine fellowship and striving only to serve them, the church can regain its mojo and start making a difference in this world again.

And finally, there's absolutely nothing wrong with Christians saying they're sorry.  Because a lot of horrible stuff has been done in the name of Jesus, and they carry that legacy.  Repentance cuts both ways.  The good news is that, thanks to "duder," so does forgiveness.

I'm telling you, it's that easy.  The hard part, of course, is actually doing it.  Time to get to work.

A "Post-Christian America?" Don't sweat the small stuff...

There's a famous line in Lindsley lore, spoken by my father back when my brother and I were kids, as the three of us played in the surf at Daytona Beach.  Right before a mammoth wave would crash down on us, when little eyes would grow wide with excitement and a tinge of fear, Dad would look at us and smile and say: Ah, don't sweat the small stuff.  And we understood what he meant - not only with what was spoken, but what was implied as well: Don't sweat the small stuff, because it isn't as big as you think it is.  

I couldn't help but think of my father's words (words I've said to my two boys as we've stood in the waves) when I heard how some folks - some who are good friends of mine - reacted to this recent Newsweek article.  The title itself is ominous enough and designed to appeal to one's fears: The End of Christian America.  Nobody likes for anything to end, especially when it's something we've been led to believe we should want. 

I don't think it'd be presumptuous to say that there's a wide swath of America who's assumed for years that ours is a "Christian nation."  To be honest, I've always wondered what that term means.  Is it reality that's being talked about, or an ideal?  Does it mean that every single American citizen is Christian, or should be?  Are we talking about a simple majority?  Or are we referring to supposed "Christian values," a nebulous phrase that is such because 1) there is disagreement over what values are inherently Christian, and 2) there is ignorance of the fact that other faiths profess many of the same values Christians hold dear.

Nevertheless, this hasn't stopped many well-meaning people from pursuing the notion of a "Christian nation" - not only because they think it's a good thing, but because they believe it's what God wants.  In recent years, however, these folks have found themselves increasingly frustrated in their quest.  The election of a "Christian president" (another nebulous expression) at the turn of the century did not usher in an expected reformation of right-thinking religious ideology. Some of the hot-topic issues, such as homosexuality and abortion, continue to be in flux.  And a recent study on religion in America has shown that those professing the Christian faith, while still in the majority, experienced a sharp decline in the past decade.  The area of greatest increase?  Those professing no faith at all.

So this has caused some in Christian circles to go into a general state of freaking out; from which they emerge with some pretty ominous conclusions: there is no hope for our country, we are all doomed, and God has given up on us.  Personally I think that's just plain silly, as is the notion that we were, are, or ever will be a "Christian nation."  This may sound strange coming from a pastor, I know.  But therein lies the stereotype that people like me - a middle-aged male Caucasian pastor of a small congregation in a rural part of the Bible belt - get a lot. And perhaps for that very reason I've often found it hard to put into words how I feel about all of this and why.  Stereotypes aside, these issues are incredibly complex and multi-faceted.  It's not simple stuff we're dealing with.

And then this past week I ran across a blog by noted evangelist Jim Wallis of Sojourners, who I admire a great deal, and his comments on a "post-Christian America."  And in my humble opinion, I think he hits the nail on the head, especially with this paragraph:

Personally, I am not offended or alarmed by the notion of a post-Christian America. Christianity was originally and, in my view, always meant to be a minority faith with a counter-cultural stance, as opposed to the dominant cultural and political force. Notions of a “Christian America” quite frankly haven’t turned out very well.

It's as if Jim got in my skull and spoke my thoughts.  I simply could not have said it any better.

What Wallis is referring to, by the way, is the less-than-stellar history of the church whenever it's been coupled with political/governmental power.  When the church first started, it was not only in opposition to the Roman empire of its time, it was hiding from it.  Churches were held in the privacy and seclusion of people's homes - which, incidentally, served to foster fellowship.  Over its first two hundred years the church continued to grow and become more public, but it never assumed a position of authority or influence in the culture.  It was always, as the expression goes, counter-cultural.  All of that changed in 313 AD, however, when the Roman emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan.  And before you could say "Apostle's Creed," Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire.  Every Roman citizen - and there were a few of them, mind you - literally became Christian overnight.  This did absolutely amazing things for the church rolls - membership morphed to an unprecedented magnitude.  But it didn't do much for the spirit of the church.  In fact, if anything it served to deaden it.  So whenever the church takes on a position of privilege, power and entitlement in society, it's almost always never a good thing for the church, and usually not for anyone else, either.

Why?  Because in the process the church loses its soul.  It recasts the church's mission in the world from one of service and fellowship to one of entitlement and duty.  Leadership in the church confuses Christ's power with worldly power - after all, that is humanity's greatest temptation: absolute power corrupts absolutely.  It increases intolerance of other peoples/faiths/religions, because if one truly is the majority, it's almost impossible to see things from the other's perspective. 

But perhaps the greatest ill effect of the church/society marriage is just plain laziness.  Not too long ago it was standard stuff for every business in town to be closed on Sunday mornings.  This meant that if people wanted to interact with others and get out of the house, church was it.  Now there are many "options" for people to choose from on Sunday morning: kids' soccer games, other community functions, the golf course at the country club or the Starbucks down the street.  The church doesn't have the same influence over the culture that it once did.  I've often heard fellow clergy complain and lament this because, as someone once actually said to me, "Now we have to work harder to get them here."  And see, I don't think that's a bad thing at all.  In fact, I think it could be the best thing that's happened to the church in a long time.

So the thought of the end of a "Christian America" does not threaten me in the least, nor does it give me any reason to mope, whine, or declare the imminent end of Western Civilization as we know it.  As a matter of fact, I think it's because of this very development that the best days of the church are ahead of us.  But it's going to take a lot of work on our part; a huge joint effort across lots of lines (racial, gender, denomination, ideological, etc.) that we've gotten pretty good at drawing before.  It will involve a drastic undoing of many of the perceptions and habits we've acquired over the years as Christians living in America, along with an intentional adoption of a new way of doing things.  Many folks have written lots of good stuff about how the church should negotiate this change; allow me to offer up a few of my own.

First, we must stop expecting and demanding perks from society, such as the absence of "competition" on Sunday mornings, partisan prayer at municipality meetings, or the Christianization of anything outside the church.  We should not feel a sense of entitlement just because of our faith.  The early church had no such thing and they flourished.  Seems to be a lesson there...

Second, we need to quit feeling insulted, angered or worried about expressions like "the end of Christian America" or even the tongue-and-cheek title of Wallis' blog: "A Christian Mistake."  The truth can be good for us.  Besides, contrary to popular opinion, the job of a Christian is not to always be right.  Our job is to be faithful.

Third, we must come to terms - and quick - with the fact that our society is becoming increasingly multicultural and reflects many different religious perspectives.  And we should stop being scared of this.  We should view this as a wonderful opportunity to partner with people of other faiths - or people of no faith at all - to focus on what we have in common and how we can make ours a less violent, less wasteful, and less divisive planet.

Fourth, we must put forever to rest the notion that being Christian and being patriotic are one and the same.  A Christian can be patriotic, but a Patriot does not equate being a Christian - or any person of faith.

Fifth, Christians should work diligently to assume a more humble and gracious stance in the world, instead of the arrogant and entitled image we've done such a good job of creating over the years.  Somehow we've got to come to grips with the fact that the man we believe to be the son of God was a peasant Jew who made a meager living as a carpenter, who didn't own any property or wardrobe, whose only sense of self came from the people he hung out with and the God he once called "Daddy."  I know people like to claim otherwise, but I honestly believe that if Jesus came back today in our society in the same way he appeared in first century Palestine, the vast majority of us would not only fail to recognize him but do our best to get rid of him.  That right there should tell us something.

And lastly, I really think we should listen to my Dad, when the wave is about to crash down on us and we think it's all over: Don't sweat the small stuff, because it really isn't as big as we think it is.  Because when it comes to the mission Christians believe they've been sent on, what's more important: identifying a nation with a particular religion, or helping to heal a broken world?  While we're in the throes of debating a cultural religious identity and what values are part of that, there's a child dying of hunger every six seconds.  While we're worrying about shrinking percentages of adherents, wars are claiming the lives of too many and ruining forever the lives of even more.  While we're debating things like sexual orientation and other hot-topic issues, there is real pain and suffering out there that we are turning a deaf ear towards.  In the big scheme of things, whether our nation is Christian or not is small stuff indeed. 

So let's not sweat it.  Instead, let's sweat the stuff that really does matter: hunger, poverty, injustice, disease, corrupt systems, inequality, racism, gender bias, a warming earth, bigotry, hate crimes, overflowing landfills, joblessness, a crumbling economy, mental anguish, human brokenness, and people who need us to show them, in so many ways, God's far-reaching love.

Where might all of this lead people of faith?  Wallis offers this: Making a real impact on the values and directions that a democracy will choose is, perhaps, a more exciting kind of influence than relying on the illusory and often disappointing hopes of cultural and political dominance.

If that's what awaits us, then bring on a post-Christian America.  Let's not sweat it!  In fact, let's welcome it with open arms. 

A full day in Louisville

I've never been to Louisville before.  In fact, I think the only time I've been to Kentucky at all was years ago on a youth group mission trip to Harlan in the Appalachian mountains.  But last night around 10pm my flight touched down in the Louisville airport for a two-day "Festival of Theology" conference at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.  Another thing that I haven't done in while is attend a conference like this.  Sometimes the busy-ness of pastoral responsibilities - family obligations and music stuff aside - can make it difficult to break away.

But I had to come to this conference, as both Marcus Borg and Brian McLaren were here.  If you know these guys, you know that just having one of them would be amazing enough.  The fact that they are here together in one place, along with Diana Butler-Bass (who I'm not as familiar with yet) is really something. 

I'm not going to write a bunch of stuff here (you may be relieved at that!)  Mainly because I'm tired and need to go to bed, as well as the fact that after three one-hour lectures from each of these folks - lectures that I could've easily listened to for multiple hours - I need time to process.  So I thought I'd just share a few pictures and maybe make more specific comments later.

But just briefly - all three of these people were very genuine and honest about what they saw as the multi-faceted challenges currently facing the church.  In addition, all three saw the current transitional period we are in as a tremendous opportunity for the church to become something new and wonderful.  The overall decline that mainline denominations in particular are encountering right now may, in fact, be a blessing in disguise.  How we respond will determine how well the church is able to fulfill its mission in the future - and perhaps its very existence.  Of course, all of this much easier said than done.

Anyway, here are a few shots and some thoughts:

Borg talking in the afternoon lecture.  This guy's focus is to try to cut through almost 2000 years of history to get to who Jesus was as a first-century Palestinian Jew and what his mission and purpose was for his day.  No small task.  His book simply titled Jesus had a huge influence on me when I read it a few years ago. (by the way, sorry for the fuzzy picture - took these with the Blackberry on zoom)

Here's Brian McLaren at the evening lecture.  His lecture on the changing dynamics of the church was great too: I knew it was going to be good from the moment his title flashed up on the PowerPoint:

We're In Deep Shift: How we got here and What To do about it

Brian has tons of great books.  I'd recommend this one - recently gave it to a friend who's on a spiritual journey of sort and he got into it big-time.

This was a conversation the three had together after McLaren's lecture.  The woman in Diana Butler-Bass, whose picture I didn't get during her morning lecture (zoom on the Blackberry wasn't working right).  I haven't read anything of hers yet but did buy a copy of a book of hers that just came off the press - looks to be good stuff.

I so appreciate getting away to events like this.  It's good to get out of the routine, for one thing.  But when I hear people who have a passion for keeping faith real and getting beyond the partisanship/bickering/divisiveness that has undercut so much of what the church is supposed to do, it reinvigorates me and keeps me focused on what I need to be doing.

Incidentally, I must confess to "twittering" during the event with some quick snippets of what the lecturers were saying and my thoughts. Yeah, I know.  Here's an archive:

Diana Butler Bass - recent study on religion in America shows that country is "post-partisan;" i.e., beyond labels

DBB's lecture: awesome. Break now. Just shook hands & got books signed by Borg and McLaren. Would've gotten picture if it wasn't so Jr. High

Borg: we need re-education about who Jesus was and what his mission was. Move from "conventional" to "intentional" Christianity. Hear hear.

McLaren's lecture title: "We're In Deep Shift - How we got here and what to do about it." I like it already & he hasn't even started

Now on to joint conversation - Borg, Butler Bass & McLaren dialoguing. Amazing to see these three together like this

Tomorrow are small group meetings with each of these folks, one-on-one.  Being that the event is sold out, I'm not sure how "small" the group are actually going to be.  But it should be some interesting conversation and food for thought before I hop on the plane back home.

That's enough.  Time for bed.

The sermon I keep preaching and why

Up until about four years ago I lived with a sort of unspoken fear as one who preaches for a living.  I guess it's the same kind of fear a songwriter encounters well into their career, or a writer after they publish a few books.  I had a fear that I was starting to repeat myself in my sermons and that this was a bad thing.  At worst I wondered whether the proverbial well was running dry and people would eventually catch on and tune me out.  I have a sneaky suspicion this fear is shared by others who step into the pulpit on Sunday mornings.

That fear was abated about four years ago in one of my doctoral classes.  I can't remember what the class was, but at some point my professor Craig Barnes shared a story about being at his father's bedside not long before his death.  His father was a pastor as well; and in one of those sacred moments where father passes on timeless wisdom to son, Craig's father said, "Son, every preacher basically has three sermons in them, and that's it."  I remember a sense of relief rushing over me when I heard this - that it's okay when we as preachers find ourselves returning to the same overarching "themes" from time to time.  In, fact, it's almost something we should embrace.  If one believes, as I do, that sermons are essentially three-way conversations between pastor, parishioner and God, then it makes sense that the One who enacts the conversation (that'd be God) keeps leading the other two back to the same place.

With that in mind, there's no question what the recurring theme in my sermons is:

Exile.

It comes from the Old Testament, some 500 years before Christ.  The nation Israel was defeated by the powerful Babylonians, carted off to live in "a strange and foreign land" that was not their beloved Jerusalem.  To understand the significance of exile is to understand the depth of their loss.  For the Israelites Jerusalem was more than just a place on the map.  It was the embodiment of their faith and belief in God; their very soul.  The two were intertwined so tightly that to be separated from Jerusalem felt like being separated from God.  This kind of thing is hard for us to understand in our day and time, when places of worship are practically at every corner (well, at least in the southeast).  But for them it was spiritually devastating.

I find the theme of exile so pertinent in our day and time.  Call it postmodernism at its most pronounced.  There is a sense that more people are feeling "adrift" these days, like a boat lost at sea.    In the past our culture was, generally speaking, full of people who had a sense of some anchor in their lives - be it religion, family, employment, something.  Now look.  A recent study shows that America as a whole is becoming "less religious (it's a little more complicated than that, but that's it in a nutshell).  We all know how hard it is to keep a family together these days.  And with the economy in shambles and millions upon millions losing their jobs, the days when one's career or 401K served as the bedrock of financial security are long gone.

Exile.  We don't like it.  We've lost our bearings in unfamiliar territory.  And perhaps the worst part of it is that we don't know when it will end.  We have no clue when we'll go "home," if we can ever really go home. We encounter feelings of sadness, melancholy, even anger and rage.

Bono once described the psalms as the "blues of the Bible" - and perhaps no psalm captures the hopeless sensation of exile more acutely than the opening verses of Psalm 137:

By the rivers of Babylon -
there we sat down and there we wept, when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there we hung up our harps.
For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth,
saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?
(Psalm 137: 1-4, NRSV)

This image of people so distraught, so overtaken by hopelessness, that they can't even sing songs and resort to hanging their instruments in tree branches is one that has always stuck with me.  As a songwriter it's hard for me to imagine being so utterly despondent that you get no pleasure in pulling out the six-string and plucking a few tunes.  The "song" just isn't there, and you don't know when it will come back around.  That's what exile can do to you, if you let it.

So I find myself returning to this theme of exile in my sermons, whether the scripture verses are about them specifically or not.  Perhaps there's a personal reason for this (we preachers preach out of our own experiences, you know) and I find myself in tune with these feelings of not quite being "at home" - a work in progress, if you will.  And maybe I also find myself drawn to the theme of exile because of the many people's lives that I'm immersed in - family, neighbors, church members, friends, musical kindred spirits, students, community members, fellow church workers and servants, etc.  People who sense at some level that they are not quite where they want to be, or need to be; and that they must spend some time in the wilderness figuring out who they are and whose they are before heading back home.  And even when they do return home, it's never quite the same way they remembered it.  It's home, but it's a different home.  It's more about a feeling of familiarity than turning back the hands of time. 

I imagine exile will always find a way into my sermons - and I'm cool with that.  And thankfully I think my congregation is too (they've never told me otherwise).  For me the notion of being on a journey is so much more important than just reaching the destination.  When it comes to matters of faith, I believe it's okay to hold things near and dear without feeling like one has fully "arrived."  I'm reminded of this every time I hear (and perform) one of my favorite U2 songs.  The verses speak of someone who has seen and done it all, who has been to the mountaintop, who believes in "kingdom come," who's been set free.  And yet each time the verse concludes with the emphatic and somewhat disconcerting line: I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

A friend of mine once lamented that Bono & the gang had renounced their faith in this song - because, as they put it, "a believer is someone who has found what they're looking for."  Really?  We may have "found" God (although I prefer to think of it as God finding us), but it's only the beginning of the journey, not the end of it.  As people of faith our search is supposed to ultimately lead us to the kingdom, and we certainly aren't there yet.  We live in a world where a child dies from hunger every three seconds, where a minority possesses a majority of the world's resources, where war exists and where we are slowly killing our earth.  As people of faith especially, we have not found what it is we're looking for.  We are a people still searching, still finding our way and trying our best to follow the one who has gone before us.

We are a people in exile.  So until something dramatically changes in our world, I imagine that this theme will keep finding its way into my sermons, one way or another.  And I'm cool with that.  Because it's where I am.  It's where we all are.

Hoping for failure?

Alrighty folks, get ready for the righteous indignation voice to surface again....

This afternoon after work I went to Wal-Mart to buy insulin syringes for our diabetic cat (yep, you heard right.  Four dogs now, one hamster, and two cats, one of which is diabetic.  Craziness).  I'm standing in a rather long line passing the time when I overhear this conversation directly behind me.  A couple of guys talking about the economy and how bad it is, and about the fact that our President will be speaking later tonight on national television, and about how he's not doing enough to fix things and that they never liked him from the start.  And then these four words pass from his lips: I hope he fails.

Seriously?  I mean, by now I think most of us have heard how uber-conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh made the same comment a few weeks ago.  Ridiculous, of course - but that's kind of what you expect out of the guy.  Not really mainstream thought.  Heck, even Pat Robertson called him out.

But this was some guy in the pharmacy line at Wal-Mart - a normal citizen like you and me.  He had no audience to pander to; no radio demographic to please.  He was just having a conversation with someone next to him and expressed his desire for our president to fail.  And his sentiments have been echoed by others.

Wow.  Really?  I struggle to find the logic here.  I fully understand that many fine citizens of this country (some of whom are reading this blog) do not agree with our president.  They find themselves at odds with him over his economic prescriptions, or his stance on hot-topic social issues, or his move to end the Iraq war or close Guantanamo Bay, or his party affiliation.  I respect people who respectfully disagree with elected officials and work within the system to make their voices heard (how they vote, communicating with their representatives, etc).  That's a huge part of what makes this country great - that we can disagree and still be "one nation under God, indivisible...." 

But why, in a unified nation, would anyone want their president to screw up?  Surely this is not what the founding fathers envisioned.  It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: if the president fails, we fail.  There's a lot riding on our president's shoulders these days.  He knows it.  We know it.  His decisions regarding the bailout, the stimulus package, his cabinet appointments - everything - is critical for a country that day by day gets deeper and deeper into crisis.  If our president fails, more people will lose their jobs.  If our president fails, more companies will have to shut their doors.  If our president fails, more people will lose their retirement in a diving stock market.  Why, then, would anyone want the man to not do well?

I hope he fails.  This is like someone wanting a surgeon to mess up in the middle of open-heart surgery because he beat you out of a residency.  Or a teacher you didn't like in high school suddenly turning lousy and crippling his students as they head into their EOG's.  It makes no sense.  It was one thing to hope that a presidential candidate last fall would fail to do well in a debate, or fail to win a primary.  But that's all in the past.  With all that's at stake in the here and now, does anyone really want failure?

I almost said something to the guy in Wal-Mart - but that was when the lady at the counter handed me my syringes, and I remembered that there was a pot of my wife's chicken/bacon/bean soup warming up on the stove at home.  So I let my stomach set the agenda rather than my convictions.  Some things are better left unsaid.  Until you get home and can blog about them. ;)

The Other Miracle on the Hudson

Right now I'm giving an exam in my college New Testament class.  Lots of scribbling sounds.  So it's just me and my laptop, and an opportunity to tell you what I've been thinking about a lot this week.

I've been thinking about the "Miracle on the Hudson."  You know the story.  Back in mid-January, a US Airways flight was struck by birds soon after taking off from LaGuardia Airport and lost its engines.  Attempts to return to LaGuardia or land in a nearby airport in New Jersey proved futile.  So the pilot managed to "land" the plane in the Hudson River, and all 155 passengers and crew were safely evacuated.  Not one life was lost.

It's an amazing story.  And the fact is that the American public simply cannot get enough of it.  I googled the words "miracle" and "hudson" and it brought up over 5,300,000 entries.  Didn't get a chance to check all of them, but I think it'd be same to assume that the majority of them are about the above.

At the center of this whole phenomenon is a guy named Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot of Flight 1549 who performed the landing.  I'm no pilot (although I'd like to take flying lessons one day), so I don't know the intricacies of what this guy does for a living.  Still, I know enough to know that what he did was amazing.  Last week they released the audio of his conversation with LaGuardia Airport as the plane was going down.  The guy was incredibly cool - you would've thought he was just asking for directions to the nearest McDonalds or something. 

So it probably comes as no surprise that Sullenberger has since been hailed as a hero - he and his crew.  In the span of a few weeks he has embarked on a whirlwind tour of sorts - every media outlet, all the morning news shows, and even a special recognition at the Super Bowl.  And throughout it all his "cool" has prevailed.  He seems to take it in stride, not really seeking it but content to go along for the ride.  And amazingly, he actually continues to second-guess himself, assuming there was something else he could've done to make it back to land.  Again, I'm no pilot, but I think the guy did pretty darn good with the little he had.

What has struck me about all of this - other than the fact that it happened - is how our country has become absorbed by this "miracle."  Weeks later, it is still getting press time - now some of the passengers are making the rounds.  It just seems kind of odd because normally a story like this would have a week's life span in our fast-paced, "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately" news cycle.  So why is it still the talk of the nation?

Certainly a lot of it rests on the shoulders of Sullenberger and how essentially 154 people owe their lives to him.  But I think there's more to it.  I think the reason we can't let this story go is because it's a good story.  Plain and simple.  It's an uplifting story about something that could've turned out a lot worse.  In short, it's good news.

And Lord knows we sure can use some good news these days, can't we?  We've got an economy that's hanging on by a thread.  We've got hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs each month.  We live in a world that seems almost addicted to fear and war.  And each of us has our litany of personal struggles, whether it's trying to make ends meet or caring for ailing parents or raising our kids to be decent members of society in the midst of all of this.

It doesn't matter what end of the tax bracket you're on, or your nationality, or your lot in life.  You hear the tale of Flight 1549 and find yourself breathing a huge sigh of relief.  And not just for the lives that were miraculously saved - but for you too.  Because it's refreshing to hear good news when all we get most of the time is bad.  It's good to be reminded that, even in the midst of all the stuff life can throw at us, amazing things still can happen. And that's why I think there is another miracle that took place besides the lives that were saved.  It's the miracle that happens when we are inspired to recognize the good in this world, even when so much in that same world suggests otherwise.

Eventually, of course, this story will die down and drift off the news cycle.  Sullenberger will go back to flying his planes, and I'm betting he'll spend next year's Super Bowl watching it in the comforts of his living room.  Birds will go back to flying over the Hudson (although we hope not as much in huge flocks near airports).  And you and me?  We'll turn on our TV sets or log onto the news websites or open the newspaper and have more bad news crammed down our throats.

But there will be more stories like this that will pop up from time to time and remind us that all is not lost.  And it doesn't matter how big a deal they'll make of it and how many times a hero is interviewed - I for one won't get tired of it.  Good news is important to cling to in times like ours.