You are to distribute this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. You are to allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who have settled among you and who have children. You are to consider them as native-born Israelites; along with you they are to be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe the alien settles, there you are to give him his inheritance," declares the Sovereign LORD.

ezekiel 47:21-23

if you've spent 10 minutes on my facebook page, you've probably noted a bit of controversy over topics of faith and life.  somehow the journey i've been on has led me to conclusions about my role in God's Kingdom on earth that are fairly opposed to the way i thought of them for much of my life...and the way many of my friends view them.  i sometimes joke with my dear friend, joe, that when we left our common church several years ago, and i went to the city and he went to the edge of civilization :-) , that our points of view went with us.  we shared 15 years of pretty much the exact same brain and heart.  since then the journey has been mostly divergent, although we're still good friends and can talk easily about all these topics that sometimes draw great ire.

one topic that's recently caused more than a stir in the US and my facebook page is immigration and what to do with a national problem.  some view it as a legal problem.  some view it as a people problem.  some prefer not to view it at all, believing it to be too complex a problem to be solved in a way that anyone wins.  interestingly, it seems like many of the issues in today's world fall under that "complex issue" category.

before this past weekend (june 4-6, 2010), i set myself in what i would have considered a middle ground position on the topic of immigration reform.  while i was not for mass deportation, or any sort of raid-based campaign that caused undocumented people to live in terror, i also believed that there needed to be some sort of plan to bring these people into a citizenship process, legal status, or compassionate plan to get them back to their home countries with visitation of family, etc. and to slow the unregulated flow of people into the country.  such a plan, such a middle ground situation would be very difficult to develop, and probably even harder to implement.  and, i must admit, this standing in the middle was partly to deal with the fact that i could not see amnesty for all as an option.  it was easy enough for me to see that deporting 13,000,000 people had massive negative repercussions attached to it, but i also saw amnesty some sort of easy way out, let's just get it over with sort of solution.

then came June 4-6, 2010.  this was the weekend of the River City Community Church retreat.  our second annual such retreat.  this year we had Reverend Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil as our saturday evening speaker.  she spoke on the first 11 verses of Ezekiel 47.  this was a familiar passage to me, as our pastor, Daniel Hill, had spent a few weeks last year going through this passage, and i had written a song "Run, River" that we did during one of those weeks.

on sunday morning we all gathered in our meeting area and had about an hour of people sharing what they had encountered over the weekend.  i sat in the back row with my iPhone bible opened to the passage in Ezekiel.  i decided to read the chapter again as people talked about solitude and family and rivers and being bottle up.

as soon as that great vision of the river ends in verse 11, there comes the sort of text that we, or at least i, often like to skip over.  much like the "begat" verses in the beginning of Matthew, these verses commanded Israel in how they were to divide up the land.  (nate's paraphrase) "you get that from this river to that sea.  they get that from this tree to the barn on the right side of the road."  nine verses worth of setting borders.  i was getting bored...and then came verses 22-23.

"You are to allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who have settled among you and who have children. You are to consider them as native-born Israelites; along with you they are to be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel."

i've read lots of verses where God calls Israel to welcome the stranger and the alien.  they were core to my need to find a middle ground.  i may have even read these verses, although i don't recall it.  still, something new hit me that morning.  God blessed Israel with an amazing land, full of resources, and He commanded them ("...declares the Sovereign Lord" at the end of vs. 24) to share their inheritance with the alien who had settled among them.  He commanded them to consider them as native-born Israelites...to be given a piece of what what rightfully Israel's blessing.

i'm regularly amazed at the ability of the brain to calculate instantaneously.  a thought leads to a thought leads to a thought leads to a thought.  in less time it takes to realize it happened, the mind journeys and concludes things that would take hours to explain.  i contemplated aliens, citizenship, borders, God, the US, christianity, immigration...all in a few seconds.  and when i started letting my mind settle into what just flashed through it, i came away with this stance-changing conclusion.

it wasn't heritage that made the Israelites the people of God.  if it were, then no alien could share in their inheritance.  God was willing, and in fact commanded, that non-Jews were to share in the blessing, even to the point of being considered native-born.

the God who commanded this is the same today as He was then.  His words for His people then are applicable for His people now.

i am a citizen of His people now, not native-born, but welcomed through His son.

my citizenship in this community...this holy nation, chosen people, royal priesthood...this citizenship overrides any other i may or may not ever have here on earth.  i do not swear allegiance to anything formed on earth, as my allegiance is sworn to His Kingdom.

if i am a part of His people, and He has commanded me to welcome, and consider to be native-born, the alien living among us, then i will consider them to be as citizens.

so...where i have taken middle ground before, where i have found legal issues to be reasons to stand for compassion and justice on this issue, i will now simply, and probably not so simply, choose to stand for it because the heart of my God is for the alien living around me.

i will support amnesty and full citizenship for all undocumented people, and the US as a place where aliens and strangers can come to share in the blessing i have been afforded through the miraculous hard work of...being born here.

i have had this longstanding thread in my brain and heart about freedom. not any particular application of the word...just freedom in general. i am getting ready to write on it. i've started, even. but i would like to hear, through the use of the comments on this post, what you all feel about freedom. it doesn't matter if you think of the USA, no fear, liberty, living in some unfettered fashion, or life in Christ...any way you think and feel about that concept of no constraints...or not...i'd like to hear what you think.

if you have something written or a favorite piece that someone else did that captures your feelings, feel free to post that in your comments, too.

it's been three years since i began work on an idea i had nearly 7 years ago. www.i58wear.com is up and running. got a couple of quirks to work out apparently. seems the contact us page on the site isn't working. something is not right with the email accounts. i need make it easier to get to the products from the website. but overall...design, development, deployment...it's finished.

www.i58wear.com

www.cafepress.com/i58

while this has been my baby since inception, there are 4 people to whom i owe a great deal for their help in the process. John Daharsh took my first design and worked into a functional site and content management system. unfortunately, by the time i got that site up, i hated it. Mark Ward met with me and helped me get my logo designs organized and simplified, and helped with structural ideas for a new site...layout and navigation. I never built that site, but it was key in deciding what to keep and what to toss. Andrew Marrah did a few evenings of graphic design making backgrounds, etc. for that design, as well. although we didn't go with that one, his eye for what's right is great. Georgia Bateman (my sister and an extraordinary artist) came down and spent a day with me as i tore apart pretty much everything and started over. she asked what i wanted to capture, and then helped me find exactly what i wanted. with her help, the design aspects of the final site design came together quite easily. without you guys, i'd still be putzing around on my old laptop trying to figure out how to draw a line in illustrator. thanks so much!

for the past 2 months this is pretty much all i've worked on. evenings, sick days (or rather, very sick days), weekends...i worked until bleary-eyed. cafepress isn't the most user-friendly place to work, and because of the number of products, there was a lot of tedious time spent...not the least of which was yesterday. 8 hours in a coffee shop (good) saving product pics (bad) and re-uploading them (worst) in order to finish the cafepress store and i58wear website. it's good to be done.

nice time for a break, right? nope. i have to get the word out. countless blogs and facebook groups and emails...it's going to be a lot more work. i think for the foreseeable future most of my free time will be rolled up in this. it's a great idea (so i've been told) but people still need to hear about it.

so...if you read this blog, maybe let your circle of friends know. ask them to buy a mug or a shirt...something. we all use this kind of stuff every day anyway. the difference here is that we have the potential to change the future through this. it's not like a non-profit where you donate and then trust they're doing good things with your money. here, at least, you're getting a product in return for your investment...and it is an investment. this for-profit business is not built to make rich the owner or shareholders. this one is a business built to store up treasure in heaven, and to be a part of His Kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven.

i'll have a link to the i58wear blog soon. that blog will inform on any goings on around the world of i58wear, whether reporting how we're coming toward our long-term goals, or describing the days between then and now. in the meantime, please read Isaiah 58 for yourself. meditate on it. see how it applies to you and your circle of influence...for as much as it's written to you and me, it's even more written to "us". let's be rebuilders of walls and restorers of cities. let's take it seriously and see what it means to see our salvation come like the dawn.

i first saw this video a couple of days ago. i'm not a huge oprah fan. i'm not a huge oprah critic. i just don't pay much attention. however, this video brought me great joy. i thought to myself "self...there is a person who could buy anything in this world, but she couldn't buy that." and it showed on her face. she's got, what, a billion billion billion? and yet...21,000 people dancing for her. not just dancing like "woohoo! i'm at oprah's shindig!", but learning a dance that was part of a surprise gift to her from her staff and the Black Eyes Peas.

if you watch her reaction, you'll see they succeeded in the surprise. i think you'll also see that she's seeing something she just could not have created. she could have assembled 21,000 people. she could have paid them to dance for her. but that would have been buying the love. she could have asked them to dance for her. they would have. but, still, it would have been asked for, and expected. of course they would dance for her if she asked. she's oprah and they love her.

but there's something deeper in all of this. first, whatever one's personal feelings about oprah may be, the people who pulled this off, the people who taught, and the people who learned...they sought to do something not asked for. they looked for a way to express how they felt without payment or request. and the result shows in oprah's eyes and smile and body language. it's going out of one's way to express the joy and love that they have for someone.

there's something else. where i come from dance was sort of a no no. dancing caused pregnancy, i think was the general line of thinking. i always wondered about that...partly because i wanted to be relatively normal (a lost cause, i'm sure) but mostly because i saw so many references to it in the Bible which was supposed to be the basis for the faith in which i was growing up. i don't think i knew it then, but this is what i think i missed. there is a joy and unity coming from this celebration that causes all other divisions to cease existing for a few moments. the people dancing cross probably nearly every cultural and subcultural line we could ever think to draw between us...color, creed, economic status, gender, faith, etc, etc...and for a few hours learning and a few minutes dancing they ignore it all. it is humanity as it is supposed to be. united and with a common goal...celebration and praise and worship. and that got me to thinking about one more level of what i see here.

someday, i believe that a part of my eternity is going to look a lot like that, only milllions and billions of people in the crowd, with some pretty amazing worship leaders calling the crowd together. and while God will likely not be surprised by anything, i do believe the expressions might not be all that different as His people, not for payment or for being asked, celebrate, praise,and worship the One who has given life so easily to the greatest of gods we exalt on earth down to the smallest of those we neglect while giving up that exaltation. and we will dance in unison, people from every tribe and tongue, and the whole earth will be filled with His glory.

that's gonna be fun!

i owe this blog several posts. my brain works no less. it's just had some trouble connecting it to the fingers lately.

i spend a lot of time around some of the uglier sides of society and culture. truly it can be overwhelming at times. i think sometimes that the heartbreaking stories in the world can cause my heart to scar and make it a little tougher than i'd like it to be. but, somehow, as often as i'm distressed and distraught, i'm just as often completely caught by the beauty of this world. it makes for a strange tension.

for a world that is broken and has so much pain and hurt, it's remarkably full of breath-catching sights, smells that draw us into long forgotten memories, flavors that pause time, and sounds that can soften the hardest of hearts.

in the middle of some very tedious work tonight i decided to listen to a version of The Water is Wide that my brother found. i've loved that song for a long time, especially by Eva Cassidy, but this version, as he put it "is the best i've ever heard." i ended up taking a bit of a break, listening to probably 15 different versions. one of them had some water and boat scenes in the video and i just sort of went off to my happy place.

water is my favorite part of nature and after a few minute of thinking of the places from where these photos were taken and letting my mind drift with the music, a thought came to my mind. someday this scarred heart and all the damaged places of this world will be redeemed...and my heart jumped to think "what more beauty could there be in a fully reconciled world? my senses reel at the dimly seen version...how much more will i well up when seeing all as it should be?"


i am blessed even to see much of the beauty present in this world as it is. so many will never taste, hear, smell, feel, or see the things that life in a developed country or in a privileged life bring. i do not want to soak up all i can now at the expense of fighting the brokenness that wearies the soul at times. there will always be more to see and taste and smell and hear and feel. it would be a useless challenge to seek it all. instead, i will relish the chances i do get, and work to bring reconcilation to the brokenness in and around me through the one who gives beauty and heals pain. i know one thing for sure. i'd rather have both ends of the spectrum than live somwhere in the middle and never touch either. after all, both beauty and brokenness already live in me..

this began as a VEEEEERRRY long entry...so long that i could not get my thoughts in order. it was full of the ponderings of several weeks and months. it was too full. so i'm gonna make it a series of entries. they may not roll out quickly, and they may be interrupted by other things, but they will come.

the study is fear...fear and faith really. of how one culture seeks to set us free from fear, whether terror, lack of control, or anxiety, or any manner fear uses to manifest itself. of how another culture holds us captive through it, playing on all forms to conform us to a lifestyle that scarcely resembles the one we see as that of the followers of Jesus we read of in the Bible.

fear may not be the only form of slavery to which we are bound, but there's likely nothing more encapsulating as far as being the opposite of freedom. and yet, when we are presented with the idea of freedom as mankind sees it, it is freedom that is often used as the basis for instilling fear. nothing, in this country, is more sure to spark vigorous action than the idea that one's freedoms are being infringed upon or taken away. watch the Town Hall meetings going on around the country over the universal health care plan being assembled in Congress. there is an overwhelming sense of fear running through the dialogue and diatribes. "this is not the america i grew up in", "we're turning into russia", etc are consistent complaints. it's based in a fear that's been pushed hard by certain groups since before the presidential election. that fear is "you will take away from me and give to someone else."

i want to look at that fear today. i see a deep incongruity in the life of a follower of Jesus being held by that fear. it's an incongruity that will find it's way into several of these pices on fear. i guess i'll just make this the foundation of my whole fear/faith position. God is who He says He is, regardless of our response to Him. the incongruity ls this. we say we believe He is all that He claims, but our fear belies that. it cannot be that God is sovereign, we are faithful followers, and we fear. oh, in our humanity, we will be afraid. moments of fear are unavoidable. but to live controlled by fear...this is incongruous with a live in pursuit of the Kingdom culture.

so, on this first fear...the loss of what we have, what we have worked for, what we have saved, what is ours...and not some lazy or illegal or _________...fill in the blank with whomever comes to mind when you think of those who would benefit from your loss. if we work in the premise of the fear, certainly it makes some sense. we have expenses that come close to meeting our receipts...and many times exceed them. we live in a precarious balance, with debt pulling from one side, desire pulling from another, and a still, small voice pulling from yet another. we want, get, and pay. we live well in that tension, finding time for church and small group, movies and vacation, and 60 hours of work. it lets us give a little to each side that asks for more.

but what of...maybe the rich young ruler? was he desirous of following Jesus? there was something of an interest, if he could control the way it went down. Jesus saw that...sell all you have and give it to the poor. he went away sad. (on a side note, we do very well with the answer from questioner #1 that asked "what must i do to be saved?" you must be born again. we are generally solid on that one. but questioner #2? "what must i do for eternal life?" sell everything you have and give it to the poor. when's the last time we heard that preached? when's the last time we wrestled with the weight of that one? hmmmm...) i believe we walk away sad every day. not because we don't sell everything every day and give it to the poor, but because our minds and hearts should be on providing for those who go without, and yet we're terrified that a life of that will find us short in our ability to pay or play. or life safely. or send our kids to college. or have a retirement account with with we can live out our days. or...

Jesus said of the Father...will not your heavenly Father take care of you? birds don't fret. flowers don't fret. yeah, but flowers don't have three maxed out credit cards, a mortgage, 4 kids, disneyland on the 28th, and on and on. and a small voice asks for the 70th x 7 time...draw to me and away from the debt and desire. let me change your heart to mine. my life is hard, but my burden is easy.

do not mistake man's freedoms for the freedoms of the Kingdom. in our pursuit of man's freedoms we will lose the freedoms of the Kingdom...we will do what we want, instead of what is best for those oppressed. but make no mistake, if we choose the freedoms of the Kingdom, we will lose the freedoms of man. we will shop differently, although it means getting less for more. we will seek to free up the resources we fear will be taken...and give them away anyway. we will look differently at those man looks at as different, and welcome them into our homes and lives without fear of what might happen to friends, family, and possessions. we will use our time differently. instead of so much focus on ourselves and those who are just like us, we will find time to stand up and speak out and inform ourselves and make a ruckus for justice, rather that to perpetuate a lifestyle and culture.

truthfully, there is nothing that can be taken from us that should cause us to fear. it hardly makes sense and surely goes against what we've been taught throughout our lives. but follow the lives of the Jesus followers. whether it was money, position, work, family, or life itself, they did not allow fear to keep them cloistered in a safe little community of believers away from the dangers of life. in fact, the dangers of life caused them to come together...but it didn't stop them from going back out.

Beware anyone, any talking head, who tells you "be afraid!" it is completely opposed to the word of God to your heart and soul. do not be afraid, for our God is with us whether in green pastures, or the valley of the shadow of death.

this entry was originally on my Xanga blog from 2006. nobody, including me, goes there anymore, and as i needed to link to it, i'm reposting it here.



it's funny how perspective changes things. four or five years ago, i'd have thought that it was a sin issue causing all this automobile/financial pain. that for this much to go wrong must be a sign that something isn't right in my life. now, don't get me wrong...there's always something not right in my life. but i don't believe that's what this is about. i think it's about giving up...about letting go...about realizing that to follow Jesus, really follow Him, means that i'll live with less, hold on to less, desire less. at the same time, i'll suffer more, need more, and rely more on the One who had no place to lay His head.

i believe two S words have held me captive in my life, and probably much of the western church. stuff and security. i am not mobile with stuff. i cannot move instantly anywhere when encumbered with stuff. and there is a never-ending supply of it. as i've gone through the decision to sell all of my video game systems it's been easy to do with all the old, antique systems. but the xbox has been a difficult one to say goodbye to. why? because there are so many cool games that are always coming out. great chances to hop online with friends and have a pseudo-communal time. i love that...i enjoy it very much. but hours go by and weeks go by and months and years go by and there's always a new game or a new system. there's furniture and cars and definitely clothes (i can't even remember the last time i bought new clothes)...a never-ending stream of stuff to have. most of it's totally benign, too...innocuous. and each thing is another difficult thing to shed when God says "move...I've laid out what I desire from you already in Scripture. do not wait for some special dispensational "calling". THIS is what I require of you..DO justice, LOVE mercy, and WALK humbly with me." or Isaiah 58...or Matthew 25, or any one of the 3000 places in His word to us where He says to move on behalf of those that lack.

the other word is security. this is a feeling gained by stuff. from the basest...money...to the most fun...love...and a million places in between...it's being insulated from need because need is covered by all these things. is there a difference between our fulfilling our needs and God supplying them? maybe not, at the bottom level. God is good and gives us work and health, and allows our needs to be met. but are we losing faith when we build up stockpiles of things to counter need? is it wrong to be secure? is it different than being wise with what we're given? i think so.

Jesus told the rich man, "sell all you have and give it to the poor...then you will be saved." but then who would take care of the rich man? well, i believe God answers that all through Scripture. He will provide as need arises. i cannot create a place so secure that it cannot be stripped away (see Job) in no time. i can create a place that is secure enough in my mind that i don't need anymore. security has stripped me of need, and now i am the rich man. and i tell you truly, as sad as that rich man was at the thought of giving up everything, so am i. it is a hard layer to peel away. in fact, i believe that the rich man would have struggled just as much if Jesus said give 1/2 of it away because he would have had to choose which among his possessions he would give up. so i now have to ask myself every day, and sometime even more frequently.

what is it that i would not give up in order to live in a way that lets me live like Isaiah 58 describes. what earthly dreams, hopes, or desires are more important to me than life in the Church as God commands. what safety will i need? what value must i gain? what limits will i impose? to be honest, i don't beileve that i can hold to anything and follow Jesus. it is a journey, to be sure...layers of resistance and self peeled away. but Jesus stated in Matthew that to follow Him meant being willing to leave everything behind. does it mean walking out of my house and heading for zambia? or mexico? or chicago's englewood neighborhood? leaving my family? selling my car? giving up everything? well, let me ask me (and you) this? what will i not give up? what is there to gain in this world that will not be far exceeded in value in the next? is sacrifice, and i mean to the point of pain, here worth it? can i live without a nice home with a view and a wife and kids and dogs, insulated away from the overwhelmingly obvious needs in this world? will i trade an eternal reward by my father for something to which i cannot hold...which may make it through this life with me or be gone tomorrow, but will certainly not join me at the Judgement Seat. am i willing to live counter-culturally?

Jesus' ministerial role was one of honor and glory as the other men in His profession saw it. they lived above most in that time and carried on with only a token compassion for the suffering. Jesus gave up standing and stature among the world, and lived with poor, common, or less than common folk. He spent His time with sinners, the sick, the downtrodden, and as He himself said, had no home to go to. He did not only give up everything when He went to the cross. He gave it up long before then. there was no security in His existence. and there definitely wasn't any stuff. if He is the model i am to become...the image...the benchmark...then i have a long way to go.

as if i didn't already know that...

for all the questions in my heart, mind, and soul about the way music is generally the sole expression of worship in the church, and a lack of clarity on how to even broach the subject of altering that, i have to admit that there is something special about singing to God. it's almost weird when you think about it. what is it about singing that lets us say things we don't say well, or at all, without music? why do notes and rhythms change our poetry to a deeply affective response. i don't know. but even in all my wrestling with the text of Isaiah 58 and Micah 6 regarding the heart of God on what He wants and requires, i do still know that there's something about singing that He loves and we love.

and so there are many times that the the most connective moment for me on a sunday morning is one line from one song worming it's way past all of life and into my deeper thoughts and feelings...and it happened this morning.

carlos ruiz led worship this morning, and did a great job, as usual. his first song, Open the Eyes of My Heart, brought back thoughts i've had for a while, as this was one of the songs that first sent me on my journey of undefining and redefining worship.

the second song was in Carlos' native tongue, Spanish. i don't remember the name, but he's led us in this song before. essentially it says if you have faith equivalent to a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain "move" and it will be moved.

about halfway through the chorus i was overcome with this thought. the very thing i mulled over on the way to church, the very thing i fretted over on easter sunday (and nearly every day for quite some time), and the thing that's been the 6 year weight...well, i don't have the faith of a mustard seed toward any of them. i'm not going to go into great depths on what they are, but in brief, the hope and desire to get married, the broken relationship between my brother and sister-in-law, and tunnel of debt that resulted from bad business and worse personal decisions, in that order, ran through my mind in the space of a second or two.

the sermon was good, excellent even, but it was singing the word "muevete" over and over where God spoke to me and gave me my lesson for the day. it's been with me all day. i've mostly come to grips with the first one, lost hope in the second, and have been working very hard to break past the third. and today i was reminded, in the most common form of worship, through words that may have not struck home without the music, that these mountains might cause me great struggle, but my Father is not hampered by limitations.



i was gonna write more, but i guess that sums it up pretty well. besides, it's time i wrote a post under 4 chapters long.

i spent last thursday evening listening to a PhD from University of California, and a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Loyola University discuss the prison system in the US. the stats are ridiculous and at some point i'll probably write more about that, but when they're combined with the stories of those oppressed it starts to become much clearer why God has to speak directly to His people about how we treat prisoners.

i'm pretty sure that the command to help prisoners isn't restricted to the common idea of introducing them to Jesus, with the "obvious" result being that they'll all become upstanding, rehabilitated citizens. i'm not knocking that. people need Jesus. but what about people who don't belong there. or people that don't deserve what they got. i know...none of us deserve what we get. but you gotta admit, some people seem to get a lot more of what they don't deserve than others. some of it's life. but some of it is more than that. some is people and peoples and groups of people that have power, and use it to advance their own lives at the expense of people and peoples and groups of people that don't have power and are literally kept from advancing anything.

this story hit the AP wire today. when you combine this with government officials who don't think they need to pay taxes, or government officials who think they can sell importance, or bankers who take powerless people's money, run it into the ground, and then take more powerless people's money from powerful people and dole it out in bonuses and such...well...i think a pattern can be shown to exist.

please don't not want to know about it. please don't think we've got enough to deal with in our own lives. it's oppression and it's got to stop. Jesus as savior is not the only Jesus. there's Jesus in the temple tearing down the profiteers' tables. there's Jesus telling parables about who actually is our neighbor. there's Jesus who lived with no place to lay His head, eschewing comfort for gospel. there's Jesus who knew that a full barn would be a huge problem for people that wanted to follow Him. want to know. want to learn. want to stand against. this kind of thing cannot go on...

and here is "this kind of thing"



WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses.

The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench.

In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.

"I've never encountered, and I don't think that we will in our lifetimes, a case where literally thousands of kids' lives were just tossed aside in order for a couple of judges to make some money," said Marsha Levick, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which is representing hundreds of youths sentenced in Wilkes-Barre.

Prosecutors say Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC. The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shortly afterward.

No company officials have been charged, but the investigation is still going on.

The high court, meanwhile, is looking into whether hundreds or even thousands of sentences should be overturned and the juveniles' records expunged.

Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before. Some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it.

Many appeared without lawyers, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1967 ruling that children have a constitutional right to counsel.

The judges are scheduled to plead guilty to fraud Thursday in federal court. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years behind bars.

Ciavarella, 58, who presided over Luzerne County's juvenile court for 12 years, acknowledged last week in a letter to his former colleagues, "I have disgraced my judgeship. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame." Ciavarella, though, has denied he got kickbacks for sending youths to prison.

Conahan, 56, has remained silent about the case.

Many Pennsylvania counties contract with privately run juvenile detention centers, paying them either a fixed overall fee or a certain amount per youth, per day.

In Luzerne County, prosecutors say, Conahan shut down the county-run juvenile prison in 2002 and helped the two companies secure rich contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, at least some of that dependent on how many juveniles were locked up.

One of the contracts — a 20-year agreement with PA Child Care worth an estimated $58 million — was later canceled by the county as exorbitant.

The judges are accused of taking payoffs between 2003 and 2006.

Robert J. Powell co-owned PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care until June. His attorney, Mark Sheppard, said his client was the victim of an extortion scheme.

"Bob Powell never solicited a nickel from these judges and really was a victim of their demands," he said. "These judges made it very plain to Mr. Powell that he was going to be required to pay certain monies."

For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella was ridiculously harsh and ran roughshod over youngsters' constitutional rights. Ciavarella sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a statewide rate of one in 10.

The criminal charges confirmed the advocacy groups' worst suspicions and have called into question all the sentences he pronounced.

Hillary Transue did not have an attorney, nor was she told of her right to one, when she appeared in Ciavarella's courtroom in 2007 for building a MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal.

Her mother, Laurene Transue, worked for 16 years in the child services department of another county and said she was certain Hillary would get a slap on the wrist. Instead, Ciavarella sentenced her to three months; she got out after a month, with help from a lawyer.

"I felt so disgraced for a while, like, what do people think of me now?" said Hillary, now 17 and a high school senior who plans to become an English teacher.

Laurene Transue said Ciavarella "was playing God. And not only was he doing that, he was getting money for it. He was betraying the trust put in him to do what is best for children."

Kurt Kruger, now 22, had never been in trouble with the law until the day police accused him of acting as a lookout while his friend shoplifted less than $200 worth of DVDs from Wal-Mart. He said he didn't know his friend was going to steal anything.

Kruger pleaded guilty before Ciavarella and spent three days in a company-run juvenile detention center, plus four months at a youth wilderness camp run by a different operator.

"Never in a million years did I think that I would actually get sent away. I was completely destroyed," said Kruger, who later dropped out of school. He said he wants to get his record expunged, earn his high school equivalency diploma and go to college.

"I got a raw deal, and yeah, it's not fair," he said, "but now it's 100 times bigger than me."

rod blagojevich, illinois' illustrious, soon to be ex-governor, has said and done many things in the past few months to cause one to wonder how in touch with reality he is. my personal guess has been absurd arrogance, but there have been moments where his impassioned claims of innocence have caused me to remind myself that our country must prove guilt.

but then when my thoughts of megalomania start to dissipate a bit Blago pulls this out of his posterior. in an interview with Good Morning, America (part of his whirlwind tour of strange interview defenses that will replace his being present in Springfield for the impeachment trial) he said that on the morning he was arrested by the feds, his first thoughts went to his children and wife. his next thoughts were comparing his situation to that of Mandela, Dr. King, and Ghandi...

really? Rod...did you maybe forget Abe Lincoln? he's from illinois, too.

he does not equate selling a senate seat as an act of oppression, using his power and position for his advantage at the expense of those he governs. he views it as his being oppressed. this is his serious loss of perspective.

truth is, it's not uncommon for privileged people to adopt the position of the victim. sociologists and psychologists say this is a very bad place for privileged people to be...probably not for them, though. it's bad because if the people with power feel they're being wronged, usually it's by people without it. the common folk bear the weight of it.

you don't have to listen closely to hear Rod say that he was fighting for the people of illinois in everything he did. without hearing the rest of the charges that will be coming from the federal investigation, the recorded conversations regarding the selling of the illinois senate seat show that his interests did not lie with the people of illinois. they lay with him. and if that doesn't fly in the face of legacies of self-sacrifice on behalf of the oppressed...legacies left by men like Nelson Mandela, Dr. King, and Mahatma Ghandi...well, than i guess i'm the one who's lost perspective.

i have lived through moments that will forever mark my memory...9/11, the fall of the berlin wall, the space shuttles explosions, and both iraq wars, to name a few, but today stands apart and above them all. this time, every iteration of the swearing in of 43 previous presidents has new in the inauguration of the 44th.

whatever your political persuasions or religious convictions, this day marks a different inaugural event. while the work of making the words "one nation, under 6od, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" true for people of across all lines of color,gender, class, faith, and education is still a long way from reality, there has been no clearer evidence of a country tired of life as usual than today's proceedings.

there will still be struggle. there will still be inequity. there will still be many...many who face injustice...who live apathetic to our interconnectedness and interdependency...who oppose the gains of some because they know it may mean their loss. still, today exposed something different.

there is new and renewed hope. there is new and renewed awareness. there is new and renewed excitement. today, one out of every 260 americans withstood the cold of winter to reveal a warmth of brotherhood possibly never felt in this nation before...at least not in the way it was felt today.

today a new voice cried out. not just the voice of our new president, but of a nation slowly realizing (in the sense of making real) what it declared to be true on the day it was formed. that voice joined the voices of heroes of all ages, colors, nations, and genders who gave their lives, figuratively and literally, to the belief that God created all men are created equal. this new voice was of women and men who stood with that renewed hope as they watched something they barely dared to dream 50 years ago. this voice sprang from the new hope of young people who could see not just a visage of access to everwhere and everything, but a physical representation of it. it came from the renewed awareness of people who grew into adulthood in this country knowing little of any culture outside their own. it called from a generation who tired of legacy left them by their parents and their parents' parents that said freedom was for everyone, but killed or stood by while everyday life proved otherwise. and it sang with the excitement of old and young, red, yellow, brown, black, and white who stood 1.4 million strong together to cheer a day unlike any in our history.

it was no small historic moment. my parents remembered exactly where they were when they heard the JFK had been killed. many can say the same for MLK Jr. i will not forget rising to WBBM radio saying a plane had just crashed into the first Trade Tower. change rose out of all those events. and change will rise from this. some will fight it with every bone in their body, but this will be difficult to slow. it's not the voice of one man leading the charge. it's those reverberation of the old voices and the exuberance of the new voices who have come together it a choir declaring it to be a new day.

this was an Associated Press article posted today.

WASHINGTON – Think you wouldn't tolerate a racist act? Think again, says a surprising experiment that exposed some college students to one and found indifference at best.

Here's the scene: Researchers in Toronto recruited 120 non-black York University students for what purported to be a psychology study.

A participant was directed to a room where two actors posing as fellow participants — one black, one white — waited. The black person said he needed to retrieve a cell phone and left, gently bumping the white person's leg on the way out. The white actor then did one of three things: Nothing. Said, "I hate when black people do that." Or used the N-word.

Then a researcher entered and said the "psychology study" was starting and that the student should pick one of the two others as a partner for the testing.

Half the participants just read about that scene, and half actually experienced it.

Those asked to predict their reaction to either comment said they'd be highly upset and wouldn't choose the white actor as their partner.

Yet students who actually experienced the event didn't seem bothered by it — and nearly two-thirds chose the white actor as a partner, the researchers report Friday in the journal Science.

"It's like these nasty racist comments aren't having an effect," said York University psychology professor Kerry Kawakami, the lead author.

"It's important to remind people that just because a black man has been elected as president doesn't mean racism is no longer a problem or issue in the States," she added.

The study can't say why people reacted that way, although the researchers speculate that unconscious bias is at work. They have new experiments under way to see if maybe these witnesses suppress that they're upset to avoid confrontation.

"The failure of people to confront or do anything about racist comments is pretty widespread in the real world," said Indiana University psychologist Eliot R. Smith, who co-wrote a review of the experiment. "People may feel uncomfortable if someone makes a remark like this, but it's rare they will actually confront them."

so...it's really more like "the first half is over at " these are reflections on lines...on moments i had during sunday's Do-It-Yourself Messiah.

"Comfort ye My people," saith the Lord. "cry unto her...that her iniquity is pardoned." president bush pardoned several people today. i will probably never know exactly what that feels like, but those 20 or so people do. they were guilty and punished and had no hope for anything other than that...and they were pardoned. their sin was accounted to them no more. i am overwhelmed when i think of who i am and what i do and don't deserve, and that i am pardoned.

"But who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth?" i've been really struck this christmas season by my self-perceived ability to stand. as i prepared to lead our church in christmas carols a couple of weeks ago, i spent some time praying and thinking through the lyrics of these songs. quite a bit more powerful than i ever remember noticing before. and one phrase in one song...my favorite song...kept hitting me hard. "fall on your knees...fall on your knees...fall on your knees." not for this presidential or kingly figure who came with all sorts of pomp and circumstance. THE King of Kings came in small and tiny human form...and that doesn't often cause me to think "fall on your knees, nate." but who shall stand when He appeareth? this is God. not simply a baby. not simply man. not even simply a king or president. this is God. i cannot, when i think about it, conceive a scenario where i, being confronted with the actual physical presence of God, would walk up and say "hey...how you doin?" and give Him the old guy handshake/hug combo. and yet, in His presence daily, often don't even give that much attention.

"Come unto Him, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and He shall give you rest. take His yoke upon you and learn of Him; for He is meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest for your soul." i needed badly to hear those words in my soul. i my labour is often hard on my soul, and their are things in life that cause me to be heavy laden. whether the news, the enormity of the distress in this world, family matters, whatever...i think i carry these too much. i'm not just concerned or caring or acting or working. i'm carrying. and i haven't got the strength to carry all these things. not even one of them, really. and meek and lowly of heart? i've got some resting in those to do.

"Behold, and see if there be any sorrow unto His sorrow." nope. i beheld. there was none. which reminded me that there is nothing i go through that i can hold up to God and say "why me?" i have suffered. i've even suffered on behalf of another person. but truthfully, if someone were to stand the world's population in a line from shortest to tallest on the suffering scale, i'd be pretty darn near the low end of the line. top 1 percent at least. i was reminded of what i've given up compared to what Jesus gave up. and i can't even really make the comparison because i have NO idea what life was like prior to entering humanity.

"How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things." i heard this differently than ever before in my life. i was struck by the "preach the gospel of peace" part of things and wondered if the hebrew word used there was shalom. it is. isaiah 52:7 and romans 10:15 are where you'll find these words, the latter referencing the former. "preach the gospel" was a common enough phrase as i grew up in the church. that meant that we should tell people that they were sinners, Jesus died for their sins, and made a way to reconnect God and mankind. nothing wrong with that...it's true and a significant part of the story of God. but "preach the gospel of shalom"...that's a pretty different thing. and it was very encouraging to me while it was sung...i actually folded down the corner of that page in my score because i wanted to reconnect with what i was thinking and feeling. the fullness of what adding "of shalom" to that phrase means will have to be for another post. it's not a small thing, and i can't capture it in this paragraph. suffice it to say, it was a profound moment for me on sunday to hear that.

"Why do the nations so furiously rage together, and why do the people imagine a vain thing?" good questions. the first one is easy enough to understand, albeit not so easy to answer. the second is simply the KJV language for pondering/mull/meditate/speak on/study worthless things. i ponder/mull/meditate/speak on/study worthless things. i know sports stats and car stats and beer stats and such, and those things aren't bad things, necessarily. but what will i hope to have gained at the end of my life for knowing all these things. or having things. etcetera...etcetera...etcetera. what will i wish i had pondered/mulled/meditated/spoken on/studied? there's some imbalance in my life here.

"The kingdom of this world is become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ..." as someone trying to extricate himself from the kingdom of this world, and country, and many other things...and who is praying and working for His Kingdom, on earth, as it is in heaven, these words went pounding out before me like an army marching to battle. for while, as a follower of Jesus, i am called to preach the gospel of shalom, in the end, shalom is because the kingdom of this world is become the Kingdom of our Lord. i am a servant and soldier, and work for that, but, not unlike the scene in Two Towers (Lord of the Rings 2nd movie) when the evil forces think they're about to eradicate all those in Helm's Deep, they don't know the whole story. those fighting in Helm's Deep see things slipping away, and know if who they hope in doesn't actually turn out to do what he say, they're done for. but they do not hope in vain. their savior comes to restore peace...not just absence of war peace, but peace that sets things right...that restores...and reconciles. that line reminds me that although i do not know anything about how far the enemy will push forward its boundaries, those boundaries have already been set, and they labor in vain. i fight, but the kingdom has already become the Kingdom.

"I know that my Redeemer liveth..." i almost literally cried when the soprano started singing. all that is before is predicated on this one line. enough said.

"The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." i can't wait for this day. there are some things i look forward to in life. i hope for them, but if they never happen i'll be just fine. (e.g. jumping out of an airplane, base jumping, flying solo, hitting 200 mph in a wheeled vehicle, sitting on the italian coast, getting married, raising kids, making a christmas album, and probably a few hundred more) but this...for this i'll trade all those other things. it doesn't matter to me whether or not i'm in the "dead" category or the "we" category. i just want to hear that trumpet. i believe it will be played on a silver Schilke trumpet with silly putty in the mouthpiece, btw. (inside family moment)

that's a lot of moments. and it's why this will be a tradition for me each year. i try to keep a hold on these things each day, but there are minutes and hours and days and weeks where i hardly even know they're true. on the positive side, that used to be months and years...getting a litte quicker. :-)

at my other blog. sorry for the inconvenience.