The Tin Spoon

every move i make

2010-06-16T14:15:00.005-05:00

so...the last 12 months of digging, building, working, questioning, and seeking have led to the most significant change in my life since leaving Willow Creek 7 1/2 years ago with a little upstart group of people to found River City Community Church. i still remember clearly sitting with our pastor, Daniel Hill, as he expressed the ideas and values behind what he was setting out to do. i still remember him laying reconciliation, especially around matters of race, as a core principle and value and pillar of what the church was to be about. i also remember telling him i thought he was probably overstating the problem of race in America, and especially in the Church, as a whole. those of you who have followed my journey since moving to the city in april of 2003 know how turned upside down i ended up on those thoughts. i could never have foreseen moving into ministry dealing with the race issues that we face, and don't face, every day in the country and church.

the last 7 1/2 years were as adjective-filled as any stretch in my life...more so, even. amazing, stretching, challenging, fulfilling, exciting, tearful, joyful, sad, brilliant, and so many more. i came down here in the cloud of losing my home and business. halfway through these years i lost my father. i made some of the best friends i've ever had. i watched others leave, separated by 35 miles, 1500 miles, different callings, different ideologies, and different theologies. i've seen River City grow from 10 to 25 to 50 to 70 to 100 to 150 and now probably better than 200. i've seen the church grow, and i've seen people grow. i've seen people grow and i've seen bellies grow (some 25 kids under 3 in our church). it's been heartwarming and heartbreaking and some amount of time in both at the same time.

and now i am in the middle of both at the same time again. this move is only 4 miles away, but seeing what happened with 35, i'm sure they're a more significant 4 miles than the streets would make them seem. at some point this summer, as yet undetermined, i will be leaving River City for a small church in the Lawndale community. in many ways it is the inverse of River City...still multi-cultural, but now 80+% black, and 20% or so other cultures.

Westlawn Gospel Chapel is church of less than 100 people, with ranging from babies to the old and wise. the pastor has been a friend and co-worker of mine for the past 5 years at CURE and i have watched and listened as his heart has poured out for his community. my heart broke on more than one occasion as he told us of conversations with Christ-followers and not, with employed and not, with desperate and not...of wanting to be able to do more with the meager resources he has available.

during these same past two years, i was slowly turning over the ideas of commerce as ministry. this might seem odd to some of you who have read the discourse on my facebook page over the past number of months where i've taken to some "pro-socialist" points of view (that's not how i would classify them) including health care, the ills of capitalism, and the scary (in my mind) role of large American and multi-national corporations. still, in neighborhoods where jobs have left in massive bunches (International Harvester (1969), Sears (1974-1987), Zenith and Sunbeam (1970s) and Western Electric (1980s)) and where vacant buildings underscore the lack of economic activity and growth, free markets and the ability to create one's own job...and maybe eventually jobs for others...is as close to God's heart as i can imagine.

so...about a year ago i started investigating moving into Lawndale to work with Derrick Rollerson (pastor and collegue at Westlawn and CURE, respectively). a few months after that i began working in earnest on my i58wear clothing line, both the tangible work parts, as well as the values i hoped to see as the foundation for the business.

in january i was meeting with a group of biblical justice-minded people at Park Community Church when a guy gets up and starts speaking about commerce as ministry being, in his mind, a basic necessity and central to what he hoped to do as he left the corporate world and ventured into new waters. Rowan Richards and i spent some time talking that night, and many hours since. we've discussed our personal businesses (he also has a t-shirt line), what our visions could look like in practice, and how we might begin to develop these ideas on a broader level than just our own small businesses.

one of the things Rowan set up was something called The Stewards Market. it was a place where kingdom thinking businesses could come together and share resources, find information, and be encouraged in the idea of doing business differently. many of the very same things i wrote on the i58wear website about using that business as a way to build economic activity in a community were the ones on Rowan's heart, too. as we started to compare our notes it became clear that we were on the same journey...commerce as ministry.

there are many businesses doing great things around the city in Kingdom ways. what Rowan and i hope to do in addition to building jobs through our own businesses was to develop an entrepreneur incubator of sorts. we want to see people in economically struggling neighborhoods (think unemployment rates that double and triple the national rates) who have the same hopes, dreams, and creativity to start businesses as anyone else in this world...to provide the resources and support to grow those hopes into sustainable businesses.

in the end, The Stewards Market will be a virtual marketplace where social entrepreneurs, micro-enterprises, and the supporting group of people and institutions can have instant and easy access to things like commercial banking, tax advice, financing, micro-finance, as well as be able to grow business through the other businesses in the market.

as the ideas and plans have rolled out for this over the past 3 months, more connections have seemingly come from nowhere. a brief conversation led to an invite to the micro-finance conference here in Chicago a couple of months ago. some of the things we thought we'd have to provide, or that Derrick was already doing through his church, are already available in the city through 3 different micro-lending institutions. i've spoken to tax professionals, marketing people, commercial banking pros, and more. Rowan has built connections into schools, teaching social entrepreneurship as a class, as well as financial classes. he and i both have some background in the financial services industries, and while we'll probably not take on the task of financial advisiing through this, we can point people toward places that can help them grow their businesses in more ways than just a flyer on a windshield.

as the conversations with Derrick and Rowan started coming to a head, we all got together in my favorite little coffee shop and spent 3 hours putting tangible action points together. we are now just a few weeks away from our first meeting with Derrick, the four men from his church who are starting businesses, the two women from River City, the three or four that Rowan has, and the various connecting people to the various resources mentioned. and that point puts into motion the major life-change steps for me...leaving River City, coming under Derrick's and other's leadership at Westlawn Gospel Chapel, and eventually moving into the community.

all this will still fall under my CURE work. each of the CURE staffers has a different part of the city and task we tend to daily. we all come together weekly for staff meeting, and for the corporate ministry of the Cure Winter Conference and The Conversation (which is returning in september under the direction of Noel Ritter). as i've worked out this process, and conversed with Derrick and Russ (our president) it was easy to work this into the daily tasks of me as a CURE staff member. doing this also lets me continue to raise support for my CURE salary, and move greater amounts of the revenue from i58wear and Concept Web Works (a second company i started in march) toward the development of micro-enterprises in the Lawndale community.

Rowan will be doing these same sorts of things in the Cabrini Green neighborhood, and we will all come together once a month. in Lawndale, we will have weekly meetings...almost a small group of sorts. computers will be available with quickbooks, office suite software, and eventually design software. all the micro-enterprises on board at this point are being started by fellow believers, but we do not want to turn away anyone due to any difference in faith. still, we'll probably stick to these eight or so businesses for a while, before trying to bite off anymore.

i will actively be looking to meet with some of you who receive this letter or read this blog post about supporting this ministry through CURE. while the work i've been doing in "racial reconciliation" has been harder to quantify in many ways, this will be a more tangible method to that work. right now i still work three days a week at a part time job for which i'm very grateful, but which does take away from my time and efforts in building this. i need to replace about $400 a week with support in order to spend my full time on this. these are difficult times, i know, and stablity seems further from grasp than ever. if you would consider the equivalent of one dinner out per week (and a cheap one at that) of maybe $7.50 a week, it would not take many people to help me meet my need.

for those who can't afford it, and i truly understand, and know that to be the case for many people, please keep CURE, The Stewards Market, CURE, and me in your prayers. everyone involved has experience in business and business development, but we've never tried this. we need and ask for your diligent prayers.

if you have any questions, please ask. my phone number is on my facebook info page, and you can email me at nate@i58wear.com or nateheldman@gmail.com. (i'm about a week away from having 7 different email addresses to check regularly...oy)

peace...and love.

nate

i've changed my mind on immigration reform

2010-06-07T22:59:00.002-05:00

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.

tell me about freedom

2010-03-09T15:07:00.002-06:00

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.

3 years and done...for the moment

2010-01-21T17:19:00.004-06:00

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.

what do you get the person who has everything?

2009-12-21T21:40:00.003-06:00

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!

beauty and brokenness

2009-12-21T20:02:00.002-06:00

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..

The Great Immobilizer...pt 1

2009-08-18T12:37:00.004-05:00

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.

the two S's

2009-07-16T14:34:00.003-05:00

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...

today's Spanish lesson...

2009-04-19T23:14:00.002-05:00

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.

it's been prison for me lately

2009-02-11T18:32:00.002-06:00

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."

a serious loss of perspective

2009-01-25T09:10:00.004-06:00

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.

this was no ordinary day

2009-01-20T14:00:00.005-06:00

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.

an interesting little study...

2009-01-10T21:37:00.001-06:00

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."

the other half is over at that-was-good.blogspot.com

2008-12-23T23:00:00.002-06:00

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. :-)

the comments are fixed...

2008-12-19T22:32:00.001-06:00

at my other blog. sorry for the inconvenience.

a different kind of blog...

2008-12-18T22:53:00.002-06:00

for me, anyway. i figure if my sisters can have two blogs, why can't i?

really, they were partly the inspiration for this new blog of mine. krista's questions for me after my post on music were also. Ed Gilbreath's post about some of his favorite music and our comments also contributed.

so...check it out. it's new as of an hour ago. if you're inclined to contribute on the same things, let me know. i'd love some other contributors.

that-was-good.blogspot.com

i'll get to a little work on the design eventually. for now, you just get a recipe for cream of mushroom soup. :-)

why i do what i do...

2008-11-17T18:41:00.003-06:00

there was an AP article in today's RedEye (a free, early morning, mini-paper by the Tribune) here in chicago. it was entitled Targeted with Hate, and it documents a few of the "incidents" that have taken place around the country since Barack Obama won the election.

it would be easy to dismiss these as isolated (which they aren't) and the work of some bad seeds. but if you note the actual people involved, you'll find that it's more insidious than than. and if you really get your arms around the volume of these sorts of things, and the way the states are blanketed, and the range of ages represented, what will start to come to light will be a tip. the tip. of an iceberg.

for every event where someone dares to counter "polite" culture and voice loudly his or her opinions in such a manner, there are hundreds and thousands of people who either find "appropriate" ways to share their thoughts with friends and colleagues, or who keep them bottled up so they need not endure the shame incurred when attached to the word racist.

here's a few of the events that have been documented so far.

1) in Snellville, Ga, a black woman said a boy on a schoolbus told her 9 year old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." that same evening someone trashed the lawn of the woman's sister-in-law, mangling Obama signs and leaving two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door.

she said, "i can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil or anti-Obama and willing to descrate my property because one or two idiots did it. but it definitely makes yo look a little differently at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking."

2)four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one comment that said, "let's shoot that [n-word] in the head."

3)in Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read, "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. at the bottom of the marker board, was written, "let's hope someone wins."

4) second and third grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama!" according to a district official.

the thing is, we all have prejudices in our hearts. even hearts given to Jesus still have the old junk battling away. we hold our purses closer or cross the street or check for our wallets and ready mental plans if something should happen...all just walking down the street. and from what i see in those few examples above, we're apparently talking about this stuff in the safety of our homes...where our second and third grade kids are listening. i mean, what second grader even knows what it means to be assassinated? they know nothing of the brutality and hate messaged in that statement of "assassinate Obama." sin is born in them, but that is learned behaviour.

and how strongly do you have to hate to leave two pizza boxes full of your own feces on someone's front porch? dog crap won't do. nope...this has to be human. it's easy. it's the kind of hatred that existed 400 years ago and 300 years ago and 200 and 100. and 40 years ago, when some rights were gained for a people oppressed, hate was not replaces with love. in fact, the word that's been used for pretty much every oppressed group and how we're to learn to live with them is tolerance.

well, Church, i wish i could let us off the hook on this one. we're lovers, not toleraters, right? we'd never teach our kids to say any such things as these kids did. except that an effigy of Obama was hung in a tree, in a noose, on a christian college campus in the NW, long known for being a more tolerant region. while the Church may have less of an issue with the blatant hateful things said and done in public (and my guess is that my colleagues and co-laborers might dispute that) the undercurrents that carry these sorts of thoughts and feelings run through us as much as through any caricature of a good ol' boy we can conjure up.

i heard a sermon last night which pointed out that we, the Church, have forgotten who we are. you might say we've forgotten whose we are. we live by earthly wisdom and make plans and decisions and solve problems with the systems of this world. but in I Cor 6, paul tells us we should be ashamed of that sort of thinking. we are Sons and Daughters. we are attached through blood to a King who would have none of the sort of behaviour described above. we are compelled through the love of that King to not just cease those sorts of things in our lives, but to stand up and speak as though we have authority...as though we have power...as though we have been changed. for we have authority and power and are being changed. we should not be afraid to speak. we should not be afraid to move, either in action or to a neighborhood. we are heirs. we are the very children of God. and this God is not above asking us to go to such places. in fact, He seems to have a penchant throughout scripture for moving His people into those sorts of places. and whereever will we find what it means to depend soley on Him if the places we move toward can be kept safe by mere men.

i am in this work of racial reconciliation/righteousness in the church, not because race is the key issue that God wants His people to understand, but because the issues that we face when confronted with race and our hatred/apathy/inaction...whatever shape it takes for us...those same issues run deep through our souls, minds, and hearts. and if we can begin to see and hear the man and woman who is slightly different than us, but largely the same, as God sees them, then we begin to see ourselves more clearly as God sees us. and our hearts become His heart. and our will becomes His will, and our love becomes His love.

i saw and heard a lot of things from the Church about Barack Obama during this campaign...that's all documented below. what i'd love to see and hear now is some of that Church speaking out loud and clear against such behaviour. for now, in my little corner of Chicago i'll be doing that. it's not easy, but i can't see any other way to stand as a man of God.

ten of my favorite minutes

2008-11-15T16:15:00.003-06:00

maybe the single most core thing God built into me when He knew me before the world began was music. i cannot explain to you how deep it goes...how a chord or transition or melody or instrument or voice can cause chills and momentary separation from whatever else is happening with the world.

i know lots of people love music...but this is beyond that. it's how a crystal glass might respond to a certain pitch. my innermost being vibrates with the wonder of notes and harmonies. i love to write, to sing, to play, to listen, to arrange...anything.

i am deeply in love with the vocal standards music from the 20's-40's, greatly due to the influence of my parents. i love the singer-songwriter style that has been the backbone to so much of the american music scene since the 60's. but there is one type of music which moves me more than any. it runs from a capella choral pieces to 100 piece orchestral ones, and even sometimes both together. classical music, which encompasses a very broad range of things, grips me like nothing else.

my friend, ed, and i...and a few others had a brief discussion on it over on his blog. he mentioned maybe starting a classical music blog, and ed...if you're reading this...i wanna do it.

i am caught up in the detail of Bach, the power of Beethoven and Wagner, and the magnificence of Tchaikovsky and Mozart. but no composer quite gets me...or i guess, do i get, more than Chopin. there are pieces by others that i love more than some of Chopin's work, but overall, his melodic feel, his chord progressions, his ability to bring fury and whimsy and subtlety and delicacy together has always amazed me...amazed me even on pieces i've heard scores of times. when i listen to his music i am often caught thinking "who does that? who thinks like that?" nothing is ordinary...indeed everything is extraordinary. and of all of the music which he's done, or that anyone in any style has ever done, no piece of music has ever been more perfect to me than the Larghetto...the 2nd movement...of his 1st piano concerto.

this is it. ten minutes of amazing creativity, of an amazing piano piece meshed exactly right with an orchestra. take your time in listening. it gets better as it goes. get a glass of wine, sit back, and close your eyes. listen to it a few times in a row to hear how the melody moves between the piano and the orchestra. listen to the love Chopin had for half step moves in his music. savor it like you would a great meal or that glass of wine you're about to have as you listen. don't just hear it. and maybe don't even watch it at first. listen.

amazing what you find when you google yourself...

2008-11-06T22:26:00.001-06:00

i don't know when this was, and i didn't know i was being taped!

and now for something completely different...

2008-11-06T10:29:00.001-06:00

this is hilarious, and geeky all at once. the kid's got talent, that's for sure.

why history was made

2008-11-06T08:43:00.003-06:00

for the rest of the history of this nation this election will be important. it may never be remembered for successful or failed policies. in fact, it's doubtful that it will...with US foreign policy being the only exception i see.

what will be looked back upon in 20 years, 40 years, 100 years as important will be that out of a population in this country brought here under duress (what an understatement), held captive for 250 years by law, and another 150 by any means the dominant culture couldd think up...that the work carried out by harriet tubman, and w.e.b. dubois, and rosa parks, and martin luther king, jr, and innumerable others finally culminated in an advocate for these people for the first time in the white house.

however, he is not solely an advocate for black americans. as proven by the voting numbers, he's an advocate for other minority groups. he's an advocate for young white voters...even young white evangelical voters. he's an advocate for college educated voters, and non-college grads (like me). still, the significance in history, as people look back at this election will be mainly this. for the first time in our nation's history...one founded on the phrase "...that all men are created equal", a phrase never lived up to...we have a president who is not a white male.

i think people see this as historical because we believe he is a different leader than we've ever had...having humility, understanding, quiet confidence. i have faith in him as my president. full faith. it's not where my life's faith lies, but as president, i am confident in him. but my tearful moments did not come in relief that GW would soon be gone (maybe had i thought about it). they came watching a room full of young african-american students from spellman college dropping to their knees, and rising up in cheers. they came in hear john lewis interviewed, who fought in the civil rights battles of the 50s and 60s, and who choked back his own tears in admitting that no, he never thought this was possible in those years. he was fighting for the right to ride the same busses and eat at the same counters. the presidency was the furthest thing from his mind. they came in the tears of black men and women whose faces crossed my tv screen.

i, along with the rest of the white people in this country will never know how it felt that night to know that for the first time, someone like us had won the presidency. we've always been represented...very well, even if ideology differed. and we continue to be. when barack leaves the senate, it will lose the only black senator on the floor. nonetheless, the hope and belief that rose up on tuesday night...that's why this election will be important for the life of this nation and the rest of history.

America is not....

2008-11-05T00:51:00.002-06:00

a city on a hill.
a chosen people.
a royal priesthood.
a holy nation.
a tree planted by water.
the hope of the world.

i write this as a reminder to me and the people that voted for Barack.

Barack will not save the world. our work is the same as it ever was. it may be a little easier now. it may be a little harder. or a lot on either side. but it's the same work.

i write this as a reminder to the people that voted for John.

Barack will not end the world. your work is the same as it ever was. it may be a little harder now. or a little easier. or a lot on either side. but it's the same work.

and to all of us.

the nation does not need MORE prayer. the president does not need more prayer. they need prayer. the only way "more" should be attached to it is if there was no prayer in the first place.

we...those who follow Jesus...are the light of the world, a city set on a hill, a chosen people, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation.

if there is change that needs to happen, strive to make that true first.

don't only do it for yourself...do it corporately.

warn each other of sin.

spur each other on to good works.

encourage each other

disciple each other.

exhort each other.

do justice together.

be like trees...not a tree. stand in groves that are filled with all kinds of trees.

learn to worship in ways that don't include music.

learn to worship in ways that make you tremble, whether for your safety here on this earth, or for your safety before an awesome and mighty God.

be stewards, not savers or spenders. stewards. stored up treasure on earth is useless. you can't take your stuff with you. what a time to show a different mindset toward your material world!

and pursue His heart for others. one side of these political line is filled with people who believe the main call is to save souls. one side is filled with people who believe the main call is to work for the oppressed. one Man lived to show that there are no sides. there is salvation. the good news to be shared is for soul...and it is for the Kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven.

if you're gonna put it out there...

2008-11-04T15:37:00.002-06:00

one of the things i'm willing to accept as part of blogging/posting, is an alternate point of view. my mom threw one up on my uberlong post last night, and i was grateful for it. i didn't agree with her assessment of why i was voting the way i did. but i was appreciative of her views, and her reminder of God's heart and anger expressed in Jeremiah. i'm fully in agreement with her on that, so no worries there.

so...this was put out there today by a friend of mine who attends a christian college here in the city. actually, he might be done now, but that's beside the point. it would probably not have illicted a response were it not for one word he assigned to these 10 points.

truths.

i guess the original author, a conservative christian pastor born late last century, originally called the The Ten Cannots, likely a play on the ten commandments. here's a little paragraph my friend posted about him.

William J. H. Boetcker (1873 – 1962) was an American religious leader and influential public speaker. An outspoken political conservative, Rev. Boetcker is perhaps best remembered for his authorship of a pamphlet entitled The Ten Cannots. Originally published in 1916, it is often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln.

by now some of you probably think i look for the word conservative and go chasing after whatever i find. not true. i really would probably have looked past this as something written many years ago, in a pre-civil rights era...in a time still massively dominated by white males politically, socially, and spiritually. i know where the author is coming from. like i said a few posts ago...i'm from there, too.

but my friend wrote at the top of his note, before listing the 10 cannots, that "These ten truths are timeless, but are especially pertinent today as we elect the next leader of these united States."

what made me bristle was that word truth. they are being presented as absolute truth...they are timeless...they are proven...they are espoused originally by a christian preacher who was also a political conservative...which makes them near gospel in this day and age. a couple of these are true...the ideas behind them are straight out of scripture. but several of them have no basis in scripture, and would more likely be counter to what the Gospel really is.

here are the 10 cannots, followed by my thoughts on several of them. truth, in this case, is based on where you stand, or live, or work. truth for the author and for my friend is not the same truth for me, the people around whom i work and live, and millions of others. these things would be hugely important to mull over and meditate on if you were on the upside of these 10. but if you were on the downside, it would be hard to swallow these whole without the massive amount of sugar that usually accompanies such thoughts.

The 10 Cannots

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.

You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.

You cannot establish security on borrowed money.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

i understand where the thoughts are coming from...the mindset. but it remains that these are thoughts held by people with resources, not by people without them.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

this had been the cause of rebellions throughout history. this country was founded by people who gained strength by weakening the strong. the trouble is, since that founding it's been primarily used (the quote idea) to keep people in their place. slaves were told it would be better for them to not resist. women were told to keep their places and their tongues. workers were told that if they didn't continue to work in whatever manner or length of day the strong wanted, that they would lose their jobs and new people would be found who would put up with it. this of course happened after the "free" labor we "imported" was no longer available...whether african, irish, chinese, or whatever. resistance to this phrase was the birthplace of civil rights, suffrage, and labor unions believe me, there are many people who think we'd be better off without all three of those things.

You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.

another one used to keep wealth with the wealthy. it's not about giving. it's about oppression. those with decide, while those without live in the consequences. recent history has banks and brokerage houses deciding, leaving those without to suffer. and the message sent down via a 750 billion dollar bailout package was "you cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich." but the poor man will suffer either way through this. they do not say to themselves "well, i am poor and i suffer, but at least those with money will not suffer." they say "i am poor and i suffer and it does not matter what i do, i will always suffer." and the rich man does nott say "why, look at the people suffering. i should help." for the most part they do not think of those people at all, as they are able to spend their lives primarily without ever coiming in contact with them. and if, by chance, they are moved to give, they endow the arts and parks and things which are disappearing which need to be preserved. i'm all for that preservation. but God's heart is for the preservation of the oppressed.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

class hatred already existis. and it is not solely poor hating rich. in fact, most poor long to be like and hang out with the rich. most rich long to stay away from, be removed from the poor. their plight is their own fault and they are "fill in the blank." it's a little funny. Jesus told of the man in temple who looked over to see a poor man and his prayer was "thank you God that i'm not like that guy." i was in staff meeting today and our vp said, regarding a discussion we were having on abortion, pregnancy, welfare..."the upper classes hate these people." they definitely don't love them. at best they hate them. at worst, they're indifferent, having no thought toward them at all.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.

this has been the rallying cry of privileged people everywhere. in other words, "welfare is the blight of the land. we have created people dependent on handouts, and have kept them from developing the good old anglo work ethic." the trouble is, if you look at people with privilege, you'll be more hard pressed, in my opinion, to find character and courage than if you look at people regarded as lacking initiative and independence. this one could have a book written on it...already has, i'm sure. and independence...why is a christian espousing the idea of independence? that's an individualistic, personal piety view that regards each man as responsible for their own plight. that will not be found in scripture. instead you will find a lot of God continually asking his people to fight for justice...to care for the needs of naked, hungry, thirsty, oppressed people. the church, as described in acts 2 had people who were apparently dependent on others to give. and people did it. sure, they weren't forced, as you stated. but i assume that you're talking about taxation when you talk about the money we're forced to give. well, you gotta give that either way. free market capitalism isn't the way of the Bible. it's share the wealth. it's not well, let's build character and courage into these people by not helping. that character and courage will come from discipleship, and i daresay we in the church could just some massive doses of both.

You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.

again, i think small men might disagree. few big men in history have been servants. more have been oppressors. more have imposed injustice. and if we are to do justice, which is action, as stated in micah 6:8, and not just not do injustice, which is passive, then that means tearing down some big men. it might even mean tearing down some big men who really help keep things the way we like them because the way we like them is oppressive to small men. migrant workers, and the businesses that support them, and our love and need for low prices comes to mind. corporate activities that allow us to have what we want at the expense of the rain forests or oceans or foreign workers comes to mind. tearing down these big men, even presidents, vice presidents, and secretaries of defense who fabricate causes for war and who orchestrate massive deception for any number of reason...oil, colonization, etc. and hide it as humanitarian while uganda and sudan and a dozen other places suffer atrocities that are unmatched...even they need to be pulled down. it is the hope of big men everywhere that small men will believe that line.

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

unions would disagree. now, unions have become just as corrupt, but the fact is that wage payers exploited wage earners badly before unions. and wage payers now fight to keep from seeing unions happen in their businesses. see walmart, a shining example of the big man wage payer if there ever was one. but we love them because our grocerly/clothing/electronics bill is so much lower. what we would like to remain ignorant of is that those discounts are costing someone. and they are not the only ones. coca cola was hit about 10 years ago with a 150 million dollars judgment brought by women of color who were not paid as their counterparts were...who were passed over for promotions. and now, because coca cola took that 150 million to heart (money drives it all), they are now in the top three companies in the country with regard to diversity and equity in pay and promotion regardless of race or gender. wage earners taking to the wage payer.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. (find it in proverbs)

You cannot establish security on borrowed money. (find this one in proverbs, too)

but be reminded, you cannot establish security with money, period.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

this is the old "God helps those who help themselves" verse. except it's not a verse. it's just a ideology. God doesn't say stop helping if the people won't help themselves. none of His commands like that regarding caring for the oppressed, marriage, working, whatever...none of them come with a "do this, if..." statement. it's a way out of the loop for us. we say, well, they just won't learn, they just won't get motivated, so i'm done with them. it's a messed up ideology. but it's easy for us. because it, again, makes everything individual...everything their responsibility. we work. we earn. we save. so we are taken care of. but we think we know the ideology of the oppressed..that they are looking for handouts. that they want to be paid for doing nothing. that is a worldview we hold because we haven't experienced the truth close up. we gather and guess from a distance. a safe distance. because safety is key.

i don't know this guy's life story...this William Boetcker. but i can guess pretty well, him being a white conservative evangelical. actually, i don't have to guess. i was one for most of my life. the funny thing is, i'm still white. i'm still conservative (theologically, not politically), and i'm still an evangelical. i just couldn't be further from the 10 truths this guy wrote. they may be truths, but they're not absolute truths. their relative truths...relative to where he stood. i'm standing somewhere completely different.

as if to taunt me

2008-11-04T01:27:00.002-06:00

so...after spending two hours on the previous post, and another hour im'ing to california, i was off to bed. one quick check of the old email account found a new forward, not far off the lines of the sort discussed two posts ago (see how i keep my writing right out in front of you like that?)

i read it...and went to bed. but alas, i could not sleep. i was steaming, stewing, cooking on the inside. this was not the first time i'd gotten this particular email...it may not be the last. i know for certain the accusation was not the first, and the accused was not the first to face it. in fact, i did a little search to see who else might be considered currently. they are David Hasselhoff, the Pope, Bill Gates and, of course, Barack Obama. the charge? likely being the Anti-Christ.

i received this email from someone close to me...someone whom i know loves God, and who has loved her neighbor as herself. it was forwarded to her. she forwarded it to me...and several other people. i was discrediting it as i read it, but for the sake of surety, i thought i'd see what i could find out there to tear this up. my mom's favorite fact-checking site, snopes.com did a bang-up job at just that. but just for kicks, i want to mention a few things that any wise person would have to wonder upon reading this accusation. here's the email text. i'll interject where appropriate

This will make you re-think: A Trivia question in Sunday School:
How long is the beast allowed to have authority in Revelations?

Revelations Chapter 13 tells us it is 42 months, and you know what that is.
Almost a four-year term of a Presidency.

All I can say is "Lord, Have mercy on us!"

ok...this is me in italics, so you can tell where i start and stop. just this alone really chaps my buns. 42 months and you know what that is...ALMOST 4 years. well, three and a half, actially, bucky. you'd think God wouldn't have missed by some 12.5%. doubtless, the person who wrote that would hold to the exact 6 actual days of creation (which is not wrong). what's wrong is being adamant about that, but stretching the timeframe here to fit something it was obviously not intended to fit. now...IF barack obama were the antichrist, and 3 1/2 years into his presidency he left to be king of the world (sorry, decaprio), well, then this guy'd have every right to come smack me like i'd like to do to him. it's not very christian-like for me to say that, but this is wicked stuff.

According to The Book of Revelations the anti-Christ is: The anti-Christ will
be a man, in his 40's, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with
persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says
that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace,
and when he is in power, will destroy everything..
Do we recognize this description??

the book of Revelation (no S) talks about the beast. 1st and 2nd John are where you'll find the term antichrist. along with some descriptions that are very general...no deliniating characteristics such as those above. i don't believe it says anywhere that he will be in his 40's.

it would be difficult for the prophecy to say Muslim descent as islam didn't show up for another 400 years or so (i just learned that while reading a great book about reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians...the book was great...the hope was not). now, God certainly could have inspired John to write Muslim, but then, He'd probably have not been so far off on the months of power, either. not to mention that someone being of muslim descent is about the same as being of christian descent. there are over 40 countries that count islam as their primary faith. that's a lot of possible descents...from indonesian (where he went to school) to pakistani to maldivian, to lebanese. so, who among you is of christian descent? oh...all of us in the US because this is a christian nation, right?

deceiving the nations with persuasive language...well, how about the triumvirate of bush/cheney/rumsfeld in dragging us into war in Iraq...and not just us, but the nations as well. it's well documented the shenanigans that went on leading up to us going to war, including the fact that WOMD had been dismissed as existing.

he will have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal. hmmm..well obama has 50.4% in the ltest poll i saw. mccain was at 44. hardly massive. as far as Christ-like appeal, which part was that? the part where the poor and disenfranchised and ill and broken followed him around? or the part where religious people trumped up charges to kill Him because He was upsetting the cart...literally at one point. and what if obama were to bring peace to the middle east? are you not supposed to pray and work for peace? would you as a follower of Christ resist because it would obviously be a false peace? would the ability to bring peace mean that he's the antichrist? how would all the people feels who have tabbed Prince Charles (he has 27 out of 40 some prophecies true about him, according to one page i saw). obama's appeal is hardly Christ-like. the disenfranchised part would probably be the only thing you could legitimately attribute to him at this point.

when he's in power he'll destroy everything. well, he'll be getting things handed over to him pretty well on the way to destroyed..

I STRONGLY URGE each one of you to post this as many times as
you can! Each opportunity that you have to send it to a friend or media outlet..do it!
I refuse to take a chance on this unknown candidate who came out of nowhere.

two posts ago i talked about fearmongering among the conservatives. this is it. it's even bolded and exclamation pointed for you. oh...SOME SERIOUS CAPS, TOO!

From: Dr. John Tisdale
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Friends,

As I was listening to a news program last night, I watched in horror as Barack Obama made the statement with pride. . ."we are no longer a Christian nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, . . ." As with so many other statements I've heard him (and his wife) make, I never thought I'd see the day that I'd hear something like that from a presidential candidate in this nation. To think our forefathers fought and died for the right for our nation to be a Christian nation--and to have this man say with pride that we are no longer that. How far this nation has come from what our founding fathers intended it to be.

we are not a Christian nation. i don't know who dr. john tisdale is, but i'd love to sit down with him and a few history books. the puritans killed people for being witches. but that's not all they killed them for. there was quite a long list of sins you could be put to death for back in the 1600's read alexander de tocqueville's great book on america and democracy for more. the religion that made it's way to the rebellion and constitution was one that sought self-reliance, allotted for despicable acts to be done toward native americans, africans, women, and basically anyone that was not a white man. here we are some 400 years later and it's obvious we're having a hard time thinking differently today. the texts we read in school were written by the victors. there are lots of texts out there now that tell a different story. but regardless, even if it were a pure nation when founded, it is not one now. i do find it a little ironic that people would love to see this country returned to its christian roots and heritage, yet when urban ministry workers (i am one of them) seek support it's largely dismissed and regarded as unnecessary. but if i were to go to africa or south america or asia, then i'd be going out into the uttermost parts of the world, and the funding would be there. btw, read Alienable Rights if you want a decent picture into our founding fathers. don't worry...it's written by two white men.

I hope that each of you will do what I'm doing now--send your concerns, written simply and sincerely, to the Christians on your email list. With God's help, and He is still in control of this nation and all else, we can show this man and the world in November that we are, indeed, still a Christian nation!

Please pray for our nation!

this is the only sane thing in this whole email. if someone knows this dr. john tisdale, tell him i'd like to sit down for a chat with him.

get a cup of tea...this is gonna take a while

2008-11-03T19:33:00.003-06:00

so...politics, eh? how 'bout them candidates? how 'bout this election? i am backing a candidate...hoping he wins. me and 250 million other americans. me and 100 million evangelicals (so says wheaton college...a number i'm highly skeptical of).

where i come from, there's really only one viable candidate. and there's really only 2.5 reasons why. i believe highly in those 2.5 reasons...and yet i'm going to vote against those 2.5 reasons. not without some amount of wishing i didn't have to choose in such a manner, and not without a considerable amount of huffing and puffing from the places from which i come.

it is the places from which i come that have landed me on the other side of the imaginary line drawn by politicians, pundits, and pollsters. actually, i think they just took up sides on a line drawn long ago. the line was drawn by the church. Glen Kehrein's work on the Church, primarily the white evangelical church (those numbered at 100m) in the country, is an excellent historical look at when and how the Church split in this country...when and how it went in two different directions. one group went "right" and opted (and i'm summarizing greatly here) for a personal piety faith. it was one of a personal relationship with God. you can hear that all across the country still today. it spawns lengthy worship services with hands raised, praising God. it causes people to have difficulty in different worship styles because they don't "connect" personally in that style.

the other side went "left" and they could not understand how a person could claim to know God and turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the cries of those God had so clearly told us to help. what was personal piety if widows, orphans, prisoners, infirmed, workers, naked, hungry, and thirsty were left to their suffering. they rejected the rationale that because God said "the poor will always be with you" that there was nothing that could really ever be done. and in their pursuit of a corporate responsibility for "the least of these" they began to ignore the part of God that called each of us into relationship with Him.

over the past 100 years, this dividing line became a gulf. still today, in many churches, mention the words social justice as a viable extension of the Church, and you'll be told you're slipping into liberalism. the implication is that social justice causes include acceptance of homosexuality, acceptance of abortion, and a disregard for the sanctity of marriage. these are the 2.5 things the right cannot stand for (the sanctity of marriage/homosexuality thing have some overlap). and truthfully, i cannot either. i am clear on what the Bible says about each of them, and i fully agree with that. but the truth remains that they are 2.5 things out of many. it's also true, in my opinion, that the conservative (right) church has mishandled these 2.5 things..along with a couple thousand other things. nobody's perfect. i get that. but my disagreement over that, combined with the mindset of the conservative right on the balance of the social justice issues is enough to sway me the other way. it's enough to make me desire core change in how they view the world, this country, the church, and themselves.

i do not guess at this mindset. i come from it. i know there are many different swathes of thought even among the broad stroke that is this evangelical right. it can run anywhere from the extremes of "let's cause disruption in the middle east because it's the land of armegeddon and such, and prophecy shows that when a certain series of events happen there, the end will come and Christ will return" (if you doubt it, just look across the web...it won't be hard to find) to those who believe that America is the new Israel, and that God has put a special blessing on us because of the people and the way in which this country was founded. most don't have specific thought-out positions on those sorts of things. what they do have is the main points of a worldview that is the interweaving of the Kingdom of God, and the American Dream. it gives us access to God in a deep, meaningful, personal son and daughter kind of way, and lets us live comfortably, knowing that God blesses those with whom He is pleased.

there is no doubt that God blesses His people. but we have come to equate blessing with comfort...with lack of pain. and we have come to equate pain with lack of a close relationship, or at worst, a testing of our faith. James does tell us to count it joy when we encounter pain, because the testing of our faith produces endurance. he never says that the pain will end...not here. but we have made a life free of pain the goal. and for many of us we've acheived it...for the most part. that gives a numbness to the pain of others...and it gives us a reason for why they have that pain, whether it be poverty, poor health, lack of education, or consistently facing a different heirarchy of jurisprudence than the rest of us. the reason is simple. a lack of a close personal relationship with God. if it was there, He'd bless those people. after all, this blessed nation, founded on clear biblical principles, has, as one of its benefits, the equal chance for success for every person who lives here. why, we even know some people who own a __________who came here just 10 years ago with nothing. it's proof positive that the system works. it's God's system, after all. freedom, free will, the ability to make it, to become self-sufficient...which is what we are. God helps those who help themselves. pull yourself up by the bootstraps like everyone else had to do (which is entirely not true) . the evangelical worldview places clearly the responsibility...and blame...for anyone's condition on them.

unfortuntely what's missed in that personal relationship with God, hand raised, songs sung, prayers lifted, is the thousands of places God tells His people to care for that long list of "the least of these". if you ever want to try to justify your stance on this, take a long hard look at Matthew 25. it's not talked about too much. we hear all about the time Jesus said "you must be born-again." we've adopted that phrase to more clearly describe the process of salvation. but Jesus does tell another man who inquires after salvation "sell everything you have and give it to the poor." that guy went away sad. and from what we know, he never did it. back to Matt 25. Jesus says, in that chapter, that our salvation will hinge on that list of people. we don't believe it. we're saved by grace, not of works, lest any man should boast. but what of "you show my your faith without your works and i'll show you mine with it"? another James quote. read those verses in Matthew 25 and try to figure out a way to follow Jesus (as if just simply living like He did wouldn't take care of this) without involving yourself with "the least of these". american theologans are making a living at it. they turn out pastors who turn out sheep who know nothing of the seriousness of this call. in fact, most would probably say they're doing something...serving, giving, whatever. the stats don't back it up.

christians give less than 2% of their incomes charitably, and that includes to the church, where they're being told to give 10. the white evangelical church is loosely connected, at best, with homeless, imprisoned, poor, oppressed workers. there are missions trips for a week once a year. there are serving trips to make dinner once a month at a homeless shelter. but connection? knowing the least of these? caring for the least of these? fighting for the least of these? it's not happening. if we serve, we usually find ways to do it in the church...the church full of people that look, smell, work, behave, worship, and love just like us. i know. i did it. for a long time. i still get the urge to do it sometimes. it will probably never go away.

a friend recently posts a couple of status updates on his facebook page disparaging the idea of the redistribution of wealth. it was worked over in the media, and by mccain, as well. socialism...that's what it was branded. to take what one has earned and give it to another...that's definitely not capitalism. that's definitely not free market economy. what it is, oddly enough, is the Acts 2 church. what it is is Jesus telling that man to sell everything and give it to the poor. it's not socialism. it's gospelism. it's just not the church doing it in this case (see the stat below on how badly we don't do this), it's the goverment.

the governement will take our taxes either way. and Jesus told us to follow through with that. so...if the government takes our taxes either way, then do i want them taking taxes from the poor to give to the rich? the "trickle-down" theory? reaganomics would tell you that works really well. but go ask the people who were affected by massive, unprecedented cuts in social programs while that money was taken from them and given back to the corporations and the rich. find out how they felt about it. a word of warning. you're gonna have to leave your neighborhood/suburb to find the people affected. no...i think i'd prefer that if the government is going to tax me either way, that the first people to benefit from it are not oil companies and brokerage firms, but school lunch programs and music/arts programs, and legal aid attorneys and health care for kids. i feel the personal responsibility people getting rankled at that. the idea of welfare will raise the blood pressure of your everyday average white american. you know what? it bugs christians more. why? (well, for the best answer, go read Divided by Faith by Michael Emerson) because it's their fault those people need welfare, and it's their fault they don't have or want jobs. if they'd just take some responsibility for their lives, they'd be living a much better life.

i have also been amazed and appalled at the things i've read linking sarah palin to esther, from the Bible. what does this have to do with "the least of these?" you ask. first, it comes out of that idea that we are a christian nation...that america is God's chosen nation...God bless america and all that. the quotes i've seen and heard have God speaking to pastors telling them that sarah palin is His chosen instrument. they have people applying the "for such a time as this" line from mordecai to esther, saying that this evangelical woman is the instrument God has called out for this time of salvation. could she be? sure. is it likely? no. is it probably a gross misuse of scripture? yes. and here's why.

first, america is not God's people. it is not the new Israel, or the new Jerusalem. christians are God's people. Peter says we, believers, are a chosen people, a holy nation, and a royal priesthood. if sarah palin is chosen for such a time as this, the drawn out application would be that she was going to be put in this place to save her people. that's us believers. from what are we being saved? we have the greatest freedoms of christians probably ever on this planet. do we need to be saved from the judgement of God because of the increased acceptance of homosexuality and abortion, and increased disregard for marriage? maybe. but there are some interesting places in the same Bible that lend a lot more thought to why God is not hearing the cries of His people, if He indeed is not. read Isaiah. the whole book. but specifically read Isaiah 58. it's a dear chapter to me. those who know me know that much of the rebuilding of my faith came from reading Matthew 25 and Isaiah 58 and realizing i did not know those people, and yet i offered my songs, fasting, and worship, wondering where my blessing was.

Isaiah 58 is to the people...to God's people...to us. it was Israel back in the day. it's us now. not america. believers. america has nothing to do with it. but you do, christian. you who wonder where your blessing is. you who lift your hands in 3 hour worship services, loving to sing with all your heart and might, soul and strength. you who fast before the Lord to let Him know how deeply you desire Him, or the thing He can give. and what does He say in response to that fasting, praying, worshiping? it's the proverbial slap in the face. it's what He somehow communicated to Cain. it's "you think this is what i want? then you haven't been paying attention to the hundreds of places I've spoken to you telling what i want." and then...essentially the same list found in Matthew 25.

how is this a plan for the rescue of His people? how is this more applicable than sarah palin? He tells us. if you stop oppressing your workers, if you care for the widow, if you seek justice for prisoners, etc, etc, then your salvation will come like the dawn. then you will be like well-watered gardens. then you will rebuild cities and walls. not sarah palin will bring your salvation like the dawn. but we choose a vote and a verse because what does that take compared to an altered life? nothing. we can hope that mrs palin gains power and changes the course of history. and we can sit in our cars that are too big and cost too much, park them in houses of the same, and do a little something here and there. and never, ever see our salvation come like the dawn.

and so i choose to vote for a candidate whose message says we need to do more for each other. it's not a perfect situation. i am troubled by the 2.5 things. abortion is awful. homosexuality is a sin. marriage is sacred. but these things will not be solved by a conservative vote. mccain will not reverse roe v wade. the agenda promoted by the GLBT group will still be pushed, on a state level, if the federal level doesn't succeed. and marriage will continue to lose it's hallowed position as an instution given by God. but that institution is failing at the same rate among evangelicals as it is everywhere else. homosexuals have been singled out by the Church as commiting a sin that is intolerable. but when God listed the reasons He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, the perversion was not first on the list...or second...or third. the first things on the list were that the people of those cities had no regard for those in poverty and who faced injustice. and while we cry out against abortion as murder, we, as believers, aren't even caring for the mothers, fathers, and babies who didn't go that route. and why would we? they made their choice...if they only would give their whole hearts to God, then they would be rescued.

i believe in the interweaving of the personal and corporate responsibility to God as followers of Jesus. unfortunately, the "right", which has the personal down, has lost touch with any idea of a corporate conscience. i have issues with the "left", too...lots of them. i have not added liberal theology when i decided to vote with what is commonly thought to be the liberal candidate. the closest truth is that Jesus is my candidate. i will follow Him regardless of what person wins tomorrow. but when it comes to the election, i will take my conserative theology, which i believe includes more of what liberal politics is about, and i'll make my choice by that.

this is the Right?

2008-11-03T09:48:00.003-06:00

this is an AP article published today. why don't i hear the Moral Majority speaking out about the underhanded tactics that their party is using? i'm neither democrat nor republican, but i don't hear this sort of thing from the democratic party. i don't get endless emails written by "well-meaning" christians questions every part of John McCain's life. i don't get one whiff of subterfuge from them. but i have read...and deleted...some 100 emails, mostly forwards, over the past couple of months.

any person with a brain could tear apart the mostly very bad lines of reasoning in these emails. but they're not sent for those people. they're sent for people gripped by fear (that they'll be arrested or deported, or that the apocalypse is 10 minutes away if the wrong guy wins). they're sent for people gripped by hate (who judge others by any number of criteria, all of which are designed to divide). they're sent for people who do not want to lose what they have (control, power, position, privilege).

as i said, i am neither democrat nor republican. i am not registered on either candidate's website (i am in an obama group on facebook). i don't believe either party is the answer. i believe Jesus and his people...the Church...is the answer. that doesn't mean i won't vote, and that i don't already know for whom i'll vote. i've had family and friends wonder how and why i could vote the way i will vote. i will simply say that my choice was not made due to one issue...or two. i did not seek to apply bible passages (for such a time as this...for sarah palin) to a candidate. what i did seek was how each party would affect what i feel is a culture of personal responsibility in this country, and in the church. i believe God is clear on corporate responsibility for those in need. and while personal responsibility is important, there are HUGE holes that are created in faith and following if equal attention is not paid to the corporate. i'll write more on this soon.

anyway, here's the article...

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

In the hours before Election Day, as inevitable as winter, comes an onslaught of dirty tricks — confusing e-mails, disturbing phone calls and insinuating fliers left on doorsteps during the night.

The intent, almost always, is to keep folks from voting or to confuse them, usually through intimidation or misinformation. But in this presidential race, in which a black man leads most polls, some of the deceit has a decidedly racist bent.

Complaints have surfaced in predominantly African-American neighborhoods of Philadelphia where fliers have circulated, warning voters they could be arrested at the polls if they had unpaid parking tickets or if they had criminal convictions.

Over the weekend in Virginia, bogus fliers with an authentic-looking commonwealth seal said fears of high voter turnout had prompted election officials to hold two elections — one on Tuesday for Republicans and another on Wednesday for Democrats.

In New Mexico, two Hispanic women filed a lawsuit last week claiming they were harassed by a private investigator working for a Republican lawyer who came to their homes and threatened to call immigration authorities, even though they are U.S. citizens.

"He was questioning her status, saying that he needed to see her papers and documents to show that she was a U.S. citizen and was a legitimate voter," said Guadalupe Bojorquez, speaking on behalf of her mother, Dora Escobedo, a 67-year-old Albuquerque resident who speaks only Spanish. "He totally, totally scared the heck out of her."

In Pennsylvania, e-mails appeared linking Democrat Barack Obama to the Holocaust. "Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, Nov. 4," said the electronic message, paid for by an entity calling itself the Republican Federal Committee. "Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake."

Laughlin McDonald, who leads the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, said he has never seen "an election where there was more interest and more voter turnout, and more efforts to suppress registration and turnout. And that has a real impact on minorities."

The Obama campaign and civil rights advocacy groups have signed up millions of new voters for this presidential race. In Ohio alone, some 600,000 have submitted new voter registration cards.

Across the country, many of these first-time voters are young and strong Obama supporters. Many are also black and Hispanic.

Activist groups say it is this fresh crop of ballot-minded citizens that makes some Republicans very nervous. And they say they expect the dirty tricks to get dirtier in final hours before Tuesday.

"Oh, there's plenty of time for things to get ugly," said Zachary Stalberg, president of The Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia-based government watchdog group that is nonpartisan.

Other reports of intimidation efforts in the hotly contested state of Pennsylvania include leaflets taped to picnic benches at Drexel University, warning students that police would be at the polls on Tuesday to arrest would-be voters with prior criminal offenses.

In his Jewish neighborhood, Stalberg said, fliers were recently left claiming Obama was more sympathetic to Palestinians than to Israel, and showed a photograph of him speaking in Germany.

"It shows up between the screen door and the front door in the middle of the night," Stalberg said. "Why couldn't someone knock on the door and hand that to me in the middle of the day? In a sense, it's very smartly done. The message gets through. It's done carefully enough that people might read it."

Such tactics are common, and are often impossible to trace. Robo-calls, in which automated, bogus phone messages are sent over and over, are very hard to trace to their source, say voting advocates. E-mails fall into the same category.

In Nevada, for example, Latino voters said they had received calls from people describing themselves as Obama volunteers, urging them to cast their ballot over the phone.

The calls were reported to Election Protection, a nonprofit advocacy group that runs a hot line for election troubles. The organization does not know who orchestrated them.

"The Voting Rights Act makes it a crime to misled and intimidate voters," said McDonald. "If you can find out who's doing it, those people should be prosecuted. But sometimes it's just difficult to know who's doing what. Some of it's just anonymous."

Trying to mislead voters is nothing new.

"We see this every year," said Jonah Goldman of the advocacy group Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "It all happens around this time when there's too much other stuff going on in the campaigns, and it doesn't get investigated."

In 2006, automated phone calls in the final days leading to the federal election wrongly warned voters they would not be allowed to vote without a photo ID. In Colorado and Virginia, people reported receiving calls that told them their registrations had expired and they would be arrested if they showed up to vote.

The White House contest of 2004 was marked by similar deceptions. In Milwaukee, fliers went up advising people "if you've already voted in any election this year, you can't vote in the presidential election." In Pennsylvania, a letter bearing what appeared to be the McCandless Township seal falsely proclaimed that in order to cut long voting lines, Republicans would cast ballots on Nov. 2 and Democrats would vote on Nov. 3.

E-mail assaults have become increasingly popular this year, keeping pace with the proliferation of blogging and Obama's massive online campaign efforts, according to voting activists.

"It is newer and more furious than it ever has been before," Goldman said.

And Republicans are not exempt. "Part of it is that election campaigns are more online than ever before," said Goldman. "During the primaries, a lot of Web sites went up that seemed to be for (GOP candidate Rudy) Giuliani, but actually were attack sites."

New York City's former mayor and his high-profile colleagues Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney were also targeted in fake Internet sites that featured "quotes" from the candidates espousing support for extreme positions they never endorsed.

while waitng for one of my 4 drafts to get finished...

2008-11-01T23:28:00.003-05:00

here's a few things i wrote back in '05. my friend, kim, and i each wrote 3 and they were done as monologues during a church service.

Led

I am walking through this world

A journey of neon, gold, steel, and flesh

Shiny things catch my attention

And I go where I look

My eye is drawn to reflections of me

Me with money, me with security

Me with control, me with every heart's desire

...and I go where I look

My hands keep me busy

Acting as blinders to narrow my vision

I see only beauty...I avoid ugliness

...and I go where I look

But there is another on this journey with me

Who sees beyone the reflections

Who knows the condition of my heart

Who turns my head, as a rider might, toward things loved deeply

And leads me from the stately to the humble

To broken homes, broken, hearts, broken minds, broken spirits

Even the occasional broken bone

...and I go where I look

Each tug of the reins leads me closer

To becoming the reflection of He who waits for me

At the end of the journey

...and I go where I look

An Almost Voice

Sometimes I am talking to God...

and someone answers

Sometimes I am talking to myself...

and someone answers

Sometimes I am not on speaking terms with anyone...

and still someone answers

Oh, it's annoying enough. Mostly I just like

the sound of my own voice. You know...one-sided

arguments, monologues, and what-not.

And so I talk...and if I run out of things to say

I turn up the radio, or watch TV, or hang with friends

ANYTHING to keep the volume above the threshhold

of that "someone who speaks"

But then comes that sneaky moment when my guard is down

and the questions of my life are present in my mind...

...and someone answers

Only this time I listen

And for a while I wonder why I would ever let any other

voice or noise cover the sound of this someone who answers

And I resolve to listen more often

more intently, and more deeply

...at least until my favorite TV show comes on

You're a Nut

Your heart is hardened

Ok...hardened. Like steel?

Your heart is a walnut

Didn't you just say...oh...hardened like a walnut.

Yes. Do you understand?

I need a minute here. Let's see...walnuts are indeed hard...but...they're not all hard. And they're not unbreakable. And there's good stuff inside.

Yes. And how do you get to that good stuff?

A hammer! Or a nutcracker. Wait...this is beginning to sound like a painful process. Isn't there a gentler way?

I am Living Water

Hmmm...yeah. So...uh...if I drink, I'll be softened?

It will start the process. Do you know the power of water?

Over time, it can wear away very large or very hard things. Ooooh! The constant and steady effect of water works wonders on the hardest of things.

Do you understand?

If...my...walnut-like heart is...immersed in...a stream of Living Water...um...the hard shell can be worked away without necessarily needing crushing pressure to crack it.

Yes. Your heart is hardened

Like a walnut...

some long...but intruiging...posts coming...

2008-10-09T22:58:00.003-05:00

"ha!" you say. "all your posts are long! you warn us in vain for we are prepared with coffee, reading glass, and such." well, these will be topical, united in a theme, and more prepared than usual. sure, i'll still just write, but i'll be researching, too...and adding in Biblical references and thoughts on theology on each of them.

see, i've been seeing this great list of quotes one a month at a meeting on a thursday night. i did not assemble the list...that credit goes to Brian Kammerzelt of The Just Life. but each month, for the past three, for that is all we've met, i've been so compelled by so many of these quotes. they're not all by christians, but they are at least about us, or about what we're to be about.

there'll be no political leanings, no splits on theology regarding liberal and conservative. i will look at truth, for it is the basis for all understanding. i believe in absolute truth, but i do not believe all truth is absolute. that is to say that our world view, our history, our circumstances all contribute to what we believe. but i will do my best to look at these quotes with a holy AND holistic approach. how would life change if the truths were not just accepted, but lived.

this will not be an exercize in telling you what to do or not do. it will be for us, as i am only a journeyer who looks to find Jesus on the road with him, and not notice afterward that He was present and i did not know it.

i also hope you'll contribute...through comments, or email, or pigeon carrier...any way you connect. i know we like to hit and run. read...skim (i have friends who admit to skimming what they read) ;-), get a gist of what the story is and then move on. i hope you'll join with me in conversation. let me know when you disagree...but let us know why, in a similar fashion as the posts. don't be rude, mean...don't try to stir up strife...and remember that we will look to avoid useless arguments. discussion that becomes back and forth with no purpose other than to make someone succumb to your point of view will be ended. i will hold myself to the same, and you may feel free to call me on it...gently.

i don't really care where your background lies. there will be quotes from all over, and i look forward to hearing from people on all sorts of places. this will be a dialogue and it won't be made to hear only from christians, agreeable sorts, or anything else.

so...tomorrow it starts. btw, the pub i play at also has free beer tomorrow. it says so on a sign behind the bar.

16 thing you need to know...or not

2008-10-09T07:58:00.004-05:00

so i was reading my sister's blog (top o' the list to the right) and she was "tagged" by someone to do this 4x4 list...four questions on four different topics. it seemed a little "MySpacey". i read the list...she's so cute...and enjoyed myself as i always do reading her blog. then at the bottom, she tagged me.

i don't know if you do or did MySpace, but one of the frequent things to come up was surveys. 100 questions, 32 questions, find out how much your worth questions. i'm not over on MySpace much anymore, so i can't say if people are still doing this, but this 4x4 things seemed...well...so 2007. and that's making me wonder what will come along next year that will make blogging passe, or facebook...God forbid! anyway, it may seem like i'm down on surveys and 4x4s (i am on the gas drinking sort) and such. ask tia and meghan. i couldn't resist a good survey. so...here i go. thank you, georgia, for tagging me. i know it's love that causes you to do so! :-)

4x4

Four Things I Did Today - (I will write about yesterday, as it's just now 8 am and i haven't quite got the selection as compared to what turned out to be a full 24 hour day yesterday.)

1) I built just about the best computer money can buy...for my part time job boss. He wants a Home Theater Personal Computer. This will control his very large LCD tv, his 7.1 surround sound stereo, and will come complete with a Blue-Ray player AND an HD-DVD player (nobody makes HD DVDs anymore, but just in case he decides he wants to pick up a used copy of King Kong or Backdraft). The total cost for parts was 1500.00 which is pretty amazing considering what's in this thing. By the way, if you're so inclined, you can get a Blue-Ray player for your computer for just over 100 dollars, which is a lot less than the commercial ones out there. then plug your computer into your tv, and you're High Def just like that...unless your tv is low def.

2) I tagged photos of Dave and Sarah's wedding on Facebook. Who are Dave and Sarah, you may ask? Very dear friends...get yourself to the city of Chicago and meet them. Dave's blog is also listed to the right, to the right. to the left, to the left. (sorry...remnants of dance floor shenanigans from their reception. holy ADD, batman!) ok...back to the pictures. i had a great time shooting some of my own pics. i have some really great shots and some not so great ones. but i don't pick through and hide the bad ones. nope...you get to see them all.

5..."3, sir!" 3) i worked on the i58 website. yes, folks...it's coming! and soon. if anyone wants to come hang out with me and help resize and apply shirt designs (very tedious), please drop me a line. i've got about 1000 to do...arrrgghhh!

4) i watched Baby Mama. i know...stupid, right? you can tell by the name it's gonna be stupid, right? well...not stupid. really good! i spend a lot of time avoiding movies that come out with the SNL crew in them. well, not a lot of time. it's not like i wake and plan how to not come in contact with SNL movies. i don't duck and cover when the grocery store has Ladies' Man for 2.99 at the register endcaps. i just pretty much won't watch anything with them. i don't even watch SNL..although i might consider it if someone would chop the last two minutes off every sketch. they just don't know when to stop. but i digress. there is a shining SNL star...or was. she is Tina Fey. and Amy Poehler is pretty good, too. so...this movie, while not groundbreaking or anything, was really good. steve martin lends a hand. so does greg kinnear. and the actress whose name nobody remembers but is on ER and was on NewsRadio...you know who i'm talking about. tina fey makes me laugh. she's not reliant on off color humor (you should know that for some reason i'm compelled to spell that humour, as i am with colour, but since i have no readership from the UK, i resist the urge) or fart jokes. she's got a great wit, finds the funny in the everyday...like me. and Dave (from thing number 5). so watch Baby Mama. i think you'll like it. and someday i want 5 minutes of uninterrupted eye contact with each of you.

4 Things on My To Do List - (this one's easy)

1) Make To Do List

2) Put Things On To Do List

3) Read To Do List

4) Ignore To Do List

there could be more...like Lose To Do List, Find To Do List, Crumple To Do List, and Shoot Hoops With To Do List Into A Mostly Empty Coffee Mug Until It Finally Goes In, but we're only supposed to do four. hey, i'm unstructured, ok?

Four of My Guilty Pleasures

1) facebook. i'm pretty sure a poll of americans between 4 and 108 would find that 100% of people list this as number one.

2) reading blogs. i like to read what other people write. it started at a young age with books. don't get me wrong...i still do books. but blogs are books by people who should be publshed and aren't. well, some shouldn't. want a great example of that? (the first part...not the addendum) check out Jessie's blog...right under my sister. she's an amazing writer...and thinker...and is so aware of the moments around her.

3) my xbox 360. we got an atari 2600 when i was 12. it had a cartridge called Combat. it was like 48 variations of 5 different games. you would have hated me if i played you on that game. invisible, guided shots, fast, slow...it didn't matter. i was a savant. (some would argue i later added the idiot piece) so, then came intellivision and nintendo had Zelda. Goldeneye, WWF, Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, etc... i'm a part of an elite group of video gamers. we're not known for our skill, unless you try to take us on in Combat. we're not known for our keen eyes, or amazing hand-eye coordination. we're the Geezer Gamers, and we're known for not calling each other names online...for not quitting if we lose...for not cheating...stuff like that. the local chicago area crew has some of the guys that used to come over every monday night from 6pm til 1 am for 16 player halo matches. we, and another 10-12 guys get together once a year at the very large home of one of our members and we start playing at 10 am and don't quit until around 2 am. there's lots of brats, beer (good stuff...bill is a home brewer) and comraderie. there might also be the need to fumigate the basement when we're done, but you didn't hear that from me.

4) speed. i'm a little removed from this one as i sold my car this summer and my motorcycle was stolen 3 summers ago. i bike everywhere, unless the weather calls for public transit. but i do love a good 3 digit run. motorcycling is my favorite thing to do in the world (see longing post several months ago) and i hope to find one again next summer. there's just something about a great four wheel drift, or pulling .9 lateral g's, or dragging one's knees rounding a turn on a bike. and while one might say this is dangerous, and compared to walking a dog it definitely is. but i've been nearly killed many more times this summer on my bicycle than ever happened on my bike. in truth, i think those days are behind me. i'll be looking for a cruiser this time around. they're built for comfort, not speed. but i will miss the speed...maybe i'll take up the luge.

Four Random Facts About Me

1) i can't speak spanish. this may not seem random to you, but i live in one of the most latino-populated neighborhoods in chicago. i taught esl for 2 1/2 years. my students told me i have exceelent spanish reading and pronunciation skills. i just don't know what i'm saying. oh...i get the odd word. sabor=flavor, panadaria=bakery, and a few i've heard that i can't say...or write. but in spite of reading every spanish billboard, knowing many mexican, puerto rican, and costa rican people, and eating many burritos, tacos, and flautas...and churros...i'm no closer to speaking spanish than when i moved here almost 6 years ago. i just don't get it.

2) i love board games. in a world where "have fun" is the creedo for most everyone (although that creedo is changing to "stay solvent" right now), i just don't understand how board games have disappeared from social gatherings. sure, i can count on the mandatory game of Risk at my brother-in-law's place every thanksgiving and easter. but somehow mcdonald's became the only place to play Monopoly. and Chutes and Ladders is more common in a gentrifying neighborhood gutted rehab than a friday night gathering of friends. Mousetrap? it just doesn't cut it when our rats stand on their hind legs and box poodles...and boxers. i miss board games. and when you're paying 250 dollars a week for gas, why not stay home from dinner and a movie and spend the evening on Park Place...although that's kind of expensive, too. i'm more of a Baltic Ave guy, myself.

3) i love british comedy. don't know why. never been there. don't have any particularly close british friends (although i did spend an evening relaxing with Matt Redman when Gladiator was out and he said at least 20 times *read in british accent* "have you heard the one about the woman who was eaten by her pet crocodile? he was Glad 'e ate 'er." this joke works much better in british english than american english. we'd say Glad He Ate Her...it's just not as funny). i think it started with seeing Monty Python and the Holy Grail when i was about 15. it's still one of my favorite movies. Life of Brian, Meaning of Life, and all the television episodes just had me rolling. now there is Simon Pegg...he of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Run, Fat Boy, Run. he's done many other things, like Spaced, which i also enjoy. and i can't forget Fawlty Towers (which my dad loved, too) and all of Rowan Atkinson's work on Mr Bean and Black Adder.

i think i have PBS to thank for bringing those shows to the US. and i am so grateful. i still watch Monty Python on my PC, as well as Spaced. I have DVDs of The Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and Meaning of Life. i'll have them eventually for the Simon Pegg movies.

4) i will be going to NYC for the first time in my life in a month. i have to work with a church out there from the 7-9th and i'm hoping to stay out an extra couple of days to take a peek around. i'm not much on touristy things. i want to get off the beaten path a bit and see things like times square, a letterman show, and the monument that was supposed to be built, but is not yet built, to the sept 11th tragedy. i'd like to see rare things like a cabbie honking his horn, or yelling out the window...or a pedestrian giving a traffic cop the bird. yes, i'd like to be an extra on a Law & Order shoot, or go to the Port Authority and ask him who made him so smart. i want to go to Ellis Island and if they've put up a fence there, too, or just left that to CA, AZ, and NM. i want to ride in that XMen jet that is so much better than Wonder Woman's jet. i want to see the house that Ruth built. i knew baseball players were underpaid back then, but i didn't know they held down two jobs. i hope to go see the First City improv troupe. i bet they're awesome.

so, definitely looking forward to going. i'm sure they've got so many of Chicago's issues worked out already. i'm going to take a pen and notepad and jot down ideas that i can give to mayor daleywhen i get back.
******************************************************************

ok...so that's 4x4. i have a feeling that when i read this later i'll regret most of it. but that's what i get for writing first thing. my brain is not yet working.

oh, and i'm supposed to "tag" four more people to do this. how about the first four people to volunteer in the comments section. maybe you're just itchin to spout profound thoughts about yourself. or inane thoughts. anyway, you claim it, you own it.

i promise, i'll have something productive to say soon.

i can see your point...if you hold it out there. OR you're just one i from this being serious

2008-09-30T19:13:00.005-05:00

i've got good news and bad news. if you've been around me for the past 3-4 months, you know that i've been having trouble reading the fine print. any small print, for that matter. i've had 20/10 vision my whole life, so it was a little weird to start dealing with it. it came on pretty quickly, too. no gradual adjustment...just sort of one week everything was all good...then, bam...blurry vision for reading up close.

i used to tease my mom and dad about walking across the room with a menu so they could read it. my mom always told me that what you tease people about will happen to you. (talk about a vengeful God complex!) i told her i'd start teasing millionaires and brad pitt. i guess i could just tease brad pitt, eh? anyway, i teased them and suddenly it became my problem.

so today on my way home i saw an eyeglasses place advertising 2 pairs of glasses for 69 bucks. it included a free eye exam. since the reading glasses i had checked out online were priced about the same for one pair i figured i'd check it out.

they had me fill out a bunch of questions, all of which were printed in extremely small lettering. kind of rude, i thought. i mean, nobody goes in there to prove how great their vision is, right? i just answered no to everything, hoping they hadn't asked me if i had any problems with donating my kidneys.

next came the eye exam...the first eye exam, as it turned out. i ripped through the letters except for the bottom row, which used to be my proudest moment. then i had to look at some farm scene that kept going in and out of focus. and finally i had to look at a red light, during which, at a random point, a puff of air was blown at my eye. maybe they needed to test how fast i blinked.

that girl compiled all the information and i went in to see the eye doctor. based on the data from the first eye exam she put the little focus thingy in front of me and off we went to figure out my prescription. things did not go as planned. after a bit, she said "are you trying to fool me?" i am a prankster at heart, but i draw the line at doctors. after a little while, she decided i needed a little more in depth exam.

i was a little concerned at this point. because of how quickly it my reading vision seemed to blur didn't make it any better. the thing that kept me cool was that other than my reading vision, i had no other issues. so...on we went to the new tests. read this...read that...can you see this...can you see that....blah, blah, blah. then she put this ubermagnification system in front of me, complete with a very bright light, and proceeded to look deep into my eyes. somehow, i always thought i'd feel different if a woman was to do that. it was a big letdown.

after a couple of minutes of that, she kept the uber thing in place...and added a big lens that she held in front of each eye while shining said light in there. apparently she was looking at the back of my eye..yon retina. and then she told me i have something. i have central serous retinopathy. i gulped. she heard it...or i imagine so. then she asked me if i've been under a lot of stress. my first answer was no. but then i started thinking about how i've been feeling...stressed...because of the increase in CURE work (and the corresponding lack of support dollars that mean i nearly work for free), the increase in my workload at my part-time job (and the desire to be able to move solely into my CURE work), and trying to get my i58 site and business launched (which will help with both of the first two issues. i remembered having a couple of friendships that were near and dear to me change pretty rapidly. not necessarly badly...just drastically. i remembered that i was stressed about a wedding i thought was happening (see the friend/bmw entry below). i remembered the stress of loving another friend and the opportunity to be in his wedding, but hating that i missed his out of town bachelor party because of money, and stressing some over the cost of standing up out of town. i rememberd the stress of planning events and having the guests of honor suddenly unable to make it, with me not knowing how to shut it down.

and add to the the different life my body ended up going through with becoming a vegetarian and with working out. i lost a good amount of weight pretty quickly. and while that's great for me, it probably didn't help the overall "deal with this" level i put myself through. so...yeah...i guess i was stressed. it's weird because i never thought of myself as stressed.

so you may be asking...what's the good news? well, central serous retinopathy is a temporary condition. it's stress-related. it's most commonly noticed by people who have extraordinary vision (i was always 20/10). it usually affects men between 20 and 50 (i fall in that range :-) ). and while there's not really a treatment, it almost always goes away on its own.

i got my reading glasses prescription...two pairs for 69 bucks...and they'll be in in a week or so. and while i was preparing for life with glasses, thinking into every life a little eyesight degeneration must fall, it seems i can expect things to return to normal. i guess i just need to finish my website and launch my business, drum up a little more CURE support, get through the end of the wedding season, spend some time with friends, start eating meat again (just kidding), get used to working out, and quit planning parties.

and maybe a few months in the french riviera will help...

i can feel it coming in the air tonight

2008-09-30T14:28:00.003-05:00

the fall is here. my favorite time of the year. i'm not a huge lover of winter, but it has its qualities. snowboarding, driving in the snow (yeah, i love it), hot chocolate, fireplaces, no light through my bedroom window at 5 am, down comforters, rest for the land and people, and such. but if biting, bitter, boring (as in drilling deep) cold were not bad enough, it bring with it a promise in its end...a promise which i hate more than anything in this world...well, anything not man-made.

mosquitos. i am not alone in my hatred for mosquitos. jeff pelletier, a good friend and one-time roommate and i were sitting in the living room once, along with another friend. we were railing against mosquitos. we were trying to figure out what possible contribution they could offer the planet. we came up with zero. birds and bugs eat mosquitos. but they eat other insects, too. eliminate mosquitos...no great ecological impact in our estimation.

jeff said "when i get to heaven, the first question i'm going to ask God is "mosquitos...what's up with that?" joe said, "yeah...and God will say "sin...what's up with that?" jeff replied "i asked you first." i doubt, or at least hope, that that isn't the initial exchange they have...but i have often thought that might be my first question, too.

ok...back to autumn. among the many, many qualities of fall is the deliverance on summer's exit strategy...no more mosquitos. i can now sit on my front porch with my guitar without pausing to swat, splat, and scratch. i can take a fresh cup of coffee out with me, put on a hoodie, and talk on the phone (which i must do because AT&T's more bars in more places doesn't include my apartment). i can walk and note the way the cool air invades my lungs, making breathing not just an invisible part of my life. and i can see a palate of color that i connect with more than all the others i love. the blue of water is engulfing. the 256 shades of grey in winter turns the color world into black and white. the green of spring is like Pleasantville in real life. but the auburns and golds and burgundys and oranges and browns of fall...they are the colors of my soul. they are majestic and regal and life and death...and they remind me.

i sat on top of vermont's tallest mountain about 14 years ago, looking across the Green Mountains (vermont is from the french words for green and mountain...verde and mont) in a first ditch effort to meet the God i'd professed to follow my whole life. and with pen in hand, i wrote of the promises of Jeremiah 29:11-13 and that even though i had no idea what it meant to seek, let alone with my whole heart, it had to be now or it would be never. and i found Him.

my friend, shane, says that truly following...truly seeking results in layers coming off of us. like an onion we come with lots of layers. some of it is just part of being human. some comes with our culture. family, friends, school, desire...they're all a part of those layers. but in seeking, the layers come off until we're left with only Him. it's probably not that easy. we add layers, often simultaneously to peeling away others. i know i sometimes like to put layers back on that i've already taken off. but as best as i can, since that day on Mt. Mansfield, i've been trying to let those dead things fall to the ground and whisk away in the wind.

every year, in september, i go back to that place. not vermont, but the internal one where i found i had never sought with my whole heart. it's not an easy place, but i still love it. i call it ruthless self-examination. it's introspection with no filters of what i'd like to be true...just what is. and i lay that truth against what i see in the life of Jesus, whom i follow, and the heart of His and my Father. no more comparisons with church ideologies, theologies, or any other "ologies". only that which was in the beginning, that was with God, and that is God. and i do that every september because, even though i try to keep in touch with this regularly, by the time a year goes by i've put layers back on. and if i don't want to be what i used to be, or to head toward my natural inclinations, i've got to pay attention to it.

if whatever change has occured in my life can be pointed to one thing, it's that prayer up on that mountain, and since, saying i have no idea how to search with my whole heart...and asking for help in that. i need to stay on top of that prayer because my heart is often divided in what it wishes to seek...fragmented would be a better word. but i long to have a whole heart, not in total, but in unity. and so i am working, sometimes hard, sometimes not, on making that statement true. i wish to seek with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to let everything else fall away.

so...fall...i am reminded every year as your air comes cool and crisp. i will seek...and He will be found...if i search with my whole heart.

how to fool your friend into lending you his bmw...

2008-09-14T23:08:00.002-05:00

I think I've been working too much. probably not...but it helps in explaining away this one. the actors in the play are:

1) Soraya, a friend about to get married. I'm playing guitar in her wedding.

2) Ryan...he owns the Beemer...a Z4 convertible. i've ridden in it a few times...pretty sweet.

3) Me...the imbecile.

So...about a month ago, Soraya messages a few of us asking if we can help find some people to do X, Y, and Z in her wedding. A guitar player is one of those needs. I say Yes. she's thrilled. i call her to find out what exactly I'll be playing. Some song...don't know it...don't own it...never heard of it. She is fortunate by not requesting The Chicken Dance, which i have sworn a blood oath to never be a part of in any one's wedding.

I ask Soraya to send me the song via email. After two weeks...no song. I call and ask, and she says she will put it on a CD and send it to me...the mp3 thing isn't working for some reason. I hear in this conversation something about the wedding in two weeks and having enough time to learn yon song. I hear this, but this is not said. I do not know it at the time. I find out yesterday.

I anxiously await the aforementioned CD. Then early this past week I message Soraya asking about wedding times/location, etc. I know it's in Lake Forest and it's tough to bike there. "I'll be needing transportation", I'm thinking, "and I should work this out a bit in advance." We mutually figure out that I should really see about finding a car to use. "No problem," say I. "I have a friend who told me if i ever needed a car in a situation like this, I could use it." Soraya says she is leaving in 30 minutes for the airport to fly to Chicago and finalize the prep for the wedding. In my mind, leaving Tuesday means a few days to nail stuff down, just in time for the wedding on the weekend.

I decide to see what public transit options I have in getting to Lake Forest. I can take the train...the Metra...but it's a little sketchy on the early Sunday morning availability I'll need to get to the wedding. In the end, a car is the only way I see this working. I have to call Ryan anyway to work out a time to move some furniture he's giving to a friend of mine. So we figure that all out, and then I ask about the car. I'm very clear that if it's any sort of problem, it's no worry. I can always buy a car from CarMax and return it within the first 7 days with no penalty. He's more than gracious and says that he and his girlfriend are taking her car to a wedding out of town this weekend anyway. It will be no trouble. This conversation goes down on Thursday.

Thursday...and I have no CD. I'm playing a song I've never heard, accompanying a singer I've never heard, and I have no CD. I figure I've always been good with learning music quickly so I'll wait. Friday will give me plenty of time.

Friday...and I have no CD. I ride my bike home from work in the rain for the 3rd time in a week, and wonder how an outdoor wedding will go if it rains too much. I run for the mail...and no CD. I'm a little freaked out at this point. I have a wedding in two days...a rehearsal in 18 hours, at least 7 of which I'm determined to sleep. I call Soraya. Voice mail. I note that the rain has increased. I am up until 1 am...and no call.

Let me say that I have personally perfected the art of procrastination. In fact, my name makes up the VERY LAST four letters of the word procrastinate. I believe I am predisposed toward procrastination because of this. Yet, even I am freaking out about Soraya's nonchalance regarding my need for the music I will be playing in her wedding. "It's her wedding," I think to myself. "If she wants me to have to play The Chicken Dance instead of what was surely a meaningful song, so be it. I'll not fret over this any longer." Not true.

I awaken Saturday and have no calls from Soraya, but do have one from Ryan. I call him and we arrange for the car dropoff. I leave one more message for Soraya saying I'm sure she's got a ton going on with figuring out what to do with an outdoor wedding and Ike's pouring on her parade. I'm sure there are a ton of logistical issues to deal with. But at a minimum, I need to know where the rehearsal is being held. I'm okay with not having the song. I once had to sing a song in front of several hundred people where I only sung this song once in my life and it was 5 years ago and they didn't have the lyrics for it and could I possibly remember it enough to sing it, and yes, it went off fine. I was sure that God would not let me ruin Soraya's wedding because she had been too busy to send me the CD.

I get a call from Soraya at 4:30 on Saturday afternoon. I am so relieved. I tell her I have a car to get to both the rehearsal and the wedding. She is thrilled. She says she is going to put the CD in the mail...it won't take long to get from Lake Forest to Chicago. And I begin to realize that a wire or three may be crossed. And then she laughs at my freaking outness and says "You know the wedding is on the 28th, right?" Ummmm...no. And she laughs more at me. "Yes...two weeks from this weekend." Ohhhhh...that 28th. Too late to slough it off as "Sure...I knew...I just wanted to be prepared." She has proof on her voice mail.

So...I now have a BMW for the rest of the weekend. "Oh...one thing", Ryan tells me when he hands me the keys. "It leaks at the corners of the roof when it rains. You can stuff paper up in there, but it will still drip." I stay in on Saturday night. Sunday, it's still raining...along the lines of that called for by the FOTF guy in Denver...so I drive the 4 blocks to church. I may possibly have been less wet had I walked sans umbrella.

I'll be spending the next two weeks befriending a Mercedes hardtop owner.

sounds like they've got the best coroner in the world...

2008-09-10T23:02:00.004-05:00

this headline graces the homepage of Yahoo's News section tonight...

Explorer who first reached North Pole indisputably dies at 80.

Identically

2008-09-09T22:59:00.002-05:00

newest song...and everyone's favorite now. i gotta say...i like it. it's pretty poppy, though.

and no, it's not written about someone. so cease and desist on the inquiring minds emails.

Identically

there is one thing you should know
girl, i like to take things slow
to rush it just ain't me

i just like to take my time
share my heart and share my wine
we'll get there eventually

so if you don't mind walking slow
talking 'bout nothing at all
then i think we'll be alright
we'll say the same thing, laugh and curse
then we'll both say "no, you first"
and we'll smile like we don't know...

but the truth is we
are identically
thinking, hoping, laughing, wanting
praying that the dawn will never come

there is one thing you should note
'bout that first verse that i wrote
well, it prob'ly just ain't true
cuz i remember how it felt
how my heart just seemed to melt
the first time i saw you

so if you don't mind hangin on
while the wind takes us along
then i think we'll be ok
we'll find a spot and settle in
wonder where each other's been
and we'll smile like we don't know...

but the truth is we
are identically
thinking, hoping, laughing, wanting
praying that the dawn will never come

4 tracks...4 trains

2008-09-09T22:07:00.003-05:00

i'm observant. like, too much. i notice things like 5 consecutive white cars, or how many stars are in the Paramount movie studio logo (26). i find patterns in numbers, floor tiles, wallpaper...my brain just likes to notice and solve. which is a little weird because i'm pretty right brained.

but there are two things...observations more than patterns that are driving me nuts (yes, dp) these days. the first is my insane ability to ride/drive/walk below El tracks while trains roar overhead. considering a train goes by every 10-15 minutes or so, my chances of catching the 5 seconds while one goes past, or 30 second while it stops and starts, pretty slim. in fact, just based on time, it makes the chances of walking under something like 1 in 60...based on 120 5 second segments in a 10 minute time frame, divided by 2 for trains running in opposite directions. obviously the stopping trains take longer, but then trains probably run more like every 15-20 minutes on average.

so...that around a 1.6% chance of being under the tracks during a passing train. but i am running considerably higher than that. in fact, i'd put my percentage somewhere around 50%. and i'm estimating conservatively. my friends, jenn and jodi, are aware of this phenomenon. jenn thinks i'm crazy. jodi has seen it in action, though. she was skeptical at first, but after a few weeks began to notice it, too.

so, today...i ride my bike to my staff meeting in Lawndale. some 5 miles or so, each way. two tracks to ride under each way. took a different route there and back...just to see more neighborhood. 4 tracks. 4 trains. not an anomaly, really. but enough to finally get me to write it down.

i should also point out that noticing trains and all did not start with the Chicago mass transit system. back in the day i drove a delivery truck part time for a friend from my old church. one of the joys of this job was he and i had nextel and could chat whenever. if you were to ask him how many times i held the phone out the window of the truck so he could hear the crossing gates as freight and passenger trains went by he'd back it up. everyone gets caught once in a while. it was definitely more than that for me.

the second thing is a little harder to nail down as far as how often it happens to me, or anyone. but the total of it is just a little strange to me. i listen to music a lot. one of the places i do this is at my part time job. Pandora, iPod, cds, whatever...i have my headphones on most of the time. i also do a lot of typing at this job. i write press releases, articles, website content, product descriptions, html/css code, and Facebook status updates. lots of typing. i sit at my computer all day. so...it happened once and i thought...that's funny. then again, and i thought...that's odd. and again. and again. i wouldn't say it's a daily occurrence, but it's more than once a week, too. i'll be typing away when the exact same word i'm typing is the exact same word being sung.

now your naturally critical thinking process might lead you to "and, the, when, if" and words like that. i'm sure those happen, but they'd be so quick it would be hard to notice, i think. no...these are words like "different, regret, reality, forgiving, example" and more. i wish i'd have gotten to writing them down sooner. one might think that my subconscious mind is a line or two ahead in the lyrics and is prepping my sentence structure to use that word. i could see how that could be a valid position. but i don't know many of the songs i listen to. and still, to be able to need that word right then when the article/description/Facebook update might not have any use for such a word...well, it's kind of amazing to me.

i know i'm a little odd. that space is for family and friends to say "a little?" or some variation of it. and maybe millions of people have similar things they note every day...or could note if they were noticing things. maybe you have had the same sorts of experiences. tell me. i'd like to hear them.

as far as this entry, it just came to the point where i decided that someone...me...i should document some of the odder details about my life. i'd hate to pass someday and have people think i was a pretty normal guy. nope...i'm magnetized to trains.

Run, River

2008-06-19T14:37:00.003-05:00

rough draft on some new song lyrics...a song called Run, River (at least right now)

someday soon
gonna leave this place
find me a little town
in an open space
maybe some foothills
to break the plane
and a quiet river
that knows my name

i'll find my rythym
maybe a job
as leaves turn over
i might find God
He might not know me
been gone that long
my friends even call me
the prodigal one

(chorus)
it's time for some changes
there's no denying
i'm alive on the outside
but my spirit is dying
so disappointed
in who i've been
maybe that river
can hold my sin

the lords of concrete
have brought me down
nose to the grindstone
and ear to the ground
the sirens sing loudly
the sirens don't stop
they sing to me sweetly
as i crash on the rocks

(chorus)

i don't have a bridge yet...we'll see how that goes. i've actually got about 4 soungs working right now, lyrically. it's still not flowing, but there seems to be a crack in the dam.

btw, in case you haven't heard elsewhere, i've got a gig opening for a national touring act this sunday night. ya'll should come out to hear me! just drop me a comment for directions and time

my last blog was a parable...

2008-06-03T14:26:00.002-05:00

so, i was lying in bed in a bit of a meditative state...something i do regularly upon waking up...and the "rearview mirror" blog i posted some days ago crossed my mind (i could link to it, but it's right below this one). i started to think about who crosses my path, who i stop for, when i keep going, etc. and it hit me...this story was already told. and i started to think a little differently about the players.

there's still the "deer". he's robbed, beaten, and lying in his own blood on the side of the road. and three people come upon this crash. in real life, probably more, but the story was told about the three.

the first one is someone whose life is given to working on behalf of God's people. he doesn't see the crash, but he comes upon it. and he swerves to avoid it. maybe it was hatred...i've always heard it was. maybe it was deep, almost subconscious hatred...the kind that doesn't come out until someone is pushed hard...to the point where they say "YOU PEOPLE" with a finger pointing at the stereotype or collective thought welling up. but maybe it was wanting to miss the hurting person. maybe he thought "someone else will get that...i've got a youth group meeting to get to". maybe he felt compassionately as he went by but he just didn't have the time or materials to stop. could be anywhere in between. "sucks to be you". "if you weren't there in the first place..." "when will someone do something about these bandit-types? they're really mucking up this neighborhood!" whatever it was...hatred, discomfort, lack of time, no available resources, fear, or the idea that someone else would come along...he kept going.

then comes the assistant. he sees the crash site. he crosses the street. same thing. another person out doing the work of God. or maybe not. maybe he's on his way to a movie with friends...let's say small group friends. or dinner at this pretty sweet new skewer joint. maybe his family is getting ready to go on vacation and he needs to get home. maybe the dog needs to be walked. maybe he's tired of seeing beat-up people in the road on his way to and from work and since he can't stop for all of them, it doesn't seem fair to help one of them. maybe he thinks he's better than the crash victim and thinks to himself "man...i'm glad God has my back!" maybe he flips him a church invite card so that when the guy is well...if he ever gets well...he can come and see what God has in store for him.

so many maybe's...so little time. and it could be he does have somewhere to be so he swerves to avoid the crash, looks back and thinks "is there something i should be doing?" maybe that illegitimate compassion wells up inside him as he sees the victim and he lifts a prayer to thank God it's not his kid lying in the road.

one more guy. oh, he's not much of a guy. in fact, his lifestyle is routinely pointed out as immoral. definitely NOT a part of the people of God. they can tell just looking at him. they can certainly tell by talking to him. this guy is not who they want in their neighborhood. this is the guy they move away from. this is the guy that nobody even thinks to invite to temple...why would they? he's an idolator, or something like that...bad theology at the least. sounds too much like something, not enough like something else. he just doesn't fit the mold.

that's readily apparent. for where the two godly men walk by, this one whom God would barely notice, as they see it, shows himself to be altogether different. he...stops. he...heals. he...puts the man in his car, eschewing the blood on the fine Corinthian leather, and gets him to shelter. he...pays! oh...there goes Disneyland. or the Harley. or the kid's college education. or the retirement fund. or maybe not. maybe he made enough money to put it to work in such a way and still get that new toga. regardless, he intervenes when two men who thought themselves deeply connected to God ignored His heart completely and kept walking.

at the end of "the rearview mirror" i imagined God praying that we would do something about these crash victims. but at the end of this parable, Jesus asks who the neighbor is in this story. he gets the answer "the one who showed mercy." He responds to the answerer (man #1) "go and do likewise." no prayer...just a command.

unwittingly, "the rearview mirror" was just some sort of retelling of The Good Samaritan. you can check it out for yourself in Luke 10.

the rearview mirror

2008-05-13T13:17:00.002-05:00

i heard a story a couple of weeks ago. it was about a guy who was struggling to pray for the people around the world who were hurting. not that he didn't want to. he just didn't know what to say, essentially. he was specifically talking about those who are left in pain from the iraqi war. i don't know if he was feeling it for both sides, or one in particular. in the end it doesn't really matter.

the story went that while in this difficult time of feeling intense compassion, yet unable to pray, that he was driving home through wisconsin and saw a doe and fawn on the side of a 4 lane highway. the deer decided to cross traffic as deer are prone to do. the doe made it, but the car in front of this guy hit the fawn's back legs and sent it spiraling down to the pavement. (at this point in the story, a collective gasp of empathy went out from the 100 or so folks in attendance.) this man made it around the deer without crippling it any further and then looked back through his rearview mirror to see the fawn frantically struggling to get up, but destined to its fate because of the injuries it sustained.

you know the number of thoughts that can flash through your mind in mere seconds...well, he had the same thing happen. he thought about going back to put it out of it's misery. he wondered how he would do that. he thought about the doe. and eventually, as the deer got smaller and smaller, he reasoned that someone else would have already intervened...called 911...called someone...and that going back now would be futile, redundant, or unnecessary. all this time his concern for the picture in the mirror never wavered. his heart was still full of feeling for that broken fawn.

but the mirror eventually showed only the empty road behind him...

or perhaps the headlights of other cars that drove past thinking it was a horrible situation...

but someone behind him would surely have done something...

to be honest, i can't recall how that sight allowed him, upon reflection, to pray for those people he had on his heart. i was busy sorting out this part of the story as it relates to the very difficulties he was having. i think we all see the bulk of this world through the rearview mirror. it's a picture or video on a small rectangular piece of glass showing us things that genuinely move us. they bring us to tears or make our hearts swell in anger or compassion or any number of genuine emotions. but the picture changes soon enough and, while we may reflect on it, we rarely go to the places where death and life hang in the balance. we rarely go to the places where it might cause our planned path to alter...where we might have to go back...where we might have to get out of our box containing the picture holder and touch the ones in the picture.

we hear that a cyclone could leave 1.5 million people dead...and we're deeply moved...but just inside. we're not physically moved. we see another 8 year old girl is shot while standing outside her house...and we think "what a world we live in"...but we stay in ours. we watch countless stories...each day they fill our windshields, and we manage to avoid them, and then watch sadly as they disappear.

it's tough. there's so many stories...never-ending stories. and sometimes getting hit and lying sprawled out on the pavement is entirely the fault of the story. why would we ever intervene when it's someone's own fault? even if it isn't, how can we ever keep up? as fast as one disappears, another one comes. sometimes they're 10 or 20 at a time. it's all we can do to keep from colliding with those stories. we're on a straight and narrow road and we've got somewhere to go. just the driving part of the story has loads of unpacking in it (what if we slowed down...walked? stayed?).

but what if we just stopped the car for one story...one picture. what if we turned around and didn't just feel for the situation...didn't just watch it slowly fade from memory? what if we all turned around for once...put the story back in front of us, stopped the car, and got involved? i think there's enough pictures to go around. i think we might see the collision that mattered was when we got out and met the story...met the people...met with Jesus. He did say that when we do intertwine with the story, we've done it unto Him. He also said if we don't, we don't know Him...not like we think we do.

that feeling we get when we look in the rearview is a good thing. it's a very good thing. it's just not designed to be the end of the story. it's not supposed to be left to wither under "someone else will get to that." it's supposed to make us turn around. without the action, we might as well just take down the mirrors. why entangle ourselves in those emotions if there's not gonna be some step, some turn, taken? we can focus on the race to the end of that straight and narrow road if we don't get distracted by these things. any runner will tell you turning around slows you down. any race car driver will tell you if you turn around you're gonna get passed. what kind of race would we be called to that asks us to turn around? maybe we're not supposed to turn around. maybe we're supposed to stop in the first place. maybe we should be so in tune with compassion, with loving mercy, that the race is walking humbly...and stopping at the collision instead of passing it. maybe we should be looking for places where collisions happen frequently and watching and waiting in those places.

i'm sure that all these pictures, whether a deer, the war in Iraq, or the 8 year old girl cause something in us. i'm sure that the response to pray...deeply...interventionally...would be a good thing. but we're praying for God to step in...and He's doing the same thing with us.

the opposite of lyric writing

2008-05-08T12:33:00.003-05:00

as noted a number of posts ago, i've been having a hard time getting the old lyric machine up and running. i've gotten a few suggestions from people...sort of mental WD40 ideas...but nothing so far. i'll be going at it again this afternoon.

but while the lyrics are not flowing, it's a completely different thing as far as this blog goes. oh sure, you're not seeing 4 posts a day, and it's only been what, 10 days since i put anything up here. trouble is, i have too many thoughts going through my head, most of which are requiring me to delve deep into myself to sort things out. more of the deconstruction/reconstruction process, i suppose.

i just started two different entries...got about a paragraph in...and realized i've just not landed on anything writeable at this point (yes, i made up that word). so...there's stuff coming. stuff on the church...of course. stuff on shame...yipes! stuff on culture...lots of different ones. stuff on politics...not again. but it's still shaking through the sieve i call my brain, and simultaneously being run through my heart. it's not that i want all the imperfections out. i just want to separate the stories appropriately...or leave them connected if they must be. it's all a little amorphous at this juncture.

the cold war hits chicago

2008-04-26T12:54:00.003-05:00

so...remember the 70's and 80's? back when the US met Russian nuclear buildup with nuclear buildup that was met with buildup and so on and so on and so on? eventually this was seen as the potential end to planet Earth, and the disarmament treaty process got underway. granted, our two nations could still eradicate life her on the 3rd rock.

well, scale that down a bit and we've got Chicago in the 00's. 2008 to be exact. under a new plan unveiled by the new sheriff in town, Police Superintendent Jody Weis, the local police force will be armed with M4 automatic weapons. in case you're not familiar with this weapon, you need merely join the US Marine Corp to have your very own...although, in the Marines, you'll not be able to carry it in public.

this move is in response to the recent shooting (in "The Weekend of Gunfire" Apr 18-20 here in Chi-town) where a man with an AK-47 assault rifle killed a man, and then fired on police when they responded. i shot an M16 (essentially the same as the AK47) when i was in the Army, and can say truthfully, i would not want to try to apprehend one armed with that weapon, while i carried only a semi-automatic handgun, as most police do. anyone wondering about the effective range of either weapon? well, i scored expert in marksmanship which required hitting several targets at 400 meters, or about 4 football fields. for the handgun, consider that one of the police just acquitted in the 2006 shooting of Sean Bell, out in New York, fired 11 shots into a car with three people in it, and despite the fact that one man was hit 18 times (and lived), this officer hit nothing...from feet away.

so yes, the police are overmatched when it comes to an AK47/9mm matchup. but this was one shooting in a weekend that had almost 40. and for those occasions when the bad guys show up with the military arsenal, we have fully armed SWAT units in this city that are, oddly enough, armed with the same M4 with which the patrolmen are about to be armed.

now, i'd probably be a lot less concerned about the militarization of our local gendarmes if i thought they were committed to their motto...to protect and serve. i know some of them are. many of them are stand up men and women. but you don't have to dig hard...i mean, you can just read the papers...and you'll find the stories of corruption, intimidation, brutality, aggression. and honestly, if you spend a week or two living here in the city, you'll likely get the opportunity to see it. in spite of the good folks making up that thin blue line, there's a system in place that allows for all these things, covers up the "incidents", and surely doesn't work to make it's members feel comfortable in reporting the many indiscretions that happen every single day. and into the hands of these people we're now going to put some pretty damn powerful weaponry. we're increasing the range and rate of fire of people who much of this city doesn't trust to give them a fair shot. yes...pun intended.

in that shooting of Sean Bell, the officer who did end up killing Sean fired 31 bullets into a car from close range. there's major disputing of the facts of this shooting, but most of what i've read seems to indicate that the officers fired into a car that most likely was trying to get away from conflict. there was no gun in the car...we know that for sure. and the officer who began the firing most likely did not display his badge or identify himself as a police officer. witnesses were intimidated during the trial. and these are the same sorts of people we'll be arming here. officers who beat up female bartenders for not serving them when they're drunk. officers who try to bury that story and try to intimidate the bartender. officers who hit people in wheelchairs. officers who steal from drug dealers. officers who back each other's stories because it's the thing to do.

look...i know it sounds like i'm majorly down on cops. i'm really not. i'm down on more people getting shot and not less. i'm down on bad cops. and considering this city's history with them, i really have to question this plan to give them M4 automatic rifles. it's pretty damn hard to hit a target in a gunfight with a handgun. it's pretty not hard to hit one with one of these. longer barrels, the opportunity to fire from cover more effectively with better sighting, and a lot more bullets in the air make for a dangerous mix.

add that to the fact that the criminals are gonna have to up their firepower, too. which means not just bigger confrontations with police when they occur, but most likely more deaths in everyday shootings. as it is, there were 4400 shootings in the city over the past 18 months, but only some 400+ deaths. this sort of buildup isn't going good places.

but what do i know? maybe we'll go for 30 years escalating the firepower on the streets between police and criminals (i mean, Mexico has their Army out after the drug cartels), and then we'll see the destructive capabilities have reach ridiculous levels. by then we may be calling for reductions in the INBM (inter-neighborhood ballistic missile) levels.

hi, Springfield!

2008-04-23T11:37:00.000-05:00

so...a reporter in springfield found the blog i wrote and used several excerpts in his article in the Springfield Journal - Register paper today. the column is available online and allows people to comment. there's only a few comments on the column so far today, but out of three, one already has completely missed the point of what i was saying.

maybe something is just lost in the translation from blog to column. maybe they would have seen that i wasn't saying "PASS THE GUN LAWS!" if they read my whole piece.

i've had an extra dozen or so readers today, no doubt from his link to my blog. hi and welcome to all. i know some of the writing is a little long and verbose, i suppose. and if it causes you to think something strongly in one way or the other, do please comment.

thanks dave. it's been a little odd to think that stuff i put in this place can be found by anyone out there. i mean, i guess i write with the understanding that it will be read, and it's not like i'm on oprah. but it's still a little weird.

keep reading. give me feedback. bring shalom

days like today

2008-04-22T21:37:00.002-05:00

really sort of bring up the resentment i have toward whoever stole my motorcycle...

it was so beautiful out today and i spent most of the day in meetings or on buses. i could have eliminated probably 2 hours of bus time with a bike.

my roommate's friend, brad, just recently got a beautiful harley from his grandfather...for a dollar. be still, my beating heart! i am content without a bike, but man, that made me a bit jealous.

so...if you hear of a decent bike for a dollar...even ten...i think i could go that high...or know someone who'd love to donate one to a non-profit (it would come with a nice tax receipt!), i'd be much obliged if you'd let me know.

one of my 5th graders

2008-04-21T18:15:00.003-05:00

that i tutor, Gerald Perry, just got his report card. when Gerald started this year he had all D's and F's. that's actually a part of By The Hand club's requirements to be in the program. a student must be failing in school.

Gerald is no longer failing. in fact, Gerald got all A's except for one B on his report card. the B? in gym, of all places, considering he's quite athletic and a very good basketball player. i didn't find out about Gerald's report card until sunday at church when Gerald, and 3 other 5th graders who are part of the By The Hand step team came to do a bit of stepping in our service.

most of the credit goes to the 5th grade teacher in our program, Ruth. but, still, it's amazing to me what can happen with time and effort invested in these kids. it took 2 weeks (two tuesdays) last september for me to decide to rework my schedule to allow for 2 days a week with these kids. i have never regretted it.

so to Dara, our director, Ruth, our teacher, and Gerald, i say Thanks and keep up the amazing work!

it's hard to believe

2008-04-21T10:31:00.003-05:00

that one weekend could make up for the worst winter ever. but i played catch friday, and sat on the front porch with my guitar and a pot of coffee on saturday and sunday. both are very favorite passtimes of mine. i also went back to the shaved head summer mode, despite jodi's two votes for a cut with the old #1 length trimmer, and alisa's request for a mohawk. i could believe how long my hair got between september and now.

also hung out with the two J's, and chris and pam last night. it was a very funny night, including attempts at sexy cracker eating, and improvisational dance to no music...something at which i'm quite gifted.

then last night i went to Gallery Cabaret for the sunday night open mic. it was my first time at the sunday edition, and it's quite the different crowd. saw some pretty talented people i've not heard over there before, and then got the most complete and best compliment i've ever gotten about my music. it came from a 63 year old guy who's been in music his whole life and has known and played with some of the most well known folk artists of the 60's and 70's. it was more of a discussion, but i came away a little shocked. it made me want to work even harder, and i'm already working harder than i ever have.

and now today is absolutely beautiful. i get to ride my bike to work, and then i'm rehearsing with chris tofilon again tonight for thursday's show. should be good times.

i'm so glad winter is over.

and congrats to jessica hockaday on her engagement

the cubs are in first place

one of my kids i tutor went from mostly f's and some d's at the beginning of this year to all a's and one b. awesome work, gerald! (this was a collaborative effort...miss ruth, the 5th grade teacher at By The Hand, should get the lion's share of the credit).

so, yeah...outside of a ridiculous weekend of gun violence (37 shot, 7 killed), it's been a good few days.

It's 9:30 am on Sunday, April 20th

2008-04-20T09:23:00.002-05:00

from friday evening until now...36 hours or so...32 people shot and 6 killed in the city. one murder was committed with an AK-47, an assault weapon we are hoping to ban in this state. the killer then used it to shoot at police when they came to the scene. 2 of the murdered were teen boys coming out of a church service.

please call, write, and visit your lawmakers...

Standing on the corner of Church and State

2008-04-19T18:04:00.003-05:00

so...i've had a long bus ride and a few days to let my day in Springfield roll around in my brain. it's been no small task. it's not like there was just a few hours of governance to think about. the process i watched cranks up the deconstruction/reconstruction machine in me. it causes me to look at what my parents thought about government (a book in itself), what i heard from the Church about government (probably more of a set of never defined guidelines that i still was somehow supposed to adopt into life), what i've learned over the past 3 years about our country's history of government, particularly around social/justice issues, and what i've done...or not done...over the sum of my voting years.

i've only had the slightest interest in our government for the past 5 years or so. prior to that i voted, but avoided discussion or debate around voting, planks, baby-kissing, candidates, etc., at all costs. in my mind, government was a necessary thing. we couldn't do without it. we could barely live with it. but i had no real thoughts about it as a social construct. it did not affect me, for the most part, and i did not affect it. i knew that "of the people, by the people, and for the people" was an antiquated idea and that government in the 20th/21st centuries was more like "government of the government, by the government, and for the government". i paid and didn't cheat on my taxes, i joined the army after high school (something i'd actively resist at this point), and voted. i had a run-in or three with local governmental officers due to a rather heavy right foot, but i'm pretty sure they've forgotten about me by now.

i did once write a letter to the Sun-Times rebutting an editorial that bashed a christian candidate for something or other. i told the writer he did not seem to harangue other candidates for the planks they had chosen...that he should, as a fair-minded reporter (there's no picture in the dictionary for that one) not bring his personal thoughts on God into a political discussion. however, i then went on to admonish christians for trying to "legislate morality". i said it wasn't our place, and that we were supposed to change this world through our amazing inter-personal relationships. you know, those ones that are like "they'll know we are christians by our love"? yeah... anyway, someone over at the S-T liked it. it was their "letter of the day", and boy was i proud to get that message out there. i imagine a few evil people smiled happily, too.

so, i've pretty much hung my hat on that position for a number of years. then came this move back to the city. then came this move from the lucrative world of computer consulting to the...what's the opposite of lucrative???...world of social justice...race, economics, education, justice. and as much of my life over the past 5 years is nearly the complete opposite of life 10 years ago, now this whole "Church stay out of government" thing is changing.

i could, and may someday, write a whole lot on the current relationship between Church and State. democrat/republican, liberal/conservative...there's already a strong tie. but it's more on the systemic level than on a low level involvement. most of us aren't actively calling, writing, and visiting our elected officials (unless the words prayer in schools, abortion, or gay rights come up) and that's what i'm having to add into the reconstruction. i know the answer to the world's problems isn't government. but it sure ain't staying out of government, either.

there's always someone talking into these people's ears. there's a voice...of reason, of greed, of compassion, of power. and each ear is attached to people moved by all those things. what i learned is that something i've been saying to the people CURE (my NFP job) for a couple of years really applices to this. and the place i wouldn't want to be found dead isn't too very far from where i was. these numbers are arbitrary, simply designed to show the situation. in truth the middle ground number is probably even greater. but it goes like this. 5% of people are actively trying to take advantage of anyone and anything in order to get what they want. 5% are actively the checks and balances to those people. and 90% are either informed and too busy or lazy to do anything, or are completely ignorant of the state of things.

we have to be in that second group. it's our mission. it's true. i know we have a hard enough time with feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the orphan, widow, and prisoner, and protecting the oppressed. but for each one of those groups is a group of people who have no problem putting and keeping them in that place. it's head out of the hole time. there are people who are unwilling to give up what they have or can get to do any of those things. that is the opposite mission of ours. we are supposed to give up what we cannot keep anyway, to gain what we cannot lose.

this is not "not doing injustice" anymore. this is doing justice. this is actively participating within the confines of our government to influence how our laws are made, and how and whom they benefit. if we are silent, if we are few, then those who are loud and many will drive how it works. this will take less American Idol (The Office for me) and more study on what legislation is coming up for voting. it will take more calling, more writing, more activism. it might mean taking a vacation day to work the rail or attend a rally.

it will mean talking about these issues within the Church. ok...this might make a few people mad. i pretty much don't care at this point. there is a part of the Church that is particularly disconnected from all this. it's me. and where i come from. it's white evangelicals. we don't talk about politics in the church. and do we ever look down our noses at anyone that would make the church a political place. well, there's got to be room for this. we've got to get over ourselves. i'm not saying to tell people how to vote (though we do seem to get our subtle, or not, ideas across on that, right?). but why can't we say educatedly "people, there's a plan by the state or city or county to do X. these groups are pushing hard to see it happen. here's how the whole idea of that is in contradition to the bible and the life of Jesus, and we've got to speak out, and stand alongside those who are affected."

it's like were the Sleeping Beauty bride. we're out cold and waiting for the Prince to come wake us and take us. this body, this Church is supposed to be fighting....not just to keep the 10 Commandments on a plaque in some courthouse. it's ironic, isn't it? we fight harder for that right than for the rights of the people who God says are His heart. seriously, people. we are...i am disconnected from how to fight these systems of injustice. sure, there are lots of things for us to do in our communities (might as well check ourselves on that, too...do we KNOW any Matthew 25 people?). but giving a dollar to a homeless guy, or even teaching them english has a personal effect. if we want to affect systems, broken systems, intentionally destructive systems, evil systems...anywhere on the spectrum, we need to be intelligent, loud, and wise. and they'll probably come in that order, too.

it's time to get busy. we have work to do. it's not all at the rail. but it's out there. it's not singing in the choir or teaching sunday school. those are important. but they do not generally include the Matthew 25, Isaiah 58, Micah 6 people. and it doesn't to a damn thing to oppose those who are bent on making this all go their way. the Kingdom will never be complete here on earth. but we say we follow Jesus, just like the people that asked Him how to pray. part of what He told them was to pray "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done...ON EARTH, as it is in heaven." guess what part makes it our work? Your will be done. here's the text from Isaiah 58, a commonly repeated text of His will. the highlights are mine just as they relate to this blog.

"Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what's wrong with their lives,
face my family Jacob with their sins!
They're busy, busy, busy at worship,
and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people—
law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?'
and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
'Why do we fast and you don't look our way?
Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?'

3-5"Well, here's why:

"The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit.
You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
won't get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after:
a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
a fast day that I, God, would like?

6-9"This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'

A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places

9-12"If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again. 13-14"If you watch your step on the Sabbath
and don't use my holy day for personal advantage,
If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy,
God's holy day as a celebration,
If you honor it by refusing 'business as usual,'
making money, running here and there—
Then you'll be free to enjoy God!
Oh, I'll make you ride high and soar above it all.

Mr. Heldman goes to Wash...er...Springfield

2008-04-17T11:33:00.005-05:00

yesterday i had the opportunity to go to Springfield, IL with a group of CAPS (Community Alternative Policing Strategy) volunteers, organizers, and police representatives. the goal was to lobby two bills being put before the House. one, HR 758, was calling for universal background checks, regardless of where one purchases a gun. its main goal was to close the loophole that lets private handgun sales (person to person) be conducted without a background check(this bill would not affect rifles/shotgun sales). currently only sales from registered gun dealers are required to have background checks. the second bill never made it up for a vote, but it was to re-enact the assault weapons ban here in the state.

i learned a few things in this lobbying process yesterday. as our leader, Glen Brooks, told us on the way down, this legislature thing is an art, not a science. here's a few things about the process itself.

"working the rail". that's what we went to do...along with a few hundred other people. and that's just the everyday sorts of folks. there were lots of meetings happening in hallways and rooms with people going on, as well. working the rail is essentially crowding around the entrance to chambers and requesting an audience with one's Representative. we were given a list of state reps who were on the fence on the universal handgun background check issue, and told to request for them to come out and meet with us. my rep (Berrios) was not on the list, but Annazette Collins was. her district lies pretty much in the middle of the triangle made by where i live, work, and tutor...humboldt park, lawndale, and austin, respectively.

it took a bit but she finally came out and we talked for about 5 minutes about the various common sense gun bills out there. she told me she would vote yes on HR 758. seemed pretty much like she had already decided that, but Glen told me later that was a huge conversation...he had listened in, i guess. we worked to get other reps out to talk...some came...some didn't. one chicago rep, whose name i didn't get, came and talked with us for several minutes. he pretty much gave us the lay of the land regarding both sides of the line on this bill.

we worked the rail for about an hour and then went up to the gallery to watch our legislature at work. hmmmm...what a process. what may have worked quite well in 1808, and maybe even 1908, sure seems to be a little overmatched for 2008. i doubt the founding fathers could have seen the sorts of issues that would come up for the governments of today. we sat in chambers for about an hour. we saw about 10 bills come up to a vote. while the bills were explained and debated (if they were debated), our reps were talking on the phone, talking to each other, out at the rail. and then when the votes came up, i watched one rep go and press the voting button of 6 or 7 reps (a whole row) who weren't at their desks. not once, not twice, but on nearly every bill.

not only were they not at their desks, or listening to the bill or debate...several times they didn't know at all what the bill was about prior to the introduction of the bill to the floor. this is where i don't think Washington/Adams/Jefferson could ever have foreseen the volume and variance of things presented to the lawmakers. so we had 116 reps on the floor that day and we expect that they have qualified knowledge on dozens of bills. it's not possible. i watched one rep, probably barely 30 years old, struggle to explain a bill he was presenting. when pressed by republicans on the purpose of the bill, he stammered, hemmed and hawed, about exactly what veterans this will would serve (under 100 in the whole state). he had an assistant to his right who looked up answers in a few different file folders. after a few minutes of being pressed, he asked that the assembly vote "Aye" on his bill. it passed without a "Nay" vote. and was one of the bills for which i saw one person press several voting buttons.

our bill hadn't come up by 2 pm, and we were supposed to be part of a press conference, so we left the gallery and went to a press room. we were instructed to not comment or ask questions of the 12 or so alderman, deputy police superintendent, and several other pretty high ranking city officials that had come down in support of HR 758. they had come to meet with House Speaker Madigan, as well as several representatives who were opposed to passage. it took about 20 minutes for them to get there, as well as the reporters. the aldermen and other officials spoke for about 15 minutes and then the floor was opened for questions. the first two were from a 70 something year old man and a pastor, both part of our group. it was hilarious. (when we debriefed on the bus later, the pastor said "it's not my fault...they asked for questions" however, he didn't ask one. he preached...literally)

after about 10 minutes of questions from the press it was over and we were told that HR758 had just been presented for debate. it was our original intent to leave after the press conference, but we were told by a lobby group (IGA...don't know exactly how they relate to us) that we had been effective in our lobbying and we should watch. so...back up to the gallery for lesson number 2 on the legislative process.

none of the bills we had seen to this point were debated to this extent. it went for over an hour. and it could not have been more divided down party lines. essentially, we the people, were told that this gun problem, this 20 out of 23 CPS students killed by gunfire, this illegal gun running into the city...this was all a chicago problem. we were told that because owning a handgun in chicago is already illegal, that if we simply enforced the laws we already have we would quite obviously cure the ills of illegal handguns. never mind the fact that we add laws to currently enforceable laws all the time to tighten the restrictions (e.g. zero-tolerance laws for underage drinking, or new penalties/restrictions for driving in construction zones. we were told that the only real intent of this bill was to force law-abiding citizens who desire to sell their handguns to add another step to the process. apparently everyone outside of the city of chicago is a law-abiding citizen.

the time for voting came. the speaker had to ask for a verified vote, meaning this vote would be actually voted on by each rep. no button pressing for the row on this one. this was going to be verified. sort of makes one less thrilled with all the non-verified votes out there.

now, of the current 4 common sense gun bills, none has ever passed. they've been presented for at least four years each now. they are greatly opposed by the NRA (if you need to know how powerful, and insensitive, that group is, go watch Bowling for Columbine). last wednesday the "one gun a month" bill which would allow a person to only purchase one handgun a month received only 53 of the 60 votes it would need to pass. and, like HR 758, it would not apply to rifles or shotguns...only handguns. so when the voting started and no's quickly outnumbered yes's, we thought we were in for more of the same. but the sides evened up around 40, and eventually green was up 59-55. two votes left to cast. and then before the last two were cast, someone switched. it went to 58-56. and then the last two votes. two red ones. 59-57. and still we heard a murmer through the gallery...a majority! and then from the floor came "WAIT!" and someone again switched. 58-58. dead even. it didn't pass. it's the closest one has ever come. last week's 53 votes was the highest before that.

i'll leave this entry to end here. it's more of the working of the government. rather than lengthen it more, i'll put my thoughts and feelings into another entry, so as to save your eyes and scrollbar. but based on yesterday, my guess is Mr. Heldman goes to Springfield again. and probably gets a little more involved in the political process than he ever hoped or intended to.

i need some ment-lax

2008-04-14T21:43:00.002-05:00

i am in a freaking lyrical funk. which is somewhat of a problem since every time i touch my guitar i write a new song..or two...or three. i am doing a study in two and three chord songs right now...seeing what i come up with when i drop some of the 2nds and 6ths and such and just work in simplicity. and i'm loving it.

don't get me wrong. the stuff i've written that has survived and made it into my sets these days is some of my favorite music ever. i've got stuff in DADGAD tuning with two capos and keep finding more interesting configurations. the group of musicians i spend every thursday night with have had nothing but praise for that stuff...which always feels good. and i did an hour long set last monday for about 10 people who had good things to say about my lyrics. but i was inspired by one Glen Hansard to see how simple i could go.

my roommate, danny, bought the Once soundtrack and we sat down to listen to it. i got my guitar out and, i'll be darned...i was able to play pretty much everything he did within 30 seconds. standard tunings, simple finger picking patterns, easy rhythms...and yet i freaking loved the songs.

so, i started with two chords...eventually added a third for the chorus...and literally played it for about two straight hours. i had so much fun creating melodies to those two chords. then i picked a couple of different chords, in a different key, capoed the guitar up about 7 frets to see what might come ouf of that...and played that for about two more hours.

trouble is, i need to find a lyrical laxative. i wrote one set for the second song. it was the most pathetic thing i've ever written. not bad/pathetic. sad/pathetic. like if someone took vince gill's most sorrowful music and attached that machine from The Princess Bride/pathetic. i saved it, of course, in case vince ever comes calling again for a song (you must know about the best burn ever to understand the "again" part). but it's not going into my repertoire.

my friend, brooke, used to tell me free writing was the ultimate unblockage technique, so i'll probably get to doing some of that tonight...and tomorrow...and for as along as it takes for a decent line to pop out of my head. meanwhile...if you know anyone who's writing lyrics every time they sit down with a pen but is haveing a severe music blockage, please send them my way.

such is life...

2008-04-09T11:57:00.002-05:00

my string of days with no exceptionally good luck...and no exceptionally bad luck...almost ended today as i was very nearly run over at the corner of belmont and ashland.

by an ambulance...

my daily thanks...

2008-04-07T13:35:00.002-05:00

i'll try to put this up every day. maybe a person and a thing or situation...

so...today, April 7th, 2008

danny locash...my roomate. he's been here in chicago for a little over a year now and he's been a blessing in the apartment and in my life. he's got an amazing heart for God, loves the Church and doesn't want to see it be irrelevant and impotent. he's one of the hardest working people i've ever known, and he packs a mean hookah! he also cares a great deal for people, and is always ready to ask how someone is doing and is willing to hear the long, true answer rather than just "fine". it's his birthday today, too...so Happy Birthday, danny!

my guitar...i've been spending a lot of time with it lately and i'm so happy with it. i'm still not as good a player as it is a guitar, but the gap is narrowing. i love sitting on my front porch practicing and writing like i did on saturday and sunday afternoon. i love the first strum of a set, especially in dadgad tuning when that low D rings out. it's a beautiful piece, even with it's little nicks and dents. i guess that means it's getting used. either that or i bang it around too much.

when i knew you...

2008-04-06T17:56:00.002-05:00

amnesia has always been an intriguing thing to me i can't imagine just forgetting everything you knew...or even a significant part of it. i get frustrated when i can't remember a name or song title or something, so forgetting it all has gotta suck.

i remember (thank God!) watching The Notebook and thinking how hard that situation would be on both parties. maybe the woman with alzheimers doesn't ever notice that she doesn't remember. maybe she's just in this place of getting through each day. maybe she's not really all that frustrated because she doesn't know what she's forgotten.

but the husband? how difficult must that be? what kind of love prompts someone to continue to try bringing back the one that once loved back? how many times had he read that story to her? how many times did she get a glimpse of their former glory? the passion and history that once bonded the two as one?

well, i was thinking the other day on something i've heard my whole life. in jeremiah 1 it says that before we were formed in the womb God knew us. i used to sort of dismiss that as He knew about us. had a blueprint somewhere on the wall for when it came time to put cells together. but yesterday i was thinking...what if He KNEW us? and now we're here in these human bodies and we've forgotten what it's like to be known? i mean, we fight our whole lives to be known...to know ourselves, or to find someone that knows us. we use not being known by someone as a way to remind them of the distance they actually are from us. we long to be known.

what if the part of each of us that knows there is a God in pursuit of us is like that woman from The Notebook? we'd be unaware of the depth of love we've forgotten. we'd get weary trying to fight through the cloudy haze that always seemed to cover whatever parts of us were aware. and wouldn't we seem to be empty...nearly shells of what it seems we were made to be?

wouldn't the husband long to see the amnesia go away? wouldn't He do anything to bring His bride out of it? wouldn't He tell His love story in the hopes that one day the faded, foggy, and lost memories would be lifted and His love would be returned fully by one who knew Him?

i wonder if there's not something deep inside us that knows...and just needs to hear the story over and over again to be reminded...being known is possible. it's already happened. we've just forgotten...

WKWJWD

2008-04-05T18:25:00.003-05:00

i like to think a lot of things about myself. i'd like to think i have a pretty even-keeled notion of who i am, what i believe, etc. etc.. i do, however, seem to find myself lately in situations where what i think i know, and who i think i am aren't necessarily who i am and what i know.

so...if one were to peruse my facebook page one would see that my religious views are stated as "i follow Jesus' teaching." i'd say that implies that i know them to a reasonable extent. i do try to live like He did, as best as i can. anyone who knows me know i'm not very concerned with living the way the church says to do it...unless that lines up with how Jesus did. i've got little use for religion and rules that are man-made. so, if i'm gonna live like that, again, i should be able to feel confident in knowing the bracelet phrase...what would Jesus do. uh...yeah...about that?

so i'm riding the bus on wednesday, heading down ashland to the green line so i can go do the good thing of tutoring these really amazing 5th graders in the austin neighborhood. children and justice were always dear to the heart of God, so i'm sure i'm on the right track. only, when we get to the fullerton stop, headed south, the mostly full bus fills up with exactly the right number of people so that no seat shall be left empty. the last one is next to me, and while i gaze out the window, the last woman to get on sits down next to me. no worries. i never hog a seat (see how well i do this life?). so, i'm chilling to chopin on my ipod and i notice the smell of alchohol. or maybe, more accurately, i'm overwhelmed by it. a moment after it hits me, i get a tap on the shoulder. i turn to see a lovely, middle-aged woman who is plastered, hammered, three sheets to the wind, gone. she wants to talk.

she's bright-eyed for her condition and definitely a friendly drinker. she is not intelligible, though, and sounds much like bill cosby's take on drinking and talking. i do get one word from her...daughter. i'm not sure what about her daughter, but she's animatedly talking about her. i smile and nod for about 2 minutes and realize this is going nowhere. i begin looking for the slightest break in the action to put my headphones back on and turn back toward the window. the moment comes and i seize it. she is undeterred.

though i am watching the same scenery i've seen every wednesday for the past 6 months, and have my ears covered, she is is continuing to talk to me. she's bumping into me as she talks, certainly trying to regain my attention. now i am undeterred. after about 5 minutes she gets up and moves to another open seat where she proceeds to fall asleep.

and i am struck with this thought: although i cannot say what He would have done in my situation, the one thing about which i am sure is that He would not have put His headphones back on and turned away toward the window. i have done the one thing i am sure would not have happened. it wasn't because i lacked compassion for her. it wasn't because she disgusted me. it wasn't because i had something to which i was already committed. i just didn't know what to do.

i started thinking about the bracelet phrase and what Jesus would do in my shoes. would He just continue to listen to her blather? would He simply understand it and be able to converse with her because of that? would He just reach out and touch her and say "Be Sober!" and she'd be shocked and awed and fall at His feet? the scenarios i thought out all seemed to lead to one conclusion...He had power that i just didn't have. and then i remembered...

"you will do greater things that these..." or that peter raised someone from the dead, which certainly has to be harder than sobering up a drunk person. or that he walked on water, which might be harder than both of those. that chains fell off imprisoned people. a litany of "powered up" people came to mind and i thought about my supposed connection to that power. or my supposed knowledge of the God behind it all. and i realized...i don't know Jesus anywhere near as well as i'd like to think. i didn't stop and ask for wisdom in what to do. i didn't pray for strength, or for understanding, or for anything really. i did eventually, but it was 6 hours later during a meditation time at church.

so...who knows what Jesus would do. i don't. i'm aiming to find out...or to be more prepared for what comes across my path spontaneously rather than what's planned. i'm not beating myself up for finding out i'm really not all that much like God. i was pretty clear on the gap before this happened. but i do want to follow Jesus' teaching. i do want to treat people like He did. i do want to care for those who are not cared for and fight for the shalom of the earth...to see the Kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven. i'm not content with "oops...guess i messed that up." i do want to know that i'm plugged in to a dead-raising, chain-breaking, sickness-healing God in such a way that He could use me for whatever might need to happen and i'd not suddenly think i was the Pope. i guess the perspective on the gap allows me to move to close it.

Celebrity run-in number 2

2008-03-26T18:40:00.003-05:00

so...ever see Conan the Barbarian? the first one? Ahhnold Schwartzbewithyou...back before he could legally run for office? remember how shocked you were when you saw that the great James Earl Jones had agreed to play a role in that movie? remember how shocked you were to see James Earl Jones with long straight hair?

well, he was driving my bus today. i kept watching to see if he'd turn into a giant snake. i can't say he didn't cuz i got off at the green line, but he was still James Earl Jones at that point.

seriously, though. what was James Earl Jones thinking, taking that part? someone had some damning pics on that guy, i swear.

Strange for a tough guy

2008-03-26T11:11:00.002-05:00

i was walking up ashland today on my way to work and i could swear i saw chuck norris walk into Petco. i know...weird, right?

i mean, i guess i thought chuck would make his pets bring him food...

What's (not) new in country music...

2008-03-25T22:43:00.004-05:00

apparently...nothing.

i met a friend for breakfast monday at this little hole in the wall diner at belmont and california. 3 eggs, hash browns, toast...3.50. he was a little late due to another meeting going long. so i sat in a booth and listened to the station playing on the little boombox over the pie case. ah...US99.

US99 proclaims itself to be America's country music. i know this because they said it several times in the 30 minutes i paid attention to it. unfortunately, i also know this because i had a little bout with country fever (not to be confused with rockin pneumonia or the boogie-woogie blues) back in 1995. i worked at a country restaurant/bar named Cadillac Ranch...first as a singing waiter, and then as a bouncer. i thought i was the (insert southern superlative here) in my boots and hat. i knew all the line dances. i could two-step...pretty darn well. and i could sing along with travis tritt, wynonna, and mark chesnutt.

as it turns out, the lyrics i stored up (and thought i locked away) came to some use monday morning. maybe i caught the Flashback '95 hour or something, but all i heard was music from back when i was working at C.R.. seemed kind of weird to me...all that time and no new music. i mean, i know the dixie chicks came out after that and they are fairly prolific as relating to their body of work. perhaps they're still banned due to the un-southern, un-patriotic, unabashed bashing of our president. still, wasn't there some good 'ol boy who wrote a song in support of all the things they tore down?

well, anyway, i was glad to find my memory still worked, embarrassed to remember my singing waiter days, and amused to think that when it comes to country music in the grand old USA, a chicago station thinks it's the shining beacon. next think you know, oklahoma city will be the jazz capital. for now, i'm glad i'm no longer a member of the country club.

Top this!

2008-03-12T23:07:00.000-05:00

By ROXANA HEGEMAN |Associated Press Writer

9:11 PM CDT, March 12, 2008

WICHITA, Kan. - Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years -- so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the man finally called police.

It appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat, said Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple. The woman initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

Whipple said investigators planned to present their report Wednesday to the county attorney, who will determine whether any charges should be filed against the boyfriend.

"She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body," Whipple said. "It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself."

Police declined to release the couple's names, but the boyfriend, Kory McFarren, agreed to be interviewed Wednesday by The Associated Press. He identified his girlfriend as Pam Babcock.

McFarren, 36, told investigators he took Babcock food and water and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

"And her reply would be, 'Maybe tomorrow,'" Whipple said. "According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom."

McFarren told the AP that he wasn't to blame, and that it was solely Babcock's choice to remain in the bathroom.

"She is an adult; she made her own decision. It was my fault I should have gotten help for her sooner; I admit that. But after a while, you kind of get used to it," McFarren said.

Although authorities said they think Babcock was in the bathroom for two years, McFarren said he wasn't certain how long she stayed there. He said she had a phobia about leaving the room because of childhood beatings.

"It just kind of happened one day. She went in and had been in there a little while, the next time it was a little longer. Then she got it in her head she was going to stay -- like it was a safe place for her," McFarren said.

But McFarren said Babcock moved around in the bathroom during that time, bathed and changed into the clothes he brought her. He said they conversed and had an otherwise normal relationship -- except that it all happened in the bathroom.

McFarren, who works at an antique store, said he has been taking care of Babcock for the 16 years they have lived together.

McFarren called police on Feb. 27 to report that "there was something wrong with his girlfriend," Whipple said.

Police found Babcock clothed and sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was "somewhat disoriented," and her legs looked as if they had atrophied, Whipple said.

"She said that she didn't need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave," he said.

She was reported in fair condition at a hospital in Wichita, about 150 miles southeast of Ness City. Whipple said she refused to cooperate with medical providers or law enforcement investigators.

McFarren said that his girlfriend has an infection in her legs that has damaged her nerves, and that she has no feeling in her legs. She may wind up in a wheelchair, he said.

Authorities said they did not know whether she was mentally or physically disabled.

The case has been the buzz of Ness City, said James Ellis, a neighbor.

"I don't think anybody can make any sense out of it," he said.

Ellis said he had known the woman since she was a child but that he had not seen her for at least six years.

He said she had a tough childhood after her mother died at a young age and apparently was usually kept inside the house as she grew up. At one time the woman worked for a long-term care facility, he said, but he did not know what kind of work she did there.

"It really doesn't surprise me," Ellis said. "What surprises me is somebody wasn't called in a bit earlier."

the raw deal

2008-03-05T14:14:00.000-06:00

so...diamonds are a girl's best friend. dogs are a man's best friend. man, we got screwed...

egg foo yung, vegetable soup, hookah, and port wine...

2008-03-04T13:11:00.000-06:00

yesterday morning i had a few bites of cantaloupe before i rushed out to work. i grabbed a large decaf coffee, drank it on the bus, and grabbed two more from Dunkin Donuts so i wouldn't have to leave during my break to grab one. (i had not dressed for the drastic drop in temperatures from sunday to monday)

on my way home, i decided to stop at my local chinese food shop to pick up some dinner. i get a small shrimp egg foo yung for the protein, and a vegetable soup for...the vegetables. they're freshly steamed and so good. so the first substantive thing i ate all day was at 6 pm. i saved the soup to eat around 8 to let my system work a little less hurriedly.

at about 8:30 danny and i fired up my new hookah (thanks, danny/shane/jenn) and had a nice session with our friend, citrus mint. danny likes the heavier flavors like double apple and elephant dung. that's not a flavor...yet...but if it was, danny would love it. i, on the other hand prefer sessions that do not require The Lung Brush afterwards. i'm sure they're all equally bad for me, but that's beside the point. citrus mint is light and airy, like damaging smoke should be. not like the smokestack i live a couple of blocks from. i like to think that citrus mint is actually cleaning out the bad, wicked smog...and the leftover inhalations from years of playing in bars.

anyway, we had a good half hour smoke, and danny went to bed. i had some catching up on shows to do, some stuff to write, and baseball trades to work out, so i went and poured myself a glass of port. my brother brought it down to the wine party on saturday night, and only he and i drank any, so there was a good bit left. my little port glasses were in the running dishwasher so i grabbed a regular wine glass. i pulled the cork and my other roommate, shane, popped into the kitchen to tell me something. i poured and answered...answered and poured. however it went, i ended up with a half full regular wine glass full of port. i knew immediately that there was now a drop on the bottom of that large amount of port that had my bedtime on it.

i spent the next hour with my glass, and as expected, the bottom of the glass was amplifying the call of my pillow. i got ready in a hurry, and was pretty nearly asleep when i got in bed. all of this is pretext for the night to come.

i don't usually remember my dreams. i don't even think i dream all that much because it's not just that i don't remember what i dreamed. i don't remember dreaming. when i do remember it, and even more so, when i remember what i dreamed, it's never a nightmare. it's never running in place, flying, falling...all the dreams normal people dream. no, i dream about things like hunting an 150 foot long, two story alligator with a shotgun. or about kittens that climb up stucco, art deco colored walls, across the ceiling, and back down the other side, all while saying "wallz, wallz, wallz, wallz". no meow. no purring. just walls.

i don't recall what i ate/drank the nights before those dreams, but i did this time. and while these dreams don't contain any wacky animal antics, they're pretty weird.

i had four. i remember two. the last two. and i remember each time i woke up thinking i have to remember that. apparently i have room for only two dreams in my short term memory.

the first was me at a basketball camp. the ones where they drill you on all the fundamentals of the game. you work...you work hard. and at the end, you play a friendly game against a team of your classmates. well, i had only 3 fellow camp members. two i do not recall. i'm sure i knew them at one point during the dream. or imagine i do. the third was John McCain. yes, he of the imminent GOP candidacy. he wasn't bad. not great. but nobody really stood out on the team. we just sort of drilled layups, free throws, the weave. and Coach Knight was unbelievably calm. yes, Bobby Knight. the coach i dislike the most in all of college/pro/park/alley basketball. Coach Knight just said things like "nice" and "good pivot" and "way to go, heldman/mccain/nameless guys". i think we were in the final gym from hoosiers, too, but i'm not certain about that. it was massive and well lit...and completely empty except for the five of us.

dream two was me and my friend, tristan vass. probably because i saw her new pics on facebook last night. and it involved a bicycle, on my part, probably because both my roommates have recently had their bikes in many pieces while building/rebuilding them. that doesn't explain why there was a baptist retirement community living in the grade school i went to in the city...why i figured out that i could stand my bike on its back tire, climb to the top of the front tire, and get on the roof of a 50 foot tall building, or why the old people who were coming and going...slowly...in the evening from John Palmer Grade School and Retirement Home were berating Tristan for all the boys she was making out with. Oddly, Tristan was just standing there next to my amazing bike, but each fogey had a story about another boy she was seeing. when i came down from the roof and amazingly advantageous listening post, Tristan confessed to me that she had a problem. She then was magically whisked away by the dream and i was left to bike through my old Chicago neighborhood, weaving this majestic bicycle through the pothole-ridden streets.

as i recounted these dreams, it came to me that perhaps i was the only one that might find them weird and odd. maybe others dream like this all the time...inexplicable places, people, and times converging into some mixture of foreign film and reality tv. maybe it's because i remember so few. but i know one thing. when it comes to mixing egg foo yung, vegetable soup, hookah, and port wine...well, i'm gonna do that more often.

And so it begins...

2008-02-28T16:47:00.000-06:00

my friend, jenn billingsley, who shall remain nameless, told me if i was seriously going to write, i should get a real blog. no more of this myspace blogging, said she. so, based upon this one person's thoughts, i am now a blogger.com blogger. i suppose just the url in itself means it's more official.

another friend, scott ragsdale, has me listed in his writer's circle of friends, even though i never wrote with him. i don't remember him on the writing teams i was on back then. but ok...i guess if i'm in his writing circle, i should get back to writing.

one of my new friends, rachel cook, gave me a script she wrote for The Office. no, she's not a writer for the show, but she's very gifted and if i had to bet on yes or no, i'd bet yes for her becoming a television writer at some point.

i have other friends in various stages of writing books, movies, song, poetry. i have a mind to try each of these. i do the music, but have ideas for the rest. well...the poetry ideas are pretty weak. mostly limericks about dave pontious (i've got a huge collection of them).

i have two book ideas and two movie ideas. but i don't write enough to feel comfortable with starting any of them with any amount of commitment or intentionality. i'm hoping that being a real blogger will help me out like being a real boy did for geppetto's kid, pinochle...at least before he went to prison.

so, someday when i'm begging rachel cook to please just look at the newest treatment for some movie i've thought up, i'll look back on this moment...waiting for 6 pm and the ESL students...hiding in the back corner of Cherubs...and i'll think...jenn, this was all your fault!