The Wayward Episcopalian

Four Upcoming States Newt Gingrich Could Win

2012-01-23T13:47:00.000-06:00

In addition to my first two posts here since 2010, I also just wrote my first Daily Kos diary since I started front-paging at MyDD in 2009 - and my first political post since going to work for the DNC. It's not progressive, it's not data-driven; it's just a little horserace speculation to get back in the blogging swing of things after such a long hiatus.

I'm going to try and be a blogger again, sharing religious observations and personal reflections here and political thoughts through a new Daily Kos account. (And as always, both on Facebook and Twitter, as well.)

On discipleship, grace, and headfakes

2012-01-22T22:16:00.011-06:00

This morning's Gospel was Mark 1:14-20, in which Jesus called Simon and Andrew to drop their nets and follow Him. My thoughts on this passage involve Rob Bell, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Bruce Springsteen.

Pastor Rob Bell’s Nooma video "Dust" is one I have thought of often since first seeing it in college, and I finally got to watch it again this past week at my church's 20s/30s group. In this 15-minute video (excerpt), Bell explains that most Jewish children in Christ's day went to school and memorized the Torah. The best of the best stayed on for a few extra years to learn the rest of the Jewish Scriptures. But only the best of the best of the best (sir!) would be asked by a rabbi to become his disciples. He would say to them, "Come, follow me."

Because Simon and Andrew are out fishing in this passage from Mark, we know that they weren't following a rabbi. They were no one's disciple -- they weren't considered anywhere near the best. And then, out of the blue, a rabbi comes to them and says (in the Matthew version) those hallowed words they thought they'd never hear – "Come, follow me." Jesus told them, you ARE good enough. Good enough to follow me, good enough to be honored, and, as my rector in DC, the Rev. Cara Spaccarelli, points out, good enough to teach.

That is an honor, a blessed invitation, and it is extended to all of us today. Everyone is worthy of Christ's love, attention, and time, and thus also of ours -- but, our own worthiness comes at a cost.

This morning's processional hymn at Christ Church Parish in DC was William Alexander Percy's "They Cast Their Nets In Galilee." It was one I hadn’t heard before. The melody was "Georgetown," a happy tune with a quick tempo, and the first verse had blissful, over-the-top lyrics like "happy simple fisherfolk."

But it was a happy, simple headfake. When we hit the third verse, I was a bit shocked. My last blog post came to mind, about Bruce Springsteen songs that on casual listen seem to be patriotic ballads but are in fact powerful indictments of a broken system.

They cast their nets in Galilee
Just off the hills of brown
Such happy simple fisherfolk
Before the Lord came down
Contented peaceful fishermen
Before they ever knew
The peace of God That fill'd their hearts
Brimful and broke them too.
Young John who trimmed the flapping sail,
Homeless, in Patmos died.
Peter, who hauled the teeming net,
Head-down was crucified.
The peace of God, it is no peace,
But strife closed in the sod,
Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing -
The marvelous peace of God.

I think the hymn has the right definition for the wrong word. There is a marvelous peace of God, one that calls us to beat swords into plowshares and let the Romans lead away our Savior -- one that calls us to call to use words and love as our weapons against oppression. But at the same time, following Jesus does come with a cost.

In his book, "The Cost of Discipleship," Bonhoeffer warns us against what he terms "cheap grace" -- the belief that we can simply dunk our heads in water with a prayer and have everything be hunky-dorky, and go about just as before with nothing changed beyond Heaven's opinion of us. Or in his more eloquent and passionate words,

The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing... Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate...
[Costly grace] is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him...
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son.

I'm not done with this book yet, but Bonhoeffer's point is well taken: We're not following someone if we're not in motion behind them, if we're not changing a thing. So I'm not sure I can really call myself a disciple of the homeless Christ.

I don't give nearly enough to charity. I haven't cut down much of my consumption or sold off most possessions, instead hoarding the money they could raise and worrying about the security of my stuff. I don't read the Bible on my own very often, and lack discipline even in the simple things like getting myself to go hiking or visit a free museum. I pick jobs that I think will be good for society, but almost never seem to also volunteer my actual free time. So many things that could serve the kingdom and strengthen my relationship with God, yet I spend my time watching movies, mindlessly surfing the Internet, and drinking craft beer.

But there is always hope. At the 20s/30s group, my rector reminded us –- me -– not to feel unworthy because of failings like the ones I list here. Christ's call does not go away -- He is there anew each morning, saying, "Come, follow me." She finished her sermon today saying if you haven’t seen that call in your life, look harder. Bishop Andy Doyle of Texas echoes that on his blog, saying that if you haven't seen it, don't worry; it's still there and it's never going away: "What seems very inspiring here is the notion that this is not a one-time event. We are not to repent and believe; but rather we are to live a life of repenting and believing."

Or as my mentor in Nebraska, Fr. Tom Jones, often said, "Just as I am" is a great hymn -- but though we can come just as we are, we can't stay that way.

It's a continual process. It's costly grace, and it's God’s love. We are called to drop our nets, to follow, to change. And no matter when you read this, it's time we get started.

New Springsteen Song: Born in the USA, Part Two

2012-01-20T12:37:00.010-06:00

Awesome news: Bruce Springsteen has a new album coming out March 6. It's called "Wrecking Ball," after his last single, a track he put out in October 2009 to commemorate the destruction of Giant Stadium.

The first track is called "We Take Care Of Our Own," and the music video was released yesterday. On casual listen, it's pretty jingoistic - the music is reminiscent of the album The Rising, with Roy Bittan's uplifting keyboards, organs from newcomer Charlie Giordano, and a driving beat, and the chorus repeats the line "We take care of our own, wherever this flag is flown."

Don't be deceived. This song is actually Born in the U.S.A., Part II. That 1984 song's rocking chorus led Ronald Reagan to use it as his anthem - but the verses were about a Vietnam veteran who was "born in the USA" and then let down by his country. "We Take Care Of Our Own" is the same. The verses tell the story of a crumbling economy - of people who can't get work despite the rhetoric of politicians and pundits who pretend to care. Mostly Springsteen sings bout unemployment, but he even alludes to Hurricane Katrina, "from the shotgun shack to the Superdome." The chorus, like with Born in the USA, only sounds patriotic in order to point out that the promise of our authority figures' patriotism is a lie. It's a perfect song for a country who sees all its GDP growth go to its top 1% - a country where wages for more than 90% of us remain flat even in the boom times.

NPR compares the music to Arcade Fire and Flock of Seagulls, while calling the lyrics "pure boss... patriotic in the style of Mr. Smith and Dr. King." And THAT'S true patriotism.

(There is one theological line, though, where he says "the Calvary stayed home' - not the cavalry. And that seems odd for Springsteen, the man of "Land of Hope and Dreams" that seems almost ripped from the Gospels. I'll let it slide this time - it matches the song's true tone - but nothing could be further from the truth. Christ may not end the rough times, but he gets us through them.)

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T17:19:00.007-06:00

With apologies, I quit blogging to take a new job - and it happened so suddenly that I didn't have time for a farewell post. But I'm sure my new insect overlords won't mind if I take one quick moment to wish you all a merry Christmas! You can find my past reflection on the theology of power and oppression at Christmastime here.

Also - Google searches for both "Lo How An Onion E'er Blooming" & "Lo How An Onion E'er Bloomin'" each yield exactly zero results. This is the perfect idea for a parody - how has no one written or even thought of it yet?

Anyways, this'll be it for the foreseeable future. I'll jump start this blog again one day, but that may well not be until grad school, whenever the heck that happens. Thanks for everything, my wonderful friends and readers!

On cap-and-trade

2010-07-29T13:26:00.004-05:00

Just sent in this letter.

Dear Senator Nelson,

In response to your decision to harm Nebraska's agriculture and citizens by voting against the free market principles of cap-and-trade, all I can say is, enjoy your coming retirement. You have no base, so I hope you're not planning to run again.

Oh, and also this:

PPPPPPPBBBBBBBBBBTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHH.

(Please picture me with my thumbs in my ears and fingers waggling in the air at your hatred for science and for Nebraska while my tongue makes that noise.)

Sincerely,
Nathan Empsall

Glenn Beck continues his attacks on people of faith

2010-07-20T16:54:00.001-05:00

Cross-posted from MyDD.

Something I’ve noticed about Glenn Beck is that most of his attacks are motivated not by ideology or patriotism, but by revenge and personal petulance. First, it was Van Jones, President Obama’s green jobs czar. Beck began his successful smear campaign against Jones about the same time a group co-founded by Jones called for advertisers to boycott Beck for calling the President racist. Then in March, Beck began his screeds against the Bible’s call for social justice, comparing the Catholic Church and others who call for justice to Nazis and Communists. When evangelical leader Jim Wallis politely disagreed with Beck on his blog and called for a public debate between the two, Beck turned his ire on Wallis.

Beck’s latest target is another liberal faith-based group, Faithful America. They are an ecumenical progressive organization focused on such issues as violence in the public discourse, distortion of Scripture, torture, health care, and climate change. (I have often cited their Faith in Public Life news round-up here at MyDD.) However, Beck's anger seems to come not from his belief that only the right-wing is allowed to think about religion but from his recurring desire for revenge. The group recently launched a radio ad to counter Beck’s distortion of the Bible, quoting Scripture and encouraging “a spirit of love and truth” when disagreeing with one another. They also printed and offered free bumper stickers declaring “Driven by Faith, Not by Fear.” (Mine arrived last week.)

Beck, in typical fashion, was outraged that anyone would suggest the Bible is about love, and tore into Faithful America on his radio show last Friday. As usual, he tried to debunk the group mostly by mocking them, not by being serious. His only substantive critiques were that it partners with other people he dislikes, deletes vulgar comments from its webpage, and doesn’t include the word “Jesus” on its homepage and thus isn’t religious. Because of course, the only proof that someone is religious is their use of the word Jesus – we all know there’s not a single religious Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or Hindu in the entire world. But seriously, as the name suggests, Faithful America is ecumenical, not Christian. And while Beck is right about their homepage's use of the word “Jesus,” they do in fact have over two dozen mentions of the word “faith” (not even counting their name), as well as seven mentions of “Christian” and numerous links to explicitly Christian organizations (among others).

Faithful America’s response? The same as Wallis’s: they’re asking Beck to participate in an open public debate. They’re not stooping to his level of distortion and dishonesty, but if his reaction to Wallis is any indication, he won’t rise to their level of equality and civil discourse either.

Democrats won't win by running against Bush

2010-07-19T17:06:00.002-05:00

Cross-posted from MyDD.com.

Even though he wasn’t on the ballot, Democrats ran against George W. Bush in 2008 and won. This isn’t 2008, and that strategy won’t work again. It’s a historical lesson: we can’t fight the current war with the strategy and technology of the last one. I pound my head against the wall every time I see something like this:

Watching yesterday's forum on "Meet the Press" -- which featuring NRCC Chair Pete Sessions, NRSC Chair John Cornyn, DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen and DSCC Chair Bob Menendez -- it appeared to be a Bush vs. Obama debate by proxy… Van Hollen: "During the whole eight years of the Bush administration, we actually lost over 600,000 private sector jobs." And Menendez: "It's not just talking about President Bush; it's the policies that they espouse that are in essence Bush's policies. Those led us to a 72% percent increase in the debt from $5.7 trillion to $9.8 trillion when Bush left."

I’m reminded of a discussion between two pundits I heard on public radio last week, though unfortunately I don’t remember which show so there's no link or transcript. One pundit mentioned that Obama has been president for 2 ½ years. A couple minutes later, the other said basically "Wait a minute; you said two and a half when it’s actually one and a half. I don’t blame you for the slip because neither I nor the interviewer caught it, which speaks to the fact that Obama is now an entrenched reality in voters’ minds and that he owns all the problems he faces."

Politicians have to find a way to play to the voters’ mindset rather than patronizing them by trying to change it, and this year it is, “Talk to me about today’s problems, not yesterday’s. You’re in charge now so I will blame you.” It doesn’t matter if there are too many problems to solve in just two years, and it doesn’t matter when the problems started or why. Many voters feel too busy living their lives to educate themselves about the details, or feel that “common sense” means the problem is what it looks like at first blush and don’t tell me otherwise. Hence the new Pew poll that finds most voters think Obama started the bailouts, and hence Republican Senator Bob Bennett’s comment that voters “confused TARP and the stimulus plan. They confused TARP and the omnibus bill. They confused TARP and the president’s budget.”

Unfortunately, Democrats aren’t going to get the chance to correct voters about the Bush policies. A candidate gets just 30 seconds to be quoted in a news story and 30 seconds to shoot an ad, and just three points voters will remember from a fair booth or local speech. Don’t give them a ten minute economic lecture or timeline – find something concise that shares their focus on the now. They won’t even listen if you start with a focus on the yesterday. They’ll walk away muttering, “Typical politician, pointing fingers and making excuses.”

So unless your opponent was a prominent member of Bush’s economic team, a better campaign line than blaming Bush would be, “Thanks to Democratic policies, the private sector has created jobs for six straight months after losing them for every month since 2007. Tea party opponents, however, want to get rid of those policies, as well as Social Security and the Civil Rights Act.” You could add “We could have done even more if the Senate opposition was focused on policy rather than politics,” but that’s starting to get into the procedural weeds about which non-junkies don’t want to spend time learning. When it's time to talk about your opponent, talk about the current opponents - John Boehner's pro-BP and pro-Wall Street comments, the aforementioned Rand Paul and Sharron Angle - not about the past.

The moment you say the magic word Bush, voters will think you’re shirking responsibility and ducking blame. It doesn’t matter if it is indeed Bush’s fault and it doesn’t matter if you’re not to blame – we’re talking about perception and about November, not about policy or truth. So again, Democrats have to share the voters’ focus on today, not waste time trying to get them to think about yesterday. Don’t rerun the 2008 campaign when it’s not 2008.

Ben Nelson and Judd Gregg ignore their constituents

2010-07-17T14:03:00.003-05:00

Cross-posted from MyDD.

Ben Nelson doesn’t understand climate change, and is going to harm the very industries he seeks to protect. But at least he’s not Judd Gregg, who refuses to think for himself - and that should drive even tea partiers nuts. From Politico:

“A carbon tax or trade piece would significantly increase the utility rates in Nebraska for businesses, agriculture and individuals,” the Nebraska Democrat told POLITICO. “I don’t think that’s an appropriate way to go. And while I’d usually vote for a motion to proceed, this is so extraordinary, that I just can’t bring myself to do that.”

Either Nelson’s quote is bogus and he has nothing but contempt for Nebraska agriculture, or he doesn’t understand a thing about climate change. Yes, Nebraska does have incredibly cheap electricity from Wyoming coal and that will probably change at least somewhat under if carbon is priced, but if carbon isn’t priced, there won’t BE much Nebraska agriculture left to care!

A panel of ecologists, biologists and professors told an audience of 50 on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's East Campus that as the world grows warmer in the next 50 years, so will Nebraska.

It wasn't a comforting message.

Declines in Rocky Mountain snowpack could devastate flows in the Platte River.

More precipitation could fall, but the chances of catastrophic flooding will increase.

Nebraska will get a longer growing season, but it also will get weeds and insect pests that have never been able to survive the region's harsh winters.

Add to that a Nature Conservancy report that shows Nebraska will see one of the two or three sharpest increases in temperature of any state under any scenario.

New Hampshire’s Judd Gregg is even worse. The same Politico article quotes him saying, “I’ll wait to see what the leadership position is before I make a decision on what I’d do” regarding a possible filibuster.

What’s that, Judd? Can’t think for yourself about these things? Listen, you weren’t elected to represent the citizens of leadership’s Arizona and Kentucky, you were elected to represent the citizens of New Hampshire – and a new UNH poll out just this week shows that they understand that climate change is real and that it is caused by humans. So do the right thing, not the Mitch McConnell puppet thing.

Gregg's retiring this year. Let's replace him with someone who will actually try, and help Paul Hodes get to the Senate.

For the record, both men voted for cloture on the Lieberman-Warner climate bill. So Nelson's just plain flip-flopping, and Gregg doesn't want us to know yet if he's a decent guy or not.

Idaho Republicans hate the word “fiesta,” demand repeal of the 17th Amendment, and require loyalty oath

2010-07-12T18:47:00.002-05:00

Cross-posted from MyDD.

Even when ID-01 is in Democratic hands, Repubs still know how to steal the show. Two inane stories the past couple weeks. First, at their state convention, the party voted to enshrine repealing the 17^th Amendment (direct election of senators) into their party platform, as well as demand that all Repub candidates sign a party loyalty oath. Second, the Bonner County Republican Party is outraged, OUTRAGED! that their county’s fair has chosen “Fiesta” as this year’s theme. This is America and we speak American, gulldarnit!

Let’s think about that party platform for a second: signing a loyalty oath to support repeal of the 17^th Amendment. That means that if you’re pro-life, think Obama is a socialist, want to get rid of social security and the income tax, and can’t wait to drill baby drill but also think that people should have their right to elect their own representatives, then you are not right-wing enough for the Idaho Repub Party. By the way, that 17^th Amendment? It was originally co-sponsored and introduced by an Idaho Republican in 1911, Senator William Borah.

From the Idaho Democratic Party:

It is now clear that the "new" Idaho Republican Party is interested not in governing but in ruling our state and its people...

Some of these extremist proposals included disbanding all Idaho public schools, creating a state militia, forbidding closure of poorly run publicly-funded charter schools that are drowning in red ink, and rejecting school-based vaccination clinics (vaccinations were called "unnecessary drugging of our children").

"The Idaho Democratic Party welcomes all well-intentioned voters to join us in finding solutions to the problems this state now faces. We embrace a wide range of views and voters. At the same time, the Idaho Republican Party is quickly moving to the extreme right, far away from its traditional, moderate center," stated [Democratic Chairman Keith] Roark.

To Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID)’s credit, he refuses to sign the loyalty oath.

But that’s not even half as crazy as one of the county parties. Just north of my home in Kootenai County, Repubs are furious that a Spanish word - "fiesta" - was chosen (way back in January) as the theme for this year’s Bonner County Fair. In protest, they have declared that the theme of their booth will be "celebrate," and they have written to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to ask if she has any Arizona license plates she could spare for them to decorate their booth.

The Twin Falls Times-News titled their responding editorial, “A bigot is a bigot, in any language” and said that Repubs should “avoid insulting 10 percent of your political constituency.” But my favorite line from this whole affair comes from Fair Board Chairman Tim Cary, who asked of the food court, "Are we supposed to change the name of a burrito to something in English?"

Small wonder that CQ just upgraded ID-01, once the national Repubs’ top target, from "toss-up" to 'leans Dem."

Per Boise Weekly, the Bonner County Democrats have responded to the fiesta flap. Chairwoman Laura Bry says they will have donkey piñatas at their booth.

I should also point out that Sarah Palin was born in Bonner County.

Angle joins long list of BP-defending Republicans

2010-07-08T22:48:00.005-05:00

Cross-posted from MyDD.

Nevada Repub Senate nominee Sharron Angle agreed with Joe Barton on a call-in radio show yesterday, echoing his claim that its escrow fund for spill victims is a government “slush fund.”

A caller said that Obama had "basically extorted $20 billion from a private company," and asked Angle what she thought of "the $20 billion slush fund."

"Government shouldn't be doing that to a private company," Angle replied. "And I think you named it clearly: It's a slush fund… They're actually using this crisis if you will, because they never waste one -- Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals -- they are using this crisis now to get in cap and trade, and every crime and penalty, and slush fund.”

Angle tried to clarify herself today, claiming that her actual position on the issue is the complete opposite of yesterday’s remarks. She’s been doing a lot of that lately. She just doesn’t get that voters can sense authenticity. A candidate who makes a gaffe can pull a 30 or even a 45, but they can’t pull a 180. This flap isn’t going to end well for Angle.

And yet boy does she ever have friends. Let’s review which Republicans have claimed either that BP shouldn’t have to set up a fund for its victims or shouldn’t pay for the Gulf clean-up:

House Leader John Boehner
Former VP Nominee Sarah Palin
Former House Leader Newt Gingrich
Former House Leader Dick Armey
Energy Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton
The 100+ Members of the House Republican Study Committee
Rep. Michelle Bachman
Rep. Steve King
Rep. John Fleming
Rep. Jim Jordan
Rep. Devin Nunes
Senator John Cornyn
Senate nominee Rand Paul
Senate nominee Sharron Angle
Talking Head and de facto party chair Rush Limbaugh
Talking Head and tea party deity Glenn Beck
Talking Head Pat Buchanan
Talking Head Laura Ingraham

Yup. This is definitely turning into a party philosophy and mindset.

And Also With You

2010-07-07T02:17:00.001-05:00

Got this joke in my inbox today, from my daily joke service:

In our Anglican church, each service begins with a greeting. The officiating clergyman says, "The Lord be with you." The congregation used to respond by saying, "And with thy spirit."

But, with the modernizing of the liturgy, the minister now says, "The Lord be with you," and everyone responds with, "And also with you."

One Sunday a visiting bishop went to a church where the sound system was known to be old and unreliable. As he approached the microphone, he tapped it several times and
finally said, "There's something wrong with this!"

Without hesitation, the whole congregation answered faithfully, "And also with you."

Churches and Flags

2010-07-04T14:41:00.002-05:00

Thought I'd share this timely piece with you for the Fourth from Fr. Lane Denson III in Tennessee, about the proper Biblical relationship between the church and the state. As my own rector reminded us this morning here in Idaho, the liberty of our politics and Founding Fathers is a great one, and the liberty of Christ is a great one, but don't ever confuse or combine the two.

Any flag is a symbol, and symbols communicate.

When a flag flies at full staff the announcement is peace, victory, rule or whatever adjective you might speak in the situation at that time.

When a flag flies upside down, the message is distress.

When a flag flies at half mast, the message is sorrow or death

When a flag is placed on the right hand side of a seat of responsibility, as at the President's desk in the oval office, the message is allegiance.

When a flag is torn, stepped on or burned, the message is
rejection or rebellion, as at the Boston Tea Party.

Both Hebrew and Christian scriptures record two problems as always having plagued the People of God. (1) Syncretism, becoming conformed to the cultural ways instead of bringing the culture into the ways of God. (2) Nationalism, allowing the rule of God to be replaced by the rule of the State or King.

The first Commandment says no other God, and that includes kings, states, and constitutions. The prophetic movement came to the fore in earnest when David decided he was above the law of God. Nathan spoke with clarity. Henry II tried to make Thomas à Becket bow to the will of the throne, and blood was shed in Canterbury Cathedral. And on, and on, over and over, the conflict between Church and State.

In the early 1900s a subtle thing occurred in this country. The Stars and Stripes were placed on the right hand side of the altar in the churches. The message, perhaps unintended, was that the Church owes allegiance to the State. To place the Nation's flag in such a position is like placing the Church's flag to the right of the President's desk in the Oval Office. Such a message proclaimed in the church is contrary to the covenants. It is also an act of idolatry.

Yet, flags do have a place in the Church -- the Alms Bason. On National Days, such as the 4th of July, to place a properly folded National Flag in the Alms Bason is to offer to God what we have done as his stewards of the land and society of a country. The People of God are inhabitants of every nation on this earth, but we owe primary obedience to none of them.

Let us consider well what our flags communicate. Maybe the time has come to remove all National Flags from the Nave. Let them be placed in the Alms Bason on National Days.

At Winston Churchill's funeral, the casket was placed before the High Altar with five pillows on the altar step. Each pillow bore a symbol of his life in the service of God. One pillow bore the Union Jack.

What better example might we have?

Musical Monday on a Thursday: The Firefly Song

2010-07-01T06:30:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite Alan Jackson tunes. More bluegrassy than country - go figure; the wonderful Alison Krauss produced.

Rebutting Phyllis Schlafly on Elena Kagan

2010-07-01T00:16:00.001-05:00

A friend posted this article from Phyllis Schlafly about Elena Kagan on my Facebook page. It's such an atrocious article that I didn't want my rebuttal to remain a Facebook comment, so here it is in blog form.

I do, as do all living retired Republican soliticors general.. Phyllis Schlafly is one of the nuttiest, most uncredible writers in the country. I'd like to see the transcript of that 2001 interview she quotes, to make sure she didn't distort it or take it out of context.

It's silly to attack Kagan for having the chief justice of Israel's Supreme ... See MoreCourt speak. Schlafly quotes that judge at length, but doesn't tell us what exactly Kagan said about him other than that she invited him. Don't quote the judge; quote Kagan! What's wrong with hearing diverse views, including ones we ourselves may not hold? And let's remember that Israel's is one of the closest judicial system in the world to our own, so it's judicial leaders are worth bringing to our own law schools, regardless of their views left or right. That's a silly point for Schlafly to spend the first half of her article on.

Also, Constitution Day isn't a big deal at academic institutions. Maybe it should be, but it isn't, so that's not much of an attack on Kagan either. And why does Schlafly call that transnationalist Kagan's "hero"? Just because he was one of dozens and dozens of speakers Kagan invited, he's automatically her hero? C'mon, what a cheap shot, what a partisan attack aimed not at the truth but at advancing an agenda.

It's also silly to call a lawyer an "extremist" because she opposed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. I do support that ban and would have voted for it if in Congress, but there are Constitutional questions surrounding it. Remember, a conservative Court struck it down once before it was rewritten and upheld.

And finally, I can cite three polls that have different results than Rasmussen. Rasmussen, as is often the case, is an outlier here.

This article makes some of the thinnest arguments I have ever seen. Even if I opposed Kagan, I'd be embarrassed to have this article on my side.

How Obama Could Lose Me

2010-06-28T14:48:00.003-05:00

Cross-posted from MyDD.com.

President Obama has had a jam-packed two years and done some great things: Saving the economy from collapse. Health care reform. Now financial reform. Two qualified Supreme Court nominees. A tobacco law we tried for over a decade to pass. Credit card reform. The Lily Ledbetter Pay Act. Support for high-speed rail, clean energy research, and other green initiatives. On the foreign side, we're getting out of Iraq, albeit slowly. And unlike many progressives, I supported the Afghanistan surge.

But I supported it because Obama included the beginning of a timetable. Yet yesterday, at the G-20 summit in the wake of Petraeus appointment, he seemed to be back away from that promise - and that's where he could lose me.

Progressives have been uncertain about Obama in the areas of foreign policy and executive power for quite some time. He has done very little to roll back George W. Bush's unconstitutional and dangerous expansion of executive power, and now he's implying that he'll pull another Bush and lead us down the same road of endless war. From yesterday's G-20 press conference (emphasis my own):

We intend to be a partner with Afghanistan over the long term. But that is different from us having troops on the ground...

What I expect is that by the end of this year, we will have seen progress on the strategy that was laid out. We will conduct a full review. Those things that are not working, we will fix. Those things that are working we will build on -- both on the civilian side, and on the military side, as well as on the diplomatic side...

I think that right now the debate surrounding Afghanistan is presented as either we get up and leave immediately because there’s no chance at a positive outcome, or we stay basically indefinitely and do “whatever it takes” for as long as it takes. And what I said last year I will repeat, which is we have a vital national interest in making sure that Afghanistan is not used as a base to launch terrorist attacks...

So, A, we’ve got a vital interest in the region. B, we do not expect because of our involvement in Afghanistan that the country is going to completely transform itself in a year or two years or five years. President Karzai does not expect that. The Afghan people don’t expect that. Afghanistan has its own culture. It is a very proud culture. It has a lot of work to do with respect to development and it’s going to have to find its own path....

Now, there has been a lot of obsession around this whole issue of when do we leave. My focus right now is how do we make sure that what we’re doing there is successful, given the incredible sacrifices that our young men and women are putting in. And we have set up a mechanism whereby we are going to do a review -- and I’ve signaled very clearly that we’re not going to just keep on doing things if they're not working -- and that by next year we will begin a process of transition.

That doesn’t mean we suddenly turn off the lights and let the door close behind us.

I don't want to turn off the lights and close the door behind us next summer. I do, however, want to rapidly flick the light switch on and off for a minute as a heads up to the Afghani people, signaling last call. Ten years is one thing; ten years and counting is another.

It's tough to tell what, if anything, the President was signaling with these answers. He says we'll help Afghanistan for the long term, but not necessarily with troops. That sounds good. But then he says we'll build on our military success even after next summer, and the only instance where he talks time he says "five years," and that's troubling. Mr. President, you promised the beginning of a withdrawal next summer, not a build-up. But what's most troubling is the mocking tone he uses when talking about the war's opponents. I am not an opponent of this war - yet - but taking a different position than the or demanding answers from the White House does not qualify as "obsessing."

The President said his focus is not on how to withdraw, but on how to win. I want to win in Afghanistan too, but at some point it becomes a Pyrrhic victory, a victory that just isn't worth what it once was. If by next summer the end isn’t in sight, we’ll have to get out. Even if the end is in sight but would require years more of troops-on-the-ground, we’ll have to get out. As I said, a decade is one thing, but a decade and counting is another - especially since a responsible withdrawal would take another full year anyway.

I'm with the President now, especially but on the domestic side, and I'll answer OFA's calls to help with the energy bill and the midterm election. But next summer’s review will include the withdrawal of at least two brigades and the implementation of a timetable, or Obama will likely lose me.

Obama Doing All He Can For The Gulf, Despite Repub Criticisms

2010-06-27T00:01:00.000-05:00

Cross-posted from MyDD.com.

Conservatives continue to hound the President for his handling of the BP oil spill, but there continues to be no “there” there. The basic question one has to ask these critics is, what more would you have him do? What is he not doing that you think he should?

True, communication and transparency were lacking for weeks. But the only other substantive, policy-based answer critics tend to give is that the President should have waived the Jones Act and accepted the assistance of European ships, but didn’t because of his ties to labor unions. The truth, however, is that the federal government HAS accepted some foreign aid and it HAS given legitimate reasons why other aide was refused. The same cannot be said of the Gulf State governors who, despite their criticisms of the President, are not using all of the resources at their own disposal.

Prospective 2012 (though I’d wager 2016) presidential candidate Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) said, “It's clear the resources needed to protect our coast are still not here,” and Senator George LeMieux (R-FL) Tweeted, “State Department reports today 17 countries have offered 21 times to send aid, including skimmers. Why has the White House refused help?” I’ll get to the hypocrisy of Jindal’s criticisms, as well as those from other Gulf State governors, in a moment. First, however, here’s why Politifact rated LeMieux’s quote “barely true,” which seems to be a rather generous rating:

The State Department on June 14 released a list of [17 countries] that offered to help… The State Department also detailed what offers had been accepted.

From Mexico -- Two skimmers and 13,780 feet of boom (accepted in early May).

From Norway -- Eight skimming systems (accepted in early May).

From Netherlands -- Three sets of Koseq Rigid Sweeping Arms, which attach to the sides of ships and gather oil (accepted on May 23).

From Canada -- 9,843 feet of boom (accepted on June 4).

On June 15, Qatar, the 18th country, offered chains of containment boom and Sweden followed up on an earlier offer to provide skimmers. State Department officials also started making a distinction about the aid -- it wasn't coming for free…<

The Washington Post reported about the decision to accept or decline foreign aid in its June 15 edition, noting that the decision to accept foreign aid came after weeks of delay, and that foreign governments were unsure if they should contact the government or BP. In some cases, the Post reported, the administration rejected offers because they failed to meet U.S. specifications: For example, the private consortium that serves as Norway's spill-response team uses a chemical dispersant that the Environmental Protection Agency has not approved.

In other words, Jindal, LeMieux, and right-wing bloggers are claiming that Obama refused aide and won’t tell us why despite the facts that a) he was unable to accept many of those offers because they were made to BP, not to him; b) the Coast Guard and State Department have indeed accepted some aide and c) legitimate explanations were provided for the aide that was refused.

On a similar note, if right-wing blogs and Senators are going to criticize the President because the federal government hasn’t blindly accepted all that was offered to it, they should do the same for the four affected governors, all Republicans. With the feds it’s skimmers and booms to stop the leak; with the governors it’s National Guardsmen to clean up the spill. From CBS News on Thursday:

All along the Gulf coast, local officials have been demanding more help from the federal government to fight the spill, yet the Gulf states have deployed just a fraction of the National Guard troops the Pentagon has made available, CBS News Chief Investigative Correspondent Armen Keteyian reports.

That's a particular problem for the state of Louisiana, where the Republican governor has been the most vocal about using all resources.

Gov. Bobby Jindal's message has been loud and clear, using language such as "We will only be winning this war when we're actually deploying every resource," "They (the federal government) can provide more resources" and "It's clear the resources needed to protect our coast are still not here."…

But CBS News has learned that in addition to Louisiana's 1,053 troops of 6,000, Alabama has deployed 432 troops of 3,000 available. Even fewer have been deployed in Florida - 97 troops out of 2,500 - and Mississippi - 58 troops out of 6,000…

The Coast Guard says every request to use the National Guard has been approved, usually within a day. Now Jindal's office acknowledged to CBS News the governor has not specifically asked for more Guard troops to be deployed.

At the end of the day, it would seem that policy-wise Obama is doing just about all he can to stop the leak, and that he’s certainly no more behind the curve than are the local Republican officials. Yes, he could have demanded more transparency from BP earlier; yes, he could have better communicated what his Cabinet was doing earlier than he did; and yes, perhaps he could have subjected himself to more deficit criticisms by renting or purchasing more foreign aid. But none of that would have actually stopped the leak or even slowed its rate. Maybe his leadership style needs some tweaking, but from a policy perspective, he’s doing just about all he can.

Thankfully, voters seem to get it. Only one new poll – NBC/WSJ – shows the spill affecting his approval rating, while most others show him holding steady right around 48.

Helping A Brother Out

2010-06-26T15:34:00.002-05:00

One tortoise pushes over another flipped tortoise to give help him out. Cool.

Craig's List Apartment Scam

2010-06-25T15:54:00.003-05:00

Wow, I kind of let this blog die. That was an accident. I've been doing lots of political blogging at MyDD and personal rants at Facebook. But this blog has mattered to me for years so I'm sure I'll bring it back.

Anyway, I wanted to get this into Google search results: beware the West Africa rental scam while searching for apartments on Craig's List. This 2008 post from "Aspiring to Ordinary" has more info. This post on Craig's List, "$1100 / 3br - 1307 Emerald St Ne (Washington, DC)," is an example of the scam. He uses the e-mail warrenpope43@yahoo.com.

So, beware.

A Mother's Day Sermon

2010-05-09T18:17:00.003-05:00

Delivered this weekend at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit in Bellevue, NE. Relevant Scripture: John 5:1-9.

Who is, as one Texas priest puts it, “that one person who manages to make you feel [both] that you’re special and that you aren’t living up to your potential?”

I can think of at least two answers. There’s Jesus, who loves us enough to die for us, making us feel both loved and unworthy at the same time. And then of course – there’s mom.

Today’s Gospel, this healing miracle, is I think a very appropriate passage for Mother’s Day. Mothers do many amazing things, from throwing awesome birthday parties to working two jobs. Not least among these is their miraculous healing powers – or at least, their children think so.

From the child’s perspective, woe to that boy whose owie is bandaged before it can be kissed! A child can’t open a child-proof cap – allegedly – but mommy can. No little boy, upon falling down and breaking a bone or waking up in the middle of the night with a tummy ache, screams “MEDIC!” No, they cry Mama.

Personally, when I was about four, I was playing in the driveway one day when all of a sudden my mom came tearing out the front door holding my blood-soaked baby brother. He’d crashed into the coffee table and gashed his forehead, not too badly but badly enough for a few stitches, and it didn’t take Mom three minutes to have him in the car and ready to go.

But that’s all small potatoes. Mothers’ healing powers extend far beyond the physical, don’t they? At one point in fifth grade, I guess the bullies just finally got to be too much for me. I didn’t want to admit to myself that their words hurt, but I was talking to mom about school and somehow came ‘round to the bullies, and I guess I just started crying. There we sat on the floor in the doorway to my room, her holding me close and rocking me back and forth, me bawling my eyes out for the first time in years. I was 11, not 4, but mommy will always be mommy.

Even in the Bible, we watch mothers take the steps necessary to heal their children, physically and otherwise. Think about Jochebed, who put her son Moses in a basket and gave him up to the Egyptian rulers rather than keep him herself and risk his death. Jochebed was lucky enough that she was able to continue to raise Moses as his nurse, but the nameless woman in First Kings didn’t know she could also get that consolation. She was prepared to give her child up forever to a spiteful prostitute rather than let King Solomon cut it in half. Better to spend a lifetime painfully wondering about the child’s whereabouts and welfare than to let it be the one who suffers – and I think most mothers would agree.

But all this raises the question: If, like Jesus and the peasants, mothers heal their children, who heals the mothers? Because let’s face it, it ain’t the kids. I’m not going to stand here and preach about my own worst behavior – that would be an hour-long sermon - but I think it’s fair to say that my brother and I are the source of some of our mom’s deepest wounds. Mothers take more pride and more joy in their children’s successes than do the children, yes, but that also means they take more shame in the failures and more pain in the wounds, and find more harm than was intended in the neglect.

Children give mothers their highest highs, but also their lowest lows. We see this even in the Bible. How painful must it have been for Mary to stand there, wailing at the foot of the cross, watching her son die, powerless not only to keep him alive but even to comfort Him? Never mind that it was predicted from the start, that Gabriel had warned Mary “a sword will pierce your own soul too,” it had to be the worst pain imaginable. But, Jesus made up for it by giving her one of the greatest gifts imaginable, that highest high a mother looks for, when He made sure that she would be the one to discover His resurrection, letting her know that the pain she was forced to see in her baby boy’s eyes was not the end!

That is who ultimately heals the mothers. Jesus is there for them for He is there for all of us. He is there to say, just as this man who suffered for 38 years was healed when he least expected it, so will you suffer over that stovetop and suffer through those dirty diapers – and suffer through heartaches and betrayals – only to be rewarded in the end by the God who asked you to do this in the first place. Mankind would not continue without the healing touch of mothers, and it wouldn’t be worth continuing without the loving rewards of Jesus Christ.

There’s another link between the two, as well. Who is it that usually first teaches a child about Jesus Christ? The vast majority of people the world over worship the same way their parents did, and indeed, though I do disagree with my parents on any number of other issues, it was my mother who first taught me the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm.

The Bible is replete with stories of such mothers. Mary is the most famous, but we all know the stories of Eve, Salome, Hagar, and yes, if there’s anyone who plans to crack mother-in-law jokes all weekend, don’t forget Naomi and Ruth. And then of course are Sarah and Elizabeth, both old and barren but given children in their old age, each made to be a living symbol of God’s promise.

There’s a sitcom you may be familiar with, “Malcolm in the Middle.” In one episode, one of the teenagers learns a valuable lesson about sexism and his own misogyny, then says something to the effect of “Women are just like anybody else, they’re people too!” Setting aside the irony of his language, there is an important point there. Women, mothers, are just people, no better or worse in God’s eyes than fathers, child-less people, or children. And just as no person deserves to be down, neither does anyone deserve to be put on a pedestal. We are all broken sinners, in need of the healing love of Christ.

But if there’s anyone on earth who can at least stand as a symbol of that healing love, it’s a mother.

My brother’s forehead was broken, but Mom picked him up and things were okay. We are all broken, but just as He did the man on the mat, Jesus will pick us up and it will be okay. So on this Mother’s Day, let both this Gospel story and the promises exemplified by Sarah and Elizabeth remind you not just of your own mother but of Christ’s healing love.

BCP Typo?

2010-04-11T15:36:00.003-05:00

Is it just me, or is this a grammatical error? From page 336 in TEC's Book of Common Prayer 1979, in the Rite I Eucharistic Prayer I:

And although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord;

I really don't think that sentence needs both the "although" and the "yet."

On Unity, Community, and God

2010-04-07T12:47:00.002-05:00

Saw this great quote on the Sojourners blog today:

By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but powerless, not to be different but the same, not to take our pain away but to share it. Through this participation we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community.

- Henri Nouwen, "Out of Solitude"

Maundy Thursday Sermon: Community, Service, and Prayer

2010-04-01T20:48:00.007-05:00

Delivered at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit; Bellevue, NE; 03-07-10. Maundy Thursday: Exodus 12:1-14 • Psalm 116:1, 10-17 • 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 • John 13:1-17, 31b-35.

The three holiest days of the church calendar are Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Today is not one of those three days, but, as important as Easter may be, the positive can’t happen without the negative. The joy and power of Easter Sunday are impossible without the pain of Good Friday, and the pain of Good Friday cannot be endured without the tools Christ gives us on Maundy Thursday: community, service, and prayer.

I hope that everyone here tonight will come back for one of tomorrow’s services. Like the rest of Holy Week, Good Friday can completely transform the depth of one’s Easter. It’s easy to just gloss over the bunny’s holiday, but on deeper reflection, what Jesus went through that week, the fact that because of it He understands even the deepest pains of our own lives, should not be trivialized. It should cause us deep discomfort, and even pain. We can get over it at the Saturday vigil, but the Easter services are completely worthless if they follow just another Thursday and Friday at home.

My freshman year of college is when I first truly appreciated Easter. It was also when I first saw Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ.” I’d avoided it because I’d heard that it wasn’t completely historically accurate and that it had a number of non-Biblical scenes. There’s nothing wrong with that – the Gospel alone would last maybe 30 minutes, hardly a movie – but Gibson told ABC News that, “Critics who have a problem with me don't really have a problem with… this film. They have a problem with the four Gospels.” And claiming that a 2004 movie showing Satan talking to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane was analogous with the four Gospels really bothered me. But, I always feel it’s important to at least see culturally significant films, so on Good Friday 2006 I took a copy into the basement of the Episcopal campus ministry.

And for all my distaste, for all my frustration with Gibson’s arrogance, I couldn’t help but break down. Seeing Jesus go through even half the violence in that movie, and seeing Him go through it for me, all thoughts of Gibson were washed away and the Gospel really did step forward.

It doesn’t matter what your theology is, you cannot truly experience Easter without experiencing Good Friday – and you can’t get through Good Friday without Maundy Thursday. Christ’s goal at that night’s Last Supper wasn’t just to enjoy one final evening with His friends; it was also to prepare them for what only He realized was to come. He prepared them by giving them three tools, tools He also gives us: community, service, and prayer.

The gift of community is seen primarily in the night’s fellowship. Jesus was there to break bread with his friends and encourage them to keep breaking bread after He was gone. We memorialize this scene as the central act of worship in the Episcopal Church: "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me… This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

And what do we call that act of worship? Communion, very similar to community. Because for all our squabbles, we are still Christians in the same Body of Christ, and at the end of the day, not matter what happened, we worship together before the same God and the same altar.

Those feelings of unity and peace rarely come alone. They are feelings that come when we’re in the company of God’s other children, of our brothers and sisters. Christ brought the disciples together that night to make sure their community would remain bonded together through Him and in Him even after He could no longer sit at the table. But he didn’t just do this with words – He did it with action. He washed His disciples’ feet.

You might not be comfortable with tonight’s optional foot washing. That’s okay – a lot of people aren’t. Our society is not a particularly intimate one, and there are few things more intimate than the foot, what with that many nerve endings all bundled up in one place. So when Christ touched the feet of his disciples, they experienced not just community, but a powerfully intimate one.

The foot washing, of course, wasn’t just a tool of community. It was first and foremost an act of service. Folks in Christ’s day didn’t have cars or bikes. Their prime means of transportation was walking. But not only did they lack cars, they also lacked tennis shoes. They had to stick with sandals and thongs, kicking up dust everywhere they went. Footwashing isn’t a part of today’s culture – you wear your shoes, you take your shower – but in Christ’s time, it was something you had to be intentional about every single time you walked through a door lest you tracked dust everywhere you went. So servants, if you could afford them, would do this gross but necessary task for you several times a day. Christ took the role of a servant, and instructed us to do the same.

Foot washing is no longer necessary, and thus it’s not really service anymore. But it is a powerful annual symbol that reminds us to look for its more modern equivalents: spending not just money but time on food pantries and soup kitchens, voting with more than just self-interest in mind, helping a friend move. These are the modern foot basins where we can wash each others’ feet.

The third tool Christ gave us was prayer. Elsewhere in the Maundy Thursday Scriptures, He prays at great length not for His own path but for His disciples right there at the table. And then, He led them to the Garden of Gethsemane so that He, in the darkest, most terrifying hour of His life, could pray. His last moment of freedom, and He chose to spend talking to His father. Those are powerful examples, and as I discussed, one way we try to follow them is by turning His words into the Eucharistic prayer.

These three things – community, service, and prayer – are helpful, powerful, and dare I say necessary tools for enduring anguish. If they weren’t, Christ would not have used them to prepare His disciples. But as simple actions, they mean nothing. They must be rooted in something even deeper, something even more powerful – love.

Tonight, Christ is handed over to death. And greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Love is not just a schmaltzy Hallmark card. It is what compelled the Messiah to beg God to take the pain from His heart, and then to go through with it anyway. And even though it seems impossible, we are called to try and follow that example: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

There’s a country song that says “love isn’t some place that we fall, it’s something that we do.” Community, service, and prayer are all certainly things that we do, and yet, those lyrics have never sat quite right with me. I prefer the way novelist Christopher Moore defines it, in his book “Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal.” The book is fiction, as you can no doubt tell from the title, but I think Moore hits the nail on the head when his young Jesus says that we must love “constantly, instantly, spontaneously, without thought or words… Love is not something you think about, it is a state in which you dwell.”

Moore’s book may be fiction, but the real Jesus dwelled in that state. He loved us enough to die for us, and also to prepare us. So for the pain that comes tomorrow, and for all the pains in life, from hospitals to heartbreaks, we have community, service, and prayer. But above all, we have His love. May that sustain us through tonight’s chapel vigil, tomorrow’s crucifixion, and beyond.

My First 2010 Fantasy Draft

2010-03-22T12:10:00.003-05:00

For your consideration, my first team of the 2010 Fantasy Baseball season. It's a 5x5 roto YaHell public league. I went in a little unprepared, but had the first pick for the first time in a decade so actually got to have Pujols for once. That was nice. I finally got past drafting pitchers too early and focused on offense, but I'm still struggling to get better at trade offers. I'm always reluctant to give away much, and I need to get over that. At the moment, I'm trying to deal from saves and steals and get a more powerful bat at SS or 3B. I may also drop Posey for Mike Cameron.

C: Russell Martin
1B: Albert Pujols
2B: Dustin Pedroia
3B: Jorge Cantu
SS: Yunel Escobar
OF: Jacoby Ellsbury
OF: Jason Bay
OF: Josh Hamilton
Util: Derrek Lee
Util: Michael Bourn
Bench: Todd Helton
Bench: Stephen Drew
Bench: Buster Posey

SP: Josh Beckett
SP: Wandy Rodriguez
SP: Randy Wolf
SP: Mark Buehrle
SP: Erik Bedard
RP: Heath Bell
RP: Huston Street
RP: Frank Francisco
RP: Michael Wuertz
P: Joba Chamberlain

Asking the Right Questions, Cohen Brothers Style

2010-03-17T09:45:00.001-05:00

Here is my column from the March edition of The Flame, the monthly newsletter for the Nebraska church where I work. It's based around the new Cohen Brothers movie, "A Serious Man." Also, here's a Catholic priest reviewing that movie.

Each year, I make a point of watching all of the films nominated for Best Picture Academy Awards. They are not always the best movies out there, but it is as good a viewing guide as any.

One of this year’s nominees is the latest from the Cohen Brothers, “A Serious Man.” The movie is about a physics professor whose wife asks him for a divorce, and the struggles they face in their Jewish community. Critics argue about the film’s message. Is it about the way God works in our daily lives? Our struggles to understand God? A modern retelling of the Book of Job?

Given where I am in life right now, what I got out of the film was probably not what the Cohen Brothers actually intended, but I’m going to run with it anyway: It is not always the answers to our questions that matter, but our struggles with the questions themselves.

At one point, the professor’s rabbi answers three questions from another man, a dentist, who is also struggling trying to figure out what God (or Hashem) is telling him. The rabbi’s answers are at first frustrating but perhaps go deeper than would appear: “The teeth? We don't know. A sign from Hashem? Don't know. Helping others? Couldn't hurt.”

The professor and the dentist are both frustrated by their questions, but ultimately events conspire to render the answers they seek meaningless anyway. It was the process of asking that mattered most, for through their struggles they grew closer to God.

This lesson is one many of you already know quite well. I, however, encountered it for the first time just last year in one of my Native American studies courses at college. From discussions with Father Tom to spiritual direction at Resurrection House, it is a lesson that has followed me to Nebraska.

My six months here have forced me to ask many new questions about life and about myself. One simple example comes from a book I recently read by author Shane Claiborne, who writes, “If you ask most people what Christians believe, they can tell you… But if you ask the average person how Christians live, they are struck silent. We have not shown the world another way of doing life. Christians pretty much live like everybody else; they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way.” Prompted by this quote, I have begun to ask not just, “What am I called to do?” but also “Who am I called to be?”

I don’t have the answers to these questions yet, but I continue to ask. Perhaps that’s all God wants me to do right now. Perhaps it is when we struggle with asking that we grow, even more so than when we finally live into the answers.

Why does God teach us the way God does? Don’t know. Why is it so hard to live on God’s time? Don’t know. Should we do more to help others? Couldn’t hurt.

Episconinjas

2010-03-14T09:37:00.000-05:00

Who are Episcopalians?

We are the ninja followers of Jesus, who is God disguised as a ninja.

This Is Your Pop Culture

2010-03-12T09:56:00.001-06:00

I love these two videos, one parodying a generic movie and one parodying a generic newscast. There's got to be a name for this type of comedic parody, where the participants just list the contents rather than actually providing them but do so in a humorous way.

First, a trailer for a "Generic Movie Based on the Movie They've Been
Releasing Every Single Week Since the 1980s." H/T Roger Ebert.

Next, a generic newscast. H/T half my Facebook friends.

The D Smears Trustee Candidate

2010-03-10T09:00:00.001-06:00

Okay, "smear" might be too strong a word for my headline. But turnabout's fair play, right?

A headline in Dartmouth's daily campus paper, The Dartmouth, yesterday read, "Asch '79 withheld business past." That's a misleading headline, and it's unfair to Asch. It implies that the paper just discovered that Asch has been hiding something, when in fact there's no new revelation at all. The D's story is basically, "Asch didn't answer all of our questions in the past, which you already knew, but we figured out the answers anyway, and here they are."

"Withholding" implies that the man had something he was supposed to give up but didn't, like withholding evidence from a defense attorney. No, he just didn't answer a college kid's questions. It might have been fair to run a headline a few weeks ago saying, "Asch Declines To Comment On Business Past," but it's pretty bogus to use the past tense "withheld" as if something ethically shady is just now coming to light. This is what we call trashy tabloid journalism, but I've come to expect little better from The D.

Asch is no angel in this story. He did indeed decline to tell The D that he ran a medical needle manufacturing company, which in and of itself would be fine, there's nothing wrong with not telling a student reporter everything about your private life, except he's tried to make his opponent for trustee's past a major issue in the race. Even though I'm supporting Asch, I have to be candid, it's a little hypocritical to harp about your opponent's past while refusing to discuss your own. Still, though it's not great, it's also not the scandal reflected in The D's headline.

I haven't mentioned the reporter's name in this post because usually reporters don't write their own headlines. I certainly never did at the Spokane Spokesman Review, and rarely did at the Dartmouth Free Press. Whoever it was, though, certainly screwed up. I support Joe Asch for Trustee, and The D owes him an apology.

On Civility and Social Justice

2010-03-09T19:47:00.003-06:00

You've probably heard by now about Glenn Beck's outrageous attacks on Christianity. I've written two posts on the subject at MyDD: "Glenn Beck Attacks Pastors, Doesn't Understand What Church Is" on Friday and "Glenn Beck Godwins Jesus, Part 2" this morning.

My favorite quote on the matter comes from Br. James Patrick Hall on Facebook: "I am concerned that too many Christians get most of their understanding of how to treat others from Rush, Glenn, Sean and Bill, rather than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Even a cursory reading of the Gospels or the Hebrew Prophets, even the Law, shows God's immense care and concern for the poor and how we as people of faith [are to] treat them!!"

Jim Kim Dances To "Thriller"

2010-03-09T12:40:00.003-06:00

Greatest. University. President. Ever.

In this clip, the case of "Dartmouth Idol" performs a tribute to Michael Jackson, and are joined not by Vincent Price but by... a dancing College President Jim Kim. YES. AWESOME.

I AM: Learning to Trust God in God's Time (Sermon)

2010-03-07T23:41:00.001-06:00

Delivered at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit; Bellevue, NE; 03-07-10. Year C, Third Sunday in Lent: Exodus 3:1-15 • Psalm 63:1-8 • 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 • Luke 13:1-9.

My dad has had lousy health pretty much since I was born. He’s fine now, and in fact, thanks to a kidney transplant he got about two years ago, he’s actually in the best health of my life. But it was an extremely rough 20 years getting there.

It started when I was about nine months old and Dad was diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive form of vasculitis. His lungs were virtually destroyed, his kidneys were kaput, and he was put on dialysis, oxygen, feeding tubes – you get the picture.

I was just nine years old – I couldn’t have cared less. But as you may imagine, this was all very rough on my mom. She’s a very strong woman, but she was absolutely terrified about losing Dad and facing life, and motherhood, alone. The day the weekend doctor quite impatiently told her that Dad wouldn’t make it through the night was one of the hardest days of her life.

And then, just as she had no idea what to do next, she heard a voice. There was no one else in the room, but the voice was very real, and it said,

“It will be okay.”

No details, no instructions – just, “It will be okay.” Things didn’t get any easier, but my Mom now knew that God hadn’t gone anywhere and that whatever happened, it would be okay. And indeed, it was, and still is, okay.

When we trust God to do what needs to be done and to do it in God’s time, things always wind up okay. But, when we trust ourselves even just to know, much less to do, what needs to be done, it’s usually a different story. This message, trust in God alone, may be clichéd, but it runs deeper than any inspirational Hallmark card, and it starts with today’s Old Testament lesson.

This story, of God leading the Israelites out of Egypt, is the cornerstone of the Jewish faith as well as the heart of liberation theology, the 1960s Latin American movement. Liberation theologians teach that Christ came to liberate the poor from unjust political and economic circumstances. They come to this faith from Scripture, pointing not only to the Exodus but also to Christ’s rebukes of Rome and to passages like the Magnificat, where Mary says that God casts down the mighty and lifts up the poor.

This theology has its critics, some of whom claim that yes, God does liberate us, but not from El Salvadorian death squads or other political injustices. No no, God liberates us from sin, and from ourselves!

Eh – I would certainly agree that God liberates us from sin and that most liberation theologians have too narrow a view of Scripture, but, the burning bush itself said that God will take on unjust governments, and who am I to argue with a burning bush?

The thing is, though, that God does it God’s way, and in God’s time. The real problem with liberation theology’s narrow view of Jesus is that mortals can also be social revolutionaries. Christ was a reformer, yes, but unlike a Thomas Paine or a Martin Luther King, He was and is one who brings us into a deeper intimacy with our Creator and who reforms on God’s time, not our time.

The thing to remember about that is that we can’t hurry up God’s time, as painful as it may sometimes be.

And it is painful. There’s a reason they say recovery from divorce takes a year for every year of marriage. And there’s a reason that even after coming home, at least 20% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffer PTSD. Liberation, whether from personal pain or public oppression, is painful, and it takes time.

Getting through that pain is where trusting God comes in. All too often we don’t understand why time has to be liberation’s most important ingredient, but that’s because we run on our time. And when we do so, when we give up on God’s time and decide that we just can’t wait for Him anymore, that’s when we fall in even lonelier ways.

Look at today’s Epistle. The Christian leaders at Cornith were strong, but their strength turned into arrogance and led them to trust in themselves too much. So Paul warns them, stop putting Christ to the test. “If you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” He reminds them: the Israelites didn’t lead themselves out of the desert.

We can’t do this alone. When we trust God’s time, we find Cana. When we trust our time, then like the 23,000 felled in a single day, we get in some pretty big trouble.

This is also what Jesus was warning about. We can’t do things our way. Even when Pilate slaughters friends from Galilee in that holiest of places, the Temple, or the sanctuary at the Church of the Holy Spirit, we cannot take up our own arms in our own time and think ourselves capable of wiping out the threat. Bishop Tom Wright, the same one we’re watching in our Sunday evening Lenten series, explains this Gospel passage:

“In line with the warnings he has issued several times already... Jesus is making it clearer that those who refuse his summons to change direction, to abandon the crazy flight into national rebellion against Rome, will suffer the consequences. Luke’s arrangement of the material... leaves us in no doubt as to how he saw the matter: when Jerusalem fell in AD 70, it was as a direct result of refusing to follow the way of peace which Jesus had urged throughout his ministry.”

When we don’t follow Christ’s urgings, when we think we don’t have time to wait for God, bad things happen. How bad? Will 23,000 people – half of Bellevue – be felled in one day?

I don’t know. I doubt it.

I believe God is a God of pure love who, as Fr. Tom said last week, gives the gift of grace even to those who don’t know it. But at the same time, Christ said that if we don’t repent, then we will suffer the same fate as the Temple’s Galileans, and Christ didn’t say things He didn’t mean.

We can’t ignore Scripture’s warnings, but we needn’t dwell on them, either. We should be motivated not by fear but by reverence for God’s glory and by gratitude for the liberation that has come and is to come – even if it doesn’t come on our timetable.

And for all the pain of following the holy timetable, for all the frustration of screaming at God but getting no explanation back, it’s still worth it. Jesus knew that pain too – just look at the Garden of Gethsemane – but He also knew something else. He knew God’s name: I AM.

Those two words represent far more than a simple proper noun. If God wanted to reveal just a name, He would have stuck with Yahweh or Jehovah. But instead, he tells Moses not just a name, but an identity.

I AM not male, I AM not female.
I AM not white, I AM not Arabic.
I AM not rural, I AM not urban.
I AM.

This is a name that transcends every boundary we know and every label in our language, a name that pulls us from our time into God’s time.

I exist.
I AM here.
I AM present.
I AM for you.
I AM.

So when Jesus tells me to wait, that it’s not God’s time yet, I’m not going to say no, Rome is at my door NOW, I must ACT! I’m going to say, ok. You’re Jesus and I’m not.

And when God tells me “It will be okay,” I’m not going to say, this is the second time Dad’s been in the ICU in a year and I’m just 19, I can’t handle this! Whaddaya mean, it will be okay? I’m going to say, ok. You’re God, and I’m not.

Maybe your ears will never hear a voice say, “I AM,” nor even, “It will be okay.” But that voice is still for you, and it will never stop whispering,

“I love you.

“Trust me.”

Idaho Debates Justice in “Lawless” Indian Country

2010-03-03T15:26:00.002-06:00

Cross-posted from MyDD.

1 in 3 American Indian women will be raped at some point in their lifetime, twice the national average. In Idaho, if state lawmakers don't pass a bill before them now, the problem will get worse before it gets better.

In 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe that sovereign Indian nations do not have criminal jurisdiction over non-Natives traveling or even living in Indian Country. For a variety of nonsensical and unprecedented legal reasons, Tribal police and courts only have authority over other Indians. This is akin to telling the Montana State Police that the law doesn’t apply to Minnesota residents passing through on I-90.

Except for a few “Public Law 280” states, state and local authorities also lack jurisdiction on Indian reservations, per the Constitution’s commerce clause and a number of Court precedents. That means jurisdiction falls to the feds, who don’t do their job. As Chickasaw Tribal Police Chief Jason O’Neal told NPR in 2007, “’Many of the criminals know Indian lands are almost a lawless community, where they can do whatever they want.’… A 2003 report from the Justice Department found that U.S. attorneys take fewer cases from the BIA than from almost any other federal-law enforcement agency.”

The real world result? 1 in 3 American Indian women will be raped at some point in their life, compared to 1 in 6 women nationally. 41% of those women report being raped by a stranger rather than an acquaintance, compared to 16.7% nationally. As Chief O’Neal points out, these strangers are not from within the Indian communities, so we can’t point to reservation issues as the problem - 80% of attacks against Indians are from non-Natives. Overall, the violent crime rate in Indian country is twice the national average. (All numbers are from various Justice Department reports.)

Last month, it looked like things were going to get worse for American Indians in northern Idaho before they got better, but thankfully the state is taking the right steps. To make up for the lack of federal activity, tribes can make deals with local or state law enforcement agencies to cross-deputize tribal officers and give them the necessary jurisdiction. Last month, however, Benewah County Sheriff Bob Kirts, whose county includes the southern half of the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Reservation, refused to re-instate a cross-deputization agreement with tribal police. If that wasn’t bad enough, he also said he would no longer respond to tribal calls for help, leaving the southern half of the Reservation completely lawless. Of the 10,000 people on the reservation, over 8,000 are non-Natives now free to break the law.

According to the Spokane Spokesman Review, a newspaper I used to report for:

Christie Wood, a Coeur d’Alene Police sergeant and first vice president of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, wrote in the open letter, “The failure of Sheriff Kirts to work with the tribal police has left citizens in bedlam. Perpetrators have been set free that have committed serious criminal offenses against citizens living in Benewah County. The Tribal Police have documented cases of domestic violence, driving under the influence incidents, criminal assaults, and other criminal offenses that have occurred with no arrests or prosecution.”

Kirts said, “My only comment is she’s ill-informed or she’s just plain lying or stupid.” ...

Wood’s letter backs legislation that the Coeur d’Alene Tribe is proposing — which hasn’t yet been introduced — to address situations where a local sheriff refuses to cooperate with local tribal police. As currently drafted, the bill would give tribes a six-month window to give a county notice that they want to enter into a cooperative law enforcement agreement. If an agreement isn’t reached within six months, tribal police could begin enforcing state law against non-tribal members on the reservation, as long as they’re certified by Idaho’s state police academy, the tribe carries insurance, and the tribe waives sovereign immunity to lawsuits over officer wrongdoing.

(Disclaimer: This is my part of Idaho. Though I’ve not personally met her offline, my family has had positive interactions with Sgt. Wood, and I do know many of the members of the Task Force. My ties to this issue run far deeper than a degree in Native American studies.)

The bill supported by Sgt. Woods and the Task Force, the wonderful local organization that defeated the Aryan Nations in 2000, was declared constitutional by the state Attorney General earlier this week. This bill is a good patch for the situation in Benewah County, and if Idaho wants to recover from the racially tarnished image given to it by the Aryan Nations, than the legislature must pass this bill. A number of county commissioners have come out in opposition to the bill, and I will be calling and writing both them and state legislators over the next few days to lobby them in support of this bill.

But even if it passes, it won’t be enough. The tribe would have the power they need, but not necessarily the resources. At the national level, we need two things. First, Congress must allocate more resources for tribal law enforcement, something the retiring Senator Byron Dorgan tried to do in 2008. Second and more importantly, Congress must declare that tribes do have criminal jurisdiction on their lands the same as any state or town. Because the Oliphant decision was an interpretation of current law and not the Constitution itself, Congress can take such action, and if we’re to save our country’s youth from gangs and its women from rape, then there is no other option.

For more on the history and larger legal picture of criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country, please read this New York Times op-ed by Bruce Duthu, a professor of mine who is a lawyer and now Chairman of the NAS department at Dartmouth College.

A New Verse for "In Heaven There Is No Beer"

2010-02-23T00:01:00.004-06:00

You may be familiar with the song, "In Heaven There Is No Beer," which also includes verses about wine, fear, drugs, and sex.

In Heaven there is no beer
That's why we drink it here
And when we're gone from here
Our friends will be drinking all the beer.

My friend Daniel and I just came up with a new verse, for single malt Scotch. Credit goes to Daniel for thinking of the word "fault" and reminding me who the patron saint of St. Andrew is.

In Heaven, there's no single malt
And that's St. Andrew's fault
So when this life does halt
Our friends will drink all the single malt

The PB's Lenten Reflection

2010-02-19T15:39:00.002-06:00

In a discussion of fasting, prayer, and study, the Presiding Bishop encourages us to take on a new discipline rather than giving something up.

I'm giving up beer and reading at least two Epistles with my housemates. I may also add intentional silence; we'll see about that one.

Ash Wednesday Sermon: Balancing Community and the Individual Before God

2010-02-17T14:06:00.009-06:00

Whereas my last sermon was somewhat political, this one is far more personal. I discuss balancing the need for community with our private individual relationships to God, and give a small look at how this balance is affecting my own life and struggles. Definently a sermon written for its current time and place, but as I believe it's one of my better ones, it's still worth sharing here. Remember, it's written to be heard, not written to be read.

Delivered at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit; Bellevue, NE; 02-17-10. Ash Wednesday: Isaiah 58:1-12 • Psalm 103:8-14 • 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 • Matthew 6:1-6,16-21.

Today’s Gospel tells us that our piety should be kept private – give alms in secret, shut your door and pray in secret, fast quietly because God sees in secret. And yet in a few minutes we will leave this church with ashes on our forehead, perhaps the most physically visible symbol of our faith seen all year. Could anything be less secret? How is this practice in line with the Gospel?

I do not believe that we are called to live in an individualistic, pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot-straps culture or church. I also do not believe that are called strictly to a life of community. I believe that as Christians, we are called to balance the two: secrecy and warmth, self-worth and community, and that Lent, which begins today, can help us find that balance.

Protestant Christianity is all about the individual’s personal relationship with God. That’s one point of today’s Gospel: what others think of you should not matter. Only the Creator’s love is infinite, and only God sees in secret. This is why Christ tells us how to focus our actions on God and how to use them to deepen our personal connections with Him.

My favorite image of God is that of a loving parent, sometimes stern and disciplinary but always hurting when the child hurts, perhaps feeling an even deeper pain than the child feels, and always rejoicing at a happy smile, perhaps with a joy more meaningful than the child’s. The way Christ wants us to act – in secret, looking only for God’s approval – brings us closer to that parent, our Father who art in Heaven. It’s right there in today’s Psalm: “As a father cares for his children, so does the LORD.” By removing the ego of the hypocrites or the praise of the market-goers, Christ leaves nothing standing between God and His children but love.

This is a constant theme in Christ’s teachings. We are told that we should strive to be Christ-like, to ask ourselves What Would Jesus Do? I would rather ask, What DID Jesus Do? One-on-one time with His Father was an important thing for Jesus, who set the example by praying alone and in secret quite frequently, whether in the Garden of Gethsemane or, as in Lent, the Wilderness.

Take also the Lord’s Prayer. Before Christ, to be forgiven of their sins, Jewish peasants were told that they had to trek to the temple and make a sacrifice to receive the priest’s blessing. That’s a pretty raw deal for a poor farmer who can’t spend time away from his fields or doesn’t have the resources for a decent sacrifice, but a pretty sweet deal for the powerbrokers and priests! But then along came Jesus who said no, God is with you everywhere with no one standing in between. Whenever you pray, wherever you pray, you can say all on your own, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

God is with us, one-on-one, everywhere we go, and our actions should aim to cultivate that personal relationship. And yet, for all that individual behavior - fasting, giving alms, praying – community remains one of the most important things about Christianity, and about life.

We talk often about being a church family, and those words carry great significance. If God is our Father, and we are God’s children, than we are truly with family everywhere we go. And just as children need one-on-one individual time with their parents to learn and to feel loved, siblings also need community time with one another. Going to a baseball game with your dad is a special thing, but large family gatherings are just as important. Be it five people crammed in a car for a road-trip or dozens at the Christmas table, children need one-on-one time with their parents, but they also need the community of the family. One cannot flourish without the other. The same is as true of God’s family as it is of the Empsall family or the Culp family.

This topic – the importance of, the need for, community and family – is addressed in Scripture at least as much as is the secretive nature of faith. Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Ah, Jesus – here’s a guy who always took a dozen friends with Him everywhere He went! (Poor Mary - imagine if you had to feed a dozen hungry grade schoolers every time your kid came home for dinner!)

Even today’s reading from Isaiah addresses the necessity of community. The actions Jesus tells us to take in secret – fasting, giving alms – do strengthen our individual relationships with God, but even more than that, they are meant to benefit our brothers and sisters: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice… to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house?’

I have been learning this lesson, the importance of community, the hard way this year. It turns out that the typical Resurrection House experience has long accidentally included a lack of external community. Very few of the program’s participants, and certainly not myself, have ever found deep relationships or broad social circles in this, a new and temporary city. Friends, yes; close friends, companions, true connections, not really. Speaking for myself, I love working at Holy Spirit, but other parts my time here can be a real challenge. One of the goals of Resurrection House is to teach us the importance of community through its presence, but I am finding that the opposite is true: I am learning the importance of community through its absence.

This lesson was reinforced by my trip last week to my college in New Hampshire, a campus that for me is home. I saw many dear friends and met with faculty and staff whom I have long looked up to. But other people were missing – busy, sick, traveling, etc., so I had more down time than I expected. Even some of the wonderful relationships still there have grown complicated and stressful. I thought I was going on vacation, but God is using that trip to keep teaching me tough lessons, including the importance of intentionally balancing purpose, a sense of place, community, and love in one’s life. God’s lessons done God’s way, but it can still be very painful.

Clearly we are called to have individual relationships with Christ, and clearly we are to remain in intimate community with our brothers and sisters. The question we then face is, how do we strike the right balance between the two?

We cannot call ourselves followers of Christ if we do not recognize the image of God in everyone we meet. I have grown quite fond of the South Asian concept of “Namaste.” Literally translated, this Sanskrit word means “bow to God,” but it is not a bow I take to the altar. It is a bow I take to you. Other translations that capture the meaning rather than the literal translation of the word also capture the essence of Christ’s teachings: "I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me," or "That which is of God in me greets that which is of God in you.” Namaste: seeing the image of God in all of God’s children.

Lent begins today. By balancing the fellowship and education opportunities here at church with the traditional disciplines of giving something up or adding something new in our personal lives, Lent teaches us a very powerful message: that we are loved by God as individuals, but we feel that love when we are in close, even intimate, community. That we can only understand God if we recognize our individual limitations and learn from one another. That we can only endure the pain that is to come on Good Friday – and elsewhere in life – if we endure it together.

The glories of Easter – of knowing that we have a Savior who can overcome even death for us, of knowing that the love our Creator has for us goes beyond eternal – these glories are changed, they are deepened and heightened, if we experience Lent first and if we pay close attention to the Scriptures, services, and emotions of Holy Week. These Lenten changes are all about our personal relationship to God and so they happen at an individual level, but, like so much in life, they are far more powerful when shared with dear friends and with a church family – with community.

GEAUX SAINTS!!!!

2010-02-07T14:25:00.002-06:00

Every now and then, I really miss New Orleans. Oh to be on Frenchman Street today!!

Video of U2 and Green Day at the Superdome's re-opening in 2006. The happiness found even in the Lower Ninth Ward the next morning is without a doubt my favorite memory of my time in NOLA:

Morning Joe's Greatest Guest Ever

2010-02-02T11:37:00.000-06:00

The Big Man on MSNBC! YES!!!!

(For those who don't know, that would be Clarence Clemons, the saxaphone player for Bruce Sprinsgteen and the E Street Band. He is the shiz.)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I *HAVE* to have this book!!!

Yesterday's Jesus, Today's Poor

2010-01-30T15:05:00.002-06:00

Shane Claiborne says:

If you ask most people what Christians believe, they can tell you, "Christians believe that Jesus is God's Son and that Jesus rose from the dead." But if you ask the average person how Christians live, they are struck silent. We have not shown the world another way of doing life. Christians pretty much live like everybody else; they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way.

Before you scoff at another young hippie, think about it: Banks and coffee shops in churches. Evangelists more about t-shirts and bumper stickers than the poor. TV hosts ignoring Galatians' call for unity. What percentage of the material-based middle class families that you know would profess to being Christians?

But I don't mean to point fingers here. I'm part of the problem myself, no different than anyone else. Claiborne also says that in a survey he did for his undergraduate thesis in sociology, nearly 80% of Christians said Jesus spent time with the poor (have the other 20% ever picked up a Bible???) but less than 2% acknowledged spending time with the poor themselves. There's a big difference between writing some group a check and giving an individual a hug - and it's been a long time since I saw the inside of a soup kitchen.

AP: Dartmouth Students a National Model for Haiti Response

2010-01-28T19:19:00.003-06:00

I'm really proud of Dartmouth after reading this AP article:

Two days after the Jan. 12 quake, seniors Frances Vernon, Maura Cass and Alexandra Schindler stayed up until 6:30 a.m. developing a campus- and community-wide strategy to raise money for Partners in Health, an organization co-founded by Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim that has operated in Haiti for decades. Given Kim's connections to the group, the trio knew Dartmouth would send a medical team to Haiti and wanted to match that effort with the same intensity.

"We might not be trained medical professionals, we might not have the financial resources to mobilize and be on the ground in Haiti, but we have time and we have brain power," said Vernon.

What emerged from that Thursday night spent making lists and sketching diagrams on huge sheets of paper tacked to the wall was a strategy to bring together students, faculty, staff and community groups. By Jan. 16, they had signed up leaders for eight committees ranging from monetary collection to communications, and by Jan. 17, they were ready to hand out assignments to 300 volunteers who showed up at a kickoff rally...

Mark Arnoldy, a senior at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said he relied heavily on Dartmouth's model in helping create the fundraising campaign he and other student leaders are about to launch. While Dartmouth has an advantage given Kim's background with Partners in Health and the quickness with which he sought to get students involved in the relief effort, Arnoldy said he is confident his school will reach its $100,000 goal...

At Northwestern University, senior Peter Luckow said he's been impressed that Vernon and other Dartmouth students are looking beyond the immediate disaster and thinking critically about long-term issues in Haiti as well. His school has surpassed its more modest fundraising $8,000 goal and is looking to increase its goal soon.

According to the Partners in Health's Web site tally of personal donations, the $133,000 raised by Dartmouth as of Monday afternoon far exceeded the next highest total -- $51,000 raised by FACE AIDS, a Stanford University group.

Help the St. Bernard Project

2010-01-25T18:54:00.003-06:00

I got this message on Facebook last week and am just now remembering to pass it along. :(

My name is Lisa Martin and I came across your site looking for a helpful Katrina recovery blog group. I admire how much your blog has grown from such a wonderful cause. I work for the St. Bernard Project and we rebuild the homes of Hurricane Katrina victims in the St. Bernard and Orleans parishes. So far, we have rebuilt 257 homes with more than 18,000 volunteers and with the help of countless donors.

We are in need of a shout out -- the St. Bernard Project is a finalist in Chase Bank's Community Giving contest on Facebook. The winner of the contest wins $1 million. We have beat out nearly 100,000 other nonprofits and are now competing against 99 others to win the grand prize. We are the only nonprofit from the Gulf Coast region, as well as the only rebuilding/Hurricane Katrina recovery organization to make it this far.

It would be tremendously helpful and amazing if (after checking us out) you shared our story with your readers/members in hopes that they will vote for us at http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/486661. The contest is only one week long, starting Jan. 15 and ending Jan. 22. We are really hoping to win this and use the money to put 66 families back in their homes, employ 21 veterans and local underemployed individuals, and extend the hours of our Center for Wellness and Mental Health by 2,000.

We'd be happy to send you a shout out on our Facebook and/or Twitter profiles, telling everyone to visit the post and vote. If you're interested in helping, simply copy this link and tell people we need their help to win!

Additional links that may be of interest:
Homepage: www.stbernardproject.org
Twitter account: twitter.com/stbernardproj
St. Bernard Project video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlj3ZwB6XHww
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/stbernardproject?ref=search&sid=3419358.2495338106..1

All the best,
Lisa Martin
Rebuilding the Lives of Katrina Survivors, Family by Family
The St. Bernard Project provides relief work for Katrina survivors.

Potentially Blasphemous Question

2010-01-24T16:38:00.004-06:00

Jesus was 100% divine, but also 100% human. He had completely human biology. That means that He passed gas, and that it was smelly. Good, this helps me identify with Him.

But here's a question: did He ever bear false witness - ie, lie - about it? What I mean is, did He ever stink up the room and then deny it, or even blame someone else (I'm looking at you, Judas)?

Coco's Classy Exit

2010-01-23T00:13:00.011-06:00

There's one more chapter to be written in the Conan-Leno saga - where Conan ends up next - but otherwise, this long and sordid story came to an end tonight with Conan O'Brien's last episode as host of "The Tonight Show." And I must say, Conan's farewell speech at the end of tonight's show was one of the classiest, most gracious things I have ever witnessed. He said some very kind things about his 20-year association with NBC, and was far more generous than I think I could have been in a similar position. I mean, talk about loving your enemies. These guys changed everything about his life, giving him only money when he already had that but ripping up emotions and families, and did the same to dozens of his friends, and yet he stays classy. I was expecting f-bombs and middle fingers like we saw from Robin Williams last night, and yet it's almost Biblical, the way Conan passed up on revenge. He kept the focus on the positive, was visibly emotional and on the verge of getting choked up, and gave only good advice to young fans and upbeat things about his own position in life. Here he is, encouraging his younger viewers (people like me) not to get cynical at a time when few have more reason to be cynical than he. If anyone's got a right to be cynical in the entertainment business, it's Conan O'Brien, and yet he's the one saying chin up. What class.

I know some of my more cynical readers - those readers that are still left after my long stint of no real blogging, anyway - will say of course he was positive, he's getting over $30 million. I reject that position. It's a position that says money is the only thing in life that matters and anyone who has money should be happy. BS. Money can't buy happiness, and all that - sappy but true. The fact is, here is a man, a human being, who after 15 years of chasing it, was finally given his dream job. He and dozens of other people, people not a tenth as rich as he, uprooted their families and their lives across an entire continent only to have the rug pulled out from under them. NBC rogered them, and rogered them hard. Jeff Zucker rogered not only them, but their young children, and Jay Leno did too. I don't care how much money you're getting, that's a tough emotional state for the human psyche to be in, and my hat is off to Conan O'Brien for being such a class act through it all.

Since I started watching late night in high school, it's been a toss-up for me between Letterman and Conan, and lately I've been digging CBS' Craig Ferguson, but with that speech I think Coco may have won me over. What a fundamentally decent thing to do; I do believe his farwell will live in the annals of entertainment history. And also, Conan, Will Ferrell, and ZZ Top rocking out to Free Bird? Awesomeness. Pure awesomeness.

I'm looking forward to whatever Conan winds up doing on Fox (one presumes that's what will happen), and am hoping against hope it comes on 30-60 minutes before Letterman so can catch both monologues.

Once the video is embeddable, I'll post it, but for now watch it at Huffington Post and read CNN's transcript here:

"There has been a lot of speculation in the press about what I legally can and can't say about NBC. To set the record straight, tonight I am allowed to say anything I want. And what I want to say is this: between my time at "Saturday Night Live," "The Late Night Show," and my brief run here on the "Tonight Show," I have worked with NBC for over 20 years. Yes, we have our differences right now and yes, we're going to go our separate ways, but this company has been my home for most of my adult life. I am enormously proud of the work we have done together, and I want to thank NBC for making it all possible.

"Walking away from the "Tonight Show" is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Making this choice has been enormously difficult," O'Brien continued. "This is the best job in the world, I absolutely love doing it, and I have the best staff and crew in the history of the medium. But despite this sense of loss, I really feel this should be a happy moment. Every comedian dreams of hosting the "Tonight Show" and, for seven months, I got to. I did it my way, with people I love, and I do not regret a second. I've had more good fortune than anyone I know and if our next gig is doing a show in a 7-11 parking lot, we'll find a way to make it fun.

"Finally, I have to say something to our fans. The massive outpouring of support and passion from so many people has been overwhelming. The rallies, the signs, all the goofy, outrageous creativity on the Internet, and the fact that people have traveled long distances and camped out all night in the pouring rain to be in our audience, made a sad situation joyous and inspirational. To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I'll think about it for the rest of my life. "

Although O'Brien did not end up winning the late-night battle, he remains optimistic about his future, he said, and hopes his fans do the same.

"All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism -- it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere," he concluded. "Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

2010-01-21T14:35:00.002-06:00

I like winter... not as much as I like fall, to be sure, but I do like it... that said, the city is 100% over budget on snow removal with no money left for filling potholes, and I could really dig some sun right now...

There's this priest I know, he's on a Mediterranean cruise right now. There's another priest just back from two weeks in Hawaii, and I've got two friends vacationing there now. But me? I'm sitting here in OMAHA wishing like hell it was a hot July day and I was floating down the Moyie River with some good friends and a cooler of beer. Which I'm not sure is quite what Raffi was going for, but hey, those kids have to grow up sometime.

I was gonna go to the gym, but maybe I'll just take a novel and check out a new coffee shop instead.

The Future of Country Music?

2010-01-20T16:16:00.004-06:00

"Highway 20 Ride," the fourth single from the Zac Brown Band is nothing short of amazing. After years of country music trying too hard to be sentimental or family oriented but just winding up transparent and sappy, this message from a divorced dad to his son manages to really nail the extant emotional side of an American life. Brown's clear vocals and De Martini's soft fiddle do a great job of following up three wonderfully fun (but potentially novelty) songs with a serious ballad. This effort cements the Zac Brown Band is the best new country group or duo since at least Brooks & Dunn, maybe even Alabama. If their follow-up effort is even half as good as their album "The Foundation" and if they can keep the band's line-up together for a few years, then without a doubt they are, along with Brad Paisley and Josh Turner, the future of true country music.

Musical Monday: Rich Mullins

2010-01-18T13:30:00.001-06:00

It's a shame he's known for his simple stuff. The music from "The Jesus Record" and "A Liturgy, A Legacy, & A Ragamuffin Band" is some of the most moving music I know.

Funeral

2010-01-16T13:43:00.000-06:00

Just helped with a funeral for a 97yo parishioner. Lay-read, served as pallbearer, and corrected errors in the service. It was a nice service and well-attended, but I was saddened by the fact that the oldest people there were in their early 80s, that she had no living family, and that all the photos of the deceased were from the past 15 years. Nothing about her early live whatsoever. Maybe I do want children after all… and maybe I DON’T want to live past 85… things to think about.

Faith & Climate Change in Omaha

2010-01-14T23:50:00.002-06:00

On Saturday, February 27 from 1-5pm, Repower America is sponsoring the event “Sustainable Faith: An Interfaith Forum on Climate Change and Clean Energy” at the College of St. Mary in Omaha. The forum will be held in the college’s Gross Auditorium (Science Building) and will feature speeches from local clergy, a panel discussion on getting involved, small group discussions, and a screening of the documentary “Coal Country.” We will discuss the Scriptural, spiritual, and scientific issues surrounding climate change, look at what Nebraska churches are already doing to address the problem, and learn what more we as persons of faith can do to improve energy efficiency in our churches and energy policy in our nation. The event is free and light refreshments will be provided. All are welcome; please RSVP to sustainablefaith@yahoo.com and join the event's Facebook page.

I'm Just Sayin'

2010-01-07T21:22:00.001-06:00

If it were a fair fight, we'd see some real sparks from Colt McCoy.

Saban - you suck.

Winter in Nebraska

2010-01-05T08:56:00.002-06:00

They said it would be a mild winter in Omaha this year. It was fifteen below as I drove to work this morning, we've already had two blizzards and one unforecasted storm, we're going to get 3-7 more inches and 30mph gusts tomorrow, and the high on Friday will be zero. They said it would be a mild winter in Omaha this year.

How am I not myself?

2010-01-01T21:42:00.005-06:00

How am I not myself? Because I am you, and I am Jeff Bagwell, and I am the baker down the street, and I am the governor of the state, and they are not me, so thus in being them I am not myself. However, because I am them, than they are me, and by being them, I am myself. So being myself requires not being myself. Not being myself creates being myself. They are simultaneous states, they are different and they are the same and those two concepts cannot be separated from each other lest they be destroyed.

We are all connected. Everything is connected, and that creates harmony, unity, and oneness, all wonderful things - so if the path creates wonderful things, we can focus on the beauty of it and nothing more, right? Wrong. Because when we say EVERYTHING is connected, we do mean EVERYTHING – people, energy, books, museums, music, love, and laughter, yes, but also suffering, pain, grief, war, disease, heartbreak, and tears. That’s all part of the everything, too. But ultimately that connectedness, that blanket of everything, which includes the good and the bad, is good, because as I said it is harmony and it is unity. By starting and ending with oneness and sameness, we come full circle in goodness – but only if we acknowledge and confront the darker elements within.

This isn’t just some philosophical mind game. It is theological. The message of Christ starts and ends with a blissful personal relationship with the loving God, but that doesn’t mean we can focus on the beauty and ignore the pain. To connect our lives to God’s in that beautiful way, and to connect the earthly teachings of Christ with the other-worldly resurrection, we have to acknowledge and confront the crucifixion. I am reminded of a Good Friday sermon I heard last year from the Rev. Dr. J.D. “Guy” Collins in New Hampshire – the crucifixion is hard to understand; there are many theories of exegesis around it. And that’s okay, because Good Friday isn’t about us understanding the crucifixion. It is about Christ understanding us, about His feeling even deeper depths of pain and despair than we go through. That awful pain brings Him closer to us, using darkness to bring together two lights, using suffering to ling a beautiful life with many beautiful relationships.

And there's the heart of it. The beginning and the end, and thus the full circle, is beautiful, but only if we acknowledge and confront the darker elements and pain of existence that are indeed inside the circle. Infinity and eternity are beautiful things, but they are only themselves if nothing is left out, and that includes both the good and the bad, the light and the dark. You cannot leave anything out. You cannot have the beauty of joyous infinity without the un-beautiful things because at that point it is no longer infinity.

“There are no remainders in the mathematics of infinity.”

(So, guess what movie I just saw for the first time?)

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T15:37:00.001-06:00

The Problem With Facial Hair

2009-12-12T12:53:00.002-06:00

When a man stops shaving, he looks good on day one when he's clean shaven and good on day twenty-one when he has a nice beard. The problem with growing a beard is that all the middle days look like you're not shaving, not like you're growing a beard.

Happy Holidays From Dartmouth

2009-12-11T01:00:00.004-06:00

A video from the Dartmouth College Office of Alumni Relations. How I wish I were still a student walking past Blunt rather than an alumni hearing from Blunt... oh, well.

The video is from last February, which explains why I see several '09 friends in it.

But the point is, happy holidays!

FLAIR!

Sermon: What does Christ's kingship mean for modern politicians, and for us?

2009-11-25T11:09:00.006-06:00

Delivered at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit; Bellevue, NE; 11-21/2-09. Year B, Proper 29: 2 Samuel 23:1-7 • Psalm 132:1-12 • Revelation 1:4b-8 • John 18:33-37, often referred to as "Christ the King Day" or "The Reign of Christ."

I had the privilege of ending my college career with a course called “The History of Modern Germany, 1750-1944.” One of the conclusions I came to in my final paper was that Hitler’s motivation was not to kill all the Jews, not to take over the world, nor even to glorify Germany. Hitler’s motivation was Hitler. This was a man who believed that Germany could not and should not win without him, saying, “Neither a military nor a civilian personality could take my place… the fate of the Reich depends on me alone.”

The Allies, on the other hand, were blessed with leaders who put their countrymen first. Take Winston Churchill. For all his social vices, this was a man who understood what was at stake, who spoke not of himself but of his nation’s values and of the undying tenacity of its people. Which modern king do you think was closer to being Christ-like? The drunkard who fought for a cause bigger than himself, or the madman who thought his own self-glory was the biggest cause of all?

Today we celebrate Christ the King. Here is a ruler who holds dominion but does not dominate; a lord who does not lord our weaknesses over us. Ours is a king who does not demand taxes or conscription, merely His love returned.

Christ’s walk did not end the reign of other kings. Now, we may not call them kings anymore. From the heights of the U.S. to the depths of Iran, most are known as “President.” But no matter what we call them, they’re certainly still around. What can these men and women learn from a king who preceded them by 2,000 years? And for that matter, what does this kingship mean for those of us so far from DC?

An awful lot. The language of the Bible is far more political than it may first appear. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus admits to the governor that yes, he is a king. This is an extremely political thing to say, for in the next chapter, a Jewish faction reminds Pilate that “Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.”

This affront to Rome is a bit of a running theme in the Gospels. In their book, “The Last Week,” Jesus historians Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan write that whenever there was a major Jewish festival, the Roman Governor would come to Jerusalem from his coastal palace to assert a colonial presence just “in case there was trouble.” They describe Pilate’s pre-Passover procession, likely held on Palm Sunday, as “A visual panoply of imperial power: cavalry on horses… foot soldiers… banners… weapons... sun glinting on metal and gold. Sounds: marching of horses… clinking of bridles… the beating of drums… Pilate’s procession displayed not only imperial power, but also Roman imperial theology.”

Yet while all this happened at the city’s west gate, a second procession came through the east gate. A second king held his own parade, but in this parade, there were humble donkeys instead of regal horses, liberating palms instead of vengeful spears. It is what Borg and Crossan call a “counter procession” and a “planned political demonstration.” This second king, OUR king, is not about imperial might but about peace, liberation, and love.

Christ carried a very political message, and yet we are also taught that we should render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto God what is God’s. This juxtaposition works because before rendering comes identifying: What is Caesar’s? And what is God’s? And what must modern Caesars do to separate their kingdoms from the kingdom of God?

Servant leadership is a good start. One of the many reasons Hitler failed to achieve great heights of leadership was that he regarded himself strictly as a warrior and not, like German leaders before him, as “the first servant of the state.” Christ, however, was a servant, a washer of feet, who told Pilate that kings should not be so quick to use violence. A king should not think about himself and his own strength, but about his people.

“For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

N.T. Wright, a Bishop in the Church of England, writes that for Pilate, “the only place you get truth is out of the sheath of a sword (or, as we would say, out of the barrel of a gun.)” Like all kings, Christ claims to have truth. He makes this claim, however, not with a weapon but with palms and donkeys, surely a shocking thing for Pilate to hear.

It wouldn’t be hard for Christ also to be a violent or corrupt king. God has far more power than any earthly ruler – but as David says in today’s reading, for God, ruling is about justice, not the other way around. Christ’s rule says to today’s rulers, do not use your dominion; hold it in reserve! Let your people see that you are big enough to lift them up rather than yourself!

So okay, Christ’s kingship is definitely a political thing, but is that all it is? What about those of us hundreds of miles from Washington? What does Christ’s reign mean for us?

First of all, we mustn’t follow leaders who don’t themselves follow Christ’s model of kingship. When our rulers depart from Christ, we must hold them accountable by advocating for the Christian values of love and justice. We do that each week when we pray for elected officials in the Prayers of the People. We can write to and about our lawmakers when we feel they support the wrong policies, and we can vote against corrupt Congressmen. We can also support Christian missionaries and non-violent resistance groups in oppressive places like Zimbabwe or the Sudan. But that’s just more politics. What is the king’s tax, what is required of our daily lives?

I’ve been a lifelong Rite II goer and will admit that it is my favorite service, but there is one thing that I absolutely love about Rite I: the inclusion of Christ’s two commandments. Right there on the second page, before we even get to the weekend’s lessons, we hear the celebrant say: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself.”

That is what Christ’s kingship means for our daily lives: we must love God, and we do that by loving each other. Revelations tells us that God “made us to be a kingdom.” So when we hear about the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Heaven – that’s us! If we are all God’s children, and if God is king, than are we not all princes and princesses? And when we meet a fellow princess on the street, should we not treat her like the royalty she is?

One of the most powerful things we can do for each other is to be kind in the little moments. It’s not just unpractical to be rude, but an affront to the humble king who rode a donkey. Letting that car in front of us change lanes; checking the pew behind ourselves to make sure others have enough room to kneel; smiling rather than scowling in the checkout aisle. These are the little things that can touch one another far more than we sometimes know – especially on the Omaha freeways.

We can also care for each other in the big ways. Being environmentally-friendly is important justice work. From Deacon Betsy Blake Bennett’s diocesan efforts to Ruth Richter and others here at Holy Spirit, I am so excited to have joined a parish already involved in creation care. Other outreach efforts, from the two food pantries to the Boy Scout Eagle projects, are equally wonderful.

Yet for all that, if Christ’s kingship only means one thing, it is this. There will be times when we are rude to one another. There will be times when we don’t see the corruption in a given public policy that we may support. There will be times when we don’t pray the right prayers or read enough Scripture. And all of that is okay, because we can keep trying. Ours is a king who does not say follow me or else; ours is a king who says follow me because I love you.

Amazing Hathos: The "Christian" Side-Hug

2009-11-24T18:00:00.001-06:00

Wow.

From TrueSlant:

This video makes me very happy. It’s a bunch of happy Christian rappers, acting all street, freestyling the merits of the non-sexual Christian Side Hug. What could be construed for a Saturday Night Live sketch is done here... WITHOUT IRONY!

Yes, now it’s abstinence only for Christian teens when it comes to hugs. The basic message is that “front hugs” should be saved until marriage, This is told to us while using a lot of ghetto rap hand motions. (”Word!”)

Al Gore: Science has failed. Time for teh crazy.

2009-11-23T13:00:00.001-06:00

Al Gore's new plan: "So, instead of science, I'm going with crazy. I'm going to start planning trees in politicians' front yards in the middle of the night and tape toy guns to the branches pointed to the door so when they wake up and walk out of their houses in the morning they'll think it's the forests coming to get their revenge."

Could this BE any more awesome?

The Nobel Laureate was also on 30 Rock for his second cameo on that show. But I thought the SNL bit was funnier.

Musical Monday on a Wednesday: Who Else?

2009-11-18T21:20:00.001-06:00

When Bill Nye Was On SNL (Sort Of)

2009-11-15T14:39:00.003-06:00

In the late 1980s and early '90s, before getting his own show on PBS ("Bill Nye the Science Guy"), Bill Nye was an actor on a Seattle-area SNL-style sketch show. Here he is as the superhero "Speedwalker."

What's Nye been up to since then, you ask? Why, talking about the need for renewable energy and explaining to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow why blowing up the moon is a good thing!

Turning Word Verification On

2009-11-13T11:09:00.002-06:00

I hate to do this, but I have to turn comment word verification back on - ie, those annoying letters you have to read and re-type in order to comment. Older posts are getting mercilessly spammed, and while I moderate them so they never actually show up here, it's still a headache for me to deal with. I'll try turning verification off after a few weeks and see how it goes.

Veteran's Day

2009-11-12T18:55:00.002-06:00

Wow, I did not realize it had been a full eight days since I last posted here!

Here's a video, a day late for Veteran's Day, that I cannot get through without massively tearing up in the first thirty seconds. It's soldiers, sailors, and Marines surprising their children at school upon return home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

My New Job, Part 2: Church of the Holy Spirit

2009-11-04T17:49:00.007-06:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote here that as part of my Omaha Episcopal Service Corps internship, I am working part-time for Repower America. The other major part of my ESC internship is a part-time job at a local Episcopal church, the Church of the Holy Spirit in Bellevue, Nebraska.

I work at CHS three days a week (including Sundays), and my job description is pretty varied. I:

Do some administrative work (answering the phones, proofreading church bulletins, etc.),

Accompany the priest on hospital and home visits and even go on a few of my own,

Help with the youth group,

Serve as an unordained subdeacon in the altar party on Sunday mornings,

Will lead two adult education courses in 2010 – one on spiritual gifts and one I get to design myself,

Occasionally preach (last month would have been my first time if not for the swine flu),

Am helping the Christian ed director plan the Christmas pageant,

Attend and observe various committee meetings (business, finance, worship, vestry, etc.),

Sit in on each Sunday school class at least twice, and

Perform all other duties as assigned.

Examples of this last category have so far included pulling pork for church meals and moving furniture in the Sunday school rooms. I am reminded of the words of our program director, who said every good seminary education should include a course on boiler maintenance.

The goal of this job is to get a feel for parish life for discernment purposes. I’m basically job-shadowing the priest at a suburban church with average Sunday attendance of about 100, many of whom are retired military from nearby Offutt Air Force Base (and when I say nearby, I mean I can hear Reveille and Taps through my office window). With the exception of the large retired military population, the church in many ways reflects most parishes I’ve been a part of in the past: conservative, small, and older. As such, the challenges and experiences aren’t quite what I was expecting nor what the other interns face, but they are still welcome avenues for growth. For example, I'm not a big fan of the main worship space and the music program is fairly limited, but that reminds that God is everywhere and helps me to learn that in ministry, worship is no longer about being fed but about feeding.

I will say this: the people at CHS are some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met. They manage to be both no-nonsense (as the program director says, “There’s no fooling around when you’ve got to get the crops in on time!) and welcoming at the same time. I will walk away in May with fond memories of these people and a positive impression of the Midwest because of them. Even better, working with Father Tom is one of the two highlights of my time here (along with my job at Repower). He’s a retired Air Force Lt. Col. himself, but is also very engaging and a good mentor. He is approaching me and this program with an open and eager mind but also with a sense of purpose. A relatively new priest, his seminary experience is still fresh in his mind, but after nearly three decades in the military, he is well grounded in life’s wisdom. Like I said, he’s a very good mentor and I’m lucky to be here.

I miss New Hampshire, I miss Idaho, and I miss being constantly surrounded by politics and policy, but this is nonetheless a good place for me to be right now. Next year I will almost assuredly be back in DC or New England but with a better understanding of myself and of the world around me.

I Wasn't Home For Homecoming

2009-11-03T10:07:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but Dartmouth became home for me. The place, the traditions, the setting - everything. I can never be a student again or involve myself in student life, but that's okay. One day I can return for the setting, the traditions, the lectures, Hop events, and such things.

Dartmouth Night - ie, the Homecoming bonfire - is the second best time of the year, right behind Christmas. I couldn't make it this year, but darn straight I'll be there next year. This video - the Glee Club (which I sang in), the fire, the march - is the next best thing.

My Repower Video

2009-11-02T16:24:00.004-06:00

This video was shot for a new project from Repower America called the Repower Wall, documenting videos from thousands of Americans from all walks of life explaining why they support clean energy. You can read about the project and watch clips from Wesley Clark and Bill Nye here, watch my faith-based video below, and watch an even shorter video about the larger project below that.

Congratulations, Brian Prior!

2009-11-01T10:45:00.000-06:00

This is a proud day for my home diocese, the Diocese of Spokane. The Rev. Brian Prior, rector of the Church of the Resurrection in Spokane Valley and vice president of the General Convention's House of Deputies, has been elected Bishop of Minnesota. Fr. Brian is one of the most active people in the Diocese and he will be sorely missed, but what an exciting new ministry this is for him! He used to direct Camp Cross, sits on numerous boards and committees, and was mentor to my home parish's last curate. The Diocese of Minnesota is very lucky to have him.

You can read the Episcopal Life Online story about his election here, but on this blog I will excerpt an interview the local paper, the Spokane Spokesman Review (for which I used to write) did with him in July:

My grandparents lost the family business during the Depression. Through this experience my grandfather engrained in me a sense of stewardship: “Take care of it, and it will last forever.” And he embodied the sense of generosity: “You help folks because you never know when you will need help yourself – and you will.” He went on to rebuild his business that was then passed on to two more generations.

They have a mindset that generations have lost. I feel blessed to have and have had both family and professional folks who were scripted during that Depression era.

They’ve consistently asked those questions, whether the market was up or down. Regardless of where the economy is, and many of them are doing fine economically and have consistently done fine, they are just so clear about asking: “Can we reuse that bag? Do we need to buy that? Is there another way?” For me that is at the heart of being good stewards, because it doesn’t matter how much they have, it’s a whole approach to life they take. I’ve gained a lot of wisdom from that.

The Proper Way To Handle Trick-Or-Treaters

2009-10-31T12:37:00.000-05:00

A Halloween special from Man in the Box.

Congratulations, Susan Slaughter!

2009-10-28T21:15:00.004-05:00

With its former occupants having left their church and diocese behind, the Diocese of Fort Worth is now set to ordain its first female priest! Huzzah! From Episcopal Life Online comes this exciting news:

Thirty-three years after the Episcopal Church approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and to the episcopate, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, is following suit.

The Rt. Rev. Edwin F. (Ted) Gulick Jr., bishop of Kentucky and provisional bishop of Fort Worth, is set to ordain the Rev. Susan Slaughter to the priesthood on Nov. 15 at St. Luke's in the Meadow Episcopal Church, where she currently serves as deacon...

"It is with a deep sense of awe in the mysterious ways of our Lord that I arrive at this moment," Slaughter said recently. "I am filled with gratitude toward those persons, lay and clergy, who have encouraged and supported me over the years. St. Luke's in the Meadow has been especially supportive and has helped me discern more clearly my true vocation."

The Beauty of the Badlands

2009-10-25T19:17:00.004-05:00

While driving from Idaho to Omaha in September, I had the privilege of spending a night camping in South Dakota's Badlands National Park, just outside the Black Hills and about an hour from Rapid City. I rarely journal, but after spending a few hours driving and walking around the buttes in the moonlight, I immediately sat down and wrote. Here's an excerpt from my notebook, as well as the context I wrote for it in last week's sermon before deleting it for brevity. (Picture credit.

***
Being there at night under a full moon and a clear sky is something else – not because it’s pretty, although it is, but because it’s so amazingly spiritual. It’s okay to look out over the buttes, but when you walk down into them and head back a little ways into the wilderness area, it’s like you’ve left the planet. I wrote in my journal that night,

Still struggling to find the right adjectives. It is an uncapturable experience. It was a moment and a place, and such things do not conflate with pen and paper. It was religious, and beautiful in an eery way. It was almost like a moon, but with greenery. And thanks to the owl and crickets, it was so alive! And not a single other person. I had been transported in a way I never had been before. For once, I was glad to be along during a wonderful moment. It was all so ancient, and made me feel safe in an edgy way.

But I was not really alone. I was with God. And the drive back to my campsite a few hours later was something else, too – I had to stop repeatedly for stampeding bison, charging prairie dogs, and a 15-point buck!

There are moments in life – children discovering the joy of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly; pilots, as John Magee says, slipping the surly bonds of earth and joining the tumbling of sun-split clouds; fisherman enjoying the calm tranquility of a still lake; farmers feeling the wise wind of the cornfield on their face or taking in the awesome power of a prairie storm; city slickers walking in a park to escape the grime and the crime – there are moments in life when we know that God loves us not because we see God in our air ducts or our transmissions, but because we feel God in the midst of God’s creation.

***
Here's something I found on YouTube:

Episcopal Churches Stage Events For 350

2009-10-23T15:47:00.002-05:00

Great article from the Episcopal News Services about Episcopal Churches getting involved with the 350 International Day of Climate Action, one of the largest political events ever!

Bell ringing, postcard campaigns and community connections will point the way to Copenhagen when congregations join in the International Day of Climate Action this Saturday, October 24.

Organized by the 350.org campaign, this year's annual celebration will call for a fair climate treaty when world leaders gather in Copenhagen in December. Three hundred fifty parts per million is considered to be the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in earth's atmosphere.

Episcopal congregations have marked the day in previous years by ringing steeple bells 350 times. This year, Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, and Mary Evelyn Tucker of the Forum on Religion and Ecology are urging greater participation by religious congregations.

Tyler Edgar of the National Council of Churches' Eco-justice unit points out that it is important for the United States to be committed to reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions if it is to be effective in Copenhagen.

My New Job, Part 1: Repower Nebraska

2009-10-21T09:10:00.002-05:00

I mentioned a few months ago that I’m spending this year in Omaha, Nebraska working for the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection’s Episcopal Service Corps program. This program consists of three main components: spiritual direction, an internship at a local Episcopal church, and volunteer work at a local non-profit. I’ve been here for six weeks and the different components of this new job are now all in place. I’d like to devote a post each to my parish placement and to my non-profit placement.

For my volunteer work, I am helping out at Repower Nebraska as their faith outreach coordinator. Repower Nebraska is the local chapter of Repower America, the group Al Gore started with his Nobel Peace Prize money to advocate the passage of clean energy legislation. My job here is to coordinate with different faith groups around the state and work to address the spiritual and Scriptural issues surrounding climate change. I don’t know what I can and can’t say publicly about Repower Nebraska – they may not pay me (the Church of the Resurrection does that) but I am still going to respect whatever communication protocols and chain-of-command they may have regarding blogs and the like. When I worked for Senator Baucus, I wasn’t allowed to even say so online, so I’m going to be cautious and leave it here for now. I will say, though, that this is a really important cause and I am excited to be here!

For more on the Christian perspective surrounding climate change, please see a sermon I wrote and posted last weekend and take a look at this upcoming seminar from GreenFaith. A good resource from the Episcopal Diocese of Omaha is Green Sprouts.

Anglican Communion Stories About Climate Change

2009-10-20T12:15:00.005-05:00

The Anglican Communion News Service (ACNS), a sometimes-updated online service of Lambeth Palace, has had two interesting stories about Christian involvement in climate change issues this month. The first, dated October 12, was titled simply, "A Statement from the Anglican Communion Environmental Network," and the second, from October 14, was called, "Act local as well as national urges Archbishop of Canterbury."

An excerpt from the Environmental Network statement:

We look to the Copenhagen conference with hope but also with realism... there must be a desire on the part of every nation to do what they know they must, not because they are legally bound, but because they share a vision for a more just and sustainable future... We pray that each nation will come to the conference wanting the highest level outcome; that demanding targets will be set, not in an attempt to discipline reluctant participants, or to give some preferential treatment which undermines the whole; but that a greater vision might be shared...

Our faith and our ancestors have always taught us that the earth is our mother and deserves respect; we know that this respect has not been given. We know that like a mother the earth will continue to give its all to us. However, we also know that we are now demanding more than it is able to provide. Science confirms what we already know, our human footprint is changing the face of the earth and because we come from the earth, it is changing us too.

And an excerpt from the story about the Most Rev. Williams:

In a lecture today at Southwark Cathedral (sponsored by the Christian environmental group Operation Noah) Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, sets out a Christian vision of how people can respond to the looming environmental crisis. Beginning with the story of Noah and the Flood, Dr Williams highlights the “burden of responsibility for what confronts us here and now as a serious crisis and challenge”. Our relationship with the rest of creation is intimately bound up with our relationship with God. The Bible offers “an ethical perspective based on reverence for the whole of life”. “To act so as to protect the future of the non-human world is both to accept a God-given responsibility and, appropriately, to honour the special dignity given to humanity itself.”

Musical Monday: David Tomlinson in Mary Poppins

2009-10-19T16:42:00.003-05:00

Not sure what put it in my head to go with this old chestnut, but here it is.

A Sermon on Job, Psalm 104, and the Kerry-Boxer Energy Bill

2009-10-18T18:07:00.007-05:00

I had planned to give this sermon at an Omaha-area Episcopal church today, but unfortunately flu-like symptoms caused me to request a back-up preacher a couple days ago. Nevertheless, I thought I would post it here. The readings follow the Revised Common Lectionary, focusing on Job 38: 1-7, 34-41; Psalm 104: 1-9, 25; and Mark 10:35-45. Drawing heavily from a book by Bill McKibben, the crux of the sermon is basically this: The environment is important for many spiritual reasons. One, when Scripture reveals God’s glory, it does so with environmental and biological language. Two, we are able to experience and feel God when in nature. Three, God gave us this environment as a gift, called it “good,” and asked us to take care of it. For these three reasons, as well as the role the environment plays in justice (its close ties to things like cancer and asthma), we as good Christians must be humble and not live a lifestyle that destroys the environment. If we believe what science tells us, then we must address climate change, and one way to do that is to pass clean energy legislation. So without further ado, my sermon:

May I speak in the name of God who is Creator, Liberator, and Sanctifier.

The common message across these passages from Job, Mark, and Psalm 104 is a simple one: God is great, and we must humble ourselves before God, approaching God’s creation with humility. My understanding of that message is that when we ignore His natural works or replace them with our own, we risk running afoul of the First Commandment.

I am rather struck by the timing of these readings. I bought a book last winter called The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation about this passage from Job and this very psalm by a fellow named Bill McKibben. Some of you may already be familiar with McKibben; he is an environmental scholar at Middlebury College and the author of several popular books. He has helped organize almost every major climate change campaign in the last decade. The reason I am struck by the timing of these readings is that McKibben’s biggest event yet will be next weekend. I’ll say more about that event in a few moments.

The Comforting Whirlwind points out that when God wants to reveal His glory, he uses language of an environmental and biological sort. God appears to Job in a whirlwind, one of the basic elements of nature, and talks to him about “the foundation of the earth” and the “morning stars,” reminding the man that he wasn’t there when these things were created; that they are bigger than he and that he should remember than when contemplating his relationship with the creator. Then, in verses 34-41 (“optional” verses for today in the Revised Common Lectionary) God says,

Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that a flood of waters may cover you? Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go and say to you, “Here we are”? Who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, when the dust runs into a mass and the clods cling together? Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens, or lie in wait in their covert?

Waterskins of the heavens! Lions! That is some awesome stuff, all of it speaking to the glory of the Creator and all of it found not in our cities but in God’s forests and skies. There’s more of the same in Psalm 104, which highlights God’s “majesty and splendor” with verses like “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” These verses are neither the first of an environmental nature in the Bible, nor the last. Where does Jesus go, McKibben asks, when he wants to pray? The Temple? No! A garden, and the Wilderness. And who was the original conservationist? Teddy Roosevelt? American Indians? How about… Noah? Remember Genesis: “The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good.” And God saw that it was good.

There is a reason God and the psalmist talk of weather, geology, and animals when they want to show His glory. God considers those things good—and we can experience why for ourselves. There are moments in life – children discovering the joy of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly; pilots, as John Magee says, slipping the surly bonds of earth and joining the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds; farmers taking in the awesome power of a prairie storm; city slickers walking in a park to escape the grime, me camping in Badlands National Park under a full moon during the drive to Omaha from Idaho – there are moments in life when we know that God loves us not because we see God in our air, but because we feel God in the midst of God’s creation.

If we are to honor God, then we must honor the things God calls good, the creations that reveal God’s glory. Part of honoring them is learning to approach them with humility, which is one of the lessons in today’s Gospel. Here we have James and John caring not about what the Kingdom of God will do for humanity but about what it will do for them. Dr. David Garland, the seminary dean at Baylor University, writes of James and John, “They want to dominate, not to serve” and of the reaction of their traveling companions, “The disciples would rather bear a grudge than a cross.” And so Christ very lovingly puts them all in their place: “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”

So we are called to act with humility, and yet we do not. Our culture is one of consumerism; our society demands a lifestyle that takes more resources from the earth per year than the earth can replace. I am speaking not just about materialism, but also about climate change, which is a scientific issue far more than it is a political one. NASA has made it clear that if we keep relying on coal as our primary energy source and on ungodly amounts of dinosaur bones to fuel our daily transportation, we will put enough greenhouse gases in the air to raise the average temperature of the planet several degrees. If that happens – and nine of the ten hottest years on record are in the past two decades – we will see several Katrina-style storms every year. A report from the Nature Conservancy says the largest temperature increases in the U.S. will come right here in the Midwest, causing massive drought. The refugee crises won’t just be limited to the population of Bangladesh moving to China; Omaha will have to deal with incoming Miamians. This is the lifestyle that we lead right now – a lifestyle that says using bottled water instead of filtered water bottles is worth destroying homes around the world, and leaving the lights is worth the cancer caused by mountaintop removal in West Virginia. Where is the humility in that?

McKibben writes in The Comforting Whirlwind, “Most cultures, historically, have put something else—God or nature or some combination—at the center. But we’ve put these things at the periphery.” Instead of building ourselves around God, we have built ourselves around the proposition that growth is always good, that we always need more. And while McKibben doesn’t say it, this means that we are not putting God first, that we are dangerously close to running afoul of the first commandment. Clearly, if one believes the science, then there is a Christian imperative to combat climate change. Fortunately, while there is a tipping point to climate change, we probably haven’t reached it yet. It’s not too late to green our lifestyles, to restore the balance of humility in our relationship with God. The biggest thing we can do is lobby the elected representatives to pass major energy legislation. This country has to break its addictions to foreign oil and coal. We need renewable energy, and in my opinion, nuclear energy. This is not a partisan issue – conservative Republican Senators from Alaska and South Carolina have climbed on board and may soon be joined by colleagues from Tennessee and Arizona.

To help pass such legislation, we can write our Senators, and we can take part in the 350 campaign, the upcoming Bill McKibben event that I mentioned. 350 parts of carbon per million parts of atmosphere is the sustainable level of carbon output we should shoot for. We are currently at 390ppm, a historically unprecedented level. McKibben has started a website called 350.org that seeks to bring attention to this number and to the measures we need to take to reach this goal. Next Saturday, thousands of events around the world will highlight the number. Musicians will sing songs about 350, outdoor enthusiasts will arrange 350 canoes in the shape of the number 350, and churches in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia will ring their bells 350 times. We don’t have an outdoor bell here at Holy Spirit, but Repower Nebraska, the non-profit I have chosen to work for as part of my internship, will host an event at St. Mary’s College from 2:30 to 3:50 next Saturday, right about the time the Huskers game ends. We’re going to have free popcorn, live music, the mayor, and a wall on which event attendees can right their favorite reason for passing climate change legislation. We’re hoping to get 350 such reasons, and Christian voices are not just welcomed but desired. On a side note, I also recommend joining the e-mail lists of the Episcopal Ecological Network and the Episcopal Public Policy Network.

These goals are not about politics. They are about being better stewards of what God has given us. Yes, Genesis does say we have dominion over the earth, but dominion does not replace humility. I like what McKibben says: “God, who had gone to the trouble creating myriad species and who had called them ‘good,’ did not understand dominion to include thoughtless destruction for short-term gain.” God does not understand dominion to include thoughtless destruction for short-term gain.

Churches and Climate Change

2009-10-15T19:18:00.003-05:00

The following is excerpted from a longer Blue Moose Democrat post on the environmental movement's recent traction in its battle against climate change. This is the section that talks about momentum in the faith community - and even this is just the tip of the iceberg. For more about the politics, see the full post.

My own beat is the intersection of faith and politics. I started a new job this week working with Repower Nebraska as their part-time faith outreach coordinator. (This post is not endorsed by Repower America, but I want to be clear about who I am.) All across America, churches are waking up. I had a phone call today with an Episcopal clergywoman who said there are three areas of concern for churches on climate change: spirituality (experiencing God in nature, recognizing the environmental language of Scripture, etc.), environmental stewardship or creation care (heeding the call of Scripture to take care of what we have been given), and eco-justice (climate change will disproportionately affect the poor). Churches are getting that message. I wrote here last week about Day Six, a new effort from the progressive group Faithful America to make sure climate change legislation helps the poor. The Episcopal Ecological Network is a great resource to learn what Episcopal churches around the country are doing to green their communities.

You may be saying yeah yeah sure sure, of course the liberal mainline Protestants are getting involved - but the good news is the movement is broader than that. Thanks to the language of "creation care," many Evangelicals are getting in on the act, too. Rich Cizik, former Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, resigned his job after announcing his support for civil unions, but not until he had spent quite some time building support within the Evangelical community for action on climate change. Joel Hunter, a conservative megachurch pastor in Florida, was hired to be the new president of Ralph Reed's Christian Coalition in 2006. The board asked him to resign over his positions on climate change, but the fact that his selection even got that far is indicative of a huge shift within the community.

New Orleans on MSNBC

2009-10-14T18:57:00.004-05:00

It wasn't the climate change-caused storm, it was the faulty levees and the devestation of the wetlands that slammed New Orleans.

Also, Chris Matthews seems to have a habit of missing the point, but whatever.

R.I.P., Eric "Luigi" Blair

2009-10-13T20:30:00.005-05:00

My computer died today. It wast approximately four years and one month old.

"Eric Blair," as well as his C Drive "Luigi," was pronounced dead approximately 20 minutes ago, at 8:18 PM Central Standard Time. He is survived by a Logitech mouse and a Seagate external hard drive in a Rosewill case. This was the computer on which virtually all Wayward Episcopalian entries, including my widely-read dispatches from the 2008 NH presidential primary, and virtually all my Dartmouth papers, including the many twenty-page all-nighters, was written.

In some ways he was lucky to make it this long; many Dartmouth students seem to lose their computer right after the warranty expires at the beginning of the senior year. Others lose their computers during random finals periods, either before or after the warranty expires. My computer, Blair (so named because I am a pedantic jerk who wanted to mock a dear friend who called her own "Orwell"), made it a year the warranty's expiration before succumbing to pre-existing conditions.

The computer contracted some sort of Malware or Spyware the other day, presumably while I was watching the Simpsons online at wtso.net. The virus basically hijacked my web browsers so that over half the time I was surfing the Internet, all HTML links rerouted me to the websites thefeedyard or livefeedinc. Sometimes Firefox would just randomly behave like Internet Explorer and close without warning. System Restore didn't work; it wouldn't restore my system claiming no changes had been made (baloney). Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, Symantec Anti-Virus, Spybot's Search and Destroy, and Security Scan all failed to solve the problem, finding bugs but not the right ones even though several online forums claimed that Malwarebytes and Spybot tended to work on this particular virus. The Symantec website gave me instructions on how to delete files from my computer's registry (its deepest bowels, save binary code), but they turned out to be for the wrong virus as well. I only had two options left: work in safe mode and/or download Hijack This on a computer guru friend's advice. Hijack This is a little complicated so I was saving it for last, but safe mode bit me in the butt tonight. The regular F8 Setup menu option wasn't working - I would select safe mode but it wouldn't be able to access it, and would just give me the menu options again. So I restarted Windows in normal mode, used the MS Configuration menu to set it up to automatically start in safe mode, and restarted again. All this seemed to do was prevent Windows from opening normally, but it still wouldn't start in Safe Mode. So, now when I try to start the computer, it just goes in an endless cycle of trying to open Windows, failing, going back to the options menu (normal mode, safe mode, etc.), failing again, going back to the menu, etc.

I guess technically my computer isn't dead, just on life support and unable to function on its own. It's a vegetable with massive artery blockage. I could pay to get those arteries unblocked, but instead I am going to constitute my own death panel and, unlike a government but like a for-profit private insurance company, rationalize the computer's care and deny it the operation.

In other words, the timing here is pretty damn good - I've got a new computer on the way anyway! It may not be here for another week or two, but there's no point shelling out big bucks to extend this particular grandpa's life by six months when the kidney could go to a young teenager with even more to lose and thus more to save. Wait, what?

Nobel Laureate Barack Obama

2009-10-09T12:58:00.001-05:00

President Obama is the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Read my thoughts at Blue Moose Democrat in a post called, "Obama’s Nobel Prize, While Largely Undeserved, Is Good For America."

This Blows Me Away Every Time

2009-10-08T00:13:00.003-05:00

I've posted this before, and I guarantee I will post it again. But I mean, seriously, MOST AWESOME THING EVER. No, I mean it - there's Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth and Piano Concertos, there's Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, and there's this.

Musical Socio-Economics

2009-10-06T20:45:00.002-05:00

The last paragraph in this excerpt is great. From the website of Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues:

Look at it this way: When we think of the blues, don't we think of some guy wailing on an old beat up guitar in a smoky tavern with a bunch of people in jeans and T-shirts? When we think of classical music don't we flash on an ornate concert hall with a grand piano on high stick and a performer in tux and tails and women in sparkling evening gowns? Just the visual image alone makes it seem like classical music and blues are worlds apart.

The music itself is innocent of this visual diversity. The music is made up of chords, melodies, harmonies, counterpoint, dynamics, articulations and rhythm. It doesn't know about smoke-filled rooms, blue jeans, or tuxedoes. It doesn't rely on ushers passing out programs or a society passing out dress codes to fit with a particular genre. The music is blind. All it cares about is having a wonderful time.

Once a radio announcer who was obviously a classical music fan confronted me on the air and stated that blues is a lowly form of music whose text is relegated to the gutter with stories of loose women and booze and etc. ... and sometimes you can't even understand the words. Then he asked the question; "What do you think about that Mr. Siegel?" I answered immediately; "Opera! I rest my case."

Hahahahaha. ZING!

When Peanuts Aren't Peanuts

2009-10-05T13:23:00.007-05:00

I was eating some Southwest Airlines peanuts on Sunday and watching Rachel Maddow on my iPod, and was persuaded by this segment to take a look at the ingredients list. My bag of airline peanuts contained the following: "Peanuts, Honey, Sucrose, Wheat Starch, Maltodextrin, Peanut and/or Canola Oil, Salt, Molasses, Brown Sugar."

What I want to know is, is there a reason a bag of peanuts can't just be, you know, a bag of peanuts? Maybe rinsed with water and covered with just a touch of salt, okay, but in the end, just peanuts? I mean, maltodextrin? Really? What the hell?

Musical Monday: R.E.M.

2009-10-05T13:20:00.000-05:00

Off To California

2009-10-01T12:17:00.003-05:00

I may not blog much until Sunday or Monday - I'm off to San Diego for baby-but-not-little brother's graduation from Marine boot camp! Ooo-rah!

Chris Christie's Silver Lining

2009-09-30T22:12:00.003-05:00

Cross-posted from Blue Moose Democrat.

Everyone has something they bring to the table. US Attorney Chris Christie, the Republican nominee for Governor of New Jersey in this year's election, may have a few ethical questions, but no one is all bad. Seriously, I am a huge admirer of the level of fandom this guy has for Bruce Springsteen. I can only aspire to be Chris Christie. From the New York Times:

[Christie] has attended 120 Springsteen concerts, in places as far away as Paris and London, and once ducked out of a Trenton fund-raiser — “Gotta go, another event!” he said — and raced to Philadelphia, arriving at the Spectrum just as the band was cranking up “Badlands.”... Over the objections of aides, Mr. Christie is insisting he will attend Wednesday’s concert — despite a crucial debate on Thursday — and at least one more...

Mr. Christie said he did not have any illusions that he could win Mr. Springsteen’s endorsement. Asked how he would feel if Mr. Springsteen backed Mr. Corzine, he said that would be tough. “But in the end, I was a fan 34 years ago. I’d be a fan afterwards,” Mr. Christie said. “It is now just too much a part of my life.”

At times, the passion seems to overtake his life. In 2003, his second year as United States attorney, Mr. Christie went to 9 of 10 Springsteen concerts at Giants Stadium. He skipped one at the insistence of his wife, Mary Pat. “It gets to be a little much,” she said.

As a prosecutor, in preparation for a news conference after a major arrest, Mr. Christie would close his office door and pump himself up listening to songs like “Prove It All Night” and “Jungleland.”...

His wife got more than she bargained for in 2007 when he finally relented to her pleas for a Paris getaway: He checked the Springsteen tour schedule and proposed four days in Paris and four in London. “We can do whatever else you want to do,” he told her. “I just need two nights.”

CHRIS CHRISTIE, YOU ARE THE MAN. But that said, re-elect Jon Corzine anyway.

And in related news: the Boss has a new song!!

Bruce Springsteen performs his new song Wrecking Ball at Giants Stadium

(The photo, btw, is of a cowboy-hat wearing, sweat-drenched me at the Boston debut of the Seeger Sessions tour in 2006.)

I Love Trees!

2009-09-29T14:37:00.004-05:00

These pictures are amazing! NPR reports that Michael Nichols, a photographer for National Geographic, has come up with a new method that allows him to take a picture of an entire Redwood tree at once, something I had previously thought impossible.

National Geographic sent Nichols to spend an entire year in California's redwood forest. His mission was to capture the majesty of some of the tallest trees on Earth, some of which date back before Christ. And if you've ever photographed in a forest, you'll understand the challenge this presented. There's no capturing the awe one feels before these monoliths that measure, in some cases, upward of 300 feet.

In a recent lecture at National Geographic in Washington, D.C., Nichols described his frustrations. Eventually, though, he devised a way to do redwoods justice. It involved three cameras, a team of scientists, a robotic dolly, a gyroscope, an 83-photo composite and a lot of patience.

For a short video and a really cool slide show, visit the article at NPR.org.

On a related note, here are two of my Twitter Tweets from yesterday:

"It took me 3 weeks, but I finally went for a walk in the park by my house in Omaha - Miller Park with a golf course, trees, & a pretty pond." "Don't take your local parks and trees for granted! Embrace them! It is out in "nature" that we humans got our start. That is our home."

Musical Monday: Jars of Clay

2009-09-28T10:01:00.002-05:00

This song, "Silence" by Jars of Clay, came up on my iTunes shuffle the other day. I know I've heard it before since I've listened to the album the whole way through, but I can't say I remembered it. I really like it. It's haunting and it's searing; it is made even more powerful by the fact that the question, presumabley asked of God, is never answered: "Where are you?" And in that, I am reminded of one Friday morning when a holy man lay dying, and asked our God, His Father, "Why have you forsaken me?"

On Afghanistan, Health Care, and Glenn Beck

2009-09-27T09:45:00.000-05:00

I've had several substantive posts at my other blog, Blue Moose Democrat, the past few days:

On foreign policy: Why We Cannot Leave Afghanistan
On extremism: Glenn Beck's New Book: Dishonesty, Arrogance, And Racism At Their Finest
On health care: I Support The Baucus Plan
On race and politics: When Ignoring The Race Card Is Worse Than Playing It
On government: Discrediting Right Wing Lies About Obama's Czars
On psychological projection, Jon Kyl, and Debbie Stabenow: The Me-Centric Approach To Public Policy

The Episcopal Blogosphere On Baseball and Sarah Palin

2009-09-26T11:25:00.004-05:00

Two posts from around the Episcopal blogosphere I wanted to pass along - one political, one not.

The first is touching and fun. H/T Andrew Plus.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And in this second post, Padre Mickey notes that by her own party's standards, Sarah Palin may qualify as unpatriotic.

Remember back during the Dark Ages Bush Regime when the Dixie Chicks, while performing in England, stated that they were ashamed that George W. Bush was from Texas? Remember the furor which ensued? I recall hearing that it was wrong, treasonous even, to criticize the president while visiting a foreign land!

Sarah Palin went to a COMMUNIST country [China] and criticized President Obama. Of course, IOKIYAR, so her comments are probably Patriotic Commentary. And makes Baby Jesus happy.

Ring Your Church Bells 350 Times On October 25

2009-09-24T12:06:00.009-05:00

Bill McKibben, a scholar at Vermont's Middlebury College, may be the most prominent climate activist in the country. He's been behind many (most?) of the biggest global warming demonstrations, including a 2006 walk across Vermont that was at that time the largest anti-climate change action in history, a day of 1,400 decentralized protests around the country in 2007, and the annual DC college student gathering Power Shift. He is the author of many books about nature, climate change, and even faith.

McKibben's latest project is 350.org. 350 ppm of carbon is the sustainable limit for our planet, as in 350 parts of carbon out of every million parts of atmosphere. The planet currently sits at 390 ppm, a number that, if left unchecked, will raise ocean levels, raise ocean temperatures, and create drought in some regions. The phrase "350 or bust" is not just fancy rhetoric to paint on your car - if we don't get that low, scientists like IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri and NASA's James Hansen say that we WILL bust, end of story.

McKibben and his staff are organizing a "Day of International Climate Action" on October 24 to raise visibility for and awareness of 350 as a number and goal. It's easy to get involved: get a group together, register on 350.org, and then take a picture of y'all doing something to highlight the number in your community, like the pictures in this post (the one at right is a garden in Cameroon, and one below is using endangered Greenland ice!) and at 350's Flickr page. One simple thing you can do is ask your pastor or other church leader if your church can ring its bell 350 times, either on the Day of Action or the next day, a Sunday. Here's an e-mail with some great ideas sent to the Episcopal Ecologial Network list:

On Sunday, October 25th, parishioners from St. Paul's Memorial Church (Charlottesville, Virginia) will ring our church bell 350 times as part of an international campaign called 350.org to urgently call our community to awareness and action in addressing the global climate change crisis. 350 parts per million is the goal for this campaign as it is the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. Human activity currently emits 385 parts per million of CO2 globally and is rising rapidly, a trajectory that will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth. To tackle climate change we need to move quickly, and we need to act in unison—and 2009 will be an absolutely crucial year. This December, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to craft a new global treaty on cutting emissions. The problem is, the treaty currently on the table doesn't meet the severity of the climate crisis—it doesn't pass the 350 test. In order to unite the public, media, and our political leaders behind the goal of 350 ppm, 350.org is coordinating a planetary day of climate action on October 24, 2009.

Please note St. Paul’s is ringing bells on Sunday, the 25th, at 11:30 after our Sunday morning service. We invite all the churches in the Virginia Diocese and especially our local Region XV to join St. Paul’s in taking action on this day to support the 350 goal by ringing the church bell or hand bells 350 times. We held a similar bell-ringing event last December that included a letter-writing campaign, cookies for families, and banners created by our youth groups, and it was a memorable and compelling event. This year we are recruiting other churches in town so that on Sunday the 25th around noontime, our community will hear the church bells echoing from the hills.

Please see http://www.350.org/plan and St. Paul’s Green Team webpages for additional ideas and materials on how your congregation or community group can join in.

Top Ten Reasons Men Shouldn't Be Ordained

2009-09-23T10:23:00.002-05:00

Hilarious satire using the anti-women's ordination camp's logic to show why its actually MEN who shouldn't be ordained. Hey, same logic, same theology, different result - how can you argue with that? Excerpts from the list at christian feminism:

10. A man’s place is in the army.

9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.

6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments...

2. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, change the oil in the church vans, and maybe even lead the singing on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.

H/T the Rev. Scott Gunn's Twitter feed.

Musical Monday on a Tuesday: Andra Suchy and Garrison Keillor

2009-09-22T17:08:00.002-05:00

For fans of Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, etc., I give you Andra Suchy. I am banging my head on the wall, asking myself, how did I not hear of her sooner?

Health NGO Giants Lecture Dartmouth Freshmen

2009-09-21T10:38:00.005-05:00

Tracy Kidder's "Mountains Beyond Mountains" was the required freshmen reading book for the summer before the Class of 2009 (me) arrived at Dartmouth College. The book is about the amazing health work done in Haiti by Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, and Jim Kim's NGO, "Partners in Health." During orientation, we all attended a prominent geography professor's lecture about the book.

Mountains Beyond Mountains is also the book for the Class of 2013, but do they get a professor's leture? Nope. The little knuckleheads get a panel of Dahl, Farmer, and new Dartmouth president Kim. Wow; lucky twits. Worst class ever.

Dahl, btw, is the daughter of my favorite childhood author, Roald Dahl. Wow.

RIP, CDA Wine Cellar

2009-09-19T01:08:00.002-05:00

One of the best restaurants in Coeur d'Alene is closing. 'Twas my parents' favorite and my grandfather's favorite, and while I was never a huge fan of the food, it did have a great wine selection and atmosphere.

That's right, the one place for fine dining downtown that wasn't owned by Duane Hagadone - The Wine Cellar - is no more. This is big local news - almost everyone knows this establishment even if they've never been in. It was where my family ate the night my brother graduated high school. It was one of two places I went out with my parents this past summer. It shall be missed.

Get Out North Idaho has the full story.

See you next week (again)

2009-09-14T09:01:00.000-05:00

I will be spending the next few days on retreat at a Benedictine mission house for my new job in Nebraska. I'll be back in action here at Wayward by the end of the week. My political blog Blue Moose Democrat, on the other hand, has pre-written articles set to automatically post all week long, so be sure to check for new content there daily.

Musical Monday: The Little Willies

2009-09-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

Did you know that jazz icon Norah Jones also sings country music? Yup! In addition to her own albums, she is one of two lead singers for the band "The Little Willies," named for Willie Nelson. Here they are with one of Nelson's songs.

The Bible Is Long, Yet Life Is Short

2009-09-12T14:12:00.003-05:00

One problem – or at least, problematic challenge – with the Bible is that it packs far too much information into far too little space. This can be quite aggravating for someone trying to digest a book in only a few days.

Take Acts, a book I’ve been working through the past few days. The first four chapters alone are full of amazing stories with important meaning: the selection of a new Apostle, the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles, the use of many tongues, Peter’s sermons on the importance of Jesus and the meaning of Christianity, the lifestyle of the first Christian communities, Peter and John healing a man at the Temple, their arrest, Christ’s acceptance of Gentiles, and so forth. These stories raise so many questions:

What, if anything, do the lifestyles of the first Christians – “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need” – say about modern American consumerism and individualism?
Acts 1-4 make it clear that being a Christian is about far, far more than belief and evangelicalism. Do we, the current church, take the challenges of joining the Christian community and of sustaining our brothers and sisters seriously enough?
Peter seems to downplay the role of Pontius Pilate and the Romans in Christ’s crucifixion, focusing instead on the crowds, the Jews. Other New Testament passages make it clear that Christ’s relationship with the political powers of the day was instrumental in his death. So, what was the balance between the rejection of the crowds and the power of the government, and what is its importance?
What does it mean to be “Spirit-filled?” Is a born again experience, the descending of the Spirit, necessary to a Christian faith? Are Christian faiths that practice “speaking in tongues” grounded in strong theology? Is there a role for faith healing in the modern church?

John 6 is another action-packed passage. In just 71 verses – three pages in my Bible – we get the disciples’ doubt, the feeding of the 5000; Christ’s rejection of a crown; the calming of the storm; a lesson from Christ on the danger of seeing as believing and the importance of faith; Christ’s statements that He is the “bread of life,” that He will “Raise them up on the last day,” and that through Him we find “eternal life” (or, as Brian McLaren argues, “life of the ages”); part of the basis of the Eucharist; a verse that may support the doctrine of pre-destination; the disciples’ lasting commitment to Christ; and Christ’s prediction of Judas’s betrayal. All this IN JUST ONE CHAPTER!

So what is my point? It is this: anyone who claims to understand the Bible is almost assuredly speaking from a position of arrogance. There is far too much here to grasp in one lifetime. This is especially true of young Evangelicals. It takes decades of devoted, full-time historical, literary, and spiritual study to even begin to have a solid grasp on this material.

You might argue, but it has been said that God doesn’t give us anything that we can’t handle! And I would agree – but what does the world “handle” mean in this case? Perhaps we aren’t called to fully understand the Bible. Perhaps our call is to live a life of study, a life of challenge, and a life of constant growth, and to never wrap ourselves in the false arrogance of certainty. It is there in that constant state of immaturity and openness that we find Christ’s infinite love and acceptance.

Garrison Keillor Doing Well After Stroke

2009-09-10T11:36:00.001-05:00

Gut wrenching news - I'm so relieved it sounds like he'll be okay! Prayers! From CNN:

Garrison Keillor, author and host of the folksy radio show "A Prairie Home Companion," was being treated Wednesday for a minor stroke he suffered over the weekend, a hospital spokesman said.

Keillor, who turned 67 last month, was admitted to St. Mary's Hospital at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, on Sunday night, spokesman Karl Oestreich said in a news release.

"He is up and moving around, speaking sensibly, working at a laptop, and it's expected he'll be released on Friday," Oestreich said.

"He plans to resume a normal schedule next week."

Health Care Confusion, Glenn Beck, Van Jones, and More

2009-09-08T20:42:00.002-05:00

A reminder that my political posts are now at MyDD.com and Blue Moose Democrat. At Blue Moose Democrat today, I blogged about Van Jones and Glenn Beck, then shared several quality summaries of the proposed health care bills to help make sense of it all. Also, I blogged about Texas Governor Rick Perry in one post at MyDD and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd in another.

Musical Monday: Dropkick Murphys

2009-09-07T23:59:00.000-05:00

In honor of Labor Day, I give you the Worker's Song from the ever-awesome Dropkick Murphys.

See You Next Week

2009-09-01T21:25:00.000-05:00

I'm heading out tomorrow morning on a four-day grand roadtrip to Omaha, Nebraska, where I will spend the next nine months at a church job. Highlights of the road trip will include camping in Badlands National Park, seeing a dear college friend of mine, possibly hiking in the Bitterroot Mountains, and more. I was originally going to prepare blog posts to go up in my absence, but I didn't get around to it, so this will be the last entry until Saturday at the earliest. See you then!

Musical Monday: Elvis Presley

2009-08-31T04:10:00.001-05:00

Hathos. Pure hathos. I do apologize, but I can't help it.

From BMD: Nebraska Supreme Court Affirms Tribal Rights

2009-08-30T12:11:00.000-05:00

Cross-posted from my political blog, Blue Moose Democrat.

Great news from the Native American Rights Fund regrading tribal sovereignty and the Indian Child Welfare Act, one of the best pieces of legislation to come out of DC in recent decades. Gives me even more reason to look forward to next week's move to Omaha.

In a unanimous decision, the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed and remanded a decision by a Nebraska county court which had refused to allow the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska to intervene in a child custody case involving two children that are members of the Tribe. The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the absolute and unconditional right of an Indian tribe to intervene in a child custody proceeding under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)…

[NARF’s] amicus brief maintained that the Ponca Tribe has an absolute and unconditional federal right to intervene in the proceeding according the clear language of the ICWA and that the requirement that the Tribe be represented by a licensed attorney is preempted by the ICWA. Additionally, requiring a tribe to be represented by an attorney to intervene and participate in a state ICWA case would have a significant, detrimental effect on all tribes, including the infringement on tribal sovereignty… The Nebraska Supreme Court agreed with the Ponca Tribe and allowed the Tribe the right to intervene through its ICWA specialist, the Tribe’s designated representative.

[NARF] has published "A Practical Guide to the Indian Child Welfare Act." The Guide is intended to answer questions about the ICWA by people of all levels of familiarity with this important law, and to provide a comprehensive resource of information on the ICWA. The guide can be found on NARF’s website – www.narf.org.

NPR's Scott Simon: How to Tell a Story

2009-08-29T02:16:00.000-05:00