What's John thinking?

Shopping for Pants at Kohl's

2011-10-28T13:54:00.003-05:00

If my choice is between getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick or going shopping I will go shopping, but I would much prefer visiting the dentist. I shop only when there is no other choice, which became the case when I finally acknowledged that I have become shorter.

I had vaguely wondered why the cuffs of my pants were fraying so rapidly, and Susan finally noted that it might have something to do with the fact that they were dragging on the ground. The arthritic deterioration in my spine that has caused various unpleasant symptoms in recent years has now taken an inch or two of height from me. I needed an entire new pants wardrobe, so I steeled myself and headed for Kohl’s.

For those who do not know it, Kohl’s is a discount department store that sells decent-quality merchandise at reasonable prices and always has some sort of sale going. They regularly send us promotional material that requires us to peel off a sticker to learn the amount of our “special discount,” and on the most recent one we had won the Kohl’s lottery with the enviable 30% discount. Armed with my discount card I headed for Kohl’s on a Wednesday, which is Senior Discount Day, when everyone over the age of 60 gets an additional 15% off. My mission was to find pants that were already on sale and then take another 45% off the price. What could possibly go wrong?

I tried on a fair number of pants, most of which hung on my thin frame like burlap sacks. The fit categories appear to have shifted in the last few years. What they now call “natural fit” are pants that used to be called “relaxed fit,” and the trousers they now call “relaxed fit” should be called “bordering on obese fit.” I finally located a few pairs of “thin fit” pants in my new size, and, since I was going to get 45% off everything, also purchased a shirt and a few birthday gifts for our grandson.

Except when I got to the register I learned that my 30% discount card was not good until the next Monday (I failed to read the fine print), so I received only my senior discount. But I did get twenty “Kohl’s Dollars,” part of another promotion they were running. Since I still needed to replace my jeans, I would simply come back on Monday to get my 30% discount and spend my Kohl’s Dollars.

On Monday I found some jeans – in the “hip, urban young guy” department, which remarkably enough had a nice selection of thin fit Levis 511s (“second pair half price!”). When I took them to the register I received my 30% discount but learned that my Kohl’s Dollars were not good until Thursday (another failure to read the fine print). And to get my 30% discount I had to put the jeans on my Kohl’s account, which I did not have. I opened an account, purchased my jeans, and received – take a deep breath - another ten Kohl’s Dollars.

On Thursday I returned to Kohl’s with the thirty Kohl’s Dollars and my still-valid 30% discount card, determined not to let the Kohl’s Dollars expire, only to discover there was nothing in the entire store I wanted or needed. I picked out six pairs of nice socks, but since they were on sale I was still only halfway to my thirty Kohl’s Dollars. Which means that our grandson is going to have a very nice birthday.
I am done shopping for the foreseeable future. But the next time I need something from Kohl’s I plan to read all the fine print. Or take my accountant.

Reflections on Visiting Warsaw

2011-10-11T09:17:00.005-05:00

1. Poland is a country that it would never have occurred to us to visit without the Alzheimer Europe conference to draw us there, and one that does not offer a great deal of what normally motivates tourists to travel – not “world-class” museums, cathedrals, castles, architecture, cuisine, wildlife, etc. The language is more difficult than romance languages, direct flights from US cities are almost non-existent; on almost any version of a Life List of places to visit, it would have a hard time cracking the time 30. And yet for experiencing the sense of “other” that is one of the most rewarding joys of travel, it holds its own with far more storied destinations.

2. We can hardly claim to “know” Warsaw after six days, with more than half our time devoted to the conference and most of the rest of it to activities related to the conference (speaking at the university, visiting a nursing home and day care facility). And yet it is in doing the sorts of things that tourists rarely do that we can discover the strongest sense of “place.” One outcome was meeting Karisa, a teaching physician who was our driver to the nursing home, and with whom we somehow formed a connection sufficient to spend the afternoon with her on our final day, meeting in Wilanow to see the poster museum (hardly a major tourist draw), walk the grounds of the summer palace, and chat in a café, forming a friendship that will likely last.

We barely touched upon the few “must do” things that tourists typically do in Warsaw – we spent perhaps 50 minutes in Old Town, and we never saw New Town or the Royal Way. This may prove hard to explain to the few people we know who have been to Warsaw. But we became reasonably accomplished at navigating the bus system , wandered the streets of the Centrum district where our hotel was, and managed to stumble across wonderful dining experiences that were not to be found in any guide book, or even on the web. Among them:

3. The tiny, basement level Georgian restaurant where we ate on our second night. No English was spoken by the hostess/waitress, who we figured out likely owns and runs the place with her father, who does the cooking. We were served a heaping platter of lamb, eggplant stuffed with more lamb, tasty appetizers and drank Georgian wine (who knew there was such a thing?). And on our last night, while looking for a restaurant we never found, we stumbled into a charming place that served one of the most memorable meals we have ever eaten, including desserts that (we were informed) are considered by local folks to be the finest in the city.

4. Who would ever expect to become genuinely fond of a conference hotel? We ate dinner twice in their restaurant (three kinds of pierogies, all very tasty). As best we can recall, it was the first time we have spent six consecutive nights in the same hotel, and we were well taken care of. We came to know the staff in both bar and restaurant a bit (I was introduced to a vodka infused with “bison grass” that I wish we could get in the states). The hotel catered the coffee breaks during the conference with delightful pastries, provided very good lunches, and:

5. Our breakfasts were free and extraordinarily good – much food from which to choose, fancy espresso machines, and I finally found a juice – black current – that I enjoy with breakfast. Our room was of modest size, but very well equipped, with two desk chairs and two reading chairs, and had free Internet (once we purchased an Ethernet adapter for our MacBook Air). Given all these extras, our room was
6. Surprisingly affordable, as was all of Warsaw. We took $100 US in zlotys and hard a hard time spending it, something that conference delegates from other countries also noted. An excellent dinner for two with a decent wine runs maybe sixty dollars, bus tickets are about a dollar, a fine vodka three or four bucks. We have not calculated our total costs yet, but it is fair to say that, ignoring airfare, the week cost about half what we would have spent in major Western European cities.

7. Pretty much the only Polish word we learned to say more or less correctly (other than “yes” and “no”) was “thank you.” That and a smile will pretty much get you by most anywhere. Except maybe France.

8. Being in Poland brought back many of our childhood memories of the “Iron Curtain,” and our sense that behind that curtain there was nothing but a grey blanket of misery. Certainly there is much to remind a visitor of the horror and tragedy that has marked Polish history, particularly 20th century history, first with the German destruction and occupation, then with the Soviet oppression. But human beings in general and Poles in particular are remarkably resilient, and Warsaw is very much a modern European city (although still playing catch-up in a few respects) with an economy that is healthy by the standards of Greece, Ireland, Spain, etc. We saw many young professionals on the streets, well-dressed and gabbing into cell phones on their way to and from work. Likely the rural areas are a different story, but we had no sense whatsoever of Poland being backwards or Western Europe’s “poor relation.”

9. Our room looked out onto the “Centrum Rondo,” which utterly fascinated us. First, picture a four-lane roundabout in the very center of a major city, with all the drivers seeming to know what lane to be in. Now run trams through the roundabout in both north/south and east/west directions, with the traffic signals somehow taking them into account. Then imagine a world underneath the roundabout with dozens of shops (including some sort of brothel that “members” appear to have keys for) and 18 (my best guess/count) sets of stairs leading up and down. Only in our last two days did we succeed in surfacing where we wanted to on the first attempt. You want urban? Warsaw’s got it.

10. We discovered once more, (as we did this past summer in England) how much we enjoy being anywhere in Europe. We envy the friends we met at the conference their ability to travel just a few hundred miles and be in another country with its own language and culture, and how at ease they are in moving between them. Most everyone but us was fluent in two or three languages and can get by in several others. It is not that Europeans cannot be provincial, but they need to work harder at it. If our budget permitted it, three trips to Europe per year would feel just about right. Sadly, it does not. Next year’s Alzheimer Europe Conference will be in Vienna, where I have heard the pastries are pretty good. Barring the sudden death of a rich uncle (and neither of us has an uncle, rich or otherwise), it is hard to imagine attending. Hard, but not completely unthinkable. And finally:

11. We enjoyed all of our new European friends. But Italians still have the most fun.

The Center for Progressive Renewal: a GLBT future for the UCC?

2011-08-09T10:46:00.003-05:00

A few months ago I went to the Center for Progressive Renewal in Atlanta to be trained as a potential consultant to UCC congregations identified as having the potential to “turn around;” troubled or struggling churches that with a bit of guidance and direction might be able to flourish and grow again. I did not feel any particular sense of calling to become a consultant to congregations, but my dear friend Tony Robinson, himself a very successful church consultant, urged me to at least bring an open mind.

I was glad I went, first because I was able to renew friendships with some folks I had not seen in many years (Bill McKinney, retiring president of the Pacific School of Religion; Steve Sterner, who was about to retire from UCC Local Church Ministries; Ron Buford, who brought the “Still Speaking” Initiative into being; and, of course, Tony) and meet some wonderful folks who were new to me. But frankly, I had no real sense of what the Center for Progressive Renewal was all about. I had spent some time on their very slick website, and was mightily impressed by the ways in which they were using technology, but could not quite get a handle on their identity or mission.

The short version is that in an era where very few UCC Conferences can sustain a position in church development and renewal on their own staffs, the CPR is seeking to become a quasi-independent organization (they do not yet have their own 501c3 status but that is a part of their plan) that will take on this role, primarily for UCC churches but also for those belonging to other “progressive” judicatories. (I have confessed in a previous post that I struggle with the word “progressive,” so will not belabor it again here).

Their co-executive directors, Cameron Trimble and Mike Piazza, are bright and energetic. Cameron is startlingly young to be so accomplished (old guy perspective here), and recently migrated from the United Methodist Church to the UCC. Mike is the founding pastor of the Cathedral of Hope, a primarily GLBT congregation in Dallas that moved from the Metropolitan Community Church to the UCC some years ago, the largest congregation ever to join the UCC. They are supported by a dedicated and talented staff of part-time folks, with a strong focus on technology. This is a good thing: given how tight church and judicatory budgets are these days, the more that can be done on-line the better. In many important respects, they represent the future of church renewal, leadership development, coaching, etc.

They are very blunt about how they triage their consulting opportunities. They do not want to invest their limited resources in ventures not likely to succeed, which describes the overwhelming majority of UCC congregations. They believe that the future of the United Church of Christ is largely southern and primarily GLBT, meaning churches made up mostly of gay and lesbian Christians and the straight folks who like to hang out with them.

I have no real problem with either emphasis. The South is where population growth has been happening for decades, and the UCC has done a pretty miserable job of establishing itself there. Moreover, the South remains less secularized than other regions. In my view, it is hardly an accident that the Cathedral of Hope grew like wildfire in Dallas, even though it is not regarded as a “gay-friendly” part of the country. Dallas is arguably the “churchiest” of all major cities in the U.S.; every restaurant that serves Sunday brunch offers a discount if you bring your church bulletin, and department store ads still feature “church dresses.” Like everyone else in Dallas, GLBT folks want to be in church on Sunday morning. And being in a less gay-friendly region can help to build community not just among GLBT folks, but also among those who support them. Being lesbian parents is unremarkable in Seattle or Minneapolis, but it remains a challenge in the South.

So yes, there is a legitimate mission to strengthen and support GLBT congregations in the South, and yes, there is potential for meaningful growth in doing so. But then my list of problems with this strategy begins.

First, I am not nearly ready to abandon the thousands of congregations who do not fit the CPR’s vision. I still hold the conviction that small, aging congregations in areas where the population is stagnant or declining have opportunities not only to survive but to flourish if they can identify real community needs, particularly the needs of an aging population, and address them. Yes, the overall picture is glum, but I find it hard to believe that God no longer has any use for us above the Mason Dixon line.

Secondly, the GLBT emphasis brings me to the same issue I have had all along with the Still Speaking campaign, namely whether “everyone is welcome here!” is an adequate vision on which to hang the faith identity of a congregation. As Stan Hauerwas once expressed it, “I have the suspicion that God Almighty finds our genitals a good deal less fascinating than we do.” Or as a pastor of a thriving congregation recently said to my friend Tony, “Folks only come to this church looking for two things—a genuine experience of God’s presence and a safe place to talk about that experience.”

There is precious little interest in theology among the CPR staff, nor is there much desire to talk about Jesus. I would in no way want the UCC to be anything less than fully inclusive of GLBT folks, and it makes sense to me in certain regions of the country to emphasis that inclusiveness strongly and publicly, but I cling to the conviction that the calling of the church is to make Christian disciples out of us, whether we self-identify as gay or straight. Too many of our churches think that getting folks in the door and congratulating them for being such wonderful people is enough. It isn’t.

Finally, I wonder about the math in this formula for church growth and renewal. If ten percent of Americans self-identify as GLBT, and the UCC manages to attract—let us be remarkably optimistic here—ten percent of them to its congregations, our potential growth will be coming from 1% of the population.

I will continue to follow the work of the CPR and pray for its mission. I have offered myself as a resource person on addressing the issues and opportunities raised by aging and dementia, an offer that was politely received and, likely, promptly forgotten. Clearly it is not the right fit for me, but I welcome what they bring to the table and do not want to underestimate the good that God can bring out of their sincere efforts.

A few kind words for the Established Church

2011-08-01T11:31:00.004-05:00

I have promised to write more about the United Church of Christ on this blog, but have been distracted by our recent trip to England to visit Memory Cafes, which I encourage you to read about on our Aging Together blog. During that trip we spent three days with Rob Merchant, a gerontologist and theologian who serves as rector to seven small Anglican parishes in rural Gloucestershire. I had the privilege of preaching in two of these churches (the “new” one was constructed in the 16th century while the oldest dates to the 11th) to congregations ranging from seven to twelve.

While we in mainline Christianity make a lot of noises about the loss of our privileged position as the de facto “established church” in America, this was my first experience with a truly established church (it is, after all, called “the Church of England”) and what it means to serve as faithful pastor in such a setting. Here are a few thoughts and observations of some relevance to those of us living and serving in the twilight of mainline Protestant Christianity in America.

1. We should never underestimate the loyalty of members to their churches, or the deep emotional and spiritual investment of those with a multi-generational history in their congregations. In practical terms it makes no sense whatsoever to try to keep these seven rural churches going. Try to imagine the maintenance issues associated with a building that is eight centuries old. The dream of one congregation is to have a working toilet in the church building, but the engineering challenges make this impossible (in rural England, remember to pee before leaving for church). Somehow they find a way to do the repairs that simply must be done to the buildings, and to maintain the cemeteries that serve as history books for the entire village. The practical thing would be to close four or five of the churches and merge them into two or three viable congregations, and one day it may come to this. But the deep center of identity and meaning these churches provide to their members suggests that they will put that day off as long as possible.

2. Rob’s predecessor served those churches for 30 years, and provided the people of the villages with the same consistent message: you are a member of the parish by virtue of living within it; you do not need to attend worship to be a good Christian (although showing up on Easter, Christmas Eve and Boxing Day is good form); and the church will always be here for you. Rob is more or less stuck with the first point, is gently trying to correct the second, and is deeply committed to the third. While the seven churches combined rarely draw a total of 100 persons to Sunday worship, he serves as caring pastor to a flock of about 3,000 souls.

3. Not all of those souls are Anglican souls. We accompanied him on a visit to an older couple, the husband an acclaimed artist with dementia (you can read their story on the Aging Together blog). She is a Roman Catholic, but the closest Catholic parish is in the city of Gloucester, quite some distance from the village of Hartpury. She clearly regards Rob as her pastor, and gratefully shares in the Eucharist with her “vaguely Christian” spouse. If I had in any way associated the Established Church with a certain degree of arrogance, what I witnessed was precisely the opposite – humble and faithful service to all in need.

4. In American Protestantism, whether Evangelical or Mainline, busyness itself is counted a virtue and a wide range of groups and programs is considered essential to a vital church. It is assumed that a church that is not growing in numbers and planning its next expansion project is somehow failing the test of faithfulness. Worship must be a major production where no detail is overlooked. As I participated in my first Anglican Evensong, trying to find my place in various service books that were older than I am (everyone else present was apparently born already knowing the practices and traditions), I had reason to question these assumptions. When the time came for my meditation, I abandoned my carefully-prepared notes and simply reflected aloud on our texts, deeply aware of how connected we were to God and one another through this simple and ancient act of worship.

Economic realities may ultimately lead to the demise of some of these congregations, but they have persisted faithfully with far fewer resources than many of our small Mainline congregations that are labeled “declining” or “dying.” Their doors, by the way, are never locked; that would be unthinkable. They are the settings where young couples marry and the dead are remembered and grieved. They are the entire village’s anchor in the transcendent realm, the embodiment of their highest aspirations and ideals. They are where the God revealed in Jesus Christ is encountered in worship. And that is enough, it is more than enough.

Churchy thoughts: the UCC is in crisis

2011-07-11T15:48:00.004-05:00

I have allowed this blog to lie fallow for a number of months as I focused on completing my Goodwill chaplaincy and sorting out the pattern for life’s next stage. I am now officially a “retiree,” at least in the sense that I am no longer receiving a paycheck (thank you, UCC pension boards; bless you, social security!). My primary focus for the coming year will be on the work Susan and I are doing on dementia, friendship and community. This will include a fair number of speaking engagements and a bit of travel. We leave for England next week, where we will visit four towns with active Memory Café programs. Their models vary slightly, which will help us sort out which model will be the best fit for the program we hope to initiate here. In October we will both present papers at the Alzheimer’s Europe Conference in Warsaw and Susan will return to Europe for a conference in November.

But I also want to make service to the church a part of the new mix, so I would l would like to do some reflecting on the state of the church and my possible role within it in a series of posts. Those not interested in churchy posts can feel free to tune out for a month or two.

Let’s start with an ugly truth: the United Church of Christ is in tatters. Until about six weeks ago, I do not realize how rapidly its decline has accelerated. We have 38 Conferences, or regional judicatories. At least ten are now hanging by a thread: in or near bankruptcy, without any full-time staff, etc. Our own Wisconsin Conference, among the healthiest in comparative terms, has just “right-sized” its own staff in a manner that will radically change how it resources its member congregations. The average age of UCC members across the country is 62. More than half of its congregations are, at best, fragile; many will never again be served by a full-time ordained minister.

Why? A big piece of it is not UCC-specific—the role of religion in American life is greatly diminished across the boards. Young adults are disaffiliating from congregations at six times the historic rate, and many will not be coming back. The United States is becoming France (and not only because our artisan cheese is getting better).

UCC congregations are disproportionately located where populations are declining—across the northern tier of states, in dying small towns and rural areas and in inner cities where demographics have changed. We were too slow out of the gate in founding congregations in high-growth areas, and now lack the resources to do so.

We also pretty much bet the farm on the idea that if we just got the word out about how swell we are because we include everyone, folks would break down our doors. But our big “everyone is welcome here!” campaign probably helped the Unitarian-Universalists more than it helped the UCC. After all, if your core identity is built around inclusiveness, why exclude non-Christians? The principal outcome of our “Still Speaking” campaign was to make us the favorite church of young adults who have no interest in being part of a church.

These things hold true to varying degrees for the other denominations that used to be called “mainline.” The new word, it seems, is “progressive,” which I detest, because it essentially says to other church bodies “we are progressive and you are not.” It is more a political term than a theological one, and it is not playing particularly well in the political realm these days either. As my friend Tony Robinson puts it: “mainline churches used to be the ‘default choice’ for selecting a church home, and the ‘default’ is now Evangelical.” It never occurred to us that this could happen. How could anyone not choose us when we were so welcoming, inclusive, and justice-minded? Turns out folks wanted to develop a personal relationship with the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Who could have guessed?

So now I have made a significant commitment to the Wisconsin Conference of the UCC in sorting out how we may serve God faithfully in a challenging era where we no longer sit at the head of the table of American Christianity (hopefully we have not yet been relegated to the card table set up in the kitchen). Challenged though it may be, the Wisconsin Conference still has a great deal going for it. We have been shaped by a robust theology, a rare thing in the UCC. Our folks are wonderfully loyal overall, to their God and to their wider church family. We need to find a way to continue in faithful witness and service with virtually no resources from the national office, which has pretty much run out of creative ways to rearrange the deck chairs as the ship goes down. We represent an important tradition within the Christian family, a tradition that is unique in significant ways. I believe that God is still capable of getting some good out of us. I have a few stories to tell—about a strange and disturbing center in Atlanta, about the Ethiopian eunuch and a few other things. Yes folks, it is all-church all-the-time on this blog for awhile!

Why I cannot rejoice in Bin Laden's death

2011-05-02T17:28:00.002-05:00

Osama Bin Laden was a very wicked man who perpetrated great evil. He was the enemy not only of the United States, but of civilization itself. Doubtless it is a better world, arguably a safer one (although in the short term it will likely be even more dangerous), with him removed from it.

Yet I cannot rejoice in any violent death, not even that of a wicked man, for it necessarily continues the cycle of violence itself. I have never found the argument that capital punishment serves as a deterrent convincing, and I am equally skeptical that Al Qaeda will be deterred from future terrorist activity by Bin Laden’s execution. Fanatics who regard suicide bombing as a spiritually noble way to die are not likely to be dissuaded by the threat “we will bring you to justice, no matter how long it takes!”

There are many lost souls in our world, some of those souls terribly warped and twisted. Bin Laden clearly was in that latter category. I am not saying that he should not have been put to death (certainly he would not have permitted himself to be taken alive), merely that I cannot rejoice in it. My faith teaches that rejoicing is the proper response when a lost soul is reclaimed, not when a lost soul is executed. It had to be done: I understand that, even agree with it. And yet I grieve my own complicity in the cycle of responding to violence with violence.

There is a bit of irony in the timing of his death. After nearly ten years of armed conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bin Laden is finally killed just as the Arab world begins to embrace freedom and democracy rather than the path of hatred he taught. The young in particular, those whose frustration made them so ripe for recruitment by Al Qaeda, are coming to believe that they have the power to shape a better future. People who believe in their future are not likely to become suicide bombers.

Some are claiming that Bin Laden’s death marks the end of a dark era, and I hope and pray that will prove to be true. In the real world eras never end tidily, of course. Some Al Qaeda cells will likely endure for years, even decades. More grievous acts of terror will occur, we will retaliate, and that retaliation will then be used as a tool to recruit more to the path of terrorism. That is how the cycle has always worked: violence cannot bring an end to violence.

What can? Hopes and dreams. In the end we all want the same things: a safe and decent world in which to raise children, friendship and community, love and laughter, and the freedom to pursue our hopes and dreams. Bin Laden is dead. May new hopes and dreams be born in the imaginations of both those who idolized him and those who hated him.

Whining About the Weather

2011-04-19T11:16:00.001-05:00

Those who deny the reality of climate change resulting from human activity like to point to each unexpected cold spell as “proof” that there is no such thing as “global warming.” But the climate change models argue that even as the overall temperature of the planet (as averaged over the course of the year) continues to rise, this increase will be accompanied by more extreme swings in local weather patterns. Columnist Thomas Friedman has given this phenomenon a name: “Global Weirding.”

Today it is feeling very weird indeed as we await the arrival of a major snowstorm on April 19. If the predicted 6-8 inches materialize, many of us will face an ethical dilemma: are we morally required to shovel wet, heavy snow that will be gone within three days? If the snowplow comes through, we will likely have no choice—the snow-blower that I put away for the year weeks ago will be summoned back to duty. Oh, and the ice scrapers and brushes are back in the cars while my snow tires are sitting on a rack at the tire store.

What a spring! Last week we were in the 70s, and I got my yard work started even as the massive storms that spawned multiple tornados and hailstorms approached. Raking out the lawn was like cleaning up a battlefield: there were many patches of fur and feathers, testifying that our feeders created a buffet table for the local hawks over the winter. Sadly, the hawk to rabbit ratio was not nearly high enough, and the rabbits did their usual damage, girdling all the forsythia and mowing down the raspberries among other insults. My estimate of the final score is rabbits 6, hawks 2, McFadden 0.
Last year I was able to start planting spring vegetables in late March. Given how wet the ground is (and how much wetter it is about to become), this year it may be June before the first seed is planted. Bah!

Being as I am a 63-year-old ordained clergyperson, one might reasonably assume that I have cultivated rich gifts of wisdom and patience that enable me to place such minor inconveniences in proper perspective. I know, for example, that God is good and is present to us in all circumstances. I know that it is our relationships with others that give life joy and meaning. I know a lot more stuff like that. But I reserve my right to whine.

News Fatigue

2011-03-30T09:44:00.000-06:00

Is anyone else feeling overwhelmed by the effort to follow world events right now? I generally feel obligated to remain aware of current events, to have some understanding of them, and—at least on a good day—to hold an opinion about them. I confess that the largely peaceful revolution in Egypt, one of the most significant events of our young century, has pretty much slipped off my screen entirely. Libya is front and center right now, with a shifting cast of characters too complex for me to absorb. Gaddafi is clearly a bad guy, a very bad guy. The rebels are the good guys, unless they later prove not to be. The U.S. military played the limited (and highly effective) role promised and then, also as promised, pulled back and turned enforcement of the no-fly zone over to NATO. Which is dominated by the U.S. In a most encouraging sign, the Arab League is supporting this operation. Except when it isn’t. Some argue that the U.S. took too active a role; others insist that we need to “finish the job” by deposing Gaddafi. And all of this is changing hour by hour.

That does not leave much time or energy to focus on what is happening in Yemen, Syria, or the other nations where pro-democracy forces are challenging entrenched power, because I also need to pay attention to what is happening in Japan. And earthquake so powerful that my imagination can barely grasp it, followed by a tsunami of incredible destructive force. Many lives lost, others profoundly disrupted. A Japanese economy that may require years to recover, sending ripples around the globe. Crippled nuclear reactors are leaking radioactivity in a tense drama that has skittish people in the American Midwest popping iodine pills. The future of nuclear energy is being passionately debated, with persuasive arguments being made on both sides of the issue. I will share my opinion if you wish, but it will likely be different tomorrow.

These momentous events have pushed U.S. politics out of the headlines almost entirely, but Washington is rapidly approaching another impasse over the federal budget that this time, some pundits believe, may result in a government shut-down. That did not work out particularly well the last time it happened. And here in Wisconsin, the budget bill Governor Walker signed is now officially a law, unless it isn’t, so some municipalities are enforcing it and some are not. Chaotic and confusing? You bet. Democracy is always a messy affair, but in these divisive, contentious times, we appear to be teetering on the edge of complete dysfunction.

I try to read two newspapers each day and read "The Economist" each week, as well as following events on the web and radio. It is beginning to feel like a full-time job, and not a particularly enjoyable or encouraging one. So I am grateful for the sports section, and the beginning of baseball season. The world may be crumbling around us, but if the Brewers can stay healthy, we have a real shot at the post-season this year. The snow will melt, the crocuses will bloom, and the umpire will bellow “Play Ball!” The substance of hope has been built on far less than this: God is good and all, somehow, will be well.

Wisdom Born of Tragedy

2011-03-16T13:14:00.005-06:00

From time to time I share thoughts from others on this page. This is a portion of an essay that my friend Debra Dean Murphy, Assistant Professor of Religion at West Virginia Wesleyan College, wrote in the aftermath of the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

“The indiscriminate destruction caused by earthquakes and tsunamis messes with our sense of cosmic justice. It shatters our romantic views of nature and of divinity–the silliness we often succumb to when we credit God with a beautiful sunset or a striking cloud formation. It silences, thankfully, if only for awhile, the bad theology of Everything Happens for a Reason. (That the Japanese are the only people to have suffered a nuclear attack and are now at grave risk for prolonged radiation contamination is a particularly cruel irony that ought to leave us in stunned silence.)

This kind of “natural” devastation also reminds us of how little control we really have in this life, despite our considerable efforts to manage, contain, and forestall the unforeseeable. We know this in personal, intimate ways–a loved one stricken with cancer, say–but we seem so willing to buy into the lie that we can preempt disaster with our cleverness and moral resolve (and a few billion dollars).
A decade of rhetoric about “homeland security” has trained us to think that we can make our country safe from outside attack, that, indeed, we must value and pursue security above all else. Politicians routinely campaign on such ideas, counting on an edgy, fearful electorate to latch on to any promise to keep us from harm–no matter how dubious or contrived.

But life is fragile, peace is always precarious, and the earth itself no respecter of persons or property. One gigantic wave and whole populations are decimated; one seismic shift and time itself is altered.

If there’s a lesson in this most recent tragedy (and it’s generally a bad idea to go looking for one), it’s that humans exist in a complex, interdependent web of relations with each other and with a planet that is sometimes inhospitable to our habitation of it. It was as instructive as it was terrifying to anticipate and track the waves that washed up on the California coast as the tsunami made its inevitable way westward. What happened in Japan didn’t stay in Japan.

Because corporations have written the dominant narrative of our time–that we exist to consume their products and that this is made possible by the easy flow of capital, goods, services, and labor across increasingly permeable borders, we might think that it is free market capitalism which binds us together, making us “one world.” But in fact the earthquake and tsunami have revealed our common humanity and common destiny, reminding us that we have always been linked to our neighbors near and far, and that consumerism won’t save us but acknowledging our mutual dependence and shared vulnerability just might.”

Air Travel and High-Tech Luggage

2011-03-02T10:31:00.001-06:00

In the coming months, Susan and I hope to have many speaking opportunities based upon our soon-to-be-published book, Aging Together: Dementia, Friendship and Flourishing Communities, which means that we will be living the life of Road Warriors. This is fine if the speaking engagement is in a place close enough to drive to, but air travel will be a part of the picture, and air travel has become increasingly unpleasant and uncertain. For example, we have an upcoming workshop in Quincy, Illinois. If you are flying from Appleton to Quincy, there is but one sequence of three flights that will get you there the same day, which leaves a lot of room for things to go wrong. Even though the sponsoring organization will pay travel costs, I have been hesitant to book the flights, thinking it might be safer, even faster, to drive.

It was pondering this next phase of life that set me to studying our luggage this past weekend. We own three suitcases: Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear. Of the bear family, only Baby qualifies as a carry-on, and on smaller planes “carry-on” now means “plane-side check.” Which is why I have tended to use my duffel bag for travel whenever possible: I have never met the overhead bin it could not be stuffed into. Susan also has a duffel bag, which unlike mine is not held together with duct tape. Duffels are great when you need to run from one end of an airport to the other (if you don’t mind having your belongings crash into your hip with each step), but a contemporary carry-on with clever wheels and a handle has virtues of its own. We decided to venture out to see what options we might find in luggage departments.

We quickly found what seemed to be the perfect carry-on for our needs. It was reasonably priced. It appeared to be rugged and featured a clever padded compartment for a laptop that permits easy access for going through airport security. It appeared perfect until we actually opened it: between the framework for the handle and the laptop compartment, there was only enough room left inside for two pairs of underwear and a clean set of socks. Yes, we have reached the point where luggage has become so clever that it no longer works as luggage. We examined a bewildering range of carry-ons, some with as many as eight wheels spinning in various directions. In the end we purchased a duffel bag. I tossed my beloved duct-taped bag into the trash and donated Papa Bear to Goodwill (I cannot imagine ever checking a suitcase again for a trip shorter than a week). Even with our aging bodies, we will be tossing duffel bags over our shoulders for all trips that feature tight schedules.

Overall I believe that technological advancement is a good thing. I also grudgingly admit that air travel works remarkably well most of the time. But if I really need to be someplace the same day and it is less than 500 miles away, tossing the duffels in the back of the car makes a lot of sense. I am willing to buy my own peanuts.

John Calvin goes to Madison, Wisconsin

2011-02-20T15:54:00.000-06:00

The heated battle over the state budget is the single most divisive issue to unfold in Wisconsin in the nearly thirty years I have lived here. I cannot pretend to neutrality in the matter—I am married to a state employee, a professor in the UW system who will likely have no choice but to retire early if the budget bill passes in its present form. But while I admit to having a dog in the hunt, I grieve even more deeply the “take no prisoners” tone of the battle, the complete absence of discussion and debate, and the demonization of the opposing view that is coming from both sides of the aisle (even though one side of the aisle has gone missing, so to speak).

Every faith tradition has specific forms of wisdom and experience to offer in contentious public conflicts such as this one. My own tradition is Reformed Protestantism, which is deeply rooted in the teachings of John Calvin. Calvinism has always insisted that the essential nature of human beings is sinful and corrupt, which makes us appear a grim bunch to those who insist that human beings are essentially good and decent with a spiritual essence made up of puppy dogs, rainbows and unicorns. To them we reply that we are merely realists, and that acknowledgement of our sinful nature is essential if we are to have any chance of overcoming it.

So one perspective that a Calvinist brings to any contentious public policy matter is the knowledge that one’s own virtue is suspect and one’s own opinions are likely flawed, because truth and wisdom belong to God alone. This is why Calvinism has a long tradition of lively debate. “Debate” does not mean screaming at one’s opponent, but rather listening carefully and openly to one’s opponent before responding. We have a great fondness for Isaiah 1:18: “’Come now, let us reason together’ says the Lord.” In practice, this has sometimes taken the form of requiring you to state your opponent’s position to his or her satisfaction before stating your own. When you know yourself to be a sinner and your opponent to be a sinner as well, you are less likely to come out of your corner swinging. You need one another’s partial grasp of the truth if you are to have any hope of getting closer to the actual truth. When you understand the pervasive power of sin, you are more likely to be humble.

Another perspective offered by Calvinist thought is that the quest for truth cannot be rushed, for the Spirit does not act in accordance with our hurried timetables. In our tradition, if there was conflict in the community—not an uncommon event—and reasoning with one another hit a wall of stubborn pig-headedness, a wise elder was likely to call for a “season of prayer.” All discussion and debate was set aside, sometimes for days or even weeks, so that those holding opposing views could pray for and with one another. Only when all in the community agreed that they were in “right relationship” with one another was discussion permitted to resume. If they hit a wall again, well, time for another season of prayer. The goal was not for one side to emerge the winner, but for the entire community to come to consensus on how they might best put God’s will into practice. It sounds quaint; very 17th century, but I think there is wisdom here that speaks to our own era, in which politics has become a blood sport.

Given all that is at stake in the budget battle and how many lives it will impact, including the lives of future generations, there is much to be said for slowing things down and backing away from the ugly acrimony in order to reason together, even pray for one another. When anyone says “there will be no negotiation and there can be no compromise,” Calvin would say that is the voice of human sinfulness. I have strong opinions about this budget debate, certainly, but I know that they are shaped in part by my own self-interests. Knowing that, I must be prepared to compromise with those who disagree with me, who are neither better nor worse people than I am. Real solutions are born only when we acknowledge our own limitations and reach out to one another.

Egypt, Democracy and Facebook

2011-02-11T15:40:00.000-06:00

"The struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience." ~Howard Zinn

We are constantly swimming in a sea of information, sometimes too much information. Intelligence agencies are continuously monitoring the activities of both governments and individuals, appearing to know everything about everyone. How remarkable, then, that major social upheavals can still take us completely by surprise. Tiananmen Square. The Berlin Wall. And now Egypt. Largely non-violent, these revolutionary events have changed the face of the globe, and nobody saw them coming. Even though the initial protests were quelled, Tiananmen Square proved a pivot point in China’s journey towards embracing capitalism and greater openness. The fall of the Berlin Wall cast its ripples throughout the Warsaw Pact nations, leading to the demise of the Soviet Union.

What sort of ripples will a newly democratic Egypt spread through the entire Arab world? It is much too soon to say, but it would be betting against history to underestimate its impact. I suspect that many other heads of state in the region are beginning to ponder Plan B. What millions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost in warfare could not accomplish in the Middle East has now been achieved by young Egyptians with dreams of freedom and self-determination, walking with candles rather than marching with weapons.

American democracy in our time is at best a messy affair (as each election season reminds us) where special interest groups with deep pockets wield far too much influence. Democracy is an imperfect and dangerously vulnerable system of government. The only thing you can say it its favor is that the other systems are far worse. We take the best in democracy for granted and likely exaggerate its flaws. Our first response to what Egypt has accomplished should be one of deep gratitude for the blessing of democracy. The second should be renewed determination to make American democracy worthy of imitation by those who hunger for this blessing (we have some work to do on that one).

It is interesting to reflect on the role of communications technology in these dramatic social upheavals; faxes and emails in the first two, and social media in Egypt. It appears that the entire Egyptian revolution began with a single Facebook page. The free exchange of ideas and information has always been the most formidable enemy of dictatorship, and we have now reached the technological threshold where even the most sophisticated government censors cannot seal their borders from the world. The next time I find myself griping about the pointless frivolity of Facebook I will remind myself of its very real power and potential as a force for freedom and justice. Were I in charge of American foreign policy and military power, I would build fewer tanks and make more Facebook “friends.”

The Cult that Unites Us

2011-01-28T13:38:00.002-06:00

I am more of a baseball guy than a football guy, but a season like this one makes rabid Packers fans of all of us. We have friends in Milwaukee whose ignorance of football is nearly complete; they have but the vaguest understanding of the rules of the game, and are clueless about the various positions played on offense and defense. Yet during the Ravens game, while eating in a very good restaurant, Anne was following the score on her phone, whooping whenever the Packers scored. “I’ve been programmed!” she said. “I have been indoctrinated into a cult!” The wonder is that it required eight years of living in Wisconsin before she realized the obvious.

Being members of a cult leads us to engage in superstitions behaviors. For the last three games I have worn my “1996 NFC Champions” sweatshirt, and that shirt clearly affected the outcome of the Bears game in particular. Since I wore that shirt for the Packers’ victory in Superbowl XXXI, I certainly need to wear it for this year’s game, right? But I will be flying home from a meeting in Mississippi during the Superbowl (bad planning on my part, I know), and a part of me wonders if wearing it while not watching the game could backfire. As a pastor and theologian, I reject superstition and magical thinking of all kinds. Except when the Packers are in the Superbowl.

Then there is the curious case of the makeshift shrine at the Festival Foods near our home. On a whim, the produce manager made a Packers logo out of green and yellow peppers two days before the NFC championship game. Customers came flocking to take pictures of it, and it went viral on Facebook. Now they have no choice: it must stay in place through the Superbowl, which means regularly replenishing the peppers. Many famous religious shrines were likewise first erected in a moment of spontaneous gratitude or hope, but all those of which I am aware were constructed of more durable materials.

Most religions require their followers to engage in disciplined practices (like wearing a 15-year-old sweatshirt) and hold certain places to be sacred (like the Festival produce section). But, you may ask, do most religions not also honor venerated figures who represent wisdom and truth? For that we have St. Vince, whose words are likely being read from at least as many pulpits as the words of St. Paul. Paul may have taken the Gospel to all the world, including Rome, but he never made it to the Superbowl.

My friends in Milwaukee are Jewish and I am a Christian, so the Packers cult is clearly interfaith. Many, including myself, lament the division and conflict between the world’s great religious traditions. Perhaps we have found the solution: Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist – all are welcome to gather in the produce section to affirm our common bond and proclaim our mutual loyalty to the green and gold. What’s not to like about a cult that includes foam cheesheads and nachos?

When Winter was Really Winter

2011-01-21T16:05:00.001-06:00

Thirteen below when I got up this morning; our annual “cold snap” has arrived. 1983 was my first year in Wisconsin. In December we hit minus 28 and it stayed below zero for five straight days. I thought that every winter was going to be like that, and briefly questioned the wisdom of moving here. Fortunately, I have since learned that such bitter spells are not common, even here in the Wisconsin tundra. The days are getting noticeably longer, the seed catalogues have arrived, and the Brewers pitchers and catchers report to spring training on February 16. For baseball fans, that day marks the official end of winter, so I know I am going to get through.

In younger days, when we lived in New Jersey, we used to take winter vacations at a friend’s cabin in the mountains of northern New Hampshire. With no weather forecasts available to us, we drove marginal cars through fierce snowstorms in mountain passes, too young and stupid to be frightened. Mountaineering skis were essential transportation for folks who lived up in the mountains, because cars could be useless for days on end. One night the temperature got close to minus forty, and this ignorant flatlander had left the parking brake set on his Fiat. It was several days before I could get it unfrozen.

Local folks called cold spells like that “Sally sit by the fire” days, and the world pretty much shut down. Winter decoration consisted of hanging old blankets in the doorways of the warmest room, usually the kitchen, and moving the bedding in there. One neighbor simply gave up on indoor plumbing for the worst part of winter—he kept the seat for the outhouse hanging above the wood stove in the kitchen and tried to make it to the outhouse while it still had a bit of warmth to it. I’m told that the rangers who overwinter on Isle Royale still do the same thing.

Our expectations have changed a great deal over the decades, largely thanks to improved technology. We expect the plows to keep roads open no matter how heavy the snow and the furnace to keep our house warm no matter how low the thermometer plummets. We do not like to be inconvenienced, by the weather or anything else.

Albert Borgmann, a philosopher whose work I admire, laments our increasing dependence upon technological devices, arguing that we have lost important “focal practices” that once formed and shaped us. Take the wood stove that heats our cabin in the U.P. It forces me to secure firewood every year, then to split, stack and dry it. I have learned a bit about different woods and how they burn, and how to tend the stove to maintain a reasonably comfortable temperature. It shapes the rhythm of the day. Every half hour or so I am poking it or adding wood, and if I leave the cabin for too long I need to start a new fire.

Here at home, if I am chilly I tap the touch screen of a thermostat of such sophistication that I only vaguely understand how it works, and it calls for heat from a furnace that I don’t have a clue how to fix if it conks out on me. It is all very convenient, to be sure. But sometimes I ponder all the skills we have lost to our increasing dependence upon technology, and wonder if our lives are poorer for it. Winter used to force us to slow down, make adjustments, change our plans. Now we maintain our busy schedules no matter what, griping and grumbling over the smallest delay or inconvenience. Winter was in some ways more enjoyable when we had to take it seriously.

"Blood Libel"

2011-01-14T09:47:00.004-06:00

Note: I am focusing almost entirely on my "Aging Together" blog (see link) these days. I will mostly use this site to repost articles from my Goodwill blog that are not "Goodwill"specific." Like this one.

The tragic and horrific shootings in Arizona have precipitated national debate on a number of issues, including gun control (good luck on that one), our mental health treatment system, and—most broadly—the nature of political discourse in our nation, and its potential to precipitate anger and violence.

Sarah Palin has been a central figure in much of this debate because she, it is argued, has employed particularly violent metaphors (“don’t retreat; reload!”) and sponsored an ad that featured crosshairs superimposed on the 8th congressional district where Congresswoman Giffords serves.

How, or if, these things are connected no-one can say. There is no evidence that the disturbed young man who attempted to assassinate the congresswoman, taking many other lives in the effort, was politically motivated in the conventional sense. As Palin and many others have pointed out, violent images in American political discourse are hardly a new phenomenon. My guess is that we will see a scaling back in this kind of violent imagery in political discourse, at least for a period of time, and that can only be a good thing. There will always be a small number of emotionally-disturbed persons teetering on the edge of some sort of violent action, and when society sets clear moral boundaries it may help them to reign in such impulses. And less exposure to angry, violent images would certainly benefit society as a whole in countless ways.

So I was minded to view the emerging national debate precipitated by this tragedy as an opportunity for positive change rather than an opportunity to cast blame. But more recently my jaw dropped when Ms. Palin, defending the images she has used, employed the term “blood libel.” I can only assume that she, like most Americans, was not aware of the origin of this ugly phrase. It dates to the first century, a time of tension and conflict between Jewish and Christian communities marked by bizarre rumors and accusations from both sides. Jews were accused of mixing the blood of Christians in with the matzos prepared for the Passover, and were alleged to especially prize the blood of Christian children and infants. It gets much worse than I care to describe: the Christian children were allegedly tortured in unspeakable ways before being ritually sacrificed.

These accusations (or blood libel) were revived again and again throughout history They figured prominently in the Nazi persecution of Jews that led to the Holocaust, and still play a role in undergirding anti-Semitism today. The term “blood libel” should never, ever be used in any context other than making reference to its ugly role in breeding anti-Semitism.

Any of us who have ever inserted our foot in our mouth, making things worse rather than better (which is pretty much all of us) should have some sympathy for Ms. Palin. I would be pleased and grateful if she were to acknowledge that it was a serious error to use this hurtful, hateful term, but that is not likely to happen. I trust that it will not be used again, by Ms. Palin or anyone else in public life. Words matter; words can be weapons, words literally can kill. And when words are used on a public stage, their power to wound, or heal, is magnified. We should expect and demand public discourse that uplifts rather than denigrates the human condition.

The Church of the Holy Snow Blower

2010-12-13T15:00:00.001-06:00

During my years in parish ministry, there was nothing I dreaded more than a major snowstorm on a December weekend. December services were carefully planned and rehearsed. They often involved many people – an orchestra, perhaps, or all the children of the church school dressed like shepherds and wise men. I wanted a large congregation present to appreciate their efforts. More importantly, I needed all the participants to be there. And then there was the financial impact to worry about. Most Christian churches in America receive about 30% of their annual income during the month of December. Having a single Sunday wiped out by a storm could be the difference between making the budget and finishing the year with a deficit. So I stewed and worried when the snow started falling on a Saturday evening.

In the 23 years of my Appleton pastorate, I never canceled a Sunday service. There were a few Sundays where I somehow managed to make my way across town in treacherous conditions to lead a service for the handful of people who could walk to church. Our services were broadcast on the radio, so I preached my sermon to a congregation still at home in their jammies.

The storm this past weekend was as bad as or worse than any I ever had to contend with. I was sending prayers and good thoughts to all the priests and pastors of the area on Saturday night as they struggled with the decision to cancel or not. Clergy have competing anxieties in such situations. What if we cancel but an 86-year-old lady somehow fights her way through the storm only to find the church cold and dark? What if we don’t cancel and someone has an accident trying to get to church? Safety should always be the bottom line, but people of faith do not cancel a worship service lightly.

So when I awoke Sunday morning to howling winds and heavy snow, I was grateful to be the Goodwill chaplain rather than a parish minister. And when I looked at our unplowed street and the deep drift blown against our garage doors, I knew that I would be worshiping at the Church of the Holy Snow Blower that day.

Our street has many men – and this is pretty much a guy thing – who normally cannot wait for the sun to rise before they fire up their toys. But on Sunday it was eerily quiet until well after nine. When I heard Bob, my next-door neighbor, starting his machine, I figured it was time for me to bundle up and head outside as well : morning services were about to begin. The Prelude consisted of shoveling enough snow away from the garage to get the snow blower outside. The Call to Worship was issued when the engine fired up. The theme of the Sermon was “an ill wind blows no good” (lifted from Shakespeare rather than the Bible) and therefore the wise will not attempt to blow snow into said wind unless they sincerely want it back in their faces.

But my favorite part of the service was the Offering. When Bob and I had our driveways and sidewalks clear (at least until the snowplow came through to launch the second service), we fought our way across the street where several neighbors were trying to clear the snow using only shovels. The ice on Bob’s beard made him resemble a deranged Arctic explorer, but he was grinning as the wind roared and we forced our way through the big drifts. This is what neighbors do for one another. This is how community works.

I regret missing church services on Sunday. But loving your neighbor as yourself in the most practical way possible is not a terrible substitute.

Giving a Death Sentence for Christmas

2010-12-06T12:08:00.003-06:00

It takes some of the bloom out of this joyous season when I read about the Medicaid patients in Arizona who are going to die because that program will no longer pay for needed organ transplants. One man finally made it to the top of the waiting list for a donor liver only to learn that funding for the procedure was no longer available to him. His family scrambled frantically to raise the $200,000 that would have allowed him to have the operation. When they failed, he went back to the end of the list, and someone with private insurance received the organ.

This puts it into stark relief: while politicians posture and claim that they can miraculously cut taxes for everyone, including the very wealthy, while creating new jobs and getting the country on the right track, people are dying. Some people will simply shrug their shoulders and say that times are hard and we cannot do everything for everyone. Fair enough, up to a point—yes, times are hard and we cannot do everything. But the gauge of a society’s morality lies in how it treats its most vulnerable members, and the state of Arizona is consigning them to death. That is unconscionable.

I fear that with this precedent set other states with equally strapped budgets will follow suit. Many politicians were elected to office because they promised to balance budgets – federal, state and local – without raising taxes by “eliminating waste.” From where I sit I do not see a great deal of waste left to be eliminated, which means that the only option is to further trim programs and services for those in greatest need, services that have already been stretched perilously thin. If some people need to make sacrifices, we seem to be saying, let it be the poor rather than the rich. When times are hard, it can bring forth a society’s best or worst. I fear we are tipping towards the latter—we are allowing ourselves to become mean and cold-hearted.

I believe there are still people of conscience in both political parties. People who are capable of compromise and cooperation. People more dedicated to finding workable solutions than to standing on “principles.” People who will not turn their backs on the legitimate needs of our nation’s most vulnerable. I read about a small, brave group of Republican and Democratic legislators seeking to build a new centrist coalition with the motto “not left, not right, just forward.” Theirs is a lonely voice right now, and they are being dismissed (or attacked) by many of their colleagues. But they are the sort of leaders who give me hope.

Are we as a society ready to reject mean-spiritedness, extremism, and the dysfunctional rejection of any form of compromise and insist that our elected leaders work together in the greater interest of our society? Are we ready to stop demonizing taxation and accept appropriate increases if the only alternative is to further punish the poor for being poor? That would be the Christmas gift I would most like to find under the tree this year.

When does AD begin?

2010-11-30T10:19:00.004-06:00

Note: I am in the process of developing a dedicated blog for our book. Until it is ready to go public, I may copy a few posts to this blog to solicit feedback. This is the first post to the new blog.

Seven years after being diagnosed with dementia, one of the questions that Richard Taylor (http://www.richardtaylorphd.com/) asks is whether there was one moment when he did not have Alzheimer’s and then one when he did. We are a society that is fond of precise answers. But in most things that truly matter, especially when they have to do with identity and relationships, precise answers are denied us. Was there a moment when I was not in love with my wife and then one when I was? A moment when I did not enjoy music or literature and one when I did?

Presumably there is a specific moment in which any disease comes into being. But since we still do not know what actually causes Alzheimer’s, it is impossible to define that moment. Is it the formation of the first speck of plaque on the brain? Or does that speck form in response to another agent we have not yet identified that appeared months, even years earlier? Can an oncologist say with precision when a single cell goes rogue and cancer comes into being? Even the common cold resists having its genesis precisely defined—our bodies are exposed to various viruses daily, rebuffing most until one somehow reaches critical mass and reveals itself through a scratchy throat or a congested nose.

So we generally define the moment where a condition begins through the appearance of symptoms followed by a diagnosis, whether we are speaking of falling in love or suffering a head cold. In the case of dementia, symptoms are often first recognized in hindsight—“now that I look back…” The changes occur in such small increments that there is almost never a clear demarcation between “a little forgetful” and diagnosable progressive memory loss. This can lead to vigilant monitoring of our loved ones (“Honey, you just told me that!”) and whispered conversations during family gatherings (“Does she seem any different to you?”), which generally succeed only in raising anxiety levels for all concerned. Whether we are speaking of falling in love or developing dementia, we are talking about a process.

This will change, at least in some ways, as early testing becomes widely available. People will be learning that they “have” Alzheimer’s disease years, even decades, before they begin to show symptoms. This is mostly a good thing. It will provide a strong incentive for the lifestyle changes that may delay the onset of symptoms or mitigate their severity when they do appear (although we need to emphasize the word “may”). It may open the way to new forms of pharmacological intervention that will further delay the onset of symptoms—the failure of recent drug trials suggests to some that the time to treat AD effectively is before it is fully developed.

Meanwhile, the part of us that demands precision will lead to a growing number of carefully defined clinical categories (MCI, “mild cognitive impairment,” will likely appear in the new edition of the DSM) that may succeed only in reducing complex human beings to a narrow diagnostic label that confines, limits and provokes greater anxiety.

In our book we tell the story of a woman who grew up in Taiwan in a multi-generational household. It was only when she came to the United States to attend medical school that she realized that her grandfather had AD. “He changed as he grew older, but to us he was just Grandfather.” We will all change as we get older, and the changes we experience will not always fit into a tidy clinical category. After a thorough cognitive evaluation, a friend’s mother was given the diagnosis “pleasantly confused.” It is not a diagnosis likely to make its way into the DSM, but I would like to see it in wider use, for while it speaks of change and loss, it also speaks of laughter, love and joy.
Perhaps one day we will have the medical resources to successfully prevent or treat AD and other forms of dementia, but that day is likely decades off. Meanwhile, cherished friends and family members will be journeying into various forms of progressive memory loss, some of which will fit into tidy clinical categories and some which will not. In either case, they will remain whole human beings who need to be surrounded by people who love them, appreciate them and enjoy them. We are all living with dementia, and we need to learn how to respond to it with love and laughter rather than fear and anxiety.

Contemplating Thanksgiving Hymns

2010-11-21T17:25:00.001-06:00

Our culture has a particular talent for taking a festival deeply invested with sacred meaning and adding layers of sentimentality, silliness and commercialism until the root meaning is all but lost. Thanksgiving has fared better than some holidays, but the added layers include gastronomic overindulgence, an orgy of football, and the firing of the opening gun for Christmas shopping season (which many retailers are now beginning on Thanksgiving Day itself).

But under all this added baggage is the notion that we should pause from all of our busyness to give thanks, and that our relationship with the Creator must begin in gratitude. These are among the few things about which none of the major world religions disagree, making Thanksgiving a religious (“spiritual,” if you prefer) festival that cannot be claimed by a single faith. Across the land, interfaith Thanksgiving observances will be celebrated. Which is a very good thing in an era marked more by conflicts born of religious differences than by affirmation of the things we hold in common.

That great chestnut of a Thanksgiving hymn, “We Gather Together,” was written in 1626 by an unknown Dutchman to celebrate the Netherland’s liberation from Spanish rule. While it is certainly a hymn of praise, it makes no specific mention of gratitude, which has always struck me as a bit odd. “Now Thank We All Our God,” which fairly bursts with gratitude, was written in 1636 by Martin Rinkart, who was then serving as a pastor in the walled city of Eilenburg, Saxony, at the height of the Thirty Years’ War. Eilenberg sometimes served as a place of refuge, but at times it was also beset by famine and pestilence – in a single year, Rinkart buried more than four thousand people. And yet he dared to express gratitude to the Almighty! We, who have so much for which to be grateful, should be humbled, or perhaps ashamed.

As we gather about Thanksgiving tables this week, persons of many different faiths will express grateful thoughts before diving into the feast. In some settings the words will be brief and perfunctory, in others, heartfelt. People will give thanks for good health, for family and friends, for the many blessings we take for granted. Like the unknown Dutch composer, some will give thanks for freedom. And a very few, like Martin Rinkart, will dare to express profound gratitude even in the midst of horrible suffering. We are here; we have this day. And that alone should make us grateful.

Learning Patience from Craftsmen

2010-11-03T13:57:00.002-06:00

I recently wrote a piece about the reliability of tradesmen. At the other end of the spectrum is the frustrating eccentricity of skilled craftsmen. Craftsmen perceive time differently than most of us do. They are not much interested in arbitrary deadlines – a project is done when it is done. They communicate through their work, not through emails or phone calls. If one wishes to own a product made by a skilled craftsman, one must learn to be patient.

For example, Susan owns a kayak paddle that was custom-made for her by an extraordinary paddle-maker. Because she has arthritis in her wrists, he made it as light as possible (18 ounces) and fabricated a shaft with a smaller than average diameter. It took him awhile to complete it, but Susan loves that paddle. It is bit fragile, and 18 months ago the shaft broke just above the blade. I tracked the maker down (he had moved from California to Hawaii) and he offered not only to fix it, but to improve it. I cut the blades off, shipped them to Hawaii, and waited. And waited. A full year I waited until he finally secured the part that would make it better than before. Despite my pleas, there was no way that paddle would leave his shop until it was the best paddle he could make. I sincerely hope that it never breaks again.

Then there is the case of my best ukulele, made by John Kitaris, a gifted craftsman who also lives in Hawaii (which seems to be a Mecca for eccentric craftsman). The first two he made for me suffered reverse bowing, which made the strings buzz, so he put a lot of effort into getting this one right, upgrading me to beautiful koa wood.

I contacted a highly-recommended instrument repairman in Madison and asked if he could install a pickup in the ukulele for me. He could, but insisted on using only the pickup specifically recommended by the maker. This pickup is manufactured for John in Korea, and he normally allows them to be installed only by one of his authorized shops, none of which is anywhere near me. This plunged me into the skilled craftsman Bermuda Triangle: the guy in Madison would not do the work without a pickup from the instrument’s maker, and the guy in Hawaii only checks his email once a week then promptly forgets what he read. After two months and seven increasingly desperate emails, I finally received a reply that read in its entirety: “I thought I sent that to you.” Another two weeks and several unanswered emails later I am still waiting, and likely will for some time to come. Like I said, you must learn to be patient.

When your sink backs up or your furnace goes out, you need a tradesman who will arrive as quickly as possible. But ukuleles and kayak paddles do not carry a similar sense of urgency. When I finally get the pickup – perhaps this month, perhaps later – I will take the instrument to Madison, where the skilled craftsman will do the work when the spirit moves him. When I finally get it back it will look and sound beautiful and I will appreciate it all the more because I had to wait. One day a guest will admire the instrument and ask about it, the poor fool, and I will smile softly and say “let me tell you about that ukulele…” All things that are finely crafted have stories woven into them.

Postscript: UPS just pulled up with a box containing two pickups, six sets of strings, and no invoice. I will send one pickup back and insist on paying for the other. Craftsmen: they frustrate you, they delight you, they leave you scratching your head...

A truly Christian perspective on the "Ground Zero Mosque"

2010-10-08T12:21:00.004-05:00

I have never posted the thoughts of another person on this blog, but this note from Miroslav Volf at the Yale Center on Faith and Culture is worth sharing widely:

Dear Friends: In recent months a heated debate has surrounded the plans to build an Islamic Center near Ground Zero. The threat of burning the Qur’an by Pastor Jones has added fuel to the fire. Now spirits have calmed down a bit, even if mutual suspicions are strong, and fronts have hardened. But a large question still remains: It is not merely about what ought to happen with the plans for the Park51 Islamic Center, but it is above all about how Muslims and Christians should relate to one another in similar situations in the future—whether they arise in the Western world or Muslim-majority countries.
The media has sought out Joseph Cumming, the Director of the Center’s Reconciliation Program, to give his expert opinion on the matter. This article is longer than our usual e-newsletter pieces in order to adequately address this complex issue. Please enjoy Joseph’s article, which suggests ways forward for Muslims and Christians with reference to wisdom from the Bible and Qur’an. -Miroslav

The Park51 Islamic Center near Ground Zero: Principles from Jesus
By Joseph Cumming, Director, Reconciliation Program

Secular pundits have debated endlessly the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero. Does Christian faith offer resources for thinking faithfully about this controversy? Here are a few:

False witness
Jesus says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” (Mt 19:18). We sometimes forget that this is one of the Ten Commandments alongside commandments against murder, stealing and adultery. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has been accused of supporting terrorism and of other grave offenses. FactCheck.org has documented how his words have been taken out of context, distorted, exaggerated or even fabricated.

Love vs. Fear
Scripture says, “Perfect love casts out fear” (1Jn 4:18). Love may not always tell others what they want, but it refuses to give in to fear. Much of the media storm surrounding Park51 has appealed not to our moral sensibilities, but to our fears. Christians must not allow fear to motivate moral decisions.

Do unto others…
Jesus says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Luke 6:31). If Christians want Muslims to defend religious liberty for Christians in Muslim-majority countries, then Jesus’ words mean we must speak up for Muslims’ liberty when they are in the minority. In the town of Bekasi, Indonesia a Christian congregation has long sought to build a church on land they own, but has been prevented by Muslims who said to the BBC, “The non-Muslims should understand the feeling of the Muslims here. We are the majority here.” In the meantime the congregation has held makeshift, open-air services on their property, but two Sundays ago their pastor was beaten and one elder was stabbed by Muslim assailants. Last Sunday police barred the Christians from holding their worship service. Christians who would like Muslims to speak up in defense of these Christians’ rights must themselves speak up for Muslims’ rights to build mosques and worship freely.

Someone may object that Ground Zero is hallowed ground and therefore different from Bekasi. Muslims respond that Park51 is two blocks away from Ground Zero, and that four blocks from Ground Zero is a mosque which predates the World Trade Center, and that 32 innocent Muslims died on 9/11. Jesus’ do-unto-others principle adds another dimension: if we would not want Muslims to ban, say, Iraqi Christians from building any churches in the entire Abu Ghraib neighborhood of Baghdad, because Christians committed atrocities there, then we should not deny peaceable Muslims the right to build an Islamic center in Lower Manhattan.

Some argue, “We’ll let them build a mosque there when they let us build a church in Mecca.” But immediately after enunciating his do-unto-others principle, Jesus added, “Do good, expecting nothing in return” (Luke 6:32-35). We must defend liberty for others whether or not they reciprocate. Christians should set a moral example for the world, not wait for others to lead.

Hate crimes
Last summer a dear American friend and colleague of mine was murdered by Al-Qa‘ida in North Africa because of his Christian faith. I was grateful to Muslim leaders who spoke out condemning this hate crime, and to the government, which erected a monument in his honor highlighting the biblical words “God is love.”

A few weeks ago a Muslim taxi driver in New York had his throat slashed by a college student who cursed him for being Muslim. News media paid only passing attention to this, as it was just one of numerous hate crimes against Muslims in the context of anti-Muslim rage over Park51. Jesus’ do-unto-others principle says that if I want Muslims to speak out against the murder of my friend, then I must speak out about hate crimes committed against Muslims.

“Do unto others” in reverse
Similar to Jesus’ do-unto-others principle, Islamic tradition reports that the Prophet Muhammad said, “None of you has truly believed until he loves for his neighbor what he loves for himself.” This means Imam Feisal and the Park51 team also need to imagine themselves in the shoes of their non-Muslim neighbors, and must be sensitive to the pain Muslims might feel if the situation were reversed.

Shortly after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, some Christians wanted to erect a large cross in downtown Baghdad. They intended to communicate a message of love and reconciliation, but Iraqi Muslims perceived it as a message of militant conquest. I was among Christians who urged that this was not a sensitive or effective way to communicate a message of love. These Christians had a right to free expression, but this was not the wisest way to exercise that right.

Imam Feisal’s goal is to promote tolerance, interfaith understanding and healing. But reaction to Park51 has had the opposite effect, bringing out intolerance, and opening not-yet-healed wounds. The next time I speak with Imam Feisal, I will affirm strongly that he has a right to build his center just as planned, and that I will defend that right. But I will also suggest that he will accomplish his goal more effectively and sensitively if he voluntarily and uncoercedly considers revising his plan – perhaps moving it, perhaps giving it a more thoroughly interfaith character, or perhaps just consulting carefully with friendly Muslims, Christians, Jews and others about how this crisis might be defused. I am encouraged that he currently appears to be doing precisely that.

In the meantime, however, it is not the place of Christians to lecture Muslims about how they should live the Golden Rule. Jesus says we must “Do good, expecting nothing in return.” And Jesus’ words about logs and specks (Luke 6:41–42) suggest we must first defend Muslim fellow-citizens’ liberty, and only then will we “see clearly” to ask Muslims about their actions toward non-Muslims.

World Famous Hot Beefs in Abbotsford

2010-10-07T11:02:00.005-05:00

As we do more speaking on themes related to our book (aging, dementia, friendship and community), Susan and I are becoming practiced Low Budget Travel Warriors. Even if the organization sponsoring the conference is paying our expenses (which is not always the case), we are keenly aware that their budget is very tight. So we have learned the art of identifying the least expensive motel that is not absolutely revolting and finding an inexpensive place to eat that offers some flavor of the local community. Two weeks ago we had dinner at Polecat and Lace in Minocqua. Those who have never experienced a traditional Wisconsin supper club, particularly one located in the north woods, simply have no frame of reference by which to picture Polecat and Lace. In Wisconsin supper clubs, waitresses do not retire simply because they have turned 80; they continue to dish out walleye and broasted chicken with good cheer.

This week we did a full-day workshop at the Clark County Health Center located in Owen, Wisconsin. It is a lovely facility which, like many county nursing homes, was originally a working farm. The nearest motel was in Abbotsford, a city of 2,000 when all the motel rooms are full. The only restaurant in Abbotsford was closed, which is how we found ourselves dining at Duke’s Lanes, home of the “world famous hot beefs.” Duke’s beefs come in three forms: hot beef, hot beef with mashed potatoes, and a hot beef and mashed potato sandwich. So we sat at the bar, eating our hot beefs and watching a woman’s bowling league compete while chatting with Lisa, the bartender, about local demographics (as the rest of Wisconsin ages rapidly, Clark County is projected to remain relatively young, likely because of the large Amish and Hispanic populations).

We had opted to stay at the Rodeway Inn, because the only other option was an eight-room mom-and-pop motel that looked particularly grim. Rodeway’s business model seems to consist of purchasing failed motels and changing the signs; this one was a Sleep Inn that sat vacant for two years. When we checked in the computers were down, and a woman who appeared much older than our waitress at Polecat and Lace was down on her knees behind the counter. “Trying to fix it?” I asked. “Just praying that the guy who knows how to fix it will show up” she answered.

Our room had everything we consider essential: hot water, towels, free wi-fi and a passable bed. It was clean, always a relief, but even though the building was proudly proclaimed to be “smoke free,” the odor of ancient cigarettes wafted from the carpet and drapes. The light over the bed was wired to a motion sensor, so several times when I rolled over in the night the light came on; sometime around three we figured out how to override it. Not a bad night by our standards.

At 6:30 we went down to the breakfast room for weak coffee and raisin bran. I am not fond of motel breakfast rooms with their blaring televisions, preferring silence until I have had my first cup of coffee. There was only one other guest in the breakfast room. Unfortunately, he was a motivational speaker, the kind of man who opens his eyes when the alarm goes off and shouts “I’m going to make this a great day!” I tried to imagine who he was going to address in Abbotsford. A meat-packing plant? An Amish farm? The world is full of wonders.

Things went very well during our presentation at the Health Center. But my favorite moment was when a woman approached us to say “I saw you last night!” Strangers are noticed at Duke’s, and apparently there was much speculation among the bowlers about what we were doing there.

We do this public speaking because we are deeply committed to opening up new ways of thinking about aging and dementia. But the bonus for us is that we get to meet delightful people and experience interesting places we would never have chosen to visit otherwise. The people we meet tend to be kind and friendly, which replenishes our faith in human decency in this era of conflict and division. By the way: we took a pass on the hot beef and mashed potato sandwich, which proved a wise decision. Lunch at the Health Center was hot beef and potatoes.

Tradesmen and Civility

2010-09-24T12:28:00.000-05:00

Folks representing various trades have been trooping through our house in recent weeks. A young man from WE Energies installed a new thermostat that allows the company to turn off our air conditioner during a power emergency (in return, they take $50 off our annual bill). An electrician spent several hours tracing a circuit to find where we had “lost our neutral,” which is a bad thing to lose if you are fond of electricity. The furnace technician paid a call when the furnace showed no interest in providing heat. Then there is the guy who is replacing our crumbling front stoop, and the tree service that will remove a stressed ash tree before the ash borers get to it. These expensive visits seem to come in waves, which is why it is good to save for a rainy day.

I found myself recalling the popular images of tradesmen in years past, largely shaped by television situation comedies. The plumber would arrive with a cigarette dangling from his lip and track mud across the carpet on his way to the bathroom. His battered truck would drip oil and transmission fluid on your driveway. And he was required by some mysterious plumber’s code to wear pants slung so low that when he bent over the toilet… Tradesmen never came when they were supposed to. Tradesmen were crude and foul-mouthed. Tradesmen needed to be watched like a hawk because otherwise they would attempt to cheat you. When you called a repairman you needed to gird for battle.

I doubt that any of these popular images ever had a lot of truth behind them. But there is clearly a new focus on customer service in the trades these days. All of the folks I mentioned above arrived when they said they would. Several put on paper booties before they entered the house. They carefully explained what they had done and had me examine the places where they found problems. Each was skilled, knowledgeable and polite. They did not leave until they were certain the problem was resolved to my satisfaction.

I suspect the weak economy has something to do with this high level of customer service. Another likely factor is that the companies providing these services have gotten larger as it becomes less viable to work as an independent contractor because of health insurance and other overhead costs. Larger companies can provide training to their employees, including training in customer relations.

I see some of the same thing in retail stores. Cashiers greet me cheerfully and ask “Did you find everything today?” (“No,” I sometimes reply. “I was looking for world peace and quality health care for all the world’s children.” But I lean a bit towards being a smart aleck). Sadly, as cashiers become friendlier and more polite, customers seem to become ruder, yakking on cell phones while completely ignoring the cashier’s presence. Is our society becoming more civil, or less? I go back and forth, although political campaign ads make it hard to build the case for increasing civility.

Every encounter with a fellow human being, whether with an electrician, a cashier or a friend, is an opportunity to share a bit of kindness and joy. It sounds hokey, I admit, but that does not make it less true. Civility is built and maintained one conversation at a time.

Friends and Neighbors

2010-09-02T15:31:00.003-05:00

If you live in a large metropolitan area, you can choose your friends on the basis of shared tastes and interests. If you usually vote Republican, most of your friends will be Republicans. If you are a sports fan, your friends will likely be fans as well. Your friends are likely to have incomes similar to your own, read the same books you read, share the same values.

But if you live in a small community or rural area, your friends will be the people who are simply there. As folksinger Greg Brown once noted; “Nobody in the U. P. talks about ‘forming an intentional community;’ up there you damned well better know your neighbors!” Folks who do not have a lot in common learn how to get along and how to care for one another because they really have no other choice. In this sense, there is more diversity to rural friendships than to urban ones.

We were reminded of this while at our cabin last weekend. Many neighbors stopped by in the course of our time there to chat about the things people at cabins talk about – whether a certain tree needs to come down and who could do it cheaply, etc. We learned that Mel, the gruff and opinionated former Marine on the far side of the lake, had died unexpectedly a few weeks ago, and took our kayaks over to offer our condolences to Julie, whose home we had never been in before.

But above all we spent time with Mark and June, the next-door neighbors who had not made it to their cabin for at least three years. Mark is 93, June 89, and they both have significant health challenges. In all honesty, Mark has been something of a challenge for me through the years. He has a dusk-to-dawn light that shines into our bedroom all night because he is concerned about escaped prisoners (there is a state prison 12 miles away from which no-one has ever escaped, but if one did he would doubtless make a beeline for Sixteen Mile Lake), keeps several guns at his cabin and fires them at random intervals, and is equally dedicated to Jesus and Rush Limbaugh.
Would I have chosen Mark as a friend? No. Am I glad to know him as friend? Yes.

When we arrived I found that Mark had mowed most of our lot. He can no longer drive, nor can he walk far without assistance, he has little sight left, and he certainly cannot get on or off his ancient John Deere lawn tractor himself. But once he is on it he is in his personal version of heaven (he farmed downstate for seventy years), and he was not about to let a property line spoil his fun.

But our most wonderful moment came the evening before we left. We were sitting on our deck, thinking about fixing dinner, when June made her unsteady way over, soon followed by Mark. The beach at Au Train is a glorious one, and they had been there earlier in the day. With her daughter on one side and her granddaughter on the other, June had waded out into Lake Superior until the water was neck deep, then plunged her head under. She was flat-out giddy with excitement as she described the experience. Dinner was delayed by over an hour as I brought out my ukulele and we sang old Baptist hymns together.

We are guessing it will be the last time they make it to their cabin, but who knows? But if I never see them again, I will have wonderful memories of that evening together. Someday, God willing, the aged couple on the lake will be us, and I hope there will be younger neighbors to offer us their hospitality and friendship. Friends and neighbors do not have to have a great deal in common, they just need to be there for one another.

Standing Up to Religious Hate Speech

2010-08-11T15:23:00.002-05:00

There are two mosques in Appleton, and I have had a long-term relationship with one of them. On the evening of 9/11, leaders from the Christian and Muslim communities came together at a local Lutheran church to grieve this act of unspeakable evil and to affirm that we would not allow this horrific event to drive a wedge between our communities. Locally we have been able to honor that pledge, but I am deeply disturbed and frightened by the growing fear and hatred in our society directed at the Muslim faith and all who follow it. Many in New York City oppose plans to build a mosque two blocks from “ground zero” (in a former Burlington Coat Factory, no less), and there is similar opposition to proposed mosques in many other cities, including Sheboygan here in Wisconsin. Some opponents are suggesting that all mosques function as secret terrorist training centers, an absurd accusation.

It gets worse. Some conservative Christian groups are claiming not only that Islam is a false religion, but that it is an inherently violent movement bent on world conquest. Ron Ramsey, the lieutenant governor of Tennessee who is currently running for governor, said in a recent campaign speech: "You could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult or whatever you want to call it." This is not just ignorance, it is dangerous hate speech.

But most disturbing of all is the call of Terry Jones, leader of the Dove World Outreach Center, for the ritual burning of copies of the Quran on September 11 this year. No doubt this will actually happen in many so-called Christian churches. Book-burning in general makes my blood run cold. Calling frightened, angry people to burn a book that millions of people hold sacred should be a wake-up call to all persons with a shred of moral decency and respect for diversity to rise up and denounce him.

Jones is the author of a book titled “Islam is of the Devil,” which pretty much tells us all we need to know about him (yes, t-shirts are available). Unless you would also like to know his perspective on homosexuality: “Detestable, indecent, wicked, offensive, perverted, shameful, unnatural, degrading, impure, futile, foolish, godless, dishonorable, a lie.” If you want to lose a night’s sleep to anger and worry, you can visit Dove World’s web site. Among other things, it offers ten reasons why we should burn the Quran, and yet they dare to call themselves “dove world.”

There have been previous efforts to breed hatred directed at a religious group in our society, most famously targeting the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th century. They too were accused of seeking “world domination.” Fear leads to hatred, hatred leads to lies and false accusations, lies lead to intolerance and acts of violence. It is a grief almost too deep to bear; surely Al Qaeda must be rejoicing at how well this hate speech serves their agenda.

Question the teachings of Islam if you will; as a devout Christian I disagree with many Muslim beliefs. But as a Christian I believe I am required to love my neighbor as myself, including my Muslim neighbor. And loving my Muslim neighbors requires me to speak out when they become the targets of dangerous hate speech. It requires it of all of us.

Pondering the Divine Mystery of the Mosquito

2010-07-30T10:48:00.001-05:00

I am due to make a blood donation to the Community Blood Center, but have been reluctant to call because I am currently donating about a pint a week to the mosquitoes. Worse, when I am finished making my donation to the mosquitoes they never offer me a cookie and a cup of juice.

In what is possibly the worst summer for mosquitoes (well, actually for me – the mosquitoes themselves appear to be having a very good summer) I have ever experienced, it is only natural to question the judgment of the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth. God made all living things, the Good Book tells us, and pronounced each one “good.” This means that responsibility for mosquito bites can be laid squarely at the feet of the Almighty. Were I in charge of creation, I would have taken a pass on biting insects in general.

If I had designed the created order, each day would have a high of 76 degrees and each night the low would dip to 63. Wisconsin, in other words, would be San Diego. Babies would never develop ear infections, children would never step into traffic and be injured or killed, good people would not develop cancer, tornados would not strike trailer parks and there would be no such thing as light beer. My version of created order would likely not work very well in the long haul, but it would certainly be more pleasant. For me.

In theology we call this the problem of theodicy: in this good and beautiful world there will always be natural disasters and human evil. In order to have the rain that grows our crops, we must accept the risk of hurricanes, tornados, hailstorms and all the rest. In giving us the freedom to choose to love God and one another, God accepted the risk that some people would reject that gift and embrace the path of greed, violence and hatred. Without freedom there can be no creation, and with freedom comes risk. And mosquitoes. The wise person slaps his or her leg and still rejoices in the overall goodness of life and beauty of the world.

Jonathan Richman has a song called “Nature’s Mosquito” which goes in part:

Now little mosquito is there not
some reason for you that I just can’t spot?
“Well, there is; well you’re right sir!
God loved me when he made me, that same as he loves you, so
I’m nature’s little mosquito!”

Sometimes it helps me to sing this song when I am swatting and pondering the mystery of creation. And sometimes it does not.

Squirrel Wars, Part Two

2010-07-16T11:19:00.002-05:00

Although I sometimes write here about themes of great depth and meaning, I am most frequently asked how things are going in my war with the squirrels. Glad you asked. As you may recall, the squirrels had taken to chewing apart the cords of the lights that once adorned the tree on our patio. When I recently returned from a trip I discovered that they had finished the job and chewed up the extension cord running to the tree for good measure. I also discovered that rabbits had dug under the fence around my vegetable garden and eaten my entire crop of peas and beans, but that is another story. The common lesson is Never Go Away.

Being a man of the 21st century, I went on-line to seek a solution to my squirrel problem. I read tales of woe from persons who had squirrels do thousands of dollars in damage to the electrical system of their cars. I read of unfortunate people who had squirrels break into the attic and chew apart the house wiring. I pondered a creative solution offered by one gentleman, who suggested that I surround my entire property with bricks, and then sprinkle the bricks with cayenne pepper. The bricks would arouse the squirrels’ curiosity, and he would come to investigate. He would accidently sniff the pepper, sneeze, and knock himself unconscious on the brick, after which I would grab the squirrel and place it in the yard of someone I did not like. Reluctantly, I concluded that while the plan was intriguing, it was not entirely practical. The more I read, the more discouraged I became.

So I climbed up into the tree and removed all the lights. I was able to splice the eight former strings of lights into three that worked, and placed them back into the tree. Meanwhile, I ordered ten strings of “commercial grade” lights, which are sitting in a box in the basement. Commercial grade lights are no more resistant to squirrels than any other kind, of course: these are rodents who are happy to chew apart high-voltage power lines. My hope was that the squirrels would lose interest in chewing my wires, then I could place the new lights in the tree.

After two weeks, the squirrels have not touched my spliced, duct-taped lights. I know why. They are well-aware that I have new lights in the basement (the Squirrel Intelligence Network makes the Russians look like amateurs) and are attempting to lure me into serving them a tasty feast of new lights. I may risk one string, but I am pretty sure what the result will be.

Meanwhile I am contending with a plague of robins. Yes, robins; we are overrun with them, and they have taken possession of the small fountain under the tree with the spliced, duct-taped lights. They do not allow the smaller birds to drink from it, and splash all of the water out of it several times a day. They tell me that it is my responsibility to refill it, over and over again. Clearly I need to retire soon: chasing squirrels and rabbits and preparing the bath for the robins is a full-time job.

Sacred Smoke and Devil's Tower

2010-06-30T14:50:00.008-05:00

We have just returned from a two-week road trip through the west, seeing some of America’s scenic wonders, living a bit of family history (my grandmother grew up in Cody, Wyoming, and we were able to retrace a trip through Yellowstone that she made as a girl in 1904), and visiting with cherished friends (including performing a wedding in Colorado Springs). Susan read sections of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” aloud as we drove through the places where grim massacres occurred. The trail of broken treaties is a sad and shameful chapter in our nation’s history, and I found myself grieving even as I reveled in the remarkable beauty. (Those who wish can read a full record of our trip).

One of the many stops we made was at Devil’s Tower (of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” fame), where I learned that the tension between Whites and Native Americans is still very much alive. For the Plains Indians, it is a profoundly sacred place, and the month of June is a particular sacred time of year. All about the base of the Tower we saw small flags and bags hanging from trees, left as offerings by those who came to worship.

The Tower also draws many rock climbers eager to test their skills on its sheer walls. And therein lays the tension. Plains Indians regard such climbing as a form of sacrilege, even as the Pope would likely object if the Vatican were used for paint-ball practice. In an effort to strike a compromise, the Parks Service established a voluntary moratorium on climbing Devil’s Tower during June. A reasonable proposal, right? But immediately the “nobody can tell me what to do or when to do it!” crowd launched a lawsuit, claiming that their rights were being infringed upon. The case was tossed out of court when the judge failed to see how a polite request could be interpreted as infringing on anyone’s rights. Many – I would like to think most – climbers are honoring the moratorium, but two parties were climbing the Tower the day we visited. I found myself thinking unpleasant thoughts about those climbers; some degree of cultural and religious sensitivity to others is essential to a civilized society.

Saddened, we went to the picnic area to prepare our lunch. And there we saw something that lifted my heart a bit. A Japanese sculptor is designing a series of works to be placed in the world’s most sacred places. The first was placed at the Vatican. The second was installed at the birthplace of the Buddha. And the third was recently placed at Devil’s Tower. It represents the first puff of smoke from a peace pipe, and is set in such a way that it perfectly frames the Tower. Not everyone who visits the Tower will stumble across this remarkable work, but I would like to think that those who do will think less about the aliens whose spaceship landed on top of the Tower in the Hollywood version and more about its sacred meaning to the Native American tribes who suffered so grievously because of our greed for gold and buffalo hides.

Squirrel Wars

2010-06-15T09:22:00.001-05:00

When we remodeled our kitchen twelve years ago I had only two requests. I wanted an outlet located in the corner where I make coffee so I could keep both the grinder and coffee maker plugged in all the time. And I wanted an indoor switch for a new outlet on the outside of the house near the patio so that I could pursue my Grand Dream.
Our patio wraps around a crabapple tree. Admittedly it is not a particularly nice crabapple tree. It is badly in need of trimming, which I have not been able to do for reasons that will soon become clear. It is also susceptible to apple scab disease, so if the spring is a wet one (like it was this year) many of the leaves turn brown and fall off in June. For years we paid to have the tree sprayed with fungicide, but the only notable impact was on my wallet. But it is the only shade we have for the patio, and it was also the focus of my Grand Dream.

Many houses have a porch light by the back door, but I did not want a porch light. I wanted the crabapple tree to function as my porch light. I ran a heavy cord from my new outlet to the base of the tree and buried it. Then I spent several awkward hours climbing around in the tree, running string after string of white Christmas lights. When I was done there were 1200 lights, give or take, and when I hit the switch in the kitchen the effect was all that I had hoped. My Grand Dream was now a reality.
But the one thing I did not factor into my Dream was the squirrels. Not all squirrels, just the occasional renegade squirrel who, for reasons known only to himself, thinks that chewing strings of lights to shreds is about the most fun a squirrel can have without going to Vegas. I never know when one of these renegades is going to show up. Three or four years may pass without damage, then Chewy the Renegade Squirrel comes to call. He is back this year, and I am ready to throw in the towel.

Three days ago he chewed up three entire strings of lights. My mother-in-law was due to arrive the next day, and she loves to see the tree lit up. It was raining lightly, but I fetched my one box of back-up lights and headed out to do battle. One of the strings he destroyed was, of course, the one at the very top of the tree. If you have never clung to a wet limb 14 feet off the ground while stretching your fingers to yank at a stuck string of lights, you have not yet lived a full life. I filled in as best I could with the new string and tossed the chewed strings into the basement to attempt a bit of splicing. (Note: these strings have three wires, and the squirrel specializes in chewing all three in such a way that you cannot tell how they connect, which means hours of trial-and-error before you toss the whole mess out in disgust.)

Last night I hit the switch to find three more strings out, one of them the new string I put in place just three days ago. As best I can tell, it is now in four parts.

I do not have a clue as to why the Renegade Squirrel does this. Does he like the taste of the insulation? Or is it just a form of amusement for a squirrel with too much time on his hands? Whichever, I am dead in the water until this squirrel finds something better to do or is called to the Great Rodent Farm in the Sky (a final journey I would be glad to help him embark upon).

So this fall I will remove all the strings of lights, give the tree the proper trimming it has needed for years, and start all over. I am confident that it will look wonderful when I am finished. It may continue to look wonderful for years, or perhaps only for days. Like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill, I will continue my heroic efforts, even knowing I am doomed to defeat. Such is the human spirit; such is human foolishness.

Contending with The Bad Mom

2010-06-04T10:16:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Susan and I were on a flight from St. Louis to Milwaukee in a miserable little airplane, the kind with two (very hard) seats on one side of the aisle and one seat on the other. The row ahead of us was occupied by a mother and her two children. The younger one, a boy of perhaps three, sat with his mother, while her five-year-old daughter, Madison, occupied the solo seat across the aisle. I know that her name was Madison because her mother screamed it a lot.

Madison had one arm in a soft cast, the result of a mild fracture she had suffered earlier in the week. Madison wanted to chat with her mother, but mother had her hands full with the younger child. Madison kept dangling her legs over the side of the seat, prompting her mother to yell at her to put them where they belonged lest they be amputated by a passing cart. Madison wanted to watch a movie on the portable DVD player until the movie started, at which point she didn’t want to watch it anymore. Madison wanted a cup of ice cubes to suck on and then promptly spilled the ice all over the floor. Madison, in other words, was behaving precisely the way even the nicest five-year-olds behave. Mom was progressively losing it, and she was not using her “inside voice.” Her behavior was escalating towards verbal abuse.

My first response was one of acute embarrassment for the mother, who was melting down in a manner that no-one around her could miss. It is a socially awkward situation. Do you pretend that it is not happening, or do you try to help in some way? Where is fine line between butting in and being helpful? I could see other passengers squirming as they wrestled with the same question.

Bit by bit, those of us seated nearby coalesced into a community. A grandmotherly African-American woman seated in front of Madison began chatting with the mother in a soft and soothing voice. I engaged Madison in conversation about how she got her owie. The flight attendant stopped by several times to ask if they needed anything. No one criticized her; everyone spoke in a kindly manner. Bit by bit, the situation was defused.

When we landed, I chatted a bit with the mom. They had been visiting one set of grandparents in St. Louis (where Madison fractured her arm at a theme park) and were on their way to Pittsburgh to see the other set. Given the huge diamond she was wearing on her finger, I assumed she had a husband, presumably too busy earning the money that paid for that rock to accompany them. She was clearly exhausted, physically and emotionally.

Later, Susan and I reflected on whether we were seeing a good mom having a bad day or a woman who will always struggle with parenting. Our guess is that the role of mother does not come naturally or easily to her, and that if she was at the end of her rope that day it was because her rope was not all that long to begin with. I will hold her, and her children, in prayer.

But I am always grateful when I see strangers come together as a supportive community. Hillary Clinton famously commented that it takes a village to raise a child. A village, and sometimes an airplane.

Interfaith Shopping

2010-05-14T14:02:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I was leaving the grocery store and spotted a “Christian Business Directory” on the free literature rack. Curiosity almost made me grab one, but I decided to pass. Such faith-based business directories have become more common in recent years, and I regard them with deep ambivalence. There is something positive to be said for doing business with fellow members of your faith family, and there are religious sects (Orthodox Judaism and Anabaptist Christians such as the Amish and Mennonites, for example) where this practice has been encouraged for many years. But now it is a much broader group of Evangelical Christians who are driving the movement towards Christian Business Directories. Behind it are two ideals – we should try to support our fellow Christians and we can trust our fellow Christians to deal with us ethically. Which both sound like good things, right?

But I have questions about both of these assertions. Let’s begin with the second one: fellow Christians will deal with us ethically. Some of the worst scandals of recent years have swirled around of self-proclaimed “Christian businesses.” For a year or so you could not turn on your television in Wisconsin without seeing ads for a homebuilder who paraded his rather spooky-looking children before the cameras while announcing that his was a “Christian-based” business. The ads are long gone, as is his business, leaving many trusting customers holding the bag for their deposits. I gather the guy had some “issues.” Then there was a large “Christian-based” financial services company that talked endlessly about Jesus while running an old-fashioned Ponzi scheme until the law caught up with them. Anyone can claim to be a Christian, then abuse the trust that naïve persons invest in them because of that claim. And Christians, as our own doctrines attest, are no less likely to sin than anyone else. As the saying has it, the only difference is that Christians know that their sins can be forgiven.

But back to assertion number one: we should try to support our fellow Christians. Well, yes we should, but Christians also need to answer Jesus’ question “who is my neighbor?” If Christians love and support only their fellow Christians, they have entirely missed the heart of what Jesus taught about love. Based upon my understanding of the requirement to love my neighbor as myself, I attempt to do as much business as possible with locally-owned, small businesses owned by folks who are working hard to establish a foothold in the American economy without regard to their race or religion. My insurance agent is Hmong, and I have no idea what his personal faith is. I am pretty sure that the guy who runs the Indian grocery store where I buy ten-pound bags of Basmati rice is Hindu, not Christian (Christians rarely wear turbans). It is when Christians move among persons of other faiths and cultures, treating them with honesty, respect, integrity and kindness, that they witness most effectively to their faith.

A few months ago I took a suitcase with a busted zipper to a shop in Ashwaubenon to get it fixed. The very pleasant man who ran the shop had a sign professing that his was a Christian business, so I told him I served as chaplain for Goodwill Industries, including the Goodwill store just down the street from him. He was pleased to meet me and asked if I had sought him out because he was a Christian. “No,” I replied truthfully. “I sought you out because you are the only one I could find who fixes suitcases, and I’m too cheap to buy a new one.” I am happy to do business with Christians, just as I am with folks of all faiths.

"This is my Offering to You"

2010-05-07T11:17:00.000-05:00

Christian writer Annie Lamott wisely observes that we can be pretty certain we have made God in our own image when God hates all the same people we do. No matter what their religion, cause or nationality, most people fervently believe that God is on their side. At the height of the Civil War someone commented to Abraham Lincoln that God was clearly on the side of the Union. Lincoln replied that it was entirely possible that God’s interests were different from those of either the Union or the Confederacy. I try to imagine our president, or any politician for that matter, daring to question whether God’s interests coincide with those of the United States. It would be political suicide.

I recently tossed the question “what are you pretty sure God hates?” out on Facebook. It turns out that some of the things that God hates are white zinfandel, drivers who do not use turn signals, and people who do not know the difference between “their” and “they’re.” Who knew that God was a grammarian?

It would be interesting to bring together persons from many different faith traditions and pose the same question in a serious manner. “What does God (Allah, Yahweh, etc.) hate?” Can we all agree that God hates war and violence? Then why do we attempt to resolve our differences through war and violence? Does God hate economic injustice? Then why do we tolerate greed and turn our backs upon the poor? Does God hate racism and intolerance? Then why do we allow them to persist?
It seems to me that anyone seeking to know the mind and heart of God must first (and this is no easy thing) abandon the presumption that God is on our side in order to ask the difficult question “am I on God’s side?”

The spiritual teacher Baba Ram Dass suggested that one path to aligning ourselves with God’s will is to become conscious that each word we speak and each action we take is the offering we are making to God in that moment. When we speak a word of cruelty or pass along a bit of vicious gossip, that is the offering we are making to God. If we light a cigarette, that cigarette is our offering to God. When we turn our back on someone in need while indulging ourselves with luxuries, we say to God “I do this for you.” As we become more and more conscious of each word and deed as a sacred offering, Ram Dass suggests, we will begin to change our behaviors to align them with our understanding of God’s will.

Another term for this is “mindfulness;” being fully aware of what we are doing in the present moment. I have argued that the command Jesus gave to his disciples, “stay awake,” may be second only to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Most of us are spiritually asleep much of the time; we are not mindful of the sacred dimension of each moment we live. Designating even a single hour of the day to being fully awake and mindful could be the beginning of a transformed life.

Surviving the Book

2010-04-23T14:23:00.002-05:00

Over the past two years my wife and I co-authored a book titled Aging Together: Dementia, Friendship and Flourishing Communities. I am happy to say that the writing is done and the book is now “in press,” which means that it will rattle around various departments of our publisher for a full year, doubtless coming back to us several times along the way. I am also happy to say that our marriage of 40 years appears to have survived this experience—there were a few moments along the way where it was touch-and-go.

One of our goals for this stage of life was to do more work together, which seemed a noble goal until we actually attempted to do it. We are different people in many ways. Susan is very much a scholar, and I am not. The library is her “happy place”—she can easily lose all track of time when she is doing research. For me, “doing research” means checking to see if we are low on peanut butter before going to the grocery store.

Susan can read a dense academic book as if it were a Nancy Drew book. She regards this ability as normal, and therefore never hesitated to haul seven or eight such books into my office and say “you should read these before you start the next chapter.” Always my heart would sink, and it would occur to me that the garage needed cleaning. Immediately. I would stack the books up neatly, dust them once in awhile, and finally choose the two or three that I would actually attempt to read. Or at least read parts of.

Susan writes in a disciplined manner. She sits down at her desk, books piled all around her, and methodically churns out page after page. I sit down at my desk, fiddle around with paperclips and rubber bands, stare at the blank screen for awhile then get up to put a load of laundry in the washer. This can go on for hours, even days, until the muse pays a visit and I am ready to write.

What I write, at least in first draft, will bear a suspicious resemblance to a sermon. I have done far more preaching than writing, and in preaching you do not need to cite your sources. In fact you should not, because the congregation has not gathered to hear a list of footnotes. When a pastor buddy of mine wrote his first book for an academic press, his editor was dismayed to discover that he had not cited a single reference. When he was asked where he got all his facts and ideas he replied “from preacherland.” To his disappointment, he was told that “preacherland” was not an adequate way to cite his sources. I had the same problem: Susan had to do a fair amount of remedial education before I learned the rules for academic writing.

Unavoidably, when you are facing a deadline and have such different styles of reading, thinking and writing, there will be occasional moments of tension. Voices were never raised and furniture was not thrown, but I am sure we each had moments where we wondered “Can I really do this with her (him)?” But we did, and I am confident that it is a better book than either of us could have written alone, precisely because we brought different fields of knowledge, different perspectives, and different styles to the project.

At times along the way we each insisted that we would never attempt to write another book, much less write one together. But having survived the process with our relationship intact and seeing that the end result is good, I am guessing we will. Next time, I hope, it will be a Nancy Drew book.

Droofus Day

2010-03-31T11:18:00.001-06:00

We have had an entire season’s worth of illness roll through our house in recent weeks – a nasty version of what medical professionals call “the crud,” complete with fever, chills, aches, congestion, sneezing, blowing and all the rest. At a certain point you want to have the house fumigated, or perhaps burned to the ground, just to get a fresh start. But I should not complain, as I am at least a week further into recovery than my wife is. I have already had my Droofus Day, and she has yet to celebrate hers.

We learned about Droofus Day from our friends Martin and Karen, in whose household it is an institution. The term comes from a children’s book by Bill Peet titled “How Droofus the Dragon Lost his Head.” It was published a bit too late for our children, but it was a book that Martin and Karen’s kids wanted to hear over and over again. I have not read the book, but as I understand it Droofus, the youngest and smallest dragon in his pack (do dragons travel in packs?), fell behind the others and became lost. But Droofus made lots of new friends among the woodland creatures and essentially established a new and gentler dragon lifestyle (I gather his herd was a rather nasty lot).

But one day Droofus suffered some sort of mid-air collision (the details are fuzzy in my mind) and plummeted to the earth, unconscious. I have seen the picture, and Droofus was definitely in rough shape. Day after day he lay there, unmoving, while his little woodland friends kept vigil. Then one morning Droofus opened his eyes, rose to his feet, and pulled himself back together while his little friends rejoiced. Droofus was back!

That is how our friends came to employ the term “Droofus Day” to describe the day in the course of an illness where you wake up, not completely recovered but knowing the very worst is behind you. Karen solemnly describes Droofus Day as “the most personal of all holidays.” For me, Droofus Day came the morning my fever broke. I still had the crud, but I felt like a human being again.

I came to work and told a friend that it was my Droofus Day, which required an explanation. After hearing the tale she nodded her head: “We needed a term to describe that day.”

I wonder if it could not be generalized to describe any number of situations where we have suffered trials and tribulations but have finally reached the turning point. “A panel of leading economic experts report that while the economy will remain sluggish and unemployment high for the next two quarters, they believe that last Wednesday was Droofus Day.” Bad times and challenging circumstances do not normally end all at once – often the improvement is so slow that we have a hard time seeing it. But somewhere in there is Droofus Day, and Droofus Day should be celebrated.

Thermometers and other things we rarely use

2010-03-22T14:59:00.002-06:00

For the past four days I ran a fever, seemingly because of a severe sinus infection. We all know what the experience is like: aches and chills, listlessness and lack of focus, sleeping for nearly 12 hours and still not wanting to get up. You feel about as welcome in social settings as a vial of anthrax in a subway station. All you can do is attempt to ride it out, knowing that it cannot last forever.

Through it all I became rather obsessed with taking my temperature, which appeared to shoot up and down in accordance with its own merry schedule. 102° when I first awoke, 99.5° after the aspirin kicked in, perhaps a brief foray into sub-normal territory before spiking up again. After a few days of this it dawned on me that this might have as much to do with our thermometer as with my temperature. Sure enough, I took my temp three times in succession and got three different readings.

Being frugal – ok, cheap – I sent Susan out to purchase a new battery for the thermometer. This proved to be a false frugality, as an LC41 battery costs more than many thermometers do. Worse, it did not fix the problem – the thermometer’s little electric brain remained scrambled.

So this morning I struggled into my clothes and left the house for the first time in three days in search of a new thermometer. It has been years, perhaps decades, since I shopped for a thermometer (which likely has something to do with the inaccurate readings). I quickly sorted out that there were two basic classes of digital fever thermometers: “60 second” units that cost around four bucks and “8 second” units that cost twice as much. Priced in-between were a number of thermometers whose performance appeared to be on a par with the “60 second” units but which carried endorsements from the Red Cross, the AMA or NASCAR. The basic “60 second” thermometers were on sale for 3 bucks (almost two dollars less than the replacement battery had cost) so I grabbed one. I took my temperature twice and it was the same (normal) both times: success!

So did I actually have a fever for several days? Clearly I did, because it was measured by the most accurate instrument known to man, my wife’s hand. But how high it got, how much it fluctuated – these things will never be known. I immediately tossed the old thermometer away (after removing the new battery, of course), since the one thing worse than having a thermometer you can’t trust is having two thermometers that disagree – as the saying goes, “the person with two watches never knows what time it is.”

How many things do we have in our home that we use very rarely, but expect to work perfectly when we finally need them? When that day arrives we discover that the glue has dried up in the bottle, the battery charger has lost interest in charging batteries or – in my case – the thermometer has developed a playful sense of humor. I bet there is a retired man (and it would have to be a man) out there who has all these things on a master calendar. Every April 18 he inventories his cans of touch-up paint. There is something in me that could become that sort of man. Fortunately, there is also something in my wife that could divorce that sort of man.

The Rebate Blues

2010-03-11T14:33:00.003-06:00

I finally bit the bullet and upgraded our cell phone plan to include data services, which will add a hefty fee to our monthly bill. Like so many other people, we have allowed ourselves to become increasingly dependent on being able to access information – email, Google, Wikipedia, even (God help me) Facebook – no matter where we are. As a friend said in wonderment when I informed her that we had no plans to purchase “smart phones,” “they’ve become part of the cost of being alive in the 21st century.”

So I am finally a 21st century guy, although I am committed to not being one of those people who fidget with their phones every free moment. At least I will not once the novelty wears off. Currently I am not fidgeting with the phone; I am trying to figure out how to work it.

Fortunately the phones themselves were dirt cheap. They are a model called the Droid “Eris” which is something like an iphone for folks on a tight budget. They cost me forty bucks apiece after rebate. And therein lies the rub.

Why do companies insist upon giving us rebate forms instead of just taking (in this case) two hundred bucks off the bill? To save money, of course. They count on a certain portion of customers never getting around to sending in the rebate form. And they also count on an even greater number of consumers making a mistake in requesting their rebate and therefore not qualifying.

For example, when I bought the phones I was told that they were returnable only if they were returned in the original box. Fair enough. Then I was told that to request the rebate I had to cut off the portion of the box containing all the bar codes and magic numbers. I had to press the young woman a bit before she admitted that the phones could still be returned in a mutilated box.

Because I am a bit suspicious by nature, when I got home I read all the fine print on the rebate form. I learned that the company is not responsible if my request gets lost in the mail. I learned that if I send it certified mail so that I can prove they received it, they will take longer to process my request. I learned that I cannot send rebate requests for both phones in the same envelope or I will be disqualified (this information was buried very deep in the fine print). I learned that I should make copies of everything I send, but that copies are unacceptable in requesting a rebate. The one thing I did not find in the fine print were the words “Good luck, sucker!”

Oh, and should my rebates actually show up some day, they will be in the form of Visa cards. Clearly they are paying a bank less than $100 for a $100 Visa card, because the bank knows that, like gift cards in general, a certain portion of them will be misplaced, lost or forgotten. I am surprised the rebate does not come in the form of a gift certificate for a funeral home.

Toyota, Calvin and Edwards

2010-03-03T17:57:00.005-06:00

All idols have feet of clay and every hero will one day disappoint us. How many children and teens looked up to Tiger Woods as a role model? Now he has joined a long list of fallen sports heroes. The story (likely apocryphal) has it that as Shoeless Joe Jackson walked out of the courtroom after giving testimony in the 1919 Black Sox scandal, a heartbroken young fan called out “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” But it was so for Joe, for Tiger, for Pete Rose, for Mark McGwire, Michael Vick and so many others. Their athletic achievements were remarkable, but are forever tarnished by their personal moral failings.

Let us not even get started on the moral lapses of religious leaders! So many preachers who thumped the pulpit hardest in denouncing the sins of others proved guilty of sexual misconduct, infidelity, dishonesty and greed of the worst sort – it is hardly surprising that many folks dismiss all religious people as “a bunch of hypocrites.” While he was still an atheist, Malcolm Muggeridge was once asked why he was so hostile to Christianity. “I have nothing against Jesus,” he answered, “I just don’t care much for his friends.”

I could go on to discuss politicians, police officers, bankers – there is no human organization or institution that is free of moral failure. Christian faith insists that sinfulness is inherent in the human condition. John Calvin put it must strongly when he termed human beings “utterly depraved,” which led one of my colleagues to respond “anyone who believes in the utter depravity of man can’t be all bad!” We are complex and wonderful creatures, capable of remarkable generosity, self-sacrifice, kindness, decency and compassion. But we are also depraved, and the very best of us will occasionally fail to live up to our professed values. Which is why we need external sources of authority to which we are held accountable – laws, codes, oaths and commandments.

Toyota is the most recent idol whose feet of clay have been exposed to the glare of public scrutiny. They have been a role model for many organizations, including the one I work for, Goodwill Industries of North Central Wisconsin. Goodwill has adopted many of Toyota’s programs and procedures – notably LEAN – that have been and continue to be of enormous benefit to the organization. We also adopted a fair amount of their jargon, which I have been less enthusiastic about, but that’s another story.

Now the world knows that Toyota ignored many of its professed values in pursuit of power, position and the almighty dollar. It will take them many years to regain the trust and respect that their customers had invested in them. The sins of greed and arrogance have once more taken their inevitable toll on a respected and widely-admired organization.

Like many other organizations that joined “the cult of Toyota,” Goodwill is trying to distance itself from Toyota’s moral lapses while continuing to employ the valuable business practices they pioneered. We have learned a great deal from Toyota about how to do things better. Now we have received a lesson on how critical it is to hold fast to our values, for once we begin to compromise those values in even small ways we begin sliding down the fast and slippery slope Jonathan Edwards described in such a terrifying manner.

It is remarkable how many people still profess to be shocked when a respected individual or organization behaves very badly. As Calvin and Edwards would say: Duh!”

Not being a Grouchy Old Man

2010-02-18T15:57:00.000-06:00

A few days ago I shoveled about two inches of snow from the driveway and sidewalk before running a few errands. When I returned I found two neighborhood boys playing “king of the mountain” on the huge bank of snow between my sidewalk and the road. You can imagine what my sidewalk looked like. They looked at me, then the sidewalk, and got that unmistakable “uh-oh” look in their eyes. I gave them what I hope was a friendly grin and asked if they wanted to play a new game, this one involving shovels. They leaped at the opportunity. It would have been faster and easier to do it without their “help,” given that most of what they shoveled slid right back onto the sidewalk, but that was not the objective. I am working on the ongoing spiritual discipline of being the Friendly Older Neighbor rather than the Grouchy Old Man.

When we moved into this house some 23 years ago, we were one of the few families with young children in a neighborhood of retirees. The people from whom we purchased the house gave us but one bit of advice – they pointed to a house on the other side of the street and cautioned us to make certain that our kids never allowed a ball to roll into that yard. It was the home of the designated Neighborhood Grouch. He was extremely fussy about his lawn and had no great affection for children. Something in me vowed then and there that I would never be like that.

We are now the older couple living in a neighborhood with many young children, all of whom are fortunate enough to have parents who understand the importance of unstructured outdoor play, especially in warm weather. It is a safe neighborhood, and the kids roam the block freely. Our driveway is alive with bikes and scooters much of the year, a good thing to remember when backing out of the garage. Chalk art on the sidewalk sometimes greets us when we come home. Children knock on our door seeking a snack or asking if we have anything fun for them to do. One day, when I was working at my desk, two little girls dropped me to announce that they wanted to take a tour of our house. The cautious part of me wondered if a man home alone should really be playing host to little girls, even for a few minutes. But the world they are growing up in is ugly and confusing enough, and I did not want to add to either by telling them it would be better to return when my wife was at home. They pronounced our house “boring” because it had nothing in it but grown-up stuff, sat at the kitchen table for a snack, and hopped back onto their bikes.

The costs I pay for the joy of having the neighborhood children as a part of my life are very modest. Sometimes my carefully-raked leaves will need to be raked again after they jump in them or ride their bikes through them. I will do more snow shoveling than I would do if I lived in a retirement community (kids are constitutionally unable to walk home from school without kicking, climbing or sitting down in snow). When my lawn is soggy after a heavy rain it will occasionally sprout grooves the width of bike tires.

We have a term for all this. We call it “the goodness of life in community.” And each time I hear high-pitched voices squealing with joy and excitement, I am reminded of what a wonderful blessing it is.

The Valentine Dilemma

2010-02-12T10:35:00.002-06:00

After more than forty years of marriage I still dread those three annual occasions – Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Susan's birthday – when I am pretty much required to purchase a card for her. The overwhelming majority of cards designed for a guy to give to his wife make me feel embarrassed to be a male. We have the “humorous” category (easily recognized by the bashful cartoon bear on the front) designed for men who are terrified of displaying any hint of having actual emotions. Sometimes this category crosses with a second, the “apology” card – “I know I leave my dirty clothes all over the floor, never take out the garbage and essentially ignore you 364 days out of the year, but at least I bought you this card!” Who are the men who buy these cards? Who are the women who, in receiving such a card, do not tell their husbands what they can do with it?

Then there are the cards that do not know when to shut up. They are festooned with hearts and flowers, and feature a badly-written, sloppy, sentimental romantic poem that runs on and on. And on. If I gave such a card to Susan she would likely run for the bathroom, clutching her stomach. Which is one of the many reasons I love her.

My ideal Valentine’s Day card (which I have never found) would feature a simple, tasteful picture and would say only two things: Happy Valentine’s Day; I love you. So I wade through rack after rack, searching for the card that does not exist, and settle for the least offensive one I can find. The browsing itself is always educational, especially the new categories of cards that keep popping up to address increasingly complex family patterns. I have yet to see a Valentine category labeled “For Your Fourth Wife,” but I am sure it is out there. This morning I saw one on the rack labeled “For a Troubled Relationship.” I was eager to see what such a card would say, but they had sold them all.

I think it is time to buy one of those packs of Valentines designed for children to give to their classmates; the ones that feature cheerful bumblebees saying “Bee My Honey!” One pack would last me the rest of my life, and likely embarrass me a good deal less. Happy Valentine’s Day!

My cervical spine revisited...

2010-02-10T11:45:00.001-06:00

I have not written anything about my cervical spine issues for some time because there has been nothing new to say. The cortisone injection did not appear to help much. I will have another injection next week in the hope that the second time is a charm, and also because if that does not do the trick my only recourse is surgery. Meanwhile, even before the injection I was experiencing a gradual increase in shoulder strength, which is approaching 45-50% of normal. The “glass half full” part of me is grateful for the things I can do that I could not a few weeks ago, while the “glass half empty” part worries about the things I love to do (kayaking, backpacking, etc.) that I may never be able to resume. There has also been some progress with the pain. Three weeks ago I would have cheerfully bitten the head off a live bat to make the pain in my shoulder go away. Now I would insist on seeing papers demonstrating that the bat is rabies-free.

Last night I had an “aha” moment; a “duh” moment, actually. I have had a nasty headache for the last week, and could not figure out how it related, or if it related, to my spine. I believe I have found the answer. My cervical traction device gives such blissful short-term relief from the pain that I had cranked it higher and higher, until I was on the verge of turning myself into a bobble-head doll. I am guessing if I lay off it for a day or two then dial it back to a reasonable 30 pounds, the headache will vanish.

I am receiving lots of friendly advice about what I should do, and the advice, of course, is contradictory. In one camp are those who urge me to stop messing around and go for the surgery. Their reasoning is impeccable. The longer the nerve is pinched, they note, the lower the odds of significant recovery. And the underlying condition – arthritic degeneration of the spine, which has narrowed the canal through which the nerve passes – all but guarantees that the problem will recur and I will wind up having the surgery anyway. Airtight case, right?

But then there is the other camp, which points out that the surgery is a profoundly unpleasant one with a fairly difficult recovery. For starters, the surgeon goes in from the front of the neck, which means moving the larynx and various other useful things out of the way; some veterans say that the most difficult part of the recovery process was swallowing. Sleeping is a real challenge, particular for us side-sleepers. While the worst is over in two weeks or so, full recovery requires twelve weeks, and as I learned after my hernia surgery last fall, twelve weeks means twelve weeks. They also note that virtually everyone over sixty has some degeneration of the spine, and it is entirely possible that I will never experience this again. Then they add the final argument – there is no guarantee that the surgery would work. As one friend put it, “surgery should always be the last dog hung.” Why one would wish to hang a dog I cannot say, but I find myself agreeing with him. I will stick with my physiatrist and his cortisone injections for at least a few more weeks. This whole thing is proving to be quite a lesson in patience, a lesson I would have just as soon avoided…

Boiled Frogs and Clean Laundry

2010-02-04T17:07:00.001-06:00

I have done the laundry in our household for many years. This is because I like to do it and Susan does not. It is also because I notice when the laundry needs to be done and she does not. All I ask of her is that she remembers to remove the Kleenex from her pockets before she throws her jeans into the basket, which she mostly does.

After years of talking about it, I finally replaced my 26-year-old washer and dryer. The stars aligned just right – Wisconsin offered a “cash for clunker” rebate, a local appliance store purchased all available stock of a very good washer/dryer combination that was being discontinued and sold them at a deep discount, and the manufacturer even tossed in an additional rebate. So I am now learning the nuances of a front-loading, high-efficiency washing machine, and establishing a relationship with a dryer that appears to be smarter than I am (it monitors the dampness of the laundry it is drying and sets its time accordingly, for example).

The old Maytags had served us well, never requiring a repair that I could not do myself. They were sturdy beasts, right down to their hoses. My friend Harry, after reading that the water hoses on a washer should be replaced every ten years, removed his and took them to an appliance parts store. The guy looked at them and said “Those are Maytag. A ten-year-old Maytag hose will last longer than any new ones I could sell you!” Similarly, I had taken for granted the heavy rubber hose that carried the drain water to my laundry tub. The new one is lightweight plastic, so I had to drill a hole in the wall of the tub and attach it in order to make sure it stayed in place. But the old washer was beginning to leak a bit and the dryer was making disconcerting noises. They were ready for the appliance graveyard.

Here is the huge surprise: my clothes are now coming out much cleaner! As they say in the ads, my whites are whiter and my colors are brighter. Far less lint is collecting in the dryer’s lint trap, suggesting that the washer is cleaning clothes more deeply. Some of that may be attributable to the design itself. It is an entirely different washing process that is more interesting to watch than most of what is on television. But I am guessing that it also reflects the fact that the old washer had been losing its efficiency for years in increments so small that I did not notice the change. And therein, of course, lurks a metaphor.

The idea that ignoring a small, undesirable situation will inevitably lead to gradual, often unnoticed, worsening is most commonly expressed in terms of the camel’s nose: “if the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.” We have also the fabled “slippery slope,” the “for want of a nail” proverb and – my personal favorite – “boiling a frog.” Toss a frog in boiling water and he leaps out, but heat the water gradually and the little guy is toast before he figures out something is wrong. Not that I ever have, or would, boil a frog myself. Similarly, there are any number of personal disciplines that, if allowed to slip a little bit at a time, will ultimately be lost. Take handwriting -- I have no idea when mine passed from “poor penmanship” to “utter illegibility,” but somewhere along the way that frog got boiled.

So for years I have accepted laundry that was not as clean as it should have been because my standards and expectations were declining in lockstep with the washer’s performance, and it took an external reality check – in this case, in the form of a new washer – for me to notice. Which is why we need friends who will hold us accountable and provide us with reality checks. I will show you my laundry if you will show me yours.

Traction Bear

2010-01-24T15:21:00.004-06:00

Some of you have expressed curiosity about my home traction device. Behold the bear! Note that his head is strapped in and his neck rests comfortably in the cradle. When he uses the cunning hand pump to raise the pressure to, say, 25 lbs., his head will be stretched away from his little bear body. If it is set too high, it will rip his little bear head off and his stuffing will explode all over the floor. That would be bad.

Driving My Cadillac

2010-01-22T16:09:00.000-06:00

My little medical saga has continued since I last posted. My New Best Friend is a physiatrist at the Neurospine Center, who reviewed my x-rays and MRI and gave me a very thorough exam. The good news is that he believes he can alleviate the pain and restore some shoulder function without resorting to surgery. The less-than-good news is that the severity of my weakness may indicate that some of the nerve damage is permanent (or else the neurospine lawyers require him to say this). I am likely looking at a long course of treatment and rehabilitation with some uncertainty about the ultimate outcome. Next week he will inject cortisone directly into the site of the pinched nerve (I will be lying immobilized beneath an x-ray machine while he does this), which will hopefully reduce the inflammation over the course of several days. I also went back to see Dan, my physical therapist, who set me up with my very own Home Traction Machine.

I can only begin to guess the total cost of the various tests, procedures, treatments and toys I have received over these past two weeks. Our total out-of-pocket expense to date: zero. It has been a difficult year for Susan at the University – rescinded raise, mandatory furlough, reduced faculty and more students. But what the state of Wisconsin still provides for us is remarkable health coverage, what the shrinking number of Democrats in congress term a “Cadillac plan.” Frankly I do not think the metaphor is strong enough. It is BMW seven series coverage; an Aston Martin DB9 plan.

Each new medical receptionist I meet (and I have met quite a few lately) hands me a sheaf of papers to fill out (“Was anyone in your immediate family ever bitten by a rabid skunk?”) and takes my insurance card to copy. They handle it as if it were the Holy Grail (“Oh! No co-payment for you!”) When I made the appointment for my cortisone injection – a complex and expensive procedure – the woman looked at my coverage and grinned – “Great! No pre-approval needed!” I am glad I can make their jobs easier. Any physician treating me can order any test or procedure that he or she sees as in my best interest without first seeking permission. Of course, that physician can also order any test or procedure that is in the financial interests of the practice as well, which takes us close to the core of the health care reform debate.

Dan told me that the manufacturer of my traction machine will bill my health insurance for $725, and the health insurance company will offer them about $400. In the end, the manufacturer will have to eat the difference. If I had Chevy Malibu health insurance, that difference would have become my co-pay. I asked him where I should return it when I was done with it. “Return it? It’s yours.” When I have recovered sufficiently I will need to ponder its recreational possibilities.

Following the election in Massachusetts, I have no idea what will be sorted out in congress about health care reform. Certainly the Republicans want to drop the proposed tax on “Cadillac health coverage,” and they will likely win on that one. I am very grateful to have such coverage, and would gladly pay extra taxes to help provide health coverage for those who will never experience such privilege. A pinched nerve is no picnic and a pinched wallet would make it that much more miserable, but we could have handled the extra costs without descending into abject poverty. Many others are not that fortunate. In a moral society, everyone should be able to receive competent medical treatment without being driven to the poorhouse.

But for now I am going to go lie down in my traction machine. I am thinking I should have held out for one with surround sound.

What a Pain in the Neck!

2010-01-18T17:19:00.001-06:00

Just a few short weeks ago I quoted John Lennon’s words, “life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.” Since then I have moved quickly from “my neck is a little stiff” to “my neck is stiff and my shoulder is very sore” to “I cannot lift my right arm above my waist.” I have been to a physical therapist, dosed myself with steroids, sent for an MRI and am about to meet new friends at the Neuro-Spine Center. Along the way I have learned a great deal about cervical spines, mine in particular. Who knew that “marked right neural foraminal narrowing” was a bad thing? Or that the proper name for a bone spur is an osteophyte?

The heart of the matter is that a nerve is being pinched in such a way that it no longer sends instructions to my deltoid muscle. My two challenges are pain management and finding work-arounds for the everyday tasks that my shoulder wants nothing to do with. For example, when driving I can move through the first four gears pretty well, but to reach fifth or sixth gear I have to use my arm as a sort of glorified broomstick (Susan once caught me shifting with my left hand and had some stern words for me). I can work the radio and adjust the temperature by propping my wrist on the shift knob. Applying deodorant to my right armpit involves using my left hand to place my right hand on a towel bar (friends and co-workers are grateful I figured that one out). Sitting at the computer and typing is far more of a challenge – I can do it, but it hurts like a bugger – and all of this was unfolding while Susan and I were in the throes of completing our manuscript and sending it off to our editor. They had better publish the damned book!

For those who have never had an MRI, by the way, the experience is much like being shoved into a tube and forced to listen to the soundtrack of a very bad science fiction movie that features, among other characters, a giant deranged woodpecker. At high volume. For twenty minutes. I give it two thumbs down.

So on Wednesday I will go to the neuro-spine center to meet my physiatrist, a medical specialty I knew nothing about a few days ago. His job, as I understand it, is to keep me out of surgery if at all possible. According to the way my primary care doc reads the MRI results, this could be quite a challenge. He may inject some cortisone into the site to see if it will alleviate swelling just enough to take away the pain and convince my shoulder to report for duty. He may wave chicken bones over my body and recite incantations. He may put me in traction and stretch me until I confess my sins and secrets. I am in favor of anything that might prove effective and does not involve getting cut on.

I have long thought that one of the benefits to being a skinny little dude was that I would never have back problems, but that proved an empty hope. Another word that pops up frequently in my MRI report is “degenerative.” Had I only know that by age 61 I would be a degenerate anyway I would have put more effort into at least getting some fun out of it.

Good Intentions are Not Always Enough

2010-01-15T08:57:00.001-06:00

Certainly our hearts are with the people of Haiti – those who have died, those who have lost loved ones, those who are seriously injured and awaiting medical attention, those whose homes and communities are destroyed, those who struggle with hunger, thirst and illness. It is a disaster on a scale that can barely be imagined, and it is bringing forth an outpouring of compassion and generosity from folks all around the world, as it should.

For decades I have offered the same counsel to people who wish to do something to help the victims of natural disaster. First and above all, it is more important to give wisely than to give quickly. The needs will continue for a very long time, and many wonderful organizations will contribute not just to the immediate response, but the long-term recovery efforts in a nation that was already living on the edge of desperation. Choose an organization that you trust and give as generously as you can.

Just yesterday I was listening to an experienced relief coordinator on the radio. A good-hearted woman, a schoolteacher, called in to ask how her students could contribute to the effort. They were mostly lower income kids, and she asked if they could collect goods to send to Haiti rather than money. What sort of goods were most needed? She was thinking especially of collecting children’s books to ship. Where should she send them?

Clearly her heart was in the right place, and the relief coordinator chose his words with care. First, even if there were a way to get the goods into the country, there was no infrastructure by which to move them around. Even if there were passable roads and available trucks, the cost of moving them would be far greater than the value of the goods. Sending them might help her kids to feel good about themselves, but it would not help Haiti. Moreover, a flood of goods coming into an impoverished country is likely to make economic recovery even more difficult, since there would be less demand for locally produced goods. As gently as he possibly could, he was trying to tell her that her idea was not a good or helpful one.

She was a determined lady. “So maybe we could arrange to buy locally-made goods in an undamaged part of the country and have them shipped to where the need is?” It is a strong human impulse to wish to give something tangible rather than money. I admire the relief coordinator, who stopped short of saying “Good luck on that one, lady!”

Messages are flying around the internet urging doctors and nurses to volunteer immediately, claiming that at least one major airline is offering free transportation. This morning’s news urged medical professionals to stay away for now – until facilities are ready for them, they would just be extra bodies to feed and house.

The new technological wrinkle is that this is the first major natural disaster where people can make a gift of ten dollars to the relief effort through a text message. Everything I have read suggests that this is entirely legitimate, and probably a good thing. People who normally might not give at all or do not know how to give have a new opportunity to respond. But I also wonder how many people who are in a position to give far more generously will text their ten bucks and think “I have done my share.”

When a natural disaster strikes, we should grieve, we should pray, and then we should pause to think. Yes, if there is any compassion in us we should give generously to support relief efforts, but our dollars do not need to be the very first to arrive. Give through your faith community. Give through the Red Cross, or another fine organization you trust. Give generously, but also give wisely.

Lost in the Brave New World

2010-01-08T12:21:00.001-06:00

It has been more than three years since I reluctantly entered the social networking world of Facebook. I was leery of its dangerous potential for wasting huge gobs of time, and the intervening years have demonstrated that my fear was justified. But growing numbers of my younger friends were employing Facebook as their primary means of communication—if I wanted to maintain a relationship with them, I pretty much had to be on Facebook myself. Then we became members of a wonderful and peculiar little church (since disbanded) made up almost entirely of folks in their twenties and thirties, and Facebook served as the church’s newsletter. Bit by bit I waded more deeply into the brave new world of social networking.

Initially I was bewildered when people I barely knew, or did not know at all, “friended” me. I learned that the most common standard of etiquette is to say “yes” unless there is a particular reason not to – in Facebook-land, the friend of a friend becomes your friend as well. It was finally explained to me that I should not think of Facebook “friends” as actual friends; I should think of them as “contacts.” So I now have many hundreds of “friends,” some of whom are actually friends.

I check Facebook for messages several times most days. Along the way I have learned the importance of the “hide” feature. In particular, I automatically hide the cute apps (applications) and endless quizzes that some folks delight in sending my way (where do they find the time?) I have seen instances where Facebook has served useful and valuable purposes, especially when a dear friend was undergoing treatment for cancer in another state and used Facebook to provide daily updates to her many friends. I have also experienced how Facebook can build community and deepen relationships. We recently observed our 40th wedding anniversary, and I posted a picture of a very young version of us to celebrate the occasion. I was genuinely moved to receive congratulations from so many friends (and “friends”) old and new. I think it is here stay and, if used judiciously, can make a positive contribution to building community and maintaining friendships.

But. But last night I made a grievous Facebook error. I was attempting to get two friends in touch with one another, and knew that they were both on Facebook. I had never used the “Suggest Friends” function to connect two people before, and had to do a bit of fiddling around to sort it out. Somehow I managed to give Facebook permission to send a note to EVERYONE in my email address book, inviting them to join Facebook in order to see all my nifty-keen pictures (of which I have very few). Without intending to, I had spammed most everyone I have corresponded with in the past four years.

So today my in-box has been overflowing. Remarkably, a fair number of people responded to my “invitation” by joining Facebook. Others sent me personal replies explaining why they were choosing not to (in each case I sent back a note of apology). But the most remarkable note came from a woman who works in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office. She gently chided me for sending the invitation to her work email address rather than her personal one, but promised to join Facebook when she gets home this evening. I have no idea in the world who she is or why we ever corresponded in the first place. Does she actually know who I am? Or does she simply figure you can never have too many friends? If she follows through on her promise and becomes my “friend” perhaps I will find out. It is a brave new world, this social networking stuff. It is also a world in which small mistakes can instantly become very large ones. If I have inadvertently spammed you, please forgive me.

“Life is what happens to you…”

2009-12-30T15:00:00.001-06:00

We enjoyed a lovely evening with friends who came for dinner last night. I woke up in a rather cheerful mood, a mood that lasted until I took a load of laundry down to the basement and discovered that everything that had passed through our garbage disposal and dishwasher the night before had backed up into the laundry tub and flowed all over the floor. Trust me on this one: dinner is much more attractive on the plate than it is ground up and spread over the basement floor.

I pondered my schedule for the day, the extent of my plumbing skills, and my modest collection of drain snakes. Obviously the clog was a major one, and located below the lateral pipe from the laundry tub. While I could certainly amuse myself for several hours trying to force a snake through the clog, a professional plumber with a powered snake could blast through it in minutes. It was time to reach into my toolbox and pull out my most useful tool of all, the telephone. Sometime this afternoon I will get to use my second most useful tool, the Visa card.

So here I am at my desk, an hour later than I had planned to be, rearranging my schedule for the rest of the day so that I can be available when the plumber calls. As John Lennon expressed it, “life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.”

This is a very modest disruption of my plans, and I am not complaining. Last Sunday we learned that a dear friend was about to have emergency surgery to attempt removal of a malignant tumor on her brain stem. She went to her doctor on Saturday believing she had a sinus infection, and the next morning was on the operating table. They were able to remove 90% of the tumor and are hopeful that a combination of radiation and chemotherapy will take care of the rest, which I hope and pray will be the case – this lady has already been through more than enough.

It is remarkable that we begin each morning with relative confidence that the day will unfold pretty much as we expect it to, and even more remarkable that it usually does. But even a “normal” day will always bring surprises, some pleasant, some less so. I remember being with a group of clergy when one minister sighed and complained that he would have a much better ministry if it were not for all the unexpected interruptions. An older and wiser minister smiled and said: “the unexpected interruptions are your ministry!”

The test of our character and integrity often lies in how we respond to the things we cannot predict or control. Are we willing to set aside our plans and schedules to be present to a friend who needs us? Can we rearrange our priorities when life throws us an unexpected curve ball? If we are to center our lives in the things that matter most, we need to school ourselves in flexibility. And know when to call the plumber.

Making ourselves the measure of all things

2009-12-04T17:36:00.001-06:00

We keep our house at 68 degrees in the winter. Our son keeps his at 67, so I always feel a little chilly when I am there. Our daughter keeps her house at 69, so of course her house feels uncomfortably warm to me. Sixty-eight degrees is the perfect compromise between comfort and energy efficiency. Why can’t everyone see this as clearly as I do?

For many years I have poured 1% milk on my cereal in the morning, so now skim milk tastes like white water while 2% milk feels like something that needs to be chewed. Why doesn’t everyone buy 1% milk? I always drive at precisely the right speed, grumbling at all the fools around me who are driving either too fast or too slow. People who spend more money than I do are self-indulgent spendthrifts, and those who spend less than I do are stingy tightwads. On it goes. We develop our own particular patterns and habits and come to regard them as normal and right, not just for ourselves but for the world in general. We make ourselves the measure of all things.

Mostly this is a harmless conceit that makes for stimulating debate with friends who also believe their particular patterns and habits are normal and right (they are wrong about this, of course). To my knowledge a war has never been caused by disagreement over the ideal fat content of milk.

But this harmless conceit becomes pathological and dangerous when extended to the arenas of religion, race, sexual orientation, and politics. When we label someone else’s religion as “false,” their race as “inferior” or their sexual orientation as “sinful” we have denigrated their personhood and created fertile ground for hatred, violence and oppression. It is dangerously easy to fall into these patterns, sometimes in ways so subtle that we are barely aware that we are doing so.

Politics used to be an arena where we could disagree with one another with mutual respect and affection, but the growing polarization of our society has hardened the edges in disturbing ways. Views have become more extreme, and we are far more prone to demonize those with whom we disagree. For examples we need look no further than the extreme right’s view of Barack Obama or (let’s be honest) my own view of Sarah Palin. Yes, I am guilty of the attitudes I condemn. Civility, which includes the ability to “agree to disagree,” is essential to a healthy society, and we have allowed civility to erode so badly that it will be very difficult to recover.

It is human tendency to make ourselves the measure of all things and to have too high a regard for our own opinions, whether we are discussing milk or politics. We need the wisdom to know when our convictions represent a harmless conceit and when they represent a destructive prejudice.

The New Holiday Card Etiquette

2009-11-20T16:06:00.003-06:00

We are receiving a growing number of Thanksgiving cards instead of Christmas cards from businesses and community organizations. I am guessing this trend is centered in a desire to avoid offending people of various faiths (or no faith at all) who do not celebrate Christmas, and perhaps also to avoid offending certain devout Christians who object to the manner in which a religious holiday has morphed into a generic season of good cheer and power shopping.

Since it is presumably good for business to send clients an occasional greeting of some sort, Thanksgiving is ideally situated to provide this opportunity. After all, the message most organizations want to convey to clients is “thank you” for your business or your support. I suspect we will see more of this in the coming years, and that individuals may ultimately embrace the practice along with businesses. In the years where we send actual Christmas cards instead of letters, we always purchase one box of “generic” cards for our non-Christian friends and still sometimes agonize over the etiquette of sending one at all.

In recent years some Christian groups have raised quite a bit of fuss over the way Christmas has been broadened into a holiday that includes everyone, Christian or not. They get their pants in a knot when someone says “happy holidays!” rather than “merry Christmas,” and go to the mat to keep the manger display on the town hall lawn. Their rallying cry is “put Christ back into Christmas!” I am not entirely unsympathetic to their cause; at least insofar as the efforts speak of resisting the crass commercialization of a sacred celebration. Yet I do not believe that specifically Christian symbols belong in public settings, particularly governmental ones. It is an ongoing tension—the month of December is a sloppy mess in which the sacred and secular are all tangled up and the very best and very worst within us are both more evident than at any other time of year. Baby Jesus claims Christmas Eve and Santa owns Christmas morning (along with most of the four weeks preceding it). I choose to view the entire sloppy mess as more positive than negative, but my inner Grinch still surfaces from time to time (I am not entirely certain the Grinch is mentioned in Luke or Matthew; I need to check).

Somehow Thanksgiving has managed to stay above the fray. Sure, there are parades in the morning and football games the rest of the day, and people eat more than they think they should (which is what a feast is supposed to be about). But the heart of the day manages to remain focused on the core virtue of gratitude, arguably the greatest virtue of all. Truly thankful people will not be consumed by greed or envy. Grateful people do not solve legitimate differences through war or violence. Thankful people willingly share their bounty with those who have less. It is a wonderful day to gather with friends and family to give thanks. Any maybe the ideal day on which to send our friends a card that says “I am grateful for you!”

Waiting for the Grandchild

2009-11-12T10:33:00.002-06:00

We just learned that our daughter is on her way to the hospital, confident that her contractions are the Real Thing and the baby is on his way. If so, our weekend plans are out the window and we will be heading for Minneapolis to meet our first grandchild. We’re not excited or anything…

In the course of more than thirty years of parish ministry I baptized at least 500 babies, likely many more. In my role as pastor and now Goodwill chaplain, I have been shown an uncountable number of pictures of newborn children and grandchildren, always making appreciative remarks about how amazingly beautiful the baby was.
Confession time—in truth, all newborn babies look pretty much alike to me. They are cute, of course; it is a baby’s job to be cute. Some are darker or lighter in complexion; some have full heads of hair while some are nearly completely bald. I can sometimes discern, or at least convince myself that I discern, specific features that relate to one of the parents (“He has his father’s nose!”). But most of the time a newborn baby resembles, well, a newborn baby.

What’s more, newborn babies do not do much that is particularly interesting. They sleep, they cry, they eat, they cry some more, they squirm, they poop. That is pretty much a baby’s entire act. They do not play Parcheesi, disagree with umpires’ calls or discuss literature. They become more interesting about the time they learn to play peek-a-boo, but until then they simply look adorable (except when they are crying) so that we can admire them.

None of these things will be true of my grandson, of course. He will be beautiful, and he will look like no other baby ever born. I am guessing he will look very much like me. He will be very clever and utterly fascinating from the moment of birth. I will swear up and down that he smiled at me and no, it was not just gas. I will carry pictures of him and insist that you look at them and pretend to see how unique and wonderful he is. After a lifetime of looking at pictures of other peoples newborn grandchildren, it is payback time!

Grandparents, in the end, are the ones who have it right. Each person is beautiful, each person is precious, each person is unique, each person is of infinite worth and each person is to be loved not because of what they can do or how they look, but simply because they exist. This is a core conviction of religious faith, one we too easily forgot in a divided and violent world. Babies, in their helplessness, remind us of this essential truth. So when I show you pictures of my grandchild, I will be acting as spiritual teacher. Honest.

The Magical Leaf-Raking Fairy

2009-11-02T16:45:00.002-06:00

We spent this past weekend at the cabin, cleaning up the leaves. The discouraging weather forecast proved to be accurate—the temperature Saturday was in the thirties, accompanied by steady, light rain mixed with a bit of snow. But it was the only weekend we could clear for the task, and we have dealt with similar conditions in the past. The new wrinkle this year was my hernia repair less than three weeks ago. I am restricted to lifting no more than ten pounds, and am supposed to limit twisting and turning my torso. Which pretty much precluded raking wet leaves, and absolutely meant I would not be heaping them onto a tarp and dragging them across the road and into the woods. My strategy was to have Susan spread the leaves out as best she could while I mulched them with the lawn tractor. It was slow work—the tractor was straining at its very limit mulching several inches of wet leaves—but after more than ten years together my lawn tractor and I are One. I was glad that I had given it a tune-up and oil change; grateful than Mike and Brad had installed new blades for me. Over the course of nearly four hours and several gallons of gas, I managed to reduce wet leaves to a thin layer of disgusting gook. Mission accomplished.

Susan was not at all certain that wrestling with the lawn tractor was a particularly wise thing to do while recovering from surgery, and she had a point – that effort, along with the other small tasks I could not quite manage to resist, left me fairly sore, as I had expected. I prefer a bit of soreness to facing an acre of soggy leaves next May. But I was pretty uncomfortable driving home on Sunday morning, and found myself thinking about the yard full of leaves I would find in the yard when I reached home. Somewhere around the Wisconsin border we had one of those marital debates that I knew I was not going to win. Susan had school work that she simply had to get done, so (he argued, logically) there was no reason in the world why I could not do it. It was a perfect day for raking—dry with a bit of breeze, so the leaves would be light and easy to rake. I would be very mindful of how I used my body, raking only in a straight line. Susan was having none of it.

When we pulled into the driveway the entire front yard was already neatly raked! Magical Fairies had come and done the job for me! I was profoundly grateful, but also eager to thank whoever had done me this kindness. There was no note in the door, no message on the answering machine, no email or Facebook posting. My mysterious benefactor was choosing to remain anonymous.

I confess that I am not at all comfortable with circumstances where I cannot repay a debt, or even express my thanks. So I put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and considered various suspects. I finally settled on a certain neighbor as the most likely candidate. When I bumped into his daughter walking her dog later in the afternoon, I asked her what she might know about Magical Leaf-Raking Fairies. She likely now regards me as the slightly deranged neighbor.

Today I got home from work and found Dan, another neighbor, mulching and mowing my side yard. In this case I was able to express my thanks, and asked him if he had observed a Magical Fairy raking my yard. He had, but did not recognize him. He (the Fairy) was bundled up and using some sort of cart; Dan was pretty sure he was not my prime suspect.

If my mysterious benefactor reads this, I would be grateful if you would come out of the closet and confess that you are a Fairy. But if you choose not to, know that I am grateful!

Of Razors and Vibrators

2009-10-21T13:07:00.003-05:00

My razor is made by Gillette and is called a “sensor.” It is the last razor made whose handle is small enough to fit into the cunning little rack that also holds my shaving brush (yes, I am a traditionalist). I love my cunning little rack and would hate to abandon it. All current razors (a/k/a “shaving systems) sold by the major brands have handles fat enough to be employed by a gorilla. Some feature more blades than I can count—four, five, six of them. Advertisers no longer even attempt to provide a rationale as to why anyone needs to shave with five blades. Others have batteries in the handle to make them vibrate as you shave. Again, it is unclear why one would wish to have one’s razor vibrate, anymore than it is clear why one would wish to hold a vibrating toothbrush. Many things today vibrate to no apparent purpose—we have come a long way from the era when the only things that vibrated were vibrators, which clearly are required to vibrate if they are to serve their appointed purpose.

And now a riddle. How is a shaver like a computer printer? Answer: both are sold cheaply because the real products they want to sell are, respectively, blades and ink cartridges. A razor blade is good for about a week, and they are beastly expensive for what they are. So for years I have been purchasing off-brand blades designed to fit my sensor. A bit of research revealed that virtually all of these replacement blades are manufactured by Personna to be sold as “house brands” by various chains. I have purchased most of mine at Fleet Farm, where they are offered as “Good Sense” blades at about half the price charged by Gillette. But they are becoming harder and harder to find as the sensor fades into razor history books. Planned obsolescence is alive and well in the world of shaving—corporate America wants me to shave holding a fat, vibrating handle that will not fit into my cunning little rack.

I offer this rant because this week I was forced to purchase a pack of Gillette blades for the first time in years because I could not find the appropriate Personna blade in two stores that were once reliable sources. The sensor itself disappeared from the shelves many years ago. Clearly the relentless march of shaving progress is not on my side.

I note that there is a modest revival of the classic, straight-edged razor and accompanying strop. Interestingly, it appears to be led by women who are taking a straight razor to their legs. I wish I had learned that skill when I was younger. It is not a skill one should attempt to learn without instruction from a master, and likely not one to take on after the age of sixty. So I will haunt the stores for replacement blades sold as Tri-Flexx, Good Sense or whatever else they may be branded. I may be a dinosaur, but I do not wish to be a gorilla, a gorilla with a vibrating face.

Post-Surgery Thoughts

2009-10-16T09:37:00.001-05:00

It is less than three full days since my surgery and I am feeling much better than I had expected to. Yes, there is still a fair amount of pain, and I have bruising and swelling in places that cannot be discussed on a family-friendly blog, but these are small things. My doc’s advice proved to be sound – forgo the Vicodin if possible, and manage pain with ibuprofen, ice-packs and whiskey with a milk of magnesia chaser. Worked like a charm; just wish I had thought to buy better scotch before the procedure.
I received the kind of health care reserved for the privileged in our society. I did not have to jump through hoops to receive permission for the procedure (somewhat oddly, even when a hernia repair is clearly needed it remains classified as “elective” surgery). The Groth Center for Outpatient Surgery at the Appleton Medical Center makes undergoing surgery no less pleasant than it needs to be. Everything happened on schedule; everyone was kind, friendly and courteous. Even the post-op muffin was of superior quality!
One interesting moment: before the procedure I had been tended to by several nice RNs, all of whom appeared to be named “Laura” or “Laurie.” There was “shaving your private parts Laurie” with her remarkable friend, “Mr. Sticky Hand.” There was “hook up the I.V. Laura.” So when another young woman stopped by I assumed she was yet one more RN, but it turned out to be my anesthesiologist. She explained that she would be giving me a “cocktail” that fell short of a full general anesthesia, and named its components. When one compound was named she grimaced and said “I assure you than when used by a skilled anesthesiologist it is both safe and effective.” A small light went on for me and I asked “will it instill in me an intense desire to own a chimpanzee and a giraffe?” She said it would not. Who knew that Michael Jackson’s death had made life more difficult for anesthesiologists?
As noted earlier, I know myself to be very privileged. That makes me both grateful and angry. Quality medical care should not be reserved solely for the fortunate. If I were already on Medicare I suspect that I would have needed to wade through some paperwork to demonstrate that this surgery was necessary. Fair enough. If our entire society were on a single-payer system, it is possible that my surgery would have been delayed for several months, and that it would not have been performed by the region’s most experienced surgeon who happens to be an old friend. And that excellent muffin might have been a stale graham cracker. I could live with all that if it would mean that quality, affordable health care was available to all. I mean, why should I be the only one privileged to have a blue, swollen groin?

"There's Always Someone who has it Worse than You"

2009-10-07T16:29:00.001-05:00

Next Tuesday I am having minor surgery. I have always liked the definition of “minor” surgery as “a surgical procedure performed on someone who is not you.” I have every reason to expect a positive outcome—my surgeon is an old friend who assures me that he is reviewing his 1973 anatomy textbook and that he plans to practice on a rat or two before cutting on me. Still I can expect to be sore and grouchy for a few days, and will not be permitted to lift anything heavier than an onion for the next several weeks.

Anticipating this bit of unpleasantness has brought to mind the sentimental platitudes we too often employ when a friend is dealing with difficult circumstances, including the one I particularly detest: “There is always someone who has it worse than you.” That may be true, but I have never found it comforting or helpful. If I am hurting, grieving or anxious, what I need from a friend is sympathy and support. When a friend says “someone else has it worse than you” it feels like I am being called a whiner. Don’t compare me to other people! Just be my friend!

Then there is the version that goes “I was sad because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” Fair enough, I suppose. Given a choice between having no shoes and having no feet, I am pretty much going to go for the “no shoes.” But doesn’t basic human compassion require us to provide footwear to the person with no shoes rather than telling him about the guy with no feet?

Furthermore (he said, warming to his topic), if there is a guy who has it worse than me, then logic insists that there is a guy who has it worse than the guy who has it worse than me. And when I find that guy, there will be a guy who has it worse than him. Sooner or later you get to the end of the road and find the one guy in the entire world who nobody has it worse than. What do you say to him when you find him?

What you say to him is precisely what you should say to any friend who is hurting. “I’m sorry. I care. I’m here for you.” Don’t try to put your friend’s burden into perspective. Simply offer to share that burden. That’s what friends do. That is what we are here for.

Community is where you find it. Or make it.

2009-09-23T18:13:00.002-05:00

A few days ago Susan and I stopped in our local record store. For readers who are already confused, a “record” is a circular piece of vinyl with a hole in the center. It is placed on something called a “turntable” then a needle is placed in a groove in the surface of the vinyl. As the record (also called a “platter”) spins on the turntable the vibration of the needle produces music (along with an assortment of popping and hissing noises). You can still purchase records in some record stores (they are beastly expensive these days, in part because they are made from “virgin vinyl,” which presumably is vinyl that has never had sexual relations with another record), but mostly record stores sell CDs and DVDs these days. They are still called “record stores” because nobody has ever come up with anything else to call them, and now it is pretty much too late to give them a new name. There are fewer and fewer independent record stores – Appleton is down to one – and many predict they will vanish altogether in a few more years. I have a tee shirt I picked up during National Record Store Day – a wonderful event – which features a record setting over a bleak horizon, with the words “and then there were none.” Support your local independent record store! But I digress.

We were there to purchase two things: several of the newly- remastered Beatles CDs for our son-in law’s birthday, and tickets to Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons’ upcoming concert. Only one guy was working, and he had a situation on his hands. A customer was attempting to purchase a large stack of CDs when the credit/debit machine went down. The record store guy was on the phone with a technician who was talking him through a long sequence of completely ineffectual attempts to fix the problem, while the line of customers hoping to make a purchase grew. Actually, “line” is not quite the right term; “small, reasonably-cheerful mob” comes closer. There was a very tall young woman with a very large object hanging from one ear. There was an overweight young man who talked to himself and breathed very heavily (not because of the situation; I got the clear sense that breathing heavily and talking to himself are part of his normal act). There was the guy who was trying to buy the big stack of CDs. There was a scruffy but sweet young father whose daughter had to go potty. And, of course, there were us.

Our little mob figured out that the machine was not going to be fixed long before the record store guy did. We were looking through purses and wallets, sorting out if we had enough cash to make our purchases. Big-stack-of-CDs guy was scoping out where the nearest ATM was located. Heavy-breathing guy wandered off and returned at random intervals, seemingly unaware there was a problem. And the little girl now really, really had to go potty. By the time the record store guy gave up on the technician, our little group had reached a consensus: the father of the little girl would be waited on first.

What we thought would be a five-minute errand turned into a twenty-minute one, which some folks would doubtless find annoying. We felt like we had received a small gift, a gift of community. For a few brief minutes a group of strangers were granted the opportunity to be kind and courteous to one another, and to be patient with a flustered employee. Such moments should be cherished. And I really, really hope that the little girl who really, really had to go potty made it in time!

Fear, Anger and Truth

2009-08-22T16:41:00.000-05:00

Within days of Barack Obama’s election, the FBI and the CIA were developing strategies for dealing with a resurgence of armed militias. In a grim sort of way I have to tip my hat to them for their foresight. While I dared to hope we were about to enter a new era of national unity, they knew that having a liberal African-American in the White House would inevitably create fear in certain portions of the population who would take up arms to protect themselves from the coming (pick one) Communist/Socialist/Nazi takeover of America. I heard an interview with a militia member who sincerely believes that the Obama administration is supporting a secret plan by the Mexican government to reclaim the states of Arizona and New Mexico. When you mix fear, anger, misinformation and weapons you wind up with a very dangerous combination.

Perhaps the most poignant question asked in the Christian Gospels is the one posed by Pontius Pilate: “What is truth?” When a society cannot agree upon what constitutes truth, cannot agree upon what is fact and what is fiction, dialogue becomes impossible. We have seen this most notably in the debate over health-care reform, where bizarre rumors (such as the one about the government establishing “death panels”) are regarded as factual truth by many people. I confess that I took more pleasure than I perhaps should have in Congressman Barney Frank’s response to one such woman, who accused the congressman of supporting the President’s “Nazi health plan”—“Ma’am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.”

It is not realistic to expect everyone to be in agreement about complex political and cultural issues. It is healthy and productive to dialog with one another in a respectful manner about those issues on which we hold different views. But in order to do so we need common grounding in the facts which define the issue. Lewis Carroll gave us the line “If I say it three times it is true,” and between the media and the internet such “truths” are being created and believed in alarming numbers. Misinformation has become the single greatest threat to civilized society.

By all means hold your own convictions and argue them with passion. But first, pause to ask yourself “Is this true? How do I know it is the truth? Where can I check my facts?” Persons of moral integrity will not always agree with one another, but they must not allow themselves to be guilty of spreading misinformation, rumors, or lies.

Baby Strollers, Faith and Hope

2009-08-12T11:12:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I visited a store that sells Baby Stuff for the first time in 27 years. Our daughter and her husband are expecting a child in November, and we are giving them a stroller as a gift. I came out of the store shell-shocked; I had no idea how much the technology of Baby Stuff has changed since our children were young. The stroller that the lady described as a “good quality basic unit” includes a base that mounts in the car, an infant car seat that snaps securely into either that base or the stroller, and a variety of other features (I counted three cup-holders but saw no holster for the baby’s cell phone). “Deluxe” strollers with even more features sell for as much as $800. I think we paid fifteen bucks for the stroller our kids rode in, an “umbrella stroller” made of some kind of nylon slightly stronger than toilet tissue. When we brought our daughter home from the hospital in 1976, we were given a cardboard box in which to transport her on her mother’s lap. How our kids survived until adulthood is a great mystery.

It seems to me that the Baby Stuff industry preys on young parents’ fears and anxieties: if you don’t buy the very safest and most expensive Stuff for your child (I assume that earthquake-proof cribs are available in California), you are a Bad Parent. Certainly I am in favor of anything that makes children safer, especially car seats. But I believe there is a down side to the notion that parents can build an impregnable bubble of safety around their child by overspending on these products. Unless we are equally invested in building safe, just and healthy communities for our children to grow up in, none of us will know real safety. Even the best parent cannot provide a child with absolute protection—it is a world of joy and beauty, but also a world of risk and danger. I want my grandchild to ride in a safe stroller, but I want even more for him (yes, it will be a boy) to grow up in a world where all children have adequate food, housing, education and medical care. Such a world would be a much safer one for our grandchild, and for everyone else’s grandchildren.

Purchasing a stroller for a child whose birth is still more than three months away is its own kind of act of faith and hope, of course—we are investing ourselves in the joyous expectation that the rest of our daughter’s pregnancy will go well and her son will be born more-or-less on schedule. Of course, every time we buy a gift for a family member or friend several months before their birthday we are engaging in a similar act of faith. Life is uncertain, and we can never know what tomorrow may bring. I remember an interview comedian George Burns gave on his 90th birthday. A reporter teased him by saying “At your age, I guess you aren’t buying any long-term bonds.” Burns answered “Young man, at my age I don’t even buy green bananas!” If we allowed ourselves to be ruled by fear, we would not buy green bananas, birthday gifts, or baby strollers. But faith inspires us to live into the future in hope. I look forward to pushing my grandchild in his fancy stroller. And I look forward to having him grow up and join me in the effort to build a better world for all God’s children.

Do Things “Work Out” in the End?

2009-07-24T11:11:00.001-05:00

A friend’s life recently turned the corner after a period of great difficulty. As she caught me up on her story and its (relatively) happy conclusion she smiled softly and said “I guess things have a way of working out in the end.”

It’s the kind of thing we say without thinking too deeply about what we are saying. Is it true? Do things in fact “work out” in the end? An honest answer would be “sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.” Some things get broken and cannot be mended. Some losses are so painful that the ache never completely goes away. Sometimes the bad guys win. And some people, no better or worse than anyone else, suffer more than their fair share of things that do not work out in the end.

I once heard a professor argue that a core conviction behind all faiths is that there is a power at work in the universe that wills for all life to flourish. That is very broad, but I think it is fair. Spiritually mature people know that there is no special divine protection afforded to the righteous and that life is a risky and uncertain business. Yet they choose to live in hope rather than in despair because they believe that the universe is kindly disposed towards us.

If we believe this, it means that we know that even though things will not always work out for us, more often than not they will. It means that most of the frightening possibilities we worry about will never happen. And it means that we believe that in the long-term—in God’s time, not ours—life and love will prevail.

Our little cabin in the U.P. is near the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, a beautiful place. One of its many attractions is Chapel Rock (it is an eight-mile hike to get there and back, but well worth it). Even though it is a barren rock, there is a huge tree on top of it. One root of the tree reaches across six feet of open air to lodge itself in the soil of a nearby hillside, providing the only source of moisture and nutrition for the tree. Each time I visit, I stare at that tree and its adventuresome root in awe, a reminder that life somehow finds a way to endure in even the most difficult circumstances.

Our own lives sometimes resemble that tree – we find ourselves in a barren place, with no source of strength or support to keep us going. Then we manage to grow a new root or someone tosses us a lifeline, and we somehow endure, even flourish. Life wins, hope prevails. We lose a round here or there, we suffer setbacks, we grieve losses. But looking at the larger picture, I agree with my friend: Things have a way of working out in the end.

Report from the War Zone

2009-07-15T15:07:00.001-05:00

Many have inquired about how my backyard bunny wars are going, so herewith an an update:

I purchased a live trap and began a Rabbit Relocation Program. Two rabbits were successfully relocated, and they will probably be the only two that are. This is because the baby bunnies are too small to activate the trap’s trigger and the larger ones have learned how to avoid it. In other words, my Rabbit Relocation Program has evolved into a Rabbit Feeding Program. They seem to enjoy the apples I purchase for them, and I am appropriately proud of my success in training rabbits to get in and out of a rabbit trap without being captured.

The chipmunk that ravaged Susan's shade garden is no longer with us. I do not want to be terribly specific about the details. Let us simply say that I provided him with a one-way ticket to a better place.

The beans are now coming in. They are in the one garden that is fenced so securely that the rabbits – even the babies – cannot enter. I am growing four varieties of beans, of which our favorite are the French fillet beans (the very skinny ones). As the beans mature, something is nibbling off the very end of each one. I am guessing it is mice standing on tippy-toe, no doubt looking adorable like the mice in children’s books. You cannot fence out mice, especially French mice.

Something ate an entire heirloom tomato plant down to the ground. There have been reports of a groundhog in the neighborhood. I do not think this is a coincidence.

Speaking of tomatoes, I have lost two additional plants to a disease that caused them to wilt overnight. The appeared to be perfectly healthy except for the bottom of the stem, which essentially shriveled away. I did a fair amount of research on the web, and this condition points to either a fungal or bacterial disease. I took a plant to the county extension office where I talked to a nice guy who knew less about wilting diseases than I did. All signs point to a soil-borne bacterial disease that can only be treated by removing the soil to a depth of 18 inches then leaving that garden unplanted for at least four years. I have five tomato plants left, but I don’t know for how long. I am guessing I will be buying a lot of tomatoes this year, and growing them in pots next summer. This should allow me to reach my goal of enjoying home-grown tomatoes that cost me more than four dollars apiece.

The Challenge of Retro-Tech

2009-06-26T14:25:00.001-05:00

Household things tend to wear out or go bust in clusters. On a hot and humid morning earlier this week I realized that the air conditioning was not working and traced the problem to a corroded, leaking battery in the thermostat. That same day the cordless phone in the kitchen began whining that it wanted a new battery, sending me into the blister-pack jungle of phone batteries that look almost exactly alike to find the only one that would actually fit (memo to phone manufacturers: it would be really swell if you put the model number of your phone on the actual phone).

Brief Old Guy Rant here: Remember when the only difference between light bulbs was the wattage? Now I have eleven completely different kinds of bulbs in the kitchen alone, some of which cost what I once considered a reasonable price for an entire fixture. I have a considerable portion of my retirement savings tied up in spare light bulbs. Batteries may be even worse – I do not even try to keep spares on hand except for the basic AA, AAA and 9V varieties. I initially thought it was ridiculous when a chain of stores selling nothing but batteries opened, now I’m thinking there may be a wonderful franchise opportunity in stores selling nothing but light bulbs.

But the real challenge is in maintaining “legacy” products. We still have several phones with receivers connected to the phone by an actual cord. These are the only landline phones that will still work if the power goes out (at least they will until the expensive back-up battery on the cable modem gives out). One of these primitive phones is critical to my wife. It sits on a small table in the upstairs hallway, just outside her office. There is no electrical outlet there, so a cordless phone is not an option. She loves that phone; loves the solid heft of the receiver in her hand. Often she needs to take it into her office so she can pull information up on her computer while chatting with her caller. Long ago I made two modifications to the phone that make this possible – an extra length coiled cord for the receiver, and a 16-foot retractable cord for the phone line. This last item is what prompted me to write.

Retractable cords are fragile creatures. They are very thin, which is what allows them to fit into a retractor of modest size. Sooner or later they become kinked or frayed and must be replaced. I used to be able to pick them up in any hardware or variety store, but they gradually vanished from the shelves. The last time I needed a new one I had to buy it at Radio Shack. This time I learned that even Radio Shack has dropped the item from their line.

Resigned to paying outrageous shipping charges, I turned to the web. Even there the pickings were slim. Shorter retractable lines are sold for laptop users who are forced to resort to dial-up connections, but it took a lengthy search to track down the classic 16-foot length we needed. I bought two. I can’t decide whether to keep the second as a back-up or to place it on a stand and display it as an antique. I recently read that there are now more households in the US that a have a cell phone and no landline than a landline and no cell, and the trend is accelerating. Susan is apparently the last human being on earth still using a corded landline phone with a retractable line. I am living with the Queen of Retro-Tech.

St. Francis and the Rabbits

2009-06-08T13:38:00.000-05:00

It is said that St. Francis was so pure of heart that animals had no fear of him. I am not St. Francis, and I sincerely wish that animals feared me more than they do. I am speaking specifically of rabbits. Last winter they destroyed the hedge around our patio, and all through the spring they have been munching on various flowers and plants. They are clearly doing this with malicious intent. They sense in their evil bunny hearts which plants we value the most and single them out for destruction. If it is not a plant they care to eat, they taunt us by snipping it off and leaving it lying on the ground. These are very, very bad bunnies.

We have tried putting fencing around particularly prized plants, but this creates a garden that resembles a prisoner of war camp. Susan sprinkles plants with pepper and sprays them with various magic potions, but the rabbits regard these as salad dressing. They are indifferent to plastic snakes and snicker at plastic owls. We win the occasional battle, but the bunnies are winning the war.

In my mind there is an obvious solution, but the only thing Susan detests more than rabbits are guns. While I am a strong advocate of gun control, I believe that gardeners have an inalienable right to defend their forsythia with a pellet gun. She raises grim scenarios of me shooting my eye out or being hauled away in cuffs by law enforcement. This is not an argument I am going to win.

St. Francis is often credited as author of “the serenity prayer,” which was actually written by Reinhold Neibuhr. Here is his original version of it:
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.

I cannot decide if rabbits are things that cannot be changed or things that should be changed. I like the second part of the prayer, the part most people have never heard. More of us should pray that “I may be reasonably happy in this life” because we are not likely to be completely happy. Not so long as there are rabbits.

Racetracks and Shared Cognition

2009-05-31T12:49:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine agreed to teach her 16-year-old niece to drive. She began with a brief lecture on attentive driving – keep your eyes on the road ahead at all times, but also monitor your instrument panel, glance regularly at all three rear-view mirrors, know what is going on to your left and right… A look of panic came into her niece’s eyes. “Nobody can do all that at the same time!” But we do, of course, and most of the time we are barely aware that we are doing it (although it is not wise to add things like talking on the phone or applying make-up).

I was reminded of this story recently when I had the opportunity to drive on a racetrack. It was a privately-hosted “track day” at Road America in Elkhart Lake, one of the world’s great road courses, and I jumped at the opportunity. I wisely took my son, who has had some racing experience, as my passenger and coach. I drove my little Volvo hatchback. Other participants were driving Porsches, Corvettes, Cobras and Ferraris and actually knew what they were doing, which was a bit intimidating. Oh, and it rained all day, making the track greasy and treacherous. It is a bit disconcerting to glance in the rear-view mirror and see a Corvette sliding sideways. I was also keenly aware that my insurance would not cover any mishap that occurred on the track. What made me think this would be fun?

Take all the things we normally monitor while driving and multiply them by a factor of five on a racetrack. Then add the 14 turns on the Road America course, each of which must be approached in a different manner (when and how hard to brake; where to hit the apex and in what gear, etc.) I quickly discovered I simply could not process all this information at the same time, and turned the corners over to Colin, who calmly and clearly guided me (“Move left. Don’t brake yet. Now! Second gear. Turn! Accelerate!”) I could focus on the yellow Ferrari coming up behind me and the puddle to my right and leave the corners to him. Still I needed to pit after every three or four laps because I could only maintain mental focus that long (I claimed that it was to allow the brakes to cool when it was actually my brain that needed to cool down).

Later that evening I described the experience to my wife, the psychologist, who nodded wisely. “Cognitive overload,” she explained. “You are 61 years old and you can only maintain that kind of load for so long.” I wonder how long I could have maintained it if I had not had a second (and younger) brain in the seat next to me. I got by with a little help from my son.

People who are in a close relationship over a long period of time develop something called “shared cognition,” which means that they pool their mental resources without even being aware that they are doing it. One person drives, the other reads the map. One remembers to send birthday cards to family members; the other remembers to lock the doors at night. Two heads really are better than one.

On the racetrack, I went back and forth between “what in the world was I thinking?” and “I can’t wait to do this again!” I will likely return next year. But I certainly will not try to do it with just one brain.

Commencement Speech for UW - Fox Valley

2009-05-21T21:37:00.002-05:00

For those who requested it, here is the text of the speech I gave...

Good evening. I suspect that some of you are wondering who I am and what I am doing up here. I cannot imagine that many people who received their invitation to commencement shouted “Oh Boy - we get to hear the Goodwill chaplain!” The most honest answer to the question of why I am your speaker tonight is that Michele Obama said “no.” We really thought we had a chance to get her – she was invited long before the election and her people did not say flat-out “no” – but then some upstart college in California convinced its students to send her 6,000 personal letters begging her to come and she went there instead. So I am your speaker tonight because you could not be bothered to write to Michele Obama. Pity. So my first word of advice to the graduating class of ’09 is to be sure to write thank-you notes for any graduation gifts you receive, especially for that $20 gift certificate from Aunt Gladys. Like Michele Obama, Aunt Gladys is thrilled when she receives a handwritten note from you.

Beyond that, I want to talk about change and hope, which are pretty classic commencement speech topics. I also want to talk a bit about baby boomers, because I am a baby boomer and we still find ourselves endlessly fascinating. But let’s start with change. These past two years have brought more significant change to our society than any similar period in my lifetime. You who are completing one phase of your college education and preparing for the next are already living in a world very different from the one in which you began, and by the time you receive your bachelor’s degree it will likely be different from today.

Let’s start with the obvious: the economy. In 2008 it disappeared down a rat-hole. Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, asked this important question in a column back in March:
“What if the economic crisis of 2008 was something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically… We created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more US T-bills so Americans would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese… We can’t do this anymore. When we look back, 2008 will be a momentous year in human history. Our children and grandchildren will ask us “What was it like?” Often in the middle of something momentous, we can’t see its significance. But … 2008 will be the marker – the year when ‘The Great Disruption’ began.”

Does that ring as true for you as it does for me? That the economy as it existed two years ago was a global Ponzi scheme that made Bernie Madoff look like he wasn’t even trying? We are told that the economy will begin to recover late this year, and I certainly hope that is true, but it is also true that many of the jobs that have been lost are not coming back and frankly should not come back because they were contributing nothing of real value to society. We are not waiting for the old economy to “get back to normal,” we are in the very early stages of creating a new economy that is sane and sustainable. Those of you who began your college career hoping to get filthy rich in jobs that involved moving fictitious money from one pile to another may want to rethink your career goals. In fact, anyone who views the value of a college degree solely in terms of increased earning potential would benefit from a bit of soul-searching. Which is the actual theme of this address and sooner or later I will get to it.

But first let’s talk about baby-boomers. It was very good to be a baby boomer in 1968; sorry you missed it. We had Jimi and Janis, the Doors and the Beatles, and all we left for you was American Idol. After a decade or so as hippies who claimed to reject materialism we discovered arugula and cute shoes and became Yuppies. We also briefly discovered disco, but we don’t like to talk about that. Moving further still from our youthful idealism, we discovered excessive consumption for its own sake – McMansions and Mercedes for everyone! - and since we did not have enough money to support all that spending we borrowed and leveraged in order to keep buying more stuff that we had convinced ourselves we needed and were entitled to. So deeply were we in the grip of consumerism that when our president urged us to respond to 9/11 by going shopping it made perfect sense to us. Run up your credit card debt or the terrorists win! We didn’t bother to save because the value of our houses and our pension funds just kept magically increasing. It was good; it was very good! Money for nothing! We spent like drunken sailors and thoughtfully passed the bills on to you. Now we are getting older and starting to worry about our health care needs. Poor, aging baby boomers! We have never settled for less than the best, so naturally we feel entitled to the highest quality health care for the rest of our lives. There are 78 million of us, and we plan to stick around for as long as possible while you pay for our social security and Medicare. On behalf of the entire baby boom generation, I want to express my gratitude to each one of you. You get to clean up the mess left by the old economy.

But let’s talk about another seismic shift that took place last year. We elected an African-American man president of the United States of America! Could any of us have imagined that happening just two years ago? Just as amazingly, many folks who do not agree with him on every issue appear minded to give him a chance and sincerely hope he can lead us in building a better nation and world. His vision is very different from that of the previous administration, particularly with regard to America’s role in the global community and how we respond to climate change. Already the rest of the world seems to be less afraid of us, and by the time you complete your bachelor’s degree they may even trust us and respect us again. They really seem to like that part where we don’t torture people anymore. The challenges we face are enormous, but many folks seem to believe this new president when he tells us that these challenges are also opportunities. We are broke and yet we are optimistic, which is an unusual combination.

One of the words we are hearing more often these days is the word “sustainability.” It is a good and helpful word, so I hope it does not get overused and diluted into meaninglessness along with phrases like “all natural.” The “endless growth economy” that died in 2008 was not sustainable, and neither was the arrogant notion that our nation could act unilaterally to rid the world of evil without descending into evil ourselves. We have been humbled, and in humility lies the beginning of wisdom and hope.

So here at what is for most of you the mid-point of your college career we are hammering the last nails in the coffin of an economy based upon growth and consumption without regard to the environmental cost or the huge chasm it created between the rich and the poor. We are trying to sort out how to build a healthy, sustainable economy for everyone, not just the rich, based upon goods and services of real worth and value. We are trading in our global cowboy swagger for diplomacy and international cooperation because it is finally sinking in that for all of its chaos, division, danger and conflict, it really is one world and somehow we need to figure out how to live on it together in peace. It is a scary and challenging time, but it is also an exciting and hopeful time to be preparing to enter adult life and begin a career.

I believe that the most important thing you can do right now to prepare for the future is to think about, talk about and dream about what really makes for a life that is rich and satisfying. I challenge you to think less about getting wealthy and more about what will actually make your life good. We – and I don’t just mean baby boomers, I mean all of us – had allowed ourselves to be seduced by pretty, shiny things. We got caught up in the culture of materialism and then wondered why we were not as fulfilled as we were supposed to be. Pundits are gravely predicting that yours may be the first generation to have a lower standard of living than your parents. But if a higher standard of living is attained at the cost of a lower quality of life, it is a poor trade. Allow me to list some of the things I believe will define what makes for a good life in the coming years:

1. Valuing relationships at least as much as we value material possessions. The culture of consumption taught us to compete with one another rather than to appreciate and enjoy one another. For too many people, “stuff” is what they ended up with in place of real friendships and committed relationships of mutual support and accountability. I challenge you to value people more than “stuff.”

2. Valuing the things we own in common at least as much as they things we own individually. By “things we own in common” I mean clean air, safe water, public parks, sidewalks, schools, the internet, the court system, city hall, places of worship, public transit systems and all the other things that weave us together in common community and enrich our lives. We are rich; together we are rich! In the old economy, people sought wealth in order to insulate themselves from others, with the ultimate dream of hiding away in some exclusive, gated community. What a hollow dream! You cannot gate out pollution or climate change, nor can you forever gate out poverty and injustice. In the end we cannot thrive unless we build communities in which everyone thrives. I challenge you to think less about what you can achieve for yourself, and more about what we can achieve together.

3. Valuing the work we do not in terms of how much we earn or the prestige and power it brings, but whether it makes use of our talents and abilities in ways that fulfill us while contributing to the greater good of society. There is something truly obscene about a hedge fund manager receiving 100 times the compensation of a gifted and dedicated teacher, given their relative contributions to society, and I hope and pray that era is over for good. I want you to have careers that are driven by passion rather than greed. I challenge you to think in terms of doing good rather than doing well.

That’s three points, which are enough for a commencement address. If we are going to build a new and better world, we must live by new values and priorities, and these new values begin when we shift our focus from “me” to “us.” Across lines of age, race, creed, nation and culture, we are all in this together. Each of you has abilities and passions to contribute to building this new and better world. Spend these next two years sorting out what they are, and how you will develop them. Don’t worry about getting a job – if the passion is there, the job will be there as well. It may not make you rich, but it will make you happy, because nothing brings greater happiness than doing something you do well that makes a difference in this world. It may mean that you will accumulate less “stuff,” but you will have a life worth living. Thank you very much.

What's in a Name?

2009-05-01T12:50:00.000-05:00

In my very first job I worked with an older kid named Jughead. That’s what everyone called him – it was months before I learned his real name. He was a good-looking guy whose head in no way resembled a jug, so I finally asked him where the name came from. He explained that many years earlier he had attended a summer camp, where the boys he bunked with all gave each other nicknames ending with “head.” His was the only one that stuck. I asked him why only his had stuck and he grinned: “because none of the others could be said in front of the adults.”

Two lessons here. First, there are obviously worse things to be called than “Jughead.” And second, sometimes when a name had been conferred on someone or something it can be very hard to get rid of it.

The current flu outbreak is a case in point. The worst flu pandemic of modern times was the Spanish Flu of 1918. We now know definitively that it began not in Spain, but in Kansas, but it will forever be known as the Spanish Flu. The current flu has a number of names. Because there is a swine component to the virus (as well as avian and human components) it quickly picked up the name “Swine Flu.” This immediately led to a great deal of confusion about pigs carrying or causing the disease, along with rumors that it had first surfaced because of the practices of factory hog farming. Fear began to spread that one could contract the flu from consuming pork, which is completely untrue. Understandably, pork producers quickly howled in protest. The pigs themselves have not yet expressed an opinion on the matter.

Jews and Muslims, whose faith prohibits eating pork products, also were unhappy with the name. They suggested that it should be called The Mexican Flu, because Mexico was where it first surfaced. Mexico, which already has enough problems on its hands, bristled at the idea of having their country permanently stigmatized the way Spain was by the 1918 pandemic.

So if it is not Swine Flu and it is not Mexican Flu, what is it? According to the Center for Disease Control, it should be called by its proper name, which is H1N1. That is certainly a more accurate and scientific term, but I am guessing it is not likely to catch on. We like simple, everyday names for things. Plus when we are frightened of something, we sometimes need to joke about our fears, and pigs make for good jokes.

So everyone, wash your hands frequently and take sensible precautions to avoid catching this flu, whatever it is called. And also be careful about giving your kids or your friends nicknames – they might get stuck with them for the rest of their lives.

No More Yo Ho Ho

2009-04-23T15:46:00.002-05:00

Let’s see what has been happening on the Pirate Stock Exchange. In the days of the Barbary pirates their stock was very low, perhaps because they were dangerous and brutal, sending many a ship and her crew to Davy Jones’ Locker. Their stock began to rise in the era of pulp fiction and movie serials, when pirates became the center of swashbuckling adventure and romance on the high seas. For the past five years their stock has soared to unprecedented heights: we convinced ourselves that all pirates looked like Johnny Depp and were mischievous at worst. On “Talk like a Pirate Day” (admittedly a holiday that never quite broke through to the level of Valentine’s Day) many an otherwise sane and balanced person would break into a hearty “Arrrr!” and make reference to eye patches and parrots.

The Somali pirates have caused the Pirate Stock Exchange to crash even more severely than the Dow Jones; I am not sure that “Talk like a Pirate Day” will ever recover. When we had gained enough distance from piracy we remade it into something funny and romantic. Now that it is back on the front page again our perspective is more sober and realistic. Granted, these are very different sorts of pirates than those of earlier times. My understanding is that the phenomenon began when poor fisherman whose Somali government had collapsed (and therefore left them completely without protection) attempted to drive off foreign vessels that were illegally fishing Somali waters and dumping toxic wastes in them. They quickly learned that holding ships for ransom was more lucrative than fishing and, human greed being what it is, a new era of piracy was born.

Just as we lost all perspective on the horrors perpetrated by the pirates of old, we have likely overly vilified a ragtag bunch of poor, uneducated fisherman from a lawless society. The international community must put an end to their activities, of course, but the young man presently being held by the US court system is not a terrorist combatant or a criminal genius. We are so hungry for both heroes and villains that we have demonized what is likely a frightened, clueless kid.

Why is it that we always project “evil” onto whoever we regard as the enemy of the moment, then when the threat from that enemy ends attempt to convince ourselves that the evil never existed? As a kid I watched a television show called “Hogan’s Heroes” in which Nazi prison guards were portrayed as bumbling but lovable incompetents. Didn’t that trivialize evil as surely as “Pirates of the Caribbean” did? And why do we only look for evil in the other – the enemy – and not in ourselves? Do we think Jesus was way off base when he talked about our desire to remove the speck from someone else’s eye while ignoring the stick in our own?

So long as we see evil only in whoever happens to be our enemy of the moment we fail to take evil seriously. And that is a very dangerous thing to do.

Can we Challenge this Culture of Death and Violence?

2009-04-10T10:55:00.000-05:00

There have been far too many terrible stories in the news about someone entering a public building with guns blazing, claiming many innocent lives before ultimately taking his own. The Columbine High School massacre in 1999 was not the first such incident, but it seems to have established a horrible template that has been followed many times since. A person with a grudge of some sort snaps and forms a plan to take revenge. Weapons and ammunition are attained all too easily, the disturbed person goes on a deadly rampage, and we have another tragic headline. No public setting has been spared – schools and universities, offices and factories, churches and nursing homes.

There are many things we can lament here, beginning with how pervasive violence has become in our society and our failure to come to terms with gun violence in particular. But I have become morbidly fascinated by how news coverage of these stories is affected by the identity of the victims. If they are young – high school or college students – it is front page news for many days. But a recent massacre in which 14 people died at an immigration center in Binghamton, NY, flickered briefly across the front page and quickly faded from view. Most of the victims were Hispanic immigrants: is that why this shooting was considered less newsworthy?

The week before, eight people died violent deaths when a gunman who was angry with his wife stormed into a North Carolina nursing home. This story never made the front page at all. Is it because there were “only” eight victims, or was it because they were elderly persons with dementia? One person living nearby said in an interview that it was horrible and that she felt bad for the victims, but that she took comfort in knowing that “they were going to die anyway.” Really? The students at Columbine were also “going to die anyway;” we all are.

Many things shape how we allow tragedies to impact us, including distance and time. Tragedies half a world away – earthquake victims in Italy, children starving in war-torn regions of Africa – are sad, but also a bit abstract to us. A year after floods ravage Iowa or a hurricane devastates New Orleans people are still suffering, but our attention has moved on. And I suspect we are hard-wired to view the violent deaths of children and young adults as more tragic than the deaths of older adults. But all persons are of infinite worth and no human life is more or less valuable than another. It seems to me that unless we can overcome our short attention spans and learn how to grieve, grieve deeply and truly, we will never summon the collective will needed to confront and change this culture of death and violence that we have tolerated for far too long.

Bear Suit Follies

2009-04-01T19:22:00.002-06:00

An odd post here. It has been more than three years since I published Bear Suit Follies: the Songs, Stories and Letters of Antonia. It was a labor of love, gathering the writings of a remarkable woman who has been an important part of our lives since 1969, a peculiar urban auntie to our children when they were young, a seminal figure in the Greenwich Village folk scene, and pivotal to the band that has most greatly influenced my musical life, the Holy Modal Rounders. Almost no one in Appleton knows about the book, since in order to represent Antonia accurately I had to include a sampling of the (very witty) porn she wrote along the way (a signing at the local bookstore would not have reflected well on First Congregational). I may one day do some more writing about this interesting corner of my life, but for now it is put to rest.

I write this post because I just received the three additional copies I ordered from my publisher, having given my last copy away over the weekend. I checked the publisher's website and learned that to date nearly 200 copies have been sold, not all of which were purchased by me. Amazingly, selling those few copies puts it in the upper 4% of all books published (most sell fewer than 25), which says something about the state of publishing, and of vanity.

I am in no immediate danger of recovering my costs for this project. But in a pique of curiosity I just Googled the book title for the first time and it was an amazing experience. It is a "print on demand" publication, but one seller claims to have 100 copies in stock (see above: 190 total copies sold to date). It is available in Estonia! The retail price is $14 (as author, I can get them cheaper), but some sellers want as much as forty bucks for a copy (don't even think about buying one in Australia). And many, many vendors steal the reviews from Amazon and give no credit for them.

A word about the power of on-line reviews. Antonia has a grand-daughter she had never met and who knew very little about her. Said grand-daughter - a beautiful multiracial fashion consultant - was traveling in Italy shortly after the book came out. she met an old Italian man in Venice who told her he liked American music by a band called the Holy Modal Rounders. In astonishment she said "Antonia Stampfel is my grandmother!" He patted her arm and said "there is a book about your grandmother." When she got back to the states she went to Amazon and entered "Antonia" into the search field. The first book to come up was Willa Cather's "My Antonia," the second was "Bear Suit Follies." Out of this she ended up meeting her grandmother. That's her story and she's sticking to it...

Because it is a print-on-demand book, it may never go out of print (because it really is not in print), so it may haunt me the rest of my life and haunt my progeny long after I am gone. I am still glad I wrote it. If you want to learn more about it (or even purchase a copy) you can find it at Amazon.com

Air Travel: the "New Normal"

2009-03-31T14:32:00.004-06:00

This past weekend I flew to Portland, Oregon to preside at the memorial service for Phil Buchanan. It was a rich but difficult experience and I am grateful I was able to be a part of it. If I write about it at all if will be after I have taken some time to get past the immediate emotional impact. For now let me just make a few observations about the “new normal” in air travel.
It was a challenge to find flights that worked because Susan and I were leading a workshop in Shawano on Friday, which meant departing from Appleton as late as possible, and I very much wanted to have brunch with our friends Debby, Greene and Terry before coming home on Sunday, which meant leaving Portland in the afternoon but still getting home at a reasonable hour. My flight out of Appleton left 90 minutes late, but that simply meant spending those 90 minutes in the Appleton airport rather than O’ Hare, which is hardly a sacrifice. Appleton now has free Wi-Fi.
I was on five flights in total, and each of them was fully booked or overbooked. The airlines are succeeding in filling their seats, likely because they are offering fewer flights. This means checking in as early as possible – ideally on-line as soon as they allow – to reduce the risk of being bumped.
Not a single flight had food aboard, not even for sale. Passengers now carry provisions of all sorts, making me think of people in the developing world riding rickety buses (except that there are not yet chickens in the aisles). Like those rickety buses, minor maintenance appears to be deferred more often. I had no reading light between Chicago and Portland, for example. I would have loved to snooze, but my aisle seat made that pretty much impossible.
Now that the airlines are charging for checking all bags, the great majority of passengers are bringing only carry-on luggage. A new etiquette is emerging: only larger bags may go in the overhead bins, so you are pretty much obligated to put your briefcase or backpack under the seat in front of you, surrendering what little foot room that space would have provided. The airlines are making a few bucks on this new policy, and the flight attendants are the ones paying the price for it. They have developed extraordinary stuffing skills, but it still takes longer to get everyone boarded and soothed than it used to. A policy that is new to me: the going rate seems to be $15 for the first checked bag and much more for the second, but if the first bag exceeds fifty pounds or is oversized that fee jumps to $125! This could be an issue when Harry and I go backpacking in Utah next month.
To get home on Sunday I needed to take one Delta flight and two United flights. The airlines do no play nicely together: Delta would not allow me to check-in or print boarding passes for any flights from my hotel, and I was rejected by their electronic kiosk at the airport as well. The woman who finally checked me in (and it was a challenge to find an actual human being) told me that I would need to get my United boarding passes at my next stop, Salt Lake City. Since my departure from Portland was delayed and I had only minutes to make my connection, which was in a different terminal, that could have been a major problem. Fortunately, United had permitted me to check in and print boarding passes at the hotel: points for United on that one.
Portland and Denver also now offer free Wi-Fi (I was not in Salt Lake City long enough to check). Free internet access is becoming an entitlement: I suspect (and hope) that Boingo’s days are numbered…
Although three of the five flights were delayed, I got to Portland a few minutes ahead of schedule and home to Appleton only 45 minutes late (high winds in Denver had departing flights stacked up on the runway). Air travel has become less and less pleasant, but the remarkable thing is that it still works most of the time – any trip on which you reach your destination that same day is by definition a good trip.

The Downside of Cabins

2009-03-21T16:24:00.001-06:00

The downside of owning a cabin is that sometimes it requires attention when you were not planning to provide it with any. This time the plea for attention came in the form of the electric bill.
We get our juice from the Alger-Delta Electrical Co-op. Rural co-ops appear to be an endangered species these days, but I like ours. In U.P. winters, maintaining service can be a real challenge, and these folks do a good job. Plus I like their funky little newsletter. Until recently, seasonal cabins like ours received a single billing for the entire year but a few months ago they moved to monthly billing, presumably to help with their cash flow. I am grateful they did, because our February statement showed that our usage had gone through the roof, even though we have not been up there since New Year’s Day. The only thing we leave plugged in during the winter is the small heater inside the well housing.
My first thought was that my well structure had collapsed under the severe snow load. I had made temporary repairs to it late in the fall when I noticed that some of the wood was rotting out (It took a few seasons after I built it to figure out the importance of venting it in warm weather), and planned to rebuild it this spring. Since it was two weeks before I could clear the time to go up there, I tried hard to fight off images of a collapsed well, a destroyed pump and pressure tank and a small heater trying to warm an entire peninsula.
So the other day I drove up to see what was going on. It was a warm day – it got up over fifty – but the average snow depth was still about three feet. Except for the area around my well, which was nice and clear. The structure had survived just fine, but the thermostat in the heater was stuck in the “on” position, and had been merrily churning out 750 watts of heat 24/7 for about six weeks. The temperature in the well was 117. Needless to say, the pump had not frozen.
It was an adventure getting into the cabin, first digging away the snow, then taking axe and hatchet to the four inches of ice underneath it so that I could open the doors. As soon as I had cleared space around the back door, it filled with water from the snow melting on the roof, and said water began to flow into the cabin (Our sill height is less than 2”). Which meant I had to chop a long channel through the ice to drain water away from the door. This took the better part of an hour to do.
While the cabin was heating up I settled into some spring cleaning. Which is when I discovered that Buster, our “pet” chipmunk, had found a way to get into the cabin and make himself at home. It took my several hours to discover how he did it: he had gnawed his way through the rubber edging at the bottom of both the front storm door and main door, making a space just large enough for a determined chipmunk to squeeze through – one more job to do.
When I got home the next day I wrote a note to the Alger-Delta Electrical Co-op, thanking them for switching to monthly billing. Had they not, I would have contributed even more to global warming, or at least U.P. warming. And Buster would have rearranged the furniture.

Random Thoughts while Running on a March Morning

2009-03-16T16:05:00.000-06:00

The snow on the terrace (between the sidewalk and the street) melts much faster on streets running east-west than on those running north-south. If you think about the path of the sun in the sky (and this is the sort of thing I ponder while running), this makes perfect sense.

People who did a poor job of keeping their sidewalks and driveways clear through the winter are now being rewarded with faster-melting snow because they never created huge piles of it. Virtue is not necessarily rewarded in this world; God causes the snow to melt for the righteous and unrighteous alike.

A fair number of retired men, driven by a deep-seated need for order, run out to retrieve their trash cans as soon as the truck has gone by. These are the same men who will mow their lawns every other day all summer. I am likely doomed to join their ranks one day.

Approximately 18% of homes still have Christmas decorations up in mid-March.

Since recycling is mandatory in Appleton, it is clear that many people are not familiar with the definition of the word “mandatory.”

While we are on the topic of recycling, my casual survey suggests that fewer people are reading newspapers while more people are drinking diet Mountain Dew, even though God never meant for human beings to drink a fluid that color.

36 degrees is not too cold to eat your breakfast outside at George Webb if you are a dedicated smoker.

Lost things reappear as the snow melts. Mittens, hats and boots top the list, along with the occasional bicycle that never made it into the garage last November.

The robins have returned, along with the sump pump hoses.

Any day that carries strong hints of spring is a very good day.

The State of American Religion

2009-03-13T10:50:00.002-06:00

Last week the findings of the comprehensive American Religious Identification Survey were released, and few of us were surprised to learn that the number of Americans identifying themselves with a specific religious tradition – or with any religion at all – has declined significantly over the past 25 years. Among other findings are these:
So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%) that this category now outranks every other major religious group except for Catholics and Baptists.
All Mainline Protestant denominations have seen sharp declines.
Many American Christians are not quite sure what to call themselves, using terms ranging from “Evangelical” to “born-again” to “non-denominational.” Taken all together, they represent only 14% of the population.
Jewish numbers have declined (now 1.2%) while Muslim numbers (0.6%) have grown less than many had expected.
Vermont has now passed Oregon as the least religious state, with more than a third of the population claiming no religion at all.

Self-described Christians still make up nearly 70% of the population, but many of them are Christian only in the broadest sense with a very limited understanding of the beliefs and practices of that faith. Said the survey’s co-author: “For many, religion has become more like a fashion statement, not a deep personal commitment.” Perhaps the most extreme story included came from a staff member in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. A couple came into his office with a list of questions posed by their teenage son, beginning with “What is that guy doing hanging up there on the plus sign?”

I find in the survey at least as much cause for hope as despair. Certainly religious tolerance has grown – far fewer people claim that their religion is the only true faith, or the only one that can “get you into heaven.” And while the survey found that there is still a Christian “culture war” being waged over issues like abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research, there are fewer persons at the extreme ends of the spectrum. We are learning, in other words, to respect those who hold views different from our own and to look for points of agreement.

It can be argued that in a society where everyone is “vaguely religious,” religion becomes less dynamic, less faithful and less interesting. If fewer people claim to be Christian, perhaps we will have higher expectations of what it means to live like one. And that could only be a good thing.

Wicked Thoughts

2009-03-02T19:38:00.000-06:00

Last evening we went to the performing arts center with Kate and Eric for the final performance of “Wicked,” which has enjoyed a remarkably successful four-week run (essentially selling out all 32 performances, which is well over 60,000 tickets). This kind of “Broadway Blockbuster” production is essential to making the Appleton PAC and many similar centers around the country fiscally viable, so I am grateful for its success.

Was it a good show? That depends upon the criteria used to define “good.” It was a lavish production with a wonderful set and marvelous costuming. The performances were all very good, brushing up against Broadway quality in several cases. The show, in other words, was very well presented and performed. Which leaves the question of whether “Wicked” is a good musical, and here we move quickly into the subjective. My own opinion is that it is a good story (thank the author for that) well told (although the first act is stronger than the second) burdened with a musical score that is mediocre at best. There are no songs one is tempted to hum on the way out (or remember the next day), and many of them reminded me of the overblown top-forty pop songs so beloved by former contestants of “American Idol.” But I freely confess to musical snobbery: I would say pretty much the same thing about “Lion King” and other contemporary musicals. Musicals today are defined not by music, but by elaborate sets, golly gee whiz special effects and non-stop energy – more spectacle than art.

Which, of course, is as American as apple pie and baseball. We have a panoramic photo of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which packed in crowds all around the world with the 19th century version of the “spectacle not to be missed!,” and in my own childhood traveling circuses featured non-stop action in multiple rings to keep our jaws hanging open. Toss in Busby Berkeley musicals and Las Vegas shows with their ostrich feathers, sequins and topless ladies. Cirque De Soleil, in reinventing the circus for our time, got that old formula right: give the audience more than they can absorb in any given moment and just keep it coming. Come to think of it, the Romans used pretty much that same formula in the coliseum (“Now with more lions and Christians!”), so Americans cannot really lay claim to the tradition. We have always loved a really, really big show.

But to wax a little bit cranky, the Broadway musicals of “the golden era” were able to offer a sense of spectacle while also providing memorable tunes, and opera has long offered both over-the-top spectacle (Wagner!) and glorious music. Musical comedy can be witty, intelligent, musically sophisticated and marvelously entertaining – Stephen Sondheim, anyone? – but what most of us want most of the time is the helicopter landing in “Miss Saigon.”

Many of the people seated near us last evening had traveled some distance for the performance (there was a Yooper seated next to us), which means that the PAC is succeeding in its goal of becoming a regional magnet. Certainly the tickets, which were far from inexpensive, constituted a financial stretch for many present (including us!), particularly in this dreadful economy. I loved seeing little girls and teens all dressed up for their “big night out;” for many this was the event of the year, or even of a lifetime. Guys who work in mills surprised their wives with tickets that fulfilled longstanding dreams of seeing a “real Broadway show.” It was touching at the end of the show when the entire audience rose for a standing ovation as soon as the first cast members stepped back onto the stage. I am sure the same thing occurred at every performance, and that the performers were thrilled to receive such an enthusiastic response (a New Yorker, of course, would be appalled by an audience that rose to its feet for random citizens of Oz). The audience was essentially thanking the cast for bringing one night of magic to the upper Midwest, and for giving us a few hours inside a version of Glinda the Good’s magic bubble, where the gloom and doom could not touch us. And that is nothing to be desipised.

The Danger of Certainty

2009-02-25T17:18:00.002-06:00

Christian writer Annie Lamott wrote: “The opposite of faith is not doubt. It is certainty. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he hates all the same people you do.”

In a world where so much is uncertain many people long for clarity and certainty, and religious faith can indeed provide that certainty in significant ways—the certainty that we are loved, the certainty that our lives have value and meaning, the certainty that nothing of ultimate importance can ever be taken from us, even by death.

But Annie is talking about a different and far more dangerous form of certainty—the certainty that we are right and those who disagree with us are wrong. That kind of certainty inevitably leads to intolerance, and a faith that preaches hatred or intolerance is no longer faith. Healthy faith fosters attitudes of respect, appreciation and cooperation between persons of other faiths, even while we “agree to disagree” about specific truth-claims. A friend of mine, the former pastor of a fairly conservative Evangelical church, enjoyed a close friendship with his Muslim neighbor. Some of his colleagues challenged him for sharing a friendship with a non-Christian. He shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Well, clearly one of us is wrong about Jesus.” They maintained their friendship for years, learning from one another and discovering how many values they held in common. Wisely, the left it to God to sort out which one of them was “right” and which was “wrong.”

Rigid, intolerant expressions of faith are almost always rooted in a narrow, literal interpretation of that faith’s sacred scriptures. I want to be careful here: not everyone who reads scripture literally is narrow-minded or intolerant. I am speaking of a “my way or the highway” interpretation that turns sacred scripture into a weapon employed to attack persons who read those same writings differently or who center their life in a different set of writings. If humility is indeed one of the greatest virtues, it seems to me that religious people should be sufficiently humble to admit that we cannot always be certain we are interpreting our sacred scriptures correctly. If we are to err, we should err on the side of the universal teachings of religious faith: kindness, compassion, justice, mercy and love. As Martin Luther once observed, “Even Satan can quote scripture to his own purposes.”

So be wary of anyone who claims to have no doubts that his or her interpretation of faith is absolutely correct. One of my favorite quotes comes from a Canadian pastor who was challenged to summarize the entire message of the Bible in a single sentence. He thought for a moment then offered this: “I am God and you are not!” Because we are not God – not even close – we are limited in our wisdom, knowledge and understanding. Which means that we should be slow to judge others, or to claim exclusive ownership of the truth.

Being Owned by Books

2009-02-19T16:19:00.003-06:00

"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."
~ Anna Quindlen

A friend sent me that quote recently, knowing that I would appreciate it. Susan and I are both book lovers, often reading two or three books at the same time. We have lived in our house more than twenty years, and in the course of those years we have placed bookshelves most everyplace a bookshelf could be reasonably placed. These bookshelves are not only full; they are bulging at the seams. Which means we are living at the ragged edge of a major book crisis.

Susan is a wonderful lady with far fewer flaws and character defects than I have, but she has never willingly parted with a book. Because she is a college professor she has acquired an obscene number of books, including textbooks. Worse yet, one of the courses she teaches is “the history of psychology.” Because she teaches this course, she believes that it is her duty to keep a copy of every edition of every textbook that has ever been used to teach psychology.

Many of these textbooks currently reside on bookshelves in her office at the university. Someday she will retire, and when she does she will bring those books home. To make room for them, something will have to be moved out. Something or someone. I have every reason to believe she loves me very much, but if she had to choose between her books and me it would be a very tough choice.

For years now I have been attempting, with limited success, to enforce a rule that I call Mandatory Book Rotation. Books that we have recently read tend to get stacked in piles until the piles become dangerously high. When they do, they must be placed on a bookshelf. But because all the bookshelves are completely full, that means that other books must first be removed from those bookshelves and taken down to the bookshelves in the basement. Those bookshelves are also completely full, of course, so in order to place the books removed from the bookshelves in the den or the living room on the bookshelves in the basement, books must first be removed from the basement bookshelves. The books removed from the bookshelves in the basement are theoretically to be placed in cardboard boxes and taken to Goodwill.

This last step is the problematic one. Susan has no problem parting with clothing or other material possessions, but she is not above retrieving books from the Goodwill cartons and sneaking them back onto a bookshelf when I am not paying attention. Our house no longer stands on a foundation of poured cement; it rests on a foundation of Tolstoy and Updike.

I recently spent time in the basement with a tape measure. If I removed non-essential items – chairs, for example – I might be able to squeeze three more bookshelves down there. But I dare not do that yet because all three would instantly be filled, leaving no space for the books from Susan’s office when she retires. So we need to do some serious negotiation about which books to keep and which to donate to Goodwill. It will not be easy. As we move into our sixties, we are sincerely attempting to let go of possessions we already own rather than acquiring more. But somewhere along the way books became defined as “friends” rather than “possessions.” And you don’t get rid of friends.

Getting Older, Staying Married

2009-02-16T20:34:00.001-06:00

I had lunch today with someone I have known casually for more than 25 years but have never had an extended conversation with before. We bumped into one another at a social gathering more than six months ago and made vague vows to “have lunch sometime” and finally followed through.

She is, I think, a few years older than I am. About three years ago she retired from a demanding position and began what she thought would be a wonderful new phase of life, working part-time while returning to her long-neglected interest in doing art. She quickly discovered, as she put it, that “I do not do well without external structure.” She is once more working full-time in a demanding position and has no plans to leave it in the foreseeable future.

Her husband, meanwhile, has been retired for four years and has no intention of ever working again. I asked her if he was pressuring her to quit working so that they could have more time to play together, and she smiled and shook her head. That was another thing she learned during her brief period of retirement: their marriage works much better when they are not together all day. Her working schedule has a bit of variability, so on days when she is home he tends to take reading materials to a restaurant (he is well-known at McDonalds). She is pushing him to add some new activities to his life, but he is resisting. She even set up a blog for him so that he could write about his field of expertise, but he has yet to make an entry in it. It sounds as if he is perfectly content doing nothing much in particular.

I do not think their marriage is “troubled;” it is likely as good as or better than most. Like every marriage I know, it is its own unique creature. But I suspect that in the next few years, as growing numbers of baby boomers who are more-or-less happy in long-term marriages retire, we will see a lot of couples scratching their heads and sorting out what it is going to be all about. Who are we together, and what passions will drive out lives both individually and corporately? I have known many couples who struggled or even divorced after the nest emptied because parenting was the only thing they really knew how to do together. I wonder how many other couples basically bought themselves some extra years after the kids moved out by stepping up the pace with work/career. If there is truth to that, the chickens will come home to roost when retirement comes.

There are several variants of the retired husband joke whose punchline is “I married him for better or worse, but not for lunch.” More and more folks are living that joke and trying to figure out if it is funny, true or both. My broad observation is that men in retirement tend to become more isolated than women do (not always unhappily) but that both genders experience this to some degree. Relating to a spouse who is spending less time with other people on a daily basis can bring challenges that take us by surprise. I know that Susan frets a bit about me taking less initiative to get together with friends for lunch or coffee than I did a few years ago. I plead tight budget, which is certainly true. It is also true that there are a fair number of people I used to think it important to spend time with, say, once a month who I am now content to see three or four times a year. It is not that they have become less interesting or that we are less fond of one another; we simply do not have as many day-to-day shared experiences to talk about. Which appears to be what is happening to some couples as their respective worlds become a bit smaller in retirement.

What are the things that married couples express interest in doing more of when they finally both retire? Golfing? Shopping? We don’t do the first and hate the second. Travel? That would be great if our savings and pensions were not down the toilet. Moving to Florida? I have instructed our children to shoot me if I ever talk such foolishness. So it will likely involve more community service, writing, and speaking about topics we have passion about. Susan will live the life of a born academic as long as there is life in her, writing books and articles and hopping on airplanes for speaking engagements until her arthritic joints give out on her entirely. I will putter (I love to putter) about the house and yard, play my ukulele and tell bad jokes. We will likely continue to find things to talk about, and even eat the occasional lunch together. We are very fortunate.

But it will certainly help if we can both maintain active lives beyond our marriage. I suspect one of the reasons that my acquaintance was eager to have lunch with me today is that – despite her engaging job, her solid marriage and her grandchildren – she is a bit lonely. Loneliness in various forms will be one of the greatest challenges for our age cohort as we age. Which is precisely why we need to be thinking and talking about radical new forms of church and community. We baby boomers have already reinvented ourselves several times, or at least we have that conceit. Now it is time for us to reinvent old age.

My Buddy Darwin

2009-02-05T17:44:00.003-06:00

Last night I received a phone call from a faculty member – a biologist – at UW-Fox Valley inviting me to be a participant in a panel discussion on Charles Darwin’s birthday. She had heard me give a convocation address a few years ago, so pretty much assumed that I did not have a big problem with Darwin, but she still did a little two-step shuffle, feeling me out on the matter. I asked her if she was familiar with the Clergy Letter Project, which she was. “Well, I wrote that letter,” I informed her. I could feel her relax, right through the phone.

Some history here: In 2004 I received a call from Michael Zimmerman, then a dean at UW-O. Michael is a passionate and energetic man, a scientist who was somewhere between appalled and terrified by the successful efforts in Wisconsin and elsewhere to stack school boards with Fundamentalist Christians determined to get the theory of evolution out of public classrooms, or at least to have it presented as “one theory among many” alongside so-called Creation Science. He wanted me to draft a letter stating that science and faith were not incompatible with one another, with the goal of having that letter endorsed by other clergy.

I agreed to write it primarily because I was afraid that it would be written badly by someone else. I asked that my name not be used, not out of either modesty or fear of backlash, but simply because I did not consider it a big deal. I devoted all of twenty minutes to writing it, and moved on to other things.

I had underestimated Michael’s passion and energy. It became a very big deal indeed, and soon I was being tracked down by reporters and folks who wanted to acquaint me with the error of my ways. It became an important resource in successful efforts to reverse school board actions in a number of communities, and it continues in circulation to this day. The last I checked, it had about 12,000 endorsers.

It is slowly sinking in that this two-paragraph letter I dashed out in twenty minutes and took no credit for is likely to be the most widely read and influential piece I will write in my lifetime. Had I known that would happen, I might have devoted an extra ten minutes to writing it. And to be perfectly honest, I will always harbor some ambivalence about my role in this. I comfortably stand by what I wrote, and sincerely believe that the theory of evolution is, as I wrote, “a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests.”

My problem is that sometimes I feel like I have served the cause of Scientific Fundamentalists – those who makes no room for the possibility of God at the table of science and sincerely believes the world would be a far better place if all religions disappeared overnight (please note that I am not speaking of Michael, but of some of his bedfellows. Which is not to suggest that he is sleeping with scientific fundamentalists).

Religious Fundamentalists refuse to welcome science and reason to their table—if science appears to contradict a verse in the Bible, then science is false. For Scientific Fundamentalists, such apparent contradictions “prove” that religion is false. A pox on both their houses! Both extremist views are, in my view, abhorrent, which is why I ended the letter with the statement: “We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.” But I still have the uneasy feeling that I helped one set of bad guys beat another set of bad guys, and that I in some ways compromised faith in the process.

So what will likely be my most influential contribution to the world of ideas was written anonymously, and I will always be a bit ambivalent about having done it. There’s got to be a metaphor in there somewhere. Oh, because Michael leaves no opportunities to seek support for his cause on the table, he put the entire story up on Wikipedia, and thoughtfully credited me with authorship. We do not get to choose what our legacy will be—it gets assigned to us by others.

Living Between Hope and Caution

2009-01-30T15:15:00.003-06:00

There are so many things I am not, never was and never will be. A rock star. A major league first baseman. A wealthy man. A hunk.

I am certainly not an economist. I am a reasonably bright and well-educated guy and I think I have a grasp of basic economic theory, but still it remains a mystery to me how a global economy that was perking along reasonably well could suddenly go into such a devastating tailspin. I believe I understand some of the underlying causes well enough – the housing bubble, under-regulated financial institutions pushing sub-prime loans, corporate and individual greed, etc. – but still I remain mystified. There is just as much “stuff” in the world, just as many people eager to work, just as much human need and opportunity. Lawns still need to be mowed (or will be in May) and lawnmowers are still wearing out. If I still have a full-time job and need a new lawnmower, I can purchase one and help the folks at Briggs and Stratton or Toro provide jobs for people who need them.

But then I start to think about it, any maybe to think too much. While my current income may not have changed significantly, meaning I theoretically still have as much money to spend (wisely, I hope) as ever, my savings account and pension fund have taken a huge hit. I feel poorer, and in fact am poorer (even though I know that I am fortunate to still be receiving a paycheck). Maybe I can fix up the old lawnmower – sharpen the blade and replace the wheels – and get another year or two out of it. Maybe I should save that money for a rainy day (and the economists are telling me that there is a lot more rain in the forecast). Who knows? My job could be the next one to be eliminated.

It seems to me that we live much of our lives, including our financial lives, in the tension between “hope” and “caution.” Hope is a wonderful thing, and we could not live without it. But it can be distorted in dangerous ways, as in buying a gigantic television set I cannot really afford because the store is offering a “No Money No Interest for a Full Year!” promotion and I hope that I will have the money to pay for it in 12 months. Another term for that kind of “hope” is “unwarranted optimism that creates a sense of entitlement,” as in “I need this” or “I deserve this.” This distorted version of hope had a lot to do with getting all of us into the huge economic mess we are in.

Likewise “caution” is a wonderful thing when it causes us to look before we leap and think through the likely outcomes of decisions we make in the present. But just as hope can be distorted into unwarranted optimism and entitlement, caution can turn into crippling fear that paralyzes us. We become reluctant to make legitimate purchases or take appropriate risks (and investing in a friendship, like investing in a stock, always involves an element of risk). Obviously this has impact on the prospects for economic recovery, but it also takes a toll upon the health of the common community in which we all share.
So, be hopefully cautious and cautiously hopeful. Do not embrace unwarranted optimism or paralyzing fear. Not an easy balance to achieve, I know, but one worth working at.

Two Commercials

2009-01-23T11:30:00.001-06:00

For more than 25 years I have tried to run three times a week. My days of running competitively are long past and my pace has slowed. I used to be offended when someone would say “I saw you out jogging the other day!” but now it is simply an accurate observation.

I try to continue my outdoor running through the winter months, but conditions this year have made that difficult: ice, wind and bitter cold. My goal is to get fresh air and exercise, not a broken leg or frostbite. Such conditions send me to the basement to get on the treadmill. I hate running on the treadmill. It does not provide as good a workout, it is profoundly boring, and I know that sooner or later I am going to space out and get thrown off the rascal.

Usually I listen to music while on the treadmill, but the other morning I decided to watch a half hour of news on CNN while I ran. The first segment was on collapsing financial institutions, job losses and the entire global economy going down the toilet. Now I was both bored and depressed. I was almost relieved when they broke for commercials. Two commercials were shown, and what a dramatic contrast they provided!

The first began with the words “Are you about to lose your home?” It was an advertisement by one of the unethical loan outfits that are profiting from people’s pain and hardship. You have all seen versions of this ad: people in deep despair make “a simple phone call” or meet with “one of our friendly counselors” and their faces light up because the can now keep their house and all of their debts have been “consolidated into a single easy monthly payment!” These firms are vultures preying on the vulnerable, adding to their crippling debt and misery and making it so much harder for legitimate not-for-profit credit counseling agencies like Goodwill's FISC to help them. Chaplains are not supposed to use terms like “May they burn in a particularly unpleasant corner of Hades!” but chaplains cannot always prevent themselves from thinking such things.

The next commercial was for “Tuscan Gourmet Cat Food.” Yes, I am serious: not just gourmet cat food, but Tuscan gourmet cat food. The ad featured a very pampered (and presumably fussy) cat – it looked like it should be sitting in the lap of a James Bond villain – eagerly running to the dish and gobbling its gourmet meal while scenes of Tuscany ran in the background. What in the world makes cat food “Tuscan”? Is it laced with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sun-dried tomatoes? With more and more distressed people lining up at food pantries and soup kitchens, isn’t there something vaguely obscene about attempting to convince consumers that their cat deserves such fare?

Maybe I am just getting old and cranky. Actually, I know I am getting old and cranky. But in hard economic times we should confront the vultures who prey on people’s hardship, and we should challenge priorities that privilege spoiled cats over hurting human beings.

Maintaining Friendships

2009-01-18T17:10:00.000-06:00

For more than 25 years I have participated in an annual gathering of close friends and colleagues in ministry for a week of study, prayer and conversation, along with a great deal of mirth and merriment. The cast of characters changes a bit from year to year – we have been as few as six and as many as fourteen – as does the location. We choose a theme for our study and invite a scholar with expertise in that field to join us (remarkably, many of the finest scholars of our time have been willing to do so). Last year we studied Augustine on an island in Puget Sound, while this year we studied early Christian architecture in the mountains of Vermont (we are happy to travel wherever someone offers us free lodging). We count several gifted chefs in our number (sadly, I am not among them), so we eat wonderfully well while we are together.

The roots of our group were forged by our common identity as young (see “more than 25 years” above) senior pastors of large congregations in the United Church of Christ. Sharing this identity, we spoke a common language, faced similar challenges and shared common hopes, dreams and frustrations. We could talk to one another as we could talk to no one else, and over time we have built deep bonds of trust and affection. We have nursed one another through deaths, divorces, injuries, illnesses, and reversals of fortune. We share a remarkable sense of friendship that grows richer with each passing year.

Sad to say, we have very limited contact with one another outside of our yearly gathering. A fair number of us – the men in particular – are not especially good at taking the initiative to pick up the phone and call one another to ask “How are you doing?” Each year we vow to do better at this, and suddenly we find another year has flown by.

A month ago I had a chat with an acquaintance who had retired six months earlier. I asked him if he had experienced anything unexpected in retirement and he answered without hesitation: “I was surprised to discover how many of what I had thought were friendships turned out to be business relationships.” He said this without bitterness, or even disappointment. He admitted that he was not taking a lot of initiative to get together with his former “friends,” so it was unrealistic to expect them to take the initiative to call him. When we brush up against one another on a regular basis – in the workplace or the community – it is much easier to say “Do you want to grab lunch sometime?” Out of sight really is out of mind, particularly for busy people.

Maintaining friendships that matter – friendships that nurture us, challenge us and sustain us – is a spiritual practice, and like all spiritual practices it requires discipline. Many folks resist this notion: they think of friendship as something that “just happens.” It doesn’t. Genuine friendship requires commitment and intentionality, just as a healthy marriage does.

It is, of course, easier to say such things than to live them. As we grow older, our friendships become ever more precious. I need to be more disciplined in letting my friends know how much I appreciate them, which means that I need to call or write my friends rather than waiting for them to reach out to me. I confess this does not come easily or naturally to me. My excuse is that it is a “guy thing,” but that is pretty feeble. If friendship is not worth investing myself in, what in the world is?

Hard Times and Rollergirls

2009-01-11T13:17:00.003-06:00

No matter what language we use – “economic downturn,” “recession,” financial crisis” – what we are experiencing will be deep, protracted and painful. Some are daring to hope that this challenging period will inspire at least some folks to pull together in common community rather than seeking life’s goodness at the shrine of consumer spending. One can only hope.

It may be instructive to look back to the era of the Great Depression to see what sustained folks then. It is entirely too easy to frame this through nostalgia and sentimentality on the order of “kids used to make their own fun back then!” (There are, of course, always elements of truth to such nostalgic observations). Certainly affordable, escapist entertainment – movies in particular – thrived in those hard times. It was also the golden era of burlesque, that odd mix of bawdiness and silliness that has since given way to far coarser forms of “exotic dancing.” How interesting that a burlesque revival is underway in our own time, particularly on the east and west coasts, that seeks to recapture that spirit of risque innocence in a similarly challenging economic era. My sense is that this “new burlesque” is aimed largely at privileged folk (“camp” works best for those sufficiently educated to appreciate irony) rather than the working class audience of traditional burlesque, but I have begun to ponder what other revivals we might begin to see in the field of entertainment.

Last night Susan and I attended our first roller derby match at the invitation of Kim Klein (“Evil Kimevil”) who skates for the Rollergirl Regiment, one of the three teams in the Fox Cityz Foxz league. Frankly, I don’t even know when the “golden era” for roller derby was, but I am told it is one of the fastest-growing sports in America today, which must say, well, something…

Observations, starting with the negative: It was very loud. There was too much “down time” between matches (there are two halftimes, which violates normal laws of mathematics).

Positive: it was a blast! The girls take their skating very seriously (three two-hour practice sessions every week), but themselves lightly. The crowd (and it was a large one) was not all that different from what you would see at a youth soccer tournament (including many friends and family members of the girls), and they were having a great time. Initially we had no clue what was going on, which makes it hard to appreciate the finer points of the sport. Slowly we sorted it out: I can now explain the respective roles of pivots, blockers and jammers.

This is not a return to “TV Roller Derby” with its over-the-top violence and catfights: rules are enforced and penalties are called frequently. The “camp” component is reserved for costumes and, best of all, rollergirl names. Tartlette. Lolly Popya. Ivanna Cupcake. Jeanine Dropaho. Vixen’ de Slamher. Tinker Belt ya. And, of course, the Yooper rollergirl: Yaya der Hey. Our friend Nicole will never skate, but by the end of the evening had come up with three rollergirl names for herself.

There is a certain genius inherent in playing with the idea of sexiness while remaining all-ages appropriate. Brad and Nicole had their little boy Zach along, and never did we feel a need to cover his eyes or ears (although we were very careful with our pronunciation of the team called “The Pushy Posse”). In other words, it was good, silly fun for hard times: for the cost of a ticket (free for children) and a beer or two, you get a full night of entertainment.

I wonder what other forms of entertainment may experience revival over the next year or two. Movie double-features where every patron gets a free piece of dishware? Dance marathons? Will kids play more pick-up games of stickball instead of begging to be taken to expensive water parks? Will the pot-luck dinner enjoy a resurgence? Can we learn all over again that the things that make for The Good Life do not need to be expensive, and that community is something we build together, not something we purchase?

So Kim (a/k/a Evil Kimevil), thanks for introducing us to this wondrous world. You made some nice moves when you were jamming, which we appreciated more fully when we finally figured out what a jammer is supposed to do. And I do think the world would be a better, and happier, place if we all had rollergirl names…

Disagreeing with Sermons

2008-12-29T15:32:00.003-06:00

Several times Susan has suggested that I return to parish ministry just so that she can hear meaningful, stimulating sermons again. I am flattered, but having the privilege of preaching to my spouse strikes me as insufficient cause to reverse my entire life direction. But she also has a compelling secondary argument: she misses the theological conversations that inevitably sprang from my sermon preparations. I do miss the weekly discipline that was so much a part of regular preaching: the reading, the pondering; the new ideas that grew from reading and pondering and moved the sermon in unexpected directions. Regular preaching was a lens through which I experienced and appropriated all the events of my week.

Sadly, there is less quality preaching out there than there should be, and I have been shaped by the Reformed tradition to hunger for sermons that are articulate, focused, thoughtful and faithful. I heard two sermons in the last week, and there was a remarkable contrast between them.

The first was delivered on Christmas Eve at St. Paul’s UCC in St. Paul (that sounds redundant, but is not). St. Paul’s was once a “cathedral church” first for the German Reformed Church and later for the United Church of Christ in St. Paul. It is located on Summit Avenue in the midst of other cathedrals and stately homes. The congregation has declined radically in numbers, but we found the members absolutely delightful: warm, welcoming and hospitable. We were given a mini-tour by a fascinating and very sweet man about our age who sported dramatic facial tattoos and the most impressive earlobe ornamentation I have ever seen (maintaining eye contact was a bit of a challenge).

The sermon was delivered by their interim pastor, a very nice woman whose heart is clearly in the right place. There was nothing in her sermon I disagreed with, but perhaps that is because I never came close to sorting out what it was she was attempting to say. She used the word “home” a great deal, perhaps in the hope that if she said the word over and over it would somehow connect all the unrelated anecdotes she rambled through. If I were to attempt summarizing her overall message it would be “Baby Jesus was born so that justice-minded bankers would write ethical mortgages that connect people to one another; home, home, home.” We heard a few lessons and carols (four lessons: the condensed version) and at the conclusion of the service we got to light little candles and sing “silent night” in German and English, which was all very nice, but it would have been nice to have a sermon to chew on after we left.

This past Sunday we attended a small, conservative church where our friend Jonathan Menn was preaching. Jonathan is a fascinating guy. His parents were members of First Congregational, and shortly after I began my ministry there he stopped by to ask me (we both love to tell this story) whether his parents were going to hell because of me or in spite of me. We were adversaries in the dramatic “abortion wars” that got so ugly locally in the 1980’s. A few years ago, Jonathan gave up his law practice to attend seminary, and now trains African pastors through EPI (Equipping Pastors International); we have become dear friends, testifying to God’s peculiar sense of humor.

It was the kind of morning I always dreaded as a pastor: freezing rain had given way to snow in the night and it was the Sunday after Christmas – perfect excuses to stay home on Sunday morning. Only about 25 hearty, faithful souls made it to the church. Again folks were welcoming, although their ears all appeared to be normal. The service was a bit on the loose side, even by the usual standards of a small Evangelical church: moderately praisy praise music, and bizarre power-point slides that had no relationship to anything else going on (while Jonathan preached, various tropical beaches appeared behind him). But Jonathan preached for a good 40 minutes on the Second Coming, a wonderful topic for the Sunday after Christmas, and it was easily the best sermon I have heard since, well, since I last preached: Biblically anchored, theologically articulate, and profoundly thoughtful. I disagreed with at least 70% of what he said, of course, but how wonderful to hear a sermon worth disagreeing with! I found myself giving the sermon my full attention while also mentally writing several sermons of my own that wanted to spring from ideas in his, particularly on the theme of “final judgment.” Jonathan believes that at the end of being (our own or the world’s, whichever comes first) we will be judged by Jesus (which he rightly argued is a much better deal than being judged by Peter). But Jesus himself said that by his incarnate presence he has already brought judgment into the world, which I have always taken to mean that we bring judgment on ourselves by the manner in which we do or do not receive and follow him. So does the risen, enthroned Christ even need to “judge” us on the final day? That was one of about seven themes (beginning with the place of Revelation in the Christian canon) I found myself wanting to debate passionately.

One of the most disappointing responses people would give to my sermons on the way out the door was “Great sermon! I agreed with every word you said!” That meant I had failed: failed to challenge, failed to stimulate new ways of thinking about what it means to live faithfully. How wonderful to still be thinking about a sermon on Monday, at least in part because I did not agree with every word the preacher said.

After we got home from our Christmas visit, I briefly fantasized about applying for the permanent position at St. Paul’s in St. Paul. Could a once-great urban church that is still doing many things well experience renewal and revitalization if preaching were restored to its central role in worship? Could these good-hearted, progressive folks open themselves to something as truly radical as the Gospel of Jesus presented fully, faithfully and well? I wrote to our son Colin about my little fantasy. He told me to go for it: I would look good with gigantic earlobes.

Merry Christmas, Shannon!

2008-12-20T16:44:00.002-06:00

As is always true in the final days before Christmas, I had myself convinced that there could be no earthly reason for me to enter a retail store of any kind until at least December 27 and, as always, I wound up at Fleet Farm anyway. The situation was not as extreme as the Christmas Eve where I made an emergency run to Fleet Farm just before the first church service to purchase a wax O-ring so that I could dissemble a clogged toilet on Christmas day (amazingly, I have dissembled a toilet on Christmas day more than once). Today is only the 19th, but with a big snowstorm behind us and another one looming, the place was packed with last-minute shoppers.

Why was I there? I was out of niger seed. My religious identity was in some ways shaped and formed by the worst of two very different traditions: in my Catholic childhood I was schooled in the ways of Guilt, and in my Calvinist adulthood I have been schooled in the ways of Duty. So I was feeling guilty that the goldfinches had nothing to eat (we have very fussy goldfinches who will eat only niger seed, which is pricey stuff) and duty compelled me to purchase more. Which is how I found myself in a long check-out line dominated by shopping carts groaning under the weight of torque wrenches and My Little Ponies, clutching a single five-pound bag of niger seed.

On the plus side, I was in a rather festive spirit, and enjoyed chatting with the other folks in line (“Yes, I always give my wife niger seed for Christmas.”). When it was my turn to check out, I greeted the young woman with a cheery: “Hi Shannon! Merry Christmas to you!”

An aside: there are complex matters of both etiquette and theology involved in the question of whether one greets the check-out person by his or her name, given that they are required to display their name to us while we (the customers) generally do not wear name tags for their benefit. Some believe that greeting them by name pushes boundaries of overfamiliarity, given that there is an inherent inequality between the “named” and the “nameless.” Me, I figure as long as they are forced to display their name in public, we might as well have the courtesy to use it in addressing them. Theologically, I see it as honoring their worth as a fellow human being. As a friend said many years ago, “Every time you forget which waiter is yours, you have broken the commandment ‘thou shalt not kill’ because you have treated him as if he were a thing, not a person.” An extreme position? Perhaps, but there is truth to it.

So back to Fleet Farm, and “Hi Shannon! Merry Christmas!” Shannon looked up, startled, and gazed directly at me. Her face lit up. “Hi!,” she said. “I haven’t seen you in such a long time! How have you been?”

I had no idea in the world who Shannon was. Did she actually know me, or was my tone so friendly and personal that she assumed she was supposed to know me and was therefore faking recognition (and doing a good job of it)? We were in pretty deep now, so I faked recognition in return. “I’m great! How are you holding up with all the craziness here today?” We carried on like that for the next minute or so and wished one another a wonderful Christmas before I slogged out to the snowy parking lot.

I wonder whether when Shannon gets home from work tonight and her loved ones ask her how her day was, she will respond “It was really busy; I am so tired! But this older guy came through my line who knew me and I’m pretty sure I know him, but I can’t remember where from…” Me, I am pretty sure that we never laid eyes on one another before, but I like the fact that we both faked it: there is something fundamentally human and good about seeking a sense of connection between one another, even when we don’t know how that connection exists, or even if it exists. So Shannon, wherever and whoever you are, have yourself a merry little Christmas!

The Tastycakes of the Magi

2008-12-12T16:15:00.001-06:00

Cousin Eileen’s Christmas gift arrived this week. It was the same gift I have received for as many years as I can remember: a carton of Tastycake snack cakes. For those who do not hail from Philadelphia or its environs, Tastycakes are akin to products made by Hostess and Little Debbie, although of somewhat higher quality, and are one of the five food items that folks from Philly greatly miss when they move elsewhere. The others are:

1. Scrapple. Scrapple is to die for! The parts of a slaughtered animal that might get made into sausage elsewhere – the parts one would just as soon not have specifically named – are mixed with cornmeal and spices then pressed into gooey bricks. Slices are cut from the brick and fried. Served with a bit of ketchup, scrapple is the perfect accompaniment to eggs and toast.
2. Cheese steak sandwiches. Menus all over the country advertise “Philly cheese steak” but it is never a Philly cheese steak. The bread is all wrong. The meat is all wrong. The cheese is all wrong. Philly cheese steaks simply do not exist more than 20 miles from Philadelphia. Years ago I read a science fiction story in which the earth was successfully invaded by aliens who were obnoxiously self-important. They declared the Philly cheese steak the best food item on the planet, drawing howls of protest from the world’s food critics. The aliens were right, the food critics were wrong.
3. Hoagies. In some cities they would be called “grinders” or “subs,” and there are conflicting theories as to how the hoagie got its name. A genuine Italian hoagie is a mix of flavors and textures that transcends the sandwich genre. The key ingredients are capicola ham (prosciutto if you are going up-market), provolone, and that amazing bread that cannot be made or purchased elsewhere. Those who have only eaten the “Italian subs” from sandwich chains cannot begin to imagine how good the real thing is. If I were condemned to death and asked to choose my last meal, it would be a cheese steak and a hoagie. But only if I were being executed in Philadelphia.
4. Pretzels. Soft pretzels sold in Philadelphia streets bear no relationship to bland “shopping mall pretzels.” And bagged pretzels in Pennsylvania come in dozens and dozens of varieties; so many that they often have their own aisle in supermarkets. Only a few brands of Pennsylvania pretzels are shipped to other states, and they tend to be the least interesting ones. Look for pretzels made by Unique, Sturgis, or Wege.

Which brings me back to Tastycakes. Frankly, they are the Philly food item I miss the least. Yes, they are better than their competitors’ products, but I do not normally eat “snack cakes” of any kind. So we save a few packages, force some on our children, and the rest Susan takes to the university, where people will eat anything. I dare not tell Eileen that we really do not want Tastycakes anymore: it would be poor etiquette and a denial of my geographic roots.

Instead I pay her back in kind. Each year I make a pilgrimage to the Kaukauna Club Cheese plant for their annual warehouse sale, and put together a box of genuine Wisconsin cheese. Or rather, genuine Wisconsin processed cheese products, heavy on the cheese balls coated in crushed almonds. Eileen, I suspect, believes that we Wisconsin folks eat this stuff all the time. I always buy one cheese ball for ourselves and somewhere around April throw it away, untouched: another important tradition.

It may well be that Eileen’s family has no more interest in the cheese box than we do in the Tastycake box. But the Tastycakes say “you are remembered fondly in Philadelphia” and the cheese says “and we are thinking of you in Wisconsin.” Call it an odd variant on the Gift of the Magi. If anyone is nostalgic for a butterscotch krimpet or chocolate candy cake, feel free to contact me. But do it soon: we are trying to get these rascals out of our house.

Escape from Da U.P.

2008-12-06T13:35:00.006-06:00

I have not posted in ages. Last weekend was taken up with a visit from Colin during which, among other things, we recorded Jane Gilday's song "The Year of Mr. O" and posted it to youtube. Those who have somehow remained unaware of this singular cultural opportunity may find it here.

Yesterday we drove to the cabin, stopping on the way in the crossroads village of Traunik to do some shopping at Lily's (pictures), a wonderful little organic food and gift shop we are trying to support. When we got to the cabin, neighbor Steve Wills had opened up a path and had our wood-stove going, which was greatly appreciated. We were there primarily to clear three feet of snow from the roof - we really got hammered in November, with snow accumulation within a few inches of the all-time record. With the job done we joined Steve and Rhoda for cocktails, had a nice dinner, read by the fire and took a sauna. We were about to crawl into bed when we checked the local television station and learned that a full-scale blizzard would hit in the morning and last well into Sunday (this had not been in the forecast).

It was 10:30 (central time), we were dead-tired, and had a decision to make. If we did not leave that night we likely would not get out until late Sunday. We had no food and (worse) no whiskey. So we dressed, packed, and I launched into the complex process of draining pipes, taking apart the roaring fire in the stove, etc. I hope I did everything right despite the sense of haste. We were on the road about an hour later, and already in the teeth of a winter storm. The snow was not heavy yet, but the winds were strong, blowing the snow around in a way that made it nearly impossible to know what lane I was in much of the time. It was a very long and challenging drive, and it got worse the closer we got to home. By Green Bay there seemed to be more cars in ditches than on the road (bar closing may have had something to do with that). Thankfully we had four hours of our old "friend" Vin Scelsa from New York days on Sirius radio, playing live performances and interviews with the recently-deceased Odetta, for company. A pleasant distraction can make all the difference in the world...

So we are grateful to be safely home. We defied a blizzard warning once, many years ago, and will never make that mistake again. Da U.P. in winter: not for the timid or unprepared!

Sunday: the Phunhouse Girls

2008-11-24T15:03:00.004-06:00

It seemed like an essential expression of hospitality to invite out-of-town guests to stop by for brunch before they took to the road. Susan had arranged for a former student to cater a simple meal so that we could concentrate on people rather than food. Originally it was set to begin at ten, but we learned at the reception that some folks wanted to be on the road earlier; since we knew the food would be here, we moved the time up to 8:30. Fortunately most of the guests were as tired as we were, so I likely got away with my incoherent moments.

The last to arrive and the last to leave were the members of the wedding party, most of them Kate's former roommates from "the Phunhouse." (The "ph" is, of course, homage to the band Phish) They lived together for two years. At the time it was not encouraging to have our daughter move into a place called The Phunhouse, a shrine to non-stop partying, but they have all grown into responsible adults, and are still very close friends. I officiated at Kristin's wedding; these girls have been like family to us for more than a decade. It was so fitting that the last gathering of the weekend would be with them.

Then it was just Kate, Eric, Colin, us, and Kona the bulldog. We held a small birthday party for Colin before he took to the road, and then Kate and Eric left for the Milwaukee airport and their morning flight to St. Lucia. We get to keep the bulldog for a week, which is the most generous wedding present we gave them.

Saturday: Wedding Day

2008-11-24T14:39:00.004-06:00

We had been warned that our phone would be ringing a lot, and it was. Bob and Bonnie Buchanan hosted a marvelous brunch at their house, with Jone Reister serving many gallons of coffee to the Minnesota folks (what is it with Minnesotans and coffee?). Bob gave one guest a tour of the house, and that guy began giving tours to everyone else; it is a pretty neat house.

The wedding was at four, but Susan and I had to be there around two. I seemed to find plenty to keep my occupied; fortunately I still pretty much know where to find everything at First Congo: light switches, music stands, thermostats, full-length mirror... It was all something of a whirlwind.

One immodest sentence: our daughter was drop-dead gorgeous! Steve led a warm, moving, and very hospitable ceremony. I did not cry, I swear.

Our wonderful photographer, Kim Klein, kept the photo session moving, but it still took awhile, and Susan and I stayed to clean up all the - there is no other word for this - crap that the bridal party had left strewn around. Eric and Kate drove to the club in Bob Buchanan's SmartCar (the anti-limo). Most of the guests went in the shuttle bus we had contracted for the occasion. That had been one of Kate's bottom lines: "my friends are not driving after the reception!" Good call, and well worth the money. As near as I could tell nobody was blotto, but it is good to have no deaths on our conscience.

The club was (immodest again) more beautifully decorated than I have ever seen it, largely thanks to Eric's cousin, Paul, who hauled calla lilies over from Minnesota and decorated the church and club. Truly elegant. The challenge and frustration at a wedding reception is trying to extend hospitality to all of the guests, particularly you own friends and families: I fear we were only partially successful. It was such an amazing mix: our neighbors from our U.P. cabin, a dear friend from New Jersey, local friends old and new, Susan's family, and all of Kate and Eric's friends who have been precious to us for so many years. They came from Texas, New England, even Hawaii...

After eleven it was down to the hard-core dancers and party people, and they did not slow down until the music stopped at midnight. It was a special joy to dance with my nieces, who have grown into beautiful and very dear young women. The shuttle bus had to do a second "final run" at 12:20, the driver smiling tolerantly while being serenaded by a wretched version of "the wheels on the bus." Susan and I, of course, had to stay to gather things up, so it was well after one when we got home and began to clean the house for the Sunday morning brunch. Sometime after two we settled in for a short, fitful nap. We learned that most everyone else, including the parents of the groom, shut down the downtown bars, and some continued to party in their rooms until four. Amazing stamina, questionable judgment...

Friday: My Chevy Chase Imitation

2008-11-24T14:24:00.006-06:00

The day before a wedding is less demanding if you are a guy. Kate spent an obscene amount of time having her nails done, Susan entertained her mother all day, and my only responsibility was taking her mother's boyfriend to lunch. Colin arrived in the afternoon. About 90 minutes before the rehearsal, Kate asked me to run the name cards to the country club, so Colin and I hopped in my car. Which was when he noticed the puddle under Susan's car - it was leaking coolant pretty badly. I made a Monday appointment with the dealer and figured we should add some anti-freeze. We headed for Fleet Farm, but learned than Audis only accept something called G12 which must be purchased from the dealer and costs $25 a gallon (one more reason to avoid German cars). By the time we had picked that up I was running well behind, and still had to stop by the country club. I got home fifteen minutes after we should have been on our way, and still needed to change clothes.

By the time I was ready, everyone else had left for the church. We decided that taking Susan's car would not be a good idea, and Eric had his (locked) car parked behind mine in the driveway. Normally I would have taken several swings in and out of the garage to get safely past him but we were running late, and I just knew I could do it in one. I kept my eye glued to his bumper in the right-hand outside mirror. I did not keep my eye glued to the driver's side mirror, which smashed into the garage door track and shattered into pieces. The impact also dented the track and knocked the "don't crush a toddler" sensors mounted to it, so the garage door would neither go up or down. More time went by as I tried to repair it and finally disconnected the door from the opener. It was a scene from "National Lampoon's Family Wedding"...

So, with one car disabled and the other damaged, we went to the church. Steve Savides ran a very relaxed rehearsal, and the out of town guests oohed and aahed appropriately over the sanctuary.

The dinner was at Il Angolo, which was closed to the public for the occasion. There were maybe forty people - Loes had invited many of the Minnesota friends to attend. Wonderful food, wonderful service, a good time had by all. Susan and I then went to the bar at the Paper Valley to spend some time with other guests who had arrived; it was very, very loud. When we got home at last, there was an RSVP on the answering machine: "We'll be there!" So much for final meal counts and table assignments...

Prelude to a Wedding

2008-11-24T14:17:00.004-06:00

It is interesting how much one thinks about not getting sick or injured in the weeks and days leading up to a daughter’s wedding, which is better enjoyed without, say, crutches. I had a terrible virus a week before the wedding, but began feeling human again on Wednesday, which was cutting it close. Thursday was when folks began rolling into town. We had a casual dinner for Kate and Eric, his parents, Susan’s mother and her boyfriend. All but Kate and Eric left relatively early, and the four of us relaxed for a bit and went to bed at a sensible hour, knowing how full the next few days would be…

Brewster Village Update

2008-11-18T17:00:00.001-06:00

Call this one a little “follow up on the story” post, a violation of my current practice of only posting brief essays on this blog. It has been more than ten weeks since things first blew up at Brewster Village when my former blog became the buzz among the staff. The first issue to emerge was that even though I had referred to residents only by the first letter of their first name, staff could easily identify them through my descriptions and stories. This led to both internal and external HIPAA investigations, and I was relieved of duties while they were conducted.

A second issue then emerged, one that nobody at BV or the county had previously had on their radar. After a resident died, I often wrote a brief tribute to them, including a picture when available. It turns out that HIPAA protection does not cease merely because you are six feet under. Who knew? You may be dead, but at least your health insurance cannot be canceled.

I have had virtually no contact with Brewster Village during this time. I have had several phone chats with the county compliance officer, and today had a meeting with him and the county’s corporate counsel. They have decided that they are required to contact everyone who was ever mentioned in the blog, no matter how discreetly, and inform them that their privacy has been violated. This includes living residents, guardians of those not competent to manage their own affairs, and guardians of deceased residents. The letter will note that the violations took place in the context of a personal journal and that the intent was to honor and affirm them, but that a violation took place none the less. They will apologize, and hope that no-one is angered to the point of litigation.

It was a civil and businesslike conversation, but painful for me. In the course of the conversation I learned that my volunteer position at Brewster Village has been permanently eliminated by the administrator. I had pretty much assumed that was, or would be, the case, but it would have been nice to hear it directly from him. I imagine he is not the happiest guy in the world right now, since it is documented that he was aware of the blog, had read portions of it some time ago, and had given permission for me to continue. I hope a point may come where we can have a face-to-face conversation. I would also value an opportunity to apologize personally to any residents or staff who have been hurt in any way, but it was made clear today that this is not under my control.

So now I wait to see how the next part of the story unfolds: if there is such a thing as “closure” (I have always been suspicious of the term; I am not convinced there is ever true closure in this life) it remains some distance off. When I am certain that all dust has settled I will ponder a new way to invest myself in significant volunteer service. Sadly, it will not likely be in nursing home chaplaincy: imagine trying to explain all this to the director of another facility!

Brewster Village has been central to my world for these past two years, and there is deep grief in knowing that I will not be a part of its life in the future. Sixty years old and – sad to say – my hindsight is still a lot better than my foresight.

Snow Tire Rant

2008-11-12T16:07:00.004-06:00

When I purchased my little Volvo coupe late in the spring, I knew that it had big honking wheels with high-performance summer tires, but did not give the matter much thought beyond noting that I would need to change over to snow tires for the winter. Over the last month, I have had cause to give the matter much thought. Here are some of my learnings:
1. Very few snow tires are manufactured in the 215/45-18 size. Those that are manufactured are all high performance and very expensive.
2. In addition to being very expensive, snow tires in this size are not particularly effective in the snow. It is the equivalent of trying to walk in clown shoes: tires that big and wide spread the car’s weight over a larger surface area, and therefore do not grip snow and ice very well. They also have a tendency to push the snow ahead of them, functioning like rubber snowplows.
3. Because the fancy alloy wheels on the Volvo cannot accommodate clip-on weights, stick-on weights must be used to rebalance the wheels every time you switch from summer to winter tires or vice versa, raising the cost to $60 - $100 a pop.
4. The ideal for winter driving is smaller, narrower snow tires, meaning buying a second set of wheels that are 2” smaller in diameter and mounting 205/55-16 tires.
5. These will look kinda dorky in wheel openings designed for bigger wheels.
6. In theory, buying smaller wheels and tires will cost less over the course of two or three years than purchasing big honking snow tires that do not perform well. This is because many different snow tires are made in the smaller size, and most of them cost less than half what the big, high-performance ones do. Also, there is no ongoing cost of remounting and rebalancing twice a year. Sounds like a winner, right? Ah, but…
7. Federal regulations will not permit any tire dealer to sell or install wheels that disable an “essential safety feature” of an automobile (just as a licensed electrician cannot install a non-GFI outlet near a water source).
8. The Volvo has pressure sensors mounted in each wheel (as I believe all new automobiles are now required to, or soon will be).
9. Pressure sensors are essential safety features.
10. Pressure sensors are also expensive. Which takes us back to point six, which is now negated by the additional cost of having pressure sensors mounted in each winter wheel.
11. Just as I as a homeowner can install a non-GFI (“ground fault interrupter” for those who enjoy technical terms) outlet in my own kitchen but an electrician cannot, I am free to buy wheels without pressure sensor and install them myself, so long as I do not admit that they will go on a car equipped with pressure sensors (See point six, where tire dealers may not knowingly sell a wheel that will compromise an “essential safety feature”).
12. Exercising my rights as a citizen would require me to store the wheels not in use in my crowded garage, swap them out twice a year myself, and spend the winter looking at red lights on my dashboard warning me that my tires are all completely flat. So,
13. I have bitten the bullet and ordered tires and wheels with pressure sensors. But now I am starting to wonder if I should have voted for McCain after all.

A Modest Proposal on "Same-Sex Marriage"

2008-11-06T16:44:00.005-06:00

My only major disappointment in the election was the passage of Proposition 8 in California, prohibiting same-sex marriages. But I wonder if we need to rethink the entire issue in completely different terms.

There are a lot of socially/religiously conservative folks who honestly fear “the Gay Agenda” (I have never figured out exactly what this agenda is supposed to be: mandatory homosexuality?), but a fair number of them claim to have Gay friends they value and support civil rights for same-sex couples. How you can fear the Gay Agenda and support civil rights for Gays is something of a mystery to me, but it appears to be true none-the-less.

Likewise there are a fair number of social progressives who are passionate about “Gay rights” but waffle a bit when the word “marriage” is used to describe committed same-sex partnerships. In the commitment services at which I have officiated over the years I have never used the word “marriage,” primarily because I wear two hats when officiating, one for the church and one for the state of Wisconsin, and Wisconsin does not allow me to perform a “marriage” for two persons of the same gender. But I must confess that I also struggle with that word in theological terms. I agree with Stanley Hauerwas that God is likely a good deal less fascinated by our genitals than we are, and that the heart of Biblical teachings on relationships is not about gender orientation but about fidelity and commitment, but still the “M word” makes me squirm a little bit.

So here’s a potential solution: we eliminate the term “marriage” from civil law for all persons, gay or straight, and the states issue only “civil union licenses” rather than marriage licenses. The state assumes its proper role, which is to guarantee legal rights and protections to committed partners regardless of orientation. Then religious communities assume their proper role, which is to bless the spiritual commitment of marriage in accordance with a given religious community’s doctrines and practices. Some religious communities/denominations, including my own, would bless spiritual marriages for same-sex couples while many others would not. Fine. If two nice Mormon boys fall in love and want to share in a civil union, they would have that right. If they also want to be married in the eyes of God, they would need to decide if that is a higher priority than remaining Mormon, because their church is not going to permit them to marry.

Negatively, this would tend to isolate folks into spiritual communities with like-minded folks, perhaps contributing to our division as a society (which, of course, is already the case). Positively, it could lead more people to experience how the theology of their faith tradition shapes and forms how we live together in community: "this is who we are, this is what we believe, this is how we live."

It would also make it easier for faith communities to say “no” to people who hold no religious faith but still want the church to perform their marriage ceremony; “marriage” in the church would be reserved for those who understand that it is a spiritual commitment and who genuinely want to make that commitment. This being a reputedly free country, persons who do not hold religious convictions would remain perfectly free to declare themselves “married” – who’s gonna stop ‘em? – and could have a ceremony performed by a New Age Guru with feathers and crystals and tap-dancing squirrels if they wish. But churches, synagogues and temples would no longer need to prostitute themselves by accommodating requests from couples who desire a “church wedding” but would just as soon not have God mentioned.

It’s not going to happen, of course, if only because it makes too much sense, and because the tradition of church weddings is so deeply established in our culture. I remember when my colleague Lillian met with a couple who had asked her to marry them in her church, and they could not identify a single religious belief they held. “Why do you want to be married in the church, then?” Lillian asked reasonably. The bride giggled: “I just always pictured myself walking down an aisle.” Lillian nodded understandingly. “Have you considered being married in a supermarket?”

Living in Two Christian Communities

2008-11-02T13:26:00.002-06:00

We have two “church families” we dearly love, and for the foreseeable future we are likely to have a foot in each. They could hardly be more different. More than two years after my departure, First Congregational is filled with life and energy, with many good things happening. I could not be more delighted. We have been attending about every other week, and have been made to feel very welcome. There are so many people we cherish there, and the place is rich with memories for me. Which, of course, is a part of my struggle with returning there.

It is the same, yet different, which is how it should be. Churches evolve, and a new leader reshapes the church’s identity in significant ways. I could not ask for a better successor than Steve Savides, and I know that “my baby is in good hands.” But (and there is also a “but” or two)… When I attend I am reminded that I was probably about as “confessional” a senior pastor as a large Mainline congregation could handle, and that Steve has moved the church a few nudges back towards “mainline norms.” I have spent the last couple of years associating mostly with progressive Evangelical folk, which makes it a bit of a challenge to readjust to less Christocentric Mainline theology. It is hardly a huge, sweeping change – I suspect few members have even noticed – and it may say more about how my own journey has evolved than anything else. And then there is also the issue of how deeply I can participate in the life of First Congo while honoring ethical boundaries: Sunday worship is fine, as are occasional fellowship activities, but at least for another year or two that will be all that I permit myself. Certainly I can never offer comments or opinions about any dimension of congregational life, a limitation that makes me feel more like “visitor” than “member.”

Then there is San Damiano, the altogether peculiar little emergent church community we have been a part of for more than 18 months. It is an assemblage of quirky, interesting and diverse folks we have come to love dearly. The worship is sometimes rambly and formless, and some weeks the content is there and some weeks it is not. Its long-term survival is very much an open question as there seems to be no collective will to make “institutional viability” a focus. If emergent churches in general break all the rules about how a Christian church is organized and conducted, then San Damiano breaks all the rules about how an emergent churches are organized and conducted. Sometimes it makes he want to tear my hair out, but as the guy in Breakback Mountain said, “I wish I could quit you.” As long as there is a San Damiano, it will likely continue to claim a part of my heart and soul.

This was reinforced this morning when my friend Mike and I visited yet another new church in the valley, “The Mission Church.” Its story has amazing parallels with San Damiano’s: started by a youth pastor who served in a big-box Evangelical Church (Pathways, in this case) with an initial core of teens from that youth program and their parents, along with an odd smattering of folks with personal affection for the pastor. They meet in a dance studio, which has a different feel from meeting in a bar. They cover all the mirrors on the wall with black cloth so that folks at worship do not have to stare at their own reflections, like San Damiano has to cover the least-tasteful beer poster in the room used for “kids’ church.” Oh, and The Mission Church folks sit on folding chairs rather than barstools, which has some advantages for us older folks.

At least for now, they have appropriated far more norms from “big box worship,” including a full rock and roll praise band, which was bit jarring to me after the musical simplicity of San Damiano. The sermon also struck me as “big box,” blending scripture with pop psychology and funny stories. It was not a bad sermon by any means, but it could have passed for a corporate team-building pep talk…

Lots of teens there, many of the boys looking bored and sullen, as teen boys are supposed to do. It made me aware that we have almost no teens left at San Damiano – being more than two years older than The Mission Church, the teens who had been in Greg’s youth group at Christ the Rock have now grown up and graduated. In some ways I was experiencing what San Damiano was like at its beginning; as we were leaving Mike commented that he felt like he had just attended a youth group meeting…

Oh, I even had the lady behind me who seems to be sitting behind me whenever I visit a big-box Evangelical church; the lady who talks to Jesus through the entire service. I think it is mandatory to have at least one of those in every Evangelical worship service.

So, it was nice to visit, but it served as reminder there is likely no “perfect fit” church out there for me. The part of me that loves sound liturgy, thoughtful sermons, timeless music and a passion for social justice will be fed at First Congregational. And the part of me that loves simple devotion to Jesus, meeting people where they are and embracing spiritual chaos will be fed at San Damiano.

Goodwill, Health Insurance and Privileged Liberals

2008-10-28T17:25:00.001-06:00

It goes around in circles that make me dizzy. The poor have more health problems, and therefore health insurance for folks with lower incomes costs more. Folks with lower incomes have more health problems for a number of reasons, prominent among them that they see doctors less often because – you guessed it – they lack health insurance. The illness that could have been avoided altogether by good preventive medical care is neglected until it becomes a crisis. Lacking a family doctor, the person in crisis must go to the emergency room, the most expensive place to receive health care. The medical bills resulting from this emergency care tip the already tight family budget into chaos, which means there is no money to see a doctor or dentist, much less to purchase health insurance, and the entire circle starts to spin around again.

Goodwill’s People Team (“HR” in most organizations) is now hosting “open enrollment” discussions in all of our sites. Surprise, surprise: the cost of health insurance has risen yet again. Our folks labored hard to secure the best possible coverage at the lowest possible cost, but we are swimming against a mighty strong current. Our employees will be hit with higher co-pays, and our bottom line costs are taking a big hit. All the things that make Goodwill the unique and wonderful organization it is, including our progressive hiring practices, conspire to make our health insurance costs significantly higher than those for most other organizations. Call me small-minded, but sometimes that feels like getting punished for doing the right thing.

In my conversations with our employees, I hear stories that make me proud, stories that break my heart, and stories that make me flat-out angry. I spoke last week with an employee in her late forties who had just enrolled in our health plan – at the most basic and inexpensive level possible – and will now have at least some health insurance for the first time in her life. Will her budget be strained? Terribly. But as she said to me, “I’m not getting any younger; I’ve got to start taking care of myself.”

Another team member desperately needs extensive dental work. She receives such health insurance as she has through the state’s BadgerCare program, and has been waiting months to receive approval to proceed. Even if they grant approval, they will pay for only a portion of this very expensive work. Why did she neglect her dental care so badly? Because for many years she has been making sure her children got to the dentist regularly, which left no money for mom to take care of her own teeth. I have heard versions of this story dozens of times: we have a lot of employees with missing teeth.

I remember when I was a kid and my dad was turned down by the bank when he applied for a small loan to replace our leaking roof. “Banks only lend money to people who don’t need the money,” he said to me with a trace of bitterness. He died many years ago, so he did not get to see the era where credit card offers arrived in the mail daily and banks became eager to lend money to people who had no hope of repaying them, throwing the poor into horrible debt and ultimately melting down the entire credit market.

But it remains true that the affluent, who live healthier lifestyles overall, have wonderful access to medical care while poor folks, who face greater health and lifestyle challenges, have very limited access to quality health care. The only real solutions are political in nature: our society must come together with a common will to say that this is not just, and it is not sustainable. Yet another reason to vote for Obama, and to hope that he has the courage to provide real leadership against the entrenched interests that will oppose meaningful change every step of the way. Bluntly stated, those “entrenched interests” include folks like you and me, who take our own privileged lives for granted. There are a lot of progressive folks who are eager to demand justice for the poor, but still have not figured out that this requires surrendering some of our own privileges. My 403B make be down for the count, but I still have all my teeth, and that is privilege.

Why We Need Halloween

2008-10-22T15:09:00.003-05:00

I have a particular gift for selecting the seat at a banquet table right next to the person I am least likely to enjoying having a conversation with: bores, braggarts and people who believe I will be fascinated by a recitation of their various medical conditions. It was during the last week in October some years ago that I was seated next to a woman who was delighted to learn that I was a pastor because she was certain I would support her cause, which was a national ban on Halloween and everything associated with it. Away with trick or treating! Down with jack o’ lanterns and cardboard cut-outs of witches on broomsticks! Be gone, ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night! In her eyes, Halloween was a demonic festival, propagated through the combined efforts of “atheists and devil worshipers.”

I cannot resist a quick aside here. Why is it that such folks believe that atheists reject Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism but think that “devil worshipers” are really swell people? If atheists reject the truth claims of all religions, why would they make an exception for devil worshipers? But I digress.

The woman was shocked, of course, to learn that I – a pastor no less! – had no objection to Halloween. I tried to explain to her that its pre-Christian history among the Celts had nothing whatsoever to do with Satan, but she wasn’t buying it. Someone whose mind is already made up has no interest in facts, so arguing with them is the equivalent of mud-wrestling with a pig: you just get dirty and the pig gets annoyed.

There are also folks who object to Halloween for non-religious reasons. Some see it as a celebration of greed and tooth decay. Others view it as another bit of consumerist hype, or an excuse for adults to drink too much and behave in a licentious manner (even our morally upright Goodwill stores sell fishnet stockings for sexy witches). There is a dribble of truth in all these objections, I suppose, but in the end they all amount to the same thing: some people get offended and upset by anything that looks like too much fun.

Halloween is when kids get to deal with the things that frighten them – monsters, pirates, ghosts, witches – in the healthiest way possible, which is to make fun of them. It is what sociologists term a “transgressive” festival, where we deliberately do things we normally do not. Small children should not be wandering the streets after dark, but on Halloween it is ok to do so (with a parent hovering nearby, of course). Small children should not accept candy from strangers, much less beg for it, but on Halloween we break that rule. Responsible adults with high moral values should not be dressing up like hookers and pimps. In a very real sense, we affirm our normal values and practices by violating them in small and safe ways for a special occasion. How will we know where the acceptable boundaries are if we never step a single foot outside of them?

Halloween is about being silly, about breaking the rules a little bit, about a tiny whiff of danger. It is about having fun simply for the sake of having fun. Children understand all of this intuitively, which is why they get so wonderfully excited. When times are hard and the economy is in the toilet, we need Halloween more than ever.

Homogeneity and Extremism

2008-10-16T17:35:00.000-05:00

There is a growing and important conversation about the risks inherent in homogeneity, political homogeneity in particular. It begins with the “red state, blue state” phenomenon: increasingly we resemble two nations with significantly different perspectives on everything from hot-button social issues (abortion and homosexuality) to foreign policy, leaving a few swing states to determine the outcome of national elections. But even within local communities we tend to associate less and less with people who hold views different from our own. Churches, for example, used to be one of many settings in which conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, prayed, worked and broke bread with one another. Churches have now become far more politically and culturally homogenous: liberals attend liberal churches and conservatives attend conservative churches, where our existing views are reinforced. We increasingly make friendships and form social circles only with like-minded people. Not only are we less likely to have our views challenged, but we no longer feel constrained from expressing our views in strong terms because of the risk of causing offense to others.

Studies demonstrate that this growing homogeneity is responsible for greater extremism, intolerance, and the demonization of those who hold view different from our own. Perhaps the most disturbing example occurred at the McCain rally where a woman got directly in Mr. McCain’s face and told him he had to defeat Obama because Obama was a Muslim. The look on Mr. McCain’s face was amazing: he was clearly knocked for a loop and deeply troubled. McCain corrected her and said that Obama was a “decent family man” – how odd that only the man she was relying upon to “defeat the demon” had the opportunity to challenge her narrow views. McCain had no opportunity to address her unstated but clear conviction that Muslims are inherently evil: it would be fair to assume she has never met a Muslim herself.

Attack ads and negative campaigning reinforce this extremism and intolerance: folks who have already demonized the opposing candidate become more rabid with each new attack. Attack ads are not designed to change opinions. Rather, their purpose is to create discouragement and doubt in the minds of those who support the person being attacked while “firing up the base” for their own candidate. Increasingly we are a society that does not so much vote for a candidate as we vote against one. My hunch is that such ugly attack ads would not be nearly as effective if more of us moved in circles that were politically, culturally and religiously mixed and were forced to interact with people whose candidate or party had just been demonized by our own candidate.

There was a time when friends supporting opposing political candidates could rib one another in a light-hearted manner and remain good friends. Now we simply do not speak about politics with friends whose views differ from our own because it is almost impossible to maintain a light-hearted spirit.

Last month I was chatting with an elderly woman about all this. “Do you know who you are going to vote for?” I asked her. “I’m waiting to see who has the meanest, ugliest ad, then I’m going to vote for the other guy.” I think she may be onto something.

Sex and the Economic Downturn

2008-10-14T16:29:00.002-05:00

This will be one of the oddest items I post, and I shall endeavor to do so tastefully. Let me begin with an article that caught my eyes in Sunday’s New York Times. Several new hotels in Manhattan were being reviewed, and in one up-market, high tech hotel the reviewer was surprised to find that the mini-bar featured a “sensuality kit” that included condoms, lubricant, a small vibrator, and two strips of silk with pictures of handcuffs printed on them (presumably the hotel’s lawyers vetoed actual handcuffs). Price for the kit: $195.00. Recession? What recession? One can only hope that the purchaser leaves the vibrator out at room temperature for a bit before employing it.

This could easily lead to an essay on people’s behaviors in motels and hotels, but we will leave that for another day. I ran out to the All-Tel office this afternoon to renew our contract and pick up a new phone (my clunker again failed to alert me to an incoming call while set on “vibrate” during Rotary). As long as I was out there, I stopped next door to say hello to Evelyn, co-owner (with her daughter) of D’Von’s Lingerie, who I had not seen in nearly two years.

Evelyn first started D’Von’s in a cavernous space in the old Valley Fair Mall nearly ten years ago. Susan and I wandered in one day after getting flu shots and liked her so much that we worked hard at finding things to purchase from her: candles, as I recall, and a nightgown for Susan’s mother (we would not find anything for her mother in Evelyn’s current product mix, I suspect). I bonded with Evelyn around our mutual love for classic pin-up art, and would stop in from time to time. Three years ago or so I conducted the wedding of her daughter, Denise, one of the most grounded, solid young women I have ever met, and a wonderful mom to her kids (even if she sells “insertable pig tails” and other such gear). Both mother and daughter, in other words, are great people laboring in an interesting corner of the retail world.

So I asked Evelyn what was new and how the shop was doing. Her husband worked at the New Page mill, so is out of work, and business has been miserable. Halloween is normally a big season for shops like hers (I have speculated on where one would wear the kind of costumes she sells in public; parties we never get invited to, I suppose), but this year “the season hasn’t even started yet.” I asked her about her core customer base, the exotic dancers who work in local clubs (they get a discount). The dancers, she told me, have been complaining about poor business and lousy tips for the past six months. “They’re only buying shoes and panties, the things that get worn out,” Evelyn lamented. I decided not to ask a follow-up question on that one.

I told her I had thought that the sex business – and that is, in the end, what she and Denise are in – would be pretty much recession-proof. She paused for a moment. “What keeps us going are the toys,” she finally said. “Four years ago I refused to carry them, and now they are 75% of our business. They have become completely mainstream, and if you can’t afford a night out you can at least buy a couple of toys to make it fun to stay home.”

I told her about the hotel’s “sensuality kit” and she howled. “A hundred and ninety five dollars?” I could put together a much better kit for twenty bucks!” I’m sure she could, with or without the pig tail.

On an Imploding Economy...

2008-10-07T17:30:00.005-05:00

Our September brokerage statement arrived today, and at least I was courageous enough to open it. I winced, of course: about a ten percent decline in value for the month, and the carnage this first week of October has been much worse. There is a bottom out there somewhere, but right now not even the savviest pundits have a clue where it might be. Only those who put all of their assets into copper drain pipes and used manhole covers have been spared the pain: there are no safe havens when the very structures of the global marketplace tumble.

How interesting, and sad, that we seem to be without an inspiring leader to offer us a vision of stability, sanity and hope not just in the US, but in the world. Still-president Bush has fallen from "lame duck" to "completely irrelevant" status and clearly is aware of it: he is looking like a broken man to me. McCain and Obama are sniping about incidents in one another's younger lives rather than offering inspiration: perhaps tonight's debate will see one of them demonstrate genuine leadership, but I am not optimistic. There are times where I find myself wondering if this is, in the end, a financial crisis or a leadership crisis.

Something like -what? - thirty percent of the world's wealth has simply vanished in a very short period of time. Sometimes that concept seems absurdly abstract: there is no less "stuff," no fewer useful or beautiful objects, just a loss of confidence in what that stuff is worth in market terms.

Certainly I need to rethink things like plans for retirement, which I had allowed myself to believe was just a few years away (memo to self: the markets are not going to recover that quickly, bonehead!), but the impact on my actual day-to-day life will be modest compared to so many others. The poor, as always, are going to take it on the chin in multiple ways: more expensive goods, vanishing jobs, fewer resource available to the agencies and programs that have supported them, etc. And the highly-leveraged high-rollers are essentially screwed save for the few - and most morally offensive - who have already "gotten theirs" and salted it away. The hard-to-pronounce and difficult-to-spell German word for "taking satisfaction in the misfortunes of others" is getting a real workout referring to such folks, but it is an ugly place to take comfort.

Markets do some things extremely well, but they are completely and utterly without compassion: the do not care who gets left out or left behind - the elderly, the poor, the disabled -as they merrily (and, in theory, efficiently) do their thing. Which of course is why markets need to be regulated. Greed and hubris trumped wisdom and compassion, and now the piper has showed up with the bill.

A spiritually mature response to a collapsing economy is to repent of the idolatry that led us to invest entirely too much value in pretty, shiny things and focus on gratitude for the things of true worth than can never be lost or taken from us. Mature, but I am not sure it is going to play well on either Main Street or Wall Street.

Aristotle nailed it!

2008-10-02T16:27:00.002-05:00

Susan and I have committed to co-authoring a book titled Aging Together: Community, Friendship and Dementia, so this week I have been reading, thinking and writing about friendship. The obvious place to begin is with Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, where he discusses three forms of friendship: friendships based upon utility, friendships based upon enjoyment, and friendships based upon virtue. In his view, only the latter is a "complete" friendship.

Aristotle believed that we could sustain only a modest number of such friendships because they will - and should - make real demands upon us, including the demand that we spend time with our friends. He therefore believed that we should be very cautious in forming a friendship, making certain that the potential friend shares our ideal of what constitutes "the good." Here I will quarrel with him a bit, not about the number of real friendships we can sustain, but on whether our deepest friendships are consciously chosen or are given to us as a gift. Certainly my deepest friendships are with a motley bunch, and in most cases it is hard to identify a moment where I chose to enter into them: like life itself, real friendship just happens. Or at least that is what I will argue. Pretty sassy, taking on Aristotle.

But it is interesting to ponder his views in the context of the culture of "social networking" - what in the world would Aristotle make of "Facebook friends" and "Twitter friends"? I now have more than 100 "friends" on Facebook, not all of whom I am certain I would recognize in real life: they ask, and I say yes if the request seems genuine. When I check into my Facebook account I can scan in 30 seconds or so what is new with many of these "friends." Rarely do I read anything interesting or important, but once in a while something stands out and I send a quick note. Is that "friendship" in any meaningful sense? I have come to believe it has meaning, even value, but it is a long way from Aristotle's "virtuous friendship" that helps us to form and live an ethical life.

One thing we are experiencing that reinforces Aristotle's argument is that as we get older our close friends become more dear and important to us, and that these friendships demand more of our time, which we are glad to give. Aging brings more challenges with our health, greater needs in our extended families, etc. - there are more occasions where people we cherish need the presence of a true friend to support and sustain them, especially a friend they have been close to long enough that we really know one anther's stories.

Which brings up the challenge of geography. Aristotle named five features of a complete friendship, and one of them is that we commit to spending time with our friends. How much time? Every month? Every week? Friends we cherish live in North Carolina, Massachusetts, Oregon... Some we see once a year if we are lucky, others every third year. Can we truly be "present" to one another across the miles? Can phone calls and emails sustain Aristotle's vision of complete friendship? Increasingly I am thinking not: complete friendship requires regular "face time." This does not mean that we value geographically distant friends less, but rather than the nature of the friendship necessarily shifts a bit: we now know these friends less intimately, and we are not building a common story the way we did when we saw one another frequently.

Many, many Americans pick up and move on a regular basis, of course, forming new "friends" wherever they happen to land. Somehow, by the grace of God, a few of these friendships "stick" over time and are experienced as sustaining. But it is interesting that the same moment in culture that gives us Facebook and Twitter also gives us so many coffee shops. Many people sit in them alone tapping on a laptop, of course, but others are using them as a setting in which to be intentional about getting together with their friends. Aristotle would be pleased: the new lyceum serves espresso.

Baseball and Spiritual Virtue

2008-10-01T16:49:00.004-05:00

“Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.
Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.”
(from Baseball and Football by George Carlin)

During the Brewers’ last regular season game I was a bundle of nervous energy. I needed to keep my hands occupied. I brought the kitchen “junk drawer” into the den and sorted it in front of the television. I took the radio into the back yard (tuned to the Milwaukee station; for some strange reason the local station was broadcasting a football game) and spliced wires that the squirrels had chewed through. Occasionally I would run to my computer to check on the score of the critical Mets’ game. Oh, and very occasionally I would switch channels to see how badly the Packers were losing to Tampa Bay. When the Brewers won (thanks to CC Sabathia and Ryan Braun) and the Mets lost, I was as exhausted as I would have been had I just run a marathon.

I am a Baseball Guy, which is an untreatable condition. I moved to Wisconsin in 1983, the year after the Brewers last appeared in the World Series. I have been waiting 26 years for my team to make it back to the post-season. Along the way there have been many heartaches and disappointments.

I was schooled in the ways of heartache and disappointment from a tender age. I grew up near Philadelphia. I was passionate about the Phillies and attended a fair number of games at Connie Mack Stadium. I once saw Richie Ashburn foul off 23 straight pitches. Another time I saw Wes Covington (“the kingfish”) hit for the circuit. The one thing I never got to see at Connie Mack Stadium was a winning game. I was just a kid: I assumed it was my fault.

Then came 1964. On September 20, the Phillies held a 6 ½ game lead in the National League with 12 games to play. They lost the next ten in a row, including several to the Cardinals, who snatched the pennant that was rightfully ours. I have no patience for the whining of Cubs’ fans: what do they know of pain and anguish?

A lifetime spent as a fan of losing teams provides profound schooling in the spiritual virtues. Among the many virtues that baseball has formed and shaped in me are:
1. Patience. Fans of faster-moving and more aggressive sports likely regard watching an entire baseball game as a torturous exercise, given that an hour or more can go by in which “nothing happens.” But within that nothingness resides the full range of human experience: exultation, disappointment, nail-biting anxiety, moments of grace and beauty – the universe in a grain of sand. Patience is living through the pre-season, 162 games, and – if the baseball deities smile upon you – the post-season with your team.
2. Fidelity and Loyalty. “Nobody loves a loser,” say the pundits. Nobody but a true baseball fan. Your team is your team, through good times and bad. A man who will not abandon his team during a protracted losing streak is likely a man who will not be unfaithful to his wife when the marriage is strained.
3. Compassion born of suffering. Only one who has known genuine suffering himself or herself can be fully present to the suffering of another: as Nouwen notes, we offer the gift of healing love out of our own woundedness. Devoted baseball fans are the most wounded people on the earth (except, of course, for Yankees fans: those arrogant bastards are finally getting what they so desperately need), and therefore the most compassionate.
4. Hope. Perhaps the greatest virtue of them all, and baseball fans have it in abundance. “If we can just get some consistency from our middle relievers we’ll be right back in the hunt.” “We’ll get ‘em tomorrow.” And, of course: “Wait ‘til next year!”

The Brewers just lost the first game of their series with the Phillies. We’ll get ‘em tomorrow.