A Holiday Carol

The bright light in the sky – a UFO? extraterrestrial beings? – caught the eyes of a guru, a shaman, and a druid. These three wise men journeyed long to follow the light. Coming into a small town during a tax-free shopping holiday , they loaded up on a gifts, just in case. Heck, these could always be stowed in a gift closet for next year’s office holiday party if it came to that. As evening set it, they noticed that a large convention in town has taken up most of the hotel rooms. Passing a parking garage, they noticed a woman giving birth. They lamented that there was no universal health care in this backward country, as they walked past a found a drum circle in a nearby park. Suddenly the light became brighter and all the drummers cried in unison: the winter solstice has arrived! bless us every one! Everyone immediately began decorating trees until the police admonished them against celebrating a religious event in a public park. Next to one of the abandoned drums, the wise men found a stash of an interesting substance wrapped in paper and smoldering at one end; they breathed deeply and then started the long journey home. The passed the parking garage on the way back where they saw beings in white robes with halos singing , but they hurried by to get to a Krystal down the street.

"Mistakes were made" they said

Occasionally I make mistakes. Like daily. Though I try not to make the very same ones daily. Some are of the "I'll look back on this and laugh" variety. Many are not. Some make your heart sink. Most of the time I really do mean well. And that gives me pause when I am poised to pass judgment, pause to ask what is a mistake and what is an attack or sabotage or apathy...and how will I know, with being a mind reader, know for certain, intention? And does intention always trump consequence? or vice versa? Hhhmmmm....

Don't Burn a Koran

Please don't call yourself a Christian and behave in such a stupid way. We have military personnel fighting alongside a whole lot of good Muslim people to try to defeat some terrorist nutcases. We are not fighting a war against Islam. We had troops in Vietnam fighting Communists from North Vietnam, not killing all Vietnamese anywhere in both North and South. My house was burglarized 10 years ago by two black men who were caught and convicted of the crime, but I don't see every single black person in Memphis as my enemy because of two knuckleheads. It appears that someone in Russia swiped my credit card number last week and sold it to thug in Connecticut to go on a free shopping spree, but I don't hate all Russians as a result. Nearly 50 years ago some stupid white Christians thought to squash civil right protests by bombing a black church in Alabama (and killing four little girls); those little girls were innocent.

Reason and logic seem to go out the window for some people when they feel angry but are not exactly sure whom to be angry with; painting with a broad brush to vent such anger only results in more harm.

Our service men and women overseas will now have a more difficult time working with allies because some idiots in Gainesville, Florida think a bonfire was a good idea. Think again.

Disappointed but not Bitter

Looks like we'll be getting a shiny new CVS pharmacy in Midtown...after a grand old church is bulldozed. This is sad on many levels -- watching an older church wither, watching Union turn into a mini-Germantown Parkway, loosing yet another beautiful building to a crappy new structure, watching politics simmer & stew, etc.

The saddest thing is the lost potential. Churches in Midtown and downtown are not just places of worship (though that is a noble purpose in itself), but rather true resources. Within a mile of Union Avenue Methodist Church you can see Union Ave Baptist hosting the new Memphis Teacher Residency Program, Idlewild Presbyterian hosting More Than A Meal, Union Ave Church of Christ hoping HopeWorks, and First Congregational home to a handful of non-profits. An adaptive re-use of Union Ave Methodist could have had incredible synergy and amazing potential for being a resource.

While I lament this loss of opportunity, I do understand the decision of the City Council to some extent: namely, that killing the sale would put an enormous burden on the congregation of Union Ave Methodist. The last 40 members have long since vacated the property which admittedly has significant problems and merged with St Luke's. In America it is hard to swallow government telling you who you can and cannot sell your own property to, and this congregation has a right to make this choice.

I do wish that there had been an open and transparent opportunity for negotiation for sale to parties other than CVS. But this is over and done with.

Meanwhile, we need to realize that are other churches in similar situations. Sadly, you can walk into scores of sanctuaries with a capacity for 200-500 and find 40 people in the pews any given Sunday morning. Union Ave Methodist said they received no support from the community for the several years they spent trying to find solutions. Probably so. How often do churches look at other churches as competitors rather than partners?

All churches and organizations, like people, have lifecycles. As megachurches sprout and grow in the suburbs and church plants pop up in the inner city, what is our duty to fellow members of the church invisible who are struggling? Where are there opportunities for support and cooperation? Perhaps in addition to foreign missions and home missions, we may also be called to support intra-church missions. What does that look like? Who knows, but it is worth thinking about.

Accentuate the Positive

Often I find myself struggling to stay focused on the positives in life. Its easy to get sidetracked with one or two looming, seemingly huge negatives amidst a sea of postives. I mean when your left knee hurts do you really stop to think that your neck, back, right knee, left hand, right shoulder, left ear, etc do NOT hurt? No, you go with the squeaky wheel or throbbing limb. Similarly if you were hypothetically worried about your, oh say, job, you could fixate and forget the good things going on with family, friends, significant others, neighborhood, retirement funds, vacation plans, favored sports teams, etc.

Recently a letter to the editor advised against a PR campaign to extol the virtues of Memphis aka the city of choice because the city has too many problems. The gist was don't spin a sow's ear into a silk purse. True, there is no reason to be deceitful about our crime, poverty, educational system, lack of job growth, litter, etc. But we still have a lot to be proud of in Memphis with a hotbed of creativity (from entrepreneurs to musicians), a vibrant cultural scene, some terrific parks and public spaces, good values on housing and overall cost of living compared to any metropolitan area in America, a amazing number of citizens who volunteer and generally help each other out, and much more.

So do you do the PR campaign or not?

I think it is like waiting for the right time to do anything else -- take a vacation, write a book, paint the living room. There is no perfect time and it you wait for the perfect time, you spend you entire life waiting. Now is what you've got. Do what you can with what you've got. Go ahead and talk about what good there is in a PR campaign and at the same also spend time & resource trying to fix what is not so good. Its a multi-tasking world in which we live, isn't it?

Analog TV Worked Just Fine, Thanks

Caved in an bought a digital TV today only to get it home and find out that it picked up about half as many channels as my old TV with the converter box. Well I already put the old one in the attic and I guess I'll leave it there. I'll return the new one tomorrow. Couldn't get either to work with VCR to record. Broadcast TV is just the latest thing that the government has screwed up...not sure whether to blame the NRA, the ACLU, OctoMom, Obama, Bush, LBJ, illegal aliens, space aliens, organized labor, Tea Baggers, fluoride in the water, or possibly North Korea. Hhrumph!

NRA Bullies the TN GOP House

The NRA lobbyists were invited to bully legislators in the GOP caucus lest any should oppose guns in bars. Aside from the fact that this is a horrible piece of legislation, the idea that Representatives elected by the people are more inclined to listen to a bunch of hired guns just stinks.

The basics of politics are (a) it takes wads of cash to get elected, (b) being elect-able is not the same as having the ability to govern, and (c) the conglomeration of junk attached to a lot of bills means having to throw out some babies along with bathwater all too often.

This week the British Parliamentary elections produced split results the likes of which have not been seen for decades. The result will very likely be a coalition government unlike anything the US has ever seen and of a nature which the UK rarely sees. It will be interesting to watch. Conservative party leader David Cameron has said the system is broken. Indeed it is. And on both sides of the Atlantic.

Third parties in the US have rarely achieve much beyond the notoriety of being a spoiler. Given the vitriolic demonization of partisanship in our country and given the notorious influence on both sides of special interests, from NRA to ACLU and a lot of alphabet in between, I think that many people in the US will now be disgusted enough to seek alternatives. The day of the two party system will, hopefully, pass.

We ID Over Age 3

So if you're like me you probably have more than one form of ID on your person when you leave the house. In my wallet is a driver's license, a handgun carry permit, a voter's registration card, a student ID, a work ID, a library card, a Blockbuster card, membership card to three museum and a public radio station, a TABC server permit, my Kroger discount card, my health insurance card, a couple of debit cards and a charge card, my blood bank donor card, and a few more odds & ends with my name on them.

I'll bet that you have a little card in your car as I do in mine which serves as proof of insurance. So you have a license plate on your car? Yep. If you carry luggage to the airport, do you have little luggage ID tags?

If you buy beer in a grocery store or a glass of wine in a restaurant you may be asked to show some ID. If you board an airplane, you will get to show ID several times.

So if I got to Arizona and get pulled over for speeding and the officer asks to see my papers, I'll say "Sure, happy to help, how many pieces of ID would you like to see and how much time do you have?" I have no problem with that. It's not like the US of A wants to draft me anymore, all I get asked for is some ID. Is that too much of a burden. I think not.

The phrase "illegal alien" contains one key word "illegal." I have tremendous respect for people who want to work and come here to do so. The fact that people try to blow up airplanes and otherwise attack our country is also worthy of consideration. How much easier is it for a terrorist to walk across some lonesome stretch of border in Arizona (or Maine) that to bluff his or her way through Logan Airport or LaGuardia or Reagan National? A porous border and a law enforcement system with gaping holes is a great danger to us all.

So I'm fine with showing my ID anytime. Good job Arizona! I'm with you.

Frustration of the Body Snatchers

Who is more helpless than the dead? Sounds a bit silly I guess, but when you think about it, who is more vile than someone who would desecrate a grave or a corpse? Such things happen. Perhaps that is why friends and family take such elaborate pains with funerals. In antiquity consider the remnant of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae who chose to die rather than give up the corpse of slain leader Leonidas. Consider the horror with which Priam and all of Troy watch as Achilles dragged dead Hector around and around the city walls.

Now consider Mary Magdalene's sobbing at the tomb on Easter morning when she saw the body of Jesus gone and asked the stranger (angel) who had taken it.

Happily there was no graverobber or fiend at work in this instance!