May 2010

As the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spew thousands of gallons a day, we find ourselves – as a people, as a nation – in a reoccurring problem.  Catastrophe has had an eerie habit of showing up when the systems we operate are more complex than any one person can understand. 

David Brooks in a New York Times article, “Drilling for Certainty,” asks a pertinent question, “How do we manage systems we don’t understand?”  The Deepwater Horizon oil rig, AIG, Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers, Enron, and in a different way even the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all failed because they were operating systems more complex than their executives could understand, the implementing workers could calculate and the regulators could evaluate. 

Of course we now operate this way nearly every day.  Few of us understand the computers or cell phones that we use.  Our knowledge of the cars we drive erodes once beyond, “Where do we put the gas in?”  The fact that everyday technologies operate virtually maintenance free for months or years at a time tricks us into thinking that we actually know what we’re doing.   After awhile we stop backing up computer files, or pay attention to that strange sound in the car’s engine, because things have been working so well for so long.  This is what led to NASA’s two Space Shuttle disasters.  An investigator into Challenger’s explosion said it is like playing Russian roulette.  Just because the bullet chamber was empty the last time doesn’t mean it will be the next.  Brooks added this quote from a 1996 essay, “We have constructed a world in which the potential for high-tech catastrophe is embedded in the fabric of day-to-day life.”

Operating systems we don’t understand makes it hard to calculate risk, leads us into a false sense of security, creates a divide between experts and operators, and discourages us from asking legitimate questions for fear of looking stupid.  The oil spill and the financial meltdown aren’t about what bad people are at BP or AIG.  It’s about how we’ve all learned to navigate in this “imponderably complex technical society.”  

No matter how advanced our technology becomes, the basic forces of human nature remain the same.  A plan that doesn’t compensate for human error and sinfulness is ultimately destined for catastrophe. 

 

October 2009

Several of Jesus’ healing miracles in the gospel stories involve maladies that to us sound a lot like mental illness or epilepsy.  You don’t read stories about Jesus healing a broken leg, or closing a wound.  The blind and the lame are healed, but those were persistent ailments.  Maybe Jesus didn’t do triage?

The gospels also tell us Jesus did many other miracles that were not recorded.  You couldn’t write every story, list every event.  The included stories usually surround an illness that was beyond understanding.  A broken leg from falling down a hill, or a gash from a knife blade was easily understood.  Primitive doctoring could tackle those.  Jesus wasn’t walking around in medical scrubs.

But what causes someone to fall to the ground in seizures?  What causes someone to seemingly lose their mind?  Demons?  Forces of evil?  This is where Jesus showed he had power from God.

Today, we know so much more about mental illness, its causes and treatment, as well as for epilepsy.  And yet, though the medical profession handles these conditions as well as any other human ailment, we are more like our ancient ancestors than we’d care to admit.

Mental illness confounds us.  We sympathize with folks in recovery from heart attacks and back surgery.  We take meals to persons recovering from hip replacement surgery or from the first rounds of chemo.  But we’re not always sure what to say or do with folks battling mental illness or chemical addiction or dementia.

Our grasp at understanding the soul, the “me” that is me, is so closely tied to our working mind that when the mind doesn’t seem to be working right we wonder what has happened to the person.  Often times she or he wonders that too.  

Maybe the most meaningful part of Jesus’ miracle stories isn’t that he healed folks who were thought to be “demon-possessed,” but that before the miracle he claimed them and treated them with dignity.  Except for those of us in the medical profession, we are not given the task of healing, but we can still claim those who struggle with mental illness as one of our own and treat them with dignity.  Just doing the later will chase many “demons” away.

 

August 2009

I grew up in a neighborhood with small front yards and big front porches.  Neighbors waved to the kids riding their bikes and waited for the paperboys who threw the afternoon news onto their porches from the sidewalk.  The school kids picked the low-hanging apples from our Red Delicious tree.  You might be waved up to a porch swing for a bit, if you went out for an evening walk.

Now, I live in a house with a front “stoop.”  There is no sidewalk in the front yard.  But we have a big, brick patio in our fenced back yard.  If we sit outside in the evening, it is almost always in the backyard.

There is an important verse in the 23rd Psalm that escapes many of us.  “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” [Ps 23:5]  It is a verse on hospitality.  In the Middle Eastern culture, hospitality is a duty.  Even your enemy is to be treated as an honorable guest if she comes to your home.  Your home was to be a sanctuary for your guests.  To turn a guest away was and is a terrible dishonor.  The 23rd Psalm speaks of God as the host who brings together enemies through the honor of hospitality.  

For the first thousand years of the Christian Church hospitality was an important spiritual practice.  There were no hotels around.  Travelers had to sleep out in the open, or among friends and extended family, or through the kindness of strangers.  But today we can do everything on our own.  We can stay in a nice, quiet hotel room; drive by the directions of the latest GPS system, eat at a quality restaurant and speak no more than a couple of complete sentences to anyone that day.  

In the drive for freedom and independence, we have often found isolation.  We lack a strong sense of community.  Hospitality invites us back into community.  It encourages us to be front porch people in a backyard world.

This doesn’t mean we all have to become Martha Stewart.  Hospitality is not about providing a big spread.  It doesn’t even have to involve food (though that’s hard for Baptists to realize).  “Pull up a chair,” can simply be an invitation to feast on some tall tales, which will probably fill your spirit.

 

February 2009

      The current recession is teaching us this: don’t rely on the experts. 

      The latest news about the peanut company, whose food became tainted with salmonella, killed some and sickened hundreds, is disturbing. Seems the CEO was told that his peanut butter was contaminated by more than one laboratory. Instead of tossing the batch and cleaning his whole facility, he just went shopping for an independent laboratory that would pass his peanut butter. He knew it was bad peanut butter; yet he still went ahead and sold it.

      This can only be matched by Bernie Madoff, the top-dollar investor who ran a high yielding Ponzi Scam. Just before the bottom fell out, it looks like Madoff’s wife transferred several million dollars out of their personal accounts. Meanwhile most of his investors are left with nothing. The SEC couldn’t seem to figure out his fraud even after they’d been tipped off years ago. If they can’t find fraud as big as this one, what can they find?

      The character and competency of financial executives is now the stuff of late night TV comics. The banking bailout has seemed to do little for the economy except provide big bonuses for failed executives. That none of these 7-figure salaried experts could keep their conglomerates out of this mess says much about the competence at the top of the heap. That no economists of note foresaw this deep recession coming speaks to the reliability of that science – so breathe a little easier when listening to the “doom & gloomers.”

      There is a natural tendency to defer to those in power, those with money, those with degrees lined up behind their names. Even the prophet Jeremiah fell for this tendency 2,600 years ago. After his preaching fell on deaf ears he wrote, “These are only the poor, they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the LORD, the law of their God. Let me go to the rich and speak to them; surely they know the way of the LORD, the law of their God.” [Jer. 5:4-5]  But he found the rich to be no better than the poor and ordinary. Jeremiah’s finding wasn’t that the poor were better than the rich, as is often a populist fantasy, but that neither rich nor poor were better in character or common wisdom.

      Solutions come not by the persons who make the most money, or have the biggest titles, or degrees. Solutions still come by the persons who make the best case. Listen with a discerning ear. Don’t be dazzled by titles or dollars. Trust the wisdom that feels right in your soul.

 

November 2008

      American Idol has dominated the television ratings for seven seasons, dating back to the summer and fall of 2002, when the show had its debut in the United States. Several of the contestant winners and runners-up have signed large recording contracts and recorded albums on major record labels. A few have even won some of the annual music awards – Grammy’s, Country Music Awards, etc. Tens of thousands of contestants have auditioned across America over the years in search of the next great talent. Last May over 90 million votes from across the nation were cast to select the 2008 winner.

      Despite all this effort and work the next Elvis Presley hasn’t been found. The next Beatles or the Rolling Stones haven’t shown up either. We haven’t seen another Bruce Springsteen or Frank Sinatra. Of course, you might say that musical talent like that only comes around every few decades or so. And you may have a point. 

      But I wonder if such a thing is even possible on American Idol. (This is not intended as a knock on American Idol; I can do that at another time.) What I’m wondering is this: Would any of us be able to spot true greatness in its formative stages?

      The Bible tells us that when Samuel went to pick Israel’s king from the sons of Jesse, he was completely wrong about whom God would choose. He had no idea how the Lord chose leaders. Future King David was still tending the sheep in the field. He was such an unlikely pick that Jesse didn’t even bother bringing him in from the fields to see the king maker.

      Moses had wasted his young adult and middle years in hiding from Egyptian leaders, when he heard and saw the burning bush. Jesus was a boy born to parents so poor that an animal feeding bowl was his first bed. Paul was a murderer traveling on the road to Damascus in order to intimidate more Christians. None of these persons would have won a leadership version of American Idol. 

      Greatness, both in people and in ideas, most often comes from unconventional places, and is often not appreciated until late. Let’s hope the American Idolization of a generation doesn’t cause us to overlook the truly great because we are transfixed on what’s conventionally good.

 

October 2008

      Here’s the secret to life…

                                                            … it’s no secret.

      Of course you couldn’t tell that by wandering through the isles of a bookstore, or scanning the covers at the magazine racks. “10 Secrets of the Rich” “Top Tips for Losing Weight and Looking Great” “From Preschool to Harvard the Step-by-Step Unwritten Rules”

      With the overabundance of advice gurus every American ought to be a millionaire, slim and trim, and sending their kids to Harvard for yet another graduate degree. That would be if the secrets the advisors dispense really were the secrets to life.

      Wishful thinking that success is just one hidden secret waiting to be found is an old intoxication. One of the early threats to the Early Church was the idea that Jesus’ purpose was to dole out secret knowledge, or gnosis, and those with the secret would attain eternal life. It was for this reason that Paul’s disciple Timothy was warned to avoid “what is falsely call knowledge” for “by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith.” [I Timothy 6:20] 

      I’m not saying, of course, ignorance is better than knowledge. No, I have a high regard for knowledge and its pursuit. But knowledge, by itself, isn’t the secret to anything.

      Look, you want to lose weight: eat less, exercise more. You want to do well in school: study. You want to get a promotion: arrive early, do your job, stay late. You want to be rich: spend less than you make and save. You want to be near to God: love God with all your heart, soul, mind & strength; and love your neighbor as yourself. There’s more like this, but that’s enough “secrets” to keep you busy for awhile.

      Life is not brain surgery or rocket science. It’s typically pretty simple stuff. But the issue has never been “knowing the secret.” It’s always been “doing what you know you should do.”

      Our struggle is with the will. The will to save when the glittery toy shines in the window. The will to exercise when we want to watch TV. The will to pray when we want to sleep. Motivating your will to do what you should will turn many of your wishes into dreams come true.

 

September 2008

      A visit to the Cody Wyoming Rodeo elicited unexpected responses from my children. The rodeo was different from anything they had ever seen in their lives. Bucking broncos and raging bulls. Cowgirls racing their horses around precisely placed barrels on the dirt field. These events drew excited cheers from my kids.

      But when it came to lassoing the calves the cheering changed. Watching a calf lassoed, thrown to the ground and legs bound and tied did not go over well with my city-dwelling children. When the cowboy or cowgirl missed with the lasso, Abby yelled, “Go Calfie” and “Yeah Calfie,” as the calf ran into the safety of the holding pens across the field. If PETA had undercover agents at the rodeo, we would have been hit up for a donation – or recruitment.

      Our experience at the rodeo was a clash of cultures for our family. The rodeo was a glimpse into a way of life that’s been an American icon for 150 years, but it startled our urban sentiments that have been packaged by city living. I have no doubt that if a Cody-raised ten-year-old spent a few days in Charlotte, she’d be startled by a thing or two as well.

      In addition to watching rodeos on vacation, I was also reading The Big Sort, by Bill Bishop, a book which gave me some perspective on our rodeo experience and the generational experience of my life. Bishop describes an America that has been sorting itself out for the past forty years. 

      There are hundreds of Americas in this nation of ours. From lobster towns on the coast of Maine to hip-hop ‘hoods in South Central L.A. There are suburbanites at the mall and town & gowners at the used book store. We live in haciendas, bungalows, houseboats, row houses, high rise condos, slum lord apartments, behind picket-fences and on country farms. This tapestry has been what has made America strong. Unfortunately, for the past couple of generations we’ve been separating more and more into our little enclaves. It’s not just ethnic or racial segregation; it’s ideological segregation that’s happening throughout our country.

      My kids may never learn to like rodeos, but I want them to understand where their hamburgers come from and to appreciate the lives and the lifestyles of the people who help make summertime cookouts possible. I hope that we would be afforded the same respect.  I’m sure the future of our society rests upon it.

 

July 2008

      My favorite plots in the old Star Trek (not the really old original, but the sorta old Next Generation version) series involved some variety of time travel. The space-time continuum would be broken and there would be some sort of parallel universe in which characters lived under a different set of circumstances. It’s an ancient fantasy – to imagine living life under a different scenario. The tale of Job is told with that in mind, whereby the hero has his fate altered by a wager placed between Satan and God. At the end of the tale all that Job had lost is replaced and it is as if his life had never been interrupted by cosmic forces.

      It is an ancient fantasy because those who listened to Jesus teach and crossed the Red Sea and built the pyramids and etched charcoal drawings on caves were fixed to the same mortal boundaries that you and I share. It is a common human experience to wonder how things would have turned out had a crucial decision been made in another way. It is a game we all play when trying to make such decisions. 

      Do I take the promotion and transfer and move the family, or do I stay and continue improving my current position? In some way we imagine the future in our parallel universes and factor our projections into our decisions. Do I go off to XYZ College or ABC University? Do we stay with our neighborhood school, or try a magnet, or move, or spend the money on private education?

      Like Frost’s poem we come upon “two roads diverged” on a continual basis. Not only do big decisions take us down paths that “knowing how way leads on to way” we doubt we “should ever come back,” but ordinary, everyday, easily forgotten decisions separate our trails as well.

      The problem with imagining how life would be different should we take or had taken another path is that life never turns out how we imagine it. We don’t imagine boring routine, or personality clashes, or a sudden change in market forces. Imagined life is always rosier than the real thing. This was one point in Judith Wallerstein’s The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce; the imagined life after divorce from a difficult marriage often turns out to be false and worse off than the trials within the marriage.

      The gift of mortality is that it forces us to make decisions. Decisions that define us and send us down curious paths with unexpected scenery.

 

July 2008

      Sunburn. The word every vacationer fears.

      You hit the beach lathered in suntan lotion. SPF 15, or 30, or 50. A few years ago a government agency said that the highest numbers could not be verified to provide extra protection. That hasn’t stopped the providers from offering even higher SPF numbers. And it hasn’t stopped beach lovers from buying them. Of course you have to reapply the lotion during a day at the beach. And who has time to reapply some globs of grease when you are jumping waves, riding the boogie board and making sandcastles. Who wants to reapply some slimy lotion when your skin is already covered with salt and sand? It’s like running sandpaper over your skin.

      Sunburn. The word every vacationer fears.

      Aloe vera. Cocoa butter lotion. Cool showers. Pain relievers. Banished for days under cover T-shirts and floppy hats and a seat under the umbrella.

      Knowing the risk we begin with bikinis and shorts and tempt the inevitable to happen. Like moths flying close to the flame.

      One time Jesus said, “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?” [Luke 11:46] There is a risk to every venture. So count the cost. And there’s also a risk in neglecting to venture. There’s a cost to count there as well.

      Nearly everything in life comes with risk. We are aware of the sunburn risk. That’s why we pack up the suntan lotion, the aloe vera and the floppy hats. But what if we vacationed at the beach and just stayed indoors all day? What if we missed the sandcastles and the wave jumping because we didn’t want to risk those awful sunburns? Wouldn’t we risk losing something else?

      Thankfully not even the most cautious among us would miss the sand and the surf and stay inside. But most of life choices, the balancing of risks, are not so clear cut. The risk of not doing is often hidden and uncalculated. We are in the habit of asking, “What if I do this?” We should also be in the habit of asking, “What if I don’t?” The risks of not doing must always we weighed against the risks of doing. 

      Just keep the aloe vera on hand.

 

June 2008

      Expectations have a profound effect on our experience. What you believe about something beforehand changes the way you experience that event.

      Dan Ariely, a behavior economist at MIT, wrote about this effect in his book, Predictably Irrational. He tested this idea on students at a campus pub. They were offered two small glasses of free beer. One was a regular beer. The second contained the same beer with balsamic vinegar added. Half of the participants had no information about either beer – a blind test. Half of the participants were told ahead of time that one glass was a regular beer and the other beer had vinegar added to it. So, one half had no expectations; while the other half was imagining beer mixed with vinegar.

      Can you guess the results? Most of the students who had no clue about the beers actually liked the vinegar spiked beer better. However, the students who were told ahead of time overwhelming disliked the beer with balsamic vinegar added. Their expectations changed their experience.

      Dr. Ariely’s little test has been replicated in other surveys but probably never better than in the real Coca-Cola fiasco a couple of decades ago. You may remember that Coke came out with a new formula that in blind taste tests people liked better than the old Coke formula. The plan was to bring out New Coke and to retire old Coke. Big mistake. When people knew which was New Coke and which was the temporarily-named Coke Classic, they didn’t like the New Coke anymore. New Coke’s sales quickly dropped, and within a few years production was stopped. Expectations changed their experience.

      Ariely wrote, “When we believe beforehand that something will be good, therefore, it generally will be good – and when we think it will be bad, it will be bad.” Our expectations influence our experience AND THEN that experience reinforces our expectations. “See,” we might say, “I told you it was bad.” (This might be the answer a parent hears when she tries to get her child to try a new, strange-looking vegetable.)

      Unfortunately, the same thing happens when expectations take the form of negative stereotypes about people. If we change our expectations about people we may find that our experience changes with them as well. If I expect that every person is a child of God, wonderfully made in God’s image, maybe I can change their experience as well.  

 

May 2008

      Have you noticed gas prices are rising? Well, I guess that’s like asking if you have noticed the sun rising?!?

      It’s a pretty sure thing that by summertime vacations gas prices will hit $4 a gallon across the nation. It’s already crossed that barrier in California. Just this week someone told me they won $100 gas card. “Wow,” I said, “you could almost get a whole tank of gas with that!” Maybe it’s not that bad, but close.

      No doubt the rise in gas prices is hitting many of us hard in the wallet, especially for those with long commutes. The average price of regular unleaded gasoline has risen from $1.44 in 2001 to $2.25 in 2005 to $3.65 now. It’s probably safe to say no one’s salary has increased by that much.  The average family (figuring one tank of gas a week times two cars) is paying $3,500 more a year in gas than when President Bush took office. 

      The rise in prices is caused by numerous factors, the combination of which is currently confounding economists. That combination could make prices go down again for awhile. But there is a bottom line under all of this that is simple and constant.

      Oil is running out. Not tomorrow of course, but within my children’s lifetime. At the same time economies in China and India are heating up and demanding a lot more oil. There’s a simple economic force at work – when demand out paces supply price goes up. We can change presidents and Congress, privatize the oil companies and siphon off all their profits and it won’t make 25¢ worth of difference. The silly idea by John McCain and Hillary Clinton of removing the 18¢ federal gas tax for the summer would only give each household $70 at best and at worst drive the demand up and eat up most of that 18¢ -- all while adding more to our federal debt. This is pandering for votes, not leadership for a challenging future.

      Here’s the hard truth. We have to change our way of living. Oil is running out. It is a significant contributor to climate change. Unfortunately, the best way to get us to change our ways is to hit us directly in our wallets. I hope gas prices never go down. As painful as it is I hope they continue to go up. THEN, we might get serious about changing our dependence on oil. And then my grandchildren’s generation might have a new opportunity for prosperity on a crowded planet.

 

March 2008

      A few weeks ago Kyle Matthews told us the inspiring story of a Special Olympics race a generation ago. It was a simple 100-yard dash, but it has become an urban legend repeated hundreds of thousands of times.

      It began as every race does, each athlete running his or her fastest towards the finish line. Then, one of the runners tumbled and fell hard on the track, crying out in pain. What happened next turned into legend. A couple of the competitors, hearing the cry of pain, stopped running and turned back to help the injured runner. The race had now been won by those who ignored the cries. Nevertheless, the contestants who had turned back and the fallen runner joined together and finished the race as one. Only as they crossed the finish line to the cheers of the crowd was the race completed.

      The story is a great example of the choices we face from day to day. Choices made to help ourselves and get ahead or to go off course to help others. Ideally we would love to stop running and help a fallen competitor, but we also want to win the race.

      Perhaps that is why the story has become an internet favorite. I found the tale repeated hundreds of times on personal blogs, cancer support sites, and on motivational web pages. Fred Rogers – of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood – repeated the story at Dartmouth’s 2002 Commencement. A site from Glendalough, Scotland – the heart of Celtic Christianity – carried the story.

      But the tale plastered across the internet has taken some liberties with the original event (as nearly all internet tales do). For one thing it moved from Spokane to Seattle – probably by some east-coaster who got the two mixed up. More importantly, in the internet urban legend, all the runners stop, turn back and help the injured racer and all cross the finish line together.

      The fact that the legend version has been repeated countless times tells me that most of us wish we lived in that kind of world – a place where people help one another out to finish together. The fact that the legend version, and not the original event, is the one that is repeated tells me that we just wish. We don’t live in a fairly tale where everyone stops to help. The real world is like that real race back in 1976. Some stop to help. Some ignore the cry and run to win a medal for themselves. 

      Which will you be, today? The world changes one decision at a time.

 

September 2007

      I remember it was one my first days of driving. My dad had taken me down to the high school, where I was going to practice parallel parking and three-point parking. I was driving on the way back home down the curvy valley road behind the first hills outside of Huntington’s Ohio River flattened downtown, and Daddy was complaining that I was hugging the middle of the road too much.

      I countered that I didn’t want to go off the road with its nonexistent shoulder. “The edge of the road is the least of your worries, when you’ve got a car coming towards you in the other lane,” he said.

      At a straight spot on the road he told me to stop the car. With the hazards on, I got out checked how far the car was from the edge of the road. Got back in and moved the car closer to the edge. Got back out and looked, then sat behind the wheel and looked at my sight lines. “Now, that’s where the edge is,” he said. “Remember it, glance at it, but don’t keep looking at the end of the car. Look ahead and drive to that point.”

      My dad’s advice about the car isn’t bad advice for life in general. You should know where the edge is – where your boundaries, your limits lay – so you won’t go off the side of the path you’re on. 

      But you can’t JUST look at that. You want to keep your eye on the horizon, not on the tip of your nose. Live life charted by where you want to go, not by what you are feeling right now.

      Too often we short circuit long-term goals with short-term pleasures. 

      And we live in an age with limitless short-term pleasures. Most of them, in and of themselves, are harmless entertainment. But a steady diet of fun diversions can wreck GPA’s, job promotions, personal goals, and family harmony.

      Most of us do a pretty good job of selecting good over evil. But most decisions in life are choices of better over good, not good over evil. A fun night with friends or study for an exam, a round of golf or volunteering at the food pantry, Xbox by myself or a family bike ride. Nothing on this list is “bad,” but some are better. Keep your eye on the road’s horizon, not the end of the car.

 

April 2007

      The tragic deaths at Virginia Tech this week remind us how fragile and unpredictable life is. The demented, young man who murdered 32 of his classmates and professors exhibited how dark and evil the human heart can become. He bought the guns weeks ago in preparation for this massacre. His graduation date from Virginia Tech clicked like a time-bomb. He never intended to cross that stage. He had already decided his life had no future and he decided to take the future away from as many lives as he could.

      If we are not careful, however, this is the only tale we tell and we allow evil to win through fear. There was one tale of evil and hatred in Blacksburg on April 16th. And we should not forget that one tale. But it was just one tale.

      We should also remember that there were numerous tales of bravery and courage and sacrifice and compassion that day. Hopefully, in the days ahead we will hear more of these tales. Like how Ryan Clark, a resident hall advisor, came to the aid of the first shooting victim and gave his life in an effort to help Emily Hilscher. Or how Derek O’Dell, already shot in the arm, placed his body against the classroom door and with another student held it shut when the assailant returned. His life was spared when the gunman’s bullets could not penetrate the door. Or the story of Dr. Liviu Librescu, a 76-year-old engineering professor, who ordered his students to jump from the second-floor windows and then held the door and used his body to shield his students until the last one was out the window. Librescu, who had survived the Holocaust, had seen evil as a youngster and he gave his life to save his students in one last battle with evil.

      These are the stories we should remember.

      This tragedy should also take us to another place. For one day we understood what it means to live in Iraq, today. Every day a suicide bomber goes into a marketplace, or a mosque, or a school, or a police station and detonates a bomb killing dozens of innocent people. This happens every day in Iraq. Every day. That’s what they go through every single day.

      No matter what you think about the war, you now have faces to guide your thoughts about it – those folks from Virginia Tech. That’s what Iraqi students and parents experience every single day. We may all respond to that image in very different ways. Just don’t forget it; or its frequency for Iraqis. 

 

July 2006

      We bought a new mini-van this week and it has had an emotional impact on our children. After visiting three dealerships we informally took a poll of the kids to get their input into this process of buying a new mini-van.   Which van did they like best? The old van won – and it wasn’t on the ballot.

      I shouldn’t have been surprised. My brothers and I still remember that dark day when our parents traded in our beloved station wagon for an ugly brown sedan. For my children “white van” has been “their” car their whole lives. We bought it within a couple months of their birth, because it was such a maddening task to get three baby seats into the back of a car. They’ve fallen asleep in its seats on late nights, put stickers from the doctor’s office on the windows, have memories from family beach trips. Buying a new van and letting go of the old one is also a letting go of a part of their childhood.

      Their sadness about the new van got me thinking about my car. After 14 years and 140,000+ miles, the temperature gauge doesn’t work properly. It always indicates overheating until I tap it a few times and the needle will drop back into the correct reading. Of course, if the engine ever does overheat, I probably won’t know until I see smoke. The radio panel no longer works so you can’t tell what the radio station frequency is. (It’s a good thing I never change the channel.) And the driver’s seat upholstery is in pretty bad shape, but as long as I’m sitting there, no one can tell, right? I actually like those things about my car. It’s like pulling on an old pair of jeans, or sitting down in an old, favorite recliner. It’s comfortable, familiar. Every time I tap the temperature gauge it’s like smiling at the idiosyncrasies of an old friend. I’m glad Abby, Hannah and Michael aren’t trading in my car for a new one.  

      The familiar breeds comfort. That’s why the Psalmist began his memorable poem about God’s comfort with a familiar view. “I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth….” [Psalm 121:1-2] I lift my eyes from inside my van, or old car… I sit down in my old recliner… I pull on my old pair of jeans and ask, “Where will my help come?” And as I place my finger in a hole in my jeans I remember. I remember and I think my help does come from the LORD. Of course God’s comfort is there regardless of a familiar prompting. It’s just nice to be prompted. I guess we’ll have to create some new memories in the new van so that it will soon be familiar and a reminder of divine comfort.

 

May 2006

      The Easter story breaks through the barrier of us and them.

      Its universal message of God’s love cannot be hoarded by any one people or tradition or heritage. So, Jesus tells his eleven Jewish disciples that they are to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” [Acts 1:8] Christianity was to be Jewish and Samaritan and Roman! Three enemies brought under the flag of a common faith. 

      Paul expresses this same sentiment when he writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” [Galatians 3:28] The reality, however, has fallen short of the ideal. The Church has often erected ethnic and gender walls instead of building bridges over them.

      Tribalism is ingrained in human nature. Shakespeare wrote of it in Romeo and Juliet. The Old Testament ends with a xenophobic flurry. Homer’s Greek tales exploit it. Witness even the playful (and sometimes not-so-playful) passions between sports teams. No telling what Duke & Carolina, or State & Tar Heel, fanatics will do to one another. How much more the pressure to draw lines of us and them when class, race, and nationality replace bright colored jerseys.

      We see this “us and them” pressure locally over school zones and nationally with immigration issues. The common goals of all involved are the same – a good education for children and thriving living in the United States – yet they become polarized by “us and them” thinking. Once “us and them” talk starts, issues stop being discussed and selfish positions become entrenched.

      In a global world, however, on a sphere hung like a mobile in outer space, we can no longer afford such wasteful thinking. There is one tribe – the human tribe -- and one race – the human race. Even as there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” [Ephesians 4:5] 

      Such a vision won’t magically make divisions go away. But if we speak first of our common hopes, instead of our dividing fears, of our common bonds, rather than our differences, we may start a circle that calms anxieties till we can lasso obstacles together.

 

November 2005

      The Roman philosopher Lucius Seneca, who was a contemporary of both Jesus and Paul, wrote, “Unless you know your destination, you cannot distinguish between a good wind and an ill wind.”

      Seneca, who obviously spent time sailing on the Mediterranean Sea, uses boating illustrations several times in his writings to comment on life. He had seen how quickly the wind and the waves of the sea could change course and alter a boat’s direction from one moment to moment. 

      Life, Seneca observed, is so much like sailing on the water, like getting buffeted by the wind. The circumstances of life will hit you from any direction and may seem to come out of nowhere. Without a clear destination to guide you, you have no way of knowing how to correct your course. You are left to the mercy of the winds, a victim of your circumstances.

      The sailor who has a destination site to mark her direction will be able to distinguish the good winds – those pushing her in the direction of her destination, which should be fully embraced – from the ill winds – those that are blowing her away from her destination, which must be countered by tactical movements.

      So it is in life. If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do. But if you have a vision or a value system to guide you, you know how to respond to the circumstances in life and make course corrections that keep you going in the right direction.

      None of us can control the winds of life. We do control how we respond to them. We can use a moral and wisdom compass to guide tactical maneuvers for course corrections. The winds of life may knock us off course, but if we know our destination we can learn how to respond.

      Victor Frankel, holocaust survivor, psychiatrist and author of Man’s Search for Meaning (published one year after his release from Auschwitz), claimed that holocaust survivors were generally people who could see beyond the barbed wire. They were, in other words, people who kept a destination point in mind and in sight even under most severe circumstances. Their vision beyond their circumstances gave them the hope, determination and cleverness to survive.

      Where’s your destination point?

 

September 2005

      This 9/11 Americans will mark the fourth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack against our nation by cleaning up after the worst natural disaster upon our shores. How will Katrina affect our observance of 9/11?

      In all sorts of ways the destruction from Hurricane Katrina was far greater than from those hijacked planes. Roughly three thousand persons were killed on 9/11; Katrina’s total will probably double that amount, possibly triple it. The economic costs were substantial from 9/11; Katrina’s hit to shipping and energy may affect our pocketbooks even more. On 9/11 our financial and political centers were struck; Katrina hit a cultural icon.

      Katrina will surely make us reassess our readiness against a widespread terrorist attack, if nothing else. After four years of “home security” work, Katrina shows we still have a ways to go.

      Of course natural forces created Katrina’s attack. There is no enemy to fight – unless the enemy is “us” and our decisions over the years. We may place blame on global warming, government cutbacks in the levee system, and evacuation plans that assumed everyone had cars and money to leave home, but I’m not sure malice was involved. Incompetence, maybe. Selfishness, possibly. We can’t really stop hurricanes from happening, we can only wisely prepare for their arrival.

      The 9/11 attacks were developed with malicious intent. Their terrorist purpose was evil – to destroy life and instill fear in survivors. Our country has now been on a 4-year quest against this evil. Nearly as many American have given their lives in the War on Terrorism as died on 9/11 and ten, maybe twenty, times as many Iraqi and Afghan citizens have lost theirs. And yet no one has a sense that the threat of terrorism has been lessened. 

      How do you fight evil? That question is theological as much as it is military. Maybe more so. Can we really stop evil any more than we can stop hurricanes? If not, is our only defense to be more wisely prepared for its arrival?

      Both Jesus and Paul instructed Christians to fight evil with good. But that’s just impractical religious mumbo-jumbo. Or is it?

 

September 2005

      The details from Hurricane Katrina are still filtering through the news several days after its devastating arrival upon the Gulf Coast. Our instantaneous news world has had to slow down – no power, no cell phones, and only one road in and out of New Orleans. Rescuers were reverted back to fishing boats with outboard motors going house to house to house, looking for survivors hiding in their attics.

      The tragic and heroic stories hitting the headlines of our news outlets remind us just how connected we are to one another in this great global world. What we do in one place and time has consequences (good and bad) for others in other places and times.

      If you question that statement, check your gasoline prices this week. The Gulf Shore refineries were shut down because of the storm and some could be out for weeks. We have plenty of oil reserves in our country for short-term crises. Refineries turn oil into gas. We don’t have enough gas reserves in our country. Hence, the skyrocketing price increases.

      Over 80% of New Orleans went under water after the levees surrounding the city began breaking a day after the hurricane. The levees were created decades ago to protect the city from annual Mississippi River flooding while also creating deeper shipping lanes. However, protection from the river floods has slowly put New Orleans in a bowl as the river silt has built up the delta around the city. The bowl is now full and the water can’t get out. 

      Another year of numerous hurricanes is further evidence that we are in a natural multi-year cycle that breeds multiple tropical storms. On top of this cycle global warming has slightly heated the ocean’s overall temperature adding to the intensity of already created storms. The biggest cause of global warming is industrial and petroleum emissions. Pollution from all parts of the world helped Katrina pack a more powerful punch.

      We are all connected in this garden God has planted in the Milky Way Galaxy. And the destruction of Katrina reminds of that. Hopefully, it will also reveal we are connected by compassion and service to our fellow citizens. Even in the first days of the Christian Church the apostle Paul was collecting funds in prosperous towns for the needy in other towns. [I Cor. 16:1-4] Missions giving (disaster relief) is an ancient service of the Church.

 

July 2005

      History is written by the victors. That’s been the reality of history texts for as long as history has been written. That is, unless the defeated keep their territory, then an indigenous and local history is written by the wealthy losers.

      The Civil War may have been our best teacher in this regard. It has taken us nearly 150 years to bring together Northern and Southern reconstructions to produce a more accurate picture of the Civil War Era.

      Saddam Hussein used the Allied withdrawal from the Gulf War – short of Baghdad – to reconstruct an Iraqi history with a “victory” over the United States. Statues and mosques were built to proclaim the great, Iraqi victory. We laugh at Saddam’s extreme revision of history. But I doubt we do so at Monument Avenue in Richmond.

      History, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. I doubt Civil War history texts written in New York in 1890 were much more accurate than ones written the same year in Mississippi. We seem to just be realizing that it takes both histories (and more) to accurately portray our human history.

      For Christians this is an especially important recognition. For we believe that God acts in human history. If we read only the “winners” histories, our understanding of God’s action and presence in those times will be distorted. In fact, given Christ’s sacrifice and the Bible’s repeated claim that God stands with the outcast, “winners” histories may the wrong ones to read.

      A couple of years ago our nation celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark’s expedition. Documentaries and books were produced, even nickels were changed for the occasion. I may have missed it, but I don’t remember any one saying, “It wasn’t France’s to sell.” How different our nation’s history, our “manifest destiny,” would read if we included Native American versions of history as well as we include Confederate versions of history. 

      Now think about how well Americans and Arabs have integrated their histories for a more accurate picture. Is it any wonder we have difficulty understanding their feelings about us? And vice versa? If we are to hope to understand God’s actions in history, we have to have an accurate reading of history. Maybe we can all work on our summer reading list.

 

February 2005

      This past Sunday elections were held in Iraq. It will be several more days before the results are announced and months before a constitution ratified and a permanent government is elected. But it’s a start. That’s good news.

      Last week I watched a PBS documentary on another first step in democracy and it was a bit discouraging. The elections of 1868 were the first time most African-Americans voted in this country, those rights protected on paper by constitutional amendments and by federal troops stationed in the South by Reconstruction. Without the troops, though, those paper rights were worth as much as Confederate currency.

      It’s really difficult for us to understand the terrorists that have sprung up in Iraq’s insurgency. We think of them as barbarians, immoral, irrational. If we imagined them as members of the KKK, or the White League, or some other white supremacy group born during Reconstruction, maybe they’d regain a little of their humanity in our eyes. While today we think of those groups as despicable, at one time they were called patriotic.   It is painful to say it, but the insurgents really aren’t so different from us – give or take a handful of decades.

      The Reconstruction of America faced a terrorist insurgency, whose goal was to disrupt an occupying force and control its aftermath. How many were murdered and raped to suppress democracy in the American South, we’ll probably never know. But we do know that it was so effective that the troops finally left and then in most southern areas African-Americans didn’t even bother to register to vote for decades on end.

      The animosity between Kurds and the Sunni and Shiite Muslims runs even deeper. Unless we believe that human nature has changed or that the Iraqis, today, are more moral or intelligent than white, Christian Southerners of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the process of democracy in Iraq may take a long and bloody time.

      Elections were held last Sunday in Iraq. I’m hopeful. I also wonder if it’s 1868 and blacks in all Southern States have just cast their first vote. Still, I’m hopeful. Hopeful as Reinhold Niebuhr when he wrote, “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.” And yes, believe it or not, that is good news. For it holds onto the Christian belief that people and societ