The Irreverent Reverend

Scratch Yourself

2009-08-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

I'm currently staying with some folks and the woman of the house makes everything from scratch. Well, not everything. She buys flour and eggs. But you won't find any Pillsbury's pre-mixed cookie dough with its gift of trans fat. All is natural; butter, sugar, and all the rest. One can definitely taste the difference. It takes more time to do it this way. I'm not sure I have the patience. But if Patti the Scratch Cook ever opened a restaurant there would be a line out the door most of the day. Then whatever can be recycled goes into the appropriate container for later transport to the recycling center, or to the compost barrel. It makes me think of how God made the first human being by hand. No assembly line there. No waste either.

When I make anything from scratch, it tastes scratchy.

Theological Weather

2009-04-05T14:30:00.001-07:00

While on vacation in Central City with Cheyenne and her husband Hank, we had a wild hailstorm. Their house got hit with hailstones that measured about 2 inches across. As several of them crashed through the skylight, I reflected that I had always thought that their house was the most safe and solid place to be. Well, it is. It is beautifully built. But that does not mean that Nature can't get freaky on us. Our only absolute safety is in God. So, we mopped up water and glass for quite a while. Hank had just come home from work and into the house when the storm hit. When he saw it starting to hail, he went outside to move his car from the driveway to the garage. Then the usually calm-natured Hank yelled, "Holy Sugar!" although sugar was not the word he used. I rushed out to see what was up. Across the street in the neighbor's yard were what looked like masses of white tennis balls, with more of them bouncing down. I am glad Hank did not get a concussion. One of those ice balls did hit his gutter and narrowly missed his head. He darted back into the house. In the northern Central City area, windshields were smashed and cars were dented. When a hailstone crashed through one woman's windshield while she was sitting in a traffic jam, she jumped out of her car and dashed away in a panic. I wonder what I would have done. Sat there in the car while the hail came down, or run off into the storm to risk getting a direct hit? Not a choice I'd like to make.

Cheyenne, still at work when I phoned and told her about it, groaned and said, "Please tell me this is a bad April Fool joke." I wished I could say that. But later she said, "Ya know, you take what comes to you when it happens. And when it happens, you deal with it."

Good philosophy, I'd say.

Blog Break

2009-03-23T10:51:00.000-07:00

I'll be on vacation all of this week, fine readers, so look for more postings in about eight or nine days. I have not deserted you. I'll leave you with something I saw on a T-shirt recently. I was walking behind this guy at an airport and on his T-shirt he had a photo of four men, also wearing T-shirts, with their backs to the camera. They were standing in a row in a necessary room, if you get my drift. The caption on the back of all four of the men's shirts said TEXAS HOLD 'EM.

John 3:16 All Over the Place

2009-03-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

I tellya, being sick and laid up with a bad foot can sure put a crimp in the blog writing style. However, I did share a story with my congregation today in worship about John 3:16. It seems that everyone, follower of Jesus or not, has been exposed to John 3:16. That's the Bible verse that says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." The words "John 3:16" have appeared on more banners, billboards, and bumper stickers than I can count. Students in Vacation Bible School and various Christian schools memorize that verse with great regularity. The verse appears almost as often as "My Child is an Honor Student at the Genius Gates of Greatness Center." I have not yet seen a parody of John 3:16. Possibly people are too reverent to come up with one, or else they haven't gotten that creative yet. I have, however, seen a parody of "My Child Is an Honor Student at the Genius Gates of Greatness Center." That bumper sticker reads, "Your child may be an honor student at Genius Gates of Greatness, but your driving stinks."

A Character Meeting a Priestly Character

2009-03-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

I had lunch today with John and Joyce Lester. John is in his nineties and Joyce is in her late eighties, and they are as energetic as I am. I want to know where their hidden fountain of youth is located. The Lesters went out of town recently to an Episcopal church where John knows the priest well. It was their wedding anniversary, and somehow the priest found out. He was big on recognition of such special days, so he called them forward and told the congregation that it was the Lesters' anniversary. Then he asked them, "Is there something special you would like for your anniversary?" Joyce, being the outspoken woman she is, declared, "I've always wanted to kiss a priest." The congregation cracked up. The priest wasn't in the least fazed. He pointed to his cheek. "Plant one here Joyce!" he shouted. And she did. That congregation will never forget those two.

Casablanca

2009-03-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

There is a classic movie called Casablanca but this is a different version. At a meeting of pastors and other citizens of the town yesterday, they were talking about "Casablanca", a certain local neighborhood. I had not heard of it so I asked where it was and what was special about it. I found out that on one side of Smalltown there is a section where the streets running north and south are named after presidents (Washington, Lincoln) and the streets running east and west are named after states (Iowa, Kansas). This area has been nicknamed Casablanca which of course means "White House." It is well known for various kinds of business deals, many involving the sale of tablets or a certain kind of "grass" or "weed" that animals do not usually eat. I learn something new every day here.

Creative Practical Prank

2009-03-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

April is getting near along with April Fools Day. John Barge told me that he has thought of a new trick to play on his wife Sue. He says it's mild compared to last year, when his victim was his middle-aged cousin Will. Will had just bought a pickup truck. He had not picked it up yet. John had a friend call Will and say, "Hi, I'm with the Sea City Police Department. Do you have a truck with a license plate AGX 454?" Will said yes. The man said gently, "We just dredged it up out of the town lake." Will went into panic mode. He says he will pay John back, but so far he has not done so. I am sure it will happen. He told John, "When you least expect it, expect it."

John knows Sue and all her habits, of course, because they have been married almost forty years. He knows that Sue is not a morning person. She gets up on autopilot and goes out to grab the newspaper. She then reads it cover to cover, still on autopilot and half asleep. So John is going to get up earlier than Sue, steal their Sea City newspaper, and put an old one in its place out of the prodigious piles of old papers in the garage. He bets she will get up, pick up the paper, and read it all the way through without looking at the date on top. The only thing that might give the game away is if she sees any ads for "Warm Winter Sweaters" in a Christmas sale, or reads about politicians that have not been in office for years.

School Board Standoffs

2009-03-04T07:12:00.000-08:00

I have heard that whatever anxiety a town has, it tends to focus on its education system. Maybe that's true. Education and children represent the future, and Smalltown has one or two concerns about its future, to put it mildly.

Anyway, the school board volcano erupted this week. An editorial ran in the Smalltown Sentinel saying that board members always proclaim, "It's all about the children." The author opined that the activities of the school board have little or nothing to do with what the students care about. He sarcastically stated that the children being discussed are not in the schools, but on the school board. He fully expected the Texas Education Agency to bench the whole team. Recently the school superintendent was suspended with pay for two weeks, according to the same newspaper. I do not recall anywhere I have lived where the school board was so acrimonious. It makes me wonder what Jesus would do if he were on the school board or living in Smalltown. ""Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you," he said. Can I be an agent of peace here? Can others? Or will we continue to see our school board tattle on each other and throw spitballs?

Expressing Oneself Oddly

2009-02-28T08:17:00.000-08:00

Language has its odd expressions. I heard a mother complain that her growing boy was "eating her out of house and home." Now, does that mean she has both a house and a home? Is it easier to eat someone out of a house than a home? If her house is her home, then he is only eating her out of one house/home. Eating someone out of either a house or a home is a strange picture upon which to reflect. It might mean consuming a La-Z-Boy lounger and other unappetizing materials.

Then there is the expression "It stinks to high heaven." Years ago one of my relatives explained that when he smoked a cigar he did not stub it out like he would if it were a cigarette. He gave this stinky expression as the reason. I recall laughing a lot as I had not heard anyone say this before. Is heaven really high? Jesus said heaven was either within us or between us, depending on the translation, so it may not be up in the sky at all. It may be at eye level. Even if it does turn out to be way up there, we do not know how high up it is. Astronauts have gone to amazing elevations relative to the earth and they did not find it. Perhaps we should say, "It stinks to low, medium, and high heaven," to allow for heaven to exist at any level. Or better yet, we should say, "It stinks to (fill in opposite of heaven here)" as that is surely a much stinkier place with its sulfur and brimstone and all.

Drying Off, Drying Out, Drying Up

2009-02-25T08:09:00.000-08:00

It's a full "drouth" here in Smalltown these days. I can't hardly remember the last time it rained. When it did, it just kind of spit and moved on. I strolled outside in the backyard this morning with the dog and fell into one of the cracks out there. It didn't completely swallow me up at least and I climbed out. We're all praying for rain and I suspect the farmers are praying hardest of all. Gloria Pearce, one of our elderly members, asked me to pray for her because she gets quite a bit of her income from farming and is worried about losing all of her crops this year. She asked me to pray that she would not be sitting beside the road begging for money with a tin cup in her hand so she could pay her taxes. I promised her I would, and I did. I owe Gloria big time because she taught me one principle for saving water that she learned in the Great Depression in the 1930s. Its context is obvious. "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down." So far I have not applied this principle and I hope I will not have to. On the other hand, never say never.

These are tough times for everyone but I keep on praying; for rain, for economic relief, for peace of mind not just for me but for everyone here. I hope they know I'm on their side and so is God.

Lots in a Name

2009-02-21T09:03:00.000-08:00

It's interesting to follow fads and fashions in naming. For instance, if a woman is called Betty or Ruby she is probably elderly. If her name is Lisa, she was probably born in the 1960s. If her name is Caitlin or one of its numerous spelling variations, she is probably in her teens or twenties. Male names vary less. Thomas and Robert and John have been around forever. The name Ethan was popular a century or so ago, and now it is back in style.

People get creative sometimes, and naming their children brings out the muse in many of them. Sometimes they name their offspring based on something going on around them at the time. I wonder what it does to the child who then gets named Cyclone. Years ago in England, we worked with a travel agent called Miss Bottomley. I wonder what it was like to give that as a last name in school. Too bad her parents gave her the first name of Floral. Floral Bottomley. Now that's an image. Rock musician Frank Zappa was enterprising enough to name his son Dweezil and his daughter Moon Unit. I bet he was on some fancy drugs when he came up with those. Or maybe not.

While in college I worked in the tutoring center with a young woman called Spring Scales. Another woman had the first name of Chestina. Nicknames for that one boggle the imagination. Frankly, when it comes to naming someone I would go for conservatism. It is easier to sign checks with Susan or Brad Williams than with LaSquisha Perone or Theophilus Giles Goody-Ballard.

Yes It Really Happened

2009-02-19T15:48:00.000-08:00

Made-up stories don't compare to what people are really up to. I talked to Cheyenne recently. She has a friend, Trevor, near Central City. He is on the police force. He was on duty at three o'clock in the morning, hiding around a corner by the side of the road in a small town. Suddenly a pickup truck roared by in the darkness going 80 miles an hour. Trevor put on his lights and siren. He went after the driver and pulled him over. He made the man get out of the truck. Then Trevor looked inside. The vehicle was a mess. It was piled high with fast food wrappers, boxes, cups, and straws. There were Skoal cans scattered around. Trevor waded through it all and under the dashboard he pulled out a giant marijuana plant.

He looked at the man in disbelief. "What were you thinking?" he demanded. "You speed through town going eighty miles an hour at three o'clock in the morning, AND you've got drugs in the vehicle?" The guy replied weakly, "I didn't know y'all worked at night."

Facebook Multiplies the Multitudes

2009-02-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

I surfed Facebook tonight as I am prone to do. It is fast becoming the social networking tool of choice. It is mentioned in the national news more often than MySpace, its nearest rival. On Facebook people can send fake fish to a Li'l Blue Cove to oppose pollution, donate virtual plants to save acres in the Tropical Rain Forest, play trivia games, pass an online Long Island Iced Tea to someone...it goes on indefinitely. It is like the old story of "Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby." As the story goes, a fox makes a grinning human figure out of sticky tar to trap a rabbit. The rabbit gets offended at the smiling, inanimate tar baby and hits it. His paw naturally sticks to the tar. The rabbit gets mad. He hits it again. Another paw sticks. And it keeps getting worse. Facebook is somewhat like that tar baby. It is enjoyable if you just grin at the tar baby and enjoy what's there, but it has so many applications and sub-applications that it's easy to feel like Br'er Rabbit with all four paws stuck in its myriad tentacular, sticky-tar activities.

I have drawn the line. I am absolutely not getting involved in Facebook's "Twenty-Five Things I Don't Want to Know About You."

Comedy Night

2009-02-14T17:54:00.000-08:00

I can't believe Myra MacDonald asked me to do standup comedy at the Sweetheart Banquet tonight. And I had the temerity to say yes. Well, who am I kidding? It was fun. Especially telling about that bumper sticker, "Do you believe in love at first sight, or shall I drive by again?" And telling the crowd how each religious group dedicates its new cars for its pastors. The Catholics sprinkle the car with holy water; the United Methodists have communion and pour Welch's Grape Juice on the car; the charismatics pray and lay hands on the car so it stays healed; and the Jews cut the tailpipe off.

On the way out, Lola Flushpoole mentioned that her daughter Michele had looked at her young husband, Pierre, this morning at breakfast. She told Lola, "I was thinking that this marriage is still so wonderful. I looked at Pierre and even after being married several years, I was still getting this nice warm feeling in my chest when I saw him. Then I looked down and saw that I had dunked my left boob into my coffee."

A Plethora of Passwords...

2009-02-13T13:44:00.000-08:00

...and usernames. Although I'm usually quite organized about how I file and store secure passwords and usernames, occasionally I get caught out. Today it was a work-related site to which I knew the password, but I had been given an exotic username that had somehow gotten away from me. The username was something like "Graceful Dolphin Interspersed with Chanel No. 5 Perfume" that I had forgotten how to recite. So I got this email telling me that I had important new health information on the company website and would need to log in. Furthermore, failure to login with correct username and password and view this new knowledge would adversely impact my life in countless ways. The natural next step in this sequence was three messages saying "LOGIN FAILED." I did the email password request thing and was told that a password reminder had been sent to me. Twice. It never came. It is probably out there orbiting the moon.

The next thing that usually happens is that I get locked out of the site. I have to contact the Grand Plan Administrator who is astounded that I would forget my "Graceful Dolphin" username or whatever the heck it is.

Needless to say, the more important the message, the less likely it seems that I am able to view it. When I get requests to participate in those department store customer satisfaction surveys, the login information works beautifully every time. Murphy's Law, anyone?

Electrifying Events Edify

2009-02-12T10:42:00.000-08:00

Electrical issues around the church building are alternately infuriating and amusing. It is an old building. 'Nuff said. Whatever previous electrically-minded people have done there in the past, they got it wrong. I know this from present electrically-minded people who say so. I have heard the word 'jerry-rigged' several times since coming to Smalltown. When Tom Harvey, a gifted church handyman, came by to work on the air conditioner wiring in my office yesterday he used the same word. It had been a rough week for Tom already as he had had two flat tires on his trailer full of cows. He noted that he broke off a screw head while repairing the wiring because of the way the circuitry had been put together 60 years ago. This forced him to replace jerry-rigging circa 1950 with jerry-rigging circa 2010. I have a creative set of wires in the house too, but I have been assured that those are not dangerous. Just funny looking. One or another of the electricians usually says something like, "If only that de-sprocketized nail had been re-springulated and not been criss-crossed with the master fuse, we'd be all right. And by the way, if the male and female parts were parallel and fitted snugly together, we'd have a much better situation."

Flash Mob Takes City by Storm

2009-02-10T16:36:00.000-08:00

I read about a whole new trend from my blogger friend. It is called the flash mob. I had never heard of such a formation, and it is not as dangerous as the name might imply. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, defines a flash mob as a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The Austin Flash Mob is a formal organization that exists in Austin, Texas to perform funny, harmless, semi- improvised, public gags that are intended to encourage the participants and spectators to engage in their own forms of creative and preferably strange spontaneity. They say their purpose is to keep Austin weird. You can check out their antics at Whole Foods Market here.

This was a new concept to me, but seeing it in action made me want to be part of a flash mob in Smalltown or Sea City. Imagine a flash mob posing in dance positions outside Smalltown City Hall. And the Sea City Aquarium might be the perfect place to get a flash mob together to perform aquatic motions on land. The possibilities are endless. Maybe we can make Sea City weird too. One can hope.

The Audacity to Say It

2009-02-10T15:56:00.000-08:00

The church secretary Myra MacDonald lost her driver's license recently. She was in the Department of Motor Vehicles yesterday to get it replaced. She had to bring her birth certificate to prove her identity. While standing in a long line typical of the DMV, she chatted with a woman born in 1962. Myra later told the group of us United Church Women at Cranky's Catfish at our luncheon today that one of her children was born in 1962. Anyway, this lady--aged 46 or 47 depending on her birthday--asked if she might see Myra's birth certificate. Myra did not mind showing it to her. "Thank you!" beamed the woman. "I wanted to see what a birth certificate for someone your age would look like!"

Well. It was handwritten, not typed, but otherwise did not look greatly different from the 1962-issued birth certificate. I told Myra she should have politely refused to show the document to the woman because it was printed in Egyptian hieroglyphics, on parchment so delicate that it might crumble under the force of sheer antiquity. However, Miss 1962 might have missed the sarcasm.

Cultural Excursion

2009-02-07T10:08:00.000-08:00

I've heard some good stories during my surgical recovery period. John Barge shared this one over the phone yesterday. He swears it's true.

A tour group from the United States was taking a train through Ireland. The group included a Baptist minister from Alabama. As they clackety-clacked through the emerald grassy fields, a group of Irishmen came bursting in the door from the next carriage. "Ladies and gentlemen!" exclaimed the first Irishman. "Can I have your attention please! Is there a Roman Catholic priest aboard?" All the Americans looked at each other, but nobody spoke. Apparently there was not. So the Irishmen went running to the next car. The Baptist pastor looked particularly disturbed.

A few moments later the Irish guys came running back from the opposite direction. "Is there an Anglican or Episcopal priest here?" they asked. Nobody spoke for a moment, but then the Baptist minister said, "I'm a Baptist preacher. Can I help y'all?"

The first Irishman smiled. "I doubt it, laddie. We're lookin' for a corkscrew."

Surgery Cloud Has Silver Linings

2009-02-06T09:02:00.000-08:00

The prayers people tell me they're praying seem to be working. I'm grateful to God and the good Smalltown folks for their support. The foot is healing fast. And one of the more agreeable aspects of having a post-surgical foot is having Lola Flushpoole come over with a gallon of milk to get me through the weekend. She also brought me chocolate and coffee to prevent any withdrawal symptoms, and an Egg McMuffin although I'm not completely addicted to those. Being Lola, she had an adventure while procuring these items.

"I got the coffee at McDonald's over in the next town from the young boy there that I've known for a long time. He gave me two hash browns instead of one with the Egg McMuffin. He did it because he was flirting. He's in love with me. He's gay, but he's in love with me. I know he is. I keep telling him he should go to college because he's bright and he needs higher education. So I tease him. Well, it's more like I harass him. Maybe he sees it as an S & M thing. I don't know."

Distractions During Surgical Recovery

2009-02-05T14:34:00.000-08:00

I had a minor foot operation yesterday. In between bouts of pain (ouch) and intervals of drowsy Vicodin (aaah) I remembered two stories about worms to share before going back to bed to elevate that surgical-shoed foot. Why I thought about worms during such a time is unknown to me, unless it has something to do with the responsibilities that foot surgery is forcing me to worm out of.

Story Number One: My sister Lisa was six years old when she received a lesson in basic biology during first grade. Her teacher, Miss Harrison, told the class that worms were not male and female, but that each worm had a male end and a female end. Lisa came home and relayed this fascinating new information to our nanny, Mary. Mary knitted her brows, puzzled. "Both ends of a worm look the same to me. How would I tell which end of the worm was male and which was female?" Lisa looked thoughtful for a moment. Finally she answered, "I don't know. But," she grinned, "The worms know!"

Lola Flushpoole commented poetically by adding this:

Here comes the happy, bounding flea.
You cannot tell the he from she.
Both sexes look alike, you see.
But he can tell... and so can she.
Whee!

Story Number Two: A pastor called Duncan McHoot was giving a sermon on clean healthy living. On his pulpit he had four glass jars with lids on them and holes in the top. One jar contained a cigarette. The second jar had grain alcohol in it. The third jar held semen. The fourth jar had good soil in it. Rev. McHoot, before beginning his sermon, dropped one worm into each of the four jars. He then lit the cigarette and let the smoke fill the jar before removing the cigarette and replacing the lid. With the four worms now in the jars with the lids on, he told the congregation what was in the four jars. He then began to preach on healthy, moral living.

At the end of his sermon, he held up the four jars and with a flourish showed the congregation the results.

Worm in tobacco smoke: Dead.
Worm in grain alcohol: Dead.
Worm in semen: Dead.
Worm in good soil: Alive, healthy, and squirming.

"You see!" proclaimed Reverend Duncan McHoot triumphantly. "Here are these four worms. What does this tell you?" Fourteen-year-old Tiffany Blake raised her hand. "Yes, Tiffany?" said Rev. McHoot.

"Uh, okay, it looks like if I smoke, drink, and have sex, I won't get worms."

All in a Strange Day's Work

2009-02-02T16:24:00.000-08:00

Today I visited Montcrief Rehab Center to visit elderly Marybelle Ashton. Marybelle is a friend of a church member whom I visited on request because of her knee injury. She fell in the bathroom. I had not met Marybelle before. It did not matter. Marybelle liked to talk no matter who the audience was. She had gray hair and wore large circular silver-framed glasses that only slightly magnified her beady black eyes. Those eyes stared at me nonstop while her verbal express train rushed down the tracks.

The minute I walked in the door Marybelle launched in. "I came here because of Dr. Hankenflank who works here. Now Dr. Hankenflank hasn't been to see me, not once, even though he's the resident physician. I don't understand it. I was at Memorial Hospital before I came to the rehab center after I fractured this knee. They were short of beds I guess. They put me in a room that looked like a broom closet. I think it was a broom closet. At least they took the brooms out. Anyway it rained all night the first night I was there and there was water pouring from the roof onto my bed. And there was an electric light up there. Electric light and water in a broom closet. Oh, my land! That water all over me and that light hanging down and I couldn't get a nurse's attention to save my life. Hold on, that TV is too loud. I'll turn it out. I mean I'll turn it down. Because I can't hear myself talking. I need to hear every word. So I can keep track of what I've said so far. Now, they brought me this burger with fries for supper. I'm supposed to be on low sodium. But this burger has sodium in it. So do the fries. I wonder what Dr. Hankenflank would say if he saw this? But he hasn't been here to see me, not once. I can't understand it. I thought he'd want to see me every day. Anyway, when I get my hospital bill from Memorial I'm telling them I won't pay for a private room, not after they put me in a broom closet. That's for janitors, not patients. Come to think of it they may not have taken all the brooms out. I'm sure I saw a straw broom in the corner.

"Oh, don't get up and leave yet. I have a scrapbook here. It has a hundred pages in it. I'll show you the whole thing. It's full of stories and pictures about me. My daughter brought it to me yesterday. It starts with me as a baby and goes all the way up to my ninety-third birthday last month. Now, here on Page One..."

I bowed out at this point leaving her with her scrapbook and sodium-laden burger and fries. Later I talked with a church member who shall remain nameless. This woman is slightly acquainted with Marybelle. She mused, "I'll only say what I once overheard from my family. My son Eric once asked his brother David whether Marybelle was autistic. David told him, "I don't think Marybelle's autistic. I think she's Nucking Futs."

Blessability

2009-02-02T10:20:00.000-08:00

Watching the Super Bowl yesterday I saw several ads for a beer's "Drinkability." Logically speaking, all beers are drinkable or nobody could sell them. Coca-Cola is drinkable. Milk is drinkable. Water is drinkable, or needs to be made so if there are thirsty people who need it. But the drinkability idea has stuck. The search is on for the beer or other beverage with that inscrutable, indefinable quality called drinkability. The fact that this quality did not exist six months ago matters not at all.

Drinkability is now a measure of the quality of beer. Whatever that means. I wonder what new measures we can find in the same spirit. My dog might be evaluated for his CuteAbility. Imodium pills have great Stoppaflowability. I am sure all Smalltown church members' children and grandchildren have high PerfectAbility. My heavy-duty hammer, when faced with a nail, has remarkable Rammability. The Smalltown Scoop de Goop Ice Cream Parlor has milk shakes with superior Slurpability.

Our world, particularly our advertising world, is quick to set new trends and people seem all too eager to promote them. But it is just possible that there are other "abilities" that matter more. Yesterday I found the communion bread to have plenty of eatability and the wine, sippability. I hope these elements deepened my Holyability. Perhaps Jesus is interested in our Disciple-ability, meaning both our eagerness to follow him and our longing to find others to do the same.

Engineers Tend to Think

2009-01-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

It's always interesting when I party with a group of engineers, as I did recently. They see the world in their own complex way. That old 1950s stereotype of the "nerd" is out of date. The engineers I know are not in the least socially challenged and have long since discarded their thick black-framed glasses, pocket protectors, and plaid slacks. None of them has a calculator hanging from a belt. Instead, they talk of the Next Big Thing in the world of inventions. Iranian engineer Fares (pronounced Farris) is sure that there will soon be software called Intuitive-Buy (IB). This IB software is one step up from the One Click ordering that Amazon has for fast online purchases. It is already hard not to buy from Amazon with the one-click order system. "Hey! I didn't mean to buy that! I have epilepsy of the hand, and I had an index-finger spasm!"

But IB will make buying even faster and easier than that, which will be a great boon to companies in these economic times. When a consumer merely considers making a purchase, IB registers that and five minutes later the UPS truck is outside delivering it.

Fares is off the wall in other ways. In his young days, he shared a house with another new engineer, Chris, who was not at home much. Chris was a good guy but just could not get around to buying living room furniture because he was rarely there. So the living room remained an empty cavern. But Fares was there often, and he had a girlfriend. Finally Fares talked to Chris about this. "Chris," he entreated in his charming, deep-voiced accent. "I would very much like it if you would get some furniture. It is a little awkward when I bring my girlfriend over and all I can say to her is, 'You want to go to bed?'"

The World Famous Stethoscope Video

2009-01-31T10:33:00.000-08:00

Judging by how many times I have received this, it has been memorable to many. It starts out funny, and then, wham! A friend of mine asked what our United Methodist churches could come up with to attract this kind of attention. If you're one of the few people who have not seen it yet, it's here.

Intervals

2009-01-27T16:18:00.000-08:00

I was going to write something but instead I'll pause.

I will break the silence with a song about nothing, thus continuing the interval in a diffferent way. Here is a piece of doggerel learned many years ago.

Nothing nothing nothing nothing
I sing nothing all day long
I sing absolutely nothing
How d'ya like my nothing song?

After a hectic two days in Spanish City it's good to get home, ahead of a winter storm no less, and have some "nothing time" or downtime. For me, downtime is up time. It restores, renews, and refreshes. Sometimes we pay a lot of attention to what's in front of us and less to what is in between what's in front of us. We all need intervals to process, absorb, and think. After God created the world in six days, God rested on the seventh. That period of nothing is called Sabbath to us Jesus-loving folks. As the old saying goes, sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits. One company had a guy sitting and thinking and staring out the window. A recently hired efficiency expert saw this and insisted, "Get rid of him! He's doing nothing!" His companion answered, "The last time he did nothing, he figured out how to save our company a million dollars."

Great ideas, like plants, take time to germinate. Speech would be meaningless without taking a breath in between sentences. Those who fail to do so risk being diagnosed with verbal diarrhea. I have seen a few cases of that. Music needs its rests in between notes or it is just noise. Even my caterer friend tells me that the secret to great food is taking a few initial steps with it, such as spreading the first layer on a sandwich, then leaving it for a few hours before doing anything else.

I take a rest
A rest is blessed
And I suggest it's often best.
You may have guessed
What I've confessed
So put my statement to the test.

One wag even saw fit to commemorate such a downtime interval with a historical marker. "On January 27, 1869, right here, nothing happened."

I'll end here so you can go take a break.

How to Throw People Off

2009-01-21T19:01:00.000-08:00

I've always been a fan of Groucho Marx. I never knew what he would say next. It might be a clever pun, or a remark that was not exactly risque but could be taken that way, or just something that was a total reversal of what was expected. He once told a date, "I've had a wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." He has had scores of imitators, including Jonas, my friend from HiTekk whom I've discussed before. I once went up to Jonas to greet him at work early one Monday morning. "Hi Jonas," I waved. "No, but I wish I was," he answered.

Pastors have their own version of causing people to do a double take. Tonight the Smalltown United Church Women met at Jonelle Hatfield's house. It's always a treat to meet there as Jonelle is an artist, interior designer, and flower arranger extraordinaire. It's better than a Home and Garden show. Not only that, but we all got to eat her spaghetti and meat sauce which made the whole evening, week, and year worthwhile. Now that I've had Jonelle's spaghetti, 2009 is just all right with me. Of course as it was a meeting of church ladies we all observed the highest rules of Emily Post etiquette while stuffing our faces to the max. After the mega-munching we planned the Smalltown United Church Women program and hostessing calendar for the year. Someone asked me if I would be able to be at the program next year on January 16, 2010. I thought about it for a minute and then shook my head.

"I can't. I have a funeral that day."

International Epiphany

2009-01-20T14:01:00.000-08:00

I met a friend of a friend in Corpus yesterday. Her name is Vanessa, but she loves to dance and is so exuberant people call her Cha-Cha. Cha-Cha has long dark hair and big dark eyes and her eyeballs dance when she laughs. Last night she wore a Mexican embroidered dress and red sandals.

She is Puerto Rican and has traveled to Italy, Britain, South America, and elsewhere. She had plenty to say about how they do things in other countries. She says she has another nickname besides Cha-Cha and it is CPR. "No, I'm not a medic," she told me. "That stands for 'Crazy Puerto Rican'." Cha-Cha used to smoke and when she was in Italy she asked someone to light her cigarette. "I said it wrong though," she giggled. "It came out really bad in Italian; I ended up saying Light My Fire."

Cha-Cha just got back from Cuba. "They don't celebrate Christmas in Cuba. They celebrate Three Kings Day. On that day, children put a shoebox under the bed with grass in it for the kings' camels. When the kids wake up the next day, the box is gone and there are gifts under the bed in its place." The father of the household in which Cha-Cha was staying told his children that year, "Don't put grass in the box. The camels will be okay. But those three kings will be thirsty when they arrive. Leave the shoebox under the bed with three shots of rum."

Missionaries at the Door

2009-01-16T16:25:00.000-08:00

When I was brand new at my first parish in Microtown, I was unpacking and loading dishes into the cabinets when I heard a knock on the door. I was delighted. I thought it was church members coming to meet me. Turned out it was two Jehovah Witnesses come to save my soul and pass on a copy of the Watchtower to make sure I got to heaven. Not long afterward, I learned a good way of coping with such events from my clergy friend Doug and his wife. Before entering ordained ministry Doug had been a corporate employee in Salt Lake City, one of the tiny minority of non-Mormons living there. He was on the regular circuit for Mormon missionaries to come visit. Two of them visited him at least once every other month.

One night he heard a rap on the door. He did not know it then, but what he was about to do would ensure that no Mormon missionaries, Jehovah Witnesses, or Fuller Brush salesmen ever showed up uninvited again.

At the time he was carving up a giant joint of meat for grilling. He was holding his red-streaked carving knife and had some blood on his apron. He opened the door to see two conservatively dark-suited young missionaries on his doorstep. He grinned at their look of surprise at his blood-stained garb and knife. "Hi, nice to see you," he greeted them. "Can you come back later? We're Druids. We're in the middle of a sacrifice."

Moos, Baas, Snorts, and Squeaks

2009-01-15T19:20:00.001-08:00

All of the above are sounds from the Smalltown Regional Junior Livestock Show now on proud display at the local fairgrounds next to the carnival rides and bric-a-brac booths. I stopped by tonight to admire the clipped and coiffed animals and their proud owners in jeans, cowboy boots, button-down shirts and silver-studded leather belts. The Livestock Queen posed with all the winners with her dark hair, sparkling tiara, and Pepsodent dazzling smile. After the clean-scrubbed beauty of the queen and her court it was a contrast to go into the pig pens and see giant pink porkers rooting and snorting. It made me want to put up a hot dog stand right beside them that said Dine With Swine.

I watched the judging going on in the ring as the proud young 4H and FFA exhibitors marched their animals around for the audience in the stands on three sides to all get a good look. If I were judging, I'd make my decisions based on how much or how little the animals looked like puppies. The more puppylike the better. Those floppy-eared sheep and lop rabbits that looked huggable would all get ribbons from me. Of course that's not how it works really.

It was mighty hard for this citified gal to fully process how the judges made their decisions about the "muscular" "balanced" lambs chosen for the coveted fair ribbons and prize money for college funds. They all looked muscular enough to wrestle each other and win. In fact I saw a couple of lambs with heads intertwined testing each other's muscularity, if that's a word. They had more than enough muscles to butt each other's heads now and then and balk at their owners pulling them into the ring. Those were some of the most balanced lambs I've ever seen too, not that I've run into any unbalanced ones. "Help! I'm being chased by an unbalanced lamb!" All the lambs stood evenly on all four of their legs and not a one of them fell down.

Too Strange Not to Be True

2009-01-13T17:09:00.000-08:00

My last post mentioned drug and alcohol addictions. This story relates to that theme. If I had stayed up all night I could never have invented this. I checked it on the "urban legends" sites for its veracity and as I did not find it there it seems to be true. Here goes.

A southern Florida resident named Nathan had his house burglarized recently. Thieves ignored his wide screen plasma TV, his VCR, and even left his Rolex watch. What they did take, however, was a generic white cardboard box filled with a grayish-white powder. (That's the way the police report described it.) A spokesman for the Fort Lauderdale police said that it looked similar to high grade cocaine and they probably thought they had hit the big time. Later, Nathan stood in front of numerous TV cameras and pleaded with the burglars: "Please return the cremated remains of my sister, Gertrude. She died three years ago."

The next morning, the bullet-riddled corpse of a local drug dealer known as Hoochie Pevens was found on Nathan's doorstep. The cardboard box was there too, with about half of Gertrude's ashes still remaining inside it. Scotch taped to the box was this note which said: "Hoochie sold us the bogus blow, so we wasted Hoochie. Sorry we snorted your sister. No hard feelings. Have a nice day."

Our Favorite Addictions

2009-01-12T20:02:00.000-08:00

While we have serious addictions in Smalltown like everywhere else, drugs and alcohol being the top two, we also have relatively harmless ones. The hands-down winner for favorite fun addiction here is the Dallas Cowboys. During a Cowboys game the whole town shuts down. I have walked the Smalltown streets during these games and they are as quiet and empty as a church on Monday morning. Never mind that the Cowboys performance this year has been less than stellar.

Question: How do you keep Dallas Cowboys out of your yard?
Answer: Put up a goal post.
Question: What do Dallas Cowboys and possums have in common?
Answer: They both play dead at home and get killed on the road.

Question: What do the Dallas Cowboys and Billy Graham have in common?

Answer: They can both make 70,000 people stand up and yell "Jesus Christ."

In other states such as Minnesota ice hockey takes the place of football. If someone in Minnesota is watching an ice hockey match and the house catches fire, the guy is likely to say, "Hold on! I can't leave yet -- Larsen is about to score a goal! Besides (cough), the fire (cough) is still in the next room!"

So there are football addictions and ice hockey addictions. In my home state of Indiana they have basketball addiction. In addition to sports addictions, some people have food addictions. Sometimes those go together. There's nothing like a beer and snacks in front of a TV watching sports. A man in my sister-in-law's family said he was having a hard time with food addiction. To remedy that, he had followed the example of Alcoholics Anonymous and their Twelve Step program. He was enrolling in a Twelve Course program.

Talking to Myself, with Audience

2009-01-11T19:17:00.000-08:00

The best sermons I preach are from my own experience. I preach the sermon I'd like to hear and let others overhear. Usually that works for someone else too. Today's sermon was how God at baptism declares, "I like you!" I told the folks that maybe there was someone present who needed to hear that. Possibly there was someone who had a family member who didn't seem to like them, or they were at odds with a friend, or had a coworker who specialized in undermining their self-esteem. As God has declared how much you're liked, I said, you don't have to believe their evaluations of you.

The sermon recalled my Aunt Thelma from long ago, may she rest in peace. Aunt Thelma used to come up with real zingers. Thelma had long blond hair, then long gray hair, then long blond hair again after she dyed it. Going to see her was a memorable experience undertaken in the name of duty because she was "lonesome." When she got ready to "tell you something for your own good" she would wag the index finger adorned with the giant amethyst Uncle Sidney got her in exchange for an easy divorce.

Her piercing green eyes behind cat's glasses would narrow to slits as she began, "I remember the time you were mean to your cousin ten years ago. I can tell you exactly what you said, word for word. It's a vivid memory. Good Golly, you've gained weight, haven't you? Aren't you dieting? By the way, I've decided it's a good thing you haven't reproduced."

Then she would wag her amethyst-ringed index finger and add, "You know, you should have more confidence in yourself."

Picturesque Speechless

2009-01-11T16:09:00.001-08:00

Esther Essofigus sent me this ad. In days gone by, a customer got a free toaster from First National Bank when he or she opened an account there. Times have changed.

Cheyenne's Religious Search

2009-01-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

I talked to my friend Cheyenne in Austin today. She calls herself a recovering religious person. I don't know what that means. I do know that once when I was surprised by something and blurted out, "Oh God!" she replied "You called?" Later I heard her say the same thing. "Oh God!" I also cleverly responded, "You called?" She responded, "No. Just talking to myself."

Cheyenne is in full revolt against the religion of her childhood. She claims to follow four religions specific to women: Panty-Ism, Bra-Manism, She-Donism, and Slotha Yoga. She says she still misses her days living in the hippie-heaven Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco in the 1960s. She and her husband Joe as newlyweds had a tiny apartment there while he was attending college. He had a bad cold one day and trudged off to campus sniffling and sneezing. He stopped on Ashbury Street to swallow some Vitamin C. A long-haired hippie with frayed jeans and a tie-dyed T shirt with PEACE on the front noticed him popping pills and asked, "What ya got there, man?" Joe snapped, "That's ascorbic acid." The hippie's eyes opened wide. "WOW, MAN!" He was impressed. So Joe sold him some.

A Generation Vanishing from Church

2009-01-09T16:09:00.001-08:00

For a thought-provoking read check out They Like Jesus But Not The Church by Dan Kimball. Even if you don't read the book, the title says it all. I don't agree with all of Kimball's theology, but his basic premises are sound. People under the age of 35 are usually not in church. Yet Jesus is everywhere in pop culture. Shopping malls sell bobblehead Jesus who nods his head up and down as his left hand is raised in blessing. One advertiser says this Jesus doll may inspire you to "exercise patience and forgiveness on the highway." These dolls are big sellers in gas stations. Actress Pamela Anderson has a T-Shirt saying, "Jesus Is My Homeboy." Mike Dirnt, member of the band Green Day, says, "I'm down with J.C. He's cool." But ask the young people what they think of the church, says Kimball, and they come up with different stuff. I cringed when I read this, but it's probably good to know what the perceptions are.

The church is an organized religion with a political agenda
The church is judgmental and negative
The church is dominated by males and oppresses females
The church is homophobic
The church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong
The church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally

My initial reaction was, "That's not fair!" and "We're not like that in my church!" Probably all true. But most of these people don't know any Christians or Christian pastors. Their parents may not have gone to church either. Their impression of Christianity comes from the media and their friends, and maybe a bad experience they had at church in the past.

Welcome to post-Christian North America where the fastest-growing religion is either Islam or Wicca, depending on who you read. (No, not Mormon nor Jehovah's Witnesses, who have almost as many people leave as come in.) The Barna Group, who have surveyed religion in this country for years, say that the proportion of North American Christians was 86% in 1990 and declined to 77% in 2001. It has probably gone down since then because, according to Barna, "There does not seem to be revival taking place in America. Whether that is measured by church attendance, born again status, or theological purity, the statistics simply do not reflect a surge of any noticeable proportions." Kimball says the antidote to this is twofold.

One, remember that this generation loves Jesus. They're very open to talking about Jesus if we cultivate caring relationships with them first. After developing connections, we can start to debunk some of the myths and invite them to check out the church. Question: How many Christians ever hang out with non-Christians? Kimball started frequenting Starbucks to meet non-Christian people. He found plenty of them. Like missionaries in foreign countries, we need to find out who and where the people are. We do not adopt their practices, but we seek to understand first and dialogue second.

Two, like good missionaries, we need to provide "both an apology and an apologetic for the church" (Kimball). An apology for ways the church may have hurt these people, and an apologetic (defense) for who we are and why we are that goes beyond simply quoting Bible verses. Some may need to learn how to do this. It means being able to answer difficult questions. Be of good cheer. Early Christians had to do plenty of this centuries ago, and Christianity seems to flourish best as a countercultural minority movement anyway.

Let the adventure begin!

Blogging about Writing about Writing

2009-01-08T20:49:00.000-08:00

Someone once inquired of a famous writer, "Is it hard for you to write?" She thought for a minute and then answered, "Not really. All I do is sit down at the keyboard and open a vein."

Graphic but true. I wonder if other writers write for the same reasons I do. In one way it makes no sense. Writing, like all art, is not on the same level as working and eating. It is not essential for survival. But it is universal. I would love to hear from other writers about their reasons for writing. My own reasons go like this, depending on the day and the hour.

One, I write because I have to. Scribo ergo sum. Second, I think that after multiple drafts, rewrites, word order changes, grammatical checks, and sweat, I end up with something good. If something inside me did not tell me the work was good, I would stop forever. When God finished creation God declared, "It's very good!" I have the urge to participate in that creation celebration. Third, I serve the work. Every artist with integrity does. The work has a mind of its own and it can be contrary when I try to serve it. Often I sit down at the keyboard with an agenda, and something else shows up and says, "Write me." Call it God or The Muse or the Artistic Spirit, some entity keeps me company when I type, veering me off in sometimes odd directions.

Finally, I hope I not only serve the work, but serve the readers. If someone gets inspired, or gets angry, or cries, or laughs, or sees their own story in mine, or glimpses the universal story of what it means to be human, I have served God and the work well.

After that, it's Miller time.

Still Saying the Darndest Things

2009-01-08T20:10:00.000-08:00

Art Linkletter made the famous observation that kids say the darndest things. They do. They may be naive, but they are not dumb. Spending time with brother Vince, we reminded each other of what we used to say years ago. When my grandmother was about to make a visit from Indiana to our home in Ohio, we always stocked up on Budweiser and peanut butter, which she enjoyed. My father bought extra as he always stored some of it in the basement. As he was carrying the extra sixpacks down the cellar stairs, my six-year-old brother piped up, "Beer, beer, beer everywhere. GRANDMOTHER'S COMING!"

Vince's remarks, off-the-wall though they were, could not compare to what my clergy friend Christine blurted in public at five years old. Christine was a PK (Preacher's Kid) and her father was pastor of the small Memorial United Methodist Church in Serene City. The church's tradition was to give the pastor and his family a Christmas gift in the church sanctuary during worship time on the Sunday before Christmas. This particular year, the chair of the board came up near the altar with a large box and beamed, "I hear that this is something you really need." Teresa whispered loudly, "What is it, Dad? New underwear?"

Kids haven't changed much. Lola Flushpoole's four-year-old granddaughter recently drew pictures on her bedroom wall with bright crayons. Her mother snapped furiously, "Colleen, don't you know how angry I get when you do that?" The girl nodded. "I know, Mom. I'm praying for you." This is the same kid who prayed about her sister by saying, "Lord, please don't let Sydney cry when I hit her."

Asian Aerobics

2009-01-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

Asian cultures intrigue me. There are many of them, and one place to get a close gaze at things Asian is San Francisco. Strolling along Washington Square in that city, I encountered Chinese senior citizens doing morning aerobics of some kind. It was not Tai Chi, but an elaborate form of dance complete with chanting. Both the movements and the chants were highly complex. I transcribed what they were saying. Badly, of course, as I don't speak Chinese, but perhaps along with the picture you can get some sense of what was going on. It was quite lovely to watch.

Pah wah ching (make chopping motion with arm)
Mah sha chong (chop chop)
Chang nay hew (stretch high)
Tsao ting shung (clap)

I wondered how all those people managed to move together with perfect timing, and at the same time remember the chants and motions. It was way more complex than cheerleading or drill team, and these folks looked well past retirement age. I suspect that it takes a communally-oriented culture to master this kind of tight choreography. Heightened awareness of others and what they are doing seems key. Shades of the Beijing Olympics opening and closing ceremonies here. Do these folks learn to do this in nursery school where the teacher says, "Pay attention kids, you'll need this when you're seventy!"

Wisdom from Tony Tee

2009-01-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

Tony Tee is an Asian friend of my brother Vince. He waxes eloquent on current events and foreign affairs. He is an engineer, not a diplomat or foreign service agent. Still, working in electrical engineering at Intel, he travels the world and observes what is going on globally. At the New Year's Eve party at Vince's house, he opined that the United States is on the fast track to becoming a third world country. We have vast income inequity between rich and poor. We lack a manufacturing base. All that needs to happen now is for China and India to develop large middle classes who will start buying their own goods. Once they do, these countries will not care whether or not they export anything to us. Given our present economic condition, it remains to be seen whether we will have the means to keep importing from these countries. If we do not, we may become like Nicaragua or El Salvador with their tiny aristocratic elites and vast masses of the poor. Already leading CIA experts say that North American influence in the world is on the wane and will be significantly reduced by 2025.

What will save us from becoming marginalized, Tony said, is innovation. If we become pioneers in biotechnology, nanotechnology (the control of matter on an atomic or molecular scale), robotics and such, we have a chance to remain a major player. Fortunately we have excellent universities all over the country that are working to make this happen. If I were in the Department of Education I would be pushing for major changes in math and science education to prepare future innovators.

This country has a long history of dealing with great challenges. If the USA can get out of its own way and encourage ethical invention and innovation, it can remain a key performer on the global stage for years to come. Many have said in the past that one major event or another would finish us. Nothing has done it yet. While I take seriously what Tony Tee says, I also concur with what a news pundit said years ago. "It is amazing how long this country has been going to hell without ever getting there."

Signs of Suds

2009-01-06T08:40:00.000-08:00

Beer has its uses. Sign at Sea City flea market:

BEER. Helping Ugly People Have Sex Since 1862.

Airline Safety Announcements

2009-01-06T06:58:00.000-08:00

The airline passenger safety announcements given just before takeoff have been endlessly mocked, but there is plenty in them to snicker about. However, I took that speech seriously this time. The plane I boarded to go to California experienced a cabin de-pressurization on the flight prior to mine. It came in to land and fire trucks whizzed after it with red lights flashing. The passengers actually had to use those oxygen masks that drop down on these occasions. As the people disembarked, they looked none the worse for the experience except for a few crying children.

We boarded and sat down. The plane was not flying yet but the rumors were. A lady behind me discussed the mechanical malfunction with a friend over her cell phone. "No, they didn't fix it. We're going to have to fly to Dallas really low so we aren't up where the air is thin...Yes...maybe ten thousand feet, maybe less...no, they aren't fixing it here....no, they've deferred it to Dallas." Wonderful, I thought. How reassuring to fly in an aircraft with a deferred mechanical problem. The plane is on fire, but we'll fix that later.

To keep my mind occupied I rewrote the airline safety talk. I hasten to add that the flight went just fine and we flew as high as anyone else would. Too bad. I was looking forward to that kiss-the-ground style of flying, buzzing the buildings below and watching people flee in terror. I love anything that causes trouble. My revised airline pre-flight announcement took into account not only the recent safety situation, but also having to pay fifteen dollars to get my bag checked.

"Welcome to Blue Sky Sunshine Airlines, ladies and gentlemen. Please fasten your seat belt. You only have one half of a seat belt. You can purchase the other half for five dollars. We hope you were comfortable in our departure lounge; at least you were if you paid the ten-dollar seating charge. Sitting on the floor is still free. Today's flight may or may not come with a snack. Should our flight crew choose to serve one, you will be given one peanut. In the event of a sudden cabin depressurization, oxygen masks will drop from the compartments above your seat. To start oxygen flowing, pay twenty dollars. Exact change is appreciated. If you don't have exact change you will still be able to breathe, but not as often as you used to.

"As a reminder, this is a No Smoking flight. During the flight, anyone interested in smoking or being part of our Gone With The Wind production is invited to step outside the cabin. I know I've been talking so much that the flight is now over. We hope you've enjoyed giving us the business as much as we've enjoyed taking you for a ride."

Seeing All Things New

2009-01-05T18:43:00.000-08:00

I'm a joy freak. And it doesn't take much to get me there. Reading Facebook this evening I noticed several of my friends bemoaning going back to work after the holidays. It seems I'm not the only one who finds early January tough. Yesterday was Communion Sunday, so today I took communion bread and wine to our nursing home residents. We use special Methodist wine by Ernest and Julio Welch. I met a 95-year-old man named Lupe Sanchez for the first time. After I prayed for Lupe following communion he chimed in, giving thanks to God that I came and met him that day. He is in pain from a broken back and he lost his wife last year, so his statement of big gratitude for a small visit was special. I may have to work in early January in cold weather but my back does not hurt, I can see and hear and walk, and I get to do stuff like this and call it work. Life is not so bad.

I concluded yesterday's sermon with a visual aid showing that sometimes we have to rearrange the categories in our minds to allow for finding Jesus in unexpected places. That's what the Wise Guys, I mean Wise Men did when they were directed to Bethlehem. Nobody would have expected Jesus to be born in that village full of country bumpkins, but hey, there He was. It was astounding that the Wise Men didn't say, "It can't be Bethlehem. It has to be Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the happenin' place where the action's at, and Bethlehem? Let's just say we ain't going there. If we hunt around Jerusalem long enough we know we'll find Him here." But they adjusted their perceptions to fit the new reality instead of trying to fit the new reality into their perceptions. That is not easy to do. To show how we all, including me, have to contend with preconceptions all the time, I offered the following quiz to the congregation on poster board. I told them, "If you get this right you're doing better than I did!" As far as I know, nobody figured it out until I told them.

Which number below does not fit in with the rest?

1. One
2. Thirteen
3. Thirty-one

And the answer is: The number two, because all the other numbers contain the numbers one or three. If you're like me, you automatically excluded the digital numbers 1, 2, and 3 and limited the possibilities to the three numbers written in longhand. So I then asked the congregation this. When we search for Jesus, what do we include and exclude? Who do we include and exclude?

That is a very interesting question.

Australian Comedy

2009-01-04T17:23:00.000-08:00

I continue to keep the post-Christmas letdown at bay by recalling great memories of my recent California trip. Staying in my brother's home, we watched the bawdy old Ms. Australian Comedian (Ms. AC). Saying Australian comedians are bawdy is like saying three-day-old fish stinks. Shows an impeccable grasp of the obvious. At any rate, in California I transitioned from irreverence to utter decadence in the form of Australian comedy and too much chocolate.

Ms. AC was a master of the double entendre. That is, nothing she said was the least bit dirty unless you took it that way. Read the following examples from her Christmas talk show special while imagining a high-pitched Australian accent.

"See these hand-knitted socks? They were done by my husband Stanley in the nursing home during physical therapy after his stroke. He doesn't have the use of his hands yet, so he knit these completely with his mouth. Stanley is really into oral socks."

One of her guests mentioned that her husband was a gynecologist. Ms. AC inquired, "Does he ever bring work home?"

She also interviewed one of Britain's most handsome movie stars. Although he was about 60 years old at the time of the interview, he was still drop-dead gorgeous. He was England's answer to Paul Newman. Ms. AC asked him if he did anything special for Christmas. He told her he liked to cook and made a turkey stuffing from his own recipe. He described what was in it and it did sound good. Ms. AC advised, "You ought to market that, darling. I mean, Paul Newman markets his salad dressings and donates the proceeds to charity. Those salad dressings are very popular. Women love salad dressings by Paul Newman, and I know they'd love stuffing by you."

Blog Dialog

2009-01-04T16:04:00.000-08:00

One of the advantages of a blog over a book is its interactivity, giving others the chance to comment. One of my readers noted my wanting to ask God about the weight of a lifetime of belly button lint. (Note to self: Watch out for those 3 AM blog posts. After midnight, surrealism sets in.) He said that when I arrive in glorious Heaven, belly button lint may no longer be a pressing issue. He's probably right, but who knows. When I get to heaven, God may shake the Divine head, shrug the Divine shoulders, and say, "You bother me by asking about belly button lint? How rude. I like that in a person. Come in and have a beer with me. By the way, six pounds two ounces!"

And if not, maybe God in Infinite love and mercy will forgive me anyway and overlook my off-key, off-base, off-road, off-off-Broadway take on things. It comes with being left-handed and right-minded. People who think weird like I do tend to be left-handed. The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, so despite evidence to the contrary I am in my right mind. When I lived in Central City I was more in the middle of the state, which didn't make me middle of the road, middle management, or fair to middlin'. It did make me a left-handed, right-minded, centrally-located wiseass.

In My Ideal World

2009-01-03T10:39:00.001-08:00

In My Ideal World (IMIW) is a business term used at the company I used to work for, HiTekk, to describe a hypothetical optimal circumstance. At HiTekk, one works downward from the ideal world picture to get a realistic scenario. We all seem to have IMIW pictures in us. Some of them look like the one above. The new year of 2009 pulled me away from the dreamy nostalgic Christmas card scenes IMIW, and back to reality. Early January has always been a little bit blah for me and maybe that is why. There is the post-Christmas house cleaning to perform, the realization that as always I spent too much money, and the arrival of income tax forms. No wonder it takes a few days to get reoriented. But I still keep thinking about what things would be like IMIW. In random order, this is how matters stand IMIW.

IMIW every dog that has ever lived will live again, and none of them will be vicious because there will be nothing to be vicious about. Same with people.

IMIW people get excited about mingling with people from other races and nations and say, "Great! I can learn something new from them!"

IMIW we all have built-in GPS systems and nobody gets lost.

IMIW we are all so darned healthy nobody ever dies.

IMIW the landscape is gorgeous and the climate so favorable that people sit on their front porches and socialize with friendly neighbors while they snap their green beans for dinner that come from their own gardens.

IMIW Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mints are available year round and at all times. Treats such as this do not make you fat. Salads make you fat.

IMIW I send everyone an autographed glossy 11 x 14 signed portrait of myself for Christmas and people beg for more. I get requests for the portrait from all over the world.

IMIW there is no drug problem except there is one excellent drug to get people high now and then. It is legal, there are no side effects, it works great every time, and people only take it when they feel like going to war with somebody.

And IMIW every day is the first day of spring.

Our Bodies, Other Bodies, Every Body

2009-01-03T01:53:00.001-08:00

I am a follower of Jesus, which means I believe that Jesus was God in a human body. An embodiment of what is divine and spiritual and ethereal. Jesus was the ultimate bridge person, being both human and divine. He made the secular sacred. That means that there is no division between the secular and the sacred. The sacred permeates everything. That also means that even if we get messages from family and culture that our bodies don't matter, they do. What we do with our bodies matters. How we take care of our bodies matters. All matter matters.

I am glad because even after almost fifty years, I stay curious about bodies and what they do and don't do. I find it regrettable that human beings don't fly. I have had wonderful dreams where I soared over oceans and mountains like an eagle, and I wake up outraged that I don't get to fly to work. I know that some of the fishes of the sea have beautiful and bizarre bodies, but they live in the farthest depths of the ocean where nobody but other fish can see them. So who are they beautiful or bizarre for?

While doing laundry or the income tax, I wonder: If I could gather up all the belly button lint I have produced in a lifetime, how much would it weigh? And when I get to Heaven I wonder if I'll get answers from God about stuff like this.

Monster Motorbikes and Jacked Up Trucks

2009-01-03T01:13:00.000-08:00

During a two-day visit to San Francisco last week my brother Vince, sister-in-law Leenie, and I trekked up to North Beach for some fantabulous Italian food. As we walked back to our lodgings, a gleaming black motorcycle roared by. It was adorned with fire, lightning, a shark's face and other fierce images that blurred past me in the rush and noise.

Left in the wake of Harley-Davidson motor and exhaust, Leenie nodded knowingly. "Small penis."

Given the number of spam emails I have received on this topic, I realize it must be an issue for some. In saying so, I am embarking on foreign territory and a world I cannot possibly understand. No pun intended when I say that penis size does not loom large in my life. For grins, I have contemplated answering one of those emails with "What can you do for me?" To be sure, in adolescence there was talk about breast size and how some girls got all the boyfriends because they were "stacked", but I don't recall obsessing about this beyond the usual teenage angst.

People make fun of what provokes their anxiety. We make hilarous films about the army and the police because soldiers and cops have messed with our lives for a long time. We tell wonderful jokes about the afterlife because death is the ultimate freak-out. We have countless sex jokes because coitus and its consequences generate all kinds of concern.

And a cardinal rule of nightclub comedy is, "Always go for the joke about the schwanz."

Not All Christmas Nuts Are Chestnuts

2009-01-02T20:05:00.001-08:00

Before I surge ahead into 2009, I pause to invoke some nostalgic Christmas images to keep me going through the back-to-reality that is January. So here's a wave and a last shout-out to chestnuts roasting on an open fire, a one-horse open sleigh, silver bells, Christmas lights twinkling, Jack Frost nipping, carols in the air, and a partridge in a pear tree. Do you feel warm and fuzzy yet?

It was good to get away to California for a week to see my brother and sister-in-law and mother and others. Some may look forward to holiday chestnuts and peanuts, but my brother Vince and his wife Leenie are my favorite Christmas nuts. They are nuts about each other and the world thinks they're nuts too. Vince is about forty and a senior engineer at Intel. He wears glasses, sports a mustache and goatee, and has brown hair sprinkled with gray and a hairline that is starting to recede. Leenie is a petite strawberry-blond Irish Catholic gal who laughs at least ten times a day and generates fun wherever she goes. She is the champion caterer and foodie of all time. (Speaking of nuts, her seasoned Christmas cashews are to die for.) She once catered a bash at the Skywalker Ranch for George Lucas.

Yet she's down to earth about her eats too. Recently when she got hungry she went with Vince through a McDonald's drive thru and got a basic cheeseburger. It was her first food of the day even though it was almost lunchtime. As the sandwich was handed to her through the window, she took a bite and assumed a facial expression of total bliss. "Joy on a bun," she sighed rapturously. Vince's green eyes twinkled behind his glasses, and he grinned and put his arm around her. "You, Leenie, are joy on two buns."

Merry Christmas Break

2008-12-24T19:10:00.000-08:00

I'm taking an undeserved break for about a week. I hope all my readers have a joyful and restful Christmas. During the holiday season keep your feet on the ground, your eyes on the stars, and the bugs off your windshield. See you in early January!

RIP Larry Greenawalt

2008-12-23T17:49:00.001-08:00

Oh God, how many times am I going to have to go to the beach and cry? I wouldn't give up the fact that there are so many people I know and love, but when they die it's excruciating. Larry Greenawalt was the accompanist at Trinity United Methodist in Central City when I attended there. His exuberance is hard to convey in writing. He died a few days ago when a blood clot in his leg went to his heart, killing him instantly and without any pain. He was not quite 55 years old. I will miss how he called me "darlin". I will miss him as "Mr. G" with his children's music business. He was a total kid magnet. I will miss his extraordinary keyboarding skills and funny music. If only you could have heard his "My Grandpa Is the Santa Claus at Wal-Mart" which ended, "Now this is funny. Uncle Fred's the EASTER BUNNY!" Then there were his performances with his sidekick Karen Kohler in their show Das Kabarett. He loved an audience and we were happy to provide one. As I write this I'm listening to his Das Kabarett song "It's All a Swindle" first written in 1931 by Marcellus Schiffer and called Alles Schwindel. Excerpt from song:

Papa swindles

Mama swindles

Grandmama's a lying thief

We're perfectly shameless

But we are blameless

After all it's our belief

Nowadays the world is rotten

Honesty has been forgotten

Fall in love, but after kissing

Check your purse to see what's missing!

Everyone swindles some

My son's a mooch

And so's the pooch!

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

Politicians, they're magicians

They make swindles disappear

The bribes they are taking

The deals they are making

Never reach the public's ear

The Left betrays, the Right dismays

The country's broke, and guess who pays?

But tax each swindle in the making

Profits will be record-breaking!

Everyone swindles some,

So vote for who

Will steal for you!

Maybe this is a song about the world Bernie Madoff grew up in.

Nobody did it all better than you, Larry. I know you're bringing love and laughter wherever you are. I'll see you again someday.

Love, Ann

United Methodism in the 21st Century

2008-12-23T07:15:00.000-08:00

Woo hoo! My church is thinking young! In Pittsburgh, there is a church publicity campaign going on that features cell phone text messaging. Our 18th-century founder, John Wesley, would have loved this. He used the most current technology of his time, the printing press. And he caught a lot of heat for that. We are getting some heat for this too. Some are saying it's "gimmicky." Too bad. I say we need to go where the people are, and texting is where the young people especially are. Danette Howell, of our advertising and marketing group Igniting Ministries, has been working on this. She posted the ABC news show discussing it on Facebook. I hope it spreads and spreads. If you're interested in church text message advertising, here's the video.

The Dawn of Reflection

2008-12-23T06:33:00.000-08:00

After a good night's sleep, I woke up this morning less in the mood to throw a pie or shoe at someone. I revisited the previous post and realized that all writing is autobiography in some way, and pie-throwing is especially so. I understood in the light of dawn who I want to pitch a pie at.

It's the guy who just contacted me asking me to be his friend on Facebook. It was his second try. I ignored his first one. I'll call him Reverend Weasel Ooze. Weasel was on my Probationary Perceptive Panel long years ago, when he was less than straight with me. Okay, I'll be honest. He lied to me. After all this time I could overlook that. But a few years later Weasel, still on the PPP, prevented a good friend of mine from getting ordained. This man, Chuck, was in his probationary period at the time. He ran into Weasel one night while dining with his teenage daughter at a restaurant and they chatted. Weasel loved telling dirty jokes. He told a very raunchy story in front of Chuck's young daughter. Chuck asked to talk with him in private and got furious with Weasel. Weasel muttered an apology, but later went to the PPP and managed to block Chuck's ordination. Our loss. Chuck went Presbyterian.

Weasel has a penchant for saying one thing to the face and another behind the back. I was stunned to get two "friend requests" from him. He must be desperate. I know I need to forgive Weasel. Basically, I have. Not completely, because forgiveness is a process, but I'm working on it. But there is a difference between forgiveness and watching my back. Weasel is treacherous. I trust him as far as I can throw him. To avoid him is not un-Christian. It shows street smarts.

Because I have sort of forgiven him, I will not keep a pie crust and whipped cream on hand in case Rev. Weasel Ooze ever shows up at my door. But it's tempting. Oh, it's tempting.

Pie-Throwing Potential

2008-12-22T17:57:00.000-08:00

One place where I would like to see pie-throwing is after a new pastor's Probationary Period. Probationary Period in my denomination is how neophytes earn their initiation (or not) into the hallowed circle of fully ordained pastors. During this time of testing, the new pastors, called probationers, work in churches on a trial basis under supervision. For a three-year period, they have to go on twenty-four hour retreats every other month with the Probationary Perceptive Panel (PPP) for continuous observation and assessment. The PPP are the pastors who serve as evaluators and gatekeepers. After the three years are over, the PPP decides who gets accepted and who doesn't. The dread of being rejected after three years of work is huge. I got through my Probationary Period just fine, thanks to all that drinking. How else to manage the stress?

After getting ordained, the no-longer-neophytes probably have a grudge or two against at least one of the PPP authority figures who loomed large in their lives for so long. Just after ordination, the ex-probationer should be encouraged to throw a pie at the PPP member of their choice. It would be cathartic. It would also help to equalize the relationship, making it more collegial. Furthermore, if one particular member of the PPP was the chosen target of an unduly large number of pies, the PPP might decide to re-evaluate that person's place on the committee. The pie-throwing would provide a crude but effective visual of exactly who it was the newbies didn't like.

Thoughts like this keep me from making any real progress in life.

Throwing Shoes, Pies, and Fits

2008-12-22T17:21:00.000-08:00

Ever since that Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at President Bush, I have been pondering the possibilities of throwing things. The shoe-throwing turned out to be good for that shoemaker's business. Suddenly orders are pouring in for similar shoes. Possibly what people will most remember about this presidency will be a flying shoe.

We threw things at HiTekk in Central City when I worked there, but not shoes. HiTekk sales representatives were notorious for throwing balls around. One Saturday morning a young man threw a ball into the air and accidentally hit the sprinkler system, releasing enough water to ruin $300,000 worth of computers and copiers. He was, as the HiTekk euphemism puts it, "freed to pursue other opportunities."

At HiTekk we also threw pies on certain occasions. If a team met its sales goal for the month, team members were sometimes allowed to throw a pie at their manager. This was wildly popular. It would never work in the church. Pie-throwing only works at masculine-oriented organizations. HiTekk is so masculine, when you walk in the door you can smell the steroids. It is tough, muscular, sports-minded, and competition-driven. And that's just the women.

Vive la difference. My church is a world away from that. HiTekk runs on testosterone, while the church runs on estrogen. This is true even though there are both men and women in each place. I contemplated what it would be like if a given Region paid all its benevolences before all the other Regions did, and someone was allowed to throw a pie at the Regional Poobah. It wouldn't work. Some of the RP's are so popular that whoever was getting ready to throw the pie would put it down. Through tears, he or she would say, "I can't do this. I like you too much!"

Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

2008-12-20T15:56:00.001-08:00

I have to salute Christmas now as it is almost here. Along with the carols, I am trilling "Happy Christmas" by John Lennon and "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time" by Paul McCartney. What's Christmas without Mary, Joseph, the infant Jesus, the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, and the Beatles?

This video of the Nativity banishes all the commercialism at least for a while and brings Christmas into its own again. Two gay Christian friends forwarded the link. I have often wondered at how earnest and sincere is the faith of many gay Christians. It is all the more striking because of how some non-gay Christians treat them.

This Nativity scene comes across as authentic. The people really look like people that came from that region, and the manger looks like a manger, and it's all there. It is truly all there.

Fighting Over Pink Floyd

2008-12-20T07:53:00.000-08:00

Myra MacDonald gave me a hard time, in a good way, about the Pink Floyd Total Art blog post. She and her son Eddie used to fight bitterly about Pink Floyd when Eddie was a teenager. I was not surprised to hear that Eddie is about my age. We had our share of Pink Floyd fights in my house back then too. They were one of the ultimate rebel bands and parents in those days hated them. It was delightful.

"Eddie," Myra remonstrated, "We are country-western people." Eddie shot back that Pink Floyd had transformed the universe. "You and your Purple Floyd," she would sigh. Eddie would widen his eyes in horror. "Pink Floyd, Mother! Pink! PINK!" Meanwhile, I was softly singing somewhere in Ohio, "All in all you're just another brick in The Wall." The Wall was another of those bestselling-albums-of-all-time creations that Pink Floyd generated. And here they were in the 1990s still playing. The Pink Floyd Grandfathers. I invite you to go with me through their song "Time." I've heard that the basis for all religion is the fact that human beings live and one day we will die. I've never heard that fact conveyed in more powerful or poignant terms than it is here. This video has had more than five million views. I scrolled down through the comments on the video. One writer admitted, "This song scares me to death."

Sea City Scenes

2008-12-19T19:29:00.000-08:00

My favorite Euro-style cafe on the edge of Sea City is closing. I will miss it, but its prices were a little high. Even in its "Everything Must Go" sale, the owner offered a painted wooden hutch priced at $2400. Obviously I have been hanging out with the local aristocracy. After stopping there today for the last time, I headed into Sea City and once again saw someone holding a sign for The Sleep Shop saying, "Going Out of Business Sale." This store has been going out of business for six months and counting. Every time I drive up to the intersection, summer or winter, there is someone holding that big yellow sign nailed to a wooden plank. It is usually a dark-haired young guy plugged into an iPod, singing loudly, chewing gum while singing, and looking bored to death in his role as professional street corner sign-holder.

I drove on to get my hair cut. Next door to the Cost Cutters salon was a Marble Slab Creamery offering sundaes and milkshakes. I gained ten pounds just looking at the word Creamery. I will consider offering them my business if they become a Skim-Milkery.

Discovering Smalltown Citizens

2008-12-18T18:30:00.000-08:00

When I first arrive in a place, everyone looks alike. Not alike in the way of being identical twins, but one is pretty much the same as another because I don't know everyone's stories yet. But now after six months here, the individuality is standing out like separate colors in a rainbow. I learned from their Christmas letter that Stan and Esther Essofigus have three sons. One is a high-powered attorney, one is a vascular surgeon, and the third works in Washington DC in the FBI. Imagine having three kids who are that outstanding in their fields! And I don't mean cornfields either, to make a bad pun.

I continue getting acquainted with Lola Flushpoole too. We talked on the phone after the eviction and destruction in the house across the street. She said she has a good idea who demolished the upstairs window after the tenants were evicted. She says she knew him as a kid and he was a big, nasty boy who grew into a big, nasty man. I am not printing his name here as I like to keep safe.

And I'm also getting to know members in the Smalltown Kiwanis Club, of which I am a member. After our Christmas party at Garza's Restaurant tonight, two of the guys, Ron and Juan, were hanging out at the front door making fart jokes. No, I was not the one who started it. But once it started I provided a scholarly, sophisticated perspective to the discussion. I told Ron and Juan that the world's oldest recorded joke was about farting. The New York Times reported recently on an ancient scroll someone dug up in Egypt. It declared, "Something that has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." That joke dates back to 1900 BC, folks. How much have we changed?

Mouse and Abandoned House

2008-12-15T08:28:00.000-08:00

Last night, the questionable grandmother across the street and her sizable brood of grandchildren got evicted. I feel sorry for those kids, but the house was filthy. This is not the house of a thousand cats next door that I've discussed before. This is the house directly across the street. In Smalltown, when people get evicted they respond by trashing the place before they go. The house has a broken upstairs window and debris scattered all over the place. It looks like a fraternity house after an out-of-control party.

Shrieking and yelling greeted me as I came into the Smalltown church office today. Normally Myra MacDonald, our staff nurse Paula Silva, and I are fairly sedate so this was unusual. I went to investigate. In Paula's office I discovered that we have a church mouse. It ran over Myra's foot. It has been eating the peanut butter and crackers we stock for the homeless. Myra and Paula just got back from the grocery store across the street with mousetraps for our offices and sanctuary. All I need on the fourth Sunday of this blessed Advent season is mice introducing themselves to the congregation. "Hi, I'm Minnie and this is Mickey. Mind if we run up your legs?"

Highlighting the Truly Dreadful

2008-12-14T18:06:00.000-08:00

People almost always recall bygone eras as better than they were. It is tempting during these economic times to retreat into nostalgia and I have done my share. Today I fought that inclination and found some old cartoons online that I used to watch in the 1960s in elementary school. The best ones, such as Scooby-Doo, get recycled again and again. Thank goodness these others didn't qualify. One such cartoon is Clutch Cargo, pictured above. It was known as "limited animation" and indeed its animation was limited. It had almost none. If you're a glutton for punishment you can see Clutch Cargo on YouTube here, but I'd advise not going there. The most remarkably awful feature is the super-imposition of human mouths on the cartoon characters.

Continue awfulizing if you must with the 1963 cartoon "Hercules" by Trans-Lux's television syndication, may it rest in peace. This is a rendition of the ancient Greek hero with little basis in actual Hellenic myth. Its memorable features are a total ignorance of the actual Hercules story, appalling dialogue, and a centaur named Newton who says everything twice. Its one mini-redeeming feature is Johnny "I Can See Clearly Now" Nash singing the Hercules song during the opening and closing credits.

Just another reminder that Way Back Then, not everything was so great.

Pink Floyd Total Art

2008-12-13T20:55:00.000-08:00

I've long been enamored of Pink Floyd's music. Earlier this year they won an award in Stockholm, Sweden for "their monumental contribution over the decades to the fusion of art and music in the development of popular culture." Their 1973 album Dark Side of the Moon (DSOTM) was on the Billboard 200 highest selling music albums chart for a record-breaking 741 weeks. I did the math. That equals 14 years and 3 months.

A while back I was blown away by the video of the two DSOTM songs "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse." During a trek to Fry's Electronics megastore in Austin, this music video played on a giant HDTV on a continuous loop for about three straight weeks. The first surprise I had was that Pink Floyd band members are not young guys anymore. When I first saw the lead singer I had the politically incorrect thought "Look! There's Grandpa!" It didn't matter. I went back to Fry's several times just to see it all again. It was almost never without spectators. Old men stared, young boys and teens stood with mouths open, and we midlifers just went "oooh."

The interweaving of music and image here seems magical to me. I concede that most people don't have Pink Floyd's cash flow, but many churches do have a certain level of funding and a wealth of talent with which to blend image and sound, to show people all over again who Christ is. And why He is worth following. I have faith in that.

Those making comments on the Pink Floyd video are all ages. The band seems to transcend generations. You can watch it here. Now imagine it on a giant screen.

What happens at 5:07 on the video still gives me goosebumps.

Slick Shyster Shenanigans

2008-12-11T08:33:00.000-08:00

Pedro Perez is back. Yes, the one and only Pedro Perez, who just a couple of months ago was grandstanding about the new detention center outside of town. Our church secretary, Myra MacDonald, clipped his tailfeathers at a community meeting, calling him on the carpet for making misleading statements. Pedro went home humbled, but by no means discouraged. Then we held a meeting of our own where townspeople could get information and ask questions in an honest but non-inflammatory exchange of opinions. Pedro did not attend. Now he is back to raise a ruckus about "Cancer in the Colonias" with weekly luncheon meetings (lunch provided) to generate outrage about the issue. It may be a good cause for all I know, but if I were a betting woman I'd put money on Pedro positioning himself to run for County Commissioner.

Even in Smalltown, population about 12,500, we have people who think they can get away with something. It isn't just Pedro. The latest "Can You Believe This" story involves the pastor of the First Mega Holy Roller Hallelujah Church on the near west side of Sea City. He's a young guy in his thirties who drives a BMW and lives in a tony neighborhood not far from Smalltown which is about 25 miles northwest of Sea City. His church is loaded with rich people who donate lavishly.

Myra MacDonald met this pastor while helping her neighbor Sheila with a garage sale. The young man was browsing the unsold merchandise outside Sheila's garage late last Saturday morning. He was admiring some old baseballs and good-hearted Myra gave them to him. Then he admired the beanie babies and said his little boy would love one of those. "My kids like beanie babies," he said wistfully. Myra gave him one. Later he came back with his little girl and asked for another. He ended up with several.

Next thing we knew, Sheila had discussed the incident with her neighbor, Janice. Janice is an active member of the First Mega Holy Roller Hallelujah Church. Janice tells Sheila that this young man was bragging from his pulpit in Sunday's sermon that he had done some research on the Internet. He said he had acquired collector's item beanie babies for free at a garage sale and was selling them for a handsome profit on eBay. Janice has his sermon on tape and is getting ready to confront him about it. Myra has already called him to say tactfully that she gave him the beanie babies in error and needs them back. His response? "I'll have to talk to my kids about it. They'll be disappointed."

I feel sorry for him. Between Myra, Sheila, and Janice, he is going to realize that, as Jesus said, what one does in secret will one day be shouted from the housetops. In Smalltown, the time between a person doing something in secret and the secret being shouted from the housetops is usually about five minutes.

In Honor of Moms

2008-12-10T10:43:00.000-08:00

Every now and then a video is so brilliant it leaves me speechless...between gasps of laughter. If you like that kind of thing check out "The Mom Song" and then recall whether your own mother said any of these things to you. If you're a mother yourself, you may be able to relate to it too.

If any young men are reading this, here is a pickup line that no beautiful hottie can resist.

"Hey, my mother's a mother. And your mother's a mother too. So that gives us something in common!"

Whole World Gonna Be Gettin Mixed Up

2008-12-09T06:52:00.001-08:00

Everyone is becoming a generalist. My favorite Chinese restaurant in Sea City now offers Filipino cuisine. In the past, if you wanted to dine in the Philippines way, you had to go to a Filipino restaurant. No more. The Asian buffets now have a Korean section so I can get Kimchee with my won ton soup. On the way back to my table I can stop at the Mongolian BBQ section. I thought I was in a restaurant, but instead I was taking a world tour.

I'm used to this. I live in Smalltown. All little towns are places for generalists. You can't really specialize here. There aren't enough people. The smaller the town, the more hats everyone wears. I remember my first church north of here, in Microtown. One of the first businesses I saw was John Walters' Gas Station and Dry Cleaning Service. Next door to it was the Hatfield Real Estate Office and Copy Shop. Now big cities are getting into the act too. Customers have many choices, just like I did at the Asian restaurant. Life is turning into one giant buffet. Maybe God likes it that way. We have been so separated from each other for so long, perhaps it's a good thing we're meeting, greeting, and eating each other's food. Last night I stopped by the Middle East Market to pick up some hummus and pita bread. In the corner next to the baba ghanoush, baklava, and tabouleh salad was the alcohol. It is now possible, with one stop at this market, to wash down your couscous and goat cheese with Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill, Fuzzy Navel, or Blue Hawaiian.

Catching Football

2008-12-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I actually watch football. Except I watch it in my own non-traditional way, focusing less on game tactics than on sideline theatrics. I especially love the way some commentators get hooked on a word or phrase and then repeat it constantly. In the 1970s, Howard Cosell did this all the time. But it still happens today. I heard a commentator a few weeks ago overwork the word situation.

"This is going to cost that quarterback a first down situation. Now we have a penalty situation. They were definitely offsides so that is a yellow flag situation. The coaches are going over the defense situation. The halfback is out of bounds. He hit a cameraman, so we have an injury situation. But it looks like it's not a serious situation. The clock has run out so we're in a halftime situation. So before we take a commercial break here's the replay situation."

I left the living room and went to the kitchen to create a sandwich and chips snack situation.

Substantial Lesson in Leadership

2008-12-07T21:30:00.000-08:00

As I've discussed in a previous post, our church has one Bishop over a large Area. The Area is divided into seven Regions, each with its own Poobah. Therefore the Bishop is assisted by seven Regional Poobahs (RPs). Currently, two of these RPs are women and five are men. Being an RP is not easy. It entails enormous responsibility. Whenever a church or pastor has a serious issue, challenge, or threat, the RP is called in. Therefore it is essential that each RP conduct himself or herself with the demeanor befitting such an important office. It is a serious and crucial endeavor. The healthy functioning of an entire region is under the RP's purview. The implication is clear: every RP carries himself or herself in a way that engenders great respect. The message is unmistakable: Few are chosen for a position with responsibilities of such magnitude and one's personal presence should reflect that gravity. This is the message that RPs convey.

Shown above is J.L., the new RP of the Central City region, totally not getting this message.

Feeling Like a Natural Woman

2008-12-06T19:34:00.000-08:00

This scene is always a welcome sight when I'm walking on the beach as I was today. After an overdose of iced tea I can scramble over several dunes until I am hidden from human sight. Then I am free to take a Back To Nature break. I am sure it happened many times when humans lived, hunted, and gathered on the African savanna. Of course, I always watch for any overhead planes or helicopters, but they do not come by often. It is so rare that I can be anywhere unseen by another person. The introvert in me enjoys that. And it is mildly subversive. I like that too.

I am polite, however. I always remember to turn off the light and hang up the leaves when I'm done.

Sigh of Sweet Relief

2008-12-05T16:00:00.001-08:00

Esther Essofigus does not have cancer. I found that out a few days ago. She and Stan are hugely relieved, I'm sure. It is sometimes hair-raising to be a pastor because I worry about Smalltown church members' health issues right along with them. But Esther's tests came back fine. That spot or shadow on the liver was nothing of concern. Whew! I spent a happy time yesterday evening hanging Advent greens with Esther, Stan, and others. (That's Esther at the far right in the picture.) We all hung greens, then reds too. Red Christmas ornaments and poinsettias got intertwined with the Christmas tree and the greens circling the Advent wreath. There were also pine cones nested in the greens, so that would qualify as "Hanging of the Browns." Not to be confused with the Cleveland football team, which does not deserve hanging.

After watching the church sanctuary get festooned with garlands of greens last evening, I took today off and chatted via computer with my friend Shane. Shane was my first manager at HiTekk when I worked there. Shane is nothing like me and maybe that is why we get along so well. He has sandy brown hair with a receding hairline, wears gold-framed glasses, and is about six feet tall and slender. His politics are the polar opposite of mine. I loathed the sight of him when we first met so our friendship is something of a miracle. On one occasion when I was conducting sales training for young HiTekk sales newbies, I had a minor issue, the nature of which I no longer remember. I was tired -- conducting training eight hours a day is tiring -- and I guess I was whining about the problem, or at least Shane thought I was. He listened to me politely as I described the issue, but without saying much. Shane is not a sympathy-giving kind of guy. A few days later I mentioned the dilemma again. He inquired, "Did you get over yourself yet?" By this time I had learned that with Shane I had better give as good as I got. I narrowed my eyes to slits. "I will get over myself the day you get over yourself, SHANE!" He threw back his head and laughed demonically. "BWAAH-HAHAHAHAHAH! Never!"

Before I left, I told him he was so low he could play handball against the curb.

He was just as tenderhearted when I was a new sales rep myself and he was my new manager. I complained to him in the first week because I was getting all these calls for esoteric HiTekk accessory items and did not understand the lingo. I told him the requests sounded like, "Do you have a Whingleberry that fits into my Dickory-Dock?" Shane laughed. "You gotta watch those Whingleberries. That sounds like a strawberry on steroids."

Some people take getting used to, and for me Shane was one of them. But we have been good for each other. I have learned a certain toughness from him, and he has learned new methods of relating to me. We give and receive help in strange ways sometimes.

Mini Micro Musing

2008-12-04T13:50:00.001-08:00

Apparently this is a true story of a gentleman writing a letter to his bank.

Dear First Valuable Bank,

In view of what seems to be happening internationally with banks at the moment, I was wondering if you could advise me correctly…

If one of my checks is returned marked "insufficient funds," how do I know whether that refers to me, or to you?

Playing Poor

2008-12-04T13:15:00.001-08:00

Today I feel poor. I am anything but poor, however, as I live in the United States of America and own my own car. This puts me in the top 5% of the world's wealthy, so I am not going to stop helping the truly poor. So many people are far worse off than I am. Nor am I going to give in to fear about money, because that is corrosive to faith.

Still it makes sense to economize in these times and I am doing that. I am thankful that I have the best bedsheets that Dollar Tree offers, and the most luxurious clothes from the clearance rack at Beall's. I am joyous beyond measure for my spicy chicken sandwich from the Superduper Dollar Value Menu at the fast food joint down the street. That may seem facetious. Actually it isn't. It's unbelievable to have the cash on hand to just walk up and buy a ready-made sandwich from someone. Most people in Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Niger can't do that.

There are patterns to financial prosperity or the lack thereof. A friend of mine, Bryan, once noted that the north side of a city often seems more prosperous than the south side. This is true in Central City and Spanish City anyway. It is also true of the American continent. North America and Canada are more prosperous than South and Central America and Mexico. Bryan said this principle even applied to the small hamlet in which he was born, called Flanco, population about 300. Flanco lies a few hundred miles from here. Bryan noted of tiny Flanco that "all the double-wide mobile homes are on the north side of Flanco."

RIP Kathleen Baskin-Ball

2008-12-04T13:06:00.000-08:00

It's an odd feeling when someone dies that I sat next to in seminary. Kathleen Baskin-Ball, or Kathy Baskin as she was then known, just died after a two-year battle with cancer. Kathy helped me giggle my way through a seminary class called Systematic Theology. As I usually break out in hives at anything systematic, she did me a great service. Systematic Theology (ST) was just as much of a grind as the name implies. ST was to us seminarians what Three-Dimensional Calculus is to engineers. But Kathy made it bearable.

She had long brown hair, sparkling brown eyes, a million-dollar smile, and an infectious laugh that I heard often. Not only did she have an endless supply of cheerful chatter, she seemed to think I was the most eloquent and also the wittiest person she had ever encountered. That was her gift. It says much more about her than me. Kathleen Baskin-Ball was elected clergy leader of the North Texas Conference delegation to last spring's General Conference, a denominational policy-making meeting that draws Methodists from around the world. A good number of those who knew her thought she could have been elected a bishop if she had lived.

Goodbye Kathy. I will miss you. The youth of Kathy's church are trying to raise $10,000 for cancer research in her memory. I hope they make it.

Evolution in Everyday Events

2008-12-01T18:54:00.001-08:00

I've noticed a curious phenomenon in places when men and women interact socially.

At a holiday party at my home, a mixed group of guys and gals were standing around in the kitchen, holding their drinks, and telling outrageous stories about their kids to peals of laughter. Then one of the women mentioned that there was a serious Black Friday sale this weekend at Penney's. Immediately the men's eyes glazed over and they began to migrate into the living room to talk about football.

I have seen this drama staged time and again. What may be occurring is our evolutionary histories playing out. Women were food-gatherers for eons before we moved into houses with electricity. We shared stories about where the best fruits, nuts, and berries were located. Today that translates into, "Honey, Penney's is all right, but you should see what they have at Dillard's!"

Men were once hunters. They talked about strategies for getting the mammoth to fall into the trap they had set. Football may be wildly popular with the guys because it mimics the kind of skills needed to snare a 9,000 pound hunk of live meat for the family barbecue. "Zog, you fake left. Mog, you run right. Zug and Boog, you go for the blitz..."

Some may call me sexist, but I can't help thinking there is something to that theory. Of course, thoughts like this prevent me from getting any real work done.

Holiday One-Liners

2008-11-29T18:46:00.001-08:00

Just got back from a Thanksgiving hiatus. It was great to visit Cheyenne and husband Bruce in Central City. We always drive together on Thanksgiving morning to Bruce's sister Florida's house. On the way to Florida's turkey feast, we sing Arlo Guthrie's song Alice's Restaurant. A Central City renegade radio station plays this song every Thanksgiving day at high noon and 6 pm and we always catch it at one of those times, singing lustily, "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant..."

In addition, with everyone in jolly holiday mood, I heard several good one liners. Cheyenne, using her cell phone as we drove along, mused, "I tried to call my aunt Jan, but she isn't answering."

Bruce quipped, "I guess she has caller ID."

At Florida's house, a sumptuous mini-mansion outside Spanish City, I learned a new Spanish greeting from one of her cousins there for the feast. He told me to greet a friend by saying, "Como esta frijole, cabrito?" which translates "How have you bean, kid?"

Over turkey, several folks remarked on the disproportionate number of left-handed people at the table. I was one of them. I was happy to tell the crowd that God created us all left-handed. And we remain so until we commit our first sin.

After returning home, I called my friends Roger and Pat in Sea City and wished them Happy Thanksgiving. Roger told me he and Pat were having 40 people over for turkey.

"Holy Cow!" I exclaimed.

"Is that a Hindu greeting?" inquired Roger.

Locking Eyes on Puppies

2008-11-25T19:19:00.000-08:00

Oh, I just saw this. What a simple and sublime idea. Some puppy owners have streamed live video into their puppy room with six Shiba Inu pups. Warning: if you start watching these babies you may be unable to stop, especially if you're a sucker for puppies like I am. Who would have thought that having a window on six puppies could be so fascinating. Check it out: six beautiful puppies here. But don't say I didn't warn you if you can't get any work done after you go there!

Hark Back to the High Tech World

2008-11-25T06:52:00.000-08:00

I got an Instant Message (IM) recently from Jonas, a friend back from when I worked at HiTekk in Central City. Jonas got married, much to his surprise and that of everyone around him. No, Jonas is not socially retarded or congenitally ugly. He is a gamer. By his own admission, he spent so much time playing computer games that he had no time to date. He once told me, "If I ever get married, it will be a virtual marriage, resulting from virtual dates in computer chat rooms. We will have virtual kids, just like in the computer game The Sims. And we will have cybersex only.

"Then twenty years later we will meet and I will find out I married somebody's parakeet. People will point us out on the street and say look, there's Jonas and his wife "Pretty Bird" Burton."

While Jonas did not date often, it did not prevent him from commenting on others' dating lives. Another HiTekk coworker, Donna, once met a man on eHarmony.com and was waxing enthusiastic about meeting him. "He says he's a pilot!" she exclaimed. "And he says his business has something to do with agriculture."

"Aha!" Jonas retorted. "He's a crop duster!"

For Here or To Go?

2008-11-22T07:13:00.000-08:00

The number of choices I have to make in a day has risen exponentially. Even going into a restaurant taxes the brain cells.

"You can order off our regular menu or our Diner's Specials. And on the back is our Weight Watchers menu too. Your choice. OK, you want the steak. Great! Do you want that cooked rare, medium rare, medium, medium well, or well done? You can have steak fries, cottage fries, French fries, or plain old fried potatoes with that. Unless you want the vegetable of the day, which is a choice between a squash/carrot medley, green beans almondine, or broccoli rice casserole. You get either soup or salad with that. Salad? OK. What kind of dressing? We have ranch, thousand island, Italian, honey mustard, raspberry vinaigrette, Russian, or Venezuelan Beaver Cheese bleu cheese dressing. While you're waiting on your order, we have two TVs for you to watch. You have a choice between watching twenty-two guys beat each other to a pulp playing football, or a woman cheating on her husband in "As the Stomach Turns." You can have your beverage of choice in a cylindrical glass or one with four corners. You can use a straw, or not. We want you to have a hand-picked, tailor-made, customized restaurant experience with us. Unless you'd rather not. Your choice."

I wonder if we get so many choices about nonessentials to obscure the lack of choice about many essentials. We do not get to decide that we want our infrastructure refurbished and our schools (all of them, not just wealthy suburban ones) adequately funded before we start wars. People with little money in the inner cities are not free to choose better schools for their children. Many of us do not get to choose hospitalization without the danger of bankruptcy. Getting prescription drugs from Canada where they are cheaper? Forget it.

But we can have our burgers with or without fries, or get fruit salad instead. It is completely up to us.

Day-Off Reminiscences

2008-11-21T07:37:00.000-08:00

When the present gets difficult, I retreat unashamedly to nostalgia. Given the popularity of old Westerns in this town, I am not the only one. As the economy has gotten worse, more people seem to gather around the TV at Garcia's Restaurant to watch Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and The Virginian. I try to keep it in perspective though. In the 1950s and 1960s things may have seemed more stable, but we also had the Korean War and Vietnam. And children hiding under their school desks during atomic drills. Duck and Cover, everyone!

As an antidote to fantasy nostalgia about the good old days, I recalled today the bad old days at my first job, Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips. I was a high school senior at the time. The year was 1976. Arthur Treacher's was located in a suburb on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio. I was the worst Counter Girl that Arthur's had ever seen. I could not even keep my orange and green checkered headscarf on straight. But I eventually developed a passable skill level and managed not to get fired. I also learned much about life there.

My manager Laurie Perkowski had a boyfriend called Jimmie Tedesko. Laurie was nineteen, with strawberry blond hair and freckles. Jimmie was a fine upstanding character who was wanted by the IRS for tax evasion. Laurie and the assistant manager, Jeff, told us that if Jimmie was in the back room with Laurie (making out) and someone walked in and asked if Jimmie was there, we were to lie and say no. After all, it might be undercover law enforcement coming to arrest him. I will never forget the night Jimmie and Laurie had a fight. Laurie had to go to work and left Jimmie at her house to cool off. The next thing that happened was Jimmie calling Arthur Treacher's to tell Laurie that he had her car and was going to total it. All I recall is waiting on customers and hearing Laurie's tearful voice in the background, "Jimmie! Jimmie! I'm so afraid of you!" Jimmie was a bigot too. He called women of color "Sugar-Boogers" and that was one of the nicer epithets he used for those of other races. Jimmie really needed someone to feel superior to.

Jeff, the assistant manager, was a real angel as well. He made dope deals over the same phone Jimmie used to torment Laurie. Jeff was the top marijuana salesman in town. I used to wonder how he paid for such a fancy sports car on an assistant manager's salary. Now I know.

Years later, one of my pastoral colleagues recalled how drug-laden the 1970s were. We were having American Indian Awareness worship services at that time and burning a lot of sage during worship in a tribal circle. My colleague Sam cracked, "Kids, this is what a Steppenwolf concert smells like."

Way Too Much Drama

2008-11-20T07:58:00.000-08:00

The longer I hang out in Smalltown, the more I am convinced that I lived a sheltered life before I got here. There is a barrage of real life around here. Sometimes too much and too real. It is terribly rude of Smalltown to let it all hang out like that.

First of all came the death of Lars Johanssen, a member of my church who was first-generation Swedish. He was such a sweet little man. In my first five weeks here, he brought me a weekly watermelon fresh off the produce stand a mile out of town. He only stopped doing that after a hurricane blew away the produce supply and the stand closed down. Lars was a retired electrician and helped me get electrical work done at my house. Everyone in the Smalltown church was nuts about Lars so this is a tough death.

Still thinking about Lars' death after I hung up the phone in my office yesterday afternoon, I drove over to Mighty Fortress Is Our God Lutheran Church for the community steering committee on time banking. A group of pastors and laypersons from various churches meets there to eventually launch a time bank, which is like a money bank except that people bank "time dollars" for their labor. For example, someone may watch a neighbor's kids for an hour and bank a time dollar for that. He or she can then ask someone to provide an hour's worth of yard work. All labor counts the same, whether it is an attorney's legal work or fixing someone's plumbing.

That is a digression. Back to the main story. I arrived at the time bank steering committee to find out from the Presbyterian pastor Sophie that she had had a baby taken from her. Here is the story on that. The baby's mother was addicted to drugs and the baby was not thriving. Sophie took the baby and literally saved his life. Yesterday the mother came by the office and demanded her baby back. Under state law, if Sophie had not yielded, she could have been arrested. Sophie is now working with Child Protective Services -- if they can be called that -- to get some legal cover so she can get the baby back and legally keep him until the mother is functional enough to take care of him.

I can think of one good way to solve these vexatious issues of birth and death. I am going into business to license who gets born and who gets to die. If it is a problematic death, such as Lars', I will act like a bureaucrat and put it off indefinitely. That way the survivors would not have to deal with it for a long, long time. And I am going to grant or deny licenses to breed. That mother would have been firmly refused a license to reproduce until she got her drug problem under control. She would have had birth control residue put in her water supply to make conception impossible. This kind of thing would provide much-needed chlorine in the human gene pool.

Sometimes, folks, I gotta laugh to keep from crying.

The Story of a Basket

2008-11-18T19:09:00.000-08:00

Here is the basket. It is a basket full of gift items. It contains a teddy bear, cosmetics, candy, chocolate, gift cards from Bealls and

Wal-Mart, a journal, pens, crossword puzzle books, and teen magazines. Behind it is a hand-crocheted lap blanket.

This basket traveled with four Smalltown church women to the home of a teenager named Rhonda. Rhonda was badly injured in a car accident by a drunk driver last August in a nearby town. Since the accident she has been unable to walk or attend school. She completes schoolwork at home, in between physical therapy sessions. Her mother is divorced and works full time. She takes care of Rhonda with the aid of family members. Talk about stress.

When we took the basket to Rhonda's house, it was hard to see her sitting in the wheelchair with that ugly scar on her leg. Maybe it was hard for Rhonda to see us seeing her, too. It was difficult to tell how she felt about receiving the basket full of gifts. Her three-year-old niece McKayla immediately adopted the teddy bear, however. She ran around the house hugging the soft animal the whole time we were there.

The trip to the house with the basket needed to happen, although we were confronted there with how monstrously unfair life can be. Discipleship, in the sense of literally following Jesus to places He might go, can be hard work and risky business. It is not always appreciated.

But I would not live any other way.

Nonsensical Notions

2008-11-18T18:52:00.000-08:00

I was wandering around Target today and saw underwire bras on sale. I read somewhere that wearing an underwire bra increases a woman's chance of getting struck by lightning. That is one of those strange ideas that wormed its way into my consciousness and bypassed my critical faculties. I realize now that it makes little sense. A bolt of lightning has a low probability of going cloud-to-ground and doubling back in an arc to hit the underwire in a bra. Suddenly I felt less afraid and my world seemed brighter. I could have applied the same logical reasoning years ago when my mother told me that if I made a face or crossed my eyes, I would stay that way forever. Or that green M & M's arouse passion. Are there people with very little to do who sit around and make this stuff up?

Living with Chronic Adventure Syndrome

2008-11-16T19:55:00.000-08:00

I had another adventure tonight to add to my collection. When I was young I searched for adventure. Now adventure just comes and finds me. It saves a lot of time.

I was leaving a large bookstore this evening when a run-down woman with a stained green jacket and a tangled gray ponytail came up to me in the parking lot and asked for spare change. I responded to her request as I do to all such queries. "I don't do money, but if you're hungry I'll buy you a sandwich."

She accepted my offer and then added, "I need money too." I repeated that I did not do money but would do the sandwich. That is called my broken record technique. Just keep repeating what I will and will not do. She accepted that, and followed me into the bookstore. We went over to the cafe. She said she wanted a ham and cheese sandwich and I ordered one for her. I seemed to hear an inner voice warning me that this woman had no boundaries, and that I would need good ones. So I remained in a kind but extremely firm mode. She asked for money again and seemed agitated. I responded calmly, telling her the sandwich would be ready soon. She mentioned her urgent need to catch a certain bus or, she said, she would be out in the cold for hours. It did not make a great deal of sense, but I repeated that the sandwich would soon be arriving. It did. She put her arm around me, hugged me, and said thanks, I kept a close eye on my purse and pockets, and also said God bless you and good luck catching your bus. I did my best to be wary like a snake and innocent like a dove, as I was once counseled to be.

Mother Teresa said that Jesus often comes to us in distressing disguise. That was true tonight.

Funny Funky Town Names

2008-11-15T17:43:00.001-08:00

Today we had an audience with the pope, I mean Bishop. Same thing. We went to Dragonfly City in the north part of the region so that those who usually have to go south to Sea City did not have to go so far this time. It was an interesting meeting, but talking with my colleague Christine before the meeting was more interesting. Christine has had a tough time of it as she just had back surgery and will not be back to full strength for several more weeks. But that hasn't affected her comedy at all. She told me about people she knew from a small town in the vicinity called Odem. She said they told her that Odem sounded like "something you should keep covered up." I thought about that and then asked, "Did you hear about the clergywoman who was considered an ideal candidate to be promoted to Regional Poobah? The only reason she didn't get the job was that she couldn't keep her Odem concealed." Christine and I had a hard time settling down for the meeting. Only with great difficulty did I remind myself that one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is self-control.

I Had a Vision

2008-11-15T11:55:00.001-08:00

One of the benefits of being a clergywoman is that I get to have visions and people don't think I'm going psycho. Or if they do, they keep that thought to themselves. I was walking on the beach yesterday and as I watched the seagulls swooping and hollering, I had an epiphany.

Years ago, as a very young woman, I longed for a certain kind of friend. A friend that really understood me, and showed that understanding by how he/she talked with me. I was blessed. I found a few friends like that.

Years ago, as a new young clergywoman I longed for a mentor. I wanted an older, more experienced clergywoman that I could go to either in time of perplexity, to seek counsel; or in time of celebration, to rejoice when something great happened in my ministry. I never found that clergywoman.

But on the beach, I suddenly had a joyous realization. I had longed for a certain kind of friend and I have become that friend. I had longed for a clergywoman mentor, and I have become that mentor. As Mohandas Gandhi said, "We are the people we have been waiting for."

Trunk and Treat

2008-11-14T08:38:00.001-08:00

Trunk and Treat in the church parking lot on Halloween was a new experience for me. We decorated our cars, donned costumes, and showed up at the church with candy and other treats in our trunks. I wore my Lady of Ancient Rome costume that I got at the Costume Superstore in Sea City. I walked into the church in my long dark (fake) hair, toga, sandals, and flashy jewelry. I tossed my head in disdain at the others gathered there and sneered, "Ha! Christians. I must tell my dear husband Caesar. The lions are getting a little hungry." Unfortunately I have no picture of me in costume as I was behind the camera.

We advertised the event extensively in the Smalltown Sentinel, the grocery store, pizza parlors, pediatric clinics, and ice houses. On the big day, about 80 kids showed up along with their parents and grandparents to collect treats. Several of them told us, "God bless you." One mother informed us that she was terrified this time each year. She wanted to let her kids trick-or-treat, but was worried about their safety. The church parking lot provided a place that was both fun and safe. I wonder where else these children and families need "sanctuary" and how we might provide it.

Pictured at the top is the Pumpkin Cowboy who served as the Grand Marshal for the event.

Crackups in Coastal City

2008-11-13T20:19:00.000-08:00

I wandered to Coastal City recently for a day off. There seems to be something about a beachfront town that generates humor. It could be the sea salt in the air, the many tourists with Hawaiian shirts covering their beer bellies, or the constant feeling of a fiesta about to happen. At any rate, signs like this one are common: "Fernando's Fish Fryer. You Hook 'Em. We Cook 'Em!" It reminded me of silly things we used to do as children. We would answer the phone, "Grady's Graveyard. You stab 'em, we slab 'em!" Sometimes we would pick up the receiver and say, "Right Field. Mickey Mantle speaking." On one occasion, I answered a ringing phone by saying, "Thanks for calling your local bakery. Which crumb do you want to speak to?"

Occasionally I would get the overwhelming urge to impart a crucial fact. "Hello, did you know that death is this nation's Number One killer?" On the same ghoulish note, I once answered the phone with this announcement, "Hello, we've started a new method of population control. Death penalty for parking violations!" On a lighter note, as teenagers we sometimes greeted callers with, "Thank you for calling the Fat Farm. We don't skinny dip, we chunky-dunk!" Little did I know I would one day qualify to be chunky-dunked myself.

I'm amazed that people back then continued to phone us.

More Retreating Results

2008-11-13T19:59:00.000-08:00

There were many hilarious moments at the recent Clergywomen's Retreat. We did some good-natured complaining about difficult church members, nicknamed

"alligators." I am curious to know if church members also have a nickname for difficult clergy. If so, I wonder what that nickname is. I hope I am never associated with it. I am so lucky in Smalltown. I have not run into any alligators. If anyone in Smalltown is reading this, please understand that this is not a challenge for you to become one.

Anyway, I told the clergywomen that I had the perfect solution to the alligator issue. I suggested that we round up all the alligators and make them live in one place. We will have one church for all of them. We will call it Alligators United Church. We will send the most dysfunctional pastor in the region to serve there. Off the top of my head I can think of several likely candidates for the job. They shall remain nameless.

One of my colleagues exclaimed, "That would be the largest church in the area!"

Talking Outside the Box

2008-11-13T19:40:00.000-08:00

If I say things like this too often, someone will put me in a box. With bronze handles on it!

I just got back from the Umpteenth Annual Clergywomen's Retreat. It was in Hilltown near sparkling lakes, rolling countryside, and deer. It was quite a change to drive three hours and see this land of hills, rivers, and undulating roads that on occasion I had to downshift my car to navigate. Arriving at the retreat center, I had a glorious reunion with clergywomen I had not seen in years. One enjoyable encounter was with JL, a newly promoted Regional Poobah. The way our church system works, we have one Bishop over the entire area. We have seven Regional Poobahs (RPs) who oversee the clergy and churches in each of the seven subsections in the Bishop's area. JL deserves the honor of being an RP in the swanky Central City region. She is simply great at whatever she does. JL's green eyes sparkled as she described to me the honor of being given our new Bishop's Super Secret Cellphone Number. Imagine being able to call the Bishop any time day or night. That is seriously special.

I had a restless night on a bed that felt like one of the roads I'd driven in on. The next morning we had a discussion about how to deal with conflict in the church. The retreat leader, Rev. Lavender Fish-Dodge, talked about how conflict in the church can be a useful channel for change if it is managed well. She said that one of the needs for change in the church is using more visual media. This is something I am passionate about, so I raised my hand and told her how true her words were. I added, "Maybe it's time to rethink our ordination vows. Right now, elders in our church are ordained to Word and Sacrament. Maybe we need to be ordained to Word, Image, and Sacrament."

There was a stereophonic gasp at this statement that told me I had stepped over the line. Everyone in the room seemed to draw an audible breath at the same time. I am not sure how to interpret that. Two possibilities suggest themselves. Perhaps it was the sound of a paradigm shift, or perhaps it was the sound of my name being gently sucked off the guest list for next year. I will probably pay for my audacity. You know what?

I'll risk it.

By the Way, We Just Had an Election

2008-11-06T18:09:00.000-08:00

Much as I try to avoid getting into political discussions, we just had an, um, election, if you didn't know. Barack Hussein Obama is going to be our next president, just in case you've been in a rabbit hole playing video games this past week. I and some of my more reverent colleagues have been soothing panicky parishioners who think this signals the beginning of the End Times. I tend not to think in this Rapturous way though. It is another election, albeit a high-stakes one. The pendulum swings right, then left, then back again. The sun will keep rising, the bills will keep coming, and family and friends will keep calling -- as long as I keep bathing.

Thought for the day: Can cross-eyed teachers control their pupils?

More Local Characters

2008-11-06T17:18:00.000-08:00

Not all the characters in Smalltown go to my church, though it sometimes seems that way. Mary Palooza attends the nearby Lutheran church. Mary is in her sixties and has had breast cancer. She has dyed black hair and wears contact lenses so she does not need glasses. She has a somewhat weather-worn skin from working in her yard for years. She also has a very forward-looking chest profile, to put it delicately. Well, I put it delicately, but Mary does not. She told me at a recent Smalltown committee meeting, which we both attended, that she had just been to her radiologist for a mammogram. She gets mammograms frequently to be sure she is still in remission. "I had this new young lady radiologist who just finished X-ray school. I got undressed and went up to the machine and I just flopped those things up there," she sighed. "That gal tried not to look surprised but she blurted out, 'Mrs. Palooza, you don't ever go braless do you?'" Mary answered, "Just to take the wrinkles out of my face honey!"

Mice in the Hice

2008-11-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

The plural of mouse is mice so the plural of house should be hice. Here in Smalltown the mice are headed for the hice. Lifelong residents of Smalltown tell me that when the mice come in this soon and in such numbers, it means we're headed for a tough winter. I learned to bait a mousetrap yesterday from my neighbor Matt Carter. Matt and his wife Rita are in their 70s, have lived here for years, and know mouse behavior patterns. So far I have trapped two mice. I have a strong stomach as a rule but it is still hard to eat breakfast after disposing of a recently deceased mouse.

By the way, the plural of vortex is vortices and the plural of index is indices, so the plural of kleenex should be kleenices.

More random thoughts...The nighttime sounds of Smalltown, other than mice scuffling, are as follows: Dog barks and train whistles. Any questions?

More Evangelism Outside the Box

2008-11-01T18:57:00.001-07:00

Today I went to Cropfest. That is Smalltown's annual festival, held the first weekend in November at the impressively large Smalltown fairgrounds. This was a great place to introduce myself to the locals. I passed out a slew of calling cards to folks all over Cropfest. I greeted folks selling concessions in the exhibition hall; children who came in Halloween costumes; and teenagers hanging out by the rides. One boy spotted me riding the Paratrooper and later asked me whether it was a good ride. I gave him my best recommendation. "It's fun but not outrageously fast or scary, " I told him truthfully. "Thanks ma'am," he answered, and hurried off with his friends to check it out. I handed him a card as he left.

When I first got to the carnival there wasn't much going on. One of the attendants at the "throw a dart, hit a balloon, win a prize" booth told me that if I paid for a dart, he'd guarantee me a prize. I took him up on it, bought one dart, and was lucky enough to burst a yellow balloon. I got a small stuffed gray donkey with giant teeth. Soon after that I ducked into the exhibition hall to get out of the hot sun. As I was checking out the hand-painted T-shirts, I spotted a boy who was taking care of his two small male cousins. I was impressed with the attentive child care the older cousin was providing the little ones. When they could not reach the drinking fountain, he lifted each one up in turn and held them until they had finished drinking. I gifted him with the stuffed donkey and a calling card. "Come see me sometime," I invited. As I was departing, I saw a couple of young parents with their toddler son in a stroller. The boy's name was Miguel, they said. We chatted for a minute about the fun awaiting Miguel at the festival. I realized I had four ride tickets left and that they would be worthless once I left Cropfest. There had been a sign at the ticket booth saying "No Refunds, No Exceptions" so I presented Miguel's parents with the tickets which would buy one kiddie ride. I also gave them a calling card.

I also watched the Cropfest parade march by on Main Street. Almost every float had people throwing candy to the kids. As throngs of wee ones picked up candy, they almost always left some lying on the ground because they were too excited to see it. So I would pick it up, wait for things to settle down, then go over to a group of kids and their parents and say, "I found some extra candy for you." After passing it around, I handed the parents a calling card.

Reminiscences on the Beach

2008-10-30T20:32:00.000-07:00

Standing on the beach watching the tide roll in often makes me think of my family. Both the dead and the living. To me they are all very much alive. I have said it before and will repeat it...my parents did great things, but often in a cockeyed way. My father, for instance, loved his outdoor barbecue. Even in Ohio in midwinter, we still had grilled chicken, burgers, and steaks. Not everyone was so lucky to get chargrilled meats year round. I can still see Dad in the backyard during a monumental snow squall, running the electric snowblower to forge a path from the glass patio doors to the grill. Then he would stand at the grill as the wind howled and the blizzard raged. He had an umbrella in one hand held high to shield him from the elements. He had a spatula in the other hand, turning the chicken.

My mother liked to cook too. Inside. In the dark. She was saving electricity. But sometimes I would grope my way into the kitchen and stumble over my mother in the pitch blackness as she muttered, "That chicken cacciatore is nearly done."

Desert Water Studies

2008-10-30T19:12:00.000-07:00

Today while walking on the beach I let my mind wander. I wondered what it would be like if the Mafia in Las Vegas, wanting to do community relations and look respectable, founded a college in the desert near the city. Noticing a lack of such facilities nearby, they would decide to call it the Institute of Marine Science. They would reason that a great deal of instruction is done via computer anyway, so they could hook up all their students to the Internet and show them pictures of fish.

Probably the media would sneer and jeer at anyone being so stupid. But maybe young people would not see it that way. All those Nevada high school graduates who had always dreamed of studying marine science, but thought their location disqualified them, suddenly would be able to follow their bliss. Plus they would be able to IM their friends, "I'm studying marine science in the middle of the Nevada desert. How cool is that?"

Midway through their sophomore year, the students would get a little testy about the lack of real-life experience. But the Mafia, being awash in cash from all the casino revenues, would quickly buy a Lear jet to transport the kids to the California coast for a total immersion experience with marine life. They would institute Junior Year Aboard instead of Junior Year Abroad, giving a year of college credit for courses taken on a swanky cruise ship with premier dolphin, whale, and shark observation stations.

To make student life in the desert more exciting, the Mafia would field a college football team. Their green and blue uniforms would be relaxing enough to slow down the opposing team's reflexes, and the fightin' Marine Science Manatees would win almost all their games. This would cause perks to rain down on them, with grateful donors ponying up for scholarship money and various other bonuses banned by the NCAA.

Thoughts like this keep me from fulfilling my maximum potential.

Way Too Many Rules

2008-10-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

A South African friend of mine once said that one of the irksome things about this country is all its posted rules, and the fact that almost all of them are enforced. Go to Italy and you'll see what she means. We are told, "Don't step over the yellow line!" "Don't eat the produce before you buy it!" "Sign on this dotted line and not that one!" "Don't fish on the jetty!" And so on, ad infinitum and ad nauseam. I drove to Coastal City, near Sea City, for my day off today. I ran into this rule-making phenomenon there. Immediately in the attractive park by the sea I saw signs saying "No Littering" "No Curb Jumping" and "No Angle Parking." I wondered about that last sign as no matter where I parked, I would be at an angle to something.

I immediately wanted to leap out of my car and put up a few more signs saying, "No Grass Chewing" "No Hiccuping" and "No Reverse-Direction Skydiving." Anyone caught parachuting upward into the wild blue yonder will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I wonder if part of the crime problem in this country is just young people fed up with all the rules. I would never have thought about jumping the curb until I saw the sign. Then I wanted to jump the curb in a spectacular way. It really woke up the closet anarchist in me. Whoever is posting all those signs: Just relax, willya?

Something Bothers Me

2008-10-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

Something has me puzzled. It has to do with coffee. I drink it. I like it. But coffee does strange things to me between its entrance and its exit. To be brief: One cup in, three cups out. This violates some fundamental law of economics.

Thoughts like this keep me awake at night.

Flippin' Freeloaders

2008-10-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

After church today I had lunch at Crankey's Catfish, one of the hottest lunch joints in the area. It is just outside Smalltown. John and Sue Barge were there along with Bob and Sandra Morrison, Ronald Jimenez, and Stan and Esther Essofigus. Over fried catfish, the conversation turned to that small minority of people who like to mooch off other people. Everyone had a story about that.

Sandra Morrison spoke of the time she got a wedding invitation in a large envelope. When she opened it, out fell an insert labeled "Great Places to Get Gifts." Six or seven expensive department stores were suggested. John and Sue Barge said that a couple they knew in the community invited them to their mother's 80th birthday party. "Come on down," they offered. "It's at the VFW. There is a seven dollar cover charge."

Esther and Stan told of a preacher who had once lived and worked in Smalltown. He was not married, and made a point of going to every funeral in the area whether he knew the deceased or not. He liked all that free food. He even took plates home with him. I offered my own story of my Uncle Griffey and Aunt Bert. They were heavily involved with "carriage racing," a type of horse racing popular in Southern Indiana. After the races were over and the horses were back in their trailers, Griffey and Bert and all of their friends would gather for a giant potluck picnic. Everyone brought a dish, and often friends of friends would come eat. After one of these potlucks, Griffey and Bert discovered that a couple had been there who did not know anyone. They just came, ate, and left. Afterwards Griffey and Bert and everyone else were saying, "But I thought they were your friends!"

My sister Lisa went through a freeloading stage as a child. Lisa, aged six, had a serious sweet tooth and loved the English teas we had while living there. So any time someone stopped by to visit with my mother in the morning, Lisa would pipe up, "Come 'round for a cup of tea this afternoon." Whoever it was, they usually said, "I'd love to!" leaving my mother no option but to prepare and serve an English tea of scones, cookies and cake to whoever had come over. Sometimes it was someone my mother couldn't stand. She was looking forward to the lady being gone and lo and behold, suddenly she was coming back that same day for tea. She was all the more likely to return if she was unpopular for a reason and rarely got asked anywhere. So Lisa got to eat cookies and cake, all the while being complimented for extending such a kind invitation.

Poor Dear Aunt Harriet

2008-10-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

Every family seems to have an "Aunt Harriet" in it somewhere. Aunt Harriet is the maiden aunt, or perhaps she is the widowed aunt whose husband, Uncle Horace, died 20 years ago. Aunt Harriet lives alone and her family feels sorry for her. "Poor dear Aunt Harriet," they muse. "How hard it must be for her to live alone." Or "Alone without dear Uncle Horace with her any more."

Meanwhile, let us pull open the curtains on poor dear Aunt Harriet's life and see what she is really up to. She may have, or have had, any number of occupations but let us say that this Aunt Harriet was a schoolteacher for years before she retired. Having been single for a long time, she has acquired the virtue of financial prudence. She may grow a garden. She knows plenty about how to stretch a food dollar at the grocery store. While others around her panic over their looming foreclosures, Aunt Harriet knew long ago not to buy more house than she could afford. So poor dear Aunt Harriet's house is paid off. So is her car.

Everyone thinks Aunt Harriet is lonely. Evidently they are unaware that over the last three weekends, she has been playing cards with nearby friends, attending meetings at her church and civic club, and taking in a local town festival. During other weeks she has traveled to cities to see friends who live further away. She has checked out a special museum exhibit, viewed a theatrical performance, and attended a symphony orchestra concert.

Aunt Harriet stays in touch with a horde of friends as well as family. She knows what is going on in their lives, both positive and negative. She has a pile of books that she will get around to reading when she has time. She is well versed on local, national, and international events because she follows them with interest. She has several favorite charities that are grateful for her support.

If Aunt Harriet was married at one time, then she misses Uncle Horace. They had a good life together. She looks at his picture often. But she does not miss the TV being tuned to football, basketball, baseball, or NASCAR eight hours a day. If Uncle Horace had a long illness before she died, she does not miss all the caregiving she had to do for him. If he was diabetic, she does not miss worrying whether he was taking his shots or whether his blood sugar would get so out of whack he would fall into a coma.

Her nieces and nephews enjoy her company. Years of teaching taught Aunt Harriet to understand kids. When one of those young people has a crisis, Aunt Harriet is a friend in need and a friend indeed. She helps where she can. Aunt Harriet often gives wise counsel during family crises because she is a step removed from the situation. But she is grateful not to be the parent who has to to deal with the child's relationship issues, drug or alcohol addiction, or court date for that recent shoplifting episode. When Aunt Harriet herself is ill or in need of help, swarms of grateful people are there to assist her.

In all my years in churches, I have not heard one sermon celebrating what is good about Aunt Harriet's life. Nobody seems to talk about singleness as a viable option for a Christian. Given that the North American divorce rate hovers at around 50 percent, I am intrigued as to why that might be. I have a theory about it, but that is another story for another time.

Aunt Harriet does not get mentioned much in church, nor does she garner newspaper headlines or interviews on TV. She does not mind in the least. She is too busy to notice. While everyone else is getting out of the stock market, Aunt Harriet is quietly buying more stocks. She has been around long enough to know that what goes down will come up again and vice versa. She thinks long term.

Poor dear Aunt Harriet.

Excitable Election Elements

2008-10-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

The next one week and five days are going to be a political thunderstorm. I cannot recall an election season as intense as this one. In Smalltown, some folks are up in arms because campaign signs for Abel Herrero are vanishing, courtesy of a thief in the night. A gang in Sea City is disappearing McCain/Palin signs. Yes, "disappearing" is now a verb courtesy of this election. Political fanatics are watching every dip, swerve, and roll of the polls. Outside the Smalltown County Municipal City Center where we vote (we're small so it's all rolled into one) people stand with poster boards held high with the names of their favorite candidates. At church meetings Smalltown members urge me to vote for certain folks and warn me that other folks will, should they win, run us into the ground and decimate the Smalltown school system.

I'm going to vote early today as voting is my patriotic duty. But I'm going to have lunch first. That ballot is extremely long. After the election some publisher is going to bind it into volumes one through ten.

I have to break the intensity with a story that makes me smile. Did you hear about the man who was looking for a way to make his marriage better? He went into a secondhand bookstore and bought a book called How to Hug. After he got it home he realized he had purchased Volume Eight of an encyclopedia.

Favorite Indoor Sport: Bash the Media

2008-10-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

Liberal media. Conservative media. Corporate media. I hear the media labeled all the time and it is never good. But maybe that is what the media are there for. They make a handy target when I am in a foul mood and need something to bash. I can physically hit the punching bag and mentally hit the media.

At the Smalltown Kiwanis Club meeting this morning, we had a financial advisor from Edward Jones speak to us about how the stock market works. I learned that the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is a composite index of 30 of the nation's top public companies. Each company is weighted based on its market capitalization. The combined value of all 30 equals the DJIA. The companies are chosen to give a broad reflection of publicly traded firms in the U.S. While the DJIA is an accurate measure of how the economy is faring, it represents only 30 stocks out of hundreds.

The media have done much hand-wringing over the DJIA recently. The Kiwanis speaker noted that the financial talking heads like to say either that the DJIA "plunged" or it "soared." He recommended a more moderate approach. The DJIA always goes up and down, and it goes in cycles. This time is no different. He expressed doubt that we were going to have another Great Depression like we had in the 1930s. He reported that the majority of level-headed economists say we are in a recession, and that it may or may not last through the first two quarters of 2009.

He added, "However, if you took 100 economists and laid them end to end, they would all point in different directions."

He ended by noting the media hysteria again. "If the media bought elevators from Otis, they would not have Up or Down buttons. They would have Soar and Plunge buttons." That echoes the old Jewish proverb, "If you die in an elevator, be sure to press the Up button." I hope that when I die I soar and do not plunge. Fortunately the grace of Jesus Christ and His work on the Cross assure me that I'm destined to soar.