I live in the Southwestern part of Virginia, but I work in Washington DC. What that means is that every Sunday afternoon about 3:00 I get in my pickup truck and drive six hours and twenty minutes for my week’s stay. Then on Fridays I get back in the truck and drive home for the weekend. I wouldn’t recommend it for everybody, but it does help pay the bills and serves my latent ADD pretty well, not to mention my in-bred rambling fever.
Sometimes, when I’m lucky, I get to take my wife’s 4 Wheel Drive 2009 Coal Black Jeep Wrangler with the built-in Sirius radio. The 150 plus channels sure make a three hundred and sixty mile trip go by fast. When I don’t get the jeep, then I’m left with my 97 Dodge. It’s a great truck, 160,000 miles, but the cassette deck hasn’t worked for a few years. So for entertainment purposes, I listen to the best that the AM/FM dial has to offer whenever and wherever I can pick it up.
A few weeks ago I was zipping down I-81 about two hours out of DC when I picked up a religious station. It was coming in clear so I decided to give my search finger a rest. Some preacher was going on, sounded like a white guy about my age, probably from a small church somewhere in the Midwest. The subject matter wasn’t too different than anything I’d heard before; how our lives can be in the pits sometimes and on and on. But what really caught my attention that particular moment was how hard this fellow was straining just to get a word out. I mean he sounded awful, worse than Rocky’s boxing manager after an all-night karaoke. But he just kept going, kept plugging away. I remember thinking “well this guy will not be denied”. No he’s not mailing it in tonight, not with this sermon, not this day. He’s going to talk and talk until he blows something, or gets somebody to take his place, or Jesus returns, or they turn off the lights, something. Well all of a sudden, he startled himself, paused a bit, people started clapping and he got to sounding a whole lot better, just like that and right there on the radio. He got all choked up, went completely speechless for what seemed an eternity. He started thanking God and giving glory hallelujahs and then it went silent.
What I would soon learn was that this was not an actual live sermon. It was taped. The preacher was a guest on another program and wanted to share the pre-recorded tape in order to show the world how God in His miraculous glory had cured this non end-stage though chronic bout of laryngitis. Well the program host couldn’t control himself either. He was taking it all in. Two grown men, falling all over each other, giddy jabbering about the love of God and mercy and grace and wonder, and just for fixing this one guy’s throat. I’m just glad it wasn’t on television.
But it did catch my attention; a miracle of sorts and captured right there on audio tape. Reminded me of the time when I was a kid and all my warts went away. But before I started buying into the notion, I decided to do a quick assessment. For one thing, the human body is an amazing thing. Thousands of different systems, 23000 human protein coding genes, around 75 trillion, that’s trillion with a T, cells running 5 billion process every minute. Frankly, I am surprised we don’t break down more often than we do. We’ve got more moving parts than a whole show room full of Saabs, and you know how much time they spend in the shop. No, this body we’ve got is quite a machine to say the least.
What happened next truly put me in a moral conflict. The program closed with the preacher projecting wall to wall, loud and clear, and giving out a web address where you could buy his soon to be released book on that throat miracle of his. The show ended and immediately, like radio broadcasts are apt to do, the news break came up at the top of the hour. The reporter, the lead story was Haiti, and that some 75,000 people were feared dead, dead as in doornails, in the horrific earthquake.
Let’s weigh this out. In one instance, one man, cured of a three year bout with sore throat, versus seventy five thousand men, women, and children all presumed dead due to being crushed by building concrete and other debris, decapitated, bled out, gorged, trampled, suffocation; every which way a person can die from being in an 7.5 Richter scale grade earthquake. All this on this same God’s watch that in just the segment before had gloriously cured one man’s throat and was so highly praised for it. I was stunned by both the turn of events and the seeming paradox.
Is it possible that this same all powerful, omniscient, loving God, one who can cure a white’s man’s ailment in a flash can in yet another flash and different part of the globe bring the immediate and sufferable demise to thousands upon thousands upon thousands of innocent people? This was as spontaneous, but apparently already much worse, as the Tsunami that hit on Christmas day a few years ago in the South Pacific. Though if I had my druthers, I would take drowning over being crushed by a forty foot steel girder any day.
This is horrible plain and simple. There’s no way in the world, given the facts, that any conscientious, genuine, thinking person could lay blame or glory on an all powerful Christian God.
Then again maybe it’s not the Pauline model Christian God that’s running the show these days. I’m thinking Aristotle’s idea of God the Prime Mover could be more appropriate in these circumstances. You know the God who kicks starts existence, linear time, the universe, etc then sort of takes a back seat to everything that follows. Now this version of God, the one without the personal intervention, I can see Him being in charge in times like this.
Of course it could be the Hindu version of the God of karma; you know what goes around comes around. But my guess is that Haiti’s biggest problems weren’t so much the citizens as much as the dudes in charge of the government. So that wouldn’t make sense either considering it was mostly the citizens who bought the farm in the earthquake.
Maybe it was the Deist God who’s at the top now, the One that Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin believed in. The one that “created the universe but is no longer active in it.”
From the looks of things, the total devastation, it was probably the work of one of those mean Roman Gods, like Neptune, we studied in Ancient History. These guys always sounded like serious business to me. I don’t think they ever played favorites and sure seemed to do a lot of maiming in their day.
I don’t know. Trying to reconcile everything that happens in this old world with a Christian God at the helm just doesn’t compute in my mind. Leaves way too many questions unanswered. And I have trouble buying all the conventional one-liners or clichés that most church folks come up with in times like this. In fact, I guess that’s what gets me the most, is the reaction that so many of faith come up with; almost like they are programmed to say the same ole thing. I know Rush Limbaugh talks all the time about the talking points the Democratic libs have. Do you suppose Christians have the same talking points? I wonder if I could get a minor bird to say “God loves you” every time something good or bad happens, could I get that bird into heaven?
Something good happens- “awwwwk God loves you God loves you God loves you”. Something bad happens- “awwwwk God loves you God loves you God loves you”
Is this honestly the best, most sincere and appropriate response that thinking human beings can have when it comes to horrific incidents in this world of ours? Where’s the compassion? To be honest, I’m perfectly fine with the notion that it’s all a part of nature and things just happen, whether it’s with our bodies or an entire island. Things do happen, but surely to goodness events like these are not part of some divine premeditated plan. This ain’t science fiction, and its not cartoons either. Like the farmer once said “Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining”. Some of us really are trying to get to the truth.
It’s no big surprise why earthquakes happen. I’m pretty sure that our failure to launch at the Copenhagen Global Warming Summit like Danny Glover suggests or the Haitian Witchcraft like Pat Robinson claims had nothing to do with it, or at least I hope not. The geologic explanation and I quote, is that an earthquake “is caused by an abrupt shift of rock along a fracture in the Earth, called a fault”. Now this makes sense. Why don’t we just leave it at that? Face it. This ole planet is pretty big and in many ways still forming or settling down. This is a big place we live on.
Earthquakes like that, well I’m just glad they don’t happen here where we live. Then again, like I tell folks when I’m traveling, the only two natural disasters we have in SW Virginia are in-breeding and tooth decay.
Church folks love to use parables a lot in their message. Ole Job seems to be the go-to man when a lot of hard times hit, no matter what point they’re trying to get across; even when it comes to rationalizing a natural disaster that has killed 75,000people. OK here’s one. Let’s pretend that you are one of ten kids. Your dad comes home from work, gives you a nice piece of bubble gum. Yep he gives you a piece of bubble gum and then with deliberation and full foresight commences to killing your nine brothers and sisters. Cuts their heads off, shoots them, whatever. He kills everybody else in your family. What would you say about good old dad then? Would he still be your loving dad? Sure you got the gum but what about all the others? How about “that sombitch is damned crazy and needs to be locked up, even if he is my father”; that would seem more like it. What would motivate a person to stay with a dad like that? Would it be love or would it be down-right fear? Would it be based on something he gives you today or are you waiting on some sort of extra special inheritance? How could you stick with a guy like that? Better yet, why would you?
There’s a book out Why Bad Things Happens to Good People. I’m pretty sure is a Biblically based, another feel good sort of rationalization. I haven’t read it, but I can just imagine the punch line; He’s trying to teach us something, trying to teach somebody else something, trying to make you stronger, trying to make you weaker. Hells bells; reminds me of trying to make sense out of my first wife.
It’s a fact that things happen all the time in our lives, good and bad. Not just with our lives, our friends, our families; but mostly to people we don’t even know in places we’ve never been. If I read one more time about a ferry boat flipping over off the coast of India or a bus running off a cliff in the Philippines it will be once too many. Stuff is happening all the time. And my guess is that there probably just about as many tragedies happen as there are joys. I’m just not so sure it’s fact that God’s behind any of it at all.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Just Following the Money
I think I have finally figured it all out, and I’m talking about the secret of life. The way I see it there’s you, and there’s your money, and then there’s everybody else out there trying to get between you and your money. And Lordy don't you know they come in all shapes and sizes. Of course there’ve always been stores, malls, billboards, radio ads, commercials, and normal businesses. But now there’s pop ups, phone calls, text messages, email, and faxes; not to mention the friends, and friend’s and families wanting you to jump on board whatever latest program they got going with. Geez and peez. You can’t even buy gas or log onto the computer just to get some work done or read about Tiger’s latest affair without something or someone taking hold and trying to sell you something.
Oh sure, there‘s all those have to’s. You have to have a place to stay so you pay rent or a mortgage, and you have to have something to eat, so you buy food or eat out, and you have to get to work so you buy gas or a plane ticket. And then there’s all these want to’s; not as necessary or as desparate as the have to’s and they’re generally from our fun side, so they’re easy to rationalize.
Take me for instance. Just because Alabama won the SEC, the wife and I think we ought to go to Pasadena and be there, you know to help celebrate a potential national football title. Christmas is coming on, Lord knows there’s plenty of other things we need to do around the house, and we won’t even have tickets, but we’re still going. This is a prime example of one of those want tos.
The third type are those people that just want to use your money, temporarily they affirm, with the promise that you’ll get it back, later, eventually in some undetermined amount.
I was a stock broker in the 80s, during that Black Monday era, so I can really spot a lot of these players. To me, and I may be wrong, but the thing that always legitimized investments was the fact that came with a prospectus, a business card, and a chart, lots of charts and graphs. They are out there, all over the place, and they’re promising big returns in no time at all.
Of course I’d probably do well to remember what my good buddy Robbie always told me. “Kirk” he’d say; “there’s no such thing as overnight money. Making money is a long term prospect.” Yep well fine, but I ain’t got too may overnights left. Heck fire I’m a granddaddy already, and I still need to get the basement done.
I did see a sign, a new business in town- Same Day Cash. Well sure enough I had to check that place out. Though that didn’t take two minutes to figure out that I wasn’t going to make any same day cash. I was going to lose money and starting that very minute.
It must be an entrepreuneurial risk taking gene or hormone because when it comes to taking a chance, let’s say I thank God I got a day job. You see all my Rich Dad Poor Dad passive income schemes, well they just never panned out. Good Lord knows I’ve tried them all. Oh, I understand them alright, just enough to think I know what I’m talking about. I just can’t make any money at them. Let’s see in horseracing there’s win, place and show, but you’ve also got boxes, trifecta wheels, and pick threes. Trying to figure out the overlays of a 5-1 exacta with two minutes to post can be a bit nerve wracking. I thought that’s why they invented computers.
With options there’s stock options and index options, bull spreads, covered calls, naked puts, there’s deep in the money. Just don’t ever be on the wrong side of the market especially when the Federal Reserve Chairman is talking. Most of the time most of my options expired worthless and way, way, way out of the money. It's a good thing the market can only go in two directions.
The Forex was interesting. It’s 24-7 five days a week and it’s easy to get started. That’s what the commercial says. Yep, it’s easy alright, easiest place I’ve ever seen to lose money. So what if it’s a trillion dollar market. Most Joe Blows I know ain’t going to be the ones getting it.
Finally there’s the on-line Texas Hold’em Poker. There is nothing like sitting in a lonely hotel room with a few cold beers that’ll make you want to drop some hard earned cash to a table full of avatars on your laptop. But what I would give just to get to that final table. I’d probably pee all over myself.
Well fortunately for me there’s a new kid in town. I know so because I saw him on television. He says he’s a doctor, but he doesn’t look much like the doctors I’m used to working with. I believe this guy is referring to his divinity degree.
Anyway his name is Todd Coontz and he’s got this program to eliminate debt. The Financial Restoration program I think is what he’s calling it. Heck I don’t care if it’s hair restoration, if it can bring some extra cash into the house, then he’s got my attention.
This dude is sharp and his program sounded good, real good, well until he started explaining it. You see, he claims if you sow what he calls seed money, then by divine principles, and twenty two passages of scripture, you’re going to reap what you sow, get it all back and then some. In fact, he claims, using as living proof and hard evidence a story that happened to a gal named Ruth two thousand years ago and nine thousand miles from where I live, that if I just listen to him and God and sow some seed money, then all my earthly debt will be eliminated. Why didn’t they teach this in the second grade is what I’m wondering, before I ever got into this mess.
I’ve read enough about Karma, and doing one to another, so I’m thinking OK, so far so good. Just tell me where to sow it Todd. I am ready.
Immediately dozens of good works and well intentioned organizations come to mind; the Boy Scouts, St Judes Children’s Hospital, Battered Women’s Shelter. Where do I send the money Todd? God this is too good to be true. If this is all I have to do, why my big ship is parked just outside and is ready to come in.
He’s just about to the punch line and done explaining when I learn that I’m not the only one out here watching, that I’m not the only Check Box 4 if Filing Head of Household needing to get my financial house in order.
“I know” he says “that there are 3000 of you out there tonight…” THREE THOUSAND as I almost fall out of my seat. My gosh has Obama messed things up that bad. It’s a damn financial disaster out there, but Todd is going to get us all out if it. I just know it. My hearts pounding faster than ole Tuco when he finds the grave with the money in it.
“I need 3000 of you to call the number on the screen and pledge ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS. You’ve only got 90 seconds to make the call. If the lines are busy keep dialing. If they are still busy go to my website rockweath.org and make your pledge now.”
My cell phone was still in my briefcase out in the car, so I start scrambling towards the black push button phone on the dresser besides the bed-board. I pretty sure if there had been anybody else in the room with me I would have run over them just getting to it.
Well somewhere between the gross income and his FOB address I think to myself “Hey wait just a second. I saw this same guy on an infomercial two weeks ago and he said the exact same thing. In fact, he was wearing the exact same outfit. It was the same recording. What’s up with dis?”
“Doggonit!” I yell to myself as I drop to the matress. Dreams of waking up completely debt free, images of night sailing with the wife out in the Caribbean; we were already there. They all vanished quicker than you can say Stick Em Up.
Dadgummit. My long awaited windfall, a new chapter in that American dream, another financial lifeline falls slowly into the proverbial pit beside me.
I don’t know why this Tood Coontz bothered me so much. I took a few business courses in college but sowing seed moneys was never taught as being a legitimate long term income stream. Even when I was a broker, we had things like mutual funds, money markets, limited partnerships, but the sales manager never ever mentioned seed money. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, they never talk about seed money, well none that they're entrusting to God anyway. They’ve got Boards of Directors and shareholders to answer to.
I’m sure Todd doesn’t fall under the scrutiny of the Securities Exchange Commission, and coming from the religious angle like he does, he can probably pitch whatever he wants. Nope, it seems like ole Todd is walking a very loose rope, somewhere out there in the proverbial gray matter of the financial fringe. Where’s he learn all this stuff and how come he gets to be God’s account receivables person anyway?
Of course you can’t knock the numbers. Let’s see 3000 times 100 equals 300 thousand tax free 501c3 income for a thirty minute canned sales pitch on television. This guy is a freaking genius I’m thinking.
I wonder if he needs a partner. Better yet, maybe I can get a franchise.
Oh sure, there‘s all those have to’s. You have to have a place to stay so you pay rent or a mortgage, and you have to have something to eat, so you buy food or eat out, and you have to get to work so you buy gas or a plane ticket. And then there’s all these want to’s; not as necessary or as desparate as the have to’s and they’re generally from our fun side, so they’re easy to rationalize.
Take me for instance. Just because Alabama won the SEC, the wife and I think we ought to go to Pasadena and be there, you know to help celebrate a potential national football title. Christmas is coming on, Lord knows there’s plenty of other things we need to do around the house, and we won’t even have tickets, but we’re still going. This is a prime example of one of those want tos.
The third type are those people that just want to use your money, temporarily they affirm, with the promise that you’ll get it back, later, eventually in some undetermined amount.
I was a stock broker in the 80s, during that Black Monday era, so I can really spot a lot of these players. To me, and I may be wrong, but the thing that always legitimized investments was the fact that came with a prospectus, a business card, and a chart, lots of charts and graphs. They are out there, all over the place, and they’re promising big returns in no time at all.
Of course I’d probably do well to remember what my good buddy Robbie always told me. “Kirk” he’d say; “there’s no such thing as overnight money. Making money is a long term prospect.” Yep well fine, but I ain’t got too may overnights left. Heck fire I’m a granddaddy already, and I still need to get the basement done.
I did see a sign, a new business in town- Same Day Cash. Well sure enough I had to check that place out. Though that didn’t take two minutes to figure out that I wasn’t going to make any same day cash. I was going to lose money and starting that very minute.
It must be an entrepreuneurial risk taking gene or hormone because when it comes to taking a chance, let’s say I thank God I got a day job. You see all my Rich Dad Poor Dad passive income schemes, well they just never panned out. Good Lord knows I’ve tried them all. Oh, I understand them alright, just enough to think I know what I’m talking about. I just can’t make any money at them. Let’s see in horseracing there’s win, place and show, but you’ve also got boxes, trifecta wheels, and pick threes. Trying to figure out the overlays of a 5-1 exacta with two minutes to post can be a bit nerve wracking. I thought that’s why they invented computers.
With options there’s stock options and index options, bull spreads, covered calls, naked puts, there’s deep in the money. Just don’t ever be on the wrong side of the market especially when the Federal Reserve Chairman is talking. Most of the time most of my options expired worthless and way, way, way out of the money. It's a good thing the market can only go in two directions.
The Forex was interesting. It’s 24-7 five days a week and it’s easy to get started. That’s what the commercial says. Yep, it’s easy alright, easiest place I’ve ever seen to lose money. So what if it’s a trillion dollar market. Most Joe Blows I know ain’t going to be the ones getting it.
Finally there’s the on-line Texas Hold’em Poker. There is nothing like sitting in a lonely hotel room with a few cold beers that’ll make you want to drop some hard earned cash to a table full of avatars on your laptop. But what I would give just to get to that final table. I’d probably pee all over myself.
Well fortunately for me there’s a new kid in town. I know so because I saw him on television. He says he’s a doctor, but he doesn’t look much like the doctors I’m used to working with. I believe this guy is referring to his divinity degree.
Anyway his name is Todd Coontz and he’s got this program to eliminate debt. The Financial Restoration program I think is what he’s calling it. Heck I don’t care if it’s hair restoration, if it can bring some extra cash into the house, then he’s got my attention.
This dude is sharp and his program sounded good, real good, well until he started explaining it. You see, he claims if you sow what he calls seed money, then by divine principles, and twenty two passages of scripture, you’re going to reap what you sow, get it all back and then some. In fact, he claims, using as living proof and hard evidence a story that happened to a gal named Ruth two thousand years ago and nine thousand miles from where I live, that if I just listen to him and God and sow some seed money, then all my earthly debt will be eliminated. Why didn’t they teach this in the second grade is what I’m wondering, before I ever got into this mess.
I’ve read enough about Karma, and doing one to another, so I’m thinking OK, so far so good. Just tell me where to sow it Todd. I am ready.
Immediately dozens of good works and well intentioned organizations come to mind; the Boy Scouts, St Judes Children’s Hospital, Battered Women’s Shelter. Where do I send the money Todd? God this is too good to be true. If this is all I have to do, why my big ship is parked just outside and is ready to come in.
He’s just about to the punch line and done explaining when I learn that I’m not the only one out here watching, that I’m not the only Check Box 4 if Filing Head of Household needing to get my financial house in order.
“I know” he says “that there are 3000 of you out there tonight…” THREE THOUSAND as I almost fall out of my seat. My gosh has Obama messed things up that bad. It’s a damn financial disaster out there, but Todd is going to get us all out if it. I just know it. My hearts pounding faster than ole Tuco when he finds the grave with the money in it.
“I need 3000 of you to call the number on the screen and pledge ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS. You’ve only got 90 seconds to make the call. If the lines are busy keep dialing. If they are still busy go to my website rockweath.org and make your pledge now.”
My cell phone was still in my briefcase out in the car, so I start scrambling towards the black push button phone on the dresser besides the bed-board. I pretty sure if there had been anybody else in the room with me I would have run over them just getting to it.
Well somewhere between the gross income and his FOB address I think to myself “Hey wait just a second. I saw this same guy on an infomercial two weeks ago and he said the exact same thing. In fact, he was wearing the exact same outfit. It was the same recording. What’s up with dis?”
“Doggonit!” I yell to myself as I drop to the matress. Dreams of waking up completely debt free, images of night sailing with the wife out in the Caribbean; we were already there. They all vanished quicker than you can say Stick Em Up.
Dadgummit. My long awaited windfall, a new chapter in that American dream, another financial lifeline falls slowly into the proverbial pit beside me.
I don’t know why this Tood Coontz bothered me so much. I took a few business courses in college but sowing seed moneys was never taught as being a legitimate long term income stream. Even when I was a broker, we had things like mutual funds, money markets, limited partnerships, but the sales manager never ever mentioned seed money. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, they never talk about seed money, well none that they're entrusting to God anyway. They’ve got Boards of Directors and shareholders to answer to.
I’m sure Todd doesn’t fall under the scrutiny of the Securities Exchange Commission, and coming from the religious angle like he does, he can probably pitch whatever he wants. Nope, it seems like ole Todd is walking a very loose rope, somewhere out there in the proverbial gray matter of the financial fringe. Where’s he learn all this stuff and how come he gets to be God’s account receivables person anyway?
Of course you can’t knock the numbers. Let’s see 3000 times 100 equals 300 thousand tax free 501c3 income for a thirty minute canned sales pitch on television. This guy is a freaking genius I’m thinking.
I wonder if he needs a partner. Better yet, maybe I can get a franchise.
Monday, November 23, 2009
For Better or Worse
As a fellow who travels for a living, I especially love being home on the weekend. My wife and I usually start each Saturday with a trip to our local Farmers Market. It’s a great venue, open air, with lots and lots of local producers and artisans peddling their crafts and products. Corn, squash, and tomatoes in season, gravy and biscuits, cider, watercolor and wooden bowls. All sorts of things from all sorts of people.
One of the more notable families that show up each week is an Amish looking family. A mom and dad, four or five kids, all in traditional Amish wear. They’re always one of the first vendors to arrive, and they’re always in the same place, right between the bluegrass band and the gourmet coffee booth.
I’ve long been curious about the Amish people. I don’t know a lot about them. They sure do make good apple butter and rocking chairs, but other than that, I can’t think off-hand of a single thing the Amish people, as a whole, have ever contributed to our society. A low profile bunch- they never run for office, don’t think they ever served in combat, and you won’t find one quarterbacking in the NFL. They remind me a lot of hoot owls, hoot owls and prairie dogs. When you can find one, they’re usually flying right below the radar. Face it. They just don’t like to be bothered.
One week I noticed a stack of paperbacks in addition to the usual array of greens, herbs, and jellies the family had laid out. It was a biography, the story of the dad, and his journey of discovery from Amish to Pentecostal. I never really thought about a journey like that so I bought a copy for my reading pleasure.
The story the author painted of this fellow’s Amish Pennsylvanian roots sounded, well almost like heaven. She described big family farms, big family dinners, herding sheep and milk cows, raising chickens, raising corn and hay; all against a backdrop of meadows, running streams, and orchards. The families stayed in cozy farm houses, with big fireplaces, and big wooden barns, wore homemade clothes, they ate well and rode around on horse drawn carriages. Put me immediately in mind of a John Denver song. No drugs, no rap music, just a clean God fearing community. I was surprised to learn the Amish people only held a religious service every other week, and then it was in someone’s home. And the men folk seemed to be in charge of the whole place, had a real strong-hold, a lot more than I had imagined.
As pleasant as it sounded, their history had not always been quite so idyllic. Apparently due to the oppression of other Catholic and Protestant forces, and we’re talking being burned at the stake, or tied up in large sacks and being drowned, and other equally undesirable methods of execution. Anyway Amish families in Europe started heading west to our shores as early as the mid 1600s.
Fast forward to 2005. It seems the Norman Rockwell type neighborhood and getting to church twice a month just wasn’t cutting it for the dad in our story. No he was yearning for something deeper, a little deeper with a lot more Jesus is how he phrased it. My hats off to any guy trying to find himself. Men, and usually young men, between the ages of 18 and 30, well say 18 and 60; we can be the worst at that. Whether it’s on a golf course, a sweat lodge, or at a Texas hold’em table, seems like us guys spend a lot of time trying to figure out our purpose in life.
Somehow this dad’s search for true Jesus brought him from the cozy amber waves of grain down to our little coal mining parts in Southwest Virginia, to the Pentecostal Church and the Reverend So and So. Me with so many questions and the solution just down the road. Who would have ever thought?
But this journey wasn’t as smooth as you might imagine. There was a spell of about six months when he would load the whole family in a borrowed van and drive several hundred miles each weekend just to get to this one true church of God. I’ve been to church quite a bit in my day and I never thought there was that much difference, especially not enough to make me want to drive six hours and cross three state-lines just to get to the service.
Again, changing one’s opinion as we get older, that’s not any big deal. But what astounded me the most was everybody else’s reaction. The poor wife, well she wasn’t quite as spiritually adventurous as the dad, not as eager to dive into the beliefs and mores of these Appalachian Pentecostals. From my interpretation, it sounded like she was on the verge of an emotional breakdown, letting chores go and staying in bed for days on end.
Everybody back home, the usually mild mannered man clan sans moustaches, well this fellow’s striking out for a new church didn’t sit too well in their collective craw either. They pondered, and prayed, and pondered some more and then they put it to a vote. They had a big vote and actually banned the dad in our story from the ranch. He was banished from the dad-burn homestead. It read like the scene from Dances with Wolves, all the men Indians sitting around in the tent talking one at a time. The only difference was that the Indians wanted Kevin Costner to stay. These Amish bastards, they kicked our buddy out of the camp faster than you can say friendship bread and potato salad. Banned? Can you believe it? In 2008 and just for thinking something different? You would have thought it was 1950 and he just came out of the closet, or had gotten busted on one of those under age sex stings they used to show on TV. Isn’t that amazing.
Let’s see, they ride wooden boats for three months crossing the Atlantic to get to a place where they can practice religious freedom, then dad here tries to freely practice his religion and they drop the hammer on him, give him a big ole boot. It’s a good thing they didn’t carry firearms.
The story ended there, but my thinking on the subject didn’t end there. Life goes on. See it wasn’t just the dad who joined that Pentecostal Church that autumn Sunday. In lots of families, the dad really is the spiritual leader or just the leader period. Whenever and wherever old dad goes, everybody else just sort of tags along in lock-step, a lot like little baby ducks following momma duck, only under a whole lot more pressure. I’m pretty sure that’s how dog fighting and shooting squirrels keeps getting passed down. The kid years can be a very impressionable time. Don’t ask questions son, just get in the car.
For this family, and in this circumstance, the dad was the one who did all the leg-work, the religious research if you will. He’s the one that first had the doubts, and then the questions, and was going through all the motions for some sort of personal discovery. Well once he found the answer, heck everybody else in the family just jumped on his same band wagon. In the flash of eye, and a few dips in the North Fork of the Holston River, they all became Pentecostal. Whether they understood it or not I’m guessing, that’s how they all changed their religion.
But I was wondering what if the same thing happens say ten or fifteen years from now. Suppose the daughter, and she was a cutey; just suppose she comes home one night and breaks the news. She tells mom and dad that she’s met Mr. Right, only her Mr. Right is a Baptist, or worse maybe a Jehovah Witness. Or maybe one of the boys will get to missing all that apple butter and decide to move back north to Pennsylvania and reacclimate to the land of no TV. I wonder what dad, the man who’s figured it all out and been in the very jaws of the vice of the religious freedom debate, I wonder what he’d do then. Yep, what would he do when it’s one of his own blood on the line?
What’s a father to do?
What would you do?
One of the more notable families that show up each week is an Amish looking family. A mom and dad, four or five kids, all in traditional Amish wear. They’re always one of the first vendors to arrive, and they’re always in the same place, right between the bluegrass band and the gourmet coffee booth.
I’ve long been curious about the Amish people. I don’t know a lot about them. They sure do make good apple butter and rocking chairs, but other than that, I can’t think off-hand of a single thing the Amish people, as a whole, have ever contributed to our society. A low profile bunch- they never run for office, don’t think they ever served in combat, and you won’t find one quarterbacking in the NFL. They remind me a lot of hoot owls, hoot owls and prairie dogs. When you can find one, they’re usually flying right below the radar. Face it. They just don’t like to be bothered.
One week I noticed a stack of paperbacks in addition to the usual array of greens, herbs, and jellies the family had laid out. It was a biography, the story of the dad, and his journey of discovery from Amish to Pentecostal. I never really thought about a journey like that so I bought a copy for my reading pleasure.
The story the author painted of this fellow’s Amish Pennsylvanian roots sounded, well almost like heaven. She described big family farms, big family dinners, herding sheep and milk cows, raising chickens, raising corn and hay; all against a backdrop of meadows, running streams, and orchards. The families stayed in cozy farm houses, with big fireplaces, and big wooden barns, wore homemade clothes, they ate well and rode around on horse drawn carriages. Put me immediately in mind of a John Denver song. No drugs, no rap music, just a clean God fearing community. I was surprised to learn the Amish people only held a religious service every other week, and then it was in someone’s home. And the men folk seemed to be in charge of the whole place, had a real strong-hold, a lot more than I had imagined.
As pleasant as it sounded, their history had not always been quite so idyllic. Apparently due to the oppression of other Catholic and Protestant forces, and we’re talking being burned at the stake, or tied up in large sacks and being drowned, and other equally undesirable methods of execution. Anyway Amish families in Europe started heading west to our shores as early as the mid 1600s.
Fast forward to 2005. It seems the Norman Rockwell type neighborhood and getting to church twice a month just wasn’t cutting it for the dad in our story. No he was yearning for something deeper, a little deeper with a lot more Jesus is how he phrased it. My hats off to any guy trying to find himself. Men, and usually young men, between the ages of 18 and 30, well say 18 and 60; we can be the worst at that. Whether it’s on a golf course, a sweat lodge, or at a Texas hold’em table, seems like us guys spend a lot of time trying to figure out our purpose in life.
Somehow this dad’s search for true Jesus brought him from the cozy amber waves of grain down to our little coal mining parts in Southwest Virginia, to the Pentecostal Church and the Reverend So and So. Me with so many questions and the solution just down the road. Who would have ever thought?
But this journey wasn’t as smooth as you might imagine. There was a spell of about six months when he would load the whole family in a borrowed van and drive several hundred miles each weekend just to get to this one true church of God. I’ve been to church quite a bit in my day and I never thought there was that much difference, especially not enough to make me want to drive six hours and cross three state-lines just to get to the service.
Again, changing one’s opinion as we get older, that’s not any big deal. But what astounded me the most was everybody else’s reaction. The poor wife, well she wasn’t quite as spiritually adventurous as the dad, not as eager to dive into the beliefs and mores of these Appalachian Pentecostals. From my interpretation, it sounded like she was on the verge of an emotional breakdown, letting chores go and staying in bed for days on end.
Everybody back home, the usually mild mannered man clan sans moustaches, well this fellow’s striking out for a new church didn’t sit too well in their collective craw either. They pondered, and prayed, and pondered some more and then they put it to a vote. They had a big vote and actually banned the dad in our story from the ranch. He was banished from the dad-burn homestead. It read like the scene from Dances with Wolves, all the men Indians sitting around in the tent talking one at a time. The only difference was that the Indians wanted Kevin Costner to stay. These Amish bastards, they kicked our buddy out of the camp faster than you can say friendship bread and potato salad. Banned? Can you believe it? In 2008 and just for thinking something different? You would have thought it was 1950 and he just came out of the closet, or had gotten busted on one of those under age sex stings they used to show on TV. Isn’t that amazing.
Let’s see, they ride wooden boats for three months crossing the Atlantic to get to a place where they can practice religious freedom, then dad here tries to freely practice his religion and they drop the hammer on him, give him a big ole boot. It’s a good thing they didn’t carry firearms.
The story ended there, but my thinking on the subject didn’t end there. Life goes on. See it wasn’t just the dad who joined that Pentecostal Church that autumn Sunday. In lots of families, the dad really is the spiritual leader or just the leader period. Whenever and wherever old dad goes, everybody else just sort of tags along in lock-step, a lot like little baby ducks following momma duck, only under a whole lot more pressure. I’m pretty sure that’s how dog fighting and shooting squirrels keeps getting passed down. The kid years can be a very impressionable time. Don’t ask questions son, just get in the car.
For this family, and in this circumstance, the dad was the one who did all the leg-work, the religious research if you will. He’s the one that first had the doubts, and then the questions, and was going through all the motions for some sort of personal discovery. Well once he found the answer, heck everybody else in the family just jumped on his same band wagon. In the flash of eye, and a few dips in the North Fork of the Holston River, they all became Pentecostal. Whether they understood it or not I’m guessing, that’s how they all changed their religion.
But I was wondering what if the same thing happens say ten or fifteen years from now. Suppose the daughter, and she was a cutey; just suppose she comes home one night and breaks the news. She tells mom and dad that she’s met Mr. Right, only her Mr. Right is a Baptist, or worse maybe a Jehovah Witness. Or maybe one of the boys will get to missing all that apple butter and decide to move back north to Pennsylvania and reacclimate to the land of no TV. I wonder what dad, the man who’s figured it all out and been in the very jaws of the vice of the religious freedom debate, I wonder what he’d do then. Yep, what would he do when it’s one of his own blood on the line?
What’s a father to do?
What would you do?
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
007 or Maxwell Smart
Yeah baby, that’s what I’m talking about. Man that was one big news story last week. No, not the one about Michael Jackson getting buried in his sunglasses, though that does seem a bit odd. The other one, the one about Jose the preacher from Bolivia who hijacked a plane because God told him to. As the story goes, it seems God picked this one preacher from some little town in Oaxaca to steal a plane in order ‘to warn the President of Mexico about an impending earthquake that would result in countless loss of life in one of the worst disasters in modern history’ I believe is how he put it.
Now I refuse to have a knee jerk reaction, like I’m sure most people did, at least until I’ve read all the facts. Just because the preacher is a former drug addict and convicted armed robber doesn’t mean his head’s not on straight now. At least he’s not been molesting minors or shanking the church secretary, for all we know. Hey we all make mistakes. No I think I’m going to take this fellow at his word, that he has been in contact with God recently.
Let’s just put ourselves in his shoes for a minute. There are 6.784 billion people on earth, and God picks YOU for this super secret special mission; kind of a modern day Noah except without all the animals and rainfall. I get the vapors just thinking about it. This is a heavy duty. Then again, it’s God pulling the trigger. No way it’s going to fail. Anyway, you’ve got to get word to the president, and quick, to warn people of a disaster. Up till this part it does sound a lot like a Harrison Ford movie; seems like he’s always pretending to be the president or some high ranking official. In fact, Harrison may have been better go to man. He’s sharp, I don’t think he’s working, and I’ll bet he’s got contacts down there. But let’s just stick to the story.
Assuming the preacher is correct; still that does sounds like a rather unusual request particularly coming from a God who so loves the world. I have scoured the Bible a few times since the news broke and neither airplane nor hijack is ever mentioned. Must be verbiage from a new revised translation.
Then again, maybe the preacher only thought he heard something from God. There’s a great book out by Julian Jaynes- “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of The Bicameral Mind”. (BTW if you ever want to impress a total stranger, take that on the plane and read it.) Jaynes’premise is that basically it was a physiological development in the brain that gave early man the impression that he and she were hearing voices, which they interpreted as commands from gods. Hmmm. That is interesting. And if this is the case, I’d rather not be the one to tell the preacher that he has the mental development of a Neanderthal; he’s had a pretty tough week as it is.
I’ll bet what happened is that the preacher just misunderstood what God said though it seems like an instruction like that ought to be mighty clear. Maybe what God intended was the fellow to get onboard a plane and go meet with the president or check online to see what the airfare was, you know rather than driving all the way to Mexico City. Heck I’ve got a good friend who flies me and the wife to their beach house all the time. He wouldn’t mind at all letting somebody borrow his plane, especially when there are lives on the line.
Here in our country we have the weather channel, a weather bureau, and those annoying radio tests that are suppose to warn people of conditions like this. That way weathermen can mind their business and preachers can mind their business. I guess in South America it doesn’t work like that.
Maybe God’s instructions got lost somehow in translation. After all Jose is from Bolivia. Or this preacher, what if maybe he wasn’t God’s first choice for this assignment. Maybe he was just a backup. Anyway, according to the news at least, I think the whole thing got botched up. Fell apart worse than the UT Vol’s offensive drive. God, if you’re going to have a natural disaster, especially one that’s going to kill a lot of innocent women and children, you need a little better plan, and next time pick somebody with a little more experience in communications and hijackings. Nope this one‘s not going to look to good on the ole resume. Frankly, it could be an outright PR nightmare.
Not to be bossy or nothing, but knowing how it was going to turn out, your man in handcuffs and probably facing federal charges, wouldn’t it have been a whole lot simpler just to call off the earthquake.
Now I refuse to have a knee jerk reaction, like I’m sure most people did, at least until I’ve read all the facts. Just because the preacher is a former drug addict and convicted armed robber doesn’t mean his head’s not on straight now. At least he’s not been molesting minors or shanking the church secretary, for all we know. Hey we all make mistakes. No I think I’m going to take this fellow at his word, that he has been in contact with God recently.
Let’s just put ourselves in his shoes for a minute. There are 6.784 billion people on earth, and God picks YOU for this super secret special mission; kind of a modern day Noah except without all the animals and rainfall. I get the vapors just thinking about it. This is a heavy duty. Then again, it’s God pulling the trigger. No way it’s going to fail. Anyway, you’ve got to get word to the president, and quick, to warn people of a disaster. Up till this part it does sound a lot like a Harrison Ford movie; seems like he’s always pretending to be the president or some high ranking official. In fact, Harrison may have been better go to man. He’s sharp, I don’t think he’s working, and I’ll bet he’s got contacts down there. But let’s just stick to the story.
Assuming the preacher is correct; still that does sounds like a rather unusual request particularly coming from a God who so loves the world. I have scoured the Bible a few times since the news broke and neither airplane nor hijack is ever mentioned. Must be verbiage from a new revised translation.
Then again, maybe the preacher only thought he heard something from God. There’s a great book out by Julian Jaynes- “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of The Bicameral Mind”. (BTW if you ever want to impress a total stranger, take that on the plane and read it.) Jaynes’premise is that basically it was a physiological development in the brain that gave early man the impression that he and she were hearing voices, which they interpreted as commands from gods. Hmmm. That is interesting. And if this is the case, I’d rather not be the one to tell the preacher that he has the mental development of a Neanderthal; he’s had a pretty tough week as it is.
I’ll bet what happened is that the preacher just misunderstood what God said though it seems like an instruction like that ought to be mighty clear. Maybe what God intended was the fellow to get onboard a plane and go meet with the president or check online to see what the airfare was, you know rather than driving all the way to Mexico City. Heck I’ve got a good friend who flies me and the wife to their beach house all the time. He wouldn’t mind at all letting somebody borrow his plane, especially when there are lives on the line.
Here in our country we have the weather channel, a weather bureau, and those annoying radio tests that are suppose to warn people of conditions like this. That way weathermen can mind their business and preachers can mind their business. I guess in South America it doesn’t work like that.
Maybe God’s instructions got lost somehow in translation. After all Jose is from Bolivia. Or this preacher, what if maybe he wasn’t God’s first choice for this assignment. Maybe he was just a backup. Anyway, according to the news at least, I think the whole thing got botched up. Fell apart worse than the UT Vol’s offensive drive. God, if you’re going to have a natural disaster, especially one that’s going to kill a lot of innocent women and children, you need a little better plan, and next time pick somebody with a little more experience in communications and hijackings. Nope this one‘s not going to look to good on the ole resume. Frankly, it could be an outright PR nightmare.
Not to be bossy or nothing, but knowing how it was going to turn out, your man in handcuffs and probably facing federal charges, wouldn’t it have been a whole lot simpler just to call off the earthquake.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Will the Good Old Days Please Stand Up
Somewhere down on the east end of my a.m radio dial, I heard a preacher the other day telling everybody that this nation was headed down the tubes and what we needed was a big revival. “We all need to pray” I think is how he phrased it “in order to get this country back to the good old days”. You know me well enough by now to know that I am going to have a few questions, even over a simply one-liner like that. Not that I necessarily disagree with his premise, but I did get my forehead wrinkled by his solution.
“We need everybody in this country to pray for a return to the good old days,” he said.
One thing that comes to my mind has to be just which good old days is this guy talking about? I know if you’ve ever listened to G Gordon Liddy, the baldheaded Watergate felon turned conservative radio strong arm, the glory days for music, anyway, was the big band era. Well he did slip once and admit he liked Abba, but other than that bunch of Scandinavian blonde hairs, I doubt the G Man’s got a single musical end product in his house on the Potomac that’s not made of wax. Of course if it’s the music that the good reverend if referring to, I’d have to throw my vote to that second golden age of country- country music that is. Around 1975- Merle Haggard, Randy Travis, Alabama; my gosh can anybody hold a candle to their wind?
But I’m thinking what the rev had in mind was something a little bit bigger than that, probably more than just show biz. OK Fine. I was born in 56, lived my formidable highly impressionable early years in the 60’s. Did have to mow the yard- that and cut the mustard in that all boys high school I was attending. Other than that, I’d say my childhood was just about perfect. And what I think I liked the most was the summers I spent up on the family farm with my grandparents. All the eggs and biscuits I could eat, a smooth running pick-up at my complete disposal; as long as I kept her on the back 40. And cute little Jean Ann “What’s Her Name” living right there across the street; with me going through the change. Not that we ever did anything. In fact, I believe the only time we ever touched was when I tackled her trying to run the double-reverse in a Sunday afternoon football game. Kids don’t seem to play like that anymore; but we sure had a good time back then. In fact, that entire summer seemed perfect. Thinking back, that was about as good as it got at least from where I was sitting. Wonder if that’s what that preacher was talking about- my summer of 1967. If I’d thought it would have helped in the least bit, maybe I could have talked grandma into letting everbody stay there. Course there I go again; just looking at things from my perspective.
OK maybe your version of the sixties was just a bit foggier than mine- if you were even alive then. So just when those glory days here were in Uncle Sam land?
I lived through the eighties and I’ll vouch that it wasn’t them. I mean glory days and leisure suits should not be used in the same sentence. Plus, you remember how bad the hair was? Maybe it was the fifties. I don’t know much about how the Dow Jones was doing back then- what was it at- 75? Seems though like things were simpler- everything in black and white; literally. No that couldn’t have been them because we got ourselves into Korea for some reason. And I do recall colored people seem to have been taking it on the chin pretty bad then too. Of course it wouldn’t have the forties either. We lost so many in the WWII, but them that made it back sure bought a lot of houses.
The depression took up most of the thirties, the twenties and thirties I've read. That left such a bad taste in people’s mouths, at least regarding work and money. My dad just turned 83, and he still talks about how tough it was back then. Now the twenties, they sure sounded fun. The roaring twenties I think they called them. Flapper dancers, vaudeville, breweries springing up everywhere. Oops- that’s what got all the holy rollers uptight to begin with; and that only brings us back to square one.
Maybe it’s the eighteen hundreds this preacher has in mind. It’s hard to get a personal rendition on what it was like back then, on account that 99.9 percent of the people who lived then didn’t make it to the 2000 New Years count down. I don’t know though; as much as those couples bitched on Frontier Life on PBS up in Montana, I don’t believe most of us today could handle that lifestyle very good anyhow. So I’ll have to say I have no clue- at least in America- what age this fellow is grabbing for.
But I guess my other question is this- ok suppose we do figure out just which years we want to dial our time machine into, what are we suppose to ask for or pray about anyway? And how are we ever going to get that many people agreeing to something like this? You know how hard it is to get a consensus? From 352 million people? I remember before he kicked the bucket, you couldn’t get Siskel to agree with Ebert about anything, at least when it came to Hollywood stuff. And that’s just two fellers. And this dude expects everybody in the country to drop and give him 20?
Again it goes back to the bigger question. We probably won’t get any agreement just to where we’re going, and you probably won’t be able to get everybody along on the same ride. Seems to me like- wouldn’t just one guy- with a real good prayer- be able to get us all back into some sort of civil shape that could make everybody happy? Just one person, with a good attitude and some real prayer power; why he ought to be able to move mountains. That’s what they’re always promising. Just one guy- or it could be a girl- though it seems more like a guy’s job; one guy praying on behalf of the rest of us, getting us to move down that straight and narrow in lockstep; how about one of those dynamic and tv hogging preachers we see every Sunday; or maybe somebody like the pope or something. Just one fellow, giving it all he’s got, with one of those long winded prayers for our nation, our people, our children, our safety, our jobs, our health, …….
Hey wait a second. I think we’ve already got somebody doing that.
Oh well- back to the drawing board.
“We need everybody in this country to pray for a return to the good old days,” he said.
One thing that comes to my mind has to be just which good old days is this guy talking about? I know if you’ve ever listened to G Gordon Liddy, the baldheaded Watergate felon turned conservative radio strong arm, the glory days for music, anyway, was the big band era. Well he did slip once and admit he liked Abba, but other than that bunch of Scandinavian blonde hairs, I doubt the G Man’s got a single musical end product in his house on the Potomac that’s not made of wax. Of course if it’s the music that the good reverend if referring to, I’d have to throw my vote to that second golden age of country- country music that is. Around 1975- Merle Haggard, Randy Travis, Alabama; my gosh can anybody hold a candle to their wind?
But I’m thinking what the rev had in mind was something a little bit bigger than that, probably more than just show biz. OK Fine. I was born in 56, lived my formidable highly impressionable early years in the 60’s. Did have to mow the yard- that and cut the mustard in that all boys high school I was attending. Other than that, I’d say my childhood was just about perfect. And what I think I liked the most was the summers I spent up on the family farm with my grandparents. All the eggs and biscuits I could eat, a smooth running pick-up at my complete disposal; as long as I kept her on the back 40. And cute little Jean Ann “What’s Her Name” living right there across the street; with me going through the change. Not that we ever did anything. In fact, I believe the only time we ever touched was when I tackled her trying to run the double-reverse in a Sunday afternoon football game. Kids don’t seem to play like that anymore; but we sure had a good time back then. In fact, that entire summer seemed perfect. Thinking back, that was about as good as it got at least from where I was sitting. Wonder if that’s what that preacher was talking about- my summer of 1967. If I’d thought it would have helped in the least bit, maybe I could have talked grandma into letting everbody stay there. Course there I go again; just looking at things from my perspective.
OK maybe your version of the sixties was just a bit foggier than mine- if you were even alive then. So just when those glory days here were in Uncle Sam land?
I lived through the eighties and I’ll vouch that it wasn’t them. I mean glory days and leisure suits should not be used in the same sentence. Plus, you remember how bad the hair was? Maybe it was the fifties. I don’t know much about how the Dow Jones was doing back then- what was it at- 75? Seems though like things were simpler- everything in black and white; literally. No that couldn’t have been them because we got ourselves into Korea for some reason. And I do recall colored people seem to have been taking it on the chin pretty bad then too. Of course it wouldn’t have the forties either. We lost so many in the WWII, but them that made it back sure bought a lot of houses.
The depression took up most of the thirties, the twenties and thirties I've read. That left such a bad taste in people’s mouths, at least regarding work and money. My dad just turned 83, and he still talks about how tough it was back then. Now the twenties, they sure sounded fun. The roaring twenties I think they called them. Flapper dancers, vaudeville, breweries springing up everywhere. Oops- that’s what got all the holy rollers uptight to begin with; and that only brings us back to square one.
Maybe it’s the eighteen hundreds this preacher has in mind. It’s hard to get a personal rendition on what it was like back then, on account that 99.9 percent of the people who lived then didn’t make it to the 2000 New Years count down. I don’t know though; as much as those couples bitched on Frontier Life on PBS up in Montana, I don’t believe most of us today could handle that lifestyle very good anyhow. So I’ll have to say I have no clue- at least in America- what age this fellow is grabbing for.
But I guess my other question is this- ok suppose we do figure out just which years we want to dial our time machine into, what are we suppose to ask for or pray about anyway? And how are we ever going to get that many people agreeing to something like this? You know how hard it is to get a consensus? From 352 million people? I remember before he kicked the bucket, you couldn’t get Siskel to agree with Ebert about anything, at least when it came to Hollywood stuff. And that’s just two fellers. And this dude expects everybody in the country to drop and give him 20?
Again it goes back to the bigger question. We probably won’t get any agreement just to where we’re going, and you probably won’t be able to get everybody along on the same ride. Seems to me like- wouldn’t just one guy- with a real good prayer- be able to get us all back into some sort of civil shape that could make everybody happy? Just one person, with a good attitude and some real prayer power; why he ought to be able to move mountains. That’s what they’re always promising. Just one guy- or it could be a girl- though it seems more like a guy’s job; one guy praying on behalf of the rest of us, getting us to move down that straight and narrow in lockstep; how about one of those dynamic and tv hogging preachers we see every Sunday; or maybe somebody like the pope or something. Just one fellow, giving it all he’s got, with one of those long winded prayers for our nation, our people, our children, our safety, our jobs, our health, …….
Hey wait a second. I think we’ve already got somebody doing that.
Oh well- back to the drawing board.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Nation Under Who
There’ve been a lot of news headlines lately about this being a nation, a nation under God. Nothing like taking a slap at one of our American symbols that will sure draw the ire out of good folks. I don’t blame them on this one. Some dads need to focus more on junior’s multiplication tables and sentence diagrams rather than hauling the school system into court over a simple pledge.
I never served in the military. They quit enlisting right after I got my draft card during the Vietnam era. But I do love this country of ours. I fly the flag daily, take my hat off at the national anthem, and get big chills when an F-16 flies by or I see a bald eagle. And I’d watch a presidential state of the union everyday if he felt so inclined for the chronic updates. So patriotic? Me? You bet your bottom dollar.
But this being a nation under God? I really don’t believe that’s quite my call. I am aware that it was the brainchild of those remarkable forefathers of ours, Thomas Jefferson et all; but I don’t think I would have ever come up with that moniker myself. Nor would I sue somebody over a few words and ruin everybody else’s parade, but I do like to ponder it.
I know there’s a lot of folks in this country who think the sun rises and sets around their derriere, but this being a nation under God? Wow, that’s a toughie. I can see how that might sound a bit presumptuous to a lot of our foreign friends, leaving them out in the cold and all. Then again who cares what the French think. It does make you wonder though. Who created their nations? Beelzebub and Brown and Root?
No, it seems to me, based on my readings, that this is more probably a whole world under, or maybe a solar system under God, or whatever the biggest word we can come up with to describe everything. So just trying to claim Him as our own? Kind of reminds me how the kids at day care shared their candy after Easter.
But now that we’re on the subject, let’s just suppose that this really is a nation under God. I’d like to taste the proof in that pudding?
Maybe God was on our side early on when we got here and wiped out all those eastern seaboard Indians, and then when we headed west and wiped out all those mid-western plains Indians, and of course after we settled Florida and herded up all those southeastern Indians and sent them to Oklahoma. Yep, there was no doubt a lot of divine providence going on back then. Though it probably didn’t hurt that we had whiskey; whiskey, rifles, and syphilis on our side.
And I’d like to think that it was God who helped us against the Nazis and the Japanese and all those other evil empires of old back during WW’s I and II, but there again I’m guessing it really came down to good ole American military firepower. Like today, look around. Sure we can still win wars, but how’s the rest of our landscape look? Where’s God in all of that?
It’s not like the Christians haven’t established a pretty good foot-hold for themselves here in the contiguous forty eight. Though the percentage has been dropping since they started polling in the mid 1900s, some 77% of the population, or approximately 280,000,000 Americans claim to be Christian. There are approximately 68,500 Christian churches here in America. The Christian products industry tracks approximately $4.2 billion dollars in annual sales. There are approximately 43 different Christian TV shows beaming out to the four corners. Finally, Americans are as charitable a bunch as any nation in the history of the universe; tithing some $103.3 billion dollars in 2008 alone. Simply amazing. Some folks just can’t hang on to a dime. I do wonder though how smart and selective they are dropping their ten percent in the wicker basket each week.
Far be it from me to lay all the blame over there, but you have to admit, by in large the church population in our country has suffered, on a statistical basis at least, just as much divorce, bankruptcy, unwanted pregnancies, murder, drug abuse, prison time, school drop outs, suicide, incest, and felonies as the rest of us. Of course, were this just another organization, the Boys Club for example, or the Daughters of the American Revolution, then I’d chalk it up as just another case for the law of averages. But these are supposed to be church folks.
In a recent report from the US Department of Educations’ National Center, the Secretary of Education tells us that basically we’re just average. Finland and Canada cleaned our clocks in reading, where we tied the Czech Republic. In math and science- you guessed it. Japan and Korea held top honors where we again tied the Czech Republic; the Czechs and the Norwegians if that makes you feel any better.
And have you seen Greg Critser’s book "Fat Land" in your local bookstore yet? He tells us sixty percent of Americans are overweight and twenty percent are obese and approximately one quarter of Americans under the age of nineteen are too heavy, a figure that has doubled in the last thirty years.
I know there’s more to life than looks and academic inclination. But I thought this body, this nation of folks presuming to be under God above all others, is suppose to have that heavenly host, that invincible shield watching their collective backside. Really makes me wonder though. From the looks of it, we’re about like most of the other countries in this ole world. Not pointing fingers or nothing. I say, if this really is a nation under God, all playing children of God, then we’re owed some back-due child support.
I never served in the military. They quit enlisting right after I got my draft card during the Vietnam era. But I do love this country of ours. I fly the flag daily, take my hat off at the national anthem, and get big chills when an F-16 flies by or I see a bald eagle. And I’d watch a presidential state of the union everyday if he felt so inclined for the chronic updates. So patriotic? Me? You bet your bottom dollar.
But this being a nation under God? I really don’t believe that’s quite my call. I am aware that it was the brainchild of those remarkable forefathers of ours, Thomas Jefferson et all; but I don’t think I would have ever come up with that moniker myself. Nor would I sue somebody over a few words and ruin everybody else’s parade, but I do like to ponder it.
I know there’s a lot of folks in this country who think the sun rises and sets around their derriere, but this being a nation under God? Wow, that’s a toughie. I can see how that might sound a bit presumptuous to a lot of our foreign friends, leaving them out in the cold and all. Then again who cares what the French think. It does make you wonder though. Who created their nations? Beelzebub and Brown and Root?
No, it seems to me, based on my readings, that this is more probably a whole world under, or maybe a solar system under God, or whatever the biggest word we can come up with to describe everything. So just trying to claim Him as our own? Kind of reminds me how the kids at day care shared their candy after Easter.
But now that we’re on the subject, let’s just suppose that this really is a nation under God. I’d like to taste the proof in that pudding?
Maybe God was on our side early on when we got here and wiped out all those eastern seaboard Indians, and then when we headed west and wiped out all those mid-western plains Indians, and of course after we settled Florida and herded up all those southeastern Indians and sent them to Oklahoma. Yep, there was no doubt a lot of divine providence going on back then. Though it probably didn’t hurt that we had whiskey; whiskey, rifles, and syphilis on our side.
And I’d like to think that it was God who helped us against the Nazis and the Japanese and all those other evil empires of old back during WW’s I and II, but there again I’m guessing it really came down to good ole American military firepower. Like today, look around. Sure we can still win wars, but how’s the rest of our landscape look? Where’s God in all of that?
It’s not like the Christians haven’t established a pretty good foot-hold for themselves here in the contiguous forty eight. Though the percentage has been dropping since they started polling in the mid 1900s, some 77% of the population, or approximately 280,000,000 Americans claim to be Christian. There are approximately 68,500 Christian churches here in America. The Christian products industry tracks approximately $4.2 billion dollars in annual sales. There are approximately 43 different Christian TV shows beaming out to the four corners. Finally, Americans are as charitable a bunch as any nation in the history of the universe; tithing some $103.3 billion dollars in 2008 alone. Simply amazing. Some folks just can’t hang on to a dime. I do wonder though how smart and selective they are dropping their ten percent in the wicker basket each week.
Far be it from me to lay all the blame over there, but you have to admit, by in large the church population in our country has suffered, on a statistical basis at least, just as much divorce, bankruptcy, unwanted pregnancies, murder, drug abuse, prison time, school drop outs, suicide, incest, and felonies as the rest of us. Of course, were this just another organization, the Boys Club for example, or the Daughters of the American Revolution, then I’d chalk it up as just another case for the law of averages. But these are supposed to be church folks.
In a recent report from the US Department of Educations’ National Center, the Secretary of Education tells us that basically we’re just average. Finland and Canada cleaned our clocks in reading, where we tied the Czech Republic. In math and science- you guessed it. Japan and Korea held top honors where we again tied the Czech Republic; the Czechs and the Norwegians if that makes you feel any better.
And have you seen Greg Critser’s book "Fat Land" in your local bookstore yet? He tells us sixty percent of Americans are overweight and twenty percent are obese and approximately one quarter of Americans under the age of nineteen are too heavy, a figure that has doubled in the last thirty years.
I know there’s more to life than looks and academic inclination. But I thought this body, this nation of folks presuming to be under God above all others, is suppose to have that heavenly host, that invincible shield watching their collective backside. Really makes me wonder though. From the looks of it, we’re about like most of the other countries in this ole world. Not pointing fingers or nothing. I say, if this really is a nation under God, all playing children of God, then we’re owed some back-due child support.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Kirk's Old Testament
Growing up in Nashville, the very buckle of the proverbial Bible belt, I suppose it was inevitable that I too would launch my very own spiritual journey. Though 53 years later, I am truly amazed that I've ended up here; while it seems that everybody else is way over there. Are we all looking at the same thing I wonder?
Our family weren't church goers. Apparently mother's Missouri Catholic and dad's Alabama Baptist roots were too dry to blossom in our middle class ranch style in the 60s. So I was left to fend for myself in the war between good and evil. And in those very early days, it looked like good may have won. Not bragging but I was a great kid. Kept my hair cut short, fed the dog, and I loved going to Mass with my Aunt Pearlie. I really didn’t understood what was going on, and never did figure out all the standing and kneeling. But the place always smelled good when the priest scattered that incense. And I sure loved the doughnuts when it was over.
I got into college, the University of Alabama. Here my religious trek went off in all different directions; not so much caused by the liberal philosophies I was learning in the classroom. Rather due to all the girls I was dating. You see it was a common courtesy in Alabama to go to church with any girl you were seeing. So one week I might be a Methodist, the next week an Episcopalian. While I couldn't vouch for the specific homilies of either, I can say that those Protestants sure had some good looking members.
In order to help cover the financial costs of going to college, I got involved in a summertime activity that I suppose, looking back on it, brought me in touch with more folks than a hundred missionaries. I sold Bibles door-to-door. Straight commission work and strictly business; I wasn’t trying to save people; I wanted to sell them something. I did pretty well at it, number one salesman in the company and saved over $6000 in 1976, working not too far from where I live today. Yep after six summers, six different states, and seeing over 10,000 families I learned a real truth about the Bible- some folks had one and some folks didn’t.
It wouldn't be too far down the road though before evil completely took over my whole existence. I married my first wife. This really was hell.
But even in that despair, whether it was Providence or just the United States Postal Service, I would receive my revelation, that angelic message, a helping hand cast down from above. It was a piece of junk mail, bulk code, inviting me to an eschatological lecture. A quick glance in my Webster’s confirmed what I only suspected- world ending events. This was great news. My matrimonial burden didn’t seem quite so heavy anymore.
As it would turn out, the lecture was just a front for an indoctrination process hosted by the Church. But as miserable as I was at home, and as crazy as everything else was in my life at the time, I bought it hook line and sinker. I finished that ten week course and got baptized by immersion one Sabbath Day morn. I was a changed man. Stopped going to pool halls, stopped drinking, started reading my Bible every day. I can say that group of church people were as genuine and sincere and caring a bunch of people as I have ever known in my life. I tried hard to fit in. I played on the softball team, helped out in the nursery, and even mowed the church lawn from time to time.
Down deep I was still miserable. While I didn’t know exactly who I was, this church Kirk just wasn’t it.
I remember my epiphany just like it was yesterday. I was out on our boat in the middle of Watts Bar Lake. I cracked open the first cold beer I had had in seven months. I was going through the motions, doing and saying what I thought I should be doing and saying, giving and giving and investing my time in spiritual matters. Doing my best to refrain from the world- however the heck you’re supposed to do that. But nothing was coming back in. My well was running dry. This newfound relationship with Jesus, or God, or whoever, felt just my old relationships when I was by myself. Would it require more time, more money, more prayer, more church? Was I ever going to be truly happy?
Slowly my church life faded.
Our family weren't church goers. Apparently mother's Missouri Catholic and dad's Alabama Baptist roots were too dry to blossom in our middle class ranch style in the 60s. So I was left to fend for myself in the war between good and evil. And in those very early days, it looked like good may have won. Not bragging but I was a great kid. Kept my hair cut short, fed the dog, and I loved going to Mass with my Aunt Pearlie. I really didn’t understood what was going on, and never did figure out all the standing and kneeling. But the place always smelled good when the priest scattered that incense. And I sure loved the doughnuts when it was over.
I got into college, the University of Alabama. Here my religious trek went off in all different directions; not so much caused by the liberal philosophies I was learning in the classroom. Rather due to all the girls I was dating. You see it was a common courtesy in Alabama to go to church with any girl you were seeing. So one week I might be a Methodist, the next week an Episcopalian. While I couldn't vouch for the specific homilies of either, I can say that those Protestants sure had some good looking members.
In order to help cover the financial costs of going to college, I got involved in a summertime activity that I suppose, looking back on it, brought me in touch with more folks than a hundred missionaries. I sold Bibles door-to-door. Straight commission work and strictly business; I wasn’t trying to save people; I wanted to sell them something. I did pretty well at it, number one salesman in the company and saved over $6000 in 1976, working not too far from where I live today. Yep after six summers, six different states, and seeing over 10,000 families I learned a real truth about the Bible- some folks had one and some folks didn’t.
It wouldn't be too far down the road though before evil completely took over my whole existence. I married my first wife. This really was hell.
But even in that despair, whether it was Providence or just the United States Postal Service, I would receive my revelation, that angelic message, a helping hand cast down from above. It was a piece of junk mail, bulk code, inviting me to an eschatological lecture. A quick glance in my Webster’s confirmed what I only suspected- world ending events. This was great news. My matrimonial burden didn’t seem quite so heavy anymore.
As it would turn out, the lecture was just a front for an indoctrination process hosted by the Church. But as miserable as I was at home, and as crazy as everything else was in my life at the time, I bought it hook line and sinker. I finished that ten week course and got baptized by immersion one Sabbath Day morn. I was a changed man. Stopped going to pool halls, stopped drinking, started reading my Bible every day. I can say that group of church people were as genuine and sincere and caring a bunch of people as I have ever known in my life. I tried hard to fit in. I played on the softball team, helped out in the nursery, and even mowed the church lawn from time to time.
Down deep I was still miserable. While I didn’t know exactly who I was, this church Kirk just wasn’t it.
I remember my epiphany just like it was yesterday. I was out on our boat in the middle of Watts Bar Lake. I cracked open the first cold beer I had had in seven months. I was going through the motions, doing and saying what I thought I should be doing and saying, giving and giving and investing my time in spiritual matters. Doing my best to refrain from the world- however the heck you’re supposed to do that. But nothing was coming back in. My well was running dry. This newfound relationship with Jesus, or God, or whoever, felt just my old relationships when I was by myself. Would it require more time, more money, more prayer, more church? Was I ever going to be truly happy?
Slowly my church life faded.
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