Borders

When they had first rolled up to the city it was past midnight. Everything was closed and they had set up their tent in a homeless camp outside the limits. It's not like they were the only ones. Refugees had been streaming in recent years, fleeing the Tyrant, a cynical man that had taken their religion and twisted it into something it was never meant to be. His storm troopers enforced a blind allegiance, and his network of informants had cast a pall of suspicion over everything, every neighborhood conversation, every holy gathering.

They had met Daoud and his wife that first night. Fellow refugees lost in a foreign land. He brought bread and shared it, even though his own were hungry, even though there was nothing left to offer in return. Whatever they had when they left home was long gone.

At daybreak they had gone together to look for work. Daoud knew men who would hire day laborers. They paid half what local workers got, but they didn't require papers or licenses, and they didn't ask questions. Which was good because they couldn't speak the language anyway. The hardest thing was leaving the women and children in camp all day to fend for themselves.

It was there he learned to dig ditches, to build fences, to lay bricks, to cut beams. The kind of work the undocumented always do. It turns out he was good with an adze and chisel, and came into a little demand. They traded their tent for a shanty with real walls, offering at least the illusion of security, of privacy.

When they didn't know the language, the women had gone together to the market. Together they negotiated by signs to buy a few overpriced vegetables. Together they endured the stares at their head coverings, their dress too warm for the climate, the color of their skin. Together they weathered the haughty looks of immodest women and the leers of the men. Together they hurried back to see to the children, left in the care of friends, strangers really.

Then came the day they had dreaded. Daoud had been squirreling away a little money.

"It is enough, finally enough," Daoud began.

"To go home? We will miss you like crazy. Do you think it's safe?"

"What does safe mean, anyway? Why don't you come, too? You could sell that house."

"No, not yet. In some ways it's safer to stay where you know everyone around you is an enemy. Still, I miss them."

"Family?" Daoud asked.

"There has been no word since we left. No one there knows where we are. They must think us dead."

"The world is crazy and everyone knows that. They haven't given you up. Where do they live? I'll try to get word to them."

"Nazareth. My people are in Nazareth."

The Wishbone Fallacy

Thanksgiving is over. The turkey soup is in the pot. The carcass bones are in the trash, having surrendered their healing goodness in yesterday's roasting.

In the process of dividing soup from bones I came across the clavicle, the wishbone. It occurs to me what a childish game this is.

When we were children we would remove the wishbone and set it on the window sill to dry. In a couple of days our mother, tired of looking at it and cleaning around it, would remind us of our duty to make a wish and break the bone, divining whose wish might prevail. The holder of the larger part would win the game. That wish was made good. The loser's wish was dashed, and the subject was changed.

Maybe because all the other children were much older than I, maybe because a stoic turn of mind made me suspicious of wishes in general, or that the natural gloom in my Michigan bred soul had me convinced that, even unopposed, my wish was doomed from the start. I never liked the game.

Now looking back I can see why. The wishbone game is based on a fallacy. In the game there can be only one winner. It is a zero sum proposition. Your win is necessarily my loss, and there are after all, only a finite number of wishes that might be granted in the world. Happily-ever-afters are in critically limited supply.

In larger families the situation is even worse. The wishbone has only two legs. Third, fourth, and fifth children are even deprived the wishing. They must, like so many second and third world nations stand by while titans battle for wish supremacy.

I make too much of a child's game.

But fables and nursery rhymes make their way into the psyche. Indeed that is their role, to plant values early and deep. The diligent ant, the wily fox, and the greedy dog all argue persuasively. And so we have a need to reflect. Do we believe in the zero sum game? Is one's victory necessarily another's loss? Are the good things in the world in scarcity or abundant supply?

Either this or that, tit for tat, quid pro quo, the dichotomy emerges again and again throughout life. Are there really only two political parties? Are there truly only right wing and left? Why does every dilemma have only two horns? In the news in recent days is talk of net neutrality, that every view must be balanced by its opposite. What if there is no opposite? 

Are climate change and globalization true opposites? What about wealth? No one posits a pluralistic view where A and B and C and D are all true, all at once, and in dynamic relationship one to the others. How often do we let complex issues boil down to either this or that? Or if not this or that, they somewhere on the line between them. When will we learn that the best solution is often off the line altogether?

So we return once again to the wishbone fallacy. There it sits on the window sill. Desiccating. Inviting the wish. Taunting the dream. Holding forth both promise and betrayal, blessing and cursing. And in the very process blinding us to the truth. The truth that yesterday we were family. Yesterday there was food and music and conversation. Yesterday there was Thanksgiving, and thankfulness, and a turkey. Don't you wish it could stay?

U Kalicha

"Good afternoon."

I had walked right past him. He startled me in English.

"Good afternoon, lovely things you have here."

He was seated down behind the high counter of his cluttered antique store on a side street in Prague. It took a bit of effort at first to determine where the man left off and his collection of artifacts began.

We had been exploring a neighborhood originally devoted to the King's vineyard, now a pleasant meander through parks and residences. And churches, everywhere churches. The city of Prague is well over a thousand years old. Let that sink in. And the church has been a vital part of the culture for at least the last 1100 years.

So yeah, antiques. I was taken in by the collection of military badges on his front counter. Russian and German uniform insignia from WWII told the story of a conflict that had raged over the heads of the Bohemian residents. I toyed with the fantasy that this man's father might have collected all these one by one as the war dragged on. They were in wonderful condition. The next card beside these had the badges of Czech Partizans, freedom fighters. One unit had the Czech Lion rampant next to the Slovak double cross in a shield. Another had the initials C, S, and M for the Czech, Silesian, and Moravian fighters who joined forces to protect their homelands. I looked for but did not see a unit I was especially interested in. The badge of the Hussite Partizans  featured a gold star surmounted by a red chalice. I didn't find one there, and was a little disappointed.

In the early 1400s Jan Hus was rector at Charles University in Prague. He was also preaching in the congregation of Bethlehem Chapel. At that time commonly church was conducted in Latin, the priest was of course rightly revered, and Holy Communion was conducted in such a way that the lay parishioners only ever received the bread, the cup being reserved for the priest. Theology maintained that Christ was fully present in the host or bread, so there was no need to share in the cup. Whatever the reasons for this, it served to preserve a proper respect for the priest, who was of course closer to God.

Hus and the Praguers were teaching a different way. They were preaching the Bible in the Bohemian vernacular language so that people could understand it for themselves. They were emphasizing the priesthood of all believers, the unity of the brethren. And they were offering Holy Communion in both kinds, both host and cup, to all believers.

In 1415 Hus was invited to the ecumenical Council of Constance to explain his views. Emperor Sigismund even offered him safe passage to the Council. And in truth he came safely to Constance. But once there, he found the bishops had already gone over his writings. He had scant opportunity to present his views, was imprisoned, condemned as a heretic, and burned at the stake. A somewhat annoyed Sigismund was mollified by the bishops; promises made to a heretic could not be considered binding after all. 

Followers of Hus took his betrayal personally and the Hussite wars lasted for a hundred years. In the end the Roman Church relented and religious tolerance became briefly the rule of the day.

Through all of this the Kalicha, the chalice of Communion, became a symbol and rallying point.

"Do you have in your store a chalice, a cup, "kalicha?" I asked.

"No nothing like that, I am sorry."

"Because I think maybe the "Kalicha" is important to the Czech church."

"No. Church things I have only here." He pointed out a selection of crucifixes. There were also brilliantly painted icons. There were some old menorahs. Many things were left behind during waves of religious persecution, first under Berlin and then under Moscow. Since the Velvet Revolution in 1989 both churches and synagogues are coming back to life.

He proudly showed us pictures of his son in America. The son held advanced degrees in the law and was doing very well. The gentleman himself claimed to speak ten languages, and 

I don't doubt it was true. The Bohemian lands border on Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia. Russia and Ukraine are not far away. Especially since 1990 tourists arrive from the Far East and West.

It had been an enjoyable few minutes making conversation, but we thanked our gentleman and turned to leave. Then as I reached for the door I saw it.

There on a shelf waist high was an earthenware chalice. Simple in form, unremarkable in glazing, it looked like it might have been in daily use for decades. It had no markings. It had no price tag. When I picked it up a ring of keys clattered inside. The man collected his keys from me and said, "Very low price." It was the place he dumped his house keys while working in the store. He sold it to me with pleasure, but I am sure he still wonders at the crazy American who bought his key jar. 

It is possible I am making too much of this chalice iconography. It is certainly true that most Czechs do not imbue this symbol with the combination of suffering and hope and courage I read in the Czech Soul. But I saw them everywhere in Prague. A chalice adorns a church banner, not a Communion banner with the round host suspended over the chalice, but a solitary chalice. A stylized chalice figures in the logo for the Czech Hussite Church brochure. A famous old restaurant near the Dvorak Museum bears the name U Kalicha. And during the Hussite wars the great Czech General Zizka, who never lost a battle, captured a remote fortress estate and christens the place "the Chalice."

There's a word for that

The Sami people of Scandinavia have 180 words for snow and near 1000 for different kinds of reindeer. Canada's Inuit also can describe a wider variety of snow conditions than simply powder or slush. Language is a tool for telling what we have a need to talk about.

So when the sermon discussion took up the topic of "righteousness" I was distressed to find so few synonyms in popular speech. If it is an important concept should there not be loads of equivalents?

There is "ethic" of course, "rectitude," "morality," but these don't quite cover the same territory. We know that the world should be better than it is, but where are the words for actually being better people?

"Goodness" is another close miss. But goodness is an inclination, righteousness more of a status. "Respectability," yes, in an outward socially compliant sort of way, but leaving behind the true rightness of inner being.

Personally I favor "innocence," although we start out life innocent, fall into error and then try to work our way back toward righteousness. "Blamelessness" is also a serviceable word, especially in a culture eager to escape blame. "I don't so much care what went down, I just don't want to be blamed for it." "Faultlessness" and "flawlessness" can be taken in the direction of physical perfection and so really lead away from choice. If you are flawless it is probably your parents' fault.

Then we come to the whole forensic discussion. Legal righteousness. To be pronounced righteous, declared innocent, acquitted of crimes regardless of my actual guilt, overruling my evident flaws, is another whole matter. This is the righteousness imparted on the account of another. Finding a righteous person is challenging enough. Finding one who has righteousness to spare enough to render you and me right is nothing short of miraculous.

Righteousness is also forced to drag along with it the negative concept of self-righteousness. That is considerable baggage for an already endangered word. If self-righteous is an epithet, and righteousness somewhat dated, if current usage provides us no equivalent, then can we really say that the culture is that concerned about the concept of righteousness? Certainly a pluralistic relativism finds "being right" to be suspect. "Doing right" finds a much warmer reception, but who can produce a list of things to do that are always inherently right?

If we turn it around there are any number of wrong turns that twist life out of shape. The field of error is littered with ways to go astray. More are being invented every day it seems. There are a mountain of words to describe missing the mark, and a dearth of ways to talk about being better. And maybe that tells us about the neighborhood where we live. And where so few actually go.

The Littlest Christmas Tree

The crowd at the tree lot was approaching the evening rush. Christmas was a week away and business was picking up. Jerry counted his remaining stock and indulged the thought of selling out early and getting back to Oregon before Christmas Eve for once, There were spruce and fir and pines and cedar of every shape and size.

Jerry's wife Marla was busily weaving tree clippings into wreaths and garlands to offer for sale as well. People who didn't have room for a tree still wanted the smell of fresh cuttings in the home. This was how they had spent every December since they'd married, camped out in their tiny trailer, watching everyone else carry Christmas home with them.

Down a back row of the lot came a father and son, looking for their perfect tree. "What about this one?" asked the boy. The little tree came only about to his ball cap, so lop sided it had to lean against bigger trees just to remain upright. "Oh, son, that one is way too small. Let's look over here." Before moving on the boy took a gum wrapper out of his jacket and, folding it into a fan, stuck it onto a branch. The little tree looked grateful. Then he was off the find Dad. 

Barreling around the corner he nearly knocked over a girl in a wheelchair coming the other way. When she had set herself straight again she looked and saw the fan and the pitiful little tree. From a package in her pocket she pulled a couple tissues and formed the pretty flowers all young girls seem to know how to make, leaving them in the tree, too.

As the evening meandered along the little tree picked up three stray pine cones tied on with twine, a couple handfuls of flocking, and a bright red stocking cap perched on the top candle which made it lean lazily to one side.

On his closing rounds Jerry came down the back row and stopped to wonder at the little tree. Shaking his head he went off to the trailer, and dinner Marla was setting out.

***

The following night the lot was visited by a carolling group from St. John's Church next door. They sang "Hark, the Herald Angels" and "Joy to the World" and a spanish carol Jerry didn't recognize. After they had looked around the yard and drank some warm cider they went on to the nursing home down the street. 

That night Jerry found the little tree wearing a scarf he thought he had seen on one of the carollers.  Before retiring to the trailer, Jerry nailed a stand on the tree and brought it out to the middle of the lot, replacing the cocked hat, the scarf, and the other ornaments. Then he went to tell Marla.

"That's not all," she teased, "look at this." She pulled out her phone and played a video of a little crooked tree in a red hat and the choir that sang "Oh, Christmas Tree" while they tied it up in a bright scarf. "It's going viral," she explained over the mac and cheese.

***

Over the next few days people started bringing tinsel and garlands and ornaments such as threatened to topple the little tree. The burlap tree skirt was replaced with cranberry damask in a gold braid. Lights were strung. The choir came back and staged a flash mob. Several people offered to buy the little tree, but Jerry wisely upsold every one of them. By the time the 23rd rolled around Jerry and Marla had sold every stick and crumb and had left for Oregon and home.

The following night, Christmas Eve, a father and son were walking by St. John's church yard. They stopped to look at the living nativity, at the Holy Family, the cow, the donkey, and at a strange little Christmas tree in a jaunty red stocking hat. As they came close the father watched the boy reach out for a tiny foil fan made from what looked for all the world like a gum wrapper.

***

Beneath all the tinsel and flock, the wrapping and the cookie crumbs, may you find the Christ that made Christmas a reality.  Our year has been filled with glimpses of community sprouting up in unexpected places.

Wealth

Let's go over this again. Wealth is not money in a mattress. Wealth is a function of value and is created through exchange.

I have five dollars in my pocket. You have an extra hibachi grill in a yard sale. I value the grill more than the five dollars. You value the five dollars more than your spare grill. There is an exchange. Both of us walk away thinking we got the better deal. Net value has increased in the exchange. Wealth has been created. Granted not great wealth, but take it up a notch.

I have $200,000 in the bank (I wish). You have a steady job and weary of paying rent. A loan is made, a lot is bought, a house is built, a mortgage is paid. Net value takes a jump. Wealth is created out of thin air, the breath it takes to make an agreement. This sort of thing goes on every day.

You have a million dollars in mutual funds bearing meager interest because the companies in the fund are not equally brilliant, nor their products uniformly desirable. I have an idea for a product that makes the smart phone obsolete. I exchange an interest in my idea for your million dollars. (Thank you.) A plant is built, people are hired, the product is sold, customers are clamoring to buy. Value is increasing geometrically on a broad scale. Great wealth is created.

This is how it works. This is the only way it works.

But, when taxes are exacted to pay for safety net programs, admirable though their aims, wealth is not created. Transfer is not exchange. Transfer systems work to reduce net value, and destroy wealth. Workers with skills are drawn to the safety net and production is lost. Investors with resources find their returns plundered and decline to engage in the marketplace (or worse, migrate to more favorable markets overseas). Unemployment insurance works to ensure unemployment. How does this come to be called a benefit?

The American economy is getting tired of foundering. As it makes gains in the coming weeks and months recovery will depend on whether our leaders step on the brake or the gas.

Giving It All Away (AB459)

Back in July the Legislature of California voted to award all of California's 55 electoral votes to whomever wins the popular election nationwide. In other words, the Democrat might win the state in a landslide, but the electoral college delegates would vote as a block for his opponent, based on results in the populous east coast. Governor Brown signed this bill (AB459) into law in August.
It is the largest voter disenfranchisement in history, and did not come through
California's well worn initiative system. It was a direct action of the Legislature alone who did not count it wise to refer the matter directly to the citizens. It is important to name the 76 Californians who sold the rest of us out.

AB459 vote 7/14/2011

Assembly votes for the bill:
Alejo Allen Ammiano Atkins Beall
Block Blumenfield Bonilla Bradford Brownley
Buchanan Butler Charles Calderon Campos
Carter Cedillo Chesbro Davis Eng
Feuer Fong Fuentes Furutani Galgiani Gatto
Gordon Hagman Hall Hayashi Roger Hernández
Hill Huber Hueso Huffman Lara Bonnie
Lowenthal Ma Mendoza Monning Norby Pan Perea
John A. Pérez V. Manuel Pérez Portantino
Skinner Solorio Swanson Torres Wieckowski Williams Yamada

State Senate votes for the bill:
Alquist Calderon Corbett Correa De León
DeSaulnier Evans Hancock Hernandez Leno Lieu
Liu Lowenthal Negrete McLeod Padilla Pavley
Price Rubio Simitian Steinberg Vargas Wolk
Yee

Governor Brown signed the bill into law 8/8/2011

Those who voted against are to be commended, few though they be. There
were only 30 across both houses.

What a come down!

The church calendar rightly highlights important aspects of Christ's work in the world: His atoning sacrifice at Good Friday, His resurrection on Easter, Ascension Day, Pentecost. These are vital to the life of the Christian and of the Church. But this season is Advent, and we are tempted to skate right past this particular aspect of His great work.
Condescension, the coming down to our level. His scandalous act that some branches of the church could never embrace, breaking off rather than bending to the story as it is found. God became a man. As Paul the Apostle puts it, "He made himself nothing." (Php 2:7) In order to take our place it was required of Him to be put in our place.
No, that's wrong. He wasn't put here; He put himself here with us. God moved into our neighborhood. It was a journey He set out on and a destination He chose for himself. Passive voice has no place in the work of Christ. He was not sacrificed, but rather gave himself as a ransom for many. He was not put down, but the royal things He was He set aside, and He came down to be with us.
The other aspects of Christ's work we marvel at from one side. We accept his sacrifice on our behalf. We await our resurrection that will be some how like his. We will be caught up. He do the catching. Ours is the passive voice in so much of this.
Except in this-- we are invited to join him in coming down. Paul says in this same passage that our attitude should be like Christ. Condescension can have an awful tone when we use it among ourselves, but it is so fitting of Him who set down everything that made him God over us, and taking on something else to be found as God right next to us.
This season is Advent, and you are invited to move into the neighborhood.

CO2 as percent of total atmosphere

From 1960 to 2010 CO2 in earth's atmosphere went from 0.032% to 0.039%.

Not a one percent change. Not a tenth of a percent change. Not a hundredth of a percent change. Just seven thousanths of one percent change in CO2 levels as part of total composition.

Data collected at Mauna Loa and reported on NOAA website. link

 

Just sayin'

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, American Poet, ca 1920

I was reminded of these words today and wanted to keep them in the collective memory.

The COOKIES were good ...

This afternoon was the first in a short series of "Workshops" in the Chowchilla area for the High Speed Train document review. Tomorrow they are in Le Grand, and Thursday at the Chowchilla Fairgrounds. The California High Speed Rail Authority brought copies of their new draft Environmental Review which people could read individually. Authority specialists helped people find whatever chapter and section they were looking for. If they knew what they were looking for. Handling people one at a time also significantly reduced the 'pitchfork' factor. There was no general presentation. There were no questions from the floor. No microphone. Nevertheless, the workshop quickly took on the air of the Chicago Trading Floor.

People living in the Ave 24, Ave 21, UPRR/99, and BNSF corridors need to carefully review those documents to find if they are on one of the several proposed paths of the HST. Apendix 3.1-A had very detailed satelite photos of ranches potentially effected. People not specifically in line with the tracks also may be impacted by road changes in their immediate area. They'll be putting up a lot of fence along the route.

The workshops in Chowchilla deal with a number of decisions concerning the Wye that will direct San Fransisco trains to Sacramento or to Los Angeles. There are at least four possible routes and until one is finally chosen, the other parts of the HST system cannot be planned. Nay-sayers have called the initial section of the system, the Merced-Fresno corridor (containing the Chowchilla Wye), "the train to nowhere." And it will be a very quiet bit of track for a very long time as the rest of the massive statewide system is built. But it is also the most complex piece of this huge puzzle. It has to start here and grow in both directions, if it is going to be built at all.

The Authority is to be commended for trotting out their charts and graphs, maps and volumes of reports. I am sure there was a wealth of useful data buried there. But buried is how I felt. Anyone planning to attend the two remaining workshops needs to do their homework beforehand. Without a ready question to ask they will find the session less than satisfying. But on a brighter note, the cookies were delicious and the water was ice cold. Galilee Missionary Baptist Church in Fairmead were the perfect host. One of the routes in fact runs very near the church.

The documents are available online and also at a variety of public forums where they can be studied in quiet detail. Comments to the Authority may be submitted online or in person at these workshops. Public hearings on the HST will be held in September. Should be fun!

Four Gaits

Impressions of people I saw today:


She threw her shoes before her as she walked, leaving the rest of her to trail along behind like a lawn dart.


He stalked along the sidewalk like a man who had been much heavier in the recent past.


She moved like a broken folding chair, her face burdened with the focus required to maintain net forward motion.


He lounged as he walked, like one half expecting a sofa to suddenly materialize into which he could schlump down.

Flying High

It looked like a gentle evening for a sunset sail, just us two. We've had our boat a half dozen seasons now, and I finally decided to hang out an ensign flag. We lake sail, and there is no real doubt about country of origin. But it is coming close on the 4th, and I thought it would look fine waving on the backstay.

And it really does. The boat has white topsides a blood red boot stripe, and navy blue bottom paint that rolls up as she heels to the wind. The whole effect with the flag was very nautical. I never realized how much I would like a tell tail. Our new flag flapped gently in the direction of the wind and made sail trim so much easier. The wind almost died completely several times, but the light little flag would jump up and point the way in the slightest rising puff.

Suddenly around 6pm the wind kicked up fiercely, rushing from 4 knots to a howling 25. We still had all our canvas up and struggled to get room for adjusting sails. Just before we had been shouting to a tiring cross-lake swimmer, offering a float or a tow, but he would take no help. We got quickly into open water, the boat heeling over violently. I was glad we had installed a downhaul line for the jib sail out front. The foredeck is no place to be when the boat is pitching in the waves. We downed the jib, which helped a good deal, but were unable to round up to wind which would give us the slack for reducing the main sail to the first reef point.

We struggled against the full wind in the sail to get at least part way down and secure the reef nettles, binding up the unused sail. We had enough control by then to finish the first reef and haul in to the second. When I built two reef points into the sail (I lofted the sails at home on our livingroom floor and stitched them on our little Kemore portable.) I thought it overkill, but was glad to have the second reef that day.

Now, finally, with no jib up and flying just a quarter of the main, the rest reefed in, we were able to take a tack back towards the rock levee. We could see the swimmer had made it to shore and was walking back along the levee road. Despite the howling wind and the boisterous waves, she was now sailing upright on her feet and making good progress. It was good to be in control again.

And we might have spent the rest of the evening jousting back and forth down the length of the lake, but the wind was whistling in the rigging and the waves topping whitecaps. We were starting to get wet and cold. We decided to turn in.

This was mistake number one.

Turning for the docks, we prepared the docklines and tracked our progress, sighting against the rocks on the levee. We were sailing level and well, but coming in too fast. It would be a sudden stop at dockside. So we took down yet more sail.

This was mistake number two.

When the wind is driving straight toward the docks, one can take down all sails and come in at a gentle pace on bare poles. You have enough forward motion to use the rudder to bring yourself alongside the docks, crew steps out and neatly cleats off the boat. This is poetry to behold. On this day the wind was not driving straight toward the docks. By the time it became apparent that the wind was coming from too far off the port quarter it had pushed us outside the docking area approach. Hastily trying to rehoist the main sail and cut right, rounding up for another pass only saw us driven past the willows, past the concrete spillway, and driven onto the rocks of the levee. The gusts held us pinned against the shore. One brave soul tried to come to our aid, but didn't have the horsepower to pull both himself and us off the lee shore. He barely made it back out himself.

We secured the boat as best we could to the fences and posts along the shoreline. The waves were now grinding the hull against the rocks. Lines to shore would at least localize the damage. We stepped ashore and met the sheriff's man who offered to get the powerful patrol boat and haul us off the rocks and back to the dock. A night on the rocks would surely have ruined the hull.

While waiting for the rescue, my attention came back to the brave little flag beating furiously against the gale screeching through the rigging. It had ridden the wind and waves with us the whole way, and now, sole occupant of the stranded vessel, held forth as if to say, "Take heart, this is nothing so terrible. Have courage, I've seen a lot worse. Iwo Jima was windier than this. So was the smoky breeze topping the Twin Towers. Omaha Beach was a bigger challenge, so was Bull Run, Gettysburg, Bunker Hill. Think about Oklahoma City, the Nairobi Embassy, or the base of the US Marines in Kandahar. No, I've seen a lot worse. This is nothing to be concerned about. Take courage."

The Sheriff arrived in short order and hauled us off the rocks and soon we were tied off at the dock. Another few moments more had her safely aboard the trailer and snug in the parking lot. The damage is cosmetic, a little fiberglass, a little paint. A little of the kind of effort that endears a boat to her owner and gives her name meaning. Our girl is named Amada, "Beloved" in Spanish.

And the little flag is stowed safely below waiting our next outing, confident of whatever comes our way, full of the boyant spirit that floats aloft on every evening breeze. Or gale.

Fair winds and following seas.

Cause and Effect

Would the Arizona shooter have gotten off as many rounds as he did if Pima County were more supportive of concealed carry weapons? Put another way, would this tragedy have been as severe if it happened in Maricopa County where Sheriff Arpaio is a defender of concealed carry?


AZCentral.com reports Sheriff Dupnik's attitude as just the opposite.
"At a Sunday news conference, Dupnik singled out [AZ State Rep.] Harper's proposed college faculty gun bill as an example of the state's lax firearm laws."
"We're the Tombstone of the United States of America," the sheriff said, referring to the Arizona town famous for once dispensing old West justice. "I have never been a proponent of letting everybody in the state carry weapons wherever they are. That's almost where we are."


I don't know if I'd want to carry if Sheriff Dupnik was going to show up at my post-incident hearing. You'd like to think you were not going to get shafted for doing the hard thing, but..


So now there will be calls for more gun control, the Brady gang will be out in force. But the Tragedy in Tucson didn't happen because someone had a gun. It happened because ONLY ONE had a gun.

Home for the Holidays?

The popular holiday tune has travelers chuckling to one another "from Atlantic to Pacific, gee the traffic is terrific!" How like the original Christmas story, everyone is on the move.

 

Joseph and Mary are headed south for the census. The wise men caravan west out of Baghdad. The shepherds, already away from home at night, start off on a side trip to verify what angels had reported. Herod would be travelling, but his GPS is on the fritz and he is awaiting directions. (recalculating...)

 

After the child is born, they are off again, not home to Galilee, but to Egypt. What a travelogue! How many visas and border crossings would there have been if Messiah had come instead in 2011? Imagine how stressed TSA would be if every April 15 we all had to go home to pay our taxes.

 

There is so much movement going on in the Christmas story that we gloss right over the most amazing journey that happens. The Prince of Heaven comes to a dark little corner of our planet. (Well, it's not ours really, we just live here. But you get my meaning.) Divinity gets off the throne and visits humanity. Majesty takes on our poverty. That's an amazing journey.

 

So holiday traffic is nothing new. Drive safely. Have a blessed season. Watch out for angels crossing against the lights. And who knows, if we play our cards right, maybe we'll get to see what Messiah looks like coming in 2011.

 

Maranatha! Merry Christmas!

Missional Christmas Carols - part 5

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day is based on Longfellow's wrenching poem written in the depths of the War Between the States. One of the verses that didn't make it into the carol holds this powerful image: "It was as if an earthquake rent the heathstones of a continent."

 

A unified whole, the carol nevertheless drops two verses that limit the scope to that war, and rearranges the remaining five. Here is the carol in its entirety.

 

 I heard the bells on Christmas Day
    Their old, familiar carols play,
        And wild and sweet the words repeat
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    And thought how, as the day had come,
    The belfries of all Christendom
        Had rolled along the unbroken song
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    And in despair I bowed my head;
    "There is no peace on earth," I said;
        "For hate is strong, and mocks the song
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

    Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
    "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
        The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail,
    With peace on earth, good-will to men."

    Till ringing, singing on its way,
    The world revolved from night to day,
        A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

This carol is unusual in that it dwells entirely in the modern era, if you can call 1863 modern. It is included here among missional carols not for any instruction to care for the poor, or break chains of oppression, but for the ringing pronouncement that Wrong shall fail and Right prevail. While Longfellow rightly attributes this to the Living Insomniant God, our own participation with Him is certainly implied. Longfellow's poem ended with that potent verse. Seven years after the war Calkin wrote the tune and moved an intermediate verse down to the end, as by then the world had indeed finally revolved from night to day. At least temporarily.

Missional Christmas Carols - part 4

The missional turn in a carol happens when we leave Bethlehem and the shepherds (and the wee donkey too) and deal with the "so what?" for living today. Joy to the World gets at it down in verse 3: "No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow, Far as the curse is found." Here is wonderful balance between grace and action. He has seen our situation, the curse we have covered ourselves with as a blanket. And as deep and wide as those compounded sins go, he is pouring out blessings, his blessing, that will overwhelm and saturate all our sin. Our response? No more let sins grow. Inattention and careless living is complicity with the thorn bushes, as my garden shows clearly enough. The weeds have their own agenda. Laissez faire may work for the economy, but not for life. But when sins and their attendant sorrows are rooted out, then blessing is unencumbered and can roll where he will send it. Laissez faire, Let it be so.

Missional Christmas Carols - part 3

I remember every Christmas Eve program growing up we kids would sing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and get a bag of hard candies at the end of the program.   We never, however, sang the third verse: "No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in."   I was twenty one before I really got ahold of this truth.

Missional Christmas Carols - part 2

Good King Wenceslas makes no mention of Bethlehem, the Christ Child, nor even God or Christmas, although the feast of Stephen referenced falls on December 26th. It recounts the story of Bohemian Saint Vaclav who around 930AD went barefoot into the snow to give alms. He died at 28.   The last line of the fifth verse gives the missional punch:   "Therefore Christian men be sure, wealth or rank possessing, Ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing."   Originally published in a collection of Easter music, this beloved English carol was written in 1853 by John Mason Neale. The tune is much older, being collected as a springtime carol from the late middle ages. Aside from the cheerful tune, the carol also marked the church tradition of giving alms on St. Stephen's Day. Stephen was one of the seven appointed by the Apostles to care for the poor and widows as told in Acts.

Missional Christmas Carols - part 1

Millennial Christ-followers desiring a faith with street credibility will find common cause with many hymn writers of 160 years ago. O Holy Night was originally a French carol of 1847 and brought into the American song book by a Unitarian minister in 1855.

The third verse, tracking closely with the French original reads,

"Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name..."

Here the French carol feeds the emergence of the American abolitionist movement, itself an outgrowth of the Second Great Awakening. A powerful rediscovery of God leads inescapably to pracical matters of justice, not just in the life of the church, but in the economic sector as well.

Abraham Kuyper, Dutch theologian a few years later would declare, "No single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"