Axe of God?

Wednesday evening Calla and I were returning to Austin from Arlington with the old-school truck loaded to the gills with her college apartment paraphernalia and a tarp appropriately protecting the semi-precious cargo from the elements. All was well until we cleared Waco and began to hear emergency reports on the radio warning of gale-force winds, softball-sized hail, and funnel-cloud activity all up and down the I-35 corridor from Temple to Austin...only the exact route we were traveling. We kept driving...I know...I know...kinda stupid, but I figured that the only way the weather was better was where we had just left and I didn't want to go back there...and the bad weather was supposed to stay in the area for another 3-4 hours, so on we went. Part of my stubbornness is attributed to genetics...my dad was particularly mule-like in many ways, and my momma didn't raise no fool, but she sure missed a good chance. I got my driver's license when I was 15 in Louisiana and was driving way before then. I have driven broken down old school buses loaded with kids cross-country, towed trailers full of sound equipment on icy mountain passes headed to and from youth camp and made more 25-30 hour non-stop driving treks than I can count. So...what's a little inclimate weather, right?

As we got close to Temple the rain began to fall in torrents and I had to slow to 45 miles an hour just to see the road in front of me. The wind began to come in gusts that were being reported in the 60-75 mph range. Every half hour I had to find a covered place to pull over because the wind was blowing so hard it was tearing the grommets away from the tie-downs on the tarp. As we entered Temple I managed to position myself between two semis who didn't seem to mind that they were shielding me from the brutal wind. I was concentrating on the road, so I didn't notice immediately when the truck on my right peeled off to take a different highway just outside of Belton. What I did notice came a minute later when a huge gust of wind literally picked my truck up and set it down about 3 feet to the left...right where the other semi that had been escorting me was sitting. Fortunately the same burst of wind moved him a little as well...I don't think you could get a piece of paper between the space between my driver's side mirror and the side of his rig. I looked over and I think his eyes were as big as mine as I managed to slide back over into my side of the dotted line. About that time a brilliant cloud to ground lightning strike hit and I saw a monstrous wall of rain and wind off to the right that looked like it was out of the movie "Twister". From that moment on I kept expecting to see random objects flying toward me like in the movie; cows, tanker trucks, whole trees, Starbuck's billboards that talk to your cup holders... but it was just lots of rain, occasional hail and a number of "low" water crossings where curiously, the water was very "high"...go figure.

Obviously we made it home, the tarp was in shambles and we had to dry out the mattress, but other than the truck driver and I having a fear connection, we fared well. Others were not so fortunate, with Hannah's best friend (who just graduated from the Engineering School last night...congrats Kate!) having a window blown out of their apartment near the UT campus and other property damage here in Central Texas. Tornadoes and flooding have destroyed lives and property across the United States in the last two weeks. The devastating consequences of the cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in Southern China are almost too incredible to get your head around.

While the insurance companies refer to these things as "acts of God", I can't help wonder, global warming and depletion of the ozone layer notwithstanding, what the response of people who claim to "act like God", should be. We certainly are to respond to the suffering and need of the victims, that is a given...but there has got to be a deeper, basic, systemic response as well for those of us who claim to value all of the created world...not just our narcissistic navel gazing. For God so loved the WORLD...

Pling...Pling...

dg

Idiota De Mayo

Today is Cinco De Mayo, and here in Austin there have been festivities all weekend in preparation for a lively celebration that is not limited to the Hispanic population in this city that never unweirds. However, my singular most memorable Cinco De Mayo reflection has little to do with the holiday, and is actually fairly embarrassing... so it is only fitting that I tell you about it. Three years ago, my middle daughter, Hannah, was living in West Oakland, California, working with an organization called Mission Year. She and five other young adults had committed a year to live, work, play and love their neighbors in The Lower Bottoms, one of the toughest inner cities in America. Hannah decided to make this commitment right out of high school, she was 18... her five housemates, two other young women and three young men were all 22 and younger, and operated under the motto of Mission Year, "Love God...Love people... Nothing else matters". Hannah had been living in Oakland since August of 2004, so she only had about four months remaining, and her birthday was approaching. Driving to work on that Cinco De Mayo 2005, It occurred to me that it was her birthday and I had forgotten to call her. I knew she got up early since she was working every day as a teacher's aide in a kindergarten class there in West Oakland, so I decided I would just leave her a message that she would probably get later in the day. I drove in to work, sat down and wrote down some lame birthday lyrics to the tune of La Bamba (I think) and left her this dramatic, marginally funny birthday message. It was later that afternoon that I realized, Hannah's birthday is not the 5th of May...it is the 10th of May. Yeah...I know, I'm an idiot. I can't even remember my daughter's birthday...So I now I have to call her back and admit that I have forgotten that her birthday is not for another five days, and as soon as she picks up the phone she is laughing because she knows I know that I have screwed up. She forgives me...after telling me she has played it for about 50 people who know know for sure (not that they didn't already suspect it) that her dad is a goober. Of course, five days later I called and sang her another song to the tune of The Beatles' "You Say It's Your Birthday" because how could I not sing for her actual birthday?

So there it is...I managed to not call her here on Cinco De Mayo 2008 and still have several days to write this year's musical tribute to the woman, the myth, the legend that is Hannah...I'm thinking a nice Hannah Montana tune might be appropriate... naw...not a chance.

Happy Birthday Hannah!

Pling...Pling...

dg

Yael Naim - Far, Far

"Take a deep breath and dive...there's a beautiful mess inside"

Pling...Pling...

dg

Connecting the Dots...

"It takes one hundred billion interconnected cells to conjure up a coherent story of the world. But if neuroscience concludes anything, it’s that sensing and feeling and thinking and perceiving and hundreds of other seemingly separate processes are all conjoined in a huge, dynamic, and continuously revised narrative network. The brain is the ultimate storytelling machine, and consciousness is the ultimate story. Our neurons tell our selves into being." - Richard Powers

The last three weeks have been a little disorienting...that's one of the reasons I haven't blogged. First there was Easter...and while the jokes trickle out about it being the church's Super Bowl, there is a sense of this season for me, even aside from me in my minister's disguise, that always leaves me trying to recover from spiritual jet lag...if there is such a thing. Then my younger brother had to have two blockages stinted from the major blood vessel in the heart...and the well meaning friends of his in the room look at me and say..."don't heart issues generally run in the family?" Thanks...I was not aware of that tidbit of medical insight...just strap me on the gurney now as soon as he's done with it and get it over with. Then on Tuesday his daughter (and my niece) gave birth to her first child... a beautiful girl named, Lily. My niece had been on doctor's ordered bed rest for the last two months...Precious little Lily had been having some issues and baby momma was having to be very careful...but, everything turned out beautifully. On Thursday I went out to Blue Rock Texas, this remarkable artist's retreat and recording studio that was the brainchild and birthchild of Billy and Dodee Crockett . They do a house concert there once a month and some of the finest singer/songwriter/poet/canvas artists in the world have performed there. This month it was the New Agrarians, a super group of sorts with Pierce Pettis, Tom Kimmel and Kate Campbell...all established, respected and gifted singer songwriters in their own right...but together...wow...I couldn't wait. I have heard Pierce and Tom lots of times but only knew of Kate's work on CD. I was not disappointed..they were funny, and insightful and Tom also read some of his poetry, and vocally and musically they were in a groove.

It was close to the end of the first set Thursday night when I became aware that something was sneaking up on me in that room. I came to enjoy music and see friends, but as Pierce, Tom and Kate sang song after song about life in the South, I began to get pulled back involuntarily to the pictures, sounds, smells, voices, heartaches and glories of growing up in South Louisiana in the 50's and 60's. It is not that I ever really have given much thought to discarding those days as an unfortunate prison of ignorance and runaway bigotry...but the truth is, I can talk fondly about Cajun culture and share the recipe for my mom's seafood gumbo...and even tell stories about sneaking out to go see the some of spectacular black marching bands of the 60's at Southern University, Florida A&M University and Grambling. about getting bootlegged tickets to see James Brown (yes...THE James Brown) and being the only white faces in the arena, but, the reality is that those days were dots I wanted to selectively connect, while leaving out some of the others. The mosaic of landscape and experience, the quilt of personalities and nightmares, brought a growing crescendo of memories that made me both ashamed and deeply proud. Sitting at age 6 or 7 on the porch of my Cajun grandmother and grandfather's white frame house at the edge of the bayou in White Castle, Louisiana... drinking coffee out of demitasse cup of coffee so strong that it was three parts milk, two parts sugar and one part coffee, while my 7 uncles (my mom's brothers) all played zydeco music complete with accordions, steel guitar, harmonica, acoustic guitars, electric guitar, and drum kit...It was fabulous, and I was treated to a an imaginative reunion concert in my head while I listened to Pierce, Tom and Kate play on.

Tonight I read an interview with novelist Richard Powers concerning his latest work, The Echo Maker, that was passed along to me by my friend, Bob. It was this line "it’s that sensing and feeling and thinking and perceiving and hundreds of other seemingly separate processes are all conjoined in a huge, dynamic, and continuously revised narrative network" that got me to thinking about the connectedness of all the events of the last three weeks. Donald Miller, in "Searching For God Knows What" contends that perhaps the reason narrative is so intricately intertwined into our existence is that God, the Creator, purposely designed the hardware of his creation, not for robot-like obedience, but flesh and blood improv players in the great story and stage.

Today I performed the wedding for a young woman a who was in the youth group I served a number of years ago. She was kidnapped by her estranged father as a preschooler and didn't see her mother again until over a decade later, when in novella-like fashion, a random correspondence led to the revelation of her whereabouts and her ensuing rescue. She literally had to be reintroduced to normal teenage existence and her mom, faithful school officials and loving church volunteers patiently helped her take baby steps back to normality, and then to graduate from high school and then from college... and today I got the privilege of officiating her wedding.

So what is the connection between civil rights songs of the 60's and a baby being born in 2008? What does listening to a family front porch zydeco band have to do with my brother's heart surgery? What does watching the Drum Major from Florida A&M raise his scepter to the sky and lean back so far that the tip of his fuzzy hat touch the ground behind him, and a wedding in Austin, Texas have to do with each other? It's the Story...it is my story...it is our story...it is the STORY...that lives deep inside of every living creature, painted indelibly by the Artist, and recounted in the depths of the soul by the Storyteller.

Once upon a time...

Pling...Pling...

dg

The Delusion God...

So I'm sitting in the entryway at Journey a little after midnight greeting folks who are here for a slice of time in our annual Easter prayer vigil. We start on 3 p.m. on Good Friday and go through 8 a.m. on Easter morning. Different folks sign up to take anywhere from a half hour to two hours praying. The other thing you need to know is that since we began doing this two years ago, Steve Fenech has created some amazing environments for prayer during these times. Two years ago we had a guided path of multicolored fabrics that led to a meditative candle-lit room. Last year Steve and his crew created a labyrinth to walk with stations a long the way. This year he has created a path to walk that is sand for one third of the path, dirt and soil for another third and sod/grass for the final third. The pray-ers take off their shoes and socks to walk, and there are marked stations along the way to guide the journey...it is beautiful, and folks come out from their time moved and in some cases with tears because of the power of their time there.

Which brings me to my query...On Wednesday Calla, Brian Hill and Bob Carlton and I attended a book signing at that wonderful Austin independent book store called BookPeople. The author was Richard Dawkins, the author of "The God Delusion". The place was packed and Dawkins did not disappoint as he delivered his apologetic for his own particular brand of atheism and disdain for religion of all shapes and sizes, but in particular, Christianity. He is a brilliant, well-read, passionate, funny, articulate ambassador for unbelief and it is no wonder his is the public face and voice of the anti-religion movement. He has been interview on public radio and television, on The Daily Show and the Colbert Report and has a huge following and readership. I can understand why...some of his criticism of the church and religion is warranted...many of his accusations of intolerance and bigotry aimed at organized religion are dead on accurate. I found myself wishing there was such an articulate voice from the God Squad who could speak intelligently as an advocate for Jesus and his followers who was also not a misogynist, bigoted jerk...who spoke and lived like Jesus...with love. I still think Dawkins has thrown the baby out with the bathwater, and when he gets to the nuances of issues like Christians and Jews who accept evolution as the work of an Intelligent Designer, he resorts to double speak, dismissive generalities and a rather sad resignation to a nihilist inevitability. But he is very good, and I enjoyed listening to him.

So just as I am ready to chalk the time listening to this able ambassador for atheism as beneficial but off target, I watch ABC's Nightline that very evening and they are running a story about a group of fundamentalist men who take children to the museum to look at the exhibits concerning the formation of the earth and the development of man and using those displays to teach creationism and biblical inerrancy. Dawkins was right...again...the world is full of idiots and many of them flaunt their ignorance in the name of religion. I performed a wedding tonight out at Horseshoe Bay before I drove back into town to take my shift a the warehouse. It was a delightful night with a delighful young couple, but sitting at the reception , I got into an interesting discussion with a man simply because he knew I was a minister and he wated to debate theology. I'm perfectly willing to do so...I certainly am not a Biblical texts expert, but I know some crap and enjoy every now and then talking about the crap I know. Except tonight, because again, Dawkins was right...there really does seems to be a delusion in force, and it comes not as a delusion about there being a god...but rather in the delusion of some who follow God who think that they are God...or at least they know him well enough that they can speak for him and pass judgement on all who don't agree with their rules...not God's mind you...their rules. I really don't blame Dawkins...he has plenty of case studies to prove his point...BUT...I watch these folks come out of the room from their time with God, and there is no doubt, intellectual or otherwise, that they have encountered a mysterious, unpredictable, un-tameable spirit being and no clinical research, scientific hypotheses, or categorical deniability could convince me otherwise... There may be another kind of delusion at work here...but I'll let Dawkins figure that one out for himself...

Pling...Pling...

dg

And, Oh Yeah...Pack a Little Courage

The South by Southwest Film Festival began today, so since I was at a meeting in downtown Austin at noon today I couldn't help but notice the 6th Street/Congress area getting that festival vibe again. There were celebs everywhere including Morgan Fairchild, Luke Wilson, Mike Judge, ZZ Top, Mariska Hargitay, and those were just the ones getting a soy latte at Progress Coffee. While I don't have the cash to get a film festival badge, I always peruse the Chronicle to get a description of as many of the films as I can...The critics and festival goers are anticipating the viewing of such movies as "21", "Baghead", "American Teen", "Goliath", and "Lou Reed's Berlin" to name a few... There are a couple more that I know of that are not getting the critic's buzz, yet, I am really interested in how they do. They both have to do with the subject of human trafficking and, in my mind the display of great courage. Justin Dillon, who along with "Not For Sale's" Dave Batstone were at Journey in September to share the call to respond to the international issue of human slavery. If you remember Justin was working on a documentary film entitled "The Concert to End Slavery" which included interviews and music performances by writers, musicians, politicians, actors and actresses. We got to see excerpts from the film which was in progress...well Justin is having his first screening of TCTES this Wednesday March 12 at The Village Alamo Drafthouse. Our buddy, Brandon Demaris, has been talking with an Austin filmmaker who is showing a documentary this week in which he spent several years chronicling the story of several young boys who were forced to become child soldiers in Uganda.

One of the interesting aspects of immersing oneself in the story of the last days of Jesus' ministry is the inescapable realization that he began facing the inevitability that his refusal to play by accepted standard religious operating procedure was going to get him killed. Before the spectacular raising of his friend Lazarus from the dead, the scriptures tell us that while talking to Lazarus bereaved sisters "Jesus wept". I believe that he partly wept because he loved his friends, and when your friends are sad, you are sad...even if you know you are about to bring one of them back to life. But I also think that it could have been more than that...I think Jesus knew that if he does this public magic, and does the unthinkable...reclaim someone from the grave and put them back among the breathing...he has crossed the point of no return with the Jewish religious leaders...they will kill him to silence him. A few days later around a campfire in Caesarea Phillipi, Jesus drops the foreboding bombshell by telling them that they are going to head for Jerusalem and Passover...and when they get there, he will be killed. To which Simon Peter responds.."Well that's a no-brainer, we just won't go to Jerusalem!" Jesus' corresponding words are some of the most passionate and emotion filled in all the scripture as he screams at Peter, "Get behind me Satan!" Courage...the courage to make films about human trafficking...to be brave and courageous to take the steps to stamp out human slavery...the amazing courage to risk your life to escape being trafficked in the 21st century. The courage it takes today to live like Jesus in a world that killed him once and would do it again if it had the chance. Love rattles the cages of power. Courage gives a voice to love even in the very moment it is being betrayed and bought off for 30 pieces of silver...or less. Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor says, "Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." Martin Luther King Jr., said, "Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question,'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right."

As we travel the Lenten Journey together, our path is headed straight for Jerusalem and to sure opposition and danger. Courage is not the absence of fear or anxiety...it is proceeding to follow the voice of God in spite of the presence of fear and anxiety. Jesus wept, and then set his face toward Jerusalem. Not sure where you are headed tomorrow, but I pray for your courage to love in the face of hate and evil...and that you will be joined by a bunch of us who pledge to walk and love with you.

Pling...Pling...

dg

Separation of Church, State, and Me...

I was eating lunch with a group of friends this past week, and as we headed to our vehicles after the meal, one of my friends saw my "Woody Jones for Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, Court of Appeals" bumper sticker on my truck and jokingly commented, "well so much for the separation of church and state." We laughed, but it did kinda hit a sore spot with me, because as a minister I have almost always steered clear of making the agenda of the church I represent, a political agenda. Now justice issues are a completely different thing, but espousing a particular partisan platform or individual in a political party seemed to be an abuse of influence and power (such as it is)...other folks take a different stance and I honor their choice to do so, but I have tried to operate differently when dealing directly with the people I serve in my local community of faith. Woody happens to be a member of our faith community (and an amazing guy of integrity and wisdom) and is running unopposed, but I guess technically my friend was right. So where is the line between taking a stand for issues of justice, and pimping a party?

Interestingly, Saturday Night Live began their show tonight with a skit spoofing the presidential debate held here in Austin Thursday night. The twist was that the debate questioners were so enamored with Barak Obama that they threw easy lob questions to Obama and hard-nosed questions to Hilary, and then never gave her a chance to answer. They were obviously satirizing bias in the media, but curiously did exactly the same thing during the Weekend Update segment, unabashedly touting Hilary's propensity for a certain approach as a positive rather than a negative. Again, they are an entertainment show, so really, all bets are off, but the point of good political comedy usually is to shine the light on absurdity and deception in the world of government...and it sure seemed like they ended up spoofing themselves as well as politics.

So, the Woody Jones sticker notwithstanding, I have certainly had strong feelings, but have not made a public declaration since I put a "J'aime Jimmy" placard for Jimmy Carter in my South Louisiana front yard as a newly graduated college and seminary student. Here was a guy running for the nation's highest office that seemed to have personal integrity and honesty (there was the whole Playboy Magazine interview where he admitted that while he had never cheated on his wife Roslyn, there had been occasions when he had "lusted in his heart"), and it came from an unashamed, but not proselytizing follower of Jesus. He had a rough go as a president, having to spend most of his term dealing with the Iran captives issue, but time has borne out his personal integrity and now is seen as one of the most influential ex-presidents ever because of his work in Habitat for Humanity and world diplomacy through the Carter Center.

Then 32 years later comes a young, dynamic, passionate Barack Obama, and for the first time since Jimmy I am inexplicably drawn to this man and his message... and I really do believe that not just HE, but WE can change the way things are going down in this country. Rick (my pastor and friend) and I attempted to crash the Democratic Party Debate watch party here Thursday night since Hilary and Obama were going to make an appearance there. We were playing a hunch that one of our Journey members who worked at the watch party location could sneak us in the back door (yeah, I know, shades of 7th grade). As it turned out the Secret Service presence was so tight that it was not feasible (at least if we wanted to stay out of jail), so we went down to Sholtz's Beer Garden where the Obama watch party was being held and watched the debate from there. Friday night I went down and stood at the back edges of a crowd of 20,000 people who gathered at the State Capital to hear Obama speak for an hour. There is something about him...and there is something about his message that is unique in any politician and national leader I have seen in 30 years. In one of the lines from his speech Friday night, addressing the fact that his critics say that he is unproven and not tough enough to be the commander in chief, he responded, "I have had to be tough all of my life, I grew up in America with the name, Barack Obama". I can respect that. At least he didn't have to be in Christian ministry with the name David Gentiles.

So, in deference to the folks who have strong political opinions that differ with mine in my community of faith, I will not campaign, or make agreeing on that issue a test of friendship or fellowship...but I will still believe that, "Yes We Can"... And, I'm leaving Woody's bumper sticker on the truck...

Pling...Pling...

dg