John Denver ...Poems Prayers and Promises..

A week of beginnings and endings

Life and death, new and old, fresh and stale, and the world keeps on turning. It has been one of those weeks when reminders of that fact are all around. Ah yes, I am listening to vinyl right now...John Denver's "Poems and Prayers and Promises" and that may be part of it...I saw him perform live in 1972 at Baylor University in Waco Hall, and have always been prone to sappy sentimentalism when I listen to John, but occasionally that's the guy I am.

I've been a single parent for the last 14 years. 14 years ago this week I received divorce papers in the mail. I wasn't expecting them. We were in our 14th year of marriage. The girl's mom had moved out a couple of weeks earlier. The previous six months had been spent in counseling, discussions...some of them more civil than others...and agonizing prayer, but as the new year of 1995 rolled in I became a single dad raising 3 girls, 11, 8, and 7 years old. I thought I knew what the challenges of being a single parent were...after all, I had been a youth minister for almost 25 years and had been a parent for over 12, what was there not to know? You can guess that a single guy with 3 young daughters would have his hands full and his eyes opened and that certainly was the case, but I wouldn't trade my life and my relationship with my girls since then for anything.

So a week ago, I get a call from Hannah who is driving from Nashville to Asheville, NC and who gets her first speeding ticket. She's been driving since she was 16 and has never gotten a ticket of any kind. She's lived in inner-city Oakland for a year working with the poor at 18 years old. She has excelled at Belmont University, winning the Outstanding Freshman Service Award early on, and since establishing herself as a leader on campus in community development...she can handle her first speeding ticket.

Earlier this week Calla and I were scheduled to drive all of her stuff back up to Arlington for the new semester of classes in nursing and into her new apartment. I have done that for all three girls throughout their college careers Baylor, Belmont, UNC Greensboro and UTA. So, last weekend she sheepishly approached and asked if it would be OK if Alex, her boyfriend, borrowed his dad's truck and moved her back to Arlington. My first reaction was, "NO, it isn't... that's my job...I'm the dad...I've moved all of your sisters and you up until now and no boyfriend (Alex is a good guy) is going to take that privilege away from me." I sat with it for a while, and saw that he REALLY wanted to do this and she REALLY wanted him to do this, (they have been dating for over a year) and this was not about me it was about them, I relented and said yes.

Last night Ariele, my eldest, sat in a cushioned chair next to her co-author Bob Carlton, in front of a crowd of folks at Book People for a book-signing to support her and Bob's book, "Barack Obama: An American Story". I watched as she responded to questions and then sat and chatted with the many folks who stood in line to have their book personally endorsed. I flashed back to some of the thoughts I had 14 years ago about how these beautiful, talented young ladies would survive the experience of their parents divorcing, their mother starting a new family and moving across the country, having to put up with a well-intentioned, but clueless single dad, who was also attempting to be a minister 50-60 hours a week to other people kids as well as be the primary nurturer, protector and provider for his own. They endured a great deal, but I look back on that ending and beginning 14 years ago and I with great pride believe that those three young women are among the finest women on the planet. I am genuinely proud of each one of them.

So, I'm admitedley a little nostalgic and perhaps a bit maudlin, (as the John Denver listening would suggest) but as we approach another ending and new beginning next Tuesday (with the inauguration of a good man into the highest, amd most unenviable responsibility in the land) I am filled with gratitude, and with hope that I can see miracles happen again, as God and his creation take difficult times and forge new beginnings.

Pling...Pling...

dg

Slumdog Millionaire Film Clip - Are You Nervous?

Slumdog Millionaire...and Hope

My friend, JJ Peterson, one of the funniest, most talented (hey, he danced in a Missy Elliot video!)and one of the most compassionate human beings on the planet, first recommended Slumdog, and I also read the reviews locally in the Austin American Statesman... but finally got around to seeing it with Ariele, Hannah and Calla last night. My expectations were high, which usually does not bode well, but when I left the theater I found myself wiping the tears away (yeah, I know you are shocked), but also wrestling with the tag-team emotions of exhileration, deep sadness, grudging admiration, simmering hope and unabashed joy. I don't know if it will win tons of awards. It wouldn't surprise me if it did, because it was beautifully shot, well cast, and brilliantly acted, but I don't know much about the technical side of the movie business. I just know what moves my soul, challenges my head and grabs my heart...and Slumdog did that. Perhaps, it was that I had just spent the week before immersing myself in the lives of the slumdogs of the 1st century Palestinian world, the shepherds, in preparation to talk at Journey Sunday morning. Maybe it is my basic inclination to pull for the underdog (Go Tribe and Baylor Bears), and my inability to detach myself fully from on the screen brutality and injustice when I know the same is happening as we inhale and exhale in this existential moment. I'm not sure I can explain it, but it worked for me...the fairytale ending for the beleagered protagonist was not a turn-off for me...and while I am a sucker for Bad News Bears and every other kids sports sadsack to city champ story, this seemed somehow differrent. Even if it wasn't, I liked it...

I believe that God doesn't kick slumdogs, shepherds, or any other marginalized outsider to the curb...there is hope, there is grace, there is justice...and there is love. That's what Jamal was ultimately chasing...aren't we all?

I encourage you to see it...and believe it.

Pling...Pling...

dg

Home for Christmas...

As far as I'm concerned there really only needs to be one guy singing Christmas carols every year...Bing Crosby. He sang a whole lot of other stuff in his illustrious career, but seems to get remembered these days primarily as the guy who sings White Christmas better than anybody, past or present, on the planet. The great debate every year at our house is which is better, "Holiday Inn" or "White Christmas" the two Bing Crosby Christmas movies released several years apart that prominently feature the song White Christmas. I prefer "Holiday Inn" because it was chronologically first, but my girls like "White Christmas" better because Fred Astaire is really mean in "Holiday Inn". By the way, I just reconsidered and the only other Christmas album that should be allowed is the "John Denver and the Muppets" Christmas album. I'm not kidding...it is brilliant in every way! Animal rocks!

Anyway, my other favorite Christmas song to hear Bing sing is another World War II era song entitled, "I'll be Home for Christmas". It, of course, has been covered many, many times since Bing, but there is something about hearing that smooth, rolling, mellow, baritone voice promising that whatever it takes, he'll not let anything stand In the way of being with the ones he loves at home for Christmas. My mom and dad lived in the same house on Myrtlewood Street in Baton Rouge for almost thirty years. It was the place I came back to when I was in college and then after I was married with my own family. A number of years ago my parents moved to the woods in Mississippi and my mom still lives there presently, even though my dad passed away 4 years ago. I go there to see her, but it's not really like going "home". My girls are 25, 22, and 21 and have been off at college and across the country for the last several years. Because of traveling to different churches to minister and other financial reasons in recent years, they don't have a childhood homestead to come back to either. Almost 2 years ago I decided to downsize and leave the suburbs to move into the city to be nearer to the population center of Austin as well as nearer the warehouse. I moved into a two bedroom,one bath duplex that Brian and Lorraine generously rent to me for much less than it is worth, but as many who have done this will agree, moving from a four-bedroom house and all of the crap you buy to fill it up to a smaller place is an adjustment... a very healthy one, but an adjustment nonetheless. When it is just Cleveland and I we have more room than we need, but when all three girls are home as they have been for the holidays, it becomes very interesting. It still is no problem because I know that the space we are in is many, many times larger than the homes and shelters that the majority of the world live in, so, I am grateful on many levels. I guess what I am saying is that, for me, this Christmas I am reminded again that Bing had it right...I won't always have the gift of either being home or having my family all in one place at every holiday. As the years pass we lose family members to death and life. I pray daily for my friends Scott and Sarah who spend this Christmas without little Thomas who would have been enjoying his third Christmas had not cancer stolen him away last August. My dad was killed in an automobile accident in December of '04 and he loved family all of the time, but especially having as many of them around as possible at Christmas...mainly the kids who loved to argue with him about whether he was a "sweet-tater" or an "agi-tater".

So...I'm humming along with Bing...and enjoying my amazing daughters, and remembering not to take a minute of it for granted. And go rent "Holiday Inn"...Bing's heirs will thank you.

Pling...Pling...

dg

Unapologetic Plugs...

UP#1...

On Monday evening I picked up my oldest daughter, Ariele, from the Austin airport. She has lived the the last two and a half years in the beautiful, incredibly hip city of Portland as a writer and editor with The Burnside Writer's Collective and part-time coffee barista at several local purveyors of java delicacies. She is moving back to Austin, which is a bittersweet experience for her, because of her acquired taste for the loveliness of all that is Portland, OR, and her deep love for the weirdness of Austin. On Tuesday we were hanging out and she was headed to a cool gathering that occurs every Tuesday night in this town at The Tavern, called Austin Inklings...a varied and diverse collection of folks nudged into conversations of life and faith over a pint or two by local book reviewer and renegade pastor, Kester Smith. Before I let her go I talked her into going to Book People, Austin's quintessential independent book store, with me to run an errand. She's already a Book People convert, so it did not take much coaxing, but it meant a great deal for me to have her there, because my mission was to pick up a book from the desk that I had ordered... Barack Obama: An American Story co-authored by Bob Carlton and Ariele Gentiles. Yup...that's right...Ariele's book. Well, Ariele's and my dear friend Bob Carlton, who was kind enough to ask Ariele to co-write with him. So when the clerk brought the book to me and rang it up, I casually mentioned, "Oh by the way...this woman right here...this is one of the authors...and another by the way...she's my daughter." Several weeks ago when I told Ariele I had her book on order from Book People she told me not to go pay for one because she had plenty of copies and she had planned to give me as many as I wanted. My response was...and every parent in the blogosphere will relate..."Dearest biological offspring, if you think you are going to rob me from the joy of informing the bookseller that the author of the book I am purchasing from his establishment is my brilliant, beautiful, talented daughter...you are CRAZY GIRL!" So I've used the picture of the book cover above as my facebook profile for the last month or so, and this is unapologetic plug #1...the book was published by Zondervan and Youth Specialties targeting high school students who want to talk about the life and faith of President-elect Obama, but it is well written, (I am, admittedly, a tad biased) and stands on its own for adults as well and is available online at the YS website, amazon.com, and all of your standard booksellers.

UP#2...

If you don't know the writing of my friend, Milton Brasher-Cunningham, then you are missing a rare treat in the literary world. A singer/songwriter, poet, novelist, pastor, and chef, Uncle Milty's blog Don't Eat Alone is a not-to-be-missed delight in the blog universe. He does an beautiful Lenten Journal entry each day during the season of Lent and is currently doing the same thing with a daily post in his Advent Journal. I recommend all of those things to you, but I particularly want you to be aware of a little piece of Christmas poetry that Milton wrote several years ago at the request of his amazing wife Ginger, who is the pastor of a church in the Raleigh/Durham area. The result was "A Faraway Christmas". The story is written in a Dr. Seuss kind of rhyme, with something to say to most any aged person about what would happen if we shared ourselves with one another. Milton has recorded an audio CD complete with musical background and other extras and if you are looking for a very special gift or something to use in a class or Christmas worship service, I recommend it highly. We used "A Far Away Christmas last year during our Christmas eve service at Journey, and it was a beautifully moving part of that special evening.
You can go to Milton's blog and look for the order box on the left.

The only other plug I will tell you about is the hair plugs that my Uncle Whitney got in the early sixties to combat his receding hairlines. I WILL apologize for that one... somebody needed to.

Pling...Pling...

dg

Election Afterglow and Acrimony

I kept the front page of the Austin American Statesman from last Tuesday announcing the historic news...Barack Obama had become the nation's first African-American President. It has now been a full week since the results have had a chance to sink in, and frankly I am a little disoriented by the reactions...both positive and negative. In the interest of full disclosure, I voted for Obama and cheered when he emerged victorious from the fray...and I am not casually tossing around terms here...this election was a fray in every sense of the word. As a child of the 50's and a teenager in the 60's, I witnessed on television the struggles of African-Americans and those who stood with them in the quest for equality under the law. I saw with my own eyes the rage and bitterness in my own family and with my classmates as in my 7th grade year segregation was outlawed in Baton Rouge and my public school became open to students of any race. There were black kids beaten up in the bathrooms, behind the stadium after school as well as exclusion and ridicule at lunch and during assemblies. It was ugly for a while, but but by the time I became a freshman, the incidents in school (there were still many in the culture) became rare and quickly dealt with. One classmate that I admired the most was Agnes Jackson. She was smart and articulate and was genuinely one of the kindest people at our school. I kinda had a little crush on her, but never acted on it, mostly because I was a coward and knew it would be ugly at home with my dad and granddad. We had several classes together down through our high school years and we worked together on a English project in Ms. Peavey's lit class, and Agnes told me bad "knock knock" jokes...but that was the extent of our friendship... random, forced and not very authentic. It makes me sad to think that I really was an idiot and cluelessly overlooked the possibility of a valuable relationship. Of course she was probably saying..."OK I have to work with this loser in class but, after that, I'm outta here." Agnes graduated near the top of our class and went off to study at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, which at the time was an exclusive women's college...it is now part of Harvard University. I haven't heard from her or about her since high school. My point in that long story is to say that after the news of the Obama victory, one of the first people I thought of was Agnes, whom I had not thought of in years. I think the reason she came to mind was that I remember believing back in high school, that if we ever could have a woman president, Agnes could be that woman. It made me sad that it had taken so long for the color barrier to be broken and, had me wondering how much longer it would be until we had a woman in that office. If Agnes is interested, I'm writing her in in 2012. It has made me proud to be an American to watch millions of citizens of all races exult in the long-awaited reality of a person being elected to the highest office in the land, without regards to race or gender.

The part that has particularly disoriented me, however, is the flood of ugly, mean-spirited, and outrageous things that have been said following Obama's victory. There will always be sore losers in any competition, from livingroom monopoly games and Little League contests on the sandlot, to the presidential race. I've been particulary impressed with John McCain's gracious and encouraging congratulations of Obama's victory as well as his pledge to work together with the President-elect in the future. But when conservative radio shock jock Rush Limbaugh declares that he is not ready to work together for the good of the country because he believes the new president cannot be trusted...that is something I have NEVER heard in my years on the planet. Buck Burnette, an admirable, healthy, seeming role model of a young man was dismissed from the University of Texas football team last week after placing a regrettably, racist comment on his Facebook status immediately following the election results. That was a costly oops... Speaking of Facebook, my beautiful youngest daughter pointed out to me a new poster that Facebook members can choose to post on their profile that has a tombstone on it that bears the inscription, "The United States of America...Born July 4th, 1776...Died November 4th 2008". You probably have seen or heard many more. I have always heard that you should avoid talking about three particular subjects if you want to keep out if trouble...race, religion and politics. Unfortunately for many, those three subjects have been inexorably intertwined throughout this election and keep the fires of bitterness and anger stoked.

While I supported Obama, I do not agree with him on every issue, and I do not think he is our next political or religious messiah. What I do think is that for the first time in a long time we have a legitimate shot at stopping long enough to examine the way we've done business with each other and with the world, and we have a man at the helm whose priorities are focused on the "least of these" as well as the powers that be. I'm reminded of a poet, Thiruvalluvar, who wrote a generation before the birth of Christ these words of prophecy, "The only gift is giving to the poor. All else is exchange." My prayer for our President-elect is that he will not be deterred from returning this nation to a people of service, compassion and generosity, and that he will surround himself with people of integrity and intellect and courage. The task is daunting and he will make some mistakes, but I long to follow a leader who is willing to err on the side of love and sacrifice, rather than control and ego. And, I'll readily admit to being naive and idealistic.

...Or I could just write-in Agnes Jackson's name for Commander-In-Chief in the next election.

Pling...Pling...

dg