Happy Birthday, Dad!

I don’t think he’ll mind my announcing the milestone he achieves today on his 85th birthday. That’s a lot of proverbial water under the bridge and congratulations are in order. I was never shortchanged on my Christmas birthday because Dad was always willing to share his with me. Literally thousands of lives have been touched by his remarkable ministry, and he continues to touch lives today (when I called him this morning he was just about to depart on his Meals on Wheels deliveries). As Christmas 2008 approaches I give thanks for both my parents and all they have given me over the years.

This is my last day at work before my Christmas break (yes, I respect that there are other holidays this time of year, but for me, it’s Christmas). I am so grateful that it will be possible for Mary and me to share the festivities with our daughters and the ever-growing circle of family and friends they bring in. I pray that your holidays may be as blessed.

To entice a quick visit to Incite between now and January 5, 2009, I offer the work of my two favorite essayists for your perusal and enjoyment:

Listen to the Kids by Nancy Gibbs

The Teddy Awards by Joe Klein

Christmas Is Coming!

Christmas is finally almost here! At least the holiday is almost here. For those who are more comfortable with a static, linear worldview, holidays come and then they go. It’s less comfortable to abstract to a dynamic comprehension that considers something like Christmas to pervade in an ongoing fashion. Thus we lightly quip that every day should be Christmas, or Easter, or Thanksgiving, or Sunday, etc, but the words are empty because we keep marking the occasions by dates on the calendar. I’m looking forward to a time of reflection and relaxation as I gather with my family, and I’m hoping that there may be an opportunity to ponder the profound meaning of God dwelling with us. Then Christmas can—rather than marking the end for another calendar year—become the beginning of a relationship which has no end.

Friday Update

Rachel and Steve thoughtfully included the s30incite site meter when setting Incite up for me, and according to today’s report it looks like the five-thousandth visit to my blog might coincide with the New Year. As of yesterday there have been 4,858 total visits which are averaging nine per day. That I’m no mathematician is readily apparent, but my real intention was to just say thank you to everyone who entertains my need to process words.

Has Anyone Seen the Clark County District Attorney?

An hour ago we received this e-mail from the Clark County Manager:

Dear Employees,

Due to today's winter storm, department heads may use their discretion to send home all non-essential employees. We encourage employees to exercise caution while driving due to slick roadways with possible snow accumulation. See attached news release for more details. In addition, we understand the Clark County School District will make a decision early Thursday morning (around 4:30 A.M.) about whether schools will be closed tomorrow.

Virginia Valentine

As I said, that was an hour ago. Our department head is the distinguished Clark County District Attorney, David Roger. No word yet. I'm guessing Mr. Roger may have already gone home, along with his assistant district attornies, directors, assistant directors, et al. So there you have it, us n...oppressed are watching Henderson city employees sent home at 3 PM, McCarran International Airport closing, cancellations all over the city, and waiting for word of liberation from the Master(s) that will never come.

It’s the Children, Stupid!

Incite went dark yesterday as I celebrated Christmas with my coworkers for the entire lunch hour. I can get away with the reference to Christmas because, to the best of my knowledge, we don’t have any infidels on our team. The food and cameraderie were akin to what is probably experienced in prisons and other institutions that let the n…the oppressed observe the holiday. Ah, Christmas!

This brings me to the truly miraculous nature of this holy day. Whenever a tradition is observed for centuries it runs the risk of losing its meaning, or of it at least becoming corrupted and diluted. Literally a child of Christmas, I would encourage us all to look at the central figure of this profound myth: a child. And not a child of means or prominence but a possibly bastard child born in the lowliest of conditions in the outback nowhere. Christians have prettied the story up over two millennia, but the raw original tale is truly incredible to the rational mind.

So Christmas really is for children! It’s about children. It elevates children as represented by the Christ child to the status of God dwelling with us. Imagine how our world would change for the better if every birth was celebrated as sacred. (I’m going to have to find the poem that Dad always used in his candlelight services which even Google isn’t turning up.) The glory of Christmas revealed in a child is that it holds true for all children, and when we come to see the Christ in every child we will begin to understand what the reign of God is really all about.

Scrooge 1, Nice 0

As anyone who knows us might expect, my comments last Thursday generated a heated discussion between Mary and me. It also prompted Josh to offer some sage counsel. Mary doesn’t like my use of the ‘n’ word, and quite frankly, neither do I. Mary literally hates the ethnic slur, and so do I. Mary’s best point in the debate was that I don’t deserve to try to identify with African Americans who have been subjected to slavery, discrimination, and the like. This is also true. I know nothing of the black experience. As I explained to her, however, my limited vocabulary doesn’t provide any other word that is as “inciteful”.

So it is in this context that I now open it up to those who read my blog to help me discover the appropriate word that powerfully calls attention to the wholly unacceptable regard of those who consider themselves superior for those whom they consider inferior. This phenomenon is what essentially accounts for all the world’s ills: men consider themselves superior to women, adults consider themselves superior to children, educated consider themselves superior to uneducated, whites consider themselves superior to blacks, and so on. Jesus, as the Christ, revealed that all are equal in the eyes of God and that judgment therefore—that process of assessing what is superior and what is inferior—is the sole jurisdiction of the Creator. As children of God (which includes everyone) there is nothing that justifies an attitude of condescending superiority toward that which is perceived as inferior.

I’m all ready to get on with the happy preparations for the upcoming holidays and set this issue on the back burner until after the New Year. That’s when I’ll revisit it and see if together we can successfully find the word that appropriately speaks of all who are discriminated against as less than equal.

A Break from Christmas

It’s Thursday, my Friday, and I’m just not in the mood to process much more. Our annual training in IRS certification, security, and confidentiality was today, and at it’s conclusion I innocently asked why—when we’re subject to individual and governmental fines up to $250,000 plus imprisonment for infractions—isn’t there a paper shredder at every work station? The female canine that glories in being our assistant director informed me that because the County pays $200 per shredder it was not economically feasible in these constrained times. Review-Journal: are you paying attention? Clark County is paying $200 per shredder that can be purchased at Target for one-tenth the cost? Please! I am so tired of arrogant, condescending elitism from the likes that idolize Sarah Palin and her wardrobe. There’s no time like Christmas for us niggers (please see 10/23/08) to stand up and take Master down.

Happy Birthday, Janie!

In 2005, nineteen-year-old Jane married twenty-year-old John, and barely ten months later begat little Janie. Janie was barely two when her mother and father divorced, and part of her third birthday celebration was to accompany her mom to our office to apply for child support. Unless John miraculously adopts a new sense of responsibility for Janie, she won’t be getting any financial support from him anytime soon. I can’t help but wonder what Christmas is going to be like for all the Janies and Johnnies in this “Christian” nation of ours that so piously condemns choice and same sex marriages. At least when John marries George there won’t be any little “begats” running around unless their adoptive family has survived a rigorous screening process. And I am compelled to ask where all the pro-lifers are. That little life they insist was full-blown at conception is now just a pawn in legal wrangling that proves nothing more than that John and Jane think of no one but themselves. Congratulations, Janie, you were saved for your destiny by irrational zealots! As I wrote yesterday, Christmas is about the love of and for family. For as long as Americans tolerate and condone countless scenarios like the one I’ve just described, we can forget about ever genuinely grasping the reason for the season.

Cleaning Up the Mess

The nativity of the New Testament is just plain messy. For example, if the emphasis is upon virgin birth, why not just leave Joseph out of the picture altogether? This may explain why only Matthew and Luke ventured into this murky area (with quite different narratives) while Mark and John were willing to forego it. Although more rhetorical than practical, I always respected the United Methodist doctrine which states that faith cannot be defined as making the unbelievable believable. Fully in keeping with a centuries-old Judeo-Christian tradition, the story of Jesus’ birth was never written as historical fact, but rather as metaphor. The wish to restore the reason to the season must begin here. To genetically test for paternity, etc, completely misses the point. The Advent of Christ instead profoundly focuses upon a man, a woman, and a child. God’s only begotten son—a classically ambiguous example of what organized religion has done with and to the story—is revealed to humankind in a most fundamental way, and in today’s world we would do well to focus our attention on the love of family instead of magic. Christmas is the celebration of the gift of love to our world by the most natural and ordinary means imaginable: the family. Are you hoping to experience the miracle of Christmas? Do you really want to experience peace on Earth through goodwill toward all humankind? Do you really want to see a better world for yourself and your children? It’s no harder or easier than looking to the source of your being for the answer. Phillips Brooks, to my way of thinking, had a better grasp of the true meaning of Christmas than anyone I know accompanied by the ability to put it in unforgettable words:

How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is giv’n;
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.

O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM

It’s Beginning to Not Look Like Christmas

I’ve given a lot of thought to Tamara’s comments on September 22, to wit: “I did not respond earlier, because I know of your illness and thought perhaps you were not feeling well - I did not want to aggravate the situation.” My illness, of course, is chronic myelogenous leukemia and it is true that there are some days when I don’t feel as well as others. But it seems an odd way to explain my comments critical of Sarah Palin.

More than aches and pains (which may just accompany growing older) a terminal diagnosis such as mine lends a degree of certitude to an already inevitable truth: I am going to die. It is in the context of this reality that I admit to a certain directness which not everyone (or anyone?) appreciates. Michael & The Mechanics’ haunting The Living Years powerfully raises the notion that if there’s something on our mind we had better say it now because there is no guarantee that we will be around to say or hear it later.

It may be time to duck and cover because I’m experiencing that sense of directness about Christmas this year. After decades of crass commercialization the Zeitgeist may finally be for genuinely reforming the observance. When Mercedes-Benz advertises their product as a well-deserved “holiday” gift, I call that stupid and make no apology for calling it that. There is a miraculous truth to be found in Christmas, that being the existential truth of relationship with our Creator. And so, once again, I find the attempt to attach any other meaning to the phenomenon to be disingenuous and stupid. That’s not because I’m not feeling well. It’s because it’s just plain stupid.

Too Good To Be True

I generally abide by the axiom that if it’s too good to be true then it probably is. Barack Obama is proving to be the exception. Elected to essentially save our country from the gross ineptitude and chicanery of the current and past administrations, Obama shows no sign of not being up to the task. Just as his election itself was historic, his transition team and emerging Cabinet are also on an epic track. I have every confidence that in four years from now even his most strident opponents will have to admit that Obama is akin to an American messiah.

That this analogy may offend some is certainly nothing new. Rigid parochial thinking allows for one and only one messiah who meets the institutionalized prerequisites. It’s no different than it was two-thousand years ago when Jesus’ “messiahship” was questioned by the establishment. The itinerant preacher from Nazareth certainly didn’t meet orthodox expectations, but the miracle of the Christ is that it transcends human reasoning. Likewise, while I know that many “experts” will dismiss the notion that a messiah could or would follow Obama’s path to the White House, I am prepared to confess that the Higher Power which relates to humankind through the Christ works in mysterious and wondrous ways. I won’t be surprised if, two-thousand years from now, there won’t be a mythological telling of a star that shone brightly in the East to announce the birth of a Savior.

A Word of Hope

The election of Barack Obama has inspired hope that things can change for the better. It inspires in me a hope that people are hungering for such change in more than just politics. As I near my fifty-ninth year on the planet, I have observed a steady erosion of the spirit of Christmas by capitalism, consumerism and greed. There has always been the hope that the true meaning of Christmas might be recaptured, and there may be no better time than when the people have chosen their President because of the promise for change. Maybe, just maybe, this Christmas can be more about giving than receiving, more about wanting genuine love than materialistic goods. The team of eleven that I work with has opted to donate to charity this year in lieu of the traditional gift exchange, a choice in keeping with the spirit of Redefine Christmas. My hope is more real than it has been in years that, just as we decided it was time for real change in Washington, D.C., we are ready to grow in a faith based not on belief but experience. Scripture, tradition and reason are not the end, but the means to a fuller, richer experience of the relationship with our Creator to which we are invited by Immanuel: God with us.

Reflection on Regression

I first noticed it while serving on the Program-Curriculum Committee of the Board of Education of The United Methodist Church. In an attempt to meet competitor David C. Cook head-on, contemporary issues illustrated with photographs of sixties settings began giving way to “Bible-based” curriculum with cartoonish representations of ancient peoples. Since that time the insidious march of fundamentalism in this country has all but taken over the popular perception of what Christianity is all about. Never content with the propagation of a literalistic hermeneutic, the fundamentalists—who, in a stroke of public relations genius, later called themselves evangelicals—shamelessly promoted that they alone knew the mind of God and what this Trinitarian deity thought and felt about everything from abortion to homosexuality. Rather than take a progressive stand against such nonsense, mainline Protestantism decided that “if you can’t lick them, join them,” and a convoluted neo-orthodoxy became the religion of the land. In an ironic twist, the “what would Jesus do” question revealed the hypocrisy and sacrilege of a consumer theology and its eisegesis. This little tirade came on as I contemplated what Christmas, sacred and secular, has become in our society. Being born of God’s love is an answer increasingly elusive to those who don’t even know enough to ask the question.

I’m Dreaming of a …

I cannot imagine a more perfect Thanksgiving. All the kids were home, Rebecca celebrated her birthday, and the family generally basked in the love. I am truly sorry for those whose experience was not the same. If I knew how to change that for them, I would. Alas, I do not, but I’m not going to let that detract from the joyful fulfillment that was ours this past weekend. I can only attest to the beauty and meaning of the family gathered and united by love.

By some calendars this is the first day of Advent, a process of preparing for Christmas observed by some Christians. Even though I no longer feel comfortable calling myself a Christian, such traditions are indelibly imprinted upon my worldview—my understanding of who and what I am—and play an integral role in my thoughts and actions. If the joy and peace I experienced during Thanksgiving can be attributed in the abstract to love, then I am excited about participating in a process that prepares for such love to be born unto all humankind. This is a far cry from consumerism’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday but is certainly more in keeping with the true reason for the season.