... And What About Morality?

Rev. Ted Haggard's troubles shine a bright spotlight on the disucssion of Christians in politics. Haggard's story would be huge without the gay marriage debate. With it, it just underlines that Christianity is just a powerplay for moral hammering.

Evangelical Christians look little different than the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages. Loud, strident ... and hypocritical.

Should believers back down from moral politics, or politics as a whole? Is taking moral stands something that hurts rather than hinders the cause of Christ and the communication of the Gospel?

We end up looking like rigid nasty spiteful buffoons.

Yet a fall like this is nothing new. Mankind is inherently sinful and we will often turn away from Jesus' power and love. Our culture sees it most with sex, but we quietly do it with money and with many other areas.

Perhaps in this search for a real Christian political expression this needs to be kept in mind, that what people should see first is Jesus. And I don't think that's where we're headed right now.

D--

In Times of War...

I was planning on a logical progression of these thoughts, but ran across something as I read this morning that was too good not to post now...

My current read is a history by Victor Davis Hanson. I highly recommend his Ripples of Battle. Hanson is a classicist whose books continually answer the question, "Why should I care?". Why should I care about history and what went before?

A Christian High School teacher of mine was known for her phrase: "Man's Heart Never Changes". That could be the subtitle of this post, and perhaps the first tenent of a Christian political understanding.

My current read is about the Peloponnesian War. That famous conflict between the Greeks that we studied in school. And it's full of application. The title of this Hanson book is A War Like No Others.

From this morning's chapter about political turmoil at home while the troops were out fighting... turmoil both in Athens and in Sparta:

When the war appeared to be stalemated and the eventual victor uncertain, internal revolution was less likely. Yet after a particular setback...one side or the other grew emboldened that change at home might reflect the course of the larger war. If proof were needed that many people lack an ideology but instead prefer to look first to their own self-interests, no better examples exist than the first Peloponnesian War... the ebb and flow of Greek opinion that followed each particular Sparan or Athenian reverse. War ... when combined with political tension, turned what would have otherwise been heated, but mostly restrained, civil disputes into unchecked bloodletting. ... Thucydides (the War's notable historian) thought civil unrest and coups were central to his story of the war itself and that soon after hostilities broke out the "entire Hellenic world, so to speak, was so convulsed."

Oligarchs usually sought to parade their cause under the misleading rubric of wishing for "a temperate aristocracy". Democrats countered by professing loyalty to the idea of "equality under the law". Once the struggle began, the former were rarely temperate and the latter seldom lawful.

We are not shedding blood over our current war. But we did during the Viet Nam era. Any biography of a Nixon insider shows how much the mental instability of that administration was tinged by the horror of violent overthrow of our very government. Of machine gun emplacements wrapped by mounds of sandbags in the basement corridors of the White House and Congress.

I hadn't thought about it, but there truly is blood in the streets at home when there is war abroad. Generally the war is longer in duration than the tidal wave of patriotism upon the start of conflict. As the war drags, the political opponents begin to use the war as leverage.

What does that mean for the disciple of Christ who engages in politics?

Our position on issues must be carefully separated out from the current sweep of emotion. Who and what we are as redeemed men and women is easily pulled or pushed along by either side of the war's aftermath at home. But we serve a King not of this world.

This, then, might be my first pillar... Our politics must move heavenward just as all areas of our lives do, as we are weaned from the flesh and more and more recognize our new creation in Christ.

Of course, what that means then must be answered.

D--

Political musings

I'm hijacking my own blog for a time. It's silly season, mid-term elections. I've always been fascinated--held captive really--by politics. So for a time this will be a political commentary blog.

I'm in the midst of reading a second political book in a row... Just recently finished a book I recommend to any interested in political history.

That book was A Godly Hero. It's a biography of William Jennings Bryan. He was a 3-time Democratic presidential candidate. An Illinois boy who found fame and fortune by his mellifluous voice and passionate stands.

The history is fascinating because it covers a time when what we now take to be leftist politics was highly Christian in nature. It covers a time when Western populism was nearly socialist, when Communism was considered a viable option. When Christianity and the causes of the left marched in lockstep.

Those days are past, but I want to use this space to seek out what is a Christian political manifesto.

I'm not happy that the Evangelical church has made a tight alliance with the GOP. I'm not comfortable that the social causes of Jesus are now owned by the rabid secularists.

I'm not happy that I squirm when the word Christian and Democrat are linked.

So ... hold on... here we go.

D--

Thoughts on politics

I've been studying my reactions to the Mark Foley scandal. I'm not comfortable with my own thinking...

First of all, I'm disgusted with both parties. And I'm disgusted with the media coverage. There is no doubt in my mind that this is an engineered scandal... that the Democratic party held onto this information and timed it's release to squash any GOP headway at the midterms.

I've looked at the blog that "broke" this data (I think it's www.stopsexualpredators.com or something like that... I don't have it in front of me). It's pretty clear that it's a site manufactured to LOOK like a grass-roots anti-abuse site... but if you look at it critically it seems scripted. It leads to only one true "blockbuster" and that's this one... It's shrewd.

So their pontificating about the GOP not dealing with this information earlier rings hollow if you look at this deeply. They had the info and held it too, for exactly the same reason... to protect electoral advantage.

Now my own dis-ease... I find myself almost letting Foley off the hook because of the use of this as a political football. I find myself guilty of the same things...

It's tough in politics... because it's so easy to believe that the cause is worth more than the people.

D--

In Defense of Starbucks...

I've written here before that I was concerned about the trashing of Starbuck's. The conservative Christian core (or is that corps) led by Focus on the Family pointed out complaints based largely on comments on their cups.

Starbucks does run a "The Way I See It" series of brief quotes from luminaries and other customers. Some comments run in past months were in defense of gay rights.

OK, I may not agree with that particular series, but there were many I have agreed with, smiled at or disagreed but had good thoughts stimulated.

I find it interesting that Starbucks is coming under fire from a variety of sources. I chuckle to hear the Left denigrating it as a symptom of the multi-cultural glut. Of the massive standardization and blight.

So Left and Right are complaining... that tells me there's something good going on. And here's what I think it is. Starbucks (and for that matter, Panera) are the first examples of a socially redeeming mass-market retail food chain.

Yes, McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King have had their value. No really, I mean it, there is a value in the quick food. As any parent with a car full of kids trying to get from Point A to Point B in a limited amount of time. To be able to top of the blood sugar and keep them chewing (and not fighting) for a time is priceless.

But our food blob chains of the 50s and 60s enforced a certain individualization. A growing apart.

Interesting aside that CS Lewis pictured Hell in The Great Divorce as a place where people moved a little further apart from each other every day... the cold blackness descending ever-so-slowly on them, sliding further and further apart from the love and care of others...

But our new places are places that bring us together. Throw in Barnes and Noble and Borders with their coffee shops. These are places that invite us in. Invite us to share our lives.

The baristas who pour my coffee get to know me. They're encouraged to do that.

And as a believing Christian, I find that these are amazing places where God works. I'm in Starbucks now. It was here I first heard of John Eldredge. Where Blue Like Jazz first came to my attention. Where I've overheard some marvellous conversations.

It was in Panera where I first met my pastor and now my friend, Darin Shaw.

Even the cups. They urge me to slow down. To read. To reflect.

OK, some will be ideas I don't like. But some will be ideas that advance God's Kingdom...

Another aside... I wonder if Jim Dobson thought of submitting a gentle "The Way I See It..." He'd reach a far broader audience, and one that needs his message of Jesus' love.

So I came into Starbucks today, beaten and down... the first day of school, the kids are gone and I'm feeling the strain of 5 years of managing it all by myself.

And what should happen but the most amazing and sweet Christian meeting as I learned that one of my favorite baristas is a believer. She introduced me to another believer.

I'm humbled and I'm encouraged. Starbucks has created a place where God can work... by simply creating a space where we can meet, talk and connect.

That's a good thing.

D--

The Far Side of weather...

Somebody actually said it to me today ... "Hot enough for you?"

Weatherbug says it's 98. But hey, don't worry. It's a wet heat.

I was in Starbuck's for a time this afternoon. The people were pouring in. So many of them obviously had never been in to a Starbuck's before.

I think I heard it 6 or 7 times in 90 minutes. "I'd like something cold, do you sell anything cold?"

Man.

Cultural recluses I guess.

I thought our entire Western Civilization had actually done away with the internal combustion engine and our reliance on fossil fuel and we were running on Frappucinos and iced lattes these days.

Which takes me back to the most miserable I've ever been in the heat...

My parents decided every summer from the year before my sister (2 years my senior) graduated high school until we I was out of college for 2 years that, "This is the last summer we'll be able to travel as a family."

So began the yearly installments. Before that, they'd been the "every so often" miserable trips ... maybe the "every 3 or 4 year torture chambers." Now, the dreaded all-family LoveBoat cruise became a necessary yearly event. OH my...

We started "small". Just a little trip around the whole United States in a 20' motor home. Seattle. Chicago. Boston. NYC. Charleston/Savannah (getting the picture?). Hobart, OK (don't ask). Montana. Home.

Perhaps that's where I developed this darn nervous tic tic tic tic tic.

Eventually it got to be a European vacation. This was actually inspired by me (I am shamed to admit it).

I desperately wanted to travel, so when I graduated college and had a job, I booked a trip to England. I wanted to just go and wander... but bowed to pressure (as I always did in those days) because it wasn't safe to just wander such a wild and violent country as England, Scotland and Wales.

This was before Braveheart so you can't blame Mel Gibson for that one.

I went on the ultimate old-folks tour. What a wonderful group! What social outlet!

The nearest person to my age was 40 years my senior, though a grammy and grampy or two HAD brought along a young teen or two.

England by motorbus. Yeehaw.

But I did have a great time anyway. My first time abroad. The first of the family to travel off the North American continent.

So of course, my sister had to take 4 trips in the next year. And then ... the family trip.

We wound up in Paris, our last stop.

It was about this time of year... I know because the World Cup was just ending.

We had rooms in Paris' Grand Hotel. Everyone was on floors 2 and 3. Except us. WE had the wonderful garrett rooms at the top of the hotel, the fifth floor. Oh they were so wonderfully quaint.

And one teensy problem. There was no a/c on the fifth floor. But never mind, Paris just doesn't get that...

HOT AS A STEAMBATH IN HELL?

Breeze? Windows?

Oh, did I mention my insane sister didn't like the fumes from the city, and didn't want to take a risk of getting raped (on the 5th floor)... so we had to shut and lock our windows.

Nevermind we were in the room next door to her... there was a connecting door... so we were required (Dad opted for conflict reduction) to keep the connecting door open so she could come in and check, several times a night. Vital to make SURE we hadn't snuck those windows open...

Until the night it hit about 100 in the city... she relented. We could open the windows...

Who knew there were that many Italians in Paris? Who knew the World Cup would end at about 1am? Who know how much noise Italians in Paris could make as they circled our block with music, horns, singing, fireworks.

Who knew it could go on until well after dawn?

I subsisted those few days in Paris on a little drink I discovered called a "Caffe Liegois"... Coffee. Cream. Sugar. Ice. Blended together. It may sound familiar...

How expensive could the lot of them be? When delivered by room service?

Ummmm.. $150?

Ever see the Far Side panel, "Nerds in Hell"? A couple of guys in geeky clothing and taped glasses... and one of them is saying ....

... hot enough for ya?

D--

Faux foe...

... "I know, let's do it in a faux weathered surface, you know, one of those crackle things."

So spoke I in the heat of the moment, the flush of battle. When things were good and times were right. When we were fresh and unsullied. When I was REALLY stupid.

So right now we can't afford the really big fixes. But paint, who can't do paint?

First off, let me counteract a lie: "It's just a gallon of paint, that's CHEAP!"

OK, here's the truth. There's no such thing as "just a gallon of paint".

Lowe's knows this. Home Despot knows this.

I go in for a $0.10 latex glove and walk out with $138.99 worth of absolutely indispensible things I didn't know I needed.

And faux! Who invented the faux? How many faux (or fauxes, or faus, or fauxi?) were killed in the making of a quart of that stuff?

Next side note: The faux is the corporate iconic beast of the home shopping channel QVC.

So this room, this living room. Let me describe its original paint scheme as we obtained it... slime beige. It has an alternate name, urine creme. Too strong? I think not.

And the ceiling, WELLLLLLlll now THAT has been a work of art.

My original home design consultant (ex-wife) one Christmas looked at the faux (there it is again!) texture cracking off the ceiling and the beautiful browns and rusts and mildew-blacks of a long-gone storm and roof failure and said, "You know, with the angel up there on the tree against that background it looks almost like the Sistine Chapel!"

Right. A faux Sistine Chapel. If viewed through the prism of a Timothy Leary experience.

I'd tried to perk that room up. Spent more than I should on two couches. It just occurs to me now what they were. They were ... faux couches.

Faux suede. Micro fiber.

Now think about it. Fiber is fiber. Micro fiber means it's really little. Not really fibrous at all. Maybe under the microscope they're really more like little nubbins or balls. In fact, I know what they REALLY are... FAUX FIBER!!!

That impulsive furniture day, I'd looked that day at twills and denims and such... But no, said the clerk, "You have kids and cats, you need something that will really stand up... Only leather and micro-suede will do that."

My question 2.5 years later is: Stand up to what?

I knew instinctively that leather would NOT stand up to cat claws... but certainly faux suede would, right? Right. For 15.2 seconds. The couch arms are shreds. (Maybe I need faux cats.)

And to continue the thought string (more of a micro-thought-fiber, really), I thought until today that those couches were grey. I'd have SWORN to you they were gray. Grey. Gray.

Until I spoke my belief outloud today during another run to Lowe's to work on those walls.

I said "grey".

My current design consultant and her associate (brother) said, "Grey? Dad, what couches are YOU talking about."

Now I'm SURE I describe them as GRAY to the clerk at the furniture store. She agreed with me, grey. That was probably AFTER I said something about being red-green color-blind. (As a person who truly enjoys color and design, this always turns out to be just a tad-bit inconvenient.)

BUT... if the customer said gray, no need to correct him.

Come to think of it, I think they probably are a kind of gray. FAUX GREY.

SO... we painted on our "High Hiding Primer". That really worked. Hid the stuff we were really too lazy to fix. My 4th declared, "Dad, that's cool, let's just leave the walls like that!"

Oh no! We had plans. Color depth. Pop. Pow. Wow!

We were going to CRACKLE!

So we painted on the peachy-creamy undercoat. It looked good in the store.

It looked good on the walls!

HOORAY! We're doing well (I must add that the goal here was to surprise our interior coordinator/designer while she was on a babysitting foray... so the assistant and I were doing this quickly... always a good plan).

Next day we opened the faux crackle stuff. Figured out what it really was. Elmer's glue slightly thinned. And marked up to $13 a quart.

But we're gonna crackle so it's worth it.

Now another aside, the assistant and I have really got this painting thing down. I've now mastered the rolling edger (what a handy contraption... a pad that works like a roller/brush... a faux brush!). The assistant has the roller down.

I edge, he rolls... we did the 3 walls 15', 10', 15', in about 45 minutes. WOW are we good!

Only thing is... it's 10:45 when we finish. PM. Instructions say we must begin the next piece within 1-4 hours, or it's no-go.

11:45PM and we begin phase FOUR of this "pop, pow, wow". Here's the famous quote from the instructions: "For more dramatic surfaces, use a brush rather than a roller".

A brush. Ummm... I'm not good with brushes. I'm ok, but not great. Haven't really done it enough to be confident. Kinda tend to ... brush and brush and ... "Do not overwork topcoat as surface may become gummy."

OOOooh my. How did they know? Could they see into my future?

And when "surface becomes gummy" it ... well... it sags. The crackle faux stuff sticks to the top paint but SLIDES on the bottom paint. And slides. And slides.

Assistant is banished... He's not confident or steady enough with the brush. Course netierh am I.

It's 12:15. AM. The minions are sent to their perches in the lofts.

Progress is torturously slow. This whole missive is drafted while ... stroking. Up. Down. Over. My head is full.

I begin to get the hang of it, and by the time I'm on the back wall (3 hours later) I have crackle. But what of the early areas? WAAAAY too much "drama". The creamy show-through is big enough to ... to drive a faux through.

At 3:30 I stop looking at the clock. Later I look over my shoulder as I'm coming into the home ... stretch (reaching up for the high places) and see ... dawn breaking.

I put the last touches on and finally look at the clock... repair some sags too big to leave (ugh, that looks ugly up close) and wash the brushes, tumbling into bed for faux sleep at 7:30.

It's a work day. More like faux work I'm afraid, after that night.

... And when I awake ...

I HATE it.

No, not really that. I mean, it's ok, even kinda cool.

But I had something in my mind, and that wasn't it. Not even close. And the early places where there's so much light showing through... just NOT right. Not blending with the other walls.

Only one thing to do ... I have a faux collapse. A dad-breakdown.

My muse talked some sense into me (I was talking of paint remover and scraping the thing clean... what fauxlly). She recommended a couple of approaches, one of which I adopted today... It worked.

Any gueses????

That's right...

A faux finish!

D--