My Son John

Departing from the buoyant subject of Diablog, Stu sent me a song performed by Boiled in Lead. I assume it is an Irish folk song.

One stanza in particular stands out:

All foreign wars I'll now denounce
'Twixt this king of England or that king of France
I'd rather my legs as they used to be
Than the King of Spain and his whole navy

This pretty well sums up my opinion about the value of this war in Iraq.

Poof! You're all beta testers!

Sorry for my negligence in posting. I've been spending my spare time putting together a little program to do something cool.

Well, at least I think it's cool.

The program is named "diablog", partly in honor of Paul's blog, and partly because it's intended to allow a little more dialog on blogspot blogs.

If you look at the bottom of each post, there's now a button that says "Diablog Me!" and a text area where you can enter your email address. If you put your email address in that box and click "Diablog Me", you will be subscribed to that post. That means that whenever ANYONE adds a comment to the post, the comment will be emailed to you. My intention is to make it easier to remain involved in a conversation about a post.

If this doesn't make sense, tell me.

I'm still testing the program and finishing it up, so please bang on it as much as you like. If you want to test the program on your blog, let me know and I'll help you get set up.

Update:
Wow. It can't just be a coincidence that I post this thing and all of a sudden get hammered with blog spam. From now on, we'll have to do that "type in a word" thing.

Another Update:
Has anyone actually tried to subscribe to comments? Because I haven't seen any subscriptions coming down the wire.

And if you wanted to subscribe but you haven't, why not? Is there some barrier to subscription that I haven't thought of?

Somebody should try subscribing and then adding a comment to see if it gets forwarded to their email correctly.

One Last Look (at things that suck)

Nag!

"Write the next post!" Stu says. "Wouldja hurry up and post? It's been a freaking week. What ya gonna post about? Huh? Huh? Huh?"

God, I love that man.

Happy birthday, Stu.

The Next Post

Ok, I'm ready to wind up this "things that suck" tirade. Depressing. Let's sprint through this as quickly as possible.

To make it seem faster, let's do it without using a full stop.

Thank you all for your comments and insight and encouragement about my family and about forgiveness it's comforting to see people from parts far distant demonstrating love for me and my family ... makes me smile

(Ick. This is like some well-paragraphed ee cummings freak show. Sorry. I'll stop now.)

Furthermore, I agree with many of the things you said about forgiveness, even some of the things that I argued against. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to play devil's advocate; to question assumptions like "forgiveness is the way of God".

Finally, I'd like to tell you a little bit about my weekend.

On thursday, I went back to the town where I grew up; I drove down to pick up my wife, son, and a moving truck full of my parents' boxes and furniture.

While I was there, I had the opportunity to go back to church for an hour or so. But this wasn't for a regular church service. It was for a funeral.

A young man my sister's age had died - a kid we grew up with - and my dad was performing his funeral.

Now, about my dad and funerals:

My dad prepares for a funeral by sitting down with the family and listening to their stories. He compiles those stories - picks the best of them - and spends most of the funeral telling stories about the deceased. The funny stories are his favorites, and usually they're the favorites of the family as well. So his funerals end up being a combination of sweet and funny and sad, which taken as a package, usally turn out to produce a little comfort as a by-product.

And that's probably nice when you've lost someone you love. You get to spend some time with your friends, enjoying those memories, listening to my dad paint a gritty, beautiful picture of someone you're all going to miss. No obsessing over heaven, no dire warnings about hell, no whitewashing of the person's faults, no platitudes, no false hope. It's difficult for me to explain exactly what he does, but whatever it is, I'm convinced that my dad preaches the best funerals in the world.

So it was nice to get to hear my dad preach another funeral from that pulpit in that church where he's been the shepherd for 20-odd years. My sister and I came in at the last minute and stood in the back ... the place was packed.

My dad did his job: the funeral was spectacular, as usual, especially considering that these were the people who had treated him so poorly.

He had told me a few days before that he was having trouble deciding what scripture might go best with the funeral ... and as you might expect, he ended up with the perfect one: the story of the Samaritan woman, whose love and enthusiasm tapped at the hearts of all the people she knew, making them ring and resonate with the love of Christ.

After my dad had finished speaking and the funeral directors prepared to run the final slide show, I left the crowd and went meandering through the shadowy hallways of the church building. I poked my head into every classroom, trying to remember what grade I had been in when I had gone to class in room 9, trying to remember who my teachers had been.

I looked out the windows and remembered looking out the same windows with church friends who were like my brothers and sisters.

I chuckled at the paintings on the walls of the Junior High classroom; my sister had done one of those clumsy, garish things. There were her initials and the initials of her friends.

Library, a small room, with books to the ceiling.

The tiny, dusty broom closet. The black, cylindrical iron mailbox.

White columns. White steeple. White walls.

Dark stairwells, dark hallways that still figure prominently in my best dreams and nightmares.

And, of course, those people I grew up with. I didn't spend much time with them. When I had finished my tour, I went back to my sister and told her I was going to skip the trip by the casket. I would go and get the car. I was ready to go home.

Things That Suck (Post 3)

For those of you who continue to follow this nonsense: thanks.

The Way of God?

I still need some convincing from Irina and company: What makes you think that "forgiveness is the way of God"?

The Story of Shimei

First, this link to my dad's take on the situation. I suspect that he means to communicate some particular message through the use of this story, but that might not be the case: he might just be tossing it out.

However, for those of us who feel inclined to back David here, let's remember that Shimei is at least being accurate: David is a "man of blood", and in many ways a "scoundrel". As David says, "Leave him alone; let him curse, for the LORD has told him to."

The Letter from My Sis

(I think it's very well done.)

To the Elders of the Church of AH,

Greetings in the name of God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. I hope this letter finds you well.

I know that you have received numerous letters about your choice to ask my father for his resignation in January. This is mine. You would have received it earlier, but I didn’t want it to be considered castigating.

In fact, nothing is further from my mind. I have held you all very dear to my heart–we were family.

I have grown up with your children, learned from you in bible class, attended your family functions and gone to camp with you. I have known some of you since the first Sunday my Dad started preaching at AH, a few months before my first birthday. The rest of you I welcomed into the family with open arms.

So I’m sure you can imagine how devastated I was to hear about the way my father was treated. I admit that I cannot know all the details surrounding his “release,” but I do know one thing: regardless of whatever wrongs he committed and whatever faults he had, I believe he was treated unjustly, because he was treated as hired help and not family.

I believe this set a bad example to the flock (I Peter 5:3) and was not a good way to manage the church family (I TImothy 3:5).

It is my belief that you saw your church in danger, that you were–as the rest of us–watching it fall apart slowly, inch by inch. And so you made a rash decision, lunged out to save something you love. But instead, that decision, and especially the way you handled it, caused more problems and more pain than you anticipated. We all know it caused pain in the AH family at large, and I can tell you that it has caused unspeakable pain in my immediate family and especially in my own life.

My father, as you know, has handled this whole situation very stoically and has–true to form–spent his time trying to ease the pain of the congregation and help its people to move forward in the love of Christ. The rest of our family, however, is having a harder time.

Surely you can understand that I can’t imagine ever attending services at AH again. I believe doing so would have the appearance of my stamp of approval–would send the message that I agree with your decision and the way in which you enacted it. And I obviously do not. I am grieving the loss of my childhood church, the family I have known my whole life, at your hands.

I feel betrayed by you, the men of my own beloved church family, at the treatment of my father, who deserved better if for no other reason than the fact that he had served the Lord and His people at AH for 22 years. But he has also cared for your own families in times of grief, pain and loss as well as those of celebration. And he has done no less for the other members of our AH family, who have expressed their own grief and outrage at the events that transpired in January.

And so, Elders of AH, I write to ask you for an apology. I ask you to apologize to my family at AH as well as my immediate family for how you handled the firing of my father. I am confused as to why it has taken this long, but let’s face it: AH is still in trouble, turmoil and pain. I believe that nothing else but your humility and the love of God will heal the body of AH.

But I want you to know that regardless of what you decide, you have my forgiveness anyway.

So please, for the sake of the people who we all hold dear, consider my request prayerfully.

In Christ,
(the sis)

A better approach to poverty

I think Larry James knows what he's talking about.

Geek Humor

I don't want to stop you all from sharing thoughts about rebuking and forgiving, but I want to break up all the serious with a little geek humor.

The Google bit is ethical, and the Unix bit is current events, so this isn't really off topic, right?

Don't Be Evil
Before it went public, one of Google's guiding principles was "don't be evil". Since the IPO, I've been wondering: is google still upholding this principle?

Now, thanks to the Gematriculator, we can see that google.com is indeed Very Good.



Microsoft, on the other hand...




Backstroke of the West
Thanks once again to Reepicheep, that icon of Geek Humor.



Unix Geek Humor
I don't know if anyone else will get it, but this is pretty freakin' hilarious. It begins:

The War on Terror

As viewed from the Bourne shell.

$ cd /middle_east
$ ls
Afghanistan Iraq Libya Saudi_Arabia UAE
Algeria Israel Morrocco Sudan Yemen
Bahrain Jordan Oman Syria
Egypt Kuwait Palestine Tunisia
Iran Lebanon Qatar Turkey

$ cd Afghanistan
$ ls
bin Taliban
$ rm Taliban
rm: Taliban is a directory


Things That Suck (Post 2)

Thanks for all your advice and encouragement. I think I'm starting to figure this out. I wasn't really even sure which questions to ask before, but I think I'm gonna be naked by the end of this song.

>blink<

Sorry. Rogue meme. I meant, I think I'm gonna be able to ask some better questions by the end of this post.

Let's return to my previous "Things that Suck" post and consider your advice.

Advice

Seems like a healthy, Christ-like, rebuke is always scriptural.
Bryan, Kyle, The Sis, Emilyjane, Stu

But don't try to get revenge.
Emilyjane

Throw in some scripture for good measure.
Kyle

Consider whether your actions are likely to make a difference.
Paul

Don't lose your cool.
Paul

Let them know you are sincerely struggling with how to come to terms with the situation and their motives
Bryan

Forgive the elders and let God do the work.
Irina and The Wife

Keep peace in the church.
The Wife

Consider what forgiveness should look like in this situation.
The Dad

Aggravate their sexual prejudices.
Bryan

Send them poop in a box.
The Sis

All reasonable advice. But I'm starting to notice something interesting about it. In general, those of you who call for rebuke do not call for forgiveness; those of you who call for forgiveness do not call for rebuke.

Maybe, as Emilyjane suggests, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

As a disciple of Christ, I have an obligation to consider the teachings and character of Jesus as I decide my course of action. And as I consider things, It seems that Jesus rebuked AND forgave. Jesus smacked those darn Pharisees up one side and down the other ("whitewashed tombs, snakes, blind guides") but if our theology is anywhere near correct, he also forgave them.

Rebuke without forgiveness is unacceptable: as Irina and my wife point out, Jesus was nothing if not forgiving. One of the Big Ideas in the Christian faith is that somehow, the life and death of Christ engaged the forgiveness of God.

On the other hand, forgiveness without rebuke is irresponsible. Let's consider what Jesus is doing when he rebukes the Pharisees: He's laying into the religious leaders who are destroying the faith of God's children. The Pharisees have a responsibility to nurture and love the people they serve; instead they're stomping them into the ground.

Splash Damage

The Dad (k-rewx) points out that it is often harder for spouse and family than it is for the "victim.". This is precisely why both forgiveness and rebuke are necessary.

I think this is a good (simple) Christian model of conflict management:

1. The victim's job is to forgive those who hurt him.
2. The church's job is to rebuke those who hurt the victim.

This keeps the victim from pursuing revenge, and also provides an avenue for the correction of the wrongdoer. However, in this situation, I occupy the roles of both Victim and Church. As the son of the victim, I am indirectly harmed: the victim of "splash damage", so to speak. And because of this damage to me, I have a responsibility to forgive. In fact, if there were no damage done to me, there wouldn't be anything for me to forgive. But as the son of the victim, I am not also the victim himself. Therefore, I also have a responsibility to say something about the injustice being perpetrated upon the victim.

This is a very important concept, one that has huge implications for whether we go about pursuing social justice. Sally can forgive Biff for beating her up, but it makes no sense to say that I can forgive Biff for beating Sally up. That was a wrong done by Biff to Sally, and only Sally can forgive it. Rather than forgiving Biff, my job is first of all to protect Sally from any more victimization, and secondly to help Biff see the error of his ways.

In other words, I have a responsibility to turn my own cheek, but never to turn someone else's cheek.

Doing Something

So now I need to try and figure out what this forgivness should look like and what this rebuke should look like. Paul's suggestions are helpful here: don't be pitiful, and try to do something that will be effective.

Regarding a rebuke, I wonder: What makes for an effective rebuke? And what sort of action is a rebuke intended to cause?

Regarding forgiveness, I wonder: How do I know when I have sucessfully forgiven someone? What sorts of things can help me forgive? And, to encourage me to do this hard thing, what good is forgiveness? Can't I just be angry? What purpose does it serve?

Two Assertions

1. Management is easy to do poorly and hard to do well.

I base this assertion on my experience, the experiences of Bryan and Paul, and, anecdotally, the general bungling of the Bush administration. (Guess where Dubya got his degree.) But I suppose there might be counterexamples ... anyone have stories about good managers they've known? And what made them good managers?

By the way, thanks for your suggestions about my family's church situation. I'm going to process those ideas for a little while longer, and I'll post about them later.

2. This is going to be an interesting site.

I hope its writers succeed in making themselves heard despite the annoyingly loud rhetoric of those who equate Christianity with conservatism.

Things That Suck

Note to readers who happen to be my parents: you may want to skip this one because it's about dad's job.

To begin, a few salient facts:

1. I grew up in the denomination known as the Churches of Christ.

2. The Church of Christ is a congregational church, which means that in theory, there is no power hierarchy beyond the local church.

3. The Church of Christ has no ecclesiology to speak of. In other words, we don't have a theology that specifically informs the questions of who should lead the church and how. However, our emphasis on naively interpreting the text of the Bible means that we have some vague idea of congregational leadership by elders.

4. In addition to elders, who do their governing for free, our churches generally employ a head minister/pastor/preacher/evangelist and a youth minister.

5. For 20-plus years, my dad has been a pastor/preacher/minster/evangelist for a congregation in my hometown.

6. He's not anymore.

It's this last one that has gotten my goat. Not so much that he's not preaching, but the manner in which he lost his job.

I'll need to explain some more.

The way this elder thing works, every so often somebody, I'm not sure who, gets this great idea that we need more elders. Maybe one died or moved away or something. Then members of the congregation nominate certain people - and by people, I mean men - to be the new elders. By some prestidigitatious process, this list is filtered, and the new candidate elders are presented to the congregation. If anyone has a "scriptural objection" to the new elders, they can present it; otherwise, after some undetermined period has elapsed, the candidate elders become real elders.

Nobody really knows what elders are responsible for, but it seems to have something to do with "shepherding the flock", "hiring and firing", "spending the contribution money", that sort of thing.

Now as you might expect, when new elders come into a congregation, there's a shakeup in the existing power structure. Maybe there are now more conservative elders. Maybe more liberals. And maybe some elders become elders and discover that they don't have as much power in the congregation as they had hoped. Particularly if the church has a pastor who's been there 20 years.

What do you think happens in such a situation?

Well, being the cream of the congregational crop, the new elders behave humbly and wisely. They realize that the pastor has invested almost a quarter of a century of full-time and overtime in this congregation, a long stint in the Churches of Christ. Like good disciples, they listen to, and learn from, the experienced pastor.

Unless, of course, the elders are more concerned with their own ego and power in the congregation. Then things go something like this.

First, the elders shake up congregation. They critizize the pastor, try to dictate his sermons, and make his job a ridiculous pain, trying to get him to leave.

The pastor gets the picture. He starts looking for new employment ... employment in another field, if you please. Enough of these damn church people.

But things don't move quickly enough for the elders. The pastor is so entrenched, they can't fire him without getting the congregation up in arms. Instead, they kindly ask him to resign. Concerned by what will happen to the church if he resists, the pastor writes a letter to the congregation explaining that he is "burnt out" and will be resigning. Effective immediately. No last sermon to his congregation. No fond farewells. No hard-earned retirement.

Finally, the pious elders - who are always concerned for the spiritual health of their congregation - make a deal with the pastor: If your family will keep their traps shut about this business, we'll keep paying your salary for six months. (Of course, the pastor didn't have a contract. After 20-plus years, he thought he could trust those people.)

So the pastor has little choice but to accept all of the elders' demands, continue his job hunt and hope his little congregation holds together. As you might expect, he's going to take a heavy cut in pay, particularly since he's hunting for a job outside his field. He and his wife will probably have to move, which means that she has to find a new job, too. And the people who he would turn to in such a situation - his church - are the people who got him into this mess. In other words, things are pretty crappy.

But that was about six months ago, which means we have some distance from the situation.

It also means the statute of limitations on my ire is about to expire.

So my question for you, good friends, is this: Now that I am no longer restricted from doing anything that might be interpreted as "berating the elders", what should I do?

Should I write the elders a letter? Take out a TV ad? Send a chocolate cake?

Should I try to give the elders some perspective, try to make them feel some shame?

Should I raise some "scriptural objections" to encourage their ouster?

I keep trying to figure out what Jesus would do. Maybe you know.

From the Episcopal Litany for Ordinations

For those in positions of public trust, that they may serve justice and promote the dignity and freedom of every person,
we pray to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear our prayer.

For a blessing upon all human labor, and for the right use of the riches of creation, that the world may be freed from poverty, famine, and disaster,
we pray to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear our prayer.

For the poor, the persecuted, the sick, and all who suffer; for refugees, prisoners and all who are in danger; that they may be relieved and protected,
we pray to you O Lord.
Lord, hear our prayer.

Reverence?

Or, Beyond Figs and Fronds: Fruit Garnishes and Christian Metaphor

For the last few weeks, discussion on Paul's blog has focused on the different meanings we attach to the word "love". One of his readers (not a native English speaker) provided the following insight:

King Solomon's hymn. In the Orthodox Church this hymn is the symbol of Christ's love for His Church which is seen as His own body. The Church is formed by the Christians who are limes of Christ.

Ah, those limes of Christ.

As I read this, I experienced a flannelgraph vision: Flannelgraph Jesus standing next to a flannelgraph lime tree, tending his limes, keeping the good limes, and throwing the bad limes into the fire.

Flannelgraph Jesus wearing an apron, putting the limes through trials and tribulations so that they might be mushed into the perfect key lime pie.

The flannelgraph faithful singing a flannelgraph hymn, handing out limes and coconuts, encouraging the poor and destitute: "You put the lime in the coconut, drink them both together! Put the lime in the coconut ... then you'll feel better!"

This, of course, I found freaking hilarious. But then I started to wonder what our Orthodox friends would think of my amusement. Heretical? Possibly. Irreverent? Definitely.

And then I started to wonder again ... what's reverence? And what good is it, anyway?

Let's look at a biblical example from Job. For fun, we'll use the King James.

Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

Job's wife is obviously encouraging her husband to commit an irreverent act so that God (apparently short on mercy, but stocked up on wrath) will kill him and end his misery. So now you tell me: What's wrong with the advice of Job's wife? Is it the suggestion that Job be irreverent? Is it her bent toward suicide? What?

Bonus question: What the heck is Job talking about when he says we should quietly receive evil at the hand of God?

Burnt Burger Extravaganza!

I spent a few minutes of my Independence Day sitting on the grass next to a softball field, eating a hamburger. The hamburgers and softball were both part of my church's annual Independence Day Softball Game and Fireworks-Watching Extravaganza, which I must say is one of our best social events of the year. The only one better is the Abilene Idol Karaoke Fest, which is nothing less than spectacular. The singing and softball aren't so great - in fact they're often amusingly bad - but both events manage to unite the two main socioeconomic groups in our congregation, and that, in a word, is spectacular.

My church is sometimes called an inner-city church, although Abilene really doesn't have an inner city. It just has a few poor neighborhoods that most of the churches in the city try to ignore, and the people who live in those neighborhoods are the ones we pay attention to.

We also attract lots of students from one of the local Christian universities; I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's because they read the Bible in one of their courses and realize that the church at large is doing a crummy job of caring for the poor. Maybe it's because we're fairly free-and-easy about our doctrine; maybe it's because we expect our members to actually do something other than sit in a pew. Maybe it's because we have a darn good preacher.

Whatever the reason, we've ended up with these two major groups in our church: "community people", who come from the socioeconomically depressed neigborhoods around Abilene, and "college people", who are going to the local university and, on the whole, come from middle and upper-class families. As you might expect, bridging this gap is difficult, and always a work in progress. But it's a work that needs to continue.

A few weeks ago, I asked the following question:

Is there significant racism in the Christian church?

I got a few interesting responses, including this comment from Paul:

As to prejudice in the church, the only thing I have to note in my limited church-going experience is that the churches I've happened to belong to or visit have been basically all black or all white.

As Paul implies, this is not racism per se, and it does not prove that most church members are racially prejudiced. The segregation of the American church could be a historical accident, or it could even be that certain cultures prefer certain forms of worship.

But integrating our churches racially and socioeconomically is much more important than simply teaching people the errors that arise from racial prejudice: As my preacher uncle recently reminded me, one of the church's main tasks is to model a peaceable kingdom to the rest of the world. Where the world is bigoted, the church must show acceptance. Where the world is merciless, the church must show mercy. And where the world is frenetic, the church must show peace.

So practically, it doesn't really matter whether the segregated church or its members can be called "racist". What matters is that the church is continuing to allow a kind of segregation that Jesus disdained. (Consider how Samaritans are treated throughout the gospels.) Not only does this segregation make the church less than unified, it also makes Christians look ridiculous to the outside world, ultimately diluting their witness to the power of Jesus.

About me

Not much to say, today. Maybe I should just make a

Confession
by Stephen Dobyns

The Nazi within me thinks it's time to take charge.
The world's a mess; people are crazy.
The Nazi within me wants windows shut tight,
new locks put on the doors. There's too much
fresh air, too much coming and going.
The Nazi within me wants more respect. He wants
the only TV camera, the only bank account,
the only really pretty girl. The Nazi within me
wants to be boss of traffic and traffic lights.
People drive too fast; they take up too much space.
The Nazi within me thinks people are getting away
with murder. He wants to be the boss of murder.
He wants to be the boss of bananas, boss of white bread.
The Nazi within me wants uniforms for everyone.
He wants them to wash their hands, sit up straight,
pay strict attention. He wants to make certain
they say yes when he says yes, no when he says no.
He imagines everybody sitting in straight chairs,
people all over the world sitting in straight chairs.
Are you ready? he asks them. They say they are ready.
Are you ready to be happy? he asks them. They say
they are ready to be happy. The Nazi within me wants
everyone to be happy but not too happy and definitely
not noisy. No singing, no dancing, no carrying on.

MIT Blog Survey

The End of the Universe

I work on the fifth floor of a five-story office building. Five stories might seem short unless you've been to West Texas, and then you understand that I can look out the east side of the building and see Fort Worth, out the west side and see El Paso.

Five floors directly beneath my office, in the basement, is a large, open room. A church used to meet there on Sundays. I've always wondered what it would be like to worship in the basement of an office building. I suspect it would be a lot like worshipping in a hotel conference room, which is what I did on Sunday.

On Wednesday evening, my wife, my kid and I bade a fond farewell to the Riverwalk, hopped in the car and began our drive to Dallas, where we would have the privilege of participating in that Fabulous Waste of a Weekend that is often known as a family reunion.

On Friday and Saturday, we did some fun family reunion things, like talk religion. At one point, I found myself seated in the study of a fairly opulent house - complete with hidden room behind the bookshelf - discussing reformed theology and the racial segregation of the Christian church.

In fact, I was kind of surprised that we didn't have more discussion about religion; my sister, who is currently working her tail off in Oakland as part of the Mission Year program, had recently sent a letter to her sponsors - many of them family members - criticizing our particular religious tradition and expressing fear that the church of Christ Mafia would soon be coming after her. Those of you who aren't part of the church of Christ tradition, relax. There is no church of Christ Mafia. If there were, it would have disposed of Max Lucado long ago.

Because our religion is a significant part of our family identity, we usually have a family worship service. On Sunday morning, we all crawled out of bed and made our way to the hotel's Bluebonnet Room.

As I was walking down the hall to the Bluebonnet, I noticed that the hotel had three conference rooms. Ours was the middle room; the first had a sheet of paper that read something like, "Harvest Church International will meet in the Magnolia Room".

"Interesting," I thought. "Two churches. But we probably won't be meeting at the same time."

As I entered the Bluebonnet Room, I noticed that while it contained a folding table at the front and two groups of folding chairs with a center aisle, the Bluebonnet Room did not contain any actual bluebonnets. Also, it wasn't a room. It was the middle third of a long room that had been partitoned using those carpet-covered wall divider things.

"Boy," I thought. "I sure hope that we aren't meeting at the same time as that other church."

By about 9:40, most of the family had gathered in the Bluebonnet Room and taken their seats. We began church with some singing, which we manage without instruments and, on this occasion, which was facilitated by a fairly loud songleader.

Before we could begin singing, a chant started in the Magnolia Room, on our right. It was facilitated by a tambourine. Our songleader hurried to begin our own singing, which I felt sure would drown out the poor chanters with the tambourine, and proclaim us to be the Religious Victors of the Holiday Inn.

Then, from the room to my right, I heard an odd hum. Was that an amp clicking on?

It was. A guitar, a female vocalist and a folksy praise tune quickly subverted both the tambourine and our stalwart a capella chorus.

Eventually, everyone finished their songs and settled down into the contemplation phase of their worship. Everybody did their church thing, and we even beat the Baptists to lunch.

But something about the whole exercise awakens this odd feeling, this insistent tugging at the leg of my mental pants. It's similar to the tug I get every Sunday, when I drive past a Baptist church and a church of Christ that just happen to be located across the street from another Baptist church.

It just seems slightly ridiculous, doesn't it?

But can we do instead?

It's Thursday Already?

Ok, Ok, I said I would post on Monday, but I lied. Gone to our national users conference for work; scarcely time to breathe, much less write.

Now it's over, though, and I have some time to reflect, particularly on things that I've eaten. The conference was in San Antonio, so we ate on the Riverwalk several times. I know this is off-topic, but if you're going to San Antonio, Texas any time soon, try the following places on the Riverwalk:

Boudro's
Fancy kind of Southwestern stuff. They make guacamole at your table. It's fun.

Paisanos
Italian. Calamari made from strips of giant squid, apparently. Don't miss their appetizers.

Italia
This restaurant is on the second level. Don't go to the pizza place on the first level. I recommend the Tortellini Victoria with shrimp. Yum.

Don't go to:

Rio Rio
Not so great. They served my margarita in a tumbler. What's that all about?

The Curse of a Cluttered Mind

Three things.

Thing #1: The frequency at which I post to this blog.

It needs to be more consistent. Occasionally, I'll drop something every day; more recently, I've been posting once, maybe twice a week. And if you care to read my stuff, it must be annoying to check and not find anything.

So here's the deal: I'll post something every Monday and Thursday. I may post more frequently, but if you've been taking periodic hits of the crack cocaine that is my blog, here's a schedule for you: Monday and Thursday.

Maybe not crack cocaine. Maybe more like cigarettes.

Maybe a foot rub?

Thing #2: Book tag! I like books. I think I'll briefly respond to Paul's blanket book tag.

Total books ever owned: Probably about 100.

Last book I bought:
What are People For? by Wendell Berry. It was a gift.

I'm reading:
Blogs, and more blogs. Also, Lying Awake, by Mark Salzman. Gift from my sis.

Five books that mean a lot to me:
These aren't all good books, but they're responsible for a large chunk of my psyche:

Red Branch, by Morgan Llywelyn
No longer impressed by the writing, but it Celtified me.

The Gospel of Mark
This Jesus guy rocks.

The Once and Future King, by T.H. White
Taste the seductive kiss of the well-written fantasy novel.

Tortilla Flat, by John Steinbeck
Eh, I just love Steinbeck.

The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis
And now I'm hooked on mediocre philosophy.

And now, three people who should consider themselves tagged:
Shane, K-Rewx and Bryan.

Thing #3: A question for you smart people.

Today at lunch, a bunch of us were talking about the appropriate relationship between the church pulpit and politics. One of us insinuated that racism is prevalent in the church. Several others questioned that assertion.

So are my questions to you:

Is there significant racism in the Christian church?
And what makes you think there is, or isn't?

Those Darn Mossimos

This weekend I met Randal.

Randal looks to be in his early 50's. He wears a few days' worth of sad grey stubble, a beige cap with cloth flaps that cover his ears, and spectacles held together with medical tape. It's easy to see the dip stains between Randal's teeth, because Randal talks a lot. About all sorts of things.

When you meet a guy sitting on a street corner, a lot of times the guy wants to talk about why he's on the street corner. Or, in Randal's case, why he's coming to pick up his wife, who is panhandling at the intersection of an access road and a four-lane highway.

I've known Randal's wife, Deborah, for several months now. I see her every morning at 8 a.m., marching from her pitiful rent house to this intersection on the edge of town. She always comes to this intersection, even though it's on a highway with sparse traffic. The cops make her move from the intersections in town, she says. At this intersection she can sit all day, hoping people will toss her some rent money. But I hadn't yet met her husband.

I pull up to the intersection with two leftover blueberry muffins and a jug of ice water that Deborah had asked me to refill. Randal's bike is parked next to the concrete island where Deborah camps out, and he is sitting next to her, laughing about something.

I hand the water to Deborah.

"Matt," she says, "this is my husband, Randal.". We shake hands.

"I'm a welder," Randal says. "Least I used to be, until those mossimos came around and started taking my welding jobs."

Blink.

"Mossimos?" I think.

After a few minutes of diatribe, I figure out that the Mossimos are probably Mexicans, although they could be Italians or Russians, I guess. Whoever they are, they are partly to blame for the loss of Randal's welding job. Them and the robots.

"Robots?" I ask.

The robots, of course, are the other force responsible for the country's economic downturn. Industrial robots, the kind that make cars.

"Ok," I think, glad I brought sunglasses to hide behind. "I'm meeting a racist ex-welder."

Then, perhaps to prove his welding prowess, Randal starts telling me about his bike. It looks like a tandem bicycle, but with a sidecar. On the back, Randal has affixed a 4-cycle, 5-horsepower Briggs & Stratton engine.

"Like a lawnmower engine," I say.

It is, Randal explains, just like a lawnmower engine. But he's made some modifications to keep the engine cool.

At this point, Deborah stops paying attention to us and resumes making pitiful faces at the passing cars.

Randal, on the other hand, is engrossed in our conversation. He talks for a good 10 minutes about the air scoop he added, and how he can get 150 miles per half-gallon of gas, and how he can get his bike going 30, maybe 40 miles an hour, and how he can pull his two nephews (200 and 190 lbs) from Abilene to Tye (that's where they live).

"150 miles per half-gallon?" I ask.

Yes, he says. His motorcycle is the wave of the future, what with gas prices being so high. It's much more fuel-efficient than any car, and therefore better for the environment. But that's nothing compared to the air-powered cars and electric cars and vegetable oil cars that are coming. Why, a good electric car can accelerate as fast as a Dodge Viper! And his motorcycle is also good because you always kill the engine at stoplights.

"Ok," I think. "Add inventor and environmentalist."

"Yeah," Randal says, "My daughter had a dream about how I sold it on Ebay for $30,000. So I wrote them a letter to find out what I need to get an auction started. I thought I might try to sell it for $1,200, because then I could build another one."

"Entrepreneur," I add, smiling and nodding.

About this time, a black truck zips by.

"Get a job!", the passenger shouts, helpfully.

"If only your mom hadn't spent all her money on crack," I think. But I don't say anything.

"You know," Randal says, "the president and government and stuff think that we're over there to protect the oil. But I think God has us over there for a different reason. We're over there to protect Israel."

A zionist! I manage to pull myself together behind my sunglasses.

"Oh," I say.

Randal goes on to tell me some other things: How the river of life will be restored, and how computers are the tool of the beast, and how we will all have to give up our cash money, and have little grains of rice implanted in our foreheads.

After some discussion, I agree to put together Randal's motorcycle auction on Ebay, although I suppose this makes me his emissary to the beast. We shake hands again, and Deborah gives me an embarrassed grin. She squeezes into the sidecar. Randal mounts up, checks for traffic, and pedals his bike out into the intersection. I hear the motor start, and watch the 9-foot motorcycle race down the highway.

"Hm," I say. I climb into my gas-guzzling Toyota and drive home.

Fruit Flies

Gentle readers beware! The following article contains graphic descriptions of Fruit Fly Sex!

Single Gene Controls Sexual Orientation of Fruit Flies

This is an interesting article, mostly because it repeatedly uses the words "sex" and "fruit flies". On the other hand, it contains some particularly nasty material, including the following statement from from Dr. Michael Weiss of Case Western Reserve University:

"Hopefully this will take the discussion about sexual preferences out of the realm of morality and put it in the realm of science."

What? That doesn't even make any sense.

The discussion about sexual preferences can't be "taken out of the realm of morality." Science can ask questions about the mechanisms behind sexual behavior, but the rightness or wrongness of such behavior is inherently a moral question.

So if you get into a discussion about homosexuality anytime soon, please disregard the wild goose of "genetics vs. environment". If eating plums is immoral, then I shouldn't eat them, regardless of whether I want to. Same goes for kissing my wife, kissing your wife, playing kickball, reading books, feeding the hungry, or having homosexual sex.

Put Down Yer Dukes

Sandefur's latest post regarding government and commerce was very helpful: he's obviously given a lot of thought to these sorts of issues. But sadly, it looks like we're coming to the end of our discussion. Sandefur is hanging up his blogging gloves.

In light of this revelation, I'm going to try and bring some sort of closure to the argument. I'll begin with a blatantly simple summary of our argument.

ST. PIERRE: Humans are greedy little beasts, so the government should redistribute wealth.

SANDEFUR: The greedy ones are the ones who want to redistribute the wealth! Redistribution of wealth is tantamount to robbery.

ME: I agree. Redistribution of wealth is tantamount to robbery. But allowing the market to proceed unchecked is tantamount to oppression. So redistributing some of the wealth is morally justifiable.

SANDEFUR: Your premises are bad. Capitalism is not inherently oppressive because wealth is not a zero-sum game.

ME: Ok, but it doesn't matter that wealth can be created. What matters is that capitalism excludes people from the market based on factors that are beyond their control. It's oppressive because there is no real correlation between wealth and virtue.

SANDEFUR: No, capitalism is not oppressive. Most of the time, people who work hard increase their wealth. And even if it were oppressive, trying to ensure that people can keep what they have is more important than trying to ensure that everyone gets a fair shake.

And while I'm at it - can you provide a principle that justifies government intervention in providing for material needs, but restricts government attempts to provide for spiritual needs?

ME: [Scratches his head] Well, I'm going to continue to insist that capitalism is inherently oppressive. While capitalism may increase the absolute wealth of a society, what matters more is power in a society, which is determined by relative wealth. And over time, pure capitalism is guaranteed to concentrate relative wealth in the hands of a very few people.

To address the other question: Government should attempt to intervene in the market because there is a right to pursue property, but it should not attempt to enforce spirituality because there is a right to religious freedom.

SANDEFUR: Aha! Your name is no longer Matthew, it is now Mike.

ME: Um, Ok.

SANDEFUR: Furthermore, the only legitimate role for government is to protect people's rights. It doesn't harm anyone for me to practice my religion, so the government can't regulate it. It doesn't harm anyone for me to make money, so the government can't take it. In fact, I have a right to keep it, so the government must defend that right.

ME: Anything else?

SANDEFUR: Well, capitalism isn't oppressive, viz. burgers and blankets. Also, the right to pursue property, as you've defined it, is not a right. Get your stuff together, Mike.

ME: My name isn't Mike.

SANDEFUR: [Leaves.]

After considering this discussion, I think we have two major disagreements - three if you count the one about whether my name is Mike.

1. What is the extent of the legitimate role of government?
2. Is capitalism inherently oppressive?

I'm going to briefly summarize my answer to these two questions, and then I'll be done.

First, I think that the legitimate role of government may extend beyond the protection of the rights of people. I think it may include some secondary role, such as encouraging virtue. But I don't have enough theory to back up such an assertion, so I'll just leave it until I've done some more reading.

Furthermore, I am rethinking my wording regarding capitalism and oppression. I think it makes sense to talk about a system or a society or a person being oppressive, but capitalism is none of these - it is a relationship between government and the market. Therefore, I think I would be better off talking about the tyranny of a society that chooses never to intervene in the market. Such a society would be tyrannical because in choosing never to intervene, it would guarantee that the wealthy would continue to oppress the poor.

This is because, as we observed earlier, the market does not reliably reward virtue. Instead, it gradually funnels wealth into the hands of the people who begin with the most resources.

And as we discussed before, this relative wealth corresponds to real power. Not just power to get things, like cars and Rolex watches, but the power to make people do things. Sometimes this power is expressed in multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns. Sometimes in controlling the work lives of thousands of employees. Sometimes in bribing politicians. But this economic power is as real as physical power, and often more effective.

This, I think, is one thing about the libertarian position that really bothers me. Economic power and physical power are treated entirely differently.

In other words, it's OK for the government to have a monopoly on violent coercion, because then it can protect me from Big Joe who would walk in, beat me up and take my stuff. But it's wicked for the government to attempt to redistribute a little wealth, much less control the means of production, even though this would protect Poor Joe from wealthy me!

So to answer badger's question, yes, I do think it's useful to seek rational principles that could moderate the government's role in religion and economics. If nothing else, the seeking exposes our own ignorance or prejudice. If we're lucky, it may even help us decide how to vote.

Therefore, I'm going to bid a fond farewell to Timothy Sandefur, and hope that we meet more interesting people like him as this blog continues.

Or maybe I could bait Sandefur into coming back.

ME: Ayn Rand sucks!