When giving is not enough

This an odd title for a blog especially at the time of year. The time of giving, the time of concerns, when we look to the poor among us. When we a s a society express kindness to the "least of these". From now until the end of the year (or the end of the shopping season) media of all kinds will inundate our lives, with pleas, to matching funds, and to our sense of right and wrong to give. We will be reminded with subtle films as "It is a wonderful life" and The Christmas story and be glad that we have avoided Scrooge stinginess and dislike of the day (more on this in another blog) and feel the "joy" of his religious awakening!! We will smile at the Tint Tim assertion of "God bless us everyone" and the holidays will end until next year when the process starts again.

But is giving enough? Is the coin we give enough to relieve the misery felt by way to many persons especially now. Is giving enough when the emotional baggage weighing down the populace, suffering on the lack of health insurance, shelter, and employment? Is there the tendency to feel guilty at the thought that our giving is really not enough.

I ask this question because the truth is: as a nation of people we can not give anymore. It is not there. It is not working and the old methods of dealing with poverty have long sense evaporated. What all of us face is the fear (real or imagined) we are in the same boat. Everyone in the country is crash away from poverty. Yes even those who print the money!!!
Yet we give at this time of year. Maybe it is the panacea needed to comfort all of us: that we are contributors still, not takers. The ability to give still fills us with joy even in the midst of the poverty we are encased with. Later

Fourteen months

The time does not seem long, fourteen months and counting. It seems small until you do the math: fourteen months equals 420 days, 10,080 hours; when you do the math the weight of the time becomes evident. Again, it seems long and it is because it depends how you spend fourteen months. In jail, it is long, in the hospital, it is long as a free person it is just another day to occupy.
I can remember the first fourteen months. It was a different time long ago. The future was ahead the times of togetherness even in their difficulty were okay. Life as time moving was constant: the family dynamic grew challenges were dealt with, changes accepted as though it would change. It was magic! The interface of blending personalities dominated all of us those fourteen months. There were the firsts: thanksgiving a gathering of people and the roll eating contest, Christmas spent in the political balance of Grandparents that needed to do for the little ones. The glee on their faces as they tore into the Santa Clause experience and wondered out loud why the cookies were not touched. Then smell of that spruce tree a staple for the house for years to come (until we got the cat). New years day a beginning of another experience that marks the freshness of anticipation and ushers out completeness. A blessing to live to see and to have that opportunity to do better than the last year.
Life does continue it has and will no matter what the issues faced or the problems experienced. We grow, we age, we overcome, and, we fail; for life and living take all we have: it inhales and expands. And in time we run out of life, new days and years, and death snatches our security leaving a whole where we once stood,filled with the replacement and the cycle continues.
Fourteen months the bloom is off the rose the color has faded, and staleness is the brittle result. Fourteen months of the 264 total months of living, struggling, laughing, weeping, mending, and separating. Recovering from injury yet still here by grace undeserved.
I wonder in reflection and rethinking about this time. the truth is the months will continue to grow. Today is fourteen the future will be in years, then decades then no more time. The chasm that started as a tear in the fabric has breached the original cloth, no patch may mend it. There are no words to say or write as communication a stronghold between two has silenced, ceasing from renewal. All that is left is the farewell through intermediaries, the dung heap of all failures to grow.
One would think that the last fourteen would be canceled by the first fourteen, creation a product of one, the way it began. No such luck and no desire to try...fourteen months and counting, the end for a new start, freedom calls and we answer.

Losing the message

I have observed for the last months the Obama Administration losing the message of change. It is hard to believe that it has been a year since election day and almost a year into the term and the message of change has been lost. No longer do we see the rallying cry of change we can believe in. No longer does the president enjoy the comfort of settling in. In fact the polls see him slipping among those white independents he "needs" to scare the conservatives into action. Any momentum he had, capitol he amassed, is going south and quickly. How did this take place?
It is cynical to assert that the race issue has arisen, but let's be honest and fair: it was never that far away! In the back of the minds of MANY whites in this country the vote was still a lesser of two evils: one a man of color, the other just a man with a horrible running mate; who constantly proves she is so unqualified on a daily basis. Again, it should be a no brainer, this Nation so conceived in all good things is in trouble and we should have turned to another choice: change. But what happened? Are the issues too difficult to fix? Has the "American" century come to a close? Is this empire a paper tiger losing face as well as influence? According to polls yes, but is this the real story? I said earlier that the fear of a black man in charge drives the majority culture to unsettling positions: to whit, tea baggers, birthers, a new minuteman posse, and all of the old orders that slink around in the dark. The surge in America first is growing. The fear of a literal Black Planet has caused outbreaks of madness never seen. All last summer the ground work was laid for this moment: the arguments with Congressional leaders, the rallies of protest in Washington D.C. (yes the crowds were small but that is not the point, they came), culminating in the outburst of Representative Joe Wilson: "you lie" with no one protesting other than black folks.
This why I assert that the message of change has been lost. There has been an orchestrated, timely set of events to thwart the program and it is working. More and more the divide is gaining steam and the us versus them mentality is taking over. Health care, an issue that should be easy, is now in desperate trouble, and not from lobbyists. The trials of the terrorists of 9-11 in New york, a place that should hold these men accountable, is being assailed as a painful reminder of what happened. Again the message is lost due to these protracted issues that have nothing to do with the problem: getting the country back on track. My concern is that the longer a fight over messages goes on, the more Obama loses the argument. And this is disheartening, not because he is black, but because he has come into office with all the mess created by a predecessor who received a pass. So my prayer is that Obama's advisors right the ship lest it sink under the weight of indifference, which unfortuately will be a win for their side. Later

The aftermath of 2012

Tell me something: (okay it is rhetorical, I get it) why is it we spend more time following up after these apocalyptic films than parsing out their realities? It seems that persons are more interested in being frightened by this genre of film than looking at the History Channel and getting the real story from people that know a little something about this. This movie 2012 has to do with Mayan culture and the mythology of their view of end times. They have figured out when the world will come to an end using their system of astronomy (a postulation) . This is nothing new!! Humankind has tried for years to get an idea, a glimpse , a hint as to when this will occur. Theologians of every movement from Paul's letters to the Philippians, to the Mayans and the Millerites, now the Seventh Day Adventists; as well as others have wrestled with these issues.

Human nature as it is likes viewing the unknown. From the time we saw the horizon, civilization has asked the question "what is out there?" And at times we have gone to see, with great results, with failures, and with marginal success. The point is curiosity kills us and we like it. Wanderlust, exploration, all lead in time to a question: how does this all end? But the issue I have is that we always ask this question during times of crises. As an example many years ago there was a movie called "Birth of a Nation." It was not like 2012 or the Planet of the Apes trilogy, that spoke of the end of the world as humanity knew it. (I can still hear the vitriol in Heston's line, "get your dirty hands of me you ape" and in another blog I will deal with that loaded comment.) In some circles it would not be classified as "apocalyptic," yet it was. It depicted the antebellum South, the loss of pride, station, respect, nationhood; and how in the midst of carpet baggers and free blacks: the south rose again. Historically, no less a person than President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that this was "lightening in a bottle." Such is the nature of these films: they are lightening in a bottle, they are made to inflame passions, make us ponder the end of the world, or usher in an agenda which swings the pendulum back toward the center, or the right. It is against the backdrop of this agenda that films like 2012 are made. The premise is simple: the world is ending. Earthquakes, storms, disasters all take place around the world. Catastrophic events of cataclysmic proportion are wrecking the planet. The government is not to be trusted--it is literally everyone for themselves. The movie has many interpretations and warnings from environmental concerns, to nuclear usage, to biblical admonishments (I am laughing as I write this phrase and only a preacher would find it funny); however, the bottom line is we are in crisis mode. For the first time since the Depression, people are wondering if the end is in sight. Is this the end of the world as we know it? Is the way of life, philosophy and culture we enjoy ending? Do we face a debacle where the very foundation of all we hold dear must vanish? In the language of the new testament : We do not know. There is much more depth and madness the world must endure before the end. All we can do is to be rational and reserved and not take the pictures so seriously: the sky is polluted and dangerously so, but, it is not falling...yet

On a clear day

The day begins as others do, the dawn interrupts sleep. I often wonder especially when we have days that are cloudy why I can not just sleep in. Then the thought comes that I have a gift which must be used and made the best of. These are the days that are cloudy for me. I feel robbed at times. the overwhelming issues that are in my life, the great expectations, the cajoling, the oft times rudeness and rejection all affect the clearness of the time that I have been given. It is like this commercial where a child is offered a bike as long as they ride it in the square. The bike is cool but there is no real fun as the square is a prohibitive factor in the ultimate enjoyment. When the day is not clear for me it reminds me of subtle limitations and a need to refute or fight them. Then in times of despair the grind is so debilitating that the weight of institutional foolishness defeats the clarity needed to make decisions relegating me to an existence that makes me want to holler. And I can not throw up both my hands, even if I wanted to, needed to, should do, the reality is I can not do. It is the most miserable experience one can have to not quit because you can not. For quitting is the tonic of despair and once imbibed the taste never leaves. There will always be the bitter root of if I held out a week, day hour, or minute what would the end be. No it is in the cloudy day that clarity comes. Not because of any ante dote, clever saying, musing or encouragement. In this time of seeing beyond self we enter into the place of darkness, the final testing ground, where the result is pass fail. The only answer you have is stand or fall. The only relief is to make it through or succumb. To avail yourself of what you know to be true or to surrender to the mob, the conformity of others at the expense of who you are.
That is why when there are clear days I take in the moment. When the issues are so easy that solving them is stressless. That everyone agrees is a rare happening. I hang on to those moments for dear life, because at the next breath the winds change as they do, leaving you in the wake of excretions so deep and foul that it is only the sweet memory of bygone bliss that ensures there will be rescue.

Ordination

Every once and a while we are reminded on why we do what we do, and whose we really are. Today is ordination day. A day that we honor and launch persons to this peculiar calling called ministry. It is a grand time. It is an occasion that those who have gone before remember, and I mean remember. On that day everything slows down. In fact it drags out: all that takes place is hyper drive to others but not you. The songs, scriptures, even the sermon is slow until the actual act; then it hits you like a ton of bricks: you are ordained. The wave of emotion is not to be believed. It lowers itself as the spirit does leaving the residue of its covering that is amazing. You are ordained! The pinnacle of your ministry only it is fleeting. Long after the tears (and there are a lot of them) long after the congratulations, then you re left with the notion of what to do next. Because the Bishop has a surprise a church appointment with your name on it. Yes your name the weight of responsibility is now exponential: you have souls to deal with, lives that depend on you. No amount of training can prepare you. Prayers might sustain you but after ordination you are on your own, and God is good company.
I remember mine vividly. I smiled to myself as I went down memory lane, an event of almost 15 years ago. Then as i watched the ordinands, my eyes became wet with happiness and memory. The memory of the past and the potential before me, the struggle of this life and the casualties endured, the losses some small and unimportant; others too painful. Yet through it all I have learned that in all things God has called me and as I write this tears flow on the inside,as a public display would be to revealing to others.
So, the time to see where I am going approaches and I am full of expectation. Not that i want the largest but I want the challenge of a community, something that I have missed for 2 years. During these years I remember a picture seen long ago when life was pain free and the future was a figment of the imagination (what do we know at 20 anything????????!!!!!!!!!). It was called Monsignor. The scene at the end of the movie shows a reunification of the mentor now Pope and his mentoree returned to his office as Cardinal. When the two meet the Mentor reaches out his hand to allow the young priest to kiss his ring: a sign of respect for the office. In the beginning he shakes his hand (he is after all an American). But as the scene closes, he kisses the ring of the mentor. The Pope/mentor says you have changed, both of have. He inquires how isolation was for him: his pupil replies at first bitter, for blamed others for my failure (see the picture) a common theme that all of us have at sometime. Then it became ubearable, the easier, then acceptable, as I began to forgive myself. The Pope then says i need you, come back as soon as your affairs are in order. The Cardinal replies: I have done that already.
Like the cardinal I have experienced the bitterness of failure and blamed others, when it mine. And, during exile (that is the country) I held on to bitterness, and took it out on others (this is really painful, for those that know me). I have lost more than I care to loose but it was freedom for the good, and acceptance has allowed me to weep tears of healing. No matter what I am okay ready to go forth again into the vineyard flawed, but able too see clearly. This ordination day reminded me of what we really do, and I am grateful and have settled all my affairs.