An Anniversary

It's a big anniversary this week. Pilgrims saved from starvation by Native Americans? Yes. Sadness, grief, bereavement? Yes. 10 years.

And then, the next year, near-death for a dear friend. Yes. 9 years.

And, since being in the hospital on a holiday is a miserable thing, I'm going to keep my same schedule at the hospital, visit some folks on the Family Medicine floor (reminds me of something Nancy would do), and some wee ones and their families in the NICU.

CPE is a great experience for me. It's not just about connecting to the past, or hoping there's a future in it; it's about being present with others, slowing down, listening, paying attention.

I will be remembering. I am so very thankful.

Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Grace. I love our family. I love you.

Thank you, friends. Thank you, family. I love you.

Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving preparations

Click here to go to the Picasa slideshow of my photos.

My refrigerator treated me to some good stuff this morning. I woke up thinking about the leftover turkey smoked sausage from dinner a couple of nights ago, how good that mix of sausage, bell peppers, onions, and garlic would be in a breakfast casserole. Yes -- it was delicious!

Then, as I was digging out the dregs of the rest of the leftovers of the past week, I discovered a bag of poblanos, seven of them, in perfect condition. I put together my indoor grilling apparatus and quickly roasted the peppers to use later on in something good and wintery, or maybe this Saturday, the Bama-Auburn game, a big ol' pot of chili.

Ramma jamma yella hamma give 'em hell Alabama!

The Cruelest Month?

These chilis are a feast the eyes and the palate! T. S. Eliot said April is the cruelest month, and I think I know what he means.In April, winter seems like it will never end; just when the buds break into bloom, the killing frost can come and destroy all of that promise.

I think October is the cruelest month. The poblano and Tabasco plants and their other flowering nightshade cousins, the bell peppers, and even the Roma tomatoes are still loaded with blooms. They want to go on and on, and the sunny days have them fooled. But, we are going camping this weekend, and just as likely now as with April, a killing frost is likely any night, most likely when we're gone, and we would be so disappointed! So ...

Today, I went out and pulled up a Tabasco plant by the roots. I picked all of the poblanos, at least three gallons of them, and broke apart and pulled up the plants as I went, being the cruel gardener who determines the end of the harvest.

I roasted the last of the eggplants. Some, I scored and baked to freeze for later use in a ratatouille, or a baba ganoush. One, I sliced thinly for a lasagne, for some cold winter night's repast (hear that drama?).

I say again, our garden was wonderful this year. Nature surprised us with the blessings of so much fruit, and enough to share and exchange. We Our friends were so generous with their fruits, also. Duane's cucumbers made a shelf full of dill pickles. I am so proficient now with the stove-top canning that I can quickly decide, as I did tonight, to cook up the last of the Romas with a couple of hands full of chilis, mix with some salt and cumin and a couple of the last of the bells, throw in some onion and garlic, and put away five quarts of taco sauce for later. We had so many tomatoes that I have another half gallon for our use in the coming weeks without having to use the sterile procedures.

The cold is beginning to settle around the doors and windows. You can still go out with bare feet, but not for long. Probably by Christmas, we will wish we had put away all of the vegetables instead of giving so much away. We will probably eat our way into winter and the freezer, now packed almost full, will dwindle before we are ready. But for now, I am smug. I remembered the lessons of my mother and grandmother, we can grow much of what we eat, we can find and share and exchange for what we don't have ourselves.

Let's go to the woods for a few days. This winter will come and we will go out to meet it.

Hey -- that's melodrama! We have a cozy Airstream. We'll be toastie-warm, and get our fire going for s'mores, not for survival!

Season's End for These Sweet Hot Chilis

From Hungarian Pepper Sauce

[Click on these images to see the whole album in Picasa.]

What a beautiful afternoon to feast visually and victually on some chili peppers! We planted a couple of pepper plants next to the deck. The man at the farmer's market in Greenwood said they were Hungarian sweet peppers, but he forgot to mention they are also HOT.

I canned some pickled rings using the earlier greener peppers. Now, after some weeks of growth and neglect with lots going on, the green has evolved to green with a blush of orange to the emblematic chili pepper red that anyone would recognize as a HOT pepper.

I would not say these are as hot as a jalapeño, not by far, not even in the same county; and they are not even in the same country as the habanero (literally). But, they have just enough piquance to make them into a sauce all their own without mitigating with carrots to cool them down, or adding them to tomatoes for a salsa.

I made this recipe up, so all caveats apply: This is for entertainment purposes only, please consult expert advice for cooking and preserving home grown vegetables; I am not responsible for the safety of this recipe.

I added all of the following to an average blender (5-6 cup container); I blended on the high setting for about 20 seconds after adding each vegetable.

1/4 cup distilled water
1/4 cup white vinegar (store brand)
1 tablespoon pickling salt
1 3" diameter onion, peeled, trimmed, chopped coarsely
6-8 cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled, trimmed, chopped coarsely
1 lb peppers, seeds removed, but membranes kept

From Hungarian Pepper Sauce

After adding all ingredients, I blended on high for about a minute. My ingredients made about four cups of mixture. (Blending adds a lot of air to the mix.)

From Hungarian Pepper Sauce

I poured the mixture into a 4-quart saucepan. I brought the mixture to a boil slowly. All of the air added by blending wanted to escape rapidly, so I had to remove the pan from the heat several times and stir to release the air bubbles. After the mixture reached a boil, I reduced the heat by half.

From Hungarian Pepper Sauce

Once I could see mostly pepper sauce and a little froth around the edges, I simmered the mixture on low for 15 minutes. I wanted the onion and garlic to cook well, to release the flavors and sugars, and to blend those flavors with the peppers well. Eventually, the froth was gone, and the mixture became a beautiful rich deep orange color.

I sterilized some containers -- an empty bottle of from my second-favorite sauce, Yucatan Sunshine; a plastic squeeze bottle from the grocery wholesaler's; and a pint jar. I ended up using all three. The half-pint in the jar will probably go into the next batch of soup or stew.

From Hungarian Pepper Sauce

The sauce was the perfect topping for my late lunch of white beans and ham, served in Margie's pottery bowl. Very tasty.

We have five Tabasco plants that need to be harvested before frost. I'm sure I won't come close to the flavor of my very favorite sauce, Tabasco Sauce, because I would not know where to begin with the aging process they use. But, I'll have fun coming up with my own take on it. Next!

Facebook Friend Wheel

Facebook is fun. This morning I became a fan of Guinness. Actuallly, I became a fan a long time ago, but just now on Facebook. I wish all of my friends from every era of my life would join Facebook so we can keep in touch.

One product of Facebook, the Friend Wheel, is bugging me like a little itch one of the sides of my brain. [Wait a minute: the brain is rather round, but is divided down the middle; what if mine is like a brick, with six sides?] I can't figure out which side, but the itch is real. The Friend Wheel is cool, showing the connections among all of my friends.

If I think about my life in terms of eras, I actually have several. First is the Athens, AL, era, from age 0 to roughly 18 [Era I]. Then, there is the UNA era, ages 18-21 [Era II]; the Asbury era, 21-24 [Era III]; Hattiesburg, MS, Main Street UMC, 25-30 [Era IV]; Hattiesburg, MS, USM Wesley Foundation, 30-35 [Era V]; Vanderbilt/Nashville, 35-43 [Era VI]; Jackson, MS, 37-41 [Era VII]; Dayton, OH, 43-50 [Era VIII]; Indianapolis, IN, 50-present [Era IX].

That's a lot of change in a lifetime -- 9 eras -- but not extraordinary. However, as I look at this Friend Wheel, I see very little crossover among these eras of my life.

I think this would be a very interesting ethnographic tool of study. So far, my social network shows that no friends from my Athens era have come forward with me into subsequent eras. In the Athens era, roughly 1957 t0 1975, I can think of no friends now who picked up on the use of email and internet to stay connected. My brother uses email when he can get to the public library, but so far, he is not an internet user to the extent of joining Facebook.

The presence of a person on Facebook does not appear until the fourth era, roughly 1982-1992. This person has no connection to any other era. Another individual shows up from the Jackson, MS era [VII], and he also would fit into the Nashville/Vanderbilt era [VI], but so far, there are no friends on Facebook to link between him and me.

One crossover is visible to me. Two people link the two Hattiesburg eras, and one of those links to the present era.

Why should I expect any crossover at all between my life's eras? Taking into account that Facebook is new, and most of my current online contacts are not using Facebook, the friends I do have on Facebook are in distinct categories. My life's eras are also so divided geographically, that I have made a new start in a strange location, by myself, 8 times.

Some of the transitions between eras have been normal developmental transitions: leave home to go to college; leave college to go to graduate school; leave graduate school to a job; leave a job to go to another job or more graduate school. A couple of transitions have been traumatic: death of my spouse and radical change to a new place, job, new friends, loss of ties to the past; leave a miserable job situation to start over again, find love, move to a new home.

I guess this Friend Wheel is a bittersweet visual reminder that life has taken unforeseen twists and turns. It also reminds me that I am pretty resilient. I do wish for more connection among these eras of my life, to be able to share all of my collection of freinds with each other. There is also a wish that probably is not realistic, that life can look like a journey of continuity with roots in the past and wings toward a fullness of presence. The reality is more like a journey with departures, lengthy sojourns in strange lands, flights away into places of survival, and a lot of traveling without a map.

I have some pain in realizing that not all of my friends have come along with me, and that I have let some friends go, perhaps knowing that they belonged to an era, not to me, and that I belonged to an era or reason for them. A student once told me that we have friends for reasons and friends for seasons, but very few friends for life. The recognition of the reasons and seasons friends sometimes comes late, bringing a lot of pain. Trying to hold on to some friends who will not come forward with me pulls on something deep, unconscious, a longing for something of the self that will not be fulfilled.

Not everyone I love and value appears on the Friend Wheel; some appear on the Friend Wheel for different reasons. This way of staying connected is not necessarily "electronic", and therefore "shallow" and "artificial." Facebook and other social networking is something new, leading who knows where.

Arriving where I am now has nothing of the inevitable about it, except to know that I have learned to trust my heart. I love my home, and this huge collection of friends that now is visible in my Friend Wheel.

KitchenAid Refrigerator Ice Maker

I fixed the ice maker today. Somehow, it was not filling and making ice. Before calling a professional, I thought I would at least try to troubleshoot. You know how it is when you're Googling along, and you get just enough of a hint to convince you that the answer is just another click away... then, next thing you know an hour has passed. Or more. That was how it was this afternoon.

Finally, I found the service manual here and here. Unfortunately, this is a PDF that cannot be published on Google Documents (yet). Look for Whirlpool manual R-92, JOB AID Part No. 4322658A. The part number for the ice maker is actually 4322658A, for both Whirlpool and KitchenAid models. The manual's foreword, p. ii:

This Job Aid, “Whirlpool & KitchenAid In-Door Ice System,” (Part No. 4322658A), provides the technician with information on the operation and service of the Whirlpool & KitchenAid In-Door Ice System. It is to be used as a training Job Aid and Service Manual. For specific information on the model being serviced, refer to the “Use and Care Guide,” or “Tech Sheet” provided with the Refrigerator/Freezer.

If all else fails, I cut and pasted the two sections that I used from the manual into a Word file.

Various components of the ice maker can be found fairly easily online at sites like this one. Model number of our fridge is KitchenAid KSCS23INSS00. Curiously, Whirlpool is the origin of the KitchenAid fridge. I wonder if one manufacturer makes the parts that are used in different brands? Probably.

In all of my browsing to try to find the answer to the problem, something that is inordinately time-consuming and frustrating, I realized that I could very easily have used my cynical go-to plan: if all else fails, hit it with a hammer. But, that would only make me feel better for just a little while.

None of this will make sense unless you actually unplug the fridge from the wall, take the ice maker out of the freezer, and remove the cover first.

Don't force any part of the ice maker, no matter how tempting it would be. Not to worry. If, like me, you pass the optical test and the electrical bypass with the jumper wire on the T & H little holes in the side test, and then you power off, power back on, open the door, and pass the LED blink test, you will be rewarded with the specific results you are hoping for. The electronics of the ice maker will cycle a few times and will set the ejector into the "home" position with the blades at 2:00. Now, I am waiting to be sure the thing is cycling properly on its own.

Savoring High Summer

These late days of high summer have been all about the outdoors here at our family compound. When we have not been camping and working on the Airstream, we have been working on our first garden, growing some veggies. We consider it an experiment this year, to figure out what will grow in our limited space, what we can manage, what we did wrong, what we did right, what we will do differently next year. There are no rules, other than the ones provided by the natural biology, meteorology, and soil of our location.

Our inspiration has been Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I recommend it as a guide to a first attempt to try to grow, buy, and live more locally. I need to find some asparagus crowns before frost. We are able to get lots of wonderful produce here in our farmer's markets. Something about growing your own, though, feels pretty good. I love working with veggies that did not cost a fortune and came coated with wax.





We spent our anniversary week at Patoka Lake. As I know very well from my hard-core backcountry camping experience, hiking segments of the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains, that these outings to the state parks and forests of Indiana are not, technically speaking, camping, but it's a great way to spend some time together and have some incredible experiences, like seeing the bald eagles and ospreys, and several types of herons and egrets on that huge lake.







We haul a little home with us out into the well-groomed utility-provided campgrounds of Indiana. We cook our meals outside on a fire and a gas stove, but that is really just because we like to do that. We could cook our meals inside, on a tidy little 40 year old Magic Chef range, which could include baking brownies in an oven, if only I could figure out what's keeping the oven from igniting, and I'm not going to take the time to figure it out as long as we can make s'mores and banana boats on the fire (thanks, Amy C. !), instead.

We also partied a lot in July and August with a whole lot of birthdays -- Mammaw, Pappaw, Cathy, Teenage Cousin, and moi. Hmm... must have been something about these cold midwest winters bringing on these summer birthdays. What's my story of origins? I guess it gets cold in Alabama, too.

Hey -- look who started third grade on 8/4/08!

We've been pleasantly surprised to find that the Chiclette loves to go camping -- as long as there are DVDs, cousins, buddies from church, bicycles. How do you talk to an 8 year old about slowing down, unplugging, and connecting with nature? We're figuring it out. Daddy long-legs, moths, and other insects are still sources of much screaming, but we're trying to introduce curiosity, which helps.











Most recently, we have been canning pickled veggies -- again, experimental, with a Proustian touch of reminiscence about how my grandmother and my parents did this in the summers of my childhood. The scent of dill evokes those kinds of erlebnis experiences upon which Dilthey elaborated, full of emotional associations, all good, tender, full of discovery and the freedom of many years of childhood summers and weekends spent in the country.

If I were a superstitious person, I would not continue this nostalgic exercise. These memories are mostly childhood memories because my grandmother succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease and died when I was in college. Then, when I was becoming a free-standing adult in a sort of marriage that was absolutely wonderful, and we finally lived in a house where I could garden and flex my homemaking muscles, my Mom was found to have AD, also, and died in 2001.

What am I doing now, carrying on these kitchen garden traditions? I mean, is Chiclette paying attention? I don't know ... maybe. I don't think she likes pickles. Now, maybe if I made ketchup, I would earn a few neurons in her mind, in which some future steaming pot of homemade ketchup will evoke memories of our kitchen.

I might have come close to surfacing a few neurons of my own I made my first attempt yesterday to duplicate taco sauce that I miss from the Mexican Kitchen in Hattiesburg. Maybe someone can let me know if this is the Mexican Kitchen I remember from living there in the 80s and 90s. I used to buy their taco sauce by the quart. Someone told me it was a commercial food service product, but I have searched for it high and low and cannot find it.

Finally -- I found something close here on the Southside, at Roscoe's Tacos. OK -- it's not Southside Indy -- it's Greenwood. Let's get this out: we live on the Southside, not in Greenwood. We live in Indianapolis, on the South side. We live sort of in Homecroft but not quite, but also not in Southport. Roscoe's Tacos is definitely in Greenwood, and anyone who thinks Roscoe's is the best Mexican in the world ought to live in Greenwood. Just like the Mexican Kitchen, Roscoe's is not the greatest Mexican restaurant in the world. But, it is good, as far as it goes, and you can't beat the value. One of the four secret recipe sauces I tried on my tacos came pretty close to what I remember from the Mexican Kitchen. I tried to duplicate the recipe at home. I think I am closing in on it. More about that in a later post...

So, anyway, back to Dilthey and erlebnis and all, I choose not to live with superstition nor nostalgia. Rather, I carry on for the sake of the here and now beauty of our garden, the fecundity of it all, and the anticipation of putting out a relish tray at Thanksgiving that will include our okra, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, chilis, as well as the local produce we have collected all summer.

The next few posts will document directly or refer to some of our pickling efforts. I'm sure some stories will emerge along the way. Thanks to Troy and John for coming over to our pickling party where we all practiced with the Ball Blue Book. I hope this party will become a summer tradition in late summer/early fall.

By the way, I am looking for the best one-stop resource for all sorts of preserving, including freezing. Amazon has a plethora of choices listed. Does anybody have an opinion about Putting Food By?

We just got a chest freezer for the easiest preserving. We put it in the garage, just like everybody else I know.

Focus on Making Poverty History

After writing some unfocused and rambling thoughts about the series going on at my church, I was asked to condense a piece to be included in a summary/evaluation in this Sunday's bulletin. I submitted these three options. As I got them into smaller and smaller word counts, lost a lot of blather, maybe the focus became a bit more clear:

The first attempt:

Broadway UMC is presenting a series of sermons and activities emphasizing the theme, Make Poverty History. There is even a theme song, written by a lay member, Dave Frauman, and the choir master, Chris Schroeder. We dressed in white, made a big circle out on Triangle Park in the rain, and wore white arm bands.

I have a lot of cognitive dissonance about this series. I hope it provokes a lot of conversation -- like this blog that I am writing. I hope others are finding it provocative in the best way, as motivation to act.

The main idea is that we have been conditioned to think of poverty in a certain way, as another social justice issue against which we are at war, or a disease that is chronic and almost impossible to cure. Our pastors have presented us with the notion that poverty is already history (based upon the words of and about Jesus in the Bible), and that those previously understood as poor are full of abundance.

I am groaning inside – my dissonance is unbearable! How can I say now that poverty is history, when so many people are suffering within a stone’s throw of my own door and from our own sanctuary? I turn on the TV to an update on Darfur, and immediately I am frozen in helplessness and futility. How could I possibly extend my hand to the mother of the starving child and reassure her, “God has ended poverty!” And yet – I must extend my hand, somehow. I cannot bring myself to make the proclamation along with Mike and Rachel. Something in me, the way I think, the way I see it, will have to change before I can make the affirmation.

A proverb from Africa in circulation helps me think about what I can do differently: People living in a village beside a river went to the shore to collect water for their laundry and bathing. A man shouted and pointed upstream to a nearly drowned child coming down toward them, fighting the current, struggling to keep her head above water. Someone threw a rope and pulled her in. Soon, many more people – babies, elders, women, men – followed. The villagers ran and brought more ropes to rescue them. One of the elders, attracted by the commotion, came down to the shore to see what was going on. She asked, “How did these people get here? Is someone throwing them in the river? Are they jumping in? What is happening upstream from us? Send a delegation up the river and find out why these people are drowning.”

This proverb richly illustrates the complex responses to poverty. We can wait downstream, throwing ropes and reviving individuals who are drowning in many different ways. Some, as Mari Evans noted, are drowning in insufficiency: of money, of home, of love, of concern, of heat, of cool, of food, and on and on. In terms of addressing insufficiency, how many ropes, how much CPR, how much money, food, water, electricity, caring, concern, etc., etc., will we need to pile up beside the river to meet the needs?

We can join the delegation heading upstream. We might find many sources forcing people into the river: disappearing jobs, a miserable economy, education systems suffering from a lack of funds, broken down pieces of social and civic infrastructure, violence, apathy, dearth of imagination.

Walter Wink wrote a series of books about “the powers,” prompted by Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (6:12). The powers are the spiritual energy or forces (some would say personified in actual people or demonic beings) within systems and institutions of oppression. The trilogy consists of Naming the Powers, Unmasking the Powers, and Engaging the Powers. As I take my liberty with Wink’s work, making a very complex series very simple, I will note only that these books make very clear that we are embedded within and pressed from without by systems, some of which are evil. Sometimes we unknowingly participate in these forces, and sometimes we benefit from them. Some institutions and systems are broken beyond repair, some are fixable.

To work upstream is, in my opinion, to confront the powers. Although it is hard work and sometimes dangerous, it is eventually the only way to bring about change. As Wink says, “History belongs to the intercessors.”

I think my response to the dissonance provoked by our Make Poverty History series is to join the upstream delegation. Somehow, my gifts and abundance can work through confrontation of the powers. I’ll need to catch up with these upstream travelers. Anyone want to join me?

Second attempt:

I have a lot of cognitive dissonance about the Make Poverty History series. When we had a dinner conversation about it at Troy and John’s house, my one-word response was, “perplexing.” My one word joined several others, “concerning,” “revealing,” “energizing,” “hopeful,” and others.

I am groaning inside – my dissonance is unbearable! How can I say now that poverty is history, when so many people are suffering and dying in poverty within a stone’s throw of my own door and from our own sanctuary? I turn on the TV to an update on Darfur, and immediately I am frozen in helplessness and futility. How could I possibly extend my hand to the mother of the starving child and reassure her, “God has ended poverty!” And yet – I must extend my hand, somehow.

An African proverb helps me think about what I can do differently: People living in a village beside a river went to the shore to collect water for their laundry and bathing. A man shouted and pointed upstream to a nearly drowned child coming down toward them, fighting the current, struggling to keep her head above water. Someone threw a rope and pulled her in. Soon, many more people – babies, elders, women, men – followed. The villagers ran and brought more ropes to rescue them. One of the elders, attracted by the commotion, came down to the shore to see what was going on. She asked, “How did these people get here? Send a delegation up the river and find out why these people are drowning.”

This proverb richly illustrates the complex responses to poverty. We can wait downstream, throwing ropes and reviving individuals who are drowning in poverty. many different ways. Some, as Mari Evans noted, are drowning in insufficiency. How much money, food, water, electricity, caring, concern, etc., etc., will we need to pile up beside the river to meet the needs?

We can join the delegation heading upstream. We might find many sources forcing people into the river: disappearing jobs, a miserable economy, education systems suffering from a lack of funds, corruption in government, broken down pieces of social and civic infrastructure, violence, apathy, dearth of imagination.

I think my response to the dissonance provoked by our Make Poverty History series is to join the upstream delegation. Somehow, my gifts and abundance can work through confrontation of the systems and institutions that make poverty possible, even necessary in some frankly evil ways. I’ll need to catch up with these upstream travelers. Anyone want to join me?

Third attempt:

I am groaning inside – my dissonance is unbearable! How can I say now that poverty is history, when so many people are suffering within a stone’s throw of my own door and from our own sanctuary? I turn on the TV to an update on Darfur, and immediately I am frozen in helplessness and futility. How could I possibly extend my hand to the mother of the starving child and reassure her, “God has ended poverty!” And yet – I must extend my hand, somehow.

An African proverb in circulation helps me think about what I can do differently: People living in a village beside a river went to the shore to collect water for their laundry and bathing. A man shouted and pointed upstream to a nearly drowned child coming down toward them, fighting the current, struggling to keep her head above water. Someone threw a rope and pulled her in. Soon, many more people – babies, elders, women, men – followed. The villagers ran and brought more ropes to rescue them. One of the elders, attracted by the commotion, came down to the shore to see what was going on. She asked, “How did these people get here? Is someone throwing them in the river? Are they jumping in? What is happening upstream from us? Send a delegation up the river and find out why these people are drowning.”

This proverb richly illustrates the complex responses to poverty. We can wait downstream, throwing ropes and reviving individuals who are drowning in poverty. I think some will join the delegation heading upstream, to confront the institutions and systems that make poverty possible. Both are necessary, both are worth doing.

Walter Wink wrote a series of books about “the powers,” prompted by Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (6:12). The powers are the spiritual energy or forces (some would say personified in actual people or demonic beings) within systems and institutions of oppression. To work upstream is to confront the powers. Although it is hard work and sometimes dangerous, it is eventually the only way to bring about enduring change. As Wink says, “History belongs to the intercessors.”


"Oh, the suffering of a writer," she lamented, in her upstairs burrow, fussing over the loss of words
-- and the loss of time she should be spending out on the Airstream, which needs to be ready on Friday!

One of My Dreams

Here's a dream of mine: I would like to make a living rehabbing vintage Airstream travel trailers. I could buy one to start, besides the one I have now, rent space to do the restorations, hire some people to help me. Eventually, I could fix and sell a couple, and keep a couple to rent out for some income, for people who want to take a weekend or a week here and there, but don't have the money to buy them, or don't have room to store them.

I have always known that I have competence in working with mechanical things. I think it is in my genes, which is kind of a pun, because my Mom's name is Gene, Imogene really, but she always was called Gene. All my life, I watched her fix things around our house, and watched her uncles fix cars and farm equipment, using all kinds of neat tools and welding equipment. Now that I am learning welding, I remember a lot about those visits to those great-uncles. My Dad would not let her have power tools. I gave her a sabre saw once for Christmas, and he gave it away. Guess what? I have all kinds of dangerous tools! My mom also told me that great-great-how many greats ancestors, husband and wife immigrants from Ireland were behind a lot of my interest in working with my hands. He was a blacksmith, she carved gravestones. In this current age of slower living, I think it feels very good to recover something of quality, bring it back into a beautiful state, and use it for slower pleasures of getting out into nature. OK, enough of the romance of hard work and restoring trailers.

I wonder if there is a warehouse near Mapleton-Fall Creek, where I can rent the space I need? I wonder if there are any skilled laborers in the neighborhood who can help me with the things I don't know yet, like electrical systems, advanced mechanics of brakes, trailer frames, axles, and wheels?

I'll need people to help me restore the warehouse, first. Roofers, HVAC to make the place humane for summer and winter extremes. I'll need security workers because the tools and trailers will have to stay in the warehouse.

I'll need a lawyer to help me with the business legalities, and an accountant to help with the business plan. I'll need a loan to buy the warehouse and fix it up, hire and pay the people, buy some health insurance for everyone.

Eventually, I would like to work my way out of the job, sell it to someone in the neighborhood who can keep it going. It could also become something else, someone else's dream.

While I own this business, the standards would conform to and exceed those of the original Airstream dream. I will bring in experts and DIY enthusiasts as consultants for updating our practices. We could generalize some training to various skills like welding, electrical systems, HVAC, small space design, engineering for trailer frames, brake systems, and the monocoque shells unique to Indy cars, Airstreams, and Avion trailers. People who take our training don't have to work for me. They can work anywhere. That's the beauty of the idea. People can train, and I can connect them with employers.

So, when can I begin? I wonder if I can get a grant for this dream?

Make Poverty History Manifesto

I read the Make Poverty History manifesto this morning. I should be thinking about how to get the Airstream ready for the family camping trip coming up in a couple of weeks, but I'm puzzling over this statement.

I don't know what our pastors are proposing, if it is not more confrontation of the powers with regard to poverty, while also finding the "appropriate" path out of poverty for our particular community.

What are my gifts and dreams? What power and influence can I leverage in my social location as a relatively wealthy and intelligent agent of change? What do those formerly known as poor have to leverage in their social location?

What do I make of Jesus' identification of the poor as blessed; of the poor as the least? What do I make of the Jesus of the Gospels, when he confronts the rich and warns them that their wealth is dangerous? Is Jesus using the poor as a prop for his political message of overturning powers? Isn't this where a lot of the guilt I have comes from, anyway? Woe to the rich, blessing to the poor? Don't we need the poor around to remind "us" of our spiritual poverty? This is cynical, I know, and I don't believe it, but something about this logic is troubling to me.

While we are changing our thinking about who the poor really are, what do we do about the rich? Where does this conversation about gifts and dreams go for the ones who are more economically comfortable? Complacency is a dangerous thing, isn't it?

Liberation theology teaches that God has a preferential option for the poor. It's easy to recognize this preference. Liberation theology teaches that the rich need to beware, that poor far outnumber the rich, and once they figure out how to organize and gain a voice, they will overpower the rich and set the accounts right and balance the economy -- by force if necessary. Liberation theology says a lot more than this, but for my thinking this morning, that's as far as I am going.

I suppose the balance of another kind is coming into focus for me today. The thinking change about what's upstream and what's downstream is percolating in my little brain today. This has to be about more than semantics and psychological reframing. Language games and mind games will get us/me nowhere.

By the way, upstream thinking comes from my time spent with the UCC. Their entire social justice process begins with thinking upstream. I found an article (p. 3-4 Scott Anderson, Exec. Dir., Wisconsin Council of Churches) that explains pretty well the approach.

Make Poverty History

The church I attend is presenting a series of sermons and activities emphasizing the theme, Make Poverty History. There is even a theme song, written by a member, Dave Frauman, and the choir master, Chris Schroeder. We dressed in white, made a big circle out on Triangle Park in the rain, and wore white arm bands.

A lot of conversation is going around about this theme, not just here, but world-wide. The theme seems to have begun in the UK, with that great celebrity social justice champion, Bono, in the lead, joined by Nelson Mandela, and since 2005, the addition of a coalition of thousands of global organizations.

The main idea is that we have been conditioned to think of poverty in a certain way, as another social justice issue against which we are at war. Actually, we've been at war against poverty for most of my life, politically speaking. Rather than stay bogged down in the history of war against poverty, we must see the poor as individuals with gifts and dreams, who live in a world of abundance.

Here, where I live and worship, the theme is acutely in focus, given that the church sits in the middle of a poverty-stricken area of the city. I hear the pathology in that previous sentence. The World Health Organization has identified poverty as a public health crisis. To be poverty-stricken is like having a case of the measles, maybe, or like having a chronic but incurable condition, like diabetes. You learn to live with it, within its boundaries. How do you see disease as a gift?

What our ministers want us to think about is the notion that poverty is already history, because we will be looking upon those previously understood as poor as being full of abundance. This is part of an asset-based community development philosophy. Rather than focusing on the needs, that are endless, chronic, and incurable, we focus on the strengths, abilities, gifts, and dreams coexisting with the needs. I have a lot of cognitive dissonance about this series. I hope it provokes a lot of conversation -- like this blog that I am writing. I hope others are finding it provocative in the best way, as motivation to act.

Having worked in the church for a long time, I wonder what the staff would rather have -- people complaining about who has a key and who doesn't, about using drums in the sanctuary, about playing certain kinds of music by certain kinds of trained or untrained musicians; OR, would they rather have people disturbed by a sermon series on poverty, thinking and puzzling over the meaning of a concept, wondering, indeed, what is the Gospel in this series? Where is the good news? What am I going to have to change about my thinking in order to embrace this concept of poverty?

I've heard that when someone comes to the church to ask for financial help with a power bill, or for food from the pantry, staff and volunteers first ask them to sit down and talk. They ask them about who they are, their story, their dreams, and their gifts. I have heard that some amazing connections have been made in these conversations. Someone found a job by having one of these conversations. Sometimes people go away empty-handed, and staff and volunteers go to their homes to visit them and bring them things they need. Sometimes, they bring a phone number or contact about a job.

I have used the paradoxical thinking about despair and the ultimate overcoming good news. I have written to friends and coalition partners about the proleptic apocalyptic hope that the world is changing toward full rights and recognition of the right to marry for same-sex couples. I have actually written that love has already won. We're just waiting for the world to catch up so we can move on to significant struggles -- like poverty! And universal single-provider health care. I can write about this hope with a certain degree of confidence concerning the freedom to marry because the coalitions working on solving this problem are powerful, wealthy, and persistent. It could also be true that the numbers of people who are wanting to marry are far fewer than the numbers who are caught in poverty. I can write with a certain degree of confidence that the world will change. Even if we have to wait for the Jesse Helmses of the world to die, and a new generation comes along with freedom from this particular bigotry. The same kinds of upstream dynamics are involved -- get the attention and win the concern of those in power and influence, and you can solve a lot of problems. Not many believe poverty can be solved the old-fashioned way.

Dave and Chris wrote, 850,000,000 live in poverty. Unknown millions are uninsured -- and I am now among those now that I am unemployed.

Is poverty already history? The poor are beloved children of God whose gifts and dreams are waiting to be known and expressed. Is this a romantic notion, to say that all we need to do is reframe our thinking about what it means to be rich, so that no one is actually poor? What about people who can't buy groceries, who cannot buy medicine, who cannot pay rent, who cannot air condition their babies and elders in the summer or provide them with heat in the winter? Sure, the poor, or those formerly known as "the poor" can grow gardens and sell the produce. Is that what we mean?

I am always thinking "upstream," especially about poverty and health. I blame our free market economy for most of these problems. If we can fix the system, we can feed everyone, employ everyone, and take care of the health care needs of everyone. Throwing money at the downstream symptoms of a broken system, upstream, will be a never-ending process.

This kind of upstream thinking reaches back to bite me all the time, puts distance between me and the poor. I struggle all the time with liberal white guilt. What do I have to offer the neighbors? Who am I but just another upper class white woman, with my privileged education and background? I want to do good, but I am not OF the people, never have been, never will be. This kind of distance is not helping anyone.

Does this mean I have to move into the neighborhood into a house left derelict by absentee landlords, to legitimize my concern for the people who live there? If I want to bridge the chasm between Broadway UMC and Mapleton-Fall Creek, do I need to sell everything I own and give it to the neighbors? What is the answer to this distance that I not only feel, but that exists in every manifestation of my own life -- where I live, where I sleep, where I shop, what I wear, what I think about most of the time, whom I entertain in my home, how I spend my free time ... There is no end to need and giving in respond to need. In some ways, giving is easy. Out of my abundance, I can give generously, even when I am unemployed.

In my present state of sabbatical, I am miles ahead of someone else who has never had an education, never had the comfort and care of health insurance; I suffer no debilitating conditions. I don't have children to care for (not biologically, not solely mine to raise). The times I injured my back (who knows how?) I have been able to have surgery, no questions asked. I managed to recover from the bills in my deductible period and the 20% co-pay. I can take medicine when I need it. I have a healthy savings account. I own property. Is all of that true for those who live close to the church? How much more difficult would it be for a fifty-year-old woman who is my opposite in disadvantages to recover from life's insults and surprises?

I hope this proposal to make poverty history is not just about reframing our thinking. Rather, I hope this is about creating a different kind of economy, with a different kind of currency. I hope we are talking about the abolition of poverty by the creation of communities that value different ways of being in the world. I'd love to see maybe a six-block radius around our church begin to live into a new way of thinking about economy, community, and value. We certainly can't wait for the city to respond. The neighbors can't wait for the church to provide the answer to what is lacking, although they do have a food pantry and a growing sense of neighbors helping neighbors.

Poverty is already over? Abundance is all around? This will take new eyes to see, new ears to hear. What will become the new currency, the new economy? Is this happening anywhere else besides Mapleton-Fall Creek in Indianapolis?

Right now, I am still struggling with my white privileged guilt, still thinking upstream, unable to put these pieces together yet. Right now, this all still feels like a liberal thought experiment. I cannot imagine telling someone who cannot put food on the table that her poverty is an illusion, that it is over, that life is abundant, that her dreams are more important than anything I could give right now, in the present moment.

Love Pink?

Do you love pink? Do you love guns, especially semi-automatic handguns? In the hunting section of a popular store, featured on sale this month in Outdoor Recreation is this lovely weapon.

Definition of semi-automatic: (Wikipedia) A semi-automatic pistol is a type of handgun that can be fired in semi-automatic mode, firing one cartridge for each pull of the trigger. This type of firearm uses a single chamber and a single barrel, which remain in a fixed linear orientation relative to each other while being fired and reloaded semi-automatically. Some terms that have been, or still are, used as synonyms for semi-automatic pistol are automatic pistol, autopistol, self-loading pistol, and selfloader. ... Standard modern semi-automatic pistols are usually double action (DA), also sometimes known as double-action/single-action (DA/SA.) In this design, the hammer or striker may be either thumb-cocked or activated by pulling the trigger when firing the first shot. The hammer or striker is re-cocked automatically during each firing cycle.

Cheryl Wheeler has a song that would make a good sound track for this ad and all the images it conjures up for me.

By the way, was browsing the sale ads to find some stuff for our family camping trip coming up, looking for a shade canopy and one of those complicated but oh-so-handy cooking centers for the outdoor kitchen. And, I was hoping to take the kids fishing at the lake, so I began to browse for fishing licenses. At the State of Indiana site, I ran across this article from Purdue U. about water quality. It seems our streams and rivers, and, thus, our lakes, are full of septic system overflow.

(Heavy sigh) Time to test our immune systems in the great outdoors. I hope we don't need any pink sidearms along with our giardia filters.

simple pleasures

A very sunburned nephew (6) was having trouble getting to sleep. He refused children's Motrin, so I suggested a late night snack. As he ate his toast, he leaned over his cup and said, "Maybe some milk will lift my spirits."

He's the same boy who reported how great the pool felt after a hot ballgame. "It's so freshing -- try it, I think you'll agree."

Why do these little phrases catch me off-guard? Such embodiment and absolutely present awareness, deep sensing, and ability to articulate it; desire to share it and to know the reciprocity will be true and accurate; these catch my breath.

Riveting Preoccupation

Hey, everybody,

I've been working like an obsessed person on replacing the bathroom floor in the Airstream trailer. Nothing is simple and straight-forward in this project. The trailer is 40 years old, 1968, has held up very well, but some things have not held up so well. I'm documenting the progress on Airforums.com, where I am also IndyAnne, and on my .mac iWeb pages, where it's easy to post photos and use captions for them. Please visit there sometime.

I'm also taking welding, MIG welding, at the J. Everett Light Career Center at North Central High School. A friend took the classes and recommended it. I'm having great fun with that. I have some projects to do on the trailer frame and other things around the house.

Even the children like to help out. We're building up credit toward a Wii for the basement playroom that I'll be working on on my sabbatical.

My job at CTS ends on June 30. I'll have July and August off, then start CPE residency in the fall.

Life is very good personally. We're going camping in a week or so with friends from church, and a longer trip with more family in July. The kids loved the Outer Banks reunion so much, they insisted we put something together this summer. Could become a tradition.

Sorry about the reportage, sans critique. I'm a bit overwhelmed with issues I can't control but that cause me to lose sleep. I heard that two things keep you awake at night: conscience or curiosity. I guess the conscience part is, "Could I be doing more to help?" and the curiosity part is that I just can't help worrying sometimes about what's next. I try to live in the moment, to meditate and be present. It works most of the time, but not 100%.

Also, I 'm trying to detach from those things I cannot change. Brother, dad, institutions with FUBAR processes and idiotic leadership.

All of the manual labor is truly a source of energy and self-confidence, sense of competence, and just plain gratifying. I go to bed most nights exhausted from the labor.

The life of the mind is also good work, gratifying, and competence-affirming. Maybe it's a sine wave of energy flow.

More soon,
Keep in touch.

From Bonhoeffer to Weatherhead

My friend wrote to me about yet another potentially great institution doing something stupid. I found it helpful to respond in this way:

Subject: From Bonhoeffer to Weatherhead

I was talking yesterday afternoon to my process theologian friend about the evil that institutions do. I do think you must be talking about institutions and their mad, insane, irrational preoccupation with Bonhoeffer's subject, success.

Here are three theological seminaries with which I have personal experience. Three that have accrued such a surplus of stupid decisions that they cannot but do the harm they do. Add to the surplus of stupid the surplus of irrational idealism that we -- oops, I-language, Anne -- *I* invest in them. I want them to do the good that they can do. The good is why I wanted to join up with them. When I find that they are not communities after all, but collectives, with all of the magnification of human potential for bad, it hurts all the more. They continue to do this harm over and over. The salary and benefits eventually are not enough, and my capacity for detachment is not enough, to keep me there, entrapped by the system and my collusion in it.

What potential, then, is on the public face of these institutions, if not the evil one? Gospel potential, the rebel Jesus, the impulse of self-giving love, whatever it is that draws us into that light -- *that* potential. That's the false consciousness, I think, that sets up the miserable disillusionment and sense of the hidden parallel reality of meanness, bitter cruelty, and mindless plowing under of any nascent creativity and novelty.

Witness the damage these collectives have done. Not just the accretion of history (Inquisition, Constantine, the theologians and institutions under Hitler whom Bonhoeffer might have been addressing), but the immediately past memories of our own lives in churches, seminaries, and the institutions who employed us. We, the ones with whom I am now speaking in solidarity, threw our lives into them and were beaten down bluntly by the collective wickedness.

I asked M, is there not still a sum of good, potentially, that these broken institutions can do? We argued ourselves into a place that said, no, they have to eventually exhaust themselves (die?) of all of the negative energy they are accumulating more rapidly than they care to know. It takes a long, long time because the momentum they have accumulated is so strong. Creativity, novelty, options, the force of the better argument are not overwhelmed, however. These forces for good (may I say, forces of God -- in all of the beyonds, thanks, Laurel) emerge where they will, especially in the critical consciousness of those who survive the blunt force trauma and others who are able to escape the entrapment.

Will institutions always have this sine wave, of diminishing duration, this alternating current of good and evil? It seems such a waste because so much is possible when an accumulation of sufficient numbers of people form committed communities capable of clarity and unity of vision. Can't we go into these idealistic (real world) communal efforts with eyes wide open on the possibilities of distortion, to the net effect of a surplus of good? Isn't this happening somewhere? Or does it happen only for brief times and eventually succumb to the fatal flaw?

[I said to Chiclette (age 8) recently as we were approaching the bottoms of our ice cream cones after her softball practice on one of our just-the-two-of-us outings:
--Well, Honey, I guess all good things must come to an end.

Her reply, shaped by the disillusionments she has already suffered:
-You mean like you and Mommy?

Stunned, I responded:
--No, Honey, just ice cream cones. Your Mommy and I are just fine and we love you very much.

I think my point is, this relationship requires attention, careful presence, mindfully monitoring the potential for erosion of the energy that draws us together. The erotic idealistic energy that drew us together is not as sustaining as the energy of relationships anywhere eventually, in which the love and its potential must evolve constantly into novel forms and spaces. It's hard to explain all of that to an 8 year old. It requires lots of ice cream, and watching us grow, argue, test, bond, laugh, cry, etc.]

My New Airstream Web Site

You can click the heading above to get to the iWeb site I set up on my lunch hour today, to chronicle my Airstream projects. The first concerns the same subject as the previous post, with more photos and description.

To make it easy, I am IndyAnne on all of these Airstream-related places, like the Airforums. That's a wonderful web site, a great big help. Lots of DIY Airstream renovation enthusiasts post information and share advice here.

Let's face it -- most DIY adventures start with, "I was just trying to fix ... [insert your latest disaster here]."

That's my story on the bathroom rip-out. So, I get to rebuild the Airstream bathroom. And yet, I also made reservations to go camping in June with some good buddies from church, so getting it all back together is really going to be interesting.

Every tub has to sit...

So I'm workin' on the Airstream, the little love nest. I love the vintage postcard I got one time, dated circa 1950, atmosphere of post WWII optimism and individual freedom and all that, with a couple sitting in folding chairs on the roof of a travel trailer, watching the sunset. The caption read, "You know you're in love when you have to take your bedroom with you everywhere you go."

The grody 40-year-old bathroom in the Airstream is comin' out. I got a sabre saw and cut out the bathtub, the surround, and took up the white throne of judgment and put it in the garage. Then I hauled the love nest to CDS Trailers to get new tires and replace the angle iron holding the honey pot onto the frame underneath the throne.

Work has begun in earnest! Anybody need a fiberglass RV tub? I'm sure all the pieces can be glued back together, like a jigsaw puzzle.

They say the first thing to go into and Airstream was the rear bath, and you have to take everything out starting in the front in order to get the tub out. Oh yeah? Well, that's why the good Lord gave us sabre saws. That sucker is gondhi! Only this ghostly outline remains.

Now, on with the rehab. The floor gets ripped up, plumbing cut out -- more beer money from copper taken to reclamation! and everything updated with Nyloboard and PEX tubing. Woo-hoo!

Eggshells

Here I go again, walking on eggshells, knowing I probably should keep my mouth shut, but just can't do it.

The Jeremiah Wright speedbump in the Obama campaign is drawing all sorts of strange bedfellows together. The President of CTS has jumped into the fray.

President Wheeler and Dr. Jeremiah Wright are friends. I know they were both mentors in the D. Min. program at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH, where I used to teach. In fact, Dr. Wright's DMIN is from UTS. They are both leaders of leaders in significant segments of African American Christians. I realize the recent political scene has done harm to Dr. Wright’s reputation, used for political gains and losses. Dr. Wright’s inflammatory sermons may well have been taken out of context. Charges of racism behind the muckraking journalism calling attention to his sermons may very well be accurate.

Dr. Wheeler is a good friend, to speak up for Dr. Wright in the Indianapolis Star.

I recall another public statement from the President about another controversial matter at CTS this year, defending the seminary’s hosting a homophobic Christian denomination for ordination of its bishop in Indianapolis. This denomination is the Convocation for Anglicans in North American (CANA) and the local parish, The Anglican Church of the Resurrection. Our permitting this ordination in our facility was presented by the President in the guise of hospitality, of freedom of expression, of advancement of dialogue.

I have the impression that President Wheeler has a selective righteous indignation, or else he has a narrow view of friendship that might actually be very consistent. In his office, he is entitled to speak up for himself and to advance dialogue in the public sphere. My comparison of events spanning just a few months, however, finds that he will defend one friend who is being slandered by racists and opportunistic politicians, but he will live and let live while another group in the vicinity (from which he seems to distance himself while extending hospitality) engages in hate speech and uncharitable behavior toward gay, lesbian, sexual minorities, many of whom are also baptized Christians.

The public statement of December 15, 2007, strikes me as double-talk, far from calling out CANA and its congregations, priests, and bishops, some of whom are alumni or students of CTS. They should be challenged from this high office for their participation in homophobia, and, in fact to confront the reality that their very existence is fed by the energy of hate.

President Wheeler states that we have a relationship with the denomination, its priests, bishop, and local congregation. Friendship and reputation have tangled the President’s tongue over the troublesome matter of homophobia. The gift of President Wheeler’s friendship seems to entail a call for him to hasten to speak up against injustice. Hence, I must assume that he has no homosexual friends who have suffered because of Christians who hate them.

It is very difficult to call attention to injustice when the community at which hate is aimed has no legal status as a protected class. However, everyone who understands bigotry knows that we can still do the right thing when we are faced with the opportunity to advance justice and the beloved community. It is especially difficult to draw parallels between civil rights and social justice for gay people and the history of African American civil rights. A broad and deep critique exists that would ban such inferences. However, one oppressed community ought to be able to help the cause of justice for injustice anywhere. This is not easy, it is not politically expedient, but I think it is the right thing to do.

President Wheeler’s public statements could be considered by many to be statements of the position of CTS on matters of public consequence. In fact, responses to the opinion piece referenced above indicate that CTS is totally implicated in the defense of Jeremiah Wright, for positive or negative effect. This bears remembering and it will be remembered by at least one.

Beauty of Absurdity

On the other side of the absurdity matter -- previous post -- is the tendency to diminish one's own suffering. At one end of the continuum (assuming there is a continuum) is victimhood, an identity shaped by truly abhorrent treatment at the hand of someone or an entire culture. Victimhood can endure as a permanent feature of identity, inseparable from the self and the visible, symbolic participation in the meaning of the suffering, surviving in spite of the injuries and insults, but with little surplus of joy.

At the other end of the continuum is something like arrogance. This is a kind of impermeable way of being in the world, preoccupied with survival in a different way, avoiding harm and pain, perhaps describable as hedonic or hedonistic, or capable only of rising to occasions of fun at any expense.

I have described these extremes in the abstract. I don't think I have ever really felt either of those identities to be descriptive of me. I have too much advantage and shielded privilege, good enough parenting, safety in the adequacy of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, to have fallen into victimhood as a permanent state.

I have never given in to utter hedonism, either. My WASP work ethic is firmly in place, although I will admit that I would rather find a way to be paid well and with good health insurance as a dilettante fly fisher, a female Isaak Walton, if you will.

I have managed to steer -- no, wait, that implies control -- I have managed to move through life with enough buffetting of suffering, tasting despair, courting oblivion; cushioned by a general condition of comfort; and distracted by the entertainments of pure uncensored fun so that I would have to say that, like Rachel's favorite clothing says, life, indeed, is good.

And yet ... and yet ... life continues to serve up these absurdities. What can one person do? Act. Pray. Care. Pay attention.

Self-understanding is important to cultivation of a self worth sharing with someone else. So, it is important to confront the oppressors, offenders, and creeps that hinder the flourishing built into a heart. Say no, enough, stop, quit, move, change, leave -- whatever it takes. It does not help to deny what you know to be true. Have courage. Do what you have to do.

Curiosity is also a good thing. Why do you laugh at what you laugh at? What language do you speak? Who taught it to you? How were you put together that makes you you? What makes you different makes you interesting, as long as you are just as willing to ask me the same questions and remain open to my answers.

But, evil is real. That's why we have to watch out for the vulnerable (including ourselves). There really are some very bad people who want to harm you. There really are people who want to take away all of your stuff and your life with it. There are people who do not want you to flourish. That's when it helps to be selfish, if that's what you want to call it. Self-preservation is a worthy impulse. But, love comes first. So, even when love does not win at first, or seems never to win, or doomed to fail, you have to keep loving, as long as you know not to let anything come between you and the door. You don't have to be a hero. You can run, live, lick your wounds, and rest up for the next struggle against evil. Unless you're just plain exhausted, in which case, it's also ok to run and keep running until you find a safe place to stop.

They write books about these things. The futility of hope; the ridiculous tenacity of love; the necessity of surviving; and that this is not the whole story. The end we see is not really the end at all, but a kind of new beginning.

It is still true -- here and now, on this first day of Spring, and the eve of Easter -- that somehow, between the ditches of hedonism and despair, hope and love will win.

A World of Absurdity

A phenomenon -- psychological, spiritual, sociological, ... (?) -- accounts for a feeling I have sometimes. I don't know the name for this phenomenon. It's partly a kind of survivor's guilt; it's partly a smarmy privileged liberal self-loathing; it's partly an imposter's syndrome; maybe it's all of these things. It says:

No matter what I might have suffered in my life, nothing -- gods, singular and lesser, willing -- will ever compare to atrocities such as the Shoah, the Trail of Tears, 400 years of slavery, and Darfur; therefore, I should remain silent, count my blessings, and keep on the sunny side.

Such a vision of tragedy is as hard to keep in focus as staring at the sun.

Silence, as ACT+UP told us back in the early days of HIV/AIDS, equals death. Yet, I feel so overwhelmed by tragedy that I am struck dumb.

This happened to me at the Society for Pastoral Theology annual study conference in Atlanta a few years ago. Touring the MLK center, sitting in a circle of conversation and consciousness-raising among a mostly-white gathering of scholars and clinicians, so many images and so many words were overwhelming to me. All of my history, social location, my active and passive participation in systematic endemic racism, all crashed over me like a wave, filling my lungs with sand so that I could not breathe or expend the words that were piling up in my brain and spilling out of my heart, crashing on the beach with the waste and precious awareness, like these words now trying to fall upon these keys as I think and write today. My guilt, my implication, my shame render me silent.

How can I remain silent? This is not the answer. In my social location, history, awareness, I can help to construct a new world.

Thank you, Barak Obama, for your speech after the Jeremiah Wright debacle in your campaign. I feel hopeful that the world can change. You are a politician, a gifted and smart man, and you can lead with inspiration. The world can change.

The world can change. That's the next step for me after this languishing in shame and silence.

What can be more important to talk about this week than racism? Nothing.







Nothing - except for this murder, eclipsed, I fear, by campaign drama.

Lawrence King, image above, 15, shot in the head in his Oxnard, CA, school classroom. He told his classmates he was gay; he was proud of his sense of fashion. He was creative. He was a beautiful boy. Another beautiful boy, destroyed by the bigotry of our absurd world, pulled the trigger. Larry asked Brandon to be his Valentine. Then, Larry's family faced the miserable decision to withdraw life support because of brain death -- after harvesting strong young organs.

Thank goodness, Ellen is not struck dumb as I am. She spoke out when this happened back in February on her show.

Is Larry's death a Shoah, a Trail of Tears, a Darfur, an evil history of enslaving human beings, a genocide? On some absurd level: yes.

OK, now -- will Ohio put sexual orientation in its school bullying code and help raise awareness of the dangers of bigotry for vulnerable gay teens? Or will politicians and religious leaders continue to avoid this poll-killing "issue"?

Will churches and pastors continue to placate themselves with the cool liberal vision of equality for all people, while allowing the absurd tragedy of these isolated cases (Larry), these outliers of social dysfunction (Larry's killer), to keep them in denial? Our church chooses to not become a Reconciling Congregation. We can count on the strength of our love and relationships, our generous hospitality, our wide net of tolerance -- no, not just tolerance: celebration! -- to bridge the singular tragic gaps. How nice.

When will the Democratic Party stand up for rights of gay people and our families? Why cannot a school be empowered to protect Larry and millions of other vulnerable teenagers? It's a political killer, alright.

Why does this absurdity endure? Why continue to hope that the world will change?

According to Michael Berenbaum, in Elie Wiesel: God, the Holocaust, and the Children of Israel (p. 148, 1994), also published under the title The Vision of the Void: Theological Reflections on the Works of Elie Wiesel (1979)], Elie Wiesel said in a symposium:

In a world of absurdity, we must invent reason, we must create beauty out of nothingness. And because there is murder in the world -- and we are the first ones to know it -- and we know how hopeless our battle may appear, we have to fight murder and absurdity and give meaning to the battle, if not to our hope. (Berenbaum, p. 148, source cited above).

Wiesel also wrote in Souls on Fire (Berenbaum, p. 148, source cited above):

... whoever creates affirms that the creative act has meaning, a meaning which transcends the act itself.

When my friends in Seattle lost the case for declaring unconstitutional the Washington State gay marriage ban amendment to the constitution, I wrote an essay with the most hopeful -- hoping against hope -- message for continuing to hope. It's a ridiculous essay. It's the kind of exercise in self-soothing that borders on the insane. Insane: keep repeating the same behavior, expecting a different result. I actually said, "Love will win." So what?

Keep hoping. Keep creating hope. Just like that. Just like Heather and Leslie. Just like Elie Wiesel. Just like Larry.

Hope is absurd. It's ridiculous. It's insane. It's beautiful.

Share the Love

I think you will recognize the names in the conversation here. It's a beautiful and true story. All stories are true, this one actually happened.

This story relates to my previous two posts about Mark.

It's the February 26, 2008 post, just to be sure: "Thirteen Ways of Losing an Uncle"

Memorial Service

Mark E. Ferguson
July 12, 1964 - February 12, 2008

The memorial service was held at the Chapel of Broadway UMC in Indianapolis. I'll post the order of service and my comments for the witness. Margie's uncle Charles and I sang a duet of Townes Van Zandt's If I Needed You. Charles also sang a solo, The Lord's Prayer. Uncle Bobby Brewer, pastor of Dixie UMC (near Hattiesburg) preached the homily. Broadway's wonderful organist and choir master played gathering music and congregational hymns. The service was well attended, the chapel was full of friends and family.

Too Soon, Gone From Our Midst

Mark E. Ferguson, of Indianapolis, IN, died at home on February 12, 2008, following an extended illness. A memorial service in celebration of Mr. Ferguson’s life will be held at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, February 16, in the Chapel of Broadway United Methodist Church, 609 E. 29th Street, Indianapolis IN 46205. Family members and friends will preside. Mr. Chris Schroeder, organist and choir master of the church will provide music. Family members and friends are invited to attend.

Mr. Ferguson is survived by his wife, IUPUI associate professor of Political Science and Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. Margie Robertson Ferguson and son, Duncan, 7; mother, Evelyn Savell Ferguson of Perkinston, MS; father-and mother-in-law, Dr. James A. (Jr.) and Linda McSwain Robertson, of Hattiesburg, MS; brother- and sister-in-law Mr. James A. (III) and Shannon Robertson, of New Orleans, LA; and many beloved relatives and friends. He was preceded in death by his father, Dr. Travis Ferguson.

Mr. Ferguson was born July 12, 1964 in Pascagoula, MS. He was employed as an information technology consultant by Price Waterhouse Coopers in Indianapolis. He was a volunteer reader for Indiana Reading Information Services.

Those who wish to share their condolences to the family are invited to send contributions to the National Brain Tumor Foundation, 22 Battery Street, Suite 612, San Francisco, CA, 94111-5520, (800) 934-2873, http://www.braintumor.org, or to the charity of your choice.

Margie and Mark, thanks for coming to share in our celebration of holy union. May our devotion and love endure life's insults as well as yours.

















A good man, a good friend, quiet and deep, with lots of patience with little-boy energy for incessant video games. Right, G?

That's right, Margie -- we lift our glasses, a wee dram in his memory and feel his pleasure in good company.