Belated All-Saints Day reflections

I wrote this on Sunday - before the work week got crazy; before I found out about "the letter from 2012"; before the election insanity peaked; before the world changed. So forgive me if it's a bit behind the times. We'll catch up with all that pesky "reality" in a little bit. But for now....


As I write this, I am sitting at the trailhead at Island Lake State Park, outside of Brighton, Michigan. It's really too cool to sit out at the picnic table - I really shouldn't have trusted the weatherman, and should have brought the coat along anyway - so I'm sitting in the cab of Chris's truck, laptop on my lap, looking off at the falling leaves and gently rustling pine branches.

Chris is off on what will likely be his last Michigan bike ride of the year. We woke up early, thanks to the death of Daylight Savings Time, and I just spontaneously said, "If it's halfway decent out, let's get you up to Brighton for one last ride." So we piled his bike and my laptop bag into the truck, and off we went.

On the way, I made him pick up breakfast at Tim Horton's (the breakfast sandwiches are proof yet again that "five million Canadians can't be wrong"), and led him on a ten-mile detour out to Secor Metropark. The trees form an arching tunnel overhead as we rode from Bancroft Street to Central Avenue, showcasing the last of the fall colors in a brilliant show of yellows, golds and oranges, with the occasional flaming-red sumac thrown in as a kind of Divine exclamation-mark.

It's All Saints' Day, and for the first time in a long time, I missed being in a worship service today. In the recovery community, November is traditionally "Gratitude Month," so the combination of the day and the month has me thinking about the people who have died or who are out-of-sight for whom I'm grateful.

I'm grateful for the men who taught me to be a man, once I finally decided that getting sober and growing-up might be a good thing. I'm thankful for my sponsors - Bob S., here in Toledo; Bruce F., Nick T., and Barry S, in Kansas; and Tom S. in Chicago. I'm especially grateful for Bruce, who first told me that my sexuality was something I was going to have to deal with at some point (more than a dozen years before I was ready to hear it) - and for Tom S. and his partner, Michael D., who were ready to lead me out of the closet and into the light when I finally ran out of denial. Though all but Bob S. are hundreds of miles away, their voices live on in me, and it always brings a warm feeling and a smile when I hear myself speaking their words in meetings.

I'm forever grateful to Jeff Wise, a high-school and DeMolay friend who, when I was finally ready to hear words of grace, directed me to the pastors at Epiphany Lutheran Church. I'm grateful to Emile Boselli, a DeMolay brother and Church of Christ pastor-in-training, who first introduced me to Max Lucado and the incredible images of grace in the book Six Hours One Friday. But the man I'm most thinking of this weekend is my pastor, mentor and friend, Tom Housholder. His life, his servant faith, and his willingness to share his struggles gave me an image of Christ and Christianity that will endure for my lifetime. When I was introduced to Henri Nouwen's image of "the wounded healer," I recognized it instantly - because I'd seen it for years in Tom Housholder's life and ministry.

Another man I miss greatly is Jerry Amundson, another surrogate-father who I met through his son, Eric. Jerry was a big bear of a man whose only real surrender in life was at the very end, to death itself. He was a soldier, a talented artist and businessman, a loving father, and a man who displayed passion in every area of his life - whether it was love for his wife and kids, hunting and the outdoors, or for his favorite Kansas City barbeque. I pray that someday people will see in me the kind of passion he displayed for those he loved, his life and his God.

And today, more than most days, I'm missing my mother. Mom was one of those persons who knew the motto of the Dead Poet's Society long before the movie came out - "to suck the marrow out of life," to enjoy each and every moment that one possibly could. Looking back, she also understood that classic line from Auntie Mame - "Life is a banquet, and most poor bastards are starving to death." Her gifts of humor, spontaneity, and physical displays of affection (she was a hugger way before it was cool) continue to give to this very day. Her "what the hell, let's just go somewhere" attitude is at least partly why we are in Michigan today - because she passed on to me a drive to never miss a chance for joy if it was at all possible.

There was a moment, last Monday, when I really wished Mom had been around to share a moment with Chris and I. We had wanted to have a kind of anniversary dinner for a couple weeks, but this and that and the other thing just kept us from doing it. But finally, we had a night when nothing else was in the way - and I took Chris up to Eddie Lee's (up on the north side of Toledo, near Sylvania) for some classic prime rib.

Neither Mom, Chris or I had ever been there, but when we walked in I knew - this was Mom's kind of place. Not fancy-schmantzy (though she also got a kick out of that), but a nice joint. She would have loved the French onion soup - the baked kind, with the cheese baked onto the side of the bowl - and there was the bread-basket with warm rolls and the little bread-stick crackers that she loved to munch on before a meal.

We didn't want to spend a bunch of money, so we split a prime-rib dinner. (Yeah, Mom would have said "Just go ahead and have a dinner, for cryin' out loud- live a little!") But I think she would have been smiling as we reveled in the perfectly-cooked meat, quickly dipped in au-jus seasoned with just a bit of strong fresh horseradish. (Eddie Lee's is definitely an under-sung treasure in Toledo dining.) And she definitely would have approved of how much joy it was to just be, without any deadlines or gotta-do lists, to just sit back and celebrate the end of a good three days together.

My faith in an afterlife is what encourages me, this day - knowing that Tom, and Jerry, and Mom, and Chris's grandmother and uncle, and so many other people who have encouraged us both along the way are with us today. I trust that they can see what has come up, and gone down, in our lives - that they celebrate the victories and the joys, and mourn the losses and sorrows with us. I really wish that they were here to share this time with us. But I know in my heart that they are here, and smiling, nonetheless.

It is a day of faith, of hope, and definitely of loving remembrance. Top that with great food and great love, and you really couldn't ask for anything more....

A prayer for healing and acceptance

Dear God, be with America as it votes for leadership today.

Help each of us remember that the person next to us in line is our brother or our sister - regardless how they feel, regardless how they act, or what they are chanting or singing, or for whom they vote. They are not the enemy; they are not "them" or "us." They are "We, the People...." and they are children created in the sight of God.

Be with those who man the polling stations. Theirs is a thankless and unenviable position, and their day will be long and horrifically busy. But they are the ones who help make democracy work, Lord, and we give thanks for them. Encourage them to carry on, honestly and thoroughly, so that no shadow may fall on this day in the life of American democracy. Let us not become what we have so long despised in other countries, Lord.

Let every person who faces a daunting line be emboldened to stay, and to vote. Let every person who is voting for the first time make the commitment to stay, and to cast their vote, regardless of the obstacles, Lord.

And then let there be healing, Lord. Let the lines which divide us, built by the media and by hatemongering on both sides, dissolve. Your people have often prayed, "Let the walls come down," and there is no day which this needs to happen more than today, Lord. Our problems are bigger than "them" or "us" or "those people" - our unity must be bigger, as well, Lord.

Guide and shape this day, Lord God. Regardless what the fearmongers say, regardless what the pundits and the polls say, you are still in control. You know that; remind us, please, of that eternal truth. Amen.

"Oh, you're one of those..."

I have been avoiding politics like the plague lately. And, if you have a pulse at all, you know how tough that is.

I don't avoid it because I don't care - anything but, in fact. But as you might notice, it's awful hard to have a civil conversation with people about much of any topic these days. And there's one phrase that seems to be at the heart of it.

"Oh, you're one of those...."

It's a way of dismissing an entire person by recognizing their view on one particular hot-button topic. It's a way of saying, "Now that I know that you're 'one of those...', I don't have to listen to you any more, because I know how you are. You're just one of them. "

I've been hearing it for a while, but the place I really felt it like a slap was when I came out to some people that I knew from seminary. One fellow (who will remain nameless), who is now an ordained Lutheran pastor, had been my classmate in multiple classes; had given and received communion from me; had attended chapel with me. He had heard how much I wanted to serve God, and how hurt I was when the whole house of cards imploded on me.

But when he found out I was gay, his words were, "Oh, so now you're one of those Godless queers, eh?..."

Needless to say, that was the end of our conversations, on any topic. Without asking, without even thinking, I became one of them, one of those Queers With A Homosexual Agenda, and that was that. Never mind about how I really felt, what I had experienced (in and out of the church), or what it had taken to get there. I was one of them, and that was that.

Several weeks ago, I was with a couple friends - people I had known for years. One is a local politician, one is a former Marine, and one a philosopher and metaphysician of many trades - although describing them just that way is vastly oversimplifying any of them. They all tend to be somewhat conservative in nature, and I care deeply about them. We have traveled similar roads in a fellowship for several decades.

It was shortly after Sarah Palin had been nominated as the Republican VP candidate, and one of my friends was crowing about what an impact the nomination had made. We were talking - and, as these things often do, it heated up quite quickly. I don't remember what I said, exactly, but one of them turned to me, and said, "Oh, yeah, but you're just one of those tax-and-spend Democrats..."

And I honestly don't remember what he said after that. I remember just shutting down - like someone had kicked the plug out of the wall. I don't know that my younger friend meant to be quite so dismissive - but I instantly had this overwhelming sense that whatever else I said wasn't going to mean anything. And just that quick, I was "done." The conversation was over.

I left them to celebrate their political moment-in-the-sun, and walked off somewhere else. I'm sure they didn't even notice it - the conversation kept on despite my withdrawal. But the question in my mind lingered..."Gee, wonder what he'd think if he knew I was one of those 'Godless queers,' too?..."

(Actually, I'm pretty sure I don't really want to know. I'd rather not ask. Sometimes silence is golden.)

In Toledo, we're close enough to get Michigan NPR stations, which carry the BBC News overnight, and I often listen to them coming home from meetings. (Yes, I'm one of them, too - One Of Those People Who Listen to NPR and the BBC...) . The BBC has been sponsoring the BBC Talking America '08 Bus, traveling across the US talking to people about the nation and about the election. A recurring theme in the reports I've heard from "the Bus" has been how the US has become absolutely polarized over politics - to the point of people seemingly despising other people simply because of who they would vote for. Families divided, not speaking...in some ways similar to the way the US was over slavery in the 1860's, only with fewer guns (at least, for now). The death of civility, at least on this topic...

Listen for it. Listen for how many times you or others are declared to be one of them. Listen for when you do it, too. I know I'm not innocent, in this area, either.

These are people. Your people. My people. People whom we've known....in many cases, for years.

They are no more one-dimensional or one-issue than you or I are. Like them, I am not defined simply by where I live or who I support politically or whom I live with or whom I worship. I am not just a set of stereotypes. I am not just one of them...

And neither are you.

I pray that we can get back to seeing each other as human beings, and not as simply supporters of issues or purveyors of stereotypes.

We're all so very much more than that.

A time apart, to rest and reflect

As I write this, it's Sunday mid-afternoon. After a particularly hideous night dealing with local trash at the waterpark/hotel where Christopher works, and a week of dealing with the wreckage of the past at the condo on my part, we decided a rather-spontaneous "vacation day" was in order.

So we slept in, drowsing and listening to the excellent "Sunday Jazz Brunch" (8-12 noon Sundays on the local 101.5 - The River), then loaded up his mountain-bike and my PC and got in his truck to ride north.

We journeyed along the wooded areas around Toledo to see the beginnings of fall colors - to revel in God's magnificent skill with a color-palette. From there, we drove to near Brighton, MI to Island Lake State Park. There are a pair of particularly wonderful mountain-biking trails there, and a chance for me to sit down and just mentally detox. While Chris is off riding, I am here at the trailhead, writing, reading, and enjoying a beautiful day of "Indian-summer."

It's been a draining week.

Chris made his decision, last week, that he was just pushing too hard to try to get to his dream jobs - which are out there, sometime in the future, but not on the immediate horizon (pardon the pun). As I posted earlier, the dream is not dead - but the economy seems to have ensured that it is deferred, at least for now. So that was one emotionally-charged decision made last week.

In the midst of that decision, it became clear that we needed to make a decision about what we as a couple were going to do above our living arrangement. While Chris' one-bedroom apartment is comfortable for one, it's pretty close-quarters for two on an ongoing basis. But the lease runs through December, and the one lone nibble we had on subletting it crumbled about the same time we decided not to go to Champaign. But shuttling back and forth between the condo (where my internet connection was, thus where I had to work) and the apartment (which has become "the rest of my life") was getting increasingly obnoxious, now that Sue and Jeff are mostly out of the place.

So this week, it was my turn to start moving out. We got a larger storage unit - to store what I would keep once we had a 2 bedroom apartment, and moved from our former unit to the new one. I'm glad to see that the winnowing-down process we've been doing is finally showing progress - it only took us about 2 hours to move stuff out of the old holding-cell into the new.

I finally got new cable/internet/phone at the apartment on Friday. Once I knew the online connection was working, I started the process of changing his address to "our" address. We will stay in this place until springtime, and then start the process of looking for something more permanent - work and residence-wise.

(It's been pretty clear that the relationship had reached "permanent" status a while ago.)

A recurring theme over the last weeks has been to pick out the few books that I would want to keep with me during the five-to-six month stay in the storage-deprived apartment. Here's a few from my list:

• Wounded Prophet by Michael Ford - a excellent biography of one of my spiritual mentors, Henri Nouwen
• The Wounded Healer and Return of the Prodigal Son, the classic texts by Nouwen
• Ragamuffin Gospel and Abba's Child by Brennan Manning - number two in my "spiritual mentors" trinity
• Messy Spirituality and Dangerous Wonder, by Mike Yaconelli - with great thanks to Renee' Altson - completing my "earthly trinity"
• Gentle Closings: How To Say Goodbye to Someone You Love, The Gentle Closings Companion, and Where Is Heaven? Children's Thoughts on Death and Dying all by Ted Menten - better than most of the pastoral-care books I've read, so far
• In Ordinary Time by Roberta Bondi - a great one when it seems like God's voice has gone silent, and
• stumbling toward faith, a classic of faith despite every reason not to have it, by Renee Altson

There's more in the box, but they aren't leaping to mind.

I had to give up on the music-digitizing process, for now. At some point, I will have to replace the CD/DVD drive in the desktop - it's clearly starting to fail, because the error-correction routines are slowing the process way, way down. But there's four boxes of books to go, and a box and a half of CDs - 2 boxes of books and about 3/4 box of CDs each to the church and the local public library.

Interestingly enough, there is a large ELCA congregation in Maumee, to whom I originally offered my resources - but their education/library director never bothered to return my repeated calls. Epiphany Lutheran in Toledo is smaller, but hosts a half-dozen AA groups a week, and was the start of my journey back to faith - and their Christian education director was ecstatic when she got the last delivery. So, it's sad, but it's a case of "who loves ya, baby?"

The Toledo-Lucas County Public Library is one of the gems of living in Toledo. While I can't speak to their staffing situations (their management caused my former wife and a lot of library professionals unspeakable agony back in the late 80's), they seem to have come light-years in the collection and technology departments. The ability to browse their collection online, including ALL of their music and video offerings, and to request items to a local branch in a day or two, brings them right up there with library systems four and five times their size. (When we were looking at moving to Champaign, one of the big down-sides to the move would have been the differences in the public libraries). So I am very glad to be able to send some of my books home to them - either to their collection or their book-sale, I don't know (and don't care) which.

The thing that pains me is some of the big stuff, which is really worthwhile, which we can't sell because of the no-garage-sales clause in the condo association, and I really hate to just give away because they're too good NOT to get some value from them. And I can't bring myself to just give them away - although that may very well be what happens in the end, because I'm not moving this crap again.

I like the idea of FreeCycle, but getting a thousand emails a day (only a mild exaggeration) is a frustration. So we will start with CraigsList, and move to FreeCycle after that. We have two or three weeks to get it out - two would be preferable. It would be very nice to be done by Reformation Day, October 31st....

There are a hundred other topics I need (and want) to write about -

• the housing crisis (which has not stopped being a crisis, even though the stock market and credit crunch has vastly overshadowed it)
• the credit crunch - and how it may finally bring about the death of conspicuous consumption (albeit too late to really help anyone)
• how we are going to teach an entire generation (or two) the difference between "needs" and wants - and if it will take an honest-to-God Great Depression to make it stick
• why an awful lot of people of deep-and-abiding faith continue to ditch The Institutional Church; and
• living between Death and Resurrection - and why most churches don't recognize Easter Saturday when it happens in October.

On the first two topics, there are still an awful lot of people who are asking, "How the hell did we get here?" I'd like to recommend three very powerful, very informative stories - each will take about an hour of your time, and each one is absolutely worth it:

• Chicago Public Radio's This American Life has done two very insightful, powerful programs on the economy - "The Giant Pool of Money (talking about the fundamentals of the housing crisis) and "Another Really Scary Program About The Economy. Both should be required listening - especially if you think you know what caused the whole sub-prime crisis.


• Dick Gordon's The Story on NPR had a particularly powerful program called "Blowing The Whistle" (click on the link to go to the archive to listen). The second half of the program is an interview with Bill Thornton, a real-estate appraiser who had to get out of the business because his practice of giving reasonable appraisals didn't support the housing-market insanity. For 20 years, he was a home appraiser. But as prices climbed during the housing boom, lenders stopped calling him. Yet when he recently heard how Wall Street helped create the housing and financial meltdown, he realized that losing his business wasn't exactly his fault.

Powerful, painful, and yet so informative. I'd really, really recommend you set aside an hour to listen to the first two, and a half hour to listen to "The Story."

It might just open your mind to some new ideas about what's been happening...

Life is like a balloon race....

...because everything's up in the air.

So, company #2 is in the "we've passed things on to the hiring manager, they will call you" stage of the game. Chris has been dealing with company #2 for years in the retail hobby business, and has never been overly impressed with their customer service. It seems their general & administrative service ain't all that much better.

In the meantime, the HR contact at Company #1 (his first choice) called back on Monday, with a "no news - it's just too bad you couldn't be here in Champaign for our Job Fair this Thursday night..." message. And of course, ol' "WTF Steve" said to Chris, "Well, why the hell not?..." (Guess that would be "WTH not?"...)

So the itinerary is...

• Leave Wednesday night, about 7 PM, get to Champaign about 1 AM
• Crash until 8; Steve gets up and signs in to work from the hotel
• Do the late checkout thing; Chris gets his stuff ready to go
• Steve signs in from Panera Bread (talk about the joys of telecommuting); Chris goes looking at potential housing
  
• Chris goes to the Job Fair from 5 - 7
• Once he gets done with he needs to do, Chris picks Steve up, and we roll on "eastbound and down," as Smokey and the Bandit would say
  
• Back in Toledo about 2 AM Friday

Total cost - about $200. Insanity factor, medium-high. But it's worth 30 hours of insanity to get an idea whether to go now, or wait out the winter and go next spring. I figure that all told, the move would be about $1,500 - truck, gas, deposit on a new place and utilities, etc. And at least meeting people face-to-face can't hurt in the recruiting process...

So I'm loading up the iPod with dance and "rollin' down the highway" music, and gathering my mobile computing needs, and printing off maps. Nothing like spontaneity, eh?

Prayers, as always, are appreciated.

Not sure what to pray for...

What a difference 72 hours can make.

On Monday night, after almost two months of questioning, it seemed that the opportunity to move to Champaign, IL to pursue Chris' dream job was going to have to be deferred. Both potential employers seemed to be pulling back, not ready to hire him for either sales or product support positions. Chris also had a disappointing weekend as he'd been working hard on the replacement of steering bearings on his motorcycle, and the process had been (to be kind) fraught with adventures.

So by Monday night, we both concluded that the thing to do would be to put everything on hold, settle in for the winter, and see what comes next spring. We'd finish closing up the condo, and we'd eke through the winter in his one-bedroom apartment (the lease runs out in December, but we really didn't want another winter-time move).

And Chris seemed at peace with that - even ready to change shifts (or jobs) to get to enjoy life more over the winter seasons. As the sun came up on Tuesday, and the pain in his back from all the efforts over the weekend eased, it seemed the right thing to do.

Then the phone call came at 4:50 this afternoon. Company #2 was calling; how soon might he be in Champaign? Sales openings were available now...

And once again everything is in the air.

Are we crazy - to be relocating in the midst of the worst economy and financial market in 20 years? Moving away before Thanksgiving, before Christmas? It doesn't matter much to me - and almost any job market would be better than Toledo, I guess (being tied heavily to the housing and auto markets, so being double sucker-punched by the credit crunch). But there is this voice in the back of my head that says

• You were wrong about seminary. Your worst fears came to pass.
• You were wrong about working at the Conservatory.
• You were wrong about your current employer.
• Moving to Toledo hasn't done much of anyone any good.

So now I'm second-guessing my second-guesses about almost everything I have to make a decision about - everything but my commitment and love for this guy. (There's no second-guessing there.)

Does being spooked about this move make it a good thing? Has God brought me to this scary place just to get me to trust Him again to jump off? Or am I so broken that I'm not even ready to hear guidance? What is faith, and what's just foolhardiness? I'm not sure that I can discern that, any more...

And I'm one to resist change - I always have been. Going out on a limb is not my favorite place.

In 20 minutes, I'll find out more from Chris. But for right now, it's a "where the hell is God's will in all this insanity?" I just don't know...

So prayers would be welcome.

Alive and well...

Storytelling is alive and well!
Gather 'round people, and listen for a spell,
I've got stories and fables and tales to tell!

Listen to each story with imagination -
The stories you hear will be your own creation!
Storytelling is alive and well!

(as heard from Heather Forest, a long time ago)

Starting tonight, I imagine the traffic this weekend will be considerably heavier along Interstates 81 and 26, headed toward Jonesborough, Tennessee. Friday marks the kickoff of the 38th annual National Storytelling Festival in and around historic Jonesborough.

A dozen huge tents will be erected across town - with names like "Tent on the Hill" and "The Railroad Tent" - that will hold anywhere from 250 to 1,000 people. Every shop and vendor in Jonesborough will have warm cider, fresh donuts, homemade candy, and every kind of comfort food available all along the "downtown" area. for the throngs of people (usually upwards of 10,000) who flock from around the country to the Festival.

Friday night will kick off with an "olio," a kind of storyteller's sampler to give everyone a taste of what's ahead. Then on Saturday the storyteller's lineup will rotate between tents all over town, giving people a smorgasbord of amazing imagery, music, even dance. Saturday night will have the traditional Ghost Story Concert and the more recent Midnight Cabaret (for more "adult" themes). Sunday will be Sacred Storytelling - with open "swappin' grounds," storytelling areas for anyone who wants to sign up. There will be pure performance pieces, participation stories, and every kind of storytelling experience one can imagine.

Several of my all-time favorite storytellers - including preacher/storyteller Donald Davis, singer-storyteller John McCutcheon, Kathryn Tucker Windham and cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell - will be in the line-up. And the weather promises to be perfect festival weather - highs in the upper 60's to low 70's, overnight lows in the 40's, and blessedly clear skies. It should be a beautiful weekend for it.

Do I regret not being there? A little - Chris and I talked about going some year in the future, when things aren't quite so up in the air (although I think that $2.50 gas prices to make it economical have gone the way of once upon a time...). The problem is that the tickets have gotten up to $135 a person for the weekend - much cheaper than a big-name concert (especially on a per-hour basis) but a good-sized investment. That, plus hotel and food, plus gas for the 11-hour-each-way trip just wasn't going to make it in the budget this year.

Still, the idea of the drive through the changing colors, the drive in from hotels in Johnson City, and the smell of Krispy Kremes (the official corporate sponsor of the festival) wafting over the main streets of Jonesborough bring back the kinds of memories that just don't fade. So sometime this weekend, Chris and I will listen to The Storytellers version of "No News (or, What Killed The Dawg)," Gamble Rogers' infamous story "War Bunny" and Ed Stivender's classic retelling of Adam and Eve's story, and maybe even have a mug of warm spiced cider and donuts - and dream of October weekends stuffed, pressed-down and overflowing with stories.

To all the folks at the National Storytelling Network (formerly the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling, or NAPPS), to all the tellers, and to children of every age who come to Jonesborough with wide eyes and open hearts: all my best to you.

Working at "not regretting the past..."

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

August 17, 2003. Atonement Lutheran Church, Overland Park, KS. My final Sunday at my home church - my sponsoring church - before I left for seminary at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC). Dozens (if not scores) of people coming up to me, congratulating me and wishing me well. And pushing cards into my hands...

Prayers for guidance. Prayers for success. Prayers that the sender would live long enough to see my ordination. "What a wonderful preacher you are." (Lord, God, who were they listening to? I've had 0ccasion to HEAR some of those sermons since then...yeesh.) Oh, and my favorite: We so appreciate your openness, honesty and candor about your past life, and how God has worked in you. This, to a man who lived a lie as a deeply closeted gay Christian so he could go off and serve God in a dog-collar....

There was a moment today, re-reading all those cards, that I really just wanted to run off screaming into the corn and disappear. I haven't been involved in a church for a year, and haven't been in any kind of church-based ministry for more than 3 years. The people who I thought were the most unlikely to be ordained - the self-righteous, the control-freaks, the people who are only telling the truth when they are asleep - those are the people who The Church in Her wisdom ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament. And here I am...

I almost wrote, "and here I am....vegetating, rotting away," but that would be a lie. I've worked hard at my work - a large part of which has been unofficial Morale Officer and Cheerful Charlie (along with Universal Fix-It Guy). I've continued to stay sober; I go to meetings, and I share my experience, strength and hope to anyone who will listen. I help out on Gay Christian Network, financially and online (when I can). And I've taken the time to get myself involved in a very vital and beautiful relationship, for which I have absolutely no regrets at all. I think I have been a good friend to some of my fellow advisors in DeMolay. So it has not all been a loss.

But the voices in the back of my head keep talking, anyway. After all, I came here to help, two years ago - and there are days when it surely looks like nothing I have done has borne any fruit whatsoever. My sister and brother-in-law still lost their house; my sister has never gotten any substantive kind of rehabilitation or therapy for her injury; my brother-in-law is still trapped in a dead-end job. I'm as broke as I ever was, and all of the money I've invested in any of these situations (as my British brothers would say) hasn't done a dickey-bird.

In the two years I've been active in the AA community here, I've only half-assed-sponsored two guys, neither of which really gave a rat's ass about staying sober. And I tried to help out my friends in DeMolay; the chapter has apparently ended up in worse shape than when I started supposedly helping them out, sixteen months ago. A month over five years ago, when I left town, there was a farewell party at work, a farewell party at the AA hall, and a farewell party at church. When I leave for Illinois at the end of October, I'm not sure that anyone outside of my family and those few very close friends will even notice....

Part of me knows that this is nothing more than seeking significance in the eyes of others, which is always doomed. But part of me is self-centered and human enough to want all this to have mattered for something. I don't think that's such a sin, but on days like today, I really wonder. About all of it.

So I go back into left-foot, right-food mode, and just keep on truckin'. Which is what I'm gonna do tonight.

So finding these greeting cards - and all the hope and promise and "God's got your back!" that went into them - has really put me into a phase of "what's it all about, Alfie?" How could I have been such an inspiration to so many people, and have my life seemingly have gone so far wrong?

...Update...the morning after....

Back story: so, about a month ago, I had gotten into the car a little too fast. My considerable bulk hit the back of the reclining bucket seat a little too hard, and something went crack. The seat seemed considerably wobbly in the back, and I resolved to get it fixed...

Then, getting carefully into the car on Friday, I leaned this way when I should have leaned that way, and whatever was cracked broke clean through - and the reclining portion of the seat flopped back like a visual-gag in a teen-aged make-out movie. I discerned (you learn things like discernment in seminary...) that this was a clear sign from God that the seat finally needed to be fixed.

So Chris lovingly got up early today (working nights, he almost NEVER sees two nine o'clocks in the same day) and drove me to the condo to work, and took the offending seat wreckage over to a welding shop in nearby Neapolis. On the way. we stopped at our favorite Blue Creek Coffee Shop for a Mud Turtle (chocolate, caramel and peanut butter in a blended iced coffee base - should be on an Index somewhere as way too sinful).

And somehow, life just looks better today.

Yeah, it could be the sugar-rush from the Turtle. It could be the caffeine kicking in. It could be hearing "Walking On Sunshine" on the radio. It could all be artificial, like the stock-market roaring back on the faintest hope of something bailing them all out. But I don't think so. I think life just looks better today.

I don't doubt that the doubts will be back; I tend to be a Pushme-Pullyou, looking backwards and forwards at the same time. Maybe this is the faint echos of whatever call I heard five years ago, telling me that whatever I heard is still not fulfilled. I know at least part of it is the recurring feeling of having failed the people who supported me from Atonement - and not being in a position to repay them yet. And maybe it's part of "letting go of the past, and not wishing to shut the door on it." Or at least getting there...

I would not have written the script this way - but I know that I am here for a reason. (I almost wrote "I have been put here for a reason," but that would be a lie. God did not teleport me here - I am here because of my choices, and my responses to the choices of others. For however it worked out, I am responsible for being here.) I am going through this sorting-out / downsizing / shedding of unnecessary stuff for a reason. The loss of this beautiful place is happening for a reason. I may not know it until well after the final trumpet sounds. But the direction of the movement has to be forward, that much I know is true.

At the top of this page, in the blog masthead that my friend Penni made for me, there is an image of a winding path - a picture I took at nearby Wildwood Metropark. It's there to remind me that I don't get to see around the corner very far to what's ahead - but that I have to keep moving forward. Someone Else is in charge of what's around the bend. I hear the truth of that quite frequently in meetings...

We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us... See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.
(the closing to the text Alcoholics Anonymous, page 164)

Facebook-ing and tossing trash

I finally surrendered to Facebook yesterday.

I got an email from a fellow former LSTC student. As Eliza was filling me in on her life (which has been as crowded as mine over the last four years, in different ways), she said, "You know, a lot of people from our class are listed on Facebook," with at least the hint that I could be too.

So I went and I registered. Put up a reasonably recent picture, along with a "work in progress" disclaimer. While I can do all right in the mainframe techno area, I really haven't been drawn in as much to the "online communities" as many of my friends (especially the younger ones).

Part of that is simply that I spend all day in front of a PC - while I am fascinated with where and how people from my past lives are, I simply don't have the energy to deal with life in the real world and spend all day and all night connecting with folks in the virtual world. It's part of the reason I haven't been blogging much - life in the real world has been, well, busy. (To put it mildly.)

I had a flashback from high school - I can't imagine that my senior-year English teacher, Mrs. Bonash, could have ever imagined that the word "friend" would ever be a verb (I forget the term for when a noun is, for lack of a better word, "verbed"...sorry, Mrs. B., it's not comin' back to me...) But it's been fun to see the people who have "friended" me, and where/how they have ended up. It's been interesting too, looking at lists of the "friends" of friends, and seeing the whole six-degrees-of-separation thing playing out.

In a similar way, it's been strange seeing the ones who haven't responded. For some odd reason, my seminary roommate has not responded to emails or my FB inquiry. It makes me wonder what I did to deserve that... but I can't dwell on that kind of insanity. To paraphrase Richard Nelson Bolles, the world divides into two groups of people - the ones who want to be around you, and the ones that don't. To the second group, I have to say, "Thanks anyway," and then leave those to go find the first group...who, I'm sure, will be a lot more fun to stay in touch with.

It's kind of interesting, though - I've kept my blogs pretty anonymous, largely because of the connection with the community of recovery. AA's Eleventh Tradition states: Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films, which is usually expanded to include "all broadcast media," including the Internet. So I've decided to keep my blogging links off my Facebook entry, for that reason and others.

In other news, the process of boxing up and tossing out has picked up a bit. Now that Sue and Jeff are out of the condo, there is more room to be stacking stuff, so it's a little easier to move around my room . (A little, I said...not a lot, just yet).

There are things I've kept for sentimental reasons that, looking back, I should have tossed. I made the mistake of listening to a series of sermons that I did while I was a volunteer lay preacher for a church in Kansas. Gadzooks, were they awful - I wonder how in the world anyone hearing those ever thought I was ministry material? So when I found my first-ever sermon tonight - proudly videotaped by a church member - I was torn between watch it in the secrecy of the condo and just throw the damn thing OUT!

I'm leaning toward the second option. Some boxes, like Pandora's, just shouldn't be re-opened, I think. The target is to have a garage-sale next weekend - which is going to require some significant work this weekend to get ready for it. And I've pretty much decided that the work of digitizing my CD collection isn't going to get done in time to move - and will probably require some additional disk storage (for the music AND the backups). So, that project is going by the wayside for the time being. I made a valiant effort, and the Toledo Public Library and Epiphany Lutheran Church will be the richer for it.

And, in the end, I will probably move some things that I will wish I hadn't - especially when I've had to carry them out of the condo, onto and off the truck, and into the New World Home. But I'm making headway - and I'm already sure that the move out of Ohio will be considerably lighter than the move in was.

Tomorrow, The Great Load-Out will be 34 days away. It will go by quickly...

Letting go of the past, one box at a time

What a challenge this is for me, winnowing down the stuff of past lives.

Doing this takes a certain willingness for self-revelation and self-acceptance that I've not found lately, but events are forcing me into action. Chris and I have resolved that we will not move in the winter-time (moving him here from Missouri at year-end in the snow was NOT a lot of fun...), so we have set ourselves a deadline of October 31 to be headed to Champaign. And Sue and Jeff are set to abandon the condo/boat-anchor by the end of this month, or the first week of October. (I'll keep my "office" here until the end of October, and hold whatever garage-sale we choose to have.) But the clock is running...

And so the questions that happen in any consolidation of households begins. Everything from furniture to table-settings to glasses and pots-n-pans: Yours, mine, or both? And what do we do with the leftover? Keep it? Sell it? Give it away?

Tonight, I went out to the storage unit, and started sorting through books - the theological library that would have gone with me into ministry. Books that I had duplicates of (one to keep and one to loan-out, like Tom Bandy's Coaching Change and Adam Hamilton's Confronting the Controversies). The songbooks that had one or two songs that I once had fantasies of singing at church, someday - even though my singing voice is not anywhere close to "solo" quality. There were half a dozen Maranatha/PK song books, the music to Keith Green's Ministry Years (companion to the two-CD silver set), and four different Steven Curtis Chapman song-books (each with one or two meaningful songs in them). I've got a box of books and music that will go to a friend's congregation in Maumee, and half a box (or more) that will go to the local ELCA congregation. A box of cookbooks (mostly untouched in the last five years) that will go to the local library, along with three or more boxes of fiction.

Going through these boxes has brought me to a couple unpleasant realizations - one of which is how intellectually stagnant my life has been lately. With the exception of the last couple Harry Potter books, I'll bet I haven't read ten new books in two years. I've tended to find "old friends" from my family bookshelves and re-read them, rather than exercise my mind all that much. I need to work on that...

I've also realized how little of my reading has been about my faith, too. Part of that is, I think, a kind of retreat from organized church in the whole. Reading Can Mainline Denominations Survive? and Helping Congregations in Decline just isn't appealing when I have no immediate desire to be part of a congregation in the first place. And books like Sharing the Word: Preaching in the Roundtable Church by Lucy Rose (while an excellent resource) just don't have as much pull when planning sermons is not on your horizon (near-term or far, for that matter).

And when 99% of my music listening is from my iPod or internet streaming radio, I wonder about the value of packing and hauling perhaps two hundred pounds of CDs that I already have digitized (and backed up). (My pile is not as bad as the picture, but it's still three or four hundred CDs...) There are some, like The New World Symphony, John Williams' Summon The Heroes and Rick Wakeman's Journey To The Center of The Earth that are just much better in their uncompressed, raw beauty. But other than their archival value (in case both the PC and its 250GB backup drive are lost), what do you DO with CDs these days?...

Even my fiction collection has come under close scrutiny. Yes, having a copy of The Unabridged Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galary is a beautiful thing - but even if we manage to find the duplex of our dreams, I don't think we'll have room for two walls of shelves being just my library. And to be honest, that thing could be one more "old friend" keeping me from fresh ideas, fresh fiction...

Some decisions are easy; some aren't. At fifty-one, what's really important in my life, materially? Will I ever again have the kind of dinner party where I'd use those glass platters with places for olives and pickles and such? Or will strategically-placed Corelle soup bowls do just fine for that?

It boggles the mind.

There were some tears tonight, too - fresh tears for ministry dreams that I'd been sure were dead and buried. Thoughts of what-could-have-been and what-I-would've-wished-for. Opportunities lost, others thrown away. And resolve - the songbooks from John McCutcheon and Peter, Paul & Mary went in the "keep" pile, along with Discerning Your Congregation's Future and other books I just might want if I ever get back "in the fold" again...

And let's face it: there are somewhere between two and three million people without power tonight, thanks to hurricane Ike. There are people who would be blessed to actually have options on where to go to live. So these are definitely concerns of a much higher quality than a lot of people in the world have to deal with. So I'm grateful - don't get me wrong.

But I don't want to squander what I have, either. I'm not running from a hurricane; I'm moving to the next phase of my life. But the question is, what am I willing to carry into my next life? Because in the end, it will be Chris and I unloading this stuff once we get to Champaign. I need to be willing to physically carry it, this time. And the companion thought echoes in the back of my head - what will I regret jettisoning, once I get there?

Time will tell. Prayers for guidance, discernment and endurance will be most welcome...

Sic transit gloria mundi

Sic transit gloria mundi, according to Wikipedia, is a Latin phrase that means "Thus passes the glory of the world". It has been interpreted as "Worldly things are fleeting."

Today starts the beginning of the end - and the beginning of yet another new beginning - for my sister, my brother-in-law and I. They were approved for a rather nicely sized apartment/duplex in a nearby Toledo suburb - and so the process of paring down, selling, tossing away and packing up begins again. Target is the end of September to be out of this place - although the mortgage-holder won't take over for months yet. They may still be able to sell - although at a fantastic loss. But who knows? All I know is that this beautiful dream turned nightmare is ending.

According to USPS.com, Chris's application for his dream job has been delivered. Now starts the toe-tapping part of the process. He's done everything he can do. Now it's fully in the hands of God, and we can only wait.

And a long-time friend of Bill's - McKinley (Mac) F. from the Early Bird Group died late last week. The memorial will be 10 AM Friday, and I will be there - work be damned. Mac was a prominent feature in my early days of sobriety at Early Bird; like me, he could get more than a little long-winded, and like me, his journey "in the bonus round" has not always been on the sunshine side of the ledger. But thanks be to God, he died sober, and surrounded by people who loved him. When my time comes, may I do as well, dear God...

So much change. So much unwilling change, in amidst that I would choose to change. It's probably not any wonder the topic of the meeting last night was on the Serenity Prayer, and especially on accepting the things I cannot change.

At that meeting, I talked about what we don't often talk about is how much it can just hurt to accept change; how damn humbling it can be. It's no wonder people go out, rather than admit to how much we are like children, who just can't accept what we can't have (or are getting what we don't want!).

We lie and say "the phone weighs five hundred pounds, at times." The truth is the phone weighs just ounces; but it's that monstrous pride sitting on top of it - the part that doesn't want to admit to being childish, to being embarrassed, to not want to see our families or loved ones hurt, to just not wanting to have to cry any more, some times.

It still hurts. But the alternative is still way too scary. So I keep on trusting that God is with us, whether His presence seems a little thin on the ground at times, and keep moving forward. And giving thanks - every minute is a moment to give thanks, for goals met, for challenges walked-through, and for love of the people with whom God has gifted me.

Including each of you, gentle companions. Thank you, for coming back here, and reading. I confess I'm self-centered enough that your words, your comments, your emails mean an awful lot to me. Each of you are part of that great circle that will never be unbroken, by and by.

The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport...the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat...the human drama of athletic competition...

Anyone who knows me knows - I have no use for most sporting events. My one hat-tip to sporting events was to buy a Kansas City Chiefs "starter" jacket (because KC had just lost in the playoffs, and everything was on sale!), and I have taken merciless ribbing about it for years. Even in Toledo, Ohio, if I wore it out, some guy would give me a grin, and yell, "Hey, buddy, how 'bout dem Chiefs?"

(After years of staring vacantly at these folks, I finally figured out that the safe answer was, "Y'know, you just never know about that team...", and then the person would fill in their own half of the conversation, never knowing that I neither knew or cared - it was just a warm and inexpensive coat.)

But there is something different about the Olympics. In Summer, swimming, diving, gymnastics., biking. In Winter, skiing, ski jumping, bobsled, luge, figure skating, ice dancing. And for years, the voice of Jim McKay over all...

So many people become nationalist morons at times like this. Basketball especially, but not limited to that by any means. The only appreciation they have is for the score, and the chance to mindlessly shriek, "USA! USA! USA!" until they are hoarse.

I have no use for that, or them.

I can marvel at the stunning form of the Chinese gymnasts; share in the glee of the USA men's team as they struggled to achieve their bronze medal; see beyond the medal-tally to the humanity (and humility) of an American swimmer who almost seems superhuman, and the incredible work he must perform to make it seem so easy. I can cheer for the man from Poland who took the gold in shot-put; clap for the woman from Zimbabwe who took gold in women's butterfly swimming. It is, as Jim McKay would say every Saturday afternoon for years, "...the human drama of athletic competition."

Since Chris works until 11 each night, our Olympic viewing has been pretty limited, but has seen some of the classic moments from Beijing. The infectious grin of Jonathan Horton (can you believe that guy is only 5' 1" tall? Heck, his SMILE was that wide...), the almost helicopter-like performance of Alexander Artimev on the pommel horse, and the absolutely amazing come-from-behind performance of Jason Lezak in the men's 4-x-100-meter relay team.

(Some of you may say, "OK, this is STEVE here, talking sports stuff? Who ARE you, you impostor, and what have you done with Steve F? Tell us!" Nope, this is the real deal, folks...)

Part of it is sheer envy. I have never been athletic; I have always envied those who were. But most of it is sheer admiration for the ultimate athletic prowess, and even more for those who gave their best despite never making it (like the legendary Jamaican bobsled team!). But beyond that, for those who performed with class and grace. The men and women who were memory makers.

Like in Sarajevo, 1984. Winter Olympics. Ice dancing.

I don't know if I had ever even SEEN ice-dancing before 1984. I know that I had never followed it, and I knew nothing about who was good and who was not. Until, that is, I saw a couple from Britain who simply set the ice on fire.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean. Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnole. A little less than four minutes of visually captivating, stylistically arresting performance that won them the gold medal. I don't know what it was that embedded their performance forever in my mind - but that 4 minutes came to epitomize the best of the Olympics. Performance, beauty, strength, skill, flair - pushing the boundaries of what was possible in search of new levels of excellence. And to this day, I cannot hear Capriccio Espagnole without thinking of Torvill and Dean.

There is much that is not good about the Olympics, and Olympic competition in general. It saddens me every time someone must cheat (whether it be drugs or performance enhancing chemicals, using under-age athletes, or clearly predatory judging) to achieve some nationalistic goal. It is tragic how the spectacle of Olympic competition draws attention away from Darfur, Georgia, even the rest of China - not to mention the tragedies going on right down the street from each of us.

But for me, these Olympic dramas are a gentle drug that (along with my loving partner) help take the edge off days of frustration and uncertainty. These are moments of beauty in otherwise ugly times - and I give thanks for that. So here's to those talented men and women - with a tribute from Olympic past...

A simple meme, for a simple man

I have been overwhelmed - work, the challenges of finding a new home for my sister and brother-in-law, a potential move, and financial challenges have had me bottled up for a while. But I needed a way to break the spiritual blogjam, and this challenge seemed the perfect entry. The instructions over at Black Pete (formerly Poor Mad Peter)'s Red Wine and Garlic were simple: share seven things about oneself that are relatively inconsequential. So here goes...

1) I have two sisters who are fraternal twins; as kids, we hardly looked like we belonged to the same family, but the resemblance is getting better.

2) I have a fascination with glass - blown, cut, colored but almost never painted. Emerald green, ruby red, cobalt blue, and clear cut crystal are my favorites; either rich deep color or the absence, I guess. Two of my favorite places in the world are the Corning Glass Museum in Corning, NY, and the Toledo Museum of Art's Glass Pavilion.

(The Glass Pavilion alone is worth a trip to Toledo, although you'd really miss out if you didn't go across the street to the Museum proper, or downtown for a Tony Packo's hotdog...)

3) I am fascinated with the work of Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters. My AA sponsor gave me a copy of A Message to Garcia (which I later gave back, like a fool) and Elbert Hubbard's Scrapbook, which is one of my more prized book possessions. I wish I could fully adopt the creed of the Roycrofters: A belief in working with the head, hand and heart and mixing enough play with the work so that every task is pleasurable and makes for health and happiness.

4) I never knew that I was given to jeremiads, but thanks to Black Pete, who made me look it up, I know I'm pretty good at 'em. Jeremiad (noun) - a prolonged lamentation or mournful complaint. [Origin: 1770–80; Jeremi(ah) + -ad, in reference to Jeremiah's Lamentations] (Thanks to Dictionary.com)

5) I also share a trait with Black Pete - I both very much enjoy cats, and am very much allergic to them. One gift given to me by my friend Ted (and a very lovely apple-headed Siamese of his) was overcoming my childhood fear of cats. One night Ted and I sat in blue armchairs in his living room, with a fire burning, just talking (as we are both wont to do). That Siamese just bounded into my lap, and with a blatant disregard for my discomfort, snuggled down between the chair's arm and my leg and began purring loudly. I never looked back. (It was preparation, I'm sure, for the procession of furry friends that my former wife brought into my life.)

6) Being a virtual employee (working from home, over the Internet) means that I have as many coworkers from Mumbai and Chennai (India) as I do in Lincolnshire and Chicago (Illinois). My most unusual location for a work day (at this job, anyway) was on December 28, 2007, when I spent 9 hours working in a coffee shop in Springfield, MO called The Mud House - a converted pottery studio. (I have been thinking I should do that at least every other week, just as a change of pace.)

7) I have seen one storyteller's performance that I have not heard. I wish I could remember the fellow's name, but he was a storyteller who was deaf, and who performed all his stories in American Sign Language (ASL). I saw him at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN back twenty-some years ago. If I remember right, his "interpreter for the ASL-impaired" was John Basinger. It took some forceful reminders to look at the storyteller, and not at his "speaking" interpreter - but it was a fascinating experience. (That was also the year that I was first introduced to the stories and songs of John McCutcheon, if I remember rightly.)

More thoughts that are mulling...
- the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat in Beijing
- bellwether changes
- how many books do you need - really?
- revisiting a Labor Day tradition, after 20 years

I'll try not to make it a month till the next post....

False shepherds damning believers

I was furious.
Way. Beyond. Furious.

Remember that old Peter Paul & Mary song, "If I Had A Hammer?" Today my version would be

If I had a rocket-launcher, I'd launch it in the mornin'
Launch it in the evenin' - all over this land...

And the source of my ire? A local congregation of The Institutional Church. (Big surprise there, eh?) Yet another "faithful servant of the Gospel," spreading pain, suffering, and spiritual death - bayoneting the spiritually-wounded at every chance...

My brother-in-law has been raised in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. Since he and my sister have been married, they have gone long periods without attending church. When he's working, every other Sunday is a work day (starting at 4-5 AM), and for the last year and a half, my sister has been working Sundays until 7 AM, and coming home to sleep.

So yes, they could have attended more - but they are not without reasons.

And especially since the current pastor has come to The Church That Must Not Be Named (TCTMNBN), neither one of them have been especially comfortable attending that church. But Bro's sister is a church leader, and his family has been there for four generations. So they remain on the roster at TCTMNBN, and they go back periodically.

(This church, by the way, was the source of my ire at the "Free coffee - eternal life - Yes, membership DOES have its benefits" sign mentioned here...and here. But let's skip that, and get on to the source of my latest ire, shall we?)

Last Friday, Bro-in-Law stopped in to see his sister at The Church (she's principal at TCTMNBN School), and was collared by The Pastor. Once in The Pastor's office, TP began to tell Bro how he was going to burn in hell for not attending church.

(Yes, you heard me right.)

Repeatedly. And he continued to belittle my brother-in-law, saying that if he wasn't going to be attending church 75% of the time, The Pastor was going to yank his name from the membership roster, and he could burn in hell by himself.

Now, my brother-in-law is a believer. Admittedly, I'd bet most of his theology has come from Max Lucado and reading the Bible for himself (neither of which are bad things!), but I believe that he's a believer in Jesus Christ. But he's also "a traditional church-goer," which means that he believes in the power and the authority of the local pastor or minister.

Even when The Pastor's contradicting Scripture.
Even when he's being led astray by lies, from a supposedly-compassionate minister of the grace and love of Jesus Christ.

You see (just in case you were wondering...)
Salvation does not come from your church.
Or from attending services at that church, or any other.
It does not come from a pastor.
Or a tithing pledge.

It comes from belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Just to make sure, shall we open our pew bibles?...

Mark 16:15-16, NIV
He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Romans 10:9-10, NIV
That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

Romans 8:1-2, NIV
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Just wanted to get that out in the open, so we're singin' off the same sheet of music, folks...

Now, my brother-in-law wasn't doin' so hot to begin with, folks. He has tried to find new work for two years, on and off, with no success. His job (which he's faithfully shown up and given them his best for 30 years) booted him from full-time status to seasonal two years ago. As a result of that, and my sister's disability and loss of earnings potential, they are now seriously considering having to walk away from their condo - where they had hoped to retire or die. They are not, to put it mildly, firing on all cylinders - financially, emotionally, or spiritually.

And when this supposed shepherd of souls, this minister of the Gospel sees my brother-in-law for the first time in a while, all Pastor False-Teaching has to hand him is fire, brimstone, and burn-in-hell. Thanks a lot, Pastor.

Hemlock, anyone?

Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? (Matthew 7:9-10, NIV)

1 Timothy 1:7, NIV
They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.

Matthew 7:15-18 (New International Version)
"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit."

They will know we are Christians by our love. (from the song of the same name)

Thank God, I know better than what this moron has been saying to my brother-in-law. I know that my salvation is not dependent on the institutions of man, or the judgment of any one man, but on my justification by grace through faith in Jesus.

But my brother-in-law is so crushed, so ego-deflated at depth, that he's not talking. Not to my sister. Or me. Or his sister, or anyone. He's taking this judgment full-in-the-face - and it's eating him alive.

I want to drive to The Church, walk in to The Pastor's study, and grab that illegitimate child of God by the shoulders. I want to shake him until his damn head falls off, while screaming "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, YOU STUPID SONOFABITCH?"

(you know, a calm, level-headed, turn-the-other-cheek Christian response....)

The fact is, I know what I should do - and I'll do it. But trust me - if you mess with one of mine, you have cut down more hay than you can put up in a month of Sundays. (Thank you, Tex Sample, for that wonderful line...)

Yes, I know - "vengeance is mine," sayeth the Lord. I know that. But I am also thinking of Abraham Lincoln, who was speaking to the mother of an only son, convicted of treason and scheduled to be hanged. President Lincoln recognized the need for mercy, and commuted the sentence. And yet he said, "...but I wish we could give him just a little bit o' hangin'..."

Me too, Abe. Me too.

This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."

We avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn't treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 65-66)

This is what I heard from some friends tonight, and this is what I'm workin' on. It's a lot better than the plan I could come up with...

If you're the praying type, prayers for healing, restoration and endurance for Jeff and Sue would be a blessing...

Changes are in the wind

Things could get interesting, boys and girls....

So, my sister and brother-in-law (more my sister, actually) have come to the conclusion that there's a very slim chance they will be able to hold onto their condo. For some reason, lending institutions would rather have them walk away from their condo and their mortgage than negotiate down to an interest rates and terms that they would be able to meet, and keep the place. They keep getting information on this kind of loan and that kind of loan - but you either need $12-20K of equity (they have none) or cash (ditto) to refinance. They have not been able to find anyone willing to simply renegotiate the interest rate to something that they could live with.

(Interestingly enough, once they turn the deed over to the mortgage holder, there is a market for buying distressed mortgages, at 70-80 cents on the dollar - but so far, no one we've found is interested in offering that same principal reduction to the current mortgagee.... another blessing of our capitalist system.)

So, they are starting to look at rental property that they could afford and get into before their credit goes way south. And we are once again looking at winnowing down the stuff of our lives into something that they can deal with moving. Not what I would choose to be doing, to be honest.

It's so freakin' sad, and yet it's no different than a million other stories, across this broken land of ours. "Going to hell, on easy credit terms" is what one old grand-dad used to call it. Well, the devil seems to want his due.

At almost the same time, Chris has gotten word that there may be an opening at his dream job, working product support for Horizon Hobby in Champaign, IL (central Illinois). Horizon has been supplier to the hobby stores Chris has worked at, and one of his favorite vendors for RC airplane and RC car parts and accessories. There is nothing so firm as a job offer at this point, but it's sufficiently positive that Chris and I will be journeying to the Champaign/Urbana area over Labor Day weekend. Since my work can be done from anywhere I have a solid Internet connection (Caribou Coffee, for instance), I should be able to transition there fairly easily. It's a college town (a lot like Bowling Green, from what I can tell) surrounded by a lot of corn. But that's not so different than things out here in Ohio - except the economic image seems somewhat better.

So it seems there could be another scattering of the family in the weeks or months to come. Chris' lease is up December 31st, but the temptation would be to be out of here before then, or perhaps not until March. (We'd really prefer NOT to be moving over year-end, as we were last year!) Still, it is possible that a job at Horizon could make life a lot more pleasant for Chris, who is now working 2nd shift at a mid-sized hotel about 10 miles from here. My sister and her husband really need to make a decision in the next month or two, while he's still working and has a job for a rental reference.

So - my favorite state of mind - uncertainty, anticipating change, and disrupting the status quo. Just what I would have picked... But, at least, we are doing the right things, and trying to do what we can. So for now, it's the Serenity Prayer that is at the center of life, and we will work toward the best.

Looking for truth

The American government lied to the native Americans for many, maannny years. And then President Clinton lied about a relationship - and everyone was surprised.... A little naive, I feel?...

...So, perjury, yeah...if you commit perjury, I don't care. I don't give a shit, and I don't think that you should. Because you "grade" murder - you have murder 1, murder 2 - you realize that there can be a difference in the level of murder. So there MUST be a difference in the level of perjury! Perjury-one is when you say there was no Holocaust, when ten million people have died in it; and perjury-nine is when you say you didn't shag someone when you really did.
(Comedian Eddie Izzard, from his Dressed to Kill video)

So here we are. We've finally heard in the press in the last several weeks what we kind-of knew, but hoped we were wrong about...

1. Yes, Virginia, the Iraq war really was all about oil. And that itsy, bitsy little article about no-bid contracts in Iraq for Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, BP and the rest of the rapists and pillagers multi-national oil companies? Thanks to our free and independent sold-out-to-special-interests national media, that's all you'll hear about it. More than four thousand American lives, paid without a second thought, by a lying Executive Branch, to ensure that oil companies could get a sweetheart deal apiece in Iraq.
2. Yes, hunny-bunny, The Tyrant Who Would Pretend to Lead a Democracy does want to send you, your younger brother, younger sister, and all your friends to die in Iran, once your older brothers and sisters and their friends finish dying in Iraq and Afganistan. The nuclear war which will almost certainly follow any such attack won't last for more than a week or so, and will almost certainly be the end of the world as we know it. But don't worry, the National War Powers Commission is proposing rule changes that will mean that once King George announces that we've attacked Iran, there will be a whole list of Congress-critters on whom he'll be able to dump the blame, as he declares us in yet another undeclared war. Except only the cockroaches and crabgrass will be there to read the news...
   
3. And yes, my dear, people actually laughed at Dennis Kucinich when he introduced resolutions of impeachment against King George and the regent, Tricky Dicky the Second. And no, dearie, I don't understand what they found so funny, either. It sounded pretty damn sensible to me, too.
   

I'm sorry, but all kinds of apocalyptic images have been racing in my head. It's at times like this that I hate the fact of being fractionally well-read. I wish I could erase the image of the Apollo/Soyuz astronauts watching the progress of the final nuclear war in Lucifer's Hammer. Or the image of scientists on an orbiting asteroid watching total destruction raining down in Greg Bear's classic Eon. Or, perhaps the scariest image, that of the librarian Monks of St. Leibowitz climbing into a starship, headed to start a new world (and a new Church) on Alpha Centauri as nuclear destruction ends life on Earth in A Canticle for Leibowitz. Never mind that not-nearly-realistic-enough little bit of film called The Day After... set very near my former hometown, in Lawrence, Kansas...

There's so many similarities, it's scary beyond description.

What the hell is it going to take to get people of good heart to stand up and say, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" ? When will people look beyond religious-knee-jerking and "us-versus-them" scare politics to realize that we are edging closer and closer to the brink?

I have always been a hopeful, optimistic man - believing that things can always get better. But recently, listening to the BBC and NPR programs like "On Point" have made me wonder whether believing as I have is nothing but self-delusion...

That's why I'm glad that Chris made me sit down and watch Second-Hand Lions, a classic feel-good movie that I'd never encountered before. This scene was worth the cost of the whole movie:


Call me a sap; call me a hopeless optimist; but I still believe like that, even though half-a-century of experience tells me otherwise, so much of the time. But I also know that the only thing necessary for Evil to triumph is for Good to do nothing.

So listen; read; protest; vote; do whatever you can. Do what it takes to let the world know that the Tyrant At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the various right-wing prophets do not speak for all of us. That America is better than that.

That we, as Americans, are better than that.

(Late edit: had to get some of my facts straight about which companies were involved in those wee little no-bid contracts...)

News from around the countryside

It's time for a catch-up session, just to recap the many powerful events that have been going on here in northwest Ohio...

It's a time of growth and renewal, outside as well as inside. The corn here has benefited from the periodic rains (much less than in other Midwest states!) so it actually looks half-way decent here. Chris (who whimpered all through January and February, "Will there ever, ever be anything green here again?") has been marveling at the green-going-amber waves of wheat, the corn shooting up out of the ground, and the soybeans growing across the main road from the condo. Spring has been much kinder to northwest Ohio - to the point where we actually could USE some rain, here.

Chris is still working 5 days at the hotel/insane-asylum, and then Sunday afternoons at the hobby shop. Even so, we managed to get away to Muncie, IN for the day to see the Saturday session of the outdoor remote-control Extreme Flight Championships (XFC) at the headquarters of the Academy of Model Aeronautics. Their 1,000-acre facility is designed perfectly for model aircraft flight and competition. People from around the US and across the world (Germany, Spain, Mexico, Israel) homed-in on Muncie to see some great modeling and great flying. We had to double-back that night - Chris had to work Friday until 6, and then get back to his other job Sunday at noon - but the drive was worth it.

We also got to prove it - Michigan actually IS a third-world nation. All you have to do is look at their roads. Having gone up to Ann Arbor (cultural jewel of Michigan, home to a supposedly world-class university) and the area around Brighton, it only took 83 miles of US-23 to prove that we had entered third-world status. Of course, the fact that we were riding in a '96 F150 didn't help things either - but our trip two weeks later to the Red Bull Air Races in Detroit cemented the image (pardon the pun).

By comparison, the drive west through Ohio on the Turnpike to I-69 south to Muncie was an almost-pothole-free dream - smooth sailing for 170 miles or so. Where the heck is all of Michigan's road money going? People say to me, "But Michigan has always been that way," but they can't be getting any less road-money from the Feds than other states are... whose noses is all that cash going up?...

Chris went with me today to his first "real" AA meeting - the well-known "Raab Road Group" open discussion meeting outside Swanton, OH. We had lunch with my sponsor and his wife beforehand - it was the first time Brooke had met Chris - and it was a good time. And Chris got to see a classic AA meeting (there are people there from 2 days to 50-plus years of sobriety regularly attending), and he came away with a much better understanding of alcoholism and AA in general. I'm just so grateful that he took the time to use some overtime from earlier in the week and go into work a half-hour later so he could go with me. That says a lot.

I've had a couple nibbles on books I'm trying to sell on eBay and/or on Amazon. So far, it's pennies - I'm sure I'm probably ahead ten or fifteen dollars, after paying for shipping - but it's worth it to get these out of my hair. I need to reclaim my bedroom, and so whatever isn't sold by the end of the month is probably going to the local Lutheran church or the library. (I am one of those people who just can't bring themselves to throw out books.) If you want a list of what I'm trying to get rid of, I will send them to you for the cost to ship them...the primary goal is to get them a good home.

Next Friday, I will probably be presiding over my last official DeMolay event - the district Court of Chevaliers for two young men who should be named today as our newest recipients of the Degree of Chevalier. The award is given for outstanding service to the Order of DeMolay, a group of which I've been a member and advisor since the mid-70's. I gave up the job of chapter advisor a bit over a month ago, and though it's not been overly comfortable, I think it's the right thing. I was driving 200 miles round-trip to do much less of a job than the guy who was living right there in town, and it just made sense. Perhaps I will be an advisor again someday, but at this point in my life, it's just not what I'm called to do. I'm blessed to be able to preside at the ceremony this next Friday, though.

And Chris and I will celebrate his six-month anniversary as an Ohioan and nine months as boyfriends (though "partners" is closer to it, these days). I'm truly blessed to have him in my life - words don't even begin to describe how blessed I am. I'm sure we will have some challenging moments in the days and months to come. But that's the blessing of living "one day at a time" - the evil and blessings of each day are sufficient, to be honest.

There's lots more to write about -
- how the oil companies have finally tipped their hands about Iraq
- why I wish we could stop blowing crap up, and start rebuilding
- wondering how to pray for a gay man in the military going to Iraq
- considering the voices suggesting "lap-band" surgery for me
- why I'm both excited and not excited about Pride month, and
- an upcoming blogging anniversary.

For now, though, "th-th-th-that's all, folks!"

Seventy-three years, one day at a time

We have shown how we got out from under. You say, "Yes, I'm willing. But am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring and glum, like some righteous people I see? I know I must get along without liquor, but how can I? Have you a sufficient substitute?"

(the text Alcoholics Anonymous, page 152)

The story says it was on June 10, 1935 that a broken-down stockbroker helped a broken-down, drunken surgeon to take his last drink, and make it his last. Bill W. and Dr. Bob S. started a fellowship that grew into the world-wide organization known as Alcoholics Anonymous. So this day is AA's anniversary, and the weekend closest to it (last weekend) is known as Founders' Day weekend.

About two hundred and ten months ago, I was the one asking the questions, wondering if the group of old men and weirdos that I met at the Chapter V club in Toledo, Ohio could possibly help me put my life back together. Today I can tell you that my life is a long way from "all better" - but I have never had to return to the life that I had before December 12, 1990. And that is a pure gift of grace on God's part, to be sure.

Last night, at the Monday Night Mens' meeting on Heatherdowns, I listened to a group of people who had been to the Founders' Day celebration in Akron, where it all started. Depending on which person you listen to, somewhere around 10,000 people in recovery make the pilgrimage
to Akron from all over the world. And listening to them took me back....

When I was last at Founders' Day, something like 150 people were in the international meeting alone, all speaking in native languages. Most of us couldn't understand what was being said - but all of us knew what was being said. We knew the stories; we knew the
struggles. And we all knew what it was to have walked through Hell, and to have found what the AA folks modestly called "a way out."

Tonight, I was downtown Toledo, again with the Monday Night Mens crew. Our group is on the volunteer rotation to hold an AA meeting at the Champlain Street Pre-Release Center. So about a dozen of us drove down to "the ugly part of town" - and not because we were wonderful, or because we were going to save someone, or because we were going to get a feather in our angels'-wings or anything.

We went down because we'd been given a gift - and part of keeping that gift involves giving it away. A couple of the guys were there, just marking time, because they have to get just so many of these meetings under their belt before they are released back into the community. One was grateful for our presence, but didn't think he'd ever be able to get off the merry-go-round. And one guy sounded vaguely hopeful - like maybe this AA nonsense might work for him, because what HE had been doing certainly wasn't.

I don't know. All I do know is that I'd been given a gift; I went down and shared what I knew; and we had some fantastic fellowship over Friendly's Ice Cream in Maumee afterwards. And despite a couple ongoing divorces, at least two bankruptcy cases, and one man who's dying of cancer, I'd bet that none of us are going to have to get drunk or high tonight.

So to Bill W., Doctor Bob, Sister Ignatia, and the army of sisters and brothers in recovery, I give thanks to you this night. Thank you for sharing your stories. Thank you for accepting me when I was unacceptable, even to myself. And thank you for giving me a gift that only grows bigger when I share it. Soli Deo gloria.

Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.

May God bless you and keep you - until then.