The First Morning

I didn’t even want to go. Fort Worth is over an hour away, and a large crowd (for me) is like the Shark Tank at Sea World: I know I’m safe, but what if somehow I end up in that tank?

Irrational? Of course.

But I ended up going, and through some interesting, but irrelevant circumstances, ended up right in front of Obama as he was leaving the Convention Center. Close enough to take this picture and shake his hand. (One of those circumstances involved my trying to leave as soon as possible when the speech was over to avoid the exiting, jostling, milling about, ready-to-suffocate me shark tank of 11,000 people who I wanted to be way out in front of. I failed.)

But here’s the main thing I saw last evening. And since we were in the building from 5:30 to 9:30, I really did see this, in depth and detail, with much contemplation:

The line in which my family was queued for pre-entrance security purposes, had 69 people in it. 38 of them were darker shades of brown than the other 31 pink and beige folks (like my family). I wondered then if I had ever been in such a mix of human color outside of some long-forgotten NBA basketball game or while walking certain portions of Manhattan?

There were 3 year olds with their Mamas and very elderly couples, with each other. There were a lot of 20-somethings and early 30-somethings. There were, I noticed, a number of old hippies, some of whom seemed to be wearing the same buckskin they’d bought at head shops in the 60’s; but there were also plenty of Armani suits and Louis Vitton handbags, too (it’s Fort Worth, after all!)

There were college kids and street people, whole families, oilmen and, I’m guessing, another preacher or two. And from the balcony perch behind the speaker’s platform, and for 3 hours, I continued to scan the crowd and found that this potpourri of humanity seemed to define the entire 11,000 people present!

Because I’m an American, my first inclination is to see people through categorically discerning eyes. But, because I am human, my greatest thrill comes during those occasional and infrequent moments when I am able to see people- experience people- in their amazingly wonderful commonalities.

And last night was full of such moments. There were so many of them that they stretched into minutes, then into an hour, and- if I’m fortunate- some of those residual experiences of really seeing will stretch into the rest of my life.

Biology doesn’t separate us. We are all walking, two-eyed, elbowed, hair-covered fingerprints of the 10s of 1000s of generations before us. We’re all looking for a drink of water, the nearest bathroom, and something (at times- anything) to eat.

Superficialities don’t separate us, though we like most of the day to pretend they do. That Louis Vitton handbag holds the same kinds of things as the plastic Kroger bag being held by the woman two rows down. Saris, sweatshirts, and suede sports jackets all cover us against the cold and the roving eyes of people behind us in line. The cars we drove to the Convention Center all- no matter how much they cost- got us to the Convention Center, needed gas, and needed parked.

I wondered at one point how many of us there shared that 10,000 year old parent with the first set of genetically mutated brown eyes turned blue, recently identified by geneticists. Then I realized that all 11,000 of us shared one of that guy’s great, great, great (X100?) grandparents.

What separates us is NOT the amount of melanin in our skin, the heights from which we view the world, the weight we press onto the world, or whether we are are wearing silk, polyester, or leather. Those things are picayune compared to the culture, tradition, history, and religion which separate us! And the particulars which cause those things to separate us were all born in the mutated imaginations of somebody deep in distant past.

Americans have the fresh blood of the old and horrid wounds of slavery to deal with daily. We have the partriarchal rantings of long ago theologians still affecting the societal roles of males and females. Lebensraum (the desire for “more space”) may have been a causative factor in the rise of the Third Reich, but that lust for power and control over something bigger, some thing “better” , continues to motivate us to build bigger houses, acquire more acreage, control more oil fields, have more closet space, toys, and TV channels, or be jealous of those who do, or scornful of those who don’t!

But, back to Obama and the 11,000 last night. For a little while, those artificial, veneer thin, unexamined separators- those culturally deficient memes- failed to do their job. They failed to separate anyone there from anyone else.

And that is precisely the relevance and importance of Obama’s candidacy. The opportunities to keep untied the ties that really can bind us are always present, and always to some degree, will be. But the possibilities for widening our personal circles of human acceptance, regard, and respect are always present, too. They just need coaxed a little. We need to experience them to know the joy implicit within them. Because once our circles begin to overlap with the circles of others’ in wider and wider diameters, real cultural, historical, religious, and some day traditional change has the opportunity to begin.

Lives built on the courage and love of shared hope, are far more more fun and interesting, more peaceful and serene, than lives built of the fears and timidity of the separating status quo. Obama’s message, even if were nothing else, is that.

Anyway, that’s what I saw. It was the main thing I saw. And I hope it is true. Perhaps if I do what I can, where I am, however and whenever I can to make it so, it will be.

Here are a couple more pictures from one of the “20-somethings” I mentioned above. Chris and his wife are expecting a baby boy in April, so here’s hoping that he gets to have his first birthday during an Obama presidency!

Pictures by Chris Bonner. In the second one, the back of my head can be seen just below and to the left of the V for Victory fingers. (hmmm..I’m noting what could be a…bald spot? Yikes!)

I clicked on a link to this video expecting a pile of smarmy, Paul Harveyesque sighing and throat-clicking. But, I’m amazed. And delightfully so. Sure there’s a point or two I might quibble with, but overall this is a very, very good commentary.

Many people are studying theology, it seems to me, rather than trying to understand- even a little bit- something about God.

Google “theology” and you’ll begin to see how people can get trapped in that bottomless subject: 39 million entries with more being written every day! I’m tempted to list some of the many theologian/bloggers I read frequently , but since they would probably disagree with me on most of the theological minutia they are so fond of over-analyzing, I will forego begging for such confrontations. I would, I admit, probably lose in a debate with any of them, because- I guarantee- I would lose interest long before they ran out of points to be made and verses to be quoted.

Those who believe that their particular sacred writings are the ending point of any discussion about God, love theology. Those who, like me, believe that sacred books are the beginning of knowledge about God, don’t. There is too much to do: there are too many people to see and schmooze with, too many fields to walk in, way too many shores to stand beside, too much about the universe to learn, and way too many children and dogs to play with, to spend more than an hour a month picking over the legalese of Augustine, Calvin, or one of the Niebuhrs.

It appears to me that the study of theology is a pretty ego-centric exercise, anyway. Most people seem (correct me if I’m wrong) to engage in it to 1. Justify their own already preciously owned beliefs, or 2. Exclude others from those same preciously owned beliefs. My attitude toward self-serving, God-belittling theological study is this Emo Phillips joke:

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said `Stop! don’t do it!’ `Why shouldn’t I?’ he said. I said, `Well, there’s so much to live for!’ He said, `Like what?’ I said, `Well…are you religious or atheist?’ He said, `Religious.’ I said, `Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?’ He said, `Christian.’ I said, `Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?’ He said, `Protestant.’ I said, `Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?’ He said, `Baptist!’ I said, `Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist church of god or Baptist church of the lord?’ He said, `Baptist church of god!’ I said, `Me too! Are you original Baptist church of god, or are you reformed Baptist church of god?’ He said, `Reformed Baptist church of god!’ I said, `Me too! Are you reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?’ He said, `Reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!’ I said, `Die, heretic scum,’ and pushed him off.

I told that joke in church one Sunday and it was the most responded to part of the day’s sermon- which says something about truth of the joke or the content of my sermons; I’m not sure which!

God is out there, in here, over there; God is near, far, around, through, above, below, and in. We can confine God to the written Word, or to words written about the Word, and easily miss the Word made flesh that dwells among us! We can argue over meaningless nuances in ancient Greek, exegetical exposes of what “is” is in the books of I Corinthians, II Kings, and III John, or whether the book of Revelation has happened, is happening, or will be happening, imminently or a thousand years from now.

Or, we can consider the lilies of the field. (Matthew 6:2

Or, we can go to the county jail and see Jesus. He said he’d meet us there. (Matthew 25:36) And amazingly (he also said) when we’ve seen him, we’ve seen his Daddy! (John 14:9)

Simple.

Maybe too simple for some.

If I give in to my first and oldest thoughts on the subject, here’s what I believe about God:

1. He’s vaguely shaped like me- he walked around in the Garden of Eden, after all. (Genesis 3: And Moses got a glimpse of his backside. (Exodus 33:23)

2. He is a he.

3. He is jealous, easily angered, arbitrary, vengeful, violent, and holds grudges. But..

4. God is love.

That’s enough to begin. These thoughts were all formed early on, during my childhood, from numerous Sunday School handouts, a voracious appetite for every tract, magazine, and some bizarre little books I would find at my grandparent’s home. (I wish I remembered what they were; I only remember the covers on them would often have pictures of beautiful angels and lascivious devils. Yes, I was weird.) I also, even as a kid, would watch TV preachers. This was the mid- 50s, so it was Oral Roberts on a folding chair in a tent at noon on Sundays, and, at 6 p.m. everyday, just after “The Little Rascals,” “Suppertime,” a locally produced show starring the lesser known brother of Rex Humbard, Clement, and his family. (wife Priscilla, and daughters Rebecca and Delilah.  See? I told you I was weird!)

Together, all of that data ran together in my 7 to 12 year old mind, and God the walking, talking, prissy and pissed god, emerged. But he loved me, somehow. I can’t make that elementary version of him go away, not completely, no matter how hard I try. It is one of those childhood-formed chunks of misinformation that has concretized in my mind to the point that I will still, incredibly, default to it at times. (Here’s another example of that kind of information which I apparently hold dear, because it won’t leave me: somewhere along that time, I got the idea in my head that goats and sheep were the same species. All the goats were male, and all the sheep were female. On first glance at either kind of animal, that is still my first thought.)

I mention all of this because, I have found, many adults also carry with them some anthropomorphic ideas about God that were forged in the halcyon days of childhood, when new information about the world was flooding our minds, and the cognitive means of evaluating/rejecting/accepting that information were not yet fully formed. It doesn’t matter, at that age, that the information doesn’t fit together that we are absorbing; it finds a place to take up (apparently) a permanent lodging place  in our minds, anyway.

When that information, right or wrong, is an ingrained part of the culture we grow up in, it becomes important and life-affecting. When it concerns goats and sheep, it is only a minor and very occasional irritation. It is easy to see, therefore, that the God of my childhood still enjoys a well-tended residence in the minds of many, many people. It is an idea that is nurtured and fertilized, and so satisfying (again, apparently) to so many people that it affects how they vote, how they say it’s important for other people to believe, and how they raise their children.

Thinking critically about God- rather, about that image of God I’ve had in my head for waaaay too long- is a never  ending process. I don’t want God to be as small as my imagination, and I sure don’t want God  to be as small as the authors and artists of those tracts and books tried to make God out to be. I want to both understand the metaphors for God used by the biblical writers in the context of their time, and to think about new metaphors for God in the context of our time. I want to reconcile the stories of God’s bloody and horrific vengeance on persons other than Jews (Deut 20:16-18, et.al., et.al.) with the statement, “God is love.” (1John 4: 8), if they can be reconciled. I want to get by the saccharine nonsense that God dusted the heavens with stars for human pleasure, and the maudlin idea that God allows babies to die because of God’s selfish need for flowers in heavenly gardens.

I want to know God better, even as I know I will not even come close to knowing God fully.  I want the goofy image of God I have stuck in my brain to be put to pasture with the he-goats and she-sheep.

The inevitable (and hilarious) take off on the Obama- “Yes, We Can!”- video: here’s John.I.Am.

No, You Can’t!

There’s nothing to be written that could possibly make this story funnier than it already is!

Yes, We Can !

Watch.

I felt the same little twinges I felt when I was 12 and watched JFK on television; when I was 14 and watched the March on Washington; and when I was 18 and going to see Eugene McCarthy. I didn’t really understand very well what I was feeling then. And I am surprised that I am able to feel it again now, even now.

It is HOPE..

Watch..

I can hold up a little sign here, and hope that someone in one of the states which has the opportunity to vote in Tuesday’s Super Primary, reads it.

And takes me with them to the polls.

And stops on the way to pick up someone else who needs a ride.

We, as a country, are in desperate need of someone who can inspire us again. We need someone who can get our eyes and minds off ourselves and onto our children’s and grandchildren’s futures. We need someone who is eloquent and able to dream; someone who is able to think beyond cliches, religious dogma, or their own ego’s lust for center stage.

We need someone with a vision for what might be possible, far more than we need someone with experience in that which has gotten us to where we are today.  We need someone who was not lucky enough to be married to the right person at the right time, who was not fortunate enough to be the son of a wealthy politician, and who does not have to resurrect his past courage- however genuine it was- every time he speaks. We need someone who can stand on their own, like the rest of us. We sure as hell do not need someone who is courting the unthinking masses who make up the mail lists of televangelists.

We need Barak Obama to lead this country’s government for awhile. That he is a different color than me, with a first and last name I’ve never heard before, and is the father of young children, are all added benefits (in my mind). They are all reasons that we can expect him to do what’s right for others beyond himself, and to be an other-directed leader rather than a self-glorifying, autobiography-contracting, motivational speech-scheduling, word-spitting, lip-flapping,  lap dog for the military-procuring corporations, pseudo Christians, and media pawns that have turned this country into a perverted, fear based community of what’s-in-it-for-me hustlers and their victims.

Vote for Obama, if you can.

Please?

Earphones are mandatory. An appreciation for the music and the truth will follow..!