Larry Andrews, Writer

Forgiving my body

2015-04-06T09:40:00.002-07:00

When I was 9 Dale Spencer said

"Let's play ball boys." You replied

And kept me playing until I was 50.

Santa left me a 12 gauge shotgun when

I was 12. Uncle Harold said, "Larry,

Let's go hunting." You responded and

Kept me walking and hunting until

I was 55. "Let's play tennis," John Lux said

And you and I did, for 45 years.

You and I peddled my bikes all over

Town as well as to school and along my

Columbia Daily Tribune delivery route.

We walked to the movies downtown.

We walked across town to girl friends'

Houses. We hiked with the other Scouts

To the south of Boone County many

Times.

During all this energetic happiness you never

Stopped. You complained from time to time,

Hiding a diminished future. You answered "Yes"

When "No" was a possibility, perhaps a justifiable

Preference, but I didn't know it.

Now, you're saying, "Please. I'm tired. I can't

Go on as before." You're living a disease today you've

Disguised in the past. I can't be angry with

You. You hoisted me and held me up

Too many times and years for me to rebuke you.

To the contrary, I honor you. I forgive you.

Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America’s Future

2015-02-26T12:16:00.000-08:00

Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America’s Future, by Jim Wallis

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. —attributed to Edmund Burke

The 24/ 7 news coverage today, especially on radio, cable, and the internet blogosphere, doesn’t really “cover” the news but rather fuels the audience’s already-held prejudices about what is happening. Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 72-74). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

. We’ve lost our integrity in the public arena, substituting ideological warfare for genuine and rigorous political debate, replacing substance with sound bites. Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 76-77). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The best big conservative idea is personal responsibility. Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 83-84). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

“Talent is what you have, effort is what makes you succeed.” Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Location 89). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The best big liberal idea is social responsibility. Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Location 136). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Hubert Humphrey expressed it well: “Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.” Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 138-139). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Good Samaritan gospel parable Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 137-138). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

There is a personal and a social gospel. Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 143-144). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

With some notable exceptions, conservatives mostly missed the civil rights movement, for example, while liberals were at the center of it. Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 164-165). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Politics seems to be in constant campaign mode now. Our politicians are always running for office, always battling their opponents, always getting ready for the next election. Their political opponents are thought of more as enemies than as colleagues, and working with them is less important than planning how to defeat them next time. Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 253-255). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Politicians take a problem and do two things with it. First, they try to make people in the public arena afraid of the problem. Then they try to blame the problem on the other political side. Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 258-260). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Jon Stewart, “I disagree with you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler.” Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 334-335). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

What size the government should be is the wrong question. A more useful discussion would be about the purposes of government and whether ours is fulfilling them or not. Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 394-395). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[the New Testament about the role and purposes of government.] Paul says those purposes are twofold: to restrain evil by punishing evildoers and to serve peace and orderly conduct by rewarding good behavior. Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 407-408). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

the GI Bill and FHA (the Federal Housing Authority) made a big and positive difference in the lives of our families and so many others by educating fathers and making first family homes possible after our dads came home from World War II. Most people who have Medicare are very happy with it, and Social Security rescued an older generation from poverty. Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 671-673). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

It's the trip

2015-02-06T11:00:00.002-08:00

IT'S THE TRIP

Rather than be spooked the next time you drive by or walk and whistle past a cemetery, think about all the individuals in it who are rarely, if ever, visited. Most have been forgotten.

Look at the experience of walking or driving by a cemetery from a Sophiological perspective. Think about their power, influence and significance when they were alive.

No doubt there are buried lawyers, doctors, professors, successful entrepreneurs, and maybe a real estate mogul or two. However you think about success – socially, financially or professionally – remember death is the great equalizer and these significant lifetime achievements don’t matter in the afterlife.

If you’re not inclined to believe in a spiritual realm or higher power, then you’ll be fertilizer, assuming you go for a natural burial and don’t get boxed up, forever encased. Regardless of how your remains are processed you will not reflect on anything whether you failed, succeeded, or were a good person.

If you’re one who believes in another world beyond this life, then it still doesn’t matter if you were a US Senator, Congressman, or a Pulitzer Prize winning author.

Name the US Senator from your state during World War II. Do you know who all those important people are in the credits that make programs possible on PBS? Did you ever wonder about a street name and for whom it honors? Do you care? Do you know who received a humanitarian of the year award last year in your community?

I get rather impatient, like many people, when I’m required to sit in meetings where talking about goals becomes the focus rather than actually getting to the end result. Process trumps goals and the organization ends up spinning its wheels.

Nothing gets done. In some of these meetings, you want to shout, “Let’s top talking about doing it and just do it! It’s not rocket science! Let’s just get the job done”!

In contrast, as a process for life or perhaps better described as a personal sojourn, relates to each of us, I’ve concluded as have others, that the journey requires focus on the here and now, not the future.

Yesterday, to modify a cliché, is gone forever, tomorrow is a hope with no guarantee, and today at this very moment as you read this, not the next hour, is the only reality.

The process becomes about the quality of living as it pertains to interactions with others – the kindness, empathy and compassion shown. The here and now, even though we should plan for tomorrow, has to be life’s focus. It all comes together in the process more than we realize.

No one starts living after some lofty academic or professional achievement. It is now. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of unhappy or unsatisfied very successful professionals and entrepreneurs out there. They endure spiritual poverty and don’t even realize it.

Even for those who accept material gain isn’t the goal, they also must realize making a difference in a cold, mean, troubled world won’t put an end to life’s injustices. Hunger, poverty, economic inequity, domestic violence, or animal abuse are among the social challenges that plague humanity as much today as they did a century ago or longer.

Leo Tolstoy wrote in one of his short stories, “You say you would do twice, ten times, a hundred times, more than you did. But if you did ten thousand times ten thousand more than all men have done, what would that have been in the work of God? A mere nothing! God’s work, like Himself, is infinite. God’s work is you. Come to Him, and be not a laborer but a son, and you will become a partner of the infinite God and of His world … your work will be neither small nor great, it will be God’s work.”

Sometimes we may overthink our place in the world. It can be self-absorbing without much progress, not unlike the Hamster in the wheel racing to a destination and getting nowhere, though the furry creature has the benefit of losing weight with much needed exercise.

In the end, it is important to plan for tomorrow as best we can, hoping to enjoy it, but in the final analysis understanding that it’s in this moment that matters such as whether we made someone smile who is having a bad day. Perhaps it’s the best form of energy to feed the cosmos that in turn keeps hope alive.

In doing so, we are to our Creation as the Creator intended. We are an extension of something bigger and better, something transcendental, helping to bring out our better angels.

Now that you have finished reading this, what will you do that’s joyful and meaningful for yourself or someone else in the next hour? Sometime today? More important, how can you condition yourself to do it each day without thin

For Carolyn

2015-01-11T09:57:00.003-08:00

The large painting above the couch

Is missing. Where did it go? I didn’t move

It but it’s obviously gone missing. Ouch!

There’s pain in my chest. I’ve lost my groove.

My sense of balance has me stumbling

And staggering about. Where did my astrolabe

Go? It’s gone, too. I hear me mumbling

With ill-formed words and thoughts that are frayed.

Happiness Depends Partly On Grammar

2015-01-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

[The following is an excerpt from Gwynne's Grammar by N. M Gwynne, in which the author makes a case for the importance of proper grammar: Here is a step-by-step proof (yes, a proof that really is valid!) that happiness depends partly on grammar.]

Step one. For genuine thinking, we need words. (By “genuine thinking” I mean as opposed to merely being conscious of feeling hungry, tired, angry and so on and wanting to do something about it; in other words, anything that animals cannot do.) Thinking cannot be done without words.

Step two. If we do not use words rightly, we shall not think rightly.

Step three. If we do not think rightly, we cannot reliably decide rightly, because good decisions depend on accurate thinking.

Step four. If we do not decide rightly, we shall make a mess of our lives and also of other people’s lives to the extent that we have an influence on other people.

Step five. If we make a mess of our lives, we shall make ourselves and other people unhappy.

In summary of the proof: grammar is the science of using words rightly, leading to thinking rightly, leading to deciding rightly, without which -- as both common sense and experience show -- happiness is impossible. Therefore, happiness depends at least partly on good grammar.

I could show you photos

2015-01-07T08:54:00.000-08:00

I could show you photos of places

I’ve visited, like exotic spaces

On Travel-TV. But truth to tell

I haven’t been anywhere. I‘m not well

Enough for a trip. Further, I have

No ticket stubs from shows that gave

Us pleasure. My collections don’t include

Teaspoons, stamps, butterflies, or food

Notes cribbed from cookbooks or menus.

My collections are seen in other venues,

Like books I’ve bought from amazon bargains

And all the notes I’ve written in the margins.

BOOK CLUB TITLES, January 24 through June 27, 2015

2014-12-30T09:07:00.001-08:00

BOOK CLUB TITLES, January 24 through June 27, 2015

January 24: Son of the Gamblin’ Man, by Marie Sandoz

February 28: Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, by the Countess of Carnarvon

March 28: The Light Between Oceans, by M.L.Stedman

April 25: Reservation Blues, by Sherman Alexie

May 23: Orphan Train, by Christina Baker Kline

June 27: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand

US Vulnerability

2014-12-20T11:30:00.005-08:00

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The suspected North Korea computer attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment is a “serious national security matter,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday, December 18, 2014, as officials said the Obama administration is preparing to announce who it believes is behind the devastating hack.

SINGAPORE — In remarks directed at China, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke Saturday of a “growing threat” of cyberattacks against the United States and called on America and its allies to “establish international norms of responsible behavior in cyberspace.” (New York Times, June 1, 2013) Where are we vulnerable?

Where are the United states vulnerable? Where I described we’d be four years ago in

THE CHINA-AFRICA PARALLAX: A RYAN AND GILLIAN MYSTERY (sequel of Songs of Sadness, Songs of Love), by Larry K. Andrews. (Action-Thriller. Author House, ISBN 978-1-4520-1765-5) The China-Africa Parallax: A Ryan and Gillian Mystery describes how representatives of China and Africa are conspiring to steal research data from major US universities. They will kill anyone who gets in their way in order to achieve their ultimate goal: China’s economic and military domination of the world. This is a fast-moving mystery with an emphasis on today’s geo-political issues and economics. Ryan Graves and his wife, Gillian Davies, characters introduced in Songs of Sadness, Songs of Love, assume perilous, key roles central to the FBI strategy to thwart the devastating conspiracy.

2014-12-19T14:18:00.001-08:00

The photo albums with my past

Capture the lymphoblast

History of my family’s life.

They capture both the humble

And the celebratory between frames.

The future remains a crap game,

Each roll of the dice a random

Event. There’s no memorandum

Or trailer giving a peek of woulda

Shoulda, or maybe coulda.

The family biography of what

Has already happened is set

With the exception of a coronet

Or tiara for someone to wear when

They’re cast to be a wise man,

Or some king or queen of this or that.

What has happened to us in that past

We look at is really the only time

We really know. Tomorrow’s prime

Or ordinary moments are Ready, Set

But no Go; No. Not yet.

Fantastic Christmas Gifts

2014-12-18T09:39:00.000-08:00

This book isn’t sold at J. C. Penny, but it’s easily available elsewhere. When paired, the book complements a cup of English Breakfast Tea, or a latte, or a bottle of chardonnay.

1. SONGS OF SADNESS, SONGS OF LOVE, by Larry K. Andrews. (Mystery-Romance. Author ˛House, ISBN 978-1-4567-1595-3) This is the story of Ryan Graves, a young boy growing up. With the usual fears of adolescence, and a physical disability that causes him even greater agony and heightened fears and of being rejected by his peers. The reader watches this young man as he goes through middle school, high school, and the university with new emotional challenges at each level. This is a study about how people respond to challenging experiences in their lives; some people are overwhelmed and defeated by their challenges while others accept and accommodate them, moving onwards to successful adulthood.

Available at amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. Or, order e-books direct from amazon.com or Barnes & Noble or the Kindle Store.

2. THE CHINA-AFRICA PARALLAX: A RYAN AND GILLIAN MYSTERY, by Larry K. Andrews. (Action-Thriller. Author ˛House, ISBN 978-1-4520-1765-5)The China-Africa Parallax: A Ryan and Gillian Mystery describes how representatives of China and Africa are conspiring to steal research data from major US universities. They will kill anyone who gets in their way in order to achieve their ultimate goal: China’s economic and military domination of the world. This is a fast-moving mystery with an emphasis on today’s geo-political issues and economics. Ryan Graves and his wife, Gillian Davies, characters introduced in Songs of Sadness, Songs of Love, assume perilous, key roles central to the FBI strategy to thwart the devastating conspiracy.

Available at amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. Or, order e-books direct from amazon.com and Barnes & Noble or the Kindle Store.

Objects of my affections

2014-12-13T10:44:00.000-08:00

Objects of my affections:

Mama, papa, mother, father, grandma, grandpa, and Aunt Bea;

Pancakes, coffee, pizza, corned beef, brown beans and hot tea;

Pencils, notebooks, tablets, ball points, neat desks, and lap suites;

Bow ties, warm vests, loose shirts, shined shoes, and ships free;

Baseball, football, soccer, hockey, movies, and TV;

Cardinals, Royals, Huskers, Tigers, Pirates and Kewpies.

Placing dreams in the Large Hadron Collider

2014-12-10T13:42:00.001-08:00

Placing dreams in the Large Hadron Collider

Can result in subatomic collisions like you’ve never

Experienced before. Voilà, thoughts and images are brighter.

The release from reality makes you more clever

And visionary. The multiplied particles are no longer

Swimming in nothingness. There’s an existence

You may have met when you were younger:

The Spirit God, compassion, love in abundance.

Three November poems

2014-12-09T08:28:00.003-08:00

November Poems

It’s been snowing with falling temperatures

For two days in November. An embezzler,

This month absconded during one short night,

Betraying our trust: hah, the year’s not quite

Over. It’s too early for snow and wind-chills

We think, but November disagrees and shrill

Weather is here. The end of the year is closer

Than we expect, and daily we’re getting older.

II.

I am November, an aging pensioner

Who’s shocked by the silent and sly escolar

Who slithered into my life taking a huge bite

Out of my future. I sit, contemplating a rewrite

Of stupidities that merit poison pills,

And my time runs short. November, I’ll

Erroneously think, gives me one more chance.

My year’s not over. But the dance,

The span of a lifetime’s match play, nears its conclusion.

All I can do is flinch at mortality’s intrusion.

III.

A recurring biographical leitmotif:

He doesn’t like December. Some thief

Has stolen the other eleven months and

Has replaced them with a cheery band

Of elves, situated since Thanksgiving,

But too full of mischief for one who’s living

On the downside of his allocated days.

He reviews the prior months and his malaise

Lessens. December has a capstone he knows,

And it’s Christmas. He turns his focus and glows,

Seeing familiarities of Spirit he’s enjoyed before.

Love and compassion and the God-within-us to adore.

Two November Poems

2014-11-18T09:53:00.000-08:00

It’s been snowing with falling temperatures

For two days in November. An embezzler,

This month absconded during one short night,

Betraying our trust that the year’s not quite

Over. It’s too early for snow and wind-chills

We think, but November disagrees and shrill

Weather is here. The end of the year is closer

Than we expect, and we’re gratefully getting older.

II.

I am November, an aging pensioner

Who’s shocked by the silent and sly escolar

Who slithered into my life taking a huge bite

Out of my future. I sit, contemplating a rewrite

Of stupidities that merit poison pills,

And my time runs short. November, I’ll

Erroneously think, gives me one more chance.

My year’s not over. But the dance,

The span of a lifetime’s match play, nears its conclusion.

All I can do is flinch at mortality’s intrusion.

Parsing Dog Talk

2014-10-31T14:04:00.001-07:00

It gives me no pleasure to record — though I must in light of my duties on the Stupid Animal Communication Stories desk here at Language Log — that a Hungarian scientist has created some software that is claimed to be able to actually understand the barking of dogs of the Hungarian Mudi breed. The barks can be decoded to discern the dogs' emotional state: "when a dog has seen a ball, when it is fighting, playing, meeting a stranger or when it wants a walk." This was accomplished through the analysis of 6,000 barks by 14 dogs. And if you truly have nothing the slightest bit valuable to do today, you can read about it here.

The scientist involved, Csaba Molnar, "told the BBC it may have applications for analysis of human communication", and of course the BBC immediately believed them. He told Reuters that "A possible commercial application could be a device for dog-human communication." I'm sure that if you are the sort of person to whom this has any appeal, you already believe that your dog understands every word you say. Now you can understand every word your dog says back. Just don't bother to report any of its opinions to me, OK? Oh, and I am fully aware that on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog; so to all our canine readers, let me just say: arf arf arf, woof woof. Thank you.

By Geoffrey Pullum, originally posted at Language Log.

18 Unexpected Perks of Dating a Nonreader, by Ginni Chen (Barnes & Nobel Book Blog, 15 October 2014)

2014-10-29T09:57:00.002-07:00

They say opposites attract, and that’s never truer than when a lifelong bookworm and an avowed nonreader lock eyes on each other. It happens unexpectedly and all too often. You finally meet someone who is in every way compatible with you, only to discover that they. Don’t. Read.

You panic silently, call all your literary friends, and bemoan your misfortune of falling for a bookless wonder, a nixer of novels, a literature-less Lothario/Lolita. You debate whether or not this fact is a deal breaker, but at the back of your mind you know—you still really kinda like them. Is Cupid just setting you up for failure, or could this be that crazy little thing called love?

Bookworms, give your book-spurning suitors a fighting chance. Don’t focus on the things you can’t share with a nonreader, focus on the new, exciting positives! To help convince you, here are the 18 unexpected perks of dating a nonreader:

1. More space for your growing book collection, because they don’t have any.

2. Your opinions about books are always right.

3. You can freely tell them the entire story of the book you’re reading, spoilers and all, because they probably aren’t going to read it.

4. They never judge any of the books you’re reading, even your guilty pleasure beach reads.

5. You’re never obligated to read books they’ve recommended to you instead of the books you

actually want to read.

6. They think you’re super smart because you read so much.

7. They encourage you to blog about books so you have an outlet to talk about your literary adventures and opinions (true story).

8. They never stay up all night reading like you do, so they can be counted on to wake you up when you sleep through your alarm.

9. They never judge you for the books you haven’t read.

10. They make sure you get fresh air by forcing you to put down the book and get out of the house.

11. They never borrow your books and forget to return them, or return them in poor condition.

12.All your literary friends like them because they don’t engage in pretentious literary one-upmanship.

13. They know a lot about other things like engineering, cooking, music, wilderness survival, how to change a lightbulb…

14. They won’t judge you for thinking that the movie version of the book was actually pretty good.

15. They’re never late meeting you because they got wrapped up in a novel and lost track of time.

16. They do all the driving, so you can read at your leisure in the passenger seat.

17. They never mess up the order of the books on your shelves.

18. They’re willing to learn about literature from you.

Above all, by dating a nonreader, you open yourself up to new experiences and life lessons you might otherwise never discover. So if your heart is telling you “yes,” but your brain is telling you that you have too little in common to make it work, remember what The Princess Bride taught us: “Love is many things, none of them logical.”

Taken for granite

2014-10-22T08:59:00.003-07:00

Sometimes I am taken for granite. Everybody is taken for granite sometimes but I am not in a mood for being fair to everybody. I am in a mood for being fair to me. I am taken for granite quite often, and this troubles and distresses me, because I am not granite. I am not sure what I am but I know it isnâ€™t granite. I have known some granite types, we all do: characters of stone, upright, immovable, unchangeable, opinions the general size shape and pliability of the Rocky Mountains, you have to quarry five years to chip out one little stony smile. That’s fine, that’s admirable, but it has nothing to do with me. Upright is fine, but downright is where I am, or downwrong. ~~ Ursala K. LeGuin

Don't confuse "Christian crazies" with Christianity.

2014-10-20T11:59:00.003-07:00

I’m in an insane hurry right now (getting ready for my wife Cat’s first photo exhibition!! If you’re a Facebooker, share the heck out of that event page, if you would, please–and invite your San Diego friends, etc. please please please! thanks!). And I don’t usually/ever post quickly. But right now I wanna, cuz:

In yesterday’s post, I wrote:

And don’t make the mistake of confusing bullshit “Christian” leaders with Christianity. (Yes, I’m a Christian who curses.) Jesus Christ wouldn’t know most of Christianity today from a McDonald’s. Washington is packed with politicians so crooked they can’t take two steps in any one direction. But does that mean that democracy or the Constitution is invalid? Of course not.

When someone pees in the pool, you don’t blame the water.

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of notices from Christians telling me that they no longer want to be Christian. It’s remarkable how many people I know—people who for years if not their whole lives have been Christian—who have been so beaten into the ground by the relentless toxic rhetoric of the Christian right that at this point they’re just … giving up on Christianity.

Their hearts have turned away from the faith. They feel like, “If Christianity is so good, how come so many Christians are such complete idiots? If the Holy Spirit is supposed to be at work in the hearts and minds of Christians, why isn’t the Holy Spirit doing a better job of making a lot more Christians be at least decent human beings?”

As one of the kindest, most patient and intelligent Christians I know put it in a comment to yesterday’s post: “Is the whole thing [Christianity] just BS?”

Ouch. (If you’re Jesus, anyway. Or … well, me, for one, given what I believe.)

And it’s happening all at once, too. That’s the astounding part. I’ve been Joe Online for a long time now, and, as far as I can tell, ditching Christianity is going viral.

In the last two weeks I’ve heard the same thing from I’d say thirty Christians, who’ve written to me either, “I give up; I’m no longer Christian,” or, “I’m about to give up; I don’t think I can take being Christian any longer.”

Oucheth!

So I really, really want to talk about that.

For now, though, I just wanted to say, about that “Fence Around Your Pool” thing: To hell with other people.

Um.

Didn’t Jesus say something pretty much just like that?

No?

Didn’t Buddha?

Confucius?

Yoda?

I know Gandhi said it. Somewhere along the line, he must have. And I’m pretty sure Martin Luther–King or a 16th century monk—is on the record for having said it.

Anyway, I’m saying it.

And it is, of course, the hyper-abbreviated version of what I would say if I had a bit more time.

The idea of letting other people tell me, or in any way decide for me, who God is, or what the nature of God is, is … repelling to me.

I mean, I get why eventually any sane person would just sau, “Something’s wrong here. Christianity appears to be a solid FAIL. I gave it my all. But enough is enough. I’m out.”

But, for me, screw that. If people keep peeing in my pool, I don’t abandon the pool. I refresh the water, and then build a fence to keep people the freak out. I stop letting strangers in my … pool area. (Um … to be clear: I’m not advocating keeping people away from Christianity–as if anyone in this culture could, given that, you know, it’s everywhere. What I mean is that I have no interest in … letting, well, pee-ers—by which I mean toxic people whom I don’t know or don’t respect—to … sully my waters, pee in my pool, get into my yard, define for me my Christianity–which, for the record, is unimpeachably rational and militantly non-invasive.)

Life is entirely too short to suffer fools.

Now I know somebody’s said that before.

Anyway, this is a real conversation that needs to be had. Jump in if you’ve anything to say, and let’s at least start having it.

Obama an excellent President!

2014-10-16T08:46:00.001-07:00

I get tired of hearing the Republican base blaming Obama for everything and refusing to credit him for the good he has accomplished. By base I mean the racist, women hating, poor are lazy, god fearing, gun nuts, and the psychotic crowd. The right wants Americans to think they are the righteous strength of the United States, but in fact they are pussies. Everything I’ve listed above they are afraid of. In fact, they are not the strength of this country, they are scared shitless. It’s how the Republicans win elections. They make their base of unenlightened voters into fearful Republican zombies so they’ll buy the same ideological crap every election. Nothing has changed in the Republican party in 50 years. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

So enter this intelligent thoughtful politician who challenges the status quot of Republican dogma and the fireworks begin. Throw in the fact that he is an African-American and all common sense is left at the train station without a ticket to sanity town. It’s not just enough for Republicans to make voters afraid of the policies of the left, now they have to make you afraid of the president or the boogeyman in chief.

The left feels as if they have to defend the president from these attacks, but often don’t. Defend him from what? The truth? Because the truth is Obama has been a damn good president which seems to get lost in all of this prick fighting.

Here’s what Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman said about Obama, a president he has had criticisms of.

… Obama faces trash talk left, right and center – literally – and doesn’t deserve it. Despite bitter opposition, despite having come close to self-inflicted disaster, Obama has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history. […]

First he saved the economy. He was left with a disaster after Bush’s two wars and tax cuts for the rich. The Obama administration saved the US automotive industry, rescuing an unimaginable number of jobs. In the early days when congress was somewhat sane, Obama was able to pass a stimulus package that delivered the nation from economic collapse. Almost anything he has tried since has met with disdain by congress and has seriously hampered efforts to improve the economy more. The U.S. economy has been slightly above the national average for post recession recovery.

Second. Despite all of the posturing by the Republicans, Obama was able to pass a health care plan so that millions of Americans will have a safety net for health issues. The Republicans were against it. So much so that they voted around 50 times to repeal it. They say as Mitch McConnell did that Obamacare “is the worst piece of legislation in the last half-century.” In fact, Republicans hate the Affordable Healthcare Act so bad they have said they will force another government shutdown because of it. A shutdown that will most certainly be blamed on the Republicans.

But that’s not the amazing part. Tell me why the Republicans hate the ACA so bad? You can’t. Know why? Because they can’t. I can’t find one Republican legislator who has succinctly listed the reasons why Obamacare is so bad. Could it be that’s it’s really not that bad for America. Or, is it because it subsidizes the middle class and the poor which Republicans have an aversion to.

America is starting to like the Affordable Care Act.

Moving forward, we should look at the ACA as an “enabling” legislation. It is designed to be a resource in healthcare delivery transformation. This transformation will be led by many stakeholder groups such as patients, physicians, insurers and the breadth of public and private sector healthcare organizations. There is a long way to go and a lot of hard work to do. The ACA in itself does not end the problem, but it is a starting point for progress which will lead to a more sustainable healthcare system.

Lastly, here are some other accomplishments of the Obama administration.

Passed Wall Street Reform, and Dodd-Frank for Consumer and Bank Financial Protection
Ended the Iraqi War
Killed Osama bin Laden
Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
Reversed Bush Era Torture Policies
Forced banks out of the Federal Student Loan Program
Boosted Automobile Fuel Efficiency
Achieved New START Treaty
Of course, Obama has made mistakes. But unlike congress he was a leader on initiatives which have improved the lives of Americans.

My suggestion to the Democrats is to stop letting the Republicans control the story. Democrats provide little defense for Obama when he is attacked from the right and candidates are avoiding Obama during the mid-term elections. This only gives credence to the Republican argument that Obama is an inconsequential president who can’t lead when nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the Democrats are the ones acting like pussies. To me these Democrats are hurting the party and the country by selfishly trying to save their seats in congress.

Democrats should stand tall and shout from the top of their lungs, “Obama is a damn good president and I’m proud he is my Commander-in-Chief. So here’s a message for you Republicans … F^*k you.” It’s the truth. In a Democratic vacuum the only voices the public hears are those of Republicans.

Describe Jesus, in Two Minutes

2014-10-09T14:26:00.002-07:00

What Would It Have Been Like to Be A Companion of Jesus?

October 3, 2014 by Marcus Borg 19 Comments

I began keeping a journal in my early 30s, now forty years ago. I wish I had begun earlier. I would value having a written record of thoughts and experiences from my 20s and even earlier.

I mention my journal because browsing in a volume from twenty years ago is the trigger for this blog. Namely, I was reminded of preparing a short summary of what Jesus was like for a live appearance on a major network television morning news show on Good Friday.

The producer told me that I would be asked two questions, and that my response to the first question would be my opportunity for a “long” statement: up to 75 seconds. The producer also told me what my first question would be. The host would ask, “Well, what was Jesus like? What would it have been like to be a companion of Jesus?”

I was also told that the viewing audience would be around five million. Given the demographics of the U.S., the majority would be Christians, but of varying kinds: Catholics, Protestants, Pentecostals, non-denominational, conservative and progressive Christians. And a significant percent would be non-Christians, whether “nones” or members of a different religion. It was a daunting and also stimulating question. What does one say in just over a minute to an audience that large and diverse about what Jesus was like?

Twenty years later, the question strikes me as pedagogically useful for all Christians, as well as those who have heard of Jesus but are not very interested in him. What is your 75 second (about 150 words) summary of the Jesus you believe in and love? Or your 75 second summary of the Jesus you are uncertain about or indifferent to or reject?

I share my summary from twenty years ago. Recall the question: it’s about the historical Jesus, the pre-Easter Jesus. What was he like? What would it have been like to be a companion of Jesus?

Jesus was a peasant, which tells us about his social class. Clearly, he was brilliant. His use of language was remarkable and poetic, filled with images and stories. He had a metaphoric mind. He was not an ascetic, but world-affirming, with a zest for life. There was a sociopolitical passion to him – like a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King, he challenged the domination system of his day. He was a religious ecstatic, a Jewish mystic, for whom God was an experiential reality. As such, Jesus was also a healer. And there seems to have been a spiritual presence around him, like that reported of St. Francis or the Dalai Lama.

And I suggest that, as a figure of history, Jesus was an ambiguous figure – you could experience him and conclude that he was insane, as some of his family did; or that he was simply eccentric or that he was a dangerous threat; or that he was filled with the Spirit of God.

My summary of what the pre-Easter was like was and is not meant to be complete. How could any 150 word summary be? Nor did or do I imagine it to definitive or normative in the sense that any authentic summary must include these elements.

Nor is the purpose of this blog to highlight my summary. Rather, its purpose is to suggest the usefulness of thinking about what you think Jesus was like. What would you say about Jesus to the proverbial “man from Mars” in a minute or two?

Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy, By Darryl Pinckney

2014-09-29T10:26:00.002-07:00

Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy,

By Darryl Pinckney

Blackballed is Darryl Pinckney’s meditation on a

century and a half of participation by blacks in US

electoral politics. In this combination of memoir,

historical narrative, and contemporary political and

social analysis, he investigates the struggle for black

voting rights from Reconstruction through the civil

rights movement to Barack Obama’s two presidential

campaigns. Drawing on the work of scholars, the

memoirs of civil rights workers, and the speeches

and writings of black leaders like Martin Luther King

and Stokely Carmichael, Andrew Young and John Lewis,

Pinckney traces the disagreements among blacks about

the best strategies for achieving equality in American

society as well as the ways in which they gradually

came to create the Democratic voting bloc that

contributed to the election of the first black president.

Introducing "Jesus for the Non-Relgious" to France

2014-09-16T09:54:00.003-07:00

Introducing "Jesus for the Non-Relgious" to France

by John Shelby Spong on August 20, 2014 |

(The following is the speech delivered in Paris at the launching of the French Translation of Jesus for the Non-Religious.)

How can those of us living in the 21st century understand the Jesus of history? We think very differently from the way the people who wrote the New Testament in the first century thought. Can we any longer believe, for example, that when Jesus entered this world his arrival was announced by a star that appeared newly in the heavens or that his birth was heralded by angels breaking through the midnight sky to sing to hillside shepherds? Can we, who both understand genetics and know that women have an egg-cell, still believe that his mother was a virgin and his father the Holy Spirit? At his baptism in the Jordan River can we still suggest that the heavens opened in the roof of the three-tiered universe and the spirit descended onto Jesus with the voice of God proclaiming him “My son”? Is it still possible for us to believe that a real devil tempted him in a literal wilderness? Can we still imagine that he actually preached the Sermon on the Mount with its eight symmetrical Beatitudes or that he fed 5000 people with just five loaves and two fish? Can 2lst century minds still embrace a Jesus who raised from the dead a child, a widow’s son and Lazarus, whose flesh was already decaying? Is it possible that Jesus did walk on water or still a storm? Can we really believe that he gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, the ability to leap to the lame and crippled and the capacity to speak to those who were mute? Can we believe that on the third day after his death, his resuscitated body walked out of a grave? Do any of us still believe the story that he defied gravity and rose into the sky or that, once ensconced in heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit on his followers in the great moment at Pentecost?
I have in my career and in my writing answered all these questions with a resounding “No.” Can I then still call myself a Christian? If none of these narratives from the biblical story can still be thought of as literally true, does my claim still to be a deeply committed, believing Christian have either integrity or credibility? Is my life some kind of self-deceptive lie?

The fact is that I not only identify myself as a Christian, but I have also served my church for twenty-one years as a priest and for twenty-four years as one of its chosen bishops. In my retirement today I remain an active member of my parish church, engaging in worship every Sunday. My wife sits on its governing body. I teach an Adult Bible Class in that church on a number of Sundays each year. I am also one of America’s best-known and best-selling religious authors, whose books have not only sold well over a million copies, but have been translated into every major European language as well as Korean and Arabic.

How is it possible, some might ask of me, to hold these two things together? How deeply can one challenge the literal understanding of what many people think of as the core, the basic tenets of historical Christianity and still consider himself or herself a believing, practicing Christian? To hold the tension between these two realities was the purpose I had in mind when I wrote the book Jesus for the Non-Religious which has just this month been translated into French and is being now launched in a series of public events in Paris. This book was translated by an eminent scholar, Ray Rakower, who is fluent not only in French, but also in German and English. He also happens to be a friend of mine.

In this book I seek to demonstrate that there is a way both to read the Bible and to understand the Christian faith that is quite different from the way we have been traditionally taught. I do not think, for example, that we have to pretend that the Bible was ever written to be read as literal history. I believe that I can demonstrate that the original authors of the four gospels did not themselves believe that. The Bible, including what we Christians call the New Testament, is, rather, a deeply Jewish book, written by Jewish authors, attempting to interpret the power they had experienced in a Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth. Whatever they understood by the word “God,” they believed they had met in the person of Jesus. This connection between God and Jesus was first made by St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, written about the year 54 CE, when he stated: “God was in Christ.” That claim would, in time, become the essential center of the Christian faith, which I continue to affirm. How that experience is to be explained is still the pressing issue driving Christian theology to this day.

In the book, Jesus for the Non-Religious, I go through the familiar biblical stories about Jesus: his birth, his baptism, his temptation, his teaching, his miracles, his crucifixion and his resurrection in order to show that there is a new way to read these narratives, besides thinking of them as literal history. Can they be true and still not literal? I am convinced they can be. Can they point to a God that they cannot define and still be true? I believe they can. Can the stories of the resurrection of Jesus be real and yet not be stories of a deceased body literally walking out of a tomb? I am certain they can be. Can I still believe in the ultimate Christian promise of life after death while dismissing the concepts of heaven and hell as little more than institutional behavior-controlling techniques? I, in fact, do so believe and have written a book to demonstrate that entitled: Eternal Life: A New Vision – Beyond Religion – Beyond Theism – Beyond Heaven and Hell. Can I help others through my writing to get beneath the literal words of both the first century New Testament and the dated concepts of the Fourth Century creeds and still continue to affirm the transcendent experience to which these words point? Not only do I think that I can, but I also believe that this is exactly the purpose for which I wrote Jesus for the Non-Religious.

I cannot, however, in this brief address carry my audience through each of the steps which I have taken to bring me to these conclusions. In the book that task took me over 300 pages. What I can do, however, is to give you my conclusions briefly and then challenge you to read the process through which I journeyed to reach those conclusions. I suspect these conclusions will disturb the voices of traditional Christian spokespersons, who seem to think that faith can come only from believing dated and largely unbelievable literal concepts. I regret that they will be disturbed by my words, but let me be clear that is not my intention, nor are these people the audience I seek to reach. I write, rather, for those people who have engaged the knowledge revolution in science over the last 600 years and for those who are not afraid of the current modern understanding of the Bible, which has been developed in the last 200-500 years. I write for those who have long ago dismissed traditional Christianity as simply irrelevant in the modern world. I write to open to them radically new Christian possibilities. I write to invite them to take a second look at the faith of their fathers and mothers, which they have today largely rejected and to begin to see something in Christianity that they have never seen before.

The fact is that I do believe in God deeply and profoundly, but I cannot tell you either who God is or what God is. Nor do I think that anyone else can do so either. All any of us can ever do is to tell others how we believe we have experienced God. God and our experience of God are not the same. All human experience is subjective and may, therefore, be delusional. Some will surely assert that such is the case with me, but I do not think that they are correct. So let me lay before you briefly the content of my “God experience” and let you do with it what you will, including judging it as inadequate.

I believe that I experience God as the “Source of Life,” which while flowing through the universe, only comes to self-consciousness in human beings. If God is the Source of Life then I must worship God by my willingness to live, to live fully. When I live fully, I believe I make God, the Source of Life, visible.

I believe I experience God as the “Source of Love,” which also flows through the universe, but which, once again, comes to self-consciousness only in human beings. If God is the Source of Love then the only way I can worship God is by loving, loving wastefully. When I love beyond all barriers I believe I make God, the Source of Love visible.

I believe I experience God as the “Ground of all Being,” to borrow a phrase made popular by the German theologian Paul Tillich, who was my primary early theological mentor. This means that the more that I have the courage to be all that I am capable of being the more I make the God, who is the “Ground of Being,” visible.

Finally, I am a Christian, not because I believe the mythological understandings of the past in some literal way, but because I see in Jesus the very dimensions of my experience of God. I see in him a life so fully lived that he reveals to me the “Source of Life;” a love so wastefully shared that he reveals to me the “Source of Love,” and one who has the courage to be all that he was meant to be, revealing to me the God who is the “Ground of Being.” Yes, I can and do join with Paul and proclaim without equivocation and with integrity that “God was in Christ.”

The task of the Christian faith to me is not to make people religious or to save the sinful, but rather to introduce us all to a new dimension of what it means to be human. It is at this point for me that God becomes not a noun to be defined, but a verb to be lived. The book,Jesus for the Non-Religious, is thus for me the clarion call to see and to embrace a new Christianity for a new world.

~John Shelby Spong

Happiness Depends Partly On Grammar

2014-09-16T09:09:00.001-07:00

A Step-By-Step Proof That Happiness Depends Partly On Grammar

The following is an excerpt from Gwynne's Grammar by N. M Gwynne, in which the author makes a case for the importance of proper grammar: Here is a step-by-step proof (yes, a proof that really is valid!) that happiness depends partly on grammar.

Step two. If we do not use words rightly, we shall not think rightly.

Step three. If we do not think rightly, we cannot reliably decide rightly, because good decisions depend on accurate thinking.

Step four. If we do not decide rightly, we shall make a mess of our lives and also of other people’s lives to the extent that we have an influence on other people.

Step five. If we make a mess of our lives, we shall make ourselves and other people unhappy.

Nor does the importance of grammar stop there. Let us expand on some of the elements of the proof just given and also take the proof a little further.

Step one. Words are what we think with as well as communicate with. Without words, we can feel (tired, hungry, angry and so on), but we cannot think. We cannot reason things out, not even the simplest things.

Step two. From Step one it then follows that if we are to think correctly and usefully, words need to be used correctly, obviously.

Step three. Using words correctly involves two sciences. One of them is vocabulary, the science of what words mean. The other is grammar, the science of how words are used in order to have thoughts and to convey thoughts -- in the form of either statements, questions, wishes or commands. Although vocabulary is in one sense the primary science of all sciences, because we cannot have grammar without words to be grammatical with, it is also the case that vocabulary depends, practically speaking, on grammar. We even need grammar in order to understand vocabulary -- to understand the definitions in a dictionary.

Step four. Vocabulary and grammar -- words and the correct use of words -- are therefore the sciences that are the necessary prelude to the science of thinking. The science of thinking is technically known as logic.

Step five. Logic, in turn, is the necessary prelude to the science of communicating, which includes arguing and debating (which in turn include how to spot and see through attempts to bamboozle us with bogus arguments), and is technically known as the science of rhetoric.

Step six. On these four sciences -- vocabulary, grammar, logic, and rhetoric -- all other sciences, without exception, depend.

Step seven. We turn now to the taking of decisions. Even at the simplest level, that of taking decisions big or small, the quality of our decisions is going to depend on the accuracy and clarity of the thinking we put into them, and bad decisions adversely affect our well-being, our happiness and the happiness of people who are affected by us.

Step eight. It does not stop there. If enough people in any society are incompetent in their thinking and in consequence take bad decisions, their bad decisions inevitably affect the whole of that society. The very well-being of society therefore depends in part on good grammar.

Step nine. Would that the harmful effects of bad grammar stopped there. They do not. Civilization itself exists only in the various societies that make it up. If enough societies in the world crumble as a result of bad decisions taken because of bad thinking, yes, the whole of world civilization faces collapse, with consequences for each individual that are literally incalculable.

As an argument for the usefulness of this little book, all of that is dramatic and far-reaching indeed. And the logic supporting the case is sufficiently clear-cut to be its own authority. After all, what is demonstrably true is true even if no one believes it. Truth is not decided by majority vote, nor even by unanimous vote, nor even by the majority or unanimous vote of experts.

Even so, given that those most influential in education during the last few decades have been completely dismissive of grammar, some readers may at least be comforted to know that far from my being in isolation in stressing the unique importance of grammar, others clearly well placed to make a judgement have recently seen fit to air the same view in even stronger language than I have been using.

Libby Purves, experienced broadcaster, journalist and author, OBE for services to journalism, and 1999 Columnist of the Year, in an article in The Times of London on 27 August 2012 wrote:

Of all school disciplines English language matters most. Clarity, confidence, communication are the bed- rock of every other endeavour in education and in life: from physics to marketing, from engineering to law. Neglecting, downgrading and generally dumbing standards is a greater cruelty to children than anything visited on them by a clumsy exam board... It is wicked not to emphasize the difference between chatty street slang and formal, universally understood, clarity and correctness.

Dot Wordsworth, long-serving columnist for the weekly Spectator, also used the word “cruel” in an article in the Daily Telegraph of 6 July 2012:

It’s cruel not to teach children grammar... Pupils (or students as they are mysteriously called) are not taught such rules of spelling as may exist and certainly are not tested on them. As for adverbs, subjects, objects or clauses, let alone such fabulous monsters as subjunctives, children are left in sublime ignorance of them... At its worst, educational theory that rejects grammar does so because of a mad idea that children are noble savages better left to authenticity and the composition of rap lyrics. That way lies the scrap-heap and jail. Grammar sets them free. No one would think it a kindness to give a teenager a car without teaching her to drive, and that includes the rules of the road.

The word “cruel” is perhaps especially appropriate and telling, given that it is quite commonly used against those who hold that grammar should be imposed on children for their lasting benefit.

Cruel? Every worthwhile skill needs effort to acquire it, and even some of the purely enjoyable ones need very considerable effort. Does anyone ever look back and regret the effort made? On the contrary, no one who reaches a level of skill in any field ever wishes that he had a lower degree of skill in that field. In whatever you undertake, you want to reach, within reason, as high a standard in that field as your inborn capabilities make possible. All the more is this so with grammar, when everything depends on it.

Ergo: whether with reference to saving civilisation, at one extreme, or to protecting from appalling cruelty a single little child over whom you have some influence, at the other extreme, the importance of grammar as the primary step in any education is actually beyond the possibility of exaggeration.

Angela's Ashes

2014-08-26T10:49:00.003-07:00

Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt. "Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood," writes Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes. "Worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." Welcome, then, to the pinnacle of the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. Born in Brooklyn in 1930 to recent Irish immigrants Malachy and Angela McCourt, Frank grew up in Limerick after his parents returned to Ireland because of poor prospects in America. It turns out that prospects weren't so great back in the old country either--not with Malachy for a father. A chronically unemployed and nearly unemployable alcoholic, he appears to be the model on which many of our more insulting cliches about drunken Irish manhood are based. Mix in abject poverty and frequent death and illness and you have all the makings of a truly difficult early life. Fortunately, in McCourt's able hands it also has all the makings for a compelling memoir.

Our America: US History from an Hispanic Point of View

2014-06-19T08:52:00.000-07:00

Overlooking the significance of America’s Hispanic past, the United States is typically perceived as an offshoot of Britain, with its history unfolding east to west, beginning with the first settlers in Jamestown. In an absorbing narrative, Felipe Fernández-Armesto begins with the explorers and conquistadors who planted Spain’s first colonies in Puerto Rico, Florida and the Southwest in the sixteenth century. Missionaries and rancheros carry Spain’s expansive impulse into the late eighteenth century, settling in California, mapping the American interior to the Rockies and charting the Pacific coast. The nineteenth-century triumph of Anglo-America in the West is followed by the twentieth-century Hispanic resurgence, spreading from the West to cities including Chicago, Miami and Boston. Today’s plural America is the product of its past.