Don't Get Confused by Science

I came across an interesting article at The Best Article Every Day. A Physics guy posts about an incident that occurred when he was in a philosophy class in college at UW-Madison.

[The Teaching Assistant] was trying to show how things don’t always happen the way we think they will and explained that, while a pen always falls when you drop it on Earth, it would just float away if you let go of it on the Moon. My jaw dropped a little. I blurted “What?!” Looking around the room, I saw that only my friend Mark and one other student looked confused by the TA’s statement. The other 17 people just looked at me like “What’s your problem?” “But a pen would fall if you dropped it on the Moon, just more slowly.” I protested.

“No it wouldn’t.” the TA explained calmly, “because you’re too far away from the Earth’s gravity.” Think. Think. Aha! “You saw the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the Moon, didn’t you?”

I countered, “why didn’t they float away?”

“Because they were wearing heavy boots.” he responded

He goes on to explain how he has since tested that question and discovered that surprising number of non-science people agree with the TA and not the science. I am not a science person by profession, but I admit to being a science geek, so I knew that the TA was in the realm of alchemy and magic- not real science. Gravity is a property of the Universe (so to speak) and not just of the earth.

But a couple things stick out. First, the unwillingness of the TA to see that there might be another answer and that his was definitely about as thin as atmosphere on the moon.

Second, the amazing ignorance of some basic science concepts. Heavy boots???? Crazy. They may have added weight, but gravity did the work. The facts of science would only get in the way of his explanation, hence ignore them.

Which leads to the third- and extrapolated- observation. With these kinds of approaches to not-understanding science is it any wonder that people won't believe that global climate change is real (in spite of chunks of Antarctica floating away) or that evolution is bad science and intelligent design is good science?

A Political Surprise

Arlen Specter (R D-PA).

That sure was a big political jump. Yes, one can say he wants to get re-elected and that was the best way to accomplish it (maybe.) But underneath it is the reason he is afraid he wouldn't get re-elected- his party shifted under him. He is still the same Arlen Specter he's been for 29 years- an independent-minded moderate. In the current Republican Party atmosphere that puts him as a leftist-radical. He is still a little more conservative than the average Democratic Party platform. But he does fit better there than in the GOP.

Yes he wants to get re-elected and he switched so he can continue the same pattern of work and politics he has done. Republicans were not happy with his less than 100% caving-in to their newly minted super-conservative agenda. They were going to try and replace him. You can't do what you want to do in the Senate if you don't get re-elected.

I am not sure he will get re-elected. The Democrats in Pennsylvania will have to work hard to make they get out the votes for him. There will be a backlash from some of the moderate Republicans unless of course they are fed up with the far-right politics that is passing for the GOP right now.

It should be interesting- and we're still over a year away.

A Shift of Perspective

Bruce Sterling at Beyond the Beyond at Wired.com give an interesting response to the current news on the Swine H1N1 Flu:

People freak out over "pandemics," even though we've got one of the worst pandemics in history, AIDS, raging through the carcass of the body-politic right now. Every once in a while you see a street demo or a charity show about AIDS. Carla Bruni is pretty big on fighting AIDS. Otherwise we just drop dead of AIDS in hecatombs, and the pandemic has become our business as usual. AIDS is an extremely fearsome disease, practically 100% lethal, yet it's hard work to get people to remain properly afraid of it.

*There is always some flu around and flu is always killing some people. Even when a raw mutant flu manages to kill off more people than a shooting-war, flu has never ravaged whole cities as cholera or the Black Death can do. As awful pandemics go, flu is like the snotty-nosed little sister of awful pandemics.

*So if you catch the new swine flu, you're very likely not gonna die.

*But since it is a flu, you're gonna kinda WISH you could die.

*You're not ACTUALLY gonna die unless your lips are turning blue, you have bad chest pains, you can't swallow water, you can't stand up, you're having seizures and you don't know where you are or what your name is. As this document suggests, you're gonna want to watch out for those symptoms.

While this doesn't take way the pandemic threat or its implications (more on Friday), it does give us a perspective to start with.

--HT to Cory at Boing Boing

Another place to go for a quiet and relatively sane approach to the whole issue of "pandemics" is at LiveScience with a video from Dr. Marc Siegel with the Truth About Pandemics. I think overall that we have to keep a calm approach to all this and we will lessen the psychological impact of even a serious pandemic.

Ask Early- or You May Never Know

From (The Customer is) Not Always Right

(A couple returns from a theatre to get a refund on a movie they have just seen.)

Customer: “I need my money back.”

Manager: Which movie was it for?

Customer: “Kate and Leopold. That was the worst movie, ever!”

Manager: “That movie just ended. I can’t give you a refund for a movie you watched all the way through.”

Customer: “Well, if there were a roach in my food at a restaurant, I would get my money back!”

Manager: “Not if you eat the whole meal, roach and all!”

On Torture - Information Gathering or Anger and Revenge

I have been pondering what I want to say about this whole issue of torture for a while now. As more and more information becomes available about the plans and policies of the last administration it has become more and more clear that there was a serious effort to justify doing something that they thought could be illegal.

What would make them think they needed to justify it and turn it into non-torture?

Among other things- history. WE prosecuted war criminals for doing what we were now trying to justify. We knew from previous wars that torture does not generally produce true and reliable information. People under severe torture only give in to what their captors want them to say, not what they know to be true.

How did we know that? Because we saw what happened in the past when these techniques were used- our American POWs would either make false statements about the situation or say nothing. We knew that because the professional interrogators told us. We knew that because we were copying it from North Korea from 60 years ago.

In short we were copying what we condemned by others as torture. But when we wanted to do that, suddenly it is no longer torture. What we condemned as cruel and beyond even the standards of war suddenly becomes the answer to our national security.

Why doesn't this make any sense? Why does this sound like self-justification out of either
1) anger for revenge,
2) fear,
3) seeking false confessions for propaganda, or
4) just plain ignorance?

None of these is a good reason for torture. None of these will give us very much information that we can use to confront terrorists and stop them. The stuff we have been hearing so far from the previous administration about facts and information that helped don't jive with the actual dates they purport to verify.

As an American I want to scream like even one of the conservative commentators did:

But this is the United States!!!

We have values that cannot be compromised or we are no longer the United States we think we know. If we have given in to way that is counter to the morals of this nation, then the terrorists have won that battle. Have we in reality uncovered one of those dirty secrets of the human heart that, when something like 9/11 happens the darkest parts of who we are can take control? Have we discovered that we tortured- not for information since that wasn't promised- but out of anger and revenge, to get back at them, to express the depths of our reaction to what happened?

As a person of faith who follows Jesus, the only question I have to ask is simply

What would Jesus want us to do?

When Speaking the Truth

Thanks to the website The Best Article Every Day for this fake NYC subway advisory sign. Sometimes the satire is better than the truth.

A New Black Swan

Surprise, surprise- Swine flu.

Did you know it was out there? Did the government know it could be a pandemic threat at any minute? What about that really possibly dangerous bird flu?

This could be an example, I believe, of what Nassim Taleb called a Black Swan- something that appears to come out of nowhere and changes the world. Whether or not it truly is a Black Swan will have to wait for further developments. But it does seem to prove the idea that the BIG BAD THING you are looking for to get you usually won't. It's the BIG BAD THING that you have no idea is out there that will.

So- is the "swine flu" going to cause a pandemic? It has been interesting in a scary way to see what has already happened in just a few days. Last Thursday we had never heard of it. By Friday evening it was top news. Yesterday the government declared a public health emergency.

Obviously the Mexican government and officials are very worried. The Catholic Church canceled all masses yesterday and a sold-out soccer match was held- with no spectators.

One of the things that could keep this from being a disastrous black swan is that we have been preparing for a flu pandemic for a few years now. Some of what has already been put into place since Friday is a result of that preparedness. That does not, however, lessen the potential for a major problem if this ends up as The Pandemic. The economic and personal costs could be enormous. Public health plans, including I am sure, quarantine regulations, are at some state of readiness.

Again, it shows us the potential fragility of the social order and social networks that we take for granted. The question I have seen asked on a number of web sites: "Is this the big one or the "flu that fizzles." A few weeks from now this may look like Chicken Little crying that the sky is falling. Or it could turn into truly horrific and culture changing event.

I'm praying for Chicken Little myself.

The Eagle is Back...

...if he ever was gone, of course.

Saturday afternoon I was sitting and listening to the radio when I saw him in the tree across the little lake. I watched and kept ready as (1) he flew from the tree (2) to skim the surface (3) made the turn and (4) headed back to the west.

It is a sure sign that all is still well in the world of Cascade Lake.

(Pictures cropped and enhanced with Paint Shop Pro.
pmPilgrim. April 2009)

Grace Shakes the Foundation

It has been 35 years since I first heard the words of Paul Tillich addressed to me by a counselor/supervisor in my clinical training. In these intervening years the passage has come back to uplift, challenge, encourage, and convict me many times. It came to mind the other day when I had an opportunity to share the passage with a person who, like me in 1974 needed it.

Here is the whole chapter from Tillich's books Shaking the Foundations that contains this impressive and life-changing quote. The chapter is titled simply- You are Accepted.

It is simply grace!

Do we know what it means to be struck by grace? It does not mean that we suddenly believe that God exists, or that Jesus is the Saviour, or that the Bible contains the truth. To believe that something is, is almost contrary to the meaning of grace.

Furthermore, grace does not mean simply that we are making progress in our moral self-control, in our fight against special faults, and in our relationships to men and to society. Moral progress may be a fruit of grace; but it is not grace itself, and it can even prevent us from receiving grace. For there is too often a graceless acceptance of Christian doctrines and a graceless battle against the structures of evil in our personalities. Such a graceless relation to God may lead us by necessity either to arrogance or to despair. It would be better to refuse God and the Christ and the Bible than to accept them without grace.

For if we accept without grace, we do so in the state of separation, and can only succeed in deepening the separation. We cannot transform our lives, unless we allow them to be transformed by that stroke of grace. It happens; or it does not happen. And certainly it does not happen if we try to force it upon ourselves, just as it shall not happen so long as we think, in our self-complacency, that we have no need of it.

• Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness.
• It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life.
• It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged.
• It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us.
• It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.

Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying:

"You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!"

If that happens to us, we experience grace After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.

--Shaking the Foundations, Chapter 19-You are Accepted by Paul Tillich

If only we could remember both sides of that awesome grace- for ourselves and for others.

A 50-Year Memory: Making Chicago a Seaport

April 25 - The St. Lawrence Seaway linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean officially opens to shipping.

I was only 10 and lived in central Pennsylvania, not near the St. Lawrence at all. But I remember the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. It's achievement: to make inland cities into seaports from Erie, PA, to Chicago, IL, Milwaukee, WI, and Duluth, MN. Even Green Bay, WI.

Quite an accomplishment. Happy Birthday.

Famous Trains

Keeping with the "transportation" theme of the Seaway post, I noted on Mental Floss Blog a Quick 10 list of 10 Famous Trains. These included the Cannonball Express (think Casey Jones- yes, he was real), the Orient Express, the Hiawatha trains, and the Orange Blossom Special, among others.

They asked in comments for famous trains I might have known. Well, I have been fortunate to ride on the City of New Orleans (Illinois Central) and the Broadway Limited (Pennsylvania RR) in the 60s and the Lakeshore Limited, Cardinal, Capitol Limited, Empire Builder, and Hiawatha in their Amtrak incarnations. I have also been on Spain's AVE high speed train between Seville and Madrid.

Trains are a great experience when done well. They offer you the ability to sit back and relax, move around and enjoy some incredible scenery. It is still sad the way we have misused and abused the idea of train travel both through a non-supportive policy and an even more non-supportive RR companies in the last century that took what they could from them and left them go down.

(Pictures: (Right) Amtrak at Rockville, PA, bridge, 1983. (Left) AVE at station in Seville, April 2002. pmPilgrim photos.)

A Fun Video

Click on

In Praise of Coffee

to go to a video by my friend John in North Carolina for Holy Hilarity Sunday at his church last week. We Moravians certainly will add this song to our next hymnal.

Early Summer

Well, folks, we hit summer today in southern Minnesota.

We have a severe thunderstorm watch for this evening.

We just had a storm with small hail.

High Temp of 92 (F) (33 degrees above normal!)- the warmest day ever in April and considering we had no highs of 90 degrees last summer, that's a shift.

Oh yes. This is the first day for shorts and sandals.

As for me, I hope that temperature wise that is a sign of good things to come.

A Moment to Think

From David Hayward at Naked Pastor

Cartoon: Party

Won't we all be surprised! I hope!

Since It's Been a While

Time for some quotes that have struck my fancy. Since, as noted below, this is my 37th wedding anniversary I thought I would post a few that I think are applicable to such a special day....

First, from a true genius, Albert Einstein who wasn't talking about marriage, but I think he hits the mystery of marriage on the head:

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."

Next, also in a not-directly-about-marriage quote from philosopher and author Aldous Huxley:

"Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities."

English writer Dorothy Nevill could have substituted "marriage" for the word conversation in the next quote:

"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

Two quotes that get to the nitty-gritty of making a marriage successful. First from Dr. Joyce Brothers:

"Marriage is not just spiritual communion, it is also remembering to take out the trash."

Second from comedian Rita Rudner in a quote that surely is more postModern than before:

"I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry."

Finally from church official, psychologist and counselor Robert C. Dodds one of those obvious but hard to do ideas:

The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.

Still- After All These Years

Ah, yes. Such is what we looked like 37 years ago today.

April 22, 1972.

Sorry, no picture from today.

We were so much older then. We're younger then that now.

Whatever that means.

All I know is that somehow or another in the great wisdom of our Creator love does grow. It takes work, and doesn't happen without committment, hope, sacrifice, fun, and trust. But thank God it can become better and stronger with each passing day.

It is found in just three words and eight letters:

I love you.

Easter is Not North-Centric

Ben Myers at Faith and Theology sure knows how to shake things up. He posted one more Easter sermon on Sunday from Douglas Harink theology professor at the Kings's University College in Edmonton. Harink challenges some of northern-based miscalculations about Easter...

We may be forgiven for thinking that spring is the season of resurrection. Yes, we may be forgiven. But it is forgiveness that we would need. Think for a moment: if you were to travel on this very Easter day to New Zealand perhaps, or the southern tips of Chile or Argentina, another season altogether would be making itself felt, with ever shorter days, and a chill in the air, and leaves falling, and sweaters and jackets being donned rather than doffed. The birds would be flying to warmer climes. The natural rhythm would be tending toward the cold and the dark and the dormant.

Easter is not a season in nature’s cycle. Resurrection is not a stage in the circle of life. The kingdom of God is not a hidden potential in this world. There is no power within us that will bring about the new creation.

Ouch.

Talk about afflicting the comfortable. That throws all of our cutesy, cuddly Easter ideas into a tailspin. Even our "English" word for the holiday- Easter- is based on a spring fertility goddess.

Again I say "Ouch."

In fact, there is nothing natural in any of the events of these days. On Good Friday all of Jesus’ natural human powers – and at the age of about 30 years those would be at their peak – all of his natural human powers are abruptly interrupted, halted, snuffed out: he is arrested, tried, and brutally executed. He is truly dead and buried. On the next day, the Sabbath, Jesus is not resting, as a faithful Jew should. No, he is dead, lifeless, empty – a corpse. His life has come to an end; he has no inner resources of renewal, there is no vital force of nature that can bring him back.

And so Easter is in no sense an awakening; it is not a rejuvenation; it is not a resuscitation, it is not even a miraculous reversal of death. Resurrection is not simply the next thing that Jesus does, or the next thing that happens to him in the natural course of things. No. Resurrection is something else altogether, something wholly other, something from beyond, something purely unnatural.

Resurrection is God. (Emphasis added.)

Thanks. I really needed that. Not because I was in any danger of forgetting the power of the resurrection, but because after all these years as a Christian I was coming to expect it as a rite of spring. I was more easily able to forget that Easter is NOT a spring renewal, even if that is when it happened in the northern hemisphere. Easter is about new life that crashes in on us with surprise and hope and with no logical, natural, it's-that-time-year repetitiveness.

Thanks be to God - and God alone - who has done this for us.

Overheard in Recovery - Love, Not Hate

A description of what happened when accepting powerlessness:

I found out that God didn't hate me, he just didn't like that I was trying to do his job.

A 20-Year Memory: A Brief Shining Moment

April 21 - Students from Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, and Nanjing begin protesting in Tiananmen Square. It will last until June

A 40-Year Memory: The "People" Revolt

April 20 - A grassroots movement of Berkeley community members seize an empty lot owned by the University of California to begin the formation of "People's Park."

It was just one more of many college student revolts. There were others before and many others afterward. But somehow the idea of a "People's Park" sounded more idealistic and less revolting. What a crazy, crazy time it was.

A 30-Year Memory: Jimmy and the Rabbit

April 20 - President Jimmy Carter is attacked by a swamp rabbit while fishing in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.

I remember it being a big (funny) deal on the news that day. Today we would wonder what the President was smoking since it was 4/20.

A 10-Year Memory: Columbine

April 20 – Columbine High School massacre: Two Littleton, Colorado teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, open fire on their teachers and classmates, killing 12 students and 1 teacher, and then themselves.

It was my daughter's senior year in High School and these events gave a tension and surrealism to her last month. A couple other seniors were expelled for making threats or threatening remarks. The long tradition of an outdoor graduation ceremony in the local park was ended for security reasons. We probably changed our whole perception of safety in schools.

A recent book seems to undermine some of what we thought we knew about Klebold and Harris. Among other things they were not the poor victims of bullies. One was probably a psychopath and the other a follower. They were smart and sly and sneaky and downright dangerous and it had nothing to do with how others treated them.

There have been other school shootings since then, of course, including Virginia Tech and one at a reservation school in northern Minnesota. Each time they happen they shock us. We are- thank God- still not immune to our reaction of horror. Regardless of the reasons or underlying events that cause the final, fatal, awful outburst, they are immensely sad.

Columbine, sadly, stands as the paradigm. The one that woke us up to the horror lying beneath the surface in some very sick people. May we always remain in prayerful vigilance for those around us.

Second Sunday of Easter 2009

Seville, 2002
pmPilgrim photo

Thomas:

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)

Most of us:

Show me.

Prove it.

Make me believe. (Everyday conversations.)

Wikipedia:

Doubt, a status between belief and disbelief, involves uncertainty or distrust or lack of sureness of an alleged fact, an action, a motive, or a decision. Doubt brings into question some notion of a perceived "reality", and may involve delaying or rejecting relevant action out of concerns for mistakes or faults or appropriateness.

Wikipedia:

Faith is the confident belief in the truth of or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. It is also used for a belief, characteristically without proof.

In Christianity, [faith] derives from the Greek pistis meaning to trust, to have confidence, faithfulness, reliable, to assure.

Very rarely does it relate to any teaching that must be believed.

Thomas:

“My Lord and my God!”

Jesus:

“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Most of us:

[Silence]

When It's Close to Home

Yesterday afternoon I clicked on the news on my computer and saw that they were evacuating a town about 20 miles or so to the east of Rochester. There was a major fire in a food plant there that had the potential of some hazardous chemical problems. That was close enough. But on top of it that town, St. Charles, MN, is the official home of the church my wife pastors (and where I am a member.) In fact, the fire was about two blocks from the apartment office she has used for the past three years.

All of a sudden the news is personal. I have driven by that plant countless times. I have had lunch in a cafe a block away on the main street in the downtown. What's more I know people who live nearby or who work at the plant and firefighters who were sweating to get things under control so it doesn't turn into a disaster.

The company is the second largest employer in the small community. That means that things could turn into other long term problems. The building was completely destroyed and as of this evening the owners don't know if they will be able to rebuild in the town or area. The fire is out, people are back home, but great uncertainty remains.

All news is of course personal to someone. All news has a direct impact on people who just were going about their daily business when something happens. Whether it's the individual stories of people in the wrong place at the wrong time or the ways BIG things affect my life.

I think that is something we need to remember whenever we read any news. People are involved. Real people like you and me. Which is one reason to pray with one eye on the news. People are being impacted and I can pray for God's grace to touch them no matter what.

Which is why I guess I am posting this. I am hoping that you too will pray for the people impacted in St. Charles (or wherever the news is happening by now). Pray for peace and comfort and strength. Give thanks that it wasn't worse. And remember that God is with you- and them.

Needing an Apocalypse

I have a hunch that we humans need to have an apocalypse on our radars at all times. You know some of the past ones: mutually assured destruction as a nuclear arms policy, the Y2K scare, the ongoing quest by many Christians to know the date of the Second Coming which is always in the foreseeable future.

There was one I found going on the other day dealing with the power grid that supplies our electricity. It seems like the grid has grown so large and complex that it is now vulnerable to a major magnetic storm from the sun. The grid could act like a huge electromagnetic antenna (my simple understanding) and if the magnetic storm is big enough it could cripple the whole system, burning out transformers and plunging the world into a potential disaster. Catastrophe. Apocalypse.

I guess a small version of this has happened the last time the sun's electromgnetic storms were at their height. The way the story was spun out this is not a completely distant possibility. It could happen sometime soon (relatively) unlike the stray asteroid or super-hurricane.

Then along came another apocalyptic-type story- some foreign hackers may have gotten into the software that guides the electricity grid. Some think it could have come from China or the like who have set it up in case they want to cripple us in a cyber- (or worse) war.

This of course trumps the apocalyptic language surrounding the financial meltdown.

Or the apocalyptic language the conservatives are using to describe what is happening because Obama got elected.

Or the apocalyptic language the liberals used to describe the Bush administration.

Or...

Well, you get the idea.

I wonder if we need to have these multi-apocalyptic scenarios in order to keep us on the edge of our seats and on our toes and whatever metaphor or image you want to use. It feels like we need to have something that we REALLY feel powerless about. We need to have something that can really bring us down into the depths of despair and make us head out and eat drink and be merry for tomorrow- who knows!

And the worse the real news, the bigger the apocalypse we are looking at.

In the good-old-days of the Biblical apocalyptic writings it was a way to keep people in the faith or bring them in. It was more about giving hope that in the end WE will make it and THEY won't. All you have to do is keep the faith.

These post-modern apocalyptics have no hope. We are all lost. In the end we will be like the father and son in Cormac McCarthy's The Road traveling across a lost and scary landscape. Even the strong will have trouble surviving.

In the end it is a loss of hope and perhaps a loss of trust. It is an incarnation of life sucks and then you die (or something like that) or he who dies with the most toys- still dies.

But maybe it is a wrestling with a loss of meaning- as I have posted before- why bother if it all ends in death and destruction?

Where then is hope and purpose? Where then is meaning? Where can we find something or someone to trust?

I am afraid that to give easy sounding answers to these questions is to make them sound trite. It can become cliched and muddled. But we are not the first generation to fear the apocalypse. We may be the first that knows enough to make it happen, but that doesn't mean we are in a new place. We are in the eternal human struggle.

Historically we humans have dealt with this through issues of faith, and God, and the hereafter. We have done this in many, many different ways. I fear that we may have lost some of that sense of mystery and hope and awe that faith has given us by insulating ourselves from nature and the world. With Earth Day coming up next week, I am reminded of the place that the "natural world" can have in introducing us to the power of God. I fear that the more we destroy our world's natural power, we will lose the opportunities to meet God in the ways many people have had to deepen their spiritual connections.

Perhaps that is even at the heart of the apocalypse we most fear- and feel powerless to do anything about. But with God, I know there is hope. I have no idea what that means for you, but I know it is real. And points to that power greater than myself that helps me live and move and be filled with grace.

The End of the Church in America?

Good question. Newsweek asked it the other week in their normal week-before-Easter religious story. (Jeff Schweitzer at the Huffington Post disagreed.) A friend of mine used it as an illustration in a homily on Good Friday. As one who has gotten into trouble with denominational officials and others for talking like that, I was struck by the idea in new ways.

In general, the article comes from a couple of directions- namely that the number of church members/believers is on the decline (true) and the indications that the "religious right" has lost some of its power (also true). The former does have implications for the future of the church. The latter does not.

While that is, I feel a flawed, too-narrow understanding of the church in America, the question is still a legitimate one. The question may better be asked though, what will the church "landscape" look like in 25 - 50 years in America? What will be the role of the church in America in the lives of everyday people? What about denominationalism? Will it survive? Will there still be the "loyalty" factor to an individual denomination or congregation? What will the liberal/conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist split look like? Where will the pendulum swing be in terms of inward/outward/spirituality/ritual/worship be at that point?

On a greater level the American/European centrality of the church will definitely be different. How will that play out in terms of mission and service and self-understanding? What will happen when a "foreign" (to us) country, probably Third or Fourth World country at that, adopts some of what has been our American understanding of national Christianity as a civil religion?

These are only the beginning. There is no doubt that the church as we have known it in America for the past 50 - 75 years will not be here in another 50 years. While the church has been historically a turtle when it comes to change, the pace of change has moved so quickly in the past 20 years that it has had an impact on the church.

My guess- and it is probably an entirely uneducated shot in the dark- just like everyone else- is that the church will be just as fragmented and broken down less on the denominational lines as on the theological lines, which is where many denominations started. But the church that will continue to have an impact on people's lives will be the one that has honesty and integrity at its soul and will have a desire to serve people and the world. This will cross denominational and political lines. There will be both liberal and conservative churches that do this and those that don't.

Spirituality, service, caring for others, not being so inward that you become a selfish group of people. Serve others whether in or out of the church.

That sounds so obvious as to be simplistic. It may be. But that's as far as I am willing to go. You can call it "missional" if you like- I do. But the most important churches locally, regionally, nationally, will have service at their core. Spiritu

Which as I still see it is what Jesus was all about in the first place.

So How Did That Work Out For You?

According to a poll in Britain the most popular song sung at funerals:

My Way- Frank Sinatra

I can see how successful that was.

Some of the unranked but chart-movers may say even more about the person. These include:

"Bat Out Of Hell" - Meatloaf and

"Highway To Hell" - AC/DC.

Another Sign of Spring

The sound of the lawnmower is once again heard in the land.

No, the grass wasn't ready, but they were actually cleaning up the lawn with a riding mower and vacuum. But it is a sign that we have turned the corner.

And, yes, living in an apartment I am grateful that the lawnmower isn't waiting for me.

Good News From the Surgeon

My surgery was 7 weeks ago today. (That was Ash Wednesday!) I gave up work for part of Lent and church for part. But all is well that ends well.

I saw the surgeon on Monday (day after Easter- appropriate!) He was pleased with how things went. He reminded me that this is an easy surgery and has a good outcome record. When I mentioned the pain that I still get across the lower back where the surgery was he said it wasn't to fix that- just that numbness and tingling that led to sitting down so as not to fall down. (Small things like that can make one look clumsy.)

He was not as pleased as I was with the fact that I had walked home from work last Monday since3 it is about 3/4 mile. Be smart and take it easy, was his message.

But he did say that I can go back to exercising and doing Pilates. Which is great news with the weather beginning to really look like spring and the bicycle calling to me for a ride. I will wait- take it easy- and get ready for a great summer ahead.

In short, all is well. Thanks for all your prayers and support.

It Works for SNL

Last week the LA Times broke a major taboo. The Internet headline went:

Uproar over 'news story' ad on front page of LA Times

News reporters and others were up in arms. The very integrity of the news was challenged. I gather it was an ad for a TV show that even had a by-line and all the trappings of a normal news story.

We have to do something to save the paper was the publisher's response since the company is in Chapter 11. Why does it sound like the commander in the Vietnam War who reported that the village had to be destroyed to save it?

A 40 Year Memory: The Academy Awards

April 14, 1969 Academy Awards

*Picture: Oliver! (2001 wasn't even nominated!)
*Actor: Cliff Robertson (Charly)
*Actress: (Tie) Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter) / Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl)
*Supporting Actor: Jack Albertson (The Subject Was Roses)
*Supporting Actress: Ruth Gordon (Rosemary's Baby)
*Director: Carol Reed (Oliver!) (not Kubrick for 2001)
*Adapted Screenplay: The Lion in Winter
*Original Screenplay: The Producers
*Song: "The Windmills of Your Mind" (The Thomas Crown Affair)

Truly An Alternative Story

Easter season is not over. Hopefully it will continue for all of us throughout the year. At Easter, we are beginning, as Ivan Illich described it, a new story...

Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into our future so that we can take the next step…If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.

-A HT to Bob Carlton

The power of story has been a topic on this blog a number of times before. But Illich is talking about something deeper than something you or I could write and tell. He is talking about The Story of a people, nation, group, etc. Sometimes there are competing stories in a nation/culture. We can sure see that happen in the United States as we wrestle with patriotism, financial security, unending prosperity and power as our national story.

But the truly competing story for many of us is the story the national story has often tried to co-opt. This story is non-national, non-patriotic, God-based security and an unending identification with the poor and oppressed and powerless. Only through endless permutations of interpretation can we get to the attitude that so permeates our national version of that revolutionary story of Jesus Christ.

Yesterday Christians went to worship and proclaim that other story. A national power was defeated. A national religious story was turned around. The endless story of death being the ultimate of existence was proven false. That is an alternative story. That is an alternate reality from the one we live within so much of our lives.


Every Easter I am struck by our Moravian tradition of ending our dawn service in a cemetery where possible. As the sun comes up on our lives each Easter we leave the warmth of the church and stand in the supposed final resting place of our families, friends, ancestors. When I describe what we do there are many times when people respond with a certain queasiness. "You actually stand in a cemetery?

Yes! Where else can we appreciate resurrection? Where else can we confront the old story with the new reality of God? Where else can we discover the humility needed when coming into the presence of the Holy? On Easter, more than even at Christmas, The Holy has broken through into our world by showing that we need no longer fear death. It has become powerless.

I know that is hard to believe or accept. Yet deep within the Story of our God is that promise. In fact it is at the heart of the Christian story. May it remain the story that keeps me in God's Presence.

(Pictures: Berea Moravian Church, St. Charles, MN, Easter, 2009)

In Memorian: Harry Kalas

Longtime "Voice of the Philadelphia Phillies" Harry Kalas died suddenly this afternoon. One of the great sports broadcasters of the past 35 years.

For years he teamed with the late Whitey Ashburn (right) to make Phillies games a joy to listen to. His distinctive voice gave football added class on NFL Films and Westwood One.

My best memory is still that oft-heard call:

It's outta here. Home run. Michael Jack Schmidt.

Videos at MLB.com.

Link to Philly.com

Fra Angelico, The Resurrection
San Marco Museum, Florence

Easter Sunday, 2009

Brian Stoffregen at CrossMarks from the Text This Week.

"It can be easy to 'see' the risen Christ
in a packed Easter Sunday worship service,
or perhaps even in a sunrise or
the spring flowers blooming;
but where is the risen Jesus when the people return home
-- to the drudgery of the same old things?

The risen Christ has gone there ahead of them. They will see him."

A Day of Silence and Tears

No sound is louder than the silence of the death of a loved one.

No sound can break through the shroud that envelops mourners in those days following a death.

Nothing can wipe the tears but the passage of time which only dries them up on the outside. On the inside they can be tapped at a moment's notice.

Such is the life of this Saturday between past and future, between a lost human hope and an eternal divine one.

The Great Sabbath.

Holy Saturday.

All is shrouded.

All is lost.

All is silent.

The Easter Egg Supreme

You know you love 'em. I do. They are the

Cadbury Eggs. (And I absolutely fall in love with the clucking rabbit!)

Well, follow this link for a good article on the world's favorite egg.

Christ on the Cross, Federico Barocci, 1604
The Prado Museum, pmPilgrim picture, 2002

Good Friday, 2009

There can be no resurrection...

if there is no death.

Yet we want to turn our heads,
avert our eyes,
ignore the crowd and
the weeping women.

Even the one holding him as he is brought from the cross-

his mother

experiencing the greatest pain a mother
can bear.

But here we will see something beyond our ability to believe or
even to understand.

Here we will see the start of something new-

a new way of describing the world

a new way of describing God

and a new way of being human.

Fra Angelico, 1451-53.

Maundy Thursday, 2009

One of my tasks this Lenten season has been to assist my pastor wife in baking bread. Actually, I have been the bread baker and she has done the planning. She was doing a Sunday series for Lent called Bread for the Journey using different types of bread each week. Until this week we used the breadmaker pre-mixes that you dump into the bread machine, press start and let them go. That also allowed her the ability to set up the bread machine at church on Saturday evening, use the delayed setting and then have the wonderful smell of fresh baked bread make everybody hungry on Sunday morning.

That was good for me to work with when I was recuperating from Surgery but this past week we wanted to do something more original for tonight and this weekend. I made a free-form round loaf of pumpernickel for tonight- the theme being "Body Bread." I don't know what her lead-in will be or how she will explain that, but for me it was a really neat experience.

I have enjoyed baking bread for years. My favorite is always a good sourdough made from one of those starters you keep renewing in the refrigerator. The taste and texture of one of those is out of this world. I have never made a good dark loaf like the pumpernickel. Rye, whole wheat, white flours with added dark molasses and a bit of instant coffee turns out this beautiful loaf with a great looking crust.

I always make a cross-shaped cut in the top just before I put it in the oven when baking a round loaf. Especially for communion. This one is no exception. I actually get excited by doing this. It is a physical way I can participate in the preparation for communion. It is a physical way that I can prepare myself to come to the table. Not because I made it myself, but that I was able to give from what I have been given. It is a gift.

But this pumpernickel seems special. It is different. It is not what we normally think about when we think of communion bread. For many of us we envision the little wafers that one of my confirmands years ago called "styrofoam." There is no taste, no substance. Yes, I know that it would be difficult to use real bread. No one in this day and age has the time to do that.

But a real bread has taste, substance. Body. There is a weight and a presence to even a tiny piece given by the pastor in the service. It is more than some ephemeral something or other. It is There. It is Real. It has Strength.

Tonight that will help me remember Jesus. Earthy and alive. Even all these years later. His Body. Broken.

Passover Begins

14th century German illuminated Haggadah for Passover.
Wikipedia

Why is this night different from all other nights? is the question asked on this special night in Jewish homes and gatherings for the Seder meal.

It was a long time ago and the people were slaves in Egypt. It was a long time ago and the people of God needed liberation. On this night that freedom began to be a reality. So tonight bitter herbs and unleavened bread are reminders of that need for freedom- as if the people today were there.

In telling the story on this night that is different from all other nights the people are there. The people tonight will experience the freedom again. Not just because it happened all those centuries ago, but because it can- and will- be happening tonight. Freedom- liberation- will be proclaimed from homes and synagogues around the world.

Also- a long time ago on this night Jesus gathered with his friends for the Passover meal. Which is why we who claim to be His followers should not fail to note this important evening.

No, we are not to usurp the celebration as some foreshadowing of the Last Supper or some sort of typology or metaphor. In and of itself the Passover stands on its own. It did for Jesus as he celebrated the Exodus from Egypt and the Passover of the angel of death. We Christians can see how Jesus took that theme from ancient Egypt and brought it into His context. But that is a different story- one our Jewish brothers and sisters do not need to celebrate. But tonight we can join our spiritual voices, hearts, and souls in knowing that God is at work in freeing slaves and letting the oppressed go free tonight.

May all be freed by the actions of God in the world however He may choose to work.

Hallel. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

Faces of a Tragedy

I wrote a couple weeks ago about an interview on public radio which talked about a nation that allows people to die because they lose their job- and health insurance.

This past Sunday 60 Minutes on CBS put faces to that terrible situation. They titled it "The Clinic is Closed" as they chronicled what as happened in Las Vegas since the only public hospital in the state, UMC, closed a number of services due to loss of income.

The story was painful. You get cancer, you lose your job, you lose your insurance. Then you lose your treatment. Sounds like a death sentence.

As one person commented you never think about these things when you are well. You kind of just expect things to be taken care of because they always have been. Without significant health reform we will become a country where people die because they lose their insurance. And they lose their insurance simply because they lose their job.

I repeat what I said two weeks ago: What kind of country do we want to call home?

Here's an Answer

Came across this headline last week in Christian/Church-related news:

Churches Adjust to Challenging Times; Do More Good

At first since it was April 1 I thought it might be an April Fool's story. But the story was real. It quoted reports that churches are getting a lot more requests for aid and support and many are trying to find ways to help.

But it struck me that isn't this what it's always about? I understand the reason for the story and headline, but will we someday read, when the current economic crisis is over that the churches can go back to doing less good?

Coming in Three Weeks

Bob Dylan has a new album coming out three weeks from today. I heard one cut on NPR's All Songs Considered.

There's also a stream of another song at Newsweek.

Two excellent songs. I can hardly wait!

One Last Time Around

Twins-v-Yankees. June, 2008.

Take me out to the ballgame.

Yes, today is the day across the leagues.

Opening Day.

Tonight the Minnesota Twins will begin their last season in the Metrodome. This is the last Opening Day in the 'dome.

Next April the new field will be ready and baseball will return to the great outdoors of Minneapolis. I agree that baseball has a lot more going for it in an open-air field. I am looking forward to seeing some games in the new Target Field.

Yet, I wonder. Last year Minneapolis had a near-blizzard on opening day, and we had blizzard warnings just 100 miles south of the 'dome yesterday.....

But we worry about that in another 365 days- if we even have to. Today...

Play ball and let's have a great last season at the 'dome!

A 50-Year Memory: The Academy Awards

April 6 - The 31st Academy Awards ceremony is held.

* Best Picture: Gigi
* Best Director: Vincente Minnelli, Gigi
* Best Actor: David Niven, Separate Tables
* Best Supporting Actor: Burl Ives, The Big Country
* Best Actress: Susan Hayward, I Want To Live!
* Best Supporting Actress: Wendy Hiller, Separate Tables
* Best Original Story and Screenplay: The Defiant Ones
* Best Screenplay Based on Material From Another Medium: Gigi

Making Stones Shout

Unknown, Getty Museum
Ottonian, Regensburg, about 1030 - 1040
Tempera colors and gold leaf on parchment

The Sixth Sunday of Lent

Palm Sunday, 2009

Making Stones Shout

Everyone loves a parade. Especially a parade featuring a celebrity. Last year we saw many such spectacles in an election campaign, although the "parades" had a lot more security that this one. Everyone can get into the mood, the swing of it. Everyone gets excited and starts cheering, even when they may have no idea what's going on.

It can be called an example of "mob psychology." It can go either direction. Reading recently of the riots around the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968 showed that unfortunate truth on both sides of the aisle.

Today it is going in Jesus' way. The wave of joy and expectations is real and overwhelming. But there lurks the other side. It is always there. It is what Jesus is parading against though few if any on the road to Jerusalem knew it that day.

The other side, the dark side, the evil side, whatever we wish to use to describe was there. It could be seen in the spies and religious officials in the crowd taking notes. It could be seen in the need for beggars on the edge of the crowd to be there looking for alms and food. It could be seen in the Court of the Gentiles where all nations were allowed to come and pray- and be required to buy their way in God's presence.

It could also be seen not far from the crowd. Pilate and Herod and the forces of occupation; military hardware and armaments there for "peacekeeping;" the wealthy and the aristocrats doing what they could do to keep others from getting even a piece of what they had; Satan or Evil seeking souls to use to bring this parade to an end.

Today we fall into line.Yet after all these years of thousands of Palm Sundays, Passion Weeks, and Easters we know that the line gets tougher to follow in the next five days. We know, if we are honest, that the Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was right- the line dividing good and evil runs through the center of the human heart.

My friend and colleague Christine on her liturgy blog, Freshly Squeezed Liturgy, started a litany for today with this call and response:

Today we have cheered you on as our champion and hailed you as our hero.

Forgive us tomorrow when our enthusiasm wanes.

Today we believe stones will shout against the fear and injustice and oppression of our world. Today we may even have trudged through winter storms and flooded towns to attend church. Tomorrow we will crawl away in embarrassment for what we dared think possible today.

It is a long week ahead if we take the time- and risk- of walking with Jesus. It is a long week ahead if we expect Easter to come out of nowhere when no one dies. Only in death, the death of our human expectations and controls and fears, can there be a resurrection.

Married Still - Again

Back at the end of February when I went in for surgery I had to remove my wedding ring. After 36+ years it is obvious that it was very small for my hand. It took what seemed like half the bottle of dish detergent to get it off. I was at the point where I thought it would need to be cut off. (The ring.)

Well, the first time we were out after the surgery and I could walk the Mall, we stopped and ordered new wedding rings. (Hers was small, too.) My old one was, I believe, around a 9 or 9 1/2. In the end- after two tries- I needed an 11 3/4. I picked it up today.

So, for the first time since Feb. 24 I am officially married again. We're keeping the old one and putting them on a needlework that has our wedding date on it. Then when we get old and our fingers shrink again we can go back to the originals.

I must admit that it felt strange not having the ring on. It feels very good to have it back. It is a small thing- a token of the promise and covenant between us- but it is in many ways a "sacrament"- an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.

Marriage is that. I am grateful to have been able to be married for most of my adult life- and to the same person. I am grateful that people can have that possibility in their lives. It is truly a special act.

Two Days Until.....

Baseball season kicks off on Sunday, April 5. Two games scheduled:
Dodgers at Giants (afternoon)
Braves at Phillies (evening)

The full schedule starts on Monday, April 6. The Twins host the Mariners.

Can spring, even in Minnesota, be far behind?

(And we have tickets for Memorial Day against the Red Sox. Go Twins!)

Just for Kicks

A news item on the front page of the Star-Tribune this morning:

Police in Maine arrested arsonists after they posted a video of their crime on YouTube- with credits.

It made me think of a couple teenagers I knew 30+years ago who were arrested for putting cherry bombs in- and blowing up- mailboxes. "We would have stopped sooner," one of them told me, "if they had put it in the newspaper that mailboxes were being blown up."

Sometimes it is for the thrill of reading about it.

Why Pray?

The banner headline on the front page of Monday's St. Paul Pioneer-Press was classic:

Fargo's prayers are answered

came from the crest of the Red River a few feet short of what had been predicted.

Does that mean that if the Red River hadn’t stopped rising would that have been a failure of prayer? Did the (so far) lower crest show that prayer works?

Did the safe landing in the Hudson Rivera few months ago prove that the prayers of those on board were answered? Would it have been a failure of prayer if it hadn’t worked?

Does the continued illness of someone show that they don’t have enough faith?

Such are some of the many questions, problems, and conundrums of prayer. Like the question about the existence of God I posted last week, these have been the downfall of some believers. Or they have been the way that someone else found renewed faith. I wish I had easy answers. Some will give them. Some will give long complex theological arguments. None of the answers satisfy everyone. Some will even offend some people.

When faced with these questions I am always reminded of the story of the Rabbi who was asked for the secret of prayer. His answer was the ultimate of simplicity, but not necessarily of ease:

Don’t pray for rain in the dry season.

That is a lot like simply pray for God’s will- and whatever happens is then God’s will.
Or it could be pray for the natural and normal ways to occur- and whatever happens is normal and natural.

I agree with the thought, but like so many wise and profoundly simple statements, wisdom leads to more questions than answers. I like to think it says that prayer is not to be an attempt to change the mind of God to do what you want God to do. Instead start with a very basic understanding that God is still in charge of the world. God is still God- and we still are not. It is that simple. That is the starting point of prayer. We know we are not God- nor are we even gods. We are us.

Then, no matter what, trust that the presence of God will be at work in us and around us because we allow ourselves to remain in God’s presence.

No Question About It - Life is Not Fair

Posted this afternoon by the National Weather Service:

A Winter Storm Watch

for Saturday night into Palm Sunday evening.

And I was going to say how great it is to have the sun rise before I leave for work in the morning and be light into early evening. Now I know why it's dark in winter.... you don't have to look at the snow as long in the daylight.

I'm No April Fool

One thing about today, I ain't no April Fool. To prove it I present three signs I have seen over the past few years that I absolutely, positively obey. After all, my parents sure didn't raise no fool.

I always, always watch out when I see this sign. You will not catch me thinking that rattle is from a baby gone berserk.




When the highway department has a sign that turns in on itself I know, absolutely positively that the curve is exactly what it says.





And you will always find me obeying this one. I long ago learned that all the good stuff was at the side door anyway. Oh, does one have to have long hair to get in? No where did I leave my love beads?