I Stand Amazed?

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A couple of days ago, I wrote a post slamming the Pope for his muddled thinking on the nature of salvation. Well, this morning, I ran across the above article entitled “Why Christianity Should be Patron of the Arts,” written by a Catholic apologist named Barbara Nicolosi. Although she writes about her struggles with the Catholic version of church, her complaints can be universally applied, I think, to most all of Christianity. Reading this article, I found myself thinking that if I were a Catholic, I could have written it, because so much of what she says, I have felt for years.

I will not here lay out her entire case. That’s why I provide the above link. This is an argument that you need to read in its entirety, if you’re interested, to form your own judgment. But one thing she said practically jumped off the page.

 Too many churches are not an ante-chamber of heaven in their interiors, but instead are ugly, drooping, often “in the round” spaces calculated to distract us not by the Divine, but by each other. Banal banners and signs, plastic or half-hearted flowers, filthy carpets, stained ceilings, and ugly oak pews with the varnish half gone. There is truly, nothing to look at, never mind by which to be inspired.

What she is describing is that strange melancholy that comes over me every time I walk into most church buildings, an unnamed disappointment that I feel at the ordinariness of it all. The architecture is about as far away from majestic as humanely possible. Yes, I know, that one can have an encounter with God in a barn, but why must the place where we are meant to have weekly encounters with him be so pedestrian?

Anyway, give this article a read and let me know what you think.

Thanks For Clearing That Up

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Pope Francis for clearing up the last 4000 years of recorded history. The human race has been in a death struggle with this whole business of sin and redemption, good and evil, since the Garden of Eden. Perhaps the most existential battle in all of human history has been between the world’s great religions, each with conflicting truth claims, each proscribing different ways and means of personal salvation. But now this new Pope comes along to assure us all that it was all a big misunderstanding. See, it doesn’t matter any longer whether someone actually believes in God are not, since we’re all going to heaven anyway. Not only that, but we also learned from the Pontiff that there’s apparently only one sin, the sin of failing to obey your conscience. I, for one, am very relieved to hear this, since I have always had trouble with several of those Ten Commandments.

Pope Francis shared this new world-changing truth in a letter to Eugenio Scalfari, the founder of the newspaper, La Repubblica, which had published a list of questions for the Pope to answer. It is here where the world learned this new ground breaking truth:

    “Francis wrote: “You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying – and this is the fundamental thing – that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.”

Ok! Seems a bit convoluted and a bit contradictory, but hey, he’s infallible. For example, if someone doesn’t believe and doesn’t “seek the faith”, why would they ever go to him with a sincere and contrite heart?  And what happens if a person obeys their “conscience” when it’s telling them to strap on fifty pounds of explosives so they can detonate themselves in a crowded subway killing 100 innocent people?

Listen people, I’m no theologian, and I’m certainly no Catholic basher, in fact I’ve always had much admiration for certain aspects of Catholic tradition. But trying to fathom what Pope Francis could possibly been thinking here is a struggle. Perhaps a clue to his thinking can be discovered in the first sentence of the newspaper article that reported the story in the first place;

   “In comments likely to enhance his progressive reputation…”

I’ll say! You can’t get much more progressive than, “don’t worry folks, God has unlimited mercy so we’re all good!” Later on in the article, we discover that the Pope’s comments were further evidence of his attempts to shake off the Catholicism’s fusty image, and overcome barriers to an open dialogue with all.

Well, personally, I’ve always been quite fond of Catholicism’s fustiness, and the uncomfortable words of scripture are indeed quite a barrier to overcome. But I always thought that this was the point of Evangelism. Proves how little I know.

Leader of the Pack

Linda Schwartz is my sister. Back in the day when I was teaching high school kids Sunday school lessons, this bit of information would always bring me enormous amounts of good will and instant credibility. “You’re MZ. Linda’s brother?? How cool!!” they would say. When adults at church found out that Linda was my sister, they would look at me with a faint grin and usually say something like,
“Well, of course you are!” I’ve never quite understood that reaction, but it is what it is.

Today being her birthday, I feel compelled to say a few words about her. From the time I started the second grade until I was in the sixth grade, Linda was practically my mother. Our entire family lived in a cramped apartment in New Orleans on the campus of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary where my father was enrolled. For the next three years I barely ever saw him. He went to class during the day and loaded freight onto trucks at night. My Mom took a secretary job at the printing office on campus to help ends meet, so it was left to Linda to take care of Paula and me after we got home from school. It was Linda who made me do my homework; it was Linda who fixed dinner most nights, and it was Linda who had to deal with the frantic ADHD of her 8 year old terror of a little brother. 47 years later, not much has changed.

Linda is probably the most energetic, driven person I’ve ever known. If I described a typical day in her life for you, it would be hard not to conclude that she was on some sort of illegal steroid. She takes care of her grandchildren, husband, and  children, works crazy hours as a nurse, teaches over a dozen piano students, leads her famous Praise Kids choir at church, and is the driving force behind our Dad’s round the clock care. Just writing that sentence makes me want a nap.

Somehow she keeps it all together, I just don’t understand how. I wish I could afford to send her and Bill to Hawaii for a month, but I can’t. But sometimes, I think that I should take out a line of credit and do it anyway. Linda lives the kind of life that makes other people look like lazy slugs by comparison. Like anyone else, she has her flaws, but if you know what’s good for you, you won’t ever complain about one of them to me. She’s my big sister and the leader of the Dunnevant pack, so back off!

Happy birthday, Sis.

Keystone Cop Foreign Policy

Just a few observations about the President’s speech last night. As I watched it, I had to remind myself that it was he who had requested the time from the networks. There he was, for all the world to see, a man clearly annoyed that he had to, once again, explain brilliant strategy to his slow-on-the-uptick citizens. There I was trying to make sense of the bazillion contradictions flying around, sometimes within the same sentence. Something is clearly wrong with either the world’s greatest communicator…or me.

The President described the horror of chemical weapons, the tragic image of children laid out on concrete floors covered by sheets, the agony of a father holding his dead children in his arms begging them to wake up. What remedy did he then propose to right this monstrous wrong? A limited, targeted strike designed to limit Assad’s future use of chemical weapons which absolutely, positively will NEVER involve one American boot on the ground. So, which is it, Mr. President? When you’ve got your Secretary of State running around making references to the holocaust and Harry Reid throwing around Hitler comparisons, it would seem like your moral indignation would produce something a bit more lethal. This “shot across the bow” strategy would be like discovering that Hitler had murdered 6,000,000 Jews, then putting him in time out for a week with no television.

Then I was treated to the bizarre sight of a United States President reminding me that although he doesn’t need Congressional approval to bomb Syria, he wants it because we are the oldest Constitutional Democracy in the world and it’s always better when the President and Congress work together. In the very next sentence he then informs us that the Congressional vote that just last week he was demanding immediately if not sooner, now he wants to be put on hold until a diplomatic solution can be pursued through that champion of freedom and democracy, Vladimir Putin. By this time, my head was about to fall off my shoulders from the rhetorical whiplash.

Ok, so what to make of this? First a summary of events:

1.     Obama makes “red line” comment about Syrian chemical weapons and their use.

2.     Chemical weapons are used in Syria

3.     Obama immediately talks tough, telegraphing his intention to carry out military strikes on Syria.

4.     The Prime Minister of America’s oldest ally, the United Kingdom, goes before Parliament to make the case for and gain approval for his country’s participation in said military action whereupon, he loses the vote in humiliating fashion.

5.     Obama takes a walk after dinner and suddenly sees the need for Congressional approval

6.     Our Secretary of State goes before Congress and testifies to the horror of it all and the urgency to act immediately, if not sooner.

7.     Members of Congress are not persuaded and the Congressional switchboards are lit up with calls coming in at a rate of 100-1 against intervention.

8.     Days turn into weeks after the President’s initial telegraphing announcement that a missile strike was in the works, giving Mr. Assad lots of time to rearrange his assets, to redeploy everything he doesn’t want destroyed by cruise missiles to a safer place.

9.     Sec. Kerry gives a convoluted answer to a reporter’s question about a hypothetical, something any beginner politician knows to never do, especially at a time of great crisis when the less said the better.

10. Vladimir Putin rushes in to the breech caused by Kerry’s feckless remark and buys more time for his client Assad, by proposing that he turn over his entire stockpile of chemical weapons so they can be destroyed.

11.  This, we are told by our President is a development worth pursuing. Nothing is said about how maddeningly difficult it is to “destroy” chemical weapons even in the best of conditions, let alone inside of a country racked by civil war. Indeed the United States is not even in compliance with the provisions of the much heralded Chemical Weapons treaty outlawing their use, since we have yet to destroy all of our stockpile, yet we are now asked to believe that the Syrians will be able to manage their safe destruction in a country where the air is thick with artillery fire.

 

What a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. Here’s my view. If John Kerry’s bumbling and the President’s ham fisted incompetence has opened the door for Vladimir Putin to win HIS Nobel Peace prize, I say, thank God for small miracles. I care not how we’re able to wiggle off this hook. All I want is for the United States of America to stop interfering in the Middle East. If the result of this Keystone Cop routine we call our foreign policy is no intervention in Syria, I’ll be more than happy to give the President all the credit he will demand for his brilliant statecraft.

Remember This Story?

This was the headline on Wednesday, December the 12th, 2007. The BBC warned us all that scientists in the US had made this bold forecast using state of the art computer models. The Polar ice cap was going to be "ice-free" by this time. Along with this dire forecast came calls for dramatic government "action". Al Gore practically gave himself a hernia jumping up and down warning everyone about this new study from the comfort of his 10,000 square foot, 9 million dollar, 191,000 kilowatt-hour consuming Nashville home.

So, imagine my surprise this morning to see this morning's headline in the UK Daily Mail.

I eagerly await Mr. Gore's assessment of this NASA satellite image. I also look forward to the press conference where the scientist responsible for the 2007 prediction will explain to us how he could possibly have been so fabulously wrong.

While I have no scientific knowledge or expertise, what I do have is enough common sense to know that a subject as maddeningly complex as global climate cannot be predicted with anything approaching certainty by computer models. How can we predict climate change fifty years down the road when we can't even get the weekend forecast right half the time? I little humility in discussions of this topic would be nice. Oh, and before we completely scrap the world's economic model based on hyperventilating former Vice-President's grave prognostications, how about a little candor about the flimsy reliability of computer models? 

My Return To Golf

Three months and three days ago, I had rotator cuff surgery on my left shoulder. My doctor has proven himself to be not only a fine surgeon, but an even more impressive prophet, since every single thing he told me would happen, HAS happened. He warned me that it would be an extremely painful experience, and that I would curse every time I thought of him for the first six weeks. He told me that the rehab process would be long, painful, and slow. Then finally, he told me I would be well enough to start playing golf again by September.

So, there I was Friday, driving out to Royal Virginia on a gorgeous Friday morning, prepared to test his hypothesis. As I expected, RV was wide open, so I walked up on the 1^st tee box with a mixture of exhilaration and fear. Just in case you’re wondering, no…I didn’t go to the range to hit any balls beforehand. That’s just not how I roll. That would have been the smart thing, the prudent thing to do. Start out with the wedge, hit a few chips, work my way through the bag taking ever longer swings to test my range of motion…that sort of thing is what the careful, thinking man would have done. But, there I was with a driver in my hand, taking the club back waiting for a sharp pain, feeling none, then swinging down through the ball and watching it fade majestically against the bright blue sky and into the trees on the right side of the fairway. I was thrilled! The ball was lost, but it didn’t hurt! By the time I tapped in for a triple bogey seven, I was practically ecstatic.

The second hole brought more of the same, another lost tee shot, and another triple, but absolutely no discomfort. I did notice that every shot I hit was roughly twenty yards shorter than usual and my ball flight was left to right , when before it had always been the opposite. Then, the miraculous happened…two consecutive pars! By the end of my first nine holes of golf in over six months, I had lost 6 balls, but managed to shoot a 50 with no pain. As I walked off the green and headed to my car, I remember thinking that finally, the shoulder problems were over, behind me.

Then, I made the mistake of overconfidence. When I woke up yesterday and saw the beautiful blue skies and felt no pain in the shoulder, I couldn’t resist a follow up nine holes. I drove out to Sycamore Creek to see if I could possibly be paired up with a threesome. I was amazed to find the parking lot virtually empty and the first tee box wide open, (note to self…sell Sycamore Creek stock). This time, I was hitting the ball a little better, and had only lost two balls by the time I found myself standing in the middle of the 5^th fairway with a six iron in my hand. On the follow through of the swing I felt a sharp pain in the shoulder and dropped the club as the ball took a sweeping turn to the left towards a creek. I immediately knew that there would be no more golf for me for the day. The disappointment was deep. Too much, too soon, according to Pam. She’s probably right. Stupid shoulder.

This is always the way it is with me. I can never just take things slow; take my time, pace myself. I always have to go off half cocked with no reasonable plan and no calculus which allows for the possibility of failure. It is one of my many character flaws, one which causes Pam much frustration and grief, my unbridled, unreasonable, and unjustified self-confidence!

This morning’s good news is that the shoulder does not hurt, so apparently, there’s no lasting damage. See? I knew it was just a minor setback all along! I’m good to go. Maybe another nine this afternoon?? What the heck, why not eighteen?

Meanwhile, Pam rolls her eyes in disgust and shakes her head while mumbling, “I am married to a middle school boy!”

An Advanced Copy of the President's Speech

Good Evening.

Two weeks ago, we are reasonably sure that Bashir Assad used chemical weapons on his own people killing over a thousand of them including women and children. I made the decision to authorize a military response to this heinous act. But then, after Prime Minister Cameron lost his authorization vote in Parliament, I took a walk after dinner and came to the decision that I probably should get Congress to put a fig leaf of constitutionality on the thing by voting their approval. Well, since then, I have taken another walk and tonight am announcing my decision to call the whole thing off.

Alright, here’s the thing. Although I am one hell of an orator and probably the best communicator to ever occupy this office, the truth is that I’m much better with prepared remarks. Whenever I just start yakking and yammering on extemporaneously, I end up getting screwed. Which brings me to this whole “red line” thing. See, that’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about. All I was doing was trying to sound tough and serious about a hypothetical use of chemical weapons. The term “red line” is perfect since it suggests seriousness and alarm. Well, who would have thought that such an off-handed remark would come back with such vengeance to bite me in the ass.

I hope that it has been clear to you that I have never really wanted to go to war with freaking Syria. It’s soooo Bush-esk, complete with iffy intelligence, and those insufferable Code Pink women holding up their stupid bloody hands while Lurch was trying to make the case to that Senate committee the other day. It’s embarrassing. But, because of me and my big mouth, I found myself in one helluva bind. My worst mistake was flying over to Sweden and blaming the red line thing on some 75 year old treaty and trying to insinuate that it wasn’t even my red line. I mean the minute it came out of my mouth I knew it sounded whiny, but what’s done is done.

So, as President, sometimes you just have to admit defeat. It’s clear that the American people don’t want to get involved in Syria, and although I could probably round up plenty of Republican neo-con votes, I’ve put the folks in my party in quite a bind since none of them ever want to go to war for anything. The other day I even had Howard Dean sounding like a hawk. It’s all just too much.

So, tonight, I say to you, the American people that I have heard you and I get it. There will be no attack on Syria. This in no way should be interpreted as tacit approval for genocide, just an acknowledgment that a couple of days of cruise missile launches isn’t going to make a hill of beans difference on the ground in that God-forsaken hell hole, and honestly, I would rather concentrate on funding Obamacare and granting amnesty to 12 million illegal immigrants.

God bless you and God bless the United States of America.