My First Fan Letter!

About three weeks ago, I received that rarest of correspondence, a personal letter delivered by the United States Postal Service. It came in an odd sized envelope and was addressed in cursive. I was intrigued. My mail box is usually stuffed with sales circulars, bills, brightly colored credit card solicitations, and during election season, grave warnings from candidate A about how candidate B wants to take away my guns and declare sharia law. So, imagine my delight to find an old fashioned, honest to God letter?

Back inside, I showed my prize to Pam. “Look honey, I got a letter!” My daughter perked up at the news, “Well?? Aren’t you going to open it?” So, open it I did, with nervous anticipation. It was a typed letter stuffed inside a strange blank greeting card that featured a family of unknown ethnicity outside their humble hut somewhere in the third world. Turns out it was a village in India. I immediately figured that this was another announcement by one of my former Sunday School students that he or she had decided to go on a mission trip to save these poor people, and I was about to be asked for a donation. But then I opened the letter and read the first line:

Dear Mr. Dunnevant, Perhaps I should call you Doug since we have been close friends for quite some time now…

What the heck? Wait, was this…might this be? I read the next line:

I stumbled upon one of your blog posts about a year ago and have been hooked ever since.

No freaking way!! I had just received my first piece of fan mail! Is the internet great or what? But then it occurred to me that since this particular fan had evangelical sympathies, I might be in store for a diatribe about my views on gay marriage. Maybe this person had had it up to here with my snarky put downs of Baptist church services. I proceeded cautiously.

I quickly learned that my fan was a married woman with three grown children living in North Carolina, who had been introduced to my blog by the father of a girl who used to date my Son, who as fate would have it, also used to be her boss. This was six degrees of separation on steroids. She went on to say how much she had enjoyed reading my blog, how much it made her laugh and how our two world views had much in common. Throughout, she tried desperately to convince me that she was not some unhinged lunatic stalker, sometimes hilariously so. Then she got to the real reason for her letter:

I have followed your book writing and am intrigued…

She then cataloged for me her professional resume as an executive secretary, then made this astonishing offer:

So therefore, despite the awkwardness, I am offering, free of charge, to proofread your manuscript… I really thought that I would go through life anonymously reading your words, but the thought of your book going out with a missing apostrophe or comma troubles me too much to stay silent.

I then read the letter aloud to Pam and Kaitlin and they both thought she was hilarious, and were especially impressed when she ended the letter with practical tips on how to survive the wedding planning process since she was about to marry off her oldest daughter in just a few days. Kaitlin grabbed the letter from me and scanned it carefully with the critical eye of an English Literature major. “Dad, she has perfect diction and I don’t see even one punctuation error.”

To make a long story short, my new proof reader is the bomb. She has made it through chapter 21 of 30, actually likes the work and has caught a ton of bad punctuation, clunky formulations and butchered syntax, and is well on her way to a shout out on the acknowledgment page if I ever get the thing published. Plus, I’ve made a new friend.

Very cool.

Schadenfreude

The world is in a crazy, messed up place right now. There’s the Middle East with the Syrian circus and a soon to be nuclear Iran. In this country we’ve got Biblical-grade floods creating islands in Colorado, and deranged men waltzing into supposedly secure military facilities, whipping out shotguns and killing people. We have a completely dysfunctional federal government about to officially run out of money while simultaneously trying to implement a 3000 page health care law that no one, and I mean NO ONE understands. So what’s on my mind today? Baseball, baby!! There are pennant races afoot, so the end of the world will just have to wait until October.

Can the Nationals do the impossible and come from beyond oblivion and sneak into the playoffs as a wildcard? Probably not, but its baseball, so one never knows. All season long the Nationals just haven’t clicked. They’ve seemed tentative, tight, as if the burden of expectations was too much for them. Then, out of nowhere, back in early August, it was as if they all looked at each other and said, “What the hell, we’re out of it now, so let’s just go have some fun.” Since August the 9^th they are the hottest team in baseball. Just last night they swept a double header from the Atlanta Braves and are only 4 and a half games back.

Then there’s the American League wildcard race where four teams are still battling for the last spot. After 150 games, these four teams are still separated by a mere 3 games. The Cleveland Indians, Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals and the New York Yankees are slugging it out every night as if every game was the seventh game of the World Series. It’s been spectacular baseball. Watching the Red Sox utterly dominate the Yankees down the stretch, to watch the aging Yankees fall victim to a pulled muscle here and a stiff neck there has been something close to heaven for me. I believe the word is Schadenfreude, a word so rich in all the wrong human emotions that it could only come to us from the Germans. Experiencing pleasure from observing the misfortune of others is not a healthy place to live long term, I know. But for these last few weeks, watching the Yankees crumble has been like renting a fabulous house at the beach. I don’t intend to stay here forever, but what a fabulous vacation spot!!

Verbal Diarrhea

Have you ever noticed how politicians of all stripes never answer any question posed to them with a simple yes or no? Watching our hapless Secretary of State these past few weeks has been excruciating in this regard. Whenever he starts answering a reporter’s question, it’s like the voice of the unseen adults in those Peanuts television specials, “Waa, wa wa wa waaa.” Then it becomes the Russian Foreign Minister’s turn and his answer takes one sentence.

But it’s unfair to single out Kerry when practically everyone in Washington does it. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that they were paid by the word. So, I would like to offer politicians from all parties a short tutorial in directness and its many virtues, not the least of which is clarity, something in short supply at the moment. Below you will find many of today’s most vexing problems facing our country. Then, you will read what I think about them, in other words, what I would say to a reporter if asked my opinion. Then imagine any politician speaking this way.

# Senator Dunnevant, do you think that Obamacare should be defunded?  No.

But, aren’t you against Obamcare? Yes.

Then, why don’t you think it should be defunded? It’s the law and we don’t have the votes.

So, what do you say to your voters who want it repealed? Win more elections.

# Senator Dunnevant, are you troubled at all by the growing influence of Vladimir Putin and Russia in the Middle East, in particular his growing prestige in Syria? No.

But, aren’t you at all concerned about the rapid decline of America’s prestige and influence in that strategic part of the world? Concerned? No. Ecstatic? Yes.

Why would you be ecstatic? I can’t think of two people who deserve each other more than Vladimir Putin and Bashir Assad.

# Senator Dunnevant, in less than three weeks, Washington will run out of money to operate the government through the continuing resolution agreement of this past summer. Would you be willing to support a raising of the debt limit and an end to sequestration? No.

But Senator, without such an agreement, the government will have to shut down and most experts believe that the Republican party will get the blame. That’s not a question.

Ok. Why are you willing to shut down the government knowing that your party will get the blame? We spend way more money than we bring in. So, accordingly, we are broke.

Yes, but what about the blame thing? What about it?

Don’t you worry about your future? No. I worry about the country’s future which won’t be much of one if we don’t stop spending money we don’t have.

# Senator, what are your views on Gay Marriage? None of the government’s business.

# What about taxes? They are too high and not enough of us pay them.

# Are you in favor of granting amnesty for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants currently in our country? No.

So, does that mean you’re in favor of rounding up 12 million people and deporting them all? No,that’s a logistical impossibility.

Then how do you suggest fixing this problem? Allow all of those here to remain here but deny them the right to ever vote in an American election.

How will that solve the problem? It won’t. But it will remove immigration policy from the Congressional calendar forever, since without the prospect of 12 million new voters, my Democrat friends will lose interest in the issue.

# One more question Senator, if you were King for a day and could pass any legislation you wished, what would it be? Term limits.

I Stand Amazed?

http://shar.es/izahq

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.