I Did It!

I did it. I caved to the cultural and societal pressure. I took the advice of my nephew and my son. I was prepared for an hour of relentless nothingness. I steeled myself for the slow motion, yawn-inducing experience of watching grown women running aimlessly by telling myself that it was my patriotic duty. As if on cue, there was my President urging all of America to root, root root for our women. Well, I was going to do it, even if it killed me.

Our girls had already dispatched the Germans several days ago and now would be facing the Japanese. Sound familiar?  All of the studio commentators were unanimous in their opinion that Tokyo's finest didn't stand a chance. I was dubious. They looked awfully determined. While the American girls were all smiles during the pregame introductions, the Japanese looked dead serious, grim and single minded, especially during the playing of their nation's anthem, a slow dirge that must have been composed the day after Hiroshima. I became fearful of them, suspicious of the lengths to which they might go for victory.

My biggest complaint about soccer is the amount of time that players spend seemingly determined not to score. There is much pointless passing, fruitless scampering, and dramatic flailing about for no apparent purpose. So, none of the knowledge about soccer I had managed to accrue  had prepared me for what I was about to see. Within the first ten minutes, the Americans had scored 4 goals, three of them by one player, and one of those from a mile away! This is the baseball equivalent of a team hitting three grand slams in the top of the first inning, the football equivalent of scoring five touchdowns in the first quarter. The Japanese players looked shell shocked, as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing, a sort of a Pearl Harbor in reverse. 

As is always the case, the best part of the telecast were the camera shots of brightly painted and wildly enthusiastic fans. I have to hand it to soccer fans, they are the absolute best when it comes to unhinged passion. 

By the end of the first half the Japanese had managed a face saving goal, but the game was essentially over after that initial burst of goal-scoring lunacy by the Americans. I had done my part. I had watched the entire first half! But then the Nationals game came on ESPN. I switched over to watch Bryce Harper hit, but I kept a sharp eye on the ticker at the bottom of the screen for any Japanese treachery in the second half. I was fully prepared to switch back if something nefarious was afoot. But it was not to be. The U.S. Won in a rout 5-2. World Cup champions! Good for them.

It's All Greek To Me!

Whenever a country as ancient and proud as Greece is about to go bankrupt, it's a big deal, and an impossibly complicated one. The fact that the final nail in the coffin appears about to be driven by a referendum is the ultimate irony for a nation that gave the world Democracy.

I have more than a casual interest in Greece. I invest money for a living and the Greek government bonds that are about to become worthless are found scattered throughout many American mutual funds. Many of the talking heads in the financial media have talked about little else but the dangers of contagion, the notion that a sovereign default by one nation may spread like chicken pox in a Mississippi elementary school. So, I have tried my best to understand this Greek tragedy. I have read all I can find from every newspaper, magazine and think tank. After nearly two months of reading, I am no closer to the truth than I was before. What a hot mess.

This is a country that fought a bloody and acrimonious civil war after WWII, with the government eventually prevailing over the Communists in 1949. The official end of hostilities didn't happen until the formal accord was signed in the 1980's. Any discussion of Greek finances can't be made without an understanding of just how divided the country is, much of the division lingering from that civil war. Before joining the European Union in 2001, Greece was in horrible financial straights after the decade of the 1990's which saw them run insanely high budget deficits every year. Membership in the EU brought access to cheap loans and an economic revival from 2001-2007.  But eventually loans, cheap or not, have to be serviced, and when the economic crisis of 2008 came calling, Greece was hit especially hard. It has been on life support ever since, and now the creditors have had enough.

It's quite hard to pick out one thing to blame for Greece's troubles. It's more like a combination of many bad habits coming together at the worst possible time. Over the last twenty years public sector job growth has far outpaced the private sector, which I suppose is inevitable when you have a government which is asked by Greek citizens to do so many things. But when a huge number of your citizens work for the government, then the public sector unions become key to every politicians' success. Accordingly, they get most everything they want, from generous leave, to insanely rich pensions. Luckily for Greek politicians, the people being counted on to pay for these pensions have yet to be born and consequently can't vote. You would think that a nation so enamored with the welfare state would be willing to actually, you know...pay their taxes. But no...the Greek black market is the only part of the Greek economy that is thriving. Off the books, cash transactions are ubiquitous in a country starved for revenue. 

Greece has everything that Bernie Sanders loves, high taxes on the rich( which don't get paid), a huge and omnipresent government involved in every sphere of daily life, universal health care, powerful unions, a relatively small military, with soldiers who have seen their pay cut by 40%. No one in the country seems much interested in making a profit or building anything. Thus freed from the American preoccupation with mammon, the Greek citizenry is free to enjoy long paid holidays, and retirement with a generous pension while in their 40's. For those unlucky enough still to be in the work force, they can look forward to receiving 14 monthly pay checks, the two extra "months" a clever scheme dreamed up by the government to keep overall monthly wages lower since the ridiculously generous pensions are based on monthly pay. Workers can also receive bonuses for simply showing up to work...on time. These are the working conditions under which Greeks labor...after five years of grim austerity. This and baklava? What a country!

So today they go to the polls to vote for more austerity, or to stiff their creditors and leave the EU, the consequences of which even its proponents don't fully understand.

The lesson for us would seem to be...don't be like Greece. A good question to ask every Presidential candidate next year might be, " What policies will you put in place to insure that the United States never becomes Greece?"

My Empty Good Sense Account

Yesterday afternoon, with the confidence that often accompanies foolishness, I took my improving neck out for a spin. Ever since the witch doctors at Tuckahoe Orthopedic put me on an expensive drug cocktail a couple of weeks ago, things had been looking up. The pain had been greatly reduced, the range of motion much improved. So naturally, me being me, I figured it was time to discover if the neck was up to a quick round of golf.

I drove out to The Hollows, a decidedly blue-collar course out in Hanover. Its claim to fame is that you can walk on without a tee time, its very easy, and they allow you to walk. I teed off at high noon. Two hours and twenty minutes, and six miles later I was done. My scorecard said 86. It was all a lie.

Ok, first of all, anyone who plays golf knows that your score seldom is a reflection of how well or poorly you played. Lots of times you feel like you hit the ball great all day but you couldn't sink a putt if your life depended on it. Therefore you think you played well, but the scorecard says 95. Then there are the times when you can count on one hand the number of quality shots you hit, but your score ends up being 86 because of several lucky breaks, a chip in bogey from 30 yards off the green and a couple of 40 foot putts that for no good reason happened to go into the hole! That was yesterday. It also should be noted that the course played to a par of 69 because of a redesign that temporarily has made a par 3 out of a par 4 hole.

But the really bad news is that it looks like I'm going to have to give up the game for a while. Every single swing I took ...hurt. I spent the whole afternoon trying to come up with a pain free version of a golf swing, three quarter, half, nothing worked. It didn't  matter what kind of shot I was trying to hit or what club I was using, every single swing barked at me. I'm no doctor, but I'm thinking that an activity that hurts is something that you probably shouldn't be doing.

It's a shame because I enjoyed being out yesterday. It was a beautiful day, not too hot. There was nobody out there, I never had to wait. I finished an entire round of golf in less that 2 and a half hours and got some excellent exercise from walking six miles. Just in case my wife is reading this...NO, I didn't carry my clubs!! I'm not that stupid. I had the good sense to use a pull cart. But there's only so much good sense in my bank account of ideas, and I used it all up on the pull cart decision. There wasn't any left when I decided to go ahead and play 18 instead of stopping at the turn since my neck was killing me. 

This morning the neck is sore. But relief is coursing through my veins as we speak, and after a hot shower, I'll be fine. Incidentally, Pam hates it when I say "I'll be fine." I don't know why it irritates her so. She seems to think that every time I say it I'm lying. But as much as she hates hearing me say it about myself, I've learned never to say it about her. Example:

Pam: I have no idea how I'm going to get everything done for the ____________! I have to go buy the ________, make the ________, clean the _________, call the __________, and I haven't even baked the _________ yet!

Me: You'll be fine.

Pam: &/;,:56/)":&/$46'cgsfzymdl&$,?:;::&;(:,:?|%}<\'fksn!,!!!!!!!

It's official...I'm an idiot

There are times in life when something happens which calls into question the actual level of your intelligence. After a while you get to the point where you develope a sense of how smart you are or at least how smart you think you are. You do this primarily by comparing yourself to those around you. While I may not be as smart as Steve Jobs, I'm pretty sure I'm a little sharper than the guy who rings up my toiletries purchase at CVS. I may not have the cognitive capabilities of Stephen Hawking, but I could probably win a battle of wits with the tattooed woman who cuts my hair at Sports Clips.

But then last night happens and you're just not sure anymore. 

As many of you know, yesterday...the 29th of June...was the third anniversary of my Mother's death. I was naturally feeling a bit down when I settled in to my recliner to read last night. I decided to find the picture of my parent's headstone/grave plaque on my cell phone that my sister Paula had sent me a while back. It had taken forever for us to get the thing finalized, and the cemetery people had finally installed it a couple of months ago. We had to order Dad's from the Veterans Administration because of his military service, so it had been a long, drawn out affair. But it had turned out well. I actually went over and looked at it on the first anniversary of Dad's death a few weeks ago, my first ever solo visit to the place. I remember thinking that it was quite beautiful. 

When I pulled the picture up on my phone, I was stunned. It was like an outer body experience. I looked closer, enlarging the picture to its maximum size to be sure I hadn't lost my mind. But there was no escaping the fact that I am an idiot. For there on my iPhone was the unmistakable evidence for all to see:

                                          Betty Dixon Dunnevant

                                      Sep 3 1930                  June 20 2012

Surely, I couldn't possibly have told them the wrong date of death. It's got to be their fault for writing it down wrong. I tried to recall the meeting with the strange woman at the cemetery. I remember how difficult it was deciding what four words we would chose to eulogized her. I remember the computer screen where the woman was typing in everything into a template to make sure it would fit. There's no way I could have told her the 20th when it was the 29th, right? Nobody is that stupid.

So, I will go over there today and find out if it was me or the pros at Westhampton Memorial Park. Meanwhile, somewhere in heaven, I would like to think that Mom is getting a good laugh out of this. She never liked cemeteries anyway. The nerve of those people trying to cheat her out of nine days! The weird thing about all of this is that I have looked at the picture of this thing at least twenty times, even went to see it in person and stared at it for fifteen minutes...and never noticed the mistake until last night. How could I have missed it?

City of God, or City of Man?

Ever since the Supreme Court handed down its verdict on gay marriage, a thought, or more precisely a collection of thoughts have been bouncing around the vast empty spaces inside my head. Then I had a text conversation with my son yesterday afternoon. He mentioned that in the sermon he heard at Christ Church Episcopal in Nashville, the priest had mentioned Augustine's great work, The City of God. It occurred to me that the thoughts banging around up there weren't all that original, since they had much in common with the ramblings of an Algerian philosopher from the 5th century! I suppose that there's nothing new under the sun, but here's what I've been thinking about.

Perhaps, the nine black-robed justices have done American Christianity a huge favor. Maybe now, having been disabused of any notion that evangelical Christianity enjoys majority support in this country, the church can be decoupled from politics in general and the Republican Party in particular. Maybe now, Christians will get back to the real work of Christianity which is the betterment of mankind through the spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I come from a faith background which has always closely identified itself with our country and mostly conservative politics. Although it was rarely if ever said publically, the clear implication was always that Christians were, or at least ought to be, conservative Republicans. Some of this was a result of the fact that generally speaking, Republicans tended to be pro life and Democrats pro choice. Most of the devout Christians who I have known in my life have been consistently against abortion, viewing it as the taking of a human life. Although, I agree with them about abortion, I have never been a one issue voter. I have always been persuaded that choosing a political leader is a terrible mess of a thing that requires a million trade offs and that the man or woman you ultimately choose will be part saint and part sinner. So I always felt that closely associating your church with one side of the political divide in an overwhelmingly divided country made little sense and in fact was bad for business.

Now that we Christians have come to the realization that our views, by and large, are out of favor and we are no longer the dominant fashion of thought in this country, we can all now take a step back from political activism, in favor of delivering salt and light, the roll that Jesus invisioned for his disciples. As exiles from the dominant culture we will be better able to identify with other marginalized segments of society...in other words, the kind of people who Jesus hung out with. Perhaps now that we realize that we can't create the utopian (American) city of man, we will concentrate on the City of God. Which brings us to Augustine.

Now, I'm no Augustinian scholar,(actually I'm not any kind of scholar), and I don't claim that I have read all twenty five books that make up his seminal work. I'm more like a guy who had to read the Cliff Notes version for a paper I wrote my sophomore year at UofR. But, I remember the big stuff. After the Roman Empire was overrun by barbarians at the beginning of the 5th century, the early Christians were getting the blame from many Romans who thought that ever since Constantine had established the new sect as the official religion of the Empire, things had gone downhill. Enter Augustine, with City of God, a full-throated defense of the faith, and it's many contributions to society. But for Augustine, there was a difference between the kingdoms of man and the kingdom of God, and confusing one with the other would lead to trouble.

While my citizenship is American, in the mind of Augustine my first citizenship isn't secular, but sacred. When the power of the state finds itself aligned with the eternal truths of the faith, all benefit. But when the state runs afoul of God's laws, a separation must occur. One goes one way and one another. 

However, when the state and the church start to be seen as two sides of the same coin, both the state and the church are in trouble. The state becomes too powerful, and the church becomes impotent. There should always be a tension between the two. The goals of the modern nation-state often flow from base motives, the desire to exert power and dominion over smaller, weaker neighbors for example. If the church is seen by the world as part of the government, it will also come to be seen as equally base. Now that many Christians are waking up to the idea that maybe, just maybe, 

our salvation lies somewhere other than political power, we can once again be free to administer grace and comfort to a screwed up world in desperate need of both.

On the other hand, the church may respond to a culture that doesn't agree with them on gay marriage, by trying to mobilize those who do into some sort of crypto-religious-lobbying-influence peddling special interest group...exactly the sort of thing that our Lord and Savior would never have done. The battle for hearts and minds isn't fought in a committee. There are no precinct captains in charge of feeding the hungry, no district chairmen in charge of comforting the downtrodden. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a fully engaged citizen and taking part in political work, politics is a poor substitute for the gospel.

Chill Out!!

Alright. I've just about had enough of the gloom and doom apocalyptic nonsense on Facebook. Nothing that has happened this week is the end of the world. So, let's put the sack cloth and ashes back in the closet, and calm down. You, like me, might have thought that the Obamacare decision was the equivalent of legal dyslectia. Maybe you disagree with my opinion that the gay marriage decision was the right one on the merits. Regardless of how you come down on the Supremes, or the Confederate flag, or anything else that may have rocked your world this past week, there should be a couple of things about which we can all agree...

1. On the very day that the gay marriage decision was rendered, ISIS militants staged a public execution of three homosexual men somewhere in Syria. The three were suspended by their ankles from the top of a three story building, then dropped headfirst into the pavement below to the celebratory cheers of a gathered mob. None of us live in Syria. This is a glorious accident of birth for which each and every one of us should be grateful.

2. Tomorrow morning, the Supreme Court not withstanding, I will wake up in my five bedroom, climate controlled home after a restful night in a king-sized rice carved poster bed. I will walk downstairs and grind up a cup of coffee beans from Nicarauga and while waiting for them to brew, I will open up my iPad and instantly be connected to all of the wisdom of the world by way of a platform that as recently as 25 years ago didn't exist. I will drive my beautiful Cadillac CTS all of two miles to my beautiful and spacious office where I am paid handsomely for providing financial services to nearly 500 of the best people in the world. All of this is mine despite the fact that my father was the son of a sharecropper, and my parents once lived in a trailer park. 

3. Despite the chaos of national politics, the Dunnevant family biannual beach vacation is only three weeks away. I get to spend seven days with the coolest family God ever created, and nobody in Washington has any power to stop me.

4. Although gay couples can now marry in these United States, the Chicago Cubs still will not win a World Series this year.

5. While ObamaCare is now firmly entrenched in American law, the Washington Nationals still need to find a consistent power hitting first baseman.

6. While it must be acknowledged that Christianity, at least the Evangelical version of it, is now firmly outside the mainstream of American political thought, it was even further outside the mainstream of political thought in Ancient Rome , but oddly enough experienced its greatest period of growth at precisely the same time as its believers were being used as fuel to light the street lamps.

Chill out everybody. Let's figure out a way to get along with people with whom we disagree. In the meantime, let's all count our blessings.

Name them...one by one.

The Week of the Supremes

This past week saw two monumental Supreme Court decisions which produced the widest possible reactions I've ever seen on my Facebook wall. The Obamacare case was either the death knell for the rule of law, or a victory for the poor. The decision on gay marriage was either a triumph for love or the end of democracy in America. Chief Justice John Roberts was either a man who has grown in his time on the bench or a duplicitous traitor. My view:

1. My reaction to the ObamaCare ruling was resignation, since words, long ago, lost their meaning. It seemed clear to me that the court had no appetite to overturn the apple cart which contained this mess of a law and it would be willing to twist itself into linguistic knots to rule in favor of this monstrosity. This is what happens when laws are 2000 pages in length and written by think-tanks and other varieties of professional idiots. "Established by the states" becomes just about anything you want it to mean. So now the Supreme Court has now developed a new line of work, that of copy editor of poorly crafted legislation. 

2. In May of 2012 I published a blog entitled, "Having a Gay Rights Debate With Myself," where I began to hash out my thoughts on this subject. A year later I published a two-parter on the same subject, once again trying to outline my thinking on what for me has been a troublesome issue. Having already stated my view, I will not again rehash it. When the decision came down I wasn't surprised. It was strange because at once I believed that on the strict matter of recognizing the right to marriage for gay people, the court had gotten it right with respect to due process and equal protection, but at the same time, I couldn't help but feel that this ruling will not be the end of things. In my heart of hearts I believe that some in the vanguard of this sexual politics movement will not be satisfied until every vestige of opposition is humiliated. Tolerance will not be enough, neither will equality in
the eyes of the law. Nothing short of celebratory acceptance will do. If there is a sizable slice of the
population who doesn't care for gay marriage...they must be made to care. My son assures me that this isn't the case. He thinks it absurd to worry that a gay couple would deliberately ask a church to perform their wedding ceremony knowing full well that they will decline, therefore creating an opportunity for yet another legal challenge...this time going after churches and their bigoted view of scripture. He reminds me that during the debate Justice Kagen pointed out that certain Jewish Rabbi's refuse to wed Jews to non-Jews and are constitutionally protected in doing so. He tells me that my slippery slope concerns are overblown. I hope he's right. When I observe the unprecedented speed with which the gay rights and now transgender rights movement has advanced, he will have to allow me my ambivalence.

For me, this week has demonstrated one very good thing. In America, we endure great changes in policy and law with scattered placards and assorted bull horns. On the steps of the Supreme Court were partisans from both sides of these raging debates, and when the verdict was announced one side
cheered wildly, some shed tears of joy, while the other side felt crushed by the news, shedding their own tears. But there was no violence. Nobody killed anyone. Free citizens competing against each other in the realm of ideas played out their cases within the architecture of democracy, and accepted the results without bloodshed. In the grand sweep of history, this is a very new and very rare phenomenon. In this fact I take great pride and a great deal of comfort.