2016 Predictions

Making predictions about the future is tricky business. However, it has never stopped me from making them. So once again I offer for your consideration my official stone cold, lead pipe locks for 2016.

1. There will be no peace in the Middle East in 2016.

2. After suffering financial setbacks brought on by Russian bombing of their Oil pipeline business, ISIS will join the family of nations by issuing 30 year bonds, becoming the first debtor terrorist State.

3. The Democratic National Committee, in keeping with their years long effort to protect Hillary Clinton, will schedule her Democratic Party Nomination acceptance speech at this year's convention for 2 am mountain time.

4. The stock market will gyrate up and down in completely arbitrary ways for barely discernible reasons in a fashion that literally no person alive or dead knows how to predict.

5. President Obama, exhausted after seven years of being both a Christian and a Muslim, declares himself the first Buddhist president.

6. Lucy, despite another year on this earth and despite the fact that never once has a trash can lunged at her, will still be mortally afraid of them, to the point of hysteria.

7. My Son and I will spend the entire year arguing back and forth via text message over who will be a bigger disaster...Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

8. In her fourth year of teaching, Kaitlin will add to her trophy case of accolades, the coveted "Educator of the Universe" award given to the teacher best able to overcome obstacles placed in their way by federal, state and local school bureaucrats.

9. After a lengthy investigation by the NCAA, it is discovered that football teams from the Big 12 and the ACC had secretly been unionized, resulting in work rules that allowed defenses to take off every third play. Officials at the NCAA had become concerned watching 2015 bowl games as team after team from the two conferences consistently got shredded by very ordinary offenses from the SEC. Other union work rules had defined job assignments in such a way as to exempt "cover corners" from tackling responsibilities.

10. Apple, stung by analyst's suggestions that they had "run out of ideas," announce their latest product innovation...the digital, programmable toilet paper dispenser.

11. After the retirement of the nation's last remaining competent letter carrier, Don Dunnevant, the Postal Service declares bankruptcy.

12. Lucy will continue to choose the coldest, rainiest days of the year to launch her "sniff-every-square-inch-of-the-back-yard-before-peeing" initiative.

13. After five years of resisting persistent nagging by Google Adsense to "monetize my blog," I give in and allow ads to display, only to discover that the only people who ever click on an ad are from Russia. Cross, "get rich by writing a blog" from my career goals list.

Lucky Me.

For the first time maybe ever, I got to celebrate New Years Eve alone with this woman...

Yes, in all of our time together, we have never done New Years by ourselves, until 2016. The kids are gone. Many of our best friends were out of town, or under the weather, so I had this stunning woman all to myself. Lucky me.

We had a delicious meal at the Boathouse, then walked around looking at the beautiful decorations at Short Pump mall. Before heading home, we stopped into Firebirds to order dessert-to-go...chocolate cake and cheesecake. Once home we watched a little college football,(more about that later), then decided to binge-watch several episodes of Friday Night Lights, a show we somehow missed when it first came out. Pajamas and dessert with a scared dog between us on the sofa,(fireworks), might not sound glamorous or terribly exciting...but for me it was a wonderful night!

Today we plan on starting the New Year with a hike with Lucy, then brunch somewhere. Over the next couple of days we will start taking down the Christmas decorations and I will clean out the garage...my  New Years tradition. As long as I'm with this woman, I'll be ok.

Speaking of college football, so far this bowl season, this is what I have observed:

Auburn beats Memphis by 21 points

LSU beats Texas Tech by 29 points

Miss. State beats NC State by 23 points

Texas A&M loses to Louisville by 6 points

Alabama beats Mich. State by 38 points

So far then, the SEC is 4-1, and have out scored their opponents by a whopping 111 points.

Please, remind me again how the era of SEC college football dominance is over.

Best Headlines of the Day

The Drudge Report is on fire today. These headlines are crazy! So I've decided to highlight some of the more provocative ones and offer my snide, snarky observations as a bonus.

1. War against feral hogs on in Texas.

    

Don't #FERALLIVESMATTER?

2. Styrofoam ban begins in DC.

Question: What causes more lasting damage to the environment? Styrofoam or Congressmen?

3. Lucas says he sold Star Wars to Disney "white slavers."

Apparently because the "Muslim slavers" couldn't come up with the cash.

4. 20 percent of Americans not alive during Monica Lewinski affair.

And the other 80% wish they weren't.

5. Pakistanis with terror connections caught crossing US border.

But were later released when it was discovered that they fully intended to vote for Hillary Clinton.

6. Sweden turning its back on refugees.

A rare black mark for Bernie Sanders favorite country.

7. Trump bimbo blitz puts Hill on heels.

Wait...what??

8. Bernie flies coach

First class passengers rejoice!

9. HOLIDAY HORROR: Waterfall of blood pours from elevator after crushes cruise ship worker.

"In the mornin', in the evenin', ain't we got fun?"

10. Map of Middle East being redrawn in ways that could lead to new conflicts.

...because EVERYONE is an art critic!

11. Bill Cosby arrested for 2004 sexual assault.

Bill Clinton still at large.

The Best Laid Plans

The week between Christmas and New Years is a week for planning. I take a long, final look at 2015 and make note of what went well and what didn't. I then turn my attention to 2016 and begin plotting and scheming improvements. I set goals. I devise strategies designed to reach them. Then I try to imagine all of the unseen, unpredictable obstacles out there hiding in the weeds that might foil my plans. Some are real, some a product of an overactive imagination. Nonetheless, I consider them and graph out worst case scenarios. This process repeats itself every year during the last week on the calendar. It is quite therapeutic...and almost entirely worthless.

My experience has been that, while making plans is a perfectly worthwhile endeavor, ultimately its value   is highly suspect. It's primary benefit is the false sense of security it brings, endowing us with the notion that we are somehow masters of our fate and in control of events...when nothing could be further from the truth. I could spend an entire week mapping out a flawless blueprint for making 2016 the year I make a million bucks and publish the great American novel...then get in my car, drive home, and get t-boned by a Mack truck at the corner of Cox and Broad.

One of the Mack trucks of life is health problems. Nearly 13 years ago I was t-boned by an out of the blue emergency open heart surgery. One minute you're indestructible, the next you're laying on a stretcher in a freezing cold room counting to ten backwards for an anesthesiologist from Thailand. Such are the vagaries of life. Today, I go back to my cardiac doctor for a checkup after a week of troubling symptoms. It's been a while. I'm supposed to go every couple of years...it's probably been four years since I've seen him. Hopefully, all is well. Hopefully he doesn't throw a monkey wrench in my impeccably air-tight, fool proof plans for 2016.

The last week of the year, a time for reflection and analysis. But each time I do it, I'm reminded of that famous John Lennon quote..." Life is what happens to us while we are busy making plans..."

A Weird Christmas

This was a weird Christmas. The festivities started poorly when I became ill the afternoon that Kaitlin, Jon and Jackson arrived. I became lightheaded after rising too quickly and found myself on the floor after a lost minute of unconsciousness. For the rest of the week I felt funny...sweaty and lightheaded. I am just now coming out of it.

Christmas Eve was nice. There was a marvelous moment after the service at church when many of the best and brightest kids from our life of ten years ago gathered on the stage for a group picture. These young people are now husbands and wives, many of them parents. Twenty five kids hugging each other and catching up was a beautiful thing to watch. I look at the pictures of them from that night and feel better about the future of this planet. We will one day hand them the reigns of this world, and be better for it.

After the service, we had a wonderful meal at Brio's. Christmas morning began around 8 am, not an  incidental fact, since the starting time had to be calculated due to the demands of the day. I always enjoy watching the kids open their presents. This year was no different, only now we had two dogs to shred the spent wrapping paper. But everything seemed rushed. We had to keep an eye on the clock. Breakfast had to be made, then stockings had to be opened,(a completely separate enterprise at my house!), then preparations made for the two o'clock arrival of the White clan for round two. Incidentally, the "White clan" sounds very much like a racially charged micro aggression, when in fact it simply refers to my in-laws, surname...White, and their extended family, not the famous sheet-wearing bigots. Just thought I should clear that up in case anyone from Loretta Lynch's Justice Department is scanning this blog.

Anyway, by the time the entire day was over, we were all totally exhausted. Things had gone well. The family meal was delicious. Having Pam's family over was a privaledge. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't felt so hot and dizzy. Of course, 75 degrees and 85% humidity certainly didn't help! The best part of the day may have been later that evening after we all had gotten into our jammies. We decided to open up a game that Kaitlin had gotten for Christmas called, Loaded Questions, whereby a question is asked of all players and then one player must guess which answer was made by which player. An example of the hilarity...

Question: What should you never do in a public restroom?

Answers: Lick the toilet. Hold a bible study. 

The day after Christmas found all of us sleeping in. Another wonderful breakfast was eventually served. It was misting rain outside and miserably humid. We had invited a dear friend over to have a lite lunch. Again, everything felt rushed since we had to all load up the car for round three of Christmas...at my sister Linda's house, this time for the Dunnevant extended family celebration. Linda and Bill did an amazing job hosted such an event, especially considering she had worked both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! We arrived around three in the afternoon, had another lite meal, then opened presents for over twenty people, all the while I felt about twenty minutes away from passing out. So very weird.

We finally headed back to the house around 8 o'clock, let the dogs out for a bathroom break, then piled into the car again for the 10:30 showing of Star Wars at Cinebistro. We got in bed around one in the morning. Christmas is not for the lightheaded or feint of heart!

It all seems like a blur to me now. Did it even happen? The kids are back in their home states. The house is as quiet as a morgue. It's still misty raining outside and as humid as Key West in July. Suddenly our calendar is empty...and it feels like a relief. It will, no doubt, fill up quickly. 

Reunions.

Everybody's home, despite the best efforts of El Niño. Jon and Kaitlin had to pull over to the side of interstate 95 at one point since the rain was coming down in such a deluge that further progress was impossible. Patrick's flights were delayed several times because of tornado warnings in and around Nashville. But despite it all, around 1:00 am this morning, everyone was safely in their beds.

Yes, I know that this photograph is blurry. But, there exists no camera in the world that could possibly catch these two still enough for a decent picture. Suffice it to say that both Lucy and Jackson are ecstatic at each other's presence. Their preferred form of interaction seems to be Greco-Roman wrestling with an emphasis on nibbling each other's ears. Tonight's yearly family photo of all of us in our Christmas pajamas sitting around the tree is going to be hilarious.

Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the Christmas week. Great food. The kids are home. The Christmas Eve service at church and dinner out afterwards. It's the lovely calm before the storm of presents that follow. 

If you want to cheer yourself up out of a funk, I have just the thing. Go to the arrival terminal at any airport in the country the week of Christmas. Get yourself a gingerbread latte and a comfortable chair and just watch the series of reunions unfold before you. Last night Pam and I watched at least a hundred of them while waiting for Patrick's late arrival. Grandfathers with hands over their mouths seeing their grandchildren, perhaps for the first time. A servicewoman in fatigues being greeted by her husband carrying a hand made welcome home poster. Their embrace was wordless and seemed to go on forever. Mothers running towards their grown sons and daughters. Sisters embracing their brothers. Old school dads stoically shaking hands. Newer dads shamelessly gushing. Tears and laughter. I glanced at Pam and noticed that she was crying. We knew none of these people, had no idea of their back story's, and it didn't matter. These were people who love each other. They had been apart and now they were together again. The joy was irrepressible. It was quite beautiful and uplifting.

Perhaps this world has hope after all.

Are Men Still Welcomed at Church?

Every Sunday I sit on an aisle seat, almost never in the same pew, but it has to be on an aisle. I'm not one of those idiots who think they have some sort of divine right to a particular pew in church, but I need to be on an aisle just in case I am overcome either by a genetic inability to stay seated, or some egregiously embarrassing part of the proceedings that I just can't take for another minute.

I listen to the music. I stand when told to by the leader of the small ensemble on the stage. The words to the songs are emblazoned on large screens throughout the auditorium. Sometimes the songs are familiar hymns from my youth. I always like that since I know the words, and sometimes a particular hymn will bring with it a vivid memory from the past. Just about the time I become entranced in a memory, suddenly the tune veers over a cliff into some strange incongruous chorus full of upbeat baselines and lyrics that I've never heard before. Then, just as quickly as this rude departure was made, suddenly we are back at the second, familiar verse. It's a little like musical whiplash.

More often than not, the songs are newer, more contemporary offerings. The singers try desperately to encourage a building full of middle aged white people to clap their hands, preferably in rhythm, but their efforts are largely ignored. Some of these newer songs are very nice and all of them are very well executed by the ensemble, the choir and the instrumentalists, who have clearly worked hard to prepare the music. Oddly, I am seldom moved. Part of the reason is that many of the newer songs, when stripped of their religious surroundings, could very well have been written by a love sick teenager about their one true love. There are a lot of strange passages which speak of pseudo-romantic encounters, "...the first time I was embraced in his arms..." It's all too much for this 57 year old man who longs for..."A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing..." Which brings me to the point of this particular blog post, which is not church music, but rather...church and what it has become.

As a man, and I am not ashamed to say so, I long for adventure in life, always have. There's something inside me that longs to be a part of some heroic thing. Yes, I know, that this particular male instinct is probably at the root of most of history's wars, and I'm really sorry about all that, but it won't go away. I want to be heroic, or at least to feel heroic. From the moment that my children were born, I felt that way every day. I had brought two beautiful people into the world and now it was going to be my job...my quest even, to provide for them, to protect them, to see to it that they grew up strong and healthy and that they became good people. It felt like a daunting task most days, grueling work. But it provided me with a heroic mission for over twenty years. But now they are both all grown up and being heroic in their own right. I need another quest, another adventure.

Business used to provide that for me. But that was during the years when I was struggling to build the thing. Now that it's built and self sustaining, it's not much of a challenge.

So, I've been hoping to discover the next big challenge in life, the next battle to fight, the next heroic adventure. What better place to look than...church.

Only, something weird has happened, not just at my church but countless others. Church has become an entirely feminine enterprise. Sure the leaders are all still mostly male, at least at my church, but make no mistake, it's a completely feminine project now. From the love song lyrics of the praise choruses to the breathy incantations of the speakers, I feel like I'm at a book club discussion group instead of church half the time. Even the vocabulary of church has gone feminine. You want to find a place of service? Volunteer in one of our encounter teams. Even traditionally male jobs at church like working the parking lot has been transformed into something called...first touch. We are all about touching and sharing life, and being sensitive. If you want to "man" the phones during our televised service, you can sign up as a caring listener. Not that there is anything at all wrong with being sensitive and caring, you understand, but if your life was on the line and there was incoming mortars landing all around you, who would you honestly want in your foxhole...your sensitive, caring preacher, or your mechanic? If you're trying to gin up your courage for a difficult encounter, who do you want on your iPod...David Crowder or a little Martin Freaking Luther??

Listen, I have nothing against things feminine. I have been surrounded by strong women all of my life. I'm married to one and have raised another. But, the feminization of the Christian faith has rendered it incomprehensible to me. It has been stripped of its heroism, robbed of its adventurous spirit, and replaced by an encounter group vibe that has me glancing at my cell phone every Sunday morning.

And sitting on the aisle.