An American Apology

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3511343/Marauding-parents-Easter-Egg-hunt-rampage-control-adults-push-children-ground-steal-buckets-leave-one-four-year-old-bloody-chaotic-free-event.html.....

I would like to apologize in advance for ruining your day. The link above will take you to a dark place, a place where your fellow man never fails to disappoint. Reading this story makes you doubt Mr. Jefferson's wisdom, for while man may be created equal, he doesn't stay that way for long.

Whenever I am confronted with a story like this, I simply cannot believe that it is true, largely because I don't know a single person who would behave this way...not one! Listen, in my universe of friends, family and acquaintances, there resides a few rather bizarre folks, more than a handful of mold busters, and quite a few who live on the fringes of normal. But, I don't know anyone who would show up at an Easter egg hunt determined to trample toddlers underfoot in their quest for...candy eggs. Of course, to make this horrifying spectacle much, much worse, the story appears in a British newspaper, insuring that America's dirtiest laundry enjoys a worldwide airing. 

There's a lot of that going around these days. The world is being treated to a daily dose of ugly American stories, courtesy of our Presidential election campaign...Your wife is ugly. Well, your wife is a slut. The world would be excused for thinking that all of America has jumped the shark. 

Well, to those of you reading this in foreign countries( and if my tracking statistics are to be believed, there are lots of you ), please believe me when I tell you that the America I know is filled with decent, kind and loving people. We are not all like the outliers you read about in the Daily Mail. Many of us look around us and think that some of our fellow citizens have lost their minds, sure. But for the most part, we are good people. We work hard, care about each other and love our kids...just like you. Some of those who want to lead us are embarrassing, and dumber than a bag of hammers, but be honest...aren't your politicians knuckleheads too? If you really want to know what our families are like, watch some old Walton's reruns, or check out a few episodes of Blue Bloods. 

Just promise me that you'll look the other way on Black Friday.

Thinking About Easter

Easter Sunday will be strange tomorrow. This year, Pam and I are alone in this big old house. Last year we were in Nashville celebrating with our son and meeting his new girlfriend. Easter morning saw us at a packed Episcopal church. Before that, it had been the same for over twenty years...plastic eggs filled with money hidden downstairs, then empty tomb rolls for breakfast. Times change, along with our celebrations.

We will still have empty tomb rolls, which will seem weird without the kids. Then we will dress up for church, the one Sunday these days when we dress for church like we used to dress every Sunday. Yet another change. Because it's Grove, the music will be sweeping and grand, although all I really want to hear on this day is a thunderous pipe organ belting out Christ the Lord is Risen Today, the bass notes pounding in my chest! But that old classic has gone the way of the responsive reading in the modern Baptist liturgy. 

Easter is what I cling to nowadays. At a time when church has lost its urgency for me, and at a time when I spend most of my time there feeling embarrassed, the resurrection still moves me. It remains the essential doctrine that for me validates my faith. I have studied the story a thousand times, a thousand times I have tried and failed to fashion an explanation for it that doesn't include the physical resurrection of Jesus. Still, nothing explains the impact wrought on civilization by Christianity, other than that band of poor, itinerant fishermen seeing and touching the risen Christ. Nothing. Because he rose from the grave, he must have been the Son of God. For me, it all boils down to that central fact of history. Everything else is fluff.

So, tomorrow, alone among a year's worth of Sundays, I know that I'll be exactly where I'm supposed to be...at church

Two Political Jokes For Your Friday

John Kerry walks into a bar.

Bartender says, "Why the long face?"

Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are having lunch, going over the latest Congressional approval numbers when Chuck says, "These numbers are terrible. The American people think we have lost touch with them, that we are all a bunch of pampered elitists. Nancy comes up with an idea. "Hey, how about you and I rent a dog and show up at a bar somewhere in Wyoming or someplace and buy everyone drinks. That will prove to everyone that we are just ordinary people, just like them! And who doesn't love dogs?"

So, they find a yellow lab at the local dog shelter

Then they hop a private jet and pretty soon they walk into the Cowboy Bar and Grill in Gillette, Wyoming just in time for happy hour, walk up to the bar and exclaim, "Free drinks on the house!" About ten minutes later a grizzled old rancher walks into the bar, walks up to Nancy and Harry, then reaches down and pulls up the dog's tail and carefully inspects his rear end, shakes his head and walks out. Fifteen minutes later, another rancher walks in and does the same thing...looks at the Congressmen, then inspects the poor dog's behind, then walks out. After three more such strange encounters, Harry Reid finally turns to the bartender and asks, "What's the deal with all of these guys lifting up our dog's tail?"

 The bartender answers, "Well, there's a rumor spreading around town that there's a dog in here with two assholes."

We Are Better Than This.

I had a coach years ago who whenever we would do something wrong would say, "You're better than that!" That's how I feel about the United States right now. Surely, we are better than this. The trouble is that it's hard to find the evidence, since good news doesn't sell. Until this morning.

I posted the story on my Facebook page about a chance encounter between a mother who was about to go into labor and two strangers an hour away. To read about it is like taking a long hot shower after a day of yard work. Here's what happened:

A lady was about to go into labor at a hospital somewhere in Florida or Georgia. So she sent out a group text to family and friends appraising everyone of the situation. One of the people on her group text no longer used the cell number she had...so it was sent to someone else. The young man who received the text replied something like, "Ha, I think this text was meant for someone else, but congratulations!" When the expectant parents apologized for the mistake, the stranger replied, "no problem, my brother and I will come by later to get pictures with your baby!" What followed was about the sweetest, most decent thing I've run across in a very long time. Even though the hospital in question was over an hour's drive from the young man, Dennis Williams along with his brother Deorick not only made the drive, but incredibly, thought to stop at a store and buy some diapers, pacifiers and bottles as gifts.

Listen, we live in a screwed up world. Each morning's news paper is like a roll call of human failure. But, there are still good people all around us. Decent human beings who can take a half a day to drive an hour to bring gifts to a total stranger to help them celebrate the birth of their child. This story is made even more wonderful because these two stalwart human beings are African-Americans, and the new parents are white. 

God bless the Williams brothers for their generous spirits and for proving to all of us that we can be...better than this.

Brussels

This time, it was Brussels, another suicide bomb attack in an airport and a subway station. 30 killed, hundreds wounded. The bombs contained nails, we were told. There's a video showing terrified travelers cowering behind their luggage. There are grisly photographs of the carnage and one grainy one of the bombers walking through the airport minutes before the detonation. I stared at it for several minutes, wondering what must have been going through their minds at such a moment. Were they afraid? Ecstatic at the prospect of their virgins? Or simply ablaze with religious zeal, delirious at the thought of administering judgement on the infidels?

The President of France made a statement. Something about how an attack on Brussels was an attack on all of Europe. Our President inserted a 51 second diversion from his prepared remarks in Cuba to express solidarity with the Belgian people. Later, during remarks to an ESPN reporter at a baseball game, he mentioned how this latest attack was another reminder of how the world needed to stand together against terrorism and violence. Some commentator mentioned NATO and the words of it's charter which require us, the U.S. to respond militarily. Another pundit mentioned that these types of attacks seem to target European cities rather than American one's of late. Yet another spoke of the symbolism and propaganda victory it was for ISIS to pull off an attack in the literal capital of the European Union and headquarters of NATO.

Our Presidential candidates held to form. Donald Trump immediately called for tighter control of our border and tightened immigration. Hillary Clinton immediately dispatched a Tweet declaring that "Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism." I would have thought that this Tweet might have sounded less rediculously clueless had she used the modifier..."most,". 

The European commentariat took to drawing touching cartoons of weeping Belgians being comforted by their empathetic EU brothers. The Eiffle Tower was lit up in Belgian colors last night. Soon, hashtag campaigns will sprout up like daffodils in April. My Facebook feed will become festooned with the Belgian flag. We will all become Belgian for a week. Then we will go back to our lives and wait for the next great city of western civilization to be besieged. Who will it be? Prague? Berlin, Budapest, Barcelona? Munich, Madrid, Valencia? Whoever it turns out to be, we can be relied upon to express solidarity with the victims, and to pledge to do whatever it takes to wipe out the scourge of international terrorism from the face of the earth.

That, and a couple of lira might buy you a cappuccino in Valencia.

Thinking Nervously About Noah

"Americans More Skeptical of God Than Ever..." was the headline that caught my eye on Drudge this morning. 

On a related note, God Isn't Terribly Thrilled With Us At The Moment Either, would have been a nice companion story.

Every few years we see these surveys taken which attempt to measure the religious beliefs of Americans. All of the trends seem to suggest that we have lost or are in the process of losing our faith. There is plenty of room for quibbling with the data. While belief in God is declining, interest in spirituality had been on the upswing...until this latest survey which has even that slipping away. In addition, belief in God and membership and identification with one of the many churches claiming to represent him are two different things. But even here, the numbers don't look good. Membership and attendance are way down across the board. All of which leaves me with the nagging question of, which came first? Have we abandoned our faith because we have become such horrible, selfish people...or have we become horrible, selfish people because we have abandoned our faith? I'll leave that one to the theologians.

As I survey the world around me, I come to the inescapable conclusion that if I were God, I would wash my hands of all of us. God is patient and kind and long suffering, we are informed by the book of Psalms. Well, it's a good thing, or we would all be toast. When I observe how we treat each other down here, the greed, the hatred, the ugliness, I've got to think that there's a part of God that is getting increasingly pissed off. Back in Noah's day, we learned that God's famous forebearence had limits. The stuff they were doing back then seems like entry level degradation compared to a typical Tuesday afternoon on the Internet today.

At this point, I'd settle for some basic human decency. Sometimes, I'll find some story of a homeless guy who stumbles across a wad of 100 dollar bills that has fallen out of someone's pocket. I watch the video of the guy spending 15 minutes trying to find the owner, then when that fails he finds some of his homeless friends and shares his largesse with all of them. On the one hand, the story warms my heart, on the other hand it shames me because I know that most "respectable people" in a similar situation might have tried (briefly) to find the owner, but afterwards would have pocketed every red nickel. Would I have sought out five of my friends to share the money with? Uh...no. This, I believe is at the root of our problem.mthe more stuff we have, the less important our fellow man becomes to us. The homeless guy has nothing, except those he shares his life on the streets with. They are his prized possessions. The words of Jesus ring true, "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

What Do I Want For My Birthday?

Exactly two weeks from today, I will endure another birthday. It will be my 58th. Pretty soon my wife will ask me what I want for my birthday. I will offer one of my famously frustrating answers, "I really can't think of anything. Whatever you get will be fine." She will rightly point out that this is not an answer. The problem is that everything that I want is either too expensive, or too theoretical. How exactly to you wrap up, calmness? In what size box do you place, peace?

Don't misunderstand me, I have many reasons to celebrate April the 3rd, not the least of which is that it sure beats the alternative. In ways large and small, I have lived a blessed life. It has featured more victory than defeat, more health than illness, and more wealth than poverty. It was my very good fortune to be raised by two extraordinary parents, and surrounded by three loving siblings. I married far beyond my station and brought two exemplary children into this world. I received a hard won education, started and built a business of my own from scratch. Along the way I have found friends to share it all with. And yet...

This is where one must be careful. It is difficult to speak of anxiety and disenchantment without sounding like a whiner. Indeed, it may be impossible. We are about to find out, I suppose. This year, as I approach April 3rd, I do so with an odd heaviness, a weight of doubt. Many things contribute to the weight, and none of them particularly stand out as the prime culprit. In no particular order, here they are...

1. I miss my kids.

My children are grown and gone, and this is a fabulous and happy thing. Both of them have become independent adults, valuable additions to their communities and terrific human beings. I am quite proud of both of them. My oldest, Kaitlin, a world class teacher of the English language to middle schoolers, married a fabulous young man who has proven his mettle both as a husband and provider. My son, Patrick, is a hard working businessman and musician who has carved out a nice life for himself the old fashioned way...by working hard and well. The trouble with all of this is that they are miles and miles away from us. Columbia, South Carolina and Nashville, Tennessee are not cities where you drop by for dinner when you live in Short Pump, Virginia. So, they live and build their full lives without us. Yes, we text, talk and FaceTime. Yes, we plan vacations together. But, neither of them are here, and that fact has left a vacuum. When they start having kids of their own the vacuum will become a canyon.

2. Running a business isn't nearly as fulfilling as starting one.

Establishing myself in the investment advisory business was no small feat. I nearly quit a hundred times. But eventually, I was able to make a go of it, and it has been a rewarding career. Of course, the hand maiden of my work is often debilitating stress. As a younger man, I never gave it a second thought. The older I have gotten, the harder it has become to manage. 

3. I miss my parents.

My mom died nearly four years ago. My dad followed her two years later. I have never fully recovered from their loss. I don't weep, I'm not paralyzed by depression. But hardly a week goes by when at least once I think of how much I want to pick up the phone and hear their voices on the other end of the line. There are so many things I wish I could tell them, things I want to ask them about. But, it's too late for that. Instead, I must rely on my increasingly faded memories.

4. I have become spiritually homeless.

It has been a long, slow process, but I have become disconnected from the Baptist denomination in general and my home church of 27 years in particular. Most of this disconnection is my own fault. There is nothing especially horrible about my church. In many ways it is a remarkable place with a proud and noble heritage of faith. For me, it has become irrelevant to the realities of life in 2016. Nothing much has changed about the place since I joined as a young man. As life has gotten more complicated and much more serious, it's casual air of informality has begun to irritate me. I guess I'm longing for spiritually sterner stuff, something which finds its roots in an earlier century, a liturgy that wasn't conjured up in the 1950's, but rather closer to AD 50.

But, enough with all of this self reflection. What do I want for my birthday? It's simple really:

I want a week in Key West, in a villa on Sunset Key where Jon and Kaitlin can have one bedroom, Patrick's wonderful girlfriend, Sarah, can have another, and Patrick can sleep on a pull out sofa in the den. Pam and I will have the master bedroom which has its own private deck overlooking the blue ocean. While we are there, the stock market will go up every day, and all of my clients will be deliriously happy with their portfolios in my absence. At the end of a sandy road in an obscure corner of the island, we will find an Evangelical-Anglican-Holiness church with a 100 voice choir and sixty piece professional orchestra, where the guest speaker will be a hologram of C.S. Lewis. After a thunderous adaptation of an anthem by Handel, special music will be supplied by Steven Curtis Chapman accompanying himself on a Martin six string after he shared the inspiring story of the lives of Emmett and Betty Dunnevant.

Got all that, Pam?