Great. Now I have Guilt!

Several months ago, I signed up for the Mentoring ministry at my church. It was an eight month commitment whereby mature men and women get paired with two younger men or women in a mentoring relationship. Now, before you all start giggling at the thought of me being considered a mature man, two things...one, my church doesn’t really know me very well, I’m new, and second, they were obviously grading on a curve. Nevertheless, I made the cut. I was expecting to be paired with two twenty-something guys fresh out of college trying to make their way in the world. Instead, I was introduced to two older guys, sharp, accomplished men, one in his late 30’s the other in his late 40’s who both happened to be new to the faith. We meet every two weeks for coffee and conversation. There is no curriculum. What guidance I receive comes to me via weekly e-mail from my man, Tommy Thompson, who heads up the program at Hope. That’s a roundabout way of introducing this morning’s subject, which comes courtesy of Tommy’s most recent email in the form of the following killer quote:

“We must have some room to breathe. We need freedom to think and permission to heal. Our relationships are being starved to death by velocity. No one has the time to listen, let alone love. Our children lay wounded on the ground, run over by our high-speed good intentions. Is God now pro-exhaustion? Doesn’t He lead people beside the still waters anymore?” (Swenson, Margin, p.30)

Ok. When you read the words, Is God now pro-exhaustion, at 6 o’clock in the morning, it startles you, right? First of all, I’m bummed that I didn’t think of it first...what a great line!! But almost immediately after reading it I felt guilty. Here’s why.

I just came off a week of being sick with a really bad cold. It hampered my activities for practically the entire week. I had to cancel appointments, reschedule a bunch of things. I was only in the office for maybe a total of a day and a half. The rest of my time was spent laying around the house coughing and feeling miserable. For the first week in years I had not a single workout at the gym. In other words, I had eliminated all of the velocity from my life. I had all kinds of time to think, heal and breathe. The trouble was...I hated every minute of it. Sure, part of the hate part was because I was sick. But part of me felt totally out of the game, abandoned by life.

Here’s the thing, everything in the quote Tommy sent me is true. I know it in my gut. But, I’m a high motor kind of guy who comes from a family of high motors. One of the most hilarious things ever is watching my sister Linda during beech week trying to...relax. She’s like a jack-in-the-box on speed! Although I have never been diagnosed, my siblings considerate it an established fact that i have ADHD, a vicious slander of course, but just for the sake of argument, lets say that they’re right? All of this slowing down, taking time to smell the roses, living a more contemplative life sounds great on paper, but when it comes to applying it, I feel like Ralph Northam getting six chapters through Roots, saying, Man, this is harder than i thought!

This coming week is jammed with one thing after another, due to all of last week’s inactivity, but the truth is, I’m psyched. So, thanks...Tommy Thompson, for giving me another reason to think that maybe my guys should be mentoring me instead of the others way around!

My Money’s On Ralph

Ladies and gentlemen, Gov. Ralph Northam, D, Virginia is not going anywhere.

What we have witnessed over the last 7 days has been nothing less than a master stroke of survival. This man makes Machiavelli look like a wallflower. No one currently in public life has demonstrated a better understanding of the moment we are in than Ralph Northam. Despite the initial ham-fisted apologies and tortured explanations, and despite the fact that during the most crucial press conference of his life, he came within a nanosecond of performing the moonwalk, Ralph Northam survived. Ralph knows. Ralph gets it. Ralph understands the moment.

Ralph knows that the people of Virginia, like the rest of America, have an attention span of a toddler. Sure, the fire might be hot for the first 48 hours, but each day after that it cools. Ralph also knows that the Press also has a short attention span. They might be in high drugeon when the story breaks, but after a few days it’s like...squirrel!!!

So, Ralph didn’t become Governor by accident. He may have sold himself as the kindly old family doctor, but inside burns the heart of an egotistical tiger, who had to be willing to crush his opposition as he grew in statue in Democratic Party circles. Along the way, he picked up a select group of shady characters who’s job it was to gather background information on all of his potential impediments to power. That information was intended to be kept locked away in a safe place and only used in an emergency. When his yearbook photos emerged, Ralph had his emergency. In less than a week, his two fellow Democrats who just happen to be the two guys who would be constitutionally next up as his replacement have found themselves in even worse shape then he. What are the odds? Somebody read The Prince!

So, in this battle, my money’s on Ralph.

Get Ready For Mediocrity

The world spins slower when you’re sick. You feel more observer than participant. This is the primary reason why I hate it so. Watching your day go by from a safe distance without being in the mix is profoundly frustrating. I sit at my library desk, staring at my computer screen, bracing myself against the next coughing spasm. I drink gallons of water and obsessively wash my hands more than Howard Hughes. There is a feather covered brick lodged in my lungs that I have convinced myself will come flying out fully formed if only I can hack hard enough. After hundreds of attempts, it remains firmly intact.

I’ve had time over the past couple of days to read up on the Commonwealth of Virginia’s troubles, which can be summed up by the headline in the New York Post...Virginia is for Losers. My pride of place bucks up at such an accusation coming from a newspaper from the State of New York, which has vomited up on the Republic not one, but Two Cuomo’s. What in the name of all that is holy did the rest of us do to deserve that? Nevertheless, it hasn’t been the best couple of weeks for the State that gave the world George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.

Watching men roughly my age be brought low by photographic evidence of stupidity from 35 years ago has been sobering. Although I never would have been caught dead at a party which featured either blackface or Klansmen, that is not the same thing as saying that I never did anything shameful when I was a college student. Frankly, I have put much of what transpired between the years 1978 and 1982 out of my mind, a defense mechanism to protect my carefully constructed self image. But, selective amnesia doesn’t have unlimited storage space. Some things can’t be forgotten.

There exists in all of us a rebellion gene. In some of us it gets surpressed, others allow it to blossom in all of it’s foolish glory. In the years referenced above, I let my rebellion freak flag fly. Even though the most audacious examples of that rebellion were short lived, my tendency towards rebellion has never fully retreated. I’ve always chafed against...the rules, and the rule makers. Over time, I have forged an uneasy peace with the established order, but it has always been part of my natural state to question and challenge those in authority over me. Depending on your philosophy, this is either a noble virtue or a character flaw. But, it lies at the heart of my concern over what has happened to the top three elected officials in my State.

As disappointing as it has been to discover that two men who have made their political bones by signaling their virtue on matters of race, checking all the right policy boxes, and casting aspersions over their opponent’s commitment to same, have been found to have been rank hypocrites, should these types of youthful sins be grounds for expulsion from public life? Does anyone truly believe that a man like Ralph Northam still holds the same views about race as he did in college? Nothing in his public life as an adult would suggest any such thing. And yet, because of these 35 year old photographs, nearly everyone in Virginia politics is calling for his scalp. Seriously? Will this now be the standard going forward? No matter what contributions you have made to your community and country, no matter how much valor you have earned serving the Republic, all could be destroyed by a single photograph of some debauchery from your misspent youth? Really? What of grace? What of forgiveness? Can not some balance be found on the scales of justice between youthful stupidity and a record of admirable public service?

I shudder to think of what would become of my reputation if photographic evidence of my worst moments as a college student were introduced into the public record. I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one. The bad choices made in my youth are things about which I have prayed for and received forgiveness. I have learned from those mistakes. The experiences I had during those years ultimately have made me a better man, more sympathetic to others who have screwed their lives up, less likely to judge, more willing to offer grace. But, I cant erase them from the history of my life, nor would I want to. But, if we have now decided that bad choices made during youth disqualify a man or woman from leadership, then we will soon be lead by a great army of blandness, men and women without blemish, but also without the correcting scars of an adventurous life. Men and women who are devoted to rule following obedience and spotless resume building seldom accomplish great things. The best and most courageous men and women of history have been flawed. Are we now committed to flawless leaders? If so, we better get ready for mediocrity.

Suggestions, Please?

I am a business owner in America which means that among other things, I have to provide my own health insurance. As a 60 year old husband of but one wife with no children living at home this means I pay over $1,300 a month to Anthem. This purchases for me and my wife what amounts to catastrophic coverage, since before Anthem pays a dime on my behalf, I must accumulate over $3,500 in medical bills in a calendar year. My wife must do the same. To cover this gap in reimbursement, I established a health savings account (HSA) years ago, into which I currently contribute roughly $500 a month. If you’re playing along at home, that means that I spend upwards of $21,000 a year for health insurance before my insurance company pays a dime. Let’s set aside for a moment how preposterous this arrangement is, and instead concentrate on one of the many conundrums which it presents to me each and every year.

The idea behind the HSA is sound. The hope is that on the years where I don’t ever go to the doctor, the money builds up exactly like any other savings account. If years from now there is a surplus in this account, I will be able to use it for any expense that I wish. At least that was the theory. In reality, there haven’t been very many years when doctors were not a fixture of my schedule. Getting older presents you with a bulging stack of business cards which feature the letters, Dr.

So, here’s my problem. Three days ago, I woke up with a sore throat. Over the next 24 hours the sore throat was joined by a hacking cough. Now, three days in, my throat is still sore, the coughing has gotten worse and now I’m sneezing a dozen or more times a day and can’t summon enough energy and enthusiasm to make a ham sandwich, let alone do my job. I have no fever or body aches, so it would seem that it is not the flu. So...what do I do?

I can waddle over to Patient First, sit in their waiting room surrounded by a dozen other people who all look and sound as if they have the bubonic plague, then an hour and a half later be informed by a doctor(?) that I have a cold, drink plenty of water, take these antibiotics and that will be $145 please. Or, I can save the cash outlay, go over to the drug store and find these babies...

...the DayQuil/NyQuil Walgreens knock-off on sale for $7.99. The question I pose to this audience is a simple one. Which is the better deal? Which strategy will result in a faster recovery? If you’re a hypochondriac I would rather not hear your opinion, but if you are either a doctor or nurse, or play one on TV, your recommendations will be welcomed.

Thank You.

Scandalous Photographs From MY Past

Ralph Northam and I are almost the same age. We attended college at about the same time. His fate...being brought low by a damaging photograph from 35 years ago...has gotten me to wondering and worrying myself. Are there possibly scandalous photographs lurking out there of me doing something foolish? From ages 17-22, I wasn’t exactly a paragon of virtue myself. If my mother were alive she would refer to that five year time period as the years that the locust ate, or some other Old Testament formulation designed to make back-sliding sound far more sinister. Well...I have come down with a cold over the past couple of days which has left me with some down time on my hands. I have used this down time to try to get out in front of any damaging photos that might be revealed by my enemies. In my research, alas...I have much to answer for...

I do not believe that this is, in fact, me. I can’t imagine any circumstance where I would have voluntarily agreed to wear this shirt with that sweater vest, especially on picture day, 1974...my sophomore year in high school. Certainly, this does not represent the man I have become. I am willing to open a dialogue about middle 70’s fashion choices and learn from this ghastly example of poor judgement.

When I graduated from high school, my best friend and I celebrated our passage into adulthood by doing something very un-adult. Instead of entering college like the rest of our friends, we decided to load up the car with backpacking equipment and travel across the country visiting as many national parks, states, and bars as we could before our life savings of $1,000 each ran out. This would have been the summer of 1976. It was an election year. Alert readers will notice that the car in question was festooned with a brand new, hot off the press Jimmy Carter ‘76 bumper sticker. Yes...my very first Presidential vote was cast for Mr. Peanut. 

When I was a little boy, my siblings all agree that I was an out of control ADHD maniac who spent his days and nights getting away with murder and terrorizing them with world class obnoxiousness. This unfortunate photograph lends great credence to their claims. That’s me, surrounded by my two sisters and a bevy of cousins, held firmly in place by my big sister Linda. Perhaps I was just having a bad day. Maybe I was the one being terrorized by this all-female entourage. Nevertheless, this was not my best look.

This photograph deserves answers. First of all, yes...that hair is real, and yes...its a perm. And no, I have no idea what I was thinking at the time. The t-shirt, however, was quite well thought out and sadly does not speak well of my state of mind with regards to women... It’s a picture of the Quaker Oats man. Underneath is written his famous tag line...Nothing Is Better For Thee Than Me....my misogynistic mindset on full display. The fact that it was a babe-magnet just adds to my sense of shame.

Last, but certainly not least was the disastrous three months where I went all in on the Pimp Look. I look like Don Cornelious’s brother from another mother. It was a dark time in my life...

It is my sincere, heartfelt wish that everyone will forgive me these youthful indiscretions and allow me to learn from them. I ask you all to honor my privacy at this time.

Let’s Just Enjoy the Ducks

The Super Bowl is over and done with, finally ushering football off the national stage and not a minute too soon. In a mere 59 days baseball will begin and all will be right with the world. As far as the game goes, it was another example of that old adage about how nothing is guaranteed in life except death, taxes, and Patriots win.

A funny story...after the game was over I started scanning through social media and saw a hilarious post from a friend of mine. When it comes to politics, this particular friend  makes Bernie Sanders look like a Rotarian. I paraphrase his post below:

The Patriots are white privilege personified. You think the playing field is equal, but somehow they always end up on top. Most people suspect the system is rigged in their favor, but they insist that they merely play the game better than everyone else.

My immediate reaction...after spewing my Sam Adams across the room laughing...was to comment, Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the winning pickup line heard last night at Fidel’s Woke Sports Bar and Grill!!

I see this sort of thing all the time on social media. Everything, and I do mean everything gets reduced down to politics. The personal is political. If someone is a huge Trump guy, every single thing that happens in life becomes about him. If you’re all about social justice, even your dentist appointment becomes a metaphor about the evils of capitalism. 

Sure, sometimes I imagine that a duck could possible be emblematic of how the patriarchy has poisoned the bourgeois ethos...but my trick knee tells me that the vast majority of the time, a duck is just a duck. But, as my Dad told me years ago...When you’re a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.

So, this morning my advice to all of you is simple. Today, lets all take off our ideological glasses and just enjoy the ducks.

Tough Week To Be a Virginian

One of my mother’s most frequent and reliable warnings to us kids was...Be sure your sins will find you out. We all knew exactly what she meant...that no matter how airtight your alibi, no matter how slick and calculated your story, no matter how completely you may have covered your tracks...the truth had a way of muscling itself into the light of day eventually. In Mom’s telling, this was a result of the hand of God. She took seriously the words of the Apostle Paul...God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. 

It’s been a tough week to be a Virginian. Our governor has been splashed all over television and computer screens across the fruited plain, first for his cavalier endorsement of infantacide followed quickly by his racist medical school yearbook photos. In just a few short days, Ralph Northam went from an obscure southern governor who nobody had ever heard of to the most notorious politician in the country...and when that country includes Donald Trump in the Oval Office...thats saying something.

Of course, in politics often the coverup is worse than the crime. With Northam, his tortured response to the photos has been a disaster. First, he apologized but couldn’t or wouldn’t reveal which racist character he was dressed as, the guy in blackface or the dude in the Klan getup. Then, upon further review and no doubt on the advice of his PR team, he denied either one was him with the ludicrous formulation...I vividly don’t remember. At this hour, he still clings to power, hoping that the infinitesimally short attention span of the American people will wipe this whole kerfuffle from everyone’s consciousness by the middle of next week at the latest.

Let me attempt a defense of our embattled liberal democrat governor.

First, with regard to the now distant memory of his infantacide radio interview. In its immediate aftermath, my Facebook wall exploded with outraged pro-life memes. Several people tried to make the case that the governor supported delivering completely healthy babies onto a table, then allowing the mother one last chance to back out of motherhood via a three minute discussion, after which the healthy infant would be murdered in cold blood. This wasn’t at all what he was saying. If, like me, you cling to the notion that all life is sacred, even disabled life, his actual comments were objectionable enough without this unfair twisting of his words.

With regards to the yearbook pictures...This is a full stop horrible thing. To discover that the man who hurled accusations of racism at his opponent just over a year ago would be caught dead as either one of these men in the sickening photograph is a grave disappointment, not to mention an example of staggering hypocrisy. Yes, it was a long time ago. But, I went to college a long time ago too, and I saw my share of bad things at parties. Although I was no choir boy then or now, my parents did a good enough job of filling my head with the idea that racism was an indefensible evil, that the sight of anyone in a Klan robe or blackface would have been an automatic order to leave said party, let alone participate in such a thing.

But...do I think that Ralph Northam is a racist? That’s an entirely different question. Looking at the evidence of his life over the past thirty years, I would say, no. Is it fair then to punish him with exile from his duly elected position in government because of such an old transgression? I would hate to be judged by practically anything I did and said 40 years ago. On many subjects, 21 year old Doug Dunnevant was an intemperate moron. But, Doug Dunnevant isn’t governor of the Commonmwealth of Virginia. If you live by identity politics, if your political rise was helped along by being a merchant of the grievance industry, eventually you die by identity politics. I don’t believe that Ralph Northam is the same man he was in 1984. I believe that like all of us, he has progressed in his thinking and in his character since then. But honestly, his humiliating performance since this yearbook story broke has damaged him more than his yearbook decisions from 35 years ago. His stubborn attempt to cling to power, his willingness to demean himself and his office with these ridiculous and tortured explanations of the unexplainable have revealed him to be the personification of everything we all hate about politicians, their inability to just tell the freaking truth.