Proud to be an American?

It's the day after the high holy American Civil Religion holiday. I'm sitting here pondering the whole concept of the 4th and I'm finding that my emotions and thoughts are fairly mixed. Yes, I am thankful for many things about this country. At the same time, I have such disgust. That's a difficult thing for an ENFP.

We live in a country that banters loudly "God bless America" yet we seem to forget that God blesses the other nations of the world too. Sometimes, I get the sense that people think that the US is the New Israel - the new Promised Land - and that we take such pride in that. Yet, paradoxically, we fail to take responsibility and to live as co-creators. We have starving people up the ying-yang, many without homes, people who have to claim bankruptcy when they face medical crises, and illegal immigrants that are the new outcasts in the eyes and minds of so many Pharisiacal citizens. We are a country that worships money, getting ahead, and bad theology. There are some things about this country that really irk and sadden me. It's hard to worship or celebrate a place where politics has sunk to the GW levels it has and where we fail to truly strive to live in a just, loving society.

Yesterday morning, I watched an MSNBC special about WalMart - otherwise known in our home as the Evil Empire. While even I have to admit (grudgingly) that there are some redeeming qualities about the mega-MNC, their belief system - as fanatical as a fundamentalist on a rampage - causes my heart to sink. Money and Sam Walton are their gods - everything is focused around these icons. Small, locally owned businesses are decimated and employees are paid substandard and non-living wages. The half who have access to insurance can barely afford their portion of the health care premiums - unless you are the CEO or CFO who make $14 million/year. The suppliers are encouraged to outsource...yeah, there's a pro-American ideal. Many products are produced in China so we can fill our houses with cheap crap that we really don't need. There are 5,000 lawsuits pending against Walmart at any given time. It was said that Walmart is simply the touchstone for the ills and challenges of the USA. Perhaps that is true. But what stunned me was the nonchalance with which this was said - why not set an example and change those challenges? Why not lead the way in helping to solve the ills? No, instead, there was a ho-hum "oh well" attitude that made me ill. Another American touchstone: It Must Be Someone Else's Fault, Not My Responsibility. Argh.

Yet, I must say that I am thankful for the freedom I have to write this. I doubt anyone will knock my door down and force me to remove the post. I doubt I'll be arrested for standing against the tides of ACR. Freedom of Speech is a precious thing that we probably all take for granted.

My New T-Shirt

I just bought a new t-shirt from Zazzle.com! Here's what it says:


Because I couldn't help myself, I wore it to my local clergy group. I affectionately refer to them as "the boys." The group is made up of pastors from the UCC, Methodist, Catholic, local fundy church and my congregation.

The UCC'er, upon seeing the shirt, loved it. The Methodist tried to pretend he wasn't reading it. He also addressed his prayer before our meal to "Heavenly Father" and threw in a couple "Father God"s along the way. The local fundy just plainly didn't get it. With a confused look on his face, he said, "Is that a good thing????" "Oh yes!" I replied. "It means that I too can be made in God's image!" He just looked at me with complete bewilderment.

Sometimes I just love messing with people.

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Mitt Romney Scares the Hell Out of Me

After a week (well...beginning on Wednesday) of sprinting a ministry marathon including several multi-hour trips to and at the next town's hospital, two congregation deaths, a funeral, a major Minky meltdown this afternoon, the worst confirmation class ever, and a migraine (big surprise huh?), I turned on the Republican debate after a nap (or shall I call it an exhausted collapse?). Yep, I really know how to relax - watch the candidates from the political party that disgusts me on many levels.

Mitt Romney dared to assert some ridiculous statistic that many uninsured people in the USA make over $70,000/year. On issue after issue, it was crystal clear that this guy doesn't get it. I also wonder how he can call himself a Christian* when so many of his policies are so full of injustice (my major beef with Republicans overall but even more so with this nut). I'm glad to hear that he's slipped in the polls. I think I'd have to move to Canada if American voters were stupid enough to elect this guy.

* - I know some Christians don't consider Mormons to be Christian, but my understanding is that Mormons think of themselves as Christians.

I'll never lose my keys again!

As many of you know, I am notorious for losing my keys, my Palm Pilot, my remote control, my sanity...

Years ago as I perused that cool mail order catalog found in the seat pocket in front of me, I came across the Sharper Image pages. Ever since, I have coveted the remote control finder thing. Last week, I finally gave in and bought one.

It arrived yesterday and now I'm hooked! The remote has a locator, the cell phone has one, my Palm Pilot has one. I may even put one on the dog and on Minky (ok...just kidding). Whenever an item can't be found, you just get the locator (conveniently kept on the fridge using a magnetized base) and press the appropriate button and BEEP BEEP BEEP! Too cool.

The genius who created the device even answered Rab's skeptical concern: what if you lose the base? Not so fast, oh skeptic! The base has a setting for an alarm that will sound if the locator is left off the base.

The person who designed this device is my hero. As long as I remember, anyway.

Now I've Seen It All

I just sorted through my mail. Millions of trees could be saved each year just from the junk mail that pastors receive. Today, I received the straw that broke this camel's back: an ad for solvefamilyproblems.com. This mailing has the following ad (caps are theirs):

A couple comes in with Marriage Problems...
You can see that Anger is part of the root problem. Instead of you taking several hours to walk with them through how to deal with this problem of Anger, you are able to send home the DVD's of "Anger the Destroyer" and "God's Way to Deal with Your Wrong Emotions" for them to watch over the next week.

I'm so glad to know TV and technology can now take over for my pastoral care pains. God knows that as a pastor the last thing I want to do is build relationships and walk with my parishoners. Maybe the next series will provide sermons so I don't have to preach... I wonder if people can be baptized by DVD too.

At least I'm a warm idiot

This morning, the temperature at 7 a.m. was -19 with a wind chill that made it feel like -35. That's below zero. Fahrenheit.

I had to go up to the gas station to buy stickers for our extra post-move garbage. It's only a block away, so Sony and I walked up there. We donned our ski pants, sweaters, long johns, snow boots and parkas. One block was do-able. After all, it's warmed up to zero with a wind chill making it feel like only -15F. It's downright balmy.

Having survived the climate, I found some deeply-buried bravery and decided to head to the pharmacy to transfer a prescription. I walked in with my below zero wardrobe only to see the locals in regular shoes, regular coats, no gloves and no hats. For a minute, I felt like a fool in my bright yellow and green Oregon Duck coat. Then I decided, I'd rather stick out like a sore thumb as someone obviously-not-from-around-here then freeze my butt off or stick to the sidewalk like a frozen Oregon Duck popsicle.

I'm beginning to get a bit testy

We put our offer in on the 1.6 acre house last Tuesday night. The deadline was yesterday. The realtor has heard nothing and is not calling me back. This is all making me crabby. People! I'd like to buy a house, dammit!

Today in the Church...

I used to be very committed to The Today Show on NBC. For whatever reason, I've gotten out of the habit. But today, I turned it on and I am so glad I did. In addition to learning about issues of supreme importance like This Season's Trendiest Skirts, Celebrity Chrushes, and the Horrors of British Petroleum, I just saw a wonderful interview with Katharine Jefferts Schori, the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA. She is a second career minister and has only been ordained for 12 years. Now she's the first woman to lead a major US mainline denomination. I was so impressed with her. She's one of my new heroes. Click here to see the interview then follow the link 2/3rd of the way down the page.

In other religious news, it appears that Rev. Ted Haggard, apparently some famous evangelical (I've never heard of him, but then again he doesn't run with my crowd of religious people...), just stepped down as leader of the National Association of Evangelicals amidst sexual indescretion allegations. Unfortunately, he is a vocal opponent of gay rights. Ironically, the allegations apparently involve assertions that he had a gay relationship.

I'm really getting sick of a couple things: (1) people who forget the gospel message and get all in a dither about the morality of others while forgetting to worry about their own, and (2) pastors and church leaders of any denomination who can't keep their pants on.

This is NOT ok

It's snowing. It's 37 degrees with an 18-27 mph wind. Weather.com tells me it feels like 27 degrees outside. And I don't mean 27 celcius. It is October 12. It is technically still Autumn. This is an outrage. This weather is obnoxious. It makes me crabby. I'm not ready for this.

My dad tells me it is 72 in Portland. I love Portland. I miss Portland. 72 is an acceptable October temperature in my book.

My mother informed me last night that it was 92 degrees in Palm Desert, California. That's 33 celcius. But with the brisk 11 mph wind, it feels like a chilly 86. That sounds just great to me.

The forecast for Santa Barbara next week looks promising. It should be around 70 degrees. I may just have to miss my return flight.

Countdown to Buffett concert: 7 days including today.

What I've learned about teachers

In my four days of experience as a para-professional (aka teacher's aide), here is what I've learned:

1. Time. Every minute counts, usually anyway.
a. When 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 minutes are left in a time period, there is always something that the kids can accomplish in that timeframe. For example, "There's 4 minutes until recess. Please work on your spelling homework until recess time." This is a crazy phenomena to me.
b. Being a minute or two off schedule is no problem, being 5 minutes off schedule is problematic - even if all the clocks in the building are not syncronized and range within an 8 minute window.

2. Teachers love to recycle even a scrap of paper less than 1" x 1"

3. The teacher's lounge.
a. Teachers don't talk bad about kids in the teacher's lounge. Instead, if they talk about the kids at all, it's with compassion and care.
b. Probably less than 15% are welcoming and hospitable to a newcomer. The other 85% just kind of ignore you.

4. The majority of teachers (at least all the ones I've met) are dedicated, caring professionals that are great at what they do. Paraprofessionals tend to be a mixed bag, but the great ones are great.

5. Teachers, like Lutherans in neighboring churches, appear to all be related in one way or another to teachers in other nearby schools.

Oh...my...I can't believe people live like this

This morning, I had a 2 hour training stint with a potential client for what some have come to call my taking-care-of-old-people job. One of the people who works with this client showed me the ropes. We'll call the client Bre (as in Desperate Housewives) and the worker Saint. I feel like I just had a glimpse into what the 63rd season of Desperate Housewives might be like.

Bre has very, very specific expectations. Certain foods are placed before her at breakfast time and only after those are eaten is the rest of breakfast prepared and set before her. Everything is measured to the nth degree and glasses are filled to specific heights. Saint happily goes through all of these details with a Edith Bunker "well whatcha gonna do" charm.



It just gets worse from there. As I learned the following details, I went from feeling like I was in an episode of Desperate Housewives, The Senior Years to a scene from Sleeping with the Senior Citizen Enemy. The pillows on the bed are each separated by a handtowel and must barely go around the puff of the pillow. Doors must always be kept closed and locked. Lights must be kept off unless currently needed. Every morsel of food has a specific place. Cans must be stacked neatly and in order and labels must face outward. Food that is thrown away is wrapped (!) before being put in the garbge can, and, get this: plastic grocery bags are folded! and put away in a closet for later use (note: the bags cannot be folded on the kitchen counter - only downstairs) Also, the garbage bag from the kitchen cannot touch the kitchen floor. No kidding. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I imagined bringing TT over to Bre's house.

Yeah...so when the working-with-old-people office called me to ask how my morning went, I told them I had to be honest and share my feelings as noted in today's headline. After all, if we're going to categorize based on the Desperate Housewives type inventory, I'm mostly a Lynette with a dash of Susan. I'm completely, definitely, certainly not a Bre (years of therapy erased any trace of that possibility, thank God!), nor am I willing to work for one. I'm not that Desperate.

The Prophecy Gopher

In searching for a rapture picture on Google images, I came across this website. It is very scary or very funny, depending upon your theological grounding. If you're in need of a spiritual health checkup, these folks can provide not only an examination but a handy dandy retort to any faith doubts you might be experiencing. They also have a human population clock which gives up to the second counts of our over-populated world (did you know nobody dies in the moments leading up to the rapture?!! I checked the clock over a 10-15 minute period and it never decreased. Wow.)

And, Shana, they even have this little fella...he can link you to PROOF that the Rapture is near! You've been right all along my friend -- groundhogs, gophers and other short-legged rodent creatures are trouble.

This latest find may be even more entertaining than this one that Shana's sister hooked us onto awhile back. Little Lamb-whats-his-name can tell you what to do if you come across an atheist (you gotta click on the goat's mouth to see all his sayings!), how to avoid temptation on one's way to church, and how many gods you have.

The scariest thing...these people are serious. The other scariest thing...they vote.

Now I can never leave...

Aaaaahhhh. I came back to town after a couple days away at an interview and behold! What did I see? The Promised Land. Eden. Heaven. The land of the coffee muse framed by blue skies and white puffy clouds. The beauty of the Starbuckian Queen high atop the building. The scents of steaming mochas. The sounds of milk being steamed. What do you know, maybe all that talk about this being God's country is true.

And it's even a DRIVE THROUGH paradise! What more could a post-moder n girl ask for?

How could I possibly even consider leaving this thriving metropolis now?