Warren-less Wiretap

It’s sleeting outside and very cold. We’ve got a fire in the hearth, and are assuming that, at the very least life will be delayed a few hours tomorrow morning. The dogs are grateful for their position under the kitchen table, and we had a nice night of turkey chili and Merlot.

The perfect time for some blogging. So, just a few thoughts about Rick Warren.

Lots of folks have been asking me, first, what I thought of Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. Secondly, they’ve asked what I thought of the prayer itself.

Let me start with the latter.

I though the prayer was kind of dull, actually. There wasn’t a lot to quibble with in the prayer, as far as I could hear. I agree with John Stewart’s analysis that he pronounced “Sasha” and “Malia” in a very STRANGE way. (Actually, Dennise, Maria and I all noticed this creepy moment...)

The biggest goof I thought he made was including the Lord’s Prayer at the end. I didn’t find it as offensive as I found it colossally tone deaf.

Even in exclusively Christian settings, most pastors can tell you that that you have to use some discretion about the Lord’s Prayer. Frankly, you can’t assume anymore that everybody is always going to know it! And even if they do, you can’t assume they all know the same version!

At weddings, for example, you typically try to discern whether or not the worshippers will mostly be from your own church or tradition. It’s become very common to print the version you’re going to use in a bulletin.

Warren used the Lord’s Prayer as if it was the ending of a pastoral prayer, not an invocation. At many churches, including my own, the pastoral prayer transitions into the congregation reciting the Lord’s Prayer together. But, as I’ve just noted, there is an assumption made that *most* of the folks know the prayer, are ready for the prayer, and under that they’re being asked to pray together.

For an inaugural invocation --an event that is public and, at best, can be described as interfaith-- using the Lord’s Prayer didn’t strike me as making a bold statement about Warren’s faith.

It just sounded pastorally tone deaf in way I find surprising from a guy who I would think would know better.





But as to the prior question of Obama picking Warren in the first place...

I find myself disagreeing with many of my progressive brothers and sisters

Basically, I feel much as I did back during the controversy over Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Obama has the the right to get religious/spiritual guidance from any leader he chooses.

He does not owe us any explanation for the place he chooses to go to church, the sermons he chooses to listen to, or the people who do the praying in his presence.

He is not responsible for all of their beliefs, nor is there a credible way to argue that he shares the views of all of them.

That’s the heart of religious freedom in our country. During the firestorm of the Rev. Wright controversy, I blogged as delicately as I could about this. I feel even more strongly about it now.

It’s HIS inauguration. He’s the one getting sworn in. He gets to choose whom he wants to be a part of it and for what reason. And he does not owe us an explanation for it.

Yes, I know this sounds harsh. Yes, I know all about Rick Warren’s views of homosexuality, Yes, I personally believe he espouses a wrongheaded and sinful way of looking at the issue. Yes, I know what he’s compared gay and lesbian people too.
It’s deeply troubling.

But from the perspective of Obama’s choice of Warren: it’s his choice, period. I may not like Warren. Others may not like Wright. I’ve heard from some who didn’t care for Lowery’s prayer.
Fine.

Frankly, had Obama chosen Jeremiah Wright, I absolutely would have supported that choice, just as during that scandal I argued that the church Obama attends was nobody’s business either.

To some, Sarah Palin has a scary religious background. I think we got so enamored with her many other issues that we never really explored those issues. But even if we had, I would have, again, supported the idea that she has the right to get spiritual support from anywhere she chooses.

Frankly --and I say this with all love and respect to everyone who feels differently-- to argue anything else gives us clergy far more credit than we deserve. To imagine that we’d be able to totally influence the moral and political views of politicians who worship with us, defies credulity.

I am not nearly so egocentric as to imagine that anyone who has ever worshipped with me will blindly follow the words I speak and the values I espouse.

And if you think a candidate out there would, then you certainly shouldn’t vote for him or her for public office.

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Inauguration Day Prayer from Bishop Gene Robinson

Thanks to Pastor Dan at Street Prophets for the heads up on this video and text.

Below is the prayer of Bishop Gene Robinson, at the beginning of the "We Are One" concert on the Mall in Washington. (Blogged about yesterday, here) Apparently, the prayer has become somewhat controversial, in that the Inaugural Committee chose to not run it as a part of the HBO special.

Shame.

Because it was a great prayer for that day...and for this one....



The full text of the prayer here:

"Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will...

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic "answers" we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN."

Dan not only posted the video and text, but also added a few comments of his own about it at the end.

I find myself in total agreement with the following, and couldn't have said it better myself:

"The other thing to notice here is how utterly unsurprising Robinson's prayer is. I don't mean that as an insult. But more than likely, any mainline Protestant could have heard what he had to say in their own congregation or at a wider church meeting. Yet there are many progressives who are floored to hear such inclusiveness, such gentleness, come from a Christian leader.

That's sad."

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Rosa Sat (A Song for the Day)

Are you surprised that on MLK Day, and the day before Obama's inauguration, I would be drawn to folk music?

Hope not.

Because there are a couple of folk songs that seem to frame my feelings on this day.

The first is called "Rosa Sat," and it's written and performed by Chicago singersongwriter, Amy Dixon-Kolar.



(Click here if you can't see the media player...)

I'm glad that some one wrote a song (there may be more than one) based on this great quote, because it's the quote that gave me chills just after the election:

"Rosa sat so Martin could walk.
Martin walked so Barack could run.
Barack ran, that our children could fly"

I love how the song is written the style of an old spiritual, and I love the message of this quote. Amy says on her website that the quote stayed with her and she knew she'd write a song using it. I'm grateful she did.





I've long been a big fan of the King Holiday, and write something about it almost every year. Last year, I mostly quoted a great piece by my friend, Larry James, who questioned the idea of doing works of "service" on this day.

Larry's writing was called "Missing the Mark on the MLK Holiday," and you can read my blog about it here.

I suppose I mostly feel the same way I felt last year. It would be a tragic reduction of King's legacy for his memory to only be given to acts of charity. King was far more interested in acts of justice. Which is, lest we forget, what led him to opposed the Vietnam War and led him to support the rights of the poor.

OTOH, on this MLK Day, our President-Elect himself is strongly pushing that the day be honored as a "day of service," and in this he is joined by other respected members of congress. And, locally, Larry James' own agency is leading the way with a house building project!! So, go figure.

It's especially gratifying to see a President-Elect issue the call, and see a nation respond. And perhaps one could argue that this year, the sense of justice that is such a necessary component of the King Holiday is, in fact, simply and powerfully incarnated in Obama's victory itself.

But there was another song sung during yesterday's concert on the Mall in Washington. (Which was, btw, an amazing event...) The show ended with Bruce Springsteen and none other than Pete Seeger singing "This Land is Your Land."



(Click here if you can't see the media player...)

Note George Lucas singing along in a quick crowd shot! That's certainly a "throwback" song in many ways. But it's also a folk song, deep in our American tradition, written by an iconic writer. Bruce introduced it as the greatest song ever written about our country.

And perhaps this song, and the verses they sang, were more appropriate than many realized at the time. One commentator noted almost immediately that Bruce and Pete included one verse that often gets left out when the song gets sung at schools and in other settings:

"In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office – I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me."

Mike Kazan, the guy who first noted this, goes on to say, "I bet Pete was thinking, “This is the way Woody wrote it and so I’m going to make sure the whole country hears it.”

Maybe so.

Certainly gave me a smile. Given all the crap he's had to put up with in his life, I would dearly love to know what Pete Seeger is thinking about all of this.

And so, when taken together, perhaps the verse from Amy's song and the verse from this classic Woody Guthrie standard provide the appropriate sense of both historical optimism and the call to continue the journey of justice?

Yes, on this day we should remember all those who could only sit or walk, in the hopes that one day others could run and fly.

But in these challenging economic times, we must not forget that many are still "wondrin' if this land's still made for you and me."

Optimism and Hope.
A call for continuing justice and change.

Not a bad message on this particular MLK Day.

Leave it to folk music to frame it for us.

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Christmas 2008

I thought I'd posted this to my blog two weeks ago, but I think I just posted to Facebook. (Things get a little jumbled up sometimes...)

Here's a video of Christmas at the lake this year, which I am reminded to post today, because we're back here again for quick visit. It's very cold here today, but we're enjoying the fire and the company.

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Listening for God, Interfaith Prayer, Cleaning Up, Connections, and BCS

I'm sitting here with the laptop tonight, as a fire slowly dies in the hearth across the room, catching up on Rachel Maddow, finishing off a glass of red, and still feeling the glow of a big moon, hanging low in the sky that was simply gorgeous.

With that, a few synapse clippings for you, on this mid-January night....





The cleaning project that I blogged about the other night continues unabated. Friday, I framed about ten pieces of art, and hung them on the walls....moving around other pieces. So far, we've made major changes to the study, the dining room, and our bedroom. Interestingly, Maria has also taken an interest in cleaning up her room too.

Right at this moment, our house is probably as straight and clean as it's been in the seven-plus years that we've lived here.





Listening for God: Contemporary Literature and the Life of Faith
Mondays at Northaven UMC, 6:30



This is a class that I'll be teaching this winter, which takes short stories and chapters from famous authors, and "listens" for the ways we may, or may not, hear God working in them. The goal is not to lay theological thoughts on top of a text, or reinterpret them in some doctrinal way, but instead to hear the ways that issues of spirit can intersect and be present.

Authors in this session will include: Flannery O'Connor, Frederick Buechner, Annie Dillard, Richard Rodriguez, Raymond Carver, Alice Walker, and others.

We had our first session Monday night, and I was so pleased to have 27 persons show up! If you'd like to join us, contact me, or simply feel free to come by this coming Monday.





We were honored to host an interfaith prayer service at Northaven this past Tuesday afternoon. Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, American Indians, and many others came together to offer prayers for the situation in Gaza and Israel. Robin Hackett offered her great version of "Imagine." I got the chance to pray, and to play my song "Ishmael and Isaac."

It was a marvelous afternoon of prayer, and Mike Ghouse has posted some pictures here. It's a great honor to be able to hosts these kinds of events. Last Tuesday also just happened to be "Epiphany," a day in our tradition where people of differing faiths gathered together, followed a star, and shared their gifts. A very fitting night.





Speaking of my song, the video has been getting some nice hits, and several requests for a downloadable version. So, I've uploaded a couple of hi res versions, and updated the blog entry. Feel free to check it out, and to download it if you'd like to share it with others.





You all know that I am a huge Longhorn fan. And most of you know that Texas was one of the main school that got screwed by this year's BCS process. So, I am all for making things right. But, this is ridiculous.

Wait...isn't Joe Barton, a conservative Republican, who believes in keeping government out of our lives?

Whatever.

I'm for a playoff. But this isn't gonna really help anything, is it?





Our Connections Band founding members met last Thursday, and we're meeting again this Thursday. We should be able to announce a whole new raft of shows perhaps as early as Friday. We also hear that they'll be a major story about the band, running in the UMR soon. we'll keep you posted on that too.

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Dust and Old Power Converters

Can a new laptop lead you to redecorate a house?

Maybe not, but it dang sure caused a lot of mid-winter cleaning around here.

I got a new MacBook Pro for Christmas. It's sooooo cool. I can hardly contain myself.



My old computer was one of the very first G-4s, and we got it almost ten years ago, when Maria was probably two. When I got it, Apple was running commercials about how it was the fastest computer on the planet...classified as a military weapon...yadda, yadda, yadda. It's the fourth Mac I've bought since my first Mac 512K Enhanced back in 1985. (If you're eager to read that history, knock yourself out.)

Ten years later? The G-4 is not so fast anymore. So, it's very cool to get the upgrade. And I knew it would mean the chance for a brand new round of home recording and working wirelessly. Which got me thinking about the mess of wires under my desk. Which got me doing something about it.

So, yesterday I started in pulling apart all the wires from underneath the desk.

Which led to a decision to go through the two boxes of wires/cabling that have been sitting here next to the desk since we moved in.

Which led to Dennise join in and go through about five bankers boxes of mail and other crap that have collected over the years.

I use the word "crap" with all due affection, as some of this was actually my child's precious school work, dating back to kindergarten. But, like wires under the desk, it builds up. Lot's of the rest of it was junk mail, or other old bills.

So, here's what I discovered...

First, I found that I probably had ten to fifteen orphaned power converters stored away. They probably went to things like old wireless phones, old routers, old pre-amps for old mics, old Palm Pilots, old video cameras, old...you get the idea.

Each of them seemed to have the standard plug for the wall socket. But each of them also seems to have a completely proprietary adapter on the other end. So, with no components to go with them any more, my question is this:

Why did I ever save this stuff?!!

What was I thinking I was going to do with it? And what was I planning to do with the yards and yards of old TV cable? Or the stereo cable that I used twenty years ago in an old apartment? Or the old phone adapters of all kinds that I've bought at Radio Shack through the years? Or the old instrument cables I bought in high school? Or the old stereo-plug adapters that broke mono into a split signal? (for some reason I no longer remember...)

Yes, all that crap was dutifully saved in two boxes here in the room. But here's the final, ugly truth....the monster below that iceberg tip...

For years and years, out in the garage, there was a duffle bag full of MORE cables and electrical crap. I mean a *huge* infantry-soldier-sized duffle bag.


What was I planning for all *those*cables?

I looked for the duffle in the garage, but couldn't find it. Which makes me think Dennise threw it away years ago and just didn't ever tell me.

Clearly, I have not missed it. So, I went through all that was left. And I tossed about ninety percent of it, buoyed by the realization that the duffle --with four times more crap-- has probably been gone for a couple of years and never been missed.

So as I said, about midway into this, Dennise gets inspired and joins in the clean-up on her side of the study/studio. Which led us to the very quick realization that if we were going to clean all the crap out of *this* room, we would need to finally clean some *other* crap out of the garage, so that we'd have room to put the new crap (new to the garage, of course).

That led to one HUGE trip to Goodwill, and an equally big trip to the Dry Cleaners to return....um...I'm not going to tell you how many clothes hangers.

Anyway, we got the garage crap cleaned out. We went through three desks of drawers, and a couple of file cabinets. I put away tons of old CDs (photos, sound files, etc..), books, assorted guitar gadgets, stacks of papers I still need to go through....and the result is something like this.


Moving the boxes of crap out has allowed me to move all the guitars to one convenient area. I also moved our other instruments over there too. It looks like this now.



So, all that led to rehanging some pictures on the wall in the room, which led to rehanging pictures in some other rooms too. Which had led to thoughts about new furniture. But that's gonna be way down the road.

Which is what got me wondering if a new laptop could help redecorate an entire house.

I am led to several observations. The first will be obvious to any musician of any gender. Our grandparents used to keep immaculate garages, filled with every conceivable gadget. My grandfather had tools lining every wall of his Kentucky garage (and the stairwell too). He had rows and rows of jars filled with nuts, bolts, and god knows what else. Many a grandmother used to keep immaculate kitchens, filled with all kinds of utensils.

Most of us don't have those kind of garages or kitchens anymore. But for a lot of us, our studios/computer kiosks have become those havens in our homes.

I'm lucky enough to have two desks, really. One with the computer and music studio. The other is a genuine writing desk, an old roll top that used to be in the office at my grandfather's Bar and Grill. I refinished it by hand in the first years we were married, and it's a place where a lot of good writing has gotten done, even back to when I was in high school.

A second observation is about the accumulation of dust and old power converters. Jeez, it just piles up when you're not noticing, yes? I heard, long ago, that one of the main ingredients in most household dust is human skin.

I know. It's creepy.

But it's also deeply metaphorical. As we move through this life, things that used to give us life and, ahem, energy get left laying around. They gather dust. We keep the power chords --just in case we need them-- long after we've ditched the tools.

I don't like the word "resolution." I don't know why. I think maybe it just sounds too pompous to me. Resolute people worry me sometimes. But I *do* like the word "intention." Because, really, in the end, all we've got are our intentions. They might line the road to hell, but it seems to me they light the path to heaven too.

So, I have two intentions for the year:
1) Journal.
2) Walk.

I love journalling. Blogging gets at some of it for me, but not all. Several years back, I put down the serious journaling I used to do. I want to pick it back up, just for my sake. It's an interior intention, really. Just telling you because I can.

I also love to walk. And I have been inspired during the holidays by the story of my friend, Tom Prasada-Rao, and his "Gramps." The bad news is that Gramps, who lives in the DC area, was lost for several days but eventually found in a Hospital ICU, the victim of a hit and run. The good news is that he seems to be improving every day.

The incredible news is that Gramps is 101-years-old!!! And a part of his own belief about his own longevity is the fact that he has walked something like 6-10 miles a day for most of his life. I might not be able to do *that* much. But I'm thinking some serious walking this year would do me some serious good. And, frankly, I just find his story inspiring.

That's it. Just those two intentions. I used to do both of them quite a bit. I'm hoping to do more of them this year. And neither got totally clear in my head until I got this study fixed-up today and yesterday.

So then, a final question for YOU:

What old power adapters are *you* planning to ditch this year so you can make room for the things that give you real energy now?

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Here Comes the Sun 2008

Richie Havens updates his version of the great song.

Happy New Year, everyone...

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Ishmael and Isaace Video

This is a video for my song "Ishmael and Isaac," which I wrote some years back about the Arab/Israeli conflict. I hope it will be received more as a work of art than as a political statement, although I am quite aware that people will lay their own political views on top of it.

My hope is that the message that war is not the ultimate answer will get through. That is the real message of the song and video, and not the assigning of blame in a situation that is quite complex and nuanced.



Click here if you can't see the video player above. (Direct link to the video)

I am aware that the religious and cultural issues are more challenging than blithely quoting a Bible verse. But I am equally aware that the the metaphor of "sibling rivalry" --when seen at a macro-level, perhaps even a mythological one-- is not only appropriate, but perhaps has no more powerful cultural incarnation than this current conflict.

Here's to continued prayers for our world, and especially for warring peoples who have not yet found the way to peace.

UPDATE:
Several folks have asked for a downloadable version of this movie. So, I've created two versions, both in mpeg2 format. One is a large file, hi quality. The other medium quality. There's also a cell-phone sized version, just because I wanted to see if I could do it.

Please contact me, and I'll direct you to a download link.

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