Auto-Matically Crazy

I had a hard disk crash last week, which means I am now hopelessly behind in Facebook notes. Yes, I want to do the album cover, and my 15 "desert isle" CDs, and my Musical Facts. Those are all cool. But I don't have time to do those today.

However, these questions, given to me by fellow Nashbillian, JP, have been written up and ready to go for a week..since the day the hard disk crashed...so here you go....(ps: I added the question about wrecks, and today's dream car...) EF

Is it true we are what we drive? Compile a list of vehicles that have been in your life.
(i.e., autos, trucks, any internal combustion or electric/hybrid vehicle)
Instructions: Copy this page to the body in “notes”
Delete previous answers and then add your own.
Tag as many people as you wish to receive it.
Then click “publish” in notes section

1. What is your first “vehicular” memory?
Driving with my grandmother through the streets of Atlanta, Texas and yelling at her to watch out, because I was sure she was going to hit somebody. I have no idea why I did this, at age 4 or 5, or any evidence that she was actually a bad driver.

2. What was the first “amazing” vehicle you ever saw?
The Batmobile from the TV show. I can't remember where I actually saw it, though. It might have been during the short stint we lived in California in the late 60s. I know it was at a shopping mall, and on display. Since Batman was my personal hero, this was an incredibly cool moment.

3. What car did you learn to drive in?
Two cars. My Dad's puke green 1970's Plymouth Valiant-- perhaps the geekiest car ever known to humankind-- and my Mom's powderblue Chrysler station wagon...also, circa 1970s.

4. In what vehicle did you have your first date?
My 1965 For Mustang (see below

5. What vehicle do you most remember riding or driving to school?
My 1965 Ford Mustang (see below)

6. What was the first vehicle that was yours alone and where is it now?
For reasons still unknown to me, my Kentucky grandfather had bought a '65 Mustang, that served as the only car I'd ever known them to own. I remember driving with him around Covington in it. When he died and after I turned 16, we took a special trip to Kentucky to recover several items and bring them back to Texas. Among them: my roll top desk, and that '65 Stang, which then became my first car....given to me by my GRANDPARENTS.

It was, by a factor of 1,000, the coolest car I ever owned, and probably will ever own. Even worse, I had a clear teenage sense of just how cool it was, and lived those years between 16-21 knowing they would be the absolute Zenith of my car coolness.

When I was in graduate school, and the car was now aproaching 30-years-old, it began to break quite a bit. Minor things, really. Had I had any income at all, I would have kept it, and fixed it every time. But I needed reliable wheels, and it was, more and more, becoming a show car.

So, I sold it my good friend, Stu, and his Dad, who wanted to restore it. But, like me, money and time got in their way. They eventually sold it to a guy in Richardson who does restoration. Stu gave me the address once so I could drive by, and told me the guy still had the car. But despite my curiosity, I've never made it by to take a look.

7. Have you ever totalled/wrecked a car? Describe.
Within days of getting my license, I had my first wreck when I went to get my friend, John Ramey, and fishtailed the family station wagon while turning the very first corner at the end of his block. It was wet. It had been raining. And I was trying to be cool, since I knew I was the first friend of John's ever to take him for a ride. (I was the oldest in my class, and always the first to do everything...including get my license...)

We fished-tailed, and the front end of the car ended up over the curb of one of his neighbor's lawns. I freaked, and instead of putting in reverse, I hit the accelerator. The car lurked forward and bumped a tree.

We got out for a second, and then John said, "Let's run! Let's GO!"

So, we drove back to my place in silence, and got out. It was dark, and so we went to inspect the damage. There didn't seem to be any, and so we resolved to tell no one.

Of course, there WAS damage. And the next day, in the light of day, I got in some of the worst trouble of my life...first, for having the wreck, and second, for trying to keep it a secret. It was truly a "fender-bender," but a horrifying experience, nonetheless.

A few years later, I was driving my Dad's Plymouth Valiant to school (I don't know why) and was headed across the parking lot at the corner of Belt Line and Coit. (the Northeast quadrant) There used to be a 7-11 there, and I was headed for 7-11 for a quick snack. A businessman, cutting across the parking lot to avoid the long light (from Westbound Belt Line to Northbound Coit) flew out of nowhere and slammed into me broadside.....literally crushing in the driver and passenger doors.

In retrospect, it's was probably a lot worse of an accident that I realized at the time. It totaled that car...which in a weird way helped the car-hipness of our family, because the Valiant was gone.

In 1999, Dennise had a terrible car accident, and that's really her story to tell. Sufficed to say, it was one of the scariest moments of my life, in that the police called me to the accident scene (at Yale and Central) to recover her phone and purse. I had Maria with me in the baby seat (Dennise was joining us at a party for one of Maria's two-year-old friends...)

Her car was so completely totaled (the roof had been removed by the "Jaws of Life" to extract her) that I didn't even recognize it when I arrived on the scene...I was overcome by the half dozen police, ambulance, and fire trucks. They told me they'd already transported her to Baylor. Given how the car looked, I had the fear that she'd be near dead. And, in fact, the person who phoned in the accident to the police later told his wife, "I don't think the person in the white car made it out alive."

Dennise, turns out, was mostly fine, with what a hospital would probably call "minor" injuries. She had stitches in a few places, had to have hand surgery, and she struggled with short-term memory problems for about a year (She still had a better memory that me!) But she was going to be OK.

Nevertheless, the vision of that twisted piece of metal, the glass scattered across the road, will stay with me always.

8. Your worst vehicle?
This is a toughie. From the Mustang, I went to two small trucks (an S-10 and a Ranger successively) that were both quite reliable. We have a Jeep now that tends to break down a lot, and so I guess I'll go with that. Although, all-in-all, I've liked every car I've ever owned.

9. What’s your current vehicle, and what’s the most favorite vehicle you’ve had?
Two: A Jeep Cherokee (the classic body) and an early Toyota Prius (before they adopted the current body style) I love both of them for different reasons. The Jeep, because of it's classic style...the Prius because....it's a Prius.

10. What is your dream car?
I have two. I would love to be independently wealthy, and find a way to buy back either my 65 Mustang, or another one similar to it. Alongside that, I would love to have one of the models from the last few years. I LOVE the Mustangs of the "2000s" and would love to own one of those too.

But my *favorite* of all time? Hands down, the Mustang.

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James Taylor/Carole King Show- March 7th

Hey Everybody:

We've got a great Connections Band show coming up weekend after this....

James Taylor/Carole King Tribute Show
FUMC Coppell
420 South Heartz Road
Coppell, TX 75019
(972) 462-0471

This is Connections Band's second show at Coppell, and we are looking forward toseeing good friends again. The women take centerstage for the Carole King set, and this show features FUMCCoppell member, Lisa Rucker, singing and playing someincredible sax.

We'll do songs like "Jazzman", "It's too Late", "How Sweetit is To be Loved By You", "Fire and Rain", and many more.You'll be singing along with every one.

Our beneficiaryfor this show is "Nothing But Nets."

Go here for complete information and a map to FUMC Coppell.

We hope to see you all at our first show of 2009!!!

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Yeats Five Book Meme

DIRECTIONS
1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book #1 -- first sentence
3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred
5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph:

Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened. He was wrong. The endemic conservatism of Texas, coupled with by fears engendered by the Cold War and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, in which Russia and the U.S. came close to nuclear confrontation, all boosted Walker's public standing. We are framed there in the window in our pajamas, and in different ways for each of us, I suspect we remained there, side by side, always.
"It must have been great!"

Books:
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kinsolver.
Nothin But Good Times Ahead, Molly Ivins.
Case Closed, Gerald Posner
The Eyes of the Heart, Frederick Buechner
Freeing The Creative Spirit, Adriana Diaz

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Sermons on iTunes, the Blog, and Everywhere

My amazing new laptop is allowing me to try out all sorts of new things. Among them, podcasting.

We're pleased to announce that Northaven now has podcasts of our sermons at iTunes and up at the Northaven website.

Still working on the actual design so that it looks nice and beautiful on the Northaven site. But the podcast feed will basically replace the old "Sermons" page at the Northaven site. You can find that here.

It's also live on iTunes, at the iTunes store. So, if you've got an iPod and have been itching to get our sermons as iTunes podcast, knock yourself out by going here.

(If you've gone a non-iPod devise, or just listen to rss audio feeds some other way, you can "subscribe" at that first link I gave...)

The cool thing about an podcast feed, of course, is that you can import it to just about anywhere. So, I've put it here on the blog too. Just scroll down the righthand navigational window, till you find the box that says "Sermons."
You should be able to listen in there too, if like, without ever leaving this page.

Hope you enjoy all this. We'll announce this to the greater Northaven community sometime later this week, when we're done making the web-version look pretty.

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Sixteen Random Things About Me

Dallas Morning News reporter , Jeffery Weiss wrote this interesting story that ran in this weekend's paper. It's all about the phenomenon of "25 Random Things." It does seem to be spreading like wildfire, as is Facebook itself. I can tell you from my own non-scientific experience that folks are joining Facebook right and left over these past few months...a virtual (pun intended) explosion of old friends and family.

So, in honor of Jeffery's story, I'm reposting my list of "things" to my blog.

I should self-disclose that when this game was forwarded to me, it was only sixteen things. Jeffery's story points out that somewhere along the way it jumped the shark to 25. Who knows how that happened. But I'm sticking with sixteen....

Sixteen Random Things About Me
(And if I had a 17th, it would be that I'm almost always too verbose...)

1) I am far more introverted that perhaps many people will realize.
Although I will observe that most introverts probably have no idea how little or much their introversion shows. So who knows? Any extroversion I have --in fact, any ability to be in groups of just about any size-- has come through years of very conscious learning. (As it does for all introverts, of course.)

2) My introversion manifests itself in several quirky and illogical phobias.
Phobia 1: For example, I can now speak in front of a group of hundreds, nay, thousands. (And have). And except for a few butterflies here and there, I almost never suffer serious anxiety. But a "song circle" of six folks I don’t know well TERRIFIES me. I have no idea why this is so, and I would think it would be exactly opposite. But there you go.
Phobia 2: I can sit with people through some of the most difficult moments of their life --as someone they love dies in a hospital room beside them, or as they share with me very tough emotion stuff-- and I can do this with a level of confidence and calling. But I am sometimes terrified to call people on the phone and ask them even the most basic question. (Like: "Will you be on this committee?" or, "Can we set this meeting?") I sometimes fret about, and put off, those kinds of calls for days, making whatever the situation is far worse than it really is.
Phobia 3: There are some mornings where it is incredibly difficult for me to get going at all, and I have great sympathy for the story of Brian Wilson.

3) I am deaf in my right ear and have been since birth.
Those close to me know it. I find that many folks do not, which always makes me smile because I am constantly arranging certain things because it. For example, I will almost always stand on your right side if we are walking. I will choose a very specific places to sit at a table, or a specific table in a restaurant as a whole. I will move to certain places in a group if people are standing around, where I believe I will be better able to hear. And I usually do most of this without anyone noticing. But while most folks are probably oblivious to this, it’s something I am constantly aware of, internally.
Except for being totally lacking in any ability to tell direction in sound, I don’t find much else about it very limiting. But I have always imagined that my love of music may come from some inner sense of how precious sound itself is.

So, this one tip, and take this however you like: If you really want me to hear you, speak to me from the left.
;)

4) Although I do not drink soft drinks much anymore, there was a time when I could actually tell the difference between a Dr. Pepper and a Mr. Pibb.
I prided myself on being able to "call out" wait-staff who bogusly tried to pass off the latter as the former. ("Dr. Pepper is a friend of mine...Mr. Pibb,  you’re no Dr. Pepper.")

I don’t understand anymore why I was once so proud of this, but there you go.

5) I once knew the parents of one of America’s most infamous serial killers.
The very first church I ever preached at (near Lake Lavon, actually) was home to a Mr. and Mrs. Watson, the parents of Charles “Tex” Watson, one of the Manson family killers. I was very young, and this was back in the days before “The Google.” So when Mrs. Watson casually dropped this bomb on me during our first meeting, I actually had to check out a library book to confirm it. Sure enough, it was so. Charles “Tex” Watson grew up in a sleepy little town, just outside of Dallas, and later became one of the most feared killers of our time.
Knowing the Watson’s taught me several crucial life lessons: 1) the difference between a person’s public persona and their private life; 2) the challenging path of trying to discern whether or not someone is “rehabilitated” or not, and what "forgiveness" really means; and finally 3) the incredible, and lifelong bond of love that a parent often feels for their child, no matter what.

6) I cried one of the hardest cries of my life the last time I took off a baseball uniform.
It was the summer after my senior year in high school. Despite the fact that I hadn’t made my high school team, I’d managed to play in a summer league with many of the same guys from that team, and manged to keep alive some dream of making the “big leagues” someday.
We were the clear favorite to win the championship that year, but perhaps our overconfidence got to us, and we lost early in the playoffs. My parents were out of town when I got home that night.

With stark certainty, it suddenly hit me that this was very likely the last time I’d ever take of a baseball uniform in my life. I wasn’t going to make the major leagues after all, and we weren’t even going to win that championship as a “last hurrah” to salve our egos. So as I took off that uniform, and finally said goodbye to a childhood dream, I cried buckets of tears alone.

7) I tried pot for one of the only times in my life while on a campout on top of a mountain in Colorado.
I was a young teenager, and it was during the mid-70s. We were around a campfire, looking down at city lights far below, singing “Rocky Mountain High,” and quite literally trying to live it out. Honestly? I don’t think it had any effect. Or, anything that wasn’t just as easily explained by the altitude.

8) My junior high nickname was “Pinky.”
This is perhaps one of the darkest and most unmentionable secrets of my life, and if you start calling me that now I may have to kill you. The nickname was given to me in gym class by the other guys and a coache, because of 1) my propensity to have “pink” skin when I worked out (ala Jason Witten, btw, in case you’ve noticed...); and 2) my propensity for horrible looking sunburns. “Pinky” was, of course, the nickname of a female character on “Happy Days” at the time, and just about the last thing any junior high boy would want to be called. Eventually, everyone in school called me that. Even in the halls. No one called me by my real name. I would meet knew people who would say they didn’t know MY name, but that they *had* heard of “Pinky.”
Mercifully, junior high ends. And, somehow, Pinky stayed in that building and never followed me to high school and beyond.

9) I never expected my adult life to be lived in Dallas.
I’m not entirely sure where I expected to be, but it wasn’t here. Since my high school graduation gift was a set of luggage, I figured it was a pretty clear signal that I was supposed to head out to all points beyond. I assumed I’d only be back for vacations, now and then. But then I moved back for seminary. Then, I went to work at a church quite literally right across the parking lot from there. My next move was only a few miles beyond that circumference. I have now lived an astounding 87 percent of my life in this city.

I now live within a mile of where I grew up. This, too, was unexpected. When I moved to Northaven Church, they had a parsonage, and a part of how they (a church) pays you is often through offering that place to live. It’s a wonderful house. It’s a *great* school system. It’s a mile from my parents (and my daughter’s grandparents).

But it’s far too close to my past. Especially for the first few years we lived here, every place I drove here in North Dallas I saw ghosts....old friends hanging around the park...old girlfriends and I walking down a street....the old-me driving my old car down the streets. These North Dallas streets are filled with ghosts for me. Strangely, in the past two or three years, many of the ghosts seem to have vanished. And in a way, I am grateful for that, because it’s a lot more fun to live in the present. But I also now have the vague feeling that those memories may be lost forever, buried under the archeological sediment of seven new years in the same old place.

10) I love to travel.
Despite the being right here most of the time, I have been a lot of other places....Mexico, Haiti, Nepal, Russia, Japan, Thailand, Germany, England, France, Guatemala, El Salvador. I would travel a whole lot more too, if time and finances permitted it. Our house is filled with art from those travels...a Saraswati statue from Nepal...two icons from Russia...paintings from Haiti...etc... They help me remember how big the world is, and how beautiful the people everywhere are.

11) “If I didn’t know it, I would never have guessed you were a minister.”
This line was first said to me years ago by my old friend, Carolyn H, and has been repeated by several others through the years. I take it as the highest of compliments. The older I get, the more I dislike many religious people. I find their narrow judgmentalism off-putting, and have long since given up doing most arguing with them. I find myself wanting to apologize on behalf of Christian people everywhere for much of what is done in Jesus’ name. But, the older I get, I don’t even feel like doing that anymore. There simply are not enough hours in the day.

Even just a few years back, I was very heasitant to tell many of my musician and artists friends that I was a minister. The church and artists have not always had a great history, shall we say. But, I’m too tired to hide that anymore either...simply not enough hours of the day for this either.

More and more, I simply lean on a line from a Woody Allen character who said, “If Jesus returned today to see everything going on his name, he’d never stop throwing up.”

When I first heard that line in the theater, I laughed for five straight minutes with my friend, Bill Frisbie. Today, I wince more than laugh. I am fortunate to serve a church that is made up of many, many people who have found themselves unwelcome at other churches. Some of them have, quite literally, been shunned by either religious authories or their families and loved ones. Sometimes, it’s because simply because of who they are as people, other times it’s because of beliefs that others found too “outside the box.” Whatever the reason, they have found a way to our church, and have found it to be a “haven” for them. I’m glad for that. I remember that Jesus hung out with the outcasts of his day, much to the chagrine of the religious elites of his day, and I take comfort in that too.

12) I voted for Ronald Reagan twice.
The first two elections I could vote, like many of the other kids my age, I voted Republican. It was that second election --and more precisely, election night-- that began to change my heart. The Reagan-Mondale election was a landslide. It was the jeering throngs of blue-blazered young Republicans --watching returns at the UT Student Union, deriding the Dems, whom they had clearly destroyed in the election-- that started to make me question the politics I had always assumed was the only way to be.
There was something, I thought, about America that did not like a landslide. All sorts of other changes ...socially...spiritually....politically...were at work in me at the time. And by the time I voted a third time, I voted for Jesse Jackson. I’ve consistently voted that side of the aisle ever since. (BTW, Barack Obama is the *first* presidential candidate I’ve ever supported from the very beginning of a primary season, who has actually won.)

13) I was the star of my kindergarten play.
It was the “Selfish Giant,” a musical version of the Oscar Wilde short story. Yes, I was the Selfish Giant. I got the part, best I can tell, because I was the tallest kid in the kindergarten class. There are pics, and even a reel-to-reel tape of this somewhere, and they might be coming to a Facebook page near you. When I was looking for a name for my own songwriting, recording, and home studio, it was only fitting that I call it “Selfish Giant Songs.” Introvert that I am, it’s been a pretty good metaphor for life my life from kindergarten through this moment right now.

14) I once knew George and Laura Bush on a first-named basis.
Perhaps even *more* rare, they knew me by first name too. This was way before he was even Governor, when he was “just” the son of the sitting President. He was a member of the church where I served, and we’d see each other in the halls, and at various functions. I talked to him on the phone a couple of times, we exchanged small talk pretty regularly. He, Laura, and the twins, have gone with me (and Dennise) to serve the homeless together.
Needless to say, these past eight years have been more than surreal than you can possibly imagine. First, to have *anyone* you first know in the real world become President, is a very unique experience that rarely happens to anyone. But then, to have the events that have transpired these past eight years take place? Absolutely bizzare. I have been openly critical of many Administration policies these past eight years, and am unapologetic about that. And I am also aware that I have many friends who don’t just dislike, but absolutely *hate* George Bush. But I will personally never be able to share that “hate.” Having seen “W,” I tend to think that Oliver Stone must share a similar sense of compassion for him that perhaps few of my friends will ever be able to fully understand, and that I am not sure I’ll ever be able to fully explain.

15) I once allowed the criticism of a total stranger to keep me from writing songs for almost three years.
I was in college, and I was playing in the stairwell at Jester Center (those who know it perhaps know that one of the only good thing about Jester are it’s HUGE stairwells, perfect for playing...) An older student, a woman, passed by while I was playing and humming an instrumental song I’d written. To this day, I don’t know what she really said, but I know what I heard from her was that it was plagiarized from some other source. The shame of feeling that I had “stolen” some melody drove me to put away the guitar, at least in terms of writing, for almost three years. To this day, I can no longer remember that song.

16) Don Henley and my Mom grew up about seven miles apart.
He grew up in Linden, Texas, the county seat of Cass County. (if you’ll note: his music company is called "Cass County Music.") Mom grew up in Atlanta (yes, Texas) seven miles away. I have met Don a couple of times around Dallas now, and we’ve talked about East Texas. Everytime we have, his face lights up. He says he remembers listening to my great-uncle on the radio (he had an early “talk show” where he talked about anything and everything...). He says he also remembers visting the "Mays Supercash Grocery Store," that my grandfather co-owed with that same brother.
When Henley sings, "Somewhere back there in the dust...the same small town in each of us..." it’s always been as literally true for me and him as possible.

And it’s reminded me that the world is really very small, you never know who you’re going to meet, and that it’s probably best not to burn your bridges if you can...because people find a way of circling in and out of your life when you least expect it.

People whose lists I would like to see:

Dennise: Because she already knows all this, and I’ve already seen her’s.
Cary: because she started all this.
Tom: Because he starts so many other cool things with Cary.
Chris W: Because he knows much of this stuff too (But don’t post it....just email it...you know why...)
Melanie: Because if she’s not going to move to Texas, she should at least have to share with all us here.
Bill F: Because he gets mentioned in # 11, and for years I’ve been wondering how he is.
Paul I: Because he remembers Pinky and yet has never mentioned it.
Bill N: Because he is one of the greatest human beings on the planet. Seriously.
Paul B: Because it would be good for him.
Vicki C: Because she’s one of those crazy Northaven artists types, and the funniest, most truthful writer I know personally.
Frank R: Because I believe I have modeled how he can make out his list, and descretely find a way not to mention me.
John F: Because I’ve known him almost as long as Frank, and because we’re bandmates.
Rusty K: Ditto for the band-bond, and because he knows Atlanta too.
Ann W: Because she needs a break from her new assignment.
Amy F: Because she just joined Facebook this week, and deserves to be thrown into the fire.
Charles H: Because of the old LFG group, and for being a good guy.
Annie B: Because she is my oldest musician friend, and such an incredible person.
Michael B: Because I have a hunch he’ll havea great list, once he gets back in the country.
Charles G: Because he hates this kind of stuff, which is exactly why it would be good for him.
Sheri B: Because it's been cool to reconnect with her here, and in real life too.
Erik B: Because I know he loves baseball and will appreciate #6.

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More on Millard

The entry below is reposted from the Fuller Center website, and has more information about Millard Fuller's death. Pay special attention to the description of how Millard, one of our most influential leaders, was buried: in a simple box, with no grave marker.

Totally consistent with his own spiritual values...

"Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity and The Fuller Center for Housing, died early Tuesday morning after a brief illness. Preliminary autopsy results suggest congestive heart failure. He was 74. Family and friends are mourning the tragic loss of a true servant leader and a genuine heart.

Millard was buried humbly on Pine Hill at Koinonia Farm on February 4 at 11 a.m. Millard wished to be buried in the same manner as his spiritual mentor and friend Clarence Jordan, Koinonia’s founder. Like Clarence, Millard was laid to rest in a simple box and has no specific marker for his grave.

Please check back later in the week for further stories and photos of the gathering at the funeral.

The family is planning a memorial service for later in the month. We will announce plans as they are confirmed.

Linda Fuller, Millard’s wife of 49 years and the co-founder of Habitat and The Fuller Center, said that great strides have been made toward fulfilling Millard’s vision of eliminating poverty housing around the world, but that there is still tremendous work to be done.

“Millard would not want people to mourn his death,” Linda said. “He would be more interested in having people put on a tool belt and build a house for people in need.”

Former President Jimmy Carter issued a statement in which he called Fuller “one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known.

“He used his remarkable gifts as an entrepreneur for the benefit of millions of needy people around the world by providing them with decent housing,” Carter said in the statement. “As the founder of Habitat for Humanity and later the Fuller Center, he was an inspiration to me, other members of our family and an untold number of volunteers who worked side-by-side under his leadership.”

The family kindly requests that donations be made to The Fuller Center in lieu of flowers, and to help us continue the great work that is Millard’s legacy."

For more on Millard’s life and work, click on the “Who We Are” link above to read Millard’s biography, or visit MillardFuller.com.

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Why Is Apology So Strange?

"I screwed up."

No, I didn't really screw up. At least, not in any way that I believe I owe you all an apology.

It's an expression. It's something many of us say every day.

Learning to apologize is a key value of a mature adult human being. But to hear the screaming headlines in this morning's papers, you would think President Obama saying "I screwed up" was the most horrible admission a President could ever make.

I missed going through the paper before I left this morning, because I had to meet somebody pretty early for coffee. But on my way out of the Starbucks, I noted the *huge* 48-point type headlines on the front page:

"Obama: I Screwed Up"

I thought, "Good Lord! What has he done?! Did he send somebody our nuclear launch codes via his Blackberrry? What?!! What?!!"

Turns out, it had to do with the whole Daschle matter. Obama was taking responsibility for the way the matter had been handled.

But, to read the headlines, you'd think he'd committed some irredeemable act. Some horrible moral transgression.

No. Not really. Just the matter of his nominees for certain cabinet level positions.

I don't mean to minimize the fault here, but it's not punching the wrong button on the Red Phone. It's not sending $500 billion in bailout money to a bank account in the Caymans.

I wonder, then, what does Obama's apology says to us?

More specifically, I wonder what it says to us about us?

My hunch is that it says this:
a) We're not use to it in a President, so it's hard to get used to, and
b) We're still not that good at making, accepting, or processing apologies...whomever makes them.





When I was a kid, "Love Story" was a big movie. I didn't see it, I just heard the schmaltzy soundtrack songs, and knew it was generally being discussed around me.

The ethos of "Love Story" was this:

Love is never having to say you're sorry.

As a kid, I assumed the adults who came up with this line knew what they were talking about. They were adults, after all. Weren't adults always right?

Um....No!

Love is saying you're sorry a LOT. A hell of a lot. Love is apologizing every time you realize that you've screwed up.

Better than even the word "love," though, would be the word "Maturity."

Maturity is saying "I screwed up."

Maturity is taking responsibility for ones actions.

Maturity is being able to say such things publicly, when it's called for.

Maturity is learning from those mistakes, and not making the same mistakes twice, where ever possible.

My hunch is, though, that the act of apology is still something many of us struggle with. It's hard, even with those closest to us. It's especially hard in work situations, where our jobs might be on the line.

And further than this, almost all of us have been in the uncomfortable position of making an apology that goes UNaccepted. That can make us feel angry. It can make us feel confused and even more guilty.

Point is, we don't do it well. And many of us still tend to count it as a kind of moral weakness. We have DNA code in us that teaches us to pounce on the weak, for the sake of the strong. Apology looks like (but is not) weakness.
And so, we pounce.

To wit, a Google search of the phrase "I screwed up" right now yields more than 6,000 news results!!! All about this admission from Obama.

After the apology comes the public flogging, right? Seems that's what some are hoping for here.

Well, I liked it. I liked that Obama apologized. I find it a refreshing change. But I'm more than mildly pissed that it made it into 48-point headlines in the Dallas Morning News.





Of course, there was a time when folks apologized for almost everything all the time. Under the old Catholic system of confession, parishioners would slink into a small room and bear their hearts to an anonymous priest.

Kids tended to confess even the smallest of "sins," to the point which it almost seemed like they were apologizing for being kids!

But as someone who has grown up without that kind of mechanized system of apology, I often wonder what the lack of it does for us. Because, it seems now that apology is a lost art...almost its own kind of taboo.

We've swung the pendulum from the time when everybody felt guilty for everything they did, to a time when nobody even knows how to apologize, even if they wanted to.

And nobody knows what to do with one we somebody gives one to us.

Which is better?

Probably something in the middle.

But I, for one, am dang pleased to have a President who is willing to use the words "I screwed up," regardless of context.

The fact that he's will to use them is the main point. We should all learn to use them more often.

And we should all spend some time of the question: What does it mean that we still find apology so strange?

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Millard Fuller

I was visiting the hospital around lunchtime today, when I got a Twitter that Habitat for Humanity cofounder, Millard Fuller, had died. This news makes me terribly sad, as I consider Millard a personal hero and inspiration.

Like all of us, Millard had feet of clay. But his dreams and visions, his zest for helping the poor and less fortunate, are virtually unrivaled in our time. He is perhaps the most inspirational figure I have ever known, and I am driven to write about him today.

"Faith must become more than a verbal proclamation or an intellectual assent. True faith must be acted out."
--Millard Fuller

""We want to make shelter a matter of conscience...We want to make it socially, morally, politically and religiously unacceptable to have substandard housing and homelessness."
-- Millard Fuller

I had the great good fortune to be with Millard Fuller at least a half dozen times during the years I served as Outreach Minister at HPUMC. And Millard was directly responsible for a thing I consider one of the greatest achievements of my ministry.

Millard used to come through town several times a year on business with Habitat. This was more often than other part of the country, because he daughter and her family live in the Mid Cities. I got the chance to be with him in at several small dinners, a few large speeches, at least one worship service, and a couple of times on the site of a Habitat build.



Millard had in infectious, larger than life, personality. He was tall and lanky. He was extremely outgoing and had a spirit that charmed, inspired, and motivated others. He and his wife, Linda, built Habitat for Humanity from a humble beginning in Americus, Georgia, to an international ministry that has, quite literally, changed the lives of millions of people and provided housing for hundreds of thousands of families.

Stop. Reread that last sentence, and think about its impact.

Millard, as others often said about him, was an entrepreneur. It was that spirit that allowed Habitat to thrive. And anyone involved in the organization understood that it was Millard’s vision that drove the entire ministry forward.

He loved to tell the Habitat story, and in the time I knew him he had become something of an “Evangelist in Chief” for Habitat.

Millard loved to tell his personal story as a transformational story, which he always began by recounting the period when he was a wealthy businessman. He had a net worth somewhere upwards of a million dollars.

But as he describes it, he was deeply unhappy. More than this, so was his wife, Linda. She let him know she wanted to leave, and they got very close to the point of divorce.

That moment led him to re-evaluate his priorities, and caused him to leave his high-powered job. He and Linda began exploring other life-goals.

That led them to a stint at Koinonia Farms, just outside Americus, Georgia. Koinonia was a Christian community that attempted to be self-sustaining, ecologically, and economically. It was a very edgy community of faith, trying to live out the Gospel in terms of what it would mean for society. Among the others inspired by their work were President Jimmy Carter, and Morris Dees. (Who later found the Southern Poverty Law Center...perhaps the nation’s foremost center for the study and tracking of racist groups like the KKK...)

Millard and Linda sold all their possessions, learned an inexpensive homebuilding model on a trip to Africa, and began what would become Habitat for Humanity.

Here is a video of Millard, from the Fuller Center, describing his personal story, and the beginnings of Habitat. It's a as little long video, but well well worth worth watching:



The goal was simple and elegant: provide low-cost, affordable housing to families.

A home -- especially one a family has some part in building-- is the kind of thing that can change the trajectory that family forever. It creates an asset many lower income families only dream of. It provides stability for the future, and helps children achieve more.



The process is simple. Find needy families --willing to put in their own "sweat equity" on their home-- find volunteers from churches and other civic groups, create usable floor plans that can be inexpensively replicated, and build as many homes as possible.

Think: George and Mary Bailey and the Bailey Building and Loan from "It's a Wonderful Life." If you remember that scene in front of the "Martini Castle," then you've seen the gist of a Habitat Home Dedication, where the keys are turned over to the family, symbolic gifts are shared, and lives are changed forever.

One of the things Millard never forgot, and never failed remind everyone about, was Habitat's roots as a Christian Ministry. To Millard, the power behind Habitat --the thing that gave Habitat its moral imperative-- was its foundation in the Gospel. The blunt fact that the Gospel calls us to "love our neighbor as ourselves," and that we are called to care for the poor. That was what drove Millard. And it's what drove him to get folks involved with Habitat.

The corporate connection was fine and dandy. But the engine of Habitat was communities of faith building houses for the poor. That’s how Millard saw it.

That's why, I think, he took a special interest in what was happening in Dallas, and what was happening at the church I served, during the late 1990s. HPUMC, under the leadership of four extraordinary laypersons and a supportive senior pastor, undertook we came to call "Carpenter's for Christ."



I suppose we could have just called it "HPUMC Habitat." But for some reasons, "Carpenter's" caught on as a nickname and spread like wildfire.

It was my great pleasure to work with the initial group of volunteers as we built our first house in 1996 in the "Bon Ton" area of Dallas. Mark Craig, my boss and the Senior Pastor of HPUMC, was incredibly supportive of the efforts too. To his great credit, he made it a goal to come to every one of the first dedications for those Habitat houses. (That support cannot be underestimated, in my view...)



This ministry grew and spread. It clearly filled a hole in the lives of many of the adult volunteers. On almost every Saturday, on almost every weekend, dozens of folks routinely gave their time to work on our houses; or spent endless hours in committees, doing the planning for our builds.

By the time I had left, we had completely 13 Habitat houses! This made use one of the largest Habitat builders in the Dallas area, in the span of a few short years.

During that time, we participated in the first-ever Dallas "Building on Faith" build, where religious communities from around the city came together to build houses together. We literally created an entire community in what was called "North Fair Park."

An entire city block --which started out as nothing but weeds and the remnants of long-gone homes, sidewalks that led to nothing and nowhere-- was transformed into a safe neighborhood for dozens of families.

A Dallas cop (A member of the church. I did his wedding) told me how that street used to be his “beat,” and how he and his partner would routinely arrest drug dealers there. But after the blitz build, and a few dozen more Habitat houses built two streets over, the area was transformed. Families moved in and created a stable, vibrant community.

Habitat not only changes the trajectory of an individual family, but also of entire neighborhoods. And, in the process, changes the lives of the many volunteers.

The video below is of a Fuller Center build this past year, but it reminds me so much of that blitz build in 1997, right down to Millard giving interviews on the site, and young students fired up about helping out:



During our first blitz build, in 1997, Highland Park UMC built three of the dozen or so houses that were constructed as a part of that build. With one of those houses, we built alongside of the Dallas Mosque of Al-Islam. It was the first known Habitat house on the planet where a Christian church and a Muslim mosque came together to "build in faith." Sometimes, we'd bring the meal. Other Saturdays, our Muslim friends would. It was an incredibly special time.

During the planning for this build, we were informed that the house right next door (one of our other two houses) would be designated as Habitat International’s 60,000th home. So, on the first Saturday of that build, Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk was in attendance, as was Millard and the exceedingly grateful Ruiz family. Here’s a pic from that day:



Yes, I'm the beardless guy on the far right. The Ruiz family lives there to this day. I visited with them as recently as the Fall of 2006, when I made a stop by the street. Most of the houses seem well cared for, and are still owned by the original families who helped build them. In fact, it's one of the amazing statistics about Habitat...very few families ever sell their homes, and even fewer ever default on their loans.

Those few weeks of early September in 1997 are incredibly memorable to me for so many reasons....
...the build with the Muslims...
...the 60,000th house...
...being interviewed by every news channel in Dallas (I may get around to posting the video eventually...)

But the biggest news of all?
Maria was born that week too.

There are few times in life when that much amazingly good stuff happens in your work and home life. I will always remember those weeks. They were incredible.

Ironically, after Habitat builds houses in a neighborhood over a period of several years, they often have to find a new place to build, because the neighborhoods recover so well that Habitat can no longer afford to build there! Private homebuilders jump in..home values rise....and Habitat, having done their job, moves on to another needy part of town.

(In Dallas, the best example of this is the Munger Place area, the very first neighborhood where Dallas Habitat built, which recovered sharply after Dallas Habitat started building there in the 1980s).

Looking back now, I can remember when we thought it would be amazing to do just one house. So, how amazing it was when we’d built thirteen!!!

But, wait...there’s more....

During the Fall of 1999, Dallas Habitat told me that Millard would be in town again, and would be available to speak at HPUMC, if we could find a time slot. I spoke with Mark about it and, as luck would have it, Mark was planning to take off Thanksgiving Weekend. Mark cleared the way for us to invite Millard to be the guest preacher at HPUMC. I served as liturgist for the day.

As we sat in Mark’s study that morning, Millard told me a little about what he planned to say that day.

And then he said, "Eric, I've got an idea I want to run by you...There's a church in Atlanta, Peachtree Presbyterian, that has built almost one hundred Habitat homes over the years. I've been thinking that your church is the kind of church that could do that too."

I paused for a minute, and probably stumbled a little. We had been having great success with our builds. But at the moment, we were building a community center in South Dallas. And, frankly, it had been a huge logistical headache. It was over budget, suffered hassles from City Hall, and had somewhat syphoned-off the energy of our "Carpenter's" volunteers.

I expressed this reservation. Millard pushed back.

"Well, it would just be houses. And, like I said, there are very few churches in the world that could undertake such a thing....but I think you all could do it."

I told Millard that it was an interesting idea, and I said, "Well then, why don’t you throw it out there, and we'll see what happens..."

So it was that, at all three services on Thanksgiving Weekend, Millard preached to that church, and told his typical Habitat stories.

But as the punch-line, he delivered the "100 House Challenge."

The goal: for Highland Park UMC in Dallas to build 100 Habitat for Humanity Houses.

Needless to say, when Mark returned from vacation, he was both excited and concerned. It was a tall order. How could we sustain such a huge effort of resources, person power, and energy?

I went to Atlanta, on behalf of our church, and interviewed some of the staff of Peachtree Presbyterian. I also met with Dallas Habitat staff, and we eventually signed an initial agreement of intent to complete this challenge.

Soon afterward this agreement was complete, I was moving to Northaven UMC. (These things were not related!)

But to this day, I count the creation of the 100 House Challenge as one of my greatest success of my ministry....perhaps even the greatest.

Because, should it be fulfilled, it would mean that 100 families, thousands of human beings, would have the trajectory of their lives forever altered. Entire neighborhoods in Dallas would be transformed.

I have merely watched from afar these past eight years, as the good folks on Highland Park UMC continued forward with the 100 House Challenge. But I bumped into the current chair of "Carpenter's" at an HPUMC event just before Christmas, and he told me that they are now working on House #64!!!

Wow.
Wow...wow....wow....

It's the kind of thing that leaves you speechless. You hope and pray that something like this can continue, and to see that it has, to see how it's grown and expanded, is truly awe-inspiring.

Here are a few of the amazing families the ministry has helped to house, followed by a chronological list of all the houses Carpenter’s has built. Here are some more recent pictures from the Carpenter's folks.





But this day, I pause to write, and to remember, the man who started it all.

Of Millard Fuller, President Jimmy Carter said this today:

"He used his remarkable gifts as an entrepreneur for the benefit of millions of needy people around the world by providing them with decent housing...As the founder of Habitat for Humanity and later the Fuller Center, he was an inspiration to me, other members of our family and an untold number of volunteers who worked side-by-side under his leadership."

President Carter called Fuller "one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known."

Think for a moment just how many remarkable people President Carter has known. That's saying a lot.

Millard had an ugly split with Habitat about four years ago. There were allegations of inappropriate behavior around female staff members.

Bluntly, there were other issues going on at the time too. The board of Habitat was taking it in a more "corporate" direction, moving the headquarters from sleepy Americus to downtown Atlanta.

Frankly, I don't know what to think of the allegations. And I certainly don't want to deny their signifance.

But I also know that Millard Fuller was more the entrepreneurial type than the corporate type. My family systems training tells me that what broke the camel's back likely included far more than the allegations or the fact that Millard broke an agreement not to talk about them.

I don't know these things for certain. It's just a hunch.

I do know this: Millard led by sheer enthusiasm and energy...casting out nets of outrageous goals and visions that others were expected to reel in.

As one senior Habitat staff once joked "Millard’s dreams are the Habitat's staff's nightmares."

But organizations like Habitat only flourish with that kind of crazy, outrageous vision. I think Millard sensed that Habitat's move toward a more corporate structure also meant a move away from an explicitly Christian focus too, and my own personal sense was that it bugged him.

Millard and Linda, as I said before, gave up hundreds of thousands of dollars to create the Habitat ministry. Despite Habitat's success, they lived relatively austerely for the rest of their lives. In fact, I recall a conversation with his daughter once, where she described their modest home in Americus. Turns out, for all the years they lived there, they never installed air conditioning. But, she told me, she had fairly well insisted on one, so that her kids (Millard and Linda's grandchildren) would be more comfortable when they visited.

The Fuller's relented. And, sometime during the late 1990s, they finally installed an air conditioner in their rural Georgia home.

Millard Fuller was certainly not a saint, in the traditional sense.

But, as for me?

I rate him alongside folks like Mother Theresa, Desmond Tutu, and Jim Wallis...Christians whose faith compels them to make the world a better place.

Millions of lives have been touched by his ministry and vision.

And I will always be deeply grateful that, however briefly, our paths crossed and he became one of my Balcony People.

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Connections Band Spring/Summer Schedule

Our Connections Band founding members have been meeting over the past month, and trying to get the Spring/Summer schedule finalized. There are a few more shows to post still, but most of them are now known. All this info. has been posted to the band's website, but I wanted to be sure and respost it here to make sure everybody gets the word.

We'll be doing many of our old shows. And, this Fall, we'll be introducing a new show called "SuperHits of the 70s." The toughest job right now is narrowing hundreds of potential songs down to one two-set show. But it's coming together.

It's going to be a great year.





The links below lead to the shows pages on the band website:


Connections Band: Spring 2009 Schedule

March 7, 2009: Tribute to James Taylor and Carole King

April 17, 2009: Tribute to the Doobie Brothers and Elton John

May 2, 2009: Tribute to the Doobie Brothers and Elton John

June 5, 2009: Tribute to the Eagles and Chicago

September 27, 2009: Super Hits of the 70s

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