GIRL POWER

NOTE: This post is part one of what I'm hoping to be a series addressing an issue that is heart-breaking and urgent.

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WOULD YOU HIRE THIS GIRL? Let's say you run a coffeehouse and need a good barista: would you hire her? Need a babysitter for your kids? You're a principle needing a middle school social studies teacher?

Does she look motivated? Directionless? Visionary? Self-disciplined? Would you assume she is well-socialized--"the process beginning during childhood by which individuals acquire the values, habits, and attitudes of a society"?

We have five Grand-Girls. I want them to know that I am on their side! For many years, I worked in youth ministry. It has been one of the great joys of my life to advocate for teens, especially girls. I'm not sure why; but I think it has something to do with the church tradition I was raised in. By doctrine and dogma, this church tradition has diminished the role of women in the church, in the family and in society. In my personal experience though, that stomp-your-foot-down-and-slap-your-King-James_Bible hard line was blurry. It was a message that played better at a pastor's conference or preach-off than in the real world. The church Fathers talked a tough game about the secondary and tertiary role of church mothers and sisters, but I think deep down they knew (and refused to acknowledge), the local church would have faltered faster had it not been for women.

According to recent studies and much conjecturing, young people, especially girls, are suffering: increased depression, hopelessness and at least--sadness. It's not just the church or politics, or the unfortunate, illegitimate marriage of the two. But what is it? The current favorites (depending on your news source) include: social media, smartphones, the recent pandemic (being isolated at home), "wokeness", the breakdown of the nuclear family. Even poor old Donald Trump and his championing of misogony has made the list.

I'm not trying to point a finger. That's a tough thing to do these days. My old digits are so twisted by arthritis (both real and idealogical) that often, when I'm pointing at one thing, people assume I'm pointing at another. I'm interested in solutions. I don't know that I have any, but that's where my interests and my heart, lie. So...

Back in my early days of youth ministry, I thought I could rescue every troubled teen. I got some wise guidance from a couple of people. One was my mom. She told me, "There's no such thing as a troubled teen, just a teen with troubles." The other told me to accept my limitations. "You can only do so much, but do that the best you can."

In that spirit: here goes...

First, I need to remember that Jesus loved young people and he loved women, all women. His own mother was probably fourteen when he was conceived. She is one of five women listed in the story of Jesus' beginning. Matthew in his gospel records this group:

Mary, the mother of Jesus. Of course she deserves to be listed, but these other four? I wonder if there was ever a time when the Disciples were gathered around the campfire waiting for the fish to cook, that maybe Jesus asked Matthew, “Hey, Matt, I get why you mentioned my mom and maybe Ruth; but Tamar, Rahab The Prostitute, and Bathsheba?!”

Of course he never asked Matthew about that. My guess is that Jesus was not at all embarrassed to have listed in his public record women like Tamar, who pretended to be a hooker so she could trick her father-in-law in to having sex with her, or Rahab The Prostitute, a real prostitute, or Bathsheba (mentioned only as the wife of her husband) who had an adulterous affair with the king (David) and then the king had her husband moved to the front line of the war so that he would surely be killed.

Isn't it strange how we want to sterilize The Story, making it less human? Creating a false reality is always dishonest, whether it misappropriating scripture or pretending that the personas, the guises of social media are real and must be attained.

I love the inquisitiveness of youth. It's essential to healthy growth. It can also be frustrating and scary. Let's not discourage it. They want to dig deep. Let's not breed cynicism by being dishonest with them.

It's in the asking of questions like: Why?! When?! Why not?! that the journey begins. Maslow would say we all need a place that's safe and secure to ask those questions and start the exploration. But more on that in the next installment.

Oh; that girl in the picture? That's Susan Kare. She did this (from the Wikipedia entry on Susan):

Susan Kare (born February 5, 1954) is an American artist and graphic designer best known for her interface elements and typeface contributions to the first Apple Macintosh from 1983 to 1986. She was employee #10 and Creative Director at NeXT, the company formed by Steve Jobs after he left Apple in 1985. She was a design consultant for Microsoft, IBM, Sony Pictures, and Facebook, Pinterest and she is now an employee of Niantic Labs. As an early pioneer of pixel art and of the graphical computer interface, she has been celebrated as one of the most significant technologists of the modern world.

Susan Kare is considered a pioneer of pixel art and of the graphical user interface, having spent three decades of her career "at the apex of human-machine interaction".

In co-creating the original Macintosh computer and documentation, she drove the visual language for Apple's pioneering graphical computing. Her most recognizable and enduring works at Apple include the world's first proportionally spaced digital font family of the Chicago, Geneva, and Monaco typefaces, and countless icons and interface components such as the Lasso, the Grabber, and the Paint Bucket. Chicago is the most prominent user-interface typeface seen in classic Mac OS interfaces from System 1 in 1984 to Mac OS 9 in 1999, and in the first four generations of the iPod interface. This cumulative work was key in making the Macintosh one of the most successful and foundational computing platforms of all time. Descendants of her groundbreaking 1980s work at Apple are universally seen throughout computing and in print.

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I've included Susan's story to celebrate the life and work of youth, especially young women. Honestly celebrating real work and worth is affirming; for all of us. It's out there everywhere. Look for it. Acknowledge it. Embrace it.

I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

OR CAN I?

Often in times like this I struggle for the right words to say. See, I want to say something... I don't want to say something that will offend, and these days, no matter what you say you're going to offend someone and set off a frenzy of frustration and rebuttal. So why not just keep my mouth shut and lay down my pen and paper? I think it's because, for me, I work through stuff by writing, erasing, underlining, striking through. Many times I wad up the paper and through it in the trash. Is silence better than strife?

Often I think about vantage point. If I'm going to judge or offer an opinion I need to look at the position I'm in as I do so. Am I speaking as one who seeks to follow the teachings of Jesus? If I say that do people assume that I'm one of those radical, religious, evangelical, "blessed", nut jobs because I live in a deep red state and grew up in a southern baptist church? Can I really see things clearly wearing the goggles of a white, male, bald, baby-boomer. Is there a vantage point that allows me to think and speak and act justly? Of course, I can't suspend completely who I am, how I've been raised, the color of my lens, but I can try.

I reached out to a dear friend, who is one of the sanest people I know. I asked him to share his words as sort of guest post on my blog. He consented and I'm letting him have the last word. Thank you Dr. Randall O'Brien for friendship and wisdom.

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After the emotions, comes thought:

*A THEORY of JUSTICE* Changes anyone???

(A theory, a book by John Rawls)

1. Who was John Rawls?

* A philosopher who taught at Oxford, Cornell, M.I.T. and Harvard.

* Famous for his Theory of Justice, and his book by that title, which sold 200,000 copies, and spawned 5,000 articles, papers, and other books (and counting).

2. What is Rawls’s Theory of Justice?

* Concerns SOCIAL JUSTICE.

* Rawls, essentially sees “Justice as fairness.”

* He establishes justice, or fairness, through a hypothetical “Veil of Ignorance.”

* Meaning? Meaning we imagine agreeing to the rules of society—fairness and justice—without knowing our place in society, our class, social status, assets, intelligence, etc, to which we might add race, gender, sexual orientation, abilities, or any other imaginable demographic.

In other words, what rules for a fair society would we write beforehand if none of us knew who we’d be in this world?

This “Veil of Ignorance” should lead to fair rules, and laws to enforce them.

3. So. Question: If we were to seek to form a more just society using Rawls’s theory, what changes would we make?

4. Let us remember: Justice is a coin with which we purchase peace.

5. With a tip of our hat to JFK, shall we acknowledge:

“Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable.”

Hope.

By Randall O’Brien

THE V WORD

IN THE CHURCH OF MY YOUTH, we observed a couple of ordinances: baptism and communion, which we called “Observing the Lord’s Supper.” These ordinances are pictures, and to this day I love them. They are metaphors for remembering. In fact, at the beginning of the communion sevice, the elements—the bread and the “wine”—were set on a table at the front of the sanctuary. Engraved in the front of the table in a sort of gothic typeface were the words of Jesus, “Do this in remembrance of me”.

At the end of the observance, the pastor would read Matthew 26:30, a verse in the narrative of the last supper:

“And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.”

In the church of our tradition that song was the first verse of “Bless Be The Tie that Binds.”

Blest be the tie that binds
our hearts in Christian love;
the fellowship of kindred minds
is like to that above.

It was written by John Fawcett in 1782, although I would guess that many of the old saints of my childhood probably would have insisted that it is the exact song that Jesus and his disciples sang together at that first Last Supper.

Maybe you know the hymn from reading Thornton Wilder’s "Our Town” in high school where the song makes several appearances including at a wedding and at a funeral.

Do we still have ties that bind? If so, are those ties too fragile, too frayed? Have they been reduced to a thread to which we are barely hanging. What is it that is tearing at the fabric of our society and even our families?

Vaccinations? Surely it’s more than that. But I know people who have secretly gotten the vaccine because their family are so strongly anti-vax that could have severed family ties. And what about Jeffrey Allen Burnham from Maryland who killed his brother, a pharmacist. Burnham allegedly said, ”that his brother was 'killing people with the COVID shot.”

As the days click closer to Thanksgiving Day, it seems uncertainty still looms. The fraught questions will not be white meat or dark (WHITE), roasted or fried (ROASTED), should the offal go into the gravy or not? (NOT) Pecan or pumpkin pie or both? (PECAN) Sweet or unsweetened? (UNSWEETENED) Lions or Bears? (BEARS)

Some are asking should we gather together or not? Maybe rather than having seperate tables for adults and kids we can have tables or seperate rooms for the vaccinated and the un. Or, maybe a table in the garage or backyard for old people like myself. These days I’m a part of the oldest generation at our family gatherings. That puts me in the “Covid will probably kill me if I catch it” category. It also means I’m more likely to be cranky and less sympathetic with those who hold differing views of stuff.

A year ago, we didn’t have the vaccine. It was around this time of year that the long term care facility where my mom lived was shut to outsiders. We did get to have a couple of visits outdoors with her but that didn’t last long. At some point, even with the quarantine measures in place she was infected, and shortly, Covid took her life. Thus, I’m puzzled by the arguments, denials, or theories of the militant anti-vaxers; an emotional response on my part for sure. I do have empathy for those who truly are not able to be vaccinated for various reasons or have already had Covid. See, it’s narrow-minded people like me, who are afraid of death by suffocation that are gnawing away at the binding ties. Still I’m puzzled and saddened by how deep the divide is. I wish I knew what to do.

My Amazing-Missus reminded me that there was a time that the divide in our nation was worse. It was during that time, specifically in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, at the height of the Civil War, established Thanksgiving Day in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.”

Pass me a heaping helping of what President Lincoln is serving up.

THE BEAST AND BEAUTY

SOMETHING GOOD WAS HAPPENING.
Then, there was an interruption, and it stopped.

A really interesting conversation was going on.
A louder, more agressive voice entered the room and it stopped.

A group of kids was having big fun making up a game of make-believe,
Until someone carrying some weight of authority said, “You’re doing it wrong.” It stopped.

I remember it well, a jazz band rehersal, the director was called out for an important phone call. He looked to the first trombone player. “Mr. Vernon. Take over.” Mr. Vernon was a high school kid like the rest of us but with a maturity and discipline that earned him a high level of regard and respect. He did take over. He lead one of the most influential sessions of jazz band I can ever remember and we never played a note.

When the director returned, he said, “Mr. Vernon, I thought I could count on you. I hand you the baton and you do nothing,” a presumption based on the fact that he couldn’t hear us playing from his office. I’m pretty sure though when he started us “from the top” after returning to the rehersal, he heard a quality of sound from us that he hadn’t heard before.

Sometimes things happen quietly, creatively, beautifully, but they get covered up by the loudest, brashest, heaviest presence.

I work for a humble CEO. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true. He encourages leadership development. He’s not afraid to delegate even important leadership to others. Still; if a meeting is going on and there is good discussion with involvement from most everyone in the group, as soon as he walks in the room, it slows if not stops. It’s not because he’s overbearing or authoritarian. It just comes with the position. That’s just the way it is sometimes.

Other times though, people and ideas and creative processes and even humanity gets pushed to the margins by the loud, the arrogant, the jerk, the bully. And, the bully isn’t always a person.

In the spirit of If You Have Something To Say; Say It, for this little essay, I’m calling out a few bullies.

The first is politics. Don’t worry I’m not going to pick on your favorite candidate or politician. I’m talking about Politics en masse as the whole beast. There are so many wonderful things happening in our world right now—people are making a difference in wonderful ways, some are not seeking to alienate others, some are doing unto others as they would have others do to them. Scientists are working at an amazing pace to solve problems. Artists of all sorts are contributing in new ways. For example, here’s a link to a video of Bill Frisell (my favorite jazz guitarist) and his trio playing one of my favorite songs* on the streets of Brooklyn.

People are still trying, hanging in there, teaching and parenting and giving care, finding hope and being human—that’s what human beings do. But so much of it just STOPS; because the bully has entered the room, sucking all the air and energy and life out of it. Why have we let Politics get so big and slimy and pervasive that it blinds and darkens until we don’t even see our real selves anymore. Maybe it’s that we have placed our hope in Politics and politicans. Politics and politicians can not Make America Great Again—not him, not any of them. Politics can’t even make democracy great. It is a necessary evil. It cannot do what only SERVICE can do.

While I’m rolling, I’m calling out fundamentalist religion too as an out-sized force. For “christians” it’s almost as if Jesus never existed. It’s almost like he didn’t say, “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father.” Because the Imago Dei has been distorted beyond recogntion.

Contrast the persona of those who loudly proclaim themselves to be the manifestation of “evangelicalism” by virture of their political alignment with this (Philippians 2:2-8 The Message):

Do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!

Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.

Religion can not do what only humble SERVICE can.

In case you’re wondering what happened under Mr. Vernon’s brief time with the baton as our classmate and leader that made it so effective, he started off with this, “Louis Armstrong said it best: “Jazz is music from the heart.” Then he said let’s talk about the contrasts between how we feel when we play jazz, when we’re with the entire band, marching in a parade, or when we’re playing the fight song just before the kick off a big game, or when we’re playing in the orchestra. If we approach all music the same, we’re doing it wrong. He was right. It changed the direction of that rehersal and made us a better jazz band.

Our director was a fine musician and educator. His style would have never allowed 15 minutes of a rehersal to be devoted to discussing how it feels to play music from the heart.

What if we could do something—not from political affiliation, religious dogma, suspicion of others, conspiracies, mistrust and hate, but from the heart? It’s happening you know!? We just can’t see it or hear or feel it because of; well, you know.

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In My Life
The Beatles

There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone, and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends,
I still can recall
Some are dead, and some are living
In my life, I've loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I'll love you more
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I'll love you more
In my life I'll love you more