TED!

I've taken a few days now to let things settle, for emotions to level off. When you make a statement that includes phrases like "the best ever" or "the worst ever", you need to strive to be at your most objective. Wait; that's not true! We're not talking science here, this about art and life; deep feelings, wide-ranging emotion, stuff of the heart and soul. Hyperbole is in order.

Still, I needed a cooling off period before declaring that "Ted Lasso" is the best broadcast series ever. The pause between the end of the finale series episode and this writing was not because there was any doubt, I just needed to have my wits about me. And yes, I did watch "Downton Abbey". No, I didn't watch "Breaking Bad" or "Succession". Yes, I'm a sentimental sap and a sucker for fantastic, once in a lifetime writing of brilliant comedy and dramatic moments that border on corny but make you want to believe they're true all at the same time. Higgins, one of my favorite characters in the series said of the series, "It pulls at your heart and hits you in the funny bone."

I love this kind of stuff. It's the magic recipe of writing that makes it possible for me to watch any Richard Curtis movie over and over; films like: Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Love Actually (2003), About Time (2013) and Yesterday (2019).

Surely Jason Sudekis is a fan as well. Just check out the Ted Lasso parody episode of Love Actually.

Now the series has ended, but only the episodes. Ted Lasso will last a long time.

There are a few people out there that if I see their name in a by-line, I stop and read it. People like Anne Lamott, Nadia Bolz-Weber, and Tish Harrison-Warren who is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America and writes a weekly newsletter for the New York Times. In a fairly recent edition of her newsletter she wrote this:

Each Wednesday night my husband and I tune in to watch “Ted Lasso,” the Emmy award-winning Apple TV+ comedy series. The show’s protagonist and title character, played by Jason Sudeikis, is ebullient, kind and, though smart, persistently silly. In the pilot episode, Ted, wide-eyed and folksy, arrives in England after relocating from Kansas with his friend Coach Beard. They climb into an impossibly small car, and Ted calls out to Rebecca, his serious, conniving new boss, “Look! This car has an invisible steering wheel!,” mimicking steering on the left side of the car (as we do on this side of the pond). It’s clear that he’s a sort of clown, with this scene even hinting at a clown car shtick. We discover throughout the series that it is in this very silliness that his power is found.

There is no shortage of religious archetypes in literature and in popular entertainment. There are famous “Christ figures” like Gandalf in “Lord of the Rings,” Dumbledore in the Harry Potter stories, and Anna in “Frozen.” Seen through this lens, Ted Lasso is another kind of religious archetype: a modern-day holy fool.

The holy fool, or yurodivy (also spelled iurodivyi), is a well-known, though controversial, character in Russian Orthodox spirituality. In his book “Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond,” the historian Sergey A. Ivanov writes that in the Orthodox tradition the term designates “a person who feigns insanity, pretends to be silly, or who provokes shock or outrage by his deliberate unruliness.” In other words, the holy fool is a person who flouts social conventions to demonstrate allegiance to God. Holy fools dwell in ordinary, secular life, but they approach it with completely different values. Rejecting respectability and embracing humility and love, holy fools are so profoundly out of step with the broader world that they appear to be ridiculous or even insane and often invite ridicule. And yet, they teach the rest of us how to live.

Not to crown myself A Holy Fool or to compare myself with Ted Lasso, but I do find something familiar in that character. Maybe that's why I find the show so relatable and wonderful. In life in general and in roles I've had, I feel like a fish-out-of-water, like a guy who knows nothing about soccer coaching a team of English "footballers".

My two main vocational pursuits have been youth ministry and banking. I came to each of these accidentally. I stayed in each of these roles for a considerable time, roughly 30 years in each, with some overlap. Ironically, I'm not and have never been a theologian. I suck at Bible trivia games. On a scale of irreverent to reverent, I drift leftward, but respectfully so. When I was offered a position working for a bank, I shared honestly that when we were first married, My Amazing-Missus took away my checkwriting privileges because of my lack of monetary discipline. I now get to have a debit card on a probationary basis. Thankfully the CEO and board of the bank saw something redeemable there or they have deep pity. Probably a combo.

According to the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator® assessment, based on Jung’s archetypal work, my archetypes are Creator and Jester. Of the Jester the description is:

Jesters are most fulfilled when they can use their ingenuity and wit. Naturally playful, spontaneous, and humorous, they enjoy light-hearted truth-telling and can motivate others to see the value of fun. They’re usually excited and challenged by opportunities to lighten up stressful situations. Jesters need to be careful to stay on task when getting routine work done; avoid using humor in hurtful ways; and not come across as being unable to take anything seriously.

Maybe for the first time in my life I feel like I'm in a role that suits who I am. Now it's ABOUT being POPS. All that's required is making them laugh and have fun, helping them stay curious and innocent, encouraging them to look deep into stuff, to see the spiritual, the scary and beautiful spiritual.

If you've watched Ted Lasso at all, I'm guessing that you have done so religiously and that you know the characters well. I love them all but especially Roy Kent. He's so tough and narrow-minded that as a coach, rather than wear a whistle, he just yells, "WHISTLE!!" If you know Roy, this little snippet of dialog between Roy and Ted will make you smile and maybe tear up just a little. If you don't know the show, I hope it is still profound for you.

Roy Kent: For the past year I’ve busted my [expletive] [expletive] trying to change but apparently it hasn’t done [explitive] because I’m still me.

Ted Lasso: Wait. Did you want to be someone else?

Roy Kent: Yeah - someone better. Can people change?

Well, now I'm all dewy-eyed like Meg Ryan in "You've Got Mail" or "Sleepless in Seattle", and I can barely see to type. So, I'm going to rely on the words from Tish Harrison-Warner to close this one out.

"In a time when our culture is marked by outrage, division and cynicism, Ted Lasso calls us back to humility. He asks us to lighten up a little, to not take ourselves too seriously. In doing so, he reminds everyone he encounters — including us watching at home — of our shared humanity. We are all, in the end, not winners or losers, successes or failures, pure heroes or villains, but people who long to be known, loved and delighted in. This is the gift of Ted Lasso. He shows us what’s possible when we give up winning — soccer games, power grabs, professional success, culture wars or online fights — and, however foolish it may be, choose to root for the people all around us."

AFTER

"WHO CAME UP WITH THE NAME TORNADO?" my 8-year old grandgirl asked me. We were driving through our tornado-devastated town in a zig-zag route to avoid still-downed power lines, uprooted trees and twisted chunks of sheet metal.

I'm glad her question was not: "Could God have stopped the tornado?"

Late Wednesday, April 19, 2023, my Amazing-Missus and I were sitting on the bathroom floor, the most interior room of our house, as instructed; under a mattress, watching the weather reports on a mobile phone. Our power was already out. The tornado seemed to have placed a bullseye on the campus of Oklahoma Baptist University with its dorms and apartment buildings full of students. They were all moved to the basement auditorium of the enourmous old chapel building which lost part of it's bell tower and a portion of its roof. All were safe!

Our oldest son who teaches at the university told me the announcement had been made that classes will have to switch to remote learning because of the damage to so many of the buildings across the campus. He said, "These poor seniors spent most of their freshman year in remote learning because of Covid. Now they're returning there because of the tornado." At least all are safe!

"What causes tornadoes?" was the next question from our inquisitive GrandGirl. I could have gone several directions with an answer: like something geo-political and talked about climate change, or veered off into the religious lunatic fringe and speculated it was judgement for some or the other sin. I chose to act like I knew meterological science and threw around terms like mezzo-cyclone, lowerings, convergence of warm moist air with cold. I don't know if she was buying it, but at least we moved on to a different topic. Maybe I should have just said, "It's Oklahoma, Cutiepie. It's what we do."

Here's a story from 1964, archived by the New York Times from the UPI wire service:

SHAWNEE, Okla., Jan. 14 (UPI)—A former mental patient dived a rented plane into an Oklahoma Baptist University classroom building containing 300 students today. He died instantly, but no one else was hurt. He apparently had intended to crash into an evacuated building.

The police tried to shoot the plane down, but failed. They fired seven rifle shots at it as it buzzed the airport adjacent to the campus. It was not known whether any of the shots hit the plane.

The pilot was Robert Lawson 43 years old, of Inola, Okla., a former student here.

The plane rammed into one of the few vacant classrooms in Shawnee Hall, a three‐story red brick building. A class had taken a test there two hours earlier. A French class of about 40 students was in a room just 30 feet from the impact.

It appeared that Mr. Lawson did not mean to hurt anyone. He got mixed up and hit the wrong building. The university had evacuated the Administration Building on his command.

Witnesses said that Mr. Lawson had buzzed the campus for 35 minutes before he rammed his plane into the south side of the building.

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Shawnee Hall sits at the top of the Oval in the heart of the OBU like the keystone of the original campus. If you'll forgive my anthropomorphism, the old girl recovered from a direct hit by a nutjob in an airplane to her beautiful face, survived and has stood as the standard of dignity and grace since. That is until last Wednesday night, when the tornado hit.

Here are a couple of photos: the first is one I took on one of my early morning walks around the campus. The next, I borrowed from the OBU Facebook page. Last night, we drove around the Oval for the first time since the storm. So much destruction across the campus, but seeing Shawnee Hall was a gut punch. I'm pulling for her to rise again.

Certainly, Shawnee Hall isn't a single point of devastation. The tornado didn't discriminate. I'm just using her as sort of a marker, a finish line. Things will be cleaned up, what can be rebuilt will be, students will return to class, the beauty of springtime on a college campus will emerge. For me, once Shawnee Hall has a new roof, new windows, and a new start, I'll feel like we're back and ready for what's next.

In our faith tradition we speak of "rededication". It's works kind of like this: say, you're sitting in the bathroom floor with a mattress over you and a storm bearing down. You think: maybe I should quit fooling myself--Braum's frozen yogurt is NOT health food. From now on, I'll strive to be healthier, kinder and gentler...

Here's something I've learned about rededication: it must be preceeded by restoration; whether we talking about lives, life or landmarks like the old Hall. Once restored we can rededicate to place and purpose. And, when we seek to restore we understand that we're back to the essential ingredientes of dignity and grace.

Here's another picture for you. It's of that young GrandGirl of mine, the one that is full of questions. This is her, last autumn, doing a dance on the east steps of--you guessed it--Shawnee Hall.

I can imagine that once the campus is rebuilt and the old Hall is restored that maybe there could be a rededication as students return for the Fall semester of 2023 and a new class of freshman start their journey.

Once the restoration is complete, I may, while on campus for my early morning walk, run to the top of her stairs like Sylvester Stallone in "Rocky", and do a litte dance of my own.

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As I'm typing these last lines, listening to a mix from Apple Music, Cat Stevens is singing:

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dew fall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the One Light Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day

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.

CINDERELLA

I am a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain
I'm a Baptist like my daddy, and Jesus knows my name
I am memory and stillness, I am lonely in old age
I am not your destination
I am clinging to my ways
I am a town

LET’S TALK ABOUT CINDERELLA. Not the girl, but a place. Actually an old hotel.

POSTCARD OF THE CINDERELLA HOTEL. SHAWNEE, OKLAHOMA.

I don't know the history of the Cinderella Hotel. I could probably have done some research, but I'm not writing a piece for posterity here. And, I want to recall the Cinderella as I encountered her over the years.

Let's start with why she is on my mind. She has sat abandoned, except for a few homeless folks looking for a night's rest. Now, the word is that she will be bulldozed. This is the merciful thing to do.

What was once a lovely place to stay with all the post-war promise of a young, abused stepchild who has just met her fairy godmother, to a seedy place where the best business plan was probably to rent rooms by the hour rather than for the duration of a family vacation with “refrigerated-air” and a lovely pool.

My first experience with the Cinderella was as a mildly rebellious, young preacher's boy with a small bag of wild oats to be sown. Those oats grew into straws, one of which, but not the camel's back breaking one, was a "function" (read: dance) for the students of the Baptist university a bison's chip's throw from the Cinderella, a function that I may have had a hand in planning, which may now live in infamy.

Years later, our family which was scattered around Oklahoma, gathered at the Cinderella for a family Christmas gathering. By this time the old girl was showing signs of giving up. Like her glass slipper didn't fit anymore and her prince had lost interest.

A year ago we moved to Shawnee to become a burden to our children. We drive by the Cinderella often on our way to the dance studio and a little restaurant called, "Shawnee Pho" which is a favorite of our Grand-Girls, and sits next door to the Cinderella. We ate there just last night. As I always do, I glanced over at the dilipated, fenced off mess and remembered better days. After eating I cracked open my fortune cookie to discover there was no fortune inside. See where I'm going?

This morning, I saw the headline that the old princess will be plowed under. I don't know what will take its place. Maybe they plan to "pave paradise and put up a parking lot."

Remember this lyric from John Lennon, "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." Maybe I'll write that on a piece of paper, carefully insert it into a fortune cookie and throw it into Cinderella's remains along with the memories of vacations, honeymoons, ashtrays, COLOR TV, and paper ribbons that stretched across toilet seats telling us that it had been “Sanitized For Our Protection”.

I kicked off this essay with a stanza, my favorite stanza, from the song "I Am A Town" by Mary Chapin Carpenter. I don't claim to understand what Mary had in mind when she wrote it, but I can imagine a town like Shawnee and so many others singing it, if a town could sing a song.

Speaking as a Shawneeite, I'm excited that we have a new Taco Casa and Dutch Bros Coffee, but these don't do anything for the shell that was once a vibrant downtown. I wish it could vibrate again. I'm not counting on a visit from a fairy godmother or a decision by Joanna and Chip Gaines to make Shawnee their new home, bringing a truckload of shiplap and promise of rebirth, so, I'll offer this verse, taken way out of context, as a step:

"Also work for the success of the city I have sent you to. Pray to the Lord for that city. If it succeeds, you too will enjoy success.” Jeremiah 29:7.

Here's to old Cinderella. Thanks for everything. Sorry you didn't live happily ever after.

Please take time to listen to Mary Chapin Carpenter's song. Here's a link and the lyrics.

I'm a town in Carolina
I'm a detour on a ride
For a phone call and a soda, I'm a blur from the driver's side
I'm the last gas for an hour if you're going twenty-five

I am Texaco and tobacco
I am dust you leave behind

I am peaches in September, and corn from a roadside stall
I'm the language of the natives, I'm a cadence and a drawl

I'm the pines behind the graveyard
And the cool beneath their shade

Where the boys have left their beer cans
I am weeds between the graves

My porches sag and lean with old black men and children
My sleep is filled with dreams, I never can fulfill them

I am a town

I am a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain
I'm a Baptist like my daddy, and Jesus knows my name
I am memory and stillness, I am lonely in old age

I am not your destination
I am clinging to my ways
I am a town

I'm a town in Carolina
I am billboards in the fields
I'm an old truck up on cinder blocks, missing all my wheels
I am Pabst Blue Ribbon, American, and 'Southern Serves the South'

I am tucked behind the Jaycees sign, on the rural route

I am a town