So how long do we put up with the spin artists, excuse makers, sycophants, the yes-men and women who are going to defend our so-called President NO MATTER WHAT HE SAYS OR DOES?

This is remarkable, in a tragic sort of way. The whole bunch of them have drunk the kool-aid. They must be exhausted. I wonder if they hate themselves sometimes. Whatever it takes to stay in the driver’s seat, though. Right?

What, if anything, does it say about us as a nation that the stock market is soaring while much of everything else seems to be headed for the dumpster?

Can we learn to believe in God?

This was the question asked on the Op-Ed page of a recent edition of the NY Times. I didn’t read the article. The question itself was enough to get me pondering my own response.

Short answer? Sure, we can learn to believe in God the same way we can gain strength by subjecting our muscles to repeated exertion, or our brains to recalling letters of the alphabet. This is what regular worship and Sunday School can accomplish.

But is this the goal? Is this what we should want? Because it starts sounding an awful lot like rote memory, like what can happen when we say or hear something often enough- we just might start internalizing it, believing it. Not necessarily because it’s true in some absolute or cosmic way, but because it’s what we’ve come to know and grown familiar with. We’ve invested time and energy, after all.  And people in positions of authority are telling me it’s true, so it must mean something.

Learning to believe in God sounds somehow suspect to me. It infers too much process and a level of discipline that leaves no room for pure revelation. One could argue that revelation is the fruit of discipline, but that starts sounding like works righteousness to me- like you have to put in your time before you gain access to the really important information.

I betray my own misgivings. I envision belief in God as something more mysterious, ethereal, personal, and spiritual than simple muscle memory or extended periods of time with like-minded people, the product of some sort of not-so-benign group think that helps us get through the day.

No doubt we come to faith by different means. We profess belief in God in a kairos moment of clarity or surrender. Or maybe we say we believe when we’re really not sure.

Faith is neither rational nor logical. Faith is living without all the answers, including never knowing with certainty that there is a God in heaven who loves us.

This cold snap has me thinking about an impromptu weekend camping trip we put together at the close of one January term in college. For whatever reason, six or seven of us thought it would be a good idea to head to St. Croix State Forest, on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin, for a couple nights of camping and… whatever else ended up happening- walking, a little sledding, comraderie, time away before the Spring semester started.

We left our dorm in southern Minnesota, picked up a friend in the Twin Cities, and eventually headed up I-35 toward our destination. There was a bit of snow falling along the way, temps were in the low to mid 30s.

We set up camp in the middle of a pine grove, got a fire going, and eventually retired that first night- most of us to tents and sleeping bags, one of us to a hammock hung between two trees.

The next day was bright and sunny, so we got out and did some exploring. Someone had brought along a couple of those plastic toboggans, so we found some hills to slide on. We were having ourselves a good old time.

This was long before the days of cell phones and weather apps, but we knew the recent storminess was being followed by a batch of cold air. And the second night ended up being a lot different than the first. Most of us got up around midnight to stoke and stand around the fire, and we never moved very far from it. The sides of us facing the fire were toasty, but our backsides were freezing. The choice of placing the camp in a pine grove was fortuitous, since we had a built-in supply of dry wood.  Well, that and one of the moms pretty much emptied her refrigerator for us, so we had food enough to keep us going.

I don’t remember much about that wait for the sun to come up, other than it was a really long night. We got out of there sometime the next morning and stopped at the first Perkins we came to for multiple pots of coffee and a delicious hot breakfast.

Turns out the temp had dropped to -46 that second night. No wonder we were  

No Darwin Award, though. And no frostbite, no lingering affects, other than the sensory memory of that experience every time the mercury plummets toward negative numbers.

Fodder for a good story.

On occasion, I recall the trip made to Israel a few years ago.

Somewhat disappointingly, I didn’t have any real moments of revelation or epiphanies while I was there (not sure what I was expecting, though). It was more the collective experience- the air travel, the first glimpse of the Temple Mount from our “home base” at St. Peter in Gallicantu; the culture shock (though not as shocking as one might imagine), the real-time experience of Jerusalem and the road trip through much of the country- from Beersheba, Mitzpe Ramon and Sde Boker in the Negev Desert to the foothills of Mt. Hermon and the border with Lebanon; from the city of Akko, along the Mediterranean Sea, to disputed territory in the Golan Heights, little more than a stone’s throw from Syria.

While there was much more to see (we didn’t get to visit Bethany or Bethlehem, among other places), we did see and experience the desert south, the fertile Hula Valley, the Dead Sea, Masada, En Gedi, Qumran, the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth, Cana, Mt. Arbel, Mt. Tabor, one source of the Jordan River at Banyas Springs, Capernaum, Tiberias, Tabgha, and of course Jerusalem (Old and New)- Yad Vashem, open air markets, haggling with a merchant in the Old City, the Kidron Valley, Mount of Olives, Mt. Zion, Garden of Gethsemane, the Temple Mount.

And the food- ah, the falafel and hummus and tabouleh and shawarma and Turkish coffee and… pizza?

There were check points in the West Bank. There were teenagers in military garb carrying automatic weapons, practically rubbing shoulders with tourists and schoolchildren. There were reminders throughout of this uneasy co-existence of Jew and Christian and Muslim. Yet it seemed, at least on the surface, that most of the time folks were just trying to get through the day– go to school, make a living, worship their God.

Jerusalem is a vibrant and noisy place. We had only begun to plumb the depths of its historical and Biblical significance when it was time to head home.

So I’m a gadget guy. I admit to devouring the Sunday circulars from Staples and Best Buy. If I have to be in a mall, I’d prefer to pass the time in the electronics section of any department store.

Technology fascinates and impresses me. Updates and innovations happen with such frequency. And the minds behind these things!

I have a working knowledge of hardly any of it. I just use things and hope they never stop functioning properly.

Obsolescence is a given. It doesn’t take long for something that’s new and hot to cool down and show up in the rear view mirror, taking a back seat to the next big thing.

Which might set one to wondering if such a progression hasn’t already happened with various gifts we received for Christmas. We can file our gifts in a variety of categories—useful, needed, wanted, useless, @#$%^!, creative, unexpected, sentimental, thoughtful…

In my experience and memory, there has never been a gift that approached the lofty status of the Official Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle that Ralphie Parker dreamed of and received (with the compass in the stock), though there have been some needed, wanted, and unexpected gifts along the way and I’ve appreciated them all. Still, it amazes me how easily I can part with things that at one time were considered indispensable and must-haves.

If Christmas matters- beyond the candle light and family time and presents- then it need be bound up in Jesus. Everything and everybody else will wear out, break, not fit anymore, be willed to an heir, or take a back seat to whatever comes next.

The writer of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. In a world that gets quickly bored, this may sound like one more boring thing.

Yet Jesus is always a big thing, always calling us back from the brink, from our worship of lesser gods and the shallow, short-lived joy we might feel over whatever earthly treasure we care to covet.

It makes sense that we put our faith in things we can touch and see and use. But we know how that usually progresses.

 

Extraterrestrial life, or the possibility of it, has been getting a lot of press lately, especially since the recent New York Times article investigating reports by military pilots of unidentified flying objects they encountered in the course of their daily duties.

If I was a betting man, I believe I’d put money on the likelihood of there being life somewhere else in the universe. After all, it’s a pretty big place.

Having said that, I also believe that if it turns out there isn’t anyone else out there, I’d be ok with that.

Some folks are convinced that there are aliens among us, that there has to be a governmental cover-up dwarfing the JFK conspiracy theories and the lunar landings that is keeping the general public from knowing the real truth about extraterrestrial life.

To which I say, with all the passion and vigor I can muster, “Whatever.”

Can we talk about terrestrial life for a few minutes? There are approaching 8 billion of us on this magnificent celestial orb we call Earth. No matter where we stand on the necessity of contemplating carbon footprints and global warming, almost 8 billion humans in a finite space translates to the necessity of cooperation and awareness of need. And awareness of impact.

For the anti-tree huggers among us, events like Earth Day and the whole environmental movement must seem like so much hooey, major annoyances. Just window dressing and a band-aid, a bandwagon easy to jump on for a day or two.

However, for anyone who claims that the Bible speaks with a certain authority, care of the earth is not optional. Care for all its inhabitants is not optional.

There are two creation stories in the book of Genesis- chapters 1:1-2:4a, and 2:4b-24. The first speaks of “filling the earth and subduing it,” while the second portrays us humans as stewards and caretakers. The battle rages over which one deserves our allegiance, though it seems pretty clear that blindly ascribing to the first is a disaster in progress, not to mention incredibly selfish and short-sighted.

Wherever we stand on the authority of Scripture, or on the eco-awareness spectrum, may we be moved to take care of things—our families, our hearts and souls, and the only planet the vast majority of us will ever call

home.

Perfection is a lofty goal. It can be a driving force behind musicians and athletes, chefs and auto designers, wood-workers and surgeons. The pursuit keeps us focused. Of course, it can also consume us, which is somewhat tragic, since perfection can be such a subjective thing.

One’s perfectly-played Chopin Nocturne is another’s dreadful and unimaginative rendition of the same. One’s perfect soufflé is lost on another who prefers a cheeseburger and fries.

Still, we pursue perfection—not all of us, but many of us—in whatever endeavors we undertake. It gives us peace of mind and satisfaction, knowing that we’ve put forth our best effort.

Some abide by the mantra, “If I can’t do it well, then I won’t do it at all,” which sort of skips over the whole idea of practice and repetition and finding reinforcement through incremental improvement. Which in turn involves patience and a certain hope and desire, not to mention courage.

Garrison Keillor (I know, I know…) used to sign off each Writer’s Almanac installment with, “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.” No mention of perfect work, in his typically understated manner.

There is a place for simply seeing that our heart is in whatever we do, in the name of self-betterment or building up others.

Is it really just about the economy, stupid? It seems so. Many economic indicators have been on fire since Mr. Trump took office. The stock market is up 5000 points, so investors must feel pretty good about their own fucking climate. Of course, any rustling leaf or little whiff of conflict will have them running for cover and claiming the sky is falling.

So, apparently, when push comes to shove, it really is all about how people feel about their economic well-being. Nothing else much matters, like who is in office or what else is being done or undone or said or promised. Or threatened.

Our President’s a jerk? It doesn’t matter- my 401k is up 30 percent. He’s declaring war on a free press? Tsk, tsk, Bitcoin is going through the roof! He’s undoing every sane attempt at regulation of abuse of privilege and power? Please, this is ‘murica.  It’s amazing what we can overlook when our bellies are full.

Heaven help us. And now we have to suffer through another gloat fest thanks to passage of a tax bill rammed through Congress, to be signed in early January. The prospect of seeing a bunch of beaming white millionaires standing behind the Braggart-in-Chief, all puffed up over their “accomplishment,” is hard to handle. They’re painting it as the best Christmas gift ever for the average American taxpayer (well, until 2027). Throwing us a bone and then feeling pleased with themselves.

Please stop saying that you’re speaking for the American people. You’re not even speaking for a tiny majority of the American people. As if you know us or what is in our hearts and on our minds. Please leave me out of your pronouncements. You are not speaking for me or the actual majority of us.

Just stop it. Just go away.  That would be the best Christmas gift ever.

I used to consider myself an Independent, in terms of who I voted for. In Presidential elections, I’ve voted for both Democrats and Republicans over the years. I’ve never been a party loyalist. Until lately.

I vote a straight Democratic ticket anymore, sometimes to spite, sometimes on principle.

One has to look and listen closely to detect any separation or distinction between any Republican House rep or Senator. Ever since Barack Obama (though probably before), the Republicans have been in lockstep opposition to Democratic policy ideas. Donald Trump won the electoral college because he promised to undo whatever was done in the eight years Obama was in office. And he is keeping those promises with a barrage of executive orders. 

Oh, there is separation in the Republican camp- the tea partiers and Bannon disciples have wackier and more frightening ideas than the old guard McConnell types. But I’ve learned that a Republican vision of governance tends to overlook people, leave people out. The focus is heavily on small government, reckless deregulation, skewed tax policy that seems to favor big business and the rich few, and an unhealthy embrace of “Christian values.”

There is a conservatism that seems to come from a place of fear and ignorance and nostalgia.

It is stunning, on occasion, to realize how much of the daily news cycle is merely a recounting of small-mindedness. And everyone gets drawn in. This President is the biggest culprit, the Instigator-in-Chief. He’s a braggart, a dispenser of sewage and paper towels, lacks any semblance of a unifying vision, and in general is just not a very likeable person.  Yet day after day, everyone continues to play right into his hand.

What would happen if the late night hosts decided to look elsewhere for material? What would happen if the media just stopped covering him? Oops, that wouldn’t work because then Fox News and the Breitbart universe would have free reign.

Trump loves attention, and without it he’s nothing. But since he is the President, he gets coverage by default. He’s like a porch light attracting moths.

Though any mention of him and light in the same sentence is a disservice to light.