Volunteer & Internship Fair @ GVSU

The interesting thing I did today was to represent my employer at a volunteer fair at Grand Valley State University for a couple of hours in the early afternoon. I enjoy doing this kind of stuff - it's easy, fun and gratifying to talk with people about the work I do and answer questions they have about what it takes to work with the youth in our homes. I also had a surprising encounter with a former employee that I supervised for a couple of years, who resigned last fall when she became pregnant and took a mentoring-coordinator job for United Way here in Grand Rapids. She was working a table just across the aisle from me and was absolutely beaming about her daughter, born in June. Seeing her was a real treat and she promised to bring her little girl by my office soon for a visit.

But the thing I want to record here was a conversation I had with a young woman just as the event was winding down. Seeing that I was representing an agency whose slogan was "Distinctively Christian, Professionally Excellent," she wanted to know just how we went about blending religion into our work. Though she was fumbling with her words a bit, probably trying to avoid being either too offensive or too vague with what she was trying to express, I picked up on what was on her mind: were we being coercive or manipulative towards our clients by tying religious-compliance strings on to our services? It's an interesting real-life application of a question that I saw on another email list the other day, prompted by the story about the Fox News reporters who were forced to "convert" to Islam at gunpoint. The question was, do Christians do a less violent version of the same thing when we require people to sit through worship services or indoctrination sessions in order to receive food, clothing, shelter or other "mercy ministries?" I guess this has happened both domestically and on the mission field.

I was able to genuinely assure the woman that in my opinion, we've done a great job balancing both sincere expressions and applications of our faith as Christians with a genuine respect for our clients who may or may not want to engage with the religious aspects of our programs and services, to whatever degree is comfortable for them. Over the years, I've been impressed by how we've responded to people from other religious backgrounds or who are simply indifferent or even hostile to Christianity - though exceptions can certainly be found, our general pattern has been to engage their questions non-defensively and to keep in mind that it is not our place to control outcomes or use the advantages we have as treatment providers and authority figures as opportunities to make power moves on those who come to us for assistance. I think I have a well-developed sense for religious scammery and emotional string-pulling and I would struggle a lot more than I do if that kind of thing were going on regularly.

My answer and fuller explanation of what we do and how we go about our business really seemed to hit the bullseye for this young woman and we continued talking for about fifteen minutes or so, well after the room had emptied out and all the other displays had been taken down. It was an energizing encounter for both of us and I felt really blessed to be the right guy at the right time to be her conversation partner, and to represent an organization that's played such a significant and positive role in my life.

She handed me her resume and who knows, I may see her one of the training classes I lead in the weeks ahead.

Fantasy Football

Today was Draft Day for the Wedgwood Football League, a game that we've been playing now since the 1994 NFL season began, based on a scoring system that a friend of mine made up and that we've refined a bit over the years. Back when we started (as was also the case with the Wedgwood Baseball League that started in 1992) we calculated all of our statistics by hand, using newspaper scores, so dedicated were we to this contest where we each pitted our player-drafting and roster-managing skills against nine other owners in a series of competitions based on the productivity of our players every weekend. A few years later, as we all moved up into higher levels of professional responsibility, the manual research and mathematics involved became too demanding and time-consuming, but thankfully we were entering the internet era, when on-line access and computerized statistical tracking services became commonplace. We've been happy customers of CBS Sportsline.com since 2001 and I'll happily recommend their website to anyone who's looking to get into fantasy football or baseball, or relocate their league from a different stat service.

Unlike some guys who get into fantasy sports for the gambling thrills (putting money on the line in pursuit of a big payoff at season's end), our league has never offered more than a football (or baseball) autographed by the owners as its championship trophy. We do it more for the social benefits and the additional intrigue it adds to our Sunday and Monday rituals of watching sports on TV. I seriously doubt that I would have much interest in these numbers games if they didn't involve a lot of guys who I consider good friends on the job. We have had a Friday routine of getting together for lunch at a local pizza place ever since the leagues began, where we talk over the latest developments in the standings, the upcoming match-ups and to revel or agonize in the last week's results, as the case may be. We make trades, express incredulous amazement at some of the strange roster moves that others make, lament sure-fire superstars we drafted who turned out to be busts, and find various ways to give each other a hard time. Conversations also turn to more serious and significant topics after awhile, as we guys get beneath the surface of
safe, non-controversial topics like sports and work-related chatter and whatnot. Of course, the competition to actually win the damn game has its place... something we manage to take seriously (because it feels good to come out on top when matching wits with a bunch of guys who know their sports and do their homework) but also keep in perspective when things don't go the way we'd like. It's non-threatening competition, really - we can take credit for picking the right players or setting our lineup shrewdly, and brush off responsibility when our quarterback goes down before half-time, giving us the perfect alibi when our points come up short. We are really having our cake and eating it too.

But when I think about it... dog, 15+ years of doing this stuff?!?! That's a long time to play a pretend game. Except that at a certain level, it's pretty real. Fantasy sports have become a big pastime for millions of people, and I'm happy to say that our league has a pair of women who are not only good owners, but who have won three championships between themselves over the years. One of them also finished in the finals last year and her franchise is about as close to a perennial dynasty as the league has seen. (I won it myself back in 1998... man, that seems like a long time ago!)

And beyond just being a participant in the leagues, I've been pretty involved with their management and in enhancing the overall experience. I do some website management for the football league and help coordinate the draft, as well as decorating the trophy balls with our logo and inscriptions. In baseball, I'm "Da Commish," pretty close to a full-blown alter-ego actually, though I've not been as flashy with it over the past few years as I once was, when I used to do pretty close to a weekly column full of all the sports-page cliches and tricks of the trade in writing up summaries of each game. I will bring out the flair when it gets into playoff reports and lauding the heroics of our eventual champions. It's those extras that help keep people hooked into the little network of "sports executives" that we've built, and what attracts others who line up to pick up teams when they (rarely) become available.

With the longevity of the league, our franchises have developed their own unique histories, some with illustrious legacies and trophies on the mantle, others who have showed remarkable resiliency and determination just hanging in there even though they always seem to be pretty high up in the draft order, if you know what I mean. Since our league is a "keeper" league (where each team keeps three players from last year's lineup) we also enjoy the traditions of having certain favorite players on our rosters year after year. We have a guy who's ridden with Brett Favre through the glory years as well as his more recent struggles, and is fervently hoping for a suitable finale to his storied career. (I'm in a similar place with Barry Bonds in baseball...) Of course, the Detroit Lions carry a slight premium around here (I have WR Roy Williams on my team, probably the only guy really worth having other than maybe RB Kevin Jones.) This year's #1 was Reggie Bush (duh!) who promises to be a keeper for the Manistee Wolverines for quite a few years. Last year's defending champs, the Paw Paw Panthers, saw three of their best players from 2005 snatched up by other owners within the first six picks, so Kevin is feeling like he merely downgraded his lineup. My team is the Wyoming Tumbleweeds. Here's my lineup, you tell me what you think of this bunch (my keepers are in bold):

QB - Marc Bulger (Rams) & Steve McNair (Ravens)
RB - Cadillac Williams (Buccaneers), Kevan Barlow (Jets) & Deuce McAllister (Saints - he's been a staple in my lineup for several years, and I think he'll do well even with Reggie Bush breathing down his neck in N'Awlins.)
WR - Roy Williams (Lions), Reggie Wayne (Colts) & Mark Clayton (Ravens)
TE - Todd Heap (Ravens) & Joe Klopfenstein (Rams)
K - Shayne Graham (Bengals) & Jason Hanson (Lions - yeah, another guy I can watch every Sunday)
Defense - Colts & Jets

I think I have a good lineup, though I could stand to improve at running back. I'll be keeping my eye on the free agent wire when the season begins next weekend!

Crosses, Tammuz and Common Sense

In the past few days I received a couple of lengthy comments from Alex, a regular reader here, in response to the Irresistible Revolution post from last week. He expressed particular interest in what I had to say about a few points he raised. Since it's easier for me to write them out in this box rather than the Comments page, and since comments tend to get buried after awhile, I'm bringing the conversation here.

Quoting Alex then (his comments are italicized, mine are plain)...

I could be wrong but I doubt we would have much disagreement on how literally to follow Jesus even though you are skeptical about the term.

I do admit that "literal" is a word that sometimes gives me the shivers when it's used in a religious context, depending on where the user is going with it.

I believe in a common sense translation of the bible, not because I don't believe in strictly adhering to the bible, but because I translate it as common sense guidelines!

Are you thinking of something like what Thomas Jefferson did when he cut out the supernatural portions of the gospels (miracles, basically) and only kept the "practical wisdom" teachings? Personally I find it potentially quite treacherous to live in accordance with "common sense" because a lot of what people regard as such seems misguided, foolish or prejudiced to me. Racial segregation, witch-hunts and jingoistic "patriotism" have been regarded as common sense by many in our culture.

Why would God even give us common sense and then have Jesus leave us with a set of rules that deviated from it!?

Perhaps because common sense can sometimes serve as a basis for violence, exploitation or marginalization of others? I'm not saying that this is what you mean by common sense... we should probably clarify the terminology before we proceed down this particular path.

This is where I have alot of problems with most churches, that openly do things that are obviously wrong but their followers are too brainwashed to open their eyes too it.

Specifics would be helpful here! What kind of wrong things do you have in mind?

Jesus taught humility and washed the feet of his disciples right? But the pope lives in a palace, wears $1,000 custom extravagent garments, and has people kissing his hand. I don't think you are catholic but they tend to have to most obvious examples, though I can name them in more or less every church.

Oh there's big money to be made in religion, of course. Protestant leaders may not dress up quite as ostentatiously as the Pope (or Orthodox patriarchs, for that matter)... though some do! I have my iconoclastic side, I can do without the groveling and hand-kissing and all that, but I won't begrudge church officials some fancy wardrobes. I know that many of their followers like that kind of thing and would be very sad to see the pomp and pageantry done away with. I'm more troubled by how the power is wielded and to what ends. I have more respect for the stance that the Catholic Church has made against war, for example, than I do for Protestant leaders who not only support it but in some cases are closely affiliated with profiteering businesses like Halliburton, Bechtel and their subsidiaries. Even though those leaders dress in "normal" business suits and ties and adopt an "aw shucks" regular-guy humble persona when the spotlight shines on them.

The idolatry of the cross is another pretty straight-forward one to me, though so many people make scathing arguments in its support. The bottom line is the bible clearly says to avoid idolatry, not to go ahead and use it just because it is for God.

Here you are critiquing the symbolic and iconic use of the cross. I can see how the cross, and particularly the crucifix, is used in ways that seem exaggerated, vulgar or distracting. Idolatry though? That's a strong charge to bring if speaking generally. How restrictive would you be in how churches employ crosss symbols in their worship?

There is in fact never an instance where Jesus uses it, or says it is ok to do so, but rather says the complete opposite through the entire bible.

True, I don't see any evidence of Jesus advocating the use of any kinds of objects or symbols or artifacts in our spiritual practice. He was more about actions, with perhaps a minor emphasis on remembering the scriptures. Of course he didn't use the cross symbol in his lifetime, but he is quoted as referring to it... "pick up your cross and follow me."

Beyond that the cross was initially a symbol for the pagan god Tammuz as well as the fact it is more likely Jesus died on a stake than a cross.

OK, now you are getting into some interesting stuff. What's your source and knowlede of Tammuz? You appear to have studied up on this a bit and I'm intrigued with where you are going here. It's not everyday that I get people referencing Tammuz n this blog! In fact, all the Tammuz references I found in the blog search I ran just now refer to the Jewish calendar, not the pagan deity. And why in the heck did the Jews name one of their months after a pagan deity? (Not that Christians have any leg to stand on in making accusations...)

Cross in Greek means a pole, and not a cross as we know it, and imagry from the era support the fact people were killed often on stakes and not "t" crosses, although these points are really irrelevant to anyone accepting that we were commanded not to do it anyway.

I've read about these debates before... The various means of execution for crucified criminals and how it should or should not be depicted in Christian worship. I've heard of stakes, poles, crosses shaped like an X, the ankh, the sunwheel, the brazen serpent of Moses, the caduceus, all kinds of fascinating, esoteric and sometimes even trippy variations on the symbol. For the most part, I'm just a spectator in that game, but I am curious to know more about your opposition to the use of the cross as a Christian symbol.

The pope, the easter bunny, nuns, crosses, the Trinity, all creations of a church that has proven itself failable throughout its entire history, none coming from the bible.

But these are all revealing and significant cultural developments that can be connected back to the Bible in a tangential way. (Well, not Easter bunnies, I guess.) I'm no big proponent of any of that stuff but there are a lot of important clues and cues to be found in these traditions. What do they mean and why/how did they become so important to so many people for such a long time?

Are you into Jung and Campbell and all that archetypal stuff? If not, you might want to check it out.

People have to choose what to believe on their own

We've been having a long drawn out discussion on my email list about whether "choosing what to believe" is even possible!

but for me the good bet is just to stick with the actual teachings of the bible.

Ah-HA! You are a literalist, I caught you! :oD

Anyway, I started rambling as usual. I'm kind of curious on your thoughts on the latter things I've said as the opposing opinions I've read online seem to be evangelicals who are relying more on attacking anyone not accepting their way as heretics or cultists while offering up only a weak argument.

I suppose you've already read my take on the term "heretics" from a couple weeks back. One nice thing about the internet is that it gives everyone a platform to do their own publishing, it's not so much about who owns the printing press as it used to be.

If I sat down in a room with just them, and a bible, they would have to acknowlege I can find dozens of scriptures supporting why not to use a cross, while they would not be able to offer one that says why we should.

You are a feisty one then. I'm not one who would relish such a bible-battle, so more power to ya, bro'. I hope you found my response worth the wait, or at least deserving of another comment.

Metro Cruise

The south side of Grand Rapids has a new summer tradition that calls to mind the pastime of many summers gone by... cruising flashy cars down a long strip on a Saturday night. Yesterday was the 2nd Annual 28th Street Metro Cruise, a gathering of vintage hot rods, low riders and lovingly restored classic antique automobiles that filled a stretch of road about fifteen miles long.


One of the main hang-out spots on the strip that runs from Kentwood (off to our east) to Wyoming (where I live) was Rogers Plaza, a lo-rent shopping mall that's seen better days back when the competition wasn't as glossy as it is now that local merchants have to deal with RiverTown Crossings over in Grandville. The spacious parking lot offered a perfect staging ground for car buffs who wanted to allow the crowd opportunities for leisurely close-up admiration of their babies, as well as a just-resurfaced stretch of nice flat asphalt for squealing and smoking up their tires. I'm not entirely ga-ga about this kind of thing, but it made for an entertaining diversion for an hour or two, so here's a collage of pics of some of the more appealing rides that I saw on the lot. It seemed to me vaguely like my childhood Hot Wheels collection had magically and temporarily expanded to full-size, until the next morning when I would return to my mundane existence where I settle for driving a decent Taurus, an aging but serviceable Caravan and a beat-up old Intrepid.


Post-script: On the way home from church today, my wife and kids were appalled by the dismal piles of trash in front of Rogers Plaza, left behind after the crowds dispersed last night. So we set out this afternoon to beautify that little patch of suburban landscape. We filled three large trash bags with debris, one of which was "recyclable only." We would have had a few more but we were gratified to meet up with a young man who had the same idea and started from the opposite end of the plaza and cleared up a lot of the mess himself. Nice to know that we aren't the only people who took it on ourselves to pick up a bit after the party was over.

I'm 45.

Yesterday was my 45th birthday, and I enjoyed myself, taking the day off work, having lunch with several of my friends, helping my sons take care of some financial school- and car-related matters, taking a trip to the library to check out a bunch of CD's and capping the day off with an extended family meal, where I got a slab of ribs from Famous Dave's Barbecue over by the mall. I've been on a barbecue jag since I got back from Kansas City and now I'm all into sampling different sauces and paying closer attention than ever to the preparation and quality of the meat. Famous Dave's is the closest BBQ joint that has adequate seating for all my relatives. There are a couple of small-time independent barbecue huts that have caught my attention that I'm going to check out soon.

If you're curious, the gifts given to me were (as I requested when asked) simple cash and gift certificates dedicated toward the purchase of a new laptop that I want to get soon so that I'm not committed to having to sit in my basement in order to do computer stuff.

I put off blogging about any of this throughout yesterday and today because I wanted to see if I could come up with anything especially poignant to say about reaching this milestone, but nothing along those lines comes to mind. Sorry! I suppose that 45 years puts me at the exact half-way point of my life or something...? I'm aiming for 90, and a sharp-minded, lively 90 at that. But other than that, about all I have to say is that I feel great, I'm enjoying where I'm at and what I'm doing and how things are going. Life is good!

Here are a couple more pictures...

My mom and I share a blink as we just happen
to have our picture taken at that moment.

A wholesome 'n tasty birthday cake
made by my lovely wife Julie!

Tigers vs. White Sox

After months of anticipation (we bought our tickets in May) I was in Detroit yesterday to watch a Tigers-White Sox major league baseball game. This is an annual tradition for several of us guys who participate in a fantasy baseball league that we've had going for around 15 years now. This game looked perfect to us because the Tigers are having a great season (best record in the majors right now) and the White Sox are their closest divisional rivals as we near the home stretch of September pennant race baseball.

Well, if you follow the game you may already know that the Tigers got shellacked yesterday 10-0, behind the brilliant pitching of Jon Garland, who tossed a 6-hit shutout. Detroit just seemed baffled by what Garland was tossing up there, while the Sox pretty much tee'd off against Tigers starter Nate Robertson. Garland has been hot lately so I anticipated that our guys would have a hard time piling up the runs but I expected a little more production than what we saw.

The game started an hour late due to a rain delay, but once they lifted the tarp we had a nice sunny afternoon.

Prior to the ceremonial opening pitches, one of my friends saw a skinny long haired dude standing on the field and wondered if he was going to sing the national anthem. I looked at the man and said "he looks like Alice Cooper" and sure enough, Alice himself was in the house. He did not sing the anthem, but he did throw out a first pitch, then hung around to chat with a few of the players (current Tigers coach and former All-Star OF Andy Van Slyke seemed to be a big fan.) Alice also had his picture taken at home plate with the umpiring crew for some reason, but I didn't get a shot of that.


The Sox took the lead in the first inning off a Jermaine Dye home run that bounced off the right field foul pole, and from there the team never looked back. Here's a shot of Dye approaching first base as his second homer of the game has just sailed into the left field stands. Now today I hear that Jim Rome is talking Dye up as a potential AL MVP candidate, so maybe we saw the game where Dye began a memorable drive toward postseason honors and a future induction into the Hall of Fame...?

We also were treated to a couple of highlight plays that made ESPN's Top 10 last night. One was a full-layout diving catch made by Chicago CF Brian Anderson, robbing Sean Casey of a gapper that would have been an easy double, maybe more, back when the score was close enough that a Tigers rally would have changed the tone of the game. The other was something that I never expect to see again - a runner thrown out by the left fielder on his way to first base! This one also involved Sean Casey, who drilled the ball to the third baseman Joe Crede. The line drive was hit so hard that the ball popped out of his glove and rolled to the outfield. But Casey thought the ball had been caught, so he slammed his helmet in frustration at getting robbed for the second time in the game, and began walking back to the dugout. Teammates yelled at him to run to first, he took their cue but the lost seconds cost him as he was thrown out from the outfield by just half a step. Just the final confirmation to a stadium packed full of fans that this was just not meant to be the Tigers day...

Oh well, they still lead the division by 5 1/2 and they split the series against Chicago, so they hold the keys to their own destiny. I would have enjoyed a more dramatic game or a victorious outcome but the cliche holds true, "a bad day at the ballpark is better than a great day at the office!"

Irresistible Revolution

I've already mentioned it here and there, but I'm currently reading a book, The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. I'm about 2/3rds through, and it's been an interesting journey for me so far. His personal story is interesting (started hanging out with homeless people in Philadelphia as a way of following Jesus' example and exhortations to respect "the least of these," eventually works with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, then immediately returns to the USA and interns in the posh environment of Wheaton College and Willow Creek Church, and more...) but it's truly hard for me to imagine myself following his lead and adapting a communalist, radically activist way of life, even though I do my own bit of activism from my little suburban perch here in Wyoming MI. Plus he's quite idealistic and literalistic in his theology, not showing as much awareness of postmodern or critical perspectives on the Bible, philosophy or cross-cultural anthropology as I think he actually has (because he's clearly very bright, articulate and informed.) So I spend a fair amount of time trying to dig under and deconstruct his rhetoric.

Last night I read his chapter on the Iraq War, and that genuinely impressed me, won me over I might even say. He had the opportunity to work with Christian Peacemaker Teams in the period just before the war and was actually in Baghdad in March and April of 2003 when the coalition bombing attacks began and the country was invaded. Some dramatic things happened while he was there, to say the least. I'm just moved by the commitment he showed and, in this book, his willingness to hold the American church to account for its too-enthusiastic and unwavering support for war and its over-indulgence in narrow expressions of nationalism. He doesn't completely shred to the extent that I think he could, but he's being tactful so as to lower the risk of alienating some of the younger folks who've probably been right there with him to that point but haven't yet thought through the anti-war perspective or still live in fear of being seen as a liberal.

Claiborne makes good use of sources outside the Bible, particularly Martin Luther King, pulling in some MLK quotes from his later Vietnam-era writings. Though I have not yet finished the book, I am going to give it a strong plug here - I think Claiborne's voice and perspective are strong and deserving of serious reflection. He's a guy who has put his whole life into this non-violent activist thing and despite being a published author and all that, I don't get the sense that this is all about him. Check out the website of his community, a simple way, and notice that even though he's mentioned, it's not until quite a ways down on the page. It just may be the case that Shane Claiborne is the real deal, and I for one am paying closer attention.

Incarnation Bits 20 - Marilynne Robinson on Peter

The writer of the second epistle attributed to Peter explains why the Last Judgment has not come as quickly as the early church expected. To God a thousand years is like a day, and God is patient, wishing for the salvation of us all. Now we live in the knowledge that war, famine and plague on an apocalyptic scale could befall us tomorrow, that the heavens may well "pass away with a great noise" and that the elements may well "melt with a fervent heat." If this were to happen, it could all be described without reference to any supernatural agency. It seems we have passed judgment on ourselves.

I have never understood the mythos of Fall and Judgment. Yet I am struck by its usefulness in describing humanity's passage through the world, which clearly will be continuously troubled, and very brief by the standards of life on this planet. Against the duration of the sun, for example, it will be quite literally no time at all. If time is an illusion, then Creation, Fall and Judgment were one event, and all that has seemed to intervene has been the opening out of the implications of the offending act, or even its completion. Perhaps Eden was lost in the first instance in the sense that its ultimate loss was assured, and we have wandered in Eden all these years, with expulsion at our back and nature deteriorating around us. First Peter assures us that Jesus was ordained as Savior from before the beginning of the world. This implies that the Fall had all its consequences in train a very long time before it occurred. I put aside questions of guilt and responsibility, which are clearly unanswerable in the terms that are given to us. Increasingly I am impressed that biblical narrative warps and strains human notions of cause and consequence. Clearly the events in which we are caught up exceed our powers of understanding. This is no less true if our circumstances are thought of in rigorously secular terms. It must now be acknowledged that the most important aspects of our collective life are the crimes we have done and the greater crimes we have prepared, oddly as this fact sorts with the relative harmlessness of the generality of people.

My friend is moving away...

My longtime friend and co-worker Patrick is moving back to his family home in southern Ohio tomorrow, and today was his last day at work. I blogged about Patrick's wedding back at the end of June. At the time, it was unclear whether he and his wife were going to settle down here in Grand Rapids, where he had a fine job as our agency chaplain, or if she would convince him to go back to his roots where all his relatives still live, and where she's lived her whole life. We were all suspecting that things would turn out this way though - it doesn't take a mind-reader to figure that out.

Patrick and I have worked together since the early 90's and I'll say that he's been one of my closest "inner circle" colleagues for a long time. He taught me a lot and offered invaluable support in my role as a program supervisor back when we worked in the same home. Then he went off and took some jobs I used to have, and now I have the job that he had before he became one of our chaplains. His office is two doors down from mine. Our conversations over the years have covered the gamut, and he was shrewd enough to discover my old pomoxian.com website back when I was still kind of concerned about what might happen if people I worked with found it and were shocked at some of the unusual thoughts I disclosed there! But I discovered that whatever I posted on that site was not going to get me run out of town on a rail... :o)

Anyway, my thoughts and feelings are mixed as I prepare to see him off to a new chapter in his life. I'm happy for him and know that this move is ultimately for the best, but I'm going to have to get used to not having him to chat with about this and that... We had some good fun times together back when he was a confirmed life-long bachelor (or so we all thought.) His was the place where we could go to have an all-guys football watching event, and he always had some sharp barbs to toss in to keep the Ohio State-Michigan rivalries burning at full pitch around here. He and I exchanged any number of ruminations on the state of politics and government policy in this country, him coming from the right and me from the left, but as often as not unified in our grim appraisal of just how poorly it was all working in practice as compared to theory.

In front of a large group of current and former staff who gathered in his honor for a going-away ceremony this afternoon, I had the delightful privilege of reading Dr. Seuss' "Oh the Places You'll Go!" to him, just as he used to do when girls were discharged from our program, back when he still worked in direct residential care (we still buy each client a copy as a keepsake of their time in that particular home.) His gracious and hearty persona touched many peoples lives around here in profound and memorable ways, and I'd be remiss if I didn't quote him as saying that all the compliments he received at our little festivity today in our chapel are only because of Christ. Amen, brother, I affirm you and the way God has used you to bring light and hope into our little corner of the world.

Lookie what I found...!

Abductive Columns: Balanced Emergent? or One of Those Waaaay Over on the Other Side

In doing some tracking of other blogs where my own is mentioned or linked, I came across this item on Fred Peatross' site. I want to make clear here that I'm not bothered or offended by what Rick Presley said in reference to my email list, but upon reading it I felt the need to respond, as you can read in my comment that follows Fred's article. Fred sent me a considerate private reply, just to let you know, but since he didn't post it as a comment, I'll keep what he said to myself and not share it here.

Manistee (repeat after me)

Our family got together for a quick trip to the northern half of Michigan's Lower Peninsula yesterday and today. This has been a busy summer with kids having various summer jobs and travels, making it next-to-impossible to have a full-fledged family vacation. A Friday-Saturday overnighter up around the Manistee National Forest was about as much as we could manage, but it was a nice time for all six of us to get out into the woods and water.

Our main event was doing some canoeing down the Manistee River. I found the Chippewa Landing canoe livery on the internet, called the owner up to see about making a reservation, and was glad to hear that he could "fit us in somewhere" even though the campground has been booked solid since May. Apparently most tourists around here make their plans months in advance... that's not my style, since I've gotten used to not knowing exactly what to expect as far as people's availability from weekend to weekend in our family.

So we made the drive a couple hours north, up at the end of US 131, and found the campground at the tail end of a series of unpaved roads back in the trees. I wouldn't normally include such trivial detail in my post, but the quality of the roads played a pivotal part in the story. After setting up our tent, we decided to spend the afternoon and evening over on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Driving our van out of the campground and over the exceedingly rough dirt roads (they had a rippled surface that I'd liken to an old-fashioned washboard), I came to a stop when we reached pavement again, when Julie asked "Do you smell gas?" At that moment, we all did - it was unmistakeable, and as I pulled forward, Alyssa noted from the back of our minivan, "We're leaving a trail!"

Yes, indeed, our van had sprung a gas leak! The vehicle was gushing gas so badly that my wife and kids were hesitant to remain in the vehicle for fear it would erupt into a ball of flame. And the clock read 5:06 p.m. on Friday afternoon!

I didn't have any clue where to go for mechanical help, but I drove toward the nearest town, a little crossroads marked on the maps as Manton, and pulled in to the first gas station I saw. It was more a convenience mart (as most gas retailers are these days) than a repair shop, but I got referred to an auto parts store and the guy there, just a block down the road, made a call and found a local service center that was still open and had a rack available. Gotta love that small town service!

So we easily found the shop (just a couple hundred yards further south on the same main drag through town) and, almost unbelievably, the problem turned out to be easily repaired. Apparently, the violent shaking induced by my too-fast driving over the dirt road had shaken a seal loose, which the mechanics on duty were able to push back into place at a cost of a $20 bill. It seemed almost too good to be true - I was envisioning some kind of a snapped fuel line that would cost a couple hundred bucks to repair and basically leave us stranded until sometime Monday afternoon after the parts could be located and installed. But I was quite happy to accept this much less dramatic outcome and within a half-hour from its beginning, the crisis was resolved, though it lingered in our memories pretty strongly when it came time to drive back across those cruel, primitive, unpaved thoroughfares. Take me home, country roads....? Yeah, right! These people need to pass a millage and get civilized!

Anyway, the 20-spot didn't set us back enough to necessitate a change of plans, so we forged ahead and found our way to Orchard Beach State Park, a lovely spot on Lake Michigan that I have never visited before. We took a bunch of pictures there, one of which I'll post here.

A Blakeslee Family Portrait, Summer of 2006

The Collage: A bunch of pictures with only one upload to sit through!

We also had a fantastic dinner (which also marked the observance of our 22nd wedding anniversary) at the Tuscan Grille in the town of Manistee (from this post, you'd think that the whole upper half of Michigan is named Manistee, but that's not the case... even though there are two Manistee Rivers (Big and Little) that each flow separately but empty into Lake Manistee which then feeds into Lake Michigan.) I had in mind a nice dinner in an open-air, lakeside setting and this restaurant, previously unknown to me, perfectly fit the bill. Manistee is a very charming little town and I would like to come back there again sometime to explore and enjoy the ambience more fully.

Today we canoed down the (Big) Manistee River, but I have no photos of that to share since I didn't want to risk my camera. But here's a shot of me with the river in the background, to give you a glimpse of what we saw for a few hours as we floated downstream. Our voyage had a little bit of everything - sun, wind, rain, cool and warm phases as the clouds came and went, wildlife sightings, even a little mishap as Brandon grabbed onto a branch trying to push the canoe off the shore, wound up grabbing on too tightly and got pulled out and dunked in the river as the canoe continued traveling without him! And that happened when he was less than five minutes from the landing area where the trip came to its end!

We had planned to visit Ludington also, another beach town further south from Manistee, but the weather was kind of cloudy up that way and we decided to just head home. We'll get to Ludington some other time, probably this fall. Maybe just Julie and me... these lakeside towns have that nice romantic atmosphere that a couple married for 22 years can benefit from!

A visit to the Jazz District

Here's the draft text of an article that I'll be publishing soon in Wedgwood's "Diversity Digest," a quarterly newsletter that I edit for our agency.

From August 14-16, a co-worker and I had the opportunity to travel to Kansas City, MO to attend a conference on “Strengthening the Culture of Care” in residential treatment. We enjoyed training alongside professionals from Missouri and elsewhere who work with clients a lot like ours, and we’re eager to share what we learned there in upcoming in-services here at Wedgwood.

On the last day of the trip, just after the conference had concluded, we had a couple hours of free time before returning to the airport, so we decided to take in the sights a little. We made our way to Kansas City’s historic “18th and Vine” district, which among other attractions features the Negro League Baseball Museum and the American Jazz Museum. Each facility is dedicated to preserving and showcasing the distinctive legacies of their subjects.

Both jazz music and Negro League baseball had a strong “home base” in Kansas City. Though New Orleans is more instantly thought of as the birthplace of jazz, KC played a pivotal role in its popularization. Bracketed into a small area due to municipal segregation policies, 18th & Vine was the hub of a flourishing community of clubs and theaters where performers like Count Basie and Big Joe Turner epitomized the heavily-blues influenced Kansas City style of jazz. Legendary saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker grew up in KC, and later figures like Dexter Gordon and Miles Davis spent time there trying to capture the essence of the sounds they heard come out of that scene. Unfortunately, 18th and Vine is now just a shadow of its former glory. Urban renewal projects of the 1960’s leveled most of the area around the district to the point where once-lively urban blocks became fallow open fields and, later, housing projects. Over the past ten years, concerted effort has gone into reviving the district and these museums play an important role, but the district will probably never be quite as lively and creative as it was “back in the day.”

Nearby to all the jazz clubs, the Kansas City Monarchs baseball team had its office headquarters. The Monarchs were one of the most dominant and financially successful of the Negro League franchises, making Kansas City the natural place to host this tribute to African-American athletes and the businessmen who endured much hardship along the way. The Monarchs featured players like Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell and Jackie Robinson, who played for the Monarchs for one season before breaking the “color barrier” that for nearly sixty years had prevented African-American players from joining the Major Leagues.

Coming to grips with the tragic waste and hostility of racial segregation was the most moving aspect of my visit to the NLBM. Numerous exhibits make it clear that racial discrimination was neither an accident nor a natural reflection of the prevailing public attitudes of the times. Specific decisions were made to accommodate outspoken bigots among the larger group of players and owners of major league teams. As offensive as those racist beliefs may appear to us today, we have to acknowledge that the assumptions were not resisted by too many people who should have known better. Segregation would not have lasted as long as it did if more people had spoken out against it.

The NLBM stands as a testimony to the athletic skills and showmanship of the Negro League players and a sobering indictment of a society that failed to live up to the ideals expressed in America’s founding vision of a nation where all are created equal. Both museums joyously affirm the legacy of people who managed to thrive and make lasting contributions to our culture that we can and should enjoy. At the same time, they deliver bracing reminders of what can happen when bigotry and prejudice are allowed to stand unchallenged.

Toto, I'm Not in Kansas Any More

I got back from Kansas City last night, around 11:30 p.m. The trip was thoroughly enjoyable from just about every aspect - flight, accommodations, conference, traveling companions, extra-curricular activities, etc. All very good, appropriately stimulating and memorable and I'm really glad I got the chance to go do this.

There was no post made to this blog yesterday because 1) I was just very busy doing other stuff and 2) the laptop computer I borrowed from work did not allow me to format my posts to this blog the way I wanted to. So I took a day off from blogging. But I do want to upload a few photos and tell a story or two about what I saw in KC.

We went out on Wednesday night for that much-anticipated Kansas City Bar-B-Q dinner that I've been going on about. The place recommended to us was Arthur Bryant's Barbecue, which I had actually read about from doing some preliminary research for my trip. I didn't have particular designs on going there, but I'm glad that we did. Turns out that Bryant's is the restaurant that basically made Kansas City barbecue a world famous phenomenon. And we ate at the original joint on 18th & Brooklyn. For such a landmark restaurant, one could be forgiven for not fully respecting the awesome significance of the place, it's so humble and unassuming on the interior. But the food was very good. I ordered the "meat tray," which is basically one pound of barbecue (you choose between beef, ribs, turkey, sausage, sliced pork and/or pulled pork in whatever combination pleases you.) They take your order and plop the meat right on to a typical rectangular cafeteria tray. Here's a picture of me chomping into a fat, succulent rib.


I got the turkey, ribs and pulled pork. The flavor was so good that I decided to buy one each of their three secret-recipe barbecue sauces as my souvenir of KC. I recommend that you check out the website for more background on this restaurant. It even has a short video clip showing the kind of portions and service one can expect there.


We saw the Oscar Meijer Wiener Mobile in our hotel parking lot when we were preparing to leave to the conference on Thursday morning! That was kind of an unexpected thrill, but one that Vito and I both enjoyed since we used to have Oscar Meijer toys in our childhood years.

In my previous post, I also mentioned my quest for the corner of 12th Street and Vine (as popularized in Wilbert Harrison's version of the hit song "Kansas City.") Bryant's Barbecue is actually pretty close to that area, but since we were traveling as part of a caravan, I decided to not make a big deal to go looking for it. But after the conference was done, we went to 18th & Vine to visit the Negro Baseball League Museum. On our way there, before we returned to the airport for the flight home, I decided that this would be the time to find the fabled intersection. But I was very dismayed to discover that whatever 12th St. and Vine used to be, it was now nothing all that sexy, glamorous or exciting. In fact, I found out later, the original intersection does not even exist anymore! It was plowed over back in the 1960's when "urban renewal" planners decided to redesign the entire area. There's a story behind all that, but let me stay brief here and let you know that through persistent effort, I did make my way to the corner of 12th Terrace & Vine, which is now basically a curve in the road that runs the perimeter of a housing project... and I have the picture to prove it.

There is a spot, apparently not too far from where I was photographed, where KC civic leaders have posted a sign-post of 12th St. and Vine. It's in the middle of a lawn, a little piece of parkland basically, put there mainly to keep the obsessive tourists like myself off of private property, I imagine. I like the spot I found better. It's not about standing by the sign... It's about standing on the corner! And I found a corner to stand on, doggone it! So my quest was (imperfectly, I admit) complete. But I have to add that a few bubbles were burst in the process. Ah, reality... it's enough to make cynics of us all if we're not careful.

Kansas City Strip

I got into KC around 11:30 Sunday night and into our hotel room around 2:00 a.m. local (3:00 a.m. on the EDT clock that my body was still living in.) Thankfully, our first day of training didn't start until 10:00 a.m., presumably because a lot of the folks were driving in from across Missouri.

My blog entry from yesterday was mistaken when I said that this conference is sponsored by the CWLA. That idea came from the fact that I read about the "Missouri Initiative" in a CWLA publication. Actually, the State of Missouri, or some visionary government official within that bureaucracy, took the initiative to put together a task force that would determine a set of best practices that provide the foundation for high-quality child care in a variety of treatment settings. So the training that I'm involved with represents an effort to disseminate these core principles to agencies across Missouri, primarily, but we are there to see if Wedgwood (located in Michigan, of course) would like to participate in a long-term case study to see what kind of measurable outcomes result from having our staff participate in an on-going training regimen based on these ideas. I feel honored and excited to be there - it's especially gratifying to listen to people who live a thousand miles away from me, working in a different state and social service system, but who speak my language and seem intimately familiar with the kinds of challenges and obstacles that have played out over the course of my professional life over the years.

But since most readers of this blog are not "industry insiders," I will spare further details for now. Especially since what we trained in today was largely preliminary material.

I enjoyed the evening, traipsing around Kansas City's Country Club Plaza, a lively, quite clean and contemporary shopping and dining district on W. 47th St. along the north bank of Brush Creek. Vito (my supervisor and traveling partner) and I ate at George Brett's, a restaurant owned by the former K.C. Royals baseball Hall of Famer. That was the next best thing to going to Kauffmann Stadium, where we certainly would have been if the Royals had been in town tonight (instead, they were up in Chicago where they got creamed by the White Sox 12-2.)

We saw some cool sports memorabilia and ate some tasty cuts of Kansas City beef - Vito had the strip steak, I had the filet mignon... both of us were content to have the meat in sandwich form, not feeling the need for a long night of digesting full cuts as we lay in our hotel room.

After that, we just strolled around checking out the charming architecture and all the beautiful people hanging out in the park, around the fountains, along the sidewalk bars and cafes. We were genuinely impressed by the cleanliness and character of the district, and it was a gorgeously temperate night, perfect for a stroll to work off the dinner a bit.

Kansas City is a pretty nice place, from what I've seen of it. I'm sure it has a grimy side... We were given some friendly warnings that if we wanted to go up to the "corner of 12th St. and Vine" (that Wilber Harrison sings about in his hit "Kansas City") that would be OK, but to not stray too far from the intersection where things get rough. Tomorrow we're going out for a classic KC Barbecue dinner with a bunch of conferencers, so I'm looking forward to that.

Goin' to Kansas City, Kansas City Here I Come!

They got some crazy little women there and I'm a gonna... leave them alone! :o)

This afternoon I get to take a business trip to KCMO, the first time I've ever been to that city, unless maybe I passed through on a summer vacation back when I was 10 years old. The attraction is a three-day conference sponsored by the Child Welfare League of America on "Strengthening the Culture of Care in Child Care Agencies." You can read up on it in the .pdf link here.

I'll have more to say about the conference itself, either when I'm there or when I get back. I will have a laptop with me so I expect that some kind of blogging update will take place before I return late Wednesday night, but I have little sense of how busy I'll be. I'll also be traveling with my supervisor, so my free time is not entirely my own. But I think we're looking to do some exploring of that great old frontier town. And I'm gonna eat me some barbecue, you can count on that!

Guerrilla News Network

I mentioned in my blog entry yesterday that I was close to finishing a book titled True Lies (which has nothing to do with the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie of the same name.) I'm done with it now and figure it's worth a mention here. The book offers some examples of investigative reporting done by the Guerrilla News Network (GNN) that I know mostly as a website, though they also do some things with video and film. The website is a great place to get familiar with their perspective and material. True Lies is a couple of years old, but the stories they chose to cover have not gone out of date. We just know more about what's happened since the book went to press.

Topics include: Strange anomalies between the "official" story of what took place on Sept. 11, 2001 and the actual records and eyewitness accounts from various places around the country; the detrimental long-term effects of depleted uranium and mandatory vaccines that our government and military have seemingly worked very hard to suppress or divert attention from whenever the reporters get too close; the troubling link between elected officials, political operatives and the corporations who have successfully lobbied to secure lucrative contracts and a dominant voice in the legislation that's been written to oversee how new electronic voting equipment is used. Bracketing the investigative reporting are ruminations on the decline of the independent free press in the USA and how corporate media has adopted a much too subservient role in compliantly allowing the current power structures to influence how they present the news.

The book reads fast and kept me pretty engaged throughout. Even though some of the stories they reported seemed familiar from internet browsing and other sources I've perused over the past few years, I like having a handy reference book available that compiles facts, figures and references in one convenient place. I also admired the writers' willingness to call into question left-wing media figures like Al Franken and Michael Moore who often wind up preaching to the choir in a way that plays right into stereotypes that the corporate media (and the "mainstream" culture that follows that lead) find easy to write off as "crazies" or "extremists." GNN aims to provide something different from predictable liberalism that is too conveniently pigeon-holed as "Bush-hating." It may be difficult for them to completely step free from being vulnerable to such accusations, since the Bush administration still holds so much power and continues to do things that earn well-deserved critiques, and they spend a fair amount of bandwidth pointing out what's going wrong on many different fronts. But they are willing to distance themselves from some of the rancorous agitators (e.g. International ANSWER) whose "contributions" to antiwar efforts have often done more to discredit the cause than to actually gain the respect and attention of citizens who might be open to reconsidering the conventional thinking on issues like the "war on terror."

I don't know enough about GNN to clearly judge them as the "best" alternative media source out there - I know of quite a few creative and in-depth websites that offer similar material. And some people may not see any discernible difference between what they offer and whatever example of "wooly liberal fanaticism" they care to compare it with. But I found the book's tone to be measured and non-inflammatory. Granted, I'm already in sync with their general outlook on culture, but I think the book avoids the kind of mockery and gratuitous cheap shots that you'll find on Air America or in the recent works of Al Franken (funny as I often find them to be!)

Birthday Guys

Tomorrow is Brandon and Curt's birthday - they'll turn 19. We took them out to Don Pablo's for lunch today with their grandparents, and here they are wearing the festive sombreros that the restaurant keeps on hand for such celebratory occasions.

Happy Birthday, my sons. I am so glad that you are such a big part of my life! - Dad

Bitches, Queers, Sluts and Heretics

I guess my blog is getting noticed. Sometime last week I got an email from a writer who told me that this website is one that he keeps an eye on, and he wanted to know if I would be interested in getting a preview copy of a book that is just now getting released. He would send me a copy if I promised to blog about it in the near future. That sounds like a good bargain to me, so I took him up on it and now I have this cool "uncorrected proof" of a new book that I will review here, whether or not I think it's a good one.

I like that kind of attention! So does that explain the title of this post? Am I acting out to get noticed?

No.

The book I received is titled A Heretics Guide to Eternity by Spencer Burke, who is one of the creators of TheOoze.com, a website that has something to do with the whole pomo emergent Christian thing that I have been interested in for the past six or eight years or so.

I'm not reviewing the book properly here, because I have done nothing more than scan it so far. I'm currently in the middle of another book, True Lies (just about done...) and may not have time to get to AHGTE until the end of next week due to some travels that I have coming up. But I do have a thought on the title.

Using the word "heretic" the way Burke does (as an affirmative self-description and a term that he encourages his readers to embrace if it suits them) reminds me of how other "bad words" or slurs have been adopted by groups who have come to feel unapologetic about the qualities that previously earned them the scorn and mockery intended by the name-callers.

Women who are brassy, assertive and willing to go toe to toe with men... bitches! Gay men, especially those who exhibit effeminate qualities... queers! Women (primarily) who willingly and easily give themselves over to sex (or as it's used more generically now, any kind of "consuming interest") just for the sheer pleasure of it... sluts! And now, theological and spiritual free-thinkers who resist tradition and authority if they believe they have a better idea... heretics!

As I've gone through my own on-going, decade-plus process of intellectual and cultural re-assessment, I've often asked myself, and occasionally been asked by others, am I a heretic? I have so far resisted drawing that conclusion in any kind of a definitive way. Partly it's because with all of the various denominations and beliefs to be found in different Christian sects, it's easy to say that one person's heresy is another person's orthodoxy. I also don't believe that there is any one particular authoritative religious entity or organization that can conclusively draw such a judgement about a person, though I know many would disagree with me on this. And finally, I don't want to label myself in a way that automatically alienates me from those who would take offense at the term. Calling myself a "heretic" seems like it would create more problems than opportunities.

And yet... and yet, I kind of like what Burke is doing here. It feels empowering and active, like a declaration is being made that he is no longer willing to sit back and concede the points he'd like to make in order to avoid offending others. There is a point, after all, when that stance needs to be taken. And I like the idea that he is addressing the issue head-on. He's not going to yield to the attempt to scare or intimidate by those who wield the dreaded power of the H-word. He's acknowledging the truth of what's been happening for a long, long time. A lot of people are continuing to have life-changing and cosmology-transforming experiences of God that simply don't fit conveniently into the venerable, well-aged formulations of belief and practice that organized religions have to offer. Those of us who take the time to write down these thoughts (or codify them in other ways) are doing pretty much the same thing that the heretics of old did. The main difference between us and them is that the institutional church is not quite as militant, vengeful or powerful as it once was when persecutions, excommunication, censorship and executions were more common responses to the non-conformists and misfits that disrupted its affairs.

I'm constrained enough by decorum and respect for others, particularly women and oppressed minorities, that I don't allow myself to use terms like queer, bitch, slut or any of the racial slurs that have been "affirmingly reversed" by members of those groups. But I'm not instantly offended when I hear them either - I try to interpret the labels in context. However, I'm seriously mulling over the idea that I may be ready to come out of the heretical closet! My colleague Brian Smith has already beaten me to this decision by naming his blog studying the idea of Christian universalism "The Beautiful Heresy." And of course there's this new book that - who knows? - may become some kind of a big selling cultural touchstone a la A New Kind of Christian (Brian McLaren wrote the intro) or Velvet Elvis or the Purpose Driven Life... In which case, it will become a whole lot safer and easier and trendier to jump on the pro-heretic bandwagon. If that turns out to be the case, I'll be happy to have this blog entry to point to so that I can let people know that I was a heretic when heresy wasn't cool...

Or am I too late already?

Incarnation Bits 19: Michael Malone on James

How do we act? That's what James is asking us. "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?" And here, of course, is the crux of the epistle as a theological debate. Luther profoundly objected to what he took to be James's challengeof Paul on the question of justification by faith. For Paul, faith (a response to hearing the Word) is the gift of God, fully offered, ours to accept. Yet clearly for Paul, faith involves a dedication of the whole self, actively engaged in relation to the world. We are justified by a faith acting, in Paul's words, through deeds of love, not deeds of law. It has seemed to most contemporary scholars that James, while his emphasis is different, in no real way contradicts Paul. Nor is it even probable that James is challenging Paul himself, by setting against Christian faith a Jewish view of salvation by works. James is more likely to be answering current perversions of Paul's position, challenging those who might think it sufficient to profess the faith without altering the sins or selfishness or sloth of their lives. James is saying that faith is barren, if theoretical. Knowledge is not enough.

James is not opposing faith and works, but opposing living faith and dead faith; he is saying not that genuine faith alone is insufficient, but that faith without works is not genuine.

For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

The passage does not read "though a man hath faith, and hath not works" but rather, "though a man say he hath faith, and have not works." James is claiming that without works, protestations of faith are just that - protestations.

Cameron Maybin: Baseball Future Star

Our family went to a minor league baseball game on Sunday afternoon, where we saw the West Michigan Whitecaps win an exciting game by the final score of 7-6. The 'Caps came from behind early, built up a 6-2 lead, only to be tied in the top of the ninth inning. They came back to score the winner in the bottom of the ninth, so there was no shortage of drama over the course of the contest.

Julie got free tickets from her employer, so that made it an easy choice of something to do on a August Sunday afternoon. It was my first trip to Fifth Third Ballpark this year, and I was glad to make the trip because I want to be able to say that I saw Cameron Maybin back when he was a lanky 19-year old minor leaguer (which I can also say about New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez.)

Maybin appears destined for major league stardom, drawing comparisons to former All-Stars Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis (who happen to have grown up as friends in the Los Angeles area before going on to become big-time sluggers,) as well as Ken Griffey, Jr. He was the Midwest League leader in batting average coming into the game, and probably held that rank afterwards, going 2-5 in the game. He also scored two big runs for the Whitecaps, including the clincher in the ninth. After reaching on a long high pop-up just out of the reach of the Wizards second-baseman that was ruled a double, Maybin broke for third on a hit-and-run, scoring on a single that brought the crowd to its feet, sending all of us home happy, anticipating the day that he begins doing the same kind of thing for the Detroit Tigers, who I'm still astonished to say, are the best team in the major leagues as we approach mid-August!

Here are a few pictures of Cameron Maybin in action...


In the on-deck circle...


Maybin's batting stance just has to intimidate the pitcher. It looks like he's about to rip the hide off the ball...


Cameron is breaking off of 2nd base on his way to scoring his first run of the game.


The crowd is on its feet as Maybin trots home, sealing another Whitecaps win.


The victors celebrate at first base and everyone in the crowd gets a free loaf of bread courtesy of Sara Lee on the way out of the ballpark!

A Scanner Darkly

This afternoon I went to a matinee showing of "A Scanner Darkly," a film about the destructive and mind-warping effects of drug addiction and the way that this human vulnerability is exploited by business and government in postmodern society. The movie packs a visual wallop with a disorienting technique of "interpolated rotoscoping," which basically means that the film images have been overlaid by a colorful and often hallucinatory digital animation process. This lends the story its air of unpredictability, where people, places and things are all just a bit unhinged and subject to change without notice. Plus just about every frame of the movie is a unique and often beautiful work of art.

Set seven years in the future, "A Scanner Darkly" envisions a society not all that different from our own. Potent pharmaceuticals are finding their way into the hands of a significant percentage of the population, requiring a complex, multi-tiered effort of law enforcement and rehabilitation clinics to keep the problem in check. In the process, many lives are caught up in the never-ending turmoil and no one appears to have any clue as to what the "solution" might ultimately turn out to be. The best that can be done is to contain it and pull out the salvageable human wreckage, one person at a time. As with the film "Traffic," another chronicle of the "war on drugs," we see the dilemma from many different perspectives, ranging from the jabbering paranoid merry-go-round of rambling words and irrational but twistedly-logical actions stirred up by the addicts in their homes to the more controlled (though imperfectly) institutional settings where police, treatment staff and other social authorities each ply their trade in keeping the upper hand on this particular form of deviancy.

On a more subjective level, the film is of potential interest even to those who have not been personally caught up in the world of drug abuse as it raises some basic questions of identity and cultural direction that I figure many of us have had at various times in our lives. I came out of the movie thinking about my own role as a mental health care provider and how, in a sense, I and my colleagues are "profiting" from the difficulties faced by many people who have such a hard time managing their way through reality. Our clients are younger people than those that were focused on in the film, but I recognize a lot of similar characteristics that they share - compulsivity, fear, an appetite for quick and easy escape, repetitious indulgence in various kinds of thinking errors, and a fundamental lack of purpose or clarity about who they are and what they want to accomplish. Bob Arctor, the main character in the movie, is both an addict and a law enforcement authority leading a dangerous double life. His personal navigation system is completely out of control, but he has memories of an earlier time when he led a more conventional existence, with wife, two children and a comfortable suburban affluence. He's now given all that up, exchanging a life-numbing predictability and order for an equally numbing spontaneity and chaotic potentiality. He's not finding much fulfillment on this new course either, but at this point he's already made his bargain and has little choice but to play it all out until the end, wondering if indeed the deal he struck has turned out to be just another form of manipulation.

Like other movies that I've enjoyed and found thought-provoking, I have to hold back a bit on what else I have to say because I don't want to spoil any surprises. So I'll just wrap up my comments here with a recommendation to check it out, but be prepared for some rough language and immodest behavior - they are a bunch of junkies, after all!

OK, now I have to go work at the substance abuse recovery program. If I see any of the people around me turning into large insects, I'll be sure to retract my recommendation to see this movie!

Bilbo Got Me Stoned

Rolling Stoned, that is. My friend Bilbo did a cool, funny, thoughtful thing the other day. I was surprised to find in my mail when I got home from work this afternoon a big manila envelope addressed to me, and inside was a slightly rumpled copy of the Rolling Stone magazine pictured above. Bilbo included a personally written sticky note explaining his reason for sending it to me (he knew I'd like it, plus the article mentions the PJ concert in Grand Rapids that I was at back in May.) That really made my day and I just have to give Bill a big shout out here on my blog. (Which also reminds me, I promised him a copy of that Pearl Jam bootleg...!)

THANKS BILBO!!!

Headlines Courtesy of Captain Obvious

Checking out the stories in my customized Google News page, I'm bemused to see the following stories telling me things I've already known for, oh, say twenty years or so...

Explicit lyrics linked to teens' earlier sexual activity

Wrestling-viewing teens found prone to violence

Shopping Carts Are Dangerous For Children

I suppose that there is a generation of parents younger than myself who could stand to benefit from this information. Pardon me if I feel a little condescended to in reading the news tonight!

A Tone of Alarm

Watching various news shows on TV this weekend, I'm struck by just how dire the situation is being portrayed when reporters, politicians and others discuss how "American interests" are faring.

Considering the massive anti-American protests in the middle of Baghdad, where Shiites burned American and Israeli flags and chanted support for Hezbollah...

... the reversal of military policy which is now sending in more troops to the Iraqi capital after so much talk of turning things over to domestic security forces just a month ago...

... the seemingly inadequate deal hammered out by the French and American UN representatives, which Lebanon has already rejected within hours of it being announced to the world...

... and the general lack of success that just about all of the Bush administration's international plans have met, the talking heads are sounding pretty stressed out these days. While I've wondered and even tentatively predicted that Iraq may become for the USA what Afghanistan was to the old Soviet Union, it is still rather disturbing to see the grim scenario playing itself out on my TV.

This morning, I watched Chuck Hagel, a fairly sensible Republican Senator from Nebraska, paint an unsettling picture of our options in Iraq. He boiled down the plight of American troops as "refereeing a civil war," with no clear sense of who they should fight or what kind of objective they're trying to accomplish (beyond keeping themselves alive until the arrival of that blessed day marking the end of their tour.)

American generals are timidly acknowledging that civil war may be on the verge of breaking out, which the way I figure things means that the civil war has been going on for the past six months or so at least.

Four US soldiers are on trial for rape and murder, with murmurs of "war crimes" only adding further tension and drama to the controversy.

Meanwhile the president is on vacation for the next couple of weeks (still, his shortest August break of his presidency.) He's taken three books along, two about President Lincoln and one about the efforts to eradicate polio. Maybe he could be studying up on the differences between Sunni and Shia Islam while he has a little free time to spare?

Stephen Hadley, the National Security Advisor, is barking at Iran and Syria from a podium telling them "they know what they have to do" which I guess is supposed to at least give us the comforting sense of thinking that they're engaging the issue.

Through White House spokesman Tony Snow, Condi Rice sends her reassurances to Cuba that the USA has no current plans to invade their island, regardless of how the mysteries of Fidel Castro's health condition are resolved.

And the latest attempt to elevate another athlete-hero into our cultural pantheon has backfired to roil unease that he might just be the newest example of an "ugly American" who takes the hi-tech shortcut to world domination, after Floyd Landis turned in two samples that dropped dirty according to the people who monitor the results.

What a tough week! And August is supposed to be the slow news month...

Incarnation Bits 18: Robert B. Shaw on Hebrews

In the author's [of Hebrews] view of history the past remains vitally present for the fulfillment of divine purpose. We are not simply to pay homage to the heroes gone before us; we are to augment their record with our own belief and deeds. Indeed, as the author earlier says, God's design for history provides "that they without us should not be made perfect" (11:40). The idea expressed so magnificently in the image of a "cloud of witnesses" is a sobering one. It imagines our spiritual progress proceeding under the urgent scrutiny of countless holy souls of patriarchs, prophets and martyrs, not to mention God himself. We all know how uncomfortable it is to be watched, and there may be a more daunting note here for some of us than the author intended. But the notion that faith is an ongoing enterprise, bringing together the living and the dead across the gulf of time, even as it persuades us of many things which for now remain unseen - this seems to me a heartening message in a time when the patterns of history have grown obscure, and believers may once again think themselves "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (11:13). Those who read Hebrews with not a scholarly but a spiritual purpose will no doubt mentally populate the "cloud of witnesses" according to their own histories as well as the sacred history this author draws upon. When I read the phrase I think of some saints carved on a reredos, of my grandfather and others of that generation of my family, of those old ladies with their pocketbooks, whose names I will never know, and of many more.

Bummer in the Summer

I'm saddened to hear that another great pioneer of psychedelic rock music has passed away. Just a few weeks after the death of Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett, I found out just a short while ago that Arthur Lee, of the mid-60's L.A. band Love, succumbed to leukemia yesterday afternoon. MTV and Rolling Stone offer very nice tributes to Lee's career.

I blogged about my appreciation of the Love album Forever Changes last September so I won't add much here, but the CD is playing upstairs, where I'm headed now that I've let the world know that I am grieving the loss of another musical and artistic inspiration.

Curt's Back!

I only have a few minutes to drop this lil' family update on the blog - my son Curt got back from his month-long trip to California tonight and we had a fine story-telling time that's just now winding down as he's ready to sleep in his own bed again. I spent the afternoon driving to and from the Detroit airport, enjoying the time spent with my boy, hearing of his adventures and impressions of a different part of the world. He found it remarkable to spend a month in a part of the world (Northern California) where political liberalism is the majority perspective, where "I can't stand Bush!" is the mainstream opinion. We got into some great political discussions and I just enjoyed hearing him tell me about his experiences wandering around on his own in San Francisco for a few weekends.

He also bought us some souvenirs - I got a nice San Francisco Giants baseball cap that will give me an alternative to the Lions cap that is featured so prominently here on the blog from time to time. And he bought us all a bunch of fantasy action figures that I took a picture of and post below.
I'm not expecting Bilbo to get jealous of our new collection by any means - we have a long ways to go before we catch up to his impressive treasure trove - but at least we can bring some toys over when we get the chance to play, someday...