zero

"...I'm too old to be at zero..." my friend wrote in an email today.

To which I reply: The day finds us where we are, doesn't it -- not where we're supposed to be, not where we imagined, dreamed, planned and hoped to be. Did you jump or were you pushed? Does it matter? You're broken. So now what? If we're anything like close about the God we claim to know something about, I'm betting it's not just the day that finds us where we are and i'm pretty sure that's good news.

God, I hope I'm right about that.

we shall see

I wish I'd written this:

Truly we should be thankful. And we do try to be. But the English language is so rich in terms of complaint and insult and groaning and rather sparse in the Exaltation Dept., so the Lord doesn't get praised as He should. Instead, we bellyache, we kvetch, we get our undies in a bunch. After all, we're descended from people who considered rejoicing to be bad luck: It tempts fate. So they grumbled about the weather, politicians, children, popular music, new cars, anything modern, and complained about their health year after year until they died and went to heaven, where no doubt they are a little edgy even now -- nice place, paradise -- a little surprised at who else is here, harrumph, harrumph, but never mind -- plenty of bliss, no tears and so forth -- not sure how long it can last, but we shall see.

Garrison Keillor at Salon.com

the least

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a budget proposal that will, if signed into law, do egregious harm to America's weakest citizens. The proposal passed by just two votes.

Following the vote, Sojourners' Jim Wallis issued this statement:

The prophet Isaiah said: "Woe to you legislators of infamous laws ... who refuse justice to the unfortunate, who cheat the poor among my people of their rights, who make widows their prey and rob the orphan." Today, I repeat those words. When our legislators put ideology over principle, it is time to sound the trumpets of justice and tell the truth.

It is a moral disgrace to take food from the mouths of hungry children to increase the luxuries of those feasting at a table overflowing with plenty. This is not what America is about, not what the season of Thanksgiving is about, not what loving our neighbor is about, and not what family values are about. There is no moral path our legislators can take to defend a reckless, mean-spirited budget reconciliation bill that diminishes our compassion, as Jesus said, "for the least of these." It is morally unconscionable to hide behind arguments for fiscal responsibility and government efficiency. It is dishonest to stake proud claims to deficit reduction when tax cuts for the wealthy that increase the deficit are the next order of business. It is one more example of an absence of morality in our current political leadership.

Budgets are moral documents that reflect what we care about. Budget and tax bills that increase the deficit put our children's futures in jeopardy - and they hurt the vulnerable right now. The choice to cut supports that help people make it day to day in order to pay for tax cuts for those with plenty goes against everything our religious and moral principles teach us. It says that leaders don't care about people in need. It is a blatant reversal of biblical values - and symbolizes the death of compassionate conservatism.

The faith community is outraged and is drawing a line in the sand against immoral national priorities. It is time to draw that line more forcefully and more visibly.

I applaud those House members who have stood up for better budget priorities and fought hard all year to keep issues of basic fairness at the forefront of this debate. And I thank those on both sides of the aisle who stood up and did the right thing in voting against this bill, despite pressure from the House leadership. These strong voices provide some hope for getting beyond an ideology that disregards the role of government for the common good.

Here's hoping the Senate shows greater common sense and compassion as they hash out their budget proposal...

almost true

If you're paying attention to what the White House is saying this week about the rollup to war in Iraq, you're hearing a number of talking points that are almost true.

Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus hold these contentions under a magnifying glass in today's Washington Post.

I believe I'll leave to you to parse the meaning of almost true.

insidework

[I posted this a few days ago at InsideWork...]

Last weekend, David Brooks wrote a piece in the New York Times reviewing Jerome Karabel's The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

It's a tale we already know, give or take, and Brooks' telling begins like this:

"A few years ago, I wrote a book about the rise of a new educated class, the people with 60's values and 90's money who go to Starbucks, shop at Whole Foods and drive Volvos. A woman came up to me after one of my book talks and said, "You realize what you're talking about is the Jews taking over America.

"My eyes bugged out, but then I realized that she was Jewish and she knew I was, too, and between us we could acknowledge there's a lot of truth in that statement. For the Jews were the vanguard of a social movement that over the course of the 20th century transformed the American university system and the nature of the American elite."

Brooks follows Karabel's narrative about the shift from blue blood Protestant prep school boys to the sons -- and, eventually, daughters -- of people "more likely to prize work, scholarship, verbal dexterity, ambition and academic accomplishment" than the virtues of being "effortlessly athletic, charismatic, fair, brave, modest and, above all, a leader of men."

Measuring what's been won and lost in the exchange, Brooks pauses to critique Karabel's critique, before pronouncing the moral of the story:

"Those old WASP bluebloods may have been narrow and prejudiced, but they did at least have a formula for building character. Today we somehow sense that character matters, and it still vaguely plays a role in admissions decisions, but our thoughts about character - what it is and how to build it - are amorphous and ineffectual.

"One place where Karabel excels, however, is in his understanding that today's admissions policies have created their own set of problems. As time goes by, it becomes more and more clear that the meritocrats are doing exactly what the WASPS did, rigging admissions criteria to favor the qualities they and their children are most likely to possess.

...

"All of which suggests that human nature hasn't changed. People who possess privileges try to protect their own, even if they do shop at Whole Foods and drive Volvos."

It's an interesting piece -- especially (to me at least) that go-away line: "...human nature hasn't changed. People who possess privileges try to protect their own, even if they do shop at Whole Foods and drive Volvos."

Right now, American Evangelicals are an easy target on this score -- not in the academic elite, of course, but in politics and the theology of exclusion. After decades of living as a shadow culture with "our own" versions of nearly everything (Christian Booksellers Association v. American Booksellers Association (along with their attendant best-seller lists), Dove Awards v. Grammy Awards, Full Gospel Businessmen's Committee/Christian Business Men's Committee v. Rotary, et.al), Evangelicals in America have tasted the nectar of political potency (not to mention biggish money from the sale of books and music) and found it to their liking. And, like just about anybody else, they intend to protect their own.

I think one of the most remarkable things about the kingdom of heaven is that it is neither blue-blood aristocracy nor meritocracy -- a place where the Lion takes the Lamb to lunch and the Lion picks up the check. Not that it can't be done, but I think it takes some effort to read around that in the biblical narrative.

And I think one of the most interesting things about developing a biblical worldview is how, the more we move around the landscape of the biblical text and more we move around the landscape from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth, the more the "We" circle grows and the "They" circle shrinks.

These are, I think, counterintuitive values in our culture and reveal how much more at home most of us are here than in the kingdom of heaven. But maybe that's just me.

just this about today's elections

A couple of days ago -- long past the time anything could be done about today's elections -- someone I prize wisecracked in a conversation about state and local politics, "I'm not registered to vote, so I don't give a crap."

Without much thought, but I hope not too ungenerously, I cracked back: "Should that be, 'I don't give a crap, so I'm not registered to vote?'"

I get it that people don't believe their vote can make a difference in the kind of world (or neighborhood) where children grow up. But I'm still surprised when parents and would-be parents, youth workers and people who care about the young, don't force their way to the front of that line -- just in case it should turn out they're wrong.

Davis-Bacon Act reinstated

On September 8, the President suspended the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act following the Gulf Coast storm (read my rant here).

According to an as-yet-unpublished letter from Sojourners: "The AFL-CIO estimates people of faith and community activists sent more than 350,000 letters to lawmakers in the weeks following the president's suspension of Davis-Bacon."

On September 22, 37 Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the White House appealing Mr. Bush's suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act Their letter promised that quick action by the president would help prevent legislative action by the Congress.

Quoting Sojourners again: "Last Thursday [10.20], Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) filed a joint resolution under a little-known and never-before-used provision of the 1976 National Emergencies Act (PL 94-412). The law, which allows Congress to rescind a national emergency declaration by the president, would have required a floor vote in the House by the second week of November.

That vote became unnecessary a week later when the President relented, restoring full protection of the Bacon-Davis Act.

This is not everything. But it's certainly something, and I'm grateful.

more sound tracks

This just in from Rolling Stone:
Bono: Here's the strange bit: Most of the people that you grew up with in black music had a similar baptism of the spirit, right? The difference is that most of these performers felt they could not express their sexuality before God. They had to turn away. So rock & roll became backsliders' music. They were running away from God. But I never believed that. I never saw it as being a choice, an either/or thing.

Jann Wenner: You never saw rock & roll -- the so-called devil's music -- as incompatible with religion?

Bono: Look at the people who have formed my imagination. Bob Dylan. Nineteen seventy-six -- he's going through similar stuff. You buy Patti Smith: Horses -- "Jesus died for somebody's sins/But not mine . . ." And she turns Van Morrison's "Gloria" into liturgy. She's wrestling with these demons -- Catholicism in her case. Right the way through to Wave, where she's talking to the pope.

The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt. So the blues, on one hand -- running away; gospel, the Mighty Clouds of Joy --
running towards. And later you came to analyze it and figure it out.

The blues are like the Psalms of David. Here was this character, living in a cave, whose outbursts were as much criticism as praise. There's David singing, "Oh, God -- where are you when I need you?/You call yourself God?"
And you go, this is the blues. Both deal with the relationship with God. That's really it. I've since realized that anger with God is very valid. We
wrote a song about that on the Pop album -- people were confused by it -- "Wake Up Dead Man": "Jesus, help me/I'm alone in this world/And a fucked-up world it is, too/Tell me, tell me the story /The one about eternity/And the way it's all gonna be/Wake up, dead man."

sound tracks

I'm captured by David Crowder*Band's new collection, A Collision. It is so not the same album over and over.

Which is why I've been listening over and over all week.

On Rolly Richert's advice, I turned off shuffle and listened straight through. Good advice. The song sequence is revealing.

That said, what's got me by the throat in this album is the now more-public airing of a conversation that's been going on in the background for a long time. The David Crowder*Band's God is very big.

You are My Joy killed me on the first hearing.

After that, i was undone by the subtlety of B Quiet, the simmering of O God Where Are You Now? (a Sufjan Stevens cover), the passion of Do Not Move, the anguish of Come Awake, the teary hope of Rescue is Coming, the sardonic, humble fierceness of The Lark Ascending....

This is a rugged, beautiful soundscape that welcomes all of us living in evangelical exile — You're not the only one who feels like the only one...

mr. Bono goes to Washington

so it's the first full afternoon i've had at my desk in…quite a while. so forgive the cascade of posts today (i can't imagine it's a sustainable current) and check out this Mr. Bono Goes to Washington story.

more free slides + an outline

I've just returned from Pittsburgh where, with my good friend and writing partner Rich Van Pelt, I taught the second of three eight-hour Critical Concern Courses at Youth Specialties' National Youth Workers Conventions. The series finishes in Nashville on Novemeber 17,18.

The course is based on our new book, The Youth Worker's Guide to Helping Teenagers in Crisis — which is based on our lives' work with youth workers, adolescents and their families (not to mention a pretty thorough literature review).

The Crisis book is going to a third printing (it was released the second week of August -- which makes it far and away the fastest selling title of my life to date). This is both heartening (because we appear to have struck on something important -- as if we didn't know this) and disheartening (because the needs are so much greater than than they should be -- in that perfect world we keep muttering about).

You can download (free) the 300 Pittsburgh slides here. We'll post the Nashville slides in due time.

You'll find a free pdf of the Dangerous Opportunity course outline here.

There's free access to end notes from the Crisis book — including State Sex Offender Registries and Sex Abuse Reporting numbers at the Youth Specialties website.

Download (free) the chapter on Terror (it's a primer on preparing for and responding to human-caused and natural terror) here.

Finally, the Crisis Book is available at the Youth Specialties Online Store as well as all the usual places.

dear mom and dad

Another chapter of Raising Adults is available as a free pdf at westofthe101.com.

Download Dear Mom and Dad.