The politics of it all

I recognize that I am dusting off the blog to make a political point.

I also fully understand that it's been a while since I allowed my politics to show, not because I am ashamed of them by any means, but because I am beginning to realize that it is next to impossible to have any sort of a civil discourse when it comes to what's going on in our nations capital.  Whatever side of the aisle you sit on there is really no way to actually get much done.  

I look at what is happening not just in the White House but in the house, the senate and the judiciary and I am truly concerned for the road we seem to be careening down.  

It goes without saying that bipartisanship is very near, if not completely impossible any more.  Evidence does not seem to matter, patience is a virtue that no one seems to want to exercise, as for the system of checks and balances, set up in September of 1787 that seems to have been tossed out the window.  It should give every person pause when the Senate Majority leader refuses to take up any legislation that he fears, and yes I said fears, the president will veto.  Again going back to that system set up way back in 1787 the president can veto a law but if congress has the majority of votes that veto is able to be overturned by the group of elected officials that we the people have sent to capitol hill.  Telling the American people that you won't even debate legislation that could be vetoed by the president sends a message both to my house and the 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  It tells me that as a governing body the Senate has decided they would rather have a king than a president,  watching the republican's jump through hoops would be comical if it wasn't so terrifying.  Some of these individual's just four years ago decried the President as unfit to serve, and yet today they bend over backwards to keep him happy and to do his bidding.  As a voter I am left with one of two conclusions, they are weak, or they are power hungry.  The more I watch the more I realize it's both, that is also terrifying.  

Don't get me wrong, we didn't get here over night.  As much as feel the Affordable Care Act was needed, as much as I support it, the Democrats, of which I am one, started this ball rolling when they decided to change long standing rules to get it passed, and this is where, to me, the problem sits. 

Government is like a pendulum, it swings back and forth, when one party is in control they would all do well to realize that the things that they do can and will be used when the other party is in control.  The issue is not just party it's governance and as of now what we have is two parties held hostage by someone that would be king.  

This thing has been happening for years, and it's growing worse.  The real problem is that many of these individuals in power are easily caught in their web of self preservation and need to maintain power.  

No one better epitomizes a willingness to bend over backwards to stay in power than Lindsey Graham.   Lets look back at his own words for a moment.

“If Donald Trump is the nominee, that’s the end of the Republican Party.”
“He’s shallow. He’s ill-prepared to be commander in chief."
“He’s a complete idiot when it comes to Mideast policy.”

That's just a small sample there are more but Graham has lost his willingness to be a voice of anything more than what the president wants him to say.  I find it hard to understand how he will win re-election and yet I don't hold out hope that he won't.  

Democrats have just as many issues though.  Yes they need to work to hold the executive branch accountable, but they also need to stop acting like children that got their ball taken away.   There is a reason that they lost the election, there is a reason that people decided to vote the way they did, to act like that is not the case, is dangerous.  Watching Pelosi rip up the speech she was given made me think she needed a time out.  I think they all need a time out to be honest, at the very least they all need a refresher course in the Constitution and what they are supposed to be doing.  They need to be reminded of the system of checks and balances, of the fact that they are there to represent THE PEOPLE, not their own self interests, and yet that seems to be what they are all, and I mean all are keen on doing.  

I can and do get frustrated with my Republican friends and family members that seem so willing to just turn a blind eye to the obvious lies, abuse of power, misogyny and bigotry the comes out of our president's mouth.  

I get equally frustrated at my fellow Democrats that are also friends, when they cry and whine and moan the fact that things are as they are, that the electoral college is a broken system, that this is not my president, that, that, that.  

Each side sees the government as broken, each side sees themselves as the people that can fix it, but the more I look at things the more I realize, it's not our system of government that's broken.  The principles and documents that frame our foundation as a country are still there, they are not broken, their principles are not broken at their core.  Yes they need to be interpreted in light of an ever changing world but the foundation principles are not what gets changed, on the contrary those principles are what enables us to reinterpret through the eyes of a changing world even as we hold to the tenants that they espouse.  

We don't need to "fix" the government, we do need the officials that we elect to all take a refresher course though.  

It is incumbent on congress to hold the executive branch accountable.  It is their job to make and pass laws regardless of what the person sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue says about those laws.  If he or she uses the power of the pen to veto then there is an impetus to over ride that veto.  

When Obama began the use of executive order to make an end run around Congress, I was worried, it gave me pause even though I understood why.  Now all these years later Democrats want to cry foul when Trump uses executive orders.  Is it a different scenario, in my view yes, do I understand why Obama did it, yes did I even agree that he had little choice?  Yes but still it gave me pause because any  time you remove a branch of the government from the equation you set a precedent that will be used again. 

When one party changes the rules the other will inhabit that space when the pendulum swings and will push the changes further, and when the inevitable happens and the pendulum swings back those powers given away or taken will be at the disposal of people that look and see things differently, and so the eroding away of compromise and bi partisan governance evaporates, and in each instance the other side cries foul when the party now in charge just does what they were shown not a few months before they came to power.

Which brings us to where we are.  We the people need to hold our officials accountable, all of them accountable, not to make sure they do things the way we would do them, but we need them to represent their constituents first, they need to serve the people by upholding the ideals that were laid out when our nation was founded.  That's what we have a constitution for, that's what we have amendments for, that's what bills are for and yes that's what Checks and Balances are for.  Give away your right to check any one branch of government you are giving away one of the cores of our founding.  

Rant over.  

See you next week..I promise.

Please Just STOP!

Recently a friend on Facebook posted this picture...

I was sad.  I can not for the life of me understand evangelical Christians willingness to sweep under the rug issues that for any other leader in recent history would be a call to arms.  From all that has been observed during his tenure and his time out of office, President Obama was and remains the husband of one wife.  He brought dignity to the office that should be there.  Watching him and listening to him gave me and many others a sense of pride even if we did not agree with all the policies set forth.

His predecessor was also the husband of one wife, and while his verbal communication skills were lacking, and while I did not like many of the things that He did and said, He also brought a sense of stability and competence to the White House, and when his children messed up people attacked including evangelical supporters, dinging him for his past, his drinking all of it.

Going back to Clinton we find the same people that seem to just give our current president a pass, railing against his personal life, nothing was off the table if it served the right wing evangelical narrative. 

The problem that I have with what this picture is saying, is that there is zero factual basis for it's creation.  When I look at the fruit that is on the tree that is our current president, it doesn't fit this picture at all. 

It  goes without saying that this administration is one of the most chaotic opaque and divisive in recent history.  Never has it been more important for Christians to pray for our leaders, all of our leaders.   I will be the first to admit it's hard to pray for someone I don't agree with, but that isn't really the point is it.

Timothy says this...

I have to pray for leaders, all leaders, the ones I like and the ones I don't like.  I don't get to choose based on how they vote, if they appoint who I want to a position.  I am supposed to pray for them when they claim Christianity and when they don't.  I'm supposed to pray for them if they are liberal or conservative, racist or inclusive, misogynistic or equal opportunity.  You get what I'm saying, and it's not an easy thing to say or do. 

As Christians we should stop posting dumb memes like the one at the top of the page, because it's simply not true, it doesn't serve any purpose but to be divisive. 

If you go back and read my blogs, and if you are one of the few that is actually on my Facebook you will probably notice that in the last few months things have changed.   Apart from not blogging as much, something that is going to be changing there will be more content on a weekly basis here dear reader, I have also stepped away from politics by and large, not because I am ashamed of my political point of view, and not because I don't enjoy the back and forth that can come when two people disagree but can debate in civil ways, but because it seems no one really can any more.  Politics has become a line in the sand for many in the church today, with right wing evangelicals falling in line to anoint the president and left wing progressives taking out a hammer and nails and setting up a cross,  both are wrong. 

There is so much for us to do in the world as followers of Christ.  So much work to give food, and drink and clothing, hospitality, encouragement, you know all that Matthew 25 stuff, or Micah 6 stuff, or great commission stuff.  Sometimes we do those things with whoever is in power and sometimes we do them in spite of who is in power, and yes sometimes we do them because of who is in power, the bottom line is that we do them, because that's what we are supposed to do.  Because we are supposed to be more like Christ, not more like our church. 

The meme that was created about Trump and Obama and Jesus is not true.  I don't believe for a second that either man actually invited Jesus into or kicked Jesus out of the White house.  I don't even know if or how often either of them prays.  That's not the point, what is the point is that I pray and seek Gods will and then follow it wherever it leads.  What's important is that even though I don't like him, even though I don't believe anything he says, even though I think he is not good for our country and not a good man.  I will pray for him, that God will open his eyes, bless him and use him as He sees fit. 

It's also why I don't pop off at the fingers on Facebook any more.   It's time to go to work Christ follower, liberal or conservative, right wing or left, evangelical or not.   It's time to pray, and then to do.

Getting back to it.

I know it's been a long time.  I will be writing more in the coming weeks, however I saw this and had to share them.  They came from this facebook page...

INature

It's sometimes hard to lean left in a right leaning community but I love doing it.



I hope this makes sense.

See ya around the blog!

Wading into the mess

Imagine being a 12 year old kid, or a 15 year old kid.

I remember when I was that age.  We were told if you get lost find a police officer, they will help you.  It was easy.. and I mean we were white so of course that made sense.

Contrast that with what black people face, constant suspicion, racial profiling, the list goes on.

I guess I'm sick of right wing religious people getting angry at someone exercising their right to protest just like they exercise theirs.

It bothers me that the same people that defended one football player for their bowing, now ostracize another for his stand. It's okay for one person to stand up for what they belive in or in Tebow's case to take a knee for what he believed in, but it's wrong for Kaepernick to do the same thing.

Calling attention to religious freedom is great, calling attention to racial oppression and inequality is wrong.

As Christ followers we should be better than this, so why aren't we?  As Christ followers we should be taking a knee with him, and when we hit that knee we should pray.  Pray for a nation that has never been more divided.  Pray that some of the angry old white racists would have to crawl back under the rock they have so happily jumped out from under given the fact that they now have a champion in the highest seat of power in our land.

We ask What Would Jesus Do.  I belive he would kneel next to Colin if for no other reason than what we read in Micah 6:8

 Go to any given game and watch what happens during the national anthem.  Tell me that the vast majority of people are respecting the flag and all that, and then I may understand and say sure it isn't a time for politics, except it is a time for it.  It's the perfect time for it.  It may not seem like much but this one man has brought light to a very real and terrifying issue for people of color, that he also has been the subject of so many late night or early morning tweets is so un-nerving to me, for no other reason but there are more pressing matters that 1600 should be dealing with, football games and the NFL is not one of them.

If my feet didn't need a different shoe for running because of a myriad of issues I would be purchasing Nike running shoes.  As it is I plan on dusting off the old Nike ball cap I have and wearing it proudly.  And before my friends on the religious right get up in arms, two words.  HOBBY LOBBY, I mean there are more I could say but those two should make every Christian stop in their tracks for bashing Nike for taking a stand for something they belive in, even if you don't agree with it.

I guess what I'm saying is this.  Until black boys and men don't have to be afraid for their lives because of the color of their skin, then every person of faith should be standing with, or in this case kneeling with people like Colin.  Kneeling in protest and kneeling in prayer.

All lives matter sure, but when have white lives not mattered in the last 200 years?  Take stock because the bottom line is until Black Lives really matter to everyone, especially white religious folk who claim Christianity, then the movement needs to continue it needs to grow, and we as Christ Followers need to support it.

#kneelingwithnike

Is it worth it?

Christ follower I want to ask a very simple question. Is it worth it.

I don't do nearly as much as I used to on Facebook, ditto with Twitter, and Instagram.  Something happened, I began to see these social media platforms more as a tool than an opportunity.  I post little to my personal Facebook, and on the occasions that I do post or comment I find myself getting frustrated, if I'm alone sometimes yelling at the screen, and if I'm not alone I find myself pounding the keys of my keyboard.

So I ask my fellow Christ Followers, is it worth it.

Is it worth it to guilt people into liking and sharing a post by co-opting God or prayer?

Is it worth it to let your integrity take a hit by giving people with little to no morality a pass because that person happens to be the same political party that you are?

Is it worth it to score points with your church friends by endorsing something that you're not sure of?

Is it worth it, ranting and raving about Guns, or God, or Education, or The Left or The Right?

Is that one comment that you want to make about someone on the other side of the isle, other side of the pew, other side of belief worth it?

The more I see on Facebook the more I want to grab a good chunk of the Christians on there and shake them a bit.  Weather a person likes and shares your post demanding that they do so or they don't love God, believe in prayer, or has no faith is a lie.   God doesn't stare at His iPhone all day watching his likes and counting how many friends he has.  If a fellow Christ Follower doesn't agree with your political leanings it doesn't mean that they are going to hell, and as hard as this is to swallow for most of us if they think that guns should be controlled, welfare matters, and it's a good thing that people have choices and can live out those choices free from the churches cotroll does not mean Jesus loves them less.

The more I see these kinds of posts.  Lambasting people who are different insisting that science isn't real, telling people that they have to like and share or else Gods gonna get them. I find myself coming back to this verse...

If you sit in church on Sunday singing the songs and listening to the sermon, enjoying your safe cozy life, that's not messy, that doesn't ask tough questions, that can be reduced to a like and share, or an angry screed at what's wrong with that person over there, why don't they realize that I'm right, that I know what God means that I have it all figured out and if they would listen t me and follow the rules the right way and do what they are supposed to do then they would be happier and I would be justified.

If we praise God on Sunday morning and turn around and yell at our friends and friends of friends about how much they need to be like us, instead of being like Jesus, we should stay home Sunday because it's not working.  Church is not working, the worship is not working, the sermon is not working but more than anything God is not working, because for whatever reason the decision has been made that we have to curate Gods truth by making the gospel a weight around a persons neck instead of a set of keys that unlocks the shackles of sin and death that have us chained. God wants to work, he wants to move in our lives, but we have walled him out because we seem to know better.

Do me a favor, next time you're tempted to tell me to like comment and share, be it a prayer, a verse, or a political rant.  Click the X and don't post it, instead look for a friend that you haven't connected with in a while and message them for a cup of coffee or a walk in the park or a quick lunch or whatever it is you do that helps you build a real relationship with a person. 

It's Raining in Baltimore....

Life is full of bitter sweet moments and through all of those moments, especially in my life through all those moments music has had a defining place in what is going on. 

I tend to relate to music better than other ways to deal with whatever emotion I am feeling.  I also tend to gravitate toward a certain type of band, Counting Crows is one of my favorite bands.  They are not one of the more popular bands of the day but I love their sound and 98% of their lyrics. 

SO right now as I sit at 3 Bean for what will likely be one of the last times, I am listening to August and Everything After, great album.  The song in the video is on that album, and funny enough it's been raining in Baltimore a lot lately. 

If I had to be honest the last two years in the Newell house have been full of a lot of rain, a lot of storms.  In some ways we are still dealing with storm clean up, the battles with cancer, my tendency to internalizing and taking everything personally, walking away from the church that I was supposed to save, being angry at everyone involved in that process including myself, mostly at myself. 

The song talks about things that fall apart and about the need for a phone call, a raincoat some kind of connection with anyone and that's where I have been for a long time.  When we first left the church I was in a bad place, people reached out to me and I just sort of read their posts, words of encouragement all that and either ignored them or unfriended them.   I made excuses to not go to church, made sure I had to work as often as possible on the food truck, attempted to start writing again and in doing so posted a couple of angst filled rants.  Then something happened, well a couple of things happened. 

I have this amazing woman that I can say with complete honesty I don't deserve.  The amount of mess she has put up with in the last 23 years qualifies her for sainthood.  My best friend was having a birthday party, in Oklahoma and while we couldn't go she asked if I wanted to talk to him.  Now to be fair, he was one of the guys that reached out to me when everything fell apart and I just didn't respond.  Turns out the party was in Youngstown, also turns out we were going to be in Youngstown at the same time he was.  We couldn't go to the party but that didn't really matter, Joyce asked if I wanted to see him and I said sure why not.  Keep in mind I hadn't spoken to my friend in 7 years.  Long story short after along walk in the snow with my dog we had reconnected and when we got back to the house he mentioned that his nephew had preached the Christmas Eve service at NCA. 

Which brings us to where we are now.  We found out that NCA needed a pastor, I submitted a resume and this past Sunday the church voted us in.  Long journey actually,  full of prayer, conversation, prayer, conversation, evaluation, phone calls, prayer, travel to Ohio more than once, sermons and questions and all of it.  God did some pretty amazing things to bring us to the place we are at now.
He brought us to a great church in Baltimore that reminded me about how much God cares, he opened the hearts of the people in Niles, He opened my heart to realize that HE wasn't done with me by a long shot and that there was a place for us. 

The thing is all of this excitement comes with a bit of sadness.  We have friends here in Baltimore, people who we have grown to love.  People who have stuck with us, people that have been there.  We will miss them.

I will miss them.  Perhaps one of the ones I will miss most of all, is Jim.  I can say with a hundred percent surety that without Jim I would not be heading back into ministry at all.  Without his encouragement, friendship, and prayers I would just be sitting in my room with the lights off listening to Bathsalts (really dark angsty song) over and over again.  He and I came to Locust Point at the same time.  He left before I did and then I left and we have maintained a friendship that transcends ministry and shared vocations. 

God has done some pretty amazing things in the last six months.  I can't wait for all that he is going to do in the coming weeks, months, and years.

So there it is.  It's raining in Baltimore, but there is a light on the other side and well I can't wait to see what's next.




 

Plot points and Plans

Years ago...and at this point I do mean years, I was in the Science Olympics in my school...Don't get too excited, lots of people were in the science Olympics one of the ways to get in was to make a hot box that was supposed to keep water hot for a certain amount of time, build a contraption that kept an egg from breaking and some other strange stuff.  I happened to build a hot box that did a fairly decent job and in doing so landed a spot on the team.  The good thing was that it was a day out of school, if i remember correctly the bus ride for that particular science Olympics led to my first high school Girl Friend, at least I think it did, anyway the point is that you couldn't just do one thing at the Science Olympics back in the day Mrs. Viars wanted to optimize bus space.  So in addition to my hot box project I had to choose another event to be in.  There were options to do a weather event and a few others an then there was the option to do a compass course. I'm sure there is a more scientific name to whatever that was, but that's the best I can do given the circumstances.  I chose the compass course and my buddy Jeff did the weather thing.  I then spent an entire Saturday with a the commander of my Royal Ranger outpost (think boy scouts but attached to the church I grew up in) following direction a set of directions he had plotted out for me to find.  North South East West.. North East, South East etc.  I successfully navigated the courses he set up for me to navigate, filling in the paper with what I needed to and all was good.  I went to the competition confident that I had learned all that I needed to learn to make it through the course.

A little thing about compass navigation, especially when it is in competition form...yeah we didn't do north south east and west... we were each handed a compass that was set in the middle of a clear plastic ruler for lack of a better word, with markings on it the compass I had was a small circle with a flip top lid...the compass we used looked like this...

BIG DIFFERENCE...Now to be fair to Commander Cliff (no I'm not making that up that was his name, dude was TALL to)  this is the kind of compass he trained me to use, however he trained me N, S, E, W.  He did not train me 360 degrees bla bla bla.   To say I was lost would be an understatement.  I will admit to hoping we would all get to start around the same time and I could sort of fudge my way through.  Nope.  Start times were staggered, and while we all ended up bunching up there was a problem in that I really had no idea what I was doing.  I had the tools I needed but I had no idea how to use them.

Which brings me to the real reason for this blog post.  I have been out of ministry for 8 months now.  Back when I left I will admit to being pretty angry and that anger had several places to stop.  God, the church, the conference, and of course myself, because lets face it I had failed.  I made some pretty hard and fast statements as well.  It's funny how when we are in a place of pain, feeling like we have failed ourselves, God, our family and the group of people we are supposed to be helping we lash out.  I would love to tell you that I will never lash out again.  I would love to say that suddenly everything is sunshine and roses but if I am honest that's not how it is.  If we are all willing to be honest we will admit that there are days that we get it and days that we don't.  What matters is what we do on the days in-between.  See the days that we get it and that everything is right in our world and it's all working, we lean into the good stuff, we tell everyone how blessed we are, our social media posts are sickening to the vast majority of our friends, and we can't wait to get to whatever place of worship that we go to, so that everyone can see how great life is.  The days when everything is bad when things fall apart when we are lost and don't know what's next, we get angry, we are no longer blessed God is not real, or not interested, we find the most depressing music we can, and everyone tends to know how bad life is and how much we hate it and how much we are not being treated the way we should be.  We avoid getting together with other people to worship because we don't really want to or see a need too.

Full disclosure I was there for a long time.  I would make excuses to skip church  and when I did go to church it was usually just because that's what the family wanted.  Eye contact was at a minimum, angry rants abounded.  It's a small blessing that I stopped blogging, because while writing is my way of processing and I love doing it, what would have come out of my fingers to the screen would have been ugly and hurtful and would not have been even close to the way Jesus would respond.  Slowly things started to change, we found a church that we fit into, and we began to get involved.  I went back to Facebook and started to actually look at what people posted while I was going through the dark time and found so many people that I thought were gone from my life reaching out and praying and saying to call them.

I have had, for a while now, a hard time holding onto the whole road map of life that God drew for me individually.  I believe that God is interested in me, I believe God cares, I believe God has a plan and a purpose for humanity and even for me.  I believe that plan is to be a pastor, however I also believe that there are entire aspects of that calling and the fulfillment of that calling that sit squarely in my lap.  I'm not much for signs and all that.  People will point to Gideon and the whole fleece thing as if it's a good thing. I tend to see that whole thing not as a guidebook to be sure of what God wants and more of a this is not the way it should be done.   God did what he had to do for Gideon because Gideon didn't want to listen didn't want to step up didn't want to do the task that was before him, he set out impossible tasks not to test God but to get out of his job, the job that God had decided Gideon was supposed to do.  It makes me laugh was I read the entire account of Gideon, mainly because part of me thinks that God engages in similar behavior with the whole whittling down of Gideon's army.  I know that we have this great picture of Gideon having a come to Yahweh moment but I really don't think he was cool with losing vast chunks of his army, especially when it was that whole pick them on the way they drink thing.   God wanted to be sure there was no mistaking who was doing the saving sure, but Gideon still had to do his part, he still had to be the leader, he still had to follow the path that God laid out.

Looking back on the last eight months and even further back at the last five years I can see the shape of a path emerging, and while there are places that a road sign popped up to help steer the journey there are huge chunks of the journey that are me making choices after talking to my family and friends and yes God.  

As we stand on the edge of something new, I am beginning to see the pattern of how God has to deal with me to get me where I am supposed to be.  I plot the points but God makes the plan, and there are many times that I'm right back on that compass course with all the tools I need and not a clue how to chart the course, and then God steps in and hands me a revised plan with N S E and W instead of Degrees and Coordinates, smiles pats me on the head and says.  Now try it.   That's what is happening now and I can't wait to share the end results.