The Bind: On Being a Christian in a Politically Charged World

Inspired to think by Billy's Meme question # 10, I wanted to write today about the bind I always feel that I am in being a Christian in a representative democracy with the political right to say whatever I please. How this bears upon others is not for me to say. For those not bound by Christian teaching, I quote the Apostle Paul who said, "For what have I to do with judging outsiders." By outsiders he simply means those who are not professing Christians.

This is the dilemma: I live in a secular country which allows me many freedoms, including the freedom to speak in ways that I should not. This country allows me, and my religion I believe requires me (as an extension of the command to love my neighbor), to be engaged, to care, and to thus participate in the political process at some level. The voices of the weak and helpless crying out for justive demand it if nothing else does.

And there is no engagement in our process without critique, debate, and hearty discussion.

But such hearty participation does not allow me as a Christian to cast of my Lord's requirements of me.

Jesus and the Apostles said much that impacts my attitude and my speech as I engage in the political process. Jesus said to "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's."

The Apostle Paul said, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice" as well as "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God."

The Apostle Peter said, "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor."

I doubt any of our Presidents are worse characters than the Roman emporers, and they, as well as their office, requires the honor of the Christian.

And again, Paul says, "Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people."

Add to that the general admonition from the Torah regarding protecting the reputation of my neighbor in my speech, and I consider myself bound to speak a certain way and not another about and to others.

This can be very frustrating because I graduated from life with a Ph. D. in Slice and Dice (with snideness and sarcasm thrown in if at all possible). I have done more than my fair share of rabble rousing, shouting down elected officials, and the like, to last me a life time.

So, how to engage in the process, even critically if I must, without resorting to disrespecting those in office and those in authority over me?

Should I call the Central Office of GSC "The Gestapo."? Probably not. Should I call Bush a fool or Clinton a joke? For me, no, I should not.

But I cannot lay my head in the sand. Love of neighbor in a free country like ours demands that I participate in the process which so impacts my neighbor's well being. Not to do that, or to be silent, is to be responsible for the outcome which may harm my neighbor.

But the man or woman in office, even if I disagree with him or her, is both my neighbor and a human being made in the image of God. As James says, regarding the use of the tongue, "with it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God."

I do not believe that that admonition stops where the political process begins. So, how do I offer critique of one person's views while honoring that person's person? I must do that. Anything less is, for me, disobedience to my Lord and Master.

It takes much self control. There is within me such scorn and sarcasm and ridicule ready to leak out. O Lord, change me! But I also have a brain, and I have a voice, and I must use both for the good of my neighbor and to the glory of God.

But I must do so honorably. I should not call people names; I should not be condescending or snide; I should not write whole groups of people off with a critical wave of the tongue.

There are so few examples to follow. Around here I look to Joe Guarino as the best example of how I want to speak. In recent history I may look to Martin Luther King Jr. Despite his personal issues, I admire greatly his manner of political engagement. He fought the fight, peacefully, and inspiringly, and without personal vilification of his opponents, generally.

So, to be passionate, to be good, to fight injustice without committing injustice, to argue an issue without denigrating those who hold the opposite view on the issue, well, sometimes it just seems more than this bag of flesh and bones, with so much that is not yet as it should be, is capable of. But I must try.

So, you're all free to hold me accountable to my own stated values.

And by the way, I know that Jesus called Herod a fox, and I know that the prophets could be pretty hard on the Kings and people of Israel, but I am neither Jesus, nor Amos, nor Jeremiah. If I must speak words that have to do with "covenant breaking" it is an "in house" thing. America is not in covenant with the God of Israel.

And by the way (II), each person entering into political discourse brings or drags values with him or her. They may get these values from his or her religion, parents, or from aliens as far as I know. But everyone has them, and everyone, to some degree or another, seeks to impose them on others. Ultimately for all human beings the fight for justice is a fight that is undergirded by certain beliefs or values about those for whom justice is needed or required. The fact that this is so with me, a Christian citizen, does not make me a theocrat, any more than it makes a non Christian a theocrat. Yes, there are some people (I wanted to say "kooks" - see how hard it is to be good) out there representing a variety of viewpoints who would hold all of us hostage to their value system. As for me, I am glad I live in a secular nation where I am protected from such, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, atheist, or whatever.

Twenty Questions

I received an e-mail from Billy the Blogging Poet about answering the following questions. Since he posted his answers, I’ll post mine.

The title of his post is When Is A Meme Not A Meme? What the heck is a meme? Anyway, here we go.

1: Do you like the look and the contents of your blog?

I am never at rest as regards the look and content of the blog, thinking I want to do more, wishing I had more ability. I am so thankful for Cara Michelle and Jesse Wesselink for keeping my blogs looking decent. As to content, I want to add podcasts, more pictures, and I want to find the time to write more about the natural world.

2: Does your family know about your blog?

Absolutely, as well as every single person in the world who knows me. Just look at the bottom of my e-mails. Also, in my job as a pastor, I have asked permission from our elders to do some blogging while at work and they think it a worthwhile endeavor.

3: Can you tell your friends about your blog? Do you consider it a private thing?

I tell as many friends as I can without seeming to be too self promoting. But almost every person I know knows that I do this.

4: Do you just read the blogs of those who comment on your blog? O do you try to discover new blogs?

I do, on the first, and I try on the second, time permitting. It comes in fits and pieces. There are weeks when I just don’t have time.

5: Did your blog positively affect your mind? Give an example.

Usually, though there are certain dynamics in the local blogging scene that frustrate me sometimes. Mostly people are affirming however, even the ones who don’t buy what I’m selling. I get great satisfaction in writing. I feel like a volcano ready to explode with a thousand things to write. Blogging gives me a place to express myself. If I don’t have an audience I just won’t write. Plus, the interaction, the debating, has really helped me understand other people better and has helped my preaching as a pastor. I tend to gravitate toward reading the blogs of people I generally don’t agree with!

6: What does the number of visitors to your blog mean? Do you use a traffic counter?

I want to increase traffic. It is somewhat important because I want the writing to be accessible. It is not just a private me and God thing.

7: Did you imagine how other bloggers look like?

Yeah, actually I do, especially the anonymous ones! I’ve emailed back and forth with people I don’t know who help keep me straight in my blogging, and I think of them as friends, even though we have never met.

8: Do you think blogging has any real benefit?

Yeah, it gives people a venue for self expression. That’s important. It allows the mainstream media not to control what people read and listen to. It enables people to think through issues by debate and discourse. It impacts political decisions I think. I would like to think that non bloggers read my blog. The thing I worry about is bloggers just being an elite little club.

9: Do you think that the Blogsphere is a stand alone community separated from the real world?

In once sense, yes, because it is not representative. In another sense it helps being some community between bloggers. I also think local politicians use bloggers a trial balloons for ideas.

10: Do some political blogs scare you? Do you avoid them?

I hate blog arguing (not debating) and too many of the political blogs are just shouting or insult matches.

11. Do you think that criticizing your blog is useful?

I appreciate the input of people who care about me and what I say. That impacts what I do or don’t do. I have some blogging friends, whom I have never met, and we have taken a liking to each other despite big social/political differences, and they help keep my blogging in line.

12: Have you ever thought about what happen to your blog in case you died?

Never

13: Which blogger had the greatest impression on you?

Probably Roch, just because he has helped me so much. As to examples, I want to most be like Joe (Guarino). I think I’ll start a “Be Like Joe” button campaign. I like to read Mr. Sun and wish I had a tenth of his talent.

14: Which blogger you think is the most similar to you?

This guy in Australia who used to comment on my site. Around here, maybe Joe Guarino, except that he is nicer than me.

15: Name a song you want to listen to.

I’m on a Beatles kick right now. I have been buying too much music this year and have had to cut back for the sake of the budget. Lately, given all the unrest in the Islamic world over the Pope’s remark, I keep thinking about Dylan “Only a Pawn in Their Game.”

I will send an e-mail to each of these:

Matt
PotatoStew
Fecund Stench
Mickey
Joe

More Fire, More Smoke

More fire and smoke today...

Here is the Pope's speech. He is making a worthwhile philosophical/theological point in an address about reason and faith. It's worth a read. He ends by talking about constructuive dialogue between Christians and Muslims. One point is that you can't have dialogue and jihad. Duh.

Here is an example of the response.

I think his point is being made. No wonder he won't fully totally retract and apologize. I wouldn't either.

As a Christian I am glad I live in a secular nation.

Hey, Can We have a Riot?

Good grief, if we had huge protests and riots every single time people cast aspersions on Jesus Christ and Christianity, like every third Hollywood movie, and most every statement coming from radical Islam, it would be non stop rioting around here. Muslims rebuke/deny/offend the Christian view of Jesus every day. Hey, we need to get over it. So they don't go for it. So they don't think Jesus died for our sins, rose from the dead, was God the Son. Fine. Jews aren't crazy about all that either. In fact the Jews of his day thought Jesus was either subversive, dangerous, blasphemous, or just plain nuts. I probably would have thought so too. But I don't see Jews waging holy war or wanting to wage Holy War against Christians. And I don't think they would if they could. Yes I am deeply sorry for what has happened in history in the reverse. I think the Pope's timing could have been better, but maybe, just maybe, 9/11 and the aftermath, including the bombings in Spain and England and the other foiled "let's blow-up-some-airplanes-and get-to-heaven" attempts, plus the announcement of Jihad over and over, gives the Pope a little more material to work with than his predecessor. If Muslims will not renounce the physical violence - the murderous aspects of Jihad, and renounce those who murder and kill non cambatants on purpose, and renounce the intense persecutions of converts to Judaism or Christianity all over the world, then what are we to say. Hey, this is great, why don't you come and blow up my city while you're at it; it's getting boring around here. It's a marketplace of ideas. A marketplace of beliefs. Muslims are good at arguing for their beliefs. Very good. That's fine. I wish them well. Just stop killing people who don't buy it OK. Time to see the civilized and mature Muslims stand up and put an end to this nonsense. People are going to criticize you, and your holy prophet, and your culture, just like they do mine. Hello! Deal with it. Peacefully. Maybe in the end it is a clash of civilizations. But I'd like it think it possible to have a world where folks can worship as they will, knowing that God, however understood, will work as He will. The best of Christianity, the best of Judaism, and the best of Islam calls for men to be men, as in gentlemen, and women gentlewomen, and all civil, civil men and women who are good and kind to their neighbors whatever they believe. That's what I think.

Into the Spider's Web

Night before last (or was it Monday night), I was given a lovely gift. I had gone outside to take the trash to the big green bin, and on the way back in noticed her walking, as if in mid air, a foot or two off the trunk of the birch tree. I had to go closer and look at a certain angle to see what she was up to. She was weaving her web.

I love spiders. I don't mean "love" as in "like, thinks cool, appreciates." I mean I have a deep human affection for them as creatures. CS Lewis talks about this kind of affection in his "The Four Loves." Great book by the way. As to spiders, I think they are beyond cool.

Well, the gift I was given was this: I got to watch this spider make her web. The web I could only see by looking at it along its plane. I was tranfixed at how wafer thin a spider's web is. It was like looking at the rings of Saturn not from above but from the side. They are wafer thin too. As to a spider's web, how such a thin and fragile piece of biological engineering produces such results is amazing.

Well, my spider friend had already fixed the main structural lines. One went from the birch tree over to a limb of the crab apple tree. I used to wonder how they ever did this until the one other time I got to see a spider build a web from scratch. This spider would have hooked a line of web onto one or the other tree, dropped to the ground, walked the distance to the other tree, climbed it, all the while letting out non sticky silk, risen to the new point of attachment, and then pulled in the line until it was taught. From what I could tell of this web, there was the one main structural line, then, about a third way across, another main line that angled down to a lower point on the birch tree. For that she would have had to walk back out on the main line, drop to the ground, climb the tree (again), and attach it at that secondary point.

These two lines seemed to be enough to contain the web within. By the time I saw her working she had already laid down the main diameter lines, establishing a center, and then the main radial lines. That too requires attachment, walking around the structural line to the opposite point, attachment there, pulling in line, etc.

I mainly got to see her weaving the more circular bits, which of course are really just straight threads between the radial lines. I coud not tell if they were spiral or concentric. I watched for maybe half an hour. By that time she was mostly done and I went in.

Spiders work very hard. The orb weavers have to do this every day or two. It's work or die for these guys.

I did see a few victims the next morning as I headed out to work. They appeared mostly to be moths.

We do have a fair number of black widows around here, and they are pretty easy to identify. Brown recluses are quite rare, and all those brown spiders you see running around hunting that you think are brown recluses, well, they aren't. They don't call them recluses for nothing.

My point is that if you see a circular web (or if you see a hungry tank-like spider running across your floor), well, these guys are your friends. You don't even have to know what species they are. Just enjoy their work. They are doing you a favor by the way.

This is spider season, so it's a good time to learn to enjoy them.

As to my birch tree spider, she was a very light, almost translucent, brown and about an inch across including legs. But I was more intent on her work. Absolutely amazing. I was mesmerized.

Such a rare event evokes many kinds of emotions. For me, it brought forth delight and joy. And yes, it alos brought forth the words of a Psalmist:

O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures. (from Psalm 104)

Mickey Mclean is Famous

I wrote last week about reading Bob Spitz's most excellent biography of the Beatles, entitled simply "The Beatles." It's a long book, but worth the read. I am totally on a Beatles kick right now, except that I don't have many Beatle's CD's. I mean, I would not OBJECT if anyone wanted to LOAN me a burned copy of The White Album or any number of their records. It's would be for research purposes of course, and would be returned.

Anyway, so I am reading the "Acknowledgments" at the end of the book and what do I read, but...

"Among the many people to whom I am indebted, I must thank Tally Gentry, whose research was of great assistance; Neal Gabler, for exchanging war stories; Jim and Michelle Ford, in whose good hands Lily often resided so that I could work through the weekends; and my great friends at Pace: Nancy Oakley, Mickey McLean, Brian Cook and especially Duncan Christy, whose friendship and generous support will never be taken for granted."

Mickey McLean you say? Our Mickey Mclean? I mean, how many Mickey McLean's could there be?

Well, turns out Mickey McLean and Bob Spitz have worked together for some time in the same publishing company, which kept Mr. Spitz going with enough paying work to keep him alive all the years he worked on this book.

Spitz's acknowledgement section explains clearly enough what goes into a book of this magnitude.

Plus, as if it were not enough, Mickey has been to Liverpool AND inside of Studio 2 at Abbey Road. Wow!

Anyway, here's to Mickey, my hero.

Is the Baby Boomer Generation Up for This War?

OK, this is one of those posts where I don’t think I will win many friends, but I want to write it anyway. My basic question is this: are baby boomers up to leading this war on terror?

I was born in 1957. That was the pinnacle year of the baby boom. More children were born that year than in any other year in our history.

I was too young for Vietnam. I was too young for Vietnam protests for the most part too. Most of that was carried out by my slightly older fellow baby boomers. I was even too young to be a real hippie, though I tried for a while.

Most bloggers and readers of blogs around here (it seems to me) are baby boomers or younger. Many are pacifists, whether from religious or general hippie-ish make-love-not-war convictions. The majority (I think) think that we don’t belong in Iraq.

I would maintain the following: Whether we should have gone to war in Iraq or not, whether Iraq and terrorism were connected enough to justify going in in the first place, I I don’t know, but what I do know is that now that we are there, Iraq and terrorism are related. If we leave Iraq, it will become an even greater training ground for terrorists.

But my concern is the greater war. Yes, I believe it is a war. I don’t like Bush’s use of words ("Islamofascists" – what does that mean?). How about Islamowhacko’s? We’re talking about a freaked out whacko sector of radical Islam bent on destruction of our power and influence, on Israel’s total demise, and on world domination by way of violence and oil blackmail ultimately. We’re talking about people who think they go on to heavenly bliss by murdering men, women, and children. I think that is whacko. You can call it what you like. But make no mistake - they want to kill us, any and all of us, as many as they can – men, women, and children, white, black, Hispanic, or asian, Christian Hindu or Muslim. They don’t care. Being nice to them for a few months isn’t going to change that.

My generation has been riding on the sacrifices of previous generations for a very long time. Those generations fought and won WWI, WWII, and the Cold War, despite the debacle of Vietnam. They handed us unprecedented freedom and prosperity. So, what are we going to hand to our children?

Are we as a generation going to be able to take up the mantle of leadership and make the sacrifices that need to be made to win this war? I wish Bush and others would quit telling us just to go shop. This is a REAL war, and we all need to make REAL sacrifices. We do in fact need to get over our addiction to foreign oil. I would add oil in general. We need temporarily to start accepting some intrusion into our precious civil liberties. Some people’s phones just need to be tapped. We need to think hard about the culture that we’re exporting overseas – the smut, the garbage, the crass materialism, the greed. No wonder so many religious people hate us. We need to think about the ways we do or do not help with the problem of millions of jobless dispirited humiliated Arab youth. We aren’t rich enough to start a world wide welfare program, but maybe some of our rich Arab allies could do better than they are doing sharing the wealth so to speak.

We need to forget the UN. The UN is worthless. The UN is worse than worthless. The UN, as far as I can see, is on the other side in this war. But we do need to work harder at building coalitions wherever we can.

We need to see this as a global long term war, much like the cold war, but more subtle, more dangerous in my mind. Do we have the will to fight it?

Some may say, well, we baby boomer’s aren’t fighting it. Our children are fighting it. This has always been the case. The people who make the decisions about war send their sons and daughters off to fight the war. Losing a child itself is a great sacrifice. Are we willing to make it?

An army recruiter called my daughter a few months ago. She was not home. I asked him if he would take me. He asked how old I was. I told him. There was a pause. “Uh, no sir” he said. And he has no idea how many push ups I can do.

No matter what we think about Bush, about the war in Iraq, about the current administration in general, are we Baby Boomers going to have the will to see this war through? I have my doubts. And because of that I worry greatly for my children, and my children’s children.

Double Digging - Very Very Dangerous Content

I wanted to write a little ditty about a secret of mine called double digging, but I fear after Monday's insights into the blog cencorship it may play right into the GCS Gestapo’s hands, having so many possible subversive and double meanings known only to rebellious or perverted adolescents.

Well, at least I know they won’t be able to read this. That is some relief. I guess I can cuss and swear too while I’m at it.

But I did want to write about my tomatoes. We are having a bumper crop, a practical explosion of red in my back yard this year. We have had NO blossom end rot, and I even stopped picking out the suckers - so even despite that the tomatoes keep coming.

This has been a summer for bad tomatoes – long periods of no rain followed by a day or two of several inches. I suppose it’s been good to keep away fungi, but generally tomatoes don’t do too well with uneven soil moisture.

This year I sucked (Oh dear, will that word get by the censors) it up and tried an old trick called double digging. It’s easy where I am from where the soil is mostly sand, but terribly difficult here. So this is what I did. I dug a trench about a foot wide and maybe twelve feet long and 10 inches or so deep. After evening out the bottom I jumped in and dug it twice as deep. I used shovel, pick ax, and tiller to break the red clay under-soil. It was hard but eventually I got it done.

The dirt I pulled out I spread onto one side in a large shallow pile. To that pile I added lots of organic matter – mostly decomposed leaves, lime, some well composted cow manure, and a few bags of fine mulch. Then I mixed all that up with my tiller. Then it rained and the trench filled with water so I had to wait, but after it dried out I added a little more lime and filled in the trench. Of course it ended up being somewhat of a long hill, which I turned into circular hills for planting. I like to plant a little above ground with a circular wall to keep in water. I planted my young tomatoes extra deep, added mulch, and voilá, I was done.

I did not do the same for the squash, watermelon, or all the flowers I planted. Much of the garden struggled this summer through the periods of drought, so much that the abundant rain when it came did not make things all better.

But the tomatoes never seemed to lack for moisture. They hardly ever wilted, but neither did they suffer from the effects of fungal problems due to over watering. I think the double digging caused their roots to grow extra deep, and the extra organic matter helped retain moisture during the dry times, and helped keep the soil from being overly soggy during the wet times. The steady moisture pattern plus the extra lime seems to have done the trick as to blossom end rot. It’s been tomato city this summer.

So, if you want good tomatoes in this horrid red stuff – I’d try double digging.

Please don't let any of your chldren know that I wrote about double digging. I have a reputation to protect, and they may kick my daughter out of the schools if they find out.

Beatles Bio

I am just finishing Bob Spitz’s new biography of the Beatles, entitled simply The Beatles. It’s 900+ pages plus notes, and is a real eye opener. Reviewers have labeled it as “dark.” I found it to be realistic and well informed. He goes well into the backgrounds of all the key players in their story, though the fulcrum of the book is John Lennon. Right now, with this book in mind, I want to go back and listen to every Beatles recording again, with “new eyes” and “new ears.” A dozen off the top observations…

1. John was one complex, dark, cynical, bohemian, sick dude, but in the context of his upbringing, his childhood, his father, mother, and aunt, he comes off sympathetically in his humanity.
2. These guys worked their butts off. They paid their dues. Spitz spends some 300 pages on their lives and their unceasing gig playing in Liverpool and Hamburg before their first record even comes out.
3. Once the roll started, he captures the Beatlemania, the frenzied pace, the almost superhuman creativity in light of the lack of sleep and excess of drugs. These guys hardly had a chance to breathe. I am amazed they lasted as long as they did.
4. The Beatles were truly ripped off by bad management, and then messed it up even worse trying to manage themselves.
5. The portraits of how individual songs were written is priceless. John and Paul face to face, guitar to guitar, just had a thing going musically that is rare in the anals of history.
6. The Beatles were absolute incredibly unspeakably decadent. I can’t really see what good they brought to the cultural table, much as I like their music.
7. And they did all this in their late teens and twenties! Unbelievable.
8. Ringo was and is the most normal of the lot.
9. Yoko Ono was really weird.
10. One can lose the impact of their wild in your face on-stage energy. They blew people away.
11. Despite the moral decadence, the drugs, the unfaithfulness to their wives, and all the rest, Spitz has me excited when their records start to sell, when they start to make it. I’m pulling for them. This is a true rags to riches story about four guys (and a few more) who were totally committed to their craft, who worked as hard as anyone could work playing live for years, who learned as well as wrote new songs and tried new things and created new recording techniques with abandon. No record company boys-band were these guys.
12. Thirty five years later I still haven’t gotten over that they broke up. Maybe this book will help me.

The Physiological Error of Migraine

I was reading a review of Joan Didion’s new book Magical Thinking and came across these quotes, actually from an essay in an earlier work called The White Album wherein she reflects on the migraine headaches that have plagued her throughout her life. Reading this, well, it’s like what I wish I could say if I could really write…

“The physiological error called migraine is…central to the given of my life….The migraine has acted as a circuit breaker, and the fuses have emerged intact. There is a pleasant convalescent euphoria. I open the windows and feel the air, eat gratefully, sleep well. I notice the particular nature of a flower in a glass on the stair landing, I count my blessings.”

Wow. Is she me? No. A better me.

As to the physiological error, yes, that is what it is exactly, a neurological disorder in the brain. And as gruesome and agonizing and debilitating as a bad migraine can be, I’d rather have them than be subject to the hundred herbal cures and flip comments thrown my way.

Also, as to the physiological error, see my Cracked and Crumbling.

Discover Newt

I know that to many he’s a mere conservative political hack, but check out the interview with Newt Gingrich in this month’s Discover magazine. Here is Newt at his science-geek, policy-wonk history-grounded best, and I for one think he has a lot of good things to say. I’ve tried to find an online version, but Discover does not put up their articles until the magazine’s been out there a while. It’s very interesting…Newt on Darwin….Newt on Global Warming….Newt on Stem Cell Research….Newt on Science Education….Newt on Scientific Discovery….Newt on Health Care….It may not all be what you’d expect.

To Autumn by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

Hey Music Buffs! What About September Music?

I can’t believe it’s September already. So my mind was drifting to music trivia – to songs with September in the lyrics. It’s not terribly hard to come up with some songs with “September” in the title. The following come to mind off the top, and there are probably dozens more…

Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day
September by Earth Wind and Fire
September Morn by Neil Diamond
September Grass by James Taylor
September by Jimmy Durante (Frank Sinatra?)

But I am more interested in songs that have September buried in the lyrics somewhere. I’ve heard one or two in the last week, in the car, and then I forget what…

Iris Dement’s mention of September in her song "My Life" has been on my mind. It sounds like a downer, but I read it, hear it, sort of in the spirit of the book of Ecclesiastes. Here is the verse where she mentions September:

My life, it don't count for nothing.
When I look at this world, I feel so small.
My life, it's only a season:
A passing September that no one will recall.
But I gave joy to my mother.
And I made my lover smile.
And I can give comfort to my friends when they're hurting.
And I can make it seem better for a while.

So, can any of you think of “September Songs,” whether it be title or lyrics buried in the song.

Oh, here’s a funny one. One friend said, "didn’t U-2 do an album called September?"

OK, well I thought that was funny.

Aunt Carolyn Died

My Aunt Carolyn died last night. She was my mom’s little sister.

My mom’s name was Maurine. She got the “Maur” from her dad “Maurice” (yes, I just thought of Steve Miller’s song too), and she got the “ine” from her her mom “Adeline.” She always had to correct people who wanted to spell her name the usual way – “Maureen.”

Their last name was Sanders. That’s my middle name – Joel Sanders Gillespie. I am so proud of that middle name.

Carolyn always called my mom “Sissy.” I guess that’s what she called her when they were we teeny kids and it stuck. “Sissy” is my mom’s name on that side of the family. It’s strange. My mom (who died in 2001) and Carolyn are survived by their older brother Karl. I think most folks wouldn’t have thought it would have worked out that way. Karl and his wife and young daughter were hit by a train 40 some odd years ago and it really messed up Karl’s back. But he is doing pretty well these days. It must be really hard losing your two younger sisters.

Carolyn and my mom and Karl all had four children. Odd how that worked out. All the children are still living.

People who know me and my siblings know that we have a rather dark sense of humor, a dry wit, and a tendency to see humor in the dark moments of life. We got that from my mother’s side. Carolyn was a master. She was actually pretty quiet and shy. But she would throw out a crack in her slow Texan drawl that would leave you in stitches. She was very smart, and very kind. And very witty.

When their mom died they got closer, talking every week on the phone, my mom in Columbia, Carolyn outside of Dallas. A couple of years after my mom died Uncle Philip and Aunt Carolyn came out with their daughter Deanna, and were met by their daughter Patricia and her husband and children, and joined all us Gillespies for Thanksgiving. It was a great time together that I will always remember.

This summer my daughter Laurel and I went out to spend a week with Philip and Carolyn, and also to see Uncle Karl and Aunt Edie, and various of their children. It was a great visit. Carolyn was already quite weak from the effects of the multiple myeloma, but she was herself more often than not. I will never forget that time, and that big hug goodbye. I love you Carolyn. I love you Joe.

Yeah, when I was little they all called me “Joe.”

I love Carolyn and Philip for who they are. But I know deep down I also love Carolyn a little for my mother in her. She was a real and vital link to my mom which is gone, so, the grief for Carolyn is like a grief for my mom all over again.

I really miss her, my mom. And I miss Carolyn already. I know people talk about death as part of life. Death is part of the ordinary fallenness and brokenness of this world. But it is the antithesis of life. Death is the enemy. “The last enemy to be defeated is death.” I hate death. I long for the day when death will be swallowed up in victory – no more goodbyes, no more separations, no more losses, no more loved ones gone.

Some days I get tired of missing people I love. But I must keep on loving people. I suppose a day will come when some of them will miss me when I go. Or maybe they won't have to. Maybe Jesus will come back first. Come Lord Jesus.

I Love you Carolyn.
I love you Joe.

Goldfinches and Coneflowers (Photographs and Memories?)

What good are a bunch of dead and dried up Coneflower stalks and leftover flower pods? Well, just ask the four Goldfinches in my garden who can’t get enough of them. For days these guys have been feasting off the remains of my Coneflowers, Black Eyed Susans, and Zinnias. I haven’t wanted to trim the withering Zinnia flowers (which stimulates more flowers) because the little guys have been enjoying the seeds so much. I ran the water today in the garden – just let it run freely and puddle here and there – and that seemed to make the Goldfinches (and several other birds and bugs) quite happy as well. I wish I could get close enough without glass in between for a clear picture, but I will content myself with watching through the bedroom window for now. They seem to love the Coneflower pods the most, just a-plucking away at the seeds tucked down inside. It makes me happy watching – takes away some of the sadness of having three daughters going off to college this week. Oh, and I counted four growing watermelons, picked about a dozen tomatoes and several squash, and started collecting hand grenades too. No, I am not a terrorist; I’m just talking about those little black Four-O-Clock seeds. I’ve always loved them, and used to collect them in Dixie cups when I was a kid, each cup labeled by the color of the flower the seed came from. I really didn’t (and don’t) know how or if they cross pollinate, and how flower color is determined in Four-O-Clock fertilization, but I love the little black hand grenades anyway, and they will sprout if planted. Next year I have another place picked out just for more Four O’Clocks!

Off to College

Today we moved our third daughter into her dorm at Chapel Hill. She is a freshman. Tuesday we moved my second daughter into her apartment at Chapel Hill. She is a junior. Also today our first daughter packed her car and moved back into her apartment in Raleigh, a fifth year senior at State.

I know, I have two other daughters and my wife to tend to, but even our small little house will feel empty tonight. Yeah, I am supposed to have all these big generous liberal child focused thoughts about what great opportunities lie ahead for my children to spread their wings and grow up, and what a great place to live with such good colleges so close, etc. Well, maybe tomorrow. Tonight I just feel like part of me has died, again.

On a brighter note, there were a whole bunch of kids from two campus ministries helping cart the stuff to the rooms today and that made a HUGE difference. To them I say thanks!

Kudzu, by James Dicky, for BB

Kudzu

By James Dickey

Japan invades. Far Eastern vines
Run from the clay banks they are

Supposed to keep from eroding.
Up telephone poles,
Which rear, half out of leafage
As though they would shriek,
Like things smothered by their own
Green, mindless, unkillable ghosts.
In Georgia, the legend says
That you must close your windows

At night to keep it out of the house.
The glass is tinged with green, even so,

As the tendrils crawl over the fields.
The night the kudzu has
Your pasture, you sleep like the dead.
Silence has grown Oriental
And you cannot step upon ground:
Your leg plunges somewhere
It should not, it never should be,
Disappears, and waits to be struck

Anywhere between sole and kneecap:
For when the kudzu comes,

The snakes do, and weave themselves
Among its lengthening vines,
Their spade heads resting on leaves,
Growing also, in earthly power
And the huge circumstance of concealment.
One by one the cows stumble in,
Drooling a hot green froth,
And die, seeing the wood of their stalls
Strain to break into leaf.
In your closed house, with the vine

Tapping your window like lightning,
You remember what tactics to use.

In the wrong yellow fog-light of dawn
You herd them in, the hogs,
Head down in their hairy fat,
The meaty troops, to the pasture.
The leaves of the kudzu quake
With the serpents' fear, inside

The meadow ringed with men
Holding sticks, on the country roads.

The hogs disappear in the leaves.
The sound is intense, subhuman,
Nearly human with purposive rage.
There is no terror
Sound from the snakes.
No one can see the desperate, futile
Striking under the leaf heads.
Now and then, the flash of a long
Living vine, a cold belly,
Leaps up, torn apart, then falls

Under the tussling surface.
You have won, and wait for frost,
When, at the merest touch
Of cold, the kudzu turns
Black, withers inward and dies,
Leaving a mass of brown strings
Like the wires of a gigantic switchboard.
You open your windows,

With the lightning restored to the sky
And no leaves rising to bury

You alive inside your frail house,
And you think, in the opened cold,
Of the surface of things and its terrors,
And of the mistaken, mortal
Arrogance of the snakes
As the vines, growing insanely, sent
Great powers into their bodies
And the freedom to strike without warning:

From them, though they killed
Your cattle, such energy also flowed

To you from the knee-high meadow
(It was as though you had
A green sword twined among
The veins of your growing right arm—
Such strength as you would not believe
If you stood alone in a proper
Shaved field among your safe cows--):
Came in through your closed

Leafy windows and almighty sleep
And prospered, till rooted out.

Tending Our Garden

I enjoyed Karen Neill’s article in the News and Record this past weekend about invasive species, which segued into a bit of an encouragement about the need to stay on top of things in the garden. This brought back some childhood memories and brought up a few reflections.

She commented on the now ubiquitous Ailanthus, or Queen of Heaven Tree, which grows along about every roadside and in about every disturbed area you see. It’s really not a very pretty tree at all, and it’s flowers are sort of a dull creamy yellow, but that is actually too favorable a description for such a homely flower. We called them peanut butter trees when I was younger because if you crush the leaves in your fingers and then you smell your fingers they smell like peanut butter.

Karen also made comments about the Princess Tree, which I only identified this past Spring along Old Battleground. It’s so pretty I forgive it for being invasive and taking over space belonging to native plants.

Somewhere in the article Karen segued into talking about complaints from some gardener about Trumpet Vine shoots volunteering here and their in the garden. Apparently the said gardener wanted to cut down the Trumpet Vine. Karen reminded us that Trumpet Vines, a native plant, are really quite beautiful, and worth the small effort of pulling out a volunteer here or there.

I agree. I love our native vines, well, all but Poison Ivy, which I respect more than love. Trumpet Vine, Virginia Creeper, Crossvine, Moonseed vine, American Wisteria, Muscadine, and many species of Smilax ("sticker bushes"). I personally love English Ivy though it is technically an invasive species – it’s just been around so long it seems native. And Pachysandra, though not a vine, often seems to spread like one, so I’ll throw it in there too.

Earlier this summer my nephew and I had a great time swinging on a huge Muscadine vine in Columbia. Memories of childhood and childhood dares. “I dare you to climb that vine all the way to the top of that tree.” “OK, you’re on.” If my poor mom had had a clue!

Back to gardening.

My grandmother and grandfather moved to Columbia from Tampa in 1943 and bought a small house in a suburb, a house whose long narrow back yard sloped down to a creek bottom. Along this creek bottom grew the largest loblolly pines in Richland County. Over the course of twenty years they and their two next door neighbors transformed their yards into a highlight of the Columbia garden tour. One day I will scan and post a postcard of their yards put out by the city of Columbia.

They did it all themselves. They were real gardeners, grafting and rooting azaleas and camellias and even cross fertilizing lilies to come up with new patterns and colors. As to vines, there was English Ivy, Pachysandra, Wisteria, and Virginia Creeper, all of which required constant vigilance to keep them in their place.

Pruning was an art. I would walk behind Nanny while she pruned azaleas and camellias with precision, by hand, with small hand clippers, still my favorite tool. There was, and is, an art to pruning.

My point? Real gardening is a hands on, constant, pro-active, entropy denying channeling of energy. You just don’t see it much any more. Folks are too busy. A beautiful Trumpet Vine sends out underground shoots which pop up here and there? Too much trouble? Kill the vine. Azaleas too hard to learn to actually prune? Then buzz them, like a hedge. And the garden gods cry “murder, murder!”

Gardening and hurrying don’t go well together. A garden is a slowly cooked meal that takes seasons and seasons to prepare. It is a pot you have to watch boil a little each hour so to speak. It takes tending. And just as the good shepherd must know his sheep, the good gardener must know his plants, and love them. And even, maybe, if nobody is looking, talk to them…

My grandmother did not care about the “perfect lawn.” Good gardeners don’t, I don’t think. The perfect lawn is a creation of chemical companies, not gardeners. Nanny liked a decent lawn, and she tended it. In fact, her lawn was made of “Charleston grass,” a kind of a wide bladed version of Centipede. It doesn’t grow up here. They mowed it with a manual mower. With all the loblolly pines and dogwoods, and one or two enormous water oaks, there was too much shade for a perfect lawn, and there were spots here and there of mostly moss. She liked her moss just fine.

The way I figure it, if a culture is too busy to cultivate good gardeners, it’s just too busy. Gardening requires energy; but a lot of that energy isn’t mere brute force, it’s the energy expended a little each day, often just planning and piddling. “Hmm, I’d like to move this over there, and that over here. I think I’ll prune my azaleas today. Today I need to weed.”

Theologically it bothers me that we’re too busy to garden. For if we’re too busy to care for our own little spaces, we’re probably too busy to be what we're called to be as human beings and care for that big space we called earth. That makes me sad.

We were meant to tend gardens you know. As it says…

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” We need to remember that.

Local Litmus Tests?

I read with some interest David Hoggard’s excellent article in the News and Record this morning and found myself agreeing with him. Where are the voices of reasonable moderation in our local city and county government? I have addressed this before myself (and been chided). But I wondered as I considered David’s example, whether there was still, even in his mind, a subtle litmus test at work in defining what is or isn’t reasonable and moderate. For example, and not that I’m running, but what about somebody like me, who has a different kind of mix of traditional democratic and republican takes on various issues than what David posited. I’m a strong environmentalist with a passion for bio-diversity and clean air and water and the endangered species act (far left democratic), yet I am pro-life (republican). I am pro-planning as to local development (democratic) yet pro-business as to taxes (republican). I am a traditionalist on marriage (republican), yet very concerned that we protect and care for our poorest and neediest members (democrat). I am profoundly passionate about education (democratic), yet thinks our system is way too centralized (republican) and have a thing for vouchers, especially for our poorest communities (far right republican). Yet, all in all I think I am a consensus builder (a moderate), and would approach things in a civil give and take manner. My question maybe to David is, given what is known about someone like me (or Joe G), is there a place for us at the “moderate” table in local politics? Or is there a non spoken litmus test really in this fairly left leaning town?

A Telemarketer Hung Up On Me!

A guy from Bell South called late this morning. He wanted to talk to the person who made decisions about the phone service. I told him that that would be a committee. He asked me when they met. I told him that he could not attend the meeting, but that he could relay info to them through me. He asked me if I could make decisions about the phone service. I said not if money was involved. He asked if he could talk to the person who could make decisions about the phone service. I said that I was as close to that person as he was going to get. He asked if I could make decisions about the phone service. I said that that the one who could make such decisions would be the said aforementioned committee, and that he should either talk to me or quit wasting our time. So he hung up.

That was the first time in my life a telemarketer has hung up on me.

I feel......renewed.

Joel