Too Obvious To Comment...

If... like me... you haven't watched this since you were a kid, do yourself a favor and take the eight minutes to do it now.

THE SCUM RISES TO THE TOP

I've been trying very hard for the last several days (ever since the news fast I wrote about last week at 40 Days To Life) to remain upbeat and positive about all the news rampaging through the mediascape. But the last few days have truly been too much to bear.

Yesterday I got very excited about the fact that McCain's direct connection to the Savings and Loan Crisis of the late 80s, and his direct involvement in The Keating 5, finally made some news. The man claiming he has the solution to the banking and securities crisis is one of the central figures that got us here in the first place! I write more about it at George Washington's Cousin so please go there (and send your friends)!

Then... the campaign has decided to raise the spectre of Bill Ayers "the terrorist" as one of Barack's friends and supporters. McCain even had the audacity to get all hot and bothered about Bill Ayers "targeting innocent people." This man, whose much touted time as a POW was caused because he was shot down over North Vietnam doing that very thing... "BOMBING INNOCENT PEOPLE" Not only is the accusation false, deceptive fear mongering, it's also so massively hypocritical I can barely breathe. Most of it is being propagated by little Miss Sunshine, Pentecostal "Christian" Sarah Palin... I'm not sure what she's thinking about Commandment #9 (Exodus 20:1-17) there on that list that she and her Republican friends are always so interested in putting up in governement buildings. "Do not bear false witness" seems pretty damned clear to me! I'm thinking that she should give it some thought.

Funny how the whole bunch can be so worried about OTHER PEOPLE obeying "The Bible" while they choose to play fast and loose with it themselves.

I'm working on a piece about all that and I hope to have it finished before the debate tonight. It will also be at George Washington's Cousin, so please check it out.

I really am seeking a more centered peaceful, loving place... I am really TRYING to "be the change" I want to see in the world, but it's just so damned hard with such complete scumbags trying to take over the country.

O'Boss For Obama!

To my way of thinking, Bruce Springsteen is THE consummate American musical artist of my lifetime. For more than 30 years he has told the particularly American story of Big Dreams met with Big Disappointments, while at the same time showing the possibility of keeping hope, joy, engagement, and rock & roll alive, thriving, and supporting the basic life of that dream and the lives of the people in his stories. He is the second coming of Woody Guthrie AND Johnny Cash, with a little bit of Billy Sunday and George M. Cohen thrown in for good measure.

There are plenty of people who don't share my perspective on The Boss. A lot of people, like Ronald Reagan, have not and do not understand the basic social realities at the root of even his most popular, most anthemic, songs (like Born In The USA).

This weekend, he once again spoke, sang, and showed his true colors at a rally for Barack in Philly.

You can read the text of his speech (before he sings The Rising) here.

Serendipity after Disappointment

So I was reading the usual suspects this morning to see what people thought about the disappointing and worrisome debate last night. Disappointing because it wasn't the blood bath I and a lot of other people had hoped for(even pacifists want blood and circuses sometimes), worrisome because the fact that Palin didn't totally wash out makes me fear she might be taken seriously.

Well... too my surprise, my day was changed by an advertisement. At the side of one of the Palin articles on Huffington Post I saw this interesting little ad for the new movie The Soloist. WIth Jamie Foxx and Robert Downie Jr. I had to click the button (you should too!)

NOW... just because of this brief moment on computer I am sitting here in my apartment with tears on my face and hope for better things in my heart.

That debate last night... doesn't matter. THIS kind of stuff does.

Here's the movie website... the trailer's pretty darn good too.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth

I began this post a couple of weeks ago after I missed the opportunity to attend the ordination to retirement ceremony for one of my best friends. I worked hard on it coming up to yesterday in the hope of getting it up in time for her birthday, but it tends to be one of those writing experiences where despite my desire to be, and my feeling that on a good day I am, "good with words," the words run away from me like a skittish bunny that is unsure of my intentions.

Elizabeth is one of three people I consider my "best" friend. She has been in my life for the last 26 years - nearly half of my life - and despite the fact that I am incredibly inept at being a steadfast and dependable friend to her, she is, and has always been that to me.

We first met, very briefly, in Seattle at a meeting of the Evangelical Women's Caucus when I was both a new seminary graduate and a new father, carting my kid around in a denim blue snuggly (something that I can't even find a Google link to in this age of modern pram/land speed vehicle high end strollers) and smiling in self-congratulatory smugness at my "feminist husband" act. The fact of the matter was that I didn't have a clue what I was doing, with my life, my marriage, my supposed calling, or for that matter, my new baby girl. Elizabeth, and her husband John, on the other hand gave me a sense that maybe there was something more grounded and honest in all this political/ theological posturing. From the very beginning I sensed a centeredness, a humaness, and a genuineness that drew me like a warm fire.

Over the next few years, with their visits to San Francisco and my visits to Los Angeles, we gradually became closer and closer friends. The glow of warmth that emanated from their lives and their home even made me love Los Angeles (a real stretch for an inveterate and unshakable NoCal boy like me). On my first visit to their house I tasted lox and bagels for the first time on a Sunday morning. Lox and bagels remain one of my central food cravings and weekend rituals. I even have fond memories of an afternoon spent in the sunshine with Elizabeth eating ceviche at Gladstones 4 Fish; an afternoon that turned into an evening of food poisoning misery, but which makes me smile now as I write about it.

At the time I thought of myself as a hotshot forward thinking progressive with a tiny little record company that I was hoping to turn into the next Geffen Records, allowing me to make millions of dollars while also changing the world. In reality I was pretty much like I am now: a wild eyed dreamer with little discipline, minimal resources, a whole lot of intellectual chauvinism, and so much hopeful idealism that I should have been given a handicapped pass. Elizabeth, even in the midst of less than fulfilling professional circumstances, was a solid rock and a light hearted fairy who could simultaneously make me laugh and think and hope. She knocked the air out of my windbag bullshit without knocking the hope from my heart in the process. She was serious, and solid, and spiritual, and fun. On several occasions I shared meals, wine and words with Elizabeth and John (and family) and those experiences have forever colored my concept of heaven and my underlying expectations for most other human interactions.

A few years later, when Elizabeth started making regular trips to the Bay Area for work on her Doctorate of Ministry, we each made time to eat well, drink a lot, talk more, and take in the loveliness of living where we live. The only moments in that time of my life that equaled those moments were the times I spent with my daughter. During those years, these were literally my best times; they were, repeatedly, Perfect Moments.

There was a definite sense in which Elizabeth saved my life. In the years since, she has remained an amazing delight at each and every moment. If I catch her note at the end of a blog, or a phone message saying she's coming to town, I am affected with a tunnel vision that momentarily blocks all else from my consciousness.

As I write this now I find myself experiencing those moments again, as if they happened yesterday, or this morning. The memories transform this otherwise mundane moment, and the task of cobbling these words together, into it's own Perfect Moment. I find myself loaded on joy and memory as if on psychedelics carrying me into a place of effervescent time and space. There is a joy in the memories from the last 26 years so solid and bright and real that it forces the majority of my other experiences into the shadows.

I believe that the only way any of us REALLY experiences The God/Goddess is in the body and blood of other human beings. I believe that THIS is the heart of the Christian myth of God and Jesus... A choice by the Divine to BECOME a flesh and blood person; a choice to live with joy and sorrow, abundance and want, pain and ecstasy. I believe there is no other God but us.

Elizabeth IS the face of The God/Goddess to me.

She is also my friend.

Happy (Belated) Birthday E. I am VERY glad you were born.