Bar Hopping... Or, What's Church For, Anyway?

When Jesus saw her, he called her over and sid to her, "Woman, you are freed from your disability." Luke 13:12

Jean and I often go for walks in Portland's West Hills. The area is a bit unique and intriguing because of all the public stairways. There are plenty of private ones that lead from the street or the tiny garages carved like grottos in the rocky hillsides. But many are public, put there so that residents have a much more direct way to get downhill. Or uphill.

Sometimes the stairs are elevated for a portion before coming donw to earth, like the upper landing of this one on SW Vista Drive.

At one time, it probably served as a place for teenagers to go and drink, smoke and make out. In fact, a girl nicknamed Priscy signed her name in lipstick along with a heart to state that she and Roger loved each other.

I wonder how long ago that's been and how it's gone for them since.

Probably long after Priscy and Roger exchanged passionate kisses under this concrete shelter, somebody thought it looked like a more permanent one and started camping or living there. That would be when the neighbors said "No way!" and ordered the City of PDX to have custom made bars installed.

Bars can either keep us locked in or locked out. Sometimes, they aren't even made of steel.

Jesus was teaching in the temple. His teachings were often refreshing and not infrequently stirred the pot of the establishment in uncomfortable (to the official dudes) ways.

That's when he saw the hunched over, crippled woman. She didn't get in Jesus' face and demand a miracle. He called her over and set her free from her disability. She could stand up straight for the first time in 18 years. Maybe she was no older than that. We don't know.

The ensuing ruckus turns around healing on the Sabbath, something the higher-ups in the Jerusalem Temple considered work. The rules prohibited work of most types on the Sabbath. There were exceptions. Domestic livestock could be untied and led to water. That would involve less "work", fewer steps, than carrying the water to the animals. Hence, closer living within the law.

A miracle, a sign of God's power, was accomplished, no question. The woman could stand up straight. But Jesus knew there was more to the story. So he set the woman free.

It seems like a minor nit-picking detail until we consider this. She would need to change how she saw herself. If, though able to stand straight and tall, she continued to see herself as stooped over and crippled, she would never see herself and never live as someone not disabled.

More to come.

Setting Fire to the World

I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! Luke 12:49-51

Jesus said he wanted to set fire to the world. Burn this stinkin' place down. Or maybe burn it up. Never could figure out which way that should go. It's like going downtown. Once you get there, are you really uptown?

What? Was Jesus some kind of pyromaniac? Wanting to put a torch to creation, set the earth on fire?

I thought God had made everything and pronounced it "Tov!" (very good).

Even the stuff we humans have stuck onto the surface is at times unable to get in the way of the beauty and wonder of God's creation.

Maybe Jesus didn't really want to physically set the earth ablaze. Maybe he wanted to do what my Uncle Obert used to say some of the neighbores needed with their farm work. They needed some fire in the pants.

That is, they needed to get something done.

Jesus said that kind of thing wouldn't sit well with everybody. In fact, it might split families down the middle. Might turn fathers and sons against each other. Might set the women to a-hair pullin' cat fight. Even the in-laws would bust up over it.

Considering what we bright, intelligent humans with all our satellite and space station diagnostic tools, all our climate data, all our computing power already know about what lies ahead for us in the way of consumption spikes, extinction spikes, greenhouse gas spikes and population spikes, you'd think we'd actually be burning the candle at both ends to get something moving to help head off the damage.

We aren't doing that. At all. Seems like we're still looking for the Jesus that's like a big novacaine shot. Or maybe a big general anesthetic.

We're afraid we won't all get along anymore if we actually get to work doing what we are supposed to do: love God above all and our neighbors as ourselves. That would sorta include future generations as well as the people who right today are impacted by the consumption we consider to be our right. Our right and privilege as Americans. Because we are the good guys.

Oh, don't worry. I'm not leaving out our all-out opposition to sin, death and the Devil. That's 'cause I haven't forgotten that Jesus has already handed us the victory there.

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y! That's what life is to be lived in the knowledge and the power of.

So why do we trust in war and weapons to deliver the goods?

Why do we trust in fear? Still...

Why?

Jesus would say, "For God's sake, open your eyes! Get to work! Get moving! Stop standing there dying and get busy living!"

Forget the fear.

Oh, and last time I checked, mothers and daughters-in-law and fathers/sons don't always get along so hot as it is.

Only thing that needs a match put to it is our reluctance, our fear, our foot-dragging, our blindness.

Take a look around. God didn't give us this to destroy but to give glory through life, not through ashes.

Peace,

Roger

When Mountains Cover and Hills Fall...

The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed.Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars.

They shall say to the mountains, "Cover us,"

and to the hills, "Fall on us." Hosea 10:8

In Luke's account of Jesus' death march to Golgotha, Jesus quotes Hosea and directs the weeping women to turn their thoughts to what may lie ahead for them, not for him.

What does lie ahead? Something to ponder on a level that has less to do with the apocalyptic and eschatological than with the practical.

Here in N. America and elsewhere around

the globe, wheat prices are going up. Russia has banned wheat exports for the remainder of 2010. They are experiencing the worst heat wave on record. Heat and drought have brought massive forest fires. Worst on record.

The drought and heat may further stress forests, bring insect infestations that kill whole forests--inevitably leading to more fires, more drought, more heat. It's a feedback loop that can and will accelerate.

Oh, by the way, the wheat crop got hit hard by the same conditions. Some of it literally burned.

In Pakistan, always ripe for a disaster due to the poverty, population density, tribalism and corrupt government, the monsoon rains have been the worst on record. Self-sufficient communities in the north of the country have been completely wiped out, bereft of food, water, shelter, roads, bridges and the means to support themselves.

At last report yesterday, 12 million people were directly affected by the rains and floods. The only way to get in any relief was by helicopter--and yet more rains had made it too dangerous to fly.

So far, 2010 is shaping up to be the warmest year on record. Climate change deniers continue to deny. Response from the developed world, the part of the world with actual choices and actual power, has been far too meager to qualify as anything but an insult and a charade.

I sometimes think of it as ripping creation's gifts right out of God's hands and spitting back in his face.

In Luke's quotation from Hosea (Luke 23:30-31), Jesus follows it up with this observation:

For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?

People experience a snowy winter in one region of the US and use it to deny climate change, anthropogenic climate change, specifically. Never mind years of average temperatures for the whole planet, averages that have been trending up.

OK, so we can't completely make the case for global shifts out of the record heat in Russia or the record monsoons in Pakistan. But we can't fool the melting point of ice and the nearly universal retreat of the world's glacier systems.

So if the disasters in Russia and Pakistan are "normal" and not the result of changes wrought to the climate system by human activity, then you really wouldn't want to see what REAL CLIMATE CHANGE would produce, now would you?

What is REAL CLIMATE CHANGE? I define that as what even Republicans can't deny because it has cost them their homes, their land, their jobs, their drinking water, their food, their paycheck, their politcal power, their talk show, their tea party, their family members, their money.

I define is as when even Republicans are forced to ask the mountains and hills to bury them, to give them an escape from the consequences of thier actions. Or lack of it.

That goes for Democrats, too, and for all of us you's and me's out there.

If what we are seeing this year ain't the real stuff, then we surely don't want to see the real stuff.

Might be worth considering this: God does not recognize private property or private property rights. God gave and gives to the whole of creation and calls the whole of creation to steward for the good of the whole, aka to the glory of God.

Whatever else we believe, perhaps we could agree on this: Never has the planet been in the grand experiment of supporting nearly 7 billion of us. Seven billions warring and using and consuming like there is no tomorrow.

Time to get moving. Failing to plan is planning to fail.

And putting the finishing touches on the gilded invitations to the mountains and the hills... Not much God glory in that.

I like what Joseph Sittler wrote years ago. Talking about this is not stepping away from grave theological issues. It is stepping right into the middle of them.

Theology always lives between the rocks and the hard places. Otherwise, what good would it be? That's where all the God glory is.

Roger

The Ultra-High Price of Arrogance

Recently, if you read the previous post, I was hauled into court. Not as a defendant but on behalf of a defendant. It's an experience I will not forget and have no plans or desire to repeat. However, it's now on my curriculum vitae as life experience. I should quit now since I'm batting a thousand: one win, no losses.

The leadup to the trial baffled me. I expected to be deposed by the other side. I wasn't. The only possible explanation for this unseized opportunity by the other side is arrogance. They thought that they had such a qualified, credible expert witness that they didn't want to give me even the experience and OJT of a deposition before getting me on the stand in court. I'm sure they expected to blow me away like a few dandelion seeds.

They grossly overestimated their own position and grossly underestimated what I knew and could show the jury--and I didn't even get to do a third of it in court.

They were seeking tens of thousands of dollars in damages. They spent several tens of thousands of dollars in getting to the trial. They left without a penny. It was a sad waste of time and money that could have been invested in the businesses on both sides of the conflict.

Lose-lose situation for everybody.

Arrogance. Flat-out arrogance. Well... maybe some ignorance mixed in with it.

Now comes the WikiLeaks.org report of 92K secret U.S. reports on the war in Afghanistan that confirm a similar arrogance and ignorance on the part of our country in this soon-to-be nine-year-old but forgotten war.

It's not news to me, however. I've heard the same thing from a number of guests on Terry Gross' (best interview show in the business IMHO) program "Fresh Air". Two weeks ago at Powell's Books in Portland, Jean and I heard the same in person from author Jere Van Dyk. JVD spent 44 days as a captive of the Taliban. Hence, the title of his book Captive. JVD essentially said:

1. The U.S. has bloody poor intelligence.

2. Ethnic and tribal loyalties rule the day and the territory.

3. Afghanistan is the most corrupt "government" on earth.

4. Making any kind of gunny sack purse out of the sow's ear we have made of Afghanistan will take far longer than both the purse strings and the patience/attention span of current Americans will allow.

We can't stay, and we can't leave. It's become a Humpty-Dumpty deal.

How did we get into such a mess in the first place? Well, you'd probably have to waterboard half the Bush Administration to find out. But maybe we should have been waterboarding ourselves before we ever started the mess in the first place.

Van Dyk pointed to the work of Greg Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute in building schools in some of the most impoverished areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan as being the only real way forward.

Now comes the word that even the wives of some of America's top generals have read Mortenson's story in Three Cups of Tea and have asked their spouses essentially this question: Wouldn't this be a better way than bloodshed, drones and loss of life?

If I had to describe Mortenson's way succinctly, it would be with these words: the way of Christ. I challenge you to read his book and disagree with that assessment.
Several years ago in a home community group of young Christians, I asked this question:

Suppose that after 9/11 instead of essentially calling the U.S. to war, President George W. Bush had gone on national television and radio and read the Beatitudes and called the nation to a campaign of education and an end to poverty among our enemies. What would have been the reaction of the country?


A young woman didn't hesitate a second before replying "outrage".

So I guess the Jesus we profess and have at times been willing to kill for is really a fraud and a fake? Or not... I guess we'll never know until we are for once willing to try, to actually follow the way of Christ and the way of the cross.

But we might have to first declare war on our own arrogance. And ignorance.

I think we call that repentance.

Practice resurrection. Create peace. Amen.

Roger

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury...

Last week was the week of no sleep.

It started over a year ago, June 15 to be exact. That's whenNorm, a friend of mine, received a letter alleging defective workmanship in the repair of an aircraft engine that later developed recurring problems that led to further very expensive repairs. No accident, no crash. No damage to the twin Cessna. No one hurt. Just a trashed engine.

The owner hired an "expert" to investigate and do a failure analysis. The expert did a shoddy job of investigating and documenting, then wrote a report based on jumped-to conclusions. It was a terrible report with confused words, sentences that did not logically follow, conclusions not based on a systematic cause-effect relationship. Worse, the so-called expert alleged that the engine damage resulted from an out-of-balance crankshaft but misunderstood the readings and units of measure from the balancing machine that derived the numbers.

My friend asked if I could help. I had expertise in all the required areas. I wrote a preliminary report. The case turned into litigation, a civil suit for damages, $91,000 to be exact.

I wrote a second, much longer and more detailed report. I documented everything, set it out as I would in an engineering report, did computations. The other side didn't give my report the time of day. They didn't even bother to depose me before trial.

"He's never given testimony in court before," they must have thought, "we'll blow him away in minutes."

Last week was the trial. It went 2.5 days. I was the last witness to be called. On cross- examination, the plaintiff's attorney tried to demolish me, not on the basis of my report but on the basis of my not being a pilot with 7,000 hours of flying experience. As if that had anything to do with whether I understood the guts of engines. I do. I take the job of fixing them and giving FAA approval to repairs very seriously.

As if lives depended on it. They do. Those lives could be mine. They could be yours or those of someone you love.

It was an exhausting weekend before trial, inspecting parts on a Saturday in the lawyer's driveway instead of in a shop, parts we should have seen weeks earlier. Sunday, I had three worship services to be a part of. Monday was trial preparation. Tuesday the trail began. I slept little the night before the first day of trial. After some fallacious testimony by the other expert witness, I did not sleep at all before the second day of trail. I was the last witness to be called at the end of the day.

I was exhausted. There were many things I wanted to get done during my testimony that it seemed we did not have time for. I left the stand, after being attacked by the other attorney, feeling defeated.

But I had shown the jury something, something they could understand. They understood. They got it.

There was more back and forth on the final day. There was rebuttal testimony by the other expert in which he did not refute what I had shown but only dug his hole deeper.

Then, closing arguments, jury instructions and waiting. The plaintiff needed to have the jury accept their case as a preponderance (at least 51% of the evidence), and the jury of nine would have to be unanimous.

I was exhausted and dozing on the MAX train when the word came back from my clients:

WE WON, 9-0!

I came away with a whole new understanding of the story of David and Goliath. I had gone into the courtroom against a giant, dead tired and without so much as my slingshot. So I thought.

Our side went in as people of integrity, people telling the truth. We left the courtroom the same way. Even if we had lost the case, we would still have had that.

But the jury saw the truth and rewarded it. Justice was done. Sweet justice.

Best of all, my friend who is 68 is retiring. He had just sold the business to his younger brother before the trial. Tomorrow morning, he and his wife leave on a five-week vacation across this country, seeing our beautiful land, visiting aviation colleagues from coast to coast and many places in between.

Norm hired me 32 years ago. It was 32 years to the day this past MOnday that I first arrived in Oregon and pulled into the parking lot a Troutdale Airport. What a sweet fulfillment that Norm and his wife are able to embark on this vacation truly free of the ill-founded lawsuit and its mental and financial burdens.

Many people were praying for us and for me. Only one thing to say to that:

Thanks be to God!

Roger

July 6, 1970

Dearest Jean,

It was one of the first poems I wrote you:

Song of Parting--July 6, 1970

In the river of your memory

A million billion tiny drops

All flowing somewhere

Coming and going

I do not build me as a dam

to turn the tide of that great stream

I do not even hope to change its course.

But I should be happy if

on some sultry day many years from now

The vapors rising from your memory stream

Might form of me one tiny drop

That once again might fall to earth

Once more to flow downstream

Once more to pass before your mind.

I think we had returned from Karen and Rafik's wedding. I knew that my life had become involved with yours, that having a future without you would not be something I could do or imagine.

Thank you for the past 40 years since that humid weekend in SE New York State.

"What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."

Not even us and our youthful, imperfect ways. Only death shall part us, Jean. And even then, only for a little while.

Thank God for you, Jean!

Love always,

Roger

Pre-School Door Gunners: Afghanistan 2020-2030

OK, so the honest reports from Afghanistan aren't very encouraging.

Over 100 coalition troops KIA in June. Big shakeup in Generals. Or, in general. McChrystal out, Petraeus back in.

Petraeus says he not only supports President Obama's strategy but that he also agrees with it. Elsewhere, he's also said that he expects us to be needed there for a very long time.

Kinda flies in the face of the notion of withdrawing troops come July 2011. To those in certain circles, that means perhaps reducing the number from 96K+ to perhaps 65K+.

To most Americans who only casually think about the "A-word" today, I'd bet that means reducing troops to zero K.

Just read that flareups in the north have spread the conflict areas from the traditional south around the Pakistan border. Afghanistan is tough to negotiate with very few roads and almost no infrastructure. Rich in mineral wealth but no way to get there to get it out.

Same way we have to evacuate casualties and bodies: helicopters.

I came across this pre-school play structure last month. A helicopter with two seats in the cockpit, two more teeter-totter fashion on the outside. They sorta look like machine gun mounts, side mounts for rockets and gattling guns.

Might as well get the youngsters ready for their future mission while they're still in pre-school. 'Cuz until we get a government in Afghanistan that isn't corrupt from top to bottom, and until we get enough infrastructure in place for the country to actually maintain and control itself as anything more than tribal enclaves, the conditions for "peace with honor**" might not exist within our lifetimes.

(**NOTE: See President Richard M. Nixon and Vietnam for the antecedent of peace with honor.)

And the pre-schoolers of today may very well be serving there as helicopter door gunners when they're 21. Well, some of 'em anyway.

Lord knows all of 'em will be paying for it. 'Cuz we sure don't have the money to do it today and simultaneously do the things that need doing in our country right now. We're all worried about deficits now but not about the hole we're digging in Afghanistan. A choice we've made. Yeah, I know. Economic growth was always supposed to cover it all.

Just like your income will ALWAYS increase every year, right? Even when you're old and disabled...

How'd this all happen, anyway?

Pray for enlightenment.

Roger