Good Thing They Weren’t Intending to be Racist

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- The Mexican government has issued a postage stamp depicting an exaggerated black cartoon character known as Memin Pinguin, just weeks after remarks by President Vicente Fox angered U.S. blacks.

The series of five stamps released for general use Wednesday depicts a child character from a comic book started in the 1940s that is still published in Mexico. The boy, hapless but lovable, is drawn with exaggerated features, thick lips and wide-open eyes. His appearance, speech and mannerisms are the subject of kidding by white characters in the comic book.

Activists said the stamp was offensive, though officials denied it.

"One would hope the Mexican government would be a little more careful and avoid continually opening wounds," said Sergio Penalosa, an activist in Mexico's small black community on the southern Pacific coast. "But we've learned to expect anything from this government, just anything," Penalosa said. In May, Fox riled many by saying that Mexican migrants take jobs in the United States that "not even blacks" want.

Carlos Caballero, assistant marketing director for the Mexican Postal Service, said the stamps are not offensive, nor were they intended to be. "This is a traditional character that reflects part of Mexico's culture," Caballero said. "His mischievous nature is part of that character."

However, Penalosa said many Mexicans still assume all blacks are foreigners, despite the fact that at one point early in the Spanish colonial era, Africans outnumbered Spanish in Mexico.

The 6.50-peso (60 cent) stamps -- depicting the character in five poses -- was issued with the domestic market in mind, but Caballero noted it could be used in international postage as well. A total of 750,000 of the stamps will be issued.

Publisher Manelick De la Parra told the government news agency Notimex that the character would be sort of a goodwill ambassador on Mexican letters and postcards. "It seems nice if Memin can travel all over the world, spreading good news," de la Parra said, calling him "so charming, so affectionate, so wonderful, generous and friendly."

Oh those charming, affectionate, wonderful, generous, and friendly Negroes. They are such a happy bunch. I know that I’m certainly not offended. Why? Because Carlos Caballero said they weren’t offensive. Good thing he said so, there might have been some confusion.



Sure it’s a stereotype and we don’t want to encourage those kind of images and stereotypes. But while we’re so proud of ourselves and how far we’ve come as we wag our collective scolding finger at Mexico, a few things gave me pause. For example, on my way to work this morning, I counted no fewer than four lawn jockeys. But, whew!, they had been painted white. And though we once had Aunt Jemima looking like this:

(Note the resemblance to Memin Pinguin’s mom, or Mrs. Butterworth for that matter) in our age of continuing sensitivity, we’ve given her a perm. In fact, as I continue to go through our cabinets, I come across a box of Uncle Remus’, I mean, Uncle Ben’s rice.

Let’s see, a Pickaninny, a Mammy, a Tom and a couple Coons; throw in a big black angry Buck, we’d have the whole set of popular depictions of black people through the ages.

Good thing no one was trying to be offensive.



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Brian Keene and Nick Mamatas Are Dicks

Please forgive my language, but it’s true.

You see, I’m a no name writer. I’m out here toiling away in relative anonymity. I see the accolades, respect, and fans these two loud mouths of the industry have, and I’m resentful. I see their message board personas and decide "I can do that, too."

Except I’m real. I’m me. I’m not gonna be a kiss ass. I’m going to tell the truth. No bull shit here.

Yay for me!

So let me jump on the message boards where these guys used to frequent and attempt to hold court. "Look at me. I’ve arrived." Now, I’m going to dish out my brand of wisdom and insight that I’ve accumulated in all the years that I’ve watched the writing game from the shadows. Wait a second, seasoned professionals seem to keep rising up to challenge me. They seem bent on correcting much of the stuff that comes spewing out of my keyboard. My literary heroes are ... hacks. Either that or they’re afraid. Yes, that must be it, they’re afraid of Keene and Mamatas.

But I’m not.

They’re dicks.

I know. I’ll start an LiveJournal/Xanga/Message Board and engage in some truth-telling-cum-keyboard masturbation. Wait, no one seems to care. If only I say something outrageous, I mean, courageous enough. Maybe I’ll call up Keene and Mamatas as the over-rated whores that they are. Oh crap, I mean, good, they show up. As have their minions. Oh, yeah, they’re minions. People like Keene and Mamatas don’t have friends.

Behold the LJ drama.

Hmm, maybe all these people shouting me down and me having to defend myself isn’t how I want to spend my days. Then again, I do like the attention. Everyone knows who I am, even if it isn’t for my work.

Once a year or so, a writer like me pops up, all sturm und drang, rattling cages, declaring the old guard dead, even as they head the new revolution. I make a lot of noise for a year or so, then burn out or go away. Hopefully, I will re-think my career, my immaturity, (the fact that my message and talent get lost in the noise), and my poor choices. Maybe during that time away, I will hone my craft. Until then ...

Nick Kaufmann is a dick, too.

Everyone’s a dick except me.

I’m right. I know everything all ready.

Yes, this is exactly how I want to make a name for myself.

I’m so brill.

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The Dwelling Place - Another Value

Okay, we’ve added one more value to our list. It probably won’t be the last, but this should do us for awhile. I should probably do something by way of providing context.

You ever encounter religious folk that have the answer to everything? Some Christians tend to give the impression that if you were to chart one’s spiritual growth on a graph, that it should look like a steady rising line. Or that a spiritual life has to look a certain way within certain parameters.

Spirituality is important. Spiritual formation is important. Anything worth doing is spiritual formation and we believe that both happen through an encounter with Christ. However, we acknowledge that the process is messy (tying in with what it says in I John).

Some people will read this and think that we’re saying that everything’s okay, so we won’t bother confronting anybody about anything. They miss the point of what we’re saying. Our stance tries to assume a posture of humility. It’s about having a sense of grace, losing the arrogance.

Anyway, here it is:

Messy Spirituality
“He who thinks that he is finished, is finished. How true. Those who think that they have arrived, have lost their way. Those who think that they have reached their goal, have missed it. Those who think they are saints, are demons.” (Henri Nouwen)

Spirituality seems to be about the life of faith–what drives, motivates, and animates the life of believers and pulls them forward to deepen and perfect what has only begun in the present. It is the outworking of what a person does with what they believe. Christian spirituality is specifically concerned with a living encounter with the person of Christ, and then a living out of that interactive relationship in every moment of life. We believe that knowing God, not just knowing about Him, brings about the transformation of our existence and allows us to experience life in the full. The Dwelling Place exists to help spiritually form people into lovers of God and others, who then join in God’s redeeming love for all creation. We see everything we do as spiritual formation, helping each other to do God’s will on earth as it is done in heaven. But we also believe that spiritual growth is a messy process and that our flawed lives are the studio where God begins His great renovation. Spiritual formation is not a neat and tidy formula where we grasp perfection, but seems to be an uneven, incomplete, unfinished relationship with Christ that is always under construction. The Son of Man entered the ruins of our human existence and still found glory as He began the rebuilding process. We believe that He is still remaking us today as He calls us from where we are to become more than we ever imagined.


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As the Marlboro Man Goes, So Go We All ...

The Leo Burnett advertising agency, which created the iconic macho cowboy, said a new study it conducted found that half the men in most parts of the world don't know what is expected of them in society and three-quarters of them think images of men in advertising are out of touch with reality.

Most ads have lumped men into one of two groups -- the soft, caring type known as "metrosexuals," who are comfortable with facial peels and pink shirts, or the stereotypical "retrosexuals," who remain oafishly addicted to beer and sports.

"As the world is drifting toward a more feminine perspective, many of the social constructs men have taken for granted are undergoing significant shifts or being outright dismantled," said Tom Bernardin, chairman and chief executive of Leo Burnett Worldwide.

"It's a confusing time, not just for men, but for marketers as well as they try to target and depict men meaningfully," he said this week during a presentation in the south of France where the ad industry is gathered for its annual conference.

Leo Burnett's survey of 2,000 men in 13 countries found that 60 percent see themselves as either power seekers who crave professional advancement or family men - termed by Burnett as patriarchs - who believe having children and being a father are the most important things. The other 40 percent defined themselves more readily in the metrosexual versus retrosexual debate.

"The last thing we want is to look back in 10 years and find that we have unwittingly created the same cliches that female advertising is riddled with," Bernardin said.

You know who’s to blame for a lot of this? Women.

That’s right. I said it. Women. I’m not talking about some feminist agenda to emasculate males or break patterns in our patriarchal society. I’m talking about women we’d actually date. They’re the ones who dictate things. They are the ones who make lists of what they’d like their ideal men to be like, and willing sheep that a lot of us are, we try and conform to that list: modern, sensitive, caring, attentive. Though it didn’t take me too long, in that relationship laboratory we call high school, to figure out that sensitive guys made great friends.

On the other hand, we have what society has historically dictated as the prototypical male image, typified by the Marlboro Man: rugged, individualistic, remote, but tough. If not the Marlboro Man, the Eternal Frat Boy, the bad boy who the ladies looked past the sensitive guys in order to date. The Neanderthal.

So with these two poles pulling at your typical male, no wonder he has been reduced to either a state of confusion or a state of caricature.

Well, I refuse to be trapped by your definitions of maleness. I walk the line. I may even walk alone.

I don’t try too hard to be manly. Being a man shouldn’t be so hard. I don’t pound beer until I puke as an idea of having a good time. I don’t go to sports bars and engage in seeing how many chicken wings I can eat. I like sports, but sports are not my life. I also like the occasional art film. I’m man enough to admit that I enjoy the occasional me day: there’s nothing wrong with being pampered by a mani and a pedi.

I love spending time with my kids, talking to my kids, and raising my kids. In other words, I love being a father. I don’t leave all the housework or cooking to my wife. On rare occasions, I can talk about my feelings. I can at least feign that I’m not only paying attention but even actually interested in what my wife’s saying. Almost all of the time.

I don’t need tattoos, big guns, or bigger trucks to define me as a man. I am secure with myself.

Hmm, maybe I’m not as alone as I thought. Maybe I’ve been brainwashed by the women in my life. Or I simply have no interest in conquering, hunting, or gathering or whatever the modern equivalents are. I don’t care how you define manhood. Real men don’t have to try.

Though you’ll never see me wearing pink.


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The HWA and Missionary Work

The HWA: We Take Care of Our Own

Okay, maybe I’ve read one too many Chris Claremont (over) written X-men comics, but I love the idea of “taking care of our own”. This is my “further reflections” post on our local branch of HWA, the Indiana Horror Writers, going to visit J.N. Williamson this past weekend. It got me to thinking about two things: 1) the role of the HWA and 2) the nature of missions work.

The HWA has always mattered more to me as a concept, an ideal, to get behind over what it does for me practically. I hear all of these arguments about the HWA (the IHW is the Indiana chapter of the HWA) and whether or not it is worth a writer’s time. I am a member of ASM, the American Society of Microbiology. I don’t hear a lot of arguments like “what can the ASM do for me?” “Is it worth my time?” It’s a resource. As an organization, the HWA can do things and fight battles that I can’t. And, like any other professional organization, I get out of it what I put into it. I don’t need it to network, I don’t need it to help me to the next step in my career, but I do need it to exist and I think a lot of writer’s benefit from its existence. The IHW is my public face of the HWA (not the message board). That’s when I truly get to interact with other horror writers and we get to share and learn from one another.

All that being said, part of what inspired me is the mission of the HWA: to be a benefit to other writers. Why else exist if you can’t help out other writers? The main thing that keeps me from a whole lot of activity within HWA is the fact that I don’t have a lot to add. I still consider myself fairly new, and though I’m serious about my craft and improving it, I don’t have a lot of experience worth contributing. So when the opportunity arose that I could actually contribute something, like visiting J.N. Williamson, I jumped at it.

I think it’s the same way in church. People fret about what “gifts” they have, and even once they figure out what it is they have to contribute, they often don’t find the opportunities to do so.

This gets me, quite conveniently, to my second point. Everything to me is ministry, or put another way, mission work. I rather like the idea of our “ministry” to J.N. Williamson being one that united Protestants, Catholics, and Wiccans. However, I was also thinking about missionary work in a broader sense, too. This week, I have several friends who are taking off for Mozambique and Kenya to do various short term missions projects.

I have nothing against mission trips per se, but I think our emphasis of them has led to two things:

1) we've lost the idea that we're all living mission trips. Our neighborhoods, our work place, our chance encounters, they are as much a valid mission work as any trip.
2) we forget, or at least lose a bit of the idea, that mission work is a process not an event. We "gear up" for mission trips. Look at what we do: stock supplies, raise funds, go to some faraway place, spend a week or two, come back transformed. For a month or so. (I wonder if this makes the trip more about “us” than about serving. There’s something so ... self-congratulatory about mission trip reports. Then again, even my blog has an air of self-congratulation about it.) Mission work shapes us as much as it does the people we go to serve, but one time events aren't nearly as impactful as a six month, year long, or lifetime dedicated to serving in the mission field that is your life.

Though, don’t get me wrong: both types of mission trips have their place. There’s so much work to be done, so few people willing to do it, I’m not about to crap on people who get out and do stuff. Whatever it is.


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A Chat with J.N. Williamson

Our local branch of the HWA, the Indiana Horror Writers, got wind that long time horror writer Jerry (J.N.) Williamson was in a nursing home and decided to make paying him regular visits a part of what we want to do. As we entered the Riverwalk Village, I was immediately reminded why I have set two horror short stories in a nursing home. A couple of us had either worked in a nursing home or had close relatives in a nursing home, so we kind of knew what we were getting into.

The posture that I tend to assume, without trying to sound like a suckass (probably not the best theological term), is that as someone relatively new to the genre, I pay attention to people who have been doing it longer than I have. Plus, I was raised to listen to and respect my elders. Granted, none of us had ever met Jerry Williamson before (um, nor was he expecting us), and I was only passingly familiar with some of his work. We didn’t know what to expect from him. We needn’t have worried.

He greeted us like we were family popping in for a visit. Since I wasn’t there to interview him, I won’t report things like this was one, but I will sum up some of our conversation.

How long have you been writing?
For about fifty years. I always loved to write, but it got easier once I got myself into a routine.

How did you get interested in horror?
Through a movie called The Omen. I thought that I could do a better job of creating a situation where a group of people would be threatened by something else.

He wanted to know who some of the people we enjoyed reading were. One of our members said Peter Straub, citing his novel Ghost Story.
Peter Straub is one of the best writers in the business. Ghost Story is one of the finest ghost novels ever written. (I mentioned a few names that I was currently into, to which Jerry responded, “don’t stick with those guys too long.”)

Which led into his doling out advice to us new, up-coming writers.
I don’t like writers who criticize other writers or make a name for themselves by ripping another to pieces. Though I’d done it in my time to people I couldn’t stand. And you’ve got to be knowledgeable about your field. I’m glad to see lady writers making it in horror writing. I love the different perspectives. You’re entitled to write whatever damn thing you feel like writing. There’s no reason to not try and be the best writer you can be.

Who are some of your favorite writers?
Robert R. McCammon. He does his homework thoroughly and has worked at becoming a better and better writer. And it shows. (Okay, one of our members mentioned that McCammon was sweet looking in his author’s photo, to which Jerry quipped that “he wears it well.”)

The great Charles Beaumont. Always prolific, he wrote for Twilight Zone. A darn shame about his passing. Richard Matheson. I never read anything by him that I didn’t like. He has a firm finger on the reader’s pulse. Fredric Brown. He wrote exciting novels and exciting short stories, and odd horror stories. He had so many ideas. Obviously, I’m a fan of the writers that I invited into my Masques anthologies. All are top notch pros who should be read more.

Then this was given to me as a homework assignment. I’m to go out, read the anthology and report back on what I thought of the writers and stories. After checking out the table of contents, I’ll probably end up picking up Masques 2 also. This really was turning into quite the lesson for me.

He then turned his attentions to some of his favorites in the industry.
Tracy Knight. Mort Castle is a friend of mine. He knows writing as well as anyone I’ve ever met. He knows it and respects it. He’s a jewel. If you pay attention to Mort, you will sell a story or know why you haven’t. Gary Braunbeck. If you write well, he’ll get behind you and push. I said about one of his novels that he’d written one of the finest novels that I’ve ever read in my fifty years. He’s one of the nicest guys that I’d ever met. (Then he commenced to tell tales on Gary. If you want to hear them, you have to go see Jerry). You have to read Castle and Braunbeck.

(Okay, he admitted that he, Tracy, Mort, and Gary form a bit of a mutual admiration society, but that didn’t make his feelings any less genuine.) At this point, I gave him a copy of From the Borderlands, and raved about Gary A. Braunbeck’s “Rami Temporalis.” I originally worried about the type being too small, but he immediately started to peruse it, almost forgetting that we were still there.

We asked if there was anything we could bring him on our next visit. He said whatever the new Koontz was.
Dean Koontz is my favorite “any old time of year” kind of writer. The Bad Place. Absolutely wonderful. The kind of book that makes you want to give up writing. He’s the modern champion suspense writer.

There are some people you just get a vibe about. With Jerry, I just got this feeling that his intentions are good and honorable. He’s blunt, surprisingly spry, and a gentle man. We want to make it part of our “mission” as IHW to visit him at least once a month.

Though next time, I’ve got to remember to bring a lighter.


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My Writing Process Part II: Silly Superstitions

I guess I ought to make a confession: I’m working on a novella-cum-novel right now. I have a bet with a would be publisher about whether or not I can reign in my usual brand of literary indulgence enough to start-to-finish a short novel in two months. My need to procrastinate has given me plenty of time to think about how I go about writing. (My need to distract myself probably explains all of my blogging excess also). I’m probably over analyzing this or more likely this has put me in a more thoughtful mood about my writing.

I never realized how superstitious I was until I stepped back and saw all of my little rituals that I do while writing. I’m not talking about that mild form of obsessive compulsive disorder that makes me line up my pens a certain way, keep my desktop accouterments arranged in a particular array, or me lining up my books by topic and size. Or maybe I am, who knows, it’s not like I’m a doctor. No, I’m talking specifically about my ‘good luck’ rituals.

1. Pen choice. I noticed that which ever pen I’m using when words start pouring out of me is the pen that I keep writing with. As soon as I hit a mental wall, I discard that pen and default back to one of my red ink Pentel RSVP (fine) pens. I’d like to concede that I’m a walking cliche such that I’d write in red ink because I’m a horror writer, so I write in ‘blood’. More on point, it’s because I’m a writer used to getting his reports handed back to him bathed in red ink from teacher comments and this is my way of accepting those childhood scars. (I’m kidding about the scars, all you well-intentioned–I suppose–teachers who think that switching to purple will be less traumatic. All that means is that my boys will grow up to write in purple ink.)

2. Notepad choice. I only write on colored notepads. No, this isn’t some race-related rebellion against The Man’s brainwashing of us by making us write on white paper. If that were the case, I’d have no problem writing in black ink all the time and sullying up as many white sheets as I could. No, this goes back to my fear of the blank page. Have you ever noticed how intimidating a blank white piece of paper is? So stark. The way the light bounces back from it is like a glare. I don’t get that with colored pads. I write on sky blue or gray pads (yellow pads glare a little, but they’ll do in a pinch). They’re just so much more soothing. Sure, they cost a little more, but I’m a writer: I’m rolling in cash.

Yeah, anyway, I consider it a cost of my art.

Wait a minute, I find white pages intimidating? Maybe The Man’s getting to me after all.

3. Project toting. I also carry around my latest project with me at all times. Until I get my latest chapter or story entered onto the computer, it stays with me. Literally. (Once they’re on the computer, I back up all my stories, non-fiction, and blogs onto a disk and store the disk away from my house. This way, my computer could crash, my house could burn down, but I’d still have my stories. All our fire drills include me grabbing my backpack with my latest project. After the kids, but before the cat.)

So I tote around my stories either on a clipboard, in a folder, or in my backpack. Everywhere I go. If we go to church, it takes up a pew space. If we go out to eat, it gets its own seat. In the car, it gets buckled in between the kids.

Okay, maybe now I’ve crossed that line from cute eccentricities into full blown pathology.


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Cross-Cultural Lessons

I guess I was serving in my inter-racial confessor mode the other day when “the man who would be head pastor” of our church plant was relaying to me a story from his childhood. He had asked a black kid to spend the night over at his house and then relayed this to his folks. A well-intentioned, though rather ... provincial in terms of their exposure to other races, they asked the innocent question “would we need to cook something else?” Like I said, a well-intentioned question as they wanted their guest to feel as comfortable as possible, not that it stopped “the man who would be head pastor” from making fun of them. Like, what? You’re going to learn to cook chitlins or something before he came over?

NOTE: For the record, in case you’re interested in having me over for dinner, I’m black, but I’m not “chitlins” black. My grandmother traumatized me early in life. One time when she was cleaning those nasty things (the house reeked of them), she turned and chased me. I can still picture those wrinkled, greasy hands.

*shudder*

Anyway, in my continuing role as cross-cultural ambassador, I have learned to prepare dishes suitable for white people’s palates. This was no easy task. My wife attended an event called “Taste of College Park Church”, wherein the ladies of College Park Church, a mostly white congregation, prepared dishes and traded recipes. [This is one of those sexist church events where no men are allowed, despite the fact that I’m the cook in the household.] My wife picked up a book of these collected recipes, went through and tasted the various dishes, and highlighted the appropriate recipes.

I poured over that book, experimenting with some of those recipes and one thing immediately jumped out at me: white people love casseroles. Apparently there’s no collection of ingredients that can’t be improved by adding cream of (insert flavor of choice) soup.

While I have no problems making fun of some of the vagaries of black cuisine, the other issue that triggered this all-over-the-place rant was when my wife informed me that she was craving a fried bologna sandwich. Since when is fried bologna a valid meal option? Granted, I’m a bit of a food snob and consider minced garlic and cilantro vital to most of my recipes. So I called up my authority on such matters, my redneck friend who lives to educate me on all things hill-jack. [Come on, like most of you DON’T have that one friend of a different ethnic persuasion that you trot out to prove you’re not racist? I at least have the decency to put him in most of my stories and kill him off (he gets a kick out of that).] He broke it down for me, the importance of the culinary value of Spam, Slim Jims, Hamburger Helper, and carny food.

You see, I’m all about broadening my cultural horizons. We tend to forget that cross-cultural doesn’t just mean crossing the black-white boundary, but includes class distinctions. I’d daresay that we have a bigger class problem in this country than race problem. Let’s face it: a middle class white family probably has more in common with a middle class black family than a lower class white family. This is probably the closest I will come to having a point this blog.

All this is part and parcel of life in an interracial marriage. Why just yesterday, my children and I shared a bit of cross-cultural dialogue. My eldest child (4) informed me that only brown men like having no hair (I was shaving my head at the time). My wife taught me about the importance and proper application of sunscreen. (Oddly this hadn’t popped up in my side of the family, except once in Jamaica. I’d been walking along the beach, mocking white folks for trying to get dark, my wife dutifully ignoring me. That evening, I thought I was dying. Flakes of skin tumbled from my head. My wife, enjoying the irony, pointed out that this was a phenomena commonly referred to as peeling. I’d been sunburnt.)

I’m sure that I’ll get another lesson in some of the strange things you people do when I finally get around to learning what “product” is and what this has to do with your hair. In the mean time, I exposed my children to ghetto air conditioning: Flavor-Ice and the Slip ‘N Slide.


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I Pledge Allegiance

I love swearing allegiance to nebulous concepts as much as the next guy. In light of this we hear that

Indiana's legislative leaders say they are confident a proposed U.S. constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration would pass easily here.

"It goes as quickly as sharp skates on smooth ice," Senate President Pro Tempore Robert D. Garton, R-Columbus, predicted. "I don't think there's much question."

House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, was just as sure, saying: "The vast majority of members of the General Assembly are patriots at heart."

In fact, he said, "we'd like to be one of the first" states to approve the amendment.

Garton said he thinks the amendment would pass in Indiana no matter which party is in charge of the legislature.

"This is not a partisan issue," he said.

Indiana already is on record in support of protecting the flag from those who would burn or otherwise harm it as a form of protest.

So we have that on one hand and on the other we have a young Star Trek fan suspended for a day for doing his own Pledge of Allegiance: to the United Federation of Planets. This is from his mother’s blog:

So she told me what he did. And as she told me, I started to laugh. I didn't laugh a little, either, but I belly-laughed and grabbed my stomach. My son stood with his class this morning, put small right hand over heart, faced the American flag, and recited his own personal pledge of allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Federation of Planets, and to the galaxy for which it stands, one universe, under everybody, with liberty and justice for all species.

"Mrs. Jaworski. This isn't humorous. The Pledge is an extremely important and patriotic moment each morning in the classroom. I am ashamed of your son's behavior, and I hope you are, too."

I wanted to say, Hey Lady, it's a big universe. Why should we pledge allegiance to a mixed-up country? Why shouldn't my son embrace the potential of stardust? But I stood, extended my hand, apologized for my laughter, slung my purse over my shoulder, opened her door to find my son, 8, red-eyed sitting on the wooden bench bordering the World Map wall.

I'm sitting here, working on computer things, and Mr. 8 sits in the living room. He has to write the "real" pledge of allegiance fifty times before he can return to school. But first he's watching Star Trek. Damn straight.

Go team!

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Friendship Evangelism

"It doesn't matter whether you're selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or 'How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down.' That doesn't make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are - just to find out, for no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore; it's a pitch. And you're not a human being; you're a marketing rep. " Phil Cooper (Danny DeVito) from The Big Kahuna

The topic of friendship evangelism has popped up a couple of times lately. In one context, it was because a Christian lady decided that she wanted to pursue a relationship with a non-Christian guy and hopefully he would become a Christian in the process. A lot of times we accept a profession of faith as “good enough” simply to mark this item off our dating check list. If your faith is the most central part of your life, you want to have this in common with whoever you choose to have a romantic relationship with. Which means you have some difficult things to figure out if they came to know Christ through such “dating evangelism.” Part of you may be wondering if they made a profession just to be with you. [Heck, I’m a guy. I’d have claimed a love for worshiping the Norse pantheon if it meant getting close to someone. You know, back in my less “spiritually enlightened” days.]

The second context that the topic crept into conversation came when we were discussing the nature of how we go about doing ministry work. If all life is our mission field, we should be about developing intentional relationships. Doesn’t this sound exactly like a form of “friendship evangelism”?

I have friends. I’ve had dates (a lot less now that I’m married, but you know what I mean). I don’t believe in friendships with agendas. First and foremost, the friendships need to be authentic, in an of themselves, for the sake of themselves. The instant you insert an agenda, this can prostitute the friendship and by default invalidate the evangelism.

Is there a big difference between intentional relationships and friendship evangelism or is it a fine, semantic line. I would submit that it’s about the heart. With friendship evangelism, too often I've seen people pretend (well, “pretend” is too strong a word) to be someone's friend in order to proselytize. Evangelism has become salesmanship such that conversations aren’t genuine but merely witnessing opportunities as we look for an opening to make our pitch. In this "relationship", God becomes product and we keep notches in out spiritual belt of how many people we’ve saved. A salvation sales chart.

Apparently we’ve missed or forgotten the point that people don’t like salesmen for a reason: They seem fake, oozing smarm, or at least possess a disingenuousness that is smelled a mile away. It’s like we try to love someone for their potential, as if they’re not okay or worth loving now, as they are. Partly I think we believe that if we change the way people think then it will change the way that people act. The sad reality is that there is too much evidence to the contrary.

The first step in proselytizing, for me, is shutting up. I like to listen to people and see where they are. This goes against a lot of what we’re taught. By going in, spiritual guns blazing, whipping out our ragged copy of the “Four Spiritual Laws” or running through the “Romans Road”, we fail to see God already at work in people’s lives. We like to prove man’s sinful dilemma using verses, as if everyone buys the authority of the Bible. Being silent solves this other dilemma. We live in a biblically illiterate culture. And even if people are biblically schooled, that still doesn’t guarantee that they hold it as any sort of authority. We need to try to be living Bibles for people. They need to see it lived out in our lives and we need to be Christ in theirs. If not, we’re wasting perfectly good oxygen.

The mission of the church is to be a blessing to the world. Church doesn’t exist for the benefit of its members, but to equip its members to benefit the world. It’s about community, a place of belonging. It’s about spirituality, pursuing holiness and communal relationships. It’s about being missional, being apostolic, sent into the world. Friendship/dating evangelism objectifies people, reducing them to objects to obtain for God. The difference between friendship evangelism and intentional friendship is the difference between manipulative vs. genuine relationships. Intentional friendships is about sharing life with people without an end strategy, not looking for an opening to make a pitch. It’s about loving people for who they are, where they are, and how they are. Be a genuine human being and care for other people genuinely. Sheesh.


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Happy Father’s Day!

I’m all about holidays that celebrate me, directly or indirectly.

My boys purchased (or at least helped wrap) a couple of outfits for me, including a shirt with “Superdad” emblazoned across it like the Superman comic book logo.

In the “it pays to invest in people” department, my adopted “daughters” conspired to get me a Teddy Bear from the Build-A-Bear Workshop.

His birth certificate reads:

Date of Birth: 06/10/2005
Full Name: Mr. Mitty
Height: 16 inches
Weight: 15 ounces
Fur Color: Black
Eye Color: Brown
Belongs to: Maurice Broaddus

Yes, I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff.

I make one comment about trying to make over my image (because the nice guy thing doesn’t quite go with my horror writer vocation), and I get a Teddy Bear with a leather jacket. He's not even an angry bear. Maybe it's the glasses: I can't pull off angry and have glasses.

I would have written about life with my father, but that would have left many of you scarred for days. What did I get him? I may or may not have gotten him a program to help him rip tracks from CDs for his personal enjoyment. We’ve been working on a project (along with my sister) of him collecting all of his favorite songs from his formative years. Which means the hunting down of obscure doo-wop tracks. It’s been a fun bonding time for us (I think he underestimated my knowledge of arcane music groups. Then I reminded him that he was the one to taught me about them).

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Black Panther

“Who is the Black Panther?” (issues #1-6)
written by Reginald Hudlin
art by John Romita Jr.
published by Marvel Comics

“Previously: There are some places you just don’t mess with. Wakanda is one of them. Since the dawn of time, that African warrior nation has been sending would-be conquerors home in body bags. While the rest of Africa got carved up like a Christmas turkey by the rest of the world, Wakanda’s cultural evolution has gone unchecked for centuries, unfettered by the yoke of colonization. The result: a hi-tech, resource-rich, ecologically-sound paradise that makes the rest of the world seem primitive by comparison. Ruling over all this is the Black Panther. The Black Panther is more than just the embodiment of a warrior cult that’s served as Wakanda’s religious, political, and miliary head since its inception. The Black Panther is the embodiment of the ideals of a people. Anyone who’d dare make a move on Wakanda must go through him.”

Christopher J. Priest (Quantum & Woody, Captain America & Falcon, The Crew) had a brilliant, and to my mind the definitive, run on Black Panther. Some people criticized his Quentin Tarantino-esque style of storytelling (definitely not straight forward, chronological narrative). His run explored the complex politics and motivations that came with being a king as well as a super-hero, as well as fleshing out the Wakandan culture. As he puts it:

THE BLACK PANTHER is equal parts social commentary and political satire. Like STEEL and QUANTUM & WOODY, PANTHER takes a hard, sometimes cynical look at the world of super-heroing as seen through the eyes of a Joe Everyman, Everett K. Ross, State Department attaché. T'Challa, king of a small, reclusive and technologically advanced kingdom, comes to America and is paired off with, well, Chandler from the NBC sitcom Friends. Steeped in tradition, tribalism and a deeply-rooted sense of honor, the Black Panther forms an unlikely alliance with the cynical New York lawyer Ross; the two forging a true bond over the course of their adventures together, and evolving into, well, a super-hero team. Ross's surgical observations on the Marvel Universe form the narrative flow of the book, and provide humorous insights into the king and his motives. In addition to the humor, we strive for poignancy, drama, and, of course, the prerequisite super-hero face-bashing.

However, that book was cancelled after sixty plus issues.

There are too few black writers/creators in the comic book industry. Black characters written by black writers are quickly written off as “black” books (a stigma that isn’t similarly attached to all of the white characters written by white writers; those are referred to as comic books).

Rather than ignore a segment of (potential) readership, there is a potential to bring in a new readership, black comic book readers, via an established fan base and grow the entire market.

Enter Reginald Hudlin.

Movie (House Party, Boomerang, Bebe’s Kids, The Great White Hype) and television director (Bernie Mac, Everybody Hates Chris), Reginald Hudlin joins the list of directors taking turns at comic book writing (Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon, and Bryan Singer); first by inheriting Black Panther and then as the scribe of Marvel Knights Spider-Man. His initial storyline, “Who is the Black Panther?”, follows the now-expected format of introducing a title in a six-issue arc (that’s, coincidently I’m sure, perfect for trade paperback collecting).

Black Panther’s typically used as a supporting character, as a member of the Avengers for example. Only under Priest, and now Hudlin, has the Black Panther been treated as the headliner. He is Africa based and immersed in that culture, true (and given “our” usual reaction to all things African, “we” will probably ignore this too). Even if the exotic setting of the book wasn’t too much for some, many will assume that because a black writer is writing a black character that the book will be all white people bashing and woe is us. Actually, the book begins by flipping the script on that very notion.

Wakanda has historically been isolationist; as such, it has a huge xenophobic streak to its culture. It is suspicious of outsiders and often views them as morally bankrupt if not under-developed. Yes, they view themselves as culturally superior. The Black Panther, in turn, is not the all-American super hero. That’s the point: the Black Panther is a king, not a reporter, not a playboy billionaire, but royalty.

Reginald Hudlin delves into the history and legacy of the character, re-examining his roots through a fresh lens. As a fan of Christopher Priest’s run, I understand the criticisms that Hudlin is scrapping continuity. However, he needs/intends to place T’Challa, the Black Panther, in a historical context before he can figure out where the Black Panther fits in the greater Marvel Universe.

“God works through me the same as you.” T’Challa, the Black Panther.

It is easy to assume that the Wakandan’s are “heathens who worship a panther god”. The Black Panther isn’t a totem, it’s a title, the same as King. Sometimes it takes exploring the roots of our beliefs, the historical context of them, to see if the current incarnation of our spiritual tradition is missing the intended mark. None of us just sprang up. We have a history and tradition attached to us; we’re positioned in Story. Periodically, it’s good to study where we’ve come from, the foundations that our beliefs and identity come from, and figure out where we are in the Story.

And last I heard, Wesley Snipes held the movie rights.

The Incredible Hulk

“Tempest Fugit” (issues #77-81)
written by Peter David
art by Lee Weeks
published by Marvel Comics


Peter David (Captain Marvel, Fallen Angel, Aquaman) returns to The Incredible Hulk after over a four-year absence. Originally, he explored the psyche of Bruce Banner/Hulk, adding many layers of depth to what had become a one note (“Hulk smash!”) character. One of the things Peter David accomplished during his tenure was develop the rich cast of characters surrounding the Hulk.

Then, after a 12 -year run, he was abruptly kicked off the book. Apparently Marvel Comics wanted to go in a different direction (next stop, Crap-ville). John Byrne took over the title for a while, beginning his “let me revamp books that don’t need revamping” phase of his career (Hulk, Wonder Woman, Doom Patrol). Eventually the book was handed over to Bruce Jones who turned the book into a Fugitive meets X-Files-styled romp. It was a critically overrated run, intriguing but without a good enough payoff. Atmosphere can only take you so far, especially when the title character so rarely makes an appearance.

The Hulk is commonly portrayed as a Mr. Hyde to Bruce Banner’s Dr. Jekyll, much like in the movie The Hulk, but Peter David had actually extended this premise to a full blown case of (super-powered) Multiple Personality Disorder (a surprisingly not more widespread phenomena considering the nature of super-heroes and their dual identities). Under Peter David, we return to exploring the fragile psyche that is Bruce Banner, not quite knowing where the Hulk persona begins and Bruce Banner ends.

This was one of the reasons why I always enjoyed the Hulk under Peter David: the complexity of a man struggling against himself, his worst nature, and trying to hold himself together, overcoming the psychological torment of his past.

“Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him” Colossians 3:9-10

This battle between the old man and the new man is exactly the type of war waged constantly in the mind of Bruce Banner. Obviously it’s a battle familiar to many of us. It reminds me of another passage, this one from Romans 7:15-24 (in the version of the Bible called The Message):

“What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?”

Therein lies the perpetual dilemma for Bruce Banner. He continues his search for someone or something to make him whole, existing forever at the end of his rope. However, I look forward to seeing where Peter David takes him and the Hulk on their journey.

Rising Stars

I originally wanted to do a review of J. Michael Stracynski’s comic book, Rising Stars, and the television show The 4400 since they cover the same territory and have basically the same sort of spiritual connections. But as there’s already a review of The 4400 (which is essentially Rising Stars: The TV Series, minus the spandex) I can focus on the comic book.

Rising Stars drew some early comparisons to Watchmen, which was fair to neither it nor Alan Moore’s seminal work. The only valid comparison is that Rising Stars, for its 24 issue run, started in 1999 and didn’t finish until this year, which sounds like the release schedule I remember Watchmen being under. With three, 8-issue acts, the story feels a little padded (it could’ve been told in 12-16 issues). However, as long-time fans of Stracynski know, he does character-, not necessarily plot-, driven stories (Amazing Spider-man, Babylon 5).

Rising Stars follows the journey of 113 people. A force struck the town of Pederson, Illinois—an event referred to as The Flash—and every in utero baby at the time was affected. Cloistered together, to be studied and for society’s protection, they grew up together. Some became heroes, some criminals, and some tried to be ordinary. The story is about a group of people given gifts, how they touched the world, and how the world touched them.

“The power was different for each of us, formed and shaped by our personalities just as we were shaped by the power.” Poet

What we come to find out is that their energy, the source of their powers, binds them. It was also not inexhaustible: as they use their abilities, they drain that “battery.” However, when one of them dies, that person’s energy is transferred equally to the rest of them. Or, as Poet put it,“We are finite in number and duration.” This is an important aspect of the series, as it provides the motivation behind a lot of the Specials' internecine squabbles, as well as stoking the fears of the rest of the world.

“We’re in a spiritual war, a war of possibilities, one world or another and nothing in-between. Well that war has just come knocking on our front door, son. It’s time to take a side, and that’s just what we’re going to do.” Reverend William Kane

As previously mentioned, the series is made up of three, 8-issue acts. Act I traces the development of the Specials from accepted (albeit suspicious) anomalies to a threat. This is when they suspect that they have a call, that the power that imbued them was conscious at some level, directed, and gave out their gifts with a purpose. During Act II, the Specials wage a war within their ranks. Only through much bloodshed is their higher calling glimpsed and they figure out their purpose: a mission to change the world. As Patriot puts it, “The time for words is over. Time now to make a difference. Time to go to work.” Act III sees them fulfill their mission and what it means to the world.

“We cannot change the world... if we do not begin with ourselves.” Poet

The Specials are “the elect.” The term “elect” is one of those Bible words that signifies a group that has been picked out or chosen. The Church, the world-wide body of people who claim to follow Christ, is sometimes considered the elect. Too often this has led to having the attitude and image of the church as a country club because those that have been elected, or chosen, have forgotten that they have been called for a purpose, not to form a club that keeps “undesirables” out.

More pointedly, the Specials, during the second Act, can’t act as a unified body. Their gifts are squandered in petty bickering, endless divisions, and power brokering. Almost too late do they realize that they have been gathered in order to be sent. The Church, too, needs to be missional, to be a particular people, empowered for the sake of the world. They need to remember that they are filled with God’s power and presence and purpose. They are to work towards a new heaven and new earth, to set an example, and to lead the mission while inviting others to join.

For too long, the Specials had retreated from the world, into their “Special ghetto,” never engaging with the world around them. All this taught them was to fear the world and they had little to no sense of how to relate to it.

The good news was that there was still time for them to fulfill their purpose.

“Free yourself from the burden of my fear... from the concerns of an old man. Look at the world anew.” Dr. Welles

The Specials from Rising Stars, like The 4400, are a perfect picture of the Church. They are to be a force unlike the world has ever seen. We each have our own gifts and an obligation to use them. We can say all we want, talk as good a game as anyone else, but when all is said and done, it is what we do with our gifts that define who we are.

My Writing Process

So I was recently asked “How do you go about writing a story or a novel?”

Let me tell you, I hate to think about it too much, almost for fear of the “magic” leaving me. Answering this question is not so much like a magician revealing their tricks as it is the fact that it’s hard to explain the strange alchemy of imagination, writer, and creation and not sound, well, rather silly.

Except to other writers.

For starters, I absolutely hate a blank page. Frankly, it scares me. There are few things more daunting than staring at an empty piece of paper that’s expecting to be filled (I write long hand; it’d be worse for me on a computer screen because then I feel like the blankness is staring back at me). I know a lot of writers who can sit down, stare down that blank page, and just go. I can’t. I have to make do with what meager skills I have and work within them. So I do a lot of prep work so that I never have to face a blank page.

I kind of half-outline. By that I mean that I jot down the idea or theme of the story (title, if I have one). Not on my “official” blank page, but on Post-It Notes and the sort. From there, if I have any scenes in mind, I put those down, and any major, or any, plot points. I like to have an idea of where the story’s going before I can begin. That’s become more important to me because I find that when I do “just go” (or start a story prematurely), I have a lot of trouble ending a story.

I try to put down any ideas for a main character, since s/he’ll be the one through whom the story is propelled. Though again, with rare exception, characters usually come last to me. Part of writing has always been tell the story when it’s ready to be told. I’m still learning when a story’s ready to be told (um, my myriad rejection letters help in this regard).

Then I research. This is my favorite part of the process, I think it’s because I’m trained to be a researcher (that’s why I got into biology in the first place). I think that’s why I gravitate toward historical pieces, since they give me additional reasons to hit the books. It’s usually at this stage that dialogue bits come to me and some characters start to take shape.

Next comes the character sketches. I try to “bio” my characters, especially in my longer works, trying to get their stories down. Not just their physical descriptions and names (I oscillate between agonizing over names to give the characters meaning and randomly picking them from television show credits), but how they know the other characters. Once I have the “cast” finalized, I list their names out. It helps me weed out any alliteration or confusion issues: during an early draft of my first novel, Strange Fruit, a friend listed the character names for me and pointed out that almost all the names began with ‘A’ or ‘J’.

While I’m still at the note stage of the game, I figure out the overall plot and arrange the scenes. I like the scattering of all my notes then, like a jigsaw puzzle, shape them into an outline of a plot and putting which notes with which scene.

Only then, armed with a rough story, scattered bits of dialogue descriptions and turns of phrase, can I then sit down and write. I once likened the process to an artist throwing paint at a canvas then working from there, but that sounded entirely too pretentious. Yet another reason why I hate talking about “my art” as opposed to writing.

Obviously (or maybe not so obviously, but trust me this is true), this process differs from writer-to-writer. You have to figure out what works for you. Find your voice, get comfortable with it, and trust your instincts. No matter how cut and dried this seems, there’s no explaining the magic, the transport to that special place in your unconscious, of words coming out of you and poured onto a page. The exhilaration of being “in the zone”, that special place that’s like a wakeful dreaming; there’s no conveying the thrill of characters coming to life and finding their own voice (or explaining how how you hear voices in your head without being fitted for a strait-jacket).

Or maybe I’m putting too much “meaning” into writing. After all, they’re just stories.


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The Dwelling Place - Values

Now comes the tricky part of laying out what the church will be about and how we will go about doing that. A few key values have been outlined:

Generous Orthodoxy
“Generosity without orthodoxy is nothing, but orthodoxy without generosity is worse than nothing.” (Hans Frei)

At the Dwelling Place, we affirm the unique role of scripture (the Spirit speaking authoritatively through the Biblical text) and the historic Christian faith as expressed in the ancient creeds (the historical framework of the essential truths of the Christian faith in the tradition of apostolic teachings). We see these as distinct borders that provide an open area to explore the depths of God. Orthodox doctrine is best done in practice within a community of faith, who together reflect and wrestle with the truth as they engage in mission to the truth. It is a way of seeing and living life that forms us as a people to be the revolution that we long for. But we also realize the need for ongoing conversation as we explore the mysteries of the faith, for we are not yet finished. So, in the meantime, we keep seeking, asking, listening, and learning in openness to the Spirit who is guiding the Church into the fullness of Truth.


Deep Ecclesiology
“I want to prepare like an evangelical; preach like a Pentecostal; pray like a mystic; do the spiritual disciplines like a Desert Father; art like a Catholic; and social justice like a liberal.” (Mark Driscoll)

Following the “hermeneutic of love,” we believe the best insight comes from a trusting, loving respectful stance as we question and critique. We are committed to respecting and honoring the Church in all of its shapes and sizes. Every model of church has strengths and weaknesses, along with drawbacks and possibilities. The rampant effects of sin and all the obstacles that come with it are big enough that no single form of church can deal with them all, so we seek to embody the strengths in many traditions and historic streams of Christian faith and view them all as a mutual fund where we collect and share and value everyone’s treasures.


Childlike Faith
“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Jesus - Matthew 18:3)

Wonder. Curiosity. Abandon. Playfulness. Listening. Passion. Celebration. Imagination. Spontaneity. Openness. Creativity. Children hold so little regard for status, title, or position and have so little of the things that consume the lives of adults, and yet they are filled with such joy. They are fully alive, and every waking moment is a chance to explore life. We desire to be a people who fid the ordinary as intriguing as the extraordinary. We believe that our magnificent God is always available and present, and that He is at work in every moment in every square inch of th cosmos. Our lives right here right now are gifts, and they are unspeakably good, so we long to give ourselves in wild abandon to the One who gave them to us. As we embrace astonishment as a spiritual discipline, we are learning to recover the capacity for wonder. Everything we do is meant to prepare us to see that every action can be completed with an orientation toward God. Grace is everywhere!


Continual Creation
“The story of God begins with creation–with the spectacular, extravagant creativity of God. Before anything existed, the Creator God was; out of nothing, God created everything. Our Creator has graciously gifted us, as divine image-bearers, with creativity. Though we are not able, like God, to create something from nothing, we are able to imagine and bring into being a lavish array of new possibilities for ourselves and God’s world.” (Tom Sine)

When we speak of creation, we must think of a ongoing process, or as old theologians talked about: original creation, continual creation, and new creation. We believe as image-bearers that we have a mission to partner with God in this creative zone called the Kingdom of God. So beauty, art, and creativity are highly valued and seen as aligning with God to fulfill His creative processes in the world. Just as each one of us is a masterpiece in progress and creation is continuing in us, so we desire to keep generating new creative possibilities. We long to be students awakened to the process of learning to create in the way of the Master Artist, Jesus, who saw lilies, children, mustard sees, plowing, vineyards, and housework as indicators of a wider truth. Indeed, life is beautiful, and for this reason, we long to experience God in a myriad of ways.


Messy Spirituality
“He who thinks that he is finished, is finished. How true. Those who think that they have arrived, have lost their way. Those who think that they have reached their goal, have missed it. Those who think they are saints, are demons.” (Henri Nouwen)

Spirituality seems to be about the life of faith–what drives, motivates, and animates the life of believers and pulls them forward to deepen and perfect what has only begun in the present. It is the outworking of what a person does with what they believe. Christian spirituality is specifically concerned with a living encounter with the person of Christ, and then a living out of that interactive relationship in every moment of life. We believe that knowing God, not just knowing about Him, brings about the transformation of our existence and allows us to experience life in the full. The Dwelling Place exists to help spiritually form people into lovers of God and others, who then join in God’s redeeming love for all creation. We see everything we do as spiritual formation, helping each other to do God’s will on earth as it is done in heaven. But we also believe that spiritual growth is a messy process and that our flawed lives are the studio where God begins His great renovation. Spiritual formation is not a neat and tidy formula where we grasp perfection, but seems to be an uneven, incomplete, unfinished relationship with Christ that is always under construction. The Son of Man entered the ruins of our human existence and still found glory as He began the rebuilding process. We believe that He is still remaking us today as He calls us from where we are to become more than we ever imagined.

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Nothing’s set in stone yet, this is only our starting point. This is a matter of continuing conversation as we think through these values, think about which ones we may need to add, and try to visualize what these values will look like practically.

What do you think?


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Batman Begins

What does it take to create a legend? Batman Begins tells the tale of one man’s battle against corruption, of a man who feels the need to dress up as a bat in order to do it. The thing about the movie is how plausible it makes this entire venture seem, or at least how it treats the venture as if it is plausible. The movie is grounded, if that makes sense, in the reality of Bruce Wayne’s humanness (the bat suit doesn’t make an appearance for almost a full hour). We know (and I use the word “we” to refer to those of the comic book intelligentsia familiar with the origins of Batman) that it is the tragic loss of his parents at the hand of a street criminal, and his subsequent thirst for Justice, that drives him into his new life. But the exact path that this journey entails hasn’t been depicted until now. This movie, with the hopes of reinvigorating the Batman movie franchise, chooses to explore the tortured psyche of a man who would don some sophisticated latex and fight crime, examining the issues that shaped the man into the hero he is destined to become.

Christopher Nolan (Insomnia, and writer/director of the brilliant Memento) returns the Dark Knight mythos to center stage. Christian Bale (Equilibrium, American Psycho) is wonderful as Bruce Wayne (capturing his playboy spirit and tortured angst better than, say, Val Kilmer who was my favorite Bruce Wayne) and captivating as Batman (who, odd as it may sound, had been done best by Michael Keaton). The star power of this movie doesn’t stop there: Michael Caine (the faithful manservant, Alfred), Rutger Hauer (Earle), Ken Wantabe (Ra’s Al Ghul), Morgan Freeman (scientific genius, Lucius Fox), Gary Oldman (Lieutenant James Gordon), and Liam Neeson (Henri Ducard) all give rousing turns chewing up scenery. The camera work gets a little too close to the action, at times obscuring the fight scenes and at other times conveying the speed of the action.

The movie provides a depth to the character and nature of Bruce Wayne/Batman, explaining his identification with bats and his relationship with his parents. It also shows that Batman couldn’t be Batman alone, but needed quite a bit of help to perfect his method. Lucius provides the tech, Alfred the wisdom in covering his tracks, and Bruce Wayne has to develop his playboy persona.

The complex plot of the cadre of villains to destroy Gotham City aside, this movie is (spiritually) about two things: being lost and fighting corruption.

As the movie opens, Bruce Wayne has chosen to live among the criminal element in order to better understand the criminal mind. However, what he is unaware of is that he had become lost (despite his intentions of joining in the mission of the pursuit of Justice): lost in impossible anger and pain, at the loss of his parents. How we respond to tragedies in our lives form us. We can become embittered and vengeful or maybe we can grow through the trial. His anger and pain, the need to pursue Justice, drove him but also threatened to destroy him unless he put it in check. Part of his learning meant realizing that Justice equals harmony while revenge is only about making himself feel better.

We come to varying points in our lives when we realize that things aren’t as they should be. Our world seems implacably marred by corruption—as we live in a state of fear, despair—careening down a path of destruction and death. We have the feeling that something is missing, but we don’t know how to fix it. This incompleteness drives us; however, in our rush to fill this void, we run the risk of filling it with the wrong thing. Maybe the discontent we feel needs to be re-thought. Maybe it isn’t entirely bad. Maybe the missing pieces in our lives should move us toward some sort of conclusion about life.

“All of this is not me. Inside, I am ... I am more.” Bruce Wayne
“It’s not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you.” Rachel Dawes

As one lesson learned, compassion is what separates the Batmans of the world from the Ra’s Al Ghuls of the world, since Batman isn’t willing to defeat evil by any means necessary. Bruce Wayne also comes to realize the power of symbol, the power of story to teach, inspire, and transform others. Thus he creates the myth of Batman, an ideal and example for others to follow. (Batman, however, apparently also has no compunctions about the sheer amount of property damage that he inflicts in his pursuit of Justice.)

The constant fear is another symptom of the corruption. Crime, despair—this is not how men were meant to live. Gotham City, this modern day Babylon, is rotting; excess decadence is its chief sin. Its taint takes many forms, infiltrating every aspect of their society until it blooms full form in the mob, the crooked police force, corporations run amuck, the Scarecrow, and Ra’s Al Ghul. No society stands a chance of survival if its good people choose to do nothing.

“To manipulate the fears of others, you must first master your own.” Ducard.

A trinity of good people are at the heart of the movie: Batman, Assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) and Lt. Jim Gordon. They provide the hope for the city, serving as reminders that those without decency must be fought. Until all evil is defeated, we are to fight corruption where we see it, be it where the corruptions starts (in our own hearts) or as it becomes symptomatic in society (crime).

Even moreso, and better done than Star Wars Episode III: Return of the Sith, this is the movie that we’ve been waiting to see—the movie that returns the character of Batman to where he should be. The movie succeeds because it emphasizes character and story over special effects and nipples on the bat-suit, creating an adult drama from what my grandmother used to refer to as “funny books.”

And I couldn’t be happier.

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What’s in a Name?

“O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;”

My man Willy S. wrote that in his play Romeo and Juliet (one of my least favorite of his plays, but I like a lot of the lines). This has been the bane of my existence for almost the last year: pick a name for our church plant. This wasn’t my responsibility, that lay with “the man who would be head pastor.” When one is giving birth, he reserves the right to name his child. I was one of the people whom he bounced possible names off of. Though I vetoed more than my fair share.

The original thought was to choose a name with the ideas of way, walk, place, room, water (fluidity), something that would convey what we were about. Here are some of the names that passed through our brains:

cruciform (cross-shaped), the core, living room, desert springs, living springs, landing place, upper room, quest, fusion, encounter, oasis, torn veil (torn curtain), story, synergy, sanctuary, haven, the outcasts, ripple effect, the calling, shalom, conversations, encounters, Levi's table, apprentices, becoming, burning hearts, between times, disciples' journey.

“The man who would be head pastor” always believed that when we stumbled across the right name, we would know it immediately. Some of the names sounded like we were trying too hard to be edgy or post-modern. We wanted a name that was both Biblical (since it’s not like we’re afraid of being called or looking like a church) yet would be comfortable for non-church folk to walk into. Something without a denominational label and all the baggage that comes with that label (especially since, well, we’d have to explain something like “post-Protestant”).

It was a weird process. A name would get thrown out, test the initial reactions, then “live with it” for a while. I learned to not get too attached to any of them, since the name seemed to change each week. Some stuck out more or lasted longer than others: Shane's Chicken, Waffles, and Jesus (a personal favorite), the Sacred Order of the Towel (meant to convey Jesus taking up His towel and serving others, but we’d also just got through seeing Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), the Society of Jesus (nixed after I made a “League of Extra-Ordinary Christians” joke), Way of Life (was in the running for a long time), Addison's Walk (named for the park where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis had a conversation that eventuated with Lewis coming to Christianity).

[The name Pensees came up, but we decided that if we ever had a coffee shop as a part of our church that we’d name it that. Back away from that name!]

Then the name came to him. The Dwelling Place. Someplace you choose to be your home. Someplace where, when people leave, they have something dwell on. With the images of individuals being built into a dwelling place (Ephesians 3), a community being built into a dwelling place (Ephesians 2:19-22), and God being our dwelling place (Psalms 91:1). The name resonated with us.

The Dwelling Place. A faith community. It’s on legal documents, so it won’t be changed.

Well, probably not, anyways. (I’m still kinda hoping that Shane's Chicken, Waffles, and Jesus makes a comeback.)

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Adopted Dads

I may have to reconsider my answer to the question ‘why do you write horror?’ Usually I say something along the lines of I’ve always gravitated toward dark stories and story-telling. I discovered Edgar Allen Poe in high school and mix that with the standard brand of teenage, “I’m so alone, sad, and dark,” and boom, I discovered a love for horror.

Last night, I was hanging out with a man who has had a considerable impact on my life. I’ve long considered him a second father figure, but I think I had underestimated how much he has shaped and formed my life. He was the one who introduced me to Christianity. He was the one who bent my politics to the hard right. He shared his love of comic books with me (and I returned the favor: when I started collecting in earnest, I introduced him to The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, which rekindled in him a love of collecting. Now his collection’s as ridiculous as mine). And, most on point, he sparked in me a love of horror and movies. My DVD collection mirrors his, with neither of us knowing what the other was buying. Though his horror novel and movie collection far outstrips mine.

Now, it had been a while since we had last touched base with one another. Only last night did I have that vague sense of triumph and unease, the kind that happens when a son first beats his father in basketball. There’s the initial exhilaration followed by the implications of ‘now I’m my own man. Now what?’ It’s not like I ‘beat him’ at anything, either; but I realized that my vision of Christianity had changed (maybe becoming dangerously liberal in his eyes) and my politics, well, let’s just say that I don’t consider Rush Limbaugh to be the fourth person of the Godhead.

However, I also realized the great debt that I owe him for the man that I’ve become and how much I love him. We should all be so lucky to have such second fathers.

I guess the bottom line is that you never know what role you will play in another person’s life and how much impact you’ll have even when you don’t intend to. You never know when you’ll be the adopted dad to someone, or inadvertently “adopt” children. Either way, we need to remember that we are always being watched.



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Casting a Vision for Church

I’ve been accused of being too critical of something that I supposedly love: my faith and the church. My single point is that there is quite a bit about both that I’ve come to realize that I have to shed if I am to grow. I don’t know if this makes sense, but there were some tenets of Christianity (as had been taught and passed down to me) that had grown to become constraints around me and my walk rather than aids or guides.

Part of it is the love hate relationship that I have with the church. At its worst, the church has sometimes been a place of guilt, crushing, judgment, and fakeness. Our model has been little more than that of a (self-)sanctified country club, more worried about keeping the “wrong types” out, than welcoming all types in. A country club filled with the “Born Agains” who, like it or not, are seen as judgmental, arrogant, narrow-minded, and bigoted religious fanatics. People who forget that people who speak against sin are the ones most in danger of feeling superior to those whose sin they rail against. People who forget that we’re all in the same sin boat.

It’s been my experience that people generally don’t mind Christ or His teachings, it’s the Christians–those who act in His name–that they have problems with. Maybe the protest/in your face model of church activism doesn’t put our best foot forward. Nor does sitting through someone coming to “holler at you for an hour.”

Maybe we shouldn’t have modeled the church after the modern day corporation to where the ABCs of church reality became Audience, Buildings, and Cash.

The biggest culprits (or by-product, I’m not sure which came first anymore) is that spirituality became about being about “me.” We go to church with a consumer mentality: we seek out churches based on who has the best show, where you don’t have to do anything and, heaven forfend, you don’t have to reveal anything. You can just sit and be “fed.”

Whether we realize it or not, many of us have developed very individualized faiths. Sitting in pews, soaking up knowledge, and feeling holy for what we’ve learned; like little sanctimonious pew potatoes. Church had become a collection of individuals: we each had our own Bibles, did our own quiet times, and we had our isolated worship, even when assembled, as we closed our eyes and experienced God ... just us and Him.

Then I come to realize that the church is me, except in macrocosm.

Now, I’ve also come to realize that once you’ve deconstructed a lot of the ways things have been done, you have to start (re-)building something. I firmly believe that at its best, church can be a place of hope, healing, belonging and redemption. The question becomes “how do we get there?” It’s tough switching from a mindset of being to a mindset of doing, so why don’t we start at the beginning: what is church?

Church is a communal expression of faith. Sometimes we get so caught up in the rituals and routines that we lose sight of the fact that they have a point: to form us into the kind of people God wants us to be; to be part of the solution, not the problem. Where a bunch of ordinary nobodies, men and women living and caught up in a story (the story of Creation that had fallen apart). Whose mandate should include building a sense of community, loving each other, and serving the world, all in the name of Christ.

It shouldn’t be as hard as we often make it.

It’s about switching from a club mentality to a mission mentality, a mission of existing for the sake of serving our neighbors.

We are all caught up in empty ways of doing life to one degree or another. Going through the daily grind, going through the motions, un-engaged and missing the point of life. However, even in the ordinary of our lives, God can be found. We can realize that all of Creation, all of life, is sacred. That spiritual living isn’t something just done on Sundays and that everything else–from going to a baseball game to going to a party–is somehow non-spiritual. We can learn what it means to live as we were created to be, fully human, as we engage with the world around us.

We can learn to not be our own worst enemy. To not be a place that beats people up before they can be accepted or have people shun it because they think that to follow Christ means dropping the “fun” things about life in the name of “spirituality”. But rather to be a place of acceptance and community.

A good vision provides excitement, focus, commitment, and meaning while firing up the imagination. To exist to help people resist empty ways of life by becoming fully human in the way of Jesus. To be a Refuge or Sanctuary, a place of rest and freedom to be yourself, where we connect with God and one another by joining in Jesus’ mission to bless the world.

Doesn’t sound too hard. Does it?

Pics From IMAF

And now a few pics from the Independent Music and Art Festival:

Undefeatable Beats put on quite the show.


T.J. Reynolds, host of the open mic night at United States of Mind, is front and center on the drums. He’s no dummy: he’s positioned right behind his dancers.

He took to the speakers to perform one of their signature pieces (I’m calling it their signature piece, since I just heard him perform it the night before at USOM).



Emory Salem was cool. It’s too bad that I didn’t get a shot of the guy in blue knitting. Yeah, I said it: knitting. Maybe they were going for a performance art thing, but I felt like our listening to them perform was interrupting the booties he was trying to make. I believe that they are in studio cutting a demo as I type this.



The guys from Wolfy once they were somewhat cooled off.

Local Indy Arts Scene

I got it in my head that I wanted to be more of a part of the local arts scene in Indianapolis. The second thought that popped into my head: what local arts scene? I mean, come on, it’s Indianapolis. We’re not exactly the Mecca of the arts world so why would I expect the arts scene to be much more than drunken rednecks and dirty limericks?

I know. But I’m working on my prejudices.

My weekend investigation of the local arts began Friday night with my infiltration of The United States of Mind. The United States of Mind is a community based event space which offers drum classes, drum sales and repair, poetry readings, music and art related events as well as Indy’s only chai café. We are a communal center that enables diverse individuals to express, experience and share music, poetry, and art with one another.

This was actually my second time at USOM, the first being a reconnaissance mission two weeks before. I heard tell that they had an open mic night every Friday evening, but before I was willing to expose all of my friends to quite possibly the latest in Vogon poetry, I thought that I would check it out. For the most part–granted, I’m no poetry buff–the poetry was decent, in a couple cases, exceptional. There were a few songs and one rap performance, so it was all good. More of the same when we went again, though some friends of mine performed a few pieces.

Nothing made my ears bleed, so it was all good.

Saturday I meant to spend on another trip to see Brian, except in this case, Brian Keene. He was doing a signing in Morris, IL, so I thought that I would pop over and see that. I thought that I had communicated this to my wife. Apparently, as I reviewed the details of the trip, phrases like “three hours there”, “three hours back”, “hanging out for three to six hours”, “possible drinking and vomiting”, and most importantly “you having the kids all day” caught her attention and the trip got vetoed. Instead, she proposed that we accompany our friends (our practically adopted daughters since they’ve taken to calling me “dad”, not at all making me feel every day of my age) down to the Talbot Street Art Fair.

When the Talbot Street Art Fair opens for business at 10 a.m. on Saturday, it will mark its 50th anniversary. For the 250 artists and craftspeople who will be on hand, it's likely to be business as usual -- which means large crowds, brisk sales and a good time. If you've never been to the event, it's a true street fair, with booths spread along Talbott Street from 16th to 19th streets, as well as along the side streets in that area. You'll find everything from paintings and sculpture to ceramics, textile art, jewelry, photographs, prints, garden art and woodworking. And you'll discover an event that's a significant part of the city's cultural history. At age 50, Talbot Street is the city's oldest art fair.

It’s also pretty boring, especially when you have two kids in tow. It’s hard to convince a four and almost three year old that looking at jewelry can be fun. At least not when the heavens decide to open up and piss all over us in torrents. The rain proved brief, however, and we opted to spend the rest of the day at the Independent Music and Art Festival.

The Harrison Center for the Arts seeks to be a catalyst for renewal in the city of Indianapolis by fostering awareness, appreciation, and community in arts and culture. Harrison Center tenants include: 15 local artists (studio space),VSA Arts, Herron School of Art, the Harrison Art Gallery, Primary Colours, The Advent Project, The Nature Conservancy, and Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

The Harrison Center also hosted the Oncology on Canvas show in its gallery. Talk to me all you want about extreme horror, this art ("reducing life to the color of survival" as one artist put it) moved me in a much more powerful way. These paintings by real life cancer survivors, or their friends, both turned my stomach and was achingly beautiful. No one in our group could speak the entire time we toured the exhibit. We just moved from portrait to portrait in reverent silence.

I actually ended up making a lot of contacts at the IMAF. You see, one of the things I wanted a church ministry to do was be involved in the arts. Not do a “ministry”, for example “painting God’s way” or whatever, but getting out and serving the needs of artists, for no other reason that serving them. This is a lot of what The Advent Project and Redeemer Pres are doing, so I wanted to make some contacts and see what help we could be. Why invent the wheel if there are already people in place? It’s not like we’re in competition with them.

Not one for the independent music scene, it also turned out that I knew a lot of the bands, or people in the bands. The members of Wolfy are roommates of a friend of mine; USOM open mic night host T.J. Reynolds is a member of the drum group-cum-reggae band Undefeatable Beats; I used to attend a church with a member of Emory Salem; and my friend insisted that we stay to hear Extra Blue Kind, with the exception of Undefeatable Beats, was the band that I liked the most, though they were very different flavors.

All in all, if I had to miss Brian Keene’s signing, this wasn’t a bad condolence event to pass away a day.



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Thank You, Jesus. We Have Poop.

For the last several months, my wife and I have been engaged in that most arduous of battles: potty training. Two boys. Advice from our friends with kids have been less than helpful, amounting to pretty much, they’ll go when they’re ready. Now come on. With as much time and effort that you spend into developing uber-children (piping in classical music during nap time, adjusting light and color schemes in the room for maximum brain development, etc.), the best you can give me is “they’ll go when they’re ready?”

You might not have gathered this, but I’m not the most intuitive of parents.

Don’t get me wrong, the boys took to peeing pretty quickly. Granted, I was never comfortable with them crowding me in the bathroom every time I had to go. “What you doing?” “Why?” “You made the water yellow.” I felt like they were there with note pads, part scientist figuring out the technique, part judge criticizing it. After weeks of this, they happen to see their cousin “peeing standing up” as if 1) he invented it and 2) I’d been hovering upside down and blindfolded or something.

Suddenly, they couldn’t wait to pee. (There was a mild setback when my mother--and her sometimes “too country for words” self--taught them the joys of peeing outside. I busted them when I heard the tell-tale splatterings from their sandbox. “What are you doing?” “Grandma said it was okay.” I had to inform them that peeing outside had to wait until there was snow on the ground and they could spell.).

However, my kids delighted in finding new ways to outsmart (read: spite) us when it came to all matters poop related.

After months of bribery, threats, begging, and general harassment that is teaching boys how to use the bathroom, we finally had a breakthrough:

“Daddy, I have to poop,” Reese tells me today as matter-of-factly as you please.
“Then you may want to sit down,” I calmly say, having been disappointed by such proclamations before. I did mention the delight they took, right?
Reese sits then demands a book. One with big pictures because “it may take me awhile.”

Who can resist that? I get him a book, then type for a while, leaving him under the studious gaze of his younger brother. A few minutes later, the huzzahs began. If, by ‘huzzah’, I mean shrieks of “Reese pooped!”

Okay, it was only one time, but the breakthrough has been made and we’re celebrating for all it’s worth. Encouraging by positive reinforcement and all that crap.

One down. One to go.



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New at Hollywood Jesus

My reviews have been up (though I forgot to post alerts here) for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, House, 24, and The Office.

There is also an HJ Podcast that you can download. I think that my reviews of Crash and Star Wars Episode III are in one of them. (I'm not sure, because I haven't mastered the art of delivering my reviews).

You'll note that on the main page of Hollywood Jesus my television reviews have been rotated to include some of these reviews. These include a review of the final season of NYPD Blue, pushed mostly to advertise What Would Sipowicz Do? : Race, Rights and Redemption in NYPD Blue (Smart Pop series)by Glenn Yeffeth (Editor). Hollywood Jesus is well represented in this book, as I have two chapters in it and David Bruce, founder of Hollywood Jesus, has one.

Nine Things I Learned In Jamaica

So, my mother recently got back from Jamaica. Born there, she’s planning on retiring there in a few short years. We got to reminiscing about the last time that I went to Jamaica with her, my wife and I as a part of the Morgan Family Reunion. Man, it was five years ago, nearly a lifetime ago since it was pre-kids for me. I got to digging around my old files and thought that I’d share a few lessons from that trip.

[Things that the tourist bureau won’t tell you. Plus, for no additional charge, a few warnings about the perils of traveling with your mother.]

Like any country, there are two Jamaicas: there is the open blue-skied, golden beached, frolicking natives and tourists (all to the soundtrack of Bob Marley tunes) Jamaica; and there is the Jamaica where the people actually live. The three job having, laid back populace who have better things to do than entertain tourists.

I will start by offering for your consumption the fact that MY MOTHER REALLY WANTS GRANDCHILDREN. I know, you have to ask yourself “why would I care about some guy I don’t know and his issues with his mother?” Well, in all probability, you wouldn’t. However, my mother, born in Jamaica, served not only as my tour guide, but also as sponsor (and by sponsor, I mean she offered to pay for the trip). Free is good, right? No, sometimes free has too high a price. The main drawback to doing any traveling with a parent, or for that matter spending too much time with them at all, is that they take the opportunity to remind you that as the oldest child you should be breeding. The problem being that even though my mom--one of seventeen--has 3 grandchildren already, she looks at my grandmother who has just over 180.

But let me get to the things you truly need to know when you travel to the “other” Jamaica.

1. MARIJUANA WILL FIND YOU. I’m not going to say that marijuana is the national flower or anything, because ostensibly, it is illegal. We spent a lot of the time in the country, the mountains outside of Montego Bay that you can see from the beaches. All I will say is that you don’t want to carelessly toss a match into any shrubbery unless you want to get a block party started. I will also say that “ganja” should not be rolled with two hands; nor should I be able to see your face every time you take a hit because your bud glows like a lighthouse.

Not to say that this is an issue only for those in the country.

We went to a concert (more on that in a minute). Let me repeat for you the vendor’s cry that you probably won’t hear at your next Celine Dion concert: “Popcorn. Peanuts. Ganja.” And if you think I’m kidding, which at the time I thought it was a joke, I did a double-take: the guy had little baggies tucked between each finger as he waved his hand around.

Some friends of mine who honeymooned down there, strictly on the tourist track, had this little story to tell. They took a paddle boat to lounge around on the sea for an afternoon. Before too long, another paddle boat came up along side them. The man inside, the “Cap’n”, wanted to make sure that they had some ganja for their trip. Say what you want, Jamaicans are all about customer service.

2. IF A GOOD CHUNK OF YOUR POPULACE IS UNEMPLOYED, POOR, AND HUNGRY, YOU MAY NOT WANT TO ANTAGONIZE THEM WITH NEW OBNOXIOUS LAWS AND TAXES. Or as I like to put it: THERE IS NO WAITING PERIOD FOR MACHETES. If you find yourself touring the country, you’ll notice that most people carry machetes. Do not be alarmed. Since most people work on farms, this is no different than a plumber revealing his butt crack: just a tool of the trade. However, as we observed while hanging out in Montego Bay, you can buy one in the middle of your argument and be chopping at a person in only a few minutes.

3. YOU CAN BE CHINESE AND HAVE A WEST INDIAN ACCENT. I know that may sound naive, but since he was the guy who sold the machete, he deserved mentioning. He looked like Bruce Lee and sounded like Bob Marley and found it annoying to have me standing there going “say something else” (watching him talk was hypnotic, but I couldn’t get him to say anything along the lines of “You killed my Teacher” or “I will avenge you” or anything else from a kung fu movie).

4. I AM NOT A FAN OF GOAT BELLY SOUP. I know what you’re wondering: are there any good ways to cook goat belly?. Jamaicans don’t let anything go to waste. To celebrate my visit with them, my family killed two goats and a cow, which meant that the whole community in the area was going to come out to join us.

5. [WARNING: USE OF A POSSIBLY OFFENSIVE WORD] IF YOUR BUS IS CALLED "ORIGINAL PECKA" ... I don't think you heard me ... I said IF YOUR BUS IS CALLED "ORIGINAL PECKA", AND YOU GET ON ANYWAY, YOU FORFEIT ALL RIGHTS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE DRIVER'S ANTICS. Said antics might explain the proliferation of abandoned cars alongside the road; totaled and burnt husks of cars stripped of anything of value or that could be used to repair another’s car.

6. SAND CHAFES. That was as close to a bad thing I could say about the beach. Is was either that or go with the "oh, gee, 80 degrees, clear blue skies, clear blue water, it's hard being me" routine. Do not be alarmed if you notice that at the outdoor shower--placed for your convenience so that you can rinse off before walking around--there are people standing around, completely naked, with soap. My mother explained that when she was a kid, if it rained hard enough, you could find people outside with a wash cloth and soap.

Speaking of which, NUDE BEACHES AREN'T BAD. Ain't no shame to my game. This came up as we were deciding which beach to go to. The only thing separating the nude beach from the regular beach was a rope dividing line. This lesson has one corollary: if your mother tries to tag along, nude beaches are just plain wrong. This also marked the point in the trip when me and my mother parted for a day or so.

7. BRING YOUR OWN TOILET PAPER. Jamaica is a tourist island. Therefore, most of the money and niceties go to the tourist areas first (at no time is this more apparent than after Hurricane Gilbert struck the island. The tourist parts were up and running in no time, but the homes of the people who lived there, especially in the country, were still being rebuilt three years later). I tell you this to inform you that unless you are at a resort, bring your own toilet paper. Assuming you can even find a public toilet, there is no guarantee that it will be well stocked. Plus, having your own supply will guarantee you making friends out of total strangers.

8. BLOCK PARTIES GOOD. CONCERTS BEWARE. A party can spring up wherever a person has a stack of speakers. It’s kind of like a pitch-in. Someone brings music. Someone brings food. Someone brings drinks. Someone brings ganja. But the concert we went to (S–fest, for the sake of this blog) is not something for the uninitiated to go to alone. Pickpockets abound (I don’t ask much from my pickpockets, you know, just pick and move on. Not half pick, drop what you get, and crowd me. Not that I carried much of the Monopoly money that is used for currency, nor do I keep it in my back pocket. I do give props to the pick pocket who continually bumped into someone, with each slowly unzipping their fanny pack).

Let me tell you, most of the acts were okay, simply background music while people danced, slept on cardboard “Reggae beds” waiting for a later act, or smoked--here’s a shock--ganja. The last guy, however, had the catch phrase “More Fire”. At no point do the words “more” and “fire” belong in the same sentence at a concert. Granted, I thought rap concerts had a lot of instructions (“throw your hands in the air” “wave them like you just don’t care”), but “more fire” apparently meant light anything near you. We were at an outdoors performance--though I hear this does go on at the indoor ones--also but people were lighting their shirts on fire and twirling them. They set ablaze trash cans. One guy--I’m positive that the amount of ganja smoked by this time in no way played a part of his dilemma--grew frustrated at his attempts to light a block of ice on fire. On the upside, I’ve never seen a more laid back group of vandals and arsonists.

9. YOU COULDN'T PAY ME TO DO THE TOURIST THING. Okay, I won’t lie to you: 1) given enough money, you could pay me to do just about anything; and 2) resorts are a great place to go to be catered to and pampered. You just don’t get a taste of the true Jamaican experience. A cousin got a few of us into one of those tourist resorts. (By “got” I mean she had a friend on the “inside” so we dressed up like tourists and snuck in a side door. And for the record, there is nothing funnier–Chinese guy with West Indian accent aside–than a Jamaican trying to speak with a polished American accent) . Besides the fact that they are shuttled everywhere (missing out on true taxi and bus rides--a la “Original Pecka”) they miss the true Jamaican culture. No Jamaicans I know eat anything remotely called “Rasta Pasta” (I had collalou, roasted yams, ackee and saltfish, jerk pork, the aforementioned goat belly soup; but no Rasta I knew ate Rasta Pasta). Plus, I don't care how much money I ever have, I am not flying anywhere just to hear a “reggae band” perform “Wind Beneath My Wings”.

It was refreshing to realize that no matter where you go, people have more in common than not. This leads me to the last lesson that I learned while in Jamaica: MORNING DJ'S SUCK NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO. Just because they have a West Indian accent does not make them any better.

“Good, good morning to you, mon.”


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Bibliolatry

I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s the Bible that should have the words “Don’t Panic” inscribed on its cover. Or at least each one should come with its own pointy hat because people, whether they realize it or not, use the Bible as their personal pope. At first passing glance, this doesn’t sound so bad. After all, how bad could a person end up if they are trying to follow the teachings of a spiritual book? Well, let’s see.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Scriptures. I have read and studied them for most of my adult life. One thing has kind of haunted me the last couple of years: what if I’ve missed the point of the Scriptures? By that I mean, what if I’ve been trying to make the Bible into something it not only isn’t, but never claimed to be.

You see, the Bible tends to suffer more in the hands of its friends, those people who claim it as the authority of their lives. It’s been my experience that, far too often, there is an unfortunate correlation between the amount of Scripture knowledge and the meanness of the person. Of course, this probably has more to do with the person being mean, and Scripture knowledge simply gives them new weapons with which to be mean.

There are some limitations to the authority Bible. Well, limitations isn’t the right word, more like the inherent risk of its authority being abused. It hasn’t stopped a war, but it has been used to justify many of them. It has rarely stops arguments, but has often caused divisions. It has been used to prop up the majority view, giving authority, even legitimacy, by proxy. How many times has the Bible been used to trump alternative perspectives allowing only discernment through the lens of a single, traditional hermeneutic? Yes, I’m still in a de-constructing mindset as I examine a few things about religion that has been handed down. Traditions and mindsets need to be periodically examined to see if they remain relevant.

The problems started when we adopted the Enlightenment mindset at the beginning of the modern era. We assumed the posture of objective observer, compiling evidences and categorizing our theology in our efforts to understand God. We claim the Bible as our foundation in one breath, then prop up our foundation with science, evidence, and proofs. [This is not a shot at apologetics, it’s just that so often, we do apologetics wrong. Apologetics for Christians to help intellectual Christians think through their faith is great. Apologetics for non-Christians in an attempt to logically sway them into faith (read: argue with them) is worthless. The Bible means very little to most non-Christians.]

The problem is that we end up making the Bible into something that not only is it not, but it never claims to be. It’s not an answer book for every question in your life or to govern every aspect of your life. (People turn to it and if there’s an issue that the Bible doesn’t comment on, it must be bad). It is not an encyclopedia. It’s not a scientific text. It’s not a history treatise. It’s not a self-help guide. But when we treat it as such, we drive out the mystery from our spiritual lives. It’s this kind of reductionism that allows a person to wave around a verse thinking that should settle an argument. It’s also this kind of propping up that shakes our “foundation” whenever something proves one of our props wrong. When Galileo proved that the Earth wasn’t the center of the universe, people’s faith took a hit because they were treating the Bible as a scientific text (and if science proves that there is a definitive “gay” gene, watch out).

Who values the Bible more: the one who knows its proper place and use or the one who tries to bend it for every purpose? The proper antidote to abuse isn’t disuse, but proper use. I think that I’m coming to a better understanding of what the Bible is for and its role in my life.

One group of people who have trouble with this is preachers who have staked their own personal authority on being the sole interpreter for people. In fact, let me not restrict this to preachers, but include people who subscribe to “expository preaching–running Bible commentary--as the best way to do a sermon”. Or, for that matter, let me include people who think all they need is themselves, the Bible, and God: the sad reality is that the authority of the Bible usually becomes equal to the authority of the interpreter.

Let’s face it, we want truths that fits into what we’re comfortable with and that mindset can deceptively set us on wrong paths. If, in your reading of the Bible, it only seems to confirm what you already think, then you’re probably mis-reading the Bible. If, in your reading of the Bible, you never come across anything that upsets or challenges you, you’re probably mis-reading the Bible. You can’t go to the Bible to prove what you want to say, using it simply as a vessel to prop up your own authority.

Think of those old Bugs Bunny cartoons (because, you know, when in doubt, ask yourself “what would Bugs do?”) He’d pop out of the dirt and there would be an arrow pointing toward in which direction Albuquerque lay. He didn’t stop at the arrow; the arrow pointed the way to his destination. We tend to stop at the arrow and act as if we have arrived. The Bible is our arrow, not our destination. The destination is Christ.



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The Office

I had long heard reports that I had to watch this wonderful comedy out of England called The Office, especially since Hollywood was going to make its own version of it for American consumption. Rather than watch an American bastardization of the show, I opted to watch the British original (now available on DVD). Full of British sensibilities—that dry, understated kind of humor that is not everyone’s cup of tea—the series comes across like a dark, live action version of the comic strip Dilbert. Many of us have had bosses, or office-mates, who are unfunny and uncool, but at the same time try too hard to be your buddy. Or had unrequited crushes on an office mate. Or been tortured (or choose to torture) insufferable office mates who are a little too full of themselves. This is the stuff that makes up The Office.

“What is the single most important thing for a company? ... It’s the people. Investment in people.” David Brent (Ricky Gervais, writer and director)

With the sword of Damocles over its head—that specter of corporate downsizing—this wonderfully insightful series is very much a reflection of our (corporate) selves. A fictional BBC film crew documents the lives of office workers under the pressure of losing their jobs. And what do they capture? Bureaucrats with a belly full of power overseeing their fiefdoms. Petty office politicking and bravado. Speeches laden with the empty jargon-filled language of Bureaucrat-ese, the management-speak indicative of corporate rot. People attempting to find meaning in the seeming meaninglessness of their dull, dreary, tedious existences. And this show wrings laughs out of every excruciating and embarrassing moment.

“You’re such a sad, little man.” Dawn Tinsley (Lucy Davis)

“It’s only a trifling matter.” Tim Canterbury (Martin Freeman)

This is life for many of us, going through the motions, stuck in empty patterns. Too often we are characterized by this sense of an unfulfilled existence. Tim, our favorite office worker who quietly longs to be engaged-to-a-control-freak receptionist, Dawn, has long had his confidence crushed out of him by the daily grind. All the workers come to realize that they are but cogs in the corporate machine, hopelessly trapped in a mundane world. The laughs come from recognizing ourselves in such soul-crushing monotony.

So, this begs the question how are we to connect to God through this?

I am reminded of the monk, Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, who led a simple life as a cook then later as a shoe repairman. He learned to find communion with God in ordinary circumstances, through a simple discipline he called practicing the presence of God.

“I gave up all devotions and prayers that were not required and I devote myself exclusively to remaining always in his holy presence. I keep myself in his presence by simple attentiveness and a general loving awareness of God that I call ‘actual presence of God’ or better, a quiet and secret conversation of the soul with God that is lasting.” (Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God: Critical Edition, 53)

In all things, Brother Lawrence sought to maintain a constant awareness of God’s gracious presence in his life. For this, this “practice of the presence of God” was “the essence of the spiritual life” (34). One of the best descriptions of his simple practice is found in his Spiritual Maxims:

The holiest, most ordinary, and most necessary practice of the spiritual life is that of the presence of God. It is to take delight in and become accustomed to his divine company, speaking humbly and conversing lovingly with him all the time, at every moment, without rule or measure, especially in times of temptation, suffering, aridity, weariness, even infidelity and sin. (36)

This method is modeled for us in The Office. All of the characters are aware of the documentary crew filming them, this ever-present camera that records their conversations and observes their lives. Once aware of the camera, becoming somewhat comfortable with its intrusive presence, they can’t help but converse with it during the course of the day. The characters know that they are being filmed so they try and put on their best behavior (failing in hysterical fashion despite themselves). The camera never seems to respond, but its presence is both unsettling and comforting.

Your picture, your awareness, of God affects how you live. In The Office, we have a reminder—a mirror held to our collective faces—of how we can squander living life as if God was present at all times in all situations. We have an example of how easy it is to forget that He is available and accessible in all circumstances of life, even the mundane activities of daily living. Simply assuming that God is present and then living accordingly can greatly impact one’s life. We become formed by this simple yet profound discipline as we learn to appreciate every encounter, every circumstance, as an opportunity to know God.

This dark comedy rings entirely too true for anyone who has ever worked in an office. It is brilliantly written and I can only hope that it translates well to our American shores.

Top 10 Things New Authors Can Do to Guarantee Success

In case you’re interested, over at Horror-Web I am being “interviewed”. That is, I’m a willing target and you’re free to pop over there and throw any question you want at me. I thought I’d post my answer to this question about ten things, as usually asked by writer, and all around sweetheart of a guy, James A. Moore. The challenge lies in seeing if I can actually come up with ten things. Some of these may overlap, but I’ve got space to fill.

1. Read. A lot. Learn from what’s been done and respect the genre.

2. Write. A lot. Write for you and respect the craft. By that I mean write for your artistic sensibilities first and find your unique voice. Then continue to improve and push yourself as a writer.

These answers remind me of being back in “Sunday School” when you knew that the answer to just about any question the teacher asked was “God”, “Jesus”, “Pray”, “or Read the Bible.” Of course these are the first answers to this question, but in someways they shouldn’t have to be. They are like reminding someone to breathe and poop. So though they shouldn’t count as answers I’ll let them stand because they take up two slots.

3. Think through your career. I don’t think enough writers think through their careers. In fact, I know a couple writers who need to think bigger. Too often we’re satisfied with just getting published rather than continuing to aim at the biggest markets. [Talking to professional writers about their stories floating around in “exposure only” markets is like bringing up an actor’s porn past?] This leads right into ...

4. Get paid. If you want exposure, do it through good venues. I realize that, despite our daydreams, we probably won’t be getting rich from writing; but even so, why give your stuff away free in the name of “writing for the love”, gaining fans, or exposure? [Though, I admit, there are exceptions.]

5. Submit. It’s the ABSs of successful writing: Always Be Submitting. Stories do you no good in your drawers. (Before I make the obligatory “good things in your drawers” joke) Also, think of your stories as your writing resume. You want to put out as good a product as possible since you (never know when you) are always being interviewed by new potential readers. And editors.

6. Maintain a professional image. Your web site, your message board, your blog, your appearance; all of this is part of your submission package. It was strange when I began to think of myself in terms of “product”, but in a lot of ways, you are developing your brand. And your brand name is what agents and editors will encounter and factor in when they think about dealing with you.

Also, don’t trip over your persona. I’m still thinking through this, so please ignore my rambling. The main thing I keep reminding myself is: Don’t be an ass (unless an ass is who you are, I guess, but still, try). It’s a tricky balance sometimes: being yourself but knowing when to not be “too much” of yourself. Let’s face it, especially among the small press contingent, sales can increase or decrease due to one’s online persona. I’ve been turned off by an author’s boorish behavior as often as I’ve made purchases based on how pleasant the author was. Plus, editors want someone they perceive they can work with.

7. Network. Writing is a solitary venture. The business of it, however, is not. At some point you have to venture out of your cave, push your comfort zones, and put yourself out there. Conventions. Community (read: message boards). Pro organizations. Make friends (you can never have too many friends).

8. Promotion. Well, insert something about promotion. I suck. It’s needed, but I suck at it.

9. Be teachable. You are always a work in progress, so don’t get a big head. You’re never above listening, especially to people who’ve been doing this writing thing longer than you have.

10. Persevere. Develop a thick skin, especially for criticism, and keep plucking along. Honestly, the dirty little secret to getting published boils down to don’t give up. If nothing else, let all the crap that you “know you can write better than” that gets published be your inspiration to keep trying.


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Friends of Maurice

I had this dream that one day I wanted to throw a party for my fans. Those who know me solely from the reviews that I write for HollywoodJesus.com. Those who know me from my ministry work (if you could really have ministry “fans”). And those who know me from horror circles. I thought that I could throw all of those people into a room, add alcohol, and have a party. It would either be a huge disaster ending in fights, accusations, random nudity, and worst of all, no sales of anything of mine. OR, maybe the people would find out that they weren’t all that different.

So, I tried a small version of this as an experiment. I noticed that on my message board, several people posted on the board that lived in my city (Indianapolis, Indiana). Some who found me through Hollywood Jesus, some who were invited by friends or friends of friends. Obviously, not everyone knew each other. I don’t know if this is the most efficient way to build a fan base, but I decided to throw a party.

I know that I had truly under-valued the power of online community until I got involved with a couple of horror message boards that I frequent. I was much more a flesh and blood sort of relationship guy. However, I noticed that my virtual relationships impacted my "non-virtual" friendships with some of my flesh and blood acquaintances.

Clearly, the Internet has popularized the idea of nonphysical communities, pushing cup-of-sugar-borrowing, town-meeting-decision-making neighborhoods to the definition. And our president's it-takes-a-village touchy-feeliness has raised expectations of group coziness so much that it takes a community to have a conversation. But there's a more fundamental emotional shift in the meaning of the word as well, away from describing an inclusive, indiscriminate mix of people (the sort of community served by the United Way) to something more about personal choice.

Like so many values, community is on everyone's lips just as it seems to be disappearing. The enormous social upheavals of the past few generations--globalization, suburbanization, television technologies that collapse times and space--have all forced the notion of community to shift from one grounded in a physical closeness that fostered mutual concerns and responsibilities to . . . what?

This past Friday I held a dinner party for them and all but one showed up.



There was an immediate sense of community and acceptance in the place. Love, laughter, and friendship. It never ceases to amaze me how wired we are for a sense of community, how we long for it, how vital it is to our sense of being. We live in a society that values the rugged individual and while we say we want community, we don’t really. We don’t want to be vulnerable, open nor transparent. We may be great at being there for others, being strong for them, but we hate letting people be there for us. That’s seen as weak. We fear the possibility of rejection. While we seek a place where we will be accepted, where people would prove that they love us by their actions as well as their words.

This doesn’t mean that I’ll be cooking for you soon, but you never know.

For those of you with Xanga, there’s a “Friends of Maurice Broaddus” web ring. I subscribed. I’m a big fan of me. If I link to a site that links back to me, am I in danger of opening up some sort of Internet wormhole, infinite loop thing?




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Losing My Religion: A Muslim Response

So I have this friend that’s been in lockdown for a while and is not seeing the light of day anytime soon. I’ve kept in touch with him and we dialogue regularly about our respective faiths (he has discovered Islam while in prison). He reads my blog (I have quite the following in prison circles) and mailed me a response to my blog entry “Losing My Religion”. I am posting it here with his permission:

Taking a cue from your opening question in “Losing My Religion”, I asked myself, have I ever felt sick of being a Muslim? At this point in my journey, I would have to say no. But like you, I have seen, and to a degree experienced, a good deal of theological madness. As a result, there have been times where I felt the necessity/urge to separate myself from what I considered to be an unhealthy/corrupt atmosphere. And as you pointed out, it’s not the religion itself that is at fault or the sources of the problem, but rather the practitioners and their interpretation of the religion. There are, I think, three general areas of concern.

1) Image (grand scale). A perfect example is the manner in which Islam is currently portrayed in the media these days. Listening to the commentators, seeing the pictures of the aftermath of a suicide bombing, learning how women are treated in certain “Islamic” countries, prompts some to ask me how can you (talking about me) follow such a barbaric religion. And in the same vein that as a black man having to answer for the ignorance of other black men, I invariably find myself giving a history lesson in order to explain these discrepancies. And that’s the big picture.

2) Image (small scale). On a more practical scale, having to deal with individuals who are not serious about he practice of this way of life also become problematic in the very same way. Like a Christian, there is an expectation of how a person should carry himself, an expectation of how one should live his life. But when you have individuals who claim to be a Muslim, but lives like a mongrel, how do you deal with that? Again, we have the problem of having to explain these individual’ actions, “yes he says that he’s a Muslim, but what he is doing is outside the scope of what we believe.”

3) Idiots (every variety). Or you get the liberal/fundamentalist extremist who want to either take Islam back to it’s golden age or usher Islam into the 21st century by whatever means necessary. Islam is not a complicated religion. In fact it’s quite simple. Our tenants, beliefs, laws, traditions are all very well defined and spelled out. Yet there is still confusion. There are groups of people who want to change the religion to suit there needs. We’ve talkeda bout this problem in the past. What makes God’s word any less relevant, or any less of a commandment today then it was 1400 years ago? It doesn’t.

The end result is, in general, a person may very well question the path that he has undertaken because of these problems. But more likely, what we find, ad what I personally experienced is a flight from the mosque and the brotherhood into a type of self-imposed isolation. The thought is, “I’ll just worship Allah by myself.” Unfortunately, this plan is not good in theory or action.

Growing up, I had a small group of friends and even a smaller group of family members that I dealt and associated with on a regular basis. My father recognized ths, and encouraged me to expand my circle and reach out to the rest of my family. And he told me something that I remember (and still haunts me from time to time) to this day. He said, “boy, you can’t go through this life along and do everything yourself. You need people to depend and help through things that you won’t be able to handle yourself.” He was absolutely right, and it haunts me to this very day because I didn’t heed his advice and find myself with little outside contact as a result.

Anyway, Islam works on a similar model. Islam is a communal way of life. It’s about shaping an individual in order to shape a society. It’s through the brotherhood that Muslims, ideally, learn about being Muslims, assist one another in problems or adversity faced, defend/protect one another, grow spiritually. Virtually everything that a Muslim is called to do in terms of worship is directed to establishing and maintaining these bonds of brotherhood. Muslims are called to pray together (not separately) five times a day. Muslims are called to fast together during the month of Ramadan, Muslims are called to perform the Hajj together, etc. These are basic tenets, but ones that are called to be done and experienced as a collective. It took me a time of reflection to understand the importance of this.

I realized that not everyone is going to live up to my expectation of what a Muslim should be. There were going to be bumps in the road. But just because the journey may be bumpy from time to time doesn’t mean that I don’t travel the road. I realized that I was in as much error by isolating myself as the people I believed to be “off the mark”. Why, because one of the utilities of a brotherhood is the grounded foundation in truth and correct practice that it should provide. I can’t make anybody do anything. But I can be an example and a voice to how things should be done.

It was the very line of thinking that convinced me to accept the position as leader of our community here. We have to strive to make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others. And the effect we have on others can be as simple as just doing the right things ourselves, of being in a position to teach and explain. So, instead of feeling embarrassed or ashamed when confronted with the actions of wayward Muslims doing whatever wayward Muslims do, I simply and politely explain the difference between correct and incorrect actions.

And you’re absolutely right: this is a journey that I’m still working out. It’s a journey of a lifetime.

‘Nuff said. Yeah, he’ll see the responses.




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