Mo*Con II Recap IV: On Family

Truth be told, I was quite nervous about Mo*Con II. I finally was able to pin down what was making me so nervous (besides, you know, Brian Keene being Keene). It was the fact that with Mo*Con II, my two families, my writing family and my church family, were coming together. And, you know how it goes when two sides of a family meet: you want them to get along with each other.

Friends are the family you choose. Talking to Alethea Kontis, I realized just how much this con was more of a family reunion than a con. Probably one reason that fuels why we go to so many conventions is to be able to maintain the friendships we have made despite the mostly solitary pursuit that is writing.

-Chesya is like the little sister who NEVER SHUTS THE HELL UP.









-Wrath is like the older, smarter brother who steals all of your girlfriends.










-Keene is like the older, smartass brother who likes to pants you in public.









-Gary Braunbeck and Lucy Snyder are like the loving godparents who always have your best interests at heart.

Debbie Kuhn. Family. Alethea Kontis. Family. Gary and Nancy Frank. Family. John and Rebecca Hay. Family. Indiana Horror Writers. Family. Steve Shrewsbury. Family. And a great thing about family is that it is always growing. You feel me? Don’t make me get to preaching.

(No, really, don’t. I’m exhausted. I have to haul out a dozen trash bags worth of garbage still and then attend to my poor, poor carpets.)

P.S. Speaking of family, once again, I’d like to thank my wife who has the patience of a saint for allowing me to essentially hold a four day room party at our house.


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Mo*Con II Recap III: Gary Braunbeck’s Testimony Part Two

(Click here for part one)

In the summer of 1977, when I was 17, I came as close to hating my father as I ever had before. All I saw was a whining, violent, self-pitying drunk who blamed the world for his failures in life—and who saw his life as a wasted one.

On this day, the Fourth of July, my mother had taken my then-seven-year-old sister Gayle Ann to watch the big parade downtown. I had been out partying with some friends the night before, and had come home at four in the morning to crash on the sofa.

I was awakened sometime around ten-thirty by my father falling on me. So drunk he could barely maintain his balance. He’d gone through all the beer and was putting a good dent in the contents of a whiskey bottle.

“Can’t sleep,” he kept slurring at me. “Can’t get to sleep. C’mon, get up and let’s go make some breakfast.”

I rose, groggy-eyed and cotton-mouthed, from the sofa, went into the kitchen, and—at Dad’s request—micro-waved a couple of TV dinners for breakfast.

I sat at one end of the kitchen table, Dad at the other. I began to eat. He started rambling on about the way his mother had treated him and my Aunt “Boots” when they were children; about the war and what had happened to him; about how he was too old and too tired to face another twenty-five years on another line at another plant. (He’d once told me he’d wanted to raise chickens for a living when he was a young man; how he wished he’d been able to do that. It was his dream, and it meant the world to him, and it just broke his heart that he and my mother never had the money to buy a proper farm for raising chickens.)

I remember all of this very clearly because, when he first began to talk, I looked up and saw the business end of a 7.65mm Duetsche Werk semi-automatic pistol pointed right at my face. I knew this gun well. Dad had taken it from where one of the SS officers who’d discovered the remains of his unit had dropped it in his haste to get away.

He ate very little of his TV dinner. But he drank the whiskey. Even used it to chase down some painkillers, as well as his heart and blood-pressure medicine—none of which were supposed to be taken at the same time, let alone with alcohol.

And he began unraveling right in front of me.

He began calling me other names—Stan, Wille P., “Slim”—all members of his deceased unit. He began talking about what had happened as if it were happening at that very moment and they were still alive to remember the experience with him. A couple of times he started crying and saying things like, “But I don’t have any money for a hotel, Mom!” He began looking around the kitchen, whispering, “Shhh, shut your mouth, Stan! Can’t you hear ‘em?”

It was at that moment that I did what was probably the first genuinely wise thing I had done in my life; very quietly, with as even a tone of voice as I could muster (surprised I could find it in me to speak at all), I said, “Hear who, Frank?”

He jumped up from the table, threw his chair aside, and started toward the back porch door. He grabbed my arm on the way past and said, “We gotta get ‘em first this time.” He pulled me out onto the back porch and forced me to squat down beside him as he aimed the gun. “The trees,” he said. “They came out of the trees.”

I remembered him telling me that earlier; how he’d seen the SS unit emerge from the snow-covered trees and move toward the detritus of his unit.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that. Once I thought he was going to pass out, but just as I was stupid enough to reach for the gun, his eyes snapped open and he stood up and plowed four rounds into the tree in our back yard. The dog next door barked and nearly got its head blown off for the effort.

To counteract the wise thing I had done before, I did something supremely stupid—I tried to pull the gun out of his hand.

“The trees,” he kept saying. “The trees.” And plowed off two more shots.

I didn’t know it at the time, but one of those shots went through my shoe and blew off part of my big toe (to this day, even in the worst of summer, I won’t wear sandals because of that injury).

Finally, Dad hit me on the side of the head with the butt of the gun and ran inside. By the time I staggered back into the house he’d reloaded the clip, pulled out his rifle, and was loading it.

I walked into the living room and said something to him—I don’t remember what—and the sound of my voice startled him; he screamed, fell backward, and fired a shot that missed me by a good three or four feet but felt like it had come a lot closer. I dropped to the floor in tears, hating myself for being so scared.

Dad crawled over to me and said that it was gonna be okay, we’d keep an eye on the trees, that his mom would be proud of him because he got a medal and everything. (He received a Purple Heart and several other medals. They now hang in a display case next to my desk at home.)

Shortly after this, the police showed up, armed to the teeth and in full riot gear, tear-gas grenades at the ready – which they did not hesitate to use.
What followed was a six-minute battle between my father and the police, one that ended with four officers and one attack dog injured, and my father in handcuffs (it took 6 officers to subdue him, and all the while he was screaming, “Get your hands offa me, you Nazi bastards!” He was still back in Austria, in the middle of the burning pile of bodies).

I ended the day with two cracked ribs, three crushed fingernails, a broken collar bone, a dislocated shoulder, cuts on my head, arms, and chest that garnered a total of twenty-six stitches, a badly sprained left arm, powder burns on my temple, and two “official” gunshot wounds. I remember all this when I think I’m having a bad day now.

During the worst of the violence, I managed to drag myself through the kitchen and down the backstairs into the basement. I stayed down there until I heard the last of the officers leave the house. I pulled myself back upstairs and peeked out through the remains of the front window.

And this is where I was given a gift from God that I did not know at the time was a gift.

There were three ambulances and four police cruisers parked out front, visibar lights flashing to beat the band. Neighbors lined the street on both sides the length of the entire block. The police officers could have put Dad in any one of nearby cruisers—there was one right in front of the house!—but they chose, instead, to walk him all the way down the block, parading him past the neighbors, to a cruiser that sat at the far end of the street. Dad was in handcuffs. He was sobbing. He had thrown up on himself. He kept apologizing to every neighbor he was dragged past.

The worst of it, though, was that my Dad’s pants had started to fall down in the back, revealing what some people laughingly refer to as a “workman’s crack.”

He was completely, totally, and utterly disgraced.

That moment is forever frozen in my memory, and I knew right then it was important for me to memorize everything I was feeling—the shock, the sick-making sadness, the pain, the helplessness, the sudden, unexpected, mystifying, overwhelming love I felt toward this man who once wanted to be chicken farmer but spent his life on the factory line, instead.

I wanted to mark this moment, and to remember it.
And the anger.
And the anger.
And the anger.
Thank you, God, yes—the anger.

That was the moment that set me on the path to becoming a writer of dark fiction. I promised myself that I would always try to convey in my stories at least some small sense of what I felt at that moment during the summer of 1977 when I watched the police haul my father down the street.

I wanted to create something more than stories that simply let emotions both light and dark bleed all over the page. I wanted to create something that would convey the genuine sense of tragedy and fragility that hangs over all our lives. I know now that what I experienced that moment, looking through that window at my father as he was made a mockery of, is what all forms of creative expression strive to convey: the terror, tragedy, sadness, anger, and soul-sick absurdity of violence and grief and how we struggle from womb to tomb to reconcile those things with the concept of a Just universe, watched over by a loving God, where even the most trivial and mundane of our daily activities carry some greater meaning.

Sometimes a hand reaches out from the shadows to protect us, to lead us toward safety and acceptance; sometimes this same hand grabs your throat and begins to squeeze; and sometimes no hand reaches out at all, we’re just left cowering in the basement, alone with the coldness and the darkness and the injuries, bleeding and scared and helpless.

I was changed that day, in that moment from the summer of 1977. It defined me as a human being, and that bleeding, frightened, rage-filled teenager defined me—and defines me still—as a writer. That day – with all of its violence, pain, brutality, terror, bloodshed, all of it – was a gift from God. Look at this pain, He was saying to me. Look at it and taste it and remember it and know it as well as you do your own reflection, so that you may recognize it when it comes around again. And then ask yourself: What can I do to ease it?

The scrim was lifted from my eyes that afternoon – I no longer saw the world only in terms of how it affected me; I saw it in terms of how I might come to affect it, to help it in some small way.

There’s an old saying: “The devil is in the details.” I prefer to side with Albert Einstein, who said, “God is in the details.” I see God’s details all around me, in laugher, in music, in tears, in art, in kindness and autumn and science and the way a beam of moonlight slants through a Venetian blind at 3 in the morning; I see it in disguises such as regret, sadness, and loneliness – all of these are God’s details, His gifts, and I thank Him every day for having given me the faculties to recognize them, and the ability to try to convey some small part of their greater meaning through the little stories I tell.

I do this for the memory of my mother, and that of my father, both of whom thought it was just wonderful that I manage to make a small living from writing what they called “scary stories.” I do it as a way of one day forgiving myself for all the years that I did recognize others’ pain and loneliness. I do it to celebrate the lives of loved ones who have passed on, and those I haven’t yet met. I do it to honor and to thank God.

I do it because, as Heinrich Hein said, “All our acts should originate from the spring of unselfish love, whether there be continuation after death or not.”

Hidden within the horrors of that day during my 17th summer was proof of one man’s unselfish love, a love that until that day I had been too foolish to recognize. But I recognize it now, and carry it with me always. After that day, my father and I became more than father and son; we became friends, and the love between us only grew stronger. I don’t know if that would have ever happened had not we been plunged into the nightmare of that day that had been in the making for nearly 40 years. Were it not for that time of horror, I would never have known a deeper love between myself and my father.

That is why I write horror fiction, and that is why I feel God’s presence as I write it. In my heart I know this is what I was intended to do with His gift, and I hope when the time comes for me to meet Him, that He’ll smile at me and say, “Your mom and dad keep talking about your stories. I want to hear them. All of them. Don’t worry – we’ve got the time.”

I’d like to leave you with a quote from my father’s favorite comedian, Red Skelton, who closed every show with the following words:

“Thank you. And may God Bless.”


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Mo*Con II Recap II: Gary Braunbeck’s Testimony Part One

Good morning. I’m honored to have been asked here today.

When Maurice first invited me to speak, he also informed me that there was more than a little bit of controversy centered around the inclusion of so many horror writers, mostly because several people couldn’t understand what practitioners of this particular form of story-telling could offer to a congregation gathered to celebrate their creativity, faith, and spirituality in a House of God, and I can fully understand how it would be difficult, if not impossible, for some to reconcile the two.

As many of you may be aware, there are a few of us who are Agnostics, and you might be wondering how someone who harbors that level of doubt can lay claim to any canon of spirituality.

There is a quote from German poet and philosopher Heinrich Hein that I hold very close to my heart, because I think it can be embraced by those who, like myself, believe in God, as well as those who have their doubts:

“Regarding my actions in this world, I care little in the existence of a heaven or hell; self-respect does not allow me to guide my acts with an eye toward heavenly salvation or hellish punishment. I pursue the good because it is beautiful and attracts me, and shun the bad because it is ugly and repulsive. All our acts should originate from the spring of unselfish love, whether there be continuation after death or not.”

I’ve always felt that philosophy could be accepted by everyone, regardless of their private spiritual beliefs – and despite Hein’s claim that he cares “…little for the existence of a heaven or hell…” he nonetheless concludes his statement by giving voice to what seems to me to be a central credence of Christianity: “All our acts should originate from the spring of unselfish love, whether there be continuation after death or not.” In essence, one should be strive to be kind to all others without the expectation of reward at the end of one’s days.

I like that so much, not only because it comes as close as anything I’ve ever encountered to summarizing my own personal beliefs, but because those words could very well have been spoken by Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount.

This is simply a way of telling you that, yes, I am a horror writer; yes, I do believe in God; and it is through my work that I give thanks to Him every day for the blessings I have while learning not to focus too much on those things I have yet to achieve.

I’m not going to defend what we as horror writers do – this is neither the time nor the place – but instead offer you the reasons why I – who once briefly studied for the priesthood – chose to do toil in this particular field of fiction.

And it has to do with a gift from God that I did not know was a gift at the time.

Allow me to introduce you to my father, Frank Henry Braunbeck, who was born on May 22, 1926, who passed away June 15, 2001, less than 9 months before my mother joined him. My father was a WWII veteran, 71st Infantry, Artilleryman. He fought in the battles of Regensburg, Straubing, Reid, Lambach, Weis, and Steyer; he crossed the Rhine, Danube, Isar, Inn, and Enns Rivers; and he helped to liberate the concentration camps of Strubing and Gunskirken Lager. He was a loyal soldier. He was born and raised in Ohio. He never made it past the eighth grade because he had to go to work to help support his ailing mother and three younger siblings after his father abandoned them during the Great Depression (he worked as a paper boy, ten different routes each day).

Near the end of the war, Dad was the sole survivor of a crash in Eberstadt, Austria—just beyond the village of Darmstadt—that killed all the men in his unit; while driving down an icy mountain road, the driver lost control of the truck and it went over the side of a cliff. The truck plunged, upside-down, over 150 feet before landing in the ice and snow below, killing everyone except my father. He lay inside the wreckage of the truck for nearly two days, kept from freezing to death only because of the bodies on top of and below him. When at last the wreckage was discovered, it was by an SS unit that had been hiding out in the mountains, the very ones Dad’s unit had been looking for. The first thing this unit did was pull all the bodies from the remains of the truck; the second thing was to defile the bodies; the third was to build a pile with the bodies; and the last thing they did, before they left, was to set that pile on fire. My father—who had been faking being dead the entire time—was right in the middle of that pile, and didn’t dare move or speak for fear they’d discover he was alive and…

…and I’ll just leave the rest of that to your imaginations. The smoke from the fire was spotted by the Darmstadt villagers, who immediately came to the scene and put out the (thankfully) slow-burning fire (snow had begun to fall quite heavily, and while it did not douse the flames, it hindered their spreading a great deal). My father was discovered alive, was taken to Darmstadt where he remained in their small hospital for several months before being transferred to one in Munich upon Germany’s surrender.

He had broken nearly every bone in his body. He spent 18 months in a full-body cast. (18 months. Can you imagine what it must be like to not be able to move at all for a year-and-a-half? My entire life, I don’t think I ever saw him once sit still for more than thirty minutes at a time.)

After the war, he never received any kind of therapy to help him deal with it. As a result—and because he came from a generation whose members simply Didn’t Talk About Such Things—he suffered from nightmares about the incident. He had a tremendous amount of trouble sleeping, and so took to having a few beers before bedtime to make him sleepy. As the years went on and the sleeplessness persisted, those few beers became a few more beers, then a few more beers with a couple of belts of whiskey, and he slipped quietly in full-blown alcoholism.

The term “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” didn’t exist yet; in post-WW2 America, the term that was used was “shell-shock,” and the popular treatment was a prescription for sleeping pills and a firm, “Suck it up, buddy.”

We now jump ahead to the summer of 1977. This summer was, to put it mildly, not pleasant. Dad’s alcoholism was at its violent peak, his self-respect was non-existent, and he saw no point to his life. He had worked for the Roper corporation for nearly twenty-three years when they decided to close down their Newark plant after the fifth labor strike. What my father received as a severance package was $125.00 for every year of employment. Dirt money. Chump change. Money gone before it was got. And, oh, yeah: Kiss retirement before sixty good-bye, pal.

In the summer of 1977 my father had been at his new job at Larson’s Manufacturing for a little over five years. He operated a sheet metal press, with lathe work on the side. His body was already showing the wear of a life that had been one struggle after another. He still couldn’t sleep for more than 2 or 3 hours at a time. He couldn’t concentrate. The mortgage—which should have been paid off with some of his pension money—was still looming over his head, and there was talk of layoffs.

His drinking that summer was the worst it had ever been. The nightmares were incessant. The pain in his body—from both his war injuries and those sustained from working the factory line for thirty years—was nearly unbearable, and the painkillers prescribed by his doctor barely helped. Add to this his heart and blood-pressure medication—plus a recent diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes—and the man never had a waking moment where he wasn’t worried to death about something.

So he drank. A lot. He flew into violent rages that usually left my mother bleeding and me having to take her to the emergency room and lie to the attending physicians about how she came to be in such a state. Throughout the first 18 years of my life I intervened as often as I could when Dad went into these rages. I’ve got some impressive scars to prove it.

(to be continued ...)


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Mo*Con II Recap I: First Impressions

Dear Jesus,

The idea of Mo*Con always seems like such a good idea on paper. You know, being missional, continuing conversations with people, serving others. But you know these things can go terribly, terribly wrong without any notice, especially when you have Brian Keene and Wrath James White involved. Please remember, I’m just trying to do my best.

Love always, your working-on-being-humble servant,

Maurice

Mo*Con II actually started Friday night with my reception dinner for my guests of honor, one of whom was late (because 2007 is the year of planes vs. Wrath James White. So far, Planes 2/Wrath 0). It was my way of saying “thank you” for all of my friends who made the trek in from all over the country. With Wrath MIA, it gave Brian Keene and I the perfect opportunity to have our Magic: the Gathering tournament in peace, re-matching our on-going battle. I don’t care what you read elsewhere on the InterWebs, goodness triumphed over trash-talking evil.

There’s no way I can cover everything that went on at the convention. We opened with a panel on spirituality and horror featuring myself, Wrath, Gary Braunbeck, and Lucy Snyder and moderated by Keene. My first inkling that things were going well (besides the church being packed) was when the early criticisms running along the lines of “why’d you have to end the spiritual panel so early?” and by early, they meant after only two hours. Next came lunch and apparently Bob Freeman won the chili cookoff.

The readings were great. Keene read “Burying Betsy” due to appear in the next issue of Cemetery Dance. Gary B. read Rami Temporalis and then screened the short film based on the story. After that came a panel on Race and horror, featuring myself, Wrath, and Chesya Burke. In short, the discussions were fabulous. A whole day of engaging dialogue with bright people talking about big ideas – exactly what we were aiming for.

Um, Saturday night. We had an after party at my house. Alethea Kontis sums it up on her blog this way:

The ambulance just left.

Again.

I have GOT to get some sleep.

It's probably a really good thing we're all going to church in the morning.

The evening started simply enough with another re-match of Magic, with Keene setting the rules (“I can’t believe I just spend $130 on a game of Magic”). I am positive that I neither did or said anything that would lead to this picture:

As for the ambulance incident, I’ll leave the details for my wife to blog. Suffice it to say that in the Necon tradition, someone (a fan of Keene’s) ended up needing to be rushed to a hospital. I won’t tell you how ghetto we got, posing with the ambulance or stretcher while the EMTs were working. Nor will I mention the EMTs, upon realizing that they were at a gathering of writers, stopped to network. In fact, they came back after dropping off our injured party … to pitch their “Forest Gump in space” science fiction novel. I’m not kidding.

Sunday morning, The Dwelling Place gathering welcomed the convention attenders in ways that surprised even me. There’s nothing like having the cover to Dead Sea projected on the big screen to greet a congregation. The only difference from our usual gathering was that Gary Braunbeck spoke instead of our pastor. (Keene spoke also, but 1) it was a rough Saturday night for us and 2) NO ONE wanted to follow Gary. I am posting his comments in the next two blogs and you’ll see why. I don’t think I can use the word “tremendous” often enough).

After the official end of Mo*Con II, we hosted an informal hang out time so that we could say our good-byes. My cooking schedule was insane. Friday night, chicken marsala and fettucine alfredo. Saturday, my “skyline” chili and white chicken chili. Sunday, my pan seared pork chops with mandarin oranges. And because Chesya was hungry, and I was showing off, Sunday evening I grilled steaks (with my home made Jack Daniel’s sauce) and burgers.

At which point, I set the grill on fire. Literally.


Capping off a perfectly splendid weekend. I'll hopefully have a full gallery of pictures up on my website before too long.

(Things Overheard at Mo*Con II)


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Friday Night Date Place - Getting Serious

In dating there are several milestones in the course of the relationship getting more serious: the first date, first time you hold their hand, the first kiss, meeting the parents, and, in Broaddus relationships, the first break up. The question becomes how do we progress from the first date to the first break up (or whatever it is normal couples do)? Or more on point, what are some things you ought to be examining as the relationship deepens?

-Trust. Do they keep their promises because the simple math is that a promise breaker = heart breaker. Are each of you people of integrity and honesty?

-Friendship. How good of friends are you? You have other friends and can judge those relationships. How does this one stack up to those?

-Conversation. Can you be open and share with one another? Communication is key and, counterintuitive as it may seem, so is learning to fight. When I hear "we're perfect, we never fight" then I’m pretty sure the relationship isn't serious. Disagreeing is fine, you have to learn how to resolve disagreements.

-Be yourself. Do they let you be yourself and love you for it? If you can't relax, you can't breathe. On the flip side, they're not getting to know you, but some version of you that (apparently) doesn’t want to risk rocking the relationship boat.

-What do your friends and family think? This is a quick spot check of your relationship. Do you include your friends and family (and kids, if applicable) or have you cut them off? Can you maintain friendships apart from each other?

-Possessive. Do you feel smothered, bothered by their jealousy? This is a potential red flag for future abuse. Just something to keep an eye out for.

Obviously this list isn’t exhaustive, but a few things to examine in the course of the relationship. I find it curious that I didn’t have anything to say about your feelings.


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Throwing A Convention

(aka “Mo*Con II: what the hell was I thinking?”)

My thinking behind the decision to have a writer’s convention of my own was something along the lines of “if the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain.” Which would make more sense if I didn’t go to more conventions this year than last. Last year, I invited a friend of mine, horror writer Brian Keene, to come to my church and speak on the topic of how his faith (or lack thereof) has impacted his writing. It was one of those ideas which looked good on paper: have a friend who struggles with his spirituality come and speak on the topic of his struggles because it’s something everyone can relate to (of course, there’s the whole horror writers in church thing, which was its own dilemma). However, it was a success and I was asked to do it again this year, only bigger. Officially it’s called “Continuing Conversations” (it gained the sobriquet Mo*Con because one Chesya Burke kept calling it that and the name stuck).

Now that you’re caught up, I thought I’d look at why go to a convention and more importantly, how to pull one off (though, considering that mine starts tomorrow, it may be premature to write about pulling one off).

Continued on Blogging in Black.

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - A Review

“Emerging Potter”

With Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the students of Hogwarts have officially left childhood behind and enter into their angst-ridden teen years. Ironic, since the cast of the Harry Potter franchise are beginning to remind me of the latter years of the Beverly Hills 90210 cast playing teens. How old is Daniel Radcliffe (portrayer of Harry Potter) now? 27? Does he have grandkids yet?

Perhaps it is familiarity breeding a loss of the sense of wonder that fueled the earlier films; perhaps it is the fact that the darkest and longest book in the series is now being translated into the darkest and shortest movie. I expected something more stylized from new-to-the-franchise director, David Yates, however there is no real feel, nothing especially visually distinctive about the direction of the movie besides how blue, gray, and bleak to make it. I mean, we get it, Harry will inevitably have a showdown with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) - we don’t need to be beat over the head with the fact.

The script by screenwriter Michael Goldenberg jumps around quite a bit, especially at the beginning, as it got its story-telling footing. The steady sense of menace creates a curious tension not as acutely felt in the earlier entries in the franchise. However, even having not read the book, you could actually feel back-story being dropped out, interplay between Ron, Harry, and Hermione lost, truncated screen time for newcomer Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch), and loose ends left dangling (such as the underdeveloped relationship with Cho Chang (Katie Leung )).

Harry: You don’t understand.
Hermione: Then help us to.

This go around, Harry’s a bit on edge and feels “so angry all the time.” Life tests his innocent faith, from being scorned by those around him for him clinging to what he knows to be true (Lord Voldemort’s return) to the fraying relationships of those closest to him. Even his mentor, Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), seems cold and distant. He has reached a dark place where friends, family, and his spiritual life feel distant. The familiar spiritual practices he had come to depend on, that usually comforted him, instead seem hollow and ineffective. “Facing this stuff in real life is not like school.” Harry says, feeling alone, at the end of his ability to be in control.

“He isn’t in his right mind. It’s been twisted by fear.” – Sirius Black (Gary Oldman)

Different people react differently during times of such spiritual fear. Professor Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) clings to old doctrines aimed at preserving her brand of truth using methods that no longer work. Her medieval method—a kind of spiritual inquisition—reduces magic to systematic theories and blocks the truth at every turn – demanding no need to think or question from the followers. With her rigid retreat to rules, she basically becomes a magic fundamentalist and “You know who” reduced to a creature of fable or scary bed time story. [Though this image makes the shattering of the prophecy spheres during the climactic battle all the more a dramatic metaphor]

“We need a proper teacher.” –Hermione

Every great wizard starts off as a student. Sometimes you have to give people room to experiment, explore, even fail as their magical journey takes them where it needs to take them. As Luna says “the things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end. Even if not in the way we expect.”

“Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” –I Timothy 4:12

We are in the throes of Pottermania, with the new movie arriving during the same month as the last book in the series. At this point in the story, we experience the inherent dangers and unpleasant realities that accompany growing up. There is so much going on in this movie, so much plot and intrigue, that it comes at the expense of the magic of the series. Or, more precisely, the joy of magic. However, not all times on a journey can be joyous and one can only hope that subsequent installments will remember what it means to be people of magic and wonder. Though the story may stumble a bit, the series itself can survive a weaker entry. Luckily, the humor and action temper what could have been an utterly bleak experience. Here’s to hoping that we’ve seen the bleakest before the dawn.


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Hierarchy of Nerds

Fans scare me. Luckily, it’s a good kind of fear. Most of the time. I can make these jokes because I’m one of you. Except cooler. Sorta. It had been a while since my last InConJunction. I was there when they still had to print the infamous “Rule #6” in the program book (“Please bathe.”)

Of course there’s a hierarchy of nerds.

Continued on Intake "Nerds Love Company".

The ironic thing? I write about race, religion, and politics fairly regularly, but it’s going to be this that I’m going to get e-mails about. I should know better than to tease my nerd brethren: they don’t know how to back away from the keyboard.


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Midwest Emergent Conference 2007: Emerging Highlights Part II

While I started out expression my concerns about the emerging church movement as I prepared to attend the Midwest Emergent Conference, I realized that I probably ought to back and and describe what the emergent church is (rather than “is not”). Scot McKnight gives a more cogent analysis of the Emergent Church movement in The Covenant Companion called “The Future or Fad: A Look at the Emerging Church Movement”. For those that have no idea what I am talking about when I refer to the “emerging church”, McKnight defines it this way:

So what exactly is the emerging movement—or the emerging church as it sometimes known—all about? It is a conversation about the future direction of the evangelical church in a postmodern world; it’s a reaction and a protest against traditional evangelical churches; and it’s a conversation focused less on theological niceties and more on “performing” the gospel in a local setting.

“Emerging movement” is an umbrella term that refers to a group of churches, pastors, writers, and bloggers who are exploring the missional significance of culture, philosophy, and theology in a postmodern context. Within the EM is the Emergent Village organization, largely an American group identified with Brian McLaren, Ivy Beckwith, Tim Keel, Chris Seay, Doug Pagitt, Dan Kimball, and Karen Ward, along with Andrew Jones (a.k.a., the “Tall Skinny Kiwi”) who lives in the United Kingdom. Other emerging voices of sorts would be Rob Bell, author of Velvet Elvis, and John Burke, author of No Perfect People Allowed.

The emerging church is a threat to some folks. We have seen the accumulated of property, money, endowments, institutions, and entrepreneurs (cults of personality) as a part of church institutional growth and empire building. For the power and influence to continue, there is the need to self-perpetuate, including the need to build more seminaries and ministries. Sadly, some groups are organized in such a way as to target an enemy because they need an enemy/controversy to justify their existence. They need to flex to demonstrate their relevance. And rally the troops.

As long as bills are being paid and numbers remain up, the church won’t ask missional questions, like “how can we live out being a blessing to the world?” However, in some circles, the numbers have already started to dip and we’ve already lost a generation of folks. Facing a loss of empire, some of us have gripped harder in our efforts to maintain control. Those who can speak to that generation scares us (especially if we aren’t doing it the way we are used to). We need to be challenged but we don’t always react well when those of us with “power” are questioned.

Sorry if my use of “we” for everyone confuses anyone. I am trying to use “we” because we, all of us, are still the church. Church is like family: you have folks you claim and folks you have to claim, but you’re all still family. You just try to make the best of it and be the best family you can (sometimes you have to get your people some help). That’s the thing that, as I hear things, I don’t hear enough of: I hear plenty of the “we hate church/what the church has become” and not enough “we are the church”.

It’s easy to have criticisms in a vacuum, randomly raging to any who will listen; a lot more difficult (though more useful if you’re interested in genuine conversation) when you go to the folks you have issues with. Which brings me to the Midwest Emergent Conference (as usual, this is a long way to get to my point – Rich Vincent, my roommate for the conference, summarized things succinctly). My two major highlights centered around food:

1) Friday lunch with Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, Annie Gill-Bloyer, John Armstrong, me, and Rich.
2) Saturday lunch with Alise Barrymore and James King.

Sitting down with Tony Jones and getting to pick his brain really eased a lot of my concerns (though it’s always funny to watch the gap between what the “pioneers” of a movement think and how their teachings get acted out – wait, never mind, I think I just summed up all of church history) .

I had been frustrated by the emergent conversation in that I have seen a lot of talk, but not enough doing, especially in terms of racial inclusion. I get what Spencer Burke was saying when even asking the questions and having the conversation is important, but I was feeling Andre Daley when he was exclaiming why he was post-Emergent. So my second highlight/lunch came as an answer to prayer. Tony and I had a long conversation about black folks in the conversation and the next day I am introduced to Alise Barrymore and James King of The Emmaus Community. That conversation will be reverberating with me over the next few months as I continue to digest and learn from it.

Actually, that conversation pretty much sums up why I enjoyed this conference so much. It really was a chance to learn as well as have good conversations. I tend to judge conventions based on the contacts I made, and let me say that there will be a lot of work for me to do spring-boarding from this conference.

I’m still questioning and searching. We are to be culturally aware, sensitive, contextualized. None of us invent the faith; we either assent to it or we pass on it. Church still has to be about teaching, about spiritual formation, about taking communion and manifesting the kingdom - when it isn’t, it (has) failed. Just like I know that my thoughts on God aren’t absolute, but there are absolutes. We can’t know comprehensively, but we can know truly. We need to get comfortable with the idea that we’re only going to get glimpses of how things are supposed to be. And we need to keep working toward what we know we’re supposed to be.


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Midwest Emergent Conference 2007: Emerging Criticisms Part I

A friend of mine once said that “I don’t know why Emergents just don’t call themselves American Orthodox and be done with it.” I guess one reason is that such a naming would reduce them to yet another “brand name”/denomination rather than being provocateurs of conversation. I tend to go into situations with a bit of a chip on my shoulder. It’s how I roll. The Midwest Emergent Conference was no different: I had some questions, some criticisms, and some conversations needing to be had all rolling around in my head ever since the last emergent convention I attended. Not the least of which was the topic of black folks in the conversation.

I’ve had some concerns about the emergent movement and you can probably pick up the tenor of my own prejudices (tinged with cynicism) in how I ask the questions. Too often I encounter an attitude of pride of acting like we’ve discovered something new and cool, like we’re the ones who have gotten things right (an attitude I know that I have been perfectly guilty of and thus my frequent prayer). As John Armstrong says, “no, we’re simply ahistorical”. We forget that the church has been around for a couple thousand years and a lot of the questions we’re asking now have been asked from the beginning. It’s not the asking of the questions that is bad, it’s the attitude of having (KNOWING) the answers that concerns me.

The Emergent discussion continues the same Protestant trajectory of “the church is screwed up and/or heading in the wrong direction” which seems to only promulgates the sectarianism that already runs so rampant among us. That “we’re better than you” that mentality of if you don’t agree with me, I can’t walk with you” attitude that usually leads to more division.

I don’t want to get caught up in faddism or of being “cool” (whatever that means when it comes to religion, church, and God). I saw that as ridiculous in high school and I don’t want to start buying into it now.

I hear promises to re-imagine church which sounds more like recontextualizing the church/Gospel in a postmodern paradigm. Yet while we have no problem criticizing the modern paradigm it seems like there is a near wholesale acceptance of the postmodern one (postmodernism may only be the tail end of modernity, the problem of naming our epochs while still entering them). Which would mean that we’re still culturally captive.

I sometimes wonder about how we approach issues of social justice. I’m pro-social justice issues, but leery of jumping into bed with politics. I’d hate to see the church reduced to being the chaplain for liberals (learning nothing from too many of us positioning the church as the chaplain for conservatives).

I wonder when the gender inclusivity of language issues will pop up in earnest. What will it do to the Father/Son language?

With our reaction to church as we’ve experienced it, from fundamentalism to the business model, we know that control and efficiency is not a model for family nor how to do church. However, we can’t just have picnics with strangers and call it church.


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Spooning with Rich

Rich Vincent has been one of my spiritual mentors for as long as I’ve known him and he’s now the Senior Pastor of Immanuel Church in West Bend, Wisconsin. As it was halfway between each of us, we decided to go to the Midwest Emergent Conference partly as an excuse to hang out with each other. Now, I’ve known the man for 11 plus years now, so I don’t know why I act surprised every time I hang out with him. A summary of my time with Rich:

Two weeks ago:
M: Hey Rich, since the conference starts so early on Friday, why don’t we go ahead and get the hotel room for Thursday night also? That way we don’t have to deal with Chicago rush hour traffic.
R: Nah, we’ll just leave early on Friday. It’s all good.

Thursday night. 10:00 pm
R: Dude, I’m getting a room so that we don’t have to deal with Chicago traffic. Why don’t you come up early?

Friday morning. 2:30 am
M: I thought we had double beds?
R: Had to trade it for a single king. We can smoke cigars in here.
M: We?
R: You get second hand enjoyment.

M: Dude!
R: Sorry about that. I had chili cheese fries for lunch.

Friday Morning. 7:15 am
M: Dude!
R: It’s a gift.

R: 7:30 had bowel movement.
M: What are you doing?
R: It’s important to keep detailed notes of your life.

At the Conference.
R: Let’s pretend we’re homosexual lovers and see just how open this group is.
M: Get your arm from around me. You so wouldn’t be my type.

Saturday Morning. 8:00 am
R: Dude!
M: Brothas for Dutch Ovens, baby!

At the Conference
R: I’m down, homie.
M: What have I told you about doing that in public?

In other words, it was another successful hang out time with Rich. Oddly enough, he recalls this past weekend slightly differently than I do.


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The Cosmos is Our Daily Office

At the Dwelling Place, George Bebawi shared a prayer written by his mentor Philemon, a hermit monk. It's something everyone ought to consider putting into practice:

When it is hot pray for the fire of the Holy Spirit and let this outside heat be your constant reminder.

When it is cold pray for more unity with the Lord and let the cold remind you of how sin can bring the coldness of heart and put out the fire of love.

When it rains, pray for the free grace which is given to all of us and pray for those who have not the grace of God in their life.

At midday our Lord was crucified do not let go of this moment in which we were reconciled to God. It is time to forgive all sins and injuries that we have sustained.

When you see the clouds pray for the Shekinah of God to protect you from evil. Pray also that this Shekinah overshadow the church.

At evening, it is time to remember our own death and give an account of what has happened during the day. Let us give thanks for what we have done and pray for the people whom we have seen and pray for a peaceful time for our sleep.

May the trees remind you of our growth Ps 1:3 and the roads of Jesus who is our Way, the building of our eternal dwelling with the Holy Trinity where we will not dwell in what is made by hands.

When we enter our dwellings let us remember our eternal dwelling in God and pray to be secured by God’s justifying grace which cannot be compared with our doors and walls.

If you have your hope in the life to come and in the resurrection and the eternal life pray that your bed be your grave and your covers be your shrouds. Say with the Lord, ‘Father into your hands I commit my spirit and sleep.

Do not let this become the chains of servitude.


As for the movements of our body:

When you sit to pray, you are sitting at the Right-hand of God the Father in Jesus Christ.

When you stand to pray, you are in the position of the resurrection with Christ our Lord.

When you kneel to pray, say the same words of our Lord in the garden and surrender daily to regain your peace the gift of God to us.

Enjoy sleeping as someone who is waiting to be raised by the Lord.

When getting dressed, pray that the Lord may take away the old life and give you the new one.

Give thanks for everything you eat and drink, for this is not in essence separated form the Holy Eucharist. If Christ is the food and the nourishment of your life then every meal will become a chance to pray to receive Him and to be nourished by Him waiting for the Meal that gave new meaning for every meal.

May your walking be always a renewal to commit your life to the Way of the One who is our only Mediator.

This does not mean, however, that each of the above should be performed with particular words or fixed manners; nor does one fix a particular way of behavior, because the sense of the presence of the Lord is the goal of prayer.

Our prayers and our behavior are unified to adjust our life to our fellowship with the Lord.


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Friday Night Date Place - Check Your Man

LANSING, Mich. — A state forensics scientist who said she tested DNA in her husband's underwear to find out whether he was cheating could be disciplined if investigators determine she violated the use of state equipment.

Things shouldn’t have to get to this point. I mean, seriously, if the day you find yourself rifling through your man’s dirty drawers to find out where he’s been and who he’s been doing it with, you may have to ask yourself “how did I get here?” Maybe you should start asking yourself a few questions while dating:

Are you living in your mother’s basement or otherwise sponging off folks to make your way through life?
-He ain’t supporting you or a family any time soon. I don’t care what he says. At best, wait til he decides to grow up.

Is he is cutting you off or alienating you from your friends?
-Listen to your friends. You don’t have time to this much controlling behavior, especially this early on.

If he refuses to treat you in a way you deserve to be treated?
-You don't need him. Seriously, you are better off on your own. You are to be appreciated not abused.

Does he have issues telling the truth or making promises he can’t keep?
-Quit asking him. One of you needs to find the door.

If he tells you he’s just not that into you?
-Believe him. That might qualify as a deal breaker.

If you find out he has yet another chick on the side?
-Yet another? You know what, we haven’t had the infidelity talk yet. I’m going to have to think through this one (and, uh, find away to not come off as a screaming hypocrite, mind you)

By the way, if during the course of the break up, you feel the overwhelming need to humiliate him on MySpace (I keep getting all these friend requests from women who want to get even with their boyfriends by posting naked pictures of themselves) or something …

… change your password. Your e-mail password too. They have those “mark as unread” buttons for a reason. I’m just saying. Don’t let it get to the "rummaging through piles of his soiled undies" stage of things. That’s no place to be.


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Horror Convention in Church?

I dream of being picketed.

Sometimes I think we confuse church with a building. The church I attend, The Dwelling Place, is hosting a gathering called “Continuing Conversations” (aka, Mo*Con II) on July 28-29th. It’s a daylong event where I have invited some horror writing friends of mine (Gary Braunbeck, Lucy Snyder, Brian Keene, Wrath James White) to come and speak. We’re going to talk about how our respective faiths impact our writing, the pursuit of being better writers, and even the impact of race when it comes to writing. Religion, art, and race - nothing too controversial.

Yes, it is a “convention” of horror writers. No, not all of us are Christian or even believe in God. That’s the point – all are welcome. So I thought I’d clarify a few points.

The chief complaint is “you can’t do that in a church.” Really? As a friend of mine said, “you may want to consider taking the toilets out cause that means folks are crapping in church, too.” What is church? The building we meet in is the old Marion County Health Department building. It is a building. There is nothing “sacred” about it until a sacred space is carved out … by the people. The church is people, not a building.

Church is a communal expression of faith, to pursue spiritual formation to be the kind of people God wants us to be. To be a safe place to ask and wrestle with spiritual questions. Whose mandate should include building a sense of community, loving each other, and serving the world, all in the name of Christ. Why can’t we carve out a sacred space with horror writers? If Sunday morning we talk about doubting God and discuss that reality, is the church not the best place to do it?

This is how we are working out being a missional community: us inviting people in and those people actually coming (and made to feel welcome). We get to see “their” world and they get to see “ours”. So feel free to protest.


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Judicial Reversals

When my wife and I, an interracial couple, decided to have children, there were a few decisions we had to make. We had a vision for the type of people we want to be and the kinds of children we wanted to raise. As a family with biracial kids, we chose to attend a multi-racial church and we wanted a multi-racial school. The way we looked at it, sometimes the multi-cultural aspect IS part of the schooling (thus one of my beefs with home-schooling).

Then, as the Indianapolis Star reported on June 29th, “The Supreme Court on Thursday declared unconstitutional the use of racial guidelines to integrate public schools, saying white or black children should not be turned away from a school seeking a "desired racial balance."”


Continued in Intake.


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Raising Shadow People

It may have been Vin Diesel who coined the phrase “shadow people” to describe what it means to be part of two different racial groups: how they might look like one race or another, but would feel the pull of each world, not being able to properly identify with either. Derek Jeter, Mariah Carey, Tiger Woods, The Rock, Lynda Carter, Halle Berry, Jessica Alba. You get the idea, all shadow people to one degree or another.

I suppose the dilemma facing the parents of potential “shadow people” is similar to what folks go through when adopting/raising trans-racially; thus, the sleepless nights as we, as parents, try to think ways to ensure that our children find a place of wholeness for themselves. Like any good parent, we want to spare our kids from having to go through unnecessary pain. We don’t want them to have to experience the cultural disenfranchisement, that sense that they have no place. That they don’t belong to either group or aren’t accepted by either group. Too black for some, not black enough for others. While we may aim for them to experience the best of both worlds, life has taught us to prepare for the opposite.

One racial equivalent of the dark night of the soul would be the journey of nigrescence (part of me wrestling with the idea of ontological blackness). I believe it’s important for my children to know both sides of their cultural heritage and be proud of both sides of them while leaving room to explore each. We intentionally keep them in multi-cultural environments, from school to our circle of friends/family to the church we chose to attend.

Our goal is to guide them in their search for “ontological themness” – defining themselves, for themselves, as themselves (as eikons of God) - not hindered by people’s expectations and definitions. Sometimes race can be a journey of its own, a bumpy road laden with historical baggage and the often overwhelming sense of community responsibilities. It’s easy to retreat to what’s comfortable … for the parent. At the very least, I’m there and have been through a version of this. And I want a world of substance for my children, not shadow.


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Boy Band Blues

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A federal judge has ordered the creator of the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync to stay behind bars while attorneys prepare his case. Lou Pearlman, who faces charges of defrauding an Indiana-based bank out of $20 million, will be represented by the federal public defender's office.

Do you remember Maurice Starr? Yeah, you may not, but he was the mastermind behind a group called New Edition (which would one day lead to giving us Being Bobby Brown). He decided that he could make more money creating the same sort of group with young white guys and pretty soon the world would have New Kids on the Block.

I’ve never forgiven him for that.

Along come Lou Pearlman, who couldn’t just be satisfied that Art Garfunkel was his cousin. No, he had to go out and follow in Maurice Starr’s footsteps and history comes full circle again as the musical world has to suffer through another few years of bubble gum boy pop. They weren’t the first boy band and they certainly weren’t the last, but I count myself fortunate that, for the most part, I quit listening to pop music before the Backstreet Boys/’N Sync era.

Of all the things to go on trial for, of course it boils down to money. Pearlman couldn’t go on trial for crimes against humanity, well, against musical taste. But before I get too comfortable in my musical judgment seat, let’s have a moment of silence as we ponder the musical legacy left in his wake, because by my calculations, we’re only a few years from another boy band explosion. Or worse, the return of the Spice Girls.

Ain't no lie ... bye, bye, bye.


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Yes, My Message Board IS Scary

Yes, it’s another Pink Night of the Soul. My sister (who sends her thanks for everyone’s prayers) is back as a MOD on my board and felt like declaring her presence.

*sigh*

I’d like to once again apologize. Consider it technical difficulties that are taking longer than expected to fix. Remember, two things: one, it is part a horror message board, so of course we expects sights that might send a person away screaming; and two, you can always go back in time and look at your favorite board(s) and “remember when …” Since I’m preparing to go out of town to a convention while planning my own, for now, a meme:

How Much is Your Life Worth?

Your Life Is Worth...

$596,500

How Much Is Your Life Worth?

Apparently I also need to increase my insurance.


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Saving Grace – A Review

“Searching for Salvation”

A few years ago we had a spate of shows that featured young women interacting with God/the Universe is special and personal ways. However, both Joan of Arcadia and Wonderfalls, though good, proved fairly short-lived. Now along comes the new show by TNT, Saving Grace. The opening scene alone will let you know that you aren’t exactly watching Highway to Heaven.

“Dear God, please help me.” –Grace

Set in Oklahoma City, Holly Hunter (The Piano) plays Grace Hanadarko, a wild-driving, chain smoking, hard drinking, promiscuous cop who flits from “relationship” to “relationship” using people while, at the same time, hating to be alone. As her life continues to spiral out of control, she has a life-changing moment she wishes she could have back and encounters her last chance, tobacco chewing angel no one else can see, Earl (Leon Tippy, Deadwood).

Eddie: “Do you believe in God?” Grace: “Yeah, I guess.” Eddie: “You’re an idiot.”

Dark and flawed, full of personal demons, Grace’s life is one of (earned) cynicism and abandonment of faith. While we may “know” we enjoy the comfort of ministering spirits, though we don’t get to see them. Grace’s relationship with Earl, on the other hand, is one of the highlights of the show. Watching her challenge him, annoy him, and test him at every turn, much like Jacob who wrestled with an angel, Grace fights Earl at every stop of the way. She remains unconvinced there’s a God who cares even about who she sleeps with, though Earl’s presence alone signals she doesn’t disbelieve as much as she claims.

“Do you want God’s help or not? … Are you ready to turn your life over to God?” –Earl

The show asks the questions that many of us wrestle with. Why not save Grace from some of the previous horrific experiences or the missing girl of the case she’s working on? Why let something like the Oklahoma City bombing happen? Why me? or in Grace’s parlance “Why should my ass be the only one saved?” The answer to many of her questions is “I don’t know.” Life doesn’t work that way: if you have the answers, there’s no room for faith; or, in Earl speak “You’re not ever going to understand all of this, Grace. It ain’t like God’s some sort of crime you can solve.”

“I’m smart enough to know that I can’t figure out God. But I see him working in you.” Rhetta Rodriguez (Laura San Giacomo, Just Shoot Me)

As a cop, Grace gets to see firsthand what people are capable of doing to each other, however,
Saving Grace is a cop show secondarily. Instead it is the internal journey of an interesting and desperately engaging character facing the darkness and detritus of her life. Her complicated relationships. Her need for redemption. Her choice.

She first has to define where she is in her life, examine how she’s living, and the pain that she continues to carry around. It’s all about getting on the right path with Earl walking alongside her in her journey.

“You’ve entered into the divine, Grace. Into a celestial experience that is scientifically unexplainable. You’ve gotta use spiritual language to even begin a dialogue on this.” –Rhetta

Everywhere around us, our culture keeps asking certain questions of faith. We wrestle with ideas and doubts as we go through the messy journey of our lives and this show meets us where we are. Imagine Touched by an Angel as if done by the creators of The Shield and you have an idea of what this show is like. Saving Grace explores God, faith, and sin in very real, very human ways and is exactly the kind of show we need more of.


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Friday Night Date Place – The Discontent Dance

Here’s the thing: you hit that magical milestone we call 30 or you feel the ticking of a certain biological imperative or you otherwise find yourself “alone” when all of your friends are married and you may start to ask yourself a few questions.

Is there something wrong with me?
Who cares? There's something wrong with everyone. Don't get me wrong, self-examination is important. If you keep making poor decisions in choosing dating partners, you need to figure out why.

Am I not married because of past mistakes?
Again this points to a “God hiding in the bushes waiting to smite us when we screw up” mentality that we have of God or, just as bad, marriage as some kind of reward. Look, -if marriage is a reward for the life someone has lived, my wife should repent.

This is part of the tension of being patient vs. acting in faith … and learning to be content where you are. God is all I need (um, okay, if that works for you. He can only metaphorically embrace you). Don't let people counsel you into "Jesus only". One of my favorite book titles I’ve seen goes something like “If Jesus is my Husband, Why Does My Bed Feel Empty?” We have relational needs (Genesis 2:18 and Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 are but two examples that point to our need for companionship).

It’s important to be content in your circumstances (Philippians 4:11), but some people define content as relinquished desire to marry (read: given up). It’s not an either/or: you can both be content with your singleness and desire marriage. It’s alright to keep looking. Having eyes and seeking opportunity is not being discontent; unless you are doing so as your sole mission in life. Instead, be preparing yourself for marriage by becoming ever more Christ-like. Do the things He's called you to do and be.

The danger of discontent is that frustration and impatience can lead to forcing things and settling. And “’til death do us part” is a long time with someone you’ve only settled for.


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Stephen King’s Dark Tower - A Review

Written by: Peter David
Art by: Jae Lee
Published by: Marvel Comics

I am a newcomer to the world of Stephen King’s Dark Tower, his dark fantasy opus. He has said that this is one of his most personal works, so it’s understandable he is much more hands on than he has been with some of the movie translations of his work. His partners at Marvel have spared no expense in translating this story to the comic book medium. While Stephen King oversees the production (and there is plenty of supplemental material featuring him), New York Times Best Selling Author Peter David (X-Factor, Fallen Angel, Incredible Hulk) writes the actual script. For those more familiar with the complex mythology get the appendix story written by Dark Tower mythos expert, Robin Furth. And rather than this being a case of too many chefs spoiling the soup, what we get is maximum story for our comic book dollar.

Jae Lee’s art has never done much for me in the past. I don’t know if it is Richard Isanove evocative painting over his work or what, but there is a depth to the work that I hadn’t noticed before. Clearly the assembled artistic team realizes the importance of this project and have stepped up their game in light of this. They have opted to tell the story of Roland the Gunslinger in chronological order, thus we get to experience the entire arc of the hero’s journey.

“You have forgotten the face of your father.”

Joseph Campbell, in his landmark work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, outlined the prototypical path of the hero's mythological adventure. Campbell defines the journey this way:"A hero ventures forth from the world into a region of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

Just like the tale of Roland Deschain, the essential story, the monomyth, echoes the story of Christ. We see this pattern--separation (the reluctant hero taken from the world that he knows), initiation (the hero tested), and return (the hero returns as conqueror) in many of our great heroic epics. For the hero's task to be worthy, he must overcome various trials and temptations.

“Ka-tet means ‘one from many,’ but more than that … It’s a group of people bound by fate—by ka—heading toward the same goal and, like as not, the same end.” –Narrator

In this first story arc, we follow the journey of Roland’s discipleship into the way of the gunslinger. The path of true discipleship would involve a change in three areas: belief (we turn to a new way of thinking), behavior (our lives become–slowly--transformed, centering our lives around living out the heroic mission), and belonging (we join a specific community).

Discipleship, simply defined, can be seen as a process of how we transform everything we do in order to “take on,” or becoming more like, a true hero. In a lot of ways, the hero seeking after their heroic “master” has to define what it means to be a disciple and what it means for them to live and work in light of that relationship. But I’m betting a thorough read of the Dark Tower stories would reveal an entire system of thought and theology wrestled out.

All of the creators come to the table ready to do justice to the epic mythology of the Dark Tower series. The mark of any great adaptation is its ability to spur interest in the original work, to spark interest in exploring the rich world of the Dark Tower. Me? I’m already hunting the original novels and, in the mean time, I’m settling in for the journey.


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Desolation Jones-A Review

Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: J.H. Williams III
Published by: Wildstorm/DC

I’m finding it hard to wrap my mind around the idea of Warren Ellis (newuniversal, Fell) writing an ill-adjusted misanthrope with the personality of a bastard. Yet here we have a new ongoing title from Warren Ellis and J.H. Williams III. Desolation Jones has a premise fairly similar to that of the USA show, Burn Notice: Michael Jones, a former MI-6 operative, bottoms out and ends up trapped in L.A., where the authorities keep ex-intelligence community. He works as a private investigator to make ends meet. Where it differs is that he was a part of a project called the Desolation Test. For a year, he had the life tortured out of him, to the point where he was incapable of feeling, of being concerned.

Ellis explores corrupt societies through his subversive stories, though they don’t seem nearly so subversive when he’s given free reign as opposed to playing in someone else’s sandbox (say, like with Thunderbolts). Though the book has its brutal edge—Jones’ case involves the search for stolen Hitler porn—Jones isn’t the typical Ellis badass. Sure, he’s still a smart, sarcastic tough guy, but he’s a scrawny, scarred, can’t handle direct sunlight. Like many of his protagonists, Ellis imbues his cold, cynical exterior with an idealistic core.

“You know what you learn from that? Death is easy. Death is ordinary. It is not special. Your life is not special.” –Michael Jones

Many of Ellis’ characters tend to embrace their anger and bitterness. Nurturing those qualities as fuel to get up in the morning, a state of living desperation, a man whose life is falling apart – they are flawed but intriguing characters that are also inescapably human. We derive our self-worth from what we do, we're of value because of how we behave or how much we have. Michael Jones seems to exist at the bottom of his life, with nothing left to lose. His is the ultimate end of self moment, the point of clarity that can often define us. We try to fix ourselves, essentially creating a self-salvation scheme as we try to re-create ourselves by trying to maintain control, to be the gods of our own lives, often neglecting the things that should truly be the most important things in our lives.

We should all have confessional moments, a moment of examination when we look inward and realize that we aren't where we were meant to be, not doing what we were meant to do, not living how we were meant to live. Brennan Manning says it this way: "Sanctity lies in discovering my true self, moving toward it, and living out of it... While the impostor draws his identity from past achievements, and the adulation of others, the true self claims its identity in its belovedness. We give glory to God simply by being ourselves."

Desolation Jones isn’t quite Ellis playing in the typical Ellis sandbox. We still get plenty of the over-the-top scenarios, the peek into the underground subculture. J.H. Williams III brings his Promethea palette to the book giving a richness to its aesthetic. The only weakness to the book is the familiarity of it: we get investigations into the weird by an intelligent protagonist and his sexy assistant; all against the back drop of philosophical discussions and tech intrigue. Thing is, it’s still Warren Ellis doing what Warren Ellis does best. The dialogue snaps, making his screwed up sensibilities go down that much easier. And though it seems familiar, it’s always fun to watch him explore these characters.


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Imaro - A Review

Written by: Charles R. Saunders
Published by: Night Shade Books

I wandered the halls of the World Fantasy Convention 2006, telling Jeremy Lassen of Night Shade Books of my latest collaboration project. It began after I told author Steven L. Shrewsbury about the sword and sorcery tales I had written featuring an African warrior. He immediately bought one of the stories for a project he was working on and asked if I’d be interested in collaborating on a novel with a similar premise. I went on to tell Jeremy about how I enjoyed barbarian/warrior tales, but never read any set in ancient Africa. Nothing I could relate to.

That was when Jeremy handed me Imaro by Charles R. Saunders.

Saunders, a contemporary of Karl Edward Wagner, Charles de Lint, L. Sprague de Camp, is undergoing a bit of a renaissance as new readers are discovering his signature creation. Imaro is divided into two parts, named after the communities he hopes to be a part of. The first is “The Illyassai” which details Imaro’s origins and being raised to adolescence. His mother is forced to abandon him, but not before he begins the mafundishu-ya-muran, the warrior training of the tribe. Imaro, unfortunately, was ever the outcast son of the Ilyassai people, suffering years of abuse at their hands. Never truly one of them, eventually has to go his own way, when, like his mother, he exposes Chitendu a sorcerer whose evil infects the tribe.

The second is “The Haramia” follows Imaro’s journey with a band of thieves called the Haramia. After being adopted into a new tribe, Imaro is kidnapped by and then becomes part of the Haramia. Under Imaro’s leadership, they become such a threat that two kingdoms, Azania and Zanj, unite to destroy them. This doesn’t include the supernatural threats encountered along the way.

“Imaro,” Msuli said softly, “No man should be alone.”

Imaro ultimately remains always the outsider in search of a people, a tribe, a community to call his own; especially ironic considering that he has always been abandoned by tribe and family. Imaro remains distrustful of community, but always seeking it. Unfortunately, Death seems to be the only companion willing to follow him around. The themes of the book struck close to home, as they are so common in my own writing. Imaro is a tale of the search for identity, acceptance, and making your own sense of family. It is also the tale of the seriousness of the steps of discipleship and what it'll cost.

Much like Imaro’s experience with the Haramia, discipleship is journey from slavery (from this world’s systems, notions of individualism, self-sufficiency, empire) to freedom (to be fully human, living as we were meant to live). The spiritual seeker who has made the decision to become free has to start a new life, a new journey - to find a new way to understand yourself, to treat others, and to see the world. It begins with what some call the rite of conversion, a public profession of faith, as they begin their arduous journey. The spiritual formation that molds us takes time.

Discipleship is about deepening your walk in spiritual maturity, best done as a part of the community as the journey to freedom is not one easily made alone. It helps to have a network of believers from mentors to more formal settings. At each leg of the journey, fugitives from slavery, literal and figurative, must decide whether or not to move on to the next stage.

In a lot of ways, Imaro’s tale reminded me of Michael Moorcock’s The Elric Saga. Saunders is pure griot, a storyteller, of the first order. In a genre where black people, with few exceptions, have been left out or depicted in racist or stereotypic ways in genre fiction, Saunders is a breath of fresh air: an African hero written by an African American. This is quite the legacy to try and follow and I can’t wait to read Imaro 2 : The Quest for Cush.


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1408 – A Review

The recent boom in horror movies may want to be careful: judging from the box office returns, people are tiring of the torture porn that passes for horror movies (such as the Saw and Hostel franchises) or the slasher flick model (such as the Friday the 13th and Final Destination franchises), as if that is all there is to horror movies. Like most horror booms, the audience gets burned out on the same premise played out over and over again to lessening effect even as the films up the ante with the gross factor. People love to visit haunted places. From Psycho to The Shining, haunted hotels are a staple of horror films because hotel rooms are a naturally creepy place, especially the long abandoned ones.

Stephen King has mined this territory before, with the aforementioned The Shining, and 1408, based on the eponymous novella, distills his haunted hotel idea down to a single haunted room. We have a claustrophobic, one room horror tale full of Lovecraftian menace and atmosphere. A tale where most of the horror happens in the main character’s (and reader’s) mind. Director Mikael Håfström makes use of a jarring soundtrack and clever effects to create a surreal nightmare.

“It’s the prospect of something after death.” –Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson)

The movie explores many of the ideas that resonate so well in the genre language of horror. Horror, as a genre, embraces the reality of the supernatural, acknowledging a spiritual dimension to life, and exploring how that transcendent reality often intrudes into our own. Even as we hunger for the transcendent realm and can’t help but grapple with the idea of its existence, nothing scares like the unknown, the mystery of the afterlife, the mystery of unseen forces. Mystery defies explanation and we’re uncomfortable with it despite our need for it.

1408 follows the familiar arc often experienced by a Stephen King character. After the death of his child, Mike Enslin (John Cusack) becomes obsessed with the afterlife. He becomes a writer of some reknown exploring haunted locations, a literary Mythbusters. Mike Enslin seeks answers to questions many of us have, approaching them from the perspective of critic, disparager, even debunker. A critic who complains a lot but offers no real solutions other than cynicism, despair, and abandonment - he “doesn’t believe in anything or anyone besides himself.” He is not only sure of himself, but knows everything/has an answer for everything. He has become cynical and world weary, living in a state of desperation because ghosties and beasties don’t exist, and even if they did “there’s no God to protect us from them, is there?”

Such is the power of his non-belief, or rather, his misplaced faith in himself, as he hides behinds the illusion of protection it provides. He maintains his sense of safety and sense of control until he is confronted with how little he knows about life, the universe, and reality as well as how little control he truly has.

“I hate this place. How did I get here?” –Mike’s Father (Len Cariou)

Mike Enslin is on an existential journey of belief, or re-discovering his belief. It started after his daughter. Katie (Jasmine Jessica Anthony) becomes terminal and Mike considers he and his wife, Lily (Mary McCormack), guilty of “filling her head with stories” about heaven:

Katie: “Is God there?”
Lily: “Yes.”
Katie: “Do you really believe that Daddy?”
Mike: “Yes.”

After looking for a miracle, an answer to prayer, an end to the pain and finding none, he watches her suffer and then senselessly die, Mike then descends into a morass of bitterness, denial, and cynicism. He asks the kind of questions we all end up asking in life: “what kind of God would do this to a little girl?” But those questions defying easy explanation and sometimes turning to the Bible can feel like opening a book only to find blank pages.

Still, Mike clings to his own brand of superstitions (“You can’t die in your dreams”) as he continued descending to ever deeper levels of personal hell. It’s a dark place where one can learn a lot about themselves. At one point he ends up doubting his own existence; his was the ultimate end of self moment: “I’ve lived the life of a selfish man, but I don’t have to die that way.”

“We’ve only just begun, to live …”

The 1408 experience is allegorical of the dark night of the soul many people experience.
Seeking to be released from being trapped in the Kafkaesque nightmare rooms of our lives
Seeking healing and dealing with our pain, the pain of our lives One that can leave a person rattled, shaken to the core, but if they come out the other side, they can also be renewed. Such that when Mike asks “are you really here with me right now?” in the silence he might feel God presence, grieving alongside him even as He restores him.

“Sometimes you can’t get rid of bad memories. You just have to live with them.” –Mike

Psychological horror, my favorite kind of horror, creates its scares within the viewer’s/reader’s mind. In 1408, we get a tight production filled with disturbing imagery and the movie playing with our senses and even our memories to disorient and to disquiet (it even uses The Carpenters to horrific effect). It’s an intense little thrill ride.


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Captain America: Dead?

“Death of the Dream”

“The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.” --Benjamin Franklin

The events in Captain America have paralleled real world tensions from the beginning of Ed Brubaker’s run on the title. Groups such as HYDRA and AIM, with their splinter groups and cells, have the immediacy of terroristic threat. The events of late had been wearing on him, from the cosmic cube messing with his mind and history to his long time thought dead partner, Bucky’s, resurrection and ordeal as the Winter Soldier to him being forced to witness terrorism on his own soil.

Culminating the events of Civil War, Captain America #25 continues the theme of trading freedom for security. He’s tired (the man never seems to sleep) and angry and more than a little on edge causing him to be a bit more reckless. One almost gets the feeling that the Captain America we knew and loved could not exist in this climate. Once before he had abandoned the mantle of Captain America when he believed the country no longer lived up to its ideals and became Nomad, man without a country.

Captain America should be more of a lightning rod character than he is. The symbol of the United States, he should be as much the living embodiment of who we are as a country as Superman so often comes off as being. His death gives us the opportunity to re-evaluate what the American ideals are and whether or not we as a people or government are living up to them.

The hypocritical conceit of the United States was that while our founding fathers held that all men were created equal, they also held slaves. That central kind of hypocrisy affects the character of a nation; finds its way into the system of the society; finds its way into the hearts and minds of the individuals that make up the system. Becomes ingrained and systematized. Besides that, people, in the name of feeling safe, slowly see their own American Dream die. Our values slowly choke the life from us: individualism (good) at the expense of community (bad); and rampant materialism and consumerism as corporations pull government strings. We see people with little voice in their own government and have less faith in the people making the decisions for the direction of the country. It goes against the freedom that America stands for.

Steve Rogers took the experimental super soldier serum as a part of Project: Rebirth, becoming the first in what many were supposed to be. With Captain America, we see what it means to be truly free and have an example of what it means to join in God’s mission of fighting for freedom and justice. We also see his injust death at the hands of his oppressors, becoming a victim in our place (at the hands of a corrupt justice system no less) and transforms the condition of bondage. He suffers a hero’s death (though we expect a future resurrection), someone to crucify in their fear. With his life he provides a new vision, a new paradigm, to free us from the bonds of this world and its systems. With his death, he frees the oppressed from powerlessness and hopes to bring peace and healing to the super-hero as well as American community. It’s not as simple a fight, but it is one equally worth struggling for.

Granted, it's hard to take the death of Captain America too seriously, when in the last year we've seen the return of his long-thought-dead partner, Bucky (as Winter Soldier), and Captain Marvel. Death has little meaning in the super hero world since the next set of writers (or the pressures of the market) may want to come along and do a new take on a character. For now, it is a great excuse for Bucky/Winter Soldier to don the Captain America uniform (as others did previous times Steve Rogers laid down the mantle of Captain America). It also wouldn’t surprise me to see a mysterious figure appear among Canada's super-hero elite.

In the mean time, we long for the hope and example that Cap stood for.


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Captain America – A Review

Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Steve Epting
Publisher: Marvel Comics

“A Soldier in Winter”

Captain America has always been one of those characters difficult for writers to make interesting. A combination of Boy Scout and living legend, patriotic to a fault, and a symbol of America and all that is best about that ideal. And that is too often how he is written, as an ideal more than as a man. Only two runs on his title have captured the heart of the man as well as the ideal, Mark Waid’s run and now Ed Brubaker’s great run.

Ed Brubaker is one of those writers who has gone underappreciated. He has done crime stuff well, from Catwoman to Gotham Central, but he never quite got the due, the Brian Michael Bendis kind of attention that should be his. In Captain America, all of his writing strengths come together: part intelligence procedural coupled with non-stop action, all of which serves to flesh out the man beneath the flag.

The opening story arc, Winter Soldier, catches us up on the history of Captain America for all of those unfamiliar with him. It also introduces us to the people important in his life and foreshadow many of the events that will define Brubaker’s historic run on the book.

We forget how worldy the man under the cowl must be, having lived through a lot of history, traveling the world and speaking several languages. Steve Rogers underwent an experimental procedure and became the first (and last) super soldier, fighting for the Allies in World War II. His partner was a teen (teen sidekicks were big in the super-hero scene when Captain America was first introduced; they didn’t have those pesky child endangerment laws, I guess). However, Brubaker expands on the true nature of Bucky’s role: not just as a counter to the Hitler Youth movement, but an efficient soldier who got his hands dirty where Cap couldn’t.

The cast of characters surrounding him include Nick Fury, another World War II relic, and head of espionage agency, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Cap’s ex-girlfriend and S.H.I.E.L.D. operative, Sharon Carter. Also, we get a taste of Cap’s long history with the most tenacious of his enemies, the Red Skull.

“I was the icon. I wore the flag.” –Captain America

A real world immediacy surrounds Captain America’s current mission of fighting terrorism. Being on the front lines for so long has left him tired and angry after having suffered loss after loss. World War II comrades. His long-time partner, Bucky. The Avengers Disembled saga. All the others he couldn’t save. He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. Now someone, or something messes with his memories of “the Day Everything Went Wrong”: his last World War II mission, where he fought Baron Zemo. The day Bucky died and Cap was sent into suspended animation until he was discovered and revived in the modern age by the Avengers. Cap is forced to re-live and re-remember that day, thus given back enough of his past to torture him. Part of the Red Skull’s plan to make him suffer before his death.

Captain America is in the line of “The Suffering Servant.” He isn’t a political messiah, although he has seen his share of battles, but a chosen servant who carries with him the weight of authority and responsibility, working in the spirit of God’s mission of justice. His is a life of constant struggle, one that by necessity forgoes any hope of a true personal life. Another hallmark of the hero’s journey is true love denied or sacrificed. Though the ultimate soldier built for war, he hasn’t let the constant battles harden him. He remains gentle and honest and kind.

Mystery and intrigue drive Captain America. Steve Epting’s art has a gritty feel that further grounds the story in a sense of the real world as well as portraying the cinematic action (and accentuates the iconic nature of Cap). All of a sudden, Captain America feels more relevant than ever.


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The 4400 - A Review

“The Gospel According to J.C.”

The 4400 was among the first of the “everyman gets powers” idea (think: Rising Stars, Heroes, or newuniversal). The 4400 in question are how many people were abducted through time and then returned to Earth in our present time. They have been tasked with preventing some future disaster. Now in its fourth season, the show continues to both impress and frustrate. There are so many new ideas, characters, plots, and sub-plots going on (how the show stays fresh and interesting) that at times watching the season recap and premiere, I had to wonder if I saw all of the episodes from the previous season.

Ostensibly, the show centers around two agents of NTAC, Tom Baldwin (Joel Gretsch) and Diana Skouris (Jacqueline McKenzie)--the Mulder and Scully of the show--who investigate all things 4400 related. The leader of the 4400, Jordan Collier (Bill Campbell), having returned, has made Promicin, an ability giving drug, available to all non-4400s, so that everyone has a chance to become gifted. Promicin only has a 50/50 chance at working: either you get an ability or you die. The decision is yours.

“Absolute devotion is a rarity in this modern age. It might bring a sense of purpose to life. A clarity.” -NTAC lab rat

The themes of this show is how ordinary people have been extraordinarily gifted (healing, time control, prophecy, bending wills). I kept wondering why the number 4400 kept sticking in my head with familiarity, then I realized that if you put a “1” in front and a “0” behind it, you have the 144,000. Another small group –a community called out for a purpose, an ekklesia, if you will—to lead the many.

In a lot of ways, Promicin is the Gospel message.

“You know what I’d be thinking? People were praying to the wrong guy.”

Obviously, the Gospel can be used for an individual’s own purpose rather than in service to some greater power (such as “The Future” which the 4400 work for/toward). In the season premiere, we find Graham Holt (Cameron Bright) doing what so many of us do: making a god of himself. His kingdom extends and revolves around his own life. We each have mini-kingdoms, the range of our individual wills, yet our lives, our individual stories, are caught up in a greater story. Graham creates purpose at a cost: free will is denied and conformity is forced.

“The world doesn’t need you anymore. It has me.” –J.C.

Enter Jordan Collier.

Jordan Collier (J.C., get it?) brings Promicin like Prometheus giving fire to the world. Along with it, he brings the message that anyone can be extraordinary. J.C.’s vision was that “through Promicin, the gift I brought you and that you accepted. Together we have created heaven on earth. A time of joy, endless joy, that we share as one.” Of course, people being people, have fought over Promicin ever since.

Jordan sees that folks who are living as less special than they should be when they should be about making a difference, changing the world. Having returned from the dead to lead people to a new way of life, he wants people to become fully human and to join in true kingdom work and “get on with your lives.”

“This new era, it’s not coming, it’s not on the way, it’s here. And we are now separated from our old lives …are you ready?” –J.C.

The Gospel is a proclaimed a message, not a product, making us newspeople, not salesmen. It’s an announcement that you don’t have to live the way you’ve been living. You don’t have to pursue empty goals of materialism and consumerism. That God is at work in every moment in every square inch of the cosmos. We were created in His image and our lives are gifts. As Jordan Collier puts it, “we’re all, everyone of us, making history now.” We can be about reconciliation, between God and humanity, each of us to one another, and humanity to creation. We can be about the pursuit of justice. We can be about freedom, since we have been freed from the chains of sin and death. Kingdom living begins now. We live in light of the Gospel message. The call is for us to respond to the news because “Each of you has a role to play.”

4400 were taken.
4400 were returned.
Each has a unique ability.
One among them has a message.
Anyone can become extraordinary.
The risk is great.
But so are the rewards.
And now there's no turning back.

The series is shaping up to form a trinity of sorts: J.C.; Shawn, the healer; and Kyle, the shaman. Of course it appeals to comic book types: the Isabelle (Megalyn Echikunwoke) storyline had “Dark Phoenix” written all over her. At the same time, the show throws curves at us so that we can’t guess its every move (since there storyline heads in Phoenix territory, then veers). It also appeals to as many audience groups as possible with its mix of political thriller (with government/military conspiracies to deal with the 4400 and harness the abilities of these living WMDs), sci-fi (yay super powers! And time jumping!), action (sometimes rivaling the show 24) and soap opera flourishes (cause these folks break for the occasional love life). Sometimes I fear the show falling into a “monster of the week” trap (in this case, the “4400 of the week”); with only 13 episode seasons, the show doesn’t have room for that kind of padding. However, so far, the show delivers.


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Get Off My Property!

Homeowners through-out Indiana will face increases in their property taxes as local assessors hike values for the first time in several years. The amount of your increase depends upon tax rates set by your local units of government.

Then comes the government speak that translates into some homeowners seeing their property taxes increase as much as 300-400 percent. This in turn led to “hundreds of people pinched by soaring property tax bills boosted turnout Wednesday at a holiday tax protest.” Had I received our bill by then, I’d have been one of them. And folks want to ask “am I angry?”

We live in the land of opportunity, seeking prosperity for ourselves and a legacy for our family. The lure of home ownership is part of what we’ve defined as the American Dream. Ownership means folks have a stake in the community. Higher taxes may seem like uptown problems, but—as Indiana faces a skyrocketing foreclosure (and bankruptcy) rate—we risk knocking the legs out of the housing market once folks realize they can’t afford the tax on their dream.

I don’t mind making sacrifices and paying my fair share, however, there is a tipping point. We’re told that we need to do all this stuff to attract business, such as abolish the inventory tax; but I’m here and I work. Putting it all on the backs of your base is ridiculous. We’re taught that spending our money renting is a waste of our money, that ownership is the first step in the accumulation of wealth; but all of a sudden it seems downright affordable. Well, until you think that someone is paying the taxes on that property, too; and those costs will only be passed along to the renters. And folks want to ask “am I angry?”

The idea of home ownership strikes a special cord with me. Many leaders from Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Malcolm X have been encouraging people to parlay land ownership into self-sufficiency and economic power. One of the American values is self-determination and economic empowerment is a pivotal part of that equation. We’re told to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps when many folks don’t even have boots. Some of us are still trying to make sure the shoes fit because it's difficult enough to run a race when one's shoes are tied.

Many folks are clutching to middle class by our fingertips. Essentially our government is asking an extra three months mortgage payment out of me; or, to put it another way, an entire month of my wife and I’s combined salaries. Everyone in office, regardless of party, when this went through needs to go. It's not that long until November. And folks want to ask “am I angry?” Yeah, I’m ready to throw some tea into Eagle Creek.


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Friday Night Date Place – A Few More Musings on Sex

If you’re looking for a rehash of my previous blogs on this topic, here’s one. Otherwise, I’m on deadline so here’s a guest blogger.

Guest blog by Rob Rolfingsmeyer

Sex unfortunately has gotten a bad rap over the past couple of decades. After the Sexual Revolution of the late 60’s and early 70’s, we as a culture began to experience what it is that is destructive about our sexual behaviors. It’s not as though sex was discovered in the twentieth century; people have been sneaking around the public mores since civilization was born. Even today, people are willing to risk death to fulfill sexual “needs” (I’m not speaking of other cultures alone but our own as well, we understand the risks that we take in our day and age.) It’s indisputable, we are relational creatures. We define ourselves by our relations to others. I am the husband of my wife, the son of my parents, the father of my son, etc. We have a deep desire to love and be loved by others.

A sexual relationship is one of the most intense relationships that we can have with another human being. Sharing our soul with someone one-on-one is intense; sharing our bodies with one-on-one can be just as intense. The physical experience, the instant gratification that we can get from a sexual encounter is undeniably enticing. Whatever happened to prolonged gratification? Whatever happened to waiting for something before we finally get it? I know that this is a horrid example but I can’t help but think of Christmases. When I was a child, I remember my mother and father waiting to let me open my presents until Christmas morning. My other friends were allowed to open presents a couple of days in advance making me more and more jealous and wondering why my parents were so evil. Every day the anticipation would mount; my love for staring at the Christmas tree for hours grew from me waiting with bated breath, admiring its beauty while staring at my presents. If I hadn’t been in a position of prolonged gratification I wouldn’t have learned how to quietly sit and stare in the darkness at the beauty that had been created with the tree. Christmas morning would roll around and I would tear into my presents like there was no tomorrow. The anticipation had grown so much and the excitement had built exponentially, even my friends were amazed at how many presents I had on Christmas to open up. And they all wanted to come over and play with my toys…theirs had lost their luster.

With our modern culture and the vices that are literally at our fingertips, we have been conditioned into objectifying the human person. When I say the ‘human person’ I am speaking of both body and soul (the soul being understood as that which is essentially you, call it your consciousness if you like). As human creatures, we are subjects. Each person is an individual with feelings, hopes, loves, fears, dreams, etc (one of the reasons why porn is so destructive to both the viewer and the viewed is because all of that has been removed thus dehumanizing the individuals involved). Many people have fought for the right to be recognized as a human being (here in the Western world we have made great strides in this area, while people are still fighting and dying for basic human dignities in other parts of the world). So often we deny ourselves and others the subjectivity that we all deserve.

When we deny ourselves that prolonged gratification and seek that instant gratification that we each crave, we deny the person that we our desiring of their humanity, making of them a vessel for our own wants and desires. We may say we love them but think with me. Will you ever forget your first? No matter how hard we try, the first time we ever opened our bodies to another, we made ourselves vulnerable. These days, vulnerability (much like sex) has become quite a dirty word, to the contrary, vulnerability is trust to the extreme. But too often we lose this trust because that vulnerability is handed back to us crushed. For most people, the person who has hurt them the worst or done the most damage to their psyche is someone who was given that vulnerability and took advantage of it, or simply forced the vulnerability on the other. There is a certain connection that is made between two people (or more) when that intimacy is created. That bond is never broken and what has happened will never go away.

Interestingly enough, even though the ‘bond’ (no matter how destructive and damaging it could have been) seems to be the only thing that our sexual appetites have left us with to remind us of permanence. With the traditional familial position of sexuality destroyed, a sense of permanence is lost as well. Children no longer have an expectation of a mother and father who are going to be there (this is much different than those children who lose parents to death…and damage is done there as well.) We enter a relationship and want to ‘test it out’ first to see how compatible we are when we live together. The lie of this is that it is a practice marriage, in all actuality it is a practice divorce. The (what is supposed to be) permanent institution of marriage is left dangling as we have in the back of our minds that we can always walk away from this. As true as we wish this impermanence to be, as I said before, the bond was made, the memories are there and believe me (and I’m not the ‘sole authority’ on this), those memories come back to haunt you at the oddest of times.

Along with this sense of permanence is the idea that you have given yourselves as a gift to one another. Men, we know we don’t want to hear of the sexual exploits of our counterparts, women I know from having listened to the grievances of other women that you don’t want your boyfriends/husbands to discuss their previous escapades either. Why? Because you are supposed to be a gift to one another. Think of a time when you’ve been cheated on, or if you haven’t been, think of your significant other cheating. Why is this so hurtful? Why should this matter? The gift that they gave to you, they now have given to another. But you don’t have ownership of them do you? They are not your possession. So ask yourself why it does hurt so much. Why does betrayal hurt? We fly back again to vulnerability and the abuse that we leave ourselves open to. Also, the betrayer has taken the gift that you have given them and decided to share that with another (nowadays you never know what ‘gifts’ are going to be coming back to bed with you when that happens…if you know what I mean).

If you don’t agree with me, this is fine. All I ask is that you be respectful of yourself and think about the destruction that you could wreak on another when you ‘must’ fulfill your ‘needs’. I’m not trying to preach, I haven’t thrown out a bible verse or mentioned God until now. I’m trying to speak as one human to another, caring for the human person, the individual that we all are. I’m no saint when it comes to this. I used to be the jerk that women complain about. It’s when you see the devastation left behind and the denial process of the injured party as they attempt to dust themselves off that makes you begin to reflect on that which is sacred to the individual; their own subjectivity.

Peace, Rob

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Fans Scare me

Fan - an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer. Short for …
Fanatic - a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal.

Fans scare me.

Okay, scare is a strong word. I feel like Marlon Perkins on Wild Kingdom: if I stumble across fans in the wild, I don’t know how to react to them when I encounter them. They may say things like “I really enjoy your” stories, reviews, or blogs and once I get that stupid “what do I say now?” look off my face, I don’t know what to do.

It’s humbling every time. Someone took the time to invest themselves in my work. Someone’s life has been touch by something I’ve written. Not to mention that I enjoy knowing that someone has taken the time to read something that I have written, has invested themselves in my work. Do I invite them over for dinner? Develop some sort of relationship with them? Listen intently as they tell me their problems? (This might be me reacting in church facilitator mode rather than writer mode.)

This is an entirely different dilemma than dealing with critics, though both are reciprocal type relationships. On a practical level, fans are our consumers. I like to preserve some of the mystery of (for) fans. I don’t go to many messageboards (besides my own). Again, like Wild Kingdom, going to fan boards is like going to where they naturally congregate. I always fear that I’m going to go out like William Shatner in that famous Saturday Night Live skit. By the way, this has nothing to do with the fact that I’ll be at InConjunction this weekend.

Don’t get me wrong, my fans are by and large wonderful folks. Sure, I get the occasional stalker, but I don’t have to send out memos of what not to send me. No one sends me bodily fluids or notes made from newspaper clippings (which happens to friends of mine). When I make appearances, I don’t have to send out memos like “please don’t flash people” nor do I have folks wanting me to sign their boobs. No, folks typically send me tracts (the latest being from a Muslim wanting me to embrace Allah) or books and only flash me their low self-esteem (I typically end up reassuring folks that they are loved or listening to their confessions - despite the fact that I’m neither Catholic nor a priest. I guess I just have one of those faces).

Now, I was all prepared to wax eloquent about the strange, quasi-mystical relationship between artist and audience. About my theory of fanatical behavior pointing to us being wired to worship (God; a cause, be it political or otherwise; ourselves; or whatever). However, a horror writer, soon-to-be-former friend of mine (oddly enough, not Chesya) decided to breakdown my fan musings this way:

-“Keene’s fans want to be him.”
-“Wrath’s fans want to do him.”
-“Your fans … like who you hang around.”

*grumble, grumble, grumble*

By the way, Mo*Con II is just around the corner. The Microtel Inn (9140 N Michigan Rd, Indianapolis, 46268 - (317) 870-7765) still has rooms available at a reasonable rate.

*grumble, grumble, grumble*


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Immortal Kiss - A Review

Independent comics never had the stigma attached to them that self-published books do. Cerebus. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez's Love & Rockets. Wendi and Richard Pini’s Elfquest. Brian Michael Bendis’ Jinx. Some great books/talent got their start in indy comics. So I had no hesitation in reading Immortal Kiss from Graphic Illusions Studios (a five page preview is available online).

“Detectives Ilya Romanov and Sonia Flores are called in to investigate a grisly murder outside of a trendy nightclub, The Nocturne. It's a race against time to stop the killer from striking next. Romanov and Flores soon discover that the Nocture's mysterious owners, Mikhail and Arya Vladimir may hold a missing piece to the puzzle. Immortal Kiss has been a work in progress that took 9 years to bring to press.”

However, I have to admit, I’m not much of a vampire guy. Too often the stories fall into either Anne Rice (think: Interview with a Vampire, Goth/emo vampires) or the role-playing game (think: VampyreKindred: the Embraced television series or, worse, the movie Underworld) territory. Immortal Kiss was definitely in the latter category. We get a story that covers two warring clans of vampires in the city of Chicago and two cops who get caught in their shenanigans.

The dialogue was a little stilted (and somewhat clichéd in spots) and the characters were a little too stock. The art layouts were reminiscent of Bryan Hitch’s Authority run, which is probably why I kept longing for either a more cinematic style or more action to fill out the panels.

There is an eternal lure to the vampire tales. Bram Stoker created Dracula to be the perfect anti-Christ character. This rich and dynamic lore is the prototypical case of the negation of the sacred creating the evil. This fact also explains why the sacred becomes a part of the solution to the problem of vampires. Vampires represent a resurrection to darkness. In vampires you see the perversion of the idea of blood being necessary for eternal life. Resurrection into this life occurs after three days. In the novel, Dracula even comes with his own forerunner (a John the Baptist type) in the form of Renfield. The evil of vampires is dealt with by images of the cross, baptism (holy water), or the sun’s (Son’s) light.

Too often the story-telling in Immortal Kiss seemed disjointed, like it was one good polish away from nailing a scene. But the creators do try to give you your money’s worth in trying to cram a lot of story into the pages:

-internal vampire family politics
-tangled love affairs
-savage murder mystery

But they lack the ability to tie it all together smoothly. That said, the series has potential - it may just need time to find itself and for the writer to get comfortable with the characters before expanding into new territory.


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Regrets

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’ve hurt some people in the past. Not that I intentionally set out to hurt them, but just in the course of me going about, doing my thing. Concerned only about what I wanted and felt with little regard for the feelings of others and the consequences of what I considered to be “my business.”

Here’s the thing: we won’t always know the long term effects of our “little transgressions”. How our sometimes stupid and selfish acts alter the courses of people’s, too often our friends’, lives. But we do recognize when the relationships have been irreparably damaged.

Sadly, we don’t always have the luxury of making things up to folks. Fixing matters isn’t always an option: what’s done is done. Sometimes you just have to carry the weight of your bad decisions and selfishness and hopefully let them shape you into a better person. Even our mistakes have value, if it leads to a transformation of who you are and what you do.

The folks you hurt may not ever see the person you’ve become or tried to become because of your past mistakes. But you’ll always carry the memory of the hurt you caused. It may not always be a fresh kind of memory--where you can perfectly picture the damage you inflicted and some days will be better than others--but it’ll always be a part of you.

Good.

Danny DeVito’s character in the movie The Big Kahuna put it this way: “I'm saying you've already done plenty of things to regret, you just don't know what they are. It's when you discover them, when you see the folly in something you've done, and you wish that you had it do over, but you know you can't, because it's too late. So you pick that thing up, and carry it with you to remind you that life goes on, the world will spin without you, you really don't matter in the end. Then you will gain character, because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself across your face.”

If we can’t go through life doing our best to love one another, then the least we can do is try and go through life trying to cause as little damage as possible. And have fewer causes of regrets.

Transformers – A Review

“Kicks Much @$$”

All summer I’ve been in search of the perfect popcorn movie. 300 was a great fix and was enough to tide me over for a while. Hot Fuzz was a highlight and hinted at what I was longing for. Finally, however, a movie has hit the spot: Transformers. In a lot of ways, Transformers was little more than the best of the Japanese monster/robot shows I grew up watching (Space Giants, Ultraman, Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot); or, the better to not date myself, it was like the best parts of Jurassic Park except with killer robots.

Make no mistake, this movie is a complete testosterone fest: big guns, big cars, big planes, big boom. So much so, I had to coin the term guy-gasm, those jump out of your seat reactions to over-the-top action sequences; and there are a number of those moments during this movie. You expect a Michael Bay production (The Rock, Armageddon, the Bad Boys franchise) to be loud and full of bang, but it seamlessly blended CGI action with real world surroundings. The dizzying direction, with fight scenes as incredible as they are imaginative, the spectacular car chases, and the giant robot shoot outs all hit the right notes.

The intense action starts right from the beginning and doesn’t let up. The story generally focuses on Shia LaBeouf’s (Constantine, Greatest Game Ever Played) hilarious portrayal of Sam Witwicky, a slightly off-kilter, stopping-just-short-of-being-a-nerd guy whose efforts to catch the vacuous object of his affection, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) isn’t going well. Things improve once a mysterious car comes into his life. We get to see many of the various “species” of Transformers (please don’t make me go all 80s nerd on you) as the Autobots (um, the good guys), led by Optimus Prime, wage war against the Decepticons (the bad robots), led by Megatron (there, you made me do it) – all in pursuit of the All Spark (which for some reason, reminded me of a Rubik’s Cube, but that might be more of my 80s nostalgia talking).

“For a time, we lived in harmony.” --Optimus Prime

It’s funny that the main spiritual tie-in about the movie involves the idea of angels. Megatron comes off as the prideful first among equals who leads a faction of his host in a rebellion which costs them their home. He would be a created being, the most powerful of the spiritual "principalities and powers," the highest of what some cultures would call a god. Yet, like his Autobot brethren, they are free moral agents who also make choices and have actions which have consequences in our world. The consequences for humanity are manifold as what we see as evil is the collateral damage of humanity and creation being caught in a cosmological battle of cosmological forces.

“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.” –Optimus Prime

Bumblebee, the yellow Camaro who, as a Transformer, communicates through pop culture references is Sam’s personal guardian angel. Optimus Prime all but charges his fellow Autobots with the mission of being angels who hide in plain sight, watching over us, in secret.

“At the end of this day, one shall stand, one shall fall.” --Megatron

Sure it has its share of “there’s only one person who can” plot contrivances (and, frankly, where would we be without young, pretty people?). And sure, black men spend a lot of time yelling at their (grand) mommas in this production. And sure, the movie is a paean to product placement (you could turn spot the sponsors into a drinking game, but you’d be drunk before the first half of the movie). However, Transformers is absolute noisy fun with more laughs than most comedies released this summer. And I’m not just saying that because I grew up with the comic books and the cartoon series. It’s at least a three guy-gasm movie which now has me day-dreaming about the possibilities of a G.I. Joe, Thundercats, or He-Man movie.


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Farewell Yalaina

Yalaina Symone Griffin*

May 11, 2007 – June 26, 2007

Hi!

My name is Yalaina Symone Griffin and I lived to be 46 whole days old! My birthday is May 11, 2007 and I went home to be with God on June 26, 2007.

Way before my first birthday, the doctors told my mommy and daddy that I had a bunch of icky fluid in my tummy. They called it hydrops. That mean old hydrops gave a really hard time. It made my kidneys, liver, spleen, and lungs all broken and stuff. On my good days when my kidneys were working a little bit, my family & friends did the "Pee-Pee Dance" They were all really pulling for me. I was and still am very loved.

And when that stinky-face hydrops tried to get the best of me, I put up my dukes and fought it right back with all of my might. In the end, the yucky hydrops won. But since I put up such a good fight for so long, maybe the doctors were able to learn something from me so that next time hydrops won't win.

I almost forgot to tell you about my family! They've been so great! My mommy's name is Ro and my daddy's name is Eric (I was his first munchkin). I have a big sister named Emminence and a big brother named Calvin. They were really excited to have a little sister. I also have two grandmas, two grandpas, five uncles, three aunts and about 10 cousins. On top of all of those family members, I have my OTHER family who all love me just as much; everyone at The Dwelling Place Faith Community, Traveler's Rest Missionary Baptist Church, & all the people at Methodist Hospital, who took good care of me & tried so hard to fix me.

Thank all of you who prayed for me, thought about me, and hoped for the best for me. I felt the love – in fact, that's what pulled me through. Now that I'm here in Heaven, I'll put in a good word for you, keep my eye on you in the meantime, and I'll see you when you get here!

Hey guys, please remember this!

Romans 5:3-5

"….We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

A Blessing from Heaven


*As told to her mother, Ro.

YALAINA’S LIVING PARABLE
By Shane Fuller

We gather here still trying to make sense of what happened last Tuesday, still trying to process the unprocessable. We come together in this place, as a Christian community, partly because we know of no better place to bring our questions and our grief and partly because we don’t know where else to turn. As the apostle Peter once said to Jesus, at a moment of confusion and doubt, “Lord, to whom else can we go?”

Yalaina’s shortened days preach to us a silent sermon if we will allow. Her time on earth reminds us that life is precious. It is a gift from God, a miracle wrapped in love. Each moment is like eternity – no past, no future, just the sacred now. None of us, in this hour, know the complete course of our lives, the exact number of days that we have been allotted, nor our final exhale. And so today, our lives right here right now, are gifts and they are unspeakably good. The sum total of all the moments that we experience is what we become, and this is our gift to God. We are asked embrace the time we have been given by living our seconds to the full!

Yalaina’s journey is a tiny window, or microcosm, of life in a fallen cosmos. Her struggle this last 6 weeks is a reminder that all is not well on this planet. The world has fallen, and our existence is not how it should be. We fight to enter this world, and that is the hinge on which all of our days turn. Our stories are filled with pain and turmoil, unexpected twists and turns, and abrupt changes in plot. Every waking moment is tainted with fear as the stench of death mixes with the sweet aroma of living. Even when the Ancient of Days assumed the human condition, His hours were accustomed with sorrow and grief. He who had experienced eternal bliss, immersed himself into the realm of man, and His life was etched in pain. We know nothing can be changed until it is first embraced, and so we are instructed by this tiny baby’s life to accept reality in all of its brokenness.

This infant’s every breath revealed the depths of what it means to be a person. None of us are single, solitary units that operate alone. Our very existence originates in the other. A person can only be a person through others. The whole of our beings are forged by every encounter with people, and every person has deep significance to the meaning of this path we trod. Yalaina revealed how infinitely valuable each touch of our deeply connected humanity can be. From doctors and nurses to friends and family, the church, and even those who were only connected by whispers to God as they heard of her story – all of the different layers of the race of man weave together to form her and us. We remember this hour that our lives are not a series of random encounters but that you are in me and I am in you, and it is only in our union that we are made complete.

Yalaina is instructing us now, even in this solemn, sacred silence of her passing. Our own deaths flow to the front of the waves of thoughts that fill the ocean of our mind, and yet this is not the end. This present garb that our world dons is not what God had laid out for us to wear. Our momentary scars, pain, and grief speak words of transcendence that we are not yet finished. The grave becomes merely a passage to a whole new chapter. It takes a deep courage to stand like flint amidst the cold, dark winds pressuring our insides to snap with despondency, to allow assurance to flood our anguish with rumors from on high that nothing irredeemable can happen to us. Our cuts and wounds point to something far deeper. We stand face to face with doubt in all its glory and choose to believe that this happening, and all our happenings, are not meaningless. These random sharp pieces of glass and life are forming for us a mosaic of beauty that is not yet unveiled. Even, too, this hour will be consumed into the whole, and in the fullness of all that is, we shall see in bold color all that is grey.

Oh Lord, teach us to count all of our moments, that we may dance into the art of living and living well. Thank you for this little life of insurmountable beauty and for gracing us with the gift of Yalaina’s presence. Let us be inspired by this life well lived to behold the tangible splendor of the endowment of our existence. Give us patience and endurance as we engage with the thorns and thistles of this world. Allow the virus, which has permeated all that you declared “Good,” to be repelled by the seeds of light we plant in faith. Grant that our blinders might fall and that we may see every created being as your handiwork, and that every person might be family we have not yet met. Let us participate in the redemption of all that is. Thank you for Yalaina’s parable that lives and breathes among us. May it fan the flame of holiness and connect to all that is good, righteous, and true.


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Hey, You Hate Us!1! Part Two

[continued from part one]

At any rate, Islam and subsequently those areas that espouse the Islamic way of life as a part of its culture are not tolerant of certain aspects of western society that we take for granted (or for some, ignore and/or avoid). In theory, this is because we understand that there is always a blend of cultural custom that plays a dynamic in this equation. And that this cultural factor is not always sin accordance with Islamic practice. As such, these sovereign entities will take precautions in order to limit the exposure or introduction of such elements into its society. When such sovereign entities begin feeling overt pressure to do otherwise, we begin to see resistance, generally to the level of the perceived intrusion/threat.

This mindset, however, is not limited to sovereign entities, but also includes those persons who generally make up these sovereign entities. So the resistance to the above can also take the form of individual and group resistance fighters (remember, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist). Therefore even in the absence of an official governing body or body set up by a foreign entity (that doesn’t sanction internal resistance), the people will still be at odds with the contradiction that is being imposed on them. From this perception, absent the means to fight a perceived enemy on equal terms (i.e. lack of an army or contemporary military equipment), people resort to the means in which they are able to resist – so-called guerilla warfare.

Of course this goes into a discourse on suicide bombers, the targeting of innocents, and a host of other issues. Without going into a whole other discussion, let me state categorically that Islam does not condone, or otherwise promote suicide, or the taking of the lives of women and children, or non-combatants as a general rule. One of the beautiful things about Islam is that its practice is clearly legislated. The rules of warfare are not an exception. Now obviously, this is a very broad swipe at the geopolitical state of affairs, but that nevertheless encapsulates what we are seeing with this whole Muslim/terrorism debate.

We have a situation in which we are at war with an ideology. Not Islam per se (so says the government), but certainly with Muslims who have a political/national agenda and perceived the U.S. as an enemy or at minimum, an obstacle to their goals. The problem is that this perception is not limited to a few, isolated, so-called extremists, but is prevalent amongst the people of the region that is being contested. America’s ways are not their ways. It is akin to a Muslim attempting to go into a Christian home, and demanding that the occupants stop living a Christian lifestyle and now live an Islamic one. There’s going to be resistance.

The problem for the U.S. is that in order to actually “win” this “war”, it has to capture the hearts of the people that his is attempting to subdue. The people, the common man in the street, has to want democracy, has to want the presence of U.S. troops and personnel and the like. They have to want to buy what America is selling. The people have to genuinely feel that the U.S. has their best interest at heart. Guess what? They don’t feel that way. Consequently, we are observing a predictable dynamic.

We have troops that are in harm’s way every day. Death and manglement is the order of the day from any direction. There are no battle lines, with the enemy on one side and us on the other. So what happens is that the common soldier tends to view everybody as the enemy or potential enemy. This, in turn, affects how a soldier will interact with the populace. It’s much easier to mistreat, lookdown, harass, and otherwise antagonize an enemy than a friend.

By and large, our troops accord themselves with honor. But they are being placed in a situation that is ill-suited for what they are trained to do on the one hand, and what their very presence conveys on the other (an occupying military force). It only takes a few incidents to taint the larger body of good work and polarize the populace against and already perceived adversary.
The people obviously react negatively to this perception by their occupiers. As a result, they feel victimized, and step up their activities to expel people, in their view, that don’t represent their interests, don’t respect their culture, and want to cause them harm. The situation will only continue to deteriorate because each party views the other as hostile. Soldiers, historically are ill-suited for the task of nation building for this very reason. Historically, people of occupied territory look disfavorably at foreign troops in their midst. The result: conflict!

So we have to ask ourselves “why are we constantly interfering and interceding in the affairs of sovereign nations that do not pose a threat to the U.S.? What is it about our foreign policy that so antagonizes so many people and nations around the world?” Further we should ask ourselves and consider the answer to the following: in whose interest is it to continue down this path of religious and cultural polarization? Who benefits? (it was these questions that reminded me of President Eisenhower’s words). Are we safer today than we were yesterday?

I would submit that the answers to these questions are not as simple as “Muslims hate us and our way of life.” If we begin to sincerely and honest answer these questions and determine if the answer is worth the consequences that are involved, then we will be better suited to deal with the dilemma that we now face.

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Hey, You Hate Us!1! Part One

After the last time he guest blogged for me, I received all sorts of interesting e-mails about how “they” (meaning Muslims) hate “us” (meaning Americans). So I thought I’d let him respond to that idea (Warning: He couldn’t just say “no, we really don’t.” He’s even more long-winded than I am, so this is a multi-part blog). Feel free to parse his pronoun use (I just know this is going to get me on some watch list):

Several of us had a conversation along these lines the other day: the idea that Muslims overseas have a hatred for America and the American way of life, and therefore want to destroy us. This is a commonly used “bogey man” tactic that is played out by certain talking heads in the media. You may recall that just twenty years ago, the Soviet Union and communism was the enemy of choice. The line then, as now, is that the Russians hated our way of life, wanted to destroy us, and dominate the world. I would submit that one should remember he warning of President Eisenhower as he left office: “Beware the military industrial complex.”

The reality, I believe, is that the dissatisfaction that many foreign entities harbor, is centered on US foreign policy and how that policy affects their lives (or at least their perception of its effect). Generally speaking, if US interest did not have some sort of negative consequence in the lives of people in foreign lands, they could care less about what Americans do or how they live.
What we see, more often than not, is a clash of cultures. We have the American way of life, centered around a particular idea for governing and socially indulgent, on the one hand. And on the other, we have a culture that is traditionally conservative and centered/modeled from a religious orientation (speaking about areas that are Islamically dominated).

The dichotomy only becomes an issue beyond a theological/sociological debate when one attempts transposing one ideology over another in a practical sense. With Muslims in America, for the sake of contrast, we observe the constant dilemma of living a life that is at odds with many of the (currently) socially acceptable norms of our society (prevalent sexual immodesty, homosexuality, etc.). Our issues revolve around how we can avoid these things, protect our children from such negative influences, and still progressively/successfully navigate the American landscape as a Muslim. In other words, with the American Muslim, it’s not so much about changing America to fit our needs (any more or less than Christians feel the need to) but rather how we can live as Muslims in the midst of ubiquitous contradictions and still maintain and Islamic equilibrium.

I mean, let’s be real, pit of iniquity allusions aside (which IS an issue), America more than any other place in the world (except maybe Canada), offers people the very real opportunity to practice their religion in a meaningful manner, without the fear (generally speaking) of being persecuted by the government or some group that disagrees with one’s doctrine. A Sunni Muslim in Shia dominated Iran, for example, is not in the most ideal of environs to practice Islam.

America offers a person a viable means of economic prosperity, something that can be a sparse reality in many corners of the globe. So, America for this, and other viable reasons is not necessarily an enemy to Islam or Muslims. And for most indigenous Muslims (and many foreign ones, considering the number that emigrate to the U.S.), this is the perception of America.
The perception of indigenous Muslims of foreign lands, who are on the receiving end of American foreign policy ventures, can be quite different. The best example that I can think of is Saudi Arabia, which has been fairly consistent (though not wholly successful) in warding off some of the less desirable influences of western culture. Saudi Arabia is a Muslim nation, which is to say that its population is predominately Muslim and its government and laws are modeled after the shari’ah (literally “path”, Islamic laws). Islam, to use contemporary vernacular, is conservative in nature. This is to say that Islam is not very tolerant, as aforementioned, of many of the norms that are socially acceptable in the west.

Interestingly, we view this resistance to “American values” as something akin to sacrilege. “How can those people reject our way of life?” Yet if some entity would try to impose an undesirable ideology on America (say, communism), we would literally be up in arms. As if the American way is the standard by which one HAS to live.

[to be continued]

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How Maurice Met Jon

You ever get in one of those moods where you start reminiscing about how you met some of the folks who’ve been a part of your life forever? The type of friend who, though you are in L.A. and he is at the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, he calls you so that he can share lunch time together? Plus, we were also roommates for over seven years, making us common law spouses in some states. And now, telling the tale of the beginning of a love story for the ages, my oldest friend.

Guest Blog by Jon Harp

Ahh at last it is story time . Now this might be quite the lengthy post so you may want to go and get yourself a snack or perhaps a refreshing beverage before I begin, because I hate to be interrupted in the middle of a tale. And yes Maurice it is the camping story, that is how we became friends. So, everyone settled in......good. Now I want you to relax we are going back in time to the early spring of 1980. ***flashback wavy thing***

Maurice and I were placed in the same 5th grade class. I was new at this school and we were both part of an advanced class. (great surprise I know) I was a typical 5th grade boy, not particularly exceptional in any way, other than being fairly bright and stunningly handsome. Maurice was one of only two black students in the class, the other being a very tall girl, and since he had been skipped ahead two grades ( I think) he was easily the smallest boy. I think there was only one other minority student in the class so our poor little Maurice was kind of on his own. Now it may come as a shock to some of you who haven't known him as long as I have that he wasn't always the social butterfly that he is now, in fact he was in a small group of the class' outcasts. I was comfortably embedded into the "cool guys" group, I could talk about and play sports and that was about the entire requirement. Being around Maurice, or trying to befriend him, would have been an act of social death at that point given that I was new to the school, so like the little automaton that I was, I ignored his presence.
This went on from the time school started in the fall of 1979 right up until the following spring. At that time a grade wide field trip was held at Bradford Woods in southern Indiana. This sounds really strange nowadays, but we left on a Friday and stayed in cabins until we came home on Sunday. I can't imagine a school doing this these days, but it was for everyone in our grade, not just our class. Anyway much fooling around was done and a little bit of learning took place Friday afternoon and then we all bunked down for the night. Of course I was in the "cool guys" cabin and we spent most of the night talking about the things 5th grade boys talk about. Sports and girls. We bragged about how good we were in little league and lied about how far we had gone with girls. There was a great deal of misinformation about female anatomy, which I won't go into, and a whole lot of B.S. about how we all knew everything there was to know. The second day came and went pretty much the same as the first, lots of note passing and who likes who talk, and a little bit of learning.

This is going on a bit long isn't it, does anyone want me to stop......no? All right then, back to our story.

The second night was looking to hold the same events as the first. It was kind of like one large sleepover. The difference was that many people were changing cabins back and forth in order to spend the night with different friends. I was going to be in the same room, just with a few new "cool guys". In short order the conversation started down the same path as the night before, and as you may guess (for those that know me) I quickly grew bored with the same old B.S. and I didn't look forward to another night of telling lies about things I didn't know anything about. This is when fate, destiny, the hand of God, whatever you want to call it, stepped in and offered me the chance to escape. One of the counselors (who were supposed to be in the cabins with us, but never seemed to be there) came in and asked us if anyone would like to move to the cabin next door.

Another short break here: isn't funny how sometimes the most monumental decisions you make in life are ones that come out of the blue and seem really inconsequential at the moment. Yet if we are honest, those kinds of things change our lives all the time, so we should always be aware of the possibilities around us. Great things can happen any day.
All right, once again back to the story. The reason the counselor gave to us for asking some of us to change was that there was a boy in the next cabin who was going to be alone that night. At this moment two great forces started to move within me, first of all I was bored with the simpletons I was with, and secondly I heard my mother’s voice inside my heart and head. That voice said, "you can't leave that poor boy all alone over there." I thought about how it might be scary to be all alone, away from home, and with no one to pass the time with and I felt sorry for whoever it might be. So no one else volunteered, but I did. I packed up my stuff and walked to the next cabin, I opened the door and there all by himself was our hero, the then tiny Maurice. He must have been happy to see me, or anyone for that matter, because he started talking almost right away. It was probably the first time the whole school year we had spoken to each other, but there was one of those immediate connections. We talked about girls of course, and his unrequited love for the beautiful Amy Sukapjo, and mine for the not quite as beautiful Amy Majeske. We talked about comic books of course and I was stunned to hear how many he had. We quickly made plans for me to come over and see them at his house as soon as possible, I believe it would be at his birthday party (which is a whole 'nother strange tale of Chenault's birthday punch. I still have trouble drinking punch. And yes Maurice did try to warn me.) But that is a story for another day.

In the end, and I know you are readily awaiting the end, our meeting was a divine appointment in my opinion. I found out that Maurice was much cooler and more fun than the "cool guys". He was also the only guy in the class that I thought was as smart as me. It was fun having someone to talk to that I didn't have to explain so much to, or someone that I didn't have to dumb things down for. It was only a few hours in that cabin, but we became best friends in that short time, and here over 25 years later, we still are. It didn't matter to me anymore that he wasn't in the "cool" group I hung out with him anyway. We became a duo of sorts, he helped me have fun and develop into the person I wanted to be, and for a little while I helped to make his life in that class a little easier (I think I may have raised his acceptance level a bit).

I got to know his family, which admittedly has had its mixed blessings moments, and I got to grow beyond my provincial roots into a more well rounded guy without some of the color barriers that had been a part of my parents upbringing. They always wanted better for me I believe, and getting to know Maurice was the biggest part of that happening for me. For Maurice’s part he got to be welcomed into my family as well, my mom was always wary of the way my grades dropped right after I met him, but she loved Maurice dearly and would have taken him into our home in a heartbeat. He actually became well known to most of my extended family that lives here in Indiana and they still ask about him often. I, of course, tell them that he has joined a black militant quasi-terrorist force bent on bringing down the man. One that is secretly trying to stop the Starbuck's empire by replacing their coffee with Folgers when no one is watching.

In the movie "Everybody's All-American" Dennis Quaid's character says at one point that you go through your whole life expecting to make great, close friends, but you don't. It's something that just happens more often when you are young. And those are the ones that will be there when you need them most. I think of that night at Bradford Woods often and I am still very glad that I volunteered to go and try to make someone elses night a little less scary. I have been rewarded for that choice by God, a thousand times over. I remain glad and grateful.

It is probably one of the 2 or 3 best memories of my childhood, or my life for that matter.

And so ends story time with Jon. Now put your glass away and get ready for bed. It has been a long night and you need your rest. Tomorrow may change your life for the better, forever.

It’s been a tale of great man love ever since, though I suppose that I could follow this up with the tale of how Jon tried to kill me the year after we met, but I won’t. Why hold a grudge? It was nearly 30 years ago.

*ugh* and I thought news of our class reunion made me feel old.

And you can now re-read this blog while listening to the song "Guy Love"


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