Comforting the Oppressor

And the winner is... oh s***, not again.

Wouldn't you love to hear this from an announcer at an awards ceremony? When Titanic just kept taking on Oscars, or Beyonce's name was called again and again at the grammys? If I was an announcer, opening the sealed envelope, I would want to call out a name that's surprising and unique; a real come-from behind champion; a cinderella victor. But somehow most of those revered but un-nominated envelope celebrities manage to read the names with a degree of gravitas or joy.

I couldn't do it.

The unfortunate fact is, even the surprise winners at the Oscars or Grammys or Golden Globes, etc, are not very big surprises. Every last nominee is a member of the inner circle in some way or another. Maybe there's a few nominees for "Best Reggae Album" or "Best Foreign-Language Film" that have escaped our notice over the past year, but they certainly are the exception.

And I will guarantee you one thing: the best album of every year is almost certainly an album that 99% of Americans have never heard. And the best new artist is some nobody practicing day and night in their basement or garage. But they will not walk the red carpet this year, or next year. Nor will they want to.

Our society has a narcissistic way of rewarding fame and fortune--the last things on earth that need or deserve a reward. You sold a gazillion albums! Here's a little gold statue! You starred in a movie that netted a billion dollars! Here is a moment in the spotlight, and the finally the recognition you deserve!

What a bunch of bull s***.

It's not just the entertainment industry, either. Who were the primary recipients of the government's bail-out money? The Fortune 50 companies who should have known better. Instead of taking pity on the broken and outcast, our tears are shed for the gilded insiders. Instead of comforting the oppressed, we comfort the oppressors.

Jesus was not impressed by royalty, or status, or wealth. He didn't go out of his way to talk to members of the upper-class, unless it was to call them out of it (think Zacchaeus or the rich young ruler.) He said that the first will be last and the last will be first.

I kind of hope there's no such thing as an awards ceremony in heaven (I'm sure hell will be full of them.) But if there is, I have an idea what it would be like. The nobody-artist practicing in her garage will get center stage, and the director with imagination, skill and a shoe-string budget will take home the statue. But most importantly, the people who have surrendered their lives and comforts for the sake of broken will be lifted up and crowned with honor.

They will hold their crowns high in the air for everyone to see, but they will not give a speech. They will throw them all down at the feet of Jesus. The cinderella victor.



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A Flip-Flop on Universal Healthcare

Allow me to tread lightly.

That is, in fact, the only way a person can walk when wearing flip-flops.

Because I used to be against Universal Health Coverage and "Socialized Medicine". But on Sunday I watched a documentary made by a guy I really dislike: Michael Moore.

The movie, as you may have guessed, was called "Sicko" and was made for the purpose of alerting Americans to the brokenness of our health care / health insurance system, and opening our eyes to the Socialized Health programs of other Western nations.

I have no confidence in Moore's approach to bear any resemblance to serious, responsible journalism. The movie is clearly a piece of irreverent, shameless liberal propaganda. I am certain the stories are real, and I don't accuse him of fabricating the stats or facts presented in the film. His main infraction, I believe, was to present only the bad side of the American system, and only the good side of the systems of Canada, England, France and Cuba (yes... Cuba.)

The Cuban bit was particularly poignant and shameless at the same time. Reports from the mouths of Congress have it that detainees at Guantanamo Bay receive top-notch health care and dental care. Since Gitmo is on American soil, this gave Moore an idea. Why not take all the victims of his film's sob stories on a boat from Miami to Guantanamo to be treated for their long-neglected problems?

So they pile into three boats, and launch into the wind, with frontier-glory adventure-type music playing as they speed to the south, with a mixture of hope and fear in their eyes. When they arrive at the gate, Moore shouts to the security tower, "I have sick Americans, including 9-11 rescue workers. They need medical attention! The same kind you give to Al-Qaeda! We just want what the bad guys are getting!" Of course, he got no response. So they found their way to Havana.

Although Cuba is a very poor country, apparently their national health care system is halfway decent. But to watch Sicko, you'd think the island nation was crammed full of grandfatherly Good Samaritans with PhDs and stethoscopes. It was actually a touching moment to see these ailing people finally get the health care they deserved, for free. Nevertheless, it did strain credibility.

Having said that, I must add that much of the Health Care (or lack thereof) we experience in this country strains credibility as well. I do not fault the doctors, nurses, or even hospital administrators and boards of directors. I fault the insurance and pharmaceutical giants, and malpractice attorneys. There is a common thread running through these three rotten pursuits, and that is greed and power. The bottom line. The fat market share. The big payoff.

When the topic of Universal Health Care was broached to me, I used to have a common response: Our government seems to have the opposite of the Midas touch. They turn everything they touch into garbage. Give them a gold brick, and what you get back is only good for fertilizer.

This cynicism has not left me. Congressmen and women rate no higher than pharmaceutical CEOs in my book. But I cannot escape the reality of ever-higher premiums and drug prices, ever-lower standards of coverage, and the increasing hopelessness of even middle-class Americans to actually get the care they need. I also can't escape the success acheived in other Western nations with Socialized Medicine programs.

In the film, Moore asks one question at a crucial point that really grabbed me. "Who are we?" he pleads. Are we not a nation concerned with the least of these? Are we the kind of people whose doctors and nurses must expel a critically ill patient, and drop them off at a homeless shelter, simply due to a lack of money? Is that the nation we want to be?

In many issues of charity, I rebel against the concept of increased government involvement, and advocate for more community involvement. I believe our beaurocracy is far too active, and our theology not nearly active enough. Local not-for-profits, churches, community organizations... those are the agencies best-positioned and motivated to make a real difference.

Our governing bodies are already obscenely bloated, and have 50 times as many arms as I believe the Constitution intended. For example, America now has more employees in the Department of Agriculture than it has farmers. Do we need one more excuse for the Federal Government to put its myriad fingers into our lives? Government needs to be responsible for those things only government can accomplish. Several good examples are the Postal Service, Highway Systems, the Military, Law Enforcement, and Regulation of Commerce, Communications and Foreign Trade.

And so that brings me to the question: What kind of health care system should we strive for as Americans? Is it conceivable that our current medical milieu has any potential to acheive it? Is it conceivable that churches and not-for-profits and local goodwill organizations have the capacity to meet such a goal?

I would have to say no. It may just be that Washington needs to ask itself a rare question, "What would Jesus do?" and come to the conclusion that, in regards to health care, it must do what only Washington can do. Our government must see to it that all Americans have access to the same care, regardless of age, health history or socioeconomic status. Despite my various policy differences with President-Elect Obama, I have some hope that he can inspire us as a nation to acheive this.

It may take a while. It may not work well at first, or ever. It may endear us to old memories of copays and deductibles and claim denials. It may fail entirely.

Nevertheless, I have officially flip-flopped. Come what may, I am thoroughly convinced...

We've got to try.



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Turkey vs. Reindeer

A few days ago my friend Ben Johnson (profile name: Ben Jay) started a group on Facebook called "Advertise Thanksgiving". I would link you to it, but I don't know how to link to a Facebook group.

Here are a few lines from his description of it:

in my opinion, gratitude is one of the things we (as a society) need most. all of us.
we take so much of what we have for granted. everyday. and we don't even realize it. religious or nonreligious. (myself, included).

it's time to make a change.
everyone recognizes how ridiculous it is that christmas sales start so soon. ...so let's start doing something about it. people CAN make a change. not just at christmas season, but every season.

Of course it's nothing new to get out there and talk about how much we take for granted, and how we should be more thankful, but humor me for a second here:

Do you suppose there's a reason why retailers downplay Thanksgiving? Unless you're a grocery store, you don't have a lot to gain from the holiday itself. But you do have a lot to lose.

What would happen to Christmas (Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, etc...) if people really celebrated Thanksgiving? I mean really... like going beyond the turkeys and stuffing and cranberry sauce and football games and cornucopias and little pilgrim candles and falling asleep in the recliner. What if people stopped what they're doing and said "Wow, we really have everything we need"? "In fact, we have far more than we need! If somebody told us that we need something we don't have, we would laugh heartily and fill up another trunkfull to haul over to the Goodwill.

America... we are stuff-saturated! It brings to mind an episode of The Office where the boss, Michael Scott, gets a second job because he's so deeply in debt. When he finally concedes to debt counseling, the counselor looks over his finances, and gives him the skinny. He says (and I paraphrase,) "Michael, I've put all your expenditures into three columns. This first column is for needs. The second column is for wants. And the third column is for the things you've bought that no one... anywhere... could ever need... or want... ever."

If it wasn't so bad for the environment, I would suggest we pile up all these things that no one could ever really need and have a spectacular bonfire. Why give things to charity that are just going to needlessly clutter someone else's life?

So maybe Thanksgiving should be a time to simplify. Because what better way is there to express gratefulness for having all you need, then by giving those things a little elbow room?

And when the Christmas commercials begin assault your simplified senses, you can laugh heartily, and take another heaping, thankful bite from your tukey, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwich.



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Of Liver Transplants and Vacuum Cleaners

I don't spend much time on politics here, but I am compelled now to join the chorus of voices crying out against the health insurance industry here in the U.S. We are drawing very close to crisis mode, and the media is actually stepping up to bring it to a head.

As reported by the Hartford Courant newspaper, protesters gathered outside the Glendale, CA headquarters of CIGNA HealthCare to protest the reversal of their decision to cover a critical liver transplant for 17 year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, calling it "too experimental". You can read the details by clicking on the above link.

During the appeal process, doctors had to induce a coma to keep her alive until she could receive the transplant she'd already been promised. Finally, after a barrage of protest and media coverage, they re-reversed the decision, saying they would "make an exception in this rare and unusual case". Rare and unusual in the amount of bad press they were getting, is what I assume they meant. And then of course, to add the cherry to the top of this mud sundae, "Our hearts go out to Nataline and her family, as they endure this terrible ordeal." There are words for that, but I will not assume that only adults read this blog.

When I was on a mission trip in Cordoba, Argentina, the resident missionary there told me a story about a time he bought a vacuum cleaner at a small, independent store. When he got home to use it, it immediately fell apart. So he took it back, demanding a refund, but the store refused, and would not budge. So he took the only recourse available to him: he stood out on the sidewalk, showing people the busted vacuum, and telling them that the store sells crap without a refund policy. He drove so many customers away that the store finally relented, and gave him his money back.

Is that where our Health Insurance industry is headed? Where you have to organize a demonstration, or form a Facebook Causes group, or put a loose change jar at every grocery store check-out in the neighborhood to pay for what ought to be covered by your exorbitant monthly premiums? Will we soon see the health giant CEOs burning in effigy on the nightly news?

"But at least the story has a happy ending," you say. If only that were true. After the claim was approved by CIGNA, but before surgery could begin, 17 year-old Nataline died, according to ABC News.

Onto the hands of an industry already caked with dry black blood, the flow now runs fresh and red in full public view.

God have mercy.

Fruits of the Flesh - Compromise

This is the fourth installment in the series "Fruits of the Flesh". Here is the original post.

The third Fruit of the Spirit is Peace. The third Fruit of the Flesh is Compromise.

I was taking a stroll around downtown Springfield a few months ago when I ran across a party of anti-war protesters on Park Central Square. I didn't want to have a debate or an argument, but I did feel like striking up some conversation.

One demonstrator held up a sign that said "War is Not the Answer". I don't remember exactly how the discussion went, but I do remember my own line of reasoning, as follows:

-War is not initiated by an aggressor. If one party invades another, and they are unchallenged, war does not result. The result is occupation.

-War is initiated when a threatened party takes up arms to defend itself.

-So War is actually the result of self-defense. However...

-If the aggressor is unchallenged, they are guilty of invasion. If they are challenged, they are guilty of starting a war. In neither case is the invaded party responsible for the consequences of violence, so long as they defend themselves honorably.

My point was, it's easy to say "War is Not the Answer", but what is the question? Is the question, "How can a nation establish true and lasting peace?" or is it "How do we avoid conflict and violence?" To get the right answer, you have to ask the right question.

The Fruits of the Flesh are not bad things in and of themselves. If that were the case, then the worldly counterpart to Peace would be War. But our society does not worship War, or even violence, by and large. Many of us seek peace, stability and justice, but when we don't care to humble ourselves, and trust Jesus, we seek out our own methods. And when attempting to achieve Peace, our most common method is Compromise.

Peace by any other means requires an incredible amount of power. If a nation believes they themselves possess enough power to achieve Peace, they will attempt to do so with threats. If their threats are ignored, they assume they could vanquish their foe quickly, and return to their state of Peace. Or take for example the Cold War. Two mighty nations were so afraid of each other that the result was and uneasy Peace.

But failing a reckless confidence in our own power, we regularly resort to Compromise to achieve Peace. You middle children know exactly what I'm talking about. You are the go-betweens, the Peace-makers. You mediate in difficult situations to make sure everybody gets along. And this is good. Like I said, all the Fruits of the Flesh are good in one way or another.

There is nothing wrong with doubting our own power. We should, in fact. But if we see Compromise as our only path to Peace, we are also doubting the power of God. If Israel believes they can achieve a peaceful relationship with the Palestinians by giving up land, they are doubting the power and promise of God. And if you, as an individual, are trying to gain Peace of mind by relying upon an exchange of favors, an appeasement of temper, and a watering down of the truth, you are also doubting the power and promise of God.

Jesus said "My Peace I give to you." Any kind of Peace we strive for, apart from that, is like a bowl of plastic fruit.

Girls Gone Wild Go Home!

Yesterday when I showed up at the Front Porch there was a reporter lady and a camera man standing out in front, interviewing Matt, one of our volunteers. I naturally assumed it was about the FroPo. But no, it was about... "the boot".

With all due respect to our local crop of intrepid journalists, that is the nature of news in this town. Granted, last night there was a body found near Evangel's campus, and a car chase and firearms showdown that ended in a suicide, but yesterday afternoon, the press was there to talk about the boot... you know, the device they put on vehicles whose owners have failed to pay their parking tickets. It's that ironic device that says, "Hey... you're not supposed to park here. So now you can't move at all! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Cough... spit!"

So I was standing around for a moment watching Matt's interview when another guy walked up and said, "Hey, are you guys reporting about Girls Gone Wild?" and he pointed down the street. I looked up and noticed that, parked across the street and about three doors down, was a big tour bus completely wrapped up in a "Girls Gone Wild" graphic. My first reaction was to be surprised that it wasn't more, well... graphic. Except for the other-worldly-platinum blonde hair, too much makeup and bad-girl smiles it was actually completely modest.

But that's where the pleasantries ended. The bus was parked in front of the "Boogie" night club, downtown Springfield's premier meat market. It made me want to slash their tires, if that wouldn't have actually kept them there longer. The reporter said that, no, she wasn't doing a story about Girls Gone Wild, she was doing a story about the boot. That, to me, was comparable to doing a story on a pot hole in the street while the house behind you burns to the ground.

My wife stepped up to the front door to join our conversation, and the reporter told us about her angry confrontation with the guy running the GGW show. She had told him off for getting barely legal women liquored up and exploiting them for the cameras in a way that will haunt them forever. He said that quite a few women had gotten good jobs out of it. When she ask what jobs, outside of the porn industry, he said that one woman became a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. Whoop-de-do. I guess that counts. I wonder what she'll do when they spit her out at age 31.

When I hear about the 60s and 70s, it makes me wonder where I would have fit into that scene. It's impossible to know for sure. I do know that I'm against smoking weed, casual sex, and going without a shower for weeks on end. That would probably set me apart from the hippie crowd. But I have to admit they discovered some things about women that our modern society is remiss to neglect.

Yes, I think they went too far with the whole feminazi thing. But something had to be done about the exploitation of women... the reduction of the feminine gender to a possession, a baby factory, and/or a sexual plaything. And they made actual progress. But it seems that, for some reason, there has been a sort of splashback. In one way, the movement continues unabated, in another way it has back-fired. We are simultaneously faced with the strongest female presidential hopeful in history, and the most pervasive sexual objectification ever of her gender.

The saddest thing to me is that, as our culture learned to be more respectful of women, it was not Christians leading the way. And as our culture has slid back down that hill into the gutter and beyond, that Christians still seem to be absent from the conversation. Yes, we preach against adultery and fornication and immodest attire and looking at porn. But are we really opposing evil, and more importantly, are we setting the example for society by treating older women as mothers and younger women as sisters? This is a commandment, for God's sake! When are we going to start paying attention?

Because you know what Mr. Bus Driver across the street would do, when he launches his routine at the Boogie, if his little sister walked in. The fact is, they're all his sisters. And they're your sisters, being reduced to packages of flesh.

Lord have mercy.

Half-People

"...the children are so hungry for attention that a clutch of 5-year-olds begins to chant in Spanish: "A visit! A visit!" In a nearby bungalow for girls 4 to 6 years old the kids jump into the arms of their visitors, total strangers. Five minutes later, when we attempt to leave, they hold on even tighter, until they are pried off." - Writer Kerry A. Dolan, for Forbes Magazine on February 12.

"The most important thing in the life of a child is a person. Not a toy. Not a building... We can give the children that." - Karen Gordon, founder of Whole Child International

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." - Proverbs 20:11

Most people use this verse to encourage parents to raise their children well, and so they should. But I believe there is more to it, and it is brought to my mind whenever I hear about child-rearing studies. They're all over the place anymore... putting your kid in daycare hurts his future academic performance... allowing your kid too much tv watching damages cognitive abilities... giving your kid too much sugar ensures obesity.

And the most pertinent one to my point in this blog... the studies that show how kids are programmed early on to determine what kind of adults they'll be. It's as if destiny is in the balance in the first two years. (No pressure though, right parents?)

One earth-shattering conclusion that can be drawn from this (and from Proverbs 20:11), is that a baby's needs are really no different from those of an adult... they are programmed from infancy to learn what to expect out of life.

I know what you're saying... "duh." But stay with me, here. When you have a baby, you naturally want to give it a lot of attention. You hold it, kiss it, cuddle it, talk to it, feed it and change it lovingly. You know that a baby needs to feel loved, and your touches and vocalizations go a long way to meeting that need.

But then we "grow out of it". We don't want to be touched... or bothered. We withdraw and become independent... self-sufficient. We don't need people anymore!

Recently I learned about the ground-breaking work of Whole Child International, which was founded by Karen Gordon in 2003 (watch Good Morning America's story.) The problem she saw was this: millions of children around the world are living in orphanages set up to care for their physical needs... period. And even if they are successful at that (which often they are not,) they have only done half the job. They have, quite literally, raised half-people.

Gordon told an interviewer, "If we can shift this one piece, of relationship, for these particular children, the change in their development and the change in their long-term outcomes could be staggering." So Whole Child is working with orphanages all over the world to provide the emotional necessities for these children.

For anyone with a heart, it is devastating to think of children living in child-rearing factories... being fed and changed in assembly-line fashion. No community. No communication. No connection. No love.

So open your eyes just a little bit wider now. Look at the society you live in yourself. Is it engineered to bring people closer together, or simply to help us meet our material needs?

Whole Child is teaching care-workers to talk to the children as they feed them. Do you take advantage of your meal-times to converse with people?

Whole Child is making sure that care-workers can stay with the same children for as long as possible. Do you have permanent friends? Or just temporary ones?

It is no mystery that our desires for autonomy and material success have, by definition, separated us from the most important thing about being human... relationships. We were created to connect with God, and with each other. To use things and love people, not to use people and love things.

I often dream about a return to the types of cultural and architectural norms that made authentic community as natural as water to a fish. This may be realistic, or it may be a pipe dream. Either way, I know that each one of us can take a step in that direction in our own lives, right now. Just decide that you will not be afraid of people anymore. Trust more easily, listen more closely, hug more readily.

In other words, be a whole person.