Cleanliness Is Next to My Car

The other morning I had t to take Marie to the hospital. She had fallen and we worried that she had broken the fall with her leg, so we went for an X-Ray. I take her in, in a wheelchair of course, and went to park the car. (Don't worry, Marie is fine--but she has a bruise that makes her knee look like a cyclops with a smiley face!)

On the way to a parking space, I almost parked in a space where there was a dirty diaper. It was just sitting in the parking lot, and it wasn't even sealed well so you could definitely tell it was a dirty diaper.

I went back to the ER window and told the woman at the desk that there was a "Junior Trucker Bomb" in the parking lot. She sent someone from "Environmental Services" to go take care of that.

Yes, it was gone before we went back to the car.

I love "Junior Trucker Bomb."

Election Controversy

For once, this isn't a duel between Republicans and Democrats; this controversy is between Glam Rockers and Singer-Songwriters. It's a battle between Conway, Arkansas and San Diego, California.

People.com reports that AT&T Cellular folks taught people in Conway how to power text. They also reported that there was similar monkey business in San Diego, but this was from independent fans, not a conglomerate.

Folks, can't we all just get along?

Nekked People

Carrie Prejean, reigning Miss California, Miss America Runner Up, and opponent to gay marriage went on the Today Show last week. Matt Lauer asked her if there were any other nude or semi-nude photos of her floating around out there. She said that there may well be if some photographer took pics of her without her knowledge or permission.

I really hope that some Vanessa Williams circa 1981 style shots appear, published with accompanying model release documentation. I know it's better to kill with kindness, but holier than thou just bothers me.

An Example of How My Father Was Right

In my last blog, I talked about my Dad and Family Systems Theory. Let me just point out that even though I thought his decision about not sharing all of his family was not good for the family, he wasn't always wrong. He told all of us to wear underwear.

Embedded video from CNN Video

So this girl gets her yearbook and discovers that she is on display for all to see. The School says it's not her euphemism, it's a shadow. Her mother says the school should recall and republish the yearbook. The girl says that she didn't wear panties to school that day because she didn't want panty lines.

Forget about asking why she was allowed to leave the house without panties! It's the obvious question, but I think there is one better. Shouldn't we be asking someone why a high school junior is wearing something to school that causes her to worry about panty lines?

High school sure has changed since I graduated almost 30 years ago.

Family Systems Theory Biggest Drawback

In Seminary, I learned about Family Systems Theory from the Rev. Dr. Will Spong. He showed us how to make histograms, a sort of family tree thing. But there was one caveat missing from his discussion, he never said "this works only if you know the truth about your family."

You see, I grew up the middle-child only-son. There are a lot of family systems dynamics that are affilliated with these two things. My only problem is that this wasn't true.

For my 30th birthday, I got two older half brothers. My younger sister was moving back to the small town where I was born and where all of this takes root. My father figured the past would no longer be the past so he decided to tell us on his terms rather than have my sister figure it out on her own.

He kept his first family a secret because he figured blended families never worked out, so he wasn't even going to try to get it to work. To us, they never existed. His error in all of this was to believe that keeping his other family from us would make it as if they never existed. This didn't work out and I believe it was an error. Even if it didn't work out, at least the lie was out in the open.

There was a constant undertow of something just beneath the surface, I could sense that I didn't have all of the facts. Sure, I never knew what was going on, but I always knew there was something.

So suddenly I figure out that in my father's eyes I was never middle-child only-son. I was four-of-five youngest-son. These have vastly different dynamics. My mother was kind of caught in the middle of this as she had to deal with step-children whom she would never see, but by my father were intricately connected to her life.

The Family System that I thought existed didn't. Welcome to the drawback to the system, we don't always know the whole truth, even about our families of origin.

John & Kate + Video Tape

The alternate name for this post is "Sex, Lies, and John & Kate"

An open letter to anyone who really wants to put their family on TV,

Haven't we learned by now that this is a bad idea? Let's start at the nearly beginning. Let's start with PBS' "An American Family." This idea of a show involved cutting 300 hours of videotape into twelve shows. The last episode coped with the son coming out of the closet (something the audience would "know" before the folks) and Mom asking Dad for a divorce and leaving the house. While the Loud's (is there a better TV family name?) didn't divorce until 2002, can we all agree that the stress of life and video gets to human beings?

Hummmm, let's see the track record of real-life couples on TV.

Nick and Jessica--Nope
Danny and Gretchen--Sorry
Travis and Shanna--Swing and a miss

Well, that's it for the top of my head. So dear TV couple, I beg you not to get a life. You have a life. May you have a wonderful, glorious, blessed life. But please don't put your normal life on TV. The moment you do, it is no longer your life, and that would be a shame.

Just ask Kate's bodyguard. No, not for purient details, just ask him why Kate needs a bodyguard.

Because Common Sense Isn't So Common

Once, long ago, as many of you know, I managed a bar in Westport, the party area of Kansas City. The night that KU won the NCAA Men's College Basketball Tournament at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, a man left the deck of my bar and went onto the roof of the bar next door. I followed him, and with his back turned to me, I saw the tell-tale sign of a man unzipping his jeans. So I say, "Hey, you can't uninate off of the roof of The Lone Star."

He said, "Well I didn't see a sign that said I couldn't."

Marie told me on Saturday that it is now illegal in Boston to operate a train and send a text message at the same time. I have one question and one answer:

Q: Do we really need a law against this? I mean do we really need it?

A: Obviously we do.

Friends, it is time to look beyond the ends of our noses and see that there are some things that we can do that we shouldn't. As St. Paul once said, "All things are legal for me, but not all things are beneficial."

Now only if banks and instestment speculators would get the point.

Happy Mother's Day

Thanks Mom.

The Common and the Uncommon

Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN.com writes a story of Marine Staff Sargeant Tony Wojciechowski in this column. The two men nicknamed Wojo are not related, but the story of the Sargeant made the sportswriter think about things more important than sports. Gene Wojo writes:

I'm trying to honor a 25-year-old soldier from Union Township, Ohio, instead of writing about point shaving at the University of Toledo, or Brett Favre's latest comeback saga, or Manny Ramirez's suspension. There are lots of those stories, but only one Tony Wojo.

I'm a big fan of the absurd and the wide, wide world of sports. But somedays, it's better to think about the stories of life that are far more important than Manny on Clomid.

God bless you Tony Wojo. God bless your family and friends. God bless those who you served with. God bless those who continue to serve.

What Have We Learned Today?

So close, so very, very close, but Bristol Palin has just closed the barn door after the horse became a baby-mama. From the Associated Press:

Bristol Palin, arguably the nation's best-known unwed teen mother, embarked on a media tour Wednesday to argue that abstinence is a realistic way for teens to avoid unwanted pregnancy--a view not shared by the father of her infant son.

A few paragraphs later, the boy friend says abstinence "is not realistic for many young people today." Just between you and me, isn't that what many, many boys would say? Again, just between you and me, doesn't that make him sound like an insensitive oaf? One more time, just between you and me, doesn't he sound like a baby-daddy who can't keep himself in his pants?

His dumb quote from the aricle:

"Abstinence is a great idea," Johnston said. "But I also think you need to enforce, you know, condoms and birth control and other things like that to have safe sex. I don't just think telling young kids, 'You can't have sex,' it's not going to work."

Does he sound like every hormone driven bearer of the Y-chromosone or is it just me?

Palin goes on to say that if she did not have her baby, she would be off at college (out-of-state), hanging out with friends, and so on. This much is so, but do we need another single teen mother to prove this to us? Shoot, we don't even need another Lifetime movie to prove this to us!

What Palin doesn't say, is that if she didn't have her baby; she would have broken up with this slob of a guy (sure, I don't know him personally, but if this quote is any indication...), gone to college, found another guy (I'll even give her the benefit of experience and say she meets a much better guy than her last boyfriend), and had more sex with various amounts of protection. (Palin said she and the baby-daddy didn't always use protection, so I presume this contraceptive behavior based on previous contraceptive behavior.)

What I'm asking is, if it takes a baby to teach you teen preganacy sucks, have you really learned anything at all?

Follow this link for the full text of the Associated Press story.

Another Local Sign

The Main Liquor Store in Berryville, Arkansas has one of those signs that allows them to put up a message or the daily special or whatnot. Today it says...

REMEMBER

MOM

You know, without context, that could mean a lot of different things...

Meeting the Moderator

Last night, I was in Springfield for a town hall meeting with the Moderator of the PC(USA)'s 218th General Assembly, Bruce Reyes-Chow. It was truly an enjoyable evening.

There were two things he said that interested me.

1. The affinity groups, groups of folks who organize themselves around a specific issue, don't see him as a player so they ignore him... and he's all right with that.
2. He sees a future in the church where polity and policy discussion is taken more on an issue by issue basis than it is a "party line" basis.

When I was in high school, in the late 70's, my government teacher told us to find a political party you agreed with and work within the party because that's the way government works in America. Well, Mr. Sparks might have been right in the 70's, but this way of doing government is falling by the wayside in America...and in the PC(USA).

Bruce said that people will occasionally ask him "how can you work with those people?" The answer then becomes "I agree with them on this matter." It becomes necessary to develop relationships, not coalitions to follow and further the kingdom. Our adversary style of polity assures that the minority opinion is heard, but it seems now that affinity may be becoming a thing of the past.

Proof of that became clear by the comments of two men who were at the last General Assembly. One talked about folks who "wore the same stoles and travelled in packs" and another talked about a small group who became friends at the Assembly who did not travel in theological lockstep and remain friends working as companions in ministry.

Guess which one has travelled the highways and byways of the denomination for 30-40 years and which one was a college student. If there is hope in the chruch, it is in those who see beyond single issues and see the kingdom. It is better to see the way than the rock in the road.

Thanks Bruce, thanks to the John Calvin Presbytery, thanks to First and Calvary Presbyterian Church in Springfield. It was a great evening.