If I had known I’d live this long I’d have taken better care of myself.”
— George Burns
Yes, it was a dark and stormy night on this day 162 years ago when Dr. Ketchum brought me into this world and said to my Momma, “It’s a boy, Goldie. And he’s got Deanie’s jitterbug feet. He’s gonna be a jitterbuggin’ jesse, just like his daddy.”
For my birthday I’m wishing for world peace, more of this excellent health I’m in that defies all odds considering how much I abused my body for 162 years and, finally–one night with Emmylou Harris .
Donald Miller wrote the screenplay himself for the movie version of his much-acclaimed book Blue Like Jazz---which he wanted to name "Blue Like Polka": Fortunately, his publisher insisted on a jazzier title
If the much anticipated movie “Blue Like Jazz” is one half as hilarious, inspiring, deeply spiritual, theologically incisive and entertaining as the best-selling autobiography of the same name by Houston native Donald Miller . . . .
Well, we can only hope it will live up to the good buzz surrounding its pre-release this spring.
Dandy Donald is one offbeat, quirky, unconventional, quite subsersive and gently anti-establishment 30-something Christian man who is about the most engaging and non-threatening radical Christian imaginable, the kind of guy you’d definitely love to have a beer with at a neighborhood pub or a Nehi Orange soda out of a bottle at a family picnic. He’s a beer or Orange soda kinda guy, whatever your pleasure.
Miller landed in his spiritual journey in the most un-Christian city of Portland and won the hearts and minds and souls of some of the most anti-Christian students on one of the most librul and eccentric colleges around.
Other than that he’s just a regular guy, one who happens to be a rather exceptional writer and speaker struggling with the sacred and the profane in the hybrid mix that is this sacred and profane and broken world in his never-ending search to find union with God and humanity–a Christian mystic of a regular guy who would love for you to love him and love God as much as he does, but if you don’t he’ll probably go take a nap anyway and forget about you anyway.
Come to think of it, that’s probably why I like him so much, but this is about Donald Miller, whose book you ought to read before the movie comes out if you’ve not read it.
Here’s the trailer to the movie and an interview with Miller his own self, who–if he lives long enough–may lose his baby fat and have whiskers some day.
Southern Maine had rain and fog yesterday and last night. I took this shot early this morning. Puddles had formed in the hayfield, and the crows were taking advantage of them to bathe. I didn’t get a clear shot of that, but this is what the scene looked like. 48º at 4:30 in the afternoon!
“Community is first and foremost a gift of the Holy Spirit, not built upon mutual compatibility, shared affection or common interests, but upon having received the same divine breath, having been given a heart set aflame by the same divine fire and having been embraced by the same divine love.”
— Henri Nouwen
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“Although the power of his personal witness was questionable, the fictional Jonah nevertheless was a medium of grace through which the Ninevites recognized their need for repentance and were saved. Jonah is represented as the epitome of Jewish bigotry and prejudice regarding foreigners. His mission proved successful not because of his own virtue, but by virtue of God’s universal mercy. Jonah’s story reminds contemporary believers in Jesus that, at times, the truth of the Gospel may be spoken through less-than-worthy preachers. It is the message rather than the medium that reaches out with grace and salvation.” — Patricia Datchuck Sanchez in The National Catholic Reporter
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“It’s about time we recognized tht Christianity is a not a call to conservatism, but to change. Jesus came into the world not to conserve the system as it was, but to change the world into what it ought to be.”
— Tony Compolo, Evangelist & prolific author of Christian books
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John Wesley’s Covenant Prayer for Covenant Renewal
Lord,
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.
RANDY NEWMAN IN HIS "ANGRY YOUNG MAN" DAYS: HE WROTE BITTER SATIRICAL SONGS ABOUT THE SOUTH THAT ROCK STATIONS WOULDN'T--COULDN'T TOUCH--BUT ALSO SONGS SO BEAUTIFUL THAT THE STATIONS WOULDN'T TOUCH THOSE EITHER; BUT THE VARIETY OF HIS BODY OF WORK HAS STOOD THE TEST OF TIME
Too bad this great writer and composer will always be known as the guy who did the novelty song “Short People (Got No reason to Live),” if not the bitter songs about the South like “Rednecks,” that almost got him run out of the country.
This great song sort of became a Louisiana anthem in the wake of “Katrina.”
And some early Randy for you . . . .
He who wrote the song that “Three Dog Night” made a huge hit of. . . . which he wrote for Eric Burdon and the Animals who didn’t make a huge hit of it, but Eric and The Animals did OK in the music biz anyway.
THIS URBAN BIRD STRAYED ALL THE WAY FROM TEXAS TO COLORADO TO GET CLOSE TO NATURE AND APPEARS TO HAVE LOST A LEG ALONG THE WAY BUT REST ASSURED HE STILL HAS BOTH BIRD LEGS IN TACT
Your own back yard–or the park near you wherever you live–is full of God’s beautiful creatures going unnoticed, doing their thing–like this common cedar waxwing getting ready for a new day.
But first, read on for further thoughts on nature from your favorite blawger. . . .
We’ve heard so much about “the environment,” and fought so much over it for lo these many decades, that we’ve lost touch with being close to “nature”–with knowledge and appreciation of the wonders of God’s creation in our own back yards.
The old folks back home were much more at peace with themselves and the world because they didn’t have all the distractions of TV 24-7, much less all the high-tech bells and whistles that keep us wired — and I mean wired in the literal and figurative sense of the word.
My mother loved to relax in her recliner in the den with the windows raised up, when weather permitted, of course. We had a huge pecan tree right behind the den that shaded a lot of the back yard and cooled the den.
My dad, who like my mother was tuned in and turned on by the nature in our small back yard, had bird baths and a brick “well” he built, and also a brick planter he built by the patio he so carefully designed along with the rest of the backside of our house. The “well” was covered with ivy and all that. He did all he could to make our little piece of Earth a bird sanctuary and nature preserve of sorts.
My mother was so tuned in to the chatter of birds out back that she could sit in the den with those windows up and focus on all the bird chatter outside and notice that a certain woodpecker was tapping at one of the trees in the back yard of our neighbor across the hedgerow that divided our yards.
Of course, she was tuned in to sounds from all over town as well–the trains approaching in the distance at certain hours like clockwork, the sound of the train rumbling through downtown a mile away from the house, the 5 o’clock church bells chiming at the Baptist Church.
Keeping close to nature–its sights, it sounds, its small wonders–connects us to our own yards, our neighbors, our town, our community, our small worlds and the whole world.
What a wonderful world if only we’ll open our eyes and ears and smell the roses while we’re at it.
He was denounced and vilified day after day, year after year, as a dangerous “communist,” “Marxist,” “socialist,” anti-American radical . . .
Hmmm, sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
He was in fact a prophetic Baptist preacher with an unwavering vision of a better America, and one of the most courageous Christians and Americans in history.
– mature
– beautiful (see photo)
– smart
– outgoing
– warm
– loving (anybody who could love me that much has got to be overflowing with love)
– compassionate and generous (gives her Sunday mornings to serving the homeless)
– Christ loving, Christ serving (see above)
– a great mother and member in good standing of the PTO
– a devoted wife to her man she’s been with since they were practically babies
– a successful small businesswoman (click on All Things Planned above)
– happy, well-adjusted and pretty much smiling and enjoying life to the hilt at all times with the possible exception of when her first-born the litte Tex Mex Trey-Hey Rodriguez is making her whack
– funny as all git-out with a slightly twisted, off-the-wall sense of humor and where that comes from is a mystery
This just in to the CNN news room:
CNN News has learned that the church is a religious body of self-righteous hypocrites who’ve started and waged nasty wars for centuries and Jesus would not be down with religion. We take you now to some mysterious plaza that looks like it might be in front of a church–or is it a museum like the church is becoming?–where a young, good-looking, scrubbed up and buff young man in a cool leather jacket and jeans is down with Jesus.
Take it away kid–you’re going viral with this poetry!*
[Religion is like "perfume on a coffin?" Huh???? We got THIS for RAP????]
But seriously, ladies and germs–church is a “man-made invention?”
Who knew????
Indeed, a man named Jesus sort of left it to a man named Peter to get down with that church thing.
This video has gone viral on Facebook and that’s certainly understandable. The young man in the leather jacket makes some points that I certainly can’t argue with, starting with “Jesus is not a Republican.” (Amen to that! Jesus is not even a conservative and he’s not a librul despite the librul political and theological view that a lot of people including clergy take; Jesus would condemn a lot of the words and actions of good liberals as much as he would a lot of conservatives. The “Jesus was a liberal” label irks me to no end but that’s another argument for another day.)
Again, the “rapper” makes a lot of points that I actually agree wholeheartedly with, but his theology of church and religion has holes enough to drive a church bus through. I won’t go into any detailed critique, but will say that the guy blatantly contradicts himself a couple of times. He condemns the “self-righteous,” probably because he’s so self-righteous. He alludes to the religious/church types as being oh so judgmental, but show me a breathing man or woman alive who doesn’t make a thousand snap judgments a day. Churchy, religious people included.
Call me judgmental, but I just can’t get all the wa down with this white boy, Roy. I was put off the minute he started getting down with the down and dirty people in that leather jacket (nice!) and looking all buff and clean. If he came to film this video in the parking lot of the apartments where I live here in somewhat of what you might call a Dallas “hood,” Some of my less than grace-filled young friends would be laughing for the next six years.
If he came to the parking lot of my apartment complex to film on a Saturday night, they’d laugh and laugh and then whip his ass and take his gas and Rev. Paul would have to call the cops on them. Again. (They love the Rev. anyway. They would tell you he be tight awright.*)
Honestly (“the truth shall set you free,” so always speak your truth), part of ME wants to punch this guy in the nose. Lucky for him I’m an almost pacifist, having studied in great detail and intensity the pacifist and “just war” theology of religious/churchy types going back to Jesus himself, who gave us church and gave us (yes) religion, not to mention the apostles. Not to mention the great churchy saints in the church tradition like St. Augustine and so many others.
(Am I coming across as self-righteous here? Gad. Too bad, so sad.)
As I pointed out on my Facebook page, Father Fred Schmidtt articulates how I feel about his dapper rapper better than I can.
And, truthfully and seriously–the kid in the video has a lot of great stuff to say and even if I punched him in the nose I would take him to the pub for a beer if he didn’t kill me (he may not buy into the church tradition of Christian pacifism; at least he’s serious about his theology and anybody who actually thinks through their theology will do to walk the Jordan with. *I once had a neighbor in my uh, interesting apartment complex bang on my door at 2 in the morning, stoned out of his bucket. “Pastor Paw, I’m ready to give my life to Jesus, man.” I told him Jesus was out and watched him stagger home so he wouldn’t pass out in the parking lot and get run over. He didn’t remember coming to my apartment the next day and somehow me and Jesus were not surprised.
The economic ultra-conservative libertarian Nick Gillespie makes the conservative case in the video above for cutting defense spending.
Real and rational cuts in defense spending will never happen, of course, because so many “capitalistic vultures” make such huge gobs of money off of killing and maiming people around the world and keeping irrational defense spending going. In addition, the leaders in D.C. use defense spending for creating jobs back home and creating the illusion that they are keeping us safe by throwing more of our tax dollars into the mouth of the beast that is the military industrial complex.
Democrats are just as complicit in this corruption–and it is a form of corruption–as Republicans are. But you wouldn’t know it from listening to Republicans, who, BTW, have their political house in such a mess right now–and who contributed so mightily to our national debt after 911–that it’s galling to hear them lecture us about the virtues of unbridled capitalism and defense spending to-boot.
But back to the Democrats. I’ll never forget that back when Clinton was the Grand Poobah of the country, the Pentagon submitted it’s proposed spending budget to him one year, and Clinton was not impressed. He INCREASED military spending way over and above what the military brass requested so as to stay in favor with the military industrial complex and to secure and protect himself from the eternal Republican mantra that “Democrats are weak on defense and national security.”
And then there’s Obama. To my way of thinking, it was, and remains, a sad day when the Nobel Peace people gave the Prez the Grand Prize for peace with the likes of the MLK’s and so many other real and courageous and principled and committed peacemakers. (MLK has always been a real hero of mine, not only for the courage he showed in civil rights but his equally courageous stand against the Vietnam War way, way before most snapped to the injustce of the war.)
I’m no ultra-conservative libertarian–far from it–but in spite of usually leaning vaious degrees of left of center in my politics, I always describe my political affiliation as “advancing the kingdom of God.” Never been one to drink anybody’s political cool-aid and would not belong give allegiance to any political party that, to paraphrase Marx (Groucho, that is) would have me for a member.
(Although, I don’t think I’ve ever sent $ to the “Grand” Ol’ Party and can’t say that about the Obamites. I send him a buck or too just about every time New Gingrich or Rick Perry opens their mouth, as I did when W. was running things. Into the ground.
As I’ve often said here and elsewhere–even before I was an ordained minister–I’m an “almost pacifist” on matters of war and peace. I do believe that in rare cases, violence and force used to protect the slaughter of innocents can by justified by even a peace-seeking, peace-loving Christian idealist like me. It can be justified on grounds of love of neighbor, since sitting on one’s hands while somebody gets slaughtered doesn’t strike me as being very neighborly if I have the ability to stop it. Not using violence can be un-Christian in my theological P.O.V.
But that’s another argument for another day.
The argument here today is–don’t believe them when they tell you more and ever-more money for military spending is an absolute must.
