Nationalistic Platitudes and Hokum Pokum (Alakazam).

07 May 2013 / 8 Comments   in Uncategorized

“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.” ~Mark Twain

On any given day, my three older sons can be seen marching through the house, arms cocked at rigid right angles and swinging, fists clinched. “You’re a grand old flag, you’re a high flying flag, and forever in peace may you wave,” they sing each attempting to outdo the other with their vim and vigor. They ask me to chime in, to follow in their footsteps and march out the rhythm. Sometimes I do.

They have learned this song at school, it being lyrically safe and a relatively inoffensive piece of nationalistic hokum in which buzzwords like “God,” and “grace,” are conspicuously absent. The absence of those buzzwords does not particularly bother me. After all, I’d rather teach my children about God and grace unencumbered by the bounds of national identity, but that is a discussion for another day.

This Saturday, I was cleaning the dishes and Ian was sitting at the table recreating the battle for Helm’s Deep and repeating the opening line to the Grand Old Flag ad naseum. (It’s the little things that drive a parent nuts; am I the only one?) Somewhere around the three-hundredth repeat, it struck me–”forever in peace may you waive.”

“Ian,” I stopped him, “do you know what ‘peace’ is?”

“Not really,” he said. He turned back to his sketch, back to the orc hordes advancing on the heroes. There was probably a pretty good parental moment in there, and I’d like to tell you that I seized it. The juxtaposition of orc battles and the Grand Old flag had me dumbstruck, though, so I let the opportunity pass. (I’m sure there was some daydream in there of Aragon waiving the stars and stripes victoriously over the battle grounds as he spurred the boys to victory!)

I turned back to my dishes, considered the line–”forever in peace may you waive.” We sing this song, and the great many like it, all the while looking for the next thin red line–Korea, Vietnam, El Salvador, Iraq, Somalia, Iraq again, Libya, Syria, Korea again, (I feel like I should throw another Iraq in there for good measure).

I am thirty five years old, and there has not been a day in my life that the flag has flown in peace, at least not as I think of peace. And don’t get me wrong, I love my country and I turn inside out when someone burns the flag, but this doesn’t change the fact that we often exchange peace for platitudinal notions of it. We love to fly words high, let the wind whip them around for dramatic effect. And we don’t relegate this penchant to nationalistic tendencies, at least not in my experience. But that, too, is a discussion for another day.

Words are easy. Doing is not.

Hokum Pokum, Alakazam.

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Social Media Soot and Good Writing on the Web

03 May 2013 / 2 Comments   in Writing

This morning I woke up to nearly an inch of snow on the ground. I say that for two reasons: (1) it’s May and I live in Arkansas in the age of global warming, so this proves that God still has a miracle or two left in him; and, (2) my friend Jason has become particularly miffed that his social media feeds have been filled with pictures of snow in May, and I supposed I might throw him a bone and instead share words about miracles and global warming.

Speaking of social media, I told some friends last night that I thought perhaps all the blinkering lights on the computer, iPhone, iPad, and telephone were starting to somehow make me sick. If a coal miner in West Virginia can catch the black lung from his labor, I suppose I might be catching a case of the black avatar from all my meanderings on the net. Perhaps I tend to be a coward in the brave new world; I don’t know. But today, in an effort to celebrate some of the good out here is this prairie of blips and bits, I’m sharing some of the better watering holes I’ve run across this week.

My friend Malone has been writing about writing. Malone is one of the good ones. He has a beard down to his belly-button and a laugh that fills a room. He loves his wife, who has the best afro I’ve ever seen, and has a snorting pug that he named “Chicken Dinner.” If ever there were a character, Malone is one. And if ever there were someone who knew a thing or two about good words, Malone is that one, too. Check out his citation to a Rolling Stone interview with Louis C.K. If you can pass by the rough-hewn language, there’s some gold in this snippet.

This week, I stumbled across this piece on “Why Bad Writing is Almost Always Mistaken for Good Writing.” It was written by a fella named Nicholas McDonald, and to be honest, I can’t remember what led me to his place. After reading this piece, I immediately subscribed to his email service, thinking maybe the gent will teach me a thing or two along the way. Regardless, if you fancy yourself a writer, check out McDonald’s post. It’ll make you ask all the right questions.

Blase, here I go again. (Cue the Misery theme music… I’m your number one fan; don’t bother with that board between your knees.) Yesterday, Blase dropped this nuclear bomb on one-dimensional masculinity. You may have to friend either Blase or me to see it. I’m not sure. Either way, it’s by-gum worth reading.

Tonia is working through Walter Wink’s book, Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way. I’ve got too many books on the old night stand to pick up a copy of this one, but you can sure-as-shooting know I’m going to use Tonia like a good set of Cliff’s Notes. Why don’t you run over to her place and keep up with this series.

Finally, this is just for the sake of nostalgia, justice, Woody Guthrie, and the notion that we all share humanity. It’s for my friends who might appreaciate it–like him, and her, and her, and him.

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Genealogy

01 May 2013 / 3 Comments   in church

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*****

I am the kid of a Catholic father and a Baptist mother.  My father and his brothers were raised up under strict Church of Christ rule, but their parents were good people. They did the best they knew how.

My grandfather Haines was raised by his grandparents Henke. They were German Lutheran homesteaders in Oklahoma who knew ranching and beer-making. Grandpa Haines plowed Henke’s fields from the age of 8, drank Henke’s beer from the age of 9. Henke taught Grandpa Haines to pray, albeit privately and in German.  (All good Lutherans of the day knew that religion was a personal matter practiced in the mother tongue.) Grandpa Haines’ farm labor and beer-drinking produced a barrel chest, one fit to carry the Browning Automatic Rifle across Italy in the second World War. The praying produced an iron will, one he credited for carrying him home.

My Grandmother Haines grew up the daughter of a Church of Christ shop owner, a real proselytizing kind of fella.  He laid a few bricks in the foundation of my family. We still hold scripture, baptism, and the Lord’s supper in high esteem, but I reckon we don’t hold to a whole host of his theological leanings. Still, he was a good man, and he knew how to turn a nickel.

My grandparents on my mother’s side where Episcopalian.  The Mouks, George and Carol, are interred in St. Thomas Episcopal on the bayou.  It’s a quiet church, small, community based.  On Sunday mornings, sometimes the mallards splash down on the bayou backdrop as the bells usher the congregants in. My Grandfather Mouk wouldn’t have missed a Sunday service for the world, especially in his latter days. He’d sing the hymns, voice quavering, loud. My grandfather Mouk held my grandmother Mouk until the cancer did her in. He had an strong will, too, though maybe it was made of different stuff than steel.

I know very little about Grandpa Mouk’s father, other than he didn’t seem much like a faith-bearing man. I could be wrong about that, but it’s the way I’ve always thought of him. His mother, though, was known to have a pragmatic faith. I reckon she might have been Episcopalian, but perhaps she was Catholic, or Presbyterian, or Methodist.  In those days, faith was inherited much like a grandfather clock or the family farm. At least, that’s what I’m told.  In any event, the Mouk folks laid bricks in my family foundation, too–community, family, the singing of the doxology.

I am the son, grandson, and great-grandson of these pioneers, folks looking to find a little water along the way and hoping to pass down a brick or two of tradition.  My cousins are the offspring of these people, too. Some of you might be, but even if your not, your stories are the same.

We’re all cousins, some of us kissing-cousins, even. And it don’t do no good to hate your cousins.

The way I see it, most of us are just looking for a little water along the way, and hoping to stop just long enough to pass something down that’s worth sticking. That’s all.

*****

“When you grow up, don’t you hate your mama and daddy, ’cause they gave you everything you ever had.”

eTown webisode 79 – Joe Purdy – “Pioneer” from eTown on Vimeo.

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Biters

29 Apr 2013 / 0 Comments   in church

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*****

*Diary Date, April 30, 2013.*

The day they turned to eating each other started like any other. I was frying eggs in leftover bacon grease, allowing the white to crisp sepia around a perfectly sunshiny yolk. My toaster, which had a way of ashing bread beyond recognition, was finishing up a nice pair of shingle-like squares. I had forgotten to manually pop the toast prior to the occurrence of  it’s Armageddon, and this oversight had led to the shrieking of the smoke detector, which sat directly above the television. I fanned the alarm, as if to calm the nerves of the old house, while simultaneously turning the dial to the old black and white, which I had rigged to receive cable.

The egg gave a blistering pop. I ignored it for the television. There, in highly contrasting bi-tones and lo-fi audio, stood two men, each holding the other’s opposing arm between gnawing teeth. Cannibalistic endeavors aside…

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*Photo by Esparta. Used under Creative Commons license, via Flickr.

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Lyricism, Church Infighting and the Creed

26 Apr 2013 / 51 Comments   in church, Uncategorized

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1.

My friend Lore sent me some encouragement the other day; she said, “my editor at [insert super-relevant faith blog channel] wrote me and said ‘don’t think people don’t want the lyrical stuff. They do.’” I’m not sure exactly how Lore knew I needed the encouragement to keep tapping out words, but she did. Perhaps it’s that whole “same Spirit,” thing or something. In any event, a timely word is a treasure. The Proverbs say so.

2.

I’m going to be less guarded here, speak less in parables today. Prepare yourself.

There is a great deal of infighting on the Christian-net these days. I think it’s over the top. Let me put it this way: if John Piper (the super-educated) says one thing about women’s roles in the church, and NT Wright (the super-educated) says another, and I’ve read them both, and they both make cogent arguments, and I have not a breath of the training of either of those two men, I’m left only with my persuasions. (And I do have some persuasions on the topic.) In other words, I’ll interpret their teachings through the lens of my personal reality (or my “story”) and make a decision regarding which I believe. But why take the extra step and claim some extra-enlightened stance on the topic? Why try to teach the Christian-net the “Truth,” when the truth is, I’m just as confused as the rest of the people. You know… if I’m honest.

Honesty cuts both ways, see. It’s not just about being vulnerable about the garbage of your story, it’s about admitting what you don’t know, too.

3.

Last night, I crawled into my bed after singing a rousing rendition of Rich Mullins’ “Creed.” I closed my eyes and found anger and discord blinking behind my eyelids, the coded computer bits of the day coming back to haunt me. I recalled a particularly nasty internet debate, a video, some snarky comments, and whatever is the opposite of a whole lotta love. This was not an intentional recollection, mind you. Sometimes the brain is an entity of it’s own; it sparks where it will and you follow. But after a few minutes of riling up, I said it over and over, “I believe in God the Father, almighty maker of heaven and maker of earth.”

After a time, the sparking stopped.

4.

Mike Rusch once asked me, “what are the things that keep you up at night?”

5.

Preston says that not many should aspire to be teachers, and I wholeheartedly concur. There’s a millstone awaiting the false-teacher’s neck, after all, and millstone necklaces and oceans are a lethal combination.

Caveat magister.

I don’t aspire to teach. In fact, the thought that I’d ever return to the church in that capacity terrifies me. When I was teaching the young Churchlings back in the day, when I was brandishing the title “youth minister” like a sword, I never appropriately apprised myself of the risks. Sometimes the knicker-knack of the steel comes back to cut you.

I pray, dear Lord, that you’ve already tossed my waiting millstone into the ocean. Sans Seth, of course. Lord, have mercy.

6.

My friend Lore sent me some encouragement the other day. I’m not sure how she knew I needed it. Maybe it was because I’ve been writing about borders and cardinals. Maybe it’s because I’ve been speaking in poems. Maybe it’s because I’ve trended lyric lately.

I’m finding God more and more in the less and less obvious. I’m finding he doesn’t call me to have a voice on every issue du jour. I’m finding that there is peace in forgiveness, and tolerance. I’m finding God in the quiet places. In scripture, yes. In nature, yes. In the recitation of the creed, yes.

Maybe it’s the simplicity that’s speaking to me lately. Maybe it’s the lyric. Maybe I’m just tired of the fighting. I’m not sure.

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