Some Thoughts About Honor And Fatherhood

Shortly after I had become a Christian, I found myself spending a great deal of time with people who identified themselves as "Jesus freaks" or "Jesus people". Some of those people were older than I, sometimes by as much as ten years or more. There were exceptions, of course, but in general, I found people in my own age group to be pretty boring and uninspiring people. The older Christians with whom I had begun to spend time made me feel loved and valued.

In theory, my father ought to have approved of the way I was spending my time. I could have easily spent my evenings doing drugs with kids from the high school I attended, since such things were hardly unknown. My father had spent at least 6 years of my early childhood behind the pulpit of two United Methodist country churches, and I suspect that the years I'd spent admiring him from the front pews of those churches had played a major role in making me sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

But by the early seventies, those things had become inaccurate indications of where my dad's mind was at. My father had begun to chafe at the bit, and he was showing signs that he resented playing a role which he seemed to regard as the role of a "goody two shoes". (I know this for a fact, thanks to a little drive he took me on one night in the subdivision where we lived at the time. Even though he was a member of the clergy, he made it clear to me that he was questioning the basic tenets of the Christian faith.) In hindsight, his ministry as a Methodist "lay minister" seems to have been motivated by self-centered reasons, not by any passion for people or for Jesus Christ. So when he saw evidence of my growing faith in Christ, he seems to have felt threatened, to the point that he clamped down on me and set restrictions which hindered my ability to fellowship with the very people who helped to nourish me spiritually. In particular, I remember that he told me one night that he no longer would allow me to attend a local prayer meeting at a place in downtown Springfield, MO named The Jesus Place.

I tried to be an obedient son for the most part, but it seemed to me that he crossed the line when he demanded that I relinquish the very relationships which had caused me for the first time in my life to be genuinely excited to be a Christian.

So when he forbade me from going to the Jesus Place, I disobeyed him and went anyway.

Years later, I spoke with a Christian "friend" in Springfield, MO, named Rick Armstrong. Rick had his good points, but I thought he was absolutely wrong when he chastised me for what he saw as my disobedience, after I had told him about that earlier incident. In Rick's view, parents reigned as absolute authorities, and believers ought not to ever disobey their parents for any reason. I repeat: FOR ANY REASON. (Ironically, Rick, the paragon of virtue who ostensibly would never disobey his parents, had at one point in his life been a dealer of crack cocaine. I'd never even smoked a joint.)

The implications of that extreme view were recently brought to my awareness once again after I borrowed a friend's DVD for the Viggo Mortensen movie entitled "Eastern Promises". The movie begins with a scene in which we see a guy sitting in a barber's chair at a place owned by a Russian guy named Azim. Azim and his customer are having what appears to be the sort of conversation which takes place at barber shops all over the world. The barber's son walks in the door, and the conversation turns to the subject of disobedient children. Azim tells the customer that his son is a disobedient young man, and cannot or will not even do a simple thing for him. The customer defends the young man, in essence saying that Azim should give the young man a break. Then Azim's speach becomes more harsh as he rebukes his son for his disobedience. He hands a straight-edge razor to his son, and commands the son to do what he was told to do. Too late, the customer experiences comprehension (and probably terror). The deed Azim wants his son to do is to take the razor and murder the customer, which the son does by slicing the customer's throat as blood spurts out, and as his father holds the customer down. (Shades of Sweeney Todd.)

It ought to go without saying that one's moral responsibilities to one's parents does not include the duty to commit murder. Such situations are not common, but they do happen, as many children of mafioso have attested over the years. The existence and perpetuation of crime syndicates has long relied upon a misguided and perverted sense of family loyalty. The mob often uses words like "honor", but it's clear from that organization's manner of operating that mobsters wouldn't recognize real honor if it bit them on their behinds.

Thank God, my father's immorality did not go that far. The worse thing my father ever asked me to do was to refrain from criticizing him when I came to realize that he had been committing adultery and betraying his marital vows. But I think that the fundamental point ought to be clear: No believer in Christ has the absolute responsibility to obey his or her parents in any and all circumstances. There may be times when one's faith comes into conflict with one's family obligations, and in such cases, one's priorities are clear.

One's obligations to one's heavenly father usurp one's temporal obligations every time. When we stand before God on Judgment Day, God and God alone will determine how we will spend eternity.

I DETEST CAPTCHAS!!!

A "captcha" is ostensibly designed to weed out automated programs which are designed for getting past the security precautions of web sites. They usually say something like "type the captcha characters to prove that you are not a robot". Trouble is, the characters you're supposed to type are almost invariably presented in such a way that it's almost impossible to read one of the two words. To the folks who design these things, I want to scream, "Hey, STUPID, I am not a robot, but I am getting exceedingly angry when you force me over and over again to guess what your intentions were when you distorted the image so much that it was next to impossible to read.

And by the way, the audio versions aren't necessarily an improvement in terms of legibility.

Eventually one might be successful in getting past the captcha. But it can take seemingly forever, as it did just now for me when I tried to shorten a URL at a site run by Google.

Christageddon and DeGarmo and Key

I just checked out a link today on the Facebook memorial page for Dana Key of DeGarmo and Key. It was for a band called Christageddon, and the text which accompanied the music which played when I hit the link described the vocalist Richard as "vomiting vocals", which was a pretty appropriate description of the sound which reached my ears. The band describes its music as "unblack metal".

I understand why some traditionalist Christians had issues with the hippies and "Jesus Freaks" which formed Christian rock bands like Love Song (which was very mellow, a bit like the secular band Bread) back in the 1970s when I was in high school. But that stuff was way tame compared with bands like Christageddon. Even hard rockin' bands like Resurrection Band were tame in comparison!

I admit, "unblack metal" is a little harsh on the ears of an old 55-year-old fart like myself. But I still know of no scripture which specifies exactly what musically constitutes holy and unholy music, notwithstanding the existence of people who would have you believe that anything more modern than a Gregorian chant is of the devil.

Even if it's unlikely that you would ever pay for an "unblack metal" album or music download, pray for these young people. Someone WILL listen to them, and if it brings even one individual to salvation, then it's worthy of support in my opinion.

While you're praying you might pray for the singers' voices. It sounds to me as if it would physically hurt to try to sing that way. It's a bit like listening to Tom Waits on acid.

If this stuff is your cup of tea, you might also want to check out Demon Hunter at http://youtu.be/ESYrHnywIYg.

If you want to see a video which comes closer to representing my own musical tastes, watch the video of Jesse Dixon performing with DeGarmo and Key, at http://youtu.be/zgrCkRnwHgc. A version without Jesse Dixon can be found at http://youtu.be/p8oc5CcOGB0.  Another tune to check out is the D&K video for "Competition" (http://youtu.be/opcROPNhs2o).

To Gluten Or Not To Gluten

Back in the 80s, I bought and read a book entitled "How To Make All The Meat You Eat Out Of Wheat" by Nina and Michael Shandler. I never actually tried making gluten burgers according to the directions in the book, but a small food court restaurant at which I worked in Cambridge, MA offered such burger patties in its pita bread sandwiches (in addition to excellent New York Style cheesecake).

Just as I suspected they would (on the basis of the book's descriptions), their gluten burger patties tasted very meat-like (and NOT grainy, unlike the vegetarian burgers sold in local natural foods grocery stores, although those were OK in their own way). I'd have preferred to heat them up and melt cheddar cheese on top, and add lettuce, tomatoes and BBQ sauce, but that wasn't how Baby Watson's served them. And although one could buy tofu and tempeh at a local natural foods grocery store, I don't recall that they offered gluten burger patties.

The weird thing was that the entire book of recipes was reliant on wheat gluten. So I was puzzled when it later became fashionable to preface the names of many dishes by describing them as "gluten free", as if gluten was evil or at the very least unhealthy. How was it that people referred to gluten in very negative ways, if gluten was also capable of partially or completely replacing meat in a person's diet?

As I had suspected must be the case, it turned out that some people had allergies to gluten, and it was apparently a significant number of people; therefore, it made sense to cater to such people, just as it would make sense to advertise that particular dishes were "peanut free" (again, allergies) even though peanut butter had been a basic substence food for many people.

So, OK, if you have an allergy to gluten, then stay away from the recipes in the aforementioned book. But if you're a vegetarian (or just a normal meat eater like myself who

Digital Flatbed Printers and Fine Art

When I was still living in Chicago, I had the opportunity to see a large flatbed printer owned by Digital Imaging Resources, Inc. DIR was closely connected with Printmakers Chicago, a giclee printing company owned by John Cisco. Even though it appears to be two separate companies, in fact the two companies work together on some projects. They were and are both located at 650 W. Lake Street.

The giclee printing (Epson, mostly) is done by Printmakers Chicago, but when they want to print on rigid substrates, such as Duho panel, they use the Durst Rho owned by DIR.

The Durst Rho and other similar digital flatbed printers offer certain advantages one can't get from even the best giclee printers, including the ability to print on diverse flat and rigid substrates such as glass, metal and wood, and the ability to print with opaque white ink (which is particularly handy on glass). Typically, digital flatbed printers are used to produce POP (Point Of Purchase) displays, where the graphics are printed directly on rigid materials such as Gatorboard or Sintra, as opposed to having to mount the prints on such materials.

While the lion's share of the work done by companies offering digital flatbed printing is commercial in nature, it also has fine art applications, and it's being used in that way by artists such as Bonnie Lhotka.

The ability to print directly onto plate glass would be useful as a prelude to creating the etched or engraved pieces of plate glass needed for a fine art printmaking process known as vitreography. One could just print one's reference image on one side of the glass, and then hand engrave the glass using a tool such as the Turbo Carver.

One might also use a digital flatbed printer for making negatives to be used for a historic process known as cliche verre. That process was traditionally difficult, inasmuch as it involved a reverse process involving coating the glass with dark tallow and then selectively scratching it away (a bit like scratchboard), but the digital equivalent would be much faster and easier.

From my perspective, the option I would like to explore involves digitally printing images as "underpaintings" on panel board, and then enhancing the prints with real paints such as acrylic paint, if desired. (Of course, that isn't essential, since there are software programs, such as Alien Skin Snap Art 3 and Topaz Simplify, which can do a very good job of emulating the look of natural art media.) There are various ways of transferring digitally printed images to art panel, but some of those ways are a hassle or a mess, involving such things as heat or solvents or acrylic medium. How much easier to simply send one's digital files to a company like DIR and to specify the substrate on which the images should be printed.

To see a video showing the use of the Durst Rho, visit http://youtu.be/1jXVqk9WzAQ.

It should go without saying that the average home computer user lacks the funds with which to purchase one of these huge printers, to say nothing of lacking the space needed in order to install and use one. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, there will always be a need to work in partnership with a company such Digital Imaging Resources.

I know that all of the things mentioned in this blog post ought to be possible, and I look forward to exploring these options in the future in order to create high quality pieces of fine art.

Gigapantastic!

Fine art reprographics could be defined as the art of digitally reproducing fine art paintings by means of high quality giclee prints and digital prints created with large printers, usually but not always inkjet. Many companies offering this service to artists and photographers also possess Betterlight digital scan backs (for view cameras) or Cruse copy cameras. It is possible to use digital SLR cameras for such purposes (especially now that such cameras come in resolutions as high as 25 megapixels or more), but not everyone can afford such a camera, and there are also times when even 25 megapixels are insufficient (although it helps if one uses what was once called Genuine Fractals, or another comparable program such as Alien Skin Blow Up).

A cool solution can be found in a product called the Gigapan. For a video which will give you an idea of how the product works, see: http://youtu.be/dtuN62U0QHU. Now, the Gigapan is great for creating panoramic photos (even with people in the photos, if you don't object to the odd fact that you will sometimes see individuals in multiple areas of the same photos), but where it really shines, it seems to me, is in the reproduction of really large paintings. By definition, such artworks are not going to be moving around while the device is working, so simply by stitching multiple images together, you can get a super big file even without the use of interpolation software. Doing this type of thing manually is usually a pain in the behind, but with the Gigapan, you don't have to worry about whether or not each of the images you'll be stitching together is properly composed.

It also bears mentioning that a lot of new DSLR videos are capable of shooting great videos. With the Gigapan, you don't need to do your panning and zooming with the software, you can just do it in-camera when creating your video documentation of the painting.

Death and Taxes

It's been said that death and taxes are the two things which can't be avoided.

Taxes are probably less inevitable, inasmuch as they are a reflection of whatever economic and legal system exists in any jurisdiction, and not every jurisdiction is the same. But death is definitely part of every person's life, and even though every person grows up with the consciousness of mortality in the back of his or her mind, that awareness seems to grow with each passing year. Reading about the death of a person who played a big role in one's life can feel like a significant marker in one's life. What starts with a trickle can grow until it seems like an avalanche. (Sorry about the mixed metaphors.)

We can't totally control how (or if) we will be remembered after we have died. How we have treated other people will definitely affect our legacies.

Our accomplishments will play a role, too. There isn't much point in achieving great things, though, if we are such jerks that people remember us not for our accomplishments but for our needlessly unpleasant personalities.

Of course, that's assuming that we're remembered at all. That's always been the purpose of obituaries, since not everyone will be remembered by a professional writer in the form of a biography.

Obituaries, however, tend to literally disappear with yesterday's news.

Thanks to the Internet, however, we now have other options, in terms of ways to insure that the obituaries of the deceased last longer than they would be likely to last if they were published in a local newspaper. www.memory-of.com/ for example is an online obituary service I found a while back. Judging by the fact that the site doesn't seem to be online anymore, however, I'm thinking that the person who ran that site might have run out of funds with which to pay the hosting fees. That's too bad. But other sites of that nature appear to still be available. http://www.christianmemorials.com/ for example is specifically for Christians. http://www.ourlovedones.com/ I think the thing I especially liked about Memory-Of.com, though, was the fact that one could upload various files such as audio, video and more, associated with one's loved one. OurLovedOnes.com seems pretty lame in comparison with what I remember seeing at Memory-Of.com. But ChristianMemorials.com seems comparable in terms of cool features.

The Joke Is On Them

There's a "joke" amongst psychiatrists to the effect that talking to God is called prayer, but hearing God means you're "nuts".

Really? If so, then tens of millions of people are "nuts", because they are committed to a belief system based on the premise that God can and does speak to people, and that he has done so throughout history. And by the way, a lot of Jews share that belief even if they reject the idea that Jesus was the messiah. Ditto for Muslims, although there are obvious differences of opinion about certain matters, when one compares their beliefs with the beliefs of Christians.

Numerous people have died martyrs deaths rather than betray their commitment to that basic proposition.

Hmmm, let's see. The aforementioned beliefs have stood the test of time for more than 2000 years. Psychiatry on the other hand is a fairly recent invention. That doesn't mean it's automatically wrong, of course, but it does strongly suggest that the aforementioned "joke" says less about God and divine revelation than it says about psychiatrists and their deep-seated anti-Christian biases. (Some Christian psychiatrists claim that faith and psychiatry are not incompatible, but when you consider psychiatrists' idea of "humor", you have to wonder.)

Sure, some people seem to be delusional in their beliefs that God has spoken to them personally, but then again, it seems arrogant to assert that one knows incontestably that they are wrong in those beliefs. Just because something seems improbable, that doesn't mean it's wrong. Miracles seem improbable to some people too.

One has to wonder what the point of talking to God is if one is not prepared for the possibility that he might occasionally see fit to reply. If one doesn't really believe that anyone is listening when one prays, then why not just be honest and admit that one isn't really a believer at all.

I find it easier to respect atheists who openly admit that they have chosen the path of unbelief than to respect people who go through the motions associated with Christianity but who, if you closely examine the way they live their lives, turn out to be faux believers in disguise.

I'm inclined to suggest that such people should defecate or get off the commode.

A Product for Absent-Minded Professors

I just learned about a cool product which is designed to enable people to minimize the loss of important possessions. It's called CobraTag.

Losing my laptop computer would be devastating to me. But the likelihood of that happening to me is slim indeed, precisely because the computer is so important to me, and because it's big and bulky and visible. I'd have to be far more absent-minded than I am in order to need the CobraTag for that purpose.

Cell phones, on the other hand, are another story. They're so tiny that they're very easy to misplace. One's cell phone can be in the same room, and still be somewhere which isn't immediately visible. "Hey, have you seen my electronic hockey puck?" Not good. You can buy another one if you lose it, but what about your investment in terms of publicizing your phone number among friends, relatives, potential employers (or potential customers) and so forth? If 400 people have your phone number and then you lose your phone, do you really want the hassle of having to tell 400 people about the change to a new number? (Admittedly cell phone companies will allow you to reassign your current number to a new device. Even so...)

I've sometimes had the experience of having to ask someone to call me when we're in the same room, just so I can hear my phone ringing. Sometimes it will be in a pocket in a pile of clothes destined for the laundry! (Imagine ruining a phone by accidentally putting it through the wash.)

I don't currently have the budget for a product like CobraTag, but I'm keeping it in mind for future reference. It might also be applicable to other small devices, such as MP3 players, cameras, etc.

God Moves In Mysterious Ways

Years ago, my parents divorced, after a protacted period of contentious relations with one another. I'd learned to my dismay that my father had been having an affair with a divorced woman named Karen Brown. Eventually she married my father, and then she later divorced my father as well. (That second marriage really didn't last very long, although it seemed to me that it lasted longer than I'd have preferred.)

In the interim, however, I found myself in a weird state of existence in which I was being bounced between my father's household and my mother's. I really felt incredibly uncomfortable whenever I had to visit my father's house. Part of the reason was that Dad seemed to feel compelled to rub my face in the fact that he'd chosen to replace my mother with Karen Brown, for whom he seemed to feel an affection he no longer felt for my mother.

Karen Brown had two sons of her own, named Jeff and Doug. During those early years, I resented both of them, for reasons which were obviously not their fault. They clearly couldn't help the situation any more than I could, but in my mind, they were symbols of my father's abandonment of the values I had once incorrectly ascribed to him. I had a particularly hard time understanding why my dad would prefer them to me and my brother. (That may not have actually been the case, but that was how it felt to me.) My awareness of the fact that they were known to use illegal drugs during this period of time enhanced the extent to which I was puzzled by what appeared to be my father's preference for the Brown family.

I'd never wanted any siblings other than my own brother, and I felt as if Doug and Jeff were in a sense forced on me by my father. I suspect that that's pretty common in cases involving divorce and stepmothers or stepfathers.

But over the years, things changed. I can now say that I am pleased to have known Jeff Brown, who seems to have met the Lord Jesus, and who seems to have really turned his life around. http://altonwoods.wordpress.com/who-am-i/ contains Jeff's personal life story, and it also contains blog posts which, for the most part, are well worth reading.

Unfortunately, when I learned these things, I was in no position to personally visit with Jeff, since I was already living in Bellingham, WA, and I couldn't afford to travel to Missouri for a visit with Jeff. He isn't the only one to be touched by issues pertaining to foreclosure and the poor economy. My past year has been the worst year I've ever had in some respects, and that's saying a lot. Two strokes (one in June 2011 and one in February 2012) have been hard to deal with, and the same is true with regard to the fact that I've been living in a homeless shelter ever since December 2012. (I also spent a month at another such shelter in November 2011 when I visited Dallas Texas.)

In spite of these issues, however, I have hopes that my situation will improve in the upcoming year, and that eventually Jeff and I will be able to meet one another and fellowship with each other.

That seems more likely to me now that I have learned by visiting his blog that he's now living in Springfield, MO once again.

Equine Dreams

When I was a kid, I loved to read (even though homework bored me to tears). There was a period of time when a lot of my reading consisted of reading books about horses. I didn't really envision myself mucking around horse stalls, but it's pretty hard to think or read about horses without being captivated by their beauty and their power. Daydreaming about such things goes a long way toward explaining why I fell behind in school when I was in junior high (grades 7 and 8).

One author who captured my attention was a woman named Marguerite Henry. Her books, such as Misty of Chincoteague, were well written, and even though the little "ponies" in some of her stories were not exactly the archetypical strong, bold stallions which I loved in stories about race horses, there was something about her stories which I loved nevertheless.

One summer, when my mother and grandmother took me on a driving trip to the East Coast (where we visit Washington DC, Williamsburg, VA, and similar places), they decided that I would enjoy a trip to Chincoteague Island, where Misty and Stormy had lived. We actually visit the home of the former owner of those horses, at the Beebe Ranch. I remember that she gave me photos of the actual horses, and showed me the stalls where she had kept them.

At some point, I believe that I bought a Breyer model horse which was painted to look like Misty or Stormy, down to the distinctive markings on the side of the animal. For someone whose father had never actually bought me a horse or a pony (despite my pleas that he do so), owning those plastic Breyer models was the next best thing, without the animal dung. I read so much about horses that there was a time when I was very well versed in the details pertaining to equine tack, although I have forgotten most of what I knew back then, since I eventually came to a point of acceptance with regard to the probability that I would never have a horse of my own.

Here's a little artistic rendition I created by downloading an image of a Breyer model horse. I ran it through certain filters in Photoshop Elements. It's a useful technique when you want to disguise the fact that the original photo shows a toy, not a real animal.

Giving Anonymously

I have known, ever since I started attending Mosaic Church in Bellingham, WA about half a year ago, that it was a special church, for a variety of reasons. Now I have yet another reason for believing that that's true.

Lionel and Misha Thompson attend our church. Unknown to me until now (believe it or not), Lionel created a charity called Giving Anonymously.

What makes it rather sad is that I am just now finding out about the charity, and I could really use the kind of help I might be likely to receive from that charity. (I've been staying in a local homeless shelter ever since December 2011, and that is not my idea of a good time. The two strokes I had in June 2011 and February 2012 didn't exactly help, either.) But it would seem that the "geniuses" in our government here in Washington state have decided to erect barriers to the functioning of the organization. (And people wonder why the "Occupy" movement was so popular last year.)

Here's a small photo of Lionel. (I hope he doesn't mind, but I "stole" the photo from his web site, and I slightly enhanced it in Photoshop Elements, after converting it to grayscale.)

Here, according to Lionel's web site, is the explanation of their current troubles:

Giving Anonymously is temporarily unable to process gifts as of May 30th. We don't think this is the end of GA, however, we believe this exciting work has only just begun.
Since 2007 Giving Anonymously (GA), a registered charity in Bellingham, Washington, has facilitated anonymous peer to peer giving throughout the USA and to a limited degree internationally. GA is run by a team of volunteers passionate about helping people generously give to those around them in need. To date $2.3 Million has been given through GA (currently averaging $80,000 each month). What we love most about GA are the 1000's of stories and thank you messages (click here to listen to a few) from people helped by friends who have given to them through GA. Since 2009 the New York Times, NPR, Real Simple Magazine and NBC have run stories which included, or were about, GA.

In 2010 we inquired to the State of Washington about whether or not GA should have a money transmission license. After two years of analyzing our charitable model WA State decided that we needed to not only register for a money transmission license in WA State but in every state of the USA where we transmit money. As the cost of licensing in every state is prohibitive for us (estimated to be $700,000 and $150,000 each year thereafter) we have been advised by the State of WA and our lawyers to partner with an organization licensed to transmit money between people. We are looking for such an organization that can help us by receiving money from our donors and remitting money to our recipients.

You can help us by spreading the word about this – please feel free to share this video and link to this page. If you would like to know when our service is up and running again please leave a comment with your email address.

Gratefully,

The Team at GA

Yeah, that's just what the world needs: Legal requirements which make it harder for people to be good neighbors. I'm sorry, but it's hard for me to resist being sarcastic when I am made aware of such stupidity. Something is really messed up in this world when our government is intent on hindering efforts to be obedient to Jesus. I'm sure they have all kinds of rationalizations, but the bottom line is that a source of help which has been available to lots of needy people is temporarily unavailable.

In the short term, there isn't much I can do on a practical level for Lionel, in terms of financial help, but I can certainly help to spread the word about his predicament in relation to the good work he has been doing.

In the longer term, I also hope to help raise funds for a variety of charities (such as World Vision) with my own fund raising project (called the Artistic Rescue Project). Clearly, I need to add Giving Anonymously to the list of organizations I hope to help with funds acquired in that manner.

I think that Lionel and I can operate in a mutually beneficial manner, by helping to raise funds via the sale of artistic products and tickets to artistic events, such as Christian concerts.

You can contact Lionel at the contact information shown at https://givinganon.org/contact-us.

Feel free to leave a comment on this blog post, and feel free to contact me at mwp1212@gmail.com as well.

By the way, the sooner you help Giving Anonymously to resolve these issues and get back to doing what they've clearly been called to do, the sooner my own financial situation will be resolved to my satisfaction. Or at lease I hope that that's the case.

Recognizing One's Enemies

One of the more profound (and abused) scriptures is the one in which Jesus tells people to love their enemies.

One aspect of that teachings is that Jesus recognized that there was a significant difference between enemies and friends. After all, in order to obey his injunction, one first has to recognize that a person is in fact one's enemy.

King David didn't have any trouble telling the difference between a friend and an enemy, which is a good thing, since his first official act of obedience to God was to slay Goliath.

Jesus knew the dark hearts of men far too well to trust them or to fail to understand that there were many human beings who would be all too happy to kill him.

The point I am trying to make is that loving one's enemies is not tantamount to being naive about the fact that they are one's enemies. You can tell an enemy from a friend by examining that person's manner of treating one. Friendship is not free of obligations. There are things one cannot do to another person if one expects to be regarded as a friend and not an enemy. I could list those things specifically by name, but the bottom line is that they call it The Golden Rule for very good reason. They do not call it the Golden Suggestion. Obeying it is not optional in God's book.

A lot of Christians claim that they understand and follow the Golden Rule, but all you have to do to know they are sometimes lying is to ask, "Do you really mean to say that you expect me to believe you would want someone to treat you the way you just treated so-and-so?"

People who endorsed slavery from the pulpit, during the antebellum era, presumably claimed to practice the Golden Rule. How curious. I can't imagine any of those folks volunteering to be anyone's slave. Slavery is only one of many possible examples of believers who lack or lacked the integrity to obey the Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule does not preclude punishing those who have deliberately done things to deserve punishment. But even wrongdoers believe in the principle of reciprocity, if one closely examines what they claim to believe.

So act with integrity, and always keep the Golden Rule in mind when deciding how to treat the people. You will be judged accordingly.

QR Codes and Temporary Tattoos

Not long ago, I found a web site called LeaseYourBody.com. (See the attached graphic image.)

I guess it's a better name than SellYourBody.com, since it was traditionally said that that was what prostitutes did.

It certainly could be argued that advertising products by offering to put company logos on your forehead using temporary tattoos such as those made by companies such as StrayTats.com would be better (and safer) than having sex with men or women one barely knows in exchange for money. Compared with prostitution, there's no risk of unwanted pregnancies, so it's a potential life saver for the unborn children who might otherwise be aborted by their prostitute mothers.

When it comes to making money, there are hipper alternatives which might be better than company logos when it comes to temporary tattoos. It might be especially useful from a commercial point of view if one offered to follow the latest trend by putting a graphic QR code on the temporary tattoo. (See the attached graphic files, which I found on the Internet.)

Considering the many manifestations QR codes can take (including plain text, as well as web URL addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, MeCards, VCards, and plain text), one can imagine all sorts of applications. One might even include an affiliate marketing URL, such as those used for selling products via companies such as Amazon.com, so that the person who scanned the QR code on one's face would be taken immediately to a web page where he or she could buy a product, thereby potentially providing one with a new source of revenue.

Note also that one can create dynamic QR codes, which is a good protection if you later change your mind or discover that you accidentally entered a typo when you created the original QR code. A Google search for the phrase "dynamic QR code generator" currently yields 467,000 search results!

One piece of advice: If the code on one's face is a potential source of income, it's probably a good idea to avoid homeless zombie face eaters high on bath salts. (Search the web if you have no idea what I am talking about, but only if you have a very strong stomach.)

Or if you prefer, use a more conventional means of spreading your QR code, such as printing it on a t-shirt or printing it on a pin-back button.

I shudder to think what Jerry Falwell would have thought of the latest craze for putting QR codes anywhere and everywhere. If he thought purple Teletubbies were covert agents for the homosexual community, he would have undoubtedly thought that a QR code in the form of a temporary face tattoo was the equivalent of the "mark of the Beast". "Don't you know," he might have fumed, "that there's a reason they're called QueeR codes!"

As a conservative Christian, I agreed with Falwell's opposition to the gay "rights" movement. But I will admit that Falwell sometimes tended to be a little bit paranoid. Not everything is a plot from hell, not even if one can easily envision it being used for nefarious purposes. I've even seen evidence that the QR code has been used, and is being used, for evangelistic purposes. Sometimes, a tool is just a tool, and its value depends on how it is used.

See the following images, which pertain to the preceding story.

Printing Unprintable Web Pages

I like to browse the web in search of useful information and interesting online articles. When I find what I want to keep so that I can print the information or access it when I am not online, I like to convert it to a PDF file, using Nuance PDF Create 7. (Adobe Acrobat would also work, of course, but it costs a lot more money, and I am not just rolling in money at the moment.)

Unfortunately, I sometimes get gobbledegook from the PDF version created by the Nuance program. It's not that the PDF program is at fault, it's that the browser I use sometimes doesn't (or can't) create decent printable files (which can be easily verified by opening Print Preview). Some browsers work better than others, SOMETIMES, but not always.

Print Friendly (www.printfriendly.com) offers a service where you merely enter the URL of a web page you want to print, and they convert the page to a downloadable PDF file, with or without graphics, as you wish.

Just now, the Print Friendly web site enabled me to create a very high quality PDF from a web page and article I really wanted in that form. Ironically, the web site was one pertaining to the use of the Internet for evangelistic purposes. You would think that the web designers responsible for a site specifically pertaining to the use of the web would be capable of creating online articles which could be printed properly, so they could be shared with others. Apparently not. Fortunately, Print Friendly came to my rescue. It sounds trivial, I know, but it can make the difference between a productive online session and an unproductive one.

I'm pretty sure that Print Friendly will make it a lot easier for visitors to all my blogs and blog posts to make prints and PDF files without wasting space on superfluous and paper-wasting navigational elements. But let me know what your experience is when you try to print this blog post or turn it into a PDF file.

NOTE: Some online services (such as PDF Online, www.pdfonline.com) allow you to upload files in certain formats (via the form at http://www.pdfonline.com/convert-pdf/) and get them converted to PDF files they will e-mail to you. But while that's fine for things like Microsoft Word files (as long as they don't exceed the specified file sizes), it's useless for making PDF files from web pages one finds.

PrintFriendly is independent of the computer you're using, so even if you are browsing the web with a public computer, such as one of those found in libraries, you should still be able to make PDFs from whatever web site you find. That should help eliminate the need for libraries to offer printing capabilities to web surfers. What a boon that would have been to me back when I was using the computers at the Harold Washington Library for such research purposes. Back in those days, I ended up spending money I shouldn't have had to spend, just so I could archive the info I found online.

The library should place a prominent link to Print Friendly on the home page for the library's web site. Pronto! It would be the eco-friendly thing to do, and it would be a real service to the poor people who are often forced to use such free public computers.

A MINOR GRIPE: The Print Friendly service generates PDF files which are a different page size than the 8.5 x 11-inch pages which are considered "letter size" in the United States. So I am guessing that Print Friendly was created by a European company, since page sizes in Europe are slightly different from the 8.5 x 11-inch size. Ir's annoying. If one tries to print to the standard letter size page size from the PrintFriendly.com PDF, you can do so, but it sometimes produces text which does not appear correctly in the new lettersize version. I just posted a question about this issue on the support page at PrintFriendly.com, and I hope they answer it to my satisfaction. Otherwise, it's a great web site, and if I never print the PDF files there (which will often be the case, because the reason I want to be able to make PDFs from web pages is usually that I am trying to avoid the need to print them), it won't really matter. The thing is, though, that I would like to be able to make proper printouts from time to time. So they need to offer a dialogue button which specifies what the page size should be when making PDF files. One should even be able to print web pages to non-standard page sizes such as 11x17.

UPDATE: While PrintFriendly can often create some excellent PDF files, that isn't always the case. Sometimes the PrintFriendly PDF shows text which is clearly missing characters, and the best way in such cases can be to just select the actual text, copy it and then paste it into a plain text editor or word processor. Also, PrintFriendly isn't always capable of capturing desired graphic images on particular web pages. In such cases, one may be able to right click the photos and download them, or else do screen shots which can be saved as editable graphic files, usually PNG format. There does not seem to be a universal solution for all web pages, and I wish that the folks at PrintFriendly would figure out a way to make their program work for ALL web pages. But it's still a great option to know about.

Don't Be A Church Hater, Be A Church Rater

Not long ago, I learned about a web site called Church Rater (http://www.churchrater.com/). ChurchReviews.org is another similar web site.

The idea is that if people are able to rate products and services via web sites such as Yelp.com (http://www.yelp.com/bellingham-wa), one should also be able to rate churches one has attended. (And in fact Yelp does offer the ability to rate churches.)

In some circles, the existence of such websites may be deemed as a sign that the apocolypse is nearly upon us. Presumably, it's one thing for people to publicly state their opinions about such seemingly trivial matters as the best pizza joint or the best lawyer in town, but when it comes to things considered by many people to be sacred and beyond reproach, we are supposed to be silent.

I don't know how we are supposed to prevent tragedies such as the many which have tainted the church throughout its history, if we do not publicly hold people accountable. The story of how power can corrupt alleged men and women of God is a long, sad and sordid tale. Burying such things under the rug is NOT in the best interest of the church.

Websites like Churchrater.com are badly needed, in my opinion, which is based on a lifetime of personal experiences in the church --- the good, the bad and the truly ugly.

When a church is good, it can be a real blessing. I've had churches and pastors who filled my life with great joy, especially because I sometimes had to search for a long time before finding such churches.

One pastor I'll always remember fondly was a man in the Boston area, at a Missionary Alliance church in Jamaica Plain.  His name was Jordan Greely. I developed a close friendship with an assistant pastor there named Ed Williams.

Jordan and Ed came into my life just at a time when I was feeling really burned and burned out by previous church experiences in the city. (When I'd complained to my mother about the unfriendliness of one of those churches, the guy who'd been pastor there before being relocated to a church in my hometown in Missouri had told my mother that what I needed was a good kick in the behind! Nice, huh? Ironically, that man, named Cal Le Mon, had later been kicked out of the Springfield church he "served", having been accused of adultery. If you're reading this, Cal, it seems to me that YOU were the one who needed a kick in the behind. You still owe me an apology, several decades after the fact. Yes, Christians ought to practice forgiveness, but receiving such forgiveness is predicated on one's willingness to humbly confess one's sins and ask for forgiveness. Asking for forgiveness and arrogantly demanding forgiveness as if it's one's birthright are two entirely different things. God requires genuine repentance, he does not arbitrarily dole out "forgiveness indulgences" like so many lollypops.)

Back in the 80s, Jordan Greely knew that I could be trusted after we'd only talked for a brief time period about my desperate need for a piano where I could keep my chops in shape, and he actually gave me the key to the church, asking only that I respect their need for order with regard to other meetings there, and that I clean and lock the place each time before I left at the end of a practice session. Over the next year, I became very close to him and his wife, and when I heard that he had been assigned to another church, I openly wept. Now he's the pastor at Westfield Alliance Church (http://www.westfieldalliancechurch.org/pastors.htm). Maybe I'll get to see him again one day, although we're currently at opposite ends of the continent.

I've had other similarly cherished relationships with pastors, and I count myself fortunate that I am now in what seems to be a good relationship with a Bellingham pastor named Matt Atkins (Pastor of Mosaic Church.)

But I have to be candid and say that I've also had to deal with my share of jerks. (Jerks for Jesus, I like to call them.)

There was the Springfield, MO pastor who actually called me "no better than a prostitute on the streets" because I dared to express disagreement with his policy of not paying musicians or even helping them with "love offerings" when they were struggling with the expenses which are a well known aspect of the lives of most Christian musicians, who are not usually "in it for the money".

There was the Chicago Bible study teacher who misquoted King David when David said he wouldn't "touch the head of God's anointed". (David was saying he would charitably refrain from murdering Saul, he wasn't saying he wouldn't even criticize Saul, for crying out loud.)

Pastors too full of themselves to read the Bible in the proper context can always find out a way to imply that they ought to be regarded as exempt from criticism, even though Jesus' criticisms of the spiritual leaders were pointed, to the point where he even drove out the money changers with a little whip! (Funny, I can't even recall using any such methods myself. But apparently we now live in a day and age when some pastors think it's appropriate to excommunicate people for committing the "offense" of criticm which is expressed via e-mail or voice mail messages.)

One online article I found which addresses this kind of arrogance in the name of faith can be found at http://www.availablelightonline.com/tnma.html, but I suspect that there are many others if I just wanted to take the time to look them up.

A position of church authority ought not to be regarded as a blank check to do anything one wants to do to members of "the flock". Jesus said "To whom much is given, much will be required."

If bad online reviews is the worst thing which happens to some abusive pastors, they ought to count themselves fortunate indeed.

Baabe Irving and Mile Davis on You Tube

When I was still in Chicago, I worked with a guy named Robert Irving III, while I was employed by Guitar Center. "Baabe" as he was nicknamed had played keyboards for Miles Davis during the 80s. Robert produced two Miles Davis albums ("Decoy" and "You're Under Arrest").

During that time, I had the opportunity to play some of my original instrumental music. To my pleasure, he agreed to write a letter of recommendation for my music when I asked him to do so. (As Jesus said, "Ask and you shall receive." If you don't ask, people rarely ever volunteer to write such letters.)

To get an idea of the musical talents Robert Irving III had, and why Miles Davis deemed him worthy of working for him as his "Musical Director", check out the following web addresses, including some YouTube videos of the band in concert.

http://youtu.be/ZY-H_rto3Kg

http://youtu.be/axe12AFkI5Q

Note: I'm running out of time at the Internet cafe, so I'll add more links to this post later.

The following text was copied and pasted from the following web site: http://jazzzology.blogspot.com/2009/08/robert-baabe-irving-iii-jazz-homage-to.html. It pertains to a concert I attended while still living in Chicago.

The Jazz Institute of Chicago presents "Sketches of Brazil: Robert Irving III's Orchestral Homage to Miles and Gil" in Chicago and its free!!! I have been a fan of "Baabe" for a long time and have seen him play/conduct at various venues around Chicago...he never fails to delight and this event should be another one he delivers on with his unique brand of "musicality"...don't miss this!

Thursday, August 13th
6:30 PM
FREE
Millennium Park: Jay Pritzker Pavilion

Composer, pianist and educator Robert Irving III conducts the newly formed Sonic Portraits Orchestra in the world premiere of Sketches of Brazil, an orchestral homage to his mentors, Miles Davis and Gil Evans. The concert features Robert Irving III (composer, conductor, piano); Sonic Portraits Orchestra (a blend of 33 classical and jazz musicians); Wallace Roney (trumpet, flugelhorn); Fareed Haque (guitar), Dede Sampaio (percussion), Felipe Fraga (percussion), Charles Heath (percussion) and Miles Evans (trumpet).

Special panel: Earlier that day from noon to 1:30 pm, the Chicago Cultural Center hosts a panel "50 Years from Sketches of Spain to Sketches of Brazil: A Symposium on the legacy of Miles Davis & Gil Evans" in the Claudia Cassidy Theater. Admission is free and open to the public. Professor Fareed Haque moderates a conversation with Sketches of Brazil composer/arranger Robert Irving III. Additional panelists include Wallace Roney, Vince Wilburn Jr. (nephew of Miles Davis), Miles Evans (son of Gil Evans), Dede Sampaio and Felipe Fraga.

NOTE
http://secretjazz.com/baabe.htm contains more detailed information re: Baabe Irving III.

Justice And the Church

Today I went to Fred Meyer to get a refill on my prescription, which is necessary if I want to avoid another stroke. While there, I saw a rack of video DVDs. There were some cool titles, but I wanted to feel that I'd really gotten my money's worth, so I chose carefully.

Ever since I moved to Bellingham, I'd had an extra interest in the Civil War, on account of the fact that Bellingham had a strong connection to George Pickett, well known for Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. Pickett had lived in Bellingham (when it was still a fort), and in fact, the home in which he lived at that time in his life is within easy walking distance of the Lighthouse Mission, where I currently sleep at night. It's the oldest house in Bellingham, I have learned. There is also a bridge, within easy walking distance, which Pickett built. It crosses over a small but rather boisterous creek which leads to a salmon fishery.

To make a long story short, I decided to buy a 3 DVD set of the movie "The Blue and The Gray". It had a wonderful cast of famous actors, including Stacy Keach, Gregory Peck, Lloyd Bridges and others. It cost me $10, but I regard that as money well spent.

Watching the movie, I am reminded that the Civil War took place, in part, because some men (such as John Brown) regarded the words of the Bible as relevant to the issue of slavery issue in a way which obligated them to fight for the purpose of defending the rights of innocent human beings ... and because others who also considered themselves to be Christians saw fit to defend and rationalize the practice of slavery. That episode in the history of America, and in the history of the Christian church, was shameful.

We would love to think that such things are behind us, and that we "enlightened" people would never do such things anymore. But my own recent experiences when dealing with my brothers and sisters in the faith have persuaded me that nothing much has changed in certain crucial respects.

Morally obtuse people in power, even in the church, somehow manage to continue to rationalize policies and practices and attitudes which are utterly contrary to the values taught and demonstrated by Jesus Christ when he walked the earth.

David Wilkerson, who founded Teen Challenge, was a great influence on my life. Sadly, before he died, he presented a message he called "Anguish". He looked at the current state of the church, and he did not like what he saw. If he had lived in the days prior to the Civil War, I suspect that he would have felt the same way, just as I do.

It breaks my heart when I consider the potential which exists in the church, and when I consider how far we still have to go in terms of achieving the goal of living lives which conform to Christ's expectations. Healing of relationships can never take place unless and until we repent of our shared guilt. Yes, God can and does forgive, but there can be no forgiveness without contrition and true repentance. Our life legacies will depend, in part, on whether or not we stood up for true righteousness and justice.

The issues of the day change from era to era, but the fundamental need for true discipleship and humility remains.

Please Fix This Bug, Google

I just discovered that Google has been screwing with Blogger again (not for the first time, I might add) in a manner which has caused my blog to display in a manner I consider to be unacceptable.

If you will take a look at the first attached graphic file, you will see how I currently have formatted this blog to display, Notice that one of my Pages is entitled "Site Map".

The problem is that when you view the actual blog, the heading for the Site Map is partially hidden. If you were to view this blog for the first time, you would never know that that Page was even available.

I really hope Google fixes this problem quickly, because I have invested a lot of time and effort in this blog over the years, and I hope to continue to do so in the future. There is no point in allowing bloggers to create static pages on their blogs if they cannot be confident that ALL of those pages will be displayed correctly.

A Question of Taste

When I lived in Chicago, I attended a Lutheran church on Belmont Street while working for a female Jewish lawyer whose office was just west of the neighborhood known euphemistically as "Boys Town".

Now, when I was a kid, the phrase Boys Town referred to a benevolent organization which provided homes for young boys. (See http://www.boystown.org/) But in keeping with the general tendency of the so-called gay rights movement to pervert previously innocent words and concepts, the phrase has now come to refer to a Chicago neighborhood in which the promotion of homosexuality is considered to be not only acceptable but admirable. (See the related Wikipedia article.) One of the events I couldn't avoid seeing when traveling to and from my job working for that lawyer was an annual "Gay Pride Parade" taking place in that neighborhood.

I specifically recall standing on the Belmont "El" platform and seeing numerous people pouring into that neighborhood for their celebration. They dressed in a manner which seemed to be deliberately calculated to offend people who believed in decency and biblical values.

One particularly sickening example: One young woman had painted a small rainbow (the new symbol of homosexuality, even though it meant something altogether different for centuries) on the crotch area of her jeans. There was a big sign on her garment, with the words "Taste The Rainbow" pointing to the rainbow painted on her pants.

Fortunately, some Christians are speaking out against this absurd offense against the English language. See the following article about the courage of a pastor in the state of Washington, where I currently live:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/wash-pastor-wants-christians-to-take-back-the-rainbow-and-restore-biblical-symbol-73560/

When the Bible says in Psalms 34:8 "Taste and see that the Lord is good," it has nothing to do with genitalia.

Maybe if that young woman with the rainbow painted on her crotch had read that scriptural invitation, she might not have been tempted to exhibit her appallingly bad taste for all to see.

Ethics and the Workplace

America is suffering from economic hardship, and has been for quite some time. That's hardly news. But I contend that it's a kind of divine punishment for the fact that we have lost our moorings ethically and morally. In my opinion, the church is partly to blame, for allowing companies to practice "business as usual" instead of speaking prophetically against these destructive practices.

For example, a lot of conservative churches and pastors use the term "anti-family" to describe politicians who endorse or tolerate abortion or homosexual marriage or divorce. And I believe that that's an apt description of such things. But it seems to me that such moral "leaders" are rather selective (conveniently so) in their outrage.

I've long known that a lot of businesses and business owners practiced and promoted policies which were detrimental to family life. Consider, for instance, the common tendency to prefer to hire two part-time workers rather than simply hiring a single full-time worker, even though 40 hours of labor are needed by that company. Why do they do such things? Isn't it obvious? They want to save the money the would necessarily spend on employee benefits for full-time workers. Of course, there are companies which don't give such benefits to any of their workers, and that's deplorable on some level, too. But grown adults need and deserve to be given full-time jobs which enable them to provide for their families.

The aforementioned practice  is blatantly anti-family, and I find it shameful that our pulpits have been virtually silent about the issue.

A man who must work two part-time jobs because he is unable to pay living expenses with the income he would receive from one decent full-time job is a man who must spend time needlessly commuting from one part-time job to the other (wasting fuel and other resources in the process) instead of spending that time at church or with his family. He is a man who, even when he is able to spend time with his family, is unduly subjected to stress, which has negative consequences in terms of his health and his costs of health care. A man constantly on the road has less job security, and less ability to reliably provide for his family. And this is overlooking the fact that mothers are often subjected to these same market forces. Latchkey children are the obvious consequences, creating a society characterized by children who are deprived of moral instruction because their stressed out mothers can barely keep their wits together.

Parents have little time to spend together, so there is greater temptation to commit adultery (also known as "having an affair").

Why don't our pastors speak out against this wretched state of affairs, which cries out for reform? Duh! They are afraid of offending members of the business community and causing tithes and offerings to dry up. Such business people have disproportionate control over what these cowards are willing and able to do.

The social changes which forced many people to work for temp agencies just to get a paycheck have been similarly devastating. Temp agencies can sometimes be better than no job at all, but they tend to be run by people who are clueless about such things as loyalty. No job is immune to the temptation to fire people instead of giving them the opportunities to take corrective action in order to hold onto their jobs, but temp jobs are notorious for that kind of thing, When the first indication that a client is dissatisfied with one's job performance is the fact that one has mysteriously stopped getting calls for new assignments from an agency with which one had reliably gotten assignments in the past, there is something wrong. Clients who complain to temp agencies are automatically given the benefit of the doubt, instead of making a genuine attempt to fairly hear both sides of the story. A temp worker can be deemed unhirable by an agency because a client woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. Such horror stories are far from uncommon among temp workers, yet if a person tries to avoid getting sucked into this mess, he may be accused of "laziness" by unsympathetic church leaders.

Jobs in which employers define "loyalty" as the willingness to tell lies for the sake of making sales or covering their bosses' behinds are all too easy to find. Some pastors in training see nothing wrong or immoral with imposing such expectations on their employees.

Jesus was deeply offended and even angered when he observed such things in the supposedly righteous society with which he was surrounded.

Some people ask, "How can you tell whether or not a man truly loves God?" I say that it has very little to do with how many worship services one attends or how much money one gives to one's church, although I acknowledge that both of those things are desirable whenever they are feasible. True love is not merely a useless emotion. Real love precludes the commission of acts which harm others.

Yes, I believe that intrauterine murder (also known euphemistically as "a woman's right to choose") is immoral and offensive. But it's high time we realize, as members of churches, that our hands are often stained with blood, even if we never participate indirectly in abortion.

When we begin to behave with unimpeachable integrity, then we will begin to create conditions in which real revival can take place. Then America may regain its reputation as the "city on a hill" it once claimed to be.

Yelp and The Church

If you have ever visited Yelp.com, you know that it's a web site where people are allowed, even encouraged, to post reviews of local restaurants, retail stores and more. Read this article on Wikipedia to learn more.

No one who operates in the business world likes getting a bad review on Yelp, or even in a person's private blog post. But business people know that anyone who wants the benefit of good word of mouth recommendations has to be willing to take the bad with the good. And actually, such feedback benefits such companies, not just the people they serve. Without such feedback, how are they supposed to know how to make their products and services more appealing? Smart business people covet such feedback, even to the point that they actively and regularly solicit such feedback by means of online surveys for which they offer incentives to participants.

Too bad that concept seems to elude the minds of a lot of leaders of that organization known as the church, a/k/a the Body of Christ. Too often, pastors' attitude mimics the attitude of a poster I once saw. It showed a guy dressed as a mafia "don", and looking as if he would love nothing more than to break someone's leg. He was saying, "When I want your opinion, I will give it to you."

Of course, one would never hear such pastors admit that that's their attitude, at least not in a forum where large numbers of people could catch them in the act of saying such things. But many act as if they can make such statements in secret or when they only have a few present witnesses. Apparently they have forgotten that on Judgment Day, there will be no secrets.

I have observed a strange dynamic, among many church leaders, who talk a good game with regard to "service" but who act as if that is the last thing on their minds. The phrase "cognitive dissonance" can best explain the discrepancy. The term "hypocrisy" also seems applicable.

The phenomenon is not a particularly new one. Jesus observed that same phenomenon when he entered Jerusalem on what we now call  Palm Sunday. It must have really made him mad, since he was observed to turn over the tables of the money changers, and even to wield a small whip. (This is a link to just one of the many classic pieces of art which have portrayed that incident.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleansing_of_the_Temple gives pretty detailed information about that episode, but anyone who reads his or her Bible can verify that Jesus was not always "meek and mild", at least not as such terms are commonly understood by some people. A book entitled "Hard Sayings of Jesus" could be (and in fact is) a pretty thick book.

What do you think? If there had been an Internet, and a place like Yelp.com, do you think that Jesus would have written and posted a bad review of the practices at the Temple? Compared with what he actually did, I think that a bad online review would have been a mild response indeed! And what Jesus did in the Temple on that day was mild in comparison with what he said he would do to unfaithful servants when he returned. See Luke 12:48.

Some people might think that it would set a bad precedent if we started publishing reviews of individual churches, but I personally think it's a great idea for which there is a crying need. A lot of tragedies in the history of the church might have been averted if there had been a means of regularly holding abusive church leaders accountable. Maybe the evils we now think of when we hear the term "Inquisition" would never have existed.

Some say that the modern church has become too ensnared with a "consumers' mentality". In the minds of some people, lack of "submission" to church authorities indicates lack of submission to Christ.

To that, I say "poppycock".

Such people need to read and understand what Christ himself thought about the church (or rather, what then passed for "church" among the Jewish people). Mark 2:27 makes it clear (as explained in this article) that the sabbath was not an end in itself, but rather, it was intended to function as a means to an end. When the Jewish pharisees and other leaders acted as if subservience to their nit-picky rules was more important than helping hurting people, Jesus made a point of violating their rules, not because he was opposed to rules per se, but because he genuinely loved people and he came to liberate them, not to bind them in more legalistic rules.

If indeed a Yelp-style site is appropriate for shining the light on bad service at a local restaurant, how much more appropriate would it be to use such a site for the purpose of shining the light on church leaders who are clueless about the meaning of true Christian service? I wish I could honestly say that such pastors and Christian leaders were rare, but I cannot. The blog post I wrote and published here yesterday ought to make that very clear. Ditto for a number of other articles I've published here over the years since I began this blog.

Kelsey Grammer in Boss

I just watched the preview of Kelsey Grammer's new Starz show, "Boss" Wow! It definitely looks to me as if it's going to be a winner.

Grammer's success has far surpassed mine in most respects. He is considerably different from me in other respects, too. Yet his life has occasionally had some interesting parallels to my own.

For one thing, there's the connection with the cities of Boston, Chicago and Seattle. Kelsey's first show, Cheers, was set in a fictitious Boston bar (for which there was a real life corrolary, which they actually named after the show). I lived in Boston for seven years during the 80s. (Earlier, right after graduating from high school, I worked at the Teen Challenge in Brocton, MA, and I visited Boston several times during that period, even attending a church which met near Harvard at one point). They were still filming that show when I was living in Boston, as I recall.

Another big city with which I have more than a passing familiarity is Chicago, where I lived in a 22 story YMCA SRO (single room occupancy) apartment named Lawson House, from 1992 until just last year. I even remember seeing Mayor Daley when he visited our building briefly not long after I'd moved there.

If you've read about "Boss", it's Grammer's first non-comedy TV show, and Grammer plays the role of the Mayor of Chicago, who they have given the name of Tom Kane. (Citizen Kane, perhaps?)

It wasn't Kelsey Grammer's first connection with Chicago. John Mahoney, the guy who played Frasier Crane's father, lived in Oak Park (a western suburb of Chicago), and I bumped into him one day while I was checking out some of the shops out in that suburb. It wasn't an interaction he would remember, but it was memorable to me nevertheless.
Then late last year, I moved from Chicago to Bellingham, WA. It's not quite Seattle (where  the show "Frasier" was based), but pretty close to Seattle. About 80 miles or so to the north.

During his years in comedy, Kelsey reminded me of myself, physically, in terms of the bald head, and (for quite a bit of time) in terms of the beard, too. (But his beard was pretty short, compared with mine.)  There were differences, including the fact that he was a bit more trim and fit than I was, but the similarities were noticeable enough that someone I once met commented on those similarities.

The Frasier Crane character was known for being slightly pompous, but it was also clear that he was a pretty intelligent and educated person. Also, he played the piano. In both of those respects, he and I were and are quite similar. (Hopefully, I wouldn't be described by most folks as pompous! Then again, perceptions are hard to control. Some people think that anyone capable of speaking in a manner which is grammatically correct are pompous by definition.)

I often watched and enjoyed "Frasier" when it was on the air, but I think that the thing I liked the least about the Frasier Crane character was his cavalier attitude towards casual sex. It seemed as if the script writers always had him falling into one woman's bed or another. Yet, his failures in terms of relationships did have a kind of endearing quality, to which I could kind of relate.

It's pretty hard to watch the preview of the new show "Boss" without being reminded of the city I came to know, if not necessarily to love.

While living in Chicago, I couldn't help but be impressed by the manner in which they eventually improved the areas now known as Navy Pier and Millenium Park respectively. (Actually, Navy Pier has been known by that name for a very long time, but when I first moved there, it wasn't very impressive to me. While it was eventually transformed into a bit of a "tourist trap", that was better than what it had once been.) It's a better city than it once was, and for all of his flaws, I think that the second mayor Daley can take some of the credit for that. But phrases such as "the mean streets of Chicago" were not far off the mark, especially when one considered the city's history, and when one considered the horrendous violence associated with "the projects". I remember reading newspaper stories about drive-by shootings and those who used "human shields" in an attempt to evade the flying bullets. "There Are No Children Here" is a book which will be especially helpful to people who want to better understand the downsides of living in Chicago.

I might dislike the current mayor, Rahm Emanuel, in many respects, not the least of which is my aversion to his reputation for frequent profanity, which I regard as unprofessional, in addition to being un-Christian. But life in Chicago has a way of stressing people out, to the point that the occasional profanity is easy to understand (and in all honesty, I was hardly perfect in that regard myself, especially when I was being harassed by one of the street people who frequently hung out at the McDonalds restaurant at the northeast corner of Chicago Avenue and State Street). (Here's a link to an interesting story about an incident which occurred there this year at that particular McDonalds. I ate there so often, over the years, that I could have papered the walls with the receipts from those transactions.)

The word "gravitas" was used in the recent USA Today story about Kelsey Grammer and his new show "Boss". Judging by the 19 years I spent in Chicago, anyone playing "da mayor" will need ample gravitas. I think that Kelsey Grammer is up to the job. And it also appears that a lot of the scenes will actually be shot in the city. (In one scene, Grammer is shown going up the escalator at the Palmer House Hilton. I am well familiar with that lobby. I even watched their progress when they restored the art on the ceiling there.) For someone who has lived in that city, in a place located on Chicago Avenue, that should be especially interesting.

UPDATE: They have actually posted a video consisting of the first episode of "Boss". To put it mildly, this is not a show which should be seen by people who can't handle violence or profanity. Or subtly staged sex scenes, for that matter. Yet, it seems to me that the word "gratuitous" would not really apply to either the violence or profanity. It might be a sad statement to say that the show reflects the real world accurately, but I think that in may respects, it does. And in fact, I think that it serves a valuable purpose for people to get a better idea of the issues our political leaders face, both personal and public.

Watching this show as a Christian, I find that these are my thoughts: We need to pray for our leaders, because despite their obvious flaws, they are just men and women, many of whom are just doing the best they can under the circumstances..

For those people who would object that religion has no place in politics, I would respond that God certainly has no place in politics, which is perhaps the most corrupt human institution. God is holy, and we are most definitely not holy. Our politicians are corrupt, and many of our religious leaders are equally corrupt, too.

Yet, the Creator looked upon the tainted world of men and women, and he found it in his heart to show his love and mercy to us anyway. Let us make evey effort to live as if we know and appreciate that fact.

Thoughts About Exotic Pets

The newspapers and TV news shows (and undoubtedly the blogs) are abuzz with talk about the latest incident in Zanesville, OH, involving the suicide of a man who owned exotic pets, and his release of his pets. USA Today has covered the story, and that same paper has used the story as an opportunity to publicize the ongoing debate between those who think that people should be free to own such pets, and those who disagree.

In what seems to be one of the biggest ironies concerning that debate, the paper says that an organization called Born Free USA has long endorsed stronger laws against the ownership of such pets.

Has everyone at that organization developed amnesia? Have they even seen the movie Born Free, or read the book?

I remember the movie Born Free. As a 10 year old kid, it made a big impression on me back in the sixties, to the point that I fantasized about the possibility of owning my own lion cubs, or maybe even multiple lions, just as Joy Adamson had once done. That lovely theme song, which was later re-recorded by Andy Williams, only served to increase the appeal. Land Rover sales took off, I suspect, after the release of the movie. (Here in the USA, there were almost no Land Rovers at that time, since Land Rovers were less well known than Jeeps, and later on, Humvees.) Of course, I wasn't content to merely watch the movie. I eventually also read the book on which the movie was based. The fact that the movie was based on the true story of a white woman from the "civilized" island of the United Kingdom only served to increase my conviction that it might be feasible for me to own such creatures as my own pets.

Part of the appeal, I admit, came from the undeniable cuteness of those lion cubs! If they'd been as ugly as African warthogs or hyenas, or even hippos, who knows?

Right after seeing the movie (and discovering a liking for the jujubes candies they sold in the lobby), I crawled around my grandmother's St. Louis house, making baby lion sounds and occasionally rubbing my head against my mother's lower legs, and pretending to be a lion cub and undoubtedly annoying my mother and grandmother (though they might have also thought it was cute).

I never became an owner of exotic pets, but I think it likely that numerous others eventually did after seeing that movie and reading the book. I wonder how much of the current fashion for owning exotic pets could be traced to the popularity of that movie. Quite a bit, I suspect.

Therefore, it seems strange to me that the aforementioned organization would name itself after a movie which helped to plant the idea of exotic animal ownership in many folks' minds in the first place. (They certainly didn't get the idea from watching another movie, named "The Night of The Grizzly", starring Clint Walker.)

Those who actually read the book Born Free know that Joy Adamson found those lion cubs in the wild (which is very unlikely to happen anywhere in the United States). Later, she decided that the lions should be set free. Or rather, that decision was forced on her, by villagers who understandably weren't fond of Elsa after Elsa caused an elephant stampede!

To be sure, there can sometimes be a downside when one chooses to own "exotic animals" as pets. But the same thing can be said with regard to ostensibly "domesticated" pets.

When hearing from those who now oppose the practice of adopting "exotic" animals, we often hear phrases such as "wild animals are not pets". Really? You could have fooled me. Dogs, after all, started out as wild animals, just as cats did (a little bit later than dogs). The process of domestication did not happen overnight, or so the scientists and anthropologists tell us. If humans back in those days had taken the attitude that "wild animals are not pets", we would have no ostensibly "safe" and "domesticated" pet dogs or cats now. Someone had to be the first one to take a wild dog into his or her own home or cave, so that numerous generations of that dog's offspring could eventually become domesticated.

Anyone who's ever been disturbed by cats' prediliction for decimating the bird population knows that they still exhibit traits which might be describe accurately as "wild". The main reason most people aren't bothered by that prediliction is that cats do not normally see us as prey, due to the obvious size difference. (If you've ever seen the movie "The Incredible Shrinking Man", you may have gotten an idea of the extent to which that size difference changes the balance of power in the average pet-owning household.)

In fact, it's arguable that that process was and still is less than complete, considering that fatalities caused by dog attacks are hardly an unknown phenomenon. In fact, I knew a Chicago woman whose young (and very cute) niece was killed that way. DogsBite.org is a web site which focuses on such attacks.

• 33 U.S. fatal dog attacks occurred in 2010. Despite being regulated in Military Housing areas and over 650 U.S. cities, pit bulls led these attacks accounting for 67% (22). Pit bulls make up approximately 5% of the total U.S. dog population.2
• In 2010, the combination of pit bulls (22) and rottweilers (4) accounted for 79% of all fatal attacks. In the 6-year period from 2005 to 2010, this same combination accounted for 71% (129) of the total recorded deaths (181).

Oh, but that's much different. At least they were "domestic" pit bulls and rottweilers! That knowledge must have been quite comforting to the relatives of the deceased, don't you think? (Needless to say, I jest.)

Some defenders of those dog breeds would point out that they aren't all bad or dangerous, and that may be true on a dog by dog basis; but the fact remains that they were bred specifically to be fighters. There's a reason why they are so popular in inner city neighborhoods which, not coincidentally in my opinion, also "happen" to be dominated by gangbangers (who are almost certainly more dangerous than any of their dogs, if not necessarily any smarter than their dogs).

I'd like to know: How many human  fatalities can be accurately attributed in the US to ownership of "exotic" animals? More to the point, how does that number compare to the number of deaths caused by so-called "domestic animals" such as the aforementioned dog breeds.

Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America, if you want to get an idea of how likely it is that a human being would die after being mauled by a bear of any kind. Not very likely, apparently, and while a very small number of the specific attacks were in fact connected with people who owned "exotic pets" (specifically, bears), the vast majority were not. Most bear attacks took place in, or near, the wilderness.

It can also be helpful to acquaint one's self with the specifics of each bear attack. For instance, one guy named Ken Cates, was attacked in Alaska by a bear in 1999. The article says, "Troopers found Cates' rifle, spent shell casings, and blood nearby which suggested that Cates may have shot the bear." Gosh, do you suppose that the bear might have attacked after being shot? Maybe it was just trying to defend itself? Of course, it could have been the other way around, and Cates might have shot the bear while trying to defend himself. The fact of the matter is that there just isn't enough in the way of actual facts to draw any conclusions from that particular story (or at least not enough in the Wikipedia article, at any rate).

However, based on objective numbers alone, it would seem that the so-called "domestic" animals are actual far more likely to kill people (based on an objective statistical analysis) than the so-called "wild" animals. So of what relevance is the degree of "wildness" or "domestication"?

And, oh, by the way, a macaw or a salamander could be accurately described as "wild". Using the term "wild animals" in a manner which neglects to mention that some wild animals aren't necessarily dangerous predators demonstrates a tendency to cherry pick one's facts in an effort to distort the issue. (Maybe some salamanders have gummed people to death, perhaps? Somehow I doubt it!)

I guess that that is what really bothers me about this debate. Debates should be settled, it seems to me, by referring to the known facts, not by appealing to paranoid primordial fears. Legislation ought to similarly be based on rationality and defensible principles.

I have no particular vested interest in the issue. I've never owned exotic pets, unless one counts the salamander I once found near our house, or unless one counts the little snake I found out in the woods during a scouting campout. (I kept that snake in an aquarium, where I fed it with mice I got at the pet store. He refused to eat, probably because he was so depressed by his captivity. When I saw that he was in jeopardy of dying from starvation, I took him down to the nearest pond, where I threw him into the pond and watched him happily swim away.)

It does seem to me that ownership of exotic animals, and particularly those which may grow up to be very powerful animals, often has a lot less to do with "love" (despite the protestations of the owners) than it has to do with the psychological needs of the owners. "Oooh, look at me; I'm so cool that I can even control a powerful predator."

On one level, I understand that motive. Frankly, when I was a little kid, I felt pretty powerless, and in hindsight, that was one of the reasons for the appeal of the idea to me. But watching that snake starve to death made me realize that I regretted my selfish motives for wanting to keep the snake.

While I do think that it's bogus to automatically assume that "domestic" animals are all safe, and equally bogus to assume that exotic animals are all dangerous, I will concede that it is generally much smarter to focus on animals proven over long periods of time to work well as pets for people who aren't prepared to deal with the special challenges which exotic pets are more likely to pose.

I once read a book about a guy who owned and raised a canine which was part wolf. Boy, can you imagine his cleaning bills, if that canine had been an "indoor pet"? Can you imagine trying to house train a wolf? Maybe if one started very early; otherwise, no.

I do think that the distinction between "wild" and "domestic" is a pretty irrational distinction to have to make, once one has examined the actual facts. The number of "domestic" dogs which have killed people would seem to suggest that we should reexamine our assumptions about the benefits of domestication.

Therefore, if someone REALLY likes owning "exotic" pets, then I say, go for it, provided that you believe yourself to be capable of being a responsible pet owner, and provided that you believe that you are in fact such an owner. Just know what you're getting into, and be prepared to deal with it.

And for crying out loud, if you do decide to commit suicide, do NOT let full-grown predatorial animals loose on the general population, unless your intention is to start a panic and generally doom your "pets" to premature deaths. If your"liberated" pets are lucky, they might be shot by guys armed with guns loaded with tranquilizer darts, but don't count on it.