Dear Katrina-

Hey there, little girl.

Yesterday I found myself thinking about the fragility of life and how quickly things can be taken from us. It occurred to me that, if something happened to me over the next few years, you might find yourself wondering who I was, and that this blog might be a place you could go, when someone told you about, to learn about me from me.

I am writing this letter under that assumption. Hopefully when you actually do read it, you will do so with me just a call away, giggling over how silly I'm being, because parents can be silly sometimes. But in case you need it, I'll be glad to know I did this.

Because, sweetie, my title, "Pastor" is a very, very loaded one. You'll know this from your mom, your uncle, and your Grandfather as well, but you'll also live in a world that has a lot of its own ideas of what a pastor is, and what someone like me might stand for, and I always wanted you to know who I am, or was, from me.

And now that I have said I want to do this, I find myself unsure of what exactly to say.

I hope you'll know that I did my best to care for people, which to me meant listening to them, sitting with them, talking to them, and trying to make sure that they knew they were loved by God. That is what people want from me, the truth of God, and that is my understanding of that truth.

That God loves them. And, since I am writing this to you, I hope you know that God loves you. And I mean YOU. Not the you that you could potentially be or the you before you screwed up or even the idealized you absented of sin and pain, but the you who exists today, whoever you are.

I often spend time imagining what that YOU will look like and I know it is almost impossible. It is certainly difficult to do so without creating unfair expectations. Maybe you'll love all the geeky stuff I do, maybe you'll just roll your eyes at me when I try to make you watch Star Wars. Maybe you'll like music, or just plug in your own music (if music even still requires plugs!) when I play mine. Maybe you'll walk in the faith like me, or seek out your own path.

As a preachers kid myself, I know the uncertainty of that path, and I hope I can play my part in as powerful a way as your Poppy did for me.

There may be more of these in the future as thoughts occur to me. We'll see. But above all else I want you to know how loved you are. By me, by God, by so many others. And knowing that, I hope you also love yourself.

Love,
Daddy

Clothe the naked, feed the hungry... if they join?

Just had someone walk into my church, into my office, and blurt out that they wanted to join. I'd never seen them before in my life. So I talked to them for awhile and determined what they really needed was help paying for clothes and groceries. That part was easy... five minutes later I'd given them a voucher to the local grocery store, and then addressed the church membership thing.

"Tell you what. We worship on Sundays at 9 for the Summer, then transition to 10 am in the fall. Why don't you come and worship with us a few times, see if it connects with you, and then we'll talk about membership. In the meanwhile, good luck. Take this voucher to the local grocery and they'll take care of you." I wish I could say that this was the first time I saw something like this, but it isn't. Someone needs help, comes to a church, and leads with membership in the hopes that will loosen the ol' purse strings a bit. A few years ago I might have been angry at the ones doing it, feeling that they were manipulating me, but then I remembered that this is a learned behavior. Somewhere along the way, the lesson was learned that the best way to get help from the church, or other faith based organizations, is to prostitute your soul. And that means that we, as the church, have been ROYALLY SCREWING UP, because we were the ones who taught that lesson. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that "saving souls" was the goal, and pursued it by holding physical needs ransom. I mean we HAD been commanded by Christ to make disciples, we had also been commanded to feed the hungry. Why not kill two birds with one stone? It even comes with a built in guilt removal mechanism... if the person then doesn't follow through with a conversion essentially obtained by force, then we get to play the role of the manipulated "holier than thou," the party just trying to tend to the needs of the world only to be disappointed by the dishonest souls we found. But it's bullshit. Because we are called to feed and clothe those who need it. We're not called to make them sign on the dotted line first. And in the meantime millions of people who maybe could use the comfort the gospels truly preached could provide see them only as an elaborate con, the devils bargain they are forced to sign in return for things they desperately need. A trap. Why wouldn't they want to escape it. There are a thousand justifications for this behavior but each and every one of them boils down to a power trip... using our ability to assuage the needs of those we find to force them into a behavior, rather than by trying to make that behavior appeal. We are met to witness to them... instead, we try to take them hostage.For millions, the damage has already been done, yet another reason (amid MANY) that people will never, ever, trust the church. Christians, we are called to feed the hungry. To house the homeless. To clothe the naked. To tend to the sick, to visit the prisoner. We are also called to witness... but that means showing people the love of Christ. If the love they are shown is the love of a pistol held to their head while we wait for them to sign the dotted line... is it any wonder that people leave?

The Audacity of Hope

This is, by my count, the eighth attempt I've made to restart the blog since the birth of my paternity leave ended in July. Not that I've been inactive since then... there has been a lot going on in the church and Nerdfighters will be able to testify (with varying levels of irritation) that I have been loud and proud flying my political colors in the forums during that time, but not a lot of faith based posting.

This has been largely due to the fact that, well, I've been fairly angry lately. This has at least something to do with the general reduced amounts of sleep I've been getting (which are nowhere close to what my wife has lost in rest in that time, so I'm not complaining too much) but mostly to do with my attitude towards the election rolling down the tracks towards us.

I'm frustrated, in that vein. Frustrated with the willingness of certain groups to wield hate as a political weapon, even while sacrificing their ideals to the votes it gains. Frustrated with the general reduction of politics to meme warfare, predicating entire political stances on emotional reactions rather than an examining of fact and circumstances.

My attitudes towards Donald Trump have been plainly stated... if you want to see that, check it out here. While I do support Clinton, stumping for her is not what this blog is supposed to be about, and so other than that stating of my preference (which most people who read this probably already knew) I don't want to spend too much time doing it. Instead, I'd rather like to say something about the Democrats that I have enjoyed ever since that first Obama campaign...

I will take a party that runs on hope over a party that runs on fear EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

It would have been easy for the DNC to simply run a hate-fest... inflaming fears of what a Trump presidency could mean to various constituents would be pretty standard for the current climate of politics, a 4 day tale of doom and gloom meant to hide the failings of Hillary Clinton behind a red painted coat of fear. But they didn't.

Oh, they certainly named the stakes, but the polls make it clear that American minorities do not need a picture painted... the unanimity of their polling in favor of Clinton is nearly unprecedented. Instead, the DNC chose to highlight hope... showing how much we have achieved, and rather than hiding from what MAY happen, choosing to guide what WILL happen in the future.

A White House built by slaves now home to our first African American President and his family. A woman nominated to take his place. Muslim Americans proud of their sacrifices for their country and enraged at the insults toward their son. A left wing of the party bolstered by unprecedented levels of youth involvement thanked and recruited to push their revolution further, not scolded to get in line but invited to stay plugged in and keep the party honest.

A recognition that the US has a long way yet to go... but also that we have the tools to get there. A candidate who in response to her mistakes can name her successes, her victories and her passions. As I held my daughter while Michelle Obama spoke I remembered why I care so much about this stuff... I want her future to be as bright as possible. I want my daughter to live her whole life seeing that it is clearly possible for a woman to be President by the most obvious route, raised in a political climate of hard work and hope rather than hatred and fear.

This won't matter much to my atheists, but to Christian readers (I have those, right?) there is a video circulating that compares the opening prayers of the RNC and the DNC. The RNC had the better prayer, no doubt (which is hardly surprising, as the RNC has stopped even pretending to represent non-christian interests) but as a Christian it was obvious to me that the message of Christianity, a message of love, welcoming, and hope, the Bible I always read growing up, was found not in quoted platitudes from ancient texts or coopting of ancient hatreds, but rather in the welcoming hope of the DNC.

Was the DNC more Christian? Certainly not explicitly, and not in the way such a word has been weighted in todays culture.  Was it more Christ-like? Beyond even the shadow of a doubt.

And that is why I will always choose the Audacity of Hope over the Hysteria of Hate.