Matchmaker Don came by Saturday night for barbecue and gunshots, it being the Fourth of July and this being ‘Texas, my Texas, hail o woeful state’, or however the patriotic hymn goes—I never have learned it, but I have seen it bring tears to people’s eyes.  And I’ve been afraid.  However, the holiday itself was only coincidental to our meat-searing—my nod toward patriotism being the drinking of the beer (which, ironically, was German)—because we needed to catch up on our various travels:  while I was going aground in Belize, he was bouncing around Israel for a couple of weeks with most of the usual suspects—New Testament Ray, Spaghetti Jim, Silent Col, Radio Tim, and Marlin the Merlin of our weekly pastors’ bs round table to name a few (’course, the knights and knightesses of this particular round table look like a Monty Python scene).  I was sorry not to join them, but the mucho cost of the trip was outweighed by the fact that I get no continuing ed funds so have to foot the whole thing myself joined to the reality that I’ve never been particularly interested in visiting Israel anyway, even if it is the ‘holy land’, just as I’ve never been particularly interested in seeing Europe, a holy land of a different sort.  I’d rather go to the Galapagos.  Gimme the (naturally) fierce landscapes.

But they went to the Holy Land, and these eight or ten ELCA pastor types were shown around Israel by a—wait for it—Palestinian tour guide.  That brought some interestingly uncomfortable social dynamics, including the experience of overt rudeness because of the ethnicity of their guide.  Matchmaker saw the wall the Israelis are building around the Palestinians:  ‘It’s as hideous as the old one in Berlin.’  In the ironies of history, as hideous as the Warsaw Ghetto.  Or the one along the Rio Grande:  ‘Yikes!  Keep ‘em away!’  Or better:  keep ‘em trapped.

We sat out on the deck sweating in the simmering dusk while explosions went off around us and gun smoke settled like an L.A. smog.  We listened in silence and watched the upper structure of the deck shake in chaotic rhythm with the unbalanced high speed of the overhead fan until the darling rejoined us with the brownies.  Then Matchmaker launched into the tale of, oh, something like ‘Daffy Does Gerizim’ in honor of Daffy Duck.  And the Samaritans of Jesus’ days.  The Samaritans were kissing cousins of the Jews, having been part of the same religious family until the time of the Exile (ca 586 BCE), after which they went their separate way following (I think) an argument over ‘true Judaism’.  Their holy place was on Mount Gerizim.  Being kissing cousins, the Jews and Samaritans naturally came to despise each other.  Generally, the most we know about Samaritans is that there was one good one, thanks to Jesus.  You never hear about ‘em after that.

But apparently there are about a thousand of ‘em still around, in a little village on the hill to Mt. Gerizim.  Matchmaker and the crew thought it would be a terrific idea to go to the temple on Mt. Gerizim and, since it was the sabbath, maybe catch them at worship, so they loaded into the van, headed out across the desert, drove through the village and right up to the temple gates.  They were locked, with nobody about.  Nobody was about, that is, until they loaded back into the van and began their return trip through the village, where they were greeted by several dozen men coming up the road toward them looking angry and carrying rocks, generally not a sign of welcome.  In a terrific contemporary incarnation of Jesus’ tale, the local Samaritan rabbi/priest dismissed the men to their homes and invited the Daffies into the ‘parsonage’ courtyard where he explained Samaritan ways and invited them to return for another visit, ‘but not on the sabbath’ when it is forbidden to drive cars (among other things).  The crew wins The Daffy award for cross-cultural oblivion, stormin’ a Samaritan village on the sabbath, heads completely up their christocentric asses:  ‘Huh?  You mean there is an actual Holy Day around here?  Set apart from the rest?’

On the other hand, stoning seems a bit of an over reaction to what was at worst an unintentional insult to either them or their god, though for mobs there is no differentiation, calling for the abject apologies offered by the Daffies, followed by some appropriate response from their victims, I’m thinking something short of violence and destruction.  But there you go:  christocentrics aren’t the only ones with heads up their collective ass; so it is with samaritans and all the rest—’offend our god Us and we will kill you.’  But this time the Good Samaritan won:  his hospitality worked mercy.  ‘Please come back.  But not on the sabbath.  Meanwhile, I’ll chain the dogs ’til you’re safely out of town.’

So they beat their chastened retreat and on their way got to thinking about god and violence and asked their Palestinian tour guide—who himself should have known better than to haul them into that village on the sabbath—if he thought there would ever be peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and he said that yes, he thought there would be noting his hope:  ‘The younger generation isn’t as religious.  Most of the violence has to do with religion.’

Makes sense to me.  Every major religion has peace as its declared core—peace with god and peace with the neighbor.  And every major religion in the world justifies their violence as the will of this peaceful god.  Makes perfectly good sense to me why people would see less religion as a sign of hope.  That’s why as a professional religionist I’m always on the defensive.  I can’t claim that my christian tradition has proven to be any different, thrilling to ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ under the banner of the prince of peace.

Texas, of course, is a Christian State:  according to the only statistic I found, 89% of us claim to be following Jesus (’christians’).  And it shows, doesn’t it?  After all, Texas is the home of born-again Bush, and if you want to hold any political office down here you better be born again yourself, though some Catholics are acceptable.  An old friend, the truly compassionately conservative Bill got axed by the local Republican leadership to run for the newly-created state rep spot because he didn’t condemn homosexuals to hell—’an abomination in the eyes of God,’ as the guy who was chosen put it.  The chairman—until his recent firing—of our state board of education is a creationist and has been trying to get ‘intelligent design’ into the textbooks; there’s speculation our governor, Air Hair Perry will find another just like him–’gotta preserve the honor of God,’ you know.  Everybody knows we lead the country many times over in our execution of criminals, even though it costs about ten times as much to kill ‘em as it does to keep ‘em in jail forever—’gotta uphold the law of God’, you know.  And if our political life isn’t evidence enough, there are all the big-time renowned preachers, like John Hagee over in San Antonio gloating over the impending Rapture and lascivious violence wrought by the returning victorious prince of peace.  Even the less rabid sing, ‘Texas, my Texas, hail oh godly state.’

The godly state of Texas ranks 50th of all the states of the nation in how homeless children fare, according to a study by the National Center on Family Homelessness.  Some fun facts  (http://www.homelesschildrenamerica.org/state_detail.php?state=TX):
·    The report defines as homeless any child age 18 or younger living with at least one parent or caregiver in such places as emergency shelters, motels, cars, or campgrounds due to economic hardships or losing their own homes. It does not include runaways or abandoned children.
·    More than 337,105 of Texas’s children experience homelessness each year. . . Of the 2,129,000 children living in poverty in Texas, four out of every twenty-five (16% ) are homeless.
·    The child poverty level in Texas is 23%, compared to 18% nationwide.
Ages of Homeless Children:
·    Under 6 years                 141,584
·    Grades K–8 (enrolled)      164,086
·    Grades 9–12* (enrolled)     31,435
·    Total Homeless Children 337,105    (These totals do not include approximately 1,620 homeless, unaccompanied youth.)
Ethnicities of poverty:
·    46% hispanic
·    40% white
·    13% black

Economics:
·    A two-bedroom unit priced at the Fair Market Rent (FMR) falls outside of the financial reach of a full-time worker earning minimum wage in Texas.  One wage earner earning the state’s minimum wage ($6.55) would need to work 92 hours per week for 52 weeks per year to afford a two-bedroom apartment at FMR.
·    Even with two full-time minimum-wage earners, affordable housing is not attainable in most places in Texas.
·    The average wage-earner in Texas fares much better. One wage earner earning the state’s average wage for renters ($14.94/ hour) would need to work 40 hours per week for 52 weeks per year to afford a two-bedroom apartment at FMR.
·    For a typical homeless family, which consists of a single mother with two children, housing is even more difficult to attain:  the average monthly income for a single mother in Texas who receives public assistance is less than $713, or less than 50% of the Federal Poverty Level.  This family can afford to pay $214 per month in rent, leaving a deficit of $567 from the amount needed to rent a two-bedroom apartment at the state’s average FMR.
State ranking by areas:
·    Extent of child homelessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
·    Child well-being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
·    Risk for child homelessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50
·    State policy and planning . . . . . . . . . . .Inadequate
·    Overall Rank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50  (States ranked 1-50 with 1 being best and 50 worst.)
There’s more, of course, but the point is made.  I wonder how Texas comes out last, when we love our families and children so much and are christians to boot.  In any case, if a society is indeed judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members we’re in deep shit.

Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And they will say, ‘But, Lord, we thought their parents were irresponsible freeloaders too lazy to work for a living.’  But these will go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into eternal life.”

Larry

The darling and I got home from Belize Thursday night after ten days’ of what I had originally billed as the ‘family ‘n friends sail’ but upon seeing the assembled crew immediately renamed the ‘cripples’ cruise.’  Geez o man.  Northlands John shows up with shoulders frozen from bursitis or some condition of decrepitude, thus cannot crank a winch or undertake any manly endeavor.  His lady Reasonably Nervous (being, after all, his lady) Bonnie is flashing her shiny new knee, which earns her airport security wandings and pat downs (cheap thrills, no extra charge).  Sister Kerry (not to be confused with my preacher pal Biker Kerry, Sister Kerry is indeed a sibling) who had a heart attack a couple of years back forgot her nitro but had plenty of insulin and needles with which Art the Mexican duly stabbed her before each meal.  Being ever so health-conscious myself, I had brought nitro but discovered it was two years expired.  ‘Bout the healthiest person on board was the darling, and she ain’t no gym advertisement, either.  Call it—courageously tempting fate.  Life is an adventure in trust.

We’ve become casual about traveling, even ‘internationally’, even to sail.  The darling threw her stuff together and tossed the passports on my side of the desk the night before we left.  Even I carried less equipment than usual, though not before making the requisite trip to the sporting goods store, as sitting by the fire I once told NT Ray, ‘what’s a camping trip without first spending five – six hundred bucks?’  He laughed the beer out his nose.  I earned the moniker Cap’n Gadget by Matchmaker Don on a fishing trip to Canada when, in addition to the usual assortment of fishing hardware and the gps unit and the 10 pound marine binoculars and the portable vhf radio and flashlights and all the batteries to power that shit, I had along also a lawn tractor battery with an inverter to run Finance Jamie’s electric fish knife (and, oh yes, charge cell phones out there in the wilderness), and a really cool portable fish finder/depthmeter that fell victim to the only thievery I’ve ever experienced while traveling when a couple of Canadian hicks pinched it after sharing a beer with us in our cabin on the island.  Nor did I carry to Belize the tractor battery and inverter.  But still, I carry a heavy collection of what I call ‘captain shit’ that seems necessary and prudent for the voyage; even if it doesn’t get used, it might (e.g. duck tape, sun tarp).  This wouldn’t be an issue except that, figuring  we would be charged per bag by the airline, I decided to save maybe $30 by dumping everything into one huge fucking duffel bag and had it all packed when  I discovered at the airline website that each passenger got one bag at no charge up to 50 pounds.  The duffel I’d just packed weighed 45, and I later regretted not repacking it into two bags when I had to haul that pig all over the place.  Tossed the sumbitch in the trash an hour after we got home so as never to be tempted to such foolishness again.  She can carry her own shit.

I can’t say the rest of the crew was any sharper about preparations (excepting, perhaps, R N Bonnie who in her lubberly life is an ER RN and was the ship’s medic, which given the crew was another reasonable—though ultimately unnecessary—nervousness), especially when it came to provisioning since my pre-trip email alerts to the need for a menu and provisions list went unheeded and was even ignored after we were at the hotel in San Pedro in favor of naps, given that two-thirds of the crew had been up all night flying.  Oh, well.  Island time.

Which is nice, but which resulted in exactly what I feared, provisioning via the gang at the grocers caucusing in the sweaty aisles, being led by George the taxi driver who’d done this before, “get this, get that and tomorrow we’ll go here and there in the morning for this and that” and I don’t know what the hell we ended up buying but it cost $300US.  I’d told the crew that the same person who bought the groceries had to be on the boat when they were delivered the next day to check them out while I checked out the boat but sure enough George had absconded with the crew and the groceries were delivered without being checked, until at anchorage that night at the next island south:  ‘Hey, we’re three bags short!’  Well, there’s a surprise.  I knew I should have pushed the planning harder.  We also missed the drinking water needed by half, failing to consider that we had no beer, soda, etc to add to it (!).  The rule should be one gallon of fluid per person instead of the half gallon of water recommended.  But big deal.  What we lacked in organization we made up for in chaos; children at play on the seas of the Lord.

We sailed in the northern part of Belize, out of San Pedro on Ambergris Caye; I sailed the southern part–out of Placencia–last year.  I like the southern part better because there are fewer people and the waters are, to use keene’s nauticalese, ‘fat.’  The northern waters are skinny, with a depth of a mere 7′ – 9′ and sliding often to 6′, even 5′—a worrisome dimension with a 3 1/2′ boat draft—until you get through Port-O-Stuck some thirty miles south, after which the water yawns and you can stop worrying about it.  Port-O-Stuck earned it’s moniker from human experience (according to the chart), but not by me, singing a shanty after safely through, ‘O, I’ve never been stuck at Port-O-Stuck, ne’er been stuck at all, lads.  My keel still clears, my rudder still steers, and my windex aims at the port, hoorah, my windex points to the port.

‘O, I’ve never been stuck at Port-O-Stuck, ne’er been stuck at all, lads.  My anchor is deep, but it can’t find its feet, the port ain’t a maiden at all, hoorah, she’s just no maiden at all.’

I ended my decade plus record of never putting the boat in a situation I (as it were, alone) could not get us out of in the rather spectacular fashion of putting us aground about, o, five hundred yards from the charter dock, maybe thirty minutes after taking off.  They had to come get us off and floating again.  What was spectacular about it was that the whole town of San Pedro showed up to watch, like the fire trucks they’d chased the night before.  And also the fact that after we finished anchoring for the night at Caye Caulker a woman from another boat came over to see how we were.  She turned out to be the owner of the charter company coincidentally checking out one of their new cats and assuring us that we were famous all over the marine airwaves.  A nice lady living through the sad death of her husband and co-owner who was t-boned by a semi on a jungle road one rainy night last year, she noted we looked like we knew what we were doing when we anchored.

Well, er, okay, though we men had to hold a consultation on anchoring because the anchor was located not on the front of the boat, but about a third of the way back, on the crossmember behind the tramp–altogether new to me (the thing about ‘what the hell?’ experiences is the language they birth in the captain, though English has a really limited cursing vocabulary:  after the Nine Nasties, then what?  ‘Suck gravy and die, you pig!).  The system we devised was working great, right up to the point when while dropping the anchor the chain jumped off the windlass gypsy and all 200 feet of it made a mad dash to the sea floor, some, wow, 10 feet down, clattering over fiberglass sounding like a semi on the highway rumble strip while the wind and current twisted us around and the chain took on the underwater shape of a schizophrenic slinky tumbling down the steps.  ( ‘Suck gravy and die, you fucking pig!’)  It took us about 45 minutes to chase it down and round it up (back on the windlass), and even then we still had enough chain out to hold a tanker.  But we felt smug when the gale blew up and we didn’t move and a newly-arrived charter boat dragged anchor while its crew partied ashore on into the night.  We proved our nautical mettle by calling the charter company and informing them of the situation:  ‘They’re dragging and we’re not,’ figurin’ that would bail me out on the going aground gaffe.

That grounding actually didn’t bother me too much since when you sail only, say, annually, it takes some time for the sea brain to fire up.  All of a sudden you are confronted with a spectacular amount of other than daily information and rules.  It’s a different way of being and moving in the world, and takes awhile to get reoriented, ’specially to the thought, ‘It may be wide, but it’s shallow; and the boat’s keels hang down unseen like testicles in an outhouse.’  Guarding your keels is the most important thing, remember?

It was the second grounding that pissed me off.  That was on the day we were returning to the charter docks about, o, a thousand yards from my previous grounding, though this time on the other side of the ‘channel’, and at least not right in front of San Pedro.  Nosiree.  I went aground in the middle of a marine reserve where all the boat businesses bring tourists for snorkeling and such.  They began arriving soon after I gave up trying to unstick us following the park ranger’s directions yelled from his boat to stop ’cause it was damaging the reef, so I called the charter company to get us off and we sat there and pretended we weren’t being gawked at by throngs of tourists and locals alike; just another day in a rainy paradise.

Oh, and I steamed, because I had been led astray by the depth meter, which at the moment of grounding was reading 6 and 7 feet.  And the water—which of course is bathtub clear—had become opaque through a combination of clouds, the morning sun, the wind and the waves, taking on the impenetrability of a face wearing mirrored sunglasses (’Beware the man with no eyes, Luke!’ warns George Kennedy to Cool Hand).  I couldn’t see enough not to trust the depth meter readings, and beyond that had no reason to doubt.  ‘Course, that ain’t gonna fly with the Reef Rangers nor any law ’cause a captain’s always responsible for his vessel, and I had to leave a (credit card) security deposit in the unlikely event (I’m assured) they decided they wanted to fine me.

Natalie the owner and I were bsing about all this and I mentioned the experience of pelagic imperceptibility and she said, ‘Yeah, we call that black water.  You can’t see into it, but you gotta sail through it.’  Like the black ice they have up in John’s northern lands where you can’t see the frozen patch on the highway until you’re on it and then the only solution is to sail through it and hope you’re still pointed in the same direction when it ends.  Both black ice and black water hide dangerous goings on beneath, nasty shit you can’t see.

It’s interesting that Black Water was the name of the private army of mercenaries hired by the Bush administration to provide ’security services’ in Iraq, though they turned out to be street gangs by any other name.  There are as many of these ‘independent contractors’ over there as there are troops.  I wonder if they’re being withdrawn, too?

And, of course, who can deny the black water times in our own lives, when you can’t see into it, but gotta sail through it nonetheless?  Only thing to do is guard your keels, eh?

Ruby’s Hotel had been given the less than enthusiastic recommendation by the charter agent, ‘Some people stay there. . .But not many.’  How bad can it be? I thought while making the reservations beforehand, after seven days on the boat and it has ac and private bathrooms.  And especially since it was one-third the cost of the nice place—the Sun Breeze—we stayed the night before sailing.  Well, here’s how bad it can be:  heroin hotel.  Once you run the gauntlet across the deck down the sand of the jacked-up rasta brother yelling  ‘We don’t want you fucking yankees here’ for the benefit of his cacklin’ beer-swillin’ pals—like his Canadian brothers, hicks are a genetic, not geographic, creation, though each with their own accent, as in this case, reggae assholes—and got into the half-painted disinfectant-reeking room DO NOT under any circumstances sit on the bed.

That’s when the omens finally fully revealed themselves to Keene the Slow:  the ‘reasonable’ rates; the sign in the office ‘once you pay you stay—or at least you ain’t gettin’ your money back’; and the desk girl’s refusal to let me pay for more than one night—under the circumstances an act of mercy for which I thanked her as we all returned our keys on the way out an hour later, after a crew lunch and consult including the noble ‘we’ve stayed in worse’ from the northerners, who undoubtedly have on their treks through the mountain villages of Panama.  Art the Mexican offered that he’d spent his whole life getting out of the south L.A.barrio, and surely didn’t want to pay for the experience of entering it again.  The darling opined that we were on vacation, not survival training, and thus I put in an emergency call to the Sun Breeze which did indeed have rooms available at thrice the price and well worth it, though it was irritating at having gone aground again, as it were, another black water moment.

Good Morning Mr. Keene,
We have charged your card for the following chase calls:
June 9, 2009 – boat grounding in front of Fido’s Sand Bar -            $ 75.00
June 16, 2009 – boat grounding in Holchan Marine Reserve-        $ 75.00
Total charge for chase calls for grounding boat-                   $150.00
Please feel free to  contact me for any additional information you may have.
Regards,
Well, there you go—I guess that settles it.  The Reef Rangers aren’t going to fine me, but the charter company’s going to charge me.  What I like is how many times the phrase ‘boat grounding’ shows up, a subtle highlighting of ‘you dumbass’.  Fair enough, actually, and as Carlos who helped on the second ungrounding said, ‘Well, at least you didn’t sink the thing like the guy last month.  Sailed right through the coral heads and tore the whole bottom out.’

O, beware of black water, me mateys, beware.  Yo, ho, they’ll getcha.
They’ll hide from your vision what’s hap’ning down there.  They’re comin’ to get you, yo ho.

O, beware of black water, me mateys, beware.  Yo, ho, they’ll getcha.
They’ll go for your keel and its dark fuzzy hair.  They’re comin’ to get you, yo ho.

Stay awake, me mateys, stay awake, beware.  Yo, ho, they’ll getcha.
Know when it’s hangin’ all naked and bare.  They’re comin’ to get them yo ho.

Larry

I spent the last three days of last week at the synod assembly, church lingo for the annual get together of the surviving churches here in the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod of the ELCA, wherein we do our worship and business as that expression of the church, have discussions, vote on things, party, and gossip.  The theme for this year:  ‘Outrageous scandal:  living like Jesus.’  And so we gathered at the Marriott, on the fairy tale mall in Sugar Land (really), home of that outrageous scandal himself bug man and ex-legislator Tom ‘The Hammer’ Delay, living like Jesus.  Lutherans are nothing if not ironic.  A few years back the theme was living boldly in the scandal of the gospel or something like that—I didn’t get a chance to memorize it because they took the banner down after somebody was offended by it at the opening worship.  I suspect our assembly themes reflect the same spiritual pipe dreams as congregational names, ala, Peace Lutheran—’come, join one of our many bickering cliques.’

Like the other old-line mainline denominations we Lutherans have been getting our asses kicked numerically for a couple of decades—from a high of 5.5 million to the current 4.5 million, a lot of whom are just plainly insane, not to mention we’re also getting creamed financially.  It costs money to be the church and have seminaries and social services and when the money isn’t there somebody’s life is being hurt.  We’ve been getting creamed by the ‘evangelicals’ who offer the maximum certainty of simplistic morality, i.e., ‘anyone who is different than me.’  And of course we’ve been getting creamed by the cultural wars, too, especially after 9/11 and fear was fed and escalated by the shrill hucksters of the airwaves screeching their hate, violating all the normal rules of human decency and respect in discourse, bullying those who disagree, justifying their own righteousness by destroying the disagreer, and this cancer infected our congregations and there were a whole bunch of people who did the bullying, and a whole bunch of people who got beat up by them.  It’s hard to remember you came to drain the swamp when you’re up to your ass in alligators.  And, oh yeah, here in the Gulf Coast Synod we’ve been also creamed by four major hurricanes in the last four years, beginning with Katrina in New Orleans and moving west from there to Galveston wreaking devastations on people and churches.  Our current synod population of about 120 congregations probably won’t be that in a year, given that a bunch of ‘em have just been blown away, as it were.    Our last bishop lived his final two years of 16 like a zombie.  Servin’ the church is a great life if you don’t weaken.

But our fresh meat Octo Bish and his minions—who are also my good friends—are fired up!  ready to go!  Looking toward the future the Spirit has in mind for us.  This ain’t the twentieth century anymore, Toto.  We’re doin’ business in the world-wide-wired 21st and we’re rearrangin’ the Titanic’s deck chairs just like we have to do every generation.  Matchmaker Don introduced the newly recreated and now fully salvific call process.  Biker Kerry who recently left the security of his 15-year tenure at a growing suburban congregation to take a temporary position for the synod doing I guess outreach and who has an uncanny ability to boil the most profound thoughts down to simple phrases if you can make it through the 45 minutes it takes him to get there says, ‘I’m wonderin’ about taking this job and why I should do it and clear as a bell God tells me “Make More Lutherans.  I make Catholics and Presbyterians and Jews and Muslims.  I like the diversity.  And I like Lutherans, too.  Make more Lutherans.”‘

Most lucid evangelism comment I’ve ever heard.  Lutherans, nor even Christians, need not conquer the world, just take our place in rounding out creation.  We don’t have the whole and exclusive truth, natch, but we do have stuff to offer.

Like yet another vote about sexuality.  Hot diggity dog.

What to do about ‘them gays’ has been an albatross around the church’s neck for the last twenty years at least, beginning with the first attempted statement (for the newly-formed ELCA) back around 89 – 90 that earned the task force leader so many death threats that she resigned for safety.  (Islam isn’t the only religion used to justify terrorism, as I also write this a couple of days after the assassination of Dr. Tiller while ushering at his ELCA church service.  Insane hatred is not reserved for foreigners only; violence as the will of God is all over the place.)  So the generally hidden parts of the church—Biblical scholars, theologians, historians, sociologists, psychologists—all went to work in their disciplines studying ‘the issue’, while the debate turned vitriolic among our congregations; at least, among the ones who had the courage to talk about it—a lot of people and pastors wished it would just go away.  But it didn’t, and around the Church the cry went up, ‘Let the pummeling begin!’  So we designed a boxing match process wherein round one would be congregational discussions and reports/recommendations to the sex commission or whatever it’s called, followed by round two with discussions and recommendations on the local synodical level, and round three, discussions, reports, and decisions on the church-wide level at those biannual assemblies (”churchwide” being comprised of voting members selected from each of the 65 synods).  The culmination of the process happens at the upcoming churchwide assembly somewhere in August, when the vote will be taken regarding our policies about ordaining gay people in ‘monogamous, publicly accountable (etc, etc)’ relationships.  Essentially the recommendations are to leave it to the discernment of the local synods, who better know the mission necessities of their areas, shorthanded to ‘the local option.’  A bunch of us could have told you ten years ago that’s where we’d end up coming out.

But there are 10,000 or so congregations in the ELCA with about 15,000 pastor-types and, as mentioned 4.5 million members.  For the non-enlightened, we are not corporately hierarchical—we have no pope, our bishops are elected locally but have no real power beyond persuasion over our congregations; nor do they have a vote on our churchwide church council, by the way—just like I’ve not had a vote on the councils of the churches I’ve served—I’ve got the pulpit; if I can’t persuade ‘em from there, a vote ain’t gonna help.  As a matter of fact, ‘political’ power in the ELCA is loaded in favor of the laity:  all of our assemblies require that 2/3’s of the voting members be laity.  Undoubtedly the directions we take as a church are initiated by ordained leadership people, but they can never be dictated by us.

Rats.

So instead of fiat we have a process that tries to include everybody and for that reason the church is about as easy to maneuver as the Titanic (which is why the church is forever doing the mad scramble of Peter suddenly sinking in his dash across the chaotic sea toward Jesus crying kyrie).  Consider my own story:  in the year of my pummeling by the homohysterics on the congregational level, Matchmaker Don and I were returning from a synod assembly in pre-Katrina New Orleans to currently flooded by Allison Houston and on the drive composed an email to the bishop ragging about the format of the assembly, who promptly responded with an email to the whole synod expressing his appreciation that we would be co-chairing next year’s assembly, which we did, pulling off a Smother’s Brothers routine.  And leading the assembly in the practice of congregations and people talking to each other instead of going to workshops to hear yet another ‘expert’ lecture.  We choose the most innocuous topic we could—the third commandment, ‘remember the sabbath’.  Easy stuff—goin’ to church and restin’ that takes you into a consideration of materialism.

We did that ’cause the following year was bringing the synodical discussions about sexuality.  Matchmaker and I chaired that sucker, too.  By that time I was on disability and had no career future to worry about, and thought I could deflect the heat some from the bishop since he’d been getting hammered at from all sides for a decade and, besides, he’d taken some heat for me at the congregation, thus offering for him plausible deniability (’You know how crazy Keene is’) when people give him crap.  This worked.  So we brought in a new testament scholar and a theological ethicist as presenters, both of whom supported changing the policies requiring the celibacy of gay clergy.  When people bitched at the bishop for not providing ‘equal time’ for ‘the other side’ he said talk to Keene, who said, ‘Tough.  You don’t need to make the case for the status quo because it already is.  You need to make the case for the change’ and walked off and they stood there wondering what I’d just said, thinkin’ ‘what an asshole’ but not thinking about the bishop.  We also brought in famed church referee and psychospiritual bouncer Dr. Pete Steinke to umpire the discussion/debate and to set the rules and call ‘foul’ as—actually not too often—necessary.  The discussion itself was very heated and intense with conviction, but thanks to the work  of Bouncer Pete we were prevented from name calling and ad hominem attacks and all that other destructive nastiness, even if it means enforcing Lutheran niceness with threat of expulsion, so we debated to a draw and sent the discussion reports off to the sex commission for our ‘journeying together in faithfulness’ as the whole process was beautifully called, and waited for the results and recommendations of the whole thing to come back, which is, as I said, in August.

‘Course there were those who, in their monomaniacal faithfulness refused the humility needed for the journeying together part, sought only to impose their understanding on everybody else and through secrecy and deceit and fear they spread their dittoheaded cancer in the Body of Christ, capable only of destruction, not creation.  4.5 million people; 15,000 clergy:  some of ‘em are flat insane, but they do their damage nonetheless, ruining people and ignoring decency to prove their unique righteousness by bullying.

And then at the assembly there was. . .The Aggie, earning that by a rootin’ hootin’ every time Texas A & M was mentioned.  Oh, and by the cowboy hat he wore throughout the thing in the hotel ballroom and the 20 pounds of metal hangin’ off the side of his belt, as if he were just on the verge of mountin’ his palomino and ridin’ off to fix some fence out on the prairie.  A young guy, he proved his assembly rookiness by rootin’ n’ tootin’ n’ clappin’ every time somebody sided with his heterosexist orientation.  Dude.  It ain’t a football pep rally or a political convention.  We’re tryin’ to understand the mind of Christ here.  Shut the hell up.

And take off that stupid hat—we worship in here.

When I read the final (maybe) report and recommendations of the commission a couple of months back I was blown away, not so much by the recommendations themselves—as mentioned, ‘the local option’—as the rationale behind them.  ‘Twas absolutely and classically Lutheran, starting with the acknowledgment that we’re flat stale-mated on the thing.  Then finding a way through it by exploring the Lutheran heritage of ‘the bound conscience’ ala Brother Martin, ‘my conscience is prisoner to the word of God alone.  To go against conscience is neither wise nor safe.  Here I stand, God help me, I can do no other.’  (Keene ed.)  Yeah, we all gotta live that noble sentiment, ‘a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do’.

But then a twist:  what about the bound conscience of my disagreer?  Does my bound conscience mean that he must be condemned as wrong?  If not, then how is it that we live together as the Body of Christ, when the church may be doing those things I am bound in my conscience to oppose?  How does that work?

To be bound in conscience is not merely to have deep feelings about something, but far more profound.  It is to be convinced by the Spirit of the Scriptures and the witness of the church that I must take a particular position or action or betray my Lord Jesus Christ.  My conscience before God is bound to that.  Regardless of the outcome I cannot betray my lord.  So for over a decade the church studied those scriptures and history and all I mentioned and discussed and debated and at the current end of all the ages came to a stalemate—though with a new respect for the bound conscience of the other, a new humanizing tone toward each other, the recommendation being that we trust each other enough to allow for the needs of the local mission to make that discernment.  The spiritual challenge to it is to live our conviction with the humility that I might not necessarily be the only truth in the household of God (though how that may be possible is beyond me).

At the assembly we had the same old flurry of motions trying to stop change by the same old flurry of people doing it for years.  I was set to join the debate with my tale of standing before the Hairy Thunderer God accounting for my pastoral work and he says, ‘well, Keene, basically you’re toast over that whole homosexuality thing.  You told ‘em it was okay.  But before I flick my eternal bic, tell me what in my name were you thinking?’  ‘I was tryin’ to do the Jesus thing, being the good samaritan to that guy that was beat up and laying in the ditch.’  With a snort he turns to Jesus, ‘fire ‘im up, son.  ‘Sorry, dad.  He might have been stupid, but he was showin’ some mercy’ and with that dumps a bucketful of baptismal water over my head, and the Hairy Thunderer goes stomping off muttering ‘where’s James Dobson when you need ‘im?’

It would have been a great debate moment, but it wasn’t, finally, necessary, because the opponents to change soon ran out of speakers and it made no sense to continue to hammer them with supporter speeches.   Ultimately the vote to support the recommended changes passed, with a good enough majority.  From the days of needing Pete the Bouncer, the whole thing was nearly a yawn.  So get this:  the people of the Lutheran churches of southeast Texas and southern Louisiana voted to recommend to all the people of the ELCA gathered in August that we change our policies to provide for the ordination and call of gay people in appropriate partnered relationships to serve as pastors of the church.  (There is never a threat of a church being forced to have one, ’cause pastors are always selected by their congregations.)

Texas, bubba!  ‘Course work still is being done for the August assembly, but that we passed it here gives me good feelings.

Sometimes the church gets it right.  Sometimes the church even gets it right in a uniquely Lutheran way—that of acknowledging our differences and respecting the bound conscience of the other, who must also say, ‘here I stand, God help me, I can do no other.’

On this day I am awed by the wisdom and the courage of the ELCA in deciding to journey together faithfully through our fear and bewilderment.  That’s what I think is really cool about being a Lutheran:  we know how to live with ambiguity.  We are at the same time assholes and saints.

And we can live with that.

Larry

I spent most of last week in Tucson, where the temperature upon my arrival Monday morning was a toasty 102, though, of course, a ‘dry heat’ with a mere 8% humidity, nature’s own diuretic, sucking the fluids right out of you.  I went to visit with my mother and stepdad—a descriptor that sill throws me, since I was 40 when they got married, four years after my father’s death; four years of desperate encouragement by her children, ‘Please, Mom, find a man.’  She did well with Garvin the Gentle, a retired for real rocket scientist of the military/industrial complex back in the Cold War who lost his first wife to cancer, and is six years my mother’s junior, for which, natch, I accused her of robbing the cradle.

My mom’s 87, though in the fast lane towards 88 in July.  They live part of the time in L.A. and the other part in Tucson, the spread made necessary by the few remaining friends they have still living (which largely explains their graciousness:  they can’t afford not to be).  Mom:  “The problem with outliving everybody is you have to watch them die.”  That’s a different slant—though perhaps the same mindset—on what I’ve told my kids when they’re having to endure the insanity of their in-laws, ‘Just remember God put them there for your entertainment.’  Same advice I provide for my kids’ spouses about their in-laws, by the way.  Mom and I speculated as to whether she would be the star of the next show or, once again, a spectator for one of her children, given that we’re all standing with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, though we took no bets, expressed no wishes.  They have a neat little place in a rv/mobile home park for retirees, mostly northern snowbirds flocking south for the winter.  A couple of miles from their place in the desert sits a vast field where are parked retired military aircraft—WWII bombers and B-52’s and that ass-in-the-air thing I was shuffled by in Vietnam (a dozen of us sitting in a row on the floor, strapped in by one long seatbelt with a bizarre pretense of safety).  The field might even house a museum, I don’t know.  The retirees call it ‘the boneyard’.  The remaining relics of generations passing into history, ‘What was vietnam Grampa?’

‘Well, child, whereas WWII revealed the nobility of America, Vietnam revealed the dark and destructive shadow of it when arrogant and paranoid and ignorant leaders confused pride for righteousness and started a war in a little southeast Asian country.  The U.S. dropped millions of bombs on ‘em killing ten of thousands of people just going about their lives.  During those days, our government forced hundreds of thousands of boys to go over there and fight; 55,000 of our own kids were killed.  Then we were humiliatingly defeated, so all the killing had been to no avail.  But the more people that died, the more noble they told us it was.  That’s what governments always say when they need a war, the old flag-wavin’ razzle-dazzle.  Killing people is not merely a rational decision, you gotta stir ‘em up.  That’s why, my little one, you gotta pay attention to what our leaders say about killing people, ’cause only you can determine the truth, and then you gotta shoot your mouth off about it.  I know, ’cause I was in ‘Nam. . . .’

‘Mom!  Grampa’s spacin’ out again!’

I’m not a site-seer.  But I followed my incredulous grunt at the invitation to cruise downtown Tucson with an inquiry into the distance to those mountains up there; and so we ascended into the high desert wilderness of the Catalinas, the road dead-ending at a little settlement at 8500 feet, where it was a cool 30 degrees cooler, the gift shop newly rebuilt after ‘the fire.’  The thunderstorm awakened just as we headed back, and pelted us with squishy bouncing hail for a bit, but we escaped it by descent, much as I had escaped a similar ‘what the hell?’ situation on the Blue Ridge Parkway, coming out of the Smokies national park through a tunnel into suddenly fog and then snow flurries on Memorial Day weekend a few years back, elevation being everything.  I wanted to see the Catalina wilderness because, having sold my sailboat and given up the idea of owning another thanks in large measure to the Fuckheads of Finance who are still whining for their bonuses, I’ve acceded to the darling’s preferences for camping.  Though not content with simply going out and buying, say, a pop-up tent trailer, I’ve decided to build my own along the styles of the ‘tear-drop trailers’ of the 1940’s and 50’s; nay, I’ve decided to turn it into a summer project for the men of our clan (beer, bonding, and bandages, as it were), and even now while surveying the campgrounds of the Catalinas the trailer I ordered for it was being built.

I remembered that an old friend—Rick the Clown who did sermons dressed like a clown and workshops especially for teens on ‘clowning’—had recently accepted a call to Oro Valley, so I got in touch with him and insisted he pick me up and take me to a meal, because he lived in a valley of gold, and sure enough he both did pick me up and had found gold by way of a jaw-dropping salary package.  I’m glad for that, because he once helped save my life.  Rick the Clown and MarcO and I used to get together years back monthly at the Chinese buffet.  One day over sweet ‘n sour pork they said, ‘We’ve been talking about it and we think you’re screwed up Keene.  You need to see a psychiatrist.’  So I saw the shrink and was introduced to anti-depressants and got even with The Clown the next time we played golf, following a lovely tee shot for which he held the television pose and earned, ‘Lovely form, if it weren’t for that huge ol’ grocery sack hanging over your belt.’  Next time we played golf, he was thin.  Over lunch in Tucson I helped him with the sermon he had to preach later on this Ascension Day quoting scripture and the angel:  ‘Men of Judea why do you stand there looking up Jesus’ skirts?  You know he’s too poor for underwear.’  ‘Ah, yes,’ says he, ‘I do miss scatological theology.’

The Thursday evening flight home was as uninteresting as always, save for a spate of conversation with my seat mate, a forensic toxicologist currently heading to his home to Budapest, Hungary after giving presentations at colleges here (must be famous in his line) who apologized for his English; ‘better than my Hungarian’ I confessed.  ‘You know any Hungarian?’  ‘Um. . .’goulash?”  He looked out the window, then changed the subject.

On Friday Doc Boner and I hooked up to take delivery on the aforementioned trailer and walked into the unintentional incompetence brought about by the well-meaning summarized in the trailerman’s introduction, ‘Since you ordered it without sides or floor, the boys in the shop thought they ought to beef it up in other ways,’ and from the anticipation of a ‘light utility trailer’ quite sufficient for carrying what is essentially a wooden tent weighing at the most extreme most 750 pounds I encountered the reality of a major hulk built to carry—easily—a small bulldozer.  Even empty I could not lift the tongue to the ball hitch on my pickup.  But we brought it home and looked at it and talked about it and I decided I had to find a friend with a cutting torch ’cause there’s way too much steel on that thing.  It seems weird to order this thing custom built and then take a cutting torch to it, but there you go:  the cost of creation.

On Friday night The Queen and I finally had our grand reunion when she showed up with her parents, smiling and happy to see each other after all these so many days apart.  I’d been in Tucson for our normal Tuesday time, and indeed was even surprised to find myself thinking about her then.  A suddenly new experience, really, since I didn’t recall the experience of missing my own kids like this and wondered if I ought to feel guilty.  But then I realized ‘that’s ’cause you didn’t have a chance to miss ‘em—they were around all the time, like leeches you can’t shake’ and felt better.  She hollered for me to take our usual private stroll around the backyard, and I told her the story of how I’d baptized her two weeks earlier at my old stomping grounds, Messiah, the first time back since leaving in ‘03.  I’d turned down the invitation to preach, declaring instead a ‘dunk ‘n run’, which is essentially what I did ’cause the day wasn’t about me but about God and the grandkid, though I did tell the congregation after their promises to tend to her spiritual well-being that if they didn’t, I’ll be back.  I told her her whole family was there for it all, both at church and at the barbecue served out on our deck afterwards—the European side of us, and the Filipino side and the African American side, and on top of that my friend of the spirit Seattle Suzanne was there as well.  And The Queen, practicing her conversational eloquence responded flicking her tongue ‘b-dah, b-dah, b-dah’, Pentecost not yet having arrived.  So I spoke in a different tongue and picked her up and hugged her.

It’s Memorial Day and over the weekend I’ve been flashing on Oil Spill Tracy and Wonderful Nancy because their son graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy a few days back.  I confirmed that boy—and his sister, at a different time—two of the niftiest kids I ever encountered, a puzzling marvel, given that Oil Spill himself was such a, er, well, Dittohead back in those days; we’ve had our share of snarling at each other politically.  I initially chalked their kids up to the influence of Wonderful Nancy, but then I got a clue (especially after working with her on the church staff) that maybe both of ‘em in fact had something to do with that.  I started flashing because the darling mentioned them following a news report of Obama speaking at the graduation, wondering how that went over with them.

I’m hoping they were proud enough to pee their pants; not, of course, because of Obama, but because of their children, and on this day their son in particular, the newly-minted Ensign, an officer of the United States’ Navy, sworn to uphold (with his life) the Constitution of the United States and to follow the orders of the Commander-in-Chief regardless of what political party he/she/it is affiliated with, and regardless of what his parents think about it.  His primary allegiance now is to a cause, to a human body that transcends family.  I know something about taking an oath of service:  when I was ordained I vowed to serve the Body of Christ, a cause that transcended my own family of origin and in some ways separated me from them.  It is not too much to say that Oil Spill and Wonderful have given up their son to serve the defense of our nation.

I give thanks for what they’ve done, and what their son is doing, and all who’ve committed their lives in transcendent service for the safety and good of our country.  This week’s travels were made possible by them

Larry

While cruisin’ the deep and wide river in Nashville a week and so back I dropped in on a workshop called “Understanding White Privilege” ’cause not only am I white but I’m also male and heterosexual making me thrice privileged.  This kind of thing is always a good reminder of how bad my life could really be if I wasn’t who I am, as miserable as it frequently is being whom I am notwithstanding.  Besides, my travlin’ pal brother-in-law is Art the Mexican.  My sister tells me their stories about L.A. cops and Latinos.  Their Latino-hued son made the mistake of running when rousted for drinking a beer on the street corner—got the shit kicked out of him in the “takedown” and ended in the hospital.  Being a 21-year-old dumbass doesn’t know cultural boundaries; but the reaction to it does.  Back in their dumbass days my white sons also ran from the cops in the wee hours of darkness and when caught were brought to the house by the sheriff.  (That’s when I introduced the public use of the ‘f word’ to the family, i.e., ‘Are you out of your fucking minds?’)  The sheriff brought my boys home; Art the Mexican had to find his at the hospital.

The presenter was a (white) filmmaker who does documentaries on such stuff.  She was going to show clips to lead the presentation but, as per usual here in the Church Militant, the buzz machines didn’t work and they had to send for a techno-wizard.  It was during this delay that she lost all control of the workshop as our multi-hued, multi-cultural mostly clergy participants launched into our own chaotic agenda of story-telling and soul-searching.  Live human interaction also works when the tv breaks down, though I do grow weary of the breast-beatin’ mea culpateers hang-doggin’ it or defensive in their white guilt.  Seems to me better just to acknowledge it:  in this society at this time white is the privileged color.  The question isn’t if it is so, the question is how do you create a community where all colors and cultures can experience the same respect, and dignity, and decency which my white privilege affords me.  It’s cool that the church does this, has this conversation and encounter—in, no less, the name of Jesus.  It’s good to hear from the folks on the outside of the white bubble, seeing things from a different perspective.

Molly the filmmaker did mange to grab control of things toward the end by leading us on the contemplative question, ‘Can you remember a time you learned compassion from somebody?’  There is the meditative pause among us, and then the white guy feels compelled to share in the sober tone that suggests he’s just had a divine revelation and four sentences in I realize oh no! it’s the dreaded Death Bed Tale, the most corrupt non sequiter one could introduce after an hour of discussion about white privilege, ala ‘I remember the compassion of the dying guy to who’s side I rushed in the middle of a snowy night’.  Dude.  Death Bed Tales are never about the dead guy, they’re always about you.  Just to drive that point home, the old white gal grabs the floor and goes into a reverie of not one but two Death Bed Tales in one of those whispering voices that show zero consideration for anybody trying to hear her; it’s enough, I guess, that she hears herself.  But, Jesus, lady, don’t do it on my time.  It’s not a revelation from God, and you’re boring anyway.  No wonder two of ‘em died while you were there.

‘Course I couldn’t say that, and was given instead to the recollection of Ho the Shit-Burner back in Vietnam.  That’s at least (and of course) what we called him, anyway, Ho.  He was a little old skinny dirty man in filthy and ragged clothes with occasional and yellow rotten teeth.  Our latrine was a wooden multi-seater in which we sat and shat into sawed off 55-gallon drums.  Ho gathered these drums of shit every day and set them on fire with diesel fuel.  We tended to keep our distance, or at least stand upwind when talking to Ho the Shit-Burner, though he understood no English and simply nodded and smiled ‘yessa massa’-like.

We ate in a wooden mess hall, but had to carry our trays and dishes outside to wash ourselves in the ol’ army 4- or 5- or something pot method, the first, of course, being the slop bucket into which went our left over food and filth from this meal which, today, also included minestrone soup.  The thing looked like a bucket of vomit when I saw Ho approach from the other side and stick his hand into that stuff and dig around up to his elbow until he pulled out an only lightly chewed apple, wiped and shined it on his filthy shirt, showed it to me, and walked off with the smile of someone who’d just found the priceless pearl.

So I think of learning compassion while Me!-Me! drones on with her Death Bed Tale and up jumps Ho the Shit Burner and I’m pretty sure that it has something to do with the fact that he burns shit and fishes in slop buckets for food and delights in finding a partly-chewed apple.  It was his utter vulnerability that taught the compassion ’cause you end up grieving for the misery in which he lives.  They told me that Ho the Shit Burner was my enemy.

I think he was holy.

Larry