changing the channel

Tonight the Red Sox will play the last game of a disappointing season that ended long ago, as far as any aspirations for the post season were concerned. The only thing that matters about tonight is that it would be nice to beat the Yankees on the way out. As far as the Yanks go, the game matters only as far as bragging rights go; win or lose, they are going to the playoffs. That said, I’m going to watch the game tonight instead of the presidential debate because the game has more significance. The debate is the political equivalent of professional wrestling: all posture and no substance.

Ever since Richard Nixon’s loss to John Kennedy was attributed to his poor showing in their televised debate, candidates on both sides have worked to master the medium, to make sure they come off in the best light, and to learn how to spar and wait for the right moment to deliver a “zinger.” So they talk about how well the other one debates in order to lower expectations, the pour over old tapes to look for strengths and weaknesses, and they sequester themselves to practice, practice, practice so we can all gather around our televisions like a mob at a cock fight to cheer for our favorite and shout down the other. When the debate is over, all that will be added to the equation is  fodder for the 24 news cycle, who are the ones who fomented the fervor in the first place.

So watch baseball or Law and Order reruns or something that matters. Skip the debates. Better yet, get together with a group of people you trust and who don’t all agree with you and have a discussion about what needs to happen in our country that avoids the catch phrases and cliches that fill our airwaves. Talk about health care without using the word “Obamacare.” Talk about class issues in our country without referring to the “Forty-seven percent.” Don’t run to opposite poles and scream at each other. Don’t settle for political theater and honest discourse. Get together, eat together, and then listen more than you talk.

And while you’re at it, pull for the Sox.

Peace,
Milton

think on these things

Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

I came across this quote in the swirl of life that has included the Haitian earthquake and aftermath, the wrangling over the health care bill, the polarizing election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, a day at work fraught with relational issues, and an evening of cooking and talking with Mitch and Arnaldo at the Duke restaurant that reinforced both my faith and my sanity.

I’ve spent the last hour trying to find the words for this next paragraph and have only written words that feel as though they add to the cacophony of incivility that rules the day, rather than offering a word of encouragement. In short, I don’t want to add to the crap, so let me tell you what happened last night.

I found out over the weekend that my father is going to Cuba on Friday with a group from Baylor. When Arnaldo, our Cuban dishwasher, came to work yesterday I told him what my father was going to do. Arnaldo came to America as a part of the Mariel boatlift of 1980. He has not been able to return to Cuba for thirty years. And he asked me this question: “If I can get the phone numbers, can your father call my family and tell them I’m OK?”

Yes. The answer is Yes. Think on these things.

Peace,
Milton

I don't know what to say

to a member of Congress
who yells, “You lie” at our
President, like a drunk fan
yelling at a referee, or

a pastor who spews hate
from his pulpit, wishing
our President would die
a natural death because,

“We don’t need another
holiday.” The comments
are connected across
our continent by one

thing, one thread, one
ugly truth that is hard
to call out by name:
they are racist words --

all of them. I know
such claims don’t make
for beautiful poetry,
but I don’t know what
else to say.

Peace,
Milton

good for us

I woke up thinking about the Kenyan election that was held some time back. Was thought to be one Africa’s most stable democracies was ripped apart when the results did not go the way the party in power hoped they would. I woke up thinking about it because I had spent the evening watching power change hands and seeing both candidates graciously take their places in the transition.

Yes, the final weeks of the campaign looked, as one commentator described it, like “a knife fight in a phone booth,” but no one was killed, no one was violently intimidated, and we elected a new president. There are a number of things I wish were different about the way we behave and operate politically as Americans, but today I woke up thankful for what we accomplished last night.

Peace,
Milton

an american tune

I suppose there are any number of ways I could describe my life, but one that fits as well as any is a movie in search of a soundtrack. Whatever is going on, I’m always listening for the right song to rise up from the jukebox in my mind and take it’s place on the turntable. (Yes, I realize the metaphor needs to be updated.)

Though North Carolina is a state with an early voting option, Ginger and I waited until this morning to vote just because we like voting on Election Day. I made a quick trip to Dunkin Donuts to get our stand-in-line coffees and then we walked the block and a half to the polling place in our neighborhood, which is the local elementary school. Since we live in a very politically and culturally active area, the lines weren’t long because most of our neighbors voted early, so we were home just a little after seven. Up until today, I’ve voted only in Texas and Massachusetts during presidential elections, which means the fate of the state was already determined before I even cast my ballot. This year, North Carolina is one of the “swing states” (I like that better than “battleground”) and my vote carries some weight beyond my exercising my opportunity to be a part of the process.

This election marks the ninth time I have voted for president. I turned eighteen in 1974, just two years after my family had moved back to the States from Africa, and I was still figuring out what it meant to be an American in many ways. (Wait – I’m still trying to figure that one out.) For all that confounded and overwhelmed me, I was taken in most by the music. When we lived overseas, music was one of the main ways I felt connected to the US. I can remember getting James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James, or Crosby, Stills, and Nash, or Carole King’s Tapestry (just to name a few). One of the albums that marked me most was Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel. We moved to Houston in January of 1973 and somewhere in that year Paul Simon went solo and released There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, which had the radio hit, “Kodachrome.” For a kid in eleventh grade what’s not to connect with a song that begins

when I think back on all the crap I learned in high school
it’s a wonder I can think at all.

And it’s not the best song on the record. “St. Judy’s Comet” is a wonderful take on a lullaby, “Loves Me Like a Rock” is good gospel fun, “Something So Right” is worth hearing just about any time, and then there’s the song I woke up humming in my head this morning, “An Ameican Tune.”

Many's the time I've been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
But I'm all right, I'm all right
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don’t expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
or driven to its knees
But it's all right, it's all right
We've lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road
we're traveling on
I wonder what went wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what went wrong

And I dreamed I was dying
And I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age’s most uncertain hour
and sing an American tune
But it's all right, it's all right
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest

Two things about this song pull at me. The first is the lyric, which is a mixture of hope and struggle. Regardless of who wins the presidency today, we face the daunting task as a nation of figuring out how to be together. Reconciliation needs to become our national pastime. We are all wounded and battered. I wonder why it’s so hard to find the connectedness in our pain. We seem so quick to choose to strike out, as if seeing others hurt like we do makes things better. Would that in what feels like our age’s most uncertain hour, our American tune would be orchestrated with something other than the cannon of the 1812 Overture.

Speaking of tunes, the second thing that pulls me to this song is the melody, which is an adaptation of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, or (as I know it) “O, Sacred Head Now Wounded.” Melody leads to melody and then to lyric, and I am pulled to the final verse of the hymn, which are some of my favorite words in any song:

what language shall I borrow to thank thee, Dearest Friend
for this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?
o, make me thine forever, and should I fainting be
Lord, let me never, ever outlive my love for thee

I know nothing of how Simon came to put his words to Bach’s melody, but that those notes can carry both the uncertain feelings about my country and the heart of my faith calls me to think about how I can carry the reconciling love of God into the uncivil conflict that is our political arena. As a nation, we can’t be forever blessed, but as children of God we never run out of love. How can it be that it seems so much easier to choose sides than it is to choose solidarity?



Peace,
Milton

running scared

We took Ella walking in the middle of the night last night, so I didn’t get my daily dose of Jon Stewart, so, when I got home tonight, Ginger and I watched last night’s episode of The Daily Show, which included this report from John Oliver at both McCain and Obama campaign rallies.



The clip made me laugh (“Oh, that was an unfortunate time for a slip-up.”) and it made me sad; sad, because Oliver is right that our biggest commonality as Americans appears to be our fear and we appear to be mostly frightened of each other.

I don’t know what to do with that. So I guess I have to say it got me riled up a bit as well.

2 Timothy 2:7, as I learned it years ago from the King James, says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” That doesn’t sound like much of anyone I hear talking about this election, Christian or otherwise. We seem to be running scared to the polls, afraid of what the other side is going to do to America.

The problem is we seldom make good choices when we’re scared, election year or not.

It’s news to no one, unless you’re here for the first time, that I’m going to vote for Barack Obama. But I’m not voting for him because I’m scared of John McCain or Sarah Palin. I disagree with them on many things, I don’t see them as the best choice we have this time around, but I’m not scared of them or of what they might do. Things are going to change, regardless of who wins. The government is going to do some things I like and some things I don’t regardless of who wins. America is going to have to cope with its changing place in the world regardless of who wins. But America is not who gives us a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. To allow fear to control our votes is not to vote for, but against. We rarely say, “Yes” out of fear; we say, “No,” hoping it will keep us safe.

When we go vote, may we do so with a spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. May we be mindful that those who are voting differently are not enemies to be feared, but fellow citizens to be regarded, regardless of how they choose to see us. May we not run scared, but move with intentionality and resolve. And may we never run into John Oliver when he’s doing interviews.

Peace,
Milton

that reminds me of an old joke

Over the past several weeks I’ve had to learn how to send text messages because it is my boss’ preferred way of mobile communication. By accident one day, I pressed a button on my phone that read, “T9word,” and discovered my choice enabled my phone to anticipate the word I was typing, thus speeding up the process. When I finish a word, my phone automatically throws up the word that followed it the last time, assuming (it seems to me) that I am a man of very few sentences, or at least amazingly predictable. What began as a convenience has become quite claustrophobic.

As the election draws near and the volume continues to rise from all directions (though, I suppose, in our polarized culture that should read both directions), it seems we are living in a T9 world. When one side speaks, the other fills in the words before they are finished, not because they are listening but because they are readying their response. For all the rallies, press conferences, punditry, analyses, interviews, and whatever else fills up our twenty-four hour news cycle, it’s been a long time since anyone said something that mattered – even longer since anyone listened.

In the introduction to her sermon this morning, Ginger talked about the twenty-five years her mother ran a day care in her home. Rachel has an amazing way with wee ones. One of my favorite stories is one Ginger told this morning. Rachel went to the group playing outside and said, “OK, people, it’s time for lunch.”

One three-year old turned to another and said, “Her called us people.” Even at three, the little girl understood what it felt like to be respected, regarded, and taken seriously as a human being.

Over the quarter century, every child who came through that house learned this verse, almost before anything else:

BE YE KIND, ONE TO ANOTHER.

Ginger then turned to the old joke about the preacher who preached his first Sunday before his new congregation and was well received. When he preached the same sermon the second Sunday, the deacons were a bit befuddled, but cut him some slack since he was still getting settled. When he preached the exact same sermon a third time, they confronted him.

“I’ll be happy to move on,” he said, “as soon as you get this one right.”

Her words took me back to one of her sermons that has hung with me for almost two years, in which she quoted Philo of Alexandria:

BE KIND, FOR EVERYONE IS FIGHTING A GREAT BATTLE.

When I wrote about it then, I was working for an erratic and eccentric man who seemed to thrive on making the people around him miserable. Taking her words to heart was a challenging spiritual journey for me. I would love to say I have mastered the art of kindness and have moved on, but it is not so. I need to hear the same sermon again and again, as I did this morning.

Our NPR station was having their fundraiser this week, so I changed stations just to hear something other than the appeals for money. I landed on the local talk radio station, which is a world into which I seldom venture. I felt as though I had crossed into a parallel universe. That they presented a view farther to the right of NPR or me was not a surprise; the level of volume and vitriol was, however. These are guys who command huge audiences across the country, or at least that’s my perception. How can anger that severe be so popular?

My question is not an ideological one. I’m not asking why those right wing talk show hosts can’t be as thoughtful and quiet as their liberal counterparts. My impression is there is plenty of anger on both sides to go around. I’m not looking for an Us vs. Them scenario, either, though that seems to be the most American of perspectives. We cannot afford, however, to let ourselves see it as the Christian perspective.

When they asked Jesus what mattered most, he leaned back into the old joke Ginger told and preached the same sermon:

LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL THAT YOU ARE
LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.

Regardless of our political preferences, our fundamental allegiances are to God and to one another. Not to country. Not to party. Not to ideology. Not to personality. Not to stock portfolio or hedge fund. Not to class or race or even religion.

To God.
And to one another.

As we sang in our service today:

We are called to be God's people,
showing by our lives God’s grace,
one in heart and one in spirit,
sign of hope for all the race.
Let us show how God has changed us,
and remade us as God’s own,
let us share our life together
as we shall around God’s throne.

We are all wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and we are all wounded. What was said of Rachel by the little one can be said of God: “Her called us people.” May we bear the grace given to us in a way that shows kindness to one another.

And may I keep the old joke close because I’m going to need to hear this again.

Peace,
Milton

the whole plate

Some parts of my job come easily for me – the cooking part, for instance. Some parts have a steeper learning curve – figuring out food costs, for one. In order to be profitable, what it costs to buy all the food needs to cost less than a third of what we sell it for, which is hard to do. There are different kinds of formulas to help chefs do the math. I don’t really come to work to do math, but I’m learning.

One of the most helpful conversations on the topic for me recently was with James, one of the other chefs who has culinary school training and thinks creatively about most everything that happens in the kitchen. I was telling him about trying to cost out the menu at Duke and he said he thought the best way to lower food costs was to begin to figure out how much food – by weight – was going on each plate. Besides controlling costs, he said, you also give people a responsibly portioned meal.

I had never thought of it that way. I tended to look item to item: if salmon costs $6.50 a pound and I cut eight ounce servings, then I’m putting $3.25 on each plate. James challenged me to think more holistically. I’ll stick with the salmon for my example. On my menu at Duke we serve a pan seared salmon filet with a roasted corn risotto cake, grilled asparagus, and a lemon thyme beurre blanc. I began to do some figuring. If I serve

a 6 ounce portion of salmon
a 4 ounce risotto cake
4-5 ounces of asparagus and
2 ounces of beurre blanc

I’m putting a pound of food in front of my customer, which is plenty of food and not bad for $14. I have to admit I still struggle a bit when I cut the salmon or weigh out the risotto, so the cakes are consistent; they both look small. When they come together on the plate, however, they look like a good meal. So far, no one has complained about going away hungry. Yet, even as I’ve seen the truth in James’ logic play out in my kitchen, I struggle with coming to terms with the big picture. It’s far too easy to get caught up in a more fragmented view of both my menu and my life.

Another James, who goes by Jimmy and writes a blog and raises bees, stopped by this morning to bring me some of his Front Porch Blend honey. He has kept me supplied since we moved to Durham, so I was glad to see him. He also kept me distracted for the last hungry and horrible hour before I went for my colonoscopy (everything’s good). I’m grateful for both things. I’m also grateful to be developing a friendship with someone who doesn’t share the same political perspective. I like knowing that developing friendships run deeper than political views (there’s that big picture again), and I just like Jimmy. He is a kind and thoughtful person.

Our conversation did turn to the presidential campaign and one of his comments has stuck with me through the day. In the context of talking about the two choices for vice president he said, “Well the goal is to win the White House.” I can hear the reality in Jimmy’s statement and it makes me sad. If the goal of either side is simply to win, then neither one is looking at the whole plate. If the goal of either side could be reached the first Tuesday in November, then we need leaders with bigger goals and broader vision.

When I hear another new friend here, Terry, talk about what he does, he says he’s working to prevent and end homelessness in Durham. I love his choice of words. He’s not working with the homeless, or waging war on homelessness, he’s working to bring an end to the things in our society that keep people on the street. And he’s doing it, along with a growing group of people – many of them formerly homeless – who can see the whole plate Terry seeks to serve. Their big picture is a masterpiece.

I had another couple of paragraphs that turned into more of a sermon than I wanted from this post, so I cut them out. My point here is not to preach as much as to say I’m beginning to understand, whether I’m in the kitchen or not, I have to remind myself to look at the whole plate almost everyday. The big picture is not my default view. I need help to see more than my little piece of the meal. We all do. I also need to be reminded to look again and again at how I think about my life – my time, my relationships, my vocation – so that I have a sense of calling that is more than mere accomplishment.

Another blogging buddy, Towanda, offered this quote today, which spoke to me:

The only dream worth having ... is to dream that you will live while you're alive and die only when you're dead ... To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or to complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.

- Arundhati Roy
From her book, The Algebra of Infinite Justice

Now that’s a plate full.

Peace,
Milton

what sam has to say

I’ve always been a big fan of words.

I love their sounds, their meanings, the many ways they can be put together. I am pulled by poetry because it is words at their best, standing in fresh light, speaking deep truths, unlocking hearts. After the last couple of nights of convention speeches, I’m prepared to say politics is the opposite of poetry when it comes to how words are used, turning them from gifts into weapons, cheapening them by repeated use and misuse, throwing them around like hand grenades. It’s enough to make me less fond of words.

So tonight I pulled out a CD of a singer-songwriter we met on our Texas sojourn, Sam Baker, who is a nurturer of words. This is a man who knows how to tell a story in a way that pulls people in rather than causes them to choose sides. What strikes me about Sam’s songs is how his faithfulness to the description – to the story – without feeling the need to explain too much or somehow say, “Here’s the point,” lets the words say so much more than if he had chosen to be more directive.

The song that pulled me tonight is called, “Waves,” because I know some folks close to me who are living out the story Sam tells. I will resist the temptation to tell too much myself and let the song speak for itself.

waves

so many years so many hardships
so many laughs so many tears
so many things to remember
cause they had fifty years

and now the kids have got their own kids
and their own kids have grown
she told him not to worry
said he’d be fine when she was gone

he walks down to the ocean
bends to touch the water
kneels to pray
he writes her name in the sand
waves wash it away

there are sea gulls circling shrimp boats
that turn inside the bay
there’s an emptiness inside
that never goes away

he walks down to the ocean
bends to touch the water
kneels to pray
he writes her name in the sand
waves wash it away

That’s what words can do. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

home room

(with apologies to middle schoolers)

I’m sitting between Gustav and Hanna
in the homeroom of life, wondering how
to make sense of everything coming through
the loudspeaker, the stream of non sequiturs
that passes for news and the endless storm
of chatter that follows, each of us choosing
sides without bothering much to choose our
words. Life looks and sounds a great deal like
a middle school cafeteria. Shouldn’t speaking
our minds beg us to use our minds before we
speak? Instead, our lunch table politics build
allegiances based on fear or desperation or,
for the lucky ones, popularity, none of which
does much for real conversation: “Hello – and
I really mean that.” We worry about hurricanes,
but the small winds of breath that carry our
words are more destructive. We wear labels
like bunkers around our hearts and look only
at those who look and act like us. We learned
our vocabulary and jumped through all the
right hoops, but face it: we’re seventh graders.

Peace,
Milton