Overseas

One morning I was taking my son to daycare. I can’t remember how old he was, but he was still an infant. I noticed that some workers were doing something to the windows of the small building where his room was located. I asked one of his teachers, and she said, “They are putting on a screen that is supposed to slow down bullets.” I tried not to panic and to match her demeanor. She said it to me like it was the most normal thing in the world. “Oh yeah, today is the day our bullet screens get installed.” I don’t remember if I actually said anything to her. I remember going back to my car and sitting in it for a while. My immediate instinct as a dad and human was to get my son, go home, and flee with my family somewhere. I don’t know where, but surely finding a place that didn’t install window screens to slow down bullets on infant classrooms would be a good place to start. 

Now we have two sons. I take them to the same school. They are both in daycare. It is a different building. Today, after I dropped them off, I had the same feeling. How can I leave them? What if today is the day it happens here? After all, it happened at Sandy Hook, and America barely skipped a beat. 

Today is the day after a mass shooting left ten people dead in Boulder, Colorado. Today is one week since a series of shootings near Atlanta left eight people dead. Today is also the day legislators in my state (Tennessee) will vote on moving a bill which allows the permitless carry of handguns to the House floor. Rhetoric around this bill focuses on the notion that more guns equals more safety. Of course, this is nonsense. America has more guns than anywhere else, and this only means more gun violence and death. 

I don’t want to be someone who lives in fear, especially because I think fear is primarily what is driving people to want guns. I want to dismantle fear. At the same time, who am I if something happens to one or both of my children or my wife and I could have done something to prevent it. I don’t mean, “Should I get a gun?” I have guns, and I recognize that having a gun doesn’t make someone a bad person. I didn’t purchase any of the guns I have. They were given to me by family, and some have been in my family for a couple generations. I’ve never used them to hunt because I’m lazy, and I cry when someone is mean to a dog in a movie. So killing a deer is not what I’m going to do unless it’s me or the deer (and even then I will have to ask the deer what I am supposed to do with it once I kill it). I grew up shooting targets, bottles, and skeet. I was a pretty good shot, mainly because Duck Hunt had prepared me for this course in life. I plan to teach my sons about guns. I probably have failed that I haven’t already taught one of them more. And, if they want to hunt or shoot skeet, I’m down. 

But I am not down with teaching them that guns solve problems because they don’t. Violence of any kind is futile and senseless and only leads to more violence. The notion of guns as a means to a safer society is a cheap lie peddled by merchants of death, and I won’t have any part of it. And yes, if America is hellbent on returning to the days of Tombstone and the Wild, Wild West, then you might be doing that without my family. Again, I don’t know what that means, and I don’t want to run and hide. But it feels more and more that America loves guns more than life itself. No advancing society should be spending this much time and money on weapons. To do so invests in death, and I have no interest in raising children in a society fixated on death-dealing. Life is beautiful, and I want them to have the best lives possible. Shouldn’t we want this for every child, and if so, wouldn’t this mean we would melt down guns before we bulletproof windows on daycares?

I usually process difficult feelings and emotions through music. One artist who has helped me tremendously is Jason Isbell. When I first heard his song “Overseas,” I was in awe of the way it captured my thoughts of wanting to leave a place that so tenaciously pursues ugliness, greed, and death. Maybe if he can stay here (and since we live in the same city, I do mean HERE) I can too. But it also somehow helps to know that I’m not the only one who feels this way. And maybe we can get enough people feeling this way strongly enough to do something, before it really is too late.

Here’s the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4kFqy7U6NE

The Uncivil War

 

I watched the inauguration of Joseph R. Biden today with many competing emotions. I was afraid it might not go off without a hitch. After all, just two weeks ago (to the day) I watched people storm the Capitol building and commit acts of violence. More violence had been threatened. Thankfully, it didn’t happen. My heart was also heavy that America recently passed the horrific milestone of 400,000 deaths from COVID-19. At one point, half that number seemed unthinkable. It’s hard for me to imagine a more thorough failure in the world’s wealthiest nation. I was eager to hear what Biden would say in the face of such difficulty, and he named things so well. 

His is one of the first inaugural addresses to take place in a society where quotes are instantly memed. And certainly, he had some meme-worthy phrases. Perhaps the line that struck me the most was his referring to the current state of affairs in America as an Uncivil War. What a fascinating thing to say. It’s entirely possible that America has never been as divided as it is now except for the time it literally went to war with itself. The physical wounds of The Civil War were monumental. Two percent of the American population died from warfare and its associated miseries. But, I think many of us are coming to terms with the fact that we have been underestimating the figurative wounds which caused the conflict and have stewed in one way or another since. Ultimately, this is all to say, America has not fully come to terms with the fact that it was founded on the near genocide of Native Peoples and the abhorrent practice of enslaving Africans. 

I want the kind of society Biden spoke of, and I have given my life to help bring it to fruition. Still, I lack the imagination to understand how healing can take place without a proper diagnosis and course of treatment. Until America as a whole confesses the sins of the past and seeks legitimate restoration, I think it will be stuck in an endless cycle of division with those who love the country so much they can never speak ill of it on one side and those who love it so much they can’t allow it to exist under a delusion on the other. This gets at the trickiness of civility. How do you agree to disagree about lies? Maybe the people perpetuating the lies finally give up the futile fight. But until that takes place, any notion of healing, progress, or advancement will be partial at best. 

A New Denomination's Take on Holy Communion

In my new denomination, Holy Communion will be celebrated at every worship gathering. At random times, but at least once a month, the setting for the communion liturgy will be to the tune of Gordon Lightfoot’s immortal classic “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” There will be no discernible pattern to the occurrence of “Wreck Communion” so that parishioners will not be able to plan their attendance schedules in a way that will avoid participation in this rite. Moreover, once the music begins, the doors will be locked to prevent escape.

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

I love this song, and I don't feel it gets the play it deserves. I can't trace when I first really started loving this song. It probably goes back to Darlene Love singing it on Letterman, which obviously deserves its own oral history.

The song is classic Phil Spector. Do what you want with that. But, it takes you somewhere pretty great in just under three minutes. Attention must be paid.

The original version by Love is still the best, and there's a case to be made for it as the best pop Christmas song of all time. As a testament to the greatness of the song, it's hard to make a lousy cover of it. One of my favorites is the version by U2. No frills really; just their normal weirdness. May it be stuck in your head until June.

The Christmas Song

Not to be confused with "Christmas Song" by Dave Matthews (I'll get to that later), this song begins "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." It usually isn't one of my faves. I have to be in a certain mood to want to hear it, and I'm rarely in this mood. I also feel like it has been done by literally everyone, which I know is the case for lots of songs I'll be discussing.

My favorite version, hands down, is Nat King Cole's. I think there's really no comparison. His phrasing is incredibly suited for the music of the song. I also love the instrumental break. Everything works together so well. Even the somewhat cheesy "Jingle Bells" bit at the end is great.

No one else should bother with this song.

The Christmas Song

Holiday Songs

For some time I have threatened to release an all-encompassing master list of holiday songs. The time is now for this to happen. I shall try to post one each day through Advent and perhaps beyond. Sometimes the songs will come with extensive comment. Other songs need no explanation. If you feel that the versions I list as the greatest are in error, please prove me wrong. They will occur only in the order I think of them. Let's begin.

Merry Christmas Baby - Otis Redding

This song makes me exceedingly joyful whenever I hear it. I don't think there's any way to make it better. It's perfection.

Honorable mention for other good versions: B.B. King and Bruce Springsteen

Making Room

My son, who is almost three years old, loves the movie Room on the Broom. The book is one of my favorites to read with him because it reminds me of fall and Halloween (which I love). It also has a cadence of words that I enjoy. The movie is different in some notable ways. First, it takes thirty minutes to tell a story that can be read in about eight. So the cadence of language is lost. Second, the narrator is British, so that’s an improvement to my voice. Third, the characters express emotions in a way they don’t in the book. The most obvious way this final difference changes the story is found when subsequent characters ask, “Is there room on the broom for me?” In the book, a straightforward and excited “Yes!” from the witch is all that happens when a dog, bird, and frog ask about climbing aboard the broom. But, in the movie, when the dog asks “Is there room on the broom for a dog like me?” a cat, who had already been granted access to the broom, shakes his head. What’s worse, each animal who is welcomed to the broom wants to deny a place for each new animal. In the span of a few minutes, the dog goes from practically begging for a place to denying a spot for the now begging bird. What is it that makes those who were once unwelcome receive welcome and then become unwelcoming to others?

This past Sunday, the Sunday School class my wife and I attend discussed Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard. We used Dr. Amy-Jill Levine’s study “Short Stories by Jesus.” Levine makes a fascinating point regarding this parable. She focuses on the idea that those in the story who are waiting to be hired for work have been waiting in the same spot all day. Something she finds troubling is the lack of advocacy those workers who are hired engage in for those who remain unhired. Moreover, when those who were waiting to be hired were finally hired, those who were hired earlier grumble at the fact that they are paid equally rather than celebrating both the generosity of the vineyard owner and the providence for those who need to be able to feed themselves and families. How can we deny others the same gifts we have received?

The current situation of welcoming some people but not all people in an equal fashion in the United Methodist Church is problematic for many reasons. Perhaps the most offensive element about the lack of welcome to all people is the position of ownership by other people. To return to Room on the Broom, the cat and dog don’t own the broom. The witch does. Those who are requesting a space on the broom aren’t asking the other occupants; they are asking the owner. The church belongs to Christ. If Christ has called and welcomed all people, who are we to turn them away? If the generous owner of all things seeks to make us all equal, who are we to persist in inequality? Perhaps we have forgotten who created all things and called them good. Maybe we have also forgotten that the Lord we worship was born in a stable because his family was told, “There is no room for you.” We continue to tell God “You are unwelcome” until we make room for all God’s children.