Reactions to 30,000 New Troops

Want to read how people are feeling about the President's call for 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan? I don't have a good feeling about this. What this means is that between Iraq and Afghanistan we will have close to 200,000 of our young men and women fighting in a war that is longer than World War II. This does not even touch the families, the wounded, those that have to go back into combat three, four, five times.

You might check into Jim Wallis' commentary on this added deployment found in Sojourners.

There is no easy way to disengage from the morass of this war. But somehow we must find a way home and finding it together would certainly be the best for all concerned.

We Remember the Fallen

Tonight President Obama announced that we will send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. The escalation--to be completed by next summer--is designed to reverse significant Taliban advances as of late. The size and speed of the troop increase will put a heavy strain on the military, which still maintains a force of more than 100,000 in Iraq and 68,000 in Afghanistan.

"It was 10 p.m. back in Fort Campbell. Edward's wife answered, and after a couple of long yawns, he figured he was waking her up. He could hear his three-year old daughter babbling in the background.

After the expected small talk, in which Edwards reminded his wife that he needed toothpaste and Handi Wipes sent in his nest care package, his wife said, "Jerry, I'm pregnant."

Edwards was stunned. "Are you sure?"

"I've taken three tests."

And then his daughter got on the phone. "Are you at work, Daddy?"

Edwards, still reeling from his wife's news, sputtered, "Yes, sweetie, I'm at work."

"Can you come home from work?"

"No, not now."

"I'm going to see Santa."

Edwards was suddenly sad he wouldn't be seeing Santa with his daughter.

"I love you, Daddy!" she cried. "I miss you so much!"

Then she handed the phone to her mother. "That's great news," said Edwards. "Really great. I'm going to be a father again. Wow."

He could barely feel his feet touching the ground.

He and Diane talked a few more minutes and looking at his watch, after exactly ten minutes, Edwards said he had to go. He hung up.

He walked back to the hangar in a daze. Man, I'm going to have a baby. It was nearly dawn. The guys inside were watching American Pie and laughing their asses off.

We have to make it out of here alive, he thought."

--from Doug Stanton's , Horse Soldiers

And so--let us remember the fallen...

Sgt. Brandon T. Islip / age 23 / Richmond, Va. / Islip went missing along with another soldier during a mission to recover airdropped supplies from a river in Bala Murghab on November 4, 2009. His body was recovered from the river near Afghanistan's border/ November 29, 2009.

Petty Officer 3rd Class David M. Mudge / age 22 / Sutherlin,Oregon/ Died in a non-hostile accident aboard USS Rentz while in Port Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates / November 28, 2009.

Pfc. Michael A. Rogers /age 23 / White Sulphur Springs, Montana / Died of injuries sustained from non-combat related incident at Forward Operating Base Hammer, east of Baghdad, Iraq / November 27, 2009.

Sgt. Jason A. McLeod / age 22 / Crystal Lake, Ill / Died of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit west of Pashmul, Afghanistan / November 23, 2009.

Staff Sgt. Matthew A. Pucino / age 34 / Cockeysville, Md/ Killed when a roadside bomb detonated near his all-terrain vehicle in the vacinity of Pashay Kala, Afghanistan / November 23, 2009.

Lance Cpl. Nicholas J./ Hand / age 20 / Died while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan / November 22, 2009.

Sgt. Briand T. Williams / age 25 / Sparks, Ga/ Died of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit usingt small arms fire in Nuymaniya, Iraq / November 22, 2009.

Sgt. James M. Nolen / age 25/ Alvin, TX / One of two soldiers killed when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with a roadside bomb in Zabul province, Afghanistan / November 22, 2009.

Pfc. Marcus A. Tynes / age 19 / Moreno Valley, Cal / Tynes was the other soldier killed when enemy forces attacked their vehicle in Zabul province, Afghanistan / November 22, 2009.

Staff Sgt. John J. Cleaver / age 36 / Marysville, Wa / One of two soldiers killed when a suicide car-bomber attacked their unit outside Zabul province, Afghanistan/ November 19, 2009.

Sgt. Daniel Frazier / age 25 / Saint Joseph, MO / One of two soldiers killed when a suicide car-bomber attacked their unit in Zabul province, Afghanistan/ November 19, 2009.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Brian M. Patton / age 37 / Freeport, Ill / Died of injuries suffered in a motor vehicle collusion near Camp Virginia in Kuwait / November 19, 2009.

Sgt. Joseph M. Lewis / age 26 / Terrell, TX / Died of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with a roadside bomb in Kandahar, Afghanistan / November 17, 2009.

Staff Sgt. Ryan L. Zorn / age 35 / Upton,Wy / Died of injuries sustained during a vehicle roll-over in Tal Afar, Iraq / November 16, 2009.

Wish I'd Said This

Don't know if you saw Nicholas Kristof's piece in Sunday's New York Times. He writes about the human face of this health care crisis. He tells the story of John, a sawmill worker in Yamhill County, Oregon. And the terrible time that the unemployed and the uninsured have. This story could be repeated 46 million times in this country.

I also can't help but mention E.J. Dionne's great article, "Obama's Thankless Thanksgiving" which was written November 25. It seems that the Obama critics cannot even let the President's Thanksgiving proclamation go un-attacked. He quotes: "The Gawker Web site called it an 'uninspiring first effort from our most literary president' and expressed hope that he would spend 'a lttle more time on it next year.' Politico damned it with faint analysis--it was 'basic' an 'brief' and 'tread lightly' to avoid controversy." No comment necessary--read for yourself and weep.

One of the best pulse-understanding articles on where our culture is that I have read lately I discovered in Chris Hedges' "Addicted to Nonsense". He talks about the chatter that inundates our lives. Who will replace Oprah? Will Levi Johnson appear fully nude in his magazine spread? What's wrongt with Tiger? Who are those people who crashed President Obama's first state dinner? With the problems of the world swirling around all of us--it looks like we would have more on our minds that trivial pursuit. Great read.

The Dark Season

Advent begins in the dark. When the ground is frozen and the days are short. The church year begins when the trees are bare and the wind blows until the windows rattle.

The pastor, desperate for a word for these dark days, turns to the lectionary. As she reads the text she rubs her eyes. Surely, she murmurs, there is some mistake. Maybe, she thinks, I have the wrong year. But it doesn’t matter—whether the lectionary cycle is A, B, or C. Each gospel text is essentially the same. The second coming of Christ. Apocalyptic literature. Old Noah and his family and the waters that swept everything away. Christmas, where is Christmas? She reads on: sun darkened, moon turning to blood, family members turning against family members. The preacher has suddenly stumbled on another world: the end of time, earthquakes and famine, wars and rumors of wars, people’s hearts failing them for fear. And, in the middle of it all, Jesus coming in the clouds with judgment. What, she wonders, does all of this have to do with Christmas?

As a little boy I found this talk of second coming scary. I remember the preacher saying that two would be in the field; one would be taken and one left. I always knew who would be left. The Evangelist would whisper: “What will you be doing when Jesus comes back? Do you want to be caught…?” and then it was left to our imaginations to fill in the blanks. And fill them I did.

Later, much later I discovered that the early church included apocalyptic literature like Mark 13 as a catechism for new converts. This doctrine, they felt was basic to understanding the faith journey. He who once came will come again. The Lord they served really was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

The trouble with this doctrine of the second coming is that the church often confused the underlying theme with the window dressing. In hard, hard times the believers would mutter: “Surely he will come soon!” But the Lord did not come back in their lifetime and this became the first great crisis in the church. People fell away in droves disenchanted with disappointment.

Why do we keep reading these gloomy words like: “The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the heavens…?” (Mark 13.25) Maybe they kept the second coming stories for the same reason they kept those dream-like words of that first coming: angels, a mad King, shepherds tearing through the fields with joy, a tiny king born in the unlikeliest of places. Maybe first and second coming may have the same purpose. Underneath the words they try to explain the unexplainable. Both accounts may be the church’s way to try to touch a mystery that is always hard to comprehend. How does one put the glorious impossible into words?

And so the church kept these words and has tried as best they could to interpret them for their particular age. Buried underneath all the rhetoric is the admonition to watch, to wait, to keep your eyes open lest we miss the bridegroom when he comes.

So year after year, like our forebears, we light a candle when the days are shortest and darkness comes too quickly. We open the book again to pages we scarcely read any other time. Toppling kingdoms, rivers of blood, clouds and angels. We hear again the admonition to watch, to wait, to listen—to keep our lamps filled with oil, never knowing when the great Lord of glory might just walk down our street and stop at our door.

Gravy Time

(Last Sunday, on the eve of Thanksgiving this gorgeous horn of plenty covered our altar at church. I couldn't take my eyes off the lushness, the beauty and the floral piece reminded me all over again of the beauty of this thing we call life. I didn't have a camera but my friend Dr. Tom Vetter did and captured this moment beautifully. The arrangement was made by one of our members, Buddy Robbins for Southside Baptist Church, Birmingham, AL.)

When I first came to the church as Pastor a friend brought me a large manila file folder one day. "Have you ever had a gravy file?" She went on to explain, "Years ago when I taught school somebody gave me a manila envelope which she called a ‘Gravy File.’ When good things happened--notes, cards, letters--photographs or funny cartoons--you put them in your gravy file. From time to time you pull out the file, spread out the contents and remember.”

I put my new gravy file in a hanging drawer next to my desk. Through the years when I would receive something that lifted me up and make my heart sing--I would place it in the file.

The dictionary says that gravy is the juice that flows from the meat. It's the overflow that comes from the cooking. It's the succulence that adds spice and richness to the meal. No good Thanksgiving dinner would be really complete without the gravy. And no real Thanksgiving holiday will be complete unless we spend some time spreading out before us the faces and events and mementos that keep us going this year.

Most of us have a gravy file whether we call it that or not. Locked in our hearts or buried deep in some drawer or cedar chest are the symbols of the things we hold dear in our lives. The problem is that in the rush of so much, we often fail to remember these special things.

Open up your gravy file this week and so many things that you have forgotten may just come tumbling out. I found a birthday card from my ninety-three old adopted mother who was in my church years ago. There is an old fading piece of paper with the childish scrawl which reads: "Tell everybody I love you, Daddy." He left it on the pulpit one Sunday and wanted me to make that announcement over our public address system. There is a Christmas card with a whole cover filled with Santa Clauses. Opening it up there is nothing but an "X." She couldn't write but she remembered the help the church gave her all year long. Looking at her card I remember she gave me more than I ever gave her. Among that stack of treasures I pulled out a letter-sized drawing from little Callie in which she included a Poam (poem). "Roses and red, Violets are blue, You are so spechul, And your wife loves you." One of the funniest things I have kept is the Christmas card my little girl gave me one year. It said: "Happy Birthday to My Godfather." She couldn't read but she thought that card was cool. There is a photograph of the summer we spent in England before the kids left home. There is the yellowing obituary announcement of my mother's death. There is the quote somebody gave me when I left a church in her handwriting. It was a quote from Katherine Mansfield, "How hard it is to leave places, however carefully one goes. You leave bits and pieces of yourself fluttering on the fences, little rags and shreds of your very life." And those words sent me back to other places and other times.

Don't let this Thanksgiving slip by without you spending some time remembering. Turn off the television. Do not answer the phone. Sit in silence and open up your own gravy file. Let the memories wash over you.

The world seems hell-bent on crowding out all the special things that us make us healthy and keep us going. This constant barrage of terrorist warning, war talk, up and down economy and trouble everywhere makes it hard to keep our bearings .Robin Williams calls all of these: the weapons of personal destruction. Let us pause and remember that first Thanksgiving. It has been a hard year. Many of the pilgrims had lost family members and friends. They were far away from home. The crop that year was barely enough to keep them going. And they paused one day to remember the blessings of their lives. They looked back on the long hard road they had traveled. They gave a thanks that even though things had been difficult life was precious and special and never to be taken for granted.

Those first Thanksgiving kept them going through the long hard winter that lay ahead. May our own remembering fill us with courage for our own journeys.

Wish I'd Said That...

Every once in a while we all read something and wish we had written it. I feel that way a lot about the writings of Anne Lamott. Her book, Traveling Mercies just blew me away. But her last year's Thanksgiving piece is worth reading. Let me just whet your interest with her first paragraph:

"I watched 'Mississippi Burning' tonight to honor the election, the miracle. I use the word 'miracle,' because you cannot get from the South in 1964 to where we are, Thanksgiving 2008. The grace of this is amazing. Grace is when God makes way out of No Way, and it feels like that is what happened. Eugene O'Neill wrote that we are born broken, and that the Grace of God is glue. That's how it feels, this miracle--and I was for Hillary in the primaries..." Read for yourself.

Alabama's Ragtime Band

It’s that time of the year. In Alabama gubernatorial candidates are lining up at the stalls. The horse race will soon be on. Roy Moore, banished Alabama Supreme Court Justice will be dragging those poor old tattered Ten Commandments back in to the campaign. They’ve been around a long time and I didn’t know they still needed defending. Am I missing something? State Treasurer Kay Ivey intones: “We welcome people of all faiths…but only Jewish and Christian religious displays should be allowed on government property.” Even Ex-Judge Moore says that goes too far. Other candidates favored prayer in public schools, chose creationism over evolution and most proclaim that the Bible is literally true.

There is a whole lot of salivating over gay rights, illegal immigration, abortion and other hot button issues. James Potts another candidate has been quoted as saying that displays from all faiths should be allowed on government property—except, of course, if they’re Muslim. He said, “Either you accept our way of life or you go back to another country that is Muslim.” One state representative hoping to be part of the horse race. said that public school teachers should be allowed to teach the Bible. Potts said, ‘I believe in the literal interpretation, that the holy Bible is the inspired word of God. Period.”

In Alabama Jesus is high up on our list. So is the Bible. Church going is still more popular than McDonalds. Only football is still number one. The problem is that all these candidates holding up the Bible and hoping some public school teacher will teach the Holy Scriptures just like Sunday School—never do clarify what kind of Bible teaching? Mormon? Jehovah’s Witnesses? Snake Handlers? Catholic or Protestant? Unitarian or born-againers.

I remember hearing Jim Wallis of Sojourners say one time that he took a Bible and cut out all the references to the poor and disenfranchised. And he said the book was a lot smaller and had holes in it everywhere. When he spoke he would hold that book up and say: “This is the American Bible.”

Candidates—you are not running for Pastor. You are running as a leader of this State. What about our old thread-bare 1901 Constitution that was written for privileged white folks and forced on all our citizenry in a rigged election. Will any of these candidates have the guts to even suggest we ask the people of Alabama in an election if they want a new Constitution?

What about the fact that Alabama’s income tax on the poor is the harshest in the nation? We are number one in levying income taxes on single-parent family of three earning at the federal povery line of $17,165.00 I do believe Jesus talked about “the least of these.”

What about health care and the millions in this state that have no safety net? Candidates will you stick your neck out for your citizenry—especially the voiceless our there. Who stands up for the little people?

We know that Jesus and the Bible makes people feel warm and squishy. But if all this prayer-in-schools-literal-belief-in-the-Bible-send-the-Muslims-back-from-where-they-came-from is all these candidates have to offer let’s just call off the election and just have a Revival meeting. And maybe just hire some trucks and haul all the illegals back to wherever they came from so that nobody will cut our grass, hang our sheetrock, work in the back of our restaurants or pick up after us at the Y. After all we born-againers can do it all ourselves.