The self-aggrandizement of accusation

There's a narrative out there blaming our current president for the chaos unfolding in Baltimore, as well as the violence, racial and otherwise, visited upon our citizens in recent years.

I find it egregious we would make these social ills out to be a partisan issue. Racism is racism, no matter who's in the White House. And to think killings and riots are the result of an Obama presidency is to ignore history, whether it's Watts in '65, the Hundred Years War in the 14th century or gladiatorial Rome.

Evil, angst and lawlessness know no historical particularity. Whether we attribute grave injustice to the biblical assertion of humanity's fall, or xenophobia, or blatant racism, we are in need of prayer a lot more than political finger-pointing.

Lord have mercy.

Obama is no more responsible for Baltimore than Bush was for 9/11. Can public servants be part of the solution? Of course. But I can't bear another electoral season with the self-aggrandizement of accusation as the foundation for our public discourse.

If public servants weren't also public figures, the social-media invective hurled at both Democrats and Republicans would be prima facie libelous and slanderous, if not absurd. Heaven help us.

How to survive in the wilderness

Photo by Ann Scott

  I can’t lie and say that our recent vacation to Colorado was full of high-mountain adventure.
  Whether it was the thin air of high altitude or my lack of physical fitness, we didn't venture more than a mile or so beyond the well-driven path into the Rocky Mountains.
  We did see a black bear, but not in the deep woods. He was loping past the patio at a restaurant where we were having lunch.
  Nonetheless, the beauty of the mountain west was stunning. And, compared with the urban surroundings of much of southern Wisconsin, we did experience “getting away from it all.”
  I found a treasure in a small book shop called the Mossy Oak Trail Guide. It’s a combination outdoors guidebook and daily Bible devotional.
  The introduction was titled “Survival Philosophy,” which contained these tips for wilderness survival, from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources:

• Always maintain a positive attitude, reaffirming to yourself you will survive.
• Tell someone where you are going and when you will return.
• Take someone with you. Never go alone.
• Have a plan, and stick to it. Stay put if you are lost or stranded unless it becomes evident that self-rescue is the only option.
• Always carry a survival kit and first aid kit, and know how to use them.
• Dress for the weather, but be prepared for changes. 
• Always carry raingear. Protection from the elements must be your priority.
• Practice S.T.O.P.:

    S—Sit down and stay put until the fear and rush of emotions has subsided.

    T—Think through your situation. What do you have available? What needs to be done?

    O—Observe your surroundings. Where should you stay? Will someone know you are missing? How long before you will be missed? 

    P—Plan your action. Priorities might be: shelter, fire, signal, water, or find your way out to safety.

• Never quit!

It seems those tips are as spiritual as they are practical. How might you apply those survival tactics to your daily life?

Cousins 3.0

Photo by Ann Scott

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Things I learned at my high school reunion

At my 35th high school reunion. Photo by the waitress.

We spend our teen-age years lamenting, or denying, our families’ dysfunctions. We yearn for a “normal” adolescence.

By the time we reach our 35^th high school reunion, as I just did, we might as well accept we all came from dysfunctional families. The only thing normal is that there is no “normal.”

Or, as my wife says, we put the “fun” in dysfunctional.

This tends to take the pressure off reunion weekend. There’s little need to pretend anymore we’re someone we’re not. The expanding midriffs and receding hairlines tell truths we can’t mask.

That, and Facebook has punctured the façade of reconnecting under pretenses of who we are. We keep up with one another between personal visits, so we don’t have to spend time rehearsing false scripts of our true identities. 

Congregations often tell me they like that their church feels like a family. I sometimes think, “Are you sure you want to take on all the stuff that comes with being a family?”

At my class reunion, it struck me that high school classmates really are like a family. You don’t get to choose your siblings, and you don’t get to choose your classmates, unless you transferred in because a crosstown coach coveted your jump shot, or you went to private school.

You just get your locker assignments and make the best of things. 

After 35 years, I look back on my high school years as one part “Glee,” one part “Friday Night Lights,” and one part “Dead Poets Society.”  

Thirty-five years beyond graduation, we celebrate this shared heritage. 

In the decades since, some of us have found God, others lost our way. We’ve hooked up, broken up, hurt and healed. We’ve been hired and fired. Whether we have children or grandchildren is a present-day demarcation, just as in high school our differences were marked by who could sing or run or pass or who was popular.

Some of us have our health. Some don’t. 

Some of us are living the dream. Some not.

But we are a family 35 years on. Back then, we often hid the selves we really were in favor of presenting ourselves as something better.

Now, we can relax. This is who we are. 

If high school is like a musical, then it’s fitting the tune swirling through my head as I drove away from my reunion was the final song from Wicked as Glinda sings to Elpheba:

“I've heard it said

That people come into our lives for a reason

Bringing something we must learn

And we are led

To those who help us most to grow

If we let them

And we help them in return

Well, I don't know if I believe that's true

But I know I'm who I am today

Because I knew you ...

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?

But because I knew you

I have been changed for good.”

Synergy: It's what's for breakfast

I attended a breakfast meeting recently with the president of St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison. Once a month he invites two dozen community leaders to meet for conversation, coffee and croissants.

A few decades ago, “community leaders” likely would have meant CEOs, bank executives and Chamber of Commerce presidents. Today, “leaders” also include:

The founder of 100 State, a non-profit “co-working” cooperative where building tenants not only lease space but collaborate on creative ideas regardless of their particular business.

The owner of Madison-based Red Star Pictures, which provides mobile lighting for President Obama's public appearances.

A Merrill Lynch financial adviser who also happens to be an Air Force pilot with a law degree and who travels regularly to Germany to advise the U.S. military on developing five-year plans to deal with emerging geopolitical conflicts in Africa.

Frank Byrne [pictured], St. Mary’s president, sees the value in bringing these seemingly disparate interests together: Synergy.

Today, leadership is not just about in-house technical knowledge – although that’s critical – but about meeting challenges holistically by inviting all sorts of thinkers and problem-solvers together to dream and strategize.

Church folk often see themselves as protectors of tradition instead of entrepreneurs. But this creative synergy is a biblically sound concept.

We are one body with many parts, as Jesus said, so we can bring different perspectives to modern challenges. We face many: poverty in the midst of societal affluence, cynicism toward organized religion in the midst of spiritual hunger, self-interest in the face of Jesus’ prayer that we would all be one.

Rather than following the crowd, I pray the church might seize its power to creatively face the world and find new ways to energize it with peace, joy and promise.

Spring training

Growing up

Cousins

For a little flashback from 2008 ...

A night not fit for man nor beast

I hit a reindeer on Christmas Eve. Or it hit me. Either way, my Honda of nearly 10 years and more than 263,000 miles took it on the chin. The insurance company totaled it. I've downsized to a Honda of smaller though newer vintage. In Europe, they call it the Jazz, which I prefer to the Fit. Either way, at least my mpg will increase. R.I.P. CRV.

Easter

At the moment Mary recognized the risen Jesus in the garden, we wish the copious questions and doubts and struggles and battles and suffering of humanity were answered, settled and banished once and for all. But certitude wasn’t born in that moment. Faith was. A faith whose destiny was to change the whole created order.

That moment changes this moment and all that are to come.

Cooper for Governor

Our Cavalier sports a campaign-worthy pose in front of the State Capitol on Saturday, April 9.