Who's The Boss?

    As one who grew up “Inside the Beltway,” matters of power and authority, and the struggle for them, always were immediate, lurking, and defining in my consciousness.  The daily local news reports had less to do with robberies at 7-11stores and more to do with what was happening on The Hill or within The Administration.  The Supreme Court also got its share of air time.  Neighbors, by and large, either were Federal workers, congressional staffers, or members of the military.  
    The Saturday Night Massacre occurred on my 19^th birthday, as Nixon cleaned out the top leadership of the Department of Justice looking for someone to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox:  Attorney General Elliott Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus both said no, and out the door they went.   Number three man, Solicitor General Robert Bork caved. (Years later, when I met Elliott Richardson I told him how much I admired him for standing up to Tricky Dick.  His broad smile conveyed his appreciation.)


    When Reagan was shot in 1981, there were moments of governmental chaos and uncertainty.  As the President underwent surgery, a press conference was underway at the White House. Someone asked the fateful question, “Who’s in charge with the President incapacitated?”   Secretary of State Alexander Haig stepped up to the mic and erroneously replied, “I am in control.”  The order of succession, by the way, is Vice President >Speaker of the House>the president pro tempore of the Senate>Secretary of State>Cabinet Secretaries in the order in which their departments were created.  Neither I, nor anyone else, recalls where Vice President George H. W. Bush was when Haig made his declaration.


    During the years that Bush the Younger held the keys to the Oval Office it was widely suspected (and observed) that his Vice President, Dick Cheney, was the puppet-master.  This was especially the case when it came to the post-9/11 invasions of Iraq, in search of non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Afghanistan.


    On a more mundane level, Washington went through phases a generation or so ago of men wearing Power Ties (basically yellow neckties); people taking Power Naps of 10 to 15 minutes each day in order to enable their striving and achieving; and, Washington doyennes and Georgetown hostesses affecting a hairstyle referred to as a Washington Power Helmet.


    Power and authority contentions spiked again following the 2016 elections and continue as the nation endures the Covid-19 pandemic.  Trump and his base vie with people who actually know and understand what is happening.  Governors try to keep their states’ best interests at heart as those at the presumed Top look for ways to self-promote.  The Governor of Florida, for instance, decreed that professional wrestling is an essential business for his state.

   Which workers and businesses are essential?  How long should current precautions remain in place?   When should the country “re-open?”  Power, authority, control, and political ambition all play a role in deciding.


    As all of these issues are untangled, I simply must protest what I perceive to be an especially egregious, pernicious, deleterious, malevolent, and abusive power-and-authority-grab:  Amazon decided that my order of two Party-Sized bags of M & M’s is not essential, and delayed shipment by two days!


    How much longer are we going to stand for this?

Reflections Upon Someone Else's Retirement

A friend and colleague noted that the most recent Christmas Eve worship service over which he presided will be the last one for him before he retires.

Even though I left the fray myself six years ago (at age 59), his comment caused me to stop and think.  He and I began the journey together at seminary in September of 1977.  We were so young. 

Scenes of those days flash through my mind: sitting around seminar tables; a snarling theology professor; mentors T.J., Lester, Vinton, and Davie; term paper upon term paper; roommates from Thailand and India; a revolving door of students, many of whom bailed early; conservative classmates questioning the “salvation” of professors; walk-outs from campus chapel services if someone slipped and used male pronouns for God; driving back and forth, back and forth, back and forth every weekend, first to and from my field assignment 90 minutes away, and then to and from Ft. Knox, three hours away, after marrying Mary; an oral exam before three professors dealing with EVERYTHING covered in 90 credit hours of courses; and, telling my faculty advisor, upon completion of every academic requirement that I was ready to go out and “convert the heathen,” only to hear him quickly respond, “or be converted.”


I lacked confidence in myself and faced a major re-orientation of my head at seminary, having been an accounting major in college.  Unsure I was in the right place, the path to seminary unfolded in such a way I almost felt I was pushed into going.  Growing up in the church in the 1960’s around Washington, DC, I was impressed as a youth that so many of the primary leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were clergy, and that the church, albeit the black church, played a prominent role.  Also, many of the vocal opponents of the war (you know which one) came from faith communities.  So, I developed a notion of how Christianity was supposed to apply to life in the world.


When I went away to college I dropped out of the church, but soon was pulled back in by unexpected people.  Then, the brother-in-law of my home pastor showed up in town as pastor of a church there.  He and his wife took me in almost as another member of the family.  Ralph was a support, mentor, and inspiration.  We spent many, many hours together, and he steered me toward the seminary that he attended. 


When the time came for me to go, my home congregation decided, with no provocation from me, to pay my tuition.  Another clergyperson in the area, whom I knew practically my whole life, arranged another, smaller, scholarship for me from a congregation in Illinois, of all places.  When I arrived in Indianapolis to begin the journey, I quickly found employment as a student assistant minister, which, along with money I saved from my accounting job (I worked for a year after college), paid my other expenses.  At the end of my second year, I was awarded the two largest scholarships given by the seminary.  This was a complete surprise to me, as I had not applied for either, and had no notion of being a candidate.

So, despite a sense of my own shortcomings, blessings and good fortune abounded, and I had the idea I was supposed to be there.


Now, over 40 years since it all began, I feel a certain emptiness about the whole thing.  So much has happened.


For me, the positives are my marriage and family.  There have been lean times along the way, but despite all the job and financial stresses we have survived.

There have been several moves: Indianapolis to South Carolina to New York to Washington to Florida to North Carolina.  Numerous job changes occurred along the way, including dropping out of pastoral ministry without knowing what was next.  The Quakers took me in eleven months later. I spent nine years trying to hold together a crisis-plagued program of theirs, and benefitted greatly by my association with them, despite the toll the job took on me.


There was a short enjoyable respite following my burn-out with the Quakers: an interim ministry with a congregation that shared many of my notions of what the church should be about.


Following that it was back into the fire with a congregation that was dead in the water after jettisoning their previous minister (I had a habit of following those who were shown the door).  Almost five years later, I was called to be the number two person at our denomination’s flagship church in Washington, DC.  The senior minister was a denominational “superstar,” who, it turned out, was stealing his sermons from a preacher in New York. The fact that the star was African-American added to the nightmare that followed, as race entered into the dynamic.  When I refused to cover the star’s behind (stealing sermons wasn’t his only failing as a person and as a minister), his purpose in life, beside protecting his position, was to get rid of me.  When that finally happened, his tenure hit the skids.  He was gone in four months, only to finally land on his feet in New York.


Meanwhile, we had to move to Florida.  Nine years were spent there trying to prop up another congregation that was spiritually bereft following the ouster of their prior pastor.  It was a frustrating and very stressful time, leading to health issues for me, and culminating in my being physically carried out of the church on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance following worship on the Sunday after I submitted my resignation.


Along the way, most of my professors died, as did my best friend from seminary days, as well as my parents, and others in my life; the mainline church suffered dramatic losses in terms of membership, haggling over issues such as homosexuality and biblical inerrancy while broken people surrounded them on all sides; churches died on the vine all across denominations; Facebook, Twitter, and other social media emerged to provide outlets for angry, hateful exchanges between people, known to each other as well as with strangers; rudeness and offense-taking became the first play in many ordinary human interactions; bigotry and related violence became almost acceptable and expected; political divisiveness continues to deepen and fester; guns, guns, and more guns have their inevitable effects.  On it goes.


I have left the denomination to which I was loyal for over fifty years, and am not enthusiastic or hopeful about the church today.  I do everything I can to avoid letting people know what I did for a living.


Many clergy and clergy-to-be are inspired by the words of the prophet Isaiah, as recorded in chapter 6.  As his nation was in turmoil following the death of the king, Isaiah had a vision of God, sitting on a throne attended by “seraphs,” who sang loud praises for the Almighty. There were earthquakes and smoke.  Isaiah was overcome by his smallness and inadequacy.  One of the seraphs touched Isaiah’s lips with a burning coal, and declared him free from the effects of his failings.  Suddenly, God’s voice boomed:  “Whom shall I send?  Who will go for us?” Almost without thinking, Isaiah blurted out:  “Here am I!  Send me!”

Too often the reading of the text ends there.  It turns out, though, there is more:  “And (God) said, ‘Go and say to this people:  “Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.” Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.” Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And (God) said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate; until the Lord sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land. Even if a tenth part remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump.”’”


There are a lot of frustrated and angry clergy who started out with notions of ministry and the church that simply were not true or, in retrospect, possible.  William Sloane Coffin was on to something when he asked, “How can you be disillusioned unless you had illusions to begin with?”


I really don’t know all of what my soon-to-retire friend is thinking and feeling these days about the last 40-some years of his life and experience.  In some of our conversations I got the sense it wasn’t all lollipops and roses for him, either.  My gut feeling is he will be glad to be done with it all.


Sometimes when my thoughts wander into consideration of the vanity of those trying to hang on to the institution of the church, and I think of their attempts to save their buildings, to stubbornly refuse to abandon their organizational structures, to be more interested in their financial reports than in seeking the Spirit, I remember the stump Isaiah described.  Can it be that while what we are experiencing is the inevitability of our selfishness, ethnocentrism, and greed, there still is a glimmer of hope?  Is there really a “holy seed” that will sprout something new?  I guess deep down I truly don't want to give up on that.  It’s just difficult to see the way from now to then.


Harking back, however, to those from the Civil Rights Movement who inspired me so long ago, they were motivated by the faith that God “makes a way where there is no way.”

A Haiku by Me

"P Plea"


Pompous pretenders’

Presumptuous predictions

Puncture pleasantry.



Pedantic posers’

Puffery, platitudes – Pass!

Pernicious pablum!



Pure prose, poetry,

Prophetic prescience prized!

Purposeful! Precious!

The Seduction of Power

During my activist days I linked up with other people of faith in the community in which I was a church pastor.  We engaged in public witness and made efforts to shape not only general opinion, but also to influence those who held political power.  Our agenda, broadly stated, focused on economic and social justice issues.

We were fortunate that our member of Congress was receptive to entering into dialogue with us, and we took advantage of the opportunity to meet with him on a regular basis.  He made a comment that has stuck in my mind down through the years since then.  As we discussed issues related to poverty, he bluntly stated, "The poor have no voice."

In other words, people caught up in cycles of unemployment, housing discrimination, inflation, lack of health care, few educational opportunities, and related difficulties did not have easy access to those who made decisions and crafted legislation that affected their lives in deep and often detrimental ways.

It was one thing, his comment implied, that concerned folks like us raised issues we felt were important.  It was another matter altogether that those stuck in the morass of a desperate situation had few opportunities, if any, to let the powerful (and wealthy) understand their realities.

I think we all sensed that to be the case, but still, we tried.

One of my colleagues, Kathy, a Catholic social ministry advocacy coordinator, and I took up the call from the national lobbying organization Bread for the World to sponsor a local Hunger Tour.  The idea was to cart around decision makers in one's community and show them examples of the extent of the scuffling and suffering of people, especially related to food insecurity.

We devised a plan to invite office-holders and candidates (it was an election year) from local, state, and national levels to a day of visiting sites in our town that illustrated the food situation faced by those who were "left out."

Kathy arranged for a school bus, together we listed places to visit (dumpsters behind grocery stores, the local prison, food pantries, soup kitchens, welfare and legal services offices, etc.), and we divided the contact list of invitees.

One particularly distressing phone conversation I had was with a county judge. He just couldn't get it through his head that people really were suffering all that much in our community, or that elected officials could or should do anything about it.  The thrust of his response was, "You in the church should just take care of it, if there really is a problem."  This, of course, came on the heels of his party's president (it was the 1980's, you figure it out!) endeavoring to cut federal income tax credits on contributions made to churches and other benevolent non-profit organizations.

My blood pressure and anger rose with each passing second of my conversation with this person, and when the call ended I slammed down the phone and may have let slip a vain expression or two.

Surprisingly enough, though, the judge showed up for the tour and we made unspoken eye contact as people boarded the bus.  We actually had a decent turn-out of candidates and office-holders, and we drove them around town, making our case.  I doubt many, if any, opinions were changed, however.

All of this comes to mind for me as I observe evangelicals embracing The Current Occupant despite his myriad moral and ethical flaws.  It seems they latched on to him primarily because of his stated positions on abortion and LGBT issues.  Failing to see the whole person, many evangelicals sense an opening to impose their narrow views on the rest of the nation.

Equally disturbing is the tendency by evangelical "leaders" to want to cozy up to TCO, to get a "seat at the table."  Billy Graham was famous for doing this.  James Dobson of Focus on the Family played the insider role with Bush the Younger, and I'm sure many others have been seduced by the illusion of power in similar ways.  My sense is such striving only serves the purposes of those in positions of power, expanding their bases, and the religious groupies actually are shunted to the children's table at whatever feast they think they are attending.

It occurs to me that Jesus had little use for worldly power.  When called on the carpet by Pontius Pilate after being arrested because those religious leaders who sought to cozy up to Roman authority fingered him as a threat to that authority, Jesus stood silent under Pilate's questioning.

Pilate was not the authority to whom Jesus answered.

So, it seems to me that speaking truth to power is one thing.  Submitting to that power to the extent of getting caught up in it and trying to embrace it, is another.

Memorable People and Events From Days Gone By

Among the thousands of people that came through the doors at William Penn House during my nine years as Executive Director, some stand out in memory more than others.

For instance, there was a group of perhaps a dozen Russians booked to stay with us for several days under the sponsorship of American University for some kind of cultural exchange program. The morning after their first night at WPH I showed up for work and House Manager Barbara Silverman was waiting for me at the front door. “This can’t be good,” I thought as I bounded up the steps.

It wasn’t. Barbara told me that a number of the Russians were drunk during the night (alcohol and drunkenness were against the stated rules for guests at WPH), wandered into rooms occupied by other guests not associated with their group, and made suggestive overtures toward Barbara and others. After thinking about what to do, knowing that Barbara was very upset, I asked her to point out the miscreants to me, which she did.

If you ever saw the movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, there is a scene in which Burt Reynolds, in the role of the town’s sheriff, goes after Dom DeLuise, who played a sensationalist reporter seeking to gain attention and fame by exposing on television the town’s open secret. After the reporter makes a televised public statement calling out the sheriff and the town, the sheriff breathes fire on the reporter, backing him down the sidewalk of the town square, the reporter tripping and stumbling, the sheriff calling him every name in the book while the townspeople look on.

Except for the fact I wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat, I was the sheriff, giving the Russians, whom I had cornered, an explicit and colorful earful of what I thought of their behavior. And then I threw them out. The people at American University were not pleased by this turn of events and tried to talk me out of it, but I said, “Get their stuff out of here by this afternoon.” And they did.

Actually, I had a positive relationship with folks from that part of the world. The Soviet Union still existed when I began my work at William Penn House, and numerous times I was able to get representatives from the Soviet Embassy to speak to students. They always seemed willing to comply. I got to know one of the First Secretaries at the embassy, and he was my regular contact for such arrangements. He sometimes came and spoke to groups himself. We never were invited to the embassy, however.

There was another person the embassy sent on a few occasions to speak at WPH. One day I received a telephone call from the FBI asking me about this particular person. Now, how did they know I knew him? The FBI even sent an agent over to William Penn House to question both Barbara and me about this man. We really didn’t have much to tell. All I know is, the next time I called the embassy to invite the man to speak to another group at WPH, my contacts there never heard of him.

The Secret Service showed up one day, too, about an entirely different matter. Apparently, some threats were phoned in to the White House, and the Secret Service thought they traced the call to a pay phone on our premises. I actually was on a stepladder changing a light bulb in the seminar room when the agent came in (my duties were far-ranging at William Penn House). The only guests in the building that day were a small planning group from the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the Quaker lobbying group on Capitol Hill, upstanding citizens all. After a few questions, about which I had nothing enlightening to offer to him, the agent asked me, “What is William Penn House, anyway?” I told him we were a Quaker seminar center. He flipped his notebook closed, and said, “OK, thanks.” Then, he left.

Some of the individual guests who showed up were of a different sort, I must say. One man came and gave his name as George Washington America. He didn’t have any money, but thought we should let him stay, anyway. He was dressed like someone from the Grand Ol’ Opry in its heyday, but spoke with a foreign accent. We suggested some alternative lodging for him.

Another person I remember engaged me in a long conversation in which he swore he visited William Penn House years before with a woman he described as a significant other for him, whom he referred to as “Sunshine,” and who was a “major media personality. You would recognize her name right away, but I can’t tell you.” He, of course, did everything BUT tell me her name, giving enough hints that I knew his imaginary friend was Vanna White of the Wheel of Fortune game show. Finally, he departed, and I was surprised when he called me from National Airport as he was leaving Washington, thanking me for all I did for him.

“But, I didn’t DO anything,” I said. I didn’t even try to buy a vowel.

One day I answered the door at WPH and there stood a young man with tissues jammed into each nostril. He was asking for donations and had a petition, for which he was seeking signatures, calling for the first Bush Administration to hand over power to him and a group with which he was working. The tissues-in-his-nostrils guy explained how the Bush crowd was not adequately serving the country, and that he and his friends had a plan to get everything straightened out. He just knew if he got enough signatures on the petition President Bush and everyone in his administration would agree to a peaceful transfer of power. As I recall, there even was a target date set for Bush to vacate the White House. I chose not to sign the petition or make a monetary contribution.

“Not even a dime to cover the cost of photocopying the petition?”

“Sorry, man.”

Another humorous incident occurred as a couple of guests were attempting to leave. They were two women who came to Washington for a purpose long forgotten by me, but the day of their departure I do recall. We had a two-car garage behind WPH, one of the old detached “carriage house” buildings seen on Capitol Hill, and sometimes we were able to allow guests to park in it. Usually, when they left, all we did was open the garage door for them and away they went. Their car would not start, however. After numerous failed attempts they called their roadside service.

A tow truck eventually arrived, and one of the interns and I went out to help. I took one look at the guy who came with the tow truck and became very amused. The nameplate on his shirt, instead of “Tom” or “Skip,” read, “Donkeyman.” For some reason, I thought that was pretty funny. I nudged the intern, he saw it, and we both laughed.

Donkeyman said, “Are you guys laughing at my name?” I replied, “Sorry, man, but I never saw anything like that before.” He really didn’t seem all that upset. And it was one of those times when once you start laughing everything compounds it until you lose all control.

Well, Donkeyman decided that the intern and I should push the car out of the garage into the alley, with him steering, so we could get the car in place for an attempt at jump-starting the battery. So, that’s what we did -- as we laughed and made silly comments. The two ladies seemed confused as to why the intern and I were enjoying this so much. Finally, we had the car backed into the alley, but Donkeyman felt he still needed a better angle in order to connect the cables.

So, he got back into the car. The intern and I resumed pushing, this time from the rear, but couldn’t budge the car. I yelled, “Hey, Donkeyman! What gives? You got your foot on the brake or somethin’?” We were doubled over with laughter. He said, “Oh, sorry! I put it in park instead of neutral.” We were hysterical by then, and, gasping for breath, I said to the intern, “Hence, the name.”

A person I always enjoyed presenting to student groups was Colman McCarthy. At the time, Colman was a syndicated columnist, writing out of the offices of The Washington Post. He was a bike-riding vegetarian, referred to by some critics as a “mad-dog liberal.” In addition to his journalistic work, Colman taught courses on peace and peacemaking at a local high school and offered a curriculum on peace through an institute he founded. He seemed to relish opportunities to speak to students, always challenging notions and assumptions.

He would list names of historical figures to see whether students recognized them. One list included names such as Robert E. Lee, George Washington, and George Patton, all of whom the students recognized as military leaders. The second list included Dorothy Day, Jeanette Rankin and others he termed as peacemakers. Few, if any, students ever recognized their names, which, of course, was the point he wanted to make. “How can we have peace in the world if we never teach young people about peace? Why does history always have to be about wars and violence?” were his plaintive mantras.

Colman always told the story of Jeanette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress. Actually, she was elected twice, decades apart, taking office in her initial term four days before the vote pertaining to U.S. involvement in World War I. She voted no, which Colman suggested led to her serving only one term that time around. Years later Ms. Rankin again won a seat in Congress, just as World War II was heating up. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, she was in position once again to vote on U.S. participation in war. Remaining consistent, she voted no a second time, and as Colman told the story, Jeanette Rankin reported back home, “The boys are at it again!”

Colman routinely made a case for vegetarianism when speaking to groups. One time, as the session began, he turned to a young man in the group and said, “Would you like a cheeseburger?” The student, incredulous at his dumb luck, enthusiastically said he would. Colman reached into his satchel and pulled out a large test tube filled with what looked like solidified meat drippings. “Here you go. This is what you put into your body whenever you eat one of those things.” He said a rule of thumb to follow before eating was to look at what was on your dinner plate and ask, “Did it have a mother?” Colman McCarthy was a gas. I always enjoyed being with him.

One day as I walked to WPH from the Metro I saw that an empty storefront in the next block from WPH suddenly was a bookstore. Making a mental note to visit the shop in the near future I went into my office. Before long we noticed a film crew set up in front of our building, and the same car kept speeding down East Capitol Street, narrowly missing clipping the same guy walking across the street. Each time, he ran toward the bookstore. Somehow, we eventually found out it was a crew from the television show, A Man Called Hawk, starring Avery Brooks.

When I headed back to the subway that evening to begin my trek home, I saw that the new bookstore was completely gone, and the storefront was empty once again.

Another day, we noticed a person or two running and jumping across the roofs of a couple of the row houses across the street from WPH. It turned out filming was underway for one of the Harrison Ford movies based on a Tom Clancy book.

The Eddie Murphy film, The Distinguished Gentleman, shot some scenes a couple of blocks down from WPH, using one of the nearby row houses as the residence of a character in the film. We found out about it when a guest returned to WPH and told us she saw Eddie himself leaning out a window and shouting at someone on the sidewalk.

Moving around the city, either escorting groups to their appointments with speakers, or on my own for various reasons, it was not uncommon to encounter prominent people. Some I remember were civil rights icon, Rep. John Lewis; Defense Secretary Les Aspin; Leon Panetta, who held various positions under Clinton and Obama; First Lady Hillary Clinton; former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern; Rev. Jesse Jackson; Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; rejected Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork; Attorney General Janet Reno; D.C. Mayor Marion Barry; Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee; former Attorney General Elliott Richardson, who stood up to Nixon during the “Saturday Night Massacre;” Al Franken, long before he ran for public office; actress Kelly McGillis, who was renting a house around the corner from WPH while appearing in a production at the Folger Shakespeare Library; Sen. Jim Bunning, baseball Hall of Fame pitcher who also served as a member of the House from Kentucky; Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who stopped me one day on the street to ask for directions; Rep. Joseph Kennedy, II, son of Robert Kennedy; and Sen. and Mrs. Daniel Moynihan, who lived two doors down from WPH.

Hint, hint

Every year as we slide into the holidays I recall an observation made by the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin.  He said, "I'm always amazed by how the message of Advent hits the world with all the force of a hint."  While typical of Coffin's ability to craft a memorable sentiment, I think his perception can be thought of in a couple of different ways.  I'm not sure which he might have meant.  Perhaps he meant both.

Advent, of course, is a period of anticipation and preparation leading to the celebration of Christmas. It makes no sense to pretend, though, that we're awaiting the birth of Jesus.  That already occurred.  And frankly, I'm not interested in swelling with wonder at the idea of a Virgin Birth.  That, to me, is more pretense.  I'm not aware of major worldwide holiday celebrations of the many others who were "conceived immaculately" in Egypt, Greece, India, Taiwan, etc.

Whoever came up with the idea, though, that we rejoice at Jesus' birth in deep, dark December was a genius.  The daylight hours are shortest around the winter solstice, people tend more to depression, despondency, fear, and other negative emotions and expressions when light is lacking, and hope is signified by light overcoming darkness.  We have no idea of Jesus' actual date of birth, so let's mark it during the darkest part of the year.  Brilliant! (Pun intended!)

Jesus "shall be called Emmanuel, which means God is with us."  So, Advent carries the message that we small, insignificant (in terms of our relation to the vastness of the universe and whatever else is out there) human beings are not bereft of something or Someone to stand with us as we struggle with and against all the forces, temptations, and challenges surrounding us.  That "Someone," Advent reminds us, is the Creator of all things.  How can we not find strength, comfort, and hope in that?

Here's how --

One way to understand Coffin's hint notion is that rather than making a show of power worthy of The Supreme Being,  the truth of "God with us" was accomplished in humility, simplicity, and even weakness:  a baby born out back in the barn with the stinking animals while the commander of a violent army "searched diligently for the child."  Worldly power was threatened by the most non-threatening way God could think of to assert God's presence in the world.

The message of Advent hit the world with the force of a hint.  As Coffin phrased it, "We want God to be strong so we can be weak, but God chose to be weak so we might be strong."

A related aspect of Advent's hinting impact is that even people of faith often elect to play both sides of the equation.  We like to sing season-appropriate hymns (holding lit candles during "Silent Night"), we include Nativity scenes, live or otherwise, in our worship and decorating, and we feel a twinge of emotion or nostalgia when Bible verses are read describing Jesus' birth.  We look forward to it every year.

It's difficult, though, to see what difference it makes in our lives once we take down the tree and soon forget our New Year's Resolutions.  The message seems like a mere hint. How does the Light of Christ shine through the followers of Jesus the rest of the year?  It's kind of like donating money or even volunteering at the soup kitchen around Thanksgiving but not giving much, if any, thought to those who are hungry the rest of the year.

If we do carry with us a concern for the suffering among us, if we do recognize the injustices of our society, or if we do understand that true peace is not merely the absence of war or other open conflict, what do we do about it?  Simply pray? Look for someone else to sort it all out?  Wonder why God doesn't "fix" everything?

Why not embrace the hope of "God with us" as we make decisions and set priorities in our lives?  As we decide how to spend our time and our money?  As we relate to those who are different from us?  As we vote?

If we truly believe "Jesus is the reason for the season," it seems to me we would take the light that shines even in the darkness of the days of December and carry it beyond the holidays to the regular days, the every days, the difficult days, the conflicted days, the challenging days, so that hope is seen in our words and in what we do.

Forget superficial religiosity.  Nobody cares about that or is influenced by it.  Forget mouthing platitudes or even quoting Bible verses.  Forget pointing out the failures of others.

Remember hope.  Remember the promises of God.  Remember the love of Christ.  Remember the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Remember your highest allegiance is to the One who has called you by name.

Hint, hint.

New World In The Morning

It was in the neighborhood of thirty years ago and maybe a bit of a harbinger of the future.  In my role as the head of a seminar center on Capitol Hill in Washington I took a group of students from the University of Denver to meet with the person who represented the district in which the school was located.  You may remember Pat Schroeder, the first woman to sit on the House Armed Services Committee.  If you don't remember Pat, look her up!

It was about the same time that Rep. Schroeder was considering a run for the presidency, and that was common knowledge among those who pay attention to such things.  Anyway, the students, their professor, and I barely were settled into our seats in Rep. Schroeder's office when she referenced a fellow member of Congress who was recently caught having sex with an underaged girl.  Amid great hilarity on her part, Rep. Schroeder said, "There's a new saying going around on the House floor:  'If they're not old enough to vote, (expletive deleted) 'em!'"  Then she laughed uproariously, as we sat stunned.  When we were back on the street following the rest of the conversation, which actually was pretty substantive, the group's professor said to me, "Well!  That wasn't very presidential!"

Maybe not then, but now...?

There is no need to recount the boorish behavior and language of The Current Occupant.  If you want that, just watch the news every evening.  Every time a new low is reached I think, "Unbelievable, but it can't get any worse."  Then, of course, it does.

The truly unfortunate thing is that now permission has been given, and accepted by many others, to wallow in the same mudhole.   It is not only the schoolyard bully language and behavior, but also lies and the demonization of those who espouse a different point of view that detract from our well-being as a nation.

Following the "calling" by news reporters of the re-election of the person who represents my district in the U.S. House of Representatives a clip was shown of him speaking at his victory celebration.  His name is Patrick McHenry, and rather than spouting some inspirational gibberish about what glory lay ahead for North Carolina, the United States, and the World, he was complaining about the "Paid Democratic left-wing activists" who opposed him and others of his ilk.

Well, I voted against him -- again -- and no one slid me any change.

Despite all of this, I actually see a glimmer of hope in what is happening in our politics these days.

Given the rhetoric of fear and spectacles such as the Kavanaugh hearings, along with the stated  disapproval rating of The Current Occupant's persona and performance, I think we finally may be on the edge of the exposure of the lie of White Male Superiority.

It's a shame that it is a remarkable development that two -- just two -- Native American women were elected to Congress.  Likewise, that two -- again, just two -- Muslim women were elected, as well.  It has been a very long time since the first woman of any ethnicity was elected to Congress.  Her name was Jeanette Rankin (look her up if you don't know about her), and she was elected twice, actually -- both elections came just in time for her to vote against the United States' entry into a world war.  Upon voting "no" on entering World War II, Rep. Rankin reportedly said, "The boys are at it again!"

Not many women -- especially those not from the dominant culture -- ever were elected to national office, but the numbers are growing, and as noted above, there is the beginning of more diversity, as well.  In fact, the youngest person ever elected to Congress just won in New York -- a woman.

Frankly, I don't really understand why so many White Males are scared.  Office holders, of course, want to hold onto power and to the access to wealth that gives them before, during, and after their terms. But those guys are even convincing others who will never hold office (and who, if truth be told, matter very little to those seeking their votes) that they need to be scared, too.  Some take this fear to the extreme and send bombs through the mail or shoot up synagogues, newsrooms or individuals identified by "leaders" as enemies.

In Georgia, the gubernatorial race is "too close to call" as this is being written, and Ms. Abrams, an African-American woman is hanging in there against a person whose campaign and actions as Georgia's Secretary of State, responsible for the fairness of elections, have not been without questionable twists and turns, with race as a factor.  To me, the closeness of the Georgia governor's election is a hopeful sign that more and more people are rejecting the status quo and are feeling empowered to greater participation in our society.

The United States is made up of a diverse population that grows ever more diverse with the passage of time.  The time for privilege for the few at the expense of the many is long past its expiration date.  Yes, for a few days following this particular mid-term election, the word "bi-partisanship" will bounce around like a beach ball in the crowd at a sporting event.  Soon enough, though, heels will be dug in, jaws will be set, and backroom strategies will be hatched.  Words will become weapons again.

All of that is starting to wear thin, though, and I have to believe that some of the new faces and voices and skin-tones will begin to say, "Hold on, there!  The world is bigger than you want to make it.  You are not the only ones that matter.  Together we can move toward something better for everyone."

But, it ain't gonna be easy. Yet.

I remember a fellow from my long-ago past named Bill Harris.  He worked in the library at the seminary I attended.  One day I lamented some thing or another and concluded by saying, "It's a crazy world."

With missing a beat, Bill replied, "I'm looking for a better one,"