WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

Primary and caucus wins in Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana, the Virgin Islands, and Maine.

And now, a GRAMMY!

Not a bad weekend, that.

What's next, a Nobel? Loaves and fishes?

THE REAL PROBLEM WITH AMERICAN POLITICS

I was following the returns of the Maine caucuses. It was terribly hard to find a source that was even tracking the results. It was as if the Maine contest had no meaning. (Yes, it could be that it only had meaning to the weirdly obsessed political freaks like myself, but...)

So, I finally locate an official recording of the numbers. Obama is significantly ahead early on, yet I still see no one talking about it on any news sites. This is important. The number of delegates makes it all but meaningless to the overall count, but the cumulative effect of five in a row (WA, NE, LA, Virgin Islands, ME) for Obama in two days builds some momentum and growing feel of grass roots consensus.

After 70% of the precincts have reported and Obama leads 58% to Hillary's 41%, I go to www.cnn.com, expecting it to be their headline. No. Wrong.

The BREAKING NEWS banner: "CELEBRRITIES ARRIVE FOR THE 50TH ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS."

There you have it. "Who are you wearing?" has replaced "Who are we electing?"

Does anyone know who won the last American Gladiator? Pass the pork rinds. Belch.

READY TO GO

Then there's this one.

Obama definitely wins the cool musician contest.

SI SE PUEDE

This video directed by Jesse Dylan, Bob's son.



The first president I voted for was Reagan in 1984. By the end of that decade and into the next, I became disillusioned with the militant triumphalism that marginalized the weak for the sake of the powerful. I went from skeptic to supporter during the Clinton years, but I couldn't shake my concerns about dishonesty and the politics of division. The last seven years of malice, incompetence and Rove-ian tactics have driven me to despair. I have voted against Bush, but never really felt like I had something to vote for. Until now.

I am drawn to Barack Obama's words of hope and what author Toni Morrison calls his "searing vision." Some say we need more than words. Of course we do, but words matter. When words draw millions of people of every background together in a common belief, they matter. When words highlight "us" and "we" rather than "I" and "me," they matter. Obama's words move us beyond a candidacy and into a movement.

The cynics who prey on our fears ask us to dance with the devils we know. They tell us we can't change things through faith and hope. Our answer: "Yes we can."

DO SOMETHING TO HELP.

VOTE.

WORD

As a teacher and scholar of rhetoric and the use of public words, I am loving the way the Democratic primary distinctions are revealing themselves. It appears that it is becoming a choice between words and action. Of course, it's not really that simple, those with nice words also have deeds, and those with records of accomplishment also are fine crafters of language. But, this exchange in last night's debate was telling.

Hillary:

So you know, words are not actions.

And as beautifully presented and passionately felt as they are, they are not action. You know, what we've got to do is translate talk into action and feeling into reality. I have a long record of doing that....

Obama:

[T]he truth is actually words do inspire. Words do help people get involved. Words do help members of Congress get into power so that they can be part of a coalition to deliver health care reform, to deliver a bold energy policy. Don't discount that power, because when the American people are determined that something is going to happen, then it happens. And if they are disaffected and cynical and fearful and told that it can't be done, then it doesn't. I'm running for president because I want to tell them, yes, we can. And that's why I think they're responding in such large numbers.

Now, for the record, I am no fan of bluster or sophistry absent substance and follow-through. However, Obama's speech is much more than that. Who accused of FDR ("We have nothing to fear..."), JFK ("Ask not..."), or MLK ("Ihave been to the mountaintop.") of empty speech, simply because they sounded good and galvanized a society around a shared vision of hope and nobility? What's so wrong with a leader rising up who can use the power of speech to make us all believe we can do better and become better? Sure, if there was incompetence or other suggestion of an inability to back it up, it would be nonsense; but there is no evidence of a weak mind or soft resolve in this case.

Ultimately, it's about cynicism. The jaded among us scoff and sneer at the pollyanna notions of transcendence and imagination, opting for the verifiable pragmatism of the known quantity. It is a fair and reasonable reaction. But, if we hope to leap ahead, rather than crawl, we have to believe.

I'm ready. Word.

FIRED UP?

Ready to go.

RESOLVE

Some time ago I encouraged my sister (some of you may recognize her comments...she goes by, um, "Sister") to guest author a little sumpin' sumpin' for this sorry excuse for a blog. Just in time, she rises to the occasion.

December 2007

Resolutionary

I'm not big on making New Year's resolutions. Seems like a big set-up for failure, if you ask me. Ever so much better to do well that which no one expects than to fall short of achieving lofty goals, yes? This new year, however, I find myself approaching with something that feels suspiciously like resolve.

Clearing out has been a big theme with me for some time now. Digging deep and challenging those internal beliefs that no longer serve me and definitions that no longer know me. Cleaning out and discarding (or selling on E-Bay! Check it out!) physical items that are cluttering my living space and blocking my energy. Revamping what sort of things I do in exchange for a paycheck. Clearing out the old to make room for the new has laid claim to my dreams, my meditations, my prayers and my time.

It's good work, but hard.

The physical clearing out forces me to deal with packed away remnants of a former life. The emotional remodel entails somewhat painful excavations of long-held certainties of who I was and what and why. Spiritually I'm questioning everything and trying to Be Still and listen long enough to hear the answers. I'm not as sure of myself as I once was and I'm teetering, slightly off-balance in the upheaval. Yes, it's hard. Hard, but necessary if forward motion is to be achieved.

Yesterday I noted (for the hundredth time) a very large, very dead tree along the fence row of the pasture behind my house. I thought (for the hundredth time), "That tree really needs to come down," but then (for the hundredth time) went on about my business, forgetting it until the one hundredth and one time it catches my attention.

This morning as the coffee brewed and I stared absentmindedly out the kitchen window, I saw the pasture that was clear the day before now littered with branches and trunks and vines. Sometime in the night the tree that needed to come down did so with a crash, taking a couple of fence panels out with it. Now any plans I had for the day have been scrapped. I'll be bundled up in the cold sunshine, cutting up dead wood and repairing fence.

Already though, as too-hot coffee scalds my tongue and I gaze at the woods where decay had been taking center stage, I can see how much more pleasing that portion of the landscape is with barrenness erased. Already I can see how accustomed I had become to believing beauty was out of sight. Already it's better. All that's left now is work.

And I can do that. Oh,yes. That I can do.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, I'M AN ATHEIST

Many of you have emailed me to check on how I've been these last few, quiet months. Rather than call via satellite or fiber optics, stop by your home for a visit, meet you for breakfast, run a tin can with twine from your treehouse to mine, get a gig at a major venue and send out a sensitive ballad just for you, make a personal documentary for viewing at your local cinema, send a singing telegram or a message in a bottle, pass notes in class, mail a Christmas card, offer an interpretive dance (or, "choreographed movement" we called it in the Baptist church), write an autobiographical novel (don't get me started), YouTube you, Facebook you, MySpace you, or otherwise assault you with personal messages from me to you, I thought I would objectify and dehumanize our relationship by catching all of you in this world wide net.

How have I been? Okay, I suppose. It has been a year of Sturm und Drang. I've questioned who I am as a father and a son. I haven't always been the best husband or friend. My faith has been tested, confirmed, and tested again. People who matter a great deal to me have taken hits. It would be easy to sit and pout as I pick the shrapnel of collateral damage out, but it hasn't all been lateral. Some of it has been internal, self-inflicted. When you walk stumble-drunk in a minefield, you're bound to lose a limb. But, hey, we go to war with who we are, not who we want to be.

I have had trouble finding joy. It has to find me. And it does from time to time. It finds me in the classroom and in the middle of a song. It finds me in the swing of a hammer and in the middle of a tight, tight hug. It finds me when we cut through the bullshit and tell each other the truth. Not the partisan, scriptural, or certified truth; just those moments when we get humble and honest and connect in those transcendent ways that can only happen when pretense is outlawed and self-preservation is replaced by love.

I haven't written much. Of anything. It's like I've run out of things to say. Cause for disappointment from few and celebration by many. I'm not exactly sure why I have been absent from the blog. I suppose some of it is the rancor. I know I dish it out as much as it is served to me, but consistent with my strong belief that the WAY we talk is more important than WHAT we say, I took the measure of you and me and found us wanting. That is not to say there aren't still plenty of people in high (and low ) places who need an occasional boot in their ass, me being chief among them, I just don't want to worship the gods we create and serve in our kicking. One of my favorite songwriters, David Wilcox, would say I'm becoming an "Atheist."*

Merry Christmas. And, as the old year gives way to caucus and taxes, classroom and faxes, theory and praxis, grinding and axes--the pitch and yaw of all that awaits us in 2008--may we all be atheists.

*Apparently this song is an adaptation from the original by Brian McLaren.

DAN FOGELBERG 1951-2007

I know. I've been absent for a long time. You might expect me to come back to you with a reaction to Barack's surge in the early primary states, or with a comment on faith and politics via Romney and Huckabee, or with my take on Oprahlooza. Sadly, I return with the news that a great songwriter has left us. I have to admit I haven't followed Fogelberg's career enough lately to know that he was suffering from prostate cancer, or that he had dropped out of live performing three years ago, due to his illness.

Few people will step up and anoint him the songwriter of a generation, or point to him as a trailblazing musician; but most of us who love music can point to his influence in our lives. Even if it is nothing more than the top-40 hits from his 1981 album The Innocent Age ("Run for the Roses," "Leader of the Band," "Same Old Lang Syne"), all of us have probably been affected by this extraordinary artist.

It is a little more personal for me. I only saw the man in concert once, but there was one performance of his I'll never forget. It was a wet night in the summer of 1985. I was sitting on a screened-in porch with my girlfriend, watching it rain. The old Pioneer turntable playing in the background had this really cool repeat function that allowed you to play the same side of an album multiple times. Side A of Fogelberg's "High Country Snows" played over and over and over again, for probably an hour or so, while I screwed up the courage to ask this lovely woman to be my wife. She said yes. I have always given Dan some credit for the grace shed on me that night.

It's only fitting that I mention his death here, since--some of you may remember--Dan Fogelberg was the first songwriter I ever quoted on this blog...my very first post.

I have to leave you with the lyrics from his song, "The Reach:"


It's Maine, and it's Autumn, the birches have just begun turning
It's life and it's dying
The lobstermen's boats come returning with the catch of the day in their holds
And the young boy is cold and complaining
The fog meets the beaches and out on the Reach it is raining
It's father and son, it's the way it's been done since the old days
It's hauling by hand ten miles out from the land where their chow waits
And the days are all lonely and long and the seas grow so stormy and strong but...
The Reach will sing welcome as homeward they hurry along

(Chorus)

And the morning will blow away as the waves crash and fall
And the Reach like a siren sings as she beckons and calls
As the coastline recedes from view and the seas swell and roll
I will take from the Reach all that she has to teach to the depths of my soul
The wind brings a chill, there's a frost on the sill in the morning
It creeps through the door
On the edge of the shore ice is forming
Soon the northers will bluster and blow
And the woods will be whitened with snowfall
And the Reach will lie frozen for the lost and unchosen to row

(Chorus)


Dan Fogelberg, may you reach no more.
May you discover what a heaven is for.

GOODBYE, GOOD RIDDANCE

But, we all know he's not going anywhere. He will never go away. Whatever happens, it's quite certain the effects of his influence will take generations to purge.

Sure, division, enmity, polarization...these things have always been part of the human social condition. But Karl Rove took us to new lows. No single individual in the twenty-first century has worked so hard to consciously generate ideological division than this man. Who had ever heard of blue states and red states until this administration? When did evangelical Christianity become known almost exclusively for its opposition to homosexuality and gay marriage? For that matter, when has there ever been such a sharp distinction among Christians about which party they should support? All of this coming from a guy who doesn't even claim to be religious. He played us. Well, at least he played several million otherwise decent people into believing in a chimera, and buying into a artificially generated cultural and spiritual war that never existed, except in his evil brilliance.

No question the guy is a genius. How else will history account for one of the most incompetent presidents ever to hold the office winning an election he lost, then getting reelected? It takes an architect of ungodly skill to pull it off.

Rove, along with like-minded demagogues, has spread a brand of anger, distrust, and cynicism that may never go away. We can't change that; but we can change us. And we can decide today that we will not allow it to happen to us again.

There is only one candidate in the field today who eschews talk of blue and red, them and us, liberal and conservative, etc. Only one who thusfar has not played the game of polarization, divide and conquer. He may not turn out to be some messiah, but he is better prepared to take us a new direction than anyone else.

"Karl Rove was an architect of a political strategy that has left the country more divided, the special interests more powerful, and the American people more shut out from their government than any time in memory. But to build a new kind of politics, it will take more than the departure of a man or even an Administration that constructed the old -it will take a movement of everyday Americans committed to changing Washington and reclaiming their government."