Sex and stuff

Jason Collins is gay. And the really sad part is that the reaction is anything but, "So?"

I have often wondered about why some people are so absolutely certain that the presence of LGBT folks in society presages the destruction of that society. I think I have a (kind of) answer.

Some years ago Eugene Robinson became the first openly gay Episcopal bishop. One of the local radio blowhards announced that this makes this generation of Episcopalians the last generation of Episcopalians. I guess he thought that, given permission to be gay, ALL guys would be gay and thus the end. . .

The last time I checked, the Episcopalian Church was just fine, thanks. The UCC, which has been far more open to the LGBT community than most others, is also doing all right. Neither denomination had a rush of men running to other men's beds, and that didn't happen among the women, either.

So, I think that the reason that our radio bloviator, and some of the out-there right wingers, are so determined that opening society to LGBT will be our destruction is -

I don't know, but could it be that they are, themselves, gay? Closeted, to be sure, but still, gay? Could the reason that they are so certain that all would be gay be that this is exactly what THEY would do? They have no clue what anyone else would do, but they are so certain of this because. . .Just wondering.

Jason Collins is gay. The only decent response would be no response. Maybe a shrug and, "So?" Who he, or any other LGBT person, loves is their own business, no one else's. Society allows me the privilege of maintaining the privacy of my sex life. Why would we not extend that courtesy to the LGBT community?

It took a lot of courage for Jason Collins to come out as he did, and that is, in itself, a sad, sad statement, not about him, but about the rest of us.

I have been married to the love of my life for 38 years. If you allow same-sex marriage, it will not harm me a'tall, a'tall. I will awaken in the morning, when I am old, next to the person I wanted to grow old with. Why should an LGBT person not have the same privilege? If you can encourage someone else's happiness, and at no cost to yourself, why would you not?

Why must we act like our biggest fear is that somebody, somewhere, is having a good time?

I am a person of faith, specifically Roman Catholic. My own church has been trying to deal with the issue. One time at which this became an issue was at the onset of the AIDS epidemic. AIDS was, at first, identified as a gay issue; it was "their" disease. The question was, is a church obligated to provide its loving care to gays? The answer now is a resounding "YES!" The question was that much louder in parishes in, say, San Francisco, where some of the parishes may be 3/4 gay.

We haven't stopped thinking about this. Phil Donahue once noted that there are two groups within the Church to whom the Church will need to apologize one day: gays and the divorced. It won't be easy - it can't be easy - but we can't quit thinking about this. I don't think Mr. Donahue was wrong.

I have a lot of friends - co-workers - classmates that are gay. To them: you are my brothers and sisters. I have lost two friends to AIDS. To them: I pray daily that God may be good to you - better than we were.

Lots of stuff tossing around in my head about this. Thanks for hanging out while a spilled some of it.

Bad Guy Fascination

Someone asked an author during an interview on C-SPAN how they could write about someone that they didn't like.

Some subjects of biographies that I've read recently: Stalin. Himmler. Hitler. Stalin's Jewish Doctors' Plot was the subject of a monograph that I read. I've read a couple of works on the Gulag system. And then there was Wiesel's Night.

I promise you, I am not fond of Himmler. I have no love for the Gulag. And yet, authors write these, and I read them. I am forever haunted by the closing lines of Night. After the war is over, after the liberation from the camps that cost the lives of both of Wiesel's parents, this kid who never got to be a kid, reflected:

One day I was able to get up, , after gathering all my stength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myelf since the ghetto.

From the depths of the mirror a corpse gazed back at me.

The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.

Thomas Merton wrote about some psychological testing done with some Nazi guards. There was no psychopathy, nothing that would suggest that they were anything but normal. They were normal, human beings functioning within their society.

And that's why I read the bios of the bad guys. I don't like or admire them; I have no desire to emulate them. My heroes are, I think, much more worthy of emulation: Merton, Mother Theresa, Philip Berrigan, Cardinal Bernardin. But I read about the despicable ones because I take the mantra with utter seriousness:

NEVER AGAIN!!

And, thus the fascination with the Boston Bombers. Never again.

So somebody's got to write those books. And I will read. I hope you do too. The guy in me who got his BA in history knows that you can't know where you should go if you don't know where you've been.

Thanks for hanging out.

Prison stories

I used to work at one. From 1981 to '83 I was a correctional officer at the Joliet Correctional Center, on Collins Street. It was the oldest prison in the state at the time, and one of the oldest in the country. It was a maximum security adult joint. It has since closed, but even at the time I worked there people in Joliet thought it was already closed.

Actually, only half of the prison was really a maximum-security facility. The other half was a reception and classification facility. Inmates entered the state system at our center, and waited while it was determined in which sort of facility they'd take up permanent residence. We had plenty of business. The inmates going into the state system from Cook County - Chicago - came through our place. Inmates would arrive - from most counties, in a sheriff's car, from Cook County on a bus - dressed in street clothes which would reflect some degree of individuality. They would enter a building like that, and exit the building all wearing blue jumpsuits. Individuality - gone. No one paid much attention to whether the jumpsuits fit or not.

Then, after some weeks, they would be shipped on a bus to their destination. For a time I worked on thitd shift, and we had the job of getting the inmates up who were to be transported that day. We'd get them up and send them to the dining hall for what passed for breakfast in such a place, and we were done.

One morning I was engaged in this task. We got the inmates up, had them grab the stuff that was going with them, and sent them over to eat. One fellow was moving rather slowly. He had barely gotten going when we had the others on the walk to chow, and he was still sitting on his bunk.

I said to him, "C'mon, man, let's go."

And he got up. And kept getting up. And getting up - to his full six feet eight inches. And I started getting a little nervous. He was indignant.

"As long as you live, don't you ever call me "Man" again. I'm a woman!"

Twenty minutes later, after he was long gone, I was still standing outside his cell, door open, pointing my finger and shaking my head.

Yeah, there are stories. Obviously, not all was fun and games. None of it was. There was the morning I went home after my shift and had my wife scream at me, "Blood on your shirt!!!! How did you get BLOOD on your shirt!?!?!?"

I said, "Oh - it's not mine." That didn't make it better.

It was during that time that my drinking - my alcoholism - reached the depths. It was during that time that I saw what a waste of mental energy any show of arrogant self-righteousness is, and I came to realize the truth that "ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God." I found myself treating my wife and kids like they, too, were inmates, and may everlasting shame be on me for that. I knw what stress is. I know what a thin line it is that divides me from the very worst.

And stories. I do have stories.

Stay tuned.

Some pictures are just too heartbreaking for words.

 

 

Martin Richard was 8 years old before this year's Boston marathon. I'm sure the punk-ass coward who set off the bomb is taking delight in his work even now.

 

Two of my grandsons are nine. I so see them in this picture.

 

 

 

Hadiyah Pendleton. Great kid, All-American kid, a highly intelligent kid, a kid of great character. She would make any family proud. She and her band played at the President's inaugural. It had to have been a highlight of her young life. I'm glad she got to experience that, because days later she was shot dead. Someone thought she was in a rival gang.

 

And the pic is just too heartbreaking.

 

What have we all missed, when we lose a boy who chose his message to any and all: "No more hurting people." What have we lost when we lose a young lady about whom Michelle Obama would say, "I was Hadiyeh, and Hadiyeh was me"?

 

What are we losing?

 

Chicago police confirm 'tragic number' of 500 homicides

December 28, 2012|By Jeremy Gorner and Peter Nickeas | Tribune reporters

 

What are we doing to ourselves? Hadiyeh, Martin, Newtown - kids. Kids. May God be good to all of you. And may She have mercy on us.

 

Do you have answers? I'd love to hear them. I know I surely don't.

 

Do you have an answer?

Does God not exist?

I can look through my blog and see how may people have looked at each posting. I can't see who looked but I can see how many. The only way I know who read the posts is if you comment, and I'd love to have you do just that. Those who know me know that you can disagree with me and still be a dear friend to me.

I asked my students in my Christian Ed class if I'm really that scary a guy. They hesitated - which scared me - hen said, "Well, if someone dosn't know you. . ." OK, true enough, I guess.

The most-read posting was "Perpathy," the posting about a peculiar American illness, our incomprehensible sympathy for the perpetrators of horrific crimes. I had some help from a niece on that one. She loved my new word. (So do I.) The second most-read was "Does God Exist?"

Interesting thing about that one. I posted it on Facebook. Suddenly, in the "People You May Know" section, I'm seeing all sorts of names of people whose only cnnecting theme with each other is their professed atheism. Now, mind you, one's atheism is no barrier to a warm relationship with me, and don't see atheism as a barrier to having a strong conscience, a real sense of morality. You can't prove to me that you're right, and I can't prove to you that I am right, so let's make our peace with that and just - you lnow - relate. If you are not my brother or sister in the faith, you are still very much my brother or sister in this wonderful family called Humanity. I treasure that fellowship. (And the invitation to join in that family of faith is very much there - invittion, not command.)

But, why would anyone think that, because I ask the question, I must necessarily be atheist? What software at Facebook assumed otherwise? I respect atheists, but it is not my position. I thought that was pretty clear from the posting. So, tonight Iask the question in reverse.

But, we are brothers and sisters all. If you are in favor of finding a more humane and just system of immigration and of dealing with the people who have  been working and contributing here for years, you are my brother or sister. If you are angered by the arrogance of those who forget that they, too, are descended from immigrants, you are my brother or sister.

If trafficking kids 12 - and younger - for sex sickens you, too - you are my sister or brother.

If wage theft makes you boiling mad, you are my brother or sister. If the concentrated effort to deny labor the right to organize makes you see red - you are my brother or sister. People are also trafficked ino forced labor. Mad yet?

And if the fact that one person can do so little about it all frustrates you to no end - you are my sister. Or brother.

Somehow we'll find a way to join hands. Even if I believe and you don't.

Thanks for hanging out!

A bit of my childhood and MS and whatnot

The very first crush of my youngest years is gone.

I have thought at times that my first crush was the girl that lived just down the street. She went to Alleman; I went to UT. She studied French, I studied Latin. We were within a couple of months of being the same age, same grade in school, we both moved to East Moline from out of town at about the same time, we both experienced something of the "I'm an Outsider" feeling. As it happens, we didn't have nearly as much in common as I'd thought. We passed rather quickly out of each other's life in about our senior year.

Sometimes I thank God

For unanswered prayers.

So, later I met my true soulmate and best friend, and we're still newlyweds some 38 years and five kids and ten grandkids later. The other person's history? I have no clue.

But this wasn't my first crush. When I was in first grade my teacher was of Japanese descent. She was from Hawaii. Oh, did I have a crush on her. Miss Takano. During that year I took to doing a hula around the house wrapped in a bath to. . .er, a grass skirt. (Oh, to have my first grader's imagination again.) I think one Iowa winter was quite enough for Miss Takano.

But, even before that, there was Annette. She was the very first. I don't remember how old I was, but the Mickey Mouse Club stopped running in 1958, when I was five. And what I remember about this crush: What you saw was what you got. She came across as a wholesome, family-oriented person, and she never, as far as I know, disappointed. She was wife, mom. She has now passed away, and should be mourned.

She was diagnosed with MS. The diagnosis was in 1987, but she went public with it in 1992. She was notable for the courage and grace with which she handled this condition. I have some family and some dear friends who also contend with MS. For some, it's nearly invisible; for some, it affects only a limited part of them. Others have their bad days when they can barely get around. All have handled this far better than I could have; all are far better, braver people than I. So, all my respect for them.

And for my first crush, my first imaginary friend. RIP, Annette.

Does God exist?

This was the title of a book published years ago by Hans Kung, a Swiss theologian. There are those who would swear and affirm that Kung's whole purpose in life is to antagonize the Vatican. He did so to the point that Rome - a name that Kung always pronounced with a certain disdain and a slight roll of the eyes - told him that he could no longer call himself a Catholic theologian. He was still Catholic, mind you, and he was still a theologian. He just wasn't a Catholic theologian.

How's that workin' out for you, Rome? Kung's books continued to sell well. He was invited to be a guest lecturer at universities throughout the western world, and it was very difficult to get into the sections in which he lectured. He was influential at Vatican II, and people still pay attention to him.

Kung published Existiert Gott?, the original German version, in 1978. The English translation, Does God Exist?, was copyrighted later in 1978. I have a copy on my bookshelf. It's a bit beaten up; it's been one of my dippin'-into books for years.

Kung doesn't play coy with his answer. In the Introduction, he says that the answer will be, Yes, God does exist.  He takes a well-informed and extensive look at various Western trends that may say otherwise - followers of Marx,of Freud, and a plethora of others - and winds up at the same place: God does exist.

I ask the qustion also, and, like Kung, I mean to have no suspense here. I am a believer; God does exist. But I won't be as comprehensive as Kung (really, does anyone have time for that?)

 I freely concede that I can't prove the existence of God. Here I am far more Kierkegaardian than Thomist. (That would make me a very untypical Catholic.) Thomas taught that the existence of God is subject to logical proofs - the ontological argument, the unmoved mover, etc. Those aren't really proofs, though; there's always room for something to sit in the gaps. (No time to explain all that.)

Kierkegarrd's position, and mine, is that the existence of God cannot be proved. The nonexistence of God also can't be proved. We gather all the available evidence on one side or the other, but there is no conclusive, compelling proof, one way or the other. The term"Leap of faith" is a very Kierkegaard sort of term. After we gather all the evidence available, it's still not proof. Believers take a leap of faith, knowing the gaps. Nonbelievers are also taking a leap of faith. They tend not to be as aware of that leap, and they think they've got the gaps covered, but they take it nonetheless, and they don't.

So, I take the leap. I make the decision every day to take that leap (yes, I have something of the existentialist in me, too. One day at a time.) My evidence does not constitute proof, but it's enough for me. My evidence is in my recovery from my battle with alcoholism (that one-day-at-a-time thng again); it is my life history, of just the right people being in just the right place at just the right time. My evidence is in the creation, and the fine-edged knife edge it rests on. My evidence is in family and love. My evidence is in the mystery that is part of life and death, and in the knowledge that there are some things that the folks in the lab coats can't explain. It's bigger than human reason.

I take the leap.

Thanks for hanging out!

News notes kinda maybe

At work I get in each day's e-mail a publication called Business Record Daily. It's a digest ofvarious articles, mostly from the Des Moines metro area, and mostly about things that are of interest to the business community. It's a handy little paper, and it does reflect something about Des Moines: folks from Des Moines think that Des Moines is Iowa. Chicago does the same thing with Illinois, but more.

A headline in the Business Record caught my attention: "Report: Americans Spend 2.6 Hours Per Day On Mobile Devices." I find that just mind-blowing: 2.6 hours every day. I have known people that would be sitting five feet away from each other, arguing with each other on Facebook. I can't help but wonder how much time that leaves for other matters like, you know, talking with your family. Something like that.

Another headline today: "Developer Homesath to leave Tickly." OK, the imagery conjured up wa just. . .weird. "Don't go away mad; just go away Tickly." Saints pr'sarve us.

Cubs are 2-1. Cards are 1-2. Enjoy it for now.

And from Mark Morford in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Six percent of Americans believe in unicorns. Thirty-six percent believe in UFOs. A whopping 24 pecent believe dinosaurs and human beings hung out together." (We only missed by a cool 160 million years or so, but we didn't miss entirely. Descendants of the dinosaurs are still around. We call them birds.) "Eighteen percent still believe the sun revolves around the earth." (Sorry, Morford; I'd need your source for that one.) "Nearly 30 percent believe that cloud computing involves. . .actual clouds." (It doesn't?) "A shockngly sad 18% still believe the President is a Muslim." (My question: He's not - but so what if he is?) (And, yes - they are sad. To be pitied.)

"Roughly 48 percent believe in some form of creationism." Sorry, Mark. I'm one of the 48%. No, no, I am no fundamentalist. But the God I believe in is eternal, so if She wanted to use a ginormous explosion billions of years ago, well, what's a billion years to an eternal God? If God wanted to use evolution to create the magnificent scope of life, who am I to argue? (Although, had I been there at the creation, I may have had a suggestion about shoulders and knees.) Those who would teach creationism as a science, as an alternative to the standard science curriculum, fail to present evidence. They get so hung up on provng that this all took place in six days 6,000 years ago, that they lose something of the majesty of God in all of that. They require that the writer of Genesis (actually, writers and editors) write a scientifically valid account of the creation. This would be like requiring Archimedes to write an account of string theory.

If you read the Mesopotamian accounts of creation - the Gilgamesh Epic, for one - you understand what the writers of Genesis were after. Try it sometime.

Thanks for hanging out.