you will be singing it all day...

Possibly the greatest theme song of all time!

Vegetarians are better lovers

PETA's Super Bowl ad got pulled for being too provocative (a.k.a sexy)



Still the truth can not be suppressed...

reach deeper into your love

Sigh.
My google-fu is letting me down.
I was listening to an interview the other day on NPR of a man who, in his youth, had been a friend of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He recounted a story of how upon leaving a meeting with several (white) people he was jumped and beaten. Some of the perpetrators had been present at the meeting moments before. Dismayed he had gone into Dr. King's office and asked "How do you love your enemies?"
Dr. King, who was about to take an important phone call looked at him and said simply "You have to reach deeper into your love."

I can relate to this. I struggle with accepting others as they are. Sitting In church last Sunday I was talking to the group about being more accepting of the religious right, when suddenly I realized I had to admit my struggles lest I fall into the trap of hypocrisy "I mean I HATE them, but I try..." I could feel the energy in the room shift. I felt ashamed for being so honest. "I'm just joking" I tried to mutter. "No your not" some one said.

Bart: I think sharing is overrated... And helping others. And what's all this crap I've been hearing about tolerance?
Homer: Sir, your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

"'God is Love' is THE central tenant of Christianity." said the associate Pastor to me as we debated the question of God's goodness a few months ago.
"But what does that mean?" I thought to myself.

"We may say quite truly and in an intelligible sense that those who love greatly are "near" to God. But of course it is "nearness by likeness." It will not of itself produce "nearness of approach." The likeness has been given to us. It has no necessary connection with that slow and painful approach which must be our own (though by no means our unaided) task. Meanwhile, however, the likeness is a splendor. That is why we may mistake Like for Same. We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then they become gods: then they become demons. Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves. For natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves. They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred." -C. S. Lewis

I'm not sure that I can accept this definition. I mean I understand what Lewis is saying, but isn't that slow painful approach the way that we build up spiritual discipline to help reduce susceptibility to temptation in the future, to exercise self control, and to avoid being enslaved to one's desires, (need love as Lewis calls it)

Lewis talks about the different types of Greek loves, as if these are the only definitions of love that can exist.

"God is love." It is bouncing around in my head like a pinball. I feel like a snake sloughing off old skin. I am beginning to realize I don't know what Love is. I know, I know. But really I think I have been wearing around other people's definitions of love like so many old hats.

"Mindfulness relieves suffering because it is filled with understanding and compassion. When you are really there, showing your loving-kindness and understanding, the energy of the Holy Spirit is in you." -Thich Nhat Hanh

I think about this for a minute. Finally I blurt out "What if love is...detachment?"
"Love is Detachment" said J. "at least a component of it anyway. I think so too."

Shake my hand Brother Prophet

"Daddy, S. knows baby talk."
"Really? How do you know?"
"Well the baby said 'whoa whoa' and I said 'S. do you know what the baby said?' and S. said 'Whoa whoa whoa your boat, gently down the stream.' See? she speaks baby talk."

We have been talking in church about spiritual gifts.

"6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; 8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness." -Romans 12

You look at the lists that Paul provides in different places and it reads like a whose who of Pentecostals: prophecy speaking in tongues, healing. Some seem plausible others not. Is my prejudice showing? In class no one seemed ready to defend these gifts, probably because they have been abused, misused by charlatans and "false prophets" to deceive and mislead. I suspect this is a problem as old as time.

Would I even know a prophet if I saw one? Am I willing to believe? With the revelation of Jesus did prophecy end or are manifestations of god (as some call prophets) all around us? I mean, prophecy can be pretty vague stuff, If there are prophets and prophecy, how do you know when it is fulfilled? Somewhere I read a list of seemingly unfulfilled prophecies from the old testament including Jonah 3:4, 2 Samuel 7:5-17, and Judges 13:5.

I guess I have never really thought about what a prophet is. I suppose I like think a prophet as a kind of fortuneteller, one that foresees doom and gloom, but the more I think about it, a prophet is one that perceives consequences more than futures, consequences of our disconnect with the divine. In a sense, one could consider a prophet as a kind of a witness, one with insight that sees things that have been hidden or ignored.

When I think about prophecy in this way I am sure there are prophets, and that they are all around us. We have all had moments of insight. Is that prophecy? If you know me at all you probably know that I am going to say it is. Sure some will argue that prophecy is more than just insight, but I think that is where we get into danger, elevating gifts over and above one another. Prophecy is is as much a gift as healing, or preaching or sorting out the laundry. So shake my hand brother prophet. (lets hear those prophecies)

Muted Thoughts

There is no way to paraphrase what I have heard,
no way to tell you what was said was this and what was meant was that
rather I would show it to you if I knew how
all the things that were said and all the voices that said them.
What is this thing that we hold here in our hands?
The gift of prophecy and exhortations, of showing mercy and interpreting tongues.
There is a place where the portal meets the door and the mountain rises from the land.
There is a place where some things come together and other things are broken
and when we gather together to join them someone will say
"I think that these things are separate" and others will say "they are together"
Many voices will rise and fall like the waves of some great ocean.
Like the poet says "these are not the memories that have passed each other
nor the yellowing pigeon asleep in our forgetting"
they fall around us like stars raining down on a dewy night and capture our breath and choke the sense from us till we are left dazed and wandering.

There are things that I would tell you about these things that I am not able
There are places that we should go and view these things together where we cannot go
there is a dry desert mesa that stretches into the horizon and a low pass that leads to the top
climbing together we might stop for a drink of water and prick our hands on the cactus and the bramble and become afraid and turn back before the sun began to set.
There is an forest where the sounds of the evening and the quiet of the morning pierce our hearing and drive us frightened like children before the pipes of pan till we lay gasping and terrified on some far away knoll and would look at each other in exasperation and say "was that you" and "was that you."

Here there are things that we can see together and call our own
The mine and the mine and the ours and the mine
that bleed together and dissolve into the white hot static of our sometime humdrum existence.
Someone is laughing and someone else is crying
there are voices here that try to guide us,
so many voices that they all seem to talk at once
come into the light and come into the light and come and come
there is a hand that covers my hand and a heart that covers my heart
there is a place where all these things are revealed
where all these things are known
But I cannot talk about it here, and I cannot talk.

Home Remedies

"You really hurt yourself last night."
"I did. It's really surprising."
"Oh, I don't know. It seems like it happens about once a year."
"It's my yearly detox. Some people like to take steam and fast for three days, I on the other hand like to stay out all night and drink until I am sick. It really gets the impurities out."

While not hungry this morning, quite the reverse actually, I find myself becoming more and more ravenous as the day goes by. I suspect the body is trying to restore vital minerals to counteract the effects of alcohol poisoning. One of my favorite things to do if I am feeling the effects of late night debauchery is to eat pho the next day. The combination of salty, spicy and noodley presented in the form of a hot soup it just what the doctor ordered, and while I know there are really no such things as bona fide hangover cures, pho is about as close as you can get. Well, that and hatch green chili that's been slow roasted to perfection and comes served on a breakfast burrito, over cheesy enchiladas or in a hearty black bean stew.

Other homespun rustic cures include one sure fired way to beat the common cold. Not many have taken me up on it, but I swear to the lord almighty that it works when done properly. First, and this is the most important thing of all, you have to administer the cure immediately upon detecting the first symptoms of the on coming malady. If you wait, you might as well forget it. The first sniffle, the first tightness in the back of the throat, or first indication of dry, sore eyes, needs to be heeded if the cure is to work. Otherwise most colds last ten to twelve days, so be ready.

The actual cure is simple. You eat three or four whole cloves of fresh garlic and chase it down with as many oranges as you can stomach (since the oranges will taste like garlic) I find it helpful to imagine that I am eating some elegant french soup with an orange/garlic base, but whatever you have to do to get it down works. You can sliver the garlic or cut it into bite sized pills or just nosh on it, but remember to free the essence of the garlic as the oils within carry the healing powers. Much to the chagrin of my wife, garlic tabs do not carry the same efficacy. Parsley based breath fresheners can help but you will sweat garlic from your pores for the next two days so you might want to stock up on air fresheners as well. However that same sweat is the vehicle that is pulling the sickness from your body so appreciate it.

No one has ever taken me up on this, but it works if you are quick, no one that is except perhaps my one friend living in Albuquerque and he has stores of green chili a plenty that can also be used in lieu of oranges. You might take comfort in the fact that most people can't smell themselves and most others are far too polite to tell you that you stink, so what you really need is a patient soul mate that understands that a few days of stink beats ten or twelve of whining and moaning and sniffling and so forth. Even then, patience can be tested so use it wisely!

Never know how much I love you
Never know how much I care
When you put your arms around me
I get a fever that's so hard to bear

Chorus:

You give me fever, when you kiss me
Fever when you hold me tight
Fever in the morning
Fever all through the night

Ode to Patience

J., D. and I were watching Bourne Supremacy last night. One of the characters realizes that all is not kosher in spy-land and makes a privy call to the Director. Cut to the the Directors office. He picks up the phone. It is his secretary telling him that the lady is on the line. "Tell her I am unavailable" he says. Cut back to the woman sitting in her office. She looks disappointed but resolutely sets the receiver down and begins to explore other options.

At this point my suspension of disbelief breaks down.

What? She doesn't call him back twelve more times in the next twenty minutes? Send him and email, fax him, send smoke signals? Drive by his house late at night? She just gives up? Clearly this is a fictional character that has no basis in fact.

When did I become so impatient? I think of school, of finishing my degree. I am not exactly patient, but I want to be. I want it very much.

Think of patience, think of patience. Images of some quiet still pond somewhere leap into my mind. "Yeah, why am I not more like that." I think sarcastically. The problem with the image of the pond it that it doesn't engender the physical pain that that I feel when I have to be patient.

I need a new image. I press the palms of my hands into my eye sockets. Think. A toddler dancing on one leg in front of a restroom door with an out of order sign hanging on a nail comes to mind. Better. Now imagine the toddler as a miniature version of me. No, no. too creepy.

Back to the toddler. Do I have this right? Is Patience endurance? In Buddhism it is one one the paramitas, one of the perfections. Not just "good things come to him who waits" but a profound way to cultivate and purify the soul.

It is hard to imagine patience as purifying. I try to think in this way. My mind shifts back to the pond. I think I gave up on this image too easily. Maybe if I were sitting by the pond?

I imagine myself cross-legged by the silvery waters, dark ripples roll through my thoughts.

There is an ode forming in my mind that starts out something like "Oh to have patience, would that it were given to me, but mine is the hand that trembles, mine is the voice that shakes. obligated to act I am asked to sit, mine to offer rather than receive, patience is the gift to give, not the reward I seek."