National Day of something or other

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:54:57 -0700

A friend sent out a mass email this morning about tomorrow being the National Day of Prayer and how important it is to pray. And my initial reaction was strong and negative. It was “What good is prayer when hearts and minds of the people are already made up and God has been stuffed in a tiny little church shaped box, sealed with a kiss and put on the upper shelf in the closet?”

Uh…

yeah!

Surprised me too!

And this is exactly what pastor preached about Sunday. He talked about how we quit praying when we get disillusioned about how ineffective our prayers sometimes feel. And I watched a beautiful couple come forward and pray again for children. And since I’ve been there I about lost it. I was playing piano and could clearly see the pain in their prayer. It was horrible in a really risky vulnerable beautiful sort of way. Lots of tears and in that little clump of praying faithful ones.

So… I’m trying to wriggle my way out of my unbelief and fatalism and try on something a little more like hope and faith… Yeah, let’s pray for our nation tomorrow. Not because it’s the National Day of Prayer (which means little to me.) But because God is big enough to change hearts and minds, and prayer is still the avenue he chooses to use to bring about that change. We need Him. I need Him. I have friends who need Him. My children need Him. Yeah, but most of all I need Him.

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Why do the Democrats eat their own? (Or Why Rev Jeremiah Wright gets it Wrong.)

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:51:46 -0700

I have followed the Rev Jeremiah Wright story a little bit. I don’t watch much in the way of network news so I’ve missed *some* of the flurry of sound bytes. I spent some time on YouTube watching some of Rev Wright’s speeches in full. Not just the ten second bytes. I am no expert on this man but I have felt very sympathetic toward him, thrust as he has been, into a spotlight he didn’t ask for. Well, he doesn’t seem to mind it really, now does he?!

I’ve heard his recent comments quoted on NPR. A few interesting tidbits include references to the tragic Tuskegee Syphilis Study. And something about AIDS being caused by the US government. And a few other things that I’ve also heard from economically challenged members of the black community. Considered opinions as to the injustice of the US government toward her own people. Are these opinions widely held? It would seem so. And I sympathize. When something is widely perceived as truth, the actual truth is of little consequence. But when these things are said in the light of day with a white audience, people get a little shocked. And perhaps rightly so. I’ve been very surprised the whole time this story ran, wondering how it ever got to the air waves.

Here’s the thing I find most unsettling. Obama has denounced Rev Wright in the strongest possible terms. Yet the good Rev has only articulated what many Afro-American’s believe. And here is a charming black pastor, who seems to be saying in effect “Come on Obama, fess up! We all know you agree with me.” It’s almost as if Rev Wright is defining what it means to be a Black, Christian, and Democrat in America. It’s as if Obama has crossed the line and there is the good Reverend calling him back into the fold. No thanks! I didn’t like it when the Republicans told us what it meant to be White and Christian (backed by Reverands Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell) and I don’t like it now. (There is more to leadership than being AGAINST some things.)

The good Rev Wright is Wrong. If there is a possibility that a good man, who happens to be Christian and Democrat can make a difference in the future of this country and begin to be a positive change against that injustice that angers those with a conscience… If someone could take the power in Washington out of the hands of the wealthy few and put it into the hands of the people… If decency and compassion could be seen as signs of integrity rather than weakness… If the blood-letting of the Iraq war could come to a close… If one man has the audacity to hope, and more than a million contributors share this audacity... If any of these things could be seen on the horizon in American politics, wouldn’t it just be time to take your wounded pride, sit down and shut up?!

No, this is the land of free speech. We don’t keep silence here. Hate speech, inappropriate speech, stupid speech, lewd language, not to mention propaganda and spin. Our speech may be free but amongst all the babble the truth is increasingly difficult to find.

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Can I just say... AMEN!

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:27:49 -0800

I stumbled across this on a friend's blog and loved it. The guy is Tony Campolo who is one of my heros. I gave a couple books by him as gifts this Christmas. And I came across this in the midst of my own questioning about how the church can miss something so basic and central to the message of the scripture. But whether or not the church "gets it" has little impact on whether or not I do as an individual. So I guess I should just say that I'm paying attention and wondering what all this means for me. Check it out and let me know what you think.

The Kingdom of God

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I totally got a giggle from these!

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:58:24 -0800

part whatever

Part Two

similar, better, funny

Yeah, saw these on a blog I checked out and spent some time just playing through a long list of these. Actually pretty interesting. And I've tried this myself - not using the term "Christian" because it has so much baggage now with that one Republican guy and all. Oh well.

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Gideon is one of my favorite guys!

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 10:14:19 -0700

Yesterday’s sermon was about Gideon. This really unassuming humble guy got up and spoke about Gideon in a way that really captured me Sunday. Sad to say that is really unusual because if there isn’t something to go with the intellectual content I have a hard time staying tuned in. I love Gideon; he and I go way back. I’m always thinking I’m nobody but there is something in the back of my spirit that dreams of bigger things, bigger adventures, and even a desire for greatness. This preacher guy with the sweet spirit talked about how God sees us the way He created us, we view ourselves very differently. God says to Gideon “Mighty Warrior” and Gideon goes looking all over the place to see who God is talking to, because certainly it couldn’t be him. I get that. Moses got that. There are others who get that. And Gideon struggled to believe the truth about himself. He saw the fire burn up the food he had prepared, he saw the angel vanish from the place where he had just been standing. He saw the fleece dry with the ground wet, and again the fleece wet with the ground dry. Over and over God confirmed Himself to Gideon while he struggled and wrestled with how these things could possibly be true. And then God started messing with his army. So Gideon sent the scared ones home. Then he watched them drink from the creek and sent some more home. I can picture his journal reading something like this: “God, do you even like me at all? You’re going to send me up against the biggest army I’ve ever seen and you want me to go with 300 wirey little guys? Well, I might as well die an honorable death, that way I’ll be spoken of with respect when I’m gone. I can be somebody in death at least.” But God continued to patiently work to confirm His word to Gideon. This time he got to overhear the enemy as they pronounced their own defeat. And Gideon defeated them.

I often wonder how it was for Gideon on the evening of that battle. He must have sat at a fire with a weary body thinking back over his day. He had seen a lot of death that day, and he probably had some cuts and bruises. But three hundred men had captured an amazing victory. Did he turn to God in absolute humility and confess his shock and amazement that the God of the universe would use him to do this? Did he turn to the mirror and smile at himself and puff out his chest and say “I know you could do it ol' chap!” I don’t know. I’d love to sit down with Gideon and ask him questions about what it was like. I wonder if he ever ceased struggling and wrestling with the truth of who God created him to be in contrast with what he believed of himself.

Abram was a tired old man with plenty of wealth and no one to leave it to. He was a childless man. God gave him a son and then asked for him back. And Abram started to obey before the angel said ‘just kidding.” God called him Abraham. God made his children like the stars.

Elijah was a lunatic who poured water on the wood and provoked and picked at his enemies like a mosquito asking to be swatted. But God poured out fire from heaven and toasted everything. Then God visited him when Elijah started hanging out on the mental ward section of the desert. How amazing that encounter must have been.

Joseph, that annoying dreamer child, the convict with abandonment issues, became the best friend of Pharaoh and the brightest star in his family, a provider and administrator and gifted in interpreting dreams.

Moses was a judge and liberator, but he went about it his own way until that blew up in his face and he had to scurry off to the desert for fear of his life. Then the burning bush thing rocked his world. There is a little verse about God considering squashing him like a bug but Moses’ wife did something that saved his neck. I wonder what that was all about. Was Moses trying to weasel out of this gig that God had planned for him? We humans are slow to comprehend and slow to believe. But Moses grew into God’s design, and we know his name all these generations later.

Rahab was a women used and abused by many men. But God made her a haven and protector. And the spies that she protected liberated her and her family.

Ruth was an abandoned and bereft woman, but God made her steadfast and her fidelity to Naomi brought her into God’s redemption plan.

Joshua had to be reminded to be strong and courageous repeatedly. Was he really a weak and cowardly man that God transformed? How many nights lingering in the Presence of God after Moses and turned in did it take till the old weak and cowardly man began to give way to the strong and courageous man?

John was the voice crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” He really lost his head.

Peter was all over the charts, one day up and the next day. One day he was recognized for listening to the Holy Spirit and another time it’s “Get thee behind me satan.” But God called him Peter - rock.

Paul was the guy who held truth above all. But he went about it his own way and had really quite the list of martyrs to his credit. Then he “saw the light” on the road and it wasn’t a UFO. His grip on truth transformed him into a door keeper for those people out there beyond the Jews – the Gentiles. That’s how I (a gentile) came to be writing about him.

David was a man whose whole life was a search for the beauty and presence of God, from shepherd to king – that was his primary vision. He faced his Goliaths and engaged his own epic battle to break through the garbage and grief of life to get to God. And God saw a man after this heart.

I don’t get it. I look today back over a checkered history. I see failures and triumphs. Times that I won big, and times that I lost even bigger. I remember people who are not a part of my life any more because our relationship was broken. I remember those who misused me and, sadly, those I’ve misused. I remember times when I’ve been a good friend and times when I’ve gotten into the face of a good friend and said some really horrible things – even with good intentions. I’m nobody. I fight the truth of that because it isn’t what I want to be, but that doesn't change the truth. I haven’t done anything exceptional that hasn’t already been done by others. I have not become something amazing or assended to some great height. But there is something within that God sees when He looks at me. I shake my head at the silly grin on His face, wondering if He’s really thinking of someone else. There is greatness within. Or at least God sees it. And I have vision for a future that can be most different and unusual. And I have vision for what I can grow into. My new employment, the transitions in my life this year, the paradigm shifts I find in my own mind, all this is preparation for what He’s got around the bend on my journey. I can’t see it from here but I don’t have to. And maybe I don’t have to even fully believe it as long as I try to listen and do as I’m told.

If He can look at

Gideon and see a warrior,

Moses and see a judge and ruler,

Peter and see a rock,

Abraham and see a father,

Rahab and see a haven,

John the Baptist and see a voice in the desert

John, the disciple that Jesus loved, and see a mystic seer,

Paul and see a doorway for the Gentiles,

David and see a man after his own heart,

Mary and see a mother,

Well, then

There is hope

Sweet hope

For me.

I think the shout still echos through history... "For the Lord and for Gideon." Yeah, for the Lord and for nobodies everywhere who dare to hope that God still creates something from nothing, still takes on the impossible, still sees the possibilities in someone like me. For that kind of God. Yeah, I'm all for that!

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Would you purchase from a store with overt politics you disagree with? PART TWO

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:57:24 -0700

Thanks everyone for these thoughtful replies to part one! I think the points about tolerance and being accepting of other opinions is perhaps one of the biggest issues. When I had the shop open a variety of people came though and I could enjoy the company of a darling liberal democrat ranting and raving about some pet issue, followed by a woman with great wealth who knew Jackie-O and talked about the evils of society and how people are so uninformed yet God still works everything for our good. I was able to listen – and agree in places and be engaged with them, even though they each represented something remarkably different. I guess that is the element I don't want to lose. I found myself on the listening side of most of those conversations. I'm ok with that. It went with the territory. (One woman joked that I was her therapy - which is kinda sad - she could have had three shrinks for what she spent in my shop.) Now that I've closed that business I've had more time to think about the way I did business there. And I want to find my voice in the midst of all this. The past months I have been out of the public eye, squirreled away in my quiet monastic studio working long hours and goofing off now and then and watching the construction workers in the alley outside my window every chance I get. Life is good.

I’ve been in overtly Christian shops that come off so kitchy and ticky tacky that it makes me want to hurl. I was in a darling little place in Dunlap, Indiana recently called “The Refinery” and I fell in love. It was a beautifully decorated café, I found it hip and tasteful, and I think there was a verse painted on a wall somewhere that I recognized. It was beautifully done and I was pleasantly surprised. I hate it when bad taste and Christianity collide and give birth to the kind of artless kitch that can be purchased at “Family Christian Bookstores” where the franchise owners don’t have much say in what they carry and most of the work has Bible verses emblazoned on it somewhere. Artwork that has to be identified with a verse to be “Christian…” Honey, that’s not art – that’s propaganda. But I digress. I stayed with a friend on a recent trip, and her big new expensive house is full of that kind of wordy “artwork” and it was so strange to me. Not in my house! (See how superior I am because I have a decent art collection? Joking!) But hey, we’ve established that I’m a little weird. LOL!

And to the handsome RG… I think the things I’m most passionate about come from an internal place, perhaps in part as a reaction to the things that I hear from a variety of media outlets. Certainly yes, I am a product of my surroundings and shaped by my generation, its systems and cultural biases. I also grew up as part of a sub culture in this country, as a member of a group that (at one time) made much of not participating in the world's systems. I still hold values that the mainstream culture likes to ridicule on a regular basis. So what is new? That doesn’t make me a victim of anything necessarily; it does make me able to hold counter cultural values in spite of the endless commercial efforts at conformity that come with living in America. Mostly I’m struck by the contrast between what I think I’m seeing in the eyes of a homeless man from Nazareth, and the arrogance, materialism, and militarism I see in some people who speak His name with great ease. The angst (to some degree or other) I get from that is internal. I have a growing desire to make that point with at least a modicum of finesse and some respect for anyone's right to disagree.

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