Have you been following this story?

A college football player, returning to campus following the death of a friend, was pulled off a US Airways flight last week for not complying with the orders of flight attendants and the captain of the plane to pull up his pants that were sagging low enough to expose his underwear.  When I first read it, I thought it was a little bit of a strange story.  Are we really making big deals about what people are wearing on airplanes, in San Francisco no less?  I understand folks get nervous about security on flights these days, but doesn't it seem a little over the top?

Almost immediately there was a question on the motive of his removal from the flight.  Were they attempting to remove him from the flight because they thought he was dressed inappropriately?  Were they attempting to remove him from the flight because they thought he was a security risk based on his reaction?  Or were they attempting to remove him from the flight because they stereotyped him in the first place, letting his appearance tell a story that didn't match to what was going on.

But then the story deepens with a video posting of the interaction on the plane.  From the video, it's pretty clear that he is not doing anything that warrants concern beyond wanting to just get home.  According to the witnesses he had already complied with the request of the airline employees, albeit delayed from the timing desired by the airline.  So the police arrested him for, among other things, refusing to comply with the orders of the captain and resisting arrest.  Given the video, it seems a little odd.  I'm having trouble understanding why it had to get taken to the level it was.  Unless, of course, you consider that racial stereotypes played a role in the matter.

And then we arrive at today, where there is a report that a man exposing more of his body (in only women's undergarments, as the picture shows) travelling on a plane, where the airline employees ignored the complaints of the customers.  From the story: "A white man is allowed to fly in underwear without question, but my client was asked to pull up his pajama pants because they hung below his waist."

The airline can hide behind the company line of "he should have followed the directions of the flight crew."  I think there's a certain amount of that in this, but that's not the whole truth.  Not by any stretch of the imagination.  While the racial motive question was brought up quickly, the evidence is building more and more and more.

This is how trust is broken.  This is how peace falls apart.  This is how everything that has been gain disappears in just an instance.  We can say this is an isolated incident, or that we wouldn't do the same in a similar situation, or that we shouldn't let one (or a few) bad apples ruin it for the rest of us.  But none of that does justice to Deshon Marman, or his family, or his friend that passed so tragically a month ago.  How easily could this have turned into another situation like the tragedy in the loss of Oscar Grant, a story once again rehashed in the news even as this incident on the plane was happening?

It is incumbent upon all of us to ensure these things don't happen.  It is incumbent upon all of us to stand up and say when we see injustice.  It is incumbent upon all of us to recognize that this situation could happen in front of us any day, at any time, and speak the truth in those situations.  Without everyone recognizing as an individual the role we each play in creating justice in the world, there is still work to do.

In Your Eyes

Peter Gabriel is in town tonight.  I don't have the $50 for the cheapest ticket for myself.  Clearly, we do not have $100 so both Kelse and I could both go.  And then she's working tonight anyway.

It's an outdoor concert over on Cal campus, less than a mile from here.  In fact, a few hours ago I heard them warming up.  Yes, we can here it all the way over here.  I thought about walking over to campus and finding a place to sit and just listen.

But then, I thought, how could I enjoy hearing this without Kelse?

"In Your Eyes" is, of course, our song.  This version was the one we danced our first dance to at our wedding.  It was magical to spend over ten minutes dancing, and inviting others to dance with us, until the entire crowd was sharing the joy of the experience.  This song never fails to make me smile whenever I hear it. Ultimate mood lifter.

But I don't think hearing it live tonight while she is working would make me smile.  It'd be incomplete.  So I'm staying home tonight.  We'll get to see him someday, for sure.  And we'll dance, again, with everyone else.

A moment of reflection

After an intense month of school work, I've been taking some time to reflect on the last year on my life.  Yes, I just finished my first year of seminary last week.  A year ago, I was unaware I was mere days from abruptly quitting my job as an assistant manager at Walmart.  Quite a difference, eh?

When I sent in my application to seminary last July, I didn't know where I wanted to go with it, but I understood that I didn't feel like I could be the minister in front of the congregation.  Today, I am excited to have a field education placement in a wonderful church where I can learn about doing exactly that.  I am looking forward to creating my own worship experiences to share with other people.

When I moved into our studio apartment in Berkeley, I felt overwhelmed by the lack of experience I might have relating to church.  Today, I still feel that lack of experience, but I see it as an asset.  It's easier to look towards something different in the future if I'm not rooted in traditions of the past.

Traditions are good.  Traditions allow us to relate to each other and to our pasts in ways that we couldn't find in other avenues.  There is ceremony and ritual in tradition that can still great feelings within us of comfort and familiarity.  Breaking tradition can be intensely scary, especially if we've followed those traditions our entire lives.  If we're not careful, people are left behind when we change a tradition, let alone eliminate one.

Nebraska is built on tradition.  I have never been a part of traditions more than the time I spent in college at Doane.  It in the DNA of the state, and shows itself to the world through the football team.  I remember when they changed the uniforms while I was in college by adding a white stripe under the arms.  I don't think I met a single person that supported it because it wasn't what we were used to, and neither was the losing we were experiencing that year.  That season was the first time in my life that the team did not win nine games.  I even called a radio show once to blame the struggles of the team that year on the stripe.  We couldn't handle the losing that we were so privileged to avoid for so many years, and it was easy to blame it on the break of tradition.

But what if the traditions don't work?  I left church for over a decade because the traditions of the church didn't speak to me in any way.  Even now, as I continue my journey though seminary, I haven't found a church that really, truly speaks to how I want to worship.  New Spirit Community Church is doing it a lot better than any other churches I've been to recently, but it still doesn't fully feed me how I want it to.

I attended the Annual Gathering of the Northern California-Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ.  I walked away inspired in many different ways, but I think I am most fired up about the future.  I didn't realize this when I got here, but we can change everything about how we think of worship in progressive Christianity, and we can start today.

Why not?  Why can't we?  What is standing in our way?  We are only limited by our lack of imagination.  There are churches out there that fill stadiums.  There are churches out there that feed the lives of youth and young adults in massive numbers.  I went to a church once in Denver that was a converted grocery store, and the sanctuary was full of young people (with plenty of older people as well).  We may disagree with how other churches do theology, but that doesn't mean they are doing something we can't.  

One of the important lessons I learned from my training at Walmart was how we examine the competition.  We can spend all day ripping them apart for all the things they are doing wrong, and we can revel in all the things we are doing better than them, but if we don't look intently for the things they are doing better than us that we can learn from, pretty soon they'll be passing us by.

So I'm ready.  I'm fired up.  I'm getting started now.  I want worship for me, and for people in my generation. I haven't seen it yet, but I know many things that it is not.  I'm ready to start with a clean slate, try any ideas people can think of, and learn from whoever comes across my path.  I want to hear from all facets of society to see what works for young people.  There are plenty of questions involving church functions, but I want to know about the secular world, too.   Why do we, as young people, flock to concerts?  Why are we, as young people, so passionate about sporting events, especially when they involve the colleges we go to?  Why did we, as young people, take Barack Obama from a politician and turn him into a rock star and help him become President?

This is the tip of the iceberg.  I don't know the answers to these questions and countless others, but I'm going to start asking.  I don't know where this journey is taking me, but I'm ready to receive it with arms wide open.  I don't know how this is going to work, but I know that it will work.  I have faith in that.  After all, when I quit my job a year ago, I didn't know how anything was going to work in my life anymore because I couldn't see the future.  But faith put me through it, with a healthy amount of support for my journey from my wife, my family, and my friends.  I'm the ever the optimist, and I have faith that this, whatever this is and wherever this goes, will work.

Really? That's what you're going to go with?

We had a conversation in the car yesterday that wandered around into a bunch of different areas, and it was interesting to hear different viewpoints and questions to consider.  We dove into politics and race at one point, and I offered my distaste of current politicians equating some politician of the day to Hitler (first President Bush, then President Obama, among others).  It's ridiculous.  The atrocities of Hitler are so far beyond what we can conceive as evil.  Here we are, 65 years removed from World War II, and I still don't think we have a proper perspective on it.

So I was already primed a little when I read this news story today, in which Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann compared our current tax situation to the Holocaust.  Yes, because how much we are taxing and spending is the same thing as millions of people dying at the hands of a ruthless dictator.  She denies equating the two things, but then says, "...we are seeing eclipsed in front of our eyes a similar death and a similar taking away. It is this disenfranchisement that I think we have to answer to."

I don't mind that people think differently than I do on government taxation and expenditures.  I understand that the rich pay more than their fair share of taxes versus the poor (or me).  I understand that some people would rather a more equitable rate, but I just don't see that as sustainable.  So I'm in favor of raising taxes on very high levels of income a little, and on gigantic corporations a lot.

But I don't need to disparage history to say that.  As quoted in the article, she says, "The question comes down to this: what will you say to that next generation about what you did to make sure that wouldn't be their fate?"  Her answer, would clearly be, "I co-opted the suffering of millions in an attempt to use fear and guilt in order to convince more people to vote for me and my ideas, regardless of whether or not they actually benefited from those ideas."

I have conservative friends.  I have friends that support Rep. Bachmann.  I apply a direct appeal to you: please don't support her with donations, and please don't vote for her.  I'm not asking you to change you beliefs to match mine, though I'd be happy to discuss that with you if you want to.  Instead, I ask you to find another candidate that represents your ideas just as well without resorting to shameful comparisons that disrespect the memory of so many people that died for no reason but hate, and those that fought, knowing or unknowingly  for their freedom and liberation, as well as ours.  Find a candidate that might represent the optimism of our country's founding without misrepresenting, misusing, or just straight up getting blatantly wrong the history of our country and the world in order to score political points.

In this moment, here and now, let's join together to say, "No!  We won't let you do that to us."

Mixed Up

It's amazing how some days can be filled with gratitude for abundance and at the same time with distress for lack.

Today is one of those days.  I am sitting in a place of abundance from opportunities for field ed next year.  I am amazed at the possibilities, and grateful for the choice I have to make, though I am close to certain what choice I will make.  I feel like I'm moving forward in seminary quite well, and I feel better about my future than I have in quite a while.

On the other hand, Kelse lost one of her jobs today, one that was giving her more hours than the other.  We have money to last us a little while, but not into the summer.  So she resumes her job search, again.

Back when we had our conversations about me leaving work to come to seminary, we talked about a lot of things.  I let her know me feelings about my job, and how it was affecting me, my health, my life, and my relationships.  We talked about ideas for the future, about what it might mean for us to do this, and what sacrifices we would have to make.  When I made the decision to leave Walmart for my own mental health, I did it through consulting her first.

In the end, we decided that this was the right thing for me to do.  As she was only a few classes into her educational opportunities, we decided to put her education on hold as I dove into mine full time, in order to be done as quickly as possible so she could start hers again.  We decided that she would become the breadwinner of the family, also to help me focus on what I was doing in school.

So far, we have worked things out.  But I am constantly in a struggle with myself over taking a job somewhere to help out.  On the one hand, we need money to pay bills, and if there's not enough money, then we have a big problem.  On the other hand, at some times I'm having quite a difficulty juggling classes, meetings, church, and homework.  Homework is especially hard for me sometimes because I can't sit and do a lot of work at once like I used to: I lose focus after a while, or I lose my ability to comprehend what I'm doing, or I lose my ability to think in coherent sentences when writing.  So I am intentional about breaking up my homework with other non-work related activities in order get the most out of what I'm trying to accomplish.

Some weeks, I feel like I have all the time in the world to do whatever I want (like this week), and some weeks I feel like I haven't got a free moment to spare (like last week).

I think about this often, and I would say it's the biggest source of stress in my life currently.  Shouldn't I be doing more to make this work out?  But then there are days that Kelse reminds me what our decision was, and that we both play a roll in this.  I am not the person responsible for the majority of the income and paying the bills like I was a year ago.  In this time, in this place, my role is that of student.  Of course, if I can find some things on the side that pay money every now and then (as I have been occasionally) that don't run into my schedule, then I'll take it to help out.  I have also begun my search in earnest for a job for the summer.  Next school year, I'll have a stipend from my field ed, and that will help too.  I've also decided to at least give it a try next year for some work study, and if I can tell it isn't going to work out, then it won't work out and I'll stop.

In the meantime, I'll do what I can.  Incidentally, if anyone needs help moving, at the end of the semester or otherwise, I have lots of experience, and I'm willing to work for what I would say is a pretty good deal.  Let me know!

Invoking Inspiration

I was taking a few moments to reflect on how life has progressed in the past months, and reviewing my blog entries in the process.  I realized that, while I have told the following story many, many times to many, many people, I haven't put it on paper (or digitized it, as it were).  So here we go, the short version: how did I get here?

When I was in college, I found myself to be an atheist.  For all the things church and religion had to offer, I just couldn't find a place where they spoke to me.  What did I believe?  Well, I thought of some connection between the people of the world, the plants, the animals, and the earth.  I couldn't quite explain it, but the best equation I could come up with was the Force from Star Wars.  I also believed in signs, and followed them as best I saw fit for me.  I thought of this as the world speaking to me in a very confusing and non-specific way.  Whatever it was, it came down to really just trusting what my instinct were telling me.

Of course, my instincts weren't telling me anything after I finished college.  I didn't have a job, so I moved in with my grandparents in Colorado.  I've always lived close to my maternal grandparents in my life.  After my parents divorced when I was very young, I lived with them (as well as my sister and mother) in Lincoln, Nebraska.  When my mother moved us out to California when she finished college, my grandparents followed for their own reasons six months later.  Though my mom and grandparents moved many times in the Bay Area from the time I was in kindergarten to the time I was in college, they never lived more than an hour apart.  So even when I lived in Omaha, Nebraska, with my dad for some of my elementary school years, my grandparents were always there when I visited my mom.  And, of course, I moved in with them in Colorado less than a year after they had moved there, and then they came back to California less than a year after I did.

Especially by the time I finished high school, I didn't have a very good relationship with my father.  Well, it's not that it was a specifically bad relationship, but more like it didn't really exist.  We were down to seeing each other one week out of the year.  Since I lived near my grandparents, I looked to my grandfather as a father figure in a lot of ways.  He was the one to take me to baseball games in San Francisco.  He was the one that helped me find my first nice suit jacket to wear.  He took me to the beach.  He taught me how to garden.  Actually, he taught me how to transform a garden thought moving flowers, installing planter boxes, laying bark, and lots and lots of digging..  He spent time with me that I otherwise would have missed in any male role model.

My grandfather was a minister, as was my grandmother.  He experienced his life as providing love for all those he encountered.  He was a leader in early movements to legalize gay marriage.  He found social justice to be not a dream for tomorrow, but a way to live life today.  And he passed these things on to me.  Even though I moved away from church, sometimes as fast as I could, the lessons and ideas he taught me stood firm.  One I cherish: in all the time I knew him, I can only recall one time in which his patience was pushed to the limit enough to yell at me and my sister, a stark contrast from my dad.  I strive so hard to do the same.

My grandfather also had Alzheimer's disease.  It was hard to watch him deteriorate as I lived with my grandparents in Colorado.  It seemed worse with each passing day.  I worked at Walmart while I lived with them, and the time I spent at work kept me from spending time with him.  I didn't complain, because I had to work, and I tried what I could to do my own things while still spending time with him, to try and be a solid foundation for him.

After three years in Colorado, I moved back to the Bay Area, and my career continued to grow.  I was promoted to Assistant Manager after my grandparents moved back to the area as well, and so my ability to spend time with them diminished even more, and of course his condition continued to worsen.  I remember looking at him sleeping in reclining chair in their house one day, feeling he wouldn't be around much longer at all.  So when I got a call at work one day telling me he had a stroke, I figured this was it.  We more or less spent his last week with him at the hospital before he passed after the whole family had finally gathered.

I listened to all the stories of his life in his memorial service, and I was in awe.  Imagine all of the incredible things in his life he did, and imagine all the things I hadn't done in mine.  There were so many ways I wanted to be like him, and helping people was another.  I suppose I did that at Walmart by providing goods at a low cost for people who didn't have a whole lot of money, but that wasn't it for me.  I felt best helping people directly, and I needed to find a way to do that.

Flash forward six months, and I had figured out there was something I would be so excellent at: becoming a minister.  Of course, there was one small problem: I still thought of myself as an atheist.  But then I had a conversation with an old family friend, another minister who I respected very much, and she asked me about this connection I experienced, and if that connection could be God.  Amazingly, I hadn't considered that before.  New perspectives are always inviting to me.

The next month, I quit my job at Walmart (another story all its own), and three months later I was at the Pacific School of Religion.

I don't know where I'm going from here, or how I'm getting there.  Even in those moments of doubt, I take a minute to remember why I came in the first place.  I am here to love.  I am here to help people.  I am here to continue the work that my grandparents started.  I am here to honor the memory of my number one hero.

Today, I celebrate my grandfather's birthday. He is part of that connection, the mystery of the spirit of those that come before us and those yet to come.  This year, he turns 86. I know as long as I cherish his memories and live his legacy, he isn't gone.  Every day, I am proud to have his spirit in me, and to honor the love and peace he sought every day of his life.

Rising Waters at Night

I don't know if I've ever told this to anyone before.

I usually can't remember my dreams.  I'll wake up and know I had a dream, but I can never remember what it was about.Of course, this wasn't always the case.  The first dream I can remember involves a bunch of ninjas swarming our house in the middle of the night, and me quite easily fending them off.  I was maybe five when I had this dream.  Triumphant me at an early age.

I also remember having a recurring dream type.  I say that because it was never the same dream, but it followed a similar storyline.  Also, I don't think I'd call them nightmares, because I wasn't really that scared during or after them, but I would were bothersome.  They also led to some nights of less sleep than usual.

They involved tsunamis.

Last night was another one of those nights.  In fact, I had two last night, one for each time I fell asleep.  The characters and places always change in these dreams, but the story essentially follows as thus: there is a tsunami warning called, we all head for higher ground far into the realm of safety, and then the tsunami turns out to be much, much worse then we thought.  No matter how much higher ground we find, the waters rise with us, coming up behind us so very quickly.  There is a lot of damage, but as far as I can remember no one ever is actually hurt.

But the waters rise far above all of our expectations, and there is no escape from them.

We found out about the devastating earthquake in Japan late last night as we closed down La Vals for another Thursday night of fun.  I can't even remember the conversation we were having when it all disappeared so quickly.  One person pointed to the television and we all stood transfixed by the images.  Shaking, fires, and rising waters destroying everything that got in the way.  A few folks made some necessary phone calls, but mostly we just watched what happened, and what continued to happen.

We commented on how you could tell where the coastline was supposed to be, how the area behind it was full of expanding water, and how the huge area of sand revealed by the ebb of the water was quickly filling with a massive wave ready to strike again, adding more to the destruction.  It was horror.  I can't imagine what it would be like to be there.

After we all came home, I stayed up later trying to learn more.  It was an 8.9 earthquake, fifth most powerful in the world since 1900.  The tsunami watch wasn't in effect, and then it was for Hawaii, and then it was a warning for Hawaii, and then a watch for California, and then a warning for California.  I thought of friends in Japan, and I thought of friends up and down the west coast.  I thought of friends who had families in those areas.  I thought of the church I went to on Sunday, a Japanese American church I aspire to do my Field Education at, and I took a moment to remember thanksgiving for living high on a hill, far from the shaking and out of danger from the rising waters.  I also remembered that I live mere blocks from a fault that could unleash our own catastrophe at any second.  I sent my love to those in peril, and wished them the best of all possible outcomes: safety and peace.

I went to bed around two in the morning, but I wondered about those dreams I used to have about tsunamis.  Perhaps that's why I know what I'd do if I was at the beach during an earthquake.  I'm not sure if you could run faster than I, not because I run in fear, but, because of those dreams, I have a healthy respect for the power that mother nature can unleash from something I think of as so beautiful every other day of the year.

And the dreams returned.  Climbing ever higher, we found each house after one before, battered by the waves when we entered, falling away into the churning sea as we left.  In these dreams, I often turn around to see a wall of water hundreds of feet high coming straight for us, overtaking the rest of the rising waters.  The wall of water hits us, yet somehow we survive.

I woke around five this morning, after the first dream.  I grabbed my phone for updates, and found the tsunami was hitting Hawaii, but thankfully there wasn't much damage.  Blessings for the early warnings.  I tired to get about to sleep, but it took almost two hours before I finally found peace again.  Except not, for here was dream number two.  How do tsunamis find their way to Nebraska?  How do I survive when the water crashes through the broken windows, filling the house I'm in again and again.  And this was a house I grew up in, no less.

I woke again at eight, in time for my alarm to go off, as it does at eight every morning.  How am I to go to a meeting on four hours of interrupted sleep?  Right, others would love to have that problem right now.  I turned on the TV to find the tsunami hitting the Bay Area.  Not much damage at first, and then we see the boats in Santa Cruz breaking moorings and crashing into each other.  Juxtaposed with the sinking boats was the image of surfers paddling out to ride the reverberating waves.  People cried about their lost boats.

We didn't hear much else on the news for a bit about how Japan was getting on.  Was this because it was the middle of the night?  I couldn't muster empathy for the lost boats of Santa Cruz when there was the specter of lost homes and lost lives across the world.  All I can think of is love, peace, and hope, and doing what I could to help, even if I am halfway across the world.

To help, you can donate to the UCC effort with an online donation, or a check sent to your local church or the Wider Church Ministries (details for both are on the website).

Or, you can simply donate to the Red Cross by putting an extra $10 on your cell phone bill next month when you text REDCROSS to 90999.

Sometimes I feel like there are rising waters in my life I'm running from, trying to keep my head above the turbulent water line.  Life can be overwhelming. Maybe that's why I dream of tsunamis.  But in my dreams, I always somehow make it through, just as I always make it through life somehow.  For some in Japan yesterday, as in so many other natural disasters we've seen in our lives, there was no making it through somehow.  I pause to remember them, even though I did not know them, for the loss of one life is a loss for us all.