Wandering Elder

With little fanfare, Marvel and Netflix have released The Punisher  series.  In keeping with the dark mood of Daredevil and Luke Cage, the Punisher is a heavy show to watch.  But it gets a little tedious and tends to drag as well as ask the question, "How much blood can one man loose and still not require major surgery?" Of course this is still a comic book character and things don't have to work like they might in, say, a Jason Bourne movie.  A great example of that would be the inept federal agents that repeatedly can't seem to comprehend that a building might have more than one exit (they might want to apply for a job with the FBI on The Blacklist ). The character of the Punisher was better in Daredevil.  The juxtaposition of the two characters made for some really interesting dialogue as well as prompting the ideological debate about violence and justice.  Without that foil, the Punisher comes across rather wooden. The first episode was the best, in that it

Allegations are just that.  Sometimes they are strong sometimes they are weak.  But they are allegations.  I believe they should be investigated and then  once the evidence is in, the verdict rendered.  I know that sometimes I sound as if I think politicians should bow out based on allegations.  I have to admit I am not always sure about that.  Perhaps it depends on the allegation and the severity of it.  I mean, wouldn't it behoove our political landscape if people had to suspend their campaigns until things were cleared up?  Of course I know, given our political landscape, that the "clearing up" probably wouldn't happen in a timely manner and would become another means of political warfare. But they should be addressed.  They should not, however, be the means of judgment.  Allegations should begin the process.  And that applies across the board.  Our rush to judgment is something of a sad commentary on the nature of our view of other people, justice, and the r

So, the inevitable blowback seems to be beginning. With the RNC backing Roy Moore (while also calling for Sen. Franken to step down), we begin to see the powers wanting to keep their power regardless of the obvious nature of "flexible" standards that apply when needed and don't apply when they would cause the party to lose power. We are seeing the in news the strange spectacle of Billy Bush being fired while Donald Trump remains president.  Ted Cruz calls for Al Franken to step down while defending Roy Moore.  Democrats push to have John Conyers to step down while the GOP doesn't do the same for Moore (any more).  Perhaps because to do so would put them in an awkward position of having to hold people accountable to the same set of standards. And then we have the great stories about Wes Goodman, congressman from Ohio who was an anti-LGBT conservative who was caught having sex in his office...with another man. And one of Trump's former Oklahoma campaign mana

According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, telling the truth is both a matter of moral character and "a matter of correct appreciation of real situations and of serious reflection upon them."  I do not wish to minimize Bonhoeffer by utilizing only this quote or idea.  His essay, What is meant by 'telling the truth'?  is one that is meritorious of study and reflection.  What I do  wish to address is the simple profundity and lucid yet almost foreign idea of telling the truth. With the ascension of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States, lies and falsehoods have become so frequent and so often passed off as the truth that truth itself finds short shrift in the fact that the task of simply pointing out and naming the lies has become a full time task.  Refutation and argument have little time to take place before a new list of fabrications arise. While I don't agree much in Rod Dreher's book The Benedict Option , I do find that his statement about Trump is

There is a saying that you have to strike while the iron is hot.  Apparently now is the time to strike on issues of sexual harassment.  Let me be clear.  Strike away! It is a little overwhelming to hear day after day new allegations, and the scope and severity are just as bad.  Perhaps though, and this is just perhaps, we as a country have finally awoken to an issue (would that we could react as quickly on issues of race and violence). I find it interesting that allegations  are enough to end careers (except for some  politicians and public figures it seems).  I do have a little bit of a problem with that.  Only because allegations are just that: allegations.  Yet the fact that some actors have quit roles and shows just over allegations seems to me to be some kind of declaration of guilt.  Perhaps, and again - perhaps, we are coming to a point where we can actually learn to value  persons as persons and not sexualize or objectify them.  As such, I think Stephen Colbert missed a

A few days ago, I was walking down the street and was approached by an older woman who, very pleasantly I might add, handed me a small folded piece of paper.  "God bless you," she said as she then turned her attention to the person walking behind me. So far as being handed something by someone, it was perhaps one of the nicer ones I have experienced.  No plea, no questions. But as I read the paper she handed me, I found that I suddenly had a whole raft of questions. The piece of paper was a "Personal Invitation...to you."  It was "From, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd." Ok. So I read on.  And in reading on I became aware of the fact that had I not  already had a background in the Christian faith, I would possibly have been very confused or bewildered by the passages on the inside of the folded paper. For example, the first part of the paper read as follows: "...who is called [apparently this is supposed to follow the opening line

Thor:Ragnarok is wonderful.  It is brightly colored and filmed expertly, the story is fun, the humor is great, and the action is fulfilling. Thor:Ragnarok is terrible.  It looks like a Guardians of the Galaxy sequel, the story is a poor attempt to do a Hulk movie - in particular the Planet Hulk story, the humor detracts from the emotional punch the movie could  have had, and the action seems to cover some unfortunate plot holes. So, Thor: Ragnarok is up for grabs, comic fans. All in all, I did enjoy it.  I found it to be a far better sequel than the second entry, "The Dark World" which had a great plot, but then went off key by trying to pull a fast one with the Loki story, a story that was more or less ended in the Ragnarok story, though somewhat unconvincingly.  Odin had Loki hide him so he could die in peace?  "Oh, and by the way, I forgot to tell you boys that when I die it is all going to fall apart.  And you have a sister.  That I locked up.  Who is really powe

It seems strange to me which issues take off and which do not.  Take, for example, the accusations against Harvey Weinstein.  Not that they aren't deserving of being addressed - they absolutely are.  So were those against Bill Cosby.  But why is it that this time the accusations stuck  and the nation seemed to take full notice of this behavior? Yet we didn't follow through with the allegations against the President for misconduct and a variety of other allegations? Or why is it that the Weinstein issue took forefront and the issue of gun control has virtually disappeared?  Or the issue of disaster relief?  Or the fact that social injustice - most notably put to the foreground by the kneeling during the National Anthem - has somehow faded until the next shooting.  Why is it that Weinstein has become the cause célèbre?   I don't know.  I'm not saying anything in defense of Weinstein's alleged behavior.  It sounds reprehensible  to be sure.  But why did that  i

Some years ago, I wanted there to be a big shakeup in the political landscape.  I was young, I had only a nascent interest of politics, but I wasn't satisfied with what I was hearing or seeing.  It seemed that things were becoming polarized and that parties weren't doing much more than being obstructionists to the agenda (real or perceived) of the opposing party. Then that became the status quo, with the thing Republicans were for was to be against the Democrats and the thing that the Democrats were for was to be against the Republicans.  And the people who were sending these persons to steer the future of the country mattered less and less. And then we got into wars that haven't ended - that have run the entire lifetime of some high school kids.  Wars that were falsely presented and that have no end in sight.  War became our job as a country, with education being relegated to the back-burner and money seeming to become the only issue of national interest that either pa

We have become wearied with the tragedies.  We are exhausted by the mental and emotional toll that we are paying with each storm, with each gunshot.  We have to face the fact that as a species, humanity has not learned to prepare for the worst - we believe we have conquered the earth.  Yet the earth keeps reminding us that it can shake us off at any point.  We have yet to face the fact of the symbiotic relationship of humanity to the earth and if we don't take care of our planet, it will likely take care of us. Of course, for some, taking care of the earth is un-biblical.  There is the line of thinking that says that we can trash this planet, because as Revelation indicates, there will be a new  heaven and a new  earth.  That seems to somehow justify fracking, strip-mines, and why disasters like the Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010 are really not worth the fuss that some would make of spilling oil into the oceans. I do not share that view, I should say.  I think we need to care

A good question was asked in response to my last post about the Defenders (maybe I should talk about comic books some more…).  Before I answer it, let me say that I don’t mean to denigrate the Defenders as a b-team comic.  B-team in this particular context just means that they aren’t the most well-known of heroes in the comic universe (here particular to the Marvel Comic universe).  Being on a b-team is still pretty good.  There were some b-teams that brought some relatively obscure people up from the minor leagues, to be sure (I am here thinking of characters like Dr. Druid or Rocket Racoon – talk about coming from obscurity…Rocket was in the old Hulk comics first long before he was a Guardian of the Galaxy.  Speaking of which, a really odd ball cameo in the Guardian movies is that of Howard the Duck, who had a terrible movie back in 1986). There are some c and d listers as well, but sometimes a character like that can be a major player without ever holding their own popular seri

Let's change gears for a post. Let's talk about comics. I just finished watching the Netflix series "The Defenders" based on the Marvel Comic series (that should be plural, I suppose!).  It wasn't bad.  It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. Here's why it wasn't bad.  It did a good job at pulling the characters together in a short amount of time and resolving the story line in a short amount of time as well.  In some respects, the series was the vehicle for the next seasons of Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones (and probably Iron Fist, but I will get to that in a minute).  It pulled the stories of these heroes together and provided them with direct knowledge of each other and a (mostly) willingness to work together. The Defenders is a tough comic to bring to the screen, large or small.  That's because the more recent iterations of The Defenders focuses on the idea that it is a non-team, but a name that applies to a particular group who

The Doppler Effect is this: the change in frequency of a sound (or other event) for an observer based on the movement of either the observer or the source.  Most commonly, this is heard when a vehicle with a siren is heard approaching, beside, passing and receding. It is a phenomenon we all experience, and I think it is an important illustration.  Because the sound and the observer or, I suppose, listener, do not actually change.  Just the change of sound or observation based on position.  But that position changes how we interpret the sound: is it close?  Is it moving away from me?  Is it a threat?  Do I need to move? etc. etc. As someone who has driven a fire engine, I know that the siren sounds the same from start to finish.  But that doesn't mean it sounds the same to everyone else as we encounter them. The same is true for theology.  I have found that, especially as I re-read some old books, that the words on the page haven't changed, but my relative position to them

I recently read that some far-right writers are making the claim that Sen. John McCain’s brain tumor is the justice of God on the Senator for not backing the President.  Ok.  For a moment, let’s take the politics out of that barbaric statement.  Is it theologically true ?  To answer that, we have to consider the nature of the claim.  As one person wrote, “I’m pretty sure that God is punishing him.”  Why?  “God made it pretty clear that he supports the New Right now.” Of course, how one proves that God is on the side of the New Right is the challenge.  What most of these claims say, the ones that aren’t so offensive that they stagger the mind, is that God has chosen the President as God’s agent of change, which, in the Bible, is usually described as one who is ‘anointed’ or, in translation, ‘messiah.’ That’s a huge claim for any group to make about a President.  It has been made on behalf of a few presidents here and there, but never made by  any president to my knowledge.  

I haven't written in a while. That's due to a couple of reasons.  First, I wasn't sure what to say. Second, I wasn't sure anyone was listening. That is also reminiscent of my life as a pastor.  There are some weeks where I do not know what to say from the pulpit.  I find it a struggle to compose a sermon.  That, also, has numerous reasons.  For example, I want to be clear, cogent, and relevant.  I also want to honor the text and not project my own ideas and then find scripture to back them up.  I do not want to offend people, but I don't want to be halting or reserved in speaking.  Sometimes I do not wish to share that which is personal.  Other times, I find that the sermon itself is something I do not wish to share because I have, in some cases, had to work very hard to find the relevant words, the point to which I feel I have been led, sometimes with great emotion and soul searching. Then to offer such words is to hand over something created to others.  That

Let me start out by saying that Kathy Griffin went too far. I had thought that Stephen Colbert had done so with his opening monologue rant a few weeks ago. But Kathy Griffin left him in the dust. If you haven't seen the picture of her holding the (fake) decapitated head of President Trump, then you haven't been online in the last few days.  It isn't pretty. And it goes too far.  Why?  Well, imagine if someone had done the same thing with President Obama. How would people have reacted?  Charges of racism, hate speech, and so on.  It may not be racist with regard to Trump, but it is hate and it is staggeringly reminiscent of the horrors ISIS has posted as well - their atrocities being far more real than that of Griffin. Sure it was some kind of publicity stunt, but if it was considered a "good idea" or a "really funny" idea, then it goes to show that we as a nation have truly taken leave of our senses. I am all for free speech.  I am not trying t

A few days ago I found a piece of paper on which I had written a long time ago.  I found myself asking, "Did I really write that?  Did I really feel that way?"  It was a particularly pessimistic piece that reflected a world view I don't quite subscribe to any longer and, some 22+ years later, find difficult to imagine that I did. Though I suppose in some ways, I can.  I can't quite remember the exact way I felt, but I do possibly remember the attitude that viewed society very negatively and pessimistically.  Reading it I find I sound pretty clear in my disdain and the view of the world is both bleak and very black and white.  I do remember thinking in those terms from time to time, but now, so far removed from the time in which I wrote, I have trouble comprehending where I was mentally as I wrote those words. Needless to say I don't quite share the same ideas any more.  Admittedly the pessimism still lurks, but the overall attitude has changed.  I would sug

I find that more and more I am becoming jaded to the confusing mess that is the Trump presidency.  I am hammered each day from the right and left to tell me what is and is not true, what does and does not add up, and who said what and when.  And, for better or worse, with the kind of social media we have and the fact that nothing posted ever really disappears, we can all find out who said what and when and make up our own minds - should we so desire. Of course I still see the bumper stickers that say, "I don't believe the liberal media."  Ok.  So you don't believe them.  I'm not sure I do either, nor am I sure I believe the conservative media.  They both seem to have become so agenda driven that they have long, long, long ago stopped reporting  the news and have decided that all they have to do is comment a story to death.  Even "All Things Considered" has taken to interviewing Trump supporters to get their opinions on the state of the Union.  That isn

I have recently been re-evaluating the Ewoks. For those of you who may not be familiar with the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi , the Ewoks are the small bear-like creatures who assist the rebels in their fight against the Empire.  They have become objects of derision over the years.  But I don't know that I agree with that dismissal. To begin with, I saw Return of the Jedi  when it came out in theaters the first time and I had no issue with the Ewoks at all.  Some people did.  The teddy-bear picnic idea didn't sit well with everyone and many saw it as a silly gimmick putting a highly primitive culture up against the Empire. George Lucas had said that originally the story was supposed to have Wookies in the story, but the Wookies (almost exclusively demonstrated by the character Chewbacca), while looking primitive, were pilots and skilled fighters - a premise that comes to the fore in Revenge of the Sith  where the Wookies battle the droid army and demonstrate their

Moab has been in the news.  Not the Moab in the Bible.  No, this is the MOAB, the so-called "mother of all bombs" which was used on ISIS.  This is the largest bomb the United States has next to a nuclear weapon, and it has never been used before. It has showed up in movies from time to time.   Outbreak  with Dustin Hoffman had one, or an equivalent, that was dropped to try and stop a virus from spreading. This, however, was no movie. Please don't think that I am going to suggest that we loosen up our attack against ISIS.  That's not my point at all. My point is this: we have dropped a never-before-used bomb in our perpetual conflict with ISIS and extremism, but we don't seem to care.  It was mentioned in the news some, but not too much, nor was the power of this bomb talked about.  In some ways, it seems to have been written off as just a really big bomb. There is some question about the timing of the bomb being used as a warning to North Korea.  Perhaps

Sometimes you have to wonder about why you are the way you are.  There are great arguments out there about nature vs. nurture.  But they only get you so far.  Because people are always evolving, always learning.  Sometimes we are finding out things about ourselves that we have had all along but we never really understood. For example, I have a tendency to think the worst whenever my body has an ache or pain for which I cannot pinpoint a cause.  Especially at 3 a.m. when all I can do is travel down unproductive fearful rabbit holes in my mind.  So why is that? I think I have an answer.  It may not be the answer a clinician would come up with, but it is one that I came up with and, therefore, think it makes the most sense.  Why do I jump to the negative possibilities? It goes back to second grade. When I was in second grade, there was a girl (who I will call Carol) in our class whose older sister died from a brain tumor.  The sister was in fifth grade - which meant she was really

A few years ago, I heard a podcast that talked about the study of the Bible as being like a science fiction story in which an astronaut landed on Mercury. Granted, that kind of a mission is unlikely, but when the story was written, the planets weren't that well understood and a mission to Mercury was as likely as landing a ship on Jupiter (and there are some great sci-fi movies from the early 50s that propose just such a thing).  The point of this story was predicated on the belief that one side of the planet Mercury always faced the sun and, therefore, the other side did not.  As such, according to this story, there was a fine band around the middle of the planet where the hot wasn't too hot and the cold wasn't deadly.  In the words of Goldilocks, "It was just right." The equation to Bible study was this: there are plenty of people who are completely cold to the idea of Bible study and cannot fathom why anyone would waste their time.  There are others who are

When we read the Gospels in the New Testament, we find rather quickly, that there are some great similarities as well as some obvious and stunning differences.  Why is that?  It has to do with the fact that the gospels are not written to be read as straight biographies.  They are, instead, to be understood as faith -histories or faith -biographies.  They were written by those who already believed in Jesus as the Christ and therefore reflect that belief. They are also better understood as paintings rather than photographs.  Here's why. Imagine a room with three painters all looking at the same subject - say a bowl of apples.  When they start painting, there is already an inherent difference in what they paint because they are all looking at the subject from different angles.  Even if the painters are side by side, the angles will be different. But let us suppose that they are separated by more than just a few inches.  They are several feet apart.  That shifts their views consi