Old Father 2010

So what kind of year was 2010?

I’m still sad that my local YMCA closed. I was a member there from December 1982 to April 2010. I played racquetball there, and occasionally volleyball as well. My attempt to play racquetball elsewhere proved unworkable.

My bike was stolen; majorly bummed by that.

The blog I do for the Times Union newspaper got excerpted in the print edition at least a half dozen times this year. The problem with that, of course, is that the blurb may be confusing to the reader out of context. Still, people actually recognize me from this, which, I guess, is a good thing. I’m notorious enough to be asked to participate in that To Kill A Mockingbird readathon.

I’ve been attending my current church and singing in the choir for 10 years. We got a new choir director this fall. After eight years of stability, the last couple years was full of transition in the leadership of the choir; hope this guy sticks around a while. I’ve been a Presbyterian for eight years

Mainstream Christianity QUESTION

Arthur, in his response to my post last week about Christian yoga, asked me to “look at how mainstream Christians can get attention (and differentiation) when overshadowed by the loud—and often flaky…fundamentalists.” I’d love to, but I can’t, and I’ll tell you why.

During one of the debates during the 2004 Presidential campaign, the candidates were each asked about their faith stance. George W. Bush gave his standard response about his personal relationship with Jesus Christ. John Kerry gave what I thought was a fine answer about how his Roman Catholic faith compelled him to respond to the social gospel, i.e., to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, et al. But after the debates, more than a few pundits suggested that Kerry had somehow evaded the question. And, according to that PBS series God in America, that I keep recommending, Kerry himself concluded that he had “blown it” on the religion issue.

So the junior senator from Illinois was out making speeches in 2005 and 2006

Busy, Busy, Busy

We looked at the calendar at home this week, and there is something on it for every day this week. This is not, BTW, something I strive for.

Monday night, Carol had a teacher conference and Wednesday night, she had a church meeting. This meant getting the child to bed – a lengthy ritual involving homework and medicines, as well as toothbrushing and storytime.

Tuesday morning, I voted; it was a little chaotic with the new system, at least at 6 a.m. Hey, did you notice I made three predictions, two came true, and when they count the 41% of the vote as write-ins (!) in Alaska, I may be 3 for 3?

"It Gets Better"

by Joe Newton

From the ACLU website:

In his September 23, 2010, Savage Love column, Dan Savage wrote about 15-year-old Billy Lucas, an Indiana teen who committed suicide after persistent bullying and harassment by his classmates for being gay. Savage wrote: “I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.”

So Savage started the “It Gets Better Project” on YouTube, in which LGBT adults are encouraged to submit videos of themselves talking to LGBT teenagers who suffer abuse similar to Billy Lucas’s. And several other teens who ended up commiting suicide recently, as it turns out, including Cody Barker, age 17, of Shiocton, Wisconsin; Asher Brown, age 13, of Houston, Texas; Seth Walsh, age 13, of Tehachapi, California; Tyler Clementi, age 18, the Rutgers University student who jumped off the George Washington Bridge; Raymond Chase, age 19, a student in Providence, Rhode Island; and Justin Aaberg, age 15, of Anoka, Minnesota.

As a heterosexual Christian, I was particularly interested in hearing the theological response, specifically Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue And the moral imperative of anti-bullying preaching, teaching, and activism, by Cody J. Sanders:

Marriage QUESTIONS

I went to a wedding last weekend, a lovely affair. But a couple weeks earlier, there was a party, and at least one of the guests used that “ball and chain” language that I THOUGHT went out of fashion last century.

It seems to me that marriage IS under attack, usually by people who are in it. The standard, now cliched statement from straight people in “support” of gay marriage is something like: “Why shouldn’t they have a chance to be as miserable as we are?” Meh.

I’m curious about how this Prop 8 case will work out. If it is not appealed, then gay marriage would be permissible in California. If it IS appealed, and Prop 8 is ruled unconstitutional, then gay marriage would likely be permissible in all of the Ninth Circuit. And if the case goes to the Supreme Court, which most people think is inevitable -though I’m not sure, and Prop 8 loses, gay marriage could be legal across the country. BTW, you can read the transcript of Perry vs. Schwarzenegger HERE.

In the "Who moved my cheese?" department

It’s my wife’s birthday today – happy birthday, Carol! – and we have been chuckling lately over something that started off as annoying.

She’s a deacon in our church. A few weeks ago, she substituted for another deacon in preparing a snack for after the service. She had bought, with her own money, a block of cheese, had cut it up, put it on a plastic plate, covered it up with plastic wrap, and brought it to church at 9:30 a.m., at which point she went to Bible study.

At 10:30, she went to transfer said cheese onto a nicer plate, but she could not find the cheese. She looked around for a time, finally finding the plate of cheese in the garbage. There were other snacks, but she was understandably annoyed, actually less about the waste of money and more about the waste of time preparing said cheese, then looking for it.

There is a policy – these are Presbyterians, so naturally there’s a policy – that food in the refrigerator need be labeled and dated, but Carol never thought that the food she brought could be dumped in an hour. (By contrast, when they cleaned out the refrigerators at my work place on July 9, we got a week’s e-mail notice, with large notices also on the fridges.)

Carol tells the deacon for whom she substituted about the situation, so she could be alerted when next that deacon served snacks the following week. Then the fun began

A Trifurcated Fourth

I really enjoyed the first part of July 4th; the second part, not so much.

We were getting ready for church. My wife seemed to be moving rather casually to get to the FOCUS joint worship service at 9:30. Apparently, she had it in her mind that the service was at 10:30. When I occasionally complain that my wife operates on assumptions not based on fact, this would be a good example.

Plan B: to go to Emmaus United Methodist Church in our neighborhood. As I have mentioned, I stopped going to the other Methodist Church, Trinity, a decade ago. This service started with an African choir of mostly teenagers.