Glitterati ¶In a sermon I listened to this week, the preacher used the phrase, 'all that glitters is not gold.' My initial random thought was the JRR Tolkein poem about Strider/Aragorn, 'all that is gold does not glitter...' The next random thought was to zero in on the word glitter that is in each of the phrases. From there I went on a journey based in glitter. For some it is the starting and ending point of any kind of decorating. The first question is, 'What can I do with glitter today? What is going to be the theme of this project with a glitter base?' The last question, more rhetorical than anything is, 'Does this need more glitter? Of course it does.' At the other extreme are those who hate glitter on anything because it gets on everything and stays there for all eternity. They would rather burn a house down than find one more piece of glitter in it. The rest of us fall somewhere on the love/hate continuum of glitter. ¶I realized that there are folks, I decided to call them glitterati, who have a way of leaving a mark on the lives and surfaces of everyone they meet. Little sparkles of sunshine and moonbeams flow from them and follow them wherever they go. Once they have touched something it bears the mark of their presence forever after. There are folks who are deeply annoyed by those who are always cheerful, or at least joyful. Others are deeply moved by the flow of positivity that flows and explodes from these glitterati. The rest of us notice them, and are somewhere between grateful for and indifferent to their presence around us. ¶ Some glitterati spread their sparkle of sunshine and moonbeams with flamboyance and flare. They are the life of the party and people flock around them at any opportunity. They are a party and a parade all in one package. It is not an act, it is a sincere expression of who they are and how they live in the world. They know that not all is right with the world even as they choose to spread as much joy and cheer as they possibly can into a world that needs a lot more joy than we usually see. ¶Other members of the glitterati are more subdued. They have a deep well of joy from which to draw and share it in their own quiet way. They are a procession and a gathering rather than a parade and party. They exude the same joy with a time release formula. They don't take over a space so much as lay a foundation under it to support and uplift everyone without most people noticing. ¶My guess is that the glitterati don't know that they are glitter bearers - the rest of us know how they are, and they may see all the others without noticing the glow and sparkle in themselves. Think about the glitterati you may know and let the thought of them be a sparkle of sunshine in your day. 1.11.2024

¶I have always celebrated Advent, even when I had to fight to do it. I softened my stance through the years as far as hymns and carols, however, never enough to satisfy everyone who was ready for Christmas. There was often more heat than light in the discussions, with plenty of guilt on both sides of the conversation. This year, I have had some time and distance to consider what it is about Advent that makes it an important part of the preparation for Christmas. ¶American culture begins celebrating Christmas as early as July, and I am good with that. I enjoy Christmas music, peace on earth, and goodwill to all. It is too bad we don’t keep Christmas in our hearts all year. The Church lives by a different rhythm. In the lectionary cycle, a three-year series of Scripture readings, we remember the arc of salvation history from beginning to end. More accurately, we remember salvation history from end to end. The season of Advent begins the cycle. The first Sunday of Advent tells of the end of the world as we know it. It seems a downright stupid place to start. My dad taught me to begin a wedding rehearsal at the end. ‘Place everyone where they are going to be at the end of the service. That way they will know where they are heading as they process up the aisle.’ ¶Beginning at the end is not the usual way to tell a story. For those who are hurt, frightened, oppressed, downtrodden, it is a great source of comfort to know that, while the story plays out with some bad things happening, the people of God win because in the end God wins. Knowing what happens to us, helps us weather the storms we encounter on the way. ¶The other Sundays of Advent continue to be less than cheery. John the Baptist tells us that we are in trouble with God and desperately in need of repentance before we can ever meet the Savior. The third week, John calls us all snakes/vipers who run the risk of being among those who will be burned up like chaff, unless we straighten up and fly right. Not the merriest of thoughts while we are trying to keep the smiles on our faces through traffic jams and crowds of people, through supply chain breakdowns, back orders, and other forms of delay that just might ruin Christmas. Week four of this year, Mary runs to visit Elizabeth to avoid the possibility of being stoned to death for a pregnancy before her actual marriage to Joseph. Mary and Elizabeth do get to celebrate together that God has seen fit to trust them with these special lives they carry. In all of this there is an undercurrent of danger and the possibility of death for many. ¶Advent reminds us that Jesus does not come to world that is ready and waiting, with packages wrapped and bows tied as neatly as department store professionals manage to do it. Nope, Jesus comes into a world that is broken, and unkind to those who most need the support of the world. Jesus comes to the outcast, the disabled, the downtrodden and offers them hope that those of us who have more than enough will find it in our hearts to share some of our bounty more than twice a year, and as more than a gesture to salve our consciences. Jesus comes to flip over tables and drive out all those who have taken the place of God in our lives. ¶Advent is a little slower than the season outside the Church. In Advent we are waiting with anticipation rather than scurrying and shopping. We look to our hearts rather than our wallets to see if we can afford to welcome Jesus into our lives, knowing that he comes to carry out a counter cultural revolution. Jesus is intent on calling us to God. We are not being called out of the world, we are being called into the world, to stand with those who need us rather than to support those who promise to help us get the next bigger, better toy/tool/machine/item. ¶While I am happy to join the celebration of Christmas, beginning in June or the day after Thanksgiving, I am also moved to celebrate the season of Advent. Advent reminds me that there are those around me, as well as those who have been pushed to the fringes of society, who do not experience any joy at Christmas or any other time of the year. Advent reminds me to use my voice, my vote, my time, energy, all the resources I have available to change the systems that cause and contribute to the poverty that many experience. ¶Sing ‘Joy to the World,’ ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas,’ and all the other Christmas songs and carols that bring joy to this season. At the same time, I commend singing ‘Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus,’ and ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,’ and other Advent hymns to serve as a reminder that we are a world in need of a Savior.

Among other things, Indiana is an agricultural state. While it may not be that obvious in some places, it is very obvious on the county roads. In the spring and fall, planting and harvest seasons, it is likely that you will meet or get behind a piece of farm machinery that is going as fast it can but still way under the speed limit. And if the reason you chose the county road was to avoid all the slow-moving traffic on the highway, you are more likely to get behind that piece of machinery and for a longer stretch of miles. You can honk and the farmer will wave but won’t be able to get out of your way. You can lay on the horn and the machine may slow down a bit, just to boil your blood a little faster. You could try running into the machine to push it off the road, but chances are good that the damage will be to your vehicle more than the machine. So, the best solution is to cool your jets, enjoy the scenery, tell folks you got stuck behind a farm machine and they will both commiserate and laugh, because they have probably done the same thing. ¶Turns out, it is not the machinery on the road that is the problem. If you want to eat, you will have to tolerate farm work during busy farm seasons. The problem is our sense of being inconvenienced, which comes down to a sense of entitlement. ‘When I am in a hurry, everyone should be out of my way so I can make good time.’ But, the roads are not yours to control or command. Roads are for transportation of many sorts. I started with farm machines because they are bigger than cars and trucks so you can be annoyed without the prospect of being able to act on the road rage you may feel. ¶What about smaller things, you know, like bicycles? ‘Bicycles don’t belong on the roads; they belong on the sidewalk or bike paths.’ Unless of course you are on the sidewalk, in which case bicycles belong on the streets or bike paths. It isn’t the machine, the bicycle, it is the inconvenience of a bicycle either getting in your way or running you off the sidewalk. Again, it is the sense of entitlement we carry rather than the actual people and machines involved. ¶I took a break from writing to go to a dentist appointment. After a heavy rain with lightning and thunder some of the traffic lights were out. The driver’s manual says to treat malfunctioning traffic lights as four way stops. We did not. Several vehicles went through at once, sometimes blocking traffic flow from other directions. I was going to be late to my appointment, so I may have acted entitled even though I was in the process of writing this. ¶On the other hand, when I asked my friendly, neighborhood bike shop employee if there are as many people injured in car bike collisions as it seems in the bicycles forums I stalk, I was assured that there are more people who drive and ride safely than are involved in accidents. He added that about thirty percent of car bike accidents are from bikes riding against the traffic instead of with it. Accidents will happen as drivers show their resentment of the little punk bikes that get in the way of their big cars, and as bikers ride in ways that seemed good until someone gets hurt or killed. ¶Where else does entitlement keep us from sharing space with any of ‘those’ people? I am sure we each have our list of annoying people and things that get in our way when we are in a hurry, as well as those who rush us when we are calming ourselves by taking things more slowly for a moment. I am pretty sure no one is going to feel less entitled from having read this, maybe one of us will be able to call our annoyance by a different name – entitlement.

I believe I am coming to understand the election of Donald Trump. I still don’t like it, I still don’t agree with it; however I have no question that he is our President. Donald Trump ran on a platform of jobs, jobs and more jobs for American workers. Hillary ran on a platform of unity and how that unity makes us stronger. It is a wonderful platitude that does not help anyone. Like it or not, the majority of us were willing to look past that and vote for her anyway. The Trump team concentrated their efforts where they would do the most good and came out victorious where it matters, in the electoral college. The President also painted a picture of the world as a fearful place to live. If only we could secure our borders and get rid of all the people who don’t belong in our country, we might begin to feel safe in our own homes and cities and beyond. And with all of ‘those people’ out of the way we can finally have our jobs back. The fact that more American jobs have been lost to automation than to outsourcing or immigrants was never mentioned. A part of our fears of living in our current state of affairs is that the world is changing more quickly than we are able to adapt. Wouldn’t it be nice to go back to a time in which we each had a place and a role that was set in stone. Men went to work and earned enough to support a family. Women stayed home and kept the house and children in order. If a woman felt the need to work she could be a nurse or a teacher. Children were a wonderful addition to a home as long as they had any and all rambunctiousness out of their systems by the time dad got home at the end of a work day. We lived in neighborhoods populated by people with whom we shared most of our characteristics. Our neighbors shared our racial, ethnic, and economic status so we had a lot to talk about as we gathered in our back yards and on our patios. Since there were only three television networks, we could talk about what we watched with at least one third of our neighbors. Life was simple, at least as we look back on it. For many in the electoral majority, these times were a watershed moment in our lives. In the mid-1960s this dependability began to unravel. Women began to join the workforce. People of color became vocal in the desire to be treated with dignity, as human beings, as people of sacred worth. Even as we recognized the points as valid, we were caught off guard by how much change was required to accommodate these changes. There was a growing need for childcare as women went to work. Employers discovered they could pay each of us less since there were two workers in the family. Most of the time, women could be paid even less, just because. Schedules became unsettled as differing work hours made our clockwork lives impossible. As racial and ethnic minorities claimed a place next to us in our workplaces and neighborhoods we were forced to face our attitudes about ‘those people’ who were now a part of ‘us,’ however distant that connection may have been. As cable television became the standard, we had more choices and less in common with those around us. President Trump played on our fears, our feeling that as things change they are getting worse. And he did it well and convincingly. As President he continues to lead us as if the world is coming apart at the seams. Perhaps it is. We are not the only nation facing upheaval as the world grows smaller, as we are thrust into closer contact with a lot of ‘others.’ The only way we can protect ourselves is to build walls and battlements to keep ourselves from harm. It won’t work. Most of our illegal immigrants entered legally from India and China, overstayed their visas, suddenly making them illegal. They entered the country by airplane rather than walking or driving across the border. As for domestic terrorism, more people in this country are killed by other Americans than by ‘those people.’ So, yes there are compelling reasons to have voted for our current President. Many of my friends did just that. Their votes do not make them morons, racists, misogynists, among the insults hurled by those in the middle and on the left. I don’t pretend to know all the reasons folks may have voted as they did. I know that many of the people who voted for Donald Trump are good people and voted for him in good and clear conscience. There are folks who voted for President Trump that I do not want to spend time around, because they have shown themselves to be morons, racists, misogynists and other unpleasant kinds of folks. There are folks who voted for Hillary who are good people and voted for her in good and clear conscience. There are folks who voted for Hillary who are also toxic to be around for their attitudes that brand those not like them as disgusting and unwelcome in their circles. No matter how many of us vote for and long for a promised return to the stability of a former time; those times are past. We can only move forward. While some can imagine moving toward a stability based on what used to be normal, I can’t. We, as a world of people and nations, will probably take a few reeling steps sideways and backward as we look into the future with its uncertainty, chaos, even randomness, and we will lurch and stumble into the future as we have so many times before.

Follow the Money

In at least one of the police procedural shows I watch, the mantra of one of the characters is, “Follow the money.” When you figure out where the support is coming from you have a better handle on suspects, motives and timing of the crime. It seems to me that it is time to follow the money of one of the most divisive questions in church and social polity and policy - homosexuality. One of the folks who attended the United Methodist General Conference of 1972, the year the statement regarding homosexuality being incompatible with Christian teaching, said that a group of which he was a part was approached with a request for a favor from some avowed conservatives. The request was, give us this one paragraph, it won’t mean anything. And so that sentence was added to the Book of Discipline in 1972 and has been a bone of contention ever since. So, my question is, who is the driving influence behind this whole issue? As far as the Bible homosexuality is a matter of little import. Taken in or out of context it is a minor issue. If folks wanted an issue of moral weight why not emphasize a justice issue like caring for widows and orphans or an issue that impacts how we lead our lives such as fasting, hearing and doing the word and will of God? Because it became a social and religious issue, I have a suspicion, conspiracy theory though it may be, that there is a person or group who convinced a larger and larger piece of the population that this was and is an issue of great import. While the biblical witness, including Jesus, speaks against divorce it has become commonplace to allow divorced people to participate in most aspects of society and religion. When I was much younger my father introduced me to a friend of his and spoke to him for a few minutes. After the friend left my father told me that this man was a pastor until he got a divorce. He was not a run-of-the-mill pastor, as if there is such a thing, he had served directly under the bishop. Divorce is sad, and necessary, and still sin. That battle had already been fought and won and lost in the church and society by 1972. I guess we needed a new test of faithfulness. I am not really interested in who is right because we each know that we have chosen the side that will be vindicated by history, by God and perhaps both. I am interested in when and where and how this particular issue sprouted legs and began to toddle, walk, run and stomp among us. It may not even make any difference to the whole argument if we find out where it came from. It seems that our battle lines are drawn so deeply that there may not be any healing of the rifts in my lifetime. As is often the case with these questions a new generation will rise to power and they will come up with an answer that evaded us. From what I have seen of social research there is an answer brewing and perking in generations younger than I. For the most part their answer seems to be, so what? Denominations have taken stands for and against homosexuality, homosexual marriage, homosexual ordination as the principle issues. These groups may or may not reexamine their stances as years go by and we will learn to live with the decisions and choices made with varying degrees of comfort and ease or we will work to align our denominational stances with our principled views of the will of God. My question remains, where did this whole issue come from? Who birthed and nurtured this unimportant paragraph into a full blown culture war?