The Next Telemarketer Who Calls Me (Be Warned)

Disjunct in real time

Telephone marketer: “How are you today?”
Me: “Well, I’m not fine.  I’ve got a cold”
Telephone marketer: “Great”

“Great”?
Really?

My dog died
     great
My pony ran away with the mailman
     great
I’ve got snow up to my roof
     great
I lost my job
     great
My husband you want to sell that credit card to is in heaven
     great

It just makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
When did the art of listening disappear?

When did my inability to speak,
     the deep hard chest cough that keeps me awake at night
     the achey soreness of the common cold
     become great news for you?

I really am curious to know
     does a cold make me more susceptible to your sales pitch?
     Nah - we both know better - don’t we?

Your success depends, you think, are taught,
     on not listening to a single thing I say

So the next time one of your kind calls,
     I think that instead of hanging up,
     I’m going to stay on the phone
     and have a little fun – while you
     give me your sales pitch, I’m going
     to give you mine – I imagine it
     going a little something like this:

YOU     How’s it going today?

ME        Do you know Jesus?

YOU     Great.

ME        As your personal Lord and Savior?

YOU     I’m calling about your car warranty.

ME        Do you know where you would go if you died tonight?

YOU     Did you know it’s about to expire?

ME        Will you say the sinner’s prayer with me?

YOU     And for just another $3,000 payable over the next 3 years (plus interest, of course), you can       continue uninterrupted your bumper to bumper coverage (if, of course, you live in the northern regions of Alberta and have 10 children under the age of 4 and can prove that you never drove the car any faster than 20 miles per hour – you know – the usual stuff).

ME        Great.

YOU     So, how about I get my boss on the line.

ME        Just repeat after me: Dear Jesus

YOU     Do you have your credit card ready?

ME        I am a sinner

YOU     I’m sorry – what?  Yeah, it would be a sin not to get this coverage at this great price, wouldn’t it?

ME        without You, I am lost

YOU     Well, that’s nice of you to say – happy I could help.

ME        I invite you into my heart and into my life

YOU     Again, that’s nice, but I really don’t get down to Virginia much.

ME        Amen.

YOU     So here comes my boss.  You have a nice day.  And thank you very much for your business.

Who says Christians (even with bad colds) have no sense of humor?

Murder in a Used Book Store

I love used book stores.  In fact, I love book stores of all kinds.  So it was with some sadness and frustration that I walked into a used book store in Chicago yesterday.  I was smitten with the retro post cards on offer and loved the variety of books and categories – until, that is, I came to the religion section, where in dusty aisles somewhere in Chicago, I met up with the cause of my sadness and frustration.

There were sections on Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, but none on Christianity.

[Sigh]

I forget how, in some circles, it’s ‘popular’ not only to not believe, but to act as if Christianity in fact does not exist.

Next to these stacks was a section entitled ‘theology’.  That’s where the Christian stuff was.

Fair enough, you might say.

But it was also the stack where the books on atheism were.

Christianity and atheism (should I capitalize that?  I really don’t know) side by side as differing ‘theologies’.

[Repeat sigh]

Book store owners should know better: after all, books – the cataloguing and organizing as well as the selling – are their business.

And atheism is not a theology – a ‘word about God’ – it is, if you will, a ‘word about not-God’ – hardly the same thing at all.

I guess I would have put the books on atheism in the adjacent philosophy category.

And isn’t it interesting that of all the faiths represented by the books in that store that Christianity would be present, but not by name?

We are a culture of many experts.

With our freedoms comes the belief that all opinions are equal.

Well, from where I’m standing, they’re not.

I am not, for example, an expert on atheism.

I have some opinions about the non-belief in a deity, but they aren’t particularly well-informed ones.  After all, it’s a view to which I do not subscribe, so there’s only so much I can know about it.

The not-so-veiled commentary on Christianity that the refusal to name it constitutes in that book store strikes me as an uninformed opinion, as does the inclusion of the atheist works among the Christian works.  After all, atheism books were not included among the Buddhist, Islam and Judaism works.

I argued a bit with myself, but ultimately, I put back the post cards and left the shop empty handed.  It just didn’t feel as if the owner and I should be doing business, even the anonymous business of buying a post card, together.  The fact was that I was just too sad to want to anymore, leaving a little of my love on the floor as I walked out.

All opinions are not created equal.

And neither are all book stores.


___________________
SIDE NOTE TO THE ATHEISTS AMONG YOU I am not one of those Christians who believe ‘Happy holidays’ greetings mean you’re trying to murder Jesus.  And when I consider the marginalization of Christianity within the American culture, I ponder it from the point of view of where I stand, as in ‘what are we doing wrong’ rather than in blaming others.  Moreover, the pastor in me took a walk yesterday in front of that store while waiting for my friends to conclude their business, during which I pondered on the failure of my own particular brand of faith to have much to offer others and wondered why.  I know there are a number of answers, all of which sadden me greatly, particularly because it (this faith I call my own) has been such a source of comfort and goodness, rescue and safe haven, for me.  But I daily accept that may not be true for you.  And I cringe probably as often as you do at the statements and behaviors of some of my brethren in the faith.  But even more, I suspect, to the secular humanists among you, truth and facts matter greatly.  And while it is a fact that Christianity has done great harm, it is also true that it has done great good.  Please don’t do the same history rewriting you see among some Christians to try to write out that faith from our shared past.  Please don’t confuse the facts with your opinions.  It’s neither attractive nor accurate on either side of that proverbial fence.  An example: in doing peace work among folk of no faith, MLK’s contributions are characterized entirely as a social (as opposed to a religious or faith) movement.  Omitting the faith element from that period in history creates a false narrative whereby Christian slave owners oppressed those they enslaved without the counter- (and also true) narrative of those oppressed claiming the same faith as their own and resurrecting its own peace, justice and freedom narratives.  If you don’t tell of the faith of many who participated in the Civil Rights movement, you recreate it into your own image, making it something it wasn’t.  Sorry to preach – occupational hazard, I guess.

21 Questions for the Candidates on Foreign Policy: Just a Suggestion

Here are some suggested questions for next week's foreign policy debate.  I really don't want to waste a single minute on how it's been gotten wrong or right in the last four or even last twelve years.  I want to know where we go from here.  And in order to know, as best we can when it comes to predicting future behaviors, I have some questions.

1. Why must Israel be our ‘special’ friend?  Why isn’t it enough that we are allies?  Shouldn’t our goal be to be ‘friends’ with all the nations of the world?  Does speaking ‘for’ human rights for Palestinians equate in your mind to speaking ‘against’ Israel?

2. Why should we arm anyone around the world?  There is a call to arm folks in Syria, which overlooks the obvious question of why arm anyone.  In Syria in particular, who would you arm?  Why?

3. When will either of you bring all our troops (mercenaries/private contractors included) home from Iraq?

4. What is the tipping point for you in moving away from sanctions and towards military solutions (including nuclear attack) against Iran?  In other words, what would trigger a justification for war or military action against Iran?

5. What WWIII dangers do you see right now in the world?  What about Syria/Turkey/Iran/Russia/China/US alignments in regards to the Syrian civil war?  Do you see a danger there of missteps that might lead to global conflict?  What will you do to avoid that?

6. Explain to the American people exactly upon what legal basis, national and international, you would place US ships in the Strait of Hormuz?  Iran has threatened to blockade its own territorial waters in the Strait.  Upon what basis do you claim that the United States would have the justification to militarily oppose such an action?  Do you have any other basis for such a position than ‘because we can’?  Or that cutting off oil (even if done perfectly legally) ‘threatens our national interests abroad’?  Why would it be militarily actionable for Iran to police its own waters however it sees fit?  Please bear in mind that inconvenient or costly or even economically catastrophic is not militarily actionable, else we would have tanks parked on Wall Street.

7. Drones – yes or no.  Usage of drones inevitably takes the position that the lives of civilians, often children, are expendable, more expendable than our own troops.  After all, they aren’t our kids.  How do you justify that?  Will you at least acknowledge that modern warfare as waged by the United States has abandoned even the pretense of acting to protect civilians on all sides?

8. What do you believe solved the Cuban Missile Crisis?  Was it military strength?  Diplomacy?  Some combination?  We teach our children that it was military strength alone that averted nuclear war between the US and the then USSR, omitting from the narrative the behind-the-scenes negotiating that took place whereby the USSR withdrew its missiles from Cuba and we withdrew ours from Turkey.

9. Do you perceive engaging in diplomacy as a sign of weakness or of strength and why?

10. When, if ever, should the United States apologize on the world stage?  When have we gotten it wrong in the last 10-20 years?  Should we admit that?  Why or why not?

11. Name your top 5 principal advisors on matters of foreign policy – the people upon whose advice you most rely.  What is their experience/where and for whom have they worked in the past?  What do they bring to the table as far as you’re concerned?

12. Name one naysayer on matters of foreign policy to whom you regularly listen – someone who sees the world very differently than you do and tells you so.  Name one time when that person changed your mind and why.

13. Name the most important religious principle of your own faith that governs your views on how the United States interacts with other countries and why.

14. Name one person from history whose leadership in world affairs shapes how you think on these issues and one lesson you learned from that person.

15. You are both espousing Christians.  How does your faith inform you on matters of foreign policy?  Specifically, Jesus taught that the other, the enemy, the one not of our tribe, is in fact our neighbor, whom we are to love even as we love ourselves.  How do you see that maxim of the Christian faith played out in your presidency?

16. Constitutionally, the president is the commander-in-chief.  Why, in your view, is this role important to be held by a civilian?  How does investing the duties of commander-in-chief in the civilian office of the presidency serve and promote the public welfare?

17. Surveillance of citizens of the United States by the CIA and other intelligence agencies of the federal government – do you favor or oppose and why?

18. The Patriot Act’s provision making the education of persons or groups on non-violence, peaceful resolution to conflict and utilization of legal recourse an act of terror if provided to persons labeled by the government as terrorists – what, in your view, is the purpose of prohibiting such skills, intended to help people move away from violence and towards peace in solving problems?  How does this provision promote the national security interests of the United States, if at all?  To Mr. Romney – if elected president, would you keep this provision intact or move to rescind it?

19. NAFTA and CAFTA and other free trade agreements are attacked by working people of the countries with whom we have these agreements as decimating their livelihoods.  What changes, if any, would you make to these agreements?  How do these agreements benefit working people in the US or abroad?

20. Please as best you are able refrain in speaking in sound bites or slogans and address the role of the United Nations from your point of view – addressing specifically its positives and not its negatives.  What does the United Nations do well in your view?  Name at least one success story of the United Nations from your point of view.

21. There is much discussion about the Republican strategy regarding taxes of having a pledge, a precommitment, if you will, not to engage in tax-increasing behaviors.  Will you make such a pledge here and now to the American people when it comes to engaging in military action around the world?  Will you pledge not to engage in military action around the world unless you have first sought and obtained from Congress a formal declaration of war?  If you will not, why not?

And So It Goes: Violence, Vengeance, Anger, and Aiming at the Wrong Target

Mosque in Harrisonburg after Friday's vandalsim

The local mosque in Harrisonburg, Virginia, was defaced on Friday, as Muslims in many other parts of the world demonstrated against the film whose name I do not know, dishonoring the Prophet Mohammed, with outbreaks of violence reported.  And we all know what happened earlier in the week in Cairo and Benghazi.

Defacing a mosque might seem ‘small’ in light of these other events, but they all bring to light the inherent problem with enacted anger and the desire for vengeance in the form of violence: it never hits the ‘rightful’ target (if there be such a thing).

Thus do folks around the world give vent to their spleen by attacking people who had nothing to do with the film and may not even have known of its existence and, as many of the targeted folks have made clear, disagree with its contents.

And in counter-attack, unknown people closer to home for me attack a building and thereby the people who worship there, none of whom have anything to do with the demonstrations and violence around the world.  The Muslim community in Harrisonburg simply has the misfortune of being handy by virtue of proximity.

So to the Muslim community around the world engaging in violent demonstrations, I would say that most Americans have not even heard of this film, most will not view it, of the ones who view it, most will find its contents disgusting and disturbing, and none of those you are attacking had anything to do with the film or its publication.  If there be an enemy, you’re aiming at the wrong one.

And to my fellow American citizens (presumably most of whom self-identify as Christian) who are speaking anger and rage at all Muslims, who are engaging in vandalism and violence (yes, our words can be as violent as our fists), take a breath and take a moment to watch the counter-demonstrations in Libya, where thousands of Muslims have gathered to protest against the violence to our embassy officials there, holding signs in a language many do not speak (English) in order to show their solidarity and support with us.  And remember that like Christians, Muslims around the world number in the millions, if not billions.  Yesterday, most of ‘them’ behaved like most of ‘us’ – by going to work, to worship, loving their families, praying for peace.

The outbreak of violence anywhere has the potential to bring out either the best – or the worst – in each of us.  The vandalism against the mosque in Harrisonburg is an example of the worst.

In response to the vandalism, the Muslim community there has invited the Harrisonburg community to an Open House at the Mosque from 4.30 - 6.00 p.m. for gathering and celebration of the best of that community.  Visit We Are All Harrisonburg on FaceBook or the Mosque's web site at IASV.org for more details.

Our Muslim brothers and sisters in Harrisonburg are modeling to rest of us the spirit of the best of us in response to this violence.  If you’re in the area, I hope you will attend.  If you cannot, I hope and pray you will send them messages of love, encouragement and support.