Africa's February may be a landmark month ...

Bahrain's streets flooded with protesters 

Egypt's revolution, still tenuous, still dangerous, appears to not be the only such hot spot in Africa and the Middle East. Yemen and Iran, Libya and Algeria, Bahrain and beyond. Twenty protesters killed in Libya, others last night in Bahrain.

In Yemen, pro and anti-government protesters liven the debate.

The spillover from such unrest is likely to be global and significant. Bahrain looks to be troublesome as protesters demonstrate peacefully and riot police attack them. Deaths and injuries, lying government, haves and haven'ts, privileged and the voiceless.

TEHRAN, Iran -- Hardline Iranian lawmakers called on Tuesday (15 FEB) for the country's opposition leaders to face trial and be put to death, a day after clashes between opposition protesters and security forces left one person dead and dozens injured.

Iran protests continue to grow as thousands

of Iranians gathered in several Tehran

locations to participate in a

solidarity rally with Egypt and

Tunisia, officials said.

Speculations over what it all means floods the news. The collapse of stable circumstance, we're warned by some means the rise of radical Islamic regimes. The turmoil in Bahrain perhaps threatens the security of the U.S. Navy 5th Fleet based there. The Islamic brotherhood in Egypt will perhaps undo years of progress. Dire warnings abound. Few mention that people who've been deprived a voice in their own country's destiny are being given a chance. People who have been robbed by their governments are given a chance to change things. People who have been unfairly imprisoned will be able to breath freely, at least for now.

Notice in the photo, in Iran, protesters participate in solidarity rally with Egypt and Tunisia. Against Mubarak!

Friday morning, Feb 18, thousands in the square in Cairo, strikes continue, and the death count in Bahrain is up to six.

Such upheaval never goes smoothly or quickly.  Recovery will take decades, at least.

Regardless of the outcome, at least for now, some are achieving a little freedom, a little justice, and perhaps most important, a little hope.

To all the girls ...

To all the girls 
who are in a hurry 
to have a boyfriend or 
get married, a piece of 
biblical advice: "Ruth patiently waited for her mate Boaz."  

While you are waiting on YOUR Boaz, 
don't settle for any of his relatives; 
   Lyin-az,     Cheatin-az, 
    Dumb-az,   Drunk-az, 
     Cheap-az,  Crazy-az,
      Lazy-az, and especially his third 
          cousin Beatinyo-az.  
     Wait on your Boaz and make sure he respects Yoaz.

Volumes can and have been written on making this decision wisely. I think the brief instruction above summarizes it rather well.  

Today's households in the U.S. with the traditional married mom and dad plus kids, they have dropped below 50% recently. There are a number of reasons we might suggest.  The most compelling among the reasons; marriage isn't all that appealing in our culture any more.  Having had a good look, why would a person want to marry?

Marriage has changed and become progressively less relevant over the last few decades; the word 'marriage' has lost it's earliest meaning. Long before the issues of divorce and remarriage, of same-sex marriage, and of shotgun weddings, it was unique and more simply understood.

Marriage isn't:  the solution to your problems, the way out of a difficult family, the answer to an empty life, or the fulfillment of your dreams and desires.  And it isn't a ceremony; that has but little to do with your success.

Marriage is:  two becoming one, whatever that means.

Love and romance may flood us with feelings, but marriage is much more.
  Marriage is a choice.  Or more accurately, it's many choices, thoughtfully made over years, perhaps.  Learning to share joy, values, priorities, problems and solutions.  Choosing to care about the other.
       The choices mark the path you've chosen, and if you extend that line forward, you'll see your destination.
             In order to be wisely made, the choices cannot rest on feelings alone.

Happy Valentines Day.

Blacker than a Hundred Midnights ...

"I will not allow one prejudiced person or one million or one hundred million to blight my life. I will not let prejudice or any of its attendant humiliations and injustices bear me down to spiritual defeat. My inner life is mine, and I shall defend and maintain its integrity against all the powers of hell." James Weldon Johnson, ed. (1871–1938).  The Book of American Negro Poetry.  1922.

The Creation

AND God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
“I’m lonely—
I’ll make me a world.”
And far as the eye of God could see	5
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,	10
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said, “That’s good!”
Then God reached out and took the light in His hands,
And God rolled the light around in His hands	15
Until He made the sun;
And He set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,	20
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said, “That’s good!”	25
Then God himself stepped down—
And the sun was on His right hand,
And the moon was on His left;
The stars were clustered about His head,
And the earth was under His feet.	30
And God walked, and where He trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.
Then He stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.	35
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And He spat out the seven seas;
He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed;
He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled;
And the waters above the earth came down,	40
The cooling waters came down.
Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,	45
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around His shoulder.	50
Then God raised His arm and He waved His hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And He said, “Bring forth! Bring forth!”
And quicker than God could drop His hand.
Fishes and fowls	55
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said, “That’s good!”	60
Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that He had made.
He looked at His sun,
And He looked at His moon,	65
And He looked at His little stars;
He looked on His world
With all its living things,
And God said, “I’m lonely still.”
Then God sat down	70
On the side of a hill where He could think;
By a deep, wide river He sat down;
With His head in His hands,
God thought and thought,
Till He thought, “I’ll make me a man!”	75
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty	80
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,	85
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;
Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul. Amen. Amen.	90
James Weldon Johnson was an early leader of the NAACP serving as field secretary beginning in 1916 where he helped organize the “Silent March” in New York City in 1917 following the white mob murders and destruction in East St. Louis, Illinois.

What is church anyway?

    It's a safe place.

It's full of folks; each arrives with baggage and none are perfect yet.

  It's where you go, knowing you'll be received lovingly.
It's a place to dump all the weight and get refreshed and refocused.
     It's a classroom for practical stuff.
  It's a library of accumulated wisdom.
 It's a connection point for good-hearted folks.
It's a good place to find folks who've been through what you're facing.
  It's a pep rally to pump us up when we need it.
It's a place of solace when we need it, and a refuge.



It's the launch point for our lives in a tumultuous world; maybe that, most of all.


It's not perfect, but it's learning and changing.

If it's not, it's not church.  It's something else.

If it's speaking an antique language, it's an antique.
If it's polarized and polarizing, it's political.
If it's rule based, it's a court for judgement.
If it's exclusive, it's a country club.
If it's ethnically narrow, it's just broken.
If it's the center of member's lives, it's a cloister of irrelevance.

The church is not the gospel, by the way.

The real purpose of church?  Making a place for all of us to know our Father and for equipping us all to be the light on every hill, in every office and marketplace, every neighborhood and classroom.  We are the light that the world sees every day; we are the message He sends.

~ there's more of course, but this stuff always comes up ~

You're nuts if ...

If you're off the main path that normal people take, you're nuts.

Obviously.

Most people, at least the normal ones, will make the same choices in the same circumstances.  That's why they call it 'normal'; it's the norm.  It's predictable, low risk,  expected.  It's the way things are, the normal process, the only option.  There's tremendous pressure to keep to the path.

The pressure to conform assaults us early on.  As teens labor to emerge into adulthood, peer pressure constricts and directs so much of the process.  Later as adults, the expectation of others weighs heavily on us, erodes our confidence, and clouds our thinking.

The normal pathway is fine for most folks most of the time, but it's predictable.  Little personal progress will be made; don't expect change or anything new along the way.

Same-o, same-o, nothing in the brain-o.

OK you've chosen, your bridges are in flames, and now you're officially off the path.  You're nuts, but you've picked your path.  How do you work through the questions?

I'm off the main track.  True?
I've chosen this way.  Do I know why?
    Is it logic?  Is it a passion?  Is it a dream I've had since ....?

Either I'm really nuts ...
  ... or I see this point of focus;  it's important to me because ...
    I want to understand.
      I think I can make a difference.  I think I can help.
        I think I can see a way through.
           I'd be willing to spend myself if it will make a difference.
    I'd like to try.  I'd honestly like to do more than just what's expected, and I can face not being like everyone else.

It's all high-risk, unpredictable, and everybody thinks you're out in left field.

People you may have heard of and who were also nuts.  Gates, Jobs, Mother Theresa, Edison, Rockefeller, Roosevelt, Martin Luther, Issac Newton, Lottie Moon.  All off the main pathway, each with a motivation, an opportunity, an impact.  How'd they do?

So, you change the context of your life.  Change your worldview until it includes humanity.  See behind the headlines.  Skip the mainstream answers, and ask harder questions.  Push hard at the boundaries, at the cultural norms, at the expectations of others.  Courage is non-conformity.

Scared?  You bet. But you'll have more fun than the normal folks.

UPDATE:  DEC '13.  My African pastor friend decided with his wife to take in a bunch of orphans and help them stay healthy and get through school and have a home and family.  Sixteen of them; it's a mob scene!  He's off the beaten path, of course, but he says the smiles on the children's faces makes it worth the effort.  Let me know if you'd like to lend a hand; I'll introduce you to the family.

Marketing Violence

Curious why children might become violent?

The media, whose influence can exceed that of parents, was the subject of an FTC study a few years ago.  The results are not comforting.  The report made the following key findings about the marketing of violent entertainment material by industry:

Movies: Of the 44 movies rated R for violence the Commission selected for its study, the Commission found that 35, or 80 percent, were targeted to children under 17. Marketing plans for 28 of those 44, or 64 percent, contained express statements that the film's target audience included children under 17. Plans for the other seven movies were either extremely similar to the plans of the films that did identify an under-17 target audience, or they detailed plans indicating they were targeting that age group, such as promoting the film in high schools or publications with majority under-17 audiences.

Music: Of the 55 music recordings with explicit content labels the Commission selected for its review, the Commission found that all were targeted to children under 17. Marketing plans for 15, or 27 percent, expressly identified children under 17 as part of their target audience. The documents for the remaining 40 explicit-content labeled recordings did not expressly state the age of the target audience, but detailed plans indicating they were targeting that age group, including placing advertising in media that would reach a majority or substantial percentage of children under 17.

Games: Of the 118 electronic games with a Mature rating for violence, the Commission selected for its study, 83, or 70 percent, targeted children under 17. The marketing plans for 60 of these, or 51 percent, expressly included children under 17 in the target audience.

By themselves, these movies, music, and games would not guarantee a violent child.  Taken in the context of a harsh home environment or a tense school culture, the probability increases.

Now you can understand why so many consider homeschooling and managed exposure to the world, especially for the early years.  Children are educated and their character is shaped by what they experience, by their play, by what they see.

Update 2018:  investigation into school shooting incidents uncovered a number of the perpetrators had studied the Columbine event and planned similarly.  The two Columbine shooters were spectacularized in the media around the world, influencing an entire generation.