Christmas 2008


Here I am,
At the end of a road
Again.
The lights
Of just another Bethlehem,
Ornaments
Like tiny stars --
A cold wind.
They tell me
Over and over,
There’s just no room at the Inn.
Not a single, solitary place
To be sheltered in…

I see a tear
On Mary’s cheek.
So tired,
The Baby
Just can’t sleep,
He cries out
From His altar –
When He came here
Looking
For a manger.
How could He know
What
We would do to Him?

A story
Is more than paper,
Like something
In a package
Under the tree.
We wonder
And shake it --
Hope what it
Will be.
Maybe a baby
A gift
To you and me.

Here I am,
At the end of a road
Again.
The lights
Of just another Bethlehem…

Star bright, Star light
What will I see tonight?

Advent and Christmas

I believe that advent ("the waiting") is the time for our preparation for the experience of remembering and celebrating creation. To me, creation is the very essence of Christmas. The union of the reality of our human existence and that creative spirit in the nature of things; the offspring that is me, as I look in the mirror, and beyond me, as I look beyond the mirror, beyond my cognition, beyond even the powers of my cognition. As a Christian, I struggle to relate to what it must have been like to be Jesus, the thoughts... the feelings... the fears... the hopes... the love... so that I might better follow Him. Such a daunting enterprise... so, at this time of year I celebrate the simplest, most beautiful, most mysterious image of all our experiences... the baby.
The Baby is Jesus. The angels sing, the universe pays homage... and so do I.

I realize that the "real" time of Christmas can be, like other times, very different from the "meaning" of Christmas. So, "real" Christmases in the shopping malls, in the midst of our dysfunctional culture, government, economy, familes and personal lives are often all the more poignant and sad; hopes of peace, love, beauty, "the Baby" seem so far away and even silly. In his ministry, over and over Jesus spoke to all kinds of people seemingly caught in their lives, caught in "real" Christmases, and he said, "stop, look, listen... their is a kingdom of heaven at hand all around you." In that kingdom, that is right here and right now, there are angels singing, shepherd's tending their flocks, wise men coming from the East and there is "the Baby."

Jesus message is difficult to swallow, perhaps especially at Christmas. There is no natural (as in laws of nature), moral, theological, cultural or other imperative from God, Jesus or any other authority that imposes Christmas, in its essence, upon us. To be in the "kingdom of heaven" is a choice, and a difficult one at that. It is a choice beyond rational, beyond feelings that we feel comfortable with... ultimately a matter of faith; faith so strong that, as Jesus put it, we must be willing to or even really "die" in some sense to experience it.

The stories, like our lives, can be hard, unlike the story of the Baby in the manger at Bethlehem. And so, in advent, we must prepare ourselves to leave those stories behind. We must look deep within our spirits, look into the stars in the skies, look at what is beautiful and enduring in the midst of and in spite of everything. We must raise our eyes to the heavens and prepare to sing with the heavenly host. The power of God. The image of the Baby Jesus.



Creating Christmas: Discovering the Sacraments of the Nativity



I recently read an account of the Christmas story in Newsweek, an article analyzing the biblical accounts in historical perspective; questioning the proof for the related events.
It was a very respectable and thoughtful article for its purpose, “… we can see that the Nativity saga is neither fully fanciful nor fully factual but a layered narrative of early tradition and enduring theology… .”

The Christmas story told in Matthew and Luke is certainly retrospective and second-hand information. There is no contemporaneous narration. Nor do any of the accounts of Jesus teachings or actions specifically refer to or enlighten us about the actual events at his birth. One can surmise, like the author of the Newsweek article, that this status of our knowledge about the events of the Christmas story, in general, and the lack of any first hand account, more specifically, results from the fact the importance of the events was not and really could not have been recognized contemporaneously. It is certainly true that for the most part the participants in the recounted events were not of social, political or other status to expect that they would have provided written accounts, or that others around them would have deemed their lives and activities “newsworthy.”

My reaction is not quite so glib. In any event, to me, to analyze the Christmas story as literal history versus literary exposition misses the point. God could certainly have included an eyewitness account had He seen fit. Moreover, as I thought about it, the approach we have to take through the available information to understand or otherwise “process” Christmas seems to be, in and of itself, part of the story.

Recently, there was a group of infamous trial lawyers whose notoriety came from outlandish aggressiveness. Whenever a witness would attempt to offer evidence of his/her name, birthdate or other such identifying information, the lawyers would vigorously make objection – hearsay! What can a person know about such matters other than what they have been told?

So, as we mature into self-awareness, we create the first chapters of our life stories, the foundation of our identities, from the bits and pieces of historical and second-hand information that comes to us from family, photographs, and all kinds of sources. It is this kind of information that plays a seminal part in my creation of me.

The Christmas story is an account of creation. Genesis is cosmology – an account of God creating and participating in the universe. Christmas is genealogy -- an account of our spiritual lineage. I look at the Christmas story like looking into a baby book. There are the snapshots, the footprints, the swaddling cloth… -- as real as the wounded flesh that Thomas demanded for his belief. As unreal as life itself – in the manger or after the cross. God, here among us, here within me.

If I am to be a Christian, I must weave those images into myself and make them real in my own life. It is Jesus’ baby book; it is my own spiritual baby book. Creating Christmas in me is the manner in which grace, forgiveness, love, everlasting life – everything Jesus stood for – are born in me. These are God’s Christmas presents, to be unwrapped and used as I might strive for the potential that is both beyond and within me.

How do you create the innocence, beauty and audacity of birth – even your own birth? What do you know about the being you see in the baby book? Creating Christmas is not easy. It is a task we do not often have the stomach for, since we have become so different, so occupied by other things, so preoccupied by fears, doubts and maturity. Let us ponder the lessons, analyze the historical data, reach out for Jesus’ wounds… .

I think Scrooge finds out that creating Christmas is about the aesthetic, not the empirical experience of things. In our aesthetic sense, there are ghosts and there are angels, there are stars that give directions, there are kings from faraway kingdoms bearing gifts, there is a Holy Presence which is the fountain of all procreation… . To say “aesthetic” is not to deny the literal, but to recognize that the literal is not all of the story. God’s reality is the palette on which we are drawn in perspective with all creation, in all shades of color and light. We know that is true with every image on every Christmas card that we have ever carefully selected to send that special Christmas message.

The angels, the songs, the stable, the manger, the shepherds, the wise men … these are the sacraments of Christmas -- those special ornaments we unpack and admire every year in those special places -- those things from the baby book that tell us who Jesus was, who we are. They are sacraments of mysterious and real truth. It is the truth beyond understanding. The truth of Joy, Love, Peace and Goodness -- the truth of the Baby Jesus.

I believe that God’s promise, through Jesus, is that if we will believe in these things, if we will participate in these sacraments, then they will become a part of us – the enduring part of us, the perfect part of us that will be welcomed into God’s own family.

44:44 and the Mason Dixon line

Before we get too euphoric about a new age of unity, change and the future of our nation, consider geography. If we look at a map of the alignment of states and the location of the territores at the civil war, and compare with the 2008 electoral map, the division of the north states and south states is eerily similar. Kansas, West Virginia and Missouri go to the south (McCain). Virginia goes to the north (Obama). Florida (now New York south) goes north (Obama). North Carolina is too close to call. Remember at the time of the Civil War a big controversy was over how to admit the new states without tipping the balance of power. The Missouri Compromise sought to avoid war by evenly dividing the territories into allies of north and allies of south. Note the almost even division of territories from the civil war map compared to the electoral map. Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Washington to north (Obama). Arizona, Indan territory, Nebraska territory, Dakota territory and Utah to south (McCain). So we have to wonder if we have progressed, or if we are simply replaying the history of our basic divisions. By the way, that division in 2008 is very close 52-48%, on a good day for the democrats. We know the division was very deep in 1860, deep enough to fight a bloody and cruel war. How deep is the division, still about the same in territory and numbers, today? I think it is very important in view of this to consider the nature of the division. Part of the division at the civil war was certainly about race. With the election we have a feeling that things have changed, but looking at the map have they really? I think the answer is certainly things have changed in the south, but we cannot overestimate the lingering effect of racism in shaping the 2008 map. Part of the civil war was about urban vs. rural. That seems unquestionably similar to today; Obama won in the old south territories because he captured the new urban centers in those old southern states. Part of the civil war was about industry vs. agriculture. To me that is the least analogous area. Certainly, increased industrialization of the south does not seem to have overshadowed other factors to align those industrialized southern areas with the north. Ironically, the south remains the bible belt vs. the less fundamentalist Christianity and more cosmopolitan nature that might be attributed to the north. To a serious Christian like myself, this is very troubling. It appears on the map almost unmistakable that fundamentalist Christianity is still linked to heritages that include lingering influences of racism and rural resistance to the problems, influences and changes that dominae the emerging world.

I would not for a minute ignore the monumental possibilities that seem to be hinted at in the current election. But I cannot look at the map and not also realize the serious dangers and challenges that face us.





2008 election:



election:

Leadership

It's quite an election. I'm wondering if this is happening because it's the right time, or it's the right time because the right guy has come along. I'm thinking for other black pioneers, breaking the race barrier was just the beginning of the story. Jackie Robinson, for instance, had to be better than white baseball players, in all kinds of ways, in order to succeed as a major league baseball player; any failure, even a temporary or predictable shortcoming, would have been used to confirm racial stereotypes of the day. I'm hoping it is different for Obama. It is an impossible job in the first place. He may or may not excel in whole or in part; he may or may not fail in whole or in part. We need to be past the point at which the judgment of his performance in this job will be a report card for the inherent qualities of his race. We need for race not to be the issue of his presidency. I think it may be the right time because of the black pioneers that have come before him, and the heritage and perspective they have given all of us; I think of Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson, Bill Cosby, Opray Winfrey - and many, many others who have weaved into and enriched the fabric of our culture, for their race and beyond their race for all of us. I think he might be the right person because of his apparent calmness and confidence in the eye of the perfect storm.

For some reason this morning I thought about president Kennedy's announcement, May 21, 1961, that the US would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. By any objective analysis, this was nothing more than "trash talk" aimed at the Soviets who seemed to have taken an advantage in the cold war by launching their rocket. Yet, we did it. The world we know today has been shaped by the technology, knowledge, spirit and confidence engendered by that effort.
In the end, I think that the true measure of leadership is in reaching for goals beyond our grasp. Encouraging us to do merely what it is clearly within our abilities and strengths turns out to be just cheerleading.

So, when there seems to be so little to cheer about, what we clearly need is a leader.

No One Makes Out at the Movies Anymore

Love: No One Makes Out at Movies Anymore

I’m making the observation of the circumstance that no one makes out at movies anymore…

I have to admit that I am a bit weak on empirical research. But, when’s the last time you saw the usher have to go up to the back row and warn them, ”Break it up, or I’m going to kick you out…?”

Or an enraged patron yelling, “Hey bozos, get a room!”

I can tell you that I made out at the movies like a fiend for many years.

I was a slow starter. The first time I asked for a kiss, I was told that I could have one if I scored 100 points at the basketball game that evening. I was in 6th grade. Of course, I was no Wilt Chamberlain, but I gave it my best shot. Coach Wilder learned a lesson about coaching 6th graders that night; he never knew what hit him. I nearly lost my place on the team and failed utterly in all my romantic intentions. Of course, now I realize that I probably wouldn’t have got the kiss even if I had scored the points.

Years later that same girl, out of the blue, moved into my dorm at college, a circumstance that defied any calculation. I got a kiss then without even having to play basketball or any other game, so I guess the breaks turned out about even on that one. The chance of making out it seems, like hope, springs eternal.

I learned to make out in California. Yeah, California -- some of this circumstance stuff is better than anything I could ever make up! On the other hand, my California wasn’t what you are probably thinking. We moved there in the summer of 1965, when a lot of L.A. (Watts) was burning like a trash heap. We wound up in a wasteland in the Mojave Desert, and barely got out in one piece after only 6 months. Out of all the enduring lessons I might have learned from that experience, probably the most important was how to make out. Ironically even though it was in California, I didn’t learn how to make out at the movies. There was this park, and a high school girl… So, my perfection of making out at the movies occurred when I got back to Texas, first at the Paramount Theater in downtown Abilene, and later at the Burnet Drive-In in Austin. As I write this, there are many who don’t know or don’t remember what eight track recordings or drive-in movies are (or were). The two most crucial implements of love that I may ever know… . God certainly does have a sense of humor.

I acquired a number of invaluable skills associated with making out. To this very day, depending on the status of my arthritis, I can unhook almost any bra with one hand with one flick of the wrist. I learned how to make a hickey on purpose, and how to cover it up with flesh tone makeup. As a technician, I could, much to my dad’s chagrin, install an eight track in any kind of vehicle; I could repair damage to a console between the bucket seats with brackets and a screw-driver before dad or mom let on that they noticed the damage and thus had to require an explanation. You find the inherent superiority of Smokey Robinson or the Everly Brothers over the Beatles and the Stones, and the movies with a lot of music over those with too much shooting or shouting. You discover where the new subdivisions are going in and from where you can overlook downtown. You develop this sense of perception of unusual lights or sounds, even in the height of involvement, in case of the cops or bad guys.

Most of all, I found out about girls, and about boys and about people – how a girl can make a boy do things and feel things, and how a boy can make a girl do things and feel things and how people communicate about things in all kinds of ways. If I close my eyes, I can remember the smell of her perfume or my of cologne (which she bought me for my birthday) or of the chewing gum we chewed and the tastes that could never be covered over and never should have been. I remember when the breaths quickened. I remember when there were nervous laughs, and nervous tears. I remember worrying that I was bad, or that she would get tired of me. I remember the utter joy when she kissed me back

These were the things that were to me like the lyrics of the songs I was singing along to, or the words that I read in the books I was reading, or the talk that was coming into the car in the remote speakers. Things that were for me different from bounce passes or double plays or grades in school or success/failure – or even Jesus.

Jesus dropped out of history during his make out years, almost without a trace. There he is, a kid in the temple, lost from his family, amazing the priests with his understanding -- then he’s 30, getting saved by John, acknowledged by God and tempted by the devil. For me, after I led the singing, voted on all the temple issues and preached all those sermons to mom and nan as a kid, I had no such anonymity from history, from God, or from Jesus (me or the other one). It was a circumstance combining a kind of freedom, a sense of uncharted waters of new circumstance and the undeniable urgings of my mind, body and heart juiced up on testosterone and other assorted hormones.

We moved from Austin to Abilene the summer after my sophomore year in high school; I was 17. I drove the rental moving van with my dad as the only passenger. I was literally abuzz from the make out session I had with my girlfriend the night before – the goodbye of our relationship. Dad knew, either consciously, or like another guy knows without really knowing or saying. And at that time he says the first thing (and, as I think about it, maybe the last thing) I ever remember him saying to me about sex. It was a communication something to me kind of like God acknowledging Jesus when Jesus just got baptized.

I’ve thought about that scene with me and my dad many times. I’ve thought that the timing was absolutely hilarious, or coincidental, or ironic or maybe even pathetic. Mostly, I’ve concluded that it was just about right. Sex was definitely on the near horizon past making out; my dad’s affirmation was oddly appropriate. More importantly, I believe that there are some things that a man or a woman or a person has to find out about for themselves, like those things I learned in the movies, in the car or various other venues in the early mid 1960’s. Maybe even Jesus had to in those unrecorded pages of his history under the stars that were there 2000 years ago… .

Jesus’ life exploded into manhood and into history. He helped some little people, pissed off some big people, frustrated everyone’s expectations and got executed. C.S. Lewis has written that you either have to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and worship and follow Him, or dismiss him as a lunatic. The Jesus in me has always been a little bit of both. Maybe that’s true about the real Jesus too.


He said:
“All you need is love.”
“Love is all you need.”

As I sat making out with my girlfriend in the back of a movie theater in Denver, Colorado, in the summer of 1970, watching “Woodstock,” I believe that I thought I had come to the same conclusion, though I was almost certainly hoping for better breaks than what Jesus got. At that time in my life, in my society, in my world -- not entirely unlike Jesus’ situation -- circumstance was swirling around love like the winds of the storms around the eye of a hurricane. There were executions and there were wars and there was a mighty empire abirthing in exuberance, excess, pure joy and pure agony. There were new cures, new hopes, new stars, new frontiers and there were new possibilities. There was revolution and there was repression everywhere all at the same time. There was good and there was evil like always; but, for the first time it occurred to everyone that they, the good and the evil, would not survive.

One of my best friends, an FBI agent for many years, always told me that the true story is always the simplest. Most of the stories I have been told about love, especially the love that Jesus was talking about, are not very simple at all.

I do know that I loved those girls that I made out with at the movies back in the roaring 60’s, in a very plain and simple way. I know that if that love was not all of what I needed, it was most certainly a part of what I needed and is a part of what I need today and will always need. I know that if Jesus never made out, he at least understood what it was about; like the way he felt when the woman washed his feet in perfume with her hair, there in the back seats at the pharisee’s banquet.. I know that the popes and the preachers make a perilous mistake when the ignore or repress or even condemn “making out” love in search for agape or something more clean, more pure, more complicated or more grandiose.

So, I’m wondering if I’m wrong about people not making out at the movies any more. And I’m wondering, if they don’t, where do they discover the important mysteries about how they are supposed to love God, love another and be loved….?

A Storm

I remember Ike,
Nickname for Dwight –
Black and white images,
Fatherly voice on the radio,
A President in Washington.

I’ve heard about
D-day in France,
Armistice…
How strange it must have felt,
Watching the boys --
Storming the beaches of France
With all the power and ferocity
The allies could muster,
Taming the suburbs of America
With modular housing,
’55 T-birds
And ’57 chevrolets.
Half a century ago.

Today, I’m looking at Ike,
An angry red army of forces
On infrared weather imaging,
Storming the beaches of Texas
With power and ferocity
That only nature can muster –
Sacking the beachside suburbs,
Sending the boys packing
In their toyotas
And SUV’s.

Ike and Ike.
Icons of history,
Beacons from Camelot,
Doppler images on our cultural radar.

We may wreak chaos in waves of bombs and bullets,
Noxious fumes and plastic bags…
Atom bombs.
We may experience chaos
In the awesome power of thunder and lightning,
The will of the wind and sea
Hurricanes.


Amidst it all,
We long for peace and quiet,
Like heaven.
But the stillness
Is only death and darkness.
We exist
In the cacophony and chaos,
And God is with us…
Alive…
The Light.

Cain Meets Judas (remix)

Cain,
From the ground
Gave Judas the silver.
Forged into a sword,
Thrust into Abel’s heart.
The Lamb bled
Into the earth.
Jesus arose.

The killers’ defiance,
“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The Savior heals
Friend and foe --

“Violence can only bring violence.’

Judas self destructs
In the silence of the Lamb.
Cain’s mark,
The sign of a cross,
Starkly standing
On a craggy hill
East of Eden.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Geography is out of control.
Seems like I’m downloading my GPS daily,
Trying to find myself
Among all the new addresses.
Checking my passport
For the jurisdiction
Of the state I’m in.

I’m told you now have to prove you’re legal
To get a driver’s license.
I’m wondering,
“If you have the proof
Where do you need to go?”

I learned to drive
On I-20 between Abilene and Dallas.
I was 15,
Gas was cheap,
Engines were full of horses,
200 miles to Northpark Mall
Was just a seatbeltless Sunday drive.
Joy was at 90, no radar in sight,
Wisdom the product of Burma Shave.
That’s all the proof I’ll ever need
For driving legal.

Moses drove
A big yellow school bus on a
Deserted desert highway,
Egypt to the Promised Land.
No muffler,
Full of brown people
With crying babies, and
Clucking chickens in cages.
He got his license
On top of the mountain.
Etched in stone
By the Chief of Police himself --
Hung it on the rear view mirror,
With the fuzzy dice.

I’m an old man now,
Maybe not old enough…
I’ve learned a lot of things,
Probably not enough…
But I’ve concluded that
Legal is just a piece of paper
Laid over Moses’ rock,
A sure winner –
‘til its
Cut to shreds
By the scissors
In a desperate man’s hands.

The Moon

Up in the distance
The shapes I am in
Suspended
All quiet…
And cold.
I ask a question.
I shed a tear.
I am the moon…
Just waiting here.

I will shine for you
When your daylight is done
To remind you
Of the warmth of the sun.

I reflect the light
And you see on me
The craters and scars
That have affected me.

I foretell your fortunes,
Dance with your seas
Your darkest secrets
Are known only by me.

You raise your head and howl…

Up in the distance
The shapes I am in
Suspended
All quiet…
And cold.
I ask a question.
I shed a tear.
I am the moon…
Just waiting here.

tough love

Tough Love

I remember a teacher of mine in some class I took one time, talking about how the Eskimos had about a jillion words for “snow” and/or “ice.” Those different words conveyed different things about the subject, like a word for the kind of ice that would support a man to walk across a frozen lake to perhaps do a little fishing. It seems that the nuances of the word had a direct link to the kind of information about the subject needed in that environment for survival.

Sunday school teachers and preachers of mine along the way have referred to the different words the Greeks had for our word “love.” It seems they in their language distinguished between brotherly love or sexual love or love for God; at least that’s what the preachers preached about. However, in our culture we know from the Beatles that “All You Need Is Love” and from the Church that “God is Love,” but we don’t get very much sophistication about what “love” means. It’s the same word on the graffiti in the bathroom, the “come on” in pornography, the images in our art and the aspirations of our Bible.

And here I am looking for a nuance that will tell me if my “love” will, for example, support a man in walking through the valleys and the shadows of death.

My spiritual mentor, Rick Diamond, tells me he is writing a book about “love.” He is afraid to send it to the publisher. I am hoping he can find the courage because I can hardly wait. In that, I do not think I am alone.

I know I have been “in love” several times with varying responses or results; I have “loved my fellow man” just as I have betrayed him; I have “loved” many noble causes and ideals, and behaved similarly to others that were not so noble or idyllic. It is hard to come to any generalization about “love” from those experiences – either the good or the bad. And so, right now, sitting here believing that God is, indeed, “Love,” it is difficult to believe that I know anything at all about Him or what to expect from Him.

Even if I try to put different words, like the Greeks, or different concepts, like separate formulas, or even try to apply the different stories, like the phases of my life, I cannot reach a comfort level with “love,” to rely on the word with any degree of faith or confidence.

Someone else tells me that the problem is that “love” is a verb, not a noun. That seems to make matters worse. I cannot hope to do that which I cannot fathom. And so it seems that my actions and aspirations are limited by my failure to know “love.” I might be absolutely committed to doing everything and anything for “love,” and not have the vaguest notion about what I am actually doing.

Today I’m confronting the notion of “tough love.” That seems to be a nuance of “love” (or “tough” too for that matter) that has some applicability or relevance at this time.

My comprehension and feelings about “tough” do not seem nearly as shaky and undependable as those regarding “love.” Yet, I confess an almost tangible anxiety about whether “tough love” is an oxymoron, perhaps a cruel one. Whether I should dismiss the Old Testament, the rules, the parents, and all the other authorities as merely barbaric; I realize that I am angry and jealous and violent and rebellious and a parent myself… .

The idea that education has to be painful seems to be a primary tenet of “tough love.” I must be a harsh, almost cruel taskmaster to be an effective teacher, mentor, parent, leader – I know you get the point. While the caricature of the nun at Catholic school, the coach on the sports field, the general at war, all evoke some degree of derision and disapproval, it seems that there is some basic belief, down inside most of us, to the effect of “that is what it takes.” Inevitably in these circumstances there is the parable of the Indian mother who does not participate in the ritual of putting her baby’s hand into the campfire; the baby thus doesn’t learn the danger of fire and is afterward extinguished in some horrific episode of combustion in one form or another, because he/she didn’t learn that fire is dangerous.

It doesn’t take much reflection to expose this parable as a load of crap. If the baby, as a baby, is exposed to the danger of fire, there is some obvious failure of adult supervision; doubtful that any degree of education to the baby equips that baby to protect him/her self. If the baby makes it to any degree of maturity and doesn’t, on his/her recognizance, learn about flames, heat, pain, injury, then fire is probably the least of their worries. It turns out that the ritual, with the parents all around the campfire collectively engaging in child abuse, is about some cultural programming that does not have anything to do with the specific danger of fire at all. How we cannot be trusted to find out things for ourselves. How we must learn about stuff, like fire, according to the rituals and rules that have been laid down by the caretakers. How we cannot take care of ourselves, but rather, must rely on the caretakers and the rules and the rituals to protect us. How pain is part of the punishment to be administered by our caretakers for our failures and frailties.

Often we apply the same methodology of the Indian fire ritual to language, math, maturity, manhood, culture, social clubs, religion, Jesus and God. Maybe there is even some strain of this mentality in the story of Jesus’ death on the cross – even Jesus, and maybe even God, have to learn the hard way. Tough love?

I confess that my negative feelings about “tough love” are likely because most of the time that concept has been brought up to me, it has been a negative assessment; in fact, as I think about it, most of the time I have brought it up to others it has also been as a negative assessment. “Tough love,” or more accurately the lack of it, is how we have screwed up our children, our grandchildren or our families, or is the change that is needed to competently deal with family crises. “Tough love” is the reason you have to tell your buddy that his zipper is down, or that he is drinking too much; why you have to tell your wife that her butt is too saggy for that pair of pants. “Tough love” is making clear the mistake so he/she can properly learn from it; withholding what he/she wants “for their own good.” Just thinking about it, clearly there is a fine line between being a “tough lover,” and being a judgmental asshole.

There is an unmistakable trend in the evidence that the best I want for others corresponds with my perception of (1) what is best for me, and/or (2) my own value judgments about what is “best.” It also occurs to me that while there is the “tough love” in a lot of these situations, too often the “love” is for him/her and the “tough” inures to my benefit one way or the other; maybe to pay the loved one back for the inconvenient consequences imposed on me. Too many times the “tough” is tougher than the “love” is loving.

I wonder if there is “tough love,” are there other kinds or variations of love that we need to consider – “soft love,” “crazy love,” “dumb love,” “foolish love,” “pointless love…” ? More fundamentally, I wonder if “love” needs any kind of modifier at all? In the lives of us all, pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, peace and turmoil all certainly come into play. The question is, “Do we need different rationales for these things that happen to us, or that we bring to the lives of others around us – different kinds of love – to make sense and, more importantly, to keep our concept of love intact? It seems this may be just another articulation of the problem of evil – it is easy enough to believe in God’s love and the love given to us by others in the good times, but what about the other stuff that happens? It seems easy enough to love God and love others when things are going the way we want, but how do we react in the other times?

“Tough love” tells me/you that, “what doesn’t kill me/you makes us stronger.” What is the point of being strongly miserable? Is that the best I can do? Is that the best God can do?

So, we come to the nub of it, Eric Clapton a/k/a Derek and the Dominoes wails “Why does love have to be so sad?”

I could say it is because I don’t understand – don’t see the whole picture.
I could say it is because I only focus on myself.
I could say it is because I’m not trying to see the glass half-full.
I could say it is because my character is bad, or at least flawed in some fundamental way.
I could say it is because my third grade teacher blamed me for something I didn’t do.
I could say it is because my mother quit breast-feeding me too soon – or too late.
I could say it is because my dad moved us around too much.

I have said all of that stuff. I think maybe you have said most of that stuff too. Look at it. I wonder when it is that I started wanting sympathy instead of love? I wonder, is that desire for sympathy instead of love the reason for the attraction of “tough love?”

I heard a local blues musician, W.C. Clark, talking to a bunch of kids about his music.
“Some people ask my why the blues is such sad music,” he said.
Then he laughed with a twinkle in his eye, “I don’t know how they can say that when you see that you can’t listen without tapping your foot or clapping your hands.”

I think it’s hard for me to remember sometimes why I’m tapping my foot – that feeling of rebellion and defiance against the “tough” that is unmistakably and undeniably joy itself. I think it hard for me to remember sometimes that the joy is inside me and all around me, built into me and everybody and everything, no matter what I try to do to cover it up, to change it up, or to screw it up.

I think it important for a believer to remember the gift of God’s love. When we sing that sad song, we will all clap our hands together.