Just some notes...

A lot of things have passed through the old head lately. Time to listen to the soundtrack to "The Pacific" and process some of it.

I guess every man reaches a point in life where he has to sit down and really contemplate what is important to him and what he really wants out of life. Maybe that is what's happening. In that process, a lot of memories are coming to mind. Some of it is just old fashioned nostalgia and some of it is honest reflection.

I'll start with a candid confession from this old Georgia boy. I'm actually a dual citizen - a naturalized Georgian. I was born into the warm springtime of the Sunshine State in the very shadow of figures known to turn the stomachs of Georgians everywhere. And yes, I'm still a Southerner - I hail from the part of the state that is pronounced "Flar-da", far from the invasive snowbird population.

I used to think of it as "you can't help where mama was sitting when you were born" but the progression of time and the fond memories made with family that still inhabits the area as well as many vacations "back home" have changed my attitude. While I am now firmly planted in the land of the Cherokees, that old Seminole wind still blows through my hair from time to time.

I don't usually eat my grits for breakfast - civilized people know they are meant to be eaten with fried fish - hopefully in the company of 50 or so of your closest relatives. I learned to catch said fish on a majestic plot of water by the name of Orange Lake - planted there by the hand of God and not by some TVA dam. I know a cow bird when I see one. I was an adult before I realized that they actually raise Thoroughbreds in Kentucky. I know that watermelon rinds should be disposed of by tossing them across the fence into the cow pasture. Dirt roads are more durable when made with limestone. Throw in the ubiquitous Spanish moss and white sand and I was blessed to enjoy a Florida that most Disney visitors will never see.

Meanwhile, back upon the red clay...

I can remember the neighborhood boys building huts in the woods and searching for various monsters, warding off some persistent Russians and even a stray Nazi or two. I remember 60,000 screaming fans showing up at one of our backyards to watch us play f0r football championships. There were huge family gatherings for the holidays that weren't spent in Florida - the Christmases when we actually had to wear shirts and long pants.

Rich memories. Happy times. Simple joys.

But people grow and family dynamics change. A farm is sold. An old home is torn down. A beloved school is replaced by a department store. Neighbors move away. Places transform and even seem to disappear at times. Familiar settings can become as foreign as Michigan.....or even France.

But the old things give way to new. This is not always a bad thing. It means that there are new places, new people, new traditions, new memories. My sons are in the process of constructing their own nostalgia and learning the stories they will tell their kids. It is my job to make sure they have good bricks with which to build.

This brings my thoughts back around to the idea of what I want out of life - the adventures, experiences, people and places that will give my sons those bricks that will form the foundation of the nostalgia for my grandchildren. And while neither my children nor grandchildren are likely to ever play on a two-track white sand driveway beneath the live oaks, they will carry memories along that will mean just as much to them.

That is what I want. That is a dream that gives me hope.

Here's your sign.

Well. here we go. Seems like there are rocks being thrown back and forth about the "Pledge of Allegiance" again.

Apparently, someone decided that the "Billy Graham Parkway" in Charlotte was a good place to put up a billboard. I'm unfamiliar with that particular road but I am assuming that it is a major thoroughfare with heavy traffic. Sounds like a good place for an advertising billboard.

And so a private organization practiced one of the grand acts of capitalism and entered into an advertising campaign agreement with the owner of the sign. Money was paid for the right to post the sign and up it went.

Now, before you get upset that the atheist group that sponsored the sign was trying to take a swipe a t minister Graham, these signs went up in several locations in North Carolina. It isn't just this road.

The Pledge has become a major battleground in this culture war that, to quote Marco Ramius, has "no battles, no monuments... only casualties". But the war continues just the same. Now, I have my own take on "Pledge controversy" and the sign shows the problem I have with the Pledge. This is country is neither "One Nation" nor "indivisible". It is 50 nations that have the right, even the responsibility to dissolve their union if it becomes detrimental to the well-being of their people. But no one ever seems to complain about that. They are too busy trying to either drag God into it or extricate Him from it. And it is a sad state on both fronts.

However, in this particular instance, the atheists have done nothing wrong. They broke no laws, trespassed on no other person's property and damaged nothing. But some vandals trespassed on private property and spray painted the name of their deity on a legally placed message that had been properly secured and paid for. The vandals have interfered with capitalist enterprise - they have in effect, broken a few of the 10 Commandments in an attempt to defend the honor of the all-seeing, all-powerful, all knowing God. Covetousness, thievery, and maybe even idolatry.

Idolatry? Yes. You see, in the book of Colossians, Paul tells us that Jesus is the "image of the invisible God". He is the God we see. By stepping in and trying to put a substitute for God on the atheists' sign, they may have placed a god (one of their own creation) above the very Christ they claim to worship and who should be evident through the way they live their lives - like love before vandalism. This is a terrible crime that all Christians should look upon as a moment of shame.

We took our sons to see the new "Karate Kid" movie this week and I heard something in it that I think speaks volumes to this crime. Mr Han is explaining to Dre why the lessons he has been learning are important to Kung Fu. He tells him "Kung Fu lives in everything we do. It lives in how we put on a jacket. It lives in how we treat people. Everything is Kung Fu". The same is supposed to be true of faith in Christ - to paraphrase: Jesus lives in everything we do. He lives in how we react to atheists, in how we love our neighbors, everything is Jesus.

Spray painting "God" on someone's property is not Jesus.

Ugly

Well, I have had a good week. Nothing ugly about it. No complaints. But there have been two things that have happened that are forcing this entry. 1) McGuire's just informed me that the stout is only $1 tonight (and I'm nowhere near Pensacola) leaving me rather grumpy and 2) I just finished another book, and as Stephen King taught me "read a lot, write a lot". So, I'm turning up Queen and writing.

Keeping my tradition of not wasting my time on books that have not offended anyone, I chose to read a book that was stamped with that statement "If this were not a free country, this book would be banned". Yeah, had to read it when I saw that.

So I read "The Ugly American" by William Lederer ad Eugene Burdick. It was a challenge to dive into a work that had a reputation that promised to challenge me. But I have come to love such stretching and just dove in. As usual, there was a lot to reap.

I've come to learn in the last several years that the arts, especially books, offer a multi-tier message that cover intended and unintended topics. The authors intended to address the problems within the united States Foreign Service during the Eisenhower Administration and Americans abroad in general and I was forced to deal with that. But the topic also covered the state of the modern Church in America.

Regardless of which way you look at it, the whole idea boils down to the choice of mutually beneficial actions or self-serving actions, symbiosis or parasitism, altruism or arrogance. It comes down to on question, in policy and in practice, "do we really care about people or are we just here to use them?"

I understand the frustrations of Gilbert MacWhite, "The Ragtime Kid" and "Tex" Wolcheck as they attempted to try to make a difference in southeast Asia by actually understanding the people, the culture, the way of life of the native people. These men, and others, understood that capitalism was the best opportunity for the people of Asia but that it was not going to look like American capitalism. They understood that the people didn't need the flash, glitz and the price tags that the u.S. government put on its foreign policy. They needed a better chance to earn a living and they weren't looking for handouts. They were looking for opportunity to do it themselves. I understand these frustrations because I have confronted evangelical leaders and begged them to care about people and have been labeled as a heretic for my efforts.

MacWhite sent off one final letter to Washington to seek the resources, the manpower, the permission to do the things that needed to be done to really empower the fictional nation of Sarkhan - only to be disappointed by politicians that were unaware that the box had an outside and who could never hope to think there and who were too self-serving to care about the people of rural Sarkhan.

"The Ragtime Kid" had his ultimate opportunity squashed by a staff member that couldn't see past his own Americanism to understand the culture of Sarkhan and the fact that one man was about to eliminate the influence of Red China over an entire nation.

Wolcheck found himself drunk and and unimpressed at the rebuke of a powerful senator, threatening him with bodily harm if he did not "have a drink with us and keep your mouth shut" or leave.

The consensus among the powers that be were that the new, innovative and, more importantly, benevolent ideas wouldn't work, weren't feasible and "wouldn't do enough". But the problem is that when it comes to helping people, bigger is not always better, handouts are not always better and people aren't looking to be just like us.

So, if an American can help a Cambodian farmer get his chickens to lay more eggs or help his fellow man find answers to the spiritual questions he is seeking, it doesn't matter if the farmer remains Cambodian or the seeker is never "presentable" in most churches. The question is "was a need met?" This might require someone learning to speak Khmer or to learn to not speak "Churchese" but if the best outcome is truly desired, the effort will not be difficult.

But if we are stuck in a box, I think I'll go fishing...or better yet, just play with my kids.

This post might be a little ambiguous for those who have never read the book....maybe ambiguous enough to fix that problem. Give it a try.