On Chester and Lester, Keith and Doug

Chester and Lester were brothers.  They were both dishonest businessmen, unfaithful to their wives, abusive of their children, and cruel to their employees.  Then Lester died.

Chester went to a pastor who had been recruited to conduct the funeral service and made an offer: “I will give your church $1 million if you say in your sermon that Lester was a saint.”

The pastor served a small and struggling congregation.  $1 million would save it.  He accepted Chester’s offer.

On the day of the funeral, the pastor began his sermon like this:

“You all know that Lester was a dishonest businessman, unfaithful to his wife, abusive of his children and cruel to his employees.  But compared to his brother Chester, Lester was a saint.”

*****

I’ve always called myself an independent voter.  I admit that I have voted for Democrats more often than Republicans, but I have voted for Republicans, and once in the distant past was interviewed by the Republican party about the possibility of being a candidate in a local election.  In recent years, however, I have been less likely to vote for Republicans, and since the party starting kowtowing to Trump, I have informed my family that they should lock me in my room on Election Day if I ever hinted at voting for a Republican.

But sometimes it’s hard to be a Democrat.

We Democrats are idealistic people with a tendency toward naivete. As Attorney General nominee in this year’s election, Minnesota Democrats (actually, in Minnesota they are known as “DFLers”, since the party is officially the Democratic Farmer Labor Party) selected Keith Ellison.  Mr. Ellison has served honorably in the United States House of Representatives for 11 years, and is deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Soon after the campaign got underway, allegations were made that Mr. Ellison was guilty of domestic abuse.  Now I am certain that if these allegations had been made against a Republican candidate, the Democratic machine would have been all over them like Viking defensive linemen on a fumbled football.  But shucks—Mr. Ellison is one of ours, and he says he didn’t do it, so he deserves the benefit of the doubt much more than any Republican, and besides, a law firm tied to the party says he didn’t do it, so that’s that.  Democrats believe in believing women who make such charges, unless they are making them against one of ours, in which case…. Besides, we haven’t gotten over Al Franken yet.  Well, some proposed that the party drop its endorsement of Ellison and select another candidate, but Democrats are loyal people, and he is a Significant Person in the national party, so that did not come to pass.

Mr. Ellison is African-American.  He is Muslim.  We Democrats were sure that would not matter out in what is called “Greater Minnesota.”  Unfortunately, we might have been a touch overly optimistic out there.  Now he has been accused of domestic abuse.  And he has made it clear that his primary agenda as Attorney General would be to take on the Trump administration with a series of law suits. This sounds to me like wanting to be pastor of Melanchthon Memorial Lutheran Church in order to reform the National Council of Churches.

Guess what.  His opponent is now ahead in the polls.  The Republican.  To put this in perspective, Minnesota has had Democratic Attorneys General since 1971.

The Republican nominee is one Doug Wardlow, who represented my neighborhood in the Minnesota House of Representatives for one term.  As far as I am concerned, he is what Mark Twain once called “a good man in the worst sense of the word.”  He is a faithful churchgoer.  He worries that Christians are victims of discrimination in this country.  (He probably also thinks that white men are oppressed.) He is strongly anti-abortion and anti-same sex marriage. Mr. Wardlow wants to “de-politicize” the Attorney General’s office.  He has said that he will do that by firing all the Democrats who work there.  Sounds like a plan to me. “De-politicizing” at its best.

The election reminds me of Chester and Lester.

A guy cannot reasonably expect purity in the political realm.  He has to make a choice anyway.  I don’t like Ellison, but I will vote for him, because in comparison to his opponent, he is Thomas Jefferson. Strange bedfellows, and all that.

Ain’t politics fun?

Pass the Clotted Cream

In pursuit of a pint of Tennent’s Lager (if you’ve never tried it, don’t miss the chance), I sidled up to the bar at a hotel in Scotland’s Northern Highlands, and wound up behind an American dude who was hectoring the sweet young thing tending bar about the inability of the Scotch to make a decent Scotch, loudly proclaiming that they had better Scotch back in Ohio.  To me this is like walking into a restaurant in Mexico City and telling them that Taco Bell in Ottumwa, Iowa, makes better Mexican food.

After his wind was exhausted the gentleman grudgingly accepted a straight Scotch, whatever the young lady considered least objectionable.  She poured it for him, but then he complained that a straight Scotch meant Scotch on ice.  She put a few cubes in his glass, and he said that he wanted more ice, and when she gave him more ice, he complained that she had given him too much ice.

Eventually he walked away.  I think I saw a “Make America Great Again” cap in his back pocket.  I ordered my beer, doing my best to do it with a German accent, lest I be identified as a countryman of this Ugly American.

It was just one of the highlights of a recent tour the lovely Mrs. McKinley and I undertook through England, Wales and Scotland, accompanied by our two daughters who came along to make sure their doddering elders didn’t get lost somewhere in the depths of the Edinburgh castle.  It was a delightful trip.

We were part of “Terry’s Clan,” a cheerful little gang of 47 tourists—Americans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and Singaporeans—under the leadership of Terry, a knowledgeable, cheerful and diligent tour guide, and Grant, capable of doing amazing things piloting a large bus on small roads. (For those who might be interested in such things, I consider the job of the tour guide similar to being pastor of a congregation.  You are trying to get a group of people to go somewhere they originally agreed to go, but might now have some reservations about.  There will be some in the group who demand constant attention. And so forth.) Terry instructed us to always look cheerful when we met other touring groups, which he referred to as “tribes”, as distinguished from our own “clan” identity.

We travel the easy way, well suited to us at this stage of life.  Somebody else books the hotel.  Somebody else drives the bus.  Somebody else totes the luggage.  Have your bags outside your room at 7, bus leaves at 8, be on it.  The good life, although after a few days of traveling in a group of 47 and a trip through airports in London and Atlanta and a long plane flight home, my outlook on humanity is less benign than it was when we planned the trip at home.

It was a trip running over with highlights:

• We actually saw a pair of royals. We were lingering over a late afternoon refreshment at Kensington Palace when daughter-the-elder, our resident expert in royalty, stirred at the sight of an elderly couple coming down some exterior stairs and walking across the courtyard where we were sitting.  She seemed to have on gardening gloves, and the both of them were clad in exactly the kind of rumpled outdoorsy clothes one would expect well-to-do English persons to wear.  They were, daughter-the-elder pointed out, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke being a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.  It turns out that Kensington Palace is an up-scale dormitory for royal people, with a whole gang of them having apartments in there.  Moving around is taking place.  The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, empty-nesters, are moving into a smaller apartment, part of a chain of movement designed to create more space for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, or, as they are better known, Harry and Megan.  Sad to say, H & M were not available. I am sure they regretted missing the chance to see us. We did see one Duke and Duchess set, which is one more than I have ever seen before.
• We experienced the joy of scones with clotted cream and jam. Accompanied by a good cup of tea, this is a treat to delight and pacify the surliest grouch, and I am looking at you, Mr. Trump.  If more Americans would give up their Starbucks habit and go to scones with clotted cream and jam with a cup of tea, we would be a happier, more relaxed nation.  Fatter maybe, but….  Sad to say, though, heated debate does still take place over whether one puts on the clotted cream first and then the jam, or vice versa. I come down firmly on the clotted cream first side.
• We came close to “my” land. I do own land in the Scottish Highlands, you see, which entitles me to the title of “Laird Steven of Glencoe.”  I had the description of the land with me and its latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates.  Terry and Grant were trying to figure out a way to re-route the bus in order to take everyone to see my land.  When I pointed out to Terry that my land adds up to one square foot, not necessarily on a road, his zeal waned, and it ended up “somewhere over those hills.”
• We saw the remarkable diversity of Great Britain. Driving through a small town south of Glasgow we passed a restaurant called “Masala Twist Indian Cuisine.”  In an equally small town in the highlands it was “Mehmood’s Curry House.”
• We visited a sheep farm and saw the amazing sheep dogs at work. The lovely Mrs. McKinley even got to help sheer one of them. I was unsuccessful in smuggling a pup into my luggage.
• We walked Matthew Street in Liverpool, the location of the Cavern Club, where the Beatles often played early in their career. It is, let us say, a happening place, interesting to see and experience but, as the title of a Cormac McCarthy novel put it, “No Country for Old Men” or women. Ironically, the two surviving Beatles, Paul and Ringo, are both older than yours truly.
• I set foot on the St. Andrew’s Links in Scotland, Valhalla to every golfer and the home of golf. Didn’t play there.  That would probably have been a disaster.  But did walk there, and got a hat.  I also got a sweater vest with the St. Andrew’s logo on it.  I will wear it to church this Sunday.  I have a friend at church who is always sporting shirts and sweaters from this or that golf course.  I will walk up to him and stick out my chest.  Okay, that’s not a very Christian attitude, but still.
• We walked along the Thames in warm early evening softness, crossed the Westminster Bridge under Big Ben (currently under repair) and headed on out to Trafalgar Square, had a bite of dessert, then walked back to our hotel. On the Trafalgar side of the bridge it was like walking through a weekend crowd at the Minnesota State Fair.

It was fun while it lasted, 2200 miles on a bus over 12 days. (Here’s something to think about.  The bus had a push button transmission.  In addition to the normal “Ps” and “Rs” and all that, the buttons were all marked in Braille.  I’d be worried about a driver who needed that.)  From the unbelievable crowds and traffic of London to the unpronounceable words on the street signs in Cardiff to the Isle of Skye and the York Minster and back again to London, it was quite a trip.  I am a collector of pens, and I brought back a bunch of them, including one from “Shakespeare’s Birthplace.” When I was a boy I had a Stan Musial bat, figuring that with that, I would be able to hit like Stan the Man.  Equipped with this pen, I will be able to write like Shakespeare.

Now we are home, back to the ordinary routines of life, back to walking the dog and cooking the meals and doing the laundry and being assaulted by political commercials, not one of which did we see for two full weeks.  Back to watching BBC programs on PBS and Netflix.  And home is just fine.  But it would be even better with Tennent’s, not to mention scones with clotted cream and jam.

 

On Elections and Trombones

Shamelessly paraphrasing the words of a famous Minnesotan who happens to be eleven days older than me to my own purposes, it’s been a quiet week near Bur Oaks Pond. (Yes, it is spelled with only one “r.”)

The great state of Minnesota held a primary election the other day, and a record number of Gopher Staters showed up to cast their ballots.  All in all, things turned out pretty well. In the gubernatorial race the best of the Democrats won and the worst of the Republicans lost.  The Republican loser blamed it on not being sufficiently Trump-like, even though his TV ads featured him saying hateful and substantially untrue things about immigrants and taxes and socialism and his opponent, which seems pretty Trump-like to me.  The guy who won the nomination is not a person I would want to be governor, but he isn’t as bad as the primary loser.  I am hoping the primary winner will grow up to be the loser in the general election.

Barring a miraculous charge by a third party, whichever candidate wins will give the state a lieutenant governor who is a Native American woman.  One of them has a Swedish name and the other an Irish name, but they are both registered members of Minnesota tribes, so that is that.

A Somali-American woman won the Democratic nomination for congress in a district that has been in Democratic hands since 1963, so chances are she’ll be heading to Washington come January.  She is a bright, attractive, well-spoken young woman who does wear a traditional head-scarf at all times.  I would love to be a fly on the wall when the spineless Trumpys in the House of Representatives get a load of her.

The doofus who represents my district in the House was unopposed in the primary.  He’s a former talk radio blabbermouth who got in hot water a while back for things he said about women in those days.  His defense was that he didn’t really mean those things, he was just saying them to be provocative.  Makes a guy wonder if he meant any of the garbage he spewed in those days, or, for that matter, any of the stuff he says these days.

Right now, Minnesota has two female senators, and I fearlessly predict that will continue to be the case next year.  One of them is the most popular politician in the state, and is starting to pop up on lists of possible Democratic candidates for president in 2020.  The other is a latecomer to the senate, appointed to that position after the Franken Fiasco, but she is capable and down-to-earth and did very well in the primary.  You’d vote for her opponent if the election were for homecoming queen, but being a beautiful blonde with a hockey star husband does not necessarily qualify a person for the United States Senate, and she seems to think that the Trumpster is the bee’s knees, so she won’t be getting my vote.

Anyway, it’s nine weeks until the general election, which gives me all the motivation I need to invest my TV time in PBS and Netflix, with the exception of baseball and football games.  The most violent football games will seem gentle next to the political ads. I’m crossing my fingers that November will deliver the hoped-for blue wave.

In more important news, the Bloomington Silver Storm seventh grade football team kicked off their regular season on Wednesday night with my grandson at one of the safeties.  The Silver Storm renounced passing in the second half but still managed to eke out a 38-0 win, and the rock-ribbed defense not only did not allow a point all night, they did not allow a first down all night.

By the way, that Minnesotan I mentioned in the beginning celebrated his birthday on August 7, so my time is almost here.  I’m not going to write the number out loud, but when most people hear the number, they automatically think about trombones.  The whole clan will be coming over for a gala celebration this weekend.  It is very disorienting to me, because I never expected to live this long.  If I had known I was going to, I would have taken better care of myself.  Still, I don’t take things for granted any more.  I’ve stopped buying the two packs of deodorant.  A while back I accepted a couple preaching dates for December, but that’s about as far out as I am willing to book myself.

Nevertheless, there are days—maybe I should make that hours—when I feel pretty youthful. My wife still turns me on.  I still like pizza and I can still eat corn on the cob and steak. I don’t watch old Lawrence Welk shows or Andy Griffith reruns on TV.  The grumpy old men who cover Twins games on TV are in a constant dudgeon because today’s game is different from yesterday’s game.  I find them tedious and out of touch. I don’t sit around yearning for the past.  Tomorrow interests me more than yesterday. Okay, I don’t like tattoos, and I do like early dinners and I do have an unfortunate tendency to spill on my shirt, but that doesn’t make me a total old fogey.

Truth is, I’m trying to take good care of myself because I want to see how well the Silver Storm does this season, and because I’m hoping for that blue wave, and it would be wonderful to see the Minnesota Twins be competitive again next year, and it would be superb to be around when a new family moves into the White House.  I admit I am hoping for a Democratic family, but just a family bringing with it a decent human being as president would be an improvement, even if I disagreed with that president 87.4% of the time.

And that’s the way it is, out here where all the women are smart, the men are strong, the children are hooked to their phones, and the old geezers are still trying to keep up with things.

I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing

The Minnesota Twins had the night off and Netflix was in a snit. When I called them, Netflix said it was Comcast’s fault, and I knew that if I called Comcast they would blame it on Netflix, and if we got them on line together everybody would blame it on the bossa nova, so we gave up and after dinner we drove down to the neighborhood cinema house to take in “Mamma Mia; Here We Go Again.”

 As a person without any interest in science fiction or superheroes the portions of the movie menu of interest to me are limited.  Musicals always catch my attention.  This turned out to be a delightful evening of ABBA hits and would-be hits.  No world crises were resolved.  No monsters were annihilated.  Nobody got shot. But people sang and they danced and it was good.  Lily James, moving on from the playgirl persona she had in “Downton Abbey” lit up the screen as the young Donna. (See, I can write like a blurb-smith.) Some woman named Streep played the older Donna, but—spoiler alert—by the time most of the movie takes place, she has expired, though she did magically appear at the very end.  Cher even popped up, playing a grandmother. And a great-grandmother. But she still looked good. (The movie, you see, travels around in time, which can be confusing.)  I came out of the theater singing to myself.

 Our eight-year-old granddaughter Eliza is a cynic about musicals.  She considers it suspicious when one person starts singing and all the people around that person not only know the words and tune, but have a carefully choreographed set of steps which they execute perfectly while singing.  Eliza is a dancer, and knows about these things.

 Well, I have to admit that it strains credibility when all the servers and patrons at a Paris restaurant join in on “Waterloo,” but it still looked like fun.  When the boatloads of revelers are pulling into the harbor of a Greek island singing “Dancing Queen” while posed picturesquely on the decks of their ships, and, in fact, singing it in perfect harmony with the islanders on shore, whom they will eventually join at the dock for a round of dancing…well, maybe not.

 But it did look like fun.  I wish real life were like that, that every now and then people would spontaneously sing and dance.  We went to the Farmers Market this morning.  It was raining a bit, and I was tempted to break into a chorus of “Singing in The Rain” and slosh my way in Gene Kelly fashion between the tables of cauliflower and squash and peppers, confident that all the young mothers would dance and harmonize and spin their umbrellas in a synchronized way and the Hmong farmers would form a chorus like unto the tabernacled Mormons.  But I didn’t, because I sing terribly and dance only a little better than that, and Mrs. McKinley would have been humiliated.

 Oh, to live in a world of musicals, where people do that kind of thing.  In the real world we are part of, harmony is in short supply. Rather than singing with each other, we sing at each other, convinced that our song is the only right song. Rather than polished choreography, we revel in being out of step, always convinced that it is the other person who is wrong.

And it seems like the person chosen to sing the male lead has not only chosen an ugly song, but sings it badly as well. When I sing I sound great to me, and I try to convince myself that I am the greatest star ever, but other people can see and hear the real me, and they know the truth.

 When the young Donna first sets foot on the Greek island where she will make her home, she knows it will be that, that she will stay on that island for the rest of her life.  If that island be real, I would like to find it, for it is clearly a place where people sing in harmony and dance with coordination.  And even I, even I, would dare to strike up a tune in public.

Still Crazy After All These Years

The following is not intended to be a solicitation of felicitations.  It is simply a rumination concerning a current situation.  If you feel moved to extend good wishes, extend them to someone close to you who needs to hear them.

*****

Way back when I was a novice pastor, assistant pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in New Haven, CT (I had been informed that given time and adequate performance, I could work my way up to associate pastor), the incomparable Fred Auman, the senior pastor, came up with the idea of celebrating “Marriage Sunday” on the Sunday closest to Valentine’s Day.  We would have a big hoop-la honoring folks with significant anniversaries, focus on marriage in the day’s worship, etc.  It was an idea that didn’t last long, deemed offensive to the unmarried, but at the moment it seemed like a winner.

I remember being awed by some of the folks who received special honors on that day for having been married fifty years.  Fifty years!  For gosh sakes, these were people who had been married during World War I.  They had been born in the 19^th century, back around the time my illustrious ancestor was president and Teddy Roosevelt was leading the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill.  These had to be incredibly old people.  I marveled that they could still walk and talk, take nourishment and carry on a fairly cogent conversation.

I am currently rethinking this as the lovely Mrs. McKinley and yours truly mark fifty years of wedded bliss this week.  This is remarkable, if I do say so myself.  We were not early adapters in our generation.  My old college roomie and his bride marked fifty-five years a few weeks ago.  I was such a social smoothie in my youth that I wondered if I would ever get married, and other people did too.  Smart money was against me.  But then this amazing girl came along, and another long-time buddy harassed me into getting off my shy little duff and doing something about it, and here we are. Remembering that great day for us in one of the most remarkable years in American history.

Here we are.  And at an age I never expected to see.  Mrs. McKinley and I are about the same age.  Out of respect to her I will not tell you directly what that age is, but I will give you a little hint.  Think “trombones leading the big parade.” If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.

Here we are.  I want all you young whippersnappers to know that the years go by in the blinking of an eye.  It really doesn’t seem that long.  My bride excites me as much now as she did fifty years ago.  She has had a lot to put up with for all these years, and still she sleeps next to me every night, the greatest blessing God has ever bestowed on yours truly.  We still have fun together.

And we do not seem that old to me.  Oh, my body reminds me every day that it has logged quite a few miles.  There are things that I used to be able to do that I can’t do any more.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are also things I do much more often than I used to.  There’s lots tucked away in my memory bank that is of little use or value these days. I remember Packards and Studebakers and Nashes and Hudsons and Kaisers and Frasers. (Those were American cars, boys and girls.)  I remember doctors and baseball stars appearing in cigarette advertisements.  I remember getting our first TV set.  It received two channels.  I remember “I Like Ike” and “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet” and “Captain Video”. I remember the musical revolution that came with Bill Haley and the Comets singing “Rock Around the Clock” and Chuck Berry knocking out “Johnny B. Goode.”  I remember where I was when I heard that President Kennedy had been shot.  (In the bathroom, as a matter of fact.) And, yes, I sometimes get a kick out of being with other people who also remember those things.

But nostalgia really isn’t my thing.  I would have no interest in going back to things as they used to be, although I do wish I could still hit a golf ball like I could when I was a kid of 65.

The lovely Mrs. McKinley and I have had a great fifty-year run and I am hoping for a few more.  There have been a few dips in the road over the years, but for the most part I look at my life and “count it all joy,” while boldly asserting that these years are the happiest.  I wouldn’t want a world without my iPad or ESPN or air travel or Sunday shopping or women’s rights or the freedom of reproductive choice or the rich mix of immigrant peoples who make up American society today.  The United States in 2018 is a much more diverse and interesting place than the one I grew up in, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. There are those who would like it if things “went back to being the way they used to be.”  I am definitely not one of them. It appalls me that the reins of power in the United States today seem to be in the hands of folks who want next year to be 1955.  This old guy is ready to resist them with every ounce of strength that remains in his body.

But I don’t want to think about that today.  I want to think about fifty years ago, and the wonderful relationship that cast itself in cement on that day, and the joy that is still my privilege after all these years.

So here we are.  Two young people still madly in love who happen to have been married for fifty years.  I can hardly believe it.  I’ve definitely changed my mind on the subject of 50-year-marrieds being ancient.  Maybe they used to be, but they aren’t since we became part of that demographic.

 

 

My Worst (and Creepiest) Conversation

I’ve had my share of “bad conversations” in nearly 51 years of ordained ministry, but this one was the worst.  When it was over, I wanted to go home and take a shower.  My skin was crawling.

You couldn’t miss the guy at the last service on that Sunday morning.  In a congregation of Minnesota Lutherans, 90% of whom would prefer to sit in the back pew, he came early and sat in the front. Receding hair line except for prominent bushy sideburns, clothes that had seen better days, and a big leather-bound Bible.  Probably around fifty.  Short and slender.  Eyes that flamed.

I didn’t recognize him, but I was still pretty new in that congregation.  Almost every week there would be a worshipper or two I didn’t recognize, and sometimes they were people who had belonged to the church, or so they claimed, for a long time.  As the service went on, I noticed that he had a death grip on that Bible.

When worship ended he was the last one out the door, and when I reached out to shake his hand he spoke before I could.

“Pastor, I want to talk to you.”

“Fine.” I stepped off to the side for what I expected to be a brief conversation.

“No.  Not here.  In your office.”

I pointed him toward the office, told him to meet me there and went to hang up my robe.  He was waiting by the office door when I arrived.  I walked in with him behind me. He closed the door.  I purposely sat down behind my desk, and he sat across from me.

“Pastor, I’m David So-and-So.”

I recognized the name from the church directory, but no bells rang.

“I’m sorry we haven’t met before, David.  I’m still getting acquainted around here.”

“You wouldn’t have met me. I just got out of jail.”  He put the Bible on the front of my desk and leaned forward.  “My wife won’t let me back in our home.”

“I see.  If I may ask (giving being pastoral my best shot), why were you in jail?”

Those flaming eyes bulged a little more.

“Sexual abuse.  I was having intercourse with our daughters.”

Hand grenade exploded in my stomach.  I know I was silent for a while.

“I don’t know your daughters.  How old are they?”

“Twelve and fourteen at the time.”

More internal shrapnel bounced around.

“That’s pretty serious business, David.”  More silence.  “What do you want from me?”

“Talk to my wife,” he said, pounding on the desk.  “Get her to take me back.”

And at that point, the conversation, already strange and uncomfortable, became truly bizarre.

“I want you to help my wife to understand,” he went on, “that there’s nothing wrong with a man having intercourse with his daughters.  The truth is, the Bible says that it is a father’s responsibility to initiate his daughters sexually.”

I was speechless.  It was a new one on me. David jumped right into quoting a few obscure verses from his King James Bible, verses that he was sure commanded what we would call incest. Once I caught my breath I pointed out that I was quite confident he was misreading and misunderstanding the Bible at that point, and so began a brief but heated debate which culminated in me informing him that I would do all I could to support his wife in keeping him out of the home, and him informing me that God would bring judgment on sinners like me who made it impossible for Christian fathers to do their duty.  Voices were raised.

Finally, David stood up and made a semi-threatening move toward me, and I, being younger and stronger and very angry myself, also stood up in a fairly aggressive way.  We stared at each other for a moment, then he turned and left and I never saw him again.  I called his wife that week, but she didn’t want to talk to me, and soon she and the daughters transferred to another congregation.

I hadn’t thought of that conversation in years, but it popped into my mind the other day.  David had what we would have to call a “sincerely held religious belief” that it was the responsibility of a father to have intercourse with his daughters.  If having a “sincerely held religious belief” is allowed to over-rule the laws of nation and state, we have posed ourselves on that infamous “slippery slope.”  To many people it would seem fair and appropriate to allow a baker to refuse to bake a cake for a same-sex couple if said baker had a “sincerely held religious belief” that same sex marriage is wrong. On the surface it seems to make sense.

But giving veto power over law to something as amorphous as a “sincerely held religious belief” could well lead to very serious consequences.

• What if my “sincerely held religious belief” is that Caucasians are a superior race and therefore all of the “inferior” other people should not be allowed to be citizens?
• What if my “sincerely held religious belief” is that women should not have the right to vote?
• What if my “sincerely held religious belief” aligns with David’s?

In cases like that, should I not be required to adhere to the law of the land? I think most people would agree that those are not acceptable.  They would be willing to let the law stand over the “sincerely held religious belief.”

However, for some Americans if your “sincerely held religious belief” is anti-same-sex marriage, or anti-choice, well, then those “sincerely held religious beliefs” are entitled to over-rule the law.

“Sincerely held religious belief” as a tool in legal argument makes me nervous. It’s as absurd as a president being able to pardon himself.

Cheerio, Old Chaps!

It was the Royal Wedding that finally put me over the edge. I am moving to England.  (Okay, maybe Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland.) I choose to pledge my loyalty to the Royal Family with all of its rough edges and goofy young women in preposterous hats instead of the weaselly Clan Trump (not to be confused with the Weasley clan of the Harry Potter saga).

That wedding was a blast, and I say that as a guy who, back in the day, would do anything to get out of doing a wedding.  Well done Anglican liturgy makes me weak in the knees, and Bishop Curry blew the roof off old St. George’s, Windsor, with the best wedding sermon anyone has ever heard.  The symbolism of the dashing prince marrying an American woman with a diverse racial heritage is a great picture of the world as we would like it to be in 2018.  Male and female clergy, black and white, a smorgasbord of musical styles, it was great.  I wanted to be part of that scene.  (Speaking of things that make me weak in the knees, there was also Meghan.  I am happily married and old enough to be her grandfather, but she takes my breath away and helps me remember what it was like to be young and infatuated.)

My migration dream has been stoked by three different visits to the United Kingdom in the last five years, as well as some of my favorite TV shows.  “Downton Abbey.”  “Grantchester.” “Broadchurch.” “The Great British Baking Show.”  “Doc Martin.”  “Victoria.”  “The Crown.” There are lots of others.  Now, thanks to Netflix, I have two new favorites.

There’s “Escape to the Country.”  It’s like “House Hunters” on HGTV in this country, only different.  Most of the folks on “Escape to the Country” are, let us say, mature.  They have had enough of city living and are ready to move, that’s right, to the country.  Or at least to a village.  The host shows them three houses, and they (usually) identify a favorite, though most of the time the viewer doesn’t find out whether they really bought it.

So, there they are out in the villages, tumbling through quirky old houses.  Nobody ever bellyaches about popcorn ceilings or insists that the house must have a man cave or a three-car garage or be close to theaters and restaurants.  There’s probably a pub nearby.  One.  Deal with it.  Saw a program the other day where a structure built in 1956 was identified as “new construction.”  Along the way they and the viewer learn something about what goes on around the village.  Here’s how you thatch a roof.  Here’s how we make mustard. Let’s try a little embroidery.

I want to “Escape to the Country.”  I want one of those houses.  I want to go to that pub and lift a pint.

Once I have the house, I will invite Monty Don to drop by for one of his “Big Dreams, Small Spaces” programs.  Monty’s thing is gardening, and my fascination with his program is ironic because, to put it simply, I like gardening even less than I like weddings.  The lovely Mrs. McKinley is a gardening phenom, and in her honor I walk out to look at the garden once or twice a summer.  I have been known to help move mulch.  That’s it.

But Monty and his projects pull me in every time.  Monty is the classic big oaf with big features and a lumbering gait, not to mention a gardening superstar in Elizabeth’s land, the Guy Fieri of gardening TV.  He partners with homeowners across England who have very limited gardening space, but big dreams for that space.  The two women who are neighbors in a row house who want to combine their front yards into a community vegetable garden.  The couple with a mentally handicapped child who dream of colors and smells that will fascinate the child.  Another couple with space about as large as your average master bathroom in this country who dream of flowers and vegetables popping up around the edges and, get this, on the roof.

There’s nobody with a three-acre backyard envisioning sequoias and an ocean of roses and tulips, enough corn to feed the family all year.  These are city dwellers. Simple people with big dreams.  Monty will help them along the way, although they don’t always follow his advice.  He apparently does not own a car, because you always see him striding purposefully down a city street to meet the gardeners.  He is as likely to pull off his wide-wale corduroy jacket, revealing workmanlike braces (suspenders) underneath, and pitch in on the heavy stuff, as he is to offer encouraging words, advice, and congratulation.

I want Monty to do a garden for us in our new home.  I want a jacket like his.  I want braces like his.

That’s all I want.  Move to England.  Find a country escape near Portwenn and get a Monty Don garden.  Register at Doc Martin’s surgery.  Attend the Anglican church where Sidney Chambers once served. Drop in on the Crawleys now and then to go shooting with Lord Grantham. My dreams are simple.

However, those simple dreams are limited by finances, and even more substantially by the fact that I have not yet been able to persuade the rest of the family to make the move with me, although one or two are weakening.  Without the family I am nothing, so I will stay for now, and only pretend to be British.  Meghan’s picture on my wall, say.  And if you should happen to see me wearing braces, don’t be surprised.

The Sport of the Future

I was innocently driving along with my radio tuned to the local public radio news station, when at the top of the hour (as they say in the radio world) Euan Kerr (pronounced “you-in care”) reported “this hour we’ll be talking about football.”  I was a bit surprised at this, because the public radio crowd isn’t typically sports oriented. This station is more likely to discuss global warming than intentional grounding.  Nevertheless, I was excited.  I am a big football fan.  Besides, the new headquarters of the Minnesota Vikings was a long field goal from where I was driving at the time, and prospects are brightening for the Minnesota Golden Gophers.  Ready for a little intelligent football talk.

My surprise was premature.  Euan didn’t really plan to talk about football.  The agenda was soccer which, admittedly, is known as football in all the rest of the world.  Certainly this would be more acceptable to the intelligentsia who listen to public radio then good old American football.

Swallowing my disappointment, I continued to listen, and I’m glad I did.  Euan’s guests were Rodger Bennett and Michael Davies, who are known as “The Men in Blazers.”  They are the authors of a new book with the imposing title “Men in Blazers Present Encyclopedia Blazertannica, a Suboptimal Guide to Soccer, America’s Sport of the Future since 1972.”  The Amazon website summarizes their opus like this:

The Men in Blazers are two English-born, soccer-obsessed broadcasters who have savored the dizzying growth of the game along with millions of Americans, as if it was a rollicking, sporting telenovela playing out in real life. Written in such a way that fully immerses Americans in the history and culture of the world’s game, their Encyclopedia Blazertannica relives the careers of such greats such as George Best, Maradona, Beckham…and Alexi Lalas. It examines fan culture, from the tactical variations of scarf tying, to the pathos of England’s classic, yet doomed, World Cup theme songs, and explores the complex physics and ethics of both celebratory knee slides and fights between players, along with such burning questions as how professional footballers deal with hair loss. Any reader will feel as if they’ve had a front-row seat for the classic matches–seeing every dive and missed penalty kick and hearing every vulgar chant–and will emerge with a deeper appreciation for the dodgy haircuts and ill-judged neck tattoos that populate world football.

Their conversation with Euan was as delightful and amusing as that summary.  When the host asked what they thought of Minnesota United, our local MLS entry, one of them (I have no idea which) commented that he would always love a team whose players wore a big nipple in the middle of their jerseys. (See photo above.)

By the time I reached my destination and shut off the radio, I was, in the words of an old hymn, “Almost Persuaded.”  But only “almost.”

Soccer is a wonderful game.  When we vacation in Mexico, futbal seems to play 24 hours a day on the TV set in the bar. (Which is not to suggest that I personally spend 24 hours a day in the bar to be certain of this assertion.)  When we have traveled in Europe people were gaga over football/soccer.  We were once on a plane with a group of Austrians flying to Paris for a big match. I have never seen a crowd that rowdy that early in the morning.  Besides, soccer features a lot of running around, which has to be good for a person.  I see all kinds of little kids attempting to play soccer, and this is a good thing.  It is less expensive to equip your child or your schools team for soccer than it is for football.

Like I said, soccer is a wonderful game.  Next month World Cup competition begins in Russia, an event for which the US of A did not qualify, and the eyes of the world will be watching.  And I’ll bet if the US of A did have a team there, they would stand at attention during the National Anthem, lest they be forbidden to return to this land for the offense of believing more in freedom than they do in the sanctity of the flag.  You don’t have to honor the principle, but you do have to honor the symbol of the principle.

But I digress.  Soccer is a wonderful game.  I will concede you that.

It is also boring.

When I watch soccer, it seems like an exercise in futility, people running every which way, bouncing a ball between them, and only rarely succeeding in reaching the target.  I mean, who would watch a basketball game that ended up 2-0?  At least hockey, a sport with many similarities to soccer, will give you a good fight every now and then. No, I don’t understand soccer, but it is boring enough that I am not interested in understanding it, just like broccoli is a wonderful vegetable but tastes to much like I would expect my shoes to taste I am not interested in eating it.

I enjoyed the Men In Blazers talking about soccer.  But I am still not interested in watching it.  Give me good old American football any day. Patrick Reusse, my favorite local sportswriter, put it like this a few years ago:

“In the United States soccer is the  sport of the future, and always will be.”

Nevertheless, I am going to start watching more soccer.  I need to learn to love it for our upcoming move to Great Britain.  More on that another time.

Another List I Didn’t Make

I have become resigned to the fact that when “People” magazine hands out its annual “World’s Sexiest Man” award, I will once again be passed over.  They seem to have a clear bias in favor of men who are younger than I am.  Also thinner than I am.  Also hairier than I am. Also taller than I am.  We old short fat bald guys don’t get the recognition we deserve.  I can live with that.  My wife loves me.

Now an esteemed theological institution has published a list of “America’s 12 Most Effective Preachers,” and once again I have been passed over.  Well, I am familiar with a lot of these folks, and there are some dandies on the list, as well as one or two (not to put too fine a point on it) bozos. It seems suspicious to me that only one woman made the list.  Barbara Brown Taylor is a preaching superstar, but she is not the only one of her gender.  I reckon you could make another list of “12 Most Effective Preachers” and populate it with eleven women and one man with just as much validity.

But here’s what gets me.  There’s a dead guy on the list.  Now I have no desire to speak ill of the dead.  There’s no question that this man was a great preacher, even if doctrinally he was on a different page than this liberal Lutheran.  But he died ten months ago.  This is like naming Babe Ruth to the All-Star Team. To beat the old horse once again, I am confident that there is a living woman who could have taken the place of the dead guy on this list of most effective preachers. As a matter of fact, if some church were looking for an “effective” preacher for this Sunday, I would boldly claim that I would be more “effective” than he would.

What makes an “effective” preacher? A certain grip on theology is important, combined with a knack for putting theology in language ordinary people can understand.  The ability to string together words like jewels on a necklace.  A good voice helps. A sense of humor, and an instinct for when to let that out.  Every preacher on “The List” has a valid claim to those gifts.  These preachers are a joy to listen to, even when they are proclaiming a message that might have a few sour notes in it theologically speaking. (They would certainly hear sour notes in my preaching.)

But effective?  Effective?  Hmmm.

When I arrived at one of my calls, one of the things I heard all the time from the long-time members was what a great preacher Pastor X, the founding pastor of that congregation was.  The congregation loved his preaching so much that they periodically had his sermons bound together in a hard-back volume.  I read some of his sermons.

They seemed to me to be fairly mediocre work, even by the standards of the 50’s and 60’s.  Not terrible, but nothing to write home about.  In a seminary homiletics class, they might have earned B’s if the prof were in a benevolent mood.  But people remembered him as a great preacher.

I think it was because he knew them.  He knew their lives, their hopes and fears, their worries and failures.  He knew where they came from.  Because he did, there is stuff in those sermons that spoke directly to them, sustained them, built them up in their faith, even if that “stuff” is not apparent to the naked eye of another preacher coming along 40 years later.  It’s like reading the book of Revelation; there’s more to it than meets the eye.

I am leery of this list of most effective preachers.  There’s no doubt that the people on it are notable artists of the pulpit, armed with theology and eloquence and humor and a pleasing sound.  They’re good, no question.

But “most effective”?  Most crowd-pleasing maybe, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  But effective?  In my dotage I do some supply preaching.  It gets the old juices flowing to put together a decent sermon and get a rise out of a congregation. (No, I do not recycle my old sermons.)  I confess that I love writing sermons.  However, writing these sermons is difficult, because I know these people only in general terms, this congregation perhaps only by its website and newsletter, a visit or two.  The sermon I give could be given in almost any congregation.  And that is where this “effective” business comes up.  I think an “effective” sermon is more specific than that.

There are some great preachers whose names show up on the list of “Most Effective Preachers.”  They preach to large congregations, appear on TV, livestream their sermons, and publish books.  Good on them.  I am a fan.

There are also some great preachers who serve small congregations in Montana, Vermont, urban Detroit.  They preach to handfuls, watch TV and read books.  They care for families and try to take care of themselves and they know people.  When they talk about “hope,” they aren’t thinking about a theological concept as much as they are thinking about Cynthia in the fourth row back on the left-hand side wrestling with her kids and with the fact that she will be starting chemotherapy this week.  When they talk about God’s unfailing love, they will try to avoid staring at Scott, sitting with a couple of his teenaged friends and wondering if they will still be his friends after he “comes out.”  When they talk about “vocation,” they will know that Peter, putting a sharp crease in his bulletin as he sits in the choir, has been informed that the job he has poured himself into for the last thirty years will be eliminated next month.  When they talk about “forgiveness,” they will be thinking about Jim and Linda, slogging through counseling in an effort to resuscitate their marriage.

Their names will not be popping up on lists of “most effective preachers.”  But that does not mean that they are not effective and does not make them less significant than the big names.  There are some great preachers slogging along and giving it their all in congregations that are barely keeping their heads above water. So good on them, too.  I am a fan.  I would be happy to be on a list with you.

The Box, Bert and Me

When I was a novice preacher (shortly after the Reformation) The Box had a place of honor close to my desk.

I come from a generation that learned to write research papers by taking notes on 3×5 cards.  The careful student would consult a bevy of learned tomes, all the while writing things down on those cards, including the specific data that would be used in citing sources.  Eventually one would get around to sorting out the cards and organizing the information and the fun part, the writing. The final paper would contain mountains of footnotes with these citations. Very scholarly.

When I got into the preaching trade, I made a radical change impacting the sermon writing process.  I went to 4×6 cards.  And got a box several inches thick to keep them in. Whenever I stumbled on to a memorable quote that might be useful someday as a sermon illustration, I would put a 4×6 in the typewriter and dutifully type that quote or story or exegetical highlight or poem on the card.  I would put a word categorizing the story on the top (“Resurrection”, say) and put it in The Box, filed alphabetically by category.  Almost every week I went to The Box to spike up my sermons.  The Box stayed with me for 38 years, although, to tell the truth, I consulted it infrequently after a while.  I did not footnote my sermons.

*****

I am a passionate fan of baseball in general and the Minnesota Twins in particular.  Given the choice of sitting on the fifty-yard line for a game between the Vikings and the Packers and sitting in the outfield second deck for a game between the Twins and the San Diego Padres, I’ll take the Twins game any time.  But it is painful to watch the Twins on TV most of the time, not because of the way they play (although that has been pretty miserable lately) but because of the announcers, Bert Blyleven in particular.

Bert Blyleven is a “Hall of Famer” as his partner, the very essence of a sycophant (he would do well in the Trump White House) reminds listeners over and over again.  I think Blyleven talked his way into the HOF rather than pitching his way.  In 24 seasons in the major leagues Blyleven won 20 games only once and was chosen for the All-Star game twice.  Doesn’t sound like a Hall of Famer to me.  He was a very good pitcher, though not great.

Blyleven knows baseball well enough to have good insights on some topics, like the location of pitches and pitching mechanics.  He is, however, convinced that “baseball used to be better.”  Back in his day, when he pitched over 200 innings most seasons.  When pitchers ran and did not lift weights.  When the rules were more favorable to the pitcher.  When every pitcher started out by “establishing the fastball.”  When the pitchers threw inside more often.  When nobody worried about things like “launch angle” and “Wins Above Replacement”.

As far as Bert is concerned, baseball used to be better back in his day.  He pitched his last major league game in 1992, 26 years ago. He knows that pitchers today, all ballplayers today, are not as good as they were back in his time. But they could be, if only they did things the way he used to do them.

*****

I was a pretty good preacher, if I do say so myself.  Not great.  Not Hall of Fame, if there was a Hall of Fame for preachers.  But pretty good.  In my annual evaluations, preaching always was identified as my greatest strength.  I admit that the writing of sermons was my favorite part of being a pastor.

I was in my heyday back when it was assumed in the branch of the church that I called home that a sermon would be approximately 20 minutes long.  When it was assumed that the sermon would be given from the pulpit.  When it was assumed that a sermon would have three points. (Thus, the classic old formula “three points, a poem and a prayer.”) When it was assumed that preachers had “The Box”, a file of useful quotes and illustrations. When it was assumed that “a Red Thread” would run through the whole sermon. When it was assumed that the sermon would begin with some kind of invocation and end with some kind of benediction.  In terms of preaching, that was my universe.

Today’s preachers are not assuming 20 minutes.  They are not all writing out manuscripts. They don’t all preach from the pulpit. Sometimes their sermons include music, or snippets of a TV program or a movie.  Sometimes they do not start with an invocation or end with a benediction. I doubt that most of them have The Box.  Preaching today is different.

*****

I am determined to avoid becoming the Bert Blyleven of preachers, telling the world that preaching used to be better back when I was doing it and when everybody else was doing it the same way.  Just as Bert knows some things about pitching that were true in his day and are just as true today, I know some things about preaching that were true in my day and are just as true today. (The importance of solid exegesis. The value of illustrative material.  The use of accessible language.)  But I do not think that preaching was “better” back when I was doing it.  It was just different.  I am lucky enough in 2018 to hear the preaching of a new generation of preachers who don’t do it the way I did it but are magnificent just the same.

I am trying to learn from them.  I have been known to preach from outside the pulpit. My sermons aren’t 20 minutes long these days.  They don’t always have three points.  Their organization is as much organic as it is systematic. The Red Thread twists and turns along the way. It scares me some of the time, but it also exhilarates me.  To be being able to learn and change is the essence of being alive.  I do not even know where The Box is any more.

I do know this.  I’m refuse to turn into Bert.