Insensitivity Training

Michelle Malkin has an article on her blog about a Seattle sensitivity training seminar gone bad. Or perhaps, gone according to the blueprint of these sorts of things, not sure. Being self-employed with only family members as workers, I haven't had the surpassing pleasure of attending one of these. I've had to hear about them from my corporate friends.

One friend, who was a whiz-bang computer programmer at a Milwaukee manufacturing plant perhaps fifteen years ago, told me about his experience. He was in the enviable position at the time of being indispensable to his company, but nonetheless was directed to attend the de rigeur psychobabble session. He was also, just as an aside, married to a Japanese woman and had a son who had multiple scerlosis who navigated through life in a wheel chair, and another adopted son who was black.

My friend attended the first session, sat in back, and rather obviously posted a large magazine in front of his face. The presenter/curator/provocateur lived with this up until the first break, when he confronted my friend and warned that, if this behavior continued, not only would he not be given credit for the course, but would miss out on learning many things about tolerance that he ought to know.

My friend replied, "What's there to know? I'm married to a Jap; one of my kids is a cripple; the other's a nigger. I love them all. You got anything you can teach me?"

Rim shot.

He spent the rest of the sessions in the back, reading Sports Illustrated, and unmolested.

BARE TWIGS IN WINTER...

"Bare twigs in winter have an actuality of their own..."
Jesse Stuart

Saturday morning I drove to Prairie du Chien, nestled on the Mississippi just north of where the Wisconsin River enters it. I had the time, so drove up to Wyalusing State Park, which overlooks the confluence. If you look closely, you'll see the priest Marquette and his guide, Joliet, poling their raft into the Mississippi from the Wisconsin, and so making rather a long discovery.

I can remember a time when my oldest son Colin, aged perhaps eleven or twelve, discovered November as a time in itself. We don't normally admit this to strangers, but Wisconsinites spend September and October mentally preparing for the hell which is Winter. Surely this'll be the Bad One! We enter November having done our duty of preparing. The garden hoses drained of water and coiled in a corner of the garage. Gas additive added to motorcycle and lawn mowers. We clean the eaves; we do whatever we have to do to the windows. We prepare for the annual influx of field mice. We are so busy nestmaking for the Winter that we sometimes forget to take a long look at the wonderful, strange changes that happen when the planet begins its northward tilt.

The first thing is the change in the light. This startling new angle of the sun's rays plays a piquant game in my mind. There is a sharpening in the air, a crystalline intensity that always amazes and warns. We're losing daylight. It is the end of all things. Squirrels begin to hide hickory nuts everywhere, nervous of finding them again.

Walking through the woods in November with Colin, at eleven a squirrel in his own right. Everything is open; we can see things now that we haven't seen since the last snow. The dense, cloying foliage of Summer has passed. Through a long expanse of bare tree limbs, an open meadow invites wild turkey to range. "Wow, Dad! I think I love November best of all!" I know what he means. Early November is this free, empty space of time after the business of the Fall and before the business of Winter. And even now, as I walk a dog through the fields, there is an idleness, a peaceful ache as I drink in the simplicity of it all: Creation going to sleep.

Studying The Bible In Prison

I just returned from my Friday night Bible study at a local prison. This institution is one of the last stops for these guys before returning to their families, or at least to the street. About 30% are working outside of the prison during the day. As I've mentioned before though, it is still prison. Having all of them come from much harsher conditions, none want to go back.

At the end of last week's session, Allen asked if I could take a photo of them with my camera phone. I said sure, "So up against the wall, ok?" There was this sort of gasp. One of the guys joked, "You don't say that kind of thing around us. We're CRIMinals!" Big laugh. I mumbled something like, "I have a hard time thinking of you as criminals." Another said, "Oh, you just don't know us out on the street.."

Well. Unfortunately, the topic comes up now and then. Someone who had been in the Bible study and gotten out was back in (Always in a higher security situation of course. They don't come back here). My guys shake their heads, knowing how tough it has been for them to go straight.

With the best of intentions these men slowly prepare themselves for a return to their "lives". The prayer requests that I ask them to write down for me follow this pattern: "...That I can be patient as I await for my move to DACC for Earned Release. I feel anxious about not having answers provided....Also pray that my son and his fiance will be allowed to visit on Sunday..." "Pray that I receive a job. Pray that God's will be done in my life." "That me and Joanna to continue to serve God and to be Marry upon my release."

Tonight we had a larger group--six men. Allen, after eight years in various prisons in Wisconsin and Mississippi (where he was saved), is getting out mid-December! He wants to be a street preacher, but feels he needs to get some, uh, "seminary trainin'" as he put it. A new guy, Danny, had a lot of "off topic" questions for me. This often happens: someone comes for the first time with some hot issues he wants addressed. Tonight he wasn't the only one, for we saw the return of Chris, who is the spitting image of Chris Rock--personality and all.

Normally after I open with prayer we just read scripture, going around in a circle with a variety of translations, reading a verse at a time. From time to time we'll pause with a comment or question. Danny and Chris had a lot of them. We're reading through Acts just now. Danny's question: "Why in Psalm 82:6 does it say, 'I said, "You are gods, and all of you are sons of the most High"'?" Well, ok. No problem. I guess that has something to do with our topic, Paul's address to the Areopagus. We talked about it. Then Danny asked, "Why does it say in Genesis 1:26, 'Let us make man in our own image'?" We talked about that. Chris then got excited and started off on his own special heresy about how the spirit within him came awake when he got saved. I stopped there to talk about being dead in our sins--Ephesians 2:1; the Spirit we receive is not the same as the spirit of man, etc. Our salvation comes from without. It isn't easy to reason with a Chris Rock personality, and I don't think he's convinced. My concern was that the others did not come away confused about this. By their looks, they seemed to think Chris was just blowin' smoke.

It isn't usually like this. I don't normally have to fend off rampant speculation. But it illustrates the problem of trying to do a Bible study with a constantly changing group of men, all of whom show up with well-thumbed Bibles, and many of whom have often done some unsavory theological reading. None of whom are Lutheran. I try to keep the focus Christological and as simple as possible. I often speak of the humility with which we must approach the reading of scripture. Use the whole counsel of God; do not stray beyond what God has revealed. Tonight I told the old Augustine joke about the answer to the question, "What was God doing before he created the earth?" (He was creating another place in which to put people who asked questions like that).

They liked the joke. And now I'm wondering. I think it was Augustine...

Thanksgiving To God

Now I have found the ground wherein
Sure, my soul's anchor may remain--
The wounds of Jesus, for my sin
Before the world's foundation slain;
Whose mercy shall unshaken stay, when heaven and earth are fled away.

O Love, Thou bottomless abyss,
My sins are swallowed up in thee!
Covered is my unrighteousness,
Nor spot of guilt remains on me,
While Jesus' blood, through earth and skies mercy, free, boundless mercy! cries.

With faith I plunge me in this sea,
Here is my hope, my joy, my rest;
Hither, when hell assails, I flee,
I look into my Savior's breast.
Away, sad doubt and anxious fear! Mercy is all that's written there.

J. A. Rothe

ILLUMINATE ME, JESUS

In his While We're At It section of the current First Things issue, the always interesting Richard John Neuhaus has this to say:

"A megachurch in Redmond, Washington, has come on hard times. Overlake Christian Church was booming a decade ago and put up a $37 million building. Now attendance is down by half, it has a mortgage of $9.2 million, and income is way below budget. But it was this that caught my eye: 'The church plans to cut back the number of Sunday services. Currently it has four services: two with a contemporary worship style, called Celebration, and two with an edgier, hipper style to appeal to younger churchgoers, called Illuminate.'
The choice is between the contemporary and the edgy. And you thought you were bearing your cross by putting up with the guitar at the five o'clock Mass."

So, a couple of things. First, why is the attendance down by half? Has one half of the congregation opted for something liturgical, God forbid? Or have they moved on to greener pastures, where a more charismatic, more entertaining, more lively and hip worship experience awaits? And what would you call that?

And second,....what would you call that?

Submissions are hereby being accepted for a NAME for the latest, hippest, edgiest worship THANG, something edgier than edgy; something that will appeal to the hippest youngster. And yes, Gottesdienst is already taken.

And to think, if they'd only built a megachurch that cost $27.8 million, they'd have it paid off by now.

High Maintenance Chick

Lung-On-A-Chip

I will give you praise, for I am strangely and delicately formed; your works are great wonders, and of this my soul is fully conscious.

Psalm 139:14

Sometimes, when science begins to develop something simply amazing, all it does is remind me of just how fearfully and wonderfully made that I am.

So read this Wired story, and see whether you feel the same.

Wonderful are Your works, Lord, and my soul knows it very well.