A sermon inspired by the personal story of a king who was losing it and his son, Absalom, leading to the larger question of how we define abundance in our time. If you can get by the first minute and have the time – it’s dreadfully long 🙂 it might be of interest. Please let me know your responses to the last part of the sermon re-defining the idea of abundance.
“Good morning, world!” – New-born giraffe
How can you not love a face like this?
Those big eyes. Those big ears. Those things on the head. That Joe E. Brown mouth and smile of a new-born giraffe?
Take 44 seconds to see the giraffe’s likeness in Joe E. Brown – same DNA? -see for yourself the Creator’s great sense of play and humor. God is laughing with us, not at us.
“Someday, I’ll be big too, just like you and Joe E., right Mom?”
Baby and mother giraffes – Antwerp Zoo
Children playing Capture the Flag
Long before I got hooked on Facebook, my childhood friends and I used to play outside until it got dark. Capture the Flag was our favorite game.If you had the flag, your job was to keep it; if you didn’t, your job was to capture it. Only one person had the flag; the rest of us worked together until one of us got it. And when one of us did, the game started over again.
Even if you hadn’t captured the flag that night, you went home knowing that tomorrow you had another chance. Nothing was forever in the game of Capture the Flag.
We were learning how the game of democracy is played. We were learning how to win and how to lose. We were learning the importance of continuing to play the game because no one knew how things would turn out the next night before our Moms called us home at bedtime.
All these years later, we’re playing Capture the Flag on Facebook. Some of us are Democrats. Some are Republicans. Some are Libertarians. Some are Socialists. Some of us are Cynics who’ve decided that the game is stacked and that no matter how hard they try to capture the flag for what they believe in, the same bullies always win.
When we played the game as kids, there was a nearly level playing field. The slowest of us had less of a chance than the fastest, but even the slowest and the smallest had a shot, if we worked together to capture the flag.
It’s not that different now, except that the bullies have money the rest of us don’t have. They’ve also learned how to divert our attention. Well-funded mind-bending scare tactics seek to convince voters that the flag has actually been in our pocket and that we, not they, are losing control of our country if health care reform, action on climate change, and reigning in Wall Street are the results of the November election.
Protest sign: U.S. Chamber of Commerce
It’s time to go out to the backyard and play the game again. Time to stand up together to reign in Wall Street and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and to tell our friends in the Tea Party that deregulated, laissez-faire capitalism will serve only the fittest, not the many. Time to snatch the Stars and Stripes out of the deep pocket of the bullies who paint themselves as America’s last, best hope. No one gets to keep the flag in the United States of America.
“Dump and Run,” a verse posted here yesterday about a recycling program at the University of Illinois, was inspired by a student recycling program of the University YMCA. Today Steve follows it up with another experience from his years as Executive Director at the University Y.
Verse — The Book
The author, Richard Powers, said he would
not sign the book he wrote because he felt
all books were sacred objects. But, he could,
to help the campus Y, compose a note
explaining this, sign that, and we could sell
them both at our grand charity auction.
I owned his first book (can one own a holy
thing?) and all the rest, including one
that claimed a national award. I told
the staff I would not give them up. We bought,
on-line, a first edition, “Mint,” and sold
it to the richest person there. He caught
the spirit, made an altar…when he needs
a god, he lights a candle and he reads.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL
altar candles
Verse – “Dump and Run”
Lisa Heller lost a ring.
Dumpsters came to be her thing!
She taught students at her school
Making trash just wasn’t cool.
…
Donate stuff that still has use;
Reduce trash, avoid abuse
To the earth. Take your measure:
Turn the trash into treasure!
…
Lisa started Dump and Run.
College students have great fun
Giving, sharing–have a sale!
Find a bargain, make a deal!
…
Help a group that helps the world,
Buy recycled things you need.
Like you avoid INfluenza,
You can stamp out AFFluenza!
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, pays tribute to “Dump and Run”.
Dumping and running at the landfill
At the end of the academic year, University of Illinois students drop off the “stuff” that might end up in the landfill to the University YMCA to be recycled by other students.
Former Executive Director of the University YMCA and Pastor of McKinley Presbyterian Church at the University of Illinois, Steve continues to host “Keepin’ the Faith” on Illinois Public Radio every Sunday evening at 5:00 CST.
Remember this?
George W. Bush – battleship USS Abraham Lincoln: “Mission Accomplished!”
Now we have copycats:
Romney, Ryan, and the U.S.S. Wisconsin
But we will always have this:
This hour of history – The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Take your pick.
Its my 70th birthday. I get to say whatever I want…flat out. I’m too old a dog to worry. 🙂
America is on the leash…in the collar of Big Money.
Free speech is a basic right in America. But some of us are freer than others. Because the Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech. Some of us have lots of it. Most of us have a buck or two to support candidates for public office.
Montanans once referred to “the copper collar” worn by elected officials (federal, state and local), policy-makers, newspaper publishers and editors, journalists, business people, asnd relgious leaders. The copper collar kept them on the leash of the state’s largest employer and wealthiest campaign contributor, Anaconda Copper Mining Company. Montana was one big company town.
Photo of book “Forging the Copper Collar”
Step in a direction Anaconda didn’t like, and you’d feel a quick tug on the leash – a phone call, a note, a pink slip, or worse. Want to run for office? Here’s the money. Money for things the average Montanan cannot buy, money for the “free” speech few can afford. Money for professional pollsters to learn voter attitudes and what scares them. Money for advertizing agencies that turn the polling data into ads that flood the airwaves, the internet, roadside billboards, and the print media.Money puts candidates and political parties in the collar. On the leash. Candidates who start to sniff to the side of the path on their morning walks feel a yank on the collar, a reminder that the dog isn’t walking on its own. It’s walking on a leash. The “free” speech of candidates who stray or bite the hand that feeds them soon disappear. It was paid for by the owner.
The American colonies revolted against the ideas of a king and colonial rule. The political idea of royalty appalls us. We think of ourselves as the home of the brave and the land of the free. But aversion to kings and queens doesn’t mean we can’t be fooled into hoping that any one of us can climb to the top. We gripe about the wealth yet we aspire to it, and we think in personal terms we can understand more easily than the complicated matters of economics and arrangements between private and public institutions. The royalty and colonial privilege we love to hate find a way to disguise themselves as just another citizen with freedom of speech.
The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that corporations are “persons” with the same rights as a voter with “free speech” campaign contributions has put the collar on every candidate for public office. When candidates wear a collar, freedom of speech is a fiction, and the country we love becomes one big corporate town, the colonial town of the new kings and queens.
America is fast becoming a corporate town. We can bark. We can whine. We can vote. But the speech that matters isn’t free. It’s paid for. Democracy and freedom are on the leash…wearing the copper collar.
For a closer work at how it works, click “Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult,” an insider’s look at what’s happening to America. Or click “Confronting Ethical Emptiness of Wall Street” for a powerful piece, including the picture below of the raging bull.
The Wall Street Bull – symbol of ethical emptiness on Wall Street
Every day four or five emails arrive asking for a campaign contribution to fight Big Money. Just a $3 or $5 contribution will make a hug difference, say the appeals. But I know that once I give $3, the next one will be for $50 and then $100, and then…. Makes me feel real small…facing the bull.
But…if I don’t give….
The next time I watch a campaign ad, I’m going to read the small print to see who’s holding the leash to the collar.
You’ll make an old dog happy on his birthday by leaving a comment to promote some discussion.
Writers often suffer from writer’s block. Cures for it are suggested by the Purdue University Online Writing Lab. For some of us writer’s block arrives one day in early July and continues into August. Steve emailed this today:
My Dad often quoted
(was it from Burma-Shave road signs?):
“As a rule, man’s a fool,
When it’s hot, he wants it cool.
When it’s cool, he wants it hot.
Always wanting what it’s not!”
(Gordon, yet another non-original day…)
Steve’s not the only one who’s been suffering through unoriginal days. I can’t put two sentences together that seem worth sharing. So…I found this Burma Shave ad on the web…a reminder that sometimes it’s better to keep silent than to contribute to word polution.
Burma Shave ad for writer’s block
Paul the Ap began each day,
apparently ,
thinking that today would be
THE day that He
would return to have his say.
…
So, he said unless you burn
(that’s sexually),
you should live like him and be
(yes, singly) :
you should live your life alone.
…
Paul thought when the Trump would sound
triumphally,
there were places we should be
selectively,
than in bed messing around.
…
Many generations later
Christians thank Paul for his letter,
but think it better far to wait
and live in Heaven like a Saint!
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL August 2, 2012
“Oh, my!” say I. (Gordon)
This morning my friend Steve asked if I remembered the last line of Woody Guthrie’s folk song “This Land Is Your Land”? Here’s the last stanza. Scroll down to hear it.
There was a great high wall there
That tried to stop me;
A great big sign there
Said private property;
But on the other side
It didn’t say nothin’.
That side was made for you and me!
Behind the high wall of the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision, join Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen singing Woody Guthrie’s song on the way to “the other side.” And remember to celebrate hope Organize. Organize. And keep on singing.
Views from the Edge 