"Waiting on the World to Change"

Ever since I saw The Matrix, I’ve had a small place in my heart for Cypher. That name probably won’t mean much to most of you, but he is the guy who betrays Morphious in the first Matrix film. In the movie, his betrayal is rooted in a desire to return to the Matrix rather than live in the real world that he hates. The reason Cypher receives my empathy is not only that I have a God-complex (too many of my friends have God-complexes and still think Cypher was an ass). This is the case, because when I look at this character I see someone who is similarly wrestling with the complex issue of what it means to live in a community.

In The Matrix, what could be called the real world sucks. Everyday Cypher wakes up, eats a bowl of nasty gruel, and thinks to himself - Who would want to live like this? Not only that, but everyone around him appears to be better able to deal with the crappy-ness of the world. So he comes to the point where a normal person would commit suicide; But instead, he realizes he has another option – returning to the Matrix. However, returning to the Matrix comes at a high price. He must betray his community, a community that he has already established a clear hatred towards. Cypher finds himself in a moral dilemma. He must determine if he is obligated to obey a moral standard that says not to betray his community though he is also aware that if he does betray this community he will never have to face any ramifications for that action. It is a tough decision. It gets worse. There is another option he must face that is not dealt with in the movie – staying in the “real world.”The question is even harder than it may first appear. Can an average man forsake a more enjoyable life so that everyone else may be happy?

On a daily basis my friends, family, fellow divinity students and I participate in a world where we know that more could be done to help people less fortunate than us; and still, we do nothing. I’m not attacking the fact that we don’t work at homeless shelters; I mean that we don’t even try to think of living in ways that would eliminate the need for homeless shelters. We don’t live as a part of a global community, or even as a larger Durham, North Carolina community. We live for ourselves as if we were the most important people on earth. We are not just, as the John Mayer song goes, “waiting for the world to change.” But instead, we are living like the rest of the world and hoping someone else will change it while we wait. I wonder if living this way, as if we were not a part of a community that affects other people, if that is not just creating our own fake world. If so, then the difference between our own denials of the people around us who are affected by our decisions and Cypher’s climbing back into the Matrix is smaller than most would think. Every time I pretend that that homeless guy isn’t on the street, I create a fake world in which to live. Every time I pretend that my clothes weren’t made in a sweatshop by 10 year olds, I create my own Matrix to live in. Every time I pretend my nieces don’t need or want me to hang out and be a positive male figure, I betray the people who need me the most.

Looks like I’m hanging out with my nieces next weekend.

Call me Isaiah Washington if you like...

But this is funny.

This week Michael Buday of Orange County California petitioned a federal judge for the right to take his, soon to be, wife Diana Bijons’ last name. Diana Bijon’s made the suggestion to her fiancé at the behest of her mother, who was worried that because she had no sons there would be no one to carryon the family name. Buday, a twenty-nine year-old, advertising executive is not new to the unusual petition filing. He has also secretly filed several other petitions the week as well. Two of which were sent to the California Medical Board of Regents requesting permission to have his lips surgically removed from Ms. Bijon’s Butt and another volunteering for a very controversial new procedure that would involve having testical seeds implanted in his scrotum in hopes that he will one day grow a pair.

I'm not making this up. Read it for yourself at:
http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/man-sues-to-more-easily-take-wifes-name/20070112111009990001

I Love Malcolm X

I love Malcolm X for many reasons, more than I have time to write. But I found two quotes from the book Soul on Ice that well articulate my feelings.

"It was not the Black Muslim movement itself that was so irresistibly appealing to believers. It was the awakening into self-consciousness of twenty million Negroes that was so compelling. Malcolm X articulated their aspirations better than any other man of our time. When he spoke under the banner of Elijah Muhammad he was irresistible. When he spoke under his own banner he was still irresistible. If he had become a Quaker, a Catholic, or a Seventh-Day Adventist, and if he had continued to give voice to the mute ambitions in the black man's soul, his message would still have been triumphant: because what was great was not Malcolm X but the truth he uttered."

Quoting Ossie Davis:
"If you knew him you would know why we must honor him: Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves...However much we may have differed with him - or with each other about him and his value as a man, let his going from us serve only to bring us together, now. Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man - but a seed - which, after the winter of our discontent will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is - a Prince - our own black shining Prince! - Who didn't hesitate to die, because he loved us so."

Amen.

F*@k You and this Church

On a Monday morning, during one of my first few weeks at Carr Church, I drove into the church’s parking lot and noticed a man sleeping there in one of the Church vans. Having had relatively little experience with the Carr fellowship at the time and being unsure how the pastor would handle the situation, I went into the office and asked the pastor what I should do. She instructed me that if anything were to happen to him while on the church’s ground we would be legally liable and so with her blessing and prayers, my first ministerial moment of the day would be to clear him off the church grounds.
It was not until I reached the parking lot for the second time that I realized how gravely unprepared for the situation I was. As I made my way across the gravel lot, my mind raced with all the worst possible scenarios of this situation. With very little effort, this could easily devolve into a very dangerous situation. To my benefit, I had witnessed and been a part of a number of violent confrontations as a child. Still, it had been a long time since I needed or wanted to defend myself physically. What is more, I was an assistant pastor now. It could not be beneficial for the church if tomorrow’s headline read: Local Pastor Beats-Up Homeless Man. I was wracking my brain to figure out how exactly one knocks on a glass windshield in such a way as to clearly communicate, “It’s time to wake up … I’m sorry you can’t sleep here,” and, “Please don’t break that beer bottle on the curb and stab me to death,” when I reached the van.
It tuned out my plans did not matter, because the gentleman was already awake and climbing out of the van when I arrived. Attempting to appear firm yet graceful, I told him that he could not sleep in here and that he would have to move along. He responded by stumbling farther out of the van and unsuccessfully attempting to balance himself. Encouraged by his compliance, I began to list to him the programs the Carr church offered for the homeless when he projectile vomited onto another car in the parking lot and his own shoes. It was at this point I realized he had not listened or even heard what I had said, but was solely concerned with finding a place other than his bedroom to soil.
Again, this time more forcefully, I told him that he would be unable to sleep here; he would have to leave. Adding this time that he was trespassing and it was not safe to sleep here, I knew instantly that I had gotten his attention, because his gaze wandered up to mine.
“You gonna throw me out of this here church. You think Jesus would throw me out of his church. F*@k You and this Church,” he slurred. And then with no other fanfare he stumbled away and out of the parking lot, stopping only to relieve himself on the side of the church building.

There’s No Place Like Home

A study released this week provided several new guidelines for how parents can help their youngsters make the transition to college and avoid homesickness. The top three recommendations were:
1.) short trips away prior to graduation
2.) frequent visits home
3.) making friends also experiencing this important life step.
Not on the list, was my uncle Rosco’s advice: that you kids quit being bunch of little bitches.

A Back with too Much to View, a First Lady with a Modern Legacy

Palm Dessert, Calif. Jan. 1

It has been a while since America drew its face close to Betty Ford. But what the nation saw on December 30^th in Southern California – an impossibly tiny face, lips pinched in grief, and eyes blinking in the harsh midday sun – served as a poignant reminder of a woman whose reign as the 1^st lady while brief and wholly unexpected, was amongst the most remarkable in modern history.

Two days later Mrs. Ford has reminded us that you’re never too old for a second go round in single-ville. Mrs. P, as she’s known on match.com, has been spotted in several of L.A.’s most exclusive hot spots partying it up with the now infamous “Axis of Reveal,” Lindsey Lohan, Brittney Spears, and Paris Hilton. In celebration of her inauguration TMZ.com released photos of the former first lady leaving the appropriately titled club “White House” crotch-less as a jay bird. When asked about how these explicit photographs would tarnish the image of her impeccable career as a stateswoman Mrs. Ford slurred, “Look honey, these young ladies may have perfected the Art of War, but make no mistake, my generation invented the Commando.”

Mission Accomplished

Saddam Hussein was hung in Iraq today and with him dies my naivety that the world would be safer if it had one less brutal dictator. Several years ago when George Bush began the journey that has led us to this point in history I supported the President’s decisions. The attack on the World Trade Center was brutal and personal and America’s continued safety seemed to warrant a swift and decisive response. As the president led us into Afghanistan to destroy the strongholds of the Taliban (no rhyme intended but enjoy it anyway), I believed he made the correct decision. A year later, I watched Colin Powell argue before the U.N. that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. When neither Biological nor Chemical Weapons were found, I still supported President Bush, because he was correct that Saddam Hussein was an evil man. Even if Americans were not in danger, the thousands of Iraqis whose husbands were killed, wives who were raped, dancers that had their feat broken, and pianists that had their fingers cut off for not supporting the Sunni party line justified the demise of Saddam’s oppressive regime. Some men are worth forcing out of power for the good of the people.

But now, 3 years later, Hussein is gone, Bin Laden is out of power and as an American I’m now more afraid of the current state of the world than I was before. The “Axis of Evil” persists. Iraq prepares to substitute one ruthless dictator for another. Iran and North Korea attempt to stockpile nuclear weapons. In the face of such abject failure with the best of intentions the question must be asked - Where did Bush go wrong? So many Political Commentators have simply blamed America’s disastrous international policy on George Bush’s leading us into a war we had no business being involved in. Yet this argument, to me, is not convincing because Bin Laden and Saddam were criminals that deserved to be brought to justice. Maybe American lives would have been spared if we had not acted, but justice would not have been better served.

I think the better answer is that Bush (and I) underestimated the strength of the forces of evil that Americans were fighting against. Real evil is not simply 19 men with box cutters crashing a plane into a skyscraper. Evil is not that easy to pin down and destroy. It pervades the human spirit in little ways that implicate us all as criminals. The Taliban is a product of human greed. We can destroy the influence of Osama Bin Laden, but unless we can defeat the forces that obligate the primary cash crop in the country to be opium, we will never completely surmount the influence criminals have on the people. Saddam is gone, and still the two differing factions of Muslims in the country tear it apart in an attempt to lead the nation in what they believe to be the right direction for their homeland. Each faction insists that God is on their side and thus they are willing to maim, kill, and die to insure victory for their side. As Americans attempt to help Iraqis navigate this process, the Iraqis (justifiably) distrust our suggestions due to America’s deplorable history of leaving countries they collaborate with worse off than before their presence was established in the country. So where do we go from here if evil turns out to be stronger than we thought and a part of us all? ... Well, you’ll have to read my next blog to find out!!!