Loud Loft

Thoughts on Michael Jackson . . .

Yeah, like the world/blogosphere needs any more written about Michael Jackson. I had decided that everything I wanted to say had been said . . . and that there was plenty of things said that I would never say myself, but it’s my blog and my mind and I can change both if I want to.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Michael Jackson. He’s not really my style of musician and artist but I’ve a great deal of respect for his talent and for the role he’s played over the last 30 years in music.

One of the first 45’s I bought was a Jackson Five single. I don’t  recall which song it was but it was probably either “ABC” or “I’ll Be There” so that tells you how far back I go. A few years later I was there when MTV came onto the scene and spent far too much time watching music videos and what not. I appreciated his music videos then as much for their production value as for the songs. He clearly paid homage to the Jets versus the Sharks from West Side Story in "Bad", to Fred Astaire in "Smooth Criminal" and simply broke new ground with "Black or White".

My beautiful bride is a a fan of Janet Jackson and has several of her CD’s so that’s been the lion’s share of my exposure to the Jackson’s recently but we did sit down the other day and run the Michael Jackson catalog on iTunes and downloaded thirty or so songs. I loaded them on her iPod and on mine so that we could give them a listen.

The other day, on my daily walk, what struck me was the recurring theme of gentleness, grace and love that ran through the songs. I’m sure that there are songs in the catalog that are more harsh. With the vast number of songs he delivered there would have to be. Still, I was a bit taken aback by the tone and vibe that he consciously and deliberated displayed in his music.

The love songs were not gratuitous and the social commentary songs were generally characterized by reconciliation and generosity. There are exceptions to be sure . . . but given the strident nature of most contemporary music I was surprised by the gentle tone and grace put forth by this artist. It was also easy to see how his style and tone could appeal to both male and female fans. His asexual persona enabled him to not be a threat to either sex and it clearly expanded his appeal

I’ve always appreciated many different styles of music that are not necessarily in the direction of my default taste. His music is lush with layers of sounds and incredibly well produced. Still, you can track his growth as an artist from his early “Off the Wall” release on through “Thriller”, “Bad” and “Dangerous”.

As the years went on his dancing set the standard for modern popular dance and he continued to break ground with his extraordinary talent. I was never a fan of all the crotch grabbing. I don’t know why that’s so disturbing but I was much more disturbed by the incessant junk adjustment by the president of a company that I worked for back in the 90's. I’m serious folks, when this guy stood up to address the company, he couldn’t keep his hands off his twigs and berries. If you made a drinking game where you had to slam a shot every time he played pocket pool you would be hammered in less than ten minutes and suffering from alcohol poisoning if you stayed in the game for thirty minutes. This was an upper class, middle age white guy who had no dance skills what so ever . . . ewwww.

Anyway,

Best I can tell, amongst the six billion or so folks walking upright on this rock, there are a large number of folks who could be tagged as “regular guys”. Given that six billion number I just tossed out, there are likely to also be a good number (though much less than the regular guy crowd) of “off the chart genius guys”. However the overlap of those two groups of “Regular Guy/Off The Chart Genius Guys” is practically nil.

Michael Jackson WAS NOT a regular guy. He WAS an off the chart genius guy. I don’t know if he was  guilty of the charges made against him. He didn’t appear to have  matured past the little boy stage in his private life. He barely made it much farther in his public life.

I don’t know what personal demons he struggled with. I didn’t have a father like Joe Jackson who seems to be wrestling with dementia these days and who, by most accounts, was a tough task master who never displayed love or affection to his children. Everybody has to account for their own choices but shackling a child with the chains of dysfunction that was said to exist in the Jackson family seems to have impaired Michael Jackson’s view of what is appropriate.

Personally, I don’t think he ever progressed past the “sleep over” phase in regards to his approach to friendships with children. Still, he will be judged by his actions and by his intentions by the most fair of judges and with that . . . I will be content.

His life is over now. I hope that his family will make honorable choices and appreciate Michael Jackson for the good things of his life, his rich legacy of art and for his gentle demeanor.

I grieve for his family and for his children. His young daughter’s brief address to the audience of her love for her father and her broken heart is what stays with me . . . how could it not with you?

Mystical Music Musings

Tommy and I were standing on our chairs and had been screaming at the top of lungs at each other for the last ninety minutes. Finally, at one point, we reached out, grabbed the front of the others shirt and began pounding each other in the chest. We couldn’t be more ecstatic . . .

What I thought were aircraft landing lights (but I learned later that they were banks of lights commonly used on film sets to recreate sunlight) had just lit the darkness and had blinded us. The sound was so overwhelming that I couldn’t hear myself no matter how loud I yelled. It was the last song of the concert. We were on the fourth row directly in front of Pete Townsend. In addition to the deafening PA sound system, Pete had three sets of 200 watt amps on stage. Each set had two cabinets with four twelve inch speakers each. You could feel the music as much as hear it.

Won’t Get Fooled Again was at it’s crescendo. It’s that point in the song right after the synthesizer/organ bridge, Keith Moon starts beating the #$%* out of his drums, Roger Daltry screams yyeeeeaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!, John Entwistle hits a bass note that sounds like a jet engine at full throttle, Townsend strikes a massive chord on the guitar and the lighting guy fries the retinas of the crowd with those freakin’ bright lights.

It was November, 1975. Tommy and I had worn out numerous album copies of The Who Sell Out, Tommy, Live at Leeds, Who’s Next and Quadrophenia but this was the first time for us to see The Who live. They were all about 30 years old, so still young enough to hit it hard and old enough to really know what they doing. Tommy and I were 18 and freshmen in college. Without knowing it at the time, by pummeling each other, we had invented slam-dancing which later evolved into moshing. Who knew we were such innovators? At the time it was just the emotion, testosterone and energy of our youth manifesting it self the only way it could. I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for soccer hooligans every since.

Anyway, that all happened nearly 34 years ago and I can still recall every nuance of the moment. Every time I hear the song (yeah, I watch CSI Miami just for the open) I clench my fists just a little and wag my head to the beat.

A few years later in 1983, while watching MTV, a video comes on of a live concert in the rain at Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado. The rain is coming down hard, the band is soaked, the crowd is soaked and the cameras are getting drenched. It was U2 doing Sunday Bloody Sunday. Towards the end of the song someone hands Bono a pole that has a white piece of cloth tied on. It’s not a white flag of surrender in the sense of being defeated. It’s a white flag of obedience. It’s a white flag representing the purity of an unblemished sacrifice. He waves it over the crowd as the steam rises off his back and sings “The real battle just begun/to claim the victory Jesus won/on Sunday Bloody Sunday.” The torches in the distance, the shafts of light cutting thru the night rain and the crimson tint of the rocks makes this an iconic image that causes it to be listed as one of the fifty moments that changed the history of rock and roll.

Nineteen years later on 2/2/2002 at the half time performance of the Super Bowl, at the end of Where The Streets Have No Name, after the names of the victims of the tragedy of 9/11 have scrolled across the scrim, Bono pulls his jacket open to reveal another flag sown into the lining. It’s an image etched into the ethos of our culture. Though it's associated with a tragedy that touched the lives of millions - it represents a determination and courage that mere words spoken or written on paper can never convey.

For me, music has a power and mystery that I Can’t Explain (if you know your Who songs you will get the pun). I’m not a musician. I can’t sing. In fact, in those places where people are expected to sing along (often times this is during Church) I make it a point to not sing with the crowd and it’s not just because I have a crappy voice. I’m enthralled with the swirling sound of music and people singing and it diminishes the depth of feeling when I add my voice. Yeah, I know, if every body felt the way I do . . . there would be nothing to listen to. But, every body doesn’t feel the way I do - so drop it.

I love to feel music when I listen to it. I love music that is on the ragged edge. However, I do have favorite artists that don’t sound like bombs going off. I enjoy the sensitive song writer genre and James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Randy Newman are some of my favorites along with many others styles of music. Fatboy Slim, Modest Mouse and even trashy European techno/dance has a place in my heart.

But back to the music that peels paint and makes your ears ring the next day.

Lola by The Kinks was the first record I ever bought and yes, it was a 45 rpm single and I paid way less than a buck for it back in 1970. I would have been about 13 years old so a song about gender confusion was just what I needed at the time :)

Lola shares a characteristic with another Who song, Baba O’Riley in that when performed live in concert, the crowd sings along on certain sections. For Lola, the audience sings Lo Lo Lo Lo Lola on the chorus and on Baba O’Riley the crowd drowns out Pete on "Don't cry/don't raise your eye/it's only teenage wasteland". Those are the few times that I feel like singing along with the band.

I always come back to the snarling, chain saws on sheet metal, distorted, amped up, sweat slinging, spit flinging music that made Tommy and I want to beat the #$%&* out of each other . . .  in a brotherly love sort of way. We tend to build walls, dig moats and bury land mines around our emotions. I think that’s the reason these “over the top/this one goes to eleven” situations cut deep into the hearts of so many of us.

Tommy is 52 now and I will be too in just a few months. We’ve been friends since August of 1970 when we both showed up in home room on the first day of 7th grade. I always sat near him since my last name is Buchanan and his last name is Byrd. He still calls me Billy and even though I call him Tom - he will always be Tommy to me.

In August of 2000 he came for a visit. I had tickets for us to see The Who at Reunion Arena. Moon had died of a drug overdose many years ago and Ringo Starr’s son, Zach Starkey had replaced him on drums. The band was in their mid 50’s and they didn’t jump and leap about as much as they did the first time we saw them . . . neither did Tommy or I.

But, we still stood on our chairs, sang along on Baba O’Riley and made fools of ourselves, but this time we just punched our fists in the air  . . . we bruise a lot easier these days.

What, Me Worry? Dreams I'll Never See . . .

Just one more mornin'
I had to wake up with the blues
Pulled myself outta bed, yeah
Put on my walkin' shoes,
Went up on the mountain,
To see what I could see,
The whole world was fallin',
Right down in front of me.

[chorus]
cause I'm hung up on dreams I'll never see, yeah baby.
Ahh help me baby, or this will surely be the end of me, yeah.

Pull myself together, put on a new face,
Climb down off the hilltop, baby,
Get back in the race.

[chorus]

Pull myself together, put on a new face,
Climb down off the hilltop, baby,
Get back in the race.

[chorus]

Ok, it’s not Shakespeare or Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote or Kurt Vonnegut but I literally grew up listening to this song. It was the second track on side two of The Allman Brothers Band album (that was both the name of the album and the name of the band - they were either real economical with names or not very creative, I have to go with the former because . . . well, they sort of invented and dominated an entire genre of music). It was the longest song on the album at 7:19 and the music dominates the lyrics if you catch my drift.

They were known for stretching out a song. Considering that the live versions of Whipping Post clocked in at 22:53 and Mountain Jam ran 33:39 you just have to believe that for the brothers, it is was more about the music than the words. That’s ok with me and it seemed to work ok for the Grateful Dead and later for a little band from Vermont called Phish.

But anyway . . .

One of the more interesting side effects of this medicine that I’m taking is vivid dreams. Now I couldn’t find that specific terminology listed as a side effect but I’m certain the Doctor who gave me the prescription used those words . . . and if she didn’t, well it makes a much better story if she did, so there.

So, either way, I’ve been having the most vivid dreams lately, including the one that centers on the mythology that if you die in your dream . . . you will die right then in real life. I’m here to dispute that myth.

I won’t go into the whole dream sequence because, well it’s dream and most of it didn’t make much #$%&* sense. The end of the dream found me in a very tall building looking out over the city. I had to be at least 20+ stories in the air. There was a beast (let’s call it a lion) that was roaming the floors inflicting the most excruciating pain as it found people in it’s path. It wasn’t roaring or tearing them limb from limb or anything that you might expect an angry lion to do. In fact, it was quite nonchalant as it wandered around, but when it found you . . . it was bad, real bad.

To save a bunch of folks the agony and suffering at the hands of this beast I had convinced them to hop on this trolley (remember this is a dream so it doesn’t have to make sense) and had steered it thru a window causing everybody to plummet to their death 20 stories below.

Seriously, compared to the horror, suffering and pain that the lion was handing out, falling that distance to a quick splat at the end was a merciful option.

I was still standing at the now shattered window (for some reason I had jumped off the trolley right before it crashed thru) and watched the lion as it ambled towards me. I turned to face the skyline thru the open window and stepped off the edge.

As I fell, I leaned back to the point that all I could see was the blue sky above me and the sides of the buildings on either side slipping by as I rushed towards the ground.

I thought how beautiful the sky was and wondered what I would feel when I hit. And. Then. Bang. Everything went black as I felt the first feeling of impact with the concrete. The first thing I thought was “wow, that didn’t hurt at all. I guess the impact was so severe and sudden that my passing from consciousness to  . . . well, whatever it was I was feeling now was so sudden that I didn’t really have time to feel anything at all. Mercy.

Remember, I’m still asleep and dreaming. I didn’t wake up just before I hit. I didn’t wake up just after I hit. I kept right on dreaming.

The first shock was the sense of peace. I thought “this is it? This is what dead feels like? What the #@$% is everybody so afraid of? This is nice.”

I didn’t see any bright lights or hear trumpets or find myself staring into the face of God and much to my dismay . . . I woke up right about then.

Here’s the deal. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I believe in Heaven. I believe that Hell is, at least, separation from God. So maybe I had to wake up right then because I wasn’t dead. Maybe it was just my vivid imagination (and I do have one) picking plot lines and story elements from the storehouse of movies, books and shows I’ve seen over the last 51+ years and weaving all those parts together to entertain me while I was sleeping.

I don't have a clue. I don’t care.

What I came away with was that death is not the end of things, it’s how you get to the next thing. I believe that next thing for me is community with God and that even my most vivid imagination and all the most vivid imaginations of all of the most creative minds in the world all gathered together in one place will not be able to describe it.

So - I will leave you with these words from brother Gregg Allman.

Pull myself together, put on a new face,
Climb down off the hilltop, baby,
Get back in the race.

Preach it Gregg. The living is in the race . . .

What I'm reading right now . . .

Picking Cotton by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton with Erin Torneo. The story of a woman who identified the wrong man who raped her, his subsequent release after serving over a decade in prison (DNA evidence exonerated him) his forgiveness of her and their new role as friends and advocates for new methods to identify suspects in crime cases.

They like Jesus but not the church by Dan Kimball. I first saw Dan Kimball about five years ago speaking about this new “emerging” wave of churches and culture. Ummm, read this book or forever have your head in the sand (or elsewhere) about how our society is changing and how we need to understand that it’s not the same old, same old.

Searching for God knows what by Don Miller. This is the third or fourth time I’ve read this book. Go right now to a bookstore or to amazon and buy it. Read it. In six months, read it again. Repeat every year or so. In fact, just read everything Don Miller has every written (Blue Like Jazz and Through Painted Deserts are my faves) including watching his videos on “Let Story Guide You” and “Why You Matter As An Artist”. Just do it and shut up and read. Let me know what you think.

The Survivors Club by Brian Sherwood. Real stories of folks who’ve survived unsurmountable circumstances. When you buy the book you get a code to take a fifteen minute online test to learn what kind of surviver you are and what are the three dominant and least dominant traits that you possess to survive.

I’m working though a couple more right now. I tend to read multiple books at a time on occasion and this is one of those occasions. Otherwise, I tend to read one book at a time in just a few sittings. I don't read anywhere near as much as I want to and having a few days off recently has helped me dive back in. Well, that and I can function better now thanks to drugs :)

What, me worry? update.

So, it’s been a couple of weeks since I last posted about my new journey into the world of anti-depressant medications. Well, it sucks and it’s the best thing ever.

Those contradictory statements are explained below.

The first medication that was given to me by my Doctor was Lexapro. This medicine works great for a vast segment of the population. This medicine sucks for me. If you go to any of the various sites that have information about Lexapro and read the side effects . . .  I rang the bell for all of them.  Sadly, I also received none of the benefits. The details of the side effects are a bit too personal and gross even for me (shocking news I’m sure) but if you venture out and find that list you will know what I mean.

So, I call the Doctor and give her the bad news that I’m experiencing all the negative side effects and none of the benefits and after a lengthy discussion of all the options we settle on Wellbutrin as my next drug of choice.

It’s worth pointing out that I’m not bummed that I have to take this medication but it’s also a bummer (and a bit of a blow to the old ego) that I can’t just beat this situation on my own. That’s just my pride talking along with an inherent stereotype that is a disturbing side effect of the remnants of our “Marlboro Man” culture.

I started on a low dose for a week and then moveed up up to a full dose. Holy $#&%, this stuff is all that and a bag of chips!!!. Not only are the crappy side effects from the Lexapro gone but I actually seem able to function better (Lisa confirms the functioning better part so it’s not just self induced hysteria . . . though there’s nothing wrong with that).

I can actually feel something now. When I was describing the side effects to my Doctor, she said that most folks would rather feel sad than feel nothing at all and she’s totally and completely right. On Lexapro I couldn’t feel anything. It was even more difficult to engage with my surroundings. I had trouble making decisions. My memory was horrible. My libido had left the building and those are just the least troubling side effects. Lisa described me as reminding her of Ozzy Osbourne without the mumbling . . .

Now I can actually engage with life around me. I tend to be a bit dark in my humor but I am also quite optimistic about life in general and those traits have returned. My libido has returned (pray for Lisa, I’m being a bit of a pest, I fear) and I actually found myself laughing out loud. It helps that the ABC show Wipeout has returned for the summer. I’ve actually fallen out of a chair laughing at the wonderful folks who submit themselves to the task of navigating these obstacle courses. I grew up watching the Three Stooges and The Road Runner and this show is simply those precepts in the real world.

Lisa and I have taken some time off and it’s been a great time to rest and relax. We’ve stayed in a nice place in different surroundings. Had some great meals and generally just enjoyed each other’s company. It’s been wonderfully and very timely for me. I’ve read a half dozen books recently. I’ve caught up on dozens of bloggers that I follow and also spent time just vegging out.

I don’t really know how long I will continue on the Wellbutrin. The initial thought by my counselor was to give it a whirl for six to nine months and then wean myself off so we will see how that goes. Right now, I’m a big fan of it’s effects and how it’s enabled me to rise from the mire and reengage with my surroundings. I owe that to Lisa, to my friends, to my family and to my job.

More to come . . .

FOOTNOTE: There is a popular quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”.

Sadly, there is no evidence that Ben was a big fan of beer. However, Ben was a big fan of wine and in a 1779 letter to Andre Morellet, a French economist he did say, “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy”.

You really do need to read the entire letter so click HERE if you want to go and check it out for yourself.

Still, given Ben’s good sense and appreciation for the basic and fundamental issues of life I feel justified in abridging his quote and modifying it so.

“Beer (and Wellbutrin) is proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy”

What, Me Worry?

For a specific segment of the population that short phrase speaks volumes. For the rest of you, click HERE to find the source.

This phrase has, for most of my life been a motto that I take seriously (pun intended). There are so many things that we have no control over in our lives that it just seemed prudent to accept that it would be better to determine what I should spend my time worrying about and let the rest fall to their own place.

Generally speaking, up until a few months ago, this philosophy worked quite well. Sure, there were times when I worried about certain things and there were times where I felt the cold clamp of depression  . . . but I always worked my way out of those times in a generally acceptable manner.

Life has it’s ebbs and flows, it’s peaks and valleys and what I’ve experienced is well within any normal standards of what your average guy deals with. In fact, I’ve probably had a lot less to worry about than most folks. I’ve been incredibly blessed with good health, a job, friends, family, a roof over my head, food on the table a wife who loves me for who I am . . . seriously folks, when it comes to anguish and whatnot, I lead a “What, Me Worry?” life.

But then . .  .

On April 1st 2009, things came to a crescendo. That it happened on April Fool’s day is just a cruel trick of timing. That morning, I woke up with the very ordinary feeling that my Dad was in the present. What’s not so ordinary is that my Dad died on February 22nd, 2000 . . .

This wasn’t one of those situations where you have a dream that your loved one is alive because even with a dream you understand that it was a dream. This was a scenario that transcended awareness of a dream in which you know something is not right. It was crushing when I finally began the process of realizing that something which I knew to be certain (that my Dad was in the present with me) was not so.

In essence, my Dad died all over again . . . and I began to grieve all over again.

On April 6th I was in a meeting. It was a Monday morning and one of my co-workers was telling a story about some situation that had upset him and how his small daughter came over to him and gently patted his cheek and said “It will be ok Daddy”.

Lisa and I don’t have children and we’ve never had regrets for not making the leap into parenthood. In some cases, I think we would have been great parents, but generally speaking it’s not something we ever had our heart’s desire set upon and we are both comfortable with that choice. We’ve talked about it at length at different points in our marriage (both of them) and we harbor no ill will towards the other for our choices. In fact, we both feel the same way about our decision.

But  . . .  as I listened to my friend describe the tenderness of his daughter towards him I realized that I had to fully reconcile that I would never experience such a relationship with a child, or a grandchild. It was something that I had to fully “put to bed”. I’m not sad about the choice I’ve made or even have second thoughts but I’ve never had to close the door on being a Father or Grandfather . . . . and I began to grieve over that closure.

During all this time, my Mom (who will be 87 this October) was getting more and more frail and less able to care for herself. I have two wonderful siblings who have opened up their homes and share the responsibility for providing a home to her. My mom splits her time with my sister in North Richland Hills and my brother in Denison. Their homes are both one level which makes it possible for my Mom to stay with them . . . our house is two levels and all the bedrooms are on the second level with stairs that make it very difficult for Mom to stay with us for any length of time. In fact, these days, if my Mom is at my Sister’s and they need to be out of town for the weekend, instead of Mom staying with us I go over to my sisters and spend the time there.

But a couple of weeks ago she fell at my sisters. She’s fallen before and has the bruises and scars to prove it. She is (by her own description) a tough old bird. She survived colon cancer over 42 years ago (resulting in colostomy), multiple heart bypass surgery 32 years ago and a fall that broke both of her elbows (they had to replace one entire elbow and half of the other) about 10 years ago. In addition, all three of her children had polio in the late 40’s (my oldest sister died, my other sister was disabled in her right arm and my brother had only minor issues) and of course my dad died of congestive heart failure a little over nine years ago.

The week after she fell at my sisters, she was at my brothers. I had the strangest impulse to call her on a Monday morning and my sister in law answered her cell phone in a bit of panic. Mom had fallen again in the bathroom and she had just got her back to bed. I spoke with Mom on the phone and she didn’t sound good.

I drove to Denison and spent part of the day with Mom. We think she may have taken an extra nighttime sleep aid and was just really groggy when she got up in the morning . . . that’s what we hope anyway. Still, watching your mom laying in bed struggling to make a coherent sentence is sobering. She’s been ok since then but she’s ready to go and be with Dad. I know the grieving for that time will come and I grieve a bit now for her loss of mobility and self. She’s still a “tough old bird”  . . . for now.

Did I mention that my wife’s brother was recently divorced after 30 years of marriage? All the turmoil has been tough on him and almost as tough on Lisa. She and her brother (I’m very close to him and we go back even from before I met Lisa) are as close as two peas in a pod. The pain he has felt has taken a toll on Lisa. I’ve struggled with how to be a good partner, husband and friend to her as she deals with her own feelings about all this.

And then about a year and a half ago I changed careers - drastically. I left a VP of Operations position with a company that I had been with for eighteen years to go to work for my church. It’s a great job and one that I’ve been preparing for all of my life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything . . . but #$%^&! it’s a lot different than what I’d grown accustomed to for the last thirty years.

So, between grieving all over again for my dad, grieving for the first time over parenting choices, my Mom’s declining health issues, my wife’s struggle with her brother’s divorce and my job change . . . I began a spiral that I could not correct.

One of the amazing things about my new job is that I work with people who care enough about me to call me out when they see a change. My boss (who is also a good friend) took me aside one day and bluntly asked “what’s the matter?”. He had noticed, other co-workers had noticed and they loved me enough to not sweep it under the rug and carry on as if nothing was the matter.

Another amazing thing about this job is that my employer provides counseling to staff free of charge. You might think that would be a matter of course for a church but this counseling is done by a third party, off site and is anonymous. The counselor notifies one person her at the church of how many visits were made by staff in any one month and then he’s reimbursed accordingly.

So, I had a visit with the Doctor and after  going into much more detail than I’ve shared here, he concluded that there had been a “perfect storm” of issues and that I was experiencing moderate depression. He offered to continue the meetings and also offered the option of a prescription for an anti-depressant if I was open to the suggestion.

Have you ever seen the iPhone commercials where the narrator describes a certain situation and then declares “there’s an app for that”. That’s pretty much how my generation grew up with drugs. If there was a problem then “there’s a drug for that”. Some folks have issues with that and would rather explore any option possible before they run down the path to prescription drugs. I, however, see things a bit differently.

Last year about this time I had surgery on my right hand. Several months later I was having a terrible time with my right elbow. It seems that I had developed tennis elbow as a result of  favoring my hand and arm as the scar healed. I had multiple physical therapy sessions on my right arm and elbow but what finally did the trick was a steroid shot right into my elbow. All the manipulation in the world wouldn’t solve the problem. It took a little bit of medicine directly into the elbow to jump start the healing process. It worked quite nicely.

So, today I visited my family doctor, reviewed the situation with her and walked out  with a month’s worth of samples of something that is supposed to jack with my serotonin levels. I should see some improvement within a week or less and I will update my doctor when I go back in four weeks for my annual physical. The thinking now is that I will be on the anti-depressants for six to nine months till I work my way back to square one.

I’m wrestling a little bit with sharing all this personal information online in a public forum . . . but what the &%$#. If I’m ever going to err on one side or the other, I’m going to choose transparency, authenticity and “real” over the other choices. I don’t fault others for not making that choice. I mean, seriously that’s why it’s called “choice”.

I will post more as the weeks go by. It actually helps me to tell this story. It’s one way that I process the intangible and abstract and give it form and space. At some point I can go back to my motto, “What, Me Worry?”

More to come . . .

Philosophical Phriday #1

While listening to two political pundits bash the @#$% out of each other this morning on the topic of “enhanced interrogation" (waterboarding) and “are we (America) safer now under the Obama administration than we were under the Bush administration” I realized that I don’t think we have a consensus  about how safe we want America to be . . . and what price we are willing to pay for that level of safety.

I also began to think of the responsibility of our elected officials, the ones we (s)elect or are selected by those we (s)elect and our security forces (which are all “opt in” organizations) and how those of us who are not a part of those groups are effected by their actions.

First, I began to wonder what is the "safety from terrorist threat" situation like in other countries i.e. how safe are other countries and what measures do they take to achieve their desired level of safety. It’s always easy to start with the extreme ends of the spectrum and work towards the middle and the first country that I thought of that is pretty safe from a terrorist threat was North Korea . . .

I tried to think of what country might be on the other end of the spectrum and is at continuous risk from terrorist threat and the first one I came up with was Israel . . .

I’ve never been to Israel but I have close friends who have and they corroborate the popular notion that security in Israel is tight. From what I understand their equivalent agency to the TSA makes the one in America look like a bunch of girl scouts. They have a CIA/Secret Service/FBI agency that is efficient and has a reputation that makes the whole Jack Bauer/24 thing look like . . . well, again, girl scouts.

It’s odd that I never hear of marketplace bombings in Pyongyang yet they happen with alarming frequency in Israel. Nobody really wants to invade North Korea but Israel is surrounded by folks who are ready to spill blood to get back the 8,000+ square miles (about the size of New Jersey) of land that has no natural resources and really isn’t that attractive (again, similar to New Jersey . . . .ooohhhhh!!!!!).

Of course part of that might be because that news of North Korea is heavily controlled by the state, the people are under constant scrutiny, the government is feared beyond measure and the ruler is a narcissistic despot with schizophrenic tendencies . . . or maybe they’ve just decided that to be safe from an outside threat they are willing to pay the price of personal liberty, moral conscience and any individual expression of freedom.

Israel on the other hand is also a country that takes their security and safety very seriously . . . but still suffers from the far too routine car bombing, suicide bombing and blood shed. But maybe Israel is a bad example to hold up to the light. I mean seriously dear readers, when your conflict with your neighbors is a key component of the Old Testament, the Torah and the Koran you’re pretty much screwed from the get go if you are looking for peace, quiet and a nice neighborhood to raise a family.

For the life of me I’m having trouble coming up with a developed country with massively porous borders and non existent security forces this side of some of the places I’ve visited in Africa - and some of those are a bureaucratic and process challenged nightmare that makes our DHS/INS look as smooth as Fed-Ex.

What can we (that would be those of you reading this who live in America) take from all this?

One thing might be that safety is an illusion, that safety is a transitory state of being and that safety comes with a price. That some of the price is paid by the men and women who “opt-in” to the armed forces and security forces of our country. That some of the price is also paid with having less freedom than more.

In the park behind our house, if the local police installed a hundred foot pole with six cameras covering a 360 degree area around the pole . . . I would be safer. I would also have less freedom. If there was border crossing at the county line from Dallas to Denton County and all who passed had to present proper credentials  . . . I would be safer. I would also have less freedom. If the Coppell police (the suburb of Dallas were I live) detained and interrogated (enhanced version or regular) ever individual deemed suspicious that entered the town . . . I would be safer. However, those are not prices I am willing to pay.

Recently, the opinion has been voiced that a price has been paid by spending the moral currency of our country with enhanced interrogation tactics and the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.

I can’t get my money back, but I can stop paying the price . . .

Lord's Table Elements

So I decided to give up not drinking for Lent this year. Yeah, its a bit unusual but it's not like I drink all the time anyway. In fact, if I have one beer a week . . . that's a lot. So it was a challenge for me to commit to drinking 40 beers over the 46 day period of Lent. I decided that if I was going to go down this path I might as well  go whole hog and try to work in the observance of the Lord's Supper as often as possible. That's especially interesting as I'm pretty opposed to the daily observance.

That's mostly because I think that since I don't hold to the transubstantiation camp that it's just another thing that will become a ritual and quickly loose it's meaning.

Anyway, I had the beers and I had these tasty chips so I figured why not? So, for all but about five or six of the days of Lent - when I had my time of observing the commitment I had made "for" Lent, I also observed the Lord's Supper.

"This is my blood and this is my body"

I figure that the Shiner and gluten free chips are a &%^# of a lot closer to the wine and bread that were on the table when Jesus initiated this little shindig with his friends than the juice and wafer that is offered at church..

It actually became a meaningful experience for me. I don't see the point in continuing it every day of the year but, for the season of Lent, it was a good thing to pause, take a sip of a refreshing beverage, crunch down on a tasty, salty chip and consider the sacrifice of my lord and savior a few thousand years ago.

A sacrifice that changed the world and one that continues today to effect the lives of people around the world.

Lent was good for me this year. I enjoyed thinking about my commitment over the 46 days and it did cause me to focus more on how I can be the hands and feet of Jesus to this world . . . and I still like Shiner too.

The best and the brightest? Are you kidding me?

So, one of the complaints I hear voiced about the pay/bonus issue of the AIG bailout is that it's necessary to keep the "best and the brightest" to navigate AIG through the recovery process.

I've tried to keep the profanity down on the new and improved Loud Loft  . . . but #$%&@#$!!!!! It's the "best and brightest" who got AIG into this mess. I have a niece who is a SAHM with two small children. She's got a college degree, worked as a teacher for a few years before the kiddos came along and I would rather give her $250,000 a year and let her work part time from home and let these "best and brightest" go sell phones from a kiosk at the mall.

I mean seriously, I trust her a lot more than these people living in a bubble in Connecticut. She will behave much more responsibly than these parasites who live off the people who actually do contribute to the economy.

Maybe it's time to recalibrate the pay scale of these positions. It's clear that in this instance something is very, very, very wrong. If we do end up with tighter regulations, more government oversigtht and the attendant beaucracy that goes along with all that - it will only because of the unbounded greed of pariahs like these who are the worst examples of free trade, capitalism and "letting the market find it's level" in my life time.

And if my niece doesn't want the job, my other niece has a twelve year old daughter who's perfect for the job . . . like she could do worse.

Goma, text messaging and community

So I'm sitting in church this morning when Barry asks the folks to pray for the folks from IBC (including Steve Roese) who are in Goma Congo. The situation there is slightly better than it was just a few months ago but is still extremely tough. Our folks are visiting the ALARM compound that I visited with a few other IBC'ers last October.

When the rebels started raiding, hundreds of thousands fled Goma and that area of the Congo for safety. All but a few of the ALARM staff left but have slowly trickled back in.

Anyway,

Instead of/as I was praying, I sent a text message to Steve telling him that we in the body gathered here in Irving were praying for him and for the folks there. He texted back his thanks and noted that ALARM needs funds to supply provisions to pastors in the area who are making their way back to their flock.

When the violence got close - they fled with the clothes on their back and the items that they could carry. They are coming back to nothing in most cases and it's difficult to minister to others when your own family has nothing to start with.

So, ALARM needs $100 per pastor to supply a tarp, some farm tools, some food and some rice - along with a little cash to start over with. They want to help 100 pastors so the math comes to $10,000

So I sent a text to Mike Gwartney (who "runs" the services each Sunday at IBC) and he and I exchanged a few more texts while Steve and I exchanged a few more texts . . . and the short story is that during the Lord's Supper, Mike was able to get word to Barry about all this and at the close of the service Barry shared that some texts had flown back and forth half way around the world during the last hour or so and baskets had been placed at the exits and if you wanted to give something to help the pastors of Goma, to drop something in the basket on your way out the door.

And the people gave $1469.15.

Barry will make a bit more comprehensive announcement at the 6:00 service and people will be able to contribute at the end of that one to. We might come up with $2500 or so just from today

All this because of a couple of text message that brought the communities of IBC in Irving Texas USA with the community of Pastors in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa. Is there real community in a "virtual/online" community? This question comes up all the time amongst those of us who dabble in technology as we journey through this place and time.

Does that question even have to be asked? Seriously?

BTW - if you want to help, send a check to IBC with ALARM/Goma Pastors in the detail section.

UPDATE: At the 6:00 service the folks gave another $1410.13 for a one day total of $2879.28 and I know of at least one check for  $125 that will come in tomorrow to take the total to over $3,000.

Not too shabby a demonstration of what the power of a few text messages can do . . . well, that and a body of believers who care for the "whole" body no matter where it's located.