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Apologies for the long -- really long -- interlude. I was rescuing an .org

Kind of still am, but I there are things I'm feeling I need to get out there: jokes, reflections, questions. So here goes.

About The Brain Police

Now that it actually IS 2012, maybe it's time for me to actually say some things here again. Especially if the world is about to end ;-)

One thing on my mind during this season of US elections and Arab Spring denouement: how to detect and deflate the Brain Police. I'm not trying to describe some plot or shadowy organization. It's more like people who are sucked into reproducing atmospheres of "ought."

What I mean by the Brain Police is that, in every culture at every time there are things you are not supposed to think or say, like telling Franco Harris that I was a Cowboys fan. (You are not supposed to think or say this in Pittsburgh.) My comment here is not about particular "conservative" or "progressive" versions of this. It's about deflating the Brain Police phenomenon itself.

So how do you detect the Brain Police infection, and what is the antibiotic?

First, detection is very easy. Think of a movement/idea/behavior that you dare not publicly oppose. (Yes, please stop for a minute and think about it.)

You just detected the Brain Police of your time and place. These things shift. Odds are the answer is very different if you look 10/20/30 years ago or from now, or if you move from Berkeley to Charleston.

Second, what is the antibiotic? I had a really good laugh the first time I heard the phrase "politically correct." (In the context I had no idea whether it was liberal or reactionary.) My response was probably healthy for everyone present. However, Brain Police, like Satan, usually detest being laughed at. Which is why it's nearly the best thing to do. The whole phenomenon rests on an imperious assumption of the enduring self-importance of whatever "cause" is being espoused or defended. It is almost always simultaneously grim and absurd.

So here is my antibiotic approach:
1) Be lighthearted: exercise and promote a sense of humor about life in general. Especially be amused at the absurd.
2) Exercise and promote humility. This is especially toxic to the totalitarian instincts of Brain Police thinking.
3) Keep asking yourself and others "Do we really need Brain Police?" Better yet, ask "Does God need Brain Police?"

Aliens In My Saddlebags

I just rode my Triumph Thunderbird SE from Phoenix to Pittsburgh. Adventures fly like sparks from the wheels under 1600cc and 800 lbs of British steel, enough for at least two blog entries worth. I start with the strangest adventure first.

Between Tucson, Arizona and San Antonio, Texas, 900 miles of godforsaken wilderness runs unleashed across a third of America, momentarily interrupted by El Paso The Rude. On I-10, there really is nothing out there. OK, almost nothing. I saw a cow.

I also saw something rather remarkable. At the point where the waterless sun-scorched wasteland collides with the waterless sun-scorched wasteland, there sat a... something. It kind of looked like a toll booth looming up out of the desert, partly because it spanned Interstate 10 and partly because all traffic was stopping for it.

As I closed on it, I began to notice some things were different about this toll booth:

• There weren't any signs saying "Pay Toll $.75" or special lanes for my E-Z Pass. 
• Strange devices bristled over and beside the road, looking like they'd been borrowed from NASA or the SETI program, pointing at the cars and trucks and motorcycles on the road.
• Lots of men (they all looked like men anyway) in uniforms with handcuffs and weapons were hanging out outside in the 98 degree heat.
• Some of the men were carrying mirrors on the end of poles and using them to look under the cars and trucks.
• A lot of nice doggies. The men must like having BIG doggies for pets out there in the middle of the sun-scorched wasteland. I hope they give them plenty of water.

As I slowed to a stop beneath the overhang spanning the road, I noticed the men were talking to every driver and some passengers. The roar of my engine and my earplugs kept me from hearing what it was they were talking about. A man with a pole mirror was looking under every car, and doggies were sniffing all the cars. Every now and then the men told a truck or car to go to a parking lot where there were lots more men in uniforms.

It got to be my turn. One of the nice men in uniform with his weapons and handcuffs asked me "You an American Citizen?" I said "Yep!" Evidently "Yep!" is the right thing to say if you want to be mistaken for an American citizen in Texas. Finally I got it: They were looking for aliens! He started to wave me on, then stopped me. One of the doggies wanted to sniff my right saddlebag. I knew I didn't have any aliens in the saddlebag, but the doggy wanted to make sure. The nice BIG doggy took one sniff and agreed with me. He also didn't show any interest in the beef jerky lurking in my saddlebag or any interest in my right leg, for which I was grateful. I rode on, pondering this checkpoint for a while.

Moral of the story: if you are going to ride a major interstate highway across America, be prepared to get checked because you could be hiding aliens on your motorcycle. Make sure you bring your passport. And just to be safe, hide all the aliens in your left saddlebag.

Osama Happy Dance

When the news broke, I was surprised to see people thronging the streets around the White House.

At first it didn't register why all those people were there. All I could see was a crowd, viewed from a hovering helicopter. Before President Obama said one word the crowd's size was snowballing courtesy of viral texts & tweets.

When CNN cut to street level, I heard the singing, the Olympic chants of "U-S-A!  U-S-A!" Dancing, fist-pumping, high-fiveing, hugging leaping jubilation boiled on the midnight asphalt there and at Ground Zero.

I felt relief at the news. I felt sadness. But I didn't feel what they were feeling, not even remotely.

Suddenly I realized that these young revelers had shivered in grade school or Jr. High school desks as the planes hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon. They'd grown up in a world where the Iron Curtain had been hauled away for scrap metal. But after 9/11, their childhoods and adolescence proceeded with caution under the shadow of a nameless fear. Boogeymen with scimitars and Sharia and tactical nukes lurked in hiding, waiting for the chance to destroy their world, their dreams, their lives. They came of age sharing a secret fear that tomorrow might never come and they'd never know doom was coming. It would creep up on them and strike without warning.

Tears rose in my eyes as I watched them dance into the night. Boogeyman Prime had been shot dead, and their tribe had tracked him down and killed him. They had to dance and chant and sing! Even the Grinch couldn't have stolen this from them.

But I couldn't share their jubilation. A man was dead. A heartless, smiling, murderous monster of a man. A man who Jesus had loved so much He died for him on the cross. A man who refused that Love and has now refused it forever.

I sympathize with the dancing young throngs, but I just can't join in their triumphal joy. I relish their moment of liberation from fear; yet I feel it in my spirit -- God doesn't rejoice in the death of the wicked: not now, not ever.

Kingdomball

I’ve been playing Senior Softball this winter here in Fountain Hills. This experience has revealed two things. 1) It’s improved my opinion of how good I used to be. 2) Jimmy showed me how important it is to live the Kingdom simply.

I don’t think Jimmy did this on purpose. He’s a personal fitness trainer who is about 55 years old and still throws people out at home plate from 270 feet away. I remember making throws like that… 25 years ago. I’ve caught some of his rifle throws this month. I’m playing catcher because I can’t throw the ball more than 100 feet now. Counting the roll.

Jimmy is his own best ad. I mean, if a 50something guy can still fire the ball like that (did I mention his speed and agility?), then he knows something about how to condition an aging body to play softball. He’s living proof. He performs as if he’s 35, not 55.

Most of the other guys on the field are more like me. You can tell some of them used to be good. They try to do things you wouldn’t attempt if you didn’t remember doing it. But like me, their bodies don’t cooperate. Someone will charge (trot) to catch a fly ball but it bounces off the tip of his glove. I even saw one fly ball bounce off the top of a guy’s head. We swing the bat, make solid contact, but the ball only flutters out of the infield like a renegade kite.

I went to Jimmy’s storefront today. Jimmy tells me that my problem is that as I’ve gotten older I’ve tightened up. He poked around my armpit, then demonstrated a couple of easy movements he asked me to repeat. I started into the motions, but couldn’t complete them. Too tight.

I wonder if we Jesus-followers have gotten too tight. Has 2,000 years tightened us in places where we once played more fluidly and powerfully? I keep identifying places in my head where I’ve believed things are really important yet Scripture simply ignores them. I keep finding spots where I act as if some religious practice is vital that the Bible says absolutely nothing about. What would happen if we only required what Scripture requires and let the rest go? What would happen if we took the Bible’s commandments and disciplines seriously but just forgot about the rest of the religious add-ons and “improvements”?

I talked to my friend Jen about this. She said she’s giving up religion for Lent.

Maybe Jesus’ followers can be living proof when it comes to living the Kingdom. But we’ll never get there if we stay all wound up about things that didn’t matter enough to God for Him to inspire them to be written into the Bible.

As for me, I’ve made a personal training appointment with Jimmy. Maybe next year I’ll throw him out at the plate.

DOH!

When a disaster strikes, why do people keep giving money to the Red Cross? Just Google "Haiti Red Cross scandal" -- then substitute Katrina, 9/11, or Tsunami for Haiti. Lots of bad stuff about misappropriated funds, right? Then try the same search using "Salvation Army" or "World Vision" instead of "Red Cross." Almost nothing shows up. Live & don't learn, that's us.