Pocket Full of Mr. E.

Well, I’m moving forward on Chaplaincy.

Of course, by “moving forward”, I mean, “waiting around for people to respond to important questions and getting older by the minute”.

It can’t be helped, though. I knew that my denomination and I have our quirky little differences of opinion, but in reading the belief statements prior to signing on the dotted line I found something that might be a show-stopper. I have requested clarification on a particular item (Article XVIII of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, aprticularly in light of the statements of the SBC Peace Committee of 1987) and whether my disagreement with a particular interpretation of said article has an impact on my fitness for ministry.

While I’m waiting, I was pondering some other questions:

I just got a friendly reminder that parking is going to have to be adjusted at the Pentagon this weekend.

The reason? There is a protest rally scheduled by ANSWER (“Act Now to Stop War and End Racism”). They are holding a march to the Pentagon, then a rally which will include a big “Impeach Bush” tent. More info is available here if you are that sort that has an interest in that sort of thing.

So why do I mention it? I just think it’s cool that the Pentagon is so accomodating. If you scheduled an event like this in 90% of the other UN member nations you’d find them a lot less welcoming.

I’m just sayin’ …

Not that I work at the Pentagon, or anything. Not even on the weekends.

Captain America is dead.

In light of the current environment, I can’t say that I am all that surprised. America has become polarized over the issue of the war in Iraq, and every symbol of America has become a fair target for either side.

Steve Rogers, the civilian identity of Captain America, was apparently shot by a sniper on the steps of a courthouse, where he was being taken to trial. I suppose the only thing they could have done to take it from implication to outright accusation is have him taken to Walter Reed Hospital.

The implications of this for the American veteran are, to say the least, somewhat disconcerting …

Over the past two months I have been relocating myself and my family. I went to the new location about a month before the rest of the family. I slept on two air mattresses stacked on side-by-side cots. All in all, not a bad arrangement when it comes to Urban Camping.

I’m very happy/relieved to have the family with me now. Packing and moving the stuff was an arduous task, as usual. No matter how many times I do this, I am always amazed at the accumulation of stuff. No matter how I purge, no matter if I move into a bigger place, I can’t figure out how I am going to get everything to fit into the new place.

For example, the new place has a living room and a den, whereas the old place only had one family room. Currently the living room has the furniture, plus stacks of boxes. The library can get extensive when you homeschool. Add in that Mres. E. and myself have both been in university over the past year, and that I am working on a second Masters now, and you can imagine that about half of the boxes in that room are books.

So last night I re-arranged some of the boxes so I could arrange the furniture. Little by little we take a few boxes out and unpack them, and I think we are almost to the point that we can sit on the couch.

Now I just need to find a good deal on half a dozen bookshelves and we’ll be all set.

How about one more try for old times sake?

If anyone is still looking for me, I’m not there anymore. Since my last post, I have left my old job and taken a new one, which has necessitated relocating my family and me. For now, that’s all I’ll say about the new job.

As much as we move around, one might conjecture that I am in a witness relocation program.

Divinity School is moving right along. The move, along with certain other travel requirements, did a number on my grades in one class, but I still have above a 90 in everything. Part B of the plan, getting back into the military, is on hold until the family is settled. I still have weight to lose, though, so keep me in mind if you are the sort of person who prays.

If you aren’t, we have other things to talk about. Stay tuned.

I can buy into him being an alcoholic. I can even buy into him being a really effective covert alcoholic. There are plenty of people that have managed to hide their vices from their work associates successfully, and a man like Foley would have plenty of people around him to enable that sort of thing.

I can buy that drinking makes you do stoopid things. I have seen numerous people, on numerous occasions, make fools of themselves, endanger their lives, even cause the deaths of other people because they were drunk. And as difficult as this may be to believe, I, even I, your own Reverend E., have had a few too many a few times, back during my misspent youth.

But because I have made these mistakes in the past, I am well aware that a man’s reaction to too much strong drink is not to mac on little boys.

Apparently Foley has rethought this excuse as well, because now he says he was molested by a clergyman as a child. He didn’t specify, but Foley professes Catholicism so it’s likely he’s shifting some of the responsibility to a convenient scapegoat. Now, it may be entirely true that he was molested as a teen. I’m not saying that I don’t care whether or not he was. I am saying, though, that it isn’t a mitigating factor in how anyone should react to his behaviour.

I am also greatly disturbed that a man can apparently get away with this in America. According to this article, the law doesn’t address talking dirty to a kid online.

But now that this is out in the open, I am eager to see how America reacts. Will the American Congress react as strongly as I am, or will they try to push it aside until after the elections? Will the law change?

Well, I’ll bet you’re surprised to se ME here.

It’s been a little while. Let me fill you in on what has happened in my absence. First of all, I finished my Master’s Degree.

Yeah, I know. Viva me.

But like many things in life, there is a somewhat unexpected change of plans in the works.

I don’t know about you guys, but over the course of my life I have made a list of things I was never going to do. I don’t mean the big list, like “I’m never going to kill someone” or “I’m never going to cheat on my spouse”. I mean the small, personal one. It has things in it like “I’m never going to live in a trailer park” or “I’m never going to enlist in the military”.

Well, up to this point I have done everything on my “never do” list, except for two things. One of those was that I would never be rich. That one is debatable. Financially speaking, I’m wealthier than most of the world just because I live in North America, but I was thinking rich by North American standards, which implies multiple large houses and a number of European cars. We’re still waiting to see of God’s sense of humor holds out on that one.

The other was that I would never go into full-time ministry. I have seen the lives of my friends that are Clergy, I just didn’t want to deal with the hassle, or put my family in the spotlight 24-7. I suppose that I should have started putting two and two together when it even occurred to me to say I would never do it.

To make a long story short, I started my first classes this week for what will eventually be my Master’s of Divinity. My Ordination Service is being held at my church on September 17th. And by January I should be in the US Army Reserves as a Chaplain Candidate. In addition, Mrs. E. and I have been contacted by one of our former churches. They want us to come up and help start a new church in another community. We have, in principle, agreed to do it, but that’s a long story I’ll tell later if you want to know.

Of course, I’d be a pretty lousy Pastor if I didn’t try to take advantage of this moment to turn your attention toward Christ. I turned my back on him at about 15, but I was compelled to surrender at about 20. I know that my denomination teaches that once you have said a little prayer you are hooked up for life, but I also know that it isn’t about the little prayer. It’s about the relationship. I’m not going to hammer anyone on this. I just want you to think about it.

Well, that’s the update. If you want more details, I’ll be glad to provide them, but I was trying (unsuccessfully) to keep this short. In the interim, I will try (once again) to start blogging on a regular basis.

E.

Well, he did it.

The American President has announced that he wants to deploy National Guard units in southwestern American states to assist in securing the border they share with Mexico.

They won’t actually shoot anyone. They won’t even actually tell anyone to go back across the border. They will be there to handle some administrative efforts, install and maintain some high-tech surveillance equipment, and train the Border Patrol. He was also quick to point out that this is not a militarization of the southern border. It is, rather, a strengthening of the enforcement on that border. Perhaps the best term to apply would be “Police Action”.

I guess you can see where I’m going with this. The last “Police Action” the US began did not end well. It started off as a good idea, and the intent was to promote a secure environment and strengthen a border. How it ended was very different. This latest proposed action could give an entire new meaning to the concept of a project “Going South”.

There is also going to be an unintended consequence, I think. The American President has, for all practical purposes, just announced that National Guard troops from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California will no longer be deploying overseas, or will at least be doing so in small numbers. This may cause Guard enlistment to rise substantially in those states. But the obverse is also true for the other 46 states. If Guard units are unavailable for deployment from the southwestern states, then they have to be taken from elsewhere.

I have been trying to figure out the reason for this plan ever since I first got wind of it a few days ago. Sending Guard units to the border, two weeks at a time to do administrative and technical work just doesn’t seem to be a reasonable response to understaffed Border patrols on porous borders. By the time they get trained up on local protocols, it’s time for them to be replaced by a fresh set of troops. And if the plan is to only run this process for a year, you don’t even have the advantage of getting a unit through twice.

I figure there are only two reasons he could be trying this. One would be that there is an ulterior motive in play. With Guard troops on the border, a President has the option to put down more troops if the first plan doesn’t have an effect. Too, there is the concept that this is supposed to camouflage the “Guest Worker” program he is trying to push through. And for the truly paranoid among you, it may be an excuse to reinstate the draft a year or so from now. Those reasons sound a bit “out there”, but they are vastly superior to the alternative, which is that he actually believes that this is going to have a noticeable impact on people coming over the border.

Take a look at modern history, and you will find very few countries that were effective at controlling their borders. The Soviets, draconian as they were, couldn’t do it, because the country on the other side of the border was eager to have the new immigrants come over. The US has not been able to do it because their neighbors have been eager to have the new emigrants leave, for the most part.

Honestly, I think the only answer to the American border problem lies in readjusting priorities. As usual, I have a plan.

But that will have to wait for the next entry.

This morning I was delighted to find a message in the inbox from Aimee Stewart of Foxfires. Aimee is an amazingly expressive writer and a fantastic artist.

I think a bit of background is appropriate at this point.

Some time ago I spent a significant amount of time in Baghdad. It was my second trip there, and promised to be more difficult, and dangerous, than the first. Leaving my home by the sea, I now found myself surrounded, not by the sounds of the ocean caressing the shore, but the sound of low-flying helicopters, diesel generators, and frequent incoming rocket fire. Rather than waking to the smell and taste of the cool salt air and the sun reflecting off the incoming tide, I saw the world through a brown haze of dust. My world was in many ways like the first 10 minutes of the Wizard of Oz, except instead of a flighty young girl in gingham and some loveable farmhands, I was accompanied by surly Generals and shell-shocked enlisted men recovering from the loss of a close friend.

It was during this time that, through a chain of events that utterly escapes me at the moment, I ran across Aimee’s original web site, which is archived at the newer location. She was in the Pacific Northwest region of the US. She described how the first signs of Spring were appearing, and the apple blossoms were just beginning to peek, ever so hesitantly, from the secret places where they keep shelter through the crystalline Winter. Reading her narratives was a bit like opening the door into the world of color and light. It reminded me that whatever I was facing at the moment, I would eventually return to my home by the sea, where fear yielded to peace and the taste of dust and war would eventually be forgotten.

I have learned that Aimee is in hot pursuit of a lifelong dream. She is a featured artist at Angelles Art International, and she has an agent, fercryingoutloud! I couldn’t be more pleased, and I think you will find her work captivating. One day in the not-too-distant future, you may find yourself, if only mentally, thanking me for introducing you to her work. Go take a look at her gallery.