What is it with Israel?

I know that those who question the actions of the government of Israel are labeled as "Anti-Semites," browbeaten and blacklisted. Please know that I am "Pro-Semite" which is why I am Anti-Israel. The Israeli government has worked as hard at making the Jewish people look bad as has any other person, entity or government.

Back in 1967 the Israeli military made a preemptive strike against the United States when during the "6-Day War" the Israeli's targeted the USS Liberty, a US Navy surveillance ship sailing in international waters in the Mediterranean. Why would our "good friends" do such a thing? Simple - flying unmarked planes and attacking with unmarked ships - they hoped to draw the US into its war against Egypt by sinking the Liberty and blaming Egypt for the attack. They almost succeeded in their effort to sink the nearly unarmed Liberty in a two hour attack. Of the ship's compliment of 294, thirty-four were killed and 171 were wounded. At the time the Israeli's demanded the right to do their own investigation - no U.N. help necessary - they "learned" that their military had "mistaken" the Liberty, flying the Stars and Stripes, for an Egyptian cargo ship. "Our bad..."

Once again the Israeli military has attacked unarmed ships in international waters. This time it killed innocent men and women who were attempting to help the people of Gaza. The convoy that was attacked was on a humanitarian mission to supply food, water and medicine to the people of Gaza. One of the ships carried a former US Ambassador to the Middle East to give credence to the mission. Again Israel has demanded the right to do their own investigation into the massacre - but has already publicly declared the ships held weapons - a claim that is unsubstantiated.

What is it with Israel? Better yet, what is it with the rest of us that we don't speak out for those whom Matthew referred to as the least of Jesus' brothers and sisters?

Israel has laid siege against the people in Gaza. They are blockaded from land, air and sea. Israel's perpetual argument is that people, trucks and boats are attempting to deliver items that could be used by terrorists... like medicine and food. Concrete is not being delivered to rebuild the apartments that the Israeli's destroyed in their unlawful attack against Gaza in December of 2008 "because it could be used for terrorist activities." Oh yeah, I've lost count of the number of times terrorists have thrown concrete blocks at people.

When the Germans blockaded the Jews into the Ghettos in Warsaw it was wrong. What makes it right for Israeli to do so against the Palestinians?

When the Germans killed 100 for every person the Jews killed in self-defense it was wrong. What makes it right for the Israel to do so against the Palestinians?

When Germany rolled into Poland because they needed a little room to grow it was wrong. What makes it right for Israel to do the same thing?

It's time the world stands up against Israel and treat it like the petulant child that it is. First step: the United States should cease funding it and treat it as a terrorist country if it's going to continue to act as one. Second step: those in charge of the Israeli military machine should be charged with crimes against humanity.

I know that many "Christian" ministers are promoting the restoration of Israel to it's "historic" boarders to force the Second Coming. I will remind them that Judas the Iscariot also attempted to force God's hand... didn't work the way Judas had planned either. The Reign of Love cannot be brought about by violence.

Finally, if you laid siege on my family - preventing us from going to school, work or hospital while slowly starving us to death - I'd probably start throwing stones at you, too. Israel blames the Palestinians for "unwarranted" attacks... describe "unwarranted."

Not Another Night at Home

For a change I did not spend the night at home, but was actually invited over to someone's house for a drink and a dip in the pool. For those of you who aren't among the ordained, you can immediately go ho-hum yourselves. For me this is huge!

As I've previously posted, the clergy is as welcome as a cockroach at a formal banquet; we are treated like the idiot cousin at a family reunion - occasionally invited out of courtesy but not spoken to - so having a couple invite me over to their house is like me attending the senior prom with the homecoming queen -- absolutely a memorable evening.

I was moderately lubricated with Jose Cuervo pre-made margarita and several pounds of pita chips and hummus before I floating in the pool for an hour or so.

A great evening provided by a couple who didn't expect me to be anything other than myself. What a pleasant change from perpetually feeling stuck in the Beatles "Eleanor Rigby,"... "Father McKenzie, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there..."

To remain "anonymous" I can only say, "Thank you, X and X, for allowing me the opportunity to be nothing but me.

With Love,
ACC

Hello Goodbye

I have wanted to rid myself once and forever of the land-line telephone at the house. Let's be honest... no one ever calls me there - they either call the office or the cell phone. Looking at the monthly expense of the land-line and the DSL that I had "bundled" with it, it no longer made sense, especially when you consider that I had a broadband USB stick from Verizon for my travels and out-of-office meetings.

So I find that Verizon has an incredibly tiny broadband wifi hotspot that will handle up to 5 wifi'd netbooks, notebooks, cameras, etc and I can get it after rebates for $3 and the monthly access fee I'm already giving for the broadband.

I'm using it now - and I feel like using my best MLK Jr. voice as I say, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last" (or at least I will be once I contact the phone company and get them off my back).

Only drawback to the "MiFi 2200" is the instruction page (3.5 x 5") is less than instructive. If you follow the instructions to the letter you will a) load the proper software onto your computer, and b) not be able to connect to the web (even though you have wirelessly connected to the hotspot). After hours of dinking around (no the ACC does not call customer support) I found a blog where some kind guru of electronics explained his similar frustration with the device. Frankly, it made me feel pretty good to know that some tech-savvy acne-scarred post-pubescent couldn't get the thing to work either... anyway, the scoop is don't follow the instructions. Sure charge the battery, use the provided USB cable to connect it with the device where you want the software installed but then DON'T UNPLUG THE USB! Leave the damn thing plugged into the PC, go to the top of the "VZ Access Manager" and click the "tools" tab at the top of the screen followed by "Get Access" from the drop down menu. Badabing, badaboom... it was done.

Apparently no one at the manufacturer bothered to let a non-engineer try to install the software/hardware using the provided instructions. If they had they would have scratched their skinny little Asian butts and said, "Damn... that didn't work."

Oh well. Hello Verizon hotspot, goodbye phone company
ACC

Stand Up, Speak Up or Shut Up

Those who strap guns on their hips and walk into political rallies are not Christians.

Those who support the overthrow of the duly elected government are not Christians.

Those who suggest that God is calling us harm others are not Christians.

Those who believe that the parousia (Second Coming) can be hastened by taking up arms are not Christians.

Those who incite others to violence are not Christians.

Those who suggest (a la Pat Robertson) that God inflicts harm upon us because we aren't living properly are not Christians.

It's time that we who live in the faith of Jesus Christ stand up and take our beliefs back from the fringe who have taken control of our voice. As Edmund Burke wrote, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Stand up, speak up or shut up. Those are our only options.
ACC

Riddle Me This...

When did people begin to see the Church as just another provider of services? I got a call from a woman who wanted to talk with me about having her daughter's wedding here. She said, "We'll have the wedding at your church if we can use the fellowship hall for the reception."

What kind of selling point is this? We go through the trouble associated with hosting a wedding for non-member and on top of that we can have a wedding reception here to? Oh sure... what a deal.

When I told her that the fellowship hall was not available for rent she said, "Well I know plenty of Churches that make their hall available."

"Perhaps you should call one of them."
"If they can do it, you can do it, too."
"Ah, thanks for your call, but this isn't open to negotiation."

And she says... wait for it... here it comes...

"Well this is what's wrong with the Church today. No wonder people aren't going anymore."

Yep. That's it. That's what's wrong with Christianity... glad she pointed it out so succinctly.
ACC

Kickbacks

A sales rep and I met this morning - he'd called and made an appointment with me last week. In my years here I've met with every new rep this company has hired as they've made their swing through the territory. Not that I'm buying what they have to sell, but I figure if nothing else I keep up with what's out there and give them sales experience.

This guy spreads his materials out and I run him through all the objections I can think of and he came up with the best sales approach ever...

If I committed the Church's money to buying into their program I could get (his words) a nice kickback that I could use for whatever I wanted (I could even donate it back to the Church if I so desired, he told me).

Really?! I help this guy screw the Church and I can get a little of what he's taken for my own personal use? Nice.

He won't be coming back to visit me again; but makes me wonder how many of my peers have sold their soul to this 'devil'.

ACC

Ain't No Cure For The Wedding Time Blues

Friday afternoon we had a simple wedding in the Chapel. Bride was lovely. Groom was handsome. Best Man and Maid of Honor were happy. A small community of their family and friends surrounded them.

Storybook stuff until one of our elderly volunteers walked in the back of the Chapel and said in her outside voice, "Why is everyone dressed up for a wedding rehearsal?"

"Shhh," I gently hiss into my microphone, "we're celebrating a wedding."
"Oh, I thought it was a rehearsal," she shouted back.

I smiled, started to say something profound, like, "Do you Nancy take Jim to be your lawful husband?" When volunteer shouted back, "Sorry to bother you..."

Sometimes you wonder what people are thinking.
ACC

Can't Win

I don't like to dwell on money. To those who have it money is a tool. To those of us who don't have deep pockets money is a necessity. I left the house this morning having placed 9 quarters from the change jar in my pocket so that I could get a Sausage Muffin™ sandwich and a small cup of coffee at McD's. I'm not complaining, but I was paid on Friday, sent $ to my creditors and now I'm scraping for loose change on Monday with 11 days until my next payday.

I minister to a medium sized Church community. A number of the parishioners are elders living in 50-year old mobile homes on rented lots. But a large number of those who worship here have fairly healthy levels of income (I base this only on the observation of the number of foreign luxury cars in the parking lot on Sunday mornings and the large homes I'm occasionally invited to visit - (the clergy is usually treated like the idiot cousin at a family reunion; they are invited out of courtesy and no one speaks to them once they're there)).

Anyway... yesterday one of the deeper-pocketed parishioners and his wife stopped by my office to tell me about their most recent vacation... Tokyo, Beijing, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Bahrain, Rome, Paris and finally London. Good for them. But here's the kicker... They had the audacity to tell me that I ought to take my wife on an around the world trip. "Oh, she'd love every minute of it."

You know what? They're right. She would. But what do you figure this trip cost them, $100,000? Are they so caught up in their own world they really think their minister could afford such a trip? We'll be lucky this year to be able to go tent camping for a weekend.

More to the point, can you imagine what the community would say if somehow I had saved all my life to take my wife on such a trip. It would be scandal -- they'd demand an audit of the church finances... I'd probably be put out on my ear. I can hear them now: "How dare they take such a vacation when so many in our community can't afford to put food on their table."

Ah, they joys of life in my world.
ACC

True Story

A few years back my wife and I decided we'd sell our second car. We really weren't using it as we were living in the parish-house and I was walking the entire 45 feet to my office. So we ran an ad in the local "Auto-Trader" magazine. It was a 7 year old Ford and was in pretty decent shape (OK, the air conditioning did not work) and we were asking what the Kelly Blue Book said would be trade-in value. Good car - good deal.

I got a call from a guy who said that he was interested in looking at the car. I started to give him directions, but he told me that he and his family only had one car and he asked if I'd drive it to where he lived to see it. I was a little uncomfortable with the idea, but the address he gave me wasn't in a bad part of town, so I agreed.

Getting to the address I found myself in front of an older brick house that had been "converted" into a shop or store of some kind, but there were curtains over the front plate glass windows. I knocked and a bedraggled looking man in his late 40's and a cheap suit answered the door. Looking over his shoulder I could see a mattress on the floor in one corner of the "store" area and a bunch of folding chairs. He introduced himself as "Brother Tom." I offered my hand and just my first name.

He came out and walked around the car and spent some time looking under the hood and in the trunk while literally kicking the tires as he walked around it. We went on a little drive around the neighborhood - him in the driver's seat and me taking the shotgun position. He'd driven around long enough that I was starting to get annoyed when he took a couple of quick rights and we were back in the shop's parking area.

"Real nice," he told me.
"I'm asking $4,000 which I think is pretty fair."
"You may have noticed that I'm a minister," he said, puffing up his chest as we both stepped out of the Ford, "have you ever considered donating your car to the church?"
"Which 'church' would that be?"
"Well, my church here," he said with a sweep of his hand and pointing toward the shop.
"Uh, no. I was thinking more legal tender and less tax right-off."

At this point he stood up very tall and looking down at me in a stern voice said, "Now, that 'No' is the devil talking!"

Usually I think of the 'quick' comeback well after it's useful - like a week or two later over lunch. But this time the right answer just popped into my head.

"Let me ask you this," I said standing as tall as my 5'6" will allow, "where do you think the devil is working: in the honest guy trying to sell his car for a fair price, or the pretend minister trying to steal it from him?"

As he fumbled for a comeback I jumped into the Ford and drove off. Never did tell him I was a minister... he'd probably have wanted a fraternal discount.

ACC

How Much?!

By the time 9:00 AM rolled around this morning I had been hit up for $17,500!

Habitat for Humanity (a cause I wholeheartedly support) "asked" for $10,000. I've always admired fundraisers - they have a lot more gall than I do, and well frankly, I've got a lot of gall.

One of the Women's Shelters in town wants to be able to name a bedroom after our church community. How nice. They can furnish the room (and I suppose have the little brass plate engraved with our name) for $5,000.

Then one of the guys from our Men's Ministry asked for "only" $2,500 to start a new ministry to help elderly people clean up their yards and do minor house repair. I'm all in favor of helping elderly people have neat yards, but $2,500? Somehow when he made the appointment on the phone and gave me the quick rundown of the ministry I had envisioned middle-aged guys grabbing rakes and lawnmowers from their garages. I didn't realize that they would need to "buy stuff." Turns out the men decided that it would be good for them to get a small trailer to tow behind a car (guess I'm grateful they didn't want us to buy a vehicle too) along with a lawn mower, blower, edger and various non-power tools and to quote my friend, "there was other stuff, but we're trying to keep the church's buy-in down."

I don't mind Habitat having a professional fundraiser ask for more than they know we'll be able to give - heck, they probably figure that if they ask for $10,000 they may get $1,000, but if they asked for a $1,000 they may only get $100.

I don't mind the Shelter asking - it can't hurt to ask and maybe we can help them with some furniture donations from members of the congregation.

But the men's group asking for money - when they sit in the pews every weekend and know that times are hard and this is not exactly a wealthy community - that just beats all. What can you do?

ACC

Wanna get married?!

*ring*
"Hello."
"Hi, my name is Jessica and I want to get married."
"Thanks for calling, Jess, but I'm already married."
*long pause*
"No, I mean I want to get married at your church."
"Oh, that's different."

Well, at least I thought it was funny.

Note to Panhandlers

If you are going to be a regular at the local church asking for money, perhaps it would be helpful to carry a notebook where you could record information regarding your visit. For instance: person contacted, date, idiotic story given, result of effort.

This morning I came in to find one of our regulars giving grief to a volunteer in the foyer. "What can I do for you?" I ask, trying to appear larger than 5'6".

"I'm on my way out west and I need money for food and gasoline."

"Uh... two weeks ago you were here asking for money for a motel because you were getting chemo at the hospital and had to stay in town..."

"What? No, I ain't never been here before."

Look, the guy's 6'15" tall and 400 pounds. His left eye is always looking over your right shoulder as you talk to him no matter where his right eye is looking. I'm thinking he doesn't have a doppelganger, hence my thought of panhandlers keeping a log.

Instead of money I think I'll give the next panhandler a notebook.
ACC

You called us, remember?

This morning we had our regular stream of parents picking up their lovely and well-behaved* children from Summer Religious Education. 150 kids equals about 120 moms, dads or grandmothers and they're all standing around mad as Hades in the gathering space waiting for their aforementioned lovely and well-behaved children.

I made it a point to be extra-happy. "Good morning, everyone!" I exclaim in my happiest voice.

"This is ridiculous," says one mom under her breath...
"How's that?" I ask.
"That we have to wait around to pick up our kids like we have nothing better to do."

So I went back to my office and contemplated that for a moment...

Hang on a minute! You asked us to add your children to the program. We didn't call you... you called us. Damn wrong of us to give you what you've asked for. What's wrong with us?

Like the song says, 'God Loves All the Little Children.' But I'm having problems with their parents.

ACC
* read: obnoxious, inconsiderate, narcissistic, spoiled brats

Weddings

Things I've really said in relation to weddings:

"No, your dog cannot serve as the best man."

"No, we will not move the altar to make a better balance in your photos."

"No, we will not remove the decorations in the church because they clash with your 'colors'."

"No, you cannot 'rent' our Church for your wedding."

"No, we're not adding "up-lights" around the perimeter to give the chapel a warmer look."

"I'm not trying to ruin the "most important day in your life"... but remember when I told you that you'd need a marriage license? I was serious."

"The groom is where? drinking what?"

"Yes, these are the vestments that I'll wear."

"No, you'll need to tell the bride yourself." (To a groom who called 10 minutes prior to the wedding to ask me to tell his future wife that he wasn't going to marry her)

"Gentlemen, please remove your cowboy hats in the Church." "I don't care if you do have 'hat hair.'"

"No, you cannot remove that row of pews... if it's too tight up front maybe you shouldn't have asked everyone you ever met to stand up for you at your wedding."

God, I love wedding season!
ACC

Huh?

So, a gentleman comes to the front desk and asks to speak with the pastor. When he is brought into my office he begins telling me the sob story beyond sob stories. His mother is dying of cancer on the other side of the country and he dropped everything to be at her side. He walked off his job, grabbed a few pieces of clothing from his apartment and started driving. Well here he is, 500 miles from home and 1,000 miles from his mom and he has no money. Now, he's got a friend who runs a motel about 50 miles further down the road and his friend will give him a discount. (Why the friend wouldn't just give him a room for the night he didn't explain). He wants me to give him $50 for the motel room. Gosh, I confide, I haven't got $50, maybe I could call his friend and see if I could talk him into giving my new pal a room for free. Oh, he exclaims, his friend isn't working today. Well, I tell him, I haven't got $50 but I'll keep him in my prayers.

Wait! He tells me that his wife and kids are in the car and they haven't had anything to eat since they left home. Maybe I have $20 so they can get some food. Fast on my feet, I think about some leftovers I have in the fridge. I invite him to bring them in and we'll make them some sandwiches. Oh, he exclaims, they're a bit down the road at the truck stop because the car ran out of gas and he walked to the Church (and passed 3 other along the way by my calculation).

I offer to send our maintenance man to the truck stop and bring his family to the church so that we can feed them and he tells me that his family wouldn't go with someone else because he had told them to lock the doors in the car...

When I suggest that I'm out of options and don't think there's any way I can help him he starts the "I thought you were a Christian" argument.

Yes, I am. And you sir? What do you call yourself?

Welcoming the Anonymous Cranky Cleric

I guess the best place to start is the beginning:

I'm an ordained minister. I'm a married man. I'm a parent. I'm an orphan. (I may be other things to other people - it would be best to ask them).

I'm writing this blog because after nearly 20 years as a member of the clergy I realize that I have had thousands of encounters with people who may or may not be as sane as the rest of us. Some of these encounters have been joy and spirit filled events; many have just been well, weird. It's the weird ones that I will probably spend the most time talking about.

Let's face it; if I was a waiter I'd get this off my chest by talking to other waiters. If I was a used-car salesman I'd talk to the other salesmen. But as a member of the clergy I have no one I can share this with. I can't exactly sit at the bar and tell my stories to the person occupying the stool next to me.

So you, dear reader, are my listening post. Thanks for listening!

ACC