chicagodads

Ever hear that saying about Pastor’s Kids? Yeah, that one. It’s probably true.

I was raised in the Christian Church and spent thirty-three plus years within its hallowed basements, fellowship halls or makeshift sanctuaries, on its pews, folded chairs and cushioned seats, behind its pulpits, microphones, and steering wheels, or immersed in childcare, bible study, and youth ministry. I could go on and on, but I will spear you (for now) and go on to my main point: From what I’ve seen, it’s the exception and not the rule that the children of pastors are neglected, judged unfairly, and in turn act rebellious.

I’m not here to blame the children nor to shame the parents or even their shame-inducing communities / parishes. My consternation is focused on the fact that pastors are typically well-meaning people who  want to do well in the eyes of their people, their communities and by God. But they get so focused on the work of ministry that they do not center themselves right. Their is a need to begin their work in the home and to let everything else come from that center.

Most pastors (here, by the way, I am speaking specifically of the Protestant denominations) work hard to serve their people. That is their calling, they are sure - their vocation. And there is nothing wrong with that, per se. For the most part, it is good work that they do. But the sacrifice - their families’ well-being - should not be on the table. If they want their flocks to prioritize their families, then they need to set the example.

The same is true in many vocations that I’ve been in contact with - missionaries, teachers, lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc., etc. But how can we expect our children to be generous, to be balanced, to have a helping perspective, to feel accepted and loved if we parents do not put them at the forefront of our mission, rather than the cost of our mission.

1. Today is Blog Action Day and I’ve posted a rather sprawling - and somewhat confusing - post about this year’s topic, poverty , at ChicagoDad’s sister pub, LeftCheek . The fact that it’s so gosh-darned hard to pin down I will blame on the twin facts that 1) I had not heard of such a thing as Blog Action Day until today and rushed to get my thoughts out (I do wonder if they could have promoted it more fully among us non-professional bloggers), 2) I have a lot of thoughts about poverty (both local and global), and 3) my rough-drafts tend to sucky-suck-suck. Having said all that, though, I would like to take some time this week to expound on some of the topics that I posted there both here and in the much-neglected ugly sister site, Building Better Bridges .
2. I haven’t been terribly busy at blogging recently because it’s hard to justify keeping three blogs active (along with facebook, etc.) when I only have so much limited time and there’s nary a pay scale to come along with these blogs (not yet at least).
3. I will resume the story from yesterday tomorrow, or when I get some more time to let it fester in my mind for a bit.
4. Is fester the word I’m looking for here?
5. Joss is FINALLY asleep. A really frustrating day to get anything done. My wife will be home in an hour and I’ve barely gotten any tasks accomplished yet. Which means I have to decide if I want to watch the debates tonight or not. So now I gotta rush, and I’m horrible at rushing.

Just yesterday I was involved in a sprawling game of bowling. A game, by the way, that has yet to complete the bloody rite-of-passage to become a sport. A game played in disco clothes (according to the reliable docu Kingpin). A game that you have to play half-drunk.

A game that I fully suck at.

Remember Balki  Bartakamus? I wish I could play like him. I’m more like the pampered child without the bumper buffers; my trajectory is like a careening drunk without the comfort of a bar stool to fall from. I’m sadder than a 3-D Droopy, especially if he was done by the same guys who did Underdog and if he were voiced during Bill Murray’s suicide watch (aka, post-season Cubs).

But that should be alright right? After all, this two-hour event is a little mixer from my church. I was paired w/ four other people on my team, only one of whom I knew, another whom I had seen occasionally. One who I’ve never seen. Now was not the time, in a sport where I score fewer points than one could reasonably expect a child to score in put-put golf, to concentrate on how much I sucked - especially since I couldn’t afford to buy drinks (come to think of it, maybe i should’ve just snuck one in). But I did it anyway.

To be continued after I get some sleep. Peace, y’all…

I’ve been railing for the last week or two about how uncivil the political discourse has gotten as of late and how it terrifies me that two great men who would be president of the US are resorting to middle school tactics and talking down to the American people. I’m quite a bit frightened of these angry mobs being incited to racial and intellectual violence - none of which I want my children to inherit. (You can scroll through this blog or my sister site, Leftcheek , for more of what I wrote. Or, you can read Frank Rich’s insight here [of course, I write better].)

Happily, this all came to a halt when, sensing the tipping point in his own campaign, McCain defended the decency and humanity of his opponent. Things are so much better now. Can you smell the flowers blooming? That’s love in the air between decent men. Now they can concentrate on policy differences in a respectable manner because the McCain campaign has thrown the wrench in the hate machine.

Or did it?

His declaration that Obama was not someone to be afraid of, after all, was greeted by boos from his own supporters in the audience. Though many people in attendance applauded his call for dignity and respect to resume, still there were pitbulls out looking for blood and upset that McCain would impede their lynch mob.

This morning, though, Obama thanked McCain for defending him and doing the right thing. However, John Lewis - living Civil Rights Icon and a man whom McCain called wise - didn’t get the memo. He said that the Republican ticket is “playing with [a] fire… [that may] consume us all” and he recalled the fatal and epic consequences of George Wallace’s dire incendiary politics.

McCain, once again, took it personally. And so he called on Obama - again in a way that I interpret to be patricional - to “repudiate” (why does Obama always have to ‘repudiate’ the claims of other black men that are not speaking for him? And why isn’t McCain repudiating the claims of a white woman is specifically is speaking for him? Or a sheriff who speaks for him? Or, say, Fox News, who brings in an anti-Semite with no evidence to make some sh*t up about Barack and ACORN just because they’ve both worked in ‘community development’? Oh, and they’re both connected to the evil big city - what with all of its urban poor and dark-skinned and foreigners that you just can’t trust, doggone it) this comparison. Not, by the way, before his campaign said that they would effectively continue with the mudslinging because America needs to find out who this shady Barack Obama really is.

And so, I’m back to sad…

My wife’s phone was registering the sign that said it was powering up, even though it wasn’t any more. It was not functioning, and so basically she needed to reboot the thing. which, translated, meant that I had to open up the back to take the battery out and then put it back in. Now, I knew what I needed to do. The problem was, I’m not that familiar with her phone and it was jammed a wee bit. The problem turned out to be, that I didn’t know how to do what i needed to do. So a simple routine procedure took me a bit like five minutes. I felt like the Frankenstein monster with an Easter lily, like i was going to kill the phone if I wasn’t absolutely careful.

Which is somewhat analogous to how I feel the presidential race is running these days.

Part of what really upsets me about this whole presidential campaign (which I know isn’t the only political campaign going on, but since we live in Chicago, all of the local elections were already decided when we chose who was gonna run on the democratic ticket) is the lack of creativity. Not the fact that the attacks aren’t creative or skillful (and they really don’t seem to be, from what I’ve seen. Just more rashly put together for rapid response), but that the act of the attack is completely uncreative and mind-numbing.

It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that the McCain campaign noticed that the Obama campaign was really ratcheting it up and pulling ahead due to the economic state (maybe I should say, ‘economic flux’). out of desperation, the republican campaign tried to slow momentum down and focus it towards their candidate, who was to suspend his campaign and focus on the economic crisis (which, it seems, never happened). when that didn’t turn out so well for him (and not entirely his fault - by and large, the blame for the largeness of this financial failure falls upon the entire congress, and president), he started huffing and puffing about how he did this and he didn’t do that. ‘phoning it in’ and all - except that they caught pictures of mccain literally ‘phoning it in’ during this crisis.

as silly as these charges and schemes were (and they were pretty silly), at least their was some chutzpah, some laying out of the b**ls here (this is a family blog, after all…). it’s the ‘taking off of the gloves’ after this that i find so degenerating, so un-presidential, so fiendish. because it’s how children react when things aren’t going there way and when they want something that they don’t know how to get. there’s little thought to long-standing and far-reaching consequences (hmm… reminds me of another hot topic of today…). if something’s in the way, scream, kick, push, twist, bend, fall, pull, cry harder - it’ll come loose.

and, of course, we all lose that way.

Children tend to see in black and white. They tend to think that a person is either for them or against them, which is why parents are so confused - children hate us when we don’t go their way.

The election is coming down to that. No, forget it: it’s there and over the ramp. McCain’s people are running negative ads about Obama nearly 100% of the time . About 1/3 of Obama’s ads are negative. McCain attacks Obama on his associations (and makes dangerous claims about a black man who could be president as “dangerous”. Oh, and that he hates his country and could also be a terrorist.). Obama attacks McCain on his age (”out of touch”, “doesn’t know how to use a computer”, “can’t remember”).

It’s not that I’m worried that these negative attacks will swing the votes one way or the other. For now, at least, the people who aren’t already decided (say 9% of likely voters) are actually looking at real, hard core issues. Can this man fix what’s wrong? What can he (or she) do to help my family?

Here’s the reason I’m worried, though: i believe in the power of words.

The rhetoric itself is getting dangerous : the secret service is investigating about a man who shouted “kill him” at a Governor Palin-moderated hate-fest and when McCain asked who the real Obama is, someone loudly answered “terrorist”. Neither  vigilante was stopped, neither candidate called for sobriety or level-headedness (EDIT: That’s changed since this Friday, but only after one week of such rhetoric and after even top GOP officials were decrying the mob mentality). They let the words fly unchecked. How is that presidential? How is that leadership? How is that UHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

….

Oh. And just so you know, at one of these events, an African-American working sound at the Palin gathering was yelled at (with a racial epithet) and told to, “sit down, boy .”

David Brooks wrote a review of Palin’s speech on Thursday night right after he got off of his commentator duties at PBS with Jim Lehrer. I don’t know how he did it. Not that I don’t believe he can type marvelously fast (just cause I can’t w/o constant rewrites), or that he doesn’t have a sharp mind. I’m guessing though that he had two or three outlines ready to go (the way that a lot of papers say that one candidate won over the other candidate the day after, when it’s too close to call long before print). It’s just that I read what he said on the internet and I was not impressed by what he had to say, that Palin “really showed him” and that she disconnected herself from Bush. If anything, really, she connected herself more with Bush (certainly his running mate, the much-reviled Dick Cheney) and “Can I call you Joe” Biden showed her by connecting the past with the present and future. The fact that Biden likes to take control of what questions she’ll answer (the ones in her own head? the ones fed to her by her speechwriters? the ones that, what, magically the US public wants to know that somehow noone else gives a Joe Sixpack about?) didn’t seem to phase Brooks.

And that somewhat scares me. Because I keep going on and on about how I think that we should be a more civil nation with more civil discourse, but I can’t help but loathe not just our current political state, but those commentators over there on that side of the aisle. Even when, as I mentioned before, they tend to be very thoughtful and wise.

So here’s my rushed analysis of Wednesday night’s debate. Dude, Senator Obama nailed it. Unfortunately, Senator McCain, out of frustration that his attack ads weren’t getting the job done, nailed Barack’s hands onto Barack’s pulpit. Obama wasn’t able to speak to offer any more naive responses, because we all know that he cannot talk without free use of his hands. However, Obama spent one minute out of each  of his ninety second response time to thoughtfully write out his answers in excellent calligraphy using just his mouth. Obama then put the final nail in the coffin when he closed the debate by suggesting that he John is right, Obama isn’t Jesus Christ, but he would like to offer cups of cold water to the thirsty and to suffer with those who mourn… implying anyone who would have to similarly get screwed by McCain and his running mate.

Jesus, may I be more considerate to the manners of my child.

Tonight - At the Goose Island Pub in Wrigleyville, come check out the smoove jazz/pop/r&b/latin/hip-hop stylings of VertiKal. 3535 N Clark St., Doors open shortly at 9:30, they will come up to the stage at around midnight; $5 cover charge; please mention VertiKal at the door so that they will get paid. 21 & over only. And yes, they are so smooth, they have a lead - and energetic - rapper named Butter. Don’t sleep on the chaunteusse though. Full band usually has horns, DJ, and all that in addition to some skillful guitar, bass and drums. Get you the Myspace page in a sec. Update: Vertikal’s MySpace page w/ four songs in the player.

Saturday - It’s the Pretty Good Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! We’re going to visit the pumpkins and the petting zoo at Portage Park around 11 am. Free fun for the whole family.

I just finished a rather lengthy article about how I’ve been discouraged with the recent shananigans of both Sens. Obama and McCain. Not that they’re bad people (necessarily) or that their campaigns are worse than any others, comparatively. But because we were guaranteed so much better. As I have said previously, their constant showmanship, bickering, repetition of lies (and ridiculous defense of - thanks John McCain for that reptilian response several times over to those who question the validity of the ‘kindergarten sex-ed’ ads. That just leaves me with a horrible taste in my mouth, hero), psychological games, etc., etc., just do not endear me to either of you. If I were undecided at this point, I would probably go for the one with the fewer and less mean-spirited attack ads (and I think I made that decision anyway).

Of course, what happened to that article… Well, we all know about the censors on the internets. That long series of tubes has gotta go up someone’s hiney.

But I wanted to congratulate Sen. Biden and Gov. Palin for showing us that even though they can still repeat those same staid answers and questions that they’ve been giving on the stump and that their bosses gave last week, at least they showed they could do it with some class - rather than the disdain and bickering that was going on so much last week (of course, to be fair, with all of his “John is right” statements, it seems to me that Barack was goading the grumpy grandpa). If the rapport didn’t seem the most agreeable, at least it was delivered in a civil manner, complete with bad jokes, little anecdotes, a little tear-up, and - yes - more distortions and lies. But in the end, their families filled the stage and amiably mixed like the credit-rolling of an episode of Family Feud.

If my children can learn nothing else from me about debating, it’s to look at the other side’s point of view. They may be right about some things; they may be wrong about all of it; they may just be off-base about a few minor details; you just may change your life by giving their arguments a little ground. And the ground rule of listening is some good ol’ fashioned civility. I, tonight, thank Joe Biden and Sarah Palin for allowing me to see that it can still be done in the highest levels of politics.

Shortly after the House of Representatives failed to pass a bill that would give unprecedented rights to the Treasury Secretary to spend around $700 Billion on a risky set of ventures aimed at shutting down the scare at Wall Street and opening up lines of credit for companies on the verge of bankruptcy (or trying to buy-out other bankrupt companies), Republican leaders came out and blamed a speech given by Democrat and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the reason that they were not able to shore up enough votes. They said that the speech was particularly partisan and that those who were ready to join the 1/3 of Repubs signing the bill (as opposed to nearly 2/3 of Dems, but that’s a different story that needs to be set aside for John McCain and his recent complaints about Barack Obama).

Having said that, everyone from Congressman Barney Frank (video above) to Rush Limbaugh does not believe the excuse. They argue that the leaders are just blaming Pelosi - and, by extension, thin-skinned Republicans - for their own failures. The truth is, however, the speech may have been partisan; at the least, I don’t think that she should have attacked Reagan economic ideas when some of his most ardent supporters were deciding to blow a torpedo into the very heart of their economic ideology. At the very least, it was a risk to say what she said at the time she said it.

But all this talk of hurt feelings (and misplaced blame) makes me think of how we’ll handle our child(ren) when she enters into school. Somebody is bound to tease her for something (too white, not white enough, too poor, not poor enough, too blond, looks like a doll, her last name, just ‘cuz they’re mean, whatever) and I’m sure she’ll feel hurt about something that she can’t control. And I’m not sure what to do about that when that happens. Part of me wants her to feel safe and vindicated and surrounded by so much love at home that attacks from others will not faze her - she’ll know she’ll always be accepted and loved and appreciated.

I want to believe that that will be enough, that she will never go tearing through the playground, or cry in the school bathroom, that she will never come home battered and bruised with a note from her teacher saying that “Joss felt that she needed to fight after being ridiculed during and after class today.” I’d like to believe that could nor would never happen to my baby.  But the truth is that she most likely will need peer validation as well as parental validation.

Maybe I should start thinking about how to best prepare her for the meanness of school-aged girls. Because nobody likes the kid who takes the ball home because the others don’t play fair.

Right, House Republicans?