Midlife Meditation

Consequences, Schmonsequences. They'll think about it tomorrow. Fiddle-dee-dee! War, war, war; this war talk's spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream. Besides... there isn't going to be any war.--Scarlett O'Hara It's almost as if they think tomorrow will never come. On climate change, health care, tax reform, civil rights, renewable energy, immigration, issue upon issue that directly affects their constituents, Republican legislators in both the House and Senate have acted, since taking office, as if they care nothing for the continued existence of the nation, the planet, or even their jobs. Of course, with the exception of getting far-right justice Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court (and only by virtue of first unprecedentedly freezing out President Obama's perfectly moderate nominee for a year, then altering Senate rules to avoid a Democratic filibuster), the first (and, hopefully, only) Congress of the Trump E...

These guys... ...really miss this guy. After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.--Mr. Spock, "Amok Time," Star Trek, 1967. They've wanted this a very long time: single-party control of Washington, the chance to open the floodgates and release volumes of pent-up legislation that's been stymied by a stubbornly thoughtful, responsible President. For all that time, they've been able to deflect criticism of their utter ineffectiveness as lawmakers, with their Senate majority too small to overcome a veto. Give us a President we can work with, they've said, and watch how much we accomplish. And it came to pass that, through a Constitutional quirk that gives more a voice to rural states than urban states, the election did miraculously go the way in which the Republicans had hoped it would, and there was great rejoicing, for lo, there would be a new King in Washin...

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."--Mitch McConnell, October, 2010 If you've read my posts about teaching in the Reynolds School District, you've probably come across the term "high flyer." That's teacher talk for a student who is an exceptional child in ways that no parent wants his or child to be exceptional. The child may very well be bright, even gifted academically, and may not have any of the disabilities one normally associates with being on an Individualized Education Plan, but still is on the radar of every administrator and behavioral specialist of the school for one reason alone: he or she makes it hard for the rest of the class to learn. High flyers are obstructionists. They interrupt the teacher without being called on, talk with neighbors while the teacher is lecturing, distract everyone around them. When they do raise their hands, it is to ask to use the bathroom, g...

  E pluribus unum: out of many, one. That's our United States of America summed up in three neat Latin words. To the world, we're a single, monolithic entity, the only true superpower left. American culture has conquered the world. McDonalds, Starbucks, Wal-Mart--our corporations are everywhere. American tourists are known for their loud, aggressive friendliness. We don't mean to be rude, but sometimes we just can't help ourselves.   25 years ago, I had the privilege of spending two years serving an English Methodist/United Reformed congregation. It was a "united church," a merger between two Methodist congregations and one from the United Reformed denomination, and as such, it had an ongoing identity crisis. Every time there was a pastoral change, the position had to constitutionally switch between Methodist and United Reformed. My first wife, Brenda, and I came to Trinity Church as a clergy couple with one year of student pastorate experience behind...