Midlife Meditation

Why doesn't he care? From the moment he began campaigning for President, Donald Trump's polls have been abysmal. As a people, Americans really don't care for his lying, bragging, pandering, insulting, bald-faced demagoguery. A significant majority of us see through find the man offensive, and believe he's dragging the nation down to ruin. Since taking office, his approval numbers have declined to a point where no President in the last 70 years has been so disliked so soon after winning election. American politicians live by the poll or die by the poll. Senators, Congresspersons, Governors, state legislators, mayors, city councillors, school board members--whatever power any of them has is utterly dependent on being popular enough to win the next election. In many cases, they can count on their base--the rabidly partisan contingent who would vote for a yellow dog rather than a candidate from the other party--to put them over the top. This is especially true of the...

Then-candidate Trump gestures to a crowd during a rally last September. What did you do during the war? My generation grew up asking that question of our parents and grandparents, and all of them had answers. Many of our fathers served in the armed forces. Some of our mothers were also part of the military. But you didn't have to be a soldier, a sailor, a pilot, or one of the many behind-the-lines support personnel to have stories about the war. Everyone was impacted in some way: much of the American economy pivoted to support the American role in the war, with major industries retooling to produce tanks instead of cars, guns instead of appliances. Those who stayed behind learned to get by with what they had, nursing older cars along at lower speeds to conserve rationed gasoline; or simply to do without. I can't begin to imagine what it was like to try and live a normal life during this time. It's not that I haven't had to live with things hanging over my...

  President Donald J. Trump pushes Montenegrin Prime Minister Dusko Markovic out of his way. It took so little time. I am a humanist. I believe in the essential goodness of human beings. I believe that, given the chance, humans will choose community over isolation, charity over selfishness, mercy over condemnation. I am also an American patriot. I believe Americans are blessed with an openness, a generosity of spirit, and a dedication to human rights that, given the chance to shine, can guide the rest of the world toward a future that is far better for all human beings. With all of that said, I have to admit that the last six months have me questioning whether either of these belief systems has any merit. So buckle up, reader. I've got a lot to say here, and it's not going to be easy going for either of us. To begin, let's go back 38 years, to the first semester of my freshman year at Willamette University. Two of my new friends were taking an int...

This... ...or this? I'm looking for a word to describe a freak of politics. It'll be a word that combines elements of other words in a clever, ironic, or satirical way. The technical term for such a word is "portmanteau," which describes a word that, through such a combination, creates a new word, often describing something that was not around for previous editions of the dictionary. A prime example is "motel," a word combining "motor" and "hotel" that would have had no meaning, nor reason for existing, prior to the proliferation of the automobile. (And yes, I know a portmanteau also describes a sort of hybrid suitcase that opens up into a mini-wardrobe, hence the picture at the top of the page.) But "portmanteau" may be too mild a word for what I have in mind, since we are, after all, about to discuss a truly Gothic monster of a political phenomenon. That's why I'm leaning more toward "chimera," a...

Worst. Improviser. Ever. The first improv performance I ever attended was a sermon. The year was 1988. I was student pastor of a tiny rural church five miles south of Oblong, Illinois. My advisor, Professor Virgil Howard, had come up from Dallas to see how I was doing. While he was there, he guest-preached for a Sunday evening service. He sat on a stool in the middle of the sanctuary, and like any good improviser, asked for a suggestion: "What's your favorite Bible story? And what are some things going on in your lives?" He took everything the congregation threw at him, and wove it into an amazing conversational narrative that was moving, personal, and inspirational.  By the time he'd finished, I knew exactly what kind of preacher I wanted to be: not a lecturer, not a poet, not a stem-winder, but an improvisational storyteller. For the remaining twelve years of my pastoral career, and the ten years after that that I continued to occasionally preach, I ho...

The Taj Mahal, Atlantic City Huge, gaudy, ugly, impossible to ignore, bankrupt, empty, squatting on several blocks of Atlantic City's fabled Boardwalk: the Taj Mahal is the perfect memorial to the Trump regime. If only he'd taken up residence there, instead of on Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump financed construction of this enormous eyesore with junk bonds. A year after it opened, he put it through bankruptcy. It subsequently reopened, thrived for a time, then closed its doors last October, a month before the election that elevated Trump to the Presidency. I was in Atlantic City shortly before the election, attending a music educators conference. From my hotel room, I could see brightly lit casinos extending up the Boardwalk for miles. In their midst stood the dark hulk of the Taj Mahal's hotel tower, its huge TRUMP sign turned off. Strolling on the Boardwalk, I paused to photograph the shiny hulk, thinking it was a fitting metaphor for the Trump campaign. Thr...

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”  --J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring It is a frightening thing when the real world surpasses not just science fiction, but epic fantasy. An enlightened, scandal-free Black President has been succeeded by a narcissistic misanthrope and his white nationalist allies. Power-hungry corrupt politicians are all too willing to jump on his fascistic bandwagon, just so long as it helps them realize their vision of a regulation-free, billionaire-friendly America. In Europe, interdependent globalism collapses to make way for similarly bizarre demagoguery. Meanwhile, global temperature records are broken every year. The populists are fiddling as the world burns. You could make this stuff up, but no editor would accept the ma...

Too soon! As in so many other things, Donald Trump has defined the impending era for us via Twitter. Trump was commenting on an incident involving an American drone submarine being impounded by the Chinese navy. He called it "unpresidented." The tweet was later corrected to read "unprecedented," and there's at least a chance Trump knew that was the correct word, and just slipped up and used a nonexistent homophone instead, something I've done myself in the heat of passioante writing (both with a keyboard and a pen). Merriam Webster spun it into a "not" joke with its own tweet, saying "unpresidented" was NOT the word of the day, as that honor was reserved for the word "huh." Social media seized on the neologism, and it's been everywhere, as the nation tries to come to grips with what's going to happen on January 20. The scrambling to correct the Freudian slip--and the ironic glee with which it's been welcom...