Midlife Meditation

Trump goes off script, insisting there was nothing wrong with his response to Charlottesville. I see it in every prepared word he speaks. He wants so very badly to hang onto their enthusiasm, their passion for his cause--which is to say, their passion for him. They are the truest of the true, the deep core, the believers who can never be shaken from their faith in him, their undying trust that he will continue to vouch for them, even when he must do it in coded language. It would be the easiest thing in the world for him to disavow him, and I'm sure that's what his advisors are asking him to do. Mind you, they can't tell  him to do anything. That's a recipe for unemployment. But asking, and doing it in an absolutely respectful way, carefully wording the request in terms that are as flattering as they can possibly be--yes, I'm sure they're doing a lot of that. "Just a though, Mr. President: the vagueness of the remarks you made is proving ...

I was driving my step-daughter to the gym yesterday when she spotted this bumper sticker: It was the first time either of us had seen this particular graphic, but it instantly reminded us both of another that's been around for awhile: Tolerance, coexistence--these words are commonly interpreted as societal ideals, the next stage in the evolution of Western culture, a Utopian paradise of peace and good will. I'm sympathetic with that hope, but I'm of the opinion it falls far short of what our society should really be striving for. Starting in the early 1990s, when I was pastor of a Reconciling Congregation (a United Methodist Church that seeks full inclusion of gays and lesbians in its ministry), I have been working for on what educators call a "scope and sequence" of accepting diversity. It's a framework for understanding the historical development of cultures both toward and away from being at peace with minorities. This morning, I finally put this fr...

  Peter Schickele didn't say it, but if it wasn't for him, I probably would never have known it.   Peter Schickele, in case you're not familiar with him, is an American composer and humorist most famous as the man who discovered and curates the music of PDQ Bach, last and least of JS Bach's many children. The music is all intentionally awful, laden with quotes of popular songs, voiced on bizarre alternative instruments, and setting texts in hilarious ways. The whole PDQ Bach phenomenon is a satirical stab at pompous, judgmental musicologists, a class of intellectual who came to the forefront of mid-twentieth century musical criticism. Pointed as they are at such a rarified field of study, Schickele's jokes can at times seem a bit too obscure to the layperson, but then the orchestra starts playing, the soprano warbles out another twisted aria, and they're all back in the palm of his hand.   Apart from his mission of getting the musical intelligentsia...