Congress, You're on Notice

Enough already. Suspend the ideological differences with respect to governance until things start to improve for the majority of Americans. Minus the overlords of the global/new world order, most of us are suffering with our finances, health care, and education (public and higher schooling) to name a few difficulties, not to mention just getting by from day-to-day.

For a month now, there has been a lot of feather-fluffing in both parties, and no one is really coming up with solutions - "bipartisan" has become a dirty word, and pronouns such as "us," "them," "we," and "they" are being tossed about recklessly as if the problems and faults rest in one party or the other. News flash: both parties are equally complicit and guilty in one form or another. If Congress could come to this simple conclusion, they would be on the same page as the rest of America's reality with respect to public opinion.

Rather than coming together to fight a common cause (i.e., the economy, health care, etc.), the Republic is divided more than ever now. What I have observed over the past eight-going-on-nine years is what I call a "social civil war." We have an old-fashioned stand-off, and to quote Dr. Phil, "Someone needs to step up and be the hero..." We're dying out here: we're losing homes, barely making it, without health care, without jobs, and getting laid off, just to name a few points of desperation.

Like it or not, we elected a president who campaigned on the platforms of change and hope. Every candidate opposing President Obama took a page from his messages and claimed the same for their own campaigns. The proverbial party is over now, and now that push has come to shove, no one wants to do the unpopular thing (whatever that might be with respect to each party’s ideologies), irrespective of their parties. The rules of physics apply to Congress and the state of a nation in much the same way as they apply to nature: objects in rest tend to stay in rest, and entropy is a natural state when no energy is exerted. It will take a lot of effort to turn this nation around or in a new direction.

So Congress, I'm putting you on notice. Make nice, get your stuff together, get along, work together, and get over your pettiness. Instead of worrying about the next election you might not win, worry about being of public service - that service which you were elected to do. We didn't elect you to sit on your backsides and make useless interviews so that you can play hardball or entertain us (no offense Mr. Matthews). Every day you do nothing is one more day that we remain uncertain about where things are heading because we are on unchartered territories. Stop asking, "What's in it for me?" and ask, "What can I do to serve my people best?"

Play politics on your own time - on your days off. You're on the clock, and the taxpayers are paying your salaries, not to mention the salaries of the beneficiaries of many of your positions. You've bailed out the banks without accountability in the first go-round, and you've smugly pointed to your opponents for the fallout for these measures. I no longer beseech or ask you to listen to the better angels of your nature for that is not possible; instead, I’m telling you to consider who your employers are and how it is that you hold public office. Don’t disappoint us again. Do something differently.

Why I'm a Lapsed Agnostic

I love All Saints Church in Pasadena, and I love all the people within it. But imagine my disappointment when a dear friend of mine who works at my church informed me that he had simply been "laid off" without prior notice and through an email. There were no calls to meet with the boss, or signs along the way to which he could point. He said that it simply happened out of the blue.

In these difficult economic times filled with challenges, it is the Christian spirit of the matter and not the letter of the law that matters. Perhaps I am naive. It seems that just about everyone (of decent, to average, to little means) is suffering, and a church is the last place I expected that a lay-off would occur. I keep thinking about the magnanimity that Christ instructed all people to learn from in his examples of how to treat one other and to live; he exemplified radical inclusion, faith, and good will. He spoke about empathy and love. He too walked upon the earth during his respective "difficult times" (the Roman Empire, institutionalized religion, and a stale, frustrated population).

It is easy to give when times are prosperous, but not thus when they are not; likewise, it is easy to give up or give in when times are difficult. Regardless of whether we can see ahead or make projections, we are all beholden to one another; we must do better than the “world out there.” I must admit that I have been hypocritical on this note because my pledges haven't been up-to-date by any means, and one could easily argue against me and proclaim that I am a guilty party – my complicity may have very well directly and indirectly influenced the lay-off of my friend. I have no excuses in some respects; being a full-time student only takes me a short distance. For this, I apologize to my friend.

Through recent inquiries, I learned that when building projects are on a church's agenda, these projects are separate from the human resources of that church in the books. So, it is not possible to take money from the building-column and put it into the human resources-column. One has nothing to do with the other on the books; otherwise, this would be known as a form of "cooking the books..." This "buildings versus human resources" matter has prevailed since the beginning of time I suppose – from the pyramids in Egypt to the Roman Coliseum to the expansion of All Saints. We want our legacies to outlast us, and it can be viewed as short-sighted to wish that we could hold on to those who give us life during our lifetimes.

Still, I believe in the church of "today" versus one that has not yet been built. Many people need a lot of “saving” these days - and I am not referring to that brand of "saving" that has become synonymous with Christianity; I am referring to the kind of "saving" the lends a hand, keeps people going, helps, loves, and fights against injustices. This is the more difficult building to erect and maintain. Structures will get built, and time will change the tapestries and blueprints upon which we dwell.

Christ was a man without a building, but he was someone who found the means to spread the wealth with mere morsels. His "church" was that which he wrote upon with wisdom and love; he did not preach from behind pulpits or in comfortable structures. We only ever have what we have in the moment; everything else is pretense. The past informs the present and beyond that, we have to move with a certain faith that we will be carried forward, from one moment to the next. Such is what "faith" is, in my estimation. However, I am not a theologian or philosopher, nor do I have any degrees at the moment to compose an irrefutable argument, and there is still much I have yet to learn that a college education will not teach me.

It was a little over four years ago that I first heard Ed Bacon give a sermon, from which I made up my mind then and there to be like him. He inspired me, even though the only words I hear him say were, "All life is sacred" with his booming voice bouncing off the echo chamber of the All Saints building. Though priesthood is not in the cards for me, I have taken what All Saints Church teaches and try to live "in the world" where God dwells in each of us and is reflected back to us daily.

I want to take the proverbial-church "out there" where the people need love, compassion, justice, and inclusion the most because they have no means to be elsewhere. Still, we are merely human - all of us are flawed. While I do not agree with the decisions made by Reverend Ed Bacon, I know that I must not use my anger to work against the goodness that otherwise exists, even if All Saints will be diminished by the departure of my favorite person there: Rusty Harding. At the end of the day, a physical church is merely a business - an institution composed of hard, cold numbers. Church is otherwise what its members make it to be through the embodiment of God within one another. God dwells in you...