Republican Rage Set Up One of Their Own

There's so much to do before I leave for the beach this weekend. Like I said earlier, I hadn't planned on making the trip this year, so when I found out that my excuse for not going to the beach wouldn't work out, I had to cram several weeks worth of planning into a couple of days. As part of my mad dash to get ready to relax (some irony there, no? I heard a cruise ship captain interviewed on an NPR program lament that when Americans go on vacation the treat it in much the same way as they treat their work, trying to maximize every moment. Instead of relaxing and enjoying their time on ship, doing only the things they really want to do, they try to cram everything in, all at once, creating a chaotic and stressful environment. I am, after all, an American, even if I don't always eat like one) I went to an optometrist today, to get a new prescription and order some contact lenses.

Why do contacts constitute a necessity on the beach? Simple. Without them, I can't wear sunglasses, unless I want to shell out for some prescription sunglasses, which would still have required a visit to the optometrist. And, of course, you need sunglasses on the beach.

I remember the one year I went to the beach without sunglasses. I had just graduated from high school, and for the first time in my life I was going on a vacation without my family. My friend Andrew invited me to go with his family on their beach vacation, and I just couldn't resist. But not having my Mom to hold my hand through the planning and packing, I forgot some essentials. Like sunglasses. Those long walks on the beach were anything but relaxing with the glare from the sun rising up from the gorgeous white sand, burning my eyes. I spent most of the week inside.

On the way back from the visiting the optometrist I saw a bumper sticker which reminded me that the last two presidents may be the two most hated leaders in our nation's history (though what do I know about history?). It read:

I'm Not Anti-Bush;
I'm Just Pro-Intellegence.

While this is sly, subtle, and more than just a little bit funny, it is not exactly an articulate political statement. It does, however, have good company in the pantheon of Bush-bashing bumper statements. Some of my favorites include:

A picture of a very menacing looking President Bush, with a caption that reads:
American Terrorist

Another stock photo of the current president, with a caption that reads:
Not My President

A drawing of a cartoonish running man, wearing a cowboy hat roughly the size of Texas, with a caption that reads:
Somewhere in Texas a Village is Missing its Idiot

And, of course, there are a whole host of others, arguing either that the president is evil, stupid, or simply illegitimate. I have some sympathy for the messages of these bumper stickers - I have a great deal more in common with the people who would put them on their car than I do with people whose cars would say simply

W
The President

as though we weren't already painfully aware of that.

But as much as I might agree with the political agenda of people who cannot help but voice their frustration or despair or even outrage at the man who currently holds the office of the president and the reckless decisions which he has made from that office, I don't see the proliferation of anti-presidential automotive messages as a good thing for this country. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to put such messages on their car, nor am I saying that they should be shamed for doing so. Rather I am saying that the proliferation of such messages reflects a toxic political environment.

It is perhaps fitting that the current recipient of such toxicity is someone whose political career has so benefited from the same toxicity which now threatens to effectively destroy it. President Bush was elected in part because of former Vice President Gore's fear of "Clinton fatigue," a by-product of the political toxicity created by conservative and Republican backlash at President Clinton, an irrationally hated figure in much of America. While Clinton's natural charm and charisma was enough to make more than half of the country love him just as passionately as the other just-slightly-less-than half of the country hated and still hates him; his infinitely less charismatic, and, well, staid and stoic former running mate ran as far away from him as he could in the 2000 Presidential election, running himself right out of office, even as he collected a slight majority of the votes.

But all of that is old news. I bring it up now because I have heard more than a few Republicans complain about how their opponents show nothing but contempt for the president, and as such for the presidency. I don't have much sympathy for them. After all, they are the ones who made this bed, and now we all have to lie in it. As the famous bumper sticker reads:

No One Died When Clinton Lied

but the moral indignation of some already indignant blow-hards and hypocrites forced this country through a divisive impeachment process as the culmination of a campaign to cripple an opponent they couldn't beat fairly.

Perhaps the biggest victim of the campaign to "get" President Clinton, to catch him doing something so sinister that the rest of us fools would finally know just how evil this charming anti-Christ really is, was the office of the president. Now presidents are more than fair game for childish ad hominem attacks, and a Republican president is now on the receiving end.

Beach Reading

At least one very good thing has come from my being removed from consideration for the job with the Peace Education Program: I'm going to the beach.

My family has long had a special connection to Holden Beach, North Carolina. Just about half an hour by car from the more popular (and touristy) Myrtle Beach, Holden, sitting on an island between the Inland Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean, is a quaint and quiet beach, perfect for relaxing and focusing the mind. My Mom's family is from North Carolina, and her maternal grandmother owned a cottage on Holden Beach; a cottage which was destroyed in a 1954 hurricane, forever ridding her family of the desire to own beach-front property.

Almost every year my mother rents a beach house for a week, inviting whoever from our clan who wishes to go to share the week with her. Because the application process for the Peace Education Program job was such an extended one I was afraid that this year I wouldn't be able to make the trip. Truth be told, I was even hoping that this year I wouldn't be able to make the trip, because that would mean, of course, that I either had a job that I wanted, or was very close to having a job that I wanted. But having gone through the disappointment that invariably comes with even the most well reasoned rejection, now I'm ready to hit the beach.

Because Holden's peaceful ambiance is perfect for focusing the mind, I always bring with me a book that I've struggled to read in the chaos of Louisville (I know, those of you who live in New York or Chicago are wondering just how chaotic my piddly little city can get, but chaos is relative). On each of the last two trips to Holden I've brought books by Paul Tillich. Last year I worked through Theology of Culture, and in 2003 (we didn't get to go to Holden in 2004, because it was being threatened by a hurricane the week we'd planned to go that year) I was enchanted by The Shaking of the Foundations, his book of sermons.

This year I've got a couple of candidates from Tillich - perhaps Morality and Beyond or What is Religion? - but I'm not sure I want to continue the tradition of wrestling with Tillich at the beach. Perhaps I should branch out. So, I'm putting together a short list of some of the books that for one reason or another I haven't gotten around to reading; books that would do well in the relaxed, centering atmosphere of Holden Beach. If you see one on this list that you think I just absolutely have to take with me, let me know:

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich; Ethics. I started reading this about four or five years ago, and never finished. I got enough into it to have a pretty good idea of where I thought he was going, but then, frankly, I got bored. I don't know if that was the fault of the book - much of which was written in prison and wasn't published until after his death - or the fault of the inattentiveness of youth. Anyway, at some point I'm going to take another crack at it.

Wustenberg, Ralf K.; A Theology of Life: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity. I saw this in a used bookstore in the winter of 2004/2005, just before Adam was born. The thesis intrigued me. Because Bonhoeffer died so young, leaving so much of his thought unexplained, so much has been written by scholars trying to explain what Bonhoeffer might have been thinking. He was a work in progress, cut down far too soon. I read the first chapter, which hooked me. But then school started back, and Adam was born, and life spiraled out of control and I never looked back at the book.

Ellis, Marc H.; Ending Auschwitz: The Future of Jewish and Christian Life. You can often pick up scholarly religious works on the remainders market. I saw this book, written by the Professor of Religion, Culture, and Society Studies and Director of the Justice and Peace Program at Maryknoll School of Theology, in a temporary book store in the mall for maybe $2, and took a chance on it. I haven't found the time to read it yet.

Griffith-Jones, Robin; The Four Witnesses. A book by an Anglican priest comparing and contrasting the four canonical Gospels, this was actually written in John Wesley's study at Oxford, so I had to get it. The author was a chaplain who also taught New Testament at Lincoln College, Oxford University, before being named Master of the Temple Church in London. This has been sitting in my library for maybe four and a half years, and I still haven't read a word of it.

Kung, Hans; Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection. I first read of this book in Kung's memoir, My Struggle for Freedom, which I got for Christmas 2003. It was one of his two doctoral dissertations written as a student at the German University in the Vatican. While writing it he had the unique opportunity to dialogue with an elderly Barth on his own writing. After reading the finished work, it is said that Barth remarked that Kung understood him better than he understood himself. A landmark work in ecumenical theology, I haven't yet had the courage to tackle this epic.

Morgan, Robin; The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism. Finally, a non-theological book! Not only is the remainders market great for finding cheap books by religious academics, it is also a great place to pick up a book you would never think of buying otherwise. I bought this feminist critique or patriarchal societies for $1 just a couple of months ago. I don't know much about it, except that it was originally published in 1989, and then reissued with a new introduction after 9-11. Oh, yeah, and according to the front cover, Gloria Steinem loved it.

Palmo, Ani Tenzin; Reflections on a Mountain Lake: Teachings on Practical Buddhism. This was one of the texts for my Buddhist philosophy class my final semester as a college student. I skimmed the sections which were assigned in class, and was impressed by them. However, I was only skimming (Adam was born that semester, remember?) and the assigned readings covered less than a quarter of the book. The author, born in London, was among the first Western women to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun.

Segal, Ronald; The Black Diaspora: Five Centuries of the Black Experience Outside Africa. Another remainders market purchase. The word diaspora, a Greek word which means roughly "scattering," was first applied to the Jewish experience. The Septuagint, for instance, is a product of the Jewish diaspora, compiled by Alexandrian Jews who wanted to be able to read their sacred texts despite the gradual loss of the Hebrew language from their community. If anyone's experience mirrors the diaspora, the "scattering" of the remnants of ancient Israel, it is the scattered population of those stolen from Africa. This book, a look at diasporic black culture, was written by the former editor and publisher of Africa South, a South African who left the country for political exile in England.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre; The Phenomenon of Man. Forgive the lack of inclusive language in the title, this was first published by the famous Jesuit scientist and theologian (so disowned by his beloved Roman Catholic Church for his explorations of the theological implications of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection that he was unceremoniously buried in an unmarked grave despite devoting his life to the service of the church) in 1955, and was first translated into English in 1959. It is truly a product of its time, which is rare for theological works, which often dialogue with the past but not the present. I first became interested in Telihard's work reading an essay in Thomas Merton's Love and Living which attempted to redeem Telihard for Catholics. Of course, having Merton vouch for your orthodoxy may just seal your fate as a heretic. I haven't yet read this particular work, but I have read some of his others, and can honestly say that I don't yet have the foggiest idea what he is talking about. That is the danger of reading on your own.

Of course, my brother, who in asking me this weekend what I was going to read at the beach, will chastise me for coming up with such a lofty list. After all, while I was reading Tillich last year, he and my wife we pouring through my copies of the Chronicles of Narnia. So, if you'd like to see me pick some lighter reading this year, you are welcome to suggest one.

tombakerguitar.com

My twin brother, Lexington musician Tom Baker, has a new website which you ought to check out:

tombakerguitar.com

So check it out. You can even download some of his songs for free.

[note: I sincerely apologize for this shameless plug.]

A Victory for Moderate Islam?

I don't often comment on Islam for a variety of reasons. I don't have much to say about the (chronologically) third great Monotheistic religion, and much of what I could say would only inflame either Muslims who don't need someone from outside their religion to criticize it, or conservative Christians or Jews who find my criticisms far too charitable. But, when I read this article in the Christian Science Monitor I felt I had to say something.

There are many aspects of Islam that have always appealed to me: the radical monotheism, which at its best uses the unity of God to attempt to unify humanity; the blending of the secular and sacred in daily life; the public and highly ritualized prayers; the fact that one prays with one's whole body, and not just one's mouth; Sufi mystical poetry; the emphasis on submission to God; the majesty of the hajj, the pilgrimage that so powerfully speaks to human unity before God that it forever changed the life of Malcolm X.

But for all of the good that I see in Islam, all in that great religion which appeals to me (and the previous paragraph is but a hastily prepared list which barely touches the surface), like all reasonable people I am deeply troubled by the propensity towards violence that I see in Islam.

Islam, to be sure, does not own a monopoly on religious violence. The Tanakh, called by many Christians the "Old Testament," is littered with divinely ordained violence. For instance, while the book of Numbers intimidates many causal readers of the Bible with long sections devoted to census taking and law making, it also contains horrific stories of religious/political warfare. In Numbers 31, for instance, God ordains the Israelites to take vengeance against the Midianites, which they faithfully do killing all of the men and taking the women and children hostage. However, Moses, who here acts as the mouthpiece of God, rebukes his own army for being too lenient, commanding them in what is for me the most troubling passage in the Bible:

Now, therefore, slay every male among the children, and slay also every woman who has known a man carnally; but spare every young woman who has not had carnal relations with a man. (Numbers 31: 17-18, JPS)

Likewise Christian history is filled with violence done in the name of a righteous God. While Islam was still a relatively peaceful and tolerant religion the Roman Catholic Church propagated a series of Crusades against it, an event which still scars the collective memories of Muslims. After the Muslim Seljuk Turks captured much of the Near East in the 11th Century, including parts of the Byzantine Empire, Pope Urban II, in 1095 at the Council of Clermont, called for what has since been named the First Crusade; a holy war against Muslims who had been accused of defiling sacred Christian sites.

The Crusades eventually spanned such a broad expanse of time, killing such a vast and senseless number of people, that it is easy to become emotionally numb studying is from a broad view. Stories from individual battles and sieges in individual Crusades, however, tell a much more compelling human story which truly depicts how violence done in the name of the Prince of Peace (to use a Jewish image appropriated by Christians for Jesus) defiles the history of Christianity. Donald Spoto's magnificent biography of Francis of Assisi (my bedtime reading last week, as you can see here) contains some powerful images from battles that Francis witnessed as he was preaching peace during the Fifth Crusade. Summing up the carnage, Spoto writes:

The Fifth Crusade continued on its disastrous course. After another siege, Damietta was taken on November 5 [1219 - CB] by the Crusaders, who found houses and streets filled with corpses half devoured by ravenous dogs while weeping children clung to their dead and dying parents, begging for food. Of the 80,000 people in the city at the beginning of the siege, only 3,000 survived, and of these only 100 were not ill with fatal diseases.

When a religion believes that it alone represents God, and that all who oppose it oppose God, and especially when a religion believes that it has been ordained by God to wipe out all of God's enemies; that religion has reached such a height of moral arrogance that it can justify dishonoring all of its principles in its quest to rid the world forever of the identified enemies of God. While I do not believe that such morally arrogant violence is essential to monotheism, I must admit that each monotheistic religion has tended from time to time toward such righteous violence. Islam is no exception to this.

What troubles me about Islam, however, is that, as a Jewish religious studies professor of mine once lamented, it seems like no moderate Muslims are willing to call Islam's violent extremists to task for their maniacal methods. Reading the above-linked article simultaneously gave me some faith in the collective moral conscience of moderate Muslims (after all, a cleric helped lead authorities to 17 suspected terrorists) and a great deal of fear for those moderate Muslims who are willing to stand up to the violence being done in their name (after all, while the cleric is being hailed by the secular world as a hero, he is seen by many Muslims as a traitor).

Will the real Islam please stand up?

Taking Stock

Time, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed from his Nazi prison, is a funny thing. While we mark it off moment by incremental moment, dividing it into equal, measurable units, our experience of it is neither uniform nor always linear. Some moments fly by, almost unnoticed in their haste to move from future to present to past. Other moments hang around interminably. Most moments do neither. Perhaps they sneak up on us, but then hang around for a little bit once we notice them, only to depart as stealthily as they came.

Eighteen months ago this morning, my son Adam was born. The time we've spent together since then, and even the time my wife and I spent waiting for him to arrive on our scene, cannot be easily described. It has been neither fast nor slow, neither orderly nor chaotic, neither linear or circular, and neither good nor bad. It has, however, been a time of inordinate change.

While bringing new life into the world is always momentous, and while the chaos that it brings into your order (as well as the order that it brings into your chaos) necessarily implies a great deal of change, the changes in my life since Adam was born have been so disoriented that I don't often recognize myself anymore.

Eighteen months ago I was in my fourth year as the Youth Minister at Epiphany United Methodist Church on the south side of Louisville, KY. While I loved that job, and while I was proud of the program that I had built and the kids produced by it, I new that I would not last much longer there. Every year I got a little bit older, and every year my Youth Group stayed about the same age, with graduating Seniors being replaced by incoming Sixth Graders in a process that might be best described as a stabilizing transition. The names and faces might change every year, but the ages and personalities remained almost constant.

My religious interests were constantly deepening, but the needs of my ministry required a certain amount of shallowness, a certain amount of basicness. No matter how much I grew, no matter how much my interests evolved, my job there would always be to try to meet the spiritual needs of teenagers. A rewarding job, to be sure, but it takes a certain kind of person to remain in Youth Ministry for very long, and I am not that kind of person.

Eighteen months ago I was in my final semester as a college student, finishing up my desperate cramming of four years worth of classes into three years. I was at the end of a relentless schedule of eighteen credit hour semesters followed by a couple of summer classes. My course load was hard enough, without accounting for the work that I was doing at Epiphany. I was quickly burning out.

At the same time, though, I relished certain challenges. The summer before Adam was born I took a course in modern African-American literature. I'd love to say that I signed up for the course because of some special interest in the subject - and since I had already taken a course in African-American music I'm sure there is some truth to that - but mostly I took the course because I needed three credit hours in literature to graduate, and that was what was available the summer I decided to get my literature credit in.

Whatever my motives for taking the course, however, I loved it. In that class I wrote a paper on John Edgar Wideman's unique use of language in his amazing Hoop Roots. After reading that paper, the professor approached me and said, "Every year students ask me to do an independent study with them, and I always turn them down. I don't do independent studies. But, if you want to turn this into a publishable paper, I'd love to do an independent study with you." You can't turn down an offer like that.

The semester before Adam was born I took a course in Buddhist philosophy. I took it for three reasons:

1. As a philosophy major on the religious studies track, it was a very useful class for me.

2. It was taught by my favorite professor, a lover of Asian philosophy who had already taught me everything I know about Chinese philosophy, and brought some of my best work out of me.

3. I have had a life-long fascination with Buddhism, a fascination which is from time to time reflected in this blog. If I were not a Christian I would be a Buddhist.

In that course I was particularly inspired by the traditional Buddhist idea of pattica samuppada (Pali), concerning the interconnected and interdependent nature of all things. While pattica samuppada is originally concerned with the cyclical nature of suffering, as a metaphysical concept it can be applied much more broadly. I thought that it might be particularly able to inform our approaches to environmental ethics, and so approach my professor about doing an independent study designed to look at how this teaching has historically informed Buddhist approaches to environmental ethics.

Frustrated that it has not historically been used that way, I eventually broadened my topic. So, eighteen months ago, when Adam was born, I was right in the middle of not one but two major independent studies aimed at writing publishable papers. The first one, like the paper which gave rise to it, concerned John Edgar Wideman's use of language in Hoop Roots, and is to this day one of my proudest achievements. The second was at least as bold, focusing on comparing and contrasting Buddhist and Christian approaches to environmental ethics. While I was disappointed in how that paper turned out, I did get to present my research at my university's philosophy colloquium, an event which earned my infant son the nickname "the little philosopher." He sat with his mother in the back of the room while I presented, in rapt attention, hanging on every word that I said. Some of the professors remarked that the baby was a better listener than most of their students.

Eighteen months ago I was also an Exploring Candidate for Ordination in the United Methodist Church, about to become a Certified Candidate subject to appointment. My time at Epiphany was, as I've already noted, quickly running out. Not only was I growing frustrated with my responsibilities at the church, longing to work with a "more mature" group; but my best friend had just left as pastor of that church, to be replaced by a fundamentalist. While the former pastor and I had basically shared a brain, being able to finish each other's sentences, the new pastor was a foreign to me as I was to him. We had different concepts of God, different concepts of what constitutes a healthy church, and different goals for ministry.

He was very kind to me personally, and very helpful in advancing my ministerial career, but the whole time we worked together we were engaged in a sort of cold war for the heart and soul of that congregation. As such we shared a goal: getting me out of that congregation and into my own pulpit. Of course, you know how that story ends.

Eighteen months ago, then, I was a college student and a Youth Minister, and my biggest goals were to get into seminary and my own pulpit, and to pursue ordination in the United Methodist Church. Since then I graduated (with High Distinction - it would have been Highest Distinction but the semester Adam was born produced my first two B's!), became a pastor, entered seminary, withdrew from pastoral ministry and dropped out of seminary. I've gone through the application process to get into law school only to decide (along with the University of Louisville's Brandeis School of Law) that the law isn't for me.

Now I'm looking for a job. I've always felt that God hasn't called me to a serve in a particular profession, but rather to be a particular person. So long as what I do comes out of who I am, and so long as who I am is consistent with who I ought to be, I don't have to worry so much about what I'm supposed to do. But the fact is, I've got to do something, and I've got to do it soon.

I have been blessed to spend most of Adam's first 18 months of life with him. While I was both a student and a Youth Minister when he was born, I often took him with me to class and church. Since I dropped out of ministry, and later seminary, I have been a full-time stay-at-home Dad. I can't even begin to describe how that has changed me. My life has been dedicated to the welfare of a precious child; a child who is growing up well, and who is a credit to his parents.

But, as much as I love being a father, I can't be myself and be a stay-at-home Dad. So, I've started looking for emotionally enriching and rewarding work. I've resisted the temptation to post very much on my job hunt because:

a.) I didn't want to bore anyone to death with the constant refrain of

1. I applied for a job today, followed by

2. I haven't heard back from anyone yet, or

3. I just got another rejection

and

b.) I didn't want to do anything to in any way jinx the few job opportunities which have looked promising.

But today, bad joo-joo and superstitious thinking be damned, I'm going to share a little bit about my job hunt.

Last month I saw that the Peace Education Program was looking for a Trainer to work with urban teenagers on non-violent conflict resolution. It seemed like a perfect job for me, so I applied for it. Earlier this month I got a letter from them saying that, to their great surprise, they have received 40 applications for that position. They are currently looking through the resumes and letters of recommendation for each candidate for the job trying to narrow the field to 10 or 15 candidates before they begin their first round of interviews. They are to notify me by tomorrow to let me know whether or not I've made it past the first cut.

To put it another way, I've got to beat out 25 or 30 applicants just to get an interview. I went through this sort of process to get the Youth Minister job at Epiphany, but I'm still not so sure about my chances. These are, after all, some seriously long odds.

On the other hand, if you'd told me 18 months ago, when my son was born, that I would have already had my own church and resigned from pastoral ministry, I would have thought they odds of that happening would be a great deal longer than this.

I don't know why all of this is coming out today. Perhaps just because I can't believe that it has already been 18 months. It seems both longer and shorter than that; like he was born yesterday but has always been here. Time is, as Bonhoeffer noted, ever so elusive.

Anti-Abortion Bumper Sticker

Can it really be? According to my own internal search, I haven't posted a Bumper Sticker Watch since this one in February! That simply cannot stand.

For those of you who weren't around for my Bumper Sticker Watches, I have an unhealthy fascination with religious and political messages on the bumpers of cars. While I keep my own car pure (save for the Autism Awareness magnetic ribbon, put there by my dear wife, who feeds us by working as a behavioral therapist with autistic children) I cannot help but admire those brave souls who bare their beliefs on the butt of their car.

So from time to time (but, evidently, not for a long time) I post an ode to some message that I see on a car. Sometime the ode is sincere, sometimes satirical. Remember, even in my most reverent moments my tongue is generally firmly pressed to my cheek.

Anyway, since I haven't posted on bumper stickers in so long, I simply couldn't resist telling you about this one.

Recognizing that I'm never again going to get above a basketball rim (for the record, I've dunked four times in my life, thank you) I've started playing tennis again. Tennis is a game that ages a little more gracefully. I'm also in charge of the cat litter in our house, which has alas been far too neglected this past week. I say alas particularly because the litter box is in the basement next to me office, so when its contents begin to, well, shall we say ripen, I notice. And, speaking of ripening, my bowl of cereal this morning reminded me that I either need to get less milk when I go to the grocery, or I need to drink a little more of it more quickly.

This created an interesting shopping list for me today:

1. One new can of tennis balls, since the balls I played with yesterday were over two years old.

2. One crate of cat litter - the litter box can't be changed without some fresh litter, and boy does it need to be changed.

3. One gallon of skim milk.

Where could I go to get all three of these items? Well, I could go to Wal Mart, but I've been boycotting them for most of my adult life. Of course, they haven't noticed yet, but I'm still holding out hope. What do you think: can one small family in Louisville, KY bring down a corporate giant? If we're joined by enough other families, yes we can!

So, I decided to go to Target. My mother tells me that, ethically speaking, Target isn't much better than Wal Mart (this is how, by the way, she justifies shopping at Wal Mart, not boycotting Target, but that's another story), but ethics aren't the only factor to consider. There's always aesthetics, and if Target takes over the world at least the world will look relatively pretty.

On my way to Target to pick up my three disparate items, a mid 90's, metallic blue Ford Ranger pick-up truck pulls in front of me. On the right side is a Bush-Cheney '04 bumper sticker. On the left is an metal Ichthus fish. (How many times have we seen those two together?!?) And in the middle? A large colorful bumper sticker, with white trim, which has a picture of a crawling Caucasian baby in a white cloth diaper, and text which reads:

DIAPERS ARE DISPOSABLE
BABIES ARE NOT
STOP ABORTION

Will the anti-abortion movement ever grow tired of equating abortion with infanticide? I'll admit it, my moral intuition makes me very uncomfortable with the practice of abortion. For much of my life I have identified myself as pro-life, even though I am nominally pro-choice now (that is, I think that under certain limited circumstances abortions are morally permissible; and further I think that abortions, whether morally permissible or not, should remain in most cases legal, because to criminalize abortion would ultimately do more harm than good), but I've got to say that I am morally and intellectually offended by the fundamental dishonesty of conflating the killing of an unborn fetus with the murder of a little child.

But bumper sticker leave little room for subtlety or argument. They simply reduce complex ideas to manageable sound-bytes, just like every other politically propagating media in America at the moment. Is there, then, any wonder that political discourse is so polarized and uncharitable? Is there, then, any wonder that people are so willing to believe the worst about the people who disagree with them.

Pro-choice? You're nothing better than a baby killer! Why don't you just club kids like baby seals?

Pro-life? You wish women would go back to the only thing they're good at - popping out babies and fresh-cooked meals!

In favor of affirmative action or social welfare? Why do you hate hard work so much? What's your problem with a level playing field?

Opposed to affirmative action or social welfare? Why must you continually oppress and exploit minorities?

Liberal is, in our polarized political lexicon, becoming another word for communist. Conservative is becoming another word for fascist. And all because our ideas and beliefs, as represented by our talking points and bumper stickers, oppose nuance and complexity.

No one is completely right, and most people aren't completely wrong. Very, very few of us wake up in the morning trying to come up with the most effective way to really do some harm to our culture and the people in it. It's just that whenever we solve a problem new problems emerge, the unintended consequences of our "solutions." But bumper stickers like the one I saw today, so full of misplaced moral superiority, so full of intellectual and ethical dishonesty, stifle what should be a great debate in this country. Instead of opening up avenues of thoughtful communication, they shut them down, firing up the people who are "with us" while trying to shame or intimidate those "against us."

Maybe I don't like bumper stickers as much as I thought I did.

Medieval Christian Zen?

Most of you should remember my fascination with the American Zen stories compiled by Sean Murphy in his delightful book One Bird One Stone: 108 American Zen Stories (for a refresher see here and here). My bedtime reading this week has been Donald Spoto's magnificent Reluctant Saint: The Life of Francis of Assisi, which contains some stories to rival the great tradition of Zen for sheer absurdity.

Two of my favorite writers and thinkers, Thomas Merton (in Mystics and Zen Masters) and D.T. Suzuki (in Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist) have observed the similarities between Christian mysticism and Zen. Of course, these two traditions come from wildly different and often opposing world views, and I would hate to simply gloss over that. But they both share in common the evaluation that practice is more important than theory or theology, and that life is more important than our reflections on life. So while they may be coming from very different systems of thought (though mysticism and Zen share in common a refusal to rationalize, they come out of Christianity and Buddhism respectively, which offer very different rational accounts of the nature of the universe) they often produce lives and stories which seem kin to each other.

Here is, from Donald Spoto's biography of Francis, part of the story of one of Francis' earliest companions, a young man named Juniper, called by Spoto "one of the most uncoventional among the early Franciscans":

His odd behavior often had an underlying spiritual motive. On a visit to Rome, he learned that some people, believing he was a wise counselor, were seeking him out for advice. His companions assured him it was pointless trying to avoid such attention and admiration, but they had not taken Juniper's resourcefulness into full account. As he approached the eager crowd, he spotted a group of children on a seesaw. At once, he went over to them and joined the fun as if it were the most important item on his agenda. The enthusiasms of his admirers was at once checked, and they withdrew, disappointed that a holy man should act such a fool.

There are many other such stories of Juniper and the other early Franciscans. And, of course, some of the best and strangest stories are of Francis himself, who took the command to follow Christ distressingly literally at times. But this may be my favorite one. Most of my life up until now has been spent frantically trying to "grow up," to lose the child within and become a fully functioning adult. In my mad race to manhood, however, I have too often ignored my own nature. As Madeleine L'Engle once observed, I am not any particular age, but rather all of the ages I have ever been at the same time. There are moments when I am and must be a grown man, a husband and a father, a responsible adult. But there are other times when I am a playful little boy, or a baby who needs to be held, or a teenager rebelling against the invisible authorities.

To be willing to embrace your inner child and play on a seesaw with little literal children is at the same time liberating and grounding. It is liberating, because it reminds you that you are not just a staid and stuffy adult, but also a former child who from time to time returns to such childhood fancies. It is grounding because it reminds you that you can never truly escape who you once were, so you'd better be able to make peace with yourself as you are, even as you go through the painfully transformative process of sanctification.

Do the ends justify the means?

Forget for a moment everything that I've written on abortion (including this and this). Pretend that I'm not some crazy heretic who thinks that abortion is a complicated moral issue which can't be reduced to a simply pro or con, for or against, right or wrong. Wipe from your mind the knowledge that I think that having an abortion is, under certain limited circumstances, morally permissible.

In this backwards (and far less nuanced world) I am a pro-life evangelical Christian who is concerned about the morality of a society that permits the deplorable practice of abortion. How, do you think, would I feel about this?

Radical anti-abortion advocates have long used a strange utilitarian calculus to justify any means to prevent abortion, even killing doctors who have performed abortions. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that some people would be willing to lie to pregnant teenagers to scare them into not having an abortion. But I still have to wonder how someone can take the moral high ground when their strategy for ending what they see as a social evil involves deceiving scared and vulnerable people to manipulate them into doing what you think is best.

And I have to wonder about a government which funds medical misinformation.

But, I'm out of indignation, and that is the real shame. When I read this study, I wasn't surprised, angry, or even disappointed. I think that I have outrage fatigue.

An Ode to the Lost Dogs and Politically Progressive Christian Music

Every morning Adam, Pepper (our dog) and I take a 4.5 mile walk through our neighborhood and the surrounding area. As the summer heats up, our walk keeps starting earlier and earlier. But, whenever it starts, pounding the pavement pushing a stroller and dragging a tired dog gives me a great chance to reflect on stuff. Yesterday's walk, for instance, produced the bulk of the letter contained in my last post. Today's walk, however, had slightly stranger fruit.

I'll spare you the visual image of me returning from such a long walk on one of these hot, humid, sticky, steamy summer mornings. Suffice it to say that, this morning, as I passed our neighborhood Catholic church, just under a mile from our house, I was more than aware of the weather. If their sign is any indication, that is exactly what they were hoping for.

I'm sure you've seen signs outside of churches intending to in some way evangelize the masses that pass by. I've always thought that such signs were silly at best, and invitations to engage in poorly thought out bigotry at worst, but churches don't consult me on such matters for some reason. One of my favorite bands, the Violet Burning, has a special feature on the concert DVD with their favorite church signs. Their treatment of these generally either stupid or offensive (or both) signs is by no means complimentary.

The sign on our neighborhood Catholic church this morning belongs on that DVD. In the midst of this scorching summer heat wave, it reads:

Think the weather is hot?
Hell is hotter!

Pardon the pun, but What the hell?!?

Seeing that sing this morning for some reason got me singing some of my favorite songs by a band called the Lost Dogs (including the fantastically funny Why is the Devil Red?), and reflecting on my spiritual and political journey. So, maybe the sign did its job?

I grew up in a liberal household and an evangelical church. When I was fourteen I had a religious conversion experience which I will no longer sully by trying to describe. At that moment I began to take my faith in God through Jesus Christ very seriously. Being in such an evangelical church (and a particularly evangelical Youth Group) my newly claimed faith was a very evangelical (and culturally evangelical faith). So I have long been both an evangelical Christian and a political liberal, two positions which are often held in tension.

Having been taught the maxim "garbage in, garbage out" in Youth Group, I decided to keep myself uncontaminated by the world by listening exclusively to Christian music. In hindsight I see that while there is a great deal of truth in the maxim I was taught, the people who taught it to me often failed to correctly identify "garbage," convinced as they were of the evils of "secular" music.

Art has a profound moral and spiritual impact on its audience. At its best it connects us with an experience of the transcendent. It has the power to inspire, and even to change the world. David Byrne argued, in fact, in his song "The Revolution," that listening to a piece of music can start a slow but steady revolution which transforms the world. You go out to a bar and accidentally encounter beauty, singing a song which touches your soul. You go home slightly changed, fall asleep, dream beautiful dreams, and wake up a new person. From there you take the beauty which you encountered in that piece of music, and use it to similarly transform others. Slowly, one person at a time, you have a beautiful revolution, just because someone happened to sing that song at the bar you went to, and you were in exactly the right place to listen to it and really hear it.

But art in general and music in particular cannot be divided into the all too neat categories of "secular" and "Christian," as though the "secular" music were entirely opposed to God and the "Christian" music entirely on God's side. "Christian" music, at its core, is an industry. It is, simply put, pop music marketed to evangelical Christians. These evangelical Christians (and despite my conversion in the past five years to a much more "liberal" theology, I still consider myself to be an evangelical) have many different motivations for participating in this industry, and many different motives for purchasing the products of this industry.

Many evangelical Christian, like the teenage me, want to keep themselves as uncontaminated by the "evil" world as possible. They see the universe divided into two opposed camps, "God (or the "godly") and "the world." Viewing this world as naturally opposed to God, and as such viewing the things of this world as being opposed to God, they segregate themselves, creating a form of ghettoized art. This art may stylistically parody popular music, but in their minds there is little to no overlap.

Other evangelical Christians desire to use their art to enter into and evangelize the culture. Often inspired by the great book Roaring Lambs by the late Bob Briner, a powerful figure in popular culture as an author, co-host of a nationally syndicated radio program, and especially as president of ProServ Television and an Emmy Award-winning producer, they seek to engage popular culture rather than retreat from it.

While the evangelical approach to pop culture and artistic media cannot be so neatly divided into two camps, for our purposes we can see these two camps, and see them often opposed to each other. My former youth minister, for instance, really struggled when a prominent evangelical Christian musician would move from the one ghettoized camp to the other engaging camp. He considered people like Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant, who crossed over from "Christian" to "secular" music, to be money-grubbing turn coats, never mind that they just gave up a guaranteed audience to try to reach people who weren't in their natural demographic.

When his hero, Steve Taylor, "retired" from Christian music only to form the short-lived and dismal commercial failure (though rousing artistic success) Chagall Guevera, he was sick to his soul. How could the man who brought modern rock to Christian audiences (for those of you less familiar with the strange genre of Contemporary Christian Music, Steve Taylor was a revolutionary figure best known for making that actually sounded "new" - he was one of the few "Christian" artists who could rival "secular" stars for creativity and production values, for which he was reviled by many a televangelist who consider "Rock" to be entirely of the devil. No less a figure than Jerry Falwell publicly condemned Steve Taylor as being an agent of the devil, meaning that he and I are in good company) leave the "Christian" music scene to try to "make it" in the broader secular culture?

That Taylor in fact gave up a great deal of money to follow his heart and break-out of the sterile "Christian" mold meant little to those who lacked the vision to see the evangelical potential in the field of popular culture. But, with the popularity of such cross-over acts as Sixpence None the Richer and P.O.D., not to mention newer cross-overs like Switchfoot and Underoath, Christian rock has thoroughly embraced the more culturally engaged model.

By the time I was a teenager there were plenty of options for someone who craved modern rock with Christian lyrical content. But growing up a political liberal, much of the "Christian" content overtly (and often nonsensically) attacked my inherited political beliefs. In his song "Bad Rap (Who You Tryin' to Kid, Kid?)," the venerable Steve Taylor not only attacked godless liberalism, but even managed to somehow connect the animal rights movement with the pro-choice movement, saying:

You save the whales, you save the seals
you save whatever's cute and squeals
But you kill that thing inside the womb,
would not want no baby boom!

The lyric shows Taylor's creative wit, which was as often directed against hypocritical evangelicals as it was at political liberal, but it also shows a failure to take liberal arguments and positions seriously. That song came from his debut EP, I Want to Be a Clone, which was generally a scathing attack on the "cloneliness" of evangelical Christianity. The title song from that album had a satirically droning refrain:

If you want to be one of His
you've got to act like on of us!

But that album also contained a song which is certain to offend anyone who wished to consider the possibility that homosexuality is not per se sinful and that abortion might not always be morally impermissible, "Whatever Happened to Sin?" along with the menacing "Whatcha Gonna Do When Your Number's Up?," a not so subtle reminder of hell.

While the I Want to Be a Clone EP came out when I was four years old, a decade before I would have my conversion experience, because it had such a profound impact on two adult leaders in my Youth Group, it quickly became a part of my life. But, as a teenager I also listened to more recent Christian music, including the first album by Audio Adrenaline, a now legendary Christian act currently on their farewell tour. That album, Don't Censor Me, was among other things a protest against the perceived censorship of evangelical Christian ideas and speech.

What almost all of the "Christian" music that I listened to had in common was a particular political ideology which was overtly opposed to my own. While many of the songs were devotional in nature, and helped me see music as one of the many ways in which we experience the presence of God, too often those devotions were made part of a political agenda which included pairing progressive politics with social ills and religious persecution. This did not help me in my struggle to remain faithful to both my politics and my religion.

In the midst of this confusion, enter the Lost Dogs, a group whose images often come directly from the Gospels, and yet who have, if you listen, a subtly liberal political message. Comprise of four giants of Christian rock, Terry Taylor of Daniel Amos, the late Gene Eugene of Adam Again, Derri Daughtery of the Choir, and Mike Roe of the 77s, they had so much credibility with the evangelical culture that my Rush Limbaugh listening youth minister loved their debut album, Scenic Routes even though it contained an anti-gun song ("Bullet Train"), and anti-death-penalty song ("The Last Testament of Angus Shane"), and even an anti-war and not so subtly anti Bush I song ("Bush League"). Part of this was due to the fact that their politics only subtly crept into their lyrics. They didn't beat you over the head so much as they let their point slowly sink in. Another part of this had to do with the fact that most of their songs were religious rather than political.

But that first album was, if you looked closely at it, a powerfully political album; an album whose politics came from a deep-seated humanity and a love of the Gospel. Perhaps the most powerful song on the album was the last song, "Breath Deep," an egalitarian look at the Kingdom of God. The lyric recites almost every label you could think of applying to a person, and then emphasizes that all of these labels are united in the Kingdom of God.

That is a very political message, overtly stating that gays and lesbians are in the kingdom of God, along with war mongers, peaceniks, preachers, atheists, evolutionists, creationists, xenophobes, politicians, the homeless, and everyone else, good or bad. All can, as the song says,

Breath deep, breath deep
the breath of God

This image is especially powerful in light of the Biblical connection between "breath" and "spirit," especially as it applies to God. Simply put, to breath the breath of God is to take in the spirit of God. This powerful song says that all, regardless of label or ideology or even and especially merit, have access to that spirit.

This leads to a willingness on the part of the Lost Dogs to, in their songs, give some basic human dignity to all kinds of people. In "Built for Glory, Made to Last," for instance, a homeless person provides the narrator of the song with a powerful moral example, leading the narrator to a deeper understanding of God. That homeless person, who in the song refuses to give his name, is given the dignity of having a story to tell and a lesson to teach.

The basic human dignity which comes from their egalitarian vision of the Kingdom of God also show up in other songs, especially the subtly anti-war songs like "The Fortunate Sons" and "Amber Waves Goodbye." Both songs look at the tragedy of death and destruction, a tragedy made more poignant by the fact that real people rather than just images on a television screen or words in a newspaper account, are doing the killing and dying. "Fortunate Sons," written by Gene Eugene and Terry Taylor, is the story of the spiritual anguish of a soldier, and begins

Blood, thunder and fear
flowing
I cry when I need you
and march when I'm told where to go
Lessons I know
Is it the way of a soldier to offer his soul?

"Amber Waves Goodbye," penned like so many other Lost Dogs songs, by Terry Taylor, looks at the grief of those who try to survive the tragic loss of senseless death. It often uses patriotic imagery, but turns is just slight to illustrate the perverse way in which such blind patriotism is used to justify horrific violence. The song ends with this lament:

Bright white crosses line the hillside
So long Danny boy
She prayed to heaven
but you still died
Please come back Danny boy
God bless the poor she left in the streets
Lord she heard those babies cry
those little fallen angels weep cause
Amber waves goodbye

But the most powerful example of the way in which many Lost Dogs songs extend dignity in the name of Christ to those who are often dehumanized is in their portrayal of criminals. Country music, and the Lost Dogs' music is certainly influenced by country, has long had a tradition of empathizing with criminals, especially murderers. Hank Williams and Johnny Cash among so many others were famous for their treatment of law breakers and crime. But that theme does not play well with evangelical Christians, who despite the fact that they serve a Lord who was put to death by the state, rarely seem to have any pity for those our state condemns to die.

The first Lost Dogs album, Scenic Routes (and all of the songs thus far considered come from Scenic Routes, the most political Lost Dogs album) contains the song "The Last Testament of Angus Shane," a song which anticipates an even better one, "The Mark of Cain," from 2001's Real Men Cry, the fifth Lost Dogs album. "The Last Testament of Angus Shane" is a story told from the perspective of a condemned killer, about to be put to death. In it he offers this prayer:

Lord, be with my children
and dear Sarah, my wife
Lord, comfort their sorrow,
for I love them more than life.

Angus Shane knows that he has tragically wasted his life, even though he can't bring himself to confess to murder. While offering his confession, he even slips in a slight protestation of innocence:

I confess I'm a sinner,
but I never killed no one.

Whether he is innocent or not, one man is dead, and another is about to be dead, and many grieving family members are suffering with no relief in sight. In the song, Angus Shane's impending death is just one more human death to mourn, no less valuable than any other.

"The Mark of Cain," which was recorded nine years later, is an even more nuanced song. As the political message of the Lost Dogs dulled over the years, it doesn't even take an overt stand on the death penalty. But it does lend dignity to the unnamed killer who narrates the song. The haunting lyrics make up some of the best poetry I've seen, and go a long way toward showing that "Christian" music need not be inferior in quality.

I have dark dreams of that murderous night,
I see the hammer swing and the blood run bright.
Then the sky rolls back in a blinding light
and I cannot hide from the master's sight.

I don't ask to be spared the criminal's shame,
I deserve these bars and the ball and chain,
the hangman's rope and the fire's flame,
for the dark in my heart is the mark of Cain.

I had my good reasons to do the deed.
For a lover's treason sews the devil's seed.
And revenge is the fire that dragon breathes
and murder's the madness that hatred breeds.

Come this very morning when the rooster crows,
only the preacher will pray for my soul.
They'll hang me high and bury me low
in a Potter's Field where the cold wind blows.

The scriptural imagery is clear and powerful. The murderer is Cain, Peter and Judas rolled into one. But, of course, the mark God placed on Cain was meant to preserve his life, keeping him from being killed by human retributive justice. Here, however, it marks the unnamed killer for death. And Peter, despite betraying Christ, became the Rock (Petra) on which the universal church was built. Of the three, only Judas died for his crime, and his death was self-inflicted.

The third stanza is perhaps the most powerful one. It first gets us into the perspective of the unnamed killer:

I had my good reasons to do the deed.
For a lover's treason sews the devil's seed

We now understand the situation better. This was a crime of passion, spawned by betrayal. Perhaps the killer was not violent by nature, but was made so by his passion for the woman who betrayed him. Here too we also have some solidarity with Judas, though I won't finish that thought except to echo a line from Michael J. Pritzl, who wrote in the 9-11 song "Halo"

Aching like Judas, betraying his lover...

The second half of the stanza moves from the particular to the general, leaving for a moment the killer's perspective to see how that perspective fits in with human nature and societal ills.

And revenge is the fire that dragon breathes
and murder's the madness that hatred breeds.

This, then, is not just a problem with a single person, but rather is evidence of human sinfulness and sick society, poisoned by our collective propensity towards violence. As we saw with "Breath Deep," the Lost Dogs in general and lyricist Terry Taylor in particular love breath images. Here we have another, though instead of the breath of God we have the breath of a dragon. This breath, this sustaining spirit, this fuel for the fire of violence, is revenge, vengeance. Vengeance is, of course, often a justification for the death penalty, and this image is a reminder that violence, even at the hands of the state, does not put out violence but instead, like the breath of a dragon, only fuels more violence. The killer in this song may or may not deserve to die, but to take his life will not solve the problem.

As you can see, I could go on and on forever. The Lost Dogs, with their willingness in their music to merge more progressive politics with their evangelical Christianity, thus demonstrating their allegiance to the politics of the Gospel rather than the politics of the Republican party, entered into a mixed up cultural mess and kept me from placing my politics and my faith as necessarily opposed to each other. Now I know that some political liberals and some evangelical Christians are going to say that they are, in fact, opposed to each other. And, that's fine. The political wing of evangelical Christianity, with its frightening hope for an American theocracy, is in fact often opposed to liberal democracy. And liberal politics, like all other forms of politics in a plural society, certainly fails to always line up with the Gospel. But the Gospel cannot and should not be reduced to a political platform, and the fact that Contemporary Christian music, which is marketed exclusively to evangelical Christians, has room for a group with a politically progressive message, gives me a great deal of hope.

Letter to Councilperson King

Evidently this is my year to dabble in politics. I've already posted a letter I wrote to the campaign of Andrew Horne, who, despite my eventual support, failed to win the Democratic nomination in the race for our seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now I'm posting a different sort of letter.

My neighborhood has been having a serious problem with people who use the park across the street from my house on the weekends. Fed up, I was asked to write a strong letter to our Councilperson, Jim King, to try to address the situation. The letter is now circulating our neighborhood collecting signatures, and should be sent out tomorrow or the next day. Since it is how I spent my writing time today, and since I'm proud of the writing in it, I've decided to post it here. So, here it is:


Councilperson King,

I am writing this letter to you at the request of several other persons in my neighborhood, each of whom share my concerns and have signed their names to this letter.

I live with my wife and our 18 month old son across the street from George Rogers Clark Park. As you know, the park is a wonderful facility, and can be rented for private events at a very reasonable price. Living across the street from such a lovely park has been a priceless treasure for our family.

However, of late this public space has been put to ill use by many of the private parties which rent it out. To clearly communicate what I mean by this, let me give you a brief picture of the average Saturday for my family this summer.

Most Saturdays a crowd gathers at the facilities at the park at roughly ten o’clock in the morning. They unpack their cars, and begin to set up for a party or a picnic or a family reunion. Along with the colorful balloons and, of course, food and drink, they also set up something which is far less pleasant: a sound system.

Just before lunch each Saturday the walls of my house begin to shake as a deafening drone pulsates from the newly set up loud speakers. My dog begins to whine, and scurries into the back yard to hide, cowering and whimpering, under the back deck. My two cats hide under the bed, in physical pain from the noise pollution emitted just across the street from our house.

My son can’t go into our front yard without grabbing his ears and crying, so loud is the relentlessly blaring noise from the park. In short, our home is, each weekend, under siege, assailed by the sonic blasts of those who do not care or do not understand the impact that their actions have on the quality of our life. Most Saturdays, if we wish to have any peace at all, we are forced from our home for most of the day. When we return home in the evening, hoping to put our young son to bed, there is no guarantee that the noise pollution will have ceased. It often, in fact, continues late into the night.

I believe that people should and do have the right to peacefully assemble, and celebrate together, in a public space. But I also believe that one person’s rights end where another person’s begin; and that the right of families and friends to celebrate each other in the park should not encroach on my right to live in peace in my own home. When someone rents a shelter in the park, they do not rent my living room, and they do not have a right to perform music which invades my living room and disrupts my household.

I do not harbor any private prejudice, but I would be remiss if I allowed the fear of somehow being labeled racist keep me from sharing another serious concern: not only is the volume of the music excessive to the point of being harmful, the content of the music is unfit for public performance. Much of what is played at these gatherings contains not only profanity, but also sexual and interpersonal violence. Women are often treated as objects or worse, and violent crime and thuggish posturing are glorified. While I do not believe that speech should be regulated for content, I do believe that the government has and interest in and obligation to protect children from certain forms of expression. Simply put, it is not appropriate for much of the music which is played at these gathering to be performed in public places near children.

If something cannot be expressed on network television or on the radio, for fear that children might hear it and be in some way harmed by it, that something should certainly not be permitted mere feet from a playground.

Simply put, this is impacting the quality of life in our neighborhood, and many of us are upset about it. I and others have often called the police to complain about the noise, but we have thus far had little relief. I don’t know if the police fail to show up, or are simply ineffective at preventing this disruption of the peace. What I do know is that there is growing frustration and resentment in our community, creating a potentially volatile situation.

I, along with all of the undersigned parties, propose the following:

1. Signs should be placed in the park (George Rogers Clark Park) expressly forbidding excessive noise.

2. All parties who wish to rent the facilities at the park should be reminded that loud music is expressly forbidden, and that they will lose their privilege to rent the facilities in future should they play loud music.

3. If anyone, while using the facilities at the park, violates the city’s noise ordinance, they should be cited for their violation.

4. Police patrols in the neighborhood should be stepped up on weekends, with police being clearly informed of the community’s concern about the level of noise in the park.

We do not wish to do anything to take away from the many public uses of the wonderful park in our neighborhood, but neither do we any longer wish to be under siege each weekend. Simply put, something must be done, and we sincerely hope that you see that our concerns are addressed.

Respectfully Yours,



Chris Baker, and each of the undersigned persons