(Being) Meat is Murder

Did you see this dress?

As a once and future vegetarian, I understand the whole meat-is-murder argument. In fact, given the recent factory farming crises in the beef, poultry and egg industries, I'd hope every sentient being would have an idea by now that, for omnivores, local and compassionate is the way to go for such things (eggs? try the free-range Jones farm on 5&20 in Bloomfield; Beef and chicken? Seven Bridges Farm on the Lima side of Factory Hollow is the BEST for us locals). But I don't want to talk about animal meat. I want to talk about human meat.

Lady Gaga's meat outfit at the MTV music awards was brilliant, I thought. I don't care for her music, but loved her absurd extreme.

In the exploitative, hyper-sexualized culture that MTV et al promote, every bit of push-em-up silicone, exposed lipo-ed thigh, and botulism-infected lip turns our screens into  butcher shop windows, so why not call it out quite literally? We hang our celebutantes on meat hooks and send them around the airwaves. We leer, stuff wads of cash in their g-strings, then throw them to the flash-popping, flesh-catching wolves. We sit back and shake our heads in judgment when the drinking-drug-sextape-insertscandaldujourhere inevitably breaks, complete with breathless back story, online video and falling-out-of-the-limo-curbside 8x10s.

Lindsay, Britney and Paris are just a few in the ever-lengthening line making their way across the butcher block. Who will sate our appetite tomorrow? It seems to me Miley and Katy Perry are well on their way there. As some of our young ladies and gentlemen emulate these flavor-of-the-month attitudes and actions, all the more reason to embrace Lady Gaga's outfit as cautionary:

BEING MEAT IS MURDER.

My undergrad degree is in broadcast communication.

I remember well my very first day of my very first broadcasting class, and the very first lesson from my very first communication professor. She shared the story of a small local newsroom in the southern US (if memory serves). A call came in one day from a man who planned to go to the town square, soak himself in gasoline and set himself on fire in protest (of what, I can't recall). 

A reporter and videographer went to the scene at the appointed time, and there was the man with his gas can. As the cameras rolled, he set himself on fire. Horrible.

The question was called to all of us media-wannabe neophytes: Were the reporter and videographer culpable in the mentally unstable protester's death? Had he set himself on fire because they were there?

I watched video yesterday of a Gainesville newspaper reporter being kicked off the property of that stupid church where they're threatening to burn the Koran (yes, I know the name of the stupid church and its stupid pastor, but they've gained more than enough publicity already). The intent of the video was to show how unfairly the church was treating one reporter because his paper had published an unflattering story, but I was taken with how many satellite trucks and eager observers were present. That first lesson from class at Brockport State came to mind.

Remove 24-7 HD coverage from the picture and one less bloated, self-important jackass can send shock waves around the world. Remove 24-7 HD coverage from the picture and the terrorists lose most of their sting. 

It is far past time for someone to report on the media's ever-expanding role in creating the news they then report.Depth and nuance are lost, but more and more air time is filled, nonetheless. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. Lately when I turn on the news, I feel like a rubber-necker at a car wreck. PRURIENT is the word that comes to mind (marked by or arousing an immoderate or unwholesome interest or desire). 

I have this fantasy that all of the reporters and satellite trucks will leave Gainesville before Saturday night, and that idiot pastor will find himself alone with the crickets when he steps out on the church lawn to build his shameful fire. (I have another fantasy that he'll start a grass fire that burns his church to the ground, but I try not to dwell on that one.)

There is no solution -- probably not even a cogent point -- to all of this. But all of those people who send in videos of family members getting whacked in the gonads, hoping to win $100,000? I think several of them are now news directors at cable news channels around the world.

The difference between that pastor and his namesake pictured above? One of them is perversely doing whatever it takes to gain attention. The other one is an excellent comedic actor.

Terry Jones as Brian's Mother

THIS Terry Jones is the one we should be listening to...

Not Doing the Knee-Jerk

Let's go for a walk...



That's exactly how far the proposed Cordoba House Islamic Center  site is from Ground Zero.

*Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a practitioner of Sufism, and a vocal, long-standing critic of radical Islamic extremism.
*The area of Lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center would one day be built was developed in the 1880s by Ottoman Christians and Muslims and referred to as "Little Syria."
*Ground Zero is now a highly symbolic site: a cauterized national wound, if you will, that has been felt by the whole of America.

Deep breath.

Now then, can we discuss the issue intelligently?

Rich towards God

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me."

But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?"

And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."

Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?'

Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'

So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."  Luke 12:13-21




The old line goes something like this: No matter how well you do in the Rat Race, in the end you're still a rat.


At last count I have ten guitars in my house. Ten guitars! That's five each for the two residents who play them.


I love music, and its creation is a means of prayer, praise, meditation, reflection and joy for me. Having access to guitars is good for me spiritually and psychologically. There's a Yamaha classical propped up within three feet of me right now, and it feels good just knowing it is there, brimming with wide open possibilities, a boat launch to broad creative currents. 


Yes, a guitar is good for me. But ten?!? Definitely excessive. Methinks I have fallen into the "More Is Better" trap. Fueled to consume, consume and consume some more, we are propped up by our desires, and become easy targets for anyone with something to sell. I'm guilty as charged.


I have too much stuff, and just off the top of my head I can name five things for which I am in the market right now, none of which is a kidney dialysis machine or shoes for the children. My true needs are all met. It's my wants that have me strung out. 


What I really crave can't be found at Stuff-Mart, Lowes or even Rossi Music. What I really crave is this thing Jesus called rich[ness] toward God. I want a wealth of treasured memories shared between the One and me. I want a currency of complete trust and understanding between us. I desire a house full of golden love and a bank vault of restorative Soul. 


The thing is, such richness is already mine. I can't for the life of me figure out where or how I happened to set it down and let it out of my sight again. One moment I'm breathing deep the dew-soaked morning air, the next I'm sinking in swells of pounding, plastic frenzy.


You get caught up in it, too? I return time and time again to the motto/mantra/bumper wisdom: live simply, that others might simply live. Yeah, simple is best. But simple isn't easy.


I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for the special offer
A guaranteed personality

I wasn't born so much as I fell out
Nobody seemed to notice me
We had a hedge back home in the suburbs
Over which I never could see

I heard the people who lived on the ceiling
Scream and fight most scarily
Hearing that noise was my first ever feeling
That's how it's been all around me

I'm all tuned in I see all the programmes
I save coupons from packets of tea
I've got my giant hits discotheque album
I empty a bottle I feel a bit free

Kids in the halls and the pipes in the walls
Making noises for company
Long distance callers make long distance calls
And the silence makes me lonely

It's not here, it disappeared.


-- Lost in the Supermarket (Strummer/Jones, from the Clash album London Calling, (c)1979 Sony Music)

Planting Grief

Lost another friend. He was someone I've known my whole life, fairly well for the last several years. This is his 14-year-old dog, who is now lodging with us:

This will be her third night with us after spending more than three weeks alone in her house while her man was in the hospital in his last stages. A neighbor saw that she was fed and all, but she was obviously in shock when I showed up to take her away on Friday. She came right up to me... something she'd never done before. She willingly walked right out the door without looking back. She had always been a one man dog, and I think she must have figured out her man wasn't coming home. She now follows me around the house. She's at my feet right now as I write this. Hello, old girl.

Anyway, tonight she seemed to wake up from her daze. We found her sitting in the middle of our living room, just kind of looking around with a furrowed brow... sort of the doggie version of what the heck is this place and how did I get here? I know the feeling.

As a pastor, I dive into death a lot. It is almost always someone else's family, and it is my job to keep my head to guide survivors who lose theirs. I guess I am sort of like a grief fire-jumper.

But after nearly 14 years serving the church in which I was long ago born and raised, I am, often as not, a sort of second-ring survivor myself. In these cases, it is important for me to find some way to channel my churning into some sort of constructive, reflective activity. About five years ago I found it: I plant trees.

When a death hits close to home, soon after the memorial services have been completed, my family knows they can find me out on the property somewhere with shovel, pickaxe, wheel barrow and peat moss, preparing the ground for a new arrival. The clay soil makes for tough work, which makes it all the better for my heart, soul and mind.

I focus intently on digging a pit that will not be a grave, but a cradle of life. As I experience flashes of my own mortality, I enjoy starting something that will live and strive and grow far beyond me. A complaining back, dirt under finger nails and sweat soaked clothing demand that I acknowledge the gift of living that is still mine.

It is not selfish to love and relish one's life all the more for watching someone else lose theirs. It is a rather healthy response, and probably one of the very best ways to honor the dead.

Anyway, I'm thinking of breaking with my standard solitary practice for the next tree I plant. I'm thinking I might invite this old dog along. I'm pretty sure she won't insist on empty, distracting conversation. Since she is evidence of death invited into my home, I think I might need her to share in my conversion of an ending into a new beginning. I also like the thought of her having a moment in her own fading life to rest once again in the shade of her man's shadow.

How have you processed grief? I'd love to have you share.

Jennifer Knapp

That's Jennifer Knapp. She was really big in Christian music between 1998 and 2003, when she just disappeared.


Here are the words to one of my favorite songs. She composed it. I've used it in worship:



HOLD ME NOW


From glass alabaster she poured out the depth of her soul
O foot of Christ would you wait if her harlotry's known?
Falls a tear to darken the dirt
Of humblest offerings to forgive the hurt
She is strong enough to stand in your love
I can hear her say....

I'm weak
I'm poor
I'm broken, Lord
But I'm your's
Hold me now, hold me now

"Let he without sin cast the first stone if you will
To say that my bride isn't worth half the blood that I've spilled
Point your finger and laugh if you choose
To say my beloved is borrowed and used
She is strong enough to stand in My love
I can hear her say...."

I'm weak
I'm poor
I'm broken, Lord
But I'm your's
Hold me now, hold me now


Jennifer resurfaced recently, complete with a new album (her first in many years) and the statement that she was living in a committed, same-sex relationship. She is now under attack by one segment of Christians. She is finding her music banned from Christian radio. She is attacked in reviews on iTunes and amazon.com. 


I tried to come to her rescue on amazon, and am now referred to by some on a particular message board as a "Christian pastor," the quotation marks being necessary because I can't possibly be a Christian pastor and celebrate the art, gift and soul of this woman because of who she loves.


I gave up on it. I have also pre-ordered her new album on iTunes. The video clip above is a song from that album, due for release in early May.


The song "Hold Me Now" has frequently moved me and others in my congregation to tears. There are times when you hear an artist singing his/her work that you can immediately sense just how deeply they have lived what they are singing. I strongly recommend you go to iTunes and download the song "Hold Me Now" right now -- the live version is most emotive and moving.


I also strongly recommend you speak out for those who might otherwise be shouted down. God does beautiful things in our lives. What a shame that some would rather be blind, deaf and quite DUMB (in the more modern sense of the word) than even consider the fact that they can neither predict nor control who God will love and through whom the Spirit will work.