Monthly Archives: November 2012

November 30, 2012 · 23:53

A Place of Peace: Where My Iraq Meets the Atlantic

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Where Iraq Meets the Atlantic

I have talked about things bring me peace amidst the struggles of life in recent days and in one post I briefly mentioned that while running on the beach in Emerald Isle it was the place where in that moment “Iraq met the Atlantic.”

It has been nearly 5 years since I left Iraq in February of 2008 but there are times that it feels like I have never left and times when I would like to be back there. I have always loved the ocean and the desert. For some reason the vast expanses of barren desert and the untamed ocean draw me to them like nothing else.

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I have struggled with a lot over the past 5 years. However as I mentioned recently it seems that things are coming together in ways that I have never could have fathomed even a few months ago. On Wednesday I needed to take a day off to reflect and gather my thoughts after a particularly cathartic sequence of events. One of the things that I did that day was to rest, but then to run along the beach where I live.

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I mentioned to a couple of people that it was like Iraq met the Atlantic and they didn’t understand, until I showed the pictures. I guess though that the juxtaposition of the Western Desert of Iraq, sometimes known as the Syrian Desert and the Atlantic Ocean would seem strange to most people, unless they have experienced both in their stark beauty.

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I ran about seven and a half miles Wednesday along the beach and it was breathtaking. The deep blue skies and seas met with the desert tan of the sands of the beach. There were few people out that day so the beach was nearly deserted and I was alone with nature and God. It has been many years since I felt that depth of peace in my soul that I felt on Wednesday.

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I really can’t explain it and most people will probably never understand and I have learned that such a lack of understanding is okay. There is a big part of me that is still in the Iraqi desert and will always be there. There in the land of Abraham, amid the barren deserts, the rich valley of the Euphrates river valley, the battered cities and town of war torn Al Anbar Province many of my hopes and dreams still live. When I ran along the beach that day it was like I had returned, but instead of being traumatic it was peaceful.

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I pray for the people of Iraq, especially those in Al Anbar Province and the Iraqi military. I pray that they will know peace and that their country, so long victimized by tyrants, devastated by war and torn by terrorism and civil-religious strife will be a place of blessing.

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As T.E. Lawrence wrote about 85 years ago: “We were fond together because of the sweep of open places, the taste of wide winds, the sunlight, and the hopes in which we worked. The morning freshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us. We were wrought up with ideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to be fought for. We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to remake in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep, and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.” 

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Peace

Padre Steve+

 

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November 29, 2012 · 00:01

Horizons, Tapestries and the Possibilities of Different Futures

Captain Picard: I sincerely hope that this is the last time that I find myself here. 

Q: You just don’t get it, do you, Jean-Luc? The trial never ends. We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did. 

Captain Picard: When I realized the paradox. 

Q: Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence. 

Yesterday I wrote about epiphanies that were occurring in my personal, spiritual and professional life. As I mentioned yesterday they were brought about during a rather cathartic session with my Doctor regarding my PTSD. I think that it was a breakthrough type session because so many new horizons seemed to open at once. Last night it was hard to put it all into words or to sort things out. So after I published that article I went to bed and was subjected to the most intense night of dreams that I have ever experienced and that is saying a lot because my dreams are often frighteningly real. They are like super high definition to begin with because my brain goes into warp drive when my eyes are closed, but last night even more so.

It was like past present and multiple futures intersecting around the them of roads taken, roads not taken and the possibility of different roads home. They spanned my life and many dealt with my time in Iraq while others seemed a blend of many experiences. It was positively surreal. So much so that when the alarm rang I was absolutely exhausted having not slept the previous night because I had left all of my sleep medicines in my gym bag that I had taken to work. So I made a direct call to my Commanding Officer to let him know what was going on and that I needed to take a personal day to rest and reflect on the flood of spiritual, emotional and existential things that I had experienced in the past day. If I had to give an example of what last night was like, it was like the final episode of the Star Trek Next Generation series as Captain Picard kept switching between different realities of past, present and future while being relentlessly grilled by the being simply known as “Q”.

So this morning I rested, spent time with my dog Molly, pretty much avoided the computer and television and then went out and ran about 7.5 miles on the beach. The weather was wonderful and the tide conditions were such that the nearly deserted beach was optimal for running. As I ran the brilliant blue of the sky, the calm waves of the deep blue Atlantic lapping upon the tan sands of the beach. It was as if I was running where the sands of the Western Iraqi Desert met the Atlantic. I was at peace and the images of the previous night began to make sense.

They were about roads, paths, possibilities and the journey to home, wherever or whatever that it is. They were a juxtaposition of past, present and future and variations of each. People, places, images and actions blended together in ways that were at times comforting and other times terrifying. But they were all about possibilities new and unimaginable and as Q told Picard “charting the unknown possibilities of existence” and not being trapped in the past that we cannot change, that even if we could would make us less than we are now.

In another episode of Next Generation called Tapestry, Picard has a death experience where he is confronted by Q and regretting decisions that he made which helped cause his death Q offered him a chance to go back and make it different. When Picard found that the Picard that played it safe was not a person that he would want to be he confronted Q.

LT. j.g. Picard: You having a good laugh now, Q? Does it amuse you to think of me living out the rest of my life as a dreary man in a tedious job?

Q: I gave you something most mortals never experience: a second chance at life. And now all you can do is complain? 

Lt. j.g. Picard: I can’t live out my days as that person. That man is bereft of passion… and imagination! That is not who I am!

Q: Au contraire. He’s the person you wanted to be: one who was less arrogant and undisciplined in his youth, one who was less like me… The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be, the one who did not fight the Nausicaan, had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard never had a brush with death, never came face to face with his own mortality, never realized how fragile life is or how important each moment must be. So his life never came into focus. He drifted through much of his career, with no plan or agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. He never led the away team on Milika III to save the Ambassador; or take charge of the Stargazer’s bridge when its captain was killed. And no one ever offered him a command. He learned to play it safe – and he never, ever, got noticed by anyone.

It is funny that those two episodes of Star Trek TNG came up a number of times this week with different people. I think what I am discovering is that life is a limitless set of possibilities and that our past, as tangled and messy as it may be at time is part of a tapestry that is who we are but not what we can become. As Picard noted to Counselor Troy after his resuscitation:  There are many parts of my youth that I’m not proud of. There were… loose threads – untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads – it’d unravel the tapestry of my life.

Past, present and future. Dreams and reality, hopes and fears, things real and things imagined. A future unexplored and hopeful so long as we are willing appreciate our past without being trapped by it, to live in the present and imagine the future that we have yet to chart.

But to do this we have to be willing to take the risks, be authentic and realize the possibilities that God in his love and grace imagines for our future.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 28, 2012 · 00:52

Epiphanies: PTSD, Life, Leadership, Lawrence of Arabia and the Gospel

I have been going through a process lately in preparation for some treatment of my chronic insomnia, nightmares and other PTSD symptoms which has caused me to have to be very deliberate and reflective in examining the various parts of the often tattered tapestry of my life.

Part of this has involved my experiences in military, religious and civilian institutional settings and how those experiences have helped shaped me as a Priest as well as a Naval Officer. Today was one of those days where a convergence of thoughts came together in a number of encounters juxtaposed with some reading of B.H. Liddell Hart’s book about T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia.

While I was waiting for my doctor late this afternoon I was reading the book on my Kindle and as he came into the waiting room I had just finished marking this passage.

“The rare man who attains wisdom is, by the very clearness of his sight, a better guide in solving practical problems than those, more commonly the leaders of men, whose eyes are misted and minds warped by ambition for success….”

Somehow this little passage in a book that I am about halfway through reading and which I have already made numerous other annotations really struck me as profound. It encapsulated close to 20 years of experience as a military chaplain and over 30 years in the military as well as civilian professional work, and it struck me especially in regard to my experiences both in Iraq and after my return. Before, during and after my time in Iraq I had come to see Lawrence as a kindred spirit, someone that thought outside the box and went to places that no one else wanted to go. My job in Iraq to me to those places that few Americans and almost no other chaplains went or had the chance to experience with Iraqi Arabs and the Bedouin.

Those that read my posts regularly know that the impetus for my writing came about during my time in Iraq around Christmas of 2007 in the western Iraqi Al Anbar Province while on the Syrian border. At that time I wrote a short article for my former denomination’s website and a little more than a year after my return to the United States  I began this site I modified that article and published it here under the title of God in the Empty Places. It was a catharsis for me because I going though a tremendously ark period of my life where I had for all practical purposes become an Agnostic struggling to believe in God again. It was published a couple of months after I walked out of a church on Christmas Eve 2008 and walked an hour home in the dark and cold of that night.

During the interregnum of returning from Iraq and now I experienced a number of additional traumatic life events, both personal and professional. Following my assignment to my current post where I supervise a number of chaplains, pastoral counselors and support personnel I made it my goal in life not to let things that happened to me at the hands of some senior chaplains happen to others, especially those struggling with life, health, spiritual or emotional issues.

I have been asked by a number of people in the past couple of weeks, how in light of things that could leave me embittered and cynical could I embody grace to others. I admit that I still hurt and have issues of anger and some bitterness towards some people who I thought used me and betrayed me both in my old denomination as well as some senior chaplains. That is a given, though I try to live in a state of forgiveness toward them there are times that I do get upset the things that happened during that time. It is something that I deal with and I don’t always do well. I have my bad moments in which that grace doesn’t come out well,  but my path to healing has involved a conscious effort to see the good in people and to embody something different than I experienced.

A couple of people made the comment as we discussed these experiences as well as their own that “you do the Gospel it by living it.” I think that is what Jesus did, he taught yes and he did miracles, but the biggest miracles were those that he did when he rocked the religious-political establishment of his day by hanging out and caring for the people it despised. In fact Jesus surmised the entire law in two commandments, love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. The prophet Malachi noted what God required “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Those two passages have been tremendously important as faith returned after what I refer to as Padre Steve’s Christmas Miracle faith began to return in a way that I never expected.

So the past few weeks have served as an epiphany to me about wisdom can evade leaders whose “eyes are misted and minds warped by ambition for success…” My eyes are opening in more ways to the bigness of God, the grace of God, the love of God and the mercy of God. My ambition is simply to care for the people that God allows me to care for and show that grace, love and mercy to those who some would attempt to destroy because they themselves have become prisoners of the institutions and their offices and ambitions.  I have resolved in daily life to do all I can to avoid becoming a prisoner of my office or ambitions and simply to be real. One of the senior leaders of the hospital that I work noted that he saw me as not just as the senior chaplain but a “real person.” I can live with that.

Well that is enough for tonight.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 26, 2012 · 23:56

Departure to Infamy: The Kido Butai Sails for Pearl Harbor

Early in the morning on November 26th 1941 the ships of the Japanese Carrier Strike Force, the Kido Butai under the command of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo weighed anchor from Tankan Bay in the northern Kurile Islands of Japan. The plan was top secret and very few Japanese officers knew of the target. Many officers presumed that war was immanent but most assumed the target would be the Philippines or other targets in Southeast Asia.

IJN Akagi

It was an attack that was designed to be pre-emptive in nature. The plan was to deal the United States Navy such a crushing blow that the Japanese could complete their Asian conquests before it could recover. It was a plan of great risk that doomed Japan to horror never before imagined when the United States dropped Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki less than four years later. By then the bulk of the Imperial Navy   would lay at the bottom of the Pacific and millions of people killed.

Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto 

The Japanese, even Admiral Yamamoto, the man behind the plan assumed that it entailed great risks. A simulation of the plan conducted in early September by the senior officers of the Combined Fleet and the Kido Butai calculated that two of Japan’s precious aircraft carriers could be lost in the operation. But despite the opposition and reservations of key officers, including the Kido Butai commander, Admiral Nagumo Yamamoto pressed forward.

Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo

The Kido Butai was the most powerful carrier strike group assembled up to that time. Comprised of six aircraft carriers, the massive flagship Akagi, and the Kaga, the fast 18,000 ton Soryu and Hiryu and the most modern Shokaku and Zuikaku. The carrier embarked over 400 aircraft, of which over 350 were to be used in the two aerial assault waves. Most of the pilots and aircrew were experienced, many with combat experience in China. The carriers were escorted by the old but fast and modernized battleships Kirishima and Hiei, the new heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma, the light cruiser Abukuma, the new Kagero Class destroyers, Urakaze, Isokaze, Tanikaze, Hamakaze, Kagero and Shiranuhi,the Asashio classdestroyers Arare and Kasumi.Two additional destroyers the Fubuki class Sazanami and Ushiowere assigned to neutralize the American base on Midway Island. The submarines I-19, I-21and I-23 and 8 oilers were assigned to the force. Five additional submarines the I-16, I-18, I-20, I-22 and I-24 each embarked a Type-A midget submarine.

Pearl Harbor during the Attack

On December 7th the force delivered a devastating blow to the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, however no American aircraft carriers were present. It would go on for the next several months on a rampage across the Pacific and Indian Oceans. However their success would be short lived. Within a year Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu had been sunk at Midway by the carriers not present. Hiei and Kirishima were lost at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal and over the course of the war every ship of the attack force was lost. Shokaku was torpedoed and sunk at the Battle of the Philippine Sea and Zuikaku, Chikuma and Abukuma were lost at Leyte Gulf, most of the destroyers and submarines were lost in various engagements. However three destroyers, Isokaze, Hamakaze and Kasumi accompanied the great Battleship Yamato on her suicide mission at Okinawa and were sunk on April 7th 1945. The heavy cruiser Tone was sunk at her moorings at Kure during air strikes by the US 3rd Fleet on July 24th 1945. All of the submarines were lost during the war, however I-19 sank the USS Wasp CV-7 and USS O’Brien DD-415 while damaging the USS North Carolina BB-55 on September 15th 1942 off Guadalcanal. Only the destroyer Ushio survived the war and was broken up for scrap in 1948.

IJN Zuikaku sinking at the Battle of Cape Engano (Leyte Gulf)

Among the leaders of the Japanese strike force, Admiral Yamamoto was killed on April 18th 1943 when his aircraft was shot down at Buin. Nagumo died at Saipan on July 6th 1944.  Most of the sailors who took part in the attack would be dead by the end of the war.

Few present at Tankan Bay on that fateful November morning could have expected the triumph and tragedy ahead. However Yamamoto was probably more of a realist than many in the Japanese government and military leadership when he told Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe “In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.” Yamamoto was eerily prophetic and those that counsel pre-emptive war need to never forget his words or the results of his decisions.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 26, 2012 · 00:47

A Juxtaposition of Contradictions: Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the Bangladesh Clothing Factory Fire

The Clothing factory Fire that Killed over 100 People in Bangladesh (NBC News Photo)

The past weekend was a juxtaposition of contradictions for me. On a personal level it was one of the best Thanksgivings that Judy and I have ever had together. We enjoyed a simple home cooked meal together, relaxed during the day with our two dogs Molly and Minnie and then saw the James Bond film Skyfall that night. We avoided the big stores and shopping for the most part except things that we needed. It was nice. We were able to spend time with each other and friends on both Friday and Saturday and enjoy each other.

All that being said it was kind of strange because in our time of relaxing and enjoying a manner of solitude and peace there were things that I noticed or thought about that struck me odd. Thanksgiving is quite possibly the only uniquely American holiday that binds us together as people and families. It can be religious but it doesn’t have to be because being thankful is something that is not unique to religious people. With that being said it seems to me that the holiday is being crushed by the gross materialism and consumerism of “Black Friday” which now begins early Thursday evening.

As I thought about this there was news of a fire in a clothing factory in Bangladesh, so far at least 109 people are known dead. The factory made clothing for a good number of American retailers, clothing that at one time before retailers outsourced the jobs was made in America. The reason that the jobs were outsourced was for their profit margins. I live in eastern North Carolina, which at one time was a center of the American textile industry. That industry has been decimated over the past couple of decades. Empty factories and businesses that used to employ Americans making goods that other Americans bought have been shuttered.

The retailers and Wall Street say that it is because that American made goods were uncompetitive because American workers were paid too much and because of government regulations, particularly regulations involving safety and the environment. So they closed their American operations and moved them to China, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, where there are few if any regulations, were workers are often slave labor or indentured servants and were neither worker safety or the environment is a concern.

It struck me because a couple of weeks ago I needed some socks. So I went to the Marine Corps Exchange on Camp LeJeune. They have numerous supposedly American brands, all the big ones. As I looked through the socks I started noticing that in almost every case they were made in China, except some by Dockers which were made in Pakistan. And this was in a military exchange where even much of the official Marine Corps logo clothing and goods are made in China. So I decided to look at where my clothes were made. In about 5 minutes of sorting I found nothing made in the USA, only a few t-shirts said that the were made of American components but assembled in Honduras. Other clothes, China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Swaziland, Indonesia and Macau.

Electronics, household goods and many other common things that we purchase are little different, many if not most are now made overseas by people that are often slave laborers. So as I watched retailers crushing the one really American family holiday selling goods from everywhere but America I was appalled. When I saw the report of the 109 people killed in the Bangladeshi factory I felt a sense of revulsion about the crass inhumanity of Black Friday and American consumerism.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911

As a historian and a priest I look back at events like the Triangle Shirtwaist of 1911 where 146 workers died and wonder how it is that we can allow ourselves to support economic policies that do the same thing to people in other countries that were common here little more than a century ago. It is like we are engaged in an orgy of buying while people are dying to subsidize the bargains that we get.

So I don’t really know how to feel. I am thankful for the many blessings that I enjoy but I am very torn when I see what is going on, especially when I see the same corporations that profit by these policies squeezing their workers more every day.

So I am going to be more careful to try to not just “buy American.” But I am also going to do what I can to modify my own buying habits within the limits of the current situation. I am also going speak out about the terrible injustices of the outsourcing that has gutted the industrial strength of our country and also allows the practical enslavement of entire peoples by despotic governments propped up by “American” owned companies.

For me this is not simply an American issue, it is a human rights issue and it is the Christian thing to do. As Pope Leo XII wrote in his Encyclical Rerum Novarum (On Capital and Labor) in 1891: “If we turn not to things external and material, the first thing of all to secure is to save unfortunate working people from the cruelty of men of greed, who use human beings as mere instruments for money-making. It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with excessive labor as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies…”

There is much more to write on this but not tonight.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 24, 2012 · 15:59

In light of current leadership scandals involving senior military leaders a look back at Eisenhower and Marshall… Peace, Padre Steve+

The Inglorius Padre Steve's World

Great military leaders are the products of the militaries in which they serve.  This begins in their early career and includes their education, training, assignments as well as the men that they serve under in their formative years.  They are shaped by the character, doctrine and organization of the military that they serve and are products of the times that they live and serve. Even the difference of a few years can make a major difference in the career path and development of a leader.  Such was the case with two of the great figures of the US Army in World War Two Generals of the Army George Marshall and Dwight David Eisenhower.

George Marshall

The careers of Marshall and Eisenhower prior to the Second World War were somewhat similar but also included major differences that would shape them for their roles in the war.  Marshall was commissioned 13 years…

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November 23, 2012 · 13:29

Rejecting the “God” of Black Friday

Yes my friends it is that most holy of occasions in American life, the annual celebration of Black Friday where others sane an rational people allow themselves to unleash their animal passions on the floors of our greatest retailers and on the internet.  We have observed the high holy day of Black Friday where Americans of all races and religious persuasions observe a day of sacrifice to the God of consumerism often spending days in preparation carefully hoarding their treasures in hopes of scoring the best deals at the nation’s leading retailers.

Today I can say that I have not even spent a penny on this Black Friday, not even online. I just can’t get into the whole mass psychology marketed by the retailers.  The thought of waiting hours just beat other people to buy some gadget made by salve laborers in China or some other despotic country is frightening. When one realizes that the retailers that cater to our greed not only profit off of slave labor, but also pay their workers low wages, offer few if any benefits for working obscene and often unpredictable hours to maximize their profits one has to wonder about the morality of it all.

In the good news of the day, our local news reports that no one has yet been shot, knifed or trampled to death in any of our local retailers. However I can imagine that customer number 201 in line for the 200 available the $199 HDTVs Wal-Mart or other retailers with a limited numbers of Black Friday “door buster” specials is feeling homicidal or suicidal or possibly both about now.

But I hear that in some places the holiday has been celebrated with much more aplomb than our sleepy city.  I have read about shootings inside and outside of different retailers, incidents where shoppers had to be tasered by police, pepper sprayed by store security officers or even better pepper strayed each other. In one location a lady ran someone down in a mall parking lot, distracted driving appears to be the case. I guess she got a text from another retailer with an unannounced special across town. There is a case where a man kept people in line by pulling out a gun, at least someone is keeping order. I can only image how fun that was for them as they wrestled for all of those really “hot” deals.

I do think that this celebration says something about us now, while many people around the world would be willing to die for a decent meal or freedom of speech we are willing to harm our neighbors because they might be the fist to get the latest gadget for a few dollars less than us.  It seems perverted don’t you think? I can’t imagine Jesus or Thomas Jefferson approving such behavior but it is part and parcel of the culture that we are very much a part of and participate in and that means Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street types and everyone in between because whether we like to admit it we like our stuff and we want it for the best possible price, not that there is anything wrong with that…especially if you are a follower of Ayn Rand’s banal philosophy.

But when we let the urges for stuff overcome our common sense and any sense of decency, decorum or love of our neighbor then maybe we have lost our way.

I guess the fact that after Iraq I am claustrophobic and get panicky in big crowds in enclosed areas now makes me less inclined even to try to go to a major retailer today.  Maybe that makes it easy for me to say these things with relative impunity since the thought of going out in such crowds petrifies me. I certainly am not trying to be judgmental but when I see people doing harm to each other to obtain things that are more than luxuries for most of the world I think that we need to just step back and look at ourselves.

I mean really….We have massive long term unemployment, our country is financially and politically broken, we are facing a “Fiscal Cliff,”  we have troops at war in Afghanistan while the rest of the Middle East is about to go up in flames and bring us even more heartache. So with all that going on we have people fighting each other and some people actually doing physical harm to others for gadgets made in China or Third World countries by what amounts to slave labor.

Even worse we have people in all levels of corporate America that promote this culture and make their living off of the people that are committing crimes to get a deal.  I think that says something about us and that troubles me.  But then I guess I don’t have enough faith in the God of Black Friday.

But why should I have faith in that God? The “God” of Black Friday caters to the darkest nature of self-centered greed and mocks the God who on the real Black Friday, offered himself for the life of the world. The “God” of this Black Friday is the no-God of Ayn Rand and her disciples who despise the crucified God in thought, word and deed.

I wonder what Jesus would do if he stumbled into a Christian book store on Black Friday and found people fighting over a special on WWJD junk or the latest greatest “study Bible” featuring the notes of some prosperity preacher. I don’t think that he would be very happy.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 22, 2012 · 11:07

Thanksgiving Memories Then and Now: Padre Steve’s Humorous Look at Our National Day

 

It is better to give than to receive so it is time to give thanks for all the blessings that I have received since last Thanksgiving, but before I do I have to philosophize just a bit.

You see while I am thankful for much I generally find that Thanksgiving Day leaves much to be desired. Not that I am adverse to giving thanks or being extremely grateful but I am really more of a Christmas kind of guy. I’m also not a big fan of getting up early to watch parades on TV, or for that matter especially in person.  I’d rather watch the man made disasters of when the big balloons that got away on the news or on You Tube.

I think it would be more fun since we are becoming a police state if we mounted surveillance cameras and Hellfire missiles on the floats. Could you see the surprise in the faces of terrorists and even law abiding citizens when they realized that Snoopy, Garfield and the Cat in the Hat were targeting them. If we have to live in a police state I think it should it might as well be fun.

Enough about parades, after all who cares about parades anyway when you can watch what are historically some of the worst professional football games of the season.  Today the 4-6 Detroit Lions will find yet another way to lose on Thanksgiving as they play the 9-1 Houston Texans as they play in the Sacrificial Lamb Bowl. The 5-5 Dallas Cowboys play the revived 4-6 Washington Redskins in the Mediocrity Bowl. In a third game on prime-time the 7-3 New England Patriots will play the 4-6 New York Jets in the I Hate You and Everything that You Stand For Bowl.  I have no idea how we ended up with those teams year after year on Thanksgiving but I guess for Cowboys fans, Jets fans and all 964 Lions fans it works well, not that there is anything wrong with that.

While the professional football players ready themselves for combat the professional bargain hunters are preparing for their own form of mortal combat where no prisoners are taken and the weak to do not survive. Yes it is “Black Friday Eve” and though many will sacrifice by camping outside of stores in abominable weather, deceiving potential rivals to get a better place in line and if need be resorting to violence to make their Christmas wishes come true.  As for me I will avoid big retailers like the plague and do almost all of my shopping online where I feel safe in my virtual world.  The sad thing in this is that so many employees of the big stores are already at work preparing for the Black Friday deals and sales that they will not be with their families, friends or other loved ones today. But who cares about them? If we can get a big HDTV made by slave laborers in China at big savings  isn’t it worth it?

I like the times to get together and spent time with family and friends, though due to my military career it has been years since we have spent Thanksgiving with family.  There is something about a 3000 mile buffer zone that comes with being in the military that makes it hard to get to and from the West Coast. My brother will be hosting this at his home this year with his family, my mom and his in-laws. He’s a better man than me. Of course as many can attest even in the most loving and functional families holiday get-togethers were not always the most enjoyable occasions.  It is the stuff that movies are made of when after the mandatory grace was said and tempers flared and people stormed outside while the children found new ways to get under their parents skin. I was especially good at the latter.

Stephen Colbert says it this way: “Thanksgiving is a magical time of year when families across the country join together to raise America’s obesity statistics. Personally, I love Thanksgiving traditions: watching football, making pumpkin pie, and saying the magic phrase that sends your aunt storming out of the dining room to sit in her car.”

But food is the centerpiece of any true Thanksgiving celebration is the Thanksgiving Dinner and the source of many pleasant memories as well as those we would like to forget but due to the trauma cannot. Most of these dishes were prepared by certain elderly relatives including my Granny who could tell you the history of any dish that appeared on the table, to include who gave it to here how many weeks prior to the event.

There was the ever present green bean salad frequently bathed in something that might have been mayonnaise or possibly Cool Whip.  Now the fact that it was spruced up a bit with Chernobyl Onions, boiled potatoes, slimy mushrooms or other additives that remain a mystery to this day didn’t make it any better, just more challenging to wonder who came up with the idea.

Another positively scary dish was the puke green Jell-O salad which I think was made of Jell-O, mayonnaise and would have canned pineapple or dry cat food thrown in just to make sure that there was something real in this unearthly concoction.  Of course one cannot forget the times that the Turkey didn’t turn out quite right being underdone or charred beyond belief.  The stuffing stuck to everything like a chunky primordial slime or mashed potatoes resembled Potato soup or were so chewy and dry that you had to add more of the 40 weight Pennzoil gravy just to get them down.  My late mother in law had a delicacy that we called Brown and Burn rolls and my late paternal Grandmother “Granny” who I have previously mentioned had something white, which might have been meat in white gravy but has never been identified despite the best efforts FBI forensics investigators.

Of course in many household the children serve a purpose akin to that of a Persian Emperor’s official food taster.  I can remember as a kid being forced to eat something from almost every dish on the table just to make sure that Aunt Betty Lou Who or Grammy Sue Who (the names have been changed to protect their memories) would not be offended if no one ate what they prepared.

Now not everything was bad as most of the time no matter how badly everything else turned out the pie was good, well at least in most cases.  My favorite pie at Thanksgiving was one that a trio of my Great Aunts made. Now these aunts were really great, when we went to their house on 18th Street in Huntington West Virginia for Thanksgiving or any other occasion they laid out a wonderful spread, but the most delightful dish was their Graham Cracker Pie. This is a pie, well that was a dumb statement, of course it was pie, but this pie had a home-made graham cracker and cinnamon crust, was filled with vanilla pudding, the good stuff, not instant and a meringue top which was encrusted with the graham cracker cinnamon mix.  Thankfully Judy had Aunt Viva, the last of the trio write down the recipe before she passed away and she has made it on occasion keeping this one family delicacy alive.  In addition to the Graham Cracker Pie there was Banana Crème and Chocolate Crème, Pumpkin and Sweet Potato, Apple, Cherry as well as other pies that would make an occasional appearance.

Not Thanksgiving Day but close enough: Dinner with General Sabah in Ramadi

As I noted we have been away from family most of our married life and we have frequently spent Thanksgiving with friends, many times single people that we hosted other times people that would host us and those were always enjoyable. I have also spent a good number of Thanksgivings deployed and those have been special, especially 2007 when I was in Iraq and after a mission to the Syrian border when I helped to serve the troops at the dining facility.  Those times make you very thankful and not in a joking sense about all the blessings that we have in the United States.

As most readers know I am just a tad irreverent at times and nowhere was this more in evidence than Thanksgiving 1991 when we hosted a number of our single friends from work or church since none of us were very well off, I was still in seminary and money was not a great commodity. Judy asked me since I was going into ministry if I would pray for the food. That was not a good way to phrase the question because at times, well most of the time tend to find the dark humor in anything and this time was no exception. I think the prayer went something like this. I’m sure that it was longer than this because there are times when I get on a roll and can’t shut up, but this captures the spirit of that “prayer for the food.”

Dear Lord we ask you to be with the soul of this turkey and all of his or her relatives this Thanksgiving. Relieve them of their pain and comfort the survivors in Jesus name. Amen.

As I prayed I noticed Judy glaring daggers at me as our guests looked on in dismay.  To this day she always keeps a foot ready to kick me just in case I try something like this again. Likewise she is always careful in how she phrases what she wants me to pray for lest I become too literal in my prayer.

This year I have much to be thankful for, my wonderful wife Judy, friends, family and my little dog Molly who over the course of the past year has helped me become a functional part of human society again. Then there is Minnie, our new addition, a 10 month old Papillon puppy who is always happy to drink my beer or coffee should I leave it in her range.

The Giants won the World Series, the Orioles and A’s surprised everyone by rocking the playoffs the 49ers are doing well and UCLA defeated USC.

As  sit here with Molly at my feet and Minnie on Judy’s lap on this quiet and peaceful Thanksgiving.

Have a blessed day! Happy Thanksgiving friends.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 21, 2012 · 22:12

Thanksgiving 2012

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G K Chesterton

Well I am thankful. It is Thanksgiving eve and I am at home with Judy as well as our tow dogs, Molly and Minnie.

Molly and I made the trip up from North Carolina where I am stationed today. The trip wasn’t too bad, there were only a few people who felt the urge to do 43 MPH in 55 zones on US 17 just because they could and not violence from other drivers.

We have a lot to be thankful for this year, after all the Bible says to be thankful in all things, unless God is mad at you and you are forced to wear sackcloth and ashes while watching your family fall into a flaming abyss for your mistakes or unless you are Karl Rove. But never mind that, it is important to give thanks.

In that I am grateful for so much this year and so many people. It is hard to believe how many people have been a blessing to me this year and hopefully I have had the opportunity to be a blessing to as well.

Tomorrow we have decided to do something that we have not done in a long time. Spend a simple and uncomplicated day together with our dogs. We have got the turkey, several varieties of deli turkey breast that we do not need to awake at the crack of dawn to prepare and Judy will make the stuffing and we will fix all the fixings that go with them. In the evening we may take in a movie and if any of our friends are alone we will invite them over. It will be nice, we have much to be thankful for and hope that your Thanksgiving day will be full of blessings, even unexpected ones.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 20, 2012 · 22:38

Remembering the Hope of John F Kennedy

“Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.” 

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask, why not?”

President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas on a sunny November afternoon 49 years ago this Thursday.  The images of the event and its aftermath in photos and film still haunt us and find themselves etched in our individual and collective memory. The two shots that killed the President were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald according to the Warren Commission and subsequent inquiries although there are a host of conspiracy theories regarding the assassination. My purpose is not to prove or disprove the official version or any alternative explanation although I personally believe that Oswald was the lone gunman.  It is merely to remember a horrible event in the life of our nation and how easily it could happen again.

Kennedy was not the first President killed by an assassin. Four Presidents of the United States have died by the hand of assassins. The first was Abraham Lincoln killed by John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday 1865.  The next was James A Garfield who was shot on July 2nd 1881 by Charles Guiteau a disgruntled supporter who claimed that he had been commanded by God to kill a the President who he believed to be ungrateful for his support.  Garfield died on September 19th probably due to the incompetence of his doctors.   The third was William McKinley who was shot by Leon Czolgosz on September 6th 1901. McKinley died on September 14th.  Over 20 other attempts have been made on incumbent or former Presidents of which one wounded Theodore Roosevelt after his Presidency and another which nearly killed President Ronald Reagan on March 30th 1981.  Gerald Ford had two close brushes with female assassins within 2 weeks of each other in September 1975. More recent attempts have been made on George H.W Bush, Bill Clinton and George W Bush.  A man was arrested for shooting at the White House last week but President Obama was away from Washington during the attack.

However Kennedy’s assassination tends to be the most talked about and studied and has left a scar on the country that really hasn’t healed. I can remember the effect that it as well as the subsequent killings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F Kennedy had on my parents in the following years.  My mother recounted how she felt when she heard the news of Kennedy’s death on Armed Forces Radio while we were stationed in the Philippines.  I remember the times around the anniversary of his assassination we would watch television shows about it and the movie PT-109. While I do not have direct memories of President Kennedy’s assassination I do remember those of Dr King and Senator Kennedy as well as the subsequent attempts on President Ford, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush.

John F Kennedy is one of my favorite Presidents. I know that John F Kennedy was a deeply flawed man and I do not gloss over his failings either as a man or some of his decisions while President. He was certainly not perfect or That being said I still I admire him.  He volunteered to serve in combat on PT Boats despite having chronic lower back problems tht kept him out of the Army and necessitated a waiver to enter the Navy. His actions in saving his crew after his PT-109 was sunk were nothing short of heroic and his crew knew it. After he his crew was rescued Kennedy elected to remain in action and commanded PT-59 in combat rescuing Marines on Choisuel Island. Kennedy’s citation for the Navy and Marine Corps Medal read:

“For extremely heroic conduct as Commanding Officer of Motor Torpedo Boat 109 following the collision and sinking of that vessel in the Pacific War Theater on August 1–2, 1943. Unmindful of personal danger, Lieutenant (then Lieutenant, Junior Grade) Kennedy unhesitatingly braved the difficulties and hazards of darkness to direct rescue operations, swimming many hours to secure aid and food after he had succeeded in getting his crew ashore. His outstanding courage, endurance and leadership contributed to the saving of several lives and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

Kennedy’s speeches still inspire me. As a child a had a copy of his book Profiles in Courage. I grew up with his promise to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade, the creation of the Peace Corps, his backing of Special Forces, his love of the Navy, the great “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, his support of the Civil Rights movement and and his defusing of the Cuban Missile Crisis all inspire me.  His inauguration speech where he said “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” was and still is a lot of my motivation for serving in the Navy.  John F Kennedy symbolized to me as a young person the hope of a country that had he lived might be different today

I could be critical and point out all of John Kennedy’s flaws and contradictions.  But then too easy to do. People make a living doing that. People often forget that Kennedy was a hero, not perfect but a hero. I wish a quarter of our current elected officials served their country in combat as Kennedy did and understood what real danger and heroism is. Instead with very few exceptions we have elected men as much or even more flawed and contradictory than John F Kennedy with none of his personal courage.

Kennedy’s wartime service always earned him my respect. I tremble when I think that someone would have such a deep hatred of him or for that matter any other President that they would kill or attempt to kill them. That kind of hatred goes beyond me.  Lee Harvey Oswald was a small and pathetic man who needed to be a revolutionary, who needed to be important failing everything else he killed the President. Unfortunately there are people like Oswald on all sides of the political, ideological and religious spectrum who will gladly trade the life of a President or any other public figure for their moment in the spotlight and need to demonstrate their importance to the world.

I fear for our country because of the intense hatred that has become part and parcel of our political landscape. The hatred toward directed toward President Obama and the many threats made against his life and person are chilling. As I looked for images for this article I found pictures of Kennedy’s body after the assassination and they shook me. I have seen far too much in the way of violent and senseless death. Thus I do pray for the safety of President Obama as well as all of our leaders and for God to protect us from ourselves and those so possessed by hatred and their own self righteousness that they would commit such an abominable act.

While I do so I remember the President whose life was cut short by the bullets fired by Lee Harvey Oswald and pray that such an event will never happen again and even more importantly that American political leaders would begin to dream again, visions of hope for the country and world and instead of only seeing limitations, ask that one question in terms of ideas of hope and progress: “Why not?”

“Now the trumpet summons us again. Not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are; but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, ‘rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation’, a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

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