MLK: "Everyday I'm Hustlin'"

Did you hear the one about the pastor-turned-civil-rights-leader who was a sex-crazed, hustling phony?  Yea, it sounds more like the first part of a joke so corny, Jay Leno wouldn't even touch it.

But, that's apparently what Jacqueline Kennedy thought of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  In conversations she had with friends and interviewers months after her husband, President John F. Kennedy's assassination, she revealed that she believed King was a phony and vile man.

What is more, it appears that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, shared surveillance with Jacqueline Kennedy--wire taped conversations purportedly of King laughing about the Kennedy assassination and calling women and men when he came to the Washington D.C. area for orgies.  The actual surveillance is currently protected by court order and will not be released to the public for at least another 15 years.

Really?  Dr. King had "jump offs" in the Washington D.C. area?  If you've been to the D.C. area, you know that's probably not very difficult to believe on many levels.  In D.C., everyone has disciples and King is more charismatic than most.

And, we've heard all of this talk before and we've had some thoughtful and pointed discussions about all of this several years back when Ice Cube released his movie "Barbershop."

So, even if all of this is true, does this tarnish King's legacy?

For me, it doesn't.  It seems to me that we don't give ministers, pastors, clergy or people who are otherwise called to change the world, the space to be human.  While these people have made and are called to make great contributions to the world, they are, after all, working out their own salvation just like the rest of us.  I expect a certain amount of humanness from all humans, even the great ones.  Our trust and faith should be in Spirit, rather than in humans who can't help but fail each other on occasion.

So what if Mother Teresa was so disillusioned by the poverty she saw in her missions that she doubted the existence of God in letters?  Does it really matter that Abraham Lincoln's reasons for calling for an end of slavery had more to do with his desire a unified America than for equality?  Who cares if Lady Gaga has ulterior motives for giving a voice to communities that are marginalized and sometimes ignored?  And, what if King was a hustler who had jump offs?

That doesn't change the good they breathed into the universe.  That doesn't change a thing...at least not for me.

Now, let me know when Jon Huntsman gets a Nirvana quote right so we can start talking about some real issues.

Mid Week Meditation: The Christian Thing to do...

Every now and again my son catches me slipping...

Not too long ago, I was running an errand with my youngest son.  It was an errand that I did not want to perform, but I knew that I should because my conscious called on me to do so.  It was the right thing to do.  I cannot describe the details of the errand because, I don't want to put anything into the universe, internetdom or blogoshpere that may create conflict or strife with anyone.  (I know.  Somewhere, there's an avid Facebook user that's laughing at my attempt at discretion.  Facebook users who follow the blog, I promise to one day share the details in a "status" update and Tweet them as well for good measure.)  

So, as my son and I were leaving to complete the errand, I mumbled, "I don't want to do this."  I had my reasons for so mumbling. 

But my son heard me.  He only occasionally hears my demands to finish his piano practice, but this, he heard clearly.

And he called me on it.  "Dad," he said, "that's not the Christian thing to do."  That's what I get for forcing my son to attend a religious school--around the clock moralizing from a ten year old.  God bless him.   

And he was right on many levels...or perhaps wrongly right.  I would argue that doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, is uniquely Christian.  But, he called me on my comment nonetheless.

And it made me meditate about what is "the Christian thing to do?"

Certainly it is a good thing to do those things that are good and right.  The Scriptures support that just fine.  But, the Scriptures do not support doing the right thing for the wrong reasons or with the wrong heart. 

While there are many examples of this Apostle Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth seems to be squarely on point here:

"Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."

Paul was speaking about tangible assets, but the point is clear.  The Christian thing to do is not only do the right thing, but do it with cheer.

I'm working on it.

Joy and Happiness,,,

Disney World is billed as the "Happiest place on earth." It is so called because the place has a heaping amount of attractions and characters that are designed to make and keep us happy. And, it's called "the happiest place on earth" because the people who do public relations and marketing for Disney have done their homework.


They know we love to be happy. We love warm fuzzies, happy stuff and happy people; we love to be around it. That's why Disney has a commercial every year after the Super Bowl, in which they ask the winning quarterback what he's going to do after having won the Super Bowl. And naturally, we all know the answer: he invariably says that he's going to Disney World.

That's no mistake of course. A guy who is at the pinnacle of happiness who declares that he's going to a place to either continue the happy feeling or find a way to be even more happy by spending a few days at Disney World.

Happiness is great. Happiness is wonderful, until it's not. We can't be happy all the time. In a world where the average welfare recipient in the United States is better off financially than a super majority of the world, I know that I live a charmed life relatively speaking. But, even so, I can't always be happy. I have stresses. It is difficult to live in a world where there is so much oppression and poverty. That makes me pretty unhappy.

So, in the spiritual context, when we can't be happy, when happiness runs out, we have another Spirit-given principle we can connect with.

Naturally, it's joy. Our culture uses the terms happiness and joy interchangeably but, they are very different. Happiness is an emotion or inclination we have or feel in response to good fortune. When my portfolio has made gains in the stock market, I am happy. When I have the time to cook a meal, I am happy. When I can watch "Project Runway" or all is well at work and at home, I am happy. My happiness is contingent on good fortune.

Joy, is a tad different. It's not an emotion, but rather a sense of inner-wellness and an appeal to that which is righteous and sound externally. God and Spirit, at least according to the Scriptures, pours joy into us. If I am having a difficult day at work, I may not be happy, but I can be joyful. If "Project Runway" is not on, I may not be happy, but I can be joyful.

Spirit does not promise us happiness. But, Spirit does promise us joy. In the quiet moments, when we are not happy, when we are not in the "happiest place on earth," we can be joyful, and that will hold us until another happy time...or until the next season of "Project Runway."

A Word About Justice...



Yesterday was the anniversary of the 1963 bombing of the predominately African-American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. 

While there has been great disagreement over just about everything related to the tragic incident, most serious observers agree that the bombing occurred in this manner:

In the very early hours of September 15th, 1963, four members of a sub-faction of the Ku Klux Klan planted a time-delayed bomb under the stairs of 16th Street Baptist Church.  At around 10:30a.m., about two dozen children of the church were in the basement of the church.  The bomb that was placed under the stairs exploded at that time, killed the young women pictured above (Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Westley), and injured several others.

There is wide debate over the impact the bombing had on the civil rights movement and the passage of the the federal civil rights legislation in 1964.

Less disputed, however, are the well-documented difficulties southern and federal prosecutors had in prosecuting the individuals responsible for the bombing.  I think it is fair to say that, while some of the men responsible for the bombing were convicted of murder and sentenced to prison for lengthy terms, at least one and perhaps as many as five men who were involved in the planning and execution of the bombing, died before they were ever prosecuted for any offense related to the bombing.

In my discussions about the anniversary of the bombing, many people lamented about this fact.  They were appalled that there were men who participated in the planning or execution of the bombing who were never brought to "justice."  There were others who were adamant that the unprosecuted individuals would get justice from God. 

Naturally, as a prosecutor I get the need for us to want to see wrong doing and wrong doers "brought to justice."  I get that the elected and appointed officials (many obviously understood this desire for justice as well) spent decades, dollars and effort trying to find a way to punish the individuals responsible for the bombing. 

Its an innate need that we have.  Justice.  Its like our desire to see movies, or television sitcoms, or situations in our lives resolved with tidy, if not happy endings.  We like comeuppance if and because it brings balance to our affairs.

But what if we expanded our notion of justice?  What if we viewed justice as not only bringing punishment to an individual who has done us wrong, but also as a way to further peace and compassion.

Let me explain.  When Christ was killed, His followers could theoretically have sought justice in the traditional sense and sought to kill the authorities responsible or have them tried perhaps for a wrongful death.  But Christ's followers, created justice by spreading Christ's message of liberation, peace and love to the world.  That's justice.  I suppose that turned out okay.

As we contemplate the bombing, it is a noble work to find a way to prosecute those responsible for it. It is also as noble and worthy to use the bombing to continue the work of unity and equality the bombers tried to thwart. 

That would be justice as well.

Mid-Week Meditation: Right or Righteous

Its been a long time, I shouldn't have left you and all that.  I apologize for my absence.  I have been busy creating a new work, and I will share all of that with you soon.  I promise to not leave for so long again.

But, not too long ago, friend of mine had a small disagreement with her partner.  They are the parents of an adorable, two-year-old daughter.  On one occasion,  they had a discussion about the proper amount of food to feed their daughter.  While the "experts" agree that children should eat one tablespoon of food for each year of age.  So, my friend's daughter should get two tablespoons of the several healthy things on her plate.

It was established that my friend was feeding her daughter a bit more than that.  My friend naturally felt guilty about this and was a little defensive when it was brought to her attention.

New parents, and I mean this earnestly, are beautiful.  They want to be the best parents they can be and will even take counsel from the "experts" even when the "experts" and their counsel isn't nearly as sound as common sense and mother wit.  Feeding a child too much is a very difficult thing for engaged parents to do.  My friend should not have felt the least bit defensive for feeding her daughter a bit more than the experts have suggested.

My friend's disagreement made me meditate on 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, the Apostle Paul's scolding of the church in Corinth.  In the passage,  Paul indicates that there are clearly rich and educated people in the church who are worshipping alongside poor, uneducated ones.

There was a religious practice in the city for non-Christians to place freshly cut meat on an altar as a sacrifice to some local deity and then after several days, allow humans to eat the meat.  Christians struggled with the ethics of eating meat that was placed on an altar for sacrifice to a local deity.

The educated members of the Christian community clearly thought that there were no problems with eating the meat, while the less educated members of the community believe it was sacrilegious to do so.  The educated members of the Christian community looked down on the less educated members of the Christian community because they held this belief.

Apostle Paul scolded the educated members of the church.  He told them that while they were technically correct that there were no ethical concerns that would bar Christians from eating the sacrificed meat, they were dividing the church because they were calling the uneducated members of the church stupid in essence.  Paul called on the educated members of the church to be loving and righteous rather than simply right.