The Lingering Lemon of Death

another good night

ryan invited me to read some poetry at his album release party.  that would be the second time in the history of time that i have been brave enough to be identified as a poet.

it was a beautiful evening.  the cobalt season bloomed and blessed, and it was great to be there.  and i got to read a couple of my poems too.

today i got this picture from jared taken at the event.  there i am in all my largeness.

there's a funny little piece of theater visible there.  whenever i write the first version of a poem, it goes down on paper in which ever notebook i am carrying around.  but before i am "done", a poem has definitely made it to the computer for all the staring and erasing and revising.  so the best version of all my poems are on a computer.  why am i reading from a note book then?

i decided that real poets don't read from laptops, so i copied the poems i intended to read, by hand, into a notebook so i could look all poetic and stuff while i was reading. for the next time (if there is one) maybe i can convince apple to make a molskine version of the macbook air, then i could be deep and poetic, and also hip and edgy.

what i remember from the evening ...

• ryan's shadow dancing behind him as he sang
• ryan singing into his guitar
• hearing how the poems that i had written and re-written and tied up neatly in a bow, unraveled themselves and became new creations and i spoke them.

wondering about racism and the church

race is a scary issue for me. and i am serious about the word scary. i have actual feelings of fear even now as i write this.

part of the reaction to racist history is that we have given permission as a society for the oppressed to lash out in anger and frustration when the voices of the powerful speak without perfect justice. some people see this as unfair. i see this permission giving as a hopeful stage in a process of healing. nevertheless, every time i open my mouth around this issue, i am aware that i am opening myself up to that kind of attack. so mostly i just keep my mouth shut.

it is clearly an issue that needs talking about. while there are congregations that are diverse, most churches are filled with people who all look the same. is this a good thing, or a bad thing? what part does the church play, what part should it play?

a few days ago, a conversation provoking blog post went up on the emergent village web site. it took me a while to hear some things which i am now hearing as i read the conversation. somethings i am still having trouble hearing. i'm going to post my reactions here, not because i believe i am seeing or saying anything brilliant, but because this is my blog. here is what i thought:

my first response .. which i posted in the comment thread was a plea for the conversation to go well. the people speaking for the marginalized have a prophetic quality. they sometimes speak in strong, forceful, painful ways. i don't want us to diminish the power of these statements by insisting that they be calm and reasonable. but i was hoping that i could get, in return, permission to be calm and reasonable and not get in trouble for not being prophetic enough.

but i retract that plea now, after reading more of the comments, and more of the other writings of the people who commented.

in particular, eugene cho. he pointed out, using a well known conversation in the church about gender as an example, that the powerful voices who seek to continue the marginalization of women are not afraid of their stance, don't feel the need to blend in. they are willing to shout their opinions from the mountain tops.

so he rightly suggests that maybe it isn't enough to quietly "do the right thing" in our own little corner of the world. this has set me back and i am quietly chewing on what this means for me. i think maybe i have heard something which will change what i do in the next few months, we'll see

second response: i have a particular reaction to statements like this (also from the comment stream on that blog post):

"all I see is a group of (mostly) middle-class, educated white folks sitting around talking about something for which they have little first-hand experience. (myself included)"

this paragraph makes me crazy. can i unpack the craziness, open myself to some criticism, and maybe learn something .. without it seeming like i am attacking the writer for writing that?

i hear four things:

1. self deprecation
2. pre-surrender to the angry reactive response
3. disdain for conversation as transformative force
4. shaming the oppressor into silence

#1, i admire the humble. i am too much of a jerk to be able to even pretend to be humble most of the time. #2 i also recognize and admire, we have to honor these statements and earn the right to demand that they be made fairly. #3 i have little patience for. not going to apologize for the weakness of conversation, nor champion it's strength. it is what it is. if this is "just a conversation" it is still worthwhile making it a good one.

#4 .... is this the best response? to shame the oppressor into silence?

that was not a rhetorical question. i try not to let it make me mad, understanding that i'm on the privileged side, with an ear for the prophetic utterance. i hear this kind of thing often, and from people who deserve respect. is my only place in this process to stfu and sit and listen?

we christians seem to have a strong general tendency to sing on sunday mornings with people who are just like us. i've been the oddly colored one in non-white churches enough times to know this isn't a "white thing". the last thing that i am still rumbling on is a comment repeated a few times. since the church tends to be divided by race, for whatever reason, most conversations about the issue of race tend to be missing the other side. several people suggested that the best first step, is one outside of your little bubble. i think that is the main source of my fear when i think about race. i like it in my little bubble.

tony jones and the differend

The Mighty Tony Jones is out and about in the book world quite a bit. I've half read several of his other books, always felt guilty about that. Now he has this new book, "The New Christians" which is Tony's attempt to explain why it might be worth re-thinking faithfulness, and what that might look like.

I have read and approve of Tony's book. I actually finished this one, which is high praise from me. Many earth shaking authors don't get that. It's a good overview of many of the things which draw the extended friendship known as "emergent" together. Where'd we come from and where do we think we might be going.

So there, I said nice things about the book. True things. Don't forget, I like the book.

But ...

If you know me well you should be both laughing, and running away fast right about now.

Tony seems to think that if we just explained ourselves clearly enough, had a good chance to sit down and talk, eat a meal, we would eventually at least gain a grudging respect from our critics, even if they don't agree with us.

I spent a lot of time engaged in conversations with this belief also, and I have come to believe that this is not the case.

OK, I don't really know if Tony thinks that, but I get the feeling that he does, and so lets pretend he said that, and now I get to rant ...

Disclaimer: I do not know a thing about continental philosophy. But I do attempt to read a bit, as a hobby I guess, but you should not be surprised if my attempt to summarize things I don't understand well is either unclear or inaccurate. There's this guy Lyotard who uses the word "differend". This is what you get when you have two parties in dispute, and the rules that each party use for judging things, and even for speaking and understanding are so different as to make it impossible for any sort if discourse to occur between the two parties. What you get is not a conflict, but a differend. In such cases there is no compromise, no shared agreement, you can only (quoting Lyotard) "bear witness to the differend".

There is no question that the "New Christians" are going to piss off the "Old Christians". This making into an "other" of the faith of our near fathers is part of what was needed in order to find the expression of faith that seemed to be missing. The place where the "New Christians" sits, I believe, creates a differend with Evangelical Christianity. The guardians of evangelical thought are rightly critical of the things spinning out of the emergent conversation. They bear witness to the differend, and we should too.

"When we know more or less which is the far-off planet that we desire, and when we do all that we can to set off for it. If adults are often tough and sad, it is because they are disappointed. They do not listen well enough to the invitation to grace, which is in them. They let the spaceship rust" (Lyotard 1996)

Space Cadet Michael reporting for duty, bearing witness to the differend.

proudly pointless

i do a bit of reading in the "how did church end up like this and what should we do about it" category. i also hang out from time to time with a traveling circus known as "emergent" which also likes to wrestle with that idea. the people who populate that circus are fun, interesting and generous. so i am pleased to accept the label "emergent" because i would not mind being lumped in with all those people.

we have always taken a certain amount of flak from people whose beliefs about what it means to be faithful are the type of thing which started us asking "why is church like this". we expect this. we don't enjoy it, but we have come to terms with it. recently i have run across in several places, references to "emergent", and "emerging churches" as something which is so past, so old, so missing the boat as to not even warrant a graceful opinion.

i think i speak for all of the emergent conversation when i say, if you want the "edgy hip truly biblical and committed and missional" mantle, it is all yours. we were just trying to be faithful, and to be generous with what we had learned. if you don't want to listen, that doesn't bother us one bit.

and i can safely claim to be a "friend of emergent", now that "emergent" isn't cool any more, without having to worry if i am only doing it to seem cool.

couple of poems

posting a couple of older poems here, just because the poetry pages on my blog are becoming an interesting collection for me, and these two were missing. i love writing these little poems because they don't have to be polished and finished, they just have to feel true, and then they are done.

i have no illusions of being a great poet, but i am good enough poet for me. the stupid little things that i worry about, when written as poems, bring a little peace for me.

if you run off to read them all, notice there are two pages. tiny little "next" at the bottom of page 1.

Captain Crunch

I forgot about the scratchy feeling on the top of my mouth. It is grinding the flesh away, leaving my mouth feel like a field that’s been plowed.

I’d stop, but the satisfying crunch of the little pillows dissolves into a corn flavored sweetness that seems to satisfy the part of me which controls the spoon and the chewing.

I watch detached as another spoonful comes in and begins to be processed. I can hear the sound of the pillows collapsing as the machine which is my mouth pulverizes and moistens the mouthful, eventually passing it down to the stomach.

When I’m done with the bowl I’m both full and empty. I’ve eaten the processed grain and sugar mixture sprinkled with vitamins and 33% of everything my body needs, and at the same time I’m feeling strangely empty, like a child whose parent has broken a promise.

rats

i remember when it happened.
i was driving home one night,
it had been a long day at work.
lots of talking, not much real work,
yet my body felt like i had been digging ditches.
wifeandkids had given up waiting for me to come home
and were sleeping in their beds, well into dreamland
and as i stared through the haze of fatigue
my headlights caught a suburban racoon,
racing from one side of the road to the other.

only, in the dreary spotlight, i didn't see a racoon,
i just saw a big ugly rat.
and the idea was like a virus,
it infected my brain and i couldn't shake it.

my friends live in the hills,
the deer eat all their flowers,
and suddenly the grace of the deer melts away
and they become giant garden rats.

in the city on the way to work,
the flying rats,
that i once knew as pigeons,
scatter as i walk through their midst
glaring at them.

i've lost the ability to see any animal as beautiful,
they're all rats.
even my dog is starting to look
like a loud slobbermouth rat.

everyone's asleep but me,
i'm staring at the ceiling
listening to the rat on my roof,
scratching and gnawing, trying to get in to my house.
*note to self, call exterminator in morning*

i wonder
if in eden,
rats were beautiful.

when i thought i was smart

i still think i'm smart, actually. but back in the day i thought that, in addition to my smartitude, the world was, apparently, very stupid.

which lead to a lot of wonderful angsty moments. like the time when i was working for netscape. the company brought together a set of people from all over the company to help think about how to make the company even better. only the company wasn't good in the first place, and so instead of figuring out how to extend the goodness, we ended up talking a lot about the badness. i remember the ceo saying something like, "i like to think of a new company as a child that i am helping to grow up, and you just told me i have an ugly baby".

i still remember that day as one of the historic wastes of time. strangely, that particular venue, the garden court hotel, seems to be a common venue for historic wastes of time, because i have wasted a time with a number of organizations at the garden court hotel.

i just found in a file folder, pages of notes from that much smarter michael toy. mostly one liners, which i took while sitting in that meeting.

if i remember my timing right, these notes were taken at a time when to the external world, netscape appeared to be a rising superstar in the tech world, but would actually be laying people off because of revenue problems within the next 6 months.

here are the ones that are still part of the "michael toy" way, many years later ...

• dissent is more valuable than consensus, because it forces you to know why you do what you do.
• comfort is the last state of mind before death.
• reality is king. reality can be painful. pain that comes from reality should be given attention.
• small teams rule the universe.
• consensus/comittee .... death
• dictatorship ... death
• get out of people's way
• focus is king (nobody tell reality about this, there will be a war)
• don't waste people's time
• non-comformists are necessary. if we do things like everyone else does, we limit ourselves to being no better than anyone else.
• honest failure is valuable

when i was writing these down, i was writing them down because these were things i thought i saw that nobody else could see. these older and wiser days, i have learned that what i used to interpret as clueless-ness by the non-michaels in the world, was often clueless-ness by michael to the world that non-michaels live in.

and so while i still believe all of these things, i no longer see other people's non belief in these things as as a sign of their stupidity, but instead as a sign that i probably don't understand their world well enough.

for example, there is a near maniacal defense of the importance of software engineers being given space to be productive underneath that above list. i have since recognized that people who run companies tend to have that exact same maniacal focus, but the essence to be preserved is not engineering productivity, but revenue. when very smart people who are trying to protect revenue make their bullet lists, they look very different than the one above.

it is time

i've been working at liveops since the end of 2003, which is a long time in the silicon valley. it is pretty common here to work someplace for a year or two and then move on. when i started at liveops it was really fun. i don't know how to quite describe it, but it was business-focused engineering. together we re-invented the concept of a call center, and our call center quickly grew to what is now probably the largest and best call center in the world.

but as time wore on, it has become difficult for me, and i am not even 100% certain of the reasons. what it feels like to me is that the crazy roller coaster ride that is michael toy really doesn't fit well with a company trying to look and act like a safe, sane, stable (yet forward looking) corporate partner. however i am always up for learning new things, so i was busy trying to figure out how to make all that work. but then i made the mistake of asking one my friends what he was doing.

"come on down and see?". i went and i saw. see michael see tom. see what tom is doing. what is tom doing?

sadly i can't say anything. the stock answer from the web site is this: "We’re undertaking the huge task of bringing a technology to market that has the potential to change the way people live their lives, the way that cell phones, Digital Video Recorders and the Internet have already affected all of us."

whatever the thing-which-we-do-not-name is, it is interesting, and hard, and as the official story says, disruptive.

you can probably guess at this point, that i am leaving liveops and heading to

it is a little frightening when i start at a new company. even after almost 30 years in the tech industry, and many many many times having people and companies tell me that i am a good guy to have around, i always feel like this is the one job where they are going to find out i'm a worthless turd. if humans beings were anything like rational creatures, i would have erased that idea a long time ago. but no amount of rational reflection on that irrational thought seems to make it go away.

i'll miss many many many people at liveops. even the people who drove me crazy were really good people. i'll also miss working for a company with no capital letters in its name. but this startup thing is what i do, and it is time to do it again.

powerpoint powerwash

i am sometimes trapped in rooms watching powerpoint slides, which are a very poor form  of entertainment and an even worse way to transmit information.  here's a poem about that experience

the man with the perfect hair

the pressed striped shirt
and the khaki dockers,
the presenter

presses play
white screen, metamorphosis.
a stylish
yet tasteful
abstract shape emerges

now five powerful words fly onto the screen
moving with brisk purpose,
they achieve their locations.

• each
• alone
• except
• for
• the bullet.

very powerful words
fully powerful
unencumbered by context
they radiate significance

i bask in the glow
and listen to the music of the presenters voice.
a sentence rises in pitch, so exhilarating,
and the next two sentences gently descend,
so relaxing.

my brain becomes cleaner and cleaner
so very shiny now,
so glad i came,
so brilliant, the graphic with the two circles.
the zone in the center where the circles overlap
... genius

when we finally rule the world
i hope everyone will be
as happy as i am right now

another page of depression

here's a page from my note book, they aren't all like like this. i just felt like this one was a good snapshot in words of what it feels like when things are feeling really bad. and just to pre-calm readers. even when i've felt sadness in my chest like a knife, i've never been suicidal. somehow it doesn't run that way for me, but if you didn't know that, the first part of this might be scary.

this is just a journal page. one whole page on depression, obligation and resignation. i really want to somehow resign, to give up. but it seems that there is no quiet end. i can't just sit in the green reclining chair and start reading and vanish into a book. to give up would require violence. not physical violence, but just as real. i would have to knock our kill the hopeful part of myself. i'd have to rip out my ears so that i could not hear my own voice.

which leaves me in a deep and discouraging part of the cycle of depression ... not enough courage to try, not enough courage to give up.

it is a lonely afternoon for moody hopelessness. outside the tan stucco buildings are glowing in the evening sun, radiating the warmth of the day back into the evening air, like those glow in the dark toys give back the light they bask in.

100,000 feet above, a cool spring evening is descending, slowly waiting to swallow the warmth and be breathed in and out as people order lattes and pretend everything is going to be ok.

rsi finally gets me

programmers all fear rsi. this is the career threatening injury for the professional keyboarder. i've seen several people hit by the rsi truck and never recover.

i've flirted with rsi before, but never let it get so bad that it interfered with my work. i remember one time when my daughter (now in college) was 3 or 4 years old, discovering that i could not hold a story book in my right hand and read it to her without pain. i spent a lot of energy figuring out how to setup a work station so that i could continue to work without producing that kind of strain and since then i've been able to steer clear of rsi problems.

until saturday morning.

i woke up saturday morning and discovered that i could not lift my right arm without an intense pain in my right shoulder, essentially making my right arm useless.

the cause? bad ergonomics in my home computer setup, combined with way too many hours playing computer games (mostly world of warcraft) at night. i've actually had low grade shoulder pain for a couple of months, but i figured it was some sort of old-guy pain (i am 47) and was the kind of nagging problem that i was going to have to learn to get used to.

so i am researching ergonomic work setups, resting my shoulder, taking medication to help the swelling go down and things are slowly getting better. today i can move my arm out from my side about 6 inches.

i feel pretty stupid, i should have known better. i should have caught this a long time ago, way before it was a big deal. it is a big deal now. likely it will take a couple of weeks to get back useful motion in my shoulder and maybe months of rehab work after that to really get a fully functioning joint.

click here to repent for the iraq war

Today I got some bulk e-mail from Jim Wallis, one of the many many people in the universe who are way better humans than I will ever hope to be. Seriously, I like and admire him. Anyway, here's an excerpt:

Next week will mark five years since the United States invaded Iraq. We all lament the suffering and violence that continue after these five heartbreaking years.

To commemorate this anniversary, many Sojourners board members are joining with me to issue a statement calling on the U.S. church to repent for the war and to commit ourselves to a new path toward peace.

Would you join us in signing it? Just click here. We all share in responsibility for a war that has been waged in our names and with our tax dollars. The fact that fewer U.S. soldiers have died in recent months doesn't change the fact that this war should never have been waged. Our country should end this war, not try to "win" it, and we must help the Iraqi people build a safer and more peaceful country.

And so, in this season of Lent, I believe the time has come for us to repent for the Iraq war. But repentance means more than just being sorry. It means admitting that the course we have been on is wrong and committing to begin walking in a new direction - starting with an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

For some reason that really bothered me. How exactly is it that I share in this responsibility? I appreciate the humility of that statement. The refusal to separate in order to judge. However, as far as repentance goes, that is not simply a word. That is an action that has meaning to me. That is a turning away from one thing and towards another. What exactly am I repenting from? Having repented, how will I live differently tomorrow?

Maybe my problem is that Jim Wallis sees "we" and I am still stuck in the "me". Maybe "we" do need to repent. I just don't see how clicking to sign, or even physically signing a document is part of that process.

That leaves the question hanging in the air, how would "we" repent and what part in that do I have? I keep saying over and over again that it is so much better to stop at the powerful question than to provide a powerless answer. Wouldn't it be better to have a million people asking themselves what their part is in repentance than to have a million people who feel like they have repented by clicking on a web link?

[ later ]

I read the statement, and it does address this question. The thing you are "signing" does ask you to commit to some new actions. And in thinking some more, I realized that "How do you get people to ask the right questions?" is a fair response. I guess have nothing to say ... move along, no blog post here.

click here to repent for the iraq war.

how can you vote for hillary ... she listens to the devil

This is not photoshopped, this is straight from Reuters. The caption reads:

US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) smiles during a campaign rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio February 27, 2008. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008
(USA)

In the background you can see Satan, clearly whispering things in her ears while she smiles. This can't be an accident, this photographer must have framed the shot for just this effect. Wild that it got published though.

For the humor impaired, I AM NOT REALLY SUGGESTING THAT HILLARY CLINTON A TOOL OF THE DEVIL. The photo just made me laugh. Although in a few hours, if you google "hillary clinton, tool of the devil" you might very will find this blog post.

And for the record I have nothing against Hillary. She seems a little more owned by the machine than Barack, but that's an information free feeling, not any kind of fact.

OMG how wrong can I be. Just for grins i did google "hillary clinton tool of the devil", and i discovered this ...

June 20, 2005 "Devil Endorses Hillary Clinton's Presidential Bid"

Wow ... so maybe this picture was taken by a photographer who remembers that goofy story and thought it would be fun to add fuel to the fire.

on barack obama

i do not know who this man is.

sometimes when i hear his words i hear something that i have not heard in my life time. i don't even know what it is, but i know it is there, because i am so shocked when i hear it. i hear something that i dream of, that must exist. something beyond zero sum, me vs. you, where generosity and hope break the constraints which keep us forever running in circles.

as a nation, we have lost ourselves trying to find an identity after the cold war. we need a leader who can do more than work the system. i would love to see what 8 years of barak obama could do for this nation.

i am actually praying that i would be able to see that.