The Dawning of the White (and Blue) Collar Homeless

It seems as though a few people with government jobs will determine the possible fate of nearly two million workers connected to the U.S. Auto industry. As many face an uncertain future, the recent events raised the prospects of the total collapse of the industry, as we know it. This is only one of several crises threatening to increase the total homeless population in America to staggering proportions and we are not ready. Proof of this country being ill prepared to help the displaced still to this day exist in New Orleans where a city decimated by the winds and water of Katrina sits waiting for America to show up and help. The storm left hundreds of thousands stranded, hopeless, and even homeless. Now we face a situation that could put millions of families in the streets without social service in the event of a disastrous end. 

Drastic matters require drastic measures. Now is the time for America to atone for ignoring millions who sleep on our city’s streets and begin to ask questions that could lead to housing solutions for unemployed, under-employed, mentally ill, traumatized, and chronically homeless human beings. Its also time to ask an incredible demographic of people who exist on nothing and under unbelievable conditions for some tips on staying alive under tough (and I really mean non-existent) economic circumstances. How often have we stopped at traffic lights and gently slid our hands onto the door locks for fear of auto invasion by the destitute beggar? How often have we driven by a homeless person in the heat of the day or in the cold of the night and turn our heads as if not seeing them will ease our conscience or abdicate our responsibility. Surely we can make the insensitive and say, “They should just get a job” but what happens if there is no job to get. Unfortunately America is now getting ready to discover just how absurd that notion is in the wake of rampant joblessness. The reality is jobs have always been in short supply for people who have not been privy to the “Outliers” as Malcolm Gladwell puts it in his latest book in which he declares success is never something that happens alone and that “People don’t rise from nothing.”

Gladwell goes on to say,

“We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when they grew up… Biologist often talk about the ecology of an organism: the tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other tree blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured.”      

The homeless are all products of many variables in the forest of life and we don’t know which forest they survived, we don’t know who the parent acorns were, we don’t know how difficult it was to avoid being chewed by the rabbits or how challenging it was to avoid the multitude of lumberjacks (circumstances) who’s goal was to cut them down before they matured. We do know they have survived and in the coming days can become our teachers, instructing us on surviving. Here are a few things I have learned from homeless women, children, and men over the last 17 years in Downtown Houston:

- Look out for the people around you; they are your best security and support.

- Pack light anything extra is dead weight.

- Make eye contact with those who can help you and don’t hesitate to ask for       their help.

- Let people think what they will and don’t let it change how you feel.

- Find a few places to hang out that respect your personhood.

- Practice contentment every minute of every day until your circumstances       change.

- Keep your shoes on.

 

My favorite axiom is “keep your shoes on” because there is always someone wanting to walk in your shoes, so they think, even if they are the wrong size and already worn out. As people become more economically challenged in the coming days, now may also be a good time to roll down your window the next time you roll up to a traffic light where a homeless person is begging and remember that except for the acorn, the rabbit, and the lumberjack it could have been you.

 

What do you think about the fate of the American worker?

World Aids Day

6000 reasons..... and each has a name.
6000 reasons .... and each has a face.
6000 reasons ...and each has a story.

Today, World Aids Day, Like everyday, 6000 Children will lose a parent to AIDS.

Today, Like Every day, We have 6000 reasons to care.

Today, like every day we have 6000 reasons to offer hope.

What prevents you from responding? Ignorance? Denial to the extent of the problem? Despair about the magnitude of the crisis?

This is your week to be informed and respond and the hands and feet of Jesus.

The Miami Valley and Stillwater Church are hosting Step into Africa... each day this week. Come and See....

Peace. Duane

Secrets of the Songwriter

Last nights CMA Awards, broadcast live on ABC, is Country Music’s night to shine. It’s by no accident that many of the award winners thanked the songwriters. For the singers know, without the songwriter there is no song to sing.

Over the last couple of months I have been privileged to take a songwriters class at the Blair School of Music in Nashville. Each week a songwriter shares his or her story and helps the class look at the craft of songwriting. Most of the members of the class are songwriters themselves and in many of the sessions they share their music for critique by the speaker and the class.
This last week Laynge Martin, who has written songs like Elvis Presley’s “Way down” and Trisha Yearwood’s, “I Wanna Go Too Far,” was our speaker.

What impressed me about Laynge was his passion for his craft and his desire to be heard. Some of his advice could be applied to us all.

About music itself he noted that in movies, music is always used to bring the message home. At the most dramatic point in the story people sing. For Layne, “songs are really accelerated meaning.” This reminds us that unlike any other form of communication, music goes straight to the heart. Lyrics, melody, and rhythm combine to take the listener to a different place of understanding and insight. The best song becomes your song because it opens a window into what is really important in life.

Another comment by Layne has importance for us in everyday communication, that “everything we say has a melody and a rhythm.” The cadence of our speech is really music without the notes. The tone of our voice, the words we emphasize, and our inflection constantly tells others the state of our emotions, what is important to us, and where our passion lies.

Daniel J. Levitin, author of The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature says the following: “Music, I argue, is not simply a distraction or a pastime, but a core element of our identity as a species, an activity that paved the ways for more complex behaviors such as language, large-scale cooperative undertakings, and the passing down of important information from one generation to the next.” In his book he says there are basically six types of songs that have formed who we are as humans: songs of friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, and love.

I might add to this the following thought: before there was speech, culture, and civilization there was music. Too radical for you. If you are a parent, my guess is the first form of communication you formed with your infant child was a song. Maybe it was a coo or a soft hum. Whatever it was it made a connection that soothed and comforted. In a sense you became the songwriter as you formed a bond with your child.

Songs then are not simply noise to fill up time as we drive to work or crunch numbers on our computer. They are the stuff of life. They help us articulate who we are. They help us discover what is most important to us. The songwriter’s gift is the ability to listen to the sorrows and joys of daily existence to distill meaning into a phrase. “I did it my way.” “Love the one your with.” “Staying alive.” “Ain’t no mountain high enough.” “Amazing Grace.”

Layne made another comment during our time together that really stuck, “what you do everyday becomes your life.” Days turn to weeks which turn into months which becomes years. What you do each day has great implications for what you will become in the future. What you do each moment matters.

So the next time you listen to a song remember the muse that lurks in the shadow, for if you listen closely the secret of the songwriter will be revealed.

Millennials Find Their Voice in Obama's Win

A look at generations in this year's elections tells an interesting story. In Making God Real for a New Generation which was published in 2002, I talked about the emergence of a new Youth Boom that would hit in 2006 as the Millennial Generation, those born from 1982 to 1999, entered into their young adult and youth years. Today we are seeing the fruit of that Youth Boom in the election of President Obama. Now that Millennials are age 7 to 26 they are in their Youth Boom years.

When previous generations hit this age mark, transformation in the rest of the society took place. In the 1930s, new technology introduced color movies, comic books, and Big Band Music. Towards the end of the decade, the GI Generation fought in World War II. In the 1950s, the birth of the Civil Rights Movement and the emergence of Rock'n'Roll Music were the hallmarks of the Pioneer Generation. The Baby Boomers ruled the 1970s with the culmination of the anti-War movement and growth of the Women's Movement. In the late 1980s, the Postmodern Generation saw the collapse of the Berlin Wall and ushered in many aspects that are seen in the Emergent Movement and the growth of the digital age.

Now that the Millennials are coming into their own, key factors are coming into play in the wider society as seen in the election of Obama:

1. 10% of the voters were age 18-24 and 66% of them voted for Obama. In comparison, only 45% of those over 65 voted for the new president.

2. Obama tapped into the youth vote by using their primary means of communication: the Internet and Cell Phones. Notice that major announcements, like the selection of Vice-President Biden, were sent out as Text Messages before given to traditional media. By doing so the Obama campaign sought to create a personal connection with the young voters who supported him. This also allowed him to ask for donations to the campaign using the Internet as well.

3. Obama's slogan: "Yes we Can," tapped into the mindset of a generation who sees themselves as ones who want to make a difference in this world. Rather than fear, his message of hope connected with young people who desire a positive direction for the country and the world.

4. Obama also connected to another major aspect of the Millennial Generation, the ability and desire to reach across racial, ethnic, and national lines. A great number of the Millennial Generation are the children of immigrants from countries around the world. A look at the crowds that were seen at Obama's rallies shows us the new face of America, one that is multi-ethnic and young.

As Millennials make their voice heard the church has much to learn from the Obama campaign.

1. Millennials want to make a personal connection and do so through digital media.

2. Millennials are a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural generation. Churches that will grow and flourish in the future will be ones that reflect their diversity. This is the greatest challenge churches now face as the vast majority of congregations worship in mono-ethnic gatherings.

3. Millennials are attracted to a message of hope and desire to be part of something bigger than themselves to make a difference.

The Millennials are just starting to let their voice be heard. The church, like it has in eras past, has a choice to make. It can listen deeply and look for ways in which God is speaking through the Millennials to challenge us to grow in faith and maturity. It can put up walls and ignore them or forbid practices that seem so unGodly (like dancing, wearing make-up, or watching movies). Or it can ignore them completely, going our separate ways until the Church itself has lost its voice.

My hope is that the church and the culture at large will listen and learn, and look for ways to connect to this new generation as it influences us all.

I Voted... I Cried

Early voting began in Houston, Texas last week, and over the past few days I have received text messages from an assortment of friends and acquaintances who have my cell phone number (about 2,400 folks have that number) with messages celebrating their vote like “I Voted” and many more versions. The one message that struck me the most was the one that came to me via a text message a few days ago saying “I voted…I Cried.” I thought for a moment that I have never in my entire life connected the act of voting with the response of tears. But these are not normal times. I reflected on what must have triggered such an emotional response, I imagined the voting booth and what must have gone through my friend’s mind the moment the ballot was cast but I still thought to my self “what an extreme emotional response for such a routine act.”  It was time for my own experience on Sunday afternoon so I stopped at an early voting place in my neighborhood, got in a line of voters about a quarter mile long, inched along for about an hour, walked through the certification process, step up to the new fangled voting booth and scrolled through the long list of candidates and pressed the big red button marked “cast”. I voted… then I cried.

I cried as I reflected on the sacrifices made by countless men and women of all races for the right to vote in America. A right that came to pass in spite of barking dogs, water hoses, nightsticks and armed militias.   

I cried as I recalled the murder of voting-rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama that ultimately led to the Voting Rights Act.

I cried as I remembered my Auntie Mae Mae’s commitment to the right to vote as she and her friends stood on street corners campaigning for their candidate of choice ultimately managing elections at “colored only” polling places under the close scrutiny of poll watchers.

I cried as I thought about the power my mother most have experienced in the old days when the thick heavy curtain of vintage voting booths closed around her, protecting her privacy as she picked me up allowing me to turn the levers for her candidates of choice giving me my first glimpse of what freedom really meant in America.

I cried some more as I reflected on a recent phone call from my two daughters who shared their youthful enthusiasm regarding participating in this years election.

And finally, I cried because my dad loved the political process but died four years ago on the 4^th of July before having an opportunity see, discuss, experience, debate, curse, complain, and vote in this years monumental election.    

I had an experience with inequality when I was nine years old that left a large scar on my spirit until now. On last Sunday I voted and that scar began to heal.  

What Do Words Really Mean? (Starbucks)

I love the Small is Tall video which I found on You tube. Its a wonderful satirical commentary on Starbucks and its ability to get people to conform to what in effect is nonsense when it comes to ordering. Why do people willingly let their brains stop working when they make their orders? Here is an effort to make sense of it all.

First, people like to feel special. Knowing the secret language makes you feel superior. I remember the first time I went into Starbucks and I felt like an idiot because the lingo didn't make any sense. Tall is small, Grande is medium, and so on. I've ordered a large so I don't know the right spelling of V........ But once you "get it" you can become a real Starbucks officianto by ordering a Grande Chai on the Rocks with No-Fat.

Second, people like to be seen as individuals who have their own style. Thus, Starbucks lets you create your own concoction of flavors that uniquely becomes your own. I remember a story of a customer who broke out into a fight with a Barista (that's right, isn't it!) because the Barista kept playing with the order of her ingredients. When the woman asked for a Mocha Green Tea with Honey the Barista said something like Green Tea Mocha with Honey. The woman couldn't stand it. Someone was messing with her identity!

Third, the language and decor of Starbucks makes you feel affluent. Even if you're down to your last 5 bucks, you can be one of the club as you settle down in a plush chair with your latte'. In our consumer driven culture, the pursuit of affluence on the cheap in vogue.

Of course, Starbucks is now showing some signs of strain as it prepares to close a number of stores around the country and as it says it needs to get back to its core business of providing a great coffee experience. In March the company reported a loss of 28% compared to sales of the previous year. Much of the blame can be placed on the downturn of the economy as people look for ways to save.

Much of Starbucks' success is because they create a distinct alternative in the community. They also have marketed themselves as the Third Place, where people gather outside of work and the home.

The challenge for leaders of churches is how do we create spiritual alternatives that stand the test of time while at the some time connecting to people in our culture? Are we creating places where people find their identity in Christ? Does our language make sense? Do we speak in a way that both communicates the truth of the gospel and gives people room to mature in knowledge, practice, and faith?

So next time your at Starbucks ordering your fancy drink remember that you are special because of who God has made you to be!!!

Dinner With Brian

A couple of weeks ago, our L3 Leadership Incubator was meeting in Baltimore when one of our members invited a surprise guest to our dinner table, Brian Mclaren, one the foremost writers and thinkers about contemporary spirituality and the church. In the midst of our conversation he made this rather generous and hopeful remark: "United Methodists have the theology and message that best connects to today's culture." These words have reverberated in my mind since then and it connected with one of the reasons why I wrote 7 Myths of the United Methodist Church along with the many contributors to the book. So picking up on the theme here are a couple of supporting comments:


1. Wesley fought against the concept of pre-destination and embraced free will -- that God instilled in us the ability to say yes or no to faith in Jesus Christ. This is a message that invites searchers for spiritual truth a reason to hear the message of Jesus Christ. It also leaves room for doubt and in turn a desire to go deeper in faith and commitment. If you are born saved or unsaved what reason do you have to pursue a relationship with Jesus? If you have no choice in the matter, just get baptized and hope it sticks. But if you have choice, then all the more reason to seek God and discover the grace of Jesus that forgives and gives life for eternity.


2. The vision of the early Methodist to see personal piety and social justice as two sides of the same coin. As major companies like Starbucks promote a desire to change the world, United Methodists do so at a level that can sustain change. Faith in Jesus and the using of one's spiritual gifts for the greater good is the fuel for transformation.


3. The United Methodist Church is the largest denomination to ordain women. This is one that separates us from Baptists, Roman Catholics, and many other denominations. In a time where women are now leaders in many different fields, its hard for the greater culture to understand why women are not good enough or holy enough or capable enough to pastor and lead congregations. As a denomination we have pretty much answered that question as women are found in all places of leadership throughout the church.

4. The recovery of the spiritual disciplines as a way to shape faith and values. Brian McLaren in his new book, Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices challenges Christians to move away from a belief centered faith to a spiritual practice centered life. Everyone can profess a number of beliefs, the issue is whether anyone can discern you live a Godly life because of them. (see my review on Amazon of McLaren's book -- see link below) As United Methodists we have a long tradition of this -- The Upper Room Magazine has been consistent guide for daily devotions for years and resources like Disciple Bible Study and Companions in Christ have challenged people in our congregations to go deeper in their connection to God and each other.

Why we are far from perfect, and most of us have a great way to go in these areas, by embracing our historic values we find a message that connects to today's world.


I invite you to consider these questions as well: Does being a United Methodist make a difference for you? What about its approach to faith and spirituality attracts and challenges you? Be sure to comment below and share your thoughts on this important topic.


Link to Mclaren's new book: (click customer comments to find the review)
http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Our-Way-Again-Practices/dp/0849901146/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211634131&sr=8-2