Crazy or just hootchie cootchie googooing?

Standing at the end of the aisle in the department store, I heard loud noises from someone coming closer. “Woo who, boo boo, waahhh waahhh.”

The weird sounds were coming from a lady walking down the aisle. And the closer she got to me, the louder her babbling became. She looked to be 60 something, and the younger woman following close behind her I assumed to be the older lady’s 20 something daughter. “Poor lady,” I thought. “She must have some disability and is unable to control her voice. Or perhaps she’s mentally challenged, and the caring daughter is taking her mom shopping.

Then I noticed the daughter was wearing one of those forward-facing-out baby carriers. Only the baby wasn't in it. Taking a second look at the lady talking gibberish, I could see she was looking down at something. Sure enough, the lady wasn't speech impaired, nor was she mentally unstable. She was just talking to her grand-baby in the stroller that had been hidden from my view.

When we hear someone in a public place unashamedly jabbering, we are likely to conclude that person either has a diminished mental capacity or is simply obnoxious. But with a baby there, the person suddenly becomes a normal, loving parent or grandparent communicating with a child.

Most of us who have spent any time in the presence of an infant have talked in those baby tones. After a Sunday morning worship service, I might start speaking in another language if my daughter, Madi, brings my eight month old grandson, Eli, from the church nursery to me.

 “Hoothcie, gootchie, goo,” I say to him while tickling his chin. It doesn't bother me that some of the people to whom I've just preached are standing close to me. In fact, they join me in the baby babble. In a less formal public setting--- our Wednesday night fellowship meal---I've actually sung a line to Eli from one of his favorite tunes, the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse “Hot Dog” song. I somehow transition from mouthing, “Hot dog/hot dog/ hot diggety dog” to teaching my Bible study on the book of Revelation. It’s the only time my congregation let’s me sing solo; a giggling Baby Eli makes it okay. 

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In the presence of an infant we can discard our roles and titles: “Student, administrative assistant, Dr., CEO, teacher, manager,” and become a kid for a moment. As long as the baby is there, we’re fine. Otherwise, our sanity would likely be in question.

And here’s something else: Some research seems to indicate that this infant directed talk is not only fun for adults but healthy for the baby. It’s subject to debate, but some scientists contend that baby directed speech can help lay the foundation for language development. Engaging in this form of communication can enhance the infant’s ability to understand and learn, some believe. Repeating those “goo goo” and gaa gaa,” sounds back to the child, and even using a playful voice while enunciating them, can help babies learn sounds.

I’m glad my “cootchie cootchie coos” might help Eli’s language development. But that’s not why I talk like that to him. It’s a way I can enter into his world---connecting, communicating, and loving him.

Maybe it’s in our DNA to do that; it seems to come naturally. Infant directed speech appears cross culturally, although not universally.

Then again, perhaps we learned it from a higher source. The Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, is supposed to have said that when God speaks to us, he speaks in baby talk. I suppose Luther meant God bends down to our level because we are helpless to know him unless he finds a way to communicate with us. Like a baby to an adult, we are dependent on God to stoop to us if we are to hear from him.

It’s a movement of love. And that’s reason enough for me to play the fool, cooing, oohing, and ahhing my way into the baby’s world, loving him into a relationship where we know and understand each other better and better the more we talk and listen to one another.

It just doesn't make sense…or does it?

It just doesn’t make sense,” is the generalized response from those who had some familiarity with the Tsarnaev brothers. They seemed like the kind of young men you might like as neighbors; they appeared kind, quite, unobtrusive.

These two, perpetrators of the Boston bombings? It just doesn’t make sense.

Or does it?

When anger percolates long enough, it brews a strong pot of hatred which pours a bitter cup of violence. Usually, the stains from that brew spread no farther than the tables of argument upon which they spill. But on rare occasions, under the right circumstances, the wrong personalities drink it down to a deeper, more dangerous level. Words are exchanged for weapons, disagreements for death.

The older one, Tamerlan, spent his early years in a country torn by war, tit for tat between the Chechens and the Russian Army. Hatred spawns more hatred, violence more violence. And many in that country are energized by a brand of Islam whose slogan is “Global Jihad.”

Maybe he saw the brutality as a boy before emigrating with his parents to Boston. Perhaps that was when the seed of anger was first planted. It could have been nourished secretly, deep within his soul until it grew into hatred.  It must have been pruned during the six months he lived in the Dagestan region of southern Russia in 2012. When he returned to the United States, Tamerlane’s fruit of destructiveness was souring. And last week he cut it open, spewing its poison on the streets of Boston.

Somewhere along the way, Tamerlane apparently infected his younger brother, Dzhokhar, with the disease of hatred.

Seeds of anger, despair, and hostility are everywhere. They exist in all us. When watered, they grow, and when embedded in collective groups, they can drive an ideology, or a religion, or a nation. And that becomes very dangerous to us all.

But we also have seeds of love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. They too grow when watered.

What we feed grows; what we starve dies.

The contempt and animosity that is thrown our way can even be transformed.

It can happen: I’ve got evidence in my backyard to prove it.

“Come to my garden,” I say to my family. They humor me and follow along. When the garden is full of vegetables, my visitors enjoy the beauty.

But no one wants to look into my compost bin. The rotten fruit, vegetables, leaves, and coffee grounds in it stink. But I can smile even at the stench. You see, I know something. The refuse will be transformed into rich compost. Then I will spread the nutritious compost on the ground, nourishing the fruit and vegetables.

The rubbish of life--- the stuff  that happens to you that plants seeds of disgust, alienation, revenge---can be transformed and turned back into something rich and nourishing. The Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hahn has written about this process: “We should not be afraid of the garbage within us if we know how to transform it back into joy, into peace.”

The compost bin doesn’t smell good today; it’s downright putrid. But if I treat properly what today turns my nose, soon, I’ll open the bin, and the odor will be pleasing to me. I will know that something bad has turned into something good.

 

A man who once murdered people in the name of religion turned his trash into compost and later was able to write these beautiful words, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude…Love does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (I Corinthians 13:4-7).

Some people on that awful day in Boston were already turning something terrible into compost when they responded with acts of kindness and mercy, even running toward the danger to help others rather than fleeing in fear.

It can happen.

And it shouldn’t be that surprising when it does. It makes sense. Water the good seeds. They’ll grow. Treat waste properly, and you can turn it into compost.

Let’s just hope it happens to the future Tamerlans and Dzhokhars of this world before seeds of hate bear the fruit of violence. And they are mired in their own filth.

Following the faith example of #42

The evils of racism are expressed in the words we speak and the mores we establish. And both emerge from the illusion of superiority.

Jackie Robinson, as a black American in the 1940s and 1950s, was thrown into the fire of both when he entered major league baseball in 1947, breaking the sport’s color barrier. The movie, “42,” named after Robinson’s jersey number, depicts the dramatic events of that year.

As “42” reminds us, black Americans who had fought for liberty in World War II returned to a United States with separate drinking fountains, restrooms, and hotels. Blacks were banned from playing in major league baseball. They had their own separate black league.

That was the way it was until Branch Rickey, General Manager and President of the Brooklyn Dodgers, decided to integrate the game.

Rickey was motivated by a moral imperative grounded in the tradition of Christian social activism that had long characterized his Methodist denomination. One reason Rickey liked Robinson was that he too was a Methodist: “He’s a Methodist,” Rickey growled to an assistant. “I’m a Methodist; God’s a Methodist.”

It’s not surprising that Rickey appealed to Robinson’s faith in persuading the fiery young athlete to “turn the other cheek,” when insulted because of his skin color. And Rickey warned the baseball talent that he, like Jesus Christ, would have a cross to bear. Rickey was looking for a man “with the guts not to fight back.”

It would take someone of strong faith to endure the afflictions of prejudice, but in so doing, that person would pave the way for a new wave of players who weren’t white.

Jackie Robinson was that person.

The battle would be brutal; the attacks against him ugly. Many of his teammates signed a petition demanding Robinson not be allowed to play on the Dodgers ball team, and there are scenes in the movie that are difficult to watch, like the one where Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman crawls like a snake out of the dugout, spewing racial slurs at Robinson. Hearing the n-word repeated over and over jars our ears. Sadly, the portrayal of Chapman’s prejudice is not far from the historical record. “Nigger, nigger, nigger,” Chapman repeatedly taunted Robinson.  And that was the nicest thing he said to Robinson as he stepped into the batter’s box.

It was his Christian faith that enabled Robinson to stand his ground while not retaliating. That faith was not something he acquired in 1947. As an All-American football star at UCLA, Robinson refused to sleep in on Sunday after the exhausting Saturday game. He made time for church.

Indeed, Robinson is said to have spent every night of that memorable 1947 season on his knees in prayer.

It was his faith that kept his emotions in check so he could continue to play the game. Robinson did fight back; it was just not with his fists, it was with his performance. His play on the field helped the Dodgers to the World Series and earned Robinson the Rookie of the Year award.

But Robinson’s strength of character would result in much more than sports honors. Negro League baseball star and former Robinson teammate, Buck O’ Neil, has said the civil rights movement began in 1947 when Robinson crossed the color line in baseball. Indeed, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said of Robinson: “He was a sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom rider before freedom rides.”

Robinson’s stalwart faith not only empowered him in confronting the system of racism, it guided him in doing the right thing at the right time.

The issues we face today are different than they were when Robinson first stepped onto the field on April 15, 1947 or when Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus on December 1, 1955. But racial discrimination still exists. And prejudice is a reality.

As Americans engage in a debate about immigration reform and the rights of undocumented citizens, we would do well to look to the example of Jackie Robinson.

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And coupling faith with courage, simply do the right thing.

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Suicide, is it really painless?

I couldn’t shake the somberness that clung to me like lint on a suit of clothes. The grief I felt in the eyes of the family followed me out the door of the funeral home and into my car. A wintry mix of snow and rain added to the dreariness of the moment, and the rhythmic swish and swash of my windshield wipers sounded like a death knell, projecting with every beat of its dirge the photographs I had just seen of the deceased in happy times , nagging me with one question: Why?

It was not a good death for this family; it was a suicide. And it left a wake of questions and misery that will likely leave ripples of doubt and pain for a long time.

No family is immune to the possibility of this particular tragedy. Just ask Rick Warren, the pastor of one of America’s largest churches and author of a best- selling book on how to live a purpose driven life. Warren’s 27-year-old-son, Matthew, committed suicide last week. Matthew had suffered a life long battle with mental illness.

Warren wrote in an e-mail to his staff that “only those closest knew that he (Matthew) struggled from birth with mental illness, dark holes of depression, and even suicidal thoughts. In spite of America's best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided.”

Those of us who haven’t experienced that torture may have trouble understanding its gravity.  But it’s just as traumatic and tormenting as physical affliction.

Pastor Warren recalled something his son had said. "I'll never forget how, many years ago, after another approach had failed to give relief, Matthew said 'Dad, I know I'm going to heaven. Why can't I just die and end this pain?'”

Psychiatrist and ethicist Willard Gaylin calls this dilemma “the tyranny of survival.” He says, “One can simply get to a point where the pain and grief of life is in excess of the joy and pride.”

As the words of M*A*S*H*’s theme song expressed it: “Through early morning fog I see/visions of the things to be/the pains that are withheld for me/I realize and I can see/ that suicide is painless…”

But is it?

Certainly not for those left behind.

If someone you love has committed suicide, I hope and pray  you can find some comfort in  Scriptures like Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” And you are most fortunate if you have someone to hold your hand and heart through the hurt.

If you are contemplating taking your life, remember that your life is not a private matter that concerns only yourself. You are a sacred gift of God’s creation, even though the mental anguish you are experiencing may smear the clarity of that truth. You can uniquely contribute to the life of others. So taking your own life is to steal something very valuable from them.

And remember, you are never beyond hope, even though despair may be the only future you can see right now. Suicide, it has been said, is not a temporary solution to a permanent problem, but a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Cling to what may seem like the thinnest shred of hope.

I read where 10% of the suicides in San Francisco occur as people jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. The side of the bridge from which they jump is significant.  Almost every one of them jumped off looking at the city rather than the ocean.

Why?

No can know, but it makes you wonder: Was their final gaze at the city their one last longing for hope?

Climb down from the bridge and embrace The Everlasting Hope who shines in the darkest of moments, bringing hope to what may appear to be the most desperate of situations.

And give life a chance.

I’m not teasin’; I’m a vegan (Kinda, sorta…sometimes)

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” That was my wife’s response when I told her I was going on a vegan diet plan, which is a vegetarian diet that excludes meat, dairy products, and eggs.

My son, Dave, was more blunt: “You might as well turn in your man card, Dad.

It happened like this. One of my friends, who is an avid runner, mentioned that she has trouble getting adequate protein in her diet. “I’ve never had trouble eating animals that are raised and killed for food,” I commented.

It’s true. Meat was a daily menu item when I was growing up. On some rare occasion when my mom didn’t serve meat, Dad would frown and grumble, “I’ve got to have meat.” And Mom would put something together.

My attitude towards food has been close to that of Parks and Recreation TV character, Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman).  When he was brought a dinner salad, Swanson informed the waitress: “There's been a mistake. You've accidentally given me the food that my food eats.”

But I thought about what I had said to my friend. Why did I have no trouble eating animals? What if I were invited to dine at someone’s home, and they brought out the main entrée, let’s say, grilled Schnauzer. How would I respond? Dogs are definitely in the animal family, after all. Why did I not feel the same about cows, pigs, and chickens?

And it is true that it takes much more energy to produce animal food than plants. Cattle consume 16 times as much grain as they produce as meat. And according to one study, livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. That’s more than cars, planes and all other forms of transportation combined.

Many vegetarians and vegans are also concerned about how animals are treated. A cartoon in The New Yorker has a waiter presenting the entrée to a couple in an upscale restaurant. They are looking sheepishly at the server who says: “Two steaks, cruelly raised and brutally slaughtered. Enjoy.”

So I took the leap. I ordered my Vegan Starter Kit from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Armed with a handful of recipes I got from online sources, I sprang into my new culinary adventure.

Even though I wasn’t overweight, I dropped 8 pounds the first week. After several weeks on the plan, I was actually getting accustomed to the vegan lifestyle.

Then Dave came home for his birthday. Each child in our family chooses what they want for their birthday meal. Dave always chooses steak.

As I was cooking the steaks, fully intending to eat seared tofu myself, the aroma of grilled meat wafted into my nose and made its way into my meat eating programmed brain.

And something strange happened. It was as if I were momentarily semi-conscious, like a monk in a meditative state of bliss. In that condition I recalled something one of my friends had shared with me about the dangers of a vegetarian diet.

Her grandson had been a vegetarian, she told me. It seems he was getting up in his sleep, going to the refrigerator, and devouring meat without even knowing it. His wife caught him. One night he even got in his pick up, drove to the grocery store in his sleep and awoke to find himself standing in the store’s meat section, ogling the beef.

Was it happening to me?

The smoke from the steaks, like sweet smelling incense, mesmerized me, drawing me in, fogging my otherwise rational mind. I tried to walk away, but it was too late:  I was GUI--- grilling under the influence.

I caved.

My steak was delicious, grilled medium rare to perfection. 

I tried to soothe my conscious: My lapse from vegan grace wasn’t so bad, I told myself. After all, St. Francis of Assisi, known as the patron saint of animals, didn’t refuse meat when it was offered to him. And even the Dali Lama isn’t a strict vegetarian.

Tofu can be terrific; tempeh can taste tremendous. But ribeyes they aren’t.

“So what happened to you?” my daughter, Madi, asked me as I leaned back from the table, working my toothpick. “Kinda went off the vegan plan, didn’t you?”

“I’m still a vegan,” I said with confidence.

“Between meals.” 

Torn between two popes

Some predicted the meeting between newly elected Pope Francis I and his predecessor, Benedict XVI, would be awkward. After all, the Roman Catholic Church hasn't had a pope resign in 600 years. What would the two men say to each other? Would Benedict tell Pope Francis what he should and shouldn't be doing? Would the former pope be looking over the new pope’s shoulder? And would the new pope feel threatened, even resentful?

Would people find themselves torn between two popes?

Even if like me, you’re not Roman Catholic, the story is still intriguing because it’s carries a lesson in leadership that can apply to everyone, religious and non-religious.

Before the meeting, Swiss theologian and friend as well as critic of Benedict said, “Benedict XVI could turn into a shadow pope who has stepped down but can still exert indirect influence.”

The meeting would indicate if that would be a likely possibility.

I can’t help but love Pope Francis. His simple style is fresh, humble, and so uncommonly common. When the cardinals first congratulated him in the Sistine Chapel as newly elected Pope Francis, he stood with them rather than sitting before them. Then on the way back to the Vatican, he rode the bus with the cardinals rather than riding in his designated limousine. And the day after his election, he asked to be taken back to the clergy boarding house so he could pay his bill. He prefers simpler cassocks and even rejected those red papal shoes in favor of his plain black ones.

My favorite Pope Francis story thus far is how he personally called back to Buenos Aires, Argentina to cancel the delivery of his newspaper. The kiosk owner’s son answered the phone and thought someone was pulling a prank on him.

“Seriously, it’s Jorge Bergoglio, I’m calling you from Rome,” the Pope insisted.

“I was in shock, I broke down in tears and didn't know what to say,” Daniel Del Regno told the Argentinean daily La Nacion. “He thanked me for delivering the paper all this time and sent best wishes to my family.”

So, what did Pope Francis and Benedict talk about when they actually did meet last Saturday, March 23? No one knows for sure. Some have speculated that they might have discussed the investigation of the leaks into the papal documents, the rise of secularism in the world, and the drop of priestly vocations in Europe.

Perhaps they talked about how difficult it is to be pope. Can you imagine that?

So, maybe Benedict handed Pope Francis three envelopes.

Do you know the story?

A pastor arrives at his new church. His first day in his office, he opens his desk drawer and sees a note from the former pastor. The note says, ‘”If things get tough, open these three envelopes.” The envelopes were numbered one, two, and three.

Sure enough, within a few months the people began to grumble, so the pastor decides to open envelope number one. It said, “Blame your predecessor.”

The pastor did, and it worked well for about nine months. But once again the people began to complain.

The pastor decided to open envelope number two. It advised, “Reorganize.”

The pastor reorganized the church’s entire program. And that worked for about a year.

Then the people began murmuring again, this time worse than ever. The pastor feared for his job.

In desperation, he decided he had to open envelope number three.

With trembling fingers he pulled the note from the envelope.

It simply read, “Prepare three envelopes.”

I don’t know that Pope Francis will need three envelopes, but he no doubt faces a daunting task. And like any leader, he needs the support of others.

It appears Pope Francis has that from a very gracious Benedict. And Pope Francis seems secure in who he is. When they met in the chapel, Benedict offered Francis the main kneeler, but Francis refused, saying, “We are brothers.”

The Roman Catholic Church won’t be torn between two popes.

Something more than history takes place when words of unity are spoken. “We are brothers.” “We are sisters.”  “We are one.”

And that’s not a bad spirit for Christians of all persuasions to acquire on their journey to Calvary this Holy Week as they anticipate the celebration of their one Lord’s resurrection Easter Sunday.

And you don’t have to be pope to say it.

Did God create the God particle?

The smoke had barely settled from the conclave of cardinal’s announcement that Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio had been elected as Pope Francis, when the scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland, made their own announcement: the so-called “God particle” does indeed exist.

“Look quick,” my wife told me, directing me to the evening news. “ They've discovered the ‘God particle.’”

I was curious: Was it A God Particle? Or The God Particle? Or God in a Particle? Or just God’s Particle?

And since it carries God’s name, doesn’t that imply he created it? Or rather does it mean it replaces the necessity of God?

The “God particle” is actually the particle that literally gives substance to our universe. Called the Higgs boson, it is what makes stuff have “mass,” and it therefore permeates the universe. For the past 50 years scientists have predicted this particle and just last week physicists at the Large Hadron Collider, which lies beneath the ground between the borders of France and Switzerland, have after years of testing made the discovery. The Higgs boson does exist.

The “God particle” is also believed to be the “force” that resulted in the so-called, “Big Bang,” which many believe resulted in the universe.

The term “God particle” has nothing to do with God, really, except for the fact that like it, God is everywhere but mysteriously hidden. Noble Prize winning physicist Leon Lederman’s editor suggested the phrase for Lederman’s book on the subject.

The research leading to and the discovery of the Higgs boson will likely have positive results, just as quantum physics led to the discovery of other inventions, like MRI’s and PET scans.

But will the discovery lead us to or away from an affirmation in God’s existence?

It can do both, depending on what you believe or don’t believe.

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Those who think the confirmation of the Higgs boson renders God irrelevant, or that it proves science has once and forever blown any possibility of  holy smoke into the winds, are likely to be disappointed, unless they already disbelieved God.  

Getting closer to the supposed moment of creation doesn't necessarily disprove God’s existence.

But neither does it prove it.

Yet the question remains, where did that particle come from?

Perhaps it is as astronomer Robert Jastrow described it: “For the scientist who has lived by faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

But maybe those theologians should welcome the arrival of the scientists as both scientists and theologians continue their search for further confirmations of truth.

The Higgs boson may give us a better understanding of the origin of the universe, and in doing so provoke questions about who or what or if anything was behind its creation, or if it was created at all.

Most believers maintain that God has chosen to reveal himself not only in nature but in other ways as well, in revelations usually referred to as Holy Scripture. But even then, this God doesn’t fit conveniently into formulas, either scientific or theological. Indeed, he is elusive, even though by faith believers affirm he is always there.

Is it possible to find God? “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart,” God told the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah.

And according to the Christian Scriptures, the resurrected Jesus told the women who were the first to see his post resurrected body, to go and tell the others that they should leave for Galilee, where they too would find him.

That would be on the far side of Easter, there with the One who existed before Higgs bosen was.

Or had yet to explode into a universe.

Or had a name.

Except in the mysterious mind of the One who is…

And who was…

And is to come.