Pakistan's Dangers

From his pseudo-election in 2000, I have had grave concerns about the foreign policy agenda of The Decider. Although delighted at the choice of Colin Powell as the first African American Secretary of State, I like the rest of the nation became quickly aware that Powell's moderate positions would have little influence on the neo-con world of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld. Responses following the Sept 11th, 2001 attacks merely confirmed my discomfort, and then the war in Iraq exacerbated my concerns.

Fast-forward to 2007. While Bush and Co. exaggerated the potential nuclear threat of Iran at the same time that their own intelligence suspected that Iran's nuclear program was halted in 2003, Newsweek presciently announced that the most dangerous country was Pakistan. In a cover story in October, Newsweek's writers exposed the volatility of a nation that already has nukes. Since October, the danger has intensified, as President Musharraf has done everything including imposing martial law with the United States standing in the wings offering coddling words of support. No, The Decider did not technically support the suspension of the Pakistan constitution, but he did allow Pakistan's Decider to ... well, decide. Today, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. And with her assassination, the volatility escalates.

I am not a foreign policy maven. I understand the intricacies of these matter on the most superficial level. But as a citizen, I certainly wish I could have more confidence in the people who are supposed to be the experts in Washington. My advice to them is that maybe they should read Newsweek. (Or listen to the State Department, as a friend of mine who is a career diplomat has told me to add.)

A Vulnerable God

Christmas Greetings from Leslie D. Callahan.

Of the Christmas lessons, the one from John 1:1-14 shows us Jesus Christ at his most transcendent and most vulnerable. The story begins not with Nazareth and the Annunciation or with Bethlehem and the birth of Christ, but in eternity where Word of God existed in the beginning, making the world that we all occupy. The Word was with God and the Word was God. Without the Word nothing was made. But the Word did not remain remote, over creation and apart from it. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In Jesus Christ, God became concrete.

In becoming so much a part of creation, Christ must have known that his identity could be misunderstood and misappropriated. God in Christ must have known that there would be some who could not receive the divine because of the particularities of the human flesh – his gender, his ethnicity, his age, his marital status, his class, his religious affiliation. Still others would deny that Christ was a real human at all because of the divine nature expressed in him. And yet, knowing that his own would not receive him, and others would never see him, still the Word of God became flesh – touchable, viewable, sensitive, and mortal flesh – and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. God became like one of us.

In this holy season, as we celebrate the arrival of the One whom we did not expect, in a form we almost did not recognize, we who have beheld his glory and received the power to become the children of God must likewise prepare ourselves to take risks and become vulnerable. No, everyone will not receive us. Yes, we too will be misunderstood, our words misappropriated, and our identities rejected. Being accessible and touchable opens us up to the possibility of being injured or even killed. But we are comforted in the knowledge that God through Jesus Christ knows exactly what we feel. Wherever we go in his name, he goes with us and goes before us. Christ has been there first

Holiday Politics

I know I am not the only one who is flabbergasted by the sheer length of the presidential campaign season during this cycle. We have 11 months to go and I am already sick of the debates and the interviews and the policy statements. I was skeptical about the jockeying for primary placement and am weary of the primary season before it even begins.

But one unanticipated consequence of this elongated campaign is the Holiday ads. It wasn't bad enough to have secularization and materialism as challenges to the meaning of Christmas. Now we have to have politicization.

Mike Huckabee's floating cross and invoking of the birth of Christ as a part of his appeal to the craziest aspects of right-wing Christian politics should make any believer sick. Hey, Mike, didn't you know that believers are supposed to be hidden behind the cross, not to have the cross eventually obscured by their big heads? Then, there's the Giuliani ad. Suffice it to say that "fruitcake" is a proper conclusion.

Although I find the Obama ad adorable, the Hillary Rodham Clinton ad amusing, and the John Edwards ad instructive, I still don't want to have to deal with politics on Christmas.

Why can't we just take a break?

Guns Do Kill People 2

The story of the shooting death of Dyshon Boyd, a 4 year old who accidentally shot himself to death with a gun that belonged to his father, is another example of the reality that bullets kill indiscriminately.

Dyshon was his father Djuan's shadow. Although Djuan had trouble with the law, and was scheduled to face charges for dealing drugs, he apparently was a present and active father to his son. Unfortunately, Dyshon wanted to be just like Dad. He found his father's gun in his coat pocket. And a few hours later the 4-year-old died having shot himself in the throat.

Every person who owns a gun must take seriously the reality that the gun is more likely to shoot someone you love than it is to protect them. A Washington Post article in 2006 noted that more than 500 children die annually from accidental gunshot wounds. If you have a gun, make sure that it is inaccessible to children. Lock it up and don't assume that you have hidden it so well that they simply will not know where it is.

Happy 38th Birthday to Me

Bad Advertising

Somebody should tell believers that if they are going to advertise their spiritual connection they should try not to have a bad attitude. I was on the golf course in a Southern state this afternoon. The cart path crossed a street in a subdivision whose house line the golf course. I stopped on the sidewalk and gave the right of way to the driver of a car. In addition to letting her pass, I also smiled. She gave me a nasty look. I watched her car go by. License plate: GOD4ME. I chuckled and thanked the Lord for something to blog about.

When I told the person I was playing golf with, she told me about the time she blew her horn for someone who had a bumper sticker that said, "Honk if you love Jesus." The driver of the car flipped her off. He must have forgotten that he loved Jesus.

These are silly examples of a more serious issue. Whether we have bumper stickers and license plates or not, the way we behave reflects on the organizations and even religions we claim to represent. All of this reminds me to try not to be bad advertising.

Why I Don't Like Mike

I'll admit it. I almost got snookered. He seemed like the only truly nice guy in the Republican mix. I heard myself comparing him to the best human being who ever has been the President Jimmy Carter. It must have been that Southern charm and pastoral demeanor. He even had some nice things to say about Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton as people and as parents, which made him seem fair. So despite my suspicion of Republicans in general and Southern Baptist, evangelical-courting Republicans in particular, I began to like Mike Huckabee. Now I'm not saying that I would have voted for him. I didn't like him that much. But I almost liked him, especially when I compared him with the mean-spirited arrogance of Rudolph Giuliani.

Here's what changed my mind. I didn't flinch initially when I heard that he had supported the parole of convicted rapist Wayne Dumond, who later raped and murdered at least one woman. I figured that Huckabee had made an isolated bad call with tragic results. That is the danger of being in leadership; sometimes your actions have devastating, but unintended consequences. But after I read an article that described the political pandering that was actually behind the Dumond release, I decided that Mike is just as corrupt as all the rest. Although Huckabee avers that he could not have known that Dumond would rape again, especially since he believed that Dumond might erroneously have been convicted because the victim was Bill Clinton's distant cousin, there was ample credible evidence that Dumond had raped before. Huckabee's public support for Dumond's parole was not the well-meaning error of a person who believed in forgiveness, rehabilitation, and the efficacy of castration (Dumond's testicles had been removed before his arrest). It was crass politics - deadly politics.

Then there was his statement about quarantining persons infected with HIV. The biggest problem with this statement is when he made it. Of course, everyone makes mistakes, especially when it comes to deadly, communicable diseases. But by 1992, a person running for the U.S. Senate should have been sufficiently informed about AIDS and how it is contracted to know that quarantining would be unnecessary and cruel. To me this represents either willful ignorance or pandering to other people who are willfully ignorant, and frankly this country should be tired of that after 7 years of George W. Bush.

In sum, Huckabee is the charming version of all the hate-filled, ignorant politics that has sadly come to dominate the GOP. I know that there are Republicans who are thoughtful, compassionate, intelligent, and just. Mike Huckabee just isn't one of them. Sorry, Mike, I'm taking you off my "friends" list.