Being Presidential, [Politics]

Staying true to his nature, Donald Trump recently made the comment that Hillary Rodham Clinton didn’t look Presidential. It may have been intended as an insult but I think that he also has acknowledged with his comment that being Presidential is important. Being Presidential involves something much deeper than appearance. Being the role model and representative for our nation requires substance, strength of character, intellect and the ability to make decisions that will benefit not just citizens but all humanity, as well as the core values of our nation.

In some ways this election makes me think of the movie “Being There” Peter Sellers played the character of Chauncey “Chance” Gardner. It is another of my favorite movies. Chance ends up on the streets and through chance ends up in a powerful position. There’s no delicate way to say this; Chance was a simple man. His intellect was not deep. He was illiterate. He was exactly what he presented to the world. It was the desire of others that made him so much more in their eyes. They reinterpreted and redefined what he was. Ultimately though he was what he was. Chance the gardener. At the end of the movie there was talk about running him for President. If you haven’t seen the movie give it a try. It’s a great movie.

When Donald Trump claimed that he would end up with 95% of the black vote Mike Pence, his running mate, said while laughing, “Well, that's Donald Trump." when told of the comment.  And yet he’s polling in the single digits with black voters. I believe that sums up the character of the man quite succinctly. Life imitating art.

I want to give just a couple of quick examples to illustrate the point that I’m getting at.

He’s a draft avoider yet he denigrated POWs and belittled Gold Star parents. “Well, that's Donald Trump."

He’s insulting and abusive to _____________ (Fill in the blank). “Well, that's Donald Trump."

He brags that he’s a multi-billionaire that says he gives millions to charity but won’t release his tax returns. “Well, that's Donald Trump."

In the primary campaign he claimed he had a large penis because he had large hands. “Well, that's Donald Trump."

He has a perfect memory except when he’s giving a deposition for court and can’t remember yet he made fun of a disabled reporter for not remembering. “Well, that's Donald Trump."

He has ownership of his history. He is what he is and is any of that Presidential? Think of him as a role model and leader of the free world continuing to do the same things as President. Remember, he has said that he isn’t going to change. To change would mean that he wouldn’t be Donald Trump and he loves Donald Trump.

Our nation can’t afford several bankruptcies. We had a hard time surviving the economic collapse that we just went through.

We’d have a President who likes other men seeing his wife Melania naked. (I don’t want to give the impression that I think there’s anything wrong with Melania having posed for nude photos. The human form is beautiful in all its manifestations. What I object to is Trump’s lasciviousness and the gratification he apparently gets from having other men envy him and covet his wife. I also believe he and his followers would be as outraged by nude photos of First Lady Michelle Obama showing up as they are proud of Melania’s.) That’s where we are and “Well, that's Donald Trump.".

I think that Donald Trump believes the things that he says even when there isn’t the remotest chance that they are true and no matter how outlandish. Even if he later contradicts himself, or if what he says now contradicts something he said earlier. If he said it then it is true and there’s no backing down. He lives in the moment.

Trump’s history, actions and utter lack of qualifications are not what those that vote for him care to see. I don’t believe that it’s because he’s anti-establishment either. That’s what people used to say about hippies but they didn’t support one for President. Trump hob-knobbed with the Washington elite and brags about buying politicians. He is tied in with the bankers that crashed the country. That doesn’t make a person an outsider. That makes a person one of the ultimate insiders, buying favors. Electing him President would put the fox firmly in the hen house.

Whether anyone likes it or not Donald Trump has become the “Great White Hope” of the political world. His followers are predominantly white. His national following among minorities is miniscule. Those are his demographics. How many of his followers are white supremacists? How many are homophobic? How many are misogynists? How many are immigrants? How many are Christian or any other religion?  Again, I don’t know. Half? 35%? We do know that he has their support.

They, his supporters, either identify with his vulgarity or simply pass it off as him being Donald Trump. They view him through rose-colored glasses and see him as a man that speaks to their fears. He can part the ocean, turn the tide. They seem to believe that he has to have depth but we just can’t see it. He might be a bully but he seems to be willing to bully the ones that they fear.

Trump said “I would bomb the shit out of ‘em (ISIS) and his followers cheered.  The fact that our nation and others are already bombing “the shit out of ‘em” and have reduced entire cities to rubble is immaterial. He said it and, “Well, that's Donald Trump." Their guy said it. Trump was born to privilege and luxury the average white person can’t identify with but nevertheless would find desirable.  What he says is what they identify with. The fact that his wife has some nude woman on woman pictures in her past is really just icing on the cake for some of the guys.

So here in the real world we have a for real live Chauncey Gardner only he happens to be a billionaire, he has millions of followers and is positioned to be the next President of the United States. It isn’t a laughing matter. 

Taking Dad Home [Life Story]

My Dad was always a home town boy and all his life went back to the little town of Liberal, Missouri on a regular basis. He seemed to know everyone in town. He left from there to serve his country during WWII. He started his married life from there. Most of his family was still in the area. I had grown up used to making weekend trips to see both sets of grandparents, thinking even then how lucky I was to have all of them in the same home town along with a few aunts, uncles and cousins as well. 

I carry a lot of memories about Liberal.

When I was a young boy Dad and Granddad would take me for a walk. Granddad on one side smoking his pipe, Dad on the other with me a tow-headed boy in between holding their callused hands. All I needed was a slingshot stuck in my pocket and we would have made a Norman Rockwell painting.

In reality I was just cover, an excuse to leave the house so that they could go to the pool hall over on Main Street. For me it was a wonderland. I would stand by the pool table staring up at those big schooners of golden liquid. Sometimes I would even be given a sip! At times I would go and watch Granddad and the other older men play dominoes or checkers. These were serious games and played fast from years of experience and perfection.

Now, what kind of dad takes a boy that young to a pool hall? What kind of business lets a youngster of tender age come inside? Well, I was Homer’s boy and it was a different place and time. He was also the kind of dad and man that would find Jesus in later years and give his son the opportunity to find him as well. (But that’s another story.) He taught respect and life’s lessons by example and showed that life is what you make of it.

One of our trips in our adult years was to attend the funeral of Mom’s mother. After the funeral Dad rode back home with me. I have forgotten the reason there were just the two of us. He started telling me a story about Liberal.

He told me that the last few times that he went to Liberal there was a young boy in white overalls following him around.  He saw the boy at all his old favorite places to play.  He said that the boy would hide behind trees, jump fences, etc.

I noticed that he seemed to be deep in thought while he was telling me about the boy.  I told him that it wasn’t too surprising for him to be seeing a boy doing the same kinds of things that he did because Liberal is a pretty small town and that he shouldn’t worry about the boy following him around.

Dad was quiet for a long time before he said, “You don’t understand, Son.  That boy I’m seeing is me.”

I didn’t think yet that he was being literal but just to make sure I queried, “You mean he looks like you?”

“No, son. I mean the boy is me.”

We just kind of let that hang there.  Dad was absolutely not given to say things like that.

The next thing he said to me I will always remember.  He said, “Son, if something happens to me I want to be buried in Liberal.  I don’t care what you have to do to get me there.  Drive me down sitting in the seat beside you if you have to but get me to Liberal.”

I told him I would.  The call to return home can be powerful.

Two weeks after getting back home I received one of those calls in the morning at work that you never want to get. The foreman came out on the shop floor to the machine that I was working on and told me that my dad had been taken to the hospital. He had had another heart attack. That was all the information that he had.

Afterwards I learned that his attack occurred at the little self-service laundry that he and Mom owned.  He had been working on one of the washing machines, stopped, took a nitro pill and hopped up on one of the folding tables and sat there swinging his legs.  I had seen him do that a hundred times when his heart would bother him. Only this time he just laid over.

He had had a couple of heart attacks and finally couldn’t go back to work.  My folks bought the laundry to keep him from driving the rest of us crazy.  He had worked hard all of his life and just sitting around was just not in his game plan.

I don’t even remember running to the parking lot, jumping into the car and taking off. The first thing I remember is that I was heading for the hospital as fast as the car would go. The road into town had a section where it abruptly dropped to a lower level. When I hit that section I went airborne. All wheels off the ground.

Time seemed to stand still and to this days words are inadequate to explain what took place. It was like a wind blew through every fiber of my being. It was like I was seeing a star-filled night sky and being pulled into it but not. It was a powerful communication. It’s hard to describe. There were no words spoken but rather they were understood. I was told that Dad was gone and to slow down. There was a glimpse of vastness and a kind of light beyond my comprehension around that voice. It was a calm presence.

Then the wheels touched down and I was back to a very fast reality. The rest of my trip to the hospital was at a more sedate speed. I arrived at the hospital and was taken right to a small waiting room. Most of my family was already there.

Mom looked at me and said, “Your Dad is gone.”  I replied, “I know, Mom.”  The chaplain said, “Now we don’t know that yet; they’re still working on him.”  The chaplain left and came back after a while with the official news that Dad didn’t make it. They gave us some time with him before we left.

We were home that afternoon and Mom was trying to figure out what to do.  I discovered that even with Dad having serious heart problems for such a long time they had never talked about final arrangements.  I said, “We’ll bury him in Liberal,” and told her of my conversation with Dad a couple of weeks prior.

So, just as he wanted, we took Dad home to his beloved town and laid him to rest surrounded by his history, secure in the faith of a life well lived. 

My Tipi Sabbatical [Life story]

Back during the summer of 2012 I had been caring full-time for my father-in-law, Paul, for almost 10 years. I finally reached a point where I had come up against a wall and desperately needed a respite. Paul came to live with us in 2003. He had Parkinson’s disease and it was no longer safe for him to live on his own. The level of care he needed was continually escalating. Shelley, my wife, agreed with me that I needed a break and my brother Kim would help her care for him while I took off for a few days. My plan was to pray and meditate at my cousin’s place at Table Rock Lake, not far from Shell Knob, Missouri.

Ready to leave, I had my suitcase completely packed. When I went back to get it to load it into the car I forgot that I hadn’t zipped it up yet. I picked it up and dumped everything on the floor. Not an auspicious start. Then on my way out of town I decided to gas up. Try as hard as I could the access door to the gas cap wouldn’t open, no matter how many times I pushed the release button on the dash. Just as I was thinking that I was going to have to take a chance on breaking the switch or physically pry open the door to the gas cap I realized that the trunk was wide open! The switch to open the trunk was right next to the switch that opened the door to the gas cap.

My cousins have a place right at the edge of the lake. On their property they have a for real full-scale, traditional tipi. This is where I planned to sweat, meditate and pray. There was a drought that summer so in addition to taking care of some prayer requests I also intended to pray for rain. My main prayer, though, was to have the strength, patience and ability to continue taking care of Paul. We all knew what his prognosis was too well. He was going to get worse. A lot worse.

The first time I went to the tipi my cousin LeAnn had some trepidation. Mainly she didn’t want to send me home…you know…dead from heat stroke. I could see the front porch of their house through the open flap of the tipi. Periodically before I settled into a nice meditative state I would see her coming out to check on me. For some reason when Shelley’s not around people seem to think that I need extra watching.

I finally did hit a transcendent state. That doesn’t happen for me very often. While I was praying for rain I felt drops falling on my face. It took a bit for it to sink in that it was raining on my face. You might remember that I said I was inside the tipi. I opened my eyes and looked up. Though I wasn’t sitting underneath the vent opening, the rain was swirling down in such a fashion that it came down on my face. I looked outside through the opening and could see rain hitting the ground. It was so dry that the raindrops made little puff clouds of dust as they hit the ground. It only rained for about 30 seconds. I kind of wished that I had prayed for a specific amount of rain.

Unsure of what to do next, I decided to pray some more even though I had been sweating in there for over an hour already. So, I closed my eyes again and prayed about what I should do next. A few minutes into prayer I again felt something on my face. I opened my eyes and discovered that I was covered with granddaddy long legs spiders. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor with my back against a seat. The seat was covered as well. Nothing else. Now normally I would have been freaked out by this but as it was I was utterly calm. It was time to leave.

I went into the tipi other times but I never reached that wonderful state of calm and acceptance again, though I did sweat a lot. That isn’t a bad thing if one of your goals is to do that very thing. People pay good money to go places to sweat and I was doing it for free and having a pretty good time to boot on the hot summer day that the Lord provided.

All good things have their time and at last I had to return home after being well cared for by all my cousins. On the way home I was having major trouble staying awake. Probably all the carb loading that I had done during my stay was making me drowsy. When I say drowsy I mean slap yourself in the face to keep from nodding off while you’re driving drowsy. Not good.

I pulled over at a rest stop not far from Parsons, Kansas. I thought that if perhaps I could just get 20 minutes of nap I could make it on home to Park City, just north of Wichita, KS. Unfortunately I was low on gas and couldn’t leave the car running with the a/c on. I tried resting on a bench underneath some shade trees at the rest stop but it was just too hot. My only option was to get on down the road. I figured that I could make it to Fredonia, only another half-hour away and where I planned on gassing up.

I pulled over again to the side of the road as I was leaving the rest stop and prayed, “Lord, I’m in trouble here and I can’t stay awake. I need your help to safely make it home.”

With more face slapping I made it to the gas station outside of Fredonia. While I was gassing up I was absorbed with my thoughts of what do I do next because I really needed to make it back that day. People were counting on my return to take care of Paul. Shelley had to go back to work and Kim was taking care of our mother at the family home as well as helping Shelley, so he was carrying a heavy load.

The next thing I knew someone was tapping me on the shoulder and talking. I turned and there was this face just inches away from mine and he was jabbering. All that I could really make out is that he was calling me “Boss” every few words. He was standing way inside my physical comfort zone. I asked him to step back and let me finish gassing up, then we would talk.

After I finished I sized him up. He was a young, long-haired guy dressed up in something that looked very much like a toga. Back in the day he would have been called a hippie. (I was one for a while.) He was driving an old beat-up van and wanted to know if he could trade some jewelry that his wife had made for some gas. His story was that they were musicians and headed to a church in Wichita where his wife’s dad was a pastor. I told him that while I didn’t need any jewelry, I would give them enough gas to get to Wichita. He thanked me profusely.

After taking care of them at the gas pump I went inside and picked up some munchies for the rest of the trip home. I couldn’t get the whole incident out of my mind. It was just so unusual. I was just outside of Augusta and about half an hour from home, when it dawned on me that I hadn’t been drowsy even once since my stop. One of my many prayers had already been answered, just not in a way that I expected.

I made it back to Shelley and Paul feeling renewed. And we did make it all the way with him on his life’s journey. There were more tough times but we knew that God was with us every step of the way.

Word grenades [Culture]

Grenades are a throw and duck weapon. They are indiscriminant. They can cause injuries from minor to lethal. A person can't throw a grenade far enough to escape the harm-causing zone. That’s why a grenade is thrown from behind cover when possible. 

The definition for word grenades would be much the name. There are major differences of course. The injuries are not physical, though there are those who have been bullied to commit suicide or incited to commit harm.

The internet has provided for an explosion in communication and the distribution of ideas and information. Unfortunately an incredible amount of damage can be done as well. People’s lives are being destroyed by social media on a regular basis. False or misleading information is produced and distributed in prodigious amounts through social media like facebook and web sites. Throw into this mix malicious web sites trying to extract information, damage software or compromise people’s computers for nefarious purposes. And there are also the digital vandals that screw things up just because they can; driven by the same behavior that has some people spray painting on walls.

It would have been nice if social media could have become a place to exchange views freely without all the name calling and vulgarity. With each passing day social media becomes more toxic, polluted and divisive. It’s like people are being driven into digital enclaves where they can freely associate with their own kind simply by unfollowing or unfriending those with differing views. Social media quite often assumes a lynch mob mentality where word grenades are freely tossed.

Facebook may be social but it isn't always a friendly place and it gets less friendly with each passing day. An awful lot of the time it’s just plain hostile. I have noticed that people, including myself, will say things or post hurtful things on fb that they would never dream of saying or doing in most physical world associations. It's like we feel that we're anonymous on fb yet posting as ourselves. Sitting by ourselves in front of our computers or using our various devices to communicate emboldens us. We produce or pass along content and suddenly hundreds, thousands or more see it. Go viral and we’ve hit the Bigs!

There seems to be a lot less inclination to be civil or circumspect with our words. It’s easier to be witty or witless depending upon one’s perspective. I miss open civil discourse where there can be passionate disagreement without the descent into personal pejorative-laden argument where any insights can be quickly lost. We lose the possibility of some new consideration being brought to the table in the kinds of exchanges that pass for communication in the word bite- and meme-driven world of the internet.

There doesn’t appear to be anything too personal and nothing so sacred that it can’t be posted or attacked in hateful terms. From mocking people’s appearance to their beliefs; from the trivial to the sacred is fair game. Family stuff that used to only be shared in private is now aired publically. Facebook is very public regardless of what so-called privacy settings are used. I have under-developed thought filters. I overshare. I think I was born this way. I’m trying to cut back. I’ll fail.

Disagree with someone or a particular post and “you” are not just stupid you’re a special kind of stupid. Meaning that you’re a special kind of stupid in a generic non-threatening kind of non-personal way in a post sent out to all of your “friends”. Except they really do mean you.

We friend people without considering if their social operating system may be vastly different than our own. In the real world we tend to hang with those that we’re compatible with. Social media is a whole different animal yet we post as if we’re sharing with kindred spirits (but not really). We post regardless of hurting feelings or stepping on toes.

We should skip hurling pejoratives at those with opposing views. We have the ability to take our criticisms, conversations, postings, etc. to a higher level. Yes, the shrill from the right and the left have every right to express their views however they see fit. They will continue their spew 24/7. We have the right and obligation as citizens not to pander to the lowest common denominator. We have the right to not be their audience and to deny them a broader audience by not passing along their hate as if it were our own.

It isn't just the parties of the extremes that have been compromised. It is the heart of the United States of America as well. (I used the whole name because of the "United" part.)

Fear should not be our guide to a better future. Fear will not lead us to a better place. We do need to acknowledge it and question if it’s real and then deal with it with all the courage we can muster.

We need to reach a place where we are at least the united United States when it comes to taking care of the best interests of humanity. A nation where people's hands aren't tied behind their backs with paperwork and with political theater preventing them from doing what is right. A nation where love and compassion are shown to those least able to take care of themselves. A nation that ministers to the poor; puts them first at the table. A nation that cares for children today while planning their better future without one excluding the other.