One of these things is pretty much like the other

This morning on the way to the LA Central Library (which I highly recommend), I heard on the radio about Scientology leader David Miscavige naming Tom Cruise the “chosen one” of the religion.* While drinking coffee before the library opened, I had a conversation with a likeable man named Dash, who told me that when he was 3 years old his parents took him to see L. Ron Hubbard personally,** who declared that Dash would one day be the head of his own religion.***

*I don’t know if this is remotely accurate.
** I have no reason to doubt this.
*** This may already be true.

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Van Haggard

I saw a clip of Eddie Van Halen the other day, and I thought, man, Eddie makes Keith Richards look like Kathy Lee Gifford.

The Coachella headliners are, once again, 1995’s hot ticket item. I went to see U2 with a friend in 92 or 93 (whatever that tour was before it blossomed into ZOOTV), and Public Enemy and the Sugarcubes were opening. Being late to that show (on the 110 in an overheated GTO – hey, same guy as the beached Datsun!) is number four of my missed live music regrets, right after not going with a friend to see Smashing Pumpkins in a Hamburg club in 1991. I think I thought I’d get another chance to do that.

And, as it turns out, maybe I will. Sort of.

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Appetite for Construction

Ken used this great quote from G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy this morning:

It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again,” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again,” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

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Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution

MLK’s sermon at the National Cathedral came up yesterday in class, as we discussed the sermons of anti-apartheid pastor Peter Storey. Storey says, “sometimes we let our institutions do our sinning for us.” Here are a few exerpts from King, or read the whole thing, where he stands in our national pulpit and takes on America’s institutional complicity in poverty, racism, and an unjust war in Vietnam.

On those who say change will come with time: “Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”

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The Future is Now

I just figured out that I was posting from the future (the two posts below this one were originally dated tomorrow). All this time I should have been noting the weather, or put in something from the Business section.

It occurred to me this week that if every valley will be exalted and every mountain will be made low, then perhaps the day of the Lord will look a lot like West Texas.

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Let’s Think of Something to Do while We’re Waiting

My wife showed me a clip of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” she’d watched with the young’un about what people call their grandparents. First, he played a recording on a tape recorder (which is not magic, and Mister Rogers did not go into and talk out of, but somebody invented) of grandparents telling what their grandchildren call them. The tape played, “Our grandchildren call me Pap Pap, and their grandmother Grandma,” and Mister Rogers gently smiled at us and said, “Pap Pap and Grandma.” Then we heard, and he repeated, several others.

He continued, “Have you ever asked your friends what they call their grandparents? It’s fun to hear all the different names children have for grandparents. I called my dad’s mother and father Grandmother Rogers and Granddad Rogers.” Then, with his same sweet and steady sincerity, “And I called my mother’s mother and father Nana and Ding Dong.”

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MLK

If you didn’t already take time to hear the Reverend Dr. King speak, it’s always a good day to do it. If you’re not a TV watcher, Larry James posted the text of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” on his blog.

When I’ve tried to illustrate what difference the biblical vision makes for how we are Christians in the world, I play the closing section of this speech and compare it to John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Both dreamers, but when it comes down to it, Lennon’s vision depends on you and me getting the job done. We’re not the only ones, and God bless John Lennon, but it still isn’t enough. King reminds us that, front or back of the bus, every hill will be laid low and every valley is being exalted. We won’t get anywhere if the roads we’re building don’t match the shifting landscape. And in his dream, those hills and valleys aren’t just metaphorical – they are the topography of America, a place where the Kingdom of God could do a lot of beautiful damage.

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I’m it.

Something about this feels like everything that is wrong with the web. However, since Tyler invoked the sacred rules of netiquette, I feel obliged to respond to my tag. Five things one of you might not know about me (fungus-free edition):

1. The first LP I asked for and owned was Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits Vol II (I had to look it up, but that album cover stares back at me like a family photo). I begged for it, and was thrilled to get it for Christmas. I was embarrassed later though, “because Barry Manilow isn’t cool” (as my brother offhandedly finished this sentence). Also, my cousin, who later introduced me to Elvis Costello, John Hiatt, the Talking Heads and the Smiths, was visibly amused by my enthusiasm. The first cassette I ever bought (prior to the Manilow album) was Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler. But in his final words, I found an ace that I could keep.

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God in the Corridor

As long as we’re talking about TV, here’s Bono being interviewed with the Edge by Dave Stewart for that HBO thing a few months ago.

DS: [When you are writing], are you channeling words?

Bono: You’ve been in California too long, Dave.

We’re just trying to get to the right channel. I think that’s what it is.

And we’ve all heard singers and musicians go, you know, “I’m just a force for God, and God uses me,” and I’m just thinking, “Could God have written all these crap songs?”

And yet, you know, of course, anything that you. . . where you bump into something that’s bigger than you, I do believe is a gift from God. And God is the creator, and so creativity comes from there, and all the rest of it. And. . . you’re trying to struggle to get out of yourself, get away. It’s a journey away from self-conciousness. That’s the real thing. And to escape yourself would not be getting out of it, but getting into it. . . .

. . . And if you bump up against God in the corridor, nice one.

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Graced In the Middle

Little Children writer/director Todd Field was briefly interviewed on Sunday Morning Shootout. He was asked about happy endings, and reflects on Tom Perrotta’s book on which the film is based:

“I don’t believe in happy endings. I think that happy endings are stories that aren’t really over. I do believe in moments of grace.

“The thing that struck me in reading Tom’s book was, he takes you to some very difficult areas in terms of examining these characters as human beings. But he allows them the generosity of a moment of grace. I think that that’s true, that does reflect our condition as human beings.”

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