Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Harper high school part 2
We pick up where we left off last week in our second hour of stories from Harper High School in Chicago. We find out if a shooting in the neighborhood will derail the school's Homecoming game and dance. We hear the origin story of one of Harper's more prominent gangs. And we ask a group of teenage boys: where do you get your guns? http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/488
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
This American life concerning Chicago
We spent five months at Harper High School in Chicago, where last year alone 29 current and recent students were shot. 29. We went to get a sense of what it means to live in the midst of all this gun violence, how teens and adults navigate a world of funerals and Homecoming dances. We found so many incredible and surprising stories, this show is a two-parter; Part One airs this week, Part Two is next week. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/487
Monday, February 18, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Scandal....saints.....and scripture....
Every Thursday night at 10/9
central there is an event that sieges the minds of TV watchers everywhere.
Every Thursday night that jewel of pop culture pervades our consciousness and
gives us a 40 minute escape from reality. That’s right Thursday 10/9 central is
Scandal time. For my friends on the West
coast I advise you to log off of social networking until the tidal wave of
spoilers subsides. Because when scandal
is on we (the collective we) are watching it, and talking about it , and
shocked by it.
Scandal is the latest show by Grey’s
Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes. You remember her, the mind behind Mc Dreamy and
Mc Steamy. Shonda Rhimes who battles
back the maelstrom of misogyny and chauvinism in television, with her own
personal brand of masculine objectification with a bit of feminist theory. In Shonda’s
world you better hold on to your seat because what’s up is definitely down and
down is up. She paints her characters in broad brush
strokes of moral turpitude, that more resemble our lives than the leave it
beaverism that is laser etched in our minds as the ideal family dynamic. Shondas characters are lush with character
flaws; from the idealistic Mc Dreamy who has an affair with his later wife Meredith
Grey to Mark Sloan who is the consummate philanderer who’s tryst are pleas for
family and structure. In Shondas world
nothing is quite as simple as we would like It to be. There is never JUST a boy
meet girl, they get married, 2.5 children later all is well in smurf
village. Sub textually there is always a
high level of complexity both morally and emotionally. We connect with her characters because they
are dysfunctional. They are mirrors to a collective social brokenness that we
experiences as we stubble through the ups and downs of life. Shonda has little to no interest in
maintaining the illusion of the rules just because we have fallen in love with
illusion. Enter her latest cluster bomb
of angst and sociological dysfunction wrapped in winter white and lip quivers
Ms. Oliva Pope.
Olivia Pope is the Managing Partner
of Olivia Pope Associates. She specializes in “fixing” which is a combination
of public relations management and legal slight of hand. Her clients range from congressmen to world
leaders. All darken Ms. Winter White’s
doorstep with a plethora of political and social catastrophes from sex scandals
to babies in boxes. In the tradition of
Rhimes characterization the episode plot only goes to teach greater lessons to
the core characters. Behind the episode plot is a series or season arc that
drives the greater Show narrative. And while as viewers we bite for the
episodes we fall hook line and sinker for the salaciousness of Olivia Pope and
her affair with the married President of the United States Fitzgerald Grant.
Every Thursday with tiptoe anticipation we wait to see if this is the Thursday that
Fitz and Olivia finally becomes each other’s lobster (see Phoebe from Friends
for lobster reference). However, no
matter how hard they try the just can’t seem to get right. It would probably be better for them to live
on opposite coasts because their private parts seem to keep bumping up against
each other. Seems as if Olivia and
Fitzgerald have what we in the church call a soul tie. A sort of longing for
one another that is not quelled by time or distance. I remember in undergrad everybody had a “soul
tie”, aka….having unprotected unmarried sex, I’m from Tuscaloosa, Alabama so we
just call it bumping uglies. And as much
as we try to explain and give rationale to that which is occurring most times
if we were to take our “Soul tie” to meet our mothers and fathers the instant
illusion of sensual seduction would be evaporated and we would have our coyote
ugly moment and try to chew off our arm to get out of sexual relationship that
is doomed to give us unquenchable heartbreak. Such is the case of Olivia Pope,
Fitzgerald and Scandal it can only end poorly. Regardless of how many fairy tales
we read the princess still has to find her own way out of her sociologically
imposed prison of modernity. In the
words of the indomitable Tina Turner, Olivia Pope “Don’t need another hero”. Yet she spins her wheels and drops her draws
at the mention of “Mr. President”. Or is
it that Shonda has flipped our world again and Olivia is really the Dj on the 1’s
and 2’s of the mixtape known as the Grant presidency? For no matter how much he tries it seems that
Olivia knows how to actually get the president to act presidential. Who is really running who? And every Thursday
10/9 central we gathers around our LCD teleporters and travel to Shonda Land
where bright eyed bushy tail black girls and idealistic ivy league white boys
hook up and give us Friday morning water cooler fodder in the name of post
racial popcorn drama. ( hear the sarcasm
in my voice)
More ironic than the plot itself is
the viewership. Scandal is overwhelming
viewed by African Americans 25-45 who attend some form of religious gathering
at least once a week. The black church
has traditionally been socially liberal but sexually conservative which begs
the question, why Scandal? Every Sunday we
are plunged beneath the mono myth that morally upright individuals may be able
to overcome overwhelming evil by virtue of their character. And we are wound up into an emotional frenzy
that usurps the power of object of the anthropological experience to trust in
the power of God to fix whatever we are in, as my granny use to say the “wont
he will”. The” wont he will” is a
magical emotional place that only seems to reveal itself after you have done all
you can, spent all you had, and cried all your tears. “The wont he will” is a confidence in the perseverance
of the future or as Niebuhr would put it “Hope”. The “won’t he will” is the confidence that
our God is still working on our condition in the midst of our
catastrophes. Won’t he will = Will not
he do it. This is a declaration of experience saturated in the revelation of
the divine. Will he not fight our battles?
Yes he will. Will he not make our
enemies our footstools? Yes he will. Will he not heal our bodies? Yes he will.
There seems to be a misappropriation of the word “not” in the sentence but that’s
the secret sauce of the “won’t he will “it defies negativity and inspires the
hope of the Saints. Still doesn't explain why saints like Scandal
or does it?
Maybe our addiction to scandal is
nestled into the very fiber of Theodicy and Theophany itself. In our searching of scripture we look for
answers to find the movement of God as well as how God confronts evil in our
experience. And through the biblical text we find examples of thoroughly flawed
individuals who like Ms. Olivia Pope persist in spite of deterrence. The more flawed the character the greater that
we cheer for them. Because in the seat
of our greatest character flaws is still operating that “wont he will”
principal that defies conventional knowledge and dares to believe that greater
is coming later. We go to the scripture
looking to identify with the circumstances of the Saints gone by. We open the
text to find our struggles mimicked in the emotional marketplace of Matriarchs
and Patriarchs gone by. We crack the cacophony of scriptures seeking solution
for our day to day “scandals” and we find our “wont he will” moments. What makes scripture speak to us is not the
fact that moral imperatives and virtue abounds but rather that severely broken
people are still; used, loved and affirmed by a virtuous God. Not only does he use and love them but he
purposes their character defects as a cauldron process in order to refine them.
In other words what should work against them is working for them. Hidden in the struggle of scripture is the
revelation of identity the moment when obstacle reveals epiphany and theophany.
What else do we see in scripture? For lack of a better word we see scandal. The Bible is a book full of booty calls, and
broken hearts told with a candy coated moral center.
There once was a man who had too much fun at his bachelor party so
involved with entertaining other guest that he paid no attention to his wife. When
it was time to lay it down for the night he found her in the arms of the best
man. Get got so mad that he committed a
drive by beating and killed thirty men. The
aforementioned is not the plot to a Hughes brothers film but rather the beginning
salvo of the story of Samson. The saints have an intimate relationship with
this idea of scandal. Scandal is the
black sheep of our theological family.
Scandal is the twisted back story to our salvific success. Scandal is the
pit to our pneumatological plum. As quite as kept scandal is part of the
equation that is Romans 8 :28 , in the tradition of FF Bruce “to those who love
Christ All things (scandal) works together for the good.” Yes even our
scandals. This is not an admonition to
go find some drama, you have enough as it stands but rather a call to look for
the Theophany in your own experience. Where has God shown himself to be
God. And the
moment when God took out scandal and made it into our success.
Another Aspect of the idea of
scandal as it relates to scripture is the idea of craftiness being a virtue
rather than a vice. The idea of
craftiness or cleverness as an intellectual pursuit is the “God in the Machine”
moment of our experiences . Understanding the sociological origins of the
Biblical text yields illumination to the way that voices are heard through the
text. The bible as a collection of wisdom
stories is collected by a people who are always outnumbered, out gunned, and
out manned. And in spite of their captivity, geographic dislocation, and social
status (God chosen people were a kind of historical misfits) they find ways to
win. Again these same rhythms are mimicked in the plot lines of Pope and
Associates. They are always fighting opponents bigger faster stronger but they
always find a way to win not through strength but through intellect.
There was a lady whose husbands dies
and she is left all alone his brother prey’s on her and takes her time of
mourning to his advantage creates a jump off situation cause he want the booty
but not the duty. The woman become so
out of sorts that she finds herself selling all she got to get by. One day her
father in law wants to see somebody do something strange for some change so he
solicits her services. And when the morning comes he wants to pull a shaggy and
say it wasn’t me. But sister girl put that thang thang on him and he forgot his
identification in the room. And when he tried to say the baby was not his she
replies “I got the evidence”. This is
not story from the scandal writer’s room but rather story of Tamar (not Braxton)
from Genesis. Judah’s response was that
what she did was right and that he was wrong.
Cleverness, craftiness in seeing a dire situation in new lights is
integral to theophany or seeing God in our situation. Yes
the saints have a fond fellowship with scandal.
The Saints love scandal because it allows
us to low key work out some recurring plot lines in our own lives. Places where
we have not used wisdom but should have. Places where we lost ourselves in server
closets and oval offices. Places where
we dropped our draws and lost our heads over a little tail. Moreover, scandal is a proxy for some places
in our lives where we still need a win. We
still need victory over some enemies who have scandalized our names. We need Closure with the J Babies of our
lives. We need release from the Fitzgerald’s of our experience. We need
deliverance from our Stevie J’s. We need to have some people “Hucked” off of us
so we can reclaim identity. But Most of
all we need some therapy so we can welcome some healthy relationships in our
existence and escape our dependence on people who mean us no good.
For those of us who have escaped
the scandal bug, God bless you and your virtue but be kind to those who like to
take little field trips to Shondaland and get our escape on. I would rather
watch a scandal than be a scandal, and if I ever find myself to be in a scandal
I would hope that “Saints” could remember that a few episodes ago what is currently
me used to be them.
But you know that
might hurt a little.
Miss you all see you after lent
Solomon!
Pray works
Somebody should shout right now!!! Won't he give you double for your trouble. Won't he make your enemies your footstool .won't he will!....
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
One more reason to say thank you
Gratitude is a powerful gift. It takes very little to receive but giving requires a special kind of revelation and insight. In our time together we look at the condition of gratitude and grace in the lives of the ten lepers. How can some take the benefit of benevolent blessings and fail to even bat and eye, while others receive the blessings of God and are driven to worship? This is a tension that we live with in out everyday lives between recognizing the blessings of God and our response as being the benefactors of being blessed. My prayer is that something might be said that evokes and inspires the sentiment that after we have counted all of our blessings that we have one more thing to say thank you for. One more reason to say thank you
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