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Thursday, March 31, 2005
Super Hyper Morbid Obesity
I'm about 'fed' up with fat...intentional pun. How long can a person watch TV without seeing something about fat? My word. Last night relentless fat, fat, fat bombarded the screen. The lowest point took the shape of a pile of fresh, bloody, newly excised fat out of someone's body on a plastic surgery program. OY! I mean OY!!!!! I nearly wore out the clicker trying to avoid fat.
Just before I went to sleep, Discovery Channel took a 350 pound woman through a year of her life. The show began with bariatric surgery. The rest of it dealt with her recovery and subsequent diet/exercise program. Apparently the threshold for monster fatness begins at 100 pounds overweight. Now, the subject of this program was a fairly tall woman. I watched her carefully and concluded that I look as fat as she does. Also, my health is as bad as hers was. Exactly like that. Can hardly get anything done for needing to sit and catch my breath. So, I'm probably hyper super morbidly obese, too, although I weigh a couple of hundred pounds less than she did. I'm short enough that less fat produces the bad result.
Am I sufficiently shocked to start dieting? No, no. Nothing crazy like that. However, I might consider lifestyle modification. After surgery, her stomach only held 1/2 cup of anything before feeling miserably full. In a month of eating small amounts, she lost the first 70 pounds and began to breathe better. She could walk to the mailbox, for example.
I may just be willing to restrict myself to 1/2 cup-sized complete meals. Eat whatever I would usually eat in 1/2 cup amounts per meal. Also, I am willing to double the number of times/day I take Pork Chop for a walk. Further, I consent to weeding the flowers each day. Finally, I will drink water...at least a little of it.
Why couldn't I exist on 1/2 cup-sized meals? Pork Chop's diet meals are 1/4 cup total mass. She's mad about it, though. And sad. Last night all night her little tummy growled. Uh, wait a minute. We do not have parity. Pork Chop weighs about 6 pounds and eats 1/4 cup-sized meals. Given that ratio, I would have to eat meals weighing, what...er...running the numbers, here...6+ POUNDS?!??!?!?!?! Suddenly I do not support Pork Chop's right to whine. My goodness. The dog is gorging. Swinishly gorging.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
This morning after walking Pork Chop, I decided to stay out for a while and weed the flowers. A truck pulled up across the street and several men popped out with surveyor's equipment. Pork Chop barked. One man came over to meet her...a chihuahua lover. I asked, "What are you people doing?" He told me that the green house sits on three lots. The green house is being gutted and totally rebuilt from the inside out. When complete, it will be sold. New houses will soon appear on the other two lots. The red brick house belongs to the city...unpaid taxes. After demolishing the red house, the city can sell the lot to the man already building next door. Three new houses and one rehabbed house, right across from me. Wow.
As we talked, another man approached. He introduced himself as the new owner of the gray apartment building on the other side of the yellow apartments. He said that he has totally redone his building to sell as four high-end condos. As a matter of fact he sold one already.
I laughed and said, "What crazy person agreed to pay top dollar for a chance to live next to the yellow apartments?"
He looked surprised and asked, "What do you mean?"
I wondered, "Have you spent any time here, or did someone else do all the work for you?"
He replied that someone else did the work. As a matter of fact, someone acted for him to buy the property. He drove past and eye-balled the place before closing...that was his only visit prior to this morning. He said, "It's quite a pretty street, I think."
So I told him about the yellow apartments. As I spoke, inmates began to emerge for the day. Soon they were screaming, fighting, cursing, doing their thing. The poor guy. He visibly wilted, put his head into his hands and groaned, "Oh, God. What will I do?"
Then he kind of stiffened up and said,"I tell you what. I moved here from Russia to have a better life for me and my family. No way do I let morons rob me. I will beat this, you will see." He strode away looking determined. Well, good for him, but I don't know...he's up against a challenge.
This afternoon police visited us twice. Their first trip happened while residents across the street noisily slapped each other around. A policeman driving by, stopped in the middle of the street, jumped out of his car, and broke up the fight.
Later I was out weeding again and heard a huge disturbance, mega-decibel cursing, etc. It wasn't interesting enough to make me stop weeding and go see, but I finally decided to go inside because the yelling scared even that spirited chihuahua, Pork Chop. She shivered like a leaf in the wind.
As I came around the house and started up the stairs, sirens wailed in the distance. Whoosh! Before I reached my door, six police cars zoomed up and stopped alongside the curb in front of my house.
Behind them came a plain car filled to bursting with more policemen. Also, a bicycle policeman arrived.
I put Pork Chop in the house and came back out to watch the war from ringside on my porch.
All the police wore helmets and those special vests. They waded right into a fighting, struggling mob. One of the fighters disappeared momentarily and came back out with his rottweiler.
Oh, my, the screaming. Every porch and balcony filled to capacity. Every mouth spewed obscenity and abuse. Earsplitting noise. Police, surrounded by crazies, struggled furiously. One shorter policeman briefly went down under a pile of attackers. I wondered if the police were going to lose this one and asked myself if it would do any good to call the station for re-inforcements since it looked like the entire force was already on hand.
Gradually, though, policemen emerged from the melee, each man dragging someone with him. The men being dragged fought all the way into the police cars. Each one had to be cuffed first and that process required police to act together. One policeman, still somehow hanging onto his bad guy, threw himself bodily onto the bad guy the other policeman was trying to cuff...to hold him still enough to get the cuffs on. When the first fellow was cuffed and stuffed, then two policemen took down the bad guy the second policeman still managed to grip. It was all much, much better than any cop show or movie I have ever seen. There would be no point in a weak little guy applying for a job with the Norfolk police!
The crowd on the sidewalk organized itself into a line of marchers, circled the police cars, yelling all together, "Free mah boy! Free mah boy!" Sort of a protest march. A woman jumped up into the face of a policeman, screaching, "BUT THEY AIN' DID NOTHING!" He ignored her.
Eventually, having harvested a goodly crop, police took off their helmets, put their hats back on, climbed into their cars and began to leave.
The plain car full of extra policemen sat right in front of my porch. As men climbed back into this car, I asked one, "What complaint brought you here?"
He laughed, "The guy who manages 7-11 on the corner calls us when a fight gets so loud it scares away customers. Nothing special this time, just drugs and alcohol, buncha people drunk, stoned and out of control."
Since that ended the excitement, I came indoors, but screaming erupted again. This time a van from the Norfolk pound pulled up. A woman got out, one woman. She had a long stick with a chain on the end and held a muzzle in her other hand. I remembered the rottweiler which had been introduced into the war a little while ago. Yep. Sure enough. This brave woman, walked through the crowd around the door to the second building, went inside, and soon emerged with the dog, muzzled and held at the end of the stick. Oh, the wailing and screaming, but no one interfered with her. Hard to understand. Maybe all the serious warriors are down at the police station.
No sooner did she leave than a tow truck backed up to the 'ho'mobile. A ho rushed out, shrieked and raved, jumped up and down, pleading and shouting abuse at the driver. He said, "Hey, don't tell ME about it. I got a call from the city this vehicle goes to the impound yard." He hopped into the truck and goodbye 'ho'mobile. Oh, the howling, screaming, ranting and raving!
Whew!! Seems like we had an unusually strong authority presence this afternoon. I don't suppose there's any chance the owner of the gray building had anything to do with it. If so, I congratulate him on a fine effort.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
What's A Good Easter?
Having been wished a blessed Easter, a happy Easter, a nice Easter, a good Easter, etc.,I ask you, what form would such a day take? It took what happened today, except for one thing.
First Lydia and Benny called during breakfast coffee time to tell about Benny's vast haul of presents from the Easter Bunny. Benny asked what the bunny had brought me and when I told him that the bunny only brings treats and presents for little children, he grieved on my behalf.
Then I dressed and took Pork Chop for a nice long walk aound the neighborhood before the other natives woke up. I enjoyed such a profusion of spring flowers on trees/bushes/shrubs, in flower beds, and volunteering in grass not recently cut. Coming home a new way, I passed a garden comprising about half a city block. A gentleman worked in his huge space, crawling along grabbing up weeds kind of like a grazing cow. While weeding, he talked on his cell phone...multi-tasking. Quite a few vegetables already up flourished along with spring flowers, a wonderful, inspiring garden.
Now I drank another cup of coffee while reading the paper and found a heartwarming article. Some little church over in Portsmouth has been feeding the poor for the last 20 years. Each Monday/Wednesday/Friday congregants gather to work their butts off collecting, packaging, and distributing food in their church warehouse. Over the last year, they have helped to feed 50,000 families. Sadly...and amazingly, only a few people do all of that good work. The ones in the picture looked old and tired. This noble project began long ago when the pastor noticed elderly neighbors of the church sorting through garbage in alleys... hungry, looking for something to eat. The project has grown until now most of the groceries, bakeries, and restaurants in Hampton Roads save leftovers for these kind souls to give to the needy. Naturally I felt guilty and wondered if I shouldn't volunteer to help. All that bagging, boxing, carrying, delivering, three days/week, year after year...my word! What a Herculean task. There are good people in this world. It's not all bad. I'm thankful to know about those folks, even if they make me feel like tomorrow I'd better get on the phone and ask if they could use my help, such as it is. You know, I have to stop reading the paper. I already got talked into volunteering at school and at the community mediation center. This volunteering runs counter to the idea of retirement.
Later Lydia and the kids and I went to church. As the usher handed me an order of service, he said, "Lots of luck." The church was filled to bursting. Another usher, however, finally found three seats for us at the very front.
Choir, soloist, brass, pipe organ and kettle drum performed an all-Handel service, music to raise the dead. The teacher for last summer's Space Camp at Community Music School turned out to be the soprano soloist. The change in her style astonished us. After service, she smiled and told Benny that today was an example of her adult voice. The brief message could be summarized as, "Don't keep the Gospel in the bank. Spread it around where it will do some good." A little girl threw up and ran down the aisle toward the front exits behind the pulpit. She spewed vomit as she went. Then during a choral offering, 6 ushers with wet towels cleaned up the mess...all of which provided comic relief to the seriousness of the service...thus preserving the cosmic balance...yin and yang in a Protestant church. Steeple bells clanged wildly overhead as we came out on the heels of a glorious organ voluntary.
Then we went to a fast food joint because I actually slept in this morning instead of getting up to make 'green eggs and ham' as planned. The eggs would have been easy, but that ham was in the freezer and I forgot to take it out last night...and then slept in this A.M. So we went to Taco Bell...and it was good...particularly the part about not having to cook.
Now here I sit with my fat little, warm little chuhuahua sleeping on my lap, thinking that it's about time for my nap, too.
That Bible verse, "God has given us all things necessary to life and to Godliness," certainly applies to me. I have so much more than I need, such an easy life. Oh, boy. I hope I can fight off this attack of conscience. I sure don't want to go over to Portsmouth to feed the poor. While Kensington, where I live, is a ghetto, surrounded by nice, respectable neighborhoods, the whole city of Portsmouth is poor, crime-ridden, drug infested. I don't even remember how to get across the bridge. Rats. I wish I hadn't read that article.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
You Stole Me Mah Soup...
I was on my porch shaking a throw rug when an altercation broke out across the street. It went instantly from zero to bitch. Women roaring and screaming just about incomprehensibly at one another. Very fast more women got into the fight.
By the time I finished with my rug and had time to assess the situation, it was and still is a war over there. No doubt this will be one the police have to finish. The original accuser is a frequent fight starter. She yells highly flammable things at her fellow inmates until the rumble turns physical; then she shrieks she's going to call the police. Last time she did this I had to laugh.
The person at whom she screamed, responded, "Girl, you gonna call they po-po-po-po-po? You call they po-po. That abou' aow yow goo'fo'."
Po-po-po-po-po? Where'd did she get a goofy line like that in reference to the police force? Funny stuff except that so often conflict over there turns tragic because of the weapons used.
Anyway, across the street right now a classic yellow apartment drama is in progress and the script reads, in part, like this...
Woman 1: Whaa do yow' haf to be aow up in mah hou' stealin' mah foo'?
Woman 2: Who you callin' stealin? You LAH!
Woman 1: I callin'YOW stealin'. You a thief! You stole mah soup! You stole mah TURKEY. You stole me mah TOMATO.
Woman 2: They MAH tomato.
Woman 1: It ain' you SOUP. It ain' yo turkey. You a thief!! An it ain' no way yo tomato. It came out mah hou', so it mah tomato. What yow DOIN' all up in mah hou' stealin' mah foo'?
And on and on with about ten women all together blurting out super loud rapid-fire rants of noise. My, my.
One time when I talked to a policeman about the yellow apartment problem, he said, "Don't be too, nervous, Ma'am. When they get going, it's almost always against each other. Or it's about someone having to do with the drug business. Individuals from time to time may stray off the block and get into it with an innocent bystander to whatever he's up to. Most of the time, though, they prey on one another." Which explains why I felt safe standing on my porch watching this most recent carry-on over soup, turkey, and a tomato.
The Fool Of The Moon
It is my experience as a 39-year teacher in public school, that the full of the moon reliably does SOMETHING to some people. Today must have been a challenge to teachers all across America as children in the full of the moon experienced their last day before Easter Break...now known as Spring Break to appease those who do not celebrate Easter other than to diminish it for others. So there schools were at the mercy of the moon, struggling through a hard, hard day of combined excitement over vacation and insanity caused by the moon.
Whom does the moon affect, how, and and how much? Yes, this is merely my personal observation of a phenomenon that occurred at least once/month for 10 months out of each of those 39 years, however... As I saw it, in the full of the moon, real crazies had their best day of the month, performed like normal people having a good day. Normal people were very little, if at all different. The true lunatics on this day are those usually on the edge between crazy and normal, the people who all their lives need to rein themselves in or get branded as pretty far off. Something about the full of the moon releases them to be an extreme version of whatever is their greatest weakness. If they tend to talk too much, they can't be shut up on the day of the full moon; chatter, chatter, chatter. If they are clumsy, their day is a mine field of booboos and disasters. If they're silly, they make fools of themselves all day. If they're mean, they do awful things without any evidence of an interfering conscience. If they tend to be reckless, they make terrible bets, they drive like Genghis Khan, they dive without checking to see if the pool has any water. If they badly manage anger, they rage and storm about every little slight to their feelings.
Generally, you have to watch out for the person who is usually OK, but has to work to seem that way.
What brings me to this lecture? The inhabitants of the yellow apartments, our local hotbed of social pathology. Today for what can only be a full moon reason, one of the worst women over there armed herself with wheelbarrow, garbage bags, shovel, and rake and spent the entire day cleaning up the land around both buildings. This effort produced, besides the usual garbage, a mountain of 48 huge full sacks of trash waiting by the curb. At least that's what I can count from my porch. The lady was having her best day.
On the other hand as the high school bus pulled up, out poured 7 of the large, teenaged boys who live across the street and who really don't attend school all that often. No doubt they went to school today because they needed a wider audience for their behavior than just us home folks. These boys are not totally crazy. They are somewhat defective, but mostly mean and bad. Let me just say that as they piled out of the bus, I ran indoors and locked the door behind me. The vast stupid roar of senseless rage was enough to get me in the house without the accompanying spectacle of those boys beating each other up. Gracious sakes, what a sight. This is a busy time on 38th Street, a popular rush hour cross-town route. Made no difference to the bad boys in the full of the moon. Traffic stopped while they threw each other around, threw each other to the ground, beat on each other with fists, fell and rolled around kicking and pummelling each other, 7 great big man-sized bodies all over the street. They flung each other up against cars, ran up and over cars chasing one another, punched and kicked cars in their idiotic tantrum. It did not stop until the usual period at the end of such sentences...the police arrived.
Now, I do NOT think there's anything occult or paranormal about this full mooon stuff. Someday, I am betting, there will be a scientific discovery to explain what we do not now understand. However, I do entirely believe and accept that this day is noticeably different. While I was still teaching, we veteran teachers always knew which day was the full of the moon without checking the calendar.It was just so much the same each time and so unlike all the other days.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Big, Scary Chihuahua
Yesterday as Pork Chop and I did our daily reconaissance of the neighborhood, I spied the mailman coming our way. I shortened the leash so that Pork Chop wouldn't be able to reach him. Not good enough. He stopped several houses away from us and stood watching our approach. So, I called to him, "Would you feel better if I picked her up?" He was relieved, "Ma'am, that little dawg, this whole street HER territory and I gonna let her have it."
One day last week as we were coming in the home stretch, a young lady came up from behind us. I had not heard her and so was not prepared for Pork Chop's furious rush. With a growly snarly roar of small dog noise, she charged at the girl's ankles. I quickly picked Pork Chop up and smacked her, but that little dog was still cussing under her breath all the way back into the house, "I almost had'er, I coulda took her out, I coulda been a contendah."
The other day we saw a man working in his yard a few houses from mine and across the street. This is a neighbor whom I had not as yet met. He called out in a friendly way and began to cross the street, a smile on his face, "Well, neighbuh! I ain' mechoo yet." About then Pork Chop decided he was close enough and started yelling at him. He kind of jumped back, took a good look at her, and returned to his side of the street from which safe haven he called, "I gonna lechoo have all that side-uh-the street. No way I gonna mess me wif no chihuahua. No way. That one ver' big little chihuahua." So true, so true.
It's All About Incentive
At first with Pork Chop, I was discouraged regarding her prospects as a learner of social skills and tricks. For one thing, I am not a good dog trainer, more like disastrously bad. Additionally, she seemed to have the intelligence of a cabbage. The first time I worked with her re. "SIT", she not only did not sit, I could not force her to sit without fearing to break her little back legs. She stiffened up like a board. That was a week and a half ago. Now she sits right away when told to do so. What made the difference? Sara Lee thin-sliced roast beef. Before the Sara Lee, I got indifferent results using cheese, turkey, or ham. I spread a third of a slice over each training session. A teeny little bite each time she does soemthing right.
Besides SIT, she now can do UP..which means stand on her back legs and walk a couple of steps. This is the preliminary to learning to dance. So there's hope for the little dog. I would love to have her learn to do everything Lydia's dog Bugscuffle used to do. Bugs could dance, beg, "sing", do "shamey, shamey" with her paws over her eyes, sit, hold a treat on her nose until told OK, and then toss it up and catch it, roll over, heel, go get in her naughty box, down, stay, come, fetch, jump through a hoop, and take the top off a Tupperware container if it held a treat for her. Bugs was so well-trained that if she was doing something wrong, all you had to do was clear your throat, and look at her, and she fixed herself. All of that seems like too much to ask of Pork Chop, starting her education at age five. Too, Bugs was trained by the great Nancy who could teach a cow to rhumba. However, the progress Pork Chop made in a week and a half under the influence of Sara Lee urges me forward.
One more thought about Sara Lee...today the kids were here at lunch time. Sadie and Benny wanted hot dogs. Sadie ate hers holding it in her hand and waving it at the dog, letting the dog have a lick now and then, and finally tossing it on the floor for the dog to have it all. I grabbed it, thinking about Pork Chop's diet. Then I reconsidered and broke it into small pieces. I tried using these as training incentives and was mostly ignored. This dog has a discriminating palate. She wants only the best and most expensive incentives.
The cutest thing about her is that she talks all the time...I don't mean bark...I mean she makes little sounds as she sits beside me or on my lap, itty bitty grunts and squeaks. I think I'm becoming attached to Pork Chop. I decided to get her, intended to treat her well, thought she was cute, but none of that meant I liked her. She's talking me into liking her. She's only been here for a week and a half, and if she were taken away I would miss her terribly. Right now she is on my lap, nose tucked under my elbow, asleep, emitting barely audible dogisms.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Small Dog Makes Big Disturbance
Having moved to the ghetto, I, of course, contracted with ADT, the world's biggest alarm company, to protect my lovely domicile. Since the end of Oct., 2004, I have set and unset the alarm again and again without ever setting it off. That was then. This is today.
This afternoon I saw that I am a slice away from no loaf of bread and decided on a quick trip to the store. Thinking to myself that this would be just a five+ minute excursion, I did not take Pork Chop. I quickly locked her in, used my portable keypad to activate the alarm, and beat it for the ghetto grocery before they closed.
I scampered around the grocery, joshed with my usual check out guys, hot-footed it to the car, then peeled out for home.
Getting out of the car at home I thought disapprovingly, "It is so annoying when people allow an alarm to screach unattended." For sure some alarm was going way, way off. Oh, MY!!! That was one loud alarm. Then it hit me. I was criticising MY OWN alarm which just about rocked the street. Great Scott! I rushed into the house, using my key. The alarm continued until I manually turned it off at the box.
Finally Pork Chop emerged from wherever, shivering and terrified. I picked her up, went to the phone and called ADT. The woman there said, "Yes, police are on their way. Your motion sensor went off a few moments ago." Here came the police. As they approached the porch, I set the dog down, thinking that I'd speak to the officer outside. Unfortunately as I opened the door, she darted out.
The near lane of street was filled with cars of policemen...thank goodness for a fine return on my tax dollars. I rushed out screaming to a policeman, "Grab that dog. She'll be killed in traffic!!!!!"
I raced my fat self after Pork Chop and so did a policeman. He was faster than I but each time he nearly caught Pork Chop, he'd change his mind and jump back as though he were afraid of her. Then he'd sort of herd her toward me with his foot. Eventually I thought to quit chasing and just call her.
"Pork Chop! Here, baby." She came instantly. Duh.
Holding the trembling Pork Chop firmly to my heart, I said to the nice policeman, "This is confusing. I had to key myself in, so how could someone have broken into my house. However ADT said that the motion sensor went off ........and it is aimed at the hall and stairwell....and only Pork Chop......oh, my gracious. This little dog set off the alarm."
With a beautiful white-toothed smile, the officer said...in a really sweet voice, "Forget about it, Ma'am. Every single alarm call that has come into the station since I have been a member of the Norfolk Police...it was the dog's fault. Don't you worry. Next time, we'll come just as fast, in case there's a really original situation where the criminal is not the family dog," and he winked.
The Vernal Equinox Arrives On 38th Street
Well, of course there are flowers...a row of jonquils across the front of the porch, and pansies. Then, too, it's nice and warm...and birds are cheeping and beeping. All of that. However, 38th Street celebrates the Vernal Equinox in it's own special way. The festivities kicked off as I sat on the sofa finally reading yesterday's paper. There it was, screaming and yelling from across the street, nothing so outrageous as to trigger my get-up-and-look alarm, just noise. Then it suddenly escalated right up and off the chart. Woooo! I mean some screaming, and the screamer was a man. I jumped up to look. Upstairs on her balcony one of the whores fought the pimp. He gripped her wrist, trying to hold her at arm's length and I thought, "What a knucklehead to scream like that. My goodness; he's twice her size." Then I saw the knife. She had a great big butcher knife and struggled to free her hand in order to stab the guy. Eventually he managed to reach the door and jumped inside, slamming the door behind him. Now she was screaming...on and on and on and on and on.....pounding on the door and screaming.
Meanwhile, below them on the sidewalk in a row of kitchen chairs, sat all the usual suspects. During the fracas with the knife, not one of the chair sitters even bothered to turn a head and look. They just stared lazily into the street, doing nothing, slumped in their chairs, arms hanging down, all of them slowly chewing gum with their mouths open. The screaming woman, however, finally got on one fellow's nerves. With no show of emotion, without even looking, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a short gun, aimed it up and back, generally toward the loud woman...and pulled the trigger, then calmly repocketed his piece. The gun noise was deafening, just one shot, but loud. She shut up.
Yes indeed, sounds of spring on 38th Street; a ho knife-fighting a screaming pimp and then gunfire.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Different
Yesterday someone left a flyer on my porch about an Easter service to be held at the amphitheater at Old Dominion University a few blocks from here. The flyer suggested a website for further information. Two hours later I was still reading the huge website about this church's school 'system', it's home for pregnant girls, programs for every age and every problem. The black pastor has a B.S. from M.I.T. of all places...then some more degrees from other places having to do with religious studies. I guess that one fact intrigued me. What kind of person would be smart enough to earn a degree from the top technical/scientific school in the USA and would then leave that behind and become a minister? Another website listed this church as one of the megachurches in the US. 15 years ago it was 20 people meeting in a rented room.
Obviously, I thought, someone very dynamic was at the top of this organization. I called the church and was told there are three services each Sunday A.M....7/9/11:30. So Lydia and I took the kids and visited the place. I will be all week getting over it. It was astonishing. The sanctuary holds 3,000 and it was packed for the third time in one morning. The joint jumped. Explosively rythmic music, dancing, rapping, comedy, a drama presentation, a story for the kids. Benny loved it. He beamed from ear to ear, clapped and sang. Sadie did little baby dances out in the aisleway and no one minded a bit.
The pastor's message was re. parenting; funny and original, but very sternly old fashioned at the same time. You could probably summarize it by saying, "Be what you want your children to become." No, I'm not going to attend the Easter service they plan to hold at the University. Just one time of a service like that and I'm exhausted.
However, I was impressed.
The congregation was so big that it filled the parking lot and also filled the parking lot of the mall across the street...several city policemen were on hand to get worshippers across the street from the mall parking lot to the church. A great big church dedicated, according to their slogan, to "Changing the world one life at a time". Some time this week they will hold an outdoor service at one of the worst local housing projects with a big team of rappers, dancers, comedians, dramatists, singers, instrumentalists...all pushing a positive message of forgiveness and hope for people with ruined lives. Nothing wrong with that. Darn, if every church went right at bad things in that way, this would be a better world. I wish they'd choose the yellow apartment area of 38th Street as one of their targets for a good influence. As far as I could tell, they are doing God's work in the world, and I wish them well.
At the end of the service, the pastor asked all young parents among the congregants who had been raised in a home with drugs/violence/alcohol dependency/crime to stand while he said a special prayer over them. At least half the church stood up. He prayed that they would be strengthened to take a new direction from their pasts, to break the vicious circle of bad parenting behaviors. I thought it a very good thing.
One awkward note from their website. The pastor stated that the constitutional principal of separation of church and state has never met with much agreement in the black community, that black churches believe in doing all they can to push politics in their direction. Give him credit for saying what he really thinks, but I wonder about the continued tax-exempt status of a "white" church making such a claim. I do recall the case of a white Presbyterian Church somewhere in New Jersey where the pastor took strong public positions on all the issues, told his congregation how to vote, etc...and the church DID lose its tax exempt status at least for a while.
Personally I think a minister should be able to tell people to vote for chihuahuas if he wants to. Government should stay out of religion, but the religion in people's lives requires them to act in certain ways and voting in support of certain positions would be a logical extension of religious belief, I think.
Anyway, this was a different kind of Sunday. Pork Chop and I are going to take a nap.
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