Monday, November 16, 2009

When the shots rang out, Sgt. Kimberly Munley was on traffic detail.

This is hardly the kind of duty she found motivational.  Her training and her experience made her an eminently overqualified traffic cop.  Mainly, the wiry compact young police officer was prepared for whatever.  At five foot three inches tall, she hardly dominates.  But what she lacks in size, she balances out with attitude and heart. It is her life.

A mom with two daughters, juggling schedules and following orders come with the territory.  She shows up on time and takes her assignment.  A regular at Fort Hood, up until that moment, it was just an ordinary day.

Most of us experience violent confrontations from the comfort of an overstuffed chair or a reclining theater seat.  We sip on something pleasant, maybe munch on handfuls from a bucket full of popcorn, and watch images on a screen.  Sound effects add to the “experience.”  We have climate control and comfortable seating.  We feel a contrived sort of emotional connection; fears and starts, gasps and the instinct to take cover.  The editors enhance the images with slow motion close-ups, replayed from several angles and surround-sound crashes and blasts.  This week, a movie was released that portrays the end of the world.  Every city, every landmark, every wonder of the world is digitally destroyed.  “It’s almost like being there,” we like to say.  But of course, we are not.  When it’s over, we go out for a burger, fries and a shake.

Munley is a police officer with plenty street experience, a firearms instructor and an award-winning marksman.  One night, while a working crime on the streets of Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina, Munley stopped a suspect along with Investigator Shaun Appler.  The detainee shouted obscenities at the two officers and then charged Appler.  Apparently, the man discounted the threat of the short, female officer standing beside her uniformed partner, and with reckless abandon tackled the larger man knocking him off his feet.  His radio and flashlight flew up into the darkness.  They rolled down a grassy embankment.  Munley spotted the assailant reaching for Appler’s holster, which twisted around his waist onto his back.  The attacker pulled loose the strap and grabbed for his pistol.

Appler remembers the scene in detail.  Kimberly Munley leapt after the two wrestlers, flying down the hill and pouncing on his assailant.  She slapped his hand loose from the pistol, ripped him off her partner by sheer strength, neutralized his assault and held him under her own drawn gun.  In those moments of shock and terror and helplessness, Appler believed he would die – until he saw the flash of an airborne officer coming to his rescue.  To this day, he claims that she saved his life.  Since that night, he calls her “Mighty Mouse.”  He’ll break out in the old theme song, “Here I come to save the day!” He’s not joking.

“She’s mentally and physically tough,” Appler said.  “I’d rather have her by my side on patrol than anyone else.”

So last week, as Sgt. Kimberly Munley waved the traffic through outside the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, and she heard the shots.  Instinct from years of training and street experience sent her towards the door from where the pop-pop-pop came.  She drew her weapon.

Major Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan had already wreaked havoc on a room crowded with troops waiting idly for their inoculations.  He chased one of his victims out the door shouting and shooting, two hands each with a pistol firing as Kimberly ran full speed around the corner on a polished concrete floor.  The marksman took her aim, shouted at the shooter, and pulled her trigger.

Malik turned from his target, and aimed his two guns directly at her.  He fired.  She fired back.  He fired again.  First her hand, then both legs.  Three hits.  But she kept charging and kept firing.  She brought Malik down.  The shooting stopped.

On her way to the hospital, she pulled out her cell phone.  They controlled the bleeding.  They used a bandage for her hand, and a tourniquet for one of her wounded legs.

She called a neighbor.  “Could you pick up my little girl this afternoon?  I got delayed.”

Pause.

“Thank you so much.”

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp

Monday, November 9, 2009

These are shared national experiences.  Many of us know people or have family who are serving our country in uniform.  We track the news.  We look up locations on Internet maps.  We imagine life in Iraq or Afghanistan; out where the fighting takes place.  We think about the dangers of combat and hidden bombs triggered by remote and snipers hiding in the shadows, behind the thick brush or a crag in the rocks or concrete walls around the corner.  We pray for safety.  We pray for peace.

Many of us have attended the graduation ceremonies and watched the commissioning.  We’ve also been there when the troops come home.  It all gives us a personal sense of the sacrifice.  We get in on the camaraderie and among the troops.  We get a taste of military culture.  We see at close range the impact of hierarchy; the mutual respect among the ranks.

I always pick up on the phrase “my soldiers.”  When one of the guys talks about the battalion, the personal possessive pronoun comes into play.  It implies ownership.  Responsibility.  These are “my” people, they will say.

There is, perhaps, no other context in which American diversity is so plainly evident.  Men and women.  Every ethnicity.  All dressed the same.  All learning to work together, and see past the prejudices and biases learned somewhere on the outside, and see rather, the person in battle beside me on whom my life now depends.  The differences that seemed so significant back in civilian life melt away in the face of combat.

The stunning moment at Fort Hood, when in one of those crowded rooms as troops prepared for deployment, a high ranking officer in uniform stood to his feet shouting an Arabic phrase, commonly employed as the prelude to an act of violent terror, and then opened fire on an unsuspecting gathering of troops seated around tables, has us all in a state of utter bewilderment.  Sadly, stories of individuals who snap and get their hands on weapons and then engage in a killing rampage are not all that uncommon.  We are all too familiar with these episodes of senseless violence.  But when a medical doctor, a psychiatrist, trained to heal, becomes the perpetrator of such pointless aggression, it takes your breath away.

There will be plenty of commentary coming.  The talking heads will present their theories.  Experts will be called on to pars all the detail.  But because Major Nidal Malik Hasan survived, there will be a trial.  Who knows how long it will take?  There will be calls for capital punishment.  Will the defense claim mental incapacity?  Some will plead for compassion and mercy.  We will wait for the Major to say something for himself.  We will be schooled on the intricacies of military tribunals; and the possibility of the transfer of the case to a civilian criminal court.

In a surprisingly strong statement, Army Chief of Staff General George Casey said, “Our diversity not only in our military but in our country, is a strength.  As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

We can predict with a fair degree of certainty that the shooting by the doctor at Fort Hood will, for some, become the occasion for inflammatory rhetoric.  But as one soldier put it, “Adversity like this only makes us stronger.”

When victims and close range witnesses are asked, “Are you going ahead with your deployment?”  The answer is most often, “Absolutely.”

So we pray for the families who suffered loss.  We pray for the injured who now face rehabilitation, and in some cases, permanent disabilities.  Some of them severe.

And most of all, we pray for peace.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp

Monday, November 2, 2009

Australian born, Mardi (pronounced Maw-di) exchanged a career as a world-class soprano for motherhood.  It was a conscious choice.  For her, the dream of performing on the big stage came true.  She traveled all over the world, recorded in studios with big orchestras, and finally landed major roles in metropolitan performing arts centers.

But home and family were more important to her than the bright lights.  More than a decade ago, she declined that last offer to make the stage her life.  Today she has, instead, a husband and three children.

So now she’s a mom.  A worship leader, too.  She didn’t identify which daughter, but as she drew the church into worship, she shared a brief parenting anecdote.   “She will remain nameless,” she said.  “Let’s just call her Precious.”  It was in anticipation of a parenting Sunday with special speakers who brought a direct message to moms and dads.

One ordinary afternoon, one of their two girls had question.  “Mom,” she asked, “what does it mean when you raise your middle finger in the air at someone?”

This generation of parents has learned that gasping in horror or breaking into uproarious laughter or changing the subject are all inappropriate responses to the innocent queries of their young, no matter how surprising.  So Mardi, calm and sure, took a deep breath, gave the best on the spot impromptu response she could.  She sat down on the couch.

“Precious,” she said, pulling the little girl up on her knee, “that hand signal represents a very bad word.  It’s so bad, I don’t even want to tell you what it is.  It is a word we don’t ever say.  And that gesture is one we never use, either.  Ever.”  Mom was firm but gentle.

“Oh,” said Precious.  “OK.”  She seemed to understand.  She jumped off her mom’s lap, ready to move on to something else.  She ran off into the playroom.  Mardi sighed in relief, glad that one was over.

Until a few days later when the phone rang.  It was the Vice Principal.  “Mrs. Cork, you need to know that today your little girl held up her middle finger in class, and the teacher sent her to my office for disciplinary action, which we are obligated to impose,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

This time, Mardi gasped, “Prescious?!  My Prescious?” was all she could say.

By the time mother and daughter would meet again face to face, the little girl was in tears, awash in guilt and shame.  Immediately, Mardi sensed that while a sharp reprimand may have been first on her list, it was not necessary.  She quickly moved to console her little girl.

“Are you sorry, honey?” she asked.

“Uh huh,” she said between sobs.

“Did you tell your teacher you were sorry?”

“Yes.”

“Did you pray, and ask God to forgive you?”

“Uh huh.”

“OK, sweetheart.  Come here.”  And mom pulled her young daughter close and held her tight.  “You are forgiven.  It’s OK.”  And Mardi explained the intricacies of forgiveness, how God doesn’t even remember our sins anymore.  As far as the East is from the West, she added.

Precious nodded, signaling she understood.  Mommy brushed away the tears and smiled at her little girl, kissing her wet cheek.

And all of us who heard the story thought how sweet Mommy’s touch can be.  And about the times we all knew better, but did it anyway; and then needed forgiveness.

“Sing with me,” Mardi said.   And the instruments started to play.

And after the singing of that powerful hymn, the family life speaker bounded up to the microphone.

“Good morning!” he started with a cheerful tone.  “You know, I think I saw Precious out there on the freeway this morning on the way over here… it was when I cut her off as I merged into the lane…”

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2009

Monday, October 26, 2009

I inherited my fascination with flight from my father who was a high school kid when World War II dominated the scene.  He had dreams of flying back then.  In many ways, it was an air war.  But my dad’s dreams of piloting aircraft were never realized.

We made model airplanes together, and spent hours at the end of runways just watching the airplanes land.  Dad’s sense of wonder rose up whenever a big old airliner approached the landing site.  I can still hear him describe the sensation of take off in the new Boeing 707 on business trips; the power of four jet engines thrusting that big bird into the clouds.  Impossible, he would say, but there it is.  Take a look.  The fact that those heavy steel machines could get off the ground at all was miracle enough for my Dad.  He was a true believer.

So I read and re-read all the entries related to flight in our Compton’s Encyclopedia as a kid just in case I ever ended up in flight school.  I wanted to have head start on my classmates.  The basics of lift and drag and aerodynamics fueled my own dreams.  Ailerons and rudders and instrument panels and flaps and trim tabs.  Retractable gear.  Vector navigation.  I remember pouring over the maps with my rich-kid pal who secured a multi-engine rating just after he got his drivers license.  We would map out our journey, factoring cross winds and fuel consumption.  We’d fly his dad’s Cessna Skymaster all over Southern California.

So when I heard that there would be a movie about Amelia Earhart, I knew I’d be first in line on opening day – just like I did when the Howard Hughes movie was released (The Aviator).

Seeing the movie (starring Hilliary Swank as Amelia Earhart) is better than a trip to the museum.  You get to see these old historic birds fly.  She flew them all.  The single engine speedster.  The heavy seaplane.  The tri-motor.  And finally, the Lockheed Electra 10E.  It is all right by me when the special effects kick in, computer generated graphics and the use of models.  But then, this film, made by a purist, used real airplanes and real flight sequences.  The Lockheed Electra in polished chrome with the radial engines sparkled in the sunlight.  It called up all those memories from Compton’s Encyclopedia, complete with a musical score.

Amelia’s life was complicated.  The focus and drive to break records and inspire are now the stuff of legend.  Her personal life, too.  Was hers a marriage of convenience (to fund the flying) or was it love?  She was just a little girl when the Wright Brothers proved that it could be done.  A child of the heady roaring twenties, she became one of those models of can-do Americanism during the dark depression years when the New Deal set the pace for innovation and hard work.  After conquering the trans-Atlantic barrier, and the trans-continental, too, she set her sights on the impossible: circumnavigating the globe along the Equator.  Twenty-four thousand miles.  It had not been done before.  She would be the first.  And she nearly made it.

Except for the last great challenge.  And there, she would be lost to history.  Crossing the Atlantic was tough enough.  But the Pacific.  Wow.  It would be nearly five thousand miles over water with but two stops.  Howard Island and Hawaii.  A few years before, she made the trip from California to Hawaii: two thousand miles over water.

But the two legs that presented the greatest challenge to this day seem entirely beyond reason.   New Giunea to home in Oakland with those two unimaginable stops.

In May of 1937, she took off in Oakland, California to circle the globe.  Then she crossed the Southern states, dropping down through Florida through the Cuban Islands to South America all the way to Brazil.  There, she soared over the Atlantic to Africa, and across that Continent.  Over the endless sand dunes of Saudi Arabia and on through India to Calcutta.  From there she flew over Southeast Asia over the islands of Malaysia all the way to New Guinea.  From there, she launched that impossible mission, along with her Navigator, Fred Noonan.  (Map.)

And that’s the piece of her story that leaves me breathless.  Howard Island is but four hundred fifty acres of dry land barely above sea level two thousand five hundred miles from Lae, Papua, New Guinea.  It’s roughly half way over the open water to Hawaii.  They built a makeshift runway on the Island just for her.  The Navy vessel Itasca waited there with fuel brought in just for this momentous record-breaking project.  They set up radio communication to assist her in the middle of the vast stretch of open sea.  But make no mistake.  Given the navigational tools available to her at the time; this was mission impossible.

It would be like flying from Cleveland to Bakersfield non-stop with no GPS, no radio navigation, no Omni stations and finding the campus of Bakersfield High.  But think about it – no visual reference points, either.  None.  Twelve hours of wide-open, mind-numbing sea.  Vector navigation.  One tenth of a degree off with trade winds and air currents is all it takes and you’ll never see that little dot on the horizon.  Worse still, you can’t see it on the horizon.  It’s flat.  You must be directly over it to catch it in your sights.

So she prepared for launch.  And that’s when things went wrong.  One after the other.  Noonan the navigator slipped into his habit of drinking too much.  Radios failed.  Morse code, too.  Late in the flight, the veteran pilot seemed disoriented in the few transmissions anyone could pick up.  Radios went silent.  Primitive locators failed to pinpoint her position.  Howard Island never picked up a definitive signal.  An intense search followed.  No sign of Amelia, Fred or the Electra has been found to this day.  She was barely forty years old.

The conspiracy theories still live.  Like Elvis and John Lennon and JFK and Anastasia, post-death (in her case, [post-disappearance) sightings of Amelia abound.  But like so many aviation stories, the ending is Shakespearian level tragedy.

So what do we take from Amelia on this Monday?

The common bromide, that at least she died at the stick in the captain’s left seat she loved, doesn’t do much for me.  But her passion for flight.  Her courage as a woman.  Her instincts.  Her ambitions.  This is what we remember.

Pursuing your dreams is risky business.  The dangers are real.  Mistakes get made.  The sky beckons still.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2009

Monday, October 19, 2009

When you come through the tunnel from the West towards the East, and you reach the opening, just to your left is perhaps the most stunning, the most recognizable, the least forgettable sight on Planet Earth.  There was a time when this vantage point was only accessible by trail.  Now it is a scenic outlook.  Generally speaking, only those with plenty of discretionary time and money would see it, until Mr. Ford made the automobile accessible to just about all us Americans.

It really does not matter when it is you finally emerge from the tunnel; morning, afternoon or evening.  Every variable of time of day or season or weather condition has its own distinct charm.  (The exception would be an enveloping, dense fog, which would be a monumental disappointment.)  As the scene opens up at tunnel’s end, there it is: the imposing sheer face of El Capitan on your left.  The waterfall on your right, like a bridal veil flowing over a v-shaped granite trough.  And if the sun catches it just right, you’ll see its very own rainbow glittering the complete spectrum of color against the deep velvet grays of the wet rock glistening behind.  The jagged peaks of the Three Sisters reach for the sky.  The tall pines of the forest in the foreground point to the meadow in the distance, the wide, flat valley floor.  The Merced River meanders toward you with rich grassy open spaces on either side.  The steep granite on either side of the valley looks every bit like a natural cathedral and in the distance the unmistakable granite dome, eerily cut in half, stands like an altar.  Half Dome begs a series of mysterious questions.  Where is the other half?  How did it break away?  But beyond, there is still more.  The broad granite fields stretch across the horizon from left to right, above the tree line, nearly white, reaching out towards infinity.  The fresh open air fills your lungs, you scan the scene and you don’t want to leave.  If an eagle or two or three drift by, wings spread wide, soaring the updraft, your Yosemite experience will be nearly complete.  But this is only the front door.  There is much more waiting if you will but enter.

Study the park and you will learn of the first Americans who called this magnificent valley their home.  You will also meet John Muir and Ansel Adams.  You’ll learn about the battle to preserve this irreplaceable space.  You’ll discover that there is yet another valley, equally spectacular.  But you will never see it this way.  It is under water.  The Hetch Hetchy Dam stands in the way of the river’s flow just to the north.  It is now a reservoir, a filled up gorge with fresh water stretching into the ravines and canyons like a giant basin, covering up the valley floor and half the sheer granite and shortening up the falls up and down the scene.  There was an attempt to build another dam on the Merced River blocking off  this priceless scenic outlook.   It would have made Yosemite Valley a deep man-made lake, just like Hetch Hetchy.   But the plan was voted down.

Ken Burns calls his newest high-definition series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.  I am quite sure there are those who will come up with an American idea that may arguably be better.  But as I watch his stunning sequence of images and listen to the narrative, calling up all the memories of visits to so many of the scenes, I’d be hard pressed to name one.  The first of the wide geography calling out for protection was Yosemite Valley.  And the entire national park system grew out of the commitment of the federal government’s reluctant vote; a distinctly American ideal – to make these parts of the country accessible to all.  En perpetuity.

One of the lasting heroes in the cause is the irrepressible President Teddy Roosevelt.  In 1903, Roosevelt made a train tour from Washington DC to the West, intentionally stopping by the magnificent natural attractions along the way.  Yellowstone.  The Grand Canyon.  And Yosemite.  He read John Muir.  He knew the roots of the son of a hard-line Presbyterian clergyman; Muir’s father a convinced Calvinist.  So Muir had a profound sense of the sacred.  We wrote about the valley and the cliffs and the dancing water and the wildlife and plants and towering trees as though he walked on holy ground.  He approached his subject with the meticulous eye of a scientist collecting data, systematizing like a Presbyterian; but woven into the narrative is a profound sense of mystery.  The President was impressed by the intentional manner of this gentle man and how he had so effectively convinced so many to put preservation before enterprise.  He wanted to meet him.

So one afternoon, the President’s entourage all comfortably housed in the Wawona Lodge, Roosevelt escaped alone into the Mariposa Grove with John Muir.  Teddy did not bother to tell his staff that he had no plans to return that night.  The Presidential dinner went on without their honored guests.  No secret service.  No press corps.  Just two influential men without tents by the campfire underneath the oldest living trees stretching high above into the starry night sky, talking.  Laughing.  Storytelling.  Roosevelt tested Muir’s skill in identifying birdcalls.  Muir faltered.  Roosevelt, an avid ornithologist, chided the naturalist for this deficiency.  Muir retorted with a scolding.  “When, Mr. President,” he addressed the passionate hunter, “will you set aside this infantile need to shoot and kill living things?”  Roosevelt broke into a belly laugh.  Touché!

Out of that conversation and overnight under the stars, with the scent of campfire and redwood filing the crisp night air, came the preservation of the Grove for all time.

When we are cut off from our own history, our present is hollow and our future unsure.

The Great Isaiah Scroll was unveiled in Orange County on Saturday night.  It is in words what Yosemite Valley is in wonder.  The scribes who preserved this text, and then hid the parchment in the caves nearly two thousand years ago did for us what Muir and Roosevelt did under the great Sequoia trees.

In that ancient Hebrew text, preserved on the scroll, Isaiah wrote -

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp, 2009

Monday, October 12, 2009

I suppose it could well be called the most significant archeological find in history.  But then, such judgments betray certain presuppositions about the world.  For those of us who consider the Bible a sacred book with profound implications and eternal consequence, then the discovery (just over sixty years ago) of two thousand year old scrolls containing significant remnants of just about every book we Christians call the “Old Testament,” ranks right up there as a breakthrough for all time.  The treasure sat for two millennia, untouched in the caves of Qumran.

The story of the find itself near the Dead Sea is enough to fill a couple of good books (and it has).  Scholars debate some of the assumptions related to the ruins located nearby.  While the New Testament does not mention the “Essenes,” Josephus (the first century historian) does.  They appear to be a sect of Judaism, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  But they were a particularly separatist group, purist, ultra-conservatives, who believed that the mainstream denominations were hopelessly watered down, polluted by the world.   In their attempts to accommodate modern culture, religious leaders who ranked high on the social scale had abandoned the true faith, according to the sect.  The Essenes were vocal in their critique, and built little enclaves designed to cut themselves off from the contaminating influences of pluralism.

One of the most remote of those enclaves they located near the barren Dead Sea.  The harsh climate and intense heat and relentless sun allowed for the kind of isolation that heightened spiritual sensitivities.  They held to strict rules requiring steadfast obedience, and they revered the holy texts.  The members with the most honored skill were scribes.  They believed that the words they put on the parchment had eternal value.  They believed that calamity – a great and terrible cataclysm – was eminent.  They were determined to preserve these precious words and phrases for future generations, and protect them from a ruthless and pagan attack, sure to come.

So, they created a scriptorium in the desert heat.  They spent their days carefully copying the sacred texts.  They prepared parchment and papyrus.  Quills with tips as nibs.  Ink that would last.  They fired clay pots, jars to protect and contain the scrolls.  They dug great spaces in caves as cool, protected storage places.  Their work went unnoticed in the bustling city of Jerusalem just over the mountain.

When the Romans marched into the desert region with their legions slaughtering everyone associated with Judaism in their path, they leveled the little community of Qumran.  The fate of the occupants is unknown, though it can be assumed that those who did not escape into the desert were cut down in 70CE as the army passed through.  The troops kept only the rich cisterns as a fresh water supply.  The massive army focused on Masada, further south, where some of the most notable rebels from Jerusalem had taken control of the Roman outpost situated high on a natural and well-protected plateau.  The ten year long resistance of this brave band of insurgents would become the stuff of Israeli legend.

Remarkably, the Romans, who were determined to pillage whatever wealth they could find and destroy whatever vestiges of religious life left behind, never stumbled across those caves.  And then, even more remarkably, for the full twenty centuries that followed, as treasure-hunters of every sort from every age combed through the ancient desert hills and cliffs like the California Gold Rush, the treasures of the scrolls in clay jars tucked away in the caves built the by the Essenes were never found.

Until 1947 when a Bedouin shepherd boy tossed a stone through an opening in the ground and heard the shatter of a clay pot echo inside.  The discovery coincided with the United Nations vote that made Israel an independent nation state.

That was over sixty years ago.  That small find on the desert led to more than two hundred other scrolls.  The sheer volume of ancient scroll material is staggering.  At first, the scrolls were managed by a hand-full of hardened, unscrupulous dealers in ancient artifacts.  Soon, credible archeologists and university researches realized the enormous treasure that had been unearthed.  The best dating technologies were employed to certify the age of the scrolls.  Scholars agreed.  The scrolls were made between 150 BCE and 50 CE, putting them smack dab at the time of Jesus and the tumultuous first century in and around Jerusalem.

The story of the Dead Sea Scrolls is filled with drama and intrigue.  Perhaps for us, the greatest significance is they way in which it confirms the preservation and accuracy of the text of the Bible for thousands of years.

Dr. George Giacumakis, with more than a little help from his friends, will be unveiling a state-of-the-art facsimile, the fourth of its kind world-wide, painstakingly crafted in London by the world’s foremost technicians and scholars, the twenty-three foot long Great Isaiah Scroll.  Thanks to the high-quality images of photographs taken shortly after this treasure was removed from its container over fifty years ago, the scroll looks just as it did as the scholars got their first look.  The genuine papyrus, carefully stitched just as the artisans sewed them together two thousand years ago, is clear and readable.  It contains the entire book of Isaiah.

The event will be held this Saturday night at the Great Park Neighborhood in Irvine, near the site of the proposed Museum of Biblical and Sacred Writings.

Come join us.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2009

More on the Unveiling

Sunday, October 4, 2009

We have many things in common, you and me.   Among them, I presume, is the habit of reading several books at the same time.  While I may be off by a title or two, I think the current count is about six.  That is, I’m reading something like six books at the moment.

It happens mainly because as much as I am enjoying a particular book, someone comes along with yet another must read, and I can’t help it.  I’ll start the next one before I complete the first.  And then it happens again, and so on.  And here I am, surrounded by great books, partially read.  The bookmarks and dog-eared page folds betray my series of incompletes.

Sound familiar?

Which is, I suppose, one more evidence that Neil Postman was right after all.  He wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death in 1985, the year after the infamous George Orwell’s dark prediction was scheduled to come true.  Just after the Second World War, the futurist envisioned that we would all be living under the thumb of an oppressive, controlling, all encompassing government.  He gave the phrase “big brother” a whole new meaning.  But Postman postulated then that Orwell missed it.  Huxley got it right.  In Brave New World, the other classic on social/cultural/political trends, written more than a decade before Orwell, Huxley imagined a world in which pleasure would trump pain; like Pinocchio, we would become so comfortable in a world of excess and accessibility to entertainment, that our indulgences would overtake us, and render us incapacitated.

I picked up Postman’s book over a year ago.  I know because I wrote “Blowing in the Wind” in July 2008.  Recently, I looked at the bookmark and marginal notes which ended somewhere in the middle of the book, realized how much I had enjoyed the first half, and set out to read it all the way to the end.  And when I was through, I re-read the introduction written by his son, twenty years after his father wrote it.  In the mean time, it has become a standard in college and university classrooms, translated into scores of languages and read all over the world.  His son’s tribute to his father’s work is as good as the book itself.

Postman is primarily an educator.  His passion is the classics.  He believes in the cultivation of the disciplines of logic, rhetoric, reason, argumentation and nuance.  None of these can be contained in a sound byte.  They require sustained concentration, careful and thoughtful development of ideas, access to vocabulary, grammatical acuity, sequential reasoning.  In a world afflicted by attention deficit disorder, civility is the first thing to go.

Every time I turned the page, I found another quote I wanted to share with you and then discuss.  Here’s a sample –

“Embedded in the surrealistic frame of a television news show is a theory of anti-communication, featuring a type of discourse that abandons logic, reason, sequence and the rules of contradiction.  In aesthetics, I believe the name given to this theory is Dadaism; in philosophy, nihilism; in psychiatry, schizophrenia.  In the parlance of the theater, it is known as vaudeville.”

Over a year ago, when I wrote Part I, we were still a couple of months away from the current economic crisis.  We had not yet elected our new President.  The stock market had yet to lose half its value.  No one had heard of Bernie Madoff.  Look at it one way, and everything has changed.  Look at it another, and nothing has changed, really.

The wisdom of the ages is still available.  Our technologies have advanced.  The means by which we access information, each other, the markets, our professions has changed dramatically.  But the content remains largely the same.  The underlying disciplines that make it all work are still pretty much operative, intact.

Kenneth Starr (yes, you got it right) made a speech last week over at the University.  The most striking element of the presentation was that most of the students populating the large lecture hall were barely toddlers during those infamous impeachment proceedings targeting the sitting President back in the Nineties.  (“Who is Kenneth Starr?” they wondered.)  He is now Dean of the School of Law at Pepperdine University.  At the end of a brilliant speech on Constitutional Law (he has argued thirty-six cases before the Supreme Court), he issued a convincing charge.

By now, he had the crowd in the palm of his hand.  These are bright people.  Top tier.  They understood the caliber of intellect and breadth of experience before them.  Looking directly into the eyes of the students, Starr said, “As I close, I want to leave you with a challenge.  I have a deep concern that relates to your generation.”

Before he laid it on the table, he went on to compliment the emerging generation for their intelligence and passion.  He noted the extraordinary difficulties of entering into the marketplace at such a time as this.  He expressed optimism that these resourceful people will rise to the occasion and make the world a better place.  But, he repeated, I have a concern.

To make your case, to advance your cause, Starr continued, you must pay more attention to your communication skills.  “I may be mistaken, but I find your generation lacking in this area.”  Work on your writing.  Stand up and make speeches.  Take courses in both.  Sharpen your verbal skills.  Read widely.  Tighten up your language.  Imagine yourself standing before a judge in open court, and stating your case with precision, brevity and passion.  Eliminate the slang.  Replace colloquialisms with a well-chosen metaphor.  Join the debate team.  Engage in meaningful, civil dialogue.

It was all us old guys, including faculty, could do to keep from giving him a standing ovation.

Afterward, the students lined up and down the aisle.  They all wanted to meet this unlikely man with gray hair and gray suit who told them the truth.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2009

Sunday, September 27, 2009

The dedication of children may be one of the best things we do in church.  Well, maybe not the best, but certainly one of the best.

It always gets me.  I’ve been sentimental all my life.  I got it from my mother.  Come to think of it, my Dad, too.  As I picture my Dad choking up over one of those touching moments, I guess I would have to say – he got it from Mom, too.  It’s why he picked her way back when.  She’s got heart.

Baby dedications do it to me.  Like this Sunday morning this week.  Moms and dads file up onto the platform as music sets the mood.  The kids aren’t quite sure why they are there.  They are groomed and polished.  You can tell just looking at them all, this event has been eagerly anticipated.

In our church, we repeat a certain series of presets.  You might call it tradition.  But even though it is all entirely predictable, it still gets me.  Every time.

First, our children’s pastor introduces the parents and the children.  She says something about what a privilege it is to work with these families and the staff that prepares and welcomes and cares for the kids week after week.  You can tell, they all like coming here as a family.  They may not be accustomed to the bright lights or the big crowd or the live feed that puts their bright faces up on the video screens.  But Pastor Lauren holds the mike and greets them all warmly.  The infants are oblivious.  But even the toddlers, well, they reach up for daddy’s strong hand.  They seem to know this is a big deal.

Especially when Lauren hands the mike over the Pastor Matthew, and he summarizes the purpose of the affair.  Together as a church family, we officially welcome these new children as a gift from a loving God who does all things well.  He congratulates the young parents, who really are not quite sure what happened to them.  They fell in love.  Made a promise.  Dreamed some big dreams, and now they are no longer just two.  They are three, or four or more.  And they look at each other, husband and wife who are now transformed into Dad and Mom and they are smiling broadly.  There is a sense of accomplishment that passes understanding.  A brand new capacity for love and generosity and giving was born in them along with the birth of that little one.  You can see it on their faces and right there in that bundle of blankets.

Matthew connects with their new life stage, mainly because he’s a Dad himself.  He challenges those new parents to teach their children about the God who made them and loves them and sent his son to redeem them.  And then he turns to us and invites us to express our commitment to these new parents and these little children to be an assist.  In whatever ways we can we will stand with these young parents as an intentional part of the growth and development of these families.  Especially the kids.

We all answer in unison. “We will.”  And we do, because we all share this strong conviction that this is really big.  It is among our primary reasons for being.  As we watch those new families, we remember when we were there with our little ones and now look what happened since.  And thankfully a likeminded community was there to help us, too.

Following a well-established protocol, Matthew invites all the extended family members who are in attendance to stand up so we can see them, and up around the front, a surprising number of aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas and cousins and brothers and sisters all take to their feet as though they were hoping the pastor would notice.  Then Matthew tells them that they have his full permission to take pictures and video and he doesn’t blame them at all because this is a moment worth remembering and every one of them has good reason to be very proud.  They all are.

A bunch of them take advantage and step into the aisle with all manner of digital recording devices and move toward the front for the best possible angle, flashes popping.

Then we pray.  Matthew goes down the row, eyes wide open, laying his gentle hand on the little ones, naming each child, each mom and dad, in a prayer of thanksgiving and challenge and dedication.  There is a warmth and a love that permeates the big room that you can feel.  A good wordsmith would call it palpable.

And that’s when I lose it.  Every time.  My eyes are open, too.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m tuned into the prayer.  I’m listening.  I’m watching those parents, those children, that pastor.  I know what’s coming next.  No surprises.  Step by step.  Down the row.  And it still gets me.  A warm, moist swelling in my throat and around my eyes.  I know it is biology and chemistry at work, but that does not come close to explaining it.  This is big.

And then as the prayer comes to an end, we all speak, one more time, in unison.  We say it together.  “Amen!”

So may it ever be.

This is one tradition I hope we never change.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp, 2009

Monday, September 21, 2009

Steve Lopez, writer for the Los Angeles Times, needs a story.

When I first heard about him, I had difficulty understanding how a writer could possibly run out of stories.  I see them everywhere.  I wish I had more time to write all of them.  But then again, this is not a paid position.  I can write about anything that strikes my fancy on any given Monday morning.  That gives me a freedom most paid writers do not enjoy.

Writing for Lopez is his job.  His next piece has to be original.  Compelling.  And suitable for a sophisticated Southern California audience.  The year is 2005.  Way back when the Times still believed (naively) that it had a future even in the age of the Internet.

All morning, he looks at a blank new page on his monitor.  Nothing but backlit white.  He surfs the net long enough to know that this is the sort of day that is going to be a fine writer’s torment.  No ideas emerge to get the proverbial ball rolling.  Not one.  So Lopez takes a walk downtown just outside the storied offices of the Times, stumped over his paralyzing writer’s block.

Generally, professionals like Lopez stay clear of the street corners where the homeless gather.  But this time, he doesn’t care.  The scent of unkept bodies and piles of discarded debris, odd collections of anomalous treasures heaped up in baskets and backpacks and smelly faded threadbare blankets tied up at the corners fills the air.  Unwashed fabrics retain their pungent stench.  Lopez knows this world.  But on this particular life-altering lunch hour, he hears something new.  It is the clear strain of a soulful violin.  The player is indistinguishable from the mass of neglected human beings sprawled on the concrete sidewalks, abandoned entryways and graffiti covered block walls except for the way he holds the bow.  He moves like a concert violinist.  Perfect pitch.  Lopez freezes.  He is mesmerized.

He walks up to the man propped up by a wall and on closer look, he notices.  Two strings.  The banged up violin is missing two strings.

Lopez strikes up an awkward conversation.  This is not the first time outsiders have engaged the homeless man.  He is cautious.  In and out of coherence.  In the stream of words, Lopez, the researcher/writer, picks up a few details.  Among them – Juilliard.  And a name – Nathaniel Ayers.

It is enough to get Lopez started.  He telephones the celebrated Juilliard School in New York City.  Acquiring an acceptance letter from this renowned academy would put Nathaniel Ayers, the wretched street dweller, in the company of the finest musicians in the world.  The people in the office of admissions were helpful; but on the first round, they only reviewed the list of graduates.  “No one named Ayers,” they say.  Disappointed, Lopez hangs up the telephone, shaking his head.  He tells himself that this just happens to be a homeless man with a healthy imagination and rare talent.

A few minutes later, the phone rings.  It is Juilliard.  “Yes, we found him.  Nathaniel Ayers studied here for two years and then dropped out.”   Lopez’s eyes widen.  He fist pumps the air.  He finds his story.

How does one man get from New York’s prestigious Juilliard to the mean streets of the Lamp Community in Los Angeles?  Lopez determines to find out.

Lopez goes back to that same street corner.  Ayers is there, playing his violin.  And over the next few weeks, the Times reporter writes a series of articles that captures a wide audience first in Los Angeles, and then around the world.

Lopez and Ayers become friends.  Lopez finds a new instrument, a cello, and delivers it to Ayers on the street.  He entices him to come to a studio.  He introduces him to other musicians.  He offers lessons.  He believes the day might well come when Ayers will experience a break-through and emerge whole and thriving in some philharmonic orchestra, among his true peers.

It is so typically American to immerse ourselves in a project, believing somehow that we can achieve what no one else can.  We dream of the day we will appear on the other side as conquering hero.

But for Lopez, such is not to be.

Not that he didn’t try.  Ultimately, it is Lopez, not Ayers, who experiences that breakthrough moment.  His spirit broken in the effort, Lopez comes to a new level of self-awareness.  It is enough, enough to be a friend.

* * * * *

Lopez’s collection of articles for the Times is now a book.  The book has been made into a full-length feature film, too.  The Soloist stars Robert Downey, Jr as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as Nathaniel Ayers.  You may have seen the story on CBS’ 60 Minutes.

* * * * *

On this Monday morning, you are committed to making a difference.  You are boundless in your optimism.  You have seen transformation.  You know change is possible.  You believe.

But you also know that some of the things you would change never will.  You have tried so hard.  Invested so much.

Before you walk away in utter frustration, look back.  Think harder.  You may be missing something.  Open up.  Listen.

Instead of changing it, it may well change you.  For the better.

How do I know?  It’s happened to me.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp, 2009

Monday, September 14, 2009

When Tom Chappell pulled up for a routine pick up one weekday afternoon, he was late.  He knew Phoenix pretty well after covering these streets for some twenty years, but this time, he got confused.  It was a full twenty minutes after the dispatcher told him to be there, and his passenger was not pleased.  He understood.  It was a quiet drive through town as Tom delivered his passenger.  No tip.  Later, she said, “I expect a cab driver to know where he’s going.”

In the next couple of weeks, he got the call again from the dispatcher.  Then again.  Same passenger.  Same destination.  No more tardiness.  By now the route was all too familiar.  Tom is one of those friendly cab drivers who likes to engage in conversation, if the passenger is willing.  One of the reasons he enjoys the job, he says, is because he meets interesting people on their way to interesting places.  “If they need it, I’d give ‘em the short off my back,” he told the interviewer.

But this passenger sat quiet in the back seat, no interest in small talk.

He wondered why she made these regular stops at the clinic.  It was plain to see, she didn’t like it.  He had always been healthy himself, a wiry guy with a bushy mustache and a baseball cap, barely a hundred and fifty pounds, active, hard working and not much in tune with medical issues.  He had to stop by a library to look up the word “Dialysis” which was on the door of the medical building where Rita Van Loenen went several times a week.  There, in the local library, Tom came to understand Rita’s crankiness.  Sitting alone next to a clicking machine for three hours at a time with one big needle in your artery and then one more back into your vein to mechanically clean out your entire supply of blood is no pleasant affair.  So Tom just brought it up outright one day, and Rita opened up for the first time.

She confided in him that she needs a kidney transplant, but no one in her circle of friends or family is a match.  She’s on the national registry, but it is a long, unpredictable wait.  No guarantees.  So she sits at the machine.  Without it, the toxins would take her out in a week or two.

Wow.  Tom said.

The next week, Tom shocked Rita with a question.  “Can I get one of those tests?”

“What test?” Rita asked, nonplussed.

“The one that tells you if you are compatible,” Tom said.

Rita, to this day, could not believe what she was hearing.  Tom later told CBS newsman Steve Hartman that he had a little talk with God about it and got the go-ahead.  When the results of the testing came back, Tom and Rita, chatty cabbie and reluctant passenger, were confirmed as a perfect match.  Tom said, “According to the doctor, we are so close, we could be siblings.”

The news of this rare close encounter of the “coincidental” kind hit the local media outlets.  Tom scheduled the surgery.  It takes several months.  Rita can barely speak when she talks about her unlikely donor.

But that is not the end of our story.

“One of the reasons I’m doing this,” he tells Rita, “is that you’ve got a life.  I didn’t think I had that much more to live for anyway.  No big deal then.”

Shortly after the account of Tom’s offer aired on the local news and appeared front page on the Phoenix newspapers, Tom got an unexpected telephone call.  On the other end was the daughter who left at age eight with her determined mother when Tom’s wife walked out and disappeared over thirty years ago.  It had been a nasty divorce.  The cab driver pulled a picture book out from the dashboard glove compartment of the taxi and showed Hartman the photo of his estranged daughter, a little girl with curly strawberry blond hair and a bright smile.  He brushed away the tears when he said, “Not a day has gone by in these last thirty years that I didn’t think about her…”

“Dad, I heard about the kidney,” were her first words on the telephone.  It was as though she missed him, too.  The word reached her in Kentucky.  The act of kindness made this obscure Phoenix taxi driver something of a local hero, not only to the folks in the neighborhood who knew him and Rita’s friends and family, but now just as much a hero to the daughter who left at age eight so long ago, now a mother with children of her own.  “I found out about the grandchildren I didn’t know existed,” Tom told Steve, choking up again with emotion.  “She wants me to see the children.  To get to know them.”

“This whole thing didn’t just give you a life,” he explains to Rita.  ”You gave me a life, too.”

Hartman gave us more good news as he signed off.  Tom’s employer, the owner of the taxi company, will not only put Tom on paid leave for the time it takes to extract one of his kidneys and then recover, they will also pay for the plane fare and more time off so Tom can be reunited with his daughter and meet his grandkids.

So today, on this Monday morning, fellow leader, whom might we meet?  Are we listening?  An unsolicited act of kindness.  Where may it take us?

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp, 2009

See the video.