Redefining human sexuality and gender: Our relentless politically correct lemmings' march to the sea

So, it's no longer the Boy Scouts. But it's still the Girl Scouts. Girls can join the former, boys cannot join the latter.

It's just crazy. No, really, it is. And this is just one more mile marker on this politically correct lemmings march to the sea.

Our so-called "culture war" was fought for decades in the political realm, and in the classrooms and lecture halls. Now, increasingly, this struggle has moved into the arena of faith.

More mainstream, "liberal" denominations of After millennia of general agreement of such things, within a generation many mainstream, "liberal" Christian denominations have abandoned old, seemingly written-in-stone beliefs about the nature of humankind, love and what comprises the sanctity of marriage. These changes, they argue, reflect a more loving God, and a more selective, perhaps, reading of scripture.

A new PRRI poll shows that now the struggle appears to also be eroding, through attitudes of millennial members, the once-resolute commitment to "traditional marriage" and associated same-sex issues, within the ranks of the most conservative expressions of faith -- just 10 years after a coalition of such churches, along with Muslims, Hindus and others -- passed California's Prop 8.

While this shift is explosive in terms of religious timelines, perhaps the struggle is ancient. There always has been the dichotomy: Does humankind define the Divine and its intentions, or does a faithful humankind allow the God they claim to believe in to redefine and perfect them? A subset of that would seem to reflect the former -- that the foundations of scripture, doctrine and tradition are now an embarrassment to our more enlightened, evolved worldviews.

The trend seems to be that scripture is antiquated, its commands thus open to revision or dismissal in light of current, more "evolved" thought. In all this, where does love and fidelity come in? Can we, as believers, not love, respect and pray for those who do not share the tenets of our faith, and yet still hold fast, not compromising the heart of our faith given once, for all?

Can those who so rightly fight for civil rights for all humankind, regardless their ethnicity, gender, or personal, political and religious choices also respect -- even protect -- the rights of others who disagree on matters of faith and its practice to live out their convictions?

Once upon a time, such disagreements often would conclude without resolution, but with this statement, accredited to Evelyn Beatrice Hall: "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

A spiritual sea change: Diving into the deep waters of the Ancient Faith

Today, Holy Saturday, April 7, 2018, I joined 20 of my brothers and sisters today in Holy Baptism.

Four hours of illumination, prayer and eternal memories. Having my sweet wife Barbara, son Rob, daughter-in-law Rachel and my grandson, Josh, witnessing my life event made it even more special.

My feet and knees ached a bit (we stand for most of the liturgy and prayers at Sts. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church), but my spirit soars.

Photo courtesy SPPOC

I'm the old guy second row, just left of center. At Resurrection Service a few hours later, I received my first Holy Communion. Another awesome, life-changing experience.

To my young (by comparison) spiritual father, Fr. Justin Havens, my godfather (also younger than me) Bruce "Zachias" Plympton, Deacon Peter Samore (who encouraged me early in my journey), and all the others to welcomed me with open arms and hugs these past 12 months, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

To Barbara, again, a special additional thanks. In her love for me, she has been a steady support throughout.

That she had done so, even if not being in the same place in her own journey, has been sacrificial and made me love her more -- and after almost 45 years of marriage, I thought my heart was already full with the mystery of my better half, best friend, and first and only love.

I am, truly, blessed.

See you tonight for Resurrection Service!
Let that, too, be truly blessed.

Photo courtesy SPPOC

*Other posts on my journey from Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BobMimsSLC/posts/375797842897191
https://www.facebook.com/BobMimsSLC/posts/370707290072913

Waiting for God

It’s been a crazy few months.

And I’m not just talking about Trump’s upset victory.

Before Thanksgiving, the sewage system serving our condo unit backed up, resulting in $11,000 damage to our unit. It was supposed to take three weeks; it took more like eight. The work, finally, was completed a week ago.

Then, my 94-year-old father’s condition worsened, his dementia and frailty forcing a move to a 24/7 nursing facility.

It was stressful, emotional time made all the more difficult by timing and distance, that is, it being the depth of winter and 800 miles away.

My son, Rob, and I trekked north in (what we later learned) was a rented minivan with bald back tires on snowcapped, icy roads from Utah to Spokane, Wash.  Heavy snowstorms closed down first one interstate route and then another, forcing us to make the trip — both there and back — on two-lane roads winding through the mountains of western and central Idaho through the Nez Perce Indian Reservation and then the rolling, barely plowed roads of the Palouse.

White-knuckle driving for my son, who was behind the wheel during a total 30 hours round trip, often at speeds no more than 35 mph.

A couple times, sliding semi-trailer rigs had near collisions just ahead of us, and we saw easily a dozen vehicles off the road due to misjudgment of black ice.

We had prayed for protection, though, and we got it.

We also had prayed my Dad’s move would go well and without a hitch. It ultimately did. Preparation beforehand helped a lot, too.


But it’s always painful to see a parent entered the deepening twilight of life.

We remember them when they were younger, sharper; a hero, and occasionally nemesis to a know-it-all teen or 20-something; clueless or profoundly wise.

More than a year ago, it was my mother — in the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease — who had to be transferred to a “memory care” unit, leaving her husband of close to 70 years behind, alone.
On Jan. 11, Dad joined Mom in the same unit, his room next to her’s.

Nursing staff tells me they both seem at peace. Mom recognizes Dad for a few seconds, but usually know him only vaguely.

But it’s enough for them. Mom can no longer talk, but she listens to Dad’s soft, tender words through the day as they hold hands at meals and activity times.

Dad, once recognized as one of the most talented banjo players in the country, spends the in-between times struggling to complete pure, resonant chords on a ukulele. His sight nearly gone, he sees music with arthritic fingers, tentatively exploring the strings and frets.


Back home in Utah, I went through the boxes of file folders, photos, knickknacks, etc., we brought back with us from Dad's old assisted living room. Bittersweet. Tears fell for what was lost, but also for lives well-lived.


Happy photos of a young couple, just starting out in the late 1940s, their lives stretching ahead of them. Pictures of my sister and I as babies, and kids. Our kids.


But perhaps most precious of all were the love letters. Long, handwritten letters from a 20-year-old Montana girl to her 27-year-old soul mate, professing longing and love. Letters back from Dad to her, from various small towns where he was holding evangelistic meetings, dripping tenderness, punctuated with his silly cartoons.

Letters laden with the innocence of their love and dreams, the strength of their Christian faith that would sustain them through so many heartaches, and a few triumphs, in the years ahead.

So many decades later, their lives have been distilled to a handful of heartbeats, the clasping of gnarled, parched hands, and murmurs of love that, somehow, has survived the loss of so many memories.


The decades have wound down now. Months? Weeks? Days? Hours? What remains for them as they rise to sunlight and yawn toward the dusk of their time.


Then they nap or sleep the nights away, waiting for God.

Into each life a little (well, a lot) of poop much flow?

Twice our condominium has been flooded in the past few years.

The first time was from an overflowing toilet two stories above our ground-floor unit. That took six weeks to “mitigate” (i,.e., clean up the mess, replace damaged ceilings, dry out the interior framework, etc.)

Over the weekend, the flood came from below.

First, we thought our aging water heater finally had given up the ghost, expiring in a gush of its Luke-warm contents.

But several hours into sweeping the floodwaters out the front door while Barbara suctioned up what she could with our carpet cleaner, making endless trips to dump the tank on the lawn outside . . . we learned it was not the water heater.

Oh. no. As it turned out, I had been standing barefoot for several hours in sewage overflow from a clogged exterior line. Three other units were flooded, too.

Turning off the main water line, and thus depriving the sewer feeds of ongoing volume, stopped the flow. The stench, and questionable looking debris were left behind.

On the floor. On the walls. On the ruined rugs, shoes and baseboard and carpeting.

“The Flood Pros” arrived to assess and make repairs. The sensors showed our flood, indeed, was a “category three” contamination event. In other words, poop.

Two workers came in to tear away the affected walls, insulation, carpeting, etc., and treat the wall interiors with anti-microbial chemicals.

Exhausted, Barb and I watched them work from the couch. One guy, clearing the drain under the water heater from which the flow had gurgled and flowed, suddenly growled with disgust: “CHUNKS! I HATE chunks!”

That, of course, broke our mood of despair, if only for a bit. Laughter and tears.

The work goes on. The condo looks like a war zone. But it won’t always be that way. This, too, will pass.

Still, we’ve gotten far closer to our neighbors, organically speaking, than anyone would ever dream . . . .

Gen X to Baby Boomers: Move over, you ruined everything. Echo, anyone?

I had to laugh. The editorial headline in the Mercury News trumpeted, “It’s time for disastrous Baby Boomers to go.” (click here to read it)

The author, GenXer Dana Milbank, went on to blame the 50-64 age group for pretty much everything wrong with America: congressional gridlock, squandering the global power and influence inherited from winning the Cold War by embarking on two Middle East military adventures-turned-disasters, crippling debt, and even . . . Donald Trump.

Milbank derided the older generation for its selfishness and unyielding attitudes, the fruits of being coddled in their youth.

Like I said, I had to laugh. Not with the glee of someone who gets a hilarious joke, but with the bittersweet realization that, (1), Milbank has some solid reasons to declare such conclusions and (2), and that I’ve heard it all before.

Literally. I listened to the same message in 1969, putting a 33 1/3 rpm LP vinyl record on my “portable” (75-pound, suitcase size) stereo and dropping the needle into the first groove. The song was “Move Over.” (click here if you want to listen to it)

"Things look bad from over here

Too much confusion and no solution

Everyone here knows your fear

You're out of touch and you try too much
Yesterday's glory won't help us today

You want to retire?

Get out of the way
The country needs a father

Not an uncle or big brother

Someone to keep the peace at home

If we can't get it together

Look out for stormy weather

Don't make me pay for your mistakes

I have to pay for my own
Yesterday's glory won't help us today

You want to retire?

Get out of the way
I ain't got much time

The young ones close behind

I can't wait in line. . . "

Who knows? Maybe Gen X will do better.

Or, at least maybe Linkin Park could do a cover of “Move Over.”

Wouldn’t need to change a word.

2016 Election: Is it really a choise of the 'lesser of two evils,' or voting your conscience?

It is a shame that our choices for the White House have boiled down to holding one’s nose and choosing one the perceived lesser of two evils. 

On one hand, there is the self-absorbed demagogue who steps in the bull flop and then puts the same foot in his mouth, repeatedly; a man who is long on criticism and so short of proposed solutions.

On the other, we are offered a career politician whose foreign policy decisions were disastrous and deadly in their aftermath, whose hubris is legendary, and whose integrity has long been for sale.


The old saw that we get what we deserve when we go to the polls cannot hold true in 2016, can it? How could any nation “deserve” either of our horrible choices this election year?

So, the argument here is basically to choose the aforementioned lesser of two evils; that a vote of conscience — say casting our ballots instead for Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Party candidate Jill Stein — has no value?

Perhaps, in a political economy of situational ethics, that makes some sense. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” as the idiom says.

Too many are surrendering to that idea, and I understand the frustration that feeds that assessment. But for some of us, voting for either of the major party “choices” is simply too repugnant to contemplate.

Sometimes, a few of us may even say all the time, choosing the right thing is never a waste, even if it isn’t the “winning” choice in the cynical world of politicians.

Vote you conscience.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason, a.k.a. Transient Global Amnesia

What's on your mind? Facebook asks. Well, funny thing is, my mind . . . is on my mind.

Monday I lost an hour. Was work, busy, had done five breaking news stories. I remember thinking suddenly that the time had really flown by, looking at the clock. Then I looked at the Trib website and saw my stories . . . and didn't recognize them. They were vaguely familiar, but in the sense that I became convinced that they were from a year ago, and that our flukey publishing system had somehow wiped out my work and replaced it with these others.

Yeah, kinda like that.

Steve Hunt, friend and editor, arrived. I told him what I thought had happened. He checked the stories, found them well-written (thanks), accurate and, more importantly, current. Noting my ongoing confusion at that point, he became concerned and talked me into getting checked out.

Off to the ER at St. Mark's. MRI, CT scans of the noggin, a bunch of tests and questions (who are you, who's president, what day and date is it, etc.) Then the horrible waiting.
My mother is in the end stages of Alzheimer's disease, so as I waited in the ER bed, I prayed it wasn't THAT. A stroke, even a tumor would've been preferable.

It was none of those things, Turns out I still have a fine lookin' brain -- no signs of stroke, tumors or, thank God, Alzheimer's. Diagnosis was "Transient Global Amnesia." Rare. Seldom reoccurs, and memories lost return. (They did, by the way, within 12 hours).

So, along with stress or blood pressure spikes (lot of the former, latter not a factor), migraine sufferers are at risk for TGA. (I have been plagued with them since puberty). Also, being over 50.

It's a scary thing, folks. But it also, generally, harmless and does not reoccur.
Still, the ER doc ordered me to rest the remainder of the week, do a precautionary followup with a neurologist (a panel of 'em is reviewing the scans, per protocol, and will decide whether to doing anything further soon (if something seems amiss the docs at St. Mark's missed), later, or not at all. Waiting to hear back.

So, when I saw the usual Facebook question, "What's on your mind?" I found that funny, ironically speaking.

But what had me laughing out loud today, as I listened to music at the condo complex poolside, taking the docs' orders to heart, was when I realized I had just mentally floated through Pink Floyd's album, "Momentary Lapse of Reason."

The Universe is a cosmic standup comedian, sometimes.

I had this thought, too, being a preacher's kid. Dad always used to preach that when God forgives our sins, he also forgets them. Forever.

Want to change a cynical, ethically and morally bankrupt world? First, change yourself

It’s getting tough to write blogs.

Oh, not because there’s not enough fodder, if political, moral, ethical or any other kind of outrage is what you are into.

There’s plenty of all that. 

In fact, there is way, way too much. It is downright depressing.

So much so, that if you think about it for any amount of time, you just might — in your deepest, darkest moments — wish for an extinction-level meteor event.

You know, give the cockroaches a chance.

Currently, a coarse, crude, egomaniacal billionaire has the Republican presidential selection process in what likely will prove to be a politically fatal spiral to banality. 

The Democrats, meanwhile, offer us either a candidate who lies as easily as a snake hisses, has no integrity, and who flip-flops on her so-called “deeply held beliefs” — abortion, gay marriage, capitalism, the War on Terror, immigration, the environment, you name it — depending on which way the political winds blow . . . or a self-described “democratic socialist.”

At least the socialist, in this case, is consistent and honest about his beliefs, however historically bankrupt they may be.

Then, there are the questionable, unending wars and civil conflicts we dive into, only to learn we have been on the wrong sides, or at least ones where we should not have destabilized nation states inherited by fanatic, murderous Islamic extremists who now persecute millions, slaughter thousands, and ultimately threaten billions.

We are, as a nation, morally bankrupt. We do not admit that; rather, we simply redefine what morality is, rather than confronting what we once commonly agreed was immoral.

Ethics — in business, government, even in religious bodies — has become situational at best, and arguably a massive illusion of self-deception, rendering the concept of proper behavior to nothingness.

One can despair.

But perspective is all. We can only control ourselves, our own actions. 

If we value morality and ethics, let it begin at home — how we treat our spouses, children, and grandchildren — and then shine as a rarity in the workplace, and certainly in our friendships.

If we are to lament the state of the world and its leaders, we need to be the kinds of leaders, friends, parents, workers, and human beings we would like to see.

Finally, but ultimately the key to it all, there’s faith.

If we believe we are, indeed, God’s children, time to stop playing the prodigal, and return to what we know in our hearts is true, good, and faithful to the Love that redeems us.

Want to change the world? And it needs changing, oh yes. 

Well, start with the person you see in the mirror — or reflected in the eyes of a child.

Thanksgiving

This is Thanksgiving week, but we're already living it, thanks to my daughter and son-in-law, Brenda and Idal.

Their generosity in deed and spirit made it possible for us to visit them in Maryland; it is the finest gift we could ever have received.

Seeing how they have created a strong, faithful family with perseverance, hard work and love makes Barbara and me proud, humbled, and truly thankful.

Sharing time with our granddaughter and two grandsons, while they are still young children, has been a treat. The years ahead are anticipated as rich ones because of them.

Seeing my daughter always brings a flash of memory -- a little girl, her eyes peeking out from a cloud of windblown auburn hair, marveling over a plucked dandelion.

Now, she is a grown woman and mother.
A good one. A very good one.

My son-in-law works long and hard for his family, too. No complaints about that, but joy when he comes home to hug the kids and help his spouse with dinner, or chores that may have remained from a hectic day of chasing a toddler and caring for an infant, all while helping an 8-year-old girl with homework.

How rare is all this, in this time of absent fatherless and broken families? Rare.

Thankful?

Oh, yes.

This Pilgrim's progress, and yours

Saturday morning, I took the dogs for a walk along the Jordan River's back trails. 

Once I got past the abandoned shopping carts, one homeless man's well-established and, uncharacteristically clean campsite (and a few impromptu refuse dumps, it was beautiful. 

The trek was a John Bunyanesque metaphor AND, to a point a metaphor, for a spiritual journey. I walked into areas where the well-worn foot trails became hints in the brush and through the limbs of trees, raining down gold and red foliage with each sigh of breeze; into sunlight filtered through the canopy and reflected in the frost on a downed cottonwood, and glistening from the moss on rocks. Beyond, power-blue skies, and clouds of fluff.

I stepped out of the pain, the detritus of human shortcomings, the bitterness of some lives expressed with disdain for themselves, and nature, the cast off wreckage of dreams, even, and into beauty.
It was like going to a cathedral, quiet but for the sighs and whispered prayers of the private penitent, looking up and finding myself walking inside the sunlight of stained glass with saints and sinners, all of us forgiven.

It was, for a blessed, crystal clear moment, being caressed and absorbed in that deep, abiding Love. . . and being reminded, again, that He is with me, and with all who just pause to let go the offense, to forgive, and be aware, to be present.

This, my Lord, transcends mere human doctrines, buildings and their grasp at the out-of-context pieces of scriptures while willfully ignoring the whole.

And, finally, here is a truth I've discovered. If you say you are a Christian that "whole" calls upon us to judge OURSELVES. We, and often poorly and with failures too numerous to count, "sin" -- fall short of the mark, from the word's Latin roots.

Paul put it this way in 1st Corinthians 5:12-13: "For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges."

And from what I believe, that latter part is in Love and compassion beyond our imagining.

Thus ends the sermon. smile emoticon


If all, some or part of it resonates, I didn't waste my time, or yours.

Be blessed. It's up to you.