My hair: Lost in translation. Literally.

If you live in a multi-cultural neighborhood, it is really a good idea to pick up at least an effective smattering of the lingua franca...  in this case, Spanish. And you really should know when that sweet-faced young Latina smiles and says "Short, Si?" While pointing at what turns out to be the No. 1 setting on her clippers...  holding up your index finger and thumb one and a half inch apart means nothing, if you also gallantly answer, "Er, Si! Porforvor. "
After the initial buzzzzz, all is lost. Really. You just opted for a "high-and-tight" haircut, mi amigo.
And chagrined, as well as decidedly chilly from the ears up, you still pay the $10, and dutifully add a nice tip.
Those brown eyes, raven hair and the trilling "Gracias," make you forget your hairless plunge... until you see yourself in the glass exit door's reflection.
Then just croak, "Ohhhh, Lord!" And pull down your cap and slink home.
Hair grows back. Right?
RIGHT?!?

Guess what? Unemployment would've gone up this week regardless who won the White House.
Republican Mitt Romney was not the secular messiah, and Obama never has been.
Storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, famines, corporate greed/ethical failure happen, and one man, one party, one nation have very little to do with stopping any of them.
Certainly, it is easier -- and provides such a convenient outlet for our frustration, anger and, dare I say it, self-righteousness -- to regurgitate the myth of a President, a Congress, or the marketplace somehow comprising the be-all and end-all of our well-being.
But they are detours from a complex reality; they are the proverbial, and rhetorical "Straw Man," a diversion of willful, if desperate, self-delusion.
We can only control how we REACT, and when we do that together, with a unified purpose that transcends mere politics, and by calling upon the common ground of our faiths, then we have a chance.

A 'Come to Jesus' moment, and the Twelve Steps

You've heard of those "Come to Jesus" moments.
Well, Wednesday night, I had one as close to literal as they come, I suspect.
Our usual church Bible study session gave way to a panel of four folks from Alcoholics Anonymous who held forth on the Twelve Steps.
Each person took three of them, and shared their own stories.
They talked about loss, pain, self-hatred and how that played out in addiction, and victimization -- of themselves by others, and of others by them.
I watched their eyes as they struggled to share what were, even years later, painful, raw and ragged wounds of the soul.
And, I felt awful. Awful for how I have -- albeit mostly in silence and within my own thoughts -- too often dismissed such people as losers, parasites and subhuman, unworthy of sharing the same space, time and air as the rest of us.
Right there, as one woman spoke about her struggle with crystal meth and multiple suicide attempts, I asked my God for forgiveness -- and the gift to see others with some trace of His compassionate grace.
God is Love, I've come to believe, and God is Love beyond our understanding, and in dimensions of compassion we cannot begin to fathom.
That's why his Son told us not judge, to leave that to the only One who is qualified to weigh the human heart.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

So, the election is over.
Thank God. And I mean that, in every conceivable sense of the word.
Think about it. A liberal, Democrat in the White House with a failed first term in so many respects -- and much of that failure due to a Republican House and a Senate where "blue dog" Democrats often defected to negate their party's narrow majority.
But also, much of that failure was due to the inexperience and lack of leadership from a man, however eloquent, whose previous national governmental service consisted of one, incomplete Senate term.
That he would win a second term, after four years of economic recession and high unemployment, indeed seems the essence of an "Audacity of Hope," as one of his books was titled.
Few gave Barack Obama a chance for re-election. If only the Republicans could come up with someone passably acceptable . . .
Instead, the GOP primaries proved to be a parade of clowns. Much of that nomination campaign consisted of a shifting anyone-but-Romney string of failed alliances. We had a cowboy clown from Texas who shot himself in his political foot, repeatedly, with his lack of understanding and fatal malaise. A fast food king who sounded good, but faded under scrutiny or anything deep in inquiry, a bigoted idiotessa who made Sarah Palin look like a Rhodes Scholar.
And, that Mormon guy who ran the 2002 Winter Games.
Try as he might -- and he certainly did, flip-flopping on social, cultural and economic issues in a naked, ultimately failed bid to win the Right -- Mitt Romney just never quite convinced Republicans, some of whom just months ago were lamenting the triggering of the Apocalypse should a Mormon win the White House.
I became a bored observer myself, once moderate Jon Huntsman -- also a Mormon, by the way -- failed to excite support with his thoughtful, common sense approach to the issues. His half-hearted endorsement of Mitt later on mirrored the lack of enthusiasm Romney would gather.
And so, here we are. And the heck of it is that probably little will change in the next four years.
If, considering the Dems held BOTH House and Senate, along with the White House for the first two years of Obama's first term and still did nothing beyond a watered-down health care program thanks to the self-serving antics of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi . . . then how can we expect anything better with Washington doomed to partisan bickering for another two years at least?
Faith, my friends, should not be placed in the soaring oratory of our likeable, but ineffective President, nor any politician or party.
Faith is the realm of God. And we had better be praying for our nation, now more than ever.