White - Black - Gray

Likely tomorrow, a new frenzy of media chatter on Michael Jackson. He was born on August 29, 1958.

At Jackson’s death in June, Kathy and I - both pop music fans- placed a long play record (LP) on the turntable and listened to "ABC" and "I'll Be There."

More recently however, an old copy of the book, "Black Like Me" has turned our attention: the world obsesses on one whose skin was lightened; we are reading of one whose skin was darkened.

I first read it 40 years ago. In the year 1959, J. Howard Griffin used medications intended for sufferers (as Michael Jackson later became) of vitiligo. It is a splotchy loss of skin pigmentation. Griffin also spent time under a sun lamp. He shaved his head and shaved the hair off of his hands. His skin turned temporarily black.

Then he travelled about in the Deep South of the United States as an African American and was treated as a second class citizen.

Black Like Me excelled as first-person journalism, holding up a mirror to show a society its own “Picture of Dorian Gray.”

Sometimes we would rather look away . . . and markets-driven media know it. In June, Jackson’s death prompted a media stampede, revealing our diminishing news judgment and the declining scope of news coverage. Journalists still do the heroic, but the herd mentality can be both contagious and dangerous.

Fortunately social networkers in Iran used Twitter and blogs to keep before us an ongoing story of international import. Fortunately journalists were willing to risk those wayward steps into North Korea. Fortunately we have technologies to use in right and proper ways.

A Virtual --And Virtuous? -- Community

Does social networking create community? Does it promote healthy relations with other people?

With God?

Yes and no.

Using Twitter, you may now send a short prayer request to Israel. A young economist, Alon Nir, and his team will print it and stuff your prayer into the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Community, I suppose.

A California teen, Alan Wright, has devised “A Note to God”, by which people would be able to pray using their I-phone.

Community, if you consider “other-oriented” or selfless behavior as a necessary element.

So much of it however, centers on self. “Like many of you, I reluctantly entered into the world of virtual social networking, primarily swayed by the argument that it would be a good way to stay in touch with friends and family,” writes David Sills on http://davidsills.blogspot.com/2009/08/tweet-tweet.html. “However, reading the Facebook updates and Twitter tweets that inundate the web through the day makes me suspect that their primary purpose is self promotion.”

Where is the virtual community taking the younger generation?

I watch our sons minimize the homework screen, pop up an online chat (multiple conversations, no less), then check on the status of a video that's loading, then go to homework. Can normally mono-tasking males be transformed by this media to multi-taskers who do everything all at once?

If -- and I have NO proof but just am wondering -- there is biological change in brain circuitry occurring, can the mental and spiritual remain exempt? Can media, which changed the way we look at candidates and national events with the advent of television, also modify the way we look at ourselves and how we posture ourselves before others?

Awhile back, a newspaper reporter and I were using e-mail to discuss the use of Twitter in journalism. Don also observed a "self-obsessed twist in the nature of Facebook updates . . . and Twitter that, over time, is unhealthy for society." I tucked it away, only to find the same observation amplified recently by Dr. Sills.

Our start point may be “I can ride my bike with no handlebars.”Will our claims about ourselves then morph into "I can destroy the planet in a holocaust."? No, because we do not become megalomaniacs overnight.

A likelier scenario: a much subtler, smoother slide to "hey, hey look at me!" And collateral damage in that slide: a loss of the fine art of listening, the discipline of meditation, the give and take of true friendship. Replaced by white noise of "everybody's talking at me; I can't hear a word they're sayin'" as Harry Nillson sang in a simpler day than ours.

We may also lose discernment, for it's awfully tough -even for multitaskers- to evaluate as we're pecking out our next Tweet.

You Done Broke My Heart . . . Uh Guitar

Guitars and communications – a couple of my favorite topics.

While I've held Taylor guitars in high regard I've only ever held one Taylor in my hands. And until today, I'd never heard of Dave Carroll.

After today, I hold both Taylors AND Carroll in high regard.

A songwriter, he tried for a year to get an airline to cough up for his Taylor guitar damaged on a Chicago-Nebraska flight.

After penning a country song “United Breaks Guitars”, the troubador and his bandmates hammed up a corny video*, already viewed nearly two and a half million times on Youtube.

Carroll also used his own website and Twitter effectively, as demonstrated by an Aussie, Lance Scoular.

In his staid deliver, Scoular chronicles the phenomena (I hestitate to call it a formula. Carroll did some things very right, but wannabes could now do - and and likely WILL do- the very same and get just 15 views.) Congrats go to Dave (a David of sorts), who brought the giant to heel, with faith in new media capabilities and letting go with a couple of stones.

The little guy can be heard against a giant, whether its United or the manufacturer of malfunctioning voting machines (another episode of new media, viral story travel and crowdsourced journalistic work).

But it is still not a replacement for newsrooms and professional journalists. There is too much injustice for that.

*a little warning that the Lord's name is used in vain early in the song.

Twenty-thousand Feet at 2,820 Meters

(Deep radio male voice, close mic position) TWENTY-THOUSAND FEET!

(Excess studio reverb) 10,000 RUNNERS!

THOUSANDS OF CHEERING FANS!

(Race noises up, then under) And a 15 kilometer race on cobblestone and on pavement, with the FINISH in the Atahualpa soccer stadium!!!

That’s the way it was likely promoted – the annual Ultimas Noticias run. The way it began was much more low key.

We and other runners rode in silence on the trolley. At the end of the line we walked in small groups, most of them talking among themselves.

We stretched and waited for the starting gun. Then after the race officially began . . . we waited even more. Ten-thousand people don´t cross the start line all at once.

The stories are important to me. A day earlier, I talked with Luisa and Gustavo while in line to get our singlets and shoelace time chips for the race. A year earlier, Gustavo had come up from Riobamba to run the race, so Luisa took him way down south for the race start.

“Well, we´ll see how I get home,” Gustavo casually mentioned. “I´ll go with you for awhile,” Luisa replied.

A ways down the 15k route, she decided to go further with him, then on a bit further.

And on and on . . . until they jogged right into the stadium in the north part of town. That was 2008.

Saturday June 6, 2009 they were picking up their race supplies for the Sunday race.

Gustavo is 83 years old.

And The Beat Goes on

My first drum restoration is underway. The bass drum shell is in good shape, considering its age. It is Made In Japan vintage from the sixties or early seventies. The wrap, though faded, was staying on. On the inside, one rib needed a bit of regluing. The lugs and tension rods were not pitted, and so cleaned up nicely with rubbing compound.










The inside mounting plate had rusted, but in Tim's shop I cleaned it up with his grinder/brush. It was nice to get back into the shop for a change.
Bought some claws on Ebay for $11. Andrew brought them. The one remaining drum hoop was pretty beat and after watching Ebay sales for awhile, I opted for a pair made in Ecuador. They used three coats of preservative, followed by four coats of car paint. $12 each hoop.
The new hoops are more of a royal blue, not blue sparkle. But they dress up the drum nicely. (Will put on the other one when I get a drum head.)

Make Me Thy Fuel

In a country church down a gravel road off Highway 75, it was time for a music special. I didn’t have a song; I had a poem. I stood at the front and recited “Flame of God” by Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur Fellowship.

From prayer that asks that I may be

Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,

From fearing when I should aspire,

From faltering when I should climb higher

From silken self, O Captain, free

Thy soldier who would follow Thee.

From subtle love of softening things,

From easy choices, weakenings,

(Not thus are spirits fortified,

Not this way went the Crucified)

From all that dims Thy Calvary

O Lamb of God, deliver me.

Give me the love that leads the way,

The faith that nothing can dismay

The hope no disappointments tire,

The passion that will burn like fire;

Let me not sink to be a clod;

Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.

A couple of decades and a few thousand miles away, I am carried back to that time and those influences upon me. On Monday, I arrived for work only to learn that old-timer, John Munday, had died. Soon I had in my hands, Kay Landers’ biography of John, God’s Fuel.

The obituary written, the final story told. John’s threescore plus 10 (in this case plus 20) are gone. Who could ever count his legacy among orphans for whom he became a surrogate dad?

John’s death. A second event this month that helped me recall mission nudgings from my younger years.

You don’t need to do much to leave a legacy.

Just die.

Every day.

Just be God’s fuel.

Penned in Pain and in His Power

Though the woman in the bed had no choice but to be served, “servant of all” was still her watchword. One kind of service still open to Amy, when pain did not make it impossible, was writing.

The Servant as Writer, in "A Chance to Die, The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"

Punch is needed in newsletters, for they seek to update donors, solicit specific prayer, and, we hope, help givers keep on giving because they know they have invested in work that is bearing spiritual fruit.

How is this done when a delicate health condition forces on you, confinement to a limited schedule of activities? How to write with spark and pzazz of human limits, solitary suffering, and seemingly unanswered prayers.

You begin, if you happen to be married, by telling of the work your spouse does. That's how Becky handled it in a letter I reviewed recently for her and her husband, Germán.

German does this; German directs that project; German has plenty on his plate of responsibilities.

Becky mentions her involvement with the ladies of the church German pastors, saying she will coordinate a women's retreat. Otherwise, the work and social hubbub that is reality for many of us who work together is to her, a foreign land. She is not seen stopping by for a few minutes to see German. Or working in the same complex. Her health does not allow her to be here.

Her presence however, was powerful in my office the morning I reviewed her letter. I sign off with the words that Becky wrote:

Still Waters Artist

Jesus,

When pain is a storm that my boat unmoors,

You turn my eye to still waters’ shores.

With artistic wisdom uniquely yours

You reweave the peace that my soul restores,

touching and teaching me through my tears,

lovingly lifting me from my fears

up toward the clearness of Son-lit spheres

where yours is the Music that my heart hears;

painting me portraits of divine Grace,

setting each detail into its place,

sculpting eternity’s Time and Space,

which some day I’ll share with You face to face.

The rage of the storm seems more faint and blurred

When all through your artwork your voice is heard.

I watch and I listen, my senses stirred

By a poem composed of the Perfect Word.

As power dances deftly at your command

And kindles the strength that I need to stand,

You draw me a map of your Father’s Land,

Where some day I’ll walk with You, hand in hand.

No, storms that unmoor can’t compete with You.

You hold me through all that the storms might do;

You steady my hope, once more prove it’s true

That You love me far more than I ever knew!

-Becky Rhon ©

(used with permission of the author)

photos: Ben