Not really all that much left to say about Palin after the frenzy of the last 48 hours. The GOP base loves the pick (James Dobson’s voting for McCain now!), all of the Hillary women McCain wanted to try and attract hate the pick, and independants don’t think it’s a good idea either. There’s a good polling rundown here and a good article on the tone coming from all the major papers around the country here. Andrew Sullivan, one of my favorite conservative bloggers and the most widely read blog online (I think), thinks McCain just flipped a birdie to anything resembling a real campaign in a great post on “Putting Country Last“.

My sense is that the Obama camp isn’t going to touch this pick with a 10-foot pole for the next while, and will be content to let the press and surrogates kick Palin and the McCain campaign around for a while with stories of inexperience and scandals while they quietly do oppo research and craft their messaging. The Obama crew also know that they can’t come on too strong and bash Palin around seeing as a mother with a Down’s Syndrome child who is really and truly an ordinary American could elicit a lot of sympathy if she’s seen as being badgered. They are going to make this pick about McCain, not Palin, as they should. I’ll bet Palin turns out to be the noose in the “temperment” rope Obama’s campaign is intending to wrap around McCain since Obama declared it was an issue in his speech.

McCain has signaled that he’s going to make this campaign about theatrics. The Britney/Paris ads, picking a pretty face with no experience like Palin, signaling that he may speak to the convention from the post-Gustav devastation — these are all moves by a campaign that knows they have to win this campaign on distractions, head-fakes and raw made-for-TV moments. After this pick, the only card they have left is to tear down Obama enough and make the election about trivial enough issues that it becomes something like “American Idol” instead of the most important election we’ve had in a while. Obama has already made this point in his speech — “You make a big election about small things”. Again, my gut feel is that American’s don’t want risk and theatrics after eight years of being misled, and this point is only going to be reinforced by Gustav this week.

A quick word about persistence to follow up on my post from a few days back. Persistence, it turns out, is the key to a lot of things, including a successful political convention or building your own castle, brick by brick, weekend by weekend.

I read a fascinating article in Time about how McCain and Obama gamble. On the heels of Obama’s successful convention and McCain’s first major governing decision – picking a Vice President – it’s worth reviewing :

On McCain’s passion for high-stakes craps

McCain’s passion for gambling and taking other risks has never been a secret… “Enjoying craps opens up a window on a central thread constant in John’s life,” says John Weaver, McCain’s former chief strategist, who followed him to many a casino. “Taking a chance, playing against the odds.” Aides say McCain tends to play for a few thousand dollars at a time… Only recently have McCain’s aides urged him to pull back from the pastime. In the heat of the G.O.P. primary fight last spring, he announced on a visit to the Vegas Strip that he was going to the casino floor. When his aides stopped him, fearing a public relations disaster, McCain suggested that they ask the casino to take a craps table to a private room, a high-roller privilege McCain had indulged in before. His aides, with alarm bells ringing, refused again, according to two accounts of the discussion.

“He clearly knows that this is on the borderline of what is acceptable for him to be doing,” says a Republican who has watched McCain play. “And he just sort of revels in it.”

On Obama’s use of poker to “vent his competitive urge”

But he [Obama] always had his head in the game. The stakes were low enough — $1 ante and $3 top raise — to afford a long shot. Not Obama. He studied the cards as closely as he would an eleventh-hour amendment to a bill. The odds were religion to him. Only rarely did he bluff. “He had a pretty good idea about what his chances were,” says Denny Jacobs, a former state senator from East Moline… Obama’s risk-averse, methodical approach to five-card stud gives Link confidence in his potential governing style. “If he runs his presidency the way he plays poker, I’ll sleep good at night,” he says.

Comparing the two candidates

[T]here is no bigger gamble than a presidential run, which both candidates have conducted very differently this cycle. McCain’s campaign, like his life, has been marked by its embrace of living dangerously and by clear runs of fortune and disappointment. Obama, meanwhile, has succeeded, no less remarkably, by diligently executing a premeditated strategy.

McCain indulged in his craving for high-stakes, all-in gambling again today with the selection of Sarah Palin, a woman who will be next in line for leading our nation behind a 73 year old man with a history of cancer. He chose to nominate a rising GOP star with less than two years actual governing experience and only a stint as mayor of a 9000 person town in Alaska; someone with no experience on a national stage and with nothing but an average joe working knowledge of anything related to Iraq or any other foreign policy issues; someone he’d only met in person once and who was a last minute pick (a regular, non-VP speaking slot speech she’d written for her GOP convention appearance was just approved this last week, according to NPR this morning). His selection of Palin may be surprising, but his method is not.

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, reinforced by the Time article description and in contrast today’s selection, no matter what the stakes — large or small — Obama has always played the long game, the tactical game, the game of biding time and massaging the field of play until you’ve created the odds that favor your bets. He drives his oppenents crazy and he wins frequently.

Obama: Cool-headed, tactical, careful, deadly, precise, not revealing his hand, content to wait until the time is right, low-risk and high-yield.

McCain: Impulsive, hot-headed, driven by passion, hit-and-miss, imprecise, wearing his craving on his sleeve, all-in, unknown results.

A simple question for every voter:

In a time of growing uncertainty, complex threats and enormous challenges after 8 years of rashly considered actions and disastrous consequences, which man sounds like a person you’d most trust to lead America?

Sorry Bill Richardson and Al Gore. I didn’t get to spend any time with you tonight. After finally settling in, the only speech I got to see was Obama’s nomination acceptance speech, and I didn’t want to muddy up my afterglow with watching anything else. Here it is:

It was a riveting spectacle of marketing and stagecraft (in a good way), a triumph of a political speech, a wonderful look at the unapologetic passion and commitment that drives Obama personally, and a powerful realization of America’s potential on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. I’m an Obama partisan (not necessarily a Dem partisan) for all the reasons I’ve written about, so I’m not objective. But it was easy to see how much of an impact the speech made, not only on the crowd, but on the experienced political and media hands covering it. It left even hardcore GOP attack dogs saying things like this:

“The candidate who’s seen as untested and therefore risky made a case that staying with what you have is an even greater risk. He demonstrated great strength in confronting McCain that way…I think that whoever didn’t get picked for Republican VP today may be a lucky Republican.” (Alex Castellanos, CNN) – video

“It was a genuinely outstanding speech, it was magnificent…I’ve seen a lot of convention speeches… This is probably the greatest speech… This came out of the heart of America and he came right at the heart of America…” (Pat Buchanan, MSNBC) – video

Dr. King would be proud of us tonight, proud that the life he gave in pursuit of a dream that he never got to see fulfilled created an opportunity for America to nominate, listen to, and be lead by a man like Obama.

In tonight’s afterglow, just four days after starting the convention, it’s almost hard to remember all the night terrors and boogeymen conjured up by the media and the GOP: Hillary or Bill sticking a political knife in Barack’s back; a Hillary/PUMA driven floor fight and party infighting meltdown in an unseemly primetime roll call drama; listless convention speeches filled with limp liberal tropes delivered by feeble spineless party leaders; a flaming burnout of hubris in a stadium-sized crowd of star-struck synchophants.

In contrast, this convention was a masterpiece of coordination, compromise, negotiation and teamwork. The tireless Clinton/Obama team negotiations produced memorable and stirring mutual acknowledgements from each candidate and a warm glow of unity and solidarity that has enticed in even some of the most reluctanct Hillary hold-outs. The marketing and branding genius of Obama’s PR and event teams flooded the hall with bold signage and wonderful stagework that projected strength and confidence. The policy heft and fearless critiques of the GOP by party leadership put on vivid display the reality that the current GOP policies are intellectually bankrupt and morally indefensible.

Even the smooth build of each day on the next was a study in careful thought and a demonstration of the sensitivity of Barack’s team to the emotional mood of the party and the nation. Day 1: An introduction and personal connection to Michelle and the Obama family. Day 2: An acknowledgment of Hillary’s contribution to our political conversation and a thank you to her supporters from Obama’s supporters. Day 3: An introduction to the Dem’s political and policy heavyweights to build a sense of party confidence and assertive indignation, a passing of the torch, and a celebration of internal unity with the nomination process and final acknowledgment of Bill and Hillary’s contributions. Day 4: Inviting the American public to meet Obama and pay tribute to America’s greatness as evidenced by one of it’s greatest sons, MLK, and a war-cry to rally American outrage and take on the GOP.

This was Obama’s convention, Obama’s test of political savvy and party leadership. With so much at stake politically and with so much overwhelming attention, a lot could have gone wrong. It is noteworthy that nothing did. Obama and his team simply did not allow any of the GOP or media-created narratives to be happen. Just the opposite: the hype and hysteria only served to highlight how well it came off.

All of this — the convention, the negotiations, the image management, the transcendent speech, the pitch-perfect emotional and political unity — are not accidents. They are the product of a disciplined and committed team led by a disciplined and committed leader. They are a preview of what could be possible for America if we are willing to elect one of the most promising leaders that has come along in a long time, a leader that can enable this kind of success and still make it feel effortless.

Talking about governing style, structural management, and procedural reform isn’t a theme made for television, but to me it’s the most essential question in any sphere: government, business, church. Massive popular enthusiasm can be bled to death in a thousand small ways during the process of enabling a good idea to becoming tangible reality. Understanding how to navigate the personal and political minefields, and the very real emotional attachments of the parties involved, is the most fundamental skill of a good leader.

The country is changing. The world is changing. Obama’s video and speech tonight acknowledged that the boomer generation and the dominance of white middle America are passing on. A new groundswell of generational change and national racial makeup that will forever alter our nation’s understanding of itself is beginning to arrive. The friction and clash between generations, whites and minorities, genders, sexual orientations, and religious convictions will need a sure hand and a leader who understands and is committed to facilitating the necessary conversations and compromises needed to help the nation make that transition.

By these measures in this campaign, Obama has passed the leadership test with flying colors. The fact that he does this unglamorous and necessary work with a confident strategic outlook and a firm commitment to the interests of those he represents makes it imperative that he be our President.

In tonight’s event staging, Obama’s team symbolically built the White House at ground level in the middle of the huge throng of people and then peeled it open to allow the floor crowd — all small ordinary campaign donors — to surround and access Obama. It was a wonderful visual invitation to sit down with the Obama/Biden families, reflect on the legacy we’ve been given by those who have come before, share our common stories, and celebrate our common determination to take responsibility for the future of the nation.

Accidental? Not with Team Obama.

Final note:This is in recognition of the thousands of people who took on the responsibility for the well-being of their families, friends and neighbors, and to the man who gave them their voice: The DNC video tribute to Martin Luther King.

Today was a day of wild mood swings for me politically. Watching the mainstream media and the chattering classes to closely can draw you into an artificial vortex of guesses and second-guesses which, taken as a whole, are probably completely meaningless to the real narrative that is emerging and leave you disoriented and misdirected.

I had two big questions for tonight: As the party moves from their control to Obama’s, which aspect of the final white elephant in the room, the mercurial Bill Clinton, will be on display and how will he effect the fragile strands of unity woven last night? Now that the Dems have firmly staked out that the story of the Obamas and the Dem Party is firmly middle class and the speculation about a disunified flameout is being laid to rest, what kind of message are we going to take to America and the GOP this fall?

I felt like all the relentless, diligent background efforts that Obama’s people have been managing for months to help close the primary chapter, end the rear-guard undercutting and help Dems focus on the election emerged throughout the day as a beautiful coherent and energizing answer to those questions.

The Obama campaign coordinated a Delegate Service Day where the delegates put together care packages for the troops overseas and pledged acts of service in return for the service of the troops. I have a really hard time imagining something like this happening in Bush’s “what, me responsible?” GOP. If I were campaign, I’d make sure everyone in America heard that Dem delegates were willing to put their money where their mouth is.

America’s restless urge to be more than itself, to surprise, was manifested in a historical nomination as Barack Obama became the first black man to be entrusted with leading a national party to the White House. There were proud tears on the convention floor for many delegates as the lynchings, suffering and countless indignities black have suffered in America yielded to the beginning of a new chapter in our shared national story. Today we caught a new glimpse of the breathtakingly beautiful colors of the diverse, proud America we are becoming.

Clinton’s speech was wonderful. It was a dazzling display of his political skill, a firm affirmation of his identification with the progressive cause regardless of who is leading it, a graceful transfer of the role of party leader to Barack, and, yes, an infuriatingly endearing encounter with the “good Bill Clinton” who can use his considerable charm for more than self-aggrandizement. I feel like the party can now heave a full sigh of relief that the internal drama is over. Thank you Hillary and Bill for doing what it took to move past your considerable disappointment to pass the torch along.

Kerry’s full-throated roar of righteous indignation at the indignities that Bush has put the country through for the last 8 years and his obvious personal disappointment with McCain were electrifying. As many other liberals said tonight, “Where was this Kerry in 2004?” I will be re-watching this speech as the fall campaign progresses. It was eloquent, damning, and completely on-point. My respect for Kerry has increased a thousand-fold.

Biden stumbled and flubbed some lines and didn’t inhabit the speechifying spotlight as easily as Clinton and Kerry. But, like Schweitzer yesterday and in his own way, he wore his speech authentically. I think the most enduring takeaway was the interaction with his son, who gave the introduction, his obviously strong bond with his family (did you notice that Jill had tears after his tribute to Beau?), and the phrase “every night as I take the train home to Wilmington”. These are solid emotional connections to middle and lower class Americans — people who know what hard work with long commutes feel like and the joy and pride in your family that make it worthwhile. Obama showed savvy in selecting a smart, grounded, capable guy like Biden to help unify and round out the ticket.

The satisfying denouement was Obama’s appearance with Biden, which I think locked down the feeling for Dems that this is a ticket to go to war for. They have great relaxed, easy chemistry (matched smiles!) and really compliment each other well. I think they’ll make a great governing team.

See Obama’s appearance here.

Most importantly, the ground game is continuing to make momentum. Skyrocketing Democratic registrations, falling GOP registrations, a strong Dem network in the 18 (!) swing states and only a fledgling GOP operation in many of those places, a fired up and unified Dem base, and a GOP convention next week desperately running from it’s unpopular President and VP and trying to pave over tepid conditional support from it’s base means that this election IS IN PLAY.

I feel better, I’m out of the vortex and I’m looking forward to the Gore & Obama speeches tomorrow, as well as the kick-off of the massive national voter registration drive.

Obama/Biden ’08!

I’ve decided that my political analysis of these events is probably close to useless. I just imbibe and synthesize everyone else’s analysis, combined with the view video clips I see, and there’s plentiful punditry out there to read out that for that stuff. One thing I will say, though, is that politics is infinitely interesting less from a partisan than a human perspective — seeing how political events, players and movements say something about who we are and our personal and collective condition as Americans — and that’s what strikes me from these big political events.

What tickled my brain tonight was why some politicians catch on, and some don’t; why some are flagged as “the next big thing” and some aren’t. Some liberal journos I respect have labeled Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer as the “next big thing”. Here’s his speech:

Full disclosure: I know next to nothing about this guy except he’s a favorite for liberal activists in the know. However, since many careers have been launched from voter reactions to a single speech, I think I’m safe as a voter to pontificate a bit here.

What immediately struck me was how unpolished he was in the middle of such a sleek, highly scripted, highly visible national event. He reminded me of Rodney Dangerfield the way he’d hunch over the microphone, shrug his shoulders until his neck disappeared, wave his hand out to the side dismissively, and qualify his speech with stuff like “wait, wait – it gets better” and “how about that, eh?”. He did a a call and response ending to the speech, getting the crowd on it’s feet – more football rally than political forum. Which, in my opinion, is why he worked, why his speech was compelling and stood out in the afternoon’s sea of “messaging”.

His resume is impressive – a Dem governor in a blue state turned purple with a successful turn in office including a massive budget surplus due to energy initiatives (which he’s clearly knowledgeable about and comfortable addressing). But he didn’t feel the need to promote that identity ahead of his message — more than that, himself and his own personality. He was comfortable with his Montana rancher roots, his lack of political pedigree and wealth of political savvy. He was there to connect, to have fun, to give a dressing down to the “petro-dictators” and their political synchophants and to give progressive voters some enthusiasm about tackling this massive problem. His rough edges gave permission for the audience to remove the distance, to not be talked at, but to be in cahoots with him on the mission. And what is political power but that connection, or, yes, illusion of connection?

Senator HIllary Clinton’s speech:

First, I’d be remiss in not saying “Thanks, Sen. Clinton” for her whole-hearted renunciation of McCain and the GOP and unequivocally transferring the momentum of her historic primary run to Obama with her endorsements. She did good.

I know there are Hillary supporters out there who’d disagree, but I beyond all the mismanagement of her campaign and the other factors that convinced me she was not the right nominee for this time, I think she wasn’t ready to be president – not in the broadest philosophical sense.

Being President has taken a lot of forms through American history. Some presidents have been good, some bad. But one distinguishing characteristic of our best leaders, especially in times of crisis, has been their ability to grasp the vast undercurrents of America’s changes and needs, bring those currents to the surface, and fuse their unique perspective on those currents to the American psyche. In a strange way, America has gravitated to the large vision about itself, sometimes at the last minute — think the narrow selection of Kennedy, the manifest destiny of Andrew Jackson, abolition and the high-wire of the civil war under Lincoln.

That’s why I picked Obama, among other things. I feel he has the ability to grasp the broad movement of the world and the electorate and the political “nose” to sense and develop a course that navigates through tricky waters to bring the two together. And I think he’s the right choice against McCain in an election that is all about America’s attempt to heal and right itself after the excess idiocy of the Bush years. This election really is about America’s direction – it’s future – and I think both Obama and McCain get that politically much better than their rivals did.

I never sensed that from Hillary. She and Bill are political masters, no doubt about it. None of their friends or opponents have any illusions about their skill and tenacity and ruthlessness. There is also no doubt about Hillary’s intrinsic interest and skill with questions of crafting policy and turning it into law. And I’ve felt for a while now that’s where her real talent should be directed, not the Presidency.

The Presidency is a dance of people skill, of leadership skill, of vision casting and directing the effort to herd the political cats into line to get things done. As her campaign demonstrated, Hillary was not at all effective that way. She doesn’t have the natural empowering and synthesizing skills that Obama has to get people to build common structures that allow them to move forward together. This is no slam of Hillary. We need the vision casters AND the policy wonks, the big picture thinkers AND the pragmatic path builders.

What I saw of Hillary tonight reinforced my impressions. Her broad political themes bored me, left me emotionally unconnected. But when she moved into the “rough edges”, the focused places where it was obvious that she comes alive — women’s rights and pride, healthcare, the need for tenacity and the willingness to fight for what you believe in — she gave me chills. When she said “I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him?”, I didn’t get her as simply a cynical politician trying to set herself up for a run in 2012. I got that her connection to her mission as a progressive is important to her, important enough to take her wavering followers to task about seeing beyond their emotion to her mission.

Rough edges are where human beings connect – no matter their race, color, orientation, or creed. And when people connect with politicians, the politician wins their election. If there’s any trepidation I have about Obama, it’s this: I hope he allows his rough edges to come through. He doesn’t have to be dramatic, he doesn’t have to be inauthentic, he just needs to let his passion show, to let people see — not just hear about — the molten core of his commitment that has taken him so many hard miles so quickly, the core that obviously thrills his wife and beautiful daughters about him. MIchelle showed last night that she can do that, and I believe he can too. If he allows himself to go there, let out his passion for America that has driven him all this way to lead it, this election will be his by a mile.

I’ve turned into a political junkie over the last 4-5 years, so pardon to those of you who come here looking for personal stuff during events like the Dem national convention.

Michelle Obama, my second choice for president, spoke tonight.

How do you think she did? And how about those kids, eh? Can you get any cuter?

According to the talking heads, her job was to sell the American people on the fact that she and Obama are normal middle-class folks with a passion for service to their communities and a vision of a bright future for America. Her job was also to persuade people that she and Obama aren’t America- and church-hating elitist Black Panthers with a secret connection to Bin Laden and nothing but hate for middle-aged successful white women like Hillary Clinton. To which I say, WTF?!

I know it’s part of the political game to paint your opponent as someone too distasteful to even be PTA president, much less the POTUS, but I can’t imagine a more normal household than the Obama household. It’s clear from watching their daughters that even though they love Barack and Michelle, they think they’re too boring and normal for people to be making all this fuss about them. This elitist nonsense the Obama’s been painted with is a classic case of the surreal reality that is created by our politics and credulous, hack media.

I told Janece tonight, “Having watched and read about the Obamas for almost two years, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could think they’re elitist.” She replied, “It’s their poise, their self-assurance.” Beyond the spin, I think there’s a lot of truth to that. They hold themselves with the kind of easy confidence that most people wrongly assume can only come from being so rich you think your shit doesn’t stink, or from being power players. What is a tribute to both of them is that their self-assured public presence is a result not only of being grounded in themselves and their history through a lot of love from those who raised them and self-introspection, but also from their dedication to empowering people to make life better for themselves and others. When you do that kind of work, and you know who you are, there’s a really high chance you’ll be centered, at peace.

Human beings. We live with one foot in the light of hope and the other in the cold shadow of everything that would say “no” to that future. It turns out as MIchelle was preparing her speech, police were arresting four people — first for possession of meth, and then for a plot to assassinate Barack Thursday during the big rally. Something to do with white supremacy, from the sounds of the early reports. Four people, joined together by chemicals and hate to tear apart a family and wound a nation. It’s a sobering reminder of how America now, and historically, struggles to emerge into something better against it’s darker, violent side and that the question is always there for us to answer of which side we will let win out.

I know which side of us crazy human beings I want to win out — the crazy, “fuck you, despair!” dancing side!

Thanks, Janece and Natalie for the video! It was beautiful and made me cry like a baby.

Over the summer, it’s been amusing to watch the GOP and media and progressives flail around about Obama’s message and strategy. The GOP is sure that he’s a lightweight do-gooder who is going to back down from playing hardball. The media is convinced that Obama is buying his own hype and that his campaign is running on hubris. Progressives are hysterical about every little move he makes that, in their minds, “betrays” his progressive mandate.

Biden is a case in point. The GOP was hoping Obama would pick an untested newcomer. The media was sure that he’d pick someone who wouldn’t ruffle his hair, that would “compliment” the ticket by playing as a background personality with no flash so as not to distract from The One. Progressives were sure he’d pick someone new with a change mandate, some darling of theirs who votes right down the lines of their pet issues.

And instead Obama surprised everyone with Biden — a long-time senator with a lot of foreign-policy and political maneuvering experience, someone with an outsized personality who is boldly his own man, and someone who makes the left shrug with a “at least he’s not too bad” dismissal.

In my opinion, it’s another testament to his judgement and it underscores his seriousness and determination to govern effectively. A few pundits I’ve read since Saturday put this well, but I read one of the best articles tonight on Obama’s strategic rationale behind his campaign and his selection of Biden — Get Excited Again.

The premise is this: The flash, the viral videos, the huge rallies, Obama’s star power, and all the rest, are a stepping stone, and maybe even an intentional distraction from, his stated intention of fundamentally changing the playing field in DC. The article uses the example of Obama’s tax code and how getting it passed could give Dems leverage on other fiscal policies that they’ve not had in decades. That leverage, and the rhetorical advantage it brings, could give progressives the dominant paradigm in politics for the next half century the same way the Reagan Revolution did for conservatives.

Obama understands something that is completely escaping the GOP, media and many pundits and progressives: Instituting real change isn’t flashy, it’s hard work and it takes a commitment to the long game. Progessives who want to storm the gates with torches and pitchforks, string up the GOP resistance and create an instant progressive utopia have been losing the conversation for decades because they have no long-term plan for restructuring America’s political conversation and institutions. They constantly underestimate the institutional forces arrayed against them, and the thousands of small and large ways these forces of status quo have of undermining and stripping away enthusiasm and progress.

Obama gets it. He gets the Goldwater lesson — how conservatives spent 20 years building up grass-roots mobilization and support from local to national races, think tanks that started saturating the discussion with new framing, and investing in media channels that would perpetuate their message. He gets how the Goldwater revolution resulted in Reagan and over thirty years of conservative domination of the political conversation.

You can see that he understands it because it’s hidden in plain sight in his campaign. He’s registering progressive voters and building the mechanism for turning them out by building a nation-wide network of activists training activists in almost every state. He’s supporting down-ticket races with money and star power in states not normally in play. He selected Biden, a guy with integrity that commands a lot of respect in DC from Republicans, to wrestle with on key issues and help him get his governing agenda through. He’s set up an incredibly effective direct funding and communication channel with his grassroots to get it all done.

I think Obama will win, and possibly win bigger than the polls are predicting solely on the power of his ground game. But that’s not the most exciting part. What’s really exciting is that once he arrives in DC, it will be riding a mobilized and well-funded national organization, his hand on a number of important points of leverage, and in company with political players who can help get his agenda done — an agenda that is smart and unapologetically progressive.

THAT’S change you can believe in.

PS. For extra credit reading, here’s the comment I left in response to the article:

Yes, yes, and hell yes! Thank gawd that someone *finally* has caught Obama’s slow, patient genius here. Obama’s political goal throughout his career has been to take progressive ground by playing the long game. He’s about strategy, not about being all in. That’s why he’s so exciting. He has said a number of times that his goal is to fundamentally change the playing field the way Reagan did. And the way he’s run his campaign, including his choice of a skilled political veteran like Biden, shows that he’s a realist who understands that it’s a game of slow build, slow pressure, and unstoppable leverage from a thousand points created by mass involvement, mass demand and pragmatic, possibly under-the-radar political steps. I’ve felt for a while that progressives demanding that we muscle in an agenda over the top of the minority don’t really get the amount of resistance and stalemate that kind of politics produces. Force produces resistance. Look at the progressive energy after 8 years of that kind of muscle maneuvering from the GOP. It’s better to create long-term progressive change by building the kinds of rhetorical and political boxes/pressures that hedge your opposition into really only having one choice in the end — yours.

As y’all readers know, Janece and I have been making our way through the incredibleness that is The Wire.  In season 4, one of the regular characters moves up from being a rank and file cop to a detective in Homicide. After getting razzed by the old-timers, she goes out to a scene with her new partner who doesn’t give her any hints about what to look for.  All he says is something like “Just look and let the [crime] scene tell you what’s going on. We call it ‘soft eyes’”.

A Christian radio host in Canada named Drew Marshall did an interesting experiment last year. He paid two non-Christians — one male, Taylor, 20 and agnostic, and one female, Sabrina, 25, and an eclectic mix of spiritual influences — $500 to visit the top 5 Protestant/evangelical churches in Toronto. These churches had a pretty wide range of styles: traditional large suburban, Pentecostal tongues, mall mega-church, health and wealth, and inner-city emerging. They were to attend, write a blog post/summary of the experience, and then at the end appear on his show to talk about the experience. (They also ended up visiting a few other churches, a Benny Hinn rally and Joel Osteen rally after the experiment was over on their own recognizance.)

The whole experience is posted at Drew’s Hoof-Hearted blog. It’s a fascinating exercise — two newbies with “soft eyes” letting the churches that they were in speak to them directly and unfiltered, and taking away the evidence with them.

The conclusions? Both Taylor and Sabrina were very generous and open-minded, without really any preconceptions on what they’d find.  One thing I found blackly funny is that the Pentecostal church experience actually genuinely terrified both of them. They were worried that the crowd would get out of control with all the crazy “speaking in tongues” wierdness. Here are the links to Taylor’s conclusions and Sabrina’s conclusions. A quick summary from each of them:

Taylor

Bring church back to the people. Excluding “The Sanctuary” there was great dichotomy between the people in the crowd and those who stood before them. I felt a sense of disjunction between the people and the message, and understanding is the key to acceptance. Make everything more personal, take everything down a notch, shrink the masses, and let people share their experiences.

Give back to the community. Give back to the community. Give back to the community. I can’t stress it enough; I saw nothing but take, take, take straight from the pockets of the poor and downtrodden. It must end. The people in the cheaper seat can’t be clapping their hands while everyone else just rattles their jewelry, share the wealth. A church should not make any money, if a church is in the green at the end of the year it has failed. That’s the bottom line or else it is stealing plain and simple.

Help the people and the church will be fine. Give back, listen, understand and your children’s children will spend their Sundays as you have. If you don’t then Jesus might as well pack up his things and go home.

Sabrina

Church has grown with the times, as far as presentation goes… I’d say the message hasn’t changed much, which may be the unfortunate part… Nobody’s saying you have to change all of your theology. You don’t have to change any of it, I suppose. But in a world where we are faced with the social and political consequences of the battles between the religions “of the Book” (ie, Judaism, Christianity, Islam), perhaps it’s time to review and revise… I guess it’s just a line of questioning to throw out there… What could change? What could remain? What would make the Christian community as a whole band together and serve as ambassadors of peace and love? Isn’t that what it’s all about?

But there’s one thing more I wanted to say: Stop feeling so damn guilty! Get out there and love!

“Soft eyes.” What would we see in our own worship if we had the honest, fresh eyes of a new trainee?

We have an independent rag here in Seattle called The Stranger. It’s the type of indie paper that promotes hip local bands, runs hetero and GLBT personals for people wanting to get laid and escort services in the back couple of pages, pushes for drug legalization, and gets on the nerves of all the major papers and local politicians. I’m sure there’s something similar in your town. It’s been around a long time, and is edited by Dan Savage, a sex advice columnist with some notoriety.

And their perspective on churches and Christianity? Do you have to even ask? Let’s put it this way: One of Dan Savage’s long running (and extremely depressing) series on the Stranger’s blog is called “Youth Pastor Watch” where he posts stories about pastors getting booked on criminal charges, usually sexually related. (Sadly, he has new material to post at least 5-6 times a week, I kid you not. It’s depressing.) The Stranger also has a long-running feud with Antioch Bible Church and Mars Hill Church, among others, and gleefully bashes them on a regular basis.

Unsurprisingly, I guess, I like the Stranger and follow the blog daily. I find them worth reading: funny, honest, intellectually stimulating and kinda cute in their efforts to out-brash and out-cool everyone else, and their comment section is a humorous playground of bad behavior and snarky oneupsmanship.

One of their regular blog writers, a guy named Charles Mudede, is extremely bright and posts intellectually intense material on art, architecture, world affairs, music, philosophy and other stuff. (He wrote the post about the new Grace Jones video I pointed to a few posts ago.) I’m pretty sure he thinks Christianity is a load of shit. So imagine my surprise when I read this post he wrote Thursday. It’s pretty astounding, and worth re-posting here in full. Read carefully:

Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the palace and gathered the whole troop around him. They took off his clothes and put a bright red cape on him. They twisted some thorns into a crown, placed it on his head, and put a stick in his right hand. They knelt in front of him and made fun of him by saying, “Long live the king of the Jews!” After they had spit on him, they took the stick and kept hitting him on the head with it. After the soldiers finished making fun of Jesus, they took off the cape and put his own clothes back on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

It is only here I can see the glory (truth) of Jesus, the moment he is mocked, the moment he is the subject of derision and fun. The soldiers are right to laugh at him. They are not crazy; Jesus is crazy. Like the narrator of Gogol’s short story “Diary of a Madman,” he is the king of nothing. He rode into town on a fucking donkey, and his parents are of the lowest birth. The Messiah was supposed to be a great warrior, not a carpenter. This is a complete joke. Mock him we must.

And for those who believe he is the One, the “King of Kings,” every time you read this passage, do not wish the worst (hell fire, eternal damnation) for (or cast curses on) his mockers. They have every right and reason to humiliate this mouse of a man. Instead see that this is really your king; this is who he really is and nothing more. The contempt and laughter he rightly deserves is also the source of his greatness. You want to renounce real kings–with their palaces, rings, wives, and hounds–and raise and praise this penniless fool who claims to be the creator of the world. (emphasis mine)

I have to admit that reading that kinda rubbed me the wrong way at first, got my hackles up. That, and the comments in response. Can you believe his audacity, his nerve, to call Jesus a mouse, crazy, a penniless fool? Then, after thinking about it, I realized he wasn’t the first one to have said it:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

~ St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 1

It boggles my mind that in a few paragraphs Charles Mudede, staff writer for the snarky, irreverent, church-bashing Stranger in Seattle, can get to the heart of St. Paul’s analysis better than many pastors I’ve heard. He gets what many Christians and professional church strategists don’t (or won’t) get: If you’re going to follow Jesus, then be prepared to be the “mouse”, crazy, foolish.

Be prepared to speak the simple humble truth to people that you’d normally rather try to impress. Be prepared to be marginalized by the powerful, the affluent, the ones in charge. Be prepared to be counted among the worst and weakest, the repeat failures, to be passed over or be shunned because you don’t hang with the “it” crowd. Be prepared to actively seek to be last in line and serve those to whom you’d normally be tempted to feel superior. Be prepared to be silent and patient in the face of ridicule, to live in faith and trust and forgiveness even if people think you’re an idiot for letting go of your own self-interest and sincerely believing in some archaic nonsense like “God”.

And collectively be prepared to demand that our churches and church culture do the same; that not a single activity take place in the church board rooms, budgets, classrooms, sanctuaries, magazines, music, political activism, colleges, etc. that doesn’t emulate the crazy, weak, foolishness of Jesus.

It seems to me that either we Christians as individuals and a subculture embrace this reality with our whole life and effort — renounce the modern kings and powers of our culture and, as Charles suggests, “raise and praise this penniless fool who claims to be the creator of the world” — or resign ourselves to our current reputation as just another hysterical, hypocritical, self-absorbed, special-interest social group.

Thanks for the cold, invigorating bucket of reality, “Pastor” Charles.

After God had finished addressing Job, he turned to Eliphaz the Temanite and said, “I’ve had it with you and your two friends. I’m fed up! You haven’t been honest either with me or about me—not the way my friend Job has. So here’s what you must do. Take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my friend Job. Sacrifice a burnt offering on your own behalf. My friend Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer. He will ask me not to treat you as you deserve for talking nonsense about me, and for not being honest with me, as he has.”

~ The Bible, Book of Job, Chapter 42, Verses 7-9

Janece browsed through the book of Job in the Bible last night. She had some great insights that we’ve been thinking on today. Hopefully I won’t be stepping on her toes by meditating on it here.

The first lesson: Calamities happen. They are senseless and they can come in waves, and they can come on those who least deserve them. Some friends of ours are experiencing this right now, and I could pick thousands of nasty people who I’d rather give their circumstances and trials to. But that’s the way it is. If one of your reasons for being spiritual is to cozy up to a Higher Power so as to guarantee you and your family’s safety, I hate to break it to you but you’re outta luck. We are vulnerable simply by virtue of being human, and no ritual, icon or amulet is going to make things otherwise.

The second lesson: For those tempted to be self-righteous about their own lack of troubles and tempted to blame the trouble of others on not being in cahoots with the Almighty, some friendly advice: Don’t go there. What was it that made God so pissed off at Job’s friends? After all, they were just trying to help him get morally straightened out. They were sure that he’d done something to get on God’s bad side, and like any good spiritual friend would they preached at him to make things right. It turns out that in all their self-righteous sermonizing, they forgot to do the one thing that might have made a difference: Shut up and share his grief.

“Bear one another’s burdens”. We like to think that a short prayer and a nice little nugget of our homegrown spiritual wisdom is somehow meaningful to someone going through hell, that it’s as close as we need to get to them to fulfill our spiritual support duties. To walk with someone when you’re hurting with them, when you don’t have a single answer or reason for the calamity they’re facing, when all you can do is bow your own head in grief and huddle silently with them in their pain – day after day: that’s a harder responsibility to take on.

As seems to be the case so often in the Bible, it was the ones who thought they had it the most together spiritually that turned out to be causing the most problem. Job’s friends were so busy defending their own spiritual assumptions by moralizing and sermonizing at Job that, even though they presumably wanted to, they couldn’t bring themselves to ask the same honest, simple question he asked: “Why is this messed up situation happening, and, God, why aren’t you making it right?” The fact that their preachy, self-righteous attitudes had made things harder for Job pissed off God enough that Job — the loser, the man who was beaten down, the man who his friends said got it wrong — was the only one who could step in and make things right between his friends and God.

In conclusion, for all those prosperity doctrine Christians who have the audacity to look down on those who are struggling for being “out of God’s favor”, take a hard look into the mirror of Job’s friends. You may want to start getting your head straight and asking for forgiveness, because the people you’re looking down on right now are the ones you’re gonna need to put in a good word with God for your sorry asses.

I know you don’t have time to read a bunch of extraneous stuff. That’s why I pick only the most quality time wasters for your enjoyment and perusal!

SLEAZY: Check out what happens when a Radar writer falls down the rabbit hole into the world of high-end “hipster hookers” in Manhattan. These women are sleek, smart, well-educated and professional successful. And they sleep with the troubled, lonely and somewhat-frequently creepy men of the upper crust. The writer is even invited by the “madam” to turn a trick herself. A fascinating tale of what motivates women to loan their bodies and companionship for pay. Personally, I don’t think it’s the money…

QUEASY: Meet the electric exoskeleton motorcycle. Being male, I’d have to say it looks pretty bad-ass, like anime come to life or something from a crazy street cyber-punk scene in a novel. It’s guaranteed to piss off Harley owners and be owned by Richard Branson. Why queasy? How about being suspended two feet above pavement going 75mph when your pneumatic controls suddenly conk out…

GREASY: All freaked out that we don’t have enough oil stashed around to prevent total chaos if the world’s oil supply got interrupted? Don’t be, says the good professor who pens this op-ed and manages to talk a lot about controlling the price of oil without ever once mentioning investment in alternatives. I don’t get it. Why not tackle the alternative energy problem with the same gusto now being spent on worrying about oil supply and markets? Presto! Problem solved.

PEACHY: Speaking of alternative energy advancement, check out the new hydrogen power breakthrough from an MIT chemist. He figured out how to generate hydrogen that could power fuel cells for just pennies on the dollar. The catalyst he discovered is incredibly cheap to synthesize and it works with just ordinary ol’ water. It’s a significant advancement toward building the mass-produced infrastructure it will take to power a super-clean hydrogen economy. Again I say, screw oil and oil anxiety. Let’s stop pinching R&D pennies and get this new super clean fuel world moving already!

FEED-Y: (Sorry, bit of a stretch on that one.) Alternative energy not good enough for you? How about a farm in a skyscraper? Awesome insert in the Sept issue of Popular Science showing how a skyscraper farm could not only radically change the excessive energy needed to grow and transport crops, but also become an integral part of a city’s renewable energy cycle (city sewage in + food and meat out = genius). The only iffy part? The section on vat-grown beef and pork muscle started with stem cells, fed with water, glucose and natural proteins, and “exercised” into the proper texture with electrical impulses. There’s something unappetizing about a whole vat of test-tube pork quivering from electrical impulses. Unless, of course, you turn it into sausage…. Mmmmm, sausage…

I’m not one to bemoan getting older. I like being older. I’ve never understood people who want to re-live the glory days of high school. I was fond of college, but I’m just as glad to be out of my teens and twenties — I remember them as fun but awkwardly, painfully self-conscious. I was eager to get into my thirties, and I’m looking forward to the forties, too. I feel like I’ve settle mentally enough to enjoy live and not second-guess things so much.

But, I have to say that watching your cultural milestones get farther and farther away and less and less relevant is kind of unnerving.

I have a friend named Zach that I met when I was leading worship at Lynnwood Nazarene (now Silver Creek Community or some such foolishness). Zach is a great guy, great drummer, and we worked well together on the worship team. He’s just going into his freshman year at college this year (congrats on that, bro!). I got to know him a bit from driving home together after worship practice. He made his way through some of my favorites in my graphic novels and we swapped suggestions of bands we like, although I’ve had less suggestions for him than he has for me.

The relevant part of his is that Zach is 18, I think. This means he was born in 1990. I’d never really thought it through until today, when I saw one of those lists that are put out every year helping teachers in college understand the cultural milestones of the incoming class of freshmen. It’s called the Beloit College Mindset List, and you can read this year’s list here. Check this out:

Freshmen coming in this year are less familiar with having a landline than they are a cellphone, and it goes without saying that they’ve spent their formative years on the Net, live on texting and have already scoped out their roommates on Facebook. That alone puts them about 1000 miles ahead of where I was when I hit college in terms of technical ability and connection with the wider world. They’ve grown up in a world where GPS has always been available, Martha Stewart has always been on TV, MTV has always been Rocking The Vote, Jay Leno’s always hosted the Tonight Show, PCs have always run Windows, and soft drink refills have always been free.

But here’s what got me: As far as this crew is concerned, there has always been a Pearl Jam. WTF?! That’s when I realized that we’re talking about them being born in 1990. That was the year I was a junior in college. Two years later, America elected the first Democratic president since Carter, and bands like Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana were eviscerating the pop and rock industry on the airwaves and in music videos. I can remember sitting in the basement of the first band house I lived in listening to Clinton debate Bush. I remember the first time a college friend played “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for me and the first time I watched the video, which totally blew me away (best pep rally ever! hot angry cheerleaders with tattoos!).

(I watch the video now and I wonder how many of those moshing kids are working as downtown lawyers or have their own internet startups…)

I remember the alternative scene in Seattle shutting down when we all found out Kurt Cobain had committed suicide, and the massive memorial at Seattle Center with Courtney Love reading his suicide note. I remember Janece going with me to American Music in Fremont and meeting Dave Grohl outside while I plunked around on the instruments inside. He was in there passing out a demo of his new band — the Foo Fighters. She said he was super friendly and pretty short.

To think that all that happened when Zach was younger than Amira is pretty strange. I grew up during the Reagan Cold War – Zach grew up in the playtime 90s in a world where the Soviet Union no longer existed. That junior year, I was excited that my art department finally had it’s first computer with a real graphics program (Corel Draw 3) and Janece’s dad had just adventurously connected to CompuServe. Zach grew up in a world where online connectivity is a given and has never known a world without 24 hr news. The worlds we grew up in are universes apart.

I don’t get the world my parents or Janece’s parents grew up in. And Amira won’t get mine. By the time she’ll have any reason to care, Kurt Cobain and his suicide will be no more meaningful than an entry in Wikipedia, just like Buddy Holly and the day the music died has no meaning for me. That’s the way of things I guess — tides come in with each new generation born, and they go out with every generation that dies.

Still, I guess I can’t be blamed if I’m a little weirded out that the old faded Harley Davidson bandanna that I got my sophmore year in college in LA and that I wore while working out today…

is older than Zach.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing…
There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.
–Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Janece posted this awesome passage from Annie Dillard a few days ago but it’s worth reviewing. What strikes me about it tonight is how counter-intuitive Dillard’s insight feels in a society that is oriented toward cathartic, over-the-top moments of drama or revelation. Whether it’s sex or losing weight or playing piano or building community or gaining spiritual insights, many people have the expectation that life’s big moments and accomplishments come to us all at once. We chase around after the “big break” and quick fixes, or we envy those who achieve by believing they “got lucky” or are “naturally talented”. We look wistfully over the fence at someone else’s greener grass and bemoan our own deferred dreams as though they are magically out of reach.

Reality check: Great writers throw away thousands of useless paragraphs to produce a memorable sentence. Great musicians grind away at monotonous scales for hours at a time until they become one with their instruments. Great athletes churn through grueling routines for years that push their bodies to the limit for those few glorious moments of unforgettable competition and the gold medal. Great spiritual leaders wander for days and weeks and years through demanding and sometimes dry spiritual disciplines and unremarkable acts of determined service to find one blindingly golden moment with God.

Any big accomplishment has behind it thousands of small successes. Any transcendent revelation has behind it many days of constant searching. Any fulfilling relationship is built on multitudes of small acts of selflessness, generosity, consistency, trust. If we want to find money, or fame, or love, or God, the most sure path is the profound power and simplicity of repetition.

No matter what we think or wish ourselves to be, it is what we do repeatedly that, for good or for ill, transforms us and the world around us.

For a lovely story of the power of simple devotion and repetition, take some time to watch “The Man Who Planted Trees” (download a printable PDF version of the story here):

(By the way, the animation in this is really lovely. It’s worth renting to see the gorgeous hand-drawn illustration style more clearly.)

Shoulda seen it coming – the human silly stuff.  Right after that conversation with Janece last night and on the heels of the life change decision, I went into TwistyLand — that wonderful place where human beings go when they’re second-guessing themselves and doing all those contortions to avoid wrapping their arms around their responsibilities.

I stayed up late for no real good reason, which is my way of avoiding the responsibility of keeping a schedule that works for me and the family.  So, I needed to apologize to Janece for that today.  Then, Janece woke me up with a request to help her handle Amira who’d taken it upon herself to “paint her toes” with Janece’s nail polish, with predictable 3-year-old results: paint all over her legs and fingers and all over the rental house carpet. I got all gloomy raincloud on Amira, making it a big deal that she shouldn’t be getting into Mama’s paints. The raincloud stuck around. Then Janece’s parents came over and I retreated mentally, being only minimally involved in conversation and being completely checked out of the group. And then I spent the rest of the evening avoiding starting a design that I need to complete before the weekend is over.  Which, not suprisingly, means I’m up all night again.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

That’s TwistyLand. No fun for anyone, and not anywhere near responsible. This is why it’s good to have a partner, someone to challenge you — even if it’s just by having a better day than you — so that you don’t wander too far off into silliness.

So, I start again today to tackle the reluctance and fear of failing on our new quest.  I think I’ve exorcised all of the twisty bits for now and I’m back in the game. I guess even butterflies have to take some time to let their new wings harden up when they first come out of the chrysalis, right?

I just got done with a conversation with Janece tonight – one that was birthed out of long standing frustrations in our relationship, and one that springs out of the conversation she and I had last night about change.

Y’all know and love Janece, and rightly so. She is many things – an artist, a writer, a photographer, an entrepreneur, a capable leader, a great supporter and encourager, a great mother, and much more. In high school and then college, I fell in love with who she was and the possibilities of who she could be before either of us really understood what she was capable of. Those qualities and capabilities in her shine too brightly to suppress, and some of those things are probably what drew you to her (if you know her). But try to suppress them, she has. And that’s where my frustrations have come in.

In ways that I don’t feel like detailing, she’s played to her fears about herself, played herself to be less than who she is, or not even played at all. And that’s caused problems in our relationship, some of which have contributed to this last decade feeling like the Lost Decade.

You know what? We all do that to some extent. I know I do – I did it all this last week. We all occasionally behave irresponsibly by giving up on ourselves and not stepping into the role of Being The One Who Makes The Difference like we should. And if we’re honest or take the time to look and ask those who know us best, we’d see the damage that causes.

People are depending on us to be great, to make the difference — our kids, our spouses, our friends, our coworkers. We are the linchpin on which our individual worlds turn, whether we feel like it or not, whether we believe it or not. We make the difference. If we don’t step up and make a difference by being who we are and being who others are depending on us to be, then things can fall apart: neglect that causes irritation, irritation that causes resentments, resentments that lead to distance and loss of relationship, and finally even total breakdown. If enough of that is going on, even a whole nation or the world can suffer as a result.

So, we had a conversation about it tonight, about some long-standing breakdowns that have plagued our momentum as a couple. I can’t spend the next ten years like I’ve spent the last ten. It’s not responsible to myself, or Janece or Amira. I need to remake my life. And I want to remake it in partnership with Janece because there’s no one better to do it with. But I can’t force her to make the changes that need to be made, to be the fierce, uncompromising Amazon Queen she needs to be in our daily lives. Only she can do that. I believe in her; I believe in that inner strength she has and that the lion in her will win out over the mouse in her.

This new life we’re gonna build has got to be built day by day, confrontation by confrontation, courageous choice by courageous choice. And I’m gonna need a partner (and need to BE a partner) that can see that process through.

Come gather ’round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.
~ Bob Dylan

I’ve never been a Bob Dylan fanatic, but these lyrics just grabbed my short hairs and yanked me around tonight.

Tonight was a Big Conversation – a fork in the road that’s going to set off our next leg of this journey and a coalescing of some life lessons that have been building for a while. Both Janece and I feel it.

It started today when I took Amira to the park. It’s a great little park called Salisbury Point Park, right on the Hood Canal near the bridge on the Kitsap side with a drop-dead gorgeous view. It has a little playground and some picnic areas attached to canal beachfront and a nice little dual boat launch. We had a good time for the first half – playing on the swings, walking down to the dock to watch people crabbing, walking the pebble beach and scooping sand. Then, without warning, my mood dropped like a rock over something stupid — Amira stomping on our sand mountain and throwing some sand and not obeying the first time when I asked her to stop. Stupid shit. I got pretty irritated, but did good at not taking it out on her. We moved on to start playing again, but I was pretty dark so I just sat on the sidelines and watched her play.

What floated immediately to the top of my mind was “I’m unhappy, and I’m not doing anything about it. I’m not doing anything meaningful with my life and I’m adrift. I need a goal, I need purpose. I can’t even be with Amira and enjoy this spot because this thing isn’t being handled, and I’m being irresponsible with my life and with my family by not handling it.”

Janece and Amira graciously surfed my mood for the rest of the evening, and after watching a couple of episodes of The Wire, season 4, I had enough mental clear space to start digging around in conversation with Janece. And here’s the result – as obvious as it may be to some of y’alls:

I’m going to do spiritual worship ministry, probably somewhere in Seattle, and I think that means that I’m going back to work for someone else as a day job.

After this post and the comments I got back, the conversation finally sunk in about ministry. Really, there’s nothing that is more meaningful to me work-wise than seeing people feel the full weight and measure of their lives, and seeing them lift those lives to God to be renewed or re-built. That’s what I want to do. But I want to do the parts that I’m built for — music, worship, art, community-building — and not mess with the parts that I’m not built to do. I’ve got some really definite ideas about how to do it, but I’m open to taking the journey and seeing where it leads.

I’ve fought this for a while now. The reasons I haven’t committed are largely these: Not wanting to leave behind the skill set I’ve built in design and technical strategy, not wanting to jeopardize my family’s future by not doing the logical work of building a business or residual income that could help secure the time of Janece and I’s inevitable old-ness, not wanting to work for someone else, not wanting to miss being around Janece and Amira any time of the day.

My reasoning was that I could, if I wanted, build something on my own that would accomodate those things. But tonight, I realized that I don’t want to. I’m all out of initiative and enthusiasm for the inevitable toil it will take to get over the hump into a business that is on it’s way to being self-maintaining. I just don’t have it in me to lose another decade sidelining the life I need to live solely for the purpose of financial security.

So, the most obvious and logical thing is to go back to work for someone else. My skill set is large and multi-faceted, and I’d be a good fit for all kinds of workplaces. I have a friend at Disney who’s loved working there and could be helpful in helping me locate something. Janece still has HR contacts at Microsoft. My friend Sky has some connections to the non-profit world. All I know is that I want to put in 40 hrs, get some health benefits so we can take care of our teeth and not be freaked out if we have to take Amira to the ER with a broken bone, and then have time — glorious time, night time, weekend time — that is free of all of the business concerns now clogging my mental arteries.

I may be slow to get the point, but once I get it, it’s got. The search starts after my work this weekend. This post will sink down the list over the next days, but I’m clear that our new intentions will not. I’m excited. I’m grateful for our time here in this place away from things, for the chance to let what has been hidden bubble up.

If you’re the praying type, pray for us that our instincts would be sure-footed, that the timing and opportunities coincide in serendipitous ways, and that wherever we land that we can be of maximum benefit to the world and the Kingdom.

There will be more on this for sure, but for now here’s the full lyrics to Dylan’s great song:

Come gather ’round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’.
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come senators, congressmen please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

~”The Times, They Are A-Changin’”, Bob Dylan

“Tuts”, pronouced “toots”.  As in, “tutorials”.  Lots of them.  For free.  If you’re designer or web monkey or just looking to beef up your Photoshop, Illustrator, or even audio and web development skills, then you should check this family of sites out.

Not bad for free.  Also they have other great stuff like Flash and CSS templates, and even freelance tips and a freelance job site.  The web — love it, use it.

“Wednesday’s child is full of woe; Thursday’s child has far to go…”
~ Old folk rhyme

Amira is today’s Wednesday’s Child, but today she was full of “woah!” She and I played in in our first “band” setting — first her on drums and me on bass, and then her on keys and me on drums. It was awesome. I’ve taught her how to count off a song on the drum sticks — “One! Two! One two three four!” — which she did faithfully, and then while she was playing drums she started singing a little song she made up on the spot. I didn’t really catch the lyrics, but she was going to town. She’s picking up a sense of rhythm, too. I’ve been holding her on my lap and doing the bass drum/hi-hat while helping her beat out a rhythm with the sticks. She’s falling into it pretty naturally, I think. Anyway, it was cool to jam for the first time with my daughter. I’m going to try and rope her in to learning a rock band instrument so I can play music with her.

Ahmis says her mom has a piano at her house, and she’d be open to us bringing it back here so that I/we could play, but she said she doesn’t want to help us move it so I’ll have to figure out how to get it here. I was teaching Amira a bit of piano stuff when we lived with Janece’s parents, but haven’t really had the opportunity to do it since we’ve been here. I want to get her started with it, tho, and I’m planning on starting lessons with her sometime this next year if she seems ready.

As for Thursday’s child? Well, that’s me — lots of work to get done, some things I need to get done before months end and I have far to go. So, it’s off to bed. I’ll leave you with the White Duke…

Thursday’s Child
David Bowie

All of my life I’ve tried so hard
Doing my best with what I had
Nothing much happened all the same

Something about me stood apart
A whisper of hope that seemed to fail
Maybe I’m born right out of my time
Breaking my life in two

Now that I’ve really got a chance
Everything’s falling into place
Seeing my past to let it go
Only for you I don’t regret
That I was Thursday’s Child

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday born I was (x2)

Sometimes I cried my heart to sleep
Shuffling days and lonesome nights
Sometimes my courage fell to my feet

Lucky old sun is in my sky
Nothing prepared me for your smile
Lighting the darkness of my soul
Innocence in your arms

Now that I’ve really got a chance
Everything’s falling into place
Seeing my past to let it go
Only for you I don’t regret
That I was Thursday’s Child

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday born I was Thursday’s Child
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday born I was Thursday’s Child
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday born I was
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday born I was

Yesterday evening was tough.

Janece’s cousin and his wife who are are a few years younger than us dropped by to spend an hour or two with us over dinner (Wild Horse BBQ, delicious, and they generously picked up the check!). They’d been out on a three-day weekend with their BMW driving club touring the Olympic Peninsula in their newly leased Z4 M coupe. (It’s a beautiful car, smooth and muscular, outfitted with all the goodies. The seat was a little small for my expansive ass, but I quibble. Anyway…) They had a great trip and it was good driving weather. They’d stayed at one of their timeshares, eaten with some friends at a place in Sequim (wish I could remember the name) that serves better steaks than the fancy places in downtown Seattle, and generally had a grand time. They were headed back to their custom-built home and two beautiful purebred beagles in order to be at work at their great jobs the next day. In a week or two, Doug’s company is flying him to New York for a company party, and they’re going to be taking the better part of a week to hang out there and have fun. You get the picture – they are hard workers with smarts and talent, great high-paying jobs and no kids. They are doing very well and enjoying the well-deserved fruits of their labors.

So, good (free!) food, good company, lovely evening. Why was it tough? Why did being with them and hearing their tales wear so hard on me?

It’s nothing they did. They share their advances and adventures without any hint of superiority. They are generous with their time and money in the best possible way — no strings, no weirdness. (I know this because they’ve been personally generous to us in our tough times.)

It’s not jealousy. I love that they’re doing things they love and are enjoying the things they have, but I don’t want what they have. It’s great for them, but my tastes lie in other directions.

I don’t think it’s pride, really. Financial access isn’t a way I measure my life, and I’m generally comfortable with the fact that you give when you can give and you open yourself to being helped when you need it.

I think the tough part was having my subliminal disappointment uncovered — disappointment in myself, in us as a couple. Janece’s cousin and his wife are steadily succeeding in the goals they’ve laid out for themselves (at least financially) in a linear, calm and undramatic way that has allowed them to experience and explore much more than we have. In contrast, I don’t feel that Janece and I are successful, even by our own definition, and in fact I think we’re worse off than we used to be.

Financially and in business, neglect, risk and choices over the last 10 years that have led to consequences and hardships that make those years feel like The Lost Decade. I really had no goal per se, and if there was one it was to make something of myself in business or make money. In that effort I’ve utterly failed. That failure in itself isn’t really anything to me, but it has meant failure in other more important areas.

My criteria for my worth in the world revolves in part around what I accomplish, what I know, and who I am and I feel like I’ve failed in all three. Not only have I not accomplished anything in business, but I’m worse off than when I started and in the meantime I’ve spent a horrendous amount of time working and robbing that time away from doing things that turn my crank — art, music, ministry. I’ve learned a lot about graphic design and programming and even business, but none of those things are meaningful to me. I’ve not grown much knowledge in areas I care about. I’ve become an overweight, burned out desk jockey who has grown isolated from all my communities because of work demands and financial strains.

Strangely, in a lot of ways the last decade has been very relationally meaningful and rich in the middle of all of that other stuff. I played in a fun band in San Diego, met a lot of great people through Janece’s women-in-tech network, got much closer with members of my family, was able to minister in a church for a while, have made new connections and friends, am currently living in paradise. On these kinds of days I wish I could emotionally elevate those experiences to the point of having them feel more real, more relevant than my disappointments, but that hasn’t happened yet.

I’m a Type A personality, so I can’t stand still on this. I’m thinking on it and starting to move things in another direction, however slowly due to our crapped out financial state. But, disappointment still roils underneath my determination. I don’t dwell on it or nurse it, but apparently it doesn’t take much to uncover this bubbling emotional lava underneath my life. I wish I could share some sage thoughts about how to turn lemons into lemonade, but I’m not there. I’m still picking my way through my mental fallout and trying to understand how to create something powerful out of the rubble.

Help me out. Share how you’ve wrestled failure into something mentally useful you could build on.

From Josh Green’s piece on the Clinton campaign’s dysfunction in The Atlantic:

The anger and toxic obsessions overwhelmed even the most reserved Beltway wise men. Surprisingly, Clinton herself, when pressed, was her own shrewdest strategist, a role that had never been her strong suit in the White House. But her advisers couldn’t execute strategy; they routinely attacked and undermined each other, and Clinton never forced a resolution. Major decisions would be put off for weeks until suddenly she would erupt, driving her staff to panic and misfire.

Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence—on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to “do the job from Day One.” In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel. What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency.

In contrast…

Steady, respectful, competent, calm, thoughtful, on-message, on-target, on-budget leadership for America. Sound good to you after all of the Clinton/Bush drama? In contrast to Clinton and McCain’s wild mood swings and through probably hundreds of press articles/op-eds/investigations, Obama has demonstrated his integrity and leadership in spades for almost two solid years of campaigning. It’s frustrating that we can’t just put the guy in the White House right now.