The autocratic Mayor of Yellow Belly, Texas has whipped up terrorist fever.  Fellow citizens have been deputized to spy on anyone in town who has contact with foreigners.  A college friend of yours who has returned to his native Iran travels to Yellow Belly for a visit.  The brigade of Howdy Doody deputies descend on your property using binoculars to peer in the windows.  They hack into your phone and e-mail to monitor the Iranian’s communications.

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

George Carlin, Stand Up Comedian, Stand Up Guy, Stand Up Prophet.

“It’s the old American double standard, you know, say one thing, do something different. And, of course, the country is founded on the double standard. That’s our history. We were founded on a very basic double standard. This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free. Am I right?

Obama displays the "perfect manifestation of a Sept. 10 mindset." McCain and his proxies are reprising the old saw draft dodger Bush used against Vietnam Vet Kerry in the 2004 Election.  Obama praised last week’s Supreme Court decision saying the Guantanamo detainees have habeas corpus rights.

I sat in the dark movie theater in Abilene, Texas shocking myself and my college roomie as I shouted audibly in glee when the bad guys got their come- uppance.  I felt a holy anger rush in my being mixed with a sense of righteous vindication.

“Life is a constant interchange between human will and divine providence.  We need both the courage to plan and create a life and piety of the most profound kind in relation to the mysteries that undergird it.”1

“Taxes takin' my check, the junkies make me a nervous wreck, the price of food is goin' up, and as if all that crap wasn't enough a rat done bit my sister Nell with whitey on the moon, her face and arms began to swell with whitey on the moon, with all that money I made last year put whitey on the moon, how come I ain’t got no money here? Hmmm whitey on the moon ya know I just about had my fill of whitey on the moon.  I think I'll send these bills air mail special to whitey on the moon.”1

Bimbi’s steely glare pierced the façade of the young charismatic, articulate, hustler.  He spoke with a passionate mixture of confrontation and hope. “FREE YOUR MIND!!  Bimbi was a self-educated man.  His protégé was brilliant but illiterate.  They were both black men doing prison time.

I sat in my freshly wood paneled office in Ft. Stockton, Texas, circa 1980.  This was my initial full time ministry.  Many a morning as I did my Bible study and prayer I would experience a duel feeling of helplessness and heavy shouldered responsibility.  The world is going to hell without Jesus to save them.  I am Minister of this gospel.  How can I possibly make a holy dent in this mammoth calling from a Podunk West Texas town one hundred miles from water, one mile from hell?

“For far more than an hour I listened to the concert, to this natural melody.  It was soft music, containing as well, all the discords of nature.  And this is right, for nature is not only harmonious, she is also dreadfully contradictory and chaotic.”  

As a fellow Minister I was rootin’ for Rev. Wright.  As one who feels our vital role in society is ignored, discounted, trivialized, and distorted by secular culture I was rootin’ for Rev. Wright.  As one sickened by the sound bite, out of context, sensationalized treatment he received I was rootin’ for Rev. Wright.  

The Prez and the Pope were chumming it up in the White House Wednesday satiated with self-congratulations about their global leadership that “all of life is sacred.”