So, Didn't God Make a Farmer?

In the ensuing couple of weeks since the Super Bowl, I have been fascinated by the varieties of responses sprouting up to the Dodge Ram ad that utilized a voice-over from an old Paul Harvey speech focusing on God's need for farmers, covering various images of said farmers.  Those responses have ranged from tender, melancholic reminiscence to a near-reverent appreciation, to scathing condemnation.  The ad agency responsible for the piece has got to be smiling.  It was, after all, an advertisement whose presumed purpose was to catch public attention and sell a product.  I can't speak to the latter, but as to the former the ad has been a decided success.

As to the ad's critics, their judgments are absolutely fair.  Had the 2-minute piece been a documentary it would have been sadly, shamefully flawed -- leaving out virtually 90-percent of those responsible for moving our food into, then out of the ground, off the stem and into our markets.  The rosy, sentimental pictures of hardworking white families certainly overlooked the vast domination of agribusiness that largely renders such pictures ersatz greeting cards.  And yes, totally neglected were all the migrant farm workers -- mostly non-white and by-and-large stooping to their task illegally -- on which our food system utterly depends.  Only hinted at in the rhapsodic prose were the challenging and sometimes impossible economics that have wedged many farmers between the rock of expensive mechanization and the hard place of harvest vicissitudes and capricious credit -- pressures that have squeezed far too many off their land.  Yes, there are farmers like those depicted in the ad -- many of them -- who work every bit as hard as pictures and the narration suggested.  But fewer and fewer.  It's not that the ad told a false story; it just didn't tell very much of the true one. 

I hope that someone might come along who has as much documentary skill as Ken Burns and as much gravitas as Paul Harvey to tell these real and poignant stories as compellingly as Dodge managed to communicate the ones in its ad.  They deserve to be heard.  They deserve to be honored and appreciated and, well, paid.

But let's face it, that's not what the Super Bowl ad was aiming for.  Dodge didn't buy those extravagant prime-time minutes to air a documentary, and painful sociological statistics don't sell vehicles.  It wasn't trying to "tell the truth," it was trying to sell trucks.  As such, that well-crafted piece of economic art wasn't targeted at those thousands of farm workers who really struggle to survive under the weight of all those challenges and burdens enumerated by that beloved voice.  The ad was targeted at that 10% -- or 1% -- who can actually buy the truck. 

And I suspect I know what images and words might just cross their mind the next time they are shopping for a new ride.

For the Love of Lettuce

"Another Pleasant Valley Sunday; charcoal burning everywhere.  Rows of houses that are all the same.  And no one seems to care."  

                               ---words and music by Gerry Goffin and Carole King

It's hard to know whether to be heart-sick, angry, or simply embarrassed.  Because of a few complaints, the West Des Moines City Council has agreed to consider a ban on all "front yard vegetable gardens."  After all, as the article in today's Des Moines Register points out,
"Cabbages, once picked, leave holes. Squash leaves can get scabby-looking, and a blighted tomato plant is downright ugly...  Leggy sweet corn plants can seem scraggly and disproportional, especially in contrast to a well-manicured lawn."

And God knows that the situation is urgent.  As one concerned citizen puts it, “What’s to prevent them or anyone else now from, this spring, bulldozing their entire front yard and planting a garden?  If you don’t have anything in your ordinance to prevent this, I could see that happening.”

Exactly.  And what could be worse than an entire front yard full of...food?  Food that could be...well...eaten -- stretching grocery dollars, saving gas, and quite possibly improving our diet?  Yes, that all sounds like quite the public nemesis.

Can we just stop and have a reality check?  I suspect that this might be one of those moments when my Dad would say, "the world's going to hell and we're arguing over tomatoes."  Surely there are more mountainous issues for a community to be wrestling with than such puny molehills as this -- perhaps educational excellence or gun violence or access to health care or simply public health!  Moreover, at a time in our agricultural history when we ought to be encouraging everyone who has any plot of sunny soil available to sow a few seeds and not only participate in but contribute to the food supply, the last thing we should be doing is erecting impediments.

It's hard to know if this proposed ordinance stems from a hyper-carnivorial hostility to all things vegetable, or an overly steroidal devotion to some blandly homogenous suburban "aesthetic", or a subtly obfuscated slap at the poor who some West Des Moinians prefer to believe don't exist within their city limits.  Regardless, the notion is too repugnantly silly to even be funny -- let alone take up precious City Council time.

On the off-chance that reason does not eventually prevail in West Des Moines, I am modestly prepared to plow into the lunacy with the creation of a "Vegetable Rescue League" that would provide safe-haven on our humble acreage to any allium, brassica, night-shade, pepper or edible root forced to flee the city limits as horticultural refugees -- sort of a "green" Red Cross offering soil sanctuary for salads-in-process.

Compassion, and I like to think "sanity", in action.  That, and my little mission to prove the song wrong.  Somebody does "seem to care."

To Be Grateful for Even the Smallest Touch

God willing, I plan to attend a funeral today -- a long-time member of the congregation I served.  I  officiated at the funeral of her husband what must be well over a decade ago, and it just feels right to attend.  It is an odd bond, but present nonetheless -- experiential threads of pastoral exchange and privileged moments woven over the years; dormant now, but still very present I discovered as I read her obituary in the paper. I can walk away, but not leave behind. 

That, I am discovering as I feel myself aging, is one of life's most treasured blessings:  what Frederick Buechner referred to as "a room called Remember," into which is crowded a wondrous population of faces and personalities, family and friends, parishioners and neighbors, transients and colleagues, adversaries and playmates, mentors and teachers; a village of idiosyncrasies, clowns, fools, geniuses, artists, loves and annoyances who, together by their presence in my memory or in my company, continue to fashion me into a person. 

I don't suppose we were particularly close, although we shared an affection and a discipleship that bridged the decades separating us in age.  We greeted one another among the pews.  I visited her when she was ill.  I comforted her, I hope, while she grieved.  Despite the ordinariness of our crossing, I wake up to discover her fingerprints on my life -- a discovery that prompts the notice of all those others alongside.

And so I'm attending her funeral.  At least in part to bear witness to her touch.  And to be grateful for it.

Riding a Dead Battery Into the New Year

 It certainly started as an annoyance.  With a few errands in mind for that side of town I had driven over to pick up Lori from work.  Arriving early I switched the ignition to “accessory” so as to continue with the radio news without burning gas.  It would, after all, be only a short wait.

Indeed, a few minutes later the passenger door opened, Lori settled in with a kiss, and I pressed the ignition button.  Instead of the familiar purr of the engine springing to life, we were greeted by a flash of dashboard lights and a flaccid puttering sound from somewhere under the hood.  Repeated attempts elicited nothing but the same impotence.  Late enough and cold enough that we didn't want the hassle, we switched to Lori’s car and left mine in the parking lot for dedicated attention the next morning.

Simple, subsequent remediation confirmed that the battery -- original equipment with almost 4 years, 75,000 miles and who could number the ignitions behind it -- was dead.  Our neighbor’s auto repair shop and $144 later and I was back on the road...

...only then discovering the headache’s sequel.  Despite the morning’s hour, the clock blinked “noon.”  Switching on the radio, the speakers blasted satellite channel 1 -- the preview channel.  Then, of course, it hit me.  All the settings were erased.  The clock is bad enough.  I mess with it so infrequently as to require the manual each time it’s necessary.  But the radio...  What were all those channels, and connected with which preset buttons?  Six AM settings.  Twelve FM.  Eighteen satellite channels -- to tediously locate out of 130 or more on the dial.  My first reaction, I am embarrassed to admit, was neither happy nor appropriately shared in public. 

And then a sudden realization brought a smile.  “This is opportunity,” I thought to myself, “not onerous responsibility.”  There is, after all, no Federal law that says the presets must be faithfully reproduced.  “I can choose any stations I want -- and associate them with any buttons I wish.” 

And so it happened that the "Spa" channel was replaced with "Bluegrass," the "Soul" channel was replaced with symphonic "Pops", the "40's" channel replaced...who knows what, and all of them elicited by a completely fresh order on the buttons. 

It was, in a way, like cleaning house -- passing over previous selections I never subsequently selected; moving lower tier numbers up the list; making brand new choices in the liberating knowledge that I could discard them, too, if future disregard commends it.  Sure, it will take some getting used to, but I like to think I am still capable of learning.

All of a sudden I found myself grateful for the dead battery that had launched me down this New Year’s path of assessment and evaluation, reorganization and experimentation -- all the while sheepishly acknowledging that nothing but inertia had ever stood in my way. 

As I turned off the ignition, my radio renovation, for the time, complete, I walked inside wondering what else in my life could benefit from a dead battery’s initiative toward a stripping and cleansing new beginning.

"Silent Night," Candlelight...and Egg Rolls

I no longer recall how it became "what we do on Christmas Eve" but perhaps that's the way it is with traditions.  The actions take on a life and significance all their own quite beyond their genesis long-since forgotten.  In our case perhaps its roots are sunk deep into a darker time in our family life, now years ago, when the kids and I were thrashing around for some act -- some practice, some thread -- that would signify our “us-ness”; that would somehow enact the conviction that, despite everything that had happened, there was some kind of wholeness to our holiday gatherings rather than merely the fragments of something now broken.

Perhaps.  I frankly don’t recall.  It could have simply been someone’s way of avoiding another turkey dinner.  All I can say with reliable conviction is that somewhere along the way we started making egg rolls. Christopher, Merryl and me.  Homemade ones.  On Christmas Eve.  Before or between the church services, chopping, stir-frying, spooning and enveloping, and ultimately frying. 

It is, I’ll grant you, a rather odd tradition -- labor-intensive, smelly, often smokey should the oil get too hot or the rolls be neglected too long in the fryer due to familial distraction.  Always with beef, variously augmented with shrimp or, more often, chicken.  When Lori joined our little culinary merriment, fried rice joined in as a welcomed accompaniment -- why hadn't we thought of that before? -- along with better sauces and condiments, plus an extra pair of capable hands.  In the ensuing years we have become quite the efficient assembly line.  

And did I mention that they are good?  Sitting down to enjoy the fruits of our labor even trumps gathering around the tree for the great unwrapping as first priority.  

And so it was that last night the oil was once again heated, the wrappers were once again filled through the ministrations of multiple hands, rolled, sealed and submerged in a frenzy of bubbles.  And eventually a grateful, hungry family sat down to enjoy them.  It is, I suppose, one part project, one part taste, and one part appetite that makes it all worthwhile.

But it’s the anticipation born from years of repetition, the laughter over messes made, the practiced procedures, the hours shared and the stories exchanged on this precious night that make it magic.  

And, of course, the fact that it is us -- this hybridized Diebel family -- all these years later, doing it all.  

It’s hard to imagine a more blessed way to spend Christmas Eve.

A Candle Burning; A Song Still Singing

Amazing, the resilience of the human heart -- how hopeful and trusting is the human spirit.  Perhaps, on second thought, it is not so much the "human heart/spirit" but rather that persistent glimpse of the Divine Image indelibly stamped upon us, animated by the holiest of breaths, that imbues us with the capacity to look beyond the brokenness of the darkened moment to a brighter light just over the horizon.  However common and expected that spiritual ruggedness might be in theologians, it is the more viscerally approachable,  consistently steady effluence of poets and musicians.  

Throughout the national grief of recent days, these are a few of the songs that have been humming through my soul:

And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed
his truth to triumph through us.
Martin Luther -- "A Mighty Fortress is Our God"

This is my Father's world.
O let me ne'er forget
that though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
Maltbie D. Babcock -- "This is My Father's World"

  It was as if an earthquake rent 

    The hearth-stones of a continent,
        And made forlorn
        The households born
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    And in despair I bowed my head;
    "There is no peace on earth," I said;
        "For hate is strong,
        And mocks the song
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

    Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
    "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
        The Wrong shall fail,
        The Right prevail,
    With peace on earth, good-will to men."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- "The Christmas Bells"

Death may raise its voice today 
O but life will have its say 
Speaking in lovers and in children 
In poets pens and philosopher’s visions 
Life is a planet’s daring dream 
Earth’s devotion, spoken in green 
Peter Mayer -- "Green"

You say you see no hope, 

you say you see no reason

We should dream that the world would ever change

You're saying love is foolish to believe

'Cause there'll always be some crazy with an Army or a knife

To wake you from your day dream, put the fear back in your life

Look, if someone wrote a play just to glorify

What's stronger than hate, would they not arrange the stage

To look as if the hero came too late, he's almost in defeat

It's looking like the Evil side will win, so on the 

Edge Of every seat, from the moment that the whole thing begins

It is....

Love that mixed the mortar

And it's love who stacked these stones

And it's love who made the stage here

Although it looks like we're alone

In this scene set in shadows

Like the night is here to stay

There is evil cast around us

But it's love that wrote this play...

For in this darkness love can show the way

David Wilcox -- "Show the Way"  

And then this, from the testament of the season, spoken, almost as a spiritual requirement, with a flickering candle in our hands:



The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

John 1:5



Indeed.



This is, after all, Advent, the season in which our very job description as children of God's imagination is to stand somehow in the breach between the way the world is and the way God intends it to be and both name the difference, and stir up momentum for a mass exodus from the former as pilgrims toward the latter.



Having found that music nourishes the journey, here's my advice:  keep singing as you light the way.

When It's Not As Simple as it Seems

Years ago -- 30 or more -- I heard a preacher name the disease afflicting our culture, "the Simples."  Our routine practice, he observed, is to adopt simplistic solutions to complex problems -- which, if anything, only makes them worse by deluding us into thinking them solved.  Indeed, if we have been so infected it is clear that no vaccine has been found.

I've been thinking about that disease ever since the school shooting tragedy in Connecticut last Friday, and the presumed steps necessary to prevent such anguish in the future; thinking about this public moment in the light of countless other ones in recent decades toward which simplistic solutions have been thrown.  Unwanted pregnancies since the sixties; escalating crime; illegal immigration; terrorist attacks since 9/11; school security since Columbine.  "If only we did XXXXX (fill in the blank), our troubles would be over."  One simple solution that would cover all our worries -- at least our worries about that particular problem.

Juxtapose this new outbreak of "the Simples" against the recent interview I heard with the Chairman of Nordstrom's Department Stores about the challenges of running his retail business.  When asked to describe his store's return policy he smiled and responded, "Well, we don't have one.  I concluded that we were never going to come up with one single policy that could apply to every situation, so we decided that our policy would be to tell our employees to use their best judgment."

Which, if I hear him correctly, is to suggest that it is NOT simple.  To be sure, his "policy" is in many ways harder; messier; fraught with potential problems -- but it is more honest.   Exceptions become the norm.  The truth is that there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution.

And no amount of condoms given away is going to solve the unwanted pregnancy problem; no wall of any height across the U.S. border is going to solve our immigration problems; no number of bigger prisons incarcerating those given mandatory sentences is going to solve our crime problem; no number of locks on school doors is going to safely secure our children; and no number of X-Ray machines and cavity searches at airport entrances is going to prevent terrorist attacks.

And as supportive as I am of prudent gun control measures -- crow-barring ourselves incrementally away from this idolatrous altar of weaponry before which we seem determined to bow -- no amount of gun laws will ultimately prevent these tragedies.

These are the superficial, band-aid delusions coughed up by a people infected by "the Simples" who pat themselves on the back for their dexterous dispatching of the problem, only to be shocked and confused by its still more virulent outbreak as soon as they turn around.  The problems are more complicated than that.  These are not hardware problems; neither are they "legal" problems or "systems" problems that can be solved with a tweak or a twist.  They are social problems -- wrought by our fecklessness at understanding one another, and our impatience with learning better ways. We would rather create policies, pass laws, and build stronger locks than doing the hard work of paying attention, seeking to understand and patiently, diligently creating a genuine community.

In the case of the Newtown tragedy we can demonize the shooter, but that only serves to distance ourselves from any collective responsibility.  If "he" is the whole of the problem, I am free simply to grieve, and then go on with my life.  I don't have to change.  We don't have to change.

But, of course, we do have to change.  Or nothing will change.

Several years ago Lori and I were trained to teach Couple Communication classes developed to strengthen and improve marriages.  We have been struck by how resistant people are to taking them -- by how few couples want to lean into the dynamics and practices of their relationship to see if there is room for improvement.  That kind of work, after all, is hard and vulnerable and suggests the hint of the possibility that "we" aren't perfect as we are.

That, in a microcosm, is our tragically flawed, terminally simplistic culture.  Except for a few crazies running around that we'll find some better mousetrap to contain, we are perfect.

In the words of the great theologian Dr. Phil, "how's that working for you?"

Go on, then, pass some gun laws.  Pass out some more condoms, build your border wall if you have to and, of course, a few more prisons; bolt on a few more locks; requisition more square-footage at the airport to house the vast collection of fingernail clippers and 4-oz containers of shampoo confiscated by TSA screenings.

And then, for God's sake -- and our own -- let's do something meaningful and real to engage the problems that confront us.

And, at least for a time, interrupt the epidemic spread of "the Simples."