The Simple Math

The WSJ published an article about the math of taxation and the diminishing returns that increasing tax rates generate--it's been studied pretty thoroughly at some of our best universities and, using non-political analysis, it basically said that at best, there isn't much more blood to be had from the turnip that is "rich folks" to fund the $1.2 trillion needed for the new healthcare concept. (There also are not enough doctors.)

I'm gonna keep looking for Goerthe's dog:

Ein Hundchen wird gesucht,
Das weder murrt, nocht beiBt,
Zerbrochene glaser friBt
Und Diamanten schieBt

Wanted: a small dog that
neither growls nor bites, can
eat broken glass and shit diamonds

Food for the Other

I bumped into an old friend, Tim Brown, who is the new President of Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. The curious thing is that he was walking through the Minneapolis airport with three books in his hand and seemed to be reading them all at once.

Tim was head pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in America, Christ Memorial and then went back to teach at Western, to work with the next generation of spiritual leaders in the Reformed Church (Dutch and Protestant), after my older brother and another young adult member of Christ Memorial both died from cancer in 1993.

Here is what he was reading:

Christian Meditations by Hans Urs von Balthasar
Spiritual Theology by Diogenes Allen
Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I bought the books that night on Amazon and just finished Christian Meditations which was life-changing. Some short quotes that I recently shared on our FaceBook thread are below:

All, reading Christian Meditations by Hans Urs von Balthasar (Ignatius Press), worthy of the time and investment to find more unity in our individual pursuits of truth, love and grace:

I'm having a hard time pulling short quotes, but here are a few:

. . .this blessedness of poverty is likewise manifested in the Eucharist as the heart of the Church and thus in the whole of ecclesial life. It is Jesus" blessedness so to dispossess himself that he can become the living space for all who receive him and, through them, for all others. . .

Origen very strongly emphasized this in interpreting the texts in which the prophet Ezekiel and the seer of the Apocalypse are commanded to eat the Word (in the form of a scroll). This Father of the Church knows that "the Word is the true food of the spirit", and "what could be more nourishing for the soul than the Word?"

The concrete spoken Word cannot be detatched from the Word that he himself is. . .This is why, above, we could bring Word and Eucharist into such close connection and compare mediation with Communion. Christ who seems to stand before us, asks to be admitted to a common meal with our being: "See I am standing before the door knocking. . .I will go in to dine with him and he with me." (Rev 3:20)

It leads to an exchange in the deepest level: each one becomes food for the other.

(Photo credit: Cathleen Falsani)

Schuyler's 16th Birthday

Schuyler and I went to mainland Mexico, the Zihuatanejo area, for a surf trip with our brothers at Little Church by the Sea. He was turning 16; I am into my 40s now. It was a great coming of age. . .for both of us.















father and son surf
coming of age in the sea
one baptism again

Glory Holes

Beautiful break of light through the clouds over the Pacific as I drove the boys home from soccer practice tonight. . .reminded me of a simple truth: God's love can pierce any clouds that hover in our lives--the Spirit can break through life's difficulties if we give in and relinquish.

From St Oswald today:

To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretence. What Our Lord wants us to present to Him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavour, but real solid sin; that is all He can take from us. And what does He give in exchange for our sin? Real solid righteousness. But we must relinquish all pretence of being any thing, all claim of being worthy of God's consideration. . .When a man really sees himself as the Lord sees him, it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him, but the awful nature of the pride of his own heart against Jesus Christ. When he sees himself in the light of the Lord, the shame and the horror and the desperate conviction come home.

dark winter cloud-dread
suffocating soul and mind
relinquish my claim

XS Academy Awards

Kind of a big night for XS and possibly my all-time favorite Academy Award ceremony.

High point had to be Jeff Bridges getting an Academy Award. Such a cool guy. Love him. Pretty epic pic my brother doctored up of the Dude double-fisting Gold.

Also, was pretty stunned by the XS props on stage with the crappiest dance number ever. My friend Gabe highlighted the silvertone with a bit of green.



















the dude showed tonight
xs on stage I kid you
not, no fuiking way

Dudes Day

Interestingly, we are nearing the end of Lent and last night/today we celebrated the Dude's Day. Below are a few concepts of what it's all about from the Dudespaper:

This year on March 6th we’re going to get fired up about chilling and make it official: It’ll be the first annual sacred Dudeist high holy day, The Day of the Dude.

Every religion needs its high holidays, and no religion takes taking a break more seriously than Dudeism. Though we considered many days for the holy day, we settled on March 6th because it’s the day that The Big Lebowski was bequeathed unto the world way back in the year of our Dude, 1998.

At first we considered April 20, but that had already been taken by the Church of the Subgenius; then we though to have it on September 11th as that’s the day the Dude writes on his check for 69 cents at the beginning of the movie, but of course that would be offensive to many folks. So finally we settled on March 6th, the Day of the Dude. So that’s when and what you call it. Probably in the future we’ll have more high holidays strewn throughout the year but you’ve got to start somewhere.

We recommend celebrating The Day of the Dude by getting together with like-minded Dudeists, drinking white Russians, watching the sacred film, and going bowling.

However, anything that pays honor to the high principles of Dudeism is fine:

• Spend it alone in your private residence by taking a bath with candles and tapes of whale sounds.
• Go to the beach (or the river, or the lake, or the swimming pool) with some pals and symbolically scatter the ashes of the previous year (suggestion: the ash from some naturally-occuring herbal substance will do).
• Get dressed up in your robes, shorts, sunglasses and sandals and pass out the Take it Easy Manifesto at your local shopping mall.
• Organize a full-on Jackie-Treehorn style garden party.
• Set up a stand in a public area and ordain people into the Church of the Latter-Day Dude. Yes! If you’re ordained as a Dudeist Priest you have that power! You only have to get their name and their email address and email us the list. Or, even better - set up a laptop and a printer and do it for them right there on the website, then give them a free printout of the online certificate. People will definitely dig your style.
• Drive around while listening to Creedence, or the movie soundtrack and enjoy the occasional acid flashback.
• Make some strongly commendable Dudeist art and send scans of them to us for our online gallery.
• Go for a long walk and don’t answer your phone all day.
• Get a discussion group together to discuss The Big Lebowski, Great Dudes in History, Dudeist philosophy, etc.
• Write an article about how you spent the Day of the Dude and send it in to the Dudespaper via center@dudeism.com. The best one will receive a free copy of the Dude De Ching!
• Engage in a natural, zesty enterprise with a willing partner. Then tell each other about yourselves over cocktails and what-have-you.
• Go to In-N-Out Burger, or make your own.

So I posted this and got one little lady all riled up about until a group of Dudeists mellowed her out. Quality day.

Last night was pretty special, though. . .

I'm calling the night before Dudes Day something else--St. Dudesday Eve. Cathleen Falsani had a book party, served us all White Russians, aka "Caucasians," showed the film on the wall, read from her book and made us all show up in costume (see FaceBook). I was kind of swamped and didn't have much time to prep. Was considering going as The Dude, but then thought others would too. Then thought I'd sweep it by going as The Big Lebowski, but didn't have time to drive out to Costume Castle for a bald wig, at which point Nirvana poked me and I called my good friend, Glenn Rogers to be The Big, while I wheeled him around as Brandt. We won the Canadian-USA combined costume award, of course. I mean, does the Pope shit in the woods or what?















it's down there somewhere
dude, at least it's an ethos
lost my train of thought

Mission Impossible

Two days ago we had bigger-than-normal surf in Southern California. Nate Apffel, who made the Lost Prophets film I supported wrote this as his FaceBook status:

Scariest surf... HUGE 6-8ft hawaiin blacks. I take three on the head, almost drown. I go into the beach and see a surfer who was a paramedic giving CPR to a guy who had drown. 6 minutes of no heart beat and the guy is saved! After being stretchered up to a waiting ambulance he is concious and talking... I do believe in miracles!

From St Oswald today regarding asking for the impossible and believing that we will receive it:

This man received his sight. The most impossible thing to you is that you should be so identified with the Lord that there is nothing of the old life left. He will do it if you ask Him. But you have to come to the place where you believe Him to be Almighty. Faith is not in what Jesus says but in Himself; if we only look at what He says we shall never believe. When once we see Jesus, He does the impossible thing as naturally as breathing. Our agony comes through the wilful stupidity of our own heart. We won't believe, we won't cut the shore line, we prefer to worry on.

Not getting into details, I have some daunting tasks facing me, some challenges that seem overwhelming. I'm at the point of frustration where I start getting angry with people that I care about and love because of it. That's not who I like to be. These are my breakthrough moments with God and in my own personal development--the times when I have to breathe, pray and listen more. . .


lost amid the noise
scratching towards the surface
miracles of air

Threading Knuckle Babies

A bunch of friends from Wheaton College started a thread on FaceBook almost two years ago when our mutual friend, Mark Metherell was killed in Iraq. It's a wild place where we kind of started off assuming that we were all the same people we were in school and have found that almost two decades of adulthood has a way of changing folks. We simply refer to it as The Thread.

One of our friends who was raised as a Baptist has converted to Roman Catholicism (he spent over a decade in the Episcopalian/Anglican church from college to his recent conversion). We were discussing the theology of sexuality in the Roman tradition and masturbation came up. Most of the Protestants on The Thread were surprised that the concept of "making knuckle babies," as one post described it, was still verboten.

This was our friend, James' story about how he approached the concept with his mother, a conservative Baptist, whom he thought would side with him:

Regarding masturbation, I've kept my mom a little bit apprised of our discussion, and I thought at least on the issue of masturbation I could get her to agree with the Catholic (me). Mind you, I've never, under any circumstances discussed masterbation with my mother. So this shows you the lengths I'll go to try to reach her (I understand some might find my efforts misguided). So I presented the claim about Protestant liberty.

What was her response? Kind in mind that this is the same mother who banned rock 'n roll in our house growing up, disconnected our cable tv, and once dragged my dad and older brother on a mission to disrupt my brother Stephen's escapades with his girlfriend in high school. I don't say any of this with disrespect, but only offering evidence that would suggest I am within the bounds of logic to think that on this issue she would would agree with me, the Catholic.

"I've never seen that as that big of a crime," she said.

The shock and horror. I really did not want to persue the discussion and pretty much left it at that after a flailing effort, "what would Dad say about your theology now?...Dad?...oh never mind..."

how did jelly fish
make their way from the deep sea
to my shower floor?

Chub Chasers

My son Willem has a term called "Chub Chasers" that I will leave mostly to your imagination--it involves a category of person looking for a category of person. I leave it at that.

This video seemed to capture Willem's amusing terminology aptly.

expectations of
gaelic sean-nos magnify
the chubby humor