Category Archives: Sunday Morning Sermons

George Washington for President

The Sunday Morning Sermon

In case you haven’t noticed, this is a political season in America and I have to tell you, I am a little fed up. I am so tired of half-truths, spin and outright lies I am starting to feel sick when I turn on the news. Truth has somewhere, somehow died a slow and painful death and I am pretty sure I missed the funeral. Through it all however, I believe most of the ugliness, pettiness and divisiveness would be gone tomorrow if we agreed not to support people who lie.

I am sure you heard the candidate who told us most in the illegal Hispanic population were rapists and drug dealers.

That statement was more than crude and in my 53 years I have heard crude. It was more than racist, because I believe the statement would have made Bull Conner blush. It was more than insensitive, because I can not fathom the kind of dinner table questions Hispanic moms and dads had to answer. It was decidedly more than unchristian but, not for the reason you might think. It was more than cringe-worthy, in a season with a pretty high cringe-quotient.

It was a lie.

When did we begin to honor dishonesty? When did we start giving little Johnny a cookie when he told a whopper? “I am so proud of Johnny. He is a natural born liar.” When did we begin rewarding little Suzy when she copied her homework answers? “We are so proud of Suzy. She cheated her way to Valedictorian.” Do they give you a medal at WestPoint now for lying? “For meritorious and capricious lying, the Congressional Medal of Dishonor goes to…” Has the story of George Washington and the cherry tree been erased from our national memory? “I am not sure little Georgie has a future in politics. He just can’t tell a lie.”

We still have a zero-tolerance policy on the fib at our house. Should we change that? Have you?

So, why on earth are we considering liars for public office… I am not sure considering is strong enough, how about seeking? Yup, instead of disagreeing with the other side, whatever that is, we want our politicians to turn the other side into fire-breathing, hell-bent bonafide monsters. So if public office means a suspension of reality, then I hereby nominate Aslan for President. Peter would make a good Supreme Court Justice while we are at it. I am sure Justice Scalia would be proud of our choice. Of course neither of them would make very good liars.

Do you think Aslan the lion would ever win a political election in this country?

I understand how useful hyperbole and exaggeration can be at times. Those devices are extremely useful in comedy and storytelling. Sometimes, exaggeration is useful in education to help define cause and effect. There is a place for things not exactly true especially when the speaker eventually tells us the truth and explains the why a lie was useful.

Have you heard such an explanation this political season? Is the fault in our stars or in ourselves?

I think we made it this way. We have rewarded fiery speakers who tell us lies about our ideological opposites for too long. We love people who think like us. We especially love those who demonize our “enemies.” That may be the crux of our problem. Somehow, our fellow citizens have become enemies. People who think differently must be stopped. We can no longer agree to disagree. We want our politicians to label our ideological enemies as unpatriotic, greedy, weak or evil. Those labels have become the talisman of a true believer. When merely saying it is so loses its effectiveness, we want them to use a religious interpretation, shoddy statistics, science-for-hire, stereotypes, prejudice… to prove our point. Any form of the lie is ok, if it leaves our ideological enemies in a figurative bloody pulp in the gutter.

Have you seen people this season in more than a figurative bloody pulp?

If we don’t mind a lie and actually encourage it, then what is next? I think all things are possible including moving from the figurative to the literal. In a democracy, we must agree to disagree from time to time. As we learned in kindergarten, things don’t always go exactly as we desire. Kick-the-can fans have to play in the sandbox from time to time and we don’t get to verbally or literally beat-up the sandbox voters. The kick-the-can voters can opt to play by themselves but, in a democracy, the game is set by the majority. A kindergartener knows outlawing all community games, because we didn’t like the vote, is not an option either. Somehow a five year-old knows telling lies about the sandboxers won’t change anything for the better. They instinctively know what we seem to have forgotten. Without the sandboxers, they won’t have enough kids to play kick-the can and some of the sandboxers make excellent kick-the-can players.

Picture Credit

Pigpen is Blown Away

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I seem to be in a little funk lately. My real job is not perfect. My daughter is beginning to be a teenager. I need an outbuilding for my yard tools and lawnmower. It will have to be a brick monstrosity worthy of my new subdivision. The Taj Mahal of garden sheds complete with bricks and windows. My cat uses plants instead of a litter box. I have a best friend I haven’t seen in six years. I need to see my sister more. I need to visit my mom and dad more. At some point, I become aware of my problem.

I am so grateful to have a mom and dad to go see.

So what if I am not getting the respect I desire at work. I have a great job practicing civil engineering. A job, incidentally, I believe God made me to do. Otherwise why would he have planted the seed so early in the sand box? Why would I have been in such awe of a simple bulldozer? Now, I have a hobby I love as much.

By the way, thank you Mr. or Mrs. Reader!

I see people griping about cars parked in the road or trash cans left an extra day in my neighborhood. I see people griping about the Hispanics who mow their grass and build their houses. I see people griping about their taxes. I see people griping about their kids. I see people griping about their doctor or hospital. I see people go on for days about their spouse. I see people run down teachers. I see people who refuse to see anything good about our country. I see people who believe the world is an awful place.

Are you like me? do you find yourself joining the Pig Pens of the world occasionally?

You know those people. They drive a great car, live in a great neighborhood, have a great job, pretty good kids… They have had a big pile of breaks in their lives. They went to a great school. They got a chance to go to college. They had a great support structure with public roads, churches, bridges, parks, schools, families, friends…but, somehow, they did it all by themselves. Their work entitles them to a cloud of anger, fear and some kind of weird fantasy of a perfect life in the past. The cloud follows them around like Pig Pen. Sometimes people run the other way.

Do you feel like you have borrowed Pig Pen’s cloud sometimes? I know I do.

When I see a cloud forming I know how to blow it away. The question always becomes; how long will I indulge myself with the pity party. When I am done, it is as simple as dropping the Gratitude Bomb. A little gratitude will fix most delusions in my head. When I feel victimized at work…I get thankful I have a job. When I feel like someone is getting over on society…I remember the kind souls in my life who gave me something I probably didn’t deserve. When I feel, I know I should first feel thankful.

Do you know people who write gratitude lists?

It is not a bad practice but, I like to say my gratitude list. I think there is a great listener. I have also found gratitude a powerful teaching tool for a thirteen year-old. Sometimes gratitude even helps blow away the cloud for other Pig Pens in my life. After all, what does it cost to be grateful? What could it hurt for me to try? I am pretty sure my misery can always be refunded.

Pigpen picture courtesy: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/412783122075777259/

Our Better Angels

An Afternoon at the Dealership

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My apologies as SMS turns into the Sunday Evening Sermon.

The day before yesterday Jennifer’s car had a flat. I dutifully checked the tire like my father had taught me touching and caressing the tread looking for metal invader to no avail. I came to the realization that I needed professional help diagnosing the tire’s specific ailment.

Where did you carry your last flat?

Well, for me, I guess I have fully subscribed to the one-stop world of the car dealer. Yup, you can buy a car, get an oil change, fix a flat, buy running boards, get a car wash and while you are doing all those things you can even get a hamburger at the café. The hamburgers are to die for by the way. They grill them on a real grill with Dale’s sauce…

If you are into guilty pleasures, I would highly recommend the car wash and a hamburger.

I swapped cars with my wife in her work parking lot. Well, I swapped her a truck for a car but, that is another story. Soon I was in the queue at the Quick Lube at the dealership. A modern invention, the Quick Lube, allows you to get many services while minimizing human interaction. Instead of a waiting room you get to… no, you are required to sit in your car. You know, there are insurance regulations.

Have you ever seen the insurance inspector shewing people out of a shop?

It was a normal winter day in the south. Our winters could usually pass for spring anywhere else. It was funny though, you would have thought we were on Mars and there were precious life-sustaining atmospheres in each vehicle which might escape. People were only cracking their windows long enough to tell the attendant their malfunction. Once closed, they went about looking at their lap again. I reached the front of the line and when the attendant arrived with his clipboard, I asked him how his day was going. The attendants are called “service advisors” and you can tell them apart because they dress like Tiger Woods and have a conspicuous lack of oil staining. He was a young guy whose grimace turned into a half-smile to say, “man I am great.” His mouth said great and his face said… well, not great. I wanted to chat some more but, he quickly barked, “sir, can you give me your mileage.” After a few minutes, you guessed it, nothing wrong was found with the tire.

Is there some kind of force field around mechanics which temporarily fixes the brokenness in cars?

I decided to reverse my bad tire Karma by getting Jennifer’s car cleaned for her. The people in that line also had had something important going on in their lap. After my turn in the tunnel, I was greeted by the interior washer. I asked the young man how he was doing too. Unlike the service advisor, he apparently actually did the dirty work of cleaning cars. He was a little shocked by actual conversation but, quickly recovered. “I love pretty days, we are so busy, the day goes by really fast,” he said adjusting his toboggan with his blue hands. The day was pretty but, cool. I chatted with the nice young man for a few minutes then left the car for the waiting room. As I walked down the hall to the waiting room it sounded like a lively place. I could hear a conversation about college football and other little side conversations. I picked a chair next to a man in a suit and began to assess my surroundings for the best weather or football small talk. Sadly, the football conversation was on the Paul Finebalm show on TV. I was really looking foreword to discussing the finer points of the Clemson defense with an Alabama Fan. Then I noticed the all the chit-chat I heard down the hall was with people not in the room.

Does it strike you as strange that of a dozen or so people, none of them were talking to each other?

I sat there watching Paul next to the tall guy in the suit. I learned that he believed gas would be less than a dollar a gallon unless there was a war. From the attractive lady in scrubs, I learned what Kim really needed was a reality check. From the lady with big hair, I learned that dogs wouldn’t walk themselves. Others were feverishly taping out texts. I tried to read what the young boy with the oversized North Face jacket in the black four-wheel drive was texting but, he turned his phone away when he saw me watching him. After ten or so minutes of being alone in a sea of people, I gave up and went outside. Some guy was griping to the nice blue-handed toboggan guy about unclean cup holders, crappy service and something about hard-earned money. I stood in another cluster of waiters and complemented a young man on his white Mustang. Before he could reply he had to take a call. Blue-hands waved me over. I complemented him on his thorough interior cleaning abilities and we chatted for a minute. Before I drove away he handed me a card to go online and fill out a survey. He said he got a bonus for each good survey. I took his card and drove away.

How many texters do you pass in the slow lane?

On the way home I passed quite a few. Somehow, I think texters feel safer in the passing lane. I guess they don’t have to worry as much about rear-ending other slower cars. For the life of me, I have no idea what text would be so important to risk something soooooo dangerous. Believe me, I have seen the accidents and they are my least favorite part of being a transportation engineer.

Does the world seem a little more self-centered and alone to you?

I admit, I have been a little self-involved this week. It was a pretty tough week at work but, my outlook always changes when I can do or say something nice. Service for me is the antidote for the blues. Sometimes, in this world we have made, it seems a kind word can’t be shoved in edgewise. A wave or smile at a traffic signal is well, out of the question. We have made a world where it is easier to talk to your old friend in that town in Egypt than a new one at the car wash. My spiritual medicine for the blues seems to be in short supply. I can’t like that one bit.

Leana’s Healing Miracle

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I listen to too much NPR. Interesting people stop me in my tracks. I listen to my local station, Sirius, On-line… I especially like the TED Radio Hour. TRH appeals to both my innate curiosity and my “short little attention span,” as Paul would say. I like some of the TED talks and TRH allows me to sort those without having to spend days watching YouTube. I find little satisfaction in short made-for-cable news stories these days and NPR, TED and others seem to do the trick.

Leana Wen seems to on to something in which I believe you might be interested.

Doctor Wen was enchanted with an idea a few years ago that also enchanted the good folks over at TED. With all the hubbub over being able to select your doctor, why not enhance the experience? In a nutshell, ole Doc Wen feels the patient would better served if the doctor they selected was something a little better than a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

A strange idea; before you get naked and discuss your sex life with someone, you might have some idea who that person might be. You know, what makes the person tick.

The ticking person in question is your doctor. Knowing if your doctor made twenty percent of her income from a particular drug company might have some bearing on your care, don’t you think? I have some experience with this last one. Once, I was changed from a blood pressure medicine which was working well without explanation. My friend who worked as a bookkeeper put the change in perfect focus later. She told me she hadn’t bought lunch in years. Turns out, the drug company which made my new drug bought extravagant lunches EVERY DAY for the whole office. I wonder to what largess my doctor was treated.

I wonder how my new drug compared to the old one in cost…nevermind, I have a pretty good idea.

Doctor Wen’s idea met with quick and universal condemnation from her peers. Her life was actually threatened. I will let you watch and weigh her assertions for yourself. Her assertions however, may speak volumes. In my experience, the louder the yell, the truer the arrow. The doctors and politicians who seem to hold the doctor-patient relationship in highest regard should welcome and celebrate her ideas. Sadly, many doctors seem to feel personally invaded as Doctor Wen tells the world the emperor has no clothes. Maybe they like a naked emperor and patients as long as they can hide behind their lab coats. I just wonder who else is in the coat with them.

Broken Cadillac

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I hope you can excuse me while I depart from my normal faire. I am having a crisis of, well, usefulness. Today I was confronted with people who cannot admit my chosen avocation is anything other than an unaffordable, silly, even criminal waste of resources. I find myself looking at their logic and trying to understand why I cannot see or understand their point of view. I find myself questioning my job, belief system and even my connection to my understanding of what God wants for me in my life.

This is a little longer than usual but, maybe it is a conversation we need to have.

It started as a pretty good day. I was able to do what I do best with a large part of the day. My favorite and most productive time at work is in the recon. No, not a camouflaged romp on a moonless night. This kind of romp allows me to bring my near twenty years of transportation engineering experience, those late nights of study at Clemson and some common sense to your service. Well, your service if you drive. In these romps my tools are a vehicle, a steno pad and my brain, well, my brain attached to my eyes. I ride a state route, look for defects and decide who should fix the problem, when the problem should be fixed and how the problem should be fixed. The when is very important because, as you probably know, we are in a perpetual state of underfunding at the DOT.

Underfunding you say? I heard you clear your throat, look away and wonder if those left-over steak tips in the refrigerator were still edible. Let me stop and tell you a story.

Your gramps was sittin around with grammy a few decades ago and decided his widget business might take off if he could drive a car instead of ridin Daisy, the horse, to the people buying his widgets. He might even sell a few over in Anywhereville and Podunk. It was a few days ride to those places and he might have a real advantage over his competition with some kind of automobile. He also though that he and grammy might even be able to put some of her fried pies in a basket and drive over to the levee for a picnic from time to time.

So grampaw went downtown and bought a Cadillac. Grammy had to dig pretty deep in the cookie jar to pay for the Caddy. She had to dig even further for the oil changes, tune ups and tires which followed. Well, after a while, grampaw had made so much selling his widgets to his new customers in Podunk that he and grammy were able to go to the beach for the first time since he stormed one in Normandy. Before long your daddy came along and he too used the Caddy. He used it to go over to Backwater University and get his BS degree in stuff and things. Your daddy’s degree was another first in your family’s history. He made a good living with that Caddy. He spent his hard-earned money to take care of your grampaw’s gift and was also able to take you to the beach when you were a kid.

A few years ago, he gave you the Caddy. It needed some work on the transmission but, you said the cost was too high. You justified this decision because you had seen the transmission mechanics taking coffee breaks that were too long. You didn’t change the oil because someone on TV told you it wasn’t necessary. They told you that you could save money on oil by using some kind of a fairy dust. You knew your dad and grampaw had conscientiously bought and changed the oil for years but, you liked the idea of something for nothing. Anyway, you had heard those oil change mechanics were sorry, lazy, overpriced. One morning you woke up and needed the Caddy to get to a work meeting over in Podunk. The Caddy smoked and missed. It quit half-way to Podunk. You got fired.

Did some of the story ring true for you? If it did, you are not a bad person. You are really like everybody else when it comes to roads and funding. As long as your road seems to work then you are ok. You don’t think too hard about roads and bridges. Because, after all, some people on the TV have told you road prices are somehow different from milk prices. Yes, I compared roads to milk. Ok, try this little thought experiment with me. If you were to walk into Wal-Mart and demand milk for 1992 prices what would happen? By the way, 1992 was the last time the gas tax was increased. Do you think Wal-Mart would call people who would take you away in a straight-jacket for a nice relaxing night in a rubber room for making that demand?

But, back to my day in the life…

I ate lunch at a fast food establishment known for taking perfectly healthy fish, adding batter and deep-frying anything approaching healthy out of it. By this time, I had four pages of road defects. Unfortunately, some of the defects will have to wait. The trick, art and science of it is which ones? That’s when you really need me. Which defects are the true “widow makers” like a four-inch pavement drop off and which are inconveniences. I guess I should add one more category. Which defects will cost you the most money in the long run if I don’t fix it today?

It was now time for a meeting about a kinda dangerous set intersections next to the interstate. Two nearby truck stops and series of increasingly busy intersecting roads had boogered the exit to the point the witches brew of trucks and cars had begun to boil over. The best way to fix it was to eliminate some of the crossing roads and combine those crossing roads into one with a traffic signal. I was meeting with the local mayor and some county officials. The big question on everyone’s mind was not if a series of very bad truck versus car accidents was about to happen, it was how we would pay for the improvements. I won’t bore you with the details but, we halved the baby.

I must tell you, I worry that the metaphor turns into a real live thing.

After a few more hours and a few more pages, I met with a DOT neighbor about a driveway. He wanted to build a set of storage buildings where an old set was removed by a tornado four or five years back. I wonder how many storage buildings… who could possibly rent all these things? Anyway, this citizen was upset that his driveway must be permitted and built to today’s rules. After explaining that we engineers were an odd sort and when we figured out building something a certain way killed people, we had a strange way of asking people not to build things that way anymore. I went on to explain the people of the great state of Alabama had spoken and they really felt their gas taxes shouldn’t pay for his new driveway which would kill fewer people. My logic apparently escaped him.

Did my logic make any sense to you? Should I make myself a tin-foil hat?

After a few minutes of the citizen snorting and flinging profanities about government bureaucracy, waste and inefficiency, I noticed he had an identity badge for a local utility. Trying another tack, I asked him if his utility, also a monopoly, didn’t have rules about attaching to their services. I then asked if they didn’t learn lessons and change rules from time to time. He conceded both points but, was unmoved by my logic. Somehow a utility was different from a state DOT. I tell you, the only difference I saw was that his pay and benefits were better. Of course he also had better equipment. He also got paid for his overtime… My utility bill has seen numerous increases since 1992 and sure my neighbors and I gripe for a day or two but, that griping doesn’t morph into some kind of philosophical almost religious vendetta against utility companies.

Just tell me, why is a utility rate hike any different from a gas tax increase?

Finally, on my way home, I got the call all transportation workers dread. There had been a fatality on one of my roads. I use the personal pronoun on purpose. When there are accidents, they are accidents on MY roads. I arrived on the scene to take my pictures and do my investigation just as they were removing the victim from the vehicle. Many times there are next of kin there to identify the body. Today was no exception. There is an emotional gravity placed on your shoulders as a transportation professional at these scenes which defies my written explanation.

The fairy dust didn’t work for this victim. The fairy dust didn’t work for more than 100 others today. I am tired of fairy dust. I want my concrete, asphalt, rocks and steel back. I want a group of dedicated professionals, operators and technicians who aren’t treated as pariahs to use those materials to take care of the Cadillac your grandfather gave you.