A 62 year- old grandmother had stood in line since lunch with 3 of her of her grandchildren. It was now well into the dark of night. She spoke, “I voted for Bush last time…but I’m for Senator Obama now. He represents change. We owe that to the coming generations.” The candidate stepped on stage around 10 pm. to the delirious shouts of the multitude, “Houston, I think we’ve achieved liftoff.”

A group of people from my church is watching Bill Moyer’s timeless “Power of Myth” interview series with Joseph Campbell. Last night Campbell passionately observed, “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”

In his radio address this past weekend President Bush made these comments in regard to his unconstitutional Orwellian named “Protect America Act,” “Because Congress failed to act, it will be harder for our government to keep you safe from terrorist attack. At midnight, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence will be stripped of their power to authorize new surveillance against terrorist threats abroad…and we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America.”

Here is a portion of Senator Obama’s Houston speech. “We haven’t had leaders who can inspire the American people to rally behind a common purpose and a higher purpose….

I want to end a politics based on fear that uses 9/11 as a way to scare up votes instead of a way to bring the country together against a common enemy….We are going to lead by example, by maintaining the highest standards of civil liberties and human rights, which is why I will close Guantanamo and restore habeas corpus and say no to torture… You can elect a president who has taught the Constitution, and believes in the Constitution, and will obey the Constitution of the United States of America….All these things are possible, if you are ready for change.”

Before I proceed, let me be clear that I am not currently a supporter of Obama. I was an Edwards guy who respected his clear, decisive, confrontation of the collusion between government and corporation. I have been a critic of Obama feeling that he is offering bromides in the place of steely resolve. I have clearly missed something that Clinton’s & McCain’s “experienced, ready to lead on day one” campaigns have also missed.

Joseph Campbell reminds me of that spine tingling summation Yahweh gave to the children of Israel in sealing his covenant with them. “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life.” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

That’s what Obama has tapped into on a spiritual, mythical, instinctive level. The Bush regime has zealously cultivated a dastardly culture of death. Right now, Obama is our hungering and thirsting for life in the flesh. The elation, the streaming tears, the devotion, the sacrifice of Obama adherents reflects a cosmic truth. It’s not about solutions, it’s not about policies, and it’s not even about political allegiances. It’s a matter Life and Death.

On Wednesday the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee spent 5 hours grilling a Hall of Fame caliber baseball pitcher and his trainer about 3 alleged shots of illegal substances injected into his butt.

Meanwhile Senator Arlen Specter the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee spent an hour and a half of moral fortitude with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell discussing the New England Patriots and the league’s decision to destroy tapes and notes turned over by the Patriots in an investigation that has become known as “Spygate.”

All the while in small independent theaters, that minor league reality show called life on planet earth features our President and Vice President admitting and shamelessly defending torture, the Senate approving unconstitutional wiretapping with a side of immunity for telecom companies, and the announcement of death penalty – no due process – military tribunal trials for alleged 9-11 conspirators.

The passionate preacher’s warning reverberates, “Majoring in minors!”

Old School Prophet Amos is a reliable educational advisor for our major in the in the college of higher ethics. “Seek good and not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you just as you say he is. Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the courts…let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like and ever flowing stream.” (Amos 5:14,15,24)

Be of good courage bearers of the light. Keep shining and sounding the light. Despot’s deeds ultimately get them expelled. Grandstanders who major in minors eventually flunk out.

The poetic truth intersected by William Channing Gannett will persevere and be granted the Everlasting Diploma.

“It sounds along the ages, soul answering to soul; It kindles on the pages of every Bible scroll; The psalmist heard and sang it, from martyr lips it broke, and prophet tongues outrang it till sleeping nations woke.”

It is a vision of America that’s been exploited and encouraged by pundits and politicians who need this division to score points and win elections. But it is a vision of America that I am running for President to fundamentally reject – not because of a blind optimism I hold, but because of a story I’ve lived.

Our family’s story is one that spans miles and generations; races and realities. It’s the story of farmers and soldiers; city workers and single moms. It takes place in small towns and good schools; in Kansas and Kenya; on the shores of Hawaii and the streets of Chicago. It’s a varied and unlikely journey, but one that’s held together by the same simple dream.

And that is why it’s American.

That’s why I can stand here and talk about how this country is more than a collection of Red States and Blue States – because my story could only happen in the United States.

That’s why I believe that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that the dream we share is more powerful than the differences we have – because I am living proof of that ideal.”

(Full Speech)

This is an excerpt from Barak Obama’s Jan. 29^th Speech in El Dorado, Kansas. I have been trying to get a bead on why an upstart bi-racial unknown has risen like an Apollo political spacecraft going toe to toe with the most potent Democratic Party juggernaut since FDR.

Shelby Steele of the Hoover Institution contends that Obama is a ‘bargainer” who says to white’s, “I won’t hold your history of racial shame against you if you wont’ hold my color against me.” Steele further asserts that blacks like Obama offer white America redemption and absolution for their guilt and they respond with great gratitude. Steele places Oprah in this category as well.

A sound critique of Steele’s assessment comes from a surprising corner. George Will writes, “Steele has brilliantly dissected the intellectual perversities that present blacks as dependent victims, reduced to trading on their moral blackmail of whites who are eager to be blackmailed in exchange for absolution.

But Steele radically misreads Obama, missing his emancipation from those perversities. Obama seems to understand America’s race fatigue, the unbearable boredom occasioned by today’s stale politics generally, and especially by the perfunctory theatrics of race.

Steele notes that Obama “seems to have little talent for anger.” But that is because Obama has opted out of the transaction Steele vigorously deplores. The political implications of this transcendence of confining categories are many, profound and encouraging.”

(Full Article)

Cal Berkeley Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg perceptively articulates liberal’s inability to weave a narrative as a foundational failing. But, this alone doesn’t explain the Obama phenomena.

If we place Steele, Will, Nunberg and a remnant of St. Paul’s Universal Christ on the loom we may be able to fashion a full suit of clothes.

“Put off the old practices and put on the new nature…in the image of its Creator. Here there cannot be Greek or Jew…slave or free, but Christ is all in all.” (Colossians 3: 9-11).

In the past few weeks Obama has won 3 Deep South primaries including Alabama for God’s sake. White men are voting for him. A staggering 67% of youth voted for Obama in South Carolina. Caroline Kennedy’s children talked her into endorsing him.

America seeks redemption; not one where a Savior has to die, or one horse collared by guilt, but one where our worn out, threadbare garments fall to the ground. Obama embodies and eloquently speaks this quintessential American narrative. The graying boomers and the purple haired Gen X & Y’s are in Amen corner. He may not win this time around, but the hour is nigh to put on America’s emerging wardrobe.

Dr. may sound more impressive to the ears and may garner more clout on a resume, but the authenticity, power and authority gushed like a geyser from a deeper well.

Hear now ongoing revelation from Rev. King’s sermon, “The Drum Major Instinct”.

“If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long…Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school.

- I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others.
- I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.
- I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question.
- I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry.
- And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked.
- I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.
- I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that’s all I want to say.”

In the first year of his ministry in 1954, Rev. King preached “Rediscovering Lost Values” at 2nd Baptist Church in Detroit.

“As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow, but to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Not in the little gods that can be with us in a few moments of prosperity, but in the God who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, and causes us to fear no evil. That’s the God.

Not in the god that can give us a few Cadillac cars and Buick convertibles, as nice as they are, that are in style today and out of style three years from now, but the God who threw up the stars to bedeck the heavens like swinging lanterns of eternity.

Not in the god that can throw up a few skyscraping buildings, but the God who threw up the gigantic mountains, kissing the sky, as if to bathe their peaks in the lofty blues.

Not in the god that can give us a few televisions and radios, but the God who threw up that great cosmic light that gets up early in the morning in the eastern horizon, who paints its technicolor across the blue —something that man could never make.”

The night before he was assassinated, Martin preached to the striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Behold the crescendo of his sermon.

“It really doesn’t matter what happens now…We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.

And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

I am humbly honored to be in the same flock as Martin Luther King – A Minister, a Reverend, a Preacher. Don’t neglect to honor his educational accomplishments, but call him Dr. – Second.

“When one lives one’s own life …there is no guarantee – not for a single moment – that we will not fall into error or stumble into deadly peril.”

Ms. Bhutto knew the stakes were high. When she returned home from exile last October she publicly stated that retired military officers aligned to Islamic extremists could be plotting her assassination. Bhutto’s family history didn’t bode well for her survival either. Her father was executed and her two brothers also suffered violent deaths.

I live under no illusion that Ms. Bhutto and her family were holy innocents. Beneath all the power jockeying and money temptations however, they did seem to have a core commitment to democracy.

Benazir’s father was prime minister of Pakistan in the early 1970s. His government was one of the few in the 30 years following independence that was not run by the army.

Ms. Bhutto was imprisoned just before her father’s death and spent most of her five-year jail term in solitary confinement.

During stints out of prison for medical treatment, Ms Bhutto set up a Pakistan People’s Party office in London. She returned to Pakistan in 1986, attracting huge crowds to political rallies. Two years later she became one of the first democratically elected female prime ministers in an Islamic country.

Benazir Bhutto could have lived a safe and comfortable life in London with her family, teaching at a university and lecturing around the globe on democracy. Instead, she continued the costly calling of living democracy.

I recall the timely and moving words from the Jesus lexicon. “If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save her life will lose it, but whoever loses her life for me will find it.”

We walk a line with Bhutto and people of her lineage between glorifying and honoring martydom. I would love nothing more than for Benazir Bhutto’s death to birth a phoenix of democratic decency. History’s record is mixed at best.

There are things worse than physical death. In the recesses of my eternal gut I believe that living in sych with our integrity will never die. Apostle Jung continues his revelation.

“We may think there is a sure road. But that would be the road of death. Then nothing happens any longer – at any rate, not the right things. Anyone who takes the sure road is as good as dead.“

December is the traditional Christian holy season celebrating the birth of Jesus. We will be saturated with sappy images of the “babe, wrapped in swaddling clothing.” Once again the prevailing storyline will sentimentalize the righteous holiness out of Jesus, reducing him to a cutesy babe whose cheeks we want to pinch.

Most folks will never allow the prophetic zeal of Jesus to permeate their being. The grown up Jesus disturbs us with teachings like this, which foreshadow those who wade in the shallow end. “The road to life is crooked and winding, and those who find it are few.”

I got to know Jesus as a radical prophet by reading the gospels like I had never even heard of this Jesus guy. I tried like heaven to strip away all of the hearsay about him in an effort to uncover the soul of the upstart Rabbi. I was frankly bewildered to hear the “Song of Mary” when John the Baptist’s mom testified about the babe in Mary’s womb. “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior… he has scattered those who are proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.”

Jesus turned out just like his Dad. He emerged from his wilderness temptations to preach his first sermon, fittingly in his hometown. The Nazareth old-timers synagogue society discounted him. “Isn’t this the kid who grew up down the street?” Jesus answered sharply, “Don’t call me babe!”

The sacred work of Jesus has not changed one mouse click. Let us grow up with Jesus, radiating this living testament to corporate and government halls from Washington to New York, from Bentonville to Islamabad, from Moscow to Rangoon.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me…he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

This compact and insightful verse from Robert Frost’s The Road not Taken have etched a place in my soul, having first encountered it some 40 years ago. Ever since Al Gore won a share of the Nobel Peace Prize a few weeks ago my mind keeps wandering back to the 2000 Presidential election.

Before I trek forward let me be clear. I am not an Al Gore groupie. I am a member of no political party. I voted for a third party candidate in 2000. With the Electoral College and living in Texas I had that luxury. I was sickened by Gore’s play it safe campaign, listening to square headed “experts” instead of following his authentic gut. Ralph Nader didn’t cost Gore the election. Al Gore lost the election by not being himself. It should have never been close enough for the Supreme Court to jerry-rig.

I am thinking about the roads these two men of year 2000 infamy have taken. George Bush has unceasingly shown himself to be a man of immeasurable deception, fear mongering, and freedom busting. His self-imposed ostrich hole insulates him from candid perspectives giving birth to a man who is “dead certain.”

Robbed of the most powerful position on the planet and internationally disgraced, Al Gore had every reason and opportunity to become a bitter, disconsolate man. But he chose a different road.

“Winner” Bush is a man overwhelmingly scorned by the everyday global citizen. “Loser” Gore has won an Academy award and a Nobel Peace Prize.

Cosmic truth from the Tao Te Ching shouts from the rooftops.

“Whoever is stiff and inflexible

is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding

is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.

The soft and supple will prevail.”

Hear now recent sentiments from each man.

Al Gore’s Nobel lecture December 10, 2007; “Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.”

President Bush upon the December 3rd public disclosure of The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, stating that Iran stopped nuclear weapons-related testing in 2003. “Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” Asked if he was maintaining his threat to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, Bush replied: “The best diplomacy, effective diplomacy, is one of which all options are on the table.”

“Two roads diverged in a wood…and that has made all the difference.”

There is only one question. Do you want this done to you or someone you love?

At the point of a soldier’s gun you are taken into custody, bound, blindfolded and whisked away on a jet. You find yourself in a prison, without the faintest idea of what continent you are on. You don’t know what the charges against you are. That’s classified. You have no access to a lawyer. There is no way for you to address your incarceration. You languish in this hellish limbo for six years while a pitiless administration and a spineless Congress do a nauseating dance that keeps you there.

There is only one question. Do you want this done to you or someone you love?

This is the black hole realty for 305 men in our Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prison. For the third time now during the Bush human rights nightmare their plight is being argued before our Supreme Court.

The question facing the court is whether the detainees have the right to go into the U.S. courts to challenge their detentions, using the constitutionally guaranteed procedure called a writ of habeas corpus.

The Founding Fathers put the writ into the Constitution as a check on the government’s power to arbitrarily put someone in prison.

But the Bush administration contends that the detainees have no constitutional rights because they are being held outside the United States, and that even if they do, the Constitution allows suspension of the writ of habeas corpus if an alternative is put into place that is adequate and effective.

The Bushies furthermore argue that Congress approved just such an alternative when it stripped the courts of the right to hear the detainees’ habeas corpus challenges.

The champion of Democracy, Rev. Theodore Parker vigorously maintained that matters like justice and equality are “part of God’s universal revelation, his law writ on the soul of man, established in the nature of things.”

Pompous Presidents, Senators, Constitutions, Courts and their make believe Country borders are out of cosmic synch when they bypass the sacred fabric of reality. They will not stand the test of eternity.

Parker preached of our innate potential and longing; “Often enough have the mights of men been organized but not the rights of man…rights derived from no conventional compact of men with men…but rights derived straightway from the Author of Duty and the Source of Right, which are secured in the great charter of our being.”

As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that’s their democratic model. It’s the false democracy of elites. What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy. What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?”

What true patriot, what defender of our constitution, what champion of human dignity delivered these insightful salvos? Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela last September before the United Nations. If you edit the feel good “devil” hyperbole, a truer word has never been uttered.

In soul sickening fashion the well-worn reliable adage, “it takes one to know one” is being born out. The Austin American Statesperson writes; “On Sunday, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez expects to become president for life through a referendum revising his country’s constitution.

That vote is a breathtaking grab for absolute control by an autocrat who already commands most of the levers of power. If the constitutional changes pass, Chavez will have dictatorial power rivaling that of his hero, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Since being elected president in 1998, Chavez has steadily eroded the checks and balances on his office. He has shut down media outlets, taken control of the courts and the legislature, and now controls the petroleum industry.

But that was just a start. The Dec. 2 referendum includes 69 articles that, if passed, would abolish term limits on the presidency, grant the president control of the central bank and give presidential appointees power over locally elected officials.

The changes also allow Chavez to declare a state of emergency in which he can suspend the right to due process of law and freedom of information. The president also would be able use to the military to maintain order.”

These developments are particularly heart breaking because our world needs high profile leaders and heads of state that have earned the moral authority to confront the American Empire. Our imperialism has existed before Shrub and will continue after he slithers out of office. President Chavez had that potential, but he has sold it out for his own narcissistic tyranny.

Jesus warned us of the George W. Chavez’s of the world, “If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” A capitalist pit is no better than a socialist pit. A white pit is just as perilous as a black pit. A patriarch pit and a feminist will both wreck your hybrid in the bar ditch. A ditch by any other name is just as foul to the sniffer!

The Tao Te Ching offers an alternate way; The Tao is like a bellows: It is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces;

Hold on to the center.”

Since 9-11 I have found myself passionately, even obsessively distressed with the health of democracy in our nation and around the world. Do not be fooled. It is the imperialists who are the horse flies in Democracy’s ointment. Terrorists are the latest fascist fashion ploy to suspend shared power and human dignity.

Most recently I have witnessed my spiritual and ethical fervor flowing deeply in the direction of Burma and Pakistan. In Burma there continues the brutal military squashing of the Buddhist Monks and citizens as they seek the most rudimentary expressions of fair governance. General first, President second Musharraf in Pakistan has suspended the constitution and declared a state of emergency allegedly to fight terrorism. By some odd mutant coincidence only the proponents of democratic checks and balances have landed in the slammer.

I find every fabric of my middle aged being wanting to be a moral force for democracy. But, I see little evidence that I, and others of like spirit, can even keep another torture bearer out of the Attorney General’s quarters in America. My heart breaks for the decent people of the nations whose democratic potential seems on par with a condemned house.

Like many activist idealists, I am a romantic perfectionist. In growing up, I am slowly realizing that arriving is not in my control. Acting with integrity is.

When I first started my ministry some 30 years ago I commissioned a calligrapher to create a plaque for me with this saying from Theodore Roosevelt inscribed. Last night I pulled it off my wall to read. Like Rev. Dan’s song it too enlightens the heart.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”