I was watching the news earlier today and became furious while listening to a report on the actions of Merrill Lynch’s former CEO John Thain. Associated Press writers Stephen Bernard and Ieva M. Augstums reported from New York on January 22nd on Thain’s departure.

Wall Street bonuses, a sore point as the government gives billions of dollars in bailout money to the financial industry, have apparently cost former Merrill Lynch & Co. CEO John Thain his new job at Bank of America Corp. Thain resigned from Bank of America Thursday following news that Merrill Lynch had rushed out its year-end bonuses, paying them just before Bank of America completed its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and sought $20 billion in additional funding. The company gave no reason for Thain’s departure, but its timing, coming hours after news reports about the bonuses, made it likely that there was a connection with the payouts. The bonuses to Merrill Lynch executives were also paid out as the company prepared to report a $15.3 billion fourth-quarter loss — a loss that led Bank of America to request and receive government funds on top of the $25 billion it had already been given.
In the wake of a possible financial industry collapse, here was an example of what appeared to be another case of old fashioned American greed, or so it seemed. Was it legal to take those bonuses?
On January 23rd, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist, Yael T. Abouhalkah reported:
John Thain has become the poster child for an American banking system that’s full of greedy, money-hungry people unwilling to change their ways. The key questions now:
— Did Thain, who resigned Thursday from Bank of America, essentially use taxpayer funds last winter to unethically reward employees of his former company, Merrill Lynch? — Can prosecutors charge Thain with stealing and put him in jail to be an example to the other greedy bankers out there? The answer to the first question appears to be a resounding yes.The second answer is more unclear, but I sure hope Congress and prosecutors try hard to see whether Thain should serve some jail time for his actions.
My next call was to the most levelheaded guy on the planet (and one of my best friends) Jonathan Gregory. Jonathan is Oil and Gas Banker and a solid person who teaches a weekly men’s bible study at St. John’s Downtown. Minutes after our conversation, he sent me this message from his Blackberry:
Just a thought… Your question is a good one, but in my opinion not the right one. Our society is blindly obsessed with making paper (money). If only we could look in the mirror and see our own obsessions with the material. Oh to be poor and not have all these choices. Movie stars, entertainers, athletes, corporate execs, dope dealers, and even hope peddlers all making money off the backs of the blind masses. Like sheep being led to the slaughter the masses are perishing, spending their hard earned money on all types of nonsensical items. Bernard Madoff made money off of greedy people and institutions that were seeking money for nothing. If we paid attention to the signs, we would have seen the famine approaching and like the biblical character Joseph we would have prepared. Instead we were all busy enjoying our pleasures: now we sit and point fingers. Did our government let us down, or did we let our government down? Have our churches let us down, or have we let our churches down? After all churches and democracies don’t exists without we the people. Let’s face the reality that many of us are hypocritical haters who if given the opportunity to make a $100 million from a skill or gift would jump at the chance. It took Solomon a lifetime to realize the stuff was worthless. How long will it take us to realize the same?
Was it legal for Thain to take those last minute bonuses? Yes. Was it ethical to take those last minute bonuses? It depends! Your answer depends on whether you live in the land of lack or the land of enough. Remember: “He who doesn’t know what enough is, will never have it.”

What do you think?

To make a comment on this blog please log on to:
http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/commons/thepastorrudyexperience.html?plckBlogId=Blog%3a2a63e127-5767-40c1-adb9-e4706d6c9816

In an earlier blog posted in October, I reflected on my experience of voting during the recent presidential election and what a moving experience voting was for me the day I cast my ballot. It was a Sunday afternoon in Houston when I stopped at an early voting place in my neighborhood, got in a line of voters about a quarter mile long, inched along for about an hour, walked through the certification process, step up to the new fangled voting booth and scrolled through the long list of candidates and pressed the big red button marked “cast”. I voted… then I cried. I’m not a person prone to random tears but this experience was far from a normal voting day.

Well last Tuesday was very different. I flew across country to watch the Presidential inauguration on television with my daughters. We all gathered around the TV and celebrated, conversed, and cheered from the comfort of our hotel room as if we were right there on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

What a phenomenal day that was, not because a person of African and American decent was elected to our nation’s highest office but because of what President Obama’s election represented for millions (and possibly billions) of children around the world who could see the possibilities of hard work, determination, education, faith practice, political action, community organizing, friend making, and basketball as hobby versus vocation.

That entire day was consumed with cheering!

I cheered as I reflected on the sacrifices made by countless men and women of all races for the right to vote in America. A right that came to pass in spite of barking dogs, water hoses, nightsticks and armed militias.

I cheered as I recalled the murder of voting-rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama that ultimately led to the creation of the Voting Rights Act.

I cheered as I remembered my Auntie Mae Mae’s commitment to the right to vote as she and her friends stood on street corners campaigning for their candidates of choice ultimately managing elections at “colored only” polling places under the close scrutiny and intimidation of poll watchers.

I cheered as I thought about the power my mother most have experienced in the old days when the thick heavy curtain of vintage voting booths closed around her, protecting her privacy as she picked me up allowing me to turn the levers for her candidates of choice giving me my first glimpse of what freedom really meant in America.

I cheered not because a Black person won the race but because the best person (my opinion) won the race and that person was from the out side of the political mainstream prior to emerging as a contender.

I cheered some more as I reflected on a recent phone call from my two daughters who shared their youthful enthusiasm regarding participating in this years election and being present with them on the day they discovered that their vote made a difference.

And finally, I cheered because my dad loved the political process but died four years ago on the 4th of July before having an opportunity see, discuss, experience, debate, curse, complain, and vote in this years monumental election.

I know Barack is only one guy who took some steps and some risk that just happened to have turned out all right, but I cheered because I was reminded of the power that each one of us has in making a difference in our world.

Hip! Hip! Hoooooray!!

To make a comment on this blog please log on to:
http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/commons/thepastorrudyexperience.html?plckBlogId=Blog%3a2a63e127-5767-40c1-adb9-e4706d6c9816

America still has a distance to go on race relations. On Saturday January 10, the Associated Press quoted York University psychology professor Kerry Kawakami, saying “It’s important to remind people that just because a black man has been elected as president doesn’t mean racism is no longer a problem or issue in the States.” The article went on to say that we are even more reluctant to confront racist acts.
Here’s the scene: Researchers in Toronto recruited 120 non-black York University students for what purported to be a psychology study.
A participant was directed to a room where two actors posing as fellow participants — one black, one white — waited. The black person said he needed to retrieve a cell phone and left, gently bumping the white person’s leg on the way out. The white actor then did one of three things: Nothing. Said, “I hate when black people do that.” Or used the N-word.
Then a researcher entered and said the “psychology study” was starting and that the student should pick one of the two others as a partner for the testing. Half the participants just read about that scene, and half actually experienced it. Those asked to predict their reaction to either comment said they’d be highly upset and wouldn’t choose the white actor as their partner. Yet students who actually experienced the event didn’t seem bothered by it — and nearly two-thirds chose the white actor as a partner, the researchers report Friday in the Journal of Science.
I believe “fear” is at the heart of racism, and fear perpetuates our desire to be distant from people who aren’t like us. But love is a tremendously powerful force. My Auntie Mae Mae owned a neighborhood grocery store and treated everyone who walked through the door like he or she was the most important person in the world. The Apostle John wrote, “Perfect love casts our fear” (John 4:18). I saw that truth demonstrated every afternoon at Allen Food Market. Many of the people who came into the store looked strange, smelled bad, and acted weird, but Auntie Mae Mae looked past all of that to see the intrinsic value of each person. She pushed aside any fears, and she showed love to them every time.

Fear comes in two forms, appropriate fear (that keeps us safe from real danger) and neurotic fear (which is often our inherited misconceptions). Our choice in every encounter is always either to fear or to love the unknown person and either response is outgrowth of our social conditioning. Our perception of a person’s desirability and undesirability is often an outgrowth of our own reenactment of past information received or occurrences experienced, which shaped our definition of danger. Love is the anecdote for fear and manifest in four significant ways: attention, acceptance, affection, and allowing the other person to be who they are regardless to their meeting our criteria or not. Jesus succinctly put this love into words according to Matthew 22: 39 when he reminded the Pharisees to ”… Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The question remains that what if my neighbor doesn’t look like I think they should look, or smell like I think they should smell, or act like I think they should act, or has a different life orientation than me? And what if I have yet to love my self making it impossible to love my neighbor in an appropriate fashion? There are three simple steps that will help you move forward in the manner of Jesus. First, admit that you are afraid of people different from you. Second, feel the vulnerability that comes with the thought of allowing the stranger access to your space in the world. Third, act as though the fear cannot keep you from loving the other person.

What would happen if a person of another race bumped into you accidently? What would you do? Here’s the real question: Are you a racist?

To make a comment on this blog please log on to:
http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/commons/thepastorrudyexperience.html?plckBlogId=Blog%3a2a63e127-5767-40c1-adb9-e4706d6c9816

Is hope an opiate or is stuff really the opiate? In the days following the November 4th election I had began to think that maybe politics was an opiate. It didn’t take long for the political minutia to begin surfacing weeks later as we discovered that even though the new President Elect symbolized the hope for change, there was still a process by which the change many hoped for would require a consensus and a majority vote among polarized politicos and that change would be a dream deferred. Not that I am Marxist, but could religion really be an opiate for people? My friend and law Professor Craig Jackson said, “the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard was “Karl Marx’s philosophy of people striving to share”. He said, “People do not strive to share, they strive to have their own stuff.” The reality is that people do want their own stuff and if people don’t have their own stuff, they will either become consumed with the notion of possessing the things they lack or become anesthetized by the hopelessness of wanting things without the means of acquiring.
During this Christmas season I have been repeatedly disturbed by the reports of America’s deadly pre-occupation with stuff in the midst of our country’s most severe financial predicament since the Great Depression of the 1920’s. If consumerism were a religion, Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) would be one of its most sacred celebrations. A police statement said shortly after 5 a.m., a throng of unruly shoppers at a suburban Wal-Mart in Nassau County, New York physically broke down the doors, knocking a 34-year-old worker to the ground where the crowd trampled him. He was later taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at about 6 a.m., an hour after the store opened. Police also said a 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital for observation and three other shoppers suffered minor injuries and were also taken to hospitals. In other news, online spending rose to $677 million in the U.S. last weekend, almost twice the total spent last year on the final weekend before Christmas, as reported by ComScore Inc. This is what happens when hope is subrogated to stuff and the misplaced of desires of fulfillment get lost in the pursuit of acquisition.

In 1990 Dr. Jerimiah Wright preached a sermon entitled “The Audacity to Hope” that became the title of President-Elect Barack Obama’s book from Dr. Wright’s reflections on a painting called “Hope” which portrayed a woman sitting on top of the world, playing a harp. Dr. Wright states, “What more enviable position could one ever hope to achieve than being on top of the world with everyone dancing to your music? As you look closer, the illusion of power gives way to the reality of pain. The world on which this woman sits, our world, is torn by war, destroyed by hate, decimated by despair, and devastated by distrust. The world on which she sits seems on the brink of destruction. Famine ravages millions of inhabitants in one hemisphere, while feasting and gluttony are enjoyed by inhabitants of another hemisphere.”

Often our illusions of power give way to the reality of our pain when we realize that hope will require more than the acquisition of another trinket, or gadget, or thing. Eugene Peterson brings further clarity in “The Message” saying with the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, the fateful dilemma of being constantly pulled by the influence of stuff is (finally) resolved and “those who enter into Jesus’ being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low lying black cloud. A new power is in operation.” Paul, the author of two-thirds of the Greek New Testament eloquently placed hope in perspective when he said “For we were saved with this hope in mind. Now hope that is seen is not really hope, for who hopes for what can be seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.” Karl Marx was wrong. Religion is not an opiate for people but religion does give us the framework by which we can appropriate the hope that people need. It is through religion that I now have the audacity to hope that one day soon we will see that power of love conquer the propensity to hate, I have the audacity to hope that one day soon the evil will have to take a back seat to good, I have the audacity to hope that the Prophet Micah was right when he said that “They (nations) will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore,” and lastly I agree with Dr. Martin King who said, “I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.” We can live for weeks without food, days without water, and minutes without air, but we cannot live for one second without hope. Yes, I guess hope is an opiate and I need some more right now!! What do you think?

To make comment on this blog please log on to:
http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/commons/thepastorrudyexperience.html?plckBlogId=Blog%3a2a63e127-5767-40c1-adb9-e4706d6c9816

I was watching the news earlier today and became furious while listening to a report on the actions of Merrill Lynch’s former CEO John Thain. Associated Press writers Stephen Bernard and Ieva M. Augstums reported from New York on January 22nd on Thain’s departure.

Wall Street bonuses, a sore point as the government gives billions of dollars in bailout money to the financial industry, have apparently cost former Merrill Lynch & Co. CEO John Thain his new job at Bank of America Corp. Thain resigned from Bank of America Thursday following news that Merrill Lynch had rushed out its year-end bonuses, paying them just before Bank of America completed its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and sought $20 billion in additional funding. The company gave no reason for Thain’s departure, but its timing, coming hours after news reports about the bonuses, made it likely that there was a connection with the payouts. The bonuses to Merrill Lynch executives were also paid out as the company prepared to report a $15.3 billion fourth-quarter loss — a loss that led Bank of America to request and receive government funds on top of the $25 billion it had already been given.
In the wake of a possible financial industry collapse, here was an example of what appeared to be another case of old fashioned American greed, or so it seemed. Was it legal to take those bonuses?
On January 23rd, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist, Yael T. Abouhalkah reported:
John Thain has become the poster child for an American banking system that’s full of greedy, money-hungry people unwilling to change their ways. The key questions now:
— Did Thain, who resigned Thursday from Bank of America, essentially use taxpayer funds last winter to unethically reward employees of his former company, Merrill Lynch? — Can prosecutors charge Thain with stealing and put him in jail to be an example to the other greedy bankers out there? The answer to the first question appears to be a resounding yes.The second answer is more unclear, but I sure hope Congress and prosecutors try hard to see whether Thain should serve some jail time for his actions.
My next call was to the most levelheaded guy on the planet (and one of my best friends) Jonathan Gregory. Jonathan is Oil and Gas Banker and a solid person who teaches a weekly men’s bible study at St. John’s Downtown. Minutes after our conversation, he sent me this message from his Blackberry:
Just a thought… Your question is a good one, but in my opinion not the right one. Our society is blindly obsessed with making paper (money). If only we could look in the mirror and see our own obsessions with the material. Oh to be poor and not have all these choices. Movie stars, entertainers, athletes, corporate execs, dope dealers, and even hope peddlers all making money off the backs of the blind masses. Like sheep being led to the slaughter the masses are perishing, spending their hard earned money on all types of nonsensical items. Bernard Madoff made money off of greedy people and institutions that were seeking money for nothing. If we paid attention to the signs, we would have seen the famine approaching and like the biblical character Joseph we would have prepared. Instead we were all busy enjoying our pleasures: now we sit and point fingers. Did our government let us down, or did we let our government down? Have our churches let us down, or have we let our churches down? After all churches and democracies don’t exists without we the people. Let’s face the reality that many of us are hypocritical haters who if given the opportunity to make a $100 million from a skill or gift would jump at the chance. It took Solomon a lifetime to realize the stuff was worthless. How long will it take us to realize the same?
Was it legal for Thain to take those last minute bonuses? Yes. Was it ethical to take those last minute bonuses? It depends! Your answer depends on whether you live in the land of lack or the land of enough. Remember: “He who doesn’t know what enough is, will never have it.”

What do you think?

To make a comment please go to: http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/commons/thepastorrudyexperience

In an earlier blog posted in October, I reflected on my experience of voting during the recent presidential election and what a moving experience voting was for me the day I cast my ballot. It was a Sunday afternoon in Houston when I stopped at an early voting place in my neighborhood, got in a line of voters about a quarter mile long, inched along for about an hour, walked through the certification process, step up to the new fangled voting booth and scrolled through the long list of candidates and pressed the big red button marked “cast”. I voted… then I cried. I’m not a person prone to random tears but this experience was far from a normal voting day.

Well last Tuesday was very different. I flew across country to watch the Presidential inauguration on television with my daughters. We all gathered around the TV and celebrated, conversed, and cheered from the comfort of our hotel room as if we were right there on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

What a phenomenal day that was, not because a person of African and American decent was elected to our nation’s highest office but because of what President Obama’s election represented for millions (and possibly billions) of children around the world who could see the possibilities of hard work, determination, education, faith practice, political action, community organizing, friend making, and basketball as hobby versus vocation.

That entire day was consumed with cheering!

I cheered as I reflected on the sacrifices made by countless men and women of all races for the right to vote in America. A right that came to pass in spite of barking dogs, water hoses, nightsticks and armed militias.

I cheered as I recalled the murder of voting-rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama that ultimately led to the creation of the Voting Rights Act.

I cheered as I remembered my Auntie Mae Mae’s commitment to the right to vote as she and her friends stood on street corners campaigning for their candidates of choice ultimately managing elections at “colored only” polling places under the close scrutiny and intimidation of poll watchers.

I cheered as I thought about the power my mother most have experienced in the old days when the thick heavy curtain of vintage voting booths closed around her, protecting her privacy as she picked me up allowing me to turn the levers for her candidates of choice giving me my first glimpse of what freedom really meant in America.

I cheered not because a Black person won the race but because the best person (my opinion) won the race and that person was from the out side of the political mainstream prior to emerging as a contender.

I cheered some more as I reflected on a recent phone call from my two daughters who shared their youthful enthusiasm regarding participating in this years election and being present with them on the day they discovered that their vote made a difference.

And finally, I cheered because my dad loved the political process but died four years ago on the 4th of July before having an opportunity see, discuss, experience, debate, curse, complain, and vote in this years monumental election.

I know Barack is only one guy who took some steps and some risk that just happened to have turned out all right, but I cheered because I was reminded of the power that each one of us has in making a difference in our world.

Hip! Hip! Hoooooray!!

To comment please go to:http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/commons/thepastorrudyexperience

America still has a distance to go on race relations. On Saturday January 10, the Associated Press quoted York University psychology professor Kerry Kawakami, saying “It’s important to remind people that just because a black man has been elected as president doesn’t mean racism is no longer a problem or issue in the States.” The article went on to say that we are even more reluctant to confront racist acts.

Here’s the scene: Researchers in Toronto recruited 120 non-black York University students for what purported to be a psychology study.
A participant was directed to a room where two actors posing as fellow participants — one black, one white — waited. The black person said he needed to retrieve a cell phone and left, gently bumping the white person’s leg on the way out. The white actor then did one of three things: Nothing. Said, “I hate when black people do that.” Or used the N-word.
Then a researcher entered and said the “psychology study” was starting and that the student should pick one of the two others as a partner for the testing. Half the participants just read about that scene, and half actually experienced it. Those asked to predict their reaction to either comment said they’d be highly upset and wouldn’t choose the white actor as their partner. Yet students who actually experienced the event didn’t seem bothered by it — and nearly two-thirds chose the white actor as a partner, the researchers report Friday in the Journal of Science.

I believe “fear” is at the heart of racism, and fear perpetuates our desire to be distant from people who aren’t like us. But love is a tremendously powerful force. My Auntie Mae Mae owned a neighborhood grocery store and treated everyone who walked through the door like he or she was the most important person in the world. The Apostle John wrote, “Perfect love casts our fear” (John 4:18). I saw that truth demonstrated every afternoon at Allen Food Market. Many of the people who came into the store looked strange, smelled bad, and acted weird, but Auntie Mae Mae looked past all of that to see the intrinsic value of each person. She pushed aside any fears, and she showed love to them every time.
Fear comes in two forms, appropriate fear (that keeps us safe from real danger) and neurotic fear (which is often our inherited misconceptions). Our choice in every encounter is always either to fear or to love the unknown person and either response is outgrowth of our social conditioning. Our perception of a person’s desirability and undesirability is often an outgrowth of our own reenactment of past information received or occurrences experienced, which shaped our definition of danger. Love is the anecdote for fear and manifest in four significant ways: attention, acceptance, affection, and allowing the other person to be who they are regardless to their meeting our criteria or not. Jesus succinctly put this love into words according to Matthew 22: 39 when he reminded the Pharisees to ”… Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The question remains that what if my neighbor doesn’t look like I think they should look, or smell like I think they should smell, or act like I think they should act, or has a different life orientation than me? And what if I have yet to love my self making it impossible to love my neighbor in an appropriate fashion? There are three simple steps that will help you move forward in the manner of Jesus. First, admit that you are afraid of people different from you. Second, feel the vulnerability that comes with the thought of allowing the stranger access to your space in the world. Third, act as though the fear cannot keep you from loving the other person.
What happens if a person of another race bumps into you accidently? What would you do? Here’s the real question: Are you a racist?

To comment please log on to: http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/commons/thepastorrudyexperience.html

Is hope an opiate or is stuff really the opiate? In the days following the November 4th election I had began to think that maybe politics was an opiate. It didn’t take long for the political minutia to begin surfacing weeks later as we discovered that even though the new President Elect symbolized the hope for change, there was still a process by which the change many hoped for would require a consensus and a majority vote among polarized politicos and that change would be a dream deferred. Not that I am Marxist, but could religion really be an opiate for people? My friend and law Professor Craig Jackson said, “the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard was “Karl Marx’s philosophy of people striving to share”. He said, “People do not strive to share, they strive to have their own stuff.” The reality is that people do want their own stuff and if people don’t have their own stuff, they will either become consumed with the notion of possessing the things they lack or become anesthetized by the hopelessness of wanting things without the means of acquiring.
During this Christmas season I have been repeatedly disturbed by the reports of America’s deadly pre-occupation with stuff in the midst of our country’s most severe financial predicament since the Great Depression of the 1920’s. If consumerism were a religion, Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) would be one of its most sacred celebrations. A police statement said shortly after 5 a.m., a throng of unruly shoppers at a suburban Wal-Mart in Nassau County, New York physically broke down the doors, knocking a 34-year-old worker to the ground where the crowd trampled him. He was later taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at about 6 a.m., an hour after the store opened. Police also said a 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital for observation and three other shoppers suffered minor injuries and were also taken to hospitals. In other news, online spending rose to $677 million in the U.S. last weekend, almost twice the total spent last year on the final weekend before Christmas, as reported by ComScore Inc. This is what happens when hope is subrogated to stuff and the misplaced of desires of fulfillment get lost in the pursuit of acquisition.

In 1990 Dr. Jerimiah Wright preached a sermon entitled “The Audacity to Hope” that became the title of President-Elect Barack Obama’s book from Dr. Wright’s reflections on a painting called “Hope” which portrayed a woman sitting on top of the world, playing a harp. Dr. Wright states, “What more enviable position could one ever hope to achieve than being on top of the world with everyone dancing to your music? As you look closer, the illusion of power gives way to the reality of pain. The world on which this woman sits, our world, is torn by war, destroyed by hate, decimated by despair, and devastated by distrust. The world on which she sits seems on the brink of destruction. Famine ravages millions of inhabitants in one hemisphere, while feasting and gluttony are enjoyed by inhabitants of another hemisphere.”

Often our illusions of power give way to the reality of our pain when we realize that hope will require more than the acquisition of another trinket, or gadget, or thing. Eugene Peterson brings further clarity in “The Message” saying with the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, the fateful dilemma of being constantly pulled by the influence of stuff is (finally) resolved and “those who enter into Jesus’ being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low lying black cloud. A new power is in operation.” Paul, the author of two-thirds of the Greek New Testament eloquently placed hope in perspective when he said “For we were saved with this hope in mind. Now hope that is seen is not really hope, for who hopes for what can be seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.” Karl Marx was wrong. Religion is not an opiate for people but religion does give us the framework by which we can appropriate the hope that people need. It is through religion that I now have the audacity to hope that one day soon we will see that power of love conquer the propensity to hate, I have the audacity to hope that one day soon the evil will have to take a back seat to good, I have the audacity to hope that the Prophet Micah was right when he said that “They (nations) will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore,” and lastly I agree with Dr. Martin King who said, “I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.” We can live for weeks without food, days without water, and minutes without air, but we cannot live for one second without hope. Yes, I guess hope is an opiate and I need some more right now!! What do you think?

To make comment on this blog please log onto…
http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/commons/thepastorrudyexperience.html

Arrogance once again reared its head as a few people with government jobs determined the possible fate of nearly two million workers connected to the U.S. Auto industry. As many face an uncertain future, the events on yesterday raised the prospects of the total collapse of the industry, as we know it. This is only one of several crises threatening to increase the total homeless population in America to staggering proportions and we are not ready. Proof of this country being ill prepared to help the displaced exist in New Orleans where a city decimated by the winds and water of Katrina up till now sits waiting for America to show up and help. The storm left hundreds of thousands stranded, hopeless, and even homeless. Now we face a situation that could put millions of families in the streets without social service in the event of a disastrous end.
Drastic matters require drastic measures. Now is the time for America to atone for ignoring millions who sleep on our city’s streets and begin to ask questions that could lead to housing solutions for unemployed, under-employed, mentally ill, traumatized, and chronically homeless human beings. Its also time to ask an incredible demographic of people who exist on nothing and under unbelievable conditions for some tips on staying alive under tough (and I really mean non-existent) economic circumstances. How often have we stopped at traffic lights and gently slid our hands onto the door locks for fear of auto invasion by the destitute beggar? How often have we driven by a homeless person in the heat of the day or in the cold of the night and turn our heads as if not seeing them will ease our conscience or abdicate our responsibility. Surely we can make the insensitive and say, “They should just get a job” but what happens if there is no job to get. Unfortunately America is now getting ready to discover just how absurd that notion is in the wake of rampant joblessness. The reality is jobs have always been in short supply for people who have not been privy to the “Outliers” as Malcolm Gladwell puts it in his latest book in which he declares success is never something that happens alone and that “People don’t rise from nothing.”
Gladwell goes on to say,

“We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when they grew up… Biologist often talk about the ecology of an organism: the tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other tree blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured.”

The homeless are all products of many variables in the forest of life and we don’t know which forest they survived, we don’t know who the parent acorns were, we don’t know how difficult it was to avoid being chewed by the rabbits or how challenging it was to avoid the multitude of lumberjacks (circumstances) who’s goal was to cut them down before they matured. We do know they have survived and in the coming days can become our teachers, instructing us on surviving. Here are a few things I have learned from homeless women, children, and men over the last 17 years in Downtown Houston:

- Look out for the people around you; they are your best security and support.
- Pack light anything extra is dead weight.
- Make eye contact with those who can help you and don’t hesitate to ask for their help.
- Let people think what they will and don’t let it change how you feel.
- Find a few places to hang out that respect your personhood.
- Practice contentment every minute of every day until your circumstances change.
- Keep your shoes on.

My favorite axiom is “keep your shoes on” because there is always someone wanting to walk in your shoes, so they think, even if they are the wrong size and already worn out. As people become more economically challenged in the coming days, now may also be a good time to roll down your window the next time you roll up to a traffic light where a homeless person is begging and remember that except for the acorn, the rabbit, and the lumberjack it could have been you.

What do you think about the fate of the American worker? to make comment on this blog please log onto…
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I hopped into my 7 year old pickup truck a few days ago, turned on the radio, and listened to reports of the ride auto industry execs were preparing to embark on to ask government representatives for a little help (if you can call $15 billion a little help). On November 18th, Rick Wagoner of GM, Alan Mulally of Ford, and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler flew into the nation’s capital in private jets to make their case to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash and need s $25 billion in taxpayer dollars to avoid bankruptcy. After receiving a substantial butt-whooping at the hands of law makers on their first trip, the chairman of Chrysler drove a hybrid and the Ford boss shared the wheel of a Ford Escape hybrid on the trip to Washington in an effort to affect what the business world calls “optics” or, we could say, things that just don’t look right. Ford is now prepared to throw the company jet, the boss man’s fat salary, and top management’s 2009 bonuses under the bus to make the bailout deal work and to alter current perceptions.

There is a bigger issue at hand. The big three automakers employed 240,000 last year, plus 974,000 parts maker and supplier jobs. These 1.2 million workers spend enough money to keep another 1.7 million people working totaling 2.9 million jobs tied the auto industry. Now multiply this total times the 3 dependents average tied to the 2.9 million workers and we have a crisis effecting 8.7 million individuals and an unemployment rate exceeding 10%. In other words, take out Detroit and unprecedented hunger and homelessness potentially adds millions more to the 1,000,000 plus people who are currently homeless and the millions more who are hungry. Children will be the biggest losers.

In an interview on ABC’s Tuesday, November 25th broadcast, Barbara Walters asked President–Elect Obama, “How did you feel when you read about the three heads of the auto companies taking private planes to Washington?” President-Elect Obama responded saying, “Well, I thought maybe they’re a little tone deaf to what’s happening in America right now. And this has been a chronic problem, not just for the auto industry, I mean, we’re sort of focused on them. But I think it’s been a problem for the captains of industry, generally. When people are pulling down hundred-million-dollar bonuses on Wall Street, and taking enormous risks with other people’s money, that indicates a sense that you don’t have any perspective on what’s happening to ordinary Americans. When the auto makers are getting paid far more than their counterparts at Toyota, or at Honda, and yet, they’re losing money a lot faster than Japanese auto makers are, that tells me that they’re not seeing what’s going on out there, and one of the things I hope my presidency helps to usher in is a, a return to an ethic of responsibility. That if you’re placed in a position of power, then you’ve got responsibilities to your workers. You’ve got a responsibility to your community. Your share holders.”

An “ethic of responsibility” is what we all need as we approach this holiday season. An ethic of responsibility will compel us to begin prioritizing people instead of things. This ethic will move us beyond our religious rhetoric to a tangible expression of what we really believe. The one thing that attracted me to Christianity 18 years ago was the tangible and practical way Jesus interpreted life and love. He moved among people, all types of people, touching them, listening to them, and connecting with them in the places of their personal pain. That’s how they knew he cared. People heard him interpret the priorities of life in one simple two-part statement. He said first “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Then he said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Truly loving your neighbor as yourself is easy when the neighbor looks, thinks, and acts as you do, but in the days ahead Americans will have an opportunity to love and care for neighbors who will soon fall into the dire conditions of economic distress, poverty, disease, and mental illness. I’m not sure which comes first, the caring or the touching of another’s life and circumstances, but both are essential. Try connecting emotionally with others’ needs, take the initiative to go to them, to be with them, to see and hear for yourself what their lives are really like beyond the now deteriorating façade of possessions. When you do, a sense of holy disgust should fill your soul, and you shouldn’t be able to stand it until you do something to help. Only then can we fulfill the “ethic of responsibility” that accompanies the mandate of Jesus and become an institution worthy of the community’s trust. If the church doesn’t respond with this ethic, it might as well flag down the big three and hitch a ride on one of their jets into the sunset.

What do you think about the church’s response to the current financial crisis?

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