Begin With the Content of Character

 

Back when I was in graduate school, I interned one summer for the City of New York. Although my program was urban planning, I ended up in one of the first welfare-to-work programs in North America. And although the internship lasted only three months, what an eye-opener it proved to be! 

The official name of my department was The City of New York Human Resources Administration Office of Employment Services Work Experience Management B.E.G.I.N. Program, or NYC HRA OES WEM BEGIN. 

Whew! 

“B.E.G.I.N.” stood for “Begin Employment Gain Independence Now”, and it was headquartered in a faded beaux-arts monolith between a then-gritty Union Square and exquisite Gramercy Park. At first, I didn’t know anything about it, or social work in general, but a city employee who lives in my aunt’s Brooklyn co-op thought it would be a good resume filler. I’d have my own assistant (a public high school student) and the opportunity to attend special intern meetings at City Hall. 

 

When I arrived, B.E.G.I.N. had been going about a year, with the objective of weaning welfare recipients off of public assistance and into the workforce. Its comprehensive scope extended from English language education and basic job skill classes to one-on-one job placement services, provided through a sprawling network of sites across the city.

Being an intern, my responsibility was to compose a sort of “other perspective” of what and how they were doing. I attended executive meetings and made site visits across Manhattan, interacting with a surprisingly dedicated and diverse group of staffers trying to make a difference. 

 

Stories From the Front Lines 

 

One day, security called my boss and told us the building was in lock-down because an angry welfare recipient visiting a lower floor had brandished a gun, threatened a social worker, and stormed up a stairwell to elude guards. Another day, in one of the building’s once-elegant stairwells, I passed two welfare recipients... well... being very friendly.

Then I lost my sweet, quiet teenage intern when she was sexually harassed by a clerk in the employment office, and my boss couldn’t get him to apologize because his union refused. 

I hated visiting the lower client service floors because they were always jammed with people who were confused, loud, angry, smelly; children cried in fright at the cacophony, with city clerks and social workers physically and emotionally drained by it all. 

 

One bright morning, I found my way west of the Port Authority bus terminal to a dilapidated city building where ESL classes were being conducted. I sat in on a session in a big, airless room where Hispanic, Russian, and Bangladeshi immigrants – mostly women, mostly in their 30’s or older – were smiling and laughing along with their gregarious instructor. Their good nature filled the dark hallways of that decrepit structure, although I never understood what was so funny.

My boss and his staff made a big deal out of my visit to a client site in Harlem, me being a white boy in what was then still very much a ghetto. I actually didn't know what to expect. I stepped out of the subway onto the platform, immediately engulfed in a swarm of police officers. I learned later that a major drug bust had just gone down, and mine was the first train allowed to stop in the station. After that auspicious welcome, I briskly walked down 125th Street and found the client site, a remodeled walk-up that boasted new carpeting, paint, light fixtures, furniture… but no clients. Actually, I think one came in before I left. I remember one of the social workers saying they were having a hard time getting welfare recipients to keep their appointments. Apparently, the idea of transitioning from welfare to work hadn’t yet gotten a lot of buy-in from clients there.

Contrasted with Harlem was my visit to the “Yorkville” site on east 34th Street, several blocks from Macy’s. I would call this neighborhood Murray Hill, not Yorkville; nevertheless, east 34th Street as a neighborhood was mostly middle-class with public housing mixed in. This location was bustling with clients, although the building itself was decorated in the typical grime, grays, and dim light of most city offices. It was so busy, in fact, that I couldn’t visit with the staff who were to show me around.

Our offices in the beaux-arts pile provided interest as well. One long-suffering manager – I’ll call her Martha - headed up part of the program from her corner of our long suite. Martha seemed to spend her entire day on the phone with people trying to get out of having to go to work. Often, I would hear her on the phone – in her nasal Queens accent – with the same guy (who I’ll call Arthur) with whom she had a long-running struggle. You see, not only did Arthur target Martha for his many complaints, but Arthur had gotten ahold of then-governor (Mario) Cuomo’s private phone number, and occasionally he would chastise Cuomo personally about having to find a job. Arthur also had learned one of the office numbers for then-mayor Dinkins, and he’d call Dinkins' staff with the same complaint. The staff for Cuomo and Dinkins would then call Martha – and Martha would call Arthur and tell him to quit bothering the mayor and governor - they weren't going to give him any waivers. It was a silly, farcical circle of phone calls and veiled threats through which Martha patiently suffered. Once, Martha told me that she’d told Arthur, “Do you realize, with your skills at finding out private phone numbers, needling major politicians, deceiving your caseworker, and constantly whining about this program, you could be making a killing on Wall Street with less effort than you’re using trying not to work?!”

Coloring Between the Lines 

Now, I’m not going to draw the simplistic conclusion that clients of a particular race were working harder to get out of welfare and into mainstream employment. If I remember correctly, Arthur was white. The secretaries for both my boss and the director of B.E.G.I.N. were both former welfare recipients; one was black and the other Hispanic. Both of them were actually earning LESS working full-time for the city than they were getting in welfare benefits, but they both were trying to break the welfare cycle as single parents. One of them, Madeline, I saw years later on the Lexington Avenue subway line. She got on the same car as me at Union Square Station. I went over to her, she recognized me, and we chatted until our stops came. She was still working, still with B.E.G.I.N., and instead of a jaded welfare recipient, was now a jaded taxpayer. Which, in my book, is a success story.

So... Did It Work? 

B.E.G.I.N. began in 1989, and I worked there during the summer of 1990, when it was still fresh and full of optimism – a rare quality in any New York City employee. 20 years on, what has history told us about this then-groundbreaking program? Has it worked? How many New Yorkers have been moved from welfare to work?

Well, of course, a lot of the answer depends on who is running the statistics. And like any other over-used terminology, “welfare” can mean different things based on government classifications and agencies. Still, the number that seems to stick for New York City is approximately 350,000 people on welfare, down from nearly one million back when I worked at B.E.G.I.N. 

So, how much of the drop can be attributed to B.E.G.I.N.? Again, a lot of the answer depends on who you ask, but of the 650,000 people weaned from welfare in the past 19 years, the best number I could find in B.E.G.I.N.’s favor is 100,000 success stories. Most experts agree that a combination of programs like B.E.G.I.N., a relatively healthier economy and job creation during New York’s recent boom years, different counting methods, more stringent eligibility rules, and an increasingly complex application process can all be attributed for the welfare decline.

But what about the cost? What does that translate into when factoring in the cost of the program? How much are these people earning now? Do they earn incomes that afford them private housing? Are they working in New York City, or have they taken what NYC provided them to another city in another state? How many of these people were recent immigrants who likely would have worked hard to make it in their new country, or how many had been welfare recipients for years?

Valued By the Content of Their Character 

So the numbers don't tell the whole tale - at least, not yet. What lesson I think can be learned from this, however, is a lesson preached by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and which no reasonable person can deride. 

It's from the same Lincoln Memorial speech from which I quoted earlier, his resounding "I Have A Dream" speech: 

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". 

Being "judged... by the content of their character". If King wanted that for his children, surely he wanted that for his race and for his country. Not that people who are on welfare don't have integrity or are of low character content - or are of a specific race. What the phrase means is that people with integrity act upon that integrity in the best way they can with the opportunities they are given - or find despite obstacles. 

Whatever our race, if we were on welfare, and had the opportunity to transition from welfare to work, our moral obligation would be to take advantage of that opportunity. We are individuals, but we are part of a society, whether we like it or not.  However, depending on the circumstances, some people may not rise out of poverty and may need some form of welfare to survive. These are the people for whom our society needs to care and remember.  It's what a moral society does.

We want to be judged by the content of our character, and employment contributes to character (sometimes the hard way!). If we as a society can transition to having a legitimate safety net - either through our churches or through other civic organizations - race and ethnicity won't be a factor as much as content of character. 

Those with integrity will look for a way up, just as those with integrity assist those who need it. 

Poverty, like wealth, is not wrong, or a sin; it's what you do (or don't do) with it that could be.  And that often helps define the content of our character.

_____

Update:  I've written more extensively about my internship experience here.

The Woman By the Side of the Road

I was actually working on a post about poverty, racism, and classism in America, but towards the end of the morning, I got the bright idea of paying my respects to the Arlington police officer killed in the line of duty last week (see earlier post, "Death of an Officer").

The funeral for Craig Story took place this morning at a mega-church south of Arlington, and the funeral motorcade’s route from the church to a north Arlington cemetery came up a freeway near my home. I knew of a spot on a bridge over the freeway where I could watch the motorcade and the impressively long lines of police vehicles that usually accompanied police funerals.

So, I threw some cookies and a banana into a plastic baggie, grabbed a coat, and drove to the bridge. Being unemployed, you can just take off and do spur-of-the-moment things like this.

As I turned the corner near the bridge, I saw there were already some emergency vehicles parked on it with their lights on. A couple of passenger vehicles were also parked, and a small group of civilians and uniformed civil servants had already formed. I parked, got out of my car, and was stunned by the velocity of the wind that swept across the bridge! I was glad I had brought a jacket.

I had also brought a large American flag, which I hoped to suspend from the bridge’s railings. A fireman and I tried fastening it, but the wind was so strong, we didn’t think anything we had would really secure it. So three of the firemen held onto it, and even though the wind prevented it from flying freely, drivers speeding below us on the freeway could still see the stars and stripes undaunted by the gale.

Eventually, we saw the traffic in the freeway’s northbound lanes begin to dwindle as cops further down the freeway began closing off entrance ramps in preparation for the motorcade’s passing. Finally, the northbound lanes were empty, still, and quiet. Meanwhile, the northbound service road paralleling the freeway quickly became jammed with bumper-to-bumper traffic.

After waiting some more, in the distance our little group could see a moving glob of red pulsating lights. As they crested a nearby hill, we could distinguish a long, snaking line of police motorcycles – over 200 in the first group, one of the firemen heard through his radio. The line of motorcycles, two abreast in the center lane, snaked down the hill and under our bridge, and kept coming, and coming.

Traffic in the southbound lanes, which had been flowing normally up until now, began to slow dramatically as many drivers, realizing what was happening, began pulling out of the main lanes and stopping.

Several southbound drivers got out of their cars and stood quietly as the line of motorcycles kept cresting the hill and coming towards us, lights flashing, two by two. Those of us on the bridge marveled at how long it took those 200 motorcycles to pass. I wasn’t looking at my watch, but considering they were traveling at a rather slow, dignified speed, I’d say maybe it took five minutes. That’s a long time when you’re standing on a bridge in a strong wind, watching the flashing lights continuing to crest the distant hill.

When the motorcycles had passed, the hearse and a number of stretch limousines came by. All of the uniformed police officers and firemen on the bridge were standing stiff at attention in a salute. No one said anything.

Then came another impressive line of police vehicles with officers representing various parts of the state. They came from towns I’d never heard of, plus some close to home, like Cedar Hill, University Park, and a lot from Fort Worth. Standing as I was on the bridge, right over the center lane, I couldn’t make out most of the names that were on the sides of the police cars, but a woman standing near me was calling them out, almost like she was taking inventory.

Situated as we were in such a prominent spot, all of the passengers in vehicles going beneath us could see us, and many of them waved to us or took our picture. A few cops whipped their sirens. Sometimes, as the motorcade would slow down ahead, we could tell the drivers further back were paying too much attention to us, and they’d have to slam on their brakes because they weren’t watching the vehicle in front of them. At least a couple of times, a squad car had to veer off to the right to avoid rear-ending another vehicle. Wouldn’t that have been embarrassing – going to the funeral of a fallen fellow officer and rear-ending another cop in the motorcade?

It was during the long parade of police cars that I noticed a woman who had parked and stopped on the southbound side of the freeway. She had pulled off onto the shoulder back when the first motorcycles had passed, and gotten out of her car. But now, as I looked again at her, I realized she was standing still, like she was at attention. I pointed her out to another person on the bridge, and we watched her occasionally as other drivers would pull over; some would get out of their cars, but they would then drive on to whatever appointment they needed to keep.

Not this lady: she appeared to a shortish, middle-aged black woman driving a late-model silver Chevrolet Malibu. She didn’t move – as the motorcade passed her in the opposite direction, she just stood there, traffic in her lanes crawling past her just a few feet away.

And then I realized – she was shifting her arm, and she repositioned it in a salute. She had been standing at attention, saluting the entire time! In the wind. Without a coat. Obviously on her way someplace, otherwise she wouldn’t have been traveling on the freeway. But she felt obligated to stop and stand in salute, for the entire procession.
She stayed that way until the very last vehicles in the motorcade had passed by, with regular traffic following close behind.

Those of us on the bridge were impressed. Not only at the sight of all those motorcycles, police cars, fire trucks, at least one SWAT armored vehicle, limousines, and a surprising number of luxury cars for a police officer’s funeral. We were also impressed by that lone lady in the southbound lanes, standing still at attention, with a salute, and undoubtedly, a story.

Was she the mother of a cop? The wife of a cop? Was she a cop herself? Obviously, she had some sort of deeper connection to the funeral procession than most of the rest of us had. Maybe she was simply deeply civic-minded, or maybe the police had helped her deal with a tragedy of her own.

The idiot driver who caused officer Story’s death should have watched this woman. Respectful, and patient; two virtues she displayed without knowing we were watching her. Two virtues that speeder could have employed that would have avoided the very funeral whose motorcade we watched today.

Death of an Officer and Lack of Gentle Men

"Speeding Driver Causes Officer’s Death"

By all accounts, Arlington (TX) police officer Craig Story was trying to apprehend a speeding motorist during yesterday morning’s rush hour on one of our city’s busiest streets, but Story died after his motorcycle clipped a school bus and exploded.

While I don’t normally like sensational headlines like the one above, I believe it is still technically correct. I mean, when our time comes, nothing can stop it, but the speeding driver served as the trigger.

None of the news accounts I’ve read mentions whether or not the speeder was ever caught. But as our society moves further and further away from the ethos of respecting law enforcement, I suppose these types of incidents will continue to claim fine officers. Story became the seventh officer to die in the line of duty in our fair city.

Did I mention that Story, who was white, also knew Spanish and was being tutored to better serve Arlington’s significant Vietnamese population? During his 7-year career, Story had received 19 commendations and a nomination for his precinct's “officer of the year”. And his wife recently discovered she is pregnant with their second child. About the only good news in all of this is that nobody on the bus was physically injured, although they witnessed it all.

No one can pretend police work isn’t dangerous. Story and his wife probably knew the risks. But obviously, the speeding driver didn’t care about anything except eluding that cop.

Either way, that driver will have to live with this for the rest of their life. You know, there are easier ways to learn a lesson… like just paying the speeding ticket.

_______________________

Can't We Reason Together?

Have you ever heard of Tim Challies? I hadn’t until today, when I read his online review of the book, “Can We Rock the Gospel?” by John Blanchard and Dan Lucarini. You’ll recall that I included comments on that book in three posts about the church music wars that I wrote last week.

I didn’t think I would be returning to this subject for quite a while. Believe me, I’m well aware that the majority of evangelical Christians oppose my position on this issue, and I found it quite exhausting just to write those three posts and be as cheerful as I was about it.

However, this issue obviously hasn’t left my mind, otherwise I wouldn’t have found myself at Challies’ review, getting a deep, sinking feeling in my stomach as I read his blog, http://www.challies.com/.

Not that the deep, sinking feeling came from Challies’ relatively insubstantial review itself, because it didn't seem we had read the same book.

No, those awful, sinking feelings started when I perused the reader comments following the review. I probably shouldn’t have been caught off-guard, but I was. In their comments, many of the readers belittled and sneered at Blanchard and Lucarini (whom I refer to as B&L) in a brazen display of arrogance and condescension.

One person claimed the “lack of logic” by B&L was “pathetic”. Someone told B&L to “get over it”.

As the replies multiplied down the page, however, readers began to belittle not only B&L, but each other as well! Objectivity and sensitivity were lost on these people as they used the anonymity of the Internet to dwell on the very argument B&L were trying to avoid: personal preference. The discord, negative insinuations, and occasional blasphemy actually upset me.

What characteristics of this conflict elicit such malevolence? Has rock music become such a sacred cow in churches that now it's the "classicists" who must plead for their rights?

Most of the people who posted comments on Challies’ blog have not displayed the love, gentleness, and meekness that are part of the Fruits of the Spirit. In addition, it doesn't seem any of them have actually participated in a God-centered, Biblically-based classical worship service. I’m not talking just “traditional” with fluffy old Gospel songs like “I Come to the Garden”. Nor am I talking about high church services where the pomp and circumstance is all they've got.

I’m talking about a church service that strips away so much of what we see and hear every other moment of the week to help recalibrate one’s attention from self to God. I’m talking about music that provides a setting of exquisite exaltation, so that God can be worshipped “in the splendor of holiness”. Is classical worship the best there is? No, but I believe until we get to Heaven, it's the best we've got. And isn't the best we've got what God asks for?

“Can We Rock the Gospel?” serves as an invitation to consider one of the most prevalent fallacies in our day. Maybe it’s not going to win a Nobel Prize for literature. But that’s no reason to be so disdainful. Being disrespectful towards fellow believers is a sin that may even belie where one's true spirit rests – not with a sincere desire to proclaim God’s majesty, but with one's own narcissistic tastes.

Let's even step aside (not outside!) from B&L's book and Challies' review: not that it's likely, but how much better is it to be wrong on this topic even after earnestly seeking the truth, than to be right on points but blaspheming the Gospel in your treatment of others?

Oh, and one more thing: my Bible study group heard this week from a former member who is now working in a closed country. She related to us the story of a Christian church in her town allowing the indigenous tribe to use their ceremonial drums at the opening of a new building. When the beating of the drums began, evil spirits - true story! - began shrieking from the crowd, wanting to know why the ceremonial drumming had returned to rouse them.

I'm just sayin'...

I Want Happy Pilots

Yesterday marked the resumption of labor talks between the parent company of American Airlines, AMR Corporation, and its flight attendants union. Considering the fact that negotiations on a new contract began in 2008, it’s either remarkable that the two sides are still talking to each other, or it’s shameful that it’s taken this long to reach an agreement.

About a century ago, unions actually symbolized progress in this country, as workers joined forces to stop worker exploitation by industrialist power brokers. Unions pushed for humane working conditions, decent pay, and an end to child labor, among other things, all in an effort to make workplaces safer and jobs worth keeping.

But like anything else, too much of a good thing can wreak havoc on the system it’s supposed to help. For example, a significant share of the blame for the implosion of America’s auto industry rests with unions that demanded much but delivered little. New York's transit unions, specifically for the Long Island Railroad, run notorious benefits rackets for their members. There are critics of airline unions who say that the worker bees at companies like American Airlines just don’t understand they’re asking for more than the airlines can pay. Times have changed, and the industry has to cut back and do more with less.

Do the Airline Unions Have A Point?

That argument, as a plea to the workers for joining with management on common ground, succeeded once before, right after the 9/11 attacks, when the entire airline industry was suddenly in free-fall. Flight attendants, aircraft maintenance workers, and pilots all agreed to reductions in pay and benefits to help American Airlines ride out the air travel bust.

However, as economic conditions began to improve, some greedy executives started getting bonuses that amounted to millions of dollars. While that payoff made perfect sense to MBAs used to Wall Street-esque "compensation", the unions thought they had been bamboozled, and wanted their lost pay restored.

So far, it hasn’t been, and that’s one of the problems keeping the flight attendants’ union in talks for two years. But the real battle won’t be with the cabin crews, it will be with the people in the cockpit.

Pilots Get No Respect

Talk about an under-appreciated workforce: the pilots at American Airlines have watched along with the flight attendants as corporate accountants and other inner-circle golden children at HQ have gotten their millions in bonuses. When the pilots – often as well-educated, professional, and highly-qualified as the white-collar pencil-pushers in corporate – tried to complain at the inequity, they were told, “oh, these guys in corporate are really valuable to AMR. They tricked us into signing employment contracts with these huge bonuses in them. We need to pay them all this money, or they’ll leave us and go to another company where they can get even more money. That’s how the game is played.”

While that argument works in other industries, it likely won’t fly with airline pilots. I'm no aviation expert, but it seems the airline industry may be unique because its business model isn’t the typical power pyramid. Most companies have authority and responsibility that runs from the top down, and executives in such companies expect to be paid in accordance with the value they provide the organization. However, at an airline, only one employee cohort stands between life and death every minute of every day, and that cohort receives extensive, exhaustive, and continuous training to remain at the peak of their game and literally keep their customers alive.

It's Not Rocket Science (Technically)

Think about it. An airline’s business is flying planes. The more people you fly safely, the more money you make. Here’s the trick question: who does the flying?

Plane by plane, one to three people in a cockpit fly dozens and hundreds of passengers whose very lives actuarians can quantify in dollar amounts. Hour by hour, as hundreds of planes crisscross the globe, an airline’s very existence hangs not on the marketing presentation going on in Conference Room B, nor the finance committee’s executive retreat in Vail, nor the human resources roundtable on gender roles in the workplace. American Airlines day-to-day existence as a company depends squarely upon each and every pilot in every cockpit of every plane in service.

Can you think of any other industry with a class of workers whose job is so critical yet, surprisingly, so marginalized?

"We Love To Fly, And It Shows"

I don’t know about you, but when I fly, I want happy pilots in that cockpit! I want pilots who think American Airlines is treating them wonderfully. Obviously, their lives won't be perfect, but I want pilots who have trained hard and have the professionalism to be able to handle all sorts of in-flight situations. I want pilots who are rewarded for their skills, encouraged to remain diligent, and respected for the value they bring their employer.

When I fly, I don’t care if my pilot’s compensation doesn’t fit the conventions of corporate America. If an airline thinks their airfares will be too high if they pay pilots what they’re really worth, then maybe some trimming among the headquarters’ ranks needs to happen instead. Isn’t part of the capitalist system based on workers being paid what they’re worth to the company? Who decides who’s worth what?

Now, I’ve heard the stories about pilots earning $200,000 and flying one or two trips a month. I’m not saying that the pilots union doesn’t need to clean house, get rid of scheduling loopholes, and get their members to fly right. After all, my position here depends heavily on pilots being professionals, and American Airlines has a right to expect fixes to valid problems in any union.

Neither am I saying that all ivy-leaguers and MBAs are bad people. Their expertise helps airlines run more effectively, and contributes to the many ancillary responsibilities airlines have to their employees, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the flying public.

However, the fact remains that no headquarters executive can save the lives of anybody aboard a jetliner going through windshear. There’s not one person at any AMR facility anywhere in the world that can land a plane with only one engine. Do you know why? BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT FLYING THE PLANES! The people upon whom rests the very survival of any airline are the pilots.

They’re literally the lifeblood of an airline.

And every time they get into the cockpit, shouldn't they be as happy as they can be?

Absurd Research? There's a Prize for That

We've all heard of the Nobel Prize, and not just their recently-marginalized Peace Prize. The Nobel committee - and various other award committees, professions, and agencies around the world - exist to recognize scientists, writers, researchers, inventors, and other contributors to society for things that supposedly make our lives better.

However, we've also heard about research conducted on subjects that seem either implausible, morally-objectionable, superfluous, or downright silly. And guess what: there's a prize for them, too!

One of my cousins in Finland has turned me on to the Ig Nobel Prize, which has been awarded since 1991 by a consortium including the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students, the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association, and the Harvard Computer Society.

According to their website, the purpose for the Ig Nobel Prize is to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology."

I'm not sure how much "thinking" is going on with the winners of the Ig Nobel Prize, but there's plenty to laugh about. For example, winners in 2009 included British veterinary scientists who proved cows with names give more milk than those who don't. Who sat around for weeks coming up with the idea to study cows with names?

How about these award-winning studies:

• American scientists won for their study of the reasons why pregnant women don't tip over. Has anybody ever TRIED to tip over a pregnant woman? Is that something expectant parents do as a pastime - play 'let's tip over the new mommy'? Or is that something related to the way pregnant women try to sit down and get up from an armless chair?
• Bank executives from Iceland won the economics prize for proving that small banks can quickly become big banks, and vice-versa - all while spinning their national economy out of control. So, did they actually TRY to ruin their economy to prove a point, or was the proof of the corollary just a happy coincidence for their now-suffering country? And did they really need to prove that small banks can become big banks? Doesn't any decent business school already teach that?

Although the value of this type of research still eludes me, I have to admit that it takes a creative inventor to conceive of creating a bra that also serves as a gas mask (see photo above). Assuming the wearer takes showers regularly.

And I have to ask: who pays for these types of research projects? Don't sponsors get upset when their projects get lampooned by winning? Do scientists actually set out to win? Apparently, the British government has complained about all of the Ig Nobel prizes awarded to English scientists.

Still, proponents of the Ig Nobel Prize claim that profound discoveries can come from the most mundane - and silly - of research. After all, some Japanese biologists discovered panda excrement can help eliminate 90% of kitchen waste.

Don't laugh - a commercial product featuring the pandas', um, contribution could be coming soon to a store near you!

Rocking the Boat - Part 2 Why Do We Worship?

About 16 years ago, I returned to Texas after spending several years in New York City. While living in New York, I had been a member of the venerable Calvary Baptist Church, which at the time served as the city’s most esteemed evangelical church with classical worship (granted, being NYC, there wasn’t much competition). Now, I was returning to my former church in Texas, but while its name was the same, and most of the people were the same, the vision for the church – including its worship style – had changed radically.

Unfortunately, the phenomenon of Willow Creek, the seeker mega-church exemplar in suburban Chicago, had bedazzled the leadership at my Texas church. Willow Creek has become famous – or infamous – for its development of uber-contemporary, traditionalist-bashing church services.

Conceived as the Baby Boomer’s interpretation of church for a new generation, the “seeker” service geared everything about itself to the person who didn’t want to attend what was then a normal church. “Seekers” were people who were seeking God, but didn’t want to mess with the paraphernalia they either didn’t understand or considered old-fashioned about religion.

Meanwhile, I had been attending Calvary Baptist and worshipping with hymns sung to an organ, a robed choir, and a parade of classically-trained vocal and instrumental musicians. Imagine the culture shock when I returned and sat through my old church’s rock concert that first Sunday morning!

Can Unsaved People Worship?

Fortunately, I was friends with two of the pastors, and I asked them about the philosophy of designing a church service for people who didn’t believe the Gospel (the “seekers”.) From what I knew about the Bible, I hadn’t thought people came to God, but that God comes to people. God doesn’t even hear the prayers of unsaved people in the same way that He guarantees to hear and answer every prayer from those who are saved. Wasn’t the idea of a worship service for people who can’t worship kind of silly?

I distinctly remember eating lunch at the Chili’s on North Collins Street, and one of the pastors responding to that question with something like: “Well, I don’t know the answer to your question, but we’re going to give it a try.”

Despite the answer’s unconvincing nature, I naively conceded the overall objective of evangelizing the unsaved trumped the rights existing believers had to worship “in spirit and in truth”. Indeed, I ended up working in the accounting office at this same church, for these same pastors, for several years.

My best recollections as a church employee revolve around the wonderful people with whom I worked. The talent, energy, and sincerity with which these people conducted themselves inspired me.

After I had worked there a while, however, things began cropping up that hearkened back to my question about designing not only a worship service, but an entire church methodology for people who weren’t saved. While large numbers of visitors were coming through the front doors, there seemed to be an invisible revolving door at the back, where almost as many people were leaving, dissatisfied.

The Fallacy of the Church Growth Movement

You see, the contemporary Christian music movement didn’t just blossom with Boomers in churches across the country going ape over “Jesus People” music. I believe the greater catalyst for the upheaval in church corporate worship came because of the church growth movement (CGM), in which business marketing principles were deployed by pastors desperate to fill empty pews. The easy target CGM proponents attacked was the Sunday morning worship service, which they considered to be old-fashioned, boring, stilted, and irrelevant to modern society. As children and teens absorbed the sensuous beats and titillating texts of popular music on the radio, they realized church didn’t entertain them, so after their parents stopped forcing them to attend church, they didn’t.

Additionally, the CGM coincided with the calculated surge in conservative politics. Newly-emerging “religious right” leaders fomented despair and dismay among church-goers about the future of our country, perceived losses in freedoms, and society’s increasing acceptance of sinful behavior. These leaders claimed we needed to fill our churches with like-minded people so we could democratically force change within our country – and it needed to be done quickly!

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that going contemporary would attract the most people in the shortest amount of time. Aim for the lowest common denominator, tell the gray-hairs to grin and bear it, hire the hippest people you can find, and re-invent church. And suddenly Willow Creek became the church everyone wanted to emulate.

The Big Mistake

The problem was that CGM proponents forgot one thing. Um, corporate church worship services aren’t for the congregation. They’re about God. They’re for Him. Remember Him, the One who demands our praise because He’s our Creator?

“Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before Him, all the earth”. 1 Chronicles 16:29

I've yet to hear how rock music can help people worship God in the "splendor of holiness."

Eventually, I left my church – both as an employee and a congregant. After wandering around as a shell-shocked refugee from the “seeker” paradigm (remember that word?), I started attending Park Cities Presbyterian Church, part of the conservative Presbyterian Church in America. A friend had recommended Park Cities because their worship services contained all of the elements necessary for focusing on God corporately.

Although I didn’t initially believe in predestination, since this is one of the flagship churches in the PCA denomination, I sat under some convincing teaching on the subject. Soon, through the working of the Holy Spirit, I realized that a lot of what didn’t make sense to me about worship finally did.

Corporate worship isn’t about you and me. It’s not about the music, or whether a church has a choir or a praise team. It’s not about evangelism, although evangelism certainly should be present. It’s not about attracting people or making them feel good about themselves. It’s about God. It’s ascribing adoration to Him because He alone is worthy of our praise.

For reformed believers, the doctrine of predestination provides the key reason for why our worship of God should have as much integrity as possible: He chose us. His salvation is for us. There's not one thing we have done or can do to merit this kind of favor from God. This is the free gift preachers talk about, but which a lot of church-goers try to purchase. You talk about awesome - this is awesome stuff! Glory to God! I have become still with the immensity of it all, even now as I type this out.

And since it’s about God, for God, and to God, we should consider what pleases Him, not what pleases us. What pleases us comes in trends and fads, but He is eternal, unchanging, and holy.

Why This Topic Juices Me

Now that I get it, corporate worship means so much more to me, even though I’m giving it to God. I want everyone to be able to share in the joy of a good worship service. I realize that for others, it won’t look exactly the same as what I’m privileged to participate in at Park Cities each week. But the more the evangelical church reconsiders the errors of its ways, and how to get back on track, I’m convinced that rock-and-roll will (or at least, should) play less and less a part.

I still have friends at my old church, and some of them are in the music department, churning out the rock-and-roll every Sunday. Knowing them because I’ve worked with them, I believe they’re doing their thing out of sincerity and conviction. I have a feeling most people in contemporary churches have been so indoctrinated by the ubiquitousness of the rock genre that they don’t realize how much better worship can be without it.

Also, for people who don’t ascribe to the doctrine of predestination, some of what I’ve said won’t make as much sense. “How will the unsaved hear the Gospel, if not in church?” they ask.

"Guess what," I’d respond, although somewhat sheepishly: “That’s what we’re here for. Evangelism isn’t just the pastor’s job.”
_____

Rocking the Boat

Since this blog has so few readers at this early stage, maybe I should take advantage of my limited readership and broach a subject which some of my friends will not like. Since most of them aren’t reading this blog, I’ll run the risk of offending them in small groups, and maybe that will be easier on everybody (but mainly me!).

I’ll also make a caveat for my readers who do not attend church: the topic I’m about to start may not be relevant to you, so while I invite you to come along for the ride, I will understand if you sit this one out. At the very least, you might be interested to learn about a struggle in North America’s evangelical community that appears to be getting worse instead of better.

Take a Deep Breath

This topic is… drumroll, please: rock music in church. For those of you churchgoers who thought this issue has already been settled (in favor of letting people do their own thing), the fact that rock-n-roll has become widespread in America’s churches doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.

I’ve been reading a book entitled, “Can We Rock the Gospel?”, by John Blanchard and Dan Lucarini, which I picked up in my church library. While I haven’t finished the book, I can already say there’s little in it with which I disagree. I’m also a fan of “Singing and Making Music” by Paul Jones, and “Worship – Beholding the Beauty of the Lord” by Dr. Skip Ryan. As this blog topic goes along, I’ll expand on my reasons for reading these books. At this point, suffice it to say that before rock music becomes even more entrenched in the evangelical community, I strongly believe we need to reconsider its appropriateness in churches – and our lives.

For some of you, this may be so shocking that your estimation of me has just tanked through the basement. You know I’m opinionated, stubborn, and talk too much, but now I’ve just gone too far. How dare I level such a broad accusation on something so widespread in our culture?

Well, in all honesty, that’s one reason I’m broaching this subject now, when only a few of my friends are actually reading this blog. If you really think I’m off my rocker, I invite you to tell me now - you may have a valid point I haven’t considered. However, I think you’ll at least agree with me: this issue really hasn’t gone away.

So please, for those of you willing to come along for the ride, remember that I’m not trying to change your mind. I'm just trying to stretch it a little.

Ready? Here We Go

Every Sunday at my church, Park Cities Presbyterian (PCA) in Dallas, we recite a “Profession of Faith”, either a creed or a passage of scripture. This past week, we read from Colossians 1:13-15, 16-20, which I’ll condense here:

”Our God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son… Jesus Christ is…the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church… that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things… making peace by the blood of His cross.”

You don’t need to be a theologian to notice that God not only created “all things”, but that “in Him all things hold together”, and that Christ reconciles to God “all things”. However, don’t miss the purpose of God’s creation: “that in everything He might be preeminent”.

Isn't Rock Music Part of God's Creation?

Our first discussion on the topic of rock music will be how it fits into God’s creation. And yes, it does fit into His creation; it just doesn't fit where you think it might. We cannot claim that simply because rock music is part of God’s creation, it’s suitable for His worship. Some created things incorporate their antithesis to reveal God’s glory, and are not in and of themselves holy (set apart, suitable for His service).

Before we go too much further, let's set some definitions. Since I am not a music scholar, I’ll admit that I don’t understand all there is to know about musical genres, whether it be classical or rock. Indeed, within the genres fall multiple variations as they’ve evolved. So for the sake of this discussion, I’m going to use broad definitions for classical and rock music:

• Classical music includes those music forms that incorporate the elements of music most respected by artistic scholars because of their mathematical integrity and harmonic purity, with Biblically sound texts and grammatically cohesive lyrics. Most of the acceptable classical scores range from the 1500’s to the early part of the 20th Century, although some fine pieces have been composed even in the present-day.
• Rock music includes those music forms that incorporate a variety of rhythmic elements, repetition of both score and lyrics, overly simple mathematical construction, a strong dependence on electric sound generation and amplification, and the use of stage/presentation dynamics that focus on the performers. The genre, which started after the Second World War, derived its name from an urban slang term for sex.

God Does Play Favorites

Now, to the subject of God being “preeminent” in His creation. To the extent that current worship leaders (and their approving congregations) present their rock music to the Lord with a sincere heart, I am not in a position to say that God does not somehow process out the bad and accept the good. Indeed, there are plenty of “traditional” churches that present quality classical music from dead hearts. However, what is the extent to which church rock participants honor God when plenty of evidence exists to refute their claims that since it’s all His creation, God doesn’t play favorites with musical styles?

The passage from Colossians says that God should be “preeminent”, but obviously , there are many areas in our lives where He is not. Just think about your own faith walk, as I have mine, and you’ll see what I mean. When we talk about corporate worship, hopefully we can at least agree that our worship should be the best it can be, so that God can be recognized as preeminent in it. However, does rock music affirm God’s preeminence?

In the strictest sense of the argument that God created rock-n-roll, we could also posit the following scenarios:

• God created mud, but we don’t bring handfuls of mud to church and pile it on the Communion table. Hopefully, we would consider that offensive. (Remember the time when the Israelites were moving the Ark of the Covenant? They were pushing through mud, and suddenly it appeared the Ark would fall into the mud, so one of the men stuck out their hand to steady the Ark. Immediately, God struck him dead, because God’s mud was cleaner in His eyes than the unconsecrated hand of the Israelite. You’ll notice God’s holiness runs as a constant theme through His Word and how we should apply it.)
• God created candy, but we don’t bring bags of it into the worship service and munch on Snickers during the sermon. That isn’t appropriate.
• God created cancer, but we fight cancer as we should, because it can kill us.
• God created photography, but we don’t use PhotoShop on an image and frame it, putting it on display in the sanctuary. God says not to make graven images of Himself.

See? Just because it's all part of God's creation doesn't mean it's acceptable.

Admit It: Some Music is Better Than Others

Although God has created all forms of music, they run the spectrum from abominable to excellent. Just because our society may like something doesn’t mean bad genres of that thing (by universally-recognized principles upon which the quality baseline has been set) suddenly become good. Societal standards rise and fall, but truth runs as a constant.

(I've heard the argument that music is like language, it is constantly evolving, so the standards eventually evolve, too. Okay, I'll say there is some relevance to that line of thinking, except that the basic standard of good language remains the same throughout history: the best type of communication is when Person A completely understands Person B. That fact never changes. However, while I, being a WASP, may get the gist of what an urban Asian gang member tells me in a dark alley, I wouldn't call that the best type of communication.)

How do we know rock music is abominable? From the very words of many rock musicians. Even KISS's Gene Simmons, when he was a guest judge on 2005’s American Idol, warned that rock music would conflict with a contestant’s stated faith (the story is in Blanchard’s book).

Seriously, can anyone claim that rock music is a superior art form than most classical scores? You may like rock better, you may think you understand it better, and you may consider it an appropriate “soundtrack” for your life, but you could still be wrong. And don’t play the “music is amoral” card, or “all music is equal”. Pluck out something by yourself on the piano, and compare it to anything by Bach, and see what I mean.

In the end, truth isn’t about what you think is good, or what the majority votes as their favorite. Doesn’t the very life of Christ prove that truth exists whether people like you and me recognize it or not?

Or are the correlations I’ve tried to draw here simply the bogus ramblings of a traditionalist?

At least we should agree that we’re all accountable to God for the decisions we make. Are you as confident in your stand on this topic as I am in mine?

Upcoming Discussions:

• Why Do We Worship? Contrary to popular opinion, unsaved people should not be the focus of evangelical corporate worship services (hint: it’s all about God).
• Can’t We Redeem Rock Music? Contrary to popular opinion, God does not obligate His people to reclaim genres of perversity (for example, we can’t “redeem” pornography, but we can redeem sexual relationships).

Since I’ve no intention of re-hashing the content of all three books I mentioned (I'm not a good book reviewer), some angles of this discussion won’t be addressed in this blog, at least not right now. If you’re up for a challenge, why not get these books and read them for yourself. I’m just here to touch on some basics.

And again, if you think I'm completely off-base, please tell me why. Just be as objective as I've tried to be.

Skyline Bling

Not too long ago, the title "world's tallest building" actually meant something. With the opening today of the Burj Khalifa* tower in Dubai, however, the distinction has tumbled into a comical race to reinterpret the Tower of Babel.

To the world's most vapid, farcical, and gaudy city, the Burj Khalifa seems almost anticlimactic in the Disneyesque surrealism already parodied by the Burj Al Arab hotel. True, Dubai's success in constructing an edifice claiming the greatest height, the most floors, and the highest observation deck of any other structure on Earth would be laudable, if it wasn't for the fact that the Arabs have simply built - pardon my bluntness - a giant phallic symbol on the sand.

Yes, I'm extremely cynical about this structure, and not just because it really does look sexually immodest. If the renowned architecture firm of Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) hadn't designed it, I'd be even more disgusted at this elongated prism of concrete. However, I'll give SOM the benefit of the doubt for providing its tasteless customer a building that probably is better than what it could have been had a lesser firm been commissioned.

What Price Height?

First, let's consider the pricetag of this superstructure. For a building 2,717 feet tall (we'll take Dubai's word on that - nobody wants to actually get out their tape measure and check), developers claim they spent $1.5 billion in total construction costs. In comparison, consider the relatively puny Dallas Cowboys Stadium here in Arlington, Texas: a 30-story structure seating 100,000 football fans in air-conditioned comfort, at a cost of $1.1 billion. Or consider any of the 50-story glass boxes constructed in Midtown Manhattan during the past decade - most at approximately $1 billion apiece - prices that make Dubai's newest spectacle a relative bargain.

How did Dubai do it? First, developers of the Burj Khalifa didn't have pesky building codes and zoning restrictions like developers in democracies have. They didn't have neighborhood groups to appease or city building inspectors to accommodate. They didn't pay for market feasibility studies or court real corporate tenants. They just built what they wanted to build, because they wanted the notoriety of having the world's tallest structure.

Second, they built their tower using conscripted labor from Asia. There are no such things as minimum wage or unions in Dubai. There is no OSHA, no company-paid healthcare or vacations, no cost-of-living allowances, and certainly no 401K matching. If the Burj Khalifa were to have been constructed in a democracy, even conservatives would be howling about the human rights abuses prevalent on the job site, if only out of concern for lawsuits and insurance rate increases. While I realize many US developers would love to work without the constraints of caring for their employees, enough common sense prevails that OSHA is at least tolerated and market-rate wages are provided.

The Fallacy of the Phallic Symbol

Since the dawn of the vertical building age, critics have claimed that tall structures serve the ego of the builder more than their common sense. And in many cases, this can be easily seen (think Donald Trump). However, the original catalyst for vertical construction centered on urban density, congestion, and land scarcity. Developers found it can be cheaper to build up rather than out, because they can maximize the building's footprint within the city grid.

However, for most of the superstructures built in emerging countries in the past twenty years, urban density and land costs have not provided the impetus for vertical construction. It's been ego, plain and simple: ego on the part of nationalistic rulers and/or builders who want a skyline - even if it's a skyline of only one building - to validate their importance to the world. New York, Chicago, Hong Kong, and Tokyo have precious little land for construction, so they've built up. Dubai, on the other hand, doesn't have the physical need for the world's tallest building, but they built it anyway, because they could. It's not a testament to their economic might, their cosmopolitan way of life, their industrious workforce, or their need to maximize space in a highly popular locale.

So, now that they have their tallest structure in the world, who's going to live and work in it? While the developers boast that 90% of the building has been contracted out, that doesn't mean that tenants have been lined up. Investors have purchased space in the building, but they will have to find people to live in those apartments and work in those offices. Considering the prevailing economic climate in debt-ridden Dubai, chances are slim that the Burj will max-out occupant-wise anytime soon.

9-11 Comes Back to Haunt the Arabs

Speaking of tenants, would you want to spend much time in what has just been christened the world's tallest terrorist target? While Dubai is considered one of the more moderate and secular of Islamic countries, it's still a Muslim state, which if only mildly disconcerting in theory, still makes most people pause when it comes to actually setting up house 2,000 feet from the ground.

Structural engineers for the Burj claim that its reinforced concrete infrastructure makes the building far more sturdy than the steel-framed World Trade Center towers, and that an airplane wouldn't be able to slice through the Burj. That's small comfort, isn't it? About the only thing preventing the Burj from destruction by plane is that it's so skinny, you'll have to be an expert pilot to even hit the thing.

Trying to Find Anything Positive

If you've read this far, you're probably wondering if I have anything nice to say about the Burj Khalifa. As a matter of fact, I do!

I will concede that the Burj does serve a couple of useful purposes. Nobody has really talked much about the foundation of the building, but consider that the supporting structural piles going into the ground - and holding up the entire colossus - are encased in sand. The Burj hasn't toppled over yet, so maybe there's something to the whole sand-friction theory. At least the long-term performance of such engineering in a windy locale might provide valuable data for projects in similar environments elsewhere in the world. Of course, the Bible says "the foolish man built his house on the sand", but engineers love a challenge.

Also, the audacity of the Burj just might prove, once and for all, that skyscrapers are a stupid way of expressing one's ego, nationalist pride, or some other demonstration of one-upmanship. This building just looks too silly to be considered a valuable addition to the Dubai real estate portfolio. Maybe now the other half-baked leaders of emerging economies will devote their energies to more beneficial, logical, and sustainable pursuits, such as human rights guarantees, equitable trade alliances, and environmentally-sound industrialization.

Naw... who am I kidding? The Burj Khalifa will be the world's tallest building... until some other over-confident oligarchy builds their own.

* The original name of the project was the "Burj Dubai".

New View

To all my faithful readers out there (I think there are two of you), I extend my thanks for sticking with me for the first few weeks of this fledgling blogging experiment. As I try and come up with better ways of expressing my opinions on a variety of issues, I hope to be crafting a better format for presenting those opinions and keeping you interested.

I am hoping to accomplish the following:

• to pique your curiosity in and stimulate further evaluation of things happening around us
• to present a different perspective for considering various issues that until now may have had just two viewpoints
• to challenge what may be conventional ways of thinking and problem-solving; perhaps not with a better solution, but at least an equally valid process

I have a good idea of my limits, so I don't plan on doing these:

• I won't set out to change your mind, just maybe stretch it a little
• I won't pretend to be an expert on any subject, because in actuality, few of us are
• I won't ignore a valid critique or better idea; indeed, I rarely mind being proven wrong if it leads to a better way of doing something

Allow me to challenge those of us who hold philosophies etched with spiritual convictions we believe to be true: the onus falls even harder on us to actively consider, evaluate, test, and act upon those things that affect the way we live and interact with others. To the extent I can participate in that noble exercise, I hope to format my thoughts and perspectives more efficiently so that those who read them - including myself - can be better actors in the activities swirling around us.

If these goals prove unrealistic, I'm sure that will become apparent sooner rather than later! But I'm going to give it a try. So thanks for visiting, please bear with me as I tinker, and send me your feedback on how things are going.

Happy 2010!