The Way Things Are

The Way Things Once Were:

1. World's Tallest Building--in the U.S.
2. World's Richest Person--in the U.S.
3. World's Largest Publicly Traded Corporation--in the U.S.
4. World's Biggest Airplane--built in the U.S.
5. World's Largest Factories--in the U.S.
6. World's Biggest Ferris Wheel--in the U.S.
7. World's #1 Casino--in the U.S.
8. World's Biggest Gambling Revenue--the U.S.
9. World's Biggest Movie Industry--Hollywood in the U.S.
10. World's Biggest Mall--in the U.S.

The Way Things Are Now:

1. World's Tallest Building--Taipei and soon Dubai
2. World's Richest Person--Mexican
3. World's Largest Publicly Traded Corporation--Chinese
4. World's Biggest Airplane--built in Russia/Ukraine
5. World's Largest Factories--China
6. World's Biggest Ferris Wheel--Singapore
7. World's #1 Casino--Macau
8. World's Biggest Gambling Revenue--Macau
9. World's Biggest Movie Industry--Bollywood in India
10. World's Biggest Mall--Beijing

This according to Fareed Zakaria in his newest book, The Post American World, published by W. W. Norton and Co., New York (see pp. 2-3). If you don't recognize the name, Zakaria has been editor of Newsweek International and a news analyst for ABC.

He issues a warning--that "just as the world is opening up, America is closing down" (48). He postulates that future historians might say that the US globalized the world in the 21st century, but "along the way . . . it forgot to globalize itself" (214). He insists the real test for the US is a political test--can it stop cowering in fear and move toward the kind of engagement and openness that is its greatest strength?

The jury is still out on this one.

All I can tell you is that most Americans I know eat Chinese food with a fork.

Oh, such a small thing, you say.

Okay, why don't the Chinese eat a hamburger with chopsticks?

We're in trouble.

Read the book.

Garbage in, Garbage out!

It's a good day when you win an argument with the guy who picks up your garbage.

The doorbell rings. I open the door.

Sanitation worker: "Now why'd you go and do a fool thing like that?"

Me: "Fool thing like what?"

SW: "Call my boss and tell 'em I didn't pick up your garbage yesterday."

Me: "Well, first of all, I didn't call your boss and, second of all, you didn't pick up my garbage yesterday."

SW: "Well, your cans weren't out there!"

Me: "Yes they were--I rolled 'em out on Wednesday night."

SW: "I swear to God, they weren't there."

Me: "Man, I promise you they were!"

(At this point, I'm expecting fisticuffs!)

SW: "What's your last name, buddy?"

Me: "Nash."

SW: "It ain't Johnson!"

Me: "Nope."

SW: "Sorry, man!"

Me: "No problem."

I pumped both fists in the air.

Right after I closed the door.

Those guys build some muscle lifting that stuff.

A Disastrous Week

One of my favorite morning rituals is the walk to the front of the driveway with my dog Nemo to pick up the newspapers.

Not any more.

I even have to steel myself when the alarm clock goes off because I know that the good folks at NPR will be sharing the latest news from Myanmar, where some 100,000 people or more have died in a cyclone, and in China, where the death toll is rapidly climbing into the 10s of thousands. We've had volcanoes erupting in Chile and tornadoes tearing across Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Georgia and other states . . . again.

In the midst of all of this, I've found myself reflecting some about my own response to disasters here in the US and on the other side of the world.

I'm not alone.

A friend sent me a blog from the New York Times. You might find it interesting.

I'm not surprised that we gave much more to Hurricane Katrina relief than we did to tsunami relief in Southeast Asia. What surprises me is the author's argument that we often let the media dictate how we respond to the sufferings of people all over the world and that we tend to ignore the disasters that the US media chooses to ignore!

I want to confess my own complicity in this. Mea culpa! I'm certainly not above it. We tend to read what our local newspaper wants us to read and we tend to listen to what our radio stations want us to listen to. And we tend to ignore whatever it is that they want us to ignore.

While this may be the reality, it certainly doesn't absolve us from the need to keep up with more than just the stuff that is force-fed to us each day.

Yes, there is a nomination fight going on in the United States--and an election will take place in November. And these realities will force the disasters off the front page of the paper and toward the end of the hourly news reports.

But this doesn't change the reality. The danger here is that disasters will become so routine in the world that we will cease to "connect" with the suffering and the pain and the grief. The danger here is that we will let others (the media especially) tell us what we want to hear instead of what we need to hear.

And that morning radio report and the trip down the driveway for the newspaper will become once again the soothing rituals that make life so nice and calm and that lull me into thinking that all is right in the rest of the world.

Newsflash--it's not!

Divine Twenty-Somethings

New York Times columnist David Brooks, a self-described progressive-conservative, addressed the Rome, Georgia intelligentsia last night at a lecture hall on a local college campus. Briefly stated, he described politicians as ego-maniacs, admitted his bias for John McCain, declared Hillary's campaign over, and indicated that he believed Barack Obama would be the next president of the United States.

Oh--and he pretty much deified twenty-somethings as the saviors of the world who might just manage to leave the globe better off than they found it.

I have to say that I agree with him.

I don't have a lot to go on, though I was glad to hear Brooks list his reasons.

My reasons are much more unscientific and are based upon absolutely no polling, no books, and no interviews with people who know.

I just find twenty-somethings to be genuinely nice people who are much more interested in relationships and in making a difference in the world than they are in getting a leg up on somebody else.

Like the young German guy who sat by me this week on a flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Atlanta. I'm sure we presented quite a comical sight, particularly as the two of us, seated in tight proximity (on an emergency exit row, thank God!) watched the movie, Enchanted. You know, the one about Giselle and Prince Charming winding up in New York City and the evil stepmother chasing them around town. We giggled at just the same moments and looked at each other as if to say, "That was a great line" or "What a cute little chimpmunk!"

It's really a sweet movie! My own wife couldn't get me to go see it--and there I was with a perfect (and male) stranger sitting closer than she and I would have sat if we'd gone to the local cinema. The flight attendant found it quite amusing and shook her head as she wandered by.

Afterward, my seatmate made his way to the back of the plane for a potty break. When he returned, he had two bags of trail mix--one for him and one for me. I hardly knew how to act! I've been traveling the world for years in close proximity to strangers--and no one ever bothered to bring me anything. I've never gotten water, peanuts, orange juice, or even those little fishy snacks they give you on Asian airlines. Nothing!

And then this twenty-something German guy hands me a bag of trail mix!

I know what you're thinking--and so I want to make it clear that I don't base my conclusions simply on this one little isolated experience. I find this younger generation to generally be about the task of making the world a better place. I know of a young woman in Ghana who has spent a considerable amount of time and energy engaged in HIV/Aids education among young girls and who spends some time in the markets doing domestic violence surveys. I've seen this generation hard at work in Chile and China, rural Alabama and rural Thailand. I've seen them digging wells and endorsing Millennium Development Goals and writing grants for Katrina recovery in New Orleans, and passing out mosquito netting in Kenya.

I like them! They know how to think about the other guy--to put themselves in other womens' shoes.

And they know how to pause just long enough in the flight galley to wonder if the guy seated next to them might be a little hungry.

So . . . maybe Brooks overstated it a bit and they aren't exactly saviors in the classic sense of the word--but I'm bending my knee a bit in their direction just in case.

On Ancient Athens and the Grand Scheme of Things

I wasn't prepared for the thoughts that gripped me, probably because I was much more focused on the meetings I had in Greece than I was upon the fact that I was standing on the Acropolis in Athens. For several hours this past weekend, I meandered around that ancient hill exploring the ruins, surprised to discover that the Parthenon had been temple, church, and mosque in its long and storied history, sitting as it does at the crossroads of east and west. Reflection didn't come easy--but I somehow managed to get there.

For about a half hour, I sat on the Areopagus Rock and considered this unique place of ancient Athens--its cosmopolitan character, its contributions to the way a significant portion of humanity understands and perceives its reality. My thoughts went to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and others among the philosophers and to their ability to think outside the box to such an extent that they essentially created the box for some of the rest of us as they struggled with the most basic question of reality: How do we know that a thing is real?

I was surprised to find myself thinking more about them than even about the Apostle Paul. It was into their world that he came when he stood at the Areopagus and presented a few audacious ideas about a tiny little cult out of Palestine. It was their ideas that he and others among the early Christians were up against. I found myself admiring the guts of a man who brazenly preached his new faith in such a context, finding in a statue to the unknown God some point of intersection between his little cult and the Athenian worldview.

But I am also quite aware that it was the Hellenistic world to which he and others among the early apologists had to appeal as they sought to communicate the Christian reality amid such a dominating perspective on reality. Jesus was risen indeed--but that resurrection needed a bit of interpretation in ways that conformed to the prevailing perspective on what was real and what was not real. After all, if the people who were hearing it couldn't receive it in ways that conformed to their understanding of reality, then what was the point really?

Isn't this the challenge for any faith that hopes to offer meaning and hope in whatever context it finds itself? It's not so much that a thing is true. It is much more essential that it resonates with the heart, mind and spirit of those with whom it is shared to the extent that it is made real for them. To put it another way, the only faith worth its salt is a faith that can be embraced fully by those to whom it is proclaimed because it speaks to them, to their reality, and in their language.

There, on that ancient hill, it came to me. I still live very much in the world of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle. They continue to frame the boundaries of my reality. I read the world through their lenses. Paul speaks to me in their language, due in large measure to the fact that, for centuries, theologians and philosophers have interpreted him for me in the context of my worldview.

But the vast majority of the world just doesn't wear those glasses. There are other ancient voices that shape their realities--philosophers of brilliance and stature, powerful storytellers, prophets and priests. They have their own hills and mountains, marketplaces and temples. Their sense of what makes something real and true is far different from my sense of what makes it real and true. And any faith to which they give their attention will be a faith that resonates with their reality and that doesn't have to pass the test of my philosophers and theologians in order to make some sense in their grand scheme of things.

A Pawley's Island Breather

I've just experienced a great reversal of the creation story in Genesis--6 straight days of rest with virtually no work accomplished at all! It was grand--indeed, rest is good for the soul--and it helps if you throw in an ocean and some beach and about six days of nothing but an NCAA basketball tournament and a couple of good books and some Scrabble.

We just spent a week at Pawley's Island on the coast of South Carolina. My wife and her family have been going there for at least a week every year for something like 50 years. I have to admit that the experience is hard to beat. We rented one of those old Pawley's Island houses right on the ocean and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Here's my top ten for the week!

10. That morning cup of coffee walking down the beach--and especially the last few cold swigs.

9. The New York Times read thoroughly with few interruptions--to the extent that you even get beyond the first section--and live for a moment with the illusion that you might finally finish the crossword puzzle.

8. A full moon directly outside your bedroom window and right over the ocean, with moonbeams playing off the waves.

7. Three cheap paperbacks with really good plots that are already forgotten.

8. A few hard-fought games of Scrabble and rummy.

7. Some great steamed oysters at Nance's in Murrell's Inlet.

6. An evening of shrimp and crab arond the dining room table.

5. Tossing the football around the beach while vainly compensating for the stiff breeze.

4. Turning "Out-of-office assistant" on knowing that it means you don't have to check email at all--for a week.

3. Louisville vs. Tennessee capped by a Louisville win.

2. Long bicycle rides from one end of the island to the other.

1. Good long talks that wouldn't happen otherwise and that are made special by the fact that it is the last Spring Break from high school that we will ever share with our children.

I wonder if the surf and sand don't grab something elemental deep within me. After all, God drew the lines between land and sea pretty early in the week and then he hung the sun and moon in the sky almost immediately thereafter. Perhaps this is why there is a certain peace that comes with standing on the beach with my toes in the water and the back of my feet on the sand while a full moon tugs gently at the water or a bright sun warms my face. Animals and people come along much later in the week--and they certainly complicate matters.

Oops--excuse me for a second! My cellphone is ringing.

It must be the seventh day.

Dinner--with Friends

I knew they were Filipino by the way they held their forks and knives and, I must confess, if I hadn't been dining alone, I probably would never have spoken to them. But there I sat in a restaurant by myself on a Saturday evening in Richmond, Virginia, more hungry for some good conversation than I was for the tapas that I had just ordered.

Twice I almost took the plunge--but then bailed out. It isn't easy to start a conversation with absolute strangers even if they are sitting just two feet away in a cramped dining room and even if you are convinced that you spent thirteen years as a child in the country that they hail from. We like our walls, after all--and separate tables generally mean separate conversations. It's just the way we're wired.

Finally, I caught the man's attention for the briefest moment and the words spilled out.

"Excuse me," I said (with as big a smile as I could muster). "Are the two of you from the Philippines?"

I was relieved when they smiled back--and covered their mouths with their hands as Filipinos always do when attempting to speak while chewing food.

"Oh, yes," they said in unison--and, of course, they wanted to know how I knew.

"I knew it by the way you were eating," I said, "You were pushing the food up onto your spoon with your fork." And I mimicked the action.

They laughed out loud--and covered their mouths again.

We talked for a long while--about old Filipino songs and television commercials, about Filipino food and friendliness, about what it is like to grow up in a culture far removed from home. They were newly-married--less than a year. And they wondered about the impact that growing up in the US context might have upon their children some day. Would they still appreciate the rich heritage of the Philippines?

I tried to reassure them. "It really is up to you," I said. And I encouraged them to give their kids the advantage of being bilingual. I admitted that my Tagalog was much poorer than it should be--and they complimented me on my accent when we did talk briefly in that national dialect.

Then . . . it ended. It was a single meal out of the thousands that I will share with other folks across my lifetime. But it was a dinner to remember.

It was such a small thing--the way they pushed their food up with their forks onto their spoons. But it was that small thing that enabled me to recognize them for who they were--and that encouraged me to take the risk of engaging them in conversation.

Such moments don't happen often. I've generally got plenty of people around to talk to at dinner. And there is very little reason to risk a conversation with strangers . . . who actually wind up not being strangers after all.