Stop and Frisk App

Most everyone carries a phone with video capabilities today so it is not surprising that when something happens in the community, the footage we see on the news is from someone who just happened to be passing by rather than a professional journalist.

Most all of the headline news video evidence against police wrongdoing over the past few years has been shot from bystanders who saw the encounter and pulled out their cellphones.  These videos can not only help to get bad cops off the street but, it can also be used to protect the good ones who are often accused of negligence but later exonerated because of amateur video evidence.

The ACLU has developed an app called "Stop and Frisk App" or "Mobile Justice App" which was designed to serve this purpose, to both protect the rights of those suspected of malfeasance and the officer from those who foolishly resist their authority.

Here is how it works.  You install the app on your phone and when you are pulled over or detained by the police, you trigger the app.  It then sends out a message to nearby users where the police encounter is happening.  Those community groups who monitor police activity can then go to the scene and record the interaction.  The video is recorded live and also saved on the ACLU servers where it is inspected and preserved as evidence.

I have to repeat that this app is a great tool to both protect the police and protect the rights of those who are being detained by the police.  It is also a message to Big Brother that Little Brother is watching, too.

Check it out at the ACLU website:

https://www.aclu.org/feature/aclu-apps-record-police-conduct

https://youtu.be/U1M-tLoiJ4s

Three Day Hike

These are photos from a three day hike through the Adirondack Mountain range in upstate NY. We ascended eight arresting peaks in twelve hour excursions.  The steep ascents, rocks and roots in the trail, crowded trails, occasional black flies and carrying about four liters of water made for an arduous trip but the worst offender was the 90 degree temperatures and high humidity.  I need to invest in more moisture wicking clothing. Most all of the mountain streams were dry so there was no chance of filtering water en route.  Pictured are my partners in crime, Doug, Jim and me, Malcolm Kogut.

The pictures include Ausable Lake from Blake Mountain, the fire tower at the top of St. Regis mountain, a distant view of Giant, Noonmark and Sawteeth, the ridge walk of Whiteface Mountain, Mirror Lake in Lake Placid and a sign designating the "Ladies Mile" trail from back in the day when women were considered the more "dainty" of the sexes.

Rest In Peace, Prince

Speculation at this point is that Prince died from an overdose of Percoset which is a combination of acetaminophen and oxycodone. Oxycodone is an addictive opioid pain medication and Prince had been taking it because he had been suffering from chronic pain for quite a while. 

Had Prince been able to use marijuana for his pain, he might still be alive today.  Marijuana is non addictive, has no side effects (other than the munchies), does not cause death and has been proven to be an effective pain relieving herb.  However, the government has deemed the herb marijuana to be a drug and Prince lived a clean life and would not do drugs.  They can kill you or get you arrested.

What other artists have died from pharmaceutical prescription drug overdoses?  Elvis, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith, Chris Farley, Kurt Cobain, Margeaux Hemingway, Freddie Prinze, Bruce Lee, Keith Moon, Jimi Hendrix, Judy Garland, Brian Epstein, Marilyn Monroe, Tommy Dorsey and Sigmund Freud. 

Back in the 1930's, marijuana was a successful treatment for drug and alcohol addiction.  Today, you can spend thousands at a rehab center.

Drugs

We've been lied to and refuse to hear the truth.

I met a middle aged woman who is wracked with pain due to fibromyalgia, back injuries and arthritis.  She takes seven medications for her ailments and for the ancillary side effects they each cause.  In other words, she takes drugs for the drugs she takes.  She takes one which keeps her awake and another to help her sleep.  It is pharmaceutical chaos in her blood stream.  I told her how a friend of mine has a back injury which rendered him disabled at the age of 43 and the only drug he can take for the pain is morphine but that knocks him out and makes him sick. He has since discovered marijuana as a control for his pain, sleeping and even staying awake.  When I recommended to this woman that marijuana might offer her relief from both the pain and the prescriptions' side effects, she replied, "I don't do drugs." 

HA!

This country has a weird and unhealthy fetish with what we define as drugs.  Although marijuana is legal in several states, even the monstrosity called FACEBOOK takes it upon itself to police the internet and take down legal pages about marijuana even in the states where the herb is legal.  Not only are they taking down legal pages but harming tax paying businesses and the states at the same time. 

In 2013, 47,055 people died from prescription drugs.  How many died from marijuana use?  Zero.  C'mon Facebook, get with the times and start increasing the quality of life for people suffering from addiction, pain, mental health illness and debilitating diseases rather than denying them a chance to live pain-free and otherwise productive lives. 

What is the difference between Oxycontin and Marijuana?  One is addictive and can cause chills, confusion, difficulty breathing, dizziness, fever, tightness in the chest, abdominal pain, blood in the urine, convulsions, increase in heart rate, muscle pain, rapid weight gain, severe constipation, blurred vision and death.  The other one causes the munchies.

Which would you choose to put into your body? 

Why Atheists should Go To Church

A friend of mine suddenly stopped going to church because his teenage son was arrested for selling pot.  Yes, he is a scary drug dealer and probably has connections to Mexican drug cartels and has been involved in murder, abduction and child slave labor.  Actually, he just sold pot to a friend who entrapped him in an effort to have his own charges dropped.  Back to my friend, he was embarrassed and ashamed that this happened to his family and nobody from his church reached out to him.  He admitted to me that he was an atheist and church had no value to him, he was only going out of a Catholic obligation to a nascent guilt.  I disagreed with him that he shouldn't attend because they needed him and he needed them, but he needs to work through this on his own.  However, here are some generic reasons and granted, I am grasping here but indulge me.

1)  Church gives you a place where you can breath.  Many people will say that they don't sing but in your everyday life, you sing.  If you yell, you are using the same body parts and emotion that goes into singing.  If you scream, the same.  Do you speak with inflection such as you would when you speak with surprise, tenderness, comfort, imitation, sarcasm or chiding?  All that is part of the singing apparatus too so, yes, you sing.  The difference between saying those things and singing them though, that is where the difference lies.  When you sing, you are sustaining tones which forces you to awaken muscles between your ribs, your diaphragm, your chest and head.  An added benefit to actual singing is that you are taking in oxygen more deeply and richly than you would only by speaking.  That increased oxygen gets in your blood where it goes straight to your brain and muscles which are nourished and repaired by the newly oxygenated blood.  Singing is healthy.  If you are a health nut, singing should be part of your weekly routine and church is a perfect place to exercise those muscles without the worry of someone hearing you. If your church has a pipe organ, there is even more acoustical space to hide in.  Pianos and guitars have a natural decay and less secure to hide your voice therein.  Once you play a sound on any of these instruments the sound immediately begins to decay, necessitating more fills and chords.  But singing doesn’t work this way, and the continuity of the sung line is often disrupted.  The organ’s sound lifts and sustains the voice of the congregation through each phrase and guiding each breath.  The organ thrives in an open room and it fills the room almost like sunlight through open windows, the organ warmly invites even hesitant and untrained singers to join in.  An amplified band gives you a directional, electronic copy of the instruments. The pipe organ needs no amplification; the natural sound of the instrument itself fills the space evenly and fully with its massive range.  The organ can breathe musical life into any part of the Gospel story and your body.

1a) When you hear music, there are fireworks going off in your brain.  FMRI scans have shown that when people listen to music, multiple areas of the brain light up and when participating, music engages practically every area of the brain at once, especially the motor, visual and auditory cortex.  Strengthening those areas of the brain allow us to apply those strengths to other activities.  This also bridges the activity in the corpus callosum which regulates the left and right hemisphere of the brain. This allows you to solve problems more effectively and creatively in both academic and social settings. Because crafting music also involves understanding emotional content and message, musicians often have higher levels of executive function; a category of interlinked tasks which include planning, strategizing and attention to detail and requires simultaneous analysis of both cognitive and emotional aspects. This ability also has an impact on how our memory systems work. Transubstantiation may become more physical for after singing an hour in church you will leave a different person, more energized, alert and cerebrally attentive.

2)  Along the lines of music, attending the right church is a great place to hear masterworks of choral, instrumental and organ literature from the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st century, all in one place.  Sure, you can buy a CD or find classical stations on the radio but hearing it live in the space the music was designed and composed for is much better.  Even if you don't sing, sitting there gives you the opportunity to set aside some time to reflect on your life in a holy space with holy sounds among holy people.

3)  You will be supporting local musicians.  Many musicians in churches are volunteers but a few of them such as the director or accompanist are probably paid.  Many of these people also play in clubs, bands, bars, are involved in community theater, compose and teach.  By supporting them in the church, you are supporting the circle of music in the community.

4)  Going to church also helps you to find community.  My friend, whose son was arrested could have found support, comfort and community but unfortunately his church was also embarrassed about the situation and didn't realize that not to act is to act.  It takes a lot of courageous effort to cultivate that sense of courage to seek and heal.  However, after that courage is marshaled, it will be discovered that it takes no effort or courage at all to heal.  I know of another church whose pastor lives in his own house so the rectory was empty.  When one of the elderly members fell into financial instability, there was no question that she could stay at the rectory free of charge. That is what church communities do for one another.  So, you don't have to go to church to find out what they can do for you, you can go to find out what you can do for them.  It is in serving others that we are served.

5)  Many people, even atheists, have a nascent sense of spirituality within them.  That means it is present but not active.  A friend of mine was arrested (hmmmph, I know a lot of people who were arrested) and he stayed at my house for a week because he wanted to get away and hide from everyone and take time to figure out his future life while it was falling apart around him.  A staunch atheist, he decided to attend church with me on a Saturday evening because I had to play and he didn't want to sit home alone.  Something touched him in the service and he went up for Communion.  He said he felt close to the God he didn't beleive in and it was comforting for him to be there.  He made an appointment to meet with the priest during the week but unfortunately the Roman Catholic priest alluded that he was not welcome there but, God bless anyway.  What a missed opportunity for both.  Most often the biggest problem with the church are its clergy because they lack the courage to do the right thing for fear of being accused of doing the wrong thing.  Not to act is to act and everyone loses.  It is easy to do the wrong thing then blame the one you are ostracizing.   They protest too much.

6)  As I mentioned earlier, going to church may help you find purpose.  An active church can provide you with the opportunity to volunteer to help where it's needed, a way of intentionally focusing on something transcendent and on becoming a more loving person while helping others.  Church's can be a great place for social gathering, too.  People are usually warm, friendly and accepting, at least in a good church! They may have groups that interest you and even have some missions which for you, even as a non-believer, you can participate in toward helping others in need. That is what is most fulfilling in life; having purpose and helping others.   When two hurricanes hit my area I was volunteering to answer a suicide hotline and was moved up to handling a disaster relief hotline for FEMA.  I did that for about three weeks, seven days a week, about ten hours a day.  Albeit exhausting, it was a very rewarding time for me.

7)  The point of the sermon on Sunday of any church is to learn how to apply scripture to your life.  This is a simple concept but many clergy think they have to be creative, gimmicky and entertaining and often miss the mark of breaking open the Word.  Even if you don't beleive that scripture is true spiritually or historically, there is great philosophy in the teachings of both the old and new testaments.  Even if you don't believe in God, you can agree to a lot of the values found in scripture as great truths.  Many of the stories have great lessons and you can find answers to many of your concerns and problems therein.  Our lives become the stories that we listen to and re-tell.  If you don't want to take the time to read the bible, start with the Jefferson Bible which is comprised of only the words of Jesus (the red words).  That can be very inspiring for those without a lot of time to weed through the historical and cultural detritus of scripture.

As long as you are not attending church to cause a disturbance, I would encourage going. The social, psychological, and spiritual benefits of participating in the liturgy and a community can be inspiring. If nothing else, you will get free food and coffee after the service.  That brings up a couple of other more over the top reasons to go.

8) The bible is loaded with good horror stories.  In the Bible, you can find stories of unsurpassed cruelty: murder, rape, incest, torture, slavery, cruelty to women and children, witchcraft, angry gods, natural disasters, plagues, wars, duels, mutilations, crucifixions, more blood than you can shake a stick at, and of course, eternal torment! Much of Hollywood's success comes straight out of the Bible. If you like horror, lust and greed, the bible is a great read.

9) Church is a great place for stand-up comedy.  Practically every page of the bible has something funny, ironic, dry or revealing in it if you look for it.  Preachers are willing to say anything from their pulpits! Many of them start off their homily with a joke and the comedy doesn’t end there either. Seeing some fundamental clerics affirm with a straight face their literal belief in a Noah’s ark, that dinosaurs didn't exist (a distraction planted there by old Scratch himself) or that the sun was “stopped” until some Jews won a battle, is hilarious! Yes, churches can provide hours and hours of knee-slapping entertainment if you know what to look for!

In some churches, you absolutely cannot be a member or be welcome to participate in the liturgy if you are not baptized, a member, affirming or have jumped through some other corporate hoops.  The Roman Catholics have many restrictions, the Episcopalians are more welcoming and lax, some churches require background checks (they don't want sinners), women are second class citizens in some, some are just cold, some don't like gays, while the Unitarians will take anyone.  Do some research, that might be half of the fun.  Visit a different church each week, take pictures and review them on Google or Yelp and talk about the music, homily, people, art, food, windows, flowers, whatever.

In the end, you may discover that some of your hookah-smoking and beer-drinking buddies are church mice.  You can share many a night around a fire-pit with those people discussing the spirituality of STAR WARS, HARRY POTTER and THE LION or THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE or STARGATE.  It can become something you'll never want to give up because even if you still don't beleive, you're a family.  Whatever brings people together is worth exploring.

So, come, all are welcome.  Well, not everyone, everywhere but, try.  If they don't want you, shake the dust from your feet as you leave (That's from scripture.  It was Jesus' polite way of saying, well, I can't say it).

Know Anyone Going Through A Rough Time?

Are they angry?  Depressed?  Worried?  Did their doctor get them addicted to pain killers?  Alcoholic?  Arrested?  Lose someone they love?  Share with them this phone number and web address to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.  They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and are there to listen.
1 (800) 273-8255.  Website: www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Over 30,000 people in the United States die by suicide every year which means someone dies by suicide about every 18 minutes in the U.S. An attempt is estimated to be made once every minute.

Share this information.  Print out the NSPL card and leave it in public places such as libraries, work, school, churches, stores.  If you go to church, ask your pastor to publish the hotline number in the church bulletin or newsletter.  Churches are notorious for hating gays, women and sinners and if you have any of them secretly hiding among the "good" people, they may be suffering emotionally and spiritually.  Suicide is the third leading cause of death among those 15-24 years old so churches need to be more careful the things they say for, children will listen.

"Healing" with Marijuana

A friend of mine is suffering from cancer and, the treatment thereof.  She is in great pain and the medications she is taking are accompanied by debilitating side effects.  Surgery is out of the question because her platelets are low from the cancer and she has to watch her sodium intake.  She continues receiving chemo treatments but then immediately she gets a skin infection (cellulitis). Then her doctor gives her antibiotics which work against the chemo. Everything is working against each other.  Now she can't walk and she's gotten even weaker from lying in bed.  Since she is taking so many different drugs, they cancel out the good effects of each other and she can't eat.  It is too bad she won't consider cannabis (pot or marijuana) as a treatment but she has been brainwashed into thinking that marijuana is a "drug" and that the pills she is popping are treatments.  If only she would consider pot as a treatment she could not only re-gain her appetite which would be beneficial to her health and well being but she would also be relatively pain free and conscious.  The drugs she takes now renders her into a zombie estate and do not give her the benefit of sleep.  One of her drugs inhibits getting a good night's sleep which she desperately needs and marijuana could provide that.  But, she is a good girl and doesn't do drugs. 

NY recently passed medical marijuana laws and our next door neighbor, Massachusetts, is looking into legalizing it across the board which will of course destroy NY's medical marijuana industry and, bwahahahaha . . . all the wasted time and tax payer dollars that went into the planning for the medical marijuana industry.  Hah! 

Not only can marijuana be used for physical, mental, and emotional well being, it can be used for "healing."  First, consider the meaning of the word "healing."  There is a difference between healing and curing.  To cure means to make the disease go away.  Healing has to do with an expression of greater wholeness and acceptance rather than curing.  Healing is about discovering what is hurting us in the first place and helping us to come to terms with it. 

A long time ago a friend was dying of cancer.  She sought every treatment and nostrum available, draining her bank account and only getting physically and emotionally worse at the same time.  She was in denial.  I don't know what precipitated her change in attitude but when she accepted the fact that she was going to die, she "healed."  She was able to talk about it, make amends with friends and family whom she transgressed in the past.  She was able to live life a little more fully and finally be happy.  I beleive it was the edible pot that she illegally obtained from her son who traveled to Colorado and risked arrest and decades in prison for its procurement, but gave his mom a new outlook on life and death.  Healing is about discovering what is holding us back in the first place.  Pot helped my friend look at life differently and die with dignity and comfort rather than denial, failure and shame - and she had a healthy appetite, too. 

Diabetes, obesity, autism, anxiety, cancer, autoimmune conditions, thoughts of suicide and other expressions of imbalance are increasing in society as are prescription drug treatments for all of those ailments and the downward spiral which comes with them and their treatments.  A pharmacist friend told me that she believes all the cholesterol medication people take causes diabetes and the medication for diabetes causes weight gain and kidney complications leading to heart issues. 

Cannabis could play a much larger role in most people's lives by helping them maintain a balanced, healthy outlook and diet.  Dying with dignity, comfort and acceptance should be the primary focus of "healing."  It is time for doctors to incorporate medicinal marijuana into their regular treatment practices in addition to traditional medical treatment in order to spare people the harsh side effects of pharmaceutical drugs. 

I recently watched the History Channel's movie "Marijuana Revolution" and I discovered that cultivators of this plant are able create strains to achieve goals and outcomes far more advanced than the dangerous prescription drugs mired with side effects that profit hungry pharmaceuticals are creating and pushing onto doctors to prescribe.  I have no doubt that in the future, cannabis combined with other treatments will actually lead to a cure for many maladies which afflict us.  It is definitely a cure for alcohol and drug addiction because pot itself is not addictive but is an alternative to those other addictions.  Working on the suicide hot-line I had many callers who were in mental and physical pain because of their addiction to pain killers.  I'm sure pot would ameliorate their conditions on the first day of use.

Thank you to states like Colorado and Washington who of course are making billions in tax revenue each year but, are also providing people with the option to heal, even to their death.  It is very exciting that marijuana cultivators are exploring uses of various strains in an effort to find cures and treatments and these people are not even medical practitioners.  They are simply lovers of the plant.  Too bad medical science and pharmaceutical companies are overlooking what has been in front of us for centuries.  Ultimately, there is no profit in curing cancer and other diseases, there is profit however in treating  symptoms.  

If you are on the fence about this natural God given herb, watch the History channel's movie "Marijuana Revolution."  If you can't watch it on the history channel (http://www.history.com/shows/the-marijuana-revolution/about) or find it in the tv guides, you can probably find it on the torrent sites.  Write to your law makers and ask them to re-legalize this herbal drug and support the hundreds of companies already cultivating, infusing, testing, marketing and selling cannabis-related products.

Social Media Won't Last Forever

A local priest was recently arrested for using his cell phone to take pictures of a woman changing in a Salvation Army thrift shop.  I guess he didn't know that porn was rampant on the internet and free for the taking.  His court appearance was adjourned until January 20th so we won't know what sex offender crime he will be charged with until then.  Immediately after posting bail though, he closed all his online accounts such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.  He didn't have to do that since there was nothing immoral about what he had on those sites (and, they can still be seen in the Google Cache).  What is sad though is that he had pictures of his church, parishioners, his family, cars and everything good about himself and others posted therein.  All that is good about him is gone forever and what remains are the dark sided news articles detailing his deviant behavior.  One "oops" erased a lifetime of "attaboys" but, such is our holier than thou, unforgiving and vengeful society.  The Facebook comments about him from "good" people only wish for him to be shot, rot or burn. 

It got me thinking though about our zeal to digitize photographs, posting them online and expecting that they are going to last forever; That might turn out to be wrong.  If there are photos we wish to keep "forever," we should consider creating a physical instance of them and print them out, then store them in "ye old fashioned" photo album.  I still have my grandmother's album, my mother's and my own childhood albums stashed away in the attic for future generations to view.  A friend of mine has a 20 year old son and they don't have a single hard copy photo of him.  They have thousands of digital photos stored here and there, though.  Today's online, high tech and cloud data storage system will most likely become tomorrow's floppy disc. We are currently living in the digital dark ages and printing our photos is probably more secure over time than merely posting them.

Think about it.  If websites such as Megaupload can be taken down, or if a social media website can go out of business such as Zurker, iMee, Posterous, or they can just fade away into obscurity such as Myspace, what could the future hold for other online storage and social sites where we post everything about our lives to?  If terrorists wanted to hurt everyone in the world in one fell swoop, they'd take down Facebook.  That actually wouldn't be a bad thing . . .

What we know about generations before us we have gleamed from written records and old photographs.  If a disaster were to strike our civilization or time simply wanes on and what is popular now becomes banal and trite in the future, how will historians and archaeologist learn about us if our digital footprint dissolves, is deleted, becomes demagnetized or is simply taken offline by our own doing, our failure to log in anymore, care-less relatives or, our favorite social media site where we store our pics simply ceases to exist?

We can still read 5000 year old hieroglyphs carved in stone.  We can still decipher three thousand year old ink on papyrus.  We still have books written in 1,000 year old ink and paper.  Digital copies of our 100 year old celluloid recordings are quickly being duplicated because they are decaying at a rapid rate.  The earlier magnetic tape recordings less than fifty years old are almost unintelligible because they too are decaying at a rapid rate. It seems our new technology does not have a relatively long shelf life.

Even if the medium still exists, the technology to read them will soon be obsolete and impossible to find.  Consider the following medium for data storage:  vinyl audio records, cassette tapes, 8 track tapes, card readers, punch cards, 5 and 1/4 inch floppy disks, 3 and 1/2 inch disks, zip drives, CD's, DVD's and now, the cloud.  Heck, I have data which I stored on thumb drives and they are unreadable today after the old age of ten years.

See the pattern?  Not only does the digital data decay rapidly but the hardware to read those formats is rapidly disappearing, too.  Don't expect the thousands of family photos you have stored on your phone, the cloud, your computer, on Facebook or on a disk will be there in 100, 50, 20 or even 5 years.  As the priest in my opening paragraph taught us, your digital footprint can be wiped out overnight, or your cloud company can go out of business or taken down such as Megaupload.  Social media websites or your working personal computer can be gone tomorrow taking your whole digital life with them.

There is a solution.  Get yourself to one of those struggling scrap booking stores dotted across the country and find out how you can get your precious memories stored in a slightly more secure photo album.  And don't use home laser or inkjet printers as they too fade over time.  Have your pictures printed from high quality printers using quality paper and ink.

Then, instead of just posting your picture to Facebook for your 800 closest friends to see, invite family and friends over for a meal, sit on the floor around the fireplace with a glass of wine and look through the photos together, sharing stories, making new memories and maybe taking more pictures.

Time weaves ribbons of memories to sweeten life when youth is through.  Like memories, our technology and online presence can fade and disappear.  How cool will it be for your great grandchildren to be rummaging through the attic and find a photo album of their ancestors - hopefully it won't be a book filled with selfies.  As I look through the old black and white photo album of my grandmother, I don't see many pictures of her but, I do see the pictures of the many people whom she loved.

-Malcolm Kogut.

Lies, Taxation and Pot, Oh My

A friend of mine suffers from nerve pain and has great difficulty sleeping.  When she sits in a chair, she hangs her head down, folds her arms in her lap and sits slumped over with her legs together as if trying to get in a fetal position.  The only time she can sleep is when she takes prescription muscle relaxants but they give her a hang over the next day.  The pain medication doesn't really work and presents some undesirable side effects on her.

She was complaining to me that she wished there was a natural, homeopathic or herbal medicine which would help her with her nerve pain and not have any side effects.  I immediately suggested marijuana.  Despite actually being a natural, homeopathic and herbal medicine, her voice rose with indignation saying that pot was an addictive drug with dangerous side effects.  It ills brain cells and she would never take that.  I told her that Steve Jobs was a pot smoker.  Look what it did to his brain.

It is amazing how Harry Anslinger's lies about this natural, homeopathic and herbal plant have endured over the decades despite medical research and thousands of my and your neighbors and friends "testing" it on a daily basis.  They themselves, in secret, have been proving the lies to be wrong.  It is easy to beleive a lie when so many people say it is so.

I looked up my friend's nerve pain medication and here are the possible side effects:
difficult or labored breathing, shortness of breath, tightness in the chest, , chills, cough, diarrhea, difficulty with swallowing, dizziness, fast heartbeat, hives, itching, joint or muscle pain, puffiness or swelling of the eyelids or around the eyes, skin lesions often with a purple center, skin rash, sore throat, unusual tiredness or weakness, accidental injury, bloating or swelling of the face, blurred vision, numbness or pain in the hands, change in walking and balance, clumsiness, confusion, delusions, dementia, difficulty having a bowel movement, difficulty with speaking, double vision, dry mouth, fever, headache, hoarseness, lack of coordination, loss of memory, lower back or side pain, painful or difficult urination, weight gain, seeing double, sensation of pins and needles, shakiness and unsteady walk, problems with muscle control or coordination, unusual weight gain, anxiety, bloated or full feeling, chest pain, cold sweats, coma, feeling of discomfort or illness, loss of appetite, loss of bladder control, loss of strength or energy, muscle aches and pains, muscle twitching or jerking, muscle weakness, nausea, nervousness, nightmares, noisy breathing, pain passing gas, rhythmic movement of the muscles, runny nose, seizures, shivering, slurred speech, sweating, trouble sleeping, twitching, uncontrolled eye movements, vomiting, thoughts of suicide, suicide.

Here are the side effects for marijuana:
munchies, mellow, sound sleep.

I shared with her my two experiences with marijuana.  Personally I would never smoke it.  I wouldn't do that to my lungs and beside that, I can't stand the smell of smoke and hate to be around people who do smoke.  So my first experience with marijuana was when I was in Washington State.  I went camping up to a glacier and since marijuana is legal in WA, at the suggestion of a friend, I purchased a few doses in pill form and took one before I went to sleep on the glacier.  I slept the whole night through while my hiking mates suffered the whole night freezing in the 20 degree temperature.  I took one final pill on my return flight back to NY.  As my plane took off I put my head down.  Six hours later I awoke to the sound of the pilot saying "We are making our final decent to Albany . . . "  This stuff is amazing.

It is too bad when my mother was suffering from nerve pain, her options were a concoction of three pain medications and one antidepressant or, as an alternative: morphine.  All that suffering she endured and at the expense to the insurance company could have been avoided if marijuana were legal.  You can bet that if she were alive today and still in that amount of pain, I would personally risk arrest and prison to find her relief from all the pain and suffering she endured in her final years.

For those who beleive in the fairy tales passed down by word of mouth, I am sorry you have been lied to and you beleive those lies; survival of the fittest.  Go ahead and take those lab created pills with all those aforementioned side effects.  For those of you wondering why marijuana was given a bad rap in the first place, our first drug czar, Harry Anslinger, who was in the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies, alcohol and tobacco distributors, and the lumber and print media industries, he made up stories about it.  Coming out of the prohibition, marijuana couldn't be taxed and was cutting into alcohol and tobacco sales.  Both the government and above mentioned industries were losing money.  His facts changed regularly and despite the scientific findings in LaGuardia report, issued the following quotes:

...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.​

Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing.​

There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.​

Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men.​

Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.​

You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother.​

Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.​

Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.

Colored students at the Univ. of Minn. partying with white female students smoking marijuana and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result pregnancy.

Two Negroes took a girl fourteen years old and kept her for two days in a hut under the influence of marihuana. Upon recovery she was found to be suffering from syphilis.

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Yup, your call.  Hopefully it will be to your elected representative demanding that marijuana be made legal AND, everyone languishing in our prisons today for past pot possession will be released and their records sealed or expunged. Hey, it is your tax dollars keeping them there at $30,000 per person per year.  It all started with Harry Anslinger.  Who will it end with?

Why the Church is Losing Membership

Running Hawk of the Lakota Nation once said that religion is for people who are afraid of Hell.  Spirituality is for people who have already been there.  Are our churches filled with the first or latter and how does that affect the growth of the church?

People are leaving the institutional church in droves.  Many of the peripatetic people are not taking the time to technically leave, they are just not going anymore.  Despite that, there are a few churches in my area who are boasting that their congregations are bursting at the seams but they are just cherry picking their data.  One church dropped from five Masses each weekend down to two.  The priest at that church reports that his two Masses are packed every Sunday; consolidating five Masses into two is not growth.  Another pastor was interviewed by a local paper where he said that his church has seen significant growth and every Mass is packed.  He failed to mention that the bishop of his diocese closed three other churches in his community and his church simply picked up the people who lost their buildings.  New people where not suddenly going to church, regular attendees just got displaced and had to find a new home.

I have heard all the excuses why people are leaving the church such as society is lost, or they are sexually deviant, they don't beleive in God, they think the church is full of hypocrites, the church worships money, that gays and atheists and politicians and Hollywood have destroyed morality and our society of lemmings is blindly following.  All that may be true to a certain extent but those people are still not the problem, the church is. Ultimately the church is terrible at choosing which battles to fight and how to reach out to those who see the church as irrelevant.

A church was hiring a new music director and the best candidate who had promising ideas and talent turned out to have a felony record.  Instead of hiring him they hired the next guy in line who lacked vision, worshiped music and consequently destroyed their existing music program.  That church chose to die rather than forgive.  They failed to walk the walk and realize that Jesus, a convicted felon himself, while on the cross didn't take an honest man to paradise with him but another convicted felon.  That church lost members who were not only frustrated by the diminished music program but some people left because an unforgiving church was not a church they wanted to be part of or thought they belonged to. Ultimately, churches would do well to replace their staff with people who only have the goals of serving God.

Each day our communities are beleaguered with violence, hunger, homelessness, drug abuse, racism and judgmentalism.  Meanwhile our churches are battling with issues such as, do we take out the kneelers or leave them in?   Should we have background checks to protect our children?  Should we put in pew cushions and carpet?  Do we buy a pipe organ or electric organ?   Should our music be more upbeat and contemporary?  Should we purchase a pool table for our youth group room?

Now to be fair, there are churches who address the big issues of violence, hunger, homelessness, drug abuse, racism and judgmentalism very well.  Most people would very much like to be part of those solutions but when the church bickers about something other, it can be a turn off.  The decision to put in a carpet may not be the reason someone leaves a church but it could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back.  Usually there have been a series of disillusionment or a longing for something more.  The church should work on ministry and leave the building issues to the professionals they hire.

I once had a choir member who didn't like the fact that our church, the church she was raised in, was a liturgical church.  She longed for a more charismatic approach to worship.  She said that the church used an archaic and dusty language which didn't resonate with her.  It didn't give her comfort and she said that the message she heard each Sunday wasn't worth hearing.  When she came to me expressing this ache in her heart and that she was interested in the local Assembly of God congregation, I didn't try to talk her out of it.  She was no good to us if she was unhappy and guilt ridden.  I told her to try them out for a few months and if that style of worship made her feel closer to God and the community, then she had my blessing but, our door was always open for her if she ever wanted to come back.  We never saw her again but she became very active in her new worshiping community's food bank and soup kitchen.  She went on to organize a mission trip to South America.  For her and her spiritual needs, she chose right.  She is no longer at war with herself and the church and now her battleground is with poverty.  Who knew this Milquetoast of a person had it in her to become a General in the army.  That is what happens when you have faith and there is an opportunity to turn it loose.

Another reason people may choose another church is for their Sunday production value.  People may have joined their church because of the music but, I don't want people to come for the music.  Instead I want my music to inspire them to action, to be re-energized, to oxygenate their blood, to transform them, to remind them of a Kaddosh moment from their life, to be part of an awakening to a call for action, to feel joy.  Many church organists are just organists.  That is too bad. 

The music we sing should not simply be a song that fits into a time slot like most musical offerings in our worship services are.  It should speak to the needs of the community, not preach to nor entertain them.  Much like the words of an uninspired preacher, music can also speak in a foreign dusty tongue.  Some of our music holds onto dusty words that have no resonance in the ears of society, not realizing that just singing those words louder or faster isn't the answer.  Religious buzzwords and fancy octavos used to work 50 years ago but they don't anymore.  This spiritualized insider-language keeps regular people at a distance. People need the music to speak in a language that they can understand. They long to sing songs that pertain to what is happening in their lives this day.  People don’t need to be dazzled with big production numbers larded with churchy words that are about eschatological frameworks and theological systems or warm and fuzzy theology.

Too many organists don't see how pastoral and ministerial their work is.  I knew an organist who never played the same song twice in a church.  He would date each piece and never repeat it again.  People love to hear their favorite song over and over and if something an organist plays or the choir sings resonates with people, why not use it again?  The same holds true for hymns.  I fell in love with a new song called "You Are Mine" and I thought it would serve my parish well for funeral purposes and decided to use it every week for a month.  The confirmation class liked it and asked if I would play it for their confirmation Mass and the song became a comfort and favorite of the parish over time.  Another song I selected for a whole month was "All Are Welcome."  The city was planning to put up a parole shelter next door to the church and the church was protesting so I thought that the congregation needed to hear that message over and over again.  The church lost the battle and the parole shelter was put in.  Some members left.  All are not welcome.

A lot of churches have drastically changed their gimmicky worship styles to include lights, stages, elaborate sound systems, bands, videos screens, computer graphics, cameras and big production numbers from the praise band.  In reality this is just noise to those who are really seeking an encounter with God.  It is a distraction that has little importance, purpose and applicability to the rest of their week, or for people who are trying to grapple with the painful and confusing issues in the trenches of their real lives.

I have nothing against tech, I use it myself.  I own four cameras, mixing boards, a switch box and the ability to stream live but I don't use those tools other than for recitals.  If my church wanted to move in that direction for ministerial purposes then I'd gladly donate my expertise for that purpose but, the gimmick of a church "rock show" simply doesn't make a difference in peoples' lives.  People can find entertainment anywhere.  Church shouldn't be entertaining.  Church  should challenge us and inspire us to do something with our lives.  Yes, many people who don't know what they are looking for may choose a church that offers entertainment but, that is all those churches may have and it requires a lot of energy to maintain that illusion.  "Ignore the man behind the curtain."

There is a church near me who has a full time youth minister and a youth group budget of about $50,000 per year.  The youth have their own service, plan all the music and readings and no adults are permitted to attend that service.  The music by most standards would be  deemed liturgically inappropriate for they use pop songs in place of sacred music such as "Lean on Me" and "Don't Stop Believin'."  They average over 200 teens each week and despite that, they don't have a collection anymore because it would usually yield about ten bucks.   Their swanky teen lounge sports a pool table, ping pong table, Foosball table, several sofas, a small kitchen, a 54 inch flat screen TV, a game console and WiFi.  Post service activity include copious amounts of pizza and soda.  For a teen on Sunday night, it's the place to be.  When the teens graduate high school, they are not permitted to come back because they are now adults nor do they bother to join the church they don't know.  The whole program is a wash financially and only gives an outward appearance of being spiritually alive, active and having a reputation for success.  I'm sure many will disagree about the efficacy of the program but the numbers don't lie because on Sunday morning the youngest person in attendance at the normal Mass is 60 years old because the kids just don't ever come back.  I bet most youth programs are much the same.  Dollar for dollar, they are not a very good investment. Kids, like adults, yearn for a message worth sharing and an opportunity to act on it and make a difference, but it’s hard to hear that message above gimmicky pyrotechnics.

Some friends of mine heard that message and sent their daughter to Arizona one summer to help build housing for the poor.  She came back a different person, with vision, drive and the decision to dedicate her life in service of the poor.  She really wants to become a priest in the Roman Catholic Church but we know that isn't going to happen.  That's another issue which drives our contemporary society away.  Like many issues, the church is usually on the other side of popular opinion.

I knew a Methodist pastor who wanted to start a satellite church in a strip mall in a poor section of a nearby city.  They would move their food pantry there and offer counseling with meeting rooms and ancillary worship space.  His parish council shot down the idea citing that it would be expensive and they wouldn't have the volunteers to run it.  I applaud the pastor's vision - instead of trying to lure people to the church, to instead go out to where the people already are.  Just because the parish council didn't think anyone in the parish would volunteer didn't mean that once people found out about this ministry they wouldn't take part or join.  Especially people in the community where this vital ministry would have been offered.  The parish council couldn't see past its own building. Ironically this church has a large wooden sign above their front door which can only be seen as you leave the church to the parking lot.  It says "Enter." When you leave the church you are entering the mission field.  The best way to reach the people who don't come to church is to get out of the building and go to them.  Get out of the building!

Churches don't walk the walk.  My dear friend Maggie's husband was arrested for a consensual yet illegal sex crime with a teenager.  They were immediately ostracized from their church (as was the victim, strangely).  When they approached the pastors at several other churches about joining, the answer was always the same; they were not welcome.  Some churches are not very forgiving or loving or welcoming.  That was too bad for the many churches who turned their backs on them as Maggie and her husband are very well off financially and tithe over $100 weekly.  Unable to find a church who accepted sinners, they formed their own little living room church with several friends who were more forgiving and they all left their respective churches to create their own.

When two hurricanes struck my area, I went out with a small band of volunteers to help people with cleanup.  We encountered many people who lost their homes and were sleeping in their cars.  When they called FEMA for help, they were told to call Catholic Charities who told them to call United Way who told them to call Family and Children's Services who told them to call 211 who told them to call . . . FEMA!  Many of these people haven't had a good meal, a shower or clean clothes and were living day by day waiting for help to arrive.  I knew there was nothing I could do to fix their dilemma but I was telling Maggie that I wanted to help them in some small way that could at least give them hope.  That Sunday when Maggie's living room church of about ten people gathered, she raised $5,000.  I then went out with the cash and when I encountered people living in their car or in distress, I gave them $100 a piece and told them to go get a good meal, go get a good night sleep in a hotel, or go buy some necessities.  That little band of ostracized sinners did more for the homeless than a church full of "good" people.

So, if Jesus spent his time with prostitutes, murderers, thieves, lepers and outcasts, why can't the church?  Hate begets hate and when the church hates, they lose but, they don't know it.  They don't know what they don't know.  In reality, all are not welcome in our churches despite the pastors regurgitating it on Sunday.  That is part of the reason people are leaving the church because some of us are honest to admit that we are sinners and know that the "good" people in our churches would not accept us if they knew the truth. So you see, the people who don't go to church are not the problem, the church and its "good people" are the problem. If they would stop praying, preaching, judging, diagnosing, denying and just simply welcome, that would make all the difference.  This doesn't necessarily mean that people are walking away from faith, it just means faith is more attainable somewhere else. Maybe if the church pulled its praying hands apart, their arms would be open for embracing and welcoming rather than denying.

Occam’s razor (developed by Ockham) is the law of parsimony. It is a problem solving principle which posits that it is pointless to do something with more when it can be done with less.  In other words, simplicity is your best bet. When faced with a decision on which is the most likely strategy to be successful, generally, the most simple choice is the most efficient.

Here is an example of Occam's Razor in my life.  I volunteer for a cable access show each week and it took my predecessor an hour to set up the studio while it only takes me about half an hour.  The difference is when he put away microphone stands and camera tripods he would loosen them, fold them, tighten them then put them in their respective corner.  I would just leave them extended and put them in the corner, saving a significant amount of time setting up and taking down.  They weren't in the way and nobody else used them during the week.  Likewise, all the cables going to the cameras are about 50 feet long and he would unravel them then have to roll them up after the show.  We only need about fifteen feet of cable so I taped up about 35 feet and now I only need to uncoil and roll up fifteen feet.  He would always put out 25 chairs for the audience but if we only have six guests on the show, I only need to put out six chairs.  If they bring a friend, I can always go get another chair.  Simplicity is your best bet.

The church desperately needs to be aware of the law of parsimony.  Especially when it comes to forming committees.  The problem with a committee is that all it takes is for one person to not like an idea or say it can't be done and it probably won't be pursued.  Much worse is to assign a task to someone and they either don't get it done or do it poorly.  Committees usually have a religious agenda, an argument to win, a point to make or a cause to defend and while these may keep the church running, they are also the bane of many a church.  As a member of the staff, my preferred method of work is to meet with the pastor, toss around ideas then implement them. I spend the week talking to people about it, getting their input, researching it, then being a master of delegation, I either call people whom I trust or catch them at Sunday coffee hour and assign them a task.  Implementing deadlines and followup with each person is crucial.  I can get more accomplished in one day than a committee can get done in three months and it is the simplest route.

My pastor once charged me with the task of organizing a haunted house because our church youth group attended one and I commented that we could do better so he said "Then do it."  I researched haunted house ideas, mapped out a route for our three story rectory and spent the year casually gathering materials. Several months later I contacted people and groups in the parish asking them to be responsible for whatever haunting I planned for each room.  Nobody said no, I had over 80 volunteers and the program was a huge success.  Several hundred visitors filed through in a two hour period commenting that it was the best haunted house they've ever visited and we made several hundred dollars from donations.

Showcasing parish leadership was key.  One year the pastor was in an open coffin and the choir served as mourners. I saved flowers from funerals for the whole year and that funeral room was decked out with dead flowers, wailing choir members and creepy organ music.  Another year the pastor and associate pastor's heads were mounted on a fake wall and the secretary, wearing a pith helmet, stood proudly next to her trophy collection.  People came every year just to see what the pastor would be doing in his room.

After I left that parish a lay person took over the haunted house.  With no vision and waiting until the last minute to plan, she formed a committee where anarchy reigned, tempers flew and people who had no idea what they were doing shot down idea after idea.  The haunted house was a disaster, half the rooms didn't have anything in them.  It failed miserably and they never had one again.

Occam’s razor can serve an individual very well also and this is where I think Occam’s razor can come into play for the person who is disillusioned or disgruntled by their church, the institution, the politics or anything else that leaves them yearning for something more: Withdraw your membership. Leave the church, leave the apathy.  Form a small bible study group with family and friends.  You don't need much to run a home church, a bible and a place to sit is all.  Churches are failing across the country and they need to crumble more before we can begin to rebuild.  Many pastors need to get real jobs instead of pretending to serve the community and we need to let the money serving churches fail.  Church people are notorious for worshiping music, buildings, organs, groups, committees, activities and money.  One parish council I sat on discussed the need for attracting new members to the church - to help pay the bills.  That is totally the wrong reason for a church to exist but churches are businesses, institutions, corporations and are run by like minded lay people.  How does growth for the sake of having more money to pay the bills serve the poor, naked, hungry, dying and imprisoned?  So what do you need from a church that you can't find in your living room surrounded by like minded worshipers?  The church needs to be reminded of the commandment “Thou shall have no other Gods before me”.  This is Occam’s Razor at its best. When the church teaches love, joy, forgiveness, death, peace and God, the people will listen.  That is all they need.  Continue with worshiping other things and soon the church will be an empty room.

A big problem in our churches is poor leadership and people who lack vision.  Something I try to do with all my ministry projects is to network to organizations and people out in the community in addition to the diverse organizations within the church.  When I organized the aforementioned haunted house I made sure every organization in the church had a room to haunt, likewise, I invited local community theater organizations to haunt a room.  I asked a funeral home to donate a coffin and a local contractor to build me a working guillotine.  The people who were not part of the church were excited to see their labor being part of something bigger and they even visited the church on Sundays thereafter.  They also never said no to future requests.

I once went to a Christmas party at a home where the host hung foil stars from her ceiling and I thought that would be a good idea for the church.  I asked the pastor if we could decorate the church that way for Christmas and he said if I thought I could pull it off, do it.  I bought 300 various colored and sized stars and spent two days building a fishing line grid then hoisting it up to the ceiling from a ladder.  When I entered the church that Saturday for Mass, I was horrified to see that our forced air heat was causing the stars to wave and twinkle, thinking they would be a distraction.  When people began to arrive for the four o'clock Mass, you could hear the gasps, oo's and ah's as people entered.  The following week attendance grew by 25% at every Mass.  The stars became an annual attraction with many volunteers looking forward in taking part with the hanging them and, the pastor even purchased a lift for the project.  Now I don't know if people joined our church because of that new ministry program but, more fallen away members began attending again because something new was going on.  It also didn't hurt that the pastor used the stars in his homily for weeks to come.  The true success to that program was socializing and networking as I was able to use that program to make contacts for other programs.

At another church I offered a weekly organ recital every Tuesday at noon.  I dropped off a flyer at that new parole shelter and some of the men started attending (probably for the free coffee) and eventually began volunteering to set up, pass out programs and clean up.  They eventually asked the church to use a room for their daily AA and NA classes.  In return they provided electrical, plumbing, carpentry and painting services to the church.  A few of them joined the church, got married and had children.  People often find our churches in the most unexpected ways.  That is why we need to network and be willing to step outside of our comfort zones and areas of expertise and hire people with vision and courage.  Someone may not ever think of approaching an organist to talk to about their problems but if that organist also skis and they encounter them during a coffee hour and begin discussing the new parabolic technology, it opens a whole new dimension of relationship which can be tapped into later.  Like my disgruntled choir member, acorns can become oaks.

A woman found out that I answered a suicide hotline and she joined the choir.  It took her five years to approach and talk to me about her suicidal thoughts.  She said she never wanted to talk to me about her issues, she just wanted to be near someone who would understand and care. It was a "hem of the garment" encounter for her and for her it was all she needed to keep going.

I once inherited a church with a lot of problems. What church does not have problems?  There were three music groups; the traditional choir, the folk group and a youth choir.  There were three directors for each group and they all hated one another and worse, they planted the seeds of hate among their individual membership.  I met with each of the directors asking them what their vision for the parish was and I remember the folk group director said "Vision?  I just come in and play every Sunday.  What do I need vision for?"  So I created programs where no group had ownership but all three could participate in, together.  It took about five years before wounds began to heal and I'd say it took fifteen years before all hate was abolished. The secret wasn't in creating musical opportunities for them to participate in.  It was in the creation of non-musical activities for them to socialize in where they discovered one another outside of what they were competing with.  I organized a Living Stations of the Cross service and asked a few members from each group to participate by writing and reading personal meditations based upon an assigned station. When they heard testimony about each others fears, pains and struggles, they began to see each other for who they really were: broken and frail human beings.  When I saw them spending time together at the coffee hour, I knew healing had begun. Soon they began attending each other's concerts and Masses.

Judgmentalism, ostrcisation, fear, anger and separation slowly and insidiously breeds distance.  A woman in adultery, a doubting follower, a rebellious prodigal, a person with a record, a demon-riddled young man with substance abuse issues or mental health issues; they all need a Church which will love them, nothing more.  People who are hurt and confused feel God's love when they are cared for. They take shelter in God's love when they look with gratitude at all the beauty they see.  A church who offers all that, they will feel it too. So if their problems are growing like a bacteria, if their money problems are a concern, if they lack vision and membership is falling, they have nothing to lose by embracing grace, mercy and forgiveness and everything to gain.  Like someone caught in a rip tide, they need to stop flailing, take a deep breath and just float.  Like the boy in the story about Jesus feeding the 5,000, they must offer all they have.  Like the people in my church who left through the back door because a parole shelter moved next door, God provided and more people entered through the front door.

God works through people. The church moves forward rhythmically like a clock ticking. The key is to remember, it’s the Lord’s church. Churches should focus on this truth. When they do, time heals wounds. Conflict embraces resolution. Anger gives way to joy. Emptiness surrenders to fullness.  But first we need to forgive and not judge. Is the church willing to do that?

Society is becoming more enlightened and many good people recognize that they are sinners and are still searching for a place where they can be known and belong. A place where it feels like God lives, and the people of that church are the ones who can show it to them.  Maybe we do live in a sinful, deviant and disbelieving society but it is those people whom the church is supposed to be reaching out to.  So, for the love of God; reach.  Step out into the neighborhoods around you and partner with the amazing things already happening in the secular world and all the beautiful stuff God is already doing there.  As C. S. Lewis once said, "We're going to be really surprised who actually makes it to heaven."

Church Growth

I have had the privilege of speaking with several pastors recently about church growth or the lack of growth which many churches are experiencing across the country.  Some pastors are looking for gimmicks or programs to attract those who left and also looking for ways to welcome those who have never been.  Others are accepting of their size and diminishing membership and are desirous to settle for being in the service of those who remain.

A predominant reason people say they don't go to church is that they consider themselves spiritual and not religious and that the church is filled with hypocrites.  It is very easy to perceive the church as being filled with people who are "holier than thou."  It is also  very easy for the church to attract or foster people who "protest too much" in an effort to hide their own sinful nature.  It is easy for good people to be judgmental especially if they secretly recognize sinful desire in their own hearts.  On top of that, when some crime occurs in a church, we might discover that the perp was a pillar of the community, a lector, secretary, youth group leader, pastor or Eucharistic minister. 

It is not that the church attracts bad people.  The truth is everyone has the capacity to be a "bad" person.  There was a study by Wallerstein and Wylie where they asked 3,000 NY citizens who have never been arrested about all the things they had done in their lives.  100% of them have committed misdemeanors and were never caught and 97% had committed felonies but have never been caught.  So if you've never been caught, you must be a good person despite the bad things you've gotten away with.

About fifteen years ago I vacationed in Canada with a friend who illegally brought back Cuban cigars and prescription drugs which you couldn't buy in the US but they were available in Canada.  I thought it was very funny that I got flagged for a search and he, a Roman Catholic priest, waltzed right through. 

Today, churches often run background checks on its members in an effort to weed out the sinners.  It is good that they want to make safe sanctuaries but they need to keep in mind that most saints such as St. Paul and even Jesus, a convicted felon himself, would not be welcome in our churches for none of them would pass their background checks.  Part of the problem with organized religion is that it represents only a tiny part of the story and one that is often dangerously dysfunctional at that.

People of adversity find strength within themselves and they think that that has to do with finding meaning.  Instead of finding meaning we should call it forge for meaning for finding and searching are two different things.  Endurance is the entry way to forging meaning and, being accepted into a community is the only place that that can happen.  When we forge meaning we can incorporate that meaning into a new identity and that is what the church needs.  We need to take our faults and traumas and make them part of who we've come to be and we need to fold the worst events of our lives into a narrative of triumph as a response of things that hurt.  Instead the church tries hard to deny this.

I once encouraged a church to start a prison ministry and the response was that they didn't want to attract or associate with those kind of people.  What they failed to realize was that those people were already in the parish as convicted arsonists, drug users, DWI perps, a sex offender and burglar.  A few years later one of their 20 year old boys was arrested for dealing drugs and it still didn't dawn on them that they had the capacity to heal and the healing needed to happen in their own back yard.

When it was found out that I answered a suicide hotline, a woman grabbed me after a church service, broke down in tears and told me that her brother was arrested for committing a sex crime with a teenager, then completed suicide while in jail.  We spoke for quite some time and afterward I told the pastor what had happened so that he could be aware of the situation.  Instead of being compassionate, he became angry that the woman would confide in me and not him.  Of course, this was in a parish who abandoned a former pastor who was arrested on a DWI charge. She never trusted anyone in the parish with her pain and she carried it silently for many years. 

A woman who was raped as a teenager seemingly had her life destroyed.  She dropped out of school, gave birth to the child of the rapist and never went to college or forged a career of her own.  At the age of fifty she was asked if she ever thought of the rapist and she said she did and she felt sorry for him because, he has a beautiful daughter and two beautiful grandchildren and he doesn't know that and she does.  As it turns out, she considers herself the lucky one.  She credits the support and love of her community for the blessings in her life. 

Some things we are born to; our race, a disability, our sexuality, our gender and some are things that happen to us; being a rape victim, a prisoner, a Katrina survivor, a 9/11 survivor.  Religious identity means being able to enter into a church community to draw strength from that community and to give strength there too.  A church community is not for someone to enter in and say "I am here and I hurt," but rather "I hurt and I am here."  But we are ashamed, judgmental and can't tell our stories to the "good people" but our stories are the foundation of identity.

Just as the stories we tell come from our life experiences, our lives can grow from the stories that we tell.  The bible is filled with such stories of healing, joy, forgiveness and com-passion (suffering with one another).  That is the key; one another and, you won't find that on a Facebook page.  Instead, the church looks for ways to attract the wrong people because the church is interested in numbers and money.  If the church's goal is to promote healing and acceptance through pain and struggle, numbers and money will be the symptom thereof.  Currently, that calling is being lived out through social services and other organizations and they are doing a better job than the church is.   So, who needs the church . . .

It isn't solely about changing ourselves but about changing the world.  It doesn't make what is wrong right but makes what is wrong precious and you won't learn that from social services.  The road less traveled is what makes all the difference and the church is abandoning that road.  We can not be ourselves without the misfortune that drives our search for meaning.  "I take pleasure in infirmities," St. Paul wrote, "for when I am weak, then I am strong."  The church is trying to be strong while denying its weakness and driving out people it thinks will make them weak.

Oppression breeds the power to oppose it and that is the cornerstone of identity.  However, you can't change the church if you don't belong to it.  If a church is full of hypocrites, leaving it doesn't change that.  I know a church whose organist was arrested and half the church supported him and half wanted to abandon him.  The church chose to abandon him and eventually all the supporters left and the haters won.  That church's attendance dropped and is currently in danger of closing because - hate begets hate.  If the church chose love and forgiviness, who knows where it would be today. 

Today's church does not know what oppression is because they are doing the oppressing.  If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes and we've always been attracted to the heroes in our society.  Satan doesn't have to fight the church because he has joined it.  When we shelter our children from adversity, we've failed as parents for it is adversity which trains and teaches children how to prepare and cope for what the real world may throw at them.  Someone once asked gay activist Harvey Milk what they could do to help the cause and Harvey told him to go out and tell someone.  There is always someone who wants to confiscate humanity and there are always stories to restore it but we need people to tell the story.  By banishing sinners the church is denying and forgetting its story and its calling.   Certainly every church will proclaim that it welcomes sinners but watch what happens if a registered sex offender or former murderer would like to join.  Ask Squeaky Fromme what church she is welcome in.

If the church lives out loud, we can trounce hatred and restore everyone's lives.  Then we can truly celebrate who we are and truly see ourselves in a healthy, life-giving, complimentary relationship with creation around us. Forge meaning and build identity then, invite the world to share your discovery and joy.  As the Hollywood axiom goes, "If you build it they will come."  Those who hear may even enter in for, they too have a story they'd like to share if they are brave enough and welcome to do it and then in the process, heal others too afraid to speak up.  The big question is though, does the church want to listen?

Washington State

I recently took a trip out to Washington state, here is my overall review of the northwest corner of the US.

The landscape, mountains, rivers, streams, parks and forests are amazing.  If you are a hiker, there are many options for you to keep busy up there.  The people don't seem to be as rabid about hiking as there are in the Adirondack region of upstate New York but, there is enough of a variety of terrain to satisfy most hikers for a short period of time.

The food is good in all the restaurants of this state.  I routinely availed myself to several bowls of clam chowder and eggs Benedict at each place I ate.  Every diner failed on the eggs Benedict.  So far, the best place I've encountered to get that dish has been the Downtown Diner in Lake Placid.  The Fisherman's Restaurant in Seattle has the absolute best clam chowder I've ever had.   You can either get it in a bread bowl or a regular bowl.  You get bread with it anyway and the bread is from the hollowed out bowls of other soup orders so it is less expensive to get it in a regular bowl.   If you love to shop, plan on spending a day at the Pike Market.  It is a wonderful place and has everything.

The price for food is high in this state but you will generally get a higher quality and freshness than you would find anywhere else.  We went to a very fancy restaurant near a sailing club and pier one evening where everything about the restaurant was excellent except - most of the food came out of individually wrapped plastic bags as if they came from a food warehouse.  The salad was definitely pre-mixed from bags, the burgers had wax paper between each patty, the fish was from individually vacuum sealed pouches.  The cooking area is actually open and part of the dining area so you can watch the staff prepare all the food.  I wasn't impressed watching one of the chefs handle raw meat then reach over to a spice bowl and use the same unwashed hand to sprinkle spices on a cooked dish.  All this in an establishment with minimum $30 entrees.

While visiting the Olympic Peninsula, we turned on the news one morning and the first five minutes were devoted to a story about a tree falling down.  They even interviewed people who lived nearby and asked if anyone witnessed it or how the news of its fall will attract or impact rubberneckers driving by.   It was funny.

Driving on the roads of Washington is different from driving New York roads.  First, all NY roads have route markers every tenth of a mile and those would have been convenient in Washington State since I didn't always know where I was.  Many of the Washington streets have both route number names and formal names, sometimes a third name.  Often my GPS couldn't locate any of them.

I found the people of Washington to be often belligerent.  I went inside a Native American gift shop and the Anglo woman from Ohio who ran it evaded most of my questions about the indigenous people.  Each answer was accusatory and insinuated that I was somehow prejudice.  I knew this woman wasn't worth talking to further when she said that Columbus landed on Plymouth Rock.  You can't trust the information from a person who has that degree of ignorance.

I was walking along a river front park when two dogs came out of the woods and started to follow me.  They zigzagged in front of me for about two miles.  Each time I came upon another person, that person yelled at me for not having my dogs on a leash.  One woman asked me if I was carrying any poop bags for my dogs.  I told her they were not my dogs.  She asked again, "But are you cleaning up after them?"  I said, "They are not my dogs."  She then said "I am going to report you to the park ranger."

One place where you do find wonderful people are in the pot shops.  Yes, marijuana is legal in this state.  I don't smoke (both parents died from lung disorders) but my travel companions did, so, we stopped in several of these stores during the course of our travels.  You immediately feel "at home" once you walk in.  Everyone is cheerful, friendly and courteous.  While standing in line you can get directions, restaurant tips, hiking information and advice on what to buy in that shop.  The customers ranged in ages between about 30 to 70.  There were nice grandmotherly people in the shops, too.  Legalized marijuana and these shops are a very good thing for elderly people who have chronic pain and disease for they can benefit greatly from the pain relieving effects of marijuana.  For those who can't afford prescription drugs or can't tolerate the side effects of pharmaceuticals, marijuana is a Godsend.

Now, I know, according to Harry Anslinger, marijuana is a devil drug which causes white girls to have sexual relations with black men (Harry used a different word) where pregnancy and syphilis will ensue after sex with black men, and it will also cause young men to go on murderous rampages, go mad and lead to other drug uses.  I'm sure if Anslinger was correct, the news that day wouldn't have led off with a tree falling since the marijuana shops were packed.  I also noted that all the medical marijuana shops were out of business.  Too bad NY is spending a fortune on that industry eventually to bite the dust.

The facts are, everything we think we know about cannabis is false, exaggerated, cherry picked or made up.   The government made up lies and exaggerated truths about it back in the thirties simply because they didn't know how to tax it and it was cutting into the sale of alcohol and tobacco.  People without knowledge of the facts and statistics perpetuate the myth out of baseless fear and ignorance.

Shortly after President Barack Obama’s comments that pot is no more dangerous than alcohol, his deputy drug czar, Michael Botticelli, reluctantly agreed.  Botticelli’s office considers marijuana dangerous and harmful but Rep. Gerry Connolly of VA challenged the ignorant Botticelli.  “How many people die from marijuana overdoses every year?” Connolly asked Botticelli.  “I don’t know that I know,” Botticelli replied. “It is very rare.”  “Very rare. Now just contrast that with prescription drugs, unintentional deaths from prescription drugs; one American dies every 19 minutes,” Connolly said. “Nothing comparable to marijuana. Is that correct?”  Botticelli agreed.  “Hundreds of thousands of people die every year from alcohol related deaths. Automobile, liver disease, esophageal cancer, blood poisoning,” Connolly continued. “Is it not a scientific fact that there is nothing comparable with marijuana? I’m not saying it is good or bad, but when we look at deaths and illnesses, alcohol, other hard drugs are certainly — even prescription drugs — are a threat to public health in a way that just isolated marijuana is not. Isn’t that a scientific fact? Or do you dispute that fact?”  “I don’t dispute that fact,” Botticelli said.  In an interview with the New Yorker magazine published last month, President Obama said that he views pot as a “bad habit” and “a vice” but no more dangerous than alcohol.

So, why then is it illegal?  Why are people arrested and sent to prison for pot use or possession?  Yes, $$$, for it will kill the medical marijuana industry, it will gouge the profits from alcohol, tobacco and PRESCRIPTION MEDICINE sales.  Back in the twenties, marijuana was an effective cure and treatment for many mental health disorders and addictions, such as alcoholism.  Why is this country so blind to truths and still believes in antiquated lies?  Is it simply because our parents told us it was bad because they were told it was bad by profiteers who told us it was bad?

Washington State is doing a couple of things right.  First, the state has pulled in over $70,000,000 in tax revenue from the sale of marijuana since the first of the year.  That is about ten million per month.  The chicken little people are panicking about drugged driving but if you look at the statistics, fatal accidents caused by DWI accidents are down significantly.  For instance, in 2002 there were 450 fatalities in the first seven months of the year.  This year there were under 200.  People are drinking alcohol less.  Sure, the chicken little people will say that there has been and increase in the number of drivers testing positive for THC who have also had accidents but that does not mean they were high when they had their accident, only that there was THC in their system.  The drug supposedly stays in the system for about 30 days from use.  If I have a glass of wine, then get in an accident a week later, you cannot blame the wine.

The down side of legalized pot is that cigarette and alcohol sales are down but, that is good.  And that is another thing about this state, alcohol can be purchased in grocery stores and places such as Walmart and drug stores.  In my state, illegal activities are rampant from liquor stores.  One of their favorite scams is to keep your receipt and cash in manufacturer rebates that the buyer may not be aware of.  That doesn't appear to be happening when the merchandise is sold from the supermarkets.  NY has some growing up to do.

There are no amusement parks in Washington.  Apparently the weather is not conducive to such investments.  That is too bad.  A major amusement park would attract people from all over the state, at least on sunny days.  Everyone I spoke to was disappointed that their state didn't have one and said they would support it if they did.

Black berry bushes are everywhere in this state.  You can't drive down any road without seeing copious amounts of berries growing wild on the side of the road.  They must be very plentiful because I never once saw anyone picking or eating them.  I stopped to pick and eat some and could tell that nobody had picked any of the berries prior to me.  Strange.  People must take them for granted since they are so plentiful.

Washington is a gorgeous state with much to offer.  If you visit, definitely check out Pikes Market and plan to spend a day if you enjoy shopping.  There are minor tours, cruises and other benign activities to partake in also.  For instance, you may wish to take the Underground Seattle tour for the stories but otherwise, it is just a walk through various basements.  I'd certainly visit again.