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Sometimes, God Gives Us Great Favors

Posted on April 22, 2009 by Mike Bock

Monday, April 20, my brother-in-law and long time friend of 50 years, Jim Dunaway, Associate Minister of Centerville Methodist Church, passed away. His obituary and details of his visitation and funeral can be seen here.

We all knew that Jimmy’s time was short, but kept hoping that maybe his passing could be yet delayed. His last several days he nose dived. On Monday his wife of 50 years, my sister, Carole, his three sons — David, Dan, and Matt — his son’s wives, his brother-in-laws, gathered by his bed at Bethany Luthern. Patty, our long time friend, and Steven, pastor of Centerville Methodist, also were there. The wonderful nurses from Hospice told us Jim’s time had come.

Together, we read scripture and sang gospel songs. Steven and Patty read several beautiful passages, including Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd….” I was on the verge of suggesting we read to Jim the great thoughts about love in Corinthians — one big theme emphasized in Jimmy’s ministry has been the power and reality of unconditional love — and I was awestruck when, instead, Patty began to read a scripture that starts with a painful lament, a terrible thought, Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, the scripture Christ quoted on the cross. I had never listened to the words so carefully. The Psalm continues, “I am poured out like water, and all of my bones are out of joint … My strength is dried up … But be not far from me, O Lord, my strength, hasten to help me.”

The last to arrive was Danny, and it seemed after Danny got there, Jimmy acknowledged him and became more relaxed. Carole later said Jim was waiting for Dan. Jimmy’s breathing grew ever weaker and, as we were singing, “What A Friend We Have In Jesus,” Jim left us quietly, reverently. He was at rest. We were all in tears. We all had a profound sense of gratitude that it should end in such a way. It was a feeling that, on the day Jim went home, God had granted us a great favor by allowing things to come together as they had.

Jimmy was a Methodist minister for over 50 years. He started preaching when he was still a student at Asbury College. When he finally retired, he became an Associate Minister for Centerville Methodist, working a lot with the youth of the church. For the last two and one half years, Jim has been battling cancer that started in his prostate.

It had been a cold, rainy day. We got back to the house in south Dayton in the early afternoon, and Becky, David’s wife, returned to Columbus. Becky telephoned several hours later and said that over their house in Columbus was a beautiful complete rainbow. She said it was like Papa was smiling at them. We went outside and found the sun was shining amid a light drizzle, and, sure enough, in the sky shone a beautiful rainbow. We were all amazed. (I stole the rainbow pictures on this post are off the internet — but the one in Dayton today was very spectacular.) My niece, Jennifer, who lives in Lexington, knew nothing about the rainbows in Dayton and Columbus. But she sent a text message and said that in Lexington, there was a beautiful rainbow. It was like Jimmy was smiling at her, she said.

Such a strange mixture of emotion, when tears mean many different things and all at the same time. It hurts. But when the time came to let him go, through it all, God’s grace hastened to help us. Jim leaves eleven grandchildren and a multitude of people to whom, throughout his life, he showed the light of unconditional love. His is a life well lived. He fought a good fight, he finished the course, he kept the faith. Jim Dunaway has been a big part of my life for the last 50 years. He is a great friend, and I am going to miss him very very much.

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The First Allegiance Of Grassroots Tea-Baggers Should Be To Make Our Democracy Work

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Mike Bock

I made it to the big Dayton Tea Party yesterday for part of the Court House Square rally, but left early. I missed the Seth Morgan finale. Big crowd. I finally found a parking spot at Democratic HQ on Wilkerson. A policeman I asked estimated the crowd at 8000 people. To get so many to show up to a rally is impressive.

Kimberly Fletcher, dressed as if for the original tea party.

I heard Kimberly Fletcher’s rousing speech. That has to be fun — giving punch line after punch line to a cheering crowd. She condemned both Democrats and Republicans. (cheer, cheer). She said the people must take back their government (cheer, cheer). She said we hired them and we could also fire them (cheer, cheer) And that was just the warm up. She was interrupted repeatedly with applause. Her speech is a good model of Tea-Bagger thinking and when it is posted on the Dayton Teaparty website, I intend on excerpting it here. The content of her ideas deserves to be discussed. Claims and complaints in her speech are reflected in the signs shown below.

Fletcher is a dynamic speaker and I’m wondering if she has political ambitions. She is founder of a conservative group called Homemakers for America. According to her bio, “Kimberly has been heard on numerous regional and national TV and radio programs including the Sean Hannity Show and her articles have appeared American Thinker and Worldnetdaily. Kimberly and Derek have 8 children and have been homeschooling parents for 9 years. They currently live in Clayton Ohio.”

I also heard an impassioned speech by Kate Burch. Her bio says she is a retired clinical psychologist and aspiring fiber artist, a mother and proud grandmother, and that she, husband and two cats live in Oakwood. Burch spoke rhapsodically about the wonders of the Fair Tax. She started her speech with a litany of questions — each soliciting an audience response: “How would you like to never pay Income Tax ever again?” (Yeah, Yes, cheer, cheer) “How would you like to decide how much tax you will pay?” (Cheer, cheer) “How would you like to get rid of the IRS?” (Yes, Cheer, Cheer)

I found myself getting ever more amused at the acceleration of the absurdity in her questions and found myself chuckling out loud at the thought of what she might say next: “How would you like to live on Sugar Mountain?” Wow. (Cheer, cheer)

This crowd was having fun. You expect a rally to hep people up to new levels of enthusiasm. But, eventually, our huge and complicated problems require rational dialogue. The speeches I heard from Fletcher and Burch were Rah Rah Rah. The underlying, but unasked, question, posed by this rally is: Can we get our democracy to work? Can we have a government of the people, for the people? Can we have a country where average citizens can share in the great prosperity of this country? Getting our democracy to work will requires a process of hard work, with many people committed to building community and to participating in authentic problem solving. Many people who now see themselves as Tea-Baggers, I’m thinking, might be won over to meaningfully participate in the long term process that building our democracy requires.

Fletcher and Burch, and other Tea-Baggers, can have an attitude to raise hell, to ridicule, to threaten. They project an attitude of self righteous assurance that they have the answers, but maybe that attitude came more from the rally setting, than their own dispositions. I heard more than one Howard Beal assertion: “We’re not going to take it anymore.” But after rousing speeches, what, really do the Tea-Baggers have in mind doing? Throwing tantrums? Marching in the streets? What if they find that 70% of Americans simply reject their point of view? Can they accept the verdict of democracy?

At the Tea-Bagger rally I heard the cheer: USA. USA. USA. The USA the Tea-Baggers want is a USA with small government, few regulations, low taxes, free market. I’m wondering if these grassroots activists, who cared enough to show up at a downtown rally, could begin to buy into a different view of the USA? Could they begin to see something more important than low taxes? How about democracy? Isn’t democracy more important than low taxes? The ascendant view of the USA, I believe, I hope, that more and more people will want to support is a view that sees the USA as a place where “the people” work together to build democracy, build community, build dialogue, build the Common Good, a USA in which everyone can lead a secure and prosperous life — not a USA where a 30% minority somehow manages to impose its will on the majority.

I saw some great signs:

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Vic Harris: The Tea-Bagger Tax Protest Lacks Substance, Conservatives Lack Good Ideas

Posted on April 14, 2009 by Mike Bock

Vic Harris sent me this article. Vic’s previous post can be read here.

Conservatives around the country will conduct “Tea-bagger” protest parties on April 15th — Tax-day. Historically, the Boston Tea Party’s central complaint was not just that the British demanded a tax on tea and other goods. The complaint was that taxation was imposed without representation. Because the colonists had no representatives in the British Parliament, these taxes were viewed as tyrannical.

I’ve been wondering what the Tea-Bagger protest is all about. The modern-day Tea-baggers are fully represented in Congress. The only tea-baggers who can complain about taxation without representation are those who live in Washington DC.

The modern day “Tea-baggers” are not protesting their lack of representation. They are protesting taxes in general. Tax protest is always “red-meat” for conservatives, but, the fact is, President Obama and the Democrats have just passed the largest middle-class tax-cut in history. Let me write that again: the largest middle-class tax-cut in history. Most Tea-Baggers, I imagine, have incomes of less than $250,000 a year, so most Tea-baggers, therefore, are protesting high taxes even though President Obama and the Democrats just cut their taxes. For the rich conservatives who will watch the protests at home on the “Fair and Balanced” Fox “News,” a network that has been shamelessly promoting the events, their taxes will go up in 2010, but will still be 10 percentage points lower than they were under their Patron Saint Ronald Reagan.

Tea- baggers also protest what they see as a spread of dreaded Socialism. Conservative leaders, evidently, hope that their followers will not be able to distinguish socialism from communism. I guess they know their audience. At a Tea-Bagger rally, I can hear someone shout out the question, “Who hates Socialism?” And I can hear the Tea-Baggers predictably roar, “We Do!!!” But, I doubt any Tea-bagger will tear up their Social Security card, or refuse government Medicare payments to their grandma. These government programs, initially condemned as socialistic, are hugely popular and beneficial — even for protesters.

Tea-Baggers are also protesting government deficit spending. Conservative leaders have been carping about spending for months because of the price of the President’s Stimulus Package. But where was their protest when former President Bush took a $1 trillion surplus bequeathed him from President Clinton, and turned it into a $1 trillion deficit? Two trillion dollars gone. The dollars vanished on tax-cuts for the wealthy, expensive wars of choice and huge pay outs to drug companies. Yes, to be fair, I’m concerned about our growing national debt, but, I was also concerned about the huge debts run up by Bush. Conservatives who now talk about fiscal principles, but when they had the chance, failed to hold Bush accountable to those principles, hardly seem credible.

It seems to me that forces behind the Tea-Baggers are not really so concerned about high taxes, high spending, or the deficit. The truth is, conservatives and the Republicans who lead them have no ideas. Their message is simply one of fear. It’s a fail-safe technique: scare the hell out of the fringe in the base, spread the fear to rest of the base, and bring enough moderates along to make a majority.

But, the country has changed. The scare-tactics that worked so well for so many years are less effective in a country tired of war and uncertain of its economic future. This is a time to encourage hope and to appeal to the best in each of us. This is not a time to fear-monger or to appeal to our darkest instincts. Conservatives only chance to gain the support of the American people is to craft a message of hope, based on valid ideas. Until they can present solid ideas people can embrace, conservatives can symbolically fill all our nation’s waterways with tea and it won’t matter.