For the entirety of its existence, the black church has relied on a largely oral tradition that, to this day, eschews paperwork: memos, business plans, contracts. We do it all on a handshake because that's how we've always done it. But, then, six months later, we're arguing because everybody's memory of the specific game plan is different. I've been to countless high-level meetings in black churches where nobody took down even a single word of the meeting, and where no follow-up memorandum, summarizing the meeting and what we agreed to do, was ever drawn up. The fact is, a great many leaders in our community lean on the old handshake rule because they can't type. Literally; that's the main reason many old school church leaders and department heads perpetuate the old school handshake method is they, literally, can't type. Writing, therefore, becomes a torture for them because they've grown up in a world where typing was something women did, or was viewed as an optional skill. These days, everybody types. Many of our leaders today are ashamed or embarrassed that they can't type and so dismiss the notion of paperwork in a folksy, "Aww, it don't take all that." This is what we do: rather than admit our insecurities or our shortcomings, we go on the attack. We demonize and villainize whatever it is that we can't do, whatever makes us feel insecure, making a virtue of our cowardice. And this mindset continues to stunt church growth to this day. Because we don't read, paper— memos, proposals, and yes, phone messages— flutter around the ministry offices or are left abandoned in departmental mailboxes. Most churches I know have these 1960's-style hanging files for each department. These file boxes are typically overflowing, mostly with junk mail and solicitations and magazines. But, somewhere amid the stuff you don't need is something you do. These churches are, typically, dead letter offices where no paper is moving and where leadership is difficult to reach unless you get in your car and drive down to the church and lie in wait for them. God cannot possibly be pleased or magnified by these people, as they tend to impede God's work and tend to set a bad example for God and for your ministry.   READ ESSAY

I have seen, in my black experience, great and frequent ruptures of familial and community bonds over typically minor and meaningless disagreements. People who have been friends for years and even decades who now no longer speak to one another. It's as though, with each successive generation, we've lost patience with one another. The two basic problems seem to me to be: (a) we're very thin skinned. (b) we're very insecure. These are two things a Christian should never be. A real Christian, who has truly embraced Christ, should be secure enough in him or herself to not be intimidated or frightened by people who are different from themselves. Insecurity mitigates the fruit of the Spirit (Ephesians 5), depriving us of our patience, as our fear of losing ourselves to some other thought or agenda drives us to aggressively (and, often, irrationally) pursue or defend some goal or purpose to the exclusion of our brothers or sisters. Our Way or The Highway. I find it curious that, in my Christian experience (and speaking in unscientific statistical terms), the black Christian community is often the demographic least like Christ. We are so very quick to anger. We are so thin-skinned that we can't take anything. We are vengeful and we hold grudges unto death. We over-dress for church (the new trend in white Christianity being polo shirts and khakis, with cappuccino machines in the lobby), wear too much cologne, too many jewels, and go to great lengths and expense to have a shiny new car at all costs. We look down our nose at people who have less than we do. We experience a rush of exuberant gratification just knowing our expensive car and expensive clothes sets us above our lessors in the congregation.   READ ESSAY

In 26 years of ministry, it's been my experience that there's always been some amount of friction between musicians and the churches they serve. Musicians are a special breed of people, with a special purpose and calling [2 Chronicles 5]. They are utterly unlike any people you know (unless they are also musicians). They don't think the way regular folk do. They don't have the same interests or appetites regular folks do. Musicians will, likely, not want to come to your cookout but will drive from here to eternity to hear (or better play with) other musicians. When a musician is in the church, sitting in the congregation, he or she is, on some level, desiring to be playing. It's inbred. It's what we do. The most basic advice I can offer you for dealing with these people is for you to come to terms with the fact They Are Not You. Just accept the notion that you will, likely, never understand their perspective on things. That they have their own unique view of the world, and the church they go to is not the same church you go to because their view of the world is just that different. To be fair, and no offense to anybody, musicians tend to be more practical and better informed than a lot of lay people and even ministers. Musicians know Where To Put The Flower Vase. Seriously, if you're not sure Where To Put The Flower Vase, ask a musician. They know. Musicians tend to see the world through the eyes of, well, a musician. They tend to see things in 16 bars with a turnaround, and attend to practical matters of the church in a less emotionally-driven way than non-musicians, who see much of what goes on in the church in the context of a larger tradition and in the fuzzy warmth of childhood memories of This Is How We've Always Done It.   READ ESSAY

the unexpected god

There's this preacher I know who spontaneously comes up with these extraordinary truths. Wonderful ideas and precepts that you just want to run and write down because they have so much meaning for and bearing upon your life. One day he was praying and he was thanking God for doing unexpected things with unexpected people. Unexpected people. Yes. That's about right. Too often, in Our Church Thing, we marginalize people and pigeonhole people and ignore the greater good— the enormous wealth of possibility, anointing and purpose— we all, as fellow strugglers in this humanity, present. Voices silenced and hands stilled by the Elks Club mentality of routine over purpose. The church, you see, should never have a routine, but should always have a purpose. The two are rarely congruent and almost never interchangeable. In routine we find comfort and reassurance in the structure of ritual. In purpose we find the anxiety of the unknown and the reward of the unexpected. The unexpected gifts of unexpected people.   READ ESSAY

oj stupid

In this Age of The CEO Perp Walk, changing the tune of the American press from the economy to national security would seem a good idea. It is, of course, preposterous to assume the administration would actually put anyone in harm's way for political gain. I am not suggesting this is what they are in fact doing. I am also not saying anything about Iraq having the world's second largest oil reserve. Bush is not saying anything about it, either, not even if only to dispel the thought that we're out to grab the oil. This is how evil, how conniving this all looks. Not talking about the politics or the oil only encourages that line of cynicism. Even if the administration's motives are absolutely pure, their good takes on the appearance of evil by the timing of their initiative and their silence on these kinds of issues. Skepticism is a cancer to any military campaign. While preparing this country for war, the administration has done itself and this nation a disservice by encouraging our cynicism with maneuvers that are either too clever for us to parse or are exactly what they appear to be: stupid. I am suggesting that they are stupid. Very stupid. Or perhaps they are OJ Stupid: pretend to look stupid, leave blood trails, drop gloves, low speed Bronco chase, so the defense goes, "You can't possibly think he's that stupid? It's a frame up!" which makes OJ Stupid a very smart maneuver. So Clinton was the victim of a vast right wing conspiracy, OJ was set up, and this Iraq business can't possibly be about the 2002 elections because that possibility really is just too ridiculous and obscene. Which, to me, means the Bush White House is either Stupid Stupid or OJ Stupid. Stupid Stupid if they are genuinely protecting vital US interests while not muzzling Karl Rove and Andrew Card (and not hiding a clearly uncomfortable Colin Powell). OJ Stupid if all of that chaos was meant to make us suspicious of the administration's motives, while dismissing the obvious because it's just too skeevy to be contemplated.  READ ESSAY

short view

Excerpts from my weblog, on whatever's on my mind at the time:

Cop Block: CBS Scores With Hack and Robbery Homicide Division
DeBunk: Diamonds Are A Despot's Best Friend
Off The Wall: What Michael Jackson Should Do
1 Simple Rule: What Your Teenage Daughter REALLY Needs To Know
Still The One: Bill Clinton on Letterman
Still Waving: The Profit & Loss of 9|11

priest radio

There Is No Bunker In The Woods:
The Case For Religious Broadcasters

breakfast in sodom

It's difficult for me to talk about Riverside, a youth-oriented community choir I organized in 1996, without getting ticked off. Riverside had a kind of Sounds of Blackness R&B feel, and we sounded more like Prince than Kirk Franklin. Within six months, we became the outlaw choir of the town, shunned and opposed by most every major black church here in the Springs. Beginning mainly with a band of Jabari Taylor (aka R&B singer-songwriter-producer Bari), Steve Frazier, and myself, Riverside attracted the attention of Writer-Producer-Keyboardists Jemond and James Gaulden, and their younger poet-rapper brother Jason, as well as lead singers Chris Starks and Marla Smith. Adult coordinators Mildred Hayes and Yolanda Pearson helped coordinate and schedule the group, and the choir quickly made its mark in town. I went to nearly every black church in town, looking for a place to rehearse the choir. Church politics being what they are, none of my phone calls were returned. My experience with Riverside provided the origins of my current disdain for much of what goes on in the black church here. I could hardly fathom the paranoia and downright stupidity that led certain pastors to actively organize against a positive and effective and well-managed and organized youth ministry. But, for about a year, Riverside was an energized, going concern, full of life and laughter and energized young people who loved God and loved each other

nadia

At 14, Nadia is this little bundle of contradictions. Too old to be a child and too young to be a woman. A volatile mix of insecurity and ego. Always complaining and ready to give up, she plays this futile game of trying to convince me she's somehow less luminescent than we both know she is. The novelty of recording has worn off and she is now confronting the sheer boring repetition of it. It's work, and a lot of it. I spend a lot of time manipulating her. Trying to get her to think. To pray. To feel something. And not just to feel it but to share it with me, something that is fairly difficult for adolescents to do. At 8, a typical girl will hang on my every word and want so many hugs and kisses and smiles and so much attention. At 25, she's fully vested in adulthood and capable of meeting me on my own terms. And, at nearly every age in between, she is that greatest of mysteries; the Silent One who surely scrutinizes everything in detail yet chooses to keep her own counsel. The mystery person who makes me uncomfortable in my own skin; who keeps me guessing about where I stand with her. In the summer of 2000 I spent six weeks working with an extraordinary young girl from my church, Relevant Word Ministries. Nadia was a frail, overly polite wisp of a girl who sang a capella renditions of Alone In The Garden and Jesus Loves Me in church. When the pastor needed a demo to ship around the country, I decided to take Nadia in the studio— a place of loathing for me. I figured we'd try three or so songs, mostly tracks prepared by R&B singer-songwriter-producer Bari for my New Witness project. But, once I got her in the studio and began to experiment with different things, new and varied possibilities presented themselves. I suddenly rose from obscurity to becoming, "The guy who did that demo with Nadia." 

black out:
fox's whitewashing of bulworth

Black people. by and large, did not go see Bulworth. I didn't even know Halle Berry was in Bulworth, let alone that her character, Nina, is the central and pivotal figure in the story, The ad campaign for Bulworth was incredibly vague and lacked real details about the plot or even the cast. All I saw were lots of images of Jack Warden and Christine Baranski, and Oliver Pratt, as well as Beatty's Bulworth stuffing his mouth full of crab, dancing, and waffling through a few speeches. It seemed 20th Century Fox either didn't know how to explain Bulworth to us, or were (my guess) terrified we'd find out that Bulworth, for all its A Christmas Carol meets Carol Burnette farce, is actually a black film. Bulworth is a black film starring Warren Beatty. A film about blacks, starring blacks. There are, I'd guess, about a dozen African American actors in Bulworth with speaking parts, and at least 300 extras. Black actors everywhere in Bulworth— everywhere, that is, except on the key art (the art used for movie posters, ads, and home video products). None of the brilliant black supporting cast made it onto the odd movie poster: a caricature of an open-mouthed Beatty with Bulworth, dressed in hip-hop clothes emerging. It was an enigmatic image, and a promo campaign designed to obscure, as much a possible, what this film was actually about and who was in it, so, I suppose, Fox could trick Beatty's white-shoe crowd into signing up for opening weekend and, astonishingly, not invite any of the people this film would actually appeal to— black people.

stranger than fiction

In Nixon, Anthony Hopkins was clearly doing Nixon, but he was obviously Anthony Hopkins as well. A composite character, a neo-Nixon, emerged from this combination of personalities  that satisfied us that, yes, this was Nixon on the screen, but it was also familiar enough as Hopkins for us to not be jolted out of the story. Alternatively, Aussie film director (and Bill Clinton clone) Roger Donaldson opted to not even try for a JFK clone in the melodrama Thirteen Days, choosing Bruce Greenwood, a man who has, I guess, a head shaped like Kennedy's but otherwise does not look or sound much like him, to fill the film's center chair. Thirteen Days succeeds, however, on the sheer strength of Greenwood's acting ability. Greenwood simply runs away with it, turning in an understated and restrained but weighty performance that delivers every knot in JFK's stomach during  the Cuban Missile Crisis. In Ali, however, director Michael Mann reaches for Muhammad Ali at the expense of Will Smith, losing Smith in the process, and most of Ali's potential audience with him. Had more of Smith been in the mix, had we gone for the composite Ali rather than the literal Ali, this film would have been hilarious, I mean a scream, and the box office would have been far healthier. In a film that got so very much right, I am stunned at how wrong they got Ali. I have absolutely no clue how Smith won a nomination for this performance. The difference between this film and a great film would have been to let Will Smith not only be Ali, but be Will Smith at the same time. That, my friends, would have truly been a knockout.

philly: case closed

I was getting ready to turn in last night, figuring I'd taped NYPD Blue, only to discover I had not, in fact, taped Blue but taped the series finale of Philly. An odd leftover show, I suppose, as they'd just had their season finale two weeks ago. I was stunned by the suggestion that this show had been canned, and wondered what moron at ABC programming made that call. This was a show just bursting with potential, and stocked with colorful characters who would only become more colorful; an infrastructure that would become more dense and purposeful as the show found its way. But it needed to be allowed to find it. I suppose the main problem with Philly was the show's star herself. Kim Delaney has always been a delightful and talented actress, but, perhaps, in struggling to flesh out Kathleen Maguire, Delaney still grappled with the toughness of Diane Russell. Diane always worked well in an ensemble. She was an interesting voice in the chorus and occasional lead singer, but she was not a solo act. Kathleen Maguire lacks the gravity of Diane Russell, and Kim Delaney thus far lacks the injunctive demand a soloist must impose to get us in front of the tube every week. I'm not sure what it is, but Delaney does not have it: the stuff that makes me not wanna tape her but watch her.

a bug's life

The Goblin mask sucked. And, I'm sorry, but maybe I missed a meeting: to me, Kirsten Dunst just isn't that hot. Both Peter Parker and Mary Jane were both way out of character: Peter was too wimpy (Peter is not a wimp), and MJ was, well, there really wasn't enough to Dunst's portrayal to even characterize what she was way too much of. Having said that, let me say this, as sincerely as I possibly can: this is, possibly, the finest super-hero film ever made. Had the movie only had great stunts, had it only had a script you could swear Stan Lee wrote (except that his Mary Jane was way more interesting than Dunst), had it only been a fabulous special effects bonanza, I still wouldn't have cared. What absolutely floored me was not just that spider-Man could move, but that he moved like Spider-Man. Not like Tim Burton's idea of how Batman moves, but how Spider-Man actually moves. This was a film obviously created by people who actually knew something about Spider-Man. People who loved Spider-Man and who cared a great deal about getting it right. 

oswald

I don't talk much about my years as editor of Marvel's Spider-Man line. There's a good reason for that. It was a terribly unhappy time of my life, both personally and professionally. The office politics were ugly, as Editor In Chief Jim Shooter came under increasing fire from his own staff as he turned the screws on us to be both timely and to increase the quality of Marvel's books. If I had it to do over again, I never would have accepted the appointment as editor of the Spider-Man franchise. I made a lot of mistakes. I hurt a lot of people. I lost a lot of friends. It's a difficult thing for me to discuss. We'd all like to be heroes of our own stories, and it's hard to tell the story of when you were a chimp. I spent two and a half years of my life being an incredible chimp, paralyzed by my own chimp-ness and chimposity, and wholly convinced that, if I lost my job at Marvel, the world would end. Well, I did and it didn't. And now, nearly two decades later, I have some maturity and experience under my belt. Not that I'm any less of a chimp at 40 then I was at 23, but I have the perspective and, yes, the wisdom now to be horrified by the choices I made.

table for one

Over the years I have learned I am not like most human beings in that my need for humanity and human contact is not nearly so great as my need for peace in my life and for being understood and respected. I have learned to enjoy my own company. To enjoy resting my voice for days and sometimes weeks on end. I like me. It's taken years, even decades, to undo the terrible damage inflicted by a childhood of emotional abuse, a Hebrew stranded in Babylon, surrounded by other kids who had no clue about me or my purpose or why I was so different. I am a loner. I've always been a loner. That's the problem. I've spent a lifetime apologizing for and making excuses for the fact that I am different. In my nightstand by my bed there are two major documents, Thomas A. Kempis' The Imitation of Christ, and an old Newsweek review of Marcelle Clements' The Improvised Woman, which deals mainly with women facing a crisis of singleness. Clements writes, "At some point there came [a] very perplexing realization: I was fine." And I am. There's nothing wrong with me. I don't need fixing. I don't need stalking. In large measure, I require only your kindest thoughts, your prayers, and your honest attempt to understand I'm a guy who just is who he is: a loner. Comfortable in his own skin and with the sound of his own voice. Now, here's the scary part: chances are, you're just fine, too. But you may not realize it. And maybe you're spending way too much time and way too much money and, frankly, way too much of yourself trying to find someone or something to externally validate you.

i'm telling you for the last time

I am so very tired of talking about this. I stopped dealing much in interviews awhile back because every interviewer would, sooner or later, start talking to me about race in comics. I don't wanna talk about race in comics, unless it's about Superman racing The Flash. I want to be asked the same kinds of questions you ask Mark Waid. I am not so different from Mark Waid, except he has more money and dates prettier women. Few if any interviewers ever ask Mark Waid about the state of race relations in comics, but its a theme I revisit over and over, to the point where I will, likely, now decline to discuss the issue. It's just kind of... done for me. Taking a cue from Jerry Seinfeld, who retired many of his most famous routines with the HBO special I'm Telling You For The last Time, I am (hopefully) writing about racism in comics for the last time, collecting several Usenet posts on the subject, recounting several war stories, and hopefully making some kind of cohesive statement that I can now simply refer people to when they feel compelled to ask my opinion about, oh, CAGE or something. Hopefully, this will save us all a lot of angst down the line.

my funny corporate valentine

While completing my design upgrade on the site last night, I came across my old WONDER WOMAN essay and remembered I'd managed to upset quite a few WW fans with my remarks about the character being "dull" and "wonder bread." I got into an extended back and forth with fans on the WW Message board about all of this, where I painstakingly attempted to explain my story was a "milestone" only in the sense that it was an idea that hadn't been done before. I thought I'd take a few minutes to amend my essay and soften the language there, just to be more polite to WW's fans. However, upon re-reading the essay, I didn't think it needed a rewrite. I mean, I'm really sorry if my thoughts on WW offend her fans, but I really do feel most of these people simply overreacted to some fairly simple language, and to things that are painfully true: she is a corporate character. And, for very long stretches at a time, her book has been pretty dull. So, instead of rounding the edges off of my 2000 essay, I've posted a short addendum, which basically says I'm sticking to my guns. Diana is a stiff, kids. There's just no two ways about it. But, so is Black Panther. Both are from exotic, far-off lands with strange customs. Both are vested in ancient tradition and both have a mission to share those core values with us dumb Amerikanskis. The main difference is Marvel could care less if I shoved Panther n front of a truck (well, at least until his film goes into production), while DC has a major merchandising investment in the venerable Amazon.

sunday at the elks

Our Christian response to our disenchanted youth has been, for the most part, to take a nap. To jam into churches on Sunday and holler and sweat and then rush down to Furs Family Dining to while away the afternoon congratulating ourselves and comparing gregarious hats. For many young people God is an, at best, abstract concept. The endless programs of the church have little and often nothing whatsoever to do with young people, and nothing to appeal to them; the Black church in particular functioning much more like a Buffalo Lodge or Elks Club than an actual house of worship for all people. The older people run the church because the younger people don't have any money. I spend a great deal of time helping my pastor run their church. It's their church. It's not mine. It probably won't ever be mine because it is not designed to be mine. It's not a church. It's The royal Order of The Buffalo Lodge No. 23. We may as well all wear shiner's hats because that's how the politics work there. A friend made the observation that we'd landed in a retirement village, as out of place at the church as Kramer was in Del Boca Vista. These are nice, swell people, but this is their church, and they have absolutely no interest and no motivation for materially extending themselves to other voices and ideas. The bigger and better the show, the more packed the house, the higher the gauge of success. But it's a counterfeit win. These are counterfeit gains. These are gains in body count over the dead souls of young people who anyone can see have emotionally disconnected from the goings-on. 

death of the black panther

Cancellation has always been in our lexicon, has always been a part of the creative process. So much so that the looming possibility no longer holds much terror for us. In fact, I am royally sick of talking about it, of answering questions about, "When do you think the book will be cancelled?" and, "Are you worried about the book being cancelled?" No, I am not worried. I've never been worried. I'm a writer. Every month I turn in a story, until somebody calls me and tells me to stop. At which time, I guess, I'll go onto something else. That's the nature of the business: your book gets cancelled. Or you get tired of working on it. Or you get fired. It's hard to take any of it personally: you just do what you do. The Death Watch on PANTHER is annoying, to be sure, and not knowing when the ax will fall does make long-term plotting difficult. But, beyond that, the issue of whether The Black Panther lives or dies is something larger than our ability to do much about. As far as I'm concerned— by keeping us on the stands 47 issues longer than anybody predicted— Marvel Comics has certainly earned the right to be heard on The Panther's future. I've been given a relatively free hand to craft the series as I see it, with almost no interference from Marvel. Would we like more promotion? Certainly. But, I honestly have no regrets about our run on BLACK PANTHER. If Marvel decided to, tomorrow, turn Panther into a book about burly construction workers who like to wear ballet tutus in their off-hours, I'd consider it. They've given me nearly 50 months to try things my way. If and when the shoe ever does drop, I'll have no regrets about this experience.

sex & the single minister

I'm trying to work through this, this communications gap between men and women, between ministers and laity, between Christian and Jew, between New York and California. Between us, whoever that is, and them, whomever "they" are. The only thing we can ever be sure of, in this life, is that they are not us, and we certainly are not them. And, somewhere, some of "them" are confused by why a practicing minister has a picture of a half-nude woman on his website. The short answer is, of course, that it's none of your business. But, see, I've made it your business by posting all of that whiny blather, by telling you how to live. I really don't tell anybody how to live, I just tell you how I live. The rest is up to you. But, the last thing I want to do is confuse anybody. And, besides, just talking about all of this gives me an excuse to post more shots of happening babes in bathing suits, so why not. I'm not sure I understand in what way Carla is demeaning. Is she demeaning in the sense of many rap groups are demeaning to blacks— that they make our struggle that much harder because they reinforce negative and superfluous stereotypes about blacks in this country? Does Carla's pinup shot set back the cause of women's rights and encourage men to continue to objectify women? If that's your case, then, I suppose you have a strong one. 

oscar the grouch

With all the high-fiving going on in 'hood's all over America, I think it's worth noting that, by it's traditional snubbing of minority actors, the Academy has left itself open to the charge that Oscar wouldn't reward a black woman until she performed semi-pornographically, and likely rewarded Denzel for playing a negative role model and, more to the point, for not being Russell Crowe. That's The Stink, the look on Washington's face. The polarity that will only be mitigated by the next awards ceremony, when we will see if any of this year's gains are legitimate. Were these great performances? Absolutely. Did these actors deserve the prize? You betcha. But the stink of things, of the politics surrounding this, will continue to linger and potentially overshadow their moments. By snubbing so many other fine performances by these and so many other fine actors (Whoopie in The Color Purple, Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction), and choosing to reward these particular roles at this particular time and under these particular conditions, the Academy has left itself wide open to criticism of racial bias. Whether or not it is true or whether or not it is earned or fair is irrelevant: the window is open, not because of what the Academy did a few nights ago, but because of what they've been doing for decades: shutting out minorities and minority-themed films from a seat at the grownup's table.  Oscar® statuette ©® AMPAS

the good that i don't

I've got a friend who used to call me Bruce Willis. He called me that, because, at every opportunity that someone needed help or seemed to be having any difficulty at all, I'd go leaping into action, usually uninvited, sticking my nose in and offering my help and opinions. Yesterday some guy came up to me and asked me for help. He didn't want help, he wanted money. My instinct was to just give it to him, after all this could be an angel in disguise. But then the guy ran his con a bit too far, and I realized it was a con. Actually, I knew it was a con from the very beginning, but I'm sure angels run cons every day (heck, I saw Family Man). I might have given him a couple bucks merely for the sheer entertainment value of the scam, but his story just had too many plot holes in it. Then the guy added even more preposterous twists to his story. See, here's where he just insulted my intelligence, and I got angry. I started to scream at this guy and threaten to call the cops, but instead I counted to three, quietly told the guy no, and left before I started screaming at him. Then I felt guilty all day because I didn't do what I really should have. I didn't reach out to the guy, not in anger but in love. At the very least I didn't attempt to infect his conscience. I just wanted to get away from the guy, from this hideous person insulting me, saying "You look like a pigeon." And, in my anger, I really wasn't able to be much help to him or, frankly, of much use to God. Bruce Willis had left the building.

the secret garden

I'm not certain why society has traditionally seen female sexuality as a threat. I have a notion the main reason men have abused and subjugated and repressed women over the centuries owes more to our own insecurity and massive yet fragile egos. There is enormous power in the eyes of woman. In her smile. In her warmth. I suppose men have traditionally seen that as a threat, one to be severely dealt with. By extension, I'll suppose the open warfare on female sexuality speaks directly to the issue of male domination. If a woman learns she can satisfy her own sexual needs, it vastly diminishes the power men have over her. A woman's body is a male asset, and he will stand for no one touching her intimately— not even herself. In a world where sex is used to sell virtually everything, masturbation is used to sell absolutely nothing. Where television is inundated by couples of varying marital status engaging in on-screen coitus, masturbation, a much safer alternative to intercourse, is still too taboo to make the airwaves, and arrives on film only in the context of baked goods.

why its important

I've been confronted with people searching for the truth. Searching for answers. Looking for me to say or do something— I dunno, stand on my head— to finally flip the switch in their mind enough for them to believe. These are people who want to believe. People with money and cars and friends and careers who are still missing... something in their lives. The God-shaped hole, the unfillable desire and unquenchable thirst. But, these folks are often tripped up by the nagging doubt fueled by a reasonable intelligence and healthy skepticism, especially of Christianity and the bible. More than any other religion in the history of the world, Christianity has more often been exploited, perverted, misinterpreted, often for terrible things and usually in the pursuit of money, fame or power. Religion has done more damage to Christianity than anything else. Despite what may once have been noble and wonderful motives, Christians have made it nearly impossible for anyone to believe in Christ. Religion is, in essence, mankind's search for God. Faith implies a relationship with God. The expression of that faith, of that relationship, can be organized into a religion, but the religion in and of itself does not necessarily constitute faith.

a time to dance

Kim Burrell & The Black Church's Obsession With 1965: The band modulated through this full-throttle kaleidoscopic assault of Prince licks (all over the place) and hyper grooves melding into clever reversals and triads and thrilling beyond description breathless coaster loops of thick, beefsteak funk sliced up with Ella jazz improvisation and Mahalia country preacher Hammond B3 pads. In the eye of the tornado was Kim Burrell, a young thirtysomething church gal who probably should have been into the more ladylike Yolanda Adams or Cece Winans, stalking the stage in full command of the chaos. These were her songs. These were her arrangements. The notion of the church policing social behavior is a ridiculous and antiquated one. If a Christian does not truly know Christ, he or she has greater worries than Burrell's music. Keeping Christians in pens, in small cells of mind-controlled social stasis, is the laziest expression of ministry. Ministry is about meeting the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of people. Ministry is about connecting people to God— not policing behavior or thought. Of course, doing the mind control thing is perhaps easier than doing our real jobs; helping someone get to know God in a real way is much harder than getting them a haircut and dictating patterns of behavior.

noprah

David Letterman's valiant campaign to become an invited guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show came to a tragic end today. Dave glibly noted in his now infamous Oprah Log: "Day 82: I no longer want to be on your damned show." I liked to bust a gut laughing, even though I was sad to see this, one of Letterman's best bits in years, go packing. Taking a joke to its logical conclusion and then stretching it (and his audience's patience) far, far beyond all reasonable tolerance is a Letterman specialty. Stevie Wonder once said something like, "First, I do it right. Then someone else will come along and do it neat." Wonder was referring to his trademark over-long songs, wherein he hammers the listener with a hook for seven minute stretches, bludgeoning the listener into picking up the irresistible melody. And, that's Letterman: drilling us with the same joke, relentlessly, week after week after month, going on hiatus and coming back with the same gag, wearing out our patience beyond all reason, until, finally, the joke morphs into a tribal experience. It becomes greater than itself, humor on a whole new level, as America (at least Dave's America) assimilates the phenomena into its cultural lexicon.

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