Warped Standards

After perusing a recent issue of People in my chiropractor’s waiting room yesterday afternoon, I’m convinced that the magazine and pop culture is more vapid than ever.

According to People, Entertainment Weekly and a host of other periodicals and websites, there’s not much more to life than trying to stay young and sexy.

Anybody my age really doesn’t have much usefulness if I believe these purveyors of cultural standards. It’s even worse for women; life seems to be over by 40.

The celebrity mags and websites are full of “beautiful” people flaunting their surgically enhanced bodies on the beach and elsewhere. Such a depiction of life is deceiving. We all age. We gain weight. We get wrinkles. A woman’s value is not determined by the breast enlargements made at the hands of a plastic surgeon.

Eating Junk

I have mixed feelings about health care reform. I hate it when hardworking people aren’t provided with health insurance by their employers or it’s so costly that they can’t afford it themselves.

But I also hate it when people abuse the system and cause health care costs for the rest of us to escalate. These are the people who run to the doctor for every sniffle or ache.

Of course many of our health problems are self-imposed. Cigarette smokers tend to contract lung cancer, emphysema and related diseases more than the rest of us. And as study after study shows, http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090728/1aobesity28_st.art.htm
obesity in many people triggers preventable health problems, including stroke, diabetes and heart attacks.

I know junk food is less expensive, but in the long run it is costlier, both in terms of how it shortens the quality of life and the years of living. I’m always amazed at birthday breaks at work at how quickly doughnuts and potato chips are consumed in comparison to fresh fruit.

The other day I set out some raw cashews and filberts to share with my co-workers. One employee groused, “Where’s the taste?” I guess God didn’t get the memo that He needs to process the food for it to be palatable.

When it’s my turn to throw a birthday party I often provide refreshments made with God’s ingredients: a fruit salad. I’ve had co-workers ask me what a honeydew melon, papaya and apricot are. They had never seen or tasted them before. Once I had a co-worker ask what kind of artificial sweetener I used to make the fruit salad taste so great. He couldn’t believe that anything could taste so wonderful without chemicals.

Alas, if more of us ate God-given, non-processed foods, we would be a healthier nation not burdened with such high cost medical problems

A Less Finicky Eater

Perhaps I was a spoiled child. In any case, in middle age I’ve found I’m eating —and sometimes even enjoying — foods that used to repel me. I suppose outgrowing the taste for only fattening, sugary and yummy treats happens to a lot of us. It needs to if we still expect to be around in our 50s.

But I now manage to appreciate, or tolerate, some of those foods that I avoided earlier. The list includes mustard, salmon, kale, lamb, cauliflower, squash, carrots, red cabbage, tuna and broccoli. I still really can’t handle cucumbers, green peppers, beets, pickles or refried beans. Maybe when I’m 70.

The New Job Normal

I’ve heard several friends recently complain about the workload they face in their jobs. As companies struggle to survive in a tough economy, it’s more commonplace for businesses, whether in manufacturing, retail or office jobs, to require employees to do the work of more than one person.

Certainly this is as true in journalism as anywhere else. Numerous magazines and newspapers have folded even after multiple layoffs. Where I work, the staff that numbered 14 a few years ago has shrunk to 10. I used to have two full-time writers at my disposal; now it’s just me. Although I have the option of freelancing some writing, I handle much of the workload myself. This has resulted in less time for research, and in not doing as thorough a job as before. It’s not uncommon not to have a free moment during the workday. To keep from stressing out too much, I still take lunch every day and try not to miss an afternoon walk.

In lean times it’s better to be grateful rather than bitter about work. Millions of people in this country have been looking for employment for months, with no success. The new normal is to do the job, even if it’s exhausting.

Salute to Servers

I have to admire some of the most hardworking people in America: servers. It’s a difficult job — standing on your feet for hours at a time; putting up with rude, stingy customers; having to be pleasant when you don’t feel well.

The best waitresses, of course, are those who are good actresses: the ones who crouch at the side of your table, call you “dear” or “honey” and act as though you are their long-lost friend. They make it look easy. The worst is the waiter who brings the wrong order, fails to check back until leaving the check or forgets to drop off that lemon or condiment you requested 20 minutes ago.

I always leave 15 to 20 percent, even for mediocre service because I know waiting on tables can be a grind for the person who relies on the generosity of customers. Most in the business are paid dollars below the minimum wage by their employees and must depend on customers to earn a decent living.

Even the best service can yield little in return. The customer may be mad at how long the food took to arrive or how the meal tasted. That client might be in a bad mood because of a run-in with the boss or spouse. The eater may just be naturally stingy. A friend who is a waitress told me that she recently received a 40-cent tip on a $19.60 bill. And then there’s the churchgoer who tips a dollar on a $20 tab and leaves a tract about becoming a Christian. That really makes somebody want to convert.

Rewarding Bad Behavior

Ah, the rewards of being a celebrity. Status and money mean a lot when it comes to living above the rest of us. The latest bad behavior, last week, involved Charlie Sheen’s rampage in a New York hotel suite.

Media reports told how a drunken Sheen damaged furniture in his room, held a porn actress against her will and tested positive for cocaine after being hospitalized.

If most other human beings acted in such a manner — committing any one of those three offenses — police would arrest them and prosecutors would draw up charges. Instead, Sheen, after being released from hospitalization, got on a private jet and headed back to Hollywood to resume filming his sitcom, Two and a Half Men.

And this all happened while Sheen was on probation — two months after being convicted of assaulting his wife last Christmas and spending 30 days in a drug rehabilitation facility. CBS shut down production of Two and a Half Men in February, then rewarded Sheen with a raise to a whopping $1.9 million per episode.

Sheen, 45, is a hot commodity because his show is the highest-rated sitcom on television. He portrays an immoral womanizer, which only seems to fuel his real-life bad behavior. In the past, Sheen has shot a fiancée, been cited as a client at brothels, dated two former porn actresses, overdosed on cocaine, and been accused of abusing drugs and domestic violence with a former wife. On Monday he filed for divorce from his current wife. The man has serious sex addiction and anger issues.

Wealth and fame aren’t worth much to stars who ultimately go over the edge too far.

Voting Rights and Wrongs

I tried to vote this morning. But after standing in a line that didn’t move for the first 15 minutes after the polling place opened came word that precinct workers couldn’t get the machines to work — and county officials wouldn’t allow an alternative. Instead of waiting for a technician to show up, I came to work.

Perhaps that was fitting, considering I had debated whether to bother to vote at all. I’ve pretty much avoided the mudslinging TV commercials, newspaper advertisements and mailed circulars of the past several months. I was interested in a couple of races, not because I was enamored with one of the particular candidates, but rather because I was so appalled at their opponents.

I’ve always been one of those guys who has viewed the importance of voting in a democracy as a fundamental privilege. I became frustrated with my sons when they didn’t see the value of going to the polls to change our society for the better.

Now I see their point. Exercising my vote really won’t change democracy one iota.

The pollsters predict a huge shift in the makeup of Congress by tonight. That seems to be the election cycle norm anymore. But what will it actually accomplish? As has been evident in the past generation, even if the Republicans are able to pass curbs on abortion or gay rights, an activist judge will come along and invalidate them.

Call me a cynic, but it seems as though the overwhelming majority of people elected to federal office really don’t get much accomplished. Once ensconced in Washington, D.C., they fall under the sway of powerful lobbyists who represent everything from teacher unions to gun owners. The concerns of those living back in the district fade away as lawmakers become enthralled with their power. Those Tea Party activists who take office in January soon will be consumed with getting re-elected.

Trusting in political process is naive. Elected officials aren’t going to be our salvation.

The Onset of Senility?

Nothing makes a middle-aged guy feel like he has graduated to old age like losing his wallet and cell phone on the same day.

The saving grace in both instances involved being able to pinpoint the parameter of misplacing the items.

In the case of the wallet, I remember paying for lunch in the work cafeteria, but I noticed it no longer was in my pocket during my afternoon stroll around the building. Panic ensued.

I checked in the dining room, notified the front desk, told security, informed people in my office. Then I felt the Lord prompting me to look in a desk drawer. There it was! Never in 11 years of working here had I put my billfold in a desk drawer, but for some absentminded reason I did that day. It’s an embarrassment I can live with.

That night when I got home from small group at church, I noticed my phone no longer in the pouch attached to my belt. This is when those am-I-losing-my-mind thoughts really kicked in. Yet I knew the phone had to have fallen out in the car or driveway, or at church. The next day on the way to work I stopped at church and found the phone inside, a few inches from the door.

The dread in losing such items is partly the potential cost of replacing them, but primarily the inconvenience: canceling credit cards, getting a new driver’s license, reprogramming all those stored phone numbers. Thankfully, I didn’t have to go through any of that.

I felt better that next day when I got to work and a much young co-worker told me she had spent 15 minutes that morning looking for her lost car keys. Of course she found them in the most obvious place where she left them the night before: the ignition.

The Rescue Aftermath

The world celebrated as rescuers pulled the 33 trapped Chilean miners to freedom last week after more than two months underground. That so many people could emerge after being trapped for so long apparently unscathed brought joy to anyone watching the proceedings on the Internet or TV.

Now reality has set in, following the tearful reunion with relatives and the international glow of the limelight fades. The miners have returned to their homes, but many live in squalor conditions in gang-infested areas.

The difficulty in adjusting won’t be so much returning to a normal routine, but rather going from the center of the world’s attention to obscurity. Certainly, book and movie deals beckon, but those are likely to cause turmoil. While these men could survive in confined quarters without tearing into one another, now jealousies from the lure of riches probably will tear them apart. Instead of being lured by fame and riches, I hope these men can be thankful for their rescue and live grateful lives to the glory of their Creator.

Flaunting Polygamy

It comes as no surprise that Utah officials are investigating Kody Brown and his four wives. What choice do they have after the Lehi advertising salesman went on national television week after week to promote his lifestyle in a reality show? Was he expecting a free pass?

The Beehive State agreed to outlaw polygamy 120 years ago in order to join the United States. Mormons gave up the practice, but fundamentalist sects, including the Brown family, continue its practice today.

TLC, which has brought us midget families (the Foloffs) football team-sized families (the Duggars) and multiple birth families gone awry (the Gosselins), thought a man and his four wives would be a captivating new attraction. And indeed they are.

Rather than HBO’s fictional Big Love, TLC’s Sister Wives shows us real folks. Husband Kody is charming and affable in an aw-shucks sort of way. The wives all seem personable, caring, and intelligent. They go about their daily lives as if this is a normal family arrangement.

Of course they are delusional. The practice is illegal because it’s immoral. As my friend Jeremy said, “Why don’t they have a show about a drug lord’s family? It’s the same thing.”

These people all need counseling. One wife was upset that Kody kissed new youngest wife Robyn during their courtship rather than waiting until the “marriage.” News flash: taking on a fourth wife isn’t legal.

The show, at least the early episodes, depict the Browns — and their combined 16 children — as having unselfish emotional ties, devoid of jealousy and dysfunction. But why would any woman want to share her husband with three other women? And why would a man already sleeping with three women have the urge to bring a fourth under his roof? The whole idea is demeaning to women. And these homes usually aren’t so stress-free.

Earlier this year I interviewed Brian Mackert, who grew up as one of 27 children in a polygamous family in Salt Lake Valley. He told me the children — and the four wives — in the home constantly jockeyed for the affection, love, attention, and blessing of the father. The situation lends itself to an environment in which the patriarch has no sexual boundaries. Mackert’s father also sexually abused his son’s four sisters.

The Traumas of Life

In recent weeks the Lord has brought various people my way who are going through the traumas of life. One person has a debilitating health issue. Another has survived a violent attack that left her maimed. A woman is raising several grandchildren by herself. A friend’s spouse committed adultery barely a year into the marriage. An acquaintance fled an abusive spouse. Others are dealing with long-term depression, drug dependence and lust issues.

These are all Christians, although the faith of some of them isn’t very strong right now. Helping others is a primary calling for those who follow Jesus. When those in the faith feel overwhelmed, it’s easy to feel helpless. If no one around notices the problem, or if the oppressed person fails to express difficulties to a friend, that person can easily become isolated and drop out of church. That only makes them feel more alone.

I’m grateful to be able to engage people going through life’s messes. We all encounter troubles at some point. I’m finding prayer and counseling to be a more worthwhile pursuit than “relaxing” at home in front of the television screen.

Rethinking Priorities

So my home remodeling project is complete. We have the nice spare bedroom and the hot tub for us. Then I read David Platt’s new book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. Talk about builder’s remorse.

Platt shows that perhaps I’ve been caught up in wrong pursuits of looking for comfort. Platt, a megachurch pastor in Alabama, has implemented the strategies outlined in his book in his congregation. Subsequently, churchgoers are selling their homes, taking overseas missions trips and adopting orphans by the dozens.

By using Jesus’ teachings, Platt shows how Christians in this country have replaced biblical faith with the American dream. Is Christianity really about saving a lot of money for retirement, collecting every new technological gadget available and making sure I take a vacation every year? Does the Lord really want me to live the good life and relax instead of abandoning my career and possessions for His sake?

Platt advocates an eternal strategy in discipleship that will make us forsake the temporal comforts of this world. He wraps up the book by directly challenging readers to specific calls to pray daily for others, read the Bible every day, give sacrificially, take a missions trip and go without things we really don’t need.

“We will soon stand before God to give an account for our stewardship of the time, the resources, the gifts and ultimately the gospel he has entrusted to us,” Platt writes. “When that day comes, I am convinced we will not wish we had given more of ourselves to living the American dream. We will not wish we had made more money, acquired more stuff, lived more comfortably, taken more vacations, watched more television, pursued greater retirement or been more successful in the eyes of this world.”

While I may not be ready to quit my job and move to Africa, Platt has made me contemplate how I spend my time and money.

My Day with Tommy

Homeless people attend the same church I attend, but I don’t interact with them much. Part of it is I don’t know what to say. Part of it is cowardice.

A recent Sunday widened my view a bit. After the service as I drove home with my wife I saw Tommy walking down an alley. Tommy has been attending the church off an on for the past couple of years when he isn’t living on the streets of some other city. I had greeted him in church that day, noting that he had just returned to Springfield after living elsewhere for several months.

As I rolled down the car window, I did what any well-off churchgoer would do to someone less fortunate: a perfunctory offer of a ride with the expectation that Tommy would say no. After all it was perfect weather and Tommy probably was headed to some nearby shady spot.

“Sure,” Tommy responded. Turned out he was headed miles away with his heavy backpack and he would appreciate a lift. So we threw his worldly possessions in the trunk and drove off. As we neared his destination — a discount store parking lot — I felt the Lord telling me to invite him to lunch. I checked with my wife, who had been off work all week after surgery five days earlier. Of course she consented.

“Want to come to our house for lunch?” I asked Tommy.

“That would be nice,” he replied.

As we pulled in the driveway, Tommy asked if he might use a garden hose to get clean. My heart ached a bit for a man who I’m sure many people felt doesn’t deserve better treatment than a dog. I insisted he use our shower.

I defrosted some chicken, lamb and fish to grill. My son whipped up some biscuits. We made a fruit salad.

Tommy busted my stereotypes that afternoon. He is a great conversationalist and a social guy. We spent five hours talking about his life’s ups and downs. While I felt embarrassed for not getting to know Tommy better earlier, I kept wondering why he lives like this. Tommy, now almost 50, had served in the military. Where did it go wrong?

Others have tried to set Tommy up with free housing, but he wouldn’t do it. He’s not against working, if it’s for a day or two. He will find food and shelter when necessary, but he doesn’t like to abide by the rules of the ministries dispensing the aid.

I offered to let Tommy spend the night on our living room couch, but he said he needed to be at a charity by 6 on Monday morning that would provide free medication.

So I drove Tommy back to the discount retailer’s parking lot, where he found a tree to camp under. He expressed gratitude for the hospitality and food, and accepted a few bucks for bus fare and whatever else he might need for the next day or two.

I got back into my air-conditioned car, turned on the CD player and headed for my comfy home. While Tommy is a portrait of contradictions, the important thing to remember is that he is created in God’s image. I should never despise him.

Age Discretion Is Advised

Routinely when I’m writing feature-length articles I include the ages of subjects mentioned in the stories. An age helps better identify people, showing, for example, how long they may have been engaged in a career. And like a middle initial, it helps distinguish them from other people with the same name, especially if it’s a common name such as Jeff Smith or Ben Jones.

But lately I’ve had three sources, all of them involved in Christian ministry, ask me not to print their ages. They all seemed embarrassed at the number of years they had been around.

A woman in her 50s who heads a mission agency begged me not to list her age. She indicated that somehow it would hurt her donor base if people found out.

A pastor in his 50s likewise told me that including his age in an article could hinder his outreach to young people who might not think he is as relevant as he tries to be.

And a filmmaker in his 40s insisted I excise his age from the article. If anyone in the movie business found out how old he really is it would be curtains for his career.

These excuses all seemed a bit over the top, a strange mixture of vanity and fear. I suspect this apprehension of telling our age comes from a culture that glorifies youth. We’re told if we’re not youthful enough we’re not useful.

I don’t think the Lord wants us to be ashamed of our age — or the natural aging process. No hair dye for me, thanks.

Let’s Hear It for Unusual Names

I have a friend who gave birth to a baby boy last week and named him Silas. Another friend gave birth to a boy six weeks ago and named him Titus. Although these are both New Testament names, I had never met anyone with those names in my lifetime. Turns out they are still unusual, but are gaining popularity.

According to the Social Security Administration (http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/), Silas was the 254th most popular name for a boy born in the United States in 2009, its highest ranking in the past century. Titus moved up to the 439th most popular name for a boy, after not registering in the top 1,000 boy names before 1960.

It turns out a lot of biblical names are trendy these days. Jacob, Ethan, Joshua and Noah are all in the top 10, but you would have a tough time finding somebody my age with those names.

Some names — mine for instance — are perpetually fashionable. John and William ranked first and second from 1911-1920. They have both been in the top 20 ever since, until John dropped to 26th last year.

I like unusual names. Whenever my wife and I have nursery at church it’s a fun collection: Lael, Diesel, Elliott, Radley, Abner, Malloch.

Some once-popular names fall into oblivion. My sister-in-law Betty had plenty of company when born in the 1940s, but Betty dropped out of the 1,000 most popular girls names in 1996. My wife Patricia grew up with a lot of people with the same name, but there are few Patricias in the maternity ward cribs anymore.

Some names are cyclical. Emma and Grace were popular in the early 20th century, then waned, and now have made a roaring comeback.

I’m all for the uncommon names, baby or not. And I have adult friends with the monikers of Kendi, Sesha, Renelle, Samson, Hally, Nisha and Samson.

While Bible names are increasingly popular, I doubt if we’ll see a spate of babies named Dorcas, Festus, Methuselah or Eutychus any time soon. But watch out for Silas and Titus. They’re on the march to the top.

Limits of Facebook

I like Facebook. It’s a great way to connect with relatives and people from church. It’s also a good place to track down sources for a story and network for business.

But this whole “friend” concept is a bit of a misnomer. Some of the people I’ve found for a story and requested friendship status obliged, but I’ve never interacted with them again. And I’ve granted approval to several people from my past who wanted to reconnect; yet they have never bothered to send a personal greeting.

Some of my 192 “friends” I’ve never met in person, or even talked to on the phone. We have just exchanged words via computers. I wouldn’t know them if I bumped into them on the street. I’m sorry to say I have one friend whom I have no idea who she is or how our paths crossed.

Which makes me chuckle whenever I see the announcements that one of my friends has befriended 23 other people at the same time. Can you really keep track of 4,792 friends? Can you really have 4,792 friends?

I’m not the type of person who accepts friendship requests from everybody. I know that violates some people’s idea of etiquette. But maybe there is a reason we haven’t talked for 13 years: we really don’t have anything in common anymore.

I also am guarded about who I accept as a friend from the building where I work. I don’t want everybody to know all about my personal life. I have a rule of not befriending people in my immediate office. I figure we can be face-to-face friends. No book required.

An Unwise Career Choice

I’ve read about the sad episode of Montana Fishburne, who as she turned 19 fulfilled her dream of becoming a hard-core porn “actress.” Fishburne, who used her own name in a debut film for Vivid Entertainment, is trading on her fame of her father, Academy Award-nominated actor Lawrence Fishburne.

Montana has no qualms about the business, telling various interviewers she finds having sex with strangers before cameras to be liberating, a way to explore her fantasies and a path to stardom.

“I’m impatient about getting well-known and having more opportunities, and this seemed like a great way to get started on it,” she said in a statement.

In reality, porn is a path to drug abuse, physical abuse and sexually transmitted diseases. The vast majority of scenes in a hard-core porn movie are acts that real women won’t do if not paid for it.

In her book Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, author Gail Dines explains that porn today really isn't about sex but rather about violently humiliating and degrading females. Dines tells how porn is becoming more cruel in an attempt to keep male viewers interested — calling women increasingly vulgar names, making them do sex acts that are physically unhealthy and pushing them to extremes to make them cry.

Unfortunately, the seemingly carefree Fishburne has bought the lie that porn somehow is about sexual equality. Tragically, some young teenage girls already view Fishburne as a role model they want to emulate. For men, the consequences of porn use are well documented. We may just be learning the damage that porn “stars” are having on young females.

So Long, 10-Hour Days

Today is the last day I plan to work a 10-hour day at my job. I’ve been working four-day weeks for the past eight-plus years. Starting next week, it will be 8½ hours Mondays through Thursdays and six hours on Fridays.

I’ll miss having Fridays off. Those three-day weekends are nice. But it makes the rest of the week tiresome, especially the older I get. And the main activity of my Fridays “off” all these years has been to do freelance writing, so I really haven’t had many three-day weekends.

The impetus for making the change is that I’ve lost my primary freelance gig. After 16 years of writing a dozen or more articles a year for a certain publication, that weekly is going a new direction. I’m relieved, really.

It means I’ll have my evenings back. Now, instead of getting home around 6, I’ll be home by 4:30. My wife and I will have time to maybe actually exercise in the evenings. She’ll be able to prepare a nice dinner once in awhile before it feels like bedtime. And, perhaps most importantly, we’ll have more time for ministry.

For the past five-plus years my long-suffering wife has been working the same schedule I’ll be switching to next week. But she has stayed an extra 90 minutes Mondays through Thursdays waiting for me to finish my job, so that we only have to drive one vehicle. I imagine this switch will give her an energy boost, too.

Meanwhile, I plan to limit freelance writing to Christianity Today. But I’m not going to be doing freelance work every evening.

Changing Mindsets

As I drove around the city of Springfield last Friday morning running some errands, I turned on a local radio station I enjoy that normally plays music from the 1940s. But this day I tuned in to a talk show, which made me think the music of the era somehow had transported us back to prevailing provincial attitudes of a bygone time.

The two hosts repeatedly discussed what an idiot Mayor Jim O’Neal was for trying to make Springfield a more diverse city. They seemed proud that Springfield is the second-whitest city (of 100,000 or more people), behind only Portland, Ore. Why should a government official want non-whites in their midst, the radio announcers wondered.

“If black people want to move here, go ahead. There’s nothing stopping them,” one of the enlightened pundits bellowed.

Perhaps non-white people don’t feel welcome in Springfield because of that very attitude. It’s only been a half century since blacks could attend public universities here. A little more than 100 years ago in Springfield a white mob lynched three African-Americans. That caused a mass exodus that has kept the “Queen City” one of the whitest cities. I don’t know that Latinos, Asians and other minorities have been made to feel particularly welcome here, either.

What if the shoe was on the other foot? How would I feel if a couple of black radio jocks from an urban inner city said they really didn’t want any white people moving in?

Ethnic and racial diversity is a good thing. It helps us break out of our narrow-minded view, which says our way is naturally the best.

Promises, Promises

I had to chuckle at all the TV pitches by candidates in recent weeks running up to Tuesday’s primary. The neophytes running promised they would turn Washington around; they vowed to not take lobbying money; they guaranteed to represent the values of those who are fed up with politics in the Show-Me State. Sure thing. This is either the height of naiveté or self-importance. Neither trait is effective.

Politics is all about compromise. I’ve seen it time and again. A conservative, Christian politician gets elected. Somehow he doesn’t get around to changing the country.

Lawmaking also has the lure of corruption and isolation, with Christians especially ripe for a downfall. Too many good men wind up divorced or involved in some sex or money scandal.

Since 1976, Christians have been hoping that their national candidates would restore morality in this country, but it has only grown worse. Change doesn’t happen through the ballot box. Spend more time in prayer.

Bosom Up

Guess I’ve been in Springfield too long, but I was taken aback recently flying through Chicago and Los Angeles where I saw all sorts of skimpily dressed females. Teens and middle-aged; black, white and Hispanic; attractive and ordinary.

Some had the shortest of shorts that left little to the imagination. More had a desire to reveal their cleavage.

It’s not just airplanes and airport terminals, of course. By living in a sheltered environment of a Christian workplace and going to church functions quite a bit, I don’t see a lot of provocatively dressed women, although those environments aren’t necessarily a guarantee anymore of modesty.

What drives women to dress that way in public? It’s not really just the hot weather. There is some type of insecurity involved. A desire to be noticed. A hope to compete with all the unreal media images of scantily clothed women. The trend isn’t healthy, for women or men.

Exploiting the Most Vulnerable

Recently I wrote a magazine article news feature about sex slavery in the United States. An estimated 100,000 children are trafficked each year in this country.

For background, I read the sobering and heart-wrenching Renting Lacy: A Story of America’s Prostituted Children. Through skillful narrative, interwoven with commentary by author Linda Smith, the book shows the inside of the child prostitution industry from the prospective of the girls.

Smith, a former U.S. congresswoman, is founder of Shared Hope International, an organization that fights sex trafficking and commercial sex exploitation. The realistic, thought-provoking book clearly explains the psychological abuse that pimps inflict to keep these teen and pre-teen girls trapped. It also touches on the growing lust of the clients, which will only make the problem worsen unless Americans get angry enough to stop it.

That’s unlikely, with a growing demand for porn. And men who look at porn want increasingly taboo material. Lately, that has been child porn. If someone wants to have sex with a 16-year-old girl, it's not that much of a leap to be willing to pay for sex with an 11-year-old girl. It's time for the church to get angry about this.

When law enforcement officials bust up a sex slave ring, they have few options of placing the girls where they overcome the trauma they have suffered. But Jane Christiansen is doing something about the plague. As founder of God4Girls, Christiansen is working to open a home staffed by professional counselors to help restore hope to the youngest victims. I hope she is inundated with donations. Of course they will only be a drop in the bucket compared to what men shell out to look at and abuse defenseless girls.

Life at 92

My brother and I moved our 92-year-old mother into a nursing home a couple of weeks ago. She requested the switch from a residential care facility because she had fallen twice in the previous week. Quite naturally, she feared falling again and being left on the floor for hours before being discovered.

Sometimes, growing old isn’t so enjoyable. Until she broke her hip at age 89, my mom had been peppy and alert. But as time goes on, her physical and mental faculties diminish. Now she is in a wheelchair instead of using a walker. She has difficulty organizing her thoughts. She has trouble concentrating while reading. She really can’t write letters anymore. And going to the restroom is an ordeal for a variety of reasons.

On a positive note, she likes her new roommate, has seemed to rediscover her sense of humor and is eating better since moving into the nursing home, where the staff is compassionate and friendly, from the groundskeepers to the meal servers.

But the move from a two-room apartment to a semiprivate room meant that my brother and I had to sell, discard or keep various clothes, furniture and mementoes. We have some new photos on the wall at home. My brother reminded me of when our uncle and aunt moved into an assisted-living facility a few years ago. They didn’t have room for all the photo albums of the trips they had taken as a couple. And none of the children wanted them.

Life is short. Have fun. Enjoy the memories. But don’t take too many photos.

Church Misconceptions

It seems no matter what denomination, congregation size or geographic region, a lot of Americans are confused about what church is designed to be. I always thought church should be a place for corporate worship of God, fellowship with other Christians and to hear the Word preached.

Others tell me I’m wrong. Church should be about having personal needs met. It should be a comfortable experience, one in which I don’t have to think about the guy next to me because he’s not on my economic level. Church should be a place, people think, where the pastor strokes our ego, tells us how to prosper and assures us that America is the apple of God’s eye.

Certainly this isn’t a new phenomenon. When I was a boy many people thought church was a place to dress up, to be seen by others as fulfilling a weekly obligation, a reason to wash the car on Saturday.

I think our perceptions are screwy. Church is a place to give back, both to the community and to others in the body. It’s a place to use spiritual gifts, not ornately, but in humility. It’s a place to give generously, to the One who has provided everything.

Smoked Out

I had an unpleasant experience recently when my wife and I went to Texas Roadhouse for the first time in many months. Oh, the food was great. But I had a difficult time enjoying it. Cigarette smoke kept wafting into my nostrils and lungs.

When I inquired, the server explained that smoking is allowed in the bar, which is a big open area in the middle of the restaurant. There are no exhaust fans.

So the next day I called up the city health department. After all, Springfield passed a restaurant smoking ordinance a few years ago that allowed smoking only where alcohol sales are hefty, and separate ventilation systems were required. But it turns out the code is pretty toothless. For example, eateries that seat less than 50 get a free pass. And there is an exemption for restaurants that sell $200,000 or more in alcohol a year. No separate seating area or ventilation system required.

Missouri is one of only a dozen states not to regulate restaurant smoking. I guess medical studies that show cigarette smoke, even secondhand smoke, can kill you aren’t enough to force laws that would protect patrons from those who seemingly can’t last an hour without lighting up. I really feel sorry for the non-smoking servers who have to work in these conditions.

Patty and I also have tried eating outdoors at a couple of restaurants, but few have any restrictions there. I guess if smoke is outside somehow it’s not unhealthy. Meanwhile, we’ll stick to those establishments that ban or restrict puffing to certain areas.

Remodeling Takes Shape

Patty and I have been married 32 years today. One thing we’ve learned over the years, sometimes the hard way, is to try to keep debt to a minimum. That’s why it’s particularly gratifying to see our house remodeling nearing completion without taking out a loan. For the past five years we’ve been socking away part of our paychecks to make the larger house a reality. Delayed gratification never felt so good. It’s especially rewarding when people ask, as they have repeatedly done, who is financing the job.

Our remodeled bathroom will have a whirlpool tub to relax our aging bodies and a shower that we can actually move in without bumping our elbows on the walls. A new guest room will be a place for company to relax and have their own bathroom facilities.

Goals are important in marriage. While this isn’t necessarily a spiritual boon (although Patty will be able to use the hospitality suite as a prayer room when vacant), achieving a shared dream can draw a couple closer. Disagreements over what nozzles, windows, light fixtures, and paints to incorporate have been kept to a minimum. And, despite having to go fetch our clothes from the living room every morning, we even drew closer through the upheaval. We removed the wallpaper that we’ve hated for 11 years in the hallway as well as in the existing bathroom. We painted those rooms and made them look much nicer. Togetherness in sweatiness.

Living Long

I took a work-related health survey a few weeks ago. After answering a bunch of questions about my lifestyle, the computer figured I’d live to be 90 years old. This is based on such factors as me not smoking, not boozing it up every night, staying away from fast food for the most part, exercising regularly and the fact that my mom is already 92. Apparently baby fat is not a hindrance.

Of course predicting longevity is a bit of a crapshoot. I could get run over crossing the street. Or I might die from a cancer caused by what is in the water that I drink or the air that I breathe. The chemicals on the food I buy at grocery stores or in restaurants might do me in. Or I could get some dreaded leg or foot ailment and not be able to go walking weekday mornings anymore.

We try to increase our odds of sticking around. While much of our wellness is beyond our control, we can take measures to improve the probability of living longer: eating healthy foods, not being a couch potato all the time, reducing or eliminating the pharmaceuticals in our bodies, using non-toxic products to apply to our face, head and underarms.

The biggest threat is bigness. It’s a constant struggle to keep those extra pounds off as I age. But that extra cellulite in the gut is a great risk to cause a heart attack or stroke. There may be something more important than sticking around a long time: taking care of myself so that I feel well during my remaining years.

Man’s Best Friend

I’ve never been much of a pet person, but I must admit I have a special fondness in my heart for Buddy, who has been our dog since the first week we moved to Springfield. We got the lovable mutt from the local animal shelter as a puppy, and he’s been with us for 11 years.

Of course some of his behavior is aggravating. He still chases the UPS truck, begs for food from our plates and doesn’t always smell great. And his seemingly constant shedding of fur isn’t a treat for our floors or our lungs. But Buddy is a loyal, obedient friend, walking with me in the pre-dawn hours every morning.

Buddy has a sensitivity toward vulnerable humans. Once when friends visited us and their toddler wandered off from the yard, we found the two-year-old girl down the street, Buddy herding her back to the house. Near the end of my dad’s life, when he would lie down on our couch, Buddy would be right by his side, keeping him company. He also camps outside the door where our one-year-old granddaughter sleeps whenever she spends the night.

For all his typically goofy dog behavior, I must say I’ll miss Buddy when he goes. But if he keeps taking those walks, that might not be for quite awhile.

Putting Things Together

This spring I’ve been amazed at how my son and my remodeler have put things together. Both are artists and craftsmen.

Zach is a music composition major at Drury University. At a recital in May, students performed two pieces he had created. It amazed me that a son of mine has such a musical gift. I can play notes on a trumpet and carry a tune, but how can he put together a score featuring piccolos, vibraphone, celesta and glockenspiel? Then do another composition incorporating flutes, clarinet, violins, guitar, cellos and double bass. It’s beyond me how his mind works like that. Indeed it’s God’s gift.

Equally impressive is the job that Melvin Hopke is doing at my house. How he can knock out a linen closet, toilet and shower and make hallways that connect exactly to the new addition. How carpenters, roofers, electricians, plumbers, drywallers can come in one after the other and with precision create a new living space with great precision. That’s something incomprehensible to my non-mechanical mind.

Of course some people have told me they have no aptitude for writing. That’s one of the few artistic endeavors that comes naturally to me. If God hadn’t granted that gift, I don’t know what I would be doing.

Marketing Savvy

I must hand it to Ruby Tuesday’s. A couple of years ago, just as the economy began to tank, the mid-level-price restaurant chain began an aggressive coupon campaign to get customers in the door in order to stay in business. The approach has worked. Whenever my wife and I dine there, which is once or twice a month, the place is nearly full. That wasn’t the case in early 2008.

Ruby’s has been sending me $10 coupons for the past couple of years. Essentially a couple dining out can get one full-course meal for free, or nearly free. The coupons have come in the local and national newspapers, direct mail and e-mail. The saturation marketing strategy has worked. Customers, especially middle-aged diners like me, love a bargain.

Kohl’s is another company that has adopted the strategy, blitzing my computer and mailbox with too-good-to-miss offers on shoes, suitcases, dinnerware and clothes. Other corporations would be wise to follow the plan of Ruby’s and Kohl’s if they want to stay in business.

The Obama Haters

Seeing the intensifying vitriol aimed at President Obama on the Internet grieves me. Unfortunately, much of the loathing comes from the keyboard of Christians, who, according to Jesus, are supposed to love their neighbors — and their enemies. The Apostle Paul also admonishes Christians in Scripture to pray for their government leaders.

I lived through all this enemy camp stuff in the 1990s during Bill Clinton’s presidency, but the presence of the Web has only ratcheted up the hatemongers. I admit I’m not fond of Obama’s abortion and gay-rights policies. But for the Christian, the answer is prayer, not verbal broadsides.

I’m talking about people who intentionally spread lies, such as Obama is a Muslim or that he canceled the National Day of Prayer. Such information, repeated without bothering to check the facts, only makes Christians look ignorant.

But the visuals are worse: People who put Obama’s picture with a slash through it, a “Nobama” meter declaring that there are only 1,000 more days until the president is out of office.

Such a fomenting environment reminds me of the South in 1963. John F. Kennedy had a lot of people who hated him. He went to Dallas to try to reverse some of that. I pray all the Obama bashing isn’t giving rise to such a climate again.

I hope Christians will stop all the incivility and disrespect that has become commonplace in politics. We’re supposed to be part of the solution, not the problem.

Without a Prayer?

Today, the first Thursday in May, is officially the National Day of Prayer. The occasion is marked in many communities by a breakfast in which a Christian speaker gives a talk before local Christians and local government officials.

Setting aside a day to pray has been a tradition in the United States since 1952. The communist scare of the 1950s inspired Congress to not only declare a day of prayer but to insert “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and “in God we trust” to appear on paper currency.

That may have made Americans feel safe from the atheists back then, but increasingly non-Christians are vocal about any government sponsorship of religion. A couple of weeks ago, federal judge Barbara Crabb of Madison, Wis., ruled that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.

Various Christians went apoplectic, believing such action surely foreshadowed the end of the world. I tend to see things differently. Why do we want the government to sanction a day of prayer once a year? Hasn’t it become spiritual window dressing, void of any real meaning? Are we so insecure in our faith that we need the government to tell is it’s a worthy activity?

I’m all for prayer, but why are churchgoers so interested in the state approving it? That seems backwards to me. The Bible repeatedly tells us we are to be different from the world, not cozying up to it. Isn’t this how Christianity got off track under Constantine?

The problem with defending prayer in official public settings is that it’s not really constitutional. In our multicultural society, can there really be a meaningful prayer to God in the name of Jesus Christ? Prayers uttered under the auspices of government have to be so inoffensive they really don’t have power.

How about if we pray to God in our churches and in our homes all the time. That way the petitions actually might be more effective. We won’t get the smug feeling that the government is patting us on the head. That’s a good thing.

The Fallen World

I cringe whenever I read some do-gooder express hope that we will wipe out hunger, disease or crime because of some technological or medical advance.

As a journalist for nearly 30 years, I’ve seen way too much depravity to view the future through rose-colored glasses. When I compare the world now to that of my childhood, there’s no question that evil has taken a great leap forward.

The world will never overcome evil because the heart of humans is wicked. Thank God for all the benevolent programs around to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and clothe the naked. But the fact remains that, overall, we’re regressing in the way we act toward our fellow human beings.

In reality, selfishness, greed and mistreatment of others is rampant. Sexual, physical and emotional abuse is at epidemic proportions around the globe in various forms. The warlord would rather hijack donated food and sell it for a profit than to see starving children eat it. The drug dealer wants to keep users from getting well. The sex trafficker abducts young women and robs them of their purity and souls.

The church is the antidote to this coarsening and exploitation. But make no mistake: the opposition is on a roll.

A Relatively New Experience

Last Saturday my Aunt Mary was buried after succumbing quickly to cancer. Although she had lived in California nearly all my life, the burial took place in Springfield, Mo., where she grew up and where I now live.

I hardly knew anybody at the funeral except my Uncle Harold, my dad’s youngest brother and Mary’s husband of 66 years. Uncle Ralph, the only other of five sons to survive, also was there, pictured on the far right, next to Harold.

When I got to the cemetery I saw Harold and Ralph talking to a couple I didn’t know. It turns out this was my first cousin Mary, Ralph’s only child, and her husband Gary. Mary’s mother died when she was three, the year after my birth. At age 52, I had never met my cousin from Virginia.

That seemed odd, because I visit with her dad every year or two. And I’ve spent time with all four of Harold’s sons, even though they all live on the West Coast. But cousin Mary’s and my paths had never crossed. In the few moments we had together, we discovered we both have been married 32 years and have three sons in their 20s.

After the service we said goodbye. Mary and Gary soon flew back home. The brief experience of meeting a long-lost cousin left me yearning to find out more.
Mary invited my wife and me to visit them and we urged them to come spend time with us. I hope it doesn’t take another half century to get better acquainted.

Save Me from Callous Remarks

Sitting at a gate waiting for my connecting plane last week in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport I couldn’t help but hearing a disturbing conversation between a couple of other passengers. A white woman in her 60s loudly moaned to a white man in his 60s about the futility of Obamacare and how much she hates the president.

It became apparent, in listening to her babble on, that her real target for wrath is anyone who doesn’t work as hard as she does. The irate female, a Tennessee nurse, told of how she had assisted in a surgery of a 15-year-old boy who had been shot by a police officer after a run-in with the law. She matter-of-factly mentioned that, because the intubation tube had been erroneously inserted into the boy’s lung instead of stomach, it left him brain dead.

That medical mistake didn’t upset this woman. No, she lamented that the boy’s parents had wrangled from the hospital and insurers not only a settlement for lifetime care but the loss of $10 million in potential lifetime earnings.

“You know that obese kid was just going to keep getting into trouble,” she declared. “He would have been dead by 18 anyway.”

I wanted to go engage the woman in conversation, but I figured I wouldn’t change her opinions on the insurance industry, non-whites or chubby kids. I just hope before I go off on some group of people I stop to check that my attitude isn’t so callous. No matter how worthless a life may seem to me, everyone has value in God’s eyes. There can’t be a dollar value placed on the loss of that life.

Sign of the Times

In the span of a week, two men have approached me begging for gas money. That people are desperate for a few bucks shows that the recession is real and we’re not out of it.

Of course beggars have been around before the economy went sour. But the occasional fellow at a street corner or interstate off ramp is passive. The guys who approached me, one as I pumped gas and the other as I went into a drug store, both had an aggressive urgency in their pleas.

The cynic in me could have denied them any help. The skeptic in me could have doubted the excuses both gave me — that their wives had the debit card — as a scam. Perhaps their wives really did have the card because they were in such financial straits.

In any regard, I gave each guy a few bucks. The fact that they expressed gratitude rather than greed convinced me I had done the right thing. And it made me appreciate the fact that the Lord has provided me with a good job with a good salary. I shouldn’t begrudge giving a few dollars to someone in need.

Easter Renewal

Center City Church moved into its “new” facilities on Easter. New as in remodeled. Parts of the building are 136 years old, and most of the rest is 109 years old.

Many Center City attendees have had a hand in whipping the building into shape in the past month. Under the capable leadership of volunteer coordinator Jeremy Coursen (pictured with his family), crews nightly painted, cleaned and rebuilt. The building has a new children’s area, nursery and pastor’s office. The sanctuary has a fresh look on the walls and floor to accompany the stained-glass windows that have been around a long time.

Or course as Pastor Richard Yasinski has been preaching, the church isn’t a building; it’s the people. And while having our own place to worship after a six-month nomadic existence at Cook’s Kettle, a restaurant operated by Victory Mission — which generously allowed us to assemble after we lost the lease at our last location — is satisfying, it’s not a place for comfort.

Our new location is in a part of the city where few pastors, other than Rich, are excited to locate. Only a block away from a street where the homeless hang out, Rich is eager for our church to offer Christ-like compassion in the new neighborhood.

A Strange Mixture of Religions

A feeling of a false sense of spiritual superiority pervades much of Israel, especially Jerusalem. The sentiments aren’t restricted to Orthodox Jews. Many Muslims, Catholics and Protestants who dwell there seem to think God has especially ordained their presence there.

Secular Jews who have no real interest in the faith beyond following rules and traditions such as the Sabbath shutdown of the country are content to call themselves the Chosen People in the Holy Land.

Christian groups that have gained control of once holy sites sometimes turn them into commercialized spots. Very little is intact from Jesus’ day, and if the locales are genuine they likely were 10 to 15 feet below the current street level. Is this really the location of the Upper Room? Who knows? Some of the supposed holy areas seem downright cheesy. The Via Dolorosa is now a winding path of Muslim shops selling shoes, jewelry, scarves, wooden figurines and “Free Palestine” shirts.

At various sites around the country, caretakers of Christian churches that abut aren’t on speaking terms. The ornate shrines that Christians have built to commemorate the founder of Christianity seem to contradict the values for which he stood.

The most egregious example is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Various Christian traditions — Ethiopian Orthodox, Copts, Armenians, Greek Orthodox Russian Orthodox and Catholics — all claim a part of the structure. Some have property rights, others only ritual rights.

They try to outdo each other, with pomp-filled ceremonies that are an assault on the senses: a cacophony of chanting, singing, clanging church bells and pounding of wooden stakes on the floor. Pilgrims bend on the floor to kiss icons, lay handkerchiefs on a rock, light candles and toss incense. It all seemed like a spiritual Disneyland, offering entertainment to the masses that pass.

Because of the bickering between these streams of Christianity, a Muslim family has held the keys to the church for generations. No wonder Christianity isn’t very attractive to outsiders.

Meanwhile, fundamentalist and charismatic American pastors bring their flocks over by the planeload, believing they have the inside track to deciphering the end times. Because they apply scriptural prophecy to 21st century events, they think they are the solution to bringing about Jesus’ Second Coming. They teach that Christians need to be kind to any Israeli, no matter if that person is oppressing Arab Christians or Messianic Jews.

Several people have told me visiting Israel changed their lives. I didn’t have that transformational experience. It’s nice to know where biblical sites are located, or were 2,000 years ago. Yet our spiritual state shouldn’t depend on a geographic location, or how we view that real estate. It should involve how we treat others in light of Jesus’ revelatory words.

I ran into several Americans who naively thought that secular Jews only needed a simple gospel presentation in order to suddenly see the light and convert to Christianity.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Strolling Through Old Jerusalem

Tourism is booming in Israel, particularly in Jerusalem. Yet the threat of annihilation from Iran is real. A flare-up of hostilities would quickly halt the flow of visitors.

Israel is a small country where two-thirds of the terrain is desert. It’s a nation where girls and boys must join the military immediately after high school. A land where soldiers armed with machine guns routinely congregate at the confluence of Jewish and Muslim neighborhoods.

As I entered the Jewish Quarter in Old Jerusalem and descended to the temple area, an orthodox rabbi approached me as though I was a long-lost comrade. He spotted my Hebrew-inscribed St. Louis Cardinals T-shirt, which I had bought nearby to cope with the 90-degree heat on an unseasonably hot March day.
“I love Missouri!” my new friend in black assured me. “Let me pray for you.”

He proceeded to ask my name, my wife’s name, the name of my children and the name of my parents, muttering a short heaven-sent prayer for each in between.
What a sweet guy, I thought. Then came the pitch.

“We’re building the temple here,” he told me. “I need a donation of $160.” I thought this kind of fund raising was confined to televangelists. I gave him a few bucks, which left the impression that I was a chintzy American tourist. Maybe he did better with somebody from Oklahoma or Alabama.

I had an interesting buying experience in the Muslim Quarter. Hospitable shopkeepers greet you as though they have all the time in the world. I sat down for a cup of tea before haggling over the price of a pair of fur-lined goat-skinned gloves. Negotiating is an expected part of the process. The prospective buyer starts bidding seriously low while the store owner begins artificially high. In this case, that meant $5 and $67. We met at $18, without me feeling as though I had been ripped off and he realized at least some profit.

In a stall across the walkway I found an opal piece of jewelry for my wife for $30, down from the $140 starting price. When I walked away without paying another $15 for a chain, the seller called me “cheap.” That didn’t encourage me to reconsider.

The peddling doesn’t cease at “holy” sites. Outside the Garden of Gethsemane in the Muslim Quarter, hawkers incessantly shill postcards, palm fronds, hats, bookmarks, and even donkey and camel rides.

Technology Vacation

I took a technology vacation on my trip to Israel last week. No computer, no cell phone.

The schedule looked packed, and I didn’t want to miss anything either because I was too busy catching up with daily contacts back in the States.

Actually, I traded in my laptop for a larger desktop computer last year. At this stage in my life (and my eyesight), visibility is more important than portability. I don’t take that many trips anymore, and whatever writing or correspondence I need to do usually can wait.

I’ve never felt the need to have an iPod in my pocket. I’m not an executive who needs to constantly be in touch with what’s going on. I think a lot overdo it. I see co-workers at weekly chapel services seemingly unable to not answer an e-mail when they’re supposed to be singing a worship song or praying.

So, in Israel, I took a break from all the work deadlines, checking the news and staying in touch with friends. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I didn’t want to miss it because I was too busy with the routine of keeping everyone else informed of my status in life.

Some other journalists on the trip posted reports and photos on Facebook and Twitter every day. I decided to wait until I returned. I don’t imagine anyone will be too disappointed that I didn’t give an hour-by-hour report at the time.

Pornography’s Poison

Feminism has enabled American females to accomplish a great deal in my lifetime. Women now earn higher salaries than before. Husbands view their wives more as partners rather than servants. And the law no longer allows a man to batter a woman he deems his property.

But women’s liberation also has come at a cost, the highest price being paid in matters of sexuality. Left-wingers argue that even pornography has allowed women to be emancipated because they can earn a living by having men ogle their bodies. What a lie!

Recently in doing some research for an article, I read Pamela Paul’s Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families. The book is four years old and the situation has grown much worse, but it points out how devalued and objectified women are now because of the sex industry.

The media exploits women everywhere: in fashion magazines, television programs, billboards, social networking sites, motion pictures, music videos. But the chief factor in accelerating the lusts of males has been the pornography industry.

Subsequently, how men and women relate — or fail to relate — has fundamentally changed. Girls and women are involved in a never-ending effort to try to please males, who by repeated exposure to porn have unrealistic expectations of what females should be and do. So women dress provocatively, buy breast implants, consent to participate in “sex tapes” and have abortions, all to no avail. Porn is the reason behind unbridled lust and sex trafficking exploding around the world.

Paul’s book points out how pornography has convinced males that anal sex and more bizarre behavior should be expected from a female, even on a first date. Pornified shows how many males can no longer function in a normal sexual state because they’ve been so warped by images of group sex and other sinful activities. And I’ve aware of women who have been treated so rough by porn addicts that they can no longer bear children.

“Many men don’t even realize that what they’re asking for is degrading or unpleasant to women,” Paul writes. “But the costs to our relationships, our families and our culture are great, and will continue to mount.”

The book left me sad at how debased we have become, and how harmful and corrosive pornography is. I apologize to women for buying into this dysfunctional view of sexuality and my role in exploiting you.

Forgiving Mark McGwire

With Major League Baseball season just around the corner, it remains to be seen whether Mark McGwire will survive media scrutiny as the new hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals.

The team named their retired first baseman slugging champion as new coach last October, promising he would be available to the media. For most of the past decade, McGwire has dodged accusations that he used steroids, even refusing to answer questions before Congress in 2005.

But in January, in a tearful interview with Bob Costas on the MLB Network, McGwire admitted what nearly everyone has suspected: he used steroids throughout most of the 1990s, including the 1998 season when he broke the single-season home run record of Roger Maris.

In a round of sorrowful phone calls, McGwire expressed sorrow to Maris’s widow, his parents, baseball commissioner Bud Selig and Tony LaRussa, Cardinals manager then and now. All offered forgiveness.

But unlike movie stars and politicians who confess to wrongdoing and then are quickly absolved by the general public, McGwire’s apology only stoked the flames of controversy. Vitriolic responses from those who played in the era before show that the controversy won’t die soon.

Jack Clark, a Cardinals first baseman in the 1980s and now a Fox baseball analyst in St. Louis, said McGwire and other steroid users — those who haven’t come forward — are “liars” and “creeps” who should be banned from baseball. Former Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog concurred with Clark, saying “they’re all lying” about steroid use. Ferguson Jenkins, a Chicago Cubs pitcher in the 1960s and 1970s now in the Hall of Fame, said McGwire needs to apologize to all the pitchers he tagged for home runs.

Cynics complained that McGwire is only taking the step now because he wants to earn an income off the game which he betrayed.

Certainly McGwire’s confession should have happened years ago. Whatever the offense, from sexual abuse to murder, it’s better for the perpetrator to fess up sooner rather than later. That conveys a genuineness to the action that somehow is missing when a person is more or less forced to own up to the bad behavior.

Yet I know how difficult it is to come to grips with long-covert sins, especially if in denial for years. It’s obvious watching the Costas interview that McGwire’s penance was real — and difficult. Carrying around the open secret has been a burden to him. He has taken the necessary first steps to begin healing. Nobody can be in right relationship with anyone else — co-workers, friends, spouse or pastor — until bringing an end to covering up the shameful deeds of the past.

McGwire will be dogged by detractors all season. I hope he can be even more honest and forthright in his responses, and that his presence on the team doesn’t become a distraction. With a thick enough skin, he’ll be able to move on, regardless of those who judge him.

Moving the Office

After a decade in the same office, my department has moved to a different floor, where everyone on staff has less space.

For weeks, I’ve been the only one excited about the transition. Finally, after 17 years at various jobs in a windowless room, I am able to gaze outside. It won’t be quite like the last time I had a window — when I looked out at fountains and a reflective skyscraper in Sacramento — but it will be a morale booster nonetheless. I enjoyed watching the blowing snow on Monday as I moved into my new digs.

Still, the downsizing has been laborious. In recent weeks I’ve tossed out many files and dragged home dozens of books. Providentially, for my recent 10th anniversary service award — before I knew of the office move — I picked out an oak double-wide bookcase for the home. It’s full now with all the materials I’ve brought home. My wife is thrilled with all the extra tomes.

The whole experience has shown me that I’ve collected way too many newspaper and magazine clippings, memos, letters and even books over the years. While my streamlined office is a bit cozier, I’ve only surrounded myself with the “most important” stuff. That’s probably a good lesson for any Christian on the topic of consumption. I’ve traded in many books for future credit at the local used Christian bookstore, and given others away for the upcoming Friends of the Library sale.

Letting the Paper Go

I’ve just made a radical decision. For the first time since childhood, I’m no longer going to read the local daily newspaper in my home. Of course it’s a decision that 20 million other Americans have made in the past two decades, which is why the newspaper industry is in jeopardy.

In some ways I feel like a traitor, having worked at daily newspapers for 11 years myself. But it makes sense, not just because I’ll be saving $16.31 a month.

The catalyst for my decision was customer service and delivery problems. Some days the paper isn’t there by the time I leave for work. Other days it blows away because it’s so thin, and the delivery guy didn’t bother to put a rubber band around it. Complaints haven't helped with the delivery.

What pushed me over the edge, however, was the content of the paper, or the lack of it. When I first moved to Springfield, the paper had interesting local stories and a vibrant editorial page with opinions expressed by local editors and an array of columnists. The editorial page has devolved into a feud between the rabid right and the loony left.

I’ve enjoyed sitting down to breakfast with the morning paper for years, but I can wait an hour until I get to the office. Everything on the printed page is available online — for free. I’ll be checking the obituaries and box scores, but not much else. Most everything in the paper I’ve read online somewhere the day before. I’ll continue to read USA Today and The Wall Street Journal at work. Those national papers haven’t appreciably cut back on their content.

I called to cancel the paper a couple of weeks ago. Only problem is the company keeps bringing it every day. Maybe I should have canceled long ago. I get better service.