The Black Hole Named Afghanistan

From my perspective, we seem to have two choices in Afghanistan. One is bad, the other is worse. The "bad" choice is to boost the number of troops on the ground by 40,000 or so, as General McChrystal seems to be asking. Given the terrain and the historic mistrust of outsiders by the people of that sad nation, it is doubtful that an additional 40,000 troops will "accomplish the mission." With that addition, we might, just might, be able to bring some semblance of calm to some of the cities. But, then again, nobody really knows, do they?

The "worse" choice is to try to get along with the troop numbers we have (or even a reduced number). That means to surrender the rural areas to the Taliban and to try to tolerate or limit the ability of the Taliban to spread mayhem in the urban areas. But it leaves us in a "force protection" posture in which we have little or no influence over what goes on throughout the country. We would simply hunker down for the long run - and believe me it would be a long run!

Even the "bad" option of boosting the number of troops in country will put us in a situation in which the "end of the tunnel" lies so far in the future that we will see no light there for years to come.

As for the question, "Is Afghanistan another Vietnam?" the answer has to be "Yes and No." It is not Vietnam in the sense that 200 soldiers are NOT being killed each week. That situation will likely never come to pass. It is not Vietnam in the sense that the men and women serving there are having to slog through swamp and jungle. But it is like Vietnam in that we are becoming co-dependent with a government that is weak and corrupt and not likely to change. It is Vietnam in that the enemy has safe haven just across the border and recieves support and encouragement from the people, the government, and the armed forces of other nations in the region (Pakistan's IIS, the Saudi Arabian people, and, potentially, the government of Iran).

I fear that neither the NATO armed forces (which means mostly the good ole U. S. of A.) nor our diplomats will be able to even begin to effect the changes needed to bring stability to Afghanistan. The best we can seem to hope for, at this point in time, is to bring relative peace to the cities and stasis outside of them. We can hope and pray that the additional Afghani forces we are training prove, in time, to have at least a minimal capability to defend all of the nation's territory; the capability AND the will. But it will take eight to ten years to bring them to a fully trained and ready status - they are, after all, a third world nation. Creating a modern army from that start is not impossible, only extraordinarily difficult. Those are not happy thoughts.

God Bless All this evening. TAD+

Church Business

Today we held our annual "Deanery" meeting at Mt. Vernon, Illinois. In the Episcopal Church most dioceses are subdivided into deaneries that each cover a geographic part of the diocese. My deanery, the Eastern Deanery, consists of five churches (one of which is inactive) spread out over eight counties in south-central and eastern Illinois. One of the priests is elected Dean every three years and gets to have the honorific "The Very Reverend" instead of simply "The Reverend." This year we elected Fr. Gene Tucker of Mount Vernon. Congratulations to Gene.

The bishop, The Right Reverend Peter Beckwith spoke for a fairly short period of time. He said that the Episcopal Church's General Convention just past was better that he thought it would be and spoke about his move into retirement. The process to elect a replacement has begun, but is months away from completion. Bishop Peter also urged each of us to be "Witnesses for Christ" in a Church that is hurting, in an economy that is hurting, in a nation that is hurting, in a world that continues to see so many live without hope.

Concerning the election of his replacement, Bishop Peter said that there was concern, at national headquarters in New York, that he would attempt to exercise control of the process. He said he assured them that this would not be the case, since he feels that his attempting to control the process would be, at the least, unprincipled. Others with more intimate knowledge of what has been happening have told me that this is true. I can think of no good reason to doubt him on this. Since, like me, he is a retired Naval Officer (albeit him as Rear Admiral USNR, me as Lieutenant Commander USN) the need for honor and honesty in all of our dealings is strong in our lives.

No, I believe that Bishop Peter is acting with a "hands-off" policy. He and I have had a number of differences of opinion on various topics, but I have never doubted his honesty or basic integrity (even when I think he is wrong).

He made a comment that I do think is all too true - that a big problem in the Episcopal Church is our very strong tendency to act like congregational churches. I have long been disappointed by the parochialism I find in my church and observe in others. Since we are a hierarchical church with diocesan, national, and international ties (to other Churches in the Anglican Communion), for individual congregations to think and act as if they were not connected to others makes the entire structure vulnerable. That problem may be more significant in rural areas (which is where I have all of my experience), but I don't know if that is true or not.

From my personal standpoint, it is frustrating to stress in sermon after sermon that we are ALL interconnected, only to have the people talk about what THEY are doing or have done. It then becomes way too easy to blame "What THEY have done" for our local failures to florish, grow, and carry the gospel into the world. A good example is the decades old discussion on "Evangelism." The National Church periodically urges that as a program, a set of goals, and a way of life. But then nothing happens and I hear people say, "Well, the latest evangelism program didn't work, did it?" Of course, none of them did anything in response to the call to be evangelists, but somehow the National Church was supposed to wave a magic wand and evenagelism would just happen. The people in the congregation see that as unwarranted interference by THEM, but fail to see that there is a challenge to US. The feeeling seems to be, as one lady in my church told me, "If they are interested in the Episcopal Church they will find us. We don't have to do anything but be here." That's not a positive recipe for success.

'till next time, sweet dreams and God Bless All. FrTom+

Episcopal Church Rumors

A fairly large group of us from St. Thomas went to the midweek service at St. John Episcopal Church in Centralia, Illinois on Wednesday. The occasion was the baptism of the young boy Jeff and his wife are adopting. It was a lovely service and, is my usual habit, I engaged a number of the folks at St. John in conversation at the meal afterward. One man said to me, "I don't know what to think of what they (note the 'they') are doing to the Episcopal Church."

Wondering which of our current issues he was talking about, I asked him what was bothering him. He responded, "Well, the talk at General Convention was about removing Holy Communion from the service." Where that rumor came from I'll never know. I told him that I had followed the daily activities at General Convention and I didn't recall that issue ever even being discussed. I went on the tell him, "I don't know how these rumors get started, but we need to be careful about them. I would take that issue as a simple misunderstanding about what someone may or may not have said." He said, "I don't know about that."

Here in the Diocese of Springfield most of the clergy are quite traditionalist. I know that some of them are ready to say almost anything at all to disparage the national Church, but I have to wonder if some are not above spreading a falsehood deliberately, just to "knock down" the denomination. I hope not, for when a cleric begins to spread falsehood he (or she) is not siding with the truth or what is right.

And I am of the opinion that a number of clerics do have the destruction of The Episcopal Church near the center of their goal set. The goal seems to be to destroy The Episcopal Church, then replace it with a traditionalistic, authoritarian structure that will find favor with the highly authoritarian churches of what is called "The Southern Globe." And, of course, such a move will likely find adherents among the religious right wing of our denomination. They see themselves as the true "orthodox" Christians and those who differ from them as secular liberals.

One key problem is simply that the Churches of "The Northern Globe" are in a far different place from our brethren in the south - allowing for the fact that there is not total unanimity among either the north or the south. We, in the north, tend to have made our peace with the findings of science. In the south they tend to be users of technology, but are less immersed in the findings of science. So while we, in the north, tend to accept such medical science findings as "Homosexuality is part of the normal humn spectrum of sexuality," the southern folks still tend to criminalize any but normal heterosexual behavior. For example, the Archbishop of Nigeria, The Most Reverend Peter Akinola, has written strongly in support of a law criminalizing homesexual behavior as well as giving support to homesexual persons. If nothing else, this indicates that vast difference between the two regions in outlook.

Where it will all settle out to is yet to be determined. It is just a shame, however, for this to have fostered a spirit of hatred between the two camps. Jesus told us to take the gospel to all the world. Having a prolonged public fight seems to distract from that commission. We all, clerics and laity, may well be asked about our faith, our hope, and especially our love when we get to know God even as he has always known us.

Sweet dreams and God Bless All.

Update for two weeks!

It's been a while since I took the time to post some thoughts, so this is probably as good a time as any.

It has been a busy two weeks (almost). We are now into our new Church school year (September - June), so the adult Sunday School kicked off with Danny as teacher. Since becoming the leader of that group he has grown enormously. At first about all that he could do on a Sunday morning was to read the Gospel lesson for the day and turn the conversation loose. Then he began (after attending my Wednesday evening Adult Education class - a much more serious endeavor) to read multiple translations (KJV, RSV, NRSV, International, etc) as well as one or two commentaries. He brought that with him to his SS class and they have all got the benefit of that. Now he is even reading commentaries about the culture of first century Israel and referring to a "Word Study Greek-English New Testament" by McReynolds to help him understand the nuances of some of the words the NT writers used. Hooray for him!

The Bishop of Springfield paid us his annual visit, which he prefers to call his "homecoming," for several reasons that need not concern us here. It was a good visit, in fact a very good visit. I got to talk to him a bit about my post-retirement ministry plans, to which he gave his vocal approval. Of course by then he will already have retired, so I may have to revisit the plans with the next bishop. We had a great meeting with the vestry. My Bishop's Warden (the senior warden) had a fantastic informal report that she delivered. The Holy Communion was lovely and was followed by a nice dinner in our Great Room in what Episcopalians, who love traditional language, call "The Undercroft." It is not under anything, especially not the "croft" whatever that is. But it was a nice meal.

We ended last week by going out, Sunday afternoon, for a short camping trip to our favorite spot at Rend Lake. Mostly it rained, but I read the book "Old Friends" by Tracy Kidder. It is almost twenty years old now, but the true story of people in a nursing home rings as true today as it did then.

Which got me thinking about health care. I don't have a clue what kind of health care package will emerge from the federal government, but my fear is that it will do many things EXCEPT what it should do - make affordable, quality health care available to all. I minister to a goodly number of the poor in our community and, yes, they all have access to health care - via the Emergency Room. That means there is almost never any real follow-up. There is no on-going health care. There is no prescription drug plan. And, in the end, the overall quality of the care they receive is less than stellar. My conservative friends tell me that "they just need to get a job and purchase health insurance." Many of these good people have jobs - as maids at motels, local truck drivers at near minimum wage, or day laborers. They can barely eat, much less buy health insurance. They need our help, but we, collectively, seem to lost the spirit of caring, of being compassionate, of being brother and sister, to our less fortunate neighbors.

And on that soap box I'll end. God Bless all this day.

Time Flying By

We went camping after Church on August 30th. Now it is Monday, eight days later and I'm left wondering where the time went. Oh, well. I can't bring it back, so have no choice but to move on.

Here's our RV in it's assigned spot.

Sunday and Monday of our campout was nice, but a bit rainy from time to time and fairly cool. But Tuesday was the pick day of the trip. A nice sunny day with lots of fair weather cumulus clouds scudding across the sky. We tromped all over the camping area and took a bunch of pictures.

We relaxed most of the time, sitting on the concrete pad outside of our camper. I scouted out a whole bunch of firewood and used a small seven inch saw to cut it up into handy 15 - 18 inch lengths, which fit the fire ring handily. I wore my sandals and ended up collecting a ton of seeds that wanted me to provide transportation to somewhere else. They ended up being picked out of my socks and burned in the fire.

The microwave oven in the old bus gave up the ghost Wednesday morning, so now I'll have to get a new old from Wal-Mart and put it in before our next trip out at the end of September. I thought about having the RV repair people do it, but that would be pretty expensive. By having me do it, the only twist will be that I will have to build a frame around it to make it look nice in the cabinet hole. The old microwave was made especially for an RV and has a metal frame around it. My carpenter skills are, at best, primitive, but I'll do what I can to make it look decent.

There are unmistakable signs that the seasons are in transition. The solid green of June, July, and most of August is giving way to varying shades of green and the berries on some of the trees and shrubs are beginning to ripen. While it is quite warm sitting in the sunlight, there is a hint of coolness in the shade and once the sun sets in the evening, the air can grow almost chilly. These are camping trips when the evening fire is really nice. You can sit or stand around the fire and warm your front, then turn around and warm your rear!

It reminds of the days of my early youth when my grandmother would take me to what had been her home throughout the 1930s and in 1950 became my home. But in 1944 - 1947 she lived with us and would take me on trips to that Catskill mountain home. The only heat was a large wood-burning kitchen stove. Grandma would get up first on a chilly morning, go out and draw water from the well and get the stove burning for the day. My favorite breakfast was bacon and fried eggs, made in a heavy cast iron skillet. She would take a piece of bread and stab it with a fork, lift a burner out of its spot and toast the bread over the flames. Add fresh butter and homemade berry jam and you really were in heaven.

One of the things I love about out chosen camp spot is the way the sun plays on the water on sunny days. Here in Southern Illinois we don't have really clear lake or stream water. There is too much of a dirt burden in the water, so it looks brown (or sometimes green) when you look directly down into it. But on sunny days, the sun gets at good angles to make the water look nice and blue - the way water should be, right?

Here is a shot across the inlet between South Sandusky Campground and North Sandusky Campground. We have always stayed in South Sandusky, but might shift one time to try some different light.