VINCENT IS VISITING from Grenoble, France, by way of a graduate year in Florida. Patrick and I gave him a bicycle tour of our fair city by riding to the ferry landing on Harbor Drive, then by ferry to Coronado, then down the Golden Strand to Imperial Beach, then around the bottom of San Diego Bay past great fields of flowers to the East Side for the ride up to the city again where we stopped at Las Quatro Milpas (where we had to stand in line to get into the place) for a genuine Mexican lunch (beans and rice with a fat tamale and rolled tacos). After lunch we went to see the big sculpture by Nikki de Saint Palle at the Convention Center... Quite a morning.

MIHI IN ODIO EST

Sleepiness
hangs over
the early morning
coffee shop crowd.

Is it loneliness or
ennui or plain
not giving a damn?

The robin’s egg blue guy
is going to or coming from
a hospital operating room.

Is it something he has seen
or doesn’t want to see
pinches his full face?

The leather jacket swaggers
deep green aviator glasses
above a Hollywood smile.

Is it for selling or buying
the smiles and good mornings
pass between patrons?

Stolid body rising from transparent pumps,
stiletto heels out of place
click-clacking under faded Barbie skirt.

Is the bold coffee relevant
on the way maybe to a stripper pole
somewhere anywhere?

And then I saw it...
an American flag pin
at the very tip
of her collar
just below
the blue butterfly
tattoo...
and her lips,
and hips
and undulating
other parts
moved on out
into the morning.

Mary, Star of the Sea Church in La JollaThe Question: Where does the church go from here?
ABOUT CREEDS

I often come across something better said than I might say it... something I have been thinking. This, for example, from Harvey Cox’s book The Future of Faith:

“Creeds are products of their times. They are road markers of key points in Christian history. They provide invaluable indices of how some Christians, thought not all, responded to largely internal disputes in the past. But to make ‘believing’ them a permanent feature of Christianity today misunderstands the invaluable function they can serve. The numerous creeds theologians have devised over the centuries enable us to glimpse the historical challenges they faced. But their circumstances and ours are not the same. Only by seeing them for what they are, landmarks along the long path Christianity has trod and not walled barriers, can they help us face current difficulties and opportunities.

“The other question about creeds is whether they should be taken literally or understood as poetry. Roman Catholic theologian Stephen C. Rowan in his book on the Nicene Creed holds that only when creeds are appreciated as metaphor and poetry can they serve a useful purpose today. Poetry, he says, is not a less exact but a more exact form of language, and we have to learn to ‘read’ symbolic language symbolically...

“...The main feature of Protestant fundamentalism is its literalism. Thus when the creeds are understood as factual descriptions of God and Christ and people are still supposed to ‘believe’ them, they become obstacles to faith rather than aids. Maybe the only way to preserve the real value of creeds today is to sing them, as was often done in the past, or to dance them, or to print them in iambic pentameter...

“Taken literally, creeds continue to constitute more of a hindrance than a help to Christian faith. They keep people stalled in the obsolete Age of Belief.” --pp. 75,76.

MICHAELGARY, MICHAEL, PATRICKWALK IN THE PARK

I am intrigued by the name of a residential and local business district above Mission Valley on its south side between Interstate Highway 805 and Interstate Highway 15. It’s called “Normal Heights,” not because it could ever be considered mundane or ordinary. It got its name because it was once the home of The State Normal School before the institution became San Diego State University. University Heights next door is named for the university, which long ago moved farther east to it’s present College Avenue site. I especially like Normal Heights because it isn’t normal... like many other place in San Diego. It has character. Wander around the shops at the intersection of Adam’s Avenue and Felton Street and you’ll think you’ve stepped through the looking glass into a time when the world was funkier and friendlier and not so fast. There is, of course, the ubiquitous Starbucks if that suits your fancy; but you should at least look in at Lestat’s Coffee Shop across the street with its paintings, photographs, and funky furniture. The coffee isn’t bad at Lestat’s either, and it’s available twenty-four-hours-a-day.

David's Easter CakeNicholas and Sophie are still enthusiastic about hunting for Easter eggs. The myths that fuel the searches of children must be preserved from generation to generation. The trick in parenting (and grandparenting), of course, is knowing when and how to help children see that myths are another way of finding truth so when the stories and the practices that accompany them are demythologized they don’t lose their enthusiasm for questing.

MICHAEL AND JEREMY... Horsing Around After Dinner with Sunglasses and Family.

Flowers in San Diego are in full bloom this Easter week.

EQUITY AND JUSTICE

My photographs of the two beautiful children, brother and sister, that accompany my journal writing today are images most Americans like to believe are typical of American children; but they are not. Julian and Nina are well-loved, well-fed, well-clothed, well-schooled, well-housed children whose parents take them for regular medical check-ups and can take them immediately to Kaiser-Permanente clinic or hospital if they become ill and need professional attention because they have health insurance. The number of children in America who are uninsured rose from 7.9 million in 2004 to 8.3 million in 2005. I don’t know the figures for 2010, but with the economic recession still in full swing I guess it is higher now than it was in 2008.

As we approach the next voting cycle in this country, many of those who voted for the president’s health care bill are facing tough opposition from opponents who are committed to reversing the progress that has been made in the effort to provide adequate health care to all Americans. Of course, we know the arguments they use to justify their stand against a program that is good especially for the underserved citizens of our country. The most obvious reason we hear is that it will cost money (that they say we don’t have at a time when we are engaged in two wars). Opponents point out that there are deadbeat adults who should go out and get jobs and pay their own way and pay for the care of the children for whom they are responsible. Some fear the program is an example of “socialized” medicine and will accelerate a slide toward communism. Many people hate “big” government and trust private corporations like insurance companies to “give” us the coverage we need. Others are more honest and less hypocritical, and they say simply that they think they pay enough in taxes already.

The most distressing development in the campaign to undo the health care bill is the unabashed appeal to conservative Christians to campaign and vote against candidates who supported the President and Congress that put the program in place. Alan Grayson in Florida is one such representative who has been targeted. He says, “A just society is one that shelters the homeless, feeds the hungry, that heals the sick...” Mr. Grayson, a Democrat in a Florida district that has usually elected Republicans to Congress, voted with his party to pass the landmark health care bill. He knows he may not be reelected because the Republican central committee is organizing conservative church groups to campaign against him. What is it about the scriptures listed below do these church folks not understand?

Ps. 140:12. I know that the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and justice for the poor.

Luke 12:44. "Sell your possessions and give alms; make yourselves purses which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near, nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Mt. 19:20ff. The young man said to Him, "All these commands I have kept; what am I still lacking?" Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."

Acts 4:32-35. And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them. And with great power the apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles' feet; and they would be distributed to each, as any had need.

Mt. 25 “Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.”