Yesterday I wrote in my journal about the couple of unsettling hours I spend wandering around the streets downtown near Horton Plaza. The dozens of apparently hopeless homeless people scattered all helter skelter everywhere as if dropped from the sky left me feeling as if I will likely not live long enough to know a time when California's poverty problems will be solved. One of the gubernatorial candidates apparently has no interest in solving them, and the other would like to see things get better for people on the street but probably doesn’t have the political moxie to get anything done in Sacramento. Anyway, that’s not the point of today’s blog with yesterday’s pictures. The point is that I spent a few minutes with a new friend in a gallery empty of people but full of wonderful pictures. Her name is queen. As you can see in the first couple of pictures, she seemed to need the place as much as I did. It’s a gallery at the Tenth Avenue Art Center where Queen’s and my friend Clyde Yoshida has a bunch of his paintings on the walls. I took some Photoshop liberties with the images. It is a gallery after all. The way to make an image larger is to click on it.

THINGS ARE TOUGH ALL OVER IN A BROKEN CITY.
FROM... The San Diego Union-Tribune, October 16, 2010: An appellate court panel of three justices has unanimously upheld last year’s jury verdict awarding damages to four San Diego firefighters who sued the city because they had been required to participte in the 2007 gay pride parade in Hillcrest.
The verdict was appealed by the city of San Diego and just one week after oral arguments were heard before the Fourth District Court of Appeal, a ruling was issued on Thursday.

The 2009 jury found the firefighters were sexually harassed by some parade participants and spectators and awarded them a total of $34,300 plus more than a half-million dollars in legal fees. The firefighters, John Ghiotto, Chad Allison, Jason Hewitt and Alexander Kane, had always maintained money was not the issue and that they had sued because they felt it was wrong to have been forced by their superiors to take part in the parade.
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Of course, the U-T’’s report that the “Verdict on Pride Parade Firefighters” was upheld had no journalistic reason for noting the verdict came in a month when the nation’s focus is on bullying and harassment of children and adolescents that causes many of them to kill themselves. I find it hard to be sympathetic to John Ghiotto, Chad Allison, Jason Hewitt and Alexander Kane for their trying day riding in the big red city fire truck through San Diego Streets filled with joyful people celebrating freedom. Oh, I almost forgot. There was that very small cluster of unhappy participants in front of the fire station on University Avenue...the folks who were loudly proclaiming that gays are going to hell and implying that the rest of us who march and celebrate with them are in danger, too. Most of the young people of San Diego get it. They understand that being gay is simply one of the many possibilities when one is born into the human race, like being left-handed or blue-eyed. A few young people learn too soon that their sexual orientation is unacceptable to their parents and their churches and to heroes like these four brave firemen; and not having the sophistication and easy recourse to the courts that our offended grown-up firemen have, they decide to hurt themselves when the teasing, bullying, and assaults become too much to bear.

About yesterday’s BLOG: I’m definitely moving along with plans to develop funding for organizations that directly provide intervention and support for emotionally troubled young people... but, as my friend Ben pointed out, Bark Society, while a good name, creates unfortunate initials. If anybody has an idea for a name... (Bark ----------), let me know. If we should decide to keep “Bark Society,” I guess we could use the initials to make the point that we believe ignorant and careless bigotry is dangerous B.S. which pushes many young people to a dangerous edge. My second impulse, however, is more sensible and constructive... We should find a name for our enterprise which connotes kindness, understanding, and peace.

Over coffee this afternoon with Michael Lindsay I gained another insight into the importance of the name BARK in our enterprise. Dr. Lindsay, a therapist whom I respect without reservation, reminded me of the purpose of bark on trees and how well it relates to our project. Bark is the protective outer surface of trees. Too much damage to the bark of a tree can kill it.

CELEBRATING DIFFERENCESI don’t “do” bumper stickers, but I admit to being an avid bumper sticker reader. Back a couple of years ago my favorite was, “BARK LESS, WAG MORE.” I like to think of myself as more of a wagger than a barker; however, there are times when barking is the sensible response. I once lived in a neighborhood with a dog down the street that barked all the time; and that animal, which we seldom saw, was hated by everybody except the guy who lived by himself in the house and left the dog alone for long stretches of time. The dog that lived with me at the time was such a wagger that he would have welcomed a burglar into our house and shown him where the good stuff was kept.

I got a thoughtful e-mail from my friend Carol Holmgren yesterday which has got me rethinking wagging and barking. In the wake of recent media attention to the spate of suicides by emotionally wounded adolescents, Carol suggested we form a “bark society” whose purpose would be to speak out against bullying and other practices and attitudes which wound young people. She said, “We could make prints of your bark pictures and sell them for the support of programs that address the needs of adolescents who are emotionally wounded.” She went on to say some nice things about my recent tree-bark photographs. In her e-mail Carol prefaced her note with the words, “I’m not kidding...” And I’m not kidding, either. Carol is onto something.

So... Let’s form Carol’s BARK SOCIETY. Besides selling photographs to raise money for a good cause, I like the idea that we can encourage good teachers, parents, pastors, relatives and neighbors everywhere to reassure and help troubled young people. For all kinds of reasons some kids become convinced that they are unattractive and inadequate and unacceptable, especially unacceptable to themselves. We can support organizations that affirm young people who are “different.” We can join the effort to convince troubled teenagers that life will get better. We can encourage churches and schools to actively affirm young people whose appearance is different or whose way of being human is different, leaving them exposed to shunning by peers and to bullying and other hateful behaviors. We can “bark” until organizations and institutions in our communities become more sensitive to “all God’s children.” We can lobby for the removal of statements like, "the practice of homosexuality (is) incompatible with Christian teaching" in church documents like the United Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline.

(Take a look at the BLOG by Dr. Brian Mustanski, an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Juvenile Research) http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-sexual-continuum/201010/it-gets-better-video-campaign-featuring-hundreds-videos-people-stan

Sometimes I choose a less sharp image for my photo du jour because the subject and the setting are too compelling to ignore. Today I couldn’t resist this little hummingbird and the bird-of-paradise, both among my favorite things.

AFTER YESTERDAY'S LONG-WINDED JOURNAL ENTRY, it seems appropriate today to lighten up. Margaret and I drove out to Shelter Island to find the restaurant where she and a friend are having lunch tomorrow... and to let the bay and ocean lift our spirits. It worked. I especially like the serenity I always feel when I walk around the simple gift from the Japanese government. It implies peace. We need peace. Later on the way home I had to stop and take photographs of the bay, boats and San Diego. Peace.

Again today I went out to a grove of eucalyptus trees near where I live to find images that fit my mood.AFTER A WEEK OF ADOLESCENT SUICIDES, THIS IS THE WAY I SEE IT... Through a Glass Darkly

I grew up in a family where The Holy Bible was handled with special reverence. Other books or magazines or papers were never placed on top of the Bible. Care was taken not to drop it. I can say honestly that I love the Bible. I like to read it. It is an absolutely amazing collection of writings.

BUT THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, as Desi famously said to Lucy, has “got some ‘splainin’ to do.” How do we explain to someone outside the Christian community why church pastors and lay people do not loudly proclaim their disagreement with the “laws of God” found in the Bible which call for outrageous, horrible penalties like stoning? How can they step gingerly around those issues? It is not so difficult to explain Fred Phelps to people outside the Christian community because he so obviously irrational; but how do we explain the vocal preachers in the fundamentalist camp continuing to insist that a major test of faith is belief that THE WHOLE BIBLE, every word, every jot and tittle, is the inspired Word of God to be followed to the letter of the law? Do we assume, as non-Christians surely do, that the people who represent Christianity actually read and understand the texts? How do we explain that more than half the Christians in the world believe there is no error in Scripture? What kind of mental trick are pastors playing on themselves and passing along to their congregations that makes it possible for them to say with straight faces that compliance is demanded by God?

I am guessing that the majority of the people in America who call themselves Christians don’t actually know what Old Testament laws require. The directions, the dos and don’ts, are very clear. For example, the Bible says that if a woman fails to bleed onto a white bed-sheet on her wedding night, she should be stoned to death. And if it happens that the man she married simply doesn’t like her, and it can be proven that she actually was a virgin when they married, he is required to pay a fine to her parents for falsely accusing her, and he must take her back, and she is required to continue to be his wife.

“If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, "I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity," then the girl's father and mother shall bring proof that she was a virgin to the town elders at the gate. The girl's father will say to the elders, "I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. Now he has slandered her and said, 'I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.' But here is the proof of my daughter's virginity." Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, and the elders shall take the man and punish him. They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the girl's father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives. If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. --Deuteronomy 22: 13-21

Skipping church (or, actually, working on the Sabbath (Saturday?): Exodus 35:2... “For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.”

Adultery: Leviticus 20:10...  If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife--with the wife of his neighbor-- both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

Some of the other offenses that require the death penalty: Bestiality (Exodus 22:19); Blasphemy (Leviticus 24:10-16); Defying the Law of God (Numbers 15: 30-31); defying parents (“Anyone who attacks his father or his mother must be put to death. Exodus 21:15); eating fat or blood (Leviticus 78:22-27); false prophets (Deuteronomy 13:1-18); homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13); Idolatry (Exodus 22:20, Leviticus 20:1-6); Incest (Leviticus 20:11-12, 14, 17, 19-21); Kidnapping (Exodus 21:16); Murder (Genesis 9:5-6 Exodus 21:12-14, Leviticus 24:17,21); Rape (Deuteronomy 22:25-27); Sex during Menstruation (Leviticus 20:18); Wizards and Witches (Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:6, 27).

The majority of Christians pay little attention to most of the Old Testament codes for living in community, but they continue to treat the troublesome passages with reverence because they are part of the Bible. Some Christians single out something like homosexuality and declare it to be an important “law of God” which must be obeyed while ignoring other prohibitions. Some Christian scholars make an attempt to understand and explain the laws in their historical context. A few folks insist that a Christian must obey “a law of God” no matter how egregious it may seem, and some others believe that reverence for the whole Bible as absolute truth is an absurd response to absurd laws.

So what does the responsible person do? Regardless of what the Bible says should be done, how about trying the “do no harm” rule, the “do unto others” ideal that Jesus seems to have promoted. For example, how about encouraging people not to say or do anything that may reinforce a gay person’s loathing and fear of his own nature. Don’t remain silent and avoid doing what should be done to stop bullying. Don’t ignore the self-loathing of any person, especially any adolescent. Be conscious of the fact that a gay kid may become convinced that God hates him/her because of the way the church and parents tacitly signal their belief in the rightness of the Levitical “law of God” regarding homosexuality. Be aware that if he/she commits suicide, the church is culpable and all of who embrace it are culpable. If any person becomes lost in despair because the church implies that the “law of God” as described in the Old Testament is God’s wish for mankind, then the church is culpable. The pastor or other church leader who declines to declare that the Biblical law condemning homosexuals makes no sense is culpable.

I continue to expect the church to be the moral compass for the community. When it is not, it has lost its reason for being.

Today is the tenth day of the tenth month of the year twenty-ten; so to break the spell of uniform reality, I found these curb images that are abstract and can mean whatever I want them to mean. Something abstract exists only as a thought, an idea, so one can make these fields of color into anything that pleases... or not. Anyone who remembers that I was once a teacher will guess what the green sections of curb, abstracted away from their place beside the parking lot, suggest to me. I almost always like yellow wherever I find it... in daffodils and dandelions and vases in what the Chinese call chicken fat glaze. How can yellow not be cheerful, even on the curb. I’m throwing in the less abstract red curb with drain just because... because the whole in red is mysterious, like a black hole in outer space. Earlier in the week after watching a series of photographs taken by the Hubble Telescope I tried for a few minutes to get my mind around the fact that there are hundred of billions of galaxies in the universe, and on that very day I came across the drain in the red curb near where I live and decided I’d focus my attention on it for a minute because it was something I could understand... and decided soon that it was an abstraction as well.

Discouraging news from the parking lot. Although the impulse to wait was powerful, I decided not to stick around to see who owns the car parked next to mine with the bumper sticker that said, “MY GOD CAN KICK YOUR GOD’S ASS.” The bumper sticker is a reminder that the world is often not a safe place. It shattered the good mood I had found a few minutes earlier watching and photographing an energetic hummingbird.. and then I noticed that the red car was actually a piece of junk and that the other cars around it didn’t express such a nasty attitude... and I began to feel a teeny bit better until I turned on the car radio as I drove away and heard that insurgents in Afghanistan had detonated a bomb in a crowed mosque... Muslims killing Muslims over whose god is bigger.