progressive involvement

City by the Bay

I have four favorite cities in the United States.  In fact, there are only about four cities that I like at all.  They are:  San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, and Kansas City.  (I'd add a fifth, but I can't choose between Seattle and Boston.)  You can keep the rest.

I've been entranced by the City by the Bay since my first visit in 1978.  "I'm always drunk in San Francisco," goes the old song, "and I don't drink at all."  Something about the place definitely puts you in a different frame of mind--something to do with the air, perhaps, which you can feel and taste, and the majestic setting at the mouth of one of the world's most beautiful natural harbors.

You can still feel the gold rush, and see the old money of Nob Hill.  You think of the loneshoremen, Dashiell Hammett, City Lights bookstore, the "Wall Street of the West," and St. Francis Church, where Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe got married.  Willie Mays played here, and Joe Montana, along with various beats, hippies, investment bankers, and weird characters.

The city was named for St. Francis of Assisi, its patron saint.  Most people don't think of San Francisco as a particularly "spiritual" place, though I do.  If I lived there, I'd be hard-pressed to decide which church to go to.  Denominational ties would link me to St. Mark's Lutheran, which is fine, but I'd spend some time at Glide Memorial United Methodist and maybe do some volunteer work there.  I'd drop in at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal occasionally, and also Grace Cathedral.  I like the modernist architecture of St. Mary's Cathedral so I might go there once in awhile as well.  If I needed some space to think, I might head up to the pacifying spaces of the Pacific School of Religion, which overlooks the ocean.

"Don't call it Frisco," said Herb Caen, because "Frisco" just isn't dignified enough for such a cosmopolitan place.  San Francisco proclaimed itself "sophisticated" from the beginning.  Which, oddly, it is.  Usually, when people proclaim some virtue for themselves, that very proclamation is evidence that they don't have that particular virtue, nor humility either.  

Yet, for all that sophistication, the city also has its brawling past, its out-size cranks, and its shady characters.  Until rather recently, San Francisco was mainly a blue collar city.  Eric Hoffer, the working man's philosopher, was a San Franciscan.

San Francisco was originally a Spanish mission, and our first important connection with Asia--thus, an international city from the beginning.  Combine Asian and Latino cultures with western independence.  Throw in financiers, longshoremen, and Jack Kerouac.  Put them all in a place that moves between sun-kissed exuberance and foggy moodiness and you have a mix that is both thoroughly American and, for America, unusually exotic.    

Sermon for Pentecost 5: Our Trip to Sarteneja

What a wonderful trip!  Whatever remarks I make today can only touch the surface.  Every one of us has tons of stories to tell.  Ask us, and we'll be happy to tell them.  Even if you don't ask us, we'll probably tell them anyway.

Before I say anything else, I want to give my highest praise to Megan and Adam Shaffer.  I've been on this kind of trip before, which is a trip I still talk about years later, and this one was even better than that.  Megan and Adam deserve our highest thanks not only for getting us there and back safely, but for everything else in between.

I want to also mention Praying Pelicans Ministries, who did a bang up job in every way.  Every local arrangement went without a hitch, with the possible exception of scheduling a picnic in a spot with no trees.

I also want to thank all of you.  It was your financial support, your prayer support, your spiritual support which made this mission possible.  You were with us every step of the way.  Sixteen people were the face of the mission, but all of All Saints was the body.

Top 15 Skylines of the World

See the USA in your Chevrolet

Remember when flying was considered glamorous?  Back in the 50's and 60's, people even dressed up for it.  Even if they flew one time in their life, on that day, they would be a "jet-setter," eating gourmet meals at 30,000 feet.

After the bloom was off that particular rose, we started to see flying in a more utilitarian way.  Yes, it was a hassle--the schedules were off, the planes crowded, the food not food--but it was fast and we learned to live with the hassles in order to take advantage of the speed.

Then, 9.11 happened.  What had been a difficult situation became an ordeal.  First, you had to show up two hours early for your flight.  In most cases, the flight itself isn't that long.  Let's say you were going to Albuquerque.  It's an hour and a half flight to Albuquerque from Denver, but arriving two hours early has upped your total travel time to three and a half hours.  Now, add in the 45 minutes it took to drive to the airport in the first place, and you're up to 4 hours and 15 minutes.  If you need to rent a car in Albuquerque, add another half hour.  Total travel time is now around 5 hours.  You can drive it in 7, and still have your car!

Then, they added in more security restrictions, so that you had to take your shoes off, and your belt, and anything else with metal larger than the rivets on your blue jeans--oh yes, you quit wearing a suit a long time ago.  As you're taking off your clothes, you also have to get your laptop out and put it in a separate basket while at the same time worrying about any inadvertent items in your bags or on your person that might trigger being "pulled to the side."

Jeralyn now avoids flying, and so do I.  If it's under a 12 hour drive to get to my destination, I'll be driving. 

Regressing

In 1942, the Montreal Limited left New York City at 11:15 p.m. and arrived in Montreal at 8:25 a.m., about 9 hours later.  Today, it's a 12 hour rail trip.  Chicago to Minneapolis, in the 1950's, took 4 1/2 hours--today, 8 hours.

Chicago to Denver in 1934?  13 1/2 hours--today, 18 hours.  In 1934, you would have taken the Burlington Zephyr, which quite often traveled at over 100 mph.  Today, a "high speed train" averages 87 mph.

I rode the rails in Europe back in 1976, over thirty years ago.  The trains were clean, fast, convenient, and exceptionally comfortable, with private compartments that could seat six people comfortably, but which more often had only 2-3, in which case it was a simple thing to fold the seats down to make a bed, which, with the rocking of the rails and all, was exceptionally comfortable.  Thirty years later, the European trains are not quite as comfortable or private, but they are even faster and more high tech.

If we could get our train system up to where Europe was 30 years ago, that would represent tremendous progress.  Hell, if we could get to where we ourselves were 50 years ago, that would be great progress.

Visit East Germany

Der Spiegel has a nice set of photographs taken in 1990 by a West German photographer.  The situation is quite different now.  For example, Eisenach today bears little resemblance to the photo of Eisenach taken 19 years ago.

In our last trip to Europe five years ago, we visited the former East Germany.  I was interested to see whatever signs their might be of the former communist regime.  The only difference between east and west that I could see was that the former East Germany has a number of apartment buildings that, because of shoddy construction in the first place, are in various stages of disrepair. 

It was interesting to see "Karl Marx Strasse" in Eisenach, and a large building topped with a sculpture of the hammer-and-sickle in Leipzig.  Other than some historically leftover items like that though, I couldn't see much difference between the atmosphere and street life in the two former nations.

"Old Europe" looking pretty good

The Washington Post has an article up today titled "Five Myths About Sick Old Europe."  Read the whole thing, but note this:

Europeans still enjoy universal cradle-to-grave social benefits in many areas. They get quality health care, paid parental leave, affordable childcare, paid sick leave, free or nearly free higher education, generous retirement pensions and quality mass transit. They have an average of five weeks of paid vacation (compared with two for Americans) and a shorter work week. In some European countries, workers put in one full day less per week than Americans do, yet enjoy the same standard of living.

Europe is more of a "workfare state" than a welfare state. As one British political analyst said to me recently: "Europe doesn't so much have a welfare society as a comprehensive system of institutions geared toward keeping everyone healthy and working." Properly understood, Europe's economy and social system are two halves of a well-designed "social capitalism" -- an ingenious framework in which the economy finances the social system to support families and employees in an age of globalized capitalism that threatens to turn us all into internationally disposable workers. Europeans' social system contributes to their prosperity, rather than detracting from it, and even the continent's conservative political leaders agree that it is the best way.