CONFESSIONS OF A STARBUCKS PASTOR

Do you observe what is marketed online, TV, radio, billboards and in store displays? I know the ads are there and glance - rarely intrigued - but as a person with a sociologist's heart, I often pause to see what's trending. There are all those commercials for the pills your doctor is too ignorant to know about but savvy you can learn about in 60 seconds to fix things you never knew were wrong. Don't worry that the side effects are often worse than what you just discovered you had and the list always includes headache, nausea and death. My favorites are the ones about everyday life. Those luxury car ads that show the life everyone wants to have with built-in everything to enjoy while cruising along the golden highway. It's either the perfect couple in the car, or the perfect parents with the perfect kids. What about the diet commercials that show the before and after photos that tell you that you can do it too - with their program. There's even the one with the d...

We've all heard the saying about not knowing what goes on in other people's homes. For some, we are the story no one sees. Yesterday I was flipping TV channels and stopped on the cable channel ID . A show was profiling true crime stories. I watch those once in awhile and began listening as I crocheted. First I heard the name of the town I had lived in 10 years ago. Interesting.  Then I heard the last name of some former neighbors. Coincidence.  When I heard their first names I looked up. What?  Staring back at me was an old family photo of our neighbors and former small group members with the children my daughter once babysat. We lived a bike ride away on the other side of the hill from their palatial home and watched the elaborate gardens, pool and landscaping be installed over a summer. They were the glamorous family most people in our church fawned over - always looking like they stepped out of a magazine and doing something exciting that cost more money than we ce...

Have you ever noticed a small piece of thread and given it a little tug only to find out it kept coming? Your entire garment could become unraveled if you continued. That is what is happening in the Middle East. Long a hot bed of conflicting religion and government, don't think that the Syria "threads" aren't reaching far and wide. While this 67-year old country has never enjoyed a serene existence, the 2011 Arab Spring opened the door to a civil war where anything goes. Protestors were tired of the Ba'ath Party, a socialist movement led by Bashar al-Assad. The government responded to the protestors with kidnapping, torture and murder. The civilians organized and continued.  In return, the government escalated their responses by destroying whole neighborhoods and towns. Other entities have joined in. Of the more than 110,000 people killed in this short period of time, when WMDs recently killed 400 children a few weeks ago, a thin red line was finally crossed ...

A politician making headlines the past two years is a man I had never heard of...until news of his "selfies" hit the fan. In 2011, this New York state congressman was caught taking photos of his privates with his smart phone and sending them to women who were not his (then pregnant) wife. Public outrage forced him to resign and presumably his career trajectory crashed. According to a People Magazine interview in July 2012, the ex-congressman went through therapy after his resignation. Photos show a happy family holding their baby son who had worked hard to overcome what he had done. They had put that past behind them. A few months later, this rehabilitated family man threw his hat into the ring for the upcoming New York City mayoral race. Over 8,300,000 people live within its 469 square miles, making it the largest city in the United States. Thousands of major corporations make their headquarters there. Its annual operating budget is $70 billion dollars. That's quit...

This sentence has been said to me hundreds of times in the past 15 years. It refers to a person's experience at a church. If we were to be honest, we've all probably said that at one time or another for any number of reasons. The music was too loud. The songs were too long. The sermon was too short. The sermon was too long. They had a band. There were drums. There weren't any hymns. There were hymns. They collected money. They met in a school. They didn't have an organ. They had an organ. The pastor didn't wear a robe. The pastor wore a robe. There were women in leadership. People dressed up. People didn't dress up. The band wore jeans. The pastor wore jeans. They showed a movie clip. The teaching was from the Bible. They didn't talk enough about the Bible. Someone had a beard. They danced. They had communion. They didn't have pews. Children were in the service. Children weren't in the service. You could bring your Starbucks mocha in with you. They...

While the media has focused us on recent Supreme Court rulings, another big news item went unnoticed. The other day I learned that the Christian organization Exodus International had shut its doors. Its president no longer believes they can do what they have promised for over 25 years. In case you haven't heard of them, Exodus International was one of the power players in the evangelical world. Their mission was to bring people out of homosexuality by way of  Christianity. Serving generations, they ran conferences, trainings, inspired support groups all in the name of changing homosexual orientation. Churches referred people to them or created their own sub-groups. They were a very big deal for a long time. Two weeks ago its president pulled the plug. Exodus had not been successful. Some people were still attracted to the same sex, including the president who was faithfully married in a 16-year heterosexual relationship. The organization no longer believed in wha...

The entrepranurial mega-cook Paula Deen is being sued. She is a brand unto herself with cookbooks, kitchenware and television programs. If you have ever seen her interviewed, you know she is a charmer who loves buttery, down-home dishes y'all. Today I learned that she also owns restaurants and that a former employee is suing her for the behavior and language used at one of the locations. It seems that beyond the alleged sexual harrassment, the use of the n-word by fellow employees and management deeply disturbed this white woman. So she is suing Ms. Deen. Earlier this week in her deposition, Paula admitted to using a racial slur once and tolerating racist jokes. Somehow the text from this deposition (which is merely part of the legal process) has been published and public reaction is huge. Yes, she did say "that word" to her husband in private after being held up at gun point over 25 years ago. Pundits think including her words (when the suit is more about sexual har...