today, the fourth of july, our family went to 'the great auditorium' in ocean grove for church. the service was not necessarily in line with my personal views.

we sang some songs and basked in the glow of their thirty food lighted american flag. we listened to an opening prayer about how god should really protect our soldiers. the lady praying asked god to help america. she asked that god bring, 'peace from war, democracy from tyranny and death, death (this is where she stopped and stammered for a bit) no, life from death.' i thought the slip up was all too fitting. i didn't agree with what she said at all.

we listened to a wonderful solo from a soprano who sang 'this is my song' and that included the line, 'god of all nations.' i liked that.

there was then a moment of sharing and the man that was introducing the speaker made a joke. he said, 'i'd like to introduce henry will. at least he's not henry the viii!' people laughed. people are still making jokes about loyalists. i didn’t know that was still happening.

the service continued and we sang 'soldiers of christ, arise.' i was raised in a mennonite environment and was always taught that nonviolence was the ideal, that pacifism was a quality to be revered. i was taught that war was wrong on all levels. here are the lyrics of the song we sang:

soldiers of christ, arise, and put your armor on,
strong in the strength which god supplies
thru his eternal son;
strong in the lord of hosts, and in his mighty power,
who in the strength of jesus trusts
is more than conqueror.

stand then in his great might,
with all his strength endued,
but take to arm you for the fight the panoply of god;
that having all things done,
and all your conflicts passed,
ye may o'ercome thru christ alone
and stand entire at last.

from strength to strength go on,
wrestle and fight and pray,
tread all powers of darkness down
and win the well-fought day.
still let the spirit cry in all his soldiers, 'come!'
till christ the lord descends from high and takes the conquerors home.

wow.

i especially like the line, 'wrestle and fight and pray.' hilarious.

we sang the song loudly and i was thankful for the blue hymnal at my church.

then, the sermon. our preacher was rev. dr. thomas k. tewell (pronounced, fittingly, 'tool'). he talked to us about doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly. i resonated with parts of the sermon, the parts where he was talking about respecting people, looking to find solutions to problems in non confrontational ways and helping to decrease the social injustices that have plagued our world since its inception (my interpretation). the sermon was called 'x-treme christianity', which was frightening. he said the word 'dude' a lot which also caused me to cringe.

i enjoyed it, for the most part, until he tried to relate part of his sermon to dick cheney. a couple of days ago, dick cheney was at a yankees game. the crowd was singing 'america the beautiful' or some other patriotic song and they flashed mr. cheney's picture on the screen. he was booed and they removed the picture. our pastor said that, by booing dick cheney, the crowed made jesus look bad. i think there's some round-about logic to this, but i still haven't caught it all.

all in all it was an interesting sunday. happy fourth of july and remember that we're not all perfect.

thoreau said that patriotism was a maggot.

garrison keillor said that a person without self doubt was a monster.

i said that being hubristic just isn't cool.

the beach is hilarious.

i've never been a very big fan of laying down on the hot sand under the unrelenting sun while constantly getting blasted by salt mist. i've been heading out there to see what's going on. i watch people.

people pack onto this tiny stretch of sand that butts up against the lulling ocean. they sit on towels and all stare at the sea. they do not wear any clothes. the men sit with giant bellies ballasting their equally bulbous rear ends. the women unabashedly wear next to nothing and lay quietly trying to absorb as much of the sun's bronzing qualities as is possible. children fall and play in the sand.

i can't help but believe that everyone is secretly miserable.

i stand there in pants and a t-shirt watching everyone walk by. i see all the young girls insecurely prancing by. i see all the muscled men lumber by and gawk.

i see a group of mammals sunning themselves and looking disturbingly out of place.

we're coming up on the fourth of july and i'm sitting quietly at the jersey shore. there are flags flapping in the wind and people milling around. we're sure to be met by some fire works on the beach, nationalistic songs and the rest. we all need to worship something, i guess.

i'm still amazed with our lifestyles. people work incredibly brutal hours and have little time to spend with friends or anyone else for that matter. we all stay 'in touch' by using our cell phones or anything else that will virtually allow us to hear a voice or read the thoughts of our 'loved ones'. we are all hanging by thin, frayed, virtual strings to one another.

we drive from place to place and spend our money buying things that others make. we spend money in our free time and make money when we're busy. we pride ourselves with what is owned, even if it's not explicitly stated.

i guess i work just as hard as the rest of the mulling population but i've had the opportunity to see the world with eyes that have been skewed for the past two years with the reality of the mekong delta.

well, life will continue to plod along. i've learned to enjoy the small, simple moments. the times when i'm sitting in a small, blue chair. the times when no one is saying anything. the phone calls where nothing is discussed and the sound of the other person's voice resonates deeply within. the times when i sit in traffic, when it's not moving at all. the times when my eyes are heavy and my head is dull.

the reason i haven't written anything in such a long time is because i've been in colorado. i flew out there last thursday and didn't have access to a computer.

colorado is stunningly beautiful. the rocky mountains lurch out of the plain and stand rigid, like a wall, to the west. the tips of the mountains were snow-capped even in late june.

i went out there to see the person who has changed my life more dramatically than anyone else has in the past two years. i went out to spend time with someone whose presence leaves me stunned, silent and smirking.

we walked through giant, tree covered mountains. we camped under a blanket of stars, more stars than i have ever seen. we winded down roads that curved through valleys and stopped to look at the beauty that surrounded us. i smiled, didn't know what to say and continued to smile.

i dreamt the other night about tony blair.

he was standing in the middle of a room wearing a black and white shirt that was patterned similarly to shirts that come from new mexico. it had a high neck, like a priest's shirt, and had bits of silver in it too.

i went up to him and tried to give him a friendly hug. he was quite small and, when i approached, he crumbled to the ground like a sack of potatoes. he laid on the ground for a bit and we eventually found ourselves sitting in those overgrown chairs that one sees in presidential interviews. we sat there and talked about politics.

for a long time he was explaining to me how playing the guitar and developing foreign policy were so very similar. i think he was trying to show that they both required one to be a bit inventive but i didn't quite make the connection. i woke up.




the man i drempt about