steve fuller

Crazy is Crazy

2012-01-27T11:04:00.000-05:00

It's official. People are nuts. Certifiably loony.

I'm no longer going to say, "Well, everyone's crazy." We all have our issues, but many of us are relatively sane. No one is perfect, but at least some imperfections make sense. Greed and lust make sense. They aren't necessarily healthy, but I understand why people want more sex and money.

There's something else going on with a lot of people these days. They're angry, bitter, unhappy, and illogical. You see it in the streets sometimes, but it often manifests itself behind closed doors in front of computer screens.

If you're a sports fan, you know the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers both lost playoff games on Sunday. And you know each game had its own goat. Billy Cundiff missed a short field goal as time expired that would have sent the Ravens game into overtime, and Kyle Williams fumbled a punt return in overtime to set up the Giants for a game-winning field goal. Normal human beings with normal human emotions felt awful for both men.

But not the fans who sent death threats to Cundiff and Williams. Seriously. Death threats. How sad must your life be to threaten another human being for missing a field goal? How insane must you be?

I'm not just talking about a few dozen wackos. Go to YouTube, pick almost any video, and start reading the comments. It's a cesspool of humanity. It takes approximately ten seconds for any discussion thread to deteriorate into a race war.

Bradley Shaw Wise forwarded me a story about Joe Paterno earlier this week. The comment section was unbelievable. Some people supported Paterno, others criticized him for his silence in the Jerry Sandusky scandal (which is understandable), but others lashed out with the most disgusting, hateful rhetoric imaginable.

I've had my fair share of critics over the years. People have called me some nasty names. Mostly, people who don't know me. You get used to it after a while, but it still feels bizarre. Challenge peoples' worldviews, and they don't just disagree, they become irate. And the anger turns to hate.

Politics is clearly one of the worst offenders. Political message boards are out of control. Some of the comments I read about Barack Obama literally frighten me. They seem to originate from men and women who are one "spilled milk" joke away from shooting up a post office. I've known liberals who are just as bad. Crazy doesn't discriminate. Psychosis isn't shaded red or blue.

There's a fairly predominate Christian belief that we're all messed up, so that creates an even playing field for everyone. I now disagree. We all have issues. Absolutely. Many of mine are messy. But some people are simply bat-shit crazy. And that distinction needs to be made or society will continue to gravitate toward the lowest common denominator.

It's not normal or okay to anonymously bash strangers online. It's not normal or okay to root for people to spend an eternity in hell. It's not normal or okay to be racist, sexist, or homophobic. It's not normal or okay to be so angry all of the time.

Crazy isn't normal. Crazy is crazy. When we confuse the two, it opens doors that need to stay closed.

Stuck in the Middle

2012-01-26T13:21:00.000-05:00

Here's my problem with politics: Candidate ideologies are like wind vanes. They blow in whatever direction the current breeze points them.

Take Rick Santorum. (Please, someone take him. Zing!) He recently said, "It's no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college. The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination. If it was the other way around, the ACLU would be out there making sure that there wasn't one penny of government dollars going to colleges and universities, right?"

He went on to say, "If they taught Judeo-Christian principles in those colleges and universities, they would be stripped of every dollar. If they teach radical secular ideology, they get all the government support that they can possibly give them. Because you know 62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it."

Let's forget that his statistic is wrong. (You can read the whole article here.) What really annoys me is that I do not believe for one minute that Santorum actually believes what he said. He was addressing a conservative base that probably never attended college, thinks the elitist liberals are out to destroy America by taking away our guns, and ate up every word.

Of course, Santorum earned his BA from Penn State, his MBA from Pittsburgh, and his JD from Dickinson School of Law. But college is evil, right, Rick? Wink, wink.

There isn't one politician in this country that believes skipping college is a wise decision, but Santorum essentially said just that. Why would he do such a thing? Because he believes it? No way. Because he was pandering to an audience? Obviously.

Stupid.

I believe most of what Ron Paul says is brilliant. A small percentage scares the crap out of me. (And that small percentage will keep him from winning the presidency.) But I respect Paul for being consistent. His message never waivers. Agree or disagree, at least I trust the man.

Santorum? Mitt? Newt? They would gnaw off appendages to win votes. And yet, the American public falls for it every time. We'll take the liar who tickles our ears over honestly, thank you very much.

And Barack isn't much better. Stop fooling yourselves, my liberal friends. Same old story, different side of the aisle. I voted for Obama in 2008, and I don't regret that decision. But with Ron Paul fading, I'm forced to choose between the puppet on the left and the puppet on the right in 2012. Good times.

Clowns to the left of me; jokers to the right. Indeed.

Mother Freaker

2012-01-24T09:37:00.001-05:00

I don't trust people who don't curse.

I'm not saying every other word out of your mouth should be the f-bomb. That makes you sound ignorant. I have a tape of me talking when I was eighteen years old, and I'm cursing like a sailor (do sailors curse a lot?). It's embarrassing because I sound uneducated. Obviously I don't drop f-bombs in front of children or while I'm teaching, but if you smash your thumb in the car door, you should curse. If your favorite team fumbles while driving for the winning touchdown, that's a perfect opportunity to let the expletives fly. If you're reciting a movie line, and you say flipping instead of fucking, that's weird. For example, imagine the tame version of this Fight Club line:

You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your flipping khakis.

Loses its impact. Loses its luster.

When you really want to emphasize how angry or happy you are, cursing answers the call.

"That steak was delicious." Boring.

"That steak was fucking awesome." Now that's a meal.

And don't even think about throwing this Bible verse at me (Ephesians 4:29): "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

If our words should be used to build others up, that enthusiastic second sentence would surely encourage a chef more than the bland first sentence. Reverse scripture throw down!

And what are curse words? Our culture decided shit was an awful word, but poop is okay? They're synonyms. Ass = bad; butt = perfectly fine. Language is arbitrary. Only a species as crazy as humans would take two words that mean the exact same thing and decide one is acceptable and the other is taboo.

It especially drives me crazy when authors and screenwriters choose to substitute bland language for a more authentic curse word. If you're writing a character who doesn't curse, that makes sense. If you're writing a scene in which cursing wouldn't naturally flow from the characters, no problem. But if 99.9 percent of people would say fuck instead of freak after losing their life savings, and you choose the word freak because "cursing is offensive," then your story just became nonsense.

Stephen King said it well in On Writing:

"It is important to tell the truth; so much depends upon it...The Legion of Decency might not like the word shit, and you might not like it much either, but sometimes you're just stuck with it—no kid ever ran to his mother and said that his little sister just defecated in the tub...You must tell the truth if your dialogue is to have resonance and realism. That holds true all the way down to what folks say when they hit their thumb with the hammer. If you substitute 'Oh sugar!' for 'Oh shit!' because you're thinking about the Legion of Decency, you are breaking the unspoken contract that exists between reader and writer—your promise to express the truth of how people act and talk through the medium of a made-up story...The point is to let each character speak freely, without regard to what the Legion of Decency or the Christian Ladies' Reading Circle may approve of. To do otherwise would be cowardly as well as dishonest...I grew up as a part of America's lower middle class...They say shit more often than sugar when they bang their thumbs...Some people don't want to hear the truth, of course, but that's not your problem. What would be [a problem] is wanting to be a writer without wanting to shoot straight."

I seem to have the same problem with storytellers and people who don't occasionally curse—they both seem fake. I'll take authentic and messy over proper and phony. But that's just me. You mother freakers can do whatever you want.

JoePa

2012-01-23T09:24:00.000-05:00

Joe Paterno's death feels like my misunderstood grandfather just passed away. You know, the grandpa that's kinda racist because he's a product of a backwards generation that meant well, but never fully understood how archaic their beliefs had become. You can—and probably should—blame Paterno for not doing more to stop Jerry Sandusky, but when the winningest college football coach of all time recently said he didn't understand a man could rape another man, that "aww, shucks" naïveté spoke volumes about why Paterno ultimately failed Sandusky's victims.

I suppose Paterno should have been fired, but it was sad watching the only Penn State head football coach I had ever known being disgraced on national television. It was even sadder learning of his death Sunday morning. As former Penn State linebacker, Matt Millen, said, "Joe Paterno died of a broken heart."

What has me rattled more than anything else is this idea: One mistake can ruin a legacy. If it can destroy Joe Paterno, it can destroy anyone. By all accounts, JoePa lived an exemplary life. He and his wife, Susan, would have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2012. I remember the confused look on her face when the scandal broke back in November and wonder what she must be feeling today. I wonder how long she'll last without him. I'm sure their time together went by in the blink of an eye, and these last two months have been an emotional blur for the entire family.

His players loved him. The Penn State community worshiped him. To my recollection, there were never any recruiting violations in Paterno's 46 years as head coach. There were lots of wins, a couple of national championships, and an untarnished legacy. Until Jerry Sandusky.

One mistake. Partly made because Paterno didn't fully understand what was happening. Partly made because Paterno felt loyalty toward a friend. (By the way, enough with the judging. How many people would call the cops on a spouse, family member, or best friend in a similar situation? Before you raise your hand in a condescending huff, would you really? Or would you try a hundred different ways to help someone you love without sentencing that person to spend years in prison?) One mistake shattered the foundation of a man's reputation and ultimately took his life.

The stake's are equally high for all of us.

I pray Paterno's new legacy becomes this: I hope fewer children are sexually abused because this story saw the light of day. I hope more people speak up when they witness child abuse. I hope more of the real predators (Sandusky himself) are punished. I hope the naive among us become educated about sex crimes. And I hope that thousands of children are protected, that they go on to live relatively normal lives without ever realizing there could have been a much darker alternative timeline, all because the world witnessed this sad, awful story.

Rest in peace, JoePa. You deserve a little of that right now.

Mommy Bloggers

2012-01-20T09:45:00.000-05:00

I have a problem. This illustration from xkcd.com sums it up pretty well:

I love my niece, but she had a beautiful baby girl last year, and since giving birth, she loves talking about motherhood. Which is great. She loves being a mom and takes her job very seriously. This world needs more parents like Sarah and James. The problem is that her Facebook page has opened my eyes to a whole new world that I didn't know existed—mommy bloggers. (For the record, my niece is always very respectful in the way she publicly discusses these issues. Some of her Facebook friends ... not so much.)

I agree that parenting is difficult. I don't have any kids, but they seem exhausting. And I understand that parents want to love their children and provide the best home environment possible. But these new age parenting styles seem a bit intense.

Co-sleeping, swaddling, home schooling, attachment parenting, public breastfeeding—it's all a bit overwhelming.

My problem isn't that mommy bloggers are trying their best to love their children. That seems perfectly reasonable. The problem is when mommy bloggers make other parents feel inferior because they haven't bought into the new age parenting techniques.

Sadly, I got into two separate arguments on my niece's Facebook page. One about circumcision and the other about public breastfeeding. I'm circumcised (sorry for the visual), but the mommy bloggers essentially called circumcision mutilation, which I thought was odd, so I responded. I'm glad that I'm circumcised, I have no memory of the procedure, and that's the end of that story. When I made a comment, people went nuts. Apparently, I desperately miss my foreskin. In fact, one mother told me that there are many men who long so deeply for their foreskins that they are undergoing foreskin restoration. Oh boy, sign me up.

I also wasn't breastfed. And, honestly, I'm doing just fine. Nor did I sleep in the same bed as my parents. I'm not even sure what swaddling is, but I don't think that happened either. I went to public school, and now I'm a college professor. Both of my parents worked for most of my childhood, and I survived.

Look, I have no problem with anyone's parenting style as long as you provide a loving environment for your child. Sleep in the same bed, home-school, swaddle, leave that foreskin alone, breastfeed naked on Fountain Square. Go for it, but don't make other parents feel like crap because they make different choices.

Some women feel uncomfortable exposing their breasts in public (and many people feel uncomfortable staring at your breast, no matter how "natural" it is). Some women want to have have a career while raising children. Some men (who actually have a penis) want to circumcise their sons because they believe it's a better option (for multiple reasons I won't go into here). Some women don't want to feel every "beautiful" moment of childbirth. Nor do they want to have a baby in their bathtub. If that's your plan, that's awesome, but just because you do it doesn't make it the right way.

Here's how I responded to the mommy bloggers:

I'm sure, like anything else, your experience becomes the "right" way. Perhaps I am frustrated with the new wave of parenting that seems to know everything about parenting as though raising a child is an exact science. As a circumcised male who wasn't breast-fed, had two working parents, was never strapped to my parents' backs, and believed in Santa, I am thankful for my childhood. It produced a pretty good dude in a healthy marriage. Sometimes I read these mommy blogs, and there is a strong sense that this new generation of mothers has the answers to parenting. Home-schooling, breastfeeding, swaddling, no circumcision, not lying about Santa, co-sleeping...these are all options, but not the only options. And I haven't seen compelling evidence that any of them are better than their alternative. There is too much judgement regarding these issues. I never once said all children should be circumcised. I simply said there is another viewpoint in this debate, and I felt compelled to share it: As a man, I'm glad I'm circumcised. Just because you have an opinion or a way of living life, doesn't mean it's right or appropriate for everyone else.

So, to sum up, I really need to get a hobby.

Gonna Have to Face It

2012-01-19T09:32:00.000-05:00

I'm addicted to creativity.

Creative people doing creative things gives me a creative bo ... nah, I don't think you're ready for that phrase yet. Here's the latest video that has me all worked up:

That video is amazing. Some dude (user name ant1mat3rie to be exact) spent hours finding footage, editing it together, and blessing the world with his creation.

Sometimes I get frustrated with humanity. Especially when I follow political or religious discourse. Too many people are racist, sexist, and homophobic. Too many people are angry. Too many people are uneducated. Too many people are ethnocentric. The amount of ignorance can be overwhelming and deflating. (And I'm just talking about myself.)

But then I stumble upon the creative geniuses (or I'm lucky enough to have friends like Joe Boyd, Brad Wise, Jason Boys, and Kevin Fragassi who find gems for me). I often get lost on YouTube in a sea of creativity. Every time I do, it gives me hope. There are still creative geniuses out there. Humanity can still laugh at itself. In my opinion, one of the highest forms of intelligence is comedy. Funny people are smart. (I know what you're thinking: What about Larry the Cable Guy, Steve? Trust me, that man is a genius. Larry the Cable Guy is a character played by Daniel Lawrence Whitney to make millions off naive fans. Real cable guys aren't rich and famous.) When I watch videos like this, I feel at peace knowing the world is going to be okay:

If you don't think history class would have been better if the teacher had been wasted while lecturing, then watch this video.

Last one: Click here to watch my favorite political campaign ad on YouTube. Newt would probably get more votes if he actually made that much sense.

Be cool, okay? And be creative. It makes me happy.

Blacked Out

2012-01-18T10:43:00.001-05:00

I started blogging again this week, and the Internet decided to have a blackout? I can take a hint, Al Gore.

I literally have no idea what this blackout is about. Something about piracy and free speech. I do know if Congress wants to pass a law, that law is probably stupid. And if Google supports the blackout, then my overlord has spoken, and I must comply.

I had a brilliant post planned for today, but politicians screwed that up. They screw everything up.

So, I'm blacked out, but I'm not sure how to make my page black, so just get really close to your computer screen and stare at this square:

As Mel Gibson once said in Lethal Weapon 4, "Freedooooooooommm!!!

Jesus Wore Eye Black

2012-01-17T08:57:00.000-05:00

Allow me to be the 7 billionth person to discuss Tim Tebow in a public forum.

First, he seems like a swell fella. Good for him. Good for the people he inspires. Good for the underprivileged folks he helps through his charity work. All great stuff that more people with wealth and opportunity should do.

Second, it's weird to hate a genuinely nice guy just because he's religious. I don't dislike Pat Robertson because he's religious. I dislike Pat Robertson because he is a bat-shit crazy. He just also happens to be religious. I also didn't care for Hitler, regardless of his religion affiliation. So, if you hate Tim Tebow only because he is a Christian, then you're a weirdo.

Third, it's annoying that Christians root for Tim Tebow just because he's Christian. There are a lot of Christians in the NFL, so why focus on Tebow? Andy Dalton also worships Jesus, so why aren't evangelicals buying Dalton jerseys? Tebow is clearly more vocal about his faith, but that doesn't make him a better Christian or more deserving of our adoration. In fact, Tebow seems to be cashing in quite a bit on his fame. He couldn't possibly have an ulterior motive, could he? Maybe. Maybe not. As a lifelong sports fan, I'd prefer Christians stay out of the sports dialogue if they don't like sports.

Fourth, here's why I want religious folks who don't like sports to go away: God is not rooting for Tim Tebow. At least, no more than God roots for any football player. And, for the love of all that is holy, can everyone agree Jesus isn't altering professional football games because he's got a crush on Tim Tebow? Tebow threw for 316 yards against Pittsburgh because sometimes quarterbacks throw for 316 yards, not because of John 3:16. What message was God trying to communicate the week Tebow threw for 69 yards against Kansas City? (Naughty Yahweh!)

If God helped Denver beat the Steelers, why didn't he help the Broncos beat the Patriots? Is Tom Brady more powerful than God? (Seriously, is he?) Did God take the day off? Was God fed up with Tebowmania? Look, God doesn't determine the outcome of sporting events, so please stop saying he does. It makes you sound bat-shit crazy too. God has bigger things to worry about, like war, famine, disease, and the Golden Globes.

Fifth, everyone needs to freaking relax. Alex Smith was awful his first few years in the NFL, and now his 49ers are one game away from the Super Bowl. My first three or four years in the classroom were a rollercoaster ride, but now I'm a pretty good teacher. Unless you're a freak of nature, greatness takes time. Tebow just finished his second full season in professional football, and he lost an entire off-season because of the labor dispute. Maybe he'll be good; maybe he won't, but why do we have to decide at this moment? That doesn't happen with anyone else in football, so why put unrealistic expectations on Tebow?

I really hope Tebow doesn't decide to play professional baseball because I desperately need a few months off from Tebowmania. I'm just glad all baseball players worship Satan.

Back on the Horse

2012-01-16T10:54:00.000-05:00

Okay, here we go. New year = new possibilities. Blogging—2012 edition—officially begins today.

Liz bought me Stephen King's On Writing for Christmas. Great book if you read Stephen King. Great book if you enjoy writing. King gives many helpful suggestions to those of us still learning the craft. A handful of tips really resonated:

(1) Writers need to read. I already read about 20-25 books per year, so I'm doing pretty well there. King said he reads approximately 80 books per year, which seems crazy. I suppose it helps that he mostly avoids television, so I'm going to make an effort to eliminate pointless television (mostly reruns) from my life. Good television (Dexter, Breaking Bad, American Horror Story) has taught me as much about good storytelling as any book I've ever read, so I'm not completely abandoning the boob tube, but how many reruns of Law and Order: SVU can one man possibly watch?

(2) Writers need a place to write. This is a work in progress. I set up an office in our basement over the summer, but our basement is currently one hundred degrees below zero, so that doesn't work. When we (likely) buy a house later this spring, creating a comfortable writing space will be a top priority, but for now, I'll make do slumming it at our kitchen table. As a multitasker, I'm used to writing with the television blaring in the background, or my phone beeping, or Facebook running in the background, but that's an awful way to lose yourself in a story.

(3) Writers need to write. And that leads me to today's post. I don't write enough. I used to write almost every day from 2005-2007, then I got burnt out and essentially quit posting in 2008. The Church Experiment revived my blog in 2009, then I lost interest again when my next experiment fizzled out in 2010. And, frankly, Facebook and Twitter have changed the way people communicate. Why write something in a thousand words when you can write it in 140 characters? I got married, work got busy, and my poor blog was neglected. But writers need to write. And if I'm going to finish my third novel before the summer, I better start writing.

So, I'm going to start writing again, only this time, I don't care if anyone reads the results.

Seriously. I used to be obsessed with growing my readership. It's probably the reason I got burnt out. Writing became a chore. Starting today, I'm reverting back to that kid who wrote Superdog in the third grade. I'll write about faith, politics, sports, and entertainment. I'll continue updating my Pub Crawl. I'll do some creative writing. Anything goes. The only requirement is that I have fun. I either experience joy during the process or I find a better way to spend my time.

Each weekday morning, I'll spend 30 minutes writing whatever is floating around in my head. You're welcome to read along. If not, that's okay too. Either way, I'm looking forward to scraping the rust off my brain and feeling plastic dance beneath my fingertips.

I Heart Cincinnati

2011-12-27T15:24:00.000-05:00

Many Cincinnatians don't share my affection for the Queen City. Lonely Planet just ranked Cincinnati third in its Top 10 United States Travel Destinations for 2012. Predictably, many of my friends proudly publicized the article because they share my love for Cincinnati. And predictably, the haters interjected with negativity. Nary a day passes without someone (mostly students or online acquaintances) criticizing Cincinnati and declaring their desire to escape (as though someone is holding them hostage against their will).

My head almost exploded a few months ago when someone living in Mason ranted against my neighborhood (Clifton's Gaslight District) on Facebook, saying she would never let her teenage daughter walk its streets by herself, even during the day. Forget the fact the my neighborhood's average house costs more than almost any other neighborhood in Cincinnati, and forget that Ludlow is a populated street, and forget that crime is almost non-existent here. Her misguided perception of a wonderful neighborhood overrode all reason. When I posted the link to Mason High School's sex scandal (an indication her daughter was in more danger at school than in my neighborhood), she stopped responding.

Why do I love Cincinnati so much? Instead of fueling the fire with more arguing and negativity, I started a list. Feel free to add to it.

1. Cincinnati food is delicious. And it's world famous. Cincinnati chili was even referenced on an episode of CSI: Miami. Whether you prefer Skyline, Gold Star, Camp Washington, or a dozen other options, spaghetti topped with chili and cheese is uniquely Cincinnati. Imagine growing up in a city without late-night Skyline runs after an evening of drinking? The horrors! Not to mention Graeter's ice cream, LaRosa's pizza, Montgomery Inn's ribs, or the dozens of other wonderful hometown restaurants.

2. The second oldest zoo in the United States (and we only missed beating the Philadelphia Zoo by 14 months!) is nearly in my back yard. From a huge collection of animals and plants, to the Wild About Wine events that Liz and I are, well, wild about, to the Festival of Lights every holiday season, we visit the zoo three or four times per year. What a treat for Cincinnatians with children to have such a fun, educational zoo within a stone's throw of downtown. And if you're more interested in aquatic life, the Newport Aquarium is just across the river.

3. Theater in Cincinnati is simply fantastic. The anchor is the Aronoff Center downtown, where I've seen The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Les Miserables, Spamalot, The Wizard of Oz, and Wicked, just to name a few. The Shakespeare Company is also fantastic. And perhaps my favorite theater is Playhouse in the Park. Not only have I seen a dozen great plays (such as Doubt and A Christmas Carol), but the outdoor amphitheater is a wonderful place to watch a Shakespeare in the Park performance. There are too many community theaters to name, but Brieabi Productions puts on excellent performances (we saw Suessical the Musical last year and Willy Wonka the Musical this December) at the Anderson Center.

4. The best comedians come to Cincinnati. I've seen Brian Regan and Daniel Tosh at Taft Theater, Jerry Seinfeld at the Aronoff Center, and dozens of hilarious comedians (such as Mike Birbiglia and Frank Caliendo) at Go Bananas and the Funny Bone.

5. Cincinnati has the oldest professional baseball team, a professional football team, a minor league professional hockey team, two major college athletic programs, and a professional tennis tour stop. Not to mention, high school football is huge in Cincinnati. Although hometown fans are jaded, keep in mind, the Reds have won five World Series Championships in their history and recently made the 2010 playoffs. The Bengals won the AFC North in 2005 and 2009, and are one game away from the playoffs in 2011. The Cyclones won ECHL Championships in 2008 and 2010. The Bearcats football team won the Big East in 2008, 2009, and 2011, and played in two BCS bowl games during that stretch. And the Xavier basketball team has made 10 of the last 11 NCAA tournaments, going to the Elite 8 twice and the Sweet 16 an additional two times.

6. Music is alive in Cincinnati. From huge concerts at U.S. Bank Arena, to smaller concerts at Riverbend Music Center, to the local music scene, to the summer music festivals, music can be heard from the banks of the Ohio River to the outer edges of the 275 loop. Liz and I recently attended Over the Rhine's traditional Christmas concert at Taft Theater, and it was a soul-stirring performance.

7. And don't just stop at music, what about all of Cincinnati's arts? The Cincinnati Ballet just launched The New Nutcracker in 2011 to rave reviews. The Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestra is perennially rated one of the best in the country. The Cincinnati Art Museum is gorgeous (and free!), the Cincinnati Museum Center is located in historic Union Terminal, the Taft Museum of Art is one of the finest small art museums in the nation, and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is quickly becoming world-renowned. Cincinnati even has an Opera!

8. Perhaps the greatest Cincinnati tradition is our Labor Day fireworks show. Hundreds of thousands of locals line the Ohio River to watch WEBN and Rozzi's Famous Fireworks put on an amazing show. Other traditions include the Cincinnati Reds opening day parade, Santa repelling down a skyscraper, and Steve Fuller Day (okay, that one hasn't happened yet).

9. Findlay Market is probably one of the most underrated and underutilized features of Cincinnati. Fresh fruit, vegetables, pasta, meat, fish, and bread are yummy in my tummy. Plus, the overall atmosphere is one-of-kind. Trust me, bullets aren't whizzing by pedestrian's heads as they shop. And you haven't truly lived until you've eaten a fresh waffle from Taste of Belgium.

10. Kings Island opened five years before my birth and played a huge role in my childhood. Rollercoasters, games, shows, food, and a water park make Kings Island a childhood oasis. Even The Brady Bunch visited the park back in 1973! For the love of God, Evel Knievel jumped over 14 buses at Kings Island! What more can you ask for? Once Coney Island, The Beach Waterpark, Coco Key Water Resort, and the Great Wolf Lodge get thrown into the mix, there is plenty of amusement to be had in Cincinnati.

11. Finally, I love Cincinnati's neighborhoods. Mt. Adams, Hyde Park, Oakley, Mt. Lookout, Over-the-Rhine, Clifton, and many others make Cincinnati truly unique. Local bars, restaurants, and shops give each community its own personality. I love my city so much that I'm committed to exploring at least one bar in each of its 52 neighborhoods. After visiting 11 neighborhoods in 2011, I'm looking forward to finishing the experiment in 2012.

Plato once wrote, "This city is what it is because our citizens are what they are."

Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion of Cincinnati, but I choose to see the beauty of the Queen City. As Plato suggested, perhaps the negative attitudes toward Cincy by many of its citizens cause more problems. Many of us choose to create a better Cincinnati through our words, attitudes, and actions. I love my city, scars and all, and I will always speak out against the lazy "Cincinnati sucks" mentality that only poisons our community morale.

A Few of My Favorite Things

2011-12-20T16:02:00.000-05:00

This holiday season, I have been reflecting upon the most important gifts in my life: Creative friends and family that inspire me to teach well, write novels, experiment with life, and make goofy movies.

Specifically, these people come to mind:

My lovely wife and her sister make fun, creative, quality crafts. You can view some of them here. Liz also made this skirt for our Christmas tree:

My friends Joe Boyd and Brad Wise make full-length movies. You can learn more about Joe's comedic mockumentary here and Brad's first feature film here. Even more exciting is their second movie, A Strange Brand of Happy , which I was lucky enough to read from first draft to final script. It's going to be good stuff.

Brad's lovely wife, Leah, who is the second-best cook I know (Liz being number one, of course), is about to begin a culinary trip around the world. Not to give any spoilers, but Liz and I were invited to one of the dinners, and the food was excellent. (To be honest, I don't even remember what country it was, but in my defense, the Wise family got me liquored up on pomegranate martinis). You can read about Leah's plan here. Be sure to check back in 2012 when the adventure begins.

Finally, the best for last. At the top of this page is a short film made by a handful of friends celebrating a bachelor party. Kevin Fragassi spent hours taking our rough footage (filled with awful acting) and pieced it together into a masterpiece. A group of friends gathered one Friday night with no script and almost no plan. Three hours later, we shot our final scene. The movie is obviously goofy (that was the point), but I am super impressed by Kevin's creativity in producing a finished product.

There are others--friends and family who choose to create instead of just consume. There's nothing wrong with reading a book, watching a movie, eating dinner at a restaurant, or buying a wreath from a craft store, but there's something magical about writing, making, cooking, or creating with your own two hands. I hope everyone is blessed to have creative friends and family who inspire you to create your masterpiece in 2012.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

When a Bear Kicks Back

2011-12-12T09:14:00.003-05:00

Little background: For my buddy's bachelor party, instead of getting drunk, about ten of us got together and made a short movie. We had almost no plan, (as you'll see) no actors, and about three hours to film. After two months of editing, Kevin put together this gem. I am super impressed with the finished product. Even if you think it's awful, that night was incredibly fun. We cracked up laughing during every scene. I highly recommend being creative with friends and family.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, here's the moment you've all been waiting for: The premiere of the greatest movie known to man, I proudly present, "When a Bear Kicks Back." Enjoy.

Queen City Pub Crawl: Columbia-Tusculum

2011-11-10T11:28:00.000-05:00

Columbia-Tusculum is a tale of two neighborhoods. Considered Cincinnati's first neighborhood, the community of Columbia was founded in 1788, predating Cincinnati by a month. Two hundred years later (1989), the Columbia-Tusculum Historic District was formed to protect the area's unique architecture.

I had always been intrigued by the area when I made the drive from Clifton to the kickball fields at Lunken Airport. At one end of Columbia-Tusculum, new businesses are thriving, Victorian homes have been restored and renovated, and young people gather in bars and restaurants. At the other end, homes have been neglected, streets are deserted, and poverty reigns. Driving half a mile feels like crossing into another world.

Although it wasn't planned, my visit to Columbia-Tusculum granted me access into both worlds.

I began the afternoon at Tammy's on the southeast edge of Columbia-Tusculum. Before walking inside, I read this review online from January of 2010: "Rude people and they allow smoking inside! I have reported them to the No Smoke OH authorities." Well, almost two years later, nothing has changed.

This sign is clearly displayed on the front door:

Unfortunately, literally every single person in the bar was smoking. I tried to snap a few undercover pictures, but I was nervous someone would murder me. Upon entering, I once again got looks asking, "What the f@#k are you doing here?" I'm starting to think I don't fit in anywhere. It was difficult to be certain through the haze of cigarette smoke, but I believe about twenty people were in the bar. After the bartender (who was also smoking) took my drink order, only two people spoke to me.

First, the lady next to me asked if her smoking bothered me. That was nice of her, but I said it was okay. After all, her one cigarette didn't have much effect on the permanent cloud of smoke. The woman's husband/boyfriend looked like he eats nails for breakfast, and I wasn't feeling brave enough to strike up a conversation. Later, the woman came back from the bathroom with three singles and some change, and the man angrily demanded his five dollar bill back. They argued. I assumed he would have smacked her had they not been in public. Eventually, the woman walked up to someone else in the bar, talked for a couple of minutes, and came back with a five dollar bill. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but that dude either loves Abraham Lincoln or simply enjoys being angry at his lady friend.

Second, I'm getting used to thieves selling me stolen merchandise in dive bars. Halfway through my beer, a young guy walked in with a bag of candy. At first, he asked the handful of people at my end of the bar if anyone wanted to trade him a cigarette for candy. Quite a deal. The owner quickly rushed down and asked him to leave. He told her he wasn't selling the candy, just trying to trade for a cigarette. Had I accidentally stumbled into a prison?

She let him stay, and the old man next to me finally made a trade. A cigarette for a Snickers. Lovely. That's when the candy trader betrayed himself. A woman asked if he stole the candy. He openly told her he swiped it from the local UDF. Then he tried to sell her the candy ... after telling the owner he wasn't selling candy. I suppose theft is worse than lying, but seriously dude? You steal candy from UDF and sell it at Tammy's Bar? God help us.

After forty-five minutes, I couldn't stand the smoke. In my twenties, I spent many nights in smokey bars, but the cigarette ban in Ohio has been a breath of fresh air (get it?). My lungs have adjusted, and almost an hour inhaling cigarette smoke was taking its toll.

But I didn't want to go home. I knew Columbia-Tusculum had more to offer than a hick bar with smokers and thieves. On the northwestern edge of the neighborhood, I found Stanley's Pub. I had been to Stanley's once before after watching the Labor Day fireworks, but it was a short stay (and at the time, I was a bit tipsy). This time around, I never wanted to leave.

Walking into Stanley's immediately put me at ease. These were my kind of people. Young, smokeless, and normal. I fit in! The customers welcomed me with open arms. The bartender was friendly. I talked to almost everyone in the bar. I got to know the bartender (who was once married to a former NFL player), her friend (who is currently dating an MMA fighter), a regular (who just went through a divorce), a high school teacher (who was celebrating Senate Bill 5's defeat), and I even ran into a former student.

Stanley's Pub is a bar that fit my expectations. Its customers weren't necessarily local (unlike almost every West Side bar). There was a range of sexes, ages, and races, but everyone was incredibly friendly. It was also the first place I never mentioned my Pub Crawl. One of the guys asked how I ended up in Columbia-Tusculum, but before I could explain my tour of Cincinnati bars, his phone rang.

Because of that, I don't feel comfortable sharing specific details, but the three people I spent most of the evening talking to shared intimate, personal details of their lives. It was a reminder that everyone has a story, no matter how "together" someone is on the outside (attractive, funny, smart, cool), we're all doing our best to make like work. Because they reminded me of myself, I think our conversations were the most natural I've had so far. By the end of the night, I felt like I had made new friends. More than anything else, I actually had fun. That created some cognitive dissonance. I essentially go into these bars as an undercover ethnographer. I try to avoid blatant lies (although I've told some), but I definitely change my persona to fit in and connect with people I encounter. I feel the need to act as a chameleon in order to make others feel comfortable. When my former student walked it, I definitely had a sense of being "caught." It felt like I was an undercover cop, and my cover had been blown.

Regardless, Tammy's Bar and Stanley's Pub provided perfect bookends to Columbia-Tusculum. Old vs. new. The neighborhood that was crumbling vs. the neighborhood that is rebuilding. Young, fun, beautiful, educated people vs. well, the patrons at Tammy's Bar. Will there always be a line drawn in the sand, separating the two distinct areas of the neighborhood, or will urban development eventually push out suburban stagnation?

Based on my two very different experiences, I know which option I prefer.

Queen City Pub Crawl: Over-the-Rhine

2011-11-01T12:40:00.001-04:00

Over-the-Rhine has to be the most polarizing neighborhood in Cincinnati. In 2009, it was ranked as the most dangerous neighborhood in the United States. Many Cincinnatians unfamiliar with the area likely believe the report. For suburbanites, Over-the-Rhine is a war zone to be avoided. Many residents and frequent guests would likely disagree. I have many friends who live and play in Over-the-Rhine, and they rarely encounter problems. I've spent significant time in the neighborhood myself, and while I wouldn't wander the streets alone at three o'clock in the morning, the dangers are greatly exaggerated by national and local media. The Cincinnati Police Department refuted the original 2009 ranking by claiming crime in OTR was down almost 40 percent from 2004-2007.

Over-the-Rhine first made national news during the riots of 2001. The chaos was again exaggerated by the national media, but the riots clearly gave Cincinnati a black eye. Local businesses closed their doors or moved away, and many residents followed.

But, over the years, Over-the-Rhine was granted a rebirth by investors interested in revitalizing the neighborhood. Young people are moving back. Homes are being rebuilt. Crime continues to decrease. By 2010, OTR had dropped from 1 to 24 on the list of America's most dangerous neighborhoods.

But, Over-the-Rhine is far from a Utopian society. Abandoned buildings still line its streets. Drugs and prostitution are around almost every corner. Crime rates have dropped, but crime is no stranger to OTR.

Based on a recommendation, I chose to visit the 1132 Bar (named after its street number) on the corner of Race and 12th, and across the street from The School for Creative and Performing Arts.

Okay, first, I have to admit, this was the most bizarre experience of the Pub Crawl so far. I don't think I'm racist beyond the normal prejudices/stereotypes that we all have. But walking into an all-black bar in the middle of Over-the-Rhine brought every ounce of racism in my body to the surface. I hated feeling uncomfortable, but if I'm honest, I felt uncomfortable.

And not because I dislike black people. I have lived and worked in diverse communities for over a decade. I'll spare you all the nonsense white people say to convince others they aren't racist, but trust me, I try really hard not to judge others based solely on their skin color. Paradise Lounge in East Price Hill was almost all black, but the vibe was completely different. There, I felt like one of the crowd. In the 1132 Bar, I immediately felt like an outsider.

When I walked up to the bar, the female bartender said, "What do you want?" But not in a tone that communicated her desire for my drink order. She was literally asking me what I was doing in her bar. It knocked me off guard. I was expecting a fun place open to a diverse community. What I got felt more like a social club expecting a secret handshake to gain admittance.

I ordered a Budweiser and gave her a one dollar tip. She tried to give it back, thinking I overpaid for my beer, but I explained it was a tip. She seemed confused. Do people not tip at the 1132 Bar?

That's about the time the woman sitting directly to my left went off on a Cincinnati rant. To quote her directly, "Fuck Cincinnati. Fuck the mayor and the police and all them. This city fucking sucks." She repeated herself over and over again ... to me, to the bartender, to her companion, to no one in particular. Finally, I looked over and realized the man sitting next to her had a teardrop tattoo under his right eye. Now, I've seen enough Law and Order: SVU to know that meant he had killed someone. Two tears = two murders.

I really should have started a conversation with them, but the combination of her ranting against Cincinnati and his ... well, his murders ... put me on tilt. I sat quietly watching television until a man walked in the front door and stood beside me.

This man asked the owner, Carl, for a five and five singles in exchange for a ten dollar bill. Carl refused. He then turned to me with the same request. I wanted to fit in and be helpful, so I told him I had two fives. He said that worked, so we made the exchange and he walked back out the front door. Now, I suppose the meat incident in Camp Washington had me jaded, but I immediately felt like I had been taken advantage of. What was the scam? Was the $10 bill counterfeit? Was it stolen? Recently used to snort cocaine? I mocked my buddy Bradley Wise for including a scene in his movie, Fenced Off, that seemed ridiculous to me. Although it was based on a true story, a white dude freaking out because he thought something in his yard was drugs just because he lived in a black neighborhood seemed absurd. But, as the movie's theme is attempting to communicate to its audience, logic gets thrown out the window when our racism buttons get pushed.

I'm sad to say, I tried to put the $10 bill in my wallet without touching it. Then, later that evening, I found a way to spend the ten dollars so it would no longer be in my possession. Hi, I'm Steve, and I'm insane. Nice to meet you.

The only other white person in the bar was Carl, the owner. He had an interesting relationship with his customers. They all seemed to know him, and although Carl didn't seem like the most friendly or affectionate man on the planet (he never said a word to me), there was a mutual respect between him and his customers. I really wish I could have heard more about Carl's back-story, but there was a problem ...

I walked into the bar at approximately 4:15pm. At 4:55, the bar had almost completely cleared out. A few minutes later, Carl began walking around the room locking doors and turning off televisions. I asked the bartender if they were closing, and she said Carl had somewhere to go that day, so they were closing early. Well, okay then. I wasn't quite done with my beer, but I definitely wasn't sad about leaving. From the moment I walked in, I felt like an unwelcome outsider.

Even my final moment was awkward. I walked to the front door and tried to open it. But it was locked. The man standing next to me reached over and unlatched the dead bolt. I turned around and said, "I guess I should learn how to unlock doors." He stared at me with the blankest look known to man. I'm not saying my line was hilarious, but man, a friendly chuckle to ease the tension would have been helpful. From "what do you want" to a blank stare, my experience at the 1132 Bar was quite an adventure.

Black people in Over-the-Rhine seem angry. I only experienced a tiny sample size, of course, but it was unlike any experience I have ever had with African Americans. The vibe was tangibly different. I could taste the tension in that bar, and I'm not sure I would go back. Bars on the West Side, whether white or black, seemed like happy places. Fun places. Places where strangers become friends and community happens. The 1132 Bar seemed like an angry place. An unhappy place. A place where strangers are the enemy and differences are highlighted.

Over-the-Rhine is a fascinating neighborhood with stories as diverse as its residents. I can't begin to sum up OTR in one blog, but its continued transformation over the next decade will be interesting to watch. I hate experiences that reveal my prejudices, but I'm only human. So was everyone else in the 1132 Bar. I'm sure we have a lot to learn from one another.

Queen City Pub Crawl: Queensgate

2011-10-21T13:23:00.000-04:00

What better way to pass from the West Side of Cincinnati to its centrally located neighborhoods than Queensgate. Best know for Union Terminal (the Justice League headquarters, named the Hall of Justice, was modeled after our train station turned museum) and the former home of Crosley Field (where the Reds played baseball from 1912 to 1970), driving through Queensgate is like time-traveling back to the industrial age.

David Holthaus wrote, "Queensgate is Porkopolis. Hog slaughtering started here in the early 19th Century and the butchering business continued throughout the 20th Century, nearly until today, giving the city one of its oft-quoted nicknames."

If you have ever wondered what led to Cincinnati's "pig heritage," well, there ya go.

What's interesting about Queensgate is that almost no one lives there. In fact, recent census data suggests the neighborhood is almost two square miles but houses less than one thousand residents. That's under five hundred people per square mile. In comparison, the Cincinnati 52-neighborhood average is nearly 4,500 people per square mile.

A neighborhood that once supported dozens of bars (factory workers drinking after their shifts ended) had been pruned to a couple of rogue pubs. As the factories closed their doors, so did the watering holes that served their employees.

But JB's Honky Tonk and Emporium remains. At the northern tip of Queensgate, surrounded by abandoned factory buildings, a working man's oasis sits alone.

Confession: I'm beginning to have some ethical concerns about this Pub Crawl. Almost everyone I have encountered inevitably asks how I stumbled into their bar, and I always openly explain my journey. But people are sharing intimate, personal details with me—information they likely don't want published on the Internet for perfect strangers to read.

For example, I met the owner of JB's Honky Tonk and Emporium this week. If that name sounds familiar, you may recall that a small biker gang called the Iron Horsemen got into a shootout with Cincinnati police at the bar in September of 2010. Two officers were injured in the shooting and one biker was killed. Now that would have been a crazy experience to write about. Oh well, maybe next week. The owner didn't mention the shooting, but she and I did talk for over two hours. She told me life experiences that most people would probably hide from their psychiatrists.

Karen (name has been changed) worked at JB's thirty years ago as a young girl. Then, decades later, she bought the bar as a married woman. Unfortunately, her husband (sixteen years her elder) didn't approve of his wife working in a bar. His insecurities led to jealousy, which led to an unhappy marriage. After fourteen years and two children, they separated, and two years later, that's where it still stands. Karen loves her children, her bar, and her customers.

I have encountered a handful of female bar owners so far, and interestingly, they have always been working at the bar. I haven't met one male bar owner yet. As Karen and I spoke, a theory began to take shape. Karen was a caretaker to her customers. They were almost all men. They were clearly blue collar workers. And she mothered them. She knew their names. She asked about their lives. When someone left, she made sure he was okay to drive.

Perhaps men seek out these types of nurturing relationships from women? Perhaps females own bars to provide it?

Karen was definitely not excited about the idea of getting married again. She waited until her early thirties to tie the knot, and it's obvious the experience didn't go how she had hoped. For the first time, I began wondering about all of the middle-aged men and women reentering the dating scene. There are millions of them out there, and for the most part, they're probably bitter about marriage. Do you just give up at that point? Do you start all over again and risk more heartache? Do you date for recreation instead of love? Does romance become a way to pass the time? I know what it feels like to be young and fear growing old alone, but what does it feel like when old age is crouching on your doorstep?

A female bar owner / male bar patron relationship seems beneficial to all parties involved.

Perhaps the most entertaining part of my visit was discovering a "bar war." I watched Cheers growing up. Remember their rivalry with Gary's Olde Towne Tavern? A similar rivalry exists between JB's and the Stockyard Cafe (which you'll recall I visited a few weeks ago). Along Spring Grove Ave, they're basically the only two bars left, fighting for customers, trying to stay afloat amongst the debris of a crumbling neighborhood. When a community is built on the foundation of industrial factories, what happens when those factories close their doors? Queensgate and Camp Washington are both trying to answer that question.

Only time will tell what becomes of these two neighborhoods, but with so many residents, it's hard to imagine a revival unless they can reinvent themselves for the 21st Century. Until then, the beer is cold at JB's Honky Tonk and Emporium and the owner is friendly. For the two dozen men I encountered, that's exactly what they needed. And from what I could tell, Karen needs them too.

Queen City Pub Crawl: Westwood

2011-10-13T13:17:00.000-04:00

I have discovered my new favorite bar. Babe's Cafe, where have you been my whole life? Bars on the West Side of Cincinnati are like nothing I have ever experienced before. First, they all claim to be the oldest bar on the West Side. Unless The Crow's Nest and Babe's Cafe were opened on the same day, they can't both be the oldest. History and tradition are important to Westsiders, even if effective advertising necessitates tweaking that history from time to time.

Westwood is Cincinnati's largest neighborhood, covering more than six square miles and housing over 35,000 residents. In comparison, Westwood is bigger than the eight combined neighborhoods directly to its east. Originally incorporated as a village in 1868, many of Cincinnati's wealthy citizens (including James Gamble from Procter & Gamble fame) built homes in Westwood to escape the Queen City's growing inner-city population.

Interestingly, Cincinnati's recent streetcar debate is nothing new. Shortly after incorporating, Westwood community leaders spearheaded a drive to construct a railroad that would help to overcome their transportation issues, ultimately making the area more attractive to new residents. In the mid-1870s, a narrow gauge railroad was born called the Cincinnati and Westwood Railroad. Unfortunately, it encountered financial problems almost from the start. (Sound familiar?) Operations came to a halt in 1886. (Sound familiarer?) Thankfully, the railroad was restarted a year later due to efforts of community leaders and was converted to a regular gauge in 1891. So, fellow Cincinnatians, all we have to do is wait another two decades and we'll be riding the rails of Cincinnati once again! Lovely.

In 1896, the village of Westwood was annexed into the city of Cincinnati. Seven years later, a red brick four-story building appeared at the corner of Applegate and Glenmore Ave. Seventy-four years after that, a bar formerly called Babe's Tap Room moved across the street into that brick building, and thirty-four years later, I walked into Babe's Cafe.

Tony might be my favorite bartender of all time. Anyone with a fresh tattoo written in Italian that reads, "Fear No Man," on his right bicep and, "Trust No Bitch," on his left bicep is my kind of dude. He was a friendly guy who was liked by everyone in the bar. When I asked if his tattoo was inspired by a specific woman, he said, "All of them." Well played, Tony. Well played.

The guy sitting next to me was even better. At one point, he excused himself to go home (he lived close) and smoke a bong. He returned about ten minutes later much more relaxed with a craving for Cheetos. I'm pretty sure that dude smokes a lot of weed, even though his pregnant girlfriend and small child live with him. The thing is, he didn't seem like a bad guy. I know "druggies" get a bad reputation in our society, but it's ironic that I was consuming an addictive drug (beer) that kills thousands of people every year, and I judged him for smoking an non-addictive drug (marijuana) that hasn't directly killed anyone. Silly laws.

In fact, my stool-mate seemed like a hard-working guy. He mentioned a long day of work at some factory job that seemed awful. Maybe self-medication is a reasonable way to survive blue collar jobs. I'm almost positive I don't have the physical or mental toughness to do what he does for a living. Teaching is easy; it's fun; it's rewarding. I went to school for many years and earned the right to enjoy my career, but I respect men and women who get their hands dirty every day at work. My dad supported his family by working in a factory for four decades. Maybe I am drawn to Westsiders because I see some of him in them (minus the weed ... I think).

I keep returning to this same point every week, but there's something about the West Side. I've spent more time on the rival side of Cincinnati during this experiment than I have in the previous thirty-four years combined. My impressions of Westsiders have always been low—poor, uneducated, and regressive topped the list. But something magical happens in their bars. A sense of community emerges that leaves me feeling jealous. There is little time for pretensions when everyone legitimately cares for others in the bar. They're friends. It was like walking into an episode of Cheers. Not only did everyone know everyone else's name, but they had all gone to the same wedding over the weekend. Literally. There must have been fifteen people in the bar, and they all attended the same wedding. Community like that seems so foreign to me. You mean, places exist where people actually care about others without trying to use them to get their personal needs met, manipulate them to further their own agenda, or abuse them to stroke their own ego? Trippy.

I knew I had found the right bar when, five minutes after I sat down, we witnessed a car accident outside the front door. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but it sure was fun drinking a beer as the two drivers confronted each other. I also enjoyed the honking, cursing, and bird-flipping as other drivers expressed their frustrations to the driver who refused to pull his car off to the side of the road. When a cop finally showed up, the first thing she had him do was move his car so it stopped blocking the intersection. Obviously. People are bizarre little creatures.

Also like The Crow's Nest, Babe's Cafe claims to be haunted by "strange things that go bump in the night." Their official Web site claims, "Unexplained occurrences make the owners wonder, but the exact history of this building's previous inhabitants is unknown."

The only unexplained occurrence I experienced in Westwood were a bunch of awesome people that continue challenging my misconceptions about bars, Cincinnati's West Side, and the Queen City itself.

Queen City Pub Crawl: Riverside

2011-10-06T13:12:00.002-04:00

Riverside is another community on the west side of Cincinnati spooned by the Ohio River. If you look at the map, you'll also see it's the longest Cincinnati neighborhood. Nestled between Sedamsville and Sayler Park, Riverside is clearly about location, location, location.

3.129 square miles and only 2,500 residents is a bizarre combination. That's about 800 people per square mile. Compare that number to Cincinnati's overall average of 4,250 people per square mile, or my neighborhood's (Clifton) 3,400 people per square mile.

Where's the beef (and by beef, I mean people)?

It's obvious that Riverside is an industrial town. If you've never made the drive down 50 West, it's worth the trip. Many well-known companies line the streets of Riverside. It makes me wonder if Riverside and Sayler Park are part of Cincinnati because the city benefits financially from that row of businesses. It seemed odd that two neighborhoods were so disconnected from the rest of the city, but I should have known it had something to do with money. Doesn't everything?

For the first (and only) time on this journey, I visited two different bars in the same neighborhood. My first stop was Drew's River Saloon, a bar that desperately tries to transport customers from the banks of the Ohio River to the Florida coastline. Neon lights, fake palm trees, and beach flare add to the ambiance, which, honestly, is pretty close to hitting its tropical mark. If you let yourself believe the fantasy, it's easy to imagine Drew's River Saloon as a beach bar.

My time at Drew's was mostly uneventful. The bartender was nice; the server was nice. We made casual conversation about their lives. Interestingly, the bar is named after the owner's first grandchild, Drew. He died at the age of two in a tragic accident. The owner, George, named the bar after Drew in 2004 to keep his memory alive. Born and raised on the West Side, it was easy to see how important community is to George and his family.

Speaking of community, that leads me to the second bar on my Riverside adventure. Jim and Jack's can best be described as a cure for Attention Deficit Disorder. I have never been in a bar that had so many disjointed activities going on at the same time.

First, there was a typical bar-top filled with locals. And, like everywhere I have been in West Side, everyone knew everyone else. I walked to the far side of the bar and sat next to a handful of older locals who were obviously close friends. Fifteen minutes later, I saw one of them motion in my direction and say something about "running him out of here." I was so shocked that I said, "Are you guys talking about me?"

She apologized immediately, saying there was a different guy who always sat on that side of the bar, and because their bowling league was beginning the following week, they would likely have to run him off.

"Oh, okay, I was just ... wait, what? Bowling league?"

That's right. Every Wednesday night at seven o'clock, the Dream Team competes against other west side bowlers for fabulous prizes. But no one is throwing balls down oiled lanes in this league. Instead, these women (yes, women) focus on the trackball of Silver Strike Bowling (an arcade game). I was a week early to catch official league action, but the Dream Team did let me watch them bowl a practice game.

On the other side of the bar, the seven o'clock line dancing session was about to begin. Approximately forty women flooded the dance floor—some quite old, almost all women, many dressed as cowgirls, one little person, and everyone was an expert in line dancing. The organizer tried to get me on stage, but if there is one thing I don't do, it's line dancing. The atmosphere wasn't exactly conducive to a newbie anyway. Those ladies were there to line dance, and some uncoordinated blogger wasn't going to get in their way.

I walked back to the bar and realized someone I saw at Drew's had made the trip to Jim and Jack's. Another pub crawler? Doubtful. I'm pretty sure he just likes beer. And I'm also convinced he likes one other thing ... community.

A couple of weeks ago, I compared the Pub Crawl to my Church Experiment. More than ever, I'm beginning to believe most people want the same things out of life—whether they seek them in a church or a bar is almost irrelevant.

People want to fit in. They want to belong. They want friends. They want community.

You can get that at church—Bible studies, picnics, services, outreach events, etc. Jesus is great, but I wonder how many churchgoers are really interested in finding their savior, and I wonder how many are simply interested in finding a few friends?

Bowling leagues and line dancing are about finding community. Maybe I thought bars were about getting drunk. I know a lot of my Christian friends feel that way. They avoid bars because they don't drink. But bars are filled with regular people just trying to make life work. Maybe the rest of Cincinnati isn't like the West Side. Maybe other bars will be filled with young people getting drunk and trying to get laid. We'll see. But, for now, it's obvious West Side bars are about something else. Hard-working people needing a place a unwind and bond with friends. That's not so bad.

Queen City Pub Crawl: Sedamsville

2011-09-29T23:46:00.000-04:00

I'm guessing 99 percent of Cincinnatians have no idea where Sedamsville (Suh-DAMS-ville) is located. I had never even heard of the neighborhood until I began researching this project. Those of you familiar with the tiny town (under .5 square miles and less than 700 residents) owe its fame to Peter Edward Rose. The hit king played baseball on the fields at the edge of Sedamsville as a child.

One thing was certain as I drove the streets of Sedamsville: There were no bars. Heck, there were barely any signs of life. But as I explored, I was struck by the visuals. This was a town with history. Potential oozed from its cracked sidewalks and abandoned buildings. It was like seeing the ugly ducking before she transformed into a beautiful swan. There were times when I felt sick to my stomach as I stood and imagined a different Sedamsville—a vibrant neighborhood filled with life. Where had all the people gone? And when had the town's heart stopped beating?

What happened to Sedamsville? A river town just west of downtown Cincinnati should be bustling with activity. Young professionals should be buying up property and transforming this historic district into the Queen City's next hot spot.

From what I can gather, there has been a clash of interests over the past three decades. Local residents want Sedamsville to remain untouched. Developers prefer to demolish crumbling houses (and churches) in the name of progress. The stalemate has created a stale community. Even the courts have gotten involved as residents have filed desperate pleas to declare Sedamsville a historic district to stop the bulldozers. For now, stagnation seems to be winning.

Eventually, I parked and began a walking tour of Sedamsville. Almost immediately, I ran into a local who eagerly gave me an overview of his neighborhood. He pointed out the homes of two locals who had been living in Sedamsville for over seventy years. He also offered me a house for $5,000. I got the feeling someone could literally buy the entire town for the price of a home in Clifton.

That's probably why I received the strangest looks from locals. Perhaps they thought I was another developer snooping around town hoping to demolish their homes and stomp on their traditions.

I immediately realized I couldn't tell the story of Sedamsville with words, so instead, I chose to take dozens of pictures on my walking tour. Here are those pictures:

Hometown pride? Stubbornness? Stupidity? Loyalty? Despair? Hope? Your guess is as good as mine. Sedamsville is a fascinating neighborhood on life support. Will it be a ghost town in thirty years when the current residents die off? Will a younger generation transform the community into a thriving neighborhood? Either is possible. Both are equally encouraging and saddening.

Queen City Pub Crawl: Sayler Park

2011-09-22T13:23:00.000-04:00

The first thing that struck me about Sayler Park was that I could not believe I was still in Cincinnati. Head west, young man, follow the Ohio River, and eventually a small turnoff directs passer-bys to a tiny town that is best known for the tornado of 1974. (That is an actual picture of Sayler Park taken during the tornado. It was one of many that swept over the region in early April, causing major damage and killing three people.)

Called Cincinnati's western gateway, Sayler Park is so far west that I assumed I had crossed over into Indiana along the way. Luckily, after taking the turnoff, I stumbled upon the Parkland Grill, which from what I could tell, is the only bar in Sayler Park. There's a United Dairy Farmers that seems to be the neighborhood's hub, but not much else.

Before I forget and jump into my experience, I need to deliver some bad news to Rob Young (courtesy of the bathroom wall next to the urinal at Parkland Grill):

Oh, Rob. I know this must be difficult to process. I hate to break it to you this way, but I felt like you needed to know. It's only fair. Hang in there, buddy.

Over the past few weeks, I have meet some fascinating people and heard some amazing life stories, but this week's reflection is going to veer in a completely different direction. It's not that Sayler Park isn't filled with interesting residents. From what I could tell, they were everywhere. From the incredibly tan bartender, to the tomboyish woman who jokingly threatened to beat me up if I gave the bartender any trouble, to the couple that looked out of place in the industrial town, to the man who rode into the bar in his wheelchair with an oxygen tank attached to the back (I was really hoping he was going to stay a while, but he picked up food and wheeled back out the front door), Sayler Park overflowed with intrigue.

But I couldn't wedge my way into any conversations. More than almost any other experience I've had (including the Church Experiment), I felt like an outsider.

Price Hill was different. Men who walked into the bar in pairs were talking my ear off five minutes later. Camp Washington was different. Everyone in the bar participated in one large conversation. But Sayler Park seemed to draw a line in the sand, and I was standing on the wrong side.

It's not that they were bad people. After almost two hours of sitting at the bar, the bartender did introduce herself and shook my hand, but it took a long time for her to warm up to me. I tried initiating a few conversations, but before long, a pair a locals would walk in and monopolize her time. The guy sitting closest to me most of the day had his back facing me most of the time while he talked to his group of friends. I tried jumping into the conversation once, but he barely acknowledged me and quickly turned back to his companions.

Perhaps Sayler Park is so isolated that their people skills aren't the best? Perhaps they aren't used to seeing a non-local hanging out at the Parkland Grill? Perhaps I didn't fit in? Perhaps I smelled funny? Perhaps I should have worn pants? There's no way of telling why I couldn't break into the group, but it did get me thinking ...

Churches and bars are eerily similar. Because the Church Experiment so closely resembles this project, it's easy to make comparisons. As I sat there nursing my $1 draught beer (that's right, $1 draughts all day, every day!), I realized people criticize churches for engaging in normal behavior that often goes unnoticed in other social settings.

No matter what we're doing, people naturally form cliques. We want to see and talk to our friends. We feel anxiety about meeting new people, so we often huddle with those most similar to us. It happens at department stores when men congregate near the televisions while their wives shop for clothes; it happens at parties when small groups huddle together in separate corners of the room; it happens in bars when regulars inadvertently shut out newcomers; and it happens in churches when it feels more comfortable to associate with friends rather than visitors. I wonder, then, why we're so critical of churches for making us feel unwelcome, but we give free passes to all other social groups?

Sayler Park is a small community. I got the sense people live there because they want to escape the hustle and bustle of the city, but remarkably, the citizens of Sayler Park are still part of Cincinnati. It's that separation that seems to define this small town. Friendly people, a simpler way of life, and a guardedness whose shell is tough to crack.

I might actually return to Sayler Park sometime soon. Dollar draughts whisper my name in the stillness of night. And breaking into the neighborhood most separated from the rest of Cincinnati could be a fun challenge. Or maybe it will lead to a bar fight. Either way, it sounds like good times.

Queen City Pub Crawl: Camp Washington

2011-09-15T16:03:00.000-04:00

Last week is going to be a tough act to follow. After being offered drugs in Lower Price, homemade hot sauce in West Price Hill, and a fascinating life story in East Price Hill, my expectations were through the roof. Luckily, The Stockyard Cafe in Camp Washington didn't disappoint. I'm going to begin with the most fascinating thing that will happen to me on this journey. Two weeks and four neighborhoods in, I'm calling my shot. Nothing will top this:

Shorty after six o'clock, while I nursed a cold beer, a young man walked into the bar with something tucked under his arm. We didn't make eye contact, but he took a direct path to my stool. Then he plopped two rectangular packages down on the bar and said, "I got some meat."

At first, I thought he was stealing the pick-up line I used throughout college. Then, I glanced at the bar and realized he actually had meat. Sitting before me were two raw steaks, in plastic wrap, clearly from a grocery store.

I said, "You're giving away free meat?" (You know how sometimes it takes your brain a couple of minutes to catch up with what's happening to you?)

He said, "No, but I'll sell it to you for twenty bucks. That's forty bucks worth of meat right there." I did glance at the price tag and saw one package sold for $17.75, so his math was pretty close.

Obviously, I was tempted. How often does a person get the opportunity to buy raw meat from a stranger in a bar? No risk involved there. What could possibly go wrong?

Unfortunately, I had to decline his generous offer, but I was still confused. That's when the bartender walked over and told him to leave.

"What the heck was that?" I asked.

She told me he was a booster. I had no idea what that meant. She and the guy sitting next to me explained that people walk into places like Kroger, steal stuff, and then sell it on the streets. The bartender said she knew a guy who walked into a home improvement store, put on an apron, pretended like he worked there, and had an actual employee load a dozen chainsaws into his truck that he later sold for a profit.

All this led to a very important question: Who the hell buys meat from a random stranger in a bar? Oh, wow, two steaks for twenty bucks? I have no idea who you are or what you've done to the meat. In fact, I do know that you stole it, so that gives me some insight into your character. This is illegal and seems incredibly dangerous. Oh, what the hell, I'm saving fifteen bucks. Deal!

Maybe I have lived a sheltered life, but unless someone stabs me in a bar fight, my most cherished moment from this experience will always be the bar-to-bar meat salesman.

Camp Washington is probably best known for its chili parlor, Camp Washington Chili. If you have never been, the interior reminds customers of a 1950s diner, and their breakfast is cheap and delicious. Another historical landmark was the Cincinnati Workhouse, a jail that operated for more than one hundred years before closing in 1988. Other than that, Camp Washington is home to numerous factories. Its proximity to the stockyards clearly birthed The Stockyard Cafe, and I was surprised that almost everyone I met in the bar didn't actually live in Camp Washington. Most stopped in for a few drinks after work. Even the bartender lived on the east side of Cincinnati.

Someone less discerning might have mistakenly believed he or she was in Kentucky. For the first time in years, I encountered someone smoking in an Ohio bar. I'm sure lots of dive bars still allow smoking, but it shocked me. Why risk the fine? Why put other customers in that position? Why make me inhale your second-hand poison?

Other than the booster (look at me using a cool new term I learned at the bar) and the smoker, I adored everyone I met at The Stockyard Cafe. I sat next to a Vietnam veteran, discussed legalizing marijuana with someone at the other end of the bar, and spent most of my time talking to Lisa (her name has been changed), the owner and bartender.

The first thing most men would notice about Lisa is her physique. At nearly fifty years old, she still pulled off a short, low-cut dress. I'm sure Lisa deals with a lot of drunk men making comments and offers that get old after a while, but I doubt she minds the attention. Born and raised on the east side of Cincinnati, Lisa married young, had a daughter, divorced a few years later, and eventually became a nurse. Eventually, she found a partner and purchased The Stockyard Cafe in Camp Washington.

There are two stories Lisa told me that I can't get out of my mind. First, she said The Stockyard Cafe first opened in the 1890s. After getting off work at the stockyards, men would carry buckets of blood across the street into the bar, order a drink, mix it with the blood, and voilà, welcome to the original Bloody Mary! I really hope that's not true, but it's an interesting urban legend either way.

Second, Lisa told me her life story. Growing up in Cincinnati, marrying young, having a child, divorcing her husband, becoming a nurse, buying a bar ten years ago, developing a relationship with a married man, staying with that man for a long time knowing it was unhealthy and wrong, ending her business partnership, working at the Stockyard Cafe as its only employee, and working as a nurse part-time to help pay the bills.

Even though Lisa grew up in a different Cincinnati neighborhood, she seems to represent Camp Washington perfectly. Hard-working, rough around the edges, but kind. And, perhaps most of all, vulnerable. Lisa told me she was desperately insecure, and because of it, she often dates the wrong men. She stayed in a dead end relationship for years, only recently finding the courage to leave. So strong and independent, yet so vulnerable.

When I drive through a neighborhood like Camp Washington, I can't help but thinking of its vulnerability. Vulnerable to drugs, prostitution, crime, and despair. Vulnerable to children repeating the mistakes of their parents. Driving down Colerain Avenue reminds me of a Scooby Doo ghost town. Most businesses have closed. Lisa told me the area once hosted twenty bars; now, only two remain. Homes and apartments seem neglected or abandoned altogether. People walking the streets look ragged and are likely looking for trouble. (Stolen meat, anyone? Perhaps a chainsaw to carve the steaks?)

But it's difficult to understand the heart of a community during a drive-by assessment. The core of Camp Washington keeps grinding. Lisa keeps showing up to work every day. Her customers keep working in the local factories. Even a handful of new businesses have opened in the neighborhood. And Camp Washington Chili acts as an anchor, steadying the community and pumping life through its veins of streets and allies.

Vulnerable, but not defeated. People who don't give up easily. A neighborhood that once served as a training ground for thousands of soldiers during the U.S.-Mexican War is now fighting for its survival. Perhaps neighborhoods have a soul. If so, Camp Washington seems to embody a scrappy spirit that refuses to give up.

Queen City Pub Crawl: Price Hill

2011-09-08T13:32:00.001-04:00

My journey begins on the West Side of Cincinnati with three mysterious neighborhoods. Perhaps the most misunderstood quadrant of the Queen City lies west of Interstate 75. Who lives there? Why do they live there? Is there any reason to venture west?

Last week, I decided to kick off the Pub Crawl in Lower Price Hill. I had driven through that microscopic neighborhood many times while observing a hotbed of Cincinnati prostitution. (Prostitution fascinates me.) The area resembled ground zero of a nuclear explosion. Dilapidated buildings. Ragged people. Crumbling roads. Each time I drove though, I noticed a corner pub filled with locals. If there were stories to be told, the authors were huddled together in that bar chugging domestic beer.

I drove to Lower Price Hill only to find an abandoned building where a bar once operated. Another casualty of the war. A quick tour of the neighborhood—which is just over half a square mile—produced nothing. No bars; no restaurants; barely a pulse. The only sign of life was a prostitute who shouted at my car as I drove by.

As I drove down St. Michael Street (by the way, St. Michael is considered a field commander for the Army of God), I noticed a portly man walking my direction. I slowed my car and rolled down the passenger window. The man approached and smiled—three teeth. I asked if he could point me to the closest bar. After a long pause, he suggested downtown Cincinnati. When I clarified I needed something in Lower Price Hill, he explained that his neighborhood was an economic ghost town. Nary a bar in sight.

After thanking him, he said the most peculiar sentence: "If I can help you out another way, I will."

What did that mean? Maybe I have been jaded. Maybe my mind is totally warped, but was that overweight man with three (jagged) teeth making me an offer I desperately wanted to refuse? Oh boy.

I drove away confused. How the hell was I going to finish this pub crawl if at least one of Cincinnati's fifty-two neighborhoods doesn't even have a bar?

I drove through East Price Hill ready to give up. I passed another closed bar on Glenway Ave. Once I got to West Price Hill, I was scrambling to find any bar that could suffice for week one. After turning right on Quebec and left on Queen City, I stumbled upon the Louisiana Fish Bar. The problem was that it was getting late, I had an hour before my next appointment, and I didn't even know what neighborhood I was in.

I decided to go home. I felt defeated, but Price Hill was still calling my name.

Two days later, after a Google search and a recommendation from Jason Boys, I ventured back to the West Side. This time, I drove to West Price Hill, and for better or worse, I figured out why the West Side feels so different from the East Side. Everything is old west of Interstate 75. Old buildings, old roads, old mentality. I'm not suggesting everything east of I-75 is paradise, but it still has that new neighborhood smell. At least, that is my perception. Perhaps this journey will teach me otherwise.

I finally stepped into my first pub Friday afternoon, September 2. The Crow's Nest in West Price Hill saved me a seat at the bar. It was strangely crowded for three o'clock, and everyone was drinking Bud or Miller. I broke that trend by ordering a Summer Shandy. I honestly couldn't believe a bar on the West Side would have it on tap; it was simply too tempting to pass up.

The Crow's Nest, originally opened in 1895 under the same name, is considered the second oldest bar in Cincinnati (Arnold's in downtown is the oldest). Interestingly, even though I experienced nothing supernatural, it's also said to be haunted. Emily Brickler, a local historian, reported that the bar is haunted by its original owners, and they can often be seen slow dancing in the upstairs apartment window. Lights flicker on and off (bad electrical wiring?), small items go missing and reappear at the bar (thieves?), doors slam shut (wind?), and there has even been a young man spotted sitting on the basement stairs who mysteriously vanishes when someone approaches (ummm ... it's a bar, and people are really drunk?).

I glanced around the room and saw a pretty typical scene—ESPN on the high definition television overhead; Pete Rose memorabilia covering the walls; an incredibly drunk (and possibly mentally challenged) man drinking pitchers of beer by himself at a bar table; a hip-looking bartender that didn't seem to fit in with my image of the West Side; a row of bar stools filled with people who fit exactly with my image of Westsiders; music on the jukebox, and a cold beer in my hand.

It didn't take long for John, the man sitting to my left, to strike up a conversation. And it took even less time for me to make a critical discovery—people on the West Side are a friendly bunch. I have been in local dive bars all over the country, but I'm not sure I have ever experienced a place where everyone literally knew everyone else on a first-name basis. They must have looked at me like my spaceship was parked outside, but you never would have known I didn't belong. Over the course of two hours, I found myself in three meaningful conversations with three complete strangers.

First, John.

John was born in Price Hill. He went to Elder and still has season tickets to the high school football games. It amazes me how much Westsiders care about high school football, but from spending some time in Price Hill, I now believe it's a natural residue from communities that take so much pride in their neighborhoods. What I don't understand is why so much of the West Side seems to be falling apart. Perhaps it's a simple economic reality, but elevated amounts of hometown pride should lead to a better infrastructure, shouldn't it?

John has been married for almost four decades and has one son. In one of many coincidences you'll read about this week, John's granddaughter is named Aubrey, which happens to be my dad's name. Also, John graduated from the University of Cincinnati almost forty years ago. Small world. I was especially interested in John's job. Although he retired years ago from Fernald (a job that requires him to get tested every year to assess exposure from harmful radiation), John stills works at a local convent driving the nuns around town. (For the record, I learned nuns do not swim in their habits. Also, I want to record this song: I saw you driving 'round town with a nun I know, and I'm like bless you, and bless her too.) Unfortunately, there weren't many "Nuns Gone Wild" stories, but John told me it was actually a lot of fun chaperoning the sisters.

We spoke for almost an hour about nuns, sports, marriage, UC's campus, and the West Side. When I mentioned my experience in Lower Price Hill, John corrected me, saying folks in West Price Hill consider Lower Price Hill part of East Price Hill. An East-West rivalry within an East-West rivalry? My head was spinning, and I had only had two Summer Shandy's at that point.

When John exited, I had the opportunity to chat with Adam, the bartender—also born and raised in Price Hill, and also a graduate of Elder High School. But Adam seemed different. A little more "worldly," perhaps. After he told me he has been living downtown for eight years, I knew that was it. He expressed a love for Cincinnati that I don't often hear east of I-75. In fact, Adam and I discussed one of my favorite topics: I hate when people from Cincinnati complain that there's nothing to do in Cincinnati. There may not be much in the suburbs, but the city center is alive with music, theater, the arts, sports, great food, and diverse people. I liked Adam.

But my favorite part of the afternoon was when Steve and Steve walked in. It was a Steve-fest. Steve cubed. Menage a Steve. The Steves sat down right next to me and pulled out a bottle of homemade hot sauce. (In the top left hand corner of the label, you can barely make out "Steve & Steve's.")

Steve #1 (born and raised in Price Hill and also a graduate of UC) handed me a straw and told me to taste. It was good. Hot, but sweet. I don't normally accept hot sauce from strangers in a bar, but I was already starting to feel like a regular. And they were named Steve. What could go wrong?

Steve #2 (born and raised in Price Hill) had recently been laid off. Steve #1 was a retired plumber. On a whim, they decided to grow peppers in their back yard and start making hot sauce. That was last Thursday. On Friday, they were making the rounds trying to sell Claira Vista to local bars. Ironically enough, their first stop that day had been Arlin's, the dive bar that is located a few blocks away from my house. Did I mention something about us living in a small world earlier?

Steve #2 seemed like the quiet type, but Steve #1 was the type of person who made friends anywhere he went. He lived in a variety of places, but moved back to Price Hill when he inherited a house. I couldn't figure out his relationship with Steve #2 (I doubt very seriously they are gay), but it sounded like they live together and take care of a disabled woman. Steve #1 and I chatted for another thirty minutes before I had to make my way back east.

And that's when my experience in Price Hill reached a whole new level. Going into this journey, I prayed I would meet people like Ashley (although she knows I'm writing about our conversation, I have changed the name to protect her identity). This experiment was conceptualized to meet real Cincinnatians in their native habitats. If there are 296,943 (according to the 2010 Census) of us spread out over 52 neighborhoods, then I believe there are 296,943 unique stories waiting to be told.

Ashley told a doozy.

When I walked into Paradise Lounge (even though a Google search told me its name was Poor Man's Country Club), Ashley was standing by herself talking on the telephone. There were a handful of people on the back patio, but I was the only customer inside the building. By the way, only separated by a stone's throw, the patrons of The Crow's Nest were all white, and Paradise Lounge's customers were all black. Both neighborhoods cover about three square miles, and both have approximately 20,000 residents, but East Price Hill has twice as many African Americans than West Price Hill.

Inside, the bar had a huge main room with a couple of pool tables. Lots of liquor. Good prices. A great outdoor patio. And they host parties on weekends. One woman walked in asking if she could host a party for her friends on Saturday, but unfortunately, they already have an evening of male strippers on the schedule. Looks like I know how I'm spending my Saturday night.

After ordering a two-dollar bottle of Bud Light, Ashley told me her babysitter was on the phone. I said she looked too young to have children (in her twenties), and Ashley replied that she had six kids ... before age thirty. Wow.

Growing up in Lower Price Hill, Ashley actually knows many of the prostitutes still roaming the streets. She went to school with most of them. She and another gentleman, who later joined us at the bar, explained that Lower Price Hill had deteriorated into a community of drugs and prostitution. She clarified that the man who offered to "help me in another way" was probably offering me drugs, not sex. That was a real blow to my self-esteem. In fact, the corner pub filled with locals that I originally thought would begin this pub crawl was now a private meeting place for local bikers. Ashley told me they meet three or four times per week in that building, and part of their mission is to revitalize Lower Price Hill. I desperately want to get into that secret biker bar. Anyone have a sweet biker's jacket I can borrow?

Ashley didn't have the best childhood. Her dad sold drugs and spent a significant chunk of her early life in prison. At age 11, she was forced to raise her siblings. At age 13, Ashley's mother finally left her husband and got herself clean, eventually moving to Florida and leaving behind her children (with their grandparents). Years later, her mother returned a transformed woman, but Ashley's father continued his downward spiral into the world of crack and heroine addiction. Then, one day (the day after Mother's Day, to be exact), Ashley found her father dead in Lower Price Hill.

No one knows for certain how past experiences influence the course of our lives, but Ashley explained she started having kids early and often because all she ever wanted was a big family she could love. After having her first child at age 19, she got married before having four more. She desperately wanted to avoid her father's mistakes and live the American dream, but the father of her children followed in her own father's footsteps.

She's been divorced for three years, mostly because he cheated on her dozens of times, culminating in getting another woman pregnant. Then he went to jail for selling drugs. Ashley only found out about the other woman's pregnancy after she called to tell Ashley the baby was due on her son's birthday. Happy birthday, kiddo.

In her early- to mid-twenties, Ashley spent five years working at a local strip club. Nothing could top the stories I heard from this experience, but Ashley also had some fascinating customers. Men who asked to be urinated on, men who still (years later) take Ashley to have her nails done, men with very important jobs (I won't share any more details to spare the guilty) cheating on their wives. Interestingly, Ashley doesn't regret her time at the club. She made a lot of money, never participated in the more seedy side of that lifestyle, and positioned her family well. She said it took time getting used to dancing nude in front of strangers, but she would often retreat into her own world to find the courage to keep going.

"I would just pretend I was somewhere else, and I was able to do it," she said.

Now, after living with drug-addicted parents, watching her father go to jail, watching her mother run away to Florida, burying her father, marrying a drug addict who spent time in jail, dancing nude in a strip club, birthing six children, Ashley works full time at a neighborhood bar.

But Ashley has a plan. She wants to open a sandwich shop with her mother. She wants to make her children proud. She wants to live the American dream.

It's so easy to dismiss people. Strangers often play bit parts in the stories of our lives. We label them so they fit neatly into our personal narrative.

He's the homeless drug addict who will die in a shelter. She's the prostitute who walks the dark alleys of our neglected neighborhoods. He's the blue-collar alcoholic who spends more time on a bar stool than at home with his family. She's the baby-factory who keeps having children to increase her welfare check.

So easy to label. So easy to dismiss. So easy to ignore.

But they are people, just like you and me. Ashley has dreams. Ashley loves her children. And while it's easy to judge someone like her, she got on a stage for five years and danced naked in front of thousands of drunk strangers in order to give her children a better life. It might seem warped to some, but after I looked beyond the facade, I saw a mother who would do anything for her children. Anything. And as I told Ashley, her kids will realize that someday. Children like toys, clothes, big houses, and money, but all we really want are parents who will sacrifice anything for us. Not to make this overly spiritual, but I wonder if that desire comes from a God who did sacrifice everything for us?

When I asked what kept her going, Ashley said, "My kids. I don't want my kids going through what I went through."

Feel free to judge Ashley's choices, but her kids have a mother dedicated to making their lives better. Ashley didn't have that. How many of us do? If you were dealt Ashley's hand in life, what kind of decisions would you have made? It's easy to speculate, but being taken from a relatively easy life and being thrust into incredibly difficult circumstances might have led you down a very different path.

Price Hill is the first neighborhood on this journey. While its buildings may look worn down, and its citizens may have faced difficult circumstances, its spirit gave me hope that the people of Cincinnati will keep fighting for the city they call home.

Crazy Pills

2011-09-06T19:49:00.000-04:00

You know what's crazy? When you want to pay for something, but your bank declines it because you're only allowed to spend $3,000 per day.

"Ummm...but I want to spend $4,300," I say.

"Then you should use a credit card."

"But we don't use credit cards. It's a philosophical decision. We have zero credit card debt, and credit cards are evil. They ruin lives."

"Sorry, we can't help you then."

"But it's my money. I put it in the bank so I could use it at my leisure. Give it back to me."

"We set limits for security purposes."

"I didn't steal the card. I'm sitting right in front of you, at your desk. You're looking at my driver's license. That's me in the picture. Just go ahead and approve the purchase."

"Sorry, we can't do that."

Now I understand why people keep money in their mattresses.

It's So Hard To Say Goodbye

2011-09-01T13:59:00.000-04:00

Dear Facebook,

This isn't working. We've been drifting apart for months now, and I'm not sure there's any going back. It's not you; it's me. I'd say we could still be friends, but, well, I suppose that would be the exact opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish here.

I can't lie to you, Facebook. Stop looking at me like that. You're right, there is someone else. She's new, young, and fresh. Most importantly, I can see myself growing old with Google+. You should see her Circles.

We'll always have that one status update where I was a jerk and tried to make people feel stupid. You remember the one. Those were good times.

Don't worry, I'll keep your address in my bookmarks. When the Google+ infatuation wears off, who knows, maybe I'll be back. No, Facebook, stop it! Stop trying to change to become more like Google+. It won't work. It's too late. It's over! Unless I'm drunk and lonely. Then we'll see.

Take care of yourself. I'll never forget you. Just don't get desperate like my ex. Poor Myspace.

A strange mixture of love/hate always,

Steve

Queen City Pub Crawl

2011-08-23T15:06:00.000-04:00

I love Cincinnati. I love stories too. And to complete the trifecta, I also love bars. Put them all together and what do you get?

The Queen City Pub Crawl: Sharing the Story of Cincinnati through 52 Neighborhood Bars.

The Church Experiment was an example of operating within my sweet spot. Exploring new contexts, learning cultural values, and interacting with real people—nothing stirs my soul more. In the past eighteen months, I tried a few new adventures outside of an organized "experiment." I called them Amateur Ethnographies. They were fun and educational, but I am extremely lazy. Without a structured project, my default setting is to do nothing.

That leads me to the Pub Crawl.

As I brainstormed ideas to follow the Church Experiment, I discovered that Cincinnati has exactly 52 neighborhoods. There are 52 weeks in a year. It didn't take a genius to make the connection.

I am convinced Cincinnati's neighborhoods are filled with millions of stories just waiting to be told. Those stories often boil to the surface in dive bars teeming with intoxicated locals. I believe each neighborhood is a chapter in the larger narrative. One piece of the finished puzzle that, when connected, gives a more complete picture of the Queen City.

My goal is to visit one bar per week in each of Cincinnati's 52 neighborhoods, but that pace may quicken at times in order to finish the project by Memorial Day of 2012. Each week, I'll post a reflection that will include a brief history of the neighborhood, my experience at the chosen bar, and any stories from locals worth sharing. A very talented photographer has also agreed to complete a photovoice project for each quadrant of the city (north, south, east, and west). She'll be telling the story of Cincinnati through hundreds of photographs from its neighborhoods.

The Queen City Pub Crawl begins Tuesday, September 6. I hope you'll join me for the ride!

Creative Collaboration

2011-08-15T09:42:00.000-04:00

My life can (almost) be divided into three 12-year seasons. Years 0-12 were spent enjoying a wonderful childhood. I won't go into much detail, but I couldn't have asked for anything more. Big yard made for playing sports, dead end street ideal for bike riding, festive holiday memories, loving family, cute dog, and so on. My childhood was so fantastic that I often daydream of being a kid again on Jackie Lane.

Years 13-24 were my developmental years. Moving to Louisiana in the sixth grade was tough. High school, college, and graduate school prepared me for a career in teaching. I have some regrets from that second season of life: I shouldn't have quit baseball; maybe I should have gone away to college; I regret accumulating financial debt that took me years to pay off. But, overall, I learned some important life lessons.

Years 25-34 were all over the place, but incredibly rewarding. Because I'm such a perfectionist, I often forget how much I accomplished in 10-year stretch. Becoming a college professor was fairly significant. I always wanted to teach, and teaching at the collegiate level has been a blessing. I became a Christian, worked at a megachurch, and left to plant a new church in Clifton. Although that experience ended poorly, how many people are given such a unique opportunity? In 2009, I began the Church Experiment with no idea how popular it would become. Over 50,000 people read my weekly adventures, leading to a cover article in a local newspaper with a readership of over 300,000 Cincinnatians. That same year, I ate delicious burgers with equally delicious friends, leading to another article in the University of Cincinnati's campus newspaper. In 2010, I published a novel. In 2011, I published a second book. In 2012, I'll complete the trilogy. I got married on the beach to my best friend in June of 2010. And let's not forget that I visited a strip club, went to an AA meeting, and picked up a hooker during my amateur ethnographies.

In addition to those personal accomplishments, I feel good about my contributions to the world. Mentoring college students, serving the community through various church and classroom projects, hosting a skating party for underprivileged kids from Taft Elementary, sponsoring two children from Colombia through World Vision, and financial donations to churches, campus ministries, and local charities.

Of course, I have also been a complete mess at times. Still am. But this post isn't about berating myself, so I'll save the personal criticisms for another day.

That leads me to the present. I am very proud of my numerous accomplishments, but I crave more. Not more for the sake of accumulating additional bragging rights, but more because I am meant to do more.

Specifically, I am entering a season of collaborative creativity. Not that I haven't been creative in the past, but those previous experiences have simply been appetizers to the main course. My pallet is wet, and I'm hungry for a feast.

The key word is "collaborative." I am certain I'm meant to team up with other creative folks passionate about sharing their talents with the world. I've already lined up the first project set to begin in early September. I'm also working on a UC collaboration that will help our department's best students serve Cincinnati non-profit organizations. A group of my friends and I are working on a comedic video to submit to Tosh.O (television show). Another group of friends has been kicking around an idea about the next step of our spiritual journey.

Exciting times. I really hope everyone finds ways to scratch their own creative itch. I have seen two of my friends—Bradley Wise and Joseph Boyd—come alive while leading creative collaborations. In fact, they begin shooting their new movie called "A Strange Brand of Happy" today. Watching them has been quite inspiring and a reminder of what makes me come alive.

Syncing Up

2011-08-10T13:40:00.000-04:00

For a while, my life has felt cluttered. (If you know me, you know that statement sounds absurd. I am one of the most organized people on the planet. It's probably a mild form of obsessive-compulsive disorder.) The problem, in my opinion, was the fragmentation of technology.

Facebook, Twitter, Google, blogs, work email, personal email, the "cloud"—it can get overwhelming. Are you friends with anyone on Facebook who links that account with their Twitter feed and their blog? They post a comment in one place, and it shows up three times. Sometimes more. That's too much repetition.

We have pictures on our phone, computer, Facebook, and floating in the cloud. Do I really need pictures of my dog so diversified?

For a long time, I have been trying to sync up my life. How can I streamline technology so it works for me instead of against me? (If this is feeling like the introduction to a pyramid scheme, I promise it's not.)

After many months (not kidding) of work, I found my answer. It's the Googleverse. (I need to trademark that name and charge Google millions for its use.) Facebook drives me crazy, so I'm switching to Google+ (Add me!). Not to mention that Facebook becomes a giant Blue Hole that steals life's precious minutes from us. All non-work related email will be directed to my Gmail account (Fullsteve@gmail.com). All of my pictures are automatically uploaded to Picasa (owned by Google). All of my videos are automatically uploaded to YouTube (owned by Google). I won't bore you, but I am beginning to funnel online class communication to Google+. I am piloting it with my summer class, and it is working brilliantly.

While Google is leading the way, others also play a role. I use Twitter to follow celebrities, sports personalities, reporters, and anyone else that I wouldn't normally interact with in real life. It's fun reading their thoughts, and many often respond to comments. I get most of my news from reporters who tweet before they write longer stories for print. Once I figured out Twitter's purpose in my life, it has been a great tool.

I also use Amazon's Kindle to read books and their cloud service to download music. And, keep in mind, I now have three electronic devices—my laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone. All run Google OS (Chrome for laptop and Android for tablet and phone), so everything syncs! It's quite amazing.

I'm looking forward to the fall because syncing has helped me get refocused. I'm finally excited about blogging again, and I have three projects that will launch on this blog the first full week of September. One involves faith, another focuses on politics, and the third is a new experiment designed to help me explore the city of Cincinnati.

Some people live chaotic lives. If that is how you thrive, then go for it. But I bet most of us could benefit from more organization. Most of us would thrive more if we eliminated clutter and got serious about syncing our lives with the available technology. This should be a new professional. Forget life coaches; society needs technology coaches trained to help us navigate the 0's and 1's in order to maximize our brief time on this giant floating rock.

A Whole New World

2011-07-25T13:46:00.000-04:00

As you may have noticed, my blog was given a makeover this weekend. I think it looks better (cleaner), and I was getting bored with the same look for the past two years. I kept links to all of my writing projects on the right, and if you're interested in who I am, there are multiple links above that describe the different hats I wear throughout life.

All that in prep for a new blogging experiment this fall. I had the idea last year at this time, but I never pulled the trigger. I was probably still burnt out from the Church Experiment. Now, I'm ready for a new challenge. The project will begin the week of September 5th. Stay tuned for more details.

Also, I'm slowly moving away from Facebook to Google+. If we were Facebook friends (but not actually friends in real life), I probably deleted you over the weekend. That wasn't because I dislike you; it's because I want to shift everyone over to Google+. So, if you still want to be digital friends, click on the giant Google+ button in the right margin and add me to one of your Circles. I'm really excited about Google+. While this blog will still host my longer diatribes (and my bigger writing projects), Google+ is where I'll be posting links, pictures, articles, videos, and shorter commentaries about faith, politics, sports, entertainment, and the world, so if you read my blog, you'll definitely want to find me on Google+. I'm even requiring my students to sign up for it to help facilitate online learning. Exciting times in the world of social networking.

In other news, Liz and I celebrated our one-year anniversary in June, I'm incredibly proud of New York for legalizing gay marriage, the 2012 presidential election is going to be crazy, I hope the United States government doesn't have to sell our country on eBay, it's too damn hot outside, I had an amazing time in Milwaukee watching the Reds series with two old friends, I'm currently writing book three of the Bruce Kraft Trilogy, and yes, I'm definitely ready for some football!

Consuming vs. Producing

2011-07-13T14:40:00.001-04:00

We spend about 1/3 of our lives sleeping. Approximately eight hours per day. And we spend about 1/3 of our lives doing stuff we have to do—work, showering, running errands, dentist appointments, etc. That leaves 1/3 of our lives to do whatever we want.

I believe that 1/3 can be broken into two parts: Consuming and Producing.

Watching a movie is consuming. Making a movie is producing. Reading a book is consuming. Writing a book is producing. Watching a baseball game is consuming. Playing second base is producing. Sitting through a church service is consuming. Preaching is producing. You get the idea.

We are a generation of consumers. And I think it's getting worse. It's like our brains are being rewired for input-only. Technology is probably partly to blame. I just bough an Android Tablet that is designed with consumers in mind. Online shopping, reading newspapers, social networking, watching television—my tablet is made to consume.

But consuming gets boring. And it's often unfulfilling.

Think about our hobbies. People used to build model ships and trains (producing). Now, our two biggest hobbies are television and movies (consuming). We planted gardens (producing); now, the grocery store (consuming) is far too convenient.

The world wants you to consume. When you do, someone else is making money. You spend; they get rich.

I'm not suggesting everyone has to write books or make movies, but everyone should produce something.

Of course, consuming isn't necessarily evil. It's okay to shop online. Reading books is great. I love good movies and television. But maybe there should be a balance. I don't want to just take from this world because I have something to offer. Whenever I'm feeling "down," it's almost always because my consuming-to-producing ratio is out of whack.

What's sad is that I didn't even realize it was happening to me. I only noticed the problem when I sat down this week to continue writing my third novel and realized my brain had turned into mush. Too much consumerism is killing my brain cells. Producing stimulates thinking, which leads to more producing.

So, I'm going to get right on that...later. First, I need a nap.

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Redemption Exemption

2011-06-19T16:20:00.002-04:00

The Anthony Weiner story was both boring and fascinating. Boring because it was a distraction from the issues Americans should be worrying about (economic crisis, health care reform, multiple wars, etc.).

Fascinating because we all love a juicy scandal. I especially like when Jon Stewart makes fun of how much news coverage Weinergate is getting ... by covering the story himself almost every night.

I'm not too worried about Anthony Weiner. I don't know the man; he didn't represent my state; I'm sure plenty of politicians have done much worse (Clinton comes to mind). I'm more worried about myself, and to a certain extent, you.

I have joked recently that Google, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, and dozens of other online giants need to give people a do-over. It would be nice if they all agreed to erase every electronic trail humanity has left behind from the beginning of time to ... well, now.

We all get it. Having racy conversations, sending naked pictures, Googling naughty words, and watching online porn is a bad idea. It took us a couple of decades to figure it out, but we're all on the same (G-rated) page now.

Here's the problem: We're already screwed. E-mails I sent ten years ago still exist somewhere out there. T-Mobile has access to all of my text messages. There are pictures of Stevie Jr. floating around the webosphere's back-alleys. Soooo many pictures ...

No one will be able to run for President of the United States thirty years from now. We will all have too much electronic baggage. (By the way, I realize not everyone has a scandalous online lifestyle. I'm purposely painting with a wide brush here to make a point.)

Here's the real problem: The Internet used to be the place people hid. Sitting alone in our bedrooms was a safe haven for perversion. It's not like anyone was getting hurt. STDs weren't being spread. Children weren't being born out of wedlock. No one saw our dastardly deeds.

But we were naive. Sitting out there somewhere, servers are storing everything we've ever done online. That makes me nervous.

But there's nothing we can do about it. Except this ...

Make a redemption claim. In other words, say, "Look, you have a lot of evidence showing who I was. But here's who I am now ..."

And the best part? You can prove that you're a changed man. Google, Facebook, and Twitter will confirm your transformation. The key, of course, is time. Weeks, months, and even years need to pass in order to prove that you actually did turn over a new leaf.

No one will care if you Tweeted your package ... as long as it was five years ago. That will be our only hope when secrets no longer exist.

In an odd way, I think this is how life should work. The reason religion is so popular is because people can pretend. We do it all of the time. I can feign outrage when someone else sins because you have no idea what I do behind closed doors.

But someday you will know. You'll be exposed too. No more hiding. Instead, forgiveness, mercy, and grace will be our only options.

It sounds equal parts terrifying and freeing.

A Facebook friend posted a quote from Philip Yancey as I was writing this post. As always, Yancey said it better than I ever could:

‎"Repentance, not proper behaviour or even holiness, is the doorway to grace. And the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue."

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O-H...N-O

2011-06-06T15:05:00.001-04:00

People have two options:

1) Be awesome.

2) Be a D-Bag.

The world is pretty much okay with either one. We like awesome people, and for the most part (as long as the D-Bag isn't harming others), we respect people who identify and share their faults.

Here's the one option most people aren't okay with:

3) Be a D-Bag, but pretend to be awesome.

People aren't piling on Tressel and Ohio State because they messed up. This country forgives easily, gives second chances, and appreciates a comeback kid (see Michael Vick). People are piling on Tressel and Ohio State because they are hypocrites. Literally. The definition of a hypocrite is, "A person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs."

Tressel wrote a book called, "The Winners Manual: For the Game of Life." He wrote a second book called, "Life Promises for Success: Promises from God on Achieving your Best."

We're all hypocrites to a certain extent. No one is 100 percent genuine, but that doesn't mean it's okay to pretend. Just admit you're a mess. Stop pointing fingers at others. Accept yourself and embrace that person (while always leaving room for growth, of course).

This has always been a huge criticism of religion. Too many Christians pretend to be something they aren't, and it infuriates the non-Christian world. Too many Christians judging "sinners" outside of the church while ignoring their own junk, and it pushes people away from God. I get the sense that many Christians I meet are reading from a script—saying all the right things, using confusing spiritual language, hiding their personal ideologies to keep the peace, etc. In private, I wonder how many curse with their friends, watch Internet porn, get drunk, or contribute to awful marriages. Appearances seem more important than reality.

Either be awesome (like Joe Paterno) or be a D-Bag (like Lane Kiffin), but don't pretend to be something you're not (like Jim Tressel). That's just silly. It's unhealthy. It's exhausting. And, ultimately, it's a wasted life.

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Proudly Judgmental

2011-06-03T10:05:00.002-04:00

In yet another comment I deleted because Mr. Anonymous refuses to attach his name to his opinions, I was called judgmental.

I was given this label because I said someone would have to be (1) stupid, or (2) mentally defective, to believe homosexuality is equivalent to pedophilia or bestiality.

Was the United States being judgmental when our country opposed Hitler? Was Abraham Lincoln being judgmental when he abolished slavery? The women's suffrage movement was judgmental? Martin Luther King, Jr. was judgmental?

They sure were. Because slavery and the holocaust were wrong. Racism and sexism are wrong. If I oppose sex trafficking (and thus, condemn the people who participate in sex trafficking), that involves making a judgment. I judge it to be wrong.

We're all judgmental. Every single person on the planet makes judgments. The only problem is when you're on the wrong side of the argument.

Hitler was wrong. Slavery was wrong. Segregation was wrong. Sex Trafficking is wrong. Denying gay men and women the right to marry is wrong. Of course it makes me judgmental to make all of those claims, but when our judgment is correct, we should wear the label as a badge of honor.

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Psychopaths

2011-06-01T10:25:00.002-04:00

I read an interesting book last week called The Psychopath Test. Psychopaths are people who lack normal human emotions—empathy, compassion, love—but they hide it well with a "normal," and often charming, exterior. (If you have ever seen the television show Dexter, Dexter Morgan is clearly a psychopath.)

The author made a lot of interesting points, from the advantages of being a psychopath (many become successful because they don't have normal human emotions holding them back) to the over-medication of children (drug companies have convinced the psychiatric world to over-diagnose so profits skyrocket).

But my biggest takeaway was this: Psychopaths often chart the course of a civilization because they possess a dangerous combination of (1) being the loudest; (2) without a functional conscience.

This is a problem for me because I constantly forget that one crazy person does not represent an entire people group. Glenn Beck does not speak for all conservatives. Fred Phelps does not speak for all Christians. Osama Bin Laden does not speak for all Muslims. One anonymous commenter does not represent anything other than one person's psychopathy.

It reminds me of how Jon Stewart promoted his Rally to Restore Sanity: Only a small percentage of the population is crazy, but those people always end up on television because insanity=ratings. The other 90 percent of us are too busy working, raising children, and paying the bills to spare the time or energy necessary for crazy endeavors. So, the loudest, most obnoxious, most insane people unfortunately speak for all of us, and society sits back and thinks the world is going nuts. But it's not. Most people are perfectly normal.

Case in point: A few hundred people read my last two blog posts, but only one person anonymously shared his bizarre views of the world. 99.9 percent of you (the normal ones) sat back and watched. But I immediately allowed the negative thoughts to creep back in: Christians are crazy! God isn't real! I'm becoming agnostic!

Crazy people say and do crazy things. After thirty-four years, why does this still surprise me?

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The Narrative of Jesus

2011-05-30T10:30:00.001-04:00

For old time's sake, a lively debate erupted on my blog last week concerning gay marriage, homosexuality, God, and the Bible. (All the usual suspects.) Over and over again, Mr. Anonymous (shocking that he never attached his name to any of his comments) asked me to provide Biblical evidence supporting my position (for the record, I believe gay men and women should have the right to marry).

Without further ado, here is my Biblical evidence:

Genesis 1—Revelation 22

I tried to copy and paste the whole thing, but Blogger wouldn't let me.

Feel free to lob the normal barrage of insults—I'm not a theologian, I don't read enough, I'm naive and foolish. I'm a college professor, so I understand the importance of education more than most, but I refuse to believe God handed humanity a textbook. If people need advanced degrees to interpret scripture's narrative, we're all screwed.

We can argue all day about verses (and trust me, I have). I know how this game works. I defend a gay person's right to get married, and you post a handful of verses "proving" homosexuality is a sin. But a handful of verses makes an awful story. It's like pulling one sentence from War and Peace and pretending it somehow has meaning apart from the larger narrative.

When I read the story of Jesus, I discover a Father deeply in love with his children. In Jesus, I see compassion, forgiveness, joy, and love. I see freedom from oppression and discrimination. I can't post one verse that explicitly states gay marriage is valued by God. Maybe it isn't. As I have said hundreds of times, I honestly have no idea.

But I have a narrative that exalts God's love above everything else. When I read that narrative, something happens to my heart. I see the world differently. I want to behave differently. I fail, of course, because I'm only human, but my failures don't change the narrative.

I hope to always follow the direction God's love-story leads my heart. If I'm ultimately wrong, I hope forgiveness will trump judgment because my intentions were honorable. If not, then I have completely misinterpreted the narrative of Jesus. Until then, I would rather err on the side of tolerance. I would rather be a reflection of God's love than his judgment.

I know this "evidence" won't appease the critics. And that's okay. If I'm wrong, I'll have to answer for my mistake someday. But that's between me and God. For now, when someone on my blog writes, "If my kid was given a homosexual teacher, we'd be switching teachers real soon. It would be no different than having a teacher that was into bestiality or pedophilia," that person is clearly misrepresenting Jesus to the world, and I will use whatever platform I am given to communicate that God's love is more powerful than a flawed man's bigotry.

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False Invitations

2011-05-23T12:55:00.001-04:00

Ten years ago, I read The Divine Conspiracy, by Dallas Willard. Sunday, Jim Zartman linked to this article on Facebook. Later that day, Bradley Wise sent me a text message expressing his love for Willard's book.

Those three events led me to this conclusion:

The reason Pastor Harold Camping (the man who predicted the Rapture on May 21) bothers me (and why it annoyed me when Christians defended him this weekend); the reason Christian gay-bashers bother me; the reason conservative Republicans hijacking Jesus bothers me; the reason hateful, judgmental, angry Christians bother me ... is because their words and actions are false invitations into a life with Jesus.

Let me explain.

In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard wrote, "The major problem with the invitation now is precisely overfamiliarity. Familiarity breeds unfamiliarity--unsuspected unfamiliarity, and then contempt. People think they have heard the invitation. They think they have accepted it--or rejected it. But they have not. The difficulty today is to hear it at all. Genius, it is said, is the ability to scrutinize the obvious. Written everywhere, we may think, how could the invitation be subtle, or deep? It looks like the other graffiti and even shows up in the same places [ummm...Rapture billboards, anyone?]. But that is part of the divine conspiracy."

When the most publicity Jesus has received in years involves an insane campaign to convince people the world is ending on May 21, we're all in trouble. Who would accept that invitation? All rational, sane people knew Pastor Camping was crazy, so why would anyone desire a relationship with Jesus when insanity seems like a likely outcome?

When Christians hate and oppress others (denying gay marriage, trashing Muslim Mosques, etc.), it extends an invitation to others. That invitation reads, "Join us. Hate others. Be intolerant. Judge the world. Live a miserable life."

Obviously, there are many Christians on this planet who don't represent that Christian caricature. I don't. Most of my friends don't. But our voices are drowned out by the screaming lunatics.

It bothers me when people are silent about issues that matter. I have always been criticized by Christians for sharing my opinions (and stirring the pot), but I am proud to offer an alternative invitation. I am proud that my non-Christian friends, colleagues, readers, and acquaintances know a person can love Jesus and be socially liberal. A person can worship God and support gay marriage. A person can pray, but be mentally stable. A person can seriously consider eternity, but enjoy this planet (laughing, drinking responsibly, enjoying vacations, watching R-rated movies, dropping a well-timed f-bomb). A person can choose one religious ideology, but respect other religious ideologies.

I am far from perfect. I have a million character flaws. But I'm proud of the invitation I offer the world. I want to always be refining that invitation to cast the widest net possible.

Jesus is pretty cool. He just needs better public relations.

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Amerigasm

2011-05-02T14:45:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure I feel bad about Osama Bin Laden being killed. I understand that he was a human being, and that violence begets more violence, and that God loves all of his children, but Bin Laden was a bad dude. And not a bad dude as in, "We're all bad dudes." He was a really bad dude, and honestly, he probably deserved to die.

I'm not sure it's okay to celebrate anyone burning for all eternity. It feels weird watching people get excited about eternal damnation. I don't believe revenge was part of Jesus' message.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with all this red, red, and red patriotism. (Get it? Blood is red. So instead of red, white, and blue, I wrote red, red, and red.) Toby Keith sang about sticking our American boots up a terrorist's ass, and we suddenly turned into animals. I don't want to spit on Bin Laden's corpse (something a friend wrote on Facebook). I appreciate that violence can be a legitimate option, but do we have to enjoy it so much? This isn't a video game. Real people are dying.

I'm not sure anything is "over" or that America has "won" anything. Those comments (from lots of friends on Facebook) seem naive. The real battle has probably just begun. Many innocent lives will be lost because Bin Laden was killed this weekend. It's not like terrorists are suddenly going to surrender because we killed one leader. If anything, this act will be used to recruit more terrorists, and the cycle of destruction will continue.

I'm not sure gathering outside the White House to celebrate Bin Laden's death makes us much different, or any better, than protesters gathering all over the world to burn the American flag.

I'm not sure I fully grasp what this moment means to those men and women who serve in our armed forces, or responded bravely on 9-11, or lost loved ones that day. If Bin Laden's death provides closure ten years later, that's a good thing.

Finally, this exchange came to mind from Jane Eyre that I believe is fitting:

"But I feel this, Helen: I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved."

"Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine; but Christians and civilised nations disown it."

"How? I don't understand."

"It is not violence that best overcomes hate--nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury."

"What then?"

"Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how he acts; make his word your rule, and his conduct your example."

"What does he say?"

"Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you."

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Gratitude

2011-04-25T19:25:00.002-04:00

I rewatched the Lost series finale last week. I miss Lost. Although I was disappointed that more questions weren't answered, the finale is a masterpiece.

As the credits rolled, I cried. Partly because of Vincent lying next to Jack in the final scene (dogs always make me cry), and partly because I realized people (including me) spend too much time worrying about stuff that ultimately doesn't matter.

My life isn't perfect, but I am incredibly thankful for my blessings. That night, I cried because I was overwhelmed with gratitude. As Kevin Spacey said in American Beauty, "And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."

It's easy to focus on the handful of hardships while ignoring hundreds of blessings. My life has been freakishly good (I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop). I have a great family, wife, and job. We have plenty of money. I'm fairly intelligent and attractive. I am relatively healthy. Most people I know are doing very well, especially considering the alternatives. And yet, most days, we take our blessings for granted.

I'm pretty sure gratitude is a major piece of the puzzle. A huge, giant, enormous piece.

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Zoo Blooms

2011-04-16T11:00:00.002-04:00

Zoo Blooms can be experienced for free every Thursday evening in April at the Cincinnati Zoo. Live music, (not free) food and beer, and lots of pretty flowers. People love free stuff, so expect large crowds, limited parking, and strollers galore. Here are some pictures from our visit last week:

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Napa Valley

2011-04-13T17:40:00.003-04:00

Liz and I vacationed in Napa Valley this spring. If you ever plan a trip, eight days was probably too long—there's nothing to do in Napa besides visiting wineries and drinking wine—but everyone should experience the beauty of Napa Valley once. The vibe is definitely much more relaxed in California, and it was interesting swapping stories with dozens of people along the way. I learned that vacations are difficult for me. I often relax by working (writing, side projects, organizing), so "doing nothing" for a week was an adjustment. It rained every day, and the temperatures were chilly, but we had lots of good wine, delicious food, and quality time along the way.

I'm not a big fan of Beringer Wines, but their winery was gorgeous:

Here are some really old bottles of wine stored in the Beringer caves:

The Castello di Amorosa is literally a winery inside a real castle:

And Frog's Leap is literally a barn:

V. Sattui had my favorite wine in Napa:

Jacuzzi Family Vineyards had very cool architecture:

St. Francis was hanging out at his winery:

A couple of my favorite wine tastings. First, Failla (so cozy):

Next, Castello di Amorosa (we were inside the actual castle):

Mumm Napa lined them up for us:

But more than anything else, I'll remember Napa's breath-taking views. These two pictures were taken behind Summers Winery:

And this picture was taken behind St. Francis Winery:

Life es bueno.

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Heaven and Hell

2011-04-11T12:15:00.003-04:00

Rob Bell has caused quite a controversy in the Christian world. I read Love Wins. Then, I sat back and enjoyed the subsequent dialogue. I tried to stay out of the debate because I wanted time to process. Some of my friends immediately professed their undying love for Bell; others labeled him a false prophet. As always, the truth is probably somewhere in between.

Let's all be honest. No one on this planet has any idea what awaits us after death. None of us have been to heaven or hell, so how could we possibly know? It's all speculation on this side of the grave. If you follow Jesus, the Bible likely guides what you believe about the afterlife. The Bible is obviously unclear because very intelligent people disagree about heaven and hell. If the Bible painted a crystal clear picture of the afterlife, there would be no need for debate.

Here is where I land: I have no idea what will happen after I die. Maybe nothing. Maybe I'll ascend to heaven. Maybe I'll descend to hell. Maybe heaven or hell will come to earth. Maybe I'll get a second chance in purgatory. Whatever happens, I trust God to be the loving father I know he is. To argue specifics is ultimately unsatisfying because only death provides an absolute answer.

I liked Bell's message. I pray he's right. I hope tribes in Africa are worshipping Jesus without knowing it's Jesus. I hope the choice to accept or reject Jesus extends beyond physical death. Wouldn't it be wonderful if our friends and family get a never-ending second chance? I hope every person who ever lived parties forever in heaven. Even Hitler, because a restored Hitler is a shining example of God's mercy. Anyone who is rooting for specific people (gays, Muslims, liberals, etc.) to experience eternity in hell needs psychological help.

The problem with Bell's message is that he places too much faith in humanity. Bell believes we all choose heaven or hell through our daily choices. Which sounds nice, but I often choose poorly. That's why I need a savior. If I could spend the next fifty years making healthy choices, why worship Jesus? In other words, if we all choose heaven or hell, and we're all messed up people, wouldn't we all choose hell? Didn't God send Jesus to rescue us from our awful decisions?

I really want to manage life on my own. I want to choose heaven on earth. I want to be a great guy who loves God and others. But I'm not sure that's possible. So I need to be saved from myself.

Ultimately, religion leads to a problem: No one is good enough to follow the rules, so we all fall short. Religious people who think being straight, waiting until marriage, memorizing scripture, tithing, voting republican, and wearing suits to church somehow earns them admittance to heaven are in trouble. They need a savior.

But Bell's version of spirituality leads to a similar problem: No one is good enough to create heaven on earth, so we all fall short. Really cool Christian activists who think building wells in Africa, participating in drum circles, wearing black-rimmed glasses, living in poor neighborhoods, hanging out in coffee shops with gay Buddhists, and wearing flip-flops to church somehow earns them admittance to heaver are in trouble. They also need a savior.

When some of Jesus' disciples asked him point blank, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus replied, "What is impossible with man is possible with God." Whether it's following all of the rules or creating heaven on earth, earning salvation is impossible. Accepting it, however, is quite a different story.

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The Ripple

2011-04-05T10:45:00.007-04:00

Lots of news to report.

First, we have a winner! Sean Michael Murphy is the proud owner of a brand new Kindle 3G from Amazon.com! Thanks for all of the entries. I wish I could give away hundreds of free Kindles to everyone who entered, but one is a good start.

Second, book two of the Bruce Kraft Trilogy is now on sale through the Kindle Store at Amazon.com. You can read more about (and purchase a copy of) The Ripple here. The Ripple can be read as a stand-alone book for anyone who missed book one, but it's better if you read The Sickness first. For those of you who want to get caught up, The Sickness (book one of the trilogy) is now on sale for $0.99 here.

The Ripple is only available on the Kindle. There are many reasons why I decided to publish electronically instead of in paperback form. The three biggest: (1) For the first time in history, e-books outsold paper books in January of 2011. The transition to digital books is happening faster than originally predicted. (2) I sold five times as many copies of The Sickness on the Kindle, so it makes sense to go where the readers are. (3) Digital books are way cheaper. To make a long story short, the paperback version of The Sickness sells for $17.95 (plus shipping). Each copy sold earns me approximately $2.50 (this is typical in the traditional publishing world). I can sell The Ripple for $2.99 on the Kindle (saving the reader about $15). But, because a digital copy costs practically nothing to produce, I still make over two dollars per copy sold. So, I make the same royalty, but the reader saves fifteen bucks. That seems like a better option for everyone involved.

Don't have a Kindle? Now is the time to make the leap into digital books. You can buy a Kindle for as little as $139 on Amazon.com. Don't have $139? Not a problem. Kindle has a free app for your iPhone, iTouch, iPad, Android-based phone and tablet, Blackberry, or Windows 7 Phone. You can even download the book on your PC or Mac. Just go here for more information about all of your options.

Finally, the first Kindle giveaway was so successful, that I'm doing it again! Between now and July 1, 2011, buy a copy of The Ripple and forward your receipt to FullSteve@gmail.com to be entered once. Review the book on Amazon.com between now and July 1, 2011, to be entered a second time. It's that easy! Hesitant? Just ask Mr. Murphy how entering the last giveaway worked out for him!

Thanks for all of the continued support!

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Love Wins

2011-03-31T12:20:00.002-04:00

I recently read Rob Bell's newest book, Love Wins. Here are a few reactions:

1) Regardless of your theology, it's a good thing when people are talking about God. It's better than the alternative. Bell's book has certainly created space for conversations about things that matter.

2) The critics are almost exclusively people who haven't read the book. Maybe Bell advertised the book in a way to cause controversy in order to boost sales, but the book itself isn't very controversial. Most of what Bell says has been said elsewhere. He's just really good at creatively packaging the material for diverse audiences. John Piper tweeted, "Farewell, Rob Bell," but I bet Piper didn't read the book. That seems ignorant on his part (and critics everywhere).

3) In my opinion, Bell's book includes two major claims that make traditional evangelicals nervous. First, Bell suggests the choice to accept or reject God extends for all eternity. In other words, after we die, we're still given the option to follow Jesus. The Catholic version of this concept is Purgatory. Bell argues that a loving God wouldn't give us a few dozen years of physical life to determine our eternities. What happens to kids who never get the choice, or tribes in Africa who are never introduced to Jesus? Bell argues a loving God doesn't have an earthly deadline regarding salvation.

4) Second, Bell doesn't seem to believe (at least, not with traditional lenses) in geographical locations call heaven and hell. Bell believes people choose to live in heaven or hell with their daily choices. Eventually, Jesus will restore this broken world, thus bringing "heaven to earth," and people who reject God will continue "living in hell." While on this planet, we can choose to partner with Jesus in restoring the Earth to its original glory (feeding the poor, caring for nature, serving others, etc.), or we can live apart from God in a "hell on earth" (using others, accumulating more stuff, destroying our planet, rooting for Ohio State, etc.).

5) Bell is not a Universalist. He doesn't believe everyone will ascend to heaven regardless of religious affiliation. Bell believes we can all choose heaven or hell, and that decision extends for all eternity. He believes Jesus truly does rule over everything and everyone, and so it's possible that tribes in Africa have been worshipping Jesus all along without knowing his name. As Billy Graham recently said, the only way to God is through Jesus, but who are we to say how Jesus reveals himself to the world?

6) Bell also believes the more we travel a path, the more difficult it is to turn around and choose a different path. Those of us who make healthy, loving decisions become more like Jesus. Our transition to heaven will be an easy one. Those of us who make selfish, evil decisions drift further away from God. Our transition to heaven would be difficult, so there are some who will choose to live apart from God for all eternity. They're in hell. (If you've read C.S. Lewis, this will sound familiar.)

7) Finally, some will argue that Love Wins sounds too good to be true. Perhaps, but the message is resonating with many people. It feels right that God would be so loving that he would continue fighting for our eternities, even after physical death. If you find yourself disagreeing with Bell, maybe the best question to ask yourself is why? Do you want an exclusive club in heaven reserved for you and your church friends? Do you live an obedient (and miserable) life in order to earn admittance to heaven? Would it piss you off if "sinners" slip in unnoticed because God longs to be reunited with all of his children? Would it tick you off if heaven has a gay pride parade? Or would you rejoice that gay men and women get to spend eternity with Jesus?

If evangelicals truly believe a person must repent before death to spend eternity with God, I get why Bell's book makes you nervous. Universalists are probably lazy disciple-makers. There's no urgency if everyone gets in.

But I've come to a conclusion: I trust God. He's big enough to manage eternity without my input. If I love God and others, that's enough. I'm not heaven's bouncer. Neither are you.

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Turbulence

2011-03-28T19:00:00.000-04:00

I had a strange experience flying home from San Francisco over the weekend.

I have flown dozens of times. More than once, the plane has hit fairly nasty turbulence. I remember one landing being so hard that I nearly slammed my forehead into the seat in front of me.

Saturday, at approximately 6:00am, our plane encountered a thunderstorm near Atlanta. (Just hours earlier, the airport had been turning planes around and sending them back to their points of origin because of strong thunderstorms and possible tornadoes in the area.) As the pilot descended in preparation for our landing, we hit some major turbulence. Externally, I stayed fairly calm because I knew Liz was worried. Internally, I was anxious. At one point, the plane dipped so violently that I literally came out of my seat (the same sensation as hitting a speed bump while driving). Half of the passengers audibly gasped. We continued flying through the turbulence for about fifteen more minutes. It was dark, stormy, and I was half asleep. After we landed, Liz heard someone from our flight puking in the ladies' room. I overheard our three flight attendants discussing the severity of the turbulence after they exited the plane.

My mind raced during that bumpy ride. For the first time in my life, death felt real. I know I will die someday. I know I could die at any moment, but as a fairly young man, I feel invincible. We never think tragedy will find us until it's wiping its feet on our doorstep.

Because of this, most people take life for granted. We are blessed beyond measure, but get angry at the slightest inconvenience. Sunday, while waiting for our flight back to Ohio, I watched people get angry. At nothing. And usually, whatever they were mad about was out of their control anyway. Bizarre.

I'm not naive enough to think a little turbulence will somehow permanently change my personality. I'm sure even people who face actual near-death experiences eventually fall back into old patterns of behavior. By this time next week, I'm sure I'll want to punch a hole in my dashboard if I get slowed down by an old woman in an Oldsmobile.

Whatever happened Sunday morning, at least momentarily, it caused me to refocus. I still don't have many spiritual answers, but lately, my questions have been lazy. I've developed a cynical shell that can be charming in its infancy, but in fifty years, will leave me a bitter old man.

Faith isn't a game. It can feel like it at times in the world of social networking, but the turbulence reminded me that serious consequences are involved.

I read Rob Bell's latest book, Love Wins, last week, and it got me thinking about God's love, heaven, hell, our choices, and my role in God's plan. I'll share some of those reflections later this week.

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Thought Bursts

2011-03-15T11:40:00.002-04:00

Because of Facebook and Twitter, my brain now only functions in two- or three-sentence thought bursts (a phrase I borrowed from Joseph Boyd). I haven't updated my blog in a month because I no longer think in paragraphs.

So, here is a collection of eight thoughts from the past four weeks:

1) I turned 34 on Saturday. I'm almost closer to 40 than 30. How did I get to be so old? Time moves quickly. I wish I didn't waste so much of it. I say it all of the time, but I still feel 16. What age does someone become an adult? Do we all feel like we're still sitting at the kids' table on Thanksgiving? Is that why most people are desperately insecure? Deep down, do we all know we're actually frauds, pretending to be mature adults, just waiting to be "found out?"

2) The Cincinnati Bearcats are back in the NCAA basketball tournament. March Madness is my favorite time of the year. I'm looking forward to baseball, but I'm fed up with professional football. The Bengals have been a joke for twenty years, but the punchline is getting stale. It's annoying to watch the NFL argue over billions of dollars while teachers in Ohio and Wisconsin are about to lose collective bargaining, or the poor are about to lose heating subsidies. With apologies to Gordon Gekko, greed ain't so good. Just ask Jim Tressel. It's good to finally have conformation for what I have known for a decade—Tressel is a liar and a cheater who runs a dirty program. See ya in 2012, Buckeyes.

3) Liz and I are leaving Saturday morning for Napa Valley. I'm looking forward to a relaxing vacation with lots of wine. Unfortunately, the weather looks colder and more rainy in Napa than it is in Cincinnati. Either way, this will be our first vacation alone (our previous vacations have been family vacations).

4) Senate Bill 5 has given me lots of mixed emotions. While many union employees do abuse the system, most are good workers. I'm not against union reform, but Republicans in Wisconsin and Ohio are clearly using unethical methods to push their agendas. Republicans are a frightening combination of manipulative and intelligent. They have somehow convinced Americans that people who make over $250,000 per year aren't rich, but teachers who make $50,000 per year are somehow riding a "gravy train." With the IQ level of Americans dropping every day, it seems unwise to slash school budgets and cut teacher salaries. The movie Idiocracy is a prophecy. Don't believe me? Here's a bonus question from a quiz I recently gave a college class:

One positive side effect of Senate Bill 5 (and my job being threatened) is that my passion for teaching has been reignited. Within the past three weeks, I have upgraded my office, developed a new class, and started a new student honor society. A passionate, motivated employee is a good employee.

5) Rob Bell's new book is predictably causing quite a stir in the Christian world. He questions hell's existence as a physical place. Let the name-calling and in-fighting begin. Why does anyone want to associate with any world religion? To borrow the chorus from a popular country song, "Good is great. Beer is good. And people are crazy." I have been on quite a spiritual journey over the past dozen years, and I feel good about where I am. Others may not see it, but I feel healthy. I don't have many answers, but maybe that's the point. Religion does something to people that rarely leads to love, compassion, and kindness. God, however, is a different story. People who truly connect with God reflect his love to the world. There's a fine line between religion and faith, but that line makes all the difference.

6) The Bachelor should be illegal. The whole format is incredibly bizarre. It's no surprise couples rarely end up together after the show ends. Who could transition from a fantasy world to reality without suffering the consequences? The fantasy always seems appealing on the surface, but nothing compares to the real thing.

7) Self-promotion is gross. It's the quickest way to get blocked on Facebook and the reason I will probably never be a successful writer. I believe I am smart and talented, but I hate telling other people about my accomplishments. It feels dirty when other people do it, and even dirtier when I do it. In the technological age, will the most popular artists, writers, and musicians also be the most talented, or simply the ones with the biggest digital mouths?

8) The earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan were unbelievable. The images are incredible. Nature is so bizarre. Life is so fragile. Whenever I think about all of us floating through space on a giant rock, my head wants to explode. The formation of the universe, its infinite size, the creation of life—it's all overwhelming. I'm not sure our brains are meant to comprehend what it all means. Regardless, people should probably find a way to live together in peace, protect our planet, and conserve our natural resources before we piss away our precious opportunity to enjoy our momentary blip on the cosmic radar screen.

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Sports are Dumb

2011-02-14T08:35:00.003-05:00

I realized something recently: Sports are dumb. Not playing sports. Playing sports is awesome (and an excellent source of exercise). Watching sports is dumb. And rooting for a particular team is the dumberest.

Think about it. All but one team loses. In most professional sports, that means your team has about a 3 percent chance of winning each year. Once you factor in payroll, that number shrinks for most baseball teams. Once you factor in poor management, that number shrinks even more. In college sports, it's less than one percent. If your school isn't in one of the six major conferences, it's astronomical.

Some fans are lame. They live in cities like Cincinnati or Kansas City, but somehow root for Duke basketball, USC football, the Yankees, the Steelers, and the Lakers. That's dumb because you simply picked all the best teams. Anyone could do that.

Most fans live or die with their hometown teams. I grew up rooting for the Bengals, Reds, and Bearcats. Where has that gotten me? For starters, hundreds of wasted Sundays. Heartbreak when Kenyon Martin broke his leg. Torture when Carson Palmer's leg imploded. Anger when Brian Kelly left for greener (and golder) pastures. I was born in 1977. The Reds won back-to-back championships in 1975 and 1976. I was alive in 1990 (when the Reds won again), but I was living in Louisiana. In other words, the Reds can't win if I'm within a thousand miles of the city.

Even winning feels like losing. If my team gets a lead, I fume when they lose it. If they blow the other team out, it feels like wasted energy, which (in my mind) will inevitably lead to a losing streak. The Reds made the playoffs last year, but losing to the Phillies felt a hundred times worse than a regular season loss.

Maybe living in Boston would feel good. The Red Sox, Celtics, and Patriots all win. But all three failed to win a championship last year. That makes them losers.

Sports has probably taken years off my life. So much anger. So much yelling. So much time and energy given ... to what? A game? Why do I care so much? Why do we care so much?

I like the idea of sports. I appreciate the drama that only emerges from real people engaged in real conflict. I just wish I could actually enjoy sports.

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How Sweet the Sound

2011-02-08T11:25:00.002-05:00

I can't wrap my mind around grace. Maybe no one can. Maybe our brains aren't capable of understanding it.

Our culture certainly doesn't help. The world is performance-driven. We love success stories and loathe freeloaders. Failure is an f-word for most of us.

Read your Bible, don't curse, don't have premarital sex, give generously, attend church, pray without ceasing, serve the poor, mentor others, join a small group. We are constantly asking others to "perform," which is perfectly fine on many levels. I want to be challenged to grow. I want to mature into a better person.

I'm just not sure God cares about performance. The story of the Prodigal Son leads me to believe he doesn't. It didn't matter what the lost son had done. All the father cared about was his boy's return. No explanation needed. Let the party begin!

I have a great father, but that's not what his response would have been. He would have started with, "Where the hell have you been? Where's my money? What the hell is wrong with you?" Not God. God is happy to have you home, regardless of what happened on your journey.

That's grace. I don't know a single person who fully understands its power.

My favorite Prodigal Son parable was written by Philip Yancey. Every time I read the story, I cry. I had to fight back tears Monday morning as I tried to simply explain the story to two of my friends. My soul knows the answer to all of my questions is somewhere in this story's theme.

It begins with a young girl who runs away from home in Traverse City, Michigan, because she's too cool and her parents are too controlling. The girl ends up making a new home in Detroit as an underage prostitute. After a year of too many drugs and too many men, the girl contracts a sexually transmitted disease and is thrown into the streets by her pimp. She continues working to support her habit, but she's getting sicker, money is running out, and her life is spinning out of control. One night, while sleeping in Detroit's gutters, she dreams of Traverse City. I'll let Yancey pick up the story from that point:

God, why did I leave, she says to herself, and pain stabs at her heart. My dog back home eats better than I do now. She's sobbing, and she knows in a flash that more than anything else in the world she wants to go home.

Three straight phone calls, three straight connections with the answering machine. She hangs up without leaving a message the first two times, but the third time she says, "Dad, Mom, it's me. I was wondering about maybe coming home. I'm catching a bus up your way, and it'll get there about midnight tomorrow. If you're not there, well, I guess I'll just stay on the bus until it hits Canada."

It takes about seven hours for a bus to make all the stops between Detroit and Traverse City, and during that time she realizes the flaws in her plan. What if her parents are out of town and miss the message? Shouldn't she have waited another day or so until she could talk to them? And even if they are home, they probably wrote her off as dead long ago. She should have given them some time to overcome the shock.

Her thoughts bounce back and forth between those worries and the speech she is preparing for her father. "Dad, I'm sorry. I know I was wrong. It's not your fault; it's all mine. Dad, can you forgive me?" She says the words over and over, her throat tightening even as she rehearses them. She hasn't apologized to anyone in years.

The bus has been driving with lights on since Bay City. Tiny snow snowflakes hit the pavement rubbed worn by thousands of tires, and the asphalt steams. She's forgotten how dark it gets at night out here. A deer darts across the road and the bus swerves. Every so often, a billboard. A sign posting the mileage to Traverse City. Oh, God.

When the bus finally rolls into the station, its air brakes hissing in protest, the driver announces in a crackly voice over the microphone, "Fifteen minutes, folks. That's all we have here." Fifteen minutes to decide her life. She checks herself in a compact mirror, smooths her hair, and licks the lipstick off her teeth. She looks at the tobacco stains on her fingertips, and wonders if her parents will notice. If they're there.

She walks into the terminal not knowing what to expect. Not one of the thousand scenes that have played out in her mind prepare her for what she sees. There, in the concrete-walls-and-plastic-chairs bus terminal in Traverse City, Michigan, stands a group of forty brothers and sisters and great-aunts and uncles and cousins and a grandmother and great-grandmother to boot. They're all wearing goofy party hats and blowing noise-makers, and taped across the entire wall of the terminal is a computer-generated banner that reads "Welcome home!"

Out of the crowd of well-wishers breaks her dad. She stares out through the tears quivering in her eyes like hot mercury and begins the memorized speech, "Dad, I'm sorry. I know … "

He interrupts her. "Hush, child. We've got no time for that. No time for apologies. You'll be late for the party. A banquet's waiting for you at home."

If we truly got that—if our tiny brains could truly comprehend what God's grace means—the world would be a very different place. I would be a very different person. But our brains can't, so it's not, and I'm stuck trying to perform my way into eternal bliss.

Lovely.

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Fruity Grace

2011-02-03T11:30:00.005-05:00

There are two conflicting views of Christianity that have me confused.

1) Grace.
Grace claims I am an awful wretch. Left to my own means, I am hopeless. So, God stepped into the world, providing his Son for a path to salvation, thus redeeming me. Grace means I can't earn God's love. Nothing I do could ever cause him to love me more, and nothing I do could ever cause him to love me less. Everyone falls short. I particularly like this story from the Bible:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

2) Fruit.
Fruit is a nice word for "works." Fruit puts emphasis on our accomplishments. People who lead successful ministries, serve the poor, give generously, and love their neighbors are producing good fruit. Fruity Christians will argue that grace is obviously important, but fruit is a measuring stick. People in a real relationship with Jesus will produce fruit. When a tree produces fruit, it's healthy. If not, something is wrong. Jesus says:

By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

My problem is that grace and fruit seem to contradict. Someone might argue that grace is needed before we encounter Jesus, but after accepting Jesus as savior, we must produce fruit to confirm the authenticity of our relationship with him.

Most Christians idolize fruit. They post pictures from mission trips, celebrate strong church attendance, brag about evangelism efforts, and publicly announce every good deed (on Facebook). If I claim to love Jesus, but sit around most nights watching television, they'll ask, "Where's the fruit?"

Here's my point. I'm a fruity guy. In my world, performance is everything. I hang out with fruity guys. Most of my friends are highly intelligent and extraordinarily gifted. The idea of just accepting grace without producing fruit (as an indicator of that grace working in our lives) is absurd to them. And maybe they're right. Maybe fruit is a big deal. But, in my world, fruit (or the lackthereof) keeps me from grace.

I obsess over what people produce. If a Christian acts like an idiot, I assume Christianity can't possibly be true because, in my fruity world, a real Christian would never do such a thing.

If the point is that we're all screwed up, and we need Jesus in order to be forgiven for our junk, that makes sense. However, if the point is that we're all screwed up, and we need Jesus to help us produce good fruit, then I'm confused. It's confusing because lots of Christians still produce awful fruit, and lots of non-Christians produce amazing fruit.

So, it can't be about the fruit, right? And, if not, why is everyone so obsessed with it?

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Breaking Up with the Bengals

2011-01-24T16:05:00.001-05:00

I have been trying to make sense of my emotions regarding the Cincinnati Bengals. Even last year, as the Bengals were marching toward and AFC North title and the playoffs, this team frustrated me. I didn't enjoy being a fan. After so many years of losing, that confused me. Shouldn't I have been celebrating two division titles in a five-year span?

This year, as my hate for this team grew, I finally understood. While I am happily married, I realized my relationship with the Bengals is similar to a bad marriage. There is a fine line between love and hate. Someone I fell in love with thirty years ago can easily turn into someone I loathe after decades of neglect or abuse. I've seen it hundreds of times in bad marriages.

People always talk about "loyalty" or "abandoning the team," but it's not about that for me anymore. After twenty years of abuse—I mean, seriously, isn't anyone else tired of caring about a sports team more than its owner does?—I have slowly been learning to hate the Bengals. It's an angry hate—the way so many men and women feel about their cheating or abusive spouses. How could I have given so many years to such a bad relationship?

These past two weeks sealed the deal for me. I hate Mike Brown. I hate this organization. I am not coming back. I want this team to go 0-16 next year. In fact, I will be rooting for it.

And those fans who say, "Oh, if they start the season 4-0, you'll be back." This is what happens to the abused. Victims say, "Oh, he'll change, he'll change." He never changes. The Bengals, while owned by Mike Brown, will never change. Fans have to be strong enough to realize this and walk away now before we waste any more precious hours of our lives fighting for a one-sided, abusive relationship.

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Stuck in the Middle with You

2011-01-20T09:35:00.002-05:00

Trying to make some sense of it all,
But I can see that it makes no sense at all.
Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor?
'Cause I don't think that I can take anymore.
Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

My friend Adam is smart. I have lots of good friends, but he helps clarify my thoughts in ways that no one else can do. Adam and I had coffee on Tuesday. Our conversation helped me wrap my brain around my spiritual journey. I'm sharing those insights in hopes they might help you as well.

I believe most of America (and perhaps the world) is stuck in the spiritual middle. To our left, we see the spiritual superstars. They pray without ceasing, cast out demons, sell everything they own to give to the poor, memorize the entire Bible, receive prophetic visions, heal the blind, and make incredible sacrifices to help others. Honestly, I'm not sure I know anyone like that, but according to scripture, those characteristics should be commonplace for true followers of Jesus. Or, at least, individual Christians should experience something based on their unique spiritual gifts.

To our right, we see atheists. I have nothing against atheists. In fact, I think it takes great courage to believe in nothing. Nothingness scares the hell out of me. Atheism might be the greatest leap of faith. Most people aren't atheists because most people want to believe in something. For whatever reason, whether fear-based or experience-based, most people can't shake the nagging feeling that there is more. Even skeptics have a difficult time denying the spiritual realm exists.

I'm in the middle of those two extremes. Most of America is in the middle. I like being in the middle because it feels safe. The middle is comfortable. I traditionally argue the middle is preferable because nothing is black and white. Life is nuanced. But I recently realized that, for Christians, this issue is the Wesley Snipes and Conan O'Brien of black and white issues.

You either believe the Bible or you don't. If you don't (unless you choose to transfer to a different world religion), then you are leaning toward atheism. If you do, then you should be praying, healing, casting, memorizing, selling, and receiving. Saying you believe the Bible and showing up to church once a week without radically changing your daily life is insanity. It's like saying I believe eating cheeseburgers is going to kill me and then continuing to eat cheeseburgers.

Being in the middle is like sitting at a roulette table and placing bets on both red and black. You can never lose, but you also never win. It's saying, "I don't really believe any of this religious mumbo jumbo, but I want an insurance policy just in case it's true." I'm not sure God is going to honor that policy. I don't want to move too far left because it looks crazy, and I don't want to move too far right because I'm too scared, so I stay nice and cozy in the middle.

Many people are comfortable being in that middle. They attend church once a week, do whatever they want the other 167 hours, and live a perfectly happy life with their insurance policy tucked away in a shoe box.

The middle (where I am currently located) drives me insane because I know it's wrong. In fact, it's the only option that's wrong. If God is who the Bible says he is, the way I live my life is wrong. I reject healings and miracles. I don't sell my possessions and give to the poor. I mock people who pray constantly and memorize scripture. I dismiss prophecy as lunacy.

And if there is no God, the way I live my life is ridiculous. As I wrote Tuesday, any prayer would mean I am talking to myself and pretending to hear a response. Any belief in heaven would be delusional. If you are a Christian, and there is no God, then you are nuts.

There is no in between. Christianity is either all in or all out. I can't convince myself the middle is an okay place to live.

But here's the problem: I also can't prove God's existence, so I have no idea which direction is correct. How do you choose a side without knowing for sure? Without collecting the proper evidence?

"Faith" is the answer to that question. But I am wired in a way that demands more than faith to make huge life decisions. I need evidence. And, as Adam pointed out Tuesday, I'm also wired to need closure. I love my job because every ten weeks, a quarter ends, and I get to start over again with a new group of students. Netflix drives me insane because it's never-ending. I desperately want to "finish," but I can't because my queue is fluid. I'm always adding movies, and it drives me nuts that the finish line is unknowable.

I want resolution. I need it. I crave it. I need to figure out if God is real or not. Until I do, I'm paralyzed, stuck in the middle. Trying to make some sense of it all, but I can see that it makes no sense at all. Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor? 'Cause I don't think that I can take anymore. Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

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You Make Me Crazy

2011-01-18T12:45:00.002-05:00

There is something about religion keeping me on the sidelines. Very simply put, it's this:

If God doesn't exist (or, at least, any specific version of God), that means people who believe in him are literally crazy.

Think about it:

When someone hears voices in his head telling him to do something, that person is committed to a mental institution. But religious people openly admit God speaks to them. I have Christian friends who claim God tells them how to live. Yet, this is considered perfectly sane.

If your grandma called and said she gave ten thousand dollars to a television preacher, you would be horrified. But, if grandma gave that money to her local church, she would be commended.

If a random stranger sits in her home and talks aloud to herself, she is considered a nut job. But as long as she is talking to an invisible God who never audibly engages her in a conversation, she is saintly for "praying without ceasing."

The idea of Santa Claus coming down a chimney every December 24th is so absurd that I'm surprised children still believe the myth. But a God who knows every thought of all seven billion people on the planet seems perfectly rational to religious folks.

In other words, when you objectively stand back and look at religion, it seems crazy. In fact, we view every other fairy tale, myth, or urban legend that doesn't match our personal ideology as nonsense, even though their storylines are eerily similar.

How does this happen? How do otherwise rational people suspend logic so easily when addressing their personal beliefs, but so harshly criticize and condemn any belief system outside their realm of experiences?

This is why I am stuck. I can't reconcile the two diametrically opposed thoughts swimming around my brain. Objective creatures with no personal stakes in the outcome would conclude that belief in our current idea of God (at least regarding the five major religions I am familiar with) is absolutely absurd.

But ...

There's still something inside of me that rejects atheism. There's a gnawing feeling that "something" is out there. Maybe that "being" created the universe and has been on vacation ever since. Maybe that being loves his creation from afar. Maybe that being is still actively engaged in our world. And maybe that gnawing feeling is a desperate desire for life after death. I sleep better at night believing my next stop is partying in paradise instead of rotting in a hole.

I want to believe in God, but I don't want to become a lunatic in the process. Because, remember, if you're wrong—if there is no God—then prayer, "hearing" God speak, worship, tithing—it all means that religious people are literally crazy.

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And Flowers in Her Hair

2011-01-13T09:50:00.001-05:00

My wife is the prettiest girl in the world. Evidence can be found in this picture:

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The Day Christina Green Died

2011-01-10T10:00:00.002-05:00

I have read some interesting commentaries with poignant quotes regarding how hate-filled political discourse helped influence Jared Loughner's actions Saturday in Arizona. This is my two cents.

We've all heard the story by now. A Democratic Congresswoman from Arizona was shot at point blank range by a deranged madman. Six people were killed, including a nine-year-old girl. A dozen others were injured. No matter how many cable television hours a person consumes, he or she must already be emotionally unstable to kill random strangers. But, without going into detail, anyone who studies the media also knows public discourse helps shape reality. When politicians like Sarah Palin or Barack Obama use violent metaphors to motivate followers, that rhetoric seeps into the public's subconscious. Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Glenn Beck, and Keith Olbermann aren't to blame, but they also aren't helping.

I love to hate. I'm not claiming it's my best personality trait, but it's part of who I am. When I watch Fox News, my blood boils. I root against Ohio State with a fervor that frightens me. I have said some very nasty things about Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck in public forums. Politics became a game at some point. In the past decade, I believe it has turned into a war.

War has casualties. Saturday, one of those casualties was a nine-year-old girl named Christina Taylor Green.

Over the weekend, I tweeted, "Just because someone is your opponent doesn't mean he's also your enemy." Later in the evening, I followed with, "The correct response to what happened in Arizona isn't to hate Sarah Palin or Keith Olbermann more; it's to stop hating."

For whatever reason, it's much easier for me to hate than to love. But hate is a path to nowhere. The flames of hatred, when doused with irresponsible journalism and/or leadership, quickly become an inferno.

When rational people can no longer have intelligent conversations about their differences, we're all in trouble. I'm not suggestion we abandon free speech in the United States; I'm simply suggesting that people with a public forum should stop for a moment, consider how their own rhetoric is contributing to the problem, and commit to engaging in a more thoughtful, rational, honest dialogue with their opponents. That commitment begins with me.

This country doesn't need censorship; it needs personal accountability.

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Win Free Stuff

2011-01-06T09:00:00.001-05:00

I want to give you a free Kindle 3G.

Here's how you can get it:

Leading up to the release of my second novel on April 4, 2011, between now and April 1 (this is not an April Fool's Day joke), if you purchase a copy of The Sickness on the Kindle (at the $2.99 price point), you will be entered into a drawing to win a free Kindle 3G (valued at $189)! You can also purchase a paperback copy from Amazon.com to enter, but buying the Kindle version will save you about $15.

In order to qualify, all you have to do is forward your email receipt to FullSteve@gmail.com by 11:59pm on April 1, 2011. Each individual receipt enters you into the drawing once. (Purchasing the book five times and forwarding five separate receipts will enter you five times.)

If you already purchased the book in 2010, you still have a chance to win!

Simply go here and write a review of The Sickness. Your review automatically enters you into the drawing. (If you reviewed the book in 2010, you're already entered!) Make sure you register your name on Amazon.com so I can locate your email address in case you win.

Of course, you can double your chances of winning by purchasing the book and writing a review between now and April 1, 2011.

Don't own a Kindle and don't want to spend $17.95 on the paperback version? No problem. You can purchase The Sickness on your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, or Android device by downloading the free Kindle App from your phone's market. Go here to download the Kindle App on your Blackberry. Or, simply go here to download the Kindle software on your PC, Mac, or Windows Phone. In other words, everyone can enter to win a free Kindle 3G (valued at $189) by making a $2.99 purchase.

Already own a Kindle? No problem. If you're selected as the winner, and you don't want a second Kindle, you can substitute a $125 Amazon.com gift card in its place.

All of this is leading up to the release of the second novel in my Bruce Kraft Trilogy, The Ripple, on April 4, 2011. I'll be writing more about that book later this winter.

If you have any questions, let me know. Good luck!

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Closing the Gap

2010-12-21T00:05:00.002-05:00

I had a thought while showering over the weekend.

If we agree that the gap between the rich and poor in this world (and specifically, in the United States) is too large, there are three ways to close that gap:

1) People with money voluntarily give it away to people without money. That's called charity.

2) People with money are legally forced to give it to people without money. That's called taxation.

3) People without money illegally steal from people with money. That's called thievery.

That's it. Those are our three options. Because the poor will always be with us, one of those three alternatives will always be happening.

Thievery leads to chaos, so I doubt many of us would advocate for option three. Generally speaking, people are too selfish for option one. While many of us give to various charities, as a whole, we don't give enough to fully support the poor. (You might argue you would be more generous if the government allowed you to keep more of your money, but I have a quick question: When you got that $600 tax credit a few years ago, how much did you donate to charity?)

That leaves option two—taxation. It stinks losing 40 percent of my paycheck each month, but paying taxes seems more realistic than charity and more desirable than thievery.

So, the next time you complain about how much the government takes out of your paycheck, use that energy developing a fourth option. President Obama is all ears (literally).

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Sound Bites

2010-12-14T12:55:00.001-05:00

I haven't blogged much in the past six months. Once upon a time, I wrote a different post every weekday. It was great (helped to refine my writing style) and exhausting (some nights I would stay up for hours trying to find something to write about).

Every once in a while, I'll think about why I have slowed down since the Church Experiment ended. There are multiple reasons, but partly, I think it's because of Facebook and Twitter. Why spend a thousand words writing an essay that can be communicated in 140 characters? And why spend five minutes reading a reflection that can be edited down to ten seconds?

Until I figure out what this blog will become in 2011, I have jumped into the world of Twitter. I'm actually starting to realize its purpose. Last Monday night, the Patriots crushed the Jets. During Tom Brady's post-game press conference, he wore a jacket with the biggest collar I have ever seen.

I wrote this on Twitter: "Why is Tom Brady dressed like a vampire at the post-game press conference? #NiceCoat"

Then I searched the tags, "TomBrady" and "NiceCoat." Hundreds of people all over the world also saw the press conference and commented on Brady's coat. It was hilarious, and it produced an odd sense of community.

If I ever become one of those people who updates every hour, someone please shoot me in the face. But I also don't want to reject new technology just because it's popular. So, follow me on Twitter, become my friend on Facebook, and let's jump into the next decade together.

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Fun House Mirrors

2010-12-07T10:35:00.003-05:00

In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens perfectly describes the way I have allowed flawed humanity to corrupt my faith.

The Ghost of Christmas Present explains to Scrooge, "There are some upon this earth of yours who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us, and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

I don't always understand God, but I have blamed him for peoples' shortcomings. Human beings are a mixed bag of motives. Most of us are giving life our best shot, but we're all stumbling through a dimly lit maze. People distort God; they live selfishly; they manipulate themselves and others. We all fall short.

People are like fun house mirrors. We distort God when we reflect him to others. But that doesn't mean the source is corrupt; it simply means our mirrors have too many cracks and curves to be trusted.

I will never let another human being poison my faith in God. I will charge their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness on them, not Him.

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Who's to Say?

2010-11-29T10:10:00.001-05:00

Last weekend, I watched six episodes of Californication. Californication is a Showtime series starring David Duchovny.

The show contains incredible amounts of nudity, cursing, sex, and perverted humor. And it's incredibly entertaining. But that's not my point.

Hank Moody (Duchovny's character) is an author "living the dream" in Los Angeles. Despite its crudeness, the show encouraged me to start writing fiction almost three years ago.

I'm in favor of monitoring our inputs. If a movie, book, or television show negatively affects a person's self-concept, it's wise to avoid them. But I'm also a firm believer in learning life lessons in unlikely places. That's why I always keep my eyes open for meaning amongst the mundane.

It's also why criticizing others' choices and actions is silly. Who are you to say when and how someone is suppose to experience a meaningful moment, or learn a critical life lesson?

People seem to obsess over right and wrong, as if anyone could possibly foresee the final outcome of the choices we make. Most people aren't evil. We're simply doing our best to make life work. In the process, we have millions of experiences that shape who we become. Only a naive fool would claim to know how those experiences weave together to form the narrative of a person's life.

It reminds me of a fable in which the main character keeps experiencing seemingly good events, that lead to bad events, that lead to good events, that lead to bad events, and so on. After each isolated experience, people around him say, "Oh, how awful that your horse ran away," or, "How wonderful that your son is home," and each time, the old man responded, "Good thing or bad thing ... who's to say?"

That seems like a mature way of approaching life. Criticizing a person's every move simply because his or her choices don't align with your personal values seems childish.

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Entitlement

2010-11-22T17:30:00.002-05:00

As a follow-up to my post on "Standards," I wanted to share a few actual emails I have received from students recently:

I just checked my grade on Onestop and saw that I didnt do well, I was wondering if there is anything I can do to get atleast a C in your class because now my GPA dropped below a 3.0 which is what i really need. I really need a C in your class to keep my GPA up. I would really appreciate it if you could raise my grade.

hi, i have calculate my grades i think i can only get a C maybe a high C, you know i have been work hard in the speech and the test, i am really expect a B if you can help me with that i would be really appreciate that, i know you are a good teacher, so why do not you think about it? thanks!

This is my 2nd time taking this class and i have to say i enjoyed it. I bombed the first exam and showed major improvement on my 2nd exam and papers. I need a C to be eligible for this up and coming sports season. I'm not asking for a grade, but I have really worked hard after that point of the first exam. I am ready for the final and feel i will be at a high D unless i Ace the exam. Just asking take into consideration.

Forgetting the spelling and grammar issues for a moment (one student spoke English as a second language), these three emails point to another issue in higher education—asking for a grade. I have been amazed over the past few years as the frequency of these emails has skyrocketed.

Many students walk into class assuming I exist to make all of their dreams come true. Don't get me wrong: I love my job, and I'm really good at it. I'm not one of those teachers who dreads walking into class. Snow days and summer vacations are fun, but I miss teaching after long breaks away from the classroom. I used to play "school" as a kid. Being a college professor is an honor and a privilege. Of course I care about my students, and of course I want all them to succeed in life, but professors are not wishing wells.

Often, if students bomb an exam, they blame me for making the exam too difficult (even though 10-20 percent of their classmates got an A). Young people have become excuse-making machines, sometimes impressing me with their ability to sling manure. They beg for extra credit like it's oxygen on Mars.

There are many causes, I'm sure. Parents are too permissive; "No Child Left Behind" means poor performers are pushed forward without acquiring the necessary skills to succeed at the next level; Participation trophies have replaced championship trophies in athletics; Schools can no longer play dodgeball because the slow kids get their feelings hurt. Heck, I've even had some education majors tell me many school districts don't allow teachers to grade in red ink anymore. Green and blue X's are more soothing to impressionable young minds, I suppose.

Maybe some of these changes are good. Maybe not. Either way, my colleagues and I are experiencing the results of childhood entitlement.

My response to those students: "Sure, I'll give you a B. But why stop there? How about an A? Here's a hundred bucks while I'm at it. In fact, let me know if you'd like to spend the night with my wife. My wish is your command."

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Standards

2010-11-17T10:30:00.001-05:00

I teach at the University of Cincinnati. Not to sound a hundred years old, but in twelve years of teaching college classes, students have gotten worse in almost every way—attitude, intelligence, maturity, etc.

I now spend part of my day disciplining students for talking while I am teaching. The high school mentality has slowly been creeping into college classrooms.

After watching, "Waiting for Superman," over the weekend, I was rattled. Kids all over the country are desperate to be admitted into good public schools (camping out for days, entering lotteries) in order to secure a successful future. Most young people want to learn, yet too many of my students take their college education for granted.

I had to yell at a student on Monday because he was trying to have a conversation with a girl ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM while I was teaching LISTENING SKILLS. Literally, he was closer to me than he was to her. I snapped ... yelled at him, lectured the class. It was ugly.

When I give exams, what I get back is often depressing. Not just their lack of understanding, but you should see the spelling and grammar mistakes. My favorite was a few years ago when a student attempted to spell "physical." He wrote, "feiscoil." Not kidding.

Yesterday, I got an email from a student asking to be signed into one of my winter classes. In the email, he spelled "professor" wrong (proffesor), didn't capitalize "i," didn't capitalize the first word of a sentence, and had a run-on sentence that was difficult to read.

In the past, I would have just let it slide and written him a typical reply. Today, I am tempted to reply with, "Please correct your spelling and grammar mistakes in this email and try again."

I don't want to be a jerk. Overall, students enjoy my classes partly because I am pretty laid back and fun. Unfortunately, students are taking advantage of my personality more than ever before, and sadly, I sense my teaching style needs to change to keep up with their decreasing levels of maturity.

When I was in college, I had a professor who took off one point for every misspelled word on the exam. People were pissed, but it made us better students. I had another professor who literally locked the door when class began. If you were late, you didn't get inside. Guess what ... students were on time. Now, almost every day, a handful of students wander in after my class has already started. Some show up five minutes late.

I'm taking part of the blame on this. I have been too relaxed, but I thought I was teaching college, not junior high. Plus, I want students to like me. I want (and need) good course evaluations (in order to be reappointed and promoted).

So, what would you do? Should I write the student back and ask him to clean up his email? Should I start taking off points for spelling mistakes? Should I lock my door when class starts? Or should I just keep going with the flow?

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Wake Up Call

2010-11-11T14:30:00.004-05:00

I miss faith. Doubt is a fun friend to have a few beers with, but he makes an awful house guest.

For years, I was elbow deep in the game. I worked at Vineyard Community Church in Springdale, I helped lead a Vineyard church plant in Uptown Cincinnati, and I took a one-year journey called the Church Experiment. For the past ten months, I've been on the sidelines. Frankly, it's boring.

That doesn't mean I've stopped pursuing God; it simply means I stopped looking for him in the familiar places.

After ten months of intense soul-searching (and, more accurately, a dozen years of seeking God), I have landed on a few conclusions about people:

1) People desperately long for God. Most people I know want to believe in a Creator. They pray, hoping someone is listening. I see it in my friends, family, and students. People want to explore their spiritual selves, but churches are bizarre, scary places to them. Christians seem angry, judgemental, and boring. (Whether or not those labels are accurate is often irrelevant. Perception becomes reality.)

2) People desperately long for community. Friends was a television show, but it was also a fantasy world for millions of lonely, depressed twenty- and thirty-somethings. We want to share life with a group of teammates. Sadly, most relationships disappoint us. People let us down. Even spiritual communities fail us because we're all flawed human beings.

3) People desperately long for mission. Action movies, video games, professional sports—we are drawn to exciting adventures that vicariously cast us in the role of hero (or, perhaps, villain). Unfortunately, church misses the mark for many of us, and simply becomes just another way to pass the time.

4) People long for a way to live, not a list of things to do. Mission isn't a to do list. People already have enough to do. Jobs, kids, chores—the average person is burnt out with responsibilities. What we long for is meaning and purpose, not meetings and guilt trips.

5) People don't want to be religious. I know this might be offensive to some, but it's reality. Many religious people freak out the general population. Trust me, I spend the majority of my time around the non-religious, and they just don't like religion. My students are subjected to the crazy pastor who stands in the middle of campus and preaches they are going to hell. The wackos get the spotlight, and the rest of us are left wondering if sanity is permitted in church.

So, I, like many people, want a relationship with God. We want friends to share life with. We want a mission that redefines the way we live. But we don't want to become the freaks we see on television. And we don't want more stuff to do; we would rather rearrange our lives so faith becomes who we are, not a list of bullet points to check off a spreadsheet.

But here's the trick ... you ready for it?

It's up to me to make it happen. When we rely on others to fulfill our spiritual needs—whether a pastor, church, friend, or family member—we'll always be disappointed.

I had a moment earlier today. A flash of insight that took me by surprise and cleared my spiritual sinuses: I can just be that person. What the hell am I waiting for?

I can be caring, generous, and encouraging. I can love God and others. I can forgive those who harm me and win over my enemies with kindness. I can model a better way for those still seeking God. I can feel secure in my personal relationship with Jesus without having to defend myself to others. I can be a better husband, friend, teacher, leader, and family member.

No excuses. No blaming others for my own failures.

And I can start today. Right now. At this very moment.

And so I shall.

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Marriage 101

2010-11-09T11:00:00.003-05:00

I don't claim to know much about marriage. After all, I'm only five months into my journey with Liz. But I have learned something important.

Too many married couples sacrifice future stability for momentary victories.

When I was single, I liked winning. I liked making other people feel bad in order to feel better. If I was right, I needed to shout it from the rooftops. I loved feeling justified. I consistently sacrificed the future of my relationships in order to feel good in the moment.

I did this because I didn't care about the future. If she eventually broke up with me, oh well. There were plenty of other single women on my radar screen.

In my marriage, I still like being right. I like feeling justified. If Liz hurts my feelings, my gut reaction is to hurt her back, or at the very least, make sure she knows about my pain.

But I realized something shortly after saying "I do." If I sacrifice the future for momentary satisfaction, our marriage is doomed. That's what happens in bad marriages. People fight like hell to win the daily battles, so they both eventually lose the war.

Liz isn't going anywhere. Nor do I want her to. We're in this thing for life. That means I need to act like a mature adult. That means I need to choose love over justification. It sounds so simple, but we all know it can be incredibly difficult.

For example, a few weeks ago, Liz drove the car to work. I needed the car by 5:30 in order to make it to guys night on time. Instead of coming straight home, Liz stopped at the grocery store, making her about fifteen minutes late.

I was annoyed. Everything inside of me wanted to be angry at Liz for not respecting my time. When she got home, I left without saying much. A few minutes later, she texted me an apology. There was traffic; she miscalculated; she was sorry. I picked up my phone to write back something nasty. I wanted her to feel bad. But I set the phone back down. I picked it up again, but set it back down again. Over and over, I mentally replayed the message I wanted to send. It would make Liz feel bad, make me feel justified, and ultimately, chip away at our relationship.

In the past, I would have sent the message. That night, I didn't. And while I still fall short of the husband I hope to be someday, I'm fighting like hell for our future. So is Liz. We can't always control how we feel, but we can control how we respond to those feelings.

Dying to self is never easy, but in order to nurture a healthy marriage, it's mandatory.

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Keep it Classy

2010-11-01T10:45:00.001-04:00

Warning: This post is rated PG-13.

Goose and I rounded out seven years of Halloween tradition by watching Saw 3D Friday evening in West Chester. But this post isn't about the movie.

We parked next to a pickup truck with a very meaningful message in its back window. In extremely large lettering, the truck's owner decided to communicate to the whole world, "You can't be strokin or cummin unless it's ..."

Followed by Chevy's logo and the catchphrase, "Like a rock."

Now, put it all together. That's right. Classy.

I was blown away by his audacity, but we were running late for the movie, so life moved on.

After the movie, as Goose and I were waiting to pull out of the parking lot, the truck's owner appeared. Shockingly, he had a girl with him. Not shockingly, the guy had an equally classless shirt on. Picture this: On the back, a huge fist colored like the American flag. The fist was giving me (and the rest of the world) the middle finger.

I have a few thoughts about this experience:

A) I assume the middle finger was meant for Muslims, gays, or Mexicans. Or, perhaps, Gaymuslicans. Never heard of them? Trust me, if you ever encounter a Gaymuslican, run for your life.
B) I didn't know Toby Keith had a clothing line.
C) How did that guy get a date?
D) I bet he didn't vote for Obama.
E) Get 'er done.

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Amateur Ethnography: Freedom March

2010-10-28T14:20:00.002-04:00

In January of 2010, I participated in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative March from the Freedom Center in downtown Cincinnati to Music Hall in neighboring Over the Rhine. The event began with a short program at the Underground Railroad Freedom Center along the banks of the Ohio River. It's difficult to estimate the size of a crowd like that, especially in such blistering cold weather, but I'm guessing a thousand people made the walk from the Freedom Center to Fountain Square. Hundreds more were already waiting on Fountain Square for another brief program, and then we all continued marching to Music Hall.

The event's diversity impressed me. White, black, old, young—the crowd was sprinkled with a beautiful mixture of humanity coming together in the name of peace and reconciliation.

Along the way, I ran into an old friend, Charles, and his family. I also had a handful of conversations with people walking near me, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was good to see familiar faces and interact with strangers on such a meaningful day.

Once we arrived at Music Hall, the event picked up its intensity. I immediately noticed a man standing out front shouting, "God is great," very loudly. As I walked by, others began following his declaration by adding, "All the time." Remember this for later.

Inside, I took a seat in the very last row by an exit. If I felt the urge to bolt, I wanted to slip out of Music Hall unnoticed. As the room filled up, I realized that timid part of my personality needed to change. Too often during the Church Experiment, I simply sat in the back of a church and took notes. Connecting with people means interacting with people. It means taking initiative. So, before the program started, I stood up, walked to the front of the room, and sat down in the second row.

Now, back to the man shouting outside.

Minutes after taking my new seat, he sat down next to me. The random connection felt like fate, so I initiated a conversation by complimenting his hoodie.

And what a hoodie it was. Picture this: A caricature of Barack Obama posing like Superman, ripping his suit to shreds, and underneath, a red "O" in the same font as the Man of Steel's "S."

Superobama!

I liked it. I told him I liked it, and thus began our conversation.

His name was Ishmael. He actually makes his own clothing designs, so sorry, Glenn Beck, you can stop searching the Internet for your very own Superobama hoodie.

I asked if Ishmael attended church in the area; he told me he attends the Clifton Mosque. The same Clifton Mosque I visited in May of 2009 during the Church Experiment. We talked about the Mosque, and I mentioned my visit. He said I should visit again sometime so they could wash my feet. I told him that would be unnecessary, but he said they consider it a blessing to wash the feet of guests. Interesting. For the record, I would not consider it a blessing to wash a person's feet.

I found it bizarre that I spoke to absolutely no one from the Clifton Mosque when I visited in 2009, but eight months later, I had a great conversation with one of its members during a random encounter at Music Hall. It was a wake up call. Relationships matter. It's too easy to walk into a church and completely ignore people. We get so caught up in doing "God's work," that we forget God's primary mission for our lives is to love other people.

People are more than statistics and stereotypes. We love to label others, but actual human beings are more dynamic and unique than our silly human prejudices.

The Freedom March was a powerful experience. I loved marching with people from all races, nationalities, sexual orientations, and religions. The program was remarkable. The music blew me away. Where is that style of worship music every Sunday morning? So much energy, so much talent, so much audience participation. It was inspiring. I have never felt closer to God during "worship" in my entire life. Maybe it was the music itself. Maybe it was the diversity in the room. No clue, but every part of the program simply felt right.

Just when it couldn't get any better, a young boy named Isaiah stole the show. An amazing voice for an eleven year old. He was so good, that after singing a solo, the master of ceremonies called him back up to the microphone for an encore. There were at least three standing ovations.

Speaking of the master of ceremonies, I had the opportunity to speak briefly with Courtis Fuller (from Channel 5 news) after the event. He seems like a really good guy who cares deeply about Cincinnati. I hope he makes another run for mayor someday.

I told Courtis that my last name is also "Fuller," and for many years, my family has referred to him as "Cousin Courtis." He laughed and said the resemblance is uncanny. (Curtis Fuller is a very tall, black man.)

Cecil Thomas, a Cincinnati councilman, sat right in front of me, so I had the chance to say hello. My favorite part of the day may have been holding hands with an adorable little black girl while we all sang, We Shall Overcome.

There was a lot of fellowship. Happy people. Smiling people. Loving people. Kindness. Laughing. Hospitality. Diversity. Acceptance. Brotherhood, regardless of race, class, religion, or sexuality. I'm not sure I experienced that once during my 2009 Church Experiment.

It changed me. I don't want to overstate this, but it did. I felt something click. The Freedom March felt right. It felt like the kind of atmosphere that Martin Luther King, Jr. died for.

I can't stomach the hatred and oppression anymore. Especially when that oppression is defended in the name of God. It's ugly, and I have no tolerance for the oppressor's ignorance. It's impossible to experience an event like the Freedom March and not have your heart stirred.

Many well-meaning people seem to be missing God. Pat Robertson is missing God when he makes ridiculous comments about Haiti. Churches are missing God when they oppress gays and lesbians. I am missing God when I lash out against conservatives. Too much hate.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

What I learned from the Freedom March is this: We can find God in the faces of other people. We can connect with God when we build relationships with people from diverse cultures. We can be like God when we love others instead of judging them.

People hate and fear what they don't understand. Ishmael, Isaiah, the little girl sitting next to me, Courtis Fuller, and especially Martin Luther King, Jr—they have all taught me that we begin to truly love others when they are no longer strangers.

But I'm not nearly as wise or courageous as the American hero we celebrated during the Freedom March, so I'll end this reflection with a handful of my favorite quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. himself:

"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

"Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular—but one must take it simply because it is right."

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If you enjoyed this reflection, here's a collection of my other Amateur Ethnographies you may find interesting:

The Prostitute
The Strip Club
Twelve Steps
The Tea Party
The Nude Beach
The Gay Bar

Amateur Ethnography: The Gay Bar

2010-10-26T13:15:00.003-04:00

I know gay people. I live in a gay-friendly neighborhood. I spend time in gay-friendly bars. But I have never fully immersed myself in the gay community.

In January of 2010, I began my Sunday evening at a gay bar in Clifton's Gaslight District. For years, I have been vocal about gay rights. Gay men and women should be allowed to marry (or at the very least, be granted some form of civil union) in the United States. Denying that right is illogical and oppressive.

But the fact remains, I'm not friends with many gay people. A few acquaintances, but not anyone I hang out with on a consistent basis. I prefer encountering gay people in my world. This time, I stepped into a facet of their world. What follows are my honest experiences and reactions—the good, bad, and ugly.

I did two laps around the bar in Clifton before finally walking inside. For some reason, I got extremely nervous beforehand. On my first pass, I noticed a drag queen smoking outside the bar, so that didn't help calm my nerves. I also heard a guy talking to the drag queen mention the name, "Seymour Cocks." Get it? It was a good indication of what waited for me inside.

After another lap, I finally entered and sat down at the bar. The bartender called me "honey" and served me the strongest rum & coke I have ever tasted. If you want a good pour for a great price, gay bars are the place to be. He was a really nice guy. In fact, everyone inside was nice (I even ran into an acquaintance from another bar in the area), but I have never heard more sexually-charged sophomoric humor in my life. And that's coming from a man who is a connoisseur of sexually-charged sophomoric humor.

It was out of control.

The bartender announced one guy who walked in, and when another guy at the bar complained that he wasn't announced, the bartender said, "Show me your penis, and I'll announce you." That's about the only example I can share publicly without having to activate the "adult content" warning. I never get offended by sexual humor, but their banter was intense. After forty minutes, I couldn't take much more. People seemed isolated in smaller cliques, there were no televisions to keep my attention, and my drink was so strong that I could barely stomach another sip. So, I moved on to gay bar number two in Northside.

The second bar was much livelier. Older people, younger people, mostly gay, but a few straight folks were sprinkled in. Again, I was served a very strong drink. I sat in the back room and observed my surroundings. I couldn't decide if I wanted to get hit on or not. Yes, it would have been awkward, but everyone wants to be viewed as desirable.

Two women caught my attention. "Hey, they're kinda cute," I thought. And then, you guessed it, I ended up next to one of them at the urinals. Wait, you're not a woman at all! Your thingy is just like my thingy!

All men should be required to spend an evening at the gay bar because you learn how it feels to be treated like a piece of meat. Guys can often be creepy without even realizing it. We stare at women; we objectify them; we say goofy stuff. But you only know what that feels like when you are subjected to the advances.

Luckily, the second bar also hosted a drag show that night, meaning the place was really crowded, so I had lots of people to mingle with. One guy walked up to everyone in the bar and introduced himself. When I asked why, he said he was trying to meet as many people as humanly possible.

The guy sitting next to me seemed pleasant. We chatted off and on throughout the night, but nothing groundbreaking happened. The music was so loud in the bar that a prolonged conversation about anything meaningful seemed nearly impossible.

The drag show itself was definitely interesting. Some of the guys really did look like girls. Thankfully, I was engaged at the time to my (now) wife, or that could have been a recipe for disaster. And the show's host was funny. He (dressed as a woman) picked on a bunch of people in the audience, but it was all in good fun. It seemed like everyone just wanted to have a good time, and there was definitely more diversity in the second bar. Most of the men seemed to be gay, but from what I could tell, there were a lot of straight women in attendance. Of course, as I learned at the urinals, things were often not what they seemed.

I left after the drag show got a little too intense. I'm still working to get the image of that black man's thong-covered ass out of my brain. (You're welcome for the imagery.)

In 2009, I had someone I respect tell me, "You can't be okay with homosexuality and claim to be a Christian." That statement shook me up because I am okay with homosexuality. I obsess over this issue because it epitomizes my problem with faith. Religion always feels exclusive, and I want to live in an inclusive world. Religion points out where people fall short, and I want to tell people they are loved and accepted as is. Religion makes people feel bad, and I want to help people feel good about themselves.

But what I witnessed at the two gay bars didn't necessarily seem healthy. Regardless of sexuality, the dynamics reeked of dysfunction. Have I been vocal about equal rights so gay men could pervert those freedoms?

A few weeks after my gay bar adventure, I had a three hour conversation with a gay man. Let's call him Greg. I asked Greg about his experiences as gay man. I wanted him to comment on my gay bar adventure. I wanted to put a real face to the gay marriage issue.

Greg and I braved the snowy streets of Cincinnati to hang out at a local bar in February of 2010.

Greg grew up as a straight Catholic boy on the Westside of Cincinnati. As a freshman in college, he began pursuing his attraction to other guys. He had girlfriends in high school, but Greg told me his first few sexual encounters with men felt more natural. Interestingly, Greg admitted he could probably still have a pleasant sexual encounter with a woman today, but he absolutely considers himself gay. Greg described his attraction to guys as primarily emotional, which was a helpful differentiation. It's not that women repulse Greg, but he emotionally connects to men the same way straight people connect with their husbands and wives.

After those first few experiences in college, Greg realized he wasn't ready to confront his complicated sexuality, so he dated another woman, but that didn't last long. Soon, he was back to experimenting with guys. From that point forward, he slowly came out to his friends and family, and while Greg doesn't announce his sexual orientation from the rooftops, he doesn't hide it either. He acts masculine, so it would be difficult to label Greg as a gay man based on first impressions.

We talked a lot about the hypersexuality found in the gay community. While he admits gay men are probably more sexually active than straight men, he also talked openly about his desire for a committed relationship. Greg is a normal guy, which doesn't fit the mold most homophobic people attribute to gay men and women. He earned a college degree, works a good job, is pursuing a post-graduate degree, comes from a loving family, has good friends, and so on. And why wouldn't he be normal? There seems to be a stereotype floating around that all gay men are flaming deviants. But Greg isn't. In fact, I work with a couple of gay men, and they seem normal too.

Remember when society used to think gay men would molest our children? Or turn them all gay? Why would a gay man be any more likely to commit a criminal act? The last time I checked, straight men are pretty messed up too.

Greg believes he was born gay. In fact, his family has stories of him playing with dolls and dressing like a girl as a small child. There was no major trauma in his life that led him to homosexuality. His relationship with his father is perfectly fine. Greg is simply a regular guy who wants to love and be loved.

He asked the same question that many people pose when discussing homosexuality: If sexuality is a choice, why would anyone choose to be gay? Not the sexual part, because people are into all kinds of taboo sex acts, but emotionally, why would anyone choose a lifestyle that creates so much chaos? Of course, Greg admits life experiences could influence sexuality. For example, he is fully aware of religion's power.

Growing up Catholic has definitely influenced Greg's life. He still has some lingering "guilt" about his lifestyle, but he seems to be working through it. He's beginning to become more active in the gay community, but mostly, Greg simply wants what the rest of us want.

And listen up, Christians. Greg has visited some very "accepting" churches, but they left him feeling unloved. Maybe some gay men and women really do need counseling, but I'm not sure it's helpful to guilt people into that decision. No one likes being treated as a project. I believe my willingness to accept Greg's lifestyle (not just pretending to accept him so I could trick him into converting later) opened doors for future conversations.

Many of us judge homosexuals, but after my conversation with a gay man, I realize we begin to travel a dangerous path when we stop seeing people as unique individuals with hopes, dreams, and fears.

Greg is a person. When something is funny, he laughs. When something upsets him, he cries. He has bad days and good days. Moments of great joy and plenty of regrets. He gets butterflies when someone cute flirts with him. He has a family that loves him dearly. He's trying his best to find a career he is passionate about, and he was willing to drive through a blizzard to help educate me about the gay culture.

The gay bars were interesting and entertaining, but Greg opened my eyes to a whole other world of homosexuality. He talked about gay men and women who don't go to clubs. Monogamous couples who want to get married and have children. It's easy to believe a stereotype. It's much harder doing the difficult work of building relationships with diverse groups of strangers, but I believe it's essential.

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If you enjoyed this reflection, here's a collection of my other Amateur Ethnographies you may find interesting:

The Prostitute
The Strip Club
Twelve Steps
The Tea Party
The Nude Beach
Freedom March

Amateur Ethnography: The Nude Beach

2010-10-25T00:30:00.003-04:00

In 2004, a friend and I were on the verge of starting a new church in Cincinnati. That was also the year Erwin McManus, senior pastor of Mosaic Church in Los Angeles, appeared on our radar screens. His talk at Willow Creek's Leadership Summit stirred our hearts so deeply that we planned a trip out west to visit his church and learn from their experiences.

I booked a flight from Cincinnati to Tampa, and then from Tampa to Los Angeles, where I planned to meet my friend and his wife. Fortunately, fate stepped in when they got the call to adopt their first child from Colombia. Unfortunately, my nonrefundable tickets and I were off to Los Angeles on our own.

I had no place to stay, no car, and no plans for five days. So, I landed at LAX, rented a car, and drove south until I hit San Clemente. I found a great hotel for a reasonable price and settled in for the week.

As I browsed the Internet for activities to keep me busy, I naturally searched for local beaches. San Onofre popped up, and as I read its reviews, I realized a section of San Onofre Beach was "clothing optional." I was intrigued.

For the record, I have always been a bit of a nudist at heart (sorry neighbors). Not in a creepy, "I play sand volleyball with sagging retirees" nudist. I just naturally feel comfortable without clothing. I'm not ashamed of my body. I hate suits and ties. I loathe feeling confined. Turtlenecks feel like someone is continuously strangling me. I would rather be cold than hot.

In other words, the idea of visiting a nude beach felt freeing, so I made the trip to San Onofre Beach, just south of Los Angeles.

The clothing optional area was at the very southern tip of the beach, hidden away from the clothing mandatory areas. I did wear a pair of swim trunks for the first fifteen minutes, still trying to overcome that initial shame most people feel when exposed to others.

When I finally disrobed, it felt bizarre, as though I had committed a crime. Walk naked on that stretch of beach ... perfectly normal. Move a few hundred yards north ... spend a couple years in prison and register as a sex offender for the rest of my life. Weird.

Only a handful of people were on the beach when I first arrived—a few single men and a married couple. Later in the afternoon, an older, overweight gentleman showed up with a young, attractive woman in her early twenties. Two things were true about their relationship:

1) They were not dating.
2) They were not related.

I don't know about your family, but a father-daughter day at the nude beach seems pretty creepy. After watching them interact for a few minutes, it was obvious they had only known each other for a short amount of time. My best guess was that she had been hired by the man to spend a day with him at the nude beach. He was fully naked; she only had her top off. Their interactions were strained and uncomfortable. Very bizarre to witness firsthand.

Later, an incredibly creepy guy doing incredibly creepy things showed up. He seemed to be wearing a device to keep himself aroused while he walked along the shoreline. Not a pleasant sight.

As the afternoon turned into early evening, I decided to take a stroll along the beach. I discovered a second section of the clothing optional area that was hidden from the larger crowd. Concealing themselves between two large rocks, I stumbled upon a gay couple massaging each other. I'm not homophobic, but it surprised me to see such a public display of affection. I was also convinced the authorities would not have approved. One of the guys made eye contact, but no matter how tempting a free massage sounded, I kept walking.

I realize this reflection is veering in a sexual direction, but that's basically my point. I have to admit, there was something freeing about roaming nude on the beach. It felt natural. Swimming naked in the ocean is something I hope everyone gets to experience at least once. And many people were doing just that. Men and women of all ages and body types were simply enjoying themselves on a sunny afternoon. Nothing perverse. Nothing creepy.

But sadly, anything involving nudity or sexuality in our culture often turns very perverse very quickly—the gay massage, the overweight man and his hired muse, the creepy aroused dude.

But naked is natural. Ever notice how little kids take off all of their clothes every chance they get? Whether the story of Adam and Eve is truth or myth, we all enter this world naked. One of my favorite Bible verses is when Adam says, "I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." That line sums up many of our lives. We are afraid to show the world our true selves, so we hide behind masks the way Adam and Eve hid behind fig leaves. We hide from God, from each other, and from ourselves.

There I was, experiencing freedom on a nude beach, and all around me people were perverting that gift. Predictably, as soon as a couple of gorgeous women showed up, my mind quickly washed into the gutter. I had to run for my life before I turned into just another creepy guy doing creepy stuff. People are really good at screwing up life's simple pleasures. On that beach, I got a glimpse of how humanity was intended to live, and a glimpse of how far we have fallen from that original design.

So inspirational and so sad all at once.

After thoroughly baking skin that has never experienced direct sunlight, I wrapped a towel around my waist and began walking up the beach trail. An older gentleman must have caught me bypassing my swim trunks, because he scolded me for not getting fully dressed. His exact words were, "You're going to ruin it for everyone." San Onofre regulars must be incredibly protective of their little stretch of paradise. What a fascinating microcosm of our world. People just wanting to enjoy an au naturel life, and others determined to screw it up for those desiring a small taste of freedom.

Interestingly enough, since my visit, San Onofre Beach has come under attack. Citations are being issued to anyone tanning, swimming, or surfing nude, even in the previously designated clothing optional area I visited.

Based on what I witnessed, I can't blame people for being skeptical of nude beaches, but swimming naked in the Pacific Ocean is a wonderful reminder of how humanity was intended to live.

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If you enjoyed this reflection, here's a collection of my other Amateur Ethnographies you may find interesting:

The Prostitute
The Strip Club
Twelve Steps
The Tea Party
The Gay Bar
Freedom March

Amateur Ethnography: The Tea Party

2010-10-22T12:30:00.005-04:00

Barack Obama's first year as President of the United States divided our country into two emotional groups (I realize many Americans don't fall into either category). I'm not democrat or republican, but I definitely have my personal ideologies.

My typical response to politics is anger. Most political discourse seems uneducated and silly. I want to start arguing with everyone. I want to put people in their places and make them feel stupid.

Often, I argue with the complainers, regardless of my own beliefs. With democrats in power, and republicans bitterly opposed to the liberal agenda, I have been harsh on conservatives. I pick fights. I push buttons.

More than any other political group, early 2010 found me bashing the Tea Party, but I wanted to give my conservative friends a chance. I wanted to experience the movement firsthand instead of ignorantly criticizing something I didn't understand, so I decided to attend a Tea Party meeting in Northern Kentucky.

Keep in mind, these are real people. They gather, and vote, and currently have a strong voice in this country. There are millions of people all over the United States just like them, and I wanted to experience their inner workings.

I may lose half of my audience early in this reflection, but I must say, the meeting confirmed everything I have ever feared about radical conservatism.

They began with the Pledge of Allegiance. Which is fine ... I like America. But standing and reciting the pledge in a Blimpie (they met in a sandwich shop) felt a little awkward. Especially when regular customers were filtering in and out during the gathering. That was followed by a short prayer, and then the festivities really began.

If the fear in that room was a toxic gas, we all would have been dead within thirty seconds. One of the first discussion points was (honestly, it was so disjointed that I'm not sure what she was talking about, but this is my best guess) the government installing posts in front of access roads to parks that can be removed for military vehicles, but not our cars. These posts were somehow proof that the government is trying to control our lives ... or maybe spying on us. A direct quote from her: "It's just for horses, bicycles ... you know, all those lollipop and rainbows stuff." Clearly, riding a bike is "lollipop and rainbows stuff" in the Tea Party movement, whatever that means.

I recorded the whole meeting. I wish I could play the audio. Some of the comments were out of the Twilight Zone. The meeting's leader said he wanted to get a conceal and carry permit in time for a march in Washington that spring. If it was a joke, it was a bad one. I'm not sure you can make a statement like that aloud without getting investigated by the Secret Service.

Perhaps the most confusing part of the evening was a twenty-minute discussion about the Census. I never understood why conservatives were against filling out their ten-question Census form. The Census is part of our Constitution, not a liberal initiative. It has been around for a long time. Don't conservatives like the Constitution? Filling out the Census means your district is better represented in your state and federal governments. Not filling out the Census means the federal government has to spend taxpayer dollars to hire Census workers to visit individual homes and gather the desired information. That means wasted tax dollars. How are conservatives okay with that? I wanted to make that point aloud, but I decided to play it safe.

Either way, it was confusing.

But not as confusing as an old man yelling that Obama is putting together his own KGB. Whoever that man was, he was angry. He yelled a lot. I understand that people were upset about health care reform, but his anger seemed bizarre. He screamed that Obama was a liar so loudly at one point that I got nervous. I sensed a flash mob forming. I didn't want Blimpie to burn. He reminded me of one of those bitter old men who feels wronged by life. I actually felt sorry for him.

Speaking of old, I was clearly the youngest person in the room ... perhaps by fifteen or twenty years. Most people were over sixty years old. All were white. Most were men.

I never claimed to know much about the health care bill, but I do know that people need to stop trusting random e-mails they get from other like-minded liberals or conservatives. A woman announced her cousin in Toledo sent her an e-mail saying that our new health care system will no longer cover rehabilitation. So, if you have a heart attack (this was her example), the hospital will send you home immediately. I'm not saying that woman's cousin in Toledo was wrong, but that didn't sound right to me. Or, at the very least, it was an underdeveloped half-truth spun to scare naive Americans

It reminded me of a Facebook altercation in early 2010. A conservative friend of mine posted his objection to health care reform, and someone commented that a study done by the New England Journal of Medicine reported that 46 percent of doctors polled would either quit or be forced out of their practice if Obama's health care bill passed. Of course, no such study ever existed. A simple search of the New England Journal of Medicine proved that (as well as multiple outlets refuting the report). This is how ignorance spreads. People hear second-hand rumors, believe it is fact without checking its validity, and spread the misinformation to others. This type of viral stupidity was out of control during the 2008 presidential election, and it seems to be getting worse.

The New England Journal of Medicine did publish a report saying that abortion rates actually dropped in Massachusetts after that state passed health care reform. I posted that link on his comment thread, but no one ever responded. Why let facts get in the way of perfectly good conspiracy theories?

I'm clearly picking on radical conservatives in this reflection because I attended a Tea Party meeting, but radical liberals can be equally irrational. For example, if you think George W. Bush had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks, you should consider switching to decaf. And liberal activist Alex Jones is just as controversial as Rush Limbaugh.

My experience with the Tea Party movement taught me at least one thing: This country needs to relax. I'm not sure where all of the anger comes from, but politics is saturated with bitterness. Can you imagine if Sarah Palin runs against Barack Obama in 2012? Maybe the Mayans were right. Maybe the world will end.

I'm not sure why it drives me crazy. I'm not sure why my blood boils when I read a ridiculous politically-motivated status update on Facebook. I have no idea why the Tea Party meeting felt so deflating. But my goal is to rise above the nonsense. To see political anger for what it is ... another form of spiritual brokenness.

What if we loved others with the energy and passion we waste on politics? Think of all the money spent and all the manpower lost. It seems crazy.

But I do have hope. After my evening with the tea partiers, I spent an afternoon talking with a conservative named Dan. We had a friendly dialogue, and I realized something during my reflections.

If we look for something, we'll always find it. In other words, there are lots of crazy conservatives in this country. And there are lots of crazy liberals. It was incredibly easy to mock the Tea Party meeting. Just like it's incredibly easy for Bill Maher to make a documentary about crazy Christians. It's definitely entertaining, but is it helpful? If we all understand that those groups are rare pockets of insanity, then exploiting them for entertainment purposes is harmless fun (possibly cruel, but still relatively harmless to the general population). But when millions of people incorrectly label all Christians as nut jobs, or all conservatives as ignorant, or all Muslims as terrorists, that's a recipe for disaster.

Most of America is caught between the extremes. Most of us watch politics as though it's a reality television show. A really annoying reality television show. Maybe even a sitcom. Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann are like cartoon characters. Very few of us actually think Obama is the Antichrist or want to burn the Koran, but we all love a good conspiracy theory, so the nonsense lives on because controversy boosts television ratings.

Dialogue is our only hope. When you get to know people, you begin to learn about their motivations. It was easy to bash conservatives at the Tea Party, and it felt natural to have a real conversation with Dan. The key difference? Dan and I focused on commonalities. We found ways to connect our competing ideologies. We were two human beings, looking each other in the eyes, trying to understand a person instead of a stereotype.

What if we all did that more often?

Post or Read Comments

If you enjoyed this reflection, here's a collection of my other Amateur Ethnographies you may find interesting:

The Prostitute
The Strip Club
Twelve Steps
The Nude Beach
The Gay Bar
Freedom March

Amateur Ethnography: Twelve Steps

2010-10-21T10:40:00.002-04:00

On October 19th, 2006, I visited an Alcoholics/Narcotics Anonymous meeting near the University of Cincinnati. For one hour, I listened to approximately twenty-five men (and one woman) discuss an addiction that has systematically ruined their lives. I had never been to a meeting like that before, but I am eternally grateful for their willingness to share personal stories with one another. After more than a decade of attending church on a fairly regular basis, I'm not sure I ever experienced anything as "spiritual" as I did in that cramped room on a rainy Thursday evening.

I witnessed grown men love one another, accept one another, encourage one another, hug one another, and cheer for one another in a way that I don't see very often.

In the world of twelve steps, no one gets abused for sharing their struggles. No one gets rejected. Addicts walk in and announce they have been sober for two days, and people cheer, because two days is two days, and two days is a victory.

I loved the man who led the meeting. He said, "Don't live in the past; don't live in the future; all you have is today." He shared his struggles with alcohol—getting divorced, spending his kids' allowances on whiskey, getting stabbed in the chest after a night of drinking, getting shot, waking up under a bridge next to a strange woman (with his wife and kids at home in bed). He didn't censor himself, and the crowd hung on his every word.

No one flashed a judgmental look when someone admitted to slipping up earlier that day. No one was scolded for dropping the f-bomb. People were allowed to be themselves because all that mattered was recovery. All that mattered was making it through the day sober. Window dressing means absolutely nothing when you wake up in the gutter.

These people were tired of playing the game while their lives spun out of control. They longed to be healthy. Not play healthy, but be healthy. And their companions celebrated any attempt at healthiness, no matter how messy they looked in the process.

During the meeting, I was given a chip that signified my desire to surrender something in my life. I had to walk up, collect my cheap, white poker chip, hug the man who handed it to me, and receive a round of applause. Addicts carry the chip around as a reminder of what they're fighting for. It's been years since my visit, but I still have my chip. Whenever I look at it, I still think about the men (and one woman) in that room. I wonder where they are now. I wonder how many of them are drunk or high at this very moment. I wonder how many are still clean. Regardless, they were brave enough to show up and admit their addictions to a community of fellow addicts while so many of us hide our struggles from the very people who were meant to help us overcome them.

Shortly after my visit to Alcoholics Anonymous—partly because of what I learned while in attendance—I realized I had a problem. Not with alcohol, and not necessarily with sex, but with relationships. I was addicted to the thrill of the chase, and more specifically, I craved attention from women. When a female liked me, I felt validated. When a student had a crush on me, I felt worthy. My self-concept was based primarily on what women thought about me.

This excerpt from Addicted to Love, by Stephen Arterburn, summed up my problem perfectly:

Romance addicts are love terrorists who take their lovers hostage. They bind them with syrupy words of flattery and with manipulation that has been raised to an art form ... The more unobtainable the other person seems to be, the greater becomes the addict's will to win. But once having won, he or she will abandon the victim completely. The game is over. It is time to move on to the next round ... In the addict's desperate search for relief, he does not care who he hurts. He attaches quickly and detaches even more quickly. He leaves his victims utterly confused as to how something that looked so good and felt so right could end so suddenly and severely. Romance addicts believe they are searching for love. But without commitment, love is impossible ... There is always a back door to the relationship, standing slightly ajar, ever available for a quick flight to a new supplier of false hope, superficial attention, and a quick fix for the pain. The addict invests no more than is necessary to grab that momentary gratification.

It sounds ridiculous, but the reality television show, Scott Baio is 45 and Single, shined a spotlight on my condition. Baio wasn't able to commit, even at age forty-five. As he explored his issues, our stories sounded eerily familiar (apart from him being a celebrity). While watching the series, I feared I was staring into a crystal ball. I would spend the rest of my life alone if I didn't get help.

In 2007, I decided to attend a Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous group. Unfortunately, I didn't get any further than the lobby before running away. Three years later, I had gotten healthier. Partly because of the relationship with my (now) wife, Liz (I was actually fighting for someone I cared about), partly because of my faith journey, and partly because I was getting older and naturally settling down.

In the winter of 2010—in conjunction with my novel's publication about a college professor struggling with sexual addiction—I knew it was time to try again, so I made another attempt at attending a 12-step meeting for sex and love addicts.

This time, I made it past the lobby.

Because I respect the anonymity of the 12-step process, I won't be giving any details concerning the meeting's time or location. Also, I won't give any details concerning anyone in the group. Instead, I'm going to focus on the actual 12-step process and my experience at the meeting I attended.

First, I admit I was very nervous walking into the room. I was afraid someone I knew (or someone who knew me) would be at the meeting. I was afraid it would be awkward. I was afraid people would judge me. I was afraid everyone would be weird. I was afraid of things I didn't even know I was afraid of. I realized fear of the unknown keeps many people away from recovery groups.

The group met in a small room with a conference table. By the end of the meeting, there were only seven of us (compared to twenty-five at the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting), but the intimate setting was actually nice. I introduced myself, and they immediately recognized I was new, so everyone made sure to welcome me and make me feel comfortable.

We opened by reading standard documents (the preamble, the twelve steps, and some other introductory material). The leader chose me to read the twelve steps aloud to the group, which I'm sure is their way of getting everyone involved.

From there, we transitioned into about an hour of open discussion. This was an incredibly powerful experience. Here are some of my reflections:

1) I believe the great success story of 12-step programs is how open people are about their issues. Too many people of faith go into hiding when they screw up because they don't want others to judge them. That's what Ted Haggard did. That's what thousands of pastors do. And it's what millions of people in congregations do all over the world. Masks keep us safe. Walls hide our ugly truths.

I experienced more openness in that ninety-minute meeting than I have in over a decade of being a Christian. Maybe that's not your experience with religion, and that's great for you, but I assume many of us are in the same boat. Maybe it's my fault for embracing the silence, but there is a reason many Christians don't feel comfortable opening up to other Christians, and there is a reason most addicts do feel comfortable opening up in 12-step meetings.

Shortly before my visit, someone e-mailed me to explain he had been removed from a parachurch leadership position because he confessed to having sex outside of marriage (the guy was single and in his twenties). Their response was to punish him for admitting his sin. This reaction teaches everyone in that ministry to hide their sins. If I confess, I get punished, but if I hide, I am rewarded with stability.

I have never experienced such a free environment. People were honest. Really, totally, completely honest. (I only say that because I can't imagine anyone could be hiding anything after hearing their confessions.) And their honesty encouraged me to be honest. I said things out loud in that room that I have never spoken aloud before. Not even to my closest friends.

They even passed around a list of phone numbers. Everyone in the group supplies a number, and new members are encouraged to call day or night in case they are struggling. Amazing.

If we have to hide around other Christians, but speak freely to a roomful of strangers, something is drastically wrong with our faith.

2) One of the men in the meeting used the phrase "loaded guns," meaning addicts often see people as opportunities to feed the addiction. Do I see others as loaded guns or human beings? That question really shook me up. I realized my whole life is about viewing others as loaded guns. Not every minute of every day, but too much. How different would my life be if I started seeing my students as people with hopes, dreams, and fears, instead of loaded guns for me to manipulate? Same thing goes for Liz, my friends, or random strangers.

As someone in the meeting pointed out, addiction affects everyone around the addict. I'm not just hurting myself, but I hurt my students, my friends, my family, and Liz. I could potentially hurt my future children.

In other words, like everything else in life, people make addiction about themselves. But it's really about the people around you. That's who really suffers.

3) There were other random statements that stuck with me. Someone mentioned that power is a fantasy. So is control. So is self-sufficiency. I think I am strong. I think I am "normal" and "sane." But if I'm honest, I'm not in control. I'm not any more or less "normal" or "sane" than anyone else. A feeling of superiority (I'm too smart, cool, talented, sophisticated) gets addicts in trouble. I am not invincible. Neither are you. Addiction knows no boundaries. The disease doesn't discriminate.

We all have issues. Some of us deal with them in healthy ways. Others of us are drowning in our dysfunction. 12-step meetings throw addicts a life raft.

Like my trip to Alcoholics Anonymous, because it was my first visit, I was given a chip signifying one day of sobriety. Both chips represent two memorable groups of strangers who had a big impact on my life. Regardless of which of the twelve steps they were taking, all thirty-two addicts were moving in the right direction. Their journeys inspired me to get better, and for that, I am forever grateful.

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If you enjoyed this reflection, here's a collection of my other Amateur Ethnographies you may find interesting:

The Prostitute
The Strip Club
The Tea Party
The Nude Beach
The Gay Bar
Freedom March

Amateur Ethnography: The Strip Club

2010-10-19T09:15:00.002-04:00

On Thursday, October 12, 2006, I visited The Brass Ass, a strip club in Newport, Kentucky. Unlike many lonely men in this world, I didn't show up expecting a lap dance. My goal wasn't to ogle naked women. I simply realized humanitarian wannabes must visit dark places in order to bring light to the oppressed. It's a prerequisite to changing the world. Although I received criticism from some of my conservative friends, I felt compelled to take a leap of faith.

To be honest, on the day of my scheduled visit, I wanted to chicken out. I wanted an excuse not to go, but I knew there was a story waiting for me behind those smudged, tinted windows concealing the Brass Ass's innards, so I made plans to show up at nine o'clock and make myself available.

That afternoon, a married, female friend asked to join me on the adventure. Amazingly, her husband was okay with it. (He was either super-secure or super-naive.) Unfortunately, she later realized she had to work that night, so it looked like I might have to fly solo. Of course, going by myself would have been a strategically poor decision, so I finally had my excuse to give up. I was prepared to use it, but moments before pulling the plug, my married friend called back and said she was getting off work early. I picked her up twenty minutes later, and we were on our way to Newport.

I was so nervous that I could barely focus. People may think I want to be in a strip club, but trust me, I don't. Even though I have an "interesting" sexual past, I had never been in a strip club until a group of my friends visited The Brass Ass many years ago as a bachelor party joke. To this day, The Brass Ass is the only strip club I have ever stepped inside, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

We walked in and sat down. Describing the ambiance of the Brass Ass is challenging. Dirty is an understatement. Grimy is a better word. Everything seemed sticky. The men's bathroom might have been the most sanitary room in the entire building. After walking through the main lobby and down a hallway, guests enter a large, dimly lit room. A bar sits to the immediate left; booths align the walls; tables are scattered throughout the room, and a small stage is positioned against the back wall. Servers and bartenders are clothed. One stripper performs on stage while others roam the floor looking for customers. Because The Brass Ass serves alcohol, no one is legally permitted to be naked, although it was common to see strippers flash the audience. Which wasn't always a good thing. While some of the performers were relatively attractive, most looked rough around the edges. Some seemed to be in their forties or fifties. More than half were overweight.

For a long time, no one approached us—maybe because we were a couple; maybe because I looked more uncomfortable than size thirty-two jeans around Ruben Studdard's waist—hard to say.

Finally, a woman (I'll call her Sally) sat down with us and explained the rules. We could pay fifty-five dollars to sit with her until she finished her drink or twice that much to move to a secluded booth hidden in the club's shadows (where sex acts were performed). Of course, we could also pay over three hundred dollars to hang out in the VIP room (where crazy sex acts were performed). We passed on the VIP opportunity, and instead, opted to pay fifty-five bucks for one drink's worth of her time. The three of us talked for approximately thirty minutes, and wow, what a conversation.

Sally had been working at The Brass Ass for thirteen years. She just had a baby three months earlier, but broke up with the father because he stabbed her and tried to shoot her. Before Casanova, she spent the previous twelve years as a lesbian. Before that, she got married at age thirteen. At the time of our conversation, she had four children, ages three months to sixteen years.

Sally seemed shocked that my married friend and I weren't having an affair. She couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that someone could be loyal to her spouse. I suppose Sally is exposed to a lot of dishonest men in her line of work, and admittedly, our strip club adventure probably did look bizarre to outsiders.

We asked what her job was like on a daily basis. She told us men have offered her money to burn their penises with cigarettes, have sex with them while wearing strap-on dildos, drink her urine, and the most disturbing—there is a guy who pays two girls eight hundred dollars each to take Ex-Lax, tie him up under a glass table, and then have bowel movements above him on the glass table.

And she has done them all.

Then, a man in his seventies walked in, and Sally got very excited. She explained that he was a big spender. His wife had died a few months prior to our visit, and ever since her death, the widower would bring in his dead wife's perfume, spritz it on the stripper sitting with him, and then make out with the lucky lady. I couldn't believe it, but since she was almost done with our fifty-five dollar drink, we told Sally she could go sit with him (after all, she had bills to pay). We then watched her leave our table, sit with the old man, get spritzed with the perfume, and make out with him until we left a few minutes later.

This world can be a pretty messed up place. What do we do about that? What do we say to someone who has shit on a glass table for eight hundred dollars? Or been spritzed with a dead woman's perfume before making out with an old man? Is there any hope for her? Is she too far gone? If there is a God, this has to break his heart, right? How does he do it? How does he look at our world and put up with this mess we have created? How can he love his children so deeply and stand to watch them drink someone's urine in a strip club? Fathers would be crushed to see their daughters in that environment.

I'm still not sure what "lesson" I was meant to learn at The Brass Ass. But the experience made me realize there are very few easy answers on this planet. The world is definitely not black and white. It's easy to isolate ourselves in a world of relative normalcy, but what about the people who have never experienced "normal?" How do we love and serve them? Is there really hope for the hopeless?

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If you enjoyed this reflection, here's a collection of my other Amateur Ethnographies you may find interesting:

The Prostitute
Twelve Steps
The Tea Party
The Nude Beach
The Gay Bar
Freedom March

Amateur Ethnography: The Prostitute

2010-10-18T00:10:00.004-04:00

I have been fascinated with prostitution for years. I'm not sure how it started, but I assume I was propositioned in Clifton while stopped at a red light. One hot spot in Cincinnati is on McMicken Avenue, which happens to be the street I used almost every day for three years while living on Riddle Road.

I write about this process in The Sickness, but here's the basic exchange:

A dude is driving along. The prostitute typically hangs out at intersections with natural stops (lights, signs). While the guy is stopped, the prostitute uses opening lines like, "You got a cigarette?" or, "Can I get a ride?" These are icebreakers. They are designed to express interest without blatantly discussing details. If she called out, "I'll have sex with you for twenty bucks," she could be arrested, but there is nothing illegal about giving rides to helpless strangers.

Often, miles will be used in the place of dollars. If the guy says he's going twenty miles, that means he's offering twenty bucks. The prostitute can agree or negotiate. Again, sex hasn't been mentioned at this point. Nothing illegal has occurred.

I was propositioned dozens of times on McMicken Avenue. It made me want to learn more about prostitution in Cincinnati, so I started exploring other areas of the city. I quickly discovered Over the Rhine was a hotbed for prostitutes. So, I drove by and observed. I was fascinated.

Men pulled up to street corners like they were drive-thru windows at fast food restaurants. A line of women waited to be picked up. And this wasn't a Richard Gere/Julia Roberts love connection. The men looked rough. The women looked rougher. I learned most of Cincinnati's street prostitutes were addicted to drugs. They wore the scars of addiction heavy on their faces. I got propositioned a lot in Over the Rhine (which makes sense—they thought I was shopping for a date), and what I saw frightened me. Most of the women were so strung out on crack that they had no idea what was happening to them. I've had prostitutes attempt to persuade me by flashing their breasts. I had a transvestite lift up his/her skirt to reveal ... trust me, you don't want to know.

For a long time, I wanted to pick up a prostitute and talk to her about life. In 2007, I actually did pick up a woman in Lower Price Hill (another hot spot). She got into my car and said, "So, you want head?" I was stunned by the question and responded, "Ummm, no thanks, I'm not looking for anything." She replied, "Twenty, thirty bucks for head."

To this day, I'm not sure why she offered me a choice. Clearly, I would have chosen the twenty dollar option ... unless there were additional perks for thirty dollars, like at the car wash. An undercarriage cleaning, perhaps?

Again, I said, "No, thanks." Then, she asked for money. I told her I didn't have any, but she kept asking. I starting getting nervous at that point. What if I pulled out my wallet and she killed me? (I know, I'm paranoid, but you never know). In order to throw her off my scent, I said I didn't even have my wallet with me. I doubt she bought the lie, but about thirty seconds later, we arrived at her destination (or so she said), and I dropped her off. For a split second, I wanted to say, "I'll buy you dinner and give you twenty bucks to hang out and chat about your life," but I wasn't ready to take that step.

Fast-forward nearly three years.

In March of 2010, I decided it was time. After teaching an evening class at the University of Cincinnati, I went searching for my prostitute. Here's what happened:

I left my house at 10:45 and drove around for almost an hour, passing several candidates along the way. I was nervous. So nervous that I couldn't find the courage to stop. After realizing I was running out of time, I finally sucked it up and pulled over next to a somewhat normal looking woman. I recorded our conversation, so some of this will be verbatim, and other parts will be my summary. For example, here is how my interaction with Krissy began:

(Krissy is standing outside of my car.)

Steve: Hey.

Krissy: Hi.

Steve: Uhhh ... so, I'm not going to pay you for sex.

Krissy: Okay.

Steve: Alright? But, I'm a writer.

Krissy: Huh?

Steve: I'm a writer. I'm being dead serious here. And something I want to do is to have a conversation with someone like you and write about it. And so, I'll pay you for that, but like seriously, this isn't like a ... I'm not kidding or anything, but like, I'll pay you, but I don't want to have sex.

Krissy: Okay.

Steve: Are you cool? Like, you don't have a weapon? You're not going to kill me?

Krissy: No.

Steve: Okay.

Krissy: Do I get in?

Steve: Do you ... get in? Okay.

(Krissy is now in my car.)

Krissy: So, what do you want to write about?

Steve: Your life.

Krissy: Ha ... shit. Do you know how many people have told me I could write a book?

Steve: How much do you want by the way?

Krissy: I don't know. How much do you want to give me?

Steve: Uhhh ... I mean, I ... so let's start there. What are your rates? That's a good question.

Krissy: Twenty to forty.

Steve: Twenty to forty? Okay. Let's just drive around and chat for a while, and I'll give you between twenty and forty.

Krissy: Okay.

And ... scene.

I'm glad I have the recording because I basically blacked out during that part.

I paid Krissy forty dollars to hear her story. You get it for free.

Krissy is from Indiana. She grew up in a normal family. She even told me about the horses she rode as a child. So, how does someone go from riding horses in Indiana to turning tricks in Cincinnati?

As a teenager, Krissy smoked crack with a friend. Shortly after, she moved to Cincinnati and became an addict. Since turning nineteen years old, prostitution has been Krissy's way to earn money. I was surprised to learn she actually likes doing it. She told me it's better than working some boring minimum wage job. Krissy is now twenty-two years old. She earned $1,000 during the first two days of her "career." Of course, almost all of it went to buying drugs.

Since that first weekend, Krissy told me she walks up and down McMicken Avenue every day, all day, looking for business. Dozens of men pick her up on a daily basis. Some are regulars, some are repeat customers, and some are brand new. If you do the math—approximately one thousand days on the job ... dozens of men every day—the total number of men Krissy has had sex with is astounding.

Krissy explained that most of the men are older—fifties, sixties, seventies. Many are married or have girlfriends. I asked if the men who picked her up were gross. She said that many of them are. When I asked if she actually enjoyed the sex, she said yes. She goes to a place in her brain that actually allows her to orgasm during sex. I have no idea where that place is, but considering the men I have seen trolling around McMicken Avenue, Krissy must have one hell of an imagination.

Krissy told me she has been beaten, raped, and arrested multiple times. Her greatest fear is getting killed and not having anyone care. Because she doesn't carry identification, her body would sit for weeks without being identified. Her family would eventually get a call from the authorities, but by then, she would be a distant memory. She said, "My biggest fear out here is that one day somebody would kill me and nobody would know, you know, then one day, like three weeks, two weeks later, it would be on the news, you know, but they won't be able to identify my body. I'm ashamed of that part with my family, for sure."

Probably the most interesting part of our conversation (in my opinion) was what she told me about walking up and down McMicken Avenue every day. She wonders what the neighbors think about her. She worries what children think when they see her. I have always wondered if prostitutes felt guilty or degraded, and I suppose at least one does.

Speaking of degrading, the weirdest thing she has ever been asked to do is urinate for a customer. Other girls have been asked to do worse—defecate in public, use a strap-on, and other acts of depravity I don't feel comfortable mentioning. Men can be sick, sick puppies.

I asked about sexually transmitted diseases. Krissy claims to have none, but she did admit to contracting hepatitis. She also informed me that prostitutes get tested every time they go to prison, which I suppose is a good policy. She always makes her men wear condoms, but not all of the girls do. Scary thought.

Krissy actually works without a pimp. It sounds like a lot of girls are independent contractors in Cincinnati. Despite keeping 100 percent of her profits, Krissy is homeless and told me she usually sleeps with friends or on the street. Considering how much money she supposedly makes every day, that sounds unbelievable. She did admit that almost all of her money goes to buying drugs. I learned a crack rock costs anywhere from ten to twenty bucks.

Being Pimpless in Cincinnati hasn't stopped men from abusing Krissy. I don't remember seeing this story in the local news, but her ex-boyfriend (who is now dead) was involved in a police chase and jumped into a river to elude the cops. Krissy was in his car during the chase. That boyfriend beat the shit out of her the entire time they dated. It sounds like most prostitutes suffer traumatic abuse. Krissy's childhood sounded somewhat normal, but other girls tell stories of being molested, raped, born as a crack baby, and so on.

It's a nasty world that prostitutes live in. Hearing Krissy's story made me feel incredibly grateful for my own blessings.

I asked Krissy about God. She used to attend church as a child, but that was more for her father. She hasn't explored her faith since living in Cincinnati, and she didn't seem very interested in church. She has tried getting clean at the Talbert House a number of times, but it's never worked for her.

When I asked what she would do with the money I paid her, she told me," Get high." At least she was honest. I made her promise to use at least one dollar on something other than drugs. I hope she buys herself a candy bar or something else fun.

I asked why she wasn't in school, and she told me she would like to be in school, but her addiction keeps her trapped. She said the high of smoking crack is something that she craves. She doesn't want to get high, but the desire is too strong.

I thought the saddest part of our conversation was when I asked about her hopes and dreams. Krissy has none. It felt like Krissy's entire existence is about getting high. She said she always worries about getting arrested. Her life is stressful every moment of every day.

I dropped Krissy off after driving around for thirty minutes. I was amazed at how normal she seemed. She could have been one of my students without the addiction. Hell, she grew up riding horses in Indiana. She could be anyone. She could be me. But one wrong turn led to another, and another, and another, and so on until she ended up sitting in my car Monday night.

How do we give hope to the hopeless? Is Chrissy beyond the reach of God? Is it too late for her? I kept wanting to say the "right thing." I wanted to share loving words that would make everything better for her. But what do you say to someone who gets paid to pee in front of men? What do you say to someone who has sex with dozens of strangers every day? What do you say to a crack addict?

Maybe there's nothing you can say. Maybe it's more about what we do.

Maybe you buy a local prostitute dinner tonight. Maybe you drive around your town's version of Over the Rhine passing out free condoms. Or maybe you make a donation to an organization helping prostitutes get off the streets.

Or maybe we simply spend a few minutes being thankful for the blessings in our own lives.

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If you enjoyed this reflection, here's a collection of my other Amateur Ethnographies you may find interesting:

The Strip Club
Twelve Steps
The Tea Party
The Nude Beach
The Gay Bar
Freedom March

Amateur Ethnography

2010-10-14T13:55:00.001-04:00

I finally figured it out. After five years of blogging, there have been a dozen or so posts that felt "right." They weren't spiritual rants, or political tirades, or even pictures of inanimate objects humping.

My blogging sweet spot has always been amateur ethnographies—my strip club visit, the Alcoholics Anonymous and Sexaholics Anonymous meetings, the Tea Party gathering, picking up a prostitute, and the Church Experiment.

An ethnography is basically a description of the customs and traditions of individual peoples and cultures, based on firsthand observations gleaned by immersing oneself within the culture itself. In other words, stepping away from the office and into the real world, and then reflecting upon the lessons learned.

I haven't blogged for a couple of weeks because, frankly, I'm tired of hearing myself ramble. That doesn't mean I have nothing to say, it simply means I want my words to have meaning again.

This isn't a new "experiment." There won't necessarily be daily updates, or for that matter, weekly updates. I'm simply going to take a few leaps of faith and experience more unfamiliar contexts that pique my curiosity. And each time I do, I'll write something about the adventure.

For now, over the next few weeks, I'm going to be reposting previous ethnographies. They will get new titles and fresh edits, and each revamped post will be linked in the right margin of my blog. As always, the full Church Experiment can be read by clicking the link in the left margin.

In addition to reposting older experiences in this updated format, the next new ethnography will involve spending the weekend as a homeless person, an experience organized for University of Cincinnati students by MJ Woeste and Jason Boys. I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about that one.

Wherever the winds of fate take me, I'm looking forward to this new journey.

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Faith vs. Doubt

2010-09-29T10:35:00.001-04:00

Doubt can be crippling. It's easy to become so overwhelmed with doubt (about legitimately confusing issues) that we even begin to question our core beliefs.

I have many doubts. I am certain of so little. The older I get, the more mysterious the world becomes.

But I do know a few things. And in times of uncertainty, it is critical to be reminded of truth.

I know fruit helps me believe in God. I'm serious. What are the odds so many delicious, nutritious snacks randomly grow in nature? I feel closer to God eating a banana than sitting in a church. Although I doubt we can fully understand the will of God, there is too much logical evidence pointing to a Creator.

I know that Jesus is a dude worth following. Regardless of your religious beliefs, no reasonable person can deny Jesus modeled an exemplary life. Fight for the oppressed, serve the poor, love the "sinners." I challenge anyone to read the story of Jesus and deny his goodness and wisdom. You may not think he's the Son of God, but either way, living more like Jesus would be a life well lived.

I know that people complicate life to the point of absurdity. I can spend every waking moment trying to figure out my newest "mission." I can read every book in the library. I can pray night and day for guidance from above. But that's silly. I know how I should be living. Do I seriously need prayer, the Bible, or a small group to tell me loving, respecting, and serving my wife is better than treating her like crap? Do I need sermons reminding me the accumulation of "stuff" will never satisfy my soul the way living generously does?

People know how to live. Our problem isn't direction; it's the lack of drive to pursue a better way. Yes, people need resources to make the path easier to traverse, but motivation is difficult to teach. That comes from within.

I have many doubts, but those doubts should never interfere with loving my wife, supporting my friends and family, serving the oppressed, being an excellent teacher, caring for my students, pursuing meaningful hobbies, and enjoying God's creation. That's a full life. That's a good life. And no religious ideology changes that mission, so why would I allow doubt to cripple what I already know to be true?

I wouldn't. And I won't. Doubt is unavoidable, but doubt should never sabotage truth.

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Faith vs. Religion

2010-09-23T12:20:00.001-04:00

I recently wrote on Dave Workman's blog, "I consistently struggle with separating Jesus from religion. This is nothing new, of course, as people have struggled with this since the beginning, but I know they are different, yet I still get so wrapped up in religion that I forget about Jesus. I obsess so much over identifying toxic religion that I have contracted the disease along the way. I have become what I despised. How ironic."

I wrote that comment before I completely understood how accurate my personal assessment had been. For a long time, I have obsessed over identifying toxic religion. Pat Robertson saying Haiti deserved its earthquake, Fred Phelps leading the "godhatesfags" movement, Terry Jones burning Korans in Florida...

The more I have obsessed over toxic religion, the more toxic my faith has become. What a brilliant plan to pollute a person's relationship with God.

I have said it for ten years, but there's a difference between holding a thought in your head and allowing its message to penetrate your heart: I trust Jesus, not religion. I follow Jesus, not religion. I have placed my hope in Jesus, not religion.

Christians consistently distort the message of Jesus. Toxic religion turns Jesus into a punch line. But when I read about his life, I can't escape this simple truth: Jesus lived the kind of life I want to live. He taught that religion actually kept people separated from God. He fought for the oppressed. He broke nonsensical religious rules. Jesus was a rebel, not a choir boy.

The religious leaders of his day considered him a drunkard. They thought he was possessed by evil spirits. They criticized him for hanging out with sinners. That sounds like someone people outside of the church could follow. It sounds like someone I could trust.

Toxic religion kills. It has been slowly killing my faith for years. Jesus gives life. I'm ready to abandon religion in order to grow my faith.

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Faith vs. Politics

2010-09-20T00:45:00.001-04:00

Step one in rediscovering my faith: Separate politics from faith.

I have mistakenly blurred the increasingly thin line between politics and faith. Regardless of what the media (or people) want to believe, Christianity isn't a political party. I never understood how Christianity became intertwined with conservatism. When I read about Jesus, the word "conservative" doesn't come to mind.

I do believe the political process matters. Real lives are affected by our votes. So yes, I'll probably still campaign for the man or woman I believe is best qualified to lead this country. But that has nothing to do with my faith. I believe intelligent Christians can legitimately stand on both sides of a political issue.

Of course, social issues become complex when the debate involves abortion or gay marriage because those political issues become faith issues.

But here's the trick. You ready? This is big...

Following Jesus means it's possible to have one spiritual belief and a different, slightly more nuanced, political belief.

Let me explain by using gay marriage as an example.

I have always said that homosexuality doesn't make sense biologically. Boy part goes into girl part and babies are made. That seems to be sexuality's original design, regardless of what you believe about God.

Is homosexuality "healthy?" I don't know. It is Biblical? Maybe not. Is it the way God intended? Doubtful. Spiritually, I may not agree with gay marriage, but Jesus is very clear that we all fall short, so my job is to love everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

Politically, I believe gay men and women have the right to be married (or enter some civil union that grants equal rights). That seems like a no-brainer. And it has nothing to do with my spiritual beliefs. Similarly, I don't think people should get drunk every night, but politically, I will defend their right to drink. I don't believe pastors should burn the Koran (nor do I believe God would approve), but we don't live in paradise yet. We live in a world with governments, and those governments are necessary to protect human rights, so we must honor everyone's right to burn a holy book. I'm not a Muslim, but Muslims have the right to build a Mosque at Ground Zero. In other words, my faith and my politics don't have to align perfectly.

Heart change begins with a relationship, not with laws. Wasn't that why Jesus came to Earth?

So, conservatives who believe we can legislate morality are missing the boat. No law will change a person's heart. Yes, you might reduce criminal activity, but no one finds Jesus in a rulebook. Murders wouldn't skyrocket overnight if homicide was suddenly legal. Most people don't have it in them to kill another human being. Some do. Either way, laws don't change the heart.

I need to untangle politics from my faith. I can be a Christian and fight to legalize gay marriage. Voting for Obama wasn't an act of spiritual disobedience. Honestly, I'm not sure Jesus cares who gets elected. And I'm not sure he's very concerned with the political process. Regardless of man's law, Jesus has a job to do on this planet: Loving messed up people like me, you, and the other seven billion folks wandering our planet. Whether gay marriage is legal or not changes nothing about that mission.

Unless Christians can be united on the stuff that matters, and respectfully dialogue on political differences, we're all going to become experts in missing the point. Trust me, I have lots of experience.

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Losing Faith

2010-09-16T16:55:00.002-04:00

For the past couple of years, I have clearly been on a journey. My faith has been riding a roller coaster of doubt.

This summer, I attended the Leadership Summit, where I heard Jeff Manion discuss his book, The Land Between: Finding God in Difficult Transitions.

In the book, Manion wrote, "People often quote a common proverb in times of pain and tragedy: 'Time heals all wounds.' However, I do not find it to be necessarily true. Over time, some people heal while others become deeply embittered and acidic. The Land Between usually forces us one way or the other ... The habits of the heart that we foster in this space—our responses and reactions—will determine whether the Land Between results in spiritual life or spiritual death."

In other words, if our faith is genuine, we're all bound to suffer periods of fear, doubt, frustration, pain, anger, and skepticism. As we process those periods, our faith either grows or dies. I know people traveling through The Land Between who are growing, and I know some who are dying. Honestly, I'm not sure which of the two I am right now.

Over the past two years, I have definitely been losing faith. I still believe in God (perhaps more now than ever), but I'm not sure humanity can understand anything other than his existence.

His will for our lives? His healing power? His character? His stance on social issues? His political preferences? All of those feel increasingly unknowable.

As I process my season of doubt, I keep coming back to three key factors that have led to my personal "Land Between." More than any other experiences, these three have caused me to question God's involvement in our lives:

1) Christians
There are many amazing Christians in the world. I am not arguing that. Heck, some of them are my friends. But there are amazing Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Atheists. I know some of them, too. So, pointing to one awesome Christian as an example of how Jesus changes lives isn't proof of anything. At least, no more than if I pointed to an awesome Muslim as proof Muhammad changes lives. Yes, churches do good work, but lots of organizations do good work. Remember when American Idol raised millions of dollars for needy children in Africa? Does that mean you want to start worshipping Ryan Seacrest?

My experience has been that Christianity changes very little in most peoples' lives. Or, worse, faith actually makes them crazier. How many "isolated cases" of Christian insanity (Koran burning, preaching hatred toward gays, Pat Robertson) do we need before a pattern is acknowledged?

Further, when I chose to leave my position of church leadership at D'VINE, my Christian friends lost their minds. I have never experienced such bizarre behavior from anyone in my thirty-three years. I have made amends with a couple of folks from D'VINE who weren't insane, but I lost some of my best friends. To this day, I'll run into someone from that group who will completely ignore me. I've had some reject friend requests on Facebook. One friend's actions, in particular, were incredibly hurtful because I invested almost a decade into his life when others rejected him, only to watch him become the ring leader in bashing me among others at D'VINE.

I get it. We're all messed up. We're all crazy. We all have issues. To fully embrace Christianity means recognizing our ineptitude, thus making Jesus' sacrifice the necessary bridge to restore our relationship with God. Being a Christian doesn't mean we're perfect; it simply means we have admitted our flaws and acknowledged our need for forgiveness.

But...

It's starting to feel like an excuse to treat other people like crap. A relationship with Jesus should make us better people, and if it doesn't, then what's the point? Frankly, I see more crazy Christians than normal Christians, and not only do I fear becoming insane if I fully embrace Christianity, but I have no desire to invite others into a faith that leads to insanity.

2) Charlie
I have written about Charlie before, but he was a friend who died almost one year ago. Charlie was a great guy on the verge of launching a new church. He was married to his high school sweetheart, had two small children, and many friends who loved him very much. He was not one of the crazy Christians who drove people away from Jesus. Charlie was someone you could point to with pride and say, "That guy loves Jesus."

One day, Charlie got sick. A month later, he died. Probably the healthiest dude you would have ever met. A few years older than me, but in much better shape. And he died.

People die. That's reality. I'm not naive. But if God is truly involved in our daily lives, how can anyone explain or justify Charlie's death? Saying, "Oh, it's all part of God's plan, and we can't understand it all in this life," is such a bullcrap cop-out. We say that because it would crush our faith to accept the reality.

Anytime anyone prays about something ridiculous (like the guy who told me he was hot and prayed for clouds, and then it got cloudy a little while later), I want to fight. Seriously? God makes it cloudy because you're a little warm, but when hundreds of Christians gather to pray for Charlie, God does nothing?

I know another guy who thinks he heard God give him a roulette number as he drove by a casino, so he went in and put twenty bucks on the number. He won $700, so he bought an iPad. God wants middle class Americans to win iPads, but he's cool with people starving to death in Africa? He heals a sore elbow, but he allows Charlie to die? That seems fair.

Other than calming our own nerves, I am at a place where I believe prayer is simply a waste of time. Especially rambling prayers that use religious language and go on forever. Even Jesus told people not to do that.

3) Evidence
I don't believe in Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster. Do you know why? Because no one has ever found any proof that either one exists. In all the years people have been searching, nothing.

I do believe in squirrels. Do you know why? Because I see one climbing a tree as I type these words.

Where is the evidence that God is actively engaged in our world? Let's take healings for example. You're telling me that in all the years we're had access to video cameras, that no one has ever recorded proof of a miraculous healing? Not once? Ever?

If so, where is the tape? I can watch a man playing tennis with a giraffe on YouTube, but I can't get one Christian to upload a video of a healing?

And why is it that every healing involves an internal ailment?

"My back hurts."
"Abracadabra!"
"My back doesn't hurt anymore!"
"Praise Jesus!"

I have to take your word for it? That's convenient. If God can heal a back, he can grow an arm, right? Okay, so find a one-armed man and let's get this on camera.

I've tried testing this stuff for myself. Last year, as I sat in the Unitarian Universalist Church, there was a disabled guy sitting next to me in a wheelchair. I consistently prayed throughout the service, "God, if you heal this guy right now, and he jumps up from his wheelchair and starts dancing, I will run to the front of the room and tell this whole church about Jesus."

Nothing.

"But, Steve," you might say, "true faith is believing without seeing." That's also convenient. Ever notice how religions are always set up so that you are forced to believe them without any proof? In fact, the stronger your faith (without evidence), the more you are seen as a spiritual superstar!

If religion were a pyramid scheme, we would all run for our lives.

I teach Persuasion at the University of Cincinnati. Cults are fascinating case studies in psychological influence. Every religion is a cult. All religious behaviors can be explained in terms of cultish behaviors.

As adults, we look back and laugh at the idea of Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, but the idea of God is equally ridiculous. Why do we logically reject Santa Claus, but then shut off our brains when discussing God?

If personal experience in your only proof, then every cult has equal validity with every world religion, because they are all using the same personal evidence to claim truth.

I know, I know. I'm a pessimistic, skeptical, ignorant, awful jerk who just needs to pray more, or read my Bible more, or start attending church again. I'm clearly the one with the problem because everyone else has it all figured out. Congratulations.

But I can't worship a shadow. I refuse to follow religious values that oppress others in the name of a loving God. We're all missing it. I am convinced there is a major piece of the puzzle that we don't even realize exists. I have to keep looking for it. I can't settle for an imitation God.

I'm not saying I have never felt God, or met kind Christians, or had an experience that is difficult to explain logically. But everyone has stories of the unknown intersecting with reality. I'm just not sure that proves anything.

I wish the the answers were easy so I could be part of the Christian club that will read this post and pity my lack of faith. It would be easy to pretend, but I can't. The stakes are too high.

What I do know is this: It's time to get back out into the world, because while God may be everywhere, I'm not sure he's hanging around my desk these days.

"You want to find me?" God whispers. "Okay, let's go for a walk in the Land Between."

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Stuff That Humps: Volume 4

2010-09-15T10:50:00.002-04:00

Sean M. was thinking outside the box with this pic:

Rules of the game:
1) The picture must be taken by you or someone you know. In other words, no random Internet pictures. You must own its rights.
2) No porn. We all know where to find those humping pictures when the loneliness creeps in.
3) Spontaneity is highly valued. For example, these two exhibitionist squares surprised Sean with a rowdy storage room romp. Purposely seeking out crazy cardboard capers would be bizarre and creepy. Taking the picture, however, is completely normal.
4) Send your humping pictures to fullsteve@gmail.com. Only the best humpers will be posted.

Look for the perfect holiday gift this December: Twelve Months of Humping (The calendar for people who like to watch stuff hump)

Revisit Volume 1
Revisit Volume 2
Revisit Volume 3

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The Aging and the Restless

2010-09-14T01:20:00.003-04:00

I am bored.

Not with my wife, or my friendships, or my job. I have made wise choices with all three. But that place in my gut that yearns for something more than television, paychecks, and blogging is restless. Probably has been for a long time.

I realized something recently. I think all of my addictive tendencies boil down to one common denominator: Fantasy.

Pornography is fantasy. Fiction is fantasy. Television is fantasy. Video games are fantasy. Even writing can be fantasy. In each, we become something we are not. We play a character.

In especially boring stretches of my life, I find myself drifting deeper and deeper into a fantasy world filled with danger, adventure, and mystery. Real life can be so dull. Wake up, watch television, go to work, eat dinner, watch more television, read a book, drink a beer, go to bed.

Real-life adventure can be deadly. I don't really want to be stranded on a mysterious island with a smoke monster roaming around, but living the high definition fantasy from the comfort of my couch is an appealing substitute. I don't really want to have wild orgies with lots of sexy women, because while herpes and pregnancy never infect my computer screen, they are both very real possibilities in the bedroom.

William Wallace had a helluva time killing the English, but his final minutes seemed a bit painful.

What I want is a safe adventure with lots of guarantees. I'll step into the unknown as long as I'm secure a happy ending is waiting around the corner. But I don't really want to risk. I don't really want to sacrifice. I want to pretend.

This is what scares me about "virtual reality." Someday, people will pay to sit in a room for hours at a time while living out fantasies in a dreamlike trance. In other words, playing video games gets old after a few hours because, ultimately, we know it's fake. But what if our brains couldn't tell the difference? Would we ever step outside again? (And the freakier question: What if I'm already hooked up to a machine, and I think this is my real life? I might want my money back.)

I love my life. I have been so blessed, and I am surrounded by so many amazing people. But adventure is definitely missing. That inner voice is crying out for more. I just wish it spoke louder and more clearly.

I have been kicking around an idea lately, but it feels uncomfortable and slightly dangerous. It would be a great time, but new ideas make me sleepy. What's a lazy dude to do?

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Politics vs. People

2010-09-13T11:00:00.001-04:00

Gay marriage isn't a political issue. It's a people issue that affects real lives.

People who say being a Christian isn't about politics is ignoring that politics is essentially about people. Health care reform is about people. Stem cell research is about people. Abortion is about people.

People matter.
Politics is about people.
Therefore, politics matter.

You can't simply ignore politics without also choosing to ignore people.

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