Urban Onramps

I’ve decided to continue with my hiatus. I’ll return here to urbanonramps.com on September 1.

It was eight medicines Sam took last night. I forgot the inhaler he takes for an asthma-like condition.

It’s hot in ‘dena.

God is still seated on his throne. Jesus is still next to him. The Holy Spirit is still aloose in the community…

He started the day with a spinal tap at City of Hope. Via that needle they gave him Methotrexate. Then he sat in the clinic for Vincristine via drip. Then he came home, feeling very woosy. We believe with all our hearts that we need to keep the McDonald’s to a minimum. But when he’s feeling lousy, and just got pumped up with poison (let’s call “chemotherapy” what it is, just enough poison to kill the bad guys but not enough to kill the host), and he’s crying for McDonald’s “french fries and chicken nuggets and sprite and a boy toy,” aka a Happy Meal, you give it to him. This evening we gave him Decadron, Claritin for this cough he’s had, milk of magnesia to (you know) help him, 6MP (his nightly chemo), and amoxicillin for this ear infection he had last week. 7! All day long we were giving him medicine. And he didn’t complain once. This is how he looked for most of the evening:

(click the photo for larger size)

From The case for genital mutilation by Will Saletan:

Drug researchers would kill for an HIV vaccine half as effective as circumcision. Condoms and abstinence often aren’t effective because they require diligence. Circumcision works more reliably for the same reason foreskin enthusiasts hate it: It lasts forever. In the parlance of AIDS doctors, it’s a “one-off intervention.” Using the new data, scientists estimate that over the next 20 years, circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa could prevent 6 million infections and 3 million deaths.

Interesting. ht instapundit

I’m going to go see this play:

After 22 years of sticking it to The Man and championing the concerns of the Latino underclass, the theater troupe Culture Clash finds itself in an unfamiliar position: staging an Establishment play. “Water & Power,” which opens today at the Mark Taper Forum, follows the careers of two highly successful brothers who are caught in a maze of collusion and corruption.

“Ten years ago I think we would have written this from the point of view of the criminals, the gangs and the cholos… But now we’re a force. Now we’re the people in power.”

Indeed. I don’t know when I’m gonna see it, but I’m gonna see it. Culture Clash has done some great stuff over the years.

Juan Williams, writing in today’s Washington Post, says, “A culture of failure taints Black America.”

THIS is how you do an opening paragraph right:

Have we taken our eyes off the prize? The civil rights movement continues, but the struggle today is not so much in the streets as in the home — and with our children. If systemic racism remains a reality, there is also a far more sinister obstacle facing African American young people today: a culture steeped in bitterness and nihilism, a culture that is a virtual blueprint for failure.

Have we taken our eyes off the prize? Great question. What a way to frame discussion. It’s the question that needs to be answered. It’s hard to discuss this stuff without getting accused of “blaming the victim.” It’s complicated, for sure. Because there are 40 million black people in America and not all - I would say not the majority - fit the description. But youth culture, black youth culture, is fully in thrall of a nihilistic (great word choice) worldview that denies the reality that there is legitimate opportunity for African Americans, Latinos, and others in America. I’m a Christian minister, a spiritual doctor, but some of the most significant work I do these days feels more like “mental health” type work. People’s minds are wacked out. They see life not as it is, but through a prism that feeds negativity… man, it’s early in the morning to get started on all this…

I had a good time preaching at SYV Presbyterian Church yesterday. Evidently Keith Phillips of World Impact had been there the previous Sunday. It’s not easy to preach three services in one morning. You might say, “Just read the same sermon three times.” But would you do that? So I used the same biblical text and same dismount, but the stories in-between varied. It was almost three different sermons, which is easier for me than reading the same sermon. I put out a lot of emotion and story-telling effort when I preach, and it’s just hard to replicate an emotion, or the flow of a story. I guess that’s why actors on Broadway get the big bucks… but I digress (and, yes, I’m aware that such actors get paid very little… it was a joke). I knew at least two people would appreciate the fact that I didn’t cookie-cut the sermon: the pastor who presided over all three services, and the sound man. Both HAD to listen to all three; even the worship team rotated out. But these two perked up with every sermon, wondering what I was going to say next. That was fun. That’s what a 39-year-old urban minister considers fun, keeping the presiding pastor and the sound man happy.

She sent me this:

Who’s Going To Clean Up This Romantic Gesture?

When I walked through the door last night, red and pink rose petals were scattered across the vestibule and up the stairs to the bedroom. How inconsiderate can one husband get? I could have slipped and broken my neck! Fortunately, the cloying, sickly-sweet odor of roses gave the petals away, and I was able to spot them before my heel slipped.

Besides that, when the hot air from the wall registers blow them all around, I’ll be the one to spend a couple hours with a vacuum attachment bending beside the bed and under the dresser and most likely screwing up my lower back some more.

Heh. The truth hurts.

UPDATE: Look at the woman’s face (below). Double heh.

That’s the title of a post from Anthony Bradley’s blog, and not The Onion. Catch the kerfuffle here and here.

CBS News:

Sometimes the numbing effect of TV can be helpful. Especially if you’re a kid being stuck with a needle at the hospital. Researchers confirmed the distracting power of television _ something parents have long known _ when they found that children watching cartoons suffered less pain from a hypodermic needle than kids not watching TV.

Here is a photo of my son in the hospital during his year of major chemotherapy. That’s his sister Micah with him. He’s in the bed at City of Hope, watching TV and playing with her ear. He had a needle stuck in his chest as his IV.

This morning I go to Fuller Seminary (conveniently located just two miles south of the Harambee) to guest lecture in a class taught by Dr. Bruce Main. Main is an urban ministry veteran who runs Urban Promise in Camden, New Jersey. I’ve heard about Urban Promise from many people over the years. Here’s the Urban Promise blog. I’m looking forward to my time in the class (I don’t even know what it’s called) and to having lunch with Dr. Main afterward.

It’s been Fuller month for me. Last week I went and heard Rob Bell when he spoke at an evening session at Travis Auditorium. That was good. The place was packed out.

And now for the most critical disclosure: I’m starting the day by grabbing a pastrami breakfast burrito from Everest on north Lake Avenue in Altadena. I told them to cut it in half. I’m sharing it with my honey. Mmm.

UPDATE: Looking more closely at the Urban Promise stuff, I see that they apparently have a travel agency: Urban Promise Travel. I know we Christian ministries need to figure out ways to generate revenues beyond donor contributions, but most groups opt for housing or retail small business enterprise. I hadn’t heard of anyone trying to generate revenue via a travel agency. Interesting. I may try them at some point.

World Magazine got 30 evangelicals to list their five favorite novels and five favorite movies. The results appear in this week’s issue. My picks are included. You can see the full list and accompanying comments by World editor-in-chief Marvin Olasky here. I like the company I’m in, which includes Fred Barnes, Anthony Bradley, Tony Campolo, Scott Derrickson, Tim Goeglein, Albert Mohler, Amy Sherman, and Lauren Winner.

Over at the Huffington Post, James Pinkerton reports on the world’s largest AIDS conference in Toronto and what exactly Rick Warren was doing there:

In the course of the last quarter-century, the accomplishment of AIDS activists has been to change the politico-cultural mindscape. But AIDS itself has changed much more; it has changed the demographic and historical landscape, especially in the Third World. And even deeper changes will be seen in the coming century, as billions of people react to AIDS by seeking moral and behavioral equilibrium in their own minds and lives. That is, AIDS isn’t going to make people more radical, it’s going to make them more conservative.

That’s the Reformation that’s coming, and Rick Warren seems destined to be a big part of it.

There’s a new book out by Juan Williams, “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America–and What We Can Do About It.” Go on, Juan, tell us how you really feel. Ruben Navarrette, Jr. has thoughts on Williams’ book. Williams is the author of “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965″ as well as a senior correspondent on National Public Radio, so he cannot be dismissed as a right wing shill.

I’m speechless:

Muller said details of how the men survived remained sketchy because of language difficulties between the Mexican fisherman and the Taiwanese crew of the trawler that rescued them.

He said it appeared the three men had survived on rain water, sea birds and fish they had been able to catch as they drifted in their 25-foot-long (8 meter) fibreglass boat.

Michael Barone:

Immigration continues to be highest from certain Mexican states, mostly in the center of the country: Michoacán, Zacatecas, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Puebla, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Hidalgo. So many Pueblans have gone to New York that they call it Pueblayork.

• I’ll remember that next time I’m at that Mexican restaurant on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn.
• My mother came north from Aguas Calientes in 1950.