We are all going to hell with you

I had a minor annoyance today. Two birds, one at a time, attacked my windows, fluttering against and pecking at the glass. I’m sure they saw their reflections and were fighting the bird they thought was invading their territory. I could wave something inside near the glass and they would fly away. But soon they would be at it again. Both birds were about the size of my fist. One was yellow and white, the other yellow and black. Midday they were at the south-facing windows. In the afternoon they shifted to the west windows. I suppose I could have just let them do their thing since they weren’t damaging the glass, but they were rather noisy about it. My Sunday viewing was two films, each less than an hour. The first was Hans Zimmer, Hollywood Rebel. He has written the music for 150 films and won Oscars for The Lion King (yeah, Elton John wrote the songs, Zimmer wrote all the rest) and just recently for Dune. He was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1957 and moved to England as a teen. He rebelled against strict discipline in school and the discipline to learn to play the piano lasted about two weeks. So his music is self taught. He started a recording studio with Stanley Myers in the 1980s. In that time he explored how to use synthesizers and computers, both fairly young, to create music. He branched out on his own in 1987 and was on his way to Hollywood with Rain Man in 1988. With that his rebel sensibility was back. Rain Man is a road movie and he didn’t follow the usual instruments used in road movies. In writing the music for the opening scene for Lion King he forgot he was told to limit it to 20 seconds. He was surprised when the director said they didn’t want him to change the music, they would reanimate the opening to fit what he wrote. After several big films, such as Interstellar, he could have lived off big films for the rest of his career. But he wanted variety and practically volunteered to score 12 Years a Slave to do something different. He doesn’t read the script for the movie. Instead, he has a long conversation with the director, which some say is almost like psychoanalysis. He also brings his assistants to meetings so they get exposure and learn how to navigate such meetings. Younger composers talk about how he influenced them. Lately, he has been filling arenas with live performances of his film music and is greeted like a rock star. Retire? Not anytime soon. The second movie was Elephant Whisperers, which won an Oscar for best short documentary. It’s a simple story. Bellie and Bomman, a couple who are grandparents, work at an elephant rehab camp in southern India. During the film baby elephants Raghu and Annu are rescued. Raghu was badly injured and they nursed him back to health, then cared for him for a few years. They said he was like their child. They loved him and saw he loved them back. Care included feeding, bathing, and sometimes decorating him for religious festivals. They are pleased that younger generations are willing and learning to become elephant caretakers. I was delighted when the service this past Sunday at my United Methodist Church started with the good news out of the just concluded General Conference. Our congregation’s song leader talked about the elimination of language harmful to LGBTQ people and explained what a big deal that is. She also talked about the globally centered revised Social Principles, which passed, and the regionalization proposal that lessens the colonization aspects of denomination structure. That bit passed GC and now has to be ratified by subregions (like Michigan). Then the praise choir sang “Draw the Circle Wide.” The big part of the harmful language was the phrase that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” After 52 years of it being part of the denomination rulebook and 40 years of effort to repeal it that is now gone! A lot of other rules were built on that phrase, rules such as an LGBTQ person could not be ordained, pastors could not officiate at same-sex weddings, those weddings could not be held in denomination churches, and money can’t be given to organizations “promoting the acceptance of homosexuality” (like funding programs to reduce LGBTQ suicide rates). All of those are now gone! I talked briefly with a delegate yesterday. She said she was amazed how quickly these proposals passed and that they passed with such high margins. She expected a struggle and there just wasn’t. The congregation song leader later said the denomination still has work to do. One is the healing of those who were hurt in the 40 year struggle. I am one of those. I went to the 2012 GC to urge the vote for removing the incompatibility clause and felt burned by the experience. Another place needing work is the difference between passing legislation and actually getting local congregations to fully accept LGBTQ people. Another proposal that caught my attention was an “Apology for the Illegal Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom” in the 1890s. It passed. Yes, the Hawaiian Islands had their own monarchy and it was doing quite well for the people. But the United States conquered the islands and eventually allowed it to become a state. If one is curious the Love Your Neighbor Coalition is putting together a legislative summary. On the page already are the three main areas of regionalization, revised social principles, and removal of harmful language. LYNC is the LGBTQ caucus joined with various ethnic caucuses and other groups working towards an inclusive church. Over the last couple weeks the United Methodist Church made a big step towards being an inclusive church. I feel a lot better about being a member. The latest edition of Between the Lines and its online presence at Pridesource included an interview of David Archuleta by Chris Azzopardi. Yes, Archuleta won American Idol back in 2008. Last month he was back on the American Idol stage as a guest and he sang a song he would not have dared to sing when he was a contestant. In the intervening years Archuleta felt stifled by the Mormon Church and left it. He also came out as gay. And the Mormon Church has a very different stance on being gay than the United Methodist Church just passed. Some time after coming out to his mother she texted, “If you’re going to hell, we are all going to hell with you.” She also left the Mormon church. That prompted him to write the song, “Hell Together.” It’s what he sang on the family friendly American Idol stage. He hopes it inspires other parents to to be wholehearted allies to their queer children. The official video of the song is at the bottom of the Pridesource article and is dedicated to his mother. Here’s a bit of what Archuleta said in the interview that matches something I strongly believe:

I feel like, as human beings, we need community. And that's what was so beautiful about religion: it's community and you're there for each other. And so when you leave religion, people think, "Oh, you've lost the meaning of life." It's like, "No, I just have to find community elsewhere," and I have meaning for life again. So I think that's something else, to be encouraging to people who haven't left religion and haven't come out, because they're afraid of losing their community, and feeling like they'll lose their purpose to live. It's like, you know what? There is a community elsewhere and it's beautiful, and it'll give you a whole new sense of meaning to live, and it's wonderful.

Another important article from Pridesource is about the people awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Biden just handed out 19 of them. And one new recipient is Judy Shepard. She’s the mother of Matthew Shepard, who was killed in 1998 in a hate crime that was in the news quite a bit when it happened. Judy and her husband Dennis created the Matthew Shepard Foundation to raise awareness about violent hate crimes committed against LGBTQ people. Judy “was instrumental in working with then-President Barack Obama for passage of the landmark Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009.” TrueWordsRSpoken posted a cartoon that explains Free Speech in a way that my friend and debate partner would approve. The first couple panels:

The right to free speech means the government can’t arrest you for what you say. It doesn’t mean that anyone else has to listen to your bull----, or host you while you share it.

I’ll end today with a cartoon for music nerds posted by Ron Carter. It shows a car in a repair shop and scratched on the doors is a bit of a musical staff, complete with a clef and a couple sharps. The technician tells the owner:

Your car has been keyed. The good news is that the damage appears to B minor.