Smart Growth

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I live in paradise. For me, paradise not only includes natural wonders but intellectual wonders as well. Our University attracts world class minds, creatives and eccentrics who all find peace and acceptance here on this mountain. Of course, we all sometimes disagree about politics because many of those minds believe in utopias and group think. I am a realist when it comes to these things, I also don't think government involvement is the answer so we butt heads on process all the time. But they also make me think.

Last night I attended a meeting for a group organized to deal with growth on our plateau. Born in the boom times only a year or so back in response to a proposed massive development that would double the size of my little town of 1100, this organization provided a wealth of information to the people who attended the meetings. Greed was everywhere back then, developers were popping up right and left with no regard to infrastructure or process. Our zoning laws were pliable and the public officials were malleable, especially if the right carrot was dangled.

Thankfully, God took care of the issue when we experienced a long drought and Monteagle ran out of water. At the same time, infrastructure mismanagement reared its head and everyone became aware of the sleeping giant called wastewater treatment...or the lack of it. TDEC stepped in with broad and sweeping motions. This was one time I was happy to see them.

One of the biggest problems in the psyche of my locals is the "don't tell me what to do, I am going do whatever the hell I want to" attitude. Let me tell you, I understand and appreciate the sentiment, but unfortunately that attitude has led to some very bad decisions by our public officials and land owners which in turn affects all of us because we pay the price with higher utility rates and pretty major quality of life issues.

Back to the meeting in question. The speaker was Robin Gottfried, a brilliant economics professor at Sewanee. The information he presented wasn't new, I had a crash course in it last year, but his solutions were new to me. Robin put a new spin on government's role in guiding smart growth. The carrot not the hammer theory. Of course, our local government entities have to buy into the smart growth, land use, cluster development premise that have been meticulously and logicaly researched by our University neighbors...but if we can make that happen, the tools that Robin mentioned are wonderfully simple. They incentivize GOOD behavior. Wow, what a concept! Everyone gets what they want thru personal choices. Wow, want a concept!

Hmmmm, sounds to me like I need to get some progressive, fiscally conservative souls elected to local office.

Personal Responsibility

A friend of mine suggested that I attend a local Lent service last night because he thought it fit perfectly into my personal spiritual quest. Being intrigued, I decided to attend. He was right, it was a very moving experience which led me to do a little more research on the practices of Lent and the meaning behind them since I am relatively new to the organized program. My church handles Lent differently than the church I went to, but the premise is really still the same. A personal, thoughtful and giving journey before the Easter celebration. There is also alot of personal sacrifice involved in the journey. That hit home.

Well you know I will find a way to relate politics in pretty much everything that I do. It is a worldview I can't seem to escape. As a conservative, I feel personal sacrifice and personal responsibility are the cornerstones of my political convictions. Government is not the answer, it is up to each and every one of us to step up to the plate. During this economic downturn, we are all going to have to cinch our belts, quit whining and remember what is important in life. Lent is just a great reminder to do so.

Chuck's mom and my Grandma Nell are two peas in a pod.

An 87-Year-Old's Economic Survival Guide
by Chuck Norris
Posted 02/24/2009 ET
Updated 02/24/2009 ET

An old Spanish proverb says, "An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy." I believe that value holds, in or out of a recession. And seeing as my 87-year-old mother lived through the Great Depression, I think her value (and that of those like her) will increase through these tough economic times because her insider wisdom can help us all.

Mother was about 10 years old when her eight-member family endured the thick of those recessive days in rural Wilson, Okla., which only has a population of 1,600 today. The recurring droughts across the heartland during that period dried up the job market, making it worse in the Midwest than it even was in the rest of the country. Over the years, my grandpa worked multiple jobs, from the oil fields to the cotton fields, and he was even a night watchman. The family members did what they could to contribute, but most of them were simply too young to play a major part.

In 1933, when President Franklin Roosevelt took office, his administration, through the Works Project Administration, brought about the employment of millions in civil construction projects, from bridges to dams to airports to roads. My grandfather traveled about 90 miles for a day's work to help build the Lake Murray dam. But with a far smaller ratio of jobs to potential laborers, if Grandpa worked five days a month (at $1.80 a day), it was a good month.

Like most families, my mother's family didn't have running water or electricity. And Granny did her best to keep the outhouse clean, with Grandpa helping by regularly depositing lye to control the odors. (You can imagine how the hot, humid Oklahoma summers turned that outside commode into one smelly closet-sized sauna.) A "scavenger wagon" came by once a week and cleaned out the hole, which had a small chairlike contraption over it with the center punched out. (They once had a two-seater in there, which allowed for two people to enjoy each other's company and conversation. Mom told me that she always felt a little upper-class when she sat with someone else!) By the way, and I'm not trying to be crude, toilet tissue wasn't around, so they used pages from Montgomery Ward catalogs (and you wondered why the catalogs were so thick). No joke -- they preferred the non-glossy pages. I'll let you figure out why.

Got the picture? With that in mind, I turn to a recent conversation I had with my mother. I asked her, "How would you encourage the average American to weather the economic storms of today?"

Here's her advice, in her words:

-- "Get back to the basics. Simplify your life. Live within your means. People have got to be willing to downsize and be OK with it. We must quit borrowing and cut spending. Be grateful for what you have, especially your health and loved ones. Be content with what you have, and remember the stuff will never make you happy. Never. Back then, we didn't have one-hundredth of what people do today, and yet we seemed happier than most today, even during the Great Depression.

-- "Be humble and willing to work. Back then, any work was good work. We picked cotton, picked up cans, scrap metal, whatever it took to get by. Where's that work ethic today? If someone's not being paid $10 an hour today, they're whining and unwilling to work, even if they don't have a job. The message from yesteryear is don't be too proud to do whatever it takes to meet the financial needs of your family.

-- "Be rich in love. We didn't have much. In fact, we had nothing at all, compared to people today, but we had each other. We were poor, but rich in love. We've lost the value of family and friends today, and we've got to gain it back if we're ever to get back on track. If we lose all our stuff and still have one another and our health, what have we really lost?

-- "Be a part of a community. Today people are much more alone, much more isolated. We used to be close with our neighbors. If one person had a bigger or better garden or orchard, they shared the vegetables and fruits with others in need. Society has shifted from caring for one another to being dependent upon government aid and welfare. That is why so many today trust in government to deliver them. They've forgotten an America that used to rally around one another in smaller clusters, called neighborhoods and communities. We must rekindle those local communal fires and relearn the power of that age-old commandment, 'Love thy neighbor.'

-- "Help someone else. We never quit helping others back then. Today too many people are consumed with their own problems and only helping themselves. 'What's in it for me?' is the question most are asking. But back then, it was, 'What can I do to help my neighbor, too?' I love Rick Warren's book The Purpose Driven Life, and especially his thought, 'We were created for community, designed to be a blessing to others.' Most of all, helping others gets our minds off of our problems and puts things into better perspective.

-- "Lean upon God for help and strength. We didn't just have each other to lean on, but we had God, too. We all attended church and belonged to a faith community. Church was the hub of society, the community core and rallying point. Today people turn to government the way we used to turn to churches. It's been that way ever since Herbert Hoover's alleged promise of a 'chicken in every pot' and President Roosevelt's New Deal. Too many have abandoned faith and community. We trust in money more than God. And maybe that's a reason why we're in this economic pickle."

Now that's conventional wisdom that should be shouted and posted in every corridor of government, every community across America, and every blog on the Internet.

Call me overly pragmatic, but I think a little practical wisdom and encouragement is what we all need about now. Mom always was good for that. She still is.

Sewanee and Jon Meacham

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently attended Jon Meacham's book signing at the Sewanee bookstore. I had already read an Andrew Jackson bio, but I was interested in seeing what Jon had to say about "old hickory". For some reason, I asked him if he considered himself a conservative (I am still confused about the concept of liberal christians, especially sewanee christians)...the question obviously amused him as he laughed out loud at the thought of it. "No, and I don't think they would want me" was what followed the laugh. Interesting comment.

I didn't completely understand his meaning until this news item came out...and yes, Wheaton College is in my old stomping grounds. You don't get more conservative than Wheaton.

Newsweek Editor Slams Orthodox Pittsburgh Bishop as Fundamentalist
Sewanee Alumnus Decries Heterosexual Marriage

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
1/4/2009

The editor of NEWSWEEK, Jon Meacham, a favorite son and a graduate of Sewanee: The University of the South and the Episcopal Church's only university, recently revealed a real and personal animus towards Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan and heterosexual marriage.

In the December 15, 2008, issue of his magazine, Meacham wrote, "On the campus of Wheaton College in Illinois, in another of the seemingly endless announcements of splintering and schism in the Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan and other leaders of the conservative forces of reaction to the ecclesiastical and cultural acceptance of homosexuality declared that their opposition to the ordination and the marriage of gays was irrevocably rooted in the Bible-which they regard as the '"final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life'.

"No matter what one thinks about gay rights-for, against or somewhere in between -this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism. Given the history of the making of the Scriptures and the millennia of critical attention scholars and others have given to the stories and injunctions that come to us in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt-it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition."

Full story at www.virtueonline.com

You might be an Episcopalian if...

Because I live just a few miles from Sewanee: The University of the South (new, correct way of calling it), and St. Andrews boarding school, I had to affectionately laugh when I read this.

You might be an Episcopalian if...

…you recognize your neighbor, or rector, in the local liquor store and go over to greet him/her.

…if you have totally memorized Rite I, Rite II and the first three episodes of *The Vicar of Dibley*.

…if while watching the movie “The Madness of King George” you’re able to recite with the King, when he undergoes “surgery,” the Collect for Purity

…if words like: “vouchsafe”, “oblation”, “supplications”, “succor”, “bewail”, “wherefore”, “dost”, “meet”, and “very” (in its archaic sense) are familiar to you even if you don’t have a clue that they mean.

…if you can pronounce “innumerable benefits procured to us by the same.”

…if hearing people pray in the language of “jesuswejus” makes you want to scream.

…if you can rattle off such tongue twisters like: “..who made there by his one oblation of himself once offered a full and perfect sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the world” and “Wherefore, O, Lord and Heavenly Father, we thy people, do celebrate and make here, with these gifts which we offer unto thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded us to make…” without missing a beat.

…if someone says, “Let us pray” and you automatically hit your knees.

…if the word “Sewanee” puts a lump in your throat.

…if you catch yourself genuflecting or bowing as you enter a row of seats in a theater.

…if your choir director suggests discussing something over a beer after choir rehearsal.

…if, when visiting a Catholic Church, you are the only Ah-men amongst a sea of Ay-mens

…if your covered dish for the potluck dinner is escargot in puff shells.

…if you think the most serious breach of propriety one can commit is failure to chill the salad forks.

…if your picnic basket has sterling knives and forks (entree, fish, salad and cake).

…if you ever find yourself saying, “Oh, but we’ve never done it that way before.”

…if you know that a sursum corda is not a surgical procedure.

…if you don’t think Agnus Dei is a woman.

…if you know the difference between a surplice and a cotta…and the appropriate use of each.

…if you know that the nave is not a playing card.

…if you know that the Senior Warden and the Junior Warden are not positions in the local prison.

…if your friend said “I’m truly sorry…” and you replied, “and you humbly repent?”

And finally….

…if you reach a point when you’re not sure about anything theologically but you still feel completely at home at the altar rail and somehow know you’re meeting God there, even though you can’t begin to understand how.