Facebook: The Peanut Gallery For The Passive Aggressive

Yesterday I surrendered.  I realized that Facebook or at least who I was exposed to on Facebook was toxic to my spiritual life.  I was angry, short tempered and basically over all pissed of.  Then I had to take the stage and talk to my worship team about the reality that we are losing another worship team member only five months after the death of another worship team member.  All the sudden perception and clarity punched through the anger and I realized I didn’t have to descend into this trap.  I was choosing to. I even got into a stupid conversation with a good friend over gun control. What a freakin’ waste of energy, time and relationships.

I was angry because my pastor and worship leader friends thought fighting over what eating a chicken sandwich meant, rose the level of national conversation.  I read the posts about how Gays felt attacked and how racism against blacks have been replaced by the mistreatment of gays in society.  I read how the church failed yesterday, and how Mike Huckabee rallied for a show of appreciation.  I read the posts from believers that said, we have lost our voice as the church to speak into these issues or even to be relevant to the gay population.  I clinched my fists as I read how gays have suffered like blacks did and more so because they have to hide their preference.

So now at the risk of being unfriended by most of you I would like to set the record straight.

Blacks were taken from their own country, captured and hunted like animals.  

They were chained up in the belly of massive cargo ships and dumped into the ocean if they did not survive the trip.

They were sold like property, forced into labor, raped, beaten and mutilated. 

They had their children sold out from under them 

They had their identify taken from them and were given new names that stole from them this heritage and history.

They built the country we now enjoy and were given nothing as compensation for it. 

They had to sacrifice themselves to prove themselves worthy to wear a military uniform and in some cases were killed by the men they were supposed to be fighting side by side with.

The government they helped build labeled them lazy, and deficient.

Government programs to take care of people in their old age kicked in after the life expectancy of Blacks had expired.

We were denied transportation, education opportunities and terrorized by organized agencies that in some cases were sworn to protect us from this exact type of terrorism.

We were denied the right to vote, own property or run for public office to change it.  

Our non violent protests were met with absolute violence including murder, animal attacks and lynchings.

The most sacred places blacks gathered on Sunday mornings were bombed. 

We were depicted in society and film as criminals and gang bangers.

Our contributions to history, film, music, science and culture were simply written out of history, and continue to be rewritten in history today even depicting a pilot in a recent 9/11 movie as white to the amazement of the African American family that lost their Dad and spouse on that day.  These were not isolated incidents. This was an oppression that spans generations and engulfed entire populations.

So with all do respect, please don’t compare the plight of gay rights in this country unless you can show me a 200 year generational history that encompasses an entire race of people that endured what is listed above. This country prospers because of those sacrifices.  That same country now allows individuals to earn and spend their money they way they see fit.  This includes Chick Fil-A and Apple computer.

Chick Fil-A sells fast food.  The president of the company doesn’t believe in same sex marriage.  All hell broke loose as a differing opinion was aired. All the sudden tolerance was no longer tolerable. 

I’m not going to get into the gay rights thing because the arguments, unlike the actual persecution is all to familiar.  When one of my friends would drop the N-Word, I would hear, “I’m not a racist, one of my best friends is black.”

So that narrative continued yesterday.  “I have a gay friend”  and now that somehow makes you an expert.  I get it, I get it all to well. Life does not play fair.  Did you really expect it to?

Here is the sad truth that was apparent to me yesterday and led me to the decision I made. When pastor’s blog sites have more fans than their church has members, something is wrong.  When attendance in church is dropping but friend requests are increasing exponentially, something is wrong.  When the preaching takes place in cyberspace at the expense of teaching in the pulpit, something is wrong.  When liberals in your church feel like they are on an island by themselves at the same time, conservatives in your church feel the same way, something is wrong.  When unity is something we talk about on the weekend but we spend the rest of the week in cyberspace being divisive, something is wrong.  

My Dad use to say: “Never argue with a fool, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience, every day of the week.” Facebook is becoming the peanut gallery for the passive aggressive, and if you let it, it will do the exact thing that my father warned against. It will drag you down and beat you with it.

So I leave you with this thought.  It has been reported that Apple Computer supports same sex marriage. It has also been reported that they financially support organizations that lobby for this.  Yet many of the pastors and worship pastors I know use Apple computers every day to write and record worship music and use apple technology to spread the message of Christ every day.  Spin that one around in your noodle for a while.  

Where was the outcry for tolerance yesterday?  I couldn’t find it.  Why?... Because the things no one will talk about face to face were all happening in the peanut gallery of the passive aggressive. 

I believe the gospel is the most important message for people this side of heaven.  However when we lower that message to the level of politics we splinter it into liberal, conservative, democrat, republican, oppressor, liberator, and an infinite amount of others.  At best we might as well hand out cognitive filters at the door because once you’ve vented on facebook, everything you say from the pulpit if then filtered.  Jesus had the ability to cut straight to the point, and if he offended you, you were free to challenge it.  However he always told you what you wanted to hear and what you needed to hear simultaneously.

As for me, I stayed up until 4:15AM changing Facebook settings and removing my friends posts from my news feeds.  This morning I woke up to what felt like victory.  I haven’t closed my mind or my heart to dissenting opinions, I actually welcome it.  I just refuse to do it on Facebook. If you want to discuss something with me and you actually know me, call me, we’ll meet face to face and have a healthy conversation.  As for Facebook, it is now a one way information stream for me.  If you have asked to follow me, you are welcome to, but no longer will I spend any part of my day, randomly being someone’s seagull friend.  I refuse to Fly By, Crap All Over People and Fly Away.  My last post on Facebook said:

“If you want to play the role of the match, you can’t be pissed off at the gasoline when it does what it is designed to do...and blows up in your face.”

Sincerely, Free at last!

Charlie Hines

Worship, Just Worship

It’s been a week since my friend Mike died. He was 36. I think back to last Saturday night when I finished my last song on stage and Mike was working in the cafe, he immediately came out to tell me how much he liked the song and the bagpipe player we hired to play the song with me.  His wife Traci was out of town.  I asked how he was when she was out of town. The two of them were inseparable, in the truest sense of the word. We talked for a bit and then he stuck out his hand for that man to man grip, we did the cool guy hug thing I told him “love ya man”  and he said “love you to bro!”  That was it.  That would be my last encounter with my friend and fellow musician Mike Moore.  No warnings from heaven to tell me to make this last conversation really count.  No last glance back to catch a grin. Nothing. 

A week of fundraising, funeral planning, worship team counseling and set planning for his funeral and here I am in my basement trying to unpack my thoughts.  After the funeral I came home and wrote a letter to every business owner and car dealership I knew to try and get someone to give them a car.  When I hit the send button God whispered...”You’ve done all you can do, it’s ok to grieve.”  I burst into tears at my computer sobbing uncontrollably.  My family came in to see what was wrong. I think I scared them.

I kept thinking over and over in my head, did I know him enough.  Could I have been a better friend, pastor or worship leader to him.  I thought of all the days I was off on Monday and I knew he was out of work and I could have driven a few miles up the road and taken him to lunch, or had him come hang at my house just to pass some time.

He was at every Spaghetti Sundays, and he was content just to be there. He asked me for about 3 months straight when the next one would be, because he wanted to cook for it.  I am sooo thankful we had that last Spaghetti Sunday even though he dropped the entire pan of lasagna on my front porch.  Mike let the world think what they wanted of him but he always thought the best of us.  Mike had nothing of worldly possessions.  He loved being on the worship team.  He didn’t have a really good bass and owned no amp so he would turn down the music really low and lean over the bass to hear in order to learn the songs for the weekend.  Then he would come to church and play one of the basses we had hanging on our wall in our band room.  They belonged to Trentin and Charlie two members of or worship family that died 10 months apart just over the past two years. 

One Spaghetti Sundays a young woman came over with an amp and Fender P-Bass and just gave it to him.  He was elated.  He plugged it in and stood in my morning room just playing away.   

I’m not really sure how to handle his death.  The pastor in me kicked into gear to come along the family and help them through this.  The military brat and business man in me, immediately went into strategic planning mode, raising funds to cover funeral expenses since they had no life insurance.  The friend part of me just shut down no time for that yet.

I’m hurting right now pretty bad.  I’m not trying to take it out on my family but things are pretty tense around the house, we still have a worship team member fighting cancer, and another that has been in and out of the hospital all of last year.  So I’ll say again the only thing I know for sure.

Life is fragile, God is in control even when we don’t think so, and in His time he will pick up the shattered pieces of our life and tell a beautiful story with them.  Today, right now, the world is a more quiet place, a more lonely place, a more empty place, and a darker place.  The pain and aches of losing a friend can’t compare to what his family is going through so you ache twice, once for your loss and then magnify that by a bazillion and you grieve for the family.  

So in the morning, if we wake up, we put air in our lungs, and we plant our feet on the side of our bed, we shower in silence, and the songs on the radio either bring us to tears or are hollow beyond measure.  We go on!  I don’t know how but we do. And somehow the memory of Mike, and the legacy of servanthood that he leaves, takes root in our heart.  We create a bit more space for those we mostly tolerate because Mike loved them. We make more time for those conversations that we think we’ll have again, because the next one isn’t promised to us.  We give because we have way more than we need and our excess gives life to people.  We slow down and know that work can wait, it’s not going anywhere.  We take time to get to know the families of our worship team members, because it’s their sacrifice of time without their loved ones that allows us to do our jobs.  We create opportunities to do life outside of the stage, and we love each other with the love of God and walk through the darkest times with them so they can hang onto something when God seems far away. If you are a worship leader, I'm begging you to please consider what you are doing on stage.  People need the words that give life to them in their darkest hour.  Since you don't know if that darkest hour is about to be the following morning, like it was in Mike's family's case.  Be open to the Holy Spirit, leave time for silence if you have to.  But above all WORSHIP, don't perform, WORSHIP, just worship.

My heart is heavy and the tears keep coming, the words don’t come but I have to write. So I’ll just say this. I want to be more like Mike.....because Mike was so much like Jesus!

Black History Month

Photo: Freedom taken by ” 

- Roy Rudolph DeCarva 1919 - 2009

I was asked recently by some young friends of mine if I thought Black History Month promoted racism or helped to eliminate it.  I posted the question on my Facebook page to let people give their thoughts before I responded.  

Let me first start by sharing a story of an encounter.  Many years ago, my friend said, "How do you get away with it?", referring to BET - Black Entertainment Television.  He went on to say, "we could never get away with White Entertainment Television."  While I empathized with the double standard, I told him he already had it, and it was called ABC, CBS and NBC.

This was the start of my answer to my two young friends. I told them, Black History Month was simply that, Black History Month.  Is racism a part of black history? Absolutely.  Is it part of Black History Month? Absolutely, but not because of the reasons you think.  Black History is not white guilt month, it is Black History Month.  When learning about what African Americans had to overcome to be considered equal, racism will certainly be a hurdle.  If that makes white people uncomfortable, truth sometimes hurts.  

This is part of the reason I started my daily Black History Post on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=630158264.  It is impossible to talk about African Americans within the American story without covering the topic of racism. Therefore it is impossible to avoid it when we discuss Black History Month.  Just because we talk about it doesn't mean we hinder or help it.  Actions speak louder than words.  So for me, Black History Month has been about doing some homework on African Americans and African American firsts in our Nation's History.  

In the media today, everything gets compared to the civil rights movement. Healthcare, gay marriage, pro-life, the mortgage crisis, even the occupy demonstrations. We are told there is the 99% and the 1%. Personally I believe there is no 99% or 1% we are all in it together and I have little sympathy for people who stand in line for hours to get their $299 smart phones so they can tweet pictures of how under privileged they are. I never saw any photos of lines outside the retail stores during the great depression unless there was a help wanted sign in the window. So are we really as bad off as we think, and how does this get linked to Black History Month.  Let’s shine some light on that perspective. Did you know 75% of people wear corrective lenses.  Where is the other 25% demanding they get eyewear or contacts. Did you know that 61% of wealthy people considered to be in the top 1% drive Toyota, Honda & Ford cars.  Where is the outcry for the little people to be able to drive a Camary or a Fusion?  Did you know that only 5% of the worlds population has flown on a plane. Oh the horror.  31.6% of Americans have no internet access!  It's like the stone age! I fear sharing this..., 98.2% of Americans do not own an Apple Computer,..Oh - Dear - God! Perhaps the one we never see marching in the streets, is because they lack the coordination to march, only 8% of Americans play a musical instrument.  Riot in the street over that one and demand an instrument and lessons. This is not a debate between the have’s and have not’s it is between the have’s and I want’s. And for the record it has nothing to do with Civil Rights. But for the sake of argument, I’ll indulge.

What about the woman who wrote the Harry Potter series, when she was a financially struggling mom. How about Steve Jobs and Woz in their parents garage working on a personal computer. Or Bill Gates when he dropped out of college. Even NASA Rocket Scientist - Homer Hickam, when his father was shoveling coal, and he was building model rockets.  Were these people in the 99% or the 1%? Or did they simply change their story?  

You see that type of language is dangerous.  It is beyond dangerous, it is apocalyptic throughout history. Think back on how blacks were made less then human during slavery. Think back to how the Jews were blamed for all that was wrong with Germany during Hitlers holocaust in WW2.  We saw it recently in the Ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia.  We are seeing it again in Syria and Egypt. And even still in our own country with regard to the discussion of illegal immigrants. All over the world, the sex trade is booming. Terrorist think others are less than human and should not be allowed to exist on the planet. History marches down this road repeatedly.  

The dangerous language of the Civil Rights movement was not that Blacks wanted to be in the same percentage or have the same possessions as whites.  It was that we believed God made us all equal, and He didn’t measure it by possessions.  

Pay attention, I'll say it again.  The dangerous language of the civil rights movement was that WE ARE ALL EQUAL. That is inflammatory speech when coming from a group of people you have deemed less than human. It wasn't our rights or lack of, it wasn't our money, or lack of, and it wasn't our employment or lack of that we were fighting for. We were fighting for the right to be free. Then and only then could we begin to write our American story. We had to be free.  

This is why it is so important to see yourself as part of the American story.  The whole story.  For me, Black History is the infusion of truth into the American Story.  It is how, where, why, and when African Americans changed the direction of this nation.  In order to fight racism, you have to change the paradigm.  Much of our history has been whitewashed.  Contributions made from African Americans were simply left out of history. This is why racism can be seen woven through Black History Month. There is no agenda, it is simply truth and in many cases an unpleasant one to admit. Without the ability to see a culture or a race as an integral part of our country, we devalue that race or culture and over time we lose that country. 

Black History month is more than the Mass 54th, the first combat colored regiment in the Civil War. It is beyond the Tuskegee Airmen, It is bigger than Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, and President Obama. It even goes beyond Whitney Houston being the first African American to be on the cover of Seventeen magazine or Doug Williams being the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl.  We’ve been sold the story, that success looks white in this country.  It has been said that whoever tells the best story wins the culture.  How do African Americans expect to impact current culture when the stories being told on television and in film still portray us as the criminals, the car jackers, the drug store gunmen, the unfaithful fathers and husbands, and the uneducated gangsters who control the drug trade with a secret language and hand gestures.  Black History Month for me is about telling the whole story of America so that over time all Americans will know that we played just as big a role in birthing this nation as any other race.  Despite the generational wealth that skipped blacks in the founding of our country, Black History month should be an inspiration. No matter what percent you think you are in, most of us will never again have to face the types of hardships and discrimination that early African Americans did. Against all odds, we were able to beat back the chains of slavery, oppression, poor education, violence, unemployment and acts of terrorism to become scientist, authors, inventors, musicians, athletes, actors, politicians, presidents, doctors, dancers, military generals, pilots and astronauts.

Until the names of Charles Drew, Garret Morgan, and Lewis Latimer show up in history books next to Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and Ben Franklin we will continue to shine light where there is darkness. Until we re-educate a generation of students that only read about blacks during the slavery chapter of their social studies and history books black history month will remain a tool.  When America sees how African Americans contributed equally to the great American Story, the world may begin to see true equality.  Once that happens then nothing can stop this country's ability to be what God intended.  I hope that answers the question.

“It doesn’t have to be pretty to be true, but if it’s true it’s beautiful. Truth is beautiful. And so my whole work is about what amounts to a reverence for life itself.” 

- Roy Rudolph DeCarva 1919 - 2009