On the eve of the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president, I am swept up in a euphoria like nothing I can ever recall.  On this Martin Luther King Civil Rights Day, I hung out the flag, then headed off on the light rail to Margaret HancePark in downtown Phoenix where I spent the day with a throng of largely African-Americans in the annual MLK celebration in that park.   I have joined friends there every January celebration for about a decade.

We are human right activists seeking to capture some of the social justice sentiments of the setting to fight against the injustice that is male genital mutilation, more commonly known as circumcision.  Our chapter of the National Organization of Circumcision Information and Resource Centers has worked for 20 years in the Valley to educate the public and inform parents to leave their sons and grandsons, friends’ sons and others from foreskin amputation.  Alas, African-Americans have been as misled and misinformed as so many whites in the cruel, medically unethical procedure. Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians and Europeans are wise enough to reject such medical bunk.

On Monday, we basked in the joys of the throng at the park that one of them, Barack Obama, would take the oath of office as the next American president. The variety of Obama T-shirts being worn was remarkable. The happiness in the black community in the Valley has never been greater.  They and we are so hopeful that Obama will  demonstrate more than greatness, that he  will be so commanding in executing his vision that will transform America and show what the American presidency is truly capable of.

If you had the chance to watch the HBO special “We Are One” concert on Sunday from Lincoln Memorial (I DVR’d it for repeated rewatching), you witnessed a showcase of some of America’s great singers, personalities and speakers as they weaved rousing music with historical readings. It included Garth Brooks, Bon Jovi, Josh Groban,  Tom Hanks, James Taylor, Beyonce, Steve Wonder, U2’s Bono, Ashley Judd and John Mellencamp, withremarks by both Obama and Vice President-Designate Sen. Joseph Biden.  We were treated to a clip of the late icon Marian Anderson singing “America” more than 60 years ago on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution had denied her singing in Constitution Hall because whe was black.

Garth Brooks ended his singing, “God Bless America. God bless the world.” It’s that kind of spirit that is now pervading the discussion as the nation turns the page this week. Obama words on Tuesday surely will be carefully crafted for history and books of quotations and to be carved into stone one day.

As we look at the millions who have invaded Washington to be part of the moment, we see just more of what Nov. 4 was about: Making sure that change could and would happen, this time.  I suspect the litany of missteps of the Bush administration has soundly awakened a large segment of America to be vigilant at not allowing the political system to be taken over any time soon by ideologues, theocrats and those who determined that the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights could be bent to serve their agenda.  We have been awakened of what government must be and what it cannot be allowed to be.  Let’s hope we get away from fear politics and bullying diplomacy.

May the Obama administration move quickly to make the repairs and boldly move forward to do what is right for people of not only the United States but for the entire world.  Never in history, I suspect, have more people on this planet held more hope for new, wise and thoughtful display of American leadership .  Our prayers are long, deep and genuine for President Obama.  May we witness epic greatness.

At the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, he said, “Welcome to this celebration of American renewal … I stand here today as hopeful, as ever, that the United States of America will endure….Faith that anytime in America is possible.”

Savor this moment and pray for unity and resolve unprecedented in our epic history.

Can you imagine that if Arizona State University were playing University of Arizona in football in Sun Devil Stadium, all women would be banned from attending the game because the stadium is “male space” where men have to be men? Women couldn’t attend because they’d be dishonored being exposed to foul language of fanatic male fans. After all, men have a hard time behaving civilly.

One morning recently while I was finishing up a newsletter at home, I watched a film “Offside” that was made in Tehran, Iran, in 2006. It showcased the folkways of a society where the sexes are segregated. The film was made outside a soccer stadium during the actual qualifying match for the World Cup between teams from Iran and Bahrain.

It magnificently followed Iranian female soccer diehard enthusiasts who used wile and male disguises to penetrate the stadium gates with legitimate tickets, but as they tried to get into the stadium itself, they were recognized as women, captured and put into holding areas. Most of the film surrounds the women trying to bargain their way out of detention, while their police/soldier holders resent the women for making them the heavies.

Police also resent that they can’t look at the game through gates because they are occupied literally babysitting the women who continually display their knowledge of the Iranian soccer team. All the while, the soccer match goes on in the background through crescendos of cheers. The guards are conflicted by trying to show a modicum of manners toward the women but fearing that bending rules would land them in big trouble with superiors.

Veteran Iranian film director Jafar Panahi had to be a bit deceptive to make the film in the milieu of a real soccer match — a film that would cast negative light on the culture of Iran that became an Islamic republic in 1979. The best scenes came when one woman pleaded that she had to go to the restroom. Her male guard argued with her, saying there were no women’s restrooms in the stadium, that it was the woman’s own fault that she was in this predicament of needing a restroom and that the men’s restrooms are covered with crude graffiti unfit for a woman’s eyes. She threatened that she would relieve herself in her holding area. After constant pleas, the guard came up with a poster of a soccer star, made her a mask out of it and told her to put it over her face so she could slip into the restroom without being suspected. Inside, the guard has to drive out male restroom users who hassle him. In the course of things, the woman escapes to the outside and blends into the stadium crowd.

All the females were non-professional actors, mostly from Tehran University. Oddly Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had attempted in April 2006 to lift the absurd ban of women in the stadiums, but after he nullified it, the hardcore Islamic clerics overturned it. Leave it to religious leaders in a land of tyranny. Another irony: The Tehran stadium, is Azadi Stadium. Azadi means “freedom.”

So much for the cradle of civilization.

– 1) Religion is under-regarded as a force for driving so much of world events. Kudus to Arizona State University for developing its Center for The Study of Religion and Conflict.

– 2) Most people practice their faith oblivious to what others are doing. The most faithful are comfortable in their rituals and routines and aren’t about to take up calls for change or reform.

–3) Men more commonly turn away from religion and begrudgingly attend worship services on Christmas and Easter out of a sense of obligation and a wee impulse to reconnect with the divine.

–4) People who actively engage in a faith community consider others in their congregations among their best friends, and those relationships solidify their loyalties to that congregation and tend to keep them there.

–5) Most congregations are woefully lacking in promotion and marketing. Seeking news coverage is a late thought. Jews consistently do the best job.

–6) Congregations’ Web sites tend to be stale and poorly updated. Typically, a Webmaster sets it up and it is then fed with updated information, but neglect sets in and old, outdated information turns off on-line visitors.

–7) There’s no way to tell how many “fellowships” and faith communities there are in communities. Some are so fledgling, such as house churches or one person’s ministry just getting off the ground, that they aren’t on the radar screen.

–8) Ethnic congregations seem to taking root everywhere through communications among themselves and are flexible in renting established churches for off-hour services and developing thriving fellowships.

–9) The same 20 percent of the people in a congregation get put to work “volunteering” to do 80 percent of the tasks. Many have learned how to graciously and forcefully turn down requests to take duties. There’s even a kind of resentment when the hard workers become ill and can’t help anymore.

10) Megachurches are a buzz of activity, with good money spent on the best technology, from how kids are checked into a nursery to big screens and fog machines for worship. Some are like villages with their offerings and programs.

11) Church school offices are often packed with curriculum and remnants of years gone by. Church libraries contain generations-old books whose titles don’t seem relevant anymore.

 12) Clergy earnestly seek out their peers for consoling one another, for commiserating and getting needed support for the pressures of ministry. They are guarded with whom the gather regularly, wanting to be comfortable with those who are like mentors and shoulders to cry on. Some clergy associations are effective at rallying for ecumenical and interfaith projects, but faith leaders generally prefer meeting with their theologically compatible friends.

13) Church potlucks are a blessing. But the desserts are sinfully bad for holding cholesterol in check.

14) Houses of worship are the perfect settings for powerful art — sculpture, paintings, ceramics, prints — but there is so little of it to be found.

15) People who snore in church need to remember to get a good night’s rest before. As for those whose cell-phones go off during services, don’t let it ever happen again.

16) Churches’ phone systems are not friendly. Beyond their being supremely impersonal, it is often impossible to talk to a person. And those that require one to put in the “first three letters of the last name…” are faulty and problematic. Just give us someone to answer as soon as the church office is called. Directions and service times should be presented by transferring the call.

17) Congregations ought to take worship outdoors more often, whether under the trees in back or to a park. There isn’t enough celebration in God’s wider creation.

18) It takes discipline to be in choirs — from the weeknight practices to warm-ups before services to the special concerts, retreats and weekly expectations to be there to sing for worship. Choir members should be appreciated more.

19) Those who claim they have somehow been abused by religion or its practitioners are NOT likely making that stuff up.

20) When church leaders are asked how many members or families they have, they always pause, grimace and give a number, with qualifications like “not including winter visitors” or “families, kids and all.” Who really knows?

While cleaning out my eight file drawers of mostly religion-related paper files at the Tribune recently, I found a file marked “Papal Money Survey.”   It was from November 1988 — more than 20 years ago.  The file tells of how one group of journalists dealt with winning and spending $1,000 from a newspaper contest.

As the Tribune religion editor in 1987, I was in charge of the overall coverage of the historic visit of Pope John Paul II t the Valley Sept. 14-15. We had a team of writers, photographers and other staff getting the story told. John D’Anna, now with the Arizona Republic, was the city editor handling logistics on that end.

In 1988, we learned the effort had won the “Best of Cox Newspaper Awards” category for “deadline writing” in competition with other  papers in the Cox Newspapers chain, which owned our papers until 1996. So how should we distribute the $1,000?   Well, first off, we established the “Pope Award Spending Committee” made up of me, Anne Rackham, Paul O’Neill and Bob Yoho.  We subsequently decided to write a letter to the 50 staffers who had been part of the papal visit work and have them fill out a survey. There were four options:  Divide the $1,000 among those news room reporters, editors, photographers and copy editors employed Sept. 14 and still on the staff; use it for a news room party; establish a scholarship fund; or “my idea is…”

We got back 33 surveys.  Some suggested a scholarship in the name of the late Walter Zipf, a longtime Tribune columnist and Mesa observer. There was a suggestion that it be a scholarship named for retiring Tribune editor Peggy Bryant. Nine said scholarship; 13 said to give it to me for overseeing coverage. Three wanted a party.  Three suggested we put it in the Arizona Lottery.

In the end, the decision was made to give me half, $500; spend $400 for a party; and $100 for the Quick Pick Lottery.  Here’s what a letter to staff said: “If we win the jackpot (six numbers correct), 5 percent will fund a Walter Zipf scholarship and the rest will be distributed among the editorial staff. If we get fewer, than six numbers, but win more than $2,000, half will go to scholarship and half to the staff.  If we win between $500 and $2,000, it will go into a scholarship. If we win less than $500, it will go back into lottery tickets and start over.”

 Well, the $100 went into the lottery in October 1988, and out of the 100 picks, we won $44. The decision was made to buy more lottery tickets with the winnngs a couple weeks later. In the end, all of that was lost. The file still contains all the lottery tickets and photo copies of them to show what numbers were picked. Meanwhile there was $48.47 left from the party hosted by a reporter and it was put into the Tribune Christmas Basket program to help the needy.

What if we had followed the choice of one staff member and put all $1,000 in the lottery? It’ likely all have evaporated.  Don’t ask me how I spent my $500. I don’t remember.

 
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Tis the season for congregations to determine what they can afford next year. Much as money is the milk of politics, tithing and offerings keep churches, temples and fellowships operating and doing their work.

 The severe economic slump has gotten church leaders and boards to look seriously at budgets and plans as they gear up or complete fall stewardship campaigns. Not only do they have members whose own wealth and investments have had sharp losses of value, they have congregations where people have been put out of work, have had hours cut or are having to relocate to stay employed. With so many uncertainties in the roller-coaster economy, people of faith are coming to terms about how much faith they have in the economy and how God will see them, and their congregations, through it.

 Tom Breen of the Associated Press this week produced a story called “Churches are looking at hard times.” He talked to faith leaders around the nation to hear what they have to say in this traditional season of harvest. What he found were folks being practical and holding off on some projects, like the new $4 million building that the First Baptist Church in Weston, Fla., planned to erect. But weekly donations at the 2,500-member church have dropped from $40,000 to $36,000. “We want to continue to build, but we don’t want to jeopardize our church ministry,” said the senior pastor, Rob Peters.

Breen writes that many churches are trimming budgets at the same time that the weak economy leaves more families coming to them for help with food, heating bills and gasoline. Churches, in some cases, are striving to maintain their Christian outreach and pulling back on physical improvements or adding staff. Davis Willis, the pastor of Stevens Creek Community Church in Augusta, Ga., said his congregation has a strong tradition of tithing, the biblical mandate to turn over at least 10 percent of personal income to the church for its work. “You would never know that things are taking a nosedive in terms of the economy,” Willis said. “It’s part of the DNA here, so we have seen some consistency even in rough times.

 At St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Charleston, W. Va., the Rev. Richard Mahan abandoned giving a sermon on forgiveness and, instead, he talked about the economy and how the faithful could cope with it. “Everybody’s facing hard times,” he told his flock. “If you are not, you’re going to.”

 Breen pointed to research from the Christian research group, Empty Tomb Inc., where six recessions since 1968 were examined for the impact on giving for faith communities. In three of those periods, giving went up, and in three, it went down. Another group, Giving USA Foundation looked at religion-related charitable giving in 11 recession years since 1968 and found tithing and diving were down in six of them.

 The stewardship director for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Ed Kruse, is calling on leaders of the 4.8 million denomination to focus on donating as a discipline. He cites Matthew 6:21: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.”

Not even what we are thinking can be kept from others. If we have evil thoughts or good thoughts, a machine and authorities will know — and act accordingly.

Correspondent Leslie Stahl interviewed scientists and researchers primarily at Carnegie-Mellon University who have determined that an MRI scan of the human brain can literally determined what someone is thinking at any given moment because of which parts of the brain are active or inactive at each moment. An expensive and powerful magnet, said to be 60,000 stronger than the earth’s magnetic field, was employed in the MRI that was demonstrated. A “60 Minutes” staff person, associate producer Meghan Frank, agreed to be a guinea pig for some instant testing. She lay down and was rolled into the MRI tube where her brain was scanned as she randomly thought about 10 predetermined things — five tools (like a hammer and screwdriver) and five dwellings (igloo or barn). She was given a brief period of time after each item to clear her mind.

Her set of successive brain scans were then put to the test by the computer which had the list of 10 items and had to match them again the scans it had done. One by one, it identified all 10 correctly. Presumably, Frank could have been asked to think of five friends and five enemies, and the MRI could pick them out.

The ramifications are endless. A researcher noted that if he found his car in the driveway had fender damage and both children denied being at fault, the perpetrating teen could be determined with an MRI. The technology goes beyond lie detector tests because he probes mental wave patterns. It was noted that research and application is going faster in other countries, so this technology is going to serve good or ill no matter what happens in the U.S. How far away are we from a dictator having the means to ferret out disloyalty or the thoughts of his subject to have him overthrown? What about the workplace where an employer could retain only those workers thinking positive thought about being there?

The Carnegie-Mellon folks said it may be less than five years that we’ll see this brain scan technology put to practical application in the U.S. Lawsuits will quickly follow to see what is ethical and what are the dangers of just the newest intrusion, which began with DNA testing, corner wall cameras and photo radar along our roadways. The ability to know our brains is a thought we’d like to get out of our heads.