2008, December 11: ” He entered through a door marked no entrance & left through a door marked no exit.”

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December 11 – 17, 2008

“ HE ENTERED THROUGH A DOOR MARKED NO ENTRANCE AND LEFT THROUGH A DOOR MARKED NO EXIT.”

We all spent time across the past months fulfilling OPOTA requirements dealing with victims with disabilities. There were some common tools or practices which were germane to all of them: control the environment, don’t rush things, watch our attitudes, capitalize on the major means of communication and keep eye contact. That latter was critical. It locked us to the person, kept us safe and helped keep the call from going south.

What we may miss is that this is exactly what God was doing at Christmas. In the beginning of the book of John and later in his first letter there is something that is not obvious in the English translation. John writes about the “Word” that became flesh and he says the Word was “with God.” He says it again in the first chapter of the First Letter later on – which he now writes as an old man looking back on what he had seen and heard and even touched. The real translation in both places is not “with God” but was “face to face with God.” Eye contact

He’s talking about something that started at Christmas the time when God made eye contact with us – the “Word became flesh and camped among us.” Advent – these weeks before Christmas – is the time when we discover or rediscover that the event in the fields of Bethlehem was where God made eye contact and now, during these weeks, would make eye contact with you and me.

But it probably won’t be in the “religious” sense of things. It seldom , if ever, has been that way. It certainly wasn’t that night. In all likelihood the shepherds probably were going out for another shift like they had a hundred other nights. They probably told jokes – some of which might have been a little off color- and complained about the one thing or another. Some of the people staying at the inn had probably turned in – beat from the journey – and others would have stayed around talking and griping about politics. There might even have been a few fights for all we know. The Inn Keeper was probably frazzled, somewhere between kissing his good luck for a full house and cursing the problems they were causing. And he probably kept an eye out for crooks, too. But right in the middle of it all God was up to His normal way of doing things in a way no one was expecting. And He did it.

Our carols try to capture it. Especially the old one, “O Come O Come Emanuel.” We probably sang it over the years and certainly hear it occasionally throughout the Christmas season. Yes, it talks about the coming of God – the face to face, eye contact of the Word which became flesh. The music expresses the tone of ancient anticipation. It’s a real prototype of what Advent is supposed to be. But did you ever pay attention to the second verse. It subtly shifts you from Christmas to Easter; from a stable to a cross. That takes some of the softness of the season and puts it back into the realities that are tough. For those of the Christian faith it mocks the narrow focus of “It’s a boy!” and pales the phrase “Happy Holidays.”

 

If you really want digest Christmas then you have to sing the second verse: Easter and you don’t get there on an easy street. The stable and the cross are inseparable. Both are God’s initiative to speak to our days and nights. It is the wedding of two geographic places: Bethlehem where it starts and Jerusalem where it ends … and then begins again in God’s dogged search for you and me. And that has over history been in ways that we would not have anticipated.

 

Peter Larson caught this in his one of his works: “Despite our efforts to keep Him out, God intrudes.” It is “bracketed by two impossibilities: a virgin’s womb and an empty tomb.” He entered our world “through a door marked NO ENTRANCE and left through a door marked NO EXIT.”

 

It addresses our beginning and our end. It is the epitome of hard, cold reality and it’s meant to inform everything in between. Amid all the questions raised over the past year – a year that has daunted many of us – and even this week there is the constant that He will be in it. Amid our uncertainties and fears , the unfairness and failures there is this constant that addresses it all. Emanuel, after all, means God is with us

 

Cops and Christmas have always been a mix up at this time of year. Unless you got off you won’t be with the ones you’d want to be with. You’ll inherit a lot of stuff – from the revelers to the desperate; those who are alone and those who wish they were. You’ll see expectations set too high and unattainable and you’ll see more clearly than most all the others the distance between the beginning and the end in more people’s lives. And…you may get a glimpse of some of it in your own life journey. It’s OK. If there is any message of Christmas – and there are many – it is that God has always done what wasn’t expected. With the entrance and the exit he now promises to do what you don’t expect Him to do —

 

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2008, December 01: Wandering Through the Christmas Season.

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[for the week of Dec. 1 – 7, 2008]

Wandering Through the Christmas Season…

You probably have never heard of Elmer; Elmer Kline. But you know what he did. He managed a bakery over in Indiana and the company had just come up with what, in 1928, was a new product. He was given the job of marketing it and needed to come up with a catchy name. Driving by the Indianapolis Speedway he noticed there was an International Balloon Festival. He stopped and watched. Later, as he wrestled with his marketing task, he described his reaction to watching the launching of those colorful hot-air balloons as “awe and wonderment.” Thus was born “Wonder Bread” and those colorful balloons on the wrapper bear that moment and experience at the Speedway.

Some of us as we wander through the Advent Season of December probably recall the old song, “I wonder as I wander…”   That song may indicate our questions about Christmas… “I wonder…” If so, that’s a revelation of where we’re at with this “Holiday.” Wondering. And that’s OK so long as it’s an honest mile-marker in our journey rather than some kind of cultural, knee-jerk reaction to making sure we don’t hurt somebody’s feelings. It’s a gift that says, “OK, this is where you are. Just don’t stop.” That’s what Advent is for. If, however, you stop there with that wondering you will find that Christmas, eviscerated of its root meaning, will be just another civic occasion. And you’ll find that a Holiday without God soon devolves into nothing more than a Hollow day; just a reminder of something missing. And that hollowness will drive you to wonder about the whole peace and goodwill to everyone stuff

But that old song had nothing to do with wondering about its veracity. When the song was written it used the word “wonder” in its historical denotation: “a cause of astonishment or admiration.” There’s a big difference between wondering about something and being astonished by it. It is the word that captures everything about the angels, shepherds, Mary and Joseph and a whole bunch of others. The good doctor who wrote one of the Gospels used the word “Marveled” at the occasion. As the word went out those who experienced the event, too, were trying to understand it as an exercise in wonder. And they came to see it and write about it as awesome. The human reality, still the same for you and me today, was that they moved from wonder with a small “w” to Wonder with a capital “W.”

The balloons on the Wonder Bread wrapper bear a moment and experience in 1928. The angels, wise men, and shepherds imprinted all over the wrapper of the Christmas Season also bear an awesome moment and experience at Bethlehem. But it covers a different kind of Bread.

Have a wonderful, safe Advent Season and you have been prayed for.

2008, November 25: “Thanks a lot…”

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 “THANKS A LOT…”

Waiting for what I figured was a thoughtful person who would let me cross the lane so I could make the ramp down to training, I was initially pleased that someone might actually be nice enough to let me over. Not.   My immediate response was “Thanks, a lot.“ It was obviously not the connotation my actual words denoted. There was nothing sincere about it.

Pat McMannus, author of numerous books of humor and the outdoors, has written about the best of gifts and worst of gifts and captured something that seems to bulls-eye the celebration of Thanksgiving. One can approach the holiday as either expensive or thoughtful. To paraphrase and apply his principle, the problem with thoughtful is that you must actually think about being thankful. It’s far easier to spend whatever we’re going to spend and get it over with. And, of course, both miss what it’s about and its gift to us. On the other hand you can think about it as more than simply that.

It is precisely the difference between “Thanks a lot” and “Thanks a lot!” Thanksgiving expresses what’s in us and in a sense is a real measure of our temper and who we are at the moment. We determine what it will mean this Thursday based upon what’s most important to us, our character and what the Bible calls our “heart.”

If the bottom line is “what’s in it for me” or dissatisfaction with what you don’t have that you thought you should have gotten, forget it. Just go through the motions and get it over with. Just spend whatever it costs, eat and drink and try to be merry, but don’t complain if it’s hollow. You will have managed to miss what it offered to boost both who you are and what you’re about. And you can just say, “Thanks a lot”

As officers we have a lot to grouse about – and perhaps most of it has nothing to do with what we have much power to control. Between the politics and the mopes it’s really easy to get stuck in a funk. But that’s only the case if those things are the most important things in your life. There are those elements of this profession that allow you to do what no one else gets the chance to do. There are those mundane calls that we handled well that actually made a difference in someone’s safety. There are the elements of this profession that, over the years will allow you to tally up your actions and find you have done far more for those who needed it than any other mere job. This was not just pushing paper. There is the fundamental fact that you are still a part of that necessary stable base that still believes that what‘s right is right and not at all equal to what’s bad. You’ll have those who will cover your back in ways no other profession can offer. You can have spouses and children who knew you stood for what is important and made it happen for those who couldn’t. And when it’s all said and done you will have accomplished more than a dozen political leaders. If, when you finally are finished, you do it right there will be the cream of the best who will say, as our Lord may, “well done, good and faithful servant.” If that’ not enough, you haven’t given it much thought.

Blessed Thanksgiving! But make no mistake about it. The difference between “Thanks a lot” and “Thanks a lot!” is purely a matter of your choice. It depends not, as McMannus wrote, upon how much you spent on the food but whether you gave much thought to it…to who you are… to those who make you better than you might be and about what’s really important. Choose well, stay safe and you have been prayed for.

2008, Novemeber 05: Society that Mourns for what it has Lost..But is not Allowed to Cry for it.

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 [For November 5 – 10, 2008]

SOCIETY THAT MOURNS FOR WHAT IT HAS LOST …BUT IS NOT ALLOWED TO CRY FOR IT

The key leader of the Church of England recently wrote that his country was suffering from Cultural Bereavement. That is, the world and culture of that country – its values, heritage, faith, language, etc., – has changed so much that it is no longer connected to its history. The inevitable result is that the people who have watched it change find themselves missing something but are subtly intimidated to not acknowledge it. But they feel it. Those changes result in a dis-connect about which it is politically incorrect to address. The reality, of course, is that it is there nevertheless.   It was eloquently illustrated last week in a conversation I had at a dinner meeting with a lady from England. She explained, unapologetically, how the people in England avoid flying or displaying their flag because it would make other people feel unwelcome and not a part of what some academicians have called “The Hive.” The hive is a place where each bee only exists for the survival of the membership.

The Archbishop of Canterbury understood it. And it certainly relates to the cop job. The ten year study by Scotland Yard – released just last year – was more than disconcerting and it has left that country and its criminal justice system increasingly in disarray. It is becoming impotent to address the safety of its people – particularly the elderly. Armed assaults on officers are up 400% and armed assaults on citizens are up 200%. And that is in a country that declared its populace pretty much gun free ten years ago. And to make things worse the same policies were pushed in its former colony, Australia, with the same results. Objective reality apparently has nothing to do with idealists who push their power on the populace. One study indicated London is now 6 times more dangerous than New York City. Something has definitely changed . But this Signal 1 is not about gun control. It is about something much more foundational. It is about a culture adrift from its moorings.

One English prison psychiatrist wrote, the elderly, particularly in the villages, have quit reporting the burglaries which occur even while they are home because the system which, by social contract, is supposed to protect them, does not. If they testify in court they are preyed upon in the aftermath by the accused, must not defend their homes at risk of prosecution, and are told this is the function of police and the government. So their desperation increases and they feel something’s not quite right. It isn’t. And the revealing question for you is why you haven’t heard about it.

Cultural bereavement is not a fiction. It’s the proverbial elephant in the living room which no one is allowed to admit. And if you follow the nerve endings back it eventually revolves around what a culture thinks about God – or not. A recent poll (random sample size 3,000) in England revealed that most of the younger generation did not believe that Winston Churchill really existed (nor Florence Nightingale or Gandhi) but they did believe Sherlock Holmes was a real person. It’s not hard to guess what they think about God or their society and its central values.

When a culture strays far from it historical “script” it becomes less and less recognizable and our own disconnect likely began back in the early 1970’s. The head of the English department at Kent State, on one of our weekly programs, indicated we were witnessing the first a-historical generation ever in the United States. And another generation, built on even less a foundation, has succeeded it. Think about what has been lost: A generation that basically doesn’t know who the good Samaritan was or what Hitler did. Small wonder that civility, treatment and understanding of law enforcement roles are lost on increasing numbers. And it’s cops, who are facing the roughest of uncivil behaviors (sanitized by the time they get to the courts and juries) that are often most aware of it. Something is not right about all this. Something’s missing.

And nothing has yet replaced it. Any culture or politic in disconnect must seek a new philosophy or religious base to provide meaning for its continued existence. It is no accident that the Judeo-Christian world view and its values are eroded from the process. But no one has stepped forth to replace it – only dismiss it.

It is in that world that you and I find ourselves. It is in that world that law enforcement finds itself, too. There is a phrase in the Bible that indicates one cannot live on just bread. Slowly the system, the organs, will starve from malnutrition. As cops you and I are going to be caught in the middle of all this because you will have to enforce laws which are losing their rationale in an ignorant populace. And our profession will struggle with it. Just sit back and watch.

If, along the way, you find yourself hungry as well as bereaved there is still the nourishment that built and continually reformed this nation. When you get hungry enough you can always come to the table for the authentic soul food. Or eventually starve.

Stay safe, keep your mind and heart vigilant and you have been prayed for.

2008, October 27: Clockwatchers.

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for 10/27-31/08

CLOCKWATCHERS

Just for a second imagine you wanted to be recruited for the next academy. Would that be how you described yourself in the interviews? Or, would you put it on your resume? And, if that was in bold print on your evaluations would that give you an edge on the promotion list? Hardly! It indicates someone who wants the most he can get and do the least to get it.

Clock-watchers have given us and the term a bad rap because we all do it in contexts that don’t reflect that at all. Time is critical. In medicine or health it’s the difference between life and death. It’s what measures your benefits and relative security on your job and certainly retirement. It’s how you use it that defines who and what you are.

In the old House of Representatives building there was a clock up on the wall – certainly to measure the length of hot winded politicians. BUT, that clock sat in a statue of a chariot driven by the goddess Cleo – the goddess of history. In her hands was a book. Every time a congressman looked at the clock he was reminded of the bigger dimension of that moment; that it wasn’t about himself. He was just a part of a bigger story and he had obligations. There was honor that checked self absorption. And, if he didn’t want to pay the cost he wasn’t fit for duty. Today, as the historian David McCullough writes, congress looks up and all they see are cameras. Perhaps it’s significant that Congress no longer meets in that room – it’s been relegated to some other function.

That speaks more loudly than words about how things have changed. Today, it’s all about NOW and whose group gets the power. It’s at best only remotely connected to the past and there is no sense of a bigger picture. Put that against a general dumbing down of both our language and history (the principle vehicle of culture – whatever that’s going to be) and you and the story is up for grabs. It was Jefferson who said any generation that expects to be ignorant and free never was and never can be.

You and I only live in the present but it’s how we are connected to the bigger picture – the story – that determines what we are going to be in the future. If anybody who gets power can rewrite the script the end of the story may well be different than what the author or authors had in mind.

If that’s true of politics then it is even more the case for our beliefs, our core values, our faith. There is another book and it sits not in the hands of the goddess of history. It’s pictured in the hands of God – the God who writes in permanent ink. Both Judaism and Christianity place it smack dab in the context of how we live. One at Yom Kippur and the other at end time. Both focus on where you fit in and how you did that. Not by accident both call it the book of life.

The next time you look at your clock, what is it really telling you? Stay safe and you have been prayed for.

 

2008, October 18: It’s Taking Off.

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[For the week of Oct. 13, 2008]

IT’S TAKING OFF…

This is a very different Signal 1. Things are happening with the Chaplaincy Center which began last July 14th when about 20 APD and SCO Deputies literally gutted the first floor of the Furnace Street Mission. I mean, walls and all! Out of the terribly long anxiety experienced by 5 deputies and their families resulting from the McCaullah case, we began a series of meetings which provided support across that difficult year. It took place at the Mission which is located front of the Victim Assistance building and was a direct function of the chaplaincy. We recognized that while there are all kinds of places for citizens who have needs there is no safe place for officers and their families.

So began the idea of a “Cop Center” for all safety officers – a project that may well become a model used to help officers across the country.   As we studied our profession, we saw that we are 30% more likely to experience health problems, 300% more likely to have domestic problems, 500% more likely have problems with alcohol, 600% more likely to experience anxiety and 1000% more likely to end up depressed than those in the general population. We won’t even go near suicide.

And we really can’t use traditional means of help because it can work against us in our profession, will cause problems relative to confidentiality/recognition among fellow officers as well as on the streets and even add problems should we ever face litigation.

Thus the idea for the Center was born and it is taking off. Here’s what’s going on.

As a few of our officers know, we have had debriefings in very inhospitable places – the 6th floor conference room where discipline meetings are held and even the conference room on third floor. If an officer is having difficulties at home or has a problem with alcohol, public services are not really helpful when you sit next to two people you booked at one time or another and will likely see again on the street or in court. Hence, we are actively initiating a place for all safety officers to obtain confidential help – totally off the record, totally neutral, no fit-for duty, etc.

GPD, the architects who donated the Eternal Flame, have donated the entire plans to remake both the first floor of the building and the chapel. We have received a grant and a number of contributions underwriting the first phase of the center and will be starting the initial work very shortly on the building and entrance before the snow flies.

Last week Russ and Barb Long, Frank Martucci, Major Hall and I presented our case to the board of the Blue Coats insisting that we are not asking for charity but rather want this to be a debt — what the community owes toward the price of keeping them safe. We have cleared the building department and are applying for the reconstruction permits. On Oct. 13th we submitted an application for United Way‘s special Development Funds to provide domestic incident early intervention, alcoholics anonymous groups for safety officers only, groups for officers, their significant others and children across the long weeks when administrative actions are taking place – for example, after lethal force situations, and for officers’ significant others who manage stresses unique to our profession. This is a very unique application which is being reviewed by United Way and to our knowledge a first ever kind of request – the response to which we will keep you appraised.

The center will have four functions. Confidential, law enforcement friendly assistance providing:

1. Support – Since the number one precursor for PTSD is interruption of a one’s core values, pastoral chaplaincy and spiritual assistance (including hospital visits, marriages and funerals for those who have no church home) are seen as critical. The center will also serve as a vital vehicle for material and emergency financial assistance to officers by expanding its emergency fund supported by tax-free contributions. Some of our people already know that this has been helpful across tough times and we can see this growing to be a true means of helping our brothers and sisters in time of great stress and need.

2. Counseling – Debriefings, A.A., early intervention in marriage/domestic issues, retirement, assistance for police related stressors, support groups including officers’ spouses, etc. This will also add support for officers’ spouses and children during the difficult and extended period of time inherited after use of force incidents which impact both the safety and sanctity of the officer’s families

3. Education – Community education about the law enforcement profession and issues, Law enforcement training revolving around crisis intervention, domestic violence, stress and spirituality, publications, training and the interface with higher education/professional organizations, Chaplaincy training, licensing and development

4. Law Enforcement Advocacy – In a society increasingly dominated by interest groups, law enforcement is the least represented with a vehicle to interpret to the community the unique issues associated with the profession and address community ignorance of our roles.

The Chaplaincy Center appears to be a unique project that may well become a model for other communities across the nation to reach out and support those who provide the safety and security necessary and without which a community cannot prosper. Most of all, it is to be a visible payment on a debt owed. It will be, as it has been thus far, off paper, confidential and provided at no cost to any officer or family. And no safety officer in this county will be turned away.

Matthew 5:9 in the Bible reads, “Blessed are the peace makers.” We plan to some give some meaning to that verse — and when it counts the most. So, now you know what’s going on. Stay safe and you have been prayed for.

2008, October 3: When a Cop Checks Out for Good.

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 [For Oct. 3 – 10, 2008]

WHEN A COP CHECKS OUT FOR GOOD

From the cruiser he keyed up the mike and screamed, “You all have F’d me over. Now F you.” And then every cruiser and dispatch heard the shot. This is a true story but not from any department in our area.

If you are in the blue long enough you are going to run into things that will cut to the heart. The hardest and most daunting will not come from the streets or from the administrative aspects of your job. They will come from the loss of the strongest and best – those whose work becomes the stories that cross generations; those who become the statistics of our profession. And these always, always, leave emotional and spiritual debris for the living to clean up.

Signal 1 is, at heart, about the stuff you may not see or consider in the busy-ness of your everyday life; until, that is, it will inevitably be interrupted. Instead, it connects to the stuff that either adds to your life or drains it dry. For instance, current research indicates that the number 1 precursor of PTSD is fundamentally spiritual – the interruption of your core values. That is, what you believe about life, God, the universe, your relation to it, relationship and trust, justice and fairness. Tank these and you are in trouble – unless you think you are the exception. There are mounds of solid social science research that indicate the same thing. It’s solid. So, we ignore these at our own detriment and loss of quality in life – and occasionally, life itself where more than anywhere else we are dragged back to the issues of faith, spirituality and connection. It is the absence of these which creates the vacuum of the dark night of the soul.

When that happens to someone we know and have worked with over the decades it is going to bite hard. It may be anticipated and then the shoe drops or it can come right out of the blue! But there are three things which, each year, push more cops to use their service pistols on themselves (not their off duty firearms, by the way) than the perps claim on the streets. Here they are: 1) Hopelessness, 2) Helplessness and 3) Uselessness. When you pull the handle on life’s “One arm Bandit” and these three come up on the wheel you don’t win anything. You lose the greatest gift God has given and literally lose it all. While it is a sinful use of the most precious thing you can have, it is fundamentally a waste of the stewardship God has entrusted; it is when the demons have won.

It is certainly more complicated than can be related in a few paragraphs and there are no OPOTA SPOs to give us a heads up about the demons which lurk in either our own lives or those of our brother and sister officers. But those three elements, hopelessness, helplessness and uselessness, give us a good starting point to acknowledge and act to fix at least one of the three. I can tell you from personal experience that while we cannot forget those we have lost, we must remember there are officers who work among us who are silent testimony to brother and sister officers who cared enough to fix at least one of the three. More than you and I can know. And that should ease the pain we carry for those we trust to the care and mercy of our God who better understands the dark night of the soul. For His thoughts are not as our thoughts.

2008, September 25: The Difference Between a Wish & a Promise.

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September 25, 2008

The difference between a wish and a promise?

Think for a minute about something you really wished for…and then never got!

My early ticket to individual freedom was my bike. The buds and I could get out on our own (a lot further than I would let any kid of mine today). Directly connected to that early substitute for a car was exotic aftermarket (a term which didn’t exist then) attachments – beyond the clothes pins and cardboard noise makers. So it is that to this day I remember my dad promising me a surprise when he got home from work. I spent the day just knowing it was going to be the speedometer for my bike. As the afternoon wore on I was sure it was going to happen, managing by denial the chance that it might not . He drove in the drive, got out… and must have been pretty hurt when I found it was something else. My wish was not connected to his promise.

Most all of us have wishes in the cop job. Early ones were granted when we were accepted, went through the academy, passed OPOTA, got our first street assignments. Some of us may have even felt getting paid for this was secondary – for a few short weeks. With time came the adjustments. Promotions for which we studied, took a shot at and ended a little down the list. If we were on the short list, we waited, with torture, to see if someone (or enough officers) would retire and we would get it before the list ran out!

If you really wished people were basically good, how long did it take you to adjust that particular belief? If you wished people would be basically reasonable and didn’t change that view you probably shouldn’t work the streets – for your safety and that of your partner’s.

Some of us who had high wishes for our first, second or, even, third relationship entered them in a manner St. Paul would call “unadvisedly.” And we found our wish dashed. Our kids, for whom we had such high hopes, took off in other directions and our wishes had to be adjusted with pain.

As I wrestle with such things I have discovered that disenchantment was the result of limp hopes. They were based upon nothing that was promised and I had deceived myself.

When one talks about hope in religion it’s very often nothing more than wishes rather than substance. If you’re still back at the Sunday school level or looking at it from the outside then it’s not surpising that it has left you unimpressed. Experience is based upon thought, trial and, often, error. But hope needs to have guidance or it will leave you confused as to what you ought to expect. Uninformed faith is not faith at all – only a bunch of wishes which float us down the river of disillusion. One could always say chuck it all. But empty people shrivel up and go down that river faster and farther. They end up breathing but they’re not alive.

If your idea of has been beat up along the way it’s a good bet it will detract from your hope in eternal things. Maybe it’s time to chuck the wishes and recognize God made promises. One thing’s for sure, you’ll be empty or full in life proportionate to that trip

2008, January 01: “Ya Think?”

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[For New Year week, 2008]

“YA THINK?”

WHAT A PERSON THINKS IN HIS HEART, HE WILL BE

NCIS is one of the few things we have come to enjoy on TV. Mark Harmon (son of the well known football coach, Tom Harmon) has a way of saying things, one of which is “Ya think?” It’s usually heralded right after something very obvious. And now it’s creeping into ads and even our own phrases. There a lot more to that than “Ya might think” and the New Year is a solid, just right time to consider it.

There is a verse in the Good Book where the Lord says, what a person thinks in his heart is who and what he or she is. It took psychology a long time to pick up on it but today it’s one of the most common and effective therapies.

As we head into the New Year consider what might be called a couple “pin drop moments” to see if some of the political/social/media themes have infused a part of your thought processes.

When in England , at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by the President. He answered by saying, ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.’
You could have heard a pin drop.

Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane.  At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on.  “You have been to France before, monsieur?” the customs officer asked sarcastically.  Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. “Then you should know enough to have your passport ready!” The American said, ”The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.” “Impossible! Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in France !” The old man gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, ”Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find anyone to check it.”
You could have heard a pin drop.

There was a conference on the continent in which a number of international engineers were taking part, including those from Germany, Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, France and America. During a break, one of the European engineers came back into the room saying,  “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done?  He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?”
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. How many did your country send?”
You could have heard a pin drop.

Most of the chatter we hear today is on par with the mentality shown in those “pin drop moments” above. Those perceptions are not just about police but are also antithetical to the principles upon which our profession is based. They are perceptions too often fueled by willful ignorance and malice which in any other context would be considered bigotry. Few lines are ever written about the real and positive impact you have and certainly not about its impact upon you and your loved ones.

Most damning is the propensity we have to absorb the mindset as our own cynicism sets in. The New Year is a great moment to do a reality check and make certain our vision is not clouded by those perceptions organized, propagated and reinforced by the carriers of information and the attitudes which are capitalized upon for various agendas. If we come to believe it, we will be as wrong as they. If we lose sight of our Real Reason for being and doing, we’ll be as blind as they and more than ever at their mercy.

There is sound psychology in the Lord’s statement – as a person thinks in his heart, that is who and what he or she is. Who and what are we? New Year is a time for inventory before resolutions. So as Midnight, January First ticks past you can choose to sing a mental Auld Lang Syne or make a fresh start. At the end of the Bible there is this comment from God: “Behold, I make all things new.”

Ya Think?

Stay safe and you have been prayed for.

2006, December 04: Signs of the Times

/in , /by

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

I spent most of last week in board meetings in Washington, D.C. Driving down one street, as Christmas approaches, I noticed what initially appeared to be simple directions and market ploys. But try and read between the lines and see where they lead you.

One sidewalk board proclaimed “Free to be Fierce – The Next U.S. Top Model.” Not a great prospect for a partner or mother and a tough sister to grow up with. There’s nothing like a person who gets the spotlight but who is free from boundaries.

“Please Give” came next, as if it was created to nullify the values of the fierce self-centeredness often glitzed as success. “National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial” and then “Arlington Cemetery” bore the history of those who died for something greater than themselves.

“Pentagon Parking” led you to the bastion of world military might – but not sufficient to produce real peace.

Valet Parking at the Inn” was a real thought-jerker! Imagine reading that as you rode into Bethlehem.

“Enough to make even die hard agnostics believe, at least for a moment, in the mystical powers of drama.”   This may be the most revealing of all if you read between the lines. Failing all else, drama will fill the vagaries of a country and its people that do not know what to believe. G. K. Chesterton wrote a long time back that when people cease to believe in God, they do not believe in nothing. They will believe anything. But even the mystical power of drama will distract only for a few moments and agnostics know it.

Christmas catches us at a time when we are to believe and endorse everything lest we be thought of as politically incorrect. And this may well be a sign of the vacuum in which many of us live – a vacuum that will not remain friendly, by the way, to law enforcement.

As we approach Christmas there was another sign. It was not printed on billboards; it was delivered in person. Most people missed it. It was told not to theologians or the religiously righteous but, rather, to people on the midnight shift: “Let this be a sign to you…”

Across the next few weeks we will follow all kinds of signs. Only one will lead to Bethlehem and this is one for which services cannot give you the cross streets. Watch where you’re going and don’t miss the sign.

Stay safe and you have been prayed for.