A Week With 71 Foster Children, Part II

By in Parenting Tags:

 

There are two older couples at Royal Family Kids Camp. They are the camp “Grandmas and Grandpas.” Because many of these children, given they have no parents, have no grandparents. And as many of you know, grandparents can be a very good thing for children.

I wouldn’t be who I am today without the remarkable influence of my grandparents.

So, one of the camp activities includes grandma and grandpa time. We take our kids into a room — 10 of them, just boys. We sit on chairs in a semi-circle. We are facing the two couples, the “grandparents.” They are in front of a fireplace. They are older and married.

The kids are squeamish, as always. The grandparents introduce themselves, not as “Bob” or “Mary,” or “Mr. Thomson” and “Mrs. Thompson,” but as “Grandpa Bob” and “Grandma Mary.”

As they speak, you can see that the objective is to model kindness, calm, wisdom — something these children see little of.

They gently, with such calm and patience and eye contact and all that good modeling, ask the children to listen. I’m inside so I can’t wear my sunglasses but tears stream down my face because I’m sure these children have never experienced anything like this; they act out, and these older authority figures gently steer them in the right direction.

I hate that sometimes that I can be so emotional. I got it from my maternal grandfather, my Nonno. He was strong and gruff and full of life, and he cried whenever the circumstances warranted it.

You could see the children being tamed.

One of the grandmas begins to read them a story. She sits and reads and shows them the pictures. It’s a story about a boy who grew up a slave in the Deep South. His name was Denver. And later ran away to a big city. He became homeless. He was illiterate. He had no family.

He became angry because he “wasn’t like the other people.”

Grandma gently told the children, with poise and grace, how sadness can turn to anger when life is hard. All implication, no sermon, nothing about their respective circumstances.

The 20 eyes fixed on grandma with each word.

The story ends with a couple reaching out to Denver. They teach him to read. They love him. He becomes a responsible and respectful member of society because he chooses to not let sadness and anger rule him. He starts an outreach to the homeless. He is honored in the White House by President Obama.

And the moral of the book is about how we are all uniquely different, and nobody is better than someone else.

One of the grandpas takes out his Taylor guitar. He sings a cheesy song about a father’s love. I’m cringing a bit; the kids aren’t. I keep thinking about how these kids live on video games and smartphones and here are these four old people singing this cheesy song and how it’s not relevant.

Apparently, it was. Because they are paying full attention.

The song ends. Then the grandpa says, “I’ve never known my dad. I never met him. I don’t know his name or what he looks like.”

I cry some more.

Four hands are raised. He calls on one of the boys.

“Me too.”

The I hear three others say “me too.”

One says, “I know my father’s name. His name is Richard. And I have a picture of him. But I’ve never met him.”

The grandpa who doesn’t know his father then talks with such precision and grace about how God is a father that will never let us down.

One boy talks about how parents can let us down but “if you trust in God he never leaves us.”

I don’t even know how the Grandparent time ended. But after it did, one of the camp photographers (there are a few of them) asked the boys if they wanted to have a picture taken with “your new grandparents.” The cynic in me (I’m sorry to admit this) immediately said, “These cool, hardened, customers are not going to want a picture taken with these old, white, folks.”

One of the grandmas pointed to me as a mob rushed to be first in line to help navigate the photo session. I had to find a way to back them up so the shoot can begin.

One after one, the boys sat on a chair, with each grandparent couple to his left and right.

The smiles of the boys. We can’t show pictures of them. But those smiles.

They will never leave my heart.

My Week With 71 Foster Children – Part I

By in Parenting, Religion Tags: ,

 

I am at a one week camp for foster children. It’s called Royal Family Kids Camp. The organization has a contract with Child Protective Services, in 40 states. Some of the children are orphans; others simply have no parent that wants them. Or, the parent or parents are in jail. Every single one of the children has experienced abuse or neglect, or both.

Every one of them has experience abandonment of both birth parents.

The idea of “Royal” is to, for a week, treat these children like royalty. So, for example, the busses that transported them weren’t those cheap, yellow, school buses — they were those chartered versions, the kinds professional sports teams hire.

I arrived on Sunday. The children arrived yesterday, one bus for the girls, one for the boys. They are between 6 and 12 years old. The 100 plus volunteers greeted them with cheers and signs, each with the name of a child. This is my first camp, but many of the volunteers have done this since the 1990’s.

It was hot. We are at this beautiful site in Southern California. Pine trees and Aspens and Oaks and an amazing swimming pool and archery and a woodshop and tea parties and, on Thursday, a “Birthday Party.”

Some of the children have never had a birthday party.

I’m glad I have sunglasses because we are outside much of the time. And, at 4,000 feet, it’s sunny all day long.

And, they disguise my tears, which began yesterday when the children got off the busses. To the cheers. More than tears — crying.

I cried for the entire 20-minute ceremony. I cried all day long.

You could feel love. And the boy that didn’t simile or high-five the counselors wearing the “True Religion” t-shirt. Old shoes and old clothes and old suitcases (some only had bags) and the reality that life is not fair — these precious children are victims, innocent, in need of love and acceptance.

I want to write more about the one sitting down during sports, looking at the ground, saying “I’m sad and I don’t know why.” His shoes were off. He had multiple holes in his socks.

The one who kept running away last night. As soon as a counselor turned his back, he’d sprint into the darkness. It took hours to get him to finally fall asleep.

He told me, “I’m a bad person.”

The 11-year old I taught to swim. He kept saying, “Please don’t leave me!” He stammered. During dinner, he kept telling people, “I know how to swim!”

Children are innocent, always. Abused and neglected children, the most innocent.

I have a feeling I might spend the rest of my life finding a way to bring more hope to them.

I Didn’t Run To Open Any Doors; I Ran To Knock Some Down

By in Politics, Uncategorized Tags: ,

 

Before I ran for Congress I would write freely. I called it “Freewriting.” You write whatever comes to mind.

But I stopped because you have to be more cautious when you’re a running for office.

I’m no longer running for office, so…

That lady with the fake Rolex at 11 o’clock. To my left. Eleven o’clock is always to your left. Left of 12. She’s outside the window — the window to my left. I know it’s fake because I can see it ticking. A real Rolex won’t tick; the second hand does all these really tiny ticks, so much that it looks like it’s just gliding.

The man with gray sweatshirt black shorts black shoes black sunglasses.The Volvo keys to the right of this computer. On the brown table.

I am at Kéan.

I care more about abused and neglected children than I do almost anything else.

Red head kid.

Few works of art move me as much as Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye. I used to feel bad that I loved complex dramas or even disturbing dramas like Shine or Midnight Express or Schindler’s List so much. Then as I studied more about Enneagram Fives and INTPs it started making more sense.

I just don’t even get how Salinger — in the 1940s — could write something so honest and raw and lacking in pretention.

The pen is without question more powerful than the sword.

That election. Opened so many doors. I didn’t run to open any doors; I ran to knock some down.

I will post this but I’m always a bit nervous that people will think it’s weird. That my writing is weird. That my thoughts are weird.

That I’m weird.

I think my wandering thoughts are like those of most people.

Nobody is more creative than somebody else. We are all equally creative.

Just some people are willing to put their art and thoughts and voices and inventions out there. They are willing to be criticized.

I’ve been criticized since I started my blog almost three years ago. I’ve been praised since I started my blog almost three years ago.

That’s probably the biggest and saddest thing I learned during my run. If you are a politician half the country will hate you. We live in the weirdest times where literally Republicans hate Democrats and Democrats hate Republicans.

But the Republicans are way worse than the Democrats.

I prefer warm coffee to hot coffee.

I prefer cream and sugar. Whole milk and sugar. Never ever non-fat milk because it makes the coffee look dirty and doesn’t even alter the taste.

Millions mourned when Stalin died even though he murdered tens of millions. Weird how thug autocrats can be lauded by so many. I think it could be happening again, this time in the USA.

No such thing as being non-political.

No such thing as being non-religious.

Ooooh, that lady has those new shoes. Those super trendy trainers. They say the most comfortable shoes in the world. Air buds or Airwalks or something like that.

I’m obsessed with shoes but you’d never know it. I think about buying new shoes every day. I go online and salivate but I rarely buy any. Running shoes are my weak spot. I hate Nikes. I love New Balance. It’s weird that Adidas and Puma were started by two brothers who went separate ways. Adolph stared Adidas; Rudolph started Puma.

Mostly what caused their split was Rudolph’s greater affinity for Nazism.

I heard that the lady that made the Nike swoosh stipe was paid like sixteen bucks by Phil Knight way in the beginning. He later gave her stocks for it. So kind of him.

Steve job relished in not giving a dime to the early founders of Apple. I don’t get it. I think Steve Wozniak was really disturbed about it once they went public and all these guys became instant multi-millionaires. Woz went to Jobs and said they should both match each other in giving at least some stock to the employees. Jobs said something like, “Perfect I’ll put in zero and you put in zero.”

I had a dream a few months ago. I was piloting a small airplane. I was scared. I was on the runway. I pushed the lever forward. I don’t know if there’s a lever and, if there is one, whether you push it forward. On a car, you pull the lever backward. You pull it back into drive. But it seemed natural that when piloting an airplane that you’d push the lever forward.

Why is that?

Fast, faster, heart beating. It is quiet. When I used to travel a lot I would fly business class and sometimes first class. It’s quieter in the front of the plane. You don’t hear the friction from the air against the wings.

The plane slowly starts to lift off the ground. My heart pounds.

Then, a song I haven’t heard on decades jumps into my head.

Up Up And Away in my beautiful balloon. Up Up And Away in my beautiful balloon. 

Heartbeats harder and faster.

Wake up in a panic with that song. Attached to my brain.

Then I think about the mind/body problem.* Somehow that tune had been embedded somewhere in the carbon of my brain — the actual meat in my skull — for decades.

How can that combination of lyrics and melody and rhythm — things that are nonphysical — be stuck to a brain, something physical?

 

*  The problem, in short, is about how something non-physical (will, decision, love, deliberation, choice) — the mind or soul — can interact with a purely physical brain. How could something non-physical cause something physical, to move? You can geek out a learn more about it here.

I Didn’t Win — But I’m Certain I Did

By in Religion Tags: ,

 

There’s so much I want to write about my first run for public office. And I do plan to write more in the weeks ahead.

But for now…

I ran in one of the most competitive congressional races in the county. Most of the candidates were talented and very well funded. Dana Rohrabacher is a Washinton career politician incumbent with 30 years in office. The other leading Republican, a former Assemblyman who headed the Orange County GOP for ten years. The leading Democrats, multimillionaires that largely self-funded their campaigns.

I will not be on the November ballot against Rohrabacher. But I am so grateful, nonetheless.

Never did I come close to imagining I’d be supported by living heroes like Bill Browder and Garry Kasparov. (If you don’t know who these great men are, please learn more — they put their lives on the line daily for liberty and human rights around the world.)

Never did I think I’d meet one of my political mentors, Governor John Kasich.

Never did I imagine interacting with the most brilliant minds in GOP politics — strategists to U.S. Presidents, men and women I’ve admired for decades. People with heart and compassion.

Never did I imagine such selfless and gifted volunteers who would give hundreds of hours to this altruistic campaign, which had no paid staff.

Cheri Jacobus and Travis Greene, I could never thank you enough.

Never did I imagine I’d make what I’m certain will be lifelong friends — people across the country that I respect so deeply.

I found my tribe. I can’t wait to help build a better America and world with them.

We formally launched the campaign in January. I ran on conviction alone. I purchased no polls. I ran on issues that I felt were most important to the fabric of our great nation. I didn’t feel right about putting money ahead of ideas.

I realized then and realize now that much of what I did was not strategic.

Nonetheless, never in my wildest imagination did I think I’d receive national media attention from MSNBC, Forbes, NPR, The Daily Beast, NBC, The Atlantic, The Observer, CNN, The American Interest and the LA Times.

As an aside, every journalist I spoke with, even those working for the “liberal” outlets, were kind, professional, and reported with 100% accuracy and fairness.

Having no experience with public office, I entered this race for only one reason: I felt it my duty. As I lifelong Republican I could not accept what was happening to my party. As a patriotic American, I could not accept what was happening to our country.

Most of all — as a person of faith who has given most of his life working to relieve physical, emotional and spiritual suffering — I could not accept the increasing cultural divisions based on issues of race, gender, religion, and ethnicity.

I knew we could do better; I was idealistic enough to believe I could help.

I still am.

In the weeks ahead I will consider next steps. As I’ve said many times, I will not stop until justice is served and Rohrabacher is removed from office for his unwavering support of Vladimir Putin, and his efforts to deny the torture and murder of Sergei Magnitsky.

And as I’ve said hundreds of times, no single party should care more about issues concerning human rights, civil rights, social justice, gun safety and the environment.

Issues of human dignity should be universal to all political parties in The United States of America.

I want to help reform the Republican Party, working, if you will, as an interventionist. Party leadership has lost its nerve. Ethics and morals have become peripheral to a party that once prided itself on virtue, character, integrity.

Last year, in our “testing the waters” phase, I wrote about the beautiful relationship between Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democrat House Speaker Tip O’Neil. These men were as far apart ideologically as possible, yet they put the good of the country first.

They became “frenemies” — they worked to bring the country together. Reagan’s leadership should be a sober reminder to those Republicans who have been sucked into the Trump cult — a cult that will soon see its end.

Finally, I’ve received dozens of encouraging messages via email, text, and social media. They are still coming in. Some have come from Republicans, others from Democrats. I copy a few below.

These messages, in addition to the love and support from so many of your, mean the world to me.

In the end, I didn’t win.

But I’m certain that I did.

____

“Please never leave public discourse. Your voice is needed.”

“I mean this—I would have voted for Paul over a good number of the Dems in the race. He has a rare sincerity and integrity. That stuff matters.”

“Mr. Martin I am a Democrat who wanted to let you know that I didn’t vote for you, but did campaign for you amongst my Republican friends.  You are a man of integrity, and although we may have different values I have so much respect for you.  I hope you are the future of your party.”

“Proud of the campaign that you ran, and the values and commitment that you brought to the race.  Regardless of the vote tally, you made a huge impact .”

“We need more people like you running for office. Thank you for stepping up. Please don’t stop. When the R’s and D’s become more like you, America will be better, safer, and prosperous in ways that matter way more than just money.”

“This Democrat wishes you the best of luck.” 

 

Franklin Graham’s Cult Crusade

By in Politics, Religion, Spirituality Tags: , ,

 

 

Franklin Graham is in California. He’s in the middle of “a series of one-day prayer and evangelism events” that he calls the Decision America Tour.

Don’t be deceived. These are pro-Trump right-wing political rallies.

Sure, Graham encourages his flock to make a decision for Christ.

And then he encourages decisions for right-wing-Trump-supporting candidates.

Graham’s website says exactly nothing about his political scheme. But in a New York Times interview, one of his board members was clear about the purpose of the “Decision America Tour”: “Only as we change the heart of the people of California can California go red again.”

I don’t write this merely as the lifelong Republican that I am. The one who voted for Ronald Reagan twice, who is running as a centrist against 15-term GOP incumbent, Dana Rohrabacher.

I’m writing as a devout follower of Jesus Christ. As one with decades of leadership in Christian ministry. As one with undergraduate and graduate degrees in philosophical theology, the later degree from one of our country’s most conservative evangelical seminaries.

To believe that by changing “the heart of the people” you will end up with the likes of Trump, Steve Bannon, Dana Rohrabacher, Roy Moore — what gospel is Graham trying to bring about?

He encourages decisions to accept Jesus at the events.

Then he encourages decisions to vote for pro-Trump Republicans.

And this Christian wonders, which Jesus?

Graham recently told the New York Times, “People say that the president says mean things. I can’t think of anything mean he’s said.”

Franklin Graham, one of America’s most recognized Christian leaders, cannot think of anything mean Donald Trump has said.

A cult member will never speak negatively of his leader.

Billy Graham knew better than getting sucked into extremism, whether it be political, or theological. He held that Muslims and even atheists could be part of the Body of Christ. Franklin called Islam “a very wicked and evil religion.”

After Trump’s attempt at a Muslim ban, I launched a peacebuilding campaign, The Christian-Muslim Alliance. Religions are never wicked or evil. Only people are.

Franklin Graham has built his career on a religious brand very different from his father’s — one unrecognizable to millions of faithful Christians. Years of bigoted statements on immigrants, Muslims, gays, and Black Lives Matter culminated in Franklin’s enthusiastic embrace of Donald Trump. Like my opponent, Dana Rohrabacher, Graham has been unconcerned by endorsements Trump received by the KKK, his collusion with foreign enemies, or his racist rants.

In Pasadena, at the start of the crusade, Graham spoke to fellow evangelists, pastors, and top Los Angeles donors: “Progressive?” he went on, “That’s just another word for godless.”

Most of the progressives I know are passionate about fighting for human rights, and civil rights, and social justice. Graham believes they are “godless.”

Trump supporters like Graham say nothing about the over 15 women who have accused Trump of sexual abuse. Nothing about him calling Neo-Nazi’s “good people.” Nothing about him pardoning a racist Sheriff. Nothing about him bragging about sexually assaulting women.

Franklin Graham brings an entirely new meaning to the word godless.

Promoting Trump and his lackeys at the Decision America Tour is a far cry from Christian ministry. It’s anti-Christian. To encourage Christians to vote for the Trump-Bannon-Moore-Rohrabacher wing of the GOP is to encourage them to vote for racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and patent lying in their leaders.

Trump has started the race war that I predicted, in 2016, he would start. I wish I would have been wrong.

I keep hearing bigotry coming from Trump and his supporters. Racist and sexist and xenophobic and crude speech. Then, when the comments hit the headlines, the silence — the ensuing deafening silence by many of Christian brothers and sisters, many who are Republicans, MANY WHO ARE CHRISTIAN LEADERS.

Elie Weisel: Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

In 1949, Billy Graham’s California crusade helped cement his place as a national icon for evangelicals. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was created as a vehicle to proclaim the love and transformative power of Jesus Christ. His son Franklin is in California to undo Billy Graham’s fine work. He is using the same organization as a political wing of the Trump Cult, promoting candidates who, like my opponent Rohrabacher, support a sexual predator, serial liar, and racist. He is preaching a message that leaves out Jesus’ primary message of caring for the marginalized of society like immigrants, the poor, and refugees.

Historically, the church has described sins of both commission and omission. Modern-day evangelical leaders warn against the former — particularly abortion and homosexuality — while remaining suspiciously silent about the later.

Phillip Bumb recently wrote a piece in The Washington Post, The group least likely to think the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees? Evangelicals. In summary, “No group agrees less with the idea that the United States has a responsibility to accept refugees than white evangelical Protestants.”

I want to reform the Republican party. Why should one party have a monopoly on caring for civil rights, social justice, gun violence, the environment? My faith informs my politics in the way of historic Christianity, not the nativist very American version of the Trump-cult.

This week, the GOP officially became a third party in California. Nationally, Trump is destroying the party of Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, and Reagan. Instead of understanding its need for moderate candidates, you have desperate evangelists like Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Paula White trying to move it further to the extreme Trump-right.

From a political marketing strategy, I think it’s stupid — the cult crusades of Franklin Graham won’t work here.

From a Christian theologian’s point of view, I believe his message is heretical.

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