If it were my son...

                                        I've never been one to for violent protest...

                 But then again, no one ever beat my son and broke his spine for undisclosed reasons.

                                                      Police never killed my son.

                                                               

                      I believe most police are good people doing a dangerous, thankless job...

                                                                        Most...

                                     I've run this racial thing thru my little thinker more times than I care to count,  and never come out with an acceptable and civilized outcome.

                                        Riots and all the subsequent responses will not fix this.

                                 Sadly, the only option with both possibility and plausability will never be attempted because it will cost too much...

                                     The only people who can fix this are the police...

                          The good men and women, in that long blue line must purge the bad ones out of their ranks, at all costs.

                   They must sacrifice their guilty and root out all those that have crossed these lines...

                                  Open, transparent justice is the only answer...

                              I know most are good officers, but I also know that all to often, departmental loyalty outweighs bringing those bad apples into the light, into the cages they have earned...

                                       My mother screams at me when I refuse to blame Hitler for all the atrocities committed in world war 2...

                               I tell her he was just a sick and demented racist, and that in most time periods he would have been put safely away in some institution...

                                But between the few average citizens who wanted to exploit their pedigree by agreeing to his politics and the multitude of others that just wanted to ignore the mounting facts, with heads in the sand, they all became the true fathers of all the atrocities committed in the fuehrers name...

                                   Good men and women refusing to make a stand....

                   They own the evil perpetrated because they alone could have stopped it...

 

                        Those officers on the streets know who the bad ones are and can stop them.

                                      Until that is done, no peace will be made; no end to the violence.

                                                               I am a dreamer.

                                     Reality undeniably erases any possible implementation.

                                                As I said, sadly, this would be our only hope...

                                                  The police actively policing themselves...

                                                      

                                              In business, for every actual complaint, equeals, on average, fifty unreported ones. I'm betting that for every video that makes the news screen, a hundred don't.

                                                                Revolution is coming.

                                                                      It is inevitable.

                                                              Gangs are hunting police.

                                                           That just might get their attention...

                                                          

                                                   This crap has to stop. None of these violent protesters deserve a free pass, but from a dads standpoint, if it were my son, I cannot say I would react any differently...

                       When you take all that matters in someone's life, sometimes all they have left is defiance.

                                                 Both sides need to start acting right...

                                  But first, police need to stop each other from murdering innocent people, while continuing to protect the innocent...

                    Most have been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for a very long time...

                                                                Not anymore...

                                    That trust has been completely trashed in HD 1080P...

                                              So do the right thing and earn it back.

                               I want to believe in the police again, as the good guys, the protectors...

                                         Ignoring or militarily overpowering won't accomplish that.

                                             Decimating Baltimore won't either...

                                      Once again, it comes down to good people doing the right thing.

                                                           Miracles happen everyday...

                                                            Today could be that day...

                                                                        Or not...

              

Everything I know about women...

                                                          Shortest blog ever...

                                                Women are scary and confusing.

                                                             That's about it...

                                   My oldest boys are starting to be interested in girls. They won't admit it, but having been a semi pubescent nose picker myself, I am familiar with the look.

                              At nearly thirteen years old, I'm thinking that my eldest is ready for words of wisdom, regarding the fairer sex. Sadly, he has me for a dad, and most of what I know falls further into the error column than the success one...

                                        Nobody ever taught me how to treat women, growing up. I watched John Wayne and Chuck Norris, but they gave me equealy unrealistic expectations of both bar fights and " what women want".

                             I never watched Carey Grant movies because he seemed more girly than the women in the Chuck Norris films. Somehow, back then, Alan Alda was seen as a ladies man.

                                             I still haven't figured that one out...

                        So most of what I have to share with them will come from the myriad of mistakes I've made,  instead of my minute waffle cone of feigned competence ...

                         Here is my list. Please feel free to respond with any suggestions you think that should be removed. In truth, I'm hoping that thru a series of erasure, nothing will be left on the list and I can evade this whole situation ...

                                  That is my dad "rule #3". Escape and evade.

                                                    Just kidding ( sort of )

            1- Be nice. 

                 Most girls and women are forced to deal with enough idiots. Don't be one of them. It might appear that it works for these guys and often, for some unexplainable reason, it does...

                       But it's not worth it. Nice guys may finish last, but they end up happier.

       

            2- Be truthful.

                   Don't lie. 

                Once again, for some reason, with some guys, it does work, but never for long. 

         Integrity is one of the most important qualities you can have, in most women's eyes. If you need to lie to her, to impress her, she's just not worth it...

                   Integrity, like trust, is so much easier to maintain than it is to earn back. Most times, when either of those are lost, they are irretrievable.

            

             3- Be real.

                        If you put on a show of who you think she wants, or who you want to be, you will never end up with someone who wants who you really are...

                   Nothing is more exhausting than trying to keep someone's love, by being someone else.

                                                   Absolutely nothing...

           

            4- Be old-fashioned.

                         Hopefully, by now, they've learned to open doors for people. All people, women, men, old folks and kids... Not because your trying to impress a girl, but because that is just the kind of guy you are. Open the door for her because she is a lady and deserves to be treated as such. If she has a problem with it , explain that it's not because she can't open a door for herself, but it is just who you are and how you treat ladies...

                               If it is who you are...

                If you are my son, all I can say is it better be who you are, by the time you are thinking about girls. If not, we've got a whole other conversation to visit, before this one starts...

 

            5- Be respectful.

               This probably belongs at #1, too...

                  If your interested in her, tell her why. Point out the qualities she has that you like and admire.  Value her opinions and listen, really listen, as she speaks them...

                           Remember rule #2... If you can't find anything other than her looks that you value, seriously question your dating choice. If all you want is a trophy, save both of you a lot of time and and energy and buy a Challenger Hellcat with the 700 h.p. engine, instead...

                            In the end, it will be cheaper and a lot less heartache, for all concerned...

            6- Be courageous.

                   A faint heart never won a fair lady. Fair, of course, being in the eye of the beholder.

               Society has a lot of twisted ideas about what it takes to be " manly"...

                    The most courageous thing a man can do is to present himself honestly, to another, and risk rejection. Most every other " manly" things in our culture are just simple posings...

  

            7- Have fun.

              Laughter can erase an amazing amounts of missteps and mistakes.

                  I have absolutely no idea how this works, but it does. 

                         Having fun, laughing and enjoying each other's company are the seeds that love sprouts from. It's absence can make an hour feel like eternity...

                                   I think it's all encapsulated in just being a decent guy...

                                                        Trying to be a good man, a good young man, that understands the value and worth of the young lady he's courting...

                         

                                       

                                          This is the best I've got to give them...

                                                       I hope it's enough...

Brain freeze and memory skips...

                                                           Who needs Disney?

                                      I laugh a lot at the running jokes in my brain...

                         I know I've written bits and pieces about my scattered thinkerer and that most people probably assume I'm joking or playing it up a bit; a smidgen of poetic license...

                                                                    Nope. 

                                            My brain really does operate this way..

                                     For a few years I was kind of worried about it. You read articles and see stories on the big old television screen reciting symptoms and timelines that would scare anyone, with any of them...

                                      I am blessed in a few fairly neat instances. Both long term and short term memory of mine are equally shot. Nothing progressive, never getting worse.

                        But names of long ago and yesterday still elude me. Friends tell me of stories and all I can do is gently nod my head. " You remember that, right"?, they laugh, in their certainty...

                              Inside this old noggin, all that the magic crayon draws is a blank...

                                   One of the more comforting parts of these memory gaps are they have been my " normal" for my adult life. There was a time in my teen years I could remember almost anything I heard or read and I didn't even need to be paying attention...

                                       The last thirty years, not so much...

                    If I drop a screw from my hand at work, I'll ask the guy underneath my ladder to please hand me " the turny thing" I dropped. Simple words disappear and I grab the best visual verbs floating by, to name them...

                               Like I said, if this hadn't been my " normal" for more years than I have comic books, it might be unnerving.

                                              I'm not complaining, mind you...

                       Have you ever seen the shuttering frames of old movies, strobing on a cinema screen?

           That is my brain on ... me , except that these frames shown do not follow any animators chronological order and are mixed and interspersed together, a color and black and white cornucopia of fifty unorganized years...

                             When I'm asked a question, that crazy, half erased Rolodex flips thru, just like one of those old cartoon books, that made the pictures move when the corner is rifled, like a deck of cards...

                    I guess I'm like a beat up old hard drive, still useful, but slow and inconsistent...

                                            That's not true. My brain does work quickly and efficiently, quite a bit of the time, just not predictably. I can write a PLC program one moment and set up the communication protocol without incident.

                             Then I can't recall the proper name for a shoe lace...

                                     Maybe I hit capacity and for every one thing added, another mysteriously dissolves, from that same day, or any other moment, within the last fifty years?

                              

                                           It's not just the memory thing, ideas and concepts and stories flip thru this brain. Out of nowhere, old poems or chemical equations pop into my thoughts, eradicating any previous occupant...

                One moment I'm cooking dinner,  and the next I'm seeing the insides of an internal combustion engine, in my thoughts...

                        Contemplating a marinara recipe and seeing a CNC wiring diagram...

                                 

                              This really is kind of exciting,  in a non linear / Daliesque way.

                                   I wouldn't change my brains gearing, but I would like a tad more control of its speed and some kind of limiter on the torque.

                                    Other than that, no complaints here...

                                          

                                   

A pictures worth a thousand words...

                               There was a time when I was a little lighter, a little faster and had a lot more hair...

                                                    This was my yearbook photo. 

              Both older brothers had professional photographers, but me, they had to drag out of detention, days before the final proofs had to be at the printer, lined me up against the hallway wall and took this mug shot.

                                                         I love this portrait...

                          Most yearbook photos don't really represent the person in them, I've found. It seems that the majority of the time, the lighting is too perfect, the clothes too un wrinkled, and the smiles, overly rehearsed. One of the first of many shows that would be put on for our upcoming adulthood...

             That's how I looked at it, back then. Maybe it was envy , maybe outright jealousy, I'm not quite sure....

                  All I do know is that there was absolutely no need for me to take SAT's or prepare transcripts, no admissions office to impress. I graduated in the bottom 95th percent of my class.

             

                                         Since then, I've fallen in and out of love, a couple dozen times. Had a whole lot of different jobs and hung out with a lot of different people....

                          Lots of mistakes, quite a few outright failures, and surprisingly, some success...

                                Of course, none of those " successes" were choreographed by me.

                                               I wonder what the guy in the picture would have said if you told him that his greatest happiness would be found, many decades later, in the exact same village he had grown up in, in the house of his youth?

                     If you told him that he would marry the woman of his dreams who would be his one true love, and would be surrounded by three amazing kids he called his McMonkeys...That he would grow to cherish and respect the parents he'd grown up resenting and wishing away?

              That some of his greatest fears would become their aging and fragility, and the joys he would have as he would watch them, watch his children grow?

                                           

                                                   I wouldn't have believed you..

                                                         Who would have?

                                          

                                     Did any of us end up exactly where we planned?

                                                               This picture? 

                                 It's as faked and posed and choreographed as all the rest...

                               Most put their best face on, back then, in hopes of a greater future...

                                                                        Me? 

                                                     I just kept up the show...

                                         

                           Thankfully, gratefully, life has a way of bringing almost all of us back around...

                                          God has a way of bringing us back around...

                            I don't know if values change or they just begin to emerge and clarify.

                                      I do know that for a very long time, I have not been this guy.

                                                       

                                                   I can't do one arm push-ups anymore.

                                                I have sufficiently misspent my youth.

                                                                     That is O.K.

                                                           That's what it's for. God graces us with it so we can hopefully develop wisdom. I may not be a wise man yet, but I have learned to listen to a few of them...

                                             

                                                                Guess that's something...

           

Conscientious objector or objectionable conscience?...

                                      One of my favorite stories growing up was " A man without a Country".

               We read it in grade school, I think... It was about an officer who damned the United States and said he never wanted to hear it's name again.

      He was kept on a ship for over fifty years, never to see its shores or hear it's name again...

                   

                            Sometimes I feel like I will experience that fate, with other Christians, because of a few of the views I hold. So many of them seem so threatened by legalities and cultural changes, as our Country clearly leans, and in some ways, runs away from conventional Biblical values.

                                                         They feel threatened.

                     I wish I could placate their fears, but in truth, I'm sure they are correct.

                                      This Country is changing, for better or worse.

                       It was during the Revolutionary War, when we demanded and died for our political freedoms that we claimed under our God.

                 It was during the Civil War, fought mostly over economics and masked by the illusion of freedom for all men, of all colors...

                                 A hundred years after that, " blacks" still couldnt drink from "white" drinking fountains. I think that shows how " serious" about equality we were in Civil War times.

                              But eventually, under mans law, if not factual conditions, all men and women attained the same rights. We are all theoretically equeal, with the same chance of our hopes and dreams being fulfilled.

                                                 Now, back to the reality...

                                All it takes is a quick look at ratios in prison populations and differences in racial incomes, to see the fallacy in that.

                                Women do make less than men. That's a fact. More women are sexually assaulted in college than the entirety of all students that drop out, in any given year...

           Those numbers aren't what our sons face at college. Not by a long shot.

                              That's not the kind of equality I would wish for anybodies daughter...

                   So maybe we can all agree that actual equality today, in this Country, is a farce, and that the only time anyone has ever been granted even that farce of equality, procured it thru war or the courts...

                                  I come from a generation that assumed homosexuality was simply a lifestyle choice. One day " they" woke up, said " I think I'll be gay today" and then ran with it...

                         I don't know, being that I have never known that inclination, but I have had some very intense emotional intimacies with some of those in the gay community...

                                           ( Don't worry. They were Lesbians)....

                               

                              I can tell you of a girl that was raped repeatedly by her father and brothers, from the age of four, while her mother read her Bible and did her Rosary in her prayer closet, all the while knowing full well what was occurring...

                             A girl who was victimesed the same way, by men in her Church. Her parents Church...

                              Escaping into drugs she sold her body to men, because it was the only currency of value, to anyone she knew. Her father pimped her out to his friends up until the year that he died.

                                         She grew up to hate the God of her mothers prayer closet, of her parents Church and the One that would allow the existence she survived.

                                                She wasn't very fond of men, either...

                                   We met during my crazy-sober years, right after I had battled the God that delivered me from alcoholism and addiction. He Chose to remove all that had been precious to me at the time, after He saved me...

                               I responded with anger and resentment. Eventually He broke me, in preparation of the greater gifts He wished to give me. Not being certain of His " why", I was attempting to reconcile with a God I was still not fond of, while still slowly healing from the losses...

                                                    I guess she could relate.

                   For a woman who hated God, she certainly had a lot of pictures of Jesus in her apartment. I asked her why and she wasn't sure... The God of her experiences she was very clear about, but Jesus... She liked Jesus.

                         I can tell you that I have never seen someone try so hard to stop hating God. 

                   We talked a lot about Jesus, how He died for our sins before we repented and was hated by those He sacrificed Himself for. I told her that Jesus would accept her just as she was, that if she admitted that she was a sinner, asked His forgiveness and accepted Him as her Savior. If she would accept that He died a substitutionary death for us all, He would heal her pains and her hurts and make her new...

                                The problem was that Jesus would accept her, as is, and work inside her, in His time, but His Bride never would...

                                                    His Church never will...

              I know He said " Go and sin no more" , but none of the Christians I know have managed to do that.

                                                               But her...

                                                       she would have to...

     

                                      I remember one day when she got tired of trying and gave away the pictures of Jesus from her house. Someone would take them or in the garbage, they would go...

           So for the entire lives of my children,  they have had her old pictures of Jesus,in their bedrooms...

                                               She and her girlfriend introduced me to my Wonderful Wife, long before our first date. They knew I loved MaryAnne five years before my Wonderful Wife did, herself...

                   On the night Mare and I met, K- stole the concert poster from the wall it had been stapled to... She had no idea why, at the time and blamed it on joyfull larceny..

                                   Seven years later, when MaryAnne and I told her we were engaged, she laughed, went thru some old boxes, and gave us that Nanci Griffith concert poster she had stolen that night...

                             Three years ago my Wonderful Wife had it professionally framed in museum glass, as a Christmas gift for me, and it is now the focal point of our living room.

         I'm hoping to do the same for my friend some day, with those pictures of Jesus...

                                  

                          I feel like a child caught between warring, divorcing parents...

              

                  On one hand, I understand my Christian friends affinity for the sanctity of marriage. I understand their beliefs and struggle with all the implications that will affect us, if ever homosexuality is legally a civil right. It is apparent how that can not only threaten The Church, but also much of what its members consider sacred.

                 A Pastor forced to marry those he and his Church doesn't believe should be wed?

                   Forced to disband, if they don't accept and include what they believe offends their God?

                                                        I'm not ok with that...

                                       But if a Church must go underground to survive, it must. It certainly won't be the first time, and by no way is it an unexpected occurrence, for those who believe...

                                                 I mean, it kind of was foretold....

                

                       And then I think about my friend who deep inside loves this " Jesus"..

                             But would be astrocized from His Bride, His Church, if she did not reform quickly enough..

      If the God that changes all our hearts in His own time, took to long, for his other loving followers comfort....

                            I will stand in front of anyone and declare my faith in Jesus. 

                          But I will not stand against those who love Him and God hasn't finished with.

                                                We all have unresolved sin. All...

                                              I won't stand against you, either...

                                 In this battle I declare myself a conscienceless objector.

                          I don't know if that makes me a bad Christian or rebellious Church member.

                              I'm sure that God in His Justice and Glory, will surely let me know...

                                 But this lady who loves Jesus and tried so hard to stop hating God ?

                      Knowing her story, I'm willing to give her a little extra Grace, a little extra time, before passing my human judgement, based on scripture, on her.

                                     I will not be the one left to condemn her...

                                                              Will you?

                      

Times ten...

                                                          If I had one wish...

                                     Well maybe not one wish, but probably my 10th...

                                                  I remember about 25 years ago, when I was living in Bennington, Vermont, and walking from my tiny one bedroom apartment, up the street, to the corner store, on the way to an A.A. meeting...

                                 I had just started going back to " the rooms", after the ex- fiancée and her son Austin moved back to the other side of the duplex, with her mom.

                I didn't talk to a lot of people, back then, but the kid at the counter and I always joked around, when I stopped there to pick up my diet Pepsi. 

          Sometimes I purchased a few ice cream sandwiches for the two and a half block walk left,to the meeting.

                       I was still guarded at the meetings, but for a few moments every day, I nonchalantly chatted with him.

                    We weren't friends and never had any deep or meaningful conversations, but that stop was one of the few non-low points, in a lot of my days...

                         An acquaintance  who listened and laughed at the same stupid things I did, and for a few simple moments, broke up a boring walk towards a roomful of people that emotionally, scared the hell out of me...

                         After about six months of stopping for a soda, a lady began working that shift. She told me when she started, that he died in a car crash, a few days before.

                            Have you ever had people in your life that slipped under the radar, making a difference in your life, while you stood by , mostly oblivious?

                               You know, those " non- friendships", those trivial aquaintencaces that create an invisible value and can only become noticeable, in their absense?

                                        I'm thinking about those people today.

                       The night I met my Wonderful Wife, she had no idea that I had fallen in love with her. For the six years that followed, on the few times we crossed paths, she remained clueless about how I felt about her.

                                                    That gets me thinking...

                                   Once again, I face a fact about myself that bothers and comforts me in nearly equeal proportions...

                                      Most all of the people who have touched me in this life will probably never know it. They will think that the random " bump into's" and brief, nonchalant conversations that followed were just ordinary and unimportant moments.

                                I don't generally go deep or serious and rarely give an impression that most encounters affect me. Not many of them are full of " substance", hence the illusion of unimportance...

                                   

                                     So many of the people in my past never knew...

                                        

                             I don't know if this is normal or just completely off the plate, weird.

                                  

                                     For someone like me, those tiny little "un-events" matter...   

                                 A few posts ago, I shared about a guy at work who fell out, had CPR and a defibrillator attached, and was brought back to life...

                                             

                                                    He died a few days after.

                          We never talked about deep things and mostly chatted about seafood chowder recipes and compound bow reviews. We mentioned families once or twice between us, but just numbers..

                                             Numbers of kids, numbers of wives...

                                                         He had two of each...

                                  We both parked at the far end of the parking lot, every morning, while the rest of the mill wrestled for the spots nearest the entrance.

                                              I think of him when I pull in the parking lot now, and see the empty space beside mine.

                          Not a good friend and no meaningful conversations between us, but there is an uncomfortable absence beyond the painted lines , at the end of the lot...

                     So if you are one of those people that I bump into in Church basements or walk into at the supermarket and we talk for awhile...

                                             You matter more than you know...

  

                                                     So Hanks rule of thumb:

                    Take how I appear and multiply how much you think I value you by a factor of ten...

     

Dressed rehearsal...

                                                  A guy died at work today.

                                        He was brought back with CPR and an AED unit, but had to have both re administered a few times, before hitting the ambulance. 

                                        Walked to his machine and fell out...

                                     A start to the morning like that makes you inventory your last couple of days. 

                     It makes you wonder if you kissed your Wonderful Wife before going to bed and gave all your kids hugs goodnight, the night before. ( I kissed the Wonderful Wife, but gave the three McMonkeys a half-hug, so they didn't have to get out of their chairs, in case your wondering...)

                                   We visited my mom and had a belated Easter dinner. I started the prayer and she added her thanks to God, at the end...

                               That morning Jake, my youngest chimpanzee, who had been asking me for a week to do something with him, to make something, asked again...

                           So we went out in the garage at 9:30 am and drew a rifle stock onto some PVC trim board that I had purchased for our kitchen window.   ( Sorry, Hon! )

                       We cut it out with a jigsaw, drilled out and carved the trigger assembly and then drilled and tapped the end to receive a 1/4" NPT steel nipple, for the barrel.

                                            Of course he needed a scope...

                                      So I drilled out about seven successive 3/8" holes, 1/2" deep, along the top and cleared using the drill bit like an end mill. I found some scrap 1/8" pipe, about five inches long and used some copper pipe hanging straps to mount it.

                             He became more antsy, every step further we went. " Can I play with it NOW ?", he kept asking...

                    I finally found some red spray paint and coated the " barrel" and its end, then handed it over to him, telling him not to get any paint on him or his clothes, or his mom would kill me...

                            Done just in time for Mare to return from her work out and we could get things ready for the trip to grandmas, as my honey showered and did her hair.

                             After grandmas, it was a regular evening...

                                 

                                  I guess that would not have been a bad last day...

                                      

                            I talked with one of the guys in my crew and told him about the notes I leave every morning, on the dry erase board. He told me that he always kisses his wife goodbye and gives a quick " toot" on his car horn, as he leaves the driveway...

                 Another mechanic said his wife would kill him if he kissed her goodbye and would ridicule any note he left her, if he did leave one...

                      He said his son had told him that if he died, his mom would just marry someone else.

                          I quietly gave a humble prayer of thanks up to my God, that I had been Graced with such an abundance of Love.

                              I prayed that this fellow might also find that, in his family...

                                   Truth be told, I did a lot of praying today. I prayed for my friend, in the hospital, for a speedy and full recovery. I prayed that my Wonderful Wife and none of my McMonkeys would ever get that call, from my workplace. I prayed that all the children going to the trampoline park with Mare and her friends today, would be safe...

                                  I prayed that people would understand, REALLY understand that this is a live action show and not the dress rehearsal...

                              That the final act, like it or not, is unflinchingly on its way. 

         No do-overs and no time outs, when that curtain falls...

                                      We may not make it to the end of the play, and our ever present understudy may have to finish our soliloquy, in our absence.

                     All we can hope to do, is to try to make every moment in this life's spotlight worthwhile, and hope what we are, resounds in those we've loved...

                                                    

                                                           The curtain is up.

                                                        Make your part count...

Out of context...

                Jesus, after sweating blood in the anticipation of his coming crucifixion, healed the ear of the high priests servant , that the Disciple Peter cut off with a sword. The servant had been sent to arrest and transport Jesus for judgement. Fully knowing the agonizing fate that awaited Him, Jesus not only healed ( served) his persecutor, but rebuked Peter, the rock he would build His Church upon.

                       His example to the one He gave authority and governance of His most precious Bride, was to serve its persecutor, without hesitation or even permission...

                              Not being the Bible Scholar, why do I bring this up?

                           When Jesus ate with sinners, mingled with tax collectors and prostitutes and healed those who would lead Him to death, it was not condoning or accepting a behavior or lifestyle; simply, He was being Who He was, loving them and presenting an example...

      Jesus healed the damage done by Peter, healing the enemy, wounded by " The Church"...

                                    

                                        I wonder if there is any significance in that...

                             

                            There was no speech given on "rights" dealing with religion or spirituality, only an amazing display of its cost...

                          So I wonder if today, Jesus would have us serve only those who accept our faith?

                              Refusing to serve is a political statement, not a spiritual one.

                           That is not quite correct; the refusal to serve is a very strong statement, as a Christian, just not a desirable one. It is the antithesis of Christianity...

                                     Perhaps we can politically rangle a nice, comfortable set of specific rights that allow us to define our own chosen people, whom we will associate. Maybe someone will contribute enough for us to build a bubble, to house all those worthy of being served, inside?

                                                               I hope not.

                                      If we did, hopefully, Jesus would still Love us and dine with us; He did it often, before. We would probably be seen almost identically by Him, as those sinners he met with two thousand years ago. 

                  The difference being, that we had already accepted Him as our Savior.

                        We, who should have known better, who were shown better by His myriad of Graced examples and were given The Holy Spirit as our guide...

                                  I'm thinking that should bring a much harsher rebuke.

                                                            But who am I?

                    Just a befuddled, Christian family man trying desperately to come to terms of life in Gods world, who probably has faulty Biblical assumptions based on Scripture, out of context...