“Peace, prosperity, liberty and morals
have an intimate connection.”

- Thomas Jefferson

The Mall Diva's Christmas program, Eclectica, went off as scheduled last Sunday before a packed house that included my mother who flew in from Missouri. The show was great with the only flubs being the charming ones that somehow make a show a more personal experience for everyone. Oh, and a couple of young angels from the manger scene got stage fright and refused to go on, but I'm sure it was noticeable only to their parents and the cast.

Of course, it all reminded me of the many Christmas programs I had participated in as a child, especially since I had my mom sitting next to me. The first one I can remember (barely) was when I was three or four and it must have been at an Air Base where my father was stationed. As I recall there wasn't a stage as such, just something like a gymnasium floor with rows of seats in front of the performance area. I can remember sitting in a chair at the back of the "stage" while other acts performed before my group got to do our thing. I have no idea what our act was, but my parents caught my solo performance as I waited...casually picking my nose. Hearing about it often afterwards helped keep that in my memory banks.

My next solo was in kindergarten when our class of 12 performed "The Twelve Days of Christmas". I was "Five golden rings!" I also couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, which makes me think that perhaps my kindergarten teacher had some kind of twisted sense of humor. After all, she also assigned the kid with the lisp the part of "Seven swans a'swimming." It's safe to say we brought down the house.

But the one performance I've especially been thinking about the last few days came when I was in fourth, or perhaps fifth, grade, when my dad was out of the service and we were living in Indianapolis. It was at Harrison Hill Elementary, either in Mrs. Boaz's class in 1968 or Mrs. Zinn's in '69. The Viet Nam war was going on and I remember our teacher, whichever one it was, telling us that a local soldier had written a poem (he may have even been a former student of hers), and that it had been set to music and that a group of us boys were going to sing the new song in the program. Pretty cool beans for a bunch of boys at that time, especially for my best friend Trey and I, because it meant we could wear our toy army helmets and bring our guns (I was especially proud of my Thompson submachine gun replica). We practiced that song for several weeks, and I remember it was a pretty grim one. It didn't seem much like a Christmas song at all, but the teacher said that it was going to fit into the program.

This show was just going to be a passing reference as I recounted some other programs, but I remembered the opening lines of that song and started wondering who the author was and what ever had happened to him. With the power of Google I searched the opening line:

"Take a man and put him alone, put him 12,000 miles from home."


To my amazement, I found the poem on several websites, including that of a sometime commenter here, joatmoaf's I Love Jet Noise. None of them had an author name, but several included the citation that it was found in the pocket of a dead Marine in the Quang Tri Province, June of '69. Joatmoaf listed the whole poem, although updated for Iraq. The first verse was pretty much how I remembered it, though:

Take a man and put him alone,
Put him twelve thousand miles from home.

Empty his heart of all but blood,
Make him live in sweat and mud.
The rest of the poem doesn't register with me, though it does seem even grimmer than what I remembered. Definitely not Christmas program material. While I don't remember all the words of the song we sung, I know they weren't happy ones. I do remember what happened next. The emcee of the program was a sixth-grader, dressed as Santa Claus. He'd been a great and jolly Santa all evening, but this time he came out, as planned, and spoke to us "soldiers" kneeling on the stage. He said that once upon a time there had been a young family with a new baby that hadn't even been able to find a room in an inn and had had to give birth to their son in a stable. He said that even though things looked bad for them, they had had hope. When he finished his speech we exited backstage while an adult came up. As I led our small group down some steps I heard the adult say that the author of the poem was in the audience that night, and I heard a loud round of applause. I never did see or meet him. The show continued with Christmas carols about the newborn king.

Viewed through the fog of nearly 40 years, it almost seems like another world. Indeed, a world where kids could wear army gear and bring toy guns into the building, and where a Christmas program could mention the Savior and sing songs about His birth. It is also almost surreal that I could have been that close to the origins of what some might consider almost an urban legend in our internet age. The dead marine in Quang Tri might be apocryphal, but I remember what our teacher told us and I remember singing that song, and I remember the soldier being introduced, even if I never saw him.

I wish I had been able to shake his hand.

Among Christmas carols, I've always rather liked the "Carol of the Bells" song, either with words or as an instrumental. It's not an especially spiritual song, but it's catchy and pleasant in a way that "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" isn't (and whatever we've done to deserve this song, hasn't the statute of limitations expired by now?). I've noticed, however, how over-exposed "Carol of the Bells" is getting as it's been co-opted by TV commercials.

I've heard it many times with different commercials but can only remember three specifically: the two Garmin commercials, which I kind of like (love the "There's that moose again!" and "Got a unibrow" lines) and the Hyundai "Holi-duh" ad because it is so nauseatingly obnoxious that I made a point of remembering who the advertiser was so I could never buy their cars. I knew there were others, but I couldn't remember the products (a sign of bad advertising) so I Googled the subject so I could list them in a post I wanted to write.

It turns out, someone has beat me to it. Check out Christine's post over at The Motley Yule. She says just about everything I wanted to say and more.

An interesting, behind-the-scenes tidbit from The Writer's Almanac about the Bill of Rights:

It was on this day (December 15) in 1791 that the Bill of Rights was adopted by the United States, thanks in part to a man who hasn't gotten a lot of credit, George Mason. He was a lifelong friend of George Washington's who wasn't interested in politics, but when Washington was named Commander of the Continental Army, George Mason reluctantly took over his friend's seat on the Virginia legislature. And then Mason was assigned by chance to the committee to write the new state constitution.

Mason had read the philosopher John Locke, and he liked Locke's idea that all people are born with certain rights, and that government's purpose should be to protect those rights. George Mason believed that the best way to protect those rights would be to list them in the constitution itself. And so he put together Virginia's "Declaration of Rights," the first government document in history that specified the absolute rights of individuals. Mason's ideas about rights and freedom influenced a 25-year-old legislator named James Madison, who passed them along to his friend Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson would go on to use Mason's ideas in his own draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Mason was asked to participate in the Constitutional Convention after the war, but he disagreed with the other delegates on numerous issues, especially slavery, which he thought should be outlawed in the new constitution. He fought for the inclusion of a list of rights, like the "Declaration of Rights" in the Virginia Constitution, but his idea for a bill of rights failed by a wide margin.

And so, when it came time to sign to the new U.S. Constitution, George Mason was one of the only men there who refused. He said, "I would sooner chop off [my] right hand than put it to the Constitution as it now stands." His decision ruined his friendship with George Washington. The two men never called on each other again. But he hoped that his protest would encourage an eventual passage of a bill of rights, and it did. His former protege, James Madison, introduced the Bill of Rights into the first session of Congress in 1789, and Madison used Virginia's Declaration of Rights as the model.

Even with the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Constitution didn't provide full citizenship to blacks or women, among others, and it has had to be amended again and again over the years. But when we think of what it means to have a free country, most of our ideas about the meaning of freedom come from those first 10 amendments, adopted on this day in 1791, which include the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the right to a fair trial. George Mason died in 1792, a year after those freedoms and rights became law.

I've heard this story — or parts of it, anyway — before, and I've posted about this as well, but the history stirs me. There are well-known heroes from the founding of our country such as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, et al who capture the imagination and even inspire some of us to think about what it would have been like to be so-and-so, or to aspire to that kind of historical significance for ourselves in our own time.

My own aspiration, however, would be to be more like a George Mason, where the Cause or the Idea lives on even if one's name fades from the knowledge of all but the most scholarly. I imagine Mason, inspired by the Vision of what could be and the unique opportunity at-hand, devoting his time, energy and treasure to the pursuit of creating not just a new kind of government but a new kind of human existence. I see him working with the great minds and characters of the day to bring the concept to fruition, only at the last, to see the vision defaced and even crippled.

How long, I wonder, did he pray and agonize over his decision to sign or not sign the Constitution? Or was it a simple decision of honor and conviction that hardly required a moment's hesitation? Think of the pressures put on him by the other delegates, many who may have shared his views, but urged him to be "practical" or to be satisfied with what was already a remarkable achievement, or tried to discourage him from his "meaningless" protest that couldn't stop what was already decided! What would I have done in that circumstance? What would you have done?

What difference would his signature then have made in our lives today? What our lives would be like if so much of what we now take for granted had not been enumerated, and what would happen should these ever cease to be defended. Let us think of what is at stake if we are encouraged to be "practical" or urged to refrain from our meaningless protests.

Driving to a dentist appointment and then to work this morning I heard two news reports on KFAN summarizing the weekend shootings in Colorado. Each time the report said that the shooter, Matthew Murray, died of a self-inflicted gunshot. No mention was made of the role New Life church member and volunteer security guard Jeanne Assam played in preventing further carnage by using her personal sidearm to wound and knock down Murray. On the one hand, it's probably a good thing for her that she has already drifted from the news (and that she take comfort in knowing she didn't kill anyone), given the treatment she'd already experienced from her unintended notoriety.

Later, going onto CNN.com and FOXnews.com, however, I discovered that not only had Ms. Assam disappeared from the front page, so had the entire story. A search of both sites turned up several stories from December 10 and 11 and one or two from the 12th but nothing posted today. Yes, time and the news march on and there's literally fresh meat every day, but it sure seems as if this story faded fast, especially when you think of the ongoing coverage that followed the recent Omaha mall shooting (there's still stories appearing this week) and the earlier Virginia Tech massacre. VT in particular brought many ongoing articles about the killer's background, the victims and the vulnerability of the public. Now it seems, for the most part, that the "public's right to know" is being under-served in comparison. That's a good thing if it means that the media has learned to tread more respectfully around the lives of people suddenly thrust into tragedy who now find their suffering part of the nation's entertainment menu.

Or are there other reasons? Think of it, you've got a madman "loner", multiple guns, "assault rifles," revenge motives, dead white women (always good for two or three nights of headlines and at least one Special Report on Fox) and beautiful blondes — you'd think Colorado would be covered with TV vans, news choppers and producers looking for anyone to sign away the movie rights. And all of this while there's a TV-writer's strike going on. Is the story being dismissed with a shrug because mass shootings are now so commonplace? That shouldn't be an issue this time because you've got the perfect "man bites dog" novelty angle — an armed private citizen stopped the killer.

Say, you don't think this has quickly faded because an armed private citizen ... nah, it can't be that.

It's probably just as well. First, Jeanne Assam was mugged by the media and her former employer (isn't it funny how chatty the Minneapolis Police Department is getting on personnel matters and when slandering innocent victims of crimes like Mark Loesch) and then Youth With a Mission (YWAM) gets called a cult in the most recent story on the Fox site:

Several former missionaries have accused YWAM (generally pronounced "Why-Wam") of being a cult that uses brainwashing methods.

Rick Ross, founder of the Ross Institute of New Jersey, which tracks cults, does not agree.

"Youth With a Mission is not a cult," he said. "However, I have received very serious complaints about Youth With a Mission from former staffers, family members and also others concerned, such as Christian clergy."

Rev. Jonathan Bonk, the director of the Overseas Ministries Study Center in New Haven, Conn., said that missions like those YWAM offers appeal to those looking for something other than the consumerist lifestyle.

"They want to be attached to a cosmic project that gives their little lives some kind of sense of purpose or meaning," Bonk said.

"They want to be attached to a cosmic project that gives their little lives some kind of sense of purpose or meaning." Great, first smear a hero, then sneer at the victims. Matthew Murray writes "You Christians have got it coming" and from the media pews comes a hearty "Amen."

To give credit where it is due, the Denver Post has done a very good job of developing the story and bringing additional information to light, including a story that described how Murray was able to get his weapons and included a report of an earlier incident he had had with staffers at New Life Church. The paper also reports on how one of the staffers killed at YWAM had once been as spooky as Murray, and has a touching story about how the Christian families of the killer and the victims had reached out to each other.

Finally, I will refer you to the Anderson Cooper interview with a wounded witness of the New Life shooting that also includes a very interesting discussion with Murray's one-time roommate at YWAM.

Update:

Here's another good article from the Denver Post that looks at more of Assam's past than just the Minneapolis PD incident.

It was with more than the usual morbid interest that I started following the story on Sunday of the shootings in Colorado at the Youth With a Mission training center and at New Life Church. I don't think I know anyone who has been associated with YWAM, but I have become pretty familiar with similar organizations over the years.

The story took another interesting turn when it was learned that the shooter (the same guy in both cases) had been thwarted by an armed security guard at the church. Just as it seemed the media was going to run with the angle of a church having armed security guards it came out that the "guard" was a member of the congregation, a conceal-and-carry permit holder, and a volunteer by the name of Jeanne Assam who had shown up to provide ad hoc security after hearing of the earlier shooting. For those who have wondered if an armed citizen might have prevented a number of deaths a couple of weeks ago in the Omaha mall shooting, I think you have an answer.

How typical, however, that the first sentence in the story in today's Pioneer Press cites Assam for bravery and reports that she was fired from the Minneapolis police force years ago for lying. A fine reward for citizenship, becoming an instant hero and almost as instantly having your past drug out in front of the world. It was the same treatment an elderly homeowner received when he fatally shot a teen-ager breaking into his bedroom last November: the newspapers breathlessly reported his past problems and dismissal from his position as a school principal. In both cases the law-abiding shooter's history was an interesting detail that had nothing to do with the particular case at hand, but it quickly became the focus of the story. It was only later in the afternoon today before I got any of the back-story on the murderer himself (how sad that he's dead; it would be interesting to see if he'd be charged with a "hate crime" based on his writings leading up to the shooting).

I'll grant that Assam's history is "news", but it shouldn't be the story. Perhaps the paper has merely used poor judgment in how the article was written and edited, or perhaps it made a conscious decision to try and discredit someone whose mere existence and actions strikes at the core beliefs it holds dear. It's hard, after all, to keep our prejudices out of our writing, whether you're a major market newspaper or a sole blogger in his basement.

The paper wants to make a connection between "bad cop" and "self-righteous vigilante," perhaps to distract from the obvious "armed citizen prevents more senseless death" angle. I'm more inclined to make a connection between stalwart hero Atticus Finch regretfully shooting a mad dog and Jeanne Assam. Both the newspaper and I, however, assume that what happened years ago led directly to last weekend's events. The difference is I can see how, whatever kind of person Assam was while on the Minneapolis Police force, the experience might have led her to seek the kind of peace that a deeper relationship with Christ provides. The fact that she was just completing a three-day fast suggests to me she is someone sincerely seeking God for direction; I get the feeling that to the newspaper it's just another reason to imply she's "weird."

I suppose some liberal wag is out there writing or saying, "What kind of gun would Jesus use?" The fact is, no one is surprised to find sick people in a hospital. In the same way, you shouldn't be surprised to find hurting people in a church. Both are a place where people can get better, though it isn't always pleasant. In church, frequently, the key to healing is seeing how your skills and background, with all its faults, can be useful in helping others. It might not be as extreme a situation as what Jeanne Assam faced, but my prayers are with her. Not that I think God needs any encouragement in her case.