Ten-dollar mojo ...

It's Friday night and I'm in Clarksdale, Mississippi. If the Highway 61/49 crossroads just outside the city is really where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil 'round midnight, it's pretty quiet this evening. No blues legends will be born tonight. Last night, I checked out Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero Blues Club. Nice place -- it's definitely got a juke joint feel. It was jam night and the host band did a great job ... which is more than I can say for the patrons dancing on the floor or singing on the stage. Just goes to prove that too much alcohol does strange things to you no matter where you are ... Mississippi or Manitoba.

As I type, I'm parked on Delta Avenue just outside Miss Del's General Store listening to WROX. I'm here for the wireless internet. I'm sleeping at the Shack Up Inn out at the old Hopson cotton plantation and the internet is sketchy (i.e., non-existent). I can handle the beetles in my bedsheets, but I can't handle no wireless internet. Meanwhile, I just know the sheriff is going to come by while I'm parked here and bust my butt for loitering. So, I'm typing fast.

The Mississippi delta is the home of the blues (especially the country blues) and Clarksdale is the capitol of delta country. I've met a lot of tourists in the past few days, almost all of them from the U.K. and Europe. They can't get enough of this place. Ironically, most of the blues legends of the 1910's to 1940's often had more than enough of this place. Jim Crow laws and the end of hand-picking cotton during WWII brought an end to the heyday of delta blues. People moved north to play the blues and pay the bills. Even if blues tourists could go back in time to the years between the wars, the search for magic or mojo down here would be missing the point. The delta blues legends weren't making history, they were making music. (And music was a means to an end -- usually picking up women instead of picking cotton). But for those who insist on finding mojo, local merchants will sell you a bag of it for $10. (It's a small burlap sack filled with golf tees.)

A brief flashback: I spent the first part of this week in New Orleans. Before Katrina, N.O. was "let the good times roll" city. Today, it is a humbler town, working hard to fight its way back. They're down in this town, but they're not out. I looked at property while in N.O. because I love the place so much. From an investment perspective, I have some reservations about N.O.'s ability to hold its own and hold its property values against future storms. When I mentioned these concerns to the property agent, he ended our meeting. Never tell anyone from N.O. that they won't be around tomorrow! My waiter, Paul, at Landry's Seafood House threatened the secession of the city from the United States if the federal government doesn't step up the next time a storm hits the city. "We can survive on our own and we would be a rich country." (The French heritage of this town is very evident!) And yet, the people of N.O. don't want to be forgotten. Everyone asked me, "Will you come back?" And I will come back. N.O. reminds me of my hometown: great music, great food, and great people.

Pray for the people of New Orleans. Exactly three years after Katrina, Hurricane Gustav is threatening the city. People were apprehensive and concerned when we left N.O. On Saturday, police will begin driving through the streets with bullhorns, telling people to leave. Some have already made their way north.

I'm heading to Memphis tomorrow, but before I leave Clarksdale I plan to stop by the Super Soul Shop on Yazoo Avenue. They're selling "hi-style suits" and I like what I see in the store windows!

You can see all my road trip pictures on Flickr.

And here comes the sheriff ...

Like an open book?

This summer I read a lot of books. Then I read some more. Then I found a couple dozen journal articles. I'm still reading ... and writing. (I even built three bookcases to hold all the books -- see picture above.)

And now ... it's time to head south. I'm flying out of Minneapolis to Atlanta, then hitting the road for New Orleans, the Mississippi delta, and Memphis. It's hurricane season down in the gulf. Fay is changing course and heading straight for the Big Easy (a name hardly anyone uses since Katrina). At least the hotel rooms are cheap!

It seems presumptuous to call this trip a pilgrimage, but travel is a profound and memorable experience for me ... most likely because I'm forced to abandon the predictability I demand in everyday life. Yes, I spend days upon days researching my road trips, but as soon as I hit the highway I'm bombarded by a steady stream of variables beyond my control. I have to keep my eyes and ears open, which is exactly what allows me to see and hear things I've never seen or heard before.

Another thing: travel forces me to abandon any grandiose notions of saving the world. I'm an unknown in New Orleans, Memphis, and points in between. I hope whomever I meet is blessed by my acquaintance, but the only thing I'm really qualified to do on their home ground is listen and learn.

So, here's to a bigger world(view). There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy.

Pornographers, puritans, and gold-medal performers ...

As a proud Canadian, I've found the 2008 Olympics disappointing. Seems the best we can expect from our athletes is "personal-best" performances. Woo-hoo: we travelled all the way to Beijing to compete against ourselves?

My patriotic pride was briefly rekindled when I read that Edmonton broadcaster, Shaun Donnelly, is promising to deliver at least 50% Canadian content on his new CRTC-approved cable channel, Northern Peaks.

But alas, it turns out Donnelly's 50% Canadian content is 100% porn. The idea of Canadian studs and starlets stripping down to simulate sex just doesn't make me proud to be Canadian. But Donnelly thinks I'm missing the point. The way he tells it, homegrown porn has an added bonus. I'll let Donnelly explain:

"I've always found there's a real turn-on to watching and knowing it's people you could run into in the grocery store."


Ah yes: what could be more sexually stimulating than seeing my Safeway cashier naked on Northern Peaks? Why didn't someone think of this sooner?

Our culture has been co-opted by pornographers on the one hand and puritans on the other. Both are evil. Pornographers make sex promiscuous. Puritans make it simply procreative. Whatever happened to creative sex? Whatever happened to erotica -- sex that is sensuous and sophisticated? Why is it almost impossible to broadcast sexual content in our culture without being either crude or clinical (read, boring)?

I'm glad we have a sex channel in Canada, but sex is no spectator sport. Shaun Donnelly needs to make Canadians better performers. The Chinese rule gymnastics. The USAmericans own the swimming pool. Let's make sex Canada's game. When the world thinks of Canada, I want them to think "best sex in the world".

You pay, I'll pray ...

Just so you know, if you think it's really important to say grace before meals, I have a long-standing practice with my lunch companions: you pay, I'll pray. (Yeah, I know: it's not much of a deal.)

Today, I had lunch at one of my favourite restaurants with one of my favourite Winnnipeggers: John Mohan, the Executive Director of Siloam Mission. Several people of this calibre have been kind enough to have lunch or breakfast with me this summer. It's an incredible learning experience for me and I can't thank these people enough for sharing their expertise. I'm amazed at the quality of people who live in this city (including a Wittgenstein scholar who poses as a radio show host).

John asked me on the spot to give him five questions I'd ask an organization considering development and change. I've been doing doctoral work on leadership in emerging culture with Leonard Sweet since summer 2005, so I shared the questions I've been asking my own org these days:

1. Are we still GOOD? Jim Collins said we should move from good to great, but sometimes we need to go from great to GOOD. "GOOD" is a Sweet acronym for "get out of doors". If our organization is only on the radar of people inside the org, are we really making the world different?
2. Who's in charge? Many orgs don't believe in leadership anymore. Or they're experimenting with shared/joint leadership models that de-emphasize decision-making and champion consensus-building. Ultimately, this brings an org down to its lowest common denominator. The org stalls, nose dives, crashes and burns. Having said that, I think the best leaders are the best followers ... following whoever or whatever inspires them.
3. Are we doing what we love doing? In the church world, our mission as churches is uniform: make disciples. But our vision (i.e., how we accomplish our mission) should reflect our unique passions and perspectives. Added insight: go for iconoclash -- allow the opposites within you to create new insights and opportunities.
4. Are we EPIC? EPIC is another Sweet acronym. I break it down as follows: are we creating Experiences that allow people to Participate around inspiring Images that Connect them to God and others?
5. What's our MRI results? Yet another Sweetism. Is what we're doing Missional AND Relational AND Incarnational. In other words, are we out where the people are, are we living in relationship with others, and do we look and sound and smell like Jesus? Note: you can't truly be missional, if you aren't also relational and incarnational, etc.

Any other questions?

Live and let die ...

Running off a bus while your fellow passenger is stabbed to death does not make you a hero. It makes you alive; but it doesn't make you a hero.

I have tremendous sympathy for the passengers of Greyhound bus 1170. I'm sure they will be deeply traumatized by the stabbing, beheading, and cannibalization of one of their fellow passengers. But I think they will also be haunted by the question, "Why didn't I do anything to help?"

To make matters worse, RCMP and reporters have described the passengers' reactions as brave and heroic. This is a great disservice to the passengers and the public at large. They kept themselves safe. They stayed alive. That's good. But they also left a man to die on a bus. They trampled over one another as they tried to save their own lives (an elderly woman was injured as other passengers pushed her aside). Then, they locked the victim and his killer in the bus.

Garnet Caton was one of those passengers. He's young. He's strong. He's had five years of military service in the Canadian Armed Forces. He had the right idea: he turned to another passenger nearby and asked for his help. “I said, ‘Give me a hand and let's get this guy.' And the other guy took off.”

Tim McLean was left to die alone. His screams, described as a dog howling and a baby crying, eventually came to an end.

Last month, a young woman was attacked in broad daylight on Portage Avenue, one of Winnipeg's busiest streets. She suffered a dislocated shoulder, fractured ribs, and bruised kidneys. Passersby did nothing.

What has brought us to the point where we're prepared to let people die in front of us?

Have we been desensitized by TV, movies, and video games? Has the constant stream of war and terror in the news over-saturated our sensitivities?

Maybe, but I have another theory. For the past 40 years, we've adopted a "live and let live" philosophy of life. Each one to their own. "You do what you want, and I'll do what I want." I don't completely disagree with this approach, but it has created a radically disconnected society. We no longer understand how the other person thinks. Their values and priorities are unknown or foreign to us. And in a twist of irony, our spirit of tolerance has led us to indifference. We've come to believe that if a person is in trouble, it's because they got themselves there.

Live and let live has become live and let die.