How seriously do we take the Bible?
Jimmy Carter took it pretty seriously when he said that he has committed adultery in his heart. He was looking seriously into the sermon on the mount, where Jesus speaks to the heart of the matter, that adultery is not about an act: its about what happens to you that makes that act possible. Essentially, it is about the internal struggle to be perfect.
Lots of us are good at being perfect on the outside. We’re yelling and screaming one minute and the next we’re pulling into the church parking lot, ready with a smile. Or we’re exploding at home and answering in our mildest voice on the phone. However we might define “outside,” whether in a public setting or any place outside of our thoughts, we strive for and value some degree of control of the surface.
Oh, but inside, inside all kinds of half-formed desires, all manner of self-destruction, all types of vice is being conceived and aborted before it ever sees the light of day. Who are we really? Why the great conflict? Are we the double-minded man, unstable in all his ways? Does the conflict mean we are still bound by the law, not yet truly freed from its fulfillment? Does this internal cold war with all kinds of proxy wars waged with our kids, spouse and co-workers mean that we’re still enlisted and serving in the Lord’s army?
Whose side are we on? Why is it so easy to feel like a double agent? Why is the law of love the hardest one to follow? Why does it have to be first?
Love is something we do, actively, but not just externally. That’s the problem. It’s easy to give yourself over to some form of action. Look at Mother Theresa. All right, “easy” is not the right word. Rather, it is an act like exercising or choosing the salad over the burger. It is changing what you do. But to actually like the salad, enjoy the work out (not just its benefits) and love others (rather than just help them), these things don’t just happen, do they? They are something you feel or something you are.
The big fight for me is this: do I do what I think I should do to become who I think I should be or do I become who I think I should be to do what I think I should do? Free the mind and the body will follow or free the body and the mind will follow?
Where your treasures are, so will your heart be also. That’s why we store up treasures in heaven. Perhaps that’s it. It starts by acting in good faith. At the same time, we are to pray for guidance that this act bears fruit. I can’t wait to be perfect before I start living right. But the fear of failure is so strong . . . and objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Fear and inertia must be the two strongest forces in my life. I’m not really sure that they are surmountable.
This whole line of thinking started by watching American Psycho. (Notez bien: If you watch it, keep in mind that it’s satire.)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Is it Really so Wrong to be Wright?
Oh, the jeremiads of Jeremiah Wright! How will America ever survive if Obama is elected and brings his "liberation theology" to the White House? Let alone the fact that it's not far in the minds of most voters from "liberation" to "liberal," giving the former term the taint of the latter, is liberation theology really the threat to democracy that some have suggested? I thought the Electoral College was a threat to democracy. Or a school funding system that punishes people that live in the wrong neighborhoods. Or the widening gap between rich and poor. Or a national infrastructure that is literally cracking at the foundations. Or the high cost of fuel and the associated spikes in the cost of nearly everything else (being an economy and a diet whose "food pyramid" has light sweet crude as its major component). Or a government that, despite being the richest nation on earth, must borrow from other countries to keep itself afloat.
But no, it's got to be the raving black man. He's the real threat. After all, remember the race riots of 1968. The footage from Detroit? Burning storefronts, the National Guard, looting? Hello?! That is scary. All it takes is one black man with clips on YouTube to make it all happen again. Or, worse still, the pastor's parishioner and friend to find himself at the helm of this ship of democracy. Who knows, such a captain may let the rats take over, consume all the cargo and start putting on airs of being something they are not. (Well, Bush did the same things with his friends in oil, but let's let sleeping dogs die peacefully on Jan. 20, 2009.)
In any case, the truth is that the Bible is like the Saturday night special of bad theologians: always the weapon of choice for taking cheap shots. Consider the way slaveholders wielded it over slaves or bloodlettings. Consider the way end-times prophets (profiteers?) make hay with Revelation. Consider how the Geneva Bible contains 400 instances of the word "tyrant" and King James Bible none while the KJB even renders the unspeakable name of God as LORD in small caps, emphasizing a kind of feudal hierarchy. Consider the admittedly lousy thinking behind the liberation theology that came out of Latin America.
But if the Bible can and will be used as a weapon, in whose hands is it the most dangerous? In whose hands does it least belong? It is used by the powerful and moneyed (the "ruling class" or its apologists) to support their power. It has also been used by the powerless and the poor to seize power. Which is scarier? Or, maybe the better question, which better fits the message of the Gospels?
If you all will turn with me to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 - 7). It is a topsy-turvy sermon, where the old order is toppled. Everything you thought you knew is wrong or at the very least woefully incomplete. First of all, the powerless are held up and glorified, but the laws are also questioned, made matters of the heart--the thinking and feeling part of us--rather than matters of hand--the acting part. Of course, there is no one that is not depicted to some extent in verses 20 - 21 of chapter six in which Jesus exhorts us to forget about earthly wealth in favor of treasures in heaven, "for where your treasure is, there will be be your heart also." However, it's hard not to imagine that this seems to apply more to someone who actually HAS treasures than to someone who doesn't.
Regardless of what Jesus says, most of us grow up learning to obey authority and show deference to our betters. Most popular forms of patriotism hit both of targets pretty squarely: "My country, right or wrong." So if we are to have our bad theology, most of us would rather it come to us by way of the ruling class, the modern day Pharisees that rule the airwaves or megachurches. And they kind of have to be white. Maybe brown or black, so long as they don't rock the boat and say anything that will capsize the prevailing order. But as soon as a brother (and they are our brothers in Christ, right? aren't we all children of God, even the black sheep of the family?) speaks "truth to power," watch out.
That's what bothers me most about this whole situation: the inherent racism of our response to Wright's comments. We might say that we're trying to expose the racism of what he's saying, but in truth we are mostly reacting to hearing uncomfortable truths about the black experience in America. If we want to stop hearing such truths, let's change the truths that can be spoken. Let's make America a place that lives up to its ideals. Perhaps putting Barack Obama in the White House is a necessary step toward changing the truths about America and giving Wright one less jeremiad.
But no, it's got to be the raving black man. He's the real threat. After all, remember the race riots of 1968. The footage from Detroit? Burning storefronts, the National Guard, looting? Hello?! That is scary. All it takes is one black man with clips on YouTube to make it all happen again. Or, worse still, the pastor's parishioner and friend to find himself at the helm of this ship of democracy. Who knows, such a captain may let the rats take over, consume all the cargo and start putting on airs of being something they are not. (Well, Bush did the same things with his friends in oil, but let's let sleeping dogs die peacefully on Jan. 20, 2009.)
In any case, the truth is that the Bible is like the Saturday night special of bad theologians: always the weapon of choice for taking cheap shots. Consider the way slaveholders wielded it over slaves or bloodlettings. Consider the way end-times prophets (profiteers?) make hay with Revelation. Consider how the Geneva Bible contains 400 instances of the word "tyrant" and King James Bible none while the KJB even renders the unspeakable name of God as LORD in small caps, emphasizing a kind of feudal hierarchy. Consider the admittedly lousy thinking behind the liberation theology that came out of Latin America.
But if the Bible can and will be used as a weapon, in whose hands is it the most dangerous? In whose hands does it least belong? It is used by the powerful and moneyed (the "ruling class" or its apologists) to support their power. It has also been used by the powerless and the poor to seize power. Which is scarier? Or, maybe the better question, which better fits the message of the Gospels?
If you all will turn with me to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 - 7). It is a topsy-turvy sermon, where the old order is toppled. Everything you thought you knew is wrong or at the very least woefully incomplete. First of all, the powerless are held up and glorified, but the laws are also questioned, made matters of the heart--the thinking and feeling part of us--rather than matters of hand--the acting part. Of course, there is no one that is not depicted to some extent in verses 20 - 21 of chapter six in which Jesus exhorts us to forget about earthly wealth in favor of treasures in heaven, "for where your treasure is, there will be be your heart also." However, it's hard not to imagine that this seems to apply more to someone who actually HAS treasures than to someone who doesn't.
Regardless of what Jesus says, most of us grow up learning to obey authority and show deference to our betters. Most popular forms of patriotism hit both of targets pretty squarely: "My country, right or wrong." So if we are to have our bad theology, most of us would rather it come to us by way of the ruling class, the modern day Pharisees that rule the airwaves or megachurches. And they kind of have to be white. Maybe brown or black, so long as they don't rock the boat and say anything that will capsize the prevailing order. But as soon as a brother (and they are our brothers in Christ, right? aren't we all children of God, even the black sheep of the family?) speaks "truth to power," watch out.
That's what bothers me most about this whole situation: the inherent racism of our response to Wright's comments. We might say that we're trying to expose the racism of what he's saying, but in truth we are mostly reacting to hearing uncomfortable truths about the black experience in America. If we want to stop hearing such truths, let's change the truths that can be spoken. Let's make America a place that lives up to its ideals. Perhaps putting Barack Obama in the White House is a necessary step toward changing the truths about America and giving Wright one less jeremiad.
Monday, November 19, 2007
To Serve Machines (on lavoshe with endives and a garlic aioli)
In the war between the worlds, the machine must win, having the most reasons and being the manifestation of groupthink. The machine, after all, is programmed in committee, planned by many and overseen by others. Man is only man, a soft, fallible fleshly mass, consumed with and driven by his own subjectivity, so fragile a thing, so worthless. Much better to be the hand, leg or mouth of the machine, to have the machine make the decisions and the Man execute them according to pre-established protocols. Mistakes decrease and efficiency increases.
To act under orders is the easiest. Our conscience is freed by our having submitted our will to another, and, even better, to a procedure. A procedure requires planning, approvals and protocols. It is the logical extension of power, the amoral procedure. It is also the main support of power.
Recently, at the border between Detroit, Mich. and Windsor, Ontario, an ambulance was stopped by US agents as it headed to the hospital. The State took this step despite the Canadians having followed the procedure to cross by way of calling ahead to expedite their crossing. All was as it should be except that “the computer” announced a random inspection of the next vehicle, which happened to be said ambulance. Inside the ambulance, a man whose heart had stopped twice that night lay on the gurney.
The human impulse in us must be to throw out the required inspection in light of what was by all accounts a life or death matter. But today, in America, the human impulse barely registers. “The computer” tells us what must be done. “The computer” must be obeyed.
(No doubt the Germans in World War II with their IBM calculating machines were no less dependent on the outcome of the machine’s calculation to determine just how many will die, when and at what cost or potential gain. Sure, there was more going on in Germany than mere mechanization of thought, but the “achievements” of the Third Reich would have been greatly diminished without them.)
Right now, even as I type, the machine corrects my typing, my spelling, even (poor thing) my grammar—or at least suggests ways to normalize my prosaic musings. The machine returns results when we search for something on the internet, places ads next to the results and even recognizes us with a friendly greeting when we visit Amazon (always with the suggestion that it might have mistaken us for somebody else—“Not Christian Burk?”). The machine tells us when to end our dreams and face the day. Tells us to leave our dinner and family to talk to a telemarketer on the phone. Says “Walk” or “Don’t Walk” across the street. Makes us feel good, or at least more passive, at night in front of its soothing glow, pretty faces, moving music and evocative colors.
We live to follow the machine. We lust after it as it takes on more shapes than Proteus: Camaro, iPhone, HDTV, Harley, Xbox 360. We work that we might spend even more time with the machine, get to know it, to love it, even more.
Our massive brains, ingenuity, boundless ambition, capacity to imagine, gift of speech and occasional empathy have brought us to this pinnacle: enslavement to the machine. And like any good slave, we will always forgive our master’s failures as our own errors.
I am the chief among these sinners heretofore mentioned. I admit a fascination, a passion, a lust for Hephaestus’ newest toys. I yearn to hold the next thing. And I find, when I do, that its abilities, its beauty, its elegance and even its substance never compare to its perfection when held only in my mind as an abstract magical creation which has never before existed.
It takes me aback: how I can whore myself out to so many little pieces of silicon, metal and plastic. And then to see that it is not just me, but that I’m in good company with so many fellow travelers through this sea of techno garbage. Meanwhile, as I am figuring out a way to speed up my computer with more RAM and the newest operating system, involving, of course, outlays of cash, I watch, befuddled and wide-eyed the waves of humanity that pours out of the homeless shelter at 8 a.m. as I make my way to work.
But the large machine I travel in keeps me safe from such misery. Behind guilt-proof glass I roll past, staring a little. Humanity . . . so dirty, cluttered and confused. Much better I find to stick with the machine. At least, I know where I’m going, what to do and what to expect. Better the devil you know, right?
To act under orders is the easiest. Our conscience is freed by our having submitted our will to another, and, even better, to a procedure. A procedure requires planning, approvals and protocols. It is the logical extension of power, the amoral procedure. It is also the main support of power.
Recently, at the border between Detroit, Mich. and Windsor, Ontario, an ambulance was stopped by US agents as it headed to the hospital. The State took this step despite the Canadians having followed the procedure to cross by way of calling ahead to expedite their crossing. All was as it should be except that “the computer” announced a random inspection of the next vehicle, which happened to be said ambulance. Inside the ambulance, a man whose heart had stopped twice that night lay on the gurney.
The human impulse in us must be to throw out the required inspection in light of what was by all accounts a life or death matter. But today, in America, the human impulse barely registers. “The computer” tells us what must be done. “The computer” must be obeyed.
(No doubt the Germans in World War II with their IBM calculating machines were no less dependent on the outcome of the machine’s calculation to determine just how many will die, when and at what cost or potential gain. Sure, there was more going on in Germany than mere mechanization of thought, but the “achievements” of the Third Reich would have been greatly diminished without them.)
Right now, even as I type, the machine corrects my typing, my spelling, even (poor thing) my grammar—or at least suggests ways to normalize my prosaic musings. The machine returns results when we search for something on the internet, places ads next to the results and even recognizes us with a friendly greeting when we visit Amazon (always with the suggestion that it might have mistaken us for somebody else—“Not Christian Burk?”). The machine tells us when to end our dreams and face the day. Tells us to leave our dinner and family to talk to a telemarketer on the phone. Says “Walk” or “Don’t Walk” across the street. Makes us feel good, or at least more passive, at night in front of its soothing glow, pretty faces, moving music and evocative colors.
We live to follow the machine. We lust after it as it takes on more shapes than Proteus: Camaro, iPhone, HDTV, Harley, Xbox 360. We work that we might spend even more time with the machine, get to know it, to love it, even more.
Our massive brains, ingenuity, boundless ambition, capacity to imagine, gift of speech and occasional empathy have brought us to this pinnacle: enslavement to the machine. And like any good slave, we will always forgive our master’s failures as our own errors.
I am the chief among these sinners heretofore mentioned. I admit a fascination, a passion, a lust for Hephaestus’ newest toys. I yearn to hold the next thing. And I find, when I do, that its abilities, its beauty, its elegance and even its substance never compare to its perfection when held only in my mind as an abstract magical creation which has never before existed.
It takes me aback: how I can whore myself out to so many little pieces of silicon, metal and plastic. And then to see that it is not just me, but that I’m in good company with so many fellow travelers through this sea of techno garbage. Meanwhile, as I am figuring out a way to speed up my computer with more RAM and the newest operating system, involving, of course, outlays of cash, I watch, befuddled and wide-eyed the waves of humanity that pours out of the homeless shelter at 8 a.m. as I make my way to work.
But the large machine I travel in keeps me safe from such misery. Behind guilt-proof glass I roll past, staring a little. Humanity . . . so dirty, cluttered and confused. Much better I find to stick with the machine. At least, I know where I’m going, what to do and what to expect. Better the devil you know, right?
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Wading through the dark waters
The dream last night, or what I still remember 17 hours later:
Water everywhere.
Driving along on a highway along the waters’ edge, with small beach fronts to the right. Someone is telling me about it. Expensive, I imagine, though they are hardly little strips of land, with some sand, enough room for a gazebo-like tent right along the water. A lake, I’m told. Separated from the highway by a guardrail. This doesn’t stop the car I’m in from going off the road into the sand, gazing too long at the beach, I drive into it. Back on the road soon, a short scare.
Later in the dream, another body of water, a wide shallow stream. It darkens, deepens as I look further on. But nearby it is inches deep, less than a foot. We, me and others, are walking through it. A beaver/otter/woodchuck is swimming in it close to us. A huge frog, larger than a dinner plate is sitting on the mud by the water, full grown but still sporting part of its tail. It hops in the water and swims. The beaver-thing is swimming close to it. I know what will happen but dread it, not wanting to see it. The beaver swims after the frog and bites into it, the water turning a dark, cloudy red.
Now out of the water, behind or next to some buildings. The landscape is still the same. I think it is the West somewhere. We see so much sky and all around is only dried mud, perhaps mountains in the distance, far away. But we are on this dried mud behind one pink and one blue stucco (maybe) building. Another frog is there, smaller, adult, I catch it easily. Pick it up and it looks like it has some kind of milky coating. Maybe to keep it from drying out.
That’s it.
Now, as I was thinking of the dreams this morning, the scene with the beaver and the frog struck me. I think I am the frog. I have always loved them and even jumped around the house like a frog. I’m fully grown, but for my tail, this childhood relic that I can’t shake. I am in my element, but there is one better, or some threat. I wondered that I might be seeing my own death. I don’t like to think that that’s it, but I don’t know what to make of it.
The one saving feature is that the frog image returns in a less habitable environment (not water this time), but it’s managed to insulate itself from its greatest threat, which, in the second scenario is the dry heat, which would also kill the frog by drying it out.
Consider, too, the mythic importance of water, approaching, crossing, the waters of the underworld in order to be born again or renewed for the coming year (if looking at as a cycle).
Oddly, today I actually did run into/over something in the road while driving with Colin on our way home from soccer practice. As in my dream, I am distracted by something on our right, in this case, a “road closed” sign which, as I was looking at it, didn’t really seem to blocking the part of the road it was supposed to. In my distraction, I ran over the base of one of those orange construction barrels (the barrel was nowhere).
No frogs seen today, though.
Water everywhere.
Driving along on a highway along the waters’ edge, with small beach fronts to the right. Someone is telling me about it. Expensive, I imagine, though they are hardly little strips of land, with some sand, enough room for a gazebo-like tent right along the water. A lake, I’m told. Separated from the highway by a guardrail. This doesn’t stop the car I’m in from going off the road into the sand, gazing too long at the beach, I drive into it. Back on the road soon, a short scare.
Later in the dream, another body of water, a wide shallow stream. It darkens, deepens as I look further on. But nearby it is inches deep, less than a foot. We, me and others, are walking through it. A beaver/otter/woodchuck is swimming in it close to us. A huge frog, larger than a dinner plate is sitting on the mud by the water, full grown but still sporting part of its tail. It hops in the water and swims. The beaver-thing is swimming close to it. I know what will happen but dread it, not wanting to see it. The beaver swims after the frog and bites into it, the water turning a dark, cloudy red.
Now out of the water, behind or next to some buildings. The landscape is still the same. I think it is the West somewhere. We see so much sky and all around is only dried mud, perhaps mountains in the distance, far away. But we are on this dried mud behind one pink and one blue stucco (maybe) building. Another frog is there, smaller, adult, I catch it easily. Pick it up and it looks like it has some kind of milky coating. Maybe to keep it from drying out.
That’s it.
Now, as I was thinking of the dreams this morning, the scene with the beaver and the frog struck me. I think I am the frog. I have always loved them and even jumped around the house like a frog. I’m fully grown, but for my tail, this childhood relic that I can’t shake. I am in my element, but there is one better, or some threat. I wondered that I might be seeing my own death. I don’t like to think that that’s it, but I don’t know what to make of it.
The one saving feature is that the frog image returns in a less habitable environment (not water this time), but it’s managed to insulate itself from its greatest threat, which, in the second scenario is the dry heat, which would also kill the frog by drying it out.
Consider, too, the mythic importance of water, approaching, crossing, the waters of the underworld in order to be born again or renewed for the coming year (if looking at as a cycle).
Oddly, today I actually did run into/over something in the road while driving with Colin on our way home from soccer practice. As in my dream, I am distracted by something on our right, in this case, a “road closed” sign which, as I was looking at it, didn’t really seem to blocking the part of the road it was supposed to. In my distraction, I ran over the base of one of those orange construction barrels (the barrel was nowhere).
No frogs seen today, though.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Why so pale and wan fond lover?
The more I think about writing, the less I think my life worth writing about? True, it is my life, but it is not "high" life.
The long black vessels of the Greeks
The chains wrapped around a slaves' feet
The gunpowder crack of revolution
The long journey over the dangerous plains.
These are not my experiences. They are not the experiences of my peers. We know only scant labor, fears mostly imaginary, dangers mostly promoted by the news. We are a scattered, lesser people, driven away from the true language we may have once spoken: clear cries at the sight of another morning. How true it must have once been that the Lord's mercies are renewed every morning.
Today, we take our blessings, make our own miracles, thank you. We don't need help like we once did. We are the eye in the sky, the lighthouse at the top of the world. We see all, know all and can't find the country on the map.
What is worth the mention of us? Nothing great. Are we to memorialize the non-greatness of this day, the paltry portions of courage we have brought to our communal table? Are we to remember our own indifference to human suffering as close as the next room, as far as Africa is from our hearts?
Endless lines, buckets of ink, and the sweat of too many brows have poured forth on this great mystery: how a people with nearly everything can be satisfied with nothing, can only hope to engorge their greed souls with the ever-present hope of more. Such terrible food. And what small portions.
We want to read about struggle. We want to see adversity overcome against all odds. We even want to see a qualified success, some glimpse of the spirit that we sometimes need to know we might have once had ourselves if not for the deadening weight of the every day.
Strange days. Shaken and stirred but only in the teapots. We live a butterfly effect daily. We flap our lips, a storm surges, great typhoon over Japan. We eat our own coal and drink piss to stay alive. We can be that hungry, that thirsty. Somewhere. A snug misunderstatement of a life in this landlocked city. This country isolated by wide waters. We won't always be so safe and yet be afraid.
Maybe, maybe we will actually be in danger. May have our lives on the deadline of our times and have to brave face it. Today, that's a future memory. Tomorrow, it may be the present task. I wait. I order the flies about me about. Asking them to take a small cloak to cover the eye of night. Let my deeds be dark. Let all the sordid morsels make a meal of this resistance we feel.
The long black vessels of the Greeks
The chains wrapped around a slaves' feet
The gunpowder crack of revolution
The long journey over the dangerous plains.
These are not my experiences. They are not the experiences of my peers. We know only scant labor, fears mostly imaginary, dangers mostly promoted by the news. We are a scattered, lesser people, driven away from the true language we may have once spoken: clear cries at the sight of another morning. How true it must have once been that the Lord's mercies are renewed every morning.
Today, we take our blessings, make our own miracles, thank you. We don't need help like we once did. We are the eye in the sky, the lighthouse at the top of the world. We see all, know all and can't find the country on the map.
What is worth the mention of us? Nothing great. Are we to memorialize the non-greatness of this day, the paltry portions of courage we have brought to our communal table? Are we to remember our own indifference to human suffering as close as the next room, as far as Africa is from our hearts?
Endless lines, buckets of ink, and the sweat of too many brows have poured forth on this great mystery: how a people with nearly everything can be satisfied with nothing, can only hope to engorge their greed souls with the ever-present hope of more. Such terrible food. And what small portions.
We want to read about struggle. We want to see adversity overcome against all odds. We even want to see a qualified success, some glimpse of the spirit that we sometimes need to know we might have once had ourselves if not for the deadening weight of the every day.
Strange days. Shaken and stirred but only in the teapots. We live a butterfly effect daily. We flap our lips, a storm surges, great typhoon over Japan. We eat our own coal and drink piss to stay alive. We can be that hungry, that thirsty. Somewhere. A snug misunderstatement of a life in this landlocked city. This country isolated by wide waters. We won't always be so safe and yet be afraid.
Maybe, maybe we will actually be in danger. May have our lives on the deadline of our times and have to brave face it. Today, that's a future memory. Tomorrow, it may be the present task. I wait. I order the flies about me about. Asking them to take a small cloak to cover the eye of night. Let my deeds be dark. Let all the sordid morsels make a meal of this resistance we feel.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
What's so Great about the Greeks?
I just read 300 by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley (colorist). It is a brief exploration of the Greek concept of arete (greatness or virtue, one's full potential realized). From my understanding (read: the few classes I took in college), Greeks prized arete above all else. For them, it was the only way to live on beyond death, through great, noble, heroic deeds or excellence on the field of battle, in athletic competition or in the arts.
In 300, Leonidas, king of Sparta, and his 300 personal guard (with the "help" of the other Greeks) take on Persia's legions, under the rule of Xerxes, self-proclaimed "Lord of Lords (that sure has a ring to it, don't you think. Leonidas, his Spartans and the rest of the Greeks, to be fair, fight a tactically brilliant and ruthless battle, giving no quarter. It is only when they are betrayed by a spurned would-be Spartan warrior that the Persians find a hole in the Greek defenses. The tide of the battle turns, and the Spartans face certain defeat. They fight on with Leonidas leading the charge. He takes one last shot at Xerxes with a javelin and is shot through with innumerable arrows while Xerxes suffers only a slashed cheek. In a "remember-the-alamo"-like sequel, a combined Greek force goes on to defeat the Persians some time later.
From the beginning and to the end, Leonidas is both resigned and accepting of his fate. In a way, he succeeds. He achieves arete.
The samurai, too, had a similar concept, at least from what I understand in talking about Japanese culture with my father-in-law. After their usefulness as warriors receded, they went into professional fields in which they used the same rigor and pursuit of the excellent to guide them.
I don't want to confuse culture with religion here unnecessarily but it seems that Christianity does not have a strong tradition of striving for excellence. Rather, there is an interesting countervailing force that guides us to live for God and for others. There is no room for craft or art in that. The argument could be made that God's commandments don't preclude great actions, but they hardly seem to be the focus. Glory in battle would be about the last thing that would fit in with Christian ideals.
However, look at Christ, the disciples and the tradition of the saints.They take on a certain cast in light of their sacrifices. In the case of Jesus and his disciples, they are known first by their great works. But Jesus becomes who he is meant to be when he is crucified. Why else would we attach such significance to the cross? It is a symbol of his greatness, of his sacrifice and of our salvation, all of it wrapped up in one.
Hagiographies, too, are replete with stories of people willing to die for their faith, though not to kill for it. Saints become what themselves, enter into their sainthood at the point of their embrace of martyrdom, whether they actually die or not. The miracles performed by them are almost like the natural by-product of their faith, like a surplus of their godliness overflowing onto other people and things around them (Elisha's cloak or Jesus's robe).
I wonder, then, if we are to follow the commandments to love God and others that these other things will necessarily happen, that's God's greatness will be with us. And if not, is it because we are not following his word, or is it that some of us are just not to experience "greatness?" Maybe greatness can be small?
In the end, it makes me think of that old philosophical koan: "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" If Leonidas died sacrificially for Sparta and no one knew or told his tale, does that diminish the greatness of it? Did Miller consider his own role in enacting and increasing the greatness, the arete, of the Spartans in spreading the story to his readers and now to those who watched the movie? Is there a silent, invisible arete?
In 300, Leonidas, king of Sparta, and his 300 personal guard (with the "help" of the other Greeks) take on Persia's legions, under the rule of Xerxes, self-proclaimed "Lord of Lords (that sure has a ring to it, don't you think. Leonidas, his Spartans and the rest of the Greeks, to be fair, fight a tactically brilliant and ruthless battle, giving no quarter. It is only when they are betrayed by a spurned would-be Spartan warrior that the Persians find a hole in the Greek defenses. The tide of the battle turns, and the Spartans face certain defeat. They fight on with Leonidas leading the charge. He takes one last shot at Xerxes with a javelin and is shot through with innumerable arrows while Xerxes suffers only a slashed cheek. In a "remember-the-alamo"-like sequel, a combined Greek force goes on to defeat the Persians some time later.
From the beginning and to the end, Leonidas is both resigned and accepting of his fate. In a way, he succeeds. He achieves arete.
The samurai, too, had a similar concept, at least from what I understand in talking about Japanese culture with my father-in-law. After their usefulness as warriors receded, they went into professional fields in which they used the same rigor and pursuit of the excellent to guide them.
I don't want to confuse culture with religion here unnecessarily but it seems that Christianity does not have a strong tradition of striving for excellence. Rather, there is an interesting countervailing force that guides us to live for God and for others. There is no room for craft or art in that. The argument could be made that God's commandments don't preclude great actions, but they hardly seem to be the focus. Glory in battle would be about the last thing that would fit in with Christian ideals.
However, look at Christ, the disciples and the tradition of the saints.They take on a certain cast in light of their sacrifices. In the case of Jesus and his disciples, they are known first by their great works. But Jesus becomes who he is meant to be when he is crucified. Why else would we attach such significance to the cross? It is a symbol of his greatness, of his sacrifice and of our salvation, all of it wrapped up in one.
Hagiographies, too, are replete with stories of people willing to die for their faith, though not to kill for it. Saints become what themselves, enter into their sainthood at the point of their embrace of martyrdom, whether they actually die or not. The miracles performed by them are almost like the natural by-product of their faith, like a surplus of their godliness overflowing onto other people and things around them (Elisha's cloak or Jesus's robe).
I wonder, then, if we are to follow the commandments to love God and others that these other things will necessarily happen, that's God's greatness will be with us. And if not, is it because we are not following his word, or is it that some of us are just not to experience "greatness?" Maybe greatness can be small?
In the end, it makes me think of that old philosophical koan: "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" If Leonidas died sacrificially for Sparta and no one knew or told his tale, does that diminish the greatness of it? Did Miller consider his own role in enacting and increasing the greatness, the arete, of the Spartans in spreading the story to his readers and now to those who watched the movie? Is there a silent, invisible arete?
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Ravings from an "Expert" Who Failed to Rate a Bush Chat Invite
George Bush wants to know why people don't like him. He wants to know what happened to his popularity, all his political capital. He's meeting with writers, historians, philosophers. But I've got an idea for him:
Meet with the people you're supposed to represent.
I'm sure that a roomful of people gathered at random would tell him a lot more than any collection of "experts."
But that would go against Bush's whole philosophy (and that of his Administration): people are sheep, easily led, dumb beasts who can't speak for themselves. Consider the run up to the war in Iraq: millions of people protested. They called for other solutions, begged not to start a war, asked for more inspections. Bush's response: Piss off, we've got a war to fight, whether you like it or not. At that point, enough people were afraid of terrorists that Bush could pretty much do whatever he wanted (and did). But that kind of fear is hard to maintain, even if the threat level never drops below "elevated."
But if he were to assemble a few groups of citizens he might hear what's really going on. And that's the danger. Presidents and elected officials of many levels don't really have to connect in any genuine way with their constituents. People talk about the bubble of Washington, a self-contained universe with its own set of agendas, topsy-turvy political ecologies and concentrations of power. It should be the most plugged-in kind of place, gaging the pulse of the nation and the world, tracking trends in the political landscape (at least).
But by many accounts, it's provincial, looking inward as much if not more than it looks outward, concerned with its own affairs more than those of whom it claims to speak and work for.
It's no surprise. Washington is a collection of organizations, agencies, departments, and branches, all of which exhibit the same basic tendency of its human progenitors--survival of self first. They don't about kitchen table issues in politics. This is more like "dinner table politics:" if I don't eat as much as I can, somebody else will, so better eat fast. My in-laws say you're either "the quick or the hungry."
If everything you do is reduced to how much you can gain for yourself in the budget process (if you're a government entity) or through earmarks and donations (if you're a non-profit), than that job of self-preservation becomes the priority.
It's like the way that the GOP had become so obviously enamored of merely gaining and holding power in Washington rather than actually governing. How else can we explain our lack of leadership in the areas of the climate change, education for all people, job creation for our changing economy, energy and our reliance on fossil fuels, global diplomacy, true electoral reform, health care for every citizen, etc.? So if George Bush wants to hear why he and his administration is on the outs with Americans, he should probably take a look at the above list. Then, combine that with the venality and self-serving power-mongering of himself and his cronies. Put it all together and you get the general measure of the sordid reign of King George. So where's not to like?
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Remember the Sabbath?
I don't want to go to church. But I don't want to feel guilty about not going to church. Going to church, being with fellow Christians, should be like coming home, taking off your shoes, relaxing after a day at work and resting in their presence. Instead, I always feel unworthy of most of my fellow church-goers, like they are the modern-day equivalent of St. Pious or St. Applepie-us. I don't know my saints, clearly.
How do we get beyond feeling like a naughty child on Sunday mornings with the newspaper and coffee, kids playing nearby or downstairs, and NPR drifting in from the other room? How do we not think ourselves lapsed in ignoring our weekly obligations to God?
But does God really care if we are at church or home? Maybe it's that at church I actually spend a little time trying to plug into the divine presence, approach the mysterious, commune with the Creator with my peer communicants. At home, my prayers, if I make them, are individual, like diary entries, or a blog with only one reader. When praying, singing, or learning en masse, we become pilgrims together, heading toward the New Jerusalem.
So often, though, the cares of the day take over, the urgent but not important (as opposed to the important but not always apparently urgent work of God). I consider how distracting the kids really are at church, how hard it is to make my emotional pilgrimage. How I might help my wife around the house. How I really just want to see and hang out with them anyway.
I resist the need to see God at church, my cutting him out of other areas; but the other places, the kitchen, the basement, the back yard, don't necessarily seem imbued with his presence, so crowded as they often are by yelling kids or me and my yelling at the kids. Still, when the children playing together, side-by-side or with each other with their legos or tinker toys, I sometimes think that heaven has this kind of interplay of egos with each other in a genuine give and take. I just don't usually find it at church.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Dying for a cup of coffee
In a darkened hut, on a dirt floor, a young woman stirs beans as they roast on a skillet. She then breaks the brown beans in a bowel with a wooden pestle. She brews the coffee and pours in through a long-stemmed pot into wide cups sitting on a crate. The members of the family gathered around the coffee each take a cup and drink, themselves sitting on their own crates or squatting.Somewhere else, a man wakes up before sunrise, walks downstairs through the dining room to the kitchen and turns on the light overhead. From the freezer he picks a Kenya dark roast, fills the electric grinder, and presses the button for 20 seconds. After filling the basket of the drip coffee maker, he pours distilled water it into the coffee maker. He presses the "on" button and 5 minutes later drinks a cup at the kitchen table as he takes in the morning news on the radio or internet.
These two parties are linked by coffee. But they are at different ends of its chain. The first is in Ethiopia, where coffee originated and where it is still a major export crop. The other is in the US and represents the biggest consumer of coffee in the world. One is dirt poor and getting poorer. The other is richer than ever. One is brown or black. The other is white.
The documentary Black Gold tells the story of coffee, where it comes from, where it goes and how the money flows. In the coffee market, much like other commodities, the farmers don't make the money. The traders, processors and marketers do. Coffee contracts in 2005 totaled $140 billion dollars. Starbucks alone has over 13,000 outlets. But, according the movie, every $3 cup of coffee earns a farmer only 3¢.
So, what is the morality of a cup of joe?
In the next few entries, I want to look at coffee and our relationship with it and its producers as people in the West and as Christians. I hope to illuminate its role in our lives and work and our role as believers in changing the lives of others.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
What Enron taught us (and how we all managed to miss class that day)
I've seen it before, but I saw it again tonight and my dander is up once more.
Independent Lens showed Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room tonight. Oh sure, it's fun to watch the giant fall, to see the pedestal of Ozymandias:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
(Thanks, P.B. Shelley [which does not stand for Peanut Butter, by the way]).
O! the glorious irony of it all, or predictability, or whatever.
But how my blood boils to think of how unwittingly we watched California endure Enron's shadow passing over it with its rolling blackouts. We are suckers, waiting for our PT Barnum. We are those pheasants on Dick Cheney's hunting ranch, waiting to be released for our cursory last flight. We are easy pickings. All of us.
The worst part: we actually still believe what we hear and see, "believing old men's lies," as Pound says in "Mauberley."
Gas prices keep going up and up and up. Iraq is frying in our very hot war over there. We've got one political scandal after another rocking this administration.
This isn't a matter of the emperor having no clothes. "In fact, here he comes down the runway in a piece that's perfect for any occasion. This year's hottest fashion: the American flag wrap. You'll always fit in with these bold stripes and plucky stars. Just the thing to show you love your country. No critic would dare touch you with this little number on. Body armor meets Teflon with a freedom of movement inspired by Freedom itself. And the best is, it's made in China." Disclaimer: The American flag does not guarantee any protection against attacks either of a verbal or physical nature and cannot be relied on for medical care for families of servicemen following their discharge from the US armed forces. Any references to "Freedom" in the particular or abstract are purely theoretical except in the case of administration officials, its operatives and proxies, and are not transferable to any citizen not directly under the administration's employ.
It's time to stop accepting lies and excuses. We all know that life has gotten worse under Bush's time on the throne. (In case we forgot, Enron was one of GWB's biggest contributors in 2000, and Ken Lay lent his sagacity to the Cheney Energy Task Force. But, thankfully, neither of those two actions have had any repercussions in the present. Whew! Dodged a bullet there.)
How many other "black boxes" of information are we willing to believe? Are we always to play the swooning audience to the melodrama of greedy corporate misinformation meets sinister government propaganda who decide to seduce the wallflower media?
So many days I want to just turn off the radio, stop listening and read some poetry or fiction (particularly having just learned that Gilbert Sorrentino died last year. Made me take down Mulligan Stew yet again and leaf through its hilarious pages. One of my favorite tidbits of downright silliness meets literary criticism in a metafictional land: "You can always tell a good poem if your hair stands up while you cut yourself shaving."). But somehow I keep thinking, "You can't just look away. The world will never change unless you help even a little."
In the words of Mario Savio:
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"
I don't know how do this. But I know that I feel this way. I wonder how many of us feel this way. "Stop the Bush train. We want to get off . . . and close down the line for good . . . and sell the engines for scrap . . . and reclaim the last 6 years of our lives."
And find out the truth at some point.
Independent Lens showed Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room tonight. Oh sure, it's fun to watch the giant fall, to see the pedestal of Ozymandias:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
(Thanks, P.B. Shelley [which does not stand for Peanut Butter, by the way]).
O! the glorious irony of it all, or predictability, or whatever.
But how my blood boils to think of how unwittingly we watched California endure Enron's shadow passing over it with its rolling blackouts. We are suckers, waiting for our PT Barnum. We are those pheasants on Dick Cheney's hunting ranch, waiting to be released for our cursory last flight. We are easy pickings. All of us.
The worst part: we actually still believe what we hear and see, "believing old men's lies," as Pound says in "Mauberley."
Gas prices keep going up and up and up. Iraq is frying in our very hot war over there. We've got one political scandal after another rocking this administration.
This isn't a matter of the emperor having no clothes. "In fact, here he comes down the runway in a piece that's perfect for any occasion. This year's hottest fashion: the American flag wrap. You'll always fit in with these bold stripes and plucky stars. Just the thing to show you love your country. No critic would dare touch you with this little number on. Body armor meets Teflon with a freedom of movement inspired by Freedom itself. And the best is, it's made in China." Disclaimer: The American flag does not guarantee any protection against attacks either of a verbal or physical nature and cannot be relied on for medical care for families of servicemen following their discharge from the US armed forces. Any references to "Freedom" in the particular or abstract are purely theoretical except in the case of administration officials, its operatives and proxies, and are not transferable to any citizen not directly under the administration's employ.
It's time to stop accepting lies and excuses. We all know that life has gotten worse under Bush's time on the throne. (In case we forgot, Enron was one of GWB's biggest contributors in 2000, and Ken Lay lent his sagacity to the Cheney Energy Task Force. But, thankfully, neither of those two actions have had any repercussions in the present. Whew! Dodged a bullet there.)
How many other "black boxes" of information are we willing to believe? Are we always to play the swooning audience to the melodrama of greedy corporate misinformation meets sinister government propaganda who decide to seduce the wallflower media?
So many days I want to just turn off the radio, stop listening and read some poetry or fiction (particularly having just learned that Gilbert Sorrentino died last year. Made me take down Mulligan Stew yet again and leaf through its hilarious pages. One of my favorite tidbits of downright silliness meets literary criticism in a metafictional land: "You can always tell a good poem if your hair stands up while you cut yourself shaving."). But somehow I keep thinking, "You can't just look away. The world will never change unless you help even a little."
In the words of Mario Savio:
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"
I don't know how do this. But I know that I feel this way. I wonder how many of us feel this way. "Stop the Bush train. We want to get off . . . and close down the line for good . . . and sell the engines for scrap . . . and reclaim the last 6 years of our lives."
And find out the truth at some point.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
But doesn't God live at CHURCH?
I've been reading Carl Jung's essay "Achetypes of the Collective Unconscious," which has got me thinking: do we keep the "Divine" in church (where it can be properly revered, censed and what have you) or do we welcome it in to the rest of our lives (where it can see that we pick our nose and how long it takes us to go to the bathroom)? The question is simply to we pray best when in front of the altar or while on the throne?
I don't really know. I struggle with both, actually. But maybe because I grew up Protestant, it is easier for me to see my failure to comply with bringing God everywhere than with properly observing his divinity while at church (again, though, not great at either).
Why the point about being a Protestant? We were the image breakers, after all, the iconoclasts, who would have no mere objects of wood, dye or metal to which we would bow or pray. Instead, we'd rather go to church all the time. Two times on Sunday, then small-groups on Monday, Bible study on Wednesday, revival Friday night (at which you re-dedicate your life) and Saturday drama practice or Men's Group. You think I'm joking? I am not.
Instead of integrating our faith into the rest of our life, we simply made faith (and a very particularized expression of it) into our lives.
I recall a neighbor who lived on the first floor of the apartment I rented while in college. Every time I left out the side door, I would go past her front door and could hear her singing loudly to praise music that was coming (loudly) from the radio or TV. Then, I would find her little boy outside, either bored or hungry, and usually just hanging around on the stoop.
OK, extreme example. But it seemed to me that she wanted to be in church so bad that she neglected all else.
I've never been like that. I'll leave church all pumped up, excited to read some more of the Bible, which I started doing either because of the sermon or despite it. I'll get home, have lunch, yell at the kids, play with the kids, do some work, clean up my office, and that unstruck iron of my religious fervor is cold to the touch. It is replaced by a sense of guilt that hangs around and gets progressively stronger until it, like a turkey timer, is about to pop on Sunday morning (We have GOT to go to church "for the kids' sake"). By the time the sermon is over, my guilt has been replaced by zeal. I'm on fire again. And so it goes.
Still, I never wanted to be one of those people that said "Praise the Lord" instead of "that's great" upon hearing about the Bears going into the SuperBowl or that Whole Foods had that feta we liked in stock. It also sounded a little fakey, a little too churched for my taste.
But who am I? No one's making me say things. Yes, but I felt bad not saying that as well.
Or "Good luck?" What a can of worms. See, Christians don't believe in luck because all things are ordained by God, not by chance. So, don't ever say "good luck" to someone, say "God bless you," just like George Bush: "God Bless America." And, you can't be lucky or unlucky for the same reason. So . . . we are blessed to have enough money for Thai tonight or we are not blessed and so must put it on the credit card. That doesn't really fit with orthodoxy, either. You see the dilemma.
more on this . . .
I don't really know. I struggle with both, actually. But maybe because I grew up Protestant, it is easier for me to see my failure to comply with bringing God everywhere than with properly observing his divinity while at church (again, though, not great at either).
Why the point about being a Protestant? We were the image breakers, after all, the iconoclasts, who would have no mere objects of wood, dye or metal to which we would bow or pray. Instead, we'd rather go to church all the time. Two times on Sunday, then small-groups on Monday, Bible study on Wednesday, revival Friday night (at which you re-dedicate your life) and Saturday drama practice or Men's Group. You think I'm joking? I am not.
Instead of integrating our faith into the rest of our life, we simply made faith (and a very particularized expression of it) into our lives.
I recall a neighbor who lived on the first floor of the apartment I rented while in college. Every time I left out the side door, I would go past her front door and could hear her singing loudly to praise music that was coming (loudly) from the radio or TV. Then, I would find her little boy outside, either bored or hungry, and usually just hanging around on the stoop.
OK, extreme example. But it seemed to me that she wanted to be in church so bad that she neglected all else.
I've never been like that. I'll leave church all pumped up, excited to read some more of the Bible, which I started doing either because of the sermon or despite it. I'll get home, have lunch, yell at the kids, play with the kids, do some work, clean up my office, and that unstruck iron of my religious fervor is cold to the touch. It is replaced by a sense of guilt that hangs around and gets progressively stronger until it, like a turkey timer, is about to pop on Sunday morning (We have GOT to go to church "for the kids' sake"). By the time the sermon is over, my guilt has been replaced by zeal. I'm on fire again. And so it goes.
Still, I never wanted to be one of those people that said "Praise the Lord" instead of "that's great" upon hearing about the Bears going into the SuperBowl or that Whole Foods had that feta we liked in stock. It also sounded a little fakey, a little too churched for my taste.
But who am I? No one's making me say things. Yes, but I felt bad not saying that as well.
Or "Good luck?" What a can of worms. See, Christians don't believe in luck because all things are ordained by God, not by chance. So, don't ever say "good luck" to someone, say "God bless you," just like George Bush: "God Bless America." And, you can't be lucky or unlucky for the same reason. So . . . we are blessed to have enough money for Thai tonight or we are not blessed and so must put it on the credit card. That doesn't really fit with orthodoxy, either. You see the dilemma.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Conspiracy of Christianity (part 1)
In the freshly minted earth (imagine steam or mist rising off it as it cools or heats up in the predawn light), God says "Let us make man in our image," the first conspiracy.
We could say that the act of creating the Earth itself is a kind of conspiracy, but consider the root: "conspirare, 'to breath together,' and so 'to combine or unit in some purpose.'" Another meaning used today is "to plot in secret," even as one person.
Still, if God's first conspiracy was to create Man, then conspiracies in themselves are not all bad. Indeed, the way Christians see it, God's own conspiracies, usually involving people of faith, thwart the evil intent of those plotted by Satan. It is a great war between foes with humans as the co-conspirators.
Granted, not all Christians see themselves in this way, but in 2004 I was made aware that a rumor on the Christian internet (a part of the Web with bible quotes cross-stitched and hanging on the walls) that Barack Obama may be the anti-Christ. If he was conspiring to take over government and lead this country into Satan's open arms, plunging the world into Armeggedon, then Christians were going to do something about it. (Of course, given the predominate interpretation Revelation by evangelical Christians, we should have welcomed the anti-Christ, as that would have put the Rapture on the fast-track, right?)
In fact, some folks see satan in every whisp of smoke just as others see angels in every cloud break. But if we stick to the "conspiracy as planning together" model, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are participants in a conspiracy. But you can bet that they think themselves the victims of one.
It is not unlike Thomas Friedman's analysis of the Arab world from The World is Flat: "They have been raised to believe that Islam is the perfect and cmplete expression of God's monthestic mesaage and that the Prophet Muhammed is God's last and most perfect messenger." But "[they] can and do look around and see that the Arab-Muslim world, in too many cases, has fallen behind the rest of the planet."
The reason: conspiracy, one in which the West is trying to keep down the Muslims. So al-Qaeda and its revolutionary kin flourish and conspire to take down the West.
Here in the West, we have our own disaffected groups, namely the working class. More than any other group, they have been the grassroots of the religious right's power, even if some of the green has come from business interests. The working class tends to be more religious and to see their religion has affecting their material circumstance. How do I know this? Well, I've lived it, and continue to live it, so I suppose it's personal and anecdotal, but I'm sure that the folks at the Pew Research Center would probably back me up on this.
The working class in the West has seen its real wages fall over three decades. And we wonder why Christians feel left out of mainstream? Just like those jaded Arab youths who see the West corrupting and controlling the world and flaunting it with the likes of Madonna and Bush, the Christian working class have watched their own power contract while culture goes to hell all around them. It must be some kind of conspiracy. That's the only explanation. God wouldn't let this happen, right?
Christians have consiracy written into their spiritual DNA. It's impossible to extract without killing the subject. But it may not be a bad thing. It helps us see meaning where it may not be apparent. It may provide a filter through which to understand the overload of information coming in from all quarters. It may provide us with a place to stand "as ignorant armies clash by night." But it is exploitable. That's a weakness. And it has been used against us.
Like some Muslims and the caliphate, certain Christians are driven to act in an almost pavlovian response to the description of the US as a "Christian nation." Is there something in the Bible I missed? The only nation with which I remember God having a relationship was Israel, to whom he had made promises, covenants that are referred to specifically in the Bible.
Still, there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting a nation whose leaders and people are dedicated to God's purposes. What is wrong is that we think we can get there by making gay marriage illegal, setting up a monument to the ten commandments or bringing prayer to schools. In these ways, and so many others, Christians have conspired to influence government, and, by extension, the people governed, in order to bring about a more perfect union with God.
Remember "the gay agenda?" As a kid, I heard the reason they try to convert straight people is that they can't breed. CONSPIRACY. And now they want to adopt, so that they can start inculcating them with "gayness" as children? CONSPIRACY. And who will fight our war in the Middle-East if every good-looking boy in America fails the don't ask-don't tell test? OK, sorry. Little over the top there, but you get the picture.
Christians feel that they have somehow been conspired against and are looking for people with whom to conspire in their own favor. It's quite natural, quite human, but probably less Godly than we'd like to think ourselves. It is more about retribution than compassion, more revenge than righteousness.
From the realpolitik, it is hurting us. We often act against our own interests, just because it will get a little of our dignity back. Consider working class people and their falling in with the GOP, often against their own economic interests.
(I know that there's more on this in me, but I'm not sure where yet. I'll get back to you on this.)
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Living the Subsidized Life
In recent years, I have concluded that all my professional life has been subsidized. I don't mean that I'm getting paid. I mean that someone or some organization is actually contributing money to what I am doing, and, consequently, to my livelihood. I have worked at seven non-profit organizations since graduating from college. All of these organizations get some money from people who do not necessarily receive any tangible benefit. People, either as individual contributors or through a corporation or foundation, provide funds to make these things function.
So nothing I do really has made something by itself that people find valuable enough to buy for the price. I'm like the clearance endcap at Target, full of discontinued products sold below cost to clear the shelves. But non-profits have raised money this way for a long time, through private wealth. The assumption was that a public good does not always have a public to pay for it or that can pay for it.
Most of these jobs, being non-profit, do not justify very high wages, which is the second level of subsidy in my life, the cash and in-kind donations of parents, mostly my wife's. They will occasionally give us money, not whole lot: $25, $50 or a few times a couple hundred dollars. They also watch the kids when my wife has to go to work, at least once a week. They have us over for dinner, too.
So am I a blood sucker, draining my host dry while not returning anything? I started to think: who is a net producer? A tree.
In junior high science, we learned about producers and consumers. Producers make their own food, i.e. plants making glucose from light, sun and water. Consumers eat the food of others or just eat the others, whatever is easier and tastier. So, then, are any animals actually producers? Do any of us give more than we take?
Consider Apple, a very profitable company these days. Are they subsidized? They have investors, but that's hardly the same, is it? Unless the investment goes south, in which case they were subsidizing it. Ideally, though, the investment dollars are returned to investors plus more, maybe lots more.
Apple makes computers, monitors, iPods and software. How much is extracted from the earth in order to meet the mineral needs of their hardware? How much copper, lead or mercury? Or the plastics? Is there any way to replace it? If not, that's a net loss? And they are hardly a huge user of metals in their products compared to cars or big appliances.
The earth is subsidizing the profitability of Apple, carrying all the materials necessary to create the iPod or MacBook. But the hardware is just the necessary materials. What makes Apple and, essentially, every company unique is what they do with the materials, what approach they take, how they marry idea with medium to create something of value.
My conclusion: we all live a subsidized life. Some of us are better at using the subsidies provided by the earth and sun, others are better and extracting the refined subsidies of wealth from people. They are all gifts. We are all recipients.
So nothing I do really has made something by itself that people find valuable enough to buy for the price. I'm like the clearance endcap at Target, full of discontinued products sold below cost to clear the shelves. But non-profits have raised money this way for a long time, through private wealth. The assumption was that a public good does not always have a public to pay for it or that can pay for it.
Most of these jobs, being non-profit, do not justify very high wages, which is the second level of subsidy in my life, the cash and in-kind donations of parents, mostly my wife's. They will occasionally give us money, not whole lot: $25, $50 or a few times a couple hundred dollars. They also watch the kids when my wife has to go to work, at least once a week. They have us over for dinner, too.
So am I a blood sucker, draining my host dry while not returning anything? I started to think: who is a net producer? A tree.
In junior high science, we learned about producers and consumers. Producers make their own food, i.e. plants making glucose from light, sun and water. Consumers eat the food of others or just eat the others, whatever is easier and tastier. So, then, are any animals actually producers? Do any of us give more than we take?
Consider Apple, a very profitable company these days. Are they subsidized? They have investors, but that's hardly the same, is it? Unless the investment goes south, in which case they were subsidizing it. Ideally, though, the investment dollars are returned to investors plus more, maybe lots more.
Apple makes computers, monitors, iPods and software. How much is extracted from the earth in order to meet the mineral needs of their hardware? How much copper, lead or mercury? Or the plastics? Is there any way to replace it? If not, that's a net loss? And they are hardly a huge user of metals in their products compared to cars or big appliances.
The earth is subsidizing the profitability of Apple, carrying all the materials necessary to create the iPod or MacBook. But the hardware is just the necessary materials. What makes Apple and, essentially, every company unique is what they do with the materials, what approach they take, how they marry idea with medium to create something of value.
My conclusion: we all live a subsidized life. Some of us are better at using the subsidies provided by the earth and sun, others are better and extracting the refined subsidies of wealth from people. They are all gifts. We are all recipients.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
To Act is to Risk Failure. To Not Act is to Ensure It.
Perfect love casts out all fear. Does perfect fear cast out all love? Consider, how can you love what you fear?
Actually, I have a relationship like that. I love to write. Only I become afraide every time that I contemplate doing so. I fear that I will have nothing to say; that I whatever I am to say, I won't say well; that I can't finish. I will go out of my way not to write, despite my having held jobs for the past seven years in which writing was a major component. Still, fear creeps in.
Fear came up during a This American Life broadcast this week, which was a clip show of popular segments from old shows. The segment featured a couple zines written by a guy with some kind of mental disability. The zines were about his fears. He detailed his fears in language as ungrammatical as it was effective. In fact, its "outsider" language and word choice made the fears seem all the more real. Some of the fears were funny, "fear of the Rugrats being taking off the air," while others stripped off my ironic amusement, "fear that a friend who travels to other countries might come back not able to understand English" or "fear that if he go into the library and get 7 or 8 books and somehow while reading his voice going from low to high."
My fears are no less byzantine: "fear of my boss disapproving of what I do and telling me of that disapproval whenever I see her;" "fear of not being a good father by neither encouraging my kids to read the Bible nor talking about Jesus enough;" or "fear of not being able to actually follow through on anything I say that I'll do."
Fear paralyzes me, but I know that I'm not alone in this. It's a deer-in-the-headlights sort of reaction. In the face of not knowing what to do, we do nothing. Nothing ventured, nothing at which we have failed. In response to fear, I do something else, something I am sure that I can achieve: send an e-mail, rake the yard, make a phone call, or bake cookies.
The result: I'm so afraid that I might fail that I ensure it by doing nothing or doing something so late (though well) that the end is superceded by the quality of means.
As an antidote, I recently came across a quote by John Henry Newman: "Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it."
To act is to risk failure. To not act is to ensure it.
A caveat: I would say that to do nothing IS sometimes the best action to a problem that will most likely work itself out, particularly when my kids are involved. I find that most of their arguments, for instance, are solved without my intervention. The difference is to question whether not acting is out of good judgement or fear. It's easy to rationalize our fears, after all.
Consider terrorism, which has killed people, including Americans. To fear it seems prudent. Out of our fear, we support action to rid us of the threat of terror. But is it not like fearing a deadly storm? It may strike, and probably will, but no one knows when or where, for sure. Do we plan for that or live our lives regardless? Can we do both?
More on this later . . .
Actually, I have a relationship like that. I love to write. Only I become afraide every time that I contemplate doing so. I fear that I will have nothing to say; that I whatever I am to say, I won't say well; that I can't finish. I will go out of my way not to write, despite my having held jobs for the past seven years in which writing was a major component. Still, fear creeps in.
Fear came up during a This American Life broadcast this week, which was a clip show of popular segments from old shows. The segment featured a couple zines written by a guy with some kind of mental disability. The zines were about his fears. He detailed his fears in language as ungrammatical as it was effective. In fact, its "outsider" language and word choice made the fears seem all the more real. Some of the fears were funny, "fear of the Rugrats being taking off the air," while others stripped off my ironic amusement, "fear that a friend who travels to other countries might come back not able to understand English" or "fear that if he go into the library and get 7 or 8 books and somehow while reading his voice going from low to high."
My fears are no less byzantine: "fear of my boss disapproving of what I do and telling me of that disapproval whenever I see her;" "fear of not being a good father by neither encouraging my kids to read the Bible nor talking about Jesus enough;" or "fear of not being able to actually follow through on anything I say that I'll do."
Fear paralyzes me, but I know that I'm not alone in this. It's a deer-in-the-headlights sort of reaction. In the face of not knowing what to do, we do nothing. Nothing ventured, nothing at which we have failed. In response to fear, I do something else, something I am sure that I can achieve: send an e-mail, rake the yard, make a phone call, or bake cookies.
The result: I'm so afraid that I might fail that I ensure it by doing nothing or doing something so late (though well) that the end is superceded by the quality of means.
As an antidote, I recently came across a quote by John Henry Newman: "Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it."
To act is to risk failure. To not act is to ensure it.
A caveat: I would say that to do nothing IS sometimes the best action to a problem that will most likely work itself out, particularly when my kids are involved. I find that most of their arguments, for instance, are solved without my intervention. The difference is to question whether not acting is out of good judgement or fear. It's easy to rationalize our fears, after all.
Consider terrorism, which has killed people, including Americans. To fear it seems prudent. Out of our fear, we support action to rid us of the threat of terror. But is it not like fearing a deadly storm? It may strike, and probably will, but no one knows when or where, for sure. Do we plan for that or live our lives regardless? Can we do both?
More on this later . . .
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
From Denial to Action in this Election
I must be in denial about this upcoming election.
We have a good guy, a young, idealistic, fresh-faced fellow running on the Democratic ticket. Jim Esch for Nebraska's 2nd congressional district. I went to Esch's campaign kick off, walked down there with my kids, sat our baby on my shoulders as Esch gave his stump speech. Saw folks I knew. Then, what's he do but set up his office a block from where I work and RIGHT NEXT to the place I get Thai food. A perfect opportunity to volunteer, make calls, stuff envelopes, etc.
I did nothing. I don't even know why. I just never stopped in to volunteer my time or even get a yard sign.
See, I didn't really pay attention, having felt burned in the last two elections, when I tried to get a Green Party congressman in 2002 and a Democrat in 2004. We marched, held signs, made fundraising calls, the whole nine yards.
Of course, it would be this year that the Democrats have a chance take Congress. It would be this year that a pro-life Democrat runs in our district, a good Catholic. And I sit this one out.
Now that I'm unemployed, I should have no problem helping Esch. It may not get him elected, but I will have plugged into the process once more. It's shameful to do less. What will I tell my kids when they ask what I did to make this world better?
OK, I know what I'll do: I'm going down to Jim Esch for Congress today and find out how I can help.
I encourage anyone who has a progressive running in their district to do the same. We have less than three weeks to shape a Congress that looks more like the nation that it does right now. As I'm sure you've heard elsewhere, a state gets the leaders it deserves. Let's be deserving of the best people in the country. Let's work for change.
Bush's Cut and Run Antics in 2004 and What They Mean for Today
Watched Frontline last night: "The Lost Year in Iraq," about the time between the fall of Baghdad and hand-over of "sovereignity" Iraq. It was incredibly damning.
The thing that really stuck out: Bush's cut-and-run tactic for the hand over. And the timetable in which he enacted his tactic.
What became clear is that Bush wanted out of Iraq as soon as possible. It was supposed to be so easy (like The Streets might say), but they flubbed it badly. They let chaos reign, and famously excused it.
They didn't count the cost. They didn't know the country, its people, its character. They made bad decisions and left the governing power over a powder keg in the hands of people walled in from every side by angry citizens which matches lit.
The people I began to feel most sorry for, other than the Iraqis, for whom the word "disillusioned" must be an understatement, is the US military. They are left to be the police in an ungovernable war zone. It's like a guard dog surrounded by wolves in sheep's clothing. Who are we protecting and from whom are we protecting them?
If Bush had been serious about getting Iraq stabilized, he wouldn't have cut and run from his civilian/political responsibilities. He wouldn't have set up what was by most accounts too short a time period in which to create the conditions for a functioning Iraqi government.
For all the talk of Democrats being cowards (which is what the "cut and run" charge is all about), it is the Bush administration that saw the gaping maw of civil violence that Iraq was becoming and decided to take his envoys out on a secret flight and leave the mess for the military to try to clean up.
If I know anything I didn't know before watching Frontline last night, it is that the political and military commands were never in sync and that competence in both were needed to get Iraq back from the chaos that awaited.
We just left it to Rumsfeld and the revolving door of Iraqi leaders. It was a doomed from the moment that this de facto plan was conceived. The people in Iraq and the soldiers have borne the brunt of Bush's cowardice.
The thing that really stuck out: Bush's cut-and-run tactic for the hand over. And the timetable in which he enacted his tactic.
What became clear is that Bush wanted out of Iraq as soon as possible. It was supposed to be so easy (like The Streets might say), but they flubbed it badly. They let chaos reign, and famously excused it.
They didn't count the cost. They didn't know the country, its people, its character. They made bad decisions and left the governing power over a powder keg in the hands of people walled in from every side by angry citizens which matches lit.
The people I began to feel most sorry for, other than the Iraqis, for whom the word "disillusioned" must be an understatement, is the US military. They are left to be the police in an ungovernable war zone. It's like a guard dog surrounded by wolves in sheep's clothing. Who are we protecting and from whom are we protecting them?
If Bush had been serious about getting Iraq stabilized, he wouldn't have cut and run from his civilian/political responsibilities. He wouldn't have set up what was by most accounts too short a time period in which to create the conditions for a functioning Iraqi government.
For all the talk of Democrats being cowards (which is what the "cut and run" charge is all about), it is the Bush administration that saw the gaping maw of civil violence that Iraq was becoming and decided to take his envoys out on a secret flight and leave the mess for the military to try to clean up.
If I know anything I didn't know before watching Frontline last night, it is that the political and military commands were never in sync and that competence in both were needed to get Iraq back from the chaos that awaited.
We just left it to Rumsfeld and the revolving door of Iraqi leaders. It was a doomed from the moment that this de facto plan was conceived. The people in Iraq and the soldiers have borne the brunt of Bush's cowardice.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Signs of life?
I remember how after the 2004 election I realized that the Christian left was noticeably absent.
The first question, I'm sure, is "the Christian left?"
Right, I know, hardly a term most people are familiar with. What I mean are those who go to church regularly (by most statistics the most accurate predictor of a Republican voter) but do not accept gay marriage, abortion, and tax cuts as our holy trinity. While there may be a lot of us out there, we don't necessarily speak up in church about our views for fear of offending our conservative fell0w-worshippers. We sort of huddle around after or before service in small groups, looking both ways before mentioning the most recent egregious act by the president, his administration, the congress, the courts or even the Church itself.
Where were they in 2004?
That is how I discovered Sojourners and Jim Wallis.
The first question, I'm sure, is "the Christian left?"
Right, I know, hardly a term most people are familiar with. What I mean are those who go to church regularly (by most statistics the most accurate predictor of a Republican voter) but do not accept gay marriage, abortion, and tax cuts as our holy trinity. While there may be a lot of us out there, we don't necessarily speak up in church about our views for fear of offending our conservative fell0w-worshippers. We sort of huddle around after or before service in small groups, looking both ways before mentioning the most recent egregious act by the president, his administration, the congress, the courts or even the Church itself.
Where were they in 2004?
That is how I discovered Sojourners and Jim Wallis.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
