Outlet

Nimrod

2010-12-04T07:07:00.001-05:00

The wind mounted again and John risked another step, guiding his boot through the fallen leaves with painstaking care.
He froze mid-step, as the wind slacked suddenly; a gulping breath.
Ten long seconds trickled down through the trees and he remained stationary, as effortlessly immobile as the young black locust beside him.
The spidery extremities of the locust suckers clutched at his woolen gators, and a low branch of the tree forked over his right shoulder. He leaned into it gently, gaining a measure of stability.
His grounded leg began to quiver, and he melted the tension of his flamingo pose.
Looking down slowly, he searched for a patch of moss and found one, but two feet away, just beyond his stride.
He eased his foot down, canting it on edge to minimize the noise.
Then the wind nudged again, and he skated ahead to the patch of moss.
Planting his right foot, a huge stride, he gained two more quick steps, his feet preceding the rest of his body in the gait of a barnyard fowl.
Breeze plunged through the treetops and slipped crackling across the forest floor.
He moved with it, plotting his steps, island hopping.
Ten more rooster struts brought him along side a modest cedar, and here he reconnoitered.
He reckoned his quarry to be 150 yards down the draw.
The periodic shuffling noise had drawn him over 200 yards and a half hour.
He had been on another course, intent on crossing the plateau above him to the next ridge over when he heard it.
It was intermittent, only enough louder than the scurrying of a squirrel as to suggest something larger at first. The noise ceased for a full two minutes while he debated his course.
Then a definitive crackle of deadwood sealed his decision.
He angled down the far side of the draw, judging the wind to be slightly crosswise to the gully, moving down the opposite side and flowing back up the flank that he now worked his way down.
The sound teased him, occurring only at every critical juncture of indecision. He would have forsaken his quest ten times, only to be lured on at the last by one more ambiguous rustle.
The pale yellow sun drew down far away across the next mountain into bubbling salmon cumulus and stringy orange cirrus, and the half-moon floated overhead, still outshone by the sinking sun like a flashlight beam in the daytime.
He took a knee incrementally, reverently.
His patella found a rock skulking beneath the forest carpet and his mouth twitched but he absorbed the impact into the tendon below his kneecap without flinching.
. . .kept looking ahead, taking in the big picture, searching for horizontal lines out of place, a betrayal not synchronized with the respiration of the wind.
He saw nothing.
He mapped out another twenty steps.
To his right, the angle of the hillside steepened sharply and the trees staggered up the thinning soil.
The earth atrophied in toward the spine of the ridge, and limestone vertebrae sloughed off the crumbling clay, studding the sharp crease with protruding teeth.
To his left, across the gully, the trees were thick and the undergrowth impenetrable.
His path was fraught with cedars, big, brushy swags that carpeted the ground underneath them with yielding compost and feathered the passing hunter silently.
The only detour lay around an ill-placed elderberry grouped close together with a low-sprouting cedar. To go around on the upside would grant him little cover, to find his way on the downside would crowd his prey too soon. He would have to belly crawl under the cedar.
He wanted the noise before he moved again, to zero in on his target.
He got it.
A dull thump, the sound of his boot on the bedroom floor when he shucked it off, preceded by a rustle, the sound of a baseball rolling through the fallen leaves in the front yard.
He waited for the next passing sigh.
The wind muffled his next ten steps, masked his slither underneath the cedar, and died on the other side.
He lay among dead brambles and pungent cedar and glassed the gully with his scope.
Suddenly starting at a fuzzy blur of white and buckskin appaloosa , he glared over the top and made out a peeling sycamore with a low, deformed offshoot running almost parallel to the ground.
He deepened his breathing, slowing his heart rate, barring the floodgates of endorphins, preempting sweat and lowered his head again.
With the falling temperature sucking the breeze harder down the ridge, now was no time for perspiration to dilute the carefully applied scent mask.
He lowered his head to his extended right arm, just listening.
He knew he could hear anything within 600 yards in the dead pause.
The trees, excepting the evergreen, were unseasonably naked, the green flexibility of branch and leaf drained and withered. Sound moved through the shivering trees unhindered.
On top of the plateau, perhaps a quarter mile behind him, a squirrel prattled.
Across the gully, a sapless branch only just bigger than a twig toppled and clung in a black walnut tree.
Twenty feet ahead, one remaining oak leaf died and rasped down through the harsh web to join the cycle of death and life and death.
Nothing moved silently in this brittle arbor.
-Except him.
There came a sound to the void that grew upon him, quintessential not only in its stealth, but also in its organicity. When at last it leaked from his sub consciousness to the more forward corridors of his mind, it irritated him that it had stolen upon him so unawares.
He stole a look upward, craning to locate the source.
Off to the left, a faint contrail enlarged and dissipated in the high sky.
Ahead, the offending aircraft caught as much of the waning sun as a flinging drop of water.
What irritated him as much the noise was the obtrusion of the passengers slouched in their respective rows.
Casting a jaundiced eye upon them, he saw in rear coach a pudgy, wobbly, self-satisfied man doffing his Longhorn’s cap over his fleeing hairline, fingering Sky magazine with oily fingertips. In front coach he saw a family of three, screaming and cajoling, the mother looking wistfully at a full-page travel advertisement of rippling bronze and silky russet swept round in elegant swimwear, of perpetual sunsets and frothy breakers. He saw the business traveler set apart from them by the veil, as highly symbolic as that shroud of concealment hung upon golden rings in Solomon’s temple, but sadly, not as thick. He saw the dashing lines on the Blackberry, the dancing fingers on the Mac.
Perhaps most infuriating was the sleeper two seats ahead, presumptuously arranged just so in a window seat with her coiffed hair salvaged by a tubular flight pillow tucked in the curve of her neck. The sun, not so dimmed by its proximity to earth’s atmosphere, slanted in the multi-paned Plexi-glass, firing up millions of invisible scars left by 700 mile-an-hour airborne sediment. Blinking daintily, she reaches groggily for the shutter, nails softly scrabbling, and shuts out all that does not pertain to her nap. (That scraping keratin set his teeth on edge at least as much as the screaming turbines.)
In the cockpit, the pilot and co-pilot discussed the recent emasculated mediation of their union and the voracious consumption of their retirement accounts.
Back on earth, a jaunty sow bug scaled a perpendicular twig eight inches from his face.
Slowly, he crooked his right arm back and tucked his forefinger behind his thumb.
Clenching teeth, he flicked so viciously it shook his shoulder and for a falling moment the roly poly paralleled the trajectory of that airborne vessel.
He fixated again upon the constellation of trees that contained his prey.
Short cedars clustered so tightly with scrub oaks that the evergreens appeared to sprout deciduous branches from their folds. From the midst of the gathering sprung a black walnut, so towering and so spreading even in its autumnal embarassment that it might’ve hatched from rotting hull when the hunter wore leather on his feet and fur on his head.
Beyond and obscured by that historical marker was the approximate ground upon which the potential trophy stood, perhaps even now suspecting that it was hunted.
A sudden, boyish smile, suppressed and crooked, creased his face beneath the mask.
He saw the upraised head, the molten gaze, the trembling, ungainly crown.
The thought converged energy and focus and he gladly waited longer.
With the onset of dusk, it would doubtless emerge on the uphill side of the grove. If he was any competent reader of sign, it had not passed this way, and was doubtless en route to better grazing on the plateau above.
He melded with the ground, a perfect predator.
The sling wound around his right forearm and his left hand cradled the barrel of the Ruger.
The day’s growth on his chin conceived an itch and he scraped the stubble against the synthetic stock, working his jaw in the manner of those aboard that disappearing jetliner with pressurized heads.
The breeze came again, slipping over the ridge and plunging downhill to find its level.
. . . Gusting.
He took advantage and wiggled his left ankle which was beginning to ache and flexed his right bicep which was beginning to cramp.
The wind ratcheted up and he strained to hear.
Leaves rattled. Acorns rained.
The smaller trees quailed.
A sudden dissonance in the wild song startled him, as did the sight of a scampering object, cylindrical and pinkish.
He seethed. The sun-bleached Coke can ambled over dried leaves and clattered over protruding stone, flushed from its hiding place by the wind. It spun and tumbled end over end in the gale, and the popped tab rolled about inside like the ball in a jingle bell.
It found its next home in a bramble bush, joyfully leaping into the tangle with a screeching din.
He grimly glassed the grove again and thought of the one who had let fall such an object in such a place.
A group of them, roaring through the glade on ATV’s or worse, dirt bikes. His blood curdled at the scream of two-stroke engines trampling upon the solitude, running wild like un-churched toddlers through the Sistine chapel. They had swarmed up the valley with the tranquility of a flock of swamp-boats, veered up the draw, then up the steepening grade because. . .it was there, and idled here, laughing at nothing.
One of them pulled a Coke from the back boot, and popped it open, swigging it down, guzzling carbonated caffeine, and artificial flavor, and caramel coloring.
Another pointed up the draw and revved his engine. Draining the last draw, the cretin held the can up high like a trophy, snapped the tab inside, crumpled it with a flourish, let it free-fall to the ground, and flung earth from his tires after the others.
He saw it all and wondered: If litter has lain so long that it has become as native as the youngest saplings and the decomposing deadfalls around it, does it become such a part of the composite that its raucous relocation becomes as mundane to the ears of wildlife as that of a dropping walnut or falling tree?
The thought, as helpful as it might be, pained him.
Would a trout in a mountain stream not dart away at the sight of cellophane wrapper, or did caribou really group around the Alaska pipeline?
He almost snarled. Would a city fright at the sight of a mounting Teton in the midst of its downtown grid, or would subway passengers yawn at a timber wolf rising from the floor?
The sun bled like a punctured yolk and pooled all over the boiling clouds and the osmotic chill probed up through the wool and the flannel.
It came again, the sound he waited for.
The wallop of a boot dropped on carpet, the crunch of a ball in the leaves, identical to the former sound.
Quickly, he ducked his head and glared through the glass at the magnified arboreal tangle. He thought he saw a branch nodding with the acknowledgement of some passing force.
If he were immobile before, he now became as inexorable as the eroding soil. His breath escaped from his lips as silently as the vapor dispersed.
His focus gained interminability. A glacier might have overtaken and buried him. Yet, his blood was quickened and warmed.
He felt the unforced keenness of feline intensity measure every movement.
His relaxation balanced unconcernedly on the edge of a knife
The term “buck fever” brought another blurting smile to his face.
The climax of the hunt brought him anything but uncertainty. Rather, it distilled all the forces of instinct and habitual skill he had acquired into an effortless concentration.
The utter joy of his ability surged in his flowing blood.
He had plenty of hunting buddies that dissolved into thumbs and nerves at ground zero.
Their passion undid them at the crucial moment.
He thought of that well-meaning enthusiast that had accompanied him two years ago on a guided elk-hunt in the Rockies. After two nearly successful kills, spoiled within inches by his clumsy friend, Roger, the guide had jokingly referred to him in the terms of an amorous adolescent boy. Whether it was the guides remark or his own amusement that he didn’t attempt to conceal, Roger had fallen uncharacteristically silent, and minutes later announced he was all in, and going back to the campsite.
Within an hour, they had made a kill.
“Hope I didn’t offend him.” the guide offered as they field dressed the elk.
To which he had responded with a cryptic chuckle. He knew his friend well, since high school, and knew that his fragile ego was no doubt completely disassembled and when they returned he would be well on his way to erasing his many thwarted attempts at hunting and adolescent exploits with the aid of Jim or Jack or any other of the empathetic spirits packed in the Igloo cooler. Tomorrow, he would awake with a splitting headache but his pride would have made a miraculous recovery, a triumph of medicinal whiskey.
In particular, Roger would be swilling away a memory of their high school prom night.
Eight years prior, a 3 a.m. conclave of giddy, freshly graduated eighteen year old boys lounging on tailgates and sprawling on hoods was surreptitiously joined by the stocky second-string lineman. John was sitting in his truck, nipping a bottle of Corona. Roger had found him quickly, and snatched a communal flask balanced on the top of his pickup. He choked on it, and began sobbing softly. Head tucked, he jumped into the cab of John’s truck. Ill-at-ease, John had asked nothing of his friend, just turned the music up a little louder. A half-hour later, with the glow of the dash lights on his face, Roger unloaded with the abject pathos of a penitent sinner in a dark confessional. When he related the conclusion of his failed conquest, “I . . .couldn’t.”, John asked, “Couldn’t what?”
Roger swore for a solid thirty seconds, claiming back some of his obliterated manhood, punctuating his outburst with a vicious punch at the dashboard. It was then that John had broken into a premeditated laughter, gulping hysterically, his beer shaking in his hand. Some of the other guys gathered in to share the fun, and Roger had quietly opened the passenger door, and stumbled for his car, taking the flask with him. Amidst demands for the joke, John protested mildly, snickering between sips, and then proceeded to let it be dragged from him. The punch line left several helpless boys lying gasping in the gravel, and several more sagging against the bed of his truck, pounding feebly on the rim of the bed.
He told himself the next day it was the liquor that had loosened his tongue, and when Roger had rejoined him two days later, mumbling that the girl had apparently “kissed and told,” he cussed her along right along with him.
Laughing, he told another friend about it later. “Only thing wrong with that is, there never was a kiss!”
He never drank anymore. He didn’t need alcohol. He didn’t need to forget anything.
It wouldn’t be long now. He stretched imperceptibly, thrusting his legs out behind him and slowly rotating both ankles. Then he swiveled his head, his eyes never leaving the grove in front of him.
The noise came again, more definitely this time, maybe closer. He never moved.
The sun had submerged into the roiling cloudbank, and blasted rays of purpling light up over the horizon.
The day was dying, and a confident knowledge of the habits and feeding patterns of large bucks rooted him to the spot.
Glancing up at the void sky where he’d last seen the west-bound jet-liner, he just made out floating puffs of exhaust, blotting the darkness with faint sponge-marks.
The wind was picking up even more, with slight pauses where the infrequent breezes had been an hour before.
He flicked his tongue out of the left corner of his mouth, moistening the skin next to his lips. Then the right side. The left daub dried quickly, the right took longer. The wind was still in his favor, if only slightly.
He waited patiently, only clenching his teeth occasionally to assuage the tightening sinus pressure across his cheeks and temples.
The last rays of the sun vanished, the swift shroud of a late fall evening drawing quickly over the overhead dome, sprouting dim stars in its advance.
He waited still, not particularly bothered at the prospect of an illegal kill, but as the last light hemorrhaged into the dusk, he weighed his narrowing time window against his night vision and began to consider the idea of stalking again, but on his hands and knees.
The idea grew on him as the night grew on the day.
Imperative as time was, the challenge it presented made a stronger argument. To enter that lair and steal upon his prey. Not to outwait, but to outwit.
Eagerness spread through him quickly and he blessed the wind as he rose to all fours.
It was an absolute Indian aspect he presented, a formless patch of charcoal in the gathering gloom that did not move, no, it seeped across the diminishing yardage of egg-shell leaves and ceramic twigs.
He entered the upside point of the cluster of trees ten minutes later, and melted further inward, slithering, all elbows and toes.
When the sound came again, it was so close it sounded as the thud of a hoof and he petrified, for fear the prey had caught wind of the predator and was bolting.
But nothing except a soft rustle trailed the impact.
He strained to see now, unwilling to go further until he had made out some aspect of his quarry.
At last, he made out an intermittent movement, a horizontal image stirring with the unconcern of a buck nipping at foliage.
Nerves he had now, not jumpy, nor of steel, but of spider silk! They only swayed in the heated blast of adrenaline, holding strong, but not taut.
He rose like a mist from the forest floor. He found no clear path through to the target, so in the absolute supremacy of the perfect predator, he stood majestically, all joints silent, even in this cold, head level, rifle butt growing up into his armpit.
At last, he leveled and looked through the sights underneath the scope. He could now make out the network of antlers, nodding and swaying.
He took the trigger breath; long, steady inhalation, brief hold, then longer, steadier, exhalation, finger pressing the trigger like a plunger, knowing the exact ounce of pressure that drove the firing pin into the awaiting primer, releasing the kinetic death that went where he sent it.
He paused. This moment contained the essence of life. It was in these seconds, when he weighed death in his hands, that he knew what he was made for.
He had always believed that every soul held the potential of a diamond. But few withstood the pressure to harden past coal.
He’d discovered the joy and realized the passion. The rest of his life worked well. Everything else fell into place.
Why would anyone be given such a proclivity? If there were a purpose for everything, a mission for every talent, what path might his inherent skill lead him down?
His eyes narrowed, smiling.
Encapsulated within his gift was one small counterweight to the balance of nature.
He was the yang to his prey’s yin.
If there was a time to kill, there were those gifted to kill.
Benevolence swelled his soul, gratitude toward all things living that contributed to the whole ordered universe.
The grass gave to the rain, and the rain to the grass.
But also the rabbit to the wolf, and the wolf to the rabbit.
He pulled the trigger.
The trees around him blanched and he barely heard the sound, never felt the recoil.
Before the last echo had escaped from the winding valley below, he had slipped the mini Mag Lite from his belt and flooded the grove with LED.
He stepped forward, and saw a young sapling bent almost parallel to the ground. At its end grew a curiously perpendicular network of branches. It was nodding slightly, like the ungainly antlers of a foraging buck.
Behind him, something bolted.
Swiveling in his tracks, he clapped the light alongside the raised rifle.
Thirty yards away, a huge buck scrambled up the draw, flaring white tail stark in the dusk.
Without thinking, he slid his right hand back to the trigger and planted his right foot.
Something large and round rolled under the sole of his boot, and he went down hard, light splashing off branches, deafening report resounding off the hills, nose scraping on the ground, cheekbone crunching into the abrasive forearm of his Ruger.
He heard the bounding escape receding up the grade.
In the shock of silence, one more hedge-apple fell from high above, crackling down through the dead leaves, striking him on the shoulder with the thud of a hunting boot falling on carpet, and rolling through the leaves like a baseball, coming to rest in the bluish glare of the LED Mag Lite.

Nothing Much

2010-06-23T17:24:00.003-04:00

There is a weekly radio program on NPR that my wife is fond of.
Besides Car Talk, I mean.
"From The Top" is a procession of young musicians and occasional vocalists distinguished by their ability especially in light of their age. Some of these kids are 11 years old and can polish off pieces by Mozart that I can't begin to even understand, let alone follow, let alone play.
One Saturday evening as we sat listening to some flawless movement or other, I asked Devan if these kids ever got on her nerves.
These prodigies are often accomplished not only in their chosen music field, but in several other areas as well; academia, athletics, arts . . . and that's just the a's.
I admire people distinguished in one particular field. But when that genius undertakes another venture and succeeds brilliantly and yet another and another, I begin to become annoyed.
It has been my contention that you will excel in an area only because you care deeply about it, and I am puzzled as to how these wunderkinds can possibly care so deeply about so many different things.
What drives them?
. . . See? By framing the question in such a way I reveal an assumption that they are being propelled as opposed to being drawn after something. Because I simply cannot conceive of such ambition and I'm immediately suspicious of it.
What mad thirst for validation or fame drives these maniacs?
I cannot obsess about more than one thing.
If I'm walking, I'm walking. If I'm chewing gum, I'm chewing gum.
And, to my shame, having a forty-five to fifty hour work week seems to preclude any other serious endeavors.
On one hand, I'm philosophical. I don't envy most highly successful people because I know that success is proportionate to the amount of life poured into it.
The ubiquitous success icons of our culture, doctors, lawyers, and CEO's work constantly until they are sixty and by then have often lost all sense of priority and spend their twilight years repenting their lifelong pursuits.
On the other hand, when I'm not obsessing about something else, I feel a little guilty.
At least a hamster on a wheel has an excuse. He has no place else to go. Besides, he's getting in shape.
I know, Confucius say "Choose a job you like, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
But I can't help thinking we've been snookered on that quote.
I firmly believe some snake-oil self-help guru crammed those words into the late Asian philosopher's pudgy mouth and then pulled them back out again in some New York Times Best Seller.
After all, what was there to do when Confucius walked among us? Or sat among us.
There were few superfluous occupations back in 500 B.C. So, aside from the remote possibility that every one in China actually wanted to be either a fisherman or a farmer, or, if you were lucky, another corpulent philosopher, this ancient wisdom is about as helpful the modern admonition to "Don't Worry, Be Happy," or about as inspiring as those mass-produced scenery photos with one word captions such as "Dream," "Cooperation," or "Goals."

The above rambling is an attempt to push past a bad case of blogger's block.
This is what happens when you ignore road signs and forge ahead.

Decisons, Decisions

2010-05-04T14:59:00.003-04:00

If you live in Kentucky, and you are a Republican, and you vote, you are to be forgiven if you are confused.
If you look to establishment endorsements from familiar GOP politicians or conservative activists for clues, you'll find new meaning in the term "mixed signals."
The interesting political microcosm stands so: Jim Bunning, former baseball star and current Kentucky GOP senator fell from fundraiser favor in the past two years. Bunning has been a standard party soldier but a substandard public figure. He is the Republican negative of Joe Biden, the human gaffe machine. His foot-in-mouth disease is likely the largest contributing factor to his decline in popularity. But you may also know Bunning from his most recent headlines foray as the lone opposition to the extension of unemployment benefits. Citing President Obama's pay-go philosophy, he insisted we pay for the extension rather than finance it. It was a Quixotic stand, something he no doubt was fully aware of, and you have to wonder if he would have been so principled were he planning on a reelection bid.
On Primary Day, May 18, the vacated seat could have been almost a coronation event for KY Secretary of State Trey Grayson, had it not been for an eye doctor from western KY with the same DNA and same hot, cross-voter, small government appeal as '08 presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Last time out, in an election environment largely unfavorable to Republicans, Grayson won reelection by 14%.
And, considering that Ron Paul was certainly no party loyalist, and considering that Rand Paul is certainly his father's son, if somewhat less libertarian, Grayson had every right to expect smooth sailing.
But Grayson is fighting hard for this seat, and looks ready to lose to Paul.
Guilt by association has been one of Grayson's campaign tactics against Paul.
He ties Rand to his father on issues of national security. Neither Paul is a dove, but both tend toward isolationism, and a decidedly anti-Bush approach to the "spread of democracy."
Grayson also makes hay out of the fact that some of Ron Paul's money goes to fund his son's campaign in an effort to portray Rand as beholden to out-of-state interests.
And in a largely conservative state, Grayson has loaded his gun with some teflon-coated ammunition and blasted away at Paul's pro-life credentials.
But a look at the endorsements garnered by both candidates tells an interesting story.
On a national level, Dick Cheney has endorsed Trey Grayson. So has Rudy Guliani. So far, not so good, socially conservatively speaking. But then throw in Rick Santorum, former congressman from PA, known for his pro-life advocacy.
On a state level, the GOP establishment has endorsed Grayson across the board. Mitch McConnell, eastern KY congressman Hal Rogers, and a whole raft of GOP state-level office holders. One notable, fascinating, and possibly telling exception has been the outgoing Bunning.
And Grayson no doubt blesses the day that the Kentucky Right To Life gave him their endorsement.
But the puzzle is well illustrated by the reversal of Dr. James Dosbon.
Not more than two weeks ago, my answering machine fielded a call from Dr. Dobson.
His recorded voice urged me to vote for Trey Grayson, the best choice for social conservatives.
Well, no doubt you've heard, but Dobson has since retracted that endorsement, citing bad intelligence from GOP contacts, and thrown in with Rand Paul.
And add Sarah Palin to Paul's growing and impressive list.
And Concerned Women for America, and Gun Owners of America, and Steve Forbes, and if you weren't conflicted enough already, the Northern Kentucky Right To Life chapter.
Gay marriage is practically a non-issue in KY. Same-sex marriage has as much likelihood of happening in Kentucky as a concealed-carry law in Massachusetts.
But Rand Paul has mixed his own signals on this issue. As of now, he talks like a true "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" kind of guy. But in the past he has advocated more of a state by state position on this issue, a position unlikely to curry favor with social conservatives, but since we're dealing with the past . . .
Sec. Grayson has his own checkered past. He used to be a Democrat. He was in fact, a Clinton delegate in 1992.
At this point I would like to bring up Santorum's endorsement. In '08, Santorum completely floored me by favoring Mitt Romney for president. Romney's pro-life credentials don't even deserve the label "suspect." They don't, in fact, exist. He changes them according to what office he's running for.
Grayson's conversion was not so recent and so obviously convenient as Romney's, but canvassing for Bill Clinton certainly doesn't add to his conservative luster.
Paul's opponents have also brought up the ubiquitous Israel issue.
No clear answers here, either.
Paul vehemently denies any anti-Israel position, voicing a desire for a recommitment to our ally, but his reticence to engage in affairs around the world could be construed, perhaps legitimately, as a signal to the nation of Israel that they are on their own. But is this stance anti-Israel, or "pro-get out of Israel's way? Is it anti-Israel to unleash Israel? This is a seriously contentious issue, but I do believe Israel has been hindered almost as much as it has been helped by the U.S. Time after time, we have held our allegiance over Israel's head as leverage to make them stand down in their difficulties with their enemies.
And, for what it's worth, in Dobson's endorsement, he takes care to mention this issue that he knows is near and dear to the evangelical heart, saying that Paul "supports Israel."
Another caveat to the Kentucky RTL's endorsement of Grayson.
Does anyone remember when National Right To Life endorsed Fred Thompson for president?
Fred Thompson, you'll remember is the man who has lobbied for abortion clinics, and when pressed about the discrepancy, compartmentalized his positions as "business" on the one hand and politics on the other.
I have to say I'm leaning toward Paul, but with some reservations.
Bunning's endorsement, oddly enough, may be the deciding factor. Bunning has nothing to lose, nothing owed to his former buddies in the Kentucky GOP.
Of course, his endorsement of Rand could be attributed to mere vindictiveness over being abandoned, but Bunning's last stand over the unemployment extension signal more of an agenda of principle than revenge.
If only he had spent more time standing on his own two feet as opposed to continually placing one or the other appendage in his mouth, maybe we wouldn't have to make this decision.

What Keeps Me Going

2010-04-10T20:42:00.002-04:00

I love a good two-by-four upside the head.

Epiphanies grant a fresh start. The probably illusory effect of striking, profound realizations gives a feeling of enthusiasm to a tired person. Armed with this new knowledge, you feel you could go on indefinitely.
Now that I know this, now that I have learned this secret, I will not be so easily distracted from my purpose.
It is the feeling of a new diet or the purchase of a treadmill or a good pair of bright new running shoes and a brisk, fall day.
Of course, the diet will eventually turn into one more day of eating food you don't like, the treadmill becomes a wardrobe, the shoes get dingy and the brisk, fall day is a good excuse to light a fire in the fireplace and cook up a steaming pot of chili.
To take an analogy from the world of politics, an unwise move perhaps, remember the sad sack days of the GOP in the aftermath of the '08 election?
The GOP was the ninety-pound weakling on the beach getting sand kicked into his face by Charles Obama Atlas while the adoring American public looked on.
The Republican spun in a circle, looking for a new direction. Someone suggested they might try simply adhering to their core principles.
Admittedly, this lacked sparkle.
Imagine an an up-and-coming exercise guru being introduced on Oprah. After all the applause dies down and O! the oracle begins to ask the fitness expert what his philosophy is, the answer delivered to a breathless studio audience and millions of fat Americans watching at home is just this:

"I think we should eat healthy food in smaller portions and try to exercise more."

The studio audience wishes they had waited to get tickets until Tom Cruise was on again and the millions of fat Americans watching at home get discouraged with the idea of fitness altogether and switch over to the food channel.

Because this is old stuff. It's boring. Maybe it works, but it's boring.
Give me something new, something crazy, something that sounds like it would never work.
Give me As Seen On TV! gadgets and herbal laxatives.

Give me colon cleansers and diet pills.

Give me a Hollywood diet program with before and after photos with a time lapse of eight hours and clothes that won't fit any more and weight loss measured not in pounds, but inches.
I know it's a little prosaic to bring in the old spiritual parallel right here, but I didn't spend the last ten minutes just to end on a rant about an acai berry diet.
I'm always on the lookout for a new mindset. Some new revelation that will transform studying to show myself approved into a wealth of suddenly acquired, instantly recalled knowledge.
Something that will cast everything in my life in a glow of spirituality.
And there is plenty of gravy out there for me to sop my roll in.
So many "life-changing" books, DVD's, programs, mindsets, prayers and purposes.

It's safe to say that there is at least one revolutionary new concept to red bull my spiritual walk for every day of the year. And, to be fair, probably most of them contain some useful tenets.

(As sick as I am of purpose-driven everything, the opening salvo of Rick Warren's original work was, and is, jolting and refreshing. 'It's not about you.')
But there's always a post-discovery let-down.
Screwtape told Wormwood that God allows "this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavour. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing."
As much as I love stumbling onto an ice-cold spiritual energy drink on a long, hot, dry day, I know what really keeps me going.
Faith. Faith that sometimes feels so dry.
Faith that feels like its pulling me along so slow that the only logical explanation for moving mountains is that they simply crumbled into dust before I could get to them.
One foot in front of the other, fueled by a slow, time-released work of grace.
God knows what I need. And He gives it to me in "just-enough" portions every day.
And I am so . . . unspeakably grateful.

March Insanity

2010-03-13T22:13:00.000-05:00

I have had a bad case of, well, I won't say writer's, but blogger's block.
But for those addicted to my blog (stranger addictions have enslaved people; sniffing paint, drinking Drano . . .) I have called in a pinch-hitter, a guest blogger who has been pestering me for years for their big break. It was getting a little pathetic, entreaties kept coming accompanied by ProFlowers, candygrams, and once, weirdly, a PajamaGram. I was feeling stalked, so I relented.
Really, I was surprised by this article because I was feeling a little like the only nut in a sane asylum, or whatever. I like college football, but . . .
Just consider this a plea for common sense from a person living in Kentucky where the whole town, already suffering from early onset March Madness, is on the edge of a sports driven mass hysteria. Just today, the Wildcats destroyed their arch-rival Tennessee, and if the jubilant blue-clad throngs weren't flooding the streets, they were by-George flooding the restaurants and retail outlets following the ill-timed midday game.

Sports Fanatics | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Comments, please. Especially, if you disagree.

Heaven

2010-02-07T17:09:00.003-05:00

There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Iluvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad. But for a long while they sang only each alone, or but few together, while the rest hearkened; for each comprehended only that part of the mind of Iluvatar from which he came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly. Yet ever as they listened they came to deeper understanding, and increased in unison and harmony.
And it came to pass that Iluvatar called together all the Ainur and declared to them a mighty theme, unfolding to them things greater and more wonderful than he had yet revealed; and the glory of its beginning and the splendor of its end amazed the Ainur, so that they bowed before Iluvatar and were silent.
Then Iluvatar said to them: 'Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song.'
Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not Void. Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Iluvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Iluvatar after the end of days. Then the themes of Iluvatar shall be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and Iluvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased. --J.R.R. Tolkien,
The Silmarillion.
In church, we've been discussing heaven. This opening chapter of Tolkien's posthumously published history of his fantasy creation always comes to my mind.
Tolkien said "I dislike Allegory- the conscious and intentional allegory-yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language."
Tolkien's mythical history of Arda, the Earth, is so analogous to the Creation Story it is impossible not to juxtapose the two when reading the opening chapters of The Silmarillion.
And his imaginative narrative of God and his angels before Creation is rich with meaning.
It gives me some idea or at least prods my imagination toward what we will be about in heaven.
And I can't tell you how exciting this is for me.
No death wish here, just a longing to know my true purpose in God's ultimate plan, and to know from which part of the mind of God I came.

Church Stuff

2010-01-15T23:14:00.003-05:00

In church, I am outwardly the proverbial bump on the log. Since my younger days, my reticence extends to arguably obstinate eccentricity. I don't exactly feel comfortable not responding when the preacher says, "Everybody that's happy in the Lord, raise your hand.", but I prefer the discomfort to the manipulated feeling I would suffer if I complied.
It is nothing personal to the preacher. His urging may be an earnest attempt to engender a consensus of corporate worship, and not a deliberate contrivance for control. But I know myself, and I know what one step down that road of, "It can't hurt." can lead to.
When it comes to impressions from God, erring on the side of maybe is dangerous. One too many times, I responded to ambiguity, and so doing, followed the trail of crumbs just far enough. The door slammed shut and the lights went out and I suddenly had no idea where I was.
If looking in the mirror one too many times was a sign of vanity, which time was too many? Before long, it becomes vain to comb your hair, and your appearance degenerates into that of a very sanctified bohemian.
If you can never pray too much, what minute is just enough? After a time, you begin to dread morning devotions and every moment spent in any activity other than prayer or Bible reading carries with it potential guilt.
If fasting one meal a week is good, then why not one meal a day, or two? God will surely see to your health even if you cease eating altogether, and the protestations of common sense are marginalized and evicted and stand outside hammering on the door demanding to be let back in.
If music can be a vehicle of the devil, then not listening to it at all must be the safest route.
If the sight of a woman can arouse lust in your teenage hormones, then casting your eyes down in public will preclude any possibility of sinning with your eyes.
Before long, you are completely neutralized as an effective saint, miserable and hopeful only of death, and even here, doubt prowls. If I were to die, would I really go to heaven?
But, I digress. And digress. And digress.
So, how important is harmony in corporate worship?
Belonging to a very small congregation pastored by a man with which I'm completely comfortable (except when I'm used as an illustration) isolates me somewhat from the issue.
But I remember what it is like. And being so accustomed to sitting under the ministry of a pastor whose tastes and deportment are so oddly like my own, I squirm all the more when I'm in an unfamiliar church setting and the pastor or song leader (worship leader to you contemporary worship parishioners) asks for a show of hands on anything from loving the Lord to being happy in the Lord to being happy to be in church tonight, amen.
And the cheerful suggestion of a nice round of hand-shaking and one-arm hugging to the tune of "I'm So Glad I'm a Part of the Family of God," is enough to turn me into an absolute extension of the seat itself; a veritable pew ornament as wooden as the hymnal holders and as stuffy as the padding.
I feel manipulated, and I think it's corny. If I really wanted to go tell Bro. So-and-So how glad I am to see him and how much I appreciate him, I'd go tell him without any prompting from pulpit authorities and if Bro. So-and-So isn't a dim-bulb, he'll get a lot more out of the involuntary appreciation as opposed to the church-sanctioned variety.
Advocates will tell you it's just an opportunity for everyone to take a break from the ordered portion of the service to greet everyone and foster camaraderie.
I say, then what is all that jawing in the back thirty minutes prior to and following the service? Warm-up and after-glow, I guess.
And the "How many (insert platitude), raise your hand and say amen" thing is a complete mystery to me.
When did this start? And why?
Are they hoping the wet blankets will out themselves? Looking for lightning rods? Looking to bolster their own stage confidence?
How much of corporate worship is uninhibited burden sharing and accountability and how much of it is peer pressure?
I know there is a place for one and none for the other, but I'm beat if I know how to tell the difference. And don't we need to somehow distinguish the sometimes uncomfortable moments of one from the sometimes embarrassing fiascos of the other?
I know that in church you have people which can occasionally lead to messy, merely sentimental situations and not every moment in church can be deeply, quietly spiritual.
But I also feel that somewhere along the line we've allowed a lot of stuff to attach itself to our church practices and it has weighed us down, like those ads keep telling me that hamburger I ate two week ago is weighing down my colon.
So, anybody else out there?
Or, am I just being a stick-in-the-mud?

When Will These Things Come To Pass?

2010-01-09T08:51:00.009-05:00

It may be presumptuous of me, but I expect most of you are interested, to varying degrees, in prophecy; particularly, prophecy dealing with the end of the age.
It is an easy assumption for me to make, considering you would have to be blind and deaf to Christian, especially evangelical, culture, not to have come across the subject almost as often as you have come upon the prayer that was Jabez', or the life that is driven by purpose.
Why the dramatic escalation of interest in the topic?
Is it the preoccupation of America with a terrorist element that threatens to bring war upon us, and more significantly, prophetically speaking, the nation of Israel?
Is it the unprecedented possibility of mass destruction, in the form of the proliferation of lost, orphaned nukes floating into the hands of madmen and giving new force to the concept of the heavens melting with fervent heat?
Is it a fad? Christian culture is not the only sub-culture fascinated with apocalyptic scenarios.
Some ancient Mayans laid the groundwork for quite a firestorm when they ended their calendar in the year 2012. Hollywood picks it up, and the rest is cinematic history.
You could even make the case that global warming alarmists are simply obsessed with global destruction.
Or, is it the dispassionate observation of events juxtaposed with Scripture?
The formation of that last question may give you the idea that I've already made up my mind.
Not entirely. I think all of the above-mentioned are factors.
The idea of the end of the world is certainly provocative and arresting, so fascination with the topic, given all the current global unrest, is to be expected.
I have tried to back off from my "feelings" regarding the subject many times precisely because I don't wish to be caught up in any faddish frenzy.
I have asked myself if the similarities between end-times prophecies and current events are not as easy to conjure up as the similarities between the words of Nostradamus and 9-11.
Are direct connections between Russian-Iranian alliances and Gog-Magog alliances as easy to construe as the death of Princess Diana written in between the lines of Scripture as postulated in the Bible Code?
There is undeniably a great deal of sensationalism connected with the topic, but it only obscures the issue.
I can't coherently discuss all aspects of prophecy because I'm not an authority on the subject, but in the interest of remaining objective, I have tried to research the camp that bills itself as the voice of reason.
The sheer seismic proportions of the topic have created an almost proportionate tsunami of skepticism. I mean to say, one fad has created another.
There are plenty of dissenting viewpoints on the imminence of the end of the world.
But, (and this is what I mean to point out in this blog) it is more than a little frustrating to set out looking for cool, rational opponents of "dispensationalism", and find nothing, (so far) except sneering, mocking, sarcastic evangelical haters.
Google dispensational millennialism and you quickly gain the idea that the very term "dispensational millennialist" is as much an epithet as a description.
The accusations of sensationalism, exploitation and abandonment of the lost fly thick and fast in conjunction with some highly suspect interpretations of Scripture.
For example, "The dispensational theory of premillennialism has gained great popularity mainly among modern evangelicals. The dispensational view of premillennialism, with its elaborate conspiracy theories, time tables, charts and graphic scenarios, is essentially a chiliast error. It has been most often accompanied by the false notion that the Second Coming is a predictable event with an identifiable time-table. This is despite Christ’s warning that “it is not for you to know the times or the seasons” (Acts 1:7)."
This comes from a fellow named Jay Rogers.
First you have the initial connection drawn between premillennialism and evangelicals, a connection every bit as damning as the one between aerosol cans and the big hole in the ozone layer. It is sufficient to say that if one is connected in any way to any idea that is held largely by an evangelical-minded segment of Christianity, he is not only immediately disregarded, he is immediately an accessory.
Hence the syllogism: All premillennial dispensationalists are evangelicals.
All evangelicals are ignorant, intolerant rubes.
Thus, all premillennial dispensationalists are ignorant, intolerant rubes.
Conspiracies? Time tables? Premillennialists often believe the Second Coming is a predictable event with an identifiable timetable? Who on earth has Mr. Rogers been reading after? I don't know of a single prominent premillennialist, excluding Whisenant, who has offered any such idea.
Mr. Rogers and his colleagues apparently expect all literalists to smile pretty for the camera while they photo shop in the straw man and smack the stuffing out of his 88 reasons for '88.
Further down into Mr. Rogers explanation of all that is wrong with dispensationalism, I found what appears to be a complete fabrication. He accuses Tim LaHaye of setting an exact date for the Second Coming in the Left Behind series. Aside from the fact that if Tim LaHaye is writing a novel, by definition, a work of fiction, he should be able to set all the dates he wishes without fear of conspiracy theorists like Mr. Rogers accusing him of setting literal timetables, there is the inconvenient truth that, after checking my copy of Tribulation Force, surprise, I find no dates.
(I hold Mr. Rogers personally culpable for the toe I stubbed running to locate my copy of Left Behind to find the date of the Rapture in the interest of maxing out all my credit cards.)
But further down still, I find a telling remark. In Matthew 24, Jesus gives the disciples an evanescent glimpse of the future: "And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory."
I had a glimpse into what makes Mr. Rogers tick when I read this phrase regarding the above passage. "The highly figurative language used here-"
It is extremely difficult to have a productive debate on anything Biblical when any given passage is subject to the "figurative" dodge.
What it is about Jesus' statement here or anything in the previous verses that gives Mr. Rogers the impression Jesus is employing poetic license?
The previous verse mentions the sun being darkened, the moon giving no light, and the stars falling from the sky. Rogers doesn't interpret that for us, but I'm certain there is some highly figurative explanation for that as well.
Rogers apparently subscribes to full preterism and reconstructionist postmillennialism, the respective views that end times prophecy was fulfilled in the first century A.D. and that the church itself will usher in the millennial reign, setting up a 1000 yr. (possibly figurative again) theocracy.
Again, he states, "Matthew 24:35 through the end of chapter 25 do not refer to 'all the evil things we see happening today,' but to judgment progressively falling on the wicked to remove them from the world as the kingdom of God advances."
I never felt that eschatology should necessarily be a contentious issue, but perhaps I'm being a little naive.
It isn't simply a matter of a time difference.
The fact is, you believe what you believe about the end-times because your view of Scripture in general informs it.

Happy New Year (but let's not get carried away)

2010-01-01T11:12:00.005-05:00

Once upon a Sunday School contest, the teacher, in a shocking display of positive reinforcement, promised a prize to the industrious student who logged a certain amount of Scripture reading in a given week.
I don't remember the prize. (Actually, I don't remember the teacher.)
What I do remember is going on a Bible binge. . . . for a couple of weeks.
It was not to last. Not even the prospect of a prize could perpetuate the motivation.
Are you ready for this? I got bored with it.
I also remember the steady discipline of my friend Darren. He consistently polished off a reasonable number of chapters every week and received the prize and effusive praise from the teacher whose name continues to elude me.
(Darren, if you're out there, was it the benefits of the reading or was it the prize?)
Since then, I have made many resolutions and I contend it is not so much the lack of will that sees so many of my plans end in partial completion.
It is more a matter of my having an inherent dislike of redundancy.
Before you judge me immature, let me say I have managed to develop a few constructive habits over my life.
I have fallen into eating, almost every day, quite naturally.
I sleep almost every night without fail.
I have also managed to develop a habit of kissing my wife quite regularly.
I usually go to work throughout the week.
On the flip side, I often lament my dislike for repetition when it comes to brown bagging.
Trying to think of something, anything, from week to week that sounds appetizing is a challenge, and I do wish I were the type that could exist contentedly on a pb&j every lunch from now till retirement, but my taste buds won't cooperate.
I once drank only Dr. Pepper, until one day I hated it, then I switched to Coke. For a time, then . .
I listen to classical for a time until my brain grows suddenly weary of trying to interpret the sometimes obscure artistic inspiration.
And then after a stint of more modern fare, I begin to feel like I've eaten at Wendy's five days in a row.
I resolve to read all the classics; Dickens, Defoe, Dostoevsky. After a period of this, I read some theology and philosophy; John Calvin & Thomas Hobbes.
Then I read some modern fiction and usually remember why I was reading classics.
What I'm trying to say is,
No, I'm not making any New Year's resolutions.

The Darkest Night of the Year

2009-12-21T20:39:00.002-05:00

There are plenty of people around who will be happy to tell you the celebration of Christmas is a farce, rooted in pagan rituals and bedecked with all sorts of trappings of non-Christian customs; Christmas tree, evergreen wreaths, Santa Claus.
FYI, the Christmas tree custom is said to have been derived from pagan tree worship. I wasn't surprised to learn this because ever since I was a little tyke, I have felt an irresistible urge to genuflect every time I passed the lighted tree.
The evergreen wreaths and boughs have a similar origin, and Santa Claus, well, now he's something else altogether.
Old Saint Nick, we call him.
Well, of course you know that "Old Nick" is another name for Satan.
There you go.
Christmas is a big tree-hugging orgy culminating in a midnight visit from the devil himself, who breaks character by giving things rather than taking them and inexplicably drops down the chimney instead of rising from the frozen ninth circle of hell.
(Wait, the frozen ninth circle . . . . cold, North Pole, I've found another connection! And you have the striking, eerie similarity between "ninth" and "north." In fact, you only need interchange two letters to reach the same spelling.)
And the crowning glory of the 25th of December haters is the very date itself.
December 21st marks the winter solstice, a day that has held such significance for so many non-Christian cultures that I couldn't possibly name all the different rites and feasts. Essentially, it has to do with Dec. 21 or 22 being the shortest day of the year, and the turning point for lengthening days. Stonehenge, Sun gods and some ancient Greek festival dubbed "Festival of the Wild Women," all figure in, among many, many other pagan icons.
So, I say, what a glorious wonderful day to celebrate the earth-bound birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior.
In the midst of all the secular and even satanic ritualistic high days, December 25th sets a holy fire burning, raining light down like a certain mysterious "conjunction of planets" over 2000 years ago.
Beset like the oppressed Jews under Roman rule, we struggle here in the darkest night, the longest eclipse we can remember, longing for the coming of our Redeemer.
And in the middle of the darkness a spark is struck, and suddenly, the darkness is only a foil for that beautiful, blinding fire that grows and pulsates and will one day consume the whole new earth with it's brilliance.
"-and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last." said nephew Fred "So, a Merry Christmas, Uncle!"
"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.
"And a Happy New Year!"

A Subject Too Deep For Me

2009-12-05T17:17:00.006-05:00

Psalm 55:4 My heart is in anguish within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me.

I said, Oh, that I had wings like a dove. I would fly away and be at rest.

Psalm 69:3 I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched.

My eyes fail while I wait for my God.

Psalm 88:3 For my soul has had enough troubles, and my life has drawn near to Sheol. I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength, forsaken among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave.

Psalm 88:14 O Lord, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me?

I recently read an article in World on a book entitled Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America and its author, Barbara Ehrenriech.Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer. However, the disease proved less of an irritant to Barbara than the support group tripe. Inundated with sappy platitudes, pink ribbons and teddy bears, and worse, pressure to be positive, she rebelled and fired off the afore-mentioned polemic. She is an accomplished author, with titles to her credit such as Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America and Bait and Switch: the (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream.She obviously was no bright-eyed optimist before this recent crisis in her life, but now apparently she has discovered the reason for many of America's problems: we feel driven to feel happy.
There is some plain common sense displayed here. Nothing is bound to make you more wide awake than knowing you have to get some sleep, humor is irrepressible when you must not laugh, humor deflates when you are expected to laugh, knowing you must relax is stressful and so on.
But of course you can agree with her syllogistic conclusion only if you agree with her premise.So, do we feel driven to feel happy?
I think the expectation of happiness is arguably the most accepted gospel in America.
If you are ever sad, you are expected to get over it, and fast.
Why be sad, when you can be happy?
I, who have sat under very imaginative and creative judgemental ministers, have never felt so preached at (or more nauseated) as when a co-worker or some passing stranger will say something like "Well, it's just a beautiful day to be alive, isn't it."
And the preacher said, "Everyone who is happy in the Lord, turn to your neighbor and say, 'You look like you've been praising the Lord.'"
Don't misunderstand me. Every day is a beautiful day to live because of the grace of God, but more often the obligation to feel happy is based on the pleasant weather, or some other pathetic excuse to force yourself to be happy.
Without God, really the day is pretty crummy when you consider all the sadness just under that veneer.
Once a co-worker prompted my dad by saying, "It's a wonderful day to be alive, isn't it?"After thinking a moment, my dad responded honestly and cheerfully enough , "It is, but I'd rather be dead."
This is what is known as a conversation-stopper.
Paul said basically the same thing in Philippians 1:23 and again in II Corinthians 5:8, but it raises eyebrows in a culture gorged on Oprah, Dr. Phil and any number of motivational gurus out there that you care to listen to.
As Americans, we certainly are expected to be happy, and yet the reasons we're given are no reasons at all. In a nutshell, we are told we are to be happy because it's the right thing to do.
There is the equivalent of a moral obligation to be happy, to be thankful that you're alive, never mind that we're left no One to thank, or, if we are, He has been so stripped of His omnipotence that He is not capable of doing anything for which we could thank Him.
But Christians aren't off the hook, either. We are just as caught up in the happy culture (as opposed to joyous).

I would like to blame it on Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, or maybe Zig Ziglar, but I think the infestation predates them.
How many tearful Wednesday night testimonies have you heard that tell of a struggle that lasted a week, or two or any given period of time, provided it has a beginning and, most importantly, an end? Victory is claimed. Battle over. So thankful we don't have to deal with that anymore.
I don't think there is any deliberate attempt to delude ourselves, but we suffer so under the impression that we are under strict orders to be happy, that much of the time I think we feel pressured to claim victory, to plaster on a smile and move on.
It is true enough that no one likes a constant complainer, or someone that "enjoys poor health," but such adherence to the happy doctrine leads to, if not dishonesty, then delusion.
We're uncomfortable with the subject of suffering, because we instinctively feel it reflects badly on God. Trials are to be expected, sure, but the emphasis is most definitely on how God will bring you or did bring you out of that trial. If He does not, we go looking for meaning in the struggle with a certain desperation. If we can pin down what we feel is a legitimately feasible purpose for our troubles, we are saved the trouble of having God's name besmirched.
Recurring prayer requests are common enough, but the request is often offered with yet another dose of positive thinking: "This time God will end it for good and all."
Therefore some who have requested prayer time and again for the same problem will at last begin to feel embarrassed and just place their expectations on "someday, God will-" and try, at least, to put aside their feeling of urgency about the problem.
Oswald Chambers wrote the most startling book on Job I've ever read, in which he said, " The cosmic force makes God appear indifferent and cruel and remote, and if you become a special pleader of any particular creed (in which category Chambers places Job's friends) you have to shut your eyes to facts. The only revelation which gives a line of explanation is that there is something wrong at the basis of things, hence the refraction. The apostle Paul says that creation is all out of gear and twisted; it is 'waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.' In the meantime, the problem remains."

Another stock answer to Christian suffering has to do with perspective. And it certainly has Scriptural basis. Paul also said that the sufferings of this present time were not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. And there is nothing to which we hold tighter. But, the expectation is that this hope and belief should never allow us to be discouraged.
Buck up, it'll be over.
Absolutely.
But if an eternal perspective is supposed to give us perpetual buoyancy, then why was Jesus so fearful in the Garden of Gethsemane?
The thing I wish to get across is honesty.
Be honest with God. Be plaintive. Tell Him how you feel. Job did.
Chambers makes a great point of Job's honesty: "Job stuck steadily to facts, not to consistency to his creed. Over and over again a man is said to be a disbeliever when he is simply outgrowing his creed. It is a most painful thing for a man to find that his stated views of God are not adequate. Never tell a lie for the honour of God; it is an easy thing to do."
In saying that Job stuck to the facts, Chambers is pointing out that Job refused to sugarcoat anything, refused to shoulder some mantle of Stoicism. Job insisted, "Thou knowest that I am not wicked; and there is none that can deliver out of Thine hand. Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet Thou dost destroy me." Job 10:7,8
Job's friends recoiled at such irreverence and retreated to their dogged creeds and respective defenses of God.
I have been cautiously listening to a recently released album by Steven Curtis Chapman. If you don't know, on May 21st, 2008, Chapman's youngest daughter was accidentally struck and killed by an SUV driven by another of Chapman's children.
I listen cautiously because I don't particularly wish to be ambushed by the pain that I know lurks in the depths of Chapman's heart. I won't say that the tone of the album is heart-breaking, because that would be putting it lightly. A World on the Web contributor actually criticized the album for being too painful.
Among all the other songs about which I could write for hours, there is a particularly gut-wrenching, muted declaration in which Chapman literally sounds as if he can barely muster the will to utter the words.
When you think you've hit the bottom, and the bottom gives way,
And you fall into a darkness no words can explain
You don't know how you make it out alive,
Jesus will meet you there
When the doctor says, 'I'm sorry, we don't know what else to do',
And you're looking at you family, wondering how they'll make it through,
Whatever road this life takes you down,
Jesus will meet you there
He knows the way to wherever you are,
He knows the way to the depths of your heart
He knows the way, 'cause He's already been where you're going
Jesus will meet you there.
When the jury says 'Guilty', and the prison doors close
When the one you love says nothing, but just packs up and goes
Sunlight comes and your worlds still dark,
Jesus will meet you there
When you've failed again and all your second chances have been used
And the heavy weight of guilt and shame is crushing down on you
And all you have is one last cry for help
Jesus will meet you there
When you realize dreams you've had for your child won't come true
When the phone rings in the middle of the night with tragic news
Whatever valley you must walk through
Jesus will meet you there.

Control

2009-11-25T21:49:00.004-05:00

I went in to the Toyota dealership a week ago to "look around."
I was interested in trading my Corolla in on a new one, and, given the interest rates they had been running, thought it might be a good time to see what they could do.
I found what I wanted, undisturbed by salespeople for a good ten minutes. Apparently, their surveillance cameras weren't on yet. Finally, I walked toward the salesroom to place my question.
I hadn't quite made it to the door when it swung open and disgorged a stocky, middle-aged blond salesman.

He wanted to know how he could help me. This was the first in a long line of disingenuous statements he made to me over the next couple of hours. His opening salvo would've been more accurately rendered in the reverse, i..e., how could I help him?

But I stood on convention and neglected to correct him.

I told him which car I was looking at, what I would be trading in, and what monthly payment limit I had.

Car salesmen never take your ballpark monthly payment figure at face value. They figure, he's here, he wants a new car. This may be what he would like to pay, but what is he willing to pay?

I told him what I owed on my current car, "negative equity", I believe he called it.

Its difficult, he parried, to promise a comparable monthly payment on a new car when you have negative equity. But, his optimistic tone suggested that "comparable" was a small measurement, and we could doubtless work something out.

He proceeded with a credit application and appraisal of my old car. And there is something a little raw about having a car dealership appraise your car. You immediately get defensive.

After some paperwork, he offers me a refreshment which I refuse.

Then, he wants me to drive it. I consider this mostly unnecessary. I know what I'm getting. And I'm not exactly buying a Corolla for it's cushioned ride or cornering ability.

It's about dependability and, to a lesser extent, fuel economy.

But, apparently the credit app and appraisal take some time, so unless I want to sit in his cubicle chatting for the next thirty minutes, we'll take the test drive. Not being big on chatting, I take the test drive. Couple of miles later I know. Yep. It's a Corolla.

But I get a little better understanding of what the test drive is about. It is the transitional period in which the salesman begins dropping references to not if you buy the car, but when, you will want to think about gap insurance, an upholstery warranty, etc. If he can work this ownership feeling upon you successfully, you will swallow the bad news easier.

Upon returning, I sit in his cubicle again while he goes to collect the appraisal amount and credit ap results.

He comes back all smiles, with a monthly payment figure roughly eighty or ninety dollars higher than will fit down my gullet.

Let me say, I hate haggling. I hate it with a passion. The only one who hates it worse than I do is Devan, who stayed home.

But, I know what I can pay. And there is no new car fever that can induce me to exceed that amount. Mostly because I already walk around under a guilt complex, and there is no way that I'm going to let some pushy salesman in a golf pullover add to the load.

I can't do that, I told him. Too much.

What figure are you thinking, he asked.

I told him.

He leaves to speak to the sales manager.

I look around his cubicle for some incriminating paperwork.

He returns all smiles again.

Good news, he says. We can get your payment fifteen dollars under your limit with this nice lease option here.

Don't want to lease, I told him.

Ah. Well, let me go talk to the sales manager again.

Do.

Honestly I forget the next figure he comes back with. It was still too high.

He pushes the lease again. You know, he explains, people say you don't own a car when you lease it, but that's really not true. You do own it for the term of the lease. And then you bring it back and- you get to own another one for the next term, I finish mentally.

I need to go to the restroom. Not so much a nature call as a mirror check. I didn't think I looked stupider than usual when I left the house, but-

This figure you want is not really a realistic monthly payment. Nobody pays that small a payment any more.

That may well be, and if it is, I'll have to wait. No lease, and I can't pay what you're asking, so-

This wasn't a ploy. I was really ready to leave. I saw no future in this conversation because the distance between where he was and where I needed him to be was about the same as the distance between east and west.

But salesman are a clingy lot.

He toddles off again to this for-all-I-know fictitious sales manager. He could just as easily be going back to his laptop to hack my Facebook account (if I had one).

He comes back resigned. I win. There's the desired figure on this handwritten sheet of paper with a line next to it for my signature so we can get the ball rolling.

I take the pen.

Wait, what's this figure "eighty-four" next to the monthly payment? I ask aloud, so he'll know why I'm not signing the paper. That's the term, right?

Yes, that's the term, that's the only way we could get that monthly payment down where you wanted it.

I thought briefly about telling him I wanted to pay it off five dollars a month for the next 250 years.

But, instead, I say, I can't do that.
Somewhere in here, he tries again with the refreshments. You sure you don't want a drink?
Sure. It gave me a few minutes to think.
Reading a fascinating article written by a reporter for Edmund.com who went undercover and hired on as a salesman for a new car dealership, I discovered that the drink thing is another control measure. Having sprung for a drink, the salesman tries to convert this nicety into a small debt. After reading that, I wished I had refused again. Besides, it was Pepsi.

I thought we had a deal, he says.

Of course, I can't help what he thought, but I reply that I understand, but that is too long a term.

I've already given you everything I can give you here, he says.

That's okay, I say. I'll just pay my old car off before I trade in.

Well, I can't let you leave, he says.
All manner of retorts run through my mind.Well, he says again in agony, let me go talk to my sales manager again. But if we can get this payment at that figure at the term you want, can we deal?

One more condition. I want an extended warranty for that figure.
He quits the cubicle in much the same way as a condemned man leaves his cell for the electric chair.

He comes back a beaten man, sales manager in tow in bodily form. He's real after all.
There's the handshake. That's a study in itself. I have read that they teach salespeople how to shake hands. For example, sometimes they suggest pulling the victim toward you slightly with the handshake, as a measure of establishing control.
We're trying to get more money for your trade-in, and if they give us what we ask, we'll have a deal.
What is this "we" and "they" stuff? Classic good cop, bad cop.
The sales manager leaves and I'm left alone again with my friend the salesman.
Yeah, we'll make this happen, man. We want to keep you as a customer. Of course, I'm not making any money on this, but-
Oh, you don't work on commission?
Well, yeah, but I won't make anything on this deal. But that's alright. We kept you as a customer, and . . . I'll get the next guy that comes in here.
Carefully, I reply, Well, that's good. Telling Devan about it later, we both feel sure that he couldn't detect the sarcasm in my voice. I'm pretty good at hiding it.
He leaves for some other errand.
I call Devan. Looks like we've got it.
She sounds hesitant, not exactly skeptical, but . . .eventually supportive.
Be sure you get everything out of the car.
This was an interesting experience for me. I've always been fascinated by the psychological aspects of how all manner of people seek to establish the upper hand in a personal exchange or a business deal.
Ted Kennedy related an experience in which he dropped by the Oval Office to discuss a contentious matter with Lyndon Johnson.
First thing, LBJ earnestly asks Kennedy and his aide if they would like something to drink.
Both Kennedy and his aide decline.
You sure? prompts LBJ.

No, thank you.
LBJ summons the butler. I want a Fresca, he says. These guys don't want anything to drink but I want a Fresca.
Then LBJ looks sternly at them again and says, Are you sure you don't want a drink?
I'm sure you've all had the experience with a boss or some sort of superior who places his or her hand on your shoulder when attempting to snow you.
For me, the control factor even comes into play when I hear an advertisement for business X that tells me that business X is so concerned for my welfare that they are going to go the extra mile and give me this great deal.
Would it be so off-putting if they just said. "We want to make money. We know you like to save money. So, in order to get your business we are lowering our prices so that you will do business with us instead of someone else."?

Hobby Lobby

2009-10-17T19:10:00.003-04:00

Just got back from a trip to Hobby Lobby.
Yeah, I went in, too.
I thought the plan was I would drop Devan at the entrance and go park and eat my Arby's and read my library book.
To be polite, I asked if she wanted me to go in.
I thought she understood the purely symbolic intent behind the gesture.
She nodded. Affirmatively.
"Someone might look at me."
She has the mistaken idea that I'm the jealous type.
"Could you wear a bag?" I suggested.
No.
"Someone might cut in front of me in the checkout line."
I considered this unlikely. The patrons of Hobby Lobby tend to be fairly passive.
That is, the only people actually shopping in the store are women. There are a few men, but they usually have a sedated air about them. Okay, drugged. And they push the carts.
The point is, estrogen doesn't usually spawn aggression, with a few very notable exceptions, and I doubted the likelihood of a Christmas X-Box style rush over pastel glue and assorted glitter.
Although I do know of a few women that tend to be a little fanatical about crafts and such. I have a cousin and a sister that share a disturbing obsession for knitting.
But I didn't say this.
What I did say was, "If my brain is numb when we come out, will you drive home?"
"It won't be. You can drive home."
"Okay."
I was feeling sedated already.
If you've never been in a Hobby Lobby, it's a surreal experience.
I can relate it to a childhood shopping trip to an industrial kitchen supply store for proper tamale paper.
The sheer volume of stuff I don't care about is something that stuck with me all these years.
There are entire aisles of scrapbook paper.
There is a wall of fake greenery sixteen feet high.
There is a display area roughly the size of my acreage (including the house) that exhibits fabric.
It was about the time when I was helping Devan look for oregano paper, (I think the reason I didn't spot it first was because I was assuming it would be green. Apparently they dye it different colors.) that I became aware of the intercom music.
Hobby Lobby is obviously owned by a Christian. There is no Halloween merchandise and they sell Testamints at the checkout. Eating Scripture makes your breath smell sweeter.
I like Christian music. And, even though I'm not sure how spiritual a shopping experience can be, I don't even have a problem with a retail outlet playing it over the intercom.
But, standing looking at the various sizes and colors of pom poms, I gradually became aware that taste is not a universal Christian virtue.
I know this because I was listening to a Muzak version of "I Will Be Here."
I suppose it would depend on Steven Curtis Chapman's level of security and confidence as an artist whether knowing that you had finally been given a generic brand would offend your artistic sensibilities or just make you feel really smug.
I was definitely feeling offended and unable to shake the sensation of being in a giant religious elevator. Had I been reading a copy of Guidepost and drinking Ezekiel 4:29 coffee from a Purpose-Driven-Life coffee mug the experience could not have been more unsettling.
I excused myself and went over to the children's hobby and science project section in hopes they sold tin foil hats to protect my brain from any dangerous rays.
Not having any such luck, I rejoined Devan who, in all fairness, was in fact shopping for materials to make Japanese gift boxes to fill with treats as Christmas gifts for nursing home inmates.
Thinking on that, I decided to suck it up and be a brave little cart pusher.
After all, if I were in there much longer, I, too might be grateful for a cookie-filled Japanese gift box as I sat drooling in a wheelchair.
"I wonder," murmured Devan, as she browsed through the fake poinsettias, of which there were an alarming variety, "if they have little tiny poinsettias that I could glue on top."
I answered that if they didn't, I surely could not imagine that they could be found anywhere else.
She either missed the sarcasm, or chose to ignore it.
I suspect the latter. There is something about being surrounded by several acres of crafts that makes a woman extremely placid. It makes a man placid, too. It is a combination of Stockholm syndrome and the estrogen they circulate through the heating and cooling ducts.
As it turned out, they did have little tiny poinsettias. It was over in the section with the little tiny pine cones and the little tiny stars and the little tiny stocking caps and the little tiny snowflakes and the little tiny penguins and the little tiny stables and the little tiny shepherds and the little tiny Marys and the little tiny Josephs and the little tiny Santa Clauses (apparently they didn't get the memo about that evil old man) and the little tiny elves and the little tiny candy canes and the little tiny Christmas trees. (they didn't get that memo, either.)
On the way out to the car, Devan groaned.
"Oh no. This pack of card stock only has 25 sheets. I need 50."
I grunted. The fresh air was clearing my head and the testosterone was returning.

The Shack

2009-09-19T20:10:00.005-04:00

My mother recently asked me what I thought of The Shack.
The Christian novel by William P. Young has sold over 5 million copies and spent 35 weeks at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
I related a few second-hand criticisms and then told her I hadn't read it. The popularity of the book was enough to disparage it in my estimation.
But, on second thought, I decided to read it. I was prepared to come away with a laundry list of what is wrong with the reading public.

But, although I take some definite issue with the man's theology, I think the book's popularity says more about the pain that is out there than it does the lack of depth that is out there.
Perhaps it was exactly my expectations that served to give me a better look at the book.
If I honestly believed that Michael W. Smith (very talented musician and composer), Kathie Lee Gifford, and Wynona Judd were credible blurbers, I would have been bitterly disappointed.
But having also been forewarned by critics of his violent misuse of theology, I found a few pages in between the awful ones that were surprisingly profound, startlingly frank and even deep.
Let's deal with some of the awful ones; his depiction of the Holy Trinity.

God the Father is a large black woman named Papa. God the Son is a Jewish man in a plaid shirt and jeans. Perhaps even more cringe-inducing is his attempt to incarnate the Holy Spirit; a female Asian gardener.

To be fair, Young is not saying that God is female. He is saying that He is not male, in the very mortal sense. Young is not saying that God is black, Jewish or Asian. He is saying that He is not white.
But, why people keep insisting on correcting the idea that God is a white man, I don't know.
Because I don't know of anyone who thinks that God is a white man.
More awful; the ill-advised attempt to parlay the relationship between the members of the Trinity into a happy, funny multicultural laugh fest.
Unfunny.

Apparently, some of us are still hung up on religious stereotypes, because Young spends an inordinate amount of time getting us unhooked from those arcane delusions.
The author obviously also has trouble keeping the lid on his dislike of organized religion.
Considering all there is to dislike about the book, it is even more disconcerting to stumble into a few two or three page long chasms, where there is only the problem of pain and the fact of God and no positive thinking rickety rope bridges to offer you a chance to escape plumbing the depths of the question.
It is in these pages where Young shines.
Like the page where Mack finally erupts and spews the volcanic bitterness that has been boiling in his soul since the disappearance of his daughter.
Why couldn't you take care of my daughter?
God's answer?
Mack, you don't have the right to demand that I allow no harm to befall your family.
There is communicated the idea that we have set up in our minds what we feel we should be entitled to, such as a world without severe pain or a world where little girls are not kidnapped and assaulted.
And the anger that builds at God, the Divine Interloper, the hunting Hound of Heaven is simply the result of viewing our lives within these measures of fairness that we have established.
It is a brutal answer, but in the end the only one that satisfies.
Obviously, entirely within the limitations of our own minds, we would never be able to completely reconcile the pain of a child or the pain of anyone with an all-seeing, all-powerful, fiercely protective God.
But in the end, it seems that Young may remember what God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, that we are finite, that He is infinite, and that our only option is to latch on to what we know of God; His love, boundless and bottomless, and hold on for the ride.
I can't really recommend the book, based on his metaphorical and analogous nonsense, which might be what Chuck Colson was referring to when he criticized Young's "low view of Scripture", his attempt to flesh out the Holy Trinity, which, believe it or not, Mark Driscoll calls "graven imagery" and his occasional outright irreverence, which R. Albert Mohler calls "undiluted heresy."
But, having read it, I can see the appeal of a few select passages in the book. And there is an honesty in those few pages that I suspect God, (not Papa) smiles upon.

Shrinking

2009-09-04T23:02:00.003-04:00

Getting older has been somewhat of a disappointment to my ego.
Not only because I am over 30 and have turned out not to be such a big, screaming deal but also, actually more so, because I have come to realize that I must sacrifice even the desire to be a big, screaming deal,
It seems that I spend a good portion of my life attempting to feed a pet that has none of the attributes of a faithful companion and all the attributes of a parasitic host.
So many times a day I am prompted by pomposity to cast myself in a good light.
I forget where I read it, but recently I stumbled across something that I stumbled over.
In effect, it said that even an apology can have an element of self-justification to it, essentially because implicit in the apology is the idea that, even though I goofed, I realized it, and I am now making it right.
It embarrassed me to think of how many times I have apologized for something not simply because I had done something wrong and needed to set it right, but because I realized that by apologizing I would look better. Worse, how many times have I apologized for something that I was not even sorry about, (and had no reason to be) because I desired the perception of reason and maturity it would give me?
The tendency to paint myself in a favorable light is probably the most insidious temptation I battle.
The reason my ego has been let down is because I see more and more that the fruits God would have me develop are anything but flashy.
Steadfastness, for example. And, yes, I am painfully reminded of the elder brother of the prodigal. How is it right that someone who makes one small step in the right general direction be given more recognition than someone who has plodding down that right road for years?
Well, yes. All right, I'll acknowledge that he needs to be encouraged for his repentance, and yes, I remember that I am not doing the right thing for recognition.
So, I carry on, my ego soothed with the knowledge that I am the better person for not surrendering to jealousy . . . .and you can see where that takes you.
There is an old metaphor about Christian growth.
The common perception of growth is that as you mature, you will grow taller and taller and all the deep and great and wonderful things of God, which are placed on higher and higher shelves, will become accessible to you as you grow.
The reality is, those deep and wonderful things of God are placed on shelves that fall lower and lower and are only reached as the self in the Christian becomes smaller and smaller.

Anyway, I really hope you like this blog and I hope it makes you realize what a wise person I really am.

I Need Thee

2009-08-13T20:15:00.001-04:00

I might've saved myself the energy.
I used to privately question the motive for my Christianity.
It might help to explain that I am not, by nature, a grateful person. I dislike indebtedness to the extent that at times I prefer not to receive anything to save myself the bother of exhibiting gratitude. This reticence served to make me a little dubious about my sincerity toward God.
I didn't feel as if I was serving God out of love or gratitude. Honestly, 95% of the time, it seemed as if I were a Christian because I didn't know what else to be.
And I also speculated about the level of comfort and interest I held in Christianity.
Atheism, as a matter of personal taste, strikes me as insufferably boring.
Considering this, and further considering my lifelong fascination with the supernatural, my literary tastes and my thirst for meaning, and having come some fourteen years since my conversion, I had begun to call my motives into question.
Why was I calling myself a Christian?
Why was I praying? Why was I reading the Bible? Aside from a broad cyclical interest in what I was reading, and less occasionally, what I was discussing with God, when I placed my finger on my spiritual pulse, I wondered for what my heart was beating.
Contributing to this hypochondria was a fairly agreeable general state of affairs.
With life running smoothly, I permitted myself the luxury of the hypothetical, and reasoned that with nothing better to do, might have even Martin Luther considered the question of flies and holy water?
Meanwhile, when the sons of God came to present themselves, the conversation might have gone something like this,
"Have you considered my servant Nathan?"
(Accepting the huge assumption that I had, in fact, distinguished myself sufficiently in the Lord's service to have attracted the albeit unwelcome attention of the Adversary, we might then postulate Satan's reply,)
"I have. He really enjoys his Christianity. He appreciates the legacy of the age-old story, he finds comfort in apologetics, he loves to quote Chesterton and Lewis, if not your Son, and he also enjoys the lack of heartache that his Christian upbringing and marriage afford him."
"Of course," the serpent continues, "his affinity is fairly prosaic and the reason for his servitude is fairly obvious. He has yet to encounter anything subsequent to his conversion that would belie his sentimental attachment to a seventeen-year-old emotional experience."
And so on and so forth might the devil have unwittingly become complicit once again in a series of events inspired by the Almighty to drive one of his blustering children straight into His arms.
Devan became sick. Over a period of three months she degenerated to such a worrisome degree that some of the greater medical obscenities began to suggest themselves to our minds.
Despite my reassurances, which I did believe, (with no small effort) that this was the convergence of a physical super storm resulting from exhaustion, and other things, the duration of the illness and the severity of the relapses were beginning to steal my confidence.
At long last, I found myself doing something truly drastic.
I prayed, not just for her benefit, not just as the motion required of a Christian spouse, but finally, desperately and incredibly, at the end of myself.
You see, it isn't as if I'm all that self-reliant, or have aspirations of being the Rock of Gibraltar, it's that I refuse to face the point at which I have absolutely no other option than trusting in God. But I keep forgetting what a subjective term perseverance can be. I have noticed that I have a tendency to believe that I can only go as far as I am asked to go. If I'm carrying a one-hundred fifty pound load from point A to B, distance being twenty yards, I will invariably deposit the load at point B with the distinct impression that I could not have borne it any further. And yet, were the distance thirty yards, I would have reached that point, with the same conviction.

God alone knows our limits.

Past a certain point in our limited perspective of pain, that is the strongest hope to which we can cling.

What does sufficient grace mean to you?

I know what it once meant to me. It meant enough grace to keep me from feeling over-extended. It now means so much more, because I over-extended.

And I found out that He is out there, over the edge of the cliff.

He is not what saves us from pain, He is the One who is there at the end of all pain, and, in hindsight, was there though all the pain, and allowed us, after all, to see only the tip of the iceberg. Because of His tender mercy.

But there is a moment of terror that I must endure before I acknowledge that I can't handle this. More than a convulsive ingestion of pride, it is also a deep fear of being denied; of laying my burden in indifferent hands that will let it slide off into the dirt.

I usually excuse this reluctance by labeling it a lack of faith in faith. (Mindful that this constitutes another entire thread, I'll step carefully over it.)
But, believe it or not, I have not forgotten my initial statement about saving myself the energy expended by questioning my motive for my relationship with the Lord.
It would seem, as I hashed it out over these last three months, I serve God because I need Him.
I don't need Him just as an insurance policy when I check out. I need Him hourly, desperately.
And so does Devan.

Grace

2009-07-31T00:09:00.004-04:00

All virtues are fragile. The instant virtue is recognized within oneself, it ceases to exist.
This seems paradoxical. So is it necessary for us to attempt to believe ourselves wicked; for kind people to think themselves cruel, for humble people to believe themselves proud, for generous people to think themselves stingy, for honest people to think themselves dishonest, and so on?
No, the aim seems to be not misrepresentation, for that in itself would be an untruth, but in not thinking of oneself as anything, as kind or cruel, humble or proud, generous or stingy. In general, thinking of oneself at all is to be discouraged.
In truth you are a sinner saved by grace, you derive any goodness from God, and therefor have no more right to claim any virtue as your own than a conduit has to claim water as its own produce. So to recognize altruistic virtue in oneself is to be deceived, because such goodness is inherent in one Being and one alone.
I have been a child of God for fourteen years. If only the lapse of time were sufficient excuse to have forgotten the concept of grace.
I am insufferably self-righteous.
For instance, I have it within my own capacity to refrain from being really and truly frustrated with God when circumstances seem at odds with His goodness.
Possessing it within my own power; therein lies the problem.
For it is just as violent to propriety for a vessel to excuse the potter as it is for the vessel to accuse the potter. Both actions belie a presumed claim to self-rights on the part of the vessel, the only difference being that one vessel has asserted his supposed rights while the other has, in his view, chosen to show largess.
I reason that God has no obligation to explain Himself to me; that pain strengthens, and furthermore, to be angry with God is to lose ground gained.
As to my first point, patience is indeed a virtue, but somewhere I have taken to thinking of it as my patience, instead of His.
All the while I am patiently enduring undesirable circumstances, I believe I am unconsciously keeping score.
The point is not that I would ever reach a point when I might believe I would be justified in being angry with the Lord for His protracted ill-treatment (still I might), but that I am viewing my relationship with God in a highly legalistic fashion.
The unrealized assumption I am operating under is that my righteousness, filthy and ragged as it is, is still my righteousness, and, at that, I have cleaned it up nicely and even mended the tears.
Pointing out the sanctimony of the magnanimous vessel certainly does nothing to excuse the impertinence of the accusatory vessel, still I have noticed an encouraging pattern within those who exhibit impetuosity. Although quick to complain, they will just as quickly accept.
The stoic ones just keep their mouths shut and make another mark, revealing no greater understanding than their clamorous brethren, and worse, no willingness to seek it out.
Underneath all flows nebulous concepts of grim determination, stiff upper lips and boot straps.
I am casting away no confidence. I am simply facing another aspect of the human element.
There is a lyric in a song that is heavy with meaning for me.
Take away the part of me that forgets the price (and, I add, power) of grace.

Food Fight

2009-07-06T18:03:00.006-04:00

They say opposites attract.
As is the case with so many things they say, the opposite is just as often true.
I suppose it depends on your definition of opposite, or the exact degree of just how opposite the object of your attraction may be.
For example, if you consider girl to be the opposite of boy, I could heartily agree with opposite attraction. In fact, with this broad view, there could hardly be a more enthusiastic proponent of north and south pole magnetization.
But, personally speaking, and speaking of personality, Devan and I could hardly be considered opposites. The degree of compatibility we share is remarkable, if the more entertaining tales of the gender war are to be believed.
However, there are differences.
I reflected upon one such as I sat at the table. She had loaded the toaster and then left the kitchen for some undisclosed activity elsewhere.
I heard the toaster release and I nervously glanced at the slightly tanned whole wheat slice cooling on the countertop. I have learned the hard way that it takes only a few scant seconds of room temperature to steal the toast from the toast. It's said that customers take years to gain, seconds to lose, wars have been lost in minutes, and it is no less true that in the same few seconds, toast can cease to be toast, and more importantly, fail to melt the applied butter.
I could never leave a loaded toaster. I don't exactly watch the toaster, for a watched toaster shares the same exasperating recalcitrance as a watched pot, but I am never far from the scene, often with butter knife in hand. I do not wish to see one pinhead speck of unmelted butter on my toast. In desperate situations, I have been known to toast my fingers warming an erstwhile piece of toast over an empty toaster. I considered buttering the toast myself, but feared my zeal might prove too heavy in application.
The tension continued to mount in her absence. I tried to return to my book, but the distraction was too great. At last she returned, a potential disaster was averted, and I was relieved of my potential culpability of being found in the same kitchen with cold toast.
She doesn't seem to be fully aware of the gravity of eating.
She, in fact, has stated to me upon numerous evening occasions that she has not eaten all day because she "forgot."
I, on the other hand, have never been so glib about sustenance. And well I might not.
My father is a serious breakfast eater. Upon arising in the morning, he places his cereal bowl in the freezer along with the jug of milk. (I regret to inform you that he and my mother have been given over to the reprobate mind and are drinking 2%.)
After the appropriate lapse of time, he removes the bowl and the milk and perhaps the spoon now for all I know, the idiosyncratic progression of age now factored in and pours his cereal, then feverishly, albeit sincerely asks the blessing with jug of milk in hand. The blessing received, he returns the milk to the freezer in the event he wishes a second bowl and hurriedly seats himself to begin eating before the topmost flakes so much as submerge neath the icy milk.
On the other hand, Devan shares her lackadaisical indifference for food with members of her own family. I have often erroneously assumed that her brother's eyes were much, much larger than his stomach. And even though his stomach has grown exponentially over the past year, one might still make the same hasty assumption. Watching him load his dinner plate, you begin to feel sorry for his tapeworm. After some time and effort has been invested in preparing his buffet, he takes fork in hand, sighs, leans back and gazes blankly out the window. Upon my first observation of this phenomenon, I might've been forgiven for assuming that the preparation had in fact, done him in, and it was all for naught. However, after he has rested from this for some minutes, he begins with a mouthful. Following a subsequent rest, he has another bite, and so on, until before you know it, the sun is rising and sometime during the night, either he or the ravages of time has cleared his plate. I've certainly never known him to suffer indigestion.
I have another brother-in-law whose nondiscrimination for what he ingests is truly remarkable and second only to that of a select few billy goats. He has upon occasion, attempted to involve me with his carelessness, ( a California sushi roll comes to mind) but I have resisted.
My mother is perhaps the food martyr among us. No crumb in the bottom of the tortilla chip bag is too small for her. "What's wrong with eating chips with a spoon?" you may ask.
Nada. And if you are eating them with dip, all the more convenient.
No chip, in fact, is too stale. She's too young too have lived through the Great Depression, so we can only assume she is at heart, a miser.
My maternal grandfather is frightfully habitual. I have never known his lunch to consist of anything other than half of a bologna sandwich, sans condiments, nor his dessert to consist of anything other than prunes. And no, he's not a monk, and has never taken the vow of poverty, to my knowledge.
I have an aunt who eats ketchup on tomatoes, and tragically, the trend has gone to the extreme with her second oldest son, who serves up a bowl of Hunts ketchup topped with a little Hienz ketchup.
And then, there is this cousin I have. He has the disturbing tendency, catalogued among profiles of Ted Bundy and OBL, of mixing his food.
Now, we have all doubtless been guilty of this redneck guilty pleasure before, rolls and gravy, corn and mashed potatoes, and so on, but his concoctions are truly disturbing.
I understand they have banned him from Cracker Barrel upon observing one too many times his grisly habit of mixing gravy, fried eggs and sausage and last but not least, grits. (I know, why?! right! And he claims to be a Yankee!)
So, I concluded, upon resuming my book, that it really does take all kinds.
At least, that is what we must assume. We'll never know otherwise, will we?

Trouble

2009-06-19T10:06:00.003-04:00

Every one's boat has all the load it can carry. -this quote, in approximation, is attributed to W.E. Carleton.
Every one's problems seem large to them. We may comfort ourselves with comparison by saying, "It could be a lot worse. Just look at so and so." But, at the same time, our own problems wouldn't be problems if we could diminish them with such positive thinking.
I am reaching the point where I am beginning to view what I will call trouble (understood to include worry, stress, anxiety, mental or emotional anguish, sickness, pain, financial difficulties, etc., etc., etc.) not as a matter of comparative degrees, but as the portion allotted each of us as God sees fit, and equal to no one else's difficulty, but equal only to the measure of grace God makes available.
How bad are the chicken pox?
Seems to depend largely on whose children the pox has stricken.
The struggle of Sisyphus, the tragic Greek hero condemned by the gods to perpetually roll a boulder up a hill only to see it roll down again, may seem petty to a legend ten times his size, who, according to his greater stature, would see nothing but an ant rolling a pebble up an anthill.
And, conversely, Sisyphus might view Atlas' noble resignation as a little maudlin. Sure, he has to hold the world. But, look how big he is!
The great-grandfather I never knew must have reached a point of compassion attained by very few.
It is only natural, after all, to view human difficulties in the human. You might assume that lean, fit middle-aged gentleman driving past in the Lexus to have an obligation to be happy. But you couldn't know the deep-seated inadequacy that has driven him to success and now threatens to drive him to depression and thoughts of suicide.
It is a little defensive, in fact, the way we think of other's problems.
We hold to a standard of comparison so that we may reserve the right to be miserable about our own problems. And therefor stand in judgment of those whom we deem to be "making a mountain out of a molehill."
Case in point: It is largely held by today's adults that today's kids are spoiled and have it much easier than they did when they were kids. Granted, some things are much easier today than forty years ago. But, most children of the seventies were afforded the opportunity to be children and not miniature adults with schedules at the age of nine that would over stuff a day planner.
I am not a parent, but it seems to me that as mightily as you may attempt to spare your children some of the difficulty you faced as a child, that difficulty will only be replaced by something else.
Another problem with grading trouble is the assumption that there is a point of zero gravity.
Theoretically, if all trouble can be removed, we should then be happy. In fact, if everything is going smooth, you have an obligation to be happy!
It has been my experience in my short life that happiness (not to be confused with joy) runs in cycles and owes not a lot to actual circumstances.
Contentment, if based on this grading scale, is attainable with the absence of what we traditionally view as "trouble."
The area of the mind that houses worry abhors a vacuum. Financial worry, when removed, will be replaced by something else.
There is one answer.
The answer I run to more and more.
To the point where I think He is saying, "Why leave? Then you won't have to come back."

Back To Work

2009-05-24T10:13:00.002-04:00

The only reason I haven't announced sooner, for those of you who remember my difficulty with my employer, that I returned to work three weeks ago, is because I have not had time to settle in my mind the benefits of my almost seven months of forced unemployment. Or, in another way of putting it, I haven't decided what God was about.
I like boxes. Moreover, I like to put things in them.
However, considering . . .

1. Both Devan and I have drawn light years closer to the Lord.
2. After being convinced that God would not, in fact, leave us begging on the street, we began to thoroughly enjoy our time together. So many Starbucks trips that Devan has earned the nickname "Peppermint Mocha", (not to be confused or even lightly associated with Peppermint Patty), Walks, talks and art museums, you know, the free stuff.
3. And a realignment of priorities. I have never been what I would call materialistic, but have always been what I would call impatient and uncomfortable with loose ends. This situation, you might know, has done wonders for that presumption.
. . . what other purpose need there have been?

Thank you all for your concern, prayers and help.

Miss Conservative USA

2009-05-12T18:40:00.003-04:00

I, for one, am so thankful to have another fellow Christian as a spokesperson in a public arena. To think that God brought Ms. Prejean up through all those pageants and displays for just such a time as this! Not since Esther has there been such an obviously divinely appointed young woman who would, with God's help, speak the truth, mindless of the firestorm that would follow. It has been such an uplifting experience for all of us, reading about Miss Prejean's convicted stand. And now Christian parents all across America have a role model to which to refer their young daughters!
We all hope Miss California will continue her career in Christian standard-bearing.
Maybe she could star in a Mel Gibson movie.

The Spin Zone

2009-05-02T15:49:00.006-04:00

My response to the question, Why did Obama garner 78% of the Jewish vote?

Initially, I might have responded, Yes, and why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway or why are men less emotional or at least less demonstrative than women?
But I read a piece very helpfully titled Why Are American Jews So Liberal? by a Professor Laurence D. Cooper, chairman of the department political science at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.
I could just post the link, but in so doing, I would effectively be eliminating my middleman self from the process, and I certainly don't want to do that.
The first part of his explanation has a parallel in the American South. Up until the eighties, the Democratic Party held the South in a tight grip. Indeed, here in Kentucky, notwithstanding the presidential elections, the Democratic party still holds an inexplicable spell over some deeply religious and deeply rural parts of the state.
The prevalence of Democrats in the South, of course, dates to the 1800's, when belonging to the Democratic party was as essential to being "Southern" as believing in Christ was to being Christian. (As was being a Christian to being a Democrat. Figure that one out.)
So it is with American Jewry. The Jews of America are obviously the descendants of European Jews who were classically liberal in part as a measure of defense and a measure of reaction to European "conservatism."
This piece by Cooper was almost as instructive regarding the history of conservatism and liberalism as his explanation for Jewish liberalism.
It's necessary to point out that American conservatism is not European conservatism, especially not the Euro-cons of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. That strain of conservatism was particularly and often viciously anti-Semitic. There are several facets to this. Catholicism was obviously largely antipathetic toward Jews/Judaism. And unfortunately, Protestantism, beginning with Martin Luther, was little, if any, more sympathetic. Among the conservative dogma you'll find Luther's assertion that Jews should be driven to conversion under pain of exile or punishment. You'll find a paranoia of Jewish financial manipulation and the Jewish refusal to assimilate into other European cultures. (You'll find this concern, in fact, in a milder form even in the writing of the great G.K. Chesterton.)
Particularly ingrained in the psyche of the American Jew along with the persecution implemented by hypocritical Catholics and Protestants is the memory of the only group that, as a general whole, defended them; the humanistic left. It is a sickening miscarriage of Christianity that humanism, esteeming individual worth on its own dubious atheistic grounds, was the default protector of the hunted Jew. But too often, such is the contradictory example we provide the world.
You might think that the Holocaust, committed on ethnic grounds, and paved with the rationale of Nietzsche, would have been an effective counterbalance to the increasing secularization of the Jewish race. But then you would have to consider how Hitler is spun these days, i.e., an extreme right wing dictator who exploited racial antipathy to further his cause. What parallel is he given in recent American history? George Wallace, David Duke. Granted, Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright have said things every bit as incendiary as "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," but the label of racist has not been applied as often, consistently or effectively to Democratic racists and thus you have the modern association of Wallace with Hitler, while Wright and Farrakhan get off simply being tuned out when they start talking about "Jewish bloodsuckers" -Farrakhan, and "the United States of K.K.K.A." -Wright, the barely former ex Black Muslim and disciple of Louis Farrakhan, and then tuned back in when they begin spouting liberation theology.
One particularly puzzling aspect of the Jewish voting demographic is, of course, the traditional position of the GOP maintaining strong support for the nation of Israel, while the Democrats are anywhere from ambivalent to strongly condemning of anything Israel does.
Well, American Jews are not Israeli Jews. Note, for example the recent poll showing 75% of Israelis support some sort of military action against Iran whether the U.S. approves or not.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Rahm Emmanuel.
The point is that Israeli Jews do not have the luxury of misguided dependence on belabored diplomacy or "no pre-conditioned talks."
So, my answer, based on what I read from Cooper, to the question Why do Jews vote Democratic? is, the Republicans, once again, have made a sorry hash of salesmanship while the Democrats, aided by the larger portion of the media, have convinced another valuable demographic that the GOP is white, tight and racist.

The other portions of his explanation will have to wait.

A Christian in Obama's Court

2009-04-30T12:08:00.004-04:00

Pundits have a hard life these days. Especially conservative pundits. While maintaining a hard line against the policies of Barack Obama, they must continue to express faith in the American public, who elected said president.
Conservative politicians must walk an even higher rope over a deeper pit. While criticizing the effect, they must be cautious not to alienate the cause. They must gain the favor of at least a certain portion of those who actually approve of President Obama's job performance.
Gallup puts Obama's 100-day approval rating at 65%. This is deemed "notable in that nearly all major demographic categories of Americans are pleased with his job performance, as evidenced by approval ratings above the majority level."
FOX fixes him at 62%. A Bloomberg poll has him at 68%.
Considering Obama garnered 52.9% of the popular vote, this means that anywhere from 10 to 16% of the folks that cast their vote for someone else didn't really mean it, or at least are being extremely credulous and forgiving, taking into consideration that, if anything, Obama has governed from a point far left of where he campaigned.
To avoid outright double-talk, in appealing to the public, the commentators and congressmen and women have come up with a party line.
The slogan struck upon by conservative pundits and pols is any number of variations on the following: The American people do not like Obama's policies, they just like Obama.
This strikes me at an odd angle. These polls are called "approval ratings", correct? The pollsters are not asking us if we think he has a cute smile or nice pecs, they are asking us if we "approve."
Now, if say half of those 6o something percent say they approve of Obama just because they think he is a nice guy, then, in addition to the other 30 some odd percent of people who do actually approve of his performance, we now have a 30% demographic that could be labeled "people who don't understand what the word 'approval' means", which is a statistic almost as frightening as the number of people who voted for him in the first place.
To be fair, considering the rock on one hand and the hard place on the other, this party line may be the only option. for pols and pundits. It's hard to win votes or enlarge audiences making speeches about how stupid everyone is. Unless you're Michael Savage, who enjoys an audience about half the size of Limbaugh.
Do you remember a blip in the ill-fated campaign of John McCain? (For that matter, do you remember John McCain?)
An advisor and supporter, one former Senator Phil Gramm made the statement that we were in a "mental recession", and that we had become "sort of a nation of whiners."
The truth contained in this statement (note I say, "truth contained in". I don't claim the statement to be 100% accurate) stung. How badly it stung can be illustrated in the fact that no one has ever heard from Gramm subsequent to those remarks, and he is, in fact, missing and presumed dead, or somewhere in Pakistan with OBL.
But I don't have a listening audience or a voter public, so I feel safe in pointing out what I see.
The American people do not, as a rule, take firm ideological positions on anything. The overwhelming majority vote on charisma, and what they think of as "competence." In other words, if the guy can get things done, as inexplicable as it seems, they don't really seem to care what things he is getting done.
So, in returning to this self-contradictory party line, where does that leave a Christian?
You got a better idea?, you may growl.
Yes.
Maybe pull that money you are donating to whatever political cause you think will change the world and fund a crisis pregnancy center with it.
When you start getting riled about Obama's destructive agenda, pray for someone, starting with Obama.
Think more about converting an acquaintance to Christianity than converting them to conservatism.
The one will eventually follow the other.

You Can't Teach a Sneetch

2009-04-14T12:49:00.004-04:00

The First Church of Evangelicalism, now bearing a list of grievances on it's own front door, now knows what it is to be the establishment, and what it is like to bear the brunt of accusations such as hypocrisy, materialism and superficiality.
And, history being as repetitive as it is, the new Augustinian monks who nailed the updated theses on said door will soon find themselves in the same position.
For some years there has existed a polemic element in the evangelical movement. These at least have the favor of being called original. Eventually they demanded enough attention to be labeled, and post-evangelicalism became the new evangelicalism.
Various elements of the Christian music industry, frustrated pastors and astute seminary graduates began pointing out the emperor's immodesty.
Such independence could not last. The idea took a name, and began to suffer from organizational fatigue.
There is a perfect parallel in the world of rock music. In the early '90's, a rock band from Seattle called Nirvana fronted a new movement in rock music given the euphemism "grunge" rock. This in itself is ironic enough; the frustration with the "establishment" of rock, originally rock n'roll, the ultimate expression of individuality. "Grunge" became synonymous with "alternative" rock, and quickly gained a solid fan base. Sometime after the turn of the century, the worm turned again. The rebel image was fast losing its edge. Alternative accumulated such a raft of artists and such a burgeoning fan base that it was becoming, heaven forbid, commercialized and even successful. What was a rugged individualist rock fan to do? Thankfully, a new upstart birthed in the '90's emerged to become the new alternative. Indie rock, shortened from independent, stormed the college radio stations, and the "outsiders" could breathe easy again.
But there is another storm brewing. More and more and more indie rock bands. Not good, if you are one of those untold billions of music fans who love to refer to their music tastes as "eclectic."
I have heard this word invoked so many times by so many people that I am beginning to suspect fabrication. If everybody's tastes are eclectic, then who is buying all these mainstream pop albums?
At any rate, this should serve to illustrate something terribly absurd and irresistibly recurring.
More people than not like to think of themselves as the "anti-establishment." But, of course, when the percentage of the population who like to think of themselves as such rises above 49%, this becomes a problem.
In 1961, a prescient doctor wrote a parable that sticks in my mind when this concept of new newness arises.
It seems there are these unidentified creatures who live on a beach. Some of these creatures have a green star on their bellies. Some don't. The no-stars want a star. Those with "stars on thars" have more fun, like blondes. Along comes a capitalistic entrepreneur with the unlikely name of McBean. He has a machine which can duplicate the sought after stars quite nicely. The no-stars line up with their money and soon, the original stars are grumping around because they are not so special anymore. McBean, who begins to sound like some forward thinking advertising exec, invents another machine which removes stars, and markets it to the original stars. Soon, no-star becomes the new star, and so on and so forth. This continues until the stars and the no-stars, as if anyone could tell the difference any more, are flat broke and McBean leaves town a wealthy man.
The name of the book, btw, is The Sneetches, and the author went by the pen name, Dr. Seuss.
Post-evangelicals have already placed an undue burden on reform efforts by giving themselves a name.
The instant you form a "movement", your cause begins to stagger under the weight of the human element. After "movement", "organization" is just round the corner, and the wheels of reform grind slower and slower until you become an institution, hopelessly grounded by the trappings of power and politics.

A Waking Nightmare

2009-03-31T20:50:00.005-04:00

FOXNews.com - 'Sorry' Note Left Near Texas Hit-and-Run Victim - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

Posted using ShareThis

How many times have all of us come within a hairsbreadth of what this individual experienced?
Assuming it was unintentional, empathy, if not sympathy, consumes me.
Whether it is the radio, food, cell phone or just fixation on a road side object, distractions have more than once caused me sheepishness and guilt.
Does that prevent me from muttering under my breath when someone else does it?
Alas, I confess that the immediate assumption made when I am cut off or nearly missed is a curiously angry one.
Though reconsideration often follows, my instinctive reaction is invariable and unforgiving.
The offending party is any one of the following: jerk, idiot, stupid idiot, moron, unspeakable moron, etc.
I posted a blog a looong time ago that asked the question Do automobiles cause us to channel our true nature? If that is the case, I feel I need a nice, long sabbatical in some nice Franciscan monastery.
But about this alleged hit-and-run driver; I'm sure you can imagine the fevered rationalizing.
It's a safe bet that whoever was driving the vehicle has a family. Perhaps in the shock that followed the thought process progressed along the following lines: terror, overwhelming remorse, deadly guilt, dawning fear, imagined consequences, involuntary manslaughter conviction, ten year prison term, iron bars, brutal cell mates, sobbing family members . . . . and before long, out comes the notebook and the pen.
Barring a supernatural fear of the long arm of the law, or the rare, indeed, near extinct impregnable conscience, any one of us might have written the same note on the same tear-stained paper.
The million dollar question is, in a vacuum, with no consequences, who remains after it is discovered that there is nothing to be done short of calling the morgue?

Ready?

2009-03-27T13:42:00.006-04:00

I had been considering a certain passage of Scripture and its implications.
It grew upon my young mind, a burgeoning paradox, until it could be contained no more.
"You know that verse," I asked of my friend, Darren, "that says that the Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think not?"
"Yeah."
"Well, it seems that everyone is expecting Him all the time. . . . . sooo, how can He return when at every hour of every day, someone, somewhere is expecting Him?"
Darren, somewhat less enamored of abstract paradoxes than I, and somewhat more enamored of common sense than I, considered this.
"Well," came his response, "You can't keep Him from coming back just by thinking about it all the time."
Whether or not he had discerned my motivation for so eagerly considering this idea I don't know, but he had effectively put his finger on it. In my insecurity at the prospect of His return, I thought I might forestall Him by expecting Him.
Imbecilic, yes, but no more than supposing that you might prevent His return by not expecting Him.
It is true enough that I have been expecting Him with varying degrees of trepidation and anticipation for twenty years or so, and others no doubt precluded my expectancy by looking for Him years before I was born.
Let's talk about this elephant. When I, and I suspect other Christians, grow a little weary of the struggle, we turn with greater eagerness to the idea of His imminent return. No less exhausted but some less resigned than Sisyphus himself, we begin to wish not that the rock might finally be laid to rest, but that the rock and the mountain might disappear and the endless task of living might be resolved at last with our final rest. It is the same desperation that prompts a dreamer, when presented with an untenable nightmare, to awake rather than confront whatever horror awaits him in the dream.
Unfortunately, the exchange of our present reality for the next is not so easily attained.
It is easy for some to conclude that considering the ulterior motive or the self-interest that Christians stand to gain by His return nullifies their objectivity.
Could it be that the convergence of world events could always, since the Ascension, have been plausibly construed to fit all the signs of His Second Coming?
It has long been the contention of the elderly that things are getting worse all the time. And I suspect their parents said the same, and theirs the same, and so on.
Historic evil does not seem so much to have inclined as it has risen and fallen and risen and fallen. There is nothing new under the sun.
However, the view that the world will grow more evil and more evil until the Abomination of Desolations cannot help but occur is no more logical than the postmillenial view of Christian socialists that contends that the world will improve until it is finally ready for the eternal reign of Christ.
No, I think that whatever evil exists in the world today compared to the evil that will saturate our world with the reign of Antichrist is analogous to the crime that rampages under a democracy compared with the organized, authorized crime that is necessary for the existence of a corrupt dictatorship.
So, to acknowledge that the world is no more evil than it was one hundred years ago, or that America is no more debauched than ancient Greece is not to place the return of Christ further in the future. It simply has no bearing on the issue.
But, in a sense, those who would prove that His return is not imminent by pointing out the sometimes over eagerness of Christians to place it soon, are no more logical than I when I thought to prevent Him by expecting Him.
Certainly, the overall cause of Christ is not helped by those who fix dates. Not only because they always turn out to be wrong, but because Christ informed us that we could not know.
But, too often, those like Joel Rosenberg who rationally point out the convergence of prophesy and events are classed with the date-fixers.
And could it not be the Father of Confusion himself who prompts people to unthinkingly blurt out date-specific predictions? The passing of those dates robs the lost of a little more dread each time.
It's no good asking if I think it might be tomorrow. The point is, it is an unavoidable event. It is fixed by the Father. Everything that happens; time, events, false predictions, saber-rattling, regime changes, elections, solar storms, Mayan calendars, Middle East tremors, whether or not these things in and of themselves signify the immediacy, they bring it closer.
The absolute uncertainty is the unsettling method of God to bring us into a state of dependence, of hopefulness, and of faithfulness.
So, as unsatisfactory as it sounds, it could be a thousand years from now, and it could be . . . . .

Michael Chicken Little Spencer

2009-03-21T20:41:00.003-04:00

So evangelicalism is in danger of imminent collapse.
What, you haven't heard?
A former Baptist minister by the name of Michael Spencer experienced a meteoric rise to e-mortality when his January blog entry dealing with the coming deflation of evangelicalism was honed in on by the Christian Science Monitor. Within 1 day of the refurbished blog, now titled, The Coming Collapse of Evangelicalism, Matt Drudge linked it and the rest is history.
I was instantly intrigued when I saw the headline on Drudge.
The article led me then to his blog, internetmonk.com.
I've been reading ever since, and . . . my head is starting to hurt.
First, let me say that Michael Spencer is saying a lot, a LOT of good things.
He is decrying the mile width, inch depth of evangelicalism.
He disagrees with the mega-church model.
He insists that in our preoccupation with the culture war, Christians have diminished the message of the Gospel.
He is disgusted with over-emotionalism.
He points out that Christianity actually predates America and thus is not necessarily synonymous with U.S. citizenship, or patriotism.
(He scored a big point with me by pointing out the superficiality of that nice-looking young man with the year-round tan who pastors a large church in Dallas. Goes by the name Joel Osteen.)
More off-putting, he doesn't subscribe to young-earth creationism.
He does not believe that keeping the Sabbath is a New Testament requirement.
He does not believe that tithing should be taught as a ten-percent necessity.
He is sometimes unnecessarily provocative. For, example, in a post titled 25 Sort of Random Things I Do and Don't Believe, number 4 states: "I don't like or use the word inerrancy." Elsewhere he explains that he does not question Scripture, he simply dislikes the terminology.
This is the reason my head hurts.
I agree with about fifty percent of what Michael Spencer blogs.
The other fifty percent sends me scuttling for my Bible or just causes me to stop and consider why I disagree with him. His frankness is charming, his provocation is needless, but his insistence on depth and solid doctrinal foundations is what makes him truly a seismic event in evangelical culture.
So, take a couple aspirin and check it out.

Bellwether

2009-03-17T18:31:00.005-04:00

Here in Kentucky, we are experiencing the warm-up for a 2010 election that I think will prove very interesting.
It stands to serve as a harbinger of what wilderness-exiled Republicans are going to do to stop encompassing the mountain and pass over into Canaan.
We have a Republican incumbent senator, one Jim Bunning, formerly a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, currently the GOP counterpart to the human gaffe machine, Joe Biden.
Some of his faux pas include referring to his 2004 Democratic opponent, dark-complected Daniel Mongiardo, as looking "like one of Saddaam Hussein's sons." He also characterized the would-be Uday or Qusay as "limp-wristed."
More recently, he told an audience that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would likely be dead in nine months, in addition to using profanity in a press conference call.
In December of last year, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported that Bunning's non-profit foundation, appropriately titled the Jim Bunning Foundation, had given less than 25% of its proceeds to charity.
He is not known for putting in time on any particular issue in the Senate unless it is related to baseball.
He is also ranked as the second-most conservative member of the Senate, taking a back seat only to Jim DeMint.
To say that he is vulnerable is to say that McCain was not charismatic.
However, he maintains he plans to run for a third term.
Likely to jump in the race sometime next month is Kentucky State Senate President David Williams.
Williams is a Republican, but he has taken a beating from local talk-show hosts recently for acting too much like Barack Obama. Among other things, he supported a hike in Kentucky's cigarette and alcohol tax. This led Lexington talk-show host Leland Conway to refuse to allow Williams back on his show unless he first apologized to drinking, smoking Kentuckians for raising their taxes. Williams refused, and forfeited this public venue.
What pins this as such a bellwether for me is the contrast presented between Bunning, the stodgy conservative and Williams, perhaps this state's quintessential representative of a party that is seen by so many to be abandoning its principles.
What could serve to make the race more interesting still is the possible departure of Bunning from the primary.
In this event, waiting in the wings are two potential candidates.
Perhaps the most viable is Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson. Grayson was an anomaly last election. He stood in a wind that blew Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher out of office with a 17% loss. Grayson won reelection by 14%.
By and large, Grayson has made no great enemies within his own party. He shrewdly neither enthusiastically endorsed nor, as many Republicans were doing that year, expressed public doubt about Governor Fletcher's chances.
But, we have another, wilder card: Rand Paul. Yes, that Paul, son of presidential candidate Ron Paul, and certainly his father's son.
Should Bunning remain in the race, his primary contest with Williams will serve to illustrate Kentuckian, and perhaps national, Republicans' appetites for traditional fare.
Will they order KFC, or go to Starbucks for a snack?
And if Bunning steps aside, we could have a 3-way between a man seen currently as a RINO, a Kentucky golden boy, or, perhaps the future of the GOP; a lean, mean conservative/libertarian cross.

Col. 2:8

2009-03-04T15:28:00.003-05:00

Warning: This is a long one.

One accomplishment (who's counting) gained through my temporary unemployment is reading.
I read all the time, employed or not, but I have taken the time to plow through a few books that I would consider tedious when picked up for a half-hour at bedtime after a ten-hour work day.
Not to say I haven't continued the purely gratuitous reading. I more or less try to alternate escapism with literature.
For example, I rewarded myself with Stephen Lawhead after Dostoevsky. I'm not intellectual enough to regard Crime and Punishment as "hard to put down," but, considering its credentials, I considered it worth my time, especially since I have so much of it at present.
I expressed my literary goals to my dad, and he, (perhaps in an attempt to call my bluff) handed me The Life and Times of Jesus The Messiah by Edersheim.
It is a substantial book, numbering over 900 pages. I keep it beside my bed so as to make it readily available for a few pages at bedtime or, a lethal weapon against intruders in the night.
Against such a housebreaker, I have then the option of shooting him with a snub-nosed .357 magnum, or, if I deem him especially dangerous, clubbing him over the head with the five pound tome.
Anyway, in slogging through Book 1, chapter the 2nd, in which the author discusses the influence of Hellenism on Jewish thought and literature around the time of the birth of Christ, I find an especially pertinent discourse on the effect that Grecian thought had upon Judaism and Scripture itself.
(Having gotten only so far, I hope to avoid jumping to conclusions and corrupting a valid point of Edersheim's, but what he had to say spoke directly to an ongoing debate in my mind about the value of philosophy.)
Greek had become more common than Hebrew, if not in Jerusalem, then certainly in almost all other lands and cities. It became practical, then, to publish the Scripture in Greek and to expound the Scripture in Greek. And it became as impossible to divorce the Greek worship of logic from the exposition and exegeses of the Word of God as it would be to make an authentic gyro sans the cucumber sauce or lamb. For the philosophy of a culture is marbled in its language.
(Which is a distracting concept when you consider the English language. No wonder we're so confused. We incorporate almost every major language on earth.)
At first glance, especially the first glance of a Western Christian, this cannot be all bad.
We currently employ logic and reason as our first line of defense against atheism, and are accordingly heavily indebted to the Greeks for this instruction.
But, the problem arises when Edersheim notes, "When the Jew stepped out of the narrow circle which he had drawn around him,"
(It is interesting, if unnecessary, to note what the author discusses preceding this. He has spent the last page or two portraying the inherent nationalism and ethnic pride of the Jewish race. Even dispersed throughout the East and West, and even profoundly affected by the different countries throughout which they were scattered, they still maintained a fierce determination to preserve their identity as Jews.
Interesting concept, when you consider the argument over assimilation in America.)
Moving on, "-he (the Jew) was confronted on every side by Grecianism. It was in the forum, in the market, in the counting-house, in the street, in all that he saw, and in all to whom he spoke. It was refined; it was elegant; it was profound; it was supremely attractive. He might resist, but he could not push it aside. Even in resisting, he had already yielded to it. For, once open the door to the questions which it brought, if it were only to expel, or repel them, he must give up that principle of simple authority on which traditionalism as a system rested. Hellenic criticism could not so be silenced, not its searching light be extinguished by the breath of a Rabbi. If he attempted this, the truth would not only be worsted before its enemies, but suffer detriment in his own eyes. He must meet argument with argument, and that not only for those who were without, but in order to be himself quite sure of what he believed. He must be able to hold it, not only in controversy with others, where pride might bid him stand fast, but in that much more serious contest within, where a man meets the old adversary alone in the secret arena of his own mind, and has to sustain that terrible hand-to-hand fight, in which he is uncheered by outward help."
Regarding the latter portion of the passage, my parents always viewed it as indefensible to bid or forbid me something on the grounds of "Because I said so." and for that I respect them. I appreciate their respect of their own child exhibited in their willingness to defend their position with reason. Furthermore, as Americans, we will accept no edict issued on such infuriating grounds. Practically, we are all Missourians.
(And as to the very latter portion, I have had no greater arguments than those within myself.
My early Christian experience was a lonely one, as I ill-advisedly took on everyone from Darwin to Satan on the battleground of my own mind.)
But, to the point, Edersheim is showing us the dichotomy confronting Hellenistic Jews.
It is the same untenable position we are in today.
While we have, and must maintain, every political and legal right to demand that everything be weighed by logic and reason, this "show-me" mentality becomes a little questionable when applied to the question of God.
Now, Edersheim thus far has not ruled on the advisability of combining the critical thinking of the Greeks with the theology of the Jews.
In fact, he says "-there was the intellectual view of the Scriptures, their philosophical understanding, the application to them of the results of Grecian thought and criticism. It was this which was particularly Hellenistic. Apply that method, and the deeper the explorer proceeded in his search, the more would he feel himself alone, far from the outside crowd; but the brighter also would that light of criticism, which he carried, shine in the growing darkness, or, as he held it up, would the precious ore, which he laid bare, glitter and sparkle with a thousand varying hues of brilliancy."
Here we see the attraction, and admittedly, some benefits, of applying critical thinking to Scripture. Dimensions hitherto unseen are laid bare to our excited eyes. But, note the word "excited." How excited, and why? I'll return to this.
He continues, "What was Jewish, Palestinian, individual, concrete in the Scriptures, was only the outside-true in itself, but not the truth. There were depths beneath. Strip these stories of their nationalism; idealise the individual of the persons introduced, and you came upon abstract ideas and realities, true to all time and to all nations But this deep symbolism was Pythagorean; this preexistence of ideas which were the types of all outward actuality, was Platonism! Broken rays in them, but the focus of truth in the Scriptures. Yet these were (emphasis mine) rays, and could only have come from the Sun. All truth was of God; hence theirs must have been of that origin. Then were the sages of the heathen also in a sense God-taught --and God-teaching, or inspiration, was rather a question of degree than of kind!"
Now, I believe that. I do believe that "in a sense" the sages of the heathen were God-taught.
It is remarkable to note how closely Platonism and so many other philosophies resemble the teaching of Jehovah.
But there is a door opened best left shut.
When you begin to look for truth, not necessarily excluding Scripture or ignoring it, but looking for other truth in conjunction with Scripture, extreme caution is warranted; to such an extremity, in fact, that it can be ill-advised.
Because, it is so easy to unintentionally begin to ascribe more gravity to philosophy to the displacement and detriment of theology or just faith, if you will, and critical thinking will slip to the bottom and theology floats to the top like fizz. It becomes the root of our doctrine; theology then becomes the fruit or, the structure and not the foundation.
It is precisely so easy because reason is the currency in which we deal in every other aspect of our lives! And it is very difficult to maintain the preeminence of faith.
On every hand, we are challenged to justify God, to defend our faith.
And we must!
But the problem lies in defending our faith to ourselves.
Philosophy must be exploited, not trusted absolutely. It is not the original language in which our faith was written, and when we begin to translate that virtually unspeakable language into a philosophical one, it corrupts the integrity, the purity of it. It vulgarises our faith.
Yes, we must learn their language. But, we must not forget our own.
Do not assimilate to that extent where you begin to except their premise, their terms.
Now, to return to an earlier allusion, what does this new light of philosophy flung against formerly observed doctrines and concepts reveal?
Well, it might be as simple as donning 3-D eyeglasses. The concept is the same. We are given the opportunity to view old things in a new way.
You might have always just simply been told "God exists" and expected to accept it.
It is understandable, then, why it is invigorating to be able to explain this insistence with Pascal's Wager or Descartes' ruthless crucifixion of assumption.
It is rewarding and exciting to study philosophy. In the same way, it is rewarding, not quite as much for myself as other more enthusiastic scientists, to study the physical universe and see the hand of God, much as you can see the mind of God in philosophy.
But, when a biologist goes from seeing God in a flower to resting his belief in that God on the proof of design in the flower, he has put the cart before the horse. The weight of God will not rest on the stem of a flower, nor will the entire created complex universe sustain the weight of God. But God can most certainly bear the weight of it all and be not diminished for it.
It is the same when a Christian accepts the world's terms of debate in his own heart and mind and begins to justify God based on anything.
Faith is the evidence of things not seen. That "not" isn't merely incidental, it is necessary to the birth of faith. We don't get to know, based on verifiable evidence, that God exists.
The moment God lets us see, all is lost in terms of His plan of faith through Christ. We would then become shackled by evidence to serve Him.
I was struck by an epiphany reading Kant and Descartes years ago. Weary of that lonely battle that Edersheim talked about, the arrival of the reinforcements, that cavalry of philosophy tempted me to lay aside my own shield and sword and leave the battle of the mind to logic. I felt I had been given the ultimate weapon. I could now bandy words in the parlance of the provable.
Now I understand how such a concept is justifiable!
But really, I hadn't been asked to justify the concept, and as Edersheim put it, I had now given up that simple authority.
In so doing, I anthropomorphize the vessel, and endue it with the ability to ask questions of the Potter.
God can be defended by the laws of philosophy, but ultimately, He doesn't recognize the authority of our court and will not be judged by it.
To distill all of that, now, again I say, philosophy and apologetics is the language we are given to introduce God to the neophyte. And, for this reason, I heartily encourage fluency in all dialects.
But don't forget your native tongue. Speak it in your heart.

To distill it further, as Paul said "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ."
Well, you ask, mightn't you have simply quoted Paul and forgone all this?
Well, don't forget, I'm currently unemployed.

The Inevitable Sack of Athens

2009-03-02T18:39:00.004-05:00

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. E.B. White
Since he also wrote Charlotte's Web, and Stuart Little, we may be certain Mr. White spoke this with his tongue tucked firmly in his cheek.
Garrison Keillor illustrates our sometime difficulty with democracy thusly: The trouble with a democracy is that people will often vote the wrong way when they think no one is looking.
Of course, it may be said, in a perfect world, a dictatorship would be a governmental system approaching perfection.
Taking into account the unfortunate consideration that no one immediately accessible has ever lived in such a flawless place, we are left with the consolation that democracy, as Winston Churchill put it, is the worst form of government except all those other forms which are tried from time to time.
After all, according to Reagan, even socialism boasted of two successful experiments; heaven and hell, respectively.
We will all be given, accordingly, the opportunity to see first-hand the workings of those
However, democracy is currently functioning as well as might be expected, recent election results aside.
It served Greece well, and gave the Roman empire a promising start before being sacrificed to ambition.
That is the lion's share of the problem with democracy; it is a delicate balancing act in a strong wind on a high wire strung over a bottomless pit. The gales of whimsy, mob-rule and ambition constitute a vicious cross-wind.
At the moment, we're teetering, and no amount of well-intentioned faith in "democracy" will save us if, God forbid, we're ever knocked off and fail to grab the wire on our way down.
C.S. Lewis approved of democracy not because he trusted man to govern himself, but because he distrusted the nature of man to such an extent that it becomes necessary to risk anarchy to guard against the level of evil that may be achieved while power is in the hands of one man.
At least every man is given a fighting chance.
It is a poor bargain, but it is the only one we have.
Personally, I have no great affection for democracy.
I simply much prefer it to anything else.
What I would really like is a theocracy, and am expecting our current system of government to fall to an invading benevolent Dictator at any time now.

I'm well aware that the above could be described as rambling; what the average person might accomplish on the telephone or . . . Facebook.

Mitt Romney??!

2009-03-01T20:19:00.002-05:00

I may very well be wrong.
Perhaps the GOP may not be tracking libertarian.
Judging from the presidential straw polls at C-PAC, they must just be tracking stupid.
I confess I do not understand why favoring a certain former Massachusetts governor constitutes a fresh new direction.
Jindal, people, the word is Jindal.
Not Romney.

I feel better now.

Lighten Up

2009-02-27T17:40:00.003-05:00

It's a sad day in America when a Hollywood producer has to be the one to point out how politically correct we've become, and how it has shriveled us.
Clint Eastwood made a very good point and it illustrates something I've always though but been afraid to say.
We are a nation of different ethnicities and all of those ethnic groups have idiosyncrasies and most of them are funny.
Perhaps part of the reason we can't close the racial divide in this country is because we can't joke about it.
Personally, that is the best way that I know of to diffuse a tense situation.
I have had many black friends and we laughed hardest when we were telling racial or ethnic jokes.
I have had not as many Hispanic friends as I would like but the issue of race was always something to laugh about, not tiptoe around.
I have had even fewer Asian friends, but about the only one that sticks in my mind was a guy I worked with at Cracker Barrel. On a busy night, I was stuck behind him in a narrow aisle.
"Chop chop." I said.
"Oh, oh," he turned, "Because I'm Asian, you say 'Chop chop."
Another time, coming up behind him I mistook him for another Asian that worked there and called him by the wrong name. He turned with a wry face, "Yeah, we all look alike, right?"
Once I was working with two black guys, Toby and Jonathan. As it happened, I was the one doing what might have been considered the easier of the three jobs. I was scanning boxes while they unloaded them.
At once, they stopped and looked at each other and said, "What's up with this? The two black guys here are doing the manual labor and the cracker is back there with his little tiny scanner."
I chuckled and said, "Get back to work." Then, in a fit of mischief, I added, "Boy."
I confess I even cringed a little when I said it but it got the desired result. Howls.
I used to have a bad habit of calling people "cotton picker" in mock anger. More than once, I inadvertently applied the label to black men. And I'm still alive.
Once shortly before Martin Luther King Day, I ran into one my sups who was black.
"I guess you and Greg (another black sup) will be taking Monday off." I prodded.
"I will," replied Donny, a former second stringer for the Miami Dolphins, "Greg just gets a half day."
Greg's skin is considerably lighter than Donny's.
My black friends like to kid us about being pigment challenged and uptight.
They're right, we are. And it's funny.
I like to think that the few friends I have that are members of a different race than I am know that I like them for who they are and their stereotypical trappings only make me like them more because we can laugh about them.
One of the funniest jokes I've ever heard actually has a Democratic source.
What do you call a black man at a Republican banquet.
The key-note speaker.
I didn't have a whole lot to say on the issue, I just thought I would take perhaps the only opportunity I'll ever have to praise a Hollywood icon.

Culture

2009-02-20T15:40:00.009-05:00

Devan and I visited the university art museum today.
It is incumbent upon culturally engaged people to take in the sweep of artistic achievement, to appreciate properly the complexity of the human race, to feel the epic emotions that rage in each of our psyches and . . . it was free.
Now, I am no country bumpkin. I know when to clap at the symphony. Which is precisely at the point when everyone else begins to clap. At the last concert we attended, I got lost in the movements of Beethoven's sixth. I was back on the third movement, waiting for the thunder and lightning of the fourth. The movement ended and I settled in. Ah, now for the climax. I was horrified when everyone began clapping.
Uncultured swine, I snarled under my breath.
As it happened, I was the swine, or at least the uncultured one. The thunder and lightning had been some less bombastic than I was expecting. (Think of a soft summer Seattle shower, as opposed to the Oklahoma frog-strangler I was anticipating.)
But, in the interest of broadening my horizons and smoothing down my dog-eared corners, I suggested we go to the art museum.
Upon entering, we were asked if we were here to look at anything specific. I hedged. I'm accustomed to brushing off sales clerks with, "Nope, just lookin'." but is such a dodge acceptable in an art museum?
Devan, on the other hand, did not hedge and responded precisely with that retail brush-off I was avoiding.
"We're just looking around."
This surprised me, as Devan is normally somewhat cowed and intimidated in the face of the unknown; generally a real hand-wringer.
I cringed.
"Okayyy." the girl leaned across the desk with that smile she no doubt crafted for the fifth-graders on a field trip from Harlan County.
"The exhibit on this floor is a paid exhibit." The word "paid" had a curious force to it and a little shower refracted the sunlight streaming in the glass doors.
I looked around the first floor and caught sight of a work to which I could instantly relate. It shouted frustration and confusion, even anger. At a passing glance it resembled a scrambled scrawl.
The reason I could relate to it so well was because it resembled a work that I keep by the phone in the kitchen. It's on a Post-It pad. I completed the work one day when I was on the phone with the insurance agent and my pen wouldn't write. The deep swirling scratches in the yellow paper remind me of despondency on a sunny day.
This particular artist had communicated well his angst. It was even darker than mine. I felt for him.
"And," the magnanimity continued, "the upstairs exhibit is our permanent exhibit and it is free."
"Well," said I, catching Devan's free-spirited chutzpa, "that's probably where we'll want to go."
The dazzling smile did little to melt the frost from her eyes.
I grabbed Devan's hand and together we clomped up the stairs. (I wore boots, which in retrospect, may not have been the proper footwear to wear to an art museum. If I had not left my ballet slippers at home . . )
As we ascended the stairs, I began to open my mind, discarding all prejudicial preferences.
This is not a Thomas Kinkade gallery.
I did well throughout the first six or seven works, giving each the attention it deserved.
I came to a point where there hung a roughly 4'x6' frame. Glued to the canvas, covering every square inch, were straight twigs, approximately three to four inches long. They were all affixed vertically. There were slightly different shades of brown, some twigs still retained the bark.
I knew immediately what to do. I backed up several feet and let my eyes glaze over.
My aunt and uncle had a calendar like this back in '92. If you look at it long enough, something will jump out at you, like a coffee-cup, or a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.
Devan interrupted my reverie. "It's called 'Rain'." she pointed to the placard.
I studied it some more. "Yeeesss, yes, I see that!" If you looked at it long enough it became unbelievably clear. The twigs . . . . were raindrops! Somewhat elongated, somewhat solidified, somewhat brown, somewhat . . . .wooden, but raindrops nonetheless. I moved on, satisfied with my appraisal and furthermore determined never to get caught in rainstorm like that! Beethoven should've composed a movement about that rainstorm.
Further down, we came to a particularly expressive piece. It was a wide piece of canvas tacked to a framework of two-by-twos. Vertical tears ran strategically down the work, exposing the skeletal two-bys. The canvas was predominately brown and black. In large block letters, one in between each tear, was the word HA!
Instantly the spirit of the artist spoke through his work and I began laughing too.
I felt I could even discern what he was amused about! It was too hilariously funny, the mischievous nature of this artist. I could even see him laughing, head thrown back, embracing the moment as he counted the money paid him for the ripped, bespoiled canvas.
Just around the corner, I was taken aback by a stark representation. The emotions one felt gazing at this masterpiece literally ran the gamut of experience.
At first I was sobered, even saddened by the somber tone of it all; so black, so . . . . rigidly utilitarian. The rectangular work suggested a trapped man, one desperate to break free from the chains of society. It was eight feet tall and approximately six feet wide. Then I saw a touch that brought tears to my eyes, a neon EXIT sign perched at the top. What torture, what futility had this man experienced and portrayed so well in his art!
Then, I began to see another dimension to his idea. It was satire! He was displaying a bold contempt of the conformity adhered to by our capitalistic society. The triumph of his journey from incarceration to independence, futility to freedom, captivity to contempt burned a smile through the tears.
Next to this masterpiece, there was a large, clashing cacophony. A dual toned irregular rectangle thrust bluntly down into a splotched white expanse.
I sneaked a peek at the placard.
Odorless.
I sniffed.
It was, except for a little acrylic whang.
Next up, I was simply not prepared for what I saw. It was a landscape scene. Two blurry figures walked along a deserted beach. Little dot-dash-dot clouds flocked in the sky.
Here I was stumped. What a cryptic message. What dark implication lay behind the azure sky?
Then I smacked my forehead.
Devan said, "Babe, don't do that."
"Of course," I said, "He is trying to get us to see the emptiness of mere Impressionism."
"How so?"
I couldn't believe she asked.
"Well, " I explained, "just look at it! It's as plain as the nose on your face."
Her brow wrinkled. "That one?" She pointed.
It so happened the next painting was a large, bald head shaped like a thumb. A large Roman nose took center stage.
"No, no." I motioned. "Here. This ghastly beach scene. Doesn't it just send chills up your spine the way he portrays the presumption of Impressionists."
Devan shivered. I still haven't asked her whether she got it, caught a sudden draft, or was being a peasant.
I marveled at the artistic finesse and satirical wit before moving on.
Devan was gazing at a pastoral scene with trees that were grossly and crudely depicted as trees with actual branches and leaves. Moreover, there was green grass and a house.
I puzzled over this for some time before deciding that some artists just didn't get it.
Walking out of the gallery was what did it. Observing the unwashed masses of college students streaming around us I mused, After all, there are bound to be some prosaic schmo's out there who have nothing better to communicate than, than . . . natural beauty.
Bourgeoisie was the word for which I was searching.

Irreconcilable Differences

2009-02-12T11:23:00.003-05:00

My wife and I had an argument last night.
I was attempting to appeal to her reason.
She deals with a certain problem in a haphazard fashion. Instead of starting at square one and working it out from there, leaving no unfinished details, she plunges in at the middle and begins working at it from there, leaving half of the problem unattended.
We can get to that later, she says.
But why not attend to it now? I say. And then it won't be preying on your mind.
It's not preying on my mind, says she, because I know I'll deal with it later. No sweat.
But why not do it now, I persist. There's nothing to be gained by procrastinating and nothing to be lost by seeing to the whole thing at first.
The way you see it, she stonewalled. The way I see it, it is positively manic to obsess about the possibility of failure every time you deal with a problem. I mean, how morbid is that? Do you then consider death each time you wake up in the morning? Do you calculate the odds of an aircraft engine plummeting through the roof as you drift off to sleep each night?
That's preposterous, I sputter. An errant aircraft engine I cannot control! Things beyond my control I leave to fate.
Ah, but you could- she arched her eyebrows. -you could live in a cave.
A cave.
Yes, and be relieved of the fear of death from the sky.
You're reaching, I mumble.
Not really, she answers and then hastens on, But then, if you live in the cave, there is always earthquakes.
Really, I protest.
It's perfectly logical, she continues, If every possible scenario is to be taken into account, and every precaution taken, then you will, . . .you will . . .
I will . . .
-Be extremely preoccupied, not to mention fearful and you'd likely develop an eye twitch or some sort of tic and contract high blood pressure which would doubtless kill you before the jet engine or the earthquake had the opportunity.
My way, she advances, is actually healthier.
That's a leap, that's an Evil Canievel leap, I say.
No, no it's not. And really when you think about it-
I don't think you're thinking about it.
-when you think about it, it is more responsible. Yes, and more efficient. The more you worry about unlikely possibilities, the more likely you are to neglect some necessary responsibilities. So you see the enormity of the situation. You must not obsess about everything, because too much else depends on you.
Well, here then, I could just walk across the interstate for a shortcut, and hang the traffic. I can't be bothered with it! It's obsession.
Well, now, let's don't be silly.
Me . . .ME?
Certainly, you're stretching the analogy to the breaking point. There is a greater likelihood of you being hit by traffic than not being hit by traffic walking across the interstate. There is almost zero likelihood of dying by aircraft engines. You have made quite a leap there yourself, mister.
I'm just- . . .I'm only taking your philosophy to its logical destination!
But, don't forget the original argument. You said to obsess about everything, I said you musn't obsess about everything, only big things. You must leave such small things to take care of themselves. In reality, there is a very small chance of expiring due to falling engines or earthquakes in Kentucky.
I'm temporarily speechless
Then, finally, But . . .but- we're talking about squeezing the toothpaste tube from the middle!

It's fiction. We've never argued about the toilet paper, either.

The Fountainhead

2009-02-10T13:08:00.008-05:00

I think cautions are cheesy, for the most part, but, be forewarned that one of my points turns on a novel scene that depicts rape.

Add Glenn Beck to the list of conservatives in awe of the writings of Ayn Rand.
Reading Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis, I was made to think of Rand.
Lewis' protagonist, Ransom, has been abducted by a Professor Weston and taken to a distant planet, where he is to be given as a sacrifice to the inhabitants. Ransom escapes and finds the natives friendly and helpful. Weston, viewing the inhabitants through his own parameters of greed and gain, has misunderstood the alien intelligence to be hostile and so brought Ransom as a gift.
After escaping, Ransom becomes well-acquainted with the aliens and their comes a culmination where he and Weston are brought together before the Oyarsa (similar to an arch-angel.) In explaining his actions to the Oyarsa, Weston proudly proclaims that he is seeking the betterment of humankind, to the detriment of all other life forms, be they intelligent or no. He views Ransom as a traitor to the human race for not submitting to the fate that he had deemed necessary and being the intended sacrifice to the aliens. It was Ransom's duty, he contends, to further mankind by his own sacrifice, and furthermore, Weston sees no immorality in slaughtering all the natives of any given planet because he is making great gains for man in the process and, in all his frank pride, he tells the Oyarsa so.
The Oyarsa is puzzled by Weston's paradox and asks the professor how it is that he claims to seek the good of mankind by destroying a member of mankind. Weston curtly responds that he is a scientist and doesn't wish to be distracted by philosophical conundrums.
There are two things here that serve as a perfect foil for Ayn Rand, the patron saint of conservatives.
The first is a simple reminder that Rand held traditional philosophy in utter contempt and blamed it for most of the world's problems. It is the common scorched earth retreat of humanists to snarl at the superfluity of philosophical and moral debate.
The second contrast is more disturbing.
Weston's assertion that Ransom was obligated to submit to his fate and fulfill his role as a lesser member of the human race, and by his sacrifice further the race relates specifically to a bizarre, erotic scene in Ayn Rand's first novel, The Fountainhead. The hero of the book, Howard Roark, takes advantage of the heroine. Rape is strongly implied, and yet, the heroine, Dominique, despite thinking of it as a rape, privately recognizes that she wished it. Rand, when criticized as depicting a rape in less than its horrific domination, replied that she supposed if it were truly a rape, it was a rape by "engraved invitation." And, indeed, Dominique loves Howard Roark as a man who has simply taken possession of what was his. It has shades of the ultra-chauvinistic contention that from a woman, no means yes, and non-consensual sex occurs because the woman subconsciously agrees to it.
Besides the sickening implications for rape victims, her explanation of the incident tells more.
Rand described herself as a hero-worshipper, so it can be assumed her heroine was prey to the same adulation and despite struggling against Roark, could not but submit to the man who had a right to her because he was a superior man.
The parallel I see is obvious. Weston asserted the right of the powerful, as did Roark.
Ransom, thank God, defended his right to life. Dominique capitulated.
Now, as an integral part of her ode to humanism, this submission of one human to another may seem contradictory. But humanism ultimately seeks as its end the good of "mankind", not men.
It's code for self-advancement. Since we can be assured that secular humanism would not seek the furthering of human goals if all humans came to be subservient to a higher power, such as God Almighty, their altruistic dodge can be debunked. They seek the advancement of humanism, and are not to be convinced that the true ideals of humanity be anything other than complete authority; masters of their own destiny and captains of their own fate.
Rand believes that ultimate power lies within human control, stating that "-man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress." But, even as the individualist she was, in subjecting Dominique to the degradation of Roark, she recognized that though individual will was supreme, there must still be a hierarchy to maintain forward progress. Each individual will competing with all others, asserting their own dominance, seeking their own goals, will inevitably collide.
Now I know, or assume, that if asked to trace their propagation of Randian ideology to it's fountainhead, most of today's conservatives would deny her premise. Most of their identification with her may be strictly on the basis of her contempt for socialism and the diminution of the individual for the good of the state. But there is a sweet seduction in her premise that appeals to the individual in us. It is dangerous to laud a person and a philosophy so indiscriminately when her reason, her basis for her proposals and her philosophy was the authority of man and his ultimate power.
There's a hook in all that bait.

A Way Out of the Wilderness

2009-02-08T18:01:00.004-05:00

Conservatives are embroiled in an identity dispute. Their time in the wilderness recently underway predictably and understandably has engendered a lot of "soul-searching", strategizing (to be definitely differentiated from "strategery") and house-cleaning. Michael Steele, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, has used some revolutionary lingo (if you're not conservative, get out of the way), and proceeded to fire every current staff member.
Pragmatism being what it is, there will be some new marketable platform, complete with one-liners, and catch phrases.
Now, this is not necessarily a prediction, since certain signs of this have already become evident; it is simply what I believe will begin to emerge from conservative think tanks and punditry over the next two years or so.
Conservatism will be increasingly displaced by libertarianism. I have mentioned the love affair that conservative thinkers have with Ayn Rand and objectivism. Libertarianism is not technically objectivism, in fact, Rand made a point of distancing herself from the libertarians of her day. But the seduction of "individualism" binds them together ideologically. Rand's worldview is exactly opposite of socialism, which is what conservatives now are drawing up as the opposition. Objectivism has the added allure of seeming very American, very independent.
Conservatives as a whole have had something of an uneasy alliance with social conservatism.
Libertarians, as a whole, have no dog in the social hunt. This determination to "keep government out of the bedroom" is what will, I believe lead to greater popularity of libertarian ideas in conservative circles. Americans, for instance, may be more pro-life than pro-abortion, but the middle truth is they are more pro-choice. In other words, they may dislike the idea of abortion, but they would dislike more the idea of a total ban on abortions.
Libertarians, by and large, are very fiscally conservative and socially, morally disinterested.
Look for more creeping libertarianism from your favorite talk show or columnist.
I believe it is coming.

The Way I See It

2009-02-07T13:53:00.004-05:00

I reached the age of political accountability in 1992.
Prior to that election year, I possessed about as much knowledge or opinion about the subject as you might expect of a fourteen year old. I knew I was a Republican. I even vaguely remember listening to the '84 election returns. As each state came in over the radio, I wondered (without being terribly concerned) what either candidate would do with all those boats. (Radio "v"s are practically indistinguishable from "b"s, especially to a six-year-old. In '88, we held mock elections in my 5th grade class and I knew enough to vote for Bush, as did every other kid in the twenty-something member classroom, except for one Jesse Porter. He was a likable kid. I even remember speculating that no doubt his parents were pro-Dukakis, and he was simply following their lead. I, on the other hand, had come to the pro-Bush position independently and as a result of careful consideration.
It was in '92, however, that I began to take a greater, if still one-dimensional, interest in politics. This was due mostly to the growing popularity of Rush Limbaugh. I listened innocently, and became acquainted with satire, and punditry for the first time. (My repertoire of 'sixties music increased exponentially as well, as I listened to countless parodies sung by a Bill Clinton stand-in.) The race between George Bush, Sr. and Bill Clinton was the atmosphere in which my views began to form. Pres. Clinton is something of a watershed in my experience. Everything political is now measured against and compared to the reign of this polarizing politician. My 14-yr. old choice was very black and white. Clinton was the personification of everything I knew I should be against. The outcome of the election was bitter, and my adolescence was spent in political exile.
The Congressional elections of '94 added to my experience, as the fickle public issued a mandate of a different sort to the man they had elected two years before.
'96 was another distasteful experience. Being somewhat less than thrilled about the Republican nominee didn't lessen the disgust of the prospect of another Clinton term.
.2000 was predictably the dawn of a new era. Social conservatives, initially divided and generally ambivalent about the son of a tepidly conservative former president, soon came to see a firm pro-life advocate and a President clearly uncomfortable with the militant homosexual agenda. 2001 was a very brief, almost evanescent glimpse of national unity spawned by a horrific terrorist attack. Then just as quickly as it was formed, the united front dissolved, aided by the corrosive frankness of the cowboy president. The punching bag issue of the war on terror aside, the next seven years proved to be at least as politically contentious as the Clinton years.
George W. Bush, whatever else might be said of him, was a man of conviction, a man who, in his words, despised "hand wringing" or second-guessing. The poll-driven relativism of Clinton that elicited such outrage from the right in the '90's was replaced by the dead certainty of Bush, which garnered a greater response of anger from his opponents than Clinton's hair-splitting ways had from his.Historically low approval ratings, however, failed to prompt one single politically expedient decision from the lame duck, whose resolution only served to infuriate his detractors further. I remember animosity from the right during the Clinton years, but I was increasingly stunned by the nastiness of the political climate as Bush's second term rolled on.
Now, to the point of the blog, there are, certainly, a bloc of perhaps 35% who will as a matter of simple genetics vote Republican and another 35% who will vote Democratic for the same reason, but the 30% in the middle are the ones who decide the fate of the nation. Therefore, it is this 30% I will hereafter refer to as the voters.
Among other tendencies of the voting public, I seem to see a reactionary pattern, at least since Reagan. The economic prosperity and the triumph over Communism carried over into four years for Reagan's VP, but amidst a mild recession in '92, the public wanted to try something different. Eight years of Clinton bred contempt for the Democrats in 2000, so they elected the Republican, perhaps also as a conciliatory gesture toward the man they'd booted out eight years earlier. And now, once again, they wish to try something different.
A stronger tendency is the penchant for personality contests. In '92 Clinton was effused with all the youthful charismatic energy of the ghost of JFK. In '96, he'd lost some of his mystique, but whatever charm he retained was still more than a match for Bob Dole, who was seen as stiff and even angry. In 2000, Al Gore, sinking under the weight of eventual Clinton fatigue, took on more water with his unapproachable elitist anger and sank, albeit agonizingly slowly. Bush, in my opinion, was elected not on his merits or his policies. (Both of which gave him excellent credentials, for my vote) He was elected because he was more likable than Al Gore. In 2004, the early-on favorite for Democratic challenger, Howard Dean, shrieked his way right out of the campaign and left it for John Kerry to pick up. Now, one might have expected greater things from Kerry. A Democratic senator from Massachusetts, with the initials JFK, no less, not to mention beautiful hair, a coif second only to that of his running mate no doubt held more of the aura of the slain hero of Camelot than did Clinton. Not to mention that anybody, Walter Mondale, should have been able to vanquish the battered incumbent, especially given the cosmopolitan urbanity of the Vietnam Vet contrasted with the Texan National Guard pilot curmudgeon. Alas, the detachment of Kerry proved more disenchanting to the voters than Al Gore's anger, and although the election was no landslide, it was nowhere near the nail biter of four years before. The cowboy lived to fight another day.
Then, in 2008, it is almost as though the public admits that they just gave Bush another term because they felt obligated to make it up to his father. In Bush up to here, they shut the door on his party so fast that it dealt John McCain a humiliating blow on his way out. Here again, though, we have the issue of personality, more clearly defined than ever before. In the Democratic primary, the Clinton coronation collapsed under the weight of yet another Kennedy comparison. Hillary was a given before personality was weighed. For her part, Hillary gave it the college try, but she had an unshakable ex-wife shrillness. Then there was the Bill baggage. The repudiation of Hillary was in part a tacit admission of guilt on the part of the voters for their '90's dalliance with her philandering husband. Their other choice was a young, fresh face and an electrifying speaker. And in the general election, the personality choice was an easy one. Youthful energetic change in one box and old, cranky monotony in the other. Issues be hanged.
Simply, simplistically, you may feel, put, the outcome of elections are based on popularity, and these popularity contests are decided by the fence sitters, who call themselves moderate.
What that means to them one can only guess, but the result is clear. They hold no convictions on social issues, and their views on fiscal policy are negotiable and for sale to the highest promise. They hold our future in their hands for the foreseeable future; a future that if left undisturbed by a higher power, holds only more cycles and treadmills.

More Incoherence

2009-02-03T12:57:00.003-05:00

I suppose the question left unanswered by my last blog is only troubling if you find relevance in debates concerning fairies and pin heads, or flies and holy water. I do find these questions pertinent, even if you consider "fairies" in its modern contextual slang. (I'm sure the question has arisen in theory more than once in performance rehearsals of Swan Lake or The Nutcracker.)
Seriously, the questions that we sometimes diminish as superfluous or just silly because of their abstract nature are what underpin our basic doctrines and beliefs. For example, a child's curious agnosticism may cause him to ask, "If God can do anything, can He make a rock so big He can't move it?" The average reply is a snort, but really, the question is making a specific point of God's omnipotence and exposes the ultimate inadequacy of logic when explaining the concept of God.
So, the nonexistence of objectivity I proposed naturally creates a follow-up question.
If no one can be truly objective, how can we ever be sure of finding the truth? If nobody can weigh the question without any preexisting bias, doesn't it become impossible to establish anything as the absolute truth?
You must acknowledge the beginning bias, which in turn acknowledges the precondition of instinct. From whence came your desire to believe in an Almighty or your desire to disbelieve in Him? I'm not talking about upbringing, not talking about environment. As a child, when you were first presented with an idea or statement concerning the nature of the spiritual or the material, you were predisposed, however slightly, to choose one view or the other. If you insist on the impossibility of the child totally uninfluenced by upbringing or environment, consider a hypothetical child brought up in a vacuum, say a round room, with no human interaction, sustenance delivered by automation. You would have to contend that this child, deprived of any interaction with any means of shaping his views, would be a blank slate upon reaching adulthood, and have no preferences or inclinations. (Assuming you would not propose something so ridiculous, let's move on.)
If you acknowledge an inherent predisposition, independent of any influence, you acknowledge something unexplainable. Now, if it was an evolutionary development, let us take it all the way back to the first man, or first life form in possession of reasoning capabilities. Upon what did his or its choice hinge upon? What, for instance, gave it the instinct for survival that dictated the actions of the man or organism? Don't tell me survival is simply inherent. It makes as much sense as saying that the universe has always existed in some form or another; or, that something cannot come from nothing. That statement is a monstrous inconsistency for the atheist or the theist. It protests both arguments and there is no third choice, so it is an illogical statement.
So, to sum it up, if you can bring yourself to acknowledge an intangible, truly acknowledge it and accepts its implications, you then have a point of reference and everything else can then be mapped and established.
Frank Peretti gives an excellent example in a speech in which he uses a chair for a point of reference. He asks us to imagine that we are in a round room, no corners, and completely dark. We have no concept of location or distance; completely lost. But, in our stumbling and groping, we come upon this chair. The world settles into place. We now have a point of reference, and everything makes sense.
As I said before, atheistic nihilism doesn't lend itself to sanity. Even computers have logic to operate on. To disavow any absolutes sets us adrift in the round room, and there is no chair to comfort us.
(Again, notice the inconsistency of our vocal atheists. They all protest the existence of absolutes but yet make statements that subscribe to a moral code, however oblique.)

No Choice

2009-01-29T13:22:00.003-05:00

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that people are very disinclined to be objective, and are driven or motivated by appetites that are never satiated.
Truthfully, I wonder how it can be said that anyone is objective about anything. Every decision made is influenced by something other than the cold, hard facts.
This is not to say that we all decide in accordance with our desires. Sometimes the evidence to the contrary or extenuating circumstances supply our better judgment with sufficient reason to withstand our predisposition.
But, our predisposed tastes and wants are considered and, upon a matter that leaves any room open for debate we will hold tenaciously to our bias despite any amount of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Which leads me to wonder about claims of objectivity from everybody from news reporters to historians to atheists to apologists.
Personally, I want everything I believe to be true. I am not disinterested when I weigh the evidence.
Disregarding the recent theatrics of Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris, and disregarding the admittedly more reasoned, but still biased replies of Zacharias, McDowell and Johnson, the question of God remains a strict choice, if you maintain objectivity.
Either you must accept the concept of God that consistently defeats any attempts to explain it entirely, or you must accept the concept of materialism that has no answer to the ultimate question of origin.
(Now, I do say that materialism is defeated by its own premise. It will not brook the possibility of the unexplainable, yet they have still to offer a scientific explanation for the beginning, and furthermore are mystified that you would ask such a question.)
But the choice of the matter remains, that you must accept the concept of God that you cannot explain or that you must accept that there is a beginning hopelessly shrouded in riddle but free from intelligent design.
I have considered what it would be like to be a materialistic atheist after the manner of Nietzsche.
I should be completely cut off from all moorings, without the slightest taint of prejudice in any matter, should have no bent for good or evil. They should have no standard to which to appeal. They should have no more sympathy for the hunted Jew than for the cockroach cringing in the shadow of a raised shoe.
But, (and this is telling) with the exception of clinical sociopathy, modern materialists all appeal to an idea, however nebulous, of good and bad.
Genocide, bad.
Why?
Strictly materialistically and mathematically speaking, I don't believe it can be proven that the death of a few hundred thousand people, even a few million in the over-crowded regions of India or Haiti would be detrimental to the larger population.
The dilemma presented them is an agonizing one, and does not contribute to overall mental peace and sanity. They are torn between an inherent recognition that there are taboos and their creed which demands that there are none.
They maintain they hold a higher standard of morality than believers in any god or God because they are truly altruistic and not doing good out of fear of judgment, but they cannot logically do this because there is no standard of morality.
Evil men are happier than the atheist. They have made a choice and are not nagged by the impossible effort of trying to pretend that there is none.
Atheists would tell you that there is no choice. This is the reason they refuse to engage with ID advocates, because ID advocates propose a weighing of the evidence.
Illogical, they say, because the supernatural has no weight. There is nothing to be weighed. Acknowledging the existence of a possible different option pulls the cornerstone from their entire philosophical structure.
The debate cannot be entered into.
In their self-imposed vacuum, their opposition to ID in schools and universities is not based on preference for one view above the other. They don't believe that there is another view.
But why the rhetoric? Why the anger at a God who does not exist?

Failure

2009-01-28T10:33:00.004-05:00

Just a quick question: What is this absurd notion that we should wish President Obama success and not failure?
He has told us what he intends to accomplish. Given that his ideas are diametrically opposed to practically everything I believe in, why am I obliged to bid him godspeed?
If a man comes swaggering into your home pledging murder and mayhem, you don't wish him success, you work to bring about frustration of his goals.
It is, in my mind, more disavowing of absolutes. I.E., so, he wants something different than you want. Are you suggesting that what you want for the country is right and he is wrong? How dare you!
If he were to discover the truth, and about face on almost everything he proposes, I would wish him all the success in the world.
But given his current stated objectives, you had better believe I hope he fails!
Man up, GOP. Gridlock is the only thing that can save us now.

Future or Fantasy

2009-01-26T15:23:00.008-05:00

There is a line in a children's movie that is devastating, almost brutal.
A father is attempting to explain his perpetually unemployed status to his son. The father has visions and dreams of inventing and creating, but lacks the business sense and more importantly, the discipline to see any of his many projects through to the finish. However, he is confident, he tells his son, that the big break is just around the corner.
"What if you're wrong?" asks the son, "-and you're just an ordinary guy who should get a job?"
Mercifully, the movie was not based on a true story. I shouldn't wish to speculate on how painful a blow such as this would be to a real father's pride.
But the question is a good one.
It can be applied in another sense to myself.
(I'm afraid I won't be dealing with the question of whether the man was irresponsible or not. In fact, it may seem to you that I have taken my text and departed from it, but it is in the following bed that my thoughts flowed.)
Is it normal for a man to feel stifled by the confines of an every-day job, normal to be shamed when the knowledge of his name and accomplishments are limited to a small circle of family and friends?
(If only there were not that odd moment singing in the shower when one feels his voice to be quite on par with any number of celebrated vocal artists, or that singular instant of brilliance that leads a man to privately place his intelligence on a level with, if not the President, then at very least his second-in-command. And having opened that can of worms, I shall leave it for another time.)
I suspect it is fairly universal, that feeling that if one had the proper venue in which to display his talent, if the talent scout were in the right place at the right time, that the world would be advised of his, or, to some lesser extent, her, greatness.
(Maybe I should expand on that previous statement. I meant that women tend to be less distracted with delusions of grandeur, and, on the whole, perhaps less insecure than the average male.)
I'm not arguing for a lowering of the bar. I am not even suggesting a healthy dose of reality. For reality is as real for those in high places as those in low.
I am suggesting that those daydreams have the potential to distract us from actually doing anything, even the smallest thing, with the talents or gifts we have been given.
To speculate on this level, I must make an assumption. I must assume that most men are as stricken with delusions of grandeur as I am. What is so disagreeable about being one of the unnumbered masses who turn the cogs of the country. What is so horrible about being unknown? (On an ill-advised venture I Googled my name. . . .discovered I share it with a feminist leaning country singer, a late pop artist, and a horror movie director.)
I cannot accept such a purgatory. Never mind that I am doing little to escape it, it is the sentence of perpetuity I can't bear. A man might find himself staring into open space with little or no prospect or motivation for anything else, but he will surely start into activity and come into energy if he is told he may not do anything else.
You'll find the dream of greatness in every pocket of the world. Whether it be those moved to action; reality show contestants, open audition participants or garage bands, or the larger population of those merely leaving open the possibility; online gamers, bloggers, or shower performers. There are Montanas on every field, Sosas on every diamond, Gretskys on every ice, Jordans on every court, and even Fast Eddies in every vanishing pool hall across the country. A man may be and undoubtedly is, somewhere, as proud of his precision in chopping wood as is many a fine celebrated wordsmith of his literary exaction. I once knew a man as immensely proud of his ability to make masonry cuts with a hammer as Bell, Perlman or Ma might be of their prowess with a bow.
I became concerned with this alternate reality when it occurred to me, as intimated in the movie, that this could be as much a sign of immaturity as any portent of greatness. After all, what little boy has not rode with the Lone Ranger or fought alongside Daniel Boone? So is it that our fantasies simply age with us? Coming into manhood, are we not to put away childish things?
Is it a vestige of a peculiar pride, a private egomaniacal hold-over from boyhood, or, is it the whisper of potential, the instinct of purpose and meaning?
The answer to this all-important question may be found in a closer examination of the dream that grips you. Is it that you envy the position of those distinguished in your area of interest, or is your propensity a true fascination, or even involuntary?
I think it simplistic to prophesy the failure of mere ambition and the success of altruistic servitude, unless you are weighing the eternal implications. I have known those who have excelled in their chosen field even to positions of distinction, (some that particularly stand out to me in the pursuit of theology) that I have privately suspected of having gratuitous, if unconscious, designs. And it may well be that a true gift of God would then be corrupted by self-serving goals, but if you question whether your idle visions have a genuine purpose, it is well to consider whether it is something you wish to do or wish to have done.
I can tell you this honestly. It is not delusions of grandeur that prompts me to write, and transcribes odd occurrences or scenes I observe into paradoxical metaphors or descriptive sentences. It may or may not be a simple outgrowth of a love of reading and an admiration for certain writers, but it is absolutely compulsory.
Is it a simple human frailty especially peculiar to men, or the unheeded quiet call of purpose from a Creator?
The answer is anything but universally applicable, and is answered only individually.

Now about that can of worms . . .

Way of Grief (and the end to all this Buddhism pontification)

2009-01-14T16:36:00.003-05:00

Zeno was the founder of Stoicism, yet another philosophy mining for precious virtue in earthy environs. The secret to contentment is your state of mind. Accept life for what it is, don't expect too much, and be satisfied with only the bare necessities. The problem with this philosophical tenet that runs through the ideas of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno, Antisthenes, Diogenes, and of course, Buddha, aside from the viral pride that conceives, nurtures and slaughters, is one of definition. It is all relative. While gazing at a lotus blossom may be considered a simple pleasure, it may also be considered a luxury. If it engenders positive emotion, it could be construed as downright hedonistic. If vitamins and water can sustain, wouldn't a dry crust of bread or a cup of tea be extravagant. Somebody can always out-do you. I know it is simply the idea but the doctrine must have some real world discipline.
Screwtape portrays gluttony in this unusual light: An elderly woman subsists on very small portions and in so doing, views herself as anything but a glutton. But, Screwtape reveals, she is only falling prey to a new strain of gluttony, referred to as gluttony of delicacy, in place of the old standby, gluttony of excess. "She is a positive terror to hostesses and servants. She is always turning from what has been offered her to say with a demure little sigh and a smile 'Oh, please, please . . . all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast.' In a crowded restaurant, she gives a little scream at the plate which some overworked waitress has set before her and says, 'Oh, that's far, far too much! Take it away and bring me about a quarter of it.' "
In so doing, she exercises the pride that enslaves her. She is being temperate, she tells herself, wonderfully, virtuously so. Oh Lord, I thank thee that I am not as that glutton at adjacent table, fisting in handfuls of french fries and sucking up refills of carbonation.
All this focus on modified asceticism, beginning with Buddhism, has been to reiterate to myself the humiliation and the contrition of Christianity.
Nobody likes feeling guilty, not really. I know guilt is at a premium right now. Whether you're a parent, a consumer, a motorist, an American, above the poverty level, or a meat-eater, guilt is dumped on us by the truckload. Yes, and ohhh, how good it feels! Feeling guilty has become its own salvation. Which of course isn't really guilt at all.
Because being really guilty is a horrible feeling. Which is why we are so quick to expedite it. Have you ever known anyone who was perpetually apologetic? Beware that individual. They have a fanatical aversion to guilt, and think that by forever acknowledging their faults they build up a positive balance in the ledger, (bringing some of the more extremely sociopathic ones to the point where they could conscientiously apologize for killing you in cold blood.)
It is not because they are forever suffering under feelings of guilt. Guilt is a horrific reality, and human nature will be violently repulsed by it, and the person who portrays constant "humility" of this sort is effectively lying, whether they are aware of it or not. It is its own form of created virtue, which is nothing but a vice of the most abhorrent order.
If you have been saved, you will remember at some point preceding the cleansing blood a dirty bile rising in your soul. No one can exist under this trauma for any extended period of time. You will either disavow it and swallow it down again or, you will vomit it out.
Buddhism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Cynicism, and the composite of these and many more, humanism, disavows it. They treat the symptoms, the feeling of guilt, and leave the fetid gall bubbling and effervescing in your mind.
The death blow to our pride is the realization that to ever be rid of our guilt, we must surrender it to God rather than deal with it ourselves. It is the ultimate act of contrition. I have the most horrible disease, I contracted it deliberately, and I must have it out, but I cannot. You must.
This is why God's gift is so vehemently spurned. There is a reason why it is called a death.
I believe we fear this slaughter of our pride more than we fear physical death.
Which is why man will search for any other avenue than the Via Dolorosa.
Such as the path to enlightenment.

Riddle Me This

2009-01-07T15:59:00.003-05:00

Something occurred to me while writing the last post. I exercised enormous discipline and stayed on topic, more or less. But the thought intrigued me, so . . .
In Job 37, Elihu makes the assertion that God is indeed in control of earthly circumstances, even in charge of storm and wind. Especially pithy are verses 11 and 12, He disperses the cloud of His lightning. It changes direction, turning around by His guidance. Judging God liable for the wind would have been especially meaningful for Job, and quite possibly a very painful consideration.
If God micromanages the clouds with the wind, then He also would have been responsible for the mysterious tornado that struck the house that held Job's children.
It would have been painful enough to acknowledge God's passivity in this event. In other words, had Job gotten to the point where he was attempting to excuse God's culpability by reason of He giveth and taketh away, this startling declaration of Elihu's must have been excruciating.
It is easy enough to anesthetize your raw feelings with any number of variations on "Bad stuff happens" and say "Well, He really didn't mean it", or, "Think how much worse it could be."
(Two men were walking single-file through a thick wood. Brushing past a particularly thick, low-hanging branch, the front man held on to the branch as he kept moving and held on and held on until he let it go at precisely the point the second man was moving into line with the branch's original position. The branch swept back and flattened the second man, rendering him unconscious. When at last he came to, his words were, "Man, I'm glad you held that branch as long as you did, or it would've killed me.")
But Elihu was presenting a different proposition altogether. In effect, he was placing the blame for the death of Job's children squarely on God.
Now, we can forgive a slight if we feel it was basically an omission and we can excuse someone of guilt if it appears that intervention was beyond their control, but how do we cope when it comes to light that the incident was intentional?
You may say God was only allowing Satan the handicap in their wager, but you'll notice in Job 1:8 that God initiated the conversation about Job and in His omniscience foresaw the destruction of Job's family, livelihood and happiness.
Elihu was asking Job to consider this as a true "act of God" when it might have been much easier to shuffle the blame off as just one of those things.
James Dobson relates a story in When God Doesn't Make Sense about his son, Ryan. Suffering from a painful ear infection, Ryan was taken to the pediatrician. The doctor sadistically enlisted Dr. Dobson's assistance in holding the petrified child while the doctor performed a vary painful procedure. Dobson recalls the frightened, accusatory look in his small son's eyes. Why are you doing this to me? To Ryan, his father was participating in the attack and may as well have been the actual perp.
So the anguished question "Why did You let this happen?" might well be shifted from the passive to the active "Why did You do this?"
When you are under God's hammer, little relief may be gained from envisioning what fine instrument He is shaping. The quicker you become malleable the quicker the fire will cool, but who is to know what God is about. As a lump of formless steel, you may be content, desperate in fact, to be nothing more than a horseshoe, but God may be fashioning an exquisitely wrought spur or sword hilt. Unfortunately, it won't do any good to accept the pain in order to simply expedite the process, you must embrace it, forswearing any desire to be out from under the hammer and cooling in the sand box, unless it be His will. Incredibly, you must prefer to be on the anvil or in the furnace if that be His plan.
This is all well and good if we are operating under the premise that our existence is fundamentally a good thing or even inevitable, but what happens when that assumption is lifted? What lies beneath?
Yes, the lump of metal protests, but I did not ask to become a work of art. For that matter, I didn't ask to be mined and smelted. I was perfectly content as ore living in the dirt.
Or, in human terms, I didn't ask to exist.
Or, as Job asked, why was I not miscarried?
I hate to put this so presumptuously, but apparently God deemed the risk of pain and hell preferable to non-existence.
But this is the question I want answered.
If we did not yet exist, how could our welfare have been a consideration?
Any ideas? Or am I looking for an answer that lies beyond the grasp of mortal comprehension?

Comforting or Unsettling?

2009-01-03T11:13:00.005-05:00

An affection for enigmas is not to be confused with an ability to solve them. I've been accused (by my mother) of being a deep thinker but I never seem to recall having been called a deep problem-solver.
But, I like enigmas.
Thinking has always been a risky proposition for me. The conclusion is always pretty much foregone and usually determined by what mindset I was in when I undertook such ill-advised activity.
With this past history, it is perhaps difficult to understand why, when, just a few miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio, a certain innocuous thought channeled me down a detour that looked a little forbidding, I wouldn't have just remained on the freeway, shunning back roads and rabbit trails.
Well, I'm forever taking the scenic route.
It was a positive thought, the one that started it all.
Isn't it comforting, I reflected, to know that, despite not knowing myself all that well, there is One who knows simply everything about me, and I can present Him with problems that I have not yet been able to form into words, and He understands.
What a privilege to carry . . .
What a privilege to descend into myself and talk to God.
Trouble is, objected my suddenly fearless analytical mind, am I really talking to God?
Am I simply reasoning with myself?
At ground zero, is it just me and God, or, just me?
When I stop long enough to become completely silent and consider what has been nagging at me, are the forthcoming answers to my questions from God, or are they only the natural result of reasoning with myself?
I asked God one time what He was about ( it seemed He was engaging in a little unnecessary roughness) and the answer came, swiftly and clearly.
But, was the answer His, or my own conclusion; only the effect of finally knowing how to phrase the question?
Understand, this mental reroute was not leading me toward doubt. I simply believe we do not benefit from attributing everything to God or Satan, at least, not in the sense of direct divine or diabolical intervention or decree. I.E., did God really turn all the traffic lights green on your hasty way to work, or did Satan really turn them all red?
I've always felt it was gratuitous and even irreverent to attribute such trifles to God. Irreverent because the party in question may have been transgressing the speed limit by an irresponsible margin while catching said green lights. Gratuitous because had you left in time you wouldn't have required all green lights.
During my abbreviated college experience, I was discussing this general subject, concerning what is or is not entirely secular in our lives, with a friend and he related a discussion he'd had with another classmate.
Everything we do, proposed this third party, is either in the service of God or Satan. Everything.
To illustrate his point, he reached out to a desk chair and spun it around. "I just spun that chair for God."
My friend and I judged this just plain stupid.
Looking back on it, whether he did or did not spin that chair for God, whether he was simply illustrating a point, or whether he was just being flippant, his basis for making that declaration is one I think I only now see.
Answer this for me: If the wind moves a blade of grass, is that occurrence completely devoid of meaning? I am not asking you to find some cosmic significance in this, (mostly because I believe that the meaning of it is beyond us) I am only asking the question in the negative. Not, what does it mean, but, is it meaningless? Does anything happen in a vacuum?
If our idea of God is accurate, then He saw the grass bowing before the wind, because He is omniscient. If He saw it, then He permitted it. If He permitted it, He did so for a reason.
It seems to me that if you can accept one second of your life, one pass of your wiper blades, one fallen hair of your head, or one bending blade of bluegrass as quintessentially meaningless, then you have just imploded a distant star, and created a nihilistic black hole into which all meaning and all purpose will eventually disappear.
If anything is futile, if one minuscule happening is not under His supervision and therefore under His control, then He is not God and becomes definitively I AM NOT instead of I AM.
So, accepting that nothing falls under the category of meaningless, what then do I make of my original question? While I am praying, if the answer that occurs to me is little more than common sense, is the entire exercise secular?
This echoes a debate as old as Plato. Are some things spiritual, and some things secular?
Let's get simplistic here. Reading the Bible is undoubtedly spiritual. So, is the act of turning the page from Acts 2 to Acts 3 also spiritual? Or do we have a purely secular, physical act facilitating the spiritual? And does that not automatically sanctify the act of turning the page? This all works out to an unsettling conclusion. Pumping gas in your car is as spiritual as taking communion.
If all is done to the glory of God.
If the young collegian was sincere, I suppose that the chair was spun for God.
And, if I am sincere, then the answer I received was God's common sense.
Of course, if nothing we do is meaningless, does that comfort you, or make you really nervous?

Mountains and Molehills

2008-12-22T17:32:00.005-05:00

I know an individual whose problems seem insignificant. Often I look at him and think, You just don't have a clue how easy you've got it. His microcosm is secure, his wants and needs provided. Danger is non-existent. His life, from my point of view, seems to consist of nothing but whimsy. Whatever he wants to do, he does (within certain parameters of reason) and what he does not wish to do, he does not.

Yet, I'm quite sure that he feels differently. The absence of danger doesn't necessarily translate into content. (Just ask President Bush.) He is a creature of some habit. His habitual lifestyle, which seems to me to be a study in self-satisfaction, is a way of life that, to him, is paramount. If his routine is frustrated even slightly, the tectonic plates shift, and he is shaken. Yet I don't believe he is to be faulted for this. From his perspective, the trauma generated by an invasion of his comfort zone is no mean bother. If his world is all he knows, what blame can be laid upon him if a disruption of that world (constituting, perhaps, nothing more than the excitement caused to the nerves of a fish when an aquarium is tapped) causes self-pity, and fear?

I have seen him frightened by shadows and hiding from nothing more than a ridiculous perception of danger. I have even told him how silly he is. Reasoning with him, I point out his misconceptions. But I suspect my reassurances are lost in translation, and he hears nothing but gibberish, and sees nothing but wild gesticulation.

If his world were expanded, would some of the unknown be absorbed into his enlarged sphere, or would the unknown expand in direct proportion to the known? Is there a set number of unreasonable fears that can be diminished by facing each one? Or, for every fear deposed, does another spring up to take its place? If he is of such frail constitution, wouldn't a greater disturbance to his larger environs be of the same quality as the lesser disruptions of his smaller world? Fear is not absorbed by relief, it is only displaced. In fact, if his mindset remains the same, each terror vanquished might very well heighten his fear, as he becomes cognizant that, although this particular thing is not as big as he feared, that could only mean that there are other things awaiting him so enormous that they have heretofore escaped his consideration. Experience magnifies the scale. Every time a bigger problem presents itself, he becomes aware that, for that problem to be rendered insignificant in relation to the size of the world, the world must be larger still, and thus hold even bigger problems. So, instead of expanding, his world implodes, and he grows more frightened still. So long as he is satisfied with the smallness of his world, better to let him continue in his ignorance.

Right?

Fool Me Once

2008-12-19T14:58:00.003-05:00

How credulous are we to be as Christians?

There seems to be some no man's land in between serpents and doves. Is the fusion of the wisdom of one and the mildness of the other an astronomical accomplishment? Is this one of those commandments that teaches us to strive towards, and not be discouraged if we fall short?

I'm speaking of our attitude toward the president-elect, by the way.

I know part of the difficulty lies in maintaining a strictly spiritual perspective when it comes to politics. Observing light through a prism breaks it down for us, but without the prism it just looks like light, so practically speaking, light is light and not a combination of the colors of the rainbow. Analogous to our hopes and dreams for the new president, do we take the trouble to watch his every move and appointment through the prism?

The editor of World Magazine in an article subtitled Nobody should want to destroy a presidency, but many do editorializes so: "Never let it be legitimately said that our main goal is to destroy our opponent or his presidency."

So is it cynicism that prompts me to sneer when Obama chooses a pro-life, pro Prop 8 pastor to offer the inaugural invocation? Beyond striking some nebulous new tone, might he be open to the views of Rick Warren? Prism aside, just looking at it with the naked eye, nothing is visible besides shrewd political pandering. And I confess, the effort required to divorce myself of an us vs. them mentality is often more than I put forth.

So where's the line between Christian credulity and naivete? Has Warren found it? Is offering a prayer at the outset of an ungodly administration sanction? (I do feel that in addition to the principle of hating the sin, loving the sinner, a high-profile pastor should be leery of such associations, be they saint or sinner. Such relationships did not edify Billy Graham.

Yes, I know that many evil OT kings called upon prophets of God. Whereupon they proceeded to pronounce doom, death, famine, insanity . . . And that was sheer diplomacy. One such tactless man of God started hacking off heads.

Will Warren call fire out of heaven? I admit I was surprised and impressed at his posing of the abortion question to candidate Obama. (And appalled at Obama's answer.)

Pray for the president. Pray for his soul. Pray for his salvation. Wish to see him in heaven.

Pray for the failure of his current policies.

And, in the interest of maintaining the inexplicable peace of God, stay on the other side of the prism.

Further Down the Path

2008-12-12T17:41:00.003-05:00

The beginning of my last blog was perhaps poorly put.

(Devan read it and said, "Babe, nobody really wants to know why you want to be a Buddhist.")

Devan is big on putting things in nutshells.

The fascination the study of this particular religion holds for me has something to do with the seeming reason of its core beliefs, or, the Four Truths as revealed to the Buddha underneath the Bo tree.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. I left Buddha in rags at the edge of a forest. That's no place to leave a sage. Guatama, being the Hindu he was, first set out to find two of the highest brahmins in the land and partake of their wisdom. He learned all he felt he could and apparently found that particular path a dead end, for he then took up with a band of ascetics.

This is telling to me. Asceticism developed self-denial to an end in itself. This tells me he was something of a legalist. If the answer could be found in denying your body or your mind any sensual pleasure, then Guatama's search would have ended here. If asceticism is the extreme of self-sacrifice, then Guatama became twice removed from indulgence. Possessing unbelievable willpower, he took to the spare lifestyle with characteristic intensity. One of his fasts put him on a diet of six grains of rice a day. Why bother? When he would reach to feel his stomach he would feel his spine. This went on until he grew so weak he fell into a faint, and if it hadn't been for a passing good Samaritan and a bowl of rice gruel (that sounds good, I think I'll go whip me up a big bowl of rice gruel) he likely would have died. What an epiphany that must have been. You're on the verge of discovering the secret of existence and you come to with a cowgirl spooning gruel into your mouth. "How came you to be lying in this field?" "I have fainted." "Why have you fainted?" "Well, it may or may not have had something to do with what I ate." "What was it you ate?" "Well, for breakfast I had. . .rice, two grains, for lunch I had. . . .uh, rice again, and supper, . . .I ate . . .rice." "And why, O skinny sage, would you try to exist on six grains of rice a day." "I'm a very wise man and I am on the verge of discovering the meaning of life, and if you hadn't started shoveling this-what is this, anyway, rice? Okay, that's all, brother."

I'm willing to bet he swore off of rice for a while. At any rate he discovered the inability of asceticism to bring enlightenment as well as the inability of six rice grains to sustain the body.

I'd like to draw a parallel here with a philosophical movement that confronted Paul, or rather, that Paul confronted, on Mars Hill.

The Epicureans were to asceticism what a modern Neo-Calvinist might be to a Puritan, or, what your average Bible Methodist (Ohio Connection) might be to a hard-shell Bible Missionary (Louisiana District).

My, my, aren't we glib today.

Epicureanism, oddly enough, is considered a form of hedonism, while implementing some milder forms of asceticism. This is what is known as eating your cake and having it. It is hedonistic in so far as it stresses pleasure as fulfillment, and ascetic because pleasure, as defined by Epicurus, is somewhat less sinful than you might expect. He defined pleasure as abstaining from bodily desires. Speaking for myself, I think he may have had that a little backwards. But, as with all doctrine or philosophy set apart from Jesus Christ, Epicureanism was rooted in pride and so blossomed into a non fruit-bearing humanism.

The Dali Lama is a Tibetan Buddhist. You may have recently seen a headline in which the esteemed lama proclaimed physical intimacy, monogamous or otherwise, to be nothing more than a distraction to one seeking enlightenment. In our sex drenched culture, this is nothing if not going against the flow. But any points given for resistance to the over-indulgence of sex are quickly stripped away by the stodgy Apostle Paul who considers forbidding of marriage a "-doctrine(s) of demons", fomented by "the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron." Paul, another big nutshell encapsulator, goes on to prophesy of "men who forbid marriage, abstaining from foods which" now hear this, "God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing (emphasis mine) is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude;"

Abstinence, of the sort promoted by the lama, is ascetic, and asceticism feeds on a monstrous spiritual pride, a vice that spans the entire spectrum of religious and secular humanity. Through self-denial, through your own efforts, you may become good.

Now, Epicureanism is ascetic, and Buddhism is technically not, but, in my mind, the two are lumped together in a class of philosophies that are characterized by those unable to hope in a benevolent Almighty, and/or unwilling to accept that Almighty's unconditional demands on their own will.

Which brings me to another Greek philosopher named Zeno.

More later.

The Path To Enlightenment?

2008-12-02T16:25:00.002-05:00

Confidentially, if I weren't a Christian, I would probably be a Buddhist.

No, I'm not flirting with another way, not ranking religions in order of preference, I am stating a fact based on a passing knowledge of Buddhism and observations of my own personality. If Christ were not, I would be drawn to Buddha. That said, I remain cautious in my study of it, as a criminal psychologist might approach a charismatic sociopath.

But there is something curious about it that sets it apart from other non-Christian religions, even Hinduism, which it very closely parallels in many ways.

The Buddha, born Siddhartha Guatama in modern day Nepal, is claimed by Hinduism as a Hindu reformer. His quiet revolution was a reformation of sorts of the corrupted Hindu caste system. To Hindus, he was, in many ways, to Hinduism what Martin Luther was to medieval Catholicism.

The Hindu brahmins, comparable to Catholic priests, or Celtic druids, had a rigid, gratuitous system set in place, an exclusivity so very similar to the arrogance of Tetzel and the Pontiff of old. Theology was a science studied only by the priestly caste, thus hoarded by the brahmins and doled out, sold out, actually, at exorbitant rates to the lower castes. The similarity grows sharper when we learn that the ruling class insisted that the holy writ remain encoded in Sanskrit, a language not read or spoken by the unwashed masses.

Guatama was astute enough to recognize the nakedness of the emperor, and bold enough to point it out, so endearing himself to the common people, much as Luther, or, as is often pointed out, Jesus Christ.

You may know the damning generalities of his path to enlightenment. As I have mentioned before, he left a wife and child to find his inner peace, an odyssey that in today's parlance, suspiciously resembles the irresponsible freedom of a deadbeat dad. There are, however, extenuating circumstances to be considered in the case of the future Buddha.

He was born to luxury, the son of a feudal lord, a very handsome man according to many historical accounts. (yes, I too had trouble reconciling this little known fact with the fat little icon in the Happy Dragon Buffet)

Legend, of course, obscures much of the reality, understandable for the history of a man born in 563 B.C.E. (an ignominious irony, might it not be said he was born upon 0 A.B.?) However, Buddha would no doubt have cast such as ignoble pretension, for he claimed not godhood, angelic perfection, nor even sainthood.

But, upon the birth of little Saddhartha, according to legend, fortune-tellers were consulted by the eager father. It was agreed that this was no common birth. (It occurs to me that if you were a seer summoned by a king upon the birth of his son, you would be well-advised to come up with some more promising future besides rice-picker or dung-shoveler.) Greatness was read in the leaves, the palm, the crystal, the cards. However, the fortune split into a duality contingent upon the path chosen by the boy. Were he to seek things of a corporeal nature, he would become India's greatest king. Were he to set his mind on things transcendent, however, he would become world redeemer. Apparently the fortune-tellers decided to shoot for the moon. His father decided to pave the path for the arguably more modest fate and determined his son should be the ruler of India. Nothing was spared the prince-to-be. He was lavished with luxury and expectations. When he was of age, a wife was found of uncommon beauty and the probable result of such a promising union soon followed; a beautiful baby boy.

All was as it should have been, but somewhere in the idyllic existence a monkey clambered upon Saddhartha's back. According to legend, it came about as a result of a chance encounter with an old man. His father, it is said, went to every extreme to spare his son the distasteful realities of life. Saddhartha was never to encounter any physical or mental deficiency or deformity or anything that foretold death in his goings forth. On this particular occasion, however, one octogenarian was overlooked and the poor young prince was hazed into reality. And his initiation into the real world was only just beginning. On three consecutive journeys he encountered a sick person, a corpse, and finally, a monk. (I hazard a guess that a few of his father's servant deeply regretted these revelations.) Being the thoughtful young man he was, he could not dismiss these aberrations. They became a cancer attached to his contentment. He began to brood over the temporality of life and reflected on the passing of the seasons, the fading of the flower and such.

Legend aside, the fact is that upon approaching his thirtieth year (the ill herald of an early mid-life crisis, perhaps?) he came to a fateful decision. He would sever all relational and financial connections (distractions, he called 'em) and sally forth to discover the meaning of life.

Now, my inherent bias notwithstanding, this decision may or may not have been an agonizing one. It is not beyond the realm of reason to suspect that this was simply a very curious and emotionally stunted man, having been brought to thirty inside of a bubble. However, by all accounts, Saddhartha Guatama was an unfailingly compassionate individual, so, the benefit of the doubt would lead us to surmise that the night he left all behind was a torturous one, unless he had not yet come into his gift of compassion. He bid his sleeping wife and child a silent farewell, stridled his magnificent white horse, and ordered the gatekeeper to accompany him to the forest, where he dismounted, changed attire with the gatekeeper and sent him back to the house with a message for his father.

Tell my father that there is no reason he should grieve. He will perhaps say it was too early for me to leave for the forest. But even if affection should prevent me from leaving my family just now of my own accord, in due course death would tear us apart, and in that we would have no say. Birds settle on a tree for a while, and then go their separate ways again. The meeting of all living beings must likewise inevitably end in their partings. This world passes away and disappoints the hopes of everlasting attachment. It is therefore unwise to have a sense of ownership for people who are united with us as in a dream-for a short while only and not in fact.

This early creed of sorts of the budding Buddha is pregnant with philosophical conundrums.

He is to be forgiven in stating that against all wishes in due time death would sever their attachments. Let us look at Buddha in his proper historical and cultural context and recognize that although we have a hope and promise of reunification with our loved ones who pass on in the Lord, the prospect of Heaven, properly so called, would have been a giant hurdle for a nominal Hindu, not to mention an entirely novel belief, a gargantuan Abrahamic leap of faith.

So, upon agreeing with his fatalism only for the sake of argument, can we accept his conclusion? That of course, depends on his motivation, upon which we can only speculate.

Was it the prospect of the pain of future partings that led him to take an early leave of his loved ones? Reasoning it out, it might make sense to live in the moment, but might it have been a preemptive personality glitch not dissimilar to the view of the atheist who, faced only with miserable perpetuity, takes his own life?

Or was it clinical dispassion he felt as he looked in on his sleeping wife and boy? Maybe the resignation of a mad scientist intent upon his spiritual experiment or the mental disconnect of a man who kills his family because he is about to kill himself. Whatever the reason, it is a curiosity born of situational ethics that we seem predisposed to forgive a man the desertion of his family if it is for any reason other than monetary irresponsibility.

Moving on, we find a sort of Buddhist exegesis of yin and yang in his word picture of the birds and following conclusion that all that comes must go. This is paramount in Buddhism. Hold nothing dear. Possessions, pride, family, distractions all.

You may be familiar with a well known cinematic epoch promoting stealth Buddhism. In the final episode of the popular movie series Star Wars, the young man who is to become the villainous Darth Vader is moved to villainy by his refusal to disconnect himself from all distractions. Reading from a Focus review, Anakin Skywalker, the future Vader, tells his mentor, Yoda, of nightmarish visions of his wife's death. Yoda's response is as follows: "The fear of loss is a path to the dark side. Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force." Continuing in his structural pig Latin, Yoda instructs, "Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose." It is worth noting that in this case as in the Buddha's, it is his wife he refuses to relinquish, and heedless of the little Jedi toad they call Yoda, Skywalker takes matters into his own hands. Then in a deft New Age twist, the movie combines shades of traditional absolute morality and truth with the wisdom of the Jedi. Hearkening unto the Dark Lord's promise to protect his wife, Anakin Skywalker chooses to believe, with the Dark Lord's urging, that there are many truths and the Jedi view of the Force is only one among many. He chooses what you might call the dark side and begins his descent into monstrousness.

Not to get sidetracked, but this storyline attempts to unite two opposite fundamentals; the detachment of Buddhism with objective morality, a concept Buddha rejected. As regarding absolute truth, Buddhism holds that the only absolute truth is that all truth is relative.

So nothing must take preeminence in our lives. There is an obvious parallel in Christianity. Christ demands absolute fealty, to the diminution of all else we hold dear. What we formerly held dear we must count as loss, and count nothing greater than Him. But that's only half the story.

C.S. Lewis, channeling Screwtape, wrote that whatever God takes away from a man with one hand he returns with the left, that when a man is completely His, he is more himself than ever he was before. God is "a hedonist at heart."

As Abraham was willing to sacrifice what was most dear to him, God, in effect, received the sacrifice and then returned it.

Buddha held out no such hope. By lowering his instinctive expectations to zero, he aimed to transcend the agony of grief.

More later.

A Black Friday Indeed

2008-12-01T16:28:00.005-05:00

I came one step closer to fear on Black Friday.

Economic malaises will come and go, darker times than these current have perhaps fallen on our nation and others. We have been disappointed by elections before. We weathered eight years of a spineless pathological liar and adulterer.

And how long has shameless commercialization overshadowed the holiday season?

People have been trampled underfoot by mobs before this.

2003, almost exactly five years past, an instance similar to the one that marred this past Friday occurred in Florida, also at a Wal-Mart, also killing a man.

1979, The Who concert in Cincinnati opened its doors for general seating to a thronging crowd that claimed the lives of eleven fans.

2000, fans of Pearl Jam killed nine in a crush in Denmark.

2004, 244 people died on their pilgrimage to worship Allah in Saudi Arabia.

And the morbid list goe on.

So, the death of a Wal-Mart seasonal in Long Island is nothing if not tragic, but nothing to get all prophetic about, right?

Realistically, yes, the death was an anomaly. The early morning rush on the Friday after Thanksgiving is traditional, if increasingly frenetic in the past few years, and similar crowds mobbed retail outlets all over America on Friday morning without the tragic results.

The Long Island incident wasn't precisely what disturbed me, however. Only one tragedy marred this particular crush of capitalism, but the scene enacted all across America at 5 and 6 a.m. is worth a second look, if you don't mind being depressed.

A visit to YouTube will grant you all the evidence of consumer mania you wish to observe and then some in this depressed economy. And it is this sociological phenomenon that gives me pause.

It isn't so much the over-commercialization, the greed, if you wish, of the retailers or consumers, nor is it the weird groupie behavior of the campers on the sidewalks outside Best Buy and Circuit City and, of course, Wal-Mart. It is what happens when the doors open.

I've no doubt that many who actually stepped over the body of Jdimytai Damou felt a pang of guilt, if they noticed, a fleeting distraught moment of panic as they wondered if they should stop, help.

I don't know what they felt. But I know what they did.

They kept going, and went shopping.

For?

Food, medicine, warm clothes to keep out the cold?

The devil will be in the credit card receipts, but I'm willing to bet the mob wasn't lined up outside for markdowns on potatoes and blood pressure medicine.

It was for Wii's, flat panel TV's and X-boxes.

And what's most disturbing is this: The death was a statistical anomaly, but the herd mentality is not.

And to the point, if people behave such in search of non-essential Christmas gifts, how is it they will behave in something like a food shortage, another Depression, or a nuclear attack?

I think there can be little doubt.

To brush this off as an abnormal tragedy you must ignore the implications of it.

New York may be a strange place to most of us in fly-over country, but in reality the people who line up outside Wal-Mart in Long Island are not a whit different than those lined up outside Best Buy in Lexington, KY.

This mob that savagely trampled a man to death to buy a television is a cross-section of America. There is no reason to believe that any other crowd in any other city or state would have behaved any differently. You can tell yourself otherwise, just as you may view the Holocaust as a German moral deficiency, or even turn-of-the-century American eugenics as simply an appalling but abnormal chapter in our nation's history, but the truth is that you live in a country where abortion is legal, safe and common.

I don't for a minute believe that even one of that mob wished death upon a retail employee they had never met, nor do I believe they didn't care, but the momentary pricks of conscience were soothed by the actions of every one of their peers. Nobody else is stopping, it must be okay.

What is the likelihood of mob rule in the event of a national crisis?

Yes, I know, Y2K and all that.

But nothing actually happened on Y2K.

I'm not predicting anything, but I am saying that if a crisis ever comes that deprives the people of this country of essentials it is naive to expect anything but savagery.

And by the way, happy Thanksgiving.

The Thing Molded

2008-11-22T04:31:00.002-05:00

Personally, I spend a lot of time justifying God to myself.

Every time something happens, I assign a value to X and Y in a frantic guessing game; an ill-advised exercise, in part because I don't even yet know what the sum of all these unknowns will be, making it pointless to speculate upon the value of the factors.

I am trying to break a long-standing habit, the habit of babbling inanely to fill the awkward silence that follows some inexplicable circumstance.

Well, I'm sure that nothing is meant by it. (By which I mean God didn't really mean it just like it sounded.)

I'm sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. (By which I belie a potential reproach for God, not quite angry at this turn of events, but reserving the right to be.)

Is it a lack of faith, or lack of faith in my own faith?

I was given an assignment in a philosophy class; reconcile the problem of evil with the existence of a loving God.

Ignoring or at least belittling the weight of the problem, I careened frantically and recklessly toward a quick resolution.

Love was the answer. God created this universe and us with this built in self-destruct because of love.

It was an honest conclusion, and, judging from reading after apologists since, not incorrect.

But looking back on it, I've the same feeling I had when I would arrive home after an hours drive following a third shift at the Cincinnati airport. Too often, I would awake only after putting the truck in park and wonder how I got there.

Driven to reconcile God with evidence to the contrary . . .it is an instinct that has the force of corneal reflex in a young Christian, a fitting parallel, since the stimulus of harsh light prompts us to shut our eyes and self-impose blindness.

I am determined to see through the eyes of God, determined to put some positive mortal spin on what I see.

There can be no times When God Doesn't Make Sense. The fragility of my faith will not bear it.

Such a state of denial doesn't lend itself to calm credulity when uncertain times come.

But I am reading Paul's letter to the Roman church, scandalized by the exploitative plan of God to draw all Gentiles unto Him through the disobedience of His chosen people and I come to realize that if I were able to see through the eyes of God, I had as well be a twenty-twenty pair of eyes staring through a pair of coke-bottle glasses or, more to the point, visually impaired without any glasses.

I got hung up on a previously forgettable verse.

"For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all."

What was once figurative leapt off the page with stunning literalism.

I am subjected to an icy shock, the blank surprise of realizing that we are being manipulated to His end!

I experience the same speechless indignance of a pot in the utilitarian hands of the Potter.

So, I manage, It's all about You.

You just have compassion on whoever you will.

You elect, You choose.

Pharoah himself was not but a sacrificial pawn in Your game, being raised up by You so that Your name might proclaimed in all the earth. Likewise the Isrealites he enslaved.

All this is done simply for Your glory?

How is this justifiable?

Mightn't Paul have explained this?

He simply says, "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and unfathomable His ways!"

And I draw closer to the heart of God by relinquishing my "right" to know what He's about.

"For who has known the mind of the Lord?"

God, deliver me from presuming to know Your mind and from lingering distrust that always, always asks why.

A Second Look

2008-11-13T16:12:00.005-05:00

Are there ever any conflicts between one's conservatism and one's Christianity?
Could there be times when the ideology and the faith are, if not completely incompatible, at least extremely uncomfortable residing in the same heart and mind?
The question popped out at me as I read a news headline stating that cries are growing louder to let the Big 3 automakers die a natural death; no life support bailout, no breathing machine extensions, just a quick pull of the plug.
My knee-jerk reaction, fostered by years of Limbaugh and Hannity, was "Let 'em die."
Not being particularly impressed with the product quality of the Big 3, and being even more disgusted with the extortion practiced by the UAW, my overview was, "Good riddance."
If the UAW had convinced their members that working on an assembly line was worth $50 an hour, then perhaps a bracing jump in the cold water, a quick immersion in reality, was what they needed.
Then, a second thought, perhaps prompted by my recent difficulty, read something more like this, "However, if I worked for Chrysler, I would, no doubt, have a decidedly different take on the subject, regardless of my own personal political and fiscal ideas."
(The sudden burst of compassion may answer part of the question why? in all of this.)
It depends on whose kid has the flu that determines how bad it is.
I suddenly saw a financial disaster looming over thousands of families and was gripped with compassion.
I suppose that makes me a compassionate conservative, and, judging from what I'm hearing from conservative punditry these days, that means I am a hopeless, pretentious neo-con discipled by the likes of, heaven forbid, George W. Bush, and, as such, am out of style by about seven years.
I'm still wearing boot-cut Arizonas and an Izod button-down.
And its tucked in, for the love of Armani!
But maybe I'm being too snide. Maybe, I'll grant, these conservative thinkers are looking at the big picture.
We'll go with their take for a minute.
Distilled, their philosophy reads so: The less government intervention on the behalf of home-owners, lending agencies, banks, and auto manufacturers translates into less government interference. I.E., lower taxes for the general public, thus a more consumer-friendly environment, thus a better economy, thus more jobs for those pulled down in the undertow of the Big 3, and the housing market.
But, a transition of such magnitude can be likened to a massive forest fire. Such occasional holocausts are natural and healthy to the overall balance of the ecosystem, but devastating to individual trees unfortunate enough to be in the path of the fire.
The human element to headlines such as these has become painfully apparent to me lately.
The trees will grow back taller, yes, but only by feeding upon the soil fertilized by the compost of their dead predecessors.
So, are we to take the long view?
It has long been the stereotypical characterization of conservatives that they are cold and unfeeling, and the opposite profile has long been attributed to liberals; compassionate and unthinking.
Which is why Marvin Olasky of World Magazine coined the term "compassionate conservative" to provide an identity and an impetus to Christians frustrated by the dichotomy.
George W. Bush essentially bought the rights to the phrase, and despite some mistakes and many conservative opinions to the contrary, has stuck to his motto.
I believe this principle dictated to him his position on the border. (He certainly didn't earn any political capital from it, and he knew he wouldn't.)
And I think that same question faces him every day.
Do I view everything dispassionately, or do I allow myself to be distracted by the human element?
Unfortunately for him, the question is overwhelmingly complex and nuanced, and fraught with unknowns and lame-duck status.
For my part, I believe my heart has been somewhat softened of late by my own problems, and I can now view these conundrums with something more than rose-colored glasses or a blindfold.
Easy for you to say, Carpenter, the president might say, it's not your problem.
Ah, but it is.
Look, it is perhaps unavoidable in the media culture we live in, but I feel that our attention to political detail often squeezes out our attention to Christ.
Yes, we were thrilled with the advent of Rush Limbaugh, and increasingly so with the rise of FOX News, and a host of up and coming "alternative media" because at last someone was giving voice to our side. But the truth is that most of these people share our politics, not our faith.
They throw in an occasional jab at abortion, or gay marriage, and thus retain their membership in the Christian club. But the other ninety percent of the time, they are discussing issues and taking positions that, while technically pertinent and accurate, should be a three or four on a one to ten scale of a Christian's priorities.
Without retreating back to the cultural cave in which Christians lived for so long, let's not become so focused upon the politics that constantly bombard our minds.
Unfortunately, I know too many Christians, including myself, who get more stirred up over Barack Obama's plan to destroy America than they do Satan's plan to destroy souls.
Barack Obama can't send anybody to hell.
I know a message like this can sound cloying, or saccharine, or overly pious. But remember that I usually write what has only recently been revealed, or re-revealed, to my own mind.
Your view of whether or not the Big 3 should be bailed out is not dictated by your Christianity, but your view of the person who loses his or her job as a result is.
Your view of whether or not $50 an hour is exorbitant or whether or not those people shouldn't have bought a house that they couldn't afford is not dictated by your Christianity, but your compassion for the anguish and uncertainty they face is commanded.
Maybe they are greedy.
Or maybe they just saw an opportunity for a good job, and have spent the last thirty years building what they saw as a secure future for their retirement and their children's college options.
And if that be greed, I'm kneeling at the altar right next to 'em.
Individuals get lost in the headlines, the blogs, the talk radio.
Souls are statistics.
Liberals are them, conservative R US.
But we're all going to one of two places when we die, and that has become my new obsession!

p.s. In regards to our own difficulties I refer to, I would be extremely ungrateful if I did not thank God for the way He has taken care of us and also ungrateful to the channel through which He worked. Thank you so much.

Holy Interpreter

2008-11-08T20:12:00.005-05:00

The question I now pose was once academic.

It has now become paramount, and very pertinent.

When you beg petition of God, how specific are you to be?

I propose this: You come to a point in the road where you are able to see nothing but challenging if not inaccessible terrain ahead of you; a long, unbroken series of steep grades with drop-offs on either side.

Do you ask God for assistance to get over that first grade, or do you cover the field and request help for the entire series of grades?

Are you a presumptuous beggar? Might you ask to be carried over the whole stretch?

Or, are you more of a self-made man? May I have a set of chains, and a winch?

Or, do you just white-knuckle the steering wheel, and wish you'd taken out that term policy?

Speaking specifically to my current difficulty, do I pray that such-and-such union request be granted so that such-and-such disability clause be altered, do I pray for a new job, do I pray for healing, do I take a vow of poverty and begin searching for co-ed monasteries . . . .enter a sweepstakes . . . . look around outside a gas station for a dropped lottery ticket?

Oswald Chambers has been remarkably germane in relation to our predicament recently.

On the morning of Nov. 8, I opened his devotional to see the following:

We know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Rom. 8:26

Catching my breath, I continued reading.

We know what it is to pray in the Spirit; but we do not so often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays in us prayers which we cannot utter. . . .

and further on,

He expresses for us the unutterable. . . .

further still,

. . .God searches your heart not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what is the prayer of the Holy Spirit.

I suppose that could be disconcerting. Looking at it superficially, you might sustain the same shock that the first denizen of Babel experienced when his intended words came out as gibberish.

That's not what I said!

I think it is safe to say, however, that the Spirit will not work at cross purposes with your heart.

If your petitions are subject to the will of the Father, instead of being lost in translation, they will be re-interpreted in a manner that you yourself could never utter.

Proviso.

Chambers- Have we recognized that our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, though it is only a tiny bit of our personality, is to be regarded by us as a shrine of the Holy Ghost. He will look after the unconscious part that we know nothing of; but we must see that we guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.

Philippians 4:7

2008-11-02T07:03:00.010-05:00

For what am I thankful at the resolving of a crisis?
I am not thankful that crisis will never come again, although the very nature of relief suggests a cessation of all trouble to our consciousness. Realistically, I know that this was but one mountain peak, and I am traversing the Himalayas.
I am thankful for the knowledge that I will reach the next peak and the next one.
The relief we feel is not a denial of the valleys that lie in between the peaks, but a disregard for them. The gain more than offsets the pain. The mountaintop perspective sees more mountaintops, not ignorant of the topography before us, but reckoning that the sufferings of each and every valley is not worthy to be compared with the peaks.
Regarding perspective, which is the proper one? Is it unrealistic to desire an answer to this question?
Is it not a matter of choice? It is true that when one is atop a mountain, he is apt to forget the angle of the grade he has just climbed, and is more apt to underestimate the depth of the valley below him, so can it be said that it is only up to you which perspective is the real one?
If, at the collective apexes of our lives, we tally the results and find ourselves in the black, what does it matter what gloom swaths the peaks while we walk the shadowed valley?
Or, if, at the many low points, we total the experience and see merely perpetuated misery with a few aberrations of delirium, what do the peak experiences profit us?
This is quite an implicational question, a question summed up in the image of a glass containing liquid that occupies half of the container.
As I've said before, in a folksy translation of Schroedinger, the question of whether the glass is half full, or half-empty depends on whether the glass is the one offered a thirsting man in the desert, or the one you turned over on your laptop.
So it is only a matter of perspective!
Are things really that arbitrary, and is the universe that cold?
Do we really hold our own happiness in our own hands?
Is the on/off switch in our own minds?
Or does the answer to the overall question lie in a different idiom?
Can you not see the forest for the trees, or the trees for the forest, if you prefer?
Which do you prefer? We got both. Forest and trees.
(We must be careful not to forget that regardless of our location, we always see through a glass darkly, and must be mindful that all this postulation may, nay, will seem positively ridiculous on the other side of the glass.)
But for the here and now, will we look back on our life's journey as one continual struggle, viewed in the negative, or will we remember the lordly perspective of the peak, as well as the wild blueberries and the flowing streams in the valley?
I know we can't transcend our humanity. We will be down and we will be up. But there is an acceptance that can under gird our entire perspective, whether up or down; an acceptance gained only through experience, and yes, employed only by choice.
And acceptance attains peace. Not resignation.
A peace that does surpass all comprehension.
But I can't escape the notion that I am talking past all this.
Relativity reigns, much as it does in the summer when you prefer winter, and in the winter when you prefer summer.
A nagging little question lies at the bottom of all this: Aren't we closest to reality when we're depressed, when we are fully aware of and focused on all the pain and all the exhaustion we have faced and have yet to face?
Does our spirit seek the lowest level?
Isn't a bright outlook sustained only by a valiant effort?
Aren't we kidding ourselves?
No doubt this is subject to personality, but the nature of depression has to be weighed against the nature of optimism.
Screwtape told Wormwood of the Enemy, "He cannot tempt to virtue as we can to vice."
Because vice is the default position. Gravity pulls us to bad, not to good.
So it is with depression. He cannot tempt to joy as Satan can to depression.
Joy is often a matter of choice, a conscious effort of the will, a struggle to keep drooping eyes open, an uphill climb.
The joy of the Lord is our strength, it is what gives us the will to go on, to stay awake, to keep climbing.
Moods are inevitable, ups and downs are facts of life, depression lies at the bottom of every valley, jubilation awaits at the top of every mountain, but joy takes us through it all.
Don't over-analyze your current emotional state, (as I have just done.) You will not transcend those mortal feelings here. You cannot deny them, you can only come through them.
If you were driving through a fog bank, you would slow down, use your low beams, and keep driving.

Two Americans in Paris

2008-10-31T08:21:00.003-04:00

Everyone who knows her loves her.

But they don't know her like I do.

Knowing her is like being the sole possessor of an unspeakably wonderful secret.

Falling in love with her was and is likened unto being sent on a long journey alone to some far-flung exotic locale; a place you've never been before, a place where you don't know anyone. . .

Falling in love with her is arriving, deplaning uncertainly, walking lonely up the breezeway,

and catching a glimpse of a familiar face.

But not just a familiar face;

more, a face that holds all your dreams within her smile,

happiness in her eyes,

home in her arms.

The past seven years I've spent in Paris with the love of my life,

always at holiday,

always at home,

falling, deeper and deeper

Happy Anniversary, Devan

Love, Nathan

Black Friday or The Anatomy of a Financial Crisis

2008-10-29T20:17:00.004-04:00

Friday, Oct. 24.
Complications from the mortgage crisis send the stock market on another tumble.
Complications from my medical issues necessitate a change in medication. Upon informing my employer of the change, I am told I can no longer perform my normal job duties and am sent home. So the Dow grabbed us on the way down, and I sat slumped on the catwalk, currently unaware of the parallel, but feeling my stomach and heart hitching along behind the stock market. As swiftly as a doctor's compassionate approach can sink your spirits, thus had the past ten minutes brought mine in close proximity with the bottom.
The faith I had stockpiled and carefully hoarded for just such an occasion as this had evaporated inside its carefully sealed container.
Either that, or it was Confederate money.The feeling of faith, the one that spreads goodwill and warmth over good times, was slipping away, and I felt powerless to stop its departure.
Words spoken in better days assembled in a jostling ring around me, some jeering, some looking bored, worse still, some meeting my dejected gaze with ill-disguised pity.
Dredging the dregs of my will, I fended them off with my cell phone and made a couple of phone calls, going through the motions of expediting this disaster, vainly hoping to hear overwhelming reassurance from some human agency.
Disbelief died with a whimper under the onslaught of very cold, very hard facts and resignation set in, numbing, but not enough.
Desperation dialed the phone again. The loathsome thought of sharing the bad news with my companion was trumped by a need for her.
A grim wake-up call indeed, and yet, she did rise to the occasion talking me all the way home, where she greeted me with a smile of such poignancy she will never know.
Over the next two days, emotions ebbed and flowed, as I predicted to her. (Ever predict a rainy day in Seattle, or a hot one in Death Valley?)
I once previously experienced a mood swing while walking from one end of the house to the other, so I sagely related to her the expediency of acceptance.
"Just accept that we're on an emotional roller-coaster right now. Don't try to stay up."
But I still close my eyes and grip the safety bar when the upward lurching stops and gravity steals its deadly hands toward us.
Oh no, not again.
Thrice-repeated, the platitudes wear thin, and I cease uttering them with any animation and am left with dull insistence that everything will be all right.
The timing couldn't be worse. It all comes down on a Friday, and as it happens, management has apparently been hard at it lately, as two of them are out of the office with shoulder injuries. The skeleton crew remaining has no answers and sends me packing with the expletive "disability" ringing in my ears. Teamsters, as an entity, seems to offer no recourse, but I hold out hope in a particular dogged union rep.
It's the waiting test, "game" being no very accurate descriptor.
Patience is a virtue indeed, but one that requires OJT, and as such, is as hard to come by as experience for a sixteen-year-old flung into the job market.
Early Sunday morning, C.S. Lewis weighed in on the disaster via my MP3. The fiend Screwtape discusses "the patient" with his charge. "We want him to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory pictures of the future, every one of which arouses hope or fear. There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do. Our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them. Your patient will, of course, have picked up the notion that he must submit with patience to the Enemy's will. What the Enemy means by this is primarily that he should accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to him; the present anxiety and suspense. It is about this that he is to say 'Thy will be done.' It is your business to see that the patient never thinks about the present fear as his appointed cross."
I nearly fell off my stationary bike.
Eager to share, I plugged in the speaker to let Devan hear.
Very good, very true, but any spike in spirits was then counteracted by a spike in blood sugar, and so Sunday, the day we might've expected emotional resurrection from the dead, was another Saturday.
The storm begins to abate, but the clouds remain.
At different times I will describe faith in different terms.
"It is not a feeling." I told Devan. (If it is, I'm in big trouble.)
"So," she prompted, "-what is it?" Not for her own peace of mind, undoubtedly, but to force me to my own conclusion.
"It's . . . experience." I concluded disappointedly, convinced of the truth of it but feeling slightly heretical as I said it.
(Looking back on it, I say it is and isn't. Certainly it was not experience when by grace I was saved through faith, but, at very least, experience is the conduit through which faith is grown.)
"Unfortunately," I added, thinking of the adage, It's a great life if you don't weaken, but who wants to be strong, and again, Years make us old, Life makes us wise.
The crisis ekes out another couple days, and we seem to even off.
Has our faith grown, or have our emotions simply been wrung out?
Or is that the point?
You've no particular reason to trust and yet you cling to it. I would feel slightly better had I not floundered so in reaching for it, or made such a scene drowning in waist deep water.
"So," continued Devan, moving me along again, "What is the feeling you speak of, slipping away?"
Squinting at the brilliant cumulus tumult overhead, I struggle, "It. . .it is that feeling that you accumulate during the good times, it is all the things you tell yourself about trusting God, which are, incidentally, true, but on a different level."
You'll have noticed that as well, I trust. A truth is never anything less than true, but it can be a great deal more. The sun shines, God is good; true. The rain falls, things grow, God is good; true again. The rain continues to fall, floods come, God is still good; truer still. The floods rise higher, your house collapses, you're still alive, God is still good, truth still greater. You drown, you're dead, you're in heaven, God is still good, and the truth of that gladdens your soul as never before as you kneel in His presence.
Where we are now seems to require a run on the bank, a frantic sell-off, a protracted deer-in-the-headlights moment, the missing of a few beats while we retreat to the deep waters that remain undisturbed by the hurricane roiling the surface to collect our faith.

Indulgent Obtuse Abstraction

2008-10-29T19:50:00.003-04:00

Sitting on a creek bank, I feel my thoughts drifting mercifully into the abstract.
Getting at the hostility I harbor for things synthetic, or, similarly, the affection in which I hold all things organic must involve looking at the motive behind the creation of both.
I can and do, at times, admire human craftsmanship, but there is a begrudging element that holds the admiration in check.
Why so exquisite, o Man?
Positively, there is some self-seeking motive, some selfishly practical purpose behind a well-crafted house or even a beautiful painting or even the words I now write.
But what prompts the attention to detail given the dead leaf I twirl in my hand?
Why the grace in its lingering descent?
More the blood veins running throughout its curled deformity than brush strokes in Monet's Waterloo Bridge. More pleasing the color, too.
Pure the beauty, purer still the motive back of it.
Man's gift for creation is purely given, to be sure, but corrupted in the accepting.
We want something corporeal from everything we are given.
Whether it be a talent or a sunset.
Acclimation for the talent or some sort of epiphanic triumph from the sunset.
We're given so much, and we grasp it so tightly, and the intrinsic value bleeds through our clutching fingers and drips into the dirt, corrupted eternally.
We're given more, and still swifter we lunge, taking hold, and still faster the essence dissipates.
Why the crescendoing harmony of the breeze slipping over creek bank, the wind's bow slipping delicately across the strings of a million leaves, the sighing decrescendo of its ruffling escape across the water?
Why the fragmented replication of so much gorgeous arboreal chaos in the green translucence below me?
I've so little time for this, God, let me hold it lightly, that may gladden my heart and enrich my soul as You intended.

Sixteen Years of Guidance

2008-10-18T15:15:00.003-04:00

For sixteen years I've had the same pastors.
Oddly enough I've lived in about five different locations during that stint.
It's not unlike having a wide-ranging circuit rider specifically assigned to you.
Those sixteen years have seen me through a range of problems. No very great ones to anyone else, perhaps, but being my own and the only ones I have to claim, I've made a great fuss over them.
My pastor and pastor's wife have more than babied me through these growing pangs.
In fact, if it weren't for them, I would likely be an embittered backslider or a socially dysfunctional misfit with a tic.
As it happens, I am a socially dysfunctional misfit, but I've not developed a tic, other than this odd twitching that grips me periodically.
Sincerely, were the church-going world at large aware of my pastors, they would envy me.
The two people who shepherd Devan and I, who are, of course, my parents, have been so much more than preacher and preacher's wife.
We are privileged in a unique and special way.
Spending the last third of my childhood as a preacher's kid produced none of the stereotypical angst associated with it.
In fact, considering my own somewhat fragile state at times, it's difficult to imagine my spiritual growth being nurtured and cultivated so attentively and tutorially by any other pastor in the world, some of whom obviously I have great respect for.
But none of them knew or could consider the complexities, the nuances, okay the weirdness of this particular parishioner.
I know at times they may have felt personally unsuited for the roles they play in mine and all their other past and present member's lives, but I would like them to know that the evidence is clear; God has equipped them for the job better than most.
The teaching and the preaching are forever sound, wholly and wonderfully biblical, faithful and compassionate.
I know a pastor's heart when I see one.
They are clearly called and they are just as clearly committed to carrying out that call and being found faithful in the overwhelming responsibility God has laid on them.

Same Old Thing

2008-10-18T06:36:00.003-04:00

"The horror of the Same Old Thing", wrote Screwtape, "is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart-an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and inconstancy in friendship."
Yes, and furthermore, impulsiveness.
I once read somewhere that one characteristic of a sociopath is an enormous capacity for repetition.
This has always comforted me by extinguishing any fear that I, despite possessing certain aspects of your common sociopath, white, male, late bed-wetter, nevertheless escape the profile by virtue of the fact that I am nothing if not a creature of irregularity.
Blind hasty exodus from one vice invariably leads you to bump into yet another, but I am sure a penchant for harmless sporadic obsession ranks lower on the scale than that of serial murder.
Habit is for people who find no joy in life, I tell myself as I eat a little more than usual, forgo shaving (how d'you like me now, UPS) or choose to sing the special song before leading the congregational (an exception that is fast becoming my rule).
Any given member of my family can testify to my distaste for routine.
Music stands as a shining example. Any given artist, genre, or sub-genre is subject to my fixation, as well as my shunning, when I invariably over-indulge to the point of indigestion and swear off.
Now, mind you, I've yet to become a groupie, but the horror of the Same Old Thing is synonymous in my book with the love of obsession.
How this relates to my walk with God should be all too obvious.
Now, in a sense, this can or should contribute to a healthy balance.
Devotional life should be habitual, yet not.
We are created to experience change and growth but a lack of maturity that many of us suffer until the point of death can and does lead to a lack of discipline that parlays, with the aid of laziness, the penchant for the new into an easy neglect of the old and needful, as our mind wanders from the measurements of the temple curtains or our prayerfully closed eyes drift into the land of Winkem, Blinkem and Nod.
The reward for keeping the faith, fighting the good fight, running the race is the natural result of disinclined troopers struggling against their own nature. It is the very struggle that purifies.

The Glorious Struggle

2008-09-27T03:55:00.004-04:00

In the way of self-deprecation, I have told Devan many times that I am one of the laziest people you'll ever meet. Though I'm not above false modesty, this doesn't qualify as such.
It is a frank appraisal of my own wants and desires and discipline.
Inherent in the remark is the unspoken caveat: But I try to work hard enough so that no one knows it.
In other words, I recognize the necessity of hard work, and will strive to achieve it, I just find it very distasteful.
So, when I hear various and sundry health buffs and nuts wax eloquent about the "invigoration" and "rush" of exercise and cardio and pumping iron, I get a tired sneer on my face.
Self-convincing mind control.
See, I think it's paradoxical to claim you enjoy struggling to supplement your health. Or, I don't know, maybe you don't find it paradoxical, maybe you're just masochistically twisted.
If the principle of "no pain, no gain" is paramount in exercise, then aren't you as much as admitting you get a rush out of pain.
Weird.
This is what I find perennially disquieting about exercise; the ever-extending line that must be crossed in order to benefit.
I'm something of a legalist, and no less one when it comes to this. I would prefer to get mine out of the way all at once.
If I could exercise 24/7, more or less, for a year, and have it out of the way for the duration of my natural life, I would somewhat cheerfully, at least resignedly, commit, and peddle, run and pump my way through October of 2009 just for good measure.
Unfortunately for my laziness, all I'd get out of that is job loss, a heart attack or two, and possible marital complications.
So, it seems we've all been sentenced to share the fate of Sisyphus, the size of the boulder being relative.
(And here is the part where I draw a spiritual parallel. But it really isn't necessary, is it?)
Sufficient grace, and meal in the barrel, and all that, but isn't that missing the point, at least slightly?
As much as it seems applicable at times, God isn't given to the carrot-and-stick approach. And He doesn't require a certain amount of punishment or misery to recompense a reward.
Mostly, it is just the pendulum effect. Not in the sense of Poe, so much, though maybe a little. But rather in what Screwtape referred to as the law of peaks and troughs, reminding his hapless nephew that humans are insufferably mortal, and must undergo this perpetual cycle of ups and downs.
What I find show-stopping about this obvious statement is the implication.
God created us as such!
So where's the glory in redeeming an angel, the grace of walking in our shoes if it were no problem for us?
Strength, His, not ours, perfected in weakness, is the mysterious and majestic remedy.
Cyclical?
No, progressive.

Really Good Grief

2008-09-20T18:27:00.005-04:00

Give us this day our daily low-carb, gluten-free bread, and forgive us for eating three slices instead of the one we would have eaten, wanted to eat, had it been white, or thick.
Or
In my own mind I know I'm a great writer. So . . .how does one go about escaping one's own mind?
What I really wanted to talk about was Peanuts.
Peanuts have become a staple of my diet. Once a superfluous fiber, along with popcorn, pecans, particularly have taken the place of dessert. Rather, they have become dessert, I didn't bother much with it before I couldn't eat it.
But, I meant Peanuts, the comic strip; the daily public journal of a very American man.
Sparky (as he didn't like to be called), also known as Charles Schulz, has been an influence on my entire life in much the same way that observation affects outcome, so said Schroedinger.
At the risk of sounding maudlin, Schulz comforted me with distraction even as a child.
As did the short-lived Jalapeno flavor of Lays potato chips.
As did curling up in the antediluvian plaid arm-chair in front of the picture window which no doubt comforted me as well.
Psychoanalytically speaking, I'm quite sure I gained a preeminence over the world-at-large by sitting in front of a large picture window with no curtains while maintaining my comfort zone
in my nook,
with the chips,
and the book.
Too young to suspect I was empathizing with Charlie Brown (although I had more in common with Linus,
minus,
the blanket
or perhaps Shermy, as he was a filler, whereas at least Charlie Brown enjoyed the miserable center stage, with his cool, ungrateful dog.
The philosophy of Schulz never occurred to my eight-year-old brain, at least consciously.
But over the years, the perpetual failure of Charlie Brown, and the fact that this failure was the subject of humor, has molded a part of my personality with gentle pressure.
At once as cuddly as a plush Snoopy, and as brutal as a disrobing line drive, Schulz's narrative of what he called his everyman was an enveloping buffer for my world at large.
I do identify with Charlie Brown, although my fellow characters have been much kinder than, say, Lucy, much kinder indeed than Patty or Violet, (particularly notable for their almost sociopathic psychological abuse of Charlie Brown.)
But many of my characters have exhibited the same fair-weather friendliness of Schroeder,
the same cloying,
annoying,
self-serving attentions of the insecure Peppermint Patty,
and the animal ingratitude and disinterest of his transcendentally hip dog.
Any dismissal of Schulz as a mere cartoonist reveals a lack of depth in the critic.
He was not wise, but he was exceptionally honest and wickedly comfortable with his immersion, if not understanding, of the life we live.
So, grab a Peanuts book next time you're at the library and keep it in the bathroom.

Creeping Tolerance

2008-09-14T06:39:00.006-04:00

I've kept my ramblings pertinent recently. I've tried to speak of what matters most.

I've kept my nose out of politics. Partly because, since the primaries are over, and both parties have their candidates, anything I say would be a combination of preaching to the choir and stating the obvious.

What I have to say may be stating the obvious, but I've become sufficiently irked by a media mantra to not care anymore.

Since Barack Obama makes a point of expressing his faith (likely to combat the Muslim rumors) and since he is a Democrat, the media has gleefully lifted the embargo on discussion of religion in politics. The incongruity of the most liberal Democrat in the Senate stating frankly that Jesus Christ is his Savior (yes, I meant incongruity) has been lost on us.

The reason for this new-found faith of the DNC is two-fold.

The Democrats finally saw the light and found God in exit poll data. Statisticians and marketing experts could have told them that excluding the God plank from their platform was off-putting to many.

The other reason is that Barack Obama is black. And divesting a black man of his religion is unnecessary, even offensive, because African-Americans are stereotypically religious. The cringe-inducing shell-shock of W.'s statement about Jesus Christ in his coming out in 2000 is dissipated. God is welcomed with open arms now if He watches His p's and q's and doesn't become too confrontational.

The media mantra I spoke of is pure subversion, whether or not they realize it.

Ad hominem is the order of the day. They are ever ready with the defense, "Obama is a Christian, he has attended a Christian church for the last twenty years." Besides the fact that I thought we were supposed to forget that Obama attended a church pastored by a man named Wright, the defensive statement presupposes a right-wing evangelical litmus test. Apparently we're all sitting around asking "Yes, but is Barack a Christian?" And when supplied with the affirmative, we're good to go. (The disturbing irony is that all too often this is true.)

Now, first of all, I would have hoped we had gotten past the idea that attending church magically bestowed the blood of Jesus on the attendee. Guess not.

Second, I would have hoped, but knew better, that the creeping tolerance, of the mutant, 21st century cross strain, had run it's course. No such luck. In other words, in today's world, if a man says he is a Christian, calls children mistakes, supports infanticide. . . .he is a Christian and don't you dare presume to question the dubious fruit hanging from his withered boughs.

Christianity has been stripped of any identity, thus any salty savor, by creeping tolerance.

John Wesley has said that his brother Charles made people prove their profession while he himself took people at their word, and that he was more often proven right than Charles.

This is a Christian principle. But it has parameters.

I'm assuming that if John came upon a falling-down drunk prostitute in the act of extorting money from a helpless child he would suspect her veracity when she slurred, "Praise the Lord, brother, I'm a born-again Christian."

There are rules you follow if you are a Christian, even in this post-post modern world.

Obama doesn't follow them. No surprise. I'm not shocked. He is the candidate of a party who has long disassociated itself from Christianity, and his politics are simply what we expect.

But can we stop with this, "Of course he's a Christian, he's gone to church for the last twenty years."

By the way, equal time wise, neither does John McCain's story, heart-warming as it is, of his experience with the prison guard in Vietnam confirm his Christianity. But the fact that he opposes infanticide gives us a little more reason think that maybe he actually subscribes to the creed.

The 2X4

2008-08-30T13:39:00.006-04:00

brittanica.com

Epiphanies are rarely so epiphanic, mostly because of the constant encroachment of self-awareness.
From a college communications course, I learned that, among countless other scales, people are graded on a self-monitoring curve. It refers to an individual’s self-awareness, or self-perception.
If you are a low self-monitor, most likely you tend to be intent of purpose, single-minded, your own person, as you are uncaring or at least unaware of the opinion or perception that others hold of you.
High self-monitors have highly sensitive antennae which are perpetually probing everyone’s concept of themselves, and unfortunately have a tendency, at least the ability, to readjust accordingly.
I was speechless upon hearing this, as a man might be at his first look in a mirror, and felt that on the scale, I probably wouldn’t even register, placing somewhere in the stratosphere above the charts.
Because I was constantly aware, or at least striving to be, of how I came across to other people.
This self-awareness carries over into my private thoughts, and disrupts them.
Additionally, a cynicism or wariness born of bad experience has taught me to analyze each and every emotion that broaches my threshold. So that, when an original thought seeks entry, it is subject to interrogation, and is brought in to the inner sanctum only after it has been robbed of the element of surprise. Thus, life-changing epiphanies are rare.
Also, I tend to accept self-critical analysis very quickly, so as to expedite the pain. You ever swallow a hot mouthful of food, taken too hastily, tossing it down your gullet to relieve your palette? It leaves no sense of the food in your mouth, no taste except that of scorched flesh. But you consumed it, after all, you tell yourself, and isn’t that the end of eating?
Doubtless, and yet the food wasn’t chewed properly, and it now sits at the bottom of your stomach in an indignant lump, refusing to be digested, and therefore not releasing its proper sustenance and causing instead a confused melee of indigestion as harried enzymes hurriedly surround it and are as thwarted in their duties as I am in search of the business end of a tangled fishing line.
I always get a little carried away with analogies.
In a state of aggravation, I scooped up the cat and headed to the garage to clip his perennial couch-shredders.
The cat, misnamed Adagio (def. - slow, leisurely) senses foul play in the offing and digs his claws into my torso.
Irritated with the cat’s frightened clairvoyance I stormed into the garage and dumped him on the floor.
And watched stubbornly as he frantically searched for a way out of the unfamiliar dungeon.
The errand became a lesson as I watched him desperately try to escape from a situation that he feared.
My irritation with a dumb animal I rationalized thusly. Did he not know I was simply trying to help him?
(Here I insert the reason for my aggravation: my ongoing struggle with diabetes, which at the moment wasn’t going as I wished.)
The obvious answer to the unspoken question immediately condemned me. Of course the cat didn’t know I was trying to help him. He was simply frightened of an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous situation.
In addition to suddenly feeling cruel, I was instantly stupefied by the parallel.
I opened the door into the house through which Adagio fled, and sat down on the step.
He fled only so far as behind the couch, where he stopped and sat, peering around the corner at me as if to ask, Why?. . . .and, What on earth was that all about?
The cat had a right to be terrified. He had no way of grasping the benefit of the uncomfortable situation.
I, however, unless I wished to plead my case as a dumb animal, was being distrustful and ungrateful.
And if God were me, he might feel the same irritation with the trepidation I feel before checking my blood sugar as the cat does before getting his nails clipped.
Thankfully, I am myself, Adagio is Adagio, and God is God, and He faithfully showed me again, yet in a new way, what I was, and who He was.
I felt spiritually childish, and petulant, and impulsive.
An animal has every call to be dumb, and faithless.
I do not.

Coming Home

2008-08-28T20:35:00.004-04:00

Every so often, I go outside at night to look and see if the sky is still there.

So far, I've never been disappointed. . .

And if I look at it long enough, something settles in my mind.

A breakneck speed of life slows to a manageable pace and the blurred landscape begins to break apart and form distinct images.

Sometimes I think, as I hurtle down the interstate, that the appreciation and the fear the pioneers of America must have gained of the land must far exceed our attention deficit admiration as we pace off 100 miles in the amount of time it would've taken them to straggle their way over 5.

Which perspective is more realistic?

All I know is on the all-too-infrequent occasions when I escape from almost every lingering scrap of vocational and technological distraction, I come alive.

The rhythm of ocean waves lulls me into reality and the shelter of the woods spreads a reverential awe over my soul.

It gives me the feeling that I am looking down on every mad bustle of industry in the world from an eagle's perspective.

And it looks awfully small from up there.

By the way, both pictures are from a two-week vacation. So, yes, I have personally felt the rhythm and the awe and all that stuff.

One of Those Things

2008-08-03T07:58:00.004-04:00

Perhaps I share with others this tendency to seek solutions to chronic dilemmas.

It is innate; the characteristic of an easily distracted mortal is to focus on single issues as if they were the one obstacle to our uttermost contentment.

I talk a lot about work. I don't think it's particularly obsessive. They say to write what you know. We hourlies like to talk amongst ourselves about the intractable detachment of management. They are continually grappling with one unsolvable problem after another, in a monotonous cyclical effort to improve the bottom line. Indeed, this is business, and no less should be expected of management. But while most of us probably understand this, we also recognize that the service-oriented world we live in is anything but a perfect one, and problems will remain perpetually. Steps can be taken to effect the frequency and severity of those problems, but some knots will forever kink the direct and unrestrained flow of packages to the customer. Proof of the futility of this pursuit is the end result of all these managerial crusades. They worry it to death for two or three weeks, and, having realized little or no improvement in the situation, (despite their insistence that the problem is completely solvable) they will then inevitably move on to the next unsolvable.

And roll the rock up the hill again.

Listening to a health-oriented talk show, I am given another glimpse of our impatience.

Pardon the subject matter, it was prostate health.

The guest cast dispersions on all herbal supplemental efforts to correct any problems, maintaining that to gain any assistance from the consumption of saw palmetto, for instance, you would need something like twenty pounds a day. But, thanks be to goodness, he had invented this little pill to save the world's males from the ravages of an enlarged prostate.

The subject of frequent nighttime urination was broached (you'll remember I begged your pardon) and the host, the devil's advocate, pitched the guest a nice slow one right down the middle. "Now, isn't it normal to get up once or twice a night to go the restroom?"

"No, it is not. You should never have to go to the restroom in the middle of the night."

Bunk.

Health pipe dreams are numerous. Contrary to a gazillion different opinions, you are still an earthen vessel and subject to drying out regardless of your exercise, your herbs, your medication, or your attitude. But we will always seek permanent solutions to these ailments.

I think the spiritual application is fairly obvious.

There is no permanent solution to finding it difficult oftentimes to pray. There is no formula to follow to prevent you from ever being tempted to worry, no happy pills to take.

We are not allowed to procure a one-time solution to every problem. The grace of God is sufficient, it is not being debt-free, a burgeoning bank account, or accruing interest.

We go back to our Father, again and again, and avail ourselves of His strength, and try not to wonder what sort of grace we will need a week from now.

To attempt to exceed our humanity is, at it's root, a distrustfulness of God. He created us as such fallible mortals for a reason. I don't pretend to completely understand the reason (wouldn't that be the wicked irony) but I try to accept it.

And, I will forever, in this life, struggle to try to accept it. Complete, once-and-for-all acceptance of this would-

well, you get the point.

Another Kind of Test

2008-08-02T06:49:00.004-04:00

Have you considered my servant "?"; a blameless and upright man.

There is none like him in all of the earth.

Yes, well . . .

It remains to be seen what he would be in a vacuum.

He needs you. He has nothing else. He clings to you in the absence of everything else.

Give him some worldly pleasure, even just a little innocent earthly success and he may no longer require your crutch.

. . . . .or, don't you trust him?

I know him.

Then, your omniscience, it would, or should, offer proof of your boasting to allow a few distractions to come his way.

As of now, you handicap all of my efforts of seduction with his miserable circumstances.

Let me give him what I can, and we shall see if he still needs, or, wants, you.

Let him be tested.

Placebo

2008-07-26T16:36:00.003-04:00

I was recently made aware of a weakness in my spiritual cast.

Truth is, unfortunately for you, often revealed to me as the conclusion of some abstract line of thought, the real-world conclusion to some hypothetical, sometimes downright nonsensical, syllogism.

As such, it remains difficult to present to you the circuitous route my mind undertook to arrive at a very basic destination. It must suffice to say that I was at work, which is to say I was mobile, due to the nature of my work. It was mid-morning, which means I was in a haze of grim resignation, attempting to rid myself of the last of the day's packages bearing a 10:30 commit time. Some anonymous driver had committed an egregious sin against me, an automotive faux pas so traumatic that I have since blocked it from my mind and cannot remember what the particular offense was, or whether or not it was something as minor as being on the same road as I. Some deep-seated knee-jerk persecution complex constantly feeds data, no matter how minuscule or inconsequential, into a misery meter. (The earlier my little meter pegs out in the morning, the better the day, as it awakens a sense of proportion and perspective. A side note, I recently attempted to readjust my attitude only to discover that I did not wish to not be irritated.)

I soothed the irritation, as I have many times, with a platitude; a variation of, It could be worse. I do this quite often. Exemplary is an instance where I was working much later than I felt just, and delivered a package of medicine to a very grateful paraplegic who was immensely proud of being able to sign his name legibly for the package. I left him sobered and comforted.

Me, not him.

When tempted to everyday frustration, my invariable response is to compare my lot favorably with those more unfortunate than myself.

And that's helpful, but not very biblical.

The logical trouble with proportioning every distasteful thing in your life by saying, yes, but look at him, is that somewhere down the line, waaayyy down the line, somebody far more unfortunate than I looks to his left in search of comfort and finds no one lower than he to use as an emotional stepstone out of the funk. ( I say logical trouble because I recognize that each soul bears his own troubles with more grace than he supposes he would bear anothers.) But it is still logical to adduce that if we are only comforted by looking downhill, when the music stops, some poor sucker is going to be left without a seat.

Moreover, it is a pitiful excuse for comfort. It is slaking your thirst by rolling a pebble around in your mouth to generate saliva when there's a frosted Mason jar of iced tea at your elbow.

Incidentally, that poor, destitute individual you look to for comfort may be happier than you are, indeed, what an epiphany it would prove to discover that you were his comfort!

The upshot: I reckon that the sufferings of this present life (including, but not limited to slow-pokes, financial worries, health problems, stoning, beating, imprisonment, cancer, paralysis, burning at a stake, piece-mealed to lions, upside down crucifixion) are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed to us.

Hoarding Grace

2008-07-20T09:18:00.004-04:00

Well I know the frustration of many a pro-active Isrealite upon discovering that their industry in stockpiling manna had proved worthless.

The initial miracle of the bread of heaven must have felt breathtakingly tender. Looking upward as they gathered the mystery carbohydrate, I know their hearts overflowed with gratitude. And common sense dictates thusly: What a wondrous gift to our starving nomadic (misleading term, don't you think? after all, they were headed somewhere) hearts. I must take advantage of this grace and not waste it. Thank you Lord, I'll take it from here.

And so brought out the baskets and laid up a store like any responsible financial planner must do.

And so forth did the parabolic venture capitalist of the New Testament earn the epithet "fool" from Jesus.

This applies not only materially to us, but spiritually, at first a tragedy, then a relief, to our mortal perspective. Were grace awarded on a meritorious earnings basis, we could, as we are wont, plan for our future, taking a little (or a lot, depending on your Scroogeness) out each week for the days ahead.

Thankfully, grace is not awarded meritoriously, hence the term, grace, I guess.

But the sustenance of grace is what I refer to. The strength to go on is given as needed, morning by morning, hour by hour; a frightfully effective way of gaining our peaceful trust.

The Zarapheth widow . . .do you suppose she ever looked into the barrel in the morning, and wondered ungratefully, Why does He not fill it up all the way to the top?

Snacks

2008-07-05T16:29:00.002-04:00

The trees defer to the wind, and the wind brings them to life. The sighing and breathing are the only sounds I hear, until a fallen maple leaf skates purposefully up the ramp like the planchette of an ouija board, viciously raking the concrete with curled, withered edges, causing me to look over the top of my philosophy text, from my perch on the stone wall.

A Saturday afternoon on guard duty, high atop Mt. Auburn.

The only people on campus today are the ones that have to be here.

I guard, in between short bursts of Kant and Locke, and grow ever more comforted by what I read. By Kant, not Locke. Locke leads a pack of uninspired empiricists who find no meaning in life aside from finding no meaning in life.Kant, on the other hand, and Descartes. . .whisper words of comfort forged by mental anguish and tempered by time, a lullaby of rationalism to soothe my troubled dreams. They see beyond the veil of empirical data, to something at once more abstract and more concrete, a giant premise with mind-blowing implications.

Ockhams's Razor . . . .a fearsome double-edged danger to some, but to me a security, a formidable weapon against the forces of doubt and uncertainty."All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." or, "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity."

Hence, God exists. Furthermore, God created.

Stockpiling rationale like it were canned goods and tomorrow Y3K.

Being prepared to give an answer for my faith.(Discreetly laying the cold steel of Ockham's blade against my cheek for comfort.)

Not having the option of trust, having cast away my confidence, I picked up apologetics and brandished it at doubt. Remembering my past draws with the devil, I vowed never to go unarmed again. Had Daniel an AR-15 or Gideon a nuke surely they would've used it and saved God all that trouble.And speaking of nuclear options, that is exactly what faith had become for me.

Samson's last gasp.

I was terrified of trust. Such intimacy with my Maker had burned me, pulling me into a Sisyphan perpetuity of pathetic whimsy, an unbroken string of compulsive contortions to prove my love for God. Having left myself open, the enemy of my soul moved in with a blitzkrieg of scorched-earth maneuvers. Before long, the lush Eden of my salvation was gone and I cowered in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, never having moved, but unsure of where I was anymore. I re-built my spiritual sanity slowly and clinically, brick by brick, never asking for help from above. I knew He was there, but was afraid to look, afraid to ask. What if I heard no reply?

My conscience, once a love language for God and I, had been compromised and I used it no longer. It couldn't be trusted. I fumbled my way through several years, protecting the wounds.They healed, but there is a stiffness left in the joints.

All this may sound extremely melodramatic, but I assure you that no such comforting thought entered my mind at the time. I spent a year or more scared absolutely to death. My mind was twisted and wrung out. I wasted to a pale ghost, looked like death and felt like death. Could I have died with assurance of passage into Heaven I would have gladly done so.

I look at it now in shades of grace. God allowed it, after all, so I belatedly embrace it all, knowing there was a reason. It left a mark on me; a reserve and an awkwardness.I alternate between feeling that it strengthened me and suspecting that it stunted me.I feel a little tougher but a little wizened. Trust is still that nuclear power that is reserved for defense and not tapped for an energy source. I try not to think about whether my Christianity is based on love for God or fear of Him.

The distance is what sends me seeking for reassurance in philosophy and apologetics. Mind you, it is a superfluous pursuit. I don't dream that I would lapse in my faith were I not to find the justification I seek in philosophy and apologetics.

But it's like having the munchies. You just can't stop because it's available.

And palatable. And it spoils your dinner and weakens your immune system.

Would you rather arm yourself with Kant or that which pierces to the marrow?

Every Day Problems

2008-06-12T21:00:00.007-04:00

Stupid people.
Yellow curb. Means park somewhere else.
Looking for a free lunch, perfect pitch, the holy grail, or a parking spot in front of the courthouse, which for this truck means a 35 foot slot in the lineup.
Not only are they parked on yellow, aCROSS from the sheriff's office, they hadn't the decency to close up the gaps. Between every bumper and fender ekes a tantalizing 30 feet, as if they only had so many cars to lock up all the parallel spots so they had to space em out.
Ever since the arraignment for one Charles Haught, middle-aged life drop-out, rapist and murderer of one Wesley Campbridge, seven year-old, ever since every mobile news unit from three surrounding counties had converged and taken up residence in front of Bourbon County Circuit Courthouse, people had ceased fudging the customary ten to fifteen feet of yellow, and now strung all the way across it in the spirit of the old adage about forgiveness and permission.
If Action News 36 can do it, well by George. . .
In my mind I know it's 9:43 and in my DIAD are 8 uncompleted 10:30 commit stops, two of them bulk, and one of them across town.
Without looking, I sense a looming diesel presence in the fold-out sideview mirror, the same white Ford dualy that's been dogging me from 10th Street, edging out from behind just enough to make sure I know he wants around.
Knock yourself out, sweetheart. F'you can fit that monster in between my mirror and the half-lane that's left, you're more driver than I am. No doubt he thinks he is. More to the point, no doubt he's been cussin me all the way down Main since I pulled in front of him.
Had to cut somebody off.
Watched twenty cars amble by with that same maddening gap precision.
Twenty cars, a minute-and-a-half I ain't got.
The second I nosed out into traffic, he ghosted up to my bumper so close I could see the Ford oval on his grill in my rear camera monitor.
Yeah, now you're in a hurry.
I can see his mouth moving, so I put words in it.
Fool kid, pull out in front of me, and some other words that normally I would never think, were I not forced into providing captions for his thought balloons.
It wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't feel just a little bit guilty. Guilt pressed in between time and stress oozes out looking like road rage.
A blue Caravan with a bandaged rear window and a bumper just hanging on for dear life pulls away from the curb in front of me, at about the same time the Ford gets the four inches he's been wanting for ten blocks, and here he comes, loosening the reins of all 350 horses, and billowing acrimony from both 5 inch chrome horns.
The hapless grocery-getter dawdles on out in his lane.
He hauls up on the reins, the whistling downshift an automotive curse.
If I had time, I'd be laughing. Good thing I don't.
He's up even with me now, looking right at me, distilling all his frustration with the Caravan and the world in general into the last minute spent staring at the back of a delivery truck.
I can see his silent swearing indignance.
He's a mouth breather. Unfortunate orifice, that. The gaps in between the parked cars should be so wide.
Still, he manages to impart more scorn through his NASCAR shades and the bubbled tint than Estella ever cast down on Pip, Chillingworth on Rev. Dimmesdale, or the parabled Pharisee upon the publican.
Turning my attention to the vast expanse of gleaming yellow curb vacated by the departing Caravan, I cut as close as I can and then back, dimming the luminous paint with my rubbing tires.
The stop I need is half a block back.
Shoving the truck into park, I fall into a habitual series of movements, park, brake, key out, seatbelt off, mirror in, bulkhead door; a succession so varied but seamless, a truly Faulkneresque regimen.
Dodging strategically positioned and scarcely mobile redneck sidewalk ornaments, I finally make it to the intended destination, a lawyer's office, and pull hard on the door.
It's locked, and the jolt shakes the glassed-in front wall.
The over-cooked, under-worked (minesweeper?) secretary jerks around so suddenly that her desk chair becomes a tilt-a-whirl, and she steadies herself with a what on earth expression. (oh help, another mouth breather)
Sizing up the situation, she then laughs, slaps the desk so hard I can hear it out here, and puts her forehead down on her hand, big shoulders shaking.
9:46. Odd seconds rush out into eternity while she has a good winding down laugh about how startled she was and how she forgot to unlock that front door again!
She gets up from the chair in hitches and explains the noise over her shoulder to someone in the back room, actually stopping mid-way and, what, turning to raise her voice because they can't hear her.
When she opens the door, "Oh my land's sakes, you scared me to death-" throwing her head down and slapping a meaty thigh, and sucking in the next phrase through a hearty laugh "I-I-I thought somebody ran into the building-ing-ing, and and Haley hollered up here and said, 'What in tarnation is that, did some kid run his bicycle into the front door?' Ooohhhh, I forgot to unlock it!"
I, am speechless.
Come in.
I would, of course, decline, but it appears she isn't going to physically accept the package, possible germophobe, but no, she just stuck a pen in her mouth.
The packages, including this 2 oz. next-day-air envelope, go on a table in that back room.
The one on the left?
No, down the stairs, to the right, through the gray door.
Returning from the dungeon, I offer her the DIAD to sign.
Oh no, Betty signs for everything.
Betty?
Downstairs, you didn't see her?
Poor Betty's been having indigestion all morning, she explains when she emerges from the rest room at 9:52.
How fast can you empathize?
My foot is one inch from the bottom step of the truck when a voice falls across my tense shoulders like a war club.
Hey, buddy.
Contemplation of feigned deafness tempts me for a second.
Sigh.
Yeah? Turning, sounding relaxed, helpful.
Oh no, it's Jethro Bodine gone to neglected seed, Santa Clause's Appalachian counterpart, except I don't think he's going to give me anything.
The v-necked t-shirt stopped being white shortly after it stopped trying to reach down to the sweat pants. Chest hair, copious and curly, nestles in the plunging neckline.
The grace of a beard has been weeded out to a mockery of sweat, oil and tangles.
Sixty degrees and sweat beads his forehead and speckles his shirt.
He hooks a thumb to the courthouse.
Can you tell me what that says?
Over his shoulder my eyes focus on a computer-printed sign taped to the door of the courthouse.
Forgot his glasses, I guess.
Hurrying around him, I'm almost there before I realize the print is three inches tall.
Behind me, I hear "I just. . . can't read."
Something jams into my spokes, locking up the wheels of time and task and what I call trouble.
Uh, it says the courthouse is closed-ummm, scanning the two lines as if it were fine print
-uh, open. . . tomorrow.
Turning to face him, Well that's odd, babbling, wonder why they're closed, no holiday.
That's okay, he says.
All right, well have a good one, man.
Sorry-he looks me in the eye-just, can't read.
Hey, no problem, no problem at all, have a good one, have a good day.
I thank ye'.
You t-no problem, have- we'll see you.
Delivering next day air, I don't have time to think about the flush that stains my cheeks, or the lump clogging my throat.

Shepherd

2008-06-07T08:19:00.004-04:00

I've had a few brushes with childhood memories recently.

The precipitous weather change from crisp spring to what romantic Southern writers call "sultry" inexplicably throws me back to a wooden pew built with one-by-fours and tiger-striped with peeling egg-shell paint.

Halos of moths and june bugs encircle the fluorescent lights strung among metal pole rafters and high ceiling joists of an open tabernacle.

Camp meeting was always in June.

The other finger pointing to the past comes not from the current season, but current events.

Politics brings it to my attention, but it is not politics that I am reminded of.

The former pastor of former parishioner, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Barack Obama, and now, Father Michael Pfleger, have a familiar look, a reminiscent tone.

Both men have superb oratorical skills. They have mastered the art of crowd connection.

I know this because I have observed many crowd connectors, some of the best; sermons where every sentence is measured, if not outright alliterated. Every inflection is the work of hours of practice, every shift of the eye is deliberate, every physical gesture is nuanced and calculating.

I watch Rev. Wright preach to the choir. He loves it and they love it. He sings their song. He provokes strong emotion. Coy, innocently sarcastic slides lead into thunderous blasts of conviction, taking the crowd where they want to go.

Father Pfleger comes to the pulpit hailed as a great friend of the church, and works that comission like a master. He turns his ire and the ire of the mob outward, excoriating the injustice of the world, condemning it in the harshest of terms. Hyperbole is inspiration, mockery is passion. He parlays the role of the voice crying in the wilderness into a pied piper's battle anthem. Such conviction must not go unheeded, such authority must not be ignored.

I believe I know the feeling in that sanctuary. It bleeds through the YouTube feed.

I sat once in the back of that open tabernacle, watching with dumbfounded amazement being overcome by uneasiness marching down my spine and lifiting hair on my arms.

I had just heard Pac-Man inserted into a litany of other dubious sins with a conviction that did not lend itself to unbelief. Indeed, the congregation took it, believed it, swallowed it, raised their arms to it, and ran with it, through the aisles and down to the altar. It was music to their world weary ears. The problem was out there. Here was heaven, with like-minded people who eschewed the Internet, Pac-Man and hair-bows. More sick of the world than sin, they found emotional relief in the rash, brash, corporate denunciation of everything secular.

The atmosphere was charged and electric. I felt the waves of something potent, tangible by virtue of the spell it cast as it rippled from the platform out over the congregation, scattering the faithful in every direction, down to the bench to be exorcised of the demon Pac-Man, through the aisles, overcome with team spirit, and possibly roaming the room in search of the skulking prodigal in the back.

I was unsettled, feeling a magnetic implosion, conscious of the power of an emotional gravitational pull, sucking people into a maelstrom of convoluted, whim-driven legalism. I watched with the fascination of horror, mesmerized and repulsed by the exploitation of feeling.

These people were not broken, they were not humbled, they were pumped!

As were the parishioners of Rev. Wright and Father Pfleger. They appeal to the basest of human emotion. A carnal vindication flows from the soul in chorus with the recitation of the creed. Pride fuses with emotion, hardening into a patriotic defiance, deflecting all attention from contrition and humility. And they are ready now to take on the world.

I am so thankful for my own pastor, who tells me repeatedly to juxtapose his words with Scripture, who digs deep into the loam of the Bible, and never ventures outside its boundaries.

Sandra Dee

2008-05-26T17:06:00.004-04:00

In the way of book reviews, I've been reading a book about the Supreme Court entitled The Nine. ( a cryptic characterization indeed, if the author is a Tolkien fan)

It is the first book I've ever read devoted wholly to the Court and its personalities. All previous attempts to educate myself on the subject have been defeated by a lack of interest in the subject. I am aware of the significance, but law has a sedative effect on me.

Perhaps because the book focuses more on the justices who comprise the court, as opposed to the parched machinations of the proceedings themselves, I have been both intrigued and appalled at what I read.

In the way of disclaimers, I perceive a center to middle left bias in the approach of the author, which is to say, he is both an amalgam and a representative of relativistic, apathetic American morals. So I keep a cipher of salt close by as I read. He does appear to make an attempt at even-handedness, which makes the casual narrative of the nine's evolution and devolution more convincing and more outrageous.

I know and am thrilled at the upward swing given to us by Bush in Roberts and Alito. They join the outnumbered consistency of Scalia and Thomas, and it tips the balance right, more often than not, when you throw in the follower Kennedy.

But I am confused on several points. Do we, as conservatives, like or dislike judicial activism?

I think the proper answer is a vehement one. We shall have nothing to do with those who legislate from the bench!

But it appears we secretly wink at the bent of Scalia, and Thomas (whom the author contends is a country mile right of Scalia. Scalia even humorously expounded on the difference between Thomas and himself, "I am an originalist, but I am not a nut.")

No, this does not mean I disagree with their philosophy, but it causes me to question whether the ideal of "strict constructionist" equated to "conservative" is the result of sound legal knowledge or wishful thinking.

What I mean is, Scalia and Thomas, both of whom I am very grateful to have on the high court, have a lens through which they view the Constitution. And well they might, they're not computers, they are flesh. But to me the term, strict constructionist, implies a clinical detachment from the moral aspects of each and every case they accept, and maybe one day they will replace the nine justices with a supercomputer with a constitutional hard drive and an exhaustive precedent database. In my opinion, there is an element of hypocrisy when conservatives say they only want strict constructionists appointed to the bench. For my part, I want the justice to revere the law of God above the law of America, which, yes, many times will coincide. But, the point is, if the justice holds no fealty to any creed aside from the Constitution of the United States, he will disappoint Christians, at some point, on a grand scale.

(By the way, if someone has a better understanding of the conceptual strict constructionist, please opine. I certainly haven't studied the issue in depth.)

Interpretation of the law will dictate what a justice decides. And almost all of them have a predetermined philosophy which creates a fairly consistent voting record, in many cases regardless of the technical legal merits of any given case.

The worldview of Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito seems to dictate how they will come down, ditto for Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens and Souter. Kennedy is the swing vote, the moderate, the justice to be courted. If a plaintiff can get through to Kennedy, he has won the case in most instances. Which is what I set out to talk about.

The author focuses a great deal of attention on a former justice, Sandra Day O'Connor.

Perhaps more than any other justice, she brooked no partisan morality. And no, this was not because she personified the elusive ideal of the strict constructionist. It is, or was, rather, because she unabashedly sought to rule in the favor of public opinion.

O'Connor is a very likable woman, from all accounts.

She has dealt admirably with the onset of Alzheimer's in her husband, John, refusing to relinquish care of him to anyone but herself. She is an engaging, phlegmatic but quirky socialite. She appears to like everyone. She was very close to Chief Justice Rehnquist, close enough to be grief-stricken at his passing, with no regard for their disagreements. She coyly dismisses the rhetorical rants of Scalia. "That's just Nino."(her nickname for Scalia) Translation; "Isn't he a silly old bear." She was thrilled at the nomination of John Roberts, despite the great divide in their judicial philosophy.

She was also, according to the author, elated with the election of Bush in 2000, because, as her husband let slip at an election bash, she was troubled at the prospect of vacating her seat during a Gore presidency. In fact, when the networks prematurely handed the election to Gore, she declared, a bit intemperately for her, "That's terrible."

But as time wore on, and Bush proved to be considerably different than the bland, insipid weather vane she had assumed him to be, she grew increasingly antagonistic toward the administration of the man whose father had nominated her in the first place.

Her disenchantment with Bush seemed to follow the trajectory of public opinion. But she would see no problem with that. She was simply representing the views of America, after all.

It is such a reasonable way of looking at things. Certainly no latent liberalism in the manner of Ginsburg, a curmudgeon of the left if ever there was one. No conscience stricken hand wringing ala Souter. A Republican to be sure, but a Republican able to see the subtleties of issues that escape ideologues such as Clarence Thomas, the angry black man. No extremes, just judicial conferment of the will of the people.

How chilling.

Her seat has been filled by Samuel Alito, a right-winger Bush managed to drag through the nomination proceedings. (We can hope that Alito and Roberts do not fall prey to the same high-minded global notions that afflicted O'Connor.)

Her strategic position as the swing vote is now in the possession of Anthony Kennedy, who is probably not quite as finessed as O'Connor when it comes to discerning which way the wind is blowing. He appears to be a little more distracted with the constitutional merits of a case, if not with the moral implications.

A Waste of Time

2008-05-17T10:42:00.003-04:00

Well, I scuttled another evening in a bookstore looking for the meaning of life.

I started over in the music, looking for some musical force of nature to stir me, to entrance me.

Would you, Tchaik, transport me from this present world with your Russian wizardry, as you have before? Not this time.

Ludwig, what charms might you work? That would depend on the interpretation of the instrumentalist, upon which I am loath to speculate monetarily.

Ah, a collection of overtures. Three overtures. I need more bang for my buck.

Schumann, where art thou? Not here. Either the previous customers had excellent taste, or the compilers of inventory had poor.

Yanni. Yanni? Yes, Yanni. I had strayed from Classical into New Age, as in No Estimable Worth Ambiguous Genre Entrancement

Aside from being vain, the search was further hampered by sidelong mental glances at my fellow seeker, the elderly gentleman who suffered from an apparent lack of taste, and a certain lack of Crest and respect for personal space.

No matter, there are Tibetan mountains elsewhere in the store.

The classics. Melville, what do you have to say? Life is a fleshing out of a prerecorded narrative.

Homer . . . . naaaahh.

Dickens? An astute commentator of human nature, a gentle satirist, and a fine storyteller, but I'm looking for something new.

Bronte, Bronte, and Bronte? Might try Bronte, Ann, the one Devan wants me to read, but she has it at home.

Austen? Please, I am male.

London? Well, no tea parties in here. It's man against the elements. Man ain't got a chance. So, why bother?

Around to the Christian fiction. Mostly prosaic, but y'never know what you might stumble across.

Blackstock. Did I say prosaic?

Bunn. Good, very good. Alternates superbly written, spellbinding thrillers with superbly written, spellcasting sleepers.

Lahaye/Jenkins? I think maybe they've said all they have to say. But then, who's to say Christian thriller authors can't get as much mileage out of the end times as NPR can extract from Katrina or FOX from Hilton, Spears, and Lohann?

Morris. Wait, Morris? With the, the. . .that Winslow series, yeah. Volume what, 573?! The plot for this one includes a cameo with H.G. Wells' Time Traveller. Well, what do you know? The Winslow in the cover art has blazing blue eyes, a wedge-shaped jaw, and white, even teeth. I see they're still blow drying their hair in 2525.

Peretti? Well, I guess I could make it eight times for Piercing the Darkness, or eleven for The Visitation, but I already have it.

Philips, did I say prosaic? I meant formulaic.

Wick. Did I say formulaic? I meant Grace Livingston Hill. The villain in this one even has a weak chin. So kind of all the antagonists to sport identifying weak chins and weak, watery, pale eyes.

Religion section.

A book called Quantum Spirituality intrigues me. I've always been fascinated by the door quantum physics opens to the supernatural. So has the author. But he went out the back door and started thrashing around in the New Age backyard, and I put the book down and haven't seen him since.

Yes, I've always wanted Mary Magdalene for Dummies. Wonder what leering gnosticism lurks in the bowels of that book.

Never hurts to look for a NASB Study Bible. No luck. I could listen to an audio reading of the Bible by a cast of Hollywood narrators. I wonder if they have an audio book of An Inconvenient Truth read by Rush Limbaugh?

So, to the philosophy section.

Contemporary philosophy. What is that? Is that like Dippin' Dots, or listening to a MIDI file of the William Tell Overture?

Nietzsche. I never cease to be fascinated by the virulent little man. He exudes such a disarming, guileless arrogance. I understand Thus Spake Zarathustra for the first time in paperback was popular reading among the tenets of Auschwitz.

A collection of empiricist writings. Somebody compiled a collection of empiricists? If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't believe it.

Descartes. Kant. That's more like it, I think . . .therefore, I am going to go find Devan and have another whirl at the music section. Maybe Schumann was hiding.

How To Love God

2008-05-11T20:58:00.003-04:00

A comment on my last post asked me to address how to love God. My first question was, what love language are you speaking? Are you asking, how do we show our love for God? In which case, helLO, keep His commandments, but, after speaking with my dear sister, the question was meant in a little more of an abstract way, as I was afraid of.

How do we feel love for God?

How do we experience intimacy?

I'll confess something. It is a subject that has made me slightly uncomfortable at times. I remember as a teenage boy being ill-at-ease particularly with the story of the fallen woman who washed the feet of Jesus with ointment and tears and dried them with her hair. Seemed a little too demonstrative, and little too earthy. Touching God's feet with your hair?

And emotional public displays of affection for God can still rattle me. I don't want to get into the debate over differing methods of expression and the "in the Spirit" or "in the human" discussion, but even what could very well be genuine demonstrations of love for God can cause me to fidget or close up. Emotion of that sort is an extremely private thing for me, and it repulses me to see it displayed publicly. It is no doubt partially a masculine hang-up and partially reactionary and also partially legitimate.

There is a school of thought that views the Song of Solomon as an allegorical expression of Christ's love for the Christian and vice versa. And, though I experience no awkwardness reading the Song as an ode to eros, I clinch up a bit reading it as a love poem from God.

St. John of the Cross, the man who gave us the phrase, "the long, dark night of the soul" used some very provocative language in his reflections.

"O living flame of love that tenderly wounds my soul in its deepest center! Since now you are not oppressive, now consummate! if it be your will: tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!"

If somebody came up with that in church, I'd have to run to the restroom.

But viewed allegorically, it is entirely appropriate and even a needful and sometimes lacking attitude in our view of God.

I am not suggesting that we can, or are supposed to, feel love for God. You are to show your love for Him by obedience in everything, but we are not commanded to manufacture emotion, if anything, we are not to manufacture emotion. But I empathize with the question, since it seems as if it should be such an integral part of our relationship with God.

We cannot see God, cannot touch Him, cannot even count on His felt presence, so how are we to love Him, in the sense we are using? ( Well, Jennifer, you might've asked someone else the question, given my relationship with emotion. I don't have much use for it, or it doesn't have much use for me.)

Obviously, the flavor of our relationship with God, the feeling it provokes is going to vary with personality. My grandparents serve as an example. On my mother's side, Grandpa comes across to me as more reserved publicly than Grandma. On my dad's side, there was a unique role reversal. Grandpa was always more emotional in his testimonies and conversation than Grandma was. There are no levels to this. And we were each created with personality differentials, so there is no right/wrong.

There is a long-lasting movement in the contemporary music scene called worship music. It generates a lot of mush, a lot of jokes, and a lot of satire. (read Frank Peretti's Visitation)

I've listened to some of it. Don't care for most of it, tolerate some of it, and actually like precious little of it, mostly because I don't care for the repetition. It makes me suspicious of two things; the writer's creativity and the entrancing aspect of repeating the same thing over and over again. Though, to be sure, my personal taste is not always the same thing as sound judgement. I remember being disgusted with the lack of depth and theology of a chorus in our chorus book. "What is this, 'the trees of the field will clap their hands', I mean, who writes this stuff?!"

Isaiah, it turns out, was the culprit.

But the attitude of much worship music, to be fair, is prayerful and seemingly genuine; an expression of love for God. Here again, this actually proves nothing. I remain quite convinced that the same person who could conceive, write and sing "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever," or even, "My Jesus, I Love Thee" could be, in practice, an outstanding hypocrite.

Can you cultivate love for God?

I think so. And this we are in fact commanded to do, by prayer, Bible reading, prayerful meditation and holy living. But the thermostat doesn't control weather outside. God may wish you to feel love as an emotion or, He may wish you not to. I mentioned the long, dark night of the soul, and I've written about Mother Theresa's crisis of emotionless service. I think part of the problem is conventional wisdom. The ability to feel love for God is viewed as the norm and even proof of your relationship. I'm to the point where I'll scream if I hear one more preacher say, "When is the last time you really broke through to Heaven?" as questioning the health of your Christianity. It is a shallow, emotions driven view of spirituality, but it pervades our thinking in other, more subtle ways. We are programmed to expect emotional victories to spiritual battles, bright rays of God's favor after spiritual storms, and mountains after valleys. Sometimes, however, we fight Vietnams, live in Seattle, or walk in Kansas.

The feeling of love, the genuine feeling, not the schmaltz, not the mind-numbed vain repetition, not the syrup, but the genuine freedom, the soaring flight, that feeling, is something that God may choose to allow us to feel, as a gift to us. The feeling of love is not a gift from us to God. Our obedience, our attentiveness, our willingness, our brokenness is our gift. The feeling is sometimes His reciprocation, but when it doesn't come, remember that this means that He trusts you enough to serve Him without the blessing.

Hope that helps.

'Course He Isn't Safe

2008-04-13T08:20:00.003-04:00

A few days ago, we hauled out a chess board. I harangued Devan into playing, over protests she couldn't remember how to play. Five or six years ago, I taught her. I taught her so well, that she beat me in the second game. I quietly put the board away, and we spoke of it no more. But I figured to be mature enough now to take my lickings and enjoy it.

At the outset, I felt pretty good. Two white knights and two pawns were dispatched by my black bishop. But then she remembered how to play.

It is a little misogynistic, this superiority a man would like to feel when teaching the little woman to play chess. Not that I would want to totally annihilate. I could pause cryptically when she appeared to be about to make a dumb move, nod encouragingly when she made a good one.

Win reluctantly.

But I became aware, as I watched my hapless bishop succumb to her imperious queen, of a mind more patient and calculating than my own. Aside from reminding me how much I love the fascinating unique personality of the woman I married, it told something else to me.

I remarked to Devan that I thought we should play more often because I thought it would teach me patience. Something in me rebels at the effort required to consider every possible angle of attack before moving.

Yesterday morning I grimly went out into the garage to face my lawnmower. A love-hate union from the start, my relationship with the walk-behind suffers greatly when it doesn't start on the first pull.

It didn't. Abetting the alienation, what little affection I do possess for yard work had been transferred to a cute little manual reel mover at Lowe's. I had done little more than look, but the allure of a non-mechanical device, the quietness, the simplicity. . .I was definitely interested.

After two hours, I don't want to talk about how many pulls, and the desperate resort of crimping the wire tighter on the spark plug, the old-battle-axe started.

I mowed the yard, my satisfaction at having succeeded conflicting with my disgust at having to keep the dumb thing.

I lack patience. I want things resolved quickly, especially when it is a chore I resent spending time on anyway.

I suppose such a quirk would be acceptable were it limited to things of a more practical nature, but I sometimes find it spilling over-

Strike that. Okay, it's pervasive. No matter how much I study Job, or dump buckets of introspective observation over my head and everybody else's, I don't like it when I can't figure things out. I'm not a neat freak, and I hate routine, but when something comes along that bucks my traces, or won't fit in that one little box I have, as far as I'm concerned I don't have time for it.

There has yet to be an enigma in Scripture or a challenge in philosophy that I don't eagerly accept. I enjoy the unusual. But not much time escapes before I have it wrapped up in a neat little bundle and tied quickly with a string so the recalcitrant thing can't unroll again.

Now, on to the next unsolved mystery of the universe. Why does God allow suffering?

Hhmmmmm. Deep.

I think, (stroking my beard) it is for our own good.

Never mind my lack of experience in the field.

I enjoy thinking about abstracted conundrums. Trouble is, I don't stop there.

An innate fear of loose ends compels me to tie them up in your basic square knot.

A couple blogs ago, I mentioned how modern Christianity rushes toward happiness of a shallow depth. What differentiates me from, say, Zig Ziglar, or Joyce Meyer, is that I can package death and suffering with a little more flair for the melancholic, but still safe, far from the edge of the terrible unknown.

Do you understand? I look down my nose at the ostriches, over the rims of my rose-colored glasses.

God won't fit in your stupid little box, you have to have a much bigger one.

The subject has the fascination of horror. I don't completely understand my obsession with pain and suffering and the seeming cold transcendence of God Almighty.

A mortal perspective of the story of Job is a gloomy one. It appears to be blood sport or a cosmic image of two children placing a dog in between them and both summoning the animal to see who he will run to first.

The great question seems to me not one of circumstances. It is a question of motive.

Not God why did you make life so hard, or even, why did Grandma suffer?

No. God, what were You thinking when You infused dirt with a soul. Was the risk worth the reward? More to the point, was it worth it to us?

The mortal perspective gets colder when you widen it to include all humanity.

Why should we care how You suffered to save us, when we didn't ask to be born to be lost?

And "His ways are above our ways" has the same final unreasonableness as "Because I said so." Staring at the ground at our feet, God appears a capricious bully.

And in the spirit of this post, I will end my speculation here.

Slouching Anywhere But There

2008-03-27T18:29:00.004-04:00

Bro. Wright makes a nice lead in to another topic.

In the 1880's, in Topeka, Kansas, a young Congregational minister began a series of sermons based on a thematic question, "What Would Jesus Do?"

He is also reported to have been the first one to inscribe WWJD on an adhesive label and apply it to the back of his horse-drawn carriage.

I'm sure you're familiar with the fictionalized message In His Steps, and the minister Charles Sheldon.

A Christian's place in society comprises the heart of the book and the moral decisions dictated by the characters' faith begin to revolutionize the town, and as memory serves, the revolution ripples all over the country, resulting in a wave of societal responsibility and temperance as it relates to alcohol, specifically.

It is a Christian classic and it has spread enormous impact over the last century.

In fact, the philosophy of moral responsibility propagated by Sheldon inspired a theologian named Walter Rauschenbusch, the man generally credited with creating the Social Gospel.

Time marches on. If you've read the book, you'll remember that some of the principles stood upon by the faithful would be enough to brand anyone a hard-line legalist in 2008.

Things change as the world slouches toward Gomorrah.

It's sobering to note the slide from the original Christian left to our current crop. You started out with Sheldon. The next memorable mark is William Jennings Bryan, the silver-tongued orator of the Scopes Monkey Trial. Then we go from FDR to Hubert Humphrey, Jimmy Carter, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, to Barack Obama.

Then throw Tony Campolo, Jeremiah Wright, Cornel West, and, for good measure, former shock rocker Alice Cooper into the mix.

So why blame it all on Sheldon, the original Christian socialist?

You know everyone likes to point to the early church as a model of socialism. In fact, the earliest socialistic thinkers were Christians, or at least deists. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were disgruntled johnny-come-latelys who stripped the idea of the opiate and marketed it on a government scale.

What about that? Well, I think the obvious points to the fact that the communal living of the early Christians was as much of a matter of expediency and a sign of the times as was the gift of unknown tongues. And the tongues of fire.

Anyway, you know what Ronald Reagan said. Socialism only works in heaven where they don't need it, and in hell where they already have it.

But there is a serious question to all of this. Where does good Christian activism, i.e., pro-life, pro-family, anti-pornography meet Christian socialism?

It strikes me that Sheldon may have been spot on.

Initially.

Movements, however, lose inertia. And the coal to the fire becomes anything you can lay your hands on. And the problem with movements is they need self-justification to run on.

You start out, like Charles Sheldon, with a noble premise.

Complications arise when you have to incorporate.

I can say to myself, I need to be more vigilant of the danger of adultery.

Well . . .nothing amiss with that goal.

So I begin to guard my conversation and conduct around any member of the opposite sex.

So far, so good. I have to recognize that Satan always picks your blind side.

My daily devotions take on a theme. Lord, don't let me fall to adultery. Help me to be careful.

I testify at church. "I am determined never to fall to adultery!

"Amen, hear it." all around. Except my wife is giving me the cocked eyebrow. Methinks thou dost protest entirely too much, she thinks.

I start a men's group committed to being faithful.

No, I didn't say it was Promise Keepers.

But. . .

We begin a city wide crusade. Complete with rallies, and prayer breakfasts and I Heart My Wife bumper stickers.

I become the face of fidelity. I give talks, lectures, invocations and go on Focus on the Family.

Soon the concept of well-roundedness becomes confined to the orb of fidelity. I am well-rounded in the sense that I don't commit adultery, I don't lust after other women, and I don't read Cosmopolitan in the checkout line. I am a committed specialist.

Before long, I am something of an authority on faithfulness, and something of a rock star at church events and evangelical functions.

Hundreds of women gaze raptly up at me as I speak on the virtues of monogamy and hundreds of men ignore the snide little question nagging them as they sit beside their transfixed wives.

I am lauded and respected for making a production out of keeping a promise, and more to the point, I am majoring on the minors. No, fidelity is not insignificant, but it is a measure, a symptom of my love for the woman I married, and that whole love affair, when fallen into by two Christians, is a symptom of their love for God.

Or, to put too fine a point on it, I can write a little book on how a certain Old Testament prayer, when incanted today, can lead to a blessed life.

And before you know it, I'm smack in the middle of a boardroom meeting with my lawyer and ten marketing executives discussing copyrights and royalties for coffee mugs.

Humans can't leave well enough alone.

Jesus feeds five thousand.

Let's have a coronation whether He likes it or not.

Peter wants to hole up in a temple on the Mount of Transfiguration.

The Israelites pay homage to a golden ephod.

Charles Sheldon starts with a simple objective and a few decades later you have a bunch of zealots with blinders on drawing up their own Edict of Milan and institutionalizing the concept of being like Jesus.

And guess what? Sooner rather than later, their focus is on the movement.

I mentioned Rev. Wright. The most insidious, anti-christ phrase I heard coming out of his mouth was not "God damn America," or "Jesus taught me how to love the hell out of my enemies."

It was, "Jesus was a poor black man."

I must say this. The exegesis would have been just as poor had he said Jesus was poor white trash, or Jesus was a dirt-poor Irish farmer, or Jesus was an exploited Native American."

Jesus was, as it relates to His understanding of our dust-constructed frame, all of those and much, much more. He cried with and wept with the slave who longed for freedom, He walks in trailer parks, He hungered with the potato farmers, and He stayed by the bedside of every Indian dying with small-pox and walked their Trail of Tears.

But His message was not so small in scope.

The inherent human refusal to look Aslan in the face, or let God out of the box translates into our language in a thousand different mantras. And most of them are completely true within perspective.

The weakness introduced to Sheldon's idea was not one of zeal, it was more one of self-centerdness. It is more to the liking and the bent of our human nature if we can focus on anything, even missionary work, to tune out the still, small disruptive voice.

Oswald Chambers returns again, and again, and again to the sacrament of being in love with God, not with any creed or device, I think because even the concept of being in love with God is subject to distortion when you gaze at it too long.

Don't look at the concept, don't lionize your cause, don't revere your closet, don't focus on your devotion.

Look at Him!

Reverend Right

2008-03-15T11:28:00.003-04:00

So I did a little reading up on this Reverend Jeremiah Wright. More specifically, I read up on his theology.
Black liberation theology appears to be a child of an effort launched in Mexico in the 1960's to pressure the Catholic church into a less autonomous, more empathetic philosophy.
And, indirectly, this appears to be an extension of the social gospel.
This is Christianity as a political movement, a societal revolution.
Seems that maybe the people who would've forcefully coronated Jesus as king of a political revolution were right after all and Jesus was just being a little timid or perhaps too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good when He removed Himself from their efforts.
Wright's shock talk isn't as tiring as his theologian role.
What is it, insecurity, immaturity, that paints a black face on Christ, or a white, Asian, Hispanic face?
It's not uncommon to hijack Jesus and crown Him as king of your agenda. It's Christianity extrapolated from humanism. Or, the reverse.
It is an effort to make the One who demanded you forget self the advocate of your self-interests.
It is an off-center portrait of Christ. He is fuzzy in the right foreground and the focus is on anything but Him.
He said, "The poor you have with you always."
What did that mean? Forget 'em?
More like, "Look at Me first. Focus on Me with all your soul and your priorities will realign the way I want them."
Social injustice grieves Jesus, almost as much as self-centerdness.
The one thing our Lord demands above all else is that we accept Him as the Creator of our desires and aims, and not attempt to re-create Him as the adjudicator of our interests.

Riddles

2008-02-25T17:33:00.004-05:00

Are Christians afraid of sorrow?
Yes, and why not, you may ask.
An article I read recently discussed the tendency of Christians to rush to happiness and to generally shun full-throated lamentation.
The extremities of which are the prosperity preachers, the name it and claim it proponents, also known as the blab it and grab it disciples.
I don't think I need to spend any time discrediting that particular line of thinking.
But the majority of us find ourselves in the middle.
We are so averse to trouble that we're in a terrible rush to justify every misfortune or tragedy that befalls us. One might think we were attempting to justify God to others.
Not so much. I think we are trying to justify God to ourselves.
One obstacle that has always presented itself to me when contemplating a direct request to God is just this. What will I do if God does nothing in response to my request?
The initial problem may well be that of complacency. I have no needs so desperate that I cannot afford to make do without them. Well enough. No point in making a mountain out of every molehill. (But then, had I the faith, every mountain would be a molehill.)
Too many mountains. No problem. I'll climb them.
God no doubt watches me strap on spikes and sling ropes and picks over my back at the foot of every molehill and quietly urges a new perspective.
Hearing no earthquake, fire, or whirlwind, however, I carry on. I'll save the mustard seed for when I really need it.
So it is with sorrow. We are deathly afraid of that which we cannot put in a box labeled Romans 8:28.
Upon a tragedy or mysterious problem we immediately begin casting about for answers to the riddle until we find one that is presentably plausible. Having a good reason to look at makes us feel better. The reason might be something so simple as God wanting us to not have to look for a reason.
Or bluff.
"That didn't hurt so much."
You'll notice that although Job did an awful lot of complaining, we're told he never once sinned with his mouth.
And you'll notice that although God set him straight, He was proud of him.
At the end of the book Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, Orual concludes, "I ended my first book with the words, no answer. I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You yourself are the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words."
And to Job's anguished question, God replies, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?"
When we receive the answer to our questions, we are not so much awed by the answer as by the futility of the question.
The answer to these riddles undercuts the posing of them.
We have no right ask the question.
Yet, when we do, God supplies the answer.
I AM.

One More Slap

2008-02-14T17:24:00.000-05:00

Its always difficult to admit to a shift in one's personal opinion.
That's why I'm not admitting to a shift in opinion.
A perspective shift is what I'll cop to, starting with the immigration furor over a year ago.
(I strongly suspect William Randolph Hearst of having stirred the whole thing up. Else explain the weary resignation of America to a porous border suddenly giving way to the out-of-the-blue frantic desperation. I shall state again that I am not opposed to fixing the problem. But I still think the sudden uproar is curious.)
All at once, I seemed to belong to, not so much a party, but an ideology, namely conservatism, that defined itself by one issue.
A reinforced border is a worthy goal, and the motivation for stopping the flow was largely well-intentioned, I think, but the din grew into a clamor such that a reasonable proposal offered by the president was labeled "amnesty."
To refresh your memory, the said proposal involved a fine leveled at illegals in the neighborhood of 6,000 dollars, retroactive collection of taxes, deportment for nine to fourteen years, a clean record for those nine to fourteen, successful background clearance, and a proficiency in English.
Then, and only then, could you attain legal citizenship.
If that's amnesty, then perhaps they've changed the meaning of the word and not told anyone.
But I digress.
Conservatives let their voice be heard. It was deafening.
I have not heard such a consensus on any other issue.
And that is precisely what began to nag at me.
I was willing to let it slide. Hey, what's a little jingoism among friends?
But the upcoming primary began to reveal another flaw in the conservative movement.
People calling themselves conservative supported Rudy Guliani for president and saw no incoherence in their own ideology.
Then as Guliani began his slide into history, following an ill-fated "don't sweat the small states" strategy, conservative punditry began to champion two other suspect candidates.
After the last three or four blogs, you may be thinking that I'm a little sore on the subject of talk radio.
Have patience. Maybe you never took these guys too seriously in the first place.
I think I took them more seriously than I should have.
I assumed they were coming from, and going in, the same direction I was headed.
Now whether the consensus of conservative punditry is the cause or the effect of the opinions of the majority of conservative voters out there, (I suspect the former) the fact is they were singing the song of a whole lot of people.
Aside from their exaggerration on McCain and Huckabee (Huckabee is a fire-breathing tax-raiser from Arkansas, thus a liberal, and McCain is no better, in some cases worse, than Hillary Clinton, in the opinion of a certain female columist who is long on shock value and short on substance) their praise of Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson was misleading.
Whether disingenuous or ignorant (I again suspect the former) the shut-out of all discussion about Mitt Romney's high-speed rotation on social issues and Fred Thompson's curt dismissal of past abortion lobbying was maddening.
They were true Reagan conservatives from way back. The seeds of Romney's stalwart Reaganism began to sprout as far back as 2004. Thompson appeared to be able to turn his off and on. But they were conservative by virtue of their position on immigration and big government. No mention of the social concerns that stem from the moral base that conservatism, I thought, was built upon.
My mistake.
Mike Huckabee, despite his numerous flaws, is a committed social conservative.
In the interest of clarity, could not the pundits have noted this, then pointed out his fiscal flaws and foreign policy hubris and let us make up our own minds?
Apparently not. He was a liberal. Because they said so.
Ronald Reagan combined morality with a strong distrust of big goverment and faith in capitalism and America. As far as I know, he never diminished social conservatism with an exclusionary emphasis on the other two legs of the stool.
In that sense, I guess Newt Gingrich was right.
The Reagan era really is over.

Nowhere to Go

2008-02-04T18:23:00.000-05:00

What purpose, you may ask, does it serve to continually dish up dirt on the top two Republican presidential contenders?
Because it is revealing to note how the political process works, and sobering but important to note how far things have regressed in the past several years, notably since 2006.
After the Democrats regained control of Congress, I was fearful (pessimistic) that this would cause the GOP to lurch left. At the time, it was Guliani I was eyeing suspiciously.
Now we have the frontrunner, the maverick, the thorn in the side of the elephant, the evangelical basher John McCain who claims the conservative label as loudly as anybody but has little right to claim it.
But this post has to do with the other one, the man conservative talk and print leaders are ramming down our throats as the true conservative.
Try this: "Mitt and Kerry wish you a great Pride Weekend. All citizens deserve equal rights, regardless of their sexual preference" This was printed on a leaflet distributed in Boston in 2002 during the annual Gay Pride March. Romney was running for governor, Kerry (Healey) for lt. governor.
And this:"We must make equality for 'gays' and lesbians a mainstream concern." This from a letter from Romney to the Log Cabin Club of Massachusetts, a Republican gay and lesbian rights organization. Romney also stated in the letter that he would be a stronger defender of gay rights than, hold on to your hat, Ted Kennedy.
Alan Keyes contends that Mitt Romney is himself responsible for the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Supreme Court declared the current marriage law unconstitutional but gave the state legislaiture 180 days to redefine it. Romney beat everyone to the punch. Romney said he had no choice. "Exercising illegal legislaitive authority" says Herb Titus, constitutional law expert, Romney issued an executive order ordering all state clerks to change state marriage forms and begin registering same-sex couples.
This is our "conservative" option.
Begins to make the lesser of two evils sound like a gross understatement.

FYI

2008-01-31T18:13:00.000-05:00

By way of confession, I find it easier to point out negatives.
It's easier, safer, and is more agreeable with my cynical nature.
This is why you will find more criticisms than endorsements in my opinions.
Endorsing anyone puts you out on a limb. You are then placed in a defensive position. The first time your guy does something stupid, people expect you to defend him.
It is not an exciting way to live, but you wind up eating less crow.
I would like to turn over a new leaf, and enthusiastically endorse a candidate for president. (I know how eagerly you await this endorsement.) but, I can't.
I assume that Mike Huckabee is floundering in the wake of McCain and Romney, and will most likely not regain footing.
So we have a two-man race.
I must admit that I struggle with personal preferences. I never cared much for McCain until Limbaugh and Hannity loaded up on him.

Rush Limbaugh said there was no difference between McCain and Clinton. And Sean Hannity in his usual intellectually dishonest fashion likes to remind people that McCain flip-flopped on such important social issues as tax cuts, immigration, and McCain-Feingold finance reform.

[In keeping with my nature, I would like to point out that the Limbaugh statement cannot even be called an exaggerration. It is a lie. And Hannity, well. . .Recently, a woman caller asked Hannity if John McCain had flip-flopped on any social issues in the past five to ten years. What issues, specifically, Hannity wanted to know. Abortion, gay marriage, the war, she responded. Well yes, Hannity deftly redirected, he has flip-flopped on several of those issues. He has flip-flopped on tax cuts, on immigration, and campaign finance reform. Are you confused, too? I think that was the point.]

I became so disgusted with their hyperbole that I unwisely began studying McCain more closely to dredge up something good.

In the pure spirit of reactionism, I reasoned that such obfuscation on the part of talk radio must conversely recommend the man.
But however unjustly they have judged him, he leaves much to be desired.
He has a consistent pro-life voting record, but is ambivalent on the repeal or overturning of Roe v. Wade. He has stated that he wishes there were "less intensity" on the issue of abortion.
He has staked out a disturbingly unclear position on embryonic stem-cell research.
He is opposed to a federal marriage ammendment, citing state's rights. (Though I would remind you that the early-on favorite Fred Thompson held the same position.)
He has yet to clear up what he was about in 2000 with his evangelical-bashing rampage.
I commend him for supporting the permanent establishment of the Bush tax cuts, but I would commend him even more had he the foresight to support them in the first place.
Robert Novak insists that McCain did, in fact, state that Samuel Alito was "too conservative."
And last and least, John McCain is a global warming disciple.

Now, the other one.
Was it not as recently as 2004 when conservative punditry justly deconstructed John Kerry for being a flip-flopper? Well, we appear to have the Republican equivalent in Mitt Romney.
I guess we all know that Romney was pro-life, then "effectively pro-choice" when running for governor of Massachusetts, then at some point during his governorship underwent a change of heart that he neglected to tell anyone about, and returned to his pro-life position.
In the interest of being unlike Hannity and Limbaugh, I researched this as carefully as I could.
Romney says he was "personally pro-life" originally, but when it came time to run for office felt that the issue of government intrusion into private life trumped his private pro-life beliefs. During his tenure in office, he became convinced otherwise, and is now, publicly and privately, pro-life, although he still retains an interest in letting states make the decision.
Even if you ignore the suspicious timing, there is still an enormous ideological problem with choosing civil liberties and now, state's rights, over the right of babies to live.
How pro-life are you when you feel that the issue is a personal or state decision?
On the issue of gun-control, Mitt Romney has a powerful lot of explaining to do.
While governor, he stated his support of the state's strict gun laws and vowed to let no one chip away at them. He also supported the Clinton assault weapons-ban.

I will vote for either one of these against Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but I will find myself pining for the days of W, or even Reagan.
Input, anyone?

So Atlas Shrugged. . .

2008-01-16T23:33:00.000-05:00

The problem would have been clearly illustrated to you a couple of days ago had you heard our local conservative talk-show host; a self-described Christian conservative.
He was enthusiastically recommending the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
Now, apart from a snide suspicion that he was trying to display his intellectualism by discussing such a highly regarded but daunting book, I do not understand his connection of conservatism, (most particularly, that much maligned "compassionate" conservatism) with the ideology of a committed humanist.
But then, he is not alone.
Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, Trent Lott, Bill Buckley, Ann Coulter, Laura Schlessinger, George Will, Cal Thomas, Michael Reagan and Rush Limbaugh are all fond of quoting Rand and consider her a great influence on their thinking. I am aware that one can admire certain ideas of a particular person while discarding the rest of their ideas, but this goes deeper than that.
Some years ago, I heard Limbaugh discussing the book Atlas Shrugged. The only difference, he said, between he and Rand was that Rand did not believe in God and he did.
Small difference, that.
Hot or cold, night or day, living or dead, heaven or hell.
Ayn Rand's whole objective in life and the motivation for the book Atlas Shrugged, was the advancement of the complete autonomy of man.
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." thus stated Rand in the appendix to Atlas Shrugged.
Having relayed that quote is sufficient proof of the problem we have here. I would consider it a small problem indeed had Limbaugh simply misspoke when he stated the difference between he and Rand, but I don't believe he did. I think that he simply thought that the one difference between them was of great insignificance.
So, let me ask, how solid is a conservatism based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand?
Were this an isolated incident, or if this propensity for Rand was limited to Limbaugh the subject might not be worth broaching. But in reading the who's who of conservative ideology and finding all those disciples of Rand, I'm troubled.
Add to that list Clarence Thomas, and you compound the problem. He supposedly requires all of his first year law students to watch the movie version of The Fountainhead, one of Rand's earlier works.
I have watched The Fountainhead. It is an old black and white starring Gary Cooper.
Don't waste your time. Unless you really like over-the-moon melodrama.
The problem is not a minor technicality, it is not the i dotted or the t crossed.
It is a foundational defect. It is a matter of structural integrity.
The reason Rand was an objectivist and championed individualism was because she hated the idea of God.
In her early life, she found inspiration in the works of Neitzche and shared his "reverence for human potential and his loathing of Christianity and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant."
Kant believed that we cannot have certain knowledge about the true nature of reality ("things-in themselves"), but only of the manner in which we perceive reality.
Rand was decidedly more arrogant. She believed that if any perceived object interacts with the senses, everything there is to know about that object can be gained by your sensory interpretation. What you see is what is and only what you see, feel, touch is what is.
Kant believed that reason could lead you somewhere. Rand's objectivist epistemology worshipped reason as lord of the pantheon.
Rand diverged from Nietzche in a curious manner. In the minds of many, she out Neitzched Neitzche. She supposedly transcended his philosophy and considered him too enslaved to emotion and a subjective interpretation of reality. Unlike Neitzche, she believed that if anyone would gain power by achieving control of the masses, and in doing so, sacrificed their ideals and standards, they then unintentionally became a slave to those masses.
Bottom line, Rand created a religion of breathtaking arrogance.
Rand may be forgiven for some of her excess when you take into account a large part of her "theology" was in reaction to communism.
However, she arrived at a conclusion that is inherently more antichrist than communism or socialism.
It is a clever twist on an old argument.
You shall be as God.
Whether you care about the particulars of Randian philosophy is beside the point.
I think the reason that this grand scope of humanity, this rugged individualism, appeals to such strong personalities as Limbaugh, Reagan, Buckley, and Thomas should be fairly obvious.
It is a philosophy of vibrant, brimming pride; pride in capitalism, pride in patriotism, pride, most of all, in self.
Thus the seduction of Ayn Rand. She takes away God with her left hand and hands you the key to your inner power in the other.
The phenomenon of objectivism is symptomatic of a big problem with political conservatives.
They would see the objection to Rand's humanism as hair-splitting.
Whereas I see it as the difference between right and wrong.
The manifestation of the larger problem with conservative ideology is the excitement of today's leading conservatives over the prospect of lower taxes and balanced budgets at the expense of moral issues.
I listen to these intelligent people and I hear them hold forth on fiscal policy, constructionism, civil liberties and immigration and they make sense on most of these issues.
I wish they would devote the same amount of intelligence to the problems of our nation's heart.
You talk about what you care about. Out of the abundance of the heart. . . .
Next time you hear a conservative hyperventilating over the genius of Ayn Rand, remember how foolish she really is, and remember the folly of placing too much trust in our uneasy alliance with libertarian leaning Republicans.