done with religion

it's been a long time coming I think, but I might be able to articulate a trajectory for its complete demise in my life and thought. I am done with religion...in some very particular ways.

I am done "going to church" and all the guilt and awkwardness associated with the fact that I don't, and haven't for a long time.

I am done with "religious" as a separate area of human experience. I'm not quite sure what it means anyway...at least other than little clubs and meetings and sets of rules and boundaries to keep the in-groups safe from otherness. Of course there are myriad such in-groups, but we tend to call "religious" the ones that give particular names and attributes to their gods.

I am done with "religion" when it means trying to figure out where God ends and the world begins...
when it means trying to put boundaries around what's possible...
when it means castrating the dynamic presence of the Holy One in our midst...
when it means exhausting the revolutions of the Spirit...
when it means detouring the way of Jesus...
when it means the exclusion of even a single person from the fellowship of triune love...
when it means justifying hatred, ignorance, violence, oppression, abuse, neglect, and fear of any creature for whom Christ lived, died, and was raised.

I think I have some allies in Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer at least. I'm not alone here, not striking out on my own, not neglecting the communion of the saints...just trying to tear some walls asunder, to widen the book of saints, to break the stained-glass blinders, to give God some overdue praise for being where we never think to look.

Religion is dying...and as it goes God trembles his sarcophagus ever stronger...be afraid for if she ever escapes.

theology and culture's bastard children: part one

I was talking to my roommate recently about the first chapter of my dissertation and it occurred to us that in similar ways both theology and various aspects of popular culture are snubbed and demeaned by the larger consensus. One of the ways I link theology to comic books is to argue that in early American history religious thought was central to the life of New England, the cultural center of the colonies out of which our first hero stories emerged. Chapter one details the ways in which these stories were in fact informed by theological and philosophical convictions.

Since then, however, theology has taken a back seat in our cultural life, both with regard to belief and religious attendance, as well as to public discussions of religion, the last of which is usually limited to soundbites by extremists who hate evolution and homosexuals. Comic books are also among culture's rejects, along with video games, role-playing games, sci-fi and fantasy literature, and, of course, the respective fandoms which attend all of these art forms, which, as any geek will attest, has significant crossover. The film adaptations have helped give various geek texts some mainstream merit, but by and large the assumption is still that these things are either for kids (comics, video games), or a particular group of social outcasts who have not learned to compromise and play by the dominant culture's rules (i.e. being attractive, playing lots of sports, going to clubs, wearing trendy clothes, making lots of money, getting lucky with the opposite sex, and/or castrating your creativity and imagination so you can live in the suburbs with a white picket fence and work for corporate America).

To the extent that geek culture is an escape from the unwanted expectations of clean-cut Americana and its often dirty underbelly, I find it a welcome one. It was the gruesome horror comics of EC back in the 1950s that exposed the false happiness of the white, nuclear, suburban family arguably most intensely, highlighting the domestic abuse, alcoholism, and fear which lay under the surface. The superhero comics of Marvel and then DC in the late 1960s and 1970s showed us the racist and sexist elements of white America. Geeks today, I think, are similarly rejecting dominant cultural expectations and stereotypes by reorganizing their communities by criteria other than blood relations; finding belonging with those who share similar recreational passions.

Theology has much to offer geek culture. First, though, a tangent. I have not studied this in depth, and I'm willing to be corrected, but my impression is that the percentage of atheists and agnostics is much higher among geeks/fanboys/gamers than in the general population. IF this is the case, I suspect that it has to do with the fact that many religious institutions are part of the dominant establishment and have contributed to the perpetuation of cultural expectations which necessarily hinder creative expression and social difference. In other words, churches (and temples and mosques I suppose) have participated in such myths that only kids read comics and play video games, everyone should live in nuclear families in the suburbs and men should be jocks, etc. To the extent that churches have proliferated these expectations, however, they have done so erroneously.

Part of the significance of theology for geek culture, and all other social rejects, is that they are fully embraced and emboldened by a living God who, according to the Bible, is never satisfied with the stale worship and practices of those who claim to be his people. This is to say so much more than that God loves geeks in spite of their non-conformity. Rather, it is to say that God encourages and inspires all manner of wondrous variety and actively crushes systems of oppression which hinder uniqueness, individuality, creativity, freedom, love, acceptance, and imagination. The spaces of the Triune life are Infinitely immense and capacious. God's self-proclaimed people constantly discourage difference and change and creativity and call it obedience, when its proper name is fear. God, however, is not afraid of us.

theology of expression

I was listening to Minnesota Public Radio (the Current, 89.3 fm in the Cities) on the way home from work yesterday and the dj was talking about why some of the most original music comes out of Minnesota. Certainly he has some bias, but it was interesting listening to him analyze a few different reasons offered by some for our (supposed) creativity. Was it the winter? Probably not especially, although the depressing winter months can be a great incubator for creativity, he mused.

Although this was interesting, what caught my attention most was that he paired creativity with personal expression. When we create something original and unique we are sharing ourselves with the world and offering our own voice to it. Tattoos and other body art as well have long been considered as personal expression, which...now that I think about it...really makes me wonder if that is the reason body art is still a rather esoteric practice not entirely accepted by dominant society in America. I think the case could be made that more people now than ever are exploring body art, but the stigma is still there. Think about music as well. The aforementioned dj works for a station that plays very unpopular, unique, original, and often local music. Occasionally there are some songs that crossover between the Current and mainline stations, but for the most part their music will never be anywhere near a top 40 list.

I think there is a connection to be made here to body art. The dominant culture, for all the shrift we pay to originality and independence and personal expression, puts incredibly restrictive boundaries on such things. Popular music is for the most part limited to the same bands year after year and literally the same songs day after day, sometimes just an hour or two between repetition on mainstream stations. The decay of time of course demands that new bands and musicians will become popular, and gradually over the decades sounds have changed...but in reality the music which we call popular is just a small sampling of what is actually being created on a daily and weekly basis, and mainstream stations, by limiting their playlists to what is currently popular, act as blinders. With body art the dominant culture is even more restrictive, many workplaces allowing nothing more than earrings or conventional jewelry to be displayed.

And think about where most of us work? The vast majority of us are cogs in the Capitalist industrialist machine in which originality is implicitly, if not expressly, forbidden for fear that genuine individuality will hinder the march of economic progress. For the most part, we are allotted our off time for leisure and very limited space at the workplace...usually just for pictures to be set or funny cartoons to be posted. If we work retail or something similar with not even a small desk or cubicle to call our own our room for expression is even more limited. I suggest, quite contrary to the establishmentarian god which is usually mistaken to be the Christian god, that Trinity opens space for us to be expressive, to reveal ourselves in all of our wondrous uniqueness.

Every creature, already and simply as such, is related to its creator. The individuality of each creature means that the relation of each to God is unique. This is intensified with human creatures, whose brains have a mutually constitutive relation with language, art, worship, tool-making, and self-consciousness. This means that we are more suited to develop unique personalities and distinctions; likes and dislikes; as well as reflect upon our experiences in unique ways. God is the origin and condition of our special particularities described above, and as such is the font of our individuality and creativity.

In addition to this, moreover, it is God who calls us to self-expression, quite often in direct contrast to the social and cultural customs which would squelch our creativity. We can see this in the historically close connection between art and oppression. African slaves developed unprecedented genres of music out of their experiences of captivity and suffering. It is also no surprise that artistic people tend to be the most eccentric and misunderstood. They, like entire groups of oppressed people the world over, are voicing themselves, publicly yearning to differentiate themselves from the dominant and so often homogenizing milieus in which they live.

This, I propose, is an inherently theological activity. The God who reveals Itself in the Bible is not at first recognized as the God of the Universe, but only as the local deity of the band of Israel. Already in his intensified wooing of human creatures YHWH begins with a particular community. The advent of Jesus as well is understood at first as the fulfilling of promises to this same people. Only as we are "grafted on" to their family through Jesus does the salvific significance of his incarnation become offered to all creation. Precisely so, then, does the call to creativity and expression to every human person have a distinctively Christian importance; for in the man Jesus and his unique relation to the one he called Father we have a prototype of expressiveness, a firstfruits. That we are subsequently called to share in this unique relation does not at all entail that we are to be in no way different from Jesus. On the contrary, he was the man that he was as the altogether particular man that he was, a first century Palestinian Jew, for starters. That our call to walk in the way of Jesus includes both our own cultural, social, and personal distinctiveness and communion with him and all others means that the separation of particular and universal are transcended in relation to him; the subversion/deconstruction of all categoricality.

Should you break the mold and get that tattoo, write that poem, make that movie, write that song, paint that image, get that piercing? I don't know. Maybe I could give you an opinion on it. But I want to hear your voice...the world needs to know you who you are. Maybe if all else fails and you still don't know, and you're still afraid...consider Jesus.

Happy-Go-Lucky

Last night I watched a British film called Happy-Go-Lucky. I heard about it because it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay this year (Mike Leigh, who also directed, has been nominated for six Oscars at this point and never won yet). I have watched a lot of movies lately, but am deciding to write on this one because it is particularly applicable to my life at the moment. Not that the others are not inspiring and moving, but there is some distance there in other ways which make them less immediately poignant.

The synopsis from Oscar.com made me want to see it:

Poppy [Sally Hawkins], a London schoolteacher, lives her life with a cheerful optimism that never wavers in the face of problems or setbacks. When her bicycle is stolen, she begins driving lessons with the angry, fiercely repressed Scott, while her concerns for the welfare of a young boy in her class lead to her meeting with a likeable social worker who is drawn to her open-hearted approach to the world.

It is a very simple film, but Poppy's optimism and Hawkins' performance make it work. Her charm and pluck also stand out so much against the unhappiness and brokenness of the people she meets that it challenged me to observe more closely my own attitude to people, especially at work, and to others' attitudes toward each other. It also convicted me because I have always struggled with finding the best in people who I don't know, who are unpleasant, who are awkward or strange or too different, or who are themselves pessimistic.

For some reason, largely because of this movie I think, my attitude was different at work today. I consciously thought to myself that I am going to be friendly today, and forced myself to see ordinary people in a positive rather than negative way. This expressed itself in a few ways. For one thing, I decided not to complain so much about conditions at work. Partially because of the economy, there are a number of things that are becoming difficult working retail: less staff, more responsibilities, stupid corporate decisions, etc. This is in addition to the everyday frustrations of annoying customers, slow computers, quirky coworkers, and so on. So, I decided not to complain as best I could, not to speak words of pain or depression to others, and not even to think harsh thoughts about others. It worked for the most part, and I just felt better because of it: better about where I was at, about having to stand at the register the whole day, about having to deal with lack of coverage, blah blah blah.

Another thing I realized today is how difficult it can be to encourage people if you are not used to it. Granted, there are those who are close to me, or whom I deeply care about, that I love to encourage, but strangers and coworkers not so much. So today there was an older lady who did not seem very happy, but she had cool eyeglass frames. I mustered up the courage to tell her I liked her glasses, just being afraid of what her response would be. Lo and behold, she smiled and said thank you, as if she did not expect it. It made me feel good too, seeing her smile and knowing that she took it as a compliment.

It is days like today that make me even more admiring of the people I know who make encouraging others a way of life; who are giving and loving and hopeful and cheerful almost by nature. And the strangest thing of all might be the fact that I WANT to be like this. I am a critic and complainer by nature, and I have grown used to seeing the dark side of life, of the world, of people, of institutions, of ideas. After today I can't help but think that much of that has to do with how I see myself and my situation and my future. I have had to force myself to get accustomed to disappointment, so much so that I have brought it upon myself often unintentionally. Some of this is the way of wisdom and suffering; of learning to realize that life can be painful and disappointing. To see life as naively rosy is to me unfortunate, not because optimism is stupid, but because many people like this can't handle when things fall apart around them, or else they get used and abused. I have lived most of my life in the shadows, in the expectation that I will be failed and left, and have learned to deal with it with God.

And now...I want to be more like Poppy, however hard it will be to make those decisions day to day, and however much it feels out of place for me. I want to live in the sunlight; I want to expect great things; I want to not only love but be loved unconditionally; I want to see the best in people; I want to believe that God will bless me; I want to trust my friends and family; I want to think that I deserve things I am willing to work hard for...marriage, a family, a job I look forward to, good friends. This does not equate to the American Dream, or to the neglect of the real tragedies which exist in the world and to which I unwittingly contribute, but it does mean that words of life and change and repentance and forgiveness and healing and peace can be brought just as powerfully with a smile, maybe even more so, than with a grimace.

Gay Sex and the Judgment of God...part three

And so, with this definitive judgment of God upon humanity - that as men and women we are beautiful, good, and beloved - and sexuality - that we share life with one other person in fidelity, trembling, and wonder - we lay now the judgments against all other voices, in the context of the question of homosexuality specifically against apathy, hedonism, and condemnation.

Against hedonism, which includes all manner of promiscuity, gay and straight, comes the word of God that true human sexuality is fully realized only in faithfulness, commitment, and monogamy. The theological origin and condition of this possibility is not the biological datum that our species tends to mate with one partner for life. This is not of course true for all cultures, nor is it a universal view among paleoanthropologists. The male, as all too often attested by women's tears, often feels the need to spread his seed and run from the attendant responsibility when those seeds bear fruit. This is an evolutionary leftover.

Rather, the theological root of the possibility of sexual fidelity is the jealousy of Israel's God. The jealousy of God is, as far as I know, not a popular topic in churches, or in talk of God in general. I have never heard a sermon on it, and popular culture tends to have great disdain for jealousy...but if YHWH were not jealous for us we would have no Jesus and no hope. For out of all the deities in the Ancient Near East, only this god was fully immersed in the trivialities of human history; only this one declared that humanity is very good; only this one demanded faith from his chosen people; and only this one has remained faithful to even death and resurrection. His jealousy for his beloved and his infinite, incessant commitment to her beyond all boundaries, all failures, all frailties, all defeats...this is our hope and our future. If God were not jealous, did not demand all from us, we would be lost and abandoned, left to wander in misery and vanity.

Does this not sound familiar? Does this not sound like the cry of each of our hearts for all the loved ones who cross our path? Isn't this the deep longing we have for one other who will share that path with us, in all its labyrinthine turns and maturities? We want to be loved with abandon, but without being left; to be smiled upon at the times when all we can do is cry; to lay baffled in the tender mercies of one who holds us in spite of ourselves. Such is the jealous, raging love of God...and such is thus the possibility, remote as it often feels, of human sexuality. The hedonists abandon this possibility for impulsive physical gratification; for chance encounters where nothing is demanded of me, where I demand nothing in return. In short, where no one is jealous...and accordingly no one is faithful, committed, or intentional.

The jealousy of the Holy One of Israel is also the condition of judgment against the apathy of individualists whose creed is "to each his own." YHWH will not have this; he is God not merely of persons but first and foremost of his people. And this city on a hill is meant to stand not only over against other peoples, but to make all other persons and peoples God's own. The communal nature of human life, the becoming within the spaces created for each of us by those around us, means that we are never left to ourselves. Child and developmental psychologists attest that to be left alone means death, or more often at least the retardation of abilities to connect with others, a situation utterly void of life and well-being, keeping us in fear unless we then later do the hard work to heal from it...which, of course, requires risks of vulnerability and attachment.

Moreover, this individualistic attitude is really an excuse to not give a shit. Harvey Milk, as seen in the quote in part one, saw this, and criticized it because the hard work of cultural transformation requires stepping out beyond your comfort zone to really, genuinely make connections with the hurting and oppressed. For him, of course, it was the gay street people primarily, the ones that were ignored even by those sympathetic with them. The Jealous One of Israel knows this as well, and in the Bible is continually judging his people and other nations for their disregard of the poor and oppressed.

I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies....Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. - Amos 5:21, 23-24

This judgment comes also against those who would condemn homosexuality as such. If, as I discussed in part two, human sexuality is about holistic commitment to one other person, since we are as a people, a species, male and female, then mutual love with one other who would share the same biological sex as us is an expected expression of our plurality and differentiation. It seems now to be rather irrefutable that there is such a thing as biologically determined sexual orientation, however much we all make particular decisions about whom and how we love (and however loosely we define the word "determined").

The church's and dominant culture's disgust here is based not only on particular readings of Scripture, but on tradition and fear. This fear also plays into the apathetic liberal attitude of individualism. We are afraid to consider a different definition of sexuality, of marriage, of family, of what's appropriate. We are afraid to think that gay people can be healthy, loving, giving, faithful, and expressive of all the fruit of the Spirit. And when we come across those who clearly are, who clearly love and pray and work harder than us, whose relationships are defined by mutual respect and fidelity and encouragement, we still condemn them. This just does not make sense to me...not in light of the complexity and plurality of human life, and not in light of the God of the oppressed. It will be left to one more section to consider, as I promised in the first part, how more precisely the church may give genuine hope to gay people.

Gay Sex and the Judgment of God...part two

The primary judgment of God, the first word to humanity, is that it is very good; that we, created women and men, male and female in the image of God and told to be fruitful and multiply, were seen by our maker...and seen, indeed, as very good. Which is to say, that the most basic word to us, the most absolute determination of our destiny, is life: that we are beautiful, desirable, honorable, and preferred. This is not due to some logical extension of the idea of goodness, but rather to the infinite creative love of the triune God: we are very good because we are loved by the God of the Universe, by the Father, Son, and Spirit whose dynamic life gives form and future to that which is not; and as such is the reality with the only authority to tell us, with no confusion or equivocation, that we are lovely.

Precisely as such are we then also given to understand our biological unities and differences. "Male and female he created them." We are sexed and pluriform; this is the physical and social mode of our loveliness. We are not two men, or two women, or one man and one woman...but many persons, gendered and spaced and timed in the Infinite field of divine love. Such is the reality into which we emerge in our infant cries, and within which we strive to obey the command to live, however much we try to ignore that it is a command from our creator.

And such, of course, is the reality within which we long for another, one other, who will share this journey of obedience with us. Out of the multitudes of beloved creatures we tend to need, and desire, a partner who is like us just enough to share a life with, and different from us just enough to make it beautiful and terrifying. This companionship, itself determined to be lovely given that it is a contour of our createdness, is the home and context of our sexuality.

And with this determination comes my judgment against the apathetic liberals, the condemnatory conservatives, and the hedonistic individualists of all stripes, to be considered in greater detail later...

Gay Sex and the Judgment of God...part one

"It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

I don't much go to church these days. In fact, I basically abhor the phrase, "going to church", since it's not what followers of Jesus are supposed to be about (honestly, I'm not really sure what it means). But what whispers come my way reveal much anxiety over the issue of gay marriage...worshipers relocating, denominations splitting, and the recent public outcry over Proposition 8 in California (the irony of the phonetic similarity to "Preparation H" is not lost, hmmm). But let's get down to brass tacks: the concern is not immediately about marriage, but about gay relationships, gay sexuality, and especially gay sex...the intimate attachment between members (and members) of the same gender to a physically uninhibited extent.

And the question is almost always posed as one of morality: are such acts right or wrong? Religious people who weigh in immediately go to their sacred texts, and rightly so. For Jews and Christians there is, let's face it, no ambiguity: whenever the Bible addresses gay sex it is condemnatory, without exception. I know this well...and yet...and yet, as Jack Black says in the musical parody of Proposition 8, "The Bible says a lot of things."

This is true not only of the Hebrew Scriptures, but the New Testament as well. Their respective books are steeped in the cultural contexts and social mores of their times. But for all that God speaks; and one of the strands of divine speech through and through is that of judgment. I've chosen to portray my thoughts and feelings here in the vein of judgment precisely because discussions of gay sex are drenched and immersed in such language. Gays don't want to be judged, but often judge the judging attitude of those who judge them; and the majority group of "traditional values" judges the acts and lifestyles of those people who are judged to be deviant...according to their dominant judgment. And all those decrying judgment in whatever capacity have already made judgments, primarily that of not caring. We cannot escape judgment, and the act of judging. What follows is my own judgment on the matter, and although I cannot claim to speak for the Holy One whose judgment is absolute, I think that I too have the Spirit of Christ.

I have yet to discover a view which is something other than Western individualistic apathy on the one hand and naive literalistic condemnation on the other. Against both, I submit upfront, lay my judgments. Those who support gay sex and gay marriage generally do so because they already have a vapid view of sexuality and humanity to begin with. "People should be able to sleep with whoever they want and do whatever they want as long as they don't hurt anyone else." This is the thinking of those who see the individual person as the measure of all things; and the view, as it happens, of Thomas Jefferson, who felt that people needed enough land so as to live far enough apart from each other to avoid killing each other. Jefferson called this America; C. S. Lewis, in The Great Divorce, called it Hell.

Harvey Milk (the late, and first openly gay holder of public office in California and the subject of the recent Oscar winner for Best Actor [Sean Penn - Milk]), I think, saw at least intuitively some problems with this view. He knew that this type of apathy was not going to cut it. He knew, quite contrary to the comfortable, dominant liberalism of those do-as-you-please-but-leave-me-out-of-it individualists, that not caring was not a solution. In the Wikipedia article about him he is quoted as having said, quite to the point:

"We don't want sympathetic liberals, we want gays to represent gays ... I represent the gay street people — the 14-year-old runaway from San Antonio. We have to make up for hundreds of years of persecution. We have to give hope to that poor runaway kid from San Antonio. They go to the bars because churches are hostile. They need hope!"

This brings me to the second group of people, those who condemn. Read again what Milk says: "They go to the bars because churches are hostile. They need hope!" The hostility takes on many forms. The most explicit are those "Christians" (and other religious people, but in America it's primarily Christians) who attack gay people or parade down the street with signs that say "God hates fags." (Coincidentally, I have seen them in person, shouting in their horns and holding their signs for all the world to see...well, for the few people who happen to be around to see anyway.) Then there are those whose hostility is unintentional...the "hate the sin but love the sinner" types. They are still operating within the view that gay sex is incontrovertibly and unqualifiedly wrong, based in part on a particular reading of the Bible. To be sure, there are some in this camp, and I have known a few, who have a genuine heart for gay people and come alongside them in solidarity and compassion for their emotional turmoil. Yet, even though I once held this view, I think it is limited and not the best approach.

It is interesting that Milk, in the last quote, separates the church from that which gives hope to gay people. Certainly he himself was mistaken on many things, but this, I think, was accurate...and thus a sad estimate of the church's perennial failure to offer hope to gays and, in reality, other oppressed peoples. It will be left for the next part to explore what real hope might look like that does not give in either to apathetic liberalism or to conservative condemnation.

Theology after Rambo

I don't know that I can do it. I don't know that I should. I watched Rambo IV again recently and it called into question everything I'm doing, every vocational idea and desire within my field of vision. You would have to see the film to know why I say all this. To put it briefly, Sylvester Stallone specifically asked his people to find the biggest hot spot in the world that no one knows about, and they told him about the civil war in Burma (Myanmar), which has been going on over 60 years in which innocent people are being slaughtered by the military junta being run by one of the most ruthless dictators in history. He said in his interview on The View last February after it was released that the reason very few people know about it in the US is because lobbyists pay American politicians to keep their mouths shut about it. While on location in Thailand he said he received daily death threats. Say what you will about Sly, but he's got balls...and apparently a good heart to boot.

The film itself is mediocre. John Rambo, the former Vietnam Green Beret, is now living in Thailand making a living catching snakes in the wild and selling them. A group of American missionaries asks him to take them up river into Burma so they can minister to the oppressed people there. He refuses, but is convinced by the woman in the group, to whom he is clearly endeared. When they are captured by the regime, he leads a group of mercenaries to rescue them and some locals who have also been taken. What ensues is a gritty, violent bloodfest which makes The Passion of the Christ look like Bambi.

What disrupts me the most, however, is not the fictional violent reaction of Rambo, but the actual, real-life violence to which this film is Stallone's conscious response. When I studied the Holocaust (Shoah), I thought to myself that I could never do theology in the presence of burning children. Yet that was over 60 years ago, and this distance makes it less realistic. Rambo IV reveals a situation saddening and enraging and paralyzing all at the same time: the current massacre of Burmese peasants and children, portrayed in the film with chilling, graphic potency.

And here I am, living in a relatively safe place, with a warm roof over my head, food to eat, and good friends, writing a dissertation on theological anthropology and Marvel Comics movies. I feel so useless, so helpless, so powerless, and so shallow. I hate to think that I can't make a difference; that while I agonize over the details of my life, there are those whose little lives are endangered, who go hungry, who have nothing to make them feel safe, nothing to hold on to with any certainty. I want someone to tell me that my days won't be spent in mediocrity; or my efforts wasted on making comfortable people more comfortable.

And yet, for all this I am tearfully aware that sadnesses and losses abound all around me, even in my very home and among my friends. I understand that rich people still need to be cherished, that comfortable people are often scared and lonely, and that sometimes the most powerful voice is a gentle breeze of longsuffering, infinite love. Maybe I can do no more for those little ones so far away than pray. And just maybe, by loving those whom I meet every day, I will plant a seed of peace and encouragement and change which is carried to the ends of the earth. Such is still a frightening, trembling endeavor, but I think Stallone has done that for me, and I am grateful, convicted, and challenged.

Sex, Creation, and Family...part three

We must at this point consider those who have not been so blessed to be born into the love of a committed couple. It seems that more and more all the time this is less the case, as fidelity and dedication are no longer principle values in Western culture. The impact on children takes a variety of forms: abandonment, neglect, abuse, co-dependence. The question at hand is whether and how the affections of mutual lovers can create space and time for these little ones when they have not come from the biological womb of these lovers. The question is adoption.

Again we must consider the theological primacy even here. The New Testament, especially John and Paul, propose that our relation to the one Jesus called Father, the Holy One of Israel, is a relation of adoption. Paul's language is geared more toward Gentiles. How do those who are not of the Chosen People become right with the God of the Jews? His answer is that we are grafted on to their branch--their family--by intimacy with Jesus. After all, it was THIS one that Adonai Elohim, the God of Israel, called Son. John is much more universal. How does ANYONE have the right to call God Father? His answer, for both Jew and Gentile, is through Jesus. Theologically, John is saying that we can only call God Father by sharing in the life of the one Father called Son; by being his brothers and sisters; by not denying him; by being crucified with him; by being one with him...i.e. by being adopted.

And so...if ALL persons, however they are born and raised, however much they claim and lose, however they triumph or despair, are related to the God of the Universe only by adoption, with no birthrights to call their own, and no partiality to take for granted...if this is the case, then what about those who do not know, or have never known, the true love of father and mother? If the Spirit makes them brothers and sisters of Jesus, the one Father calls Son, then they become sons and daughters with Jesus of the one he in turn called Father. They are no longer orphans but children of the Living God.

As such the spaces of mutual lovers are not limited to their own biological children. The love which gives form to the world of creatures is the love which adopts them into the family of the triune God. And if that God is willing that those who have no claim on him should still be his children, without distinction, then just so should broken, fearsome lovers embrace those who are without parents. The love of creation is the love of adoption, and for those who take the lost little ones into the womb of their own fragile, finite affections...there is no distinction. They now share your love and your life as your own flesh and blood.

But this begs the inevitable question: what about orphans who are no longer children? What about those who have lived years, decades, with no true space to call home and no time within which to mature? Can mutual lovers create a bounty even for these ones? The answer must be yes; and just here we are opening ecclesiological domains which require more than the limited resources of two parents.

But then, if adopting all the destitute (emotionally, financially, psychologically, spiritually, physically, culturally) of the world is the responsibility of mutual lovers, then parenting is itself a communal venture. The dual space of father and mother subsists within the plural affections of the ones they also call brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers. There is no warrant here for a nuclear family which exists apart from a larger community of love. Such apartheid is an atrocity of white suburbia, at least in our context; a myopia of autonomous self-subsistence which is totally foreign to the Gospel. The Gospel, as I read it (sometimes myopically no doubt), is rather about the world being renewed and made right with God, and God making things right with the world. The latter is intended holistically; the former is then never accomplished alone.

Sex, Creation, and Family...part two

Theologically, the loving womb created by the father and mother is prefigured in the triune life of the Christian God, which is ultimately its origin and condition. The idea that human love and relations are analogous to the mutual affections of Spirit, Jesus, and the one he called Father is now common in theology.

That the finite world of creatures is an expression of this primal triune love is also common, but we must consider it further. Jurgen Moltmann maintains that Father, Son, and Spirit make a space for another different from them, and such is the basis of creation. The mutual giving and being-given-to of the triune persons, we might elaborate, simply IS the space (and time) within which creation subsists. The advent and evolution of creaturely forms is thus "already" possible simply given the dynamics of the Trinitarian love. We are merely spaced and timed finitely within that life, and nurtured by the abundance of resources gifted to us.

Human persons as finite creatures, on the other hand, must more precisely create space for finite others. Their womb is the mutual affections, culminating in sex and conception, which, like the Trinity, are the space into which new life is born. Mother and father also provide the resources integral to the child's growth, which gives raising children a temporal and not only spatial dimension. Moreover, the physical resources of food and shelter are never sufficient by themselves to ensure the life of children. Continuing love, this time not only between mother and father, but now also between child, mother, and father, is paramount. What were once dual affections become plural; the opening of love which creates a multitude of lovers. Such is also an indispensable contour of the Christian doctrine of creation.

Sex, Creation, and Family...part one

One impetus to this blog, and to a great deal of thinking for me in general, is that I am growing more emotional whenever I see children. Maybe not all children, but sweet, beautiful kids who in some way impress me with their intelligence or endear me with their speech or accent or smile. This fatherly impulse in me has existed for a rather long time, and I think helps to explain the tenderness and foolish selflessness with which I have pursued women who were more in need of fathers than boyfriends. As I mature and grow to love myself more this impulse is transforming into a desire to raise children and give them the selfless love which was inordinantly aimed in the past. Along with this growth is a desire to have a mutually loving, respectful, and adult relationship with a woman. And inevitably, because I simply cannot escape it, I ask theological questions...about these changes, these desires, and how they are all related.

One issue to which I have given a lot of thought (and about which I was recently reminded by Niebuhr I think) has to do with the relationship of sex, pleasure, and reproduction. The Catholic Church has followed Augustine and located the purpose of sex primarily within procreation. The accompanying ban on birth control is logically consistent with this emphasis on the strictly biological goal of sex. The contemporary worldview of supposed sexual liberation in Western culture has really taken the other extreme and all but abandoned the reproductive dimension of sex. I think both perspectives are incomplete yet contain important insights. The Catholic view rightly maintains the intimate connection between sex and family; while the modern view is correct that pleasure also is integral to sex.

And thus must I understand sex and family. The passion and pleasure: broken blemished bodies exploring each other in the utmost vulnerability of devotion, coming into one another gently with the sacred trembling of the unknown...such is the marriage bed, and such is the womb of new life. Its lack of appeal to our hedonistic culture is not foremost the perceived boredom and repetition of it, but rather the fear...of commitment, of responsibility, of being rejected, of things growing stagnant.

But out of such terror, such love as befalls us time and again, enter children. That this process can be beautifully explained should not mitigate its wonder and surprise; such an anesthetized view of science misunderstands it completely. Accordingly our sentiments are not to be derided when we refer to childbirth as miraculous. And this is not simply the biology, but more comprehensively the love which accompanies it and gives rise (yes, pun intended!) to the conception. The womb, more thoroughly speaking, is then not only the home made in the mother's body; but the tender, nourishing love of two fragile persons who have risked their future and happiness on each other, to the point of creating a space and bounty within their affections for an infinitely helpless stranger. That, in a world as sinful and lost as it is, is the miracle...and the hope.

Wounds for Better Lovers - brief thoughts on suffering

A few months ago, sometime during the summer, a coworker mentioned to me how tragic it was that a recent storm had claimed the life of a child. He wanted my feedback as a religious person (in his terms) - I reckoned with regard to the family that had to cope with their loss.

"Well," I said, "I suppose when that happens people either get really close to God or else they want nothing to do with God."
"I think you're right," he said.

The precipice to which we come when the most good and beautiful things are taken from us is momentous; and the pain staggering. For the wounded this is not mitigated by quick solutions or supposed philosophical explanations or booze or sex or revenge. This, to me, is the major point of Job: sometimes life hurts and God takes everything from you and no matter how much you writhe and debate there is no reason why. Or, to quote Tyler Durden from Fight Club: "Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing....This is your pain. This is your burning hand. It's right here." The edge of the knife, it seems, is what you do with your burning hand...or broken heart, or lost fortune, or dead child.

This scene in Fight Club is poignant not only for the words of Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) to the Narrator (Edward Norton), but also because of the latter's attempts to deal with his extraordinary physical pain. He first tries to resist, then tries to meditate and hide from the reality of the feeling. The analogy to emotional turmoil is apparent: change only comes with the acceptance of pain; with the boring, silent weight of the reality of absolute loss.

What, then, do we make of God in this suffering? Theodicy and apologetics are like telling a parent that since they have other children the loss of one should not be so bad; or like telling a woman just left by her husband that she deserved better anyway. They don't work, and moreover, they are not in the Bible. What the Bible seems to say, all around and not just in Job, is that pain is real; suffering is real; and sometimes life is shit...sometimes things just happen that we didn't deserve and that we can't explain away and that we can't make better. And if we are really honest, we have to admit that God never avoids the blame. Certainly people make mistakes and bring misery on themselves. That is as true today as ever. But even in those other cases, where nothing could have been foreseen or prevented, God does not shy away. God does not point the finger, or blame Satan, or pretend it's something other than excruciating.

At the same time, neither does he leave you alone, or act awkwardly around you like friends and relatives who are speechless, or offer some platitude of mock wisdom. God stays with you, and weeps with you, and rages with you. This is not some process theology in which God limits his power or knowledge or some other apologetic nonsense...that is to elide the depth of the pain. No, God gives heed to your pain. He is the one who tells you to cry and wail and mourn. He is the condition of your misery; the voice of your broken heart. He is the one who forces you to face squarely the gravity of your loss. He is the one who drags you through the slime and the mud.

But only so does he tell you that your destiny is in his hands. Only so, in the advent and crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, does he both affirm death and overcome death. Only so does he make death the last enemy, and declare to you in an even starker reality that suffering will not be the final word on creation.

And only so, through the brokenness and frailties and mortal wounds of losses that we cannot neatly explain or avoid, can we become better lovers. The point of no return is a fork in the road: either turn into ourselves with all manner of diluting the finality of our pain; or open ourselves to compassion with a renewed sense of the beauty of life, and hope beyond all that comes against it.

Though there may not be a point in asking why, we are always invited to ask, What now? And the closest we get to an answer is, love...not that born of cheap grace and a charmed life, but love from the dark reality that we have nothing to grasp...love that comes from hitting bottom and losing everything...that is born in the tear-stained conviction that nothing else is the fiber of the universe.

bloom

the other night i couldn't sleep
waking images of the life-stricken least of us
cold and stunted and still
dreams that never rise enough to even be shattered
tiny hopes scattered in the wind

i rage to find some solidarity
and every day i see a little further
through this disillusion of worthless trinkets
how do we enjoy these things when even one is left starving?
when even one is left poor and sick and unloved...

but my own tiny hope is that this rage would bloom
that this arising and unquenchable futurity
would shake away our atrophy and deafness
and when i see smiles it is like feeling the sun
like closing your eyes and being expansed and caught up
in the totality of life...

in the by all accounts impossible abundance of beauty
and being whispered to by ten thousand perfect Lovers
and the world shouting back with me
every lost and drowning voice; and every privileged and broken voice
every creature, every tongue, every whisper, every hope...

because the best dreams are the ones that keep you awake

Christmas Vlog 2008

Here is a special Christmas message from me to all of you...sorry it is so long, but I hope it's worth it.

When in the Course of human events...

One of my greatest struggles right now is whether or not to stay in this country when I am done with my degree and thus when the timing would be better for me to leave. For my dissertation I have read quite a bit on the founding myths of this country and have seen them exhibited firsthand in the viewpoints of the people I meet and the political rhetoric of our leaders and news broadcasts.

As one on the way of Jesus, the more I learn, the more I am saddened, because they are myths of Caesar, not of the risen Christ and the one he called Father. Early in our history we began to mistake republican/federalist forms of government for the Gospel; a necessary move in the theologians' eyes who were trying to maintain some shred of puritan faith in the public sphere. Coupled with myths of innocence, chosenness, natural superiority, social Darwinism, manifest destiny, and capitalist accumulation of wealth--all girded by a perennial ontology of violence--this distortion has turned demonic...and I want so much to leave it behind, even if for some place only slightly less deluded about its own grandeur.

I have chosen for the title of this blog the first line of our Declaration of Independence, not only because I love the poetic ring but also because it describes the condition of being at the brink of decision...as it was in 1776 for the founders so it is now for me. They had to decide how they were going to continue to relate to England and its king, and they chose to chart a new course. And I must also decide who I am going to be with regard to this United States, my mother country. Do I leave it all behind and suffer the losses of broken bonds with friends and family, as they did with their loved ones in England, often with bitter tears, as many accounts attest? Do I venture out beyond the narrow confines of America's ideological matrix to find solidarity with those who criticize her and even those who have fallen victim to her oppressive imperialism?

There are such creatures even within her own borders, of course, and it is to those that I feel the greatest obligation to stay and fight: the homeless, the poor, the marginalized, the disabled, those in prison, racial and religious and cultural minorities, women, homosexuals, and even those like myself who think the "American Dream" is little more than an opiate for the masses to keep them blind to the needs of the "least of these," as Jesus understood them. What do I do? In my efforts to choose Jesus, I am resolutely not choosing America, but does that mean tearing my clothes in prophetic outcry from within her own borders...or does it mean finding some measure of peace, simplicity, and solidarity within and among those who, although by no means perfect, are at least not so encumbered by apathy and the distraction of materialism?

I don't know...please pray for me, and for this place: so full of possibility, but continually deciding upon futility.

Adventures in Vlogging

Here is the first of what I am calling a "vlog", or video blog. I think they could be pretty fun, and maybe express my personality a bit more accurately than just text. This first video is part of a series in which I will chronicle my (probably futile) attempt to grow a beard. Let's see what happens....

The Anthropology of Cinematic Desire: a working proposal for postdoc research

Here is the proposal for postdoctoral research which I am working on at the moment. I would love comments and suggestions.

Tentative Title:
The Anthropology of Cinematic Desire: Explorations in Science, Religion, and Film



Part I: Evolutionary Biology, Religious Awareness, and Cinematic Creativity

This part will focus on the paleoanthropological roots of religion and film by way of an exploration of the mutually constitutive emergent phenomena which characterized early homo sapiens. This includes spoken language, self-consciousness, and symbolic thinking, as well as—most important for our purposes—religious worship, creative imagination, and artistic expression, the last primarily in cave paintings. Moreover, parallels will be drawn between ancient cave art and contemporary film viewing, especially with regard to the significance of community, narrativality, and eschatological/other-worldly desire exemplified in each.


Part II: Cognitive Neuroscience, Religious Desire, and Cinematic Experience

This part will attempt to bring the discussion up to date, as it were, by exploring the philosophical and scientific dimensions of how people experience films today. It is often proposed that filmgoing now offers an alternative to traditional religious observance in Western culture. While this is usually explored through sociological methods, new forays into the neuroscience of both cinematic experience and religious worship may help buttress the other approaches. Film theorists, philosophers, and theologians can then help us to appropriate the new data in order to formulate questions and illuminate intuitions regarding ultimate meaning and human religious desire.



For those whose primary interest is religion and film, this project will offer categories by which to complement—and even overcome some of the problems with—the common methodological approach to religion and film which sees these two phenomena of human experience as entirely disparate fields which we then attempt to bring into dialogue with each other. By exploring the shared origins of religious awareness and artistic creativity we are able to see these two contemporary dimensions of human life as integrally related already in the emergence of our species, and not merely as distinct phenomena. With that we can then re-approach the contemporary expressions of religious awareness and cinematic experience with attentiveness to their constitutive mutuality, opening up new ways of discourse. It will also serve to augment the prevalent focus on emotionality and subjectivity with scientific insights which contribute to a more holistic understanding of human aesthetic desire and its expression in film.

For those whose primary interest is religion and science, this project will offer ways of augmenting the traditional focus on rationality in that dialogue with vistas into emotional and artistic subjectivity, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of human experience. Moreover, it will help to enhance an appreciation of the significance of film, not only as a popular culture artifact but also—and precisely therein—as meaningful for and open to scientific inquiry.

For those whose primary interest is film and science, this project will help relate human aesthetic and noetic desires not only to each other but also to religious impulses which figure both in the origin of our species and in myriad living and evolving forms. It will also help to promote the nascent interdisciplinary engagements of film and science themselves with the hope of (re)integrating them into a comprehensive view of human experience, which has been fractured since the advent of the dominant early modern worldviews.

My 2009 Resolutions

OK, so I am pretty excited about the next couple years, especially next year. I have a bunch of shit I want to do, and some things I more or less have to do, and I thought I would share them with my little blog-reading community to get some feedback and suggestions. Step aside weight loss and romance, you are sooooo passé.

1. Finish the dissertation.
As I write this I am sitting at Caribou taking a break from writing chapter one (take a look at my proposal). My personal schedule is to turn it in by the end of this month, and get the whole thing done by next December. Right now I am a little ahead of schedule, so if that keeps up I can finish a couple months early.

2. Look for a (better) publisher.
Ok, ok, this might be a little too hopeful, but I am trying to write the dissertation in a publishable form. I have already been approached by one publisher, but for a few reasons I don't think they would be the best fit, so after I get a couple finished chapters I am going to pitch it to some other places. Part of the reason for the urgency is that I am writing on pop culture (superhero films) and if it gets published at all I don't want it to be out of date when it appears. Ideally it would be out in 2010 before too many more superhero flicks come out.

3. Finish a postdoctoral proposal.
By 2010 I will finally be in a position to do some traveling, and I really, really, really want to go to England for a few years and do postdoctoral research in theology and film. I have already met with someone from the University of Durham and he is also interested in what I want to do. The only issue at the moment is getting the funding for my stay in England, so I am working on a grant proposal. I have never done this before so any suggestions on how to approach this would be greatly appreciated. I am working on an online inquiry form for one organization, so hopefully I will know in the next few months if they want a full proposal. Even if they turn that down, there are other places to which I can pitch it.

4. Make a zombie movie.
Alright, I know what you're thinking...where did this come from?!? It basically started with Brian and I looking for something in the basement of the house where I live (a duplex in St. Paul), during which I said, "Holy shit! This would be a great place to make a zombie movie." He agreed, and said that he would totally be in it and help with the effects if I write it. So, my goal is to film it next fall, when it starts getting cooler and darker...very zombie-esque, I dare say. Everything will be on a dime, so if it actually happens it will be something like Blair Witch crossed with Night of the Living Dead...very chic.

Well, that's it for now. Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions, or if you want to be a zombie next year!

Sex, Mystery, and Trinity

The following consists of some thoughts on human love which have been stirring about for some time, as well as some newer thoughts on Trinity, inspired by great sex/theology discussed over dinner in Chicago Friday night.

All of us, I think, want a lover-partner who keeps us guessing without leaving us. We want someone both good and mysterious. What we tend to get are people who treat us right, but with all the cards on the table and no mystery...or we get people who are utterly seductive but who at some inevitable point treat us like shit. We want, in every way, to love and be loved eternally on the cusp of orgasm, but we typically come too soon or not at all. We yearn for a lover to want us without possessing us; and so we yearn in a way which evokes Trinity.

Holy Spirit, Jesus, and the one he called Father...perichoretically interdependent and "interbeing", to use a Buddhist concept. The triune life is simply the event of their intercourse; the rhythm of their uniting and differentiating...and we the lovechildren of their open fucking...wherein each is be/held without being controlled; each gives to abandon without being deserted. Always writhing on the brink of climax, in the midst of climax, without exhaustion.

This, I think, is how we want to be in love. It is how we want, moreover, to live...to bear ourselves upon another gently, to be come into with tenderness, to share in utmost vulnerability the secret chambers of our dreams, to have our flowers opened and smiled upon and entered into with the seeds of all who would love us, and to arrive in warmth and peace. We want to fuck each other into Infinity.

The great fear and question is not this desire as such, but whether in all our timid foreplay we can be and find lovers who will take us into the unknown and not leave us there alone. Are there lovers who will finish what they start without finishing before they start? Are there lovers who will invite us into their presence and never cease to amaze and pleasure us?

So answers Trinity, and in a resounding, trembling, screaming Yes...and thus, as the imagers of the Christ, the coming one anointed with the mission of calling us to share in the triune love, we in turn open our beds to all the unsatisfied lovers...including those who will share most intensely in our passion and to whom we show that unadulterated, unquenched, Infinite sex is not in the castrating, impotent anaesthesia of porn and masturbation, but in the long, slow, tender rhythm of Trinitarian ecstasy in which we answer Yes, it is possible to be both good and mysterious.

what I needed to hear...

A few days ago, as I was reading for chapter one of the dissertation, I came across this passage by Tobias Crisp (1600-1643), an antinomian rebel among the puritans in England. It was published in 1643, shortly after his death.

[The godly man...weighed down by law] lies under fear and doubting, he calls all in question, his spirit troubled, he feares his sins lye still upon him & that he shall be once called to account for them. He lookes upon God as wrathfull and displeased with him for these sins of his. Now he is bound up, he cannot stirre one foot; but because he conceives the face of God frownes upon him, he dares not come neere him. Now beloved, what a stop, and what an interruption is here in duty, while it goes thus with a person; but now if that person had this assurance, that all his iniquities are laid upon Christ, and he is surely discharged for ever, this soule would go on without let or stop at all; then although sin be committed through infirmity, yet if the soule be once persuaded of this, that God will not charge it, and though the soule be under afflictions, yet the soule feares no punishment, nor can affliction come upon it, as the desert of the sin, seeing it knowes it was all laid upon Christ, then it goeth on constantly and chearefully, though wounded, sore, and bitten; for he that hath but Christ once, hath Christ as a buckler to beare off indignations, that though he commits such and such a sin, he lies upon Christ as a buckler that can defend off every blow, that none of his transgression, or the desert thereof, wounds and hurts him, so that he shall be as able to work in duties and performances, as ever he was before sin was committed.

seasons

I can't help but feel like I am now embarking on another season of life. In the last two weeks I have been faced with some circumstances which have put rather radical and difficult choices in my lap. Nothing earth-shattering or particularly horrific, mind you, at least not in my estimation, but life-affecting events nonetheless. Some of these have been outside of my control, some not. For most of my life I have had to learn to adjust to new things quickly, for the sake of my sanity and survival. Some of my recent choices have been made with the distant future goal of having consistency in my life; geographically, vocationally, and relationally in particular.

I have learned over the years that real change usually means that things get worse before they get better, and this time is no different. Yet I am also learning, and hoping, that whatever unpleasant tidings arise along the way, whatever sacrifices need to be made, that in these too there will be growth of character. I am learning that the way of suffering will also be the way of discipline (today I told a friend that I cannot hang out tomorrow night, Friday, because I have to study), the way of poverty (I no longer own a car, I ask for help more, I make less money to have time for studies, I'm trying more than ever to spend and eat on a budget), and the way of wisdom (I have decided to establish stronger boundaries in ambiguous relationships...and even non-ambiguous ones, come to think of it).

I have had a few recent conversations with a friend who told me that her life is nothing like the way she pictured it, and that she experienced this as the movement of God in her life. Such is the way I need to face my reality, in spite of whatever choices I have made over the years to lead me where I am. I keep thinking of the German word aufheben, I believe it is, which I learned years ago was used by Hegel to connote being taken up, having the dialectical opposites resolved in a synthesis. I have been thinking of this idea in a somewhat different way; of being taken up by God into a future which is thoroughly unknown yet full of hope and peace, and which resolves through the calming presence of the Spirit the anxious, conflicting voices in our lives.

For me this means dedicating the next 15 months of my life to finishing my dissertation and walking with the graduating class of 2010. It means spending my free time wisely, and recreational time sparingly. It means being committed to singleness until I have something more consistent, mature, and valuable to offer...committed to the point of virtual isolation even from friends. It means living with little more than necessities, and discovering just what the necessities are. It means looking back just enough to remind me of where I don't want to return, and forward just enough to sustain each day.

I love that we are now coming into my favorite season, Fall. The landscape is more colorful, the days are cooler and shorter, the sun more a gift than a burden, and the holidays approaching. Hot tea, hot chocolate, candles, earth tones, celtic and classic music in my den of solitude are the little gems I treasure at this time (even if some I am still working on). I am grateful for the serendipity that all these happy things for me coincide with drastic changes in lifestyle that I did not foresee a couple weeks ago. It helps me taste the world more sweetly, and God more delightfully.

Politics and Purgation

In my journey on the way of spiritual transformation I can’t help but be thinking about the upcoming election. It has already made history in the nomination of Barack Obama, the first time one of the major parties has nominated an African American (or anyone other than a white man for that matter) for President. John McCain just Friday announced a woman – Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska – as his running mate. Whoever wins in November, I am excited to know that history will be made one way or the other.

Back in January I wrote a blog about registering as a Democrat so I could vote for Obama in the national election. Of course I could have registered as something else, but I chose the Democratic party—in spite of its flaws—for a variety of reasons, primarily and overall due to my theological convictions.

This brings us to the point of the present blog. Laying all cynicism and satire aside, what does politics have to do with spiritual purgation? With sacrifice? With suffering? With transformation? I suspect that the majority of those who will vote for McCain will do so because they generally like the way things are, or else they want to return to some vision of the way things were (pre-Roe v. Wade, pre-gay rights, pre-women’s lib, and/or pre-ACLU, etc.). I must admit that most of the following will be uninteresting to those who want to preserve the status quo. Most supporters of Obama, on the other hand, are (again I can only suspect) very unsatisfied with the way things are and deeply desire to see the change of which he continually speaks. This is addressed to them.

I must admit that voting Democrat is quite different for me. I used to be a registered Republican and voted for Bush in 2000. This was not only due to my narrow and conservative theological priorities at the time, but also because my father was an avid supporter of all things Republican. I grew up thinking Democrats were the enemy and not to be trusted one bit, as I’m sure some children grow up believing the opposite. I keep hearing echoes in my head of how Democrats (or the preferred term “liberals”) are bleeding hearts who only want to raise taxes, in addition to the self-serving corruption which consumes most of them.

Setting aside the issue of political corruption—which unfortunately infects many members of both parties—I keep thinking about what my dad said about taxes. I think it’s funny that every major candidate avoids any rhetoric about raising taxes, and whenever it comes up at all they always assert that they will lower taxes, at least for some group of people.

Yet the reality is—and here is my real point—change does not come without a price. I hope that Obama knows this. If he does, he has to play it very close to the chest or else he won’t have any chance of getting elected. The way I see it, even the vast majority of liberals are not too keen on making the tough decisions that would need to be made if Obama’s desired change is to come to fruition. That is of course simply a human, but especially American, truth. Who wants to hear stump speeches about sacrifice, or selflessness, or suffering? About letting go of that extra income which will now be used to help give health care to poor children? About foregoing that 42-inch plasma TV so an urban teenager can provide for her baby and finish school? About taking a shorter vacation so the hungry and homeless can eat? About buying local and consuming less so that Chinese children don’t have to waste their young lives in sweatshops? About risking national pride so that we can sit at the table and talk with countries that hate us instead of just bombing them?

Such surrender is found only on the way of purgation, where we put the needs of others above our own self interests and learn to live with less, discovering that God alone is sufficient and that the blessings he promises have more to do with finding peace in the simple things and happiness with other creatures than it does with an abundance of material distractions. Will any politician ever preach this? Not if they want to get elected. But the reality is that if we truly desire change, we need to know and be willing to make the appropriate sacrifices.

the abyss

In the spirit of the topic of baptism which I briefly discussed a couple weeks ago in the post on suffering, I very much want to expand the imagery I presented earlier. As I mentioned then, the connotation of baptism as drowning for Paul’s Roman readers would have been significant. Becoming baptized means sharing in Jesus’ own death to sin, and arising from the water is sharing in his resurrection to new life.

Many scholars are reconsidering the idea and rite of baptism in more relational and holistic terms instead of in more traditional (Augustinian and early modern) substantive and mechanistic terms. I especially recommend LeRon Shults and Steven Sandage’s book The Faces of Forgiveness in this regard.

What I wish to do here is follow their lead—Paul’s lead really—by discussing baptism in terms of holistic spiritual transformation. The most popular imagery used in the Christian tradition is that of fire. Mystic theologians often refer to the crucible of transformation; wherein our sinful patterns of relatedness and unhealthy attachments are burned out of us. This period of purgation results, quite etymologically, in a purer way of being.

Although I very much like this imagery, I have been thinking lately of transformation by water, akin to that which Paul presents in his ideas of baptism in Romans 6. In addition to the crucible, I offer the abyss. In Biblical imagery, the sea or abyss is generally considered the primordial source of evil and chaos. It is why a wind hovers over the face of the waters (Genesis 1.1), and why one of the beasts is seen coming out of the sea (Revelation 13.1). I suspect that this is at least partially why baptism means death.

Yet in much contemporary spirituality water connotes goodness, purity and purification. Although I don’t know the origin of this idea, I suggest that we can see the abyss in both negative and positive terms. Paul, it seems, considered the water of baptism primarily or perhaps exclusively in terms of death—specifically death to sin—and the hope of new life is found in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, i.e. coming out of the water (although Paul never explicitly mentions this aspect in his discussion of baptism).

But if we think of baptism in terms of holistic spiritual transformation, then we must allow for the long, slow passage of time through which transformation actually occurs in our lives. In this sense the abyss is not strictly a negative image, but one through which we can understand the time of trial and death as ultimately good news. The way of suffering found in the abyss, then, can be embraced as that which is necessary for healing and growing.

Another aspect I like about the image of the abyss, one which is somewhat lost in the crucible, has to do with depth. The deeper we fall, or rather let ourselves be pulled by the Spirit, the greater the grief and death we experience. The deeper we sink, the further we are from the light of day, and the darker all else becomes. John of the Cross uses the imagery of the “dark night of the soul” in a similar way. For him, we learn to let go of both the sensual pleasures of the world and the spiritual rewards we are used to in this darkness. Such is the depth and darkness of the abyss.

Yet, ironically, the further we sink, the more we abandon ourselves to the water of the Spirit, the less we stop writhing and gasping…the closer we get to the absolute presence of the living God. John and the other mystics understood that only by letting go of our cares can we really be united with God more intimately. In the same way, only by accepting our death, by letting the abyss take us to where it will, can we see God all the clearer and be embraced by the triune love more freely and bountifully.

The System: Women

A couple weeks ago while on lunch break at work I watched—mostly against my will—an episode of Tyra in which her guests were all from the same reality show on the Oxygen network (apparently itself geared toward women). The cast was reunited on Tyra to talk about why they behaved certain ways and also about getting anger management. It sickened me quite a bit to watch clips from the show in which the majority of these “women” acted like preschoolers; verbally and physically abusing each other whenever they were the least bit frustrated, concerned with the latest trends and fashions at the total neglect of any regard for how they can better contribute to society. I have been planning to write this blog for a while now, and this show has pushed me rather to the edge when it comes to many women in our culture.

Of course I am speaking in generalities - and targeting primarily the pop culture presentation of women - yet we should not be surprised to see this behavior and vapid lifestyle among some women when they have been reared by the System. In spite of all the headway made with women’s rights, they are still born and bred simply to look pretty…and look out for number one. The only difference is that now you have to hire the hot ones and make sure not to show any attraction to them or else you’ll get sued; women can now be shallow and professional.

Lest you simply accuse me of misogyny, stop to take a look at all the things the System gears toward women in our culture, take a look at the television shows and advertisements. If I were from another planet (which I might be) I would think that the only things women ever cared about in America were looks and men. I would notice that the majority of commercials are about shampoo and conditioner, makeup, fashion, and dieting. I would notice that in most movies women are not valued unless they are physically attractive. I would notice that “entertainment for women” teaches them little more than to gossip and please men sexually. And I would notice that a woman’s glory is to be found in how well she can keep a man in her life, preferably a man with money who treats her like shit.

And is it any surprise? The System as a whole relies on complete depersonalization and robotization of the human for its success. It plays on all the unique aspects of women and perverts their beauty and glory into manageable commodities to be bought and sold. As such, so many women become little more than mass market receptacles who whore themselves out to the latest fads in a vain attempt to be noticed and loved by the very ones who abuse them. Since they have been inculcated into this inhuman Capitalist sty since birth they often lack the wisdom and maturity to know what’s best and to deal with life’s hardships in a healthy and patient way. Either they are taught to cope—like men—through violent and impatient outbursts in order to control their environments…or else through constant repression of their anxiety and pain—like a pretty girl should—making them fear-filled emotional retards. When either is pushed to the extreme they are utterly incapable of giving or receiving love, and the genuine humanity is torn from them.

Yet it seems to me that a woman’s glory is not to be found in her physical beauty—clothes, hair, makeup, and other vanities—or in the man she loves or desires, or in how well she gossips and carries on about worthless things, but rather in her relationship with God, as is the glory and wonder for all of us. Only when she sees herself as God sees her, and loves herself as God loves her, will she be free from the various shackles which distort her emotions and desires and instead offer the world a unique power and presence which they cannot buy and sell and can no longer abuse. If women would be made not by their own authority, nor by the command of others, but by the bounty of the triune life who knows the desires of their hearts, then perhaps we can be rid of these structures and systems and machines which tell us that women are shallow, insecure, and immature; and instead see them express their uniqueness and beauty in wisdom, strength, and love.

The Way of Suffering

Tonight at Bible study we talked about baptism, especially as it is discussed in Romans 6, the book we studied over the summer (since tonight was the last night, we did not get through all of it…shudder!). In the passage Paul talks about being baptized into Christ’s death so that we might share with him in his resurrection. The Greek word for baptism would have evoked the idea of drowning, and Paul is in fact suggesting that baptism means dying to sin, as verses 6-11 spell out in more detail.

As some of my friends know, over the last year and a half or so I have been reading the mystic theologians, both older (Meister Eckhart, John of the Cross) and more recent (Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton). All of these and others agree that the spiritual life—which for them simply means all of life lived in the Spirit, and not a separate dimension—is a matter of purgation, suffering, and death. No wonder that so few take that road. I read a great essay recently about the Incredible Hulk in which the author makes an astute observation about this phenomenon…which is at the same time blindingly obvious: “Facing the truth about ourselves hurts like hell. No one with any level of sanity likes the inward journey.”

Yet the mystics dared to do so. I have also tried this as well, and it is a rather staggering, and staggered, road. I have spent most of my life running from the truth about myself, and now that I am eager to know and desperate to change I consistently refuse to simply obey. I yearn so much for, but succeed so little in, the way of suffering...

In our day and age suffering connotes that which must be avoided always and at all costs. We fill every empty moment up with some distraction just so we won’t have to think about our misery, our loneliness, or the desperation with which we try to control our little worlds (the last point being a wonderful lesson the Joker brings in the recent Dark Knight film). The Gospel itself even gets perverted in myriad ways so as to completely avoid suffering. We want health and wealth, instant gratification, free lunches, to work less and get paid more. No wonder we are such an impatient, violent, broken nation. I admit I am no different.

Yet the Gospel, on close inspection, is thoroughly about suffering. Not only dying to sin, but also taking up your cross, drinking the cup that Jesus drinks, fleeing immorality…all these things suggest that the new life God calls us into, the genuine Christian life, requires sacrifice and heartache and detachment; it means that things get worse before they get better.

This is largely why people shun religion, as well as psychological and emotional help. It is why we divorce instead of fight for each other and for happiness. It is why we continue in destructive patterns of alcoholism, sexual addiction, overeating, drug abuse, co-dependency, emotional childishness, et cetera ad infinitum. And if anything or anyone says that this kind of thinking and behavior are not ok? Well, this is America, fuck off and leave me alone.

But God tells us that getting rid of the sin in our lives, i.e. the things which keep us from loving relationships with him, ourselves, and others, means that we must suffer, that we must literally be dead to them. And the real point, contrary to the ignorant who call God the cosmic killjoy, is to have peace. To be able to enjoy silence, to wait for the desires of our hearts, to have compassion for those who are different, to let go of the things of the world which only seek to steal, kill, and destroy…are these not noble and lovely things?

But the road there cannot be ran through or skipped over. We cannot close our eyes until the pain just goes away. Rather, only by facing ourselves, by abandoning ourselves to our pain, are we able to heal and push through…or rather, to be healed and pulled through. It is not a matter of suffering for its own sake, but that in and through suffering we will mature and heal and deepen in character. Just as well we are not meant to suffer alone, even when the road less traveled is barren of all other creatures for a time. Even then, in those darkest, scariest moments, the Spirit utters for us; and the Father whispers to us; and Jesus bears it with us…his way of suffering is made our own, and ours his.

May we seek this with all of our hearts.

...and a little child shall lead them.

A few days ago my friend Jeremy sent me a link to a video about two men being reunited with a lion they had raised since he was a cub, but had since been rehabilitated into the African wild. I did some further research, and discovered this video is in fact a recent YouTube hit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adYbFQFXG0U). I also discovered that the YouTube clip itself is legit and actually part of a longer documentary called The Lion at World's End.

According to the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_the_lion), Christian the lion was a 35-pound cub living in a department store in London in a small cage. Two young Australian men, John Rendall and Anthony Bourke, felt bad for the lion and bought him from the store to raise on their own. As Christian became too big over the course of a year for them to take care of him, Rendall and Bourke were put in touch with conservationists who helped to introduce Christian into Africa.

A year later, in 1971, Rendall and Bourke wanted to visit Christian but were told that he had since become the head of his own pride and may not remember them. The documentary footage, shown in the YouTube clip, shows Christian approaching the men slowly and then running to them and jumping into their arms and hugging them. Amazingly, the two men went to see Christian again in 1974 and he still recognized them, this time with several cubs of his own and nearly twice the size he was in 1971. That was the last reported time Christian was ever seen.

Several things jump out to me about this story. For one, I think about what might have triggered Christian's behavior from a biological and evolutionary perspective. Mammals, of course, have more developed brains than other classes of creatures. They all share a part of the brain called the neocortex, which is unique to mammals and is involved in various higher functions, including consciousness and, in humans, language. Because of live birth, mammals also share a need to depend on their mothers. They also have the ability, due to their unique brains, to learn new things. Anyone with a cat or dog has probably witnessed this, and it is no doubt true for our species.

With Christian, then, I wonder if perhaps his life in captivity limited his ability to connect with his biological mother, the two young men possibly substituting a large part of that relationship. Moreover, as the video itself shows, Christian learned to play with Rendall and Bourke, which for mammals extends the period of maternal dependence and helps assimilate young ones into the social structure of their species (according to Wikipedia). I suspect as well that his recognition of and playfulness with them during their later reunions was due to their close, sibling/parent-like relationship formed while he was a cub; spatial and facial recognition being crucial to the evolutionary success of mammals.

Not leaving any of the biology behind, but seeking only to augment it, I cannot help but think about this from a theological perspective as well. The Biblical witness suggests that all animals, and not just humans, are nephesh, that is, animals or living creatures, although this is typically translated in English as "soul," which it is said in many traditions that only humans "possess." Similarly, writing of both animals and humans, the author of Psalms 104 (27-30) says that "these all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground." With this we are given a more accurate idea of God's relationship to creatures than the Greek idea of the soul. It is in fact God's Spirit which is the breath of life of all animals, that without which no creature could live. Death, then, is interpreted theologically as the removal of divine Spirit.

In verse 21 the author speaks explicitly of lions and says, "The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God." Wait a minute; we need to read this carefully. "The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God." This verse should stop us in our tracks. This verse alone should stop the mouths of those who would make a pointless battle between creation and evolution. It should silence those who want to separate humanity so far from other creatures that none of us are recognizable. It should bewilder all the cynics who think that God is too big or busy to love some small blue planet. The young lion's roar—evolved and mutated over thousands of years, selected and modified in the face of myriad genetic and environmental pressures, and fitting just enough so as to help these creatures avoid extinction—simply is prayer...

Which means that we are dealing with a God who cannot be so easily predicted; cannot be bargained into ignoring the least of creatures; cannot be made to fit our agendas. Instead, it would seem, we are dealing with a tender Father "who was pleased to reconcile to himself all things" through Christ; "all things, whether on earth or in heaven (Col. 1:20)."

One of the viewers who commented on the documentary The Lion at World's End on the IMDB website (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074315/ ) had a bafflingly wonderful insight: "Christian himself is a most amazing fellow and the reason this film is more than just another documentary. I came away from it feeling that it was actually a shame that Christian had been sent away from the city to be 'rehabilitated' to live in the wild. In these times, when the world needs more and better contact between humans and animals, Christian would have been a perfect ambassador of goodwill. Watch him carefully. Notice the love and intelligence behind his actions."

Think about that. They sent Christian away because they didn't know what to do with him; because they didn't know what would happen or how to deal with his changes; because contemporary civilized life cannot handle such a strange and potentially dangerous Other in its midst. Of course I do not blame Bourke and Rendall for doing what they did. With the resources they had it was probably the most loving thing to do with Christian, and their conservationist efforts have been remarkable. Yet the viewer's comments raise a serious question about our culture. We cast creatures away, including human persons, and call it "rehabilitation" or "correction."

Yet the God of the Bible does not seem so disposed to such alienation; or acquiescent to our fearful, finite plans and separation. The Spirit that hovered over the face of the deep and gives life to all creatures is not so adamant that death and brokenness should be their final word. It simply makes no sense. The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees us from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2), in point of fact...and nowhere is there any suggestion that this excludes either non-human others or strange, sinful and sinned-against human others.

I take it that when God says he is making all things new (Revelation 21:5), that all things are meant; and that death will be no more, that mourning and crying and pain will be no more...that this is really meant. I also hope that Isaiah 11 is more than just rosy poetry, but that

"The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them."

I have no reason to think otherwise—and no reason to think that the awkward, unexpected, tremblingly beautiful encounters we have with all of God's odd creatures are anything but anticipations of undying peace.

Jonathan

In my second year of college at University of Sioux Falls (1997-1998), I met a guy on my floor in Kroske Hall (the only co-ed dorm at the time) named Jonathan. He was very intellectual and spiritual and we had a lot of great conversations. He was especially a fan of C. S. Lewis, and gave me a signed copy of The Great Divorce at some point, which I only finally read a few months ago. Eventually we became pretty close and I guess I consider him my best friend from those days.

As things happened in both of our lives we lost touch and went separate ways. Several times over the years I would try to find him online, through the Yellow pages or maybe see if he was on the school's alumnus page...nothing. I would also think about the friendship of David and Jonathan in the Bible...seeing as how they share the same name, right? Then within the last couple of years he popped up on Myspace and we reconnected on there, although I still haven't actually seen him. It was such a blessing. Unfortunately, though, he moved to Brazil about a year ago with his wife (who's Brazilian) and children.

I am just writing this blog because today he made a comment on my Myspace page about missing our intellectual and spiritual conversations, which he is apparently not getting in Brazil. It made me happy and I was just excited to share something from a rather old and long forgotten period of my life...one of the few bright spots in all of it. It made me happy.

The System: How We Got Here

I suppose it makes sense to discuss some historical background first before we get to the current condition of the System. The situation is fairly simple.

When the Western nations started becoming industrialized a couple hundred years ago the working masses, in order to survive in the new context, became little more than cogs in the various industrial machines, spending the majority of their days in factories or mines. In this depersonalized environment, the workers were given the opiate of mass entertainment so as to divert them from their new status as semi-robotic machines, as Irving Howe notices. The fascination with novelty in the areas of entertainment and leisure was needed to counteract boredom and stagnation among the working masses.

With the advent of child labor laws about a century or so ago, "adolescents" and those younger than them were given more free time. Instead of cultivating creativity, independence, and compassion among our youth, we left the job of parenting (somewhat against our will) to the mass entertainment markets, who were then given more fodder for their amusement machines. Hence the inception of what is today referred to as the "youth market" with more disposable income than ever; and now we have dumber and more apathetic young people than ever.

Today we are reaping the consequences more than ever. Working adults spend their labor hours feeding money, energy, and time into some, usually anonymous and apathetic, corporate system in exchange for the resources to pay bills and be doped by one or several of the myriad amusements we have concocted in order to cope with depersonalized, industrialized life. Our current economic predicament (the brink of recession) is due largely to these same working robots living beyond their means; i.e. an unbalanced bill to leisure ratio. Not only is there competition among the amusement markets themselves, but also workers compete among themselves for the biggest, brightest, and most expensive toys. This felt need to matter, when they are insignificant at work, drives the desire for greater status in the area of leisure; it also elevates our debt.

Hence the current economy. Notice how desperate the government is to keep our mass opiate machines running by calling for "economic stimulus". At this point all parts of the System are so connected and interdependent that we cannot afford the loss of any single part without detriment to the others.

In upcoming editions of this series we will take a closer look at each of these various nuts and bolts of the System.

daughter

Yesterday a girl of about 8 or 9 came up to me at the store and asked if we had any expandable binders. "Expandable binders..." I wondered aloud, not quite sure what she was looking for. I led her to aisle 13 where we have Trapper Keeper-type binders on the bottom.

"Are these what you mean?"
"I don't know. I am just supposed to get one."
"Oh, you mean it's on your list for school?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, ok. Well, let's try this other aisle."

I led her to aisle 11 where we have other expandable binder-looking things and thought aloud to her that this might be what she's looking for. I could tell by her lack of excitement and response that she had her doubts. A few minutes later I saw her back in aisle 13 going through the Trapper Keeper-type binders on the bottom.

"Did you find what you needed?"
"Yeah, I think these ARE the expandable binders. See how it has two zippers here?"
"Oh, well I think that other zipper is just a front flap."
"Yeah but see how it does this?" as she proceeds to show me how the binder is in fact expanding.
"Oh, well I guess you're right."

I decided that I wanted her to be my daughter just in the span of those few minutes...articulate, deliberate, independent, and smarter than me when it comes to school supplies. It was the first encounter in a long time that I felt my deep and repressed yearning to be a father; particularly to a little girl. As I thought about this forgotten desire later in the car I suddenly found myself tearing up and not exactly sure as to why. Perhaps it was from the hope that I might one day have the chance...or perhaps it was from the sad thought that I simply may never.

In some ways I have had to grow up fast, which partially explains, at least in my mind, why I have for so long had such a giving heart for women. There has since I was a teenager been a strong fatherly impulse in my movements toward the opposite sex. I think this has a lot to do with why I have taken on the friendship role for so many of them; and why some even close to my age would occasionally call me "sir" or "old man" in jest. But my friends have all been too hurt for me to help, and unless they loved me they would not listen to my wisdom. "Don't date him." "Don't sleep with him." "Guard your heart." "Let me help you." So often have my treasures been passed up for trinkets.

Maybe this is why I want a daughter. I want to teach her and guide her and watch her grow up. I think about reading to her before bed and her being a lover of books and knowledge and wonder. I think about praying with her and teaching her about the Lord. I think about her being a friend that can be counted on by others, and being a good student who still has her own independent spirit. I think about showing her how much she is loved...and that I don't ever want her to tell someone how I treated her bad or neglected her, like so many have done to me about their own fathers. I think about her being pursued and cherished by a good man, and giving her away at her wedding...and her being able to give and receive love without being consumed by fear and distrust. And I think about who she will become, and the great things she will do, and the tenderness and faithfulness she will show to her own children because of the example I set for her.

Maybe some day. . . .

The System: Initializing...

I have decided to start a new series of blogs on Western - and not just American - culture, one which will replace the "This Stupid Country" series. I only had three left on that one, but have been recently convinced that the problems with society are a) much bigger than one country and b) are much more serious than my angry, funny rants.

The more I take the time to really look, the more I am convinced that all of us, more or less, are trapped in the System. Yes, it sounds very much like The Matrix, with one key difference: The Matrix, for all its wisdom, not only lacks any specific targets of its criticism, but is steeped in an ontology of violence which stands as one of the pillars of the System. The Matrix, at the end of the day, is another part of the System, despite its attempts to critique it.

Nevertheless, there is a part of dialog from the film which aptly illustrates the state in which we currently find ourselves:

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

Unfortunately this is not just a movie. Although we are more or less blind to the System, there are subtle ways in which we attempt and sometimes even succeed in thwarting its ubiquitous power. Over the next several months I will discuss a variety of different areas in which the System influences our lives and attempts to control our destinies. We live in a stupid country, certainly, but the intensity of the real situation keeps pressing itself upon me to say and do something more appropriate to the true power of the System....