Ours Should Not Be A Life In Small

It was bittersweet to see the photos of the Space Shuttle, piggybacking on a 747, making its final landing at Dulles International Airport this week. As conflicted as I feel about the whole shuttle program, there is little doubt that this final resting place for this piece of Americana may well be more than a museum for what has passed. It could very well become the graveyard of the America we once knew.

For all its many faults, ours has not been a country that dreamed small. Even individuals and small communities saw themselves as part of a far larger, more grand movement. This continent could be made American; the land could be tilled; roads and canals and railroads would knit together its most disparate, isolated places and spaces, bringing the country together. Victorious in a war against the greatest threat western civilization ever faced, we had both the technical know-how and desire to look up and see, in the vast emptiness of the night sky, possibility, even promise.

Having reached the Moon, our eyes and ears roaming even further, going in to orbit became routine, part of the workaday practice of being America. An extension of our best sense of ourselves, the exploration of space was testimony to our willingness as a people to risk much in order to gain much. From the first, faltering colonies on the banks of the James River, this willingness to place our collective selves in the hands of Divine Providence in search of greater gain - sometimes commercial, to be sure, but also seeking a place to live out a sacred calling that differed from those around them, or just to break ground in hopes of building something one's children and grandchildren could continue to build upon - was best expressed by those earliest astronauts going out in to orbit and beyond in craft that, to our eyes, look flimsy indeed. Like the sailing ships that brought our ancestors to these shores, willingly or not, these early spacecraft are a marvel of will over ability, much as the land they founded would become.

That will has withered, however. Rather that risk, we insist that even the maintenance of the most basic parts of the links that bind us, our roads and bridges and rail lines and airports, are just too expensive to manage. Not only do we no longer look up and imagine a future, we barely look out from our homes anymore. Rather than see what we can achieve together, we elect leaders who reflect a fundamental fear that, our greatest achievements behind us, we cannot even hope to hold on to those things that bind us together.

Our politics, like so much else, has become a life in small. We seem a people no longer capable even of knowing our past, let alone learning from both the best and worst of who we have been. Arguments flare up over even the most basic realities of who we have been. These fights, proxy struggles for our identity, show us that we no longer even know who we are anymore. Struggles over race and religion, labor and ideology, demonstrate a fundamental fear among so many of us that our identity is disappearing. Even as our country grows more culturally diverse, taking in to itself more and more of the larger world, ever redefining "America" in wondrous ways, there are far too many of us who rage against any thought that who we are becoming should differ from who we once were. In the process, so much else is lost, the once proud idea that "America" is always a work in progress offering opportunity and, perhaps, real hope, dreaming big and achieving even bigger no longer even a recognizable husk.

We view one another not as fellow Americans who may well see different means toward a common end as a source for positive struggle together. Instead, those things that separate us have become unbridgeable gaps between those who are and are not true to whatever vision of America we see resulting from common work and life. No longer a helpmeet along the way to greater triumph, far too many Americans insist our public life is little more than an obstacle to achieving what we would be far better attempting on our own. This despite the many lessons from the past of the role the state can play, both for good and ill, in helping us along the way to meeting the challenges that face us.

So, even as our common life dries up and our physical infrastructure becomes increasingly abandoned to those who insist we can no longer afford to be a great nation, perhaps the greatest loss we face is the desiccation of the imagination. For all that it is true much of our current greatness was achieved over the trampled bodies of the poor and our African-American and Native American and Asian American fellows, I have long wondered why it became some kind of axiom that bringing these (and so many others) in to our common life, acknowledging the evil we have done as we invite them along as fellow Americans, is some kind of hindrance to a future where we can still dream big, and work toward a common vision of America that brings all of us along.

Why do we even have voices that insist that it is no longer possible to have or do things together as one people? Why do we not join in laughing at people who claim we can no longer afford those things that were built as a common inheritance? Why do we no longer even think it possible to look out from our cities and towns, our prairies and mountains, and see work we need to do together?

More than anything, these are the thoughts that trouble me at the moment. Led for far too long by interests that see private profit over public welfare as the only real end of our common life, we have forgotten that securing the public welfare first is the only way to ensure private profit. Along with this dream-drought, we have harbored far too many who would lie about our history, tell us we were not who we thought we were in order to insure we do not interfere with their gain at our collective expense. Our politics has become shadow play, meaningless ritual without any sense that it serves a larger purpose even as the voices within it have become more strident.

Am I, perhaps, bewailing something that never was? Is it possible that I romanticize too much over a past that never existed, ignoring the millions of victims for whom the dream of America was little more than a device insuring their destruction? Without ever once denying the point, I would insist that the sight of the space shuttle Discovery, not even landing under its own power, heading on to a future as a museum piece in a nation that insists that museums are a luxury we can no longer afford (never mind roads or schools or networks for the free flow of information) is the only evidence I need to demonstrate that, unless we demand an end to it, the voices that continue to call for an end to our common life will drive away the last of any attempt even to dream of something better for all of us tomorrow.

Food For Thought

Chew on this (thanks to Kait Dugan at Kyrie Eleison):

Even in the form of a servant, which is the form of His presence and action in Jesus Christ, we have to do with God Himself in His true deity. The humility in which He dwells and acts in Jesus Christ is not alien to Him, but proper to Him. His humility is a new mystery for us in whose favour He executes it when He makes use of His freedom for it, when He shows His love even to His enemies and His life even in death, thus revealing them in a way which is quite contrary to all our false ideas about God. But for Him this humility is no new mystery. It is His sovereign grace that He wills to be and is amongst us in humility, our God, God for us. But He shows us this grace, He is amongst us in humility, our God, God for us, as that which He is in Himself, in the most inward depth of His Godhead. He does not become another God. In the condescension in which He gives Himself to us in Jesus Christ He exists and speaks and acts as the One He was from all eternity and will be to all eternity. The truth and actuality of our atonement depends on this being the case. The One who reconciles the world with God is necessarily the one God Himself in His true Godhead. Otherwise the world would not be reconciled with God. Otherwise it is still the world which is not reconciled with God.
- Karl Barth, CD IV.1, 192-193

Much Better Start Than Yesterday

Remember this post? I summed up this way:

[W]ithout an attempt at analyzing music qua music, there is no way to come to terms with the meaning the music has. Relying upon historical accounts, without those accounts taking in to consideration musical detail, also fail in the end to give us as full an understanding as we might otherwise prefer. Moore's work is a good beginning in reframing our discussions of rock music by insisting on the primacy of the songs themselves.

Then, of course, the inevitable happened.

In the first paragraph you quote, after the writer claims that aesthetic questions are primary (or, rather, “the” aesthetic question, whatever that may be) he goes on with nary an address to aesthetic questions.

To which I responded:

Because that's the entirety of the book. The "aesthetic" question is just that: "the primary text" is the song itself, examined as a discrete unit, using the tools of musicological analysis, as a method of unraveling the many matters related to understanding rock.

I will admit the use of "aesthetic" puzzled me when I read it, until I realized it is used here in an analytical, as opposed to descriptive, manner. The questions you and I, and perhaps others, might consider under the heading "aesthetic" Moore actually sets to one side. Which is, all in all, a good thing, I think, as there is far too much baggage about the relative merits of pop versus classical music, among and within various sub-genres of various musical styles. I heartily agree with Moore that there is no way, a priori, to judge the artistic merit of any particular song or musical style. In that sense, more philosophical understanding of "aesthetic", the matter is one of value judgments, for which there is no handy musicological, or any other, tool.

The conversation deteriorated quickly.

At one point, I suggested Feodor's problems were not with me, but rather the author and that he take his questions to the author. At the same time, I thought, "What an inspired idea!" So, I emailed Moore, who is Professor of Popular Music at Surrey University in the UK.

This morning, I opened my email, and found this waiting for me.

Very many apologies for waiting so long before answering - I needed to get time to read your blog. I think you have it absolutely right - for all the book's faults you have described exactly what I was trying to do. I found the ensuing conversation interesting & quite fun too (although your interlocutor never did contact me) - I have soon to think about a third edition & I may bear some of that in mind. I am delighted to read that you found the book enlightening - I have recently published what is, in effect, a follow-up, again with Ashgate, in which I try & pin down some of the interpretive ideas which I don't think I really understood when writing R:PT. I hope most of it is still accessible to the non-specialist. There's some blurb at http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409438021 - let me know if it strikes a chord & I'll try & get a copy to you.

Thanks for taking the trouble,

Yours

Allan

Let's see. . . free book for a review, offered by the author who's a respected academic musicologist covering a field I personally enjoy.

That would be a, "Oh, hell, yes!"

And may I say that Moore is gracious and kind, and no apologies are needed. The only other author who has ever returned an email of mine is Gary Dorrien, who was just as gracious and polite as Moore.

This whole writing thing does have its rewards. So, thank you, Professor Moore, for making my day's start far more pleasant in most every respect. And, that whole vindication thing? Yeah, that was nice.

My Day From Bad To Worse

It's not quite eight a.m. as I start to type this, and my day has not been one anyone would label "banner". Miriam's home from school today; poor thing has a really bad cold. Emergency and one-time expenses are going to make the rest of April pretty tight. It's raining.

The one upside? The cat attacking my wife's right heel while she sat at her desk. I started laughing so hard I got THE LOOK.

Probably not the best morning to read this.

“Now, what I would hope that people would do in the media is — maybe you should do a little research, and start looking at what political ideology they stand for. There’s a very thin line between communism, progressivism, Marxism, socialism — or even, as Mark Levin has said, statism. It’s about nationalizing production, it’s about creating and expanding the welfare state. It’s about this idea of social and economic justice. And you hear that being played out — you know, now with fairness, fair share, economic equality, shared sacrifice, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.”

“And it’s also about the creation of a secular state. And this whole argument that the liberal left is trying to take you down, talking about women’s contraception, is really about a federal government that is reclassifying religious organizations, for them to be able to manipulate them however they wish. So that’s what I wish people would focus on.”

West also challenged his opponents to a debate: “And I would welcome anyone, to have a discussion, and a debate about political ideology. Because when you look at what’s happened in this country right now, you tell me that this government is not nationalizing production: automobile industry, financial sector, health care, cap and trade, and not going through the legislative process — look at what they’re doing through the EPA, as far as the energy sector. Look at what’s happening with the National Labor Relations Board. Who would have ever though we would live in the United States of America, where the federal government would be telling a private-sector organization where they can relocate?”

At first, I wanted to laugh. I mean, come on. This is Class A ignorance, wrapped in shiny stupid paper, delivered to America for free. I really want West to keep winning elections because this kind of thing is just golden.

Then, I saw this short piece from Charlie Pierce, which includes a link to and a quote from a Politico "analysis" of West's words.

The conservative congressman hasn't explicitly said as much, but he's following a path blazed by Michele Bachmann, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Each of them ignored the historic barriers and reasons why House members haven't typically sought the presidency because they've were prescient enough to recognize that the equation has changed dramatically. What changed? Thanks to Internet and direct mail fundraising and the national platform offered by cable news shows, even a House backbencher can now build a well-financed national following. And Barack Obama's victory, just four years removed from the Illinois state Senate, suggests the boundaries surrounding the question of office-holding experience have been erased.

As I wrote in a comment, I couldn't be that stupid if I wanted to out of fear I'd hurt myself.

So, along with the rain, a sick kid, a delay in the arrival of coffee, I've had to read the kind of political analysis that only makes sense to morons, written by people who get paid a fair chunk of change to be stupid in public.

Despair, thy magazine is Politico.

God's Gift To Our Moral Scolds

President Obama's trip to Colombia was not his most successful foreign venture. Our southern neighbors have been, for years, far less tolerant and indulgent of the assumption of American pre-eminence. The inclusion of Cuba, while certainly long overdue, has caused consternation even among some who might otherwise support the President.

Worst of all, those whose job is to protect the life of the President have been caught in a still-evolving scandal involving Colombian prostitutes.

I have one of those urges to go to DC and smack these people upside the head. Do they honestly believe it is possible for folks in their position to get away with stuff like this? Displaying less common sense than my ten-year-old daughter, they got caught in a prostitution scandal; they got caught in a prostitution scandal in a country that has been, for more than a generation, the flash-point for drug production. Plagued by cross-currents of violence from narco-terrorists, indigenous rebels of varying ideological stripes, and state terrorism, Colombia is a country where the potential for honey traps such as this should be obvious. If it weren't bad enough these agents were off carousing with hookers, they were doing it in a country where the agents had to be aware such behavior would become potential fodder for exploitation by unfriendly groups.

Even more trying to our tired souls than the matters of the safety of the President and senior officials whose protection detail apparently leave thought and sense behind are the lectures that are starting to dribble in from our National Sunday School Teachers.

I realize that some party poopers will not share my delight at the Secret Service becoming a double entendre. But at the very least, this scandal, like the General Services Administration’s spending spree in Las Vegas, should serve to refute claims that the federal workforce is out of touch with ordinary Americans. As it turns out, some federal workers reflect our culture all too well.

Maybe we should stop blaming the feds for being like the rest of us — it’s hardly surprising that bad actors and buffoons find their way into the public sector as well as the private — and think of other lessons to draw from the scandal, such as possible recruitment tools: Work for the government and get a complimentary upgrade to a hot-tub suite? Join the Secret Service and be a playuh at the Pleyclub? Surely the GSA, a sleepy backwater of the government responsible for property, would raise its profile if it changed its name to the Garish Soiree Administration or the Grandiose Shindig Agency.

For crying out loud, a person would think no one in the history of the Universe had ever been caught being naughty. You'd think no country had its infamous individuals who specialized in debauching themselves. Isn't it bad enough we have to listen to moral scold clicking their tongues over the Lohans-Hiltons-Kardashians-Jersey Shore cast-Britneys of the world? Now, we have these antics raised as emblematic of some kind of unique American decadence, in whose footsteps members of the Secret Service are supposedly following?

My problem with this isn't "OMG, HOOKERS!!!!!" The display of a lack of any common sense among those who are supposed to protect the lives of our highest officials is outrageous. Is this lack of common sense some form of unique American culture? I would certainly hope not; I would not like our country known worldwide as the place where people lose all sense of perspective and priority at the drop of a thong.

None of this is to suggest that I approve of the antics of folks known far more for their penchant for going out in public without underwear than any positive achievement. Nor do I think paying prostitutes is the best way to spend one's hard-earned money. I am saying that these matters, which seem to be filling Millbank with the kind of moral superiority one would expect from members of the Anti-Saloon League, are not what trouble me the most.

The lives and safety of our highest officials are in the hands of people who seem to have no sense whatsoever. I admire the willingness to take a job where the most basic duty may well include sacrificing one's life for someone else. With such a job, obviously, comes a high level of stress that can display itself in excessive bouts of revelry when off duty. When accompanying the President in a foreign country, however, wouldn't one think "off-duty" didn't exist? Even more than OMGHOOKERSSEXSTRIPPERS!!!!!!, I am outraged by the idiocy and lack of thought on display here. Except, alas, the reality of OMGHOOKERSSEXSTRIPPERS!!!! is just too enticing for people to ignore, so now we are going to have to put up with all sorts of morality lectures from people like Dana Millbank.

Thanks a lot, Secret Service.

Jesus Is Risen?

Taking a break from writing to check out the mid-day news, I'm wondering now if all the cheering and celebrating nine days ago meant anything to anyone.

Whatever our differences might be, Christians from around the world gathered and in one voice in thousands of language declared that Christ is risen!

I'm struggling, at the moment, to see that it matters to anyone. Anywhere.

We Christians are supposed to believe this is kind of a big deal. We Christians are supposed to live as if it has changed everything. We Christians are supposed to proclaim to the world that all of us are now free from sin and the death it brought in its wake.

We are supposed to live as if it matters.

Nine days later, even a quick glance at the news makes me wonder if anyone has been paying attention.

Does it matter anymore that this guy died, then was raised never to die? Does it matter that the Creator of the Universe loves us all so much that the Son came for us? Is there anything worth saving?

Would anyone go, today, more than a week after the Big Event, and stand at the empty tomb and laugh with the same joy they did that morning when the world changed?

Excuse the pity party; it seems to me we just haven't quite got it through our thick skulls that everything's different now. "Same shit, different day" seems to be the rule, regardless of the claim by Christians, once upon a time, that it just isn't so. For the moment, the mourning that had turned in to dancing has returned, leaving me grieving for us all.

Instead of, "He is risen indeed!", we Christians seem to have responded, "Meh."

Theology And Confession

With thanks, as always, to Ben Myers for letting the world know about the best theological writers out there on the internet, this post at The Divine Wedgie (what an awesome blog name) got me thinking about something.

What if we in the Church were far more concerned about how we confess the faith than how we profess the faith? What if we recalled that the first confession of faith, as recorded in the Bible, consisted of three words yet contained all any Christian needed to say about who God is, who Jesus is, what God in Christ has done for the world, and what it means for us and the world? Jesus is Lord. That's all any Christian really needs to affirm. Each word, individually, is so loaded with meaning the Universe wouldn't be large enough for what they contain. Taken together, in pieces and in total - Jesus is; is Lord; Jesus is Lord - says all that needs to be said.

Obviously, we aren't satisfied with this kind of simplicity. We prefer to put all sorts of stumbling blocks on the road of faith, insisting believers navigate the maze of our own construction in order to pass the test of belief we have set up. It's a ridiculous, haughty exercise of human sinfulness to insist that it is profession that is as important as confession. Confession is the mark of the Christian; profession is the source of far too much human-engineered confusion and strife.

The various mutual denunciations of Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, Anglican, Wesleyan, and Evangelical professions of faith are testimony to the all too human willingness to dismiss large groups as unworthy of God's love and care. Add to that the many and varied and contradictory theological schools, the disputes that range from the denunciation of St. Paul's mission to the Gentiles through the disputes between St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure to the Reformation and its radical off-shoots, to the explosion in theological exploration of the past two to three centuries, we have been far more likely to insist those with whom we disagree are not just wrong, but dangerously so, than we are willing to lend an ear to something new, to be open to the Spirit blowing from a direction of its own choosing.

The modern Christian churches have been, it seems to me, far more concerned with theological conformity than confessional simplicity. Theologians as different as Friedrich Schleiermacher, G. W. F. Hegel, Adolf Harnack, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, Gustavo Gutierrez and more have been denounced by one or another individual or group for the ultimate sin of heresy. Yet, isn't heresy little more than the insistence that, sometimes, what passes for orthodoxy might have missed something important? While it certainly is the case that heresiarcs tend to be far more "dogmatic" than the orthodox, it is often the case that such errors as they make - whether the members of the Corinthian congregation who insisted there was no resurrection of the dead or the panoply of contemporary folks who insist on a "personal relationship with Jesus" as a mark of salvation - are those rooted in love.

There continue to be people who insist that Jesus' claim that the Way is narrow makes them Divinely appointed engineers, marking off the boundaries of acceptable profession of faith. That's OK, I suppose; everyone needs to feel needed. All the same, even if one or another detail may not jibe completely, it seems to me Christian unity should rely far more on our mutual confession, Jesus is Lord. Everything else is negotiable.

The Assumptions Of Our Betters Are Usually Wrong

It was the summer of 1984. I was at the laundromat in my hometown of Waverly, NY finishing up folding some clothes. My parents were out of town for the week, and my mother has this thing about people using her washing machine - to detail my mother's eccentricities would fill a small library - so I was down at the end of the business district, sitting in one of those old, molded plastic chairs. The gentleman my sister was dating at the time was on his way to pick me up (incredible as it seems, we had to agree on a pick-up time, because, obviously, there were no such things as cell phones) because ours was a one-car family. I'd been sitting and reading a book that now seems quaint to me. At the time, however, to my fevered young mind it had the clarion call of a revolutionary tome. Helen Caldicott's Missile Envy was among three books I read that summer that were important for shaping the way I thought about politics over the ensuing years. Not as long lasting, or re-read as Godfrey Hodgson's America In Our Time, which I still find indispensable for understanding so much of our recent national life, but still, Caldicott's book was important, for a while.

The car pulled up, I gathered up the last of my clean clothes, and was heading out the door. A gentleman stopped me on my way to the door and said to me, "That the book by that Australian doctor?"

I nodded.

"So, you think we really are gonna blow ourselves up?"

I shrugged. I could tell Lou was getting impatient. Lou tended to get impatient.

"Well, if we re-elect Ronnie, we just might." He smiled at me, because I think he could tell my ride was getting antsier by the second. I nodded, chuckled, and left.

That exchange, taking less than twenty seconds, has remained in my mind for almost twenty-eight years for one simple reason: It's an illustration of a maxim my Father used to offer to me, a maxim whose truth took me far too long to absorb. My Dad would look at me like I was some kind of ridiculous creature who was clueless about way too much and say, "You don't know every goddamn thing." How right you are, Dad. I'm sorry you had to remind me too often.

There are few persons more insufferable than those who believe themselves to be, despite all indications to the contrary, superior to others. We Americans, happily egalitarian in our outlook, are offended more by the assumption of hauteur than we tend to be than racial or sexual bigotry. We assume there are bigots out there, so why be surprised when some idiot says something hateful? We tend to be shocked when someone takes on an air of superiority, dismissing so many others as beneath their notice. Maybe because they enjoy NASCAR or reality TV. Maybe because they can't tell Brahms from Schubert from Mahler, but can instantly recognize the guitar styles of Carlos Santana and David Gilmour and Joe Satriani. Perhaps they have never even heard of Plutarch or Augustine, but own every book published under the name V. C. Andrews. The reasons for the presumption of superiority are many, varied, yet all wind up as fodder for a kind of Manichean world-view, a set of dichotomies in which "we", the privileged in our education and outlook, are both culturally and intellectually superior to "they" with their tendency to succumb to the Bread and Circuses of Hollywood.

Of the species of intellectual aristocrat, there are none more smug, more worthy of contempt from the rest of the Universe, than the college sophomore. I confess, here and now, that such a one was I. If I could go back in time and find myself, I'd probably beat the shit out of my 19-year-old self, just as an object lesson. One of the reasons that little snippet of conversation has remained in my brain was the immediate reaction I had: Someone in my hometown not only knew who Helen Caldicott was; that same person was afraid of the same thing I was! I'll confess (seems to be the day for it) that I am deeply ashamed of that reaction. It was a moment of nearly unforgivable presumption on my part. Such wise-foolery is the mark not only of youth but equal parts inexperience and ignorance. It is nothing to read a book and absorb its lessons; it is another to live a life and absorb its lessons, and let that living meet the book, argue with it, and let the two tussle it out to some kind of truce. At 19, I had far too little living under my belt to make any judgments about, well, pretty much anything. Now that I've lived far more years since that incident than I had up to that point, I would like to believe I have come to the conclusion that assumptions and presumptions are something we should never make about others.

Which life-lesson (hardly a huge one, I know; still, important enough, I think, as well as relevant) one would think David Brooks, older than I, would have learned years ago. Alas, as his latest column makes clear, the only thing worse than being inordinately proud of oneself, is not having anything for which to feel so inordinately proud.

When he published Bobos in Paradise, Brooks took over his main thesis - that there was an emergent class of young persons who aped the bohemianism of long past without taking on the burdens far too many of a previous generation of social and cultural outsiders had to bear. Like poverty. Social and cultural and political ostracism. Resigned to a life firmly outside the mainstream, true bohemians accepted, even reveled in their role as outcast and misfit, bringing the world everything from modern art - its cubism and surrealism, the nihilism of Dadaism and the psychology of Abstract Expressionism - to the highest form of modernist music, jazz to the kind of movies that deal in ideas and images instead of stories and characters. They never sought fame or money or prizes. They pursued a life of self-affirmation and expression, sometimes in the service of social and cultural and political improvement; sometimes, however, there was little more than the narcissistic joy of affirming one's existence within a society that worked very hard to deny their existence.

Brooks' markers for what made this creature he'd discovered, which he called "Bourgeois Bohemian" (thus, Bobo), however, weren't steeped in a study of how any person or group actually lived. As a critic in Philadelphia Magazine noted in 2004, Brooks didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

This remains true nearly eight years after being detailed so well. His current column, with its weird praise for the trash art of our pulp writers shows that Brooks is an ignoramus of the first water. Even a casual acquaintance with the writings he details should make any reader of Brooks' column laugh so hard he or she has to run to the bathroom to pee. Brooks, however, would wonder at the source of such laughter.

Yesterday, a good friend of mine said that my blog posts are "too cerebral", that I'm not focusing on the average person's desires. That's the kind of phrase that puzzles me. Who, precisely, is this "average person"? What are their desires? I doubt that, in most ways that really count, I would be outside whatever Bell Curve this person imagines the determinant of the social average. Further, isn't it somewhat insulting to say that average people aren't concerned about how stupid so much of our public discourse is, how venal and erroneous so much of our religion tends to be; like Brooks' nonsensical assumption that folks in a rural county prefer Dollar General to Nieman Marcus (without any evidence to support this assumption), isn't the assumption that the average Joe just doesn't care about this stuff rooted more in stereotype and prejudice, rather than real evidence? I've always operated under the assumption that I'm no different from the guy who sweats through a ten hour day fixing the plumbing in a house, or putting a roof on a building. These folks care about all sorts of things like a decent wage for their labor, decent schools for their kids, clean and safe roads on which to drive, safe neighborhoods and cities in which to live, safe food to eat and safe water to drink. All the things, in other words, that I write about.

I have no interest in pretending I'm something I'm not. Nor do I have any interest in pretense. Few things bait me more easily than someone making a claim that having a bit more education in this or that abstruse subject matter confers some kind of superiority upon an individual. How ridiculous a notion is that? Yet, we live with it just the same; bad social and cultural commentary is rooted in this kind of phony elitism, engaged in by people who tend to be, upon even a little digging, not only wrong, but almost overwhelmingly ignorant.

Much like I was on that long-ago Saturday afternoon in the Waverly Laundromat, David Brooks needs someone to walk up to him and smack him around a little bit and yell, much as my father did, "You don't know every goddamn thing!"

Word Smashing

If you're one of those people who grabs the remote and flicks through all three hundred channels several times while the commercials are playing, you might just want to skip this post. It's a commercial, you see, for me. Specifically, for my fiction.

Since mid-November, when I ended five years of employment and, with my wife's permission, began writing full-time, I've written Lord alone knows how many short stories, completed two novel first-drafts, started a couple more, and generally kept myself occupied through my imagination. I was doing what every aspiring writer does - sending out manuscripts with cover letters, bios, that sort of thing - until a woman at church told me about this e-publishing website called Smashwords. I was wary, but I checked it out. While not completely satisfied with it, it has served as a useful portal for me to offer some things to the public, if for no other reason than to generate feedback, gauge reactions to my work, and (if possible) begin the process of "creating readership", a group of people who will consistently read work written by me.

It's very small, but it's growing, in no small part due to two things: Facebook, and offering some of the stories I've written at no charge.

Yesterday, I uploaded my fifth publication to Smashwords. If you click here, you'll see my little auto-bio. Scrolling down the page, you'll see links to them. Three of them are free. I goofed when I started out; the first two items I published I charged money. I now realize I need to offer free items as a way of enticing people. Those items are still available, and I don't think a buck for one, two bucks for the other (two stories, so a dollar each, isn't really too much to ask, I think) is exorbitant. All the same, I should have made those available for free as well, or at least offered them for free at first.

So. I've offered to the publishing world six stories (that isn't all I've written; they're just the ones I like the best and think other people might like). What are they about? Well, subjects range from death and the afterlife to infidelity to our recent wars. The first three - "From The Other Side", "Drawing Down Dark", "The Witness" - are best categorized as "fantasy", although not the whole elves-named-swords-magic variety. They just have fantastical elements in them.

"Summerland", written, for all intents and purposes, as an exercise I gave myself, is about life after death (the word summerland is something New Agers use to refer to that in-between stage they believe dead people occupy before whatever happens next happens). The exercise was making sure I paid attention to small details, to writing descriptive prose that captured a scene without pulling a reader out of the story's flow. It's very short, which was also part of the point.

The two most recently published, "Something Special" and "A Sort of Homecoming", have no fantastic elements at all. No life after death, no ghosts, no immortals. In fact, the two stories are similar in that both amount to long conversations between two people. "Something Special" is about infidelity. "A Sort of Homecoming" offers readers a fly-on-the-wall perspective of a short reunion between two old Army buddies. If I do so myself, I think I write dialogue pretty well (and that's not an easy thing to do, let me tell you; when I do re-writes and edits, I fiddle more with the dialogue than any single story element), but these exercises in creating conversation were good for me, because when they were done I felt tired. "Something Special" was also an exercise in creating a story with an ambiguous ending. Unlike novels, which usually strive to create a full story arc, short stories are like snapshots. One of my favorite short stories, "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away", ends with the question of whether or not the lead character will commit suicide unresolved. I have always loved that, and "Something Special" was me trying to reach a stopping place without answering all the questions I hope the reader has been asking.

"The Witness" was an idea I originally planned as a full-length novel. I actually had about 15,000 words done when I realized that imitating Dan Brown might not be the best way to go. So, I took one element from that larger manuscript, recast it, and voila! A story that has only one, small, disappointing piece (at least for me) which I'm not sure how to eliminate without making the story both too long and suddenly about something that it isn't.

Only one of the stories came to me in a moment of inspiration. "Drawing Down Dark" began as little more than me coming up with an interesting title and subject for a story written by a character in my first full-length manuscript; if he was a writer, I'd better know what he'd written, right? Except, the whole story came to me, pretty much as it appears (at least in both style and subject; the details, well, that took a bit more work) one evening while I was taking a shower. I liked it too much NOT to write it myself, and ended up giving another story to my character.

"From The Other Side" is my attempt at some humor. I'm a big fan of Ghost Hunters without losing my skepticism both about the investigators as well as their claims of "evidence". Still, I thought it would fun to show what one of those shows might look like from the ghost's perspective. How well it works is up to readers, I guess.

I'm inviting you folks to check these stories out. I encourage you to read the free ones, and if you like them, to toss a couple bucks in the kitty for the rest. The great thing about Smashwords is it even publishes in HTML and PDF, so you don't need a Kindle, Nook, Playbook or any other e-reader. You can upload them to your PC or Mac.

I'm getting ready to settle in for some major work on a longer work, so I'll be too occupied to think up subjects for shorter works. I think five is a nice number; I think the stories, as much as they run the gamut in plot and subject matter, tone, length, and ability (I'm figuring they are pretty obviously from someone who's still feeling his way when it comes to writing fiction; all the same, I think the years I've spent writing pretty much everyday have paid off, if in no other way than I can produce five thousand words a day, and more if I'm on a streak, while many writers settle for around 2,000 to 2,500). I hope you check out the stories. I really hope you like them; my experience with short stories, from Faulkner and Hemingway and Steinbeck through Stephen King has been one of pure enjoyment. Unlike novels, which require a certain level of commitment, short stories are like pleasant little flings. At their best, you finish one and think, "Wow". Even when they're not great, if you've invested even a little emotional energy in the characters, you reach the end with that bittersweet thought that you're not quite ready for it to end.

If you decide to check these out, let me know what you think. You can leave a comment, shoot me an email at gksafford@yahoo.com, or even, if you feel moved, offer a reader's review at Smashwords. Like everyone who is serious about writing, I'm not looking for PRAISE. I'm interested in what you think, bad and good. There's no way to become better at something if you're not willing to eliminate the persistence of crap in one's work. I don't care whether that's woodworking, plumbing, lawyering, or writing; unless you're willing to hear people say, "When you do x, I run to the bathroom to throw up," you're not really serious about doing what you do well. So, I look forward both to the good and the bad.

One last time. Please, check 'em out. Read 'em, and let me know what you think. Thanks in advance.

Ideology, Bias, & Gamed Refs

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm going to miss having Barney Frank around Congress. I don't always agree with him, but no one can claim he sticks to a certain party-approved script. In an interview with Talking Points Memo, Frank, the long-serving Democratic Congress member from Massachusetts, made clear the muddiness around Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI; Charlie Pierce refers to him as "the zombie-eyed granny-starver", which sounds unfair, but only to zombies):

“It’s not deficit reduction when you increase military spending so that you can make up for that by cutting Medicare and Medicaid. That’s not budget reduction. That’s ideology. That’s the right wing,” Frank told TPM. “The other great scam for Ryan is to say, ‘Oh, I’m not going to help the rich people … I’m going to lower their rates and get rid of loopholes,’ although he doesn’t mention a single loophole that he’ll get rid of.”

Frank continues with a bit of meta-analysis:

“I agree with [Paul] Krugman’s analysis. There is this instinct to be in the middle. People don’t like to think of themselves as some way partisan. There are people who take comfort from the fact that, ‘Oh, I’ve got people on both sides who disagree with me.’ I think you see this in Tom Friedman. You see this in some others,” he said, also referencing a recent article on Ryan by James Stewart of the New York Times.

“Here’s the deal,” Frank told TPM of some political pundits. “They don’t want to consider themselves to be siding with the Democrats. It’s important for their self-image that they be seen as centrist. The problem is the Republican Party has given them fewer and fewer things that they can identify with, because they’ve moved so far to the right. … So they have to find something they can support on the Republican side to maintain this self-image that they’re somehow independent of the parties. And so they pick up the Ryan budget.”

In What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias And The News, historian Eric Alterman calls the long game the right has played against the media "gaming the refs". Since those long-ago days when Vice President Spiro Agnew spoke out against "those nattering nabobs of negativism", the tendency has always been to tack against whatever wind seemed to be blowing from the Democratic Party. Fearful of losing a reputation for objectivity (whatever that may be in politics, no one seems to know), the only complaint that seems to matter is one of preference. Considering the many scandals involving confabulation and plagiarism at major news outlets (beginning in 1981, when the Washignton Post had to hand over a Pulitzer because a series it ran on drug use among youth in the city was a tissue of lies), one would think a far greater danger would be lack of attention to facts and personal intellectual integrity. It seems to be a far worse sin to call a zombie-eyed granny starver what he is than it might be to make up stories, or copy whole pieces of writing and pass them off as one's own.

Political reporting, at least at a national level, has become little more than an exercise in repeating whatever anyone in the game might say. Little is done, immediately, to check whether that a particular pol has said bears any resemblance to reality. Last year, when Ryan released his "Medicare" plan, the sleight-of-hand involved was so stunning, members of the media who claimed Ryan proposed getting rid of Medicare were claimed to have systematically distorted the Congress member's proposal. Why? Because the voucher plan he introduced was called "Medicare".

Was it dishonest to say that Ryan was dismantling and discarding Medicare? Of course not, any more than the failed attempt by Republicans in the 2005 Congressional session to privatize Social Security was an attempt at "reform". The more they used that word, the successful effort by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to push back and call it what it was made clear what was really happening. Much the same was attempted against Ryan's plan to dismantle a successful, popular public health insurance program. Ryan, however, has showed much the same ability Newt Gingrich has displayed over his thirty or so years in the national spotlight. Abject public failure, the revelation that one is not only an intellectual lightweight, but a patsy for big money players seems not to deter some people and their fluffers in the press.

There is nothing bold about Ryan's various submitted plans. On the contrary, Paul Krugman (among many others; he is just the best known) has run the numbers and shows that each time Ryan submits some kind of proposal - a budget, something about Medicare - the numbers do the exact opposite of what Ryan claims. They don't decrease the deficit, they increase it. They don't save Medicare, they destroy it. This kind of simple, analytical work, however, is dismissed as "opinion" by journalists, who go on to claim the math involved is beyond them, so who knows who's right.

The whole game is ridiculous, and it was refreshing to read Frank's comments, their clarity and simplicity. Who wants to be seen taking sides? Well, I suppose if your world view is a species of dualism, that weird non-excluded middle term (the political center) must appear inviting, to say the least. Of course, one should never downplay the role of ego and narcissism, in particular when one nears the top of the pundit food-chain. Once anyone in a position of public prominence begins to believe what other people are saying about their work, we've entered the stage where people whose views seem different - Tom Friedman, David Brooks, George Will, Richard Cohen - seem to converge at this small point, the writers aching to be the latest incarnation of Walter Lippmann (knowing something about Lippmann's life and career, I'm never sure why they would wish to be so). The previous place-holder in that position, the late David Broder, was a master of working hard to make himself look like an outside arbiter both of insider gamesmanship and Real American Opinion.

Yet, he was an admitted confabulator, no less than Janet Cooke and Stephen Glass. In 1972, on the eve of the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Broder reported that Sen. Edmund Muskie (D-ME) broke down in tears as he responded to a planted letter-to-the-editor, known as the "Canuck" letter for its use of that derogatory term. The letter was signed in the name of Muskie's wife, even though she had nothing to do with it. The unfolding story, all rooted in Broder's original report of Muskie "breaking down", destroyed Muskie's campaign.

In 1988, Broder admitted he'd made the whole thing up. He didn't see any tears on Muskie. Muskie's voice didn't break with emotion, except perhaps anger, but even then Broder said the description wasn't accurate. For this admission that he'd been an unwitting stooge in Nixon's plan to prevent the candidacy of the one challenger who consistently beat the President in polls over the previous year, Broder . . . well, nothing happened to David Broder. He went on writing for the Post, despite an admission he had made up a story that was one piece of a huge machine that nearly destroyed the country.

Yesterday, colmnist Kathleen Parker (another Pulitzer winner) whined because a blogger's claim about South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley went viral; these bloggers trafficking in rumor, gossip, and lies is just horrible, she intoned in her usual church-lady tones. She never once seemed to glance down and notice the paper that publishes her column has a long history of professional journalists making stuff up, trafficking in gossip and rumor, and generally being pretty care-free with facts. I am quite sure fellow church ladies and sages nodded, their lips pursed in disapproval at the great unwashed in the world who might say things in public that aren't true.

Things like the fact that Rep. Paul Ryan's latest budget is nonsense, his reputation as a bold, courageous independent thinker neither earned nor even granted for cause. The reputation, which emerged out of nowhere (at least to me), is True. The rest is partisan bias, because the facts and numbers are just too difficult to understand.

The one blessing we have had over the past decade is the explosion of places where news is available, the multiple sources for checking accuracy, and the tools at hand to make sure we are dealing, as best as any of us can know, with the facts of the matter. This isn't a matter of ideology or bias (unless a bias for facts is something only silly, cowardly liberals and leftists have). Those gamed refs of punditry and national political reporting, the brave centrists to whom few listen and even fewer follow outside the echo chambers of the national capital, are being pushed out by folks who couldn't care less if they are nabobs, if as nabobs they are nattering, or if their nattering is negative.

There is nothing ideological or negative in calling a zombie-eyed granny-starver what he is. It might not be nice, but neither is working really hard to put in place policies that . . . starve grannies. There's little room for politesse in some things.

Act Naturally: Resurrection And A Theology Of Science

There are some words I avoid using because I find them vague and unhelpful. Among those most annoying is "nature". The English word has many meanings, from a general reference to anything not artificial through a technical, philosophical understanding of what a thing is. A thing's nature not only defines it, in so doing it sets down its end or goal as well as the means by which it will reach that end. Much of this technical understanding of "nature" is with us in our general discussions of the way the world works. Clarified by contrast, we understand some actions as "not natural". Some people insist there is such a thing as "the supernatural", a word I detest even more than "natural", precisely because it assumes we know what the word "nature" means and to which it refers.

"Supernatural" is often used as an adjective describing God and Divine action. "Miracles" (yet another of those words I would toss out of the English language without looking back) are often defined as Divine interruption of natural processes - water in to wine, walking on water, that kind of thing - that display God's freedom in the face of the laws of nature. The height of Divine supernatural activity is, obviously, the resurrection. When was the last time a person who had been dead for several days not only got up and walked around, but talked with people, and then disappeared? Stuff like that just doesn't happen in nature. Right?

Which was why the 18th century rationalists, in particular David Hume, weren't too keen on the whole concept. Miracles of whatever stripe were more than just oddities; they were offenses against what was thought to be the good and well-ordered running of the Universe. If God could decide, willy-nilly, to intervene whenever God wanted, multiplying loaves and fishes and making blind folks see, how was it possible to come to any understanding of the way the Universe works, which relies on an assumption of regularity, the repetition of certain processes that become so ingrained (Hume's favorite was cause-and-effect; something that didn't actually exist, but was assumed thanks to regularity) they seem to be like laws.

Folks like me who say, "Jesus was raised from the dead!" are more than just weird. We are threatening any attempt to understand the way the world works. Except, of course, this claim rests on the related ideas that (a) science as it has evolved over the centuries is the only sure means for figuring out how the world works; and (b) "how the world works" isn't, itself, subject to the theological condemnation of sin, rendering our understanding limited and flawed not only in the contingent sense, but in an ontological sense as well.

The counter-claim - it isn't original with me; I remember it most vividly in on of N. T. Wright's books - is simple enough. The resurrection, as the inauguration of the fulfillment of Creation as God originally intended it, displays for us the way God created the world to be, before that creation was marred by sin and death. In other words, rather than some violation of the laws of nature, an event so extraordinary it can only be termed "supernatural", it may well be the case that changing water in to wine, ending physical pain and social ostracism through touch, and rising from the dead are how the world is supposed to be. People living together, caring for one another, taking care of one another.

No longer living in fear of death and the threat of non-existence that rides in its wake.

None of this is to suggest that science isn't a marvelous tool for discovering all sorts of things about the Universe. On the contrary, it continues to provide us with all sorts of interesting and useful information about ourselves and the world. It is, however, just a tool. It has its uses, to be sure, but it also has its limits. One of those limits is the assumption that its subject - the physical Universe, including human beings - can be and should be defined only in the terms set by scientific investigation. Those tools work well for science; they don't work quite as well for much else, yet we continue to pretend they do when we talk about miracles and the supernatural and the strangeness of the resurrection.

Nothing could be more natural, it seems to me.

What's The Big Deal?

So Chomsky has two articles out on the decline of American power. The first piece begins with themes and matters that those familiar with his work should recognize. Indeed, my introduction to Chomsky, via Bill Moyers' A World Of Ideas PBS series from 1988, included Chomsky complaining about the utter failure of anyone in any position of authority - political, academic, cultural - to call what the US did in South Vietnam during the Kennedy Administration "an invasion". I distinctly remember thinking as I heard him, then later read the collection of interviews Moyers published, "What in the world is this guy talking about?"

A quarter century later, and my thinking is only slightly different. Recognizing what Chomsky's goal has always been, as well as his hardly naive understanding of the nature of the rhetoric of the powerful, I now wonder why he claims to be puzzled by our lack of discussion of these matters in the terms that, he is correct to point out, describe them. As the premiere linguist of the previous century - a point no one in the field, or related fields, would dispute - Chomsky has to understand that how we use language is dependent upon our preferences, our social location, those whom we choose to serve, the prevailing boundaries of acceptable discussion policed by those in positions of authority, and the like. To continue to complain aloud that we in the United States not only do not recognize what the United States did in South Vietnam in 1962 as an invasion, but have passed the semicentennial without acknowledging its significance for our own recent history seems less like tenacity in the face of overwhelming opposition than it does simple crankiness, with a dash of pouting.

Of course no one in the US is going to point out that the anniversary has just passed of a major milestone in an evolving policy of failure. Of course no one wishing to hold a position of significant authority, prestige, and power is going to say, "From 1962 to 1965, the United States engaged in a military campaign that resulted in massive population dislocation, near-genocidal violence, creating the demand for military counter-measures that fed the Popular Front movement in South Vietnam." Not because the previous statement is contrary to fact; rather, because the previous statement, while accurate, is only one among many possible description of the event. Not to put too fine a point on it, which description we prefer depends an awful lot on that marvelous Latin phrase, Qui bono? Further complicating matters, as Chomsky notes in the first article, is that many who might well describe events in the former South Vietnam in a completely different set of terms do so because they honestly do not believe "invasion" properly describes those events. Laden with so much baggage, calling what happened "invasion" would, to those so inclined, render comprehension impossible. We need to acknowledge this reality before going too much further: Many in positions of power and authority actually believe their description of events is the only possible one; that this description is value- and agenda-neutral; that any other description, regardless of attention to historical fact, renders the event in question incomprehensible.

So much for a relatively minor quibble.

On the larger point of the two articles, I sit here and wonder: So? The American Imperial Project of the second half of the 20th century, rooted in the lucky contingency of our being the only major belligerent of the Second World War not to be invaded was always understood as temporary.

While the post-war planning conceded this was not a position we would hold in perpetuity, as Chomsky rightly states, there was little important dissent from the main thesis: Our position as the dominant global hegemon after 1945 was to be maintained for the benefit of important industrial and corporate interests, which had been the key players in determining our national policy, foreign and domestic, since the last quarter of the 19th century. Remaking the world for the American corporation is neither surprising, nor even all that interesting; such had been the case since the railroad, mining, sugar, and later oil interests had made many states, the United States Senate, and on several occasions the Presidency, wholly-owned subsidiaries of their interests (Ron Chernow's description of the political machinations among the great industrial and financial barons in the Gilded Age, in his biography of John D. Rockefeller, should be required reading for anyone interested in American political history).

When Karl Rove said that, as an Empire, the United States was in a position to create its own reality, he was stating a rather droll truism that had held since Alexander, limping back through the Khyber Pass after his one and only defeat, knew to be the case. At the same time, events in the world had changed to the point where the ability of the American Imperium to dictate the terms of reality were being impinged upon by rising powers, many of which Chomsky discusses in the articles in question. While much of the anger roused by Rove's statement was rooted in some kind of abstract disgust at the idea that reality is rooted in the dictates of power, little of significance was said about the reality of America as Empire, and what that means for us.

America has always been uneasy with any description of itself as an imperial power, except among those who have constructed the various American Empires (there are several). In a book entitled First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country A World Power, former diplomat and historian Warren Zimmerman makes clear that the first American Empire was only an equivocal success with the American people; our trial run for later counter-insurgency wars, in The Philippines, was both horribly managed as well as unpopular at home (much like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan). Much of the rhetoric of American Empire after the Second World War consciously ignored any use of the term, even as, in all practical terms, the US went about remaking the post-war world in its own interests, as well as those who had invested in its success.

It is hardly surprising that Americans are uneasy with ourselves as an Imperial power. It is also unsurprising that the American people usually voice a far more practical, limited use of our military power in defense of our interests; for just one recent example, American support for on-going military operations in southwest Asia, already low, declined even further once Osama bin Laden was killed by American Special Forces in Pakistan. As a people, we see no contradiction between supporting actions that line up with our interests, but having achieved the most important goal - in this case, removing the threat from the leader of the group responsible for the 9/11 attacks - ending our military operations. The American people, having achieved little of benefit from Empire, see no reason either to support it, or invest any emotional (let alone political, financial, or economic) capital in it. That our political leaders continue to act to shore it up even events around the world make it ever more difficult to sustain is yet another sign of our decline. The habit of dictating reality is far too ingrained in our elites to stop, despite the growing mountain of facts to the contrary.

As the American Empire wanes, we here at home - much like our British counterparts in the last century - can breathe a sigh of relief that the burdens of managing an increasingly unmanageable international system is passing to others. While there are significant transnational, even supranational, structures in place that do and will bear some of the burden during this period of transition, their lack of transparency and accountability may limit their effectiveness. I, for one, am quite happy to see America no longer assume the role of planetary hegemon. We have much work to do here at home, and our role in international affairs would benefit from attention to the rumblings for democratic accountability here at home that have manifested themselves across the political spectrum (and here I part company with many on the Left in defending the practice of the Tea Party; while it is true enough it would never have emerged without significant financial sponsorship, the many supporters of its goals and policy preferences were voicing a time-honored American demand for democratic accountability that ideological opponents ignore at their peril).

One can love this country, yet at the same time breathe a little easier at the thought that we are no longer the determinant power around the globe. The American decline is, by and large, something we all should support, and work toward hastening.

Just Do It!

Science confirms what many have long suspected.

“Individuals who identify as straight but in psychological tests show a strong attraction to the same sex may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves,” explains Netta Weinstein, the study’s lead author. “In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward,” says co-author Richard Ryan.

OK, so it isn't exactly news. Still, I'm so happy what we all knew was the case is out there for all to read.

Oh, and I can't wait to read Art's take on this.

Rick Warren's Babbling (UPDATE)

Here I thought we were through with him. Apparently not.

WARREN: Well, certainly the Bible says we are to care about the poor. There’s over 2,000 versus in the Bible about the poor. And God says that those who care about the poor, God will care about them and God will bless them. But there’s a fundamental question on the meaning of “fairness.” Does fairness mean everybody makes the same amount of money? Or does fairness mean everybody gets the opportunity to make the same amount of money? I do not believe in wealth redistribution, I believe in wealth creation…
WARREN: The only way to get people out of poverty is J-O-B-S. Create jobs. To create wealth, not to subsidize wealth. When you subsidize people, you create the dependency. You — you rob them of dignity. There are a lot of negative things that happen to us. Rather, we should be focusing on wealth creation and job creation, in my opinion…

My most-read post of all time concerns some not-very-nice comments Rick Warren's wife made about people living with HIV/AIDS. For a few minutes, he was a person of some public interest several years ago. I even wrote a few posts about him, especially when I was complaining that Pres. Obama asked him to give the opening prayer at his inauguration.

In all fairness, there are a few lines in the interview with which I agree. I think it is more than fair to say that there are some habits of consumption and competition for social prestige that are in need of criticism; I've made many similar points myself, and would be lying if I denied it. Buried in a context, however, that has Warren spewing partisan talking points rather than well-thought-out ethical positions, including the chestnut regarding "dependence", one can only call crap by its name.

In an interview on or around Easter, this is far worse. The Church is not about endorsing this or that partisan platform, social or economic ideology, or even placing blame for our current troubles. I am not even that impressed with Warren's fake magnanimity in which he insists our current economic woes lie at the feet of "multiple administrations", a failure of moral courage so huge one is almost tempted to laugh at any attempt he seems to make to offer a view on a way out.

I should be clear. I am not denying Warren's credentials as a pastor, as a Christian, or anything of that sort. What I am saying is his words show someone unwilling to begin with the Gospel in his thinking about matters of social, economic, and political ethics. Revealing someone quite willing to spout the rather shallow, hollow babble from one political ideology and party, Warren's words in this interview leave me wondering if he has actually thought about the relationship between the crucified and risen Jesus and our current historical moment, always with the first thought on the Gospel.

UPDATE: Some might call it fate. Some might call it karma. Me? I call it the Holy Spirit smacking Rick Warren around for running his mouth.

Sometimes, I think we should hang the phrase, "much as overlooked critics once warned" in blinding pink neon down one side of the Washington Monument. "Overlooked critics" said Iraq would be a mess. "Overlooked critics" said massive tax cuts for the wealthy would balloon the deficit. "Overlooked critics" said engaging in "welfare reform" based on fanciful theories about "dependency," and fairy tales about young bucks buying steaks and welfare queens with their Cadillacs, and measuring the whole thing by how many people you can trim from government assistance, was asking for the whole problem to come cascading down through the levels of government, from national to local, from Washington to the states to the cities and towns, until it simply buried the people at the very bottom of society. Sometimes, I think we'd actually do better not to "overlook" some critics.

The referenced Times piece can be found by clicking these words.

Tabula Rasa

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and do not forget all his benefits—
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the Pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good as long as you live
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.


The Lord works vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he keep his anger for ever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.


As for mortals, their days are like grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.


The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.
Bless the Lord, O you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
obedient to his spoken word.
Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
his ministers that do his will.
Bless the Lord, all his works,
in all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Psalm 103

As we celebrate the reality of the resurrection on this day, so many questions push themselves to the surface. Gathering and proclaiming that Jesus, who was dead, killed by a combination of intrigue and fear, has defied even the final power of death to demonstrate for us that which awaits all of us is nothing to fear now, still wonder. Not for nothing have Christians understood this first day of the week to be the First Day of the New Creation. This New Thing wipes the slate clean. The past, in all its forms, no longer holds us. As God no longer demands an accounting from us, why should we demand one from one another? The dead hand of our old lives was buried in the tomb with the bleeding corpse; our new life, unrecognizable even to those closest to us (see John 20), begins even now.

We are, even now in the midst of the terrors that stalk our world, living in the midst of this new creation. What would it be like to live this way? What would it be like no longer to live in fear of God or one another?

What would it be like to live without the fear that our death is some kind of judgment upon our lives?

Good Friday was the moment when the set-piece drama of Holy Week came to what anyone should have understood was its pre-determined end. As Jesus, his body bleeding and broken, finally dies, the state reasserts itself as the only real arbiter of life and death, pronouncing its judgment that some people do not deserve to live; that their deeds are a threat to good social order; that the monopoly on violence needs to be demonstrated for all to see in order to maintain good social order.

On Sunday, Jesus, walking and talking and laughing with his disciples, put an end to the threat on our lives the state, in its demonstrated unjust power, holds over us. Our life, dictated by this new reality, is one in which the threat even from the state to kill us should we not live as it is demanded no longer holds us.

We in the modern West, in particular, with our much-vaunted, centuries-fought-for freedoms, have trouble understanding the real threat posed to good social order by this resurrected Jesus. If Jesus has been raised from the dead, what tool does the state have left to insure its continued existence? The Church, living out the freedom we have from the Father in the Son through the Holy Spirit, proclaim the reality of the Psalm above in our lives, remembering the words of Jesus as our tool for ordering our life together: Love one another.

Our contemporary western state relies less on the threat of violence than other means of coercion; all the same, the state exercises its understanding of absolute control over our lives no less than the most heinous despotism. Whether or not we love one another is not a concern for the powers that be. Like Pilate's admission that the question of truth is not one of consequence for those in power, we who live in the only Truth that really exists as the living, resurrected Jesus see in and through him the only way to be who we are created to be. We live this out without regard to our past, without fear of the threat posed to us by Power because we believe that in the powerlessness of Jesus' death and the resurrection that brings him to us even here and now the matters that concern the state no longer hold us. Power, an insouciance to truth, the running of the well-ordered machine of the state for its own sake: these are things that, as of this day, are part of that past that no longer hold us.

Each Sunday is a little celebration of this event, a recollection that is deeper than collective memory, a declaration of the coming Final Act that is more than prophetic utterance of "Someday . . ." Yet, on this Easter Sunday, let us recall that death no longer terrorizes us, with its baggage of annihilation, separation from God and all those we have loved, and the end of meaning and purpose. Looking around us at a world that so desperately needs to hear the words, "Christ has risen!", let us be about what we are called to do without fear, with our faith in the Truth of the Person of the Risen Christ always with us, in the love that is our distinctive marker, that which defines who we are.

"Behold, I make all things new!" declares the Voice from the throne, at the end of it all, according to the Revelation to St. John the Divine. God is indeed making all things new, even now, beginning with the Living Christ who shall never die, and who invites us to forget what has past. Our sins, removed as far as the east is from the west, no longer define who we are before God, within as we relate to ourselves, or in our living with one another. This is the First Day of the New Creation. What was is gone. What is, what will be, these are the things that await us as we awake to the new reality inaugurated in and through the Risen Jesus.

Happy Easter. Christ is Risen!

Miles To Go

I'm sure I've probably told this story before, but it is pertinent, so bare with me. Not quite ten years ago, I purchased the CD Believe by the heavy metal band Disturbed. The second song on the release, "Liberate", is a marvelous call to stop waiting for something external to relieve us from all that afflicts us, lead singer David Drayton - who wrote most of the lyrics in the wake both of 9/11 and the passing of his grandfather, an Orthodox rabbi - quotes the Hebrew Scriptures in his call for all of us to live in the Law, which is love.



Needless to say, I ate this song up.

I was introducing it to Lisa, and when it was over, she asked me, "Why do they have to be so angry?"

The thought has been bouncing around my mind, in particular as we have moved through Holy Week on our way to the Easter announcement of the Eighth Day, the first day of the New Creation. With so much for which to be joyful, why is there so much rage? Not just out there, but within myself. I find myself, more and more, with barely contained anger at so much that I read and hear and see. I would be lying if I said that giving vent to this rage wasn't a marvelous flood of feelings.

All the same, there is just so much to enrage us.

John Derbyshire at The National Review:

(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.
(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).
(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.
(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.
(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.
(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.
(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.
(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.
(11) The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites. The least intelligent ten percent of whites have IQs below 81; forty percent of blacks have IQs that low. Only one black in six is more intelligent than the average white; five whites out of six are more intelligent than the average black. These differences show in every test of general cognitive ability that anyone, of any race or nationality, has yet been able to devise. They are reflected in countless everyday situations. “Life is an IQ test.”

Ann Coulter.

The persistence of abject poverty and hunger not somewhere else, but right here in the United States.

The operation of the US economic system The operation of the US economic and political system has led to certain people/groups being relatively disenfranchised.

The normal operation of the economic system will create a significant amount of poverty.

First, in a free enterprise economy, there is competition for jobs, with jobs going to the most qualified. On the other hand, there is almost always a significant amount of unemployment, so that not everyone will get a job, with the major unemployment falling on the least qualified. It might be tempting to identify them as 'unemployable' but what is in fact happening is that the private enterprise system is not generating enough jobs to employ everyone.
Secondly, the top echelon of business has the power to allocate the profits of the enterprise, and certainly they have allocated these profits to themselves in recent years.
The operation of the US political system, The US political system, which should address the major problems of its citizens, is to a great extent not focused on fundamental concerns of poor people, but on other concerns.

Military and security expenditure represent half of US federal government discretionary expenditures, much larger that expenditures to assist poor people, and this budgeting is assisted by a strong web of political and financial connections which has been termed the "military-industrial complex."
Corporations and the rich, through their ability to lobby Congress and the Administration effectively by such means as spending large amounts of money on lobbying efforts and on political campaigns of elected officials have succeeded in establishing their priorities, including tax breaks and subsidies..
The Democratic party, which used to be a party of the 'working class' has now set its sights on the 'middle class' as the target base of voters it must appeal to.
The culture of inequality

People are typically segregated by income and often race.
Jobs are low paid and scarce. This can lead to crime as a way of obtaining income, and also to unemployed men not willing to marry, which can play a significant role in developing a cultural model of single parent families.
The lack of income, as described in the poverty section above create problems, including poor housing, lack of food, health problems and inability to address needs of one's children.
As a result of their situation, people living in poverty can themselves have patterns of behavior, such as alcoholism or a 'life of crime' that are destructive to them.

The Second Congo War (the dates in the link are wrong; the war continues, with all the horrors such a war drags in its train).

I could continue, but I think the point is clear enough. For all that tomorrow is a day of celebration, joy, and thanksgiving, there is far too much evil and violence in the world to rest easy. I'm angry not because politics makes solutions difficult; I'm angry because not enough people are involved, are working to set things right, to make of our world a place where the Risen Christ can be seen and whose Reign will be acknowledged.

I'm angry because we are, alas, a people who, while free from sin, are still immersed in its clutches. Ours is the time between the Times, as a young Karl Barth wrote nearly one hundred years ago. We have a long way to go before our world, in big and small ways, can be said to shine with the light of New Day whose arrival we celebrate tomorrow.

Anger is a healthy reaction to so much around us, I usually wonder why more of us aren't seething with rage. All the same, we need to set that in abeyance, in the early hours of tomorrow's sunrise, as we gather to remember that, despite the horrors around us, they do not have the last word. Ours is a Creation claimed by the crucified and risen Christ; our task is to live this out best as we can.

Taking A Breather

I was going to be really lazy and just reprint what I wrote last year. I really like the following, even if I do say so myself:

What constitutes the character of this obedience is nothing more or less than taking in to very existence of the inner life of the Triune God that which cannot be, that which was before God created, chaos and lifelessness. Matters of Hell and Gehenna, of Purgatory and Limbo, not only cross a line where speculation rooted in misunderstanding and silence should calm our nervous spirits, but in any event continue to see the Passion as something rooted in human existence, human needs. The being solidary with the dead is part of the Divine desire to be in relationship even there, with the dead in the nothingness, the powerlessness (he quotes the Hewbrew refa'im, those who are powerless, to emphasize the utter passivity of Jesus even in death) which is their lot. Salvation is not only God's act for Creation. Considering the death of Jesus within the context of the Trinitarian life of God leads one to see the fullness of God's desire to take in to that mysterious love of the Three for one another that which cannot be a part of it. The Passion becomes, through the emptiness and silence of Holy Saturday, more clearly understood as a working out of the depth of the Three Persons for One Another in the world God created, even to that which denies creation.

I'm not sure what else to say about this day of vigilance, this Sabbath rest for those of who wait and wonder, knowing what is coming, believing it to be a New Thing.

As a side note, I think one of the existential results of this theological exploration of the death of Jesus within the context of the inner Trinitarian Life of God is to strip from death the hold through fear it has over us. While this is finally accomplished in the resurrection (and any thoughts about this day would be empty, even blasphemous, without the reality of the resurrection as a basis), even here we realize that Death, Hell, abandonment by God are no longer things to be feared. God in the Second Person has taken the full measure of death's dark reign, venturing to the furthest country possible, lying in that most passive state possible - death - experiencing the non-experience, in solidarity with those who are not precisely because, being dead, he, too, is not.

The proclamation of the Psalmist has become real in Jesus, as God in the Second Person makes real the Divine Presence in the Place of the Dead. We no longer need fear death as separation from God. While we shouldn't seek it out, nor strip from unjust or untimely or unnecessary death the condemnation that comes from mourning and rage and sorrow, we should never fear that with this final reality we have come to an end without recourse.

As we wait and watch, not in fear like the first disciples but in faith, anticipating joy as those who live in the light of what is to come, let us remember those who have gone before us. Death, being timeless, knows no boundary; Jesus is with them, even with us in our own deaths, silencing the boasting of the grave through his own silence. Be of good cheer, for those who have gone before us, those who will go long after us, and even we are there in death with Jesus, awaiting the Glory of the New Day whose arrival brings with it the cries of all Creation awaiting its fulfillment.

Holy Week Through The Daily Lectionary

Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, ‘Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above;

John 19:-8-11a

[W]hat [the author of the Fourth Gospel] means is that what actually took place in this use of the statesman's power was the only possible thing that could take place in the fulfilment [sic] of the gracious will of the Father of Jesus Christ! Even at the moment when Pilate (still in the garb of justice! and in the exercise of the power given him by God) allowed injustice to run its course, he was the human created instrument of that justification of sinful man that was completed once for all time through that very cricifixion [sic].

Karl Barth, "Church And State", in Community, State, and Church, p.110

The traditional name for this day is often understood as confounding, even paradoxical. How can it be good that this man, blameless in act as he was sinless before God, was wrongly accused and convicted and executed? How is it good that the power of the state to decide who lives and who dies - what is quaintly called "a monopoly of violence" - became greater than the power of the God we claim created the Universe? Many mysteries and cross-threads and questions come to this particular point - and hang there, demanding an answer.

Politics is more than a hobby of mine. It has been, longer than I can remember, something I have passionately followed, sought to understand, decode, translate, and work through toward a particular goal. The stated end of politics is social benefit. Yet it is in and through unique instances and events involving individuals that the state demonstrates both the means it chooses to move toward that goal, and by so choosing, the actual, historical end it seeks. My own passionate belief in greater justice, not in the abstract but in the very tangible senses we consider for that word - legal, social, economic, political - has always made me less than tolerant of those who pursue politics as an end in and for itself.

I know people who are fascinated by the Great Game, seeing in the intricacies and tactical and strategic maneuvering of various players little more than a real-life variant of chess. I have watched young men and women, their eyes shining with a light very close to hunger, even lust, as they talk about and watch various political actors go through the various motions dictated by power. It is frightening to see that; the game is, indeed, seductive. Yet, much like chess, new players in the game forget they are just that, and most players exist to be sacrificed to protect the King. Perhaps that is why I have never been a very good chess player; I am far less concerned with the game than that for which the game exists. I'll happily sacrifice even a king if it brings greater justice for the pawns, the knights, the bishops, and the rooks.

We Christians have a difficult time being clear about the relationships among our beliefs, our practice of the faith, and our attitude toward the worldly powers that govern and dictate the boundaries of our lives, individually and collectively. Whether one self-identifies as conservative, orthodox (small "o"), a liberationist, liberal, Roman Catholic, or some particular sub-species (Reformed, Lutheran, Evangelical, Wesleyan, neo-Orthodox, yadda-yadda), our much vaunted ability to be clear breaks down when we confront what should be, in practice, the most pressing question we face: How do we as the Church, the Body of Christ, relate to the authorities over us? Considering these same powers broke, then killed, the physical Body of Christ, one would think this a not-unimportant matter.

Too often, we start with St. Paul's statement in his Epistle to the Romans that we are to pray for the authorities because they have been appointed over us. Many over the centuries have protested this seemingly facile, even insulting command. Even at the time St. Paul was writing, local, regional, even Imperial authorities were killing Christians; how unfeeling to insist we are to pray for those who would seek to kill us! The growth of liberation theologies in the last century put this question even more starkly; with the systems of the state subject to much more exacting scrutiny (although, I believe this is a modern conceit that shouldn't bear up; I'm figuring oppressed peoples pretty much at any time and place understood all too well the interlocking structures that had their feet on the backs of their necks), the demonic heart of these systems couldn't be more clear. How is it possible to pray for them? Isn't it blasphemy to insist that God has placed these authorities over us?

Wasn't it Jesus who insisted we are to pray for those who persecute us? Wasn't it Jesus who asked us to love our enemies? Wasn't it Jesus who said we are blessed when we are pursued and oppressed and even killed for our belief in him?

In the confrontation between Jesus and Pilate, the many questions that highlight these matters rise up, giving them clarity. When Pilate insists he controls the levers of state power, the decision of life and death for Jesus as this moment, Jesus makes clear that this power is not Pilate's at all. The decision whether Jesus is to live or die rests not with Pilate, but in the Will and work of the one Jesus called Father, the God who in this moment chooses Divine Glory over contingent justice; the Father chooses the salvation of this broken world God creates and loves over the life of the Son, the eternal Love with which the Father shares in and through the Holy Spirit, that third person that forms the Triunity of God. Never denying the injustice of the whole affair, we affirm with a great nevertheless that the structures of state power are acting as they have been intended. As the machine grinds on, with Jesus strapped down in its path, we hear in Jesus' words the affirmation that his own powerlessness, and Pilate's assumption of power and authority, are such only because the Father has willed it to be so for the greater glory of God and the salvation of all creation.

The never-answered question of this day - What is truth? - shows the disregard the state must have to reality if it is to perform in the way it is designed to perform. Pilate understands Jesus is innocent. Pilate has no desire to see him die. If Pilate is to do what needs to be done, what has been Divinely ordained no less than contingently manipulated, he must disregard the question of truth even as it stares back at him in the bloody, exhausted face in front of him.

As we Christians celebrate and remember this day, injustice looms large in our land, as it does in all lands, and we face it with all the fear, bewilderment, and anger Christians have always done. As we meditate upon the bleeding and dying form on the cross, we see reflected back all those whom the state has deemed worthy of death, whose lives are ill-suited to the ends of the state that considers the illusion of its power to be real. We should always remember, however, that this death, as unjust as it was, was a death God freely chose. Without resolving the conflict between the state and its victims, we clearly see on this day more than any other, why it is we are to pray for our persecutors; why it is we are to celebrate our oppression for our faith; why it is we are to love our enemies, even when our enemies are systems and institutions created to sustain a power that, in fact, does not spring from itself. Our prayers, always preceding and accompanying our lives in the world in pursuit of justice, are rooted in our faith that this unjust act, this execution of one in whom there was neither sin nor crime, is God's Act for us. This resolution of injustice in justice demonstrates the path we are to tread in pursuit of the Church's work for God's Kingdom moves through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, a place where we have been promised, in the Psalms, Divine Presence, receiving both guidance and comfort.

The pursuit of a more just, more humane world, a place where all human beings are recognized as human beings, worthy of concern and compassion, is not going to resolve itself. It is not going to be resolved through the Church choosing one side or another in the Great Game. It is not going to be resolved through some innovation in one or another technique - financial or economic, industrial or scientific. Real justice, which springs from the singular recognition of Divine governance embodied in the Person of Jesus Christ whose unjust death we remember and celebrate - yes, celebrate! - this day, will come only when we are willing, in our rage and disgust and fear at the many ways human beings find themselves hanging on various crosses around the world, to continue to pray for those in authority over us, precisely because they have been so placed by God to perform the work they do.

Good Friday is not the end of the story, to be sure. It is, however, a necessary step on the way. For this reason, Easter poses its own set of problems and possible answers. Which is why this will be continued on that Sunday we celebrate the eighth day.