Theology and History

I've begun work on my masters. This includes reading, for a class titled Resurrection in the New Testament, N.T. Wright's historical look at the resurrection (both the actual event and the belief of the earliest Christians about the resurrection) called The Resurrection of the Son of God. (How many times can you say "resurrection" in one sentence?)

It has been argued by various theologians, and even some historians, that a historical look into the resurrection either cannot, or should not be done. One theologian, Hans Frei, (whom I happen to like, what little of his work I have gotten around to reading or reading about) falls in the "shouldn't be done" camp. He says that the resurrection is the starting point for any truly Christian epistemology, therefore nothing can be known about it without already knowing it. So the attempt of a Christian historical inquiry into the resurrection will collapse into itself.

Wright obviously disagrees to some extent. He does agree that the resurrection is at the base of any Christian epistemology, but argues that a historical study should be done because it could help one move from one epistemology to a better (more Christian) epistemology. He cites the apostle Thomas as an example. After seeing and touching the actual wounds on the body of the resurrected Jesus he believed.

On this issue I have a few thoughts/questions that I'm looking for some helpful discussion on. One: if we take embodiment seriously then a historical investigation into the resurrection should not prove harmful or fruitless, right? But, two: does such an inquiry, and even Wright's assertion that said inquiry can help move one from one (pagan) epistemology to another (Christian) epistemology, suppose a secular, or "neutral" realm that I have previously rejected thanks to John Wright and my reading in Radical Orthodoxy? (This is basically Frei's protest restated from a slightly different angle.)

From where I am in my thinking right now I don't think Wright's assertion necessarily does presume such a realm. It only does if we compartmentalize events and interpretation of said events. Since we cannot remove interpretation, we cannot remove faith, and only divinely delivered faith will lead to correct interpretations, even of a Christian historical inquiry into the resurrection.

Perhaps I have been guilty of completely disembodying faith. Yes, only faith can make the move from one epistemology to another, Christian epistemology happen. But perhaps God can and will use such a historical study to move one to a Christian worldview. Stated this way, the person would not be moved by unguided human reason but by God, making himself close, holding the spheres together with his presence moment by moment.

Do you agree? Or am I way off?

Burial Shroud

There is no banner worthy enough to cover the sin of killing beloved children of God.

Voting As Christian Witness...

...is like discarding a half eaten hamburger in a trash can that happens to be in the vicinity of a homeless person and calling it a work of mercy.

I'm not saying that Christians should not vote. It is a responsible action. Like putting your garbage in a proper receptacle and not dropping it on the sidewalk. But lets call it what it is; and it is not letting the voice of the Church be heard. It is waste management. At best - and it rarely is - the state helps to restrain evil. It does not usher in the kingdom.

Neither party nor any recent candidate embodies the Christian message (No, not even Katherine Harris). Therefore voting = compromise. Picking the lesser of two evils. And witness and compromise are mutually exclusive concepts.

If we care about abortion do we simply vote pro-life then go home and watch TV and eat cheetos and feel good about doing our Christian duty? Dear God I hope not. Because where does that candidate stand on immigration? Helping those living in poverty? Inflation and debt?

I once talked with gentleman who said, "Yea. I may not agree with (a certain politician's) economic stance. But I made a decision long ago to vote strictly by moral issues, not economic theories."

Every issue is a moral issue.

Last I checked God loves Mexicans and poor people too.

"Oh, Wil. You can't have it all."

"Nope. Not within the American political system."

The lesser of two evils may be the better choice between two options. So go ahead and vote that way. But lets quit stopping there. The problem is that we've bought into the idea that these are the only options: liberal or conservative, yes on prop 204 or no on prop 204, legislated morality or ganja fueled peace orgies, elephants bearing their Americanized Jesus that feeds his cherished corporations with the corpses of the poor and then offers them a clear glass of melted glacier water to wash it down, or jackasses herded by Satan himself on a black ATV that runs on an alternative fuel derived from aborted babies and toppled monuments to the 10 commandments.

We've been told to "vote or shut up." If we believe this, if we see voting as our only, or even our primary, voice, then our ballots become the duct tape sealing our lips.

Thank the Living Jesus there is a third option: seeing the Church of Jesus Christ as the primary political entity to which we belong and through which we let our voice be heard. We do not need to continue searching and waiting for the perfect candidate to represent Christianity. I have been told so many times over the past few months as the mid-term elections approach that if Christians do not go out and do our part and vote, then we will be powerless as we watch evil continue to spread throughout our once great nation. Again, sure, vote. But I believe that voting is neither our only, nor our best, avenue for influence.

What is? The body of believers united and mobilized, willing to risk everything, to love God by loving our neighbor.

Since when do we have to wait for laws and governments to change things? The early Church brought about change by getting themselves thrown to the lions by the ruling authorities. They did not need to try to get the state to work on their behalf because they saw themselves as the instruments of God for change. We need no mediator and no law to grant legitimacy or power (efficacy) to what we are called to do. We only need the God-given faith and discipline to actually do it.

Les Miserables Biblical Commentary

Even if you are not a big reader, the unabridged version of Les Miserables is worth three-fold every minute it takes to digest its 1,463 glorious pages. I give you the following short passage in support of this claim (and I know Charlie Pardue is with me on this one). Though it fits impeccably within the gigantic narrative, it also stands on its own.

...he (the bishop) had his own strange way of judging things. I suspect he acquired it from the Gospels.

In a salon one day he heard an account of a criminal case about to be tried. A miserable man - because of love for a woman and the child she had borne him - had been making counterfeit coins, his real money was gone. At that time counterfeiting was still punished by death. The woman was arrested for passing the first piece he had made. She was held prisoner, but there was no proof against her lover. She alone could testify against him, and lose him through her confession. She denied his guilt. They insisted, but she was obstinate in her denial. At that point, the king's state prosecutor devised a shrewd plan. He maintained that her lover was unfaithful and by means of fragments of letters skillfully put together succeeded in persuading the unfortunate woman that she had a rival and that the man had deceived her. Inflamed with jealousy, she denounced her lover, confessed everything and proved his guilt. He was to be tried in a few days, at Aix, with his accomplice and his conviction was certain. The story was told and retold, and everybody was delighted by the magistrate's cleverness. Bringing jealousy into play, he had truth to light by means of anger, and justice had sprung from revenge. The bishop listened to all this in silence. When it was finished he asked, "Where are this man and this woman to be tried?"
"At the Superior Court."

"And where is the king's prosecutor to be tried?"

Read up those of you carrying out this "war on terror."

Will Ferrell and the American Jesus

How does Will Ferrell get it and such a large portion of the Church not?

In Talladega Nights, Ferrell’s character, Ricky Bobby, refuses to pray to any Jesus other than the “dear Lord baby, infant, 8 pound 6 ounce” (etc.) Jesus. When his wife informs his that he doesn’t need to continually refer to Jesus as an infant because, “he did grow up you know,” Ricky counters, saying he will continue to pray to the infant Jesus. When someone else is praying they can pray to the teenage Jesus in the temple or the adult Jesus in a boat, the dying Jesus on the cross, or even the decaying Jesus in the tomb if they like, but he will only pray to baby Jesus in the manger. Why? Because that is the Jesus he likes best.

Again, I ask: how is it that Will Ferrell can see that Jesus has become nothing more than a personal preference, a consumer option, when so much of the Church continues to, simply and ignorantly, choose which Jesus to peddle when we want to best “reach the people in our target demographic,” and which Jesus to “serve,” or appeal to, when we want something. How is it that Ferrell, the same man who donned a g-string Speedo for his appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, has fingered our deficient interpretations that allow us to make Jesus into whatever best suits our group or individual interests (as determined by ourselves, of course) in various contexts while we continue proof texting in attempt to justify our child-like yearning to get our way?

Are you a combative Republican? Jesus can be that (Matt. 10:34 + Mk. 12:17a). Humanistic Liberal? He can be that too (Luke 17:21 + Matt 7:1). Marxist dictator? Check (Matt. 6:19, in light of Acts 2, + Matt. 10 37-38). Dangerous nomadic criminal? Sure (Matt. 8:20 + Lk. 23:32-33). Hermetic hippie cannibal? Yup (Mk. 1:35 + Matt. 6:25-29 + Matt. 26:26b-28). Let's go nuts; Jesus can even be an entrepreneurial motorcycle aficionado if you want to do some serious scriptural gymnastics (I don’t, but some niche marketing mega churches do). So pray to whomever you like.

Do you not like the Jesus that makes you uncomfortable by calling you out of your old life and into a new one defined by discipleship? Well fine, he doesn’t have to be that anymore. He can now become our spiritual masseur who relieves the tension “other” Jesus’ create. All we have to do is pluck him out of our favorite point in the narrative and construct an entirely new Jesus by creatively re-imagining that newly isolated moment, like the young girl I recently read with during an after school program who dispensed with the book’s story altogether in favor or her own fairy-tales made up on the spot as inspired by the accompanying pictures.

The problem with all of these appropriations is that none of them take seriously the entire, eternal life of Christ. The full Jesus was much more radical and much more distinctive than any of our own creative constructions. That is why his disciples appropriated for themselves an original name that rendered all other appellations obsolete. That title never was and never will be Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Compassionate Conservative, Post-modern, Socialist, Progressive etcetera ad infinitum. No, those simply will not do. Only one will: Christian. And Christians pray to one God through Jesus Christ. All of him. Every last life redefining bit. Take all; withhold nothing.

All Apologies

Sorry I've been away from my blog for so long. It's just that I've been a bit busy getting married and starting a family.

Once again, I apologize.

Homily

A few weeks ago I traveled to Port Aransas, Texas, to officiate my first wedding. It was special and strange for me, being that it was my cousin Cheryl's wedding. And even though I am now 25 and she is in her early 30's, in some way she will always be my cool, pretty, older, teenage cousin. The one that used to let me tag along with her and her friends, feeling cool because of my proximity to cool people, sitting in the backseat of her mother's Suburban, with my little can that was supposed to resemble a snuff can full of stuff that was supposed to resemble snuff, but was really only ground up beef jerky, caring nothing about where we were going or what we were actually doing (usually nowhere and nothing). And the one with whom, when it was just the two of us, I could talk about George Strait and Guns 'N Roses in the same sentence. To most of my family that was sacrilegious. But we understood.

Add to this the fact that I myself will be getting married on July 15. So when the time came in the ceremony for me to give my very first wedding homily, I spoke to myself and my fiance as much as I did to Cheryl and Gary, and the whole experience became nearly surreal.

That is the backstory, as well as bits from my introduction. The following is body of the message I spoke.

...That is why we are here. To take part in something truly real. Often we pour our lives into chasing something we think will be real and lasting: wealth, security, prominence. Only to be disappointed when we finally grasp what we've been pursuing, open our hands to behold it, and see that it has disintegrated into dust, as everything that is at the mercy of time will eventually do.

But marriage is not like this, even though you both will die. As you look around today and remember the family members who are not here because they have already passed on, know that one day you too will join them. Even though thinking of yourself as one passing through death seems like something you read about in a science-fiction novel, something you may be able to imagine but you never fully believe that someday you will actually experience it, in due course, you will. But regardless of the temporal nature of your lives and marriage, as you live faithfully in this marriage, it will direct you to something eternal.

Because marriage is not about property rights. It is not about human law, because as necessary as human law may be, it does not have the authority to unite two lives into one. Only God has the authority to do this. And neither is marriage an outward sign of something you have already made real within yourselves. This is not a mere formality. If you surrender to and look for God in your marriage it will be what God intended and your marriage will actually strengthen and sustain your love. Not the other way around.

This sounds weird to many today who make no place for God in their interpretation of marriage. And I can understand this. It used to be a strange thought for me too. I used to think that it was the job of the human heart to sustain a marriage. And this is true to a certain extent; hearts are a necessary element of a faithful marriage. But hearts are fickle and unreliable. But God is not.

See, Gary and Cheryl, God has given you freedom and the ability to choose. And you have employed this gift to choose to commit to each other in love.

God has also given you the ability to love and the capacity to experience it.

But you and I do not create love. It does not matter what some poets or philosophers say, love is not manufactured in the human heart. God is the author of love. And this true love is the most beautiful thing we can know and experience. It brings a new dimension to every aspect of life because God himself is love. It is God's defining characteristic (I John 4:7-8).

Since God is love, we can only know true love as we know God. Without God our experience and understanding of love will always be less than it could be. And if we truly love, we are participating in God himself.

This is what is happening today. Gary and Cheryl, today you are asking for and accepting God's gift of love to the fullest extent that two people can know it between themselves. In a bit we will talk about nasty little things like sickness and poverty. In these times human love would throw in the towel. It would find it easier to (attempt to) sever the ties, (attempt to) heal, and (attempt to) go it alone. But divine love would not only persevere, but grow stronger through these times (I Corinthians 13).

Gary and Cheryl, love as you have known it thus far has brought you to this point. And this is good. It is as it should be. But today, you step a great deal further. You take a step that you could not take without divine aid. Today you are asking God to unite (mystically, but quite literally) you in love.

This act, in this place, is the divine intersecting the human. This is why certain sectors of the Church have considered marriage a sacrament. As God unites you, God will give you a bit of himself.

This is what marriage is about. Marriage is not about property rights. It is not about human law. This is something real. This is something permanent. This is something beautiful.

National Championships

My fiance, Amy Nanson (shown left, smacking the crap out of the ball), is currently playing in the NAIA national championship tournament (and kicking massive amounts of butt) along with the rest of the Point Loma Sea Lions. I am very proud of her. If you're interested you can follow the results here or even watch a live online play-by-play here (just click on the scores to the right of the game you are interested in - no video, sorry).

I Love This Man

Chomsky may be right, professional sports may be the biggest single distraction that keeps people (especially Americans) from educating themselves and forming opinions about more important matters...but still, especially after last night, I love Raja Bell. And I will watch as many more 3 1/2 hour playoff games as the suns want to throw at me.

And just for good measure...



Peace.

A Credo On Pain

I believe in Beauty and Grace,
So I believe in Pain(1).
Because I believe these can be Painful(1),

Because I also believe in pain(0).
And this is hideous and graceless.

Though I have lived them both,

The distinction comes not from
how I experienced or interpreted,
But from the source and the end.
Whether I acted alone, was acted upon,
Was shaped, or further malformed.

Who Fits Who Into What Now?

I did some kids' homework for them today. One of my co-workers has two children, a daughter who is 11 and a son who is 12, who go to a Lutheran school. Recently I have been entertained/troubled by some of her school stories. Especially one, that is so ironic it's ridiculous, about her son being accused of plagiarizing a poem he wrote on trust. Her disapproving letter to the teacher and principal that soon followed has led to some serious tension. Then, today, she informed me that her students had to finish a major science project by writing a conclusion that explains "how God fits into their findings." I offered my political pastoral skills, telling her that I could smooth things over for her, even the plagiarism issue, if she would let me do her kids assignment, squeezing God into their project somehow. The following is what I gave her. She says she's going to turn it in.

Of course God has something to do with all of this. God is the Creator of all things right? The phenomena I have observed in my experiments would not have happened if God had not established and sustained the created order. The very elements themselves would cease to even exist if God stopped graciously granting them existence. Be they a block of wood or a grain of salt, they only are because God allows them to be. Furthermore, I believe, no, correction, I know it to be true that neither I, nor you, nor any scientist with multiple doctorate degrees, is capable of properly interpreting these observations I have noted if they do not understand everything involved not as autonomous entities, but as created realities. They (not even the afore mentioned grain of salt) do not exist in and of themselves as a part of some independent secular realm evacuated by God. They only truly exist as they participate in their Creator.

What we really have here is a question of ontology. And I believe that a faulty ontology is the groundwork for the requiring of these paragraphs as a part of this assignment. An ontology that finds its roots in Scotus and Descartes, not in God. In the human mind alone, not in the true Faith that illuminates the human mind.

This ontology has caused you to fear the very science you love. You are afraid that science, if it continues unchecked in the apostate direction it has been heading, will succeed in pushing the God you love into a sphere of primitive susperstition. And this assignment is the best you can come up with to keep the younger generations from sacrificing the Faith on the altar of science.

You probably do not know where this is coming from. You might find these accusations unfounded. Well, here is my foundation: Your underlying ontology is betrayed in your instructions. You said, "Then, in a few short paragraphs, explain how God fits into your findings," instead of saying, "Then, in a few short paragraphs, explain how your findings fit into God." Who can compress God and fit the Creator of the universe into anything? If this is my assignment, I admit defeat.

Reason and faith are not mutually exclusive. Therefore I do not buy into the system, so prevalent even within "conservative" Protestant circles, that allows science as pursued as a secular endeavor to dictate what is real and true and then attempts to corroborate faith with science's findings. This inevitably leads to fundamental shifts that morph true Christianity into a sad (though all too convincing) parody. Of course God has something to do with my science experiment. God has everything to do with it. God has everything to do with everything. My question for you, and I am sure there is a good answer somewhere, is: "What does my science project have to do with God?"

She's checking out a pretty decent charter school.

Five Albums To Listen To In The Dark

Do This! And when you have to time to give the whole album a hearing.

1) John Coltrane - A Love Supreme. Careful, or it might usher you into a form of worship.




2) Meshuggah - I (EP). Just don't call me if you suffer ensuing night terrors.




3) Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. It might take you deep enough to learn something about yourself.




4) Radiohead - Kid A. Ever wish you were somewhere else? Perhaps a paranoid "safety" bunker with your family during war time? I hope not. But it would probably do us a lot of good if more people felt at least a little of what it must be like.




5) Melvins - King Buzzo (EP). Let the repetition drive you insane (in a good way) as you begin to hear things you missed the first 60 times the drum riff assulted you... and then wonder if what you hear is really there. Plus there is a nice suprise guest on the last track.

Remember That You Are Dust, And To Dust You Shall Return

Last night I presided over the first Ash Wednesday service my church has ever done. It was quite a humbling experience; throughout the whole service my sins were exposed. Not just brought to mind, but exposed. Like the way the first sentence of this blog exposes the arrogance that motivated it (I wanted you all to know, or at least sense, that I was the one who proposed and pushed for the observance of Ash Wednesday. To know that I know my Christian Tradition). Last night I was repeatedly shown ways that, as a minister, I attempt¹ to take the work of the Holy Spirit into my own hands and desire, at least some, recognition. My posture, tone of voice, and thoughts (though internal, they are not private; thus in and through them God exposed my sinfulness) all betrayed my pride. Maybe not to all, but it really does not change my soul's standing before God if my students or volunteer staff are fooled.

It must sound strange for a sanctified Nazarene pastor to be talking about his sin. But it should not be. Truthfully, I believe that when we are sanctified, or, as we are being sanctified², confession becomes more and more a part of our lives. This is because as we mature in the faith our sin tends to become less visible. So we do not outgrow confession, but learn more and more how central it is to our sanctification. God uses it to draw deeper, more subtle, and more fundamental sin out of the shadowy recesses and into the purifying light. It is grace, by this means like a beautiful puss that pushes the splinter to the surface so that it can be shown for what it is and extracted.

Last night will stick with me. It was one of those moments that was consumed by what is real. There is nothing false about a convicted sinner, who often sins because he forgets how short and precious life truly is and from whence it comes, with ash on his forehead, marking his fellow penitents (one of whom happened to be his sister) with the cross and urging them to "remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." So it will not fade into the past but will always be present as I move into the future.



¹I originally typed this word in the past tense. I guess my purification was not completed at the close of last night's service.

²They are the same thing. So really, this sentence is redundant. I emphasized the "are being" because that is part we Nazarenes tend to overlook or de-emphasize in our own spiritual journey.

"I Think I Got 'Em Harry!"

So our Vice-President had a little mishap and shot a 78 year-old man. In the face.

Wow. This is fodder for so much comedy. I do not forsee "our Vice-President shot a man in the face" jokes getting unfunny any time soon. Unless the guy dies, but that does not seem likely. So, here are some of the good gunslinging VP jokes I've seen/heard during the last few days. Let's all take a minute to a month or so to laugh at our VP.

(The first bit from the Daily Show has also been posted by both Charlie and Eric, because it is that funny.)

From "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart"

Jon Stewart: "I'm joined now by our own vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst, Rob Corddry. Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?

Rob Corddry: "Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush.

"And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face."

Jon Stewart: "But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, in a post-9-11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak."

Jon Stewart: "That's horrible."

Rob Corddry: "Look, the mere fact that we're even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know 'how' we're hunting them. I'm sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little 'covey' of theirs.

Jon Stewart: "I'm not sure birds can laugh, Rob."

Rob Corddry: "Well, whatever it is they do … coo .. they're cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.

Jon Stewart: "Okay, well, on a purely human level, is the vice president at least sorry?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, what difference does it make? The bullets are already in this man's face. Let's move forward across party lines as a people … to get him some sort of mask."

* * *
Jon Stewart: "Yes, as you've just heard, a near-tragedy over the weekend in south Texas. Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man during a quail hunt at a political supporter's ranch. Making 78-year-old Harry Whittington the first person shot by a sitting VP since Alexander Hamilton.

"Hamilton, of course, shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honor, integrity and political maneuvering. Whittington? Mistaken for a bird.

* * *
The other player in the drama? Ranch owner and eyewitness Katharine Armstrong.

Katharine Armstrong: "We were shooting a covey of quail. The vice president and two others got out of the car to walk up the covey."

Jon Stewart: "What kind of hunting story begins with getting out of your car? As I sighted the great beast before us, my shaking hands could barely engage the parking brake. Slowly, I turned off the A/C and silenced my sub-woofers…"

* * *
Katharine Armstrong: "A bird flushed. The vice president took aim at the bird and shot and unfortunately, Mr. Whittington was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty well."

Jon Stewart: "Peppered. There you have it. Harry Whittington, seasoned to within an inch of his life.

* * *
Letterman: "Good news ladies and gentleman, we have finally located weapons of mass destruction … It's Dick Cheney."

* * *
"We can't get Bin Laden, but we nailed a 78-year-old attorney."

* * *
"The guy who got gunned down is a Republican lawyer and a big Republican donor and fortunately the buck shot was deflected by wads of laundered cash. So he's fine. He took a little in the wallet."

* * *
From "Cheney's Excuses," Monday night's Top 10 list on Letterman: "I thought the guy was trying to go gay cowboy on me."

* * *
Jimmy Kimmel: "It's part of the president's new Social Security plan. Once you hit 78, kablamo."

* * *
"Luckily, the guy he shot was wearing the body armor that never got shipped to the troops."

* * *
Leno: "Although it is beautiful here in California, the weather back East has been atrocious. There was so much snow in Washington, D.C. Dick Cheney accidentally shot a fat guy thinking it was a polar bear."

* * *
"When people found out he shot a lawyer his popularity is now at 92%"

* * *
"After he shot the guy, he screamed, 'Anyone else want to call domestic wire tapping illegal?' "

* * *
"Something I just found out today about the incident. Do you know that Dick Cheney tortured the guy for a half hour before he shot him?"

Some Wilde Quotes

I would like to thank my friend Jarrod Taylor for suggesting that I begin to read Oscar Wilde. I have only skimmed a compilation of what Oxford considers to be his greatest works and done a short online search, but have already come across a number of great quotes, a testament to his genius. Anyone who has coined as many catch phrases and what have become almost cliches has some serious business going on upstairs. Here are a handful of my favorites so far. If you have some others, let me know. I'm all over this kind of junk.

"Behind joy and laughter there may be a temperament, coarse, hard, and callous. But behind sorrow there is always sorrow. Pain, unlike pleasure, wears no mask.."

"...sorrow is the most sensitive of all created things...It
is a wound that bleeds when any hand but that of love touches it,
and even then must bleed again, though not in pain."

"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter."

"Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace."

"...every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and...therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day
to cry aloud on the housetop."

"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

"Genius is born--not paid."

"Biography lends to death a new terror."

"Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event."
(Italics mine.)

"We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

Children Obey Your Parents

I am currently sitting at my desk at my second job (Ministry doesn't often pay the bills) and am about to go insane with boredom. Things are so slow here that my co-workers and I have spent the last five hours killing time on the internet. I would like to share with you a little treasure I found during this time. It's a poem. It's a really bad poem. I left all the spelling and grammar errors alone. They're part of the fun. Here it is. (Seriously, it's abysmal)

Jenny was so happy about the house they had found.
For once in her life it was on the right side of town.
She unpacked her things with such great ease.
As she watched her new curtains blow in breeze.

How wonderful it was to have her own room.
School would be starting, she'd have friends over soon.
There'd be sleep-overs, and parties; she was so happy
It's just the way she wanted her life to be.

On the first day of school, everything went great.
She made new friends and even got a date!
She thought, "I want to be popular and I'm going to be,
Because I just got a date with the star of the team!"

To be known in this school you had to have a clout,
And dating this guy would sure help her out.
There was only one problem stopping her fate.
Her parents had said she was too young to date.

"Well, I just won't tell them the entire truth.
They won't know the difference; what's there to lose?"
Jenny asked to stay with her friends that night.
Her parents frowned but said, "All right."

Excited, she got ready for the big event
But as she rushed around like she had no sense,
She began to feel guilty about all the lies,
But what's a pizza, a party, and moonlight ride?

Well, the pizza was good, and the party was great,
But the moonlight ride would have to wait.
For Jeff was half drunk by this time.
But he kissed her and said that he was just fine.

Then the room filled with smoke and Jeff took a puff.
Jenny couldn't believe he was smoking that stuff.
Now Jeff was ready to ride to the point
But only after he'd smoked another joint.

They jumped in the car for a moonlight ride,
Not thinking that he was too drunk to drive.
They finally made it to the point at last,
And Jeff started trying to make a pass.

A pass is not what jenny wanted at all
(and by a pass, I don't mean playing football).
"Perhaps my parents were right ... maybe I am too young.
Boy, how could I ever, ever be so dumb.

With all her might, she pushed Jeff say away:
"Please take me home, I don't want to stay."
Jeff cranked up the engine and floored the gas.
In a matter of seconds they were going too fast.

As Jeff drove on in a fit of wild anger,
Jenny knew that her life was in danger.
She begged and pleaded for him to slow down,
But he just got faster as they neared the town.

"Just let me go home! I'll confess that I lied.
I really went out for a moonlight ride."
Then all of a sudden, she saw a big flash.
"Oh God, Please help us! We're going to crash!"

She doesn't remember the force of the impact.
Just that everything all of a sudden went black.
She felt someone remove her from the twisted rubble,
And heard, " Call an ambulance! There kids are in trouble!"

Voices she heard.... A few words at best.
But she knew there were two cars involved in the wreck.
Then wondered to herself if Jeff was all right,
And if the people in the other car were alive.

She awoke in the hospital to faces so sad.
"You've been in a wreck and it looks pretty bad."
These voices echoed inside her head,
As they gently told her that Jeff was dead.

They said "Jenny, we've done all we can do.
But it looks as if we'll lose you too."
"But the people in the other car?" Jenny cried.
"We're sorry, Jenny, they also died."

Jenny prayed, "God, forgive me for what I've done
I only wanted to have just one night of fun."
"Tell those people's family, I've made their lives dim,
And wish I could return their families to them."

"Tell Mom and Dad I'm sorry I lied,
And that it's my fault so many have died.
Oh, nurse, won't you please tell them that for me?
The nurse just stood there — she never agreed.

But took Jenny's hand with tears in her eyes.
And a few moments later Jenny died.
A man asked the nurse, " Why didn't you do your best
To bid that girl her one last request?"

She looked at the man
with eyes so sad.
"Because the people in the other car
were her Mom and Dad."

I laughed out loud and gagged simultaneously upon reading the ending. I think I will share this with my youth group next Wednesday.

"So children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right -"

"Yeah, because it's the first commandment with a promise."

"Good. You know what that promise is?"

"What?"

"If you don't you will murder them and then die slowly."

"Oh."

"Now go in peace to serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

Cherishing The Moments That Are Absorbed By What Is Real

I just finished watching Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog. It's a profound documentary about Timothy Treadwell, a man who's desire to make peace with his own soul and find a place to belong led him to live with grizzly bears in Alaska for 13 summers. Why did he stop at the unlucky number 13? He didn't really have a choice. He definitely would have spent more summers there, but at the end of the 13th, one of the bears ate him.

What makes this film brilliant and so beautifully haunting is the honesty humanity with which it deals with such a difficult protagonist. Herzog does not begin to attempt to make Treadwell a black and white hero. The film shows his life to be a messy one. Treadwell ended up going insane, and Herzog does not try to pretty this up. Neither does he exploit it by turning him into a two dimensional crazy person for comic effect or added eerieness. Herzog doesn't even romanticize Treadwell's love for nature. Where in nature Treadwell claimed to have found love, perfection and oneness, Herzog, in a voice over of a close-up of a grizzly's face, confesses to seeing only "the overwhelming indifference of nature." (Which seems to be the interpretation supported by at least one of the bears whom Treadwell served for 13 summers.) What Herzog does is show a man going to extremes to try and find something worth living for.

Treadwell found it increasingly difficult to see anything real in another human. He could not find intimacy and belonging in the human world. His way of dealing with this was to sink into madness, and create in his mind a oneness with the grizzlies and their habitat that was not there.

Herzog does not demean Treadwell for this. He treats his search as what it is, tragic, beautiful, human, something we can all relate to and learn from, and, most important for Herzog, honest (though his solution was not - thus the tragic part). For Herzog the world is not unified in God, or love, or harmony, but chaos and violence, and he sympathizes with any person who looks honestly at this chaos and retreats into insanity.

Though I obviously do not share Herzog's worldview (I respect it as the most truthful one that does not know God) I was deeply touched by his film. It plunges deep into a troubled soul and offers no simplistic, cardboard answers, yet still left me with a deeper appreciation for life. I can relate to a world whose search for truth in others results only in consternation because it no longer knows how to look for or recognize the Imago Dei in another. I've been there. Truthfully, some of me still is (as long as we fight, parts of all of us are).

This film made me especially grateful for my fiancee. For the fact that I, unlike Treadwell, have someone with whom to share and live out the real, the self-sacrificing love and faithfulness of Jesus Christ. It made me appreciate the oneness that God is creating in us. It made me want to call and leave ridiculous messages on her voice mail so she can laugh at my expense. It made me cherish the moments we share that seem incredibly real. Like last summer when we sat together on the sofa and I held her in my arms and looked at the clock then closed my eyes and stuck my nose in her hair and just tried to really live in the last eight minutes we had left to celebrate our third anniversary. Those eight minutes are still real. Or the times we argue without the fear that our disagreements will lead to separation. Or the time I bore my soul to her and shared my deepest secret. It was a brutal moment. But it was honest, vulnerable, safe, and godly. It was not a happy moment. It was a real one.

Why is it that people like Treadwell are unable to find the oneness they seek in other people? It is not that people like my fiancee and I are better or know how to see what is real because of our own merit, but because what is real has found us. I hope more people like Timothy Treadwell are not left to escape into madness, but see that they too can be found by what is real.

Politically Correct language Is Indeed Political, But Far From Correct.

In truth, all language is political. This is because when writing or conversing, there is more going on than the communication of whatever base information the words stand for. There are numerous different ways in which the same basic thing can be said. The words that the writer/speaker uses are specifically chosen, in part, because the writer/speaker is trying to communicate something about themselves. Their rhetoric reveals not only what group said person identifies or is attempting to identify with, but can also reveal how said person feels about whatever group may be their subject and/or whatever group they are addressing.

Example: I work with teens. Say I am at a youth camp and approach a group of boys who obviously like emo music very much to introduce myself.

If I say, "Hey guys, sweet hair. I like the way you shoot it to the right when it gets in your eyes too much (cocky smile). That was a Death Cab song you were playing there on your acoustic guitar right? (Wait for them to nod in silence) Sweet. Nice stickers on that guitar too, how they're all crooked and unbalanced. Especially that one. I'm glad you're doing your part to combat the Nazi message... I'm Wil, what are your names?" I reveal myself to be someone who fears becoming out of touch with age, nevertheless has become slightly out of touch and tries to combat this by keeping up with popular music trends and watching Napoleon Dynamite to learn the current acceptable way to say "cool," but who realizes this and hates it for it's shallowness and therefore tries to make himself feel like he's above it by slipping in some sarcasm. I also care, at least on a shallow level, for these teens, am open to their culture, and want to be accepted by them.

On the other hand, if I walk up to them and say, "Hey, I knew you punks were gonna be trouble. Lunch started fifteen minutes ago, why are you loiterin' around here? ...Who am I? You can call me Sir. Come on. Now! Don't just look at me like I got tinkle on my pants. And afterwards I got some clippers back in my cabin, I'll have the little lady cut that hair. Between that and those tight jeans you look like a sad, pretty little girl. Come on! Move! Maybe if your pants weren't so tight you could keep up. Shameful, showing all you got through your denim like that. Used to be the girls I had to get onto for not coverin' up what God gave 'em. Now it's you little boys too!" I reveal my ignorance of and/or dislike for teen culture and that I care little for these particular teens and whether or not I am accepted by them. In fact, I probably harbor something personal against all cool kids their age and will soon be the subject of creepy little government post cards that my new neighbors will receive whenever I move.

The examples are infinite, but the point was grasped long ago. The words chosen communicate much about the communicator and their position toward their subject and audience.

Admittedly, in a situation like this, the above judgments may not be accurate. Maybe the second guy does care. Maybe a lot. Maybe he does have a gruff but still innocent concern for decency. Maybe he's just having a bad day. Maybe he did just trickle in his drawers a little and at this moment he's self-conscious and embarrassed and his words came carelessly out of emotion. But when politically correct language is used, especially in writing and public discourse, it is not careless but intentional and calculated. Some of it (not all, but some) is so ridiculous that it would be virtually impossible for anyone to use it on accident (poor = economically disadvantaged?). The question begging to be asked is why the person using the PC language is doing so? The answer, more than employing it for the benefit of poor people and folks in wheelchairs, is to communicate something about themselves. And what they are telling us usually isn't true.

What they want to convey is that they are nice and care about these people. That they really are trying to make things better for them. Sounds sweet. But it's not. In reality politically correct language is almost always patronizing, lazy and selfish. It allows the person using it to feel like they have been a part of a real solution without requiring them to actually do anything. And those who supposedly benefit from the new moniker see right through this in a way that only the often-patronized can.

As David Foster Wallace (good writer, check him out) says in his essay Authority and American Usage:

I strongly doubt whether a guy who has four small kids and makes $12,000 a year feels more empowered or less ill-used by a society that carefully refers to him as 'economically disadvantaged' rather than 'poor.' If I were he, in fact, I'd probably find the Politically Correct English term insulting...(because)...like many forms of vogue usage Politically Correct English functions primarily to signal and congratulate certain virtues in the speaker - scrupulous egalitarianism, concern for the dignity of all people, sophistication about the political implications of language - and so serves the self-regarding interests of the PC far more than it serves any of the persons or groups named.

The language might be nice, but nice is shallow. Nice is not necessarily concerned for what is actually good. In fact, when it is used to pacify those suffering and simultaneously cloak inaction, nice is downright evil.

What does all this mean then for me, as a Christian? Well, I use politically correct language (as you can tell by the absence of gender specific pronouns in the above unless I am referring to a specifically named person). In some ways it is important. The way in which we talk about things influences the way we think about them,* but it is not enough to just change the way we think about those who suffer. We need to change the way we act towards them. Let's quit patronizing them with nice titles so we can feel good about ourselves and actually do something for them. The love of God cannot be separated from the love of our brothers and sisters. And I am guilty of this.

So what am I going to do? Or am I just preaching? Doing exactly what I am condemning and thinking that simply writing this is enough? I hope not. And if I do not let you know in a later blog how I am, in some way or another, trying to actually do something, you have the right and responsibility to reply to this blog and call me a self-righteous, patronizing hypocrite.



*Which is exactly why I refuse to replace "poor" with "economically disadvantaged." Poor should be a terrible word, but not to insult the poor. It should stir something in their brothers and sisters that moves them to loving action. "Economically disadvantaged" makes poverty sound too much like a permanent spinal chord injury or something. Something unfortunate, but something that the average person can do nothing about. So instead of helping we "commiserate" from a distance and leave the work of aiding our so called "commiserator" to some specialist.