Last week I went to see Carlos Santana up in Baltimore, which was fun. It adds to the list of former Woodstock participants I have managed to see before they die. Santana is a really great guitar player, but if you know anything about his career you might notice that while he has one really huge hit: Black Magic Woman, he has more or less crafted an almost 50 year career in music out of more or less mediocre song writing. In fact, his single biggest commercial and critical success Supernatural, is an album where he basically plays guitar for other already established artists. And it's really good, from front to back, because Carlos sticks to playing that axe and lets other people sing and write and otherwise improve their own art by adding his Latin flavored guitar awesomeness.
And boy, can he still play that thang.
But, as with many artists who are approaching 70 and have enjoyed a long, successful career, he tends to get a bit self indulgent. He let his son hijack the set for three full songs with a sort of latin-rock-rap hybrid thing which placed the formerly standing audience firmly back in their chairs. Also the jam sessions during the encore went beyond the realm of blazing and into the realm of "enough already." Santana's audience is getting older, and/or very drunk/high, and up past their bedtime. Ten o'clock is time to pull the plug.
But the piece of over-indulgence I was really amused about was the little sermon he gave about halfway through the experience. He began by telling us to give ourselves a hug. I was actually fairly pleased he didn't pull what some churches do and tell us to hug each other. Spending three hours shoulder to shoulder with masses of people in varying stages of intoxication was about all I wanted of human contact. He told us that all this stuff about being wretched sinners and not being worthy of the grace of God was B.S. I'm okay with about half of that statement, I agree that the idea that we are not worthy or beyond the reach of God's grace is actually a total misapprehension of what God's grace is all about. If we weren't sinners though, we really wouldn't be in need of grace. In fact, I would say that the very reason we need God's grace is because we are wretched sinners, and no that doesn't disqualify us from God's love, it should make us all that much more grateful for it.
Carlos then misquoted Jesus and launched into a prosperity Gospel type rant about how if you want to be one of the five percent who truly succeed in life, you have just look at yourself in the mirror and refuse to fail, at the crescendo of this diatribe he says, "I am a beam of light from the mind of God!" To the thunderous applause of the audience, or at least I think they were applauding, I was laughing too hard to tell.
Don't get me wrong, this little speech did not lower Santana in my esteem. I did not sit there the rest of the show and fume about his theological failure, I went right back to enjoying his ability to play the guitar. In fact, if anything I love the guy a little more, because he gave me such a sparkling and simple way to mock the pernicious and self-centered religion of self-esteem and positive thinking. It is great fun to hold up my hand in a sort of mock priestly gesture and say, "I am a beam of light from the mind of God." Seriously, try it, but don't try to do it seriously, be aware of the fact that theologically speaking it is only true enough to be dangerous.
I appreciate Carlos' intentions, to try and help us be cool and groove with him, and elevate our consciousness and all that sort of thing. The difficulty in this sort of thing comes with trying to rigorously examine the logic and theology of such statements. You can accept that we are each inherently worthy in God's sight, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, but when you make that a sort of super-power, you're going off the rails.
When I was 18, a friend and I were backpacking on the Appalachian Trail and we ran into an old hippie who called himself Uncle John. If you have any familiarity with the Grateful Dead, you will probably recognize the song Uncle John's Band. Uncle John had an entire theosophy and cosmology that he had invented. It was part millennial Christianity, part Buddhism and part Scientology, though as an 18 year old, I had no ability to sort all that out. He claimed to be the guy that the Dead wrote the song about though, and I thought that was freaking cool. He was thru-hiking the AT, and I thought that was cool too. We spent an evening around the campfire with him, listening to his tale and his ramblings, and then we separated. I had so many questions after that, and I think, in some part those questions led me to pursue the discipline of studying theology, because surely there had to be some answers out there.
Now, I could answer all the questions eighteen year old me had while standing on my head or chemically altered or before drinking my morning coffee. They were simply, laughable really, sort of like "I am a beam of light from the mind of God," which is intended to be deep, but is really very shallow. But I have new questions now, questions about suffering and the difficult task of forgiveness and acceptance. It's much harder to accept who you really are as a sinner and as someone who once had their mind blown by some incoherent old stoner, but it is necessary. It is necessary to recognize the failure of inadequate theology without judging those for whom it seems a beam of light from the mind of God.
Over the years I have found that the real challenge of theology is to be rigorous and gentle at the same time. Be kind to those who believe differently. Be loving to those who get a stupid or false idea lodged in their head. Know that most truth is not easily distilled into slogans and mantras, and if you try to do it, be prepared, because your understanding is fragile and God carries a sledgehammer, and is rather fond of using it. As C.S. Lewis said, and I am fond of repeating, "God is the great iconoclast." "Good" theology is always a process of being broken and picking up the pieces.
Worry when the breaking stops, when you're very sure and when your questions disappear.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Blooming
I dream of a quiet man
who explains nothing and defends
nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes
and finds he is smiling
not by his own will.
-Wendell Berry, Given Poems, Sabbaths 1999.II
I find myself getting all too wound up about stuff, even if it's only in my mind. I mean, there's just so much frustrating and downright tragic stuff happening out there under the sun. I'm not going to far when I say that Wendell Berry's poetry often saves me. It saves me from insanity and shortsightedness, it saves me from dreaming vain and petty things, it reminds me that dreams and rest and natural patterns are inherently and infinitely worth my time.
Sometimes his poems represent a glimpse of an ideal, beatific state, which no one ever really achieves for more than a moment. Those glimmers of non-dual consciousness and Christ-like surrender to the presence of God's Spirit, but without any pretense and overbearing false holiness, can pull me through dark suffering, and ground me in moments of unwarranted optimism. Feeling like you're constantly on the defensive is not healthy. Feeling like you constantly have to explain yourself and justify your own existence is terrible indeed. Whatever happened to inherent value?
I think we would all be better off if we insisted on the sacred quality of human life, before we ever came to another consideration. That's idealistic I know. It's a dream, but you can't utterly protect anything that is dear to you, and most of the time you will only smother and stamp out the beauty of thing or a person, when you do not allow them to earn and display their scars.
It has taken me 40 years to start to accept people as they are. Maybe in another 40 I will be better. Maybe then I'll know where the rarest wildflowers and blooming.
The less I judge others the better my judgment becomes. When I do not name enemies and heretics easily, or at all, I find that truth comes more willingly to my ears and my heart. When I surrender my will, or even just admit that I might not be completely righteous, I am free to love.
When I lay down my life, I am saved.
Someone even more insightful than Berry said that would be the case.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
Add the Pope to the list of people who support the Iran Nuclear deal. And yet somehow that doesn't dissuade certain members of our political class from denouncing the deal with apocalyptic zeal. Granted there is room to disagree on many political issues, and no agreement or treaty is really fool proof when it comes to dealing with extremists and religious zealots, but there is enough widespread agreement that the deal that the Obama administration, through secretary of state Eeyore Kerry, had managed to wrangle with Iran is adequate, and maybe even pretty good. Which brings me to the rather troubling reality, which I have been actually trying to talk myself out of for some time, which is that about half of our politicos are acting out of almost sheer malice for the man we the people have elected to the office of President. What really rankles me, as it should everyone regardless of political leanings is that these (mostly Republican politicians) are willing to put our nation and the lives of our children at greater risk because they don't like President Obama.
Whether it's something mundane, yet crucial, like passing a reasonable budget, or whether it's actually trying to stop Iran from getting A FREAKING THERMONUCLEAR WEAPON, they are bound and determined to stonewall anything that is going to be a feather in the cap of the President and/or the Democratic party. Now look, I'm not so naive as to think that Republicans are all bad guys and Democrats are all good guys, in fact, my default position is that all politicians are bad guys, and that applies to blue and red pretty much equally. However, it looks now like Democrats are sort of like the crooked small town sheriff who wants things nice and peaceful like and is willing to bend a few laws to keep things running smooth, while a significant segment of Republicans have become like Lex Luthor, absolutely bent on destroying their nemesis and they don't care who gets hurt.
Well, see, I understand that politics is hardball, and I understand that many of them have the certainty that only zealots seem to have about how their way is the best way, but they're shooting us in the foot economically with the budget and they stand a pretty good chance of getting a lot of people turned into charcoal and glass when they monkey around with a very sane and balanced way to restrain Iran's Nuclear program.
Also, while I'm talking foreign policy, I think it's generally unwise for us to continue throwing our weight around on the international playground. It's making people hate us. Even some of our old buds are starting to think we're being a bit too much of a bully. This approach is going to breed terrorists faster than we can bomb them and ferret them out of their hidey holes with our super awesome special forces guys (and now girls, how cool is that? Women Rangers? That's gotta burn the Taliban right in their AK-47).
Of course, I've always been more of a Picard man. For me diplomacy is pretty much the bees knees, but I know there are a lot of people out there who think that makes you wimp. But I'll tell you this much, I've been in fist fights, and I've also been able to talk a situation around and out of violence, both take courage of a sort, and both leave you feeling pretty adrenaline charged, but let me tell you which one you feel better about the next day, and the day after that. Let me tell you which one is something you're proud to tell your kids about.
Both things can solve problems, but very rarely do bystanders get killed at a treaty signing. Sure treaties can go wrong, there are those that will tell you that Versailles got us Hitler and that dropping that Bomb on Hiroshima shut the Japanese up but good for a long, long time, but count the cost, and nine times out of ten, war and violence do nothing but make more enemies and get us stuck in a really bad feedback loop. Take out Saddam Hussein, you get ISIS, you're just trading in bad for worse. What happens in Iran if we forcibly topple the Ayatollah? Bad things. What happens if we open and normalize relations and stop crushing the people of Iran with trade sanctions, and let things like what has happened in Egypt happen there? Well we don't really know, we don't if, we don't know when, we don't know what exactly, but we do know pretty surely what is going to happen if we keep playing the global tough guy:
I think I know how I'm going to vote.
Monday, August 24, 2015
A Good Man to the End
I'm too young to remember much about President Jimmy Carter's actual presidency. I do know that, even by his own estimation, it was not particularly robed in glory. I know that he has second guessed his own handling of the Iran hostage crisis, and I know, basically that his own tendency towards peace, diplomacy and sanity was what cost him the Oval Office and gave birth to the Ronald Ray-gun administration. Carter is a scion of a bygone era, an era where you could be a soldier and a diplomat, a politician and a person of deep convictions, a scientist, a farmer, a Christian, a Southerner and an ally of civil rights. You can probably tell, I rather admire the man, but again, I don't remember his presidency, I was like 6 when big Ronnie took over.
What I know about Carter comes from hindsight, and what he has done since then: Habitat for Humanity, global campaigns for human rights, various and sundry acts of diplomacy and public welfare, a couple of books he wrote, and now, how he is facing his own mortality. Ex-presidents have some real clout, and a place in the public discourse, Bill Clinton has salvaged some dignity, even Richard M. Nixon managed to open diplomatic relations with China before he resigned from the mortal coil. But Jimmy Carter has been consistent in demonstrating that he probably deserved to sit in the big chair more than anyone who has occupied it since 1980. He has also rather quietly, yet steadfastly, refused to reach for that ring again. It did not fit him.
I think it was simply because he was too good a man, too attracted to non-violence, too insistent on the good of the commonwealth of all humanity, and too trusting of the rules of public discourse as they eroded under his very feet. I have grown a very well-founded distrust of politicians, but I trust Jimmy Carter. I am always glad of his distinctly Christian ethics and the way he represents the faith in a world where religious charlatans are as common as political ones. He shows us a faith that is rooted in tradition but not afraid to challenge injustice, even and especially in his own house. When his Southern Baptist Convention refused to modify their self proclaimed "biblical" postition regarding the equality of women, Carter withdrew his membership, yet continued to serve his church as a Sunday School teacher. He dissented, yet he didn't simply take his ball and go home.
He shows us that faith and science are not at odds, he shows us that politics and decency are not mutually exclusive.
A few years ago, he wrote a book called Our Endangered Values, and he wasn't talking about traditional marriage or having prayer in schools, or even freedom of speech and religion. He was talking about discourse, about the ability we used to have to disagree and come to a compromise. His book was a more well reasoned and thought out version of this, without the profanity, and in a form that is not simply on the lips of a fictional character.
I'm writing this because Jimmy Carter probably will not be with us much longer, even if his brain cancer is successfully treated he is in his nineties and even remarkable men are mortal. But in his final chapter he is showing us dignity and grace, and this is needed more than ever in a world that abhors considering mortality and despises old age as nothing but weakness and something to be avoided.
To some Carter may be a sort of political punchline, a one term president who accomplished next to nothing and whose most famous action was an abject failure. But to me, he is a sign that perhaps we are not so desperately lost as a nation. Perhaps decency, integrity and common sense still have a place in our society. Here's to hope.
What I know about Carter comes from hindsight, and what he has done since then: Habitat for Humanity, global campaigns for human rights, various and sundry acts of diplomacy and public welfare, a couple of books he wrote, and now, how he is facing his own mortality. Ex-presidents have some real clout, and a place in the public discourse, Bill Clinton has salvaged some dignity, even Richard M. Nixon managed to open diplomatic relations with China before he resigned from the mortal coil. But Jimmy Carter has been consistent in demonstrating that he probably deserved to sit in the big chair more than anyone who has occupied it since 1980. He has also rather quietly, yet steadfastly, refused to reach for that ring again. It did not fit him.
I think it was simply because he was too good a man, too attracted to non-violence, too insistent on the good of the commonwealth of all humanity, and too trusting of the rules of public discourse as they eroded under his very feet. I have grown a very well-founded distrust of politicians, but I trust Jimmy Carter. I am always glad of his distinctly Christian ethics and the way he represents the faith in a world where religious charlatans are as common as political ones. He shows us a faith that is rooted in tradition but not afraid to challenge injustice, even and especially in his own house. When his Southern Baptist Convention refused to modify their self proclaimed "biblical" postition regarding the equality of women, Carter withdrew his membership, yet continued to serve his church as a Sunday School teacher. He dissented, yet he didn't simply take his ball and go home.
He shows us that faith and science are not at odds, he shows us that politics and decency are not mutually exclusive.
A few years ago, he wrote a book called Our Endangered Values, and he wasn't talking about traditional marriage or having prayer in schools, or even freedom of speech and religion. He was talking about discourse, about the ability we used to have to disagree and come to a compromise. His book was a more well reasoned and thought out version of this, without the profanity, and in a form that is not simply on the lips of a fictional character.
I'm writing this because Jimmy Carter probably will not be with us much longer, even if his brain cancer is successfully treated he is in his nineties and even remarkable men are mortal. But in his final chapter he is showing us dignity and grace, and this is needed more than ever in a world that abhors considering mortality and despises old age as nothing but weakness and something to be avoided.
To some Carter may be a sort of political punchline, a one term president who accomplished next to nothing and whose most famous action was an abject failure. But to me, he is a sign that perhaps we are not so desperately lost as a nation. Perhaps decency, integrity and common sense still have a place in our society. Here's to hope.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
A Different Ten
This is for my daughter on her tenth birthday.
A lot of men say they can't understand women. Often they say it with a sort of disgust or exasperation, but I say it as an expression of wonder. I have a mother, a sister, a wife and various other women in my life, but you, my baby girl, have caused me to re-think everything I think I know about all of them. You have made me a feminist, because I look at the world around me and I realize that it is no way, shape, or form, good enough for my little girl. I am sorry for both of my children that those who have come before you have nothing better to offer you than this sadly unjust, violent and polluted world. I have tried to give you a childhood that is filled with beauty, discovery and plenty of time to wonder at things, but sooner than I would like I will be sending you out into a world where you, especially daughter, will be objectified and undervalued. People will try awfully hard to convince you that you're not absolutely wonderful.
I'm not writing this for the ten year old you, I'm thinking ahead. I'm writing this for the twenty-something you, because that's when you'll need to hear this. I want you to know that your Dad knew what was coming, and that he knew he couldn't protect you from everything, but he was willing to rage and try.
Remember:
You are beautiful no matter what you look like.
You are intelligent, even if you feel confused.
You are wonderful, even when you are silly.
You are worth it, by any standards.
You are enough.
Never:
Give yourself away for anything less than love.
Hold yourself back from something that is worth loving.
Take the journey just for the destination.
Forget to appreciate where you are now.
Always:
Look before you leap.
Once you look don't be afraid to leap.
Get up after you fall down.
Read a lot.
Love until your heart breaks.
Love more.
Know:
Mom and I love you more than anything.
You are a Child of God.
You are made of stars.
You shine like the sun.
Forget and Forgive:
Insults.
Betrayals.
Rejections.
Gossip.
Hold:
Your dignity.
Your dreams.
Your empathy.
Your grace.
Your truth.
Let Go:
Of mean words.
Of mean people.
Of clutter.
Of grudges.
Of broken dreams.
Now you might not even know what I'm talking about, because you're ten, and because I have been able to keep you safe from many things. But the world is big, and wonderful, and dangerous, and you need to see it. Aside from love, words are the most valuable thing I can give you.
Take these with you.
A lot of men say they can't understand women. Often they say it with a sort of disgust or exasperation, but I say it as an expression of wonder. I have a mother, a sister, a wife and various other women in my life, but you, my baby girl, have caused me to re-think everything I think I know about all of them. You have made me a feminist, because I look at the world around me and I realize that it is no way, shape, or form, good enough for my little girl. I am sorry for both of my children that those who have come before you have nothing better to offer you than this sadly unjust, violent and polluted world. I have tried to give you a childhood that is filled with beauty, discovery and plenty of time to wonder at things, but sooner than I would like I will be sending you out into a world where you, especially daughter, will be objectified and undervalued. People will try awfully hard to convince you that you're not absolutely wonderful.
I'm not writing this for the ten year old you, I'm thinking ahead. I'm writing this for the twenty-something you, because that's when you'll need to hear this. I want you to know that your Dad knew what was coming, and that he knew he couldn't protect you from everything, but he was willing to rage and try.
Remember:
You are beautiful no matter what you look like.
You are intelligent, even if you feel confused.
You are wonderful, even when you are silly.
You are worth it, by any standards.
You are enough.
Never:
Give yourself away for anything less than love.
Hold yourself back from something that is worth loving.
Take the journey just for the destination.
Forget to appreciate where you are now.
Always:
Look before you leap.
Once you look don't be afraid to leap.
Get up after you fall down.
Read a lot.
Love until your heart breaks.
Love more.
Know:
Mom and I love you more than anything.
You are a Child of God.
You are made of stars.
You shine like the sun.
Forget and Forgive:
Insults.
Betrayals.
Rejections.
Gossip.
Hold:
Your dignity.
Your dreams.
Your empathy.
Your grace.
Your truth.
Let Go:
Of mean words.
Of mean people.
Of clutter.
Of grudges.
Of broken dreams.
Now you might not even know what I'm talking about, because you're ten, and because I have been able to keep you safe from many things. But the world is big, and wonderful, and dangerous, and you need to see it. Aside from love, words are the most valuable thing I can give you.
Take these with you.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Defender of the Faith
It would seem that there are two warring types of Christians on the Interweb at the moment: those who think that the world is going to hell in a bucket and that the word secular equals evil (think Franklin Graham). And there are those who spend a lot of time loudly proclaiming that that is just crazy talk. I have to admit, I generally fall into the second camp. All of the prophecies of doom and judgment ring a little hollow. In no way do I think Target re-naming their toy aisle in gender neutral terms is going to provoke the wrath of God.
Then again, there is that thing in Matthew 5: 21-26 about insulting others and calling them fools, and something about a hell of fire. Then again, this is just too funny:
Then again, there is that thing in Matthew 5: 21-26 about insulting others and calling them fools, and something about a hell of fire. Then again, this is just too funny:
Please forgive me for that.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's just too hard to walk this particular line. There are some really bad ideas about what is important and worthy of defending about the faith that I suppose I share with Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham and Guy Smiley up there. They are part of the Body of Christ, and no matter how embarrassing or wrong-headed I feel they are, I still have to acknowledge that God can use them.
Embracing a non-dual consciousness is really tough, because once you get your mind around the fact that you have to love sinners, addicts and broken people, you turn around and you have to love self-righteous bigots, and shiny god-is-money people, and young earth creationists and all sorts of stuff that just makes your progressive skin crawl.
Some days I'm like, "Jesus Christ (not taking the name in vain, because I'm actually talking to him), did you really mean that stuff about not judging? And if you did, could we maybe make a little exception for Osteen?" I poke fun at Joel a lot, but he's probably one of the least harmful nutters on my personal heretic list, at least I've never heard him threaten anybody with Hell, he's more of a carrot guy than a stick guy.
I get it, my theology is not perfect, but here's an idea for people who are twisted, or about to get twisted about some stupid thing on religious grounds. Let's sort of create a Christian Hippocratic Oath. Not a hypocritical oath, Lord knows we do hypocrisy well enough already. No, I'm talking about the creed of the ancient physician Hippocrates, part of which is popularly believed to be "First, do no harm," (Read the wiki-article if you want what it actually says). But the thing, which has been updated over the millennia, is just chock full of good ideas about being humble and seeking wisdom in all things and not overstepping your knowledge or ability. This is all good stuff for people who work on the relatively simple part of humans: our bodies.
Why then do those of us who do the work of the soul and try to guide others in such endeavors, often practice such quackery? Shouldn't we be even more mindful of our responsibility? Humble in our advice? Honest with one another as we walk together?
I suppose it's acceptable for a neurosurgeon to be a little arrogant, after all they can do stuff. But it is absolutely unacceptable for a Pastor to be that way. Yet here I am, writing this little blog for the world to see, telling you that I'm right and a bunch of other people are wrong.
I can say I'm trying to do no harm, but quite frankly, I might be putting a stumbling block in front of someone who likes Joel Osteen's little inspirational speeches or who agrees with Franklin Graham that calling GI Joe an "Action" toy instead of a Boy's toy, is a sign that we are failing as culture.
I think we are at a point where the only thing we can really agree on is that there is something amiss. Some people think it's cancer, others think it's just a minor cold, but we know something isn't right. We can't really agree on a treatment for it, because we can't even agree on a diagnosis.
There's only one thing I can think of to really do or say at this particular moment that I know won't do any harm: "Please Lord, give us your grace."
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Healthy Schmealthy
My son and I both had doctor appointments this week. I like both our Docs, they are nice folks, but I have noticed of late that the practice of medicine seems to involve a lot more talking than it used to. I mean there was always the need to communicate when you were sick: "what hurts?" "how long has it hurt?" etc. But nowadays it seems like we spent about 20 of the 25 minutes we were with the Doc getting a lecture. Me? I get it. I'm overweight and I have all the fun side effects of eating too much. I'm a grown up, I have been through this with doctors for years, but essentially all I really need from them is a piece of paper that allows me to get medicine to offset my unhealthy habits and lack of willpower.
Jack on the other hand, is a skinny little guy who has yet to hit puberty, and he gets it much worse than I do. Several times today I could not suppress a ridiculous smile as my visibly uncomfortable eleven year old was told by his ebullient and grandmotherly Indian doctor about how his "penis was going to get bigger and harder," and then proceeded to do the always awkward hernia check.
His annual "physical" consisted of listening to his chest, looking in eyes, ears, nose and throat, and checking his male bits, and the rest was all talking: diet, girls, smoking, drugs, alcohol. I was like, "holy moly, I'm glad I don't have to go through all that with my Doc, it's just plain terrifying (and hilarious to me)."
I don't ever remember having conversations like that with my parents, let alone my doctor. Honestly, I'm not knocking it, because for a while there it seemed like medicine was trending towards a weird mix of plumbing and chemistry, and Doctors could practically operate on a drive through basis once they had the nurse take all your vitals. It would appear to have bent back in the other direction at least a little.
But I kind of want a little more mechanical or chemical magic to it. I mentioned to my Doc the other day that it would be cool if one of these many medicines that I take for blood pressure, or the new one I'm going on for cholesterol could have weight loss as a side effect. I'm not saying I want speed or anything, but couldn't we figure out how to do something for the root cause of what really ails me other than saying: you need to eat less and exercise more?
I know that may be news to some people, but I've been fat or at least a little tubby since I was eight years old, I'm pretty sure I know what causes it. I'm pretty sure I know it's bad for me, but food is good. As I sat listening to the speech the doctor was giving my 78 pound son about healthy diet, I thought to myself: "that doesn't seem like any fun whatsoever." All the things we are supposed to avoid are the things that taste the best, and the things that make you feel good, and the things that help you numb an otherwise meaningless existence... hold on, back up a step, forget that last thing.
Existence has meaning, at least I think so. To quote the only part of the Westminster Catechism that I have committed to memory: "What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever." God made bacon cheeseburgers, and cheesecake and M freaking Ms (or at least their component parts), what gives with diabetes and high cholesterol dude, that's just not fair.
Going to the doctor always raises questions for me about mortality, as I suspect it does for most people. When I meet God, which given my current state of health should be in about 30-40 years tops, I'm going to ask him why so many good things were so bad for our bodies. I have no gripe with mortality in general, but if we're only given a certain number of days, why do we have to be so darn careful about what we eat during those days? Why can't we just live it up? Why are there so many dire consequences for indulging? I get that gluttony is a sin, but I'm not idolizing pizza, I'm just eating more of it than I should. A cheesesteak in no way impairs my ability to pray or worship God, in fact, many a time have I given thanks over a grease and cheese soaked Sarcone roll, and sitting in front of a pile of crabs loaded with Old Bay is a religious experience indeed.
If heaven is real, it is going to need to smell like a sub shop or a crab house, and maybe occasionally like curry, if I'm really going to be able to call it paradise.
Hmmm, it would appear that perhaps my priorities are a little more out of whack than I had thought.
Stupid diet.
Jack on the other hand, is a skinny little guy who has yet to hit puberty, and he gets it much worse than I do. Several times today I could not suppress a ridiculous smile as my visibly uncomfortable eleven year old was told by his ebullient and grandmotherly Indian doctor about how his "penis was going to get bigger and harder," and then proceeded to do the always awkward hernia check.
His annual "physical" consisted of listening to his chest, looking in eyes, ears, nose and throat, and checking his male bits, and the rest was all talking: diet, girls, smoking, drugs, alcohol. I was like, "holy moly, I'm glad I don't have to go through all that with my Doc, it's just plain terrifying (and hilarious to me)."
I don't ever remember having conversations like that with my parents, let alone my doctor. Honestly, I'm not knocking it, because for a while there it seemed like medicine was trending towards a weird mix of plumbing and chemistry, and Doctors could practically operate on a drive through basis once they had the nurse take all your vitals. It would appear to have bent back in the other direction at least a little.
But I kind of want a little more mechanical or chemical magic to it. I mentioned to my Doc the other day that it would be cool if one of these many medicines that I take for blood pressure, or the new one I'm going on for cholesterol could have weight loss as a side effect. I'm not saying I want speed or anything, but couldn't we figure out how to do something for the root cause of what really ails me other than saying: you need to eat less and exercise more?
I know that may be news to some people, but I've been fat or at least a little tubby since I was eight years old, I'm pretty sure I know what causes it. I'm pretty sure I know it's bad for me, but food is good. As I sat listening to the speech the doctor was giving my 78 pound son about healthy diet, I thought to myself: "that doesn't seem like any fun whatsoever." All the things we are supposed to avoid are the things that taste the best, and the things that make you feel good, and the things that help you numb an otherwise meaningless existence... hold on, back up a step, forget that last thing.
Existence has meaning, at least I think so. To quote the only part of the Westminster Catechism that I have committed to memory: "What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever." God made bacon cheeseburgers, and cheesecake and M freaking Ms (or at least their component parts), what gives with diabetes and high cholesterol dude, that's just not fair.
Going to the doctor always raises questions for me about mortality, as I suspect it does for most people. When I meet God, which given my current state of health should be in about 30-40 years tops, I'm going to ask him why so many good things were so bad for our bodies. I have no gripe with mortality in general, but if we're only given a certain number of days, why do we have to be so darn careful about what we eat during those days? Why can't we just live it up? Why are there so many dire consequences for indulging? I get that gluttony is a sin, but I'm not idolizing pizza, I'm just eating more of it than I should. A cheesesteak in no way impairs my ability to pray or worship God, in fact, many a time have I given thanks over a grease and cheese soaked Sarcone roll, and sitting in front of a pile of crabs loaded with Old Bay is a religious experience indeed.
If heaven is real, it is going to need to smell like a sub shop or a crab house, and maybe occasionally like curry, if I'm really going to be able to call it paradise.
Hmmm, it would appear that perhaps my priorities are a little more out of whack than I had thought.
Stupid diet.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
The Trump Card
I was camping when the Republicans and the Donald had their great debate, so I didn't get to watch it. I'm not sure I want to. I have had about all I can take of negativity of late, and I'm rather certain that things are only going to get worse from now until next November. It seems as though every political conversation I have had of late is dominated by one thing: we are all doomed. As matter of fact, most religious conversations strike a similar tone. I have never considered myself particularly optimistic, and believe me, I can run through a fairly extensive litany of things that I consider to be totally screwed up, but I just can't bring myself to play chicken little.
Maybe it's a defense mechanism. Maybe I'm just so hopeless that any politician is going to "fix" what is wrong with our country. Maybe I'm just so jaded by new strategies and opinions about what the Church "needs" to be or do. Maybe I've had it up to my eyeballs with battling ideologies and wars of morality. Maybe I've just always kind of agreed a little too much with Ecclesiastes: "All is vanity and chasing after the wind."
I am a bit worried about the way that the Donald appears to have tapped into the zeitgeist of the American culture at this particular moment, because if Donald Trump is the avatar of your heart and soul, you have some problems. First of all, don't every believe he is a working-class, salt of the earth type, who has succeeded thanks to his iron will and hard work. His father was a successful real estate developer, not a poor man's game. Donald was brought up to take over for his father, he was sent to military school, Fordham University and The Wharton School of Business, he is no dummy, but that doesn't mean he would make a good leader. His success as a businessman in no way translates to promise as a politician, particularly as a President. Because of our constitution, the President has substantially less power than the average company CEO. If it translated, give me Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. Trump is a business powerhouse, no doubt. He has not just sat on his laurels and run his father's business, he has gambled and won big, he has lost more money than most people will ever see, but that means he has made enough that it doesn't even matter.
Trump is a walking (escalator riding), talking (an awful lot) example of the American fixation with wealth, and he will probably even tell you, in his New York accent that he grew up in Jamaica Queens and is a classic case of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps. And in fact, if you consider "the climb" from being rich to being ridiculously rich an example of the American dream, you might find a hero in Donald Trump, straight-shooting, bold-talking, giving-zero-craps, sort of guy.
He's entertaining to be sure, and he may just represent exactly what our country really is at the moment: arrogant, brash and ready to rumble. But he doesn't represent what our country aspires to be, and that's why he worries me. Trump's popularity speaks of a people who have stopped trying to be better than they are. They are simply good enough.
I believe in progress, and I believe that we will never actually make it to a place where progress is no longer possible. Whether it is our Constitution or our Holy Book, I believe that when you stop trying to understand better and be better as people of law or people of faith, you are doomed. There is no set of external conditions or challenges that can doom you until you stop trying. If your goal is improvement and progress even your failures are chances to learn. Only by ignoring the lessons you have learned in the past do you become truly hopeless.
If there's one positive thing to say about Trump (and I try to always think about at least some positive thing to say about everyone) it's that he is never afraid of failure. He will take the risk, speak his mind loudly and with utter conviction, even if it sounds crazy. I guess you could say I admire that, even when I absolutely disagree with his assessment of the situation. And I absolutely disagree with his assessments an awful lot.
As much as I believe he would be a hot mess as POTUS, I am fascinated by what he represents, because I have heard a lot of people say things like, "he's just saying what most of us think, it's just that he has the guts and the almost insane level of narcissism it takes to say it out loud." If that is at all true I am somewhat disappointed in the level of racism, sexism, raw greed and maniacal self interest that many of my people seem to harbor but dare not speak.
It is only in an age of profound (perhaps unprecedented) cynicism about politics that a Trump candidacy is any more than a momentary farce. He has run before, briefly, abortively, but until now no one took him seriously and he faded away. I suspect that may happen this time as things start to get sorted, however, his raw popularity should be a warning to all politicians, not just Republicans. When a side show like Trump starts taking your thunder, you are not well loved by your electorates.
Soon we are going to witness what may either be the point where politics pulls itself off the dung heap, or the point where our elected leadership just chooses to burrow further in. It's not the election. It's the debate about Iran. No one, including a majority of Iranians I suspect, wants Iran to go nuclear. Not Israel, not the US, not India, China, Pakistan or even our buddy Vlad, no one wants a bomb in the hands of an Ayatollah, there is broad international agreement on this issue, but there is not broad international agreement on how best to prevent Iran from going nuclear. Hawks want war, because we still haven't learned that you should never get into a land war in Asia.
Let's just say war with Iran would be a bad idea, even if we "won," a destabilized Iran would be so very much worse than Iraq and Syria and would probably give new meaning to the word quagmire. But there's something in our mindset that wants a shootout. There are rumblings that the Republican led congress is going to try to sabotage the deal brokered by the Obama administration via Secretary of State John Kerry. Partly because war is big business, partly because... well let's just say they don't want Obama to win... again.
They are playing with fire. If this deal goes south diplomacy goes with it. Security goes with it, and I'm pretty sure we're going to witness the first non-test nuclear explosion since Nagasaki. I don't know who it will be, could be Iran, could be Israel, could be us, or even Russia because you never know what Putin might get up to.
The primary arguments against the agreement stack up to: "don't be wimps." Which might work if we were third graders, but that is exactly the argument being made by the Donald and more disturbingly by some influential and actually elected GOP Congresspeople. Notice that, in typical Trump-tastic fashion, he based his argument on watching a segment on Charlie Rose and deciding that the dude being interviewed was just "smarter" than the people representing our nation. That's what terrifies me about politics these days, the utter lack of accountability to empirical evidence and logical objectivity. But that's what we have now, and Donald Trump is just the sort of buffoon to illustrate, in grand fashion, how idiotic it all really is.
The fate of the world is in their hands and they treat it like a game of chicken. And they misapprehend their opponent. And I don't think they can be trusted, and since we elected them, and since we're the reason why the Donald is even getting his hour upon the stage, I think we bear some responsibility.
I don't know about you, but when it comes to Nukes, I want calm, boring dudes like Obama and Kerry holding the keys. I want the kind of men and women who know how to walk away from a fight instead of starting a brawl where my children and everyone I love is going to suffer from the fallout. I want people who know how to prevent and put out fires, not how to start them.
The part of me that wants entertainment wants Trump around. The part of me that doesn't want to see the middle east go up in mushroom clouds wants someone else. Someone boring, someone with a filter, someone who knows what tact and diplomacy are.
Come on America, let's stop being so easily distracted by shiny objects. My challenge to all of you voters out there, let's put on our grown-up clothes and elect people with actual skills to govern not just throw tantrums because things don't go their way.
Maybe it's a defense mechanism. Maybe I'm just so hopeless that any politician is going to "fix" what is wrong with our country. Maybe I'm just so jaded by new strategies and opinions about what the Church "needs" to be or do. Maybe I've had it up to my eyeballs with battling ideologies and wars of morality. Maybe I've just always kind of agreed a little too much with Ecclesiastes: "All is vanity and chasing after the wind."
I am a bit worried about the way that the Donald appears to have tapped into the zeitgeist of the American culture at this particular moment, because if Donald Trump is the avatar of your heart and soul, you have some problems. First of all, don't every believe he is a working-class, salt of the earth type, who has succeeded thanks to his iron will and hard work. His father was a successful real estate developer, not a poor man's game. Donald was brought up to take over for his father, he was sent to military school, Fordham University and The Wharton School of Business, he is no dummy, but that doesn't mean he would make a good leader. His success as a businessman in no way translates to promise as a politician, particularly as a President. Because of our constitution, the President has substantially less power than the average company CEO. If it translated, give me Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. Trump is a business powerhouse, no doubt. He has not just sat on his laurels and run his father's business, he has gambled and won big, he has lost more money than most people will ever see, but that means he has made enough that it doesn't even matter.
Trump is a walking (escalator riding), talking (an awful lot) example of the American fixation with wealth, and he will probably even tell you, in his New York accent that he grew up in Jamaica Queens and is a classic case of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps. And in fact, if you consider "the climb" from being rich to being ridiculously rich an example of the American dream, you might find a hero in Donald Trump, straight-shooting, bold-talking, giving-zero-craps, sort of guy.
He's entertaining to be sure, and he may just represent exactly what our country really is at the moment: arrogant, brash and ready to rumble. But he doesn't represent what our country aspires to be, and that's why he worries me. Trump's popularity speaks of a people who have stopped trying to be better than they are. They are simply good enough.
I believe in progress, and I believe that we will never actually make it to a place where progress is no longer possible. Whether it is our Constitution or our Holy Book, I believe that when you stop trying to understand better and be better as people of law or people of faith, you are doomed. There is no set of external conditions or challenges that can doom you until you stop trying. If your goal is improvement and progress even your failures are chances to learn. Only by ignoring the lessons you have learned in the past do you become truly hopeless.
If there's one positive thing to say about Trump (and I try to always think about at least some positive thing to say about everyone) it's that he is never afraid of failure. He will take the risk, speak his mind loudly and with utter conviction, even if it sounds crazy. I guess you could say I admire that, even when I absolutely disagree with his assessment of the situation. And I absolutely disagree with his assessments an awful lot.
As much as I believe he would be a hot mess as POTUS, I am fascinated by what he represents, because I have heard a lot of people say things like, "he's just saying what most of us think, it's just that he has the guts and the almost insane level of narcissism it takes to say it out loud." If that is at all true I am somewhat disappointed in the level of racism, sexism, raw greed and maniacal self interest that many of my people seem to harbor but dare not speak.
It is only in an age of profound (perhaps unprecedented) cynicism about politics that a Trump candidacy is any more than a momentary farce. He has run before, briefly, abortively, but until now no one took him seriously and he faded away. I suspect that may happen this time as things start to get sorted, however, his raw popularity should be a warning to all politicians, not just Republicans. When a side show like Trump starts taking your thunder, you are not well loved by your electorates.
Soon we are going to witness what may either be the point where politics pulls itself off the dung heap, or the point where our elected leadership just chooses to burrow further in. It's not the election. It's the debate about Iran. No one, including a majority of Iranians I suspect, wants Iran to go nuclear. Not Israel, not the US, not India, China, Pakistan or even our buddy Vlad, no one wants a bomb in the hands of an Ayatollah, there is broad international agreement on this issue, but there is not broad international agreement on how best to prevent Iran from going nuclear. Hawks want war, because we still haven't learned that you should never get into a land war in Asia.
Let's just say war with Iran would be a bad idea, even if we "won," a destabilized Iran would be so very much worse than Iraq and Syria and would probably give new meaning to the word quagmire. But there's something in our mindset that wants a shootout. There are rumblings that the Republican led congress is going to try to sabotage the deal brokered by the Obama administration via Secretary of State John Kerry. Partly because war is big business, partly because... well let's just say they don't want Obama to win... again.
They are playing with fire. If this deal goes south diplomacy goes with it. Security goes with it, and I'm pretty sure we're going to witness the first non-test nuclear explosion since Nagasaki. I don't know who it will be, could be Iran, could be Israel, could be us, or even Russia because you never know what Putin might get up to.
The primary arguments against the agreement stack up to: "don't be wimps." Which might work if we were third graders, but that is exactly the argument being made by the Donald and more disturbingly by some influential and actually elected GOP Congresspeople. Notice that, in typical Trump-tastic fashion, he based his argument on watching a segment on Charlie Rose and deciding that the dude being interviewed was just "smarter" than the people representing our nation. That's what terrifies me about politics these days, the utter lack of accountability to empirical evidence and logical objectivity. But that's what we have now, and Donald Trump is just the sort of buffoon to illustrate, in grand fashion, how idiotic it all really is.
The fate of the world is in their hands and they treat it like a game of chicken. And they misapprehend their opponent. And I don't think they can be trusted, and since we elected them, and since we're the reason why the Donald is even getting his hour upon the stage, I think we bear some responsibility.
I don't know about you, but when it comes to Nukes, I want calm, boring dudes like Obama and Kerry holding the keys. I want the kind of men and women who know how to walk away from a fight instead of starting a brawl where my children and everyone I love is going to suffer from the fallout. I want people who know how to prevent and put out fires, not how to start them.
The part of me that wants entertainment wants Trump around. The part of me that doesn't want to see the middle east go up in mushroom clouds wants someone else. Someone boring, someone with a filter, someone who knows what tact and diplomacy are.
Come on America, let's stop being so easily distracted by shiny objects. My challenge to all of you voters out there, let's put on our grown-up clothes and elect people with actual skills to govern not just throw tantrums because things don't go their way.
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Sound Familiar?
I think we can all agree that Nazis were terrible. I have no wish to rehash my post about Godwin's Law, nor am I going to write about extremism or white supremacists or any other kind of racist nonsense. I am going to move past any condemnation or repudiation of a particular variety of ignorance and hatred even as I ask you to read this. Read it and forget everything you already think about skinheads and white supremacists. Read it and think about the paranoia that sees persecution under every hedgerow. Read it and think about the rampant distrust of everyone and everything outside the core group, and the fear and hatred that inspires. Read it and think about how they fear their own government (and not just on the basis of raw incompetence). Read it and think of all the groups in our society who adopt the same mentality to some extent. Read it and think about the almost unavoidable violence that arises from assuming that there is some evil plot to rob you of your "rights."
See when I read that article about a guy who is roughly my age and at one time was into similar music, and who found his adolescent rage channeled in an unhealthy and eventually violent direction, I saw the horror of a road not taken. See at one point in my life you could have probably convinced me that I, as a straight, white male was actually a persecuted minority. Put me in a poor urban neighborhood riddled with black and latino gangs and see how privileged I look (not so much at all), and I will guarantee you that I will feel un-safe (and in reality I probably am, unless there happen to be some police handy).
From the comfort of my suburban home and the dark wood bookshelf lined walls of my office at church I can easily see that such paranoia is nothing but the insanity of a sociopath. So I'm not going to judge Arno, in fact, I'm going to give him much respect for getting out, getting past and trying to fight against the sort of hate and fear that once gripped him.
And I'm going to challenge every person who reads this who has ever written, shared or spoken something about "taking our nation back," our "God-given" rights to do just about anything including bear arms, about how our way of life is under attack, about how our religion is being persecuted, about how there is a war on Christmas and/or marriage, about how some nebulous group from the liberal media to the Illuminati is trying to brainwash us and control us. I want everyone who has ever even thought something about how the blacks, the gays, the "illegal" immigrants, the Muslims, the Jews or some brand of Christian that is different from the one you belong to (or for you Presbyterians, perhaps your own denomination) was trying to ruin things for all the decent, normal, orthodox, traditional people (in other words people like you).
Just freaking stop it, because your rhetoric is the same as a bunch of angry dudes with swastikas tattooed on their necks. Stop it for the same reason you don't use the N-word, because regardless of context or whether or not you're trying to be funny, using identifies you with a shameful history of dehumanizing people based on race. Stop it because, while your crowd doesn't always define you, it is probably a good hint about your own convictions if everyone who shares them is a bigot. If your ideological boat is full of Nazis, get the hell out of the boat.
I'll be honest with you, watching the Westboro Baptist people hold up their "God hates fags" signs outside the funerals of soldiers killed in action was just enough of a shock to my system to force me into a bit of soul searching r.e. my own convictions about LGBTQ people. I wanted to repudiate their position as strongly as I possibly could, but I also have this deep seated need to try and be internally consistent, which pretty much disqualifies me for ever entering politics. The obvious and extreme dis-junction between their behavior and Christian ethics held up an uncomfortable mirror to my own ideas, which were never that extreme and always tended more towards fence sitting, but it was seeing the kind of people who were "on my team" at the extreme ends that made me throw up in my mouth a little.
So to all the people who want to make the sorts of arguments based on fear and anger at how (insert name of the people who disagree with you about something here) are going to ruin everything, know that when I hear, read or see your arguments on Facebook I see a swastika tattooed on your neck.
I can give you grace, I can understand that you're upset or afraid, and I can try not to judge you, but I would really like to see you turn and do what my man Arno has done. Understand, repent, and try to fix what used to be broken in you, and maybe then you might actually be able to fix what is broken out there in the world.
See when I read that article about a guy who is roughly my age and at one time was into similar music, and who found his adolescent rage channeled in an unhealthy and eventually violent direction, I saw the horror of a road not taken. See at one point in my life you could have probably convinced me that I, as a straight, white male was actually a persecuted minority. Put me in a poor urban neighborhood riddled with black and latino gangs and see how privileged I look (not so much at all), and I will guarantee you that I will feel un-safe (and in reality I probably am, unless there happen to be some police handy).
From the comfort of my suburban home and the dark wood bookshelf lined walls of my office at church I can easily see that such paranoia is nothing but the insanity of a sociopath. So I'm not going to judge Arno, in fact, I'm going to give him much respect for getting out, getting past and trying to fight against the sort of hate and fear that once gripped him.
And I'm going to challenge every person who reads this who has ever written, shared or spoken something about "taking our nation back," our "God-given" rights to do just about anything including bear arms, about how our way of life is under attack, about how our religion is being persecuted, about how there is a war on Christmas and/or marriage, about how some nebulous group from the liberal media to the Illuminati is trying to brainwash us and control us. I want everyone who has ever even thought something about how the blacks, the gays, the "illegal" immigrants, the Muslims, the Jews or some brand of Christian that is different from the one you belong to (or for you Presbyterians, perhaps your own denomination) was trying to ruin things for all the decent, normal, orthodox, traditional people (in other words people like you).
Just freaking stop it, because your rhetoric is the same as a bunch of angry dudes with swastikas tattooed on their necks. Stop it for the same reason you don't use the N-word, because regardless of context or whether or not you're trying to be funny, using identifies you with a shameful history of dehumanizing people based on race. Stop it because, while your crowd doesn't always define you, it is probably a good hint about your own convictions if everyone who shares them is a bigot. If your ideological boat is full of Nazis, get the hell out of the boat.
I'll be honest with you, watching the Westboro Baptist people hold up their "God hates fags" signs outside the funerals of soldiers killed in action was just enough of a shock to my system to force me into a bit of soul searching r.e. my own convictions about LGBTQ people. I wanted to repudiate their position as strongly as I possibly could, but I also have this deep seated need to try and be internally consistent, which pretty much disqualifies me for ever entering politics. The obvious and extreme dis-junction between their behavior and Christian ethics held up an uncomfortable mirror to my own ideas, which were never that extreme and always tended more towards fence sitting, but it was seeing the kind of people who were "on my team" at the extreme ends that made me throw up in my mouth a little.
So to all the people who want to make the sorts of arguments based on fear and anger at how (insert name of the people who disagree with you about something here) are going to ruin everything, know that when I hear, read or see your arguments on Facebook I see a swastika tattooed on your neck.
I can give you grace, I can understand that you're upset or afraid, and I can try not to judge you, but I would really like to see you turn and do what my man Arno has done. Understand, repent, and try to fix what used to be broken in you, and maybe then you might actually be able to fix what is broken out there in the world.
Monday, August 3, 2015
Where Are We Going?
This is for all of you who are worried about slippery slopes and inevitable doom and moral decay. This if for all of you who are actually worried about the direction of our culture. This is for those of you who swear that those "old" days really were good. I could talk about a lot of things: slavery, women's suffrage, witch trials, wars of religion, but I'm not, I'm going to talk about a change that has taken place somewhere between the time when I was a kid and the present. I'm going to talk about something that I read yesterday on a funny website, but I'm not going to link to it, because I wouldn't want my kids to read it (bad words), and honestly, I really want them to be able to read the rest of this. I want them to read it because I want them to know and see that somehow, someway their world is better than the one I grew up in. I want them to see that human progress can be about more than iphones.
I'm going to talk about bullies. I'm going to admit that I was bullied as a kid, and I'm also going to admit, perhaps even more painfully, that I was a bully. No, I never beat someone up for their lunch money or shoved some kid in a locker, but I used words to intimidate, I made fun of people for how they looked or dressed or who they hung around with. I sometimes got into fights, but I always felt like they were necessary, but mostly they were just stupid. The gory details of growing up in the 1980's are something I would rather leave to the past, but I do want to let the younglings know something: bullies were a thing. You can see it in almost every movie from my childhood and adolescence, from Stand By Me to The Karate Kid, to Back to the Future, to my beloved Star Wars (come on, Vader and the Emperor were like the ultimate bullies, they blew up a whole freaking planet).
There's something inherently story-worthy about an underdog standing up to a bully, whether it's Marty McFly or Luke Skywalker, but the thing about growing up in the 1980's was that the only place the bullies lost was in the movies. You want to know the best advice most of us got about how to deal with bullies was: "ignore them." It came from parents and teachers and guidance counselors. I don't think they really thought this through. It's really hard to ignore someone who randomly punches you in the back of the head while you're trying to get stuff out of your locker. It's even harder to ignore someone who is making fun of you in front of all your peers (yes that is often worse than getting punched in the back of the head). But don't fight back, and don't tell on them!
Looking back, I think it was a transitional phase in human consciousness. We had moved past the era of English boarding schools and prisons where brutality and shame were seen as the basic tools by which character was formed, but we had not gotten past the old systemic blind eye and the abhorrence of tattling or snitching. Teachers and principals could not be counted on to intervene when some freak of the pituitary gland decided you looked at him funny. If overt violence broke out there would be consequences, no matter who was the aggressor, because quite frankly it seemed like just too much police work for grown adults to try and figure out if you punched a kid in the nose in self defense or whether you were in fact the bully. That's one of the reasons why the Karate Kid, despite being a kind of stupid movie, was so hugely popular, because the bullied kid was able to get his justice within the sanction of a martial contest, not in the parking lot behind the gymnasium.
In the movies, violence was the answer. In real life, violence got you suspended. This was a difficult lesson to learn, and again the adults didn't seem to have a good answer for it, so this ill considered pacifism was recommended, because again the grownups assumed that bullies had some basic decency. Which proved that they had pretty much forgotten all about their childhood. But by no means were you to "tell," and even if you did, you would probably not get much help, because the system was staffed by people who had grown up with bullies and who had probably been bullied at some point, and rather than finding it an abhorrent example of human awfulness, decided it should fall into the "that's just how things are" category.
I don't fault them too much, because honestly that is just how things are or rather how they are if you don't do anything about it. For whatever reason, when people my age started to become parents and teachers, we collectively and sort of unconsciously decided that enough was enough, and as grown ups we decided to start to do something about bullies. We stopped being accessories to the bullying at the very least. We tried to recognize that that weird, awkward kid actually deserved to get home with out his underwear being pulled halfway up his back or having his head flushed in a toilet. In almost all the cinematic bully stories there is at least one adult who is a silent accomplice, if not an outright sadist bent on tormenting a child.
My kids go to schools with a "zero tolerance" policy on bullying. This doesn't just mean that every pugnacious maladjusted little brute ends up in constant trouble, it means that all the kids learn from a very early age what bullying is and that they ought not to do it. If you want to bring my eleven year old to the brink of tears tell him he's being a bully. It's like the worst thing you can say to him, because he's grown up in a world where it's not okay to be one. He's been told that being mean to other kids is not right, and he's been shown that there are consequences and he's been supported by teachers and parents and whole system that said, "No, bullies are not just the way it is."
Does this mean that bad behavior stops? No, I'm quite sure it doesn't. I know that a lot of the bullying has moved to more sophisticated forms and migrated out of the locker rooms and on to Facebook (or whatever social media actual kids use these days). I honestly do believe that bullying as social posturing is practically unavoidable. What I am at least a little proud of is that we have collectively and rather efficiently taught a couple of generations of kids that we are not going to call it good any more. What's more we have shown them that we can aim a little higher than acting like Snape does with Draco Malfoy, which is to say, only giving a hoot about bullying when he absolutely has to.
It shouldn't really be that surprising that actual grown-ups can make a difference in how kids behave. I know we spent years living with the myth that grown-ups were stupid, but that was exactly like the myth that violence solves problems (maybe we grown-ups ought to look into that next).
My point in all this is that we have the ability to make progress on things that seem unchangeable. We can combat bullying and racism and all kinds of nonsense, not by magically making people not be bullies or racists, but by simply constructing a system that consistently and firmly says, "No, that is not okay."
Don't tell me things can't change for the better, I've seen it happen.
Sin is still a thing to be sure, and nothing is ever going to be perfect, but the point is we can get better, and that, at least should be evidence that we should keep trying.
I'm going to talk about bullies. I'm going to admit that I was bullied as a kid, and I'm also going to admit, perhaps even more painfully, that I was a bully. No, I never beat someone up for their lunch money or shoved some kid in a locker, but I used words to intimidate, I made fun of people for how they looked or dressed or who they hung around with. I sometimes got into fights, but I always felt like they were necessary, but mostly they were just stupid. The gory details of growing up in the 1980's are something I would rather leave to the past, but I do want to let the younglings know something: bullies were a thing. You can see it in almost every movie from my childhood and adolescence, from Stand By Me to The Karate Kid, to Back to the Future, to my beloved Star Wars (come on, Vader and the Emperor were like the ultimate bullies, they blew up a whole freaking planet).
There's something inherently story-worthy about an underdog standing up to a bully, whether it's Marty McFly or Luke Skywalker, but the thing about growing up in the 1980's was that the only place the bullies lost was in the movies. You want to know the best advice most of us got about how to deal with bullies was: "ignore them." It came from parents and teachers and guidance counselors. I don't think they really thought this through. It's really hard to ignore someone who randomly punches you in the back of the head while you're trying to get stuff out of your locker. It's even harder to ignore someone who is making fun of you in front of all your peers (yes that is often worse than getting punched in the back of the head). But don't fight back, and don't tell on them!
Looking back, I think it was a transitional phase in human consciousness. We had moved past the era of English boarding schools and prisons where brutality and shame were seen as the basic tools by which character was formed, but we had not gotten past the old systemic blind eye and the abhorrence of tattling or snitching. Teachers and principals could not be counted on to intervene when some freak of the pituitary gland decided you looked at him funny. If overt violence broke out there would be consequences, no matter who was the aggressor, because quite frankly it seemed like just too much police work for grown adults to try and figure out if you punched a kid in the nose in self defense or whether you were in fact the bully. That's one of the reasons why the Karate Kid, despite being a kind of stupid movie, was so hugely popular, because the bullied kid was able to get his justice within the sanction of a martial contest, not in the parking lot behind the gymnasium.
In the movies, violence was the answer. In real life, violence got you suspended. This was a difficult lesson to learn, and again the adults didn't seem to have a good answer for it, so this ill considered pacifism was recommended, because again the grownups assumed that bullies had some basic decency. Which proved that they had pretty much forgotten all about their childhood. But by no means were you to "tell," and even if you did, you would probably not get much help, because the system was staffed by people who had grown up with bullies and who had probably been bullied at some point, and rather than finding it an abhorrent example of human awfulness, decided it should fall into the "that's just how things are" category.
I don't fault them too much, because honestly that is just how things are or rather how they are if you don't do anything about it. For whatever reason, when people my age started to become parents and teachers, we collectively and sort of unconsciously decided that enough was enough, and as grown ups we decided to start to do something about bullies. We stopped being accessories to the bullying at the very least. We tried to recognize that that weird, awkward kid actually deserved to get home with out his underwear being pulled halfway up his back or having his head flushed in a toilet. In almost all the cinematic bully stories there is at least one adult who is a silent accomplice, if not an outright sadist bent on tormenting a child.
My kids go to schools with a "zero tolerance" policy on bullying. This doesn't just mean that every pugnacious maladjusted little brute ends up in constant trouble, it means that all the kids learn from a very early age what bullying is and that they ought not to do it. If you want to bring my eleven year old to the brink of tears tell him he's being a bully. It's like the worst thing you can say to him, because he's grown up in a world where it's not okay to be one. He's been told that being mean to other kids is not right, and he's been shown that there are consequences and he's been supported by teachers and parents and whole system that said, "No, bullies are not just the way it is."
Does this mean that bad behavior stops? No, I'm quite sure it doesn't. I know that a lot of the bullying has moved to more sophisticated forms and migrated out of the locker rooms and on to Facebook (or whatever social media actual kids use these days). I honestly do believe that bullying as social posturing is practically unavoidable. What I am at least a little proud of is that we have collectively and rather efficiently taught a couple of generations of kids that we are not going to call it good any more. What's more we have shown them that we can aim a little higher than acting like Snape does with Draco Malfoy, which is to say, only giving a hoot about bullying when he absolutely has to.
It shouldn't really be that surprising that actual grown-ups can make a difference in how kids behave. I know we spent years living with the myth that grown-ups were stupid, but that was exactly like the myth that violence solves problems (maybe we grown-ups ought to look into that next).
My point in all this is that we have the ability to make progress on things that seem unchangeable. We can combat bullying and racism and all kinds of nonsense, not by magically making people not be bullies or racists, but by simply constructing a system that consistently and firmly says, "No, that is not okay."
Don't tell me things can't change for the better, I've seen it happen.
Sin is still a thing to be sure, and nothing is ever going to be perfect, but the point is we can get better, and that, at least should be evidence that we should keep trying.
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