This is what following the lectionary does to you sometimes. On the thirteenth anniversary of 9-11, I had to write a sermon about forgiveness. Specifically, I had to deal with the parable that Jesus tells about the unmerciful servant, and the injunction that if we don't forgive others then God is rather likely to hold that against us.
I thought about where the journey of vengeance has taken us over the past dozen plus years, and I came to the rather un-shocking realization that our quest for vengeance has really only made matters worse. We haven't really solved any problems long term. We took out Osama and Saddam, and now we have ISIS and only the extremely naive believe that the Taliban in actually defeated. The middle east is a mess and most of the world, including our some of our "allies" pretty much blame us for it.
Well played Al-Qaida, well played.
But we didn't have to take the bait you know. We could have thought things through a little longer, we could have been a bit more, I don't know, diplomatic, in our response. If we had just exercised forbearance, not even honest to goodness forgiveness, we could have held on to something very important, much more important than the spurious "victories" we have won in the "war on terror."
In the wake of 9-11, we had the sympathy and good will of the world. For those brief moments that we mourned, the majority of people, Muslim people especially, I seem to remember, mourned with us. We could have made meaningful progress on so many fronts, we had credibility and gravitas, and we could have become a voice of reason, but we didn't, and the world has paid the price.
There's this scene in A River Runs Through It, where the two brothers are fighting, and one of them accidentally knocks their mother over, and they both realize that they were being stupid. We had a chance to be the mother, and to use our pain to heal, and speak a word of sense into a crazy, violent world, but we didn't. We didn't live up to our self proclaimed status of being a Christian Nation, we became a vengeful nation, we went on the warpath, we became the savage, violent, imperialist power that our attackers claimed we would be. We waded into several quagmires, just like they wanted. We have made a generation of new martyrs to feed the flames of extreme fundamentalism, just like they wanted.
The really peculiar thing about all this, is we knew that's what they wanted. They stated their goals, in writing and on video, they told us exactly what they expected us to do, and we freaking did it.
It was absolute arrogance.
It was unrepentant violence.
It was a pervasive taint of greed.
And it was a total lack of forethought.
In short, it was the worst elements of Christendom that responded to the attack by the worst elements of Islam, while in the background, the best elements of both were in the background saying, "Hey, um guys, can you stop punching each other for just a second, we've got another idea."
I'm not sure how it felt to the moderates on the Muslim side, but on the Jesus side it felt like getting told to shut up and get out of the way. All of that peace, love and forgiveness is a nice idea, but now Jesus wants us to bomb the living snot out of some brown people, because "Hoorah."
I have to think, that whatever else Jesus might think of the USA, he would have to question whether we actually understand what we're praying when we say, "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us."
I think that if we had been a the Christian Nation we sometimes claim to be we could have actually created a world where things like 9-11 never happen again. Instead, by being violent and vengeful, we have created a world where they're almost inevitable. All of our efforts to enforce our way to a safer world, just seem to have made the world a more hostile place, not to mention hamstringing our economy with the massive cost of war, and allowing fear to polarize and paralyze our whole political system.
I know forgiving seems like a crazy idea, but why don't we try it sometime?
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Schadenfreude
Some celebrity pastor-types have stepped in it recently. First you have Mark Driscoll, pastor of the Mars Hill Churches out in Washington state. Driscoll has been criticized for abuse of power, for defying the accountability measures of his community, and for, as far as I can tell, being a big jerk. I'm not going to even speculate as to whether some of the misogyny and totalitarian methods of church governance are even 100% true, but what I do know about Driscoll is that he seems angry about something. Granted my emotional radar is not always foolproof, but I'm pretty good at spotting angry men, mainly because I know the signs from firsthand experience. Driscoll seems angry. Anger is a second level emotion founded on fear. Fear explains a lot of what he is accused of doing and being, from his "complementarian" approach to gender roles, which includes women being submissive, to his alleged abusive treatment of colleagues, to his apparent need to control everything and everyone around him. He seems deeply fearful of something, and he is trying to hide it under a blustery and aggressive persona. It has run him on to the rocks; as fear, especially when you express it through anger, tends to do.
On the other end of the spectrum you have Victoria and Joel Osteen, who have become exceedingly rich and famous by telling people that God wants them to be happy and therefore, faith means that you will get every thing you want and "live your best life now." There was a video of Victoria saying as much that was making the rounds this week, and a whole bunch of responses that seemed rather shocked that she would be so bald-faced in espousing the exact theology that all prosperity Gospel teachers essentially present. I wonder why people didn't notice this "alarming" theology sooner. It's not exactly a secret. I kind of wonder if the whole thing would be a "scandal" if it had come out of Joel's mouth instead of his Barbie Doll looking wife. The community that responds to the prosperity Gospel tends to have the same "traditional" ideas about men and women as the evangelical stream that Driscoll swims in.
There's this vision of a divinely mandated scenario: man, woman, being fruitful and multiplying, as God said in Genesis that it should be. Following the plan leads to happiness and success and salvation, straying from the plan leads to damnation. It is filled with "literal" interpretation of the Bible that carefully picks and chooses which verses (sometimes only handful) that it actually wants to take literally. It tends to talk a lot about God as some sort of magic genie, sometimes benevolent, sometimes wrathful, that must be constantly placated with worship and rule following if you want to get what you want, whether it be eternal life or a Mercedes.
It has room for sinners, but only sinners who are willing to repent and fall into line. It has trouble with people whose identity has been named sinful, such as homosexuals, and to a rather disturbing extent, women.
To many of us in the boring old world of Mainline Christianity, the theological foundations of both Prosperity teaching and what I like to call 'Merican Evangelicalism are deeply flawed. But then again most of us are struggling to stay afloat with our little 100-300 member churches, while the likes of Osteen and Driscoll are "ministering" to tens of thousands of people every week. They are "Megachurch" we are just plain old church, small, slow, sometimes a little cranky, and definitely not the "next big thing."
I must confess therefore, that I feel at least a little perverse pleasure in their downfall. I am amused when the emperor has no clothes. I felt vindicated when Driscoll was forced to step down, why, I don't rightly know. It's kind of like hearing that one of those "fat cats" who got rich quick had now fallen on hard times. The feeling is not an admirable, or Christ-like emotion.
I know I should not take pleasure in the pain of another part of the Body of Christ, which is really the damnable thing about all this: I have to somehow find the grace to call Driscoll and Osteen brothers. And - well - I just don't want to. I don't want them to represent Jesus to the world, I don't want to be associated with their muddle-headed and angry theologies, I don't want people thinking I'm with them. Most of all I don't want to love them enough to forgive them for their faults.
But the fact that I don't want to leads me to the rather unpleasant, yet also inescapable reality that I need to do just that.
This Christian stuff can be really hard.
On the other end of the spectrum you have Victoria and Joel Osteen, who have become exceedingly rich and famous by telling people that God wants them to be happy and therefore, faith means that you will get every thing you want and "live your best life now." There was a video of Victoria saying as much that was making the rounds this week, and a whole bunch of responses that seemed rather shocked that she would be so bald-faced in espousing the exact theology that all prosperity Gospel teachers essentially present. I wonder why people didn't notice this "alarming" theology sooner. It's not exactly a secret. I kind of wonder if the whole thing would be a "scandal" if it had come out of Joel's mouth instead of his Barbie Doll looking wife. The community that responds to the prosperity Gospel tends to have the same "traditional" ideas about men and women as the evangelical stream that Driscoll swims in.
There's this vision of a divinely mandated scenario: man, woman, being fruitful and multiplying, as God said in Genesis that it should be. Following the plan leads to happiness and success and salvation, straying from the plan leads to damnation. It is filled with "literal" interpretation of the Bible that carefully picks and chooses which verses (sometimes only handful) that it actually wants to take literally. It tends to talk a lot about God as some sort of magic genie, sometimes benevolent, sometimes wrathful, that must be constantly placated with worship and rule following if you want to get what you want, whether it be eternal life or a Mercedes.
It has room for sinners, but only sinners who are willing to repent and fall into line. It has trouble with people whose identity has been named sinful, such as homosexuals, and to a rather disturbing extent, women.
To many of us in the boring old world of Mainline Christianity, the theological foundations of both Prosperity teaching and what I like to call 'Merican Evangelicalism are deeply flawed. But then again most of us are struggling to stay afloat with our little 100-300 member churches, while the likes of Osteen and Driscoll are "ministering" to tens of thousands of people every week. They are "Megachurch" we are just plain old church, small, slow, sometimes a little cranky, and definitely not the "next big thing."
I must confess therefore, that I feel at least a little perverse pleasure in their downfall. I am amused when the emperor has no clothes. I felt vindicated when Driscoll was forced to step down, why, I don't rightly know. It's kind of like hearing that one of those "fat cats" who got rich quick had now fallen on hard times. The feeling is not an admirable, or Christ-like emotion.
I know I should not take pleasure in the pain of another part of the Body of Christ, which is really the damnable thing about all this: I have to somehow find the grace to call Driscoll and Osteen brothers. And - well - I just don't want to. I don't want them to represent Jesus to the world, I don't want to be associated with their muddle-headed and angry theologies, I don't want people thinking I'm with them. Most of all I don't want to love them enough to forgive them for their faults.
But the fact that I don't want to leads me to the rather unpleasant, yet also inescapable reality that I need to do just that.
This Christian stuff can be really hard.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Now, Apparently, Is the Time for Your Tears
It's been like a car accident in slow motion, but the other shoe finally dropped. TMZ finally got their hands on the other half of the security video of the Ray Rice elevator incident. For those of you who have been willfully ignoring the whole scenario, here's what happened:
1. Baltimore Raven's running back Ray Rice and his then fiance got into an argument in an Atlantic City Casino sometime last winter, they boarded an elevator in the midst of said argument. Moments later Mr. Rice exited the elevator by dragging his now unconscious girlfriend into the lobby.
People had several imaginary narratives about what transpired in that elevator, and as long as we didn't really know we were inclined to give the, rich, famous and talented Mr. Rice the benefit of the the doubt, at least a little.
2. The public response to seeing the video from outside the elevator, them getting on and dragging/being dragged off, was mixed to say the least. The benefit of the doubt people believed some sort of version of: "we were having an argument, things got heated, pushy-shovey stuff happened, bam she hit her head, terrible accident really, so sorry." This was essentially supported by the young woman in question, and therefore, everyone, from the press to the NFL thought some anger management classes and a slap on the wrist would do Mr. Rice just fine.
3. Then the people who actually know something about domestic violence began to call shenanigans on the whole scene. When the Commissioner of the NFL gave Rice a two game suspension and a stern talking to, based on his contrition and the corroboration of his now wife, social workers everywhere collectively gnashed their teeth, because anyone familiar with the peculiar beast that is domestic violence, knew in an instant that the narrative Goodell, the NFL and ESPN were swallowing hook, line and sinker was total BS.
4. The NFL, in the person of Mr. Goodell, realized that they had a public relations nightmare on their hands, because their players seem to find themselves up a domestic battery charge crick without a paddle about every other week, and mostly the League responds with very light penalties indeed. Most of the time there is plausible doubt, we know things get intense in intimate relationships and these men are conditioned, from the time they're about 12 or so, to harness violence and aggression to perform amazing athletic feats. It's reasonable to expect that a man like Ray Rice who makes a living by fighting off people who are trying to tackle him, might give a stiff arm to his 120 lb girlfriend in a heated moment, with some unexpected results. But still, we can't be seen as too lenient on this sort of thing, so more stringent rules were put in place.
Phew, crisis averted right?
Well, not so much. The other half of the video shows domestic violence for exactly what it is: brutality. You see Rice and his girl arguing, you don't know over what. He is hulking and obviously angry, she is also upset about something. They get on the elevator and you cut to the inside camera, she takes one step towards him and he unloads on her face and she goes down like a sack of bricks. This is shocking to people who have no firsthand experience with violence, they expect some dramatic scene, some lead up, a few volleys of shoving, perhaps a few well placed slaps from the feisty little lady. What it was was just a 235 pound athlete, who is absolutely menacing physically, punching a woman in the face, suddenly, with no prelude or warning, just flat out knocking her senseless. What did you think it was going to look like?
That's a real question, what do you think domestic violence looks like?
If this wasn't such a deadly serious thing, the reaction from the talking heads would be laughable. Now there's all sorts of highly affected outrage, now it's serious, now he deserves to be terminated and kicked out of the league, now he's a monster.
But I can't help but think we're all a bit monstrous in taking this long to understand that we should be outraged and appalled by the whole situation.
Why does it take a video?
Why do we have to see him throw the punch, and her go down like that to believe that there is no excuse?
Why do we still continue to believe the victims when they tell us that it's okay, that he didn't mean it, that he'll never do it again, that they probably deserved it?
We shouldn't need video to prove that domestic violence is a big problem.
The bruises on her face and arms should be enough.
The cowed posture and averted eyes should tell us all we need to know.
The thin excuses should no longer deflect an attempt at justice.
She shouldn't have to be the perfect person for the law to protect her from getting knocked out on an elevator, or anywhere else.
Violence against women and girls is a global epidemic, but here we have a highly visible example of a sort that occurs under most of our noses: physical abuse by a spouse or significant other. We can do better than this people. Let's stop sticking our heads in the sand and making excuses. Let's start teaching our sons, whether they play running back or whether they play the piccolo, it's not okay to hit people (not just women, anyone). We need to deal with our cultural assumption that violence is the solution to everything and that it's essentially unavoidable and therefore just an expected fact of life.
It is not unavoidable, and it should never be considered inevitable.
Several of the ESPN talking heads said yesterday afternoon, "just imagine that was your daughter," as they worked up a good self-righteous froth. My question is then, why was it not their daughter when she was being dragged unconscious from that elevator? Why did they need to see fist hit face for their empathy to be engaged? Why were they not outraged that that happened to someone else's little girl?
I've said this a lot lately, but we really need to figure out what empathy is, and then try as hard as we can to have it.
1. Baltimore Raven's running back Ray Rice and his then fiance got into an argument in an Atlantic City Casino sometime last winter, they boarded an elevator in the midst of said argument. Moments later Mr. Rice exited the elevator by dragging his now unconscious girlfriend into the lobby.
People had several imaginary narratives about what transpired in that elevator, and as long as we didn't really know we were inclined to give the, rich, famous and talented Mr. Rice the benefit of the the doubt, at least a little.
2. The public response to seeing the video from outside the elevator, them getting on and dragging/being dragged off, was mixed to say the least. The benefit of the doubt people believed some sort of version of: "we were having an argument, things got heated, pushy-shovey stuff happened, bam she hit her head, terrible accident really, so sorry." This was essentially supported by the young woman in question, and therefore, everyone, from the press to the NFL thought some anger management classes and a slap on the wrist would do Mr. Rice just fine.
3. Then the people who actually know something about domestic violence began to call shenanigans on the whole scene. When the Commissioner of the NFL gave Rice a two game suspension and a stern talking to, based on his contrition and the corroboration of his now wife, social workers everywhere collectively gnashed their teeth, because anyone familiar with the peculiar beast that is domestic violence, knew in an instant that the narrative Goodell, the NFL and ESPN were swallowing hook, line and sinker was total BS.
4. The NFL, in the person of Mr. Goodell, realized that they had a public relations nightmare on their hands, because their players seem to find themselves up a domestic battery charge crick without a paddle about every other week, and mostly the League responds with very light penalties indeed. Most of the time there is plausible doubt, we know things get intense in intimate relationships and these men are conditioned, from the time they're about 12 or so, to harness violence and aggression to perform amazing athletic feats. It's reasonable to expect that a man like Ray Rice who makes a living by fighting off people who are trying to tackle him, might give a stiff arm to his 120 lb girlfriend in a heated moment, with some unexpected results. But still, we can't be seen as too lenient on this sort of thing, so more stringent rules were put in place.
Phew, crisis averted right?
Well, not so much. The other half of the video shows domestic violence for exactly what it is: brutality. You see Rice and his girl arguing, you don't know over what. He is hulking and obviously angry, she is also upset about something. They get on the elevator and you cut to the inside camera, she takes one step towards him and he unloads on her face and she goes down like a sack of bricks. This is shocking to people who have no firsthand experience with violence, they expect some dramatic scene, some lead up, a few volleys of shoving, perhaps a few well placed slaps from the feisty little lady. What it was was just a 235 pound athlete, who is absolutely menacing physically, punching a woman in the face, suddenly, with no prelude or warning, just flat out knocking her senseless. What did you think it was going to look like?
That's a real question, what do you think domestic violence looks like?
If this wasn't such a deadly serious thing, the reaction from the talking heads would be laughable. Now there's all sorts of highly affected outrage, now it's serious, now he deserves to be terminated and kicked out of the league, now he's a monster.
But I can't help but think we're all a bit monstrous in taking this long to understand that we should be outraged and appalled by the whole situation.
Why does it take a video?
Why do we have to see him throw the punch, and her go down like that to believe that there is no excuse?
Why do we still continue to believe the victims when they tell us that it's okay, that he didn't mean it, that he'll never do it again, that they probably deserved it?
We shouldn't need video to prove that domestic violence is a big problem.
The bruises on her face and arms should be enough.
The cowed posture and averted eyes should tell us all we need to know.
The thin excuses should no longer deflect an attempt at justice.
She shouldn't have to be the perfect person for the law to protect her from getting knocked out on an elevator, or anywhere else.
Violence against women and girls is a global epidemic, but here we have a highly visible example of a sort that occurs under most of our noses: physical abuse by a spouse or significant other. We can do better than this people. Let's stop sticking our heads in the sand and making excuses. Let's start teaching our sons, whether they play running back or whether they play the piccolo, it's not okay to hit people (not just women, anyone). We need to deal with our cultural assumption that violence is the solution to everything and that it's essentially unavoidable and therefore just an expected fact of life.
It is not unavoidable, and it should never be considered inevitable.
Several of the ESPN talking heads said yesterday afternoon, "just imagine that was your daughter," as they worked up a good self-righteous froth. My question is then, why was it not their daughter when she was being dragged unconscious from that elevator? Why did they need to see fist hit face for their empathy to be engaged? Why were they not outraged that that happened to someone else's little girl?
I've said this a lot lately, but we really need to figure out what empathy is, and then try as hard as we can to have it.
Monday, September 8, 2014
That's Just Kind of Who I Am
When I turned 40 a little over a month ago, one of my friends from high school showed up. Yesterday, I went to his 40th celebration, and I noticed something, in both cases, we were the only people from our teenage years at one another's 40th birthday party. Jeff and I have been friends a long time, but we don't really see each other that much. Twice in a little over a month is pretty much a record since graduation. We sort of keep up on facebook and play words with friends and that is, I think, in the postmodern world, what qualifies as a friendship. We live a little bit over two hours apart, and life is just, well... life. We've both got wives, kids and jobs that keep us more or less occupied. We're not high school kids who live around the block from one another any more, and since my parents moved away from the town I grew up in, I don't even have "old home" week around Christmas or Thanksgiving, my list of long-time friends is pretty small.
On the way home last night, I was thinking about how nice (and also peculiar) it was to spend time with a person you have known for such a long time, but with whom your relationship moves in very short bursts: a dinner here, a party there. I also wondered a little why almost all of my non-church friendships seem to be of that character.
There's this scene in a documentary about The Pixies, called Loud, Quiet, Loud, where the filmmakers are chronicling the career of one of the seminal alternative bands of my high school years. The band broke up a some point in the 1990's amid rumors that they pretty much hated each other. The filmmaker questioned the lead singer, Black Francis or Frank Black, as he generally calls himself these days, about the reasons for the split and why, after so long, they are attempting a bit of a reunion. Black says that he hasn't talked to any of the other Pixies for ten years, the interviewer asks if there is a reason, do they dislike each other? Was there a conflict? Is there bad blood?
"No," Black said, "That's just kind of who we are."
When I saw that a couple of years ago, I thought, "Yes, that is kind of who we are."
I know lots of people who take a more proactive approach to friendship, and I admire that, and I suspect it's probably a good idea, but it's also not really who I am. I'll drive two hours to a birthday party, just like he did to come to mine, but we don't usually just call each other up to catch up on stuff. I really don't like talking on the phone, and I can't exactly tell you why, but I'm pretty sure my aversion to that form of communication is at the heart of a lot of my social oddities.
The thing is, I really like getting together with people I knew a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, it's kind of like time travel, getting in touch with the person I used to be. A couple years back, I officiated at the wedding of one of my college room-mates, again, a sort of "check in" kind of moment. We hadn't really seen much of one another for 15 years or so, and then we connected again, spent some time together, planned a wedding, spent a very significant moment together and then blam, I move away from Pittsburgh and it's back to liking each other's stuff on facebook.
This may sound like I'm complaining to those of you who have more conventional friendships, but I'm not, I'm really just trying to describe the way things are, without judging it, in the same sort of way Frank Black said, "That's just kind of who we are." I admire that clarity.
Maybe it's a generational thing, maybe it's just me, but I feel entirely okay with friendships being like that. In some ways it makes things more interesting, because I change so much in some ways from one incident to the next, but in other ways I can access stories and jokes, which I may have otherwise totally forgotten. These friendships also provide an interesting perspective on life in general, Jeff and I are both responsible Dad-types at this particular moment, but I can tell when we talk to each other we still have this awareness that we used to drive around too fast listening to Led Zeppelin and try to think of ways to make things go boom. We may have been, at one point, a couple of really stupid teenagers who did a bunch of really stupid stuff, and it's kind of of nice to see someone who reminds you of that, it reminds you that you are on a journey, and that you have changed quite a bit.
It also, hopefully, helps you to accept, and perhaps even forgive, the person you used to be.
Just please, don't anyone tell our kids about the stuff we used to do.
On the way home last night, I was thinking about how nice (and also peculiar) it was to spend time with a person you have known for such a long time, but with whom your relationship moves in very short bursts: a dinner here, a party there. I also wondered a little why almost all of my non-church friendships seem to be of that character.
There's this scene in a documentary about The Pixies, called Loud, Quiet, Loud, where the filmmakers are chronicling the career of one of the seminal alternative bands of my high school years. The band broke up a some point in the 1990's amid rumors that they pretty much hated each other. The filmmaker questioned the lead singer, Black Francis or Frank Black, as he generally calls himself these days, about the reasons for the split and why, after so long, they are attempting a bit of a reunion. Black says that he hasn't talked to any of the other Pixies for ten years, the interviewer asks if there is a reason, do they dislike each other? Was there a conflict? Is there bad blood?
"No," Black said, "That's just kind of who we are."
When I saw that a couple of years ago, I thought, "Yes, that is kind of who we are."
I know lots of people who take a more proactive approach to friendship, and I admire that, and I suspect it's probably a good idea, but it's also not really who I am. I'll drive two hours to a birthday party, just like he did to come to mine, but we don't usually just call each other up to catch up on stuff. I really don't like talking on the phone, and I can't exactly tell you why, but I'm pretty sure my aversion to that form of communication is at the heart of a lot of my social oddities.
The thing is, I really like getting together with people I knew a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, it's kind of like time travel, getting in touch with the person I used to be. A couple years back, I officiated at the wedding of one of my college room-mates, again, a sort of "check in" kind of moment. We hadn't really seen much of one another for 15 years or so, and then we connected again, spent some time together, planned a wedding, spent a very significant moment together and then blam, I move away from Pittsburgh and it's back to liking each other's stuff on facebook.
This may sound like I'm complaining to those of you who have more conventional friendships, but I'm not, I'm really just trying to describe the way things are, without judging it, in the same sort of way Frank Black said, "That's just kind of who we are." I admire that clarity.
Maybe it's a generational thing, maybe it's just me, but I feel entirely okay with friendships being like that. In some ways it makes things more interesting, because I change so much in some ways from one incident to the next, but in other ways I can access stories and jokes, which I may have otherwise totally forgotten. These friendships also provide an interesting perspective on life in general, Jeff and I are both responsible Dad-types at this particular moment, but I can tell when we talk to each other we still have this awareness that we used to drive around too fast listening to Led Zeppelin and try to think of ways to make things go boom. We may have been, at one point, a couple of really stupid teenagers who did a bunch of really stupid stuff, and it's kind of of nice to see someone who reminds you of that, it reminds you that you are on a journey, and that you have changed quite a bit.
It also, hopefully, helps you to accept, and perhaps even forgive, the person you used to be.
Just please, don't anyone tell our kids about the stuff we used to do.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Guns N' Roses
So, first read this. Because it says a lot that I was going to say anyway. Try to suppress the urge to dismiss it because it talks about a higher consciousness, just trust me that Rohr is a solid citizen, a Franciscan priest, firmly rooted in the deep soil of the Christian tradition and not some new-age fruit loop. This idea of a non-dual consciousness is really important. It's important because I think it's our way forward as followers of Jesus Christ, and it may even be the only way that our species avoids killing each other off through either mass conflagration or slow degradation.
If that sounds too grandiose, think about it this way, right now we are Guns N' Roses circa 1991. Guns N' Roses, for those of you who are not really into the Rock N' Roll thing, were probably the epitome of heavy metal. They were loud, they scared your parents, they had big hair and big egos. They were also really skilled musicians and so you had this perfect blend of attitude and actual talent. They were huge, they could do anything they wanted, and they had the world on a string. Axl Rose, the front man/lead singer had quite a reputation for being a full-bore jerk, but the man had vocal range, and despite being a pretty ugly guy, managed to date and marry supermodels, for teenage boys who were scared to talk to actual girls, Axl was an icon.
Then this scruffy looking kid from Seattle, who looked like absolute trash, with greasy hair, dirty, baggy clothes and reportedly a fairly good case of BO, not to mention a bit of a drug habit and a bad stomach, showed up on the record charts. His vocal range was nowhere near what Axl could boast, in fact, if this kid could actually hit a clean note in any register it would be surprising. His name was Kurt Cobain, and his band was called Nirvana, they were a three person (later adding a fourth because Kurt's guitar skills needed a little boost) band with a stripped down style that came to be called grunge. Punk Rocker Henry Rollins has compared what Cobain did to Hair Metal to "bringing down a rhinoceros with a BB gun."
What it actually was, was a paradigm shift. People stopped being quite so impressed with the virtuoso talents and began wanting something real. If you were 16 when you first heard Nirvana, and you were feeling a little out of place and left out of the great big world, like I was, you heard this growly, angry music as though it was the voice of God, telling you that you weren't alone. Even though I liked Guns N' Roses, I heard something in the new paradigm that seemed even better, a little more real.
We are, as a church and as a society, dealing with a paradigm shift that requires us to challenge some of our assumptions. Rohr describes it as a shift from dualistic thinking to non-dual consciousness. Dualistic consciousness sees everything in terms of black and white, right and wrong, insider and outsider. You can pick a side: Democrat or Republican, Protestant or Catholic, Star Wars or Star Trek, but you must be convinced that your side is the right one, and you have to develop a certain antagonism towards the "other." Non-dual thinking, appreciates aspects of both sides and includes some of the in-between stuff that gets left out. I think it's also important to note that "evolution" to non-dual thinking does not involve casting judgment upon the earlier phases of consciousness, it is not interesting in saying, "Now we finally have the truth," because if it does that then it is just dualism in another guise.
I still like Guns N' Roses when they come on the radio, I still appreciate the virtuosity and raw power of their music, but I also know that Nirvana has forever altered the way I listen to music. After Nirvana, I was not as satisfied with poppy lyrics about "eyes of the bluest skies," I wanted a little more authenticity. At first I just jumped to another side of the dualism, which often feels like a true evolution, but is not so much.
This is the challenge, to incorporate and appreciate the consciousness you have grown out of (it's also what makes you sound like a hypocrite or a milquetoast to dualists). It's only fairly recently, after a great deal of soul-searching and struggle, that I feel like I am approaching a non-dual consciousness with any sort of regularity. I am much more comfortable with ambiguity, and more inclined to love people for who they are, not for who I want them to be.
Let me fall back on the music analogy: I still prefer music with substance, I still want Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits, when it comes to my personal preference, but I also enjoy watching my kids groove along to Pharrell. Ten years ago "Happy" would have nauseated me, and I probably would have had a very negative reaction to Imagine Dragons or Lorde, but now I kind of like them, because I'm no longer requiring them to be something they're not. I'm learning to appreciate things for what they are. That goes for music and people.
It also goes for ideas. I'm trying to take a non-dual approach to faith and the life of the church as well. It doesn't mean I somehow have all the answers, but I am no longer as angry about the questions for sure.
If that sounds too grandiose, think about it this way, right now we are Guns N' Roses circa 1991. Guns N' Roses, for those of you who are not really into the Rock N' Roll thing, were probably the epitome of heavy metal. They were loud, they scared your parents, they had big hair and big egos. They were also really skilled musicians and so you had this perfect blend of attitude and actual talent. They were huge, they could do anything they wanted, and they had the world on a string. Axl Rose, the front man/lead singer had quite a reputation for being a full-bore jerk, but the man had vocal range, and despite being a pretty ugly guy, managed to date and marry supermodels, for teenage boys who were scared to talk to actual girls, Axl was an icon.
Then this scruffy looking kid from Seattle, who looked like absolute trash, with greasy hair, dirty, baggy clothes and reportedly a fairly good case of BO, not to mention a bit of a drug habit and a bad stomach, showed up on the record charts. His vocal range was nowhere near what Axl could boast, in fact, if this kid could actually hit a clean note in any register it would be surprising. His name was Kurt Cobain, and his band was called Nirvana, they were a three person (later adding a fourth because Kurt's guitar skills needed a little boost) band with a stripped down style that came to be called grunge. Punk Rocker Henry Rollins has compared what Cobain did to Hair Metal to "bringing down a rhinoceros with a BB gun."
What it actually was, was a paradigm shift. People stopped being quite so impressed with the virtuoso talents and began wanting something real. If you were 16 when you first heard Nirvana, and you were feeling a little out of place and left out of the great big world, like I was, you heard this growly, angry music as though it was the voice of God, telling you that you weren't alone. Even though I liked Guns N' Roses, I heard something in the new paradigm that seemed even better, a little more real.
We are, as a church and as a society, dealing with a paradigm shift that requires us to challenge some of our assumptions. Rohr describes it as a shift from dualistic thinking to non-dual consciousness. Dualistic consciousness sees everything in terms of black and white, right and wrong, insider and outsider. You can pick a side: Democrat or Republican, Protestant or Catholic, Star Wars or Star Trek, but you must be convinced that your side is the right one, and you have to develop a certain antagonism towards the "other." Non-dual thinking, appreciates aspects of both sides and includes some of the in-between stuff that gets left out. I think it's also important to note that "evolution" to non-dual thinking does not involve casting judgment upon the earlier phases of consciousness, it is not interesting in saying, "Now we finally have the truth," because if it does that then it is just dualism in another guise.
I still like Guns N' Roses when they come on the radio, I still appreciate the virtuosity and raw power of their music, but I also know that Nirvana has forever altered the way I listen to music. After Nirvana, I was not as satisfied with poppy lyrics about "eyes of the bluest skies," I wanted a little more authenticity. At first I just jumped to another side of the dualism, which often feels like a true evolution, but is not so much.
This is the challenge, to incorporate and appreciate the consciousness you have grown out of (it's also what makes you sound like a hypocrite or a milquetoast to dualists). It's only fairly recently, after a great deal of soul-searching and struggle, that I feel like I am approaching a non-dual consciousness with any sort of regularity. I am much more comfortable with ambiguity, and more inclined to love people for who they are, not for who I want them to be.
Let me fall back on the music analogy: I still prefer music with substance, I still want Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits, when it comes to my personal preference, but I also enjoy watching my kids groove along to Pharrell. Ten years ago "Happy" would have nauseated me, and I probably would have had a very negative reaction to Imagine Dragons or Lorde, but now I kind of like them, because I'm no longer requiring them to be something they're not. I'm learning to appreciate things for what they are. That goes for music and people.
It also goes for ideas. I'm trying to take a non-dual approach to faith and the life of the church as well. It doesn't mean I somehow have all the answers, but I am no longer as angry about the questions for sure.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Know Your Enemy (and then pray for them)
It occurs to me that we have a chance for a big do-over. That is, if we have learned anything from the past decade of warring against terrorists, we have a chance to realize that our first and most likely response is actually playing the game exactly the way Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda ilk want us to play it. With the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq and with unrest in Egypt and Libya, not to mention Hamas and Israel, oh yeah and don't forget Afghanistan, we're all up in some of the most nerve-wracking sorts of conflicts you could possibly imagine.
Have you ever played that boardwalk game whack-a-mole? Plastic, actually I think they're gopher heads despite the fact that it's called whack-a-mole, pop up out of different holes and you use this large padded mallet to whack them. The more you whack the more points you score, but they keep moving faster and coming up randomly until you just can't get them all, and you lose. Did you ever think that maybe our current antagonists are at least as smart as the people who can't even tell a mole from a gopher?
Look, it's pretty obvious to everyone that we're the big kid on the block at the moment. Our terrorist buddies know this, they know that when they kick us in the shins by blowing up a train, a plane or a bunch of automobiles, or when they behead journalists and humanitarian workers, that they are going to make us really, really mad. The same way that Hamas knows that lobbing mortars into Israel is going to provoke a response. They do it to get a response, they know they're not going to scare us, they know they're not going to break our will, they want us to come after them. They want the drones and the cruise missiles to blow up women and children, because that will create more people who think we're evil and it will draw us, into a conflict that we can't win because we're fighting an enemy who doesn't mind retreat, or defeat, or even the suffering of their own people.
Yes, it's evil, yes, it's a trap, and no, we haven't figured it out yet, so they're going to keep trying it.
You know the old saying, "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me?" I'm not sure how many times past twice we are yet, but the shame is increasingly on us for using hand grenades to kill a spider in the nursery. I am not the only person who has noticed that our enemy doesn't seem to mind our almost comical over-reactions to anything and everything terrorist. In 2001 they flew planes into buildings, but that was a lot more work than just kidnapping some journalists and hacking off their heads, why would they go the extra mile if they can get the same result?
The result they want is for the US and the Western powers to burn themselves out economically and psychically, dare I say, spiritually, because that's what protracted fear and war does to you, it kills your soul.
Don't get me wrong, I've got a good case of the mads for those masked men who are beheading journalists and killing children and raping women and persecuting Iraqi Christians and Shia Muslims alike, they are evil, and they are acting in the delusion that they are serving God, which makes them the worst kind of evil. But I remember the feeling that I had when Seal Team 6 finally got Osama Bin Laden, I was all like, "Yes, finally!" And then I looked at where that whole adventure had taken us, and I felt, well, less than triumphant.
Did I feel sorry for Bin Laden?
Nope, not even a little, but I suspect that he didn't feel sorry for himself either, he got what he wanted, and what was coming to him.
Actually, I felt sorry for myself, because I had allowed myself to hate him so much, which was especially galling because that's exactly what he wanted. The Jihadists want to expose the "hypocrisy" of the west, they want to expose "Christian" nations as bullies and oppressors. They are fighting a different war than we are, thus it is entirely possible for them to be winning their war, even though we are capable of crushing them militarily wherever and whenever we finally get angry enough to do so.
Their plan is to cause the collapse of American and European military and economic hegemony, and then, they will be able to unite the world under an Islamic regime. The part of the plan where they seize power is flawed, because over 90 percent of the Muslim world hates them as much if not more than we do at the moment, but the attack phase of the plan is going so well, they figure they can bend it back any time, you know, the will of Allah and all.
That doesn't mean that our plan of action in response to them is a good one. It's pretty simple, and it's a lesson that we teach our kids all the time: to respond to a bully with violence is to sink to their level. There is a balance in the use of force (just like in The Force, sorry couldn't resist), you have the right to stand up for yourself, but consider carefully the means by which you do so. You might "win" the fight, but you have damaged yourself in doing so.
So what do we do?
Here's an idea: let's not be exactly the oppressors that they claim we are. Let's rescue and protect civilians, let's be vocal and supportive of efforts to bring those who commit atrocities to justice, but let's not invade, let's not do the "shock and awe" thing again, because it didn't shock or awe anyone, it just made the resolve of those who hate us even stronger and made them even harder to find. There's always somewhere to run and our enemy in this case has no honor, and very little pride of the sort that they are using against us.
Let's try something different, because the last time around on this merry-go-round got us absolutely nowhere. You know what insanity is right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Have you ever played that boardwalk game whack-a-mole? Plastic, actually I think they're gopher heads despite the fact that it's called whack-a-mole, pop up out of different holes and you use this large padded mallet to whack them. The more you whack the more points you score, but they keep moving faster and coming up randomly until you just can't get them all, and you lose. Did you ever think that maybe our current antagonists are at least as smart as the people who can't even tell a mole from a gopher?
Look, it's pretty obvious to everyone that we're the big kid on the block at the moment. Our terrorist buddies know this, they know that when they kick us in the shins by blowing up a train, a plane or a bunch of automobiles, or when they behead journalists and humanitarian workers, that they are going to make us really, really mad. The same way that Hamas knows that lobbing mortars into Israel is going to provoke a response. They do it to get a response, they know they're not going to scare us, they know they're not going to break our will, they want us to come after them. They want the drones and the cruise missiles to blow up women and children, because that will create more people who think we're evil and it will draw us, into a conflict that we can't win because we're fighting an enemy who doesn't mind retreat, or defeat, or even the suffering of their own people.
Yes, it's evil, yes, it's a trap, and no, we haven't figured it out yet, so they're going to keep trying it.
You know the old saying, "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me?" I'm not sure how many times past twice we are yet, but the shame is increasingly on us for using hand grenades to kill a spider in the nursery. I am not the only person who has noticed that our enemy doesn't seem to mind our almost comical over-reactions to anything and everything terrorist. In 2001 they flew planes into buildings, but that was a lot more work than just kidnapping some journalists and hacking off their heads, why would they go the extra mile if they can get the same result?
The result they want is for the US and the Western powers to burn themselves out economically and psychically, dare I say, spiritually, because that's what protracted fear and war does to you, it kills your soul.
Don't get me wrong, I've got a good case of the mads for those masked men who are beheading journalists and killing children and raping women and persecuting Iraqi Christians and Shia Muslims alike, they are evil, and they are acting in the delusion that they are serving God, which makes them the worst kind of evil. But I remember the feeling that I had when Seal Team 6 finally got Osama Bin Laden, I was all like, "Yes, finally!" And then I looked at where that whole adventure had taken us, and I felt, well, less than triumphant.
Did I feel sorry for Bin Laden?
Nope, not even a little, but I suspect that he didn't feel sorry for himself either, he got what he wanted, and what was coming to him.
Actually, I felt sorry for myself, because I had allowed myself to hate him so much, which was especially galling because that's exactly what he wanted. The Jihadists want to expose the "hypocrisy" of the west, they want to expose "Christian" nations as bullies and oppressors. They are fighting a different war than we are, thus it is entirely possible for them to be winning their war, even though we are capable of crushing them militarily wherever and whenever we finally get angry enough to do so.
Their plan is to cause the collapse of American and European military and economic hegemony, and then, they will be able to unite the world under an Islamic regime. The part of the plan where they seize power is flawed, because over 90 percent of the Muslim world hates them as much if not more than we do at the moment, but the attack phase of the plan is going so well, they figure they can bend it back any time, you know, the will of Allah and all.
That doesn't mean that our plan of action in response to them is a good one. It's pretty simple, and it's a lesson that we teach our kids all the time: to respond to a bully with violence is to sink to their level. There is a balance in the use of force (just like in The Force, sorry couldn't resist), you have the right to stand up for yourself, but consider carefully the means by which you do so. You might "win" the fight, but you have damaged yourself in doing so.
So what do we do?
Here's an idea: let's not be exactly the oppressors that they claim we are. Let's rescue and protect civilians, let's be vocal and supportive of efforts to bring those who commit atrocities to justice, but let's not invade, let's not do the "shock and awe" thing again, because it didn't shock or awe anyone, it just made the resolve of those who hate us even stronger and made them even harder to find. There's always somewhere to run and our enemy in this case has no honor, and very little pride of the sort that they are using against us.
Let's try something different, because the last time around on this merry-go-round got us absolutely nowhere. You know what insanity is right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
How You Say It
Both of us say there are laws to obey,
But frankly, I don't like your tone.
-Leonard Cohen, Different Sides
Here's an actual honest to goodness case of an ironic situation: at a time when we have access to staggering amounts of information via the interweb (which my daughter insists that I call the internet, and so I continue to say interweb, just to bug her), we choose to use that access mostly to reinforce on our own personal echo chambers (and look at kittens and puppies).
A few posts came across my twitter feed this morning that mentioned that President Jimmy Carter was going to be speaking at a gathering of the Islamic Society of North America in Detroit. Some of them were just, "Hey, Jimmy Carter is going to talk to a bunch of Muslims in Detroit, ain't that neat?" sort of posts. Others were, "OH MY SWEET RELIGIOUS FREEDOM! TRAITOROUS FORMER PRESIDENT IS SAYING HAMAS IS GOOD PEOPLE!" sorts of posts.
In actuality, Carter is going to talk to a bunch of American people, who happen to be Muslims, about a Carter center initiative and the subject of his latest book: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power, which I have sitting on the coffee table in my office right now. Carter is going to talk to the Islamic Americans (and I suspect probably Canadians as well, but don't let that spoil the stew), about women's rights. Carter is unapologetic in announcing that, of the three major Abrahamic faiths, Islam has the furthest road to travel with regards to the treatment of women. Most of us know the headlines: honor killings, slavery, child brides, etc. But the fact of the matter is it's actually much worse than that. Women and children are the collateral damage in the great conflicts of the world, all of which are started and waged by male power structures. President Carter is using his status as a former world leader, and as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and as a generally well respected diplomat and do-gooder to advance the cause of equality and security for the women of the world.
I think this world needs a lot more Jimmy Carters.
Not everyone agrees, which is okay, you don't have to agree with me, but let's admit that objective truth takes a brutal beating in this world of inter-news. Vetting appears to be a thing of the past, people only go to the first news source that doesn't appear to be selling Cialis or openly have a swastika anywhere on the header. We distrust the "big" media, you know the ones with actual journalists, because we don't feel like they reinforce our opinions quite vehemently enough (except Fox News, they totally get people).
And then you have the blogs, like this one, where anyone who has the time and inclination can sit down and write stuff. I generally strive for some level of circumspection and humility, understanding that I have at least as many assumptions and blind spots as Bill O'Reilly, mine are just different from his.
In order for there to be dialogue different people must first make this really crucial discovery: there are valid opinions that may be significantly different from mine. I don't mean saying: "Everyone is entitled to their opinion," that's not good enough. You have to admit, difficult though it may be, that those other opinions may in fact contain as much, if not more truth than yours. Then, and only then, are you ready to actually listen and discuss.
Unfortunately, I don't see that happening very much in this great big world.
But until it does happen, we are going to continue to have problems.
To me, the fact that the Islamic Society of North America has invited Jimmy Carter, a Southern Baptist, to come and talk to them about women's rights, is a really, really good thing. It shows an openness to learning about a much bigger issue in global Islam, than even extremism and terrorism: the oppression of half (maybe over half) of the world's Muslim people.
I have read Carter's book, he has found the things that need to be said, and says them in a way that is sensitive enough that the Islamic people can hear it. That is valuable, that is kingdom of heaven work, and it is an eminent representation of American Christianity, it is the best of what we can be. Our reactionary fear, well that's another story.
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