Not Logical

Before I even knew what science fiction was, I was a fan of Mr. Spock.  Before I was obsessed with Jedi, Time Lords and Hobbits, I saw this man with pointy ears and I thought that he was hands down the star of the Star Trek.  That other, stockier guy in the yellow shirt, who was always over-acting had not yet caught my imagination the way the pointy-eared alien called a Vulcan did.  It wasn't just his look either, it was that he seemed so... well... alien, without really looking that much different.  Sure there were the ears and the general pointy-ness and that severe hairline, but what really grabbed me was the other-ness of a being who valued logic above all else.
There was something prophetic about the contrast of Spock and Kirk, Kirk was really the center of attention to be sure, but Spock somehow stole the show, by pointing out the basic flaws in Kirk's all too human emotional responses and decisions.  Even as a kid, when I still had very little idea what the word illogical meant, there was something about that basic drama and contrast.  In large part that was made more powerful by the personal gravitas of Leonard Nimoy, who has now left us and our illogical human world.
Nimoy was not your traditional leading man, he was sort of long and dour looking and had this sort of authoritative tone that made you feel like you were being lectured to by the Principal, but yet, for Spock, for a Vulcan (technically a half Vulcan), he was absolutely perfect.  You see how he defined an entire imaginary species in the fact that every actor who has played a Vulcan in the rather expansive Star Trek universe has essentially mimicked his manner and demeanor, right down to the raising of a pointy eyebrow.
Defining an entire imaginary species is no small feat for an actor, especially since the original series was all too short-lived.  If it wasn't for the peculiar survival of Star Trek most of us would probably only know Nimoy as a narrator and a voice on commercials. His voice was really his talent, not so much his looks, and that, in and of itself, in a world of show business that needs people to be pretty, is also a triumph for Nimoy.
It would be illogical for us to mourn a man who lived to the prosperous old age of 83, but somehow I know our terrestrial existence is going to be a little bit less sensible without him in it.

Peace be upon you Leonard.

God's Preference

Richard Rohr strikes again.  Maybe I should just start doing running commentary about the daily meditation, because a lot of days, when I read that thing first thing in the morning it just sort of "ruins" my whole day.  I have been wrestling for years with the idea that somehow, some way God doesn't seem particularly interested in winning.  It tickles around the edges of things when I hear athletes thank God for helping them win a game.  I think, "Wait a minute, God was with the losers too."  It gets a little more uncomfortable when I hear blood thirsty attitudes and unchecked vengeful hatred pouring out of people who claim to follow Jesus.  It gets downright gut wrenching when we actually go to war against some of the poorest people in the world, and churches are pretty much all on board.  I understand that pacifism is probably not a totally feasible option for everyone, but maybe we could support our country and the people who serve it better by not being cheerleaders for the warmongers.
At the heart of all these levels of discontent is the desire that I have to follow what Jesus taught and what Jesus did.  I understand that his example is not something that can be followed by an actual earthly nation, that's why the Kingdom of Heaven is described in the way that it is by all of his parables and teachings.  But it can be followed by actual people, and I think people that are going to worship him and call him Lord, ought to at least make a stab at being those people.
The discouragement of it all for me is the fact that we have stopped trying.  G.K. Chesterton said that the reason why Christendom fails is not because Christianity was tried and found lacking but because it was found difficult and never tried.  You can't run a secular nation based on what Jesus taught, it would be an insane and probably doomed place.  We would have to forgive our enemies, and not resist the evildoer, we would be overrun with criminals and the first time some hostile force attacked we would all just willingly die, while praying to God to forgive them.  Until God deals with the evil and the violence of human nature that is amok in the world, we simply aren't going to be able to live the way Jesus did.
Except that, here in America, we can, because we have freedom of religion, and we have a culture, a really rather wonderful culture that allows us to follow Christ as fully as any people who have ever sought to live out a Christian existence in the middle of an empire.  We have luxuries and privilege, we have the opportunity to speak a prophetic word and call our nation to be better.  I guess that's what I think we should be doing. I pray that we will.

Absence Makes the Nose Grow Longer

I have been thinking a lot about absence lately.  I find myself, as we come up on a decade of life without my brother, reflecting on all the things that are now missing from our family life.  I am also preparing to be absent from my normal life and routines for forty days on the Camino de Santiago.  Michele is getting pretty tired of being reminded by just about everyone, how hard that is going to be, even if they mean well and are trying to be supportive.  I am beginning to believe that my walking is going to be the easier part of this equation.
It is an anxious thing to think of all the things that won't happen if you're not there.  On the other hand, it's humbling to know that life is somehow going to manage to go on without you, which creates a kind of anxiety all it's own, especially when you consider your "professional" sphere of life.  No one wants to feel like they're easily replaced.  I keep trying to look at this pilgrimage with the widest angle that I can; thinking about it as a growing experience, where I will learn things about myself and my place in the various arenas of life through temporarily disappearing from them.
The voyage of self discovery angle is old and worn enough that it can easily be overdone though.  The vision quest, the walkabout, the various solitary pilgrimages made by real people and characters in books don't really deal much with the absences created by the departure of the hero.
I'm feeling a little bit more anxious about my absence than I am about journey.  I'm worried about how Michele and the kids are going to get along without me, though I know that they will.  I have though about stupid things like mowing the lawn and walking the dog.  And let's not even get into the church stuff.  I've got preachers lined up, and I trust in the ability of the leaders of this church, but man, there's a lot of stuff that could happen and I can't just swoop back from the Camino to save the day.  It's my issue really, I know it, it's all my ego and the part of me that wants to feel unique and irreplaceable.  That's what I have to grow through before I ever get on that plane.
In the Odyssey, Odysseus returns from his adventures to find that there are suitors infesting his house and courting his wife, interlopers trying to take advantage of his supposed demise.  Penelope has managed to hold them at bay, but they're still eating up the resources of the house.  I always kind of wondered why it was that he didn't just stroll through the door and tell them all to beat feet, but I am seeing that perhaps they are the first and last anxiety that needs to be conquered on a journey, they are the fears of absence, they are all the things that might go wrong.  And they need to be resisted and slain every bit as much as the sirens or the cyclops.
I think that's why so many epic journeys are made out of necessity, because of all the things that want to keep you from leaving your front door in the first place.  After all, Tolkien's Hobbits would not be half as sympathetic characters if it wasn't for the constant longing they have just to be back home.  If it wasn't for the sense of sacrifice of the journey, they would just be gluttonous little mercenaries who are really more trouble than they're worth.  It is the wrestling with absence that is the pathos of the story.
But what of absence that is permanent?  What of the heroes that never again cross the threshold of their homes?  Then as well, absence is the thing, the negative space of what perhaps should have been but was not.  What do we do with that?
What do we do when we must live through a tragedy instead of an epic adventure?
We spend our time poking about the edges of what might have been.  We must give that absence it's space, because to deny it is only to make it that much stronger.
My faith tradition assures me that the experience of the one who departs is rather more pleasant than the experience of the ones left behind.  As time goes by, I'm not sure I find that entirely comforting, especially as it relates to my absence from home while I'm doing this Camino.
If I 'm going to put the ones I care about through such grief, however temporary it may be, I'm going to have to do what I can to make it worthwhile.  And I suppose this is where it starts, acknowledging that all is not a brave adventure, admitting that I know about the vacancy that I will leave in my family, acknowledging that I am not as important as I may think I am, but I'm still important enough that I will be missed.  I need to remember that faithful waiting is as strong a thing as boldly walking, and appreciate all that I leave behind, not just because I love them, but because they love me, and thus there will be the presence of an absence when I am gone.

The Edge of the Inside

I might have mentioned that we got some snow, and I also might have mentioned that Southern Maryland tends to paralyze when snow like this happens.  So Ash Wednesday service was cancelled, which is a little bit of a bummer because I was going to talk about prophets, and prophets are interesting characters.  Richard Rohr has also been talking about Prophets, and has some interesting things to say, and particularly the thing about where a Prophet has to exist: on the inside of the system, but not in its shining, gooey center.
Intuitively, I know this is true, and rather difficult, because to be a Prophet means you're probably going to offend some people, but the offense is actually necessary, because the word is "from the Lord" whatever that means in your particular system.  I have a couple or three examples milling around in my head.  The first example is the blogosphere, you know where I'm writing and you're reading, and where occasionally people take a stab at saying Prophetic things. I'm thinking specifically about Christian bloggers writing about the Church.  Because of the interweb, our religious ghettos are dissolving in a big hurry.  As a Presbyterian Teaching Elder, I regularly read things by Richard Rohr (Roman Catholic, Franciscan), Brian McClaren (Emergent, post evangelical), Shane Claiborne (Radical Hippie Christian), Rob Bell (whatever the heck Rob is these days), N.T. Wright (Conservativ-ish Anglican), Martin Marty (Liberal-ish Mainline Protestant), Eugene Peterson (Patron Saint of modern Presbyterians), Rachel Held Evans (Millennial mouthpiece and target of a whole lotta hating), and a whole bunch of other churchy writers and bloggers who have a lot to say about who/what/how we are the church or what we should be as the church.  I find that I am able to hear prophetic things from all of these people in some moments, and not in others, it depends on whether or not I feel they're in my system, or whether they're shouting at my system from the outside.
Eugene Peterson is pretty much always in my system, he is a Presbyterian Pastor who served a church in suburban Maryland, when Eugene says something, I pretty much have to listen, even if it makes me want to tuck my tail between my legs and wander off in shame.  The other ones, I have a pretty finely tuned filter (though Rohr is getting through a lot more than I would have expected an RC type would).  I can see the places where they're talking about "our" church, as in something we are both a part of and both fully invested in, and both concerned for the overall welfare and sanctity of.  I can also see the places where they're pointing the finger at me from the outside, telling me all the ways that my way of being the church is just wrong and they have figured it out.  If that seems like a fine line, don't worry, I'm about to get more radical up in here.
Earlier this week, a couple of friends of mine, secular humanist types, or as they say, "heathen."  Noticed that Pope Francis made a comment about people who chose not to have children being "selfish."  I heard in the tone and some of the comments that defensiveness of people who have been prophet-ed without being a part of the prophet's system.  I made a joke about cats, which is a popular thing on the facebook, and I got a bunch of likes, which is a good feeling, and in digital world means you are "in."  I then mildly defended Francis, and made a comment that pointed out that Francis (I called him Frank for the sake of maintaining my "like"ability) is actually bringing the RC church along in a rather stellar, progressive fashion, but that you can't expect him to all of the sudden just stop being Catholic.
I have really appreciated Francis for his stand on economic justice and our need to develop global empathy, and to get back to loving our neighbors, but I know he's not going to come out and support birth control, or women priests, or gay marriage, it's a bridge too far, and it would lead to his prophetic voice being silenced and cast out of the community of the Roman Catholic Church.  You want to talk about ugly? See what happens when the Church has to forcibly get rid of a Pope, since it can't actually excommunicate him, pretty much the only option is murder, which has happened, both in reality and suspicion rather more than one might think.  Which is, of course a major danger for prophet types in general, if you get to be too much of a pest, speaking for God and all, they just off you, because they can't kill God.  And when people get mad enough about anything, they seem to just have to kill someone.
Which leads me to the most irritating bit of prophetic troubling: ISIS, which honestly, I hate with a righteous hatred, on several levels.  I hate that they are just brutal and barbaric, I hate that they claim to be serving god with their abhorrent violence, and I also hate that they are a mirror of so much of what has gone wrong with religion over the centuries.  Add to this the fact that we are so resistant to seeing the indictment of our own history, and I can't help but be nervous about even talking about this.
It comes back to the fact that Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  Don't get me wrong, when they lined up those Christians and beheaded them, I didn't even need to watch the video, it gave me a howling fit of rage and hate.  And that is the ultimate victory of evil, to get people who are trying to follow Jesus to forget all about what he said and did, and hate others and fear others, and eventually kill others. There have been many times where I let the hate win, where I just thought: "this is too much, those barbarians gots to be got, send in the bombs, let's go all shock and awe and see how they like that!"
I'm tempted to see violence as an answer.  Maybe it is, but it's not the Jesus way.  This doesn't mean I'm pointing the finger at everyone who wants to go in with guns blazing, I'm talking to the people in my system, the ones who are really trying to love God and love our neighbors.  We can't change ISIS, they won't even listen to other Muslims, they certainly won't listen to us.  We can't change the secular world, war is probably coming.  What we can do is "Rend our hearts, not our garments," as the Prophet Joel says.  Let your heart break for the brokenness of the world, but don't let it make you bitter, do not let it impoverish your ability to feel empathy, do not let the anger run you.
Listen to the voices of the prophets, the ones that tell us where cycles of violence will get us.  Look there for a solution that will not just lead to another generation of angry disenfranchised Muslims willing to fight to get back to the seventh century, "when things were better."  We can learn a lot from the darkness and evil of ISIS, we can see so many things that were festering in the secret cells of Al Quaeda and Hezbollah, now out in the bright light of day.  If you don't like it, let's try and turn and do something else, let's not just do the same things we've always done and expect different results.

A Gracious Sabbath

We just got our first "real" snow storm since we moved to Maryland.  Last year we got a few taps of maybe 4 or 5 inches, which caused the kids to miss a bunch of school, and me to realize that this area generally doesn't deal with snow quite like Western Pennsylvania.  Here snowstorms like the one that just dumped about 10 inches or so on Southern Maryland are rare enough that folks don't really plan for them, like you have to in colder climes.  But when they do happen, everything just shuts down.  Including Presidents day on Monday the kids have not seen the inside of a school in five days.  Shrove Tuesday Pancakes: cancelled, Ash Wednesday Service: cancelled.  We just had a discussion about having to get someone to plow the parking lot for the first time since 2009 (that's right, you can make it six years here without having to plow the lot).
The big slow down is kind of nice though, especially for us pastor types who are normally frantically trying to get a whole bunch of Lent stuff accomplished.  God has given us a break.  Do you ever think that perhaps there's something to the whole pattern of nature that's supposed to always keep us humble?  There's something about a good snowstorm that is a gentle reminder of our limitations.  Hurricanes and tornadoes and wildfires, may be a little less gentle reminders, but they should also give us a moment to reckon with our boundaries.
Boundaries are not always comfortable, but they are necessary.  Hebrew Scriptures build boundaries into the patterns of daily life, Sabbath, Jubilee, limits on how and how much one can acquire, rules that reigned in our own industrious thirst for more, they were probably some of the primary reasons why so many of God's people strayed off into idols, idols don't make limits, they want more every bit as much as we do, they're basically just our lust, greed, pride and maybe even malice, writ large and supernatural.
I am often struck by some of the things Jesus didn't do, as much as I am by the things he did.  He didn't press the advantage when he had the crowds (literally) eating out of his hand.  He didn't set up shop and build a temple or a synagogue of his own, he didn't start an Essene-like community where he could really train up some "good" followers.  He didn't defend himself against the eventual plot that led to his crucifixion, even though he knew it was coming, and had some resources at his disposal.
Limits create margins, and margins make ecological, social and spiritual sense.  If your life is booked solid, when do you connect with your kids or your spouse?  When do you pray?  If we are all about maximizing efficiency and productivity we reap to the edges of our fields and there is nothing left over to feed the widows and orphans (Bible stuff again).  Also, not leaving adequate hedgerows and natural vegetation along streams called riparian zones, leads to erosion which in the long run destroys the productive capacity of the soil and also degrades the water quality and even leads to large "dead zones" in the Chesapeake Bay, which messes with the blue crab fishery and means that a bushel sells for upwards of $200 and that's a crime (sorry, went on a bit a rant there).  It all starts with margins, or lack there of.
We have demonstrated that we can both intentionally and unintentionally effect the ecosystems of our planet, and a lot of the dire consequences are simply a result of our poor attention to margins.  But we also sin in this regard, we create a world where some have too much and others do not have enough.  I have read several articles lately that point out the rather plain mathematical reality that it would be cheaper to build free shelters for the homeless population and allow them to live there in warmth and safety than it is for us to just ignore them and leave them on the street.
But we don't do it, because, well, it's just not fair.
That logic is hard to get around with kids and adults alike, because "fairness" and justice are often not even living in the same neighborhood, and kindness appears to have taken a long vacation.
We are stuck in a dualistic nightmare of scarcity, where the idea of enough for all, even though it is, right now, a technological possibility, is something we're just not willing to engage, because some insist it's not fair, or it's a naive pipe dream.
But what it if it's not?
Yesterday afternoon and evening, after we had dug ourselves out of the driveway, we went to town for a few things, and burgers.  There was no one about, relatively speaking.  The normal hustle and bustle of this area had calmed; there was no traffic, no crowds, the roads were clear and dry.  Nature had imposed a limit and people had pulled back voluntarily, and I suspect for most fairly comfortably.  We had some shoveling to do, and a frozen pipe that luckily didn't burst, it hasn't been without a hassle or two, but there has also been blessing, and that's the thing about margins, they give you room to experience life.  They don't make it all sunshine and flowers, but they help us be better humans when we learn to live within them.

Now Where Do I Get My News?

Jon Stewart is leaving the Daily Show...  let there be a day of mourning, the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, because one of the few voices of truth is leaving his post!
Actually, no, it's okay, I'm going to miss him, but he has done something rather wonderful over the past 17 years, and I think it's okay for him to go and do something else now.  But Jon has caught lightning in a bottle.  He was the right guy, at the right time, in the right place, to invent something new: fake news that ended up being more honest than the "real" news.
In the beginning, the DS was about deliberately taking statements far out of context, taking absurd pictures or videos and inventing fake stories about them, it was funny, but it wasn't groundbreaking.  At some point, Stewart and his crew realized that they didn't actually have to make things up, the truth was absolutely as worthy of a good laugh as anything they could possibly make up.  They were pretty honest about this surprising reality.  In recent years, Stewart would often just look at the camera and say something like, "We used to have to make stuff up," after some politician, or more often a Fox News pundit said something so outlandishly false or hypocritical that all you really have to do is sort of roll your eyes and it's an instant joke.
Stewart is clever and likable and generally really seems to be puzzled by the ideological blindness of both the left and the right.  In opening our eyes to what is worthy of ridicule about the world, he also opens our eyes to the truth.  I don't think it was ever really an intentional move though.  I think they were just comedians looking for a laugh, and it turned out that there was more ammo out there in the regular old news than they had expected.
What the Daily Show did so very well was what Toto did in the Wizard of Oz.  Because of their sense of smell, they knew there was something fishy about how we were being told about the world.  We were too trusting of news anchors whose primary qualification was good hair, and we listened too guilelessly to pundits who were really trying to sell us something (sometimes the only thing to sell is fear).  The DS pulled back the curtain to show us the sad old man working the media machine.
Stewart's tone, and the tone of the show was always: "Look you guys, you can see how ridiculous this really is right?  You're not stupid, you can think for yourselves.  You know there's something wrong about how they're telling you this story."
In the process of doing this, in assuming that we can actually appreciate the humor in how ridiculous things have gotten, he showed that people could trust him.  I felt like I could trust him, because I knew where he was coming from, what his agenda was: to be funny.  I cannot say the same thing about straight news, any of it.  I feel like I have to parse out Anderson Cooper or Wolf Blitzer, and I'm not even going to get started on the Fox crowd.  I either don't know what their angle is or I just plain don't like the angle they're taking.
The DS gives us an alternative to the Walter Cronkite, voice of God, presentation of the news.  We need that because the news media has proven to be untrustworthy (not evil, just unreliable) in their quest for the truth.  Jon was not questing for the truth, he was questing for a joke, he found the truth rather accidentally, or some might say organically.
The reason that I think it's all going to be okay, now that the little guy is leaving, is that the form never really relied that much on him.  He was/is not really the cult of personality type.  Nothing about him screams: authority figure, mostly it screams: funny guy.  The form for finding the truth while looking for laugh is out there now, the curtain is pulled back, it's just a matter of finding someone who can sit at the Daily Show desk, and the truth can continue to smirk at us.
It was Stewart's gift to be able to laugh at just about anything, especially himself.  For 17 years he has helped all of us do the same thing, and it has gotten us through some really tough times.
Thank you Jon.

A Series of Unusual Connections

Two things happened in the past week that drew attention some attention.  One was serious and terrible, the other was not important to the point of making me wonder why anyone was even paying attention.
Let's start with the stupid thing: Kanye West made a face and refused to shake Beck's hand when Beck's album won a Grammy for album of the year.  Kanye West is narcissistic to such an extent that his whole persona becomes a sort satirical, maybe even prophetic, statement about our own self importance.  Kanye is angry and petulant and never misses a chance to make everything about him.  Some say he's a genius, others say he's a boil on the posterior of society, and perhaps they're both correct in some form.  I don't really know, my involvement with hip hop and rap pretty much died when Ice Cube, Mr. Straight Outta Compton, started acting in kids movies.  I just don't know any more.  That said, I do know something about Beck, Beck is about my age, his career is now approaching venerable status.  His first really significant hit was a song called "Loser," and he has spent his career impressing music critics, if not necessarily mass audiences.  Beck is a total nerd, seriously, check this out:

That's Beck.  That's the 40 something father and dorky musician type that Kanye chose to snub.  I'm pretty sure Beck is used to being ignored and insulted by guys like Kanye, I'm pretty sure he's not crying over his Grammy right now because Kanye left him hanging.  The point is that Kanye looked like a complete tool for trying to go all hard on a person like Beck, whose career has contained enough self deprecating humor to make Kanye want to look up what self deprecating means.  If you're going to try and humiliate someone whose first major hit proclaimed that he was a Loser (in two languages no less), you're probably scowling up the wrong tree.

The general reaction to Kanye seems to be that he's becoming irrelevant, which is actually one thing that an artist like Kanye absolutely cannot afford to be.  If his antics become so predictable that the public just yawns and chuckles, he's absolutely becoming a man without a country.  If we're not shocked and offended, and we just think he's being a prig, he's lost all his edge and he's really good for nothing except being married to a Kardashian (and we know how that usually goes right?)

Now for the serious business: ISIS.  They burned a Jordanian pilot to death and put out a video of it.  Add it to a long list of atrocities that those clowns have committed since they first showed up.  It's really no worse than beheading journalists and committing mass torture and rape and generally being about as nasty as their imaginations will allow and then pretending like they're doing it all for Allah.  They're absolute scum, we have known that for a while.  The interesting thing is that in picking a Jordanian for their latest atrocity, they may have actually done the same thing that Kanye did; which is make people who might otherwise give him the benefit of the doubt (i.e. anti-western Arab Muslims) think that they're a bunch of jerks.  See Jordan is an Arab nation, a Muslim nation, but in the world of the middle east they're also one of the very few good guys.  Jordan is governed by a stable and generally benevolent monarch, King Abdullah II, here he is with the Queen of Jordan (who is rather well known for her humanitarian work):

Notice that they look pretty Western, and they are pretty well respected in the international community.  Jordan is generally a country that shelters refugees from Iraq and Syria and even Israel at times.  They are known for being moderate and helping out where they can.  In other words, especially in the screwy world of the Middle East, they're good people.  But they're not patsies, and they're probably not going to just sit there for the outrage, but they've got skin in the game, and they're the people who need to confront the situation, they're exactly the ones who can really work towards an end to this mess.

ISIS picking a fight with Jordan is like Kanye picking on Beck, it just seems wrong to pretty much anyone who isn't a complete psychopath.  But I have come to suspect that this is actually the way that the war against extremism is going to be won: we have to let them hang themselves.  We can't play the policeman of the world for very much longer, in fact, we probably should have stopped a while ago.  And this isn't one of my pleas for non-violence, because if anyone ever deserved a violent end, it's ISIS and Boko Haram, it's just that I think the reaction has to come from the collective outrage of humanity, not just from anything that can be explained away by the haters as American self interest.

This is just the sort of thing that will turn the tide.  As long as we play the role they expect us to play, extremists will win, they will be martyrs, and they will draw others to their cause.

Let's make them irrelevant instead.