The Hunger Games

I'm gonna use Athenae to do it: put in my $.02 on The Hunger Games.

First, I'm excited by the trailer, as it appears to be a picture and note-perfect representation of the world of Panem as I imagined it. Yes, the name of the country is Panem. It is what is left of the United States after war and global warming have taken their toll on the population and the available living space (think of losing the coasts and the Gulf reclaiming as much of Texas as it once covered. There's nothing specific about that in the book, but it's a fair representation).

The world of Katniss (more on the names in a moment) is District 12, a coal mining region that's probably in the Appalachians. There are 12 districts, down from 13. There is a Capital, probably in the Rocky Mountains (none of the familiar names apply anymore. Again, more on that in a moment.), and every year there is a "Reaping," where two children of a certain age group (see the trailer or the books for such details) are chosen by drawing to go to the Hunger Games, and fight to the death in an arena. The survivor is excluded for life from the Games, and is set for life, as well. Their district is rewarded with riches (usually food) for a year, until the next Games.

At the time of the book, this has been going on for 75 years.

All wealth and power flows to and from the Capital. Districts most supportive of the Capital benefit the most, and each district provides good, or Peacekeepers (soldiers), or fuel (coal), etc., to the Capital. Think of all roads leading to Rome, except Rome is set off from the rest of the empire, the empire is divided into distinct districts, and travel between districts is impossible, except with permission of the government in the Capital. All means of transport are controlled by the Capital, too, as well as all energy supplies (electricity, etc.).

The comparison to Rome, you may have guessed, is not accidental. The country is Panem. Many of the people in the Capital have Roman names. Caesar. Cressida. Troilus. Katniss is named for a plant that grows in District 12, as is her sister, Primrose (Prim). It's never explicit, but Katniss is cat-like; she is practically "cat-ness". She is a hunter (a predator); she is a loner (she can barely make an emotional commitment to either of the two boys who feature in the story); she is a survivor (9 lives). She also hates her sister's cat, who returns the sentiment. They are too much alike, you see.

But Katniss is who she is because of Panem and the Games. Her father dies in the mines when she is young, her mother withdraws in shock and pain, and Katniss has to hunt (illegally; she's bascially poaching the king's (Capital's) grounds, outside the fence that surrounds District 12) to keep the family in food. Growing up too fast with too many burden, she is forced into the Hunger Games because her sister Prim, the first year she is eligible, is chosen. Katniss volunteers to take her place.

Note this process of selection is called "The Reaping." Those chosen are "tributes." The games are to remind the Districts who is in control. They are run by and for the Capital (whose children are never subject to selection). Reaping means both harvest, and reaping what you sow; a reminder to the districts of the price of rebellion; even after 75 years. "Tribute" is rather more obvious.

The YA (Young Adult) aspect of the novels is that Kat is used, almost from the beginning, as a pawn in several other group's games. Like a teenager, she is held responsible for what she does, but she's never quite let in on what's going on (think Harry Potter and Dumbledore, without Dumbledore's benevolent watchfulness over Harry, or Harry's chance at resurrection). But the even more interesting aspect is the references to Rome.

Joe Romm says:

The books also had some fortunate timing for the author in terms of catching the zeitgeist, since perhaps the core theme is the 99% (the 12 districts) vs. the 1% (Capitol), the poor and underfed vs. the rich and overfed.

But this misses the salient, and subversive, point. The overt theme here is that power tends to corrupt. It corrupts not just the Capital, but the rebellion against the Capital. The subvert theme is that history tends to repeat itself, and it does so for the simple reason that we continue to rely on power to further our own ends. That lesson is expressed most clearly at the end of Mockingjay, the third book in the series, when Katniss finally realizes who she must choose, and why, between the two boys who love her. It is not a romantic moment, to say the least. And it happens because of an act of violence, and the justifications for violence, which justifications always have to do with seizing, or keeping, power. Katniss is not interested in power.

Rome was. At one point a character in the books makes the connection clear: Panem et circenses. The Hunger Games are the gladiatorial bouts that remind everyone who is in charge (gladiators were slaves, not citizens). Everything flows to the Capital (Rome) from even the farthest reaches of Panem (the Empire); and the brutality recorded in the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, the absolute and brutal imposition of the Pax Romana that destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE, is reflected in the actions of the Capital over the course of the trilogy. There is a Pax Panem.

How clearly does Panem reflect the reality of our world today, with US military bases around the globe and the US Navy that now advertises itself as a "Global force for good", a US Air Force that you would never know flies bombers and drones all over the globe, doing far more damage than one sci-fi plane does benefit? Well, we aren't as brutal as Panem; unless you count torture in Abu Ghraib or in "black sites" around the globe, or the School of the Americas, where we trained the torturers who terrorized the countries of Central America in the 1980's. But these connections take a conscious effort; they don't appear anywhere in The Hunger Games where, as I say, all knowledge of the US and its history have been completely erased.

In that way it is only slightly different from the world we live in. In its simplicity (each district contributes only one thing to the whole, a division of labor that is literally impossible) Panem is a child's idea of a country. In its brutality, though; in its ruthlessness; in its determination to keep the flow of goods and benefits confined to the hands of the few who can appreciate them; in its depiction of a Capital where luxury and waste are bywords (at a feast, the attendants gorge themselves, drink an emetic to vomit, and gorge themselves again; else what's the point?, as one character says); it is a true picture of our world.

Not that it is any more obviously related to us than Omelas is. We see what we want to see; and disregard the rest.

The Arc of the Universe is long....

It's not that I disagree fundamentally with Dr. King's observation about the telos of the universe.

But I teach Greek tragedy about once a semester, and I tell my students the basic Greek cosmology was that logos (reason) imposed order on Chaos, and that order gave rise to what we call the universe (Creation in the Hebrew cosmology, just to make the connection). Chaos, however, was not vanquished, and inevitably will wear down order and the universe will return to its original state.

It's a theory I'm more and more inclined to, given that issues I considered settled in my childhood, like contraception, voting rights, even civil rights, are as much in contention now as they were when I was a child. Jim Crow laws were a reaction to freed blacks voting for freed blacks. Now we have an African American in the White House, so the universal fear is of who else might get elected.

It wasn't that long ago Texas, always a one-party moss-bound conservative state, was at the forefront of the "motor voter" law campaign. By the time George Will was harrumphing about such accomplishments, it was settled law in Texas. Now, the next time I vote, I'll have to show my driver's license.*

Before 1965, some voters in Texas would probably have had to pass a literacy test. Same difference.

Contraception? Ain't it obvious. Civil Rights? The University of Texas may soon stand in legal circles for the abolition of "affirmative action" in access to education, despite the fact Texas public education is still underfunded and is still unfairly funded (where you live determines the quality of the school you attend, and "vouchers" wouldn't change that for vast swathes of the state).

It's hard to say chaos doesn't win in the end. But maybe it isn't that chaos triumphs. Maybe it's simpler, and the evil nature of humanity (which ain't, at the other extreme, necessarily Satan) will always run unchecked unless people of good try to put a stop to it. After all, the question "Who sinned, that this man was born blind?" is not a challenge to the status quo, but a blank acceptance of it. The right answer is not to challenge the assumption of fault, but to ask a different question: "Who dares leave this child of God to languish in poverty, ignorance, want, disease, isolation? When all these things can and should be cured?"

The answer, in other words, is not necessarily to oppose evil; it is to not let it get a foothold. The challenge is to how we are to be (if I can express it that way), not merely to how we live, or what life we accept.

*Or maybe not, unless Texas is successful in getting portions of the Voting Rights Act declared unconstitutional (not likely, as their attack is based on the 10th Amendment, but it all sure sounds familiar all over again).

The Illiberal Case for Redefining Marriage

I saved this from what is now eight years ago (or so), because I was intrigued by it, and because I knew Don Browning's work. It's an interesting, if sloppy, argument.

Take justice. Some legal theorists wonder if giving marriage benefits to same-sex couples does injustice to other human arrangements where people care for one another brother caring for ailing brother, a younger daughter caring for her aging mother, two older women pooling resources without having sex. Why privilege partners in sexual relationships and not those actually dependent on one another? Rather than extending marriage to cover all dependent relations, shouldn't we find other ways to support people who need help?

Try as I might, I can't see where that argument has a discernible link to a defined concept of justice. What it is primarily concerned with is the idea that homosexuals are having sex, and they only reason they want to be married is so they will have sex with each other, because homosexual relationships, according to this paragraph, are only sexual relationships.

Then there's this:

Others ask whether same-sex marriage may be unjust to children. Doesn't it raise to the level of normative social policy the idea that children don't need the parents who gave them life? Others observe that we do not know the effects on children of being raised by same-sex parents. Recent reviews by Steven Nock and Robert Lerner of existing social-science studies of gay parenting demonstrate that all are inadequate with regard to testable hypotheses, sample, controls, and hence conclusions. In short, we have no knowledge about these effects even though recent court opinions assume we do. This raises the question, is it rational to develop social policies without better knowledge?

Two problems here, one glaringly obvious: if children "need the parents who gave them life," what of adoption? And second: should social policy arise from the people? Or should the people be guided by social policy? One vision exemplifies Jeffersonian democracy; the other sounds more like Brave New World.

And this is classic closing the barn door after the horse is out reasoning:

Same-sex marriage does not simply extend an old institution to a new group of people. It changes the definition of marriage. It reduces marriage primarily to a committed affectionate sexual relation. It goes further. It gives this new and more narrow view of marriage all of the cultural, legal, and public supports that accrued to the institution when it functioned to hold together this complex set of goods.

One could as well argue that Loving v. Virginia changed "the definition of marriage," as, in fact, it did. But what intrigues me is the idea that same-sex marriage "reduced marriage to a committed affectionate sexual relation." Not because I think it does; but because I think we've already done that.

The idea that human beings are primarily sexual beings can be traced back to Vienna in a period just prior to Freud. Freud did not sui generis decide the sex drive was the prime motivator of human conduct, he adopted the view from others in what is now called the "Viennese school." But the idea is now rampant, and now rampantly accepted in Western culture, that human beings are primarily sex machines: that all our motivations and ambitions and purpose are centered on sex; and if not on procreation, then merely on satisfaction. If Christianity has turned more and more toward sex as the enemy of the spirit, this is a part of that turn (and may well be the whole of it. Even the Puritans weren't as fascinated with sex as we imagine them to be. Hawthorne's novel is revisionist history, not documentary; and he writes in the century that ended with the rise of the Viennese school. Something new never comes out of nothing preceding it.). As Kathleen Norris points out, the Desert Fathers weren't concerned with sexual desire as a root evil. They were more concerned with spiritual sins, with matters that took the soul away from the presence of God.

If we accept that humans are primarily sexual creatures, then we accept that marriage is primarily about sex. That was certainly the message in response to the "sexual revolution:" that sex was to be "saved" for marriage, and so marriage was primarily about sex. In the movie "Diner," the married Shrevie is asked by his friends about the sex, because they imagine that's what marriage is all about:

when you're dating, everything is talking about sex. Where can we do it? Why can't we do it? Are you parents gonna be out so we can do it? Everything is always talkin about getting sex, and then planning the wedding, all the details. But then, when you get married... it's crazy, i dunno. You can get it whenever you want it. You wake up in the morning and she's there. You come home from work and she's there. So all that sex planning talk is over with. And so is the wedding planning talk cause you're already married. So... ya know I can come down here and we can bullshit the entire night away but I cannot hold a 5 minute conversation with Beth. I mean it's not her fault, I'm not blaming her, she's great... It's just, we got nothing to talk about... But it's good, it's good

And it turns out, of course, marriage is not about sex; it's about a great deal more than sex. But when you decide people are sexual beings first and foremost, and then decide they must also curtail that sexual drive until it can be employed in "accomplishing a complex alignment between sexual activity, procreation, mutual help and affection, and parental care and accountability," then marriage is already all about sexual relationships.

Except, as Shrevie found out; it isn't. And it never has been.

Of course, the Wife of Bath might disagree; she happily uses sex as a means to control her husbands. That is, when she isn't using her intellect against them, or her sheer willingness to be as physically aggressive as they are. Indeed, it's hard to read Chaucer as a proponent of the kind of social policy Browning is arguing for here. In "The Miller's Tale" Alisoun (also the Wife of Bath's name!) enjoys a win-win, as she sleeps with the young scholar and never gets punished for it, an idea Kate Chopin resurrected a few centuries later, but found she couldn't publish in her lifetime. And, of course, the Wife of Bath's tale is about a woman who uses her appearance to teach a knight a lesson in humility and proper marital relations. So marriage has never always been about "accomplishing a complex alignment between sexual activity, procreation, mutual help and affection, and parental care and accountability."

But is marriage just about sex? Advocates of same-sex marriage emphasize the other aspects of marriage, since marriage and sex are almost completely divorced from each other now (that is, fewer and fewer people think we cannot have the latter outside of the former). If anything, the topic of same-sex marriage allows us to reconsider the purpose of marriage, and to think about how much we've reduced it to legitimizing sexual relationships, and left it at little more than that and "parental care and accountability." We don't need to fear the dilution of "marriage" by allowing same-sex couples to claim the word for their relationships. We need to fear how much we've already diluted marriage as an institution and a concept, and we need to consider what we really want it to be, and how to make it into that. Because the more we cling to "how it was," the less we are going to see "what it is." And while it may be comforting to think some institution can control the concept and keep it a sacrament (on one end) or establish a social policy that defines it (on the other end), the fact is marriage as it is practiced and as people regard it, isn't conforming to any one, limited, institutional definition.

And the sooner we see marriage for what it is, the sooner we can begin to redefine marriage into what we clearly want it to be.

Open the doors....

Not that TPM has a smaller readership than this place (any smaller and I wouldn't even read it!), but this is interesting. To paraphrase: at least 3 studies cited by TPM indicate that having a four year degree increases, rather than decreases, the likelihood one will attend a church. As the 2011 study puts it:

“education positively affects religious participation, devotional activities, and emphasizing the importance of religion in daily life.”

Which, of course, is not supposed to be true. One can pile up all kinds of statistics about declining membership in mainline denominations, and establish all kinds of stereotypes about "know nothing" believers, especially in fundamentalists and evangelical Christian churches. These numbers don't refute those, nor indicate where the college educated are most likely to worship. "Religion" and "religiosity," of course, includes Hindus and Muslims as well as Christians and Jews. The popular image of Christians as bible-thumpers who think Jesus spoke the English of King James is as misplaced as the idea that "Inherit the Wind" is about fundamentalism; but it's also about as ineradicable. At the turn of the 20th century there was a burgeoning mail-order business in the "teach yourself Greek" business, as Christians sought to read the New Testament in the original texts. It may be that, again, we are seeing people turn to religion not because they are ignorant, but because they are wise. It may be there was a reason why Kathleen Norris' books were best-sellers, and why even Dom Crossan could become an almost household word.

We've spent a great deal of effort in America since the GI Bill fostering college degrees and the acquisition of knowledge. It could well be that acquiring knowledge leads one to desire to acquire wisdom, too. Not everyone, certainly; and these statistics may not indicate a "wave" at all. They may indicate something deeper, more profound, and more permanent.

As well as much more hopeful.

The Opposite of Poverty is Justice (Ash Wednesday 2012)

Isaiah 58:1-12
58:1 Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.

58:2 Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.

58:3 "Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers.

58:4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.

58:5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

58:6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

58:7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

58:8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.


58:9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,

58:10 if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.

58:11 The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.

58:12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

Psalm 51:1-17
1:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

1:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

1:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

1:4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

1:5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

1:6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

1:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

1:8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

1:9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

1:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

1:11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.

1:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

1:13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

1:14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

1:15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

1:16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.

1:17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
5:20b We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

6:1 As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.

6:2 For he says, "At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you." See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!

6:3 We are putting no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry,

6:4 but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,

6:5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;

6:6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love,

6:7 truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;

6:8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;

6:9 as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see--we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed;

6:10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
6:1 "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

6:2 "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.

6:3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,

6:4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

6:5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.

6:6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

6:16 "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.

6:17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,

6:18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

6:19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal;

6:20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.

6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

If you follow these readings in careful order, they make a perfect liturgy. The call from Isaiah; the prayer of confession and repentance from the Psalms; the prayer of the people from 2 Corinthians; the lesson from the Gospels that sends that the rest prepares us to hear, and that sends us out into the world where we should go and do likewise.

I like to think about who the prophet is talking to in the books of the prophets. They are often more conversations than directives, less monologues than discussions with God and/or the people of Israel, or sometimes with the prophets themselves. "Shout out," Isaiah says, and I ask myself every time: is this the prophet, speaking to the people? Or is it the voice of God directing the prophet to act? In the distinction there is everything. The prophet speaks to the people. The prophet speaks for God. If that chain doesn't start with God, then the prophet is not a prophet, and the words are meaningless. If God speaks to the prophet, perhaps those words are recorded. And those words are not rebuke and denial; they are justice. The word of God through the prophets is for justice:

"Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers.

58:4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.

58:5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

58:6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

58:7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

58:8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

There is the call to worship! And it is not a call to worship, but to act! It is not a call for reverence, but for action! It is not a demand for obedience, but a statement of truth and existence! This is a call to smash presumptions and break barriers and eliminate idols and destroy destruction. This is not a call to judge who is a Christian and who is not. This is not a call to wear a smudge on your forehead to show you believe. This is a call to let your light shine forth, and O! what a dangerous call that is!

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

What is the fast of Lent if it is all for you? Why not fast by sharing, instead of fast by denying? There's too much denial in the world already! We're mad for it! We deny ourselves and think we win God's praise! We deny our relationship to others, and think ourselves wise! We deny our responsibility to others, and think ourselves prudent! We deny there is enough for all, and think ourselves far-seeing! We are mad for denial, especially if our denial keeps others from what we think is ours! Is this the fast of Lent, to deny ourselves and keep what we have from this in need? Is this the purpose of Lent, to affirm our houses are our own and hospitality is shown only to our friends, never to strangers? Is this what our Ash Wednesday begins?

1:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

1:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

1:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

1:4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

1:5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

Yes, you may feel a bit guilty now, but is that what God wants either? Contrition and confession are not acts of self-abnegation. They are acts of self-recognition; they are acts of humility. What is hospitality except humility, except physically giving to another that over which you have control because you realize it is not yours alone, not your possession, but your opportunity to share with those who have nothing? What is a fast when it means giving your food to someone who is hungry because they have no food? If your sin is ever before you, if you recognize you have not been humble and hospitable and your fast has been for you and not a result of helping others, if you see that your hospitality is only for your friends and your convenience, is that a cause for ashes and sackcloth and despair? Is it to despair to hear the truth that you are dust, and to dust you will return? Or is it liberation, to live in the truth and rejoice in reality and to see what you have available to do for others? Shouldn't your confession begin with the truth of what you need to do and have not done, and move on to a confession of what you believe by putting it into action because then you will be the restorer of the breach, then a clean heart will be created within you, then you will be delivered from bloodshed and a new and right spirit with be within you! Then you will "See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!"

Let us not give Paul's words short shrift here, for Isaiah's words come from God, and the Psalmist's plea comes from a broken and contrite heart, but Paul's words are all about "we." We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. We urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. We are putting no obstacle in anyone's way, we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see--We are alive! This is not a day of mourning, a day of marking death as the end, of making death a sacrament or a salvation or a judgment against us! We are alive! But only because, through great endurance, placing no obstacle in anyone's way, keeping the fast by sharing, opening our doors to the homeless, confessing our fears and our weaknesses together so they become strengths, preparing ourselves for this time of cleansing and cleaning and setting straight that ushers in Easter; we will find that we possess everything. Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

We can't escape it. It is the way we are made. Our heart is where our treasure is. Where else would it be, what else would be so valuable to us we would call it "treasure"? When my daughter was a child she collected bits and pieces, rocks and pebbles, and called them "treasures," and to this good day we have them, her parents, we have them, because she is where our hearts are, and her treasures are part of our treasure. How could it be otherwise? But that isn't all Jesus means! Oh, not at all. He means we should be humble and private in our praying and in our seeking God, and through our lives the salvation of God should pour forth. Through our living and our being in the world we should be repairers of the breach, not because someone somewhere says we've said the right things, conformed to the right doctrines, used the right words about God and Christ and ourselves. Who cares about that? No, we should be repairers of the breach because we seek the treasure and we keep the treasure that is of true value, and that treasure makes us want to fast by sharing our food, makes us want to be humble by showing true hospitality, makes us want to repair the breach because that is where our hearts are!

You have heard; you have seen; perhaps today you even bear the ashes on your head; perhaps you didn't, or you wiped them off at the church door. It doesn't matter! What matters is what you do, and if you remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return, then you'll realize that we are all dust! And we are all deserving, we are all going down, in the end, to the same place, and it's high time we started sharing the joy of the experience rather than fearing we won't have enough accumulated for ourselves at the end! Where is your treasure? Where rust corrodes and thief steals and moth devours? Get rid of it! Your treasure is in the homeless person you can help, in the hungry person you can feed, in the naked person you can clothe! Your treasure is all around you; now put your heart there, and open the eyes of your spirit, and see it!

Amen.

It's Only Words

So today BBC World Have Your Say was discussing the infamous "Chink in the Armor" headline at ESPN.com. The discussion, of course, centered on the word "Chink," which some insisted was as racist as "nigger" or "spic", and could not be used in polite company, and others insisted was harmless enough, or at least not blatantly racist without further evidence of intent.

And then Dahlia Lithwick was on "Talk of the Nation" defending her position that the Texas and soon-to-be Virginia laws (we're ahead again!) requiring a vaginal probe sonogram before an abortion can be performed, is akin to rape because it involves a non-consensual penetration of the genitals, which Ms. Lithwick pointed out is pretty much the definition of "rape" used by the FBI and most state statutes. This prompted three calls (TTN never leaves enough for calls, IMHO), only one of which was from someone who was professionally involved with both sonograms or abortions, and who was also from Texas and could state she knew of one case where this new requirement caused a woman to decline to seek an abortion, rather than submit to the sonogram.

Both were interesting because both revolved around words and how we use them.

Try as I might, I can't think of a word that has a dual meaning, one of which is innocuous, the other racist, equivalent to "chink." One person on WHYS, who objected to the ESPN headline, admitted the problem was not the word, but the juxtaposition of the word with a picture of an Asian-American basketball player. It was the picture, in other words, in combination with the word in the phrase, which offended. All well and good, but interesting that a word can have two very different meanings. I cannot write "nigger" without offending someone, I'm sure; and that's fine, too. But "chink"? If I use it in a sentence referring to a breach in armor or a wall, is it racist? Even Conrad's story with the "N" word in the title is dubious; but "Chink in the armor"? Do I immediately call to mind Asians and racial slurs? Should I, whether I mean to or not?

As for the "rape" issue, I quite agree with Ms. Lithwick, and I quite approve of her incendiary language (two callers did not, one more vehemently than the other). It's an incendiary topic, and the sole purpose of the law is clear: to dissuade women from having a legal procedure. I don't know how many medical procedures men are subject to in which the state requires they abandon their consent at the door just to proceed to the procedure. And consent is, legally, entirely the issue in a rape charge. After the facts of the physical assault are determined, and it is clear penetration of the genitals (or the anus) is involved, with a body part or an object, the only question left is the question of consent. The popular use of the word as a crime almost always involves the "stranger in the bushes" type of rape, but what then of "date rape," where the victim knows, at least to some degree, her attacker? Matters get very fuzzy there, but the fuzziness turns, not on the penetration, but on the question of consent. No consent, and it is rape.

It is also a word we use metaphorically, however. It is a word, like "chink," with dual meanings. A priest at Issa's famous panel of "religious liberty" likened the requirement that all employers provide contraceptive coverage to the "rape of the soul." In the '70's I enjoyed carting around a book title (if memory serves) The Raping of America. In both cases, the actual crime of rape is not intended, only the sense of violation. It was that sense the two callers (all three were women, interestingly enough) to TTN objected to. They didn't want any kind of medical procedure compared to a violent crime, to something that so represents a violation of the person. That's understandable, but the problem was not Ms. Lithwick's choice of terms, so much as the fact that the term has two rather distinct meanings. Ms. Lithwick's use of it is metaphorical and legal, at the same time: she means to catch our attention, and to point out that this provision conflicts with well-accepted criminal law. It is, in other words, a doubly strong argument; but it points out how emotionally attached we are to concepts like rape. And if we are so attached, perhaps, rather like "chink," it's a word we should use less lightly.

Such as the word "Christian," which has not become a political litmus test for Presidential candidates. In part, this is connected to Islam, and the idea that President Obama is a closet Muslim.

On Obama, [Franklin] Graham said: "You have to ask him. I cannot answer that question for anybody... You have to ask every person. He has said he’s a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is." When asked directly if he believed Obama had "accepted Jesus Christ," Graham replied, "I don't know."

While not specifying whether he believed Obama is a Christian, Graham did manage to mention the president's Muslim father, and argue that Obama has given Muslims "a free pass" during his time in the oval office: "Under President Obama…the Muslims of the world, he seems to be more concerned, than Christians who are being murdered in Muslims countries."

Now, is this because Obama attended the wrong kind of church for 20 years? Rick Santorum noted that factoid the other day. What he hasn't mentioned lately is his attitude about "liberal theologies":

After he’d accused Obama and other Democrats of religious fraudulance [sic] for a few minutes, journalist Terry Mattingly of GetReligion.org asked whether it’s possible that rather than being fake, perhaps, Obama was sincerely reflecting a form of liberal Christianity in the tradition of Reinhold Neibuhr. Santorum surprised me by answering that yes, “I could buy that.” However, he questioned whether liberal christianity was really, well, Christian. “You’re a liberal something, but you’re not a Christian.” He continued, “When you take a salvation story and turn it into a liberation story you’ve abandoned Christiandom and I don’t think you have a right to claim it.”

In other words, Obama’s faith is fraudulant [sic] in part because liberal Christianity is. I’ve come across this sentiment before. To a degree rarely discussed, many conservative Christians truly doubt both the theological truth and the spiritual authenticity of liberal Christians.

I've faced this all my life, both from conservative believers and from non-believers (going in different directions, of course). What's wearying is the idea that a word can only have one meaning. As the reaction to Ms. Lithwick's argument illustrates, words have emotional resonances. So perhaps we should give more consideration to what we are really saying.

But that applies to everyone.

ADDENDUM: Late last night I caught Lawrence O'Donnell, explaining why nobody should pay attention to Franklin Graham. "Fraudulant." It's everywhere.

Pancake Day!

Apparently this is a major observance in England. Or not. Someone can post a comment and correct me. My information is all from the Google this morning, and none of it seems particularly authoritative. Still, memories of my childhood spent among the Presbyterians, where "Lent" was barely known and Ash Wednesday non-existent, are of a "Pancake Supper" on the Tuesday before Lent started. So I know the custom is an old one, if only because we were still doing what our spiritual ancestors had done before us, long after we'd forgotten why. (I think we even called it "Shrove Tuesday," though we really didn't know why at all.)

Still, dangerously ecumenical as it may sound, in the words of the old E&R order of worship, "Let it be unto you according to your faith." And this year, try some spices in your pancakes (I particularly recommend cinnamon and/or nutmeg) for, as one website observed, "a little decadence." Lent is coming, after all....

You say you want a revolution.....

I don't know which is worse: that this is happening:

At this precise moment the BBC News channel is showing an interview with a little girl. She is homeless and her mother is eating rats to stay alive. Before this interview they went down into the storm drains of Los Angeles where three to four hundred people live and where every time it rains they are flooded out.

Or that I learn about it, not from American news media (I'm as plugged in as any average person can be to American news sources), but from the BBC via a (sorry, MP) relatively obscure website.

MP thinks this will lead, finally, to an American revolution. I politely demur. Matters were far worse in the 1920's and '30's, and America was far closer to revolutionary fervor; and it didn't happen. When England went through this, when the laboring classes realized they were being exploited by the upper class (a recent British documentary on the great houses of England which was broadcast here on PBS pointed out the wages of servants in the grand homes was a few pounds a year. Basically, they were paid room and board, and given uniforms, which is how they could afford servants.), they formed labor unions. We did the same thing in America; but then we got bored, or complacent, or stupid, and here we are.

I think Orwell was more accurate in his analysis of the "proles" in 1984. It's been more than half a lifetime ago since I read that book, but I still remember the gist of the argument about the proles, the majority of people living in squalor and exploited ruthlessly, and how they wouldn't rise up against the system that abused them so, largely because it just wouldn't occur to them to do so, to organize and act as one. Thomas Hardy put paid to the idea that life in rural England was idyllic and pastoral, and yet that life ended, not in social revolution, but because of the Industrial Revolution, which brought its own forms of exploitation.

In Libya, now, competing factions battle for power; in Egypt, the military are determined to suppress all disagreement, to the point of arresting foreign citizens who are seen as threats in the mildest sense possible. That's not a revolution that's favoring the poor, either. No revolution does, except a revolution of the heart.

Which is something I believe in, but only in the sense that if you don't love, you're dead, and if you do, they'll kill you.

Oh Good Grief

This offends me:

All this ecumenical just call it faith and we can all get along stuff has always just covered up for the fact that, shockingly, people who have strong beliefs in stuff have strong beliefs in that stuff and think other people are wrong and probably going to hell for it.

Just as much as this does.

It astounds me that people who profess unending criticism for the distortions of the media, rely on that same media for distorted information which they accept as accurate. "People who have strong beliefs in stuff...think other people are wrong and probably going to hell for it" is as stupid a generalization as saying all bloggers are less than journalists because they have no journalistic ethics.

Does Rick Santorum have "strong beliefs"? Yes. Is he mindless in them? Again, yes. Does this mean all persons with "strong beliefs" are also mindless, and only those with "weak beliefs" or who profess no beliefs at all, are wise and good and tolerant?

Crap. The question answers itself.