V (from Sabbaths 2003)
The politics of illusion, of death's money,
possesses us. This is the Hell, this
the nightmare into which Christ descended
from the cross, from which also he woke
and rose, striding godly forth, so free
that He appeared to Mary Magdalene
to be only the gardener walking about
in the new day, among the flowers.
--Wendell Berry, Given (Shoemaker Heard, Washington, D.C., 2005), p. 126
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Monday, June 13, 2005
Or is this how we explain it?
"Stuff happens...And it's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."
--Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
--Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
And then you fall through....
Robert Silverberg wrote a wonderful story about the nature of perception and reality. Like most of Silverberg's works, it is a subtle almost-parable that plagues your awareness long after you've finished it. The story is "Sundance." I'll try to summarize it in a few words.
It's set on an alien world, where a group of people is trying to eradicate an alien life form to prepare the planet for colonization. One of the members of the group is an American Indian, who is plagued by thoughts of the extermination of his own people in history, and his complicity in the elimination of a species on this planet. The creatures themselves are innocuous: they eat the poison pellets the humans spread, die, and neatly dissolve, leaving no mess behind. But are they intelligent, or are they cockroaches? That's the central question of the story. And it turns out the protagonist, the American Indian, suffers from delusions, from "psychological problems," so his perceptions of reality are not exactly trustworthy. He imagines (or does he?) that the creatures (:eaters") are sentient, that they worship the sun, the creation, that they share an appreciation of life with him. He dances with the creatures, or imagines he does. He gets drunk on the plants of the planet, plants which provide rich oxygen, perhaps too rich. He ends up searching for realities:
Listening to NPR this morning, listening to stories of contractors being abused by Marines and reasons for some of those stories, these conflicts between the military and civilian contractors, I wondered how many people were beginning to feel like they, too, were looking for a room where the floor is not hinged.
And everytime they find it now, they fall through.
Such is the nature of war. Such is the nature of power.
It's set on an alien world, where a group of people is trying to eradicate an alien life form to prepare the planet for colonization. One of the members of the group is an American Indian, who is plagued by thoughts of the extermination of his own people in history, and his complicity in the elimination of a species on this planet. The creatures themselves are innocuous: they eat the poison pellets the humans spread, die, and neatly dissolve, leaving no mess behind. But are they intelligent, or are they cockroaches? That's the central question of the story. And it turns out the protagonist, the American Indian, suffers from delusions, from "psychological problems," so his perceptions of reality are not exactly trustworthy. He imagines (or does he?) that the creatures (:eaters") are sentient, that they worship the sun, the creation, that they share an appreciation of life with him. He dances with the creatures, or imagines he does. He gets drunk on the plants of the planet, plants which provide rich oxygen, perhaps too rich. He ends up searching for realities:
Again they find you and bring you back. They give you the cool snout on your arm to take the oxygen-plant drug from your veins, and then they give you something else so you will rest. You rest and you are very calm. Ellen kisses you and you stroke her soft skin, and then the others come in and they talk to you, saying soothing things, but you do not listen, for you are searching for realities. It is not an easy search. It is like falling through many trapdoors, looking for the one room whose floor is not hinged. Everything that has happened this planet is your therapy, you tell yourself, designed to reconcile an embittered aborigine to the white man's conquest; nothing is really being exterminated here. You reject that and fall through and realize that this must be the therapy of your friends; they carry the weight of accumulated centuries of guilts and have come here to shed that load, and you are here to ease them of their burden, to draw their sins into yourself and give them forgiveness. Again you fall through, and see that the Eaters are mere animals who threaten the ecology and must be removed; the culture you imagined for them is your hallucination, kindled of old churnings. You try to withdraw your objections to this necessary extermination, but you fall through again and discover that there is no extermination except in your mind, which is troubled and disordered by your obsession with a crime against your ancestors, and you sit up, for you wish to apologize to these friends of yours, these innocent scientists whom you have called murderers. And you fall through.Robert Silverberg, "Sundance," The Science Fiction Century, ed. David G. Hartwell (New York: Tor 1997), p. 692-93.
Listening to NPR this morning, listening to stories of contractors being abused by Marines and reasons for some of those stories, these conflicts between the military and civilian contractors, I wondered how many people were beginning to feel like they, too, were looking for a room where the floor is not hinged.
And everytime they find it now, they fall through.
Such is the nature of war. Such is the nature of power.
Dare we say it?
Atrios and Digby ask: Why did we invade Iraq?
From the Houston Chronicle:
From the Houston Chronicle:
"We both have big-country syndrome," said Edward Williams, a Beijing-based attorney with the American Chamber of Commerce in China.Three guesses, first two don't count?
Crude oil consumption is one area where China is following right in America's wake — and OPEC, which is meeting Wednesday in Vienna, Austria, knows it.
Since 2003, when China overtook Japan as the world's second-largest importer of oil behind the United States, this country of 1.3 billion people has generated a lot of talk at the table when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meets.
Wednesday should be no different when the organization convenes to decide whether to push up the summer production ceiling by 500,000 barrels per day, a symbolic move since most members are already pumping more oil than their stated quotas allow.
Jeff Logan, China program manager for the International Energy Agency, says China's roaring economy is still glowing white-hot despite the government's efforts to slow growth. That's nothing but good news for OPEC, which not long ago some were writing off as irrelevant to world oil prices.
According to the IEA, the cartel supplies 38 percent of the world's oil, but by 2030 — thanks in part to China's growing demand — the group's market share is expected to zoom to 54 percent.
That's because once-gushing oil fields are slowly playing out in such places as the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Caspian Sea and even West Africa.
And, barring a massive economic collapse, most analysts think China and the United States will increasingly compete for the same barrels of oil in the Middle East in the next 20 to 30 years.
Half a loaf, huh?
Apparently racism in the application of the death penalty is still okay, but racism in the selection of jurors for death penalty cases is verboten.
The Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a black death row inmate who said Texas prosecutors unfairly stacked his jury with whites, issuing a harsh rebuke to the state that executes more people than any other.
The 6-3 ruling Monday ordered a new trial for Thomas Miller-El, who challenged his conviction for the 1985 murder of a 25-year-old Dallas motel clerk. It was the second time justices reviewed the case after a lower court refused to reconsider Miller-El's claims.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans was wrong to reaffirm the conviction by a state court in light of the strong evidence of prejudice during jury selection, justices said.
The state court's conclusion that the prosecutors' strikes of people from the jury pool was ''not racially determined is shown up as wrong to a clear and convincing degree; the state court's conclusion was unreasonable as well as erroneous,'' Justice David H. Souter wrote for the majority.
In the opinion, Souter noted that black jurors were questioned more aggressively about the death penalty, and the pool was ''shuffled'' at least twice by prosecutors, apparently to increase the chances whites would be selected.
He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
''The prosecutors' chosen race-neutral reasons for the strikes do not hold up and are so far at odds with the evidence that pretext is the fair conclusion, indicating the very discrimination the explanations were meant to deny,'' Souter wrote.
''At least two of the jury shuffles conducted by the state make no sense except as efforts to delay consideration of black jury panelists,'' Souter said, adding that it ''blinks reality'' to deny jurors were struck because they were black.
Summer Reading, Part 2
Four poems by Wendell Berry, from Given (Shoemaker Hoard, Washington, D.C., 2005).
THE FUTURE
For God's sake, be done
with this jabber of "a better world."
What blasphemy! No "futuristic"
twit or child thereof ever
in embodied light will see
a better world than this, though they
foretell inevitably a worse.
Do something! Go cut the weeds
beside the oblivious road. Pick up
the cans and bottles, old tires,
and dead predictions. No future
can be stuffed into this presence
except by being dead. The day is
clear and bright, and overhead
the sun not yet half finished
with his daily praise.
THE REJECTED HUSBAND
After the storm and the new
stillness of the snow; he returns
to the graveyard, as though
he might lift the white coverlet,
slip in beside her as he used to do,
and again feel, beneath his hand,
her flesh quicken and turn warm.
But he is not her husband now.
To participate in resurrection, one
first must be dead. And he goes
back into the whitened world, alive.
X (from Sabbaths 2002)
Teach me work that honors Thy work,
the true economies of goods and words,
to make my arts compatible
with the songs of the local birds.
Teach me patience beyond work
and, beyond patience, the blest
Sabbath of Thy unresting love
which lights all things and gives rest.
VI (from Sabbaths 2003)
The yellow-throated warbler, the highest remotest voice
of this place, sings in the tops of the tallest sycamores,
but one day he came twice to the railing of my porch
where I sat at work above the river. He was too close
to see with binoculars. Only the naked eye could take him in,
a bird more beautiful than every picture of himself,
more beautiful than himself killed and preserved
by the most skilled taxidermist, more beautiful
than any human mind, so small and inexact,
could hope ever to remember. My mind became
beautiful by the sight of him. He had the beauty only
of himself alive in the only moment of his life.
He had upon him like a light the whole
beauty of the living world that never dies.
THE FUTURE
For God's sake, be done
with this jabber of "a better world."
What blasphemy! No "futuristic"
twit or child thereof ever
in embodied light will see
a better world than this, though they
foretell inevitably a worse.
Do something! Go cut the weeds
beside the oblivious road. Pick up
the cans and bottles, old tires,
and dead predictions. No future
can be stuffed into this presence
except by being dead. The day is
clear and bright, and overhead
the sun not yet half finished
with his daily praise.
THE REJECTED HUSBAND
After the storm and the new
stillness of the snow; he returns
to the graveyard, as though
he might lift the white coverlet,
slip in beside her as he used to do,
and again feel, beneath his hand,
her flesh quicken and turn warm.
But he is not her husband now.
To participate in resurrection, one
first must be dead. And he goes
back into the whitened world, alive.
X (from Sabbaths 2002)
Teach me work that honors Thy work,
the true economies of goods and words,
to make my arts compatible
with the songs of the local birds.
Teach me patience beyond work
and, beyond patience, the blest
Sabbath of Thy unresting love
which lights all things and gives rest.
VI (from Sabbaths 2003)
The yellow-throated warbler, the highest remotest voice
of this place, sings in the tops of the tallest sycamores,
but one day he came twice to the railing of my porch
where I sat at work above the river. He was too close
to see with binoculars. Only the naked eye could take him in,
a bird more beautiful than every picture of himself,
more beautiful than himself killed and preserved
by the most skilled taxidermist, more beautiful
than any human mind, so small and inexact,
could hope ever to remember. My mind became
beautiful by the sight of him. He had the beauty only
of himself alive in the only moment of his life.
He had upon him like a light the whole
beauty of the living world that never dies.
Freedom
It was the primary theme of Jean-Paul Sartre's work, indeed of many of the French phenomenologists. Perhaps it arises from France's experience in World War II; perhaps it arises from the French Revolution, the one that devolved into the Reign of Terror. In European culture it came out of the Romantic rebellion against the Industrial Revolution and the "Great Chain of Being" which was a mainstay of the Enlightenment. It is clearly a concern for Dostoevsky in Karamazov. It is, we tell ourselves, the very foundation of our "American Way of Life," and the telling is a direct and unexamined result of the American Romanticism of Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as the realism of Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway. It is no accident that Hemingway said American literature began with Huckleberry Finn. The flight to freedom of Huck and Jim down the Mississippi is the journey across the country of Jack Kerouac On the Road, is the enduring self-image of America. But along the way, the self-image changed, and nobody noticed. Kerouac bummed a ride, but he rode on money. Trucks aren't built by hand in a backyard, and they don't rely on rivers for the energy to move them. Huck was free not only from society, but from the need of money. Jack had to rely on the kindness of strangers; strangers with capital funds.
"I ask you: is such a man free?"
This is what freedom has come to mean for us. Freedom to spend money. Our money. Other people's money. It doesn't matter. Push the metaphor farther, you won't fall through to the other side. Kerouac's flight now depends almost entirely on American empire, on American hegemony. Our freedom of movement depends entirely on our ability to extract raw materials from other people. Cell phones, for example, make us free. Free to be contacted anywhere, anytime; free to be in touch from literally anywhere on the planet. When I toured Europe 30 years ago, I was effectively out of touch from my family for three weeks. Even the thought of a trans-atlantic call was beyond imaging, though certainly possible. My daughter travels to China with a cell phone in her luggage, and a card that will allow her to make calls home from a hotel lobby as easily as I would call my wife at work. But that cell phone works because of natives in Africa who scrape up mud with a certain element in it, and sell it to people who sell it to cell phone manufacturers. Is such a man free? Am I, who depend on the mud- scraping of that man to talk to my wife from my car?
When did freedom equate to money? Kerouac's run depended on someone else working to be possible. Huck and Jim were more truly free. The river provided the energy, and the raft was something they could make by hand. No one can forge an engine block in their back yard, or run a truck on naturally available energy. The refineries that fuel America are massive complexes that depend on thousands of workers and the pollution of square miles of land to make your drive on Highway 1 possible. Is such a man free? Am I?
Freedom in Iraq means freedom to vote for a government. But does it include freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom from chaos? Or does it only mean the freedom we give them or as we define it? And more and more, how do we define it? And why do we define it simply in terms of what we can gain?
"I ask you: is such a man free?"
"I ask you: is such a man free?"
This is what freedom has come to mean for us. Freedom to spend money. Our money. Other people's money. It doesn't matter. Push the metaphor farther, you won't fall through to the other side. Kerouac's flight now depends almost entirely on American empire, on American hegemony. Our freedom of movement depends entirely on our ability to extract raw materials from other people. Cell phones, for example, make us free. Free to be contacted anywhere, anytime; free to be in touch from literally anywhere on the planet. When I toured Europe 30 years ago, I was effectively out of touch from my family for three weeks. Even the thought of a trans-atlantic call was beyond imaging, though certainly possible. My daughter travels to China with a cell phone in her luggage, and a card that will allow her to make calls home from a hotel lobby as easily as I would call my wife at work. But that cell phone works because of natives in Africa who scrape up mud with a certain element in it, and sell it to people who sell it to cell phone manufacturers. Is such a man free? Am I, who depend on the mud- scraping of that man to talk to my wife from my car?
When did freedom equate to money? Kerouac's run depended on someone else working to be possible. Huck and Jim were more truly free. The river provided the energy, and the raft was something they could make by hand. No one can forge an engine block in their back yard, or run a truck on naturally available energy. The refineries that fuel America are massive complexes that depend on thousands of workers and the pollution of square miles of land to make your drive on Highway 1 possible. Is such a man free? Am I?
Freedom in Iraq means freedom to vote for a government. But does it include freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom from chaos? Or does it only mean the freedom we give them or as we define it? And more and more, how do we define it? And why do we define it simply in terms of what we can gain?
"I ask you: is such a man free?"
Summer Reading, Part 1
I found this in Chris Hedge's new book, Losing Moses on the Freeway: The Ten Commandments in America.
I've read just enough of it to strongly recommend Hedges' book. And to move my copy of Karamazov back to the nightstand.
For the world says; "You have needs, therefore satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the noblest and richest men. Do not be afraid to satisfy them, but even increase them" -this is the current teaching of the world. And in this they see freedom. But what comes of this right to increase ones need's? For the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; for the poor, envy and murder, for they have been given rights, but have not yet been shown any way of satisfying their needs. We are assured that the world is becoming more and more united, is being formed into brotherly communion, by the shortening of distances, by the transmitting of thoughts through the air. Alas, do not believe in such a union of people. Taking freedom to mean the increase and prompt satisfaction of needs, they distort their own nature, for they generate many meaningless and foolish desires, habits, and the most absurd fancies in themselves. They live only for mutual envy, for pleasure-seeking and self display. To have dinners, horses, carriages, rank, and slaves to serve them is now considered such a necessity that for the sake of it, to satisfy it, they will sacrifice life, honor, the love of mankind, and will even kill themselves if they are unable to satisfy it. We see the same thing in those who are not rich, while the poor, so far, simply drown their unsatisfied needs and envy in drink. But soon they will get drunk on blood instead of wine, they are being led to that. I ask you: is such a man free?Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Richard Peavar and Marissa Volokhonsky (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), pp. 313-14.
I've read just enough of it to strongly recommend Hedges' book. And to move my copy of Karamazov back to the nightstand.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
"War: Realities and Myths "
I have more to say on Chris Hedges later. I've read his War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. I'm reading Losing Moses on the Freeway. I can see I need to read What Every Person Should Know About War.
Because I've read this, at Anti-War.Com.
Just thought the rest of you would be interested.
Because I've read this, at Anti-War.Com.
Just thought the rest of you would be interested.
FEAR AND TREMBLING
Something I found while scanning sermons back into my computer. From the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, 1996:
TEXT: Exodus 17:1-7 Philippians 2: 1-13 Matthew 21 :23-32
I'm going to tell you something you may not understand. And then I will try to explain it to you. It comes directly from the scriptures we read this morning; but you have to look carefully to find it there. Listen. What I have to tell you is this: "The price of glory is the universal. " That is the coin you pay in. That is the price you pay. It is "A condition of complete simplicity/Costing not less than everything." Now, I will try to explain to you what I mean.
The Pharisees are getting a bit suspicious of Jesus. They really want to know who he thinks he is, why he thinks he can say the things he does. So they ask him. And he refuses to answer, until they put themselves on a level playing field with him. Their authority is presumed. By them. But Jesus asks them for their authority. And in this episode, it appears that their authority comes from the people, and not God. Because they worry about how the people will hear their answer. Not God.
There people, here, are the universal. They are our world. Our ethics, our standards, our right and wrong; for us, these things come as much from the people as from God. 150 years ago, slavery was not universally considered wrong. Even the Bible does not condemn it. The Hebrews, who had been slaves, held slaves. Paul returned a slave to his master; we have the
letter in our Bible. But today, world-wide, we consider slavery so evil that it is a sin. In the universal, the ethical, the world we all live in, slavery is wrong. Slavery is evil. Slavery is a sin. By what authority do we think so? The authority of the ethical, which is to say the people. The world.
You will think: But our ethics come from God. Indeed they do. And God's ethic is eternal, and unchanged, and unchanging. But the ethical, is where we agree on what God's ethic requires. "What does the Lord require of you, " the prophet Amos asks, "but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God." The ethical, the universal, is where we daily decide what justice is. The ethical is the good; but it is not God.
So the Pharisees were not evil. They became the modem rabbis of Judaism. They were good teachers, and good people. They were not evil; but they were not God. And their understanding of God's will was based on the ethical, the universal, the people, rather than God.
"The price of glory is the universal." The Pharisees, here, in Matthew's gospel, cling to the universal. They will not give it up to attain a place before God. They care too much about who they are in relation to the people who think John was a prophet, rather than who they are before God.
And is that so unreasonable? Look at what happened to Jesus, according to Paul. It's a hymn, you can almost sing it: "He was in the form of God; yet he laid no claim to equality with God, but made himself nothing, assuming the form of a slave. Bearing the human likeness, sharing the human lot, he humbled himself, and was obedient, even to the point of death, death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:6-8, REB) There is nothing lower than a slave. Even sheep and cattle are better cared for, because the slave takes care of them. Who takes care of the slave? It isn't a question of freedom. If you are a slave, you are someone else's property. And if I own a slave, why should I treat him any better than I treat my blue jeans? After all, his only purpose is to work. We who have never known slavery think we would have to learn to be cruel to a slave; but it's easy. We could all do it. There is nothing lower than a slave.
But Jesus is our model; Jesus is our teacher, the one who shows us the way. Is the way, then, through slavery? No, the way is through the universal; the way is through payment of the universal, which leads to glory. The price of salvation is everything. The price of glory is the universal itself.
Consider what Paul is saying about Jesus. He was obedient, even to the point of death. But obedient to who? Certainly not to the universal, the ethical. Had he obeyed the ethical, he would have listened to the Pharisees and tried to persuade them. He would have engaged them in a discussion, tried to work out differences, tried to resolve the conflicts, perhaps show them the error of their ways. Instead, he tries to trap them. He knows what they are about, and he refuses to get involved. Because he is arrogant? No; because they are. Obeying God does not raise you above the ethical, the universal, the opinions of people. It puts you below them. They do not understand. They cannot grasp the divine, see the glory. It is arrogant to think you have God's glory through the approval of the people. It is the Pharisees who are arrogant, thinking they know what God wants because they know what the people believe. Jesus is trying to level the playing field; he is testing their faith, their belief. He wants to see if they, too, will pay the price for glory.
The universal is everything you know. The universal is everything you understand. Like the fish in water, it is the water you swim in. The power of the universal is that it contains not less than everything. And to attain glory, you must submit to the universal, the ethical, be condemned by it for obedience to God, and accept the judgment on you. Like a slave. "You must work out your own salvation in fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you, inspiring both the will and the deed, for his own chosen purpose." (Philippians 2:12b-13, REB)
Ahh, but glory and what is glory? Glory is the presence of God, and the price of glory paid allows you to stand in the presence of God, to address God familiarly, to know the glory of God. It is a condition of complete simplicity/costing not less than everything." It costs Moses his comfortable life as an Egyptian. He ended his days wandering in the wilderness of Sinai. It cost Abraham his home among the Chaldees. He ended his days as an old man with only one son to become the mighty nation God had promised. It cost Paul his easy life as a Pharisee; he wandered the Roman empire as a tent~maker, picking up hospitality and establishing churches among strangers who would listen to him. But how many of these things does the world value? How many of these accomplishments does the universal count good? Is it ethical to leave your home and take your family to a place you've never heard of, and have no knowledge of! Is it ethical to spend your life relying on the kindness of strangers? The price of glory is the ethical, the universal, the world.
The price of glory is slavery, is submission. "You must work out your own salvation in fear and trembling." Fear and trembling because it is God at work in you, and because the world opposes you. Glory will not take you out of the world, but return you to it. It made Moses a leader; it made Paul an apostle. "The price of glory is the universal." And it is a matter of deeds, not words. "Which of these sons did what his father wanted?" The one who set aside his own needs, and followed his father's wishes. Even our needs are determined by the ethical; unless we listen first to God. Amen.
TEXT: Exodus 17:1-7 Philippians 2: 1-13 Matthew 21 :23-32
I'm going to tell you something you may not understand. And then I will try to explain it to you. It comes directly from the scriptures we read this morning; but you have to look carefully to find it there. Listen. What I have to tell you is this: "The price of glory is the universal. " That is the coin you pay in. That is the price you pay. It is "A condition of complete simplicity/Costing not less than everything." Now, I will try to explain to you what I mean.
The Pharisees are getting a bit suspicious of Jesus. They really want to know who he thinks he is, why he thinks he can say the things he does. So they ask him. And he refuses to answer, until they put themselves on a level playing field with him. Their authority is presumed. By them. But Jesus asks them for their authority. And in this episode, it appears that their authority comes from the people, and not God. Because they worry about how the people will hear their answer. Not God.
There people, here, are the universal. They are our world. Our ethics, our standards, our right and wrong; for us, these things come as much from the people as from God. 150 years ago, slavery was not universally considered wrong. Even the Bible does not condemn it. The Hebrews, who had been slaves, held slaves. Paul returned a slave to his master; we have the
letter in our Bible. But today, world-wide, we consider slavery so evil that it is a sin. In the universal, the ethical, the world we all live in, slavery is wrong. Slavery is evil. Slavery is a sin. By what authority do we think so? The authority of the ethical, which is to say the people. The world.
You will think: But our ethics come from God. Indeed they do. And God's ethic is eternal, and unchanged, and unchanging. But the ethical, is where we agree on what God's ethic requires. "What does the Lord require of you, " the prophet Amos asks, "but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God." The ethical, the universal, is where we daily decide what justice is. The ethical is the good; but it is not God.
So the Pharisees were not evil. They became the modem rabbis of Judaism. They were good teachers, and good people. They were not evil; but they were not God. And their understanding of God's will was based on the ethical, the universal, the people, rather than God.
"The price of glory is the universal." The Pharisees, here, in Matthew's gospel, cling to the universal. They will not give it up to attain a place before God. They care too much about who they are in relation to the people who think John was a prophet, rather than who they are before God.
And is that so unreasonable? Look at what happened to Jesus, according to Paul. It's a hymn, you can almost sing it: "He was in the form of God; yet he laid no claim to equality with God, but made himself nothing, assuming the form of a slave. Bearing the human likeness, sharing the human lot, he humbled himself, and was obedient, even to the point of death, death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:6-8, REB) There is nothing lower than a slave. Even sheep and cattle are better cared for, because the slave takes care of them. Who takes care of the slave? It isn't a question of freedom. If you are a slave, you are someone else's property. And if I own a slave, why should I treat him any better than I treat my blue jeans? After all, his only purpose is to work. We who have never known slavery think we would have to learn to be cruel to a slave; but it's easy. We could all do it. There is nothing lower than a slave.
But Jesus is our model; Jesus is our teacher, the one who shows us the way. Is the way, then, through slavery? No, the way is through the universal; the way is through payment of the universal, which leads to glory. The price of salvation is everything. The price of glory is the universal itself.
Consider what Paul is saying about Jesus. He was obedient, even to the point of death. But obedient to who? Certainly not to the universal, the ethical. Had he obeyed the ethical, he would have listened to the Pharisees and tried to persuade them. He would have engaged them in a discussion, tried to work out differences, tried to resolve the conflicts, perhaps show them the error of their ways. Instead, he tries to trap them. He knows what they are about, and he refuses to get involved. Because he is arrogant? No; because they are. Obeying God does not raise you above the ethical, the universal, the opinions of people. It puts you below them. They do not understand. They cannot grasp the divine, see the glory. It is arrogant to think you have God's glory through the approval of the people. It is the Pharisees who are arrogant, thinking they know what God wants because they know what the people believe. Jesus is trying to level the playing field; he is testing their faith, their belief. He wants to see if they, too, will pay the price for glory.
The universal is everything you know. The universal is everything you understand. Like the fish in water, it is the water you swim in. The power of the universal is that it contains not less than everything. And to attain glory, you must submit to the universal, the ethical, be condemned by it for obedience to God, and accept the judgment on you. Like a slave. "You must work out your own salvation in fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you, inspiring both the will and the deed, for his own chosen purpose." (Philippians 2:12b-13, REB)
Ahh, but glory and what is glory? Glory is the presence of God, and the price of glory paid allows you to stand in the presence of God, to address God familiarly, to know the glory of God. It is a condition of complete simplicity/costing not less than everything." It costs Moses his comfortable life as an Egyptian. He ended his days wandering in the wilderness of Sinai. It cost Abraham his home among the Chaldees. He ended his days as an old man with only one son to become the mighty nation God had promised. It cost Paul his easy life as a Pharisee; he wandered the Roman empire as a tent~maker, picking up hospitality and establishing churches among strangers who would listen to him. But how many of these things does the world value? How many of these accomplishments does the universal count good? Is it ethical to leave your home and take your family to a place you've never heard of, and have no knowledge of! Is it ethical to spend your life relying on the kindness of strangers? The price of glory is the ethical, the universal, the world.
The price of glory is slavery, is submission. "You must work out your own salvation in fear and trembling." Fear and trembling because it is God at work in you, and because the world opposes you. Glory will not take you out of the world, but return you to it. It made Moses a leader; it made Paul an apostle. "The price of glory is the universal." And it is a matter of deeds, not words. "Which of these sons did what his father wanted?" The one who set aside his own needs, and followed his father's wishes. Even our needs are determined by the ethical; unless we listen first to God. Amen.
Morning Prayer
I've used this before, but I consider it one of the best examples of what I was getting at in the post on Friday (below):
"My mother would be asking us to sing our morning song to God down in the backhouse, as Mary's lark was singing up the clouds, and as Christ's maven was singing it yonder in the tree, giving glory to the God of the creatures for the repose of the night, for the light of the day, and for the joy of life. She would tell us that every creature on the earth here below and in the ocean beneath and in the air above was giving glory to the great God of the creatures and the worlds, of the virtues and the blessings, and would we be dumb!"
This is the prayer her mother taught:
Bless to me, O God,
My soul and my body;
Bless to me, O god,
My belief and my condition;
Bless to me, O God,
My heart and my speech,
And bless to me, O God,
The handling of my hand;
Strength and busyness of morning,
Habit and temper of modesty,
Force and wisdom of thought,
And Thine own path, O God of virtues,
Till I go to sleep this night;
Thine own path, O God of virtues,
Till I go to sleep this night.
(from Carmina Gadelica)
Now, speaking of busyness of morning.....
"My mother would be asking us to sing our morning song to God down in the backhouse, as Mary's lark was singing up the clouds, and as Christ's maven was singing it yonder in the tree, giving glory to the God of the creatures for the repose of the night, for the light of the day, and for the joy of life. She would tell us that every creature on the earth here below and in the ocean beneath and in the air above was giving glory to the great God of the creatures and the worlds, of the virtues and the blessings, and would we be dumb!"
This is the prayer her mother taught:
Bless to me, O God,
My soul and my body;
Bless to me, O god,
My belief and my condition;
Bless to me, O God,
My heart and my speech,
And bless to me, O God,
The handling of my hand;
Strength and busyness of morning,
Habit and temper of modesty,
Force and wisdom of thought,
And Thine own path, O God of virtues,
Till I go to sleep this night;
Thine own path, O God of virtues,
Till I go to sleep this night.
(from Carmina Gadelica)
Now, speaking of busyness of morning.....
Turning the Other Cheek in "Christendom"
Speaking of belligerence, Shrimplate reminds me I said something else at Eschaton I'd forgotten about. It's something a UCC pastor friend of mine pointed out to me.
"Turn the other cheek" is how conventional wisdom has rendered it, but, as usual, conventional wisdom is not, in its conventionality, wise. The original is clearer: "But to you who listen I say, love your enemies, do favors for those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for your abusers. When someone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other as well. When someone takes way your coat, don't prevent that person from taking your shirt along with it." (Luke 6:27-29, SV)
As the notes to this version point out, "The coat and shirt are full-length outer and under garments worn in the ancient world. One who lacked both garments would be nearly nude." And, as usual, I digress. Why, the question of how to "love" your "enemies" can take a book all by itself.
"Turn the other cheek," though, is what's commonly misunderstood. As my friend pointed out, you slap someone with the back of your hand. If you are right-handed, you strike the right cheek, moving across the other's face. If they offer the other cheek also, you have no choice but to strike it with your open palm. That blow is almost never a blow, but rather a greeting or even a touch of intimacy, shared only with friends and family members.
So, to "turn the other cheek" is in fact to "love" your "enemy." And I mention this in context of shrimplate's observation, which I think is fairly accurate, if damning: "To be a modern American conservative Republican born-again churchgoer today pretty much means that you're really a Roman."
Which has been a critique of "Christendom" at least since it was raised by Søren Kierkegaard in 19th century Denmark.
Now, about going around half-dressed.....
"Turn the other cheek" is how conventional wisdom has rendered it, but, as usual, conventional wisdom is not, in its conventionality, wise. The original is clearer: "But to you who listen I say, love your enemies, do favors for those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for your abusers. When someone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other as well. When someone takes way your coat, don't prevent that person from taking your shirt along with it." (Luke 6:27-29, SV)
As the notes to this version point out, "The coat and shirt are full-length outer and under garments worn in the ancient world. One who lacked both garments would be nearly nude." And, as usual, I digress. Why, the question of how to "love" your "enemies" can take a book all by itself.
"Turn the other cheek," though, is what's commonly misunderstood. As my friend pointed out, you slap someone with the back of your hand. If you are right-handed, you strike the right cheek, moving across the other's face. If they offer the other cheek also, you have no choice but to strike it with your open palm. That blow is almost never a blow, but rather a greeting or even a touch of intimacy, shared only with friends and family members.
So, to "turn the other cheek" is in fact to "love" your "enemy." And I mention this in context of shrimplate's observation, which I think is fairly accurate, if damning: "To be a modern American conservative Republican born-again churchgoer today pretty much means that you're really a Roman."
Which has been a critique of "Christendom" at least since it was raised by Søren Kierkegaard in 19th century Denmark.
Now, about going around half-dressed.....
The Shining City on the Hill is Pandemonium
I posted this at Eschaton, in response to this thread, then decided I might be on to something a bit larger than a mere comment, and decided to bring it over here.
Some of the commenters took the opportunity to be critical of Drum's point. Having read it, I think Drum's point is a sad commentary on American belligerence and militarism.
We had plenty of evidence that Bush wanted war with Iraq immediately after 9/11. The "American people" didn't know? How do you, or I, really know that? It was in Woodward's book, it was all over the news. The war was protested by one million people in the streets of America alone.
How much attention do you need before you decide "the people" don't agree with your conclusion?
Vietnam had even less justification, and nobody really cared. The Tonkin Gulf incident was as transparent as Glad Wrap, and it stuck to LBJ about as effectively (i.e., not at all). We knew before the war was over that that incident was BS. Nobody cared. What turned us against that war was the endless carnage, not the legality/illegality of it's excuse for starting (actually intervening, but anyway....)
So it isn't that people "didn't know." Frankly, they didn't care. They were all too willing to buy the line that Iraq was a threat, and behind 9/11, because it gave them something to use the military against. Armies are tools, at least in America. In Switzerland the army is a purely defensive proposition, but in America, we have to trot it out once in a while to be sure we can still scare people. Or just to throw our weight around.
It's not that people didn't "know." They didn't care. A military excursion, in the words of one Vietnam era general, presents the opportunity for a "pleasant outing for the troops." Americans like that idea.
When it turns into a bloody bog and men are dying by the hundreds, then we don't like it anymore. Twain wrote about it. The Civil War was all about that. Korea and Vietnam were more of the same. Why should the invasion of Iraq be any different?
The frightening truth is, Bush is the nation's Id. This is why the people continually respond to him, rather than get disgusted with him. But the Id can only sustain a response for so long, before the ego, and finally the superego, are disgusted and reassert control. In the Roman Empire, they called Bush's position that of "dictator." It was a special office created solely to consolidate all Roman military power under one person, who could rule without check and act for the defense of the Empire. But once the threat had receded, the dictator's office was dissolved, and power returned to the Senate. The concept is simple: when there is a serious threat, you need decisive action. Once the threat is gone, the need for action returns to more consultative hands. We may be heading in that direction again, but make no mistake: the American people will always appoint a "dictator" when they feel threatened, or just feel the need to be "dictator" to the world, themselves.
Some of the commenters took the opportunity to be critical of Drum's point. Having read it, I think Drum's point is a sad commentary on American belligerence and militarism.
We had plenty of evidence that Bush wanted war with Iraq immediately after 9/11. The "American people" didn't know? How do you, or I, really know that? It was in Woodward's book, it was all over the news. The war was protested by one million people in the streets of America alone.
How much attention do you need before you decide "the people" don't agree with your conclusion?
Vietnam had even less justification, and nobody really cared. The Tonkin Gulf incident was as transparent as Glad Wrap, and it stuck to LBJ about as effectively (i.e., not at all). We knew before the war was over that that incident was BS. Nobody cared. What turned us against that war was the endless carnage, not the legality/illegality of it's excuse for starting (actually intervening, but anyway....)
So it isn't that people "didn't know." Frankly, they didn't care. They were all too willing to buy the line that Iraq was a threat, and behind 9/11, because it gave them something to use the military against. Armies are tools, at least in America. In Switzerland the army is a purely defensive proposition, but in America, we have to trot it out once in a while to be sure we can still scare people. Or just to throw our weight around.
It's not that people didn't "know." They didn't care. A military excursion, in the words of one Vietnam era general, presents the opportunity for a "pleasant outing for the troops." Americans like that idea.
When it turns into a bloody bog and men are dying by the hundreds, then we don't like it anymore. Twain wrote about it. The Civil War was all about that. Korea and Vietnam were more of the same. Why should the invasion of Iraq be any different?
The frightening truth is, Bush is the nation's Id. This is why the people continually respond to him, rather than get disgusted with him. But the Id can only sustain a response for so long, before the ego, and finally the superego, are disgusted and reassert control. In the Roman Empire, they called Bush's position that of "dictator." It was a special office created solely to consolidate all Roman military power under one person, who could rule without check and act for the defense of the Empire. But once the threat had receded, the dictator's office was dissolved, and power returned to the Senate. The concept is simple: when there is a serious threat, you need decisive action. Once the threat is gone, the need for action returns to more consultative hands. We may be heading in that direction again, but make no mistake: the American people will always appoint a "dictator" when they feel threatened, or just feel the need to be "dictator" to the world, themselves.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Friday, June 10, 2005
"It is impossible to say just what I mean!"--T.S Eliot
Among his other theses are: "God is both Father and Mother" and "Religion is not necessary, but spirituality is."I want to get at least the skeleton of this idea out.
This is not, by the way, "radical feminist theology." It's roots are in the theology of the "Dark Ages." Which weren't really so dark.
Don't have my copy with me, nor the time to Google for on, but Julian of Norwich spoke of God as both Father and Mother in her "Shewings." It was not considered a radical concept, but it is one that has dropped away as belief and religion have more and more left everyday life and been relegated to the margins of our existence.
Which makes me think we need a dialogue here (Speechless? Jane? Leftrev?) about how fundamentalism and "tradition" replace a living faith when that faith becomes a matter of "Sunday morning" and "what churches do." Julian, in fact, an "anchorite," which meant she was "officially" dead to the world, yet she was more connected to her community than many pastors are to their congregations today. When faith is truly a part of the ordinary world, it is a living, breathing, complex "thing."
When it is shunted into byways and "personal beliefs" and "what you choose to do on Sunday morning" (this is NOT an argument for theocracy, BTW, or even a "religious society"), it atrophies into rigid doctrines, traditions, even images and metaphors.
Or at least, I could develop a line of thought around that. If I had time.
Immigrants never "leave" the "home country" so much as they try to preserve their memories of it, and so they want to place in amber the place they left. Examples of this will have to come later, but it's the basic premise.
The church, at one time, didn't just dominate society, it was society. In ways I'm not sure we can begin to imagine; and I don't think the dissolution began with the Enlightenment, or even the Renaissance. But for most of human existence, religion and "science" (which, after all, simply means "knowledge," albeit of a specific type, even in the original Greek) were not harshly separated.
Now, for a myriad of reasons, they are. Reasons, again, to be discussed later (or as you will).
What is left is a culture of "immigrants" who remember some vestige of a life lived with religion as a part of it (the loss of same being good or bad, depending on your perspective; again, another issue), and who want to preserve that vestige. My thesis, then, is that it is this desire to preserve the "vestige" that is at the heart of "fundamentalism," and even the interest in "traditions" (though I am by no means anti-traditionalist myself). Fundamentalism is not a response to Enlightenment thought, in other words, although its appearance is certainly connected causally to the application of such thought to Biblical studies (coming out of Germany in the 19th century, which ideas struck the immigrants of America as blasphemy, a sure sign of the decay of values of the "old country" since they had left). It may have been produced by that event, but the roots are much deeper.
So that today, a concept that raised no eyebrows in the "Dark Ages" (Julian of Norwich speaking of God as "Father and Mother;" Wisdom, by the way, is female both in Greek and Hebrew thought and vocabulary, which makes "God's Wisdom" feminine in the Bible), is considered scandalous and even non-Christian. But the roots are not in the rejection of "reason;" the roots are in the divorce of religion from ordinary life.
It occurs to me this ties in with the renewed interest in Celtic prayer, too, and the Carmina Gadelica. It occurs to me there is a book or two in this. It also occurs to me that I have to take my daughter to her point of departure for a three-week trip to China today, and I shouldn't even be here!
But maybe this will give you all some grounds for fruitful discussion until I can come back.
Two quick addenda, because they are related to this, and I don't want to forget them. I want to pick up on Rick's remarks re: Vaticn II, in the comments below, not because I agree or disagree, but because it opens a fruitful venue for discussion. That's one, and related is the other: I think this split in public/private life, while seen as a particularly Protestant boon (especially in church/state separated Protestant dominated America) actually marks the "death" of Protestantism.
Texas Kitsch Blogging Goes International!
Because my ability to post this morning will be severely limited, and because there are serious topics to take under consideration, I leave you (for the day) with:
The Yellow Submarine is threatened by Japanese monsters from Texas.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get close enough to show you the look of abject fear and terror on the faces of John and Paul.
George and Ringo are in the back. They're cool with it.
The Yellow Submarine in harbor (courtesy of my daughter, who was composing pictures that reflected her father. Thus do 13 year old girls see me.)
The Yellow Submarine is threatened by Japanese monsters from Texas.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get close enough to show you the look of abject fear and terror on the faces of John and Paul.
George and Ringo are in the back. They're cool with it.
The Yellow Submarine in harbor (courtesy of my daughter, who was composing pictures that reflected her father. Thus do 13 year old girls see me.)
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Go Matthew
Theologian Challenges Pope To Rethink Church's Position On Gays
Oh, Matthew Fox is doing that and quite a bit more in Wittenberg:
Emphasis mine.
I've always thought that Matthew Fox really pushes the edges, and some of his earlier work was kinda "out there," or, at least, before its time. But he is absolutely correct as to the need for a prophetic voice to be heard.
If the drama of posting his thesis on the Church door is what it takes for the voices to be heard, than by all means. Like Bishop John Shelby Spong, Fox is advocating a new Protestant Reformation, and the end result will not look very much like traditional Western Christianity.
Fox has been seen as a threat to the Magisterium for decades. If his thoughts on the subject open up dialogue within the "mainstream" churches, he will seen as a threat to all those who mistake grace for power and love for intolorance.
Being a prophet is never easy. It involves being open to a radical re-examination of identity and existance. And, without a doubt, it involves beating one's head against a wall. But most of all, it involves being so in love with God and with God's people that you are willing to undergo a complete displacement in understanding who you are and who God is and be remade. Matthew Fox loves deeply. All who love deeply must be called to live that love, breath that love, speak that love and act that love.
[My appologies for any spelling errors undetected; Blogger is not allowing me to spell check and I'm kind of dizzy from banging my head against a wall]
Oh, Matthew Fox is doing that and quite a bit more in Wittenberg:
Like Luther, Fox believes that the church is in trouble and in need of a drastic change.
Fox's challenge was in the form an updated version of Luther's 95 Theses - applying them to today.
While Luther's protest was against indulgences and corruption in the administration of Pope Leo X, Fox's beef is more attuned to the injustices and power abuses he sees in the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI and the apathy epidemic present in Protestant Churches...
-snip-
"Jesus said nothing about condoms, birth control or homosexuality," says one of the Theses. Fox said it is time for Christians to choose who the Church will follow: an "angry exclusionary God or the loving God who opens the path to wisdom."
Among his other theses are: "God is both Father and Mother" and "Religion is not necessary, but spirituality is."
-snip-
"The traditional purpose of a thesis is to open up constructive debate in the search for truth," said Fox. "At this critical time in human and planetary history, when the earth is being ravaged by the violence of war, poverty, sexism, homophobia and eco-destruction, we need to gather those who offer a future that is one of compassion, creativity and justice to stand up and speak their conscience together as never before. Religion ought to be part of the solution, not the problem."
Emphasis mine.
I've always thought that Matthew Fox really pushes the edges, and some of his earlier work was kinda "out there," or, at least, before its time. But he is absolutely correct as to the need for a prophetic voice to be heard.
If the drama of posting his thesis on the Church door is what it takes for the voices to be heard, than by all means. Like Bishop John Shelby Spong, Fox is advocating a new Protestant Reformation, and the end result will not look very much like traditional Western Christianity.
Fox has been seen as a threat to the Magisterium for decades. If his thoughts on the subject open up dialogue within the "mainstream" churches, he will seen as a threat to all those who mistake grace for power and love for intolorance.
Being a prophet is never easy. It involves being open to a radical re-examination of identity and existance. And, without a doubt, it involves beating one's head against a wall. But most of all, it involves being so in love with God and with God's people that you are willing to undergo a complete displacement in understanding who you are and who God is and be remade. Matthew Fox loves deeply. All who love deeply must be called to live that love, breath that love, speak that love and act that love.
[My appologies for any spelling errors undetected; Blogger is not allowing me to spell check and I'm kind of dizzy from banging my head against a wall]
"When I Use a Word, It Means Precisely What I Want It To Mean...."--Humpty Dumpty
I have to admit, I haven't kept up with the controversies surrounding Bush's nominees to the bench, except as it impacts the "judicial filibuster" vote that wasn't. But when even the NYT article leads off this way, you know it's bad:
It would be nice, of course, if the reporter had gone on to include something that would make sense of this quote. Because the more I read it, the less sense it makes. Was slavery a product of government regulation? Was there some kind of "New Deal" in the 17th century that led to the U.S. slave trade? Are we to blame Voltaire and Rousseau?
I wonder if this isn't the price paid for an anti-intellectual culture, one that considers all products of thought suspect and the efforts of "elites" to exert undue influence on the "salt of the earth" working classes. Because this is pseudo-thought, thought dressed up with references to Cicero and Beckett ("Her friends describe Justice Brown as a voracious reader, amateur poet and serious intellectual, and her speeches are filled with allusions to writers including Cicero, the apostle Paul, Abraham Lincoln, Samuel Beckett, Ayn Rand, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Friedrich von Hayek and the comedian Chris Rock.") to lend them cachet, but thought that has not seriously absorbed the lessons of such disparate thinkers. "'We discuss things like "How did slavery happen?"'"? I realize the statement could be taken out of context, but just what is that supposed to mean?
When Humpty Dumpty made his statement to Alice, it was meant to be a mockery, a satire on pretension and ignorance masquerading as intelligence. More and more it has become the state of affairs in American public discourse, where there truly is no bedrock, no firm foundation, and the only authority is power. The President had the authority to finally install Ms. Brown in a position for which she is clearly not suited. Now, to quote Paul Simon, she's "got the Presidential seal," and she's at "the Presidential podium." And I'm even sure her momma "loves her like a rock."
The pity is, she's a judge now; with no discernible talent for discernment, the hallmark of judgment. But she's got the power; and that's all that seems to matter.
Janice Rogers Brown, the African-American daughter of Alabama sharecroppers who was confirmed Wednesday to the federal appeals court here, often invokes slavery in describing what she sees as the perils of liberalism.
"In the heyday of liberal democracy, all roads lead to slavery," she has warned in speeches. Society and the courts have turned away from the founders' emphasis on personal responsibility, she has argued, toward a culture of government regulation and dependency that threatens fundamental freedoms.
"We no longer find slavery abhorrent," she told the conservative Federalist Society a few years ago. "We embrace it." She explained in another speech, "If we can invoke no ultimate limits on the power of government, a democracy is inevitably transformed into a kleptocracy - a license to steal, a warrant for oppression."
To her critics, such remarks are evidence of extremism. This week, some Senate Democrats have even singled her out as the most objectionable of President Bush's more than 200 judicial nominees, citing her criticism of affirmative action and abortion rights but most of all her sweeping denunciations of New Deal legal precedents that enabled many federal regulations and social programs - developments she has called "the triumph of our socialist revolution."
Her friends and supporters say her views of slavery underpin her judicial philosophy. It was her study of that history, they say, combined with her evangelical Christian faith and her self-propelled rise from poverty that led her to abandon the liberal views she learned from her family.
"We discuss things like, 'How did slavery happen?' " said her friend and mentor Steve Merksamer, a lawyer in Sacramento, Calif. "It comes down to the fact that she believes, as I do, that some things are, in fact, right and some things are, in fact, wrong. Segregation - even though the courts had sustained it for a hundred years - was morally indefensible and legally indefensible and yet it was the law of the land," he said. "She brings that philosophy to her legal work."
It would be nice, of course, if the reporter had gone on to include something that would make sense of this quote. Because the more I read it, the less sense it makes. Was slavery a product of government regulation? Was there some kind of "New Deal" in the 17th century that led to the U.S. slave trade? Are we to blame Voltaire and Rousseau?
I wonder if this isn't the price paid for an anti-intellectual culture, one that considers all products of thought suspect and the efforts of "elites" to exert undue influence on the "salt of the earth" working classes. Because this is pseudo-thought, thought dressed up with references to Cicero and Beckett ("Her friends describe Justice Brown as a voracious reader, amateur poet and serious intellectual, and her speeches are filled with allusions to writers including Cicero, the apostle Paul, Abraham Lincoln, Samuel Beckett, Ayn Rand, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Friedrich von Hayek and the comedian Chris Rock.") to lend them cachet, but thought that has not seriously absorbed the lessons of such disparate thinkers. "'We discuss things like "How did slavery happen?"'"? I realize the statement could be taken out of context, but just what is that supposed to mean?
When Humpty Dumpty made his statement to Alice, it was meant to be a mockery, a satire on pretension and ignorance masquerading as intelligence. More and more it has become the state of affairs in American public discourse, where there truly is no bedrock, no firm foundation, and the only authority is power. The President had the authority to finally install Ms. Brown in a position for which she is clearly not suited. Now, to quote Paul Simon, she's "got the Presidential seal," and she's at "the Presidential podium." And I'm even sure her momma "loves her like a rock."
The pity is, she's a judge now; with no discernible talent for discernment, the hallmark of judgment. But she's got the power; and that's all that seems to matter.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Gitmo, Gulags, and Amnesty International
This has all been said better, and noticed by still other, blogs with much wider readership than your truly ever aspires to.
But since it's been brought up here and bandied about a bit, these words from William Shultz of Amnesty International on the PBS Newshour deserve to be repeated, without comment:
Okay, one comment. Go to the Newshour website, and notice the immediate response of Neil Livingstone, who won't budge from the argument that hyperbole undermines an entire investigative report, who can't even be bothered to pay attention to Mr. Schultz' statement.
And if there's any question that Mr. Schultz is unfamiliar with this tactic, well:
This is what passes for "discussion" in our national media.
I'll retire to Bedlam....
But since it's been brought up here and bandied about a bit, these words from William Shultz of Amnesty International on the PBS Newshour deserve to be repeated, without comment:
MARGARET WARNER:....We invited Pentagon officials to send a representative, but they declined. And welcome to you both. Mr. Schulz, what is the basis for your charge that Guantanamo Bay is, in fact, the gulag of our times?
WILLIAM SCHULZ: Well, let me say first this that this is, of course, not an exact analogy. There are differences between the Soviet gulags, differences in size. We don't expect, we have no reports that there is forced labor at Guantanamo or the other U.S. detention centers or that people are being starved.
But there are similarities. The United States is maintaining an archipelago of prisons, many of them secret prisons in which people are being disappeared. They are being held in incommunicado detention without access to the judicial system.
That is similar to the gulags. They are being held without access to their families; that is similar. And in many cases, they are being mistreated, abused, and even killed. In fact, there have been at least a hundred deaths of detainees, 27 of which have been ruled to be homicides by medical examiners.
Now, at Guantanamo Bay itself, you don't to rely upon Amnesty International for reports of abuses that have taken place there and of the violation of the Geneva Conventions. In terms of abuses, a Kentucky guardsman, for example, reported detainees whose heads had been slammed into walls.
The FBI agents there at Guantanamo Bay reported their concerns about people held in stress positions for eighteen to twenty-four hours. The Red Cross itself reported on sleep deprivation there.
And we've heard reports of female interrogators smearing what they represented as menstrual blood upon the faces of those prisoners, some of the prisoners there, which certainly is inhumane and degrading treatment, even if it doesn't rise to the level of torture.
And finally, we also know that the United States is clearly in violation of the Geneva Conventions because the conventions require that if a captor does not want to label captives prisoners of war.
Even though they have been taking prison in the course of combat, then that question of the status of the detainees has to be taken to what the conventions call a competent tribunal to determine whether or not they are POW's or instead, as we claim, enemy combatants. And, in fact, no such competent tribunal has ever ruled on these detainees' status. So that's some of the reasons that this charge has been made.
Okay, one comment. Go to the Newshour website, and notice the immediate response of Neil Livingstone, who won't budge from the argument that hyperbole undermines an entire investigative report, who can't even be bothered to pay attention to Mr. Schultz' statement.
And if there's any question that Mr. Schultz is unfamiliar with this tactic, well:
The response of this government to Amnesty's criticisms is almost exactly the same response that the Chinese give, the Cubans give, and many other governments give whenever we hold up what we try to hold up as one universal gold standard of human rights respect: The same standard for every country.Mr. Livingstone's response? You can't make this stuff up:
"Let me tell you about Guantanamo. For a lot of these people, they're having better treatment and care than they had when they were in the field in Afghanistan. They're getting healthcare for the first time."
This is what passes for "discussion" in our national media.
I'll retire to Bedlam....
The Shattering of Everything
"The Shattering of the Vessels" was an obscure reference to a Kabbalistic version of Creation, and to a sculpture in the St. Louis Art Museum. Unfortnately I can't find a picture of it on-line, and my memory of it is a few years old.
It's a modern work (I can't even remember the artist), made of metal and glass. It consists of massive metal bookshelves (10-15 feet high, IIRC), holding huge metal books (4 feet by 3 feet, roughly), twisted wires, and huge (human-sized, in other words) pieces of broken glass. The area in front of the bookshelves, roped off to keep the museum visitors from hurting themselves, was covered with broken glass in pieces ranging from huge to tiny. The references to Kristallnacht, the notes on the sculpture asserted, were intentional. The overall impression was one of oppressive weight (the sculpture was on an upper floor; I often looked at the huge square metal posts of the bookshelves, and the grey metal books, and wondered how the floor held; the pieces of glass were inches thick, huge and jagged and menacingly poised as if they had just fallen and rested in the structure, and soon would go to the floor, if not through it) and complete destruction. There were large, thick twisted wires trailing off the shelves, and the books had contrasting, copper-colored Hebrew letters on them. It was mesmerizing, disturbing, fascinating, appalling, scary, and beautiful, all at once. I used to stand before it for what seemed like hours, whenever I visited the museum.
The idea behind it is a complex one. In a simplified form, God's essence was poured into vessels which could not contain it, and these vessels shattered, allowing God's essence to descend into lower worlds, until it reached what we know as Creation. As this essence descended, it became less and less holy, thus giving rise to good and evil. .To quote from Rabbi Moshe Miller:
I'm not yet sure I have a proposal on that, but as my posts tend to pack too much into a small sausage skin, and to provoke discussions that aren't always related to the issues I was trying to get at (the fault is mine, if there is a fault at all), I'm going to try again to space this concept out over a few posts, and see if we can reach some measure of clarity.
That is, if I don't interrupt myself with another project I have in mind, which is to lay out some bits and pieces from my notebooks, simply to help shape them into something other than the formless thoughts they are now.
Maybe I should start categorizing these things, a la Daily Kos. That seems to be the latest rage in blogging (even though I'm not that organized, and have no idea how I'd carry it out....)
It's a modern work (I can't even remember the artist), made of metal and glass. It consists of massive metal bookshelves (10-15 feet high, IIRC), holding huge metal books (4 feet by 3 feet, roughly), twisted wires, and huge (human-sized, in other words) pieces of broken glass. The area in front of the bookshelves, roped off to keep the museum visitors from hurting themselves, was covered with broken glass in pieces ranging from huge to tiny. The references to Kristallnacht, the notes on the sculpture asserted, were intentional. The overall impression was one of oppressive weight (the sculpture was on an upper floor; I often looked at the huge square metal posts of the bookshelves, and the grey metal books, and wondered how the floor held; the pieces of glass were inches thick, huge and jagged and menacingly poised as if they had just fallen and rested in the structure, and soon would go to the floor, if not through it) and complete destruction. There were large, thick twisted wires trailing off the shelves, and the books had contrasting, copper-colored Hebrew letters on them. It was mesmerizing, disturbing, fascinating, appalling, scary, and beautiful, all at once. I used to stand before it for what seemed like hours, whenever I visited the museum.
The idea behind it is a complex one. In a simplified form, God's essence was poured into vessels which could not contain it, and these vessels shattered, allowing God's essence to descend into lower worlds, until it reached what we know as Creation. As this essence descended, it became less and less holy, thus giving rise to good and evil. .To quote from Rabbi Moshe Miller:
Although the fragments of the vessels initially fell into the world of Beriya pthe world in which we live], when their rectification (tikun) began, the most refined aspects of the vessels were able to ascend and became absorbed in the world of Atzilut [Kabbalah posits a hierarchy of 'worlds.' Atzilut is a higher, i.e., more holy, world than Beriya]. What could not be elevated into Atzilut remained in Beriya and became an integral part of it. What could not be absorbed into Beriya then descended into Yetzira and Asiya. The aspects of the vessels that could not be absorbed in even the lowest realm of holiness became the vitality of the realms of impurity, known as the kelipot.I wasn't meaning to bring Kabbalah into the discussion, nor have I read any more on Kabbalah than I've found through Google. It was the sculpture that caught my imagination. And it is the idea here that evil has a purpose, which interests me. Not because I agree that evil has meaning (it is, in fact, meaninlessness personified, at least in the Hellenistic conception), and the clear influence of Hellenistic thinking on Hebraic thought evidenced by Kaballah. Maybe we need the metaphors of Kaballah to explain issues of religion and spirituality, of theodicy and theophany, today.
The shattering of the sefirot of Tohu is not a coincidence, nor does it signify a flaw in the creative process. On the contrary, it serves a very specific and important purpose, which is to bring about a state of separation or partition of the light into distinct qualities and attributes, and thereby introduce diversity and multiplicity into creation, as explained above. In addition, the shattering of the vessels of Tohu [a world in which the vessels originated] allows for the possibility of evil, and gives man the opportunity to choose between good (for which he gains reward) and evil (for which he is punished). Thus G-d's attributes of chesed and gevura - the attributes from which reward and punishment derive - are revealed in the world, which is one of the primary purposes of creation.
I'm not yet sure I have a proposal on that, but as my posts tend to pack too much into a small sausage skin, and to provoke discussions that aren't always related to the issues I was trying to get at (the fault is mine, if there is a fault at all), I'm going to try again to space this concept out over a few posts, and see if we can reach some measure of clarity.
That is, if I don't interrupt myself with another project I have in mind, which is to lay out some bits and pieces from my notebooks, simply to help shape them into something other than the formless thoughts they are now.
Maybe I should start categorizing these things, a la Daily Kos. That seems to be the latest rage in blogging (even though I'm not that organized, and have no idea how I'd carry it out....)
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Dancing with the Devil
Well, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed a bill into law this week; in the gymnasium of a Christian church school. Not that you would know that from the Governor's own website or press release. Speaking as someone who grew up in an East Texas town with both a Catholic church and a Jewish synagogue (but dominated by Southern Baptists), I have to say that's just a bit beyond the pale.
And a sign of Perry's political desperation.
Non-Texans do have to understand that the office of Governor in Texas is largely a ceremonial post. This is the entire list of duties of the Texas Governor:
Perry's "ceremony" is precisely why Baptist ministers in the 19th century argued against mixing politics and religion: because the state is powerful, and eventually bends even the church to its will. Their idea of "reform" extended not just to church doctrine, but to the separation of church and state so that the concerns of the state would not corrupt the moral imperatives of the church. They saw such corruption as inevitable. Campaigning in church may be acceptable (if, to me, distasteful), but that's politics. As Bill Schneider said on CNN, signing laws is governmental. Of course, the churches which align themselves with government now have lost almost all claim to moral authority. I want to say that if they dance with the devil, the devil will call the tune.
But when I consider the "morality" of Pat Robertson's diamond mine investments, or Jerry Falwell's pronouncements on social issues, or mega churches that put up billboards screaming: "We Believe In You!", then I know that, whatever else they are, they are no longer churches. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and Joel Osteen are not concerned with being pastors, with covenants with God and obligations given with promises: they are only concerned with the material well-being of the institutions they have shaped around themselves. Church can only be concerned with corruption from associating too closely with government, when church is concerned first with doing God's will. The churches that align themselves with the politics of the GOP have gone so far in forgetting their purpose it's almost impossible to chastise them as churches anymore; and the only recourse left, is to chastise the politicians.
And a sign of Perry's political desperation.
Non-Texans do have to understand that the office of Governor in Texas is largely a ceremonial post. This is the entire list of duties of the Texas Governor:
Signing or vetoing bills passed by the Legislature.Not much room there to actually "govern," you understand. Indeed, the post has always been understood to be largely ceremonial, and until Ann Richards turned it into a national platform, was certainly never seen as a springboard to higher office. Now Perry has made it so ceremonial that he's "signed" a proposed constitutional amendment, which, even under Texas' arcane Reconstruction-era Constitution, has no effect at all. Still, Perry has to reach for whatever attention he can get, especially since the Texas Legislature failed to pass a law reforming school finance. Texas schools face a takeover by a state judge in October if the current school finance laws are not changed. And since the Texas legislature meets only for six months every two years (I told you it was an arcane Constitution), he'll have to call a special session quickly, to fix that "little problem."
Serving as commander-in-chief of the state's military forces.
Convening special sessions of the Legislature for specific purposes.
Delivering a report on the condition of the state to the Legislature at the beginning of each regular session.
Estimating of the amounts of money required to be raised by taxation.
Accounting for all public moneys received and paid out by him and recommending a budget for the next two years.
Granting reprieves and commutations of punishment and pardons upon the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles and revoking conditional pardons.
Declaring special elections to fill vacancies in certain elected offices.
Appointing qualified Texans to state offices that carry out the laws and direct the policies of state government. Some of these offices are filled by appointment only. Others are ordinarily elected by the people, but the Governor must occasionally appoint individuals to fill vacancies in those offices. The Governor also appoints Texans to a wide range of advisory bodies and task forces that assist him with specific issues.
Perry's "ceremony" is precisely why Baptist ministers in the 19th century argued against mixing politics and religion: because the state is powerful, and eventually bends even the church to its will. Their idea of "reform" extended not just to church doctrine, but to the separation of church and state so that the concerns of the state would not corrupt the moral imperatives of the church. They saw such corruption as inevitable. Campaigning in church may be acceptable (if, to me, distasteful), but that's politics. As Bill Schneider said on CNN, signing laws is governmental. Of course, the churches which align themselves with government now have lost almost all claim to moral authority. I want to say that if they dance with the devil, the devil will call the tune.
But when I consider the "morality" of Pat Robertson's diamond mine investments, or Jerry Falwell's pronouncements on social issues, or mega churches that put up billboards screaming: "We Believe In You!", then I know that, whatever else they are, they are no longer churches. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and Joel Osteen are not concerned with being pastors, with covenants with God and obligations given with promises: they are only concerned with the material well-being of the institutions they have shaped around themselves. Church can only be concerned with corruption from associating too closely with government, when church is concerned first with doing God's will. The churches that align themselves with the politics of the GOP have gone so far in forgetting their purpose it's almost impossible to chastise them as churches anymore; and the only recourse left, is to chastise the politicians.
Monday, June 06, 2005
"Americans Who Tell The Truth"
is a new children's book by Robert Shetterly. The back cover explains the purpose. Each portrait is accompanied by a quote from the person represented, and there is a short biography of each person at the end.
A few of the fifty people represented are listed below. when books like this are being published by major publishing houses (Dutton, in this case) for children, there is hope.
From the back cover:
Some of the people represented:
"Studs" Terkel
John Muir
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Frances Moore Lappe
Jody Williams
Frank Serpico
Molly Ivins
Dorothy Day
"The biggest mistake sometimes is to play things very safe in this life and end up being moral failures."
Judy Wicks
Lewis Lapham
"Because God has chosen America as the construction site of the earthly Paradise, America's cause was always just and nothing was ever America's fault...corrupt foreigners commit crimes against humanity, Americans cleanse the world of its impurities."
Wendell Berry
Walt Whitman
Cesar Chavez
A few of the fifty people represented are listed below. when books like this are being published by major publishing houses (Dutton, in this case) for children, there is hope.
From the back cover:
"The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls." Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"After September 11, artist Robert Shetterly was inspired to draw strength from Americans, past and present, who have made our country strong. A single portrait grew into a powerful series. Now these paintings of fifty great Americans offer examples of what it means to have the freedom to speak the truth, while they remind us of our responsibility to make sure we are told the truth."
Some of the people represented:
"Studs" Terkel
John Muir
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Frances Moore Lappe
Jody Williams
Frank Serpico
Molly Ivins
Dorothy Day
"The biggest mistake sometimes is to play things very safe in this life and end up being moral failures."
Judy Wicks
Lewis Lapham
"Because God has chosen America as the construction site of the earthly Paradise, America's cause was always just and nothing was ever America's fault...corrupt foreigners commit crimes against humanity, Americans cleanse the world of its impurities."
Wendell Berry
Walt Whitman
Cesar Chavez
YOU give them something to eat...
Mark 6: 34-44
34: As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
35: And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late;
36: send them away, to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat."
37: But he answered them, "You give them something to eat." And they said to him, "Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?"
38: And he said to them, "How many loaves have you? Go and see." And when they had found out, they said, "Five, and two fish."
39: Then he commanded them all to sit down by companies upon the green grass.
40: So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties.
41: And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all.
42: And they all ate and were satisfied.
43: And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.
44: And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.
Give us this day our daily bread…
Is there any excuse we can offer to those who suffer from hunger? Are we waiting for another miraculous feeding? If my memory is on track, the phrase “You give them something to eat,” includes an emphatic “su.” This is the pronoun for “you” and it is often used when the person doing the action is to be particularly emphasized. “YOU give them something to eat.”
Well…why don’t we?
From the United Methodist Reporter:Interfaith gathering highlights hunger conference
“This is a no-brainer. We know how to end hunger “ “…then let us eliminate poverty…” Obviously, the people at this conference aren’t waiting for a miracle
Its not miracles we need. It is the “ability to respond to the call of God.”
34: As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
35: And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late;
36: send them away, to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat."
37: But he answered them, "You give them something to eat." And they said to him, "Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?"
38: And he said to them, "How many loaves have you? Go and see." And when they had found out, they said, "Five, and two fish."
39: Then he commanded them all to sit down by companies upon the green grass.
40: So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties.
41: And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all.
42: And they all ate and were satisfied.
43: And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.
44: And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.
Give us this day our daily bread…
Is there any excuse we can offer to those who suffer from hunger? Are we waiting for another miraculous feeding? If my memory is on track, the phrase “You give them something to eat,” includes an emphatic “su.” This is the pronoun for “you” and it is often used when the person doing the action is to be particularly emphasized. “YOU give them something to eat.”
Well…why don’t we?
From the United Methodist Reporter:Interfaith gathering highlights hunger conference
An interfaith convocation of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist leaders at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., will highlight a three-day conference June 4-6 focused on world hunger.
-snip-
In the United States, 36 million adults and 13 million children are undernourished, according to Bread for the World's 2005 hunger report (see Reporter Interactive, March 16). Worldwide, 852 million people are undernourished, and 6 million children die each year, mostly from hunger-related causes. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization defines undernourishment as receiving less than 2,500 calories per day for men, 1,900 for women and 1,500 for children.
"Hunger is one of the great barriers to health and justice in the world today," said the Rev. R. Randy Day, top executive of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries. "Food security is often the first step towards peace within and between nations."
-snip-
"This is a no-brainer. We know how to end hunger — it's not like putting a man on Mars," said H. Eric Schockman, president of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger and chairman of the National Anti-Hunger Organizations (NAHO), an alliance of 13 U.S. anti-hunger groups. In June 2004, NAHO released A Blueprint to End Hunger in America, a document that recommended continued funding and improvements for federal nutrition plans and expansion of state and local programs.
"The blueprint says that if we put 6 to 10 billion dollars a year into our federal nutritional programs between now and 2015, we will end hunger in America," Dr. Schockman said. "That's $21 to $34 per person, per year. That's what it comes down to.... Nutritional programs equal a grand total of 1.01 percent of the entire federal budget. If we add on what the blueprint says we need, we will bolster that up to 1.24 percent. Is that a heavy price to pay to end childhood hunger, senior hunger and hunger in working-poor families?"
The convocation's Islamic representative is Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim chaplain at Washington's Georgetown University. Mr. Hendi noted that a belief in social justice is common to Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and that it can bring the faith groups together to help end world hunger.
"Maybe this can become a role model for religious communities elsewhere and could lead the way for a better future for all of us," he said. "One of my favorite passages in Christian Scripture is Matthew 25:30-46, in which Jesus speaks about those who found him hungry and fed him, and those who found him naked and clothed him. That is what we are all about — our ability to respond to the call of God and to the call of good people, good prophets and messengers in other traditions."
-snip-
At a May 13 food-aid conference in Kansas City, Mo., Lelei LeLaulu, president of the relief group, Counterpoint International, said that if the war on terrorism is to succeed, it must be accompanied by a war against hunger. Mr. Hendi agreed.
"Many people around the world see America as a prosperous nation that is trying to — as they say in local languages — suck the blood and the money of the poor," Mr. Hendi said. "I don't think that's the case, but if that is the perception and if that's what they use to recruit terrorists amongst the poor, then let us eliminate poverty. Let us eliminate that possibility, and by doing so we give more room for the voices of sanity. Then people may say, 'Wait a minute. That's not really the case. America is standing in the forefront of eliminating poverty and hunger around the world.'"
“This is a no-brainer. We know how to end hunger “ “…then let us eliminate poverty…” Obviously, the people at this conference aren’t waiting for a miracle
Its not miracles we need. It is the “ability to respond to the call of God.”
Sunday, June 05, 2005
"The Shattering of the Vessels"
Was reading an essay the other night in class (do it all the time; what, you think I prepare those lectures? Hah!) and came across this fascinating sentence, an explanation for patriarchy I'd never heard before (which, in itself, is telling):
Homosexuals are another case in point. We cannot define homosexuality without puting sexual practice at the center of their identity. When we "define" male-female bonding (sexually, emotionally, socially, spiritually), we don't automatically define it in terms of sexual coupling. To the extent we do, we realize that is adolescent, and we soon move past it. We don't look at married couples and imagine their sexual practices alone. We take them as a couple, and consider the complexity of their lives. I never imagine another couple, whether old friends or mere acquaintances, in terms of what happens in their bedroom. But a gay or lesbian couple? It's the only topic on everyone's mind, even if it is the topic we dare not name. What do they do, how do they do it? This is the issue with the gay priests in the Episcopal church. Gene Robinson is apparently another step up the controversy ladder because he is not celibate. Which means, of course, we're all thinking of him in terms of what he does in the bedroom, not the bishopric.
Curiouser and curiouser...
In Paul's day (and Jesus'), people were divided by ethnos, a word which commonly carried a connotion of religious and moral inferiority among the Jews (as in Matthew 6). It's not coincidence the word is closely related to ethos: habits; laws; the customs of the fathers. People in first century Palestine, brought together under the Pax Romana, lived cheek by jowl with various and sundry cultures, a mix not uncommon in Europe and the Middle East today, but still so odd in America we call it "multiculturalism." It didn't serve to break down differences so much as to reinforce them, as a way of maintaining identity. Ethos and ethnos, then, come to define us. What habits and customs we approve determines who we accept as our "own." So when Paul said: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus," (Galatians 3:28), it was a radical statement indeed. Now our definition is to be in God: not in ethos, or ethnos, nor in sex or human law.
When the woman comes to anoint Jesus in Luke 7, it's easier now to see why she was considered a whore. Her sexual advances were on display for the entire roomful of men. To their understanding, she was doing exactly what women do: unable to control her sexual appetites, she was instead parading them. But Jesus chose to define her in God, and took what she offered as an act of devotion. It is not the act that is always the standard of definition: it is our arbitrary standards. It is where we choose to put the boundaries. And God is always pushing those boundaries around. From the Psalm this morning, for example:
Part of the re-writing of the requirements of the law conducted by the Exilic prophets. Consider, for example, the reading from Hosea, also for this morning:
The Exile was the shattering of the boundaries for Israel. When Ezekiel saw the spirit of God leave the temple and mount a throne-chariot with four faces, able to go any direction at once and at will, it marked as dramatic a change in human history as the call of Abraham (according to Thomas Cahill, one of the "Hinges of History") or the Renaissance of Greco-Roman culture, or the Enlightenment itself. Until that vision, gods had always been tied to location. Even the God of Abraham called Israel to a land that was given to them. The logical assumption was that God was tied to that land. It was with Ezekiel's vision that God finally became the God of all Creation, in fact as well as in profession. Clearly this was a long time in coming, but we tend to retroject beliefs on earlier times, and this belief in God's transcendence took another few centuries and the final destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. to become an accepted doctrine. But Ezekiel's vision gave Israel reason to believe they could "sing the Lord's song in a foreign land."
Perhaps we need the boundaries to be shattered again.
"Cultures in which female circumcision is common are strongly patriarchal and pronatalist. Women in these traditional cultures are believed to be weak and incapable of controlling their sexual urges. They are allowed little contact with men outside their families and are expected to hide their bodies from public view. Their social roles are circumscribed to child care and domestic functions....They are socialized by their mothers to believe that removal of external female genitalia is a religious obligation that promotes purity, cleanliness, and fertility....Their identities as desirable women depend on the submission of their physical bodies to the dictates of social norms. The custom embodies their inferior status."This comes from an essay, "Social Bodies: Tightening the Bonds of Beauty," by Deborah A. Sullivan, who is described as a professor of sociology at Arizona State University, so I assume the information is accurate enough. What caught my eye, of course, is the sentence in bold type. Precisely the opposite assumption of the one we make in the West, where there is even a question as to why women have orgasms (the subtext of the question being: why do women need to enjoy sex, since men have the stronger sexual urges anyway?) And, interestingly, just another way human beings establish identities (boundaries, more properly) for others, based on sexuality.
Homosexuals are another case in point. We cannot define homosexuality without puting sexual practice at the center of their identity. When we "define" male-female bonding (sexually, emotionally, socially, spiritually), we don't automatically define it in terms of sexual coupling. To the extent we do, we realize that is adolescent, and we soon move past it. We don't look at married couples and imagine their sexual practices alone. We take them as a couple, and consider the complexity of their lives. I never imagine another couple, whether old friends or mere acquaintances, in terms of what happens in their bedroom. But a gay or lesbian couple? It's the only topic on everyone's mind, even if it is the topic we dare not name. What do they do, how do they do it? This is the issue with the gay priests in the Episcopal church. Gene Robinson is apparently another step up the controversy ladder because he is not celibate. Which means, of course, we're all thinking of him in terms of what he does in the bedroom, not the bishopric.
Curiouser and curiouser...
In Paul's day (and Jesus'), people were divided by ethnos, a word which commonly carried a connotion of religious and moral inferiority among the Jews (as in Matthew 6). It's not coincidence the word is closely related to ethos: habits; laws; the customs of the fathers. People in first century Palestine, brought together under the Pax Romana, lived cheek by jowl with various and sundry cultures, a mix not uncommon in Europe and the Middle East today, but still so odd in America we call it "multiculturalism." It didn't serve to break down differences so much as to reinforce them, as a way of maintaining identity. Ethos and ethnos, then, come to define us. What habits and customs we approve determines who we accept as our "own." So when Paul said: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus," (Galatians 3:28), it was a radical statement indeed. Now our definition is to be in God: not in ethos, or ethnos, nor in sex or human law.
When the woman comes to anoint Jesus in Luke 7, it's easier now to see why she was considered a whore. Her sexual advances were on display for the entire roomful of men. To their understanding, she was doing exactly what women do: unable to control her sexual appetites, she was instead parading them. But Jesus chose to define her in God, and took what she offered as an act of devotion. It is not the act that is always the standard of definition: it is our arbitrary standards. It is where we choose to put the boundaries. And God is always pushing those boundaries around. From the Psalm this morning, for example:
50:7 "Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God.
50:8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me.
50:9 I will not accept a bull from your house, or goats from your folds.
50:10 For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
50:11 I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine.
50:12 "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine.
50:13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
50:14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High.
50:15 Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."
Part of the re-writing of the requirements of the law conducted by the Exilic prophets. Consider, for example, the reading from Hosea, also for this morning:
5:15 I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face. In their distress they will beg my favor:
6:1 "Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
6:2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.
6:3 Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth."
6:4 What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early.
6:5 Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.
6:6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
The Exile was the shattering of the boundaries for Israel. When Ezekiel saw the spirit of God leave the temple and mount a throne-chariot with four faces, able to go any direction at once and at will, it marked as dramatic a change in human history as the call of Abraham (according to Thomas Cahill, one of the "Hinges of History") or the Renaissance of Greco-Roman culture, or the Enlightenment itself. Until that vision, gods had always been tied to location. Even the God of Abraham called Israel to a land that was given to them. The logical assumption was that God was tied to that land. It was with Ezekiel's vision that God finally became the God of all Creation, in fact as well as in profession. Clearly this was a long time in coming, but we tend to retroject beliefs on earlier times, and this belief in God's transcendence took another few centuries and the final destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. to become an accepted doctrine. But Ezekiel's vision gave Israel reason to believe they could "sing the Lord's song in a foreign land."
Perhaps we need the boundaries to be shattered again.
"Jesus Had a Really Bad Weekend for your Sins"
I want to recommend the hour of "This American Life" that I just heard. I took the title for this post from it, somewhat out of context and therefore incorrectly. It's from Julia Sweeney's segment of the show. I first heard her do "And God said 'Ha!'" on "This American Life," if I remember correctly, and her segment in the current show is in that vein. She details her own spiritual crisis, one not unfamiliar to anyone in the 20th century who starts asking questions about God and faith and evil, and especially the atonement theory (if I dared, I'd adopt that quote as my personal label for the atonement theory, which is probably why I used it here).
The show is "In Defense of Godlessness." Unfortunately, it won't be available on their website until next week, if you missed it on the radio. It features a truly excellent historical summary of religion in American life. The historian interviewed argues that the "Founding Fathers" had a truly radical idea, one that grew out of the religiously based wars of 16th century Europe and was based on John Locke's argument that the cure for such horrors was a secular-based government. This idea was so radical that the Constitution almost was not approved, because of Article 6 (no religious tests to hold public office), which critics recognized would permit Catholics, Jews, "Mohammedans," and even infidels, to hold public office. In the 19th century Protestant clergy decided the Civil War was God's punishment for not mentioning God as the source of our law in the Constitution, and they wanted the Preamble amended to reflect the 'right' language.
And you thought Pat Robertson and James Dobson were recent phenomena.
When it comes up on the website next week, listen to it. It's worth it. Even Julia Sweeney's religious crisis, painful as it is, is worth it. She considers her attitude faithlessness, finally; the conviction that God is not there, that no one is overseeing our lives here, that death is merely the end of the brain and other bodily organs. I see it as the beginning of faith, as the extreme end Kierkegaard proposed we might need to come to, in order to come to belief. The "dark interval," as Crossan calls it, that we need in order to learn to rely on God, not ourselves. The mystics and monks call it part of the package, in one form or another. But we can talk about that later. It's still another subject.
The show is "In Defense of Godlessness." Unfortunately, it won't be available on their website until next week, if you missed it on the radio. It features a truly excellent historical summary of religion in American life. The historian interviewed argues that the "Founding Fathers" had a truly radical idea, one that grew out of the religiously based wars of 16th century Europe and was based on John Locke's argument that the cure for such horrors was a secular-based government. This idea was so radical that the Constitution almost was not approved, because of Article 6 (no religious tests to hold public office), which critics recognized would permit Catholics, Jews, "Mohammedans," and even infidels, to hold public office. In the 19th century Protestant clergy decided the Civil War was God's punishment for not mentioning God as the source of our law in the Constitution, and they wanted the Preamble amended to reflect the 'right' language.
And you thought Pat Robertson and James Dobson were recent phenomena.
When it comes up on the website next week, listen to it. It's worth it. Even Julia Sweeney's religious crisis, painful as it is, is worth it. She considers her attitude faithlessness, finally; the conviction that God is not there, that no one is overseeing our lives here, that death is merely the end of the brain and other bodily organs. I see it as the beginning of faith, as the extreme end Kierkegaard proposed we might need to come to, in order to come to belief. The "dark interval," as Crossan calls it, that we need in order to learn to rely on God, not ourselves. The mystics and monks call it part of the package, in one form or another. But we can talk about that later. It's still another subject.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Speaking of news coverage...
A few random bits from Harper's Index, )with oriignal references):
Funny, I didn't even hear that question being asked until 2004.
The connection here is U.S. news coverage. An Anglican gay bishop is ordained in England in 2003, and I didn't even know about it. An Episcopal gay bishop is ordained in America in 2004, and the Church is coming to an end. In fact, I learn about it while writing this post, checking Google because I can't remember where the conference occurred at which certain bishops were asked not to take communion. I type in "Gay Bishop Anglican," or some such, and this is the first story that comes up.
Hmmmmm.....
You see, it really is all about the U.S. (or "US"). If it doesn't happen here, it doesn't happen. 38 U.S. churches have not associated themselves with African diocese over the 2003 ordination. It's doubtful they were even aware of it. And, of course, the African diocese didn't seize the opportunity that the U.S. ordination and publicity accorded them. Yet I am told the Episcopal church is not, by any means, the largest part of the Anglican Communion.
Curiouser and curiouser....
As for what does happen here, the question of what our government is doing is still pressing upon us. Evidence continues to mount that, unlike Nixon, who was concerned with governance, just paranoid about his ability to do it, this Administration, as Molly Ivins has pointed out, seems only to be interested in ruling. They don't want responsibility, they only want power.
And so far, thanks in no small part to journalists like Judith Miller (when is Jeff Gerth going to retract his Whitewater stories?) they seem to have it.
Estimated number of U.S. intelligence reports on Iraq that were based on a single defector : 100[Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the U.S. Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington)]These surprise me. As someone with his ear held not too closely to the Episcopal ground, I'd understood there was a larger groundswell of outrage at the ordination of a gay Bishop. I wonder how much of that is weighted toward the U.S., how much toward Africa. It is a significant number, but it makes me wonder again about the actions at Lambeth. Of course, that was in 2004. I entirely missed this, from 2003.
Number of times the defector had ever been interviewed by U.S. intelligence agents : 0[Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the U.S. Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington)]
....
Percentage of the world's Anglican bishops that have condemned the U.S. Episcopal Church's ordination of a gay bishop : 34[Anglican Communion Network (Pittsburgh)]
Number of U.S. Episcopal churches that are now affiliated with dioceses in Rwanda or Uganda : 38
The appointment of a gay man has angered conservatives within the Worldwide Anglican Communion, which is locked in an increasingly hostile battle over the issue of homosexuality.
On Thursday, the Archbishop of Nigeria threatened that his church would break ties with the Diocese of Oxford if the appointment was not rescinded.
Many who read the Bible literally, point to a verse in the Old Testament condemning men having sex with each other as an "abomination"
So is the Anglican Communion about to break up?
Funny, I didn't even hear that question being asked until 2004.
The connection here is U.S. news coverage. An Anglican gay bishop is ordained in England in 2003, and I didn't even know about it. An Episcopal gay bishop is ordained in America in 2004, and the Church is coming to an end. In fact, I learn about it while writing this post, checking Google because I can't remember where the conference occurred at which certain bishops were asked not to take communion. I type in "Gay Bishop Anglican," or some such, and this is the first story that comes up.
Hmmmmm.....
You see, it really is all about the U.S. (or "US"). If it doesn't happen here, it doesn't happen. 38 U.S. churches have not associated themselves with African diocese over the 2003 ordination. It's doubtful they were even aware of it. And, of course, the African diocese didn't seize the opportunity that the U.S. ordination and publicity accorded them. Yet I am told the Episcopal church is not, by any means, the largest part of the Anglican Communion.
Curiouser and curiouser....
As for what does happen here, the question of what our government is doing is still pressing upon us. Evidence continues to mount that, unlike Nixon, who was concerned with governance, just paranoid about his ability to do it, this Administration, as Molly Ivins has pointed out, seems only to be interested in ruling. They don't want responsibility, they only want power.
And so far, thanks in no small part to journalists like Judith Miller (when is Jeff Gerth going to retract his Whitewater stories?) they seem to have it.
It's still Newsweek's fault...
A military inquiry has found that guards or interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba kicked, stepped on and splashed urine on the Koran, in some cases intentionally but in others by accident, the Pentagon said on Friday.Frankly, what's truly amazing about this article is what it says that is known to be wrong. Only the White House has said that the Newsweek article prompted violence in "the Muslim world" (which part is that? Did we divide up the globe between the three religions of Abraham, and nobody told me?). That has been specifically denied by Hamed Kharzai, and by Gen. Richard Meyers. The desecration of the Koran has been alleged by numerous sources, so many that the Pentagon's insistent claim of "no credible evidence" now sounds as legalistic and carefully parsed as "what the meaning of 'is,' is." And it all fits the pattern of word-games that have become the hallmark of this Administration.
The splashing of urine was among the cases described as inadvertent. It was said to have occurred when a guard urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into a detainee's cell. The detainee was given a fresh uniform and a new Koran, and the guard was reprimanded and assigned to guard duty that kept him from contact with detainees for the remainder of his time at Guantánamo, according to the military inquiry.
The investigation into allegations that the Koran had been mishandled also found that in one instance detainees' Korans were wet because guards on the night shift had thrown water balloons on the cellblock.
In another case, a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Koran, but investigators could not determine whether a guard or detainee had written it.
Last week, the head of the investigation, Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, commander of the Guantánamo Joint Task Force, announced at the Pentagon that his preliminary findings had uncovered five cases in which the Koran was mishandled at the prison, but he refused to provide details.
In releasing those details in a final report on Friday, General Hood emphasized that any abuse of the Koran was unusual and that the military had gone to great lengths to be sensitive to the detainees' religious faiths, including issuing more than 1,600 Korans at the detention center.
"Mishandling a Koran at Guantánamo Bay is a rare occurrence," General Hood said in a statement released by the military's Southern Command. "Mishandling of a Koran here is never condoned."
The investigation was started about three weeks ago after Newsweek magazine published an article asserting that a separate inquiry by the military was expected to find that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet at the detention center. The magazine later retracted the article, but the assertion led to violence in the Muslim world that left at least 17 people dead.
General Hood said last week that there was no credible evidence to substantiate the claim that a Koran had ever been flushed down a toilet at the prison.
So now we learn that the Koran wasn't flushed down a toilet, but was treated as a toilet, albeit in a way so convoluted and bizarre one has to wonder about the veracity of the excuse of "inadvertance." Now we are told there are only five instances deemed "credible" by the Pentagon, the same Pentagon that finds it entirely credible that all acts of torture and humiliation, while conducted across the globe at U.S. military prisons almost simultaneously, and all conducted by U.S. soldiers put in charge by superior officers, is the act of "bad apples" and individuals, and no one with command authority has any, well, authority in the matter. So while there is no "credible" evidence of intentional desecration of Korans (It's now the Britney Spears defense: "Oops! I did it again!"), there's plenty of evidence of negligence. As the article points out, why this evidence is credible is not explained in the report. Perhaps the distinction is being made as to where the desecrations took place, since the Human Rights Watch report alleges most desecrations occurred at Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta, the camps that preceded Gitmo. Perhaps it's all in the timing. Perhaps it's a question of what "credibility" means:
And there is, of course, the simple fact that this problem is not restricted to Gitmo, nor is it simply a problem of negligence on the part of a few guards. This press release was issued Thursday.
"The fact that ICRC documented these allegations, documented them and formalized them, I think makes a difference," [ICRC spokesperson Simon] Schorno said. "We researched them and found they were credible allegations."
Although Red Cross employees did not personally witness any mishandling of Qurans, Schorno said, they documented and corroborated enough reports from detainees to share them with Pentagon and Guantanamo officials in confidential reports.
Schorno said the Red Cross would not have raised the issue if it had been an isolated incident, but he would not offer specifics about the number of complaints.
But, of course, the Pentagon didn't bring any of this up in its new briefing to reporters, so it cannot be mentioned in this front page NYT article.
“In detention centers around the world, the United States has been humiliating Muslim prisoners by offending their religious beliefs,” said Reed Brody, special counsel for Human Rights Watch.
On December 2, 2002, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized a list of techniques for interrogation of prisoners at Guantánamo, which included “removal of all comfort items (including religious items),” “forced grooming (shaving of facial hair, etc.),” and “removal of clothing.” Each of these practices is considered offensive to many Muslims. These techniques were later applied in Afghanistan and Iraq as well.
The purpose of these techniques, Human Rights Watch said, is to inflict humiliation on detainees, which is strictly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.
Several former detainees have said that U.S. interrogators disrespected the Koran. Three Britons released from Guantánamo have alleged that the Koran was kicked and thrown in the toilet. A former Russian detainee, Aryat Vahitov, has reportedly made the same claim. A former Kuwaiti detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, has said that the throwing of a Koran on the floor led to a hunger strike at Guantánamo that ended only after a senior officer expressed regret over the camp's loudspeaker. Human Rights Watch also interviewed detainees who described a protest at a U.S. detention site at Kandahar airbase in Afghanistan in early 2002 that was set off by a guard’s alleged desecration of the Koran.
Erik Saar, a former Army translator at Guantánamo, has described a female interrogator wiping a detainee with what the prisoner was made to believe was menstrual blood.
U.S. personnel have also used dogs as part of the interrogation process, which—in addition to inducing fear—many Muslims consider to be unclean. In December 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld approved “using detainees’ individual phobias (such as fear of dogs) to induce stress” at Guantánamo. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq, authorized Abu Ghraib interrogators in September 2003 to “exploit Arab fear of dogs. ” The interrogators then used dogs on detainees in a manner that was captured in the Abu Ghraib photographs.
"but it's alright, it's alright
for we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what has gone wrong"
-Paul Simon, "American Tune"
Friday, June 03, 2005
Of Gulags and Gitmo
In agreement with Athenae, let me note that the point was made excellently on NPR tonight.
Gitmo is not a gulag. Neither is it a POW camp. It is something else. It is not (quite) Stalinesque; but it is not American. And it is certainly not good.
Gitmo is not a gulag. Neither is it a POW camp. It is something else. It is not (quite) Stalinesque; but it is not American. And it is certainly not good.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Those who do not learn from history...
Listening to "Democracy Now!" this morning, and they replayed a clip from the movie "All the President's Men," where "Deep Throat" tells Woodward that CREEP (the ability to translate that acronym is a test of your knowledge! Young whippersnappers need not apply!) manipulated the Democratic primary process to maneuver McGovern into being the candidate. "They wanted to run against McGovern," Deep Throat tells Woodward. And anyone who remembers what was revealed about the "dirty tricks" campaign cannot seriously doubt that CREEP both had that aim, and managed to succeed at it.
Amy Goodman also interviewed George McGovern, who recalled being told by even his friends that he could not accuse the President of the United States of being corrupt. He didn't say he was criticized for being too "shrill," but perhaps only because the political lexicon didn't yet include that term.
And then there was COINTELPRO, for which Mark Felt was responsible and convicted for illegal activities of that program (he was pardoned by Reagan). Jennifer Dohrn is being interviewed now, a woman who was investigated by the FBI on the orders of Mark Felt. She claims the FBI file on her included a plan to kidnap her son when he was born (she was pregnant when the FBI was pursuing her to get her sister, Bernadine Dohrn, a member of the Weather Underground, and because of her own political activism).
And all of this sounds so painfully familiar. Perhaps it is simply the nature of governance, to abuse power in the name of stability and security.
Note to the eagle-eyed: spellings of proper names have been corrected.
Amy Goodman also interviewed George McGovern, who recalled being told by even his friends that he could not accuse the President of the United States of being corrupt. He didn't say he was criticized for being too "shrill," but perhaps only because the political lexicon didn't yet include that term.
And then there was COINTELPRO, for which Mark Felt was responsible and convicted for illegal activities of that program (he was pardoned by Reagan). Jennifer Dohrn is being interviewed now, a woman who was investigated by the FBI on the orders of Mark Felt. She claims the FBI file on her included a plan to kidnap her son when he was born (she was pregnant when the FBI was pursuing her to get her sister, Bernadine Dohrn, a member of the Weather Underground, and because of her own political activism).
And all of this sounds so painfully familiar. Perhaps it is simply the nature of governance, to abuse power in the name of stability and security.
Note to the eagle-eyed: spellings of proper names have been corrected.
Great Selchie of Shule Skerry: Part 2
The problem with discerning evil begins with the problem of defining evil. It is essentially a moral proposition: evil is that which is not good. But this is not an essentially ethical proposition, at least not in the Western sense, where "ethics" comes from Aristotle's use of the term to describe the habits a member of a community should cultivate in order to achieve a "good" life ("good, " for Aristotle, being essentially one lived happily within a community, and through which one obtains all the benefits of that community). The word Aristotle used, "ethos," meant simply custom or habit. It did not convey the meaning of a systematic order of principles of behavior that it does today, and it certainly did not posit a state of opposition between "good" and "evil." That position, at least as understood in Western culture, as actually more Persian. We get the idea of good v. evil most directly from the Zoroastrians.
It really isn't even a concept in the Bible. God faces no opposition in Creation, or even in the Garden of Eden. It is Milton who later imagines Satan in possession of the snake. Satan has no place in the Hebrew Scriptures except in Job, and there he is merely the first "devil's advocate," providing a literary figure to pose challenges to God, but entirely without authority of his own. Satan reappears in "Q" for the temptations in the wilderness (he does not appear there in Mark, and John has no temptation scene at all). But the idea that God is not the only power on earth is distinctly non-Hebraic. So the idea of evil as a power, is a later Christian rendition, drawn from many sources, not the least of which is the Hellenistic idea that all creation is founded on chaos, which chaos will rule again if it is not actively, and ceaselessly, opposed.
But I digress.
The "problem of evil," then, is a creation of conflicting understandings. For the Hebrews, all things come from God. For the Greeks, all things come from human effort, and the caprice of the Gods (sometimes good; usually bad). The good stuff usually comes from human effort (see Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics). But that's really one question; the other one is, "what is evil?" How do we define it?
Definition, in part, is of course a matter of drawing boundaries, and boundaries are important definers not only of ideas, but of who we are. And defining "evil" allows us to extirpate it from ourselves. After all, I may not be good, but I am surely not "evil." "Evil" is an extreme, even an active thing, a malice that seeks destruction, the "power that seeks my life." But the predator seeks the life of the prey, and we no longer see that as evil, but simply as the balance of nature. Without predators the prey, from insects to deer, soon overrun their corner of the ecosphere. Predators are not evil, they are necessary.
People are evil, because they act out of motivations, because they act on free will. But to the extent that will is inhibited, is not under the control of the "self," (we can leave the establishment of the "self" in Western civilization for another day), we mitigate the punishment, the responsibility, for certain actions. As the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed yesterday, mens rea (a criminally culpable state of mind) is still a necessary part of our criminal law. In fact we get into trouble when we attach the word "evil" to people. It allows us to denigrate them, degrade them, de-humanize them, and then we are free to be evil, too, in the name of opposing evil.
Which is precisely why Jesus tells his disciples: "Love your enemy."
But isn't there evil in the world? If not human, then biological? Cancer, AIDS, bacteria, viruses, earthquakes, famine, flood, fire?
Evil is, first, a moral standard. Evil is not even understandable as a concept outside of some moral system, some moral framework. That framework may indeed be applicable to the world as a whole, but you first have to recognize what you are doing; you first have to take responsibility, as Sartre pointed out, for making that application, that system, universal. And then you have to consider whether or not that system, that standard of measure, has legitimate application to the cosmos as a whole, whether it applies in the truest sense of the word, "universally."
Tekn out of its moral context, but still retianing its moral overtones, "evil," we might agree, is at least that which will kill me, which seeks my life, whether maliciously or simply by its nature. Disease, virus, bacteria, cancer, psycopaths and murderers: all evil. But then is the gunner evil? The Selchie pronounces him good. (That line is so sharp the irony would cut your throat if you moved wrong.) The Selchie pronounces him good, and we can take it in a moral sense (he is a "good man"), a social sense, a professional sense (he is a "good gunner"). And yet he will kill, intentionally, the son and the Great Selchie. He will be a murderer, an intentional taker of life, of life as connected to human life as any life can be, because this animal, like us, can speak.
And yet, will that be evil? The Selchie doesn't think so. The Selchie thinks merely that is fate. This is the very definition of fatalism, the very root of the idea: not that death is to be embraced and welcomed, but that death is inevitable. Beowulf similarly faced death, accepting that his fate as a mortal was to die, and the only control he had was how to face that fate. The Selchie not only faces it, he knows precisely when it will happen, and knows long before, when it will happen. He knows his connection to the humans who hunt the selchies, and he accepts it. Indeed, what else can he do? It is not good; it is not evil; it is fate.
I was considering this again last night, trying to teach the rudiments of deductive reasoning to a writing class. I lean heavily on the syllogism chestnut of "All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal," and it suddenly occured to me how this worked as a piece of deductive reasoning. Mortality is proven by death, not by living. In the purest sense, we are none of us proven mortal until we die. We assume our mortality because of the syllogism; because everyone we know, and have known, and will know, have proven mortal. But we still have trouble accepting that we will die. As Derrida puts the question: "My death. Is it possible?" Even if we accept that it is, we still can't quite imagine what our death is; we still can't put ourselves in that place where the end might simply be blankness, non-existence, no-longer-me. We function in terms of the syllogism: since everyone else is mortal, we must be, too. But until that is proven true, we don't really know, and we don't really quite accept it.
The Selchie accepts it, which, in terms of the moral universe of the song, if not the moral reality which created it, is wisdom. But this wisdom leaves us with unanswered questions: is that all there is? Is good only definable by its shadow, its opposite? Is there ever an absolute absence of good, which absence has a presence and can be defined as "evil"? Or does good stand alone; and what would that look like?
It really isn't even a concept in the Bible. God faces no opposition in Creation, or even in the Garden of Eden. It is Milton who later imagines Satan in possession of the snake. Satan has no place in the Hebrew Scriptures except in Job, and there he is merely the first "devil's advocate," providing a literary figure to pose challenges to God, but entirely without authority of his own. Satan reappears in "Q" for the temptations in the wilderness (he does not appear there in Mark, and John has no temptation scene at all). But the idea that God is not the only power on earth is distinctly non-Hebraic. So the idea of evil as a power, is a later Christian rendition, drawn from many sources, not the least of which is the Hellenistic idea that all creation is founded on chaos, which chaos will rule again if it is not actively, and ceaselessly, opposed.
But I digress.
The "problem of evil," then, is a creation of conflicting understandings. For the Hebrews, all things come from God. For the Greeks, all things come from human effort, and the caprice of the Gods (sometimes good; usually bad). The good stuff usually comes from human effort (see Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics). But that's really one question; the other one is, "what is evil?" How do we define it?
Definition, in part, is of course a matter of drawing boundaries, and boundaries are important definers not only of ideas, but of who we are. And defining "evil" allows us to extirpate it from ourselves. After all, I may not be good, but I am surely not "evil." "Evil" is an extreme, even an active thing, a malice that seeks destruction, the "power that seeks my life." But the predator seeks the life of the prey, and we no longer see that as evil, but simply as the balance of nature. Without predators the prey, from insects to deer, soon overrun their corner of the ecosphere. Predators are not evil, they are necessary.
People are evil, because they act out of motivations, because they act on free will. But to the extent that will is inhibited, is not under the control of the "self," (we can leave the establishment of the "self" in Western civilization for another day), we mitigate the punishment, the responsibility, for certain actions. As the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed yesterday, mens rea (a criminally culpable state of mind) is still a necessary part of our criminal law. In fact we get into trouble when we attach the word "evil" to people. It allows us to denigrate them, degrade them, de-humanize them, and then we are free to be evil, too, in the name of opposing evil.
Which is precisely why Jesus tells his disciples: "Love your enemy."
But isn't there evil in the world? If not human, then biological? Cancer, AIDS, bacteria, viruses, earthquakes, famine, flood, fire?
Evil is, first, a moral standard. Evil is not even understandable as a concept outside of some moral system, some moral framework. That framework may indeed be applicable to the world as a whole, but you first have to recognize what you are doing; you first have to take responsibility, as Sartre pointed out, for making that application, that system, universal. And then you have to consider whether or not that system, that standard of measure, has legitimate application to the cosmos as a whole, whether it applies in the truest sense of the word, "universally."
Tekn out of its moral context, but still retianing its moral overtones, "evil," we might agree, is at least that which will kill me, which seeks my life, whether maliciously or simply by its nature. Disease, virus, bacteria, cancer, psycopaths and murderers: all evil. But then is the gunner evil? The Selchie pronounces him good. (That line is so sharp the irony would cut your throat if you moved wrong.) The Selchie pronounces him good, and we can take it in a moral sense (he is a "good man"), a social sense, a professional sense (he is a "good gunner"). And yet he will kill, intentionally, the son and the Great Selchie. He will be a murderer, an intentional taker of life, of life as connected to human life as any life can be, because this animal, like us, can speak.
And yet, will that be evil? The Selchie doesn't think so. The Selchie thinks merely that is fate. This is the very definition of fatalism, the very root of the idea: not that death is to be embraced and welcomed, but that death is inevitable. Beowulf similarly faced death, accepting that his fate as a mortal was to die, and the only control he had was how to face that fate. The Selchie not only faces it, he knows precisely when it will happen, and knows long before, when it will happen. He knows his connection to the humans who hunt the selchies, and he accepts it. Indeed, what else can he do? It is not good; it is not evil; it is fate.
I was considering this again last night, trying to teach the rudiments of deductive reasoning to a writing class. I lean heavily on the syllogism chestnut of "All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal," and it suddenly occured to me how this worked as a piece of deductive reasoning. Mortality is proven by death, not by living. In the purest sense, we are none of us proven mortal until we die. We assume our mortality because of the syllogism; because everyone we know, and have known, and will know, have proven mortal. But we still have trouble accepting that we will die. As Derrida puts the question: "My death. Is it possible?" Even if we accept that it is, we still can't quite imagine what our death is; we still can't put ourselves in that place where the end might simply be blankness, non-existence, no-longer-me. We function in terms of the syllogism: since everyone else is mortal, we must be, too. But until that is proven true, we don't really know, and we don't really quite accept it.
The Selchie accepts it, which, in terms of the moral universe of the song, if not the moral reality which created it, is wisdom. But this wisdom leaves us with unanswered questions: is that all there is? Is good only definable by its shadow, its opposite? Is there ever an absolute absence of good, which absence has a presence and can be defined as "evil"? Or does good stand alone; and what would that look like?
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