"How Should We Then LIve?"

Well, the new hot topic in ecclesiology (at least on the web) is the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a Richard Mellon Scaife funded outfit:

...founded to address the greatest threats to religion and democracy. At the time, in 1981, communism was arguably great threat and sadly many churches sided with the communists. Today same-sex marriage, also supported by many churches, represents a profound threat to religion and democracy—specifically to religious freedom—in America for precisely the reason Maggie Gallagher states: the debate is framed as a civil rights issue. If same-sex marriage becomes the law of the land, opposition to same-sex marriage and homosexual behavior will be viewed as a civil rights violation—even if that opposition is for religious reasons.

That's their statement, by the way. They also describe themselves as "Reforming the Church's Social and Political Witness." Which direction that reform should take is illustrated by stuff like this:

Che Guevara's bloodstained prisons still survive in Fidel Castro's Cuba, filled with yet another generation of dissidents and human rights activists. Not that you would learn this fact from reading the resolution on Cuba offered by the Standing Commission on Anglican and International Peace with Justice Concerns of the Episcopal Church Executive Council.

Now, my first reaction to this is to wonder why the good people at Street Prophets and State of Belief aren't simply quoting from the IRD's website, rather than trying to develop what honestly sound like conspiracy theories. Renee in Ohio actually does us all a service providing transcripts of the State of Belief show on this topic, but once again, it is all so exasperatingly general and trickle down in approach:

John Dorhauer: As a local church pastor for 16 years, I was aware of churches in the surrounding area who were experiencing extreme levels of conflict over what became known as the "wedge issues" of the day. Twenty years ago it was the ordaination of women, a few years after that it was abortion, and now it's homosexuality. And I discovered over time that churches within the United Church of Christ were willing to disaffiliate over these issues.

It took me a while to sort of lose that narrow perspective of experiencing that in the local church and realize the same thing was happening on a national basis, not just across the United Church of Christ, but across mainline Protestant Christianity. And it was, for me, the work of Andrew Weaver that first helped me to make those connections.

Gaddy: Dr. Weaver, how did you come to a conclusion about it?

Weaver: I began to do research after I read a book United Methodists at Risk, which was published by a prominent bishop in the United Methodist Church, Dale White, and others. Basically they were saying that outside money from Richard Mellon Scaife and political operatives like Adolf Coors were funneling money into an attack on churches. This has no precedent in American church history. At that time I had a research department with a couple of PhDs and research assistants, so I got all the material and read for six months, and became absolutely convinced that this was the case. And after that I felt called to speak out like Paul Revere, and ring the bell of alarm. There is no doubt whatsoever, Welton, that this is a systematic effort to undermine mainline churches, who still have transparent democratic processes in them that become an area for the culture wars.

The exasperating thing about this for me, as a pastor, is knowing that while there are certainly "outside forces" working on local churches, the truly more influential ones are corporate interests (expressed through advertising) and "successful preachers", i.e., the ones who preach the "gospel of wealth" (like, yes, Joel Osteen). A pastor's usual problems come, in other words, not from some evil cabal, but from the deviousness of the human heart. I don't mean that the good pastors who spoke on State of Belief were naive or credulous; but anytime we start attributing fundamental problems to "outside forces" rather than much more human causes, we are already blundering into "Da Vinci Code" and "Illuminati" territory (Dan Brown's protagonist, for those who don't know, in an earlier novel was caught in a struggle between the Catholic church and the Illuminati, something invented, actually, for the parody "Church of the Sub-Genius," but which has taken on a life of its own. Ironies abound).

As I say, it's hard to look at the IRD's website and not wonder: "what the...?" It seems to be a kind of Media Matters for the churches, but since when did the churches wield half the influence that the New York Times, or even Hannity and Colmes, does? And, of course, there's a noteable silence in the complaints of the IRD about the statements for Pat Robertson or James Dobson or Jerry Falwell. The slant, and the purpose, are obvious. That said, there is still the question: what do we do?

There is always a critical, as in essential, nature to Tolstoy's famous question, and it impacts us no more directly than it does when we are considering how to live within, or respond to, what seem to be major forces shaping our lives. "Think globally, act locally," is the accepted response. Except Wendell Berry shreds that one; we cannot serve two masters, is essentially his argument. We are incapable of thinking globally, he responds; it is simply too large a space, with too many unforeseen or foreseeable consequences, and we cannot imagine beyond the limits of our own knowledge. No, thinking globally, he argues, is a kind of lazy arrogance that allows us to uncritically do what we want to do, while imagining we are reaping cosmic benefits in the world. It puts us, in other words, at the center of the universe. Which, I would maintain, is precisely the error of the people who established and are running IRD; and that is also precisely the appeal IRD makes to church members.

Selfishness is the Original Sin. Understand that, and many other things begin to make sense. Selfishness, the inability and unwillingness to consider a world beyond the boundaries of your own self, a world that is not shaped by you and responds to your every psychic need and upholds and reaffirms your every psychic wish, is the sin upon which all other sin rests. I have seen churches founder too often because church members could not see the bigger picture, could not imagine beyond their own needs. But do you get them to see that larger picture by insisting on larger action, or general activity rather than a specific response? No. Almost never. You have to approach them individually. You have to take it person by person.

And you have to meet them as a person. Not as a representative of the enemy, a dupe of the IRD, a tool of the right-wing political machine. You have to take them as they are, and try to reshape them, if you can, if they are willing and if God is working through you. It is work of the utmost humility, and it cannot be done by calls to arms or rallying to plans of action or even by identifying a greater "outside" enemy. My arms, in the words of the great poem, may be too short to box with God; well, they are too short to box with Satan, either. I cannot fight the IRD, and I cannot fight it in the proxy of an angry church member. I have to identify people for who they are, not for what I think they believe, or how I think they are being used.

I once was touring a German pastor, a young woman of my generation, through my church. She was here for an exchange between our historically connected churches (part of the UCC is the old German Evangelical and Reformed Church). She noted the American flag in the sanctuary and admitted, given her nation's history, how troubling that was. I agreed with her, but her chaperone and driver for the trip, a man of my father's generation, vigorously defended that flag in that place. I would rather remove it, and never saluted it or acknowledged it in any way, especially as I refused to "pledge allegiance" to anything except God in a place dedicated to God's worship (the pledge was recited, as a matter of course, on Scout Sunday, when the flag was processed in, much as the priests process with the cross in the Episcopal church I now attend). Was he a dupe of the IRC? Would he have been, had I removed that flag, and insisted its use, especially in a procession before worship, was a clear sign of the secular religion of America? I suppose I could make that argument, but it's a bootless one.

Another story, closer to the concerns of the IRD: the UCC ordains gays and lesbians as ministers, and has done so for years. Or rather, it permits their ordination, but under UCC polity, such persons cannot demand ordination (that is done by Associations, who are autonomous), nor can it force a church to accept such a person as their pastor (congregations are also autonomous). As a representative of the Association at one time, I worked with a church where some members were upset about this fact. The opponents were vociferous, bitter, angry, almost vile. They were also between pastors, so I had no idea how this would end, but I suspected the church might leave the denomination.

Today, with a new pastor and a few years later, that church is "Open and Affirming," a UCC designation which means they have voted, as a church, to publicly and affirmatively accept gays and lesbians as members of their worshipping body. Had that pastor not treated those people in his congregation as people, that never would have happened.

I've seen church officials treat pastors as groups ignorant of wider issues, rather than as colleagues with issues that deserve as much consideration and respect as the larger public issue which seems so simple when taken in the abstract, and becomes so "messy" when applied "on the ground," among the people. So much of ministry is simply "acompanamiento," as Oscar Romero said. The people in the pews are assailed by a multitude of small issues: rapid changes in society; in social mores; the disintegration of neighborhoods, of families, the scattering of children across the nation; the aging of society (most mainline churches are dominated by "old grey heads" in the pews, especially in the smaller churches, which are still the bulk of the membership of Protestant denominations); the spiritual assault on individuals of the demands of the market, the corporation, all the pleasures and terrors and destruction and promise of industrialization, played out in individual lives. These are just a few of the issues that impact people, and they impact congregations far more directly than the rantings of IRD.

Should church leaders be concerned about IRD? Yes, absolutely; we don't need one more fox in the henhouse. But should we imagine that our primary fight, and our primary purpose, is to defend ourselves against them? No more than George W. Bush should imagine that America exists only to be in a ceaseless global war with "terrorism."

Wisdom of the Desert

"Society--which meant pagan society, limited by the horizons and prospects of life 'in this world'--was regarded by them as a shipwreck from which each single individual man [sic] had to swim for his life. We need not stop here to discuss the fairness of this view: what matters is to remember it as fact. These were men who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster. The fact that the Emperor was now Christian and that the 'world' was coming to know the Cross as a sign of temporal power only strengthened them in their resolve.

"It should seem to us stranger than it does, this paradoxical flight from the world that attained its greatest dimensions (I almost said frenzy) when the 'world' became officially Christian. These men seem to have thought, as a few rare modern thinkers like Berdyaev have thought, that there is really no such things as a 'Christian state.' They seem to have doubted that Christianity and politics could ever be mixed to such an extent as to produce a fully Christian society. In other words, for them the only Christian society was spiritual and extra-mundane: the Mystical Body of Christ. These were extreme views, and it is almost scandalous to recall them in a time like ours when Christianity is accused on all sides of preaching negativism and withdrawal--of having no effective way of meeting the problems of the age."

--Thomas Merton, "Wisdom of the Desert," The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers (New York: New Directions 1960), p. 3-4

"In India the poor are terrorists."--Arundhati Roy

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Jesus was poor. Jesus died as a political prisoner, a threat to the power of Rome, which reserved crucifixion for threats against the state, against the imperial theology of Augustus, who was divine, and Octavian, the son of the divine, the "son of god;" and "Divi Claudi," the divine Claudius, who ruled during Paul's peregrinations as a preacher of the Gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ. We want to divide religion from politics today; but that was impossible in Paul's day, and even the proclamation of Jesus as the Son of God was not so much an irreligious statement, as it was an uncivil one:

That opening [of 1 Thessalonians] "Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church (ekklēsia) of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace," was much more subversive than we imagine. The standard Pauline term for a Christian community is ekklēsia, a Greek word today usually translated "church." But the word originally meant citizens of a free Greek city officially assembled for self-governmental decisions. Maybe that was perfectly innocent, but also maybe not. And anyone familiar with Judaism would have heard in his "peace" the content of the Jewish shalom of justice and not that of the Latin pax of victory.

Next, Paul belives absolutely that "Jesus" or the "Messiah/Christ" or the "Lord" all refer to the same person. Paul can spaek of the Lord Jesus Christ or of the Lord Jesus or, most simply, of the Lord. On the one hand, "lord" was a polite term usable by slave to master or disciple to teacher. On the other, "the Lord" meant the emperor himself. What we see here is what Gustav Adolf Deissmann described, almost a hundred years ago, as "the early establishment of a polemical parallelism between the cult of Christ and the cult of Caesar in the application of the term kyrios, 'lord.'" Or, if you prefer, polemical parallelism as high treason. (In Search of Paul, John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, (New York: HarperCollins 2004, p. 166.)

And then there is the issue of the gospel of Jesus, one gospel (euaggelion, although it is pronounced "euangelion") v. the plural gospels (euggelia), good news, of dynastic succession and imperial victories from Rome, good news which created one of the Golden Ages of Rome, of peace and stability and wealth, at least for as long as Rome ever knew.

You begin to see that in Paul, in the kergyma of the kingdom of God, the religious is always the political. But only in the imperial theology of Rome, where Augustus is divine, and his adopted son Octavian is filius divi (son of god), and where even Claudius claims the mantle of the divine through Augustus (after Caligula's four years of rule are ended by the military), the political is not properly religious. Consider Crossan and Reed's analysis of parousia:

In its ancient context parousia means the arrival at a city of a conquering general, an important official, an imperial emissary, or, above all, the emperor himself. Whether that advent was good or bad news for the citizens depended absolutely on their prior relationship with the arriving one. It is probably necessary in those cases to translate parousia not just as "visit," but as "visitation." (p. 167)

Paul, in I Thessalonians, writes of the parousia of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is clear he is referring to the parousia of the emperor. Why, because he says "the dead in Christ will rise first." Which is who would greet the emperor first, entering a city as Paul knew it: the graveyards would be outside the city, on the main road, the finest crypts and sarcophagi of the most eminent persons seen first and nearest the road, "the imperial visitor meeing first the elite dead before any meeting with the elite living." And then the faithful, like the elite of the city, greet their lord "in the middle of the air," or outside the city, and welcome him in. Lead him in because:

...the parousia metaphor means that Christians do not ascend to stay with Christ in heaven, but to return with him to this transformed world. Paul says nothing about an eschatological world or utopian earth here below, but simply that all believers 'will be caught up in the clouds...to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever." The metaphor of parousia as state visit would presume that those going out to greet the approaching ruler would return with him for festive rejoicing within their city. So also with Christ....The parousia of the Lord was not about destruction of earth and relocation to heaven, but about a world in which violence and injustice are transformed into purity and holiness." (p. 170)

But the ruler coming to the city doesn't come to establish his rule; he comes to be received and to celebrate with his subjects. The parousia is not just about the kingdom to come; it is also about the kingdom that is already here.

Hobson's Choice

I got involved enough in this discussion with Pastor Dan (here and then here) that I thought I should address it a bit more fully.

First, the great thing about blogs is the freedom of discussion. But the great problem of blogs is that all discussion soon becomes polarized. This seems to be a fundamental problem of American culture, where politics and religion are sources of personal identity, and so we are never to speak of either one in polite company. Not because they are impolite topics, but because we cannot seem to stay polite about them. If I link to a post, for example (and I've linked to both of the above before) it isn't to approve or to snarkily disapprove of their content; it's to indicate the breadth of the possible discussion. But links in blogs usually mean either (a) "great stuff over here!" or (b) "can you believe these idiots would form such opinions, much less publish them?" So again, I'm going for (c) "what other people have to say about this."

Part of my issue with politics and religion is not the Jeffersonian one of keeping the two separated, or even the William O. Douglas one of keeping a wall between civic responsibility and the religious sphere. I certainly disagree with the reductionist and dismissive "religion is personal." Well, so is the political; why is one permitted in the public square, and not the other? But that just goes 'round and 'round. My problem with politics and religion is a theological one: the paradox of the crucified God, or the power of powerlessness, which conversely exposes the powerlessness of power. It is, for me, the great lesson of the crucifixion (and the problem of the atonement theory, in part, is that it allows the crucifixion to be a purely personal matter, which gets us back to the dismissal of religion from the public sphere because it is "personal.").

That's one issue, but here's the other. Pastor Dan argues that what he first wants is the (legal, let us emphasize) removal of the gang of idiots currently administering the laws and foreign policy of this country (I think the term he uses is "corrupt bastards and their stupid, malignant ideology," which is a more forceful way of putting it.) Here's my problem with that line of argument, and admittedly it's a pessimistic one, but: and replace them with whom?

Name a Democrat who upheld the UN Report on Guantanamo Bay and decried the torture and violation of every fundamental law and legal standard of Western civilization it represents. Tak your time, I'll wait.

Name one platform of John Kerry's campaign which indicated the "GWOT" would not only not be fought, but would be condemned as the idiocy and insanity it is and should be declared, even by people who are not Christian pacifists.

Name one Democrat who has asked the President: what the hell? You go to New Orleans twice for photo ops, and neither time does it look any different than it did in September of '05? Mr. President, just how incompetent and corrupt and worthless is your Administration?

Name one Democrat who has stood up and said: wiretapping Americans is illegal, unconstitutional, unnecessary, and we've seen no evidence that it even works.

I could go on, and on, and on. The Democratic response would be a variation on the Clintonian one: it isn't politically expedient; it would be political suicide to speak up against the GWOT; or national security; nobody really cares about New Orleans anyway; etc., etc., etc. And all of this would be excused as simply a "failure of leadership" in the Democratic party which could be corrected, if a "leader" could just be found, would just step forward.

But it isn't a failure of leadership, and it isn't a lack of vision. It's the status quo, and if the two parties represent anything, it's the status quo. There is no serious question but that the Republicans and the Democratcs represent two sides of the same coin, and it's naive to think one will correct what the other has destroyed. What did Jimmy Carter do to restore the shattered office of President after Richard Nixon? He was hounded and berated at every turn and replaced with Ronald Reagan, who was more congenial than Nixon but who presided over a White House just as determined to use Presidential power despite the law or the consequences. Was he punished for that? Did America disapprove? Who cried for Oscar Romero, for Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Jean Donovan, Dorothy Kazel, or "all the martyrs of...Salvador?" Have we ever learned to restrict US military power? If so, when?

What will a Democratically controlled Congress do about Iraq? New Orleans? The NSA? Medicare? Health insurance? What would President Kerry, President Gore, President Feingold, do in 2008? Anything? Really change anything? Issue executive orders shutting down Gitmo? Repeal all the EO's Bush has signed, repudiate his "signing statements," order troops home from Iraq, seek rapprochemant with the UN? Really?

Because I see no evidence of it. I see no indication any candidate for President on a Democratic ticket, or even in a Democratic primary, would announce those steps. And why don't I? Because it is what is needed; not just less venial neo-conservatives in the Adminsistration, but a true repudiation of what Bush/Cheney has wrought. But it won't happen, because power doesn't work that way. A Democratic President might not exert as much power as George W. Bush has, but they won't work to retract those extensions of Presidential authority, either. They won't dismantle the NSA, destroy all the illegally obtained records, make heads roll, clean the corruption out of the Pentagon (NPR had a story this morning making it clear the torture practices were not "bad apples" at the prison level) , tear up all the contracts Bush has issued for "border security," start an investigation of Halliburton, and begin giving as much power and money as possible to Louisiana so they can rebuild the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.

It. Just. Isn't. Gonna. Happen.

Politically, and strictly politically, those are our choices: Tweedledee, or Tweedledum.

So now what?

Knowing the truth, being set free

Start here (and you'll have to wade an advertisement, a la Salon, to see it; apologies). The TIME cover labels them "Radical Chicks." Really? Complaining about the President in public is radical, now? But the story is interesting, and the best part may be right here, in the reminder that these are Texas women:

Natalie Maines is one of those people born middle finger first. As a high school senior in Lubbock, Texas, she'd skip a class a day in an attempt to prove that because she never got caught and some Mexican students did, the system was racist. After Maines joined the Dixie Chicks, and the Dixie Chicks became the biggest-selling female group in music history—with suspiciously little cash to show for it—she and her bandmates told their record label, Sony, they were declaring themselves free agents. (In the high school that is Nashville, this is way worse than skipping class.) Now that she's truly notorious, having told a London audience in 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas," Maines has one regret: the apology she offered George W. Bush at the onset of her infamy. "I apologized for disrespecting the office of the President," says Maines. "But I don't feel that way anymore. I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever."

...

Whether the Dixie Chicks recover their sales luster or not, the choice of single has turned their album release into a referendum. Taking the Long Way's existence is designed to thumb its nose at country's intolerance for ideological hell raising, and buying it or cursing it reveals something about you and your politics—or at least your ability to put a grudge above your listening pleasure. And however you vote, it's tough to deny that by gambling their careers, three Texas women have the biggest balls in American music.

The story in Texas is that the Southern Baptist Convention, many years ago, decided to impose on all its churches the requirement that women be subservient to their husbands, as dicatated by the pseudo-Pauline passage in Colossians (we can discuss why that is pseudo-Pauline later). But the SBC has most of its churches in Texas, and although Texans are good Baptists, Texas women did not take kindly to being told to be quite that submissive.

And so a number of Texas churches left the convention. That's why I refer to the Dixie Chicks as Texas women. Now, compare that to this editorial by Richard Viguerie (yes, that Richard Viguerie):

As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."

Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.

Which is precisely the problem: when did support for the President become an act of patriotism? During the Great Depression? The New Deal? After Pearl Harbor? Vietnam? No. After 9/11. And now even Mr. Viguerie is disappointed:

In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.

We're still waiting.

Part of the disappointment, I would aver, is due to bad political philosophy. As Studs Terkel told Jon Stewart, this is America; we can tell the President to bugger off!

Viguerie is shaken, but not yet stirred. You can't expect him to have become a progressive, after all, although he almost sounds like one:

But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.

But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.

His conclusion is that the GOP is only interested in power, not in ideological (read "social") issues like abortion and gay marriage. Ironically, the angrier he gets, the more he sounds like a progressive; just one with a different agenda, but concerned about the same thing: "getting these corrupt bastards and their stupid, malignant ideology out of power, for good."

But complacency is bad, too. As Natalie Maines says:

Now when they talk about "the Incident," as they unfailingly call it, the Dixie Chicks try to write it off as an absurdity. Maines has powerful gusts of indignation and real disdain for a few right-wing websites and talk-show hosts, but what seems to linger most is disappointment in her pre-controversy self. "I think I'd gotten too comfortable living my life," she says. "I didn't know people thought about us a certain way—that we were Republican and pro-war."

And there's also an issue of control. Are musicians supposed to be popular? Or be good musicians?

"I'd rather have a smaller following of really cool people who get it," says Maguire, "who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith. We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do."

And that's back to the issue of power. Popular equals powerful, we all say; that is, until the popular celebrity disabuses us of the notion they share our values, our politics. And good artists always have small followings, even if they are Picasso or Stravinsky. The rest of us know we are supposed to appreciate it, but somehow we never quite do; and while "A Soldier's Tale" or "Guernica" might teach us a great deal if we chose to study them, somehow we just don't. Which is fine; but those who do study it, can't expect the rest of us to be as interested as they are. And the recording artist has to decide whether to sell records, or to make music. As Maines says:

"It was awesome to feel those feelings again that I felt in high school: to be angry, to be sure that you're right and that the things you do matter. You don't realize that you're not feeling those feelings until you do. And then you realize how much more interesting life is."

So maybe it's not about being effective; maybe it is about "authentic being."

Apres nous le deluge

The NYT starts to tell the story of how we got where we are today in Iraq:

"More attention should have been paid to the police after the fall of Baghdad," said Mr. Miller, one of the officials who objected to the original proposal to deploy thousands of advisers. "That is obvious. Iraq needed law and order established."

The question persists: how are "law and order" established? Force of arms? Or agreement of the governed? One would think this would be obvious to as Hobbesian a foreign policy Administration as the current one is. But no; they aren't, of course, Hobbesian at all. They are clueless, and rather than accept that the monarchy must be responsible to the governed, they blame the governed for not supporting the monarch (Hobbes, IOW, would have this group for lunch):

Administration officials say that the insurgency, more than any other factor, has slowed their progress. While field training has been limited, they point out that most of the 152,000 police officers have attended nine new training academies, some for as long as 10 weeks.

Destroy all the institutions of a culture that give organization of the society both meaning and function, and what result do you expect? Hobbes could tell you. But that, obviously, is a question this Administration never considered:

Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner sent to Iraq in 2003 to lead the police mission, said Pentagon officials gave him just 10 days notice and little guidance.

"Looking back, I really don't know what their plan was," Mr. Kerik said. With no experience in Iraq, and little time to get ready, he said he prepared for his job in part by watching A&E Network documentaries on Saddam Hussein.

So let's go with excuses:

In interviews, White House and Pentagon officials defended their decisions, saying that it would have been impossible to find thousands of qualified trainers willing to go to Iraq and that deploying large numbers of foreign officers would have angered Iraqis and bred passivity.

"Where it was possible to have a light footprint, that was preferable to a heavy-handed approach," the National Security Council said in a written response to questions. "The strategy was to support the Iraqis in every way possible and to enable them to do their jobs, not to take over their jobs."

An argument which simply makes no sense at all, unless you consider the avoidance of responsibility which is the hallmark of this Administration and, not coincidentally, the pattern and defining characteristic of the President's life.

Atrios is right: read the whole article. But it isn't a question of how any of those responsible sleep at night; clearly they sleep very well. They don't consider themselves responsible, and no amount of dunning, berating, blogging, or even good reporting, is likely to make them change their minds. Consider, for example, just how much depends on a red wheelbarrow; or on the health of one person:

On May 18, Mr. Kerik arrived in Baghdad and found "nothing, absolutely nothing" in place. "Twelve guys on the ground plus me," he recalled. "That was the new Ministry of Interior."

Mr. Mayer, the author of General Garner's police training plan who worked in the Department of Justice, had fallen ill in the United States, and the Justice Department team was apparently unaware of his prewar plan. Working from scratch, the team pulled together a new plan to train 50,000 to 80,000 members of an Iraqi police force.

"If you took all of the postconflicts from the 1990's and combined them together, it would not equal what you're up against in Iraq," recalled R. Carr Trevillian IV, the senior Justice Department official on the team. "Even if it were a benign environment."

At first, members suggested that Iraqi police recruits receive six months of academy training, the amount trainers settled on in Kosovo. Mr. Kerik said he "started laughing," and calculated that it would take nine years to train the force.

The team reduced academy training to 16 weeks, and eventually 8 weeks. Later, a 2005 State Department audit found that translating classes from English to Arabic ate up 50 percent of training time. With translation, Iraqi recruits received the equivalent of four weeks of training.

To make up for the shortened classes, the Justice Department team proposed a sweeping field training program similar to Mr. Mayer's. The team calculated that more than 20,000 advisers would be needed to create the same ratio of police trainers to recruits in Iraq as existed in Kosovo.

Deeming that figure unrealistic, they recommended placing 6,600 American and foreign trainers in police stations across the country to train Iraqis and, if necessary, enforce the law.

Entire academic seminars could be conducted pulling that story apart. For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost. Complete ignorance as to the obstacles being faced (the "hope is not a plan" proposal of 6 months training, v. the reality of 9 years to develop a police force); the decision, obviously made for bureaucratic reasons, to reduce the training to 16 weeks, and then to 8; the simple clerical issue ("all for want of a nail") of translating training documents from English to Arabic (everyone doesn't speak English? What are they, foreigners?); and then, when you can't possibly place enough people to do the job, place as many as you can and call it sufficient. The entire war effort in a nutshell. Need one point out we are no longer even hearing that Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein? Or that we are spreading democracy in the Middle East?

But all of that is nothing more than chasing the dog's tail, and finding out, when you are exhausted, that not only have you still not caught it, but you are still the dog. The question is really more fundamental. It's a philosophical one, a theological one. What is the nature of government? And what is human nature? Does law always produce order, or does law flow from order? It isn't a question of planning, but of what did we think we were doing? It's a question of what we think the nature of liberty is. Learned Hand, the great American judge, pointed out that: "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it." Liberty, in other words, is neither imposed, nor granted, it cannot even be preserved in law. It exists in a society, or it doesn't. Unleashing chaos does not unleash liberty; it destroys it. Freedom is not free? Liberty is not liberation. That should be the first lesson.

The only conclusion we can reach now about Iraq is: this Administration had absolutely no idea what it was doing. But clearly, we never should have thought it did.

The guiding light of eternity

O God, who broughtst me from the rest of last night
Unto the joyous light of this day,
Be Thou bringing me from the new light of this day
Unto the guiding light of eternity.
Oh! from the new light of this day
Unto the guiding light of eternity.

--from Carmina Gadelica

"Cry 'Havoc' and let slip..."

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A decorated Marine colonel turned anti-war congressman has said Marines killed at least 30 innocent Iraqi civilians "in cold blood" in Haditha in November, suggesting the death toll may be twice as high as originally reported.

"Give war a chance."--Thomas Friedman

Well, this is what it is. Slaughter. Massacre. Death. Ain't pretty. Ain't nice. Ain't neat and clean, with dead bad guys and grateful "innocents" lookin' on, all doe-eyed and ready now to become good Americanesque citizens of the world because violence has shown them the way to civilization.

Rome was civilized. And they slaughtered every man, woman, and child in Jerusalem for a petty disturbance. That wasn't the first slaughter, nor the last. But still, we all aspire to be Rome: to build our stability and our peace and our comfort on violence.

Well, this is what violence is. Power for the sake of power. And the one expression of absolute power available to humans, is to kill. We've gotten very good at it. We're just not very discriminating. "Support our troops," my ass. War itself sickens me. Can there even be a "just war"? In theory, perhaps; neve in reality. And reality is where we all end up living.

Anyone who thought for one minute that war was a justified response to anything that's happened to this country this century, this one's yours. Enjoy.

A wandering Aramean was my ancestor

A nomad; a person with no fixed place; like the Son of Man (Luke 9:58).

Ironic, isn't it?

When an alien resides with you in your land, you must not oppress him. He is to be treated as a native born among you. Love him as yourself, because you were aliens from Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 19:33 (REB) (with thanks to jane for the reference).

Israel was a land of immigrants, and their law told them to remember, always, that they were immigrants. As they are now, the aliens among you, you were then. So even those Israel displaced or put under new rule, were to be treated like the people of Israel. "Love him as you love yourself, because you were aliens in Egypt."

And in the Southwest, at one time. Stephen F. Austin assured the government of Mexico that his colonists would not seek independence. To this day, modern Texas culture owes so much to Mexico and Spain, it wouldn't be "Texas" culture without it: food; cowboys; rodeos; lariats. The only thing not distinctly Mexican or Spanish about Texas culture, is oil. "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us." As true in Texas as it is in New Mexico, or Arizona, or California.

After you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you to occupy as your holding and settle in it, you are to take some of the firstfruits of all the produce of the soil, which you harvest from the land the Lord your God is giving you, and, having put them in a basket, go to the place which the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. When you come to the priest, whoever he is at the time, say to him, "I acknowledge this day to the Lord your God that I have entered the land which the Lord swore to our forefathers to give us." The priest will receive the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God. Then you must solemnly recite before the Lord your God: "My father was a homeless Aramean who went down to Egypt and lived there with a small band of people, but there it became a great, powerful and large nation...."

Deuteronomy 26:1-5a (REB)

After the Exile, the idea of homelessness and immigrancy and being established in God, became a part of the liturgy, the ritual, of the people of Israel. They were to always remember that they were homeless and that they were once strangers in the land where they lived.

As our ancestors were. But we have no ritual for remembering; no law that reminds us to love the alien among us, as we love ourselves. All we have is a choice: to follow, to listen, to act.

Or to be a part of the world which is "America." So, who was your ancestor?

The reason the legal standard for crimes is "Innocent until proven guilty"

Under this Administration, we are all suspects until proven innocent.

After all, until the government analyzes the patterns of your phone records, we don't know if you're a terrorist or not, do we? And after we finish analyzing your records, you might start talking to terrorists, mightn't you? So we can never stop analyzing your records.

And we can never stop suspecting you of being guilty. Because as soon as we do that, you might actually be guilty. So you can never be innocent.

It's just too risky assume otherwise.

Alright, now he's scaring me

Representative John Culberson issued the following statement regarding President Bush's address to the nation last night:

"I believe that President Bush and his advisers recognize the severity of the problem along our border and the level of alarm it raises with the American people. The President also understands that securing our borders is the necessary first step towards any meaningful immigration reform. Although his decision to send 6,000 National Guard troops to the border is not likely to have any immediate impact on the situation since they will be unarmed and play only supporting roles, I am encouraged that President Bush embraced the idea of using local and state law enforcement to bolster the Border Patrol. The House bill includes a provision I authored to give $100 million to our southern border county sheriffs so they can hire, train, equip and deploy additional deputies within weeks.

"I am deeply concerned that the President is still advocating a guest worker program that puts millions of illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship and does not require workers to return to their home countries before applying for a temporary visa. The House is unwavering in its position that we cannot even discuss a guest worker program until we have secured our borders."

Just what kind of "impact" was he hoping to have? One that comes from a bullet? Is illegal immigration a capital crime? Are we to consider these people invaders?

As I said: the king must be secure in his subjects. And we gotta keep the brown people from crossing our borders, even if we have to shoot 'em (apparently our undefended border with Canada is less of a concern). No word yet on whether Rep. Culberson considers enrollment in the armed services a "guest worker" program or not.

And if a U.S. citizen gets shot, well, I guess that's the price we have to pay for our security, huh?

Prayer at Rising

Thou King of moon and sun,
Thou King of stars beloved,
Thou Thyself knowest our need,
O Thou merciful God of life.

Each day that we move,
Each time that we awaken,
Causing vexation and gloom
To the King of hosts Who loved us.

Be with us through each day,
Be with us through each night;
Be with us each night and day,
Be with us each day and night.

-from Carmina Gadelica

Louder and funnier

I missed the President's speech last night, but reading through it this morning, I'm wondering: who's zoomin' who?

The steps I have outlined will improve our ability to catch people entering our country illegally. At the same time, we must ensure that every illegal immigrant we catch crossing our southern border is returned home. More than 85 percent of the illegal immigrants we catch crossing the southern border are Mexicans, and most are sent back home within 24 hours. But when we catch illegal immigrants from other countries, it is not as easy to send them back home. For many years, the government did not have enough space in our detention facilities to hold them while the legal process unfolded. So most were released back into our society and asked to return for a court date. When the date arrived, the vast majority did not show up. This practice, called “catch and release,” is unacceptable and we will end it.

We’re taking several important steps to meet this goal. We’ve have expanded the number of beds in our detention facilities, and we will continue to add more. We’ve have expedited the legal process to cut the average deportation time. And we are making it clear to foreign governments that they must accept back their citizens who violate our immigration laws. As a result of these actions, we’ve have ended “catch and release” for illegal immigrants from some countries. And I will ask Congress for additional funding and legal authority, so we can end “catch and release” at the southern border once and for all. When people know that they’ll will be caught and sent home if they enter our country illegally, they will be less likely to try to sneak in.

Okay, he was the governor of Texas, and he's this stupid? It is well known that Mexicans illegally cross the border and, if they are caught and returned to Mexico, simply re-cross the border again at the first opportunity. They keep doing this until they don't get caught, either at the border or by La Migra somewhere in this country. Does he truly believe he's stopped anything, or that he's going to stop anything?

And if I've got this right, this is straight out of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers:

On a visit to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Laura and I met a wounded Marine named Guadalupe Denogean. Master Gunnery Sergeant Denogean came to the United States from Mexico when he was a boy. He spent his summers picking crops with his family, and then he volunteered for the United States Marine Corps as soon as he was able. During the liberation of Iraq, Master Gunnery — Master Gunnery Sergeant Denogean was seriously injured. And when asked if he had any requests, he made two: a promotion for the corporal who helped rescue him … and the chance to become an American citizen. And when this brave Marine raised his right hand, and swore an oath to become a citizen of the country he had defended for more than 26 years, I was honored to stand at his side.

So, apparently, illegal immigrants who can get into this country and then are willing to join our armed services should be allowed to be American citizens. Military service is a sponge that washes all illegality away.

Huh?

Once again, the problem is people, and the solution is power. Specifically, military power. That's what Culberson was calling for; that's what Bush is calling for. Free flow of capital across borders, but not the free flow of people. Heinlein was onto the same idea 45 years ago with the path the citizenship lying only through military service. It is the divine right of kings to be secure in their subjects. Kings owe their fealty to money, but kings can only rule by demanding fealty from their subjects. If we cannot demand fealty from those within our borders, how can we trust them to be good members of our society? And if we cannot be sure they are validly citizens of our society, how can we be sure we have their fealty?

Which isn't the problem at all. As Rick said below: "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us." This is an issue fomented in Colorado or Wisconsin, not in Texas or California. The proof that the Mexican border in Texas actually runs just below Houston west just south of Austin to El Paso is proven by Culberson's blinkered bigotry. No one in San Antonio, the third largest city in Texas, is advocating for stricter border control; and you'll find little support for it in Brownsville, or Eagle Pass, or Del Rio, or El Paso. You'll note all the border patrol stories on CNN come out of Arizona, not New Mexico, not California, not Texas.

But the real issue is fealty, and who is subject to the king's rule. If illegal immigrants can prove themselves as soldiers, if they can establish beyond a doubt their loyalty to the powers of the government, then they are worthy to hold citizenship. And good soldiers, of course, are always loyal to the king; who must, in turn, remain ever loyal to money.

Now do you see why the kingdom of heaven cannot be of this earth, and yet must be proclaimed as here, now, present among us? Because otherwise life is just a sad joke waiting for a better result on "the other side." And even medieval Europe didn't live under that bleak and pessimistic a weltanschaaung.

Fear of a Brown Planet

My congressperson writes an e-mail:

Dear District Seven Neighbor:

Tonight at 7 p.m. CDT , President George W. Bush will speak to the nation and describe his latest proposals for immigration reform. No one wants the President to succeed more than I do, and I have done my very best to support him and advise him on the feelings of his core supporters in west Houston's Congressional District 7, which his father first represented and where his parents now live. In fact, Congressional Quarterly recently published an analysis ranking all House members by the percentage of times each member voted in support of the President, and I ranked second overall at 93.5%. However, for many years I have been a vocal critic of the Bush Administration's refusal to protect our borders and enforce our immigration laws. The problem has never been inadequate laws. Congress has already passed all the border security and immigration laws we need. Unfortunately, the problem is the White House. The Chief Executive Officer of the United States has consistently refused to enforce or execute our immigration and border security laws and prevent illegal aliens and dangerous criminals from walking across the border or entering the U.S. openly by using the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS).

Tonight, I sincerely hope we will witness a dramatic change. I continue to hear and see strong signals that the President and his close knit group of core advisors finally understand how fed up the nation is with the Administration's continued refusal to protect our borders or enforce our immigration laws. I have been a vigorous advocate of deploying National Guard troops on the border and the House has repeatedly passed an amendment authored by Congressman Virgil Goode of Virginia to deploy troops on the border. I believe the President will announce this deployment tonight. I hope he will also empower them to make arrests and build the tent cities or bed space we need to arrest and house the thousands of illegals pouring over our borders every day. I have also urged Governor Rick Perry to call for volunteers to serve as auxiliary National Guard or auxiliary Texas Rangers and deploy them on the border to arrest and deter illegal aliens from crossing the Rio Grande.

Oh, boy, oh boy. Where do I sign up? Volunteer time on the Border: it's my idea of heaven! However, according to NPR this evening, the Guard will only provide support: drive trucks, fly helicopters, that kind of thing. Drat! And the tent cities might actually be an improvement over the colonias, so I don't know how well that will go over. Perry, by the way, announced the Texas National Guard has already been on the border. An aide later amended that statement to conform with reality: two NG soldiers went to the border to provide helicopter flight training; for a little while.

Best rethink the whole mess, huh?

It is important to watch the President's speech tonight, because if he remains committed to granting amnesty to illegal aliens, then the U.S. House of Representatives is our only backstop to prevent his proposal from becoming law. The House majority understands that our nation and simple common sense demand that we first enforce our existing immigration laws and protect the borders fully and completely before we even begin to debate a "guest worker" program. It is obvious that when a dam or a levee bursts and the flood waters pour in, the first priority is to sandbag the levee. Only after the flooding has stopped, do you consider what to do with the flood water and how to prevent future floods.

It is, of course, the liberal media's fault:

Since the Houston Chronicle is so strongly biased in favor of legalizing illegals and is consistent in their refusal to report on the massive national security threat created by our open, undefended borders, I will do my best to forward newspaper articles to you from around the country that will give you a more complete and accurate account of the scale of the problem. Below is an article from today's Washington Times, as well as a few other important articles.

It is difficult and unpleasant for me to oppose our President, especially when he is a fellow Texan and I know first hand how decent, honorable and good the entire Bush family is, but I was sworn to represent District Seven, not the White House. For a long time I tried to ring the fire bell about our open borders in a way that would minimize open disagreement with the President. When his top two local immigration officials stood on stage in Houston in April, 2004, at a town hall meeting that was called for illegal aliens and one of them told the group that the Bush Administration was not going to enforce our immigration laws and would not round up illegals or disturb them in any way, I was outraged, but I kept my complaints quiet and in writing. Surely, I thought, the White House will be as upset as my constituents and I are about the open refusal of these law enforcement officials to enforce the law. Unfortunately, the White House ignored my complaints and has continued to ignore immigration law enforcement so blatantly that in the last few weeks we have witnessed what I would have thought impossible - thousands upon thousands of law breakers marching in the streets waving Mexican flags demanding that our laws not be enforced.

When Mexican flags are illegal, only illegals will have Mexican flags! No, wait a minute....let's have a history lesson, instead. Apparently, America is the New Rome. And we'd better get good at it!

The fall of the Roman Empire occurred swiftly after Emperor Valens opened their borders in 376 A.D. and allowed the entire Goth nation to cross the Danube River en masse. A nation that will not protect its borders, its language or its culture and will not enforce its laws is doomed to repeat what happened to the Roman Empire. The massive scale of the migration of the Mexican nation into the United States far exceeds the scale of the Goth migration into Rome or any other migration in history. It is essential for the long term survival of the American Republic that we protect our borders and enforce our laws, and that we encourage legal immigration of people who want to become Americans by learning our common language, English, and assimilating into the American culture that honors individual liberty, hard work and self reliance.

No national anthem in Spanish! Oh, wait a minute.... And self-reliance? Under the government of George "Did I mention my name was "Bush" W. Bush?

Now that I have achieved my first goal as your Congressman - speeding up the reconstruction of the Katy Freeway

And all the businesses going out of business during the construction, and the nightmarish traffic it's producing, are hallmarks of your career, Congressman. Career, as you know, means "veering wildly."

- I am devoting every ounce of energy that my staff and I can muster to protect our borders and enforce our immigration laws. I will do my best to keep these email updates coming to you on a regular basis, and I intend to start making podcasts available on our website.

I can hardly wait.

I am deeply grateful for the privilege of representing you in the United States Congress.

John Culberson

Member of Congress

Well, at least he's not wasting postage.

Prayer attributed to St. Francis

"O Lord, make me an instrument of your Peace!
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is discord, harmony.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sorrow, joy.
Oh Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life."

Attended the last eucharist of the school year at my daughter's school today. Left with this prayer on my mind. More about the provenance of the prayer later; no matter who wrote the words, they are compelling, and a good centering place.

One More Reason I Don't Care What Adam Nagourney Wrote About Democrats

Because columns about who should win in November, or even who will win, are thumbsuckers.

This is what really matters:

Somehow, America has concluded that the scandal of Katrina was the government's response to the disaster, not the government's contribution to the disaster. The Corps has eluded the public's outrage -- even though a useless Corps shipping canal intensified Katrina's surge, even though poorly designed Corps floodwalls collapsed just a few feet from an unnecessary $750 million Corps navigation project , even though the Corps had promoted development in dangerously low-lying New Orleans floodplains and had helped destroy the vast marshes that once provided the city's natural flood protection.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's failures didn't inundate a city, kill 1,000 residents and inflict $100 billion in damages. Yet FEMA is justifiably disgraced, while Congress keeps giving the Corps more money and more power. A new 185-point Senate report on what went wrong during Katrina waits until point No. 65 to mention the Corps "design and construction deficiencies" that left New Orleans underwater. Meanwhile, a new multibillion-dollar potpourri of Corps projects is nearing approval on Capitol Hill.

That's because the Corps is an addiction for members of Congress, who use its water projects to steer jobs and money to their constituents and contributors. President Bush has opposed dozens of the most egregious boondoggles, but Congress has kept funding them and the Corps has refused to renounce them -- while New Orleans has remained vulnerable.

Even Prather, the agency's public representative on the Hill, complained in that private e-mail that the Corps has sacrificed its credibility by defending its indefensible projects -- he called them "swine" -- just as the Catholic Church defended its wayward priests.

"We have no strategy for saving ourselves," he wrote. "Someone needs to be supervising the Corps."

I was reading about the uselessness, the damage, and the danger of the Army Corps of Engineers in 1970. Nothing has changed, except now New Orleans has been drowned. Gossip about who will win, should win, and the strategies arising therefrom, have always been with us, too.

Which is more important? Which one should left blogistan hurl all its energy and abilities into? Maybe we should use our new-found influence to do something useful in the world, rather than continue the national game of musical chairs.

O God, come to my assistance

Make haste to help me.

Bad stuff happened in Iraq, stuff Adam Reuter doesn't want to talk about. Not with his friends, not with the line cooks in the burger joint where he worked when he first came home or the tenants in the apartment complex he manages now.

He doesn't even want to talk about it with his wife, who worried because he was jumping out of bed in the middle of the night.

But when he agrees to talk about the war -- really talk about it -- he goes right to how the insurgent crumpled after he pulled the trigger. How later, during the firefight, he ended up just a few feet from the corpse. Bullets buzzed by, and he was supposed to keep an eye on the alley, but he couldn't help but glance over.

"He just lay there," Reuter remembers. His eyes and mouth open. His whiskers a few days old. The bullet had gone in his neck cleanly, just to the right of his Adam's apple, but had come out ugly from the back of his head. He was maybe 25, a little older than Reuter. And his blood was pooling, thick and almost black in the darkness.

How can you describe what that was like? Who would understand it?

Nobody. So Reuter keeps his mouth shut. His army uniform is packed in a box in the garage. He hasn't looked at it in months. Instead, he kisses his baby boy every night. He gets on with his life, because that's what everyone else is doing.

At home in Newnan, Ga., there is no war.

"It doesn't cross their minds," Reuter said. "To them, everything is fine."

After three years, there are at least 550,000 veterans of the Iraq war. The Washington Post interviewed 100 of them -- many of whom were still in the service, others who weren't -- to hear about what their war was like and how the transition home has been.

Their answers were as varied as their experiences. But a constant theme through the interviews was that the American public is largely unaffected by the war, and, despite round-the-clock television and Internet exposure, doesn't understand what it's like.

You can't understand unless you were there.

Give us, O God, the needs of the body,
Give us, O God, the needs of the soul;
Give us, O God, the healing balsam of the body,
Give us, O God, the healing balsam of the soul.

Give us, O God, the joy of repentance,
Give us, O God, the joy of forgiveness,
Wash Thou from us the lees of corrupion,
Cleanse Thou from us the stain of uncleanness.

O great God, Who art on the throne,
Give to us the true repentance,
Give to us the forgiveness of sin--
Sin inborn and actual sin.

Give to us, O God, strong love,
And that beautiful crown of the King;
Give us, O God, the home of salvation
Within the beauteous gates of Thy kingdom.

May Michael, bright warrior of the angels,
Be keeping evil enemies down;
May Jesus Christ Son of David
Be giving us hospitality in the brightness of peace.

Tipping Point?

Aren't we past that point by now?

"The truth is putting on its boots while a lie has travelled half-way around the world."

It is amazing how willfully clueless some pundits can be:

Are we at a tipping point yet? What author Malcolm Gladwell described as small things that make a big difference seems like an apt metaphor for the latest developments on civil liberties and the Bush administration. First was Thursday morning's USA Today story, declaring, "NSA Has Massive Database of Americans' Phone Calls." The story dominated the morning news shows and drove the day's events, with the President racing to the microphones in the Diplomatic Room of the White House before departing on a trip to Mississippi. Bush didn't get into the specifics of the USA Today story, but he did defend the program, saying the federal government is not "mining or trolling through the personal lives of innocent Americans."

Let's see: Bush's approval rating is down as low as 29%, and nowhere above 36%. Do you think the public might have turned against him by now?

Oh, we're just talking about approval or disapproval of the wiretapping programs? Well, nobody likes those, either. Back in February, 20% of Americans thought they had been wiretapped. Wonder what the percentage is now?

And, of course, now we have the resignation of Mike Luttig, which is being linked to civil liberties issues even if there is no connection; lawyers from the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility getting shut out of a professional ethics investigation by the NSA; and apparently new allegations ready to spill forth (which, in fairness, Mr. Cooper could not have known about when he wrote his column). Even Newt Gingrich isn't trying to defend this program.

So to review the bidding: Bush's Justice Department is blocked from investigating its own controversial spy program; a leading conservative jurist resigns, reportedly in part over the government's handling of civil liberties; and a big NSA program of eavesdropping on Americans' phone-calling patterns is revealed. Will this be enough to turn public opinion against Bush on civil liberties and terrorism?

The question is not, will opinion turn against Bush on civil liberties, but how much more it will turn against him.

Which may finally shock the Beltway denizens into awareness of just how angry most people really are.

The Rock of rocks

On the Rock of rocks,
The peace of Peter and Paul,
Of James and John the beloved,
And of the pure perfect Virgin,
The pure perfect Virgin.

The peace of the Father of joy,
The peace of the Christ of the pasch,
The peace of the Spirit of grace,
To ourselves and to our children,
To ourselves and to our children.

--From Carmina Gadelica

The Irony of American History

The fortunes of war favored Hrothgar.
Friends and kinsmen flocked to his ranks,
young followers, a force that grew
to be a mighty army. So his mind turned
to hall-building: he handed down orders
for men to work on a great mead-hall
meant to be a wonder of the world forever;
it would be his throne-room and there he would dispense
his God-given goods to young and old--
but not the common land or people's lives.
Far and wide through the world, I have heard,
orders for work to adorn that wallstead
were sent to many peoples. And soon it stood there,
finished and ready, in full view,
the hall of halls. Heorot was the name
he had settled on it, whose utterance was law.
Nor did he renege, but doled out rings
and torques at the table. The hall towered,
its gables wide and high and awaiting
a barbarous burning. That doom abided,
but in time it would come....

Beowulf, tr. Seamus Heaney

Construction on the Pentagon began on September 11, 1941.

Woe to him who says,
"I shall build myself a spacious palace
with airy roof chambers and
windows set in it.
It will be paneled with cedar
and painted with vermilion."
Though your cedar is so splendid,
does that prove you a king?
Think of your father: he ate and drank,
dealt justly and fairly; all went well with him.
He upheld the cause of the lowly and poor;
then all was well.
Did not this show he knew me? says the Lord.
But your eyes and your heart are set on naught but gain, set only on the innocent blood you can shed,
on the cruel acts of tyranny you perpetrate.

Jeremiah 22: 14-17 (REB)

Serendipity or Spirituality?

This post was long enough, I decided to add this one.

Entirely by coincidence (the first post was published before the show came on the radio), my local Pacifica station ran a lengthy interview with the Rev. Jim Rigby, pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, and his most famous (or infamous) member for the moment, professed atheist Robert Jensen. (The interview should be available here soon. If you're interested, check their archives occassionally.) Jensen actually did a better job defending his decision to join a Christian church, and his position vis a vis Christianity, in the interview than he did at AlterNet. This decision has prompted concerns within the Presbyterian church, which is entirely a matter of polity for them. Whether or not the Rev. Rigby is, or should be, disciplined is not a matter I will comment on. But Mr. Jensen's comments were particularly interesting.

His defense of his decision was essentially one of "negative theology." He professed a position of humility toward the universe, of the limitations of human knowledge as exemplified both in science and in religion. He put great weight on the mystery of existence, on how much we do not and probably cannot, know (always curious to put so much weight on what might be known sometime in the future. What good does that do us now? We might one day know how to power Hummers with nothing more than air. Does that mean we should simply rely on that hope now?) And basically he sounded almost like a seminary student. With a crucial difference, of course: even a negative theology admits the reality (let's avoid that misleading "existence" debate) of God.

No surprise, I suppose, as he is a philosophy professor at UT-Austin. But it seemed to me the only thing I wouldn't qualify him for would be ordination as a minister. He is certainly more articulate and intelligent about his faith than most Christians, and clearly more committed to Christianity as something lived, not simply professed. In fact, he bases his decision on his commitment to living the Christian faith, not just professing traditional Christian doctrines. I must admit that, whereas I was a critic of the decision to make him a church member when I first read the two articles they published, I've quite changed my mind listening to the interview.

And it brings us back to the central question: what is faith, and how must it be expressed in order to enter the "sacred community"? The interviewer, by the way, used that term, asking Jensen if he hadn't found a sacred community which he decided to join. The phrase made me think of Derrida's insistence on "holy" as that which is marked off, set aside, meant to be kept pure from corruption. Certainly an ecclesiological ideal, but if we insist on it too firmly, who among us is worthy? And do we decide worthiness solely upon profession, (which may or may not be sincere? As Jeremiah records God saying: "The heart is devious, beyond all fathoming. I, the Lord, test the heart...")? Or do we decide based upon action?

Or must it be a combination of the two?

Desires

May I speak each day according to Thy jusice,
Each day may I show Thy chastening, O God;
May I speak each day according to Thy wisdom,
Each day and night may I be at peace with Thee.

Each day may I count the causes of Thy mercy,
May I each day give heed to Thy laws;
Each day may I compose to Thee a song,
May I harp each day Thy praise, O God.

May I each day give love to Thee, Jesu,
Each night may I do the same;
Each day and night, dark and light,
May I laud Thy goodness to me, O God.

--from Carmina Gadelica

Prophets, Saints, and Insanity

Please allow me to apologize for my extended absences from both the blog and the comments. I assumed that I would be able to, and have much to post on, after my ordination interviews were over. While I do have much swimming around in my soul and mind, I have been unable to sit and focus any of it.

You see, I have been somewhat preoccupied with my stepdaughter's spiral into mental illness. It has reached a crisis point recently, which, oddly, freed me up enough to spend some time thinking aloud about it.

Some background is essential here...

As my stepdaughter, M, is an adult, I will respect her privacy and not refer to her by name. She is almost 22 years old. Mr. left rev. and her mother have been divorced since she was an infant. They had a custody sharing agreement that was somewhat testy, but honored by all concerned. It was pretty equitable overall.

M's mother was Mormon, something that contributed to the break-up the marriage, as Mr. left rev. was NOT at that time (and harbored some intense resentment towards that church). She remarried a Mormon fellow and proceeded to raise M in that faith. Mr. left rev. was not thrilled, but did not interfere directly.

I joined this picture when M was six. The year we married, M was spending the school year with us, due to family pressures at her "other house." A pattern soon emerged that we would get extended custody of M whenever they were having family issues. I was able to be with her a great deal as she was growing up and could see (more clearly in hindsight, of course) the development of some of her issues. She was a poor student, she was very impulsive, she was given to strong emotional attachments to animals, but not so much to people, she had difficulty keeping friendships, she was passive aggressive. And she was a very needy, caring child who felt emotional upsets very deeply.

When M was 14, we were given full and legal custody of her, as her mother and stepdad were overwhelmed by the onset of adolescence. My daughters were 3 and 7 at the time. I was in seminary and we were living in a two bedroom apartment. Things were very tense.

The acting out began immediately...skipping school, failing grades, threats to run away or to hurt herself. She was a victim of date rape, she began using recreational drugs, she was incapable of holding a job and was arrested for stealing from her employer, a pharmacist. We tried several times to get her into therapy, but she proved extremely resistant to using any drugs she was prescribed for ADD and depression. She was ordered into therapy as a result of the arrest, and we attended the sessions faithfully with her, each time discovering how deeply our beautiful girl was hurting and feeling more and more frustrated that we could do so little about it. She would stabilize out for long periods of time, make passing grades, and seem to be at peace with herself. Then things would begin to slide again. Together, we and her began realizing when this was happening and take steps to head it off. As she got older, it was looking like she might be able to get this under control and live as normal a life as anyone could who refused to take prescription medication.

She even began going back to church. Something that occurred during one summer visit back to her mother's home made her reembrace her Mormon upbringing with all the fervor of the born again. She studied, attended faithfully, and completely embraced all aspects of Mormon doctrine in all aspects of her life as she was able and agonized when she fell from the standards she set for herself.

A friend asked me if it bothered me that M was a Mormon. My response was that I did not agree with her theology or doctrine, but that I had a 19 year old daughter who didn't drink, smoke, do drugs, eat meat, or sleep with her boyfriend and who took her responsibilities to her apostate hell-bound family only slightly less seriously than she took her responsibility to God. What the hell did I have to complain about?

I don't for a moment mean to suggest that the Mormon faith was the source of her mental instability. All it did was provide a context and a catalyst, and that could be said of any faith when embraced with utter uncritical fervor to the exclusion of all else.

While mental illness can take many forms, I was distinctly taken aback by the form it took in this case.

Religious delusions. Big time.

M would spend a great deal of time in prayer and study everyday. Sometimes she would talk about the "revelations" she had received as a result, and we would even discuss our relative understandings of Scripture. But, as she began spending more and more time locked away in her room, she spoke to me less and less. She began refusing to take calls from her boyfriend. She would occasionally talk aloud behind her closed door. Our voiced concerns about her job selling insurance and her nocturnal existence were answered with assurances that she was going to get busy again very soon. One day, a month and a half ago, she made a rare appearance out of her room during the daylight hours and paced anxiously back and forth in front of me, informing me that something very special had happened to her.

She had been taken as a bride by The Holy Spirit (an actual, physical spirit in her interpretation of Mormon pneumatology). There had been a ceremony and everything. She had physically felt his hand in hers, and as a result of their union, she would be equipped with special revelation to share in order to save the world.

How does one respond to this? I think I must have just sat there BLINKING at her for five solid minutes as she went on and on about the special relationship she shared with The Holy Spirit. Clearly, something had happened for her; to her mind, this was entirely real, exhilarating and empowering. She was hearing voices, having visions, and receiving special revelation.

Was I in the presence of a prophet? Irrational behavior, in so far as society determined that standard, was no bar to being a prophet of God. I did not immediately judge her disclosure to be that of schitzophrenic rambling; that came later. It didn't come when her own bishops told her to quit talking about her experience at church-prophetic voices are often silenced by the status quo. Her message was one of hope and peace to the world when they receive the truth of Heavenly Father, and that things weren't moving fast enough toward the second coming because even the most saintly of Heavenly Father's saints (i.e.-good Mormons) couldn't hear all the wisdom through the distractions that surrounded them. They needed to be refined in constant prayer and focus on the Scriptures.

Her church didn't appreciate being told they weren't doing a good job. This was the gist of her message, at first. And I was able to maintain as neutral a front as possible, probing gently around the edges to get as much information as I could about what was happening to her. She submitted to a "healing" and "patriarchal blessing," in order for them to receive the Spirit and know she was telling the truth. Because they didn't tell her directly that she was in need of therapy, she assumed that the Spirit was working on them.

Later, she quit talking about the elders in her church. She quit going altogether. She began taking long walks outside at night and refusing to speak to anyone for days. Then she upped the ante. It was Jesus Christ whom she married. And it wasn't simply the gnosis that would usher in the second coming, but her personally. She was pregnant with Jesus' baby.

I am not making this up. I discovered this when I rushed her to the ER after she began experiencing heavy bleeding. She thought she was miscarrying Jesus' child because she had made some mistakes, strayed from the true path. I was afraid she was pregnant, and that "Jesus" who still lived with his Mom while trying college for the third time, was going to be a tough nut to crack for child support.

Her explanation to the ER staff was confusing and contradictory. They tested her. Not pregnant. She didn't believe them and requested that they do an exam. They did just that. Not pregnant. Now she was convinced that the doctor doing the exam had tried to abort her baby because he didn't think that she wanted it. Then she was convinced that she was pregnant, that the baby was under the care of the Holy Spirit and they couldn't see it. If she became the perfect vessel, she would be privileged to bring God's kingdom to birth on earth. Now she would become a saint.

I still don't see how she got out of the ER without being held for a psyche consult. I guess they just didn't want the grief.

Being unable to convince us that she was indeed expecting Jesus' child, she pondered these things in her heart for three days, then stole the car we had just put $300 worth of work into and drove to her Mom's home, 1200 miles away with less than $100 in her pocket.

She took only her cat.

We are against her, you see. We were given the truth, but we did not hear it. We tried to get her to turn to doctors instead of listening to Heavenly Father's desires for her. Now she will not talk to us. Through her mother, she asked only for her journals, which she also accused us of destroying.

I search through her last ramblings to us-disjointed, sometimes incomprehensible, sometimes accusatory-for some sign that she hears God as she so desperately wants to. Perhaps it is sufficient that God hears her. I pray that it is so.

In Search of Lost Time

There must have been a good deal of reality in those Virtues and Vices of Padua, since they seemed to me as alive as the pregnant servant, and since she herself did not appear to me much less allegorical. And perhaps this (at least apparent) nonparticipation of a person's soul in the virtue that is acting through her has also, beyond its aesthetic value, a reality that is, if not psychological, at least, as they say, physiognomical. When, later, I had occasion to meet, in the couse of my life, in convents for instance, truly saintly embodiments of practical charity, they generally had the cheerful, positive, indifferent, and brusque air of a busy surgeon, the sort of face in which one can read no commiseration, no pity in the presence of human suffering, no fear of offending it, the sort which is the ungentle face, the antipathetic and sublime face of true goodness.

Marcel Proust, Swann's Way, tr. Lydia Davis (New York: Penguin 2004), p. 84

Bush responds to "Fahrenheit 911"

Bush said the worst moment was September 11 when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

"In such a situation it takes a while before one understands what is happening," Bush said. "I would say that this was the hardest moment, once I had the real picture before my eyes."

Which explains a lot about that day.

And his best moment?

"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound (3.402 kilos) perch in my lake," he told the newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

You can't make this stuff up.

Addendum: Yes, Bush really has lost his mojo.

The man widely expected to be President George W. Bush's choice to lead the C.I.A. encountered surprisingly strong bipartisan opposition today, with the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee bluntly calling him "the wrong man at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Two things about this article: it leads with quotes from Democrats, but still describes the opposition to Hayden as "bi-partisan." And it includes quotes from two Republicans, but no one says "The opposition won't derail the nomination."

And this will be the crunch point:

One Republican senator, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, said he believed that even were General Hayden to resign his military commission, serious conflicts would remain.

"I think the fact that he is part of the military today would be the major problem," Mr. Chambliss said on ABC-TV. "Now, just resigning commission and moving on, putting on a striped suit, a pinstriped suit versus an air force uniform, I don't think makes much difference."

"Calgon, take me away!"

Fifth Sunday of Easter--

I wrote this a few days ago, then withheld posting it. This morning I came to check the news, but by habit went to Eschaton, where I find left blogistan in full war mode against another "enemy." It isn't just Atrios; follow the link to "Lawyers, Guns & Money," and you'll find a link back to Atrios in one of the comments, which in turn links to still other blog postings about Caitlin Flanagan (who?). Then read the blogrolls on any of those blogs, and they all link rather incestuously back to like-minded and similarly aroused (albeit, perhaps, on other subjects) blogs, and, well, it begins to seem that, indeed, left blogistan is all about creating community by selling a product and that product us: the "enemy."

Which is, according to sociologists, precisely how groups establish an identity. But it isn't much of an identity, to constantly declare how you are not like "them," and it isn't a healthy identity either, for the simple reason Nietzsche noted: "The man who fights dragons too long becomes a dragon himself."

Woke up this morning with that impertinent thought in my mind. I tend (I am a creature of habit, if not of addictions) to get up in the morning and "wake up" by turning the computer on and seeing what the news is/what the blogs are saying. This morning as I waited for the screen to rise I thought of that old ad, where the harried mother and housewife escapes all the pressures of middle-class existence (the struggle for survival! The labor in the fields! The battle with the elements! Okay, maybe not....) only with the purchase of yet another consumer product, one that does for her what all the other consumer products cannot, and I thought:

"Is that what I'm doing, and why I'm doing this? Computer, take me away?"

It's an old cliche that in a consumer society we can do nothing for ourselves, we can only do what we can purchase. The subtext of the Calgon ads was that we couldn't even find repose and rest, without buying one more product, one more thing to do it for us. We are actually quite systematized thinkers, in the sense that we all expect a system to take care of us: politics, society, the church, the schools, the policeman on the corner, capitalism. Someone will take care of us and all we need do is play our faithful part, press the bar and recieve our reward at the end of the maze.

Yes, I know, cliches abound.

But then it occurred to me: have we just brought that attitude over to blogistan? It isn't obvious at all, but aren't we all still consuming, buying, selling, what we are convinced we cannot provide on our own, by ourselves, as individuals? There is a tightrope here, a fine line, and a yawning abyss. We are social creatures, we need each other. But even blogs are essentially a one-way medium. The true communities of commentary are sharply defined, and the boundaries rigidly enforced. There is less an exchange of ideas than there is a transfer of agreements. But even that isn't the ultimate question. The ultimate question is: what do we expect from blogs? Power? Money? Control?

And how do we get that without selling a product, without promising to do for you, what you cannot do for yourself? And all without that "imponderable (and almost intolerable) bloom"?

Faith on Earth?

A few words from H. Richard Niebuhr:

Questions about faith arise in every area of human existence. Though me word seems to be primarily religious, so that it is associated with such other terms as God, church and creed, we also use it, with its synonyms and antonyms, in many other connections. We adjure each other to have faith in democracy or in the people or in the scientific method or that right makes might. We speak of "keeping faith" with .hose who have died in our nation's wars; we honor men of "good faith"; we contrast the faith of democracy with the creeds of totalirarianism. Questions about faith arise in an urgent and tragic form as we view massive and petty breaches of faith-treasons, lying propaganda, the cultivation of mutual distrust as measures of party and national policy, the use of pretended loyalty in conspiracies against State and civilization, the enlistment of men as faithful followers of causes that depend for success on practices of deception. [In this situation a dark prospect opens before us as we reflect on the meaning of Jesus' question: "When the Son of man comes will he find faith on eanh?" (Luke 18:8). He may have meant, "Will he find belief or trust ill God?" But he may also have meant, "Will he find any faithfulness among men?"] The experiences of the twentieth century have brought into view the abyss of "faithlessness" into which men can fall. [We see this possibility-that human history will come to its end neither in a brotherhood of man nor in universal death under the blows of natural or man-made catastrophe, but in the gangrenous corruption of a social life in which every promise, contract, treaty and "word of honor" is given and accepted in deception and distrust. If men no longer have faith in each other, can they exist as men?]
...
These many questions about faith seem to be highly heterogeneous. We are not dealing, it may appear, with one complex of interrelated problems concerning an integral element in human experience, but are rather simply following the meandering route of a stream of con-sciousness as we proceed by means of a process of association from one set of difficulties or debates to another. Is not the word faith so highly equivocal or even indeterminate in meaning that it cannot be significantly used in such various connections in the course of one conversation? Now it means belief in a doctrine; now the acceptance of intuited or self-evident truths; now confidence or trust; now piety in general or a historic religion. In some cases the word applies to man's relation to the supernatural but again it refers to human interpersonal relations. Do not these meanings vary so greatly that it is an illusion to think of all these faiths as having anything in common that can be a fit subject for inquiry? It may be so. It may be that the visual or auditory sign faith represents not one word but several, pointing to various unrelated things or concepts, as the sign "organ" means in one context musical instrument, in another, a part of a body, and still another, a newspaper. But it may also be that faith points to a complex structure of which now this, now that, element is focused in the attention while the remainder of the structure is implied. It may be a word like reason, which, equally various in its uses, yet seems to indicate a single complex process of perception and conception, distinction and comparison, experience and abstraction, intuition and inference, action and contemplation. Whether or not this is so only an inquiry, not into the uses of the word, but into some of the experiences to which the word points, can bring to light. Should it appear that believing a proposition is intimately connected with trusting a person, that trust and fidelity are inseparable, that trust in God and interpersonal faithfulness are closely associated, then it might also be indicated that there is a structure of faith, while the stresses and strains in that structure might also be brought into view. On such an inquiry we embark, not in the hope of being able to map the world of faith but with the desire to understand, albeit roughly and in outline, the relations of some of its continents and seas.

H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth, ed. Richard R. Niebuhr (New Haven: Yale University Press 1989), pp. 1, 4-5.

Just as I wonder (here, here, and here) how deeply Daniel Dennett considered the question "what is 'religion'," I wonder how deeply Sam Harris considered the question "What is 'faith'"? Niebuhr tries to answer some of these questions, and here I can do no more than leave them as discussion points, or the beginning of a discussion.

What, then, do we mean by "faith on earth"?

Life imitating art

Epidermal Macabre--Theodore Roethke

Indelicate is he who loathes
The aspect of his fleshy clothes, --
The flying fabric stitched on bone,
The vesture of the skeleton,
The garment neither fur nor hair,
The cloak of evil and despair,
The veil long violated by
Caresses of the hand and eye.
Yet such is my unseemliness:
I hate my epidermal dress,
The savage blood's obscenity,
The rags of my anatomy,
And willingly would I dispense
With false accouterments of sense,
To sleep immodestly, a most
Incarnadine and carnal ghost.

I suppose one should make a Platonic, if not Christian, reference here. Instead, I'll just offer an explanation. The picture is from an exhibit that is in Houston just now (yes, it's a real human body). But I saw the picture on a poster in a classroom where I was teaching Roethke (though not this poem). From the poem I was teaching I followed a link to this one, and immediately thought of the poster, and immediately knew the two were made for each other.

So there you are.