If I Claim to Be a Wise Man, It Surely Means that I Don't Know*

As much as I tell myself it's important, necessary even, for THE CHURCH to be a people open to difference, I wonder what the exceptions are. I wonder if the fact that I think there may be exceptions reveals a problematic position to begin with. Well, I confess that I do more than wonder.

Yesterday, one of our younger members (not capitalized) shared what she had been discovering about herself and others as she has been led to love people very different from her- different in that "they are projects and loving them is a matter of condescension" way. She was discovering what it means to really love someone so that "they" becomes "us"- that way in which silence is not awkward or empty, but a mark of intimacy and a bond that transcends even the division implied by articulating the possibility of one loving an other.

There are those easily kept outside the walls of our church communities. Some are kept so deliberately but there's also the accidental exclusion found in our sense of what it means to serve and love others. Those others can serve as a self-affirming negative contrast. We are who we are (good) because of how we treat others who we acknowledge don't deserve that sort of treatment or allow us in some other way to demonstrate our understanding of goodness.

That's not where she was though. She expressed that at one point she was- that she had a relation to a certain group of people that suggested she was serving them in some way, but through a process of growing and learning she came to be with them. In short, she explained that she was discovering what it means to be in the same boat.

Of course as I relate this I might be putting more words in her mouth than she intended. But I think I understood her, and this is what I think I understand. It's what the Qweenbean seemed to understand as well- she leaned over to me and in a humbled, confessional tone, said, " I didn't realize that until I was in college."

I think what this young person said was good and true, but... The but is not in anything she said, the but is me. This morning a group that rents part of our facilities is hosting a "Creationism" seminar, and, boy, am I not open to that. I think it's wrongheaded, dangerous, and lends itself to a narrow dogmatic aggression incommensurate with features necessary to living in belief.

I'm probably conflating things here, but that openness that I want, that openness that this young person shared seems to require that the Creationist and I share the same space and I don't know how to that.

*Kansas! Really?! Will this otherness never end?

Out Damn, Spot

Sometimes the Qweenbean reads my interblogs. Most of the time she doesn't, though she likes to encourage me to post her funnier comments throughout the course of a day, especially as they come at my expense. It's become on ongoing gag for her... If only. She should get her own online diary for that business. But with that said, she represented to me the subtle temptation of the "moral obligation" argument for the occupation of Iraq. She reveals that even the most gentle of souls can be deceived by the insidious and repeated lie of the "Pottery Barn" rule of militarism. Or maybe it's just that it is the "Pottery Barn" rule that has beguiled her. Despite her aesthetic originality and our poverty, she loves that Pottery Barn. In any case, in reference to the last post, she says that it is difficult to think we do not have a moral obligation to the people of Iraq, or more specifically, to think that our moral obligation is to not occupy their country.

To be clear, I do think we have a moral obligation to the people of Iraq, and I am glad at the opportunity to discuss the moral consequences of the invasion and what we should do. But our moral obligation is to leave now, and until we recognize that, we are not talking about what is good and right. We are talking about what is imperial, strategic, advantageous, Machiavellian, self-serving, bellicose, illegal. We have the moral obligation of an invading destroyer to get out and offer the resources necessary to rebuild and develop the country as reparations. In case we are confused, that is not done with our bullets and bombs. Of course it's difficult to see that because we are sooo good. That monstrous narrative of death-dealing as life-giving has taken hold.

Of course imperial, strategic, advantageous, Machiavellian, self-serving, bellicose, and illegal may all have their own sense of what is good. I grant that, but I know that's not what the Qweenbean, or many of us mean when we confess we are tempted to say it seems that it is the right and good thing to maintain our destructive military presence in Iraq. We probably don't mean that the best way to be imperial or militaristic is to maintain our imperial military presence in Iraq. It's nice to think that what we mean is that we must reluctantly do this to be life-affirming. But sadly, that's just not the case. And I don't know what it would take for us to see that. I know that, though there may be criticisms of leadership, an acknowledgment of mistakes made, some semblance of regret, we would find the idea of half of what we've spent thus far (the numbers to the right) being given as compensation an outrage.

Our sense of good is very limited.

I Hammer in the Morning, I Hammer in the Evening, All Over this Land

So in addition to everything else, I'm remodeling our bathroom. It's taken longer than I anticipated because what was ostensibly my spring break was filled with other things that had to be done. Dentist appointments, Ministry and Counsel meetings, meetings with students, et al. What it meant was I did not have a whole open day to devote to the project until this past Monday, the last day of my break. Also, I under-budgeted the time I figured I would need to add to the project itself in anticipation of unforeseen problems. Things like this always take longer than expected, so I expect them to take longer- but then the time I expect them to take is extended and so they are done on time. It's a helpful self-deception, deception used very specially. Only this time, I gravely underestimated how horrible things would get.

I planned to replace the lead pipes with copper, put in ABS drainage, tile the tub/shower surround, add an outlet, put in a new sink, new flooring, and paint. Termites, severe water damage, and the unique building methods of previous residents have made for an incredibly slow and difficult task. One portion of the floor, thankfully, a seldom travelled area, was no more than the five layers of previously laid floor. Another section was more mushroom than wood, a spongy loose growth nourished with every flush of the toilet. Whole sections of the floor structure were rotted and eaten away. That kind of mess can come with age and inattention, but it was worse than I expected. I also had to overcome the very strange, sometimes dangerous, Mac Guyveresque building methods of previous residents.

If you'd seen our bathroom before you may remember it was "cute". Underneath that surface though was a mess of plumber's putty, duct tape, electrical dangers, salvaged wood scraps, and caulk. Lots and lots of caulk.

I am not a builder, though I have worked as a builder in the past. I know enough to do a job, to know what should and shouldn't be done, to know what to do, and enough humility to ask when I don't. When the bathroom is finished, I will have fixed those things that needed fixing and it will look good enough. Of course somebody, someday, may come along and, seeing what I've done, say, "What was this guy thinking?" That comes with the territory and I suppose someone could make the case that what I did was worse than doing nothing at all, though it wouldn't be a strong case- especially if, as I know now, it was only luck that kept us from falling through the floor. I have good intentions and, though not an expert, a sense of how to get it done well.

It has been a slow but steady process, mostly slow, and I'm still right in the middle of it, even as the luxury of a break has ended and I'm back in the rhythm of school and study. Even if it has so far taken longer than I thought it would and only just can see that it is nearing completion. Of course, once you start something like this, you can't just stop. Well you can't stop for just anything. I'm going to write to the internets. I have to do that. But clearly, this is the kind of thing that, though ugly for the interim, must be seen through and completed as best as can be. There is an obligation to finish what has been started.

Isn't that just like what we are dealing with in Iraq? Isn't it important we remember that as we pass these, for good or ill, landmark commemorations of time and mortality, Five Years... Four Thousand... Isn't it necessary to be reminded that we have an obligation to finish what we started and that, mistakes and all, you can't leave something like this undone?

Seriously? You think it is? Good lord, what's wrong with you? You think the people of Iraq are a construction project? Are you even human? Do you have any capacity for emotion, thought, or empathy? You can't see that is the height of imperialism and domination?

To address a point made these days, if you think we have a moral obligation to continue occupying Iraq for the sake of their liberation, progress, or "own good," you lack the imagination or understanding necessary to know liberation, progress or goodness as anything more than concepts of oppression. What I mean is, you are so blinded by your own sense of idolatrous goodness that death and destruction -destroying actual people- are freedom, are goodness, are a gift for "them." Of course any sense of "them" does not include actual people and is incidental to your project of destruction.

This is not an "agree to disagree" point. Let alone what we have actually done is demonstrate that our priorities are securing energy resources, if you think liberation is something that comes and is maintained in this fashion, you are the destroyer.

But now that you've confessed that, perhaps we can move forward.

So What Was The Permit For?

The coincidence of Spring and Holy Week celebrations required we do this:



The fact that it was a religious celebration meant nothing to our neighbors or the fire department.

Just think what we'll do for Passover and 420.

What's The Worst That Could Happen?

So I submitted a couple of papers to present at this year's AAR in Chicago. Enough time had passed and I'd been concerned with enough other things to let me forget about worrying wether they'd be accepted- oh sorry... there's that Bible line about not worrying... I was able to not think about it. AAR would let presenters know by the first of April and wouldn't you know, that day is approaching. I haven't heard from the session leader or anything saying one of my papers had been accepted though I did just receive an email saying this: "To put your paper, (which is currently accepted for presentation at a session of the AAR/WR 2008 meeting), into competition for this award, send an email to..."

The email is an announcement for a prize being offered for Best Paper Written and Presented by Blah Blah Blah. Do you see how this might be confusing? This email is from the prize committee director, not from a session chair. Does this mean the prize committee knows something I don't yet know? Is this simply a general announcement to anyone who submitted a paper for consideration? Does "currently accepted for presentation" mean I will be presenting or simply acknowledge that I submitted one? Ugh. Now I am thinking about it again.

It was, like so much else in life, only a possibility or goal not yet achieved nor failed, but as a possibility it was a "hope" for what could be... Someday. It's out of my hands. We'll see.

But now. Now I am reminded that the date is approaching. I am reminded moments of decision approach and multiple possible alternatives will collapse leaving only the "path" taken. That's good. It's good because that "it's out of my hands" is not hope. It's "wait and see." It's fatalism. Things are okay now, but in the future they'll be better. It's "that's just the way things are." And that "that's just the way things are" is killing us. Well, it's killing a lot of other people first but we're in line.

Yeesh, where did that come from?

Without being too pointed, I would bet many of us heard a lot about hope this past week (even if you're not a sell out like me), but it is so important for me, for the word faith to have any meaning for me, that hope not mean a Christian existence is one of passivity and acceptance, especially an acceptance of the real manifestations of sin- and a sense of hope as "wait and see" is the height of sin- or I guess the depth. It is the deepest despair.

Here comes the So Long Recording line- The idea that Jesus died for you is an ideology of despair if it means Jesus died for you. Good Lord, that cross is an evil thing. It is the symbol of the coercive, deadly, unjust, hopeless nature of the world and its power. Jesus lived for you (lives as you prefer), but the nature of that life could not- cannot- be overcome by the evil of the world. Obedience to the point of death on a cross is not a call to submission and subjugation, but a call to a life that sees the nature of God as just, liberating, and life-affirming. It emulates that, pursues that- knowing full well that the world has only one way to respond to it. It can't wait and see because it is living now- a life according to a particular nature.

My papers, that's not a hope kind of thing. That's a wait and see kind of thing. History will judge, that's a wait and see kind of thing. Love, that's a hope kind of thing, though I guess I shouldn't call it a thing. But I did. I hope that's okay.

If This Isn't a Horrible Mistake, This Could be Great for My Chaotic Good Half-Elf Cleric Experience
Overture- The Who
Hunting Bears- Radiohead
On Broadway- Tito Puente
Once- Pearl Jam
Big Spender
Soma- Smashing Pumpkins
La Raspa
Little Wing- Jimi Hendrix
Painter Song- Norah jones

ed.- During a self-indulgent reread I noticed I wrote what when I meant that. I fixed it. What you are now reading is inauthentic.

When I Was a Child...

Middle-Aged Guy With a Harley That I Sometimes Talk to at The Coffee Bar I Frequent- It's not bad looking for a rice rocket
Skybalon- Thanks?
Middle-Aged Guy With a Harley That I Sometimes Talk to at The Coffee Bar I Frequent- When are you gonna get a Harley?
Skybalon- Eh- I really only like the Sportster, but if I got one I would make it look like this.
Middle-Aged Guy With a Harley That I Sometimes Talk to at The Coffee Bar I Frequent- Well, when you're ready, you'll get a real bike.
Skybalon- That's cool, when I'm ready I'll get my Harley and a prescription for Cialis

Then I should've said, "Zing!"

Take a Bath Hippy

So I went to a nonviolence training put on by NPF yesterday. If you've ever been to a hippy gathering, you know there're a lot of "get to know you" activities. Over the course of the day, people learned I was a Quaker and I learned a few others were as well, or had been at one time in their lives. At the least, they were, at some point, looking for Quakers.

One of these people, grew up Catholic but over time was told plainly, but with encouragement, that she would not be able to use her gifts to the fullest in that tradition and should find a way to be a pastor in another tradition. So with pastoral guidance and a desire to serve as a minister of the Gospel she started looking for a place she might fit. At least this is roughly how she tells it. During this search, she encountered the idea of Quakers. She was intrigued and hopeful, so over the course of about a decade she found Friends, hung out with them for a bit (I don't know if she would say she "worshipped" with them), but it didn't last. Did I mention she was a woman? Did I mention she lived in Orange County? Did I mention this was during the late 20th century? She joined a Christian tradition that didn't attach leadership or the presence of the Holy Spirit to her genitalia, and it wasn't "us".

I'm sure there may be many other mitigating circumstances that led to her relationship with Friends being so brief. Maybe she was theologically unorthodox, or headstrong and overbearing. Maybe she was just looking for a place to impose her ecclesial vision without regard for the body she oversaw. Maybe she was intellectually shallow. Maybe she was an outsider with a very different background. Those might all be good reasons to not encourage someone through the steps of leadership but we presently seem to think a penis and testicles somehow help to overcome those problems.

I also met a mother and daughter who came from a long line of Friends. Her, the mother's, immediate family left when she suspected it was more important to be called Evangelical than Christian, or when that distinction was expressing itself in a glorious affirmation of all things Reagan. She had been happy enough to express her faith and some sense of worship through pursuing what we popularly call social justice concerns, though she sometimes missed being a part of a community that shared her sense of religious conviction or experience. The time came when she sought to return to Friends. Her daughter had enjoyed stories of Friends worship and social activism, the justness of their relations, the public clarity of their positions, the focus on waiting and listening for the Spirit. Blah, blah, blah. So in part because of a World Religions class assignment, mother and daughter went to the nearby Friends church and sat in silence. Not because that was how this body worshipped, but because they were shocked by the experience. They haven't been back. That Friends church is now a Calvary Chapel. Good joke.

Whatever, right? I mean this is just three people. Would we want to trade these three people, or any like them (hippies mostly), for what "we" do have?

Wouldn't It be Loverly?

So I'm remodeling a bathroom and don't have time to do what matters- like writing to the internets. But wasn't, I guess we're calling it Obama's More Perfect Union Speech, wasn't that inspiring? If it wasn't, I guess we know what kind of racist you are.

In a nutshell, everyone's a racist. Racism is the pollution for which we've created acceptable levels. It's the smog we live with even though it kills us. Those that say it's not a problem are part of the problem, especially if they say it's not a problem because it's all in the past or they have somehow overcome it. Similar to the way you directly fund terrorism, slavery, dictatorships, etc... by buying just about anything, we live in a world that depends upon racist categories and elements to sustain itself. Our very ways of thinking are infected by racism- to lesser and greater degrees of course- but it's all around us. To say what's been said before, if you don't see this, it's because you are blinded by this spirit of racism, and so as morbidly racist as the robe wearing racists we all know and love.

You think like a racist. You have a racist mother. You're raising racist children. You support a racist community. Deal with it.

Dealing with it matters.

It's the way Obama deals with it in this speech that is so refreshing and hopeful. (Can I still say hope without paying royalties?) It's no good to deny that racism colors our lives. We're not beyond it. You're not beyond it. It's also worthless to stop at the point of saying this or that thing is racist. Though at least with the former, we're addressing the beast, even if only in the most preliminary way. Addressing it, looking at it, acknowledging that it's there (and really acknowledging it requires confronting the evil manifest by it; it's not simply an attitude, it's the concrete results in history). But Obama- Right (wistful sigh). The way he deals with it, or more precisely the way he says we might deal with it- what a difference from a We're the Best-Love It or Leave It-Critics Aid Our Enemies-Nothing is Required of You But Your Presence candy shell covering an I'll Protect You from Them chewy center. It is so not an I'll Take Care of Everything, Go About Your Business politics of autonomy. Something is required of "us" and it's not a sense of "us" built on fear of "them" or preserving some form of perfection already achieved.

"The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow."

What the heck is this? Who am I now that I listen to this guy and think, "That's right, let's do this, we're in this together, what can I do to help?"?

Now that that's off of my chest, I can go back to ripping up a floor.

Oh, and Happy Belated Anniversary
Mrs. Robinson- Simon and Garfunkel
No Woman No Cry- Bob Marley and the Wailers
Diamond Dogs- Beck
The Wind- Cat Stevens

The Words I'm Saying Now Mean Nothing More Than Meow to an Animal

So I was supposed to make some huge announcement last week. Apparently I was wrapped up in other things- hogging space in our church blog, teeing things up for The Blonde Buddha to make fun of Dan Kimball's hair, grading midterms, organizing peace "things" (more on that later). Well, all I was going to announce was my selling out, or buying in, to Obama.* And now the time has passed.

I apologize already to the Obama campaign, I have a history of supporting, not just underdogs, but losers.

You may also have noticed that I didn't comment on MY PRESIDENT's veto of the bill bringing the CIA's interrogation techniques in line with the Army Field Manual. Essentially what President Jesus was saying with that is torture is a good thing. That moment passed as well, but beside that, what else could I say in response to yet another demonstration of where we stand?

But over this all, at least hanging over me lately, has been a question about the world we're making. I would require a lot of space to develop why the above things, even those only hinted at, matter to this concern. Space I am not going to take, so you have to just accept that they do. Or not. But in my mind it is connected.

I read this early last week:
"The point of this exercise is to lead us to deep gratitude, repentance, and action"
And it made me angry.

It had been floating over me like a lone raincloud.

What a jerk.

Here's something that's supposed to make people grateful, repentant, and active; and what do I do? I get angry. The line was in a pamphlet promoting and explaining a "Stations of the Cross" installation on our campus. I'm glad Protestants, at least these, don't hate Catholics anymore, or if they do, they don't hate them so much they aren't unwilling to appropriate their practices. Or maybe the way they appropriate them is a manifestation of their hate for Catholics. I don't know. Whatever the reason there they were, all the stations interpreted by different student artists.

I appreciate an openness to others, an experimental and experiential approach with one's faith, a regard for those things that are meaningful to others, but I find myself rejecting much of this (this being things like the above) as a joke at best or, well, something worse at worst. It seems I want people to be open, and when they try to be, it bothers me. Well, it wasn't the installation that bothered me so much. I thought it was cute before I read the pamphlet. And it's not the openness to new practices. I was angered that this was supposed to lead one to be grateful, repentant, and active. And it's not that I find it troubling that people should be grateful, repentant, and active. And perhaps on any other day, well, I know that on other days I wouldn't have reacted like such a baby. It was just a perfect storm of thoughts and experiences that made me such a crank.

And what is there to crank? It's the confusion that this seems to reveal. Whether it's a confusion in the perpetrator or in me is up for grabs but there is a confusion. I think deep gratitude, repentance, and action are good... well depending on for what one is grateful, from what one repents, and how one acts. That is not my concern in this instance. It is this tendency to add strange layers of muddle and falsehood to a situation that is already unclear and fictitious. It seems the height of pretense to say something like, "Wearing head coverings is a meaningful practice to so and so, we should do it too, only don't wear head coverings the way they do it, let's make it artsy and incredibly self-unaware." That probably doesn't seem problematic to anyone for whom that is not problemmatic... Rather, maybe, it seems like saying, "My dead wife used to do 'blank' and it showed me she loved me, will you do that too, please? Then, when you act just as she did, I'll know you love me," or saying, "'Child Number Two,' you need to live your life just as 'Child Number One' did because she did so well. We can only know you're doing well if you're just like her."

I may be overreacting- (yes, maybe), but they seem like similar acts to me, and while I have a great deal of tolerance for confusion, this type of practice frustrates and discourages me. Yeesh. That "tolerance" makes it sound like I am incredibly gracious and understanding when clearly I'm not. What I mean is I expect a good deal of confusion when speaking about things that are difficult to articulate. This may bring something like physics to mind; it shouldn't. That is something that is actually quite easy to articulate- we may need to learn the language/s but it is something sensible and physical. One's being unable to understand certain things about some range of things called physics is not necessarily a problem with physics. It could be our own laziness or unfamiliarity, but with native effort you could do it. But speaking clearly of a subject that is not sensible, things that are metaphysical, ethereal, etc... is not a matter of effort. It is confused. That's as it is; and for me, there is always a measure of confession involved in expressing things that are best passed over in silence. I expect that type of confusion.

But this other practice seems not just confused, it is dangerously confused.

So much of what we do is self-indulgent and at risk of becoming foisted as the way things are rather than tentatively held as what we do. We risk becoming unintentional with our practices and forgetting that we are already trying to say something with our religious habits, they risk becoming normal. And boy, our practices are not normal; we need to remember it is just a familiar voodoo.

We already fabricate ways to express those things that aren't really things. It's how we demonstrate gratefulness, repentance, anger, devotion, joy, love. That kind of "thing". We forget that what we do is not some kind of magic that lures God into our presence nor is what we do the best practices for knowing God. We forget that what we do is already a set of acts meant to say something about something about which it is difficult to say. Further, we forget that it shouldn't be a matter of saying something about this "thing" which it is difficult to say things, rather we are responding in some way. Other people, other better than me people, may remember that easily and readily. For them, the habits of song, sermon, song ad infinitum could be just that. That's why they're better than me. But if there's a risk that we see it leads to God rather than follows as some hopeful response to God, it does not seem to me it is overcome or avoided by taking the strange of someone else as real magic. It is also problematic if we think someone else's magic is more meaningful because it is someone else's. What's worse to me is that the possibility of expressing gratefulness and repentance in action is overlooked. I mean, I don't know that we are likely to say the first thing to do to express repentance and gratefulness is to sing a David Crowder song and listen to a 20-30 minute affirmation. Perhaps that's part of why we look elsewhere for things that might lead us to express gratefulness and repentance.

It may be that the current ways we do that are not the most suitable and we sense a bit of frustration in that. The solution does not seem to be learn someone else's language in an attempt to express what is difficult in any language. I don't know that we can be led to be grateful and repentant by practices, reflecting upon certain things included as a practice. Unless the act of practicing meaningless acts is itself an act that we mean to do to demonstrate who we are.

I do know it's difficult to explain why one feels loved, or grateful, or wishes to turn from one thing and to another. It seems to require, then, that we be more critically familiar with who we are and how things make sense to us. As I hinted above, I've been especially sensitive to that lately. I'm feeling particularly responsible for the kind of world we are creating- not just in the leaving a mess or a better campsite to future generations way- but in a "what are we saying by what we are doing?" kind of way. We're always saying something in what we do, I need to be much more intentional and aware about what that might be.


*I'm sure some of you thought I was going to announce something else to the blogoglobe. Well, I wasn't.

Ugh, Listening to Some Other Guy's Playlist Isn't Right
Gone- Ben Fold's Five
Colorblind- Color Me Bad
Welcome to Jamrock- Damian Marley Feat. The Notorious BIG
I've Got Friends in Low Places- Garth Brooks
BOOTED
Blues for Pablo- Mils Davis
I'm Housin'- Rage Against the Machine
Never Going Back Again- Fleetwood Mac
Don't Worry About the Government- Talking Heads
Dead- Pixies
How Can I tell You- Cat Stevens
Motivation- Tripping Daisy
Killing an Arab- The Cure
September Song- Sarah Vaughan
Outer Space Doesn't Care About You- The Briefs
Nuguns- System of a Down

This Means No Fear Cavalier

So this is part of an ongoing blogversation TM I'm having with Nickname not Yet Assigned. I think I made my response a bit long for the comments, plus it might be fun for you, dear reader, to see how life at GFC can be. Or at least, how a corner of life typed out and put into the internets can be. You can pick up the earlier parts of the conversation here.

This starts abruptly if you're just joining us...

I guess it depends on what we mean by cross-cultural and how cultures are crossed.

The first Christians certainly dealt with how one becomes a Christian in light of real cultural/ethnic markers. In that sense, Christianity crossed cultures- and, in part, is why Christianity is Christianity and not Judaism- why a Christian understands Isaiah 53 one way and a Jew understands it another way. And I am not one who is troubled by the fact that some Christian of 2nd c. Palestine or 21st c India does not practice the same kind of Christianity I do, though we are all happily called Christians. That's cross-cultural as well. And the first Christians did desire to spread their faith to all people and so in that sense crossed cultural boundaries as well.

Here's the "but" though. The first Christians did not have a position of overwhelming dominance in the world. The first Christians did not have the option of converting kings and their subjects wholesale. That's old hat, I know, we don't conquer whole people groups in the name of cross and crown anymore. But we did try to craft a common sense of the world- or at least we often tried to tie ourselves to the project of creating a common sense of the world and hoped to make the foundational propositions of Christianity compatible with the foundational propositions of the world.

What I mean is, we know that communication is possible across cultural boundaries, but we only know that because of the dominating project of Modernity that attempted to erase any sense of cultural boundaries by creating a common world, a project largely undergirded by a type of Christianity. As obtuse examples, it's why "we" call Indians Indians rather than what any of those groups would have called themselves. It's why "we" call Conquistadores conquerors and not slaughterers or genocidal invaders. It's why the Reformation is the Reformation and not a violent nationalist church split. It's why we would understand religious syncretism as a bad thing. Of course we don't kill people in the name of religion anymore- now we kill in the name of our civilization, our way of life- the totalizing, absolute claims on our existence and being. We kill to protect and expand our sense of the world. But we don't always kill; sometimes we educate or evangelize to expand our sense of the world because our sense of the world is right and true. That, in part, is what I mean by saying we accept cross-cultural missions as a good thing.

Still, I wonder generally what it means to speak cross-culturally, and I worry specifically if we think it means to give someone the knowledge we have to make them similar to us so they can be better people (or sometimes, historically, people at all). Of course, I can only say any of this because I am not capable of living with that Modern certainty, which may completely invalidate anything I have to say. For someone unlike me, someone who sees things with an objective certainty as "the way things are," I may represent a loosey-goosey threat to orthodoxy- I am the boogie man "relativism." But whether I am right or wrong is beside the point (at least in this instance). I'm just leading up to what I think it might mean to really speak to someone "cross-culturally".

The sense is/was that the ethical and moral claims of Modernity were as certain as gravity, but there is now a perspective that sees that what we understand as morally or ethically good, the world systems and powers that we build, the cultures in which we make sense of the world are not fixed or objective. At one time, there was the sense that learning was simply a matter of discovering the way things objectively are. That largely does not fly anymore, especially in matters of ethical, religious, and moral truth. If post-modernity is any thing, it is, in part, a perspective critical of that possibility. Today, some might understand learning as a form of acculturation, becoming well-adjusted to the systems in which you find yourself, becoming more and more narrowly fixed to a certain sense of the world.

Good grief I'm a windbag. See why I linked to it instead of being a comment jerk?

So...

When someone talks about cross-cultural communication I wonder what their assumptions about culture and communication are. When someone talks about "reaching" post-moderns, I wonder if they realize that the possibility of even articulating that, let alone doing it, undermines the possibility of reaching people they identify as post-modern. There are other questions. Are we talking about offering someone a pile of data about the world that we say is true? Do we understand that it is only possible for us to say this pile of data is true because of our world? If we are talking about crossing cultures, do we see that the other culture, if it really is another culture, is another sense of the world in which our pile of data is something else entirely? And why are we saying that Christianity is a pile of data, anyway? It's a different concern than knowing that people X are more comfortable with visual media and people Y like hymns. If post-modernity is a term that broadly reflects the inclinations, impulses, commitments and worlds of some people, then the very idea of "outreach" as the Modern church understands it is without the pale of those cultures. Advising evangelists to not be dogmatic when they try to reach these people is missing the point.

Of course what I'm loosely describing could be, for some, a sign of the death of the church. In a sense it is apocalyptic, it may be the end of one sense of the world. And that may be a bad thing. I don't think it is, but again, I'm part of the problem. In fact, I'm an excited part of the problem. I'm not trying to justify this position or even undermine Modernity, rather I hope it reveals a bit of why I think the very idea of "reaching" post-moderns is nonsensical. I don't means it's stupid. I mean it doesn't make sense in the way it makes no sense to say "I'm going to bisect this ray." It is meant to explain why I think being cross-cultural might depend on assumptions that work less and less.

As I said before, I too, think there is something in Friends tradition that is capable of flourishing within this mix. It's not that Friends have an anything goes, avoid confrontation, if it works for you go for it, man approach. Where that is, that's actually problematic to me. What I see as hopeful are those bits of tradition that allowed Friends to see the worth of others even as they were "other." Difference need not be a matter of division. It's the tradition that allowed them to see the Lenape as equals and not subjects. It's the tradition suggested by "The Peaceable Kingdom." It's a tradition parallel to Roger Williams saying, "You know, maybe we don't have to make them just like us for them to be okay." I know he wasn't a Quaker, but I'm talking about the sense he represented and it has had a parallel expression in Quaker tradition. Plus I like to mention him because that ridiculous perspective of his led to Rhode Island being called the cesspool of New England.

Anyway, it's not perfect. I mean look at the images of "The Peaceable Kingdom." There is a chasm between the ideal and what is. But look at what is. Two groups on an equal footing, each retaining their identities, Quakers do not become Lenape, and Lenape do not become Quaker, but neither remain the same in the contact. Of course we know how things worked out for the Lenape... and others. Like I said, there is a chasm between the ideal and what is. Maybe that's why the ideal is in the foreground. The human actions are just that, and, as hopeful as they ever are, that's all they can ever be.

But back to Kimball and reaching post-moderns. The gripes that he mentions, or that you pointed out to me, are not gripes about the church per se, but are an articulation of what a Modern Christian Evangelical Church system is capable of identifying internally. It's not a matter of making these changes and becoming attractive to post-moderns. It may be attractive to some people, I don't doubt that. I, for one, am glad to be a part of a congregation that doesn't tie leadership to male biology, but that's not a shift in the world. I've already said why I think that kind of shift is nonsensical, but to belabor it and make a point that might make more sense 'cos we're not "in it," it would be like a Medieval church looking for a way to attract (which of course is already an anachronism) "Renaissancers" simply by saying "You know, they trust their senses, and individual perception and reason are legitimate authorities- how can we repackage our metaphysical hierarchies, sense of virtue and order, and church authority in a way that will bring them into our Medieval sense of the world?" To me, that misses the stated goal. I would add this qualifier though, I don't necessarily think the various forms that fall under some emergent label are "post-modern." So what he is describing may be perfectly suitable for people with particular aesthetic sensibilities, and it may successfully attract those people. But that, to me, is different and not really cross-cultural.

So that said, I am not trying to say, "This is how things ought to be," or trying to make the case that this is right. I am willing to accept that this seems wrong and dangerous to some people. That's fine, but it wouldn't change what I think is problematic about an attempt to conceive of post-modernity as a system commensurate with Modernity or people as post-moderns that can be reached in a Modern sense of that term. I don't think Kimball is building that bridge, nor that it is a bridge that can be built.

We Can Beat Them, Just For One Day

It's easy to be sanctimonious and cynical about... well, everything. It's cheap and easy. Everything is pfft. But I'm not. I don't mean I'm not pfft. I mean, despite evidence to the contrary, I am not sanctimonious and cynical. Though that doesn't mean we are not surrounded by fluff and fodder. If I say something is a pile of crap, it is only because I have a good view while floating in the cesspool. I am not above it.

If it wasn't for a Christian perspective I would probably be an anarchist of some sort. I would probably have an overdeveloped sense of things deserving to be destroyed and toppled by virtue of their lack of virute. I would probably give the wrong time, stop a traffic line, and the like, anything to show that things are only worth being toppled. But, though it seems we, especially WE, are confronted and overcome by the Word- that we are confronted and overcome by the Word is a matter for hope and not despair. So it's not for the fire. In fact, I don't, now see how it can be. Especially if it is a matter of some nature that this Word is for us.

...

Nonetheless, in a sense of my prophetic duties, I confess I err on the side of critique.

Long time readers of my worldwidediary are probably related to me but even those who aren't would likely remember a wonderful feature called the "Frequently Feingold" in which I would highlight the various heroic doings of the hope-inspiring Senator from Wisconsin, Russ Feingold, peace be upon him. It's been a while but it's not because he has been any less heroic. I'll admit I was greatly disappointed by his decision to not run for president (even that was a mark of great character and integrity). And just as it took me a long time to ever watch Jeopardy again after my disappointment, it took me a long time to return to Russ Feingold, peace be upon him, hagiography.

This to say the Frequently Feingold is coming back. I know I know. It is wonderful. Settle down. But by way of reintroduction, I am doing something a little different. You can go here for a Russ Feingold, PBUH, fix, (If it doesn't comfort and inspire you, you are dead inside.) but I'm going to broaden its sense here for a bit and use this as an introduction to a new feature that honors Heroes of Virtue after the Manner of Russ Feingold, PBUH.

For asking Countrywide Financial CEO if he was going to try to somehow blame the mortgage implosion on Bill Clinton:
Rep. Paul Kanjorski of PA.
Seriously, that was just a good line.

For calling BS on Citibank Compensation Committee Chair and Citibank's compensation criteria:
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton of DC.

For making the Congressional Oversight Committee meaningful:
Rep. Henry Waxman of CA

I think, you're supposed to say, "Lord, here our prayer," or something like that after each one.

So there you go. I care. I'm vulnerable. So what?

If you think that's something, wait until tomorrow.

Confess This

The Vatican has brought up to date the traditional seven deadly sins by adding seven modern mortal sins it claims are becoming prevalent in what it calls an era of "unstoppable globalisation".

"They need to be more aware today of the social face of sin - the inequalities at the social level. They think of sin too much on an individual level. I think priests who hear confession should have a deeper sense of the violence and injustice of such problems - and the fact that people collaborate simply by doing nothing. One of the original deadly sins is sloth - disengagement and not getting involved," Father O'Collins said.

BBC News

Protestants largely have an ideological view of the Reformation that serves a "thank God for intervening into history at just the right moment to save us from popery" that colors a lot of how we understand Catholicism. Well, there's that and a whole lot of continental violence. Still, something like indulgences is broadly understood as the voodoo that Luther rescued us from. Remember indulgences? The last straw that inspired the wholesale return of the church to Jesus Christ, never to need fixing again?

Anyway, they're still something. That's right. There's a whole bunch of the world that believes that sins are actual things and actual sins have actual consequences and a part of the demonstration of our remorse at having actually done something is to seek to actually make amends. That's how they understand indulgences- demonstrating and participating in forgiveness.

Dummies. They don't realize that God does everything so you are entirely off the hook.

In a demonstration of how far they take this nonsense of making amends, the Catholic Church has just released the work they've been doing on understanding the manifestations of sin in our actual world. So with that comes teaching and training priests to properly understand contemporary sins and how one might demonstrate the forgiving transformative grace of Christ and do something that corresponds. That's the sense of an indulgence.

Talk about silly. Someone else telling me what is a sin? Telling me what to do? Like they know something I don't. I'm sorry, guy in the fancy robe, I have a book I carry around in a zippered nylon case with a velcro pocket for carrying colored pencils and it tells me everything I need to know about MY personal relationship with God. So stick it in your rectory.

And still worse, could you imagine if we thought of the social consequences of sin? Yeesh. I might end up doing something and before you knew it, I would think somehow my salvation was connected to what I did. Sin is personal, just like Jesus, and I'm not "doing nothing" as you say. Perhaps if you understood how dead all your works are, you would understand, that what you call doing nothing, I call Blessed Assurance.

Jesus Is Mine!
Ouch Ouch Ouch- The Briefs
Shoplifters of the World Unite- The Smiths
Consternation- Tito Puente
Thanks for the Memory- Stan Getz
Sloop John B- The Beach Boys
Down by the Riverside- Sister Rosetta Tharp



I hate the way it gets all bunched up down here now.

My Iron Lung

You've probably already seen this, the story of the college math teacher fired for altering the sense of a loyalty oath state employees are forced to sign. I'm not looking to get the public schools I worked for into any trouble nor pat myself on the back, but I did the same thing and they couldn't care less. In fact, one human resources manager told me she just needed the paper in my file and it probably didn't even matter if I signed it.

It matters though, if the people looking over your papers are fascists. Oh c'mon, fascists? Really?

Okay, maybe the supervisor who said Kearney-Brown could not alter her loyalty oath isn't a fascist. Maybe the supervisor just wants to make sure we all believe and do the same thing out of loyalty to the state and would gladly enforce that with violence. Or maybe Perhaps it's a status confessionis mortis. In an other time, we could be more tolerant of difference, we might even accept each other's differences, but in light~ of the looming specter of death we have to circle the wagons. We can't have middle-aged remedial math teachers refusing to take up arms against all enemies real or imagined.

In a time such as this it's necessary to trust our leaders to tell us what is and isn't acceptable- mostly what isn't acceptable. These are unique days wherein everything matters- even silly gestures of uber-patriotism.

Back in the days we had no enemies, I could get away with not swearing to violently defend the Constitution- so could Marianne Kearney-Brown. But now we know better.

The silly thing is, this is so far down the scale of things that matter that it's value really isn't in the act but in what it points to. I don't mean it's not important for her, or anyone else to live with their conscience. If you can't sign something, you shouldn't. But really? A 50 year-old math teacher? Taking up arms to defend the Constitution? As David Rakoff said- it's grass soup. (Read this, your day will be better.) I think it's good for her to have done that- even if the time never comes when we ask 50 year old women to do our killing. Directly anyway.

But what it points to- Right. That's where I was headed.

I think someone could make the case that this is silly theater. This is a bit of nonsense- especially because of the performers involved, it distracts from the ways in which we already participate and maintain the structures of a subtly murderous system. I'm not making that point, but I could see why and how someone might. If this act in itself is what matters, then we're in trouble. If this is the way one confronts the world, it doesn't do all that much. Instead, it points to a way it might be done, and as such, it is a reminder that there are features as plain as the noses on our faces that we accept and go along with for the sake of going along. That is, we take these marks of culture to conduct the business of the world, and because it is the world, like the noses on our faces, it generally goes unnoticed. But here's a reminder that something is there, something that demands loyalty, something that does what the world does in the way the world does it.

I think one of the greatest temptations facing Western Christians these days is no different than those Jesus is said to have faced in the wilderness and throughout his ministry: to get worldly authority and glory in exchange for worshipping the devil. Of course as long as we identify worldliness as love of boobies, booze, and the F word we figure we're doing all right. Right? I mean, we're in the world, confronted by sex and violence on the MTV video games, the gays with their agendas, and people who smoke and swear, but because we don't do that, we're not of the world so we're safe from the devil's offers.

Hooray for us. But at whatever points we think Christianity is about being a good citizen, we're dead. Insofar as we make Christianity a propositional prospect or even one that is concerned with confronting personal sin we are, in part, taking the marks and features of the world that allow us to get along and conduct our business. In short, Christianity, in a sense, prevents one from being what might be Christian. That's probably all that needs to be said about that.

But not signing or swearing a loyalty oath is pointing to the thing we don't see. We don't see that the world, as it's put together, makes certain demands that we be a certain type of person that fits into the world. We're especially tempted because we happily think the tenets of something called Christianity are universal- and everyone would want to be what it is to be a Christian because it's the best way to be. It makes us well-adjusted, self-actualized, and happy. It is the best way to get along because it is the Truth, and because it is the Truth, it inevitably makes us most suited to going along and fitting in. What else could something called the Truth be and do, after all? If it's True, wouldn't it make us good, virtuous, amiable, and happy to swear loyalty to a universal sense of the same? Not swearing the loyalty oath reminds us that the world has its own sense of good, virtue, and amiability and it's by accepting those premises that we have its authority and glory, the authority that allows us to be masters and creators and the glory of doing well in it.

It is in this way that I think Quakers matter. I don't think there is something objective or ontologically fixed that is Quaker and that's what we ought to be. Rather, given the world, it is an appropriate and timely method of response. To be clear, the world is late English Capitalist hegemony. To be clearer, I don't think being in the Word requires or is identified with something called Quaker, and the Word is more important to me than something called Quaker. But in this particular type of world, something called Quaker has features that make for a good method of response.

More on that later...
9/11 9/11d Everything
Coffee Klatch's Smooth Hits from the 70s Mix

Counterrevolutionary Activity

If you missed the Champion's League Arsenal-AC Milan meeting you probably got more important things done today. But then you also missed an aggressive Arsenal overcome Milan, the officials, and Senderos' clumsy defending to historically be the first English side to ever beat Milan at home.

It was beautiful. I was a bit panicky for the first quarter hour or so, especially after this past Saturday's performance. But then the pace at which Arsenal played, seemed like an entirely new team was somehow subbed in whole.

This is frivolous and entirely a distraction from anything that matters, but if others are allowed __?__,* I get this.

*Guess what I was thinking should go in the blank?
Boring, Boring Arsenal
1921- The Who

The Times They Are Whatever

In addition to likely being the day we'll finally get to know whether we'll be saying President-elect Obama or President-elect Clinton (I'm looking forward to that and hoping for the former), tomorrow the California Supreme Court will hear a case regarding marriage.

I have a "mark my words" position on the issue of what we call homosexuality and homosexual marriage as far as THE CHURCH is concerned. In the same way that contemporarily unconscionable positions were maintained by dominant Christianity in the US with the full support of scripture and tradition but overtime renounced, this finger-wagging, hand-wringing and brow-furrowing over homosexuality will change. Just as those who advocated the abolition of slavery or opposed the nonsense of anti-miscegenation were on the fringe of Christianity at one time, those who are mining scripture and tradition right now for the possibility of a new world regarding homosexuality, in the future, will be at the fore. Whereas today's dominant, or just louder, voices opposing the life of people conveniently missing from our communities will be suppressed or seen as an unfortunate mis-step in the history of THE CHURCH. That is, the Dobsons and Robertsons will go the way of the Wilsons and Graysons

"Who?"

Exactly

Few remember the pro-slavery and white supremacist theology of Princeton and still extant mainline seminaries throughout the US. Instead we craft a history that remembers abolitionists were Christians. We remember that Christianity is responsible for ending American slavery and forget that "All Christians believe that the affairs of the world are directed by Providence for wise and good purposes. The coming of the negro to North America makes no exception to the rule. His transportation was a rude mode of emigration; the only practicable one in his case; not attended with ore wretchedness than the emigrant ship often exhibits even now, notwithstanding the passenger law. What the purpose of his coming is, we may not presume to judge. But we can see much good already resulting from it--good to the negro, in his improved condition; to the country whose rich fields he has cleared of the forest and made productive in climates unfit for the labour of the white man; to the Continent of Africa in furnishing, as it may ultimately, the only means for civilizing its people." We remember that Christianity is responsible for advancing human rights and forget that "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And, but for the interference with his arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriage. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

After tomorrow, a ruling will be due in 90 days. It's unlikely, though possible, that the majority Republican appointees will equally apply the law and say a person can enter into marriage with the person they want. The California Supreme Court did that in 1948 despite majority opposition; it may do it again.

Oh I know, I know, natural order, foundations of civilization, and all that. The natural separation of the races and the continuation of White civilization are threatened by- oh wait, you meant, the natural difference between male and female is threatened- I thought you meant something else. Well, those conceptions will change and we will rationalize our positions in relation to them. We'll advance certain ideas and suppress others. Christians are good guys and whatever is the good in the future will be where we stand, whatever else may have happened up to then.

Or not. I don't mean it won't happen. I mean not all people will say it's the good, and so not all Christians will say, "This is where we ought to be." After all in 2000, Alabama had to vote on their already decreed unconstitutional anti-miscegenation laws and 40% of those voters thought "the races" ought not mix in marriage. For many, maintaining that adversarial position will be "the good." It will be a mark of purity and virtue to be a hold out. But we'll know that that is a hold out position against what is accepted, and so, some Christians will know themselves as Christians precisely because they never gave in. Whatever, the California Supreme Court may not decide in favor of equal protection in this case, but that time will come.

But as far as "or not" goes, I also mean that the above may not be the necessary position of something called Christian. Up to this point I haven't suggested a judgment and I am not advocating a wait and see approach. It's just what I think will happen- enough to say "Mark my words..." enough to wager a cop moustache.

sp!? What- that's how you spell moustache, isn't it? ... Oh mustache. Moustache is a European variant- or is mustache the American variant? See how much things change?

In any case, it's a comin' and that set of relations will be there. I don't think it is necessarily the role of something called the church to be the cheerleader for the broadening reach of Modernity or the long arc of moral justice... or something like that. I do think, in something called the church there is the possibility, and responsibility, to question assumptions and ideologies of gender and live as a people who are learning to worship God in relation to even something as basic seeming as gender.

Face it, what you think it means to be a man or woman, depends on what we think it means to be a man or woman (duh), but if what you think it means to be a man or woman has a thorough, self and other-dominating claim on you then what place does that leave for anything else- especially a not a thing else like God?

We're Number 1!

"The United States imprisons more people than any other nation in the world. China is second, with 1.5 million people behind bars. The gap is even wider in percentage terms."

NY Times

In completely unrelated news:

"School districts across California have begun trimming services and preparing to lay off teachers in response to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget, which could cut about $4.8 billion in education funding this year and next year. Educators say it's the worst financial crisis they can remember."

LA Times

Sow The Wind
Nothings Shocking Album- Jane's Addiction