BOOSH-Y BOOSH-Y

You know how some people say- "America, love it or leave it" or "If it's so horrible here in America, why don't you go live in [someplace else]?," or "Good grief, there was a whole pie here when I left- did you eat the whole thing?"? Well I have a response for some of that. First of all, I like pie and if I eat it all, but burn the whole thing off- what's the problem? Secondly, it seems that someplace else might turn out to be a country full of 28%ers. What would I do in a place like that?

Albania for example-

"It was a unique day in the recent history of the Bush presidency: The U.S. leader, whose stops in Italy and Germany earlier on this trip prompted massive demonstrations against him and the Iraq war, could not suppress a satisfied smile as Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha called him 'the greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had in all times.'"

LA Times

That's impressive because if I understand Albanian history correctly, that's where General Zod is from, as are Mother Teresa and the cruddy soft metal band Toxin. But I guess native Albanians aren't really guests- great or otherwise.

Their reaction is interesting to me. For one, I often wondered what the former President Bush will do... I'm going to write that again, former President Bush... I didn't see him building houses for Habitat for Humanity or writing books or fighting the global spread of AIDS or raising money for disaster victims... one more time, former President Bush.... Anyway he certainly wouldn't need to clear brush again, well at least he wouldn't need to have his picture taken clearing brush. I guess I imagined he would just sit on the Boards of Directors of multiple oil companies and spend his retirement splitting time between his villa in Texas and various palaces throughout the Middle East- taking leisurely strolls, hand in hand with various Saudi royals. But with this reception in Albania I see the possibility of W, the elder statesman, promoting the word democracy to infant nation states. That's something.

But that's something only slightly here or there. What is more interesting to me is this response. It's impressive considering what the rest of Europe, most Americans and a former president think of MY PRESIDENT. Albanians were largely responding to MY PRESIDENT'S support of Kosovar independence from Serbia- blah blah blah. It's a type of democracy he is pushing- a majority of people in some given locale have a particular opinion- so he says that's the way things should be. At least it is for Kosovo, and they like that. It appeals to their priorities and loyalties- it is for them, the way things are and should be. And that's the way things are.

It's nice to pretend that there is some detached, purely rational, objective way of saying how things ought to be or what we ought to do... but there isn't. There is a more detached, rational, and objective way of saying how things are, but not how they ought to be.

For the Albanians, the way things ought to be is a melange of culture, priorities, norms, mores, education, manners, habits, loyalties, accepted history and on... I'm not picking on Albanians. That's the way we all say things ought to be. A whole bunch of subjectivity is piled up and we say- "This is what ought to be done."

Now somewhere down the line, one might object to this and say something like, "Then this makes everything a matter of opinion- eating babies is a matter of chocolate is better than vanilla." I would say that's silly. Is eating babies really an option for you? You can call it a natural revulsion, a cultural norm, a matter of public sanction- but I doubt that eating human babies is an actual (not hypothetical) option for you. This isn't to say that someone, somewhere, at some time has never had that option. I just doubt it for you. And should some reader eat babies, they likely do it in secret, worried about being caught- unless they're crazy. In which case we know they're crazy because they don't worry about being caught eating human babies. But suppose there is some we somewhere that eats human babies. There is no way for them to know that eating babies is something that someone will call wrong unless there is some actual alternative we that says, "Hey, we think eating babies is horrrible- we say, 'Don't do that.'" There is nothing objectively in the baby that says, "Do not eat." Additionally I would say, not everything is a matter of opinion- just some things- specifically those things that matter to our selves for existence. And then I might ask, "Who told you to hold opinion in such low esteem?"

What we say one ought to do is a matter of opinion and it is often something we don't even say but know as what we ought to do because of who we say we are.

That "we" is very important. Who we say we are is an ongoing, webby, unsettled negotiation. Some are concerned that torture, invading other countries, overthrowing foreign governments, secretly arresting people and holding them without trial or evidence, hyper-nationalism, xenophobia, blah, blah, blah are a part of who we are. It is not compatible with what they say we should be. Others find it a necessary and good thing to preserve some conception of we. Those groups of we are are incommensurate and we will have to find some way to negotiate who we are through that. That's a lot of work, and when there's TV to be watched... well what can you do?

More locally, that seems to be the situation facing our erstwhile Yearly Meeting. If it's simply a matter of majority rule or volume, I'm out. Those who imagine following Christ is a matter of building bigger and more church buildings are more. Those who say Christianity is a matter of assent to a stated creed are legion. It may be that the we that is troubled by particular phenomena has no place in this body. It may be that what it means to be a Friend in southern California (and points nearby) is what it means to be a Nazarene or Calvary Chaplain and my discomfort means I need to find someplace else because I can't be a part of that we. I think there needs to be an ongoing discussion of who we are- but I feel very much right now like a baby eater. This particular body of we does not seem to correspond to what I can say. And if I cannot find something that corresponds to that- I don't belong here. It would be dishonest and wrong for me to continue.

Being a Quaker is neither a matter of novelty nor embarrassment for me. It is about reflecting deeply on what it means to know God myself and in community. It's about reflecting the presence of a totally transcendent God in the Body of Christ. It's about examining and affecting our contexts of understanding so that we don't confuse the practices of our faith with its object. In this context, I find myself caring less and less about what it means to be a Christian and only concerned with what it means to know God in Jesus Christ.

But we're an Annual Conference. We're less and less interested in corporeal life. We're pretending we can say the most important things about God in words. Those things that make sense to me, that have historically been central to Quaker life and thought are dismissed or supressed. I don't know how I can be a part of that we. I don't know how to be a part of any discussion of what that we can be- especially when there is TV to be watched.

Who Do You Say That I Am and All That...
Canned Heat- Jamiroquai
Landslide- Fleetwood Mac
Soul Love- David Bowie
Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves- Verdi
The Heat's On- Dizzy Gillespie
Bastards of Young- The Replacements
Psycho Killer- Talking Heads
Wishful Thinking- Wilco
I'm A Wheel- Wilco
Closedown- The Cure
East of the Sun- Sarah Vaughan
Static- Beck
Analyse- Thom Yorke
Sally Simpson- The Who
I'm Waiting for the Day- The Beach Boys
Bab's Uvula Who?- Green Day