Friday, March 29, 2024

$.019 on the Kavanaugh Hearings and Dr. Blasey Ford

Christine Blasey Ford recently published a memoir. You may remember she is the one who testified in the Kavanaugh hearings, saying the nominated justice had assaulted her when they were both teenagers. At the time I mused on it for my own thinking, and reconsidered it a bit for today.

The prevailing rule in too many Supreme Court nominations certainly applies here:

There is nothing really right or wrong, but thinking makes it so.
Political power is everything.
If you interfere with my political power, you are bad, really bad.
There is no way out of this mess.

I wondered if the age-old rule, love god and neighbor, could get any air-time.

Love God – You better have something/someone larger than you that holds you to final account.

Love your neighbor, especially when they suffer.
If Dr. Ford is truthful, her pain is great.
If Kavanaugh is guilty, his pain is great.
If Dr. Ford is lying, her pain is great.
If Kavanaugh is innocent, his pain is great.

Do you know how to grade the pain or gauge the brokenness or know the truth? I don't. Lord, have mercy. How many broken people have you known who learn to masquerade, to cover, to cope? As many as have ever lived. Privilege and power on all scales mask the human reality of the soul and heart. This is true no less of Kavanaugh or Dr. Ford.

All should grieve for Dr. Ford if she were abused. All should be free to wonder about such things, because there is reason to do so.

All should grieve for the presumed innocence of the man in the chair. What culture is strong enough to guarantee "innocent until proven guilty?" It is a precious inheritance and we abandon it to our peril. One should also allow he may be guilty, and let due process run its course.

The prophet said: “Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly.”

Justly: Burn the guy. He is a lecherous offender. Or, try calmly to determine truth.

Mercy: Accept all statements at face value (except that is lunacy.) Better: be compassionate of the accuser. The alleged act may be true and have grave effects. And be compassionate of the man in the chair. He may be innocent of a grave charge, or there may be mitigating factors.

Humbly: Speak with certainty to correct injustice. Perhaps, but first pray to live quietly in this world, and weep for those who must judge such things. Look in the mirror and remember who does not.

I don't know anything else. 

Lord, have mercy.





Thursday, March 28, 2024

Yearning for the Real

Thinking long and hard has mixed reviews. At least there’s no utopia in the offing. Maybe this failure suggests utopia is not possible, or our notion of utopia is faulty. I’m in the latter camp, except I don’t believe in utopia, but rather in a new heaven and earth as the biblical corpus puts it.

It likely exceeds our conceptions. Paul the Apostle was no mean intellect. Historian Tom Holland says his writings were “depth charges” throughout the entire Greco/Roman world. And Paul said the afterlife will be good beyond our imagination.

I believe in the afterlife because I am a Christian. It is clearly taught in the Scripture, and Jesus Himself assured his followers: “I go to prepare a place for you.” But there’s enough ambiguity to let us know a lot with low resolution – and very little with high.

I am taken, though, with this idea of a “new heaven and new earth.” It makes sense when we remember Creation is good. Yet we all know in our bones it isn’t all it ought to be now. We creatures seem to make sure of that every day.

Something’s just plain wrong with the notion that we who compulsively create hell in families, communities, and nations will, from that same human milieu create a heaven on earth. Yes, there are Churchills and Britains to beat back Hitler and Nazi Germany, but if WWII Germany was close to hell, Britain, for all its goodness, did not become heaven.

Perhaps no one would imagine we will create heaven, except John Lennon’s anthem by that title, which gave hopefuls everywhere a faux heavenly vision. The scandalous unreality of that same anthem is that it scrapes the broken chalkboard within every home and heart.

Try as we might, thinking will not solve our problems. As Pascal put it, “Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.”

So where does that leave us? In part with the fixed things that transcend reason. Mother, father, child; earth, wind, fire; starry sky of bewildering wonder, pain of sudden death and continual suffering, ecstatic pleasures that bewilder with delight.

One might say my Christian dogma informs all for me, and one would be right, though working it out fully is beyond all of us. But if there are no fixed things to which all can attest, meaning and mind are done. The fixed things give us a place to begin, to believe, to hope . . .

To Trust.

In the new heaven and new earth fixed things will remain – will indeed be real in all their true realness. We are told there will be no tears, which surely means no sorrow. But hardship, challenge, growth, striving, working, enjoying – I’m inclined to think all of that and more will be there, along with pleasure. Theologians can correct me if they wish – I’m just wondering.

All creation groans, Paul says, to bring all things into newness. I don’t want to die anytime soon but I know I will someday. I too groan for that newness, for the realness of which my life is a hint and shadow. On that great day the groaning will give way to knowing and loving and cheering.

Indeed, we will know and be known in ways that reason has no clue.

I can’t wait, but I will.



Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Soul Salve [100wordwednesday]

Dot Lake lives on the Alaskan Highway, a village here before the road. The cemetery shows this was home for generations. Thus so in countless towns, countless people, for millenia. An old home beckons us. We come, and stay, and we know why. We have been here before. We linger, and feel something right, unadulterated, clean. We come encumbered and leave whole. The spirit of a place gives soul to buildings and geography. Dot Lake renews, for reasons. Reasons the heart knows, and holds close: a secret ruined if told. In silence it heals, and we are thankful.


Tuesday, March 26, 2024

How Does One Best Write? [10'Tuesday]

Today I write casually, painfully even, because not watching the keys. C. S. Lewis fixed that problem by writing always with pen or pencil. Wendell Berry, same. Lewis' rationale was practical: typing distracted him. Berry questions the value-added: “I already write too much with a pen. Why should I use a typewriter?” For both, of course, a typist prepared the work for publisher. Lewis' typist was his brother, Warny; Berry's is his wife, Tanya.

It is an argument to say writers always did it this way until very recently in the history of writing. But this is partly false because another method is speaking to a transcriber, either in real time or via the organ of oral history.

Adding to this is the question of timing and rhythm. I type very slowly right now because I am typing without seeing the keys. If I always typed – or hand-wrote – how might it affect my output in quality or quantity?

Seems to me the answer is found differently for all. My gut still says I'd write better if always long- hand, not least because it is closer to the soul, the visceral, the true embodied-ness of life without machines.

Monday, March 25, 2024

Fiddler on the Roof

I recently re-watched Fiddler on the Roof, the 1971 film rendering of the musical by the same name. It had been at least 20 years since I had seen it. A friend termed it very “philosophical.” How right he was. Countless people have watched it through the years, vindicating universal accolades.

The central character, Reb Tevye, battles with himself, his wife, his daughters, and God. In the end he all-but disowns one of his daughters. He is the human mix of ideal with reality, suffering with blessing, injustice with resolution, hard work draped with poverty. But I saw his frailty above all. He insists on being “the man” and then embarrasses his family. He ignores one daughter, shouts at another, then lambastes his wife.

This is a father straining to find footing in the midst of soul trauma. He watched his oldest daughters leave the home, each violating tradition more than the previous. The world he knows and loves is crumbling. Can we blame him if he cracks?

As to the youngest, Chava, who married outside the faith, how should Reb Tevye respond? Should she be hurt at her father's response? What is her responsibility? What is mine? If I deny tradition I should bear the consequences graciously. I may disagree with the tradition and those who hold it. They may even be wrong to hold me at bay for straying. But the rules were known. If one defies the rules one should bear the opprobrium with maturity and dignity rather than scorn or faux shock.

What of Reb Tevye: should he reject his own daughter? I think not. God does not do this to us, so we can not do it to others. When a child lives wrong, rejection is out of line. As to the child, he or she bears the consequences. Unjust consequences compound grief. But crying foul for results known to be in the offing – that is a burden the 'violator' must bear. If you know the movie, you know Reb Tevye and his wife squared this circle with simple, familial love.

What are some other takeaways?

  • Celebrate in the midst of suffering, affirming the joy of life itself no matter what falls our lot. “To life!”

  • Accept change as inevitable but not inexorable or intrinsically right. Resistance may well be necessary, but has its cost. “Tradition!”

  • Affirm family as at the heart of reality, and rules about it, therefore, as fundamental. Matching must be done and we need a lot of help to do it right. “And affection!”

  • Confirm married love as a willful vow to stay together until death for the good of one another, children, and the world around. Affection matters as do many other things, but sheer commitment is primary. “Do I love him?”

  • Suffer with the idealistic ambitions that go with youth. History shows what came of the Bolshevik dreams. Life is grounded when we work quietly with our own hands, know this world will pass away, live at peace with our loved ones and all else we can help. “Why not stay here and be a teacher?”

In sum, the title tells the story: a man balancing on the roof while playing the violin. Life calls us to attempt, to be, to do; and calamity will come. In the midst of it all we play a violin -- more than any can master and we all fall short. What lets us make sense and keep our balance? Reb Tevye has the answer: Tradition!




Saturday, March 23, 2024

A Poem for Saturday

A poem for Saturday I'm told
Is good for healing.
The soul needs kneeling, waking, re-making
what life is taking.

A verse for Saturday I'm told
The heart revealing
The person seeing, shaking, displaying
what life has taken.

It's curious that life would take
for by its nature life exudes.
We receive bewildering, boundless life
and spend it in childish delight.

It is an idiom I suggest,
for what we mean it wears us down.
We receive bewildering, boundless life
But our body can't bear it all.

A poem on any day I'm told
engenders singing
gives life its earning, yearning, enjoying --
the soul restoring.







Friday, March 22, 2024

Sing Unto the Lord (Psalm 96:1)

O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth.

Psalm 96 is my reading for today and verse one is enough, I suppose, to give pause. 

Singing is such a peculiar thing and yet common to all of life. Some birds do it endlessly. Some people do it poorly or not at all, mercifully. Yet here the Psalmist exults and admonishes: SING!

A minimalist response reads the text and moves on. Is that enough? What are we supposed to do with this, what should it elicit? Further, what is the place of the preacher and expositor? Why more is needed than reading and heeding and doing?

Good question.

The answer comes in trying to discern what the writer intended. This verse is "hortatory" language, a term taken from "exhort." The Psalmist is trying to stir action in the right direction.

What should the action look like? I am increasingly bemused at the deeply ingrained approach which causes me to think the action here is to be immediate, full-on, and full-orbed. What should the action look like? Burst out in boisterous singing, right now, obviously!

But David would surely be curious if, upon hearing the Psalm, the listener immediately began singing. So what does he intend?

Some ideas:

  • Change of outlook from complaining to singing, from grumbling to gladness. The change is one of perspective.
  • Change from inwardness to outwardness. Of course God deals with the inner life if He deals at all, for from the heart the mouth speaks, or sings. But we never sing if we are always focused inwardly. Singing is an outward thing, not always public -- again, mercifully -- but always out-from-ourselves.
  • In this sense, singing is ec-static. Static has to do with stasis, being still, stuck, unmoving. Ecstatic is the idea of getting out of that stuck-ness. When someone is ecstatic they are outward, moving, energized. We don't live there all the time or early death would be the norm. But we need ecstacy to sweeten the drudgery that is normal and necessary to life. Singing helps us do that.
  • There is another. This singing is for everyone, or so I surmise. Even the least musically inclined can and should participate in the congregation. This is perhaps a core reason why congregational singing should happen and we should engender it with our modes of worship. Many of us are not like me, singing too loudly and eagerly. Some of us cannot carry a tune, but we still need to sing. And we can if we are in congregation, carried along and covered over by the body of song. I hear this often in congregations where there are reluctant singers. I hear them intoning the words with common bass notes, but still singing! It is right and good.
There is more, always more. This singing is to the Lord -- He is our focus and that should carry us along.

So, to my somewhat surprise, there is more in a verse than meets the eye. David had something in mind and we are wise to heed it, adjust our attitude and live accordingly.

Thank you, Friend David. Someday I hope to meet you in person, hear you sing, and learn better all you meant with this wonderful Psalm. Until that day....