Providence

In a post called Providence and Politics Diana Butler Bass discusses "finger-of-god politics," in which a leader of some sort claims divine favor (and therefore authority) attached to their leadership. Here is what she says about the dangers of this approach:

But finger-of-God explanations are dangerous in relation to politics. If God is the power behind a candidate, then, if that candidate wins, he or she is both beyond reproach and immune to criticism—because, of course, that person is seen as divinely appointed or anointed. The politician's actions are synonymous with God's will. This opens the door for political silliness (God desires tax cuts) or hubris (God favors our political party)—as well as making God responsible for a host of reprehensible or potentially evil acts in the forms of injustice, oppression, or war.

She goes on, however, to point out that providence is not rendered null and void by this misuse of it. There is, in fact, another story to be told about providence.

In this story, God does not control human actions as a divine puppet master. Rather, as human beings encounter the story, we change and our actions begin to conform to God's narrative of shalom. In this way, God's intentions unfold as we practice faith in humble gratitude that God has invited us into the story. Providence is not divine Mapquest or supernatural tom-tom. Rather, providence is a pilgrimage of God's people in time as they seek to live in mercy, kindness, and grace—and that is where God's will is made known. Not God's finger, providence is the breath of God, the spirit enlivening human beings to do justice.

God's providence as an unfolding narrative, as life-giving breath is not nearly as useful a tool for gaining or keeping power as the finger-of-god perspective; but is a far more humble, beautiful, and human one.

Lest I get too serious...

A blogger whose posts were too grim
Filled a hole all the way to the brim
With wisecracks and jokes
But then in fell the bloke
And he drowned laughing too hard to swim

God helped me do it

In a terrible tragedy over the last couple days, a young man shot and killed several people at two Christian organizations in Colorado before being confronted by a "volunteer security guard" (When did churches start fielding armed guards?) and killed. The security guard gave credit to god for helping her kill the gunman. While I am glad there was no more loss of life, I find this a little disturbing. I keep thinking of the story of Jesus healing the servant's ear after Peter went all ninja with his sword in the garden of Gethsemane.

Does god help us kill people? Even people in the midst of terrible acts?
I am not suggesting this guard should not have fired her weapon or, by association, that we shouldn't have police to preserve the peace. This guard had an explosive situation on her hands and did her best. I am just questioning this view in which we assume god micromanages the world for our benefit and another's destruction. Would god help an American soldier kill an Iraqi soldier? What about the Civil War? Both sides claim the same god; who's side is he on?

I can't pretend to understand what it is like to be a police officer facing an armed gunman or a soldier facing an armed foe in a battle I did not choose. What would I pray? "God, let me kill this guy before he kills me"? "God, help me stay alive"? How about, "God have mercy on me"? It seems to me that if we believe in a god who created and loves all of us, we cannot help but see every death, regardless of whose it is, as a terrible tragedy. I am perhaps bothered by the reduction of complex tragedies to simple victories and defeats.

What do you think? Are those of us in faith communities too quick to assume god is on our side?

Hmmm. That reminds me of a Bob Dylan song. It is talking about war in particular, and I recognize that is different from police or security matters, but I still think it has something to say about our proclivity for claiming god's blessing on what we want to do.

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

More Golden Compass News

My friend Dennis sent me this article from the Scottish daily The Herald; I think it makes a lot of sense. I particularly like the following paragraph:

Pullman has stated that it doesn't matter to him whether people believe in God or not. He is a champion of kindness over cruelty, democracy over tyranny, open-minded inquiry over the shutting of freedom of thought and expression. He is right when he says: "To read a great story is not to absorb a doctrine but to begin an imaginative collaboration. It is that freedom that the boy cotters find so frightening. Thou shalt not', is soon forgotten. Once upon a time lasts forever'."

While I may come to different conclusions about the story than Mr. Pullman, I gladly join him in the imaginative collaboration. In my opinion, a big problem with any religion, philosophy, political movement, or what-have-you is that they all tend to move from discovery and freedom to dogma and self-preservation. When you build a big organization, you have to keep it going, protect your interests, pay the bills, and control your followers. It's all too easy for these things to take the place of whatever the organization was for in the first place! I think those who remind us of the values in the quote above are doing us all a service by their challenge.

Pullman must die!

Well, the loudest Christians are gathering wood, preparing to burn Phillip Pullman at the stake for daring to write a book that spawned a movie that represents his beliefs. The title of this egregious book (and the movie) is The Golden Compass. Yes, Mr. Pullman is atheist or agnostic (depending on the interview). Yes, Mr. Pullman is anti-religion and even admits to promoting said view through his stories. What cracks me up is that the charge leveled at Mr. Pullman is that he is trying to persuade children of his views. Children! Um. Has anyone heard of Veggie Tales? Mr. Pullman isn't the only one foisting (What a great word! Say it again with me: "Foisting!" I knew you could.) his beliefs on unsuspecting young minds. Isn't our job as parents to help our children explore and process all that is foisted upon them? I know, I know; it's much less work to simply abandon them to the Christian entertainment industry. I mean, helping them think for themselves implies we have to, right? What the Flying Spaghetti Monster is that all about?

My wife recently posted on her blog about her views on this horrifying movie event, and I heartily concur. She did a fine job, and I won't repeat what she had to say. Instead, I will add a couple quotes from a recent article on the hubbub that I found on CNN.com titled "Is 'Golden Compass' Selling Atheism to Kids?" The answer to the title's question is: probably. Still, I think the quotes below suggest a better response to the issue than a cheery Yuletide Pullman bonfire.

"If you just say 'no' to your kids without engaging in a conversation, they're going to see the movie anyway and all you're teaching them is power, not really teaching your values. If we have faith, what are we afraid of?"
--Sister Rose Paccate, director of the Pauline Center of Media Studies in Culver City, California

Donna Freitas, a visiting assistant professor of religion at Boston University, goes a step further, calling the books a "theological masterpiece." Pullman's intent aside, she views the trilogy as a treatise on Christian belief.

To Freitas, the series' mysterious "Dust" -- portrayed in the books as connected to original sin -- represents the Holy Spirit. Pullman is not attacking religion but those who use power to corrupt, she said.

I think Freitas is wrong. Pullman is attacking religion. Art, however, is always made up of two parties (artist and audience) connected by a medium. Both parties bring their experiences, beliefs, emotions, and reason to the medium. Most authors would say that it would be hubris to insist that readers "get" their message and only their message from a story. In this sense, I think Freitas' interpretation is certainly feasible.

Ultimately, I want to help my children form values, not merely enforce my power as a parent. They must learn, in age-appropriate ways, to engage with the world in which they live. I want them to react not from fear, but carefully, thoughtfully, and compassionately. Perhaps we should spend more time working through these things with our children and less time campaigning to make everyone we disagree with shut up. After all, If our faith is genuine, what do we have to be afraid of?

Haiku

Swirling around me,
Morning wind whispers of snow;
I hurry inside.

Sigh...

Well, I managed to wreck our full-size van last Friday. Didn't even see the brake lights on my way home until it was too late to stop. Squooshed the little red car in front of me and made it plow into the car in front of it. Fortunately no one was hurt. Our van is so old, I'm guessing the front end damage will total it. It wasn't running right, so I let them tow it away. Oh well. At least when my insurance goes up, it will only be on one van.

If you can't beat 'em...

I'd like to be able to say that I'm such a loving, sensitive guy that I just naturally want what my wife wants. The truth is, as politicians are so fond of saying, much more "nuanced." That is to say, what I really want is what I want which, hard as it may be to believe, often differs ever so slightly from what she wants. You know, kind of like the slight difference between positive and negative poles on a magnet.

Perhaps some examples are in order. To me, a clean room means everything in its place--nothing on the floor or laying on the couch. To Amy, picking up toys and clothes is kind of beside the point; a clean room means scrubbing the carpet until it's clean at the molecular level. To Amy, a really yummy food would be something made from beans--hummus, bean burritos, lentil soup. To me, beans just give me gas, which, for the record, Amy does not like. To me, bicycling is all about the pace, slowing down to enjoy life, looking around, breathing in fresh air. To Amy, bicycling is more about the sport, feeling the burn, kicking that trail's butt. These are just a few examples, but I hope they help illustrate the surprising variations in our life perspectives.

(And, yes, I know three paragraphs is a long way into a humble blog post without actually getting to the point. If you read more books instead of watching so much TV, your attention wouldn't be wandering yet.)

Anyway, one of these minor disparities happens to involve animals. I love animals. I love to watch the birds fly around, the fish swim around, the cats caper around. I love that deer and bears and things are out there. Nature shows are what I miss the most from the days when I had TV reception. When it comes to pets, I'm not even sure I believe in them, taking the Navajo perspective that domesticating animals is a little unnatural. If I must have pets, fish seem pretty good. I feed them and watch them. Pretty.

Amy loves animals too. She loves to domesticate them, feed them, train them to do tricks, and generally experience the satisfaction of caring for them in a master-pet relationship. Amy loves scouring the online Humane Society listings; and if it wouldn't send us over the brink of bankruptcy, she would probably bring home a new rescued animal each week. Her idea of good pets are things that breath.

Now, I suspect that you, my clever reader (See what not watching TV for a few paragraphs will do for your IQ?), have spotted the teensy-weensy difference between my love of animals and Amy's. Of course, this is where my sensitivity and loving nature kick in and cause me to graciously accept my wife's love of animals in our home. Or, to use the more nuanced explanation, this is where I give up because this woman is just a heck of a lot more stubborn than I am (not to mention darn cute!).

To date, we have one dog, one cat (down from three), and two guinea pigs. Recently, I lost my mind and actually expressed some mild enthusiasm (I believe by only passing out on the floor for five minutes this time) for the concept of obtaining more pets. As you might expect from one of my loving, sensitive nature, my motives were not entirely altruistic: I have become fascinated with birds. Now, birds have always interested me to a certain extent; and I have no doubt that a few well-placed bird feeders on the back porch would probably satisfy my bird watching needs were it not for the fact that I might feel some degree of self-reproach from attracting the pretty birdies to their death under the slashing claws of our cat, who has already considerably thinned the neighborhood squirrel population.

So, with one little budgie-sized chink in my anti-pet defenses, a flood of possibilities has burst through, washing away my usual objections. Now we are actively considering personal rodent companions (i.e., gerbilish animals) for each of our four children for Christmas, which is better than personal cell phones at least; a new puppy somewhere in my wife's future; and, yes, perhaps a cheery little budgerigar for the papa. On the bright side, we might be able to charge admission for the neighborhood children to visit.

It just goes to show what happens when you let down your guard a little. Or maybe I'm more sensitive and loving than I thought. Nah. If you can't beat 'em, you might as well join 'em.

But what is it's message?

This weekend I finished reading a book and realized with horror that I had nothing to read!* In a mild panic, I scoured my bookshelf for something I hadn't read enough times to be able to outline the plot from memory. My eye fell on Ursula K. Le Guin's book, A Wizard of Earthsea. That might work. Poking around the author's website, I ran across a wonderful little article that might be of interest to anyone who is engaged in writing or reading fiction. The article is called A Message About Messages, and it describes exactly how I look at meaning and message in fiction. Here's a little teaser:

Readers—kids and adults—ask me about the message of one story or another. I want to say to them, "Your question isn't in the right language."

As a fiction writer, I don't speak message. I speak story. Sure, my story means something, but if you want to know what it means, you have to ask the question in terms appropriate to storytelling. Terms such as message are appropriate to expository writing, didactic writing, and sermons—different languages from fiction.

* "Nothing to read" in this case means "no unread work of fiction that suited my current mood."

The Dreaming Boat

I sit and stare through the window with its chipped and peeling frame. The ivy around the window has turned green, and a robin looks for worms in the tiny yard behind the house. I only notice these things out of habit. Today, everywhere I look, I see her face, hanging suspended in my memory by a single, jagged strand of longing.

"I need you," I whisper. "I wish you were here."

She doesn't answer. I sigh and lower my gaze to the worn surface of my desk. I pick up a tiny pewter sailboat and cradle it in my palm. I still remember when Rose gave it to me.

We didn't have any money on our first anniversary, but I brought Rose breakfast in bed. She sat up, her eyes bright, her hair still tousled from sleep. She pulled a little box tied with green ribbon out from under her pillow and handed it to me. It held the sailboat, of course. She knew I loved to watch the sailboats in the bay, gliding over the water, free as the wind and waves. She said she had found it at the second-hand shop for a nickel and couldn't resist.

"It's to carry your dreams so they won't get lost along the way." Her smile lit up the room.

I look at the clock. Only ten. I still have most of the worst day of the year to get through. The day I lost her.

Our daughter Judith has tried to help. She does laundry and fixes meals, leaving me notes about how to heat everything up. She and Harry always invite me over for Sunday dinner. But it wasn't what Rose did that I miss.

I hear the screen door bang and get up from my chair. Kevin never remembers to knock. A pair of bright eyes peer around the door frame. My heart catches. Her eyes. A bundle of six-year-old energy rockets across the room and flings his arms around me.

"Grandpa!"

I pat his back and muss his hair--wild brown hair, just like hers.

"Grandpa, are you sad?"

"You've gotten so big and strong you squooshed my tears out with that hug."

His wide grin lights up the room.

"What's that?" He looks at the boat, still in my hand. “Can I hold it?”

I tip the little boat from my wrinkled palm into his smooth one. “It’s a dreaming boat.”

"What's it do?"

"Well, you put your dreams in it, the things you care about more than anything, and it carries them for you so they won't get lost." I think a minute. "Maybe it's time for you to have it."

Kevin's eyes go wide. "Really? Does it work?"

I look at this small creature, full of wonder, curiosity, and light—just like Rose had been, even at the last, just before the cancer took her. I place my hand on his shoulder and force my voice past the lump in my throat. "Of course it does."

Praying in Ink

In her book, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about talking to God by writing a dialogue in her notebook. I think my journal is a little like that. It is filled with entries that begin in despair and end in exultation, entries that begin in confusion and end in clarity. Amy says I should gather them all together and write a book!

Is this my talking with God? I would be uncomfortable putting a "Thus saith the Lord" on anything that comes out of my pen, but it does seem to be a key way of finding peace for me. It forces me to slow my thoughts with the physical rhythm of my pen and focus them with the words on the page. It is a way to be still and know, a way to quiet the clamor so I can listen, a way to clear the clutter so I can see and understand.

So these words become my prayer. This page becomes my cathedral. Here I am in the middle of it, naked and quiet, listening for a still, small voice in the scratching of my pen.

Cruisin'

Woo-hoo! My new bike came yesterday. I wrestled with the awful instructions (which seemed to cover a variety of bike models, none of which resembled mine to any great degree), got most of the parts attached (some correctly), and took my first spin around the block. What fun! The kids and I are looking forward to riding up to the library together on Saturday for our first family bike ride. If I lived in Kirksville where I work, I'd probably get rid of our second van and ride all the time.

The bike is a single speed retro beach cruiser, complete with removable front basket for errands, cushy spring-loaded seat for my delicate heinie, and a bike horn from Dennis and Andrea that is truly a thing of beauty. I'll post some pictures soon.

Back to the Well

The longer I go without writing, the higher my expectations for what I should be writing get, and the harder it is for me to start writing again. Is anyone else this way, or am I the only loony in this particular bin? If I was this way about food, my belly wouldn't get in the way of my yoga exercises anymore!

I took a wonderful online class last spring called The Beginning Writer's Workshop. It was fun, it stretched me, and I did very well in it. Around that time, I had quit blogging to focus more on the "real world" and concentrate on writing projects. In spite of finishing this wonderful class and making more time by ending my blog, guess what happened? You got it: I had trouble writing anything at all this summer. In spite of the fact that it completely contradicted all the advice offered by the instructor, I think the class raised my expectations to the point where I kept waiting until I felt good enough, had enough time, and was inspired enough to produce a masterpiece. Instead of concentrating on my writing, I just quit.

I'm going to blame it on my bad memory. I can never seem to remember that creativity is like a well that fills rather than empties as I draw out of it. Every word written is worthwhile, even if it is only to get it out of my brain so I can see the word that was hiding underneath it.

So now I'm blogging again, writing in my journal(s), and jotting down notes, quotes, and other thoughts about anything and everything in my pocket notebook. It feels good to be drawing from the well again. Nothing particularly profound has bubbled out; but when I look down, the glint of sunlight on the water seems a little closer to the top than it was yesterday.

Even gooder

Repent and believe in the gospel, Jesus says. Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is gooder than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all.

- Frederick Buechner, from Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons

1000 Hills Haiku

Bright, twinkling ripples
Light blown by the summer wind
Lapping autumn shores

We took the kids out to Thousand Hills State Park yesterday after hitting the Kirksville Farmer's Market and doing some shopping. It was a nearly perfect day: a light breeze was blowing, the sun shone in a cloudless, deep blue sky, and the temperature hovered around eighty degrees. The kids played on the playground while Amy looked for lizards along the edge of the trees, and we took a short walk in the woods, stopping to let the kids see the "cave" along one of the trails.

After a little more playground time, we drove down to the lake and the kids had a ball poking along the shore. Cristofer hunted for unopened mussel shells; I think he was hoping for pearls! The girls and Nick waded in to collect "seaweed" for some inexplicable purpose. It all reminded me how much I love the shore (particularly the ocean, but a lakeshore will do). The sound of the water and the sight of constantly shifting light and shadow are as close to my definition of "peaceful" as anything else I can imagine. The waves beckon, whispering of hidden coves and secret beaches, private worlds waiting to be discovered. Here at the end of the land, the imagination can sail out into the blue, bound for distant shores and exotic destinations.

I'm just a drop in the sea
Painted blue, painted green
And I move with abandon
Impossibly free
So jump into that stream
Take it down to the river
And follow the river to me

Truth vs. Fact

I publicly disagreed with wonderful, recently-deceased author Madeleine L'Engle in my post about Harry Potter. In case she was thinking of haunting me to get revenge, I thought I'd post this lovely bit from an interview she did with Newsweek. After Ms. L'Engle has suggested that not all of the Bible is meant to be taken literally, the interviewer asks if that means we don't need to take it seriously. Her response is wonderful:

Oh no, you do, because it’s truth, not fact, and you have to take truth seriously even when it expands beyond the facts.

The power of peace, the weakness of anger

Very often people object that nonviolence seems to imply passive acceptance of injustice and evil and therefore that it is a kind of cooperation with evil. Not at all. The genuine concept of nonviolence implies not only active and effective resistance to evil but in fact a more effective resistance... But the resistance which is taught in the Gospel is aimed not at the evil-doer but at evil in its source.

- Thomas Merton, from Passion For Peace

I have found myself more and more bothered by violence. That seems a silly thing to say, but it is easy growing up in America to become somewhat numb. It is considered normal child's play to pretend to shoot one's playmates, wipe out the indians one more time, make the prisoner's walk the plank. Arrrr, we're jolly pirates.

Why is this? Is it, as some Christian writers would have us believe, because God made us to conquer? We've certainly done a good job "subduing" the earth; of course, we haven't left much to be masters of. Is it as the scientists say, because we are dealing with the leftover traits ingrained in us by years of struggle to survive the evolutionary development of our world? Personally, I tend to lean more toward the Budweiser solution, why ask why?

In the middle of this meditation on peace and non-violence, one of my kids, who we are pretty sure struggles with ADHD, had an extreme meltdown, throwing a major fit about getting ready for bed. Being the thoughtful, non-violent person I am, I blew up and even gave her a swat, my doubts about the virtues of spanking notwithstanding. Then I blew up at Amy and wound up having to leave the house and take a drive. Yes, I'm afraid I'm really like that. Ironic isn't it, given the subject matter of this post?

While I was cooling off, I realized that the very thing I had been posting about could have helped. I responded to my child's violent fit with a violent temper, and the situation quickly deteriorated. We have learned with another child who has been diagnosed with ADHD that the only thing to do is to refuse to fight with them, back off, and let them settle down. Then they often become compliant as though the incident did not happen. In other words, when, instead of anger and insistence on obedience, I respond in understanding, the problem goes away. The cheesy proverb on my box of tea says it this way: "He who forgives end the argument."

This goes against the grain for many of us. I have heard things like, "You have to teach your children respect." Now I believe I must earn their respect. I have heard that, "You must demand that your children obey." Now I believe I must help them obey. I have heard it said that, "You have to be consistent; don't back down." Consistency is good, but if I'm wrong, apologizing and changing is better than standing firm. As Thomas Merton said above, "...the resistance which is taught in the Gospel is aimed not at the evil-doer but at evil in its source." It is more important to resist the violence within than the violence without.

So I cooled off and came home and made all of my apologies. I'm really good at apologies; I've had so much practice! You know, my kids don't know what it's like to have a great dad; but they do know what it's like to have a human dad. If nothing else, I hope they will grow up learning to admit they're wrong after having seen me do it so much!

This post began with thoughts about peace and non-violence, and I'd like to return to that eventually. For now, I am grateful for the interruption of a blog post to break open the violence in my soul and expose it to the healing of forgiveness.

Harry Potter

I recently finished the final book in J.K. Rowling's unbelievably popular series. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was actually better than I expected. I had read some well-it's-OK-but-not-as-good-as-such-and-such kind of reviews, so I went in not sure what I would think. Now? My enthusiasm for the series has been completely confirmed.

The thing I like about the series more than anything else is that I find in it what recently deceased author Madeleine L'Engle felt was missing from the Harry Potter story: meaning. I enjoy a good story, but more and more as I get older, I like to take something away from the story: some grain of hope, a deeper understanding of myself or other people, some insight into the world. I do not, however, have any fondness whatsoever for allegory or morality tales. They tend to oversimplify the complexity of life and to be preachy. I think when an author tells it like it is, meaning will arise from the story.

Anyway, until the end, I'd have been hard pressed to slap a meaning or theme on the Harry Potter series. Now, looking back, I do see a theme running all the way through; and, ironically enough for all the Harry-Potter-is-the-devil religious uproar over the books, it is perhaps best expressed with a verse from the Christian bible.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. (Matt 16:25)

I'm not suggesting this theme was J.K. Rowling's purpose for writing the books or that there aren't a million other themes to be found in the books, only that this is the one that stands out to me.

I can hear the fundamentalist sputtering starting already: "But--but--but--" Spit it out. "But, Jesus said, 'for me,' and Harry Potter doesn't say anything about Jesus!" Oh? And what about Jesus' statement that whatever we do for "the least of these" we do for him? Kind of broadens your perspective doesn't it? The fact is that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection were a simple testimony of the power of this idea of finding life by losing it and losing it when we are too busy trying to save it.

I know that reading such terrible books was supposed to lead to my sacrificing my firstborn by a full moon and calling for the devil to possess my soul, but instead I found myself lost in contemplation of the wonderful mystery of the resurrection. It reminds me of a part of a verse from Carrie Newcomer's amazing song, "Holy As A Day Is Spent":

Holy is the place I stand
To give whatever small good I can
And the empty page, and the open book
Redemption everywhere I look

Your mileage may vary, but in this particular open book, I did indeed find plenty of redemption.