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."