Today marks the 25th day of the most recent chapter of the Middle East conflict directly involving Israel, Hezbollah and Lebanon. Other states and actors--many others--have a direct bearing on the conflict even if they are not fighting on the ground.
For most of the twenty-five days, I have watched CNN and Anderson Cooper report on the carnage. For sure, I have little sympathy with the actions of the State of Israel, even though I think that it should exist. Further, I have no sympathy with Hezbollah and its use of violence. I do have a good deal of sympathy with the civilians of both Israel and Lebanon as they live in fear.
I should add to my list of sympathies and antipathy, the disgust I feel at the response of the government of my own country. Since much of this response is articulated by Secretary of State Rice, I find my respect for her significantly decreased. In the early moments of this conflict, she noted on one television appearance that what we are witnessing are "the birth pangs" of a new democratic Middle East. She declined in the early moments to call for a cease fire--surely a moral act that would have saved many hundreds of lives--by stating that we didn't want just words but to get to the root of the problems. Her pompous, if diplomatese use of the term "status quo ante" hardly fit with the grimy, bloody suffering actually being experienced, mainly by Lebanese civilians, at this time.
Is Condi crazy?
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the past years of the U.S. misadventure in Iraq, that indicates that the current administration has any understanding of how to go about implanting democracy--if such a thing can be done by a foreign occupier. There is nothing that indicates that the United States understands the true roots of violence in the Middle East.
My own assumption at this time is that the Israeli Defense Forces are acting on behalf of their own government' misconceived interests. But the government of Israel also is acting, I think, as a proxy of the United States. We would like to see Hezbollah eliminated or incapacitated, at any price. Since we are so overdrawn in civil war Iraq, we are letting Israel carry on our fight for us.
True, the mess in the Middle East predated GWB and Condi by many years. Successive American presidents and governments tried all sorts of things to broker peace. None of them were as arrogant as the current United States administration, which can't even deal seriously with the situation in Iraq.
Normally I think that the United States should not distance itself from realities in other countries. However, our use of our power in the past few years has made the Middle East a worse place for all and a very dangerous place for the future of humanity. The best thing we could do would be to pack up our arrogant spins and illusions and get out of the game. We are the least qualified country to do anything helpful for Middle Eastern populations, Israel included.
Even if now Secretary of State Rice indicates serious interest in a diplomatic solution, her previous advocacy for the administrations positions in Iraq and elsewhere should disqualify her as an honest broker. One wonders how we will broker anything as long as we insist on not talking directly to groups we see as evil or adversarial: Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas . . . . . .
And, who knows, maybe the many influential Republicans who are into end of the world theologies as embodied in the theologically bankrupt Left Behind Series are seeing this in some weird theological context. If this is true, then I have a theological response of my own: Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Sunday, July 02, 2006
SMALL TASKS, BIG SATISFACTION
When the bishops and deputies of the Episcopal Church gathered in Columbus OH to conduct the business of the 75th General Convention in June 2006 a "supporting cast" of more than 1,000 volunteers from across the nation was on hand. These volunteers--always visible in their red working aprons--provided a variety of services ranging from handing out worship pamphlets to setting up rooms for meetings to doing office chores.
I was one of those volunteers. In September 2005 I noticed an appeal for volunteers in the newspaper of the Diocese of Indianapolis and responded. I thought that volunteering at General Convention, even for a few days, would allow me to observe the broad scope of the life and witness of the Episcopal Church. And I wasn't disappointed.
My first assignment was as page in the House of Deputies during a joint session with the House of Bishops. The purpose of the session, held on Saturday, June 17th, was to place before the convention the names of candidates for Presiding Bishop as well as receive nominations from the floor. If you are not a member of the Episcopal Church you should know that the Presiding Bishop is the primate or the head of the denomination in the USA. My job was to handle microphone 7 in the middle of the convention floor. As people came forward to address the delegates, I typed their personal identification codes and other data onto a key pad connected to the main podium. I was thrilled to be present at this historic moment and to have a small role in it.
Another assignment was to assist in the Sunday morning Eucharist. I handed out large print worship pamphlets and was impressed at how many people said that they needed this visual support. I also helped manage the flow of communicants to one of the eucharistic stations. It was at this worship that I heard for the first time, in an Episcopal setting, the entire congregation sing: "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
There was a certain gravity in working as page and assisting in worship. There was a festive spirit as I handed out glow sticks to the delegates gathered on Saturday evening to celebrate the ministry of the Rt. Rev. Frank Griswold, retiring Presiding Bishop. The under-thirties crowd already knew what glow sticks were. But they were mysterious objects to almost everyone else (I heard one volunteer explain to a perplexed bishop that, no, you don't eat these things!).
In between sessions, I enjoyed browsing the many interesting booths and displays in the exhibition hall. These displays reflected the diverse faces of the Episcopal Church. I visited the booths of "old friends" such as Forward Movement and Episcopal Relief and Development. And I met new friends such as the Sisters of St. Helena and the National Episcopal Aids Commission.
It was impossible to move through the convention hall and not be aware that the Episcopal Church in the USA was grappling with momentous issues. Election of a new Presiding Bishop and response to the Windsor Report were just two of the many matters requiring the convention's attention. The high visibility of international visitors made it clear that these matters were being examined in a global context.
Just as I was checking out of the Holiday Inn to return to Indianapolis, I talked at length to the Rt. Rev. Musonda T. S. Mwamba, Bishop of Botswana, Anglican Province of Central Africa. We spoke of the divisiveness of some of the issues of the convention. I asked him if he thought that the church would survive the stormy concerns. His response was simple and theologically profound: "God always takes care of His church."
It was with this trustful and hopeful view ringing in my ears that I folded up my red volunteer apron and returned to Indianapolis, grateful to have been a volunteer at GC 06.
I was one of those volunteers. In September 2005 I noticed an appeal for volunteers in the newspaper of the Diocese of Indianapolis and responded. I thought that volunteering at General Convention, even for a few days, would allow me to observe the broad scope of the life and witness of the Episcopal Church. And I wasn't disappointed.
My first assignment was as page in the House of Deputies during a joint session with the House of Bishops. The purpose of the session, held on Saturday, June 17th, was to place before the convention the names of candidates for Presiding Bishop as well as receive nominations from the floor. If you are not a member of the Episcopal Church you should know that the Presiding Bishop is the primate or the head of the denomination in the USA. My job was to handle microphone 7 in the middle of the convention floor. As people came forward to address the delegates, I typed their personal identification codes and other data onto a key pad connected to the main podium. I was thrilled to be present at this historic moment and to have a small role in it.
Another assignment was to assist in the Sunday morning Eucharist. I handed out large print worship pamphlets and was impressed at how many people said that they needed this visual support. I also helped manage the flow of communicants to one of the eucharistic stations. It was at this worship that I heard for the first time, in an Episcopal setting, the entire congregation sing: "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
There was a certain gravity in working as page and assisting in worship. There was a festive spirit as I handed out glow sticks to the delegates gathered on Saturday evening to celebrate the ministry of the Rt. Rev. Frank Griswold, retiring Presiding Bishop. The under-thirties crowd already knew what glow sticks were. But they were mysterious objects to almost everyone else (I heard one volunteer explain to a perplexed bishop that, no, you don't eat these things!).
In between sessions, I enjoyed browsing the many interesting booths and displays in the exhibition hall. These displays reflected the diverse faces of the Episcopal Church. I visited the booths of "old friends" such as Forward Movement and Episcopal Relief and Development. And I met new friends such as the Sisters of St. Helena and the National Episcopal Aids Commission.
It was impossible to move through the convention hall and not be aware that the Episcopal Church in the USA was grappling with momentous issues. Election of a new Presiding Bishop and response to the Windsor Report were just two of the many matters requiring the convention's attention. The high visibility of international visitors made it clear that these matters were being examined in a global context.
Just as I was checking out of the Holiday Inn to return to Indianapolis, I talked at length to the Rt. Rev. Musonda T. S. Mwamba, Bishop of Botswana, Anglican Province of Central Africa. We spoke of the divisiveness of some of the issues of the convention. I asked him if he thought that the church would survive the stormy concerns. His response was simple and theologically profound: "God always takes care of His church."
It was with this trustful and hopeful view ringing in my ears that I folded up my red volunteer apron and returned to Indianapolis, grateful to have been a volunteer at GC 06.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Aging, Mortality: Some Book Suggestions
During the past few years, I have been giving special attention to how people age. This is important to me as I move into what my kids and younger friends euphemistically call my "autumn years". Whatever they may be called, I know that I am getting older--next month I will be 63. How do I age well and gracefully?
My mother, who will turn 84 in less than a month, provides the great example of a person with humor and loads of well-earned wisdom. We talk each week on the telephone. Sure, lots of the discussion is about health and who among her decreasing number of friends is sick or has died. But we also laugh about old memories and about silly things that are happening in my life and hers. I look forward to these discussions each week. This past Sunday we talked for 75 minutes. I look to her for clues as to how I might be or how I would wish to be at her age, if I live that long.
In addition to talks with my mother, my reading has been an important part of my personal inquiry into aging. I was attracted to the title of Jonathan G. Silin's book, My Father's Keeper: The Story of a Gay Son and His Aging Parents (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006). Silin, who lives in Manhattan where he works as a professor at the Bank Street College of Education, discusses the ups and downs of relating to his parents during their decline and eventual death. He discusses openly his impatience when he can't get his dad to listen to him or his joy when some small task is accomplished to his father's or mother's satisfaction, even when they are practically bedridden.
One very moving and even troubling segment of the book is set in a lawyer's office where it becomes painfully clear to Silin, but not necessarily to his parents, that the careful plans they had put in place for their affairs after death, had been almost entirely rendered obsolete by changing times and their limited finances.
While Silin is dealing with the problems of his frail elderly father, he receives news that his long time partner of many years has suddenly died. When his father demonstrates that he will miss his partner, a deep moment for Silin has taken place. While the author writes well about his parents and his responses to their decline and deaths, his comments about his partner's death are very restrained. Yet, who could surpass the tribute to this partner in the last paragraph of the book: "In the end it was Bob Giard, my partner of thirty years, who made work on this project possible. For it was Bob who taught me how to love and how to forgive, when to fight fiercely and when to let go. Above all he understood that it is in the smallest acts of human kindness that we often reveal our deepest feelings and our profoundest respect for human life. It is hard to imagine entering the country of the frail elderly without him" (p. 164).
If you want to enter the grim "country of the frail elderly" then I suggest that you pick up another recent release by one of America's foremost authors. Philip Roth has written Everyman (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006). This is a very slim novel. But the scope of the plot encompasses all of life. The protagonist is first introduced at his own funeral. From there it is a walk down memory lane. Mostly it is a walk that involves failed relationships with women, an out-of-control libido, distastrous relations with his two sons (but not his daughter who adores him in spite of his foibles). He realizes that his life was messed up just as he himself is about to leave life. But this protagonist is not a victim of finitude or even his own failings. The novel details his own resistance to the ultimate obliteration that is death . . . . of course death wins out but the guy put up a fight that can only be admired.
In America age is often cosmeticized so that we imagine that we will be old "some day" but that we will be jogging, having sex, traveling, having a good life as senior citizens. Both of the books that I am suggesting indicate that death still lurks in the wings as the final word. Both Silin and Roth cannot attribute meaning to death. I believe that this can only happen in faith settings. But their books should be read for their insights into what happens when we enter that country of the frail elderly.
My mother, who will turn 84 in less than a month, provides the great example of a person with humor and loads of well-earned wisdom. We talk each week on the telephone. Sure, lots of the discussion is about health and who among her decreasing number of friends is sick or has died. But we also laugh about old memories and about silly things that are happening in my life and hers. I look forward to these discussions each week. This past Sunday we talked for 75 minutes. I look to her for clues as to how I might be or how I would wish to be at her age, if I live that long.
In addition to talks with my mother, my reading has been an important part of my personal inquiry into aging. I was attracted to the title of Jonathan G. Silin's book, My Father's Keeper: The Story of a Gay Son and His Aging Parents (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006). Silin, who lives in Manhattan where he works as a professor at the Bank Street College of Education, discusses the ups and downs of relating to his parents during their decline and eventual death. He discusses openly his impatience when he can't get his dad to listen to him or his joy when some small task is accomplished to his father's or mother's satisfaction, even when they are practically bedridden.
One very moving and even troubling segment of the book is set in a lawyer's office where it becomes painfully clear to Silin, but not necessarily to his parents, that the careful plans they had put in place for their affairs after death, had been almost entirely rendered obsolete by changing times and their limited finances.
While Silin is dealing with the problems of his frail elderly father, he receives news that his long time partner of many years has suddenly died. When his father demonstrates that he will miss his partner, a deep moment for Silin has taken place. While the author writes well about his parents and his responses to their decline and deaths, his comments about his partner's death are very restrained. Yet, who could surpass the tribute to this partner in the last paragraph of the book: "In the end it was Bob Giard, my partner of thirty years, who made work on this project possible. For it was Bob who taught me how to love and how to forgive, when to fight fiercely and when to let go. Above all he understood that it is in the smallest acts of human kindness that we often reveal our deepest feelings and our profoundest respect for human life. It is hard to imagine entering the country of the frail elderly without him" (p. 164).
If you want to enter the grim "country of the frail elderly" then I suggest that you pick up another recent release by one of America's foremost authors. Philip Roth has written Everyman (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006). This is a very slim novel. But the scope of the plot encompasses all of life. The protagonist is first introduced at his own funeral. From there it is a walk down memory lane. Mostly it is a walk that involves failed relationships with women, an out-of-control libido, distastrous relations with his two sons (but not his daughter who adores him in spite of his foibles). He realizes that his life was messed up just as he himself is about to leave life. But this protagonist is not a victim of finitude or even his own failings. The novel details his own resistance to the ultimate obliteration that is death . . . . of course death wins out but the guy put up a fight that can only be admired.
In America age is often cosmeticized so that we imagine that we will be old "some day" but that we will be jogging, having sex, traveling, having a good life as senior citizens. Both of the books that I am suggesting indicate that death still lurks in the wings as the final word. Both Silin and Roth cannot attribute meaning to death. I believe that this can only happen in faith settings. But their books should be read for their insights into what happens when we enter that country of the frail elderly.
Monday, April 24, 2006
A (Canine) Refugee from New Orleans
As I write this post, I am looking from my second floor window across the alley to the house directly behind me. It is a big, well kept home and the wisteria hangs gracefully over the large deck. I see a black dog, probably of several pedigrees, running around. I can't tell the dog's age but it doesn't seem to be a puppy. Maybe two or three years old.
Yesterday I talked to my neighbor from this house as I was taking trash to the dumpster. We talked about neighborhood things--other houses up for sale, my newly landscaped back yard, the upcoming neighborhood alley cleanup.
As I was getting ready to go back to my own back yard, he introduced me to Penny, "a refugee from New Orleans." I asked what he meant. He said that another neighbor had acquired several displaced pets from New Orleans and offered Penny to his family of two teenage girls. They took Penny in and now she has a loving home.
I looked at Penny and wondered: What has she seen? How was her life turned upside down? Who in New Orleans is missing her? Or is anyone missing her at all? Was she one of those pets that was found floating on a door or on the top of a roof, the waters about to engulf her?
I am touched by the kindness of my neighbors in accepting Penny and giving her a home. Somehow and in ways I cannot describe, kindness to animals and to "all of creation" seems to me to be connected to kindness to other humans and to a better balanced world.
My partner took in a cat at his house named Webster. Webster runs in and out of the house. He eats there but doesn't always want to hang out. He makes few claims of my partner and his daughter. But one day when he was mauled in a cat brawl, he was lovingly cared for until he could go out on his mysterious prowls again. Another sign of kindness to animals.
Now when I look out and see Penny running around her new back yard, I will remember New Orleans. Many of the human refugees have not fared as well as Penny. It is strange that my most concrete and visible link to what happened down there is a dog.
Yesterday I talked to my neighbor from this house as I was taking trash to the dumpster. We talked about neighborhood things--other houses up for sale, my newly landscaped back yard, the upcoming neighborhood alley cleanup.
As I was getting ready to go back to my own back yard, he introduced me to Penny, "a refugee from New Orleans." I asked what he meant. He said that another neighbor had acquired several displaced pets from New Orleans and offered Penny to his family of two teenage girls. They took Penny in and now she has a loving home.
I looked at Penny and wondered: What has she seen? How was her life turned upside down? Who in New Orleans is missing her? Or is anyone missing her at all? Was she one of those pets that was found floating on a door or on the top of a roof, the waters about to engulf her?
I am touched by the kindness of my neighbors in accepting Penny and giving her a home. Somehow and in ways I cannot describe, kindness to animals and to "all of creation" seems to me to be connected to kindness to other humans and to a better balanced world.
My partner took in a cat at his house named Webster. Webster runs in and out of the house. He eats there but doesn't always want to hang out. He makes few claims of my partner and his daughter. But one day when he was mauled in a cat brawl, he was lovingly cared for until he could go out on his mysterious prowls again. Another sign of kindness to animals.
Now when I look out and see Penny running around her new back yard, I will remember New Orleans. Many of the human refugees have not fared as well as Penny. It is strange that my most concrete and visible link to what happened down there is a dog.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Difficulty Moving On . . . . . . .
If you have read some of the recent postings on this blog site, you know that I just completed a move to a new house.
Until I got really involved in the process of leaving the apartment where I had lived happily for eight years, I thought that just another move would be the easiest thing in the world. I am fairly well-organized. I hold no opposition to the idea of change and movement for any individual or society. And I spent years traveling internationally. My image of myself was as a person who embraces and even welcomes change.
As a country, Americans are committed to change. Have you counted how many times in the past few weeks you have heard the phrase "moving on"? I have no proof but it is my belief that this phrase was hardly ever used even a decade ago. In the United States, we encourage not only physical movement but psychological movement. A person in bereavement is encouraged to move on. A divorced person is encouraged to move on. People who have suffered serious traumas calculate their health by their ability to move on.
So, getting back to my situation, I moved exactly eight minutes by car from my old apartment. In this process I have discovered a number of things about myself. Basic to these discoveries is my enjoyment of a regular fixed routine. I found that just a very small thing such as where I leave my keys when I come in the door could drive me crazy.
And the chaos! For several weeks, many of my possessions, including all of my books, were left behind at the other apartment. I found that I had not labeled the moving boxes in such a way as to be able to find things when I needed them.
Friends would ask if I am enjoying the new house. I would have difficulty trying to decide whether or not to tell them the truth (no, no yet because I feel so unsettled here) or just say something like "It is wonderful to be here."
Just learning new public transportation schedules, seeing new neighbors each day, buying groceries at a new neighborhood supermarket have all left me feeling very much at loose ends sometimes.
Yes, I myself "moved on" to a new house that I myself selected and purchased. But it has been a largely unpleasant and unsettling experience. So I am left wondering if my difficulty navigating change is something that I am developing as I age or if it is just the normal response to having a fairly regulated existence turned upside down for awhile.
As I write these notes, I have been in the new house for about five weeks. It is beginning to seem right and feel like I wanted it to feel. Now I know which drawer holds the flatware and where to leave my keys when I come in the door. Still, the experience of learning that my response to change is more brittle than I thought is unsettling.
Until I got really involved in the process of leaving the apartment where I had lived happily for eight years, I thought that just another move would be the easiest thing in the world. I am fairly well-organized. I hold no opposition to the idea of change and movement for any individual or society. And I spent years traveling internationally. My image of myself was as a person who embraces and even welcomes change.
As a country, Americans are committed to change. Have you counted how many times in the past few weeks you have heard the phrase "moving on"? I have no proof but it is my belief that this phrase was hardly ever used even a decade ago. In the United States, we encourage not only physical movement but psychological movement. A person in bereavement is encouraged to move on. A divorced person is encouraged to move on. People who have suffered serious traumas calculate their health by their ability to move on.
So, getting back to my situation, I moved exactly eight minutes by car from my old apartment. In this process I have discovered a number of things about myself. Basic to these discoveries is my enjoyment of a regular fixed routine. I found that just a very small thing such as where I leave my keys when I come in the door could drive me crazy.
And the chaos! For several weeks, many of my possessions, including all of my books, were left behind at the other apartment. I found that I had not labeled the moving boxes in such a way as to be able to find things when I needed them.
Friends would ask if I am enjoying the new house. I would have difficulty trying to decide whether or not to tell them the truth (no, no yet because I feel so unsettled here) or just say something like "It is wonderful to be here."
Just learning new public transportation schedules, seeing new neighbors each day, buying groceries at a new neighborhood supermarket have all left me feeling very much at loose ends sometimes.
Yes, I myself "moved on" to a new house that I myself selected and purchased. But it has been a largely unpleasant and unsettling experience. So I am left wondering if my difficulty navigating change is something that I am developing as I age or if it is just the normal response to having a fairly regulated existence turned upside down for awhile.
As I write these notes, I have been in the new house for about five weeks. It is beginning to seem right and feel like I wanted it to feel. Now I know which drawer holds the flatware and where to leave my keys when I come in the door. Still, the experience of learning that my response to change is more brittle than I thought is unsettling.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Lent Review: The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus Final Week in Jerusalem
I might as well admit (confess?) it: This Lent has been badly acknowledged and participated in by this writer. I made the mistake of buying and moving to a new house just a few days before Ash Wednesday. For the first time in memory, I did not participate in the imposition of ashes. And all Sundays so far have been spent trying desperately to get the remnant of my books and clothes out of my former apartment before the lease expires on March 31st. It seems that what I have given up is Lent itself!
Still, I am in the book business and I buy and read books obsessively, even during such a stressful time as a move. So when I saw the attractive cover of a book by theologians Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, famous for their work on the historical Jesus, I layed down the money, bought and read it. Without any prior planning, the reading of this book has become my de facto Lenten exercise.
The book is titled The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus's Final Week in Jerusalem (San Francisco: Harper, 2006). Crossan and Borg trace the narrative of Jesus's last week, beginning with the entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, based on the Gospel of Mark, the oldest of the gospels. The crisp prose and the unsentimental, yet nuanced, "working over" of literary and historical materials provides a fresh and challenging view of what happened to Jesus and those around him during his last week.
I won't try to rehash the flow of what Crossan and Borg develop. But I will lift up three insights that provide me with new keys to understanding the original events of Holy Week.
First, the authors portray the leadership of Jerusalem, especially the culture and structures of the Temple, as constituting a sort of collaborative government representing the Roman Empire. Borg and Crossan call this a "domination system" in which religious content and structures legitimate imperial and elite interests. Over against this, Jesus represents a non-violent Kingdom of God that cannot be tolerated by the Roman Empire and their Jewish representatives in Jerusalem. This frank political analysis of what was happening at the Temple and in Jerusalem enrich my understanding of Jesus' confrontation with the authorities and his resulting death.
Second, the authors demonstrate that atonement theology surrounding Jesus (i.e. Jesus as the sacrificial lamb who must be given up to atone for the sins of the world) is alien to Mark. They comment that Jesus did not die for the sins of the world (we repeat during the Eucharist "Agnus Dei who takest away the sins of the world") but he died because of human sin, limitation and frailty. I have never understood atonement theology but I definitely understand the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark: Declaring a kingdom of God with values opposite to those of the Roman kingdom or empire and being sentenced to death as a criminal because of his passionate espousal of these values.
Third, the authors address a question that I have had for a long time: Did the events of Holy Week have to happen? The idea of God foreordaining the death of Jesus has always been repugnant to me. The authors simply state that events converged in such a way that Jesus was executed. Something else could have happened. But as we look back on the events in retrospect, we can see God's hand in them.
Whew! Just when I thought that I had come to terms with many traditional theological concepts I bought and read this book. It brought to the surface some of my doubts and addressed them in a way that actually strengthens my faith.
In my bedroom is a wonderful ebony crucifix that I purchased some years ago in Mozambique. I look at it often and often focus my prayers and meditations on it. Now, having read Borg and Crossan, I can bring some new understandings to these moments.
And, yes, I definitely recommend the book to the readers of The Blue Ogee.
Still, I am in the book business and I buy and read books obsessively, even during such a stressful time as a move. So when I saw the attractive cover of a book by theologians Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, famous for their work on the historical Jesus, I layed down the money, bought and read it. Without any prior planning, the reading of this book has become my de facto Lenten exercise.
The book is titled The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus's Final Week in Jerusalem (San Francisco: Harper, 2006). Crossan and Borg trace the narrative of Jesus's last week, beginning with the entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, based on the Gospel of Mark, the oldest of the gospels. The crisp prose and the unsentimental, yet nuanced, "working over" of literary and historical materials provides a fresh and challenging view of what happened to Jesus and those around him during his last week.
I won't try to rehash the flow of what Crossan and Borg develop. But I will lift up three insights that provide me with new keys to understanding the original events of Holy Week.
First, the authors portray the leadership of Jerusalem, especially the culture and structures of the Temple, as constituting a sort of collaborative government representing the Roman Empire. Borg and Crossan call this a "domination system" in which religious content and structures legitimate imperial and elite interests. Over against this, Jesus represents a non-violent Kingdom of God that cannot be tolerated by the Roman Empire and their Jewish representatives in Jerusalem. This frank political analysis of what was happening at the Temple and in Jerusalem enrich my understanding of Jesus' confrontation with the authorities and his resulting death.
Second, the authors demonstrate that atonement theology surrounding Jesus (i.e. Jesus as the sacrificial lamb who must be given up to atone for the sins of the world) is alien to Mark. They comment that Jesus did not die for the sins of the world (we repeat during the Eucharist "Agnus Dei who takest away the sins of the world") but he died because of human sin, limitation and frailty. I have never understood atonement theology but I definitely understand the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark: Declaring a kingdom of God with values opposite to those of the Roman kingdom or empire and being sentenced to death as a criminal because of his passionate espousal of these values.
Third, the authors address a question that I have had for a long time: Did the events of Holy Week have to happen? The idea of God foreordaining the death of Jesus has always been repugnant to me. The authors simply state that events converged in such a way that Jesus was executed. Something else could have happened. But as we look back on the events in retrospect, we can see God's hand in them.
Whew! Just when I thought that I had come to terms with many traditional theological concepts I bought and read this book. It brought to the surface some of my doubts and addressed them in a way that actually strengthens my faith.
In my bedroom is a wonderful ebony crucifix that I purchased some years ago in Mozambique. I look at it often and often focus my prayers and meditations on it. Now, having read Borg and Crossan, I can bring some new understandings to these moments.
And, yes, I definitely recommend the book to the readers of The Blue Ogee.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Hamas-led Palestinian Government--Democracy?
Over the past few weeks, there is something that I must have missed in public discourse.
President Bush has repeatedly indicated that he wants to see democracy (meaning, I suppose, the kind of political system that we know in the West) implanted in the Middle East. Fundamentally, I don't have a problem with the idea of less authoritarian governmental systems in the Middle East. It seems to me like a no-brainer that we would prefer that the people select their governments over coups, hereditary regimes (i.e. Syria) and strong man governments run by thugs (the former Iraq).
In the case of Palestine, it appears that the people have, in fact, spoken clearly about what government they want and it is a Hamas-led government. The elections were generally seen as fair and the proportion of voters in the population was greater than that of voters in the USA.
Since the elections, the Bush administration has made it very clear that it has changed its mind and now does not want to recognize the government chosen openly and fairly by the Palestinian people.
Apparently, the problem is that Hamas is considered to be a terrorist group and refuses to renounce violence to achieve its goals. I agree that this is a problem. With 9/11 still fresh in the American memory, violent actions by political groups have to be of concern.
However, the Bush people are sending the wrong message in their opposition to the Hamas government of Palestine. They seem to be saying that democracy is okay as long as the decisions of the people suit the USA. When these decisions do not suit the USA, then we will renounce them and turn our back on democracy.
What is it, George? Are you willing to accept decisions by other peoples with which you disagree? Is it democracy or what that you really want?
President Bush has repeatedly indicated that he wants to see democracy (meaning, I suppose, the kind of political system that we know in the West) implanted in the Middle East. Fundamentally, I don't have a problem with the idea of less authoritarian governmental systems in the Middle East. It seems to me like a no-brainer that we would prefer that the people select their governments over coups, hereditary regimes (i.e. Syria) and strong man governments run by thugs (the former Iraq).
In the case of Palestine, it appears that the people have, in fact, spoken clearly about what government they want and it is a Hamas-led government. The elections were generally seen as fair and the proportion of voters in the population was greater than that of voters in the USA.
Since the elections, the Bush administration has made it very clear that it has changed its mind and now does not want to recognize the government chosen openly and fairly by the Palestinian people.
Apparently, the problem is that Hamas is considered to be a terrorist group and refuses to renounce violence to achieve its goals. I agree that this is a problem. With 9/11 still fresh in the American memory, violent actions by political groups have to be of concern.
However, the Bush people are sending the wrong message in their opposition to the Hamas government of Palestine. They seem to be saying that democracy is okay as long as the decisions of the people suit the USA. When these decisions do not suit the USA, then we will renounce them and turn our back on democracy.
What is it, George? Are you willing to accept decisions by other peoples with which you disagree? Is it democracy or what that you really want?
Sunday, February 05, 2006
On the Down Low on Brokeback Mountain
About five years ago, I decided to post a personal ad on Yahoo Personals. I mulled this over for weeks before submitting the posting. What I knew as an older comfortably out gay man who had, as they say,"been around the block," was that I hoped to meet another single older guy who would share some of my own commitments to the arts, theology, travel, family and the idea that there is more to a relationship than sex.
My frank opinion was that this posting would bring in zero replies. But, well, why not try it? So I submitted my carefully crafted submission and began to check into the reply box. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered in the first week that ten men of ages ranging from the thirties to the seventies had answered.
What struck me immediately was that none evidenced having read my submission. The basic answer went like this: "Read your posting. Am happily married but enjoy the guys also. Have afternoons free. Answer soon."
As someone who prided himself on having been "around the block" and "seen it all" I was stunned by these answers. Most of the respondents were on the down low or on the DL. In case you aren't acquainted with this term, here is the National Center for Disease Control definition of it: "The most generic definition of the term down low or DL is to keep something private," whether that refers to information or activity. The term is often used to describe the behavior of men who have sex with other men as well as women and who do not identify as gay or bisexual. These men may refer to themselves as being 'on the down low,' ';on the DL,' or 'on the low low.' The term has most often been associated with African American men. Although the term originated in the African American community, the behaviors associated with the term are not new and not specific to black men who have sex with men."
In order to reply to these responses, I drafted a short paragraph in which I tried to communicate clearly that I am a Christian out gay man who has already told his own secret and who does not want to keep the secret of another from a wife. One of the recipients of this note wrote and thanked me for the answer and for helping him reconsider his situation.
When my partner and I went to see Brokeback Mountain at the Keystone Cinema last month, I vividly remembered this surprising experience with men on the DL. In the movie based on novelist Annie Proulx's New Yorker short story, cowboys Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) establish a lifelong intimate relationship in remote Wyoming mountains. The movie is set in 1963 and as would have been fairly typical of that time, most men who loved men ended up getting married to women. This happened to Jack and Ennis.
This tragic movie set in expansive breathtaking mountains and plains is about the harm that happens to men and their families when they are unable to tell their own truth to themselves or to anyone else. For me, the most heartrending parts of the film had to do with the way that both men managed to sideline loving wives and children. So even though the film is about two men, it is very much about the women and children in their lives.
This film has been acclaimed rightly as a great film, a breakthrough in its portrayal of gay life. OK, maybe that is true: Yesterday we had fabulous young guys on TV in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Now we have rugged gay cowboys. The more important thing about this film is that it is a kind of cautionary tale about what happens when truth cannot be claimed openly. The message is that hiding on the DL harms beyond repair and even into death everyone who is on the DL and connected with them.
The reason that the Center for Disease Control even bothers to put a definition of
"down low" on its web site (http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/faq/Downlow.htm) is that one of the prices of this behavior is an increase in the incidence of HIV/AIDS among the women of guys who are on the DL. HIV/AIDS doesn't figure in the movie. But the movie points clearly to the deadly consequences of hidden patterns of behavior.
I hope that everyone who has read these comments will go see Brokeback Mountain and will post their take on the film here. Whatever your views, the film is surely one of the greats of recent times.
And now just a final comment about the Yahoo Personals site: Altogether I received twelve responses. Just when I was about to close down the ad as a disaster, I received a wonderful long response from a man who had really read my posting and who possessed all of the qualifications I had been looking for. We are life partners now. I guess that the personal ad was not a waste after all!
My frank opinion was that this posting would bring in zero replies. But, well, why not try it? So I submitted my carefully crafted submission and began to check into the reply box. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered in the first week that ten men of ages ranging from the thirties to the seventies had answered.
What struck me immediately was that none evidenced having read my submission. The basic answer went like this: "Read your posting. Am happily married but enjoy the guys also. Have afternoons free. Answer soon."
As someone who prided himself on having been "around the block" and "seen it all" I was stunned by these answers. Most of the respondents were on the down low or on the DL. In case you aren't acquainted with this term, here is the National Center for Disease Control definition of it: "The most generic definition of the term down low or DL is to keep something private," whether that refers to information or activity. The term is often used to describe the behavior of men who have sex with other men as well as women and who do not identify as gay or bisexual. These men may refer to themselves as being 'on the down low,' ';on the DL,' or 'on the low low.' The term has most often been associated with African American men. Although the term originated in the African American community, the behaviors associated with the term are not new and not specific to black men who have sex with men."
In order to reply to these responses, I drafted a short paragraph in which I tried to communicate clearly that I am a Christian out gay man who has already told his own secret and who does not want to keep the secret of another from a wife. One of the recipients of this note wrote and thanked me for the answer and for helping him reconsider his situation.
When my partner and I went to see Brokeback Mountain at the Keystone Cinema last month, I vividly remembered this surprising experience with men on the DL. In the movie based on novelist Annie Proulx's New Yorker short story, cowboys Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) establish a lifelong intimate relationship in remote Wyoming mountains. The movie is set in 1963 and as would have been fairly typical of that time, most men who loved men ended up getting married to women. This happened to Jack and Ennis.
This tragic movie set in expansive breathtaking mountains and plains is about the harm that happens to men and their families when they are unable to tell their own truth to themselves or to anyone else. For me, the most heartrending parts of the film had to do with the way that both men managed to sideline loving wives and children. So even though the film is about two men, it is very much about the women and children in their lives.
This film has been acclaimed rightly as a great film, a breakthrough in its portrayal of gay life. OK, maybe that is true: Yesterday we had fabulous young guys on TV in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Now we have rugged gay cowboys. The more important thing about this film is that it is a kind of cautionary tale about what happens when truth cannot be claimed openly. The message is that hiding on the DL harms beyond repair and even into death everyone who is on the DL and connected with them.
The reason that the Center for Disease Control even bothers to put a definition of
"down low" on its web site (http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/faq/Downlow.htm) is that one of the prices of this behavior is an increase in the incidence of HIV/AIDS among the women of guys who are on the DL. HIV/AIDS doesn't figure in the movie. But the movie points clearly to the deadly consequences of hidden patterns of behavior.
I hope that everyone who has read these comments will go see Brokeback Mountain and will post their take on the film here. Whatever your views, the film is surely one of the greats of recent times.
And now just a final comment about the Yahoo Personals site: Altogether I received twelve responses. Just when I was about to close down the ad as a disaster, I received a wonderful long response from a man who had really read my posting and who possessed all of the qualifications I had been looking for. We are life partners now. I guess that the personal ad was not a waste after all!
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Half Priced Christmas Cards and Hope
Last week I did a little shopping. First, I bought a stock of seventy Christmas cards for 2006 at 50% off. Second, I purchased three huge rolls of Christmas wrapping paper at 75% off. I hate paying full price for these things which usually end up at the bottom of a trash can on Christmas day or soon afterwards.
Good consumer thinking? Yes, of course. But this year I realized that people who invest in a future event a year or more away--even in small ways like buying half-priced Christmas cards-- are really expressing hope. In my case, I hope that I may be here for Christmas 2006 and that I will be able to share in its joy with friends and family as I have done already for 62 years. When I read the obituaries in the Indianapolis Star each morning, I realize that there are plenty of people my age and much younger who in fact do not survive. So I hope that life may continue.
One of the things that I have realized during the past months is that to hope is not easy for everyone. Last week I was trying to console a man who came into the bookstore with black and blue marks over his face. He had been beaten up by his partner during a fight, his glasses were broken and he left home with two grocery bags: one for his t-shirts and jeans and another for his medicines. He cried out that he had really messed up his life big time. He didn't feel any hope and it was hard for me to convey any tangible hope outside of listening to his narrative. Another young woman I know, in her early twenties, told me that she had made a series of irrevocable bad decisions and it is impossible to undo any of them or to move in a new direction. She is caught. She feels as though her future is simply the acting out of the consequences of her bad decisions. She expressed that she has absolutely no hope.
In light of the existential pain and hopelessness that these people feel, my "Christmas card hope"appears trivial. Yet, I cannot allow the hopelessness of others to become my rule and I cannot try to discern my own hope in huge earth-shaking events: I hope for myself. I hope for a better and more just world. And I look for signs of this hope in the seemingly insignificant material of daily ordinary life. This is a theme that I have written about in several of these blog postings. I have done a little inventory of places in my daily life where I express hope and here are some of the items that I was able to list:
Good consumer thinking? Yes, of course. But this year I realized that people who invest in a future event a year or more away--even in small ways like buying half-priced Christmas cards-- are really expressing hope. In my case, I hope that I may be here for Christmas 2006 and that I will be able to share in its joy with friends and family as I have done already for 62 years. When I read the obituaries in the Indianapolis Star each morning, I realize that there are plenty of people my age and much younger who in fact do not survive. So I hope that life may continue.
One of the things that I have realized during the past months is that to hope is not easy for everyone. Last week I was trying to console a man who came into the bookstore with black and blue marks over his face. He had been beaten up by his partner during a fight, his glasses were broken and he left home with two grocery bags: one for his t-shirts and jeans and another for his medicines. He cried out that he had really messed up his life big time. He didn't feel any hope and it was hard for me to convey any tangible hope outside of listening to his narrative. Another young woman I know, in her early twenties, told me that she had made a series of irrevocable bad decisions and it is impossible to undo any of them or to move in a new direction. She is caught. She feels as though her future is simply the acting out of the consequences of her bad decisions. She expressed that she has absolutely no hope.
In light of the existential pain and hopelessness that these people feel, my "Christmas card hope"appears trivial. Yet, I cannot allow the hopelessness of others to become my rule and I cannot try to discern my own hope in huge earth-shaking events: I hope for myself. I hope for a better and more just world. And I look for signs of this hope in the seemingly insignificant material of daily ordinary life. This is a theme that I have written about in several of these blog postings. I have done a little inventory of places in my daily life where I express hope and here are some of the items that I was able to list:
- Writing letters each month to government officials around the world related to human rights abuses sponsored by Amnesty International. I spite of incredible human cruelty to other humans, I hope for a better, more just world.
- Selecting a birthday present for my (almost) two year old great niece, Catherine. When she is my age, I won't be around to know who she has become. But I hope that she will have a full, wonderful life.
- Reciting the Nicene Creed during the Liturgy each week and repeating with other believers "We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come."
- Trying to learn how to manage the computer program Excel. It may be that some old dogs do not learn new tricks but this guy wants to know knew things. I hope for a life characterized by learning, even when I am old.
- Giving hugs and receiving hugs from friends at appropriate moments. I hope for a life where individuals support individuals in their daily trials and struggles.
I could go on and on but you get the point.
As this New Year begins, I hope.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
The Book Reads Me
Lionel Trilling (1905-1975) was a prominent literary critic and well-known professor at Columbia University. Among many of his quotations, maxims and aphorisms is this statement: "The book reads you" or some such sentence. (I have not been able to document where this statement comes from even though every one who uses it attributes it to Trilling. If you know the exact reference, let me know.)
As a person who deals with books both professionally and personally, I have many opportunities to advise friends and customers at the bookstore where I work which books should be read. I usually tailor these suggestions around my own reading as well as the needs and interests of the customer.
It seems obvious, doesn't it, that books are objects that we read? We belong to a consumer culture and, for many, books are objects--maybe not so different from hamburgers, clothes, cars, etc.--that we buy and consume. Very rarely do the objects that we purchase speak back to us or argue with us. They are passive things, meant to be acquired. Marketing of books by the mega-book chains would seem to encourage this attitude: Get this book, get that book, get, get, get.
Yet, Trilling turns all of this around. By stating that books read us, he is saying--I think--that books speak to the deepest and most intimate parts of our being. They evoke and awaken in us much that we need to know about. They read us by bringing us face-to-face with other experiences or our own. In that way, books read or elucidate who we are.
I can offer two examples of what I think Trilling is getting at out of my own reading from this past year. First, is the experience of hearing the reading of the Gospel each week at Christ Church. It seems to me that as I hear the story of the betrayal of Christ by the disciples, I am somehow hearing my own story. In fact, in the face of death, I would probably betray him too. Or, I might follow him if called to leave my nets, if the call were done under the right circumstances. In other words, when I hear the proclamation of the Gospel, I feel as though it is reading me and scanning my innermost life.
The second example comes from my engagement with one of the past year's most important literary offerings: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. In this unrelentingly intense memoir, Didion chronicles her thoughts and memories following the sudden death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, just after Christmas several years ago. Without any sentimentality, she writes of her ups and downs, grief, shock that went on, in one way or another, for at least a year after her husband's death. The book "reads you" because as you follow Didion's journey, you start measuring your own possible reactions and responses to the sudden death of a loved one. In fact, sometimes as I was reading this book I was more embedded in my own fears and my own projection of grief than I was inside the author's.
As I have reflected on Trilling's quotation, I have begun to think that one of the characteristic of a literary classic is its ability to "read you." For example, in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov's existential journey into evil and its consequences force the reader to ask "Would I, too, be capable of bludgeoning an old person to death for no reason whatsoever?" Or, in Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past,the dreamy unhurried remembrance causes the reader to engage in a similar exercise based on his or her own life.
Do you accept Trilling's notion that books read us? What examples can you point to that would support this notion? Or, is Trilling's notion no more than a reversal of that books are meant to be read? Have I gotten the possible meaning of Trilling's quotation right? Share your thoughts, if you wish, in this posting's comment box.
As a person who deals with books both professionally and personally, I have many opportunities to advise friends and customers at the bookstore where I work which books should be read. I usually tailor these suggestions around my own reading as well as the needs and interests of the customer.
It seems obvious, doesn't it, that books are objects that we read? We belong to a consumer culture and, for many, books are objects--maybe not so different from hamburgers, clothes, cars, etc.--that we buy and consume. Very rarely do the objects that we purchase speak back to us or argue with us. They are passive things, meant to be acquired. Marketing of books by the mega-book chains would seem to encourage this attitude: Get this book, get that book, get, get, get.
Yet, Trilling turns all of this around. By stating that books read us, he is saying--I think--that books speak to the deepest and most intimate parts of our being. They evoke and awaken in us much that we need to know about. They read us by bringing us face-to-face with other experiences or our own. In that way, books read or elucidate who we are.
I can offer two examples of what I think Trilling is getting at out of my own reading from this past year. First, is the experience of hearing the reading of the Gospel each week at Christ Church. It seems to me that as I hear the story of the betrayal of Christ by the disciples, I am somehow hearing my own story. In fact, in the face of death, I would probably betray him too. Or, I might follow him if called to leave my nets, if the call were done under the right circumstances. In other words, when I hear the proclamation of the Gospel, I feel as though it is reading me and scanning my innermost life.
The second example comes from my engagement with one of the past year's most important literary offerings: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. In this unrelentingly intense memoir, Didion chronicles her thoughts and memories following the sudden death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, just after Christmas several years ago. Without any sentimentality, she writes of her ups and downs, grief, shock that went on, in one way or another, for at least a year after her husband's death. The book "reads you" because as you follow Didion's journey, you start measuring your own possible reactions and responses to the sudden death of a loved one. In fact, sometimes as I was reading this book I was more embedded in my own fears and my own projection of grief than I was inside the author's.
As I have reflected on Trilling's quotation, I have begun to think that one of the characteristic of a literary classic is its ability to "read you." For example, in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov's existential journey into evil and its consequences force the reader to ask "Would I, too, be capable of bludgeoning an old person to death for no reason whatsoever?" Or, in Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past,the dreamy unhurried remembrance causes the reader to engage in a similar exercise based on his or her own life.
Do you accept Trilling's notion that books read us? What examples can you point to that would support this notion? Or, is Trilling's notion no more than a reversal of that books are meant to be read? Have I gotten the possible meaning of Trilling's quotation right? Share your thoughts, if you wish, in this posting's comment box.
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