I am beginning to think it is unethical to eat almonds. Let me explain.
Global climate crises are a thing. I can't deny it any longer. And one global weather crisis that is coming up is a great drought for the American Southwest. We are making that drought. One place that the drought is already happening is California. And one of the reasons that it is happening is almonds. The current health market culture has proclaimed them as a cure-all miracle food and California has cashed in on the almond gold. It has miles upon miles of almonds. The trees drink tons and tons of water--water California doesn't have. We are eating our way into a drought.
Not only that, but most of these trees are grown non-organically. That's right--the health nut fad incorporates pesticides. And those pesticides and other -cides are sprayed on blooming almond trees, which require a large percentage of America's honey bees to pollinate. Which means the bees get hit with insecticides, and as the bees are insects, this predictably results in their dying. And if we don't have enough bees, we won't have enough food.
So it is possible that eating almonds will contribute to both drought and famine. We are eating our way out of both water and food. Almonds--the world's great evil.
But how the hell did we get there? Turns out, the same way we got to lots of other ethical dilemmas of the 21st century. Not that they are so much ethical quandaries, but quandaries in balancing our ethics with our health, our ethics with our finances, our jobs, our neighbors, etc. Here is a list of dilemmas....
1) Almonds, and other produce dilemmas (bananas, for instance, which we eat to the destruction of the rain forest)
2) Cars--We know that carbon monoxide is not good for little kids--asthma and cancer and everything. We know that cars produce it (and other noxious fumes). We know that asphalt is bad for the environment (so it the carbon, etc). BUT I STILL HAVE TO DRIVE TO WORK!!! I have very ethical work. I help people out of poverty. But my job requires me to have a car to do the errands required to help the poor out. And my car is inherently unethical.
3) Investments--I am suppose to save for my retirement. It is the responsible thing to do. My company will help me do it through a 401k. This plan is dependent on the S&P 500 index companies stock programs. Many of these companies are unethical--unethical meat farming, non-fair-trade goods, child labor, yada yada... SO DO I NEED TO NOT RETIRE? Someone help me out with a solution.
4) Neighborhoods/ Housing--School districts are based on local incomes, property values and tax payers. So if I want to help poor school districts out, then I need to live in poor school district neighborhoods. But, these neighborhoods would often be unsafe to raise kids in. As would the schools. It's not a figment of the imagination, white fear, kind of danger. I work with the parents whose kids have no choice but to be in these schools. Believe me, there is real danger. SHOULD I PUT MY KIDS IN DANGEROUS SCHOOLS?
5) Food--the stuff that is good for both me and the environment is stinking expensive. I'm not convinced that I need to eat organic for my health, but I am fully convinced that pesticides are bad for the health of the environment-which would ultimately be bad for the health of my kids, or maybe grandkids. Then again, not eating would be bad for my health. HOW DO I KNOW WHAT TO EAT?
6) Clothing--Polyester is unsustainable, etc. Cotton is farmed by child labor in Uzbekistan. Wool is often a product of animal cruelty. Bangladesh's clothing factories kill hundreds. WHAT DO I WEAR?
7) Connectivity--I could make space for organic food and free trade clothing a little bit more by cutting out the internet and cell phones. BUT MY FAMILY WOULD MISS ME. They live thousands of miles away you see. I know that cell phones and computers use unsustainable amounts of rare metals. I know they use more energy than we should. I know they cost more than my budget could afford if living the organic and free trade lifestyle. I also know that my cell phone and computer are often my lifeline, and that those without cell phones and computers can get rapidly plunged into and stuck in poverty. Also, I know the information sent this way is traceable and non-private. I know it is used by, and will be used by, many people with ulterior motives. It could be the beginning of unjust spy-states. In fact, it probably already has been. DO I GIVE UP THE INTERNET? It seems to also do much good, but I can't control what it will do.
8) Healthcare--it took lots of experiments with lots of poor animals and probably some poor people to develop the medicine and surgery treatments currently available. Do I support experimenting with animals? Do I support breeding mice just to give them cancer and cut them open? But if I don't support that research, am I condemning people to die who could have lived? And then, there is genetic research. It could be used so many bad ways. It started from such dark origins. And good genetic therapies could save so many lives, and result in so much averted misery. And what about in vitro fertilization, birth control, kids with three biological parents? HOW DID THE NATURE OF LIFE BECOME THIS CONFUSING?
This is not an exclusive list. I could add other things. You could add other things. The thing is, these are my moral dilemmas, and I can't seem to find much guidance on what to do. I understand the Amish better than ever--opt out of the system. Pretend that if you aren't part of it, you have no responsibility for it. I just don't think that is a viable solution. So I go on living in a blatantly unjust system, trying to make my way forward and out of the bottom where I feel the injustice most. But as I raise myself up, I become ever more conscious of what I am forcing down. Can I justify my economic betterment, my safety, my health costing environmental damage, animal cruelty, child labor? No. I don't think I can. So what do I do?
I wish I could say religion was offering answers to these questions right now, but I think most religions are still ignoring the fact that these questions exist. It's a state of denial. Or else a capitulation to fatalism or a twisted version of Providence that is willing to credit my success at the cost of some other's suffering as the hand of God who ordains as He wills. I don't think it is. I'm not sure what to think. I don't think poverty is righteous or that everybody selling everything is wise. But I know that this current version of wealth is unjust. And having unjust wealth, I don't know what to do. I wish for some pastoral voice, some strong prophetic guidance, but all I hear is a screaming match between political parties and vested interest groups. Maybe this is why millennial don't go to church. We have our sins you see. We have our questions. But our sins are not what you think. And our questions are not the ones you give answers to. So we sit in the pew in our cotton clothes, sewed in Bangladesh's factories, and we eat the non-organic communion bread, and drive off in our cars to our safe neighborhoods while getting directions on our internet-connected cell phones. And our souls...what happens to our souls?
Friday, February 13, 2015
Sunday, September 14, 2014
"I Have No Enemies"
I remember reading verses in the Bible about loving your enemies when I was in high school. I thought, "That's kind of impossible, I don't have any enemies." I never allowed myself to think of hating people. Or even of being angry with them. Sure, there were people who annoyed me. There were people I was scared to be around. But, no, of course I had no enemies.
I had occasionally had to leave town with my family because someone was after us. There had been that time when we had to sleep at a friends house when my dad was out of the country for fear of.... My parents did get threatening emails. I couldn't be out after dark by myself because... There was that one guy who was so creepy that I spent every Sunday avoiding so much as eye contact. But no, no enemies. None here. This girl is too good to have enemies.
I am nice. Therefore, everyone likes me. I am a good Christian girl who never gets angry, never holds grudges, never has enemies. Oh the lies we tell ourselves to get by!
The truth is, I was too scared to admit I had enemies. Here is a definition of an enemy:
1) Someone who hates you
2) Someone who attempts to inflict harm on you
3) Someone who puts you in danger and gives you valid reason to fear them
So, I actually had lots of enemies. There was that guy who smashed my foot in second grade--totally on purpose. The guy who followed my sister around the block with a knife. The people who sent threats to the churches I attended. The guys who stalked me at church and around town. Plenty of enemies.
But I convinced myself not to feel hatred. Mostly not to feel at all, but if I did feel, then to feel only fear. If you are only scared of someone, and you don't hate them--watch the logic--then they aren't your enemy, and therefore you don't have to love them. Clever, but untrue.
To love is not to feel indifferent. It is not to numb yourself to their existence, to ignore their presence, or to escape without harm. Love requires engagement. It requires interaction. It requires giving and service and sacrifice. It requires courtesy. These are hard things to offer to someone of whom you are terrified.
Loving your enemy would seem to include:
1) Choosing not to harm them in addition to
2) Giving them bread when they are hungry and water when they are thirsty
3) Choosing to be generous and courteous to them in continued interaction
Loving is no easy thing. It is not the default "nice" behavior. It is dangerous. I should say that there are some instances of loving one's enemy which should be handled very differently than others. I would not, for example, advocate for those suffering physical or sexual abuse to "love" the abuser by staying with them. Allowing someone to continue to be a terrible person is not "love." Love expects the highest of the person who is its object. But it does not ignore them and their actions.
"It's--too-dangerous--!" Ron yelled, but Harry wheeled in the air....And he saw them: Malfoy with his arm around the unconscious Goyle....
"IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I'LL KILL YOU, HARRY!" roared Ron's voice, and, as a great flaming chimaera bore down upon them, he and Hermione dragged Goyle onto their broom and rose, rolling and pitching, into the air once more as Malfoy clambered up behind Harry."
~Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, pg 633.
I had occasionally had to leave town with my family because someone was after us. There had been that time when we had to sleep at a friends house when my dad was out of the country for fear of.... My parents did get threatening emails. I couldn't be out after dark by myself because... There was that one guy who was so creepy that I spent every Sunday avoiding so much as eye contact. But no, no enemies. None here. This girl is too good to have enemies.
I am nice. Therefore, everyone likes me. I am a good Christian girl who never gets angry, never holds grudges, never has enemies. Oh the lies we tell ourselves to get by!
The truth is, I was too scared to admit I had enemies. Here is a definition of an enemy:
1) Someone who hates you
2) Someone who attempts to inflict harm on you
3) Someone who puts you in danger and gives you valid reason to fear them
So, I actually had lots of enemies. There was that guy who smashed my foot in second grade--totally on purpose. The guy who followed my sister around the block with a knife. The people who sent threats to the churches I attended. The guys who stalked me at church and around town. Plenty of enemies.
But I convinced myself not to feel hatred. Mostly not to feel at all, but if I did feel, then to feel only fear. If you are only scared of someone, and you don't hate them--watch the logic--then they aren't your enemy, and therefore you don't have to love them. Clever, but untrue.
To love is not to feel indifferent. It is not to numb yourself to their existence, to ignore their presence, or to escape without harm. Love requires engagement. It requires interaction. It requires giving and service and sacrifice. It requires courtesy. These are hard things to offer to someone of whom you are terrified.
Loving your enemy would seem to include:
1) Choosing not to harm them in addition to
2) Giving them bread when they are hungry and water when they are thirsty
3) Choosing to be generous and courteous to them in continued interaction
Loving is no easy thing. It is not the default "nice" behavior. It is dangerous. I should say that there are some instances of loving one's enemy which should be handled very differently than others. I would not, for example, advocate for those suffering physical or sexual abuse to "love" the abuser by staying with them. Allowing someone to continue to be a terrible person is not "love." Love expects the highest of the person who is its object. But it does not ignore them and their actions.
"It's--too-dangerous--!" Ron yelled, but Harry wheeled in the air....And he saw them: Malfoy with his arm around the unconscious Goyle....
"IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I'LL KILL YOU, HARRY!" roared Ron's voice, and, as a great flaming chimaera bore down upon them, he and Hermione dragged Goyle onto their broom and rose, rolling and pitching, into the air once more as Malfoy clambered up behind Harry."
~Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, pg 633.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
A Dangerous Alliance
Technically, most American Evangelicals believe in the separation of church and state. Most of them would also like the 10 Commandments to be posted in courthouses. Prayers should be said in schools, but not Muslim or Buddhist prayers. We separate church and state within our borders on the clear understanding that the state support the church, not the mosque, or the temple. It isn't exactly freedom of religion that we believe in. It is freedom of worship format, the ability to mess around with the liturgy as we wish.
We will, out of generosity, allow other faiths to practice freely within our borders, provided they mostly keep it to themselves and that their moral codes don't change our laws.
I haven't decided what I think of that as domestic policy. What I do know is that it makes for shabby international politics. I see Facebook campaigns all the time for persecuted Christians here and there. I see calls for our government to interfere on their behalf. I don't usually see calls for our government to do anything about the Muslims getting persecuted in Myanmar--despite their case being listed as one of the most severe by several different analysis groups. Similarly, people don't fuss much about Muslims getting bad treatment in the Balkans. Or about the Palestinian situation. How many Evangelical Facebook campaigns do you see telling our government to quit supporting Israel? If we perceive that those receiving persecution do not belong to any church, we are not likely to do much about it. Our justice is not very objective.
It is a problem because the world knows America is Christian. The rest of the world knows it much more surely than America knows it itself. When America invades, it is the Christians who are invading--not exactly, of course. But sort of. Because the church and the American government aren't exactly allies, but they have an understanding.
The result is often that the church abroad suffers for the American church. It's complicated. But here is a story to help you understand.
You are the Ottoman emperor. Your country has been losing territory and influence to Western powers. There are Western missionaries in your land. There are also Western intelligence agents. They speak the same, and look roughly the same--hard to tell them apart really. They are advocating for people to change faiths. They are advocating for democracy. You are the head of Islam. You are the head of an empire. You do not have the power to attack the West. What can you do instead? Well, you can have a genocide and eliminate all the Christians. That gives you a margin of success. Symbolic perhaps, but also effective. No more Christians asking for democracy.
Do you see the danger of the alliance? When the West raises it's head to defend a Christian in Egypt--Egypt begins to see the Christians as Western, even though there have been Christians there for longer than there have been in the US. So our defense can put them in even greater danger. We separate church and state domestically. Internationally, we should not expect our adversaries to make the same distinction.
We will, out of generosity, allow other faiths to practice freely within our borders, provided they mostly keep it to themselves and that their moral codes don't change our laws.
I haven't decided what I think of that as domestic policy. What I do know is that it makes for shabby international politics. I see Facebook campaigns all the time for persecuted Christians here and there. I see calls for our government to interfere on their behalf. I don't usually see calls for our government to do anything about the Muslims getting persecuted in Myanmar--despite their case being listed as one of the most severe by several different analysis groups. Similarly, people don't fuss much about Muslims getting bad treatment in the Balkans. Or about the Palestinian situation. How many Evangelical Facebook campaigns do you see telling our government to quit supporting Israel? If we perceive that those receiving persecution do not belong to any church, we are not likely to do much about it. Our justice is not very objective.
It is a problem because the world knows America is Christian. The rest of the world knows it much more surely than America knows it itself. When America invades, it is the Christians who are invading--not exactly, of course. But sort of. Because the church and the American government aren't exactly allies, but they have an understanding.
The result is often that the church abroad suffers for the American church. It's complicated. But here is a story to help you understand.
You are the Ottoman emperor. Your country has been losing territory and influence to Western powers. There are Western missionaries in your land. There are also Western intelligence agents. They speak the same, and look roughly the same--hard to tell them apart really. They are advocating for people to change faiths. They are advocating for democracy. You are the head of Islam. You are the head of an empire. You do not have the power to attack the West. What can you do instead? Well, you can have a genocide and eliminate all the Christians. That gives you a margin of success. Symbolic perhaps, but also effective. No more Christians asking for democracy.
Do you see the danger of the alliance? When the West raises it's head to defend a Christian in Egypt--Egypt begins to see the Christians as Western, even though there have been Christians there for longer than there have been in the US. So our defense can put them in even greater danger. We separate church and state domestically. Internationally, we should not expect our adversaries to make the same distinction.
Savior complex
I've been watching a trend this year. A trend of the Well-off church to want to save the Hurting church. It often means the Western church wanting to save the Eastern church. It feels to us like a generous thing to do.
I noticed it with Meryem. She was, of course, from Sudan. She was going to be killed. We couldn't let that happen. Heaven forbid the persecuted church be persecuted. A pastor in Iran is in jail. We should get him out of jail. We should pressure, cajole, advocate for government interference (our government interfering with theirs that is). We should get him out of jail. Understand, please. I don't want anyone to die. I don't want anyone in jail.
It's just this. Our tendency to rescue people assumes a weakness on their part. They suffer (we think) because they are weak. We can help them (we think) because we are strong. We extend our strength on their behalf. We rescue them. It's true. We do. Often very successfully.
When the American's evacuated Iraq in the 90s, they took most of the Kurdish church leadership with them. Heaven forbid the church should be left behind to suffer. Jesus wouldn't have wanted the church to be persecuted, would he? He would have wanted the church to be strong, to be wealthy, to be free, to be part of the world's ruling super-power government system. We rescued the church right out of there. There was hardly a church left behind at all.
We would often, as good American Christians, have our government use drones against persecuting organizations, then we would to let the church lose a few drops of her own precious blood.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no atonement. Jesus chose to die.
Why is it that we cannot see that some of his followers might choose the same? And that we should not make it harder on them to do so. There are those who love their nation and their land and do not wish to be whisked out of it to safety with UN/ US protection. Christianity was not designed to be a risk free religion. It was meant to be undertaken at great personal sacrifice. Sometimes, we have to let others make the sacrifice. Not for our sake, certainly, but for their own.
I know it hurts. I have had friends choose to die. My parents lived their lives, intentionally, in harms way. I questioned the ethics of their doing so. I know. I worry for the people I know. It is friends of whom I say, we should let them take a risk.
Because often they know better than we do. In their churches, prayer meetings are heavily attended. In my church, Dave Ramsey's finances class is heavily attended. We know success, but the success we know is a worldly success. We have power--power of the purse, power of the gun. They have power on their knees and power in their hearts. The danger they face, they have the power to face. Even if it means death, or prison.
There is, of course, the other side. The justice seeking side. We are Christians and should seek justice. We should not let our brothers suffer unnecessarily. This is the side we come to automatically. It is our enraged, loving, possessive side. It is our "us vs them" side. We are the Kingdom of God and we have a sword side.
Love your enemy. Turn the other cheek. Would you have it in you to die in a prayer meeting for revival in the Middle East? Would you die on the chance that the land might be saved? That the blood of martyrs would be the seed of peace? I have known church leaders to pray for persecution where it might mean their death. Should we always be so quick to rescue?
I noticed it with Meryem. She was, of course, from Sudan. She was going to be killed. We couldn't let that happen. Heaven forbid the persecuted church be persecuted. A pastor in Iran is in jail. We should get him out of jail. We should pressure, cajole, advocate for government interference (our government interfering with theirs that is). We should get him out of jail. Understand, please. I don't want anyone to die. I don't want anyone in jail.
It's just this. Our tendency to rescue people assumes a weakness on their part. They suffer (we think) because they are weak. We can help them (we think) because we are strong. We extend our strength on their behalf. We rescue them. It's true. We do. Often very successfully.
When the American's evacuated Iraq in the 90s, they took most of the Kurdish church leadership with them. Heaven forbid the church should be left behind to suffer. Jesus wouldn't have wanted the church to be persecuted, would he? He would have wanted the church to be strong, to be wealthy, to be free, to be part of the world's ruling super-power government system. We rescued the church right out of there. There was hardly a church left behind at all.
We would often, as good American Christians, have our government use drones against persecuting organizations, then we would to let the church lose a few drops of her own precious blood.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no atonement. Jesus chose to die.
Why is it that we cannot see that some of his followers might choose the same? And that we should not make it harder on them to do so. There are those who love their nation and their land and do not wish to be whisked out of it to safety with UN/ US protection. Christianity was not designed to be a risk free religion. It was meant to be undertaken at great personal sacrifice. Sometimes, we have to let others make the sacrifice. Not for our sake, certainly, but for their own.
I know it hurts. I have had friends choose to die. My parents lived their lives, intentionally, in harms way. I questioned the ethics of their doing so. I know. I worry for the people I know. It is friends of whom I say, we should let them take a risk.
Because often they know better than we do. In their churches, prayer meetings are heavily attended. In my church, Dave Ramsey's finances class is heavily attended. We know success, but the success we know is a worldly success. We have power--power of the purse, power of the gun. They have power on their knees and power in their hearts. The danger they face, they have the power to face. Even if it means death, or prison.
There is, of course, the other side. The justice seeking side. We are Christians and should seek justice. We should not let our brothers suffer unnecessarily. This is the side we come to automatically. It is our enraged, loving, possessive side. It is our "us vs them" side. We are the Kingdom of God and we have a sword side.
Love your enemy. Turn the other cheek. Would you have it in you to die in a prayer meeting for revival in the Middle East? Would you die on the chance that the land might be saved? That the blood of martyrs would be the seed of peace? I have known church leaders to pray for persecution where it might mean their death. Should we always be so quick to rescue?
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Our need of fantasy
I consumed about 800 pages of fantasy in the last...week? I think it was just in one week. It was mostly written on a young adult level, though one book was from the grown-up section of the library. When it comes to fantasy, I am a voracious reader. I am not such a voracious reader of theology. I don't read Bible studies for fun. Nor history either. Nor philosophy. Nor the classics. Though I did major in all those subjects (a Humanities major) and get my Masters in Theology, I never really read those for fun.
Why? Because they are dry and dull? Not really. Neither would I say that history or philosophy are inapplicable to life. They are probably more applicable to life than almost anything else. And I don't have trouble understanding any of those subjects. I am an expert in them. I was literally trained in them since I can first remember. The first time I said I wanted to be a theologian was in elementary school. Right along with wanting to be a scientist and a ballerina, I wanted to be a theologian. It is the only one of my childhood dreams which I have currently fulfilled. Yet I read very little theology these days.
I read fantasy. Why?
Some days because I need the world to be solvable. Things like the Syrian civil war eat holes in my heart and I want to go and fight the bad guy. So I read stories of worlds in which that would be possible. Worlds in which all the evil comes from one villain and if you kill him, then the evil goes away. I want the world to be like that. Desperately.
Ultimately, I read fantasy for more a heroic fix. I read it because I believe it shows something about the world that we have lost. In fantasy, people's beliefs change their world so directly that the impact is immediately evident. In our real world belief's matter too. It just takes so much time for their impact to be evident that we lose the connection.
In fantasy word has power. You can tell something to fly--and it does. Characters have a voice. And their voice with their conviction determines their reality. I want my voice to determine my reality. In the big real and ugly world, it usually just gets drowned to one insignificant whisper in a crowd. People toss hurtful words around and laugh your hurt like it was an accident--when they were the ones who generated the words. The power of words, of voice, has been lost in reality. We remember it only in the realm of imagination.
Fantastical worlds work on the premise of spirituality. Something lives in people that can trump the mundane material cause and effect chain. Some people have more of it that others, and some objects are more easily imbued with it that others. But it is there. The spiritual is alive and interactive. Sometimes it is good. Sometimes it is evil. It is present and dynamic. If you talk about things that way in the real world, people roll eyes at you for being religiously fanatical. Perhaps it is just an alternate way of explaining reality.
Because that brings me down to the reason I think fantasy has been such a big hit with my generation. Our lives are becoming fantastical. We live with every day realities that used to be the stuff of science fiction. And stuff that used to be described in spiritual or fantastical terms has been explained away in relentless marches of dull fact. Our lives have been stripped of wonder. We read fantasy to remember how incredible the world actually is. We read it to recover our sense of inexplicable beauty. Our sense of impossibility. Our sense of morality.
And fantasy offers opportunity. We live in a phantasmagorical world. The situations we face in our lives have never been faced before. Our world is filled with wonders and horrors greater than the ancient magicians could possibly have known. Nuclear disasters. Flights to space. Hollogram projections. Google glass. Self-driving cars. Automated houses. Genetic engineering. How do you make sense of it all? How do you hold a sense of right and wrong when there is no historical precedent? No clear commandment? There is no religion that can tell you what to do from day to day in the modern world. If we are to explore the consequence of actions, the ethics of our new world, we have to do it in stories that look detached from reality. Fantasy creates a realm that looks historical, that looks ancient. In doing so, it gives us a safe space to examine possibilities for the future. If this was magic instead of science, would it be black magic? Or would it be something the White Wizard did? Or perhaps the neutral ground shared by both, magic neither good nor bad?
Why? Because they are dry and dull? Not really. Neither would I say that history or philosophy are inapplicable to life. They are probably more applicable to life than almost anything else. And I don't have trouble understanding any of those subjects. I am an expert in them. I was literally trained in them since I can first remember. The first time I said I wanted to be a theologian was in elementary school. Right along with wanting to be a scientist and a ballerina, I wanted to be a theologian. It is the only one of my childhood dreams which I have currently fulfilled. Yet I read very little theology these days.
I read fantasy. Why?
Some days because I need the world to be solvable. Things like the Syrian civil war eat holes in my heart and I want to go and fight the bad guy. So I read stories of worlds in which that would be possible. Worlds in which all the evil comes from one villain and if you kill him, then the evil goes away. I want the world to be like that. Desperately.
Ultimately, I read fantasy for more a heroic fix. I read it because I believe it shows something about the world that we have lost. In fantasy, people's beliefs change their world so directly that the impact is immediately evident. In our real world belief's matter too. It just takes so much time for their impact to be evident that we lose the connection.
In fantasy word has power. You can tell something to fly--and it does. Characters have a voice. And their voice with their conviction determines their reality. I want my voice to determine my reality. In the big real and ugly world, it usually just gets drowned to one insignificant whisper in a crowd. People toss hurtful words around and laugh your hurt like it was an accident--when they were the ones who generated the words. The power of words, of voice, has been lost in reality. We remember it only in the realm of imagination.
Fantastical worlds work on the premise of spirituality. Something lives in people that can trump the mundane material cause and effect chain. Some people have more of it that others, and some objects are more easily imbued with it that others. But it is there. The spiritual is alive and interactive. Sometimes it is good. Sometimes it is evil. It is present and dynamic. If you talk about things that way in the real world, people roll eyes at you for being religiously fanatical. Perhaps it is just an alternate way of explaining reality.
Because that brings me down to the reason I think fantasy has been such a big hit with my generation. Our lives are becoming fantastical. We live with every day realities that used to be the stuff of science fiction. And stuff that used to be described in spiritual or fantastical terms has been explained away in relentless marches of dull fact. Our lives have been stripped of wonder. We read fantasy to remember how incredible the world actually is. We read it to recover our sense of inexplicable beauty. Our sense of impossibility. Our sense of morality.
And fantasy offers opportunity. We live in a phantasmagorical world. The situations we face in our lives have never been faced before. Our world is filled with wonders and horrors greater than the ancient magicians could possibly have known. Nuclear disasters. Flights to space. Hollogram projections. Google glass. Self-driving cars. Automated houses. Genetic engineering. How do you make sense of it all? How do you hold a sense of right and wrong when there is no historical precedent? No clear commandment? There is no religion that can tell you what to do from day to day in the modern world. If we are to explore the consequence of actions, the ethics of our new world, we have to do it in stories that look detached from reality. Fantasy creates a realm that looks historical, that looks ancient. In doing so, it gives us a safe space to examine possibilities for the future. If this was magic instead of science, would it be black magic? Or would it be something the White Wizard did? Or perhaps the neutral ground shared by both, magic neither good nor bad?
Friday, May 16, 2014
Confirmed to grace
I was confirmed this spring into the universal church, by a bishop with the ecclesiastical authority to do so.
It wasn't strictly necessary. I was baptized with "believer's baptism" at the age of ten, which is the age when most kids would be beginning the confirmation process. Of course, since I was baptized in a Plymouth Brethren congregation, there wasn't any bishop there to confirm me. And the baptism ceremony was unsatisfactorily informal. Nobody in the congregation believed it to be a means of grace. Quite a few people thought of it as a public sign in which I bound myself to a discipleship of obedience, largely defined as renouncing those things I had a natural inclination and gifting towards in order to prove my loyalty to God. And though on the day of my baptism, I felt it to be a means of grace, I also felt somewhat out of order in describing it.
There were also certain words that were not said at my baptism which in the years since I have heard said at others baptisms.
Question: Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces
An oddly different set of renunciations, none of which I ever had publicly made. All of which are of deep spiritual, perhaps even cosmological, significance. Followed by affirmations phrased quite differently than my personal testimony was at the age of 10.
Question Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your
Then the Bishop or Priest places a hand on the person's head, marking
on the forehead the sign of the cross [using Chrism if desired] and saying to
each one
Needless to say every baptism I watched at my present (Anglican) church, I was jealous. And that just wasn't a good way to live my life. So my priest suggested the (technically unnecessary) rite of confirmation, to fill in some gaping holes and replace some negative associations. It was truly a blessing. I recommend it.
It wasn't strictly necessary. I was baptized with "believer's baptism" at the age of ten, which is the age when most kids would be beginning the confirmation process. Of course, since I was baptized in a Plymouth Brethren congregation, there wasn't any bishop there to confirm me. And the baptism ceremony was unsatisfactorily informal. Nobody in the congregation believed it to be a means of grace. Quite a few people thought of it as a public sign in which I bound myself to a discipleship of obedience, largely defined as renouncing those things I had a natural inclination and gifting towards in order to prove my loyalty to God. And though on the day of my baptism, I felt it to be a means of grace, I also felt somewhat out of order in describing it.
There were also certain words that were not said at my baptism which in the years since I have heard said at others baptisms.
Question: Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces
of wickedness that rebel against God?
Answer I renounce them.
Answer I renounce them.
Question Do you renounce the evil powers of this world
which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
Answer I renounce them.
which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
Answer I renounce them.
Question Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you
from the love of God?
Answer I renounce them.
from the love of God?
Answer I renounce them.
An oddly different set of renunciations, none of which I ever had publicly made. All of which are of deep spiritual, perhaps even cosmological, significance. Followed by affirmations phrased quite differently than my personal testimony was at the age of 10.
Question Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your
Savior?
Answer I do.
Answer I do.
Question Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
Answer I do.
Trust in grace and love. Now, that. A) Trust. B) Grace. C) The belief that I am loved. D) The complete faith that I am relying on that love and grace instead of my ability to understand doctrine accurately or live a righteous life. As I recall, my ten year old testimony had a great deal to do with how I knew I was saved because I obeyed my parents better now. Perhaps an OK level of revelation for a ten year old. Hardly enough to sustain an adult faith journey.Answer I do.
Then the Bishop or Priest places a hand on the person's head, marking
on the forehead the sign of the cross [using Chrism if desired] and saying to
each one
N., you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked
as Christ's own for ever. Amen.
Assurance. Belonging. The laying on of hands for the confirmation in the Holy Spirit. Anointing. Blessing. Something that can actually give you both direction and strength to walk in it.as Christ's own for ever. Amen.
Needless to say every baptism I watched at my present (Anglican) church, I was jealous. And that just wasn't a good way to live my life. So my priest suggested the (technically unnecessary) rite of confirmation, to fill in some gaping holes and replace some negative associations. It was truly a blessing. I recommend it.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
The Co-Inherence: a meditation
This stinks God. Your people have betrayed me. Why didn't you stop them? This hurts. I trusted them. They were supposed to be your presence here. Your temple. Your church. I can barely stand to look at it anymore.
I know. It did stink when that happened. I had poured so much into them. I couldn't stop them. The gang mentality--I hadn't experienced it like that before. It all came from the temple. I couldn't stand it anymore, knowing what was coming. I tried to purge it, send them all away. I couldn't be in that temple anymore. I destroyed it. My soul ripped, it was torn right with the curtain. It hurts. It still hurts.
My family thinks I am crazy. They don't understand. They think I made up memories. But I didn't. They think I shouldn't have the gifts I have, the love I have, the friends I have. They don't see the visions. They don't understand the storms in my mind, the pressure forcing me forward. They don't think I should be this far from home. They think I don't love them. They don't understand. The only way I can honor them is to see them as they are, as all of what they are. They tell me they love me, but they are stressing me out.
My mom came to get me once. Said I was mad. My brothers always thought I was the little, cracked, spoiled, crazy one. Magic, or trickery. Maybe demons. They never said the last one out loud to mom. I was the rape child of a Roman guard--they told me all the time. Virgin birth was crazy. It couldn't have happened. Mom must have been making stories for a boy to soft to know the truth. They didn't catch on very fast. Family. Supposed to love and trust you aren't they? Supposed to launch you out into the world. Mine had trouble with that too. It wasn't the human life I would have imagined for myself. Disappointing.
I love my country, God, my people. But they think I am an outsider. Wherever I go, I am never taken in, not really. Always at arms length. I could help, if they would just count me as one of them. If they would listen. This is torture, to watch them ruining themselves.
Oh, Jerusalem. Oh that they had let me take them under my wing. Like a mother I would have guarded them, but they would not have me. I was one of them, but they rejected me. They would not take me--their heir, their king. They would not listen. For four thousand years I have watched them suffer. They will not hear me. If they would, I could end this all for them. I could heal all their pain. This is torture. It's worse than anything they could do on the cross to me.
My back hurts. My wrists hurt. My head hurts. It's been aching for a month. I can barely move. My muscles are cramping. My face hurts. My toes and fingers want to curl in. I can't walk without being dizzy. What is this? Why am I in so much pain?
My back hurt. They kept whipping it. My head stings with thorns, but my hands are tied behind my back. I can't do anything. I'm dizzy. I've lost so much blood. I just have to get up this road. The nails. Why can't I open my hands? How have I lost control of my body? This body. I made bodies. I didn't make them to feel this much pain. Why am I in so much pain?
Where is God? Is he even around in this darkness? Can he live in this anger? Or does this come because he doesn't care? Have you abandoned the world? Have you abandoned me? You aren't rescuing me. You aren't stopping this. You know this isn't just. You know it isn't right. Will not the Judge of the world do right? Why should I trust you! Where are you now?
My God. My God. Why have you forsaken me? Where are you? Why is this world so dark? You are meant to be its light. I am it's light. I'm going out. I can't find you. It is all death. All empty. Can I give you my spirit if I can not find you? Is this the faith you are asking of your people? Do you know how hard this is? This is the last temptation. There can be nothing worse than this. It is finished.
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