Do one new thing today. Do it on purpose. Don't wait.

What drives the debate?

Talking heads all over cable have spent a week parsing out the question of whether racism is having an undue influence on political discourse in this country. Former President Jimmy Carter has weighed in, attributing to racism an “overwhelming portion” of the ugliness directed of late at President Barack Obama — who, for his own part, has offered his predecessor a gentle rebuke, insisting that the heated arguments are really all about policy. This morning’s Washington Post offered parallel views of people in two South Carolina congressional districts; one represented by “You Lie!” shouter Joe Wilson, and the other, right next door, by the man most responsible for bringing congressional disapproval of that outburst to a vote, Majority Whip James Clyburn. Each appears to fairly represent the views of his constituents. Who’s right?

In my own irenic way, I’d like to suggest that everyone is right, sort of. Let me explain. No, is too much. Let me sum up:

Ratings

I just found out that we now have a “ratings” system for posts thanks to the geniuses at WordPress, and I have now turned that feature on.  I’d love for readers to take advantage of this.  To do so, you have to click on the title of a particular post, as the ‘ratings’ option does not show up on the main page.

Eight years later

I was in my office on the morning of September 11, 2001, and the phone rang. It was one of my leading church members, who said: “Go home and turn on the TV, something has happened.” The urgency in her voice was enough that I dropped what I was doing, and a short time later I was standing by the television with my teenage children, watching the news unfold on CNBC: smoke rising from the North tower, news reporters not sure what they were reporting on yet. Watching the screen, at one point I saw something, an airplane flying low, and followed it across the screen with my finger. Then an angry plume of flame burst out the other side of the second tower.

butterfly at grape arbor

This lovely creature waited while I went and fetched my camera.

Verse of the Month — September 2009

Openness

For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed,
and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.

Mark 4:22

On justice vs. compassion

Today, the Scottish government has released, on compassionate grounds, former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people. He has been serving a life sentence for this crime in a Scottish prison.   He is now dying of cancer.

The United States has expressed dismay over this release.  Apparently, however, there is a provision in Scottish law allowing for such action on the basis of compassion. The talking heads on television are all over this today, drumming up outrage:   How in the heck can a government write compassion into law?

Can it have anything to do with the lack of separation between Church and State in a place like Scotland?  Are we, in the US, which sometimes styles itself as the first  country in  the world to be founded on Christian principles, horrified that in this instance, through an instrument of law, the teaching of Christ, famous for his compassion, has trumped our sense of Justice?

Can anyone hear the admonition:  “Go and learn what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice”?

Or do we really believe that compassion has no place in law, no place in government?  And if that is true, have we not effectively excluded God from our way of life, whatever we do or don’t print on our money or recite in our pledge?

Let me break it down like this.  To Christians, at least, the injunction is given:  “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.”… and, “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written:  ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.”   But in our secular society, we turn this exactly on its head, and say that we humans must exact vengeance and leave it up to God to forgive if he wants.  Christians, at least, are required (not just permitted) to forgive.  Will “Christian” voices now become among the loudest to shout how wrong the Scottish government is in failing to exact the fullest repayment of evil for evil?  If this occurs, I can only then return to the words of scripture:

They will have justice without mercy who have shown no mercy; but Mercy triumphs over (=trumps) Justice! (James 2:13)

Journal entry: a dream

A fragment, really.

My brain is always active through the night, and as is true with most people, most of the dreams are forgotten before I awake. The few bits that are left, however, would make for amazing cinematography if they could be captured or reproduced. There is also the matter of multiple layers of meaning hovering around the images and events in the dream, something nearly impossible to capture in few words. With those observations to serve as disclaimers, here’s what I found myself remembering this morning, as the eggs were in the pan:

I am somewhere, in a large building, perhaps to attend a convention or other large gathering. It’s a hotel, I think. I’m many stories up, a dozen or more at least, and appear to be alone in the room when the shaking starts.  After a few moments, it is clear that the whole building is unstable, and is about to come down.  The room begins to rotate around me, furniture sliding, the ceiling soon to be a wall.  It occurs to me that I may only have a few more seconds to live.  It also comes across my mind that the same may be true of friends and loved ones, elsewhere in the same building.  As those few remaining seconds become fewer, in my ongoing conversation with God (online all the time; kind of like broadband) I express these concerns, along with just a hint of curiosity about what, if anything, lies beyond.  There is no memory of anything after that.

As has been the case with other such things, there is no sense of fear, or panic associated here.  Not exactly detachment, either; somewhere in the mix was a complex of concerns about unfinished business elsewhere, whether anyone would ever know my passwords or even what-all I have passwords to, with attendant mild anxiety about those things.  But personal fear?  Not really.  Disappointment at the idea of not getting to do anything else?  Yeah.

Ok, that’s it.  A dream fragment, nothing more.  A snapshot. One person, dealing with the question of mortality and the fragility of personal existence.

False Prophets

I feel the need to quote myself again.  Consider whether this commentary on Jesus’ warning against false prophets, penned by me back in 1998, resonates with anything concerning current news accounts surrounding “town hall” meetings this August.

Consider a preacher or politician who sets out to raise the alarm about some threat to the comfort or values of his audience. He tells stories of horror or atrocity designed to arouse fear or revulsion. He identifies as dangerous some individual or group that is clearly foreign to the persons to whom he speaks, whether it is a racial group, or an ideology, or an opposition political party, or a religious movement, or a foreign political or military leader. He calls his hearers neither to repentance nor to reconciliation, but instead seeks to arouse anger and indignation against the identified source of threat. He proposes ways his audience can protect themselves, warn their friends, and counterattack against the threat described. Note that the content of this type of preaching could be almost anything. The individual may be denouncing religion, or atheism, or big government, or liberalism, or conservatism, or Satanism, or pornography, or fundamentalism, or communism, or capitalism, or sexism, or feminism, or homosexuality, or homophobia, or militarism, or pacifism. The fruit he produces, however, is the same in all cases: fear, mistrust, alienation and ultimately hatred.

Or, in this instance, health care reform.

Are Christians too judgmental?

I took part in a panel discussion a few weeks ago on this topic.  A discussion ensued in a private forum where some posters expressed views that suggest people like me, who insist on emphasizing the love of God for all persons, are, let’s say, not really Christians at all because we appear not to have any standards, and because we don’t simply state whatever the Bible says.  I think I hold myself and others to a very high standard, however, and I think I am pretty clear on what the Bible says also.  Here’s my response, in part:

What then do we make of Matthew 7:1, Luke 6:37, John 8:15, and Romans 2:1?

Jesus was faced with people who ultimately condemned (judged) him because he refused to judge a sexual sin (the woman taken in adultery: immediate context for the John 8 passage) even though they could point to chapter and verse to say she should not only be condemned but punished; because he was so lacking in (their idea of)  discernment that he tolerated uncleanness (eating with unwashed hands) and moral failure (eating with tax collectors and “sinners”). These were the sorts of things that incensed the moral gatekeepers of the day, the Pharisees. He healed indiscriminately; touched a leper, refused to rebuke a woman known to be immoral (at the house of Simon the Pharisee, the muttering round the table was, “If he knew what kind of woman she was….”, obviously a question of their judgment concerning his evident lack of discernment). Of course, Jesus knew in every case what was going on, and made conscious decisions not only to do these things but to use them as occasions for teaching about the scope of God’s love for people and the nature of love and forgiveness. He speaks without compromise about the absolute condemnation from God which is to fall on those who, having received mercy, fail to offer it to others in turn. “So will my heavenly Father do to you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” This says to me that love and forgiveness, not moral rightness or knowledge, are the essential beginning-point of any real discernment “in the Spirit.”

One day soon I will lay out my understanding of the thrust of the argument present by Paul in Romans chapters one through three, which I take to be an extended exposition of Luke 6:37, remembering that Luke the evangelist was Paul’s traveling companion, they worked together, and are likely to have  drawn from one another’s material.

Who’s in charge here?

On whether taxpayers have responsibility for the well-being of their neighbors, by means of government programs:

In the theocratic state envisioned by the Hebrew prophets (or even, in their critique of every nation) the responsibilities of kings was clear:  plead the cause of the fatherless and widow, demand justice for the poor.  See, for example, Psalm 82:3-4:  Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless, maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.  Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Nations were judged by how well their rulers implemented these simple principles.

In the United States of America, “we the people” (the voters and, yes, the taxpayers) are sovereign.  Therefore “we, the people” are under divine judgment if we fail to use our sovereign power to take care of the elderly, the disabled, the orphan and widows of our world.  “We, the people” as sovereign refers to our corporate role as king, which is to say, the government.  It is laudable for individual persons to do what they can by means of “charity,” but “we, the people” are not just an aggregate of individual persons.  We, together, are king, and as such are answerable to God for how well we rule.

Been meaning to say this for quite a while, but I think it is well worth bearing in mind this August as “we” (in the royal sense) debate with ourselves about health care.