On Finality

I just returned twenty-eight books to the library.
This means I can finally relax.

On Internet Censorship.

Any of my readers who also follow my tumblr, A Breath of Fiction, have probably noticed the large black bar covering the title of my site with the words "Stop Censorship." The following is an open letter to Dick Lugar, US Senator from Indiana, regarding the PROTECT IP Act currently being proposed in the Senate.  I also sent this letter to Dick Lugar via his website, since I don't think he is a regular reader of my blog.  A simple overview of the bill and some of the issues surrounding it can be seen here.

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Mr. Lugar,

It is my wish to bring to you some of my concerns regarding the PROTECT IP Act that is being proposed in the Senate.  I am know that there are good intentions behind this Act, but I am also aware that there are other intentions that have gone to work in shaping this proposed law, and that those intentions may not be to the benefit of the majority.

I believe that the PROTECT IP Act would do more harm than good if passed into law.  A number of internet engineers have raised concerns about what the technical effects of such regulations would be.  I must defer to their expertise on these issues, but I think it worthwhile to consider the possibility that the implementation of this bill could possibly destroy that which it is allegedly meant to protect.

It seems to me very revealing if you look at where much of the support is coming from for this bill.  It is coming from large businesses and organizations.  These are the companies who are most threatened by the entrepreneurship that the internet affords. What this Act truly protects is big business, and with the "Occupy" movement protesting against the system of exploitation and inequality that companies such as these have created, a bill such as this which could be seen as strengthening the position of the vilified 1% would simply  confirm everything that these people are protesting against.  One of the inherent difficulties in approaching the complaints of the "Occupy" movement is the lack of any proposed solutions to the problems of which they complain.  I do not envy your job as a politician in dealing with such a mess.  However, just because there is no proposed solution, does not mean you should simply say "Let them eat cake" and give people reasons to be angry. If such complaints are not taken seriously, people will begin taking matters into their own hands.  That is a danger that I do not think most people, least of all politicians, would want to face.

Perhaps I have become a bit melodramatic, but I firmly believe that these are issues that must be addressed.  The internet is a place for freedom of expression, one of the few places where creativity and innovation may still blossom uninhibited and find a responsive audience. For all its good intentions, the PROTECT IP Act would hurt that creativity innovation--qualities which have been characteristic of the American spirit.
Mr. Lugar, one of the goals you express in your Lugar Doctrine is that the US should encourage democratic institutions. The PROTECT IP Act threatens our own democratic institution.  This is something that I hope you will have the insight to see.  You have been serving our state and our country for longer than I have been alive.  I am sure that as one of the most senior members of the US Senate, your wealth of experience would make a strong statement if you stood in opposition to this bill.

In closing, I know that there are many factors and many constituents that you must consider as you make your decision regarding the PROTECT IP Act.  My own hope is that you will see that this bill is not in the best interest of the majority, but of course, you must do what you feel is right.  You have my prayers as you continue to do a very difficult job.

Sincerely,

Gregory Fox

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More information on opposition to this bill and what is being done to oppose it can be found here.  Of course, contacting your senator is one of the most direct ways to oppose internet censorship.

On Justice

I am a middle class, white, male American.  This makes me one of the most privileged people in the world.  I did not have any say in this.  I was simply born.

In a world more and more marked by the knowledge of inequality and injustice, my comfort could almost be considered a crime.  Perhaps it should be considered a crime. The only thing is that it is people of my status doing most of the complaining.

I have had some difficulty respecting the complaints of the "Occupy" movement in America.  Certainly there is tremendous inequality of wealth in America.  It is unjust.  It is wrong.  But I feel like American's don't have any right to complain.  Certainly, the economy is awful and people can't find jobs.  But people in America, except for very rare cases, don't starve.  There are places where people can find shelter from the elements if they are willing to look for it.  But for billions of people in the world, that is not the case.  America has an inordinate proportion of the worlds wealth  It seems selfish and narrow-minded to ask the extremely wealthy to lower their standard of living when the moderately wealthy are unwilling to lower their own.

Of course it is more than just inequality of wealth that the "Occupy" movement is protesting.  It is protesting hundreds, perhaps thousands of things.  That is the key to both its power and its inefficiency.  Many people are protesting a system of exploitation:  the same system exploiting the average American as is exploiting the citizens of less prosperous and industrialised nations.  Soon, if things do not change, people will start trying to smash the system.  The problem is that no one has proposed any solutions.  That is perhaps the biggest reason why it should be taken seriously.

In some ways, I think I may be too much of a moralist to be a social activist.  The way I look at human nature, I am not confident in the ability of any system to solve our problems.  Some are probably better than others, less likely to promote certain wrongs, but humans have this brilliant way of finding new ways to do evil. I think that I, like George Orwell said of Charles Dickens, believe that if everyone just behaved decently, we would have a decent society.  And it usually takes more than a protest to change people's hearts.  Of course, people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi were pretty effective in their times.

This is my way of saying that we live in a terribly broken world.  That brokenness pains me.  I feel the guilt of centuries of sin.  And it pains me that I have no idea how this world can be fixed other than the extreme difficulty of one person at a time.  I am more and more convinced that there can be no positive social change without negative personal change.  But I long to see that change.

Today, however, whether fair or unfair, I am comfortable.  I am blessed.  I am happy.  I am loved.


I am thankful.

On Humanity

I grow more and more convinced that there can be no positive social change without negative individual change.

On Nature's Fury

A little over a week ago, it began snowing here in New Jersey.  Coming from northern Indiana, I was not too freaked out about snow in October.  It seemed a little early, but I also didn't expect that it would hang around too long.  And it hasn't.  After a week, nearly all of the snow had nearly all disappeared.  But it was what the snow did while it was around that was eventful.

Around 4:45 last Saturday, my building lost power.  This was something of a surprise, but since I had been hearing branches cracking under the weight of the snow outside, I figured that a power line was down, and that later that day, things would be sorted out.

At 11:00 that night, I was still reading by flashlight, and the next day, twenty-four hours after the power had gone out, my roommate and I left our apartment to crash at the home of a commuter and fellow grad student.  Apparently, either because of the heaviness of the wet snow or because of trees already weakened by the aggression of hurricane Irene, there was significant damage done throughout the Northeast.  Far more branches came down in this snowstorm than were amputated by the hurricane (though admittedly, fewer trees were uprooted).  It was bewildering to be outside afterword.  A few still-green trees of summer were coated in snow, others had been torn apart, branches stood topsy-turvy where they had fallen like upside down trees, young maples had their leaves completely stripped off and stood like rows of spears in the snow, and scattered everywhere in the sky and on the snowy ground were the brightly colored leaves of Autumn.  It was like walking around in an expressionist painting.  There was no way to make order out of the chaos you saw.  No doubt, the clean up crews had a similar problem.  In the process of attempting to restore power and clean up debris, Drew was completely shut down for four straight days.

The four of us who took refuge together in a Jersey suburb for two days, took advantage of the opportunity for an impromptu fall break, watching lots of movies, going bowling, and carving pumpkins.  The unexpected break was definitely a relief from the academic demands on my brain.  And even with those two days of relaxation and minimal productivity, since I didn't have any classes and only one day of work, I managed to get an entire week ahead on homework--definitely a blessing.

However, the question that everyone keeps asking is what natural disaster will strike next.  In a little over two months since moving to New Jersey, I have already experienced an earthquake, a hurricane, and a snowstorm hailed to be a sort of freak of nature.  Perhaps an ice storm, or a late tornado.  Some people are convinced that a volcano will spontaneously form in the region.  Only time will tell...

On Greensburg

A week ago, I got to be in Greensburg, PA and finally spend some quality time with my girlfriend, Allison.  She moved out to Greensburg toward the beginning of August, and although when I moved out to Madison, we picked her up and she helped me move in, We were really only together for around twelve hours, so it was the first time in over six weeks since we  had seen each other.  And I know that there are people in long distance relationships or in the military who go for months or longer without being together, but when we had been used to seeing each other about once a week over the summer and pretty much daily during our last semester of college, the transition was tough, and we were both very glad to spend some time together.
Allison showed me around Greensburg, we went to an art museum, we cooked together, watched Notre Dame beat Pittsburgh (instead of just texting each other about the game, like we usually do),  and we rescued my phone, which I had left on board a megabus in downtown Pittsburgh.  These were all wonderful things to share, but some of the best parts of the trip were the little "normal" things.  I had some homework to finish up for classes, so I worked on that, while she sat beside me and read.  We scanned the channels looking for Saturday morning cartoons.  While watching a movie, I could put my arm around her.  The little things of just being together were what made the trip so worthwhile.

On Progress

Increased complexity is not inherently an improvement.

There is a virtue in simplicity.

On Books

For the three classes I am taking this semester, I bought twenty-four total books.
Three weeks into the semester, I already have nine books checked out from the library.
Grad school is a whole new ball game.

To make life more exciting is the fact that I begin working at two different jobs this week, and my first essay is due a week from today.  This is where the fun begins.

On Hope

Today is my sister's birthday.  She turns twenty this year, and it is the first time in two decades that I won't be around to celebrate with her.  That is one of the weird things about living in New Jersey.  Much like when I spent a semester at Oxford, you don't realize how many little things you miss.  I hope my sister knows how much I love her, and that I wish I could be there with her today.

They say as you get older, birthdays get less significant, mostly because you have had so many and they all bleed together.  Eventually only the big milestones get attention.  I know that, at only the young age of twenty-two, I have already forgotten a lot of my birthdays from when I was younger.  I remember one year where I had a party with friends from both school and from church.  My worlds were colliding, but everyone got along fine.  We went put-putting, and there was this enormous cake that my mom had made to look like a Chicago Cubs hat, and the frosting turned everyone's mouths blue.  I remember the year in highschool when I got to go to Cedar Point with NHS and the trip just happened to fall on my birthday.  I remember last year,when I turned twenty-one; it was the day District Bible Quiz Finals for my sister and also the day of her prom.  So, on that day, I got up early, watched quizzing all day, then went home where my sister got ready and got picked up by her date, and they went to a friend's house where my mom helped cook Prom dinner for them.  My dad had to work that night, so on my birthday, I stayed home alone and watched movies.  Fortunately, I had gotten to celebrate with some friends the night before.

I don't remember many of my sister's birthdays at all.  For most of them, I just remember that we went out to dinner somewhere or other.  I remember one year when she turned eight or nine, she had a birthday party at this incredible place called Discovery Zone.  It was like Chuck E. Cheese's on steroids with the most colossal indoor play-place that I have ever seen.  For someone who loves climbing on things as much as I did (...as much as I do) Discovery Zone was a mystical wonderland.  One year, I would have a birthday there as well, but I'm pretty sure my sister beat me to it.  That party was particularly well-photographed, which is probably part of why I remember it so well.  My sister had a gap-toothed smile, and I was wearing the only tank top I have ever owned.

A decade ago, on my sister's birthday, our family went out to eat at TGIFridays.  I remember we had a booth next to a window where we could look across the street at the cars waiting to get into the Citgo station. They were waiting in a line that stretched all the way down the block for gasoline that had jumped from under two dollars to over four for the first time ever.  We tried to be happy for my sister.  After all, it was the first year that she would use all ten fingers to show how old she was, but none of us could take our eyes off of the TVs mounted on the wall of the restaurant.  The news was on, and was showing endless clips of planes flying into buildings, of smoke filling the air, and of buildings falling.  It was a very quiet dinner.

Everyone talks about how September 11, 2001 started out as such an ordinary day.  I was in seventh grade at the time at the small private Christian school where I spent nine years.  I was taking pre-Algebra that year with a mix of junior high students.  One of them was absent at the start of class, but that was not out of the ordinary.  What was strange was when he showed up twenty minutes late.  The whole class was working on  an assignment, probably trying to find that elusive x or something like that, but I sat near the teacher's desk and could hear some of the whispered words that this student told the teacher.  There was something about a plane and New York and a second one, an attack.  The teacher looked shocked and concerned, but none of the words I had heard made sense to me, so I kept working.  Not much later there was a phone call to the teacher.  He was speaking in a low, quiet voice, and after he hung up, he stood and told the class that the whole junior high and high school (there were only 10-16 students per class) were going to the auditorium for a special chapel.  He told us that something had happened.

The principal at this school was a big man of Russian descent with small, close-set eyes.  He looked somewhat like he might be in the mob, which could make him very intimidating when he talked to you one-on-one, whether you were in trouble or not.  That day, however, he seemed different.  Instead of his usual, imposing presence, he seemed almost frightened as he explained to us that there had been a terrorist attack on America, that planes had been hijacked and flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and another into the Pentagon.  One of the teachers wheeled a large TV into the auditorium and for a half hour, we watched the news in silence.  They were showing live footage from New York City.  I remember thinking, Why is there so much smoke?  Why are they only showing one tower?  Is the other tower hidden in the smoke?  It was only in a later class, when a teacher announced to us that the second tower had fallen, that I understood what had happened.  Later that day, at TGIFridays, I would get to see those towers fall over and over and over again.

Words like terrorist, hijack, Al-Qaeda, and Muslim are common now, but before that, they were not used often.  I didn't know what terrorism was.  Before that day, the only hijacking I knew was from an episode of Seinfeld.  I don't think I had any idea what Islam was before that.  The world had changed, and from that day on, I was taught a new vocabulary that could describe that world.  It was a vocabulary of fear and aggression, but also of confusion and questions.

I remember playing in my back yard a few days after 9/11, when a plane flew over.  It was the first time since before the attack that I had heard a jet engine.  I stopped what I was doing and stared into the sky.  It would be over a year later that, while looking for something in the deep, dark recesses of the laundry room in our basement I would see a picture pinned to the wall that I had never noticed before.  This part of our basement was filled with old toys and boxes of baby clothes, my father's golf clubs that he never used, along with various other miscellaneous things that accumulate in a house when people live there, and as such, we didn't venture back there very often.  To this day, I am not sure where the picture came from or how long it had been there, but I will never forget glancing over and seeing a large panoramic print of the New York skyline at sunset, with two pristine towers gleaming at the center of the picture.  Once again, I could only stop and stare.

I have grown up knowing that towers fall down, that reason can turn folly into madness and evil, that guilt cannot always be punished, that security is a lie, and that acts of hate and violence will perpetuate hate and violence.  I have grown up in a world of chaos.  And most of the time, I forget why it is that when I look at the world, that chaos is all that I see.  Once a year, I remember.

These reflections could make for a very bleak worldview, and in some ways, perhaps they have.  But as it is I have hope.  Not the sort of hope that you hear about on television (because I have also grown up knowing that Presidents make mistakes), but a hope in something that transcends the instability and chaos of this world.  I know a God who is eternally constant, whose name is love, whose title is peace, whose ways are just, and whose promise is life.  Fear and death have power over me, because they are not forever, but God is.

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."  --Romans 5:1-5

On the Economy of Luck

Today, as I was on my way to class, I passed two undergrads, one of whom was opening his umbrella inside.  As we were in an echo-filled stairwell, I ended up hearing their subsequent conversation.

Friend:  That's so much bad luck.
Umbrella kid:  There can't be any such thing as luck.
Friend:  Why not?
Umbrella kid (passionately):  Think about it.  If luck was real, once you got bad luck, you would just keep getting more and more of it.  Because if you were unlucky, you'd keep running into more bad luck.  It would keep increasing itself.
Friend:  What?
Umbrella kid:  That's why there can't be luck.  Like if I found a four leaf clover, then I would have good luck, and I would find more four leaf clovers, and I would keep finding them and end up getting more and more good luck.  So if luck was real, then some people would keep getting good luck and other people would only get bad luck...

I found myself rather amused by this exchange, mostly because of how intensely this fellow felt about the logical  end results of "the luck system" and how much thought he had clearly devoted to it.  But I found myself wondering if he had ever heard of economics before.

On Momentous Events

When I decided to attend Drew University, I had no idea that living in New Jersey would be so exciting. I moved here on a Saturday, and by the next Sunday I had experienced an earthquake and a hurricane (the lovely Irene who has done some significant damage to the east coast).

This all sounds very exciting, but for me, they were not all that tremendous. I was in the library when the earthquake struck, and thus noticed some bookshelves rocking slightly, and somewhat of a tremour, but that was about it. All the buildings on campus were evacuated for about a half-hour, but that just gave me the opportunity to sit outside in the sun, which I enjoy anyway. As for the hurricane, I slept through the worst of it and wasn't awoken once. However, surveying the damage the next morning was quite interesting. Drew is known for the many trees on its campus, and the number of those trees is somewhat smaller after the storm. I actually had quite a bit of fun taking pictures of uprooted trunks and dismembered branches, as well as the flooding on campus.

Of course, when I got back to my room, I saw that Drew had sent out an e-mail including the following notice:

As the storm begins to move out, we are still left with some real challenges on campus, particularly flooding and downed trees. We ask that everyone on campus be aware that trees and tree limbs are expected to continue to come down posing a very considerable risk to safety. People should not be climbing on the fallen trees, walking into large pools/ponds of water, entering flooded spaces or using electric powered devices or machines in flooded areas

As it so happens, I had done all of those things they warned against, including getting hit by a falling branch (don't worry, it was a tiny one). I understood a little better why they were so concerned when, on the following day, I noticed that in the high winds that had continued on Sunday, several more trees had fallen, one of which I had stood under for a little while. Oops. I guess someone was looking out for me.

In other news, classes have officially begun. I am still a little overwhelmed by the prospect of studying history. It is a field that I am not accustomed too, but I am diving in head first and looking forward to seeing what I will learn.

On Transition

This was a momentous weekend for me. Friday night at around 8:45 pm I began an overnight trek to New Jersey (with a stop in PA to pick up my girlfriend), so that I could move into my home for the next several months and begin my graduate studies. Having my mother and girlfriend there was fun and it helped bring even the briefest aura of familiarity to the unfamiliar surroundings. But of course, they had many miles to go to their homes, and so we had only unloaded my things, made a run to the grocery store and tried to bring a little order to my campus apartment before they had to be on the road. The hurriedness of the situation made the goodbyes more like ripping off a bad-aid than a torturous event. As the van pulled away, I went up to my new room, found places for a few more of my belongings, and collapsed into bed for a much needed nap.

I woke up an hour later feeling very strange. I felt better rested, which was a good thing, but I also felt incredibly isolated. This will be my first time entering a new surrounding without knowing a single person. I went to a local college with a sizable number of people I already knew and spent my first year there living with one of my best friends. I travelled all the way to Oxford for a semester, but so did another of my good friends, so even thousands of miles away from my home, I was still not entirely on my own. But here I am in New Jersey--a place I never expected to find myself living--and I don’t know a soul. Now, thanks to the internet and cell-phones, it is relatively easy to keep in touch with people, but I can still feel the distance. It may sound a bit far-out, but there is something about a person’s presence that can be felt, and I miss the presence of people that I love, many of whom I do not know when I will see again.

I have written here before of how my idea of home changed dramatically the semester I lived in Oxford. I found home there, and I fell in love with that place and some of the people there, and I suddenly felt myself an alien. I no longer belonged wholly to one place and felt as though I must not belong to either. Through the process of that revelation and ensuing time, my view has matured somewhat. Rather, my notion of home has changed and can now accommodate what I felt. Home is something bigger for me than just one place. It is something less tangible or definable. It has more to do with getting to know people and places, with familiar sights, with habits, and with love and trust. I believe I can find home here, like I found it in Oxford. I know I will meet people and make friends here, but at the outset, it is a fairly alarming feeling of loneliness.

On Publishing

A while back, I set a goal of being published by the time I graduated. I wasn't picky about how or what: fiction, non-fiction, criticism, poetry prose. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. I had some close calls. I had a play produced at my college that later went on to be a regional finalist at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. I also did some self-publishing (check out A Breath of Fiction), so I wasn't feeling terrible about not meeting my goal.

Then this happened.

In other words, I am going to be published.

On Pluralism

I had a friend tell me recently that her logic had concluded she was a Pluralist, i.e. believing that there are multiple roads to salvation/eternal live/nirvana/whatever you call it, or that all faiths are equal. What had gotten her thinking about this was the fact that the Big Three monotheistic religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--all ultimately stemmed from the same source. Christianity was originally a sect of Judaism and Islam was more or less a sect of Christianity. Even reading their respective scriptures will reveal significant overlap between the three. What my friend asked, then, was how can we say that the Jews and Muslims are wrong if they are worshiping the same God we are? After all, Yahweh, God, and Allah are not different gods, but merely the same word in different languages. The argument then is that although they may have started out from the same place, their beliefs have so diverged that they are no longer worshipping the same God. Of course, you could even say the same thing about Christian sects and denominations. Are Catholics and Protestants worshipping the same God? Are Calvinists and Armenians worshipping the same God? Are Methodists and Mennonites worshipping the same God? Where does the division stop?

Ultimately, my response to my friend came from John 14: 6, which says, “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” These words by Jesus are pretty conclusive, and they form one of the strongest bedrocks of the Christian faith: believing in Jesus is the only way to salvation. This verse, more than any other has provided Christians with a means of confidently declaring that other religions and belief systems are ultimately futile. The tricky part becomes when you start to speculate on how exactly Jesus is the way to salvation.

Christians have never really been able to agree among themselves on what exactly salvation requires: a prayer? circumcision? a lifestyle? faith? deeds? A pretty strong candidate is what Paul says in Romans 10:8-10, “the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” It is safe to say that most Christians accept some application of this verse as the way to salvation.

Of course, the question always remains: What about those who have never heard of Jesus. Paul himself also writes in Romans 1:19-20, “what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Later, in Romans 2:14-15, he goes on to say, “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.”

It would seem, then, that even those who have not been introduced to God’s Word, can be held accountable to some degree. And if they can be held accountable, can they not also be redeemed? Wouldn’t it be possible for someone who had never heard the gospel message to look up at the night sky and realize their own weakness and their need for love and for something or someone greater than themselves to rescue them? Is that not what believing in God consists of?

Jesus says something interesting in John 10:16: “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” Some have used this verse to argue that there must be life on other planets. C. S. Lewis, in The Chronicles of Narnia, played around with the idea of Christ visiting another world. More likely, it refers to the Holy Spirit being given to Gentiles and not just to Jews, but one has to wonder if God might not be working in those places far removed from Christianity to bring people to him.

There are some interesting words written in Jeremiah 29:12-13. “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” These words were written to the Jews, but they hold a promise that was repeated by Jesus in Matthew 7:7-8 when he says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

I still believe that Jesus is the path to salvation and eternal life. But for those who have never heard of him, I also believe that there are truths that can be learned about him. The spirit of renunciation in Buddhism, the value of creation of most American Indian religions, the devotion to purity of Islam are all traits of God. I don’t think they are the whole picture (mostly because they leave out Jesus), but there is truth there. And if all truth is God’s truth, then maybe God can use that truth bring people to him.

Though it may sound otherwise, there is no conclusion here. This post is as much a working out of some ideas and questions I have as any conclusive statement about anything. I think the answer lies in the Atonement, but I still have a lot to figure out about that too, and I don’t know that I will ever fully understand it.

On Leaving

This weekend, I went to my fifth wedding of the summer, and my fourth in six weeks.

I just graduated from college, so the sheer volume of my friends and classmates having weddings that I have both heard about and attended does not surprise me that much. It seems to be the thing to do--especially where I went to school--you meet someone in college, date for a couple of years, then when you graduate, you get married. It is a pattern I have seen many times. What I was not prepared for was how many of my close, lifelong friends are getting married: almost all of them. All of the male friends and most of the female friends that I was closest to throughout my adolescents are getting or have gotten married this summer, a couple of them to each other. I cannot help but feel somewhat left behind.

That is not to say that I have suddenly found myself in a rush to get married. I have been in a steady relationship for the last several months, and it is going very well, but neither of us is in a place where we feel ready for marriage, and the wedding season has not changed that. Rather, I have the strange sensation of watching these friends of mine setting up homes, entering a new stage of life with a spouse, while I am going to graduate school. It is a silly thought, but I have been subconsciously trained for years to think of marriage as that next step, and with all of them taking it while I remain a student, I gain this illegitimate feeling of inadequacy and stagnancy, even though I am the one who is moving a thousand miles away while they mostly settle in this area.

But then, that is a part of it too. Most of these couples are friends with each other. All through college they were going on double dates or group dates or just generally hanging out together for the simple reason that it is just what couples generally do. Now, they are all standing in each other's weddings. At the beginning of the summer, fiancées were escorting each other down the isle together, and now spouses are escorting each other down the isle. It has been a matter of changing locations and outfits while the bridal parties change only slightly. There are many reasons that could be given for why I have not been as close to my adolescent friends since high school, even though most of us went to the same college, and there is certainly no one place where the fault lies, but what I have realized is how much it affected me that I was single for most of college. These friends were pairing off, while I was making friends with other single people. In fact, very few of the close friends that I made in college are tying the knot now that we have graduated.

This has just furthered my feelings of not only being left behind, but also of losing my friends. It is an anxiety that I have always had and that has caused me a lot of pain over the years, sometimes paralysing me to the point that because I am afraid of losing my friends, my lack of action brings this to effect. With graduation, I had to say goodbye to a lot of friends, people I will never be close to in the same way again. Now with my oldest friends, from whom I have already drifted somewhat, all moving on to married life, and me moving on to grad school in New Jersey, we will be in different worlds, and I already feel guilt for the consequences of that fact.

Change is inevitable.

Change is constant.

Change is not easy.

On America

Yesterday was the fourth of July--Independence Day--a day of unbridled patriotism celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence in the typically American fashion of cooking hearty food and blowing things up. I love admiring the beauty of fireworks as much as the next guy (probably more than a lot of guys), but this year the holiday was, for me, somewhat less of an occasion for celebrating America than contemplating what it means to be an American as well as a follower of Jesus Christ.

"Though we have known disagreement and division, we are bound together by the creed that is written into our founding documents, and a conviction that the United States of America is a country that can achieve whatever it sets out to accomplish." --President Barack Obama, 22 June 2011 (full transcript here)

"from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." --Luke 12:48

"today's achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people." --President Barack Obama, 1 May 2011 (full transcript here)

"Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves: otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.'" --Genesis 11:4

"With great power there must also come great responsibility." --Stan Lee, Amazing Fantasies #15, August 1962

"And thanks to our intelligence professionals and Special Forces, we killed Osama bin Ladan . . . One soldier summed it up well. 'The message,' he said, 'is we don't forget. You will be held accountable, no matter how long it takes' . . . there should be no doubt that so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe-haven for those who aim to kill us: they cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve. . . . We are a nation that brings our enemies to justice" --President Barack Obama 22 June 2011.

"For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." --6:14, 15

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary:

'If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.'

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." --Romans 12: 17-21

"When threatened, we must respond with force." --President Barack Obama, 22 June 2011

"Now this I know:

The Lord Gives victory to his anointed.

He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary

with the victorious power of his right hand.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,

but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

They are brought to their knees and fall,

but we rise and stand firm." --Psalm 20:6-8

"Red alert is the colour of panic

Elevated to the point of static

Beating into the hearts of the fanatics

And the neighborhood's a loaded gun

Idle though lead to full throttle screaming

And the welfare is asphyxiating

Mass confusion is all the new age and it's creating a feeding ground for the bottom feeders of hysteria

Hysteria, mass hysteria!

Mass hysteria!

Mass hysteria!

Mass hysteria!" --Green Day, "American Eulogy"

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect." --Matthew 5:38-48

"The belief that violence 'saves' is so successful because it doesn't seem to be mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It's what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the final resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god. What people overlook, then is the religious character of violence. It demands from its devotees an absolute obedience--unto death. The Myth of Redemptive Violence is the real myth of the modern world. It, and not Judaism or Christianity or Islam, is the dominant religion in our society today." --Walter Wink, "Facing the Myth of Redemptive Violence" (the full article, here)

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all." --Francis Bellamy 1892.

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other." --Matthew 6:24

"Well maybe I'm the faggot America.

I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.

Now everybody do the propaganda

And sing along to the age of paranoia.

Welcome to a new kind of tension

All across the idiot nation

Where everything isn't meant to be okay.

Television dreams of tomorrow.

We're not the ones who're meant to follow

For that's enough to argue." --Green Day, "American Idiot"

"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instittuted, and those who do so will bring judgement on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be freed from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not covet,' and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself' Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law. --Romans 13:1-10

"Don't wanna hear the noises on TV

Don't want the salesmen coming after me

Don't wanna live in my father's house no more

Don't want it faster, I don't want it free

Don't wanna show you what they done to me

Don't wanna live in my father's house no more

Don't wanna choose black or blue

Don't wanna see what they done to you

Don't wanna live in my father's house no more

Cause the tide is high

And it's rising still

And I don't wanna see it at my windowsill

Don't wanna give 'em my name and address

Don't wanna see what happens next

Don't wanna live in my father's house no more

Don't wanna live with my father's debt

You can't forgive what you can't forget

Don't wanna live in my father's house no more

Don't wanna fight in a holy war

Don't want the salesmen knocking at my door

I don't wanna live in America no more

Cause the tide is high

And it's rising still

And I don't wanna see it at my windowsill

MTV, what have you done to me?

Save my soul, set me free!

Set me free! What have you done to me?

I can't breathe! I can't see!

World War Three, when are you coming for me?

Been kicking up sparks, we set the flames free

The windows are locked now, so what'll it be?

A house on fire or a rising sea?

Why is the night so still?

Why did I take the pill?

Because I don't wanna see it at my windowsill." --Arcade Fire, "Intervention"

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitled them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. . . . when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." --Declaration of Independence 4 July 1776 (the entire transcript, here)

"Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God's slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor." --1 Peter 2:13-17

"Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who clled you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy.' Since you call on a Father who judges each person's work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors,, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God." --1 Peter 1:13-21

"Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." --Colossians 3:11

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." --2 Corinthians 3:16-18

I love where I live. I have loved growing up in America, and I would not ask to change that, but I have to admit that I am not always proud to be an American. I find the "American Dream" hollow and disillusioned, our esteem of individualism dangerous, and our foreign policy sickeningly awful. Of course, America's history is littered with dishonourable acts against all sorts of people. Furthermore, as a Christian, I don't believe that I can give my full allegiance to a country when I have already given it to God. Aligning myself with America would be aligning myself with the totality of America's ideas and actions, and that is something I cannot do. Of course, I would not disown America or my social responsibilities. I love America's people, I love it's natural beauty, it's food, it's literature, it's music, it's art, but I have a really hard time putting up with it's politics and policies. Additionally, I believe that most of Christ's teachings, if adhered to will make someone a model citizen and go to helping both community and country.

On Scattered Showers

I rise when the sky falls.

On Peace

For a long time, I have wanted to post something explaining a bit of what I learned in my ethics and value theory course this last semester. I have already published a couple of essays I wrote for that class on this blog, but it had such a large impact on my life, that I think more deserves to be said, especially when it comes to how my thinking on ethics has changed somewhat.

Much to my surprise, I quickly discovered that the essence of not only drama, but also ethics was, in fact, conflict. When people have opposing goals or ideologies, it is the realm of ethics to arbiter that conflict. I believe that I--much like Langdon Gilkey at the beginning of his memoir, Shantung Compound--had a very naive perception of ethics before taking the class. As an idealist, I want to believe that simply showing people a just solution will convince them that it is right. However, it is rarely that simple. This is a lesson I should have learned from growing up with a younger sister, but it has somehow taken me until college to learn it. Justice and fairness are more often a matter of perspective than of objective good or logic. As John Donne once put it, “Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, / But is captived and proves weak and untrue.” We humans can use our logic to justify anything.

Furthermore, in some situations, the just or right solution is much more difficult to discern, and matters become further complicated when more people become involved. I think of the moral issues addressed in J. M. Cotzee’s Age of Iron. How does one make restitution for generations of injustice? Who is to blame? Who is innocent? Solutions to such questions seem beyond ability of imagination to conceive. What about when nations are in conflict? Who is qualified to serve as an intermediary or to decide what is right on such an enormous scale? Such questions opened my eyes to the true difficulty of ethics.

Another revelation for me, and perhaps one of the most significant, that came through this class was that I am a pacifist. I suspect that I have been for some time now, but for whatever reasons, I have been unwilling to admit it. My senior year of high school, I was convinced of the idea that, although war is awful, sometimes there is a peace that can only come as the result of a war. I admired William Tecumseh Sherman and his doctrine that hard war makes for easy peace. To my shame, I admit that I advocated such ruthless violence as Sherman’s march to the sea and the dropping of the atomic bombs. I also condoned capital punishment in the form of the death penalty. I did not like it, but knowing that my uncle and grandfather once helped convict a man of murder and that this man promised to break free and hunt down those who convicted him unless he was executed seemed like an insurmountable case for using capital punishment to protect others. Similarly, on a personal level, I knew that if I or my loved ones were threatened, I would do whatever necessary to defend them. Of course, peaceful solutions were rarely a part of my imagining.

I think back to when a house I was living in was broken into and robbed. That night I learned that my fight or flight response is to fight. As soon as I realized the circumstances, I picked up the first loose object I could reach to use as a weapon and marched into the house to confront the situation. Of course, the thieves were already gone, which is probably good since I have no idea what I would have done if I had found someone, especially since the "weapon" I had picked up was nothing more than a garage door opener. At the time, I was on edge and a bit freaked out, but looking back, it just seems absurd. What would I have done? Thrown it at them? Then what? Probably gotten knifed or shot or something. What if I had been holding a gun and found someone? With the adrenaline pumping would I have fired it? What would that have solved, and what would have become of me?

During my time at college, the foundations for my beliefs in violent solutions to ethical problems were slowly chipped away until they were supported by little other than my stubborn refusal to revise “convictions.” My freshman year I wrote two ten minute plays, one of which dealt with the absurd injustice of executing a murder and another which used humor to subvert the seriousness of the decision to drop the atomic bombs. Whether I realized it or not, these began my questioning the validity of these beliefs I had once held. Now, this semester, those beliefs were toppled. Like the absurd garage door opener in my hand as I stalked through a robbed house, I realized the ridiculous notion that hurting people would resolve conflict. It was not until our class began debating just war I realized how strongly I opposed the views I had nominally held for so long. My advocacy for the separation of church and state, my belief in the value of individual human life, and my rapidly growing understanding of what it means to live like Jesus had convicted me, and I realized that I could no longer support violence as a means to any end.

On Follow-up

Hey, remember that time I was in a poetry reading? Well, thanks to the folks over there at Artpost, there is now a video of me reading poetry on youtube. You should check it out.

On Ideas

Those who know me well know of my great love for the writings of William Shakespeare. While I don't know better than anyone else what it is that makes his writing so persistently powerful, but I know that I aspire to write with even a measure of his skill. I have certainly always wanted to write a play in verse, whether iambic pentameter. Like many amateur dramatists, I also feel a strong draw toward the tragic, there is just something mesmerizing about a poetic sadness, something engrossing in the scale of compacted human sorrow. And when I think about trying to write like Shakespeare, I often think of writing tragedies.

Lately, a number of these ideas have been blossoming, and I am not sure yet what to do with them, because I don't yet think I am equal to task of compressing these stories into dramatic form, but I still can't stop the ideas--ideas like a play about the decline of King Saul (think the Scottish play meets Richard II), like the tragedy of Absolom (something like Henry IV part 1 with some King Lear and Titus Andronicus to give it that tragic flavour), or like the story of Robert E. Lee during the Civil War (this could be considered a history, but if you know much about Lee's life, there is plenty of tragedy to go around). I guess all I can do for now is let the ideas simmer.

On Anniversaries

It has now been a year since I came home from my semester abroad.

That means it has been over a year since I left Oxford.

I can't wrap my mound around that.

On Violence and the Cross (Good Friday)

When I was in my early teens, I read Lee Strobel’s book The Case for Christ. In this book was a gripping and moving section that described in horrific detail, the process of crucifixion. The violence was hard to comprehend. I had to face it again not much later when Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ was released. Growing up in church, I heard plenty of explanations for why Christ had to die to save us from our sins, but that did not account for the violence, the brutality involved in that sacrifice. Why could he not simply be snatched up to heaven or even struck dead. What is so essential about violence that the Prince of Peace had to die this way?

In his article, “Facing the Myth of Redemptive Violence,” Walter Wink outlines how, not only our Western culture but much of the world adheres to some form of this myth, which he traces to the Babylonian creation myth. In this story, the young gods are going to be killed by their parents so they fight back, but they are not powerful enough to defeat their mother Tiamat. Finally, they turn to the youngest god, Marduk, for help, which he gives in exchange for dominion over his fellow gods and all creation. Marduk kills Tiamat and uses her corpse to create the cosmos. Marduk then executes a god who had sided with Tiamut and Marduk’s father, Ea, creates humans out of this god’s blood. The essential framework of the myth, then, is that out of chaos and violence, an act of violence can create order, and furthermore, that violence is an essential part of human origin. This myth has its counterparts in numerous cultures, not least of all being the Greeks, whose culture serves as the bedrock for all of Western civilization.

The primary place that Wink sees this myth playing out is on television, specifically citing Popeye as an example, though virtually any superhero or police show would serve just as well. The more frightening place that it has turned up is in America’s foreign policy. When there is chaos or violence in world relations, America is always more than ready to play Marduk, coming into any part of the world and destroying “the bad guy” in exchange for the seat of power over the world. What is more, by defeating violence and chaos (and subsequently, evil), even through the means of violence and chaos (and sometimes, evil) America can cast itself as “the good guy.” The current situation in the Middle East is an obvious example, but it is nothing new. The American Revolution plays the role of the Babylonian myth in our own American mythos. Furthermore, ever since World War I, when America first established itself as a world power, it has tapped into this myth to justify its actions in policing the world.

One of the main problems with this worldview is its de facto affirmation that might makes right, that whoever has the most power is good. The good are successful, therefore the successful must be the good. But this is a flawed conclusion. Nevertheless, that has not stopped America. Our military operations have taken on the role of perpetuating not an objective good, but a system which keeps America in power. Clearly it is not democracy that America promotes, or we never would have engineered the coup that overthrew the first democratic government in Iran in 1953 and reinstitute a monarchical dictator whose actions resulted in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. I have to wonder if America’s great concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions really have anything to do with the evil that Iran might do, or if America more fears finding itself in the role of Tiamut meeting its doom at the hands of an Islamic Marduk who will create the world with a different value system.

The reality is that sooner or later that day will come. Whether or not it comes from the Middle East or China or anywhere else is irrelevant. The truth is simply that if history has shown anything, it is that those with power will eventually lose it. You only need to look at the history of ancient empires to see the pattern. The Hittites fell to the Assyrians, who fell to the Babylonians, who fell to the Persians, who fell to the Greeks who fell to the Romans, who fell to barbarians. Each of these civilizations considered themselves right and good during their reign, but fell to others who also thought themselves right and good. It would be a Hegelian dream for America to consider itself the penultimate good that no higher power can overcome. The myth may be linear, but history is cyclical. No wonder the tremendous acts of violence to assure the good or to put others in their place.

This can lead to the issue of scapegoating, traditionally defined as the punishment of an innocent for the wrongs of others. In his article, Wink suggests that scapegoating can come from “the need to locate all evil outside themselves,” an outlook that is fed by the myth of redemptive violence. This would be akin to projecting. In this case, the conflict of good and evil cannot be settled within the individual, so it must be externalized with the individual taking one of those two roles. Few would not choose the role of the good and the evil must be projected on to someone else. That evil, then, must be overcome (through violence, of course). Of course, this does nothing to actually exterminate evil. In fact, it is more likely to propagate it since no issues are actually resolved and more are probably created. This can just as easily happen on the social/political scale as on the individual. Think, for instance, of Hitler’s scapegoating of the Jews to explain the economic ills that befell Germany following World War I and the disastrous consequences that followed. This is an extreme example, but it demonstrates the danger inherent in the externalizing of evil.

Of course, scapegoating does not always have its source in the projection of internal chaos. Sometimes it comes as a means of dealing with external chaos that has no clear source or has a source that cannot be dealt with. The chaos and pain and suffering that are inherent in the world give ample opportunity for people to misdirect their emotional responses to these realities (Is it any wonder the problem of evil is such a difficult obstacle for those who would know God?). Like the prior examples, this form of scapegoating can become very dangerous when combined with the myth of redemptive violence. The chaos and pain and suffering that exist are evils, and as such, they must be dealt with. Of course, the only means that the myth of redemptive violence provides for overcoming evil is through violence. But then who do you attack when there is no clear or tangible cause for evil? A scapegoat. The injustice of these situations can be difficult to perceive because of the apparent moral imperatives that come along with them. Evil must be combated. Order must be restored.

Last weekend, I watched the film The Conspirator which opened on April 15. It recounts the events of Mary Surratt’s trial following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The film pits a young lawyer in his first defense case against a merciless, unjust government hierarchy. Historians, for the most part, conclude that the facts can neither wholly convict nor wholly exonerate Mary Surratt, and the film does not necessarily contradict that, it presents her as innocent by contrast to the cold government officials who are scapegoating her in the name of the country’s peace of mind and future well-being. The movie is a clear allusion to the injustices of the Patriot Act and the numerous injustices that have followed in the wake of the terrorist attacks on America on 11 September 2001. That was a moment in America's history where the country cried out that something must be done. But what? It was an undeniably tragic injustice, but what do you do about it? Because America has bought into the myth of redemptive violence, the only solution was to fight. And we have been fighting ever since, often against people who were not responsible and were not attacking us. So, while allegations that America’s only interest in Iraq is oil may be exaggerations, America was almost certainly asserting its own righteousness in the world.

This, of course, is entangled with the idea of retributive violence, most clearly typified by the Hebrew expression “eye for eye and tooth for tooth.” Of course, almost equally famous is the saying that “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth makes the whole world blind and toothless. This is just the opening of the can of worms when violence is an issue in retributive justice. Is taking a life for a life just? What, then, happens to the executioner? And what if one person has killed dozens? Is killing that one individual doing justice? Should they be tortured. There are no easy answers to these questions, and they highlight just some of the flaws inherent to retributive violence. However, large segments of the American population supports retributive violence as an aspect of redemptive violence, since those who have behaved violently and chaotically must be treated violently thus asserting their evil and the punisher’s goodness. However, this is little better than gang law, and ultimately it cannot end. I witnessed this myself when visiting Belfast in Northern Ireland and seeing in both the Catholic and the Protestant neighbourhoods memorials and murals dedicated to never forgetting the atrocities done by the opposing sides. There will always be one more person who “deserves” to be punished, unless the chain is broken.

In his article, Wink also points out that in the midst of a world caught up with the Babylonian myth of redemptive violence, there is a worldview that completely opposes the values in the Tiamat and Marduk story. It is the Judeo-Christian worldview. In the Hebrew creation myth (Wink suggests was actually developed during the exile in Babylon to counter the Babylonian story, although Abraham himself came from Babylon and so, probably heard the myth there first), humanity is born into peace and order and destroy it by their own means, bringing chaos and evil into the world and thus necessitating the first act of violence, the killing of animals to make clothes to cover their nakedness—the first scapegoat. Chaos, evil and scapegoating then are an inherent part of humanity’s story, but not a part of its origins. Thus, unlike in the Babylonian story, violence cannot ultimately redeem, cannot bring order. It is itself a result of disorder. Instead, the higher power that created humanity must also redeem it.

Jesus Christ suffered a violent and painful death, and to say that it was an unnecessary action or not a critical part of God’s plan denies a fundamental part of the nature of the story of humanity that the Babylonians recognized, whether they interpreted it properly or not. By refusing to punish those who took the life of his son, God denied retributive violence, offering forgiveness instead. By dying as an innocent, as a scapegoat, Christ served both as a means of covering up the shame of our sin and as a means of eliminating the need to respond violently in those situations where there is no clear or tangible evil to combat or when something must be done. And finally, by presenting a moral system that promotes peace and by refusing to assert it violently, Jesus subverted the myth of redemptive violence and “might makes right” and offered a morality which cannot be nullified by changes in power systems. In these ways, the life and death of Christ worked together to subvert the deeply entrenched doctrines that tied morality to violence and power, and by his resurrection he ensured that his teachings had eternal significance.

On Aha! Moments

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." --Matthew 7:24-27

So, I really should have been able to figure this out a long time ago, but because this parable comes at the end of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), when he uses the phrase "these words of mine," he is referring to the totality of those three chapters. Those instructions for life are to be the Christian's bedrock, the foundation which will carry us through the hardships of life. It seems so simple.

So why aren't we taught that?

On Poetry

If anyone is in South Bend and feels like hearing some poetry, then you should probably check out the Artpost twenty-four hour poetry reading marathon. I can't necessarily vouch for the quality of the poetry that will be read, as this is my first time attending this marathon, but there is at least some merit in celebrating poetry itself. Plus, I will be reading Saturday Morning at 10:30, which is when brunch will be catered by Fiddler's Hearth; so, even if my poetry is lacking, at least there will be good food.

On Memory

It has been a while since I shared any poetry on this blog. That is mostly because I have been in a poetry slump lately, for whatever reason. Then yesterday, I came up with this, and it seemed like a bit of alright, so I decided to share it, though I haven't managed to come up with a title yet:

It had been twelve months until

I saw you today, a surprise--you

walked ahead of me, wearing a blue peacoat,

just like the red one you used

to wear every day--the coat you wore

the last time I saw you, when we said

goodbye twelve months ago.

They were your same walnut curls

running free, your long lithe legs,

I almost called your name, but

I didn't have to, you must have felt

my gaze because just then you stopped

and turned. Our eyes met.

It wasn't you.

She was as pretty as you (probably

prettier, though memory makes you

an angel), but her eyes were empty--

no recognition, no surprise, just the reflection

of my disappointed face. Still,

I wished that she would smile at me,

kiss me once and say "I love you."

I haven't heard those words for twelve months now

I haven't heard those words since since you

On how Jayber Crow Changed my Life

On Tuesday 22 March 2011, I realized that my heart would always be broken. I think my heart had been broken for a long time before that, but that is the day I realized the magnitude of that brokenness and understood that it was irreparable. It was not a girl who broke my heart--indeed, I am currently in a relationship that is going exceedingly well. I have not had any dreams shattered. In fact, I have been accepted to my two first choice graduate programs. Neither is it a sort of depression. I have found a deep, abiding joy in Christ and enjoy merely living. What I believe I have found is the pain of loving that which is beyond oneself--the pain of caring.

For a seminar I am taking called Sermon on the Mount and Story, we are reading Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow. The titular character is a barber in a small Kentucky community called Port William. As his character grows through the story’s progression, the functioning of the community teaches him about what it means to love a person. Once he himself then learns to love the beautiful Mattie Chatham with a pure love, he then sees what it is to love the world.

If God loves the world, might that not be proved in my own love for it? I prayed to know in my heart His love for the world, and this was my most prideful, foolish, and dangerous prayer. It was my step into the abyss. As soon as I prayed it, I knew that I would die. I knew the old wrong and the death that lay in the world. . . . His love is suffering. It is our freedom and His sorrow. To love the world as much even as I could love it would be suffering also, for I would fail. And yet all the good I know is in this, that a man might so love this world that it would break his heart

Reading this book, and perhaps the above passage in particular, was the culmination of many things in my life. All my life, I have had a growing love of beauty in the world. It is that love which has drawn me to my artistic pursuits as well as to my enjoyment of hiking and camping. The beauty of nature has particularly captivated me--I see it in almost every aspect of creation. I can find as much beauty in fog as I do in sunshine, as much in a flower as in a bone. I also marvel at human ability to create beauty, whether it is a painting, a building, or a story. Something of an artist myself, I often attempt to create beauty as well, and in so doing feel closer to God. As I have recently begun exploring the medium of photography, I have found myself drawn to certain subject matter, one of the most overarching of which is the decayed. Things that are rusty, broken, chipped, peeling, dirty, and forsaken draw me to them. And in a strange way, in finding a beautiful composition or engaging colours, I understand a bit more of God’s redemption. Making the ugly beautiful is a kind of love.

It is my love of beauty that has driven much of my life. I think it is also the reason why, for a long time, I have had a nagging resistance to those who reject this world that God created (as distinct from the world as the system of values perpetuated by those who do not follow Christ) in the hope of heaven. I saw beauty as a measure of heaven on earth and, in a small way, a fulfillment of Christ’s prayer "on earth as it is in heaven." To think that we might all be snatched away to some other place while the world crumpled into destruction made less and less sense to me.

Then I read N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope. It connected me with an understanding of eternal life that, for some reason, no one had really told me about, by way of the resurrection of the dead into glorious transformed bodies that resembled Christ’s resurrected body to live forever in a fulfilled earth: the New Jerusalem. This was a revelation. I suddenly understood why I felt so drawn to the beauty of creation; I understood the worth inherent in the world. I also understood the responsibility placed on humans to take care of this world and to serve as agents of God’s redemption in the world, something we do by caring for both this creation and for the people in it.

This is something that Jayber Crow demonstrates beautifully. The book is filled with his reflections on the beauty of nature and the sight of heaven. After all, Jayber himself says,

This is a book about Heaven. I know it now. It floats among us like a cloud and is the realest thing we know and the least to be captured, the least to be possessed by anybody for himself. It is like a grain of mustard seed, which you cannot see among the crumbs of earth where it lies. It is like the reflection of the trees on the water.

Furthermore, by living out the questions that he has about his faith, he comes to what seems to be a Christ-like love for his world and for the people in it, even for his enemy, Troy Chatham. This love brings him tremendous pain, especially as he must grapple with loss of all kinds:

I whisper over to myself the way of loss, the names of the dead. One by one, we lose our loved ones, our friends, our powers of work and pleasure, our landmarks, the days of our allotted time. One by one, the way we lose them, they return to us and are treasured up in our hearts. Grief affirms them, preserves them, sets the cost. Finally a man stands up alone, scoured and charred like a burnt tree, having lost everything and (at the cost only of its loss) found everything, and is ready to go. Now I am ready.

I am too young to know fully the sort of loss that Jayber describes here. But I have begun to know a measure of it. I have lived in communities and loved them and then left them--its own sort of loss. There are so many people from high school whom I have not seen since graduation, and will likely never see again. Last year, I was in Oxford living in one of the richest communities I have ever known, made some friends that I care fiercely for, and I had to say goodbye to that. It took leaving my home and finding a home nearly four thousand miles away to make me understand that I have no real home, not one that is permanent anyway. In an instant on Monday, March 21, a simple hand gesture someone made reminded me of a friend from Oxford and sent a wave of memories and emotions I could not have expected. And it hurt. Such losses I already carry with me, and as I look forward to another graduation, I know that more are to come.

I have also, in some measure, learned to love the people in this world. One of the things that my college experiences, and notably the literature/philosophy seminars, have awakened in me is a humanist passion that sees worth in all people, a worth I see, in large part, derived from the love that God bears them. And thanks to the internet, to the News as Jayber would put it, I am able to learn instantly of unspeakable tragedies all over the world, tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns in Japan, rioting in the Middle East, rape and genocide in Africa, wars and rumors of wars. It is heartbreaking. However, I myself am not given to emotionalism. I would never respond, as my friend Kate did to the crashing of a Polish flight in Russia last year, saying, "How can you even think of anything else when this tragedy is happening?" I am not stabbed with pain by such situations. I know that there is little I could do for most of the grief in the world, whether I think about it or not, and this knowledge is what makes me ache for these situations. A week before, my friend Bea posted on her blog about her struggles accepting the fact of her relative comfort and all of the pain in the world. Her thoughts were incisive and forced me to face the ache that has lived in my heart, to acknowledge it and speak its name.

And the night of Monday, March 21, I read of Jayber’s love, and his pain. Tuesday, 22 March 2011, I had not been awake for a whole hour when the rush of thoughts of friends, of suffering in the world, and of the eloquent thoughts present by Wendell Berry, and I realized that my heart would never not be broken. In some ways, that realization was a prayer--as Jayber says, "sometimes a prayer comes that you have not thought to pray, yet suddenly there it is and you pray it." It was a dangerous prayer. Those words said only to myself were the birth of a little white bird that has plunged its beak into my chest and now carries my heart.

Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

On Process

I have been rather silent on this blog lately. It is not a matter of having nothing at all to say, but rather too much. And by the time I would finish writing about it, what I wanted to say would probably have changed entirely. I have been thinking a lot lately about a great many things. I have been changing inside, and I don't really know yet how to fully express that change. Someday I will write about it here, but I am too much in process right now. I have too much to chew on to be able to speak. However, I feel like whenever things do find their way from thought into utterance, it will come with quite a sudden rush.