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.