Just Getting Old

I try to be thoughtful. Certainly there are a few of my readers who believe me to be anything but, and there is nothing I can do to prove otherwise. I haven't the energy to presume infallibility, or eternal clarity. I can only aspire, to dream, even to hope. But today is an exception, or so I sense in my gut; for my thoughts are all scattered about.

It may be very much the case that Saddam Hussein needed to die. It has been a long battle with his obdurate spirit, with his intractable ways. Lord knows that had Mr. Hussein shown a smidgen of humility, had he simply opened his country -- without games and shenanigans -- to the West for free and unfettered inspections, the Invasion of Iraq would not have ever occurred. Lord knows that there were countless murders under his regime: he even committed murder in the street when he was young, well before he came to power. He murdered members of his own family though he had promised them no harm. He was anything but charming.

Considering all that (and there is much more to consider), it nonetheless comes as a shock to wake up to news that Mr. Hussein is dead; that he has been hanged during the Muslim call to morning prayer.

Surely my sentiments are born out of my being too Western, or too effeminate, or too squeamish for such news. Surely I am too weak, too soft and pampered, to accept this sad tale. But the fact is that I do accept it. I just don't do so with any sort of elation or any sort of repose. This news comes as a harsh fact. It comes as a sort of spiritual blunt trauma to the soul. One is not to rejoice at the death of one's enemies.

Some of you may recall my argument against the death penalty (at least as it would be enforced in the United States). Some of you may also recall my reaction to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Today, in the quiet of this morning, I am reminded of those somber thoughts. And I am also reminded of what an emergency room doctor said to me when I had an ankle injury (peroneal subluxation) she was misdiagnosing right before my eyes. She told me: "No, no, no. There's no tendon there. You're just getting old."

She was wrong about the tendon.

Peace, somewhere, for but an hour.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Waning Towards Waxing

I must take a brief break from my hiatus to bid you all well. Have a wonderful New Year's celebration. I pray that this coming year is the best year of your life. May life vastly exceed your wildest expectations.

And may there be everywhere more joy, peace, and love, and less striving for the meaningless, the vain, the empty. May this approaching year be the Year of Grace, of Kindness, of the Willing Spirit, of the Open Hand.

Blessings all!

BG

I bid you each and all a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah. May you find holiness, joy and peace; may you see signs and wonders. May this season touch you deeply; and may you touch the mysteries such a season portends. For me, this is all about rebirth, the promise of redemption. I feel an acute need for both.

I am off for a while, perhaps a long while. We shall see.

Happy New Year!

Bill Gnade

It's Time To Fix Its

Sometimes little things like this just KILL me. I mean, it sat there for over 24 hours, all wrong and misshapen, and it was just so obvious. I am talking about my headline for Sunday's post: TIME Is It's Own Award. How could I not see that glaring absurdity floating between the t and s in Its? It amazes me how easily some things just elude detection.

Oiks.

TIME Is Its Own Award: The Beast Is Honored

As you must know by now, TIME magazine has bestowed upon the masses the rather confusing appellation, Person of the Year. Of course, the editors of that fine journal understand their use of the language better than most of us: When they declare YOU, meaning, well, YOU, to be Person of the Year, and yet they mean US, which means, you and me and everyone else who use this medium, then their equivocal language begins to make sense: the Person of the Year is really the Persons of the Year.

And yet this is not really true at all; it is not one whit accurate. TIME is not lauding persons; it is not a person or persons who are feted by TIME's inestimable annual award. If TIME is praising or noting anything, if TIME is praising a force or phenomenon or movement or revolution of information, it is really praising personae, or personas. For the WWW is not filled with people (this is hardly a cybernation of real folks). Rather, the WWW is the cult of personaes. How many bloggers (of the millions), for instance, are known by name, by address? Who are the millions of people behind the screen personae we see everyday? TIME would have been nearly as astute in bestowing such great notoriety, even honor, on mere ANONYMITY, for the ANONYMOUS run rampant through this medium. My guess is that among those who are contributors to the "information age", or information deluge, there are far more unknown contributors than known. Only a few of us post our real names, and share images of ourselves, in clear and honest admission: we are not personae, but persons to the fullest extent this medium permits. And yet, though I end nearly every essay posted here with my name, my REAL name, I find that others refer to me as "Contratimes," though I do not refer to myself this way at all. And though I usually paste my initials or name in every comment I leave elsewhere, people seem to miss the self-identification: they refer to the name of my website as if I am the name of a place, or a position.

WHAT TIME HAS REALLY HONORED

But I am not sure that TIME is even noting the unknown users and contributors of the great global gateway. I believe that TIME is actually recognizing the gateway, the web or net or digital neighborhood or whatever it is called, as the Person of the Year. It is the WWW that TIME is honoring, is recognizing. We, mere contributors and consumers, are like the dust of Eden gathered together in so many small bits and bytes; we are giving shape to Adam, to Eve, while TIME, and others, are just trying to breath life into the great PERSON we are all creating: the great IDEA, the great SYNTHESIS and SYNCRETISM; the great nearly all-knowing machine called the Internet. The great BRAIN, the great whistleblower, police officer, guardian angel; even the great provider -- of goods and services and even love and meaning and affirmation and purpose -- that will finally unite us all as family, friends, brothers and sisters. Perhaps someday soon this whole thing will just run itself, and run us. And why not? IT knows our favorite books, our favorite movies. IT knows where we like to shop, what clothes we like to wear, what music we listen to. IT knows which men prefer brunettes, which women prefer Brad Pitt. IT knows who is a Republican, a Liberal, or a defender of the Labor Party. IT knows my religion, and IT even knows why I accept that religion. IT knows your status, your socio-economic standing; IT knows what you can contribute. And IT need not really know who YOU are: IT just needs to feed your IP address -- like any good parent -- with a cookie or two. To IT, you just need to be a number, and IT will take care of the rest. Just type in your prayer, and the answer will appear on your screen or land outside your door in a day or two (assuming you choose Next Day delivery).

Perhaps the single best proof of all of this is to be found in the picture of TIME editor Rick Stengel holding a copy of TIME's "Person of the Year" issue. One look shows something shocking: Stengel's own picture appears on the cover. Has TIME then bestowed the "Person of the Year" honors on itself? It seems so. But does this not suggest that TIME has actually anthropomorphized the Internet: that the Internet is US, is YOU, is all our faces and personaes and fragmented selves wrapped into ONE, one big YOU?

And then, of course, there is this story from TIME, "The Beast With A Billion Eyes: On the Web, anyone with a digital camera has the power to change history." It is this Beast that is referred to as the "Person of the Year" as shown in these two screen captures from TIME's website:


This is TIME's Person of the Year, a thing that is not really a person at all.

(And soon academics will gather to debate what "person" even means.)

Peace to you all, lauded members of the Thing of the Year.

PS. (added 12.18.06): Please note that TIME's cover is a mylar mirror: the idea is that you will see yourself in reflection. Of course, please note too that the mirror is a computer screen. In other words, you will find yourself look at yourself through a machine (which should give the philosophical idealists much to applaud. Go, Fichte! Go, Schelling!) It's all about creating a giant, thinking, feeling Machine -- in your image!!

Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: TIME, Person of the Year, Internet, Blogging, The Beast, The Mark of the Beast, Thing of the Year

Take A Bow, I Guess

I have no idea what I am going to wear to the awards ceremony. Probably exactly what I am wearing now.

(And when I take my bow, I promise not to bang my head on this keyboard -- cna;kjheylwyru[893u -- Ouch! Like that.)

Peace.

BG

A Shot To The Heart

I may be mistaken, though it is not really the sort of thing that makes me care much for accuracy anyway. But I believe suicide has come close to my household in each of the past four Decembers. And then there was the accidental suicide two years ago on Thanksgiving.

I have written about last December's suicide in three Contratimes' essays, "When The Phone Rings Late At Night," "In Memoriam," and, "Staggering Still." That story remains a difficult one for me; there has not been even a few hours in which I have not thought of my college friend, M.

Yesterday, I attended the funeral service for a local friend, another man named M. This man was not a close friend; he was just a friend and a good guy, someone I liked, someone who laughed with me when we bumped into each other at the store, or when we discussed our various hikes or experiences in the wild. We had met when I was 14 and he 20, some 31 years ago. We had more than a few things in common that had to do with the outdoors, but there were others: I had been friends with his ex-wife, and friends with some of his friends; his sister is one of my neighbors. And we had gone to the same high school though he, 6 years my senior, graduated with my sister (now deceased) when I was in junior high.

On Tuesday, M.'s elderly mother died at a nearby nursing home. She had been a loving and lovely woman, mother, grandmother. She had cared for her five children in some of life's most difficult circumstances. And she was adored by all. But her death struck her one son particularly hard: by the end of the day M. would also be dead, his body found in his mother's empty house a couple of miles from where his mom had died, mere hours separating their times of death.

Last year, I grieved a man who died in Colorado. The year before I grieved for Timmy, an old schoolmate, whose alcoholism the two of us often battled together, with me praying for him with all due fervor. He even spent Christmas week seeking sobriety in my house one year, with me and my family making room for him, trying to deny him his love of big bottles of rum. And the year before Timmy died, I grieved my cousin Tom, who hung himself in a bathtub in some Florida apartment while visiting friends. Tom had recently come to New Hampshire to rekindle relations with my mother; the two were thrilled to renew acquaintances after too many years of sorrows and great distance; my mother giddy that someone on her side of the family would want to get close in her waning years. Little did she know how cruelly Tom's heart was tormented. And then there was little, sweet Roland, a learning disabled boy and my nephew's best friend, who accidently drank himself to death during Thanksgiving week two (or was it three?) years ago.

But yesterday's sorrow was not really mine. M. and I were just close enough to like each other, to share those kinds of moments when you wonder aloud why you aren't closer friends. But the tragedy of his death will reach deep, very deep, into the hearts of those he left behind: siblings, nephews, nieces, childhood pals. I cannot know their grief; I cannot really carry it. I can only know my own sorrow at not being able to help those who so carefully conceal their need for help. I can only know my own anger and sorrow in the wake of deaths that have struck closer to my heart than M.'s did yesterday, or today, or even tomorrow. I can only know the emptiness I feel, hiking in the same great woods M. hiked, wandering about in silence, outside in the cold distance, hearing a single report to the heart.

In the autumn of 1978, during the first half of my senior year in high school, I would sit next to a quiet boy named Russell Holt. We were in Contemporary Issues together; he was bright as a star, a stand-out cross-country runner, a kid with long and somewhat greasy hair; he was gentle as a lamb. How could I have ever known that one particular morning would be our last together in our seats in Room 115B? How could I know that he would put a shotgun in his mouth when he got off the late bus that day, having just finished cross-country practice with Mr. Ladue? How could I know that every vestige of memory of me - and all his more popular classmates - would be splashed all over the walls of his family's kitchen wall?

Russell Holt's death shook me to the core, and it all called me toward Christ. My conversion began with a desire to be open to all the horrors and sorrows of the human heart; I did not want to be blind to whatever it was I hadn't seen in Russell Holt as his leg jiggled alongside mine in Contemporary Issues. I wanted to see, to be present: I wanted to believe that there was hope, redemption, joy, and a peace that could heal. That could comfort and console. And I wanted, in accepting Christianity, to embrace a love that could see beyond the end of my own self-absorption; I wanted to notice the forgotten, the forsaken, the overlooked; I wanted Russell Holt to know that I cared, that I was glad that he was alive.

Now, nearly 30 years later, I know that I still can't see even beyond the end of my nose. In fact, it is getting harder to see at all. How I wish this were not so! How my heart breaks over all the noise I've allowed to drown out so many calls for help -- even the one call for help -- I may have heard had I just quieted my mind and my soul. And yet (!), I know how fearful it can be to hear such cries, to be open to the scream: griefs and sorrows can overwhelm us, can reveal to us our weaknesses, often weakening our ability to keep the flame of our good intent burning at all. We often flee such sorrows because we believe they will indeed consume us; will indeed suck the life and marrow out of our own being, leaving us too weak to live our own dreams or to love our own sons and daughters. My heart wants to be bold but not too bold; I want to hear, but not too much: I want to fight fires, but only the safe fires; I want to climb mountains, but only the lower ones; I want to sow love, but only when it is lovely.

The heart is a difficult place to find one's hope, one's joy. It is a hard place to find a foothold. Perhaps that is why I am so eager to fill my day with distractions and sundry trivialities: books, bargains, baseball, beer, and the other banalities of the day. I am afraid to really be what I am called to be; I am afraid of what is true about the nature of even my own need: that I cannot avoid the fact that I am a person very much in need of grace, forgiveness, redemption, and a hope that is not some cheap illusion.

The Physician did not come to heal the healthy, but the sick. And He does not heal the wallet, or the ego; He does not heal with accolades and honors, with awards and Christmas bonuses, with publishing deals or tax write-offs or hot babes or hot sex or cold beer in fast cars or Botox or breast implants or a new kitchen or a well-lauded poem or an iconoclastic rock song or a five-star meal or a bigger church or a bulging credit line or a new gun or a better wife. His healing begins with a broken God nailed to a cross.

The next step is for me to let go of the hammer, to let fall the nails.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Blazing To The Top Of The Charts

Just a hasty observation, but if I was, let's say, Hillary Clinton, I would be delighted with the early excitement over Senator Barack Obama. In fact, I would be fueling it at every turn. I would even attempt to move the media towards Mr. Obama. Why? Because I would want Mr. Obama to peak too early. And it is, quite likely, exactly what he is going to do. People in New Hampshire gathered on Sunday to see the man, to touch the hem of his garment; and I mean people gathered by the thousands. Over 100 reporters captured his every move and jotted down his every word. And all this -- all this money and hoopla and passion -- for a man who has not even announced he is running for president. The only other phenomenon in New Hampshire's primary history that closely resembles the Obama-Nation† was when John F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for president while standing on Main Street in Nashua.

And all this for a man who is, to be honest, utterly unseasoned, with nary a stitch of experience. That some critics of George W. Bush like to point out that he himself was hardly a fireball of political activity prior to his 2ooo run miss several points, the most salient of which is that many Republicans were utterly aware of Bush's lack of experience. In New Hampshire, at least, George W. Bush was hardly a Republican favorite. But at least Bush had some experience simply by being a President's son. I might have this wrong, but George W. actually worked in nearly every office of the White House during the Reagan-Bush years. This qualifies for something, though it does not entitle any man to have the Oval Office.

But I will not detract from Mr. Obama's popularity by suggesting he is too inexperienced. I will merely point out that those who also seek the office can only be encouraged that Mr. Obama is peaking early.

Or so they hope.

THE CULT OF PERSONALITY

I think it is important to note how many folks are indeed already committed to voting for Mr. Obama should he run. How can this be? He is hardly known, he is hardly seasoned in the public eye. On what are his enthusiasts basing their enthusiasm? I have already heard much about his charm and charisma. Is that it? I have heard Harold Ford Jr. describe Mr. Obama as brilliant. But is that all? And I know Mr. Obama has written a couple of books. But is that enough? Is this, at least right now, merely the cult of personality, the adoration of persona? Surely it is not the cult of substance, or the cult of strong political record, right? It is something other than these things. Is it more hosanna politics?

I wonder.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

†I note the word the term Obama-Nation for a host of reasons. Obviously, no supporter of Mr. Obama could ever refer to his followers as Obama-Nation, largely for its homophonic cousin, abomination. Moreover, yesterday I saw the word "obamanible," penned by an Obama defender upset by criticisms over Mr. Obama's middle name (which is Hussein). But Mr. Obama's name will no doubt lend itself to all sorts of wild headlines in the Daily News or New York Post: "Barack Star!" "Running Out Of Money: Barack's B-roke!" "Obama's Meandering State of the Union Speech: Barack's Baroque!" "Southern Vote is Clear: A'bama Says No To Obama!" "Barack Urges Kids: Obey Ma!" OK. These are foolish and, I dare say, unfortunate. But the reality is not to be denied: Headline writers are going to have a field day. "O-BAM!- A: Barack smashes O'Reilly's fastball in Factor interview."

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, New Hampshire, Cult of Personality

Call Me An Ismist

In several recent emails I have received, and in one particular on-line discussion, it has been suggested that my use of words like 'liberals', 'conservatives', 'progressives', and even 'atheists' (in another discussion), is too vague, too broad, even too mindnumbing. Not a few writers might further suggest that such words are without meaning. One writer might even liken such terms to bombs, to mere invective.

Because of the apparent need for clarity (though only partially), and even more because of the apparent insensitivity such terms suggest (being so much meanness), I am proposing a halt here at Contratimes in the use of any descriptive that applies to a person or persons. For instead of using the word 'liberals' to denote a particular set of people known to embrace a particular set of ideas and values, I am going to use the word 'liberalism.' Similarly, I shall say 'conservativism' instead of 'conservatives.' And instead of the shocking use of the word 'atheists', I shall refer to mere atheism. In other words, I will try to refer to sets of ideas; I shall label groups of thoughts, and not groups of people.

Of course, I am sure there are a few ever-vigilant souls who will rise up to protect, in a very abstract way, the much maligned and abused bundles of ideas I shall lasso with certain suffixes. No doubt 'isms' will become as malignant as '-ists' or its equivalent.

How this will play out, well, I have no idea. It will all be a difficult adjustment to make. 'Right-wingers' will become 'Right-wingism', and 'Nut-job' -- a word I've never penned here -- will have to become 'Nut-jobism'. 'Anarchists' will become 'anarchism', or, perhaps, the more awkward, 'anarchistsism.' And 'Maureen Dowdists' will have to become the more complete and kind, 'Dowdowism.'

But I have no doubt that I will eventually figure this all out. Whether my efforts will reward any of us with more clarity or more kindness is probably rather doubtful. But I will try to be less sweeping in my language; though, of course, there are some of you who don't find me sweeping enough.

How to please everybody? The answer to that question can only be found, I am certain, in the answer to a different question: How do you please anybody? If I can answer that then, well, I am on my way.

Peace, this day and always.

BG
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

PS.To slake your thirst with some real bombast, read this scathing correspondence by the First Lady of Political Polemicism.

PPS. I note that 'Ismist' is associated with some sort of Burning Man festival event in 2000; I further note that it has something to do with quasi-underground music. I use the word freely, without association to anyone else. My Google search for the term may show that others have used it first, but I claim it here, for myself, with no reference to anything to do with a dead lake or a little known musical revolution.

Oiling The Palms

A few posts back I mentioned that Hugo Chavez, the incomparable president of Venezuela, had not only called the President of the United States the devil from the podium at the UN, he also called for the death penalty for the Chief Executive. It would be hilarious if it were not so intrinsically evil. I mean, last year we all heard great remonstrances against a TV evangelist who encouraged the assassination of Mr. Chavez. But judging by the way the media responded to Mr. Pat Robertson, one would have thought that Robertson, a mere leader in the evangelical church, had issued an astringent fatwa on Latin American decency. The relative silence in the major media in the wake of Mr. Chavez' many rhetorical offenses is disconcerting; for here is a man - aiming to succeed Fidel Castro among Latin American leaders - who denounces America at nearly every turn; a man who controls not merely a church but instead vast oil reserves. Robertson, by and large, is taken seriously; his rhetoric is declared dangerous to American security and interests. But Mr. Chavez' obscenities? Dismissed as the utterances of a whacko.

Mr. Chavez, as you know, is offering the neediest Americans home heating oil at massive discounts through Venezuela's CITGO. Such beneficence is an apparent attempt to free some of us from President Bush's alleged tyranny and oppression.

What startles me the most is that a former US congressman -- and yes, a Kennedy -- is leading the way in New England for Mr. Chavez' program. Massachusetts Democrat Joseph Kennedy, who is running TV commercials promoting his similar beneficence, is helping Americans by distributing discounted oil that belongs to a rather poor Venezuelan citizenry. This oil, as you know, is not Hugo Chavez'. It is the Venezuelans'. And yet Mr. Kennedy is willing to take it for his Citizens Energy Corporation, at significant savings, to add to his list of good deeds.

But you should read all of the Wall Street Journal op-ed about the affair posted at this link. It is quite revealing.

And now a little note about the commercial mentioned. I cannot help but laugh at the video of an allegedly 84-year-old woman yanking a bed frame into her kitchen so she could sleep near her kitchen stove. Such a fact is not at all funny: there is tragedy, sorrow, and tremendous need in many American homes. But what is amazing is that the film crew is making this woman drag her bed across her floor -- again!? -- in an apparent reenactment. Can you imagine? What the hell were they thinking as they shot this, and what is Mr. Kennedy thinking using this as a promo? My laughter is not born out of insensitivity. Just the opposite. I laugh with incredulity, at the absurdity of it.

It all borders on the surreal. Unfortunately, this is all too real.

(Recent reports, by the way, show that the Citizens Energy Corporation is filling homeowners' fuel tanks with Number 2 snake oil.)

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Joseph Kennedy, CITGO, Chavez, Pat Robertson

"Don't Eat The Meat": Passing Gas At The Butcher's

In a casual on-line conversation this past week, I made mention of the Biblical prophecy that proclaims -- in the end times -- that eating meat will be forbidden. There was a small scrum over this, with one writer doubting that the world could ever become -- by law -- a strictly vegetarian planet. Of course, none of us in our conversation were talking much about the end of the world; nor was I hurling Biblical verses about with attendant claps of thunder.

But I just picked this off of the FoxNews website. It is, at least apparently, rooted in some fact, namely a United Nations report. Moreover, I have seen a few other news reports over the last few days discussing the same matter. And the matter is hardly new. I mean, even Canada's legendary singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn referred to the cattle industry as the harvesting of "methane dispensers" in a song, If A Tree Falls, nearly 20 years ago. But this news clip is so gloriously interesting I can barely contain myself.

Read the brief report for yourself:

Livestock Worse Than Humanity?

A report by the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization says cattle and other livestock cause more greenhouse gases than cars, planes, and all other forms of transportation put together. Britain's Independent News says the report blames cow flatulence and manure for one-third of all methane emissions — which warm the earth 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.

The world's 1.5 billion cows are also blamed for everything from acid rain to desertification and the destruction of coral reefs. And while cows are taking the heat in one U.N. report, another says humans are doing less harm to the environment than previously thought. The Sunday Telegraph says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reduced its estimate of human affect on global warming by 25 percent. And it has lowered its prediction of how much sea levels will rise by half. The Panel cites improved data for the revisions.

So much for hamburgers, bacon, leg of lamb. We're talking about a world where mint jelly is all that's left on one's dinner plate (assuming, of course, that there were no insects involved in the process).

As one restaurateur said to me, her face turned up in a sneer when I asked her for some honey, "Der! Bees aren't vegan!"

Please, pass the methane dispenser before it is all gone.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Ideas About Ideologues

I know more than a few people who often dismiss certain folks as "ideologues." It is almost said reflexively. At times it seems a curious habit. The disparagement is always done with great facility and, perhaps, felicity. And I never quite understand it. Definitions in some of the older dictionaries I own show that, first and foremost, an ideologue is an expert in ideology, which is defined as "the body of doctrine, myth, symbol, etc., of a social movement, institution, class, or large group." The secondary meaning is that of a person who deals with systems of ideas. And the tertiary meaning describes a person "who advocates a particular ideology." (The Random House College Dictionary, 1975).

Curiously, more recent definitions are rather blunt. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary is utterly matter of fact:

ideologue (noun): An advocate of a particular ideology, especially an official exponent of that ideology

And the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary gives us this definition for ideologue:

1 : an impractical idealist : THEORIST
2 : an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology

It is interesting to note how unnuanced these online definitions prove themselves to be. I wonder if this is the trend in computer age diction, where words become more rigid, lacking subtlety, posited in all their raw black-and-white glory. Computer users are, after all, in a hurry.

My observation -- provincial as it is -- about the word in question is that the man denouncing another chap as a "mere ideologue" is usually himself something of an ideologue. With that said, I, of course, admit that my comment lacks subtlety. I promise to make amends in a forthcoming essay on the topic.

For now, two things. First, I would love to hear what you think "ideologue" means: what does it connote and who does it denote? Second, I urge you to read one of my all-time favorite essays (fragmented as it is) by C. S. Lewis. After reading his capital essay, Bulverism, this morning, I am reminded -- again -- how careful I must be.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes -- All Rights Reserved.

Come Unto Me, All Ye Who Are Heavy Laden (with explosives), And I Will Give You Rest

They are neighbors. They pass each other on the street; they breath the same dusty air. And yet … and yet.

This morning, a large crowd -- men and boys searching for work -- gathers together to fight despair, anxieties subsiding a bit in such company. There is strength in numbers, target strength.

Suddenly, a wave of optimism, some cheering, some shouts of incredulity. Hope. "Follow me, I'll hire you!" The group moves this way, then that. Men press forward to get a chance at something. They gather round a minivan, a truck. Some get in.

"Yes! Yes! I have work for you! I will hire you. Come, come closer."

In a sadistic suicide flash, 60 people are dead. Over 200 are wounded. Shiites, the poorest, lay bleeding in a Baghdad street, their ears deafened by the sound of more bad news. All in a day's work.

These are the people we all hope to help in a very different way than the man with the van full of lies. Sadly, near yet another crater in the ground, day laborers will indeed gather for work, their compensation coming in bits of flesh. They pray for peace with their neighbor and yet only find a piece of their neighbor.

It is, really, a job that cannot possibly be done in a day.

(Today, prayers for lost sons, husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, daughters, and hope.)

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Baghdad, Suicide bomber, Peace, Day laborers, Iraq

Year In Review: Speak Your Mind (If You Wish)

As the end of 2006 approaches, I wonder about the year's most important stories. Were I to review the year at this website, I might find myself unable to pin down the year's big news. Of course, I have a hunch or two. But what do you think? Why?

Sound off if you wish. I urge you to speak freely, even passionately. I am listening. This is about your opinions, not mine.

Blessings.

BG

He's No Common Tater

Contratimes' friend, The Commentator, who hails from the great land of Canada, has published his most recent installment of "Five Q's" wherein he asks five questions of a featured guest. I cannot thank him sufficiently for deeming me worthy enough to participate. Our interview, brief as it was, can be found here. If you are at all interested, I urge you to give The Commentator a visit. He is an entirely decent chap, and he deserves your attention (which explains why, since he introduced himself to me, he's been listed in my blogroll for months).

Here are the five questions I was asked and, I pray, answered.

1) Why do you blog?
2) How would you rationalize the blogging phenomena in society?
3) In the realm of religion, are we witnessing a "Great Awakening" in America? If so, does this mean a radicalizing of America? If not, is religion on the run so to speak?
4) Does theology have a place in the realm of political discourse and debate when it comes to forming public policy?
5) Is there a liberal bias in your opinion?

The Commentator's first "Five Q's" featuring freelance journalist J. M. Berger, contributor to National Public Radio, The Boston Globe and others, can be found here.

Building Better Brain Bombs

[Every once in a while I post an essay that is really a reply to something that happened off-stage, so to speak. This is one of those moments.]

The other day I received an email from someone who felt that she knew me, my opinions, my own sense of what is true, right, wrong. I shall name no names, and I shall give nothing away here. But the writer suggested that I was being, well, dishonest; and if not dishonest, I was being inaccurate, even, perhaps, revisionistic. What startled me most, of course, was the intimation that someone I barely know knows me better than I know myself. And what I apparently did not know without the help of this particular interlocutor is that I have always supported the Iraq invasion spearheaded by George W. Bush.

It's curious what people claim to know. I can assure you that my wife took this bit of news as a surprise; she recalls trying to get me to change my mind about Iraq, insisting, for example, that I should read Why We Fight by Bill Bennett (she insisted again Friday night that I need to read it). I have not read that undoubtedly fine work, largely because I already have far too much to do as I promote war at every turn. But what I think is clear is that people mistake my strident defense of President Bush as somehow support for everything he stands for; but my defense is really a critique of the junk hurled his way. I have never been pro-war, but I have been very much anti-crap. And I believe this fact with all my heart: the leftists are the revisionists when it comes to the genesis of the Iraq invasion.

Some people cannot believe that Michael Richards is not, in fact, Jerry Seinfeld's fictional neighbor, Kramer; Mr. Richards created such a convincing character one is tempted to conclude that he and Kramer are identical (how jarring it is to learn that they are not). Great actors who loathe serial killings nonetheless convincingly portray serial killers. Great novelists who are anti-war nevertheless portray war in all its brutal accuracy, even without having actually served a moment in battle. Great defense lawyers posit great apologies on their clients' behalf, leading jurors towards a "not guilty" verdict that the defense lawyer himself would not ever reach. You get the point. Merely because I have argued against the arguments proffered against the war, it does not follow that I am for the war. I am merely against bad arguments.

I would urge readers, who are interested in my feelings about the war against Islamic fundamentalism, to read what I believe is my definitive statement as presented in my series, "The Most Important Question: On Inevitability And The War On Terror." Readers will discover what I believe is really at stake; and readers will note, too, that I was far ahead of the pretentious and leftist billionaire George Soros, underwriter of the Democratic National Committee, who -- in a silly essay I discussed here -- called for a change in metaphor when discussing the war on terror. (And as for the attempts by linguist George Lakoff to redefine the Iraq War as an occupation, see my comment #2 at MadMike'sAmerica in this thread.)

I have been quite consistent in challenging bad arguments. I have challenged the idea that pacifism is strictly forbidden in Christian orthodoxy. I have challenged the idea that peace is attainable in "Oscar Wilde, Seinfeld, And Peace That Eludes." I have challenged arguments that suggest that only liberal dissent is deemed unpatriotic. I have criticized arguments that the war in Iraq is a quagmire, or that its difficulty proves its foolishness, or that American troops would fare better with more armor. I have criticized Madeleine Albright. In fact, I have criticized many things here. But I have never opined that I support war.

Sadly, my critic(s) will probably not read my definitive series "The Most Important Question", no matter how much I implore them to. Nor will they probably bother to read my lengthy but sincere letter to America, drafted mere days after 9/11 (and posted at a new Contratimes auxiliary), to judge its consistency with the series mentioned above. They are free to define me as they deem most expedient for them. I offer no definitions about their personal beliefs, since I hardly know these folks. I shall respectfully leave them alone.

Lastly, the emailer described me as a bomb thrower. You know, a sort of intellectual terrorist, a kind of Molotov cocktail-tosser in the brain. I stand, apparently, in the same company as Ann Coulter or, well, no one else. My rhetoric is shaped merely to detonate in the midst of irrefutable logic (or so it is suggested).

I find the 'charge' amusing.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes -- All Rights Reserved.

When (Presidential) Character Is Assassinated

[Phew! I am back from a rather lengthy walk into waters I have not waded in since 1998. I will spare you the details. But I believe it all is ended (or ending) rather well. I mean, at least no one got hurt.

But there is something odd about a debate, really. It sure sharpens the mind, but does it do the cosmos any good? I mean, not a person will have changed his or her mind in the debate I just had elsewhere, right? Is there anything gained in such strivings other than to hone one's argument?

I can't answer this.]

[Added, 12.4.06: Just take a look at this Paul Krugman column (of The New York Times) and the subsequent comments thread. Emblematic? Perhaps. Eye-opening? You bet. Relevant to what follows? Indubitably.]

Today I think about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. You know who he was: that brilliant and lovely Christian scholar and theologian who was executed by the Nazis for his role in a failed assassination attempt of the Führer. I think about him because President Bush is in Jordan as I write.

You see, we have heard much rhetoric in this country (the United States) and the world that President George W. Bush is "worse than Hitler." He is the "most dangerous man on the planet." One world leader (so to speak), Hugo Chavez, has referred to Bush as Satan, and this as Chavez pretended to sniff the "sulphur" left by President Bush at the podium of the United Nations. Even officials of Venezuela have publicly declared that to call President Bush a Nazi is to disrespect real Nazis. Here's what Chavez and some of his countrymen said about the President after the midterm elections earlier this month (reported by FoxNews):

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez thinks the thumping Democrats gave the GOP isn't nearly enough punishment for President Bush.

He's calling for "the most severe sentence this planet has to offer" against the man he calls a "genocidal president."

This as Venezuela's National Assembly unanimously passed a resolution demanding that President Bush explain what it calls the "self-inflicted attack on the World Trade Center."

Venezuela's Foreign Affairs Commission took a different tack— it is calling a government-sponsored exhibition showing President Bush dressed as a Nazi storm trooper "unfair".... Unfair to the Nazis. A spokesman calls Hitler "a babe in arms compared to Bush."

And this is merely the rhetoric coming from a leader in the West. Think of what it is being uttered in the Middle East.

Now, sadly, many people believe this all to be true. I know a woman who lives nearby who has pasted to the bumper of her Volvo wagon "Bush/Cheney '04: Sieg Heil!" So I do not need to go far to find such nasty rhetoric. I am surrounded by it, and I am in New Hampshire. But if this all comes so easily to so many people, then it must be asked with all due candor: Should President Bush, since he is "worse than Hitler," be assassinated? Why, or why not?

I think of President Bush, and I strain myself to recall a single time I have heard any "hate speech" come out of his mouth. I don't know if I have even heard him besmirch his enemies: I beg readers to find one public slur the President has uttered against Hugo Chavez, for example. What about a particular race -- has the President slurred any racial group? Has he spoken genocidally?

What I believe is poised to happen, merely by the force of rhetoric released in the world and, most importantly, in this country, is the assassination of President Bush. He is the most endangered man on the planet. Sadly, it will be millions of his own countrymen who have stigmatized him as the anti-Christ. I would not be surprised to learn that someone outside this country felt that, in killing President Bush, the assassin was helping to deliver America from tyranny.

Today, the most hated man in the world is travelling through volatile regions. In this he shows incredible courage and, yes, leadership. His detractors claim the President and his family have not paid any price in the President's sending of troops to Iraq. But I have shown in this blog already that such claims are foolish and empty. The President invaded Iraq for this noble (but arguable) reason: freedom produces peace. He believes freedom and democracy are our best commodities to share with others; and that peace and democracy make great allies. Ironically, the President is trapped in paradox: the man who most vociferously spoke for freedom is the least free person in the world. George W. Bush, even if he is never assassinated, will NEVER be free again, nor will his family: they are surrounded by a prison wall of protection from which they will never emerge. And this because the President believes in freedom, democracy, and the liberation from tyranny. He has already paid an unbelievably high price. And the fomenters rage.

The rhetoric of the leftists in this country, rhetoric that has not once been softened or rebuked by Democratic leaders like Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi, is as acid and dangerous as Hugo Chavez'. And to think most of the leftists in this country voted for members of the Democratic Party a few weeks ago. Just ask yourself how many times you've heard a single Democrat go out of his way to denounce these hideous assaults on the President. What Democrat has defended Bush's honor, his integrity? (Joe Lieberman? the senator many Democrats denounced as well?) Let it be stated that the leftists believe Bush and Cheney are evil, evil incarnate. Let it be also stated that the many people who believe 9/11 did not happen as we know it did, actually believe George Bush and his minions orchestrated that awful attack; and let it be stated that these conspiracy-theorists also voted against Republicans a few weeks ago.

Thus, let us not be surprised to hear the worst possible news: The President of the United States, along with our Vice President, have been attacked. After all, there are people right next door to us who believe these men are worse than Adoph Hitler.

Why should I write this? Because I am begging everybody to stop sowing hate. And I am thinking that Bonhoeffer was very right about Adolph Hitler, and that Bush's haters are very wrong about him.

May nothing evil befall any President who chooses to preside over the United States. I am praying that no horrors shall come upon President Bush, Vice President Cheney, or any world leader. But what good are prayers when there are so many fomenters out and about, telling us that one simple man is the world's biggest problem?

Peace and safety to President Bush. May there be an end to hate speech. May there be no assassinations anywhere, or at any time.

Peace, I beg.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Bush, Chavez, Diablo, Assassination, Hitler, Bonhoeffer, hate speech, krugman

Keeping Vigil With Progressives And Atheists, I Think

I beg your forgiveness. I know I've not been writing much. But that is not because I am not writing. I am. In fact, I've been writing up a storm. Luke Buckham, my friend and confidante who lovingly disagrees with me on lots of things, wrote the other day to inquire if I was alright. Alas, I cannot answer. I guess I am alright. But so many folks find fault with me -- when I post comments elsewhere -- that I have lost the capacity to judge whether I am alright at all. I feel OK in the psychological sense, though I have been suffering from chronic headaches.

If you are at all interested in what I have been up to on the big, crazy WWW, then you might want to know that I have been engaged in a "monumental" struggle with atheists and agnostics at exChristian.net. Specifically, I posted responses to "Webmaster's (aka Dave)" essay entitled "A Christ-less Grave." Dave seems a decent chap; he writes well and is engaging. But I found his article wanting; lacking. So I let him know. Of course, the flurry of comments that follow mine are, well, flurrious. I admit that many of the comments are penned by me. But the dialogue is fascinating. Scroll about halfway down the comment thread to find where yours truly jumps in, albeit late to the party.

Also, for you politics buffs out there, you might as well know that I have been featured -- what a surprise !! -- at The Vigil. I usually do not promote myself to you this way, but since my buddy Brady (a regular visitor at Contratimes who comes here via his lovely chalet in Switzerland) has already commented about reading the exchanges at The Vigil, then you might as well be given the chance to see just how I comport myself (and how I represent readers like YOU) when I am not at home (at Contratimes). Trust me when I say that the comment thread is also, well, flurrious.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Giving Thanks Happily

I am thankful for lots of things. But because this is a mere blog, perhaps I should fashion my comments towards you, my readers. In other words, I want to tell you how thankful I am for you, whether you be friend or foe. I am thankful for the many words of encouragement I have received from so many kind souls; and I am thankful for the many critics who have kept me on my toes and urged me to be a better person. And I am not talking solely about people who have visited me here; I am talking about the many folks who have allowed me to comment, often with great wind and at great length, at their respective websites and blogs. Whether I have been visiting wildly political blogs that reject many of my cherished beliefs, or I am hunkered down in a debate with atheists or even fellow theists, most of the time I find respect and good-heartedness. Yes, the ad hominem fallacy is all too easily prescribed in the blogosphere, and that will probably never change. But those folks who go beyond their first snide or sarcastic comment, those many bloggers who follow an argument and engage in what is said and avoid obsessing about who said it, usually discover that their interlocutors are tossing them precious gems, and they are tossing other precious stones back. This whole Internet thing can either become a community of brothers and sisters or a ghetto of enemies. The latter will end in paralysis and death; the former can only be a source of power and life. Not abundant life, not transcendence in some sort of digital utopia, but a place where ideas can be discussed and examined without the fear of abuse.

Anyhow, too many words spent merely to say thank you.

Blessings, all! Happy Thanksgiving!

BG

PS. I really liked my Thanksgiving-inspired essay from last year, Oscar Wilde, Seinfeld, And The Peace That Eludes. I share it with you again. Peace.

Red Flag = Cowardice: You Better Watch What You Read Here

If you look at the blue navigation bar that spans across this blog, a feature provided by Blogger, you will notice that there is a little flag. The flag on your screen should be a lighter shade of blue than the navigation bar itself. Curiously, the flag on my page, since I am the owner of this blog, is no longer blue at all. It is now bright red. This red flag indicates that some reader (or readers) has found the content of this website "objectionable" and has passed his or her concerns along to Blogger. That this has happened has made me rather sad, not because I have been caught in some sort of nefarious activity, but because it indicates the sort of world in which we live: a paranoid and cowardly one. One would be hard pressed to find a person who has left a comment throughout my 365 posts (or so) who has voiced such alarm; there has been very little controversy at Contratimes, despite this blog's title. I can only wish that I had had a chance to speak to the person or persons involved. But I can't: they've scurried off on their jolly way, certain they've done all humanity a favor.

But what is alarming is what this COULD portend. I encourage you to read the warnings for yourself. You see, if enough people descend on this site and click that flag, not only will Blogger paste up a warning on the front-sheet of this site, it will cease listing it. In other words, this is about censorship. It is about attempting to silence a voice on the Internet; to silence someone using the medium which is supposed to be the most democratic engine in history. But we all know it is hardly that. While I have never once made an attempt to silence a single person on the Internet, my work is deemed objectionable, and someone hopes to silence me. I pose some sort of threat, though there is not a bit of censorship in me. Imagine.

Of course, I am probably being paranoid.

But perhaps I am being added to the List of Banned Blogs in the New Inquisition. Perhaps the delicate ears I've offended are right-wing Christian fundamentalists, for we know that no decent, liberally-minded, freedom-loving, free-thinking intellectual could EVER find offense at free speech. Yes, that is it: I am being persecuted by religious zealots. At least, that is the only apparent explanation for the New Puritanism that deigns to flag this site as offensive.

Perhaps there is a way around this. No doubt I may move to my own server and be done with Blogger and the threats of hidden visitors who haven't the courage, or the intellectual vigor, to challenge me to my very plain face. Or is it that I have intimidated them to cower in the upper left hand corner of their mouse-pad, clicking in their boots? Who knows? But please note that if this site is deemed objectionable, then you, dear reader, are treading on very dangerous ground. Besides, they might flag you next. No. They WILL flag you next.

So much for democracy. And freedom.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes -- All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Blogger, Censorship, New Puritanism, Free speech, Red Flag, Flagged

November 22: Replay

I thought I would link to last year's Contratimes' essay to mark today's 43rd anniversary of the death of C. S. Lewis. I hope you don't mind the reminder, so to speak.

Peace.

BG

The Church Is A Very Idolatrous Place

[This rather lengthy essay is solely for the Christian reader who lands on Contratimes. Surely non-Christians are invited to read it, but I think it might be rather tedious for an outsider. But I might be wrong.]

I was asked last week by a Contratimes reader whether I would be writing about the unfortunate scandal which is the resignation of Rev. Ted Haggard, (former) president of the National Association of Evangelicals (USA). I replied that I was unsure. This morning, I am no more certain about that sad tale, but I am approaching certainty about things that have led to so much disappointment in not merely the evangelical church in America, but in the Church everywhere else. Not being a man of temperate mind who might reasonably restrain himself from over-reaching, I rush toward those things from which even the devil flees. It might be either a fool’s response or the mere motto of a common hero, but I have only one reply to those who might question my ambitions: ‘Well, someone’s got to do it.’

Prologue: Who Are You?

Remember the very first question God asks in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve flee the scene of the crime. The First Question is not about identity; it is not about who one is. Instead of being a question that might pique the interest of a mere existentialist, it is one that a rescuer or cartographer might ask: Where are you? It is about location and position, it is not about why or when. The question implies relationship: Where are you so I can BE with you? The query implies all the wonders of help and aid, succor and salvation: I need to know where you are so that I might give comfort. There is not even a what or when. Just a simple question about placement.

Please recall the devil’s slithering statements in the garden. Notice that they are all directed at sowing seeds of status: the serpent attempts to inflate Eve’s sense of who she is. He doesn’t care about where she is, he appeals to her sense of identity: “You will not surely die ... for God knows that when you eat of it [the forbidden fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” No doubt these words insult the God of the universe, and Adam as well, for the serpent implies that neither can be trusted (particularly Adam). God is keeping something from you, and you will be all the greater if you ignore what Adam and God have said. The serpent directs his comments directly at Eve’s ego, at her sense of self-worth. His goal is two-fold, like the fork in his tongue: to sow doubt and distrust between Eve and Adam, and to cause the eyes of Eve to swell wide in lust for something that will give her an advantage, an edge. It is, for a moment, all about Eve.

To what does the serpent appeal when he tempts Jesus the Christ after our Lord is driven into the desert moments after baptism? Does he not appeal to Jesus’ sense of identity, of self? “If you are the son of Man, then ...” The temptations flow like a poet’s triplet, shaped in well-metered and seductive phrases; conditionals unconditionally stated: If this, well then, of course THAT. There is nothing here about relationship, or position or place (at least not directly). It is about identity, about pride and self-esteem: If you are the son of God, then surely you can seize the kingdoms of the world. But if you don’t, surely you are a rather insipid and pitiable God. What, pray tell, is there to envy in all that fussing about obedience? Even a clod can be austere; it takes a real God to create. Create, or be damned by the blandness of your humility.

Think of any prophet, any man or woman of God. Think of Jesus Himself, or some apostle or saint of the Church. What is the most common retort against the prophetic message? What do the people say who despise the word of God preached in Palestine, or in the courts of Corinth? Is it not always something like this: Who are YOU to speak such words? Was not Jesus rejected, not because of WHAT He said, but because He, a mere Galilean, a mere son of Mary, presumed to teach the qualified, the esteemed, the wise? There was no real trial held against the man who stood as God before the Sanhedrin, for in a trial testimony would have been heard against what the accused said. Debate would have ensued. Instead, we find mere gossip, mere ad hominem attacks dripping with sarcasm: No man of this stature, of this position, could be the messiah, the God of Israel in human form: this man is not good enough to be God’s Son, born of a mere woman, the son of a mere carpenter. Jesus’ nature, not His words, was attacked; His character was impugned. As His accusers spat on Him and struck Him on the face, they taunted Him, keeping up the tempter’s cruel insinuations: If you are truly the Son of God, then tell us who strikes you; show us your power by coming down from this puny cross! The attack is always to sully and berate the character and reputation of Christ and His prophets. It is never to engage in what He said, or the message proclaimed. It is all about casting mud, stones; about striking with the scourge of cords knotted at the tip of the tongue.

The messenger is indeed always shot. But he is not shot for what he has said. He is shot for daring to say it.

The Idols Of Christianity

When a pastor presides over a church that contains over 10,000 members, I think it is prudent to ask if something has gone terribly wrong. This might just be my own quivering insecurities wondering aloud, but I have never shied away from my own self-doubt, so I see no reason not to ask such questions. But when a single man is shepherd over ten thousand sheep, surely there is something amiss. For isn’t it part of the pastor’s mission to tend such sheep until they can begin to care for themselves? Is it not the case that the best leader, or the best exemplar, leads his followers to be better leaders than himself, and better exemplars? Does not a good shepherd find other shepherds, or, at the very least, wise sheep, to help protect and nurture a flock too large for one good shepherd?

I am not one to recoil in fear that my sins might be made public. To do so is to idolize pretense, the artifice of etiquette and propriety erected around far too much of our lives, insulating us from the unseemly fact that we all are messy with sin. Somewhere along the line the Church accepted the broader culture’s sneering remarks that the Church was the household of the holy. Oddly, the Church has idolized this in forgetfulness, for it has forgotten that the Church is not the household of the whole but the hospice for the broken. And it has been held hostage to this idea, an idea which leads to all sorts of vicious disappointments. Christians too often recoil in shock that they should be called “hypocrites!” by their less-devout peers; but both critics and criticized have forgotten that the Church is the very place one would most expect to find hypocrisy. Sinners -- though this side of heaven redeemed by Christ through confession, grace and sacrament -- are not suddenly raptured out of the consequences of their own sin, nor are they given a magic key that locks away the sinner that lives in the crawlspace of each human heart.

I have written here -- with tears and righteous rage -- about the distortions of women depicted in the pornography industry, and the great evil of prostitution and sexual slavery. And I have confessed my sin, for I have participated, as a mere voyeuristic consumer, in the industry of pornography I so thoroughly despise and damn. Nearly every man reading this, I am sure, understands my confession; and for some of them, the mere mention of pornography has already lured them away from here to search for salacious images on the internet. That pornography is an addiction is a bit like the sun being hot: it is made to be that way. And those of us who have been caught in this or any other addiction know that there is no deliverance to be had from the self that dragged us into addiction’s hell in the first place. Deliverance comes from outside -- in confession, accountability, discipline, grace, sacrament, and the calming Spirit of God. But even all these things do not themselves deliver: the thorn of the flesh will have to come out later, burned away in the fires of purgatory, where there will be loss.†

All this to say that we should not ever be shocked when our pastors or priests fall into sin. We all fall into sin. Moreover, let us jettison this idea that a person of faith falls into sin. A man does not fall into sin the way a climber falls off a ladder. A man falls into sin the way a carpet falls onto the floor: he’s already there.

But why this fascination with holiness? Simple, really. It is our futile attempt to make ourselves impressive: we are trying to raise ourselves above criticism. In other words, we are trying to rebuff the scoffers who shout out “Who are you to talk about morality?!” We put on airs, we surround ourselves with the finery of moral rectitude in order to stand above the (moral) mêlée, and above the riff-raff. As literacy, wit, pedigree, wealth, education and claret separated the aristocracy from the rather uncouth servants in the wing, so vestments and austerity and impressive Christian credentials separate the saint from the sinner. Or so it all goes. We are in love with the accoutrements of proper behavior, though not because we are in love with morality, but because we are in love with being above reproach. But we forget that the poor will always be with us, and that we are the poor. There is no one who is whole in the church or out. But we all too often try to pretend that we win the fight over our accusers by showing them that we are indeed WHO we think we are.

But these are not the only idols we embrace. Yes, too often we worship moral posturing. Yes, we are much impressed by well-credentialed men and women who, in the parlance of the street, have 'real cred.' We love to show off our great churches with grand boasts that God MUST have anointed the pastor of the 12,000-member parish (or how else to explain the pastor’s success unless he is a “mighty man of God”). Many early Christians fought against the printing of the Bible in the vernacular, the common parlance, for fear that such accessibility would make every reader a Pope, a master of theology. Proponents of the popular pressings declared that it would bring the Word of God to the masses. But in sad irony we today have well-credentialed men and women, some standing on the left side of the church and others standing on the right, who constantly remind us that we cannot read the Bible for ourselves at all without their keen insights in ancient history, early Christian psychology and sociology, or semitic linguistics. Idols abound.

There are idols of liturgy, there are idols of simplicity. One church is better because of its stained glass, though the absence of such excessses makes a different church the truer Christian witness. There are idols of worship: one group pits its worship against another’s. There are idols of music, with the Grand Choir of Perfection at The Church of the Heavenly Voice elevating souls in a cappella bliss, while the praise band at the converted movie theater down the street cranks out praise choruses that can’t be heard without electricity. There are idols of spiritual gifts, or the lack thereof. Some Christians adore their erudition, rightly dividing the word of truth; while others adore their intuitive grasp of God’s inner voice, whispered in angelic tongues. Some Christians worship conversion stories, even their own. Some follow Christ in order to be the next C. S. Lewis or G. K. Chesterton, Billy Graham or Mother Theresa, imitating, not the steps of Christ, but the heroes that get all the attention. Some worship prophecy, posturing as prophets, the ones hallowed and praised during Bible studies or Sunday School flannel-graph presentations (no doubt there are men bound to an idol thinking that they are one of the forthcoming two witnesses described in Revelation 11). There is the idol of aesthetics, where Christians insist that more is less or less is more; when beauty becomes the fine line between faith and heresy. There is the idol of place, where Christianity is believed to be more powerful in an ancient British chapel than it is in a new geodesic dome in northern California; Christ is more real in the Holy Selpucher than he is in the basement of Pine Street’s Household of Power (or vice versa). There are idols of ministry, where sharing the gospel with prisoners, or cannibals in Papua New Guinea, is deemed greater than breaking bread with one’s neighbors; or where inner-city work with gangs is more courageous than sharing Christ with middle-class white males at a golf course in suburbia. And there are idols of experience, where supernatural visitations by Christ in the dark trump a plain faith, or that speaking in tongues more than Smith means Jones is all the more anointed.

There is even the idol of priesthood, where priestly duties become something adored: priests who elevate themselves -- or are elevated by others -- rendering parishioners nearly superfluous and dumb: we do not need to know or do such things because Father O’Malley takes care of all that. Sadly, Father O’Malley may very well permit, even foster, this sort of idolatry.

All of these, of course, are a response to one thing, and one thing alone: Who are you? Are you the great Christian man who writes books destined to be read for the next several generations, proving your merit, your anointing, your having been chosen? What -- Do tell! -- proves that you’re important in Church History? Are you the great prophet, hurling down corrections to the foolish and floundering, the cursed and disobedient?

Who, who are you - really? Who are you to presume to teach, to speak, to lead, to guide and rebuff and encourage, unless you are published, lauded, respected, honored and proven? Where is your great church, your impressive curriculum vitae? What Biblical language do you know? From where did you take your degrees? Are you a member of the true church?

Call it all a victory for the serpent. We are all trying to impress him without hardly a wonder whether we are impressing God. God wants to know where we are. But we like to show our brothers and sisters where we’ve been, impressing them: this is who I am. But God is not so impressed, nor is the serpent. The serpent snickers, for he has gotten us to pursue emptiness. God, of course, weeps real tears, and sheds real blood. Where are you? He shouts from Gethsemane. Where are you? He shouts from the lonely, forsaken cross. Sadly, Peter is not there, he is among the people trying to impress them with who he is: I am not one of them! But Peter finally got it: His Lord did not say, Whoever is like me is for me, and whoever is not like me is against me. No. Only those who are with Christ are for Him. It is all about being there. It is not about what you bring, or who you think you’re bringing. It’s about where, not who.

What I am not saying

What I am not saying in this essay is that I think there is no true Church, or that ministry is unimportant, or that speaking in tongues or singing praise choruses are bad things to do, or that being inspired by the saints is misguided. Nor am I saying that churches can’t be large or even gigantic. What I am saying is that the fact of sin is the egalitarian force in the church: we are all sinners and that makes us all the more equal. This does not mean that every person’s call or vocation or anointing -- or however one wants to name it -- is equal to everyone else’s. God knows we are all called. The point of all of this is that the very fact that we are called by God can become an idol: we can idolize our anointing, even WHO we have become in Christ. This is the great temptation of the devil offered to Christ in the desert: the devil asks Christ to worship His own self, His own gift and anointing. It is indeed possible to fall in love with love, to worship worship, to praise praise. And that is what we must fight against. For the fact is this: We are who we are not because of who but where we are. We are in a place, a position, and that position is all that ultimately matters, and that place is this: we are in Christ. Christ is the only who that matters. We just need to watch out for the idols that call us to come out of Him.

If there is one image that gives us a sense of what this all means, it is the shepherd and the sheepfold. The sheep are blessed because of where they are, behind the fence with Christ. They are not blessed because of who or what they are. And should one sheep separate from the flock, Christ the Shepherd leaves to find that one lost lamb. He does this solely because of where the lamb is, and where it is not. It has nothing to do with who that lamb thinks it might be, or even who it thinks it should be.

What a relief. It is not all about us.

Peace, in the sheepfold.

†1 Corinthians 3: 10-13

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Ted Haggard, National Association of Evangelicals, Idolatry, Christianity, Hypocrisy, Pornography, addiction

Preservation And Defense

Not long ago, two old farmers - a brother and sister - moved out of their family farmhouse: the last two surviving members of the Welch family had stayed at home as long as they could. They were each nearly a century old when they died a few miles down the road, beneath the flourescent light buzzing over a nursing home deathbed. But before they left this life, they bequeathed their farmhouse, and all of the surrounding land, to a conservation group: the old siblings did not want their legacy to fall into enemy hands.

Adjacent to the Welch's homestead, just east of the old rooming house, stood a clutch of barns. Inside one barn could be found the initials, carved into pine or painted in stove black, of every farmhand that passed through the farm dating back to 1865. It was clear that not a few workers took jobs at the farm several years in a row; others would be off to fight in some great war, never to return. There were chains and old scythes hanging in rusted silence; there were old tins on the wall; a set of old oars stood in a corner, crossed. It was a hall for the silent past, but a past that was not so silent if one but listened.

After the old couple died, I would walk the forsaken farm, taking pictures here and there. The photo above was taken along the northern wall of the old house, just off the ell. I could not help but take the photograph -- with the old lamp and bulb, the paper-wasps' nest tucked beneath the shade, the flecked paint, a lonely window and the ghostly imprint of old shutters -- all calling me to remember. But what seems silent is not at all; and what seems old is still rather new: the tap of hands on a window flung open, the smell of fresh paint on a horsehair brush, the piquant air of harvest. I hear children nearby, the shouts of farmhands heading to town with a wagon-load of milk; or the muted thud of boots beneath a dim lamp during heavy snows.

The conservation group which inherited the land, in response to fears and anxieties and sundry other modern maladies, decided that the best thing for the preservation of the old regime was for the new to vanguish the past. So the fire department was called. The volunteer fire corps practiced in the light of burning barns. They rescued smoke and soot. They aimed their hoses only after all memories had disappeared in the heat of a spark fanned bright by legal arson. Later, a bulldozer would level the old farmhouse. Soil was pushed here and there beneath the row of singed catalpa trees; a little monument was erected to remind stray visitors of the monuments that were burned and buried.

Occasionally I return to the old Welch farm. Nothing much remains, of course, but a few flecks of paint, a shard of glass, an ember pressed into soot. And the wasps nearby.

Peace.

Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

In Whom Do We Trust?

Some of us are afraid to leave the barn. We fear we may be led astray, or that some fox will rend us to pieces. Beware, of course, of the wolf dressed in shepherd's clothing. Beware, of course, of the fox and coyote just outside the fence, sniffing for a way in. There is indeed a warm barn; but don't forget that you have a warm coat. And there is a fence, a sheepdog keeping watch, and a real shepherd but one prayer away.

You may be a sheep, but you are never a sheep alone.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Watch Out, Democrats!

Today, and perhaps for the next several days, I am going to pretend to be a prophet, a political prophet. This does not make me a real prophet, but it surely makes me a pretentious one. Nor does this imply augury, divination, seeing into the future through blogfeeds or by looking for patterns in the grindings left by burning brakes along the guardrails of the Jersey Turnpike. I am not plying through the entrails of pigeons; I am not pursuing scatology to inform my eschatology. What my pretense means is simple: I am playing. And playing, as you know, is all about having fun.

What could be more delightful, really, than to take a shot at what will happen to the Iraq War should the Democrats take control of the United States Congress?

A DIRE WARNING TO ALL VOTERS (followed by one to all Democrats):

Trust the mighty prophet: The Democrats have no intention of ending the Iraq War -- or "occupation", or "quagmire", or "regime-change strategy" -- or even bringing US troops home in the next two years. Why? Because they need Iraq to remain unstable, unpopular and chaotic so a Democrat can win the White House in 2008. Does anyone really think that the next Congress, one controlled by Democrats, is going to allow President Bush to do as he hopes, which is to win in Iraq and scale back troop deployments? Come now! Who are you kidding? Democrats NEED Iraq to fail, continually, for the next two years. And we know this because they are exploiting the war NOW in order to win the popularity of the masses: a successful Iraq campaign renders the Democrats superfluous and thoroughly impotent. But a quagmire; a mistake built on lies; a botched campaign; a boondoggle; a civil war fomented by incompetence. These are a Democrat's ticket to power!

So, my dear friends, particularly my anti-war friends, prepare yourselves for the biggest political disappointment of your lives. My sources tell me that the Democrats in Congress are poised to bring Washington to a halt with impeachment hearings, you know, Impeach Bush procedures. And those will be followed by Impeach Cheney hearings, and, well you get the picture: political chaos and quagmire for pure political gain, and pure control of US Treasury disbursements. Oh, and there is one more thing: much of the impeachment motivation comes from those who believe Bush was NEVER duly elected. In other words, it's about payback.

But our troops will be hung out to dry by congressional Democrats intent on maintaining their vision of a better governed world.

AND HERE IS THE CRAZY WARNING TO DEMOCRATS: Look for the offsides trap

In soccer, there is a defensive play called the offsides trap. It occurs when defenders, pretending to maintain a position between the goalkeeper and the nearest attacking forward, suddenly move to a position behind the forward when a ball is sent into the scoring zone. If a referee is paying attention, the forward will be caught offsides, and the whistle will be blown. The defending team regains possession of the ball with a free kick.

Remember the Vietnam War.

Let's look back at that fine time for a moment. Recall that it was Democrats in the White House (presidents Kennedy and Johnson), and Democrats in both the House and Senate (some of the largest Democratic majorities in modern US history), who escalated US involvement in Vietnam. In fact, both the executive and legislative branches under Democratic Party control escalated US involvement to dizzying heights, so high, in fact, that 50,000 troops would die in that distant land.

But remember what happened in 1968. Republican Richard M. Nixon won the White House at a time when popularity for the war was extremely low. And what did the Democrats do? That's right. They turned the Vietnam War into the Nixon War. They made Vietnam a Republican problem. After all, how many school kids today -- in America -- learn that Vietnam was really a Democratic Party failure? How many kids learn that it was the Democrats who drove American soldiers deep into that jungle quagmire?

So, let's talk payback now. Impeach Bush might be a Democrat strategy for doling out vengeance on the allegedly stolen 2000 election (and the alleged theft of Ohio in 2004). But Republicans not really fighting to keep control of the Congress today might in fact be an offsides trap being played -- in a great gamble -- by Republican strategists as payback for, well, everything (including Vietnam). Iraq, perhaps, is about to become the Democrats' War.

If there were just two types of teenagers in 1968, they were these: those who were anti-establishment, counter-cultural and anti-war, and those who were none of those things. Now, today, those two types of teenagers, 40 years older, are sitting in the White House, in Congress, in the offices of the RNC and DNC; they fill academia and the media. What you are witnessing, then, is a gargantuan struggle between those who believed that Vietnam was a lost cause and those who believed it could have been won (had we only FULLY stayed the course and supported US military actions there). In other words, if George Bush -- the establishment man -- wins in Iraq, it will not only mean that the Iraq-is-a-failure folks are wrong today; they were wrong in the golden protest years of yesterday about Vietnam. And if the anti-establishment hippies of the 1960's who are now in their 60s are right about the failure of Iraq, then, well, they will no doubt feel vindicated about Vietnam.

In reality, what you are seeing is a flashback of 1967-72. There might not be as much acid now as there was then, but there is surely more acid speech. But the Democrats need to watch out for the offsides trap.

Trust me. They don't know what they are about to win.

And remember: I am just a pretend prophet.

One final note to all voters: Does anyone really believe that the Iraq War is unnecessary, a war of mere choice, one completely begun at the President's bidding? For if that was the case, would he not have begun to withdraw troops on the eve of the elections, elections his party will lose? And if Bush and Co. control oil prices and oil fields, don't you think that, if they did so control them, we would have seen gas prices fall back to popularly low levels by now in order to secure political victory at all costs? And does anyone really think that President Bush is holding Osama bin Laden as some sort of ace-in-the-hole as we watch Republican popularity wane? Where, oh where, have the conspiracy theories gone? Were they all false prophecies uttered by false prophets? Are not false prophets supposed to be rejected, condemned; stoned to death outside the city walls?

But we all know they've been stoned before.

Peace, from your favorite prophet.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Election 2006, Democrats

John Kerry: A Racy Joke?

I will not whip the John Kerry story to death, but there are several more things to say about Mr. Kerry's allegedly "botched joke." The first thing to say is that, if you get a chance to watch the video of Mr. Kerry's stand-up routine, you will see that he does not, at any time, LOOK (or sound) like he is telling any sort of joke. There is no facial cue, no lilt in the voice. He does not offer a softening of the eyes, or even a twinkle in one eye. There is no wink; no feigned laugh, no silly smirk. There is no affect whatsoever that he is trying to be funny. He does not prompt his audience after a long set-up to the punchline. Nay. He gives us nothing other than a very dour face; he looks like he is waiting for the audience to immolate themselves, to burn themselves to death. He does not look like he is expecting a laugh: His face, without doubt, looks like he is saying that none of this is a laughing matter.

That is point 1.

Point 2 is that even if we rewrite Mr. Kerry's joke, adding the "us" that he says he carelessly omitted, it isn't one whit funny. "You know, if you don't do well in school, well, you get us stuck in Iraq." AHHAHHHAHAHAHA! What a howler!

Point 3 is that, irrespective of Mr. Kerry's apology -- in which he apologizes, not for the joke but its misinterpretation (it's the listeners' fault) -- the joke, no matter how accurately or inaccurately delivered, cannot, in any way, be interpreted as NOT a slam of the military. For if Mr. Kerry is telling the truth, that he was merely damning the dumbness of the Bush Administration, he is nonetheless damning the Commander-in-Chief and his underlings. In other words, he is slamming the military. Moreover, he is also slamming the generals and colonels who submit to the alleged idiots in the White House; and he is also suggesting that many of the generals and other military officials who believe the invasion of Iraq was indeed a good thing are also "dumb". In other words, it is a joke belittling the military. Lastly, the joke suggests that all those soldiers who are UNDER the great dolts comprising the leadership of the war are themselves duped into submission, serving under leaders who are foolish, deceitful, empty -- men and women who did not do their homework. In other words, the joke damned every level of the military, no matter how you look at it.

The fourth point is one I brought up here yesterday. I am going to be so bold to suggest that I am one of the first bloggers (if not the first and only) to make the observation, and the observation is this: John Kerry might have been playing the race and class card. For we all know that certain Democrats, like Charlie Rangel and John Conyers, have complained that too many minorities -- inner-city minorities -- and the least privileged members of society, are most vulnerable to military recruitment. We also know that Messrs. Rangel and Conyers supported the reinstitution of the military draft during the 2004 election cycle: they played on the fears of their base under the guise that they were trying to build balance or parity in the recruitment of soldiers.

It appears to me that any sane observer could conclude that Mr. Kerry was playing this very cynical, racially-charged card. Context is everything, no? So it stands to reason that we might want to understand who it was Mr. Kerry may have been aiming his comments at; it is reasonable to ask to whom was Mr. Kerry speaking. You see, his joke was to a college crowd at Pasadena City College. As I stated yesterday, that inner-city college has a student body of over 25,000; 70.3 percent of that student body is made up of minorities. The school's largest minority group is Hispanic; the second is Asian; with the black student population making up just about 6.5%. Was John Kerry playing to this crowd? Was he saying -- since these listeners were minorities -- that they were most vulnerable to recruitment, to death on the war front? Was he playing to two stereotypes; one being that minorities make great cannon fodder for Republican wars; and two, that minorities are only able to save themselves if they rise above their apparent dumbness by doing well in school (I do not think there is ANY apparent dumbness, by the way)? Was Mr. Kerry propping himself up as a defender of minorities from alleged Republican indifference to their plight?

I think a good case could be made that he was so propping himself. This is not to suggest that Mr. Kerry is at all a racist himself. It is merely to posit some reason why Mr. Kerry said what he said. Here is a good question: Would Mr. Kerry have told this joke to an Ivy League college crowd? Had he ever told that joke to a group of affluent white folks? If he has told this joke before, or if he would have told this joke to a bunch of rich kids at Harvard, then my observations here are irrelevant and misplaced.

One final little note: Amy Kane of Atlantic Avenue passed this very informative link along to me. It is a very detailed study of the actual, rather than perceived, demographics regarding military recruitment.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: John Kerry, Botched Joke, Race