Rethinking, Rebooting, Reconnecting (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this series, which I did not intend to be serial at all, I announced that I would no longer offer political commentary here at Contratimes. I admitted that politics was not the intent of this blog; that I had gotten off track. It would have been perhaps incisive of me to admit I was a victim of the Zeitgeist I meant to confront: that the spirit of the age divides us unnecessarily along all sorts of lines -- political, ideological, philosophical and religious -- and I was so divided. But currently, or so it seems, the Zeitgeist splits us largely along political lines. And I am tired of those splits. 

It would be as silly to overlook the argument that all things are political as it would be to make such an argument. Surely some will see here, even in this sentence, evidence of a political scam, some agenda driven by a push for political dominance. But I have nothing to give those who harbor such suspicions. All I can say is we are known by our fruits. 

In the end, there is no reason for me to offer here what can be found elsewhere. There are better writers, thinkers, pundits. The internet is rife with such. There is no need to add to the list of choices -- or to the din of ceaseless chatter. Is it any different to offer a blog more distinctly Christian? Who knows. 

Not everything is wrong that one does, and surely not everything done is right. I am sorry for what I've done wrong here. I feel bad for those I may have offended. But such contrition does not mean I believe I could have done anything else, or that I could have avoided offending everybody. Such is life. Even the Perfect has enemies. Even Love is hated. I tried to stay above the fray and found that I was beneath it. I tried to elevate the discussion and found that I was debased. I tried to bring Reason to the forefront and found in that effort something akin to spiritual resignation: "This, too, is vanity." I tried to be more than I am, and became less in the process. For what I had hoped would edify did not. 

Peace to you.

On Biting Midges And Ensuing Chaos

It is a lesson in causality. 

I will spare readers the details. Some of them are dull, others ugly. Too ugly.

Last night, because it was the night of the Full Buck moon, I ventured out on a 141-acre pond I had never before kayaked around. I had been by this lovely pond many times, but I had never circumnavigated it either by boat or on foot. (There are no paths or roads that circle it, though a town road skirts the north and western edge.) The pond is 12 miles from my home. 

It was a beautiful evening, and the breeze was perfect for keeping the mosquitoes away. Despite the breeze, the paddling was relatively easy. Several small coves were even rather calm. And I was able to get close to a pair of loons, which was a pleasant surprise. 

Just as I made myself to the north/northwest end of the pond, I looked south and east and, through a gap in the hills, spotted the glorious full moon. A front had come through a couple of hours earlier, chasing away the humidity. The sky was crystalline, crisp, and getting cool; the moon was brilliant. I drifted for a while adoring the cosmos and thanking God. It was perfect, just a gentle breeze. No bugs. Nothing but Beauty. And Bliss.

Until I got out of the kayak. Then I discovered that my bare legs had been ravaged by ceratopogonidae. Biting midges, no-see-ums. These nasty, invisible vicious little creatures had found refuge from the wind inside the cockpit of my kayak and feasted on my naked legs (I prefer to kayak in shorts). Their legacy looked like a burn; it felt worse than poison ivy. And then I remembered a friend warning me about the very pond I was standing next to. "The no-see-ums will kill you!" he warned, and I believe I not only doubted him, but I chose to forget his words. Why would I forget such a warning, especially since, of all the biting bugs that bug me, no-see-ums ravage me? 

When I got home -- everyone is away so I am a bachelor -- and having made peace with nature, I made myself a huge salad with tomatoes, extra sharp cheddar, avocados, mandarin oranges, raisins and other pleasures, and then made a curious decision: I concluded that the messy kitchen, including the imperishable groceries from the day before that had not been put away, could wait. Besides, I told myself, I really love cleaning the kitchen in the morning... 

Did I tell you my dog died in April? And did I tell you we still have a pet door to the outdoors that the cat just loves to use? Well, both things are true. I just thought you should know. 

After the Mighty Midge attack, I knew that I could not sleep with the windows open, as no-see-ums (that's what we call 'em in these here parts) can easily pass through the typical window screen. So I closed the windows -- things had cooled down a lot anyway -- and turned on a fan to circulate a steady breeze over my bed. This is a capital idea, as the air current affects the flight of any no-see-um intent on doing me harm. Of course, with a fan near your head and your windows closed, you don't hear a thing. But last night there was something I probably should have heard, clearly and instantly. 

I know already that you know what it is I wish I had heard. I know you know what I found when I awoke this morning. I found that I did indeed need to clean my kitchen this bright morning, as raccoons had broken into my house and made a mess of my already messy kitchen. Ever seen a whole container of perfectly good and brand new oatmeal dumped all over your kitchen island? Even the red leather on the boutique-y barstools my wife bought was scratched by eager claws. Glasses were toppled, though not broken, and avocado pits were gnawed on. My brand new bag of awesome corn chips was ripped open. There was even a huge chunk of my kitchen sponge that was missing. It was all really rather unpleasant.

And the outside garbage bins -- which I really do like to keep in order -- were toppled over in the backyard.

Needless to say, I blame this on the midges. Well, maybe not. Maybe my friend is to blame -- for not warning me sufficiently. Yeah. It's his fault. 

It's amazing how much harm can come from what you don't see. Or hear. 

Or heed. 

Peace. 

©2010/All Rights Reserved. 

Rethinking, Rebooting, Reconnecting

The other day I asked Contratimes' guests to help me, as I found myself no longer sure of what the Zeitgest -- the spirit of the age -- is, or was, or what it looks like. I still don't know with anything approaching certitude, but I think I am getting nearer to an answer. 

I have come to realize that Contratimes is no longer doing what I initially intended. What I mean is that I am not doing what I intended to do at Contratimes. This blog did not start out to be political. I did not intend to expend so much time and effort criticizing liberal policies and ideas or defending conservative ones. But I just got sucked in. And then I got lost. 

What this blog was meant to do was to be a place where a Christian worked out his faith in a world that stands against that faith. What this blog was meant to be was an example of how Christianity can help a person live in a world of despair, alienation, moral and intellectual confusion, and temptation. I grant not only that such would be a huge undertaking, it also presumes I am not desperate, alienated or confused. Or so such a charge could be made. But this site was not to be about me. It was supposed to be about Christianity. It was supposed to be about how Christianity confronts the spirit of the age. It was supposed to be about how Christianity helps in difficult times and how Christianity helps us realize that all times are difficult. It was not to be a Christian para-church one might find in digital form, but a sort of salon for discussion, reflection, inquiry, and candor. A safe salon. 

What is the spirit of the age? Let me guess. 

It is the "spirit of the power of the air" that sows doubt, that calls us to find meaning in things, things carnal, things political, things material. The spirit of the age beckons you to find life and love in idols -- in things created -- and not in the Creator of all things. The spirit of the age whispers -- "Surely you will not die" -- and then tells you to taste, eat; enjoy the idols that await. The spirit of the age offers temporal joy and yet delights in temporal despair, and even finds in that despair a reason to be happy, and even a  reason to boast of "authenticity" or "gravitas" or "brutal honesty." Better an honest hell than a dishonestly happy heaven. 

The spirit of the age tells you that you can have it all -- here, now, soon. It tells you that God is nothing but love, though the attentive know that if God is nothing but love, there is no God at all (at least not one that matters). 

The spirit of the age denies all absolute truths but one: that it's absolutely true that absolutes don't matter. 

The spirit of the age tells you that truth and meaning are not discovered but created, invented. The spirit of the age encourages you to "think for yourself" and "be your own person," but it never encourages you to see that in taking its advice you've not thought for yourself and thus are not your own. And it never tells you that someone had to discover that meaning and truth are created, invented ...

The spirit of the age imparts fear at every turn, fear of not belonging to the right group, or the newest ideas. The spirit of the age demands that you not worry about your destiny, and then tells you that you should be ashamed for looking old, unfit, or for driving a certain type of car. It tells you death is nothing, and then it tells you that life is everything -- and only then a certain kind of life, an enviable one -- and that you better not die too soon. 

The spirit of the age tells you that the Church is too legalistic, and too invasive, always poking its nose into your business. And then it tells you that you MUST act and think a certain way and -- Oh, by the way, why are you so prudent, so incessantly modest, about your love life? The spirit of the age mocks at those who would legislate morality, and then brings the gavel down in approval of laws that ensure every one is decent, in the "right" way. The spirit of the age proclaims "Live and let live!" and then wishes that those who disagree with such a generous precept would just die. 

The spirit of the age believes that one ought "to move the boundary stone set by your forefathers," but that the stone ought to be moved only one way -- outward -- or removed altogether. No doubt there are times the spirit of the age seeks to move the stone inward in a false belief that even a more restrictive life in this world will grant the greatest eternal and temporal joy, but the spirit does this rather rarely: It's joy is to see humans always looking for an idol, new or old, to turn the heart toward nothingness. It's glee is found in destruction: misery loves company. 

And it's inspiration is envy, an envy that does not care to have or possess, only that others do not have; that no one ultimately possesses.

I initially attempted to confront this spirit at Contratimes, but I missed my mark. My interest is not really about confronting the Zeitgeist because such is a losing battle. I would rather resist it, and if I could, I would even ignore it. There is a different Spirit. A better one. One as old as forever. One as new as this moment. 

Contratimes will continue, I believe, but its days of political commentary are over. (I may take what I've started at Shallow Church -- which is evolving -- and meld them into what I've begun here.) The only time I will write of such things (i.e., political, economic, etc.) is if I believe they speak to our dangerous habit of idolatry. This is not a Republican thing I am doing here, or a Libertarian one; and it's not a conservative thing. It's just a kind of Christian thing, offered in grace to anyone living in this very non-Christian world. 

Peace to you.

Bill Gnade

Read "War of Words"

I found Andrew Ferguson's "War of Words" incredibly enjoyable. I hope you do too.

"A Theology Of Disunity, Part 1"

Continuing my series of shameless promotion, I remind readers -- by that I mean interested readers -- that there is a more distinctly Christian blog now offered by the author/administrator of Contratimes. Here's proof.

Confession Number 2,139.5

More to share.

A Shallow Statement Of Faith, Part 3

I don't think I can stop. It's serious.

A Shallow Statement Of Faith, Part 2

It may seem a strange new project, but it really isn't. Click here to see what I mean.

A Shallow Statement Of Faith (A New Project)

What Is The Zeitgeist?

This blog begins with a bold claim. Confronting the Zeitgeist "one day at a time" seems at first glance a noble goal, but it has proven an elusive one. The boldness lies not in the confronting but in the definition: my work assumes I know the Zeitgeist. Of course that is not all it assumes. But it does assume I have a working definition of the spirit of the age.

But do I? I am unsure.

If there is a spirit of this age, what is it? Perhaps we ought to change metaphors: If there is a fragrance to this age, what does it smell like? If there is a voice of the age, what is it saying? If there is a flavor of the age, have you tasted it -- and is it good? 

I don't think I can tacitly flatter myself anymore. I cannot divine the spirit of the age, at least I can't right now. I ask readers for help; I ask a neighbor to give me his coat. Perhaps one of you will even give me your shirt as well. 

Peace. 

Gliding Through The Prayer Book

Last night I kayaked over a mirror set beneath a silver half-moon. It was glorious, utterly quiet. I paddled slowly, even with stealth.  Tranquility was disturbed only by the occasional sound of my fly-rod, the soft splash of a fly, and the burst of a largemouth smashing the ceiling of its pond. I was on liquid glass beneath a night sky streaked with clouds, sky and water seeming the same thing. I drifted upside-down. 

When I finally thought fly fishing a sacrilege in such hallowed air, I broke down my gear and paddled the mile or so home from the far side of the pond; I wended my way down Moose Brook ever so quietly, moving nearly imperceptibly. Occasionally I would glide through pockets of cool air where breathing seemed easier. I wished I was drifting on a mattress, or in a baby's bassinet. I wanted to fall asleep. I thought of a baby, alone, drifting among the water lilies, floating in a basket woven of rushes, of love. 

And then I wanted to just roll over, to fall into the crystalline sky, to be baptized again. One final time. 

Last night was the latest I had been out this summer on the water, and I think as the full moon approaches, I may stay out till dawn. I've gone out nearly every night during the past two weeks. It's almost a discipline.

It's like compline. It's my evening prayer.  

Peace. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

And We Move On...

Life seems a series of serial sets. One set is the set of births, of new beginnings. Another is the set of deaths, the big ones as well as the little. One would be a fool to argue there are not subsets -- little deaths may be on their own -- but there is no doubt such things come again and again.

I experienced one of those little deaths this weekend, and it surprises me how much it hurts. 

Thoughts On TIME's Fallible Headline

In a recent issue of TIME magazine, the editors of that periodical chose this headline for its cover story: "Why Being Pope Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry." In the wake of that apparently bland article, one writer asked why the editors would have used such a headline; he was perplexed by the whole of that headline, and you can read his thoughts here.

Here's the comment I left in response to his query:

I have not read all the comments here; I have not read the TIME magazine article in question. But please permit me to express what I felt when I first saw the headline when I spotted this particular issue of TIME on the newsstand.

It’s simple. The editors of TIME are exploiting a wild misunderstanding about papal infallibility. The common belief is that the Church teaches the Pope is intrinsically infallible in all matters. In other words, the Church teaches that the Pope — as Pope — is never, ever wrong and thus cannot apologize. The headline is really a fundamental dig at a parody of Catholic teaching; the headline is perhaps even meant as ironic. If so, it is ironic in an extremely mean and petty way. Ultimately — if the editors are NOT ignorant of Catholic teaching — the headline employs a straw-man fallacy, one that essentially courses through those salons willfully ignorant of Catholic doctrine and dogma.

This is cheap journalism at its most obvious. It’s vulgar; it’s the sort of stuff offered by snickering scoffers one might meet in junior high school. The whole thing brings to mind a revised temptation of Christ: “If you’re really infallible, you can’t be wrong about anything, can you?” TIME wants to exploit this fundamental prejudice about Church teaching, hoping that, if the headline is all people read — and it will be — the prejudice will still be effectively reinforced in the populace.

Truly discouraging.

Peace.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Apologies

I have once again turned on the function that moderates comments. I can describe it in no other words than that Contratimes is under attack by "DM," who dumps absurd comments here. It is a shameful attempt, or so I believe, to sully the integrity of this site and others like it that present a Christian "worldview" in an intelligent, gracious and generally well-written manner. I may have "DM's" motives all wrong, but I doubt it. 

If anyone knows how I might shut out "DM" and his/her ilk, please advise. I deleted 3 identical comments yesterday, spammed even through "word verification" security steps. The comments strike me as perverse, random, stereotypical and, sadly, anathema to dialogue. 

Sorry for the inconvenience. I believe that comment moderation stifles discussion and discourages reader visits. My hope is to get things back to normal as soon as possible. 

Peace. 

Bill Gnade

The Days Are Numbered

Last evening I went kayaking. And fishing. I caught the tail end -- in many ways the best end -- of the longest day of the year. I was alone on the water until 9:30; the sky was still beautifully aglow, the sun unwilling to quit behind the reclining edges of the earth.

About 8:45 I caught a largemouth, about 15 inches long, and gently released it into the cool waters. The waxing gibbous moon touched the violet sky to the south and east. At the top of the 9 o'clock hour the church bell chimed at the far end of the pond, its final peal trembling softly over lily pads and through pickerel weed, faintly shaking the still air beyond the quiet woods and the far-off fringes of winter.

I paddled down the outlet to the winding, lazy Moose Brook, quietly wending my way home. A beaver startled me at the break of one bend, slapping its tail seemingly right inside my eye. I had to lay back on my kayak -- my legs extended along the bow -- to glide beneath the old bridge, my hands touching the damp, rusted steel beams a couple of inches from my face. I climbed onto shore with more effort than last year, and dragged my kayak across the lawn toward my house. I moved with gratitude, and reluctance.

Slickly Tarrying

I ask this rhetorically, recognizing, of course, that all questions are fundamentally asked rhetorically. I ask, "Would it have been politically disastrous for the Obama Administration to have the Deepwater Horizon oil leak capped quickly; would it be even worse for the administration if the oil leak was easily and quickly cleaned up?"

To some readers the question may seem ludicrous. I admit they are most likely right. It sure sounds ludicrous. 

But please note the longstanding trope -- now more trite than trope -- that the Republican Party has "always been in bed" with "Big Oil" and the ruthlessly greedy denizens of Big Business. The trope is part of any liberal's DNA, being asserted with machine-like predictability; and it has made its way into the narrative of the current oil disaster in the Gulf. But the trope is like a wet blanket over the eyes, blinding us to the truth that if the oil leaked throughout the Gulf can be quickly contained and cleaned up, then critics of Big Oil's "reckless indifference to the planet for greed's sake" have little political leverage. Does this explain Mr. Obama's failure to act quickly at the outset of this crisis? Why has he been so slow to accept help from those who've offered it? Why has he dragged his feet in meeting with officials from BP? Why has he not used all the resources at his disposal to help BP and the state governments who are desperately asking for help?

And why, too, has he spent the bulk of his energy, and most of his words, on placing blame, threatening punishment, and seeking recompense -- think big $$$ -- and "justice"? Why his energetic denunciations, and yet his lethargic assistance? 

This seems clear: the Democratic Party MUST MAINTAIN THE TROPE and its derivatives. The party MUST CONSTANTLY REINFORCE the trope that oil companies are inherently corrupt, that the oil industry is toxic from beginning to end, and that oil spills are the worst ecological event in history, ruining the earth and seas for years, decades and centuries.

By the way, denunciations of greed are nearly always rooted in greed. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

Forgetting, An Unmitigated Disaster

It was a simple question asked by Don Imus. He asked it this morning: "Has there ever been such an ecological disaster like this anywhere at any time?"

I paraphrase Mr. Imus, but I do complete justice to the question. Has there ever been such a horrid thing as this oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico?

Mr. Imus received an adamantine answer from his newsman: "Never. Absolutely not. No."

I wrote about the Ixtoc 1 oil disaster earlier at Contratimes (here and here). It is an important bit of history, nay, it is a wildly important bit of history. I hope Contratimes readers learn more about it (here's a great start, as is this).

Friday night I asked a question at a political gathering of like-minded folks: Does anybody remember the June 1979 Ixtoc disaster? No one remembered.

Why? Perhaps because at the time of that incredible disaster in the Gulf Americans were obsessed -- as were the news media -- with two things, Three Mile Island (March 28, 1979) and the Iran Hostage Crisis (November 4, 1979). Yes, the media attended to the Gulf gusher that dumped 30,000 barrels of crude oil every day into the Gulf for TEN MONTHS, but there were other dangers to worry about (and America was still struggling with the gas crisis that hamstrung, or was exacerbated by, the Carter administration). As I've admitted earlier at Contratimes, this writer, who was just a young man at the time, has no recollection of the Ixtoc 1 disaster. But I sure remember the national panic around nuclear power and the crazy ayatollah in Tehran.

Despite America's national preoccupations at the close of the 1970s, it nonetheless amazes me that none of my friends or peers remembers the Ixtoc 1, and this for the simple reason that you'd think we'd all remember a disaster that began on an oil rig whose name is an accidental anagram for Toxic. How could we not have remembered the Toxic Ixtoc off the Gulf coast of Mexico?

Have the media and administration ignored the Ixtoc 1 disaster because it actually works against their  preferred narrative -- and their political agenda? Does it harm the administration to remind us that what Mr. Obama claims is "unprecedented" isn't unprecedented? Does it hurt their cause to inform citizens that the Gulf actually recovered far better than expected?

I have listened to loads of pundits and read their opinions. I cannot comprehend their ignorance, or their silence, about this important event that began in 1979. Nor can I explain their silence about the recovery of the Persian Gulf after Saddam Hussein dumped vast quantities of oil into that sea in 1991. Here's an interesting passage from The Weekly Standard article (to which I linked earlier today):

As the New York Times noted in a 1993 story, the Persian Gulf recovered surprisingly faster than anticipated from the 1.2 million ton spill Saddam Hussein engineered in 1991: “The vast amount of oil that Iraqi occupation forces in Kuwait dumped into the Persian Gulf during the 1991 war did little long-term damage, international researchers say.”

I am not so dull-witted or hard-hearted as to suggest the current oil leak in the Gulf is NOT an unmitigated disaster, one that we can brush aside as "not all that bad." I have always been an environmentalist, though I stand in what might be called the "Franciscan tradition" rather than the political ecology movement I was weaned on as a child. What is happening tears my heart out; I simply cannot look at the images of pelicans covered in crude oil. But I am concerned far beyond the environment of the biosphere; I am deeply concerned about the environment of the human mind, be it the individual or the collective. I am worried that we are not only forgetting, we are not even learning or knowing. It's not that we've forgotten, it's that we never knew in the first place. What I mean is this: The Deepwater Horizon leak is NOT unprecedented, nor is it -- yet -- the "worst oil spill in history." Not to KNOW this, or to willfully ignore it, is a pollution of the mind.

It's its own disaster, entirely toxic.

Peace. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

The New Plantation

We heard many things in the days following the election of a certain president. We heard most singularly that to criticize him was to commit a racist act. 

Today, those who criticized others for criticizing Barack Obama are now criticizing him rather vociferously. But these critics of the president are immaculate. They can't be racists. They're leftists. 

Where must one go to be so successfully inoculated? 

"How To Think About Oil Spills" -- The Weekly Standard

Interesting, indeed.

Insanity As Policy: So The White House IS Emotional About Oil

Incredible.

(If the link does not work, search Google for "Drilling Bits of Fiction." I found the article this way.)