Divine Plagiarism

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30 August 2006

Questioning No-Fault Divorce

Divorce is so prevalent in our society that the assertion that it is a right is accepted as a truism. Perhaps, instead of seeing it as a tragic necessity, we should stop and question the construct of divorce. I know this is a touchy subject. And I know that I sound about as puritanical as can be right now. Before you push the ’gasp, stop thinking’ button, though, I would challenge you with the fact that both Susan B. Anthony and Elisabeth Cady Stanton were both vehemently against no-fault divorce. They argued that divorce hurt women. Alimony is an attempt to reconcile this hurt, but even if alimony could balance things between the former spouses, it does little to recompense the children of the marriage for the damages they will suffer as a result of the divorce. Divorce hurts children. They have rights too. I am not arguing for paternalistic policies on marriage. I think libertarian concepts work just fine. I just think we did the math wrong.

Libertarianism is a useful vantage point from which to understand the law. It is particularly useful when trying to understand contract law and tort law. You willingly enter into a contract. As a function of that contract, you promise to do certain things, and are promised certain things in return. In entering into a marriage, we create an entity which has its own formal and informal economic life, an entity that is granted legal recognition (taxes, etc.) In this way, a family is similar to a corporation.

Imagine two people come together and create a corporation. They pool resources, and both invest time and energy in the corporation. Say, for the sake of argument, one decides they no longer like the other person, that they are no longer interested in being part of the corporation. Say, as well, that the corporation cannot continue to exist with only one party. The corporation would fail, and be carved up to be given back to the two original stakeholders proportionately. Rights are balanced as well as they can be, and our libertarian construct holds. It is sad the corporation didn’t work out, but things are as fair as they can be.

Let’s say instead the corporation did very well, and made enough money that the two original stakeholders decided they should take the corporation public. So they open it up, though they decide to retain majority shares. The shares are eagerly bought up by investors. Say now that time goes by, the corporation stalls. The two founders are still critical to the operation of the corporation, without them it will fail. Imagine now that those founders decide they have irreconcilable differences. They are the majority shareholders, and together they vote to dissolve the corporation. Now imagine that after they dissolve the corporation, they sell off its assets and split it between the two of them, cutting out the shareholders entirely. This doesn’t sound right. The shareholders have rights, and should have a share in the settlement. Here is the problem. We like to call half-libertarian constructs libertarian. We cut people out of the deal to enlarge our chunk of the pie.

Alimony came into existence as a recognition of the contribution of women to the economic unit of the family, as well as a recognition that the woman could expect certain duties from the man within the marriage. Traditional domestic roles, though historically ignored by economists, incorporated a high degree of value added to the family unit. If the woman was managing the house, the man could earn money outside the house. This is not meant to be normative, only to say that fuzzier terms were required to see her stake in the arrangement. Additionally, the woman generally had do make greater sacrifices on the behalf of the relationship than the man. A pregnancy sets a woman at least six months behind in career advancement. Domestic activities do not increase her profitability on her own. Ultimately, her chances of remarriage traditionally were less than the man’s, so she sacrifices more in the way of prospects than he does. She has a right to certain duties from the man in the relationship. If the relationship is ended, he needs to provide compensation for those duties.

Children have certain rights, as well. They are the complicating factor. They come into existence as a function of the family, and become stakeholders in that family. They have, in effect, been implicitly signed into the marriage contract by their parents. There are certain duties due them, as part of that contract. The most apparent duties are already addressed by the law: basic clothes, food and shelter. But there are more duties. The parents need to provide the children a home. This is a subjective term, just as the economic contribution of the wife to the household is somewhat subjective. This does not make it insignificant. Studies overwhelmingly show that divorce has a negative effect on children. They incur harm in the dissolution of a marriage, as they are deprived of their right to an unbroken home. They cannot forfeit this right, as the children have no veto on a divorce, and have no legal agency with which to exercise any veto. Therefore, they should receive restitution if the marriage is dissolved from both parties to the dissolution.

Here we turn to policy. What would this right of recompense look like? For this, let’s turn to the idea of irreconcilable differences. Currently, this idea is something of a mockery. It means anything and everything, and has become a catch-all to legitimate all divorces. This was not the intent. Returning to the original intent, the idea was that if a marriage was so totally broken that if the couple could not salvage it even by exhausting all reasonable avenues, then at the end of their frustration they would be allowed to scuttle it. In this we see the difference between good faith and negligence. This is a useful distinction. If the parents try their utmost to save the marriage, they are acting with good faith toward their children, and this should be considered in the settlement. If they ’just don’t love each other anymore,’ which was never a pre-condition for the fulfillment of the duty to the child of providing a home, then their actions take on an air of negligence, and the law must be more directive in delineating stakes in the settlement.

How, then, do we quantify a good faith effort? To some extent, as with any proof by ordeal, this will have to be somewhat arbitrary. Marriage counseling is a universalizable and effective tool of salvaging a marriage. One year is long enough to prove a serious commitment to working through problems. Therefore, if a couple is willing to undergo one year of intensive marriage counseling, they should be considered to be acting in good faith. This counseling would be subsidized, though not free. In order to ensure that counseling does not become a rubber-stamp or a formality, counselors would have to be certified by some means. Reasonable metrics should be applied to this process (I.e. 99.9% of cases ending in divorce is probably not a counselor that is very interested in success.) If the counselor assesses that the couple is not making a good faith effort, then they will be considered in breach. They can choose either to be assigned to another counselor (up to a total of 3) and restart the year of counseling, or proceed to the delineated settlement (to be explained in the next paragraph.) If one party is clearly not trying and the other is clearly making an effort, this will be considered in the proportioning of the settlement, to recognize the good faith of the party who is trying. If at the end of the year of the counseling, the differences remain irreconcilable in the eyes of the counselor, then the parents are to be considered as acting in good faith. In that case, an argument can be made that in such a home, brokenness is already extant to such a degree that the parents would not be performing any duty to the children by maintaining a nominally intact home. A divorce with a traditional alimony and child support arrangement would then be appropriate. Preferably, though, the parents actually resolve their difficulties, and the marriage is saved.

Counseling cannot be compulsory. This opens up too many cans of worms. Therefore, there must be a more direct option for couples who decline counseling or who do not act in good faith in counseling. As tort law, this cannot be punitive (although the law having a deterrent effect is not the same as a punitive law.) It must simply balance shares of the settlement between the stakeholders. We will call this the ‘delineated settlement.’ The children are entitled to an unbroken home. If they are deprived of this right, they should receive recompense. The most objective means of this recompense would be money. The amount would be derived from anticipated lifetime counseling bills, lifetime reduction in wage earning potential, and emotional distress on the part of the child. Consideration would also be given to proportionality with the parents’ income. Percentages could be assessed regionally and tweaked for the individual cases. This money would be set aside in an interest bearing account, and made accessible to the child when they reach the age of majority. Consideration could be given to limiting the fund to educational purposes (college, trade school, etc.) The idea of equalizing pain is less than ideal, but it works as a libertarian concept of torts.

There is the danger of unintended consequences. The most significant being possible facilitation of abusive relationships. Abuse is a criminal law matter. If abuse exists in a relationship, and is established in a court of law, then the option will be given to the abused party to proceed directly to the delineated settlement with an automatic assessment of the totality of the damages to the children against the abusing party. If the perty accused of abuse is not convicted in a criminal court, there will remain an option to try that party in a civil court at a lower standard of proof. This could lead to the unintended consequence of spurious charges of abuse. In order to discourage this, frivolous charges of abuse will be considered as acting in bad faith, and will be considered in the settlement.

Policy is always concerned with outcome, just as law is concerned with justice. We have looked to libertarian constructs for justice. Let us then look to outcomes. Having ‘irreconcilable difficulties’ actually mean something increases the opportunity cost for divorce. Just as any supply/demand graph will tell you, this will reduce quantity. This incentives resolving problems, by deterring divorce. It makes it worth sorting things out, and provides families an avenue to sort things out. So it will save some marriages. The family is the foundation of the state, as it pre-dates the state, and is a super-ordinate institution. The rights of man come before the rights of the state, because man is more important than the state. If the man ceases to be man, then the state will fail. The family exists between man and the state. Man makes family. Families make states. No conception of the state is possible without the idea of some form of family (not necessarily nuclear.) Without the family, the state will fail. A state where half of marriages fail is not a healthy state. So if we can same some marriages, we increase the good.

Let me end on a more emotional note. I thank my parents for their courage and for their willingness to stick it out when things got tough. Because they chose to love each other even when they didn’t feel like it, I had the privilege of growing up in an intact home. Most of my friends (and my father) were denied that privilege. I will speak for many here. We had a right to have two parents at the same time. All of us did. We had a right to have families when we were growing up. We should not have to make songs like ‘Broken Home’ because of the choices of people who had songs like ‘Imagine.’ If we were robbed of that right, we should be paid back for the things that we were robbed of. But how much better would it have been if it wasn’t so damn easy to get a divorce. We spend so much time building escape hatches and ejection seats. We make it so easy to give up and run away. Maybe, we should spend some of that time trying to make things work. Maybe, if we chose to honor each other past the point where it ceased being fun, we might find that we could actually learn to trust each other. Maybe, if we actually tried, we might find out that we actually love each other. And then we’ll have somewhere to start from.

22:40 Posted in Boring Theories (Social Sciences) | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this

Impossible (To be continued...)

“I believe a man rose from the dead.
I believe twelve barely literate fishermen overcame the greatest empire this world has known.
Do not presume to tell me what is impossible.
I forgot that word long ago.”

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29 August 2006

Dragons (Addenda.)

Uno. There is a fourth check on our actions. The check of conscience. There is a knowledge of the moral law written on the heart of man. We are made in the image of God, and part of His stamp on us is His law. But even this, in a way, is an external check. It does not come from us, but from God. As we sever our ties to Him in our rebellion, we lose our ability to hear the call of conscience. We abandon the safety of this check when we abandon Him.

Dos. There is also a more formal logic-esque way of critiquing the moving of boundary stones. (Yeah, I use made up words. Like redongculous.) First, we tell someone that the value of the life of his unborn child is less than the value of his convenience. Second, that man assesses the value of life of his unborn child to be greater than the value of a stranger’s life. Therefore, by simple transposition, he then assesses the value of life of the stranger to be of less than his convenience, and acts accordingly. He is correct for data. Given the set of assumptions handed to him, he simply completes the equation. We punish him, not for getting the answer wrong, but for following the answer through to its conclusion. And in that conclusion we are offered a preview of our own destruction. So that man is the thermometer, the shape of things to come. But we would rather believe that man got the answer wrong than question the equation. We are afraid to follow our equations out to their logical conclusions, because we know where they go. Consider Nietzsche. He is correct for data. Without God, there is no conclusion possible other than nihilism. We are simply afraid to follow our paths where they need. Perhaps, if we don’t like where they lead, we should simply find new paths. Perhaps narrow ones.

Threve (A combination of the numbers three and five. Simply stunning.) It is our constraints that keep us safe from ourselves. That keeps us in check. But they are an accommodation. They are not as we were meant to be. I believe that we were unshackled when we were in the garden. That there were no constraints, nor need for them in that place. The constraints exist as an allowance for the error we created. Perhaps like training wheels, the constraints will not remain on forever. Perhaps, one day, this world will be un-childproofed. When God’s great story is told, then our hearts will be allowed to seek whatever ends they desire. Without death, and with infinite time, the distinction between intent and act may cease to exist. These things are beyond me, but perhaps in His plan, we inherit a measure of His omnipotence when all is said and done. Not the throne of a king, but the throne of a viceroy. One who rules in His Name. That on the other side of this life, He provides ways for us to express His omniscience, through seeking forever after Him, His omnipresence, forever expanding to claim all of His universe in His Name, and His omnipotence, able to do all things through Christ who strengthens us. I do not believe I can usefully understand much of this on this side of eternity. But I do think that Heaven is a place where we are free to pursue Him without constraints. Unfortunately, as a corollary, hell must then also be a place where people are unconstrained. A place without either God or restraints would be an unimaginable nightmare. We question God for creating hell. But this is the irony. We are the ones who will create hell. If we are determined to live without Him forever, then there is no more reason for the shackles. The training wheels come off, and we make the world we wanted, a world without Him, a world all about us. This is the most horrifying thought imaginable. So He gives us a choice. Perhaps, there will be a day when the child locks come off this world. On that day, we will get what our hearts desire. If we desire ourselves, that is what we will find. A very small universe that will be. If we desire Him, then we will find everything we could ever desire in Him. Forever will be ours to explore the infinite reaches of His glory. What more could you ask?

16:40 Posted in Boring Theories (Social Sciences) | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this

Mesoamerican Agriculture and Religious Ritual. (Not my idea.)

I am continuously amazed and fascinated by the people God brings into my life. One of my friends, who is a nav and a prior enlisted marine (People who challenge stereotypes are awesome...) was describing to me a thought he wants to develop into a paper or a thesis in his graduate work. (He has been published in a few journals already.) Since there is a tremendous difference between not citing sources and actually taking someone else's idea, I will not attempt to fumble through his work, but he did have a fascinating archaelogical perspective on the role of religious ritual on the development of agriculture and the subsequent development of cities in Mesoamerica. I look forward to reading the article or the thesis. Im sure it will be outstanding.

There is a Talal Asad book on the role of religious ritual that I am currently (and finally) finishing. I think I'll send it his way, he can probably make more use of it. I wonder if the books I exchanged for that Asad book two years ago ever got read. The Book of Five Rings and The Art of War, theyre not just for breakfast anymore, kids. Of course, that is part of a larger and currently verboten story. It is fun to say you have read them, though. It makes you sound smart. :)

16:20 Posted in Boring Theories (Social Sciences) | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this

28 August 2006

On the Leashing of Dragons...

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell." - Jesus (as told by Matthew)

We think we can tame sin. We think that we can ascribe to it boundaries. ‘This far, and no farther,’ we tell our pet vices. And this line separates the good people from the bad. Trespass across that line, and the wrath of the society descends upon you. Not because you have gone in a different direction than anyone else, but because you have followed everyone else’s direction closer to its logical conclusion. Thus, we govern with the gallows. And we have done so since the fall. But the problem is not trespassing across the lines, but the lines themselves. We want to keep our dragons on a leash. But they never become tame. They are patient. And they grow. Some day, they will outgrow their chains. This is why nations fall.

A long time ago, we didn’t need to worry much about governing ourselves. ‘If men were angels…’ Well, once they were. In a manner of speaking. It didn’t last. So we find ourselves on this side of the fall. We are no longer angels. Soon we found that we could not have societies without laws. That the consequences of each man doing as he saw fit was disastrous. So there had to be a line, a critical point of sin. Sin could not be allowed to run its course, but we could not eliminate it. So we made the line of ‘manageable sin.’ Past this line, the society would fall. Whatever sin was inside of the line was considered allowable. Here we see the beginnings of law. And in this, we begin to make a mistake. Instead of seeing the line as a necessary evil, we being to see the line as the delineation between the good and the bad. Walk all the way up to the line, tiptoe to the ragged edge, you were good. Step beyond it, you became bad. We began to believe that we could be good. That the evil within us could be exterminated, not just managed. But we were neither willing nor able to part with sin. With our lines, we could have our cake and eat it too. We could call ourselves good, yet could still enjoy our private vices. In fact, we began to call our vices rights. We could walk the path of sin, but we would always stop short of the good/bad line. Well, usually. And when we took that one last step, (and couldn’t hide it) we found that the price of the maintenance of this line was the total destruction of those who stepped across the line. When you became ‘bad,’ you were entirely to blame for the consequences of the entire path of sin.

The problem is that these lines became somewhat arbitrary. When law was given by a Higher Power, it was inviolable. Outside the reach of human redistricting and jerrymandering. There was an anchor to keep the lines just. Over time, though, people forgot that the line was about controlling evil, and began to believe those who stayed within the lines were 'good.' And as 'good' people, they began to believe they could set the law where they saw fit. They felt comfortable doing what was right in their own eyes. So salients began to emerge, places where the 'good' people would rename license as rights to appropriate that which was not their own. Legal contructs became antrhopcentric and flexible. Depending on the society, certain sins were considered manageable and certain ones were not. But these lines were not static. Over time, the lines tended to push farther and farther, until at some point the society was not able to sustain itself. Grey fades to black. Generally, those with power drew the lines, and did so in their favor. Here began another problem: there are neither infinite resources nor infinite rights. And past a certain point, our license begins to steal the rights of others. And here we get both oppression and war. When one group started to push their lines into the territory of a much weaker group (the unborn, or West Africans, etc.,) the oppressing group generally renamed their license a right. This generally remained the case until the oppressed group found the means to resist. When a group began to move their lines into the territory of another group with the means to resist, they often found themselves at war. The more powerful group would generally define the lines in the aftermath. Until, of course, the tables turned and the losing group became more powerful (Holstein wars,) when the conflict would be revisited. Remember that mankind desires power above all else. Power wrote the lines, and a balance of terror maintained them. And power is arbitrary. Therefore, so were the lines.

Here is the problem expressed. We create a society where it is considered a right to murder the unborn for being inconvenient. So we tell someone born in an inner city that he can kill his own child for convenience’s sake, but he cannot kill a stranger driving through his neighborhood for the convenience of stealing his car. So the inner city resident must ask himself, if the value of the life of someone I am close to (my child) is less than the value of my convenience, how can it be that the value of a total stranger’s life is less than the greater convenience of having his car? And he would be right to ask this. All that man has done is draw a straight line where the lines of the law were crooked. He has smoothed the salient. It is not that he has done something different, only that he has taken the course of action we started with abortion to its logical conclusion in murder. The terribloe consequences of our vices are expressed through those who carry them out to their logical conclusions. These are generally the weakest, most vulnerable to the vices, or those farthest from the imposed constraints, those who live where rule of law has failed. Unfortunately, we cannot maintain our nominal good/bad split and still acknowledge the link between our vices and their consequences. Therefore, when he steps across the line from abortion to murder, the wrath of the entire society descends upon him, as much to maintain the fiction of the line as to punish him for his crime. We do not care so much about stopping murder. We care more about convincing ourselves that our murder is different, and somehow justifiable. We make him the scapegoat for our own sin. We act as if he has done something totally unthinkable and contrary to society, when in reality, he has just tiptoed one step too far on a line all of us were already traveling. We need to see ourselves as good, so those who cross the line become bad, become different. And here is the myth. The difference between him and us is nominal. He has just followed his sin closer to its logical conclusion. I am not questioning the construct of law, or advocating leniency on crime. Far from it. I am questioning the construct of the line. I am not saying that bad people are not really bad. I am saying all of us are bad people.

Consider someone who engages in sexual crimes. We live in a society that tolerates pornography and strip clubs. These things teach us that it is okay for us to make other people into objects for our pleasure. That our pleasure is more important than their dignity. What is the difference between this and a sexual crime? The act alone. The intention is the same. Or murder. To hate someone is to find their existence offensive, to wish that they had never been born. The only difference between this and actually ending the person’s existence is the act. The intent is identical. And in the difference between act and intent we convince ourselves of our own righteousness. But this is entirely false. We believe that our own inability to carry out our desires is counted as righteousness. We are wrong. We are simply ineffective in our evil desires. The fact that we are constrained by our own limitations is God’s mercy. Do not confuse this with any possible ’goodness’ on our part. We are simply not terribly good at being bad. And this is why societies can exist.

What is the difference between act and intent? Our legal system makes much of it. And this is a necessary distinction in a post-fall legal system. Intent cannot be punished on this side of eternity, because then there would be none who were innocent. But it is limitations and constraints, not some magical goodness that keeps intent from becoming act. First, there are practical limitations. Consider hate and murder. There is a good amount of logistics involved in actualizing that intent. Not to be macabre, but you would have to acquire a means, and protect yourself from your intended target’s means of defense. Perhaps this would convince us that it would not be worth the time, effort or danger. Death is the ultimate 'physics' check. If we could live forever, then even the most evil dreams could be brought to pass with enough patience. Second, there is the soft check of social conventions, the significance of the opinions of others. If we act in certain ways, others will disapprove of us, and perhaps will exclude us. Due to our desire to be accepted, we may constrain ourselves if we decide the benefits of our actions do not outweigh the costs to our social networks. Finally, there is the hard check of the law, of imposed penalties. In this check, physics and social checks are combined. Social conventions are armed with the power of death and pain, to be applied to transgressors. Fear of the gallows may arrest our evil desires, if nothing else will. Notice that each of these three layers have different (and progressively more restrictive) lines associated with them. (I.e. you may receive disdain for spreading rumors out of hate, but you will not merit the wrath of the law.) But the principle remains the same. These constraints hold us back. They are not built in, we have to create them. So there is nothing in us that is good. Only things that hold us back from being bad.

We are complex beings. We are a mix of potentiality and actuality. The important part of Aquinas to this discussion is the fact that we as complex beings can have both act and intent, and have them be different. God is a simple being. He simply is. There is no mix of act and intent in Him. Everything He desires He does to the highest degree logically possible. There are no constraints on Him. For Him to intend to do is for Him to do. There is no differentiation between act and intent for an infinite being, for there is nothing to constrain the desires of the Omnipotent. This spells death to the idea that we are good. If there were nothing to check us, no constraints on us, then our intent would be act. Every hateful thought would be murder, if there were nothing to stop us. If you could do it with a thought, if nobody would think less of you, if there were no consequences, then hate is exactly the same as murder. Then every sin would be followed to its logical conclusion. And this is why we are terrified of the prospect of omnipotence. Because if we could do whatever we wanted, we would make hell. Remember the book Sphere. We cannot handle omnipotence. We cannot leave behind our checks and constraints. Because somewhere deep down, we know what would happen. If we were to ascend to the throne of the Most High, we would create hell. There is nothing in us that is good. (To follow a rabbit trail, Terminator also touches a deep historical fear of ours… that the creation would rebel against its creator. This story scares us because we know it so well.)

Let’s return to the lines. The lines exist as a check on our evil. This is not to say that the lines are bad. The only post-fall governance that works is one of the gallows. We must remember that the law does not make us good, it only stops us from acting out our evil desires. If we continue to move the lines, to blur them, we will eventually move them past a critical level of sin. At that point, the society will no longer be able to maintain itself. In this is the rise and fall of societies. The dragons grow with time. They convince us they have been tamed. But thyey never forget who they are. The death that is a check on the individual then becomes the check ont he society, through its own choices. We invite our own destruction as we move the boundary stones. As we push these lines, as we blur them, we will surely reap the consequences. We construct the scales we are weighed on. We pronounce judgment upon ourselves, and we are our own executioner. Violence in the womb leads to violence in the streets. The dragon grows, and its bite becomes more dangerous. Its tantrums become more destructive. This is true for any sin we tolerate. It will not be tamed. So the lines must be made clearly, and they must not move.

Laws must have an origin beyond mere human sentiment, human interest, or even human necessity if they are to remain fixed. Only by remembering the Law-giver can the law stay true to its intent. Without Him, the law drifts into vice, and the dragons are let out of their cages and put on leashes. Only by keeping our eyes fixed on Him will we keep the lines of the law fixed. His law is merciful. It safeguards us from ourselves. The law is only half of the solution. The lines can only keep the dragon in check. A small and malnourished dragon is less of a threat, btu the law cannot kill it. Even if we legislate every sin away, sin will resurface somewhere else, and pride will destroy a civilization as surely as any other sin. The best that a perfect law can give us is a stalemate. When that perfect law was given, we could not keep it. We are the problem. Our evil hearts are the natural habitat for the dragons. We need to given new hearts. This is not an naswer we can find inside ourselves. Someone greater brought the law of death. It will take Someone greater to bring the law of life. (To be continued in Death and Rebirth...)

23:35 Posted in Boring Theories (Social Sciences) | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this

27 August 2006

How to call yourself 'Open-Minded' and still believe whatever you want. (An exercise in philology.)

I’ll actually (and uncharacteristically) cite my sources on this one. Don’t expect footnotes. First, CSL’s essay ‘Bulverism,’ from God in the Dock. Then, some general thought from Hegel and Marx. Also, 1984 (whose author and I share the same last name. Not the pseudonym’s last name.) And, most importantly, a guy by the name of S. Torres. Who is really smart. And knows some pretty good restaurants. Probably some other people I forgot too. Note: this is written as caricature. If you can’t read it with a sense of humor, don’t read it at all. After all, how seriously can you take anything written by somebody who thinks that spray paint and Fight Club style mischief should be legitimate tools of statecraft?

Subvert the Dominant Paradigm. The first step to being open-minded is to subvert the dominant paradigm. This means that you must determine what the over-represented viewpoint is, and advocate for the opposite view. Since the dominant viewpoint is over-represented anyways, you don’t have to try to understand it, or allow it to be considered in any arguments. You, as the open-minded one, represent the squelched viewpoints, and you have the license of a revolutionary in advocating them. Since the dominant paradigm is already presented, you only have to present your side. And here is the key. You get to decide what the dominant paradigm is. Therefore, you should decide that the dominant paradigm just happens to be the polar opposite of whatever you already happen to believe. That way, you get to be open-minded, and just believe whatever your prejudices and stereotypes are, without having to waste your time with any difficult and annoying counter-arguments. Note: you don’t have to base your dominant paradigm claim in any statistical data. This is particularly useful in remaining ’open-minded’ in fields which are already 90% ‘open-minded.’ The dominant paradigm can always be redefined at will and convenience. You can even redefine it, if your belief preferences happen to change.

Hypothesize a Future to Justify Present Actions. This is especially useful if you decide to use the term ‘progressive.’ The key is to imagine whatever future you want, and use that future to justify whatever actions you want right now. After all, in the light of a Utopian future, pretty much any actions are acceptable to bring it about. Once we all arrive at that future, we will understand that the sacrifices necessary to get there were worth it. You must remind yourself that history will vindicate you. Do not let yourself be encumbered by the thought that the term ‘progressive’ was applied to other ideas (I.e. Communism, Eugenics) that did not pan out. Also, make sure you blame the tremendous costs incurred in the pursuit of those futures on someone else. Ignoring the past is the best way to go about this. After all, their future was not your future. They were wrong, but you are right. Assure yourself that they did not think the same things. Label any opposing arguments as ‘reactionary,’ and dismiss them without consideration. After all, in the future where you are vindicated, these arguments will have long since passed away, and hence they are not worthy of your time.

Claim to Represent a Group. An individual can only speak for themselves, but a representative can bring the power of a group to bear. Therefore, claim to be speaking for a group. Note that you do not actually have to represent that group in any way to claim to represent it. If you happen to be already associated with a group, present your personal beliefs to others as the beliefs of the group. This usually works better if you are presenting it to non-group members. If a non-group member questions your credentials, then accuse them of not understanding, and being racist, or sexist, or whatever other -ist you want. If a group member questions you, then question their allegiance to the group, or even their membership in the group. It is right to marginalize someone who doesn’t understand what the group really wants. They are probably sell-outs anyways. After all, if they really cared about the group, they would have reached the same conclusions as you. If you are faced with statistics, then claim that the community just needs to be educated on the issues, and you are still equipped to speak for them, because you understand how things really are. If they knew what you know, or were as smart as you, they would all agree with you too. Remember, you represent what the people would want if they knew what they really wanted. (Reference KSG Montanez-Gomez argument re ‘The right to choose is very important to the Hispanic community…’ ‘Yes, that is true. The community is pretty much totally against it.’… ‘Well, they just need to be educated on the issues.’) You do not even need to be a group member in order to claim to represent them. This generally only works if you have some spurious connection to the group, such as having lived somewhere for a few weeks, or having attended a multi-cultural festival, or perhaps having watched a documentary on public television. If anyone questions the legitimacy of this connection, then call them imperialist, ethno-centric, or tell them that they just don’t understand other cultures. Beware of using this if actual members of the group are nearby. If members of the group are nearby and disagree with you, you may have to dismiss them as outliers (even if they are your entire sample size,) or you may have to remind yourself that you know what is best for them. After all, you are the enlightened one, and if they were smart like you, they would know what they wanted too.

Argue Correctly. You must always remember the correct technique for arguing. You must start with the assumption that you are right. You can let no data, no counter arguments, no new thoughts assail this assumption, for you represent the future, and the future cannot be stopped. Accordingly, you should gather all arguments that support your previous assumption and throw them shotgun-style at your adversary. Give no thought to coherence between arguments, nor attempt to create a logical stream of argumentation. Just say things that support your conclusion. If people aren’t coming around, they may just be slow to understand. Therefore, you must repeat your argument. Do not attempt to change or refine the argument, this may confuse the listener and impede your attempt to enlighten them. Also remember that you are smart, well informed, and well intentioned. Therefore, anyone who reaches different conclusions than you must be either unintelligent, poorly informed, or a bad person. If you have stated your shotgun arguments multiple times and they have not changed their mind, then they are not poorly informed, as you have just informed them. Perhaps they are unintelligent. You should then cite your various justifications (degrees work well here) for why you are qualified to think for them. If they do not accept this, and provide a seemingly cogent counter-argument, then only one option remains. They are bad people. Perhaps they are just looking out for the rich and powerful (you must forget that many of the rich and powerful may be on your side, which of course could not be the case, for you are subverting the dominant paradigm,) perhaps they don’t want to understand, perhaps they just hate other people. Regardless, they are bad people, and therefore you should not validate their actions at all, certainly not by hearing what they have to say. Remember, as well, that you define the ground rules for the argument, just as you define the future. Give your side the benefit of every doubt. If there is no doubt, create it. Conspiracies work well for this. Make sure the opposing side is held to account for all of its nefarious actions and intentions. Even if these accusations are little less than slander, remember that accusations make headlines and retractions are on buried on page five, and falsehood does little to detract from repeatability. After all, you must not concern yourself with outmoded absolute concepts of truth, but with the future. The future will bring its own truth, which will vindicate you.

Never Consider Close-minded Viewpoints. The most important thing you must remember is to remain truly open-minded, you must shut out all close-minded viewpoints. You may conveniently label all opposing viewpoints as close-minded. If you entertain close-minded thought, you will find that they spread. You may find yourself dismissing viewpoints that you may come to call ‘contradictory,’ ‘illogical,’ or ‘wrong.’ You must especially avoid this last word ‘wrong,’ as this implies some sort of absolute truth. Use the word ‘problematic’ instead. The only way to ensure that these close-minded thoughts do not fester is to block them out. You must absolutely and unequivocally state that there is no absolute truth. Remind yourself that the other side is totally illegitimate, as it is close-minded. Never learn about the close minded side. Never let yourself believe that they may have a point. Never try to understand their point of view. And certainly never learn to argue the issue from their side. Silence your opposition, drown them out, for their viewpoint is dangerous, and must not be allowed to infect the open minded. Finally, remember that your open-mindedness must be passed on to the next generation by keeping all close-minded thought out of any academic institutions. Reactionary, counter-revolutionary thoughts must not be welcome, for you own the future, and you must ensure that we get there, by any means necessary.

And this is where labor camps come from.
Final reference: The Road to Serfdom.

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25 August 2006

Practicalities.

So there are more prayers that I feel He has given me. More things I have felt when most at peace with Him. I don’t know how much sense they will make, but I will share them nonetheless. The first thing I felt, a couple of days ago, was about waiting for her. The question was, ‘how long will you wait?’ And I felt my answer was, ‘I will wait as long as it takes, I will wait as long as You let me.’ There is a prayer that goes with that one as well. If she will never walk this path, then I ask Him to take this from my heart entirely. To focus that sense of destiny, of wonderment upon someone who can walk that path. Someone who would appreciate it. Someone who would consider my love a blessing, not an insult. He has not done that yet. I will keep praying.

Another prayer was to ask God to fight for her. My hands are weak. I cannot save her. But He can. There are clearly parts of her heart she has not faced, parts of herself she is afraid of. He loves her. I ask Him to fight for her. Whether or not He chooses me as an instrument for that prayer, I pray. Whether or not, after He wins all of her heart, He chooses to give it to me, I pray. This is my prayer. That she would find freedom. For the first step to her setting a people free is being freed herself. But even the very wise cannot see all ends. And I am hardly one of those.

There was one more prayer, one that took my breath away. I saw an image in my mind, one I had seen before, of walking on water. Having walked through the storm, and still found the water firm beneath my feet, I kept walking toward Jesus. And glancing to the side, I saw someone else walking on water toward Him. And I knew that I would start drowning if I looked at her. But if I kept walking toward Him, we would meet there. So I will keep my focus on Him and I will keep walking.

One consideration I have not addressed is one of practicalities. Were God to answer my prayers, what would it look like? What would the humiliation of myth into fact, its exaltation into reality, look like here? How could this actually occur between two people with such a, how to say, unique past? This is a flight of fancy. Not the hope. The hope is in God. But the idea about how it would occur. I am not the author. I am a character. So I don’t think the story will play out the way I plan, certainly it hasn’t so far. But it was intriguing, if unproductive, thinking about it. Here are some of those thoughts.

I think that the story (and the characters) would be relaxed. Far more relaxed than any other time. Because this time, I am secure that God’s will is going to be done. Even though I cannot know that will totally, I can relax in the thought that all will for the good if I am passionately following Him. In His will, I find the room to relax, to let go of control. To quit trying so hard to say and do everything perfectly. Instead of having perfect words, I would have my words. Which I would hope would echo His words. So in His hands, I find the room to breathe. I think, this relaxing toward her would happen before God would bring her and I together, if He were to do so. And if it were His will that she and I would be together, He would make it happen, even despite both of our silly and foolish actions. This is especially strange, given the level of emotion that is in my prayers. But in those prayers, I have found that in seeking Him first, all the other things seem to fall into place. Even if you don’t have the perfect words all the time.

I think there would probably be a reconciliation period. Where we rebuilt trust, both between ourselves and between us and the significant relationships of the other. There would need to be, I think, after the initial meeting a time where we talked together, talked about some of the things that had gone wrong between us, and reconciled with each other (forgiveness, contrition, then reconciliation.) Time where we approached God, first individually, and then together, about His will concerning us, whether we should talk or not, and if so, whether he was leading toward platonic friends, or as intentional friends (reference previous Honor email.) Then, I think, there would be a time where I established relationships with her friends, and her with mine, where they could get to know each of us in harmony, not in the car-wreck symphony of the past. I would want to be intentional, I think, about getting to know the people who she cares about and who care about her, as a function of getting to know her again for the first time. And I would want to equally intentional in listening, trying to understand her on her terms. And in meeting her there. And over time, God willing, trust would be rebuilt with both of us.

If we were to become intentional friends, I think that it would be slow, but deliberate. I would want to fast and pray with her, to ensure we were in the center of His will. If I cannot find her in the center of His will, I will not wrestle Him for her. And if she cannot find me in the center of His will, I would do her no favors to ask her to continue. If she and I both felt His leading to proceed to something romantic, I would find great delight in finding ways to win her heart. I would want to discover the ways that she wants to be loved, and love her in those ways. Ideas like roses and poems, all the things of stories would fill my heart. I will not describe these ideas. I intend to save them for the woman that God gives me, whether He answers my prayer that He would change her heart, or whether He answers the prayer that He would change mine. So I suppose my flight of fancy ends here.

This is only a thought of what my hopes realized might look like. Perhaps God will change my hopes and desires. Perhaps He will meet those desires in ways I cannot yet imagine. Perhaps things are in motion that cannot be undone. I’ve pretty much got it wrong so far, but that’s what keeps the story interesting. You never know what’s behind the next page.

This is the last post I put together before my fast on talking about her began. I offer that up to God as part of my relaxing on this thing. Because if your hands are clenched tight, He cannot put anything in them.

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24 August 2006

Forgiveness and the Laying Down of Arms

Note: I wrote this, along with tomorrow's post, before my fast on talking about her. Blessings. D.

One of the themes of the movie series Alien is that when we seek to harness terrible forces to defend ourselves, to expand our control, those forces can take on a life of their own. Their destructive power cannot be harnessed, and will destroy those who seek to harness it. The movie, in its historical context, alludes to nuclear weapons. The same, though, can be true of all the means we have to keeping ourselves safe. All the stories that we refuse to forgive, refuse to let go, those long knives we pick up when we feel threatened, they all give us leverage when things come to blows. And this is why it is so hard to lay them down… to forgive is to lay down arms. Without them, we are defenseless and naked. But we cannot trust to these long knives to keep us safe. Our arsenal consumes us, the cost of its maintenance is our very heart. When we keep the past as a weapon, we can never move beyond it.

I remember the old story, the broken symphony between C and I. It is a story that I have told far too often. I remember the retelling, every wound, every slight. And I remember the responses. I remember how the listener would side with me. Would tell me she was wrong. Would tell me how she played me. And I would say, ‘she didn’t mean to, maybe she didn’t realize it.’ And the listener and I both would tell me how nice I was to think well of her after all she had done. And I would feel vindicated. This, I think, is why I retold it. It was good to hear people side with me. To hear people say that I was right and she was wrong. They became the jury. And she was found guilty, time and again. The past became my weapon, my way of leveling the scales against her. My way of hurting her back for the ways that she had hurt me. But in the use of this weapon, the weapon itself was turned against me. In order to wield it, I could never move beyond the past.

This is why we do not want to forgive. Because we would have to let go of the past, and without the past, we would be defenseless. Strangely, once I finally told the story to her, in all of its fury, I no longer wanted to tell it. It had been told, and told to the person to which it needed to be told. There was no real reconciliation, but it was told. I finally did what I was supposed to have done. I finally forgave, finally let go. And the past has become the past. (Note: this is not to say that it is inherently bad to retell a story. I have told it to several friends who keep me accountable with my actions regarding her. But my intentions in telling them are to honor God and her with my actions, no longer to make the past a weapon.) So the past is past. Not forgotten, but stripped of its fire, stripped of its venom. It should have done far before that. I was afraid, I think, that if I confronted her, we would never talk again. And that did, in fact, happen. There was nothing left between us after the confrontation. But perhaps, that meant that there was nothing between us before the confrontation, and I was afraid to see it. I was fighting that there would be something between us (not just romance, I would have liked to be her friend. But I was carrying the weight of the friendship.) I was fighting so hard, but I felt as if she was not fighting at all. As if she felt the relationship, whether friends or whatever, was not worth the fighting for. I felt that the relationship was balanced on the edge of a knife, and could not endure such a confrontation. I was right. This changes nothing. We dishonored each other by pretending that there was no past when so much of the past was openly unreconciled. This was more my fault, I think, because I was the one holding on to the relationship. But there can be no future for something where the past is always the present.

This is true for peoples as well as for individuals. Consider the Balkans. The past is always present. The region’s primary export is history, as it makes too much for its own consumption. Ask the Austro-Hungarian Empire about that one. But the past takes the space reserved for the future if it is not confined to its proper place. It is true that if we forget the past, we are doomed to repeat it. That said, we are equally doomed to repeat it if we are determined to never move beyond it. But to forgive the offenses of the past is to lay down your weapons, which is a daunting prospect when faced with a wall of spears. When you are attacked by the past, you will have nothing with which to respond. So we cling to the past. And this is why we stay broken. There have been great wrongs in the past. But the cruelest of wounds are the ones so deep that the brokenness is confused for identity. Where because of the wounds, we find ourselves reliving them. Where generations later, the cycle continues because the past has stayed present. And here is the fall, all the interlocking cycles of brokenness that keep us all enslaved. They all echo back. All our wounds. All of us are Adam, accusing Eve of offering us the fruit. Or we are Eve, accusing Adam of not defending us. And we never let go of the other person’s culpability in the fall, because if we do, they will be able to lay the entirety of the blame on us. So because of this, this whole fallen world looks backwards. For all of our vaunted progress, we do not have it within ourselves to move forward.

We must trust to defenses greater than our own if we are to abandon ours. Many a valiant effort has been made to be good, to move beyond ourselves. When things begin to not work out, when we are attacked because we have become weak by laying down our arms, we hear our own Gollum, whispering, ‘this is why you need me, Smeagol…’ Because of this, we rarely move beyond simple truces. I will suspend my accusations if you suspend yours, which whispers that if you pick your weapons back up, I will rearm myself. We need to surrender, not find truces. But to whom should we surrender? There must be something or Someone bigger that we are looking to for vindication if we are to abandon the hope of vindication through our own power. We must hope that there is something better than détente possible. Something better than a balance of fear. We must believe that wounds can be healed. We must believe that people can be reconciled. We must believe that, in the words of Job, our Redeemer lives.

There is a difference between reconciliation and excusing. To reconcile is to face the wrong, forgive it and move beyond it. To excuse is to explain away the wrong, to hide it with rationale. There are reasons we prefer excusing to seeking reconciliation. First, it is easier. You avoid much confrontation and risk if you explain and excuse away the others actions. Yet, excuses never remove the offense. And excuses cause the pain to metastasize into other, equally destructive expressions. Second, and most importantly, we hope that if we excuse others, we may be excused. That we may actually get away with telling God that all our wrongs were not really wrong. By excusing the wrongs, we hope to deny the concept of real wrong. We say things like ‘one man’s freedom fighter,’ and things of the sort in the hope that all actions can be explained away without using the term wrong. (Reference previous discussion on the term ‘problematic.’) We relegate the term wrong away from reality and into fiction, into the news. Into what is ‘really wrong,’ which is never our wrongs. And this is why when Jesus was talking about the word Raca equaling murder, He found such resistance. Because we are afraid of the word wrong. Because we know it applies to us. But excuse others that ye may be excused is infinitely different from ‘forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.’ It is the difference between burying the weapons, for the later use in the insurgency, and actually destroying your stockpiles.

There is a cycle to forgiveness. Rather, forgiveness is part of a larger cycle of reconciliation. This is as true between God and us as it is between ourselves and each other. The cycle starts with the wrong. The wrong is inflicted on the other. If the other chooses to forgive, then they are freed of the wrong. Then, in this tennis match, it comes to the one who hurt the other. He may choose contrition. He does not have to, just as the other does not have to forgive. But if he doesn’t, he is not free of the wrong. If he chooses contrition, then him and the other both come back together in reconciliation. Note that the forgiver does not wait for contrition to forgive. Forgiveness is unconditional. Reconciliation is what is conditional. And without both forgiveness and contrition, the relationship cannot be restored. And this is the accounting of reconciliation.

Here is me entering into that cycle. Here are my wounds. Here are my weapons of history. Here are the wrongs. Three of them, two subtle, and one direct. I cannot not wield the weapon of mixed signals and miscommunication, as it is a difficult weapon to wield, something that can be considered an honest mistake, something that I am guilty of in other stories. The sharper edges, the weapons easier to wield are the stories where the other was clearly wrong. In disarmament, you must account for your weapons before you destroy them. So here is the accounting of the three sharpest blades in my arsenal.

Number one. Sometimes the cruelest wounds are the most subtle. The wounds of a Grima, the ones that slip below the skin before you really realize they are there. I had driven 10 hours to the city where C lives, to watch Narnia with her. And during and after the movie, she described in tremendous detail a guy friend of hers to whom she was witnessing. She described many things he had said, with a degree of adoration, revealing a deep emotional intimacy and deep care she had for him. The thing was that this guy, who she clearly cared about deeply, was openly homosexual. Stop for a second. Before you accuse me of homophobia, allow me to explain myself. First, I view homosexuality as wrong. But I view heterosexual lust as wrong as well. And I totally believe with all my heart that God loves people who practice homosexuality, and that we should as well (I have said prayers for that friend of hers.) Second, I do not resent her deep care for her friend, and certainly not her desire to see him saved. But this is the thing. I had undertaken extraordinary efforts to come and spend time with her. She knew that I had been romantically attracted to her in the past. It was fairly obvious that I was fighting back that attraction in order to be her friend. And while watching this movie that was very emotionally significant to both of us, she spends her time not only talking about another guy, but a gay guy. This sends a distinct message: ‘Not only do I reject you, but I would prefer to be intimate with a guy who cannot be attracted to me than with you.’ This I had not seen immediately, as I was overjoyed to have spent time with her in the first place. But it set in later. I do not resent that she was not attracted back to me, for that is her choice. But to choose to talk about those things in that way, I would hope that if I were friends with a girl who was attracted to me, I would consciously choose not to describe in adoring detail another girl who had no desire whatsoever of returning my affections. To do so would be to tell her likewise: ‘not only are you not good enough, but I’d rather throw away my love than give it to you.’ Even if I felt that way, I would hope that I would not feel obliged to share it with such a person, I would hope that I would guard their heart. But in this, my own words accuse me.

Number two. Wounds that continue to bleed can be just as deadly as direct attacks. In the deepest conversation we ever had, one toward the end of when we were talking, I told her that if what I said caused her to not be able to talk to me anymore, I would accept that. I told her that if she did not want to interact with me anymore, that was her choice. I will not tell what was said in the course of the conversation, but I laid myself open emotionally to fight for parts of her heart. I took some pretty significant risks with a relationship that meant a great deal to me. And when we had said what needed to be said, she told me that she did want to be my friend. That I had honored her with the things I had said, and she wanted to keep talking. I told her there were other things we needed to talk about, things about her and I and the way we interacted. She seems to process things internally, so I told her that I would wait for her call, when we would talk more. I had hoped by taking a step back, I would allow more room for reciprocity (I was trying too hard, of course.) She told me she would call. Over the next week, I read an anthology of books from authors we both liked, in anticipation of talking to her. And that week became two. And weeks became a month without hearing anything back. And at some point, what I had hoped was contemplation became apathy. Became disregard, and all the other things that were broken between us. I ended up emailing. If she had not intended to care, not intended to call back, she was free to say so. I asked her if she wanted to walk away. She should have said yes. Because even though she was still theoretically present, she had walked away a long time ago.

Number three. The attack. This wound was the most honest. Honest wounds from a friend, so it says. I don’t know about the friend part, but there was no deception in them, for that was the first time she abandoned all self-deception concerning me. This wound has been discussed at length.

Even in the retelling, I am reminded of Till We Have Faces. How I am so guilty as well. How I am a part of these things, even as I accuse her. How my accusation accuses me as well. How in the presence of Christ, they do not compare to what I have done to Him. So I abandon these sharpest of edges, for they cut me as much as they ever could hurt another. And all they would hurt are His children, they are nothing against our real enemy. I abandon them as I am embarrassed by their inadequacy, embarrassed by their inability to justify me, to vindicate me, to defend me. May these three stories never be told in anger again. May they never be used as weapons. I drop my weapons. I will no longer wield them. In the face of her accusations, I drop all counter-accusations. I trust to God to vindicate me. I still believe that something amazing is possible here.

Reconciliation is possible. A miracle is possible. I am sure that there are things I need to apologize for. I probably cannot see them until I am confronted with them. The same is likely true for her. But in this, the old story is done. And as the old story passes away, it makes room for a new one. So in this I return to my hope, as He still gives me the strength to hope. That we will meet again for the first time. Where all the past will be past, the future ahead, and the present always new. Where today has never happened before.

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22 August 2006

Studying Sociology and Latin America (By Accident.)

So in one of the continuing ironies of this story, I find myself in the course of personal and professional studies learning about both Cultural Anthropology and Latin America. This was unexpected. In a way a comic irony… one of the things I had said in the last less than pleasant parting was that ‘it will be as if we had no past, only lessons learned… after all, what commonality could there be between [what I do] and [what she does.]’ It seems, as usual, that things did not turn out as I expected. In the course of doing what I do, I have had more classes in her area of expertise than while I was in grad school. And in the course of doing what she is doing, she ends up studying a place where my area of expertise is of critical concern. That didn’t quite go the way I thought. I was partially right, though. That it would be as if we had no past. Everything that needed to be said was said. The prayer is that we meet again for the first time. And two people meeting for the first time have no past. I am enjoying my studies, though. I do wish that she and I could have been reconciled before this executive course. I think she would have enjoyed it as well.

The class is fascinating. Brilliant lecture by Prof. Miguel Angel Centeno of Princeton. Would discuss, but non-attribution and all. His book, however, is not non-attribution. Blood and Debt: War and Statemaking in Latin America is an intriguing view on national identities and historical narratives. Open Source Papers are also not non-attribution. And this one is pretty good. And encouraging… that even old rivalries can be forgotten, at least for a while…

The Origins of Security Cooperation in the Southern Cone
Joao Resende-Santos
Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 44, No. 4, (Winter, 2002), pp. 89-126.

Another admittedly simplistic point. As simple (and over-simple) an answer it is to blame American intervention for the problems of Latin America, consider El Salvador. The Salvadorian government prevailed in their civil war not because the United States provided better weapons, but because the United States advisors pushed the Salvadorian military to follow the traditional laws of armed conflict. With a decrease in human rights abuses, the insurgency lost much of its momentum. Also consider that once someone is provided with training, they retain their free will. Reference News Clip about the Zetas. Remember that we as humanity veered from our advertised purpose as well.

In another certain irony, the American political party which has traditionally championed democracy over dictatorship finds itself having to advocate against democracy in its fervor to oppose every policy of the current administration. I find this especially humorous, given that I respect the current administration. Especially his very unpublicized policies dramatically increasing aid to Sub-Saharan Africa, and doing it in ways that no longer resemble patronizing colonial guilt. But that is a topic for another time…

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A Step Back...

Friends,

I have a few more things to say about my continuing story, a few more things you might find useful, but I feel led to take a step or two back for a while from sharing it. I'll post everything I have already written over the next few days, but then I will take an intentional break from talking about it online for a week. Perhaps longer. This is about a lot of things. It is about yielding control. This thing must run its course. And I am free to yield my hopes into God's hands. So I wait on Him.

Perhaps there is just one story. Perhaps all of our stories are intermingled. I don't know. I don't have any good answers to that, other than God is good. So I will trust in that and in Him. May God greatly bless you all.

Dave

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Phoenix

I am perfect.
Untouchable, unconstrained, flawless.
Perfect crystal lines, form beyond grasp;
I am ethereal.
My veins run blue with lightning,
Its energy complete within me.
It arcs behind my eyes.
I am complete.

I am broken.
Overcome, overwhelmed, shattered.
Ragged, torn edges, chaos without form;
I am corporeal.
My opened veins pour out red,
My life draining to the ground.
But fire smolders yet.
I am growing.

I am alive.
Reborn, restored, alive.
Sculpted, rounded form, flesh and spirit;
I am now real.
Lightning returns to my veins,
Blood pumps energy and life.
Fire burns behind my eyes.
I am strong.

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21 August 2006

Myth

I sent these to her two years ago. They ended up, I think, being more true for me than they were for her.

'From Poetic Myth to Humble Fact

The essential meaning of all things came down from the 'heaven' of myth to the 'earth' of history. In so doing, it partly emptied itself of its glory as Christ emptied Himself of His glory to be Man. That is the real explanation of the fact that Theology, far from defeating its rivals by a superior poetry, is, in a superficial but quite real sense, less poetical than they. That is why the New Testament is, in the same sense, less poetical than the Old. Have you not often felt in Church, if the first lesson is some great passage, that the second lesson is somehow small by comparison - almost, if one might say so, humdrum? So it is and so it must be. That is always the humiliation of myth into fact, of God into Man; what is everywhere and always, imageless and ineffable, only to be glimpsed in dream and symbol and the acted poetry of ritual becomes small, solid - no bigger than a man who can lie asleep in a rowing boat on the Lake of Galilee. You might say that this, after all, is a still deeper poetry. I will not contradict you. The humiliation leads to a greater glory. But the humiliation of God and the shrinking or condensation of the myth as it becomes fact are also quite real.'
- "Is Theology Poetry?," CSL.

You seemed to have a sense of weariness, one beneath sheer physical tiredness, more a frustration that dreams and labors did not overlap as much as you wished they would. It was as if you were asking for the clouds to break once and a while; trying to will pieces of dreams to take shape through sheer desire and struggle. As if you were in the desert land between dreams and fulfillment, in that place where hope and faith are food. That is where I spent my last year. I have dreams beyond the current capacity of this world to realize, and I live on hope and faith that somehow this path that I believe God has set me on will lead there.

It is after awaking from a dream that we feel the most tired, and at that time the dream feels the farthest away. Yet in awakening, we gain the capacity to realize the dream. It is then that the labors are the hardest, in that time without the end in sight. This is why faith and hope must inhabit the place between dreams and fulfillment. Even so, sometimes we find that dreams look different than we had imagined when they begin to take form. Unconstrained, we trail our hands through the ether as we tap into the deeper streams, weaving an amazing story in lightning and clouds. Yet when that story takes flesh, it may not look the same. It may lack the fireworks, it may lose its myth as we pour the dream upon the tangible. But it will gain one crucial thing it lacked. It will gain reality. We are creatures of flesh and spirit. Our dreams must then take on both to be realized. So in this, you reflect your Namesake. The Almighty, the One whose words set the universe in motion chokes out His breath as a newborn in a stable, all to become real to us. You are then no longer the Storyteller, but now the Carpenter. But you are a carpenter on a path of dreams. May hope and faith sustain you on that path.

Sometimes, you can feel the first whispers of a dream before it really begins to take shape. Job hears a whisper when he says that he knows his Redeemer lives. The dream truly takes shape to the prophet Isaiah, as he describes the Suffering Servant with all the thunder of prophecy. But it comes alive crying in a manger outside of Jerusalem.

I see more now than when I began to dream. I am becoming something that once had existed only in echoes in my heart. The lion cub knows something of what it is destined to be, it lives it out in its play. But what starts with a mew ends in a roar, as the thing becomes full grown. I was not there when the world was made. I cannot carve my own path. But I can walk the one set out for me. I was not ready when I began dreaming. But perhaps, it is the dreams that cause us to prepare. I am more ready now, even as more of the dream takes shape. It seems that the path comes more and more into focus as I become more and more the man who can walk it. The dream has not taken flesh yet. But it has moved from the whisper of Job into the thunder of Isaiah.

Allow me a few specifics. A few months ago, I was talking to a Chaplain, and in the course of the conversation, I accidentally (as I am apt to do) found that I had talked for ten minutes straight. Which was not the crazy part. The crazy part is when I was done, God reveals to me that I had just preached, totally extemporaneously, an entire sermon. And even crazier, it was good! And even crazier than that, I really totally enjoyed it, so much that I lost myself in it. In preaching, I got the same adrenaline rush that I get when flying. And it hit me… I could do this for a living and I would be totally happy doing that. I have never had any alternate career plans. I have never seriously considered doing something that was not flying airplanes. But it was like I was being called. Not for right now, more God letting me know what to prepare for down the line. I had heard Him say during training something to the effect of ’enjoy this, because you know I’m not going to let you do this forever.’ It was true. So, effect rather than cause, I remember that she had described herself as wanting to be a pastor’s wife. And it started to fit. So I talk to a friend of mine from undergrad and his wife about it. He went to MIT for grad school, and knew a lot of the same people from Cambridge, even though he and I were not there at the same time. His wife worked for YWAM for a long time, and she mentioned this ‘Missionary Trainer’ thing. Basically, you go in the field for a few years, then you come back home for a few years and you train other people. Then you go back to the field, continue, etc. So it totally hits me, that as dissimilar as her ( C) and my skill sets and social networks are, they would be perfectly complimentary in the missions field, especially to be missionaries in closed countries. I am learning Spanish and Arabic, and have taken recently a large number of cultural anthropology and regional studies classes. She is a Sociologist, and would be superb at missions work in closed countries. Both of us are adept at adapting to other cultures. Both of us are a little bit crazy. To live is Christ, to die is gain. Some of my professional skills, which I do not particularly care to discuss, being the internet and all, would be a great aid in serving as a missionary in closed countries. And both her and I are born teachers and leaders, and would be able to teach others the things that we had learned. This is the path that has taken shape so far.

Here is the thing. It does change things somewhat. Sort of by accident, I seem to have happened upon a career track that seems very promising. If I were to dream this dream, then I would have to change parts of that track, and give up certain possibilities to gain others that would be of far more use in preparing for missionary life. I feel passionate about providing for a family, and for this reason, I plan to stay in my career until I retire. At that point in time, children would be grown up enough to either attend high school with grandparents or accompany on the missions field. And of course, there are miracles and prerequisites that have to occur that are totally out of my control. And perhaps there are alternate paths, or other people that can walk that path. But this is the dream, wrapped in lightning, but with form. As I understand it now. Perhaps it will change, or I will change, but this is what I see now.

The hope, just like the hope of Simeon, is that the dream takes flesh. And perhaps, even as I am changing, she is changing. Even if the dream loses some of its lightning in the process, it becomes real. And so the woman I see now in incandescent light, lightning arcing off of her profile, becomes the woman who called Boston Air Traffic Control ’Mister Man.’ And the me I see trailing fire and moving mountains becomes the man who laughs awkwardly, almost inappropriately as he tells the girl that he likes her with whatever words he has available. But in this silliness, in this pedestrian foolishness, we become real. And you cannot hold the hand of a dream. Nor can you tell the image in the prophecy that you love her.

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20 August 2006

Wrath

I remember driving in my car, praying, the day Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was killed. There was something prophetic in the air, like something important had happened. Something tragic, but beautiful. Something somehow deeply true, deeply right. For many reasons, in the physical, I was glad to hear the news. Glad to hear for the American and Iraqi families who had lost sons and daughters, glad to hear for the families who would now not lose sons and daughters to that sociopath. But in the spiritual, there was a deeper, louder chord. One grave but strong, a foreshadowing of the Day of Judgment, where all men are faced with the glory of God, whether to their terror or to their tremendous joy. It was hard to explain, but brought water to my eyes. And somehow, I felt His sentence, that he never stopped loving that man, but he forced Him to choose. And His fury is just as passionate as His love, for they are the same. His wrath is swift and irresistible. God has plans for that land. I have no doubt of that. He comes back to claim His beloved. And the most dangerous place in the universe is between Him and His beloved.

Al-Zarqawi was as much a creation of God as any of us. God loved him as a child, as much as He loves any of us. Let me be clear on that. But here is the thing. That man spent his life torturing and killing others that God loved equally as children. At some point, he asked God to choose between how much He loved him and how much He loved the people he would have continued to kill. And choose He did. Perhaps this is an imperfect way of describing it, for we cannot force God to do anything. Imagine a river. If you let the river flow through you, it will just flow. But if you build a dam, at some point, that river will come crashing through your dam, destroying it and washing away much of the valley ahead of it. We cannot thwart God’s will. But we certainly can make it more painful for ourselves when His will comes to pass. We build the very scales upon which we our weighed. We are not judged according to our merits, for if we could, who could stand? But we do ask Him, as we continue to hurt others, which of us do You love more? And as we pile hurt and death on the other side of the scale, we may find that we have tipped them. And that is a very dangerous place to be.

King David loved all of his children. He loved the with the unconditional love of a father. When Absalom went rebel, he did not stop loving him. But as Absalom’s rebellion grew, he forced his father to choose what he loved more. He built the scales that weighed his father’s love for him against his father’s love for Israel. His father never stopped loving him. He never ceased to be his father’s son. But King David chose. And once he had chose, that choice could not be undone. God’s love is the same way. It will never cease. We will never cease to be His creation. But we can ask Him to choose with our rebellion. And choose He will.

Rebellion demands judgment, even if we do build the scales. God loves the families. God loves the victims. As passionate as His love is, His wrath is just as ferocious. They go together. Do not force Him to decide between you and them. You do so at your peril. But murder is not the only rebellion. And death is not the only expression of wrath. All sin is rebellion. Let’s speak of wrath in general now.

There is this argument which goes something to the effect of ‘I can forgive or ignore something somebody does to me. Why can’t God just get over it… if I can ignore sin, why can‘t He?’ We like to talk about out victimless crimes. We love to say how our sins aren’t really bad, because they’re not hurting anybody. Even if we do buy into the total libertarian construct, let’s see if these assertions hold up. Consider pornography and drugs. These are things we do to ourselves. We call them victimless. But by partaking in pornography, we sustain an industry which exploits vulnerable men and women, often seizing the most vulnerable, the most scarred. We tell a daughter of God that her only worth is in being an object for the pleasure of strangers. She is the victim, even if she chooses to be. No father should be at peace with someone who asked his daughter to do such things, even if she was willing. How much more angry, then, will her Heavenly Father be? Look at drugs. If some doctor decides that he will use white powder to deal with the stress of life, what is that to anyone else? After all, he’s only hurting himself. Except for the fact that the drug is produced somewhere. And the Columbian child of the coca farmer who finds their family expendable, subject to the whims of the cartels. And the family who finds themselves in a country held hostage by the FARC, sustained by money from the sale of those drugs. And all people in that country who deserve to have a country instead of a 40-year civil war, but have been denied one because of the consequences of North America’s insatiable demand for chemical escape. There are always victims from sin. If I want to sleep with whoever I want, what is it to anyone. What is it to the unborn child who dies due to the inconvenience of its existence? And so we only become more eloquent with our hypocrisy, dehumanizing or denying the victims of our crimes. The simple reality is that sin always hurts someone. It always hurts someone else, someone who God loves just as much as you.

And in this we find the reality and necessity of wrath. Imagine a man standing alone. If you go up to the man, and punch him in the face, he may choose to forgive you. In turning the other cheek, he proves that he is more of a man, not less. Now imagine that man with his family. If you were to approach man’s family, and try to punch his wife or children in the face, he will have you on the ground in a millisecond, pummeling your face into a bloody pulp. He would be less of a man, not more, if he turned away. This is the wrath of God. God, standing alone, turned the other cheek. He did far more. He gave His life, His body to be broken and mutilated by all of our hatred. But the wrath of God is the anger of the man protecting his family. God responds with the fury of a man protecting his beloved, for He is. We always sin against someone else He loves. We always sin against His children. So we should not be surprised when He responds as a man defending his child. Our actions demand wrath. We need to see that if we are to be forgiven. As Paul says, death had to come through the law, so that we could receive life in Christ.

What about compassion? The Angel of Death does not have less compassion. Rather, that angel has compassion for the victims as well as compassion for the cruel. To show apathy to the cruel is to show cruelty to the innocent. The Bible designates the governing authorities, and by extension, the military, as agents of wrath. God uses governments as his instruments to administer His justice. This was true, even for Rome, even in the midst of its tremendous injustice and cruelty. So I am an agent of wrath, as the verse goes, to strike fear into the heart of the evildoer. And in foreshadowing the day of judgment, as somber and final as that chord is, it still resonates with the glory of God. This is why I do what I do. The scriptures also say those that live by the sword die by the sword. This is true. As an agent of wrath, my place is more dangerous than many others. But my place is not the most dangerous. The most dangerous place in this world is to stand between the Most High and His beloved.

This is from a while ago. It is still true.

I hear so much talk about the 'safety' of one path vice another. It seems to me that there are two different views of safety. If safety is freedom from fear, our different views of safety are borne out of different fears. Both fear the loss of life, yet both fears are very different. One fears death, fears the cessation of breath; the other fears not living the life set out, fears the loss of the story we were meant to live. The first grasps at control, flailing to slow the inexorable progress of entropy, clenching each day as it slips through their fingers. The second surrenders control, drinking in each moment, spending each day to purchase as much life as they can. Between these two views of safety, I choose the latter. Death is a foregone conclusion, for birth is terminal in this world. Yet destiny equally inescapable, for the majesty of the story that is written for our lives is written on history and in the clouds. I know I will die one day, but I also know God has set out a path for me to live. I will then not fear the former, and I will choose to pursue the latter with and in Him. When I find myself in the center in the paths God has laid out for me, I am most alive. And when living life in its fullness, death holds no fear.

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19 August 2006

On Being Original

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it had been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” - CSL, Mere Christianity

There is a certain irony here. I am citing my sources in order to justify my plagiarism. (It’s funny. Really. At least to me.)

People seem to have this obsession with being original. It’s sort of funny. Everyone has the same obsession with being the first to think of something nobody’s ever thought of. Which, is, of course, very unoriginal. Like the kids who hate everything to be cool, because hating everything else allows you to be cool with the crowd who hates everyone else like you do. Originality is a by-product of something else. In the same way that love between friends begins not for the love itself, but rather due to some commonality. You can’t manufacture it, and if you try, it seems forced. It is when we become comfortable with our own thoughts, regardless of whether we were the first to think of them, that we actually begin to be original. Imagine if everyone had the goal getting from New York, to say, Washington. Probably, none of the journeys would be that different. This is especially true if, say, all the journeyers had gone to the same, or very similar film schools or art schools or Burning Man festivals, if they all belonged to the club of people fascinated by the original. So they all have the same, boring, repetitive journey, because their goal was to go to the same place. But imagine that all the journeyers, instead of caring if they got to Washington, went where their hearts led them. Then, and only then, would you get interesting, original journeys. Only then would those journeyers live stories no one had ever lived before. We try so hard to be original that originality slips through our hands. We can no more manufacture it than love.

This is not about originality and its discontents. I truly enjoy originality. But the thing is, the creative act is always an act of self-expression. It is an act of releasing something inside of you and expressing it to the outside world. So, therefore, in order to be original, there must be something new, something creative inside of you to express. And we cannot put something new inside of ourselves by our own power. This is what I mean by manufacturing. But we can be given something new, we can be taught how to be original. And who better to teach us to be creative than the Creator. Who is more original than the Origin of all things? So in seeking after Him we become something unique, more different and original than we ever were. And when we are ourselves original, then when we create, we create with originality.

For some reason, there is some idea that Christianity and originality cannot go hand in hand. Unfortunately, we have lent some credence to this by allowing our artistry to become cheap counterfeits of the world. But this is changing. Throughout history, some of the most brilliant and original artists and thinkers have learned their art from the Originator. We look at the waves, the chaotic motion of energy and the glory of a sunset. It would be an original man, indeed, who could begin to replicate that beauty. An original man who could begin to describe the paintbrush that painted the stars. And who better to teach than the Artist Himself. The fear, I think, is that in God all creativity is abandoned for the cookie-cutter and formulaic, that under the dominion of God art would become some sort of church-flavored Socialist Realism. But this is so far from the truth. Who better to fill an artist with something new than the only One who has ever made anything new?

There is in this, I think, some explanation for the feti$h with the twisted and perverse in the contemporary art world. If the highest good is deemed to be originality, in a world largely shut off from the source of anything new, the only way to do something that has never been done before is to sink lower than anyone has ever gone before. Originality becomes simple depravity if originality is served as a god. If you won’t allow the Maker of the building blocks to tell you how to build something no one has yet seen, your only other way of making something no one has yet seen is to put the existing building blocks in more and more misshapen shapes, shapes farther and farther from the original purpose of the blocks. The blocks are still there, but they become less and less recognizable. And here is the irony yet again. As they become less and less recognizable, they become all the same again. The quest for originality at any cost ends back at sameness.

I told a Civil Engineer friend once, ’May the God who made life from dust and clay teach you to build with dirt and stone.’ Only under the tutelage of the Master Artist can we learn to paint. And the more and more we become like Him, the better and more original our pictures become. Only in drawing in to the Origin can we become original.

12:35 Posted in Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this

18 August 2006

Simplicity (Pt. 2)

So I was reminded of why I was doing this last night. There are a couple of reasons, really. Like that a Fool’s Hope is not foolish, if you are being a fool for Someone greater than yourself. And that if I believe He said something, I believe He meant it. Like when He tells someone that their children will be counted in the same numbers as the sand or the stars, even when that someone‘s wife is barren. The stories I love the most are all about this Fool’s Hope. And this is why I am so stubborn about this thing. But that is not why I am doing this thing, nor why I started.

What this whole thing is about is about honesty. About desires. About simplicity. I want to be complete before God. I no longer want to show up at His feet piecemeal. There is a part of us, I think, that wants to come before Him clean and tidy. We want to have ourselves put together before we go to Him. Perhaps, this is why He needs to bring us to a point of desperation before we come honestly before Him. Somehow, there was part of me that wanted to be all Sunday School about Him, that only wanted to ask Him for things that I had already figured out, for things that already made sense to me. I wanted to be presentable, sorted out, professional, with my dossier and my presentations of what I wanted and why it was good, why it should be ‘authorized.’ And usually with courses of action. I wanted to approach Him, in some way, as a sponsor, not a father.

But you cannot be intimate with a sponsor. To be intimate is to share yourself with someone, all of you, all the broken and beautiful parts at once. To allow yourself to be real with someone, even if that means that you are not all put together. With Him, certainly, it is better to show up with all of your pieces, even if they don’t all fit together. The Creator is certainly more adept at putting all of our pieces together than we are. We are like a child playing with Legos. We put them together the best way we can, but we always have some left behind, some that just don’t fit. For Him to put us together, for Him to make us complete, we must allow Him to take us apart, to take out the bricks that don’t belong, to replace them with the ones that do belong, and to put our misplaced bricks where they need to go. We cannot be invulnerable with Him. We need to show up with all the bricks, even the ones that give lie to our completion.

The world teaches us not to do this. This world teaches us not to be real. To be real is to be hurt. We must be acceptable. We must make sense. We must show up on easily understood terms. The faultlines of our brokenness are where we will be attacked, so we must hide them at all costs. We must grow skin of steel, cold and impenetrable. But this is why intimacy is so important. If we never shed our skins of steel, they will permeate deeper and deeper, until our hearts are cold and unbreakable. And then, when we can never be touched, we are safe. Safe from heartbreak, safe from pain, safe from love, safe from life. We need to guard our hearts, surely. There is still the thing about the pearls and the pigs. We need to have defenses against the cruelty and brokenness of this world. But if we let our hearts die in order to keep them safe, the treatment has become worse than the disease. The only way to safeguard something from any possibility of being hurt is to kill it. Corpses are invulnerable. They’re also dead.

People quote Nietzsche’s ‘That which does not kill me makes me stronger,’ generally without understanding it. In this quote, he is talking about the idea of the Ubermensch, the Super-man, the man who can stand up to the world, who is no longer touchable by pain. To live is to be hurt. But as long as you are hurt, but are not killed, than you develop more defenses, more places where you cannot be hurt. Allow this to continue forever, and you have an invincible walking mass of scar tissue. Such a being would retain their will, but never be able to be hurt. Such a being would be unstoppable. Nothing could soften its heart, nothing could break its will, it would continue towards whatever purposes it saw fit. And in this, the comic book character seems to fit. The Man of Steel, the unstoppable iron will. Yet, even Superman needs to simultaneously exist as a vulnerable copy clerk. And Colossus needs to be able to put on normal skin. We know it doesn’t work. For a man of steel cannot have a heart of flesh. An untouchable juggernaut of will unfettered by love looks a lot more like our Adversary than any hero. That juggernaut would never be able to change, never be able to grow, for a seed must die to give birth to a tree. And something that can no longer change or grow is something that is no longer alive. Invincibility is the path to death. The path of life leads to a cross.

This is why intimacy is so very important. Intimacy gives the lie to our invulnerability. Those who know us best know how tremendously imperfect we are. Yet they love us nonetheless. They do not love us for being perfect. They love us for being us. And since they love us for being us, we are free to be ourselves with them. So the walls come down, the layered defenses are brought off-line, and we turn from men of steel to men of flesh. Our hearts come to life, they breathe. We fear intimacy, both because we are afraid of being hurt, and because we are afraid of being imperfect. To be intimate with someone is to allow them to see you as you are, a broken child of God under grace, a crooked soul doing your best to stand up straight. If you are not willing to see yourself in this light, you can never be intimate with another. And until you are willing to approach the throne of grace with all of you in your hands, even the parts that don’t fit, the parts that are inconvenient and confusing, then parts of you will remain dead.

And this is what this whole story is about. Bringing all of myself before God, holding all of me in my raised hands, and pouring all of myself into His hands. All the pieces that don’t fit, all the dashed hopes, all the crazy dreams, the good and the bad, the possible and the impossible, everything. All the Lego bricks that I have put together as I saw fit, along with all the blocks left over, ready to be torn apart and rebuilt into something more amazing that