general

Anything that’s not something in particular
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17
May 10

bigger than my body

Someday I’ll fly
Someday I’ll soar
Someday I’ll be so damn much more
Cause I’m bigger than my body gives me credit for

After listening to the thoughts of Desmond Tutu from my last post, I imagine God to still be inspiring writers to write profound thoughts that someday will be canonized into The Bible II.  The prophet John Mayer has spoken.

Desmond Tutu said this during a portion of a recent interview that dealt with his good friend, the Dalai Lama:

“Do you really think that God would say, ‘Dalai Lama, you really are a great guy, man.  What a shame you’re not a Christian.’  I somehow don’t think so.  I think God is just thrilled because no faith, not even the Christian faith, can ever encompass God or be able to communicate who God is.  Only God can do that.”

This flies directly in the face of what traditional theology teaches.  How many times have you heard, “No one may come to the Father, except through me,” which implies you have to come experience the Jesus that this brand of church is promoting before you can graduate to some distant heaven far away in the clouds.  In church we are taught about love and grace and mercy which flows from God in heaven – God IS love, after all – and yet when we see these traits in people who aren’t traditional God-heads, we puzzle as to how non-Christians can experience and show these traits.

Perhaps God is bigger than we, “his body”, give him credit for.

It’s human to want to compartmentalize – and put concepts in neatly and clearly defined mental boxes.  God is bigger than our mental boxes.  It’s tempting to think of God in terms of metaphor to put his character in terms of something that we can understand, but the problem here is that every metaphor quickly breaks down.

God is big.

But how to we reconcile the words of a book that says “no man comes to the father except though me” with a spirit and an understanding of Jesus that is so loving that he wouldn’t see anyone not be part of the family.

We’ve got one mechanism – it’s our choice.  Our go-to default position on this has been – “it’s a gift that is freely offered” and you’re stupid, dead, ignorant, irrational NOT to take it.  This functions, but doesn’t remove some of the callousness – God throwing his hands up and saying “The ball is in YOUR court – I’ve done all I can do.”

We sometimes tack on that not “accepting God’s gift” makes baby Jesus cry to handle this.

But, maybe, we’re starting in the wrong place – maybe we’re reading too much into the english translation of greek words that were written thousands of years ago. Perhaps instead of reading that Jesus is the only door that leads to the father so if you don’t accept his love prepare for eternal damnation we should read Jesus is the way through eternity and He has revealed himself to so many people in so many ways that everyone can have access.

It’s a much different interpretation that resolves the “only through me issue.”

You can’t own God.  But the Christian church (and to be fair, all of our faiths) have staked their claim.  My God does this.  You (lower-case g) god doesn’t.  We’re trying to contain the uncontainable.

Sure, this is heretical – I understand.  But how much more like Christ would it be to drop the us-and-them mentality, the “homosexuality is an abomination” approach to life, the drive for pious perfections and simply replace bad circumstances with good circumstances, and to replace good circumstances with better circumstances?

It is utterly irrelevant to me if when I die I was right or wrong.  I don’t care what heaven is like.  I’m OK with Zen-like questions surrounding my Christian faith.  I don’t need answers.  What I need is to express faith in practical ways by being friendly, sharing food, washing cars, giving money, hugging, and relating to people in completely unconditional terms.  I am motivated by a belief that we’re all created in the image of God and that your soul and mind and strength are equally as valid as my soul, and mind, and strength.

He’s bigger than His body gives him credit for.

general — 1 Comment
17
May 10

think really big

Desmond Tutu was recently interviewed on “Speaking of Faith.” (Download the MP3 of the interview here).  I’ve always felt a super natural connection to this man which until recently I had decided was due to what often happens when people find out that I am named Desmond.  There is a certain brand of dry wit that possesses some to point out that he and I share monikers by referring to me as one of the following names:

  • Desmond Too
  • Desmond Tutu
  • Desmond Tutu Too

After hearing him speak, I cannot help but imagine that my connection with him runs much deeper – asking some of the same spiritual questions and thinking some of the same spiritual thoughts.  This is not to place myself in, around, or near the same league as Desmond Tutu but, rather, to say that where his heart and soul and mind have already travelled I dream of going.

Tutus experiences with life during Apartheid in South Africa have certainly contributed to his perspective on the planet.  I have to admit that, prior to this interview, I had no real understanding about Apartheid other than to know it was a bad thing.  It is certainly on my radar now.  If you are like me in this regard, in short Apartheid was Church-sanctioned, politically-enforced white-supremacy – it literally translates as “apartness”.

From the interview:

When the Dutch Colonial Afrikaner Nationalist Party came to power in South African in 1948, it decreed white supremacy in perpetuity, codifying the policy of apartheid, which literally translates as “apartness.” Comprehensive separation and brutalization of the 80 percent majority population of non-whites became the law of the land.

Desmond Tutu grew up, like other black children, in a ghetto township marked by deprivation unlike the towns in which white children lived. He stresses that his childhood was not devoid of joy. Children adapt; he played with his friends. But there were many moments which he traces as early stirrings of his sense of injustice, experiences that reminded him and others, as he says, of their second-, third-, fourth-class citizenship, though they did not even have citizenship.

Tutu says that we are created for goodness – a concept I deeply believe in.  In the face of these injustices, his soul stirred with a general sense of awe, wonder, and hope that is completely encompassed in what has become a motto of his, that “God is in control.”  Perhaps it’s a coping mechanism?  Obviously, in the face of brutality and inequality it is comforting to think that “this, too, shall pass” and we’ll be reunited with our creator.  This is escapism, is it not? Tutu’s claim of almighty control, though, is more deeply rooted in a belief that the God of the hear and now has our best interests in mind.

He speaks of the first time he as able to vote and compares that experience with the general apathy of the west.  For westerners, voting is sometimes a chore, a duty, a responsibility that is sometimes done begrudgingly.  When Tippett asked Tutu to relay his feelings about the first vote that he had ever cast, he response was in the form of a quesiton:

“How do you describe falling in love?”

Tippett also asked him about his feelings about homosexuality – Desmond Tutu is well known in his church for holding very liberal, relatively speaking when it comes to such topics.  His response, at the time didn’t fully hit me – because I relate so closely to the views that Tutu holds, perhaps I simply assumed we were on the same page.  What I have since realized is that he’s is so much further through the book than I am, it’s incredible!

From the transcript:

Well, you know, there are, yes, many in Africa in the Anglican Church who hold views that I wouldn’t hold my self over this. And I’ve of ten said what a shame. I mean, really, what a disgrace that the church of God in the face of so much suffer ing in the world, in the face of conflict, of corruption, of all of the awful things, what is our obsession? Our obsession is not minister ing to a world that is aching. Our obsession is about sexual orientation. I’m sure, I mean, the Lord of this church look ing down at us must weep and say, “Just what did I do wrong now?”

Just what did I do wrong now?  What an incredible question to imagine God asking – not that the world is somehow unholy or not a part of the church – but that “God’s people” seemingly couldn’t care less about the suffering and aching and pain all around us and are more interesting in debating the relatively sin-liness of various social issues.

How can we who say that we’re children of God be so off base?  How could we have so clearly missed the point?

There’s something else that Desmond Tutu said . . . God is bigger than Christianity . . . that’s coming next.

general / goals — Comments Off
26
Apr 10

hump

Often, my days feel like hump days.  This is not to say that I feel like each day is Wednesday and I’m as far away from the weekend as I have ever been.

Rather, I feel like there is a large hump directly in front of me.

While the terms thinking and acting are not mutually exclusive, given that these terms represent somewhat opposing points on a philosophical scale I would be severely lop-sided.  In fact, I’ve just attempted to write that last sentence no less than seven separate times and I’m still not completely satisfied.

It is very much the case that I have a love-hate relationship with my pensive persona.  Thinking is an activity I highly recommend and I feel that if more of us did so (particularly before opening our mouths) more of us would be better off.  However, I also recognize that there is a great barrier that a thoughtful person has to overcome: inaction.  The inaction barrier keeps pens glued to the thoughtful person’s hand and buttocks glued to the thoughtful person’s chair.  ”Brilliance cannot be rushed!” is the justification that we thoughtful people like to invoke but, for me at least, this I feel like this inaction simply became me.  I didn’t choose to sit on the philosopher’s stone – rather circumstances plopped me down there and I haven’t been bothered to move since.

If you have been around here long enough, you may remember my thoughts on “active vs passive” – great lessons taught to me be a therapist somewhere along the way. Essentially, the discussion is summed up by saying that an active life is one in when you try to alter the circumstances to suit your spirit, and the passive life is when the circumstances alter you to suit them.

I am a thinker no because my spirit declared it so, but because I succumbed to a set of circumstances.  These “circumstances” have firmly fixed an inaction barrier in front of me made up of a combination of fear, a lack of confidence, laziness, and confusion.  I’m generally fearful of the unknown.  Only recently have I been able to develop any kind of baseline level of confidence that you would expect a 30 year-old man to have.  I’m not lazy, I just enjoy lingering moments of relaxation.  And, I’m not even sure where to start.

Take for example my “thoughts” about wanting to work to eradicate poverty (I’m starting small).  Of course this is no trivial matter, but let’s start this discussion assuming that I am approaching this from a neighborhood perspective – “What can I do just outside my front door?”  I have tons of thoughts on this – I’ve read about it, talked about it with other people, and wrote down some of these things.  But when it comes time to act, I almost couldn’t be bothered.  It’s not that I don’t care: I care deeply about this.  But my actions simply aren’t there – they’re practically non-existent.

Perhaps I’m thinking too practically about this.  I’m not saying that I don’t act when I see opportunities to or that I don’t seek out chances to do something.  Simply, I’m saying that more often than not, when I come home from work I’m happy to not be committed to doing something.

I have great “thoughts” that I want my life to mean something.  I want to have made an impact.  But my actions simply don’t seem to line up with this thought process.

Frankly, I don’t know where to start.  The socially-aware premise to state that it’s all about connections.  I don’t have (or don’t feel like I have) the connections to move from discussion to practical action and I don’t have the confidence to seek them out.  Right now, my fear wins out over my desire.  This is a tension-filled existence.

Granted, it could also be that I’m wired to be a thinker – I’m not arguing this.  At the end of the day, though, I want to know that the things that I did not do weren’t the result of my own justifying excuses.  If I’m not to do something great, I want it to be because otherwise I would be fighting all of the powers of creation that knit me together.

I don’t want to be beaten by the hump.

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26
Apr 10

participation is necessary

Check out a post I recently did for the Watershed Charlotte Justice Blog, called Participation is Necessary.

More posts coming soon.  Been on a bit of a forced hiatus.

general / health care / life / politics — 1 Comment
24
Mar 10

declaration of dependence

I am a Canadian. I am not anti-american.  You know it’s going to be good when it starts that way.

The following thoughts are not anti-american. They are an outsider’s view of a fascinating history with an opinionated leaning.

None of us are free.

It all started with health care….

There is an incredible undercurrent of suspicion that I pick up on in this country. It’s a suspicion directed squarely at the government. This is not a universal suspicion but I don’t think it’s out of place to say that it’s prevalent. And there is plenty of good reason – the government that this country broke away from was supposedly pretty oppressive. Even in the past 100 years, it’s been prove that government officials have lied to pursue or protect American interests.

It was this oppression, this suspicion, the lies, and worse that led several to declare a new nation absolved from allegiance to the British crown. A tyrant prince acting unjustly and repeating injury in response to repeated petitions drove away an entire people and caused revolt.

As it was, it was completely justified. July 4, 1776 will perpetually and rightfully remember as the birth of the wealthiest nation this planet has ever seen.

The declaration was for freedom from oppression.

The declaration was for independence.

Not entirely, however.

The declaration was also for a new sort of dependence.

With the final stroke of the pen, the founding fathers bound citizen’s of a new nation to each other. Declaring independence from the crown was at the same time a declaration for interdependence on one another. Butchers, and bakers, and brewers formed communities of people that were free to live to their own devices inasmuch as it were beneficial to the fledgling community.

They had freedom to live and choose and be with an understanding that an interdependence on everyone in community meant that sometimes our “freedom” to choose ought best to be in support of the entirety of society.

Freedom never means unchecked reality.

Turn the calendar ahead a couple hundred years or so and this place is very different. History has shaped the views of each citizen. Swarms of people vie for a place at America’s banqueting table where cups runneth over.

For many, our relentless pursuit for freedom has been hijacked by a culture that extols the virtues of independence, suggesting that the down and out pull themselves up by their boot straps, where the cream rises to the top, where self-made men and women have the most influence and the most inspiring stories. Never mind that this inspiration tends to be based mostly on the amount of individual wealth that can be amassed within legal-if-not-ethical systemic confines.

What we now long for is autonomy.

We want to each sign our own declarations of independence from the nation that first inspired such a radical move. We want to make our own rules and act to protect our own interests. This is paramount to our individual rights and freedoms. My hateful speech is justified by my individual worth and to deny my voice is to deny my sovereignty. My wealth has been earned by my own hard work free from the influence and efforts of others. Who is any entity to dictate how funds from my treasury are used.

We are empires of self.

Freedom implies that I make my own decisions within a set of confines established by some social order. Government, community, team, club, company, etc.

Autonomy expresses the idea of “self rule” – complete independence from everything. The autonomous are nations unto themselves.

We live and move and operate in a system that has corrupted the idea of community – that has exalted the individual at the expense of all else. A system that has promoted autonomy.

The same system can now have it’s own way with the hearts and minds of these individuals – free from the social checks of community. When others are of lower priority, our individual opinions trump the controlling processes introduced by others with whom we share mutual concern. We’re tempted to revolt. We’re tempted to declare our own independence.

As I’ve said, the founding father’s, by their very declaration of independence declared an almost socialistic dependence on one another:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

Autonomy rejects the understanding that as a human we are by definition communal beings, not only with our neighbors but with our generations of ancestors and our neighbors ancestors who have built the foundation on which we live our lives. We are but small hiccups in the fabric of space time as lonesome creatures – but in communities learning to live and love and support each other we can truly be significant. Autonomy lives free from history written by any victor but me. “This is my wealth. I earned it myself. I have sovereignty over my life.”

And so we come full circle to health care…..

This nation has adopted a bill that forms a strong framework on which a system that provides medical care to all of it’s citizens can be built because we believe that all men are created equal and has an unalienable right to life. It requires that citizen’s purchase health insurance – purchasing and the consumption being the very blood that courses through the nations core. Factions have expressed their view that government should not be the “single payer” for medical services, and other factions now say that government has no right to make me pay for medical coverage, even though my failure to do so will likely result in some cost to my neighbors.

If my actions don’t protect them, is it not the government’s right to ensure their protection?

We are looking for an autonomous answer that does not and cannot exist. Though our culture, our financial system, our educational systems all seem to champion the concept of self, we live completely dependent on those around us in even the most mundane aspects of our lives.

Our freedoms dictate that when our governments overstep their boundaries, we can register our disagreement with our votes, but even in that freedom we are dependent on scores of others to cast their ballots, to participate in their civic duty.

The hope that I have for this, my temporarily adopted nation, is that we reject this destructive, divisive view. The pursuit of an idealist freedom that so many people seem to be chasing is futile. Such a freedom does not and cannot exist. Realize that we are not enemies, that there is great pride in being your brother’s keeper, and that the pursuit of happiness can only be carried out within the rich confines of community.

general / health care / politics — Comments Off
23
Mar 10

health care

As a disclaimer, I am not an American citizen – and thus an observer at worst and obnoxious commentator at best.

However, If I could vote in this country, I would vote in favor of universal health care every time.

I base this on:

  • The fact that the majority of the developed world believes that access to health care is a fundamental human right
  • Health care is a costly undertaking that will ultimately cost everyone money one way or the other
  • I know several people who legitimately cannot live healthy lives based on their circumstances in the status quo

Today, President Obama signed a sweeping health care reform bill into law. I am not so naïve as to think this this bill in it’s current form is even close to “the answer” that is needed with respect to this issue. But it serves simply as a foundation on which the US can finally build a system that allows a core level of security when it comes to their health and the repercussions of circumstances that any American can find themselves in.

What does is say about a nation to be easily the wealthiest of all time and yet not provide a basic security to it’s citizen’s in this regard? What does is say about our character to allow citizen’s to lose everything because of medical bills? Why do we often choose liberty over life? Why is “give me liberty or give me death” a noble proclamation?

This process has had an interesting history.

We are fickle frontiersmen.

When we first began began the debate the thoughts of inclusion of a “public option” stoked the fires of socialism. How dare the government expect me to pay my hard earned money to pay for the health care of another human being!

Now that we’ve lost it the cries are accusations of voiding the constitution. How dare the government require me to pay a free market enterprise money to protect my and my fellow citizen’s well-being!!

There is no way to win.

Except to realize that we are all in this together, as cheesy as this sounds. At the level of basic human rights when we are forced back out of our self-indulgent, capitalism-induced cocoons and thrust back into community. This is a state of living that we have somehow forgotten on our push to reach the top of the food chain.

Community is where living takes place. Where rewards are sometimes intangible. Where the cost of sharing life with others is often higher than facing life alone but far more worthwhile.

Community is where we’re all better off. Where I’m not gaining at your expense. Where I’m better for my contributions to your life you’re better for contributing to my life.

I’m glad this bill has passed.

I’m anxious to see how it develops.

general / life — Comments Off
17
Mar 10

selfish idiots

We live in this world surrounded by selfish idiots, in a less disparaging, more literal sense than you may be assuming I mean.

Firstly, I believe that it is perfectly justified to say that we are a selfish people. We have learned to be possessive of our belongings, or family, our freedoms, our guns, our time, our food, our privacy, and anything else that can be construed as being ours.

We are irrationally self-indulgent – “I absolutely need a pedicure today” or “What a long day at work… I need a beer”

We are unnecessarily self-reliant to the detriment of community. Our deepest friendships are often tainted with worries about boundary issues and limitations on what can be expected of one another.

We hoard our effectively limitless material wealth in gargantuan homes.

Secondly, you must understand that Idiot is an interesting word for a lot of reasons. It’s generally meant as an insult. It assumes some sort of comparison – that is, “I’m stupid compared to you.” But if you go back far enough, it actually comes from a greek word that means “own/private.” A man that keeps to himself, that does things his own way.

We are now in an alternate universe where the man who was once considered worthy of insult for trying to do things outside the bounds of community is now exalted as the fully self-actualized archetypal human.

Something is amiss.

I’m indubitably aware that we are victims. Marketers appeal to our sense of individualism, our desire to rise above the commoner and excel, to ride the tidal waves of commerce and materialism and prestige to new lands that need conquering. We are ourselves unselfish. Rather we are creatures persuaded into this harsh lifestyle of wine and LCDs and imported automobiles.

Excuses are meant to minimize the effect of one’s own mistakes and misgivings.

And as people die from starvation, and as others are held down by failures of systems supposedly designed to help, and as resources that could help are hoarded, our advice seems all the more surreal:

“Pick yourself up by your bootstraps, get your life back together, do something with your life.”

The message seems to be “If you were just a little more idiotic you clearly wouldn’t’ be in this mess.”

As our toxic individualism has grown, we see psychological and often physical barricades to concepts that are obvious in community. Universal healthcare makes sense to those unconsumed with self. Peaceful resolutions take the place of pervasive war metaphor because it’s not OK that innocent men, women, and children should die. To suppose this is necessary evil is to be only half correct.

As dangerous as this individualism to our world at large, I’m aware that cynicism is equally as damaging and it is an aspiration to be free of this. It is my affliction.

To combat this, surround yourself with people that have an unselfish heart, those who have an appropriate perspective on how to navigate these lives we find ourselves in. Long for relationships that intertwine regularly with deeper meaning and purpose and those in need.

We are not alone and we are not meant to live lonely.

general — 1 Comment
7
Mar 10

passion

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come in kicking down the door

This lyric is from a Sara Groves song – When the Saints.  Every time I hear it, it blows my heart to smithereens, and without fail, I’ll get something in my eye.  Without fail.

The song itself, if you’ve not heard it is pretty unassuming – essentially, Sara says she wants to walk in with the Saints, mentions a few Bible characters for comparison and off she goes singing again.

Then this happens:

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad
I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul

I see the young missionary and the angry spear
I see his family returning with no trace of fear

I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights
I see the sister standing by the dying man’s side

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come in kicking down the door

I see the man of sorrows and his long troubled road
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load

In all seriousness, that one lyric does it for me.  I’m sure there are lots of reasons why but, for whatever reason, I really connect with the spirit of this thought.  I think about being a guy and about all of the baggage that comes along with that – teenage years of hormone-induced lust and the residual hormone-hangover that most of us experience throughout our twenties.  I think of pornography and how what can start as an innocent curiosity and what gets regarded too often as a rite of passage is, in fact, a mind-bogglingly large profit sector with complex revenue streams and profit sharing.  It is big business that, like all big businesses, are about making money.

It makes me wonder what portion of mouse-clicks support things like sexual trafficking. There has to be some fringe sites and systems that take advantage of men’s addictions. It makes me wonder how many of these girls get into the porn industry because they feel like they have no other options. It makes me wonder how many abductions result in forced sexual slavery – I know the numbers are staggering.

And then I think about us men having our lusts transformed into compassion, motivating us to turn off the computer and figuratively or literally busting down doors with an appetite for restoration, an appetite for rescue.

To me, this is incredibly moving imagery that speaks to me more strongly than I could even attempt to write about here. I’ve written before on this blog about how restoration speaks deeply to my soul and this may be, for me, the ultimate display of restoration.

Here’s the song on Lala.com so you can listen for yourself: http://lala.com/zZu8I

general / life — Comments Off
7
Mar 10

war metaphor part ii

The metaphors we use to describe day to day events speak deep truths about the say we approach life in general. Missed to ground work for this discussion? Check it out here: War Metaphor Part I.

We unconsciously use war metaphor to in many different facets of our lives. Already, we’ve said that sports, and science, and conflict are ripe with it. We talk about inner battles, battles of will, waging war against pick-an-injustice. For those of us that are trying to model the way that Jesus lived, is it appropriate to approach the world with this same angst? (I was about to say “spiritual world” here, but I’d rather not divvy it up like that)

“War” and “Battle” are words that are used fairly often throughout scripture. And the old testament is practically crammed with God-ordained conflicts between people that claimed the lives of thousands. But most of these references are literal references – either to actual wars or the prospect of wars if the people don’t respond in a certain way. They’re not figurative – i.e. they’re not metaphor language. The other interesting thing you see in the prophets of the Old Testament are the references to the end of war – to peace. Micah 4:3 as classic example talks about the conversion of weapons of war and destruction into weapons of provision, and that nations “will not train for war anymore.”

The New Testament talks far less frequently about these concepts. Jesus mentions war when outlining the cost of being a disciple as an illustration.

Then there’s the armor of God. Can’t forget this. This is perhaps the most blatant use of war metaphor in the Bible when the author of Ephesians says:

Be strong in the Lord and in this mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

Perhaps this isn’t as metaphoric as it sounds. I’m not suggesting that there is literal armor – but I am saying that the readers and the author himself were literally being physically attacked and chained for their beliefs. They were, in fact, in a type of war scenario.

One last thing before I attempt to get far more practical with this. In this same passage we read this:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rules, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Growing up, I was very involved in a church that heavily used war metaphor to describe Christians relationship with sin. It was very much a battle, a near-literal altercation with demons and evil. Shouts of praise were often inter-mingled with battle cries. I understood that I was to be engaged in a spiritual war against an axis of evil (made up of beer, drugs, crossing “the line” with the opposite sex, smoking – up for consideration for the axis were cussing, lusting, and gambling). Looking back, it also took on the scope of “if you’re not for us, you’re against us.”

Given the significance of all things spiritual to many people, it’s not hard to understand why the fight becomes so important. All of this is very much in keeping with the use of war metaphor.

I felt as though that those who took part in any of the activities in the axis of evil were not just casualties, but they were brain-washed prisoners of war, recruited to fight the forces of good. On the one hand, I knew that I was called to “Love my neighbor as myself” but at the same time, these were “enemy forces” that had the potential to attack me. It’s shoot-to-kill time.

My biggest hang up with the use of war metaphor is that it promotes a sense of defensiveness. Even if we constantly on the attack, we feel as though at any moment enemy forces can strike. Defensive people and groups act very differently than the rest of us. There is a primal instinct that begins to emerge in even the most well-intentioned people. If at any point we feel threatened, we are liable to act out of desperation. In our figurative war, this could mean something as a comment/accusation that precipitates the alienation of a person or a group of people.

There is nothing as polarizing as war. Being at war means that opposing forces have become as diametrically opposed to one another as possible. It is the ultimate consequence to unmanaged conflict, or tension.

While it leads to alienation and destructive processes, there is a nobility to it all. In war, finding the power to continue the fight is admired. Officers are commended with medals or other awards for exceptional bravery. Conversely, there is shame is surrender, in humbling yourself to the enemy. It is a display of weakness to bow out of battle.

In the church, we have allowed this paradigm to permeate everything that we do. We have battle hymns and fight songs, chants that reinforce the diametric opposition of the forces of good and the forces of evil. And while there may be theological basis for this concept, that good cannot exist where there is evil, we are practically raining terror down on those that need our love the most. We rationalize by saying that we “love the sinner, and hate the sin” which can lead quickly to justifying our force with statements like “there’s gonna be some collateral damage,” or “it’s for your own good,” as if we have the capacity to decide what that should be. The consequences of our bloody battles are years and years of distrust, malice, alienation, and hatred.

We see this over and over. Homosexuals have long been essentially metaphorically labeled as terrorists to modern-day Christianity. We go on the offensive against abortion clinics, perversely assuming that God is smiling as we spew hateful slogans, carry placards plastered with the graphic images of aborted fetuses, or as we literally use lethal force.

Hatred for Christ’s sake is still hatred.

As long as we continue to propagate war metaphor in our churches, we will continue to falsely indoctrinate our people to believe that anyone that is “in” is good and that anyone that is “out” is the enemy.

It continues to be striking to me that Jesus’ harshest words were for the religious. A man marked by unwavering compassion across people groups and ethnicities and situations turned hostile when he looked inward towards those who were thought to be representatives of God on earth.

We could learn a thing or two from this Jesus character.

It’s also striking to me that aside from the disciples, we never hear about what happens with any of the people that Jesus encountered. We know that he was kind and loved regardless of the circumstance and never implied that he was about to bomb the enemy with righteousness and blessed sanctification. It was seldom more than a brief encounter, the beginnings of relationship, filled with understanding, compassion, and grace. If we approach life as though we’re all in this together, that we can learn mutually beneficial things from one another, that we are all part of a well-intended creation perhaps we’ll see the transformation that we’ve been trying to force for so long.

And maybe, the other people will change too.

faith / general / politics — 3 Comments
3
Mar 10

war metaphor part i

“This is not language, this is the way people think.”
George Lakoff

There is no way that I possess any authority to say that as a culture we are obsessed with conflict and war and combat. What I have heard, and have seen, and am probably too keenly aware of have colored and/or tainted my thoughts on what I’m about to share. I have a lot of thoughts on this so my plan is to lay some foundation and the dig in with some meat a little later. We’ll see how that goes.

Since my college days, having spent many an evening lying on the floor by the fireplace reading about personality and ego and cognition, I’ve been captivated by all things unconscious. In particular, I have a fascination with our words and our figures of speech, our entire lexicon and the way that we choose (or often don’t choose) to describe people and places and things.

There is so much that you can learn about a culture just by studying words. Cultures that live in the isolated north and understand the cold and ice and snow have many more words for describing these things; they can say in one word what we might say as “light, fluffy snow falling in large flakes.” Understanding snow and weather conditions are critically important to their survival. I would be willing to be however, they have fewer words for money than we do, but more on that later.

For those of you that follow Rob Bell, you may have heard him make reference to something similar in a Nooma Video (002 – Flame) when he talks about love. Bell says that he loves his wife and also loves tacos. For the record, I completely relate; the best is when my wife and I get to eat together at Taqueria Mexico on South Blvd (much like we did today). In essence, Bell says that the words we use can provide great insight into internal processes and thoughts and feelings.

In reading another author (Don Miller, Blue like Jazz), I got reminded of a train of thought I started to have a number of years ago. Miller references the use of metaphor in various parts of our life – one example: the use of war metaphor with respect to dealing with cancer. These thoughts were presented by a professor at an alumni group gathering and Miller was captivated. The essence of the discussion as it was described was that we often use war-centric words when discussing cancer: we battle cancer, we combat cancer, we fight it. This implied conflict has actually been shown to make the process of dealing with cancer more difficult as it induces more stress in patients. The professor argued that it makes the emotional response more intense than it need be and people often forget the fact that the majority of people survive the disease.

As a caveat here, no one is saying that cancer ought not to be treated seriously, only that the metaphor we have come to use to convey the weight of this disease carries with it collateral baggage and that it would be nice if a more appropriate and helpful metaphor could take it’s place.

War metaphor is everywhere. Back to the cancer example, the British Medical Journal wrote about the War Against Cancer in 1934. It is all over science where we here about “invading species”, “biosecurity”, “killer cells”, and “methods for attacking viruses.” We hear it in sports when “epic battles” or “showdown of the century” are scheduled as pay-per-view events. Bush, Rumsfield, Cheney, and the gang quickly turned what was first referred to as a crime on 9/11 into a declaration of war and the ensuing 9 years have been framed as such ever since.

An author that I am quickly becoming interested in, thanks to my newfound interest in linguistics is George Lakoff, an expert on all things language (two books are on the way as I write – I’m sure I’ll have some follow up, providing I can find the time to read them).

He wrote an incredibly compelling article just 5 days after 9/11.

As a child in New Jersey, the NY city skyline was a major part of his life and as a cognitive linguist he finds deep meaning in the words that we use as individuals an culture to describe both the buildings and the events that took them down and he can describe the physical, neural circuitry that undergirds this meaning.

The article as a whole, though obviously biased politically, is incredibly insightful. Click here for a long, but really good, read.

Lakoff does say that the Administration searched for metaphors to help them understand this event – the first response was that of framing the event as a crime, which connects to various parts of our consciousness as involving criminals, justice, courts, lawyers, innocence/guilt. Hours later though, the event was reframed as an act of war, which brings it’s own imagery: “casualties”, “enemies”, “military action”.

What I don’t want to do here is turn this into a commentary about the response to 9/11. The implications pointed out in this article with respect to war metaphor are what really interests me as we’ll need them to frame some later discussion.

War implies good and evil, correct and incorrect, right and wrong. It is only evil that can “justify” the expense, the collateral damage, the death that is associated with war. Lakoff says this:

If our enemy is evil, we are inherently good. Good is our essential nature and what we do in the battle against evil is good. Good and evil are locked in a battle, which is conceptualized metaphorically as a physical fight in which the stronger wins. Only superior strength can defeat evil, and only a show of strength can keep evil at bay. Not to show overwhelming strength is immoral, since it will induce evildoers to perform more evil deeds because they’ll think they can get away with it … Nothing is more important than the battle of good against evil …

My two cents here is that “war” is the ultimate polarizer. We can come to the table to discuss if we are any closer but war occurs when two factions helplessly diametrically opposed to one another.

Lakoff goes on to suggest that if we operate outside of this good and evil paradigm there are many facets to any issue and that invoking war metaphor stations us to think in terms or either/or.

Now would be a good time to stop and breathe.

*inhale*

*exhale*

There are times when the use of war metaphor is appropriate and times when its use has unfortunate results. At RealitySandwich.com you can read about several such instances that are in the latter category. For example, one “invading” blackberry (oooooh, scary) was held responsible for hurting a Californian bird population. Scientists argue that war metaphor causes us to think in terms of eradication instead of exploring more helpful symbiotic relationships. In fact, some even say that this is why a former president decided to merge the government department responsible for “invasive species” into the department of homeland security.

So what do we know?

War metaphor is prevalent. It’s sometimes appropriate; other times, it’s not. When it’s used, our culture, our neurons, our experience, our relationships all contribute to the way that we frame the situation at hand. We have a conscious awareness of what war means but, perhaps more profoundly, we have a deeply-seeded unconscious understanding as well that invokes imagery of good and evil, justification, victory, defeat, and collateral damage.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations …. or I’m sorry.

Here is where I’m really interested in going with this next. I grew up in a church whose very structure and existence was built around the concept of war metaphor, the ultimate in good versus evil, God vs. Satan, sinfulness vs. righteousness. I understand the mechanism by which our churches arrive at war metaphor, and I’m really interested as to whether or not the church is an appropriate home for these concepts of war – that’s up next.

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