Category Archives: Journal

I Took My Family for Granted

I became an orphan on January 17, 1997. I was working in the North African country of Tunisia at the U.S. embassy at the time.

My brother called to tell me that our mother had passed away suddenly in her sleep, in the house she and my father had built before my brother and I were born. She had been a widow, continuing to live in that house since I was thirteen and my brother twenty.

On the trip back “home” to Tennessee, the plane passed over the Mediterranean to Europe, than over the Atlantic to North America. I had time to reminisce over a fortunate upbringing.

As the world seems daily to fall into more chaos, I become aware of the favored circumstances a lower middle class family at that time could expect.

Despite modest incomes, we had adequate medical care. Even after our father died, my brother was able to finish college, and I followed.

Whatever advances this country has made are tarnished by knowledge that working families on modest incomes no longer live with such blessed possibilities.

We cannot, nor should we, want to return to earlier days. They were far from perfect, with racial and other injustices. My mother may have lived a blessed life, but many women did not.

Somehow, though, our present time, if more enlightened in some ways, has failed in others. The rightful entry of women into the work force has given them power to ease the needle toward more equality.

But we have neglected to take care of other needs like responsible child rearing, adequate education for all, and basic healthcare.

Perhaps in my children’s time we will find the right combination?

Fantastic Headlines

The Seattle Times holds a contest at the end of each year for readers to create headlines they would like to see in the coming year.

Here are some of the wished for headlines as we headed into 2019:

“All Homeless Housed.”

“UW engineering students invent noiseless leaf blower.”

“Zuckerberg shuts down Facebook, devotes fortune to exposing lies on the internet.”

“Newspaper industry rebounds as Americans rediscover value of real news, facts.”

And finally: “Trump builds wall . . . of solar panels; half of electricity goes to Mexico, half to U.S.”

What’s one I’d like to see?

How about: “Washington gridlock dissolves as senators and representatives cooperate to pass needed legislation in all fields.”

What’s your dream headline?

What Does Religious Coexistence Look Like?

You’ve seen the bumper stickers encouraging coexistence, the ones that fuse together markers from the world’s major religions. What sane individual could be against tolerance? But does that mean a bland, homogenized form of multiculturalism?

Two of the Abrahamic faiths are evangelistic. That is, both wish to spread their faith to others. I once read about a Christian pastor and an Islamic imam who attended a multi religious gathering. The two amicably shared afterwards. Both agreed that they wished to spread their faith and were uncomfortable with the mantra of accepting one religion as just as good as another.

Yet, wanting to spread faith can become an arrogant “I have all the answers” polemic. At its worst, zeal leads to murderous inhumanity, as we know all too well. (Of course, religion is not the only reason for acts of murderous inhumanity.)

But if you believe you have a message to benefit humankind, surely you are not evil for wishing to share it? The problem comes with the methods used.

Competition doesn’t have to be brutal. Religions can compete to provide both an inner and an outer journey. An inner journey aims for purpose and meaning. An outer journey seeks justice and mercy for all, regardless of religious affiliation.

We might call it “compassionate competition.”

If God is Evil . . . ?

We often hear: “If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world?”

But someone also asked,” If God is evil, why is there so much good in the world?”

Regardless, when one suffers great loss—the death of a loved one perhaps or witnesses the suffering of innocent children—normally the griever is not interested in philosophical answers.

Perhaps it’s a matter of simply getting through the loss as best one can.

When I wrote my book Thy Dross to Consume, I didn’t presume to answer the question of why evil exists. I simply wanted to tell the story of how one man stumbled through his grieving after a loss.

Often we sons and daughters of the western world assume the answer lies with our particular slant on religion or philosophy.

So, Tadros, an Egyptian Coptic Christian, entered my story to explore loss from a different perspective.

Tadros, suffering through his own earlier loss, came to tie his loss with God’s loss. If you do not subscribe to Christian beliefs, you no doubt will find other ways to deal with loss, perhaps even atheism.

For Tadros, though, as a Christian of a minority faith in Egypt, his journey finally ended with understanding a God who suffered his own loss.

It allowed Tadros to scream his hurt, as Jesus, dying on a Roman cross, screamed at God. It did not deny him lamentation by mouthing trite sayings.

My imperfect novel was not intended as deep theology or philosophy. It was only a story to illustrate how one person found the comfort he needed.

Power Outage Chic

High winds once again buffeted the Pacific Northwest. This time we lost power in the late morning. We had heat from our wood stove, as well as water, though no hot water for showers. We ate out of cans (after finding the manual can opener.) To save refrigerated food, we opened the refrigerator as little as possible. We had internet service for a while, then lost it.

We lighted the kerosene lamps, played scrabble, and read books. I was aware of our blessings, that what we had to eat would be a feast to some in the world.

We woke expectantly the next morning—but still no power.

Dressed in yesterday’s grubby clothes—the latest in power outage chic—I dashed a couple of blocks to the library. I entered with a dozen or so others as soon as it opened. The library shares a generator with City Hall. During power outages, the mayor invites the town to the library to charge devices and stay warm.

As soon as I got enough power, the news came online on my iPad. I realized then the blessing of that news free bubble I had been in for the past twenty-four hours.

I learned that the supposedly most powerful nation in the world couldn’t agree on a budget to pay its bills. Our government was shutting down while legislators recessed for Christmas and hurried home for the holidays.

Essential federal employees worked without pay as the president complained of not being able to make it to his Florida retreat.

James Mattis, secretary of defense, had announced his resignation over disagreement with the president on Syria. Ditto Brett McGurk, the special envoy in the fight against ISIS, the terrorist organization in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, it was practically old home week in the library as other residents arrived to join friends, embrace, and share stories. Somebody said a town up the road had just gained power.

Ah, the blessings of community in a world falling apart.

Laughing at Ourselves

Jokes and laughter are weapons we use against those who upset and even frighten us. Maybe it’s one way of survival. This kind of humor can be pitch black at times.

Gentle humor, however, can teach by poking fun at our own foibles, a sign of maturity.

I think it was the Cold War commentator Harry Reasoner who said he didn’t trust politicians who couldn’t laugh at themselves.

A couple of years ago (3 September, 2016), The Economist featured an obituary honoring Roly Bain, a clown-priest. Bain’s opening invocation for one of his clown sermons was “Let us play!”

Dressed ridiculously in clown attire, he would laboriously climb up a rope ladder only to find himself facing the wrong way. “I wish I could turn around,” he moaned, then added, “They call it repentance in the trade.”

He followed the tradition of the holy fool, a truth-teller in a different guise.

Sometimes we don’t delve as deeply into understanding the world’s problems as we ought, but we also miss more gentle teaching—a melding of the sublime with the ridiculous.

It lightens dull lives, but also brings us truth in a different costume.

November Reset

The scarlet flame of October gives way to the tawny tiger of November.

The huge harvest of frolicking leaves from our tulip tree is raked and banked in the back woods, enriching the soil. The lack of constant weeding releases time for other activities.

In our part of the world, November is traditionally our rainiest month. Storms sweep in from the Pacific. Writing and reading go well with drizzle and storms. So do small groups of friends, gathering close to drying umbrellas.

Sometimes more ferocious storms will down trees and power lines, leading to candles and generators. More seriously, they can damage homes and injure people. Yet, if not overly long or damaging, such stoppages bring a useful pause in our clock-ordered lives, a reminder of the fragility of our modern connections.

November basks in quietness, at least until Thanksgiving. Constant commercialism tempts us to see Thanksgiving as merely the beginning call from its Yuletide cousins.

I ignore those calls. I want my quiet November and an ending celebration of thanksgiving and community.

The Gift of Adolescence

Most of those boys in Thailand, the ones rescued from the cave, decided to enter a Buddhist monastery for a while. Apparently, they felt they needed a timeout to reflect and gain spiritual depth from their experiences before going on with their lives.

Various ceremonies acknowledge the end of childhood, like the Bat Mitzvah for my Jewish friend’s daughter.

In our modern societies, the preparation for adulthood, the middle time after childhood, is long. Adolescents may attend middle school, then high school. Some then seek to enter the job market. Others go on to higher education or an apprenticeship before final entry into adulthood.

This long adolescence is a troubling time for many. It could be an opportunity.

We could view it as a special time of learning and discipline and even withdrawal. Adolescents might accept celibacy and abstinence from drugs and alcohol while they worked through this period of learning. They could build up their bodies as well as their minds and spirits and social skills.

Emerging from adolescence would require meeting certain conditions. One would be a basic education. Another would be the ability to work and support oneself.

Their place as adults would include a continuance of lifelong development, but now within a framework of their own contributions to society.

Maybe the gift we can give adolescents is support as they prepare for responsible adulthood.

The Only Story Already Written

The summer I turned nineteen, between my freshman and sophomore years in college, I landed a temporary job as what used to be called a cub reporter. The job was on my hometown newspaper.

The news people who hired me, I now believe, did so out of the goodness of their cynical hearts. They wanted to help a young person stupid enough to plan a journalism career. They, in their crusty way, wanted to pass along what they knew, give me a chance.

I did manage to advance, in my second summer, from writing obituaries to actually covering a minor religious convention and writing other human interest stories.

I also learned, after a public upbraiding by the editor, to check and recheck my reporting for any mistakes in spelling, wrong word usage, or other errors before I turned it in. (We had no computer programs then for checking such things.)

One lesson, however, was especially valuable for a young person, who thinks, like most young people, that they are going to live forever.

In the basement of the newspaper building was the “morgue.” Filed away in endless cabinets were the stories already written. They waited for unearthing when the inevitable happened—the death of a famous person

Thus, when a politician or a business magnate passed on, all the reporter had to do was write a few lead paragraphs dealing with the cause of death and immediate circumstances.

Every time the person did something great or degrading, the happening would be added to their file, but eventually the file ended.

Every person has an ending. Each of us writes chapters, perhaps for a long time, but the story always has an ending.

Try writing your own obituary. Anything you would like to change in your life before somebody else takes on the responsibility?

Leadership: The Battle for Middle-earth

One section of Fleming Rutledge’s book The Battle for Middle-earth is called “The Treason of Isengard.”

The leader of the kingdom of Rohan, Théodan, has allowed a disreputable person to control his kingdom. “This clever but craven personage . . . is a classic example of the person who holds an entire human unit captive to unreality by calling black white, truth lies, and wisdom foolishness.”

Rutledge comments on what leadership is about: It has to do “with defining reality,” she says.

It is interesting to examine how some leaders in today’s world define reality. Rutledge’s book was published in 2004. Yet, eerily, she says, “If the person who is allowed to define reality falsely retains the premier position in the group, the potential for corporate evil is unbounded.”

We now are learning what happens when facts are defined as “fake” merely because they are unfavorable.

A Battle for Our Time

The Battle for Middle-earth, by Fleming Rutledge, was published in 2004. By that time, three years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States had entered two wars. It was evident that the world would never return to the more certain times of pre 9/11.

Rutledge’s book is a commentary on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. She writes: “I believe . . . that this is a tale for our time. Since the seemingly clear-cut triumphs of World War II, the Shadow has been growing, and it is not so easy to tell who is enemy; there are ‘twilights of doubt as to sides.’”

Tolkien lived and wrote with great wars all around him. He had fought in the Battle of the Somme in World War I. He wrote during World War II as his country, Britain, fought for its life. He lived to see its aftermath, the Cold War, and the possibilities for earth’s annihilation by nuclear war. No wonder his writings awe us with a sense of powerful evil, almost certain to win, unless a few lesser folks sacrifice all they have in a desperate attempt to overcome.

His novels spotlight a few small people who seek to do good even when they know the odds are against them.

Madeleine L’Engle: Christian Faith and Writing

As I read Sarah Arthur’s A Light So Lovely; The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L’Engle, I sympathized with L’Engle’s struggle to write as both a Christian and a winner of secular literary awards.

Some doubt whether A Wrinkle in Time, L’Engle’s 1963 Newberry Award winner, could win such an award today, with its Christian nudged themes.

According to Arthur’s book, L’Engle enjoyed speaking at the Christian evangelical college, Wheaton, because in that space, she was “able to be openly a Christian among Christians.”

In fiction writing today, it’s hard to straddle the line between writing by those who consider themselves Christians and the bifurcated world we live in. C.S. Lewis and L’Engle did. A few others, like Frederick Buechner and Marilynne Robinson, have managed it. So did Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy.

In writing conferences today for writers who consider themselves “Christian” writers, two designations are often used to denote the kinds of novels many writers at those conferences try to pitch. The two are “inspirational” and “Christian.” Would L’Engle be able to successfully pitch her work at one of these conferences today?

I think much of the blame for this unneeded separation between religious and secular writing may fall to Christians who think every “Christian” novel should be an evangelical tract.

Thoughts on The Great Spiritual Migration by Brian McLaren

The subtitle on Bruce McLaren’s book is: “How the world’s largest religion is seeking a better way to be Christian.”

The reflections here are taken from my review of McLaren’s book on Goodreads.

Brian McLaren joins others with evangelical Christian backgrounds (i.e., Jim Wallis, David Gushee) who remain in the Christian faith but have moved into what some are calling a “progressive” Christian movement.

In McLaren’s case, he calls for Christians to focus on living out Jesus’ love rather than emphasis on correct beliefs. He states: “What I care about is whether they are teaching people to live a life of love, from the heart, for God, for all people (no exceptions), and for all creation.”

However, it is not, he says about “pledging mushy allegiance to an undefined spirituality without religion.”

He sees Christians continuing on a trajectory they have always followed: Many Christians used to defend slavery; now they do not. Some used to believe the conquest of “pagan” lands and forced conversion of natives was God’s will. Few champion that path now.

McLaren strikes a middle path. Conservative Christians have rightly championed family relationships but also supported patriarchal domination. Liberal Christians have disowned patriarchy but failed to teach family skills.

He calls for Christians to migrate to a higher level once again.

I found particularly helpful McLaren’s illustrations of what it means to go beyond conservative and liberal. He calls for movements within our institutions rather than new institutions.

McLaren’s emphasis on migration and growth rather than division is welcome, not only for the new ideas sparked by his book but also for the book’s practicality.

A Different Kind of Struggle

An article in Writer’s Digest suggests that Americans now question long held beliefs: “American verities (e.g., equal opportunity, fairness, decency) have worn thin, revealing the naked aggression, vanity and greed underneath.” (David Corbett, “No More Mr. Nice Guy, September 2018)

Thus, we have novels with no heroes or heroines, like the characters in Gone Girl, or the unreliable narrator, behaving in disgusting ways, as in The Woman on the Train.

Then, in a surprisingly delightful book, A Man Called Ove, we are driven to sympathize with a man who, at first, is presented as someone obsessed with order, who doesn’t like animals or children. He even resents being asked to help a neighbor struggling to care for a husband suffering dementia. Then we are shown his prior griefs, and we sympathize.

Writers today do use more offensive characters. Yet, Corbett advises writers: “When using struggle and desire to create empathy for an otherwise offensive character, don’t neglect to explore just what risks the character faces.”

In other words, we can sympathize with someone pretty badly messed up if we understand their struggles.

For those of us who believe that evil can and should be redeemed, such characters can give us hope in a world turned overnight into Dante’s inferno.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, as he struggled to overcome the evil of apartheid in South Africa, “I am a prisoner of hope.”

Novels like Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Patton, with its imperfect characters, perhaps helped move the country out of apartheid.

For Americans, divided and anger-stricken, fiction and non-fiction can mirror the dysfunction while at least hinting that we still have choices.

Compassion in a Time of War

On Good Friday, in preparation for Easter, a few Christians in the Middle Eastern country of Syria meditated and prayed. They gathered within the walls of an ancient monastery, Deir Mar Musa. During years of conflict and suffering, this monastery has endured, a witness for peace in a war ravaged country.

Suddenly a Muslim young man entered into a quiet corner of the monastery. He also was a searcher for a place to pray. He spread his prayer rug, then began his prayers. A photographer, Cécile Massie, there to observe the monastic community in Good Friday meditations, snapped the picture of the Christians and the young man in their prayers (Stephanie Saldaña, “All Sorts of Little Things: On Compassion in a Time of War,” Plough Quarterly, Summer, 2018).

Writes Saldaña: “Together and separately the Muslim and Christian faithful turn toward God. This shared prayer—and with it a hope—enters into our suffering and becomes known.”

In the midst of unprecedented numbers of refugees and victims of hatred and war, she identifies the meaning of compassion as “to suffer with.” She means to suffer with all, not just those of our religious persuasion.

Why Prayer?

Columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. wrote a thoughtful piece recently: “No need for condescension in matters of faith” (The Seattle Times, July 26, 2018).

He mentions a woman who escaped from a deranged gunman in a retail store. She requested prayer.

Pitts criticized another woman’s twitter feed disparaging this call for prayer. One of her tweets said, “It gives people’s egos a huge boost to believe they have the power to influence ‘Almighty god’ . . .”

In contrast, Pitts quoted a preacher: “ . . . prayer is not just a plea to get out of those trials. It’s also a way of getting through.”

Indeed, prayer is not a way of getting God to do what we want. It’s a way of grabbing God’s grace to get us through hard times and live courageously.

The question has been asked: Whose side is God on when competing groups request God’s help in overcoming the other?

The perspective of the question is in error. It’s not: Whose side is God on?

The right question is: Who’s on God’s side?

The purpose of prayer isn’t to get God to do our will. It’s to help us find our way to do his.

Working Smarter

The industrial revolution freed us from backbreaking physical labor. Now the tech revolution is freeing us from repetitive mind labor.

Eventually, after we recognized and lessened the harms of the industrial revolution (child labor, practices injurious to workers, income inequality, etc.), our lives improved. More goods produced in less time translated to better salaries for shorter working hours. More young people finished high school. Many went on to higher education,

Problems of today’s tech revolution mirror those of the industrial revolution. Good jobs are disappearing. Income inequality is rising. Many of our schools are underfunded, unable to prepare students for the newer world.

Yet the benefits of the tech revolution could lead to improved lives like the industrial revolution eventually did, if we use the lessons learned from the older revolution.

The industrial revolution led us, eventually, to old age pensions and medicare and unemployment insurance. Those programs are some of the reasons the recession beginning in 2007, damaging as it was, did not turn into another Great Depression.

Extreme poverty alongside great wealth was a hallmark of the industrial revolution until the Great Depression of the 1930’s finally shocked us into changes. World War II, bringing together the different classes to defeat a recognized threat to our country, also helped.

Our economy took off after World War II. Much of it was the result, finally, of ordinary citizens sharing in the wealth resulting from the industrial revolution.

The tech revolution could lead to similar changes: Shorter work weeks. More time to care for family and friends and communities. More training for the next new job. A health system that serves all. Opportunity to think and pray and read poetry.

And more time to learn about the other cultures and ideas thrust on us by our digital connections. Indeed, the tech revolution could open up an era of constant learning, if we overcome our addiction to its toys.

As in the past, a more equal tax system can provide money to pay for these changes. Our wealthier citizens who have so benefitted by our new revolution could pay it forward.

Is My Child Exempt?

Mavis Bliss wrote an article (“Moral Free-Riders” in Sojourners, May 2015) about the temptation to make exceptions for ourselves from moral choices.

What if you fear dangers from the vaccination of your children against childhood diseases and decide not to do it? When too many people decide not to vaccinate their children, the “herd” immunity given to society from a high vaccination rate lowers.

“In a public without herd immunity, the risks posed by disease far exceed the small risks associated with vaccination. In other words, free-riding does not work when everyone is doing it. Herd immunity does not require universal vaccination, but it does require vaccination of a sufficient majority.”

Bliss suggests that the following people should be exempt from vaccination: babies too young to be vaccinated and those with low or compromised immune systems, such as some elderly and cancer patients.

Deciding not to vaccinate a healthy child, Bliss says is a morally risky choice, imperiling the children of one’s neighbors.

Loving my neighbor as myself implies loving my neighbor’s child as I love my own. We seek what is best for us all, not just my child, my family, my community, my nation.

Fighting Technology with a Stay in the Desert

Catherine Woodiwiss says she went to the desert “to remember that I still have a body.” On her retreat, she pitched her camp “in one of the last places on Earth where wireless data won’t reach.” (Sojourners, “Bodily Prayer,” June 2018)

Woodiwiss uses sleeping outside, listening to rivers, and hiking to turn off tech.

She compares today’s capture by technology with the ancient Gnostics’ rejection of the body. Gnostics worshiped the mind, believing the body to be evil. “Today, this elevation of the mind has returned, in the philosophy of our most popular technologies.”

The wired world was supposed to form communities of sharing. To some degree, it has done that. However, our obsession with it has also threatened our more basic communities of family, neighborhood, and face-to-face sharing.

Going to the desert isn’t the only way to put technology in its place, of course. You can limit the amount of time you spend with it—controlling it instead of it controlling you.

From time to time, you can turn it off, sit down, and lose yourself in the silence. That works, too.

Choices in Hopeless Times

“. . . even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself.” (Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.)

Victor Frankl spoke from heartbreaking experience. A Nazi concentration camp survivor, he used hopeless times to fashion a philosophy to heal the desperate.

Commenting on Frankl’s philosophy, Jason Landsel said, “. . . Frankl affirmed that people are spiritual beings with free will . . . They are thus responsible for shaping their lives by choosing and working toward meaningful goals.” (“Victor Frankl,” Plough, Winter 2018)

We may despair over choices taken by our country and the world. We rightly grieve over horrible wrongs and engage in efforts to change them.

Even so, the times may not favor us. But in another, far greater time of despair, Frankl spoke from lessons learned within the hopelessness of concentration camp inmates: “We had to teach the despairing men that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.”