I note this week a Time magazine article in which Al Gore writes, "Faith in the power of reason - the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best evidence available, instead of raw power - remains the central promise of American democracy." He also maintains that a "well informed citizenry," is central to "the rule of reason as the natural sovereign of a free people."
It's become a specialty, in letters I write to our local rag, to elaborate on other letters and editorials, when the realms of religion, culture and politics intersect, if not clash. The biographies tacked onto the end of the pieces are invariably bland and innocuous; one might say, for example, Joe Smith, of the Institute on Culture and Media; or, Mary Jones, professor at Bluefield College. They look polished and professional. When you google these credentials to investigate further, however, you promptly find the context in which the piece was produced, that is, the reason for the reasons. I haven't found one yet, I promise you, that was written by plain old Joe or Mary, a neighbor around the corner, who was making a case on their own, with no affilation to an ultra-partisan national lobbyist cabal.
It's akin to a recent email exchange with my friend Bob. He asked if I thought voting was a Christian duty since through his discernment he believes Paul advocates respect for the civic process. In the same way I investigate editorialist credentials, I googled Paul's context. Paul lived under a Roman dictatorship. He believed in an imminent second coming. Although the latter is still on the table, the former is long gone. While Paul's thesis remains relevant, the context has changed greatly. The idea deserves much further thought, indeed, enough to ponder upon, endlessly, with no definite conclusion ever assured.
The prospect of such research is enticing. It may involve a visit, or two, or more, to the bookshops. It's time for a summer vacation. In that way, I'm much like Anne Tyler's "Armchair Tourist," Macon Leary. Although I may travel far from home, it's a comfort to carry a mission along like a suitcase; a topic to investigate that grounds the frenetic pace so I don't feel lost.
I can't imagine a more perfect journey than walking down Charing Cross Road, in London, stopping first at Foyles, then Blackwells; strolling south for a browse through the antiquarian shops, then past St. Martins in the Field, the Portrait Gallery, Trafalgar Square, cutting across to Picadilly, arriving, finally, at Hatchards, where lovers have found the books for which they've been pining since 1797.
Once the hopefully elusive bound prey is secure within the game bag, it's time for a bangers and mash lunch washed down by a pint of Guinness. In olden parish days, when vestry members preached sermons during the week of the Passion, my Maundy Thursday text was composed in its entirety in the pubs along this route. Heaven must be like this.
It's the thrill of the hunt, you see. Who could fail to be excited?
Most people, apparently. According to a National Endowment for the Arts report, "fewer than half of Americans read literature," and the percentage of Americans who read any book at all has fallen significantly over the past 15 years. I note this week that Kathleen Park, from the Post, laments the demise of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution book section, may it rest in peace. There's only 5 left in all the country. She writes, "Book reviews aren't only about the book. They're about conversation, the cultural dialogue, and the marketplace of ideas."
If the market shuts down, few others, may be tempted to challenge the undercover editorial lobbyists. Like Episcope, for example, the blog of TEC, which doesn't "normally take issue with opinion pieces," offerng posts from the left, center, and right, but felt compelled last week to take exception to a piece out of Lagos that referred to the "canonization," of Gene Robinson, something even supporters like me aren't wont to claim with ease. (He's more like Jackie Robinson to me.)
Interestingly, the piece is more charmingly straightforward than most CANA spin by reporting Martin Minns was "installed in Virginia, USA, to coordinate a network of anti-gay Anglicans in that part of the world." That certainly doesn't jive with the more carefully crafted CANA press releases and with a certain Anglican seccessionist Senior Warden who wrote that gays are most welcome in CANA parishes.
Gore proposes a remedy to the demise of the marketplace of ideas that involves the re-establishment of genuine discourse where people participate in a meaningful way with an expectation of a meaningful response. My way, rather, is to scour bookstores, the library, the net, and the newspapers, to respond, refute and expose the double-talk, even if there aren't many, or any, consumers for the product.
It's a literary version of the 'Little Way.' When I was a social justice advocate, efforts were initiated by others to launch an 'affordable living,' campaign in a county where an affordable dwelling was defined as a $225,000 townhouse. The people I served lived in tents. My time for ministry was not unlimited. I chose the past of the Little Way; to help the person in front of me in our shelter. I couldn't envision the promise of a broader campaign in a county where a letter writer to the paper proclaimed he'd never assist the poor since he espied a child at a homeless shelter wearing new shoes. (He was driving; the shelter is at least 1000 yards from the highway. He must have taken a good look.)
It's disheartening that people may take letters and editorials on face value. I keep waiting in vain for someone to refute my own, although I'll confess now there aren't any suspicious links to expose, except maybe for a lifetime allegiance to the New York Yankees. (Wait, there was one favorable letter once, but she got it all wrong, for all the wrong reasons.) Perhaps the market is already closed. Even if it is, this is what I must do, even if I'm the only one left doing it. (Like rooting for A-Rod.)
I was commiserating with my buddy Mark last week about my time on vestry where 9 out of 10 votes were decided 9 to 1 (guess who?). He responded, "I had an old Army boss who believed in the motto, "dare to be different. I think it truly so in church matters - the single voice may be right, but may be drowned out by others. I think that has also been a feature of the Episcopal Church - trying to make a place for smaller voices."
Well said. It brings to mind an idea I've had for years. Perhaps parishes went awry when they adopted majority rather than consensus voting. If churches didn't take action unless it was instilled in the hearts of the whole vestry, by God, and sensed through prayer, then it's not an action to take. Would that work?
Would that serve the purpose of re-creating genuine discourse without resort to the necessity of the trickery and spin of worldly political campaigns? I don't think it would work at the more unwieldly national level where there are already canons and protocol to manage events - but could it work in a parish?
Let's vote on it.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
Retrospective
I note this week the exasperated lines of Samantha, from 16 Candles, "I can't believe it. They forgot my @#$%^&* birthday." Best not forget our own sweet 16th. We'll look back together and re-tie some threads left dangling.
Do you recall when someone painted an eye over a coffee pot and those who hadn't been honoring the honor system began to act honorably? We've learned since that an eye in the sky isn't always effective. Kent Parker, blind deli owner, Cincinnati, tells tales of customers who pay with smaller bills than charged despite the obvious presence of cameras over the register. No conscience, no guilt, no faith? No conscience, no guilt, faith? If conscience is indeed evolutionary, perhaps we've peaked, and are devolving? If conscience is a matter of free will, that's another story, but it does speak towards the real existence of original sin in all of us.
Remember the Congressional resolution naming the early 20th century massacre of Armenians as genocide? Even though a massive loss of life is acknowledged as a historical fact, today's leaders won't call it for what it is for modern geo-political reasons. I note the same process being repeated on another resolution that calls for the Japanese government to confess and apologize for its country's role in forcing women in the occupied lands of World War II to serve as sex slaves for their army. Though language is employed to soften the horror by naming the victims 'comfort women,' the crime is still denied or 'forgiven,' without consequence. Geo-political factors may turn more favorably here since current realpolitik favors Chinese and South Korean relations as valuable, or more, than the Japanese, yet it's still a matter of politics rather than justice. Can the retroactive application of justice ever be free of self-interest?
It happened to me. One of our shelter guests was found dead in the woods. The police named it 'unattended,' which is common in these circumstances. There was scuttlebutt it was murder. The police indicated they'd rely on toxicology tests to determine the cause of death. I argued this wouldn't be effective since they would no doubt find high toxicity levels in this person whether he was dead or alive. I asked they look for other causes but didn't expect that to occur since unattended deaths are not investigated with the same amount of time and resources devoted to other cases in busy suburban police departments.
Although I brought it up, I didn't persevere. If murder was proven, the woods would have been swept. It happened before after a homeless man was beaten to death by two inebriated teenagers. All the homeless became victims as if it were their fault. I can only imagine how worse it would have been had it been a homeless upon homeless crime.
Is pursuing justice for the long dead, like the Armenians, or Asian sex slaves from World War II, or our own homeless who've passed, more important than guarding the self interests of the living today? I instictively lean towards the former, regardless of the cost, but it's not always that simple.
We turn now to more 'Heroes of the Book,' like that Director of the Iraqi National Library who opens his doors every day at risk of his life. I give you, Matt DeSalvo, rookie pitcher, Yankees, who's just made his major league debut. Before the game, he was spotted in front of his locker reading a small red book with gilt edges. It wasn't a scouting report; it was Confucious, one of 400 books on his essentials list to read before he dies. How about that?
Lest we forget, there's Leonard Cohn from Silver Springs, Maryland, who died on April 12 at age 82. Mr. Cohn owned Lerner's Books for 40 years. He opened shop across the street from Georgetown Law only to find the University opening a shop of their own shortly thereafter. Loyal customers affirmed the Cohn competitive advantage: 'tomes and fringe materials,' not found in the University store, or anywhere else.
Ah, fringe materials; buried treasure, sleeping, calling to be exposed to the light. I noted last week how strange it was that materials always mysteriously appear after I choose a topic (or the topic chooses me). Come to find, there are names for it (which perpetuates the wierdness since I found the name in a book I'd just bought, called Esalen, by Jeffrey Kripal, right after I wrote about the phenomenon). While the magic of it all carries the name, sychronicity,' coined by psychiatrist C.G. Jung, an Hungarian author, Arthur Koestler, names the specific agent, the Library Angel: where "those otherwise inexplicable moments when a book passage appears, as if out of nowhere, to provide the next insight," occur again and again wihtout fail.
The Legend of the Library Angel is an ancient one. When the pagan Augustine sat, crying, in the garden, lost, confused, he heard a child sing, "Tolle, lege (take and read) over and over. He reached for his Bible, read Paul, and was born unto Christ.
Our angel is ecumenical: when Debendranath Tagore, a 19th century Hindu, was out walking one day, a page of Sanskrit floated down into the street. Within it, he found answers he'd been seeking on how to reconcile life in the world to God. Kripal confirms, "A writer does not find a truly great subject, a truly great subject finds the writer." Amen to that.
Earlier, we speculated on a figurative visit to China by the Pope. I note this week, he literally visited Brazil to canonize a saint. The NY TImes writes, it "was a way of marking traditional Catholic territory and differentiating the church from its rivals, " like the faster growing Pentecostals who abhor saints as idolatrous. The 18th century super model of the ad campaign, Friar Antonio Sant 'Anna Galvvao, "earned his reputation for defending the poor."
Prior to his promotion from Cardinal, the Pope orchestrated the demise of the South American liberation theology movement. while Benedict did not similarly abandon the poor on this visit, citing the Church's 'preferential option for the poor,' as a secondary concern, he primarily emphasized "meeting people's needs with a back-to-basics Catholicism."
This thread circles to our old stand-by, Universalism, Again, as in the words of Romana Coutinho, a 25-year old student, who "while pleased by the canonization of a Brazilian," and not attracted to the Pentecostals due to their "constant calls for donations," (I heard that) still wanted the Catholic Church "to be more flexible on questions of doctrine and liturgy."
Maria Salent Simoes, a 70-year old retired school teacher, said, "I've been in one-room houses in the slums where parents are trying to raise a dozen kids, and so I think his position on abortion is much too rigid." Perhaps, if the Pope had raised the idea he'd earlier very quietly floated that condoms might be permissable when a spouse has AIDS, he might have signaled the desired flexibility of his target demographic consumers rather than to proclaim 'back-to-basics,' as the one universal remedy for all their real life concerns.
At what point do any of the Pope's promising whispers become audible, or is that never possible without an accompanying unlikely institutional admission of error reaching back 2000 years? Is it implied without saying, by a nod and a wink, that Catholics really aren't doctrinally bound? If that's so, someone needs to tell the Romana's and Maria's, otherwise, the new marketing blitz can't and won't work.
The world beyond Catholicism doesn't appear to be growing any more flexible and any less universal. I note our present local election season in Virginia. Half of one party's candidates have taken the 'no new taxes, really, forever,' pledge, and a pledge to support the eventual nominee, even it it's not him (they're all male here). Pledges are also required attesting to one's theological purity for members of Virginia Anglican seccessionist parishes.
Pledges signify a closed mind, not subject to change. Why then should the Heroes of the Book take such risks? As far as pledge signers are concerned, the buried treasures of fringe (especially fringe) materials may lie forever lost. Resolutions to rectify injustices aren't likely if you never read about or studied the original crime. If you'd signed a pledge, and in spite of yourself, stumbled upon something new, you'd be honor bound to ignore it.
I hereby pledge, on our sweet 16th, never to sign a pledge.
Do you recall when someone painted an eye over a coffee pot and those who hadn't been honoring the honor system began to act honorably? We've learned since that an eye in the sky isn't always effective. Kent Parker, blind deli owner, Cincinnati, tells tales of customers who pay with smaller bills than charged despite the obvious presence of cameras over the register. No conscience, no guilt, no faith? No conscience, no guilt, faith? If conscience is indeed evolutionary, perhaps we've peaked, and are devolving? If conscience is a matter of free will, that's another story, but it does speak towards the real existence of original sin in all of us.
Remember the Congressional resolution naming the early 20th century massacre of Armenians as genocide? Even though a massive loss of life is acknowledged as a historical fact, today's leaders won't call it for what it is for modern geo-political reasons. I note the same process being repeated on another resolution that calls for the Japanese government to confess and apologize for its country's role in forcing women in the occupied lands of World War II to serve as sex slaves for their army. Though language is employed to soften the horror by naming the victims 'comfort women,' the crime is still denied or 'forgiven,' without consequence. Geo-political factors may turn more favorably here since current realpolitik favors Chinese and South Korean relations as valuable, or more, than the Japanese, yet it's still a matter of politics rather than justice. Can the retroactive application of justice ever be free of self-interest?
It happened to me. One of our shelter guests was found dead in the woods. The police named it 'unattended,' which is common in these circumstances. There was scuttlebutt it was murder. The police indicated they'd rely on toxicology tests to determine the cause of death. I argued this wouldn't be effective since they would no doubt find high toxicity levels in this person whether he was dead or alive. I asked they look for other causes but didn't expect that to occur since unattended deaths are not investigated with the same amount of time and resources devoted to other cases in busy suburban police departments.
Although I brought it up, I didn't persevere. If murder was proven, the woods would have been swept. It happened before after a homeless man was beaten to death by two inebriated teenagers. All the homeless became victims as if it were their fault. I can only imagine how worse it would have been had it been a homeless upon homeless crime.
Is pursuing justice for the long dead, like the Armenians, or Asian sex slaves from World War II, or our own homeless who've passed, more important than guarding the self interests of the living today? I instictively lean towards the former, regardless of the cost, but it's not always that simple.
We turn now to more 'Heroes of the Book,' like that Director of the Iraqi National Library who opens his doors every day at risk of his life. I give you, Matt DeSalvo, rookie pitcher, Yankees, who's just made his major league debut. Before the game, he was spotted in front of his locker reading a small red book with gilt edges. It wasn't a scouting report; it was Confucious, one of 400 books on his essentials list to read before he dies. How about that?
Lest we forget, there's Leonard Cohn from Silver Springs, Maryland, who died on April 12 at age 82. Mr. Cohn owned Lerner's Books for 40 years. He opened shop across the street from Georgetown Law only to find the University opening a shop of their own shortly thereafter. Loyal customers affirmed the Cohn competitive advantage: 'tomes and fringe materials,' not found in the University store, or anywhere else.
Ah, fringe materials; buried treasure, sleeping, calling to be exposed to the light. I noted last week how strange it was that materials always mysteriously appear after I choose a topic (or the topic chooses me). Come to find, there are names for it (which perpetuates the wierdness since I found the name in a book I'd just bought, called Esalen, by Jeffrey Kripal, right after I wrote about the phenomenon). While the magic of it all carries the name, sychronicity,' coined by psychiatrist C.G. Jung, an Hungarian author, Arthur Koestler, names the specific agent, the Library Angel: where "those otherwise inexplicable moments when a book passage appears, as if out of nowhere, to provide the next insight," occur again and again wihtout fail.
The Legend of the Library Angel is an ancient one. When the pagan Augustine sat, crying, in the garden, lost, confused, he heard a child sing, "Tolle, lege (take and read) over and over. He reached for his Bible, read Paul, and was born unto Christ.
Our angel is ecumenical: when Debendranath Tagore, a 19th century Hindu, was out walking one day, a page of Sanskrit floated down into the street. Within it, he found answers he'd been seeking on how to reconcile life in the world to God. Kripal confirms, "A writer does not find a truly great subject, a truly great subject finds the writer." Amen to that.
Earlier, we speculated on a figurative visit to China by the Pope. I note this week, he literally visited Brazil to canonize a saint. The NY TImes writes, it "was a way of marking traditional Catholic territory and differentiating the church from its rivals, " like the faster growing Pentecostals who abhor saints as idolatrous. The 18th century super model of the ad campaign, Friar Antonio Sant 'Anna Galvvao, "earned his reputation for defending the poor."
Prior to his promotion from Cardinal, the Pope orchestrated the demise of the South American liberation theology movement. while Benedict did not similarly abandon the poor on this visit, citing the Church's 'preferential option for the poor,' as a secondary concern, he primarily emphasized "meeting people's needs with a back-to-basics Catholicism."
This thread circles to our old stand-by, Universalism, Again, as in the words of Romana Coutinho, a 25-year old student, who "while pleased by the canonization of a Brazilian," and not attracted to the Pentecostals due to their "constant calls for donations," (I heard that) still wanted the Catholic Church "to be more flexible on questions of doctrine and liturgy."
Maria Salent Simoes, a 70-year old retired school teacher, said, "I've been in one-room houses in the slums where parents are trying to raise a dozen kids, and so I think his position on abortion is much too rigid." Perhaps, if the Pope had raised the idea he'd earlier very quietly floated that condoms might be permissable when a spouse has AIDS, he might have signaled the desired flexibility of his target demographic consumers rather than to proclaim 'back-to-basics,' as the one universal remedy for all their real life concerns.
At what point do any of the Pope's promising whispers become audible, or is that never possible without an accompanying unlikely institutional admission of error reaching back 2000 years? Is it implied without saying, by a nod and a wink, that Catholics really aren't doctrinally bound? If that's so, someone needs to tell the Romana's and Maria's, otherwise, the new marketing blitz can't and won't work.
The world beyond Catholicism doesn't appear to be growing any more flexible and any less universal. I note our present local election season in Virginia. Half of one party's candidates have taken the 'no new taxes, really, forever,' pledge, and a pledge to support the eventual nominee, even it it's not him (they're all male here). Pledges are also required attesting to one's theological purity for members of Virginia Anglican seccessionist parishes.
Pledges signify a closed mind, not subject to change. Why then should the Heroes of the Book take such risks? As far as pledge signers are concerned, the buried treasures of fringe (especially fringe) materials may lie forever lost. Resolutions to rectify injustices aren't likely if you never read about or studied the original crime. If you'd signed a pledge, and in spite of yourself, stumbled upon something new, you'd be honor bound to ignore it.
I hereby pledge, on our sweet 16th, never to sign a pledge.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
If I flop, let 'em pan me
I note this week the title quote, attributed to Knute Rockne, in regards to the Pete and Marty show in Dale City last weekend. The house holds 3,500; the crowd numbered 1,000. Pete brought 350 from home (which is like counting your mom, dad, sister, brother, and 346 cousins, that had to come to your school play), leaving a real audience of 650. With that kind of box office, in preview, on the road, it wouldn't make it to Broadway. Along the lines of the old show biz adage, 'the play's a success, the audience is a failure,' the Sunday morning headline in Variety might read, 'EPIX NIX DOX POX.'
In the other corner, our Archbishop of Canterbury mailed a please-don't-come-to Virginia letter (sounds like a Bizarro version of the Dave Loggins song), to Pete, too late, too arrive in Nigeria, before he left for the States. I've been in business almost 30 years. Oft times, I've likened the office to Survivor: you make alliances, you break alliances, you send folks to Exile Island, you visit yourself. Yet even I can't figure out if there was an intent to send that letter late on purpose; or if it happened by accident, or through carelessness; or, if it didn't or it did, what was I supposed to think, either way?
I've had it with the two of them. Successive adverse court decisions against the Anglicans in Pittsburgh, Florida and South Carolina, and the flop at Hylton Chapel, represent high low-water marks for a failed succession. On the other hand, if the AB's letter really was sent late on purpose, it's so Machiavellian, like Sammy Davis, Jr., I've got to say, "It's a turn-off, man." I'm passing Damon Runyon's brilliant discernment of Job on to both of them: "Shut up, God explained."
I'm moving on. To what?
We're going home. Home being St. Margaret's Episcopal. When Connie and I moved to Fredericksburg, we joined the local parish in accordance with the 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not driveth more than 10 miles to church." The heck with it. We're going anyway. (I heard someone last week call them The Ten Suggestions, anyway...)
I should have been content at the neighborhood church. There were no Anglicans; no votes; no talk of splits. The parish was solidly Diocesan. The most vociferous argument was whether the ornamental cherry tree should be cut down and paved over for a parking lot. All that I desired, intellectually, was there, yet, something was missing.
I once visited Christchurch in Dublin. Inside a case, in a small insert, cut into the stone wall, is the heart of St. Laurence. That's what was missing. When I called our rector about a transfer, he said he wasn't surprised. He knew, Connie knew, what I've always known; wherever I go, my heart will always be captive to St. Margaret's, like that heart in a box, in that ancient church, in Ireland.
God plants signposts, I reckon. I'm called to teach Adult Ed at St. Margaret's. While the Hylton Chapel show was laying an egg, Connie and I were in Baltimore for our annual Orioles weekend. We lodged at the Inn across from the Inner Harbor Barnes & Nobles (natch). The book, "Christianity for the Rest of Us," magically leapt off the shelf into my hands. That happens alot. Whenever I get a mind to write about anything, the right tome mysteriously appears. It might be God's doing. (Though I'll admit the odds of not finding a book on any topic are rather low considerng the time spent in bookstores. The information desk at the Fredericksburg Borders refers shoppers to me when I'm in...)
This book, by Diana Butler Bass, infers a lesson I learned in business school called the Hawthorne Effect. At GE in the 1920's, psychologists turned the lights up on the factory floor. Unsurprisingly, production shot up. Next, they turned the lights down. Productivity went up. The lesson learned is that what you do is less important than the attention you pay to people.
Bass rejects likewise the idea that only conservative churches grow today, and that mainline churches are in decline due to their perceived liberalism. She contends any church can grow if it's intentional in what it does, and attention is paid to the parishioners who want to know why it's done. (I can't think of anything more valuable I learned in college; actually, I can't remember anything else I learned in college.)
Bass writes churches differ by whether they are establishment or intentional. The former emphasize buildings, as edifice core, and the paid professional clergy that manage the plant. The latter emphasize mission built upon the accredited value of the diverse gifts each parishioner has to offer.
St. Margaret's Episcopal is free today to be anything it wants. The potential is limitless. We're all witness to the rebirth of a beloved friend. If there's any place on earth entitled to be called, 'born again,' it's here; even if I have to drive 30 miles to join.
I can't leave this week without noting one other lesson learned; the German philosopher, Karl Popper's, 'problem of the paradox of tolerance.' It's a hard lesson for an old knee-jerk liberal, yet, after all that's happened, it explains much.
Popper proposes that while people of good will generally profess tolerance, it must have at least one limitation: intolerance. He writes, "Under the assumption of tolerating intolerance, intolerant behavior will spread unstoppably because no actions are being taken due to our premise of unlimited tolerance."
Bass' focus on intentionality and Popper's paradoxical problem have forged a mutal kinship throughout history. Last week, I wrote about pre-war British appeasers. Their intention was to avoid the carnage of World War I at all costs so they tolerated intolerance to a point where it was too late, and what they sought to avoid, became inevitable.
The initial success of the German aggressor during the World War II, however, led to what historians call 'victory disease.' Their early triumphs led them to believe they were invincible, and so, they overreached, at Stalingrad, and lost the war.
Just as it was then, we're now at the turning point, where those who believe themselves destined to achieve their aims, have overreached, and are being turned back. The attempt to displace TEC as the sole American sect in the Communion, legitimized through the incorporation of seized property, has failed, and continues to fail. The drive to instill centralized authority in the person and office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, contrary to Anglican tradition and TEC Canon, has failed. The selective use of the Windsor Report as a bludgeon, while at the same time, violating its prohibition against crossing ancient bishopric boundary lines, such as the rather sad Pete and Marty show, represent the lost cause tactics of a general failure growing increasingly desperate.
I note in Pete's after-action response to Rowan, he stated he wasn't necessarily wedded to CANA. That must have come as a bit of a shock to his new North American regional sales manager. Rather than a partnership, Martin might be forgiven for thinking he's viewing a nightmare episode of 'Spin and Marty.' To frame it in Robert Benchly's immortal words, could it be that 'the ship is deserting the sinking rats?'
Perhaps those who are intentional and intolerant will always succeed at first since those who oppose them are reluctant to abandon the tolerant assumption that all parties are sincere in their good will. Recognizing the danger in this is only the first lesson. How to own, and convey intention, while concurrently practicing tolerance, is the ultimate object of the teaching.
It's a lesson to ponder in the future. Meanwhile, as I promised, I'm moving on, to report the much more intriguing and glorious story as St. Margaret's Episcopal unfolds in its latest Incarnation, and we take on the role of Joseph and Mary, the family that nutures the baby, and serves the adult, with intention and tolerance.
Thank you, beloved St. Maggies, once again, for providing a community and a role to our family. Thank you, God, for sending us home.
In the other corner, our Archbishop of Canterbury mailed a please-don't-come-to Virginia letter (sounds like a Bizarro version of the Dave Loggins song), to Pete, too late, too arrive in Nigeria, before he left for the States. I've been in business almost 30 years. Oft times, I've likened the office to Survivor: you make alliances, you break alliances, you send folks to Exile Island, you visit yourself. Yet even I can't figure out if there was an intent to send that letter late on purpose; or if it happened by accident, or through carelessness; or, if it didn't or it did, what was I supposed to think, either way?
I've had it with the two of them. Successive adverse court decisions against the Anglicans in Pittsburgh, Florida and South Carolina, and the flop at Hylton Chapel, represent high low-water marks for a failed succession. On the other hand, if the AB's letter really was sent late on purpose, it's so Machiavellian, like Sammy Davis, Jr., I've got to say, "It's a turn-off, man." I'm passing Damon Runyon's brilliant discernment of Job on to both of them: "Shut up, God explained."
I'm moving on. To what?
We're going home. Home being St. Margaret's Episcopal. When Connie and I moved to Fredericksburg, we joined the local parish in accordance with the 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not driveth more than 10 miles to church." The heck with it. We're going anyway. (I heard someone last week call them The Ten Suggestions, anyway...)
I should have been content at the neighborhood church. There were no Anglicans; no votes; no talk of splits. The parish was solidly Diocesan. The most vociferous argument was whether the ornamental cherry tree should be cut down and paved over for a parking lot. All that I desired, intellectually, was there, yet, something was missing.
I once visited Christchurch in Dublin. Inside a case, in a small insert, cut into the stone wall, is the heart of St. Laurence. That's what was missing. When I called our rector about a transfer, he said he wasn't surprised. He knew, Connie knew, what I've always known; wherever I go, my heart will always be captive to St. Margaret's, like that heart in a box, in that ancient church, in Ireland.
God plants signposts, I reckon. I'm called to teach Adult Ed at St. Margaret's. While the Hylton Chapel show was laying an egg, Connie and I were in Baltimore for our annual Orioles weekend. We lodged at the Inn across from the Inner Harbor Barnes & Nobles (natch). The book, "Christianity for the Rest of Us," magically leapt off the shelf into my hands. That happens alot. Whenever I get a mind to write about anything, the right tome mysteriously appears. It might be God's doing. (Though I'll admit the odds of not finding a book on any topic are rather low considerng the time spent in bookstores. The information desk at the Fredericksburg Borders refers shoppers to me when I'm in...)
This book, by Diana Butler Bass, infers a lesson I learned in business school called the Hawthorne Effect. At GE in the 1920's, psychologists turned the lights up on the factory floor. Unsurprisingly, production shot up. Next, they turned the lights down. Productivity went up. The lesson learned is that what you do is less important than the attention you pay to people.
Bass rejects likewise the idea that only conservative churches grow today, and that mainline churches are in decline due to their perceived liberalism. She contends any church can grow if it's intentional in what it does, and attention is paid to the parishioners who want to know why it's done. (I can't think of anything more valuable I learned in college; actually, I can't remember anything else I learned in college.)
Bass writes churches differ by whether they are establishment or intentional. The former emphasize buildings, as edifice core, and the paid professional clergy that manage the plant. The latter emphasize mission built upon the accredited value of the diverse gifts each parishioner has to offer.
St. Margaret's Episcopal is free today to be anything it wants. The potential is limitless. We're all witness to the rebirth of a beloved friend. If there's any place on earth entitled to be called, 'born again,' it's here; even if I have to drive 30 miles to join.
I can't leave this week without noting one other lesson learned; the German philosopher, Karl Popper's, 'problem of the paradox of tolerance.' It's a hard lesson for an old knee-jerk liberal, yet, after all that's happened, it explains much.
Popper proposes that while people of good will generally profess tolerance, it must have at least one limitation: intolerance. He writes, "Under the assumption of tolerating intolerance, intolerant behavior will spread unstoppably because no actions are being taken due to our premise of unlimited tolerance."
Bass' focus on intentionality and Popper's paradoxical problem have forged a mutal kinship throughout history. Last week, I wrote about pre-war British appeasers. Their intention was to avoid the carnage of World War I at all costs so they tolerated intolerance to a point where it was too late, and what they sought to avoid, became inevitable.
The initial success of the German aggressor during the World War II, however, led to what historians call 'victory disease.' Their early triumphs led them to believe they were invincible, and so, they overreached, at Stalingrad, and lost the war.
Just as it was then, we're now at the turning point, where those who believe themselves destined to achieve their aims, have overreached, and are being turned back. The attempt to displace TEC as the sole American sect in the Communion, legitimized through the incorporation of seized property, has failed, and continues to fail. The drive to instill centralized authority in the person and office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, contrary to Anglican tradition and TEC Canon, has failed. The selective use of the Windsor Report as a bludgeon, while at the same time, violating its prohibition against crossing ancient bishopric boundary lines, such as the rather sad Pete and Marty show, represent the lost cause tactics of a general failure growing increasingly desperate.
I note in Pete's after-action response to Rowan, he stated he wasn't necessarily wedded to CANA. That must have come as a bit of a shock to his new North American regional sales manager. Rather than a partnership, Martin might be forgiven for thinking he's viewing a nightmare episode of 'Spin and Marty.' To frame it in Robert Benchly's immortal words, could it be that 'the ship is deserting the sinking rats?'
Perhaps those who are intentional and intolerant will always succeed at first since those who oppose them are reluctant to abandon the tolerant assumption that all parties are sincere in their good will. Recognizing the danger in this is only the first lesson. How to own, and convey intention, while concurrently practicing tolerance, is the ultimate object of the teaching.
It's a lesson to ponder in the future. Meanwhile, as I promised, I'm moving on, to report the much more intriguing and glorious story as St. Margaret's Episcopal unfolds in its latest Incarnation, and we take on the role of Joseph and Mary, the family that nutures the baby, and serves the adult, with intention and tolerance.
Thank you, beloved St. Maggies, once again, for providing a community and a role to our family. Thank you, God, for sending us home.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Universalism, Again
I note this week how last week we touched upon the idea that universalism can be a source of harm. My friend Mark was prompted to dispel the confusion as to what that monk meant when he said the Church ban on birth control must remain universal. This was after I'd asked the Dominican whether he equated a Third World baby who starves to death with a healthy infant born in the West that grows up to live a happy life.
When the monk responded the question implied the lives had unequal value, Mark eloquently explained that meant "from God's viewpoint, any child who dies in infancy is no less valued a life, and a soul," than anyone (including Pol Pot or Mother Teresa, who we both agreed performed great service in alleviating suffering but who I offered (along with Christopher Hitchens, the acerbic Brit journalist) that since she worked for an institution that upholds the ban on birth control, she is at least implicitly at fault for the suffering).
Am I saying the baby in Africa should never have been born? I don't think the prevention of conception equates with the death of an existant human life, but Mark is right to urge caution since, "it's a short step and ice-slick slope to genetic manipulation of pregnancies and a modern Aryanism."
I note this week an article in Politco entitled, "Pols Sidestep Debate Over Armenian Genocide." The author forecasts prospects for Congressional resolutions that finally label 92-year old atrocities as genocide. The International Association of Genocide Scholars writes, "under cover of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocice of Armenian citizens - an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture and forced death marches." The Turkish government places the death toll at 'only,' 200,000 and counters they "occurred during an armed revolt by Armenian rebels who opposed being relocated by the Ottoman government."
Our country doesn't deny the deaths at the higher number but also doesn't name them genocidal for geo-political reasons today. Perhaps this is similar, as written a week ago, to the way the Catholic Church introduces new teachings; as a tacit admission a correction is needed, but which can't officially be put right. I know of one fella, though, in 1939, who said, "I have put my death-head formations in place with the command relentlessly and without compassion to send into death many women and children of Polish origin and language. Only thus can we gain the living space that we need. Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?" Say, Adolph, in 2007, we still are.
Tommorrow, in Dale City, Virginia, at Hylton Chapel (no longer employed for public school baccalaureates since management wouldn't countenance the recitation of non-sectarian prayers out of respect for non-Christian graduates), the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, is scheduled to install Martin Minns as bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. In an address to the Nigerian nation in 2006, Akinola said, "The Church affirms our committment to the total rejection of the evil of homosexuality which is a perversion of human dignity and encourages the National Assembly to ratify the Bill prohibiting the legality of homosexuality since it is incongruent with the teachings of the Bible, Quaran, and the basic African tradtional values." The Justice Minister, Bayo Ojo, helpfully added, "the law would also ban any form of protest to press for rights or recognition."
Minns spun for American audiences that, "Akinola was characterized as "an advocate of jailing gays. This is not true." A blogger from the Truro parish Minns left for the Nigerian promotion, wrote, "What part of does not support jailing gays do you not understand," attributing the 'smear,' as a 'rumor,' spread by a "British gay activist lobby group." She also stretches an already tenuous credibility beyond its limits by claiming negative posts about Akinola cause poverty.
After all else is stripped away, post-Tec secession vote, these items particularly urk: (1) out of all the Anglicans, in all the world, to lead them -- why choose Akinola; (2) since the patient readers of this blog know very well by now I believe folks must stand by their convictions, and depart, if needs be, on principle - yet why did the people who voted to leave, stay, and the people who voted to stay, leave; (3) that Virginia Anglicans are fond of saying America is in dire need of an infusion of external values.
I've noticed before there are African constructs eminently worthy of emulation such as the retired Archbishop Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission established after apartheid, not for vengence, but so the truth revealed, and the example of Christian forbearance and forgiveness, might change the world to prevent such injustice from happening again. The corruption evident in the recent flawed Nigerian presidential election, however, and the anti-gay legislation, and the executions of political dissidents, like Ken Sara-Wiwa in 1995, are not so welcome imports.
In his book, "Crimes against Humanity," Geoffrey Robertson hails progress in the field of human rights dating from the Nuremberg trials to the present, except for one major hitch: how some Asian and African nations claim these ideals conflict with their culture and their right to conduct their own interal affairs without interfence. I noted several weeks ago the writer of a Nigeran newspaper editorial reckoned if Nigerians knew their signature on international anti-genocide treaties included protections for gays and lesbians, they wouldn't have signed.
In one regard, I have no qualms about universalism: "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." When I attended a fundamentalist church, I was uncomfortable with a pervasive anti-Americanism exhorted from the pulpit and in parish hall talk. Perhaps that's the space (in the Hylton Chapel parish hall no less) where Virginian and African Anglicanism, fueled by a Christian exclusivity taken to extremes, comfortably meet and supersede the natural inherent tolerances and revered traditions of democracy and liberty.
While Akinola affirmed positive programs in that nation-wide speech, for education, crime reduction, child trafficking abolition, and finanical aid for pensioners, it was only towards gays and lesbians that he advocated negative sanctions, as if they weren't deserving of the common human decency accorded to all other citizenry.
He stressed "the Church recognizes that the law of the land is sacrosanct and inviolable," as applied, for example, to limits on immunity for corrupt public officials on trial. Examine that more closely and apply the intention to the ant-gay legislation: if you aspire to live under the rule of law, and create statutes that enshrine persecution, the institutionalized discrimination and persecution of an ostracized minority, is a lawful duty.
Robertson writes of how this problem was addressed in the UN Charter that, "recites as it's rationale that contempt for human rights results in 'barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind,' and so 'human rights,' should be protected by the rule of law." He even adds the first draft was originally written, 'everyone has a right to life, liberty and security of person, except in cases as prescribed by law,' until the authors remembered how many people had been killed in Germany under the rule of law.
Minns, the Truro blogger, and the Virginia Anglicans who say nothing has changed in their parishes after the vote, are complicit and implicit apologists for Akinola, just as there were apologists in Britain and America for Germany, prior to World War II, who said they had it on their own personal authority, straight from the horse's mouth, that German leaders really didn't mean what they said in public. That must account for their joy and excitement, absence any qualms, let alone outrage, moving into Saturday's enthronement of Minns by Akinola, otherwise, it's incomprehensible.
It's hard to pin down the hoary old shibboleth of univeralsim. It's slippery, it's firm. It's good, it's not so good. It was grand this past weekend at the parish retreat, at Shrinemont, the beautiful Diocesan refresement center in the Shenandoah's. This is a universalism of serentiy. Nothing much of importance ever changes: the home-style menu's, the porch settin,' the walk up to the Cross where you can see three states from the tower.
Several parishes share the same weekend so Sunday services in the open-air cathedral follow upon each other. As we waited our turn, we softly sang Sweet, Sweet Spirit outside, along with the preceding church, already worshipping inside. We put our arms around each other's shoulders, swayed, and shed some tears. This universalsim comes on the winds of a gentle breeze you hear sweeping across the land from miles away; the Holy Spirit arrives and revives.
One fella said maybe in the years to come, when the still raw animosity fades, perhaps all the old parish family can come together again at Shrinemont. We'll see. Perhaps, reconciliation is possible after the new Anglicans inevitably conclude as did those British apologists after the War, 'that they backed the wrong horse.' Until then, I prefer to say to them now, the same thing I said every night to the homeless when I tucked them in for the night at the shelter, "how can I miss you, if you never leave?"
When the monk responded the question implied the lives had unequal value, Mark eloquently explained that meant "from God's viewpoint, any child who dies in infancy is no less valued a life, and a soul," than anyone (including Pol Pot or Mother Teresa, who we both agreed performed great service in alleviating suffering but who I offered (along with Christopher Hitchens, the acerbic Brit journalist) that since she worked for an institution that upholds the ban on birth control, she is at least implicitly at fault for the suffering).
Am I saying the baby in Africa should never have been born? I don't think the prevention of conception equates with the death of an existant human life, but Mark is right to urge caution since, "it's a short step and ice-slick slope to genetic manipulation of pregnancies and a modern Aryanism."
I note this week an article in Politco entitled, "Pols Sidestep Debate Over Armenian Genocide." The author forecasts prospects for Congressional resolutions that finally label 92-year old atrocities as genocide. The International Association of Genocide Scholars writes, "under cover of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocice of Armenian citizens - an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture and forced death marches." The Turkish government places the death toll at 'only,' 200,000 and counters they "occurred during an armed revolt by Armenian rebels who opposed being relocated by the Ottoman government."
Our country doesn't deny the deaths at the higher number but also doesn't name them genocidal for geo-political reasons today. Perhaps this is similar, as written a week ago, to the way the Catholic Church introduces new teachings; as a tacit admission a correction is needed, but which can't officially be put right. I know of one fella, though, in 1939, who said, "I have put my death-head formations in place with the command relentlessly and without compassion to send into death many women and children of Polish origin and language. Only thus can we gain the living space that we need. Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?" Say, Adolph, in 2007, we still are.
Tommorrow, in Dale City, Virginia, at Hylton Chapel (no longer employed for public school baccalaureates since management wouldn't countenance the recitation of non-sectarian prayers out of respect for non-Christian graduates), the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, is scheduled to install Martin Minns as bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. In an address to the Nigerian nation in 2006, Akinola said, "The Church affirms our committment to the total rejection of the evil of homosexuality which is a perversion of human dignity and encourages the National Assembly to ratify the Bill prohibiting the legality of homosexuality since it is incongruent with the teachings of the Bible, Quaran, and the basic African tradtional values." The Justice Minister, Bayo Ojo, helpfully added, "the law would also ban any form of protest to press for rights or recognition."
Minns spun for American audiences that, "Akinola was characterized as "an advocate of jailing gays. This is not true." A blogger from the Truro parish Minns left for the Nigerian promotion, wrote, "What part of does not support jailing gays do you not understand," attributing the 'smear,' as a 'rumor,' spread by a "British gay activist lobby group." She also stretches an already tenuous credibility beyond its limits by claiming negative posts about Akinola cause poverty.
After all else is stripped away, post-Tec secession vote, these items particularly urk: (1) out of all the Anglicans, in all the world, to lead them -- why choose Akinola; (2) since the patient readers of this blog know very well by now I believe folks must stand by their convictions, and depart, if needs be, on principle - yet why did the people who voted to leave, stay, and the people who voted to stay, leave; (3) that Virginia Anglicans are fond of saying America is in dire need of an infusion of external values.
I've noticed before there are African constructs eminently worthy of emulation such as the retired Archbishop Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission established after apartheid, not for vengence, but so the truth revealed, and the example of Christian forbearance and forgiveness, might change the world to prevent such injustice from happening again. The corruption evident in the recent flawed Nigerian presidential election, however, and the anti-gay legislation, and the executions of political dissidents, like Ken Sara-Wiwa in 1995, are not so welcome imports.
In his book, "Crimes against Humanity," Geoffrey Robertson hails progress in the field of human rights dating from the Nuremberg trials to the present, except for one major hitch: how some Asian and African nations claim these ideals conflict with their culture and their right to conduct their own interal affairs without interfence. I noted several weeks ago the writer of a Nigeran newspaper editorial reckoned if Nigerians knew their signature on international anti-genocide treaties included protections for gays and lesbians, they wouldn't have signed.
In one regard, I have no qualms about universalism: "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." When I attended a fundamentalist church, I was uncomfortable with a pervasive anti-Americanism exhorted from the pulpit and in parish hall talk. Perhaps that's the space (in the Hylton Chapel parish hall no less) where Virginian and African Anglicanism, fueled by a Christian exclusivity taken to extremes, comfortably meet and supersede the natural inherent tolerances and revered traditions of democracy and liberty.
While Akinola affirmed positive programs in that nation-wide speech, for education, crime reduction, child trafficking abolition, and finanical aid for pensioners, it was only towards gays and lesbians that he advocated negative sanctions, as if they weren't deserving of the common human decency accorded to all other citizenry.
He stressed "the Church recognizes that the law of the land is sacrosanct and inviolable," as applied, for example, to limits on immunity for corrupt public officials on trial. Examine that more closely and apply the intention to the ant-gay legislation: if you aspire to live under the rule of law, and create statutes that enshrine persecution, the institutionalized discrimination and persecution of an ostracized minority, is a lawful duty.
Robertson writes of how this problem was addressed in the UN Charter that, "recites as it's rationale that contempt for human rights results in 'barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind,' and so 'human rights,' should be protected by the rule of law." He even adds the first draft was originally written, 'everyone has a right to life, liberty and security of person, except in cases as prescribed by law,' until the authors remembered how many people had been killed in Germany under the rule of law.
Minns, the Truro blogger, and the Virginia Anglicans who say nothing has changed in their parishes after the vote, are complicit and implicit apologists for Akinola, just as there were apologists in Britain and America for Germany, prior to World War II, who said they had it on their own personal authority, straight from the horse's mouth, that German leaders really didn't mean what they said in public. That must account for their joy and excitement, absence any qualms, let alone outrage, moving into Saturday's enthronement of Minns by Akinola, otherwise, it's incomprehensible.
It's hard to pin down the hoary old shibboleth of univeralsim. It's slippery, it's firm. It's good, it's not so good. It was grand this past weekend at the parish retreat, at Shrinemont, the beautiful Diocesan refresement center in the Shenandoah's. This is a universalism of serentiy. Nothing much of importance ever changes: the home-style menu's, the porch settin,' the walk up to the Cross where you can see three states from the tower.
Several parishes share the same weekend so Sunday services in the open-air cathedral follow upon each other. As we waited our turn, we softly sang Sweet, Sweet Spirit outside, along with the preceding church, already worshipping inside. We put our arms around each other's shoulders, swayed, and shed some tears. This universalsim comes on the winds of a gentle breeze you hear sweeping across the land from miles away; the Holy Spirit arrives and revives.
One fella said maybe in the years to come, when the still raw animosity fades, perhaps all the old parish family can come together again at Shrinemont. We'll see. Perhaps, reconciliation is possible after the new Anglicans inevitably conclude as did those British apologists after the War, 'that they backed the wrong horse.' Until then, I prefer to say to them now, the same thing I said every night to the homeless when I tucked them in for the night at the shelter, "how can I miss you, if you never leave?"
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