Something to think about, from Paolo Friere:
"True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the 'rejects of life,' to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands -- whether of individuals or of entire peoples -- need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world."
Paolo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. Continuum: New York, 1996.
When do the objects of our youth
(the dolls, the soldiers and the pets
upon which our childhood was acted)
become actors themselves,
transitioning within our minds
from stage
to prop to member
of our troupe,
our company,
ourselves?
Is there a moment?
Is there a reason
we begrudge to these
a share of influence?
Or are we merely sloughing off upon
the doll with perfect hips
that lost an eye,
the stern, broad-shouldered army man
without an arm,
the pup which was not fed
but loved us still,
responsibility
for all the wisdom
and the sins of age,
our insecurities?
I cannot say.
I only know that as a survivor of those years, myself,
I feel a certain kinship with
the ancient dog
and long-forgotten toys,
who also lived that life but cannot tell the tale.
Speak plain to me,
speak plain to me,
lay plain plans with me
in the gardens.
Everything that rises
to our lips must be concealed.
Enemy eyes rest upon us.
Too soon have our
outer defenses crumbled.
The guildhalls are taken.
The first towers have fallen.
So lay with me in the gardens
and lay plans with me
while you can.
(This was a quick response to an email from EpicHaiku. Thanks, N!)
Ok, I'm back. I had a great weekend with the fam and haven't been online in about a week due to work and life. Good to see everybody AND HEAR EVERYBODY. There certainly has been a lot of activity here on the old covblog page while I was absent. Looks like most everybody's talking about homosexuality this Easter break -- that and getting their SIPs finished. Well, I have a question:
Why do we handle sin the ways we do? And I do mean ways in the plural. We are rather inconsistent in this regard. I got an email from a friend lately who was asking: "What if I ended up doing X...?" This person seriously doubted the consistency and compassion of his Christian friends' reactions...
BY the way: We = American evangelicals (others feel free to comment).
Dear Roommate,
Here (in brief) is the tale I was trying to tell tonight. I fear you have been very reckless in your word choice, perhaps buying into systems of thought of which you were unaware. This is troublesome, but luckily you have a clever and compassionate teammate. (Me.)
(read on...)
Tonight I heard you talk about lettered spaces, unlettered spaces and visitor spaces. Whenever you spoke, you seemed to equate unlettered spaces with visitor spaces. Technically, this is incorrect. The letter from the Haverhill community association clearly stated that parking has become an issue of concern amongst our neighbors. To help things out a bit, they reminded all residents that each unit was allotted one (1) lettered space and one (1) unlettered space. That brings our vehicle total to two (1+1 = 2). So far, so good. Now, the first problem arises in the very next thought of the aforementioned association. They tell us that there is a third group of parking spaces known as "visitor parking," and request that all visitor vehicles and extra resident vehicles remain here when not in use. The problem is clear: are these spaces considered lettered or unlettered?
Our argument tonight was really not fair, my friend. You see, I have done a little side research of which I was prevented (through excess talk on your part or neglect on mine, I know not) of making you aware. What was this research, you may ask? Well, I set out to discover this mysterious visitor parking area. I soon found a strip of spaces where my car is now parked, labelled with a white, green-lettered sign that reads: Visitor Parking. Lo, I looked about me and there was great confusion. The spaces here were unlettered! Now, what was I to think? I have since come to the following conclusion: There are generally two types of assigned spaces: lettered and unlettered. Extra vehicles, according to the powers that be here in Haverhill, must park in an unassigned space known as visitor parking. Therefore, I am forced to conclude that the visitor parking spaces exist as a third category. Although technically unlettered, they are a third category in themselves.
At this point, the discussion turns a bit. Given that there are three categories of spaces here in the Haverhill subdivision, where ought we to park? This question, as you can see, is a different but nonetheless related one. To my way of thinking, there are two options. Either parking in a visitor space is a matter of discovering unused spaces or it is a matter of discovering spaces assigned to visitors. Once again, we are not helpless. We are not thrown carelessly upon the horns of indecision, as orphans are tossed capriciously by wicked fate into the arms of whatever master will begrudge them bread. No, we have come to the land that flows with milk and honey, the goodly land of reason. Two important tools have been given us. As for the first, we know that there is an economic difference between the "unlettered but assigned" parking space and the "assigned specifically for visitors but incidentally unlettered" parking space, this cautiously-reasoned point having been previously enumerated. As for the second, we have a handy sign of designation, a white one with green letters.
Let us take these tools in hand to discover the truth of where we ought to park. Perhaps, as I have said, determining where to park our "extra vehicles," is merely a matter of discovering unused and unlettered spaces. Were this true, it would suggest that the unlettered spaces that dot our shared parking lot are all, in fact, up for grabs, and that there is no great concern over how many total spaces each unit uses. It would also seem to suggest that the Haverhill community association has gone to a great deal of unneccessary trouble by painting any letters on spaces at all, not to mention the construction and careful placement of a white, green-lettered sign that reads: Visitor Parking.
On the other hand, perhaps determining where to park our "extra vehicles," is a matter of looking for an area assigned to visitors and -- if we're lucky -- even designated as such. Given the space lettering and visitor parking sign, I sense that this hypothesis correlates much more accurately with the truth.
In any event, the needs of our neighbors -- none of whom are as young, spy, good-looking, and brilliant as yourself -- are best served by exercising our legs a bit and placing our vehicles in the far country with the white, green-lettered sign that reads: Visitor Parking. Why park more closely simply because, by the slimmest of odds, we may be right in so doing? Although we may *possibly* have the law on our side, we will likely earn a perceived reputation (deserved or undeserved, it matters little) of inconveniencer and parking-monger, very like unto the Jewish money-lenders of Elizabethan England. And what is more, the law is likely to be against parking nigh unto our house.
Sigh. All this talk of England has me using a higher register of language than previously intended. I trust it will pose no difficulty for you, dear reader. The hour has come for my retirement, as my frail frame prepares itself for another day, administering unto itself the sweet draught of sleep. I shall most likely post these thoughts upon my blog, for the tender wits that visit there. Feel free to respond in kind, my brother. No need to thank me. I shall see you tomorrow.
Very Reasonably Yours,
Bob
On Sunday, we engaged in a public and then private prayer of confession at church. Afterwards, we read Psalm 103 responsively. Sheesh. I mean, I've read that Psalm before, but saying it out loud after confession? I got a bit emotional.
The sources are questionable but the stories match.
I can’t figure they had time to corroborate and what’s more,
They match a hunch I’ve got.
I’m known for my hunches.
We won’t know for sure unless we bring him in
And there’s enough red tape involved
That we can’t bring him in
Unless we know for sure.
So justice gets flushed and I keep my job.
This is the classic line of modern storytelling. While it’s possible that the storyteller’s protagonist might pervert the formula and sacrifice his job for the greater good, nobody wants to be seen as a weaver of happy endings. Is this sudden shame of happy endings a function of a changing audience or instead of changing perceptions of our audience? I like to think (because I am an optimist at heart) that there is some core of a listening, reading, watching public that desperately wants to hear stories about a greater good. The only problem is that they have been desensitized to happy endings. Their happy ending tolerance was perhaps reached before they were born. Perhaps the men and women of our world entered this great stage of human drama with their quotas already filled. Culturally, we are dead to the idea of happy endings because so many bad stories have been told solely for the sake of a happy ending. “Genocide and famine are loose among our human ranks!” they cry. “Surely you aren’t going to spin us another yarn about the righteous man who gets the girl and carries her into a sunset of peace and full bellies?! We simply cannot stomach it.”
And so, perhaps, they see the lie and recognize the myopic self-deception it represents. Kudos to them for having gained a sense of scope! Of course our protagonists compromise themselves to keep their jobs! Of course they have no faith in the systems that safeguard our lives! The mature character is inevitably a cynical one. The best that can be hoped for is a hero who is stoic, enduring this lack of faith and doing their job as best they can. But deep down, I like to think that our audiences know these stories do not satisfy their hearts. I like to think their hearts are anxious for a story that first of all takes them seriously, with all their pain and heartache, genocide and all. They want stories that acknowledge these things and yet manage to place them within an even broader framework, a metanarrative that projects purpose and possibly hope upon their despair.
If these things are true, then we may have discovered a parable within the storytelling task. The moral of the story is this: that fighting a negative with a false positive only presents a straw-man, something easily beaten and not to be believed. Telling happy stories backfires because too often they are only happy lies. On the other hand, telling sad, gritty tales only gives a half truth. We must tell whole stories so that we might again discriminate between storytellers and mere liars.
What is more, we must also tell those stories well enough to pierce the lethargy of our audiences, so that they might participate along with us in this storytelling task. Without them, of course, we can still tell stories. We can spin amazing stories and think amazing thoughts about the human position here, but without an audience they will still be lies. No matter how hard we work at being truthful in our fantasy and in our art, those things fail to mean much except when they complete the circle and return to community, having been born in the ashes of that fire and returning periodically to reignite therein.
That is what I would like to think, but is it anything more than another false hope? Is my hope in our audience rooted in reality or in make-believe? While I want to maintain a story-telling aesthetic that eschews religious pop-writing on the one hand and existentialist despondency on the other, I must submit myself to the same criticism. The ways in which we engage fellow story-tellers and fellow audience members says something about the resiliency of our own narrative frameworks. To that end, I’m going to turn these thoughts inward for awhile. Feel free to air your own thoughts on the matter.
Sometimes you want to lump together all those great weights that you're carrying and make from them some great messy mass of pigment. You'll smear it on a banner that unfurls across the sky, and then they will know.
Their mouths will hang open a bit. "We had no idea!" they'll say.
And then what? What will you do next?
...yeah. That's what I thought.
"O Holy Spirit,
As the sun is full of light, the ocean full of water,
Heaven full of glory, so may my heart be full of Thee.
Vain are all divine purposes of love and redemption wrought by Jesus except
Thou work within,
Regenerating by Thy power,
Giving me eyes to see Jesus,
Showing me the realities of the unseen world.
Give me Thyself without measure, as an unimpaired fountain, as inexhaustible riches.
I bewail my coldness, poverty, emptiness, imperfect vision, languid service, prayerless prayers, praiseless praises.
Suffer me not to grieve or resist Thee.
Comes as power -- to expel every rebel lust, to reign supreme and keep me Thine;
Come as teacher -- leading me into all truth, filling me with all understanding;
Come as love -- that I may adore the Father and love Him as my all;
Come as light -- illuminating the Scripture, molding me in its laws;
Come as sanctifier -- body, soul, and spirit wholly Thine;
Come as helper -- with strength to bless and keep, directing my every step;
Come as beautifier -- bringing order out of confusion, loveliness out of chaos.
Magnify to me Thy glory by being magnified in me, and make me redolent of They fragrance."
from The Valley of Vision
I'm not always sure what to think about Puritan prayers (like this one). This one was printed in a church bulletin from last November. I just ran across it in Matt's Bible, and my first reaction was "Oh how lovely." There are certainly some nicely-turned phrases here, as well as some very Scriptural descriptions of the Holy Spirit's job.
But sometimes, prayers like this can be read two ways. I remember reading a prayer like this once, out loud, and a good friend took exception to it. It was a bit difficult for them to hear or read Puritan thoughts on spirituality because they were having difficulty separating hatred of sin from hatred of self. Are we as a church (particularly the Reformed thinkers among us) careful enough when we talk about sin to people struggling with self-blame, self-doubt, and self-revulsion? Those three things can cripple a human. How can the ways in which we consider sin lead to healing and not further debilitation?
I think this prayer IS lovely. That, I think, is the reason my friend Matt kept it in his Bible. But it is lovely to me because I can hear with confidence the grace that supports it. To my brothers and sisters deaf to this undertone, the prayer may sound less lovely more terrible -- less like Aslan and more like Queen Jadis of Charn.
"The Best" is when...
you make that unplanned phone call and talk for an hour.
you skip lunch, work all afternoon, and find that someone else has dinner ready.
you surprise a surly woman by making her laugh.
elves refill your gas tank when you weren't watching.
you buy a stranger coffee and hold a decent conversation.
Yeah. Those are hard to beat. Anybody want to try? What does it for you?